If only I could scream.
I can feel the rough hands clamping the metal mask over my lips, the sharp ends digging into the skin of my neck. My voice is like water— and darkness.
But silenced.
"Are you ready, Tzuyu?" My father says over my hazy vision, and I don't even have the strength to glance up. Violent shivers wreak havoc on my fragile body, making countless waves of pain and fade sweep from my head to the tips of my toes.
Did he really expect me to say something in this stupid muzzle that he'd put me over me like I was some kind of animal?
But even animals were treated better than this.
I keep willing for my face to fade away, to get this freaking mask off of me. It was choking— suffocating the air out from my throat. I wonder how long I would last— the minutes, the seconds.
I hope, like every single day, that this day is my last.
The only way to suspend me is with energy— nothing of physical matter. My body would go through metal and any other substances too easily.
My father never told me what he was going to try next. He was just so full of ideas that I never, for once, believed that he would spend a precious day thinking. A precious day for me to just be left alone, crying what I could on my cold, hard bed.
Was it wrong to say that was too good to be true?
My eyes are still closed when iciness surrounds my entire body— so cold and so unforgiving I instantly know what this experiment is going to be about.
There was only so much I could guess from icy water and me.
And as I learn later, electricity.
I wake up with my forehead sticky with perspiration, my breaths heavy and rushed. The inside of my mouth is dry and tastes of metal— like blood. As if the dream had left its trace as taste.
"I heard screaming."
Only then I realize that seven shadows surround the vicinity of my bed.
"Holy freaking—"
My hands barely cut off the curse from my lips as I push back onto the hot mattress, the pillow moist with my perspiration.
Oh my dear heavens, please let this be a dream.
But the intensity in V's gaze is too real and too intense for that to be true. Unable to take the silent interrogation I was going through, I quickly flip the blanket over my head so I couldn't see their faces.
What did they think of me? Was I screaming that much?
You had to be kidding me.
My body flickers, making the blanket go through empty space that had been me just a second ago. Which means, concealing myself with a blanket while I was fading wasn't going to be an option.
Dammit.
"Are you okay?" Hoseok pipes up, breaking the heavy silence between me and the seven of them. Its pretty clear that he knows I'm not, but I appreciated the effort, at least.
"Yeah. I'm fine. Completely fine. T-thanks— and uh, good night?"
Why in the freaking heck is my voice glitching?
"Good night my as—" Jin slaps a hand on Yoongi's mouth before he can continue, shooting the mint-haired man a ferocious glare. Then the venom is gone from his eyes in a second as he turns back to me.
"Are you sure that's true?"
Yoongi gets Jin's hand off of his lips as he leans back onto the wall. "You know you screamed for like fifteen minutes straight? And like someone was going to suck the life out of you, at that."
"What he means," Jin kicks Yoongi's calf as he reassures me. "Is that we're all worried. Right, Yoongi?"
When my body shows the slightest improvement from the violent flickering mess I'd been just a minute earlier, I pull up the blanket all the way to my neck.
"Yeah." I whisper, worrying that he wouldn't let me go without some catch. "I'm sorry I woke you all up."
"If you say so," Jin says, surprising everyone in the room. "File out, gang."
Part relief and disappointment washes through me as I watch them reluctantly shuffle out the doorway. Even though I was being selfish, I couldn't help feeling that they stayed. I felt better when they were around.
When the door closes, I'm left completely alone.
For exactly 0.5 seconds.
"Hyung!" I hear V exclaim in shock as the door is flung back open, and Jin practically pushes Taehyung into his own room. "What in the world—"
"You're staying here with Tzuyu." My eyes widen as Jin shoots a firm gaze at the younger man. "And you better not come out until sunrise— or else I'm going to know, V. And you know what will happen then?"
V looks absolutely dumbfounded as Jin wags a finger at him. "One complete year of house arrest. Which means no jobs, no assignments. No touching a knife or any weapon for that time."
