VMINKOOK / THE ART OF BEEKEEPING

21

— PART TWENTY ONE.

Bathing beneath the wings of butterflies, lounging upon their symmetrical criterion, that burns with haunted, mellow shadows, euphoria isn't such a burdensome prospect. No, when one is whisked into dewy wonderlands of butterscotch eyes and jam-smothered tongues, the prospect of hatred is nonexistent. Strawberry fields melt into the plasticity of this make-believe land and greet your shoulders with warmth, a glittering sort of warmth, which follows the butterflies through the hollow extremes of milky twilight. Galaxies form before indistinct eyes, as ballerina's frolic across the rainbow belts of the universe. Everything is the penultimate, and joy drenches your hopeless soul, everything your fingers grace, ascend into jovial bursts of colour.

That is, until desire inflames itself within the metropolis of stars and then petty euphemisms become the norm. Death blossoms from those belts of galaxy and ataraxy is snatched from a child's inventory, havoc is laced within one's DNA. Desire isn't a choice, just within the nature of your body, just as hatred and self-loathing is akin to mankind, and it's ever so malignant in it's form. Its eyes shall decrease sight, setting your ideology onto the singular object of desire, nothing else. It's tongue shall spread the importance of lies, smothering truths with chloroform nightmares and settling bodies upon sad, sad dusk. It's fingers shall snatch the butterflies and rip the wings from their bodies, discarding them as useless — ruining them.

That's how Jimin feels right now: well and truly ruined.

He'd been fighting the inevitable for so long it was beginning to hurt (or perhaps that was the sting of a hangover and the flooding of his lungs). Either way, the burn of an Olympic sized torch seems to scorch his head, frying his skin into bacon strips and sizzling his mind to pure, distasteful sludge. If it weren't so painful, he's sure he wouldn't mind being reduced to nothing. He couldn't stand the thoughts in his mind right now, couldn't stomach the way his dreams always contorted to nightmares, what with all the awful, appalling thoughts in his head.

His own bed wasn't safe, he knew that, he felt as if he was constantly on edge, even in sleep, because the demons of reality seemed to be most vocal in his dreams. Everything was always buzzing in his mind, the vexatious calling of bees constantly alive within his head, always pleading to be unleashed from the threshold of his mind, but never quite grasping the perfect opportunity.

Jimin's mind waxes into distress at the constant disharmony of bees, growing more and more frustrated with each circle they do of his overspilling emotions, struggling to remain encased within his bones. He knew what it was that needed to be spilled, of course he did, he wasn't a fool, though he was too upholstered with pride and falsities to ever even consider revealing his truth to the world. So he screams it to the bees in his head, hollering about his emotions and the erratic thump of his heart whenever he was around. He knew it was no use, of course, Jimin could have anyone he fancied, but never the one he wanted.

So, yes, he somewhat considers himself a butterfly without wings: a useless body of life with no means of survival, unable to revert back to his previous state of life and stuck struggling to get off the ground. God he was so fucking useless.

Of course, in times like this, when things begin to spill over the edges of composure, he finds no other option but to slaughter the bees. He gets a sense of relief when they're momentarily drowned within the acidic residue of ocean water which slithers through his ears and extirpates the critters stinging at the malfunctioning cells of his brain. Though he hadn't originally intended to be (partially) drowning under (actual) water this late at night (or, rather, this early in the morning), here he was.

With a mind stocked with esoteric crusades and despairing postulations, which berate the faltering excrements of sanity, he allows the vigorous thrum of the sea to swarm him, to drown out all the repugnant thoughts that the bees spit at him. Under water, when he's solely focused on the pressure of the world weighing down on him, he pays no heed to the murder of the bees; he no longer finds melancholia within his personal thoughts. No, when encompassed within this clockwork stream of salt and this stick up of breaths, all he can focus on is the scream of the ocean, as it pounds against his eardrums.

He could drown, right here, tonight. He could allow the waves to assault his cadaver 'til he was nothing but sea foam, converting the sand into a lover. He could let the post-midnight attributes of starlight chop him up and spread his limbs across the galaxy. He could let his body sink to the sea floor and go even further — he would allow himself to drift into the fiery pits of hell. Though, being a non-believer, he imagines settling for the sweltering heat of Earth's core to be a fitting replacement.

Alas, he doesn't. Or, more fittingly, he can't.

Somewhere within him, apparently, there's a titivating disturbance which sends electricity throughout his intoxicated mind, sending him shooting up through the navy shards of velvet darkness, allowing himself a breath of oxygen, which splutters through him as he resurfaces.

Park Jimin is a coward (amongst many other things). And a coward doesn't give up on his desire, nor does he confront it — merely lives with it. A coward chooses to temporarily still it, prefers the momentary release of it, to actually doing something about it. A coward doesn't cry and a coward always lies. The only time you'll see a coward of Jimin's sort betray instincts, is when they're alone and beneath a sheet of potential demise. The only time you'll ever catch him cry is when the earth's switched off it's lights and the ocean can mask the tears.

//

shitty uploads is like my thing now. look at how quirky i am 😗

anyways hope yall are having a great time. i'm under massive stress due to exams, which i've barely started revising for.

instead of revising, i decided to write this bullshit chapter which isn't that interesting and is basically a jungle of words. however, it's a great method of procrastinating: bullshitting in 1000 words.

lmao i love yall