Jungkook could feel the slight soggy texture of his long bang as it fell over his eyes in the pure darkness. Not bothering to push it off instantly, his shoulder shuddered uncontrollably over and over. It only calmed down a little when he tried to breathe properly, in and out in the air confined space. But then it was back again. It was so hard to breathe. Though, it wasn’t like the boy was trapped in such an uncomfortable space with no choice, heck, this was just a sheet of blanket that he could flip open easily.

Then again, his hands felt too weak to do so now, who cares about all the muscles he’s built over the years? They were worthless at this point, the tears that fell from his eyes stinged. He was in for so long that he couldn’t keep track of time, although it’s not like he ever did try to. In this state he didn’t care about anything else, he didn’t want to think about anything else. He could visual picture his own eyes that are now tainted in pinkish red as if bloodshot eyes from staying up weren’t enough to punish the actions he’d put on his body.

Nose swollen in a congeal texture compared to usual, and is probably in almost the same exact shade of his eyes, only his unfocused pupil and rings around it are to be disbarred from the pigmentation. Maybe even his lips, those used-to-be cherry red lips that are delightful as a view when he smiles are now in a dying rose color and dead skins peeling off here and there from dehydration, making him brush the two thin lines against each other continuously at the sensations of dried skin intersecting from time to time.

His throat felt like it could be as dry as his chapped lips, it was aching so much for fresh water as if there’s tiny unknown creatures down at his esophagus scratching endlessly at just one place. As he opened his mouth for hot warm air to breath out, the feeling of sticky saliva stretching out a string from the top row of his white shiny aligned teeths to the bottom row made his face scrunch in revolt. But it didn't stop him from running his tongue over it, wishing for the syrupy feeling to be gone soon as he swallowed.

He sniffs hard to get rid of the clogged jumble in his nose only to be meet with more discomfort in the back of his mouth. As much as it would’ve disgust him normally, now he doesn’t care, he wouldn’t. It wasn’t just the physical that hurt him, something inside hurt so much more that he couldn’t describe if he’d tried.

The tears that ran down from the side of one eye to his other eyes as he laid sideways was the only thing that he’d bother to clean.

He squeezes his eyes shut as tight as possible, to either make himself feel better about leaking more tears out or any other reasons that he couldn’t comprehend that may stand for this particular action, he didn’t know.

He used the rough fabric of his sleeve to swipe across in a horizontal line while pushing his brown highlighted bangs out of the way.

The rough texture had made his eyes want more attention as it itched, bringing Jungkook’s hands up again to rub at it. But this time he decides to use his palm directly for less pain, though it still hurt, he couldn’t stop. Rubbing his palm over the surface of his closed pink eyes in different pace each time. Speeding up when it tickled, and softened when it started to sting. The itchy-ness made it feel like an addiction. He wanted to stop though, he knew this wasn’t good. The exchange of swollen and ruined eyes versus a few second of freedom away from the itch didn’t seem much the worth.

Jungkook also thought it was funny how he could still be concerned about that type of stuff in this situation, almost making him smile with mockery at his pathetic self, almost.

He could’ve even dry laughed, but that won’t happen easily now as the only sounds that could be made are probably incoherent sobs he tried to conceal.

The warm air was getting too much, aside from his tears, the heat has already made Jungkook’s hair wet from humidity. Jungkook reaches one hand over while the other rested on his two eyes, blocking its vision. The cold air seeped in slowly and spread all over into Jungkook’s ‘safe-space’ along with the slightly dimmed light of the afternoon sun. It’s not as suffocating as it was now with air coming in, the chilly air had Jungkook shivering suddenly.

The air felt like teeny tiny snakes that crawled in smoothly, its scales left cool patches over its path that relieved Jungkook’s sense until it decided to bite down hard with the coldness piercing into him and that’s when it hits Jungkook’s nerve systems.

He immediately closes the little gap he’d opened only for just mere seconds. As hot air builds up again, he could feel his palate drying up with sore spots all around. Opening his mouth as it quivered slightly, Jungkook reaches his index finger in slowly and hits that one patch of swollen area which now felt like a wet piece of sponge with a layer of human meat texture mixed outside, and the sliminess of his spit adding on didn’t help much. After checking that in fact this is gonna be a pain later, he quickly takes the finger out of his mouth and in the littlest time wiped them against his white thick blanket roughly in disgust at himself.

His teeth unconsciously clenched together in a too tight for comfort way as he starts to grit them, feeling tears of anger streaming down. Only loosening up just a bit when his jaw felt like it was gonna break before his teeth even do.

Now biting down hard on his lips, his fingers swarmed around for something, anything to grab onto. Touching either the sheet or blanket, he doesn’t care, he held onto them hard. Most of his palms were covered by some kind of fabric expect little extents of it is left exposed for his nails to dig deeply into, leaving tiny curved marks that were too much of a bother for Jungkook to care at this moment.

