daybreak | yoonmin

may 6th.

5:32 p.m.

Jimin hadn't been showing up at the station on time, lately. All of a sudden, he ceased to be. Almost like he never had been in the first place. Yoongi never saw him anymore.

Not that he cared, but his moral inclinations forced him to feel some sort of concern for the boy. Something was very wrong. Yoongi thought about it all day at work.

He thought about it while Don yelled at him for not having a cleaner work station. He thought about it when he missed two trains waiting for a person who might, but never did, show up. He thought about it as he reentered his apartment for the second time that day; took off his uniform; made spicy pork dumplings; and mindlessly fell on the couch to watch some stupid actors' award show, rich people congratulating other rich people on the gateway to new riches. He didn't care.

Yoongi told himself it was boredom, but even his the quietest, smallest, most powerful parts of his conscience knew better. So it was really not that much of a surprise when he turned the TV off and abandoned his plate on the side table to go to his bedroom.

There was a projector and game console in his room. He turned it on and popped a movie in, watching as the blank far wall of his room became a canvas of light and animations. Yoongi hadn't watched this specific film in years. He tried to remain focused on it, too, but once Areum  started texting him he found it harder to do so.

And as he looked at the glowing screen of his phone, he scrolled down in his messaging list. Jimin's contact had fallen to the bottom, sinking deeper into the past with each passing day. It had been quite a while since they had texted.

Yoongi looked out the window.

The sun was setting over the adjacent building, in the west. He had to put a hand up to block the orange rays from getting into his eyes. His eyes wandered around the alley between them for a moment, then made their perfect and graceful landing on Jimin's window.

And Jimin was there.

His heart jumped at the sight, and he almost called out to him from behind the glass.

"Jimi--!"

Something was not okay.

Jimin was looking down into the alley, too, but he was looking without seeing. His face was blank and clean of emotion, devoid of its usual light. He hadn't moved an inch. His glasses were off. The plants that were always situated on the windowsill were moved away.

There were some sun showers that day, and the water was leaking in through Jimin's wide-open window, but he did not pay attention. His clothes were starting to get wet. He hadn't moved an inch. He was looking without seeing.

Yoongi had to walk away.

12:43 a.m.

Yoongi awoke in the middle of the night, oddly enough.

He just so happened to have been craving a bag of kkotgae chips, but he didn't have any left in his house. And he wanted them so bad, he flipped up the covers, put on his hoodie and basketball slippers, and made his way to the 24-hour minimart two blocks away. Of course, he didn't leave his bed without a passing glance through the glass.

Jimin was still there.

In fact, it appeared he had not left the window since Yoongi first noticed him sitting there hours ago. The only thing that changed was his clothing and position; His shirt was off, and now he seemed to sit with a slump. He looked so dull this way.

Yoongi went to the minimart and bought seven bags of kkotgae chips. He walked back very slowly and counted all six hundred and seventy four steps until he arrived back at the main entrance of his building. He grabbed the gilded handles, worn from years of coming and going and entering and exiting. But he could not bring himself to open them. Instead, he traveled thirty five and a half steps back the way he had come, stopping at another set of identical doors. He entered.

Jimin's building was pretty much a carbon copy of his own. Aside from the mirroring of the arrangement -- in his lobby, the elevator was on the right, not the left -- things were pretty much the same. Yoongi felt like he was walking to his own apartment as he got onto the elevator and traversed the halls. The only difference was he never felt so afraid of what hid behind the door.

He knocked on the heavy black ply, but surprisingly, the door swayed open under his knuckles. It was odd, yes, but Yoongi kept on.

The apartment was dark; it smelled like vanilla, he figured because of the incense. It burned in its small bottle on the cofee table, slowly losing its glow, but its embers were the only light.

He traveled deeper into the maze of darkness, hitting his hip on the counters and furniture at times. The sound of his foot against the wood echoed in the space eerily. Anxiety wrapped itself around his spine, nearly paralyzing him, but he somehow found his way to the bedroom door and he pushed that open, too.

"Jimin."

No response.

Save for the briefs, he was completely naked. His glasses were on his nightstand. His skin was bare. Yoongi didn't know what to do next.

"Jimin?"

No response.

Yoongi walked toward the boy slowly, touching his shoulder. His skin was cold, textured with goosebumps from the chilly spring night that floated through his open window. Even when Yoongi shut it, Jimin still did not move. His fingers only curled into his palms.

"Chim, I'm worried about you. You've been like this for hours."

No response.

Yoongi sighed.

Not because he was being ignored, or that he was finally breaking down and admitting himself to the person who had hurt him the most, but because he knew nothing was alright anymore.

So he sighed.

That was all he could do when his best friend was so broken and fragile, and yet, he could not be the one to fix him.

Yoongi tried his best to put back together what he could. He rolled Jimin back from the window onto his bed, turned him around, tucked him under the covers. He laid there looking into the depths of brown eyes, and found no light there.

Blue eyes are always more romanticized than brown eyes, why is that? Every love song is about them. Every poem compares them to everlasting oceans,

But look at his brown eyes. So pretty.

There should be more songs about brown eyes.

His eyes, though devoid of his being, were still the dark gold that people desperately tried to pull from the ground.

Blue eyes may have held the extent of the Pacific, but his held the magnitude of a black hole.

His eyes carry a weight to heavy for the oceans to bear.

They were anything but ordinary, even though Yoongi looked into them and could tell that he was far away.

He slapped Jimin a few times, then a few more. Each strike was harder than the last, dyeing his cheeks a horrid shade of red. But he was gone, and nothing Yoongi could do would bring him back.

So he sighed again. It was all he could do.

Jimin closed his eyes and loosened into Yoongi's arms. Yoongi wanted to cry seeing him like this, but it would do no good for both of them to fall apart. He swallowed his pains and moved the hair out of Jimin's face again and again until they were just two disconnected people. Jimin's breathing slowed as the exertion of the day took over, and he was asleep.

The phone rang on the mattress somewhere. Yoongi instinctively patted around in search of it only to hesitate when it was finally in his hand. A call from a girl named May. He didn't remember Jimin bringing up a May and so the phone rang out, Yoongi unsure if it was his place to answer.

When it returned to its normal lock screen, a young boy with glasses and a teenage girl— probably family— messages blocked their image out on the screen. Messages from a work groupchat. 10 Messages from Dad with pictures of his cooking he did with Jimin's mom. One from an automated number: a prescription for SORAP available for pick up.