Jimin got up, nothing pushing him to do so.
It was him who had woken himself up, without the need of a night terror to alarm his awareness or what had been within it.
It was just him,
Laid against Taehyung.
Taehyung who was very keen with his attention towards Jimin.
Taehyung didn't mean to be strange or obsessive.
He was just observing, with the aura Jimin gave him.
Taehyung hadn't been moving much though, which had left Jimin to expect him to still be asleep.
He lifted up, looking over at Taehyung.
Taehyung looked back.
Which startled Jimin who almost chose to pretend he had not looked at all.
Because he was afraid of being caught.
Caught doing nothing really, but it was still threatening that Jimin might lose whatever Taehyung had been right now.
Mindful, collective, amiable,
Good.
Taehyung looked upset. But it did not bring the terror to Jimin, but rather an oppressing amount of worry.
"Morning." Jimin smiled. He drew back to remain distant and considerate of Taehyung's ability to be prone to remoteness.
Taehyung nodded, smiling.
No morning back.
Maybe he was too tired.
"Um. Did you sleep well?" Jimin poked at Taehyung collarbone, already forgetting his consideration.
Taehyung sighed, shaking his head.
He held onto Jimin's hand, pressing it down.
"No."
Jimin tapped his free fingers at Taehyung's chest.
Taehyung was casually blunt and vague with his answers.
He must not want to talk.
"No? How come?" Jimin needed to.
A way to alternate his continuous manners with terrorizing himself over Taehyung thrashing out with something much more violent than before.
So he was hoping Taehyung had slept as well as him.
Relaxed, laying with him.
That way they'd both remain tranquil.
"I do not know. I never do." Taehyung was good with eye correlation. It was hard for Jimin to look back because of the shaken look on Taehyung's face.
He looked distraught, forsaken.
Maybe Taehyung knew of Jimin's fear and it became demeaning. It might have given Taehyung a further disdain for himself.
"What's wrong?" Jimin sat up, rubbing at Taehyung's cheek.
Taehyung fell back into the hand.
He was trusted. For now. It was one of the very few blessings Jimin could give him.
And it would not even last.
"I am just thinking." Taehyung mumbled.
Thinking usually meant harm.
To anyone who influenced that.
"About?" Jimin sat up on his arm, his hand resting back at Taehyung's chest.
Taehyung bit his lip.
It should not be so chastening to tell, though it was for Taehyung who would almost always dismiss any talk about himself.
It was not that he had felt resent if he were to try to tell Jimin what his reason was.
It was simply something he usually kept to himself.
"Me." He had the mistake of letting out the answer, and even more of a fault once he saw Jimin's mouth open to respond.
"Oh."
Good. No questions.
Taehyung admitted to his self-hate and self-remorse.
He might have wanted a more concerning response.
But who was Taehyung to ask for concern.
And though he knew Jimin wouldn't understand Taehyung's self-loathing, he knew it made a similar point.
It was likely that the thought of himself would revert his behaviors.
Make him spiteful, sadistic, baleful.
But Jimin would lay there until Taehyung would change, and hurt him.
He wanted the good to last.
"Jimin, why do you think I am like this?" The despondent way of asking had Jimin panicking to find a way to appease Taehyung.
He could hardly handle a sensitive conversation with himself, let alone with Taehyung.
"I don't know. Chemical imbalance in the brain?" Jimin cocked his head to lay on his hand and continue to trace around Taehyung's chest.
Taehyung looked at Jimin, until it became forbearing to do so.
And he sobbed.
Jimin sat further up, looking closer at Taehyung to hold his face.
Taehyung pulled his hands away, dipping down to cry in his own.
"I don't want to be like this Jimin. I don't like feeling like this."
"Wai- Hey, Taehy-"
"But you made me this way. Why would you do that?" Taehyung looked up.
This Taehyung had to be a fourth persona.
Nobody enveloped inside of Taehyung would cry like this.
It made him vulnerable.
Vulnerable to be hurt, much like Taehyung would do to Jimin whenever he cried.
Whenever Jimin begged. For forgiveness, change,
Mercy.
Taehyung would not cry because he was hurt or distressed.
Especially within himself.
So what was his reason?
"Me? I didn't do this-" Jimin held at Taehyung's hands to try to keep them from his face.
So he could see him.
"You did Jimin." Taehyung huffed at his tears, his crying making Jimin feel guilty for denying.
He did not agree with Taehyung whenever he lifted up to ask about it, but he did want a resolve.
"How? What can I do differently then?" Jimin had his head waving around to follow Taehyung, who would not stop turning away.
"Your fucking memory Jimin, I cannot keep trying to explain to you how or what you can do differently." It always had to do with Jimin's memory. Jimin just hated hearing it be said again.
