Jungkook was surrounded in blue. He didn’t mind it, since he liked the colour a lot. There was a kind of gentle roaring, ringing in his ears. It was rhythmic and soothing. Jungkook could feel himself relax and slowly starting to drift off. He was just about to lose consciousness and succumb to sleep when he heard a piercing scream.

Jungkook was suddenly wide awake, eyes open and blinking. But the only things he could see was still blue. The screaming became louder and more distinct. The once gentle roaring in his ears became violent and too loud to bear. Then with a startle, Jungkook realised that he could identify the screaming.

“NO!!! JUNGKOOK!!!!! SAVE ME!!!!!!!” The scream was so heart shattering and desperate, Jungkook felt his eyes filled up with tears. Subconsciously he tried to identify the owner of the voice. Then, he came to a sudden realisation.

It was Jimin!

Jungkook frantically tried to move around, but found his movements sluggish and slow, like he was trapped in a bubble of viscous gel. He opened his mouth and tried to scream for Jimin, but in absolute terror, he found out that he couldn’t breathe. Then he realised the almost bitter saltiness on the tip of his tongue. He was under water. In the sea, to be exact.

The screaming began to double and multiple, until Jungkook could clearly identify six voices ringing in his head. s, his beloved hyungs, all screaming for him to help.

Jungkook tried to reach out to them, tried to reassure them that he was there for them, but the water was soaking through him. His mouth and nostrils were filled with water. His lungs had stopped functioning, and he could see black spots clouding his vision.

The screams rose to a hysterical level, filling Jungkook with terror and helplessness. He made one last futile effort of moving forward, and plunged into darkness and an abyss of horrified mutilated screams of his name.

Then he woke up.

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Jungkook began to shut himself out of the world. He refused to go out of his room, just lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, or looking at his phone, reading the fans’ comments.

The fans’ comments had been comforting, but unfortunately not uplifting. Despite reading those comments, he couldn’t get himself moving. There were a few tribute videos being trended as well, but Jungkook couldn’t bring himself to watch them. Every tribute video he watched, every BTS song he had listened to, every group shoot he had seen, everything was putting salt on his wound.

Jungkook refused to admit that during the day, he daydreamt about him being with s, but at night, nightmares came to him. No, he denied, they were not nightmares. He was just relieving the times he spent with s in his dreams.

But why did everything hurt?

Every day, Sejin came to his dorm with food, and forced him to eat. For the first two weeks, Jungkook only ate a little, unable to feel hunger nor thirst. All the muscles he gained when working out were gone, replaced with skin and bones. His hair had also begun to fall out strand by strand, and the dyes fading, giving his hair a natural black colour. Due to the nightmares, he slept very little too, so he had deep purple eye bags beneath his eyes, his cheeks hollow, his lips chapped. He looked like death warmed up.

And he had stopped talking too. There was nobody else in the dorm, the empty rooms seeming cold, the lack of people made him even more depressed. He remembered that when he was unusually silent in s’ eyes, Namjoon would pull him into his room. He would ask him what was wrong, and if he refused to say, just staying by his side. Namjoon was like the most comforting bath he had had, like the round moon in the darkest sky. No matter how thick and high were Jungkook’s walls, Namjoon would break them down softly but firmly. Soon enough, he would open up to Namjoon, and Namjoon would give smart advices. His leader was silly sometimes, but he was an extremely intelligent man, and would offer much help to his problems.

Now that there was no one to break his walls, Jungkook kept silent. He didn’t know how harmful can solitude and silence be to him, until one day he wanted to tell Sejin to buy some sleeping pills for him. He hadn’t been sleeping well for over a month already, and he could physically feel his health deteriorating. As much as he wanted to meet s, he didn’t want it to go this way.

Sejin wasn’t facing him, as he was microwaving some takeaway food. The word “hyung” had been on his tongue, but his throat won’t budge, seemingly frozen and stiff from keeping quiet all the time. Jungkook tried saying “hyung” again, but it seemed like his vocal cords were non-existent.

Jungkook felt panic rising in his chest. Why couldn’t he talk? Were his vocal chords damaged during the accident? It couldn’t be, since he had talked normally for over a month after the accident. He started breathing quicker, and Sejin noticed his heavy heaving sounds.

“Jungkook-ah, what’s wrong?”

Jungkook tried to explain, but he couldn’t find his voice. He started crying, but no sound came out of him.

“Jungkook-ah?” Sejin was starting to worry. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

Jungkook frantically shook his head, but his eyes are full of panic. He quickly ran off to his room, in search of his notebook and a pen. Sejin followed him, but stopped by the door. Jungkook’s hands were shaking, and he couldn’t hold the pen tight. Taking a deep breath, he wrote something on the notebook.

