(Hoseok POV)
This felt wrong. Beyond wrong.
It felt terrifying.
He was leaving me behind, he said.
But to go where?
I paced around in his bedroom, calling his phone and leaving voicemail after voicemail. But instead of his voice, all it came was the automatic response of, "please try again."
Could he be at the pharmacy? Purchasing another bottle of prescriptions?
No, he was pocketing the full bottle of pills this morning, barely empty at all.
please try again
The doctor's clinic, perhaps. A regular check-up. Maybe he was requesting another medication for himself. Maybe h--
please try again
please try again
please tr--
I closed my eyes, the forlorn atmosphere clawing at me, picking at scabs of hope, bleeding in the terrain of fear and doubt.
Where could he possibly be?
"you know how Stephen Hawking said that at the other side of a black hole, there's a way out? Well, what if at t--"
". . .the bottom of a lake. ." I finished his previous words.
My eyes widened.
"He couldn't be at that lake." I murmured to myself, fingers frustratedly running through my hair, strands pulling from my scalp and hurting. My headache was back again, but despite it not being so painful, my body was shivering. I was turning sensitive to even the slightest sensation.
I couldn't take chances.
Barging out the bedroom, I plucked my coat from the sofa. But as soon as I did, it slipped through my fingers and away. I flexed them again, but they weren't responding and moving as well as they were before.
'The tumour will decrease your motor skills over time, you know.'
I gulped down my tears, blocking out Taehyung's words from a month ago.
Bending down, I shifted my hand underneath the coat, grasping a hold of the fabric. It slipped through again.
"Fuck. ." I bit down on my lip.
My fingers unfurled again, picking at the threads of the coat, vision blurring momentarily.
Yoongi, Yoongi, Yoongi — he was all I could think of. He could be somewhere, swimming to the bottom of a lake to God knows where, to most probably, his death. And here I was, not being able to pick up my fucking coat of the floor, let alone slip it on.
please try again
I banged my fist on the flooring, over and over, trying to get my hands to stop shaking and do what they were supposed to do.
please try again
With my fist closing around the fabric, I stood up, stars shooting through my head, and I slipped it on, breathing harshly.
Not now, not now, don't puke now
I ran through the apartment's corridor, hands trying to steady myself as they touched walls of peeling paint. Stumbling through the elevator, I pushed the floor level button, doors closing with a ding.
He had to be going at that lake. The lake where he had brought me to show me the stars upon the water, where he had proven to me that a soon-to-be astronomer could not just research about stars, but could touch them himself — without burning.
