"I guess...we'll leave?" Taehyung closes the door behind him. "Yell if you need us, alright?" The door clicks shut as he and Jungkook stand outside.

Jimin tries to sit up, but Hoseok is having none of that. Carefully, he pushes Jimin back down. "You're not fit to move yet."

"It's hard to talk like this," Jimin complains, before just lying down. "Hoseok, I know that..." He swallows. "That you're dead." 

Hoseok stops in his tracks. It's as if all the sounds, movements and everything just...stopped. He turns away suddenly. "How long have you known?" 

"No, more like, when are you ever going to tell us?" Jimin asks, cutting him off. "You're...how long were you going to keep it from us?" 

Hoseok bites his lip, and silence reigns for a while above their heads. "As long as I could." 

"We trusted each other." Hoseok can't even bear to look at Jimin's face when he can clearly hear the slight betrayal in his voice. "Didn't that trust mean anything to you? Or did you simply not care? Was that story of being an outlaw a lie?" 

"It wasn't a lie!" 

Hoseok's voice rings out in the room, slamming the room back into silence again, before Hoseok continues, in a small voice. "You don't know what it's like to be exiled from your own people! No one accepts you. No one wants you! To top it all off, you're dead! Do you know how hard that is?" His voice breaks at the last word, and Jimin instantly feels sorry. "I finally managed to be friends with you...I'm not so stupid to throw that all away by telling you I'm dead! People look at you differently!" 

With that, Hoseok crumples to the ground, onto his knees, tired and guilty at letting his emotions take control of him. Five hundred years should have taught him something, and yet, he's here, snivelling like a child in front of his Summoner, the person he has sworn to protect throughout the Summoner's entire pilgrimage. 

"Yeah, I don't know what it's like, but I can imagine." 

Slowly, Hoseok turns to face the younger. Jimin isn't looking at him anymore, but rather, staring up at the ceiling. Hoseok can see something sparkle on his cheek. A tear? Jimin's crying for him?

"I've never been exiled from my own people, but after my parents died, no one wanted to take me in, and a few days after that incident, I met Tae." 

Hoseok remains silent as Jimin spills out the rest of his story. "But despite being only for a few days, those days were the longest of my life, especially when no one wanted to give you food, and even then, you gotta beg for it, not to mention all you get is a few crackers and nuts...at best, a piece of stale bread. I...I didn't want anyone else to feel that way. That's why, even if Tae was an Al Bhed, I befriended him, 'cos I knew no one else in Besaid would." 

"And I want to be that kind of person for you too," Jimin tries to sit up again, struggling to push himself up. "No one else should feel alone." He manages to sit up against the headboard of the bed. "Not even a dead person, and as long as you still feel anything, you're still alive, and yes, you're still alive right now, Jung Hoseok." 

Hoseok can't think of anything to say. In five hundred years, he always had to change his identity, had to walk all over Spira, only to end up back in his hometown, Guadosalam, in which in can't really get too near either. And even then, he had no one to talk too--he was getting used to being alone, in fact, but when he met Jungkook, Jimin and Taehyung just a few days ago in Besaid, he realized he's never met such approachable people in his life (at least Jimin and Taehyung were before Jungkook started opening up to him). 

And he was determined to keep them as friends.

"Will you...let me be that person?" Jimin asks, voice a little hopeful, and it breaks Hoseok out of his thoughts.

The Guado looks down at the ground, eyes staring at the carpet. If he squints, he can see all the lint caught in the fluffy material. I'm alive...huh? Funny, it never crossed my mind I could ever be alive.

He doesn't know why, or knows when, but soon, streams of tears were making their mark as he buries his face in his hands. I don't want to be alone anymore! I don't want to...

"Hey, you're not alone. Not anymore." 

A pair of arms hug him from the back. "Yah, you've got us. We're a team, y'know?" Hoseok closes his eyes, sinking back into Jimin's warmth, letting the emotions that he's bottled up for five hundred years loose.

