When Taehyung wakes, Namjoon’s not in the car.

His neck feels sore and cramped, head having rested for too long on Jeongguk's shoulder. Jeongguk doesn’t move an inch, even when Taehyung unknots their arms so he can pull his head upright.

Taehyung lets out a small yelp at the dull pain, and Yoongi, sleeping on Jeongguk’s lap, opens his eyes. Even before Taehyung could explain himself, Yoongi twists his head to the side and continues to sleep.

“Sorry, hyung,” Taehyung whispers loudly, pulling the blanket snugger around the two of them. Jeongguk’s ears are the only things visible from under it and Taehyung pulls on the tip affectionately before pushing the car doors open.

A look at the cargo area and he finds Hoseok awake but still sprawled on top of Jimin, who seems to be sleeping peacefully. Taehyung waves at Hoseok, and Hoseok returns his greeting with a tired smile, cheek squashed against Jimin’s chest.

Seokjin is sitting a bit lower on the beach, arms wrapped around his knees and holding a camera. Taehyung crouches down next to him and Seokjin flinches, making a weird set of startled noises when he almost drops his camcorder.

“Ah, Tae,” Seokjin gives a small laugh, lifting up his camera again. “Awake already?”

  Taehyung nods, watching Seokjin’s grainy recording, “You too?”

“I’m filming the sunrise,” Seokjin tells him, looking to the orange sun spilling from the ocean with a happy smile on his lips.

“Where’s Joonie-hyung?”

“Ah,” Seokjin’s expression turns complicated. “By the pier.”

Taehyung nods. He touches Seokjin’s broad back once before getting up and making for the pier.

Namjoon is recognizable immediately by the smoke surrounding him, sitting by the tall scaffolding.  Taehyung slumps down next to him, and Namjoon gives him a crooked grin.

“Morning, Tae.”

Taehyung nods. He watches smoke climb up from Namjoon’s mouth and into his nose, mesmerized by the velvety thickness.

Taehyung leans forwards, hands on his knees.

“Shotgun?”

A mischievous flicker crosses Namjoon’s eyes when he looks at him.

Namjoon inhales hard, his cigarette burning down. Taehyung closes his eyes when Namjoon moves forward, sits perfectly still with his lips parted. There’s a light touch of Namjoon’s hand on his cheek, tilting his head to the side. Taehyung obeys and Namjoon’s lips brush against his, dry and a little cold. Thick smoke fills his mouth.

Taehyung breathes it in, privately disliking the way it burns down his throat and leaves a bad taste on his tongue. But he likes this, the second handed air from Namjoon’s lungs and the look he gives Taehyung when he leans back, eyes gleaming and the corner of his lip upturned.

Taehyung exhales, closes his eyes when his head spins lightly from the nicotine. He opens them again to watch smoke rise up to the brightening sky, the sun climbing out of the sea and onto the sky.

“It’s so pretty,” Taehyung says quietly, bringing his knees up and resting his chin on them. “I wish Seokjin-hyung would take a photo of it right here.”

“Nah,” Namjoon echoes by him, extinguishing his cigarette on the ground. “It wouldn’t look the same, even if he did.”

“You think so, hyung?”

Namjoon nods, strong profile illuminated by the soft light.

“Some moments just can’t be photographed.”

Taehyung thinks about it for a moment.

“I’ll remember it, then,” he decides. “All of us, here.”

Namjoon looks at him, an appreciative smile on his lips.

“Bangtan really wouldn’t do without you.”

He looks a little surprised after he says it, like he didn’t expect to hear it either.

Taehyung hopes that he can remember this for a long time, the warmth of Namjoon’s shoulder against his own, the taste of nicotine on his lips and this happiness, this over whelming feeling of being alive and being here right now.

“Thank you, hyung. ”

***

Taehyung’s bored.

The trip from Seoul to Busan takes forever when he’s the only one awake, and it’s been exactly one hundred and eighty seconds since Namjoon had dropped off. He knows this because he’s been counting sheep, one by one as seconds pass by.

