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Depression is a Demon.
It'll always find someway to twist your mind into a resentful abyss, it'll turn you into something that you only though existed in your nightmares, something that you never wanted to be. It'll creep up on you and take you by surprise, like green vines weaving and winding their way up and ancient tree trunk, and it won't stop until you've surrendered to it every inch of your mind and the person you use to be.
That was something Jimin had learnt from a very young age, and a lesson he would never forget. Back when he was still a small boy with a mind of innocence, a mind that was yet to be tanited by how harsh life was and the cruelty of reality. His father had drilled the phrase into his head, day after day without break, a unspoken demand for him to always remember every word he spoke.
His father had been a psychiatrist, you see. He had worked for the NHS in England where he had been born, long before he moved to Korea with his wife that had been pregnant with Jimin at the time. Sometimes Jimin wondered what lif would have been like if his father and Mother hadn't moved to Korea, if they had stayed in England and he had made a life in a different country.
When Jimin was eight he moved to the seaside city of Busan with his father, with his mother in tow. He had endured hours upon hours of their long screaming matches that lasted late into the night, heard his mothers shouts and the sounds of plates and empty bottles smashing against the wall. He didn't know what it all meant, back then, but it happened so often he presumed it was normal.
In Busan, Jimin had to attend a new school, a twenty five minute walk from the small house he and his father now lived in, but he failed to make any friends, not on the first day and not on the last. He was the strange new kid that nobody liked or wanted to talk to, the boy with an even stranger accent and was herefore left to be by himself on the first and last days. It was lonely, the teachers regarded him with pity in their eyes, the students tripped him thinking it was funny, but at some point he stopped caring.
By the time Jimin reached the age of fourteen, starting his GCSE's in the local high school, he had managed to get into a steady routine of eating his lunch by himself in the abandoned toilets of the humanities and languages department. He never hot involved with group work in class, nobody ever wanted to partner with him, so he did every project by himself and excelled in every subject.
When Jimin reached fifteen, he had the haunting realisation that he liked boy's. He preffered short hair that couldn't be tied as opposed to long wavy hair that had been conditioned to a fault, tight fit jeans that hugged defined crotches rather than short skirts that revealed girls skanty underwear, mucular bodies that screamed masculinity instead of the petite and distinctly feminine bodies with curves and breasts society demanded he loved.
Jimin was sixteen when he had walked back from a long day at school to find his mother hanging from the living rooms ceiling fan, thick rope tied around her neck and her long black hair concealing her no doubt purple skin and bulging eyes from view. He vaguely remembered screaming, and screaming, not stopping until one of the neighbours came to see what the disturbance was. Not long after the emergency services came, but they were unable to do anything, and offered only a little comfort, sending shivers down Jimin's spine when they rang his father to explain everything.
When his father returned from work that night he didn't utter a single word nor pull him into a tight hug as he usually would after returning from work, he didn't even look at him. Jimin had always taken pride in how similar he was to his mother, from the colour of his eyes to the shape of his nose, but for once that felt a lot more like a curse than a blessing.
That night Jimin cried, he cried for the first time since he was a child, the pillow doing nothing to muffle his sobs as the fabric became damp with his ever flowing tears.
Jimin was seventeen when his father hit him for the first time. Since his mother had hung herself, his father had developed alcaholism is a coping mechanism and was almost always drunk from dawn until dusk. Jimin had returned home afetr being delayed at work, a shelf collapsing in the supermarket in which he worked had resulted in smashed glass and wine covering the floor. However, only he and another girl were on duty since no one else was willing to take the graveyard shift so it took a longer to clean than it usually would have.
When he first stepped through the door of his house, his father was furious and nothing Jimin sadi could be provided good enough to calm him. It happened in an instant, one minute he was stuttering over an apology then the next his head snapped to the side as he felt the sharp stinging sensation of the back of his fathers hand comeing into contact with his cheek. He coughed loudly as he hit the floor, his father physically throwing him out of the house where he curled up in a tight ball and tried to sleep.
That was the first time of many, if he couldn't provide enough money he got shoved in an old wardrobe, if he stepped a foot out of line he would get an empty bottle thrown at his head, hands bleeding from where he tried to pick up the shards with his bare hands. He adjusted to creeping around the house in the dead of night, praying the older man wouldn't be awake to hear him steal food from the fridge or water from the sink.
Yet another night came to pass and he was wandering the cities streets, lost in his own head. His body was covered from head to tow in bruises from the blows he had impacted and fresh cuts from the what ever object had been thrown at him. He had perfected the ability of covering up his visible wounds but when he came into contact with the man with mint green hair, that was one of the few days he hadn't.
The man took Jimin to his apartment despite Jimin's obvious reluctance to go with a stranger, and sat him down on his bathtub whilst he patched up his wounds, being careful not to press down to hard or cause bleeding. He expected to be told to leave after that, but he was simply tossed a blanket and offered the sofa. He tried to ignore the way his heart cried out when he snuck out the following morning while the rest of the world was still asleep.
It happened again the next week, and then it continued to happen until it became nothing short of routine. The man, who Jimin came to learn was called Min Yoongi, introduced him to his best friend Hoseok, who also happened to be a dance instructor and from that day onwards a small blossom of hope began to bloom in his chest.
