A single tear spilled from his eye, and the rest followed in an unbroken stream as a wail broke free from his chest. Hacking sobs shook his body, impairing his ability to speak. The air reeked of the fragrance of those cursed flowers, sickening him to the bone; that putrefying odour choked him, the stench of death that aroused a violent loathing within his very core. He cried with the force of someone vomiting, an intensity that consumed him alive like the grief that had burned away his sanity.

"Why?" he yelled through his tears at Taehyung. "Why are you doing this!?"

"Park Jimin!" the boy roared, his eyes blazing with a hard determination yet soft with pity. "Wake up! Stop living this lie!"

"I can't, Tae! I CAN'T!" Jimin cried as he desperately clutched onto the lion like a lifeline. "I can't go on without you!"

Memories flashed through his brain, threatening to overload his mind. Box shaped smiles and gales of laughter, nights spent giggling by the fire. Heated arguments followed by sweet kisses; days spent by the creek watching the fishes. A deafening bang; a lifeless hand.