It’s been getting terribly dull, especially when faced with the temptation that is Namjoon’s expression, mouth slack open with just a little bit of droll at the corner of his mouth. Taehyung respects Namjoon, really, but he can’t help it.

The sheep evaporate from his head like balloons of smoke, and he opens up the camera on his phone.

He shifts to the empty seat next to Namjoon, mimicking his expression and taking a couple of selfies. He even starts filming a video so he can record Namjoon’s dynamic snoring.

 It goes on for a minute or two while Taehyung makes faces at the camera, but there’s only so much he can do when he’s alone, so he turns it off.  

It’s not a very funny video but he saves it anyway. The options next to it prompt him to share it by text or social media, and his fingers hover over Kakaotalk, the annotations at the top of his phone reminding him of exactly six missed calls and twenty unanswered messages.

A clean break is the best, Namjoon had said back then. It’s a mantra that Taehyung still lives by, so he shuts off his phone and resigns himself to boredom.

He moves back to his seat, kicks off his shoes and settles in for the ride. The leather seats are fairly comfortable but he still can’t sleep, so he opens up a bag of candy.

Taehyung’s glad to go on the trip, really, he thinks as he bites through a strawberry flavored piece. He’d spent the better part of the last three weeks detained in their apartment and if he sniffs hard enough, he thinks that his hair still reeks of smoke.

He just has this nagging feeling that he should be a little more suspicious of this; Namjoon just bursting in through the door after going to see Jimin and Hoseok, declaring that they’re taking a trip right away and “pack your things Tae.”

Taehyung doesn’t like thinking too hard about things he doesn’t understand completely, one of which are people, so he opts to gaze out of the window idly instead.

 The rural landscape rolls by quickly; just green and green and green until Taehyung’s head is spinning and all the artificial flavors taste like nausea. He puts the bag down, the roof of his mouth sore and teeth filmy.

Taehyung wonders how long his leg has been bobbing up and down like this. His aches, so he shifts to a sitting position. The ache doesn’t lessen up. When he thinks about it, Taehyung thinks that there might have been a reason to Yoongi-hyung forbidding him from ever having as much as a taste of sugar. It’s a shame Namjoon had fallen asleep before he could stop him and it’s also a shame that Taehyung can picture a mustache curling over his lip and sideburns stretching down to his chin.

Taehyung rummages through his backpack but he can’t find a sharpie or anything like that. The sprays are all in Namjoon’s backpack, trapped behind his legs. Taehyung knows firsthand how powerful Namjoon’s kick can be, so he leaves them there. Instead, he decides to grind the hard candy into a paste and use that.

The candy really is true to its name and after a couple of failed tries of cracking them open with the force of his hands to resorts to breaking them up with his teeth. He plucks the wet pieces out of his mouth and drops them into the case of his phone and uses Namjoon’s lighter, which he carefully slips out of Namjoon’s jacket pocket, to do the grinding.

Taehyung works on that for a while, until the big chunks are gone completely. His forehead is sweaty but the only thing that he’s managed to make is a fine powder.

Slowly, he starts to realize that this is going to work out quite like he’s planned to. He thinks that maybe he should’ve taken less naps during Chemistry class in high school, but that’s all over and done with now anyway.

Taehyung starts thinking about spitting into the case and whether Namjoon would just drown him in Busan’s sea if he dared to put his spit concoction on his face when he sees the sticky red gleaming on his fingertips.

He frowns, wiping it against the back of his hand. Instead of it coming off, it just smears all over, still staining the tips of his fingers.

Taehyung’s throat clamps up and he looks at Namjoon, wishing that Namjoon would wake up because he’s starting not to feel too good right now. The realization that he’s all alone hits him like a wave of heat coursing from the tip of his head and downwards, followed immediately by cold sweat down his back.

