PAINT THE ROSES RED

One: Curiouser & Curiouser

There's a soft breeze on his face and it smells like autumn.

He remembers that he considers his favorite season autumn.

Winter was just a bit too nippy and chilly for him. (Though he does love snow.) Summer was far too hot. Spring was just…nothing extra special to him, despite the fact that everyone else seems to think it's a "rebirth" that should be celebrated and loved.

But autumn…

One of Jimin's absolute favorite things was to take a stroll during autumn.

There's this road near his house that he remembers walking down quite a bit. It was cobblestone; it led to the community park. He and his mother would go there almost every day after school when he was a child to play there during every season, and Jimin remembers loving how the tall, prestigious trees alongside the walkway towered over and shadowed them carefully as they sauntered by.

As he got older (starting around ten years old), Jimin would sometimes just go back to that cobblestone pathway and walk to the park by himself. It brought back good memories of him and his Mother (Good memories of her were what he needed, because his mother had passed away at that point, so good memories were quite rare.), and Jimin liked how it was always so peacefully quiet and he could just think.

He would go there several times during each season and just walk and wonder. No one ever really found out about it. No one ever came and walked with him.

And Jimin remembers that his absolute favorite times to walk on that path were during autumn.

During autumn, the towering trees were colored with crimson red, chocolate brown, bright yellow, and pumpkin orange leaves, and the wind was cool but not cold, gently pushing away the dry, suffocating heat of summer that he hated so much. The air was thick with a lovely scent he could only describe as "The Approach of Fall", and everything just seemed to be quieting down.

Jimin adored it.

He felt so at peace with himself and the world during those autumn walks.

And now, quite a few years later, Jimin smells that "autumn" smell and feels that cool breeze, and he opens his eyes.

There they are.

Those giant, colorful oak trees are towering above him. Through their red, orange, brown, and yellow leaves streams dim autumn sunlight.

But the strange thing is, Jimin doesn't actually remember walking along the path. And, he doesn't remember actually falling asleep.

…He doesn't actually remember anything, really.

His memories of what happened before he awoke are just a foggy haze that he can't seem to break through all of a sudden.

But for some reason, he's not scared.

He just takes a deep inhale of that autumn air and looks around.

The pathway is exactly like he remembers it. A small breeze suddenly starts up, carries a few dead leaves across the cobblestone (causing an eerie, scratchy sort of noise), and twirls his open jacket. He pulls the fabric closer around his thin body as the chilliness hits him.

Nothing seems out of the ordinary.

Except, of course, for the fact that he has no idea how he got where he is and the fact that it's dead quiet.

Eerily quiet.

Jimin suddenly shivers.

Quickly, he moves to get up before he realizes he's seated on a bench. It's a bench he remembers being on the side of the path, and sometimes he would sit there when he was younger and just look up at the sky and stare in awe at Nature.

Jimin his lips and vaguely wonders how he managed to fall asleep on that bench; he remembers that it was rather uncomfortable.

Soon, he's standing up (a bit shakily), and he begins carefully walking forward. The cobblestone gives a familiar tap-tap beneath his feet and he gets a sudden, overwhelming sense of nostalgia.

He misses his childhood days.

He misses the days when he was innocent and his life hadn't been corrupted.

Jimin closes his eyes, pauses in his sauntering, and he lifts his pale face to the incoming breeze.

He inhales again.

"Jimin."

Jimin flies around.

He blinks.

He knows that he is dreaming.

"M-mom…?"

Jimin's mother stands in front of her son, smiling softly, dressed in a nice sweater and a long blue skirt. Her hands are tucked in her sweater's pockets calmly. She looks healthy, happy. (Like how Jimin always tries to remember his Mother; he hates remembering her sick like she was the last few years of her life.)

"Hi, Jimin," his mother speaks gently, and her smile grows almost unnoticeably as her eyes sparkle.

Jimin feels his heart about to burst, and his stomach and chest feel heavy.

