Body And Soul

4. Changed Reflection

'Am I dead?'

That was the first thought to cross Jungkook's mind as he laid in utter darkness. He thought he could hear voices about him, but everything sounded garbled like a Bluetooth speaker that had been submerged in a locked box underwater. He couldn't do anything to rid the blackness from about him; the noise he thought were voices talking being replaced soon by a series of mechanical noises.

'I have to be dead,' Jungkook thought as he realized how weightless he felt in the darkness that surrounded him. In a way, it felt like he was an astronaut that had been cut free from its tether and left to float about aimlessly in space.

Jungkook tried to fight against the darkness, but it was hard when he felt weightless and yet weighed down at the same time. His limbs felt extremely heavy as he stayed in the black void of nothingness. He didn't know how long he was submerged there until a speck of light shot through the darkness like a shooting star. Then another and another. The light that began to fill the black void soon became blinding; the sound that surrounded him no longer distant and submerged as it felt like it shattered his eardrums. The pain that he felt was completely overwhelming.

His eyelids opened slowly; the artificial light above him making his headache worse than it already was. Jungkook had no idea where he was, trying to remember the last thing that had happened to him as he forced himself to open his eyes just a little bit more.

"DUDE! Wake up! His eyes are opening!"

Jungkook couldn't turn his head, but felt someone's vice like grip on his right arm.

"Hey! It's nice to see you're alive!"

"Jimin! Lay off on the grip! He's in a hospital, so you don't need to break him further."

Jimin? Jungkook didn't recognize that name. He figured it must be one of the nurses, but then again he figured that a nurse would know to be careful. The only way that he would get any answers was to wake up. He strained to open his eyes further, seeing a stranger's face pop into view above him. He stared at the man that was looking down at him with grave concern on his face.

"Who are you?" Jungkook managed to get out as he saw the man's concerned face turn even whiter than before.

"WHO ARE WE? DUDE! HE HAS AMNESIA!" declared the man identified as Jimin.

Jungkook heard a rattling by his feet as the man whose face was above him turned to look at someone.

"Jimin, put his medical chart down! You wouldn't even know if that said he had amnesia even if he did. He was in an accident. I'm sure confusion is a symptom."

"But Hobi..."

So the man above him was named Hobi. Jungkook kept his gaze trained on him as he let out a small wince of pain when he tried to open his eyes further.

"Don't strain yourself," said Hobi as he turned his attention back to Jungkook; pressing a hand lightly against his forehead to make sure he didn't try to sit up or anything. "You need to rest. We'll be here when you're better."

Jungkook wanted to say more, but he found that he couldn't at the moment. Everything seemed to hurt, and he felt exhausted. He felt as exhausted as if he had just pulled an all nighter five nights in a row. His eyelids grew heavy again as he shut them and returned to the familiar darkness he had just surfaced from.

When he woke again, he didn't know how much time had passed. Jungkook found that it was easier for him to be able to open his eyes this time around though. The light didn't hurt as badly either, though he still felt a small pulsing headache in his forehead. He cast his eyes about the room to realize fully that he was laid up in some sort of hospital.

Unlike the last time he had opened his eyes, this time there was no one around. He was in a private hospital room with no Jimin or Hobi in sight. Jungkook tried to move to sit up slowly. He noticed there was nothing currently hooked up to him, so he figured he might be able to make it to the bathroom to throw some water on his face. He was hoping that maybe the cold water would at least alleviate some of his headache.

He walked slowly towards the bathroom door, reaching off to the side to turn on a light once he reached it. Jungkook then moved to walk towards the sink. He threw the faucet on, cupping his hands underneath it to throw water onto his face. The sharp cold droplets helped to alleviate some of the pain, but not all of it. He sighed as he lifted his sopping wet face from the sink to look into the mirror above it. That's when he froze.

"Just close your eyes," he told himself.

Jungkook felt sick as he gripped the sink below him. He closed his eyes as he told himself to and kept them that way as he tried to swallow the bile that threatened to rise in his throat. He never used to have a problem with looking in the mirror before, but now it was greeting him with a reality that he wasn't yet ready to meet. Jungkook figured that he must just be hallucinating and that it was some odd side effect from the accident.

"Okay. You can't be a wimp forever. Cut it out. You're fine."

He tried to coach himself even though he wanted to do nothing more than to keep his eyes shut until what he saw went away. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Jungkook lifted his head to look at his reflection in the mirror once more. What he saw staring back at him remained unchanged; the doe wide eyes staring back at him with all the fright that one could muster.

"You're dreaming," he said, watching the lips of the reflection move too.

Jungkook looked down at his arm momentarily as he pinched it to see if he was dreaming. A sharp stinging pain greeted his actions and made him more keenly aware of how much this wasn't a dream. This was reality. He looked back at his reflection again, trying to let it all sink in.

The reflection he was used to seeing was no longer there. Now as Jungkook stared in the mirror all he saw was the face of Kim Taehyung.