Kazimir had an unusual type of distaste for every kind of plastic utensil, be it cups, plates, or even spoons. It just irked her to no end having to use any of them for any purpose.

One of the strangest culture shocks she had the privilege to experience when she moved to Prague was the fact that she had to pay for every individual plastic bag at the grocery stores.

She learned this the hard way because initially, she thought the groceries themselves were a bit pricey rather than figuring out that she was being charged for every single plastic bag the cashier packed her stuff in.

This little experience made her start avoiding plastic items altogether, soon reverting it to an unreasonable habit that was getting pretty hard to shake off.

The instant noodle cups she had stacked in her room came with little plastic forks but she still preferred to use a metal one no matter what the cost.

And right then, it meant she had to sneak to the kitchen to get one when it was three in the morning.

She had come back home and slumped directly on top of her bed without even bothering to take off her shoes because the pain killer she downed while out had made her drowsy beyond believe.

But her body didn't fall victim to pain killers for long and once the effects started to wear off, the pain in her shoulder woke her up.

She groaned into her pillow and sat up. Running her hand through her hair, she tried thinking of a better way to relieve the pain other than pills.

Carefully, she slid off her bag and took off her shoes and stood up to pour water into the electric kettle in the corner of her room because she didn't want to risk downing ibuprofens on an empty stomach.

Once the kettle started humming, she remained standing and tried to assess the pain level.

She stretched her right arm a bit far from her body but the pain remained constant. She tried lifting it up a bit more and got the same result.

Then she slowly took a deep breath and that's when it hit her. The slow movement of the diaphragm pushed the shoulder joint just the slightest bit, but it was enough to make her wince.

Expanding the lungs was a no-no for today. Or tonight.

Her mind did a little quick calculation, something like the secret calculation every girl does when their period is early and tried to figure out the lows she had to keep an eye on since the infection was loud enough to wake her up.

It would probably be louder to other people now who would have to face her rejections for plans she had said yes to prior to the flare-up.

It's early, I didn't think it would show up so early, I know it's just been two weeks now but sorry? She cringed at her own excuse which sounded as pathetic as her excuse of a body.

The pain killer wore off, she was breathing deeply in her sleep, the diaphragm was pushing unto the joint and now her shoulder was screaming to be heard.

She put her left hand upon her forehead, rubbing the fingertips hard enough to somehow make them morph into her skull and pull out every last nerve that was responsible for pain.

She would have to skip sleep for a while now but being sleep deprived worsened the symptoms. It was a vicious maze, one she was expected to escape effortlessly from because no one else saw it. It was invisible, just like her illness.

Just like her.

The kettle's red light went out and she opened the drawer of her study table and took out a cup of instant noodles and proceeded to make it for herself, being careful with her shoulder and trying not to take deep breaths.

Once the aroma of the seasoned steaming water filled the air, she realized she had to go get a metal fork from the kitchen.

She grabbed her phone and the noodles, deciding that it would be better to eat them in the kitchen and left her room.

The whole house was enveloped in silence and darkness and once she made it to the kitchen, she switched on the lights and placed her noodles on the table.

While waiting for the noodles to cool down, she took her phone and walked into the hallway bathroom to see just how bad her shoulder was this time.

She stood in front of the mirror placing the phone on the sink and took a look at herself. Her reflection screamed just fucked slut with the infamous skirt of the night, her hair sticking out in various directions, her eyes glassy-- a clear indication that she was running a fever and her makeup messed up which she didn't even bother to correct after blowing up in a stranger's face.

Why didn't he react? She wondered, feeling embarrassed at the memory now. Her unreasonable impulses always managed to surprise her in the most absurd ways and they kept gaining ground with every flare-up.

A cold chill ran down her spine as she thought about just how bad her impulses got sometimes and she hoped this time the dark days would pass without any major damage to anyone. Or herself.

She unbuttoned her shirt and slid it off her right shoulder taking her bra strap along with it and leaned forward to have a better look at the aching joint.

It looked tender to the touch and just a slight shade darker than her skin tone. She lifted up her left hand and touched the tips of her fingers to the spot, earning a sudden shot of pain but she kept pressing harder.

She wanted to see just how bad it could get before it became unbearable.

She sealed her lips shut to contain her whimpers and her eyes started tearing up but she pressed harder still.

Two seconds and her knees gave away and she fell forward, steadying herself on the edge of the sink with her thighs.

Well, the bitch is really out to get me this time, she thought because as much as she convinced herself she pressed her fingers too hard, she had just put enough pressure as anyone would while casually putting their hand on her shoulder.

She turned around and took a look at the back of her shoulder as well but the back was not as swollen or colored.

In fact, even the front didn't look like anything was much wrong with it as much as it was. The crimson hue was only visible if anyone got pretty close and even that usually disappeared in a few minutes.

It was because of these little things that chronic illnesses were often referred to as invisible illnesses. Jot that phrase in a search engine and a whole medical degree worth of symptoms lined up on your screen but you never saw any of it on a human.

People with flu had running noses and bloodshot eyes and they coughed and sneezed, but a person with a chronic disease was deprived of the privilege of having any type of outer symptoms making it harder for anyone to believe just how much they were suffering on the inside.

Kazimir herself had a strange relationship with hers. She spent seventy-five percent of her life pretending it didn't exist in her body and the rest twenty-five percent trying to convince that it did exist to anyone who didn't believe her.