His brown eyes fill with tears.

"M-mom…" Jimin takes one step forward and holds out a hand. "W-why—how—?"

Suddenly, Jimin stops. He swallows loudly and heavily.

"You're dead."

His mother's happy, soft smile turns sad at her son's words.

"I know."

Jimin takes a shaky breath in. He looks down and clutches his arms around himself suddenly, desperate for any form of comfort.

This is insane.

His Mother died years ago. Jimin hadn't set foot on the cobblestone pathway he was now on by his house for over several months. It was summertime, not autumn.

This was not real.

Jimin concludes that he is dreaming.

He looks up, his lips, and allows a few tears to escape his eyes as he whispers out,

"I've missed you, mom."

Suddenly, she takes her hands out of her pockets and walks forward. Next thing he knows, Jimin is being engulfed by his Mother in an embrace.

Shivers bombard Jimin's body and he clenches his eyes shut and doesn't wrap his arms around his Mother in return because the hug feels so real, but Jimin knows it's not and he's afraid that if he even so much as thinks about hugging his mother the woman will disappear and Jimin will start missing her desperately all over again.

After a few moments, she pulls away from her son. She continues holding the young man's shoulders as she stares sadly at his lowered face.

"Jimin, look at me."

Jimin swallows.

He looks up slowly.

"Dreams aren't supposed to feel this real," he says, and he hates himself for a moment.

Out of all the things he's been dying for one more moment to tell his mother, that's what comes out of .

She ignores Jimin's comment and instead replies,

"I check up on you every day. I've watched you this whole past year."

Jimin feels a sudden rush of shame.

That means that his mother saw the all the partying and booze the lying and the hating in the past year. She saw all of his confusion and just how lost he's been. How much of a let down and hypocrite he's turned in to (according to all of his friends).

Of course, with all of these thoughts racing through his brain, Jimin's mother's next words almost knock the boy off of his feet.

"I am so proud of you."

Jimin's head snaps up.

More tears are falling now and he doesn't try to stop them.

"Why?" Jimin squeaks; the word comes out so pitifully and Jimin feels like a child again; lost and alone and needing his mother.

Jimin's mother smiles at her son; it's as if she knows every thought racing through the boy's brain. "Because you're wonderful, Jimin."

Jimin clenches his eyes shut as a sudden barrage of tears begins. He shakes his head desperately and whimpers a little.

No, no, no.

He doesn't want this to be happening. He can't take his mother saying those words. He knows he's not wonderful, but he hates himself because he doesn't really want to make the changes to be wonderful.

"M-mother…" A short sob. "P-please just leave."

He is so glad his eyes were closed as the words came out of his lips. He doesn't know if he could have handled seeing his Mother's face after what he said.

At first, there was only a thoughtful silence.

Then…

"We all have rough patches in our lives, Jimin. You've made mistakes; that doesn't make you any less of a person. We all, as humans, make mistakes. I understand. Please don't worry. You'll get through this."

It happens right then.

Jimin lets out a huge sob, and feelings of joy, sorrow, inner agony, loathing, and gratefulness burst forth, and he falls into his Mother's arms and cries.

She sadly buries her face into her son's dark hair and wraps her arms around the shivering boy. She waits as Jimin's tears run their course, and then she lets silence sit for a few minutes as Jimin composes his thoughts.

"Please tell me why I'm here. Why you're here," Jimin whispers, still with his face pressed against his mother's sweater (it was a light blue sweater; Jimin remembers it because he got it for his mother's birthday when he was 9 and was so happy because his mother loved it and wore it as much as she could) and his arms still wrapped around the woman, as well.

She pauses.

Slowly, so slowly, she pulls away from Jimin. Jimin frowns at looks into his mother's eyes, and he feels his heart pound a little faster as he spots the tears rolling down his mother's cheeks.

Then, she speaks.

"Jimin...you're dead."