Chapter Text
Jeon Jeongguk never knew how to breathe properly.
His shortness of breath was often accompanied by a disdainful heaviness in his chest, and it weighed him down with an emptiness he never could define. It was a numb pain that never healed, a scar that bled but never killed. He always felt nothing yet everything - this killed him, but his physical heart still beats.
He's been like that for as long as he can remember.
"Jeongguk?" the voice drowns out in comparison to his overwhelming thoughts. It's hard to breathe again. As he struggles to make it to his safe space, he could feel his heart tightening altogether - it causes him to tear up, and low croaks escape from his throat. Jeongguk puts up his guard. Look normal, be normal. But in the middle of everything, white silence continued ringing in his ears. He staggers past the crowd, the voices in his mind whispering endless insults to himself. And then finally - he makes it into safety, crashing down onto the cold marble tiles in his small apartment house.
This was the green zone. Jeongguk knew - he knew he was safe here. He breaks into nervous laughter, body diving into convulsions and eyes turning bloodshot from endless crying. When his attack was over, he crawls around the house, searching for the rusty penknife he had. Just where was it? His right hand begun scratching his left, the red marks stinging with pain that silenced the stabbing in his chest. He finds the knife hidden in the shadows below a wooden drawer, and starts to draw lines into his thigh, the crimson red staining the blade that cut through his already scarred skin.
He stands up groggily, ignoring the dripping blood that ran down his leg and onto the cracks in the tiles. Jeongguk made up his mind to take a nap, so the heaviness might ease, somehow. A poster with blue pen ink hung on the rugged walls of his bedroom, the words reading: TOMORROW WILL BE A BETTER DAY.
When consciousness took the better of him, it was already dusk. He tosses to the other side, fending off the evening light that rested gently on his eyelids. If only - if only he never woke up, how wonderful would that be.
END OF CHAPTER ONE