Spring Day 轉; knj + ksj

Different yet the Same

Slap.

That was the first thing I did to Jimin as soon as I saw him at his apartment. Taehyung had told me that Jimin had been released from the hospital after several days. Taehyung was living with Jimin and apparently pushed away all of his commitments to stay with Jimin.

"How could you be so stupid?" I scolded him after slapping his face. "Do you even know how worried we all were?"

Even though Taehyung was yelling at me for being so hasty, I knew Jimin needed a wake-up call. He needed to know that there were people who wanted him to live and stay. Jimin looked at me with a pair of hurtful, remorseful eyes. His hair was back to the colour of black, one shade that I wasn't used to seeing him in. He always had colourful hair when we were BTS. His jawline was sharper than ever and his cheeks were particularly hollow. He looked almost like a skeleton; this wasn't the Jimin I knew. His eye bags were also extremely dark and heavy and overall, he just looked . . . dead. Dead on the outside and inside.

"Stupid . . .?" he muttered quietly to himself while casting his gaze down. "It's pointless . . . everything is just . . . pointless."

"What do you mean by it's pointless?" I bellowed and grabbed him by the wrist before he could walk away. I could feel the deep scars running across his wrists and he must have sensed that for he pulled away from me and tugged his sleeve further to his hands to cover his scars.

"You wouldn't understand," he remarked. "You'd never understand, especially when you're born to be talented. For talentless people like me . . . you'd never get it."

Then Jimin walked away, leading Taehyung to follow him and call after him, "Jimin! Where are you going?" Taehyung quickly told me, "Namjoon I think it's best if you leave for today."

I left, not understanding what Jimin meant. Talentless people like him? What was he even talking about? He was so talented in dancing and though he often struggled with singing, his voice was still very unique. He was born with that unique voice. I wouldn't be able to sing anything that well with all the vocal training I had.

I couldn't ask Taehyung for clarification because he had to be by Jimin's side. I didn't want to bother Hoseok because he was already struggling internally. I couldn't get a hold of Yoongi who hadn't replied to any of my messages. I suspected that he had changed phone numbers after military training had been completed. As for Jungkook, last I heard, he went to the States to study filmography and photography. I was left to resolve Jimin's question by myself.

I wouldn't say that Jimin and I were very close, but we weren't that distant with one another. The two of us always seemed to have kept a professional relationship. He was still polite to me, more so than Jungkook. He was always thinking about others first before himself like how he started BTS' gift giving tradition for birthdays. Even when Jimin was having trouble singing some songs, he would practice by himself for hours and hours until he could get them right. It was true that he didn't pick up techniques or concepts as fast as Jungkook; however, Jimin definitely tried harder than any of us combined and he barely complained.

Yoongi, Hoseok, and I were the complainers out of the bunch. Although Hoseok had a happy, glowy exterior, he was pessimistic like Yoongi and me. The three of us would grumble our frustrations aloud, whereas the others were the type to bottle those up. I was, perhaps, the worst out of the three. Whenever I was bothered, I'd just let my thoughts go unfiltered. Often, I admired how Jimin could control his feelings so well.

I never questioned what Jimin's outlet was for his frustrations. I should have asked, as a leader. Like Jimin pointed out, I probably wouldn't understand his feelings. I'd like to slowly understand them though. After all, Jimin is likely feeling this way because of my doing. I was pushing us too hard. I was only caring about the results and ignored the path to those results. As long as the numbers increased for our followers, our album sales, and more, everything would be fine.