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J U N G K O O K
I remember the scene so clearly, it kept replaying in my head.
I remember it so well.
So damn well I still refuse to process it happened.
I remember everything straight from the moment in the room with Jimin-hyung when he connected our foreheads. I remember how I felt awfully nervous because I had a fluttery feeling from the proximity, but a magnitude of worry and fear was there too once he said his words.
I remember I felt more scared once he opened his eyes to meet my gaze and gave me his journal. And the reason was because Park Jimin would never let anyone worry about him, so he kept it all in his hidden words which were penned away in the pale brown book. So the fact that he decided to give it to me, himself?
I was scared because there he was, placing his collection of unsaid words in my hands. It was something he would never do, ever. So I could feel something was deeply and gravely wrong, and remembering how heavy the moment was, with his tears and broken gaze, and his words, it hurt me.
I remember how he leaned in, and how I could almost feel his tears rolling down his face. I remembered how he leaned in and showed that I was so important to him. I was so surprised at the gesture and I knew he knew I was surprised. And I knew he was aware of that as well. Yet nothing was said about it because honestly, I could tell he was in pain and that saying it would somehow hurt him more.
I remembered how he looked at me before smiling brightly yet sadly, still crying, before leaving his room.
It hurts thinking back to then, because in a way it felt like he knew this would happen and he was...he was saying goodbye.
Like he was saying goodbye for real and for it all.
I remember him requesting to Namjoon-hyung to let him sing the last few lines of Spring Day right before the end of the concert. His request was to be questioned but Namjoon-hyung, like me, detected something very heart-wrenching about his pleading look.
Hearing his shaking 'Please.', our leader and I looked at one another, confusion on our face. He was allowed but something disturbed us then. Especially me.
Because the pleading look he gave reminded me of the broken gaze he showed me back at his room. They looked related and that haunted me.
I pretended like everything was okay and that it was only a special extra verse by a different member. But no, things were wrong. I couldn't be okay at all.
He cried. Nobody cries unless something is wrong.
I was hurting inside. I was worried and scared. His tears, his stare at me, and his words back at his room kept replaying in my head.
I couldn't get it off my mind. Something felt too wrong.
I just never knew how wrong it really was. Not until we ended with Spring Day.
After the song had ended and the guitar and drums carried on for a while, we went around our stage and thanked our fans.
I remember all those cheers. Emerging from our beloved ARMY. Jimin-hyung went down to the crowd and communicated with as many of them as he could. He looked so happy, so excited, yet all the more he was broken inside.
And I didn't even know why until looking back on the whole incident.
When the drums stopped and the guitars began to fade, he sang the final verse again.
And in those twenty two seconds, it happened.
I remember it all.
By the time the song was nearing its end, Jimin-hyung went to the front stage and we stayed at the back smiling and watching him.
However, I wasn't okay. That moment in the room refuses to leave me alone and it makes me undoubtedly disturbed, concerned and scared.
I tried telling myself that everything will be fine. I was just overthinking. It will all be fine.
"Until this cold winter ends," he looked at the crowd of our beloved ARMY cheering for the sweet angel before them.
"And the spring comes again," I saw his tears roll down his face. I saw it from him slightly turn to the side.
"Until flowers, they bloom again," and then his head turned to our direction. My eyes widened as I was looking at his full face now. His eyes were red and tears were falling down. My chest hurt seeing my adored hyung like that.
Until there it was, a pause caused by such a dreadful deed.
Six shots fired. All at Jimin. Three at his front and three from his back.
Everything around me went void and cold at that moment.
All I could hear was the voices of the horrified ARMY muffled away as Jimin's shaking breath from the microphone and the silence filled my ears.
All I could see was him.
His tears, rolling away, tired of being held in.
His eyes turning dull, with the sight of hidden pain giving up.
His lips, where he held his screams by biting on them so many times till they were swollen.
His wounds, physical and emotional.
I saw him.
Only him.
The broken him.
"Please wait for me, and stay where you are." He was shaking on stage, red fillling up his shirt at an alarming rate. Amidst it all, he continued. He continued and that was when I realised.
He was looking directly at me.
His eyes met mine.
And that was when I realised one more thing, he sang the exact same lyrics in his room.
He looked at me with the same gaze he gave me then.
Broken. Hurt. Tired.
Keeping in all the pieces together but still falling apart.
Hurt from something that tears him apart so much.
Tired of hiding it all behind to a point where the pieces just fell apart on their own, in signs of his teardrops.
