The members are walking () in silence. They walk, some hoping that they made the right choice, others not wanting to think about it. Jungkook is conflicted, wanting to ask a question but not wanting to offend or frustrate anyone- ahem , Yoongi. Eventually, his curiosity get the better of him and he calls out.

     “Hey, hyungs?”

     The hyungs stop and turn towards him.

     “Yes, Kookie?” Seokjin asks.

     Jungkook awkwardly clears his throat. “Umm, I get that it’s bad that Hoseok hyung is basically being taken over by some entity, but it’s not like it’s going to kill him. It’s just going to give him a couple of opinions, right? Why are we treating thing like it’s a win or die situation? I mean-”

     “You don’t get it,” Yoongi says harshly.

     Jungkook quiets down, an expression of guilt and confusion on his face.

     Yoongi continues, turning to fully face Jungkook. “While it’s true that Hoseok won’t die from this, he will be gone if we let this play out. Hoseok is a bright, cheerful person, with strange actions and weird thoughts. But THAT IS HOSEOK. If we let this play out, that Hoseok will disappear forever. His identity , the very thing which makes us individual, will be gone. And we will lose the sunshine that keeps BTS floating high. Our sunshine. I will NOT let that happen. I will NOT let Hoseok fall prey to this madness.”

     Yoongi turns around and starts walking forward, leaving the other members with new thoughts in their heads and a new determination to get Hoseok back. Before it’s too late.

-------------------------

     They are still walking in the tunnel, which now seems endless. Perhaps due to some fluke, it seems that the members won’t ever get tired from endlessly walking in someone’s brain, thankfully for them. Though that doesn’t mean the members thoughts won’t plague them. Every members has thoughts whisking around inside them, stemming from the different information they had received during this trip. But none more so than Namjoon.

     A thinker by nature, he is used to having more thoughts at a time than the other members. But they usually aren’t as negative and heart-wrenching as the ones roaming right now. And they hit into his very insecurities. So much so that it interferes with his walking enough to have him swaying enough to lose balance and crash into the tunnel wall. He grimaces in pain, sinking to sit on the floor, holding his side. The other members, clearly concerned, crowd around him.

     “Holy moly, Joonie hyung, are you okay?” Jimin asks, a worried expression on his face.

     Seokjin starts in, like a worried parent. “Namjoon! You need to be more careful. How on earth did you even manage to hit the wall in the first place? There’s nothing to slip on!”

     The members peer intentively, waiting for a response. When none comes, they move back, confused.

     “Joonie hyung?” Taehyung asks tentatively. Namjoon doesn’t answer, eyes towards the floor, mouth moving closer to a frown. He moves, bending his knees and wrapping his arms around them, resting his forehead on his knees. And he says, in a small, broken voice, “I’ve failed.”

     The members look at each other, confused. Taehyung speaks, with a hesitant smile on his face, trying to get Namjoon back up. “No, hyung, we haven’t even reached Hoseok yet. There’s no way we could have failed.”

     “It’s not that!” Namjoon says, unwrapping his arms and moving his head to look at the ground. “I’ve failed as a leader,” he says quietly.

     The members look around, even more confused, all except Yoongi, who moves next to Namjoon, kneeling down and placing a hand gently on his shoulder. Unlike the other members, he knows exactly why Namjoon is like this. And he understands. Leaning closer to Namjoon, he calmly says, “This is about Hoseok, isn’t it?”

     And Namjoon looks up, and his feeling spill out of him like a flood. “I didn’t know! I didn’t know Hoseok was feeling this way. He’s been suffering with his doubts for so long, and I never realized! I’m the leader! I should be able to recognize when there’s something wrong with one of my members. It’s my job! I’m supposed to take care of my group! And even this wasn’t my doing! Jimin had to tell me something was wrong with Hoseok. And even then I doubted! If I had realized how Hoseok had felt sooner, we could have helped him, and then maybe he wouldn’t have eaten a random cookie sent in the mail that could have very well been poisoned! And that’s basically what happened! And now Hoseok could be lost forever and it’s my fault! Because of my incompetence as a leader!”

     Namjoon stops, taking deep breaths and calming down. The members have looks of shock and concern on their face. None of them would have thought that Namjoon could break down like this. But Namjoon misinterprets their faces as disgust. Yeah, no one wants a leader who can’t take care of their own , Namjoon thinks, resigned. Yoongi, who calmly listened to everything without moving, starts speaking.