Taehyung drags in a breath, looks at the buildings outside of the window and imagines an Astronaut Taehyung who lives there and goes on a space voyage where he meets a group of aliens on the moon.

His heart pounds so hard that it’s almost a physical hurt but squeezes his eyes shut and imagines them living forever without any worries except they don’t because he messes up and they all leave him alone on the moon to die alone, drowning in silence and-

Taehyung moves with a detached feeling in his body. The phone case slips out of his hand when he moves to sit next to Namjoon and shakes him sluggishly.

“Hyung,” his own voice echoes around him like he’s in a tunnel. “Namjoon-hyung.”

White noise bursts in Taehyung’s ears, a shrill pitch becoming higher and higher. Taehyung fights to come up for breath, tries to speak louder but he can’t find his voice. He clutches Namjoon’s shoulder harder, and Namjoon jerks awake with a yelp.

Taehyung hates this feeling, like he’s drowning, being whirled away and pulled deep under and he can’t breathe, he really can’t -

Suddenly, there’s a warm hand on his shoulder, Namjoon’s voice gentle and close to his ear.

“Breathe, Tae.”

Taehyung feels his hand being picked up and pressed onto something warm, and there’s a soft drumming pulsing into his hand.

“It’s okay. You’re okay.”

 Taehyung shuts his eyes and focuses on the calming beat. He can’t tell how much time passes like this. After a while the noise crackles and hollows out until he can only hear his labored breathing, and he feels like a rag wrung out too many times. 

His vision refocuses and he sees Namjoon’s profile, eyebrows furrowed and jaw tight. He’s holding Taehyung’s hand to his chest, and Taehyung tugs it out from Namjoon’s grasp, arm stiff and aching.

Namjoon looks to him, lips quirking in a tight smile.

“You okay?” He asks, hand coming up from Taehyung’s shoulder to clumsily pat his head.

Taehyung takes in a deep breath. He presses his hand onto his own chest where there’s a raw sort of pain, like he’s been poking around a wound that hasn’t healed yet.

“Do-” His voice is small, almost inaudible. “Do you think they miss me?”

Namjoon doesn’t have to ask who he means. His hand ruffles through his hair reassuringly and he says, softly, “Of course they do.”

Taehyung shakes his head, “But Yoongi-hyung…”  

Namjoon lets out a thoughtful hum. One of his hands settles on the back of Taehyung’s neck, warm and large fingers resting against his skin. He reaches into his pocket with the other, a complicated expression on his face.

He takes out a cigarette and shifts it from finger to finger as he thinks.

“Min Yoongi,” Namjoon places the cigarette between his lips, taking in a breath. “He doesn’t really make decisions just for himself anymore, you know that. God knows if he’d done things that he’s actually wanted or things that he thought he had to do. I couldn’t tell you what’s going on inside his head, but-”

He looks at Taehyung now, a quiet solemnity in his eyes, “I think he cares a lot more than we give him credit for.”

Taehyung thinks on it for a moment. He holds his hand out, fingers parted, and Namjoon recognizes the gesture. He plucks the unlit cigarette out of his mouth and places it between Taehyung’s fingers.

Taehyung puts it close to his lips. He breathes in and pretends to breathe out smoke, asking, “And you, hyung?”

“Do I miss you?”

Taehyung leans forward, the back of his hand brushing against Namjoon’s mouth as he places the cigarette between his lips.

“Sometimes,” Namjoon admits.

“What do you mean?”

Namjoon smiles, the cigarette turning askew.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“It does,” Taehyung persists. “What do you mean?”

Namjoon sighs, leaning his head against the back of the seat.

“You can miss someone even when they’re with you.”

Taehyung thinks about it for a moment, then decides, “I don’t get it.”

Namjoon turns his head to the side, a tender look on his face. His hand drops away from Taehyung’s neck, “Good.”

“Why?” Taehyung continues, but Namjoon doesn’t respond. He picks up his phone, scrolling down the screen.

