Pretty | Yoonmin (DISCONTINUED)

thirty nine

Something was wrong with Yoongi.

Jimin knew this because of three key things.

First of all, when he'd knocked on his bedroom door to wake him up that morning, he was met with absolute silence. It was an unusual reoccurrence because ever since the bumpy incidences at the beginning of their relationship. After Yoongi grew comfortable around his sunshine haired caretaker, he'd been quick to answer his calls so that he wouldn't worry. So the fact that it took nearly five minutes for the door knob to even wriggle in recognition that morning set off vibrant alarms in Jimin's head.

Second of all, he'd turned to ice and marble again. It had been too long since Yoongi's flesh felt so cold and stiff beneath Jimin's hesitant, rose touches and butterfly skims. He'd almost forgotten what it felt like to look into his dark, coffee bean eyes and to be met with walls of stone. It was almost painful to meet his hefty gaze, knowing that Yoongi's irises were tangled with shadows and haunting ghosts from bloody corners of a ruined mind and that he couldn't really see him. He was lost to his voice, his touch, his presence, trapped someplace Jimin could not follow. And while it had been terrifying, trying to touch him again after his therapy appointment the day before, it hadn't been like this. Like Yoongi wasn't Yoongi anymore. Like it was hopeless to try. Because all of Yoongi's movements were preprogrammed. Every word on his stiffened fingers, clipped and robotic. And even though he still asked and worried over Jimin's health and what he was having to eat, it felt as though he were caring from a distance. Only just managing to grasp onto the familiar feeling of fretting over his flower instead of locking himself away.

And third of all, Yoongi was avoiding the kitchen like the plague. Jimin caught onto it immediately. Yoongi had stepped forward as though to follow Jimin into the yellow, marigold scented room, but then his eyes fixed on something that filled him with shuddering, frigid fear. And he was trembling and flinching away from the doorway in an instant, his eyelids drooping over wild pupils, and soundlessly moving towards the kitchen table to await food.

It was all so eerie. It filled Jimin with a concern so sharp it nearly stole his lungs from his chest and cut at his heart vessels. By the time he'd finished preparing Yoongi's meal, he was a little light headed with trepidation, and depending entirely upon the counter for support.

He served the still older his breakfast with small, quivering hands. The tremor of anxiety rattling his bones painfully against each other was beginning to spread like a disease the more his traitorous mind conjured images and ideas to torment him. He hoped Yoongi would not notice his slight shaking, or his relentless lip biting. He felt a little stupid for panicking so much when Yoongi was clearly the one who needed attention and affection at the moment. He was just so worried it was beginning to make him feel ill. The tang of metallic fear was starting to coat his tongue, and he was reaching for Yoongi's hand with desperation before he could think about the consequences of such actions.

He was shocked when he realized that Yoongi's skin had grown cold and clammy. Usually it held at least a small hint of warmth. The heat of life, the flush of presence. But instead, his blood was frozen in his aching veins. He felt like ice. Frosted with a frigid coating of barely stifled fear.

And Yoongi flinched under his abrupt touch-a red flag-and that's when his sweater sleeve slipped from his tiny, delicate wrist, and revealed the most alarming thing of all.

Scratch marks.

Long, thin, harshly drawn red lines decorating the surface of his pale arms. An awful, stark contrast of crimson pain against snow white.

Hot bile crawled up his throat. Searing flames of nausea licked at the roof of his mouth, the underside of his tongue. And he dizzied.