Chapter Text
lying in this lucid dark--
He stares at the ceiling. It's dark outside. Or barely starting to get light outside. He thinks he's read somewhere about a witching hour, and this, he thinks, looking at the glow in the dark hands of his clock, might just be it. Some time around 3.29 A.M. An electric blanket of quiet that suffocates all it reaches over, and a feeling of something or someone else under his skin, fighting to get out.
It itches.
He resumes his stare at the ceiling. He's got a little stress ball in his hand, and he lies very still on his bed except for a mechanical flick of the wrist, which sends the ball up. Then he catches the ball and squeezes, and it makes a little shlick of a sound.
The clock on the wall ticks, and if he squints he can make himself think that it's getting a bit more than just barely light outside. He can almost make out the harsh grainy texture of his ceiling, plastered ridges and dots and swirls. Or he could be imagining it. Tick, flick, shlick. Eventually, just as he's getting mildly impressed with his catch rate, he misses the ball. Closing his eyes - only irritation, nothing else that resembles an inkling of exhaustion - he reaches blindly for the ball on the bed, grips it again, and then places it on the bedside table and lies absolutely still.
He stares at the ceiling. Tick, tick, tick. He glances again at the clock. 3.43 A.M. The itch gets stronger, and he gives in and gets out of bed. He's always felt weird lying around and doing nothing anyway.
The parquet feels good under his feet, cold and smooth as he walks out the room.
-
The problem being, Jimin can't sleep. The problem being, Jimin has not been able to sleep for the past three weeks. How should he put it? It isn't about ability or inability, it's more of something actively keeping him awake. He is actively being kept awake.
Jimin doesn't mind. Between painting for commissions and helping out Namjoon with his music, these extra hours have gives him more time to, interestingly enough (was the word he was looking for ironic? He isn't sure, he always forgets the meaning), relax.
He supposes if circumstances were different, then, yes, he would mind very much. If he got tired, if he started going crazy, if he started getting cranky and jumpy and bloodshot-eyed. But none of that's happening. He took a blood test last week and they said he was fit for donating and then he donated the other day and it was just plain red, not green or yellow or something freakish, either time, so he definitely isn't turning into a zombie.
The problem being that this does not seem to be a problem.
This last thing is what Namjoon says, but Jimin's been tuning him out about it lately.
When something doesn't seem to be a problem, it isn't one. Problem solved! Easy as that. Jimin doesn't care if he sounds redundant or illogical.
He isn't here to make sense.
He’s been tuning himself out lately, too.
-
The carpeted stairs under his feet feel good, too, and as he trails one hand down the wall and one down the bannister he's glad he got everything repainted when he moved in. Wallpapering, he tells himself for the tenth time, would have been a little strange; he'd never be able to choose the perfect print, and then he'd have to face buyer's regret staring bluntly at him for the rest of his stay in this apartment.
The last step creaks, as always, and the living room greets him in all its semi-unpacked, cardboard box glory.
When Jaebum had come over last week, he'd had a stroke. "Two months," he'd sputtered, looking around for a chair and sinking down onto a sturdy-looking cardboard instead. Empty as it was, he sunk gracefully to the floor, cardboard collapsing under the combined weight of Jaebum's gym-jacked body and general disappointment. "Two months, and - " from his sprawled position on the floor, he pointed to the clock that was stuck at twelve forty five despite it being six o clock, " - you haven't done shit? At least the batteries, Jimin! At least have some sense of time!"
"Time is abstract, space is a lie, Schrodinger's cat, etcetera," Jimin had replied, all airs and graces, giving him a glass of cranberry juice. All that stress was going to give Jaebum kidney stones - someone had to be looking out for the guy. "Anyway, I warned you about my place."
"You said - I'm quoting, man, you said - I dunno, it's a mess. You didn't mention you lived in a cave! "
It had been a bit of a disastrous meetup, saved only by Jaebum dragging Jimin's ass off to a cafe so Jaebum wouldn't have to 'have his eyes assaulted every goddamn second' by the 'soul-injuring lack of class'.
"Anyone ever told you," Jimin had commented, casually, "That you could give Jinyoung hyung a run for his money."
That had made Jaebum smile. Just the slightest bit - but a high level accomplishment, if Jimin said so himself.
Jimin stands in the disarray now, and thinks that maybe, just maybe, Jaebum had some kind of point. At least with the thing about a grasp on time... Jimin could do something about the clock. He remembers packing the batteries into a small box and then wrapping that up in plastic and stuffing it into a cookie tin and putting the cookie tin with either the crafts bag with the different blades or the one that had - well, shit. He could go on forever.
The nearest cardboard box has three of its flaps open in a part-creepy, part-welcoming dog smile. An umbrella sticks out of it, and a pair of purple briefs that he can't even recognize are wrapped around the handle. Something in Jimin's brain shifts and clicks into place: Jaebum definitely had a point.
-
It turns out some of the boxes aren't Jimin's at all; they're the previous tenant's, and he only finds out once he's wrestled some albums out of the dust and had a landslide of untacked photos fall into his lap. They're of someone he knows - a friend of a friend, so to speak, and his throat closes up.
