The Cost of Perfection | Rosé x Reader

Chapter 12 - Breath...Just Breath

Every word came spiraling out of her mouth, part of it coherent and part it nothing but gibberish. Jisoo did what she could to try and calm the frantic girl in her arms, but nothing seemed to work. There were waves of different emotions circulating inside of Rosie at this moment. All of them rushing to get out. Was she angry, was she sad, was she scared? She was everything, all at once. Nothing was making sense, everything felt like a dream to her. A nightmare. She could hear her heart banging against her chest, the noise so loud it was starting to freak her out. She grabbed Jisoo's shoulders, almost as if the other girl were keeping her from falling over as she felt her legs go weak and the air get knocked out of her stomach.

Jisoo's mouth was moving in front of her, but she couldn't decipher the words coming out, instead everything around her seemed to be a muffled mess of sounds.

It wasn't until she looked up, staring back into Jisoo's eyes, did she finally find some sort of comfort, a sense of familiarity. Not much but enough for the air to find it's way back into her lungs, enough for her to recognize the oncoming panic attack.

Then like a switch Jisoo's voice became clear, all her attention focusing on that. "Breath.....in and out.....in and out. Breath with me Rosie." Jisoo held onto the younger girl, slowly repeating over and over again as calmly as she could, until Rosie let out breath after breath just as she instructed her to do. "Just like that, keep breathing. I've got you."

The tears that Rosie was holding back finally let loose like a dam bursting open. She did a good job of bottling it up. Long enough for her to make the drive there, to make it into the building, to collapse into Jisoo's arms the second she reached her. Finally letting her legs give out, she slowly sunk into the ground, bringing Jisoo down with her.

She stopped holding back. Jisoo wasn't one of her closest friends, but she was yours and that was enough for her to be comfortable around her, enough for her to let her guard down.

Jisoo went along with it, trying to remain as calm as she could for Rosie. After all she was still barely trying to get her head wrapped around the situation as well, not having had any time to respond to being at the hospital since she's arrived. A state of confusion and shock is what was overcoming her at the moment. She held onto the other girl, keeping all the emotions she was feeling held back. Using Rosie as her excuse to not let them take over. But she had always been like that. Always taking the time to care for others before herself, never letting herself break in front of anyone else. Even in times like this. Whether she would ever admit to it or not, she needed Rosie just as much as Rosie needed her in this moment.

"Jisoo....what happened? Please...tell me, what happened?" Rosie clung to the older girl, her hand gripping Jisoo's shirt, bunching it up in her fist, knuckles turning white. She had a hard time getting the words to leave her mouth, taking big breaths of air in-between every word. "What happened to Y/N?" The same phrase repeatedly being spoken. Wavering each time.

It broke Jisoo to see Rosie like this, to see the girl that was always smiling and always so bubbly breaking down in the middle of the hall, crying into her arms on the floor. She wanted to give Rosie all the reassurance she could, provide all the answers she needed, but she couldn't. No one had told her a single thing. She got the call from your mom what feels like a lifetime ago already and had yet to find her, only being led to this floor to be ignored by every nurse and doctor that passed by. But that was only because she didn't have the courage to actually ask about you. She was worried that whenever she did that, it would mean that whatever happened was real and that things weren't really okay like they should be. And for her, that was a reality she wasn't ready for just yet. That's also one of the reasons why it took so long for her to call Rosie after she found out. She didn't want to be the person to break the bad news to her. She hated having to be that person.