Beware & Take Care

Beware & Take Care [2/3]

Morning practice was not Park Jimin's best friend today.

At all.

Even remotely.

He had actually turned into a bit of a morning person over the years, due to having the wackiest schedule known to man, but, after what the previous night had held, he wasn't in any mood to greet the sun yet. Thinking that exactly, he glanced at the phone in his hand-- reading 10:37am-- and made a face at it. Not a time that everyone considered "early", per se, but, after getting maybe four very restless hours of sleep following being full of worry for approximately the same amount of hours before that, he wasn't happy with it.

He put his phone back into the front of his backpack, and proceeded to start stretching. He went into his usual flexibility exercises, trying to shake off the sleepiness. In the process, his mind wandered to what had caused his tiredness and tension in the first place.

Watching his best friend go through a torrent of hate, that was what.

He felt his face upturn into a scowl as he thought about it. He and the rest of Bangtan were made aware of a slanderous Twitter campaign to insult their members; everyone was a victim in at least a few hundred comments, but Jung Hoseok got the brunt of it. Jimin's body continued to turn this way and that as he stretched, imagining Hoseok's upset-- even possibly crying-- face. He felt his nostrils flare in anger as he clenched his jaw tight. No one in his entire life had been there for him quite like his J-Hope had, and he felt a rising heat in his skin as he thought about anyone causing the man any kind of hurt.

Finally standing up and twisting the last kinks out of his body, he sighed deeply and attempted to control his breathing. He was in need of some practice, and he didn't want to let the stressful events effect his productivity that morning. He made his way to the laptop and flipped it open, plugging it in when he realised how low the battery was, and let it wake up, just as he had had to do. On the screen was the recording program, where he could see a fuzzy still of Hoseok indicating his dance practice the night before. He shook his head to himself, realising his sullen groupmate had probably forgotten to save and that he was lucky the laptop didn't die completely. "You owe me, Hope hyung," Jimin muttered to himself, saving the piece under Hoseok's folder full of dance practices.

He started to reset the program to record his own video, but something nagged at him. The still that had been on the screen was blurred in the midst of movement, so he couldn't quite make out what had been happening, but something about it didn't feel right to him. He knew Hoseok had come to the studio to get his emotions out, but how exactly did it go? He'd received a text sometime very late into the night, his friend reassuring him to his contented mental state, but Jimin was quite suddenly curious as to what he did. Hell, whatever it was, maybe it was a dance he could use to get a little stress out himself.

Squatting uncomfortably in front of the computer screen, he went back into the folder that contained said video. They frequently used these for future choreography ideas and to spot mistakes before they became habit, but he couldn't help but feel like he was prying into something private; he instinctively knew, from the pounding heart in his chest, that this was going to show a piece of Hoseok he didn't see often. The thought of it made him nervous. I'm watching this for you, brother, he thought to himself with an audible sigh. Maybe it'll help me help you.

And so he watched.

And then nearly threw up.

The video started off normal, Hoseok just putting on a heavy-hitting song and throwing out some freestyle. Nothing out of the ordinary. There were a few moves he recognised as staples in their routines, others that were new, so he remained studying. As it continued, though, Jimin began to realise just how long this practice was-- the seconds stretched on, turning into minutes, and he found it going on long enough that he had to sit cross-legged on the floor instead of crouching like he was. Songs played one after the other, and it stretched into a bout of time even longer than when their instructors would work them to exhaustion without a break. He felt his fist clench, seeing Hoseok sweat so much it was picked up on the video feed; witnessed the violent way his body struck out, as the moves got harder and heavier; winced when he noticed the brutal way his friend's chest would rise and fall in stiller moments; stared open-mouthed when the music suddenly came to a stop as soon as the laptop had begun to run out of power; and, finally, audibly hissed in surprise when he saw his Hope hit the ground so hard that the sound echoed into the silent studio.