-opening up-

Admitting it hurts is a huge first step, and for the first time

Jimin feels like he could breathe again.

Days continue to pass and Jimin goes through it with the same monotony. He avoids going to the canteen, but would go to the auditorium toilet that's further from the benches but right beside the canteen, where he'll most probably meet Jungkook (doing his hair ritual) and they will talk for a short while.

Jimin thinks he's fcked up, because those pre-planned occasions with the inevitable run-ins around school just make him feel worse about their current state, each time he has to fake being all close with Jungkook like nothing's wrong at all just kills a part of him inside.

The fact that he's remarkably free only made it worse, for there's few things to keep him occupied and so he spends a lot of time thinking things over. His life has just been empty so far, there's nothing to stress over, no deadlines to work to and that constant nuisance called dance (read: practices, extra practices, rehearsals and dry runs) has been taken off his schedule completely.

The vacancy is often most acutely felt on Wednesdays, where Jimin walks towards the school gate, against a rushing crowd of Senior High trying to grab a quick lunch before they head off to their respective club activities. It makes him feel so different, so alone, so out of place, and he downright hates it. He's so free it that it doesn’t even seem right.

This laid-back, lazy, and eventless life that was practically all he wanted every day back when he was still in dance, barely able to breathe from all the stress that being student instructor brings. Yet when he's actually living that life now, it seems foreign and surreal.

And whenever Jimin walks past the music atrium now, he gets the same weird feeling inside when he brushes past the dance studio. That's the place that he's spent more hours in than he did in his classroom, the place that he called his reign for almost 2 years, and also the place that he can't be labelled with now.

It's not as if he's completely cut off ties with dance now, no. Jimin still returns once in a while, in between his free periods, to help JH at practice. It makes him feel slightly better, less detached, and more alive when the kids jump on him in delight. But he avoids going near the area when SH is practicing. No. Jimin doesn't need reality to remind him of the truth.

But the last time he was there, some of his closest juniors approached him and asked if he could come back. Because "Jungkook's so scary now and no one knows what to do when he gets mad" so "Jimin, Jimin hyung can you come back please, it wasn't like that last time". Jimin doesn't remember how he responded, probably awkwardly excusing himself and taking flight. He hasn't returned since then, because he has no idea how to face their expectant looks.

Jimin realised that he fcking misses dance, misses dancing, misses all the damn things he used to overlook or even resent. The mess, the noise, the rush. The fight, the struggle, the one goal in mind. And the final presentation on stage, oh that adrenaline when they get into position and the spotlight comes on, with all eyes on you. The amazing feeling when everyone and everything falls into place and having music sweep you away, a feeling you can never recreate alone.

And that final bow that makes every bit of their sweat, tears and emotional stress, worth it so, so much.

He realised that this is not what he wanted when he made the decision to quit. When Jimin said he was leaving, he never knew he would be leaving behind so much. The team that he's worked with, the people that he's worked for, the teacher-in-charges that "worked him" in a sense (they made his life hella difficult but he has to admit he admires and respects all that they've done for dance)… And most importantly, the relationships that only needed bare maintenance.

It's as if with distance, everything suddenly becomes much more intangible and frail. It scares Jimin so much, insecurity swallowing him alive as his place around Jungkook gets taken over by others. Without dance to connect them and bring them together, Jimin and Jungkook, or what used to be Jimin and Jungkook, is falling apart. All those problems that were bottled up then have emerged all at once, and before Jimin could react, reality brings Jimin's dream from last December alive. All of what Jungkook and Jimin used to share is shattering, and Jimin's the boy trying to piece everything back in vain, ending up with nothing but bleeding hands.

xxx

Sometimes Jimin thinks about their past. All the stupid backstage accidents and episodes, the late night talks at Macs after practice, and the hugs before and after going on stage to prove all their work in that 10 minutes. He remembers the opening choreography for their last concert where he and Jungkook stood back to back in the centre of the stage, heads leaning against on the other's shoulder, a pretty sight for the audience but in reality, Jimin was trying to not flinch from his itching neck, Jungkook's legs are sore from bending to match their heights, and both of them are trying not to burst into laughter because Hoseok has been muttering about how he's hungry the moment before the spotlights were them.

