(Jungkook POV)
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The rainy world hung loose as the autumn leaves decayed deeper into the soil and my breath was taken away.
It took me a few seconds to process what was going on, but before I could grasp anything, I felt my knees hit the wet concrete in a shattering impact.
"Watch where you're going!"
I lifted my face slowly off the ground, wincing, as I could already feel the cuts and red scratches.
But the embarrassment that I felt when I met eyes with a orange haired boy a few feet away from me cut deeper.
There they were, those eyes that had the strength to send me plunging into the ocean, waves of something crashing against my rib cage.
I could hear the menacing laughter of the boy who had shoved me, notes of amusement ringing and radiating off of his tone.
I looked away from Jimin, trying to quickly gather up my scattered things, fingers scraping desperately on the wet pavement so I could hurry the fuck out of here. My fingers dropped my textbook twice and I forced myself to focus on my things.
Don't cry, don't cry,
don't you fucking cry.
Tears stung my eyes, but I refused to let them fall as I slid past the small group that had formed, hopes of amusement in their eyes, but the group soon dissipated when a weak boy wasn't going to fight back and provide something entertaining for their phone recordings.
I heard the sound of the bus pulling up overhead and I looked up to see the last few students aboard it. Pulling on my backpack strap, I ran to catch up.
My feet slapping on the grey, wet pavement and the blood roaring in my ears when I realized there was no way I'll be able to catch up. My run trickled down to a stop and I rested my hands on my knees, body gasping for breath amidst the zephyr and soft rain.
I closed my eyes and squeezed them, the day's second bad event pulling me deeper. My jeans were ripped slightly from the fall and hemmed wet, and I could feel the scratches and cuts wincing on my skin.
Sounds of students dissipating, the mellow breeze touching me,
I wanted to disappear.
Until I heard the low droning of shouting occur behind me.
Down the street, with his hair ragged and his fist leaving someone's face,
Jimin was quarrelling with someone.
And not just anyone, but with the boy who had shoved me.
Jimin's collar was messy and his cheeks were twinged pink as he was pulled away by his friends, cursing and yelling at the boy.
"Fuck off!"
The angry tone in Jimin's voice surprised me as I noticed the slight bulging vein on his dewy forehead, eyebrows knitted together and hands balled.
The boy spat at his feet and walked away, a certain finger raised in the air as I could see the bright, red mark on the side of his cheek. Jimin shrugged his friends away, staring down the boy he had punched.
It was so different - this side of him. In those few moments, no longer was he the boy whose eyes radiated warmth and comfort, whose face shone pure and friendly, but instead, his eyes flared louder than the voices inside my head.
His friends patted his back, most of them exchanging looks of bewilderment and shock. They walked away soon, words of comfort and surprise being exchanged.
The street was clearing up and there were barely any people left as the school lot was deserted quickly.
But still, I couldn't take my eyes off of him. There was something so different, like a touch of black amidst a sea of white paint.
I shuffled to the side, standing behind a tall tree, as I waited to see what he'd do.
He did nothing.
He stood there.
Perhaps it was the wet atmosphere and the gloomy pinpricks of grey all around us, a mellow exhale of smoke from my mouth, breathing in and out.
But as he stared at the ground, he almost looked dead.
He was withered - like autumn.
He was no longer summer, no longer adorned with flowers and sunshine. His leaves had turned weak, his sun no longer felt warm.
He was the epiphany, when the sunlight was momentarily blocked by a passing cloud on a bright summer day, and you realized just how lonesome it all looked without the light.
He looked like an unfinished sentence, devoid of exclamation marks to describe any happiness.
Like a semi colon he was, waiting and struggling for words to come, but not having the heart to end the sentence.
He looked incomplete.
His weightless eyes held the hollowness of a vacant room, an abandoned house. They were looking somewhere, but not seeing somewhere. Gone was the radiance, the vibrancy.
And it scared me.
It made my heart speed up because his face was the reflection of mine when I'd be staring into mirrors, so afraid of the world and trapped inside myself, judging and boring my eyes into my dull skin.
But there was some difference; a hint of some other emotion on that face.
A voice whispered inside me, fingertips pushing me to go to him. To at least open up my mouth and speak and say something.
To thank him for standing up to me, to ask him what was wrong, to just tell him something because all I wanted to do was speak to him.
To ask him just what was going on that mind of his this very second.
But you're ugly.
My foot froze, eyes blinking at the hunched figure of Jimin.
You're fat.
I balled my hands into fists, breathing calmly and taking in the condensed and wet air around me.
You're not good enough.
So when I saw the next bus pull up on the platform, eyes of bored people cascading outside momentarily, the world suddenly felt smaller.
I'd have to board the bus and try to sit still and not think and not cry and not imagine his face because I could never stop thinking.
But if I didn't board the bus and I stood here and Jimin saw me and blamed me for him getting in a fight and thought I was uglier up close and then-
and then-
I was afraid of the then.
So I stepped away from the tree, hands readjusting my wet backpack,
and walked the other way home.
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