Chapter Text
Jungkook didn’t know when he’d started feeling like he did.
Like he wasn’t good enough to even stand in the nearest proximity of his hyungs because they shone like the sun and he felt like a shadow that was only holding them back.
Like he burdened everybody constantly with his presence and he needed to grow up and do better before they realised he wasn’t needed here. In this group. With his family.
Like doing any small task was a strenuous feat and all he wanted to do was fade away from existence, because he couldn’t remember the last time he felt this sick and alone and tired.
God, he felt so tired.
In all truthfulness, he really couldn’t remember when it had all started. Only that it was consuming him. Eating away at him; day in, day out.
It had begun in his chest, around his heart and his lungs. A snake curled its way into his stomach and settled there, unmoving like a heavy stone, and pierced him with its poison, twisting the whole world to become grey and withered, his smile to become more forced and fake.
The black tendrils started to shift, reaching their shallow fingertips through his veins and slithering outwards towards the rest of his limbs, rendering his muscles useless.
And it was affecting everything he did.
He was the Golden Maknae, the one who could do everything and anything without trouble or too much thought placed into it. The one who could sing like an angel, who could dance both elegantly and aggressively, the one who could be kind and funny and play jokes on his members but also act mature and listen to all of the praise and the criticism and be someone who managed to impress everybody no matter what he did.
Everybody except himself.
He’d begun messing up the dance choreography’s- the first time it occurred during Blood, Sweat and Tears the rest of the team had laughed and teased him about it, saying that he was becoming as clumsy as Namjoon.
Jungkook had laughed it off as well, chuckling uneasily because nothing is wrong, everything is fine- but later shaking his head in mild anguish when no one was looking as he realised that he was losing his game. He needed to work harder- execute everything perfectly from start to finish- so that he wasn’t left behind.
He didn’t want to be seen as the weakest link, just because he was the youngest, and so he pushed himself a little more, challenged his limits. He stayed behind after dance classes when everyone else was leaving, brushing off the mild concern the other six expressed and forced a grin, spouting nonsense about how he was just ensuring he had the moves down.
He asked for extra vocal training from the managers during some of his free time, aiming to ensure that both his singing and his dancing were going to be at their absolute peak whenever he performed. He couldn’t let anybody down (BigHit, ARMY, Bangtan); he just needed to keep working harder, even if it continuously left him feeling breathless, like all of the oxygen had been sucked out of the space around him.
The remainder of his empty hours were spent mostly in the gym, building up what he thought was weakening muscle and getting rid of the non-existent fat he convinced himself was growing on his stomach, his thighs, his arms.
And the others all left him to it, feeling a sense of pride that their youngest was trying so hard to make everything as good as it could be, putting all of that effort into their schedule to where his actions were nearly faultless as they performed and practised.
But that wasn’t good enough for Jungkook. Nearly faultless was like saying ‘you tried your best’ to the losers in a sporting event, as his brain continued to remind him.
He didn’t want to be nearly faultless. He needed to be perfect.
Luckily for him, his hyungs hadn’t noticed the increasing number of workouts or figured out the impossible goals in his head. He didn’t want them to see his unhealthy mind-set, or realise just how far he was falling, because in all honesty Jungkook knew it all already.
He knew that what he was doing was unhealthy and wasn’t right for his body, but he just couldn’t think of a way to stop himself as he pushed his limits more and more each time.
He could feel it deep down inside that a part of him had died somewhere along the way on this mass journey of life, but no matter how hard he tried he just couldn’t place where that had happened, or why, or how- only that it was gradually contaminating everything else and pulling him down with it.
Sleep had been stolen from him quite early on. Jungkook had vaguely pictured a tiny sleep troll coming into his bedroom in the middle of the night and literally taking away his ability to pass out in the evening, attempting to coax himself into some mild form of humour and crack a smile that seemed so hard to muster these days. It didn’t work (not that it ever did anymore).
The youngest would lie awake at night, his unaware hyungs knocked out in their shared rooms down the hall, whilst thoughts of self-deprecation and continuous failures plagued his mind, buzzing with so much activity it kept his eyes awake and alert despite the heaviness that ached his bones.
The only thing he felt he had remaining were his teammates, and their unconditional love for him. Even though they hadn’t clicked on to how badly Jungkook’s brain had truly led him astray (which was odd because sometimes the maknae thought Jin and Namjoon in particular were actual mind readers) they had definitely caught wind that something wasn’t quite right with the baby of the group- anybody with eyes could see that.
So, they showered him with extra cuddles here and there, Hoseok happily sprinting over whenever he saw the youngest and twirling him around despite the many protests. Jimin would stop the dance during practise if he had the slightest doubt that Jungkook needed a break, pretending to double over, breathing heavily, and demanding that they all stopped for him instead, when they all knew he was only faking it for the maknae’s sake.
Taehyung would hold his hand more and tell him various jokes, praying for a laugh. Namjoon would ruffle his hair and ask if he was okay (I’m fine, hyung, really) a lot more times than what was necessary. Jin would throw snacks at him at every opportunity, much to Jungkook’s disarray, spurting words of worry about how he might not grow right if he doesn’t consume enough for someone his age. Unbeknownst to him, Jungkook would grin and throw them in his bag, a false vow to eat them later on his lips, before hiding them all away to get rid of at a later date.
And Yoongi- he was probably the worst. The second eldest wouldn’t necessarily hug him a lot, opting for a comforting arm thrown over the shoulder, and would rarely ever pester him about his wellbeing (which Jungkook was forever grateful for). But in turn he’d endlessly stare at him across the practise room, a finger bitten raw in his mouth as he contemplated, eyes dark and hooded like he could already see the secrets Jungkook tried his hardest to keep hidden laid out in front of him for all to see.