He remembers how those faded away so slow yet so fast, as if he could catch and hold onto them but failed, watching as they laugh mockingly and run away.

Over time, the depression only builds, and he feels like he has so many problems but none at the same time. He couldn’t bring it to talk to anyone about it, no he's too proud to admit hurting. So he resorts to writing on neko language, the blog he started in Year 4 and can only be viewed by Yixing.

Yixing, his classmate from Year 2, his understatement of a best friend, more like a soulmate. Both Libras, they understand each other's posts of emo, depressed words that make no sense and every sense at the same time. They share similar insecurities, value similar things and have similar views on many issues. Yixing, someone that he'd trust with everything, which is why Yixing is the only one that has access to his blog (and he's the only one that can assess Yixing's), because he knows that Yixing doesn't judge him a bit. To the rest of the school population, however, what they share is unknown, because they barely interact at school, and they would only smile to acknowledge that they've seen each other when they happened to meet along the staircase or corridor.

Which is why Jimin's always free to post all sorts of fcked up things on neko language. It truly lives up to its name, a place of Jimin's own language.

"I want to cry but I can't. I want to yell but I'm out of voice. I want to tell you everything but you suffocate me with all of your ignorance and pretence.

I may still act like we're all best friends around people that didn't know us, but really. Do you seriously think it's true?

That day after we left for the workshops, you said it has been a while since we'd spent time together. So you knew? Okay. Thanks for the information. I was out of what to say.

If that pretence if what you want, I don't mind giving it to you.

If pretending that nothing happened between us is what you want, then I don't mind being that great actor I never was.

If that's what you want, you can have my full cooperation, okay?

Just let me breathe around you. That would be fine enough for me.

I can't remember when it starts to be so difficult around you, the things you say knock the breath out of me and kills me inside, yet you expect me to be all smiling?

If it's just to push me and test how far I can tolerate you, please don't tell me you still don't have the answer yet? Honestly?

I'm afraid that the black and white inside me is drawing apart, and sooner or later grey may come in to fill the gaps.

This is scaring me, yet I feel numb to everything.

If you actually bothered... if you actually bothered...

Sorry I was a burden."

He published the post at 3am and threw himself under blankets after.

The next day, Jimin's caught off guard when he sees Yixing walking straight towards him through the crowd outside the auditorium. Before he could react, Yixing's already right before him, and he's engulfed in a long, tight hug (that is the most skinship they've had in the 4 years they knew each other). Jimin knows people are probably staring, because "wait they're friends?", but he doesn't care at this moment.

"I'm sorry," Yixing whispers. "About everything that's happening."

"Thank you," was all Jimin could manage without breaking down in public.

They pulled apart after a while, and Yixing squeezed Jimin's shoulder lightly twice before going back to his friends. Jimin stares after him until he's hidden by the crowd, before blinking away the moistness.

"Woah, that was something," Bambam says, after Jimin retracts his gaze. "I never knew y'all were friends."

"Yeah," Jimin says eventually. "We've been friends since Year 2."

When Bambam turns his attention elsewhere, Jimin looks around, and although he can't spot Yixing through the crowd, he knows that Yixing's there, far away but there, always there for him.

"Thank you," he whispers to himself.

xxx

All this while, Jimin has always been in denial of pain. In turn, he's also in denial of telling people about his problems, because he felt like it's a them thing and others don't need to know. But this fateful Friday, when he's half-heartedly writing his literature essay, Namjoon drops down beside him and asks, "how's life?" and instead of dismissing him with a lie, Jimin stares back at him for a minute before saying, "been sh*t".

They then transferred to somewhere quieter, settling for the benches by the foyer, and Jimin starts to talk. Stammering, unorganised sentences that probably doesn't make the most sense. He spills out the insecurities of being replaced in dance, of the bleeding boy in his dream, of losing Jungkook, of the times he's waited for someone who's busily throwing cards. He doesn't tell Namjoon how much it hurts or how much it eats at him or how Jungkook is suffocating him in his blissful ignorance, it's unnecessary.

But Namjoon understands anyhow, and apart from offering him the quiet company that Jimin never realised he needed, the only words he said were "I'm sorry all that happened".

The bell sounds, and they both have lessons to rush to, but Namjoon still reaches over to give Jimin a long hug.