Unable to keep it in any longer, pieces crumbling down slowly, uncontrollably, and painfully.
It was all reflected in the same gaze.
And it was at me.
It was at me. Meaning I was a part of this.
He was looking at me specifically and nobody else and held that gaze for five more seconds but felt long enough, to know that I played a big role in the shit Jimin-hyung has had to go through and most probably is still going through.
"Please stay where you are." He flashed a weak smile at me while still looking at me.
And that is when I knew.
I made this mess. I hurt him. I destroyed him.
I hurt Jimin-hyung.
I stood there, frozen in my spot. I wanted to move.
It was when he closed his eyes and dropped down, motionless, that I could feel myself breathe unsteadily.
No, no. No, this can't be happening.
That was the only thought that kept going through my mind.
I felt myself slowly losing my senses and my body going numb. I couldn't feel a thing or hear anything. All I could see was Jimin laying still on a red puddle and all I could smell was the stench of blood ahead of me. My throat was dry and every cell of my body just stopped functioning.
I was convincing myself that it was all a dream.
It had to be one right?
This was just a stupid, fucked up nightmare to toy with my mind on a night prior to which must have had a lot of stress thrown at me.
Right?
I could feel myself shaking when these thoughts slowly drowned out when I found no way to wake up no matter how hard I tried.
My still state snapped off when the ARMY screeched in horror, alarmed.
I ran forward before anyone could, and held his face in my palms and placing his soft, fluffy, brushable, dirty blonde hair on my lap.
I was about to call out to him until I stopped for a second as I saw his face.
The expression haunted me.
Due to him falling his eyes were slightly open but weren't moving or responding to the lights around. The moment his head rested on my lap his eyelids fell and his eyes were closed.
But that's not what haunted me.
He looked so broken.
So worn out.
So destroyed.
And yet,
He was smiling.
He seemed peaceful.
He looked happy.
Happy that he was going to...going to..
Heck I can't even complete that.
That's what haunted me.
He looked so much at ease it's almost like he's glad it happened to him.
He looked so tired and broken yet so happy and in peace that it scared me to god knows what.
I looked at his once white t-shirt now tainted with strong dark red.
I shook his face as gently as I could.
"J-Jimin-ssi? Wake up. It's me Jungkook-ah. Your Jungkook-ah."
Nothing.
I tried again. "C'mon Jiminie-hyung, don't do this. You're scaring me. P-please Jimin-hyung."
Nothing.
I could feel all the members finally reach beside me and hold onto him but I held his face and his body closer to my own, and refused to let go of him. I could hear them try and scream his name, trying to keep him concious but I was still unable to register it all. All I knew is that I might be losing him and I didn't want to.
I wanted to be convinced this wasn't true. I refused to interpret any of this and I don't want to believe this is happening simply because I can't.
And so, I broke down and tried one more time with a cracked and broken voice. They say the third time's the charm for a reason right?
"Park Jimin. You better get up right now and confirm this as some kind of prank or I'm going to lose it. You're scaring me to shit right now and it's not funny."
I tried to shout it or scream it as loud and stern as I could, but my voice cracked so much that it was expressing how utterly helpless I felt at this internally twisting scene. Yet I still continued and there was just so much and I couldn't handle it as I cried into the mystical creation that was him.
Begging for him to hear me and waiting for him to magically wake up and laugh it off as we would hit him for scaring us like that.
But it never happened.
And so here I am with the other members and Bang Si Hyuk PD-nim, at the hospital nearest to the concert, waiting a few metres away from the Emergency Unit where the doctors are working on his crtitical stability, as I pray for him to survive.
To be saved.
To go on.
To live.
I prayed so hard that if the Lord doesn't hear me I would probably go insane and throw a riot against the belief that He exists.
Trauma lurked around the air, and mostly around me. Nobody could believe any of this happened. I couldn't either.
Nothing goes as planned.
I learnt that two hours ago.
I was the youngest but that is not at all why I had found it the most difficult task to be a bit more mature so I could keep myself in control and not barge myself in there to see him myself. That may have played a small part even if I am 21 years old but it isn't just because of that.
It's hard because he is one of the most important people I've known and he had gotten caught in a war against the cruelty of terrorists in a world like ours, and it was hard because it scared me, further because something told me he had wanted to lose and that's why he nearly did.
The thought sends me shivers.
I shouldn't think so negatively.
I should pray instead.
And so I resumed.
I prayed and prayed and prayed, and I only paused when a lady in a familiar white coat emerged outside.