Chapter 4

"Jimin, I need you to finish the last dish before you leave." The head chef of the kitchen called over.

"Yes, Chef!" Jimin said back and got to sorting out the raw vegetables he needed. 

He was ready for the day to end, his second shift today was too tiring since he only got four hours of sleep. As much as he loved cooking, he appreciated sleep more. Jimin had been working in this restaurant two years now and he grew fed up of seeing the same kitchen every day. It was fairly big, most days containing 6-7 different cooks.

Turning the gas on, Jimin put oil in the frying pan. His black hair was out of his eyes and he was dressed in chef's whites. His face was slightly damp from being in the hot cooking area, and he kept wiping the sweat off his upper lip and forehead with the sleeve of his kitchen wear. 

The room was a mixture of white and silver. The metallic surfaces, to most people's surprise, were spotless. Cooks needed their workspace to be neat and tidy, also hygienic. The kitchen porter, a young girl still in high school, did an amazing job in maintaining the place clean.

Jimin plated the cooked food and set it to the front for the waiter to take away. The boy sighed heavily and headed to the backroom.

"Good work today Jimin!" A co-worker told him as he walked past. Jimin mumbled a quick thanks in return.

"Jimin, you've been slacking these past few months and today was your worst performing day so far." The head chef asserted as soon as Jimin reached the backroom. He started taking off his white work clothes that were stained by many different colours, each coming together to form a painting of ingredients. "You weren't hired to do a bad job, boy. If you don't pull yourself together, young man, I can't assure your place here."

"I know Chef, I'm sorry Chef." Jimin said apologetically. "I've been having a bad time recently, I won't do it again sir." The head chef's face softened momentarily but went stern seconds after. 'You're so useless, idiot. Hopefully, you'll get fired.'

"I don't want to hear excuses, I only want to see results. Understood?" The man in his late forties said, his dark brown eyes piercing into Jimin's. His balding head made it so his forehead didn't have an end, and the grey hairs around the side of his head looked like they needed cutting.

Jimin agreed and proceeded to gather his personal belongings. Once he was done, he turned back around to his boss and said goodbye. As his arm brushed the man, Jimin felt him tug on his hand.

"Now you're out of your work clothes, let me talk to you as a friend." The man started. "I don't know what you've got going on in your life Jimmy, but try not to let it affect your work." 

Jimin smiled at the nickname his boss had given him when he first came here.

"I know Peter, I'm sorry." Jimin mumbled lowly, his head hung low in disappointment. His boss rubbed his arms in an attempt to show affection.

"You're amazing at what you do, kid. I'm here supporting you, no matter what. I trust you can get through whatever's bothering you." The father-like figure said and went back towards the kitchen. Jimin was left with a frown on his face. He left to go home, walking back in the rain.

The big mahogany front door was unlocked, allowing Jimin to enter the small apartment he shared with three. He dragged his sore feet through it and took his coat off. He shook his head a little to get rid of the droplets littering his hair. The flat was a bit warmer than yesterday, but it still wasn't a comforting temperature you could relax in. Jimin would have to wear fluffy pyjamas to not shiver all night, not that he was going to wear them. He had to suffer physically to make up for the emotional pain. 'You're a piece of shit.' 

As he walked down the hallway, he could hear his two female roommates chatting in one of the bedrooms. He walked past and went straight to his own bedroom. Once he was in, he went over to his bed and flopped down on top, face upwards, with a sigh. 'You have two options, talk to the people you hurt and apologise or end your life. Choose one, fucktard.'

Jimin stared around his modest-sized room in hopes of distracting himself once again. The cream walls and cream curtains made the place boring. All the furniture was white and the only splashes of colour came from the books and pictures on the shelves. The grey bed sheets also contrasted with the white frame, but the neutral colour didn't do much to save the room from its plain state. 'It suits you, boring and plain.'

The boy sat up and rummaged through his backpack. His hands were looking for his phone, his eyes, however, weren't. They were still looking at the space around him. Once the nerves in his fingers felt the cold, rectangular object, he pulled it out and turned on the screen. Jimin was hoping for a message from his friends to ask if they could meet up and talk things through. Or one from his parents asking if he could ring them up and have a long conversation.

All his phone displayed was a spam notification. No new messages.

Stripping from his wet and heavy clothes, Jimin changed into a baggy black t-shirt and navy blue basketball shorts. The nippy air caressed his exposed limbs and felt relieved to have some sort of distraction. The pain he felt in his mind wasn't even comparable to any physical ache he could ever experience. 