It was a strange paradox, one she didn't invite but one she was being forced to host every day.

She turned around and took her phone to take a picture of the slightly reddened area to show her doctor-- if she decided to pay her a visit that is.

She zoomed in on her shoulder in the mirror and leaned forward to get a better picture, trying to keep her right arm steady because moving it would mean the death of her.

The snap of the camera made a loud click sound as she finally got the shot she wanted and she looked down to inspect the photo.

Something moved in her peripheral vision and she immediately looked up just as a reflection of a sleepy Taehyung rubbing his eyes entered the bathroom and she shrieked turning around startling both herself and him.

His eyes snapped open at the sight before him and he abruptly turned away and ran out.

"For God's sake, lock the freakin' door!" He hissed from outside gently hitting his face to wake himself up fully and erasing the sight from his mind.

Kazimir fumbled to strengthen her shirt and managed to button as many buttons as she could with one hand and walked out with a beet-red face.

Taehyung was standing out sporting a blush of his own but when he saw her emerge out, he grabbed her left wrist and turned her around abruptly.

"What were you doing?" He asked.

"I-uh.."

"If you are going to take nudes for whichever scumbag, at least lock the door," he growled.

Kazimir opened her mouth to speak but Taehyung wasn't having it. He let her hand go and walked into the bathroom shutting the door on her face.

Kazimir stood dumbfounded for a second trying to soak up his words and when she did, she started banging on the door with her left fist, anger coursing her veins at the audacity of his accusation, her mouth overflowing with profanities of her own.

Two can play this freaking game, Taehyung.

"Open the door you pathetic bitch," she demanded, "Or are you too busy jerking off to what you just saw, huh?"

Kazimir instantly regretted her words but something in her didn't let her back down. She didn't know what it was at the time, but as it always played out, it showed itself later as the monster named impulse.

Taehyung opened the door and peeked his head out, his dark eyes clouded with anger, sleep long gone from them. He looked Kazimir in the eye and smirked.

"Oh, is that what keeps you up at night now? Thinking I am going crazy for you?" He asked extending his hand to mockingly pet her on the head. He leaned forward close to her ear.

"Just so you know, you wouldn't be able to make me come even if you were in my bed with that crippled ass body of yours." He whispered.

His words landed heavily like a slap on her face and Kazimir's eyes stung and filled with both anger and tears.

She turned and started walking away, carrying her crippled ass body with her back to her room, shedding her dignity with a tear or two on the way.

Taehyung swallowed the bitter taste of what he just said as he watched her walk away and he almost wanted to go after her and stop her to apologize. Almost.

Once he was done with his bathroom business, he walked out to pour himself a glass of water and saw her noodles on the kitchen table.

A pang resonated in his heart at what he'd done and he let himself lose the battle for a second. He opened the drawer where they kept most of the medicine and pulled out the pack of ibuprofen.

He grabbed the noodles and the pills and made his way to her room but before he knocked on the door, his mind got in the way.

If you do this today, you would have to do it for the rest of your life, he thought. You need to make her hate you, you need to push her away, or else you would get stuck being a nurse rather than a partner for the rest of your life.

He looked from her door back towards the kitchen and he decided he was not going to break his own promise to himself. He was ambitious and young, he wanted to travel the world and sit in every cafe in every corner of the planet and paint the vibes and the people. But Kazimir would glue him down, he was sure of that.

His dreams were on the line and damn it if he bowed down to anything or anyone stopping him from reaching them.

He walked back to the kitchen and placed the noodles back on the table and threw the pills in the drawer along with his dignity.

I know by the way you're hesitating to break this off, Mir, that maybe you're thinking about holding unto it, he thought looking at the lonely and now cold noodles on the table expecting them to understand his reasons.

Jimin stared at the night sky, a jittery awful sensation keeping his stomach in knots. He was sprawled on a duvet on his rooftop, his notebook and laptop by his side but yet he was scared to touch any of them for the fear of ruining the idea forming in his head.

He was itching to write it all down but words were failing him, he was inspired but didn't know how to mold the inspiration into something real.

How do I start? He wondered for the millionth time that night, possibly as many times as the number of stars twinkling above his head.

A few words danced in his head but there was no music in his fingertips yet. He wanted it all to be perfect, to be in sync, and to be painful.

And he didn't want to jot anything down until it finished shaping itself in his head.

He sighed and picked up his phone to relieve the butterflies in his stomach, the butterflies of being on the verge of creating something epic but standing just a breath away from it overflowing from the fingertips.

He scrolled through the comments of his latest entry on a webpage dedicated to writers and poets when his eyes caught a new comment which was posted a second ago.

I wish i could think the way you write, all that ash is not beautiful, it's just black. Nothing ever ends poetically. It ends and we turn it to poetry, like the poetry you carved at the back of her smile with a penknife and when the blood trickled down her lips, you turned around claiming red wasn't your ink.

Jimin sat up so suddenly that he lost his grip and the phone landed on his face. He yelped in pain and sat up straighter, his thumb dancing over the keyboard while he read and reread the comment.

He was taken aback, to say the least. He tried coming up with a reply but when he came up short, he clicked on her username instead.

Her profile opened up on his screen and the first thing that caught his eye was her display photo which was a picture of her.