Chapter 9: 22:39 – A Countdown to First Death [01:21am]

Lee Joon POV

Light. Warmth. What…is this…softness?

My eyes snapped opened and I rolled to one side, pushing someone in my haste and coughed up gallons of water. Only then, spent and exhausted, did I stop feeling like I was going to die.

“What…happened?” I rasped. I winced against the bright lights and tried to make out the other four in front of me. A gentle hand against my forehead, another one patting my back and encouraging the last spurts of water out.

“You nearly drowned,” came a soft reply. Thunder. His voice was so different. He was a chameleon. When he was angry, they sparked like wildfire. When he was worried, they tampered down to a softness like a child’s blanket – warm and comforting. I wrapped them around me and tried to still my shivering body.

“Mir and Thunder saved you,” Seungho continued. “They went after you and brought you back.”

“Even then,” Thunder smiled. “We nearly lost you. You’d been under for too long. It was really Mir who saved you.”

Questions must have been clear in my eyes. I had no energy for words. I simply looked towards Mir where he crouched, his back to me. What was wrong?

G.O let out a short bark. “He’s embarrassed,” he supplied the answer.

That only made me more confused.

Thunder and Seungho was smiling as well. Now I was really curious!

“What…did you do…Mir?” I said.

I saw his back jilt, shock running through him like electricity. He slowly turned around and I saw his face, bright as beet-root.

“Mir?”

Another jump. An even darker shade of red.

He scuffed one wet boot on the floor. It squeaked and he raised his face to meet mine. Our eyes met and he jumped backwards.

“Aww come on Mir,” Thunder grinned. “You only saved him with a little CPR, nothing much,”

“Oh,” CPR. “Well thanks Mir for…”

Oh…wait…CPR…Cardiopulmonary resuscitation, often known as artificial respiration. Involves…

“YOU KISSED ME?!”

Mir POV

Well he didn’t have to say it like that?!

I-I-I mean it wasn’t an actual kiss! I was just trying to save him! I-I-I mean when we pulled him out, he was blue with cold and still as stone. I was exhausted, drained and felt like I could sleep a thousand years. But once the black spots had vanished and vision had been restored, the sight of his pale face made me forget everything else.

I scrambled over to where Seungho and G.O were trying to pump water out of his chest.

One, two, pump. Three, four, pump.

“He’s not responding,” came Seungho’s curt response. It was tight with worry.

“Perhaps we should try mouth-to-mouth,” G.O stopped to look at him. Seungho stopped for a moment and looked G.O in the eye. He wasn’t joking.

“I-“

“I’ll do it,” I had said, shuffling into placed before any of them could have protested. I in a deep breath and placed my lips to his. Cold to semi-warm. Dying to living.

Wake up Lee Joon.

Exhale.

Pump.

Inhale.

Lips.

Exhale.

Pump.

Wake up!

And then - a miracle! His eyes flew open and his body re-animated. He was alive.

I rolled away, relief flooding my body and turning my limbs to jelly. He was going to be okay. He was going to be-

“It was really Mir who saved you.” Thunder was speaking gently to Joon, but I detected a note of glee in his voice.

It was really Mir who saved you-

A kiss.

 I felt my face heat up, burningly hot against the cold pallor of my skin. No, no! I was just trying to help him! That’s what medics do right! It didn’t mean anything, it didn’t-

“Mir-“

Joon’s voice was hoarse. He still sounded like he housed a sea in his stomach, so rough and tumbled was the wave that blew me over as he spoke my name. This sensation…what was it?

“Mir?” he repeated and I turned against what logic dictated. Basically that I should find a hole and bury myself in it.

“Aww come on Mir,” Thunder grinned. “You only saved him with a little CPR, nothing much,”

Oooooh please Thunder, for the love of all that exists above, please just shut up right now.

“Oh,” Joon’s voice was filled with surprise. I blinked. It was surprisingly nonchalant.  Was he covering up his embarrassment as well? That kind of hurt…

“Well thanks Mir for…” he paused. Blinked. “YOU KISSED ME?!”

Oh bones. I grimaced. “It was CPR!” I protested. I felt my face betray me.

Joon’s mouth was opening and closing at almost the same frequency that he was shuddering at. “B-b-but…”

I looked down at the ground.

Thunder burst out laughing. I shot a glare at him and he grinned back. “Aww come on you two, lighten up. We’re alive!” he cheered and fell backwards so that he lay splayed on the floor. Seungho shared his