He managed to successfully keep a small amount of the money had had earned at work hidden away from his father, and then used it to pay the admission fee into Hoseok's studio and lessons. He could tell that Hoseok knew something was wrong with him by the way he never took off his jacket no matter how much he was sweating nor how hot it was. By how he would occasionally arrive at the studio with a limp from where his father had decieded to stand on his leg, but Hosoek never said anything about it, not even when Jimin forgot to cover up the large scar that ran down his temple.
When Jimin turned eighteen he had his first kiss, it was nothing special just a short and sweet press of lips against lips, but it was one of those things you never see coming, it creeps up on you like ivy on a tree. His love with Yoongi blossomed like flowers in the spring time and burnt as bright as a star exploding across the universe, pure love mixed with unadulterated passion and lust.
Jimin finally escaped the horrors of his child hood home, leaving behind all the terrible memories formed there to make new ones when he moved into Yoongi's small but cosy apartment. That night they made love until the sun rose in the sky, Yoongi tracing the scars that covered him with his tongue while whispering sweet nothings and singing him praise from above him in the darkness..
One day he'll love himself enough to be worshipped with the lights on.
Not long after Jimin quit his job at the supermarket, cutting his last tie to his father, and became a dance instructor along side Hoseok. The man had taught him so much in so little time and he wanted to be able to put it to use, to be able to dance until his hearts content, to be able to teach the younger generation the truth behind what dance meant to him. It had become his escape and now it was his life.
He was finally happy. He was so, very happy until he wasn't.
"The hell is he teaching us to dance for? He's so unfit he can barely dance himself!"
Everything went down hill from that point onwards, he spent countless nights in the studio after closing hours, working and working until he was on the brink of exhaustion, only to think about how ugly he felt, how his thighs still touched when he walked and his stomach jutted out and start back from square one. Other nights he simply cried in front the mirrors, too tired to move a muscel.
The human body was an engine and an engine needed fuel to work, Jimin knew that and he liked to think that he was giving his body just enough food for it to function and stay healthy, because he needed Yoongi to think he was pretty, even if he didn't believe it. Right now, however? He was admant Yoongi wouldn't step foot near his body, probably thought he ate far too much, and he did.
Days slowly turned into weeks and weeks into months, as the time passed the moer normal it seemed to count how many calories he consumped and burnt, so did culing up in a ball and cryin over one piece of celery too much. The scars littering his body were no longer just relics of his brutal past, they were fresh from his blades of self hate and destruction. They were the reason he rufused to let Yoongi touch him anymore because he wouldn't understand, how could he ever understand?
He wasn't okay, he doesn't think he'll ever be okay again. He's on the brink of being suicidal, wondering what the impact of tarmac would feel like from a height, sometimes he thought asphalt never seemed so soft before. He had worked himself to the bone, how ironic because that's all he was, skin and bone, but still not pretty enough for anyone to love him, he would never be pretty enough. He would never be skinny enough.
It was eleven in the evening and Yoongi had texted him early on to say he would be staying behind to work late in the office again. It was an impulse decision, in all honestly, when he grabbed his keys off the worktop and walked to the dance studio, getting lost in his thoughts of what Yoongi would think if he came home and found that he was nowhere to be seen.
Slowly wandering down the darkened hallways, the quiet shufflinf of small rodents making him jump, he finally reached the practice room and was about to slot his key in the lock when he heard someones voice, or to be more precise, someones moan. It sounded like Hoseok, it was almost unmistakably him, but Jimin couldn't be sure so he reached out and rapped lightly on the hard wood.
"We're busy."
The voice that answered him was certainly his dance instructing partners, but the groan of pleasure dripping with pure want that followed wasn't. It made Jimin pause from where he was about to leave, paralysed in place until he built up enough courage to knock again, hesitantly but a clear sound.
"Go away! We're busy!"
Jimin jolted away from the door as though it had electrocuted him, staring at in pure shock. No, It couldn't be...? He forced himself to his feet and shoved the key in the lock because he had to be sure of it, pausing before throwing it open. Oh, how he so dearly wished he hadn't for nothing could have prepared him for the sight of his boyfriend on top of his bestfriend, eyes closed in ecstasy.
He was certain they heard his gasp, recognised his voice, but he bolted out the room before he could see their reactions, rushing out the building with tears gathering in his eyes as he attempted to unhear the moans and groans coming from the only two people that mattered to him, the only two people that he had left. That was the final straw, the thing that made him snap in half, that broke him beyond repair.
He was emotionless ad he wandered down the streets of Busan, some empty some still bustling life, he watched the people come and go from different houses and jobs, kiss their loved ones goodbye and hello but he felt nothing. When he came to a small corner shop, his decision was already made for him. Maybe after all this was other he would finally be happy.
Depression is a Demon
It'll always find someway to twist your mind into a resentful abyss, it'll turn you into something that you only though existed in your nightmares, something that you never wanted to be. It'll creep up on you and take you by surprise, like green vines weaving and winding their way up and ancient tree trunk, and it won't stop until you've surrendered to it every inch of your mind and the person you use to be.
Jimin's father had told him this from a young age, before he became a mindless drunk, before he lost his wife to the demon itself, but Jimin still had learn the hard way, after depression had sunk its claws into him and its unrelenting presence had invaded his thoughts. His happiness was always fleeting, but now he was destined for something so much darker. He had become someone he no longer knew, he stared in the mirror and hated his reflection so he did the only thing he could.
He surrendered to the Demon.