     “Namjoon,” Yoongi says. “You need to stop beating yourself up over this. Yes, I get that being the leader means you need to keep track of things. But you are NOT the only one that feels guilty. EVERYONE here feels guilty for not realizing it sooner. And I’m his hyung. Doesn’t that also mean I have a responsibility to keep watch over my dongsaengs?” Yoongi pauses, letting Namjoon take it all in before continuing. “And I daresay Hoseok thinks you are a great leader. We all do. If anyone else in the group was our leader, we would have fallen apart and crashed and burned in our first year. And I know that Hoseok would never blame you for any of this.” Yoongi thinks of something and starts chuckling softly. “Not that he’d be able to. After we get out of this mess, I know we’re all going to smother him with love and affection.” Yoongi removes his hand from Namjoon’s shoulder and stands. “Now, we must keep moving to get Hoseok back so we can smother him. I need an opportunity to get rid of these feels.”

     Namjoon, mood greatly improved, get up. “Hey, hyung. You are good at encouraging people. Maybe you should have been leader.”

     “If I was leader, we wouldn’t have lasted a month. None of the paperwork would have been done, and no one would have gone to the meetings. I would have been to lazy to answer the door. Or even my phone.”

     Everyone starts smiling at the image, thankful that Yoongi was never considered as leader. Everyone continues forward, Namjoon at the front, a spring in his step and determination in his eyes. He was going to get Hoseok back. A good leader never abandons his own.

-------------------------

     Everyone was walking (). They heard a gasp from the person up ahead, and when they looked, they say what he saw. The tunnel’s end. Full of joy of finally getting out of the tunnel, the members start speed walking, because why run when you can walk? The tunnels end was ten feet. No, eight feet! Six feet away! They burst through the archway,  bouncing on the rock path that was oh so similar to what was there before the tunnels, so full of excitement. Which quickly dies down when they see what’s in front of them.

     A huge tangle of plant tendrils lay on the path in front of them. The main figure of the tangle was an egg shaped oval, maybe 15 ft tall, but extra vines protruded out from the mass and limped on the mass, hanging over the side of the path and onto the path itself. There was no way around it.

     Jimin looks over at Seokjin. “And you said this this wouldn’t have scary looking plants.”

     “I mean, technically the tunnel itself didn’t have scary plants, right?” Seokjin says, a small, nervous smile on his face.

     “Great,” Jungkook says, taking a step forward, exasperated. “How are we supposed to get past this?”

     “Guys, what’s this?” Taehyung had spotted something to the side of the path, and wandered toward it. It looked to be a part of a wall, six in long and at least ten ft wide. It wasn’t touching the path. It was hovering a centimeter away, but at the depth of the path. Namjoon wanders over. “I wonder…” Namjoon says after analyzing it. He places a gentle hand on it. The piece starts shaking, and Namjoon and Taehyung step back as the wall starts rising, revealing a shelf looking thing you might find as a secret compartment in a film, in a wall.

     Instead of shelves, it had large nails strategically placed, protruding out. The nails were there with a purpose, as resting on them were weapons, all unique, though all were variations on the classic sword. There were six in total, and each weapon was colored. Each member felt a draw to one weapon each, as if it was made especially for them. And it seemed it was. The members took their weapons, and the weapons felt so right in their hands, there was no doubt. Also the fact that the color scheme was accurate to each member. Yoongi’s weapon was white, Jungkook’s red with black and white accents, Jimin’s blue with black accents, etc.

     Namjoon, looking down at his fully black sword, started speaking. “Okay, considering this, I think we need to chop through the plants and make our way to the other side. Might be the corruption’s way of hindering us.”

     Namjoon raised in weapon in a salute. “Let’s show the corruption what we are made of!”

     The members repeat his action. They all start moving towards the lump in front of them. The members all look at Jungkook, who takes a deep breath and slices through two vines. And the plant suddenly comes alive, vines shooting towards the members who start running around like startled geese.

     Namjoon calls to the members. “Don’t forget your objective! The mission is to hack through the plants and get to the other side! And remember! Only hack through the plants! Not another member’s arm!”

     Heartened by Namjoon’s words, the other members charge and try to hack through while slicing the vines that try to grab and drag them back. Jungkook, being the muscle pig that he is,  manages to hack his way through the plants trying to toss him away, and manages to enter the egg mound, only to find that it is hollow. The plants grew around a ten foot oval space. And while Jungkook is hacking at the plants that are working double time now that someone is inside, he sees why.

     There’s Hoseok. Unconscious and tied to a chair. Jungkook, full of joy at finding Hoseok and full of frustration that the plants are keeping him so busy that he can’t get get to Hoseok, faces the wall of vines and yells loud enough that everyone can hear him, “I FOUND HOSEOK!. Hoseok is in here! He’s tied up and the plants are keeping me too busy to reach him! Break past the wall as soon as you can!”

