I put my hands in front of my face like binoculars, tunnel vision-ing into the pieces on the board, thinking, thinking, thinking...
It's not my turn, but I'm going next after Suga, and his decision on traveling his knight toward Namjoon or me could very well change the game.
rustle rustle-
I turn sharply and look over my left shoulder, but see nothing but twigs and snow. Must've been some stray leaves and twigs in the wind. I huff and turn back around toward the campfire.
Suga's hand hovers over his knight, thinking.
I glance at Jin, who made the chess set. The pieces aren't very polished, but they serve their purpose well enough that we can tell each of the individual ones apart while also deciphering the different sets from each other. Namjoon introduced us to four-player chess, and the days have gone by faster and slightly more bearable since.
Suga travels toward me.
Oh no. I put my binocular hands up again. This will make things more difficult, but not impossible.
The wind picks up around me, plays with my hair almost with an intentionally playful tone. I wonder whether I should advance my bishop or lay low and push a pawn up instead.
The wind rustles the trees again, more forcefully this time, causing some snow to fall down. I glance over my shoulder, see nothing out of normal, turn back toward the board. I need to think.
Eventually, I advance my bishop. Against someone like Suga, I need all the offense I can get. Slow him down before he cracks through the foundations of his opponent's positions.
The wind howls through the trees yet again, and this time, a gentle voice drifts over to me. The air feels safe, beckoning me to listen, urging some sort of intent or message. This time, it's prominent enough that I can't ignore it. It can't be my imagination. It feels tangible, almost.
Sparks flowing through my veins, something that feels inexplicably right, like...
A whisper.
"The wind whispered it to me." The boy had smiled in the auditorium.
"Jungkook!" I yell.
The others turn to me, dumbfounded.
"Jungkook," I repeat, laughing in disbelief. "He's alive! Jungkook's alive, he's somewhere out there c'mon we've got to find him -"
"Woah!" Suga steps in. "Hold on, how -"
But his voice fades into the distance and I give in to the instinct to jump up and spin around in circles. I feel the wind in my hair, see the outlines of the boys flying past my vision again and again as I make a whirlwind of air flow around me in a way that feels just right, until I slow down and feel the briefest note of Euphoria somewhere beyond the horizon...
I stop spinning and point at a line of trees, not dizzy in the slightest.
"He's that way."
I blink. How did I know that?
Yet it feels inexplicably right - like the taste of banana milk, like playing tag, like laughter and campfires in the sunset, like the slight breeze that would surround us when we went on walks together, his voice when he sings... like an embrace.
Like his arms are around me again, guiding me.
"... are you sure you wanna try to find him?" Jin hesitates. "He might be, you know..."
"He's not dead," I say firmly.
Namjoon frowns. "But chances are more than likely. He fell of a cliff -"
"He's not dead." I cross my arms.
"But how can you be sure?"
I look back at the horizon and feel the gentlest pulse in the air, very much alive.
"The wind whispered it to me."
~
"We need to figure out the mechanics of this," Namjoon shakes his head as we trudge through snow towards Jungkook. "How does sending messages like this even work?"
"It does feel a little unsatisfying as a narrative," Taehyung says.
"It's young love," Jin sings.
"Love conquers all? Even in the real world?" Namjoon looks up at the sky. "There's so much we haven't figured out about our elementals yet... "
Their conversation drones out into the background. I'm practically skipping. The only things separating me and Jungkook are distance and time, and even then, we're getting closer to each other, and there's a tug between us, a beacon providing direction, hope suspended by a string in the cold winter air.
~
"We're not going to Base C though." Jungkook emphasizes the 'not' very strongly.
"We've got to!"
"They already know the location of that."
"I'm not about to risk leaking the location of yet another base to them." Jimin stands his ground. "If we're popping in and out anyways, they're not gonna find us!"
J-Hope thinks about it. "If we really destroyed Freedom Academy as badly as we think we did, we'd definitely have some time before they hunt us down again. Base C should be okay."
Jungkook doesn't say anything at first, but he does miss the treehouse and colored tunnels of Base C quite a bit. And so it goes.
~
They don't see Base C yet, but they've entered familiar territory and know that it's under a five-minute walk away. There's pressure building up in the air... Jungkook almost stumbles from it.
"It's getting stronger," he looks around. "I feel this tugging sensation."
J-Hope and Jimin stop immediately to assess him. "Like a good tugging or a bad tugging?" J-Hope asks.
He slowly smiles. "Really good."
J-Hope gasps. Asks "can you sense any others?" at the same time Jimin asks "how soon?"
Jungkook isn't sure how to access that information. Maybe he has to tug on it more? How does he do that though? Maybe he could stretch the-
"JUNGKOOK!"
They whirl around.
Jungkook's breath catches in his throat because this is unreal, figures emerging from the depths of the winter forest like characters from a picture book, and there she is, so tired, but running, running, running.
He runs before his mind even catches up to his eyes, unbelieving, and hope squeezes him harder, and he tugs her toward him. "Y/N!"
YOU ARE READING
On The Run || JJK ✔️
Fanfiction"Fast isn't in my vocabulary, Y/n." He smiles, head tilted with a playful gleam in his eyes. "Want to find out what is?" // In which two students find themselves on the run from a dictator government hunting them down. Rankings achieved: #1 in dy...