Sejin’s heart nearly stopped when the shaky handwriting read “hyung, I can’t talk”.

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“Is your throat hurting?”

A shake of his head.

“Have you tried to make sounds?”

A nod.

“Were you… going through a traumatic experience?”

Jungkook’s eyes widen at the sentence, and started to think. Sure enough, he was grieving the loss of s, but was it traumatic? What is the definition of traumatic to them?

When Jungkook didn’t make any respond after a long time, Sejin decided that he had to talk.

“You see, he lost all his bandmates a month ago…”

“Oh, it was you. I’m sorry, I failed to recognise you nor your name.”

Jungkook didn’t give any response. He was tired to hear all the “sorry”s said to him. If the others were sorry for him, would he forgive himself? After everything that happened, his six brothers should be the victims instead, so why are people saying “sorry” to him? He had no answer, so did everybody else, so he had no intentions of finding the answers too.

After a detailed checkup, the diagnosis was given.

“Selective mutism,” the doctor had said, “probably caused by trauma. The only way to slowly overcome it is therapy.”

Sejin had nodded, and gave Jungkook a look so heartbreaking, Jungkook just wanted to evaporate into thin air from pure guilt. They scheduled a few therapy sessions, and Jungkook was instructed to interact more with others.

But who could he interact with? There was nobody else in the dorm, and most of his friends were busy with practices and performances. Thinking of performances, Jungkook felt weak and useless. The BTS activities had been put to a complete stop, and every single schedule was cancelled, including the comeback they were supposed to do as a complete group soon. Just before the accident, Jungkook had been pulling all-nighters in the practice room and the studio, perfecting every move and every note. But now, everything was in vain.

Jungkook still loves singing and dancing. He was not sure about dancing though, since it had been months since he last danced, but he couldn’t stop singing. That was why he wanted the therapy so much. If he couldn’t talk, he couldn’t sing too.

He remembered Seokjin, who had such a passion in singing. Seokjin’s vocal colour was very different from the other three parts of the vocal line, his voice being as clear as a stream gurgling in the woods. The others had much richer and warmer tone, and that made Seokjin’s voice stand out a lot. As a result, Seokjin didn’t get many lines in their title songs, since many said that his voice “couldn’t blend in” with the others. Jungkook remembered Seokjin laughing it off with a casual wave, but he also remembered Seokjin in the studio, practising his few lines over and over again. He remembered Jimin and Taehyung throwing a fit when it was announced that Seokjin would only have ten seconds worth of lines in Blood, Sweat and Tears. Seokjin had reassured them that they fitted the song more than he did, but Jungkook couldn’t miss Seokjin’s disappointment in his eyes.

Seokjin did actually get more lines in Spring Day, and in the song they would be releasing on the next comeback. Seokjin’s vocal abilities were just starting to shine, but the star itself had dimmed too soon.

Jungkook did get his sleeping pills too, but under close supervising of Sejin. Sejin had the whole box of pills, and he only gave Jungkook one pill every day. Jungkook was thankful for that because if he handled the pills himself, he wouldn’t have been able to control himself, and he might overdose.

Besides therapy, Jungkook went for counselling too. It was a unique form of counselling: in the room there were small figurines and a sandbox, and Jungkook could use the sandbox and the figurines to express his feelings. Jungkook loved the sandbox. Every time he went for counselling, he would carefully choose seven different figurines and arrange them on the sandbox, each scenario telling different stories.

The counsellor was a middle aged woman who he decided to love and open up to after the first session. She was like a second mother to him, despite only meeting her once a week. She knew his backstories, and she didn’t mention it to the others. Due to his selective mutism, she had specially prepared a whiteboard and markers in the counselling room. Sometimes when he wanted to tell his counsellor things, he used the whiteboard.

He told the counsellor his journeys with s all across the world. Once, he built sand dunes in the sandbox, and put seven figurines on it, telling his counsellor his trip to Dubai with s last year. On another time, he arranged his figurines in a row, and put a large trophy in front of the figurines. He looked at the sandbox and smiled. From the backpack he had brought, he took out a familiar item.

“ARMY Bomb, our lightstick”, he wrote on the board. He proceeded to switch on the lightstick and waved it a bit. The counsellor smiled affectionately at him.

“Do you want to go back on the stage one day?” She asked him.

Jungkook nodded eagerly with a spark in his eyes, but the spark soon dimmed down. He pointed at his throat and shook his head. He could make odd voices already, his vocal cords slowly coming back to life, but he still couldn’t talk.

“You will be able to talk soon, sweetie,” the counsellor reassured him, and he merely nodded. He liked the counsellor, as she was the only person he hadn’t hear a single “sorry” from.

Because he didn't need to feel anymore sorry towards everyone around him, and away from him.