Jaehwan, fast asleep, a streak of sunlight caught landing perfectly over his eyes. His mouth is open slightly, and Jimin stares at it, scrutinizing. How many times, he starts to think, then shakes his head. He sets it aside, and sees his own face grin up at him from another photo. He looks happy, and if Jimin looks for too long his expression is almost defiant, which rankles, which makes him think, had he seen through me?, which rankles, which makes him look at anywhere else but himself, which is how he ends up staring at the rest of the photo - the boy who's clearly just jumped onto Jimin's back unannounced, grin confident, eyes beautiful. Jimin keeps staring, everything in him quieting fast.
When he looks up again, it's to breathe and try to think of something. He glances at the clock. It's still stuck on twelve forty five. He looks at another photo, and another, picks out a postcard - it's from Jimin, it's in his own handwriting, dated two years ago - and reads it mindlessly. He'd been talking about options for his internship. When Taehyung had replied back, he'd been hyping it up ridiculously and talked about the Louvre. Jimin snorts at the memory, but everything in him is silent now. Opening the box had started a rush of sound, and now it's all rescinded and given way to the blanket again.
Purposefully, he stacks all the photos together, (resists flipping them all together with his old card tricks) places them neatly inside the box and pushes it to a far corner. Then he turns back to what are, hopefully, all of his own boxes.
A little flurry of white noise in his bones again.
Maybe ten minutes later, maybe fifteen, his mind's fixed firmly on thinking why, and laughing a little dryly to himself; thinking, that of all the people who had to have lived in this apartment before Jimin, it had to be the one person he was trying most to get over. To be alright with. To be alright with being gone.
It had to be Taehyung, leaving his boxes behind, finding a way back home in some card, in some picture, in some way, to Jimin.
Right now, the postcard in his hands is one he'd found in his own small metal safe, where all his communication with Taehyung is kept.
hey man, reads Taehyung's enthusiastic scrawl.
Jimin lets himself smile, even if it's teary, dammit.
Two years, he'd been doing just fine. Toeing the okay-line, gone through the whole slowly-step-away process. Working around radio silence. Before that - high school, graduation. Six years ago? He'd been less than fine, but managing.
Now he's thinking about it all again, and he hadn't allowed that door to unlock for so long.
Jimin sits cross legged on the floor, boxes and canvas bags and lengths of rope and cellotape sprawled around him, Taehyung's postcard in his hands, and lets the door push open as far as it can go. It's isn't much - he's still got some shit in there that's blocking the way, but he figures it's good enough for now.
so the weather's awesome!!!!! beyond awesome. rained goddamn elephants last night and now it's all evaporated and we have beautiful mist and lovely flowers and the trees look like they're magic. jaehwan couldn't make it to another date but like, you know. it goes. comes and goes. karma, energy in the universe, different brands of luck. now i sound like some douchebag on weed. anyway. so remember how jaehwan's friend seokjin hyung's over a lot? we did this recipe restaurant food thing and you should. check it out. my guy!!!!! gonna <u>handwrite</u> the url for you, true love right there if i say so myself. tell me if you like it!!!! seokjin hyung taught me how to cook it later so. i can be a chef. imagine the future. all those shiny knives. cannibalism. ha, did i get you worried? fear not, i don't plan on transgressing that particular line of societal norms.
anyway.
write quick, as usual, take care, as usual, give a guy a lipstick kiss, man, i miss you.
Sure enough, the URL's written underneath. It's in a very different handwriting, neat and small and meticulous. Taehyung could always do whatever when he tried.
"Nah," Taehyung had said once, mouth obscenely full of grapes, when Jimin commented on that during lunch break. "You'd stop me from doing the stupid shit."
It had a bit of truth to it, Jimin admits now. Maybe a lot of truth.
i miss you.
"Yeah, well," Jimin says out loud, smiling all forced at his knuckles, voice going out kind of unsteady. Then he stands up abruptly.
The safe gets pushed under the sofa, postcard set on a sidetable. He kicks at the ropes and sad flaps of cardboard around so he has a cleanish space to sit and sort in. He's got all these boxes to clean up, Jaebum to convince that Jimin's an actual human, rooms to decorate and shelves to fill. He glances at the clock again. Time to grasp.
He looks back down at the postcard, then goes to the kitchen for some of that iced tea stock in the fridge Yujin had dumped on him.
-
Somewhere between nine in the morning and his seventeenth can of mysterious liquid with labels of 'healthy', 'diet' and 'green' plastered everywhere, Jimin collapses backwards on the stairs and doesn't even flinch when the edge of a step juts aggressively against the back of his head. Whatever. He's done with apartments. From now on, he decides, he will live under a bridge, cycle by the river everyday and fish for fish in it. Or something.
He squints at the clock. It politely informs him that he still hasn't put in any batteries, by indicating with its still hands that the time is twelve forty five.
"Motherfuck," he groans, dragging a hand down his face. "Alright. Alright."