"I'm trying to remember, I promise Taehyung. Look at me-" Jimin finally found his hands back at Taehyung face.
He sighed.
"I am trying. I will remember. I am doing well! I am getting better!" And Jimin was.
His only error was how easily he could forget again.
"Your remembrance is too ill Jimin." It wasn't quick enough. Not to maintain the time of the given righteousness Taehyung and the others had tried to show to Jimin.
"Then tell me." If it was such an issue, then Taehyung should just tell Jimin at this point.
"I can't-"
"Right now. What can I remember right now Taehyung?" Jimin hovered over Taehyung, who's eyes still teared up from the closeness.
Taehyung stared.
He couldn't pick out one thing. There were way too many things Jimin needed to remember.
It was until Jimin began to show consideration and regret, for Taehyung to find something to suggest.
More than one.
"Me. Why did you want a good moment with me? Why did you run with the intention of coming back? Why can't you find yourself wanting to get away from me and the shit I do? Why do you want people to hurt you?" Taehyung was not imprecise, he was very clear with his queries and the answers he wanted.
It was hypocritical though to expect an honest response.
Jimin sat back.
The blow between sobs might have been a way to make Jimin believe Taehyung had the sore thought of only himself, not Jimin.
It was always about Jimin though.
Whatever he did wrong.
"I wanted a good moment because that is what I want to remember you as. And I do not want to be hurt. I hate everything about being hurt-"
"You can remember me from what you already have from before you came here." Taehyung was tightening himself to strain away from the infliction of any harm onto Jimin.
Taehyung would let it out through words instead.
Just talking.
"What the fuck do you think I have been doing? But I get punished for doing so." Jimin was not punished, it was just a poor mistake within what the others had been sworn to do.
Accidents, with the full intentions of doing so.
"Then why come back? Why make the people around you grown to these behaviors?" Taehyung's eyes brimmed the look of vexation and brutality.
But he was collected. He could change.
Stop.
"You talk to me like I had you as my own child and raised you, or as if I made you as some sculpture and I gave it a life with a personality. Listen to yourself, it is not logical." To Jimin, it wasn't.
No, it was illogical.
That shit was a whimsical myth, but the story and ideals behind it was very real and had the truth written better than what Taehyung could have ever shown.
"No, but your analogy is better than mine." Taehyung's crying had progressively stopped, the strenuous restriction within himself aiding him to do so.
"My- It was not a fucking analogy." Jimin pushed at Taehyung's chest, gesturing with the disapproval of the accusation.
"You saying that tells me that you understand what I fucking tell you, but your doctors have you sick and bent over their fucking knees with their bullshit of what is real and what is not." Taehyung could not blame Jimin for the abuse of the doctors, that had been far worse than what Taehyung had done.
The doctors had drained Jimin of his physical and mental life.
Taehyung and the others had just simply led the physical pain.
"They helped m-"
"Helped you what? Diminish the people that you love, again? Is that what you call that?" Taehyung had himself pulling at Jimin's arm, a discerning glare having Jimin prone enough to guilt and not fuss away.
There, Jimin saw their good moment falling away.
"I didn't diminish anyone Taehyung, I was sent away because I had no family to plead to as a mental patient." Jimin was mental and had no family. That much was correct.
But most of Jimin's telling would still be wrong. His perception of time was deranged.
He still had people who cared for him.
Before. Just not family of blood.
"No Jimin, far from it." Taehyung had his use of tones and coercing, enough for Jimin to continue to shake his head and deny.
"I know my life Taehyun-"
"Why do you like to be hurt." Taehyung was irritated by Jimin's need to be moral and to never be wrong.
So he asked again, a change in mind.
And with truth, Taehyung knew Jimin better than Jimin did himself.
That's what the doctors helped with.
"I said I don-"
"Why. Do you. Like. To be hurt, Jimin." Taehyung had to already stress through his words, forbid if he had to repeat himself after that.
So Jimin gave in.
"...Because I deserve it."
Taehyung sat up entirely to meet up at Jimin.
Who was guilted into giving away his shame.
Something he had been insecure with and would have been loyal enough to keep it to himself.
But he fucking deserved it.
"Why? Why do we have the job of hurting you?" Taehyung let Jimin go, rubbing back to caress the redness of his grip.
"You don't-" Jimin shook his head.
"We do. You gave us this job."
"I di-"
"Why do you deserve it Jimin?" Taehyung hushed, asking again.
Jimin's eyes gave Taehyung a lucid understanding as to how hard it was for Jimin to admit it, along with a reason.
"Because I did something bad, I guess." Jimin shrugged.
It was half of his reasoning.
The rest was meant to be for himself and himself only.
"What did you do?" Taehyung held up at Jimin's cheeks.