“Four more stops 'til Busan, Tae. Get some sleep before we get there.”

Taehyung slumps back into his own seat, stretching his legs onto the empty one across him. He watches Namjoon, ear buds in and stark shadows falling on his face from the screen of his phone. Namjoon looks up, gives him a dimpling smile and mouths out: “Sleep, Tae.”

Taehyung loathes listening to what others tell him most of the time, but he can feel the heavy pull of fatigue on his body. The train moves smoothly onwards and Taehyung lets it rock him into a fitful sleep.

He wakes with Namjoon’s hand on his shoulder, his face close to Taehyung’s.

“We’re almost there.”

Taehyung stretches out the kinks in his body, bones aligning with satisfying cracks. He spots his phone case on the floor among a mess of candy powder, and Namjoon’s silver lighter under the seat. Taehyung plucks the things off the floor, dusting them off.

“Hyung, something fell out.”

Namjoon looks up, raising his eyebrows when he sees his lighter on Taehyung’s palm.

“Oh,” He accepts it, turning it around. “Thanks, Tae.”

They kick the bits of candy under the seats before they board off, Namjoon giving him a silent look.

This side of Busan is new to Taehyung; he’d been here a month or so ago, but Seokjin had driven them straight to the beach in his pick-up back then. The feeling is different, too. Jimin’s not whining after being picked to be driven around in the cargo area, Jeongguk reasoning that his is just too big to fit in with the rest of them. Hoseok’s not singing pop with a cutesy voice with Yoongi, whose small frame is strewn over the three of them in the backseat with his head in Jeongguk’s lap, suggesting that they just tie him up and drag him along.

There’s just Namjoon, walking in front of him with large strides, looking over his shoulder every now and then.

He buys him McDonald’s, something that Taehyung supposes that he wouldn’t have gotten back then. Seokjin-hyung always insisted on them eating homemade even if Jimin and he whined up a storm about it. The fries are good, Taehyung thinks, but they would’ve tasted even better if he had to fight Seokjin for them.

At least the floor fountain behind the station is cool, Taehyung thinks, even if Namjoon doesn’t even want to play on it.

“We’ll just get wet, Tae,” he tells him.

Taehyung observes the streams carefully for a couple of minutes, stepping courageously onto the podium just to miscalculate and get hit with a spurt of water smack dab in the middle of his face.

Namjoon laughs when he returns, bangs sodden and sticking to his forehead. They walk towards the station, Taehyung’s teeth chattering from the cold, and Namjoon pushes his beanie into Taehyung’s hand with a roll of his eyes.

 Taehyung has to admit that he feels considerably warmer after his wet hair is secured inside of it.

They stand next to a chattering girl on the bus, and Taehyung looks out of the windows, watching Busan’s busy skyline as he listens to her satoori. Taehyung remembers how Jimin accidentally addressed Yoongi in satoori once and got glared at so hard that he didn’t dare to speak to Yoongi directly for the rest of the week.

He laughs out loud and the girl gives him a scrutinizing look that turns to pink cheeks when Taehyung smiles.

“I like your accent,” he tells her a little before they reach their stop. She gives him a confused smile and Namjoon huffs before pulling him off the bus.

“Smooth,” Namjoon says as they’re walking, thin fingers holding up a flame to the cigarette between his lips.

“What?”

Namjoon lets out a little snort, smoke leaving his nose in gusts, “Nah, nothing.”

Taehyung wants to ask him again, but he knows that the sea is just around the corner because the air carries the fragrance of salt and there’s a soft humming of waves in the background. So he grabs Namjoon by the hand and starts to run.

“What the-” Namjoon starts, but Taehyung pulls on his arm harder and belts out, “Let’s go!”

They run silently, two pairs of feet against asphalt. Taehyung stops suddenly when he sees the beach, sand stretching out in every direction. He turns to the side to tell Jimin how amazing it is, but he finds only Namjoon’s face, as red as a cherry tomato and hair disorderly.

