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He couldn't breathe.
He was standing in the shower, the burning water running down his body, his head low between his broad shoulders, and he started to feel numb with the lack of air. His head wasn’t even underwater, he just couldn't breathe. He could feel himself becoming numb because of the lack of air, but he couldn’t even bring himself to care. At this instant, dying felt like a solution, it felt like something convenient.
His everything hurts. His tensed muscles. His deformed joints. His pounding head. His aching heart. His burning lungs. His twisting guts. Nothing felt right. He wasn’t right. Everything about him was so wrong. He wished he could just cancel himself out of life right there. He wished he could forget everything and make others forget everything about him and his stupid existence.
Every night it was the same thing. The cameras were finally off, practice was over, the others were hanging together in the dorm and he was still in the goddamn shower, all alone with his stupid thoughts stuck in his stupid head please make it stop-
Every night he just stood in the shower for twenty minutes and he let all the feelings he repressed go wild. He remembered every single word he said and thought about them and asked himself why did you say that idiot and he told himself that you should have kept your stupid mouth shut.
And there he was. Standing in the shower, the water boiling hot like it could burn and wash away his thoughts and his stupidity and his shame and his very existence.
This time it was worst than before. Just because of one little sentence.
It was so stupid.
It was all a joke, so why…?
Didn’t people understand it?
Was he too awkward and dumb to joke around? Should he shut up? Should he go back to his old cold and mute self?
He called Jimin a pig.
It was a joke - kind of a revenge too. He just wanted to joke about the fact that Jimin and the other members and their entire fanbase often called him a pig - something that hurt him even though he never showed it. He even apologized after that and Jimin (such a pure child ; such an angel) said he wasn’t mad at all.
Then why? Why was everybody else mad at him?
The things he saw on Twitter… the thing they said about him...
Ah, he knew he should never go on Twitter. People rarely said anything nice about him anyway, why did he keep going and looking for comments about him?
Guess he just liked to hurt himself even more.
But, they should know after all this time : he would never want to insult any of his friends. He would never want them to feel bad about their weight or their appearance. Hell, he was the one who had to force Jimin to eat, when the younger man was starving himself. He always encouraged others to eat what they wanted to and as much as they wanted to.
And he thought he could joke about that. When his members called him fat, a pig, ugly, no one ever reacted before. He thought that it was okay?
He slapped himself. His cheek reddened.
He should just stop assuming things. He should think more. If people never reacted before, it's because he was just- he was just Kim Seokjin. The useless one. Of course, no one cared about him, why would they? He didn't have any talent. He couldn't sing. He couldn't dance. He couldn't write. He was only good at embarrassing himself and being ridiculous. He was good at acting too- he had to be, to hide his feelings from the rest of the world. At least he had his acting skills and his good looks to distract people. His good looks?
He stared at himself.
He wasn’t even that pretty, actually. His face was too small and puffy, his features too sweet to be pretty anymore, furthermore his childlike face didn’t fit with how broad his shoulders were, and his chest was too big and his legs too short. And his joints. God, his joints. He hated the way his legs arched, or the pain he felt in his waist in the morning because it was too flexible and twisted around in his sleep. But what he hated the most was his fingers. All crooked and bent in a wrong way and disgusting-
Him, a visual? Ha. What a joke. Taehyung could easily take his place - he already had taken it, in the fans’ hearts at least. He was never a real visual anyway, always in the back on the pictures, always on the sides on screen...
God, he was so stupid. He was stupid and ugly and fat and awkward and useless. Talentless.
Today was not a good day.
He cried. Just a little, at first.
Then his sobs drowned his body and his thoughts.
He couldn't breathe. When was the last time air filled his lungs? What does breathing feel like?
He tried to inhale. He choked on his breath. Choked on his words. Choked on his thoughts. You’re an idiot. You can’t even breathe properly now huh?
He hated how weak he was. He was the oldest member, he was supposed to be strong and to support his members. He was supposed to be there for them. His own problems didn’t matter. He had to erase his authority so Namjoon could do his Leader job, he had to play with Jungkook to show him that they could be close despite their differences of age. He had to keep Yoongi’s recklessness on check and to cheer Hobi up when he felt down, he had to support Taehyung and to make his Jiminie forget about how tired he was by making him laugh. He had to shower them with love and support, because that was the only thing he could do without fucking something up.
He gave himself five more minutes. Five minutes to calm down, to learn how to breathe again. Five minutes to finish to wash himself and to put on the mask. Five minutes to forget about the anxiety and the complexes. No one cared about his feelings, so he should just learn to put them in a corner and to pretend they didn’t exist. Easy.
Right?