And that unnerved Jungkook. He couldn’t have them finding out what was going on inside his head; he didn’t want them to know how much of a mess he’d become on the inside, something so withered and frail and toxic it would swallow them up as well if they saw.
That was when he started to pull away from them, and push them back when they made any advances towards him. He’d skilfully avoid cuddles from all of them, despite the fact that it killed him inside every time, pretending not to see the looks of hurt flashing across their faces whenever he did so. He’d make excuses to not hang out as much, going in his room to have dinner instead when they always used to eat together at the table as a unit.
The rest of the maknae line attempted to talk to him about it (oh, how he just yearned to tell them everything that had been going on) but he stubbornly maintained his closure, stepping back and smiling sheepishly, finding a reason as to why he had to get out of there right there and then, away from prying eyes. He didn’t want to risk being a bother to them all; everybody already had so much on their plate, and he couldn’t add to it with his miniscule problems.
The entire process pained him equally as much- if not more- as them, but he didn’t know how to stop himself from the destructive acts. It was as if he wanted one thing (he, himself, he was still in there somewhere), but his brain coordinated his body to act in an entirely different way, one that left him bruised and wounded afterwards, with no one left to help him.
It was after one of those times- he’d screwed up the dance again, not having the physical ability to face the looks of disappointment he knew were surely waiting for him, and he’d ran from the studio- when Jungkook found himself back at the dorm, hurriedly speed-walking straight through to his bedroom, which he had all to himself for once (he’d won their game of rock paper scissors on the first day), closing the door behind him and trying to ignore the stares of sorrow and betrayal that seemed to follow him as he went, even though nobody was home at that moment.
Jungkook crawled into his bed, the light to his room still turned off so that everything was encased in darkness, and placed his headphones snuggly over his limp hair as he curled tightly into the quilt, becoming a single unmoving blob underneath the covers.
He had a special playlist for moments like these, when he needed his brain to quieten and needed something other than the screaming voice in his head to speak out his feelings for him.
He hardly ever used to need it, because he hardly ever used to feel like this, but these times were becoming more and more insistent as the weeks passed by, and he now always seemed to have that itch for release crawling beneath his skin, craving to be quelled.
The songs didn’t always help, but they tended to calm Jungkook down just enough to let him fall into an uneasy sleep, before he had to wake back up the next morning and begin the entire process all over again. Which was exhausting to say the least, but sadly necessary for him.
Scrolling through the dim light of his phone, he found the playlist, named 한숨 after his favourite song on it, mainly because it was the one he found to be the most relatable out of all of them. He tried to maintain a mix of artists; G-Dragon’s Untitled, 2014 being in there, Jimin’s Lie, Yoongi’s The Last, A.C.E’s Star, but none of them could match his closeness to the main song- the first one on the seemingly endless list.
All of them had the much-needed essence of beauty and sorrow attached to them, weaving tales of sadness or longing with bitter hopefulness, and he found refuge in that, in the music, finding they spoke the emotions he felt better than he ever could with his own words.
But the main song, Breathe by Lee Hi, it didn’t just speak to him, didn’t just sing or rap out his thoughts and feelings like the others- it flowed through him, entering his ears and settling a quiet melancholy of raw sentimentality within his bones, encasing the sensations of familiarity in the spoken emotions but also soothing over the constant ache for comfort that usually split him apart.
The sounds became a safe haven for him, and he couldn’t be more grateful for the music that surrounded his ears at moments like these.
Pressing play to the start of the playlist, Jungkook closed his eyes, willing his body to simply relax and bask in the symphony encasing him, feeling the band that had tightened around his chest loosen up mildly, sucking in a quivering breath as it did so.
Drops of tears began to well up within his irises as the bittersweet lyrics washed over his frame, for once allowing them to roll down the sides of his cheeks unrelentingly, knowing he’d locked the door to his room and that nobody would bother him, unafraid of showing his emotions. The broken sobs overwhelmed him, cutting through the silence in muffled agony, one hand clenched over his mouth to prevent himself from being too loud and drawing unwanted attention.
He absolutely hated the way he was feeling, the dark thoughts crashing through his brain over and over again without a break, cracking him down piece by piece from who he used to be. He no longer felt like the Jungkook who could do anything- the one who stood with the world as his oyster, ready to conquer it with his members by his side- because he no longer felt like himself.
He could barely remember what raw happiness felt like anymore; despite the fact that it had only been a few months at most since his deterioration began, happiness seemed so foreign to the singer, something so out of reach and unstable.
Staring in the mirror and not recognising yourself had never been so terrifying.
And Jungkook tried to find that notion scary, he honest to god did, except that recently he struggled to see anything as shocking anymore. Everything had become blurred, the lines no longer distinguishable, and it had now become a case of simply making it through the day, as best as he could manage. He was doing it for the fans. For the company. For his teammates and his family.
But never for himself.
Because that’s what happens when people place you on a pedestal. The height keeps growing and growing with all of the added pressure, and all too soon it gets to the point where it’s become so tall you can no longer see the bottom.
And then one wrong move and that’s it. You’re descending to the ground, bracing for the impact, attempting to quench the onslaught of pain even though you know all efforts will be subliminally futile.
The tears continued to pour, raining down his face in an avalanche of unspoken emotions, and Jungkook wanted to scream with the vast amount of anguish he had bottled up inside.