____________________________________________Btw, I won't explain what situation made Jungkook cry because honestly, I do not know. Not because I didn't have anything idea of it, but because I guess I just wanted people to imagine for themselves. There's a lot of things that we don't know what makes a person sad, no matter what their status is.

Finally letting his bruised lips go to stop himself from lapping onto anything it could bite and express agony into, Jungkook breathed out small amount of air slowly at the beginning to calm himself. He could feel his eyes simultaneously opening wider in response as so many things were happening at once that he couldn’t comprehend. A small whimper made out of his mouth and he didn’t cover his mouth with his hands that had no energy with the nail cut pain, it wasn’t worth a try to him.

Even after moments of trying to calm himself down, his mind never stopped playing tricks with him. The thoughts and memories rushed back once again. Instead of letting it die down, Jungkook laps one hand over his mouth and let it open widely under the protection as if it was screaming so loud that there was pain. He felt like it though, screaming out loud like there’s no tomorrow just to loose his voice and maybe for the few second of relief from this suffering before it’ll just return and hunt him again.

“Jungkook?” A soft familiar voice called in the midst of small knocks being made on Jungkook’s hardwood door, the voice could’ve gone completely unnoticed by Jungkook’s zoned out mind if not for the mention of his own name.

Jungkook doesn’t respond however. He chooses to close his mouth instead, trying to keep calm by inhaling and exhaling slightly too fast with his mind fuzzed up, trying to find any escape route he could think of that won’t let him come in contact with anyone else. Hiccups starts to built up from his momentum of being cut off and he sniffs quickly as one hand moved to his chest to calm its racing heart that seemed like it was gonna jump out at any more excessive sounds made.

“Jungkook-ah? Are you still sleeping?” Jimin’s voice asked in a louder and more focused tone, sounding bit concerned but mostly curiosity.

“If you’re not gonna answer then I’m coming in.” Jimin declares in a carefree voice making Jungkook’s heart picking up its pace in nervousness.

It didn’t take long for Jimin to latch his hand on the door knob and twisting it open with ease, not shocking at all due to the fact it wasn’t locked. The younger was always too lazy to lock his own door while going to sleep. Plus, living in a dorm with six other grown men for years, it was better to keep the doors open than having to unlock it every single hour because of questions like “Do you have my…” or “Have you seen my…” Expect for private times here and there, but we don’t talk about that at this moment.

“What the? You’re gonna suffocate if you sleep like that. It’s too hot to be wrapping yourself up like a burrito, especially with those thick blanket covers.” Jimin says with a little chuckle at the end, not expecting for an answer as his small hands reached over to pull the big fluffy cover off of Jungkook’s hidden face.

Jungkook finally reacts with his two hands flying away from parts of his body to tug at the blanket harshly, feeling his fingers slipping from the grasp at first before he’s able to make a few more grabs for it to stabilize the slipping sheets as his breath fastens and hiccups interrupting it which had worsened everything.

“So you’re awake huh? Why don’t you get up for some breakfast first, or do you feel like me bringing it to you is better?”

“........”

“Don’t ignore me, come on, up up. It’s lunch time already, so honestly, you’d be eating branch.” Jimin tone seemed to be more rushed although there was a cheerful delighting tone mixed in fairly well. It made Jungkook a bit guilty that if he didn’t reply it would sadden the other, or even anger him so Jungkook tried to stop the hiccups and reply.

“I-I’m f-f-fine.” Jungkook had to choke out the words as his vocal cords were finally being used for the first time in forever after it being on shutdown for so long even as the owner of this gorgeous voice was awake for hours. Jungkook could obviously feel his words shaking and probably squeaked out like a mouse, bringing his self-esteem down even more.

“Jungkook?” Jimin’s voice was now full of concern as his eyebrows furrowed. Even if he couldn’t distinguish what words the other said but it was easy to tell by the younger’s tone of voice, this wasn’t normal.

“Hey boy, are you alright?” Jimin’s hand reached out to smooth across the blanket side that he’d suspected as the male’s back and felt him shaking under his touch but his movements doesn’t stop.

Jimin caresses that spot in slow motion, rubbing up and down to comfort the younger. The feeling of the other’s shaking body loosening up over time as the shaking lightens with audible little breaths had lightened up Jimin as well.

“You wanna talk?” Jimin says with a smile even though the other won’t see it, waiting for a response he rubbed his hand on the younger’s side continuously then it suddenly stopped.

Jungkook could hear his hyung’s footstep going away and he felt like cursing at himself. Why did he not respond to the other? It wouldn’t have been so hard, what the heck was wrong with him? Despite all the thoughts he found himself making up, he pulls the blanket off of his face in eeriness and hope of his hyung coming back, hoping the other just didn’t go away because he was tired of Jungkook’s pettiness.

Jungkook almost felt like wrapping himself up like a sushi roll again at that thought until he saw his cute little hyung’s figure at the door walking in with a tray. Jungkook forgets all about his appearance at the sight of Jimin meeting him with a soft fluffy smile that Jungkook didn’t know what he did to deserve this.

