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Most the time, Jimin switched between Phthalo and Usafa. One day, he’d teach Jeongguk these shades, but teaching his lover them while he sat in a hospital bed, half awake and half alive, wasn’t the most uplifting thing. Today, it was only Taehyung visiting, but Jimin could barely keep his eyes open long enough to have proper conversation with his friend.
“How did this whole color thing start, anyway?” The words pushed themselves through the thick air of silence. After a pause, he added onto his question. “With Jeongguk, I mean. Why did you start teaching him colors?”
“We weren’t communicating well before, he got frustrated easy.”
Jimin pushed himself up on weak-standing arms to look at his friend. Today, he was Phthalo; he was sick and close to giving up. The only reason he was staying alive at this point was his will to live for Jeongguk’s sake, really.
“So why blue?”
He shrugged, pulling the sleeves to his sweater down his palm. The hospital was so damn cold. Or, maybe it wasn’t, it was beginning to get difficult to tell with how sick he was getting. Taehyung tapped the bed next to him after a moment, gaining his attention back from the endless space that was Jimin’s thoughts.
“It’s what he wanted, because all he heard about was blue: the sky, the water, a girl’s eyes…I guess it drove his curiosity wild.”
Taehyung nodded, left it alone after that. Once again, Jimin slipped back into his thoughts and buried himself in them. Being confined to a bed all day, being sick, lying to Jeongguk- it was all starting to drive him insane, but what else was he supposed to do? He was just trying to protect the other. Then again, if he died, no, when he died, it’d only hurt him worse. Usafa. For the night, Jimin changed colors.
He was lying, hoping to make it all better with a few false words; that was the nature of Usafa, it wasn’t much better than Phthalo.
Even when all the lights went out, only the dim ones left on in the hallways, Jimin didn’t sleep that night. He stared at the wall, the ceiling, the back of his hands…all the while wondering why a gift such as seeing was wasted on him when he was going to die young. Closing his eyes, Jimin tried to forget what color was, because maybe if he lost his ability to see, maybe Jeongguk would gain it.
Though, life never worked that way.
The next time Jeongguk visited, Jimin was suddenly the shade of Brandeis; he was all smiles that Taehyung noted as fake from his own corner in the room. Currently, Jimin had his fingers squeezed around Jeongguk’s hand, refusing to let it go and the other didn’t complain. Together, they were going over the happier shades of Blue (shades that Jeongguk has seemed to have forgotten, but with a couple of whispered compliments and several kisses, he remembers them rather quickly).
“What was Aero again?” There was a grin in the younger’s words, his lips stretching up into the most beautiful smile Jimin’s ever seen. He didn’t want it to go away.
“You keep asking this and I think you just want attention.” However, he did the same as he did the other three times the boy asked today; he leaned forward and brushed Jeongguk’s bangs back. Watching as the younger’s eyes closed immediately out of reflex, Jimin had to suppress a chuckle before pressing his lips to Jeongguk’s forehead. The other quickly leaned into it, ignoring the huff of again? in the corner of the room, but all too quickly the flutter of Jimin’s lips disappeared. Majorelle.
“You never told me what Phthalo means, Jimin,” He whines after his grin forms into a pout. It was always a challenge to ignore him.
But Jimin managed.
Without replying, he only ran his fingers through the other’s hair, other hand still locked with his. Jeongguk, though no matter how much he liked to act about how tough and emotionless he advertised himself as, was far too sweet to learn his boyfriend’s darker inner thoughts. He didn’t deserve the ugly words that bounced around in Jimin’s head daily. So instead, he just retaught him all the nice colors, and leaned forward to give him Indigo.
Perhaps one day (on his death bed, most likely), he’d show Jeongguk the darker shades of his being. The more depressing, the ones you wouldn’t see through the blankets of Alice and Wilken, Maya even. Jimin would tell him about the nights he had tried so hard not to wake him up in the middle of the night when he was wretching up anything in his stomach and then some more, about the mornings when he felt he couldn’t pick himself up out of bed long enough to make them breakfast but he did so. Along with those, he would tell him about the times he had to leave when he got too sick. Though, that would be a bit too depressing.
Along with the days where he felt Phthalo, Jimin would make sure to tell Jeongguk the days where he felt Vista. Where he believed he was going to get better. All the times he had a good morning or he heard a good story told by one of the nurses; Jimin would tell him all. Even the little things, such as the sweet smell of the air freshener they used, he would be sure Jeongguk knew them all so he didn’t believe that Jimin was wishing to die every passing moment without him.