“Damn it, Tae,” he says, dragging in another smoke even when he’s short of breath.

Taehyung tugs on his sleeve, “Let’s go to the scaffolding.”

He turns to the left sharply and Namjoon grabs him by the back, turning him to the other side.

“This way, genius.”

Taehyung marches on, undeterred by his small mistake.

He walks with a wide gait, leaving irregular marks on the pliant sand. He thinks that it’s somewhere around here where Hoseok had scribbled on “Bangtan Boys!” and made them all sign their names around it, swearing left and right that their hearts will know where they did it even if the waves wash over it. Yoongi had declared that it was the stupidest thing he’s ever heard and there was no way they’d be able to tell, but he made his signature the biggest one.

A bit further on Taehyung thinks that he can see the faint tire marks from Seokjin’s car, driving them in a circle while Jimin hung off the side haphazardly, Jeongguk and him hollering from the cargo part.

Taehyung looks up. The pier is visible from this far away, a thin metal construction overlooking the sea.

Last time, Namjoon and he had let the other boys drive off, deciding to race to it. They’d asked an unenthusiastic Yoongi to keep the time, and when they’d finally gotten there, both of them wheezing and clutching their sides, Yoongi was eating kimbap with an innocent look on his face, proclaiming that it was, “Somewhere around five minutes, I don’t know.”

Taehyung looks over his shoulder with a smile and finds Namjoon walking a little behind him, cigarette to his lips and eyes looking over to the horizon. This time Taehyung waits for Namjoon to catch up, then keeps walking.

The sun is panting the sky in pretty hues of red and violet when they finally reach the pier.

Somewhere around here, at the base, Taehyung remembers that Seokjin had parked his car and took a photo of them with his pink polaroid camera. Hoseok had fallen asleep sitting on the top of the truck, and it was a rescue mission by Seokjin and Jimin that finally got him off and onto the backseat. Taehyung wonders where that polaroid ended up; in Seokjin’s wallet, maybe? Or did he just throw them all away when he moved back to Gwacheon?

Taehyung walks the length of the pier, sees Jimin’s grin at the back of his eyelids, enlightened by the red flare in his hands. To the side, on a wooden bridge, Jeongguk doing push-ups with a displeased Yoongi perched daintily onto his back, arms crossed and a never ending stream of grumbling leaving his lips.  

Taehyung reaches the scaffolding, a couple of sodden cigarette butts by the base. Namjoon had sat there, back when he had traded half of the cigarettes with neon lollipops. Taehyung steps forward, placing himself where he had been then, high off his laughter and clothes smelling of smoke from being chased by Jimin.

Looking behind, Namjoon’s figure is a spot of black against the pale sunlight, wisps of smoke rising up from his cigarette. He’s sitting with his legs off the ledge of the pier, engrossed in his thoughts. It’s still just like Namjoon, Taehyung thinks.

He turns around, eyes trailing upwards to the hulking metal above him. It still looks a little scary to Taehyung, even if Jeongguk had scaled it gleefully with his tender eighteen years of age. Taehyung had promised Jeongguk that time that he’d climb it the next time he visited, when Jimin was awake to see his victory and not slumbering with Hoseok like the big coward he was.

Jimin’s not here this time around either, and Hoseok’s still sleeping, but Taehyung always keeps his promises.

He leaves his backpack by the base and wraps his hands around the thin metal, cold marks pressing into his skin. He climbs up steadily and wind whips about his face, making his eyes water. It’s more terrifying than Taehyung thought it would be, the slight creaking of soles on slippery steps that makes him grip on tighter.

He reaches the final step and it’s difficult to hoist himself up, the top a rickety metal plate that feels barely wide enough for him to stand on safely, but he does it anyway.

He feels vulnerable and small on top of it, like the entire thing could crash and collapse with just a light breeze. Jeongguk had stood at the bare edge of it, Taehyung remembers, shouting from the bottom of his lungs with his arms outstretched.