“Man, you look like a complete wreck,” Jimin said jokingly and Jungkook almost blushed in embarrassment from realization. Jungkook tried to open his mouth and speak but was quickly hushed with Jimin’s few ‘ah ah ah’ to mention him to keep quiet as he set the tray down on Jungkook’s nightstand.

“First of all, water is a human must need as your body is made up 70% of them.” Jimin starts to ramble on as he twisted a brand new bottle of water and the water almost leak out from Jimin squeezing the bottle too hard which surprised him that his instant reaction was to latch his plump lips toward the bottle mouth and drank a bit of its content before handing it over to Jungkook.

“What? Don’t look at me like that, at least now you know it's not poisoned. Or if it is, we die together.” Jimin said with a sarcastic tone at Jungkook who stared at the bottle of water weirdly then continues, “Do you want me to feed you or something?”

Jungkook doesn’t respond to that and only pouts his bottom lips out as he tried to stare into the blank air away from the elder. He hears Jimin sigh before a bottle appears right in front of his lips, inviting him to have sips at it. It wasn’t hard for Jungkook to accept it as his throat was already suffering and clear water was more than he could ask for.

“What a baby, looks like I’ll still have to take care of you for a long time.” Jimin ruffled the younger’s jumbled hair and grins widely at the younger who retreated his pouting lips to chew on it for a while before speaking up.

“‘m so…” Only half of his words seem to make out as the last syllable died off in a raspy whisper and a hiccup at the end.

“What?” Jimin asked with a hint of playfulness and smiled at how adorable the younger seemed to be now.

“‘m sorry…” Jungkook manages to speak louder this time before sniffing hard again as he stared into the air.

Jimin’s smile faded with concern written all over his face, frowning at the other with furrowed brows he asked again.

“Why? What makes you say that?”

“‘Cause,” Hiccup. “Don’t I look pathetic right now?” Jungkook sniffs again and felt tears threatening to slip once again even though he tried hard not to let it fall in front of Jimin.

“Oh my god, no. No.” Jimin quickly retorts as he cups the other’s cheeks in his small palm to make him face him, “Don’t say that. You’re so perfect and nothing else matters, don’t ever apologize for something you shouldn’t.” Jimin stares at Jungkook hard in the eyes before leaning in to touch both of their foreheads with a warm smile as his fingers smoothed across the other’s hair and into its locks as he caressed over certain spots lightly.

“To be honest, you do look like a wreck which I’ve said that before. But I love it, it’s adorable. And I’m the only one seeing it, it makes me even happier.”

“B-Bu-”

“Shshshsh,” Jimin hushes him while pulling away, “You don’t get to say anything after all you’ve told me, after all the times you tried to reassure me that I’m perfect.” The words almost come off as a whisper at the end of the sentence as Jimin felt his cheek heating up a bit at the sweet memories that he couldn’t ever forget.

“A m-man...only should cry t-three times in l-life…..” Jungkook would’ve burst out into tear right at his own sentence and Jimin could only laugh.

“Cheesus, why would you say that? You’re worse at making excuses than I am. Remember all the excuses I tried to make and you shut them all down just to remind me of who I am?” Jimin raises an eyebrow at that and leaned in to peck the younger’s forehead. “Stop copying every bad habit of mine, it’s not healthy.”

In normal states, Jungkook would’ve retorted but he couldn’t find the right words to say as tears slipped out again and he started to back off from the other. Trying to hide his face by curling his head into his own neck even though it was humanly impossible.

“Ah no no no,” Jimin tisked at the other and inched into the bed with the boy to the point where his whole *** is also sitting on the bed with Jungkook hiding his face right in front of him, though not without the company of Jimin’s hand rubbing the boy’s hair to comfort him.

“If you said that a man can only cry three times in their life, are you implying that females can cry for three thousand or even three million times?” Jimin starts to ramble again at the boy who still kept his head down but ears definitely open to hear every single word.

“It doesn’t matter baby, you can cry all you want. Everyone has their up and downs, everyone is one different individual with its own traits, and they’re not defined by the labels that've been put on them. Same goes with you, me, and all the others. We’re all grown men, but I think we all know we’ve broken the rule of crying three times in our lives.”

The words only make Jungkook feel like crying harder with Jimin’s marshmallow like caring mellow voice resonating in the silent room aside from his own little sniffs here and there.

“Well, I guess you don’t wanna eat now,” Jimin said as he veered over at the food he bought with the tray that’s been sitting on the nightstand. “Do you wanna...cuddle?” Jimin quickly flashes a smile at the younger who peeked his head up to make eye contact.

“...N-no….”

“What?” Jimin gasps dramatically with pouty lips, “Did you just refuse my offer to cuddle? No one ever rejects Park Jimin’s cuddling requests, how could you?” Jimin lifts his hand away from the other in order to cross his arm on his chest as he huffed in offense.

“N-no, I’m dir-dirty so……”