But I Still Want You | Jikook ✓

Chapter 3: I Woke Up in a Nightmare

Jimin

My eyes shoot open as I wake up drenched in my own sweat. Panting, my eyes dart around the dimly lit room, the full moon my only source of light. My heart pounds in my ears and thumps in my throat, making it difficult to swallow the saliva accumulating in my mouth.

Was it just a dream? A nightmare?

Shaky hands rub my eyes and I focus on calming my breathing so that I don't faint. That dream felt so... so real.

Something feels off.

I remove my hands and look at them, screaming. They're all wrinkly and weak! Can I even play guitar anymore? Can I still draw? What about making hats?

After I fall off my bed, I slowly approach my mirror and cover my face. This is still a dream, right? One of those nightmares where you think you woke up, but in reality, you're still asleep? That's this, right? This can't be happening.

"I'm an even uglier old man than I am a twenty-five year old!" My old voice croaks out and I sob. My appearance is ghastly. I'm not a cute old man at all. I'm a demon! A monster! A terrible apparition! If a baby saw me, they would bawl.

So I must have been cursed? Is that what happened? That beautiful person who attracted and repulsed me at the same time... could that have been the Mage of the Waste? The being without a soul?

"No, that's silly. I'm still dreaming. Maybe I'm in a coma. Yes, that's it! None of these past days' occurrences have been true! That wizard I encountered was the first major red flag! He was way too nice to me! He even called me 'flower!' That is way too endearing a nickname for someone of my appearance."

I accidentally knock Jin's handheld mirror off my vanity. With creaky bones, I bend down to pick it up, cutting myself on a shard that fell out.

Pain.

Blinking, I stare at the blood slowly collect and drip down, swallowing. If this is real, then I have to go. I must make haste before anyone notices.

I run around as quickly as my aged legs will take me, wrapping myself in a blue cloak. I put my hat on my head and pack a bag of clothes, food, and emergency money. Looking like this, I can't very well interact with society. So I must find a way to live off the land myself, far out of reach of civilization. This is my only chance at safety.

Since I have no biological family that I'm in contact with, I don't have anyone who will look for me. If I send letters to Hoseok and Jin and over time decrease my mail until I'm forgotten, I should be able to get away with leaving. This hat shop was going under anyway and I heard the owner the other night talking with how having a beautiful woman would be better for business, so he'll be ecstatic about my sudden leave of absence.

It pains me to think about leaving the only people in my life who look at me without revulsion written all over their features. Hoseok and Jin really are like older brothers to me and being without a biological or even adopted family, it tears me apart to lose the only positive human interaction I have. But life isn't fair and there's nothing I can do to fix this curse.

Part of me wonders if Jin could fix it, but every time I try to verbalize anything about the curse, I feel as though I am choking on my tongue. When I try to write it, my hands shake and pain me to the point where it feels like I am being stabbed by millions of tiny daggers. Jin is still an apprentice too. His magic is too weak to do anything of this caliber. Besides that, I fear that my appearance is now so ghastly that Hoseok and Jin will look at me with abhorrence. I would surely die of heartbreak if this were to happen and with how old I look and feel, this is not merely hyperbole. I would literally die of heartbreak.

So I do the only thing that I can do. I leave. I leave to protect society. I leave to protect my brothers. I leave to protect that wizard I surely dreamed of seeing me like this. And most importantly, I leave to protect myself.

Because in the end, all I am truly left with is me, myself, and I.

Author's Note: I'm sorry about all these short chapters, but I am making them the necessary length that they must be to get their points across. This book is going to have a lot going on, so it's best that I don't try and force multiple scenes into the chapters because the language and topics are a lot denser than my other books. I know that I have readers who are younger and/or have a different native language than English. Since ARMY is all over the world and comes in many forms, I will try what I can to make this story as digestible as possible without watering it down. Please leave lots of comments to help my story get found!

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Make sure to take care and love yourself as best as you can.

With lots of love,

-BBM