Taehyung crawls forward on his hands and knees, eyes glued to the platform under him. Halfway there, he spots thin lines carved into the metal that look like letters. He presses his face closer to it, squinting. It’s hangul, like he thought. He pronounces each syllable carefully.

“Jiminie… Jiminie’s height is freaking small.

And under it:

“P.S. Taehyung is a fool.”

It takes a moment for Taehyung to absorb it in, head reeling from such baseless accusations being written on a random scaffolding in Busan along with the lack of proper honorifics. And then he remembers the excited shine in Jeongguk’s eyes, his toothy smile as he urged them to climb to the top. He’d looked miffed after they’d bailed on him, but excited at the same time.

Jeongguk had waited a month for his stupid joke to be discovered, and laughter bubbles out of Taehyung, even as a wave of pure missing hits him.

The absence of his friends wrecks his body from inside out, and he presses his forehead onto the words etched on the freezing scaffolding. The cold burns against his forehead but it hurts less than the memories, the sudden bursting in him because he’s never had a clean break even if he had to give it to the rest of them. His face is wet and his eyes are all foggy, and when he looks off the edge of the scaffolding he can see it, six figures sitting side by side and Seokjin’s car, parked behind them.

Taehyung was with them back then, one of Namjoon’s arms around him and legs swinging above the sea foam. Now he’s here, crouching on a platform and crying over a couple of insults left over from his treasured friend.

He lifts himself up, gets up on wobbly legs and the world tilts for a moment, rocks under his feet but the view that hits him is breathtaking. The sea looks absolutely endless, blue drenched in fading light and when Taehyung closes his eyes he can almost hear Jeongguk’s teasing voice.

Jump, Taehyung. Are you really scared?

He breathes in, breathes out. Jeongguk wouldn’t really say this. Or would he? Taehyung can’t tell anymore.

A step forward.

He can see over the edge now.

It’s a tall drop. Taehyung thinks that people have jumped down taller cliffs and survived, but the waves are foaming at the surface, promising to swallow him up.  

He wonders if plummeting down feels the same like when he’s dreaming, the quick loss of his breath and the closing of his eyes and it’s over. He hopes it doesn’t hurt too much.

The wind blows, brushes his hair off his forehead like a caress. Maybe this is the best he can do, Taehyung thinks.

He’s still afraid, but a poisonous calm creeps over his limbs. The panic attacks will stop. Yoongi and Jeongguk will talk to the rest of them again. Namjoon-hyung will be able to stop locking the windows up, smoking cigarette after cigarette with spindly fingers and pale eyes, lips bitten bloody from worry.

Seokjin might come back.

“Hey!”

Taehyung frowns. All of this yelling doesn’t fall in place neatly with his projection of a better future without him.

“Taehyung!”

He jerks awake. White spots block his vision, and he blinks them away. He looks to the side to find a pink ant-figure on the ground, arms flapping around like wings.

“The heck you doing?” Namjoon shouts up at him, voice firm. “Come down already!”

Taehyung hates when people talk to him with that tone, like he’s an unruly kid that needs to be disciplined.  He looks back over the edge and the sea looks even farther away.

“Tae!” Namjoon’s voice cracks, turning hoarse from the shouting. “Taehyung!”

His feet hover over the edge, and if he tips forward a centimeter, it’s over.

“Please, Tae!”

Taehyung thinks that this is when his life flashes by him, when he remembers the smell of Namjoon’s smoke and his rough fingertips, his soothing murmurs when Taehyung has a nightmare and whenever he feels alone.

 “Come down!”

He thinks of all of this, and realizes that he can’t say goodbye. He’s still the same scared coward that he always was.

He crouches down, takes a step back and loses his balance. He falls down on the platform on his back, arms spread on either side of him.  His eyes open, slowly, and the big sky fills up his gaze, pink and blue, a solitary seagull flying overhead.

