Pretty | Yoonmin (DISCONTINUED)

forty two

The fear dove in like a wild beast, fanged teeth and desperate claws devouring Jimin's helpless form in hysteric hunger. It preyed on his mind, left full and satisfied by the way his thoughts became wordless and incoherent. tangling together and pounding at the walls of a shuddering brain. Jimin felt as though that familiar stinging poison were thrumming in his veins. Long rivers of sticky black and gnawing on flesh and organs while his body screamed and his eyes went dark. He had never been poisoned, but he imagined that it would feel like this.

Like burning, bubbling ears full of white noise, tingling limbs slowly crumbling. Like lead bones and blood that filled him up with vibrant scarlet thunder. Metallic storms tearing up throats and lathering too big tongues in the taste of sickness. He tried to breathe, but it hurt. His chest was being pressed down upon, compressed into a thin, empty mess of crushed panic. And he suddenly wished he'd remained with Yoongi so he could turn the air sweet and easy.

"Jimin?" He could hear Taehyung's water clogged voice teetering on the edge.

He shook his head, and it felt like the world slid on its axis.

"Is he still speaking?" He spewed out hazy, surreal syllables in one weak breath. He suddenly felt nausea clawing at his stomach.

He pressed himself against the nearest wall, listening to the sound of Taehyung's messy breathing.

"He is...he's still...still..."

"How did this happen?"

Usually, there was some sort of build up...a series of subtle signs sent as a warning from Jungkook's struggling body just before his mind broke down. He would lose his appetite, or stop leaving the house as much, or startle at any movement that wasn't done near silently. Sometimes his eyes would go cloudy, and he'd lose himself somewhere Jimin couldn't find him. Or he'd choke on his sentences, and...swallow his words...

"We all miss you. And I—"

"And you what Kookie?"

"N-nothing, I'm fine."

Jimin dragged a clammy hand down his face, and at the memory of Jungkook's strained voice suffocating itself over the phone, his bubbling guilt rose and swallowed him. There had been a sign. A small one, only given audibly and from a distance.

But still. It should have been enough.

"He's been off for a while now," Taehyung whispered, sounding just as ill as Jimin felt. "We were going to tell you, but...he begged us not to. He kept saying he would be fine,and he would only feel guilty if he distracted you from your work. We listened to him because we were afraid that the guilt would be too much for him...we were afraid of aggravating his condition further."

There was a swell of something boiling hot and unpleasant in his chest, like burning acid, or gas fumes trapped within charred tissue. A tangle of culpability and anger and sorrow. Flushed fingers ripped at sunshine gold hair, tugging the soft locks until pinpricks of pain bloomed where his unforgiving hands yanked.

Then he remembered, and the swelling was worse. Consuming. Everywhere.

"Panic attack," His hand pulled harder at his hair. "He's having a panic attack."

"Yeah, I..." Taehyung stumbled on his tongue, but Jimin was spilling hasty speech from hysteric lips in an instant.

"Where is he?"

He was lost in his thoughts, prey to his traitorous memories. He thought bone white bodies shivering in the dark, and his heart became a wild machine. A lump of gory muscle in his chest, malfunctioning, stuttering, turning itself inside out.