Man, Suzy,

I totally can't figure out what happened. I wish I had been with you, so I could've seen his face and the look in his eyes. Doe he have a big attitude now because you nearly drowned? Does he blame you? Is he annoyed that he had to go out after you? That's so stupid. Really, that's what I altogether hate about boys. they're never direct. They never tell you what's on their minds. You have to pry it out their stupid brains, and really in the end, they seen to actually think and feel much less than we do, so overall you totally wanted all that time and effort.

Things here are interesting. So on-and-off again Jaechan definitely seems to like me now. I like him back, expect for the teeth thing, which is totally obsessive and obnoxious, I know, but I can't help it. (At least teeth are something you can fix, right?) Can't believe the summer is half over. Glad your swimming is getting better and you're spending time doing art. You will definitely win an award to whatever contest you applied. Write immediately and try to keep it together!

Love,

Sulli

I have to get out of the house. It's been over a week and while my mind isn't normal, my temperature has been for two days. I need to go back to the hospital - or at least someplace else - because I'm going insane from boredom.

"Wait another day or so," Irene says. "You won't be helping anybody there if you go back before you're completely over it."

So I take my sketchbook and walk to the beach. I'll hide myself in some quiet part far from where he is so he'll never know I'm there. I'm glad to be outside anyway, even though the water is rougher than usual because of the thunderstorm.

I cross the street to the beach and stop. Something is weird. It's quiet and empty. It's a perfect day, so why isn't anyone on blankets and chairs, the way they usually are? This makes no sense. Where is everyone?

That's when I spot a crowd down at the edge of the water. An alarm sound in my head and my heart goes into panic mode. I turn to the lifeguard chair.

it's empty.

I drop my things and run down to the water, easing my way through the crowd. A man is stretched out on the beach. Jungkook's crouched over him, his hair covering the man's face as Jungkook compresses his chest and then does CPR.

"What happened?" I whisper to a girl next to me.

She shrugs. "Nobody knows if the guy just swam out too far or had an heart attack or something."

Form somewhere behind me, a short, blonde hair man with chubby cheeks elbows his way through the crowd, head high.

"I'm a doctor," he announces, walking over to Jungkook, waving him away. Jungkook holds up a hand, but the doctor wants to take over. "Did anyone call an ambulance?"

Jungkook stops and turns to him. "They're on their way." He stands up and steps back, letting the doctor take over. It looks like he's doing the same things Jungkook did, leaning over him, breathing into his mouth, then pushing down on his chest with one hand over the other.

The doctor stops and looks up at Jungkook. He asks for something that sounds like 'defib'.

"We don't have one," Jungkook says.

The doctor turns back to the man. "Come on," he says, as if he's impatient with him. "Breathe." He tries again and again, but the man lies there motionless, his skin tan but pale, one arm outstretched in a helpless getsure. I stare at him, waiting for him to stir. The doctors reaches up and places his fingers on the side of the man's neck. He shakes his head and gets to his feet. "He's gone."

Jungkook looks back at him silently. He squats down. "Let me try for a few more minutes."

The doctor turns in disbelief. "He's gone," he says again. He turns to the crowd holding up his hands.

"Back off, please," he says. "Show some respect." He turns and backs away.

Jungkook ignores him, beginning the artificial respiration again, trying over and over. The doctor shakes his head and then turns and walks away.

but Jungkook goes on, consumed, as if he refuses to accept death. I'm filled with pity for him, at the same time struck by his desperate, repeat attempts and his insistence to keep fighting, not giving up even when there's obviously no hope at all. Almost methodically he keeps trying to get air into the dead man's lungs, then he compresses his chest. "Breathe," I hear him whisper. "breathe."

The man doesn't budge.

How long is he going to keep this up?

Finally he crouches closer and pressed his forehead against the man's chest. I watch in fascination as he places his hands around the man's head as though he's trying to bring some life force form his own body into the man's head. I'm hypnotized by his movements, the intensity in his face, the energy I can almost feel that he sends out from his body. I've never seen anything like him before. I don't understand at all, but something about it makes me afraid. I forget where I am as I watch this healing rite, or whatever it is, without taking my eyes off Jungkook.

I'm unable to turn away from him. I watch in wonder, filled with the oddest sensation that I'm witnessing something surreal, outside of myself that I can't take in. What I'm seeing is unknowable, my mind says, which makes no sense.

Most of the crowd has turned away and gone back to their chairs, their books, their music, the drama over. But I stay locked in place.

What is he doing? Praying? Chanting? His eyes are closed. he's breathing hard. I hear a humming sound like an energy force from deep inside him. His face flushed, his forehead and upper lip glistening with sweat. He's talking to the man or communicating with him in some foreign way, but his lips don't move. next he's blowing at the man's head. He's so intense, so animated, I expect smoke and mystical visions to fill the air around him as if this is an ancient healing rite, something Yoongi would know form his father, the jungle shaman, the healer who Yoongi swears could cure cancer and save people close to death. My eyes are fixed on him and out of nowhere what takes shape before me is another world. A white, opaque mist or cloud of some sort rises up between the man and Jungkook. I blinked furiously to make sure it's not something clouding my own vision, or a puff of cloud from the moist ocean air. This isn't the jungle. He's not a jungle healer.

Nothing in front of me makes sense.

He works on the man more and more. How long before he lets go, before he gives up? I keep watching, powerless to turn away, but for his sake, I don't want to be seeing his desperate efforts to defy death. I force myself to look away. I focus on a broken pink seashell at my feet, a smooth piece of blue sea glass in the sand glistening in the sun.

From the corner of my eye there's a flash of movement.

Was I imagining it?

I look up again. The man hasn't moved. He's lying there, dead.

I imagined it.

Only a moment later his chest seems to rise. A leg kicks. Seconds later his head turns to the side and he begins to cough. Jungkook slides a hand behind the man's neck and lifts his head as water pours from his mouth.

"Oh my, did you see that?" somebody behind me yells. "HE'S ALIVE!"

My mouth opens and closes without a second. Whatever just happened here in broad daylight eclipsed normal, everyday life.

The loud wailing of a siren drowns out all the other sound as an ambulance pulls up. The back doors are flung open hard. Two EMS techs run toward us with a stretcher.

"He's breathing now," Jungkook says, immediately composed, wrapped in calmness. he's back from whatever he was. He's the lifeguard again, just a person who works at the beach pulling people out of the ocean.

Word spreads across the beach. "What's going on?" I hear a voice call out. I turn and see the doctor running back to Jungkook. "What's going on?" he repeats.

"He's breathing," Jungkook says, lifting his chin. The faintest glimmer of success crosses his face.

The doctor studies him and shakes his head, the color leaching out of his skin. "What in the world did you do, lifeguard?"