Namjoon left first, because Jimin told him so. When he's completely alone, Jimin stares at the sky, and realised that he feels a little better. Even though he's gotten nothing similar to an advice, the entire fact that he's finally opening up to a friend and admitting that something's wrong took off so much weight on his shoulders.

He doesn't stay there for long, because he's already late for his lit class and although he has so much reflection to do, Jimin isn't the kind to skip classes if he's actually in school. He makes it to class just before the teacher arrived, and manages to submit the essay on time. After the lesson ended, Jimin musters the courage to tell Jungkook that they need to talk ("not now, of course; you have a concert to prepare for"), and Jungkook says sure, how about right after? Jimin says okay.

xxx

With that settled, Jimin feels a little more at ease with himself. He even plans a small support event for the upcoming dance concert with Namjoon. Shopping for small gifts together, releasing their inner ajjumma as they scouted for the best deal to keep things under budget, writing notes for every dancer (even for the year 1 juniors that they don't know personally and the seniors they may generally dislike), being biased by packing all the good stuff for their batch mates and selected seniors, then dividing the rest into tiers according to personal preference and packing a matching content, Jimin feels more alive than he did for months.

"And I realised that I can actually deal with finances alone," was what Jimin told Taehyung after. "I guess it wasn't that I couldn’t do it, just that I'd always had someone else to help me with that."

Taehyung doesn’t respond with words, but he squeezed Jimin's arms and told him he's making good progress. Jimin knows that Taehyung knows, since he's pretty much witness to how Jungkook would always roll his eyes at Jimin's terrible calculations and take over the finances, especially throughout the Taiwan trip. Taehyung knows, and Jimin's happy that someone's there to mark his improvements even if it's with lame "achievement unlocked" texts with a spam of exclamation marks and confetti emojis.

Because admitting to pain is progress, facing fears is progress, and trying to live again is progress.

-TBC-

Naggy author time is finally back omfg!

First up, I'm really sorry this update took sooooo long, I know my last legit update was like, idek, 3 months ago, and fck I'm sorry and there's not much excuses I can give, so here's a proper 2k update of chapter 5 rewritten and emotions hopefully more raw since I've poured a sh*t lot more time than the previous chap 5 that was taken down to elaborate.

About the story progress, I've drawn up a rough chapter plan and the gauge is this fic will be made up of 16 full chapters and 1 epilogue. Good news, I've had it all done up to chapter 11, with fine-tuning and thinking of better titles left to my procrastinating mercy (ok, more like deciding what can be put in what chapter should I run out of details to flashback on in future chapters lol). Bad news, my microsoft onenote crashed on me and I lost my entire notebook for this fic, so yeah there goes my (very messy) planning, summarised references (of quotes I dug from my fb and blog and idek where), half-done character development, a full-fledged 2k worth of fashion evolution of the characters that I later discarded, and even all the old abandoned drafts that I personally thought to be pretty hilarious so I didn't delete them. And of course yeah the 2 rewritten chapters and the 5 new chapters that I wrote across the 2 months lol.

Am I devastated? Sure as hell yeah, I almost wanted to give up when onenote restarted and my files gone. But I figured that's pointless so I'm up till this hour putting back together chapter 5 (okay, yeah this is uwhen I usually sleep anyway, but I'd be watching lame bts videos). I initially wanted to store my chapters and only post when I have at least 2-3 next chapters to back up since the plot is pretty interconnected and I want it perfect, but I guess the plan has backfired badly so I'm just gonna give yall what I have at this point (this lone chapter lying in my recreated notebook lol).

About future chapters… I shall not make any promises but it's definitely not gonna be completed by the start of college lol.

Side note... I'm fcking hyped for Min Yoongi's mixtape like it's gonna be sooooo freaking lit. And also did yall catch the hint of BTS's planned comeback later this year, all cos of this guitarist that worked with BTS and uploaded a pic of him and Jimin. So okay bighit are you finally gonna tell us what did the boys meet or is that gonna be a mystery forever. No but seriously, the HYYH series may have ended, but our hwa yang yeon hwa is endless

(Oh yeah, the picture is what the pose described in the chapter supposedly looks like, idk, im not a dancer but it looks fitting for an opening dance XD)