A Toothless Smile

Chapter 7 

Someone was calling his name. It sounded underwater almost, so far away, but Jungkook recognized his name. They were calling to him so sweetly, so gently, that Jungkook found himself turning around to follow it in this odd almost-building he was in.

Where was he anyway? He almost recognized this almost-building he was in. There was no sound as he walked but he could remember the creaking of the wooden floor anyway. There was no one around him but Jungkook still felt a presence glued to him, a hand on his neck guiding him, forcing him.

"Jungkook-ah."

He snapped his head around but there was no one there. It had sounded so close though, right next to his ear. Jungkook was walking without moving, maybe he didn't even have a body to move with, finding himself trailing through these broken down maze-like halls.

The stairs that didn't look like stairs led him down to darkness. There was nothing. It was just the stark white stair-like steps that looked wrong and the eternal abyss around him. He walked for forever, going down and down and down but nothing changed.

He walked down until there were no more stairs left and he was standing in the darkness. Suddenly, a bright light from above turned on with a sound but it – it looked like moonlight rather than something artificial. Jungkook blinked at the brightness and looked down.

The moonlight was focused on a mangled body lying in a pool of bright red blood.

This was how he'd died.

This was Jungkook.

Something dark bubbled in Jungkook's chest, emotion so overwhelming that it threatened to consume Jungkook whole. It boiled in his veins, burned hot and angry and Jungkook's lips sneered into a snarl –

"Jungkook-ah."

Jungkook jostled awake with a gasp. This wasn't the familiar-strange darkness of the bed room he'd gotten used to. The ceiling was too high and the room was too wide and this wasn't the bed at all.

"Hey! Hey, you're alright!" A voice called out and Jungkook looked around for the source of it, finding himself face to face with Hoseok. "You're in the living room! You're alright! You're safe, little one!"

It was almost as if his brain could remember his surroundings now that Hoseok had told him. The room stopped being an unrecognizable cavern and became the - still pretty large – living room he knew. The tv was still on, he was still in the little nook they'd made for him on the sofa with the soft blankets and pillows.

Jungkook closed his eyes with a deep exhale, pressed his left palm to his face.

"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you." Hoseok said.

"No, no, it's not your fault." Jungkook said and swallowed. His throat still felt itchy. "I had a weird dream, that's why."

"Oh." Hoseok's brows pinched together. "Was it a bad one? Do you want to talk about it?"

"No. It was just weird." Jungkook replied and dropped his hand. "Probably a good thing you woke me up to be honest."

"I wasn't going to." Hoseok said. "I was just going to carry you to bed so you can sleep better but Yoongi hyung said you have to feed so... had to wake you up."

Jungkook perked up a little at the mention of feeding, glancing around the room, "Seokjin hyung is back?"

Hoseok smiled warmly though there was something about it that didn't fully reach his eyes. He ran his hands through Jungkook's hair and Jungkook tried to lean into his touch.

"Sorry, no, he's not back." He said. "He's actually going to be back late. I think they got something important, Yoongi hyung had to leave too."

Jungkook tried to not look too disappointed. That'd be – weird, right? It had been like... what, four days? Jungkook wasn't sure, time was all weird now, but it hadn't been a full week since Jungkook met Seokjin, since he met this whole group. It was weird for him to be this... It was weird for him to be this depended on Seokjin, to search for him like this.