It was suffocating, a darkness following you around and watching over everything you do. A weight on his shoulders made tasks seem a lot harder than what they actually were. A tightness could be felt restricting his chest, sometimes making it hard to breathe properly, other times just making him weak. The only relief was sleep, yet that never lasted forever. Falling asleep was amazing, waking up was his worst fear. Because of the lack of social life, Jimin's body had a lot of energy that it needed to burn, but he was emotionally drained so actually doing things were merely thought. Sleepless nights were common due to the energy his body had, the thought of his alarm clock blaring in the morning was the only thing keeping him sane. The whole night was spent thinking, drowning in thoughts that did nothing to help his mood. Jimin had no control over his mind. It was its own entity, created to torment the boy.

Deciding to get a cold glass of water, Jimin went to the kitchen. His flatmates had left the bedroom too and were now located on their habitual sofa. They were both on their phones, and ignored the presence of Jimin being in the same house.

"Hey..." Jimin said to his 'friends' and they replied back with a similar greeting, none of them daring to start a conversation.

Even though Jimin was hoping for them to ask him about yesterday's events, he accepted their silence and got himself a glass of water from the fridge. 

Today had gone by slowly for Jimin. It was currently past 11 PM but it felt like the early hours of the morning. 'You don't have to endure another long day if you didn't live through a day again.' After his two shifts in the restaurant, he was both mentally and physically tired. Now he'd brushed his teeth and cleaned his face, he laid down on his bed under the sheets. They were cold at first on his delicate skin, but as he spent a while under them, they warmed up and allowed him the lay comfortably.

The knowledge of no one reaching out to him today made Jimin feel uneasy. He would've expected at least one of the six people to try to contact him. No one. He knew it was his fault, he ruined it. However, even though he created the issue, he felt alone. Very alone. If he killed himself right now, would anyone care? No one would notice, only his workplace, which simply cared out of personal gain.

So far today, the only individual Jimin had had a conversation with was Peter, his boss, who showed his disappointment in Jimin's work. Only one person, and that person wasn't happy with Jimin...

Was Jimin really useless? How come he never seemed to do anything right? Jimin wanted to find out what he was doing wrong, how come he wasn't happy. Maybe he had done something bad when he was young and karma was coming back to bite him in the ass.

He deserved the pain though, it was there to show him that he was no better than the stones he stood on every day. 

Jimin rolled out of bed and closed the cream curtains. The orange light coming through was unpleasant to his tired eyes. Before he laid back down, he had checked the time on his phone. 1:30 AM, only seven hours away from getting up to go to work.

The noises of car engines outside were drowned out by the sound of Jimin's thoughts, they were loud. He wanted to talk to someone, explain to them how he felt. Tell them that he was lost, absolutely lost. He needed someone to hold him and tell him that everything's going to be fine. The warmth of another body and soothing words to calm down his mind. He craved the idea of being able to call someone and cry to them all night long. Jimin wished someone cared enough to ask him if he was okay, because he wasn't. 

There was no one.

Jimin's eyes were watering and he picked his phone up off the floor. He looked for the number of his best friend and stared at it. The digits weren't in any specific pattern, yet Jimin tried to find one. He wanted to press call.

He threw his phone back down, the device still connected to the charger. He was alone.

Hours passed of Jimin thinking, there was that voice in the back that was always present. He wanted to ignore it, yet it always found a way to be heard. 

What's the point of living? Why should Jimin not kill himself? He couldn't find a single reason why. He had no future, no one wanted to stay with him so a relationship was out of the question. He had no friends. Solitude wasn't fun. His family currently hated him. His job wasn't satisfied with him. His roommates wanted him gone. He didn't want himself. Why live on if nothing made him happy? Jimin was in constant pain and wanted to relieve it. Nothing he did helped. He wanted the pain to go.

His hair was now being pulled at. He was alone and scared. Jimin was silently sobbing and felt an ache in his chest. He had lost track of time and could see light seeping through his curtains. He didn't know what to do.

"How do I make this pain go away?!" He cried out. He stood up and headed to his shelves. The packet of paracetamol was still sitting there and he took it between his hands. He removed the two blisters of pills and threw the box away. 

The metal-like packaging looked like the most interesting thing in the world. His small fingers were trembling as he popped each pill out and rested them on his duvet. Thirteen.

Thirteen pills were all it would take to make the pain go away. With the glass of water he had picked up earlier he swallowed two of them. Jimin was ready to end it.

Still alive. Still in pain. 

He slowly lifted another pair to his lips and gulped them down. 

Jimin felt nothing. No fear. No sadness. No happiness. No anger. Nothing.

With the help of room temperature water, he took the remaining nine tablets and allowed sadness to come back into his senses, yet it didn't. He laid back on his bed and waited for death. Tear stained cheeks and an expressionless face were present.

He had sealed his fate. The only that could've saved him was reassurance. 

He failed to find his reassurance that night.

-

Hey now, you're a rock star, get the game on, go play~

The fanart you see at the beginning of le chapter is really simple yet it looks so good, SO GOOD. The artist's Instagram is @navi462 and they're super sweet and cute! Follow them or else... grrrrr

*dabs away*