V's face crumples in horror at the threat I would've taken with a shrug.
"You can't do that," He hisses in anger. "I've always gone on assassinations. You can't just—"
"Are you the best fighter here, V?" Jin continues to answer himself with a nod. "But are you the oldest here? Because the last time I checked, you're an entire three years younger than me. So have fun."
Then the closed door opens just the tiniest bit as Jin delivers the final blow that makes both of us cringe.
"But not too much fun, alright?"
Then he shuts the door, and I hear a lock clicking in place. V hears the sound as well— which explains the deep hiss growing in his throat.
If I knew this would happen, I never would've tried to go to sleep in the first place. Now I was stuck in a situation that was already bleeding a significant amount of awkwardness.
"I'm sorry."
He probably hated this so much— and probably hated me for getting him into something like this. At my apology, he turns to glance at me with a deep sigh.
It sounds like he's trying to calm himself from breaking down the door.
"Namjoon hyung was snoring too much, anyways." He mutters, eyes slanted further than usual from exhaustion. Unwilling to fall back asleep from the vivid nightmare, I slide off the bed and sit cross legged on the chair on the other side of the room.
"I promise I won't snore."
He makes an incomprehensible sound as he drags a heavy hand over his face. "No— Jin hyung's going to kill me."
"I can't believe this." He murmurs as he motions at me, and then the bed. What was he planning to do?
When I shuffle obediently onto the farthest corner of the bed, I press my hot hand against the wall to cool it down. If I was alone, I'd just head straight to the window and bash my forehead against the cold glass— but obviously that didn't seem to be an option anymore.
Then another heavy sigh echoes from his lips as he crashes onto the mattress, and I flatten myself even further against the wall to avoid contact. I knew I wouldn't get any more sleep tonight, anyways.
"That afraid of me?"
What?
"I'm not afraid," I say to the wall. "I'm just, uh, respecting your privacy. And your personal space. Things like that."
"Right," He says skeptically, his tone flat and sounding like he'd rather be dead than to be talking to me. "Because you'll catch my terminal disease."
Where did that come from?
I flip to my other side, so I'm now facing his back instead of the wall. They're both similar— blank, empty, unemotional.
Except the person who owns this back now seems to be sulking.
"What? That's not true." I say in disbelief, eyes wide and circular. "I'm just respec—"
"Yeah." He interrupts, voice slurred. "Respect. I get it."
Well, he clearly doesn't get it. Why would he think that I'd be acting like this because of his terminal illness? Didn't he know that I basically had the same thing?
"Respect wasn't clearly in your agenda when you told Jimin."
My body tenses with surprise, and I fall silent. How had he known? I thought we had been alone during our conversation.
"He confirmed what I already knew. And then he told me you needed a cure. And then I said I'd help you find one, considering my father's the one who made it and all. Is that so bad?"
He doesn't reply, telling me that he hadn't listened to the entire talk me and Jimin had. In my guess, he'd just gotten the first few parts and had ignored the rest.
A sudden flame of frustration sparks my head, hot and sharp. I didn't know how to deal with V. Did he not want me to respect him? Or did he want me to do that, and act like he didn't have a terminal illness? Did he want me to tell him that I had one as well?
Or what?
But I couldn't just leave the conversation at that, could I? Neither could I leave the man looking that depressed— from the look of his silhouette, at least. His face was still turned away.
I recall the first time when he'd consoled me during the first episode of depression I had in front of him, and decide that this was a similar, if not exact, replica.
Maybe it had been a bad idea, but I still curved my arm around his shoulder, pressing my forehead against his back.
He freezes.
When his body arches with stark tension underneath my touch, I purse my lips and regret every single one of my life decisions.
"I thought you didn't want me to be respectful."
Great. Now I sound like a psychopath.
But to my surprise, he doesn't push me away. And to my even bigger surprise, he doesn't even tell me to piss off.
So I fall asleep with my heart in my throat and my hands against his.