The icy grey sky restlessly rumbles.

He hastens his steps, matching the rhythmic beat of water against asphalt, rubber soles against well worn pavements.

The day had simply been dark and overcast but the weight of the rain soon broke through delicate clouds and within seconds the town was drowning in a cascade of water.

He hastens his steps.

The trees offered no shelter, droplets pooled onto the concave of leaves and snaps off in one quick motion, smashing its way through the foliage and melting back into drains.

He breaks into a jog.

The sound of emptiness reverberates loudly and bounces around his head only to be scared away by the desperate shriek of thunder and accompanied by the frantic throbbing on his temple.

He begins to run.

The icy cold rain pierced his exposed skin and scratches at the open wounds as he sprinted across slippery roads and through narrow alleys, his form weakened by the weight of his soaked clothes.

It wasn’t just rain.

The quality of darkness shifted in the sky, as if in confirmation of his dreaded thought and he lets out a strained curse, shedding his coat in a frenzied attempt to regain his former speed.

The darkness lurks, caressing his frozen skin, whispering poison, inducing fear and he runs desperately forward.

He sees it.

The tape he has come to be so familiar with; taunting, mocking, cackling.

Eyes snapped his way and shriveled back to the ground instinctively, he feels the frosty rain freeze beneath his nails as he slows to a jog, painfully forcing his legs to move as his mind screams in protest and his heart threatening to break free to hide itself from its impending doom.

“Hoseok…”

Hands reach out to hold him back but he doesn’t have the strength to scream at whoever it was to let go.

He concentrates on every reluctance laden step, pushing forward because he has to see. 

He has to know. 

He has to feel.

He slides open the zipper and rain seeps into the vinyl.

It came in waves.

It surged with every expelled breath, choking him every time he tries to breathe, always reaching higher peaks and never calmed by the cold stream of air.

The all too familiar scent of blood invades his conscious and suddenly it was all he could see.

The blackened blood staining the concrete walls, seeping into the ground beneath, into every crack.

To Hoseok, blood was no more than a mess, an obstruction to his investigations, trails left by untrained murderers. 

Everyday it stains his suit, sometimes his own on bad days but he never knew how sickening it looked in the rain, how the humidity traps the smell of iron, so overwhelming it traps him. 

Tears spilled from his voided eyes onto his partner’s cold, unnaturally cold skin and he sobs into his lifeless neck, wishing that his warm tears would bring back the heat in his once sun kissed cheeks.

In that moment, the undoubtedly truth that life would go on without him, that the world would continue on its axis without so much as a pause, undid him completely.

He begged, begged the darkness to take him instead, to take his pathetic life from him in exchange for his partner’s promising one, the one he failed to protect but it takes them both, consuming him in a storm of nothingness.

Hoseok loses himself that day, the part of his life he’s given to this man, sinking, into the seemingly infinite black hole and all he could do was stare until it was no more.

Until Hoseok was no more.