‘I'm crying’

Jeongguk's heart was broken. If tears could be bottled, he'd fill oceans with how much he cried for his lost love. His tears were unstoppable, didn't cease or flatter. It was maybe pathetic, to be sad this much, for all this time. 

But it wasn't like he chose to be like that, always sad, always with fresh tears on his face. One would assume someone close to him has died, but wasn't it close to that? He was almost sure he'd never see Jimin again. 

Jeongguk still wished to make it right, still wished to see Jimin one last time and confess to him how much he loved him, how much he needed him, how much he wanted him to stay near him for he needed him more than he needed oxygen. 

Oxygen made him exist, dull or broken or lacerated, just exist. But Jimin made blood race through his veins, made life feel rosy and made him feel alive, made him feel as if he was worth it. 

So Jeongguk left his castle towards the harbour, he wanted to ask where did Jimin go, if he said anything about coming back. If his servant knew, then someone responsible at the harbour must have been keeping record of who went where, or at least so he wished. 

Jeongguk reached the port, there was a man sitting at the entrance, so he decided to ask him. He was an aged man, with crinkles covering his face, and a grey soft hair. He looked familiar but Jeongguk didn't know where he had seen him. 

‘That has disappeared
That has fallen’

“Do you know when's the ship gone to Norway going to come back?” Jeongguk asked, and the man frowned at his words. Jeongguk had a bad feeling in his guts, like he knew something wasn't right about the way the man reacted to his question. 

“Oh, that ship? I'm sorry, it had drowned in a storm. The news came yesterday. Do you know somebody onboard of that ship?” Jeongguk's slight smile dropped at the words, had drowned? He couldn't even process it. 

“Were the passengers saved?” Jeongguk asked, and the man looked down, almost apologetically, and Jeongguk felt a tear slide down his cheek. 

“No, most of them haven't been saved. I'm so sorry.” The man muttered, and Jeongguk let the salty tears wash his deep sorrow away, let them stream down his face like floads. If a man could cry blood, there would be some flowing down his eyes. 

Jeongguk was so tired of crying. It was way too often, way too endless. But at the moment, it became even worse than before. The heartbreaking fact was that Jimin had died, Taehyung too, their families as well. 

Everyone he had ever bonded with didn't exist on this earth anymore, and he somehow blamed himself. If he had just tried to stay close with Jimin, if he just wasn't so blinded with jealousy, maybe he could've made them stay. But now they were as good as dead, because he couldn't stop them leaving, because he was as helpless as ever, as he had always been. 

‘Left alone in this sandcastle
Looking at this broken mask’

Jeongguk didn't leave his room for the following days, couldn't leave, not when he couldn't stop himself from taking the blame for Jimin's death. It was his fault, he should've never let him go. Crying couldn't bring him back, nothing he could do could ever bring Jimin back to him once again. 

So when Jeongguk went to his garden for the first time in days, he didn't expect to land eyes on Jimin, wide eyed at the very entrance of his castle. Did he miss him so much he start