trying to behave (but you know we never learned how)

Chapter thirteen

December 2015

Friday, the 25th, 9:03pm

New York, USA

Jimin wonders when he stopped caring about Christmas.

Wonders when the holiday became nothing more than a day people around him got unnecessarily excited about. More stable people. That actually have something to live for.

Happy people.

Jimin tries to remember the last time he was genuinely happy; groans when his mind goes either completely blank or takes him back a fair few years.

Yoongi.

Fucking Yoongi.

Maybe it's a problem, he thinks as he shuffles into a more comfortable position onto the couch in their dressing room, that the only instance of semi-recent happiness he can think of either lies with his book or that damn autograph.

Nothing else.

All Yoongi.

And it's terrifying because he's not allowed to find happiness in things like Min Yoongi. Or allowed to be happy at all.

But he does it. Burns himself out.

Tries to anyway.

'Are you alright?' Mick murmurs lowly, just a barely inaudible whisper from the other side of the room and Jimin peeks an eye open, cheek still pressed into the couch cushion under him; doesn't crane his neck to the side to actually make eye contact because everything's been hurting so fucking much lately. 'Do you need another blanket?'

I need another life.

'No,' Jimin shrugs, pulling the blanket he already has around his shoulders tighter because he really doesn't. He's warm and a little clammy and he'd rather not boil to death before he even finds the motivation to go downstairs to the party. 'Thank you,'

It's concerning; should be, at least. Even being grateful for people doing nice things for him sounds hollow in his ears.

He hasn't thought about not deserving what he has in years.

But between two years ago and now, he still doesn't deserve anything he has, so he figures nothing's really changed.

He doesn't bother opening his eyes from where he's closed them again when soft footsteps resound around the room, muffled by the carpet and then there's a hand in his hair and another on his forehead.

Cold.

'You're still a little feverish,' Mick mumbles and the hands withdraw. Leave the cold behind. 'Are you sure you don't wanna go home?'

Home.

Where the fuck is home anymore?

Concerning, how that single scrap of paper that he's forgotten in his coat pocket down the hall sounds like somewhere home would be.

Yoongi's home.

Jesus Christ.

'No,' Jimin hums in reply, ignores the sting behind his closed eyes. 'I have to work,'

'It's not really work,' Mick insists, but the footsteps are retreating away from him already. An unspoken kind of surrender. 'It's just the party. I'd rather you not go around helping if you're just going to collapse at some point,'

'I won't,' he won't. 'I know how to handle myself, Michael,'

Lies.

He's already lost himself completely in the past week, but no one needs to know that.