     The other members nearly freeze, hearing that Hoseok is inside the plant. But that shock turns to determination as they try twice, three times, four times as hard to get into the oval. The plants don’t stand a chance. First to enter is Yoongi, followed closely by Namjoon. Taehyung enters next, lastly followed by Jimin and Seokjin. But the plants don’t give up. With no one outside, they can focus all their energy on getting rid of the ones on the inside. They’ve stopped being gentle. Instead of moving the intruders, now they’re aiming to kill.

     Even with all the members inside, no one is any closer to getting to Hoseok. Namjoon looks over at the unconscious member, gritting his teeth. There’s no way we can get to Hoseok unless we can defeat these plants! But no matter what they do, the plants keep coming back. For each plant that gets chopped off, two new one come to join the fight. Soon, the members would be overcome. Namjoon glances around, hoping to find something that can help him. And then he sees it. Embedded into the plant wall approximately 5 feet from him, half hidden by the vines in front of it. It’s what looks to be some kind of glowing green sphere. Namjoon doesn’t know what it is, but he has no other leads.

     He turns to the rest of the members. “Guys!” He waits for their attention, since all of them are at this very moment still fighting the plants. “See that glowing things in the vines over there? I need help getting to it.” The members were confused, but no one asked any questions. Taehyung answers. “If Jungkook handles things over here, I can stop the plants from attacking you when you move.” Namjoon turns to Jungkook. “Think you can handle it?” Jungkook nods. “Of course I can. Now go!”

     Namjoon and Taehyung spring into action. Namjoon dives towards the space, and the vines immediately move towards him. Taehyung, right behind him, moves around the leader and slices through the vines attempting to touch the leader. Eventually, the two make it towards the wall which holds the orbs, where Namjoon proceed to hack through the vines right in front of the orb. But the vines grow back the moment Namjoon hacks through them! Frustrated by it, after many attempts to dislodge the orb, Namjoon takes his free arm and shoves it into the wall. The vines move around the appendage, squeezing it and trying to stop it from moving. Namjoon moves his hand around, wanting to feel the orb on his skin. And with one move to the right, the orb is felt on the back of his hand, where he proceeds to grab it and yank his arm out of the wall. The plants immediately freeze. They wobble, and then shrink back towards the base and fall at a circle around the members, where the plants were rooted towards the ground, now lifeless. Namjoon looks at the orb in his hand. It’s now dull and not glowing. Just a plain, light green, glass sphere.

     Yoongi looks over to where Namjoon is holding the orb. “Better throw that thing over the edge, so the plants can’t come back.” Namjoon listens, and drops the orb over the edge. Meanwhile, Jimin and Seokjin are moving closer to Hoseok. Seokjin is cutting through the ropes with his sword while Jimin is trying to wake Hoseok. He succeeds, as Hoseok disorientedly opens his eyes and looks at the members, who had all crowded around when Jimin was working. Hoseok blinks.

     “Hi, guys,” he says hoarsely. “Where are we?”

     Jimin giggles. “We’re in your brain, silly.” Seokjin utters an exclamation when he finishes cutting through Hoseok’s ropes. Hoseok stands up, Jimin giving him support.

     “I’m fine,” Hoseok says. “I can walk on my own.”

     “Okay,” Jimin says, but he looks unsure. He steps away from Hoseok and moves to stand near Taehyung.

     Jungkook starts speaking. “Hey Hoseok, do you know how we are supposed to get out of here?”

     Hoseok looks at Jungkook. “Ohh, yeah. We need to continue down the path. At the end there is a room. I can get you out once we enter it.”

     Jungkook smiles. “Okay, good. So do we move now?” He says, looking towards the other members.

     Namjoon lifts his sword. “We should put these back first.”

     The members move towards the shelf. “You stay here,” Jimin says, patting Hoseok’s hand. Jimin moves to the shelf. The members put the weapons back, and watch as the shelf moves down to its original position. The members walk back towards Hoseok.

     “Are you sure you don’t need help?” Seokjin says, as he sees Hoseok stumble a little.

     Hoseok gives a small smile. “No, I’m good. I may need to rest for maybe thirty seconds. It’s fine, you guys go ahead.”

     “Are you sure?” Taehyung asks.

     “I’m fine. You guys don’t need to worry so much.”

     “Okay.” The other members start walking, leaving Hoseok to rest for a couple of seconds. But none of the other members turned back to see the twisted grin that definitely didn’t belong on Sunshine Hobi’s face as he watched the other members.