𝗟𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗕𝗼𝘆𝘀

✨14✨

It's not my business to ask what happened to JinJin, but I still could bring some ease to Moonbin if I asked about him.

I walk towards him, sitting next to him on the ground as he seems defeated. "I'm sorry, I feel like I caused that argument."

He gives me a small smile, but it's barely there, "It's okay, I still proved my point."

Grabbing onto some grass, I twiddle with it in my hands and take a breath in. "Did they do that experiment on you?"

Moonbin sadly looks away, "The crystallization? Yeah."

"I'm so sorry." I place my hand on his knee and he looks up at me. It's like all the walls melted down and he leans his head on my shoulder, grabbing onto my hand, fidgeting with my fingers as he spoke, his sleeves covering each of his fingers.

"They tell you everything is gonna work, that everything will go to plan, they are so nice for the first time ever, that you just know, you're being taken to your death bed." I hear Moonbin swallow. "Do you want to remember with me?"

"Not unless you don't want to." I try to take my hand away, but he intertwines his fingers with mine, his sleeves falling back to his wrists. "Moonbin, I don't want you to have to feel all of that again."

He lifts his head up and we look into each other's eyes. Those poor eyes, emitting such sadness and pain, made me want to hug him and take it all away. "Unfortunately, I relieve that day almost every day."

And just like that, I appear in the hospital, or what looks to be it. I feel nervous as I look around, two guards escorting me somewhere else, and with each step, I feel heavier. My breathing quickens when a door opens and all I see is a chair with way too many tools surrounding it, walls made of reflective glass—mirrors that show me as Moonbin, eyes scanning about.

A vial burning red makes my eyes widen and I start struggling against the guards that are holding my arms.

"No," My mouth opens, but it's Moonbin's voice that comes out instead like an echo, "No, please, please, I'm not strong enough."

The guards grab onto my sides tighter and I push them away, all of them falling backward. I jump, moving my restrained hands swiftly underneath and forward, running back towards the doors, panicking, all thoughts circling, no focus.

Just as I'm about to escape through those same doors, a pain pierces through my shoulder. A syringe, no! My hands backhand away whoever just pierced me so harshly, that they fall back, the person hitting their head so hard, the wall cracks behind them. As the blood starts sliding down the wall of the poor doctor, my vision flattens and those guards pull me back, my body going limp, and I lose all control of it.

The lights are so bright, everything is so white, and every touch and every strap being put around my ankles and wrists feels way too prominent. I fight my vision's blackening and open them wide, only to see a doctor in front of a monitor, and multiple mes on the glass—Not me, Monbin, looking terrified out of his mind.

"Please!" Moonbin cries out, and I feel the warm tears streaming down my cheeks, "I beg you! I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die, not yet, I beg you!"

Then, another piercing pain—another syringe is being put inside my other shoulder. This time, I lose almost all control. Moonbins voice cries for them to stop, he sobs that he doesn't want to die.

The doctor at the monitor does nothing. The guards just stand tall, this time another guard hands them guns. They all just look so unbothered as I scream to be let go.

Nothing compares to when the doctor in front of me presses a button.

All at once, Moonbins scream echo through the room, my skin feels on fire, my insides ache with a pain I have never felt before, with such vigor that my body begins shaking, and even as they tighten the straps around my limbs, I jolt with every scream, and every single cell inside me feels like it has spikes bouncing around my veins.

Moonbin's screams pierce through everything, and hearing my own pain in such an agonizing way makes it the more real when I finally open my clenched eyes, all I see is Moonbin's reflection. For a split second—the longest, most painful second—I see the veins in his body glow yellow through his skin, his eyes changing colors, his teeth clenched even as his voice screams within my throat to be let out.

Torture. This was torture within my body, and the pain only increases, and for once, the thoughts inside my head are begging, screaming, and wishing for death when just a few minutes before, Moonbin's voice begged to be let live.

Even through the pain, I feel the way my body starts weakening, the way Moonbin's scream have turned hoarse, and soon we are quietly suffering, our body shaking and jolting on it's own.

When my vision goes black, I'm back at the van's site. Everybody is moving about, doing their own thing. I turn to Moonbin, and his eyes only sadden more when he raises his hand, covered with a sleeve, and he gently wipes at my tears.

There are no words, nothing that I could say right now to subside the trauma I just experienced in his mind. I wrap my hands around his back and I can't even bother to be embarrassed when I begin sobbing into his chest.

What kind of monsters are these people? How could they do this to him? How could they do this to anybody with no remorse? How does Moonbin live relieving this memory every day?

He places his hand on my head and begins caressing my hair. "I'm sorry, but no one else knows what I went through. No one understands other than hearing my pain through those walls. I'm sorry, Rina, I'm so sorry."

I wished, that through my tears, I could have told him that I wasn't crying because of my pain, I was crying for his. I tightened my grip around him, and he hugs me with both his arms, pulling me closer.

"What did you do now Mo—"

"Please Jin," I hear Moonbin's voice against my ear through his chest, "Give us some space."

Through my crying, I hear a huff and steps fading away.

We stay just like this for a few minutes, me sitting on Moonbin's lap as he caressed my back and I hug him, my grip loosening as my crying calms down and falters into sniffling. When I pull away and he smiles, it only makes me want to cry more.

How does he do it? After enduring that pain and whatever more they put them through, how does he smile like that?

"What happened after?"

"The test backfired, hard." He chuckles as he runs his hands up and down my arms with his sleeves, soothing my shivers away, he noticed the goosebumps I bet. "When the... when the fire put out, my body pulsed some sot of energy, freezing the entire room," He looks into my eyes and sighs, "Killing everyone in the room except me."

I know that look. The one where I should be scared, react badly, be terrified of him. But I can't help but smile. "Good."

Moonbin laughs and places a hand on my cheek, his skin feeling so nice against it. "You sure are fucked up."

I look back up at him, and he sees the worried look in my eyes, while I see the mischievous one in his. "I like that."

"Were there other test subjects?" Moonbin's nod is slow, and it warns me of the answer to my next question. "Did they survive?"

"No."

We keep staring at each other as if there should be more asked or said, but nothing comes out of us. Backing away, I awkwardly slide off his lap. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" He tilts his head in confusion, and to be quite honest, I'm not sure either, or rather where to start.

I'm sorry you went through that. I'm sorry that the other's don't understand how traumatizing that must have been. I'm sorry for crying instead of comforting you. I'm sorry that you involuntarily killed people. I'm sorry that, for what I assume must have been friends, died in that manner.

I couldn't imagine the survivor's guilt he must have.

We walk back to the van, slowly, and he doesn't ever let go of my hand—skin to skin. Not until the door opens and we sit at opposite ends of the van, where he retracts his hands into his sleeves and falls asleep, as if his past tired him out.

Whereas me, well, I looked out the window, accepting the fact that Taeyong was probably too far gone if the test worked and he survived.