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On one particular bad day, Jungkook came into the room in tears, Sejin giving the counsellor a sad look before closing the door. Jungkook sat down and continued to cry for a long time, the counsellor just giving him a long hug and whispering comforting words in his ears. Once he calmed down enough, Jungkook immediately went to the rack of figurines.

He took his usual seven figurines, but didn’t arrange them in any particular way. Instead, he placed the iron man figurine away, and took the other six figurines to the sandbox. He grouped the six figurines in twos. The counsellor didn’t ask him anything, because she knew this session might be the turning point of the whole therapy.

Jungkook took the Mario and the Carl figurines, and buried them deep in the sandbox. Then he wrote on the board, “Seokjin hyung and Yoongi hyung are were the eldest in my group, and they gave us great reassurance and security.”

Then he took the Ryan figurine and Nick figurine. “This is Namjoon hyung and Taehyung hyung, they were two really different individuals, but they worked well together.”

After burying the two figurines in the sand, he picked up the Apeach figurine and the Sally figurine. “This is Hoseok hyung and Jimin hyung. They were the smiling angels of the group, and always brought happiness and glee.” He them buried them down into the sandbox.

Jungkook tentatively placed the Iron Man figurine on the edge of the sandbox. “This is me,” he wrote, “and everyone else was in the sea. They might not be alive anymore, but they will be alive always in my heart.

The sea is like a desert. We are all lost in a desert, some of us lying on the sand motionless, some of us struggling to get through, but someone will eventually find the end of it. I believe they, my members, have already found the other side of the desert, and are living happily over there. As for me though…”

Jungkook put down the whiteboard and inhaled deeply. He looked at the figuring still on the edge of the sandbox, and then looked at the counsellor who was smiling encouragingly at him.

“I-I have been stop-stopping at the s-same place for too long. I-I want to move on.” Jungkook said out loud. He stuttered a lot, and his voice was hoarse, but it was the first time in almost a year and a half he had spoken.

“I want to move on,” he said again, voice clearer and louder, filled with determination.

The counsellor applauded him with tears in her eyes.

Jungkook was not sure if he could stay determined for long, but he was satisfied that at least he had started to put in effort. He thought of the dream he had on the way to the counselling centre.

He was standing on the deck of the cruise again, this time the sky dark and the stars bright. There was no moon. His hair was messy and his breathing was heavy. Why was he here?

Suddenly, a few silhouettes appeared before him. It was unclear at first, but Jungkook’s breath hitched at the familiar group of people. They were his dearest members, standing on the deck, smiling at him. Jungkook’s eyes watered at the sight. For the first time in over a year, he was dreaming all of them, seeing all of them face to face at once.

“Hyung…” He breathed, still finding no voice in him. All of the six members smile endearingly at him. Seokjin reached forward and ruffled Jungkook’s hair. His hand was warm to touch, Jungkook noticed. Namjoon smiled at him, dimples deep and eyes narrowing. Yoongi merely nodded at him, but there was a clear look of adoration in his eyes.

Jimin walked to Jungkook and embraced him tightly, Hoseok and Taehyung soon joining. Jungkook had started crying, shoulders trembling and hands shaking. Finally, all of them joined the hug, wrapping Jungkook in a familiar blanket of warmth.

Jungkook wanted this moment to last, but behind his thoughts, he knew this was the last time he would ever feel their warmth. The very last time.

After a few minutes or maybe hours, they let go of Jungkook and Jungkook took the time to look at all of s, closely and lovingly. He saw Namjoon’s deep dimples, Seokjin’s gentle eyes, Yoongi’s soft features, Hoseok’s adorable smile, Jimin’s plump cheeks, and Taehyung’s boxy smile.

“I love you, hyungs…” He whispered to them, and they nodded, eyes getting red rimmed. Finally, they stood a few steps back away from Jungkook, and Jungkook knew they’re leaving.

“Take care,” Seokjin said, "be our star."

"We love you," they chorused.

And Jungkook watched as all six of them disappeared into the night sky, leaving only their scents around Jungkook, scattered in the wind.

In the night sky, one star seemed to shine brighter.

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Longest. Chapter. I've. Ever. Written.

This is one of the most difficult chapters to write because the timeline was spreaded over a long period of time

About the sandbox, it is an actual form of counselling. Back when I was dealing with some family issues a few years ago, I was brought to a counsellor and this method was used to coax my words out of me. And it did work wonders, even though most of the time I just play around with the sand, it's kind of like ASMR and it releases tension.

Of course, I based the counsellor in this story with my own counsellor too. She is such a wonderful woman and I hope to meet her again.

I'm not sure if this is angsty? But I'm satisfied with the outcome. 

We have only one chapter and an epilogue left! Thank you for staying with me, my dear commenters and subscribers <3

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