-
Jimin can't find any batteries. It probably really is twelve forty five now, sun beating down through every concrete orifice in the walls as he shoves himself under the bed in search of AA cells so his living room can seem civilized. He won't find any over here though, he knows it. He's not sure why he decided to do this.
His body's thrumming and awake as always, but that thing in his skull, now. Morpheous brain matter's been turning gooishly tired these past few hours - many hours - x amount of time-hours. His hands skitter past a dust bunny, and he sneezes.
He turns around on his back, fully aware of how dirty he's getting, and lets himself think again of what he's been trying to cut off mid sentence for the past - whatever. Jimin thinks about Taehyung, tries not to think about how pathetic it looks, thinking about Taehyung while stuffed under his own bed. Teenage angst taken to another level, and he's, like, twenty something now.
How long before had Taehyung arrived? This place, this city. Which city was his last stop before coming - home, closer to Jimin, back - here? It had to be after they went out of touch; Taehyung had packed every possible thing he could have taken, and that meant every single photo album. He'd even stolen some of Jimin's and shamelessly confessed to the deed over post.
you were never going to give me something of yours voluntarily, was his explanation. someone's gotta do the things around here. If all this stuff was here, he had come back.
Jimin feels the old thrill up his spine, crawling warm and soft, light over his skin, bursting right at the back of his head. Taehyung.
And then, dissatisfaction. Jimin is looking for batteries for his living room clock, (Taehyung) under his bed, and the previous tenant of this apartment (Taehyung) had left his boxes here, months previous and there is no (Taehyung) Taehyung.
If he tries, Jimin can remember the landlord talking about how the apartment had been empty for a while. If he checks the dates on some of the newer photos - and he knows they're newer. There had been that picture of Jaehwan - maybe he can line them up with how things have been going on his own end and.
And nothing. Stop. So Jimin stops, grabs a hold of the bed frame from underneath and slides out, dust managing to cake itself onto his scalp and invade his clothes.
-
He still doesn't have any batteries, but he texts Jaebum to come pick him up for lunch anyway. He'll invite Jaebum inside, Jaebum will be amazed at how everything looks so much better, Jaebum will look at the clock, Jaebum's expression will turn wooden, it'll make for a good laugh.
to: bumbum
[13.37]
so like
hunger and starvation
lunch o clock
from: bumbum
[13.40]
i dont understand why i do these things
to: bumbum
[13.41]
pure
heart of gold
from: bumbum
[13.43]
...we are ignoring that
to: bumbum
[13.44]
:D
you are pleased with this
i know
from: bumbum
[13.46]
...
ignoring.
be there in 10
dont take ass long to get ready it's literally just lunch
to: bumbum
[13.48]
but hyung im going with you
you alw look good
stepping up my game is imperative
from: bumbum
[13.50]
I SWEAR TO GOD
from: bumbum
[14.03]
i am here
-
"You aren't the most mentally present," Jaebum comments, pointing his chopsticks at Jimin. "Very quiet."
Jimin hums and points his own chopsticks back, amicable. "Just pretending to be your crush for today."
"Mark," Jaebum starts, predictably, "Is a really good person and you're just - " He catches himself and glares. "You planned that."
Jimin laughs into his soup.
-
He is lucky, Jimin thinks, facedown and exhausted on his mattress, to have good friends like Jaebum and Namjoon. People who'll go against their own habits just to make sure he's feeling alright. Or Wheein and Sungjae, who don't bother and stay one hundred percent in their own comfort zones, which consist mainly of shitting on him when he needs it and also shitting on him when he doesn't. It's nice. Yujin forces him to eat things he doesn't like and beats him at bowling and makes him try weird obscurely branded fizzy drinks that are either poisonous or drugged. That's always interesting. And Sanghyuk is like, there too. Somewhere. A thing.
Jimin rolls over. The lamp light throws shadows everywhere and he can see the swirls in the ceiling. Endless circles and lines and dots. He tries to get some lines and dots close together, something like Morse code, but gives up soon and turns on his side instead. Taehyung's boxes are piled up by the dresser, looking like they're waiting.
He doesn't know why he carried them up into his own personal space, a zone he'd been trying to keep away from all this for so long. His thought processes are beginning to sound redundant.
The same reasons, the same thoughts, over and over again.
One thing that's been looping consistently is how he would have really liked to give Taehyung a lipstick kiss. A smushed wine colored stain on his collar, bright pink on the breast pocket of his favorite blue dress shirt. His nose. His mouth.
Jimin had probably replied to everything in the postcard except for that one bit. Talked a lot too, to cover it up. Three pages of his neatest possible handwriting, cramming in whatever he could so his ears wouldn't ring with the weight of it, with what he could do and how he could take it and how Taehyung never really meant it the way Jimin wanted.
The problem being: Jimin was scared then, is scared now, feels funked out into fake-zen all the time.
Namjoon has never said anything about this. Jimin doesn't really talk about it.
Having nothing to tune out here is driving him maybe the slightest bit insane.