"...I have no idea." Jimin sniveled, trembling to hold back at Taehyung's wrists and shuffle away into his hands.
"You just explained to me that you know your life. You say were sent away for no crime. So what would someone 'innocent' have done to deserve harm." Taehyung whispered, Jimin pulling away to lash out.
"I do not fucking know-!"
"Don't raise your voice, let us talk." Taehyung worked his words well enough for Jimin to settle again and lean back into his hands.
All he wanted right now was to understand.
"I didn't want to come here." Jimin shook his head again.
Taehyung knew that. It was still nice for Jimin to be truthful about it.
"Then why did you get in the car and walk through my front door?" The use of specified queries did not confuse Jimin as much as they use to, and it allowed Jimin to be more and more willing to answer.
"I had no place else to go. I would wilt away." Jimin wiped his eyes.
"But don't you deserve it?"
Jimin stared at Taehyung, who again managed to play Jimin with his own words.
"You intrigued me." There, the full truth.
"Why? Did you want me to cause the pain instead?" Taehyung was not being kind like he should have been right now.
He was finding a way to belittle Jimin again, even though Jimin had already been willingly honest.
"I did not make you do shit, I did not know what the fuck I was signing up for." Jimin had been uncomfortably sat in Taehyung's lap, and would have lifted away if Taehyung did not unknowingly convince him not to.
"But you came back." Taehyung mentioned.
"You came to me." Jimin remarked.
"You made me."
"I am not your creato-"
"Friend. Was." Taehyung was being clearer now.
Jimin just needed the ability to understand.
"Taehyung I do not want to think right now-"
"You never do." Taehyung scoffed.
Jimin frowned. He was fed up.
"Why don't you just cut me then, I know you're going to." Jimin shoved back at Taehyung's shoulders.
He was tired of arguing.
Taehyung let go, his expression saddening.
That hurt.
"Why would you say that."
"What? You said it's your job to hurt me, fine. If I make you do it, I'll make you do it now. Why the fuck not." Jimin taunted Taehyung. He wanted to frustrate him.
Because really, why not?
"I am not going t-" Taehyung stopped.
Jimin looked at him. All he had was the thought of Taehyung finding a knife that had the sudden appearance somewhere, and him taking it to Jimin's throat.
And he did, Taehyung having the knife right at Jimin's neck.
Jimin gasped, still shaken by the brisk behavior.
"That's what you thought of. I know who I am and what I am doing Jimin." Taehyung glared.
"How did you- Do you always know this shit!?" Jimin's head bent back to shove away from the knife.
"No. Only when I need to." Taehyung pulled it away nevertheless.
"What, so I tell you to and The Hatter chooses to keep away? Taehyung gets to stay Taehyung? Is that how this works?" Jimin was being irrationally bothersome.
But Taehyung had the patience.
"No, you kept me from him." Taehyung was giving definite answers.
It was good for Jimin's tolerance.
"How!? That does not eve-"
"I don't know myself, Jimin." He didn't. He hardly knew much of The Hatter anyhow.
But it was getting hard to continue to eye down at Taehyung who now had a hard hold at Jimin's waist.
Taehyung was not angry, but he had the apprising look that told Jimin that he should be mindful.
And Jimin knew that he had to find himself able to step away and calmly speak to Taehyung.
So that is what he did.
"What did you mean by friend, Taehyung? I do not remember being your friend." Jimin shuddered, slouching back into Taehyung's lap.
"I know. That is the problem. You don't remember any of us."
Jimin bit his lip, grasping onto Taehyung's arms.
"I want to remember. Why can't you make it easy for me? Seokjin di-" Taehyung threw his hand over Jimin's mouth.
Jimin choked, falling back onto the bed.
"Fuck Jimin! You mean to tell me that you could hardly remember the White Rabbit after multiple occurrences, yet you can remember his name after two!?" Taehyung let go, looking around the room.
"What? Isn't that a good thing!?" Jimin struggled out from beneath the hand.
"No! We swore you'd forget his name and had him well away until you were to say anything. Your memory is so poor that we thought you never would. But of course you had to fucking remember that." Taehyung looked back down to Jimin.
"Why is that a problem? Isn't he like you?"
"No, no. Jimin, I am far beyond care over myself, but he is not very fond of you, or Hoseok. He is nothing like me." Taehyung finally stood, grabbing back at the knife that was thrown onto a pillow.
"Hoseok? Isn't he dea-" Jimin flinched, following Taehyung's pull at his arm.
"No, no he is not."
Hoseok was not the issue though.
Jimin hid behind Taehyung, clutching onto him once the door to the room threw itself open.
"Taehyung. The Red King." The man pointed outside of the room.
Taehyung looked over to the swinging door,
Hoseok standing at the frame with a cracking face.