As he opens his eyes, he sees something shining. Colorful, even. He looks down at his arms--he's getting more transparent by the minute, and pyreflies are swirling around them. 

"Yah, I don't want to see you cry ever again, alright, Hobi?"

Hoseok squeezes his eyes shut.

"Thank you...Jimin..." 

Pyreflies burst from where Hoseok once was, and Jimin is soon hugging air. Not even he can stop his own tears running down his flushed cheeks. 

The door burst open and Taehyung and Jungkook run in to see Jimin on the ground, sobbing quietly. 

"Jimin! Where's Hoseok?"

Jimin can only shake his head, ignoring the arcing pain of his wounds and the hot tears on his face as Taehyung and Jungkook help him back up onto the bed. 

Jimin, with Taehyung and Jungkook watching over him, cried himself to sleep that night.

*****************************

"I think we should let him sleep a little more," Seokjin says. With Jimin still asleep, it's impossible to have known what had gone on just the previous night. 

Thunder rumbles outside and Seokjin flinches.

"Scared of thunder, Jinnie?" Namjoon grins.

"No," Seokjin says as a matter-of-factly. "I'm not scared at all." 

"Yeah, right," Taehyung grins, poking the elder's cheek. "Come to think of it, have any of you seen Hobi? We left him with Jimin in that room and he just...disappeared when we went in."

"And Jimin was crying?" Yoongi asks.

"Yeah," Jungkook nods, still staring at the ground. 

"Y'all think the ing Guado deserted us? He may have been a spy for the Guados or something," Yoongi suggests, his Besaid accent coming out as he clenches and unclenched his fist. 

"I think we should ask Jimin," Taehyung mumbles, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt, fingers brushing some of the spoils he gets from enemies he defeats or just materials like Malboro Vine and Bomb Fragments. 

"I have to agree with Tae on this one," Namjoon says. "It's better not to do anything reckless right now. Jimin's tired and wounded and Hoseok's gone. We're in no shape to do any fighting right now." 

"Let's rest for now. We'll decide later when Jimin wakes up."

***************************************************

Jimin feels terrible. He awakens with a sore throat and a throbbing back. He opens his bleary eyes and looks around the room, eyes landing on the place where whatever events had happened last night took place.

"You're not alone anymore." 

Hoseok's sense of loneliness and discontentment towards people's unacceptance of him had led to his soul being pinned down on this earth, unwilling to move on. And now...he's gone, the hole in his chest filled, the scars healed. 

A fresh wave of tears threaten to fall from Jimin's eyes again as he turns to the side, wincing a little as he presses his wound against the comfy sheets, but he just simply wipes the tears away and sniffles a little, preparing to meet his Guardians. He's the hope of the people of Spira. If he can't even be the hope for his friends, how can he be the hope for his Guardians? 

Jimin stands up, a little wobbly on his feet, and walks outside, seeing Yoongi sleeping with his mouth wide open, his spiked blitzball resting on his lap, his one hand held over it protectively. Seokjin's reading the Spiran Daily, and Namjoon's reading his Art of War book that he always keeps concealed in his sword sheath. Taehyung is fiddling with random bomb fragments and other stuff like Arctic Winds and Electro Marbles and trying to create new bomb combinations. Jungkook is lying on the ground, staring blankly at his spear.

All of them, sans Yoongi, look at him when he enters the room.

"Uh...hi," Jimin waves meekly. 

"How are you?" Seokjin asks, putting down the Spiran Daily back into the newspaper rack and walking over to Jimin. "You looked pretty knocked out last night." 

"Long day," Jimin smiles, nodding. "Not to mention some giant nearly sliced me to bits like a rag doll." 

"Ouch. Not one of your best days, that's for sure," Namjoon walks over. Jimin flashes a smile at him too, but Namjoon can tell that it's forced. Something definitely happened last night, and that's why Jimin's being like this. Trying to be happy when he isn't. Trying to be strong and happy for them.