He lies there, head empty of thoughts, until he registers dull clanging from behind him, and his vision is overtaken by Namjoon’s dark eyes.

“Let’s get down together.”

Taehyung knows that Namjoon fears heights even more than he does, so he stirs and sits up.

Namjoon grabs his shoulder immediately, fingers digging hard enough to bruise his skin. He lets go when Taehyung moves to flip over on his knees, and they crawl their way back to the steps. Namjoon halts before climbing down, throwing a look back at Taehyung.

“I won’t do it,” Taehyung tells him blankly, and Namjoon looks back around mutely and starts to climb down.

Namjoon rarely gets mad, Taehyung thinks, but when he does, it’s big, and it’s scary. The only time Taehyung bore witness to it was after his last fight with Yoongi, when he’d stomped wordlessly all the way to the bathroom. Taehyung had flinched hard at the noises, and when they stopped and he dared to enter, he found Namjoon with bloody knuckles, surrounded by broken wood and tiles.

Taehyung doesn’t think that there’s anything here for him to break, and he wonders if Namjoon will punch him instead.

He climbs down the last steps, the touch of ground making him lose his balance. He tips over and Namjoon grabs his arm, pulling him upright roughly. Taehyung thinks that his eyes look stormier than the sea behind them.

“It’s okay,” Taehyung says. “Punch me.”

He closes his eyes, locking his jaw tight. Waiting in complete dark is nerve-wrecking, and he wonders if he should beg Namjoon to try and not break his nose.

The impact never comes. Instead, calloused fingers cup his chin and he feels a dry kiss against his lips.

“Don’t you dare pull like this ever again.”

Namjoon’s breath is warm against his mouth, tasting of nicotine.

Taehyung nods, eyes still closed. The warmth leaves him, and he hears the crunch of gravel under feet.

When Taehyung opens his eyes, he sees only Namjoon’s retreating back. He’s rummaging through the pockets of his jacket, and Taehyung can see how hard his fingers are trembling when he fumbles and a packet of cigarettes falls out. He kicks them hard, and they fly off the pier and into the sea.

He watches Namjoon stride off with big steps, kicking at sand. He doesn’t go far, most likely hesitant to leave Taehyung out of sight.

Taehyung slumps down by the base of the scaffolding. His mouth still feels warm, and he presses his hand on it.

He feels completely spent, like he’s ready to sleep for centuries on end. The lines of the scaffolding cut into his spine uncomfortably but sleep still takes him easily. Taehyung wonders if this is how Hoseok-hyung felt each time he fell asleep.

***

He wakes with Namjoon’s hand on his shoulder again, the world dark around him. For a moment he thinks that everything that’s happened was a dream and he’s still on the train, but the air still carries the smell of salt and the sounds of the sea.

Namjoon holds out his hand for Taehyung, voice clipped, “We’re going back right now.”

Taehyung takes it and gets up to his feet, feeling a little lost. He holds the back of Namjoon’s jacket as they walk briskly, just a step away from breaking into a run. Taehyung has a hard time keeping up, but he doesn’t dare object.

“I’m sorry,” he says, even though it’s a severely lacking phrase.

“Don’t -” Namjoon shakes his head. “We’ll - we'll talk about that later. There’s been… something’s happened.”

Namjoon turns around. Taehyung knows that there’s something wrong from the way that his fingers wrap around Taehyung’s, mouth turned downwards in grief that even he can recognize.

“I’m going to tell you now, but you need to keep walking, no matter how hard it is.”

Taehyung just nods. There’s a stillness in the air, like a porcelain cup poised on the edge of a table moments away from shattering.

Namjoon grips his hand tighter.

“There’s been an accident.”

Taehyung’s head spins, footsteps stuttering, but Namjoon pulls him forward.

“Who?” Taehyung hears himself breathe out.

Namjoon's mouth moves.

"It's Jeonggukie."

And Taehyung shatters.

that cliffhanger tho