"You guys want to keep going?" Jimin asks, angling his head to Jungkook and Taehyung, who's shaking Yoongi and succeeding in waking up the latter. 

"If you're fine enough," Jungkook says. 

Jimin starts to look uncomfortable, but that expression is quickly replaced by that of relief. "Okay, let's go." 

"Aren't you gonna tell us something?" 

Yoongi's question stops Jimin in his tracks. Namjoon shoots a warning look towards Yoongi, which the latter either didn't notice, or ignores completely. His eyes are trained on Jimin's, narrowed into little slits like a cat's, blitzball clutched in his hand. 

"Or should I ask you straight out: Where is the Guado?" 

Seokjin grits his teeth, to bite back a retort. The mood in the lobby also tensed. Jimin shuffles his feet, looking at anywhere else but them. 

"It's a...long story. Let's talk it over breakfast, ya?" 

*********************************************************

"That's all," Jimin leans back against his chair, tired from telling the story and answering questions. Most of his Guardians are staring at him, but otherwise, fidgeting (Tae). 

"Jimin..." Jungkook starts, but Jimin cuts him off.

"At least it's for the best," he nods. "Now Hoseok can rest... 

In peace." 

*********************************************************

"Right, we need to carry on, and hopefully, we won't run into that Humbaba thing again," Namjoon says. "You feeling okay, Jimin?" 

"Yeah," Jimin nods. "Thunder Plains is going to be--" 

There is a flash of lightning followed by thunder ringing across the sky. "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekkk!" 

Jimin looks around. Who was tha--?

"Looks like Jinnie is afraid of thunder after all," Namjoon laughs, and so does Taehyung and Jungkook, guffawing at the eldest, who doesn't look very amused. 

"Yah! Stop it!" Seokjin's face is flushed and cringes as another roll of thunder roars.

Jimin, wiping away tears of laughter with his fingers, grin, "Come on, Jin! We'll be near lightning rods, so..." 

Boom! 

"Eeeeeeeekkk!" Seokjin slaps his hands over his ears and grits his teeth. "Fine, let's just hurry up and get out of here!" 

******************************************************

It isn't until mid-afternoon that Jimin and company reaches the next part of their journey--Macalania Woods. The blue glow of the woods was already visible before Jimin even entered the sparkling acre of foliage. Jewel-like leaves hang from the branches forming drooping canopies over the large tree branch that is their route to Macalania Woods.

"We'll have to pass by this area later, especially since it leads to Calm Lands," Taehyung says. "And from there, we can get to Bevelle." 

Bevelle is the next city on Taehyung's list of cities to visit, and since there's a temple there...why not, Jimin thinks. That is, Bevelle will have to wait until after Macalania Temple, which is near the lake after they get through Macalania Woods. 

"If we hurry on, we can reach Macalania Temple before nightfall," Namjoon reasons, clapping his hands together.

"Then it's settled! Let's go, guys!" Jimin calls, grinning and running off into the woods, amazed at all the sparkles that the plants are giving off, glimmering under the mid-afternoon sun and serving as shelter. 

It wasn't known to them then. 

That they were being constantly watched.

******************************************************

Splutter. 

Gasp.

Too dark. Can't see.

"There, is it better?" 

No, I still can't see.

"Relax. You'll know where you are soon."

Where am I? Wet? Water? What is this place? Vision is adjusting to the light...ah, there's a temple.

"You can see now, right?" 

Yeah. Water...I'm floating in water. There's a temple. And there's something shining there. 

"That's the fayth of Anima. She resides in that temple. Lead your Summoner to this temple. By all means possible."

Of course.

**********************************************
OOOOOHH what do you think will happen next hmm? Actually i hadn't planned Hoseok's death, honestly. I was just writing as I went along and it just suddenly occurred to me lmao.

Well, I hope you're enjoying so far. I don't think this chappie is as good as the rest cos I'm srsly damn busy (leaving school at 7-8pm these few days like what? plus bombarded with homework) and I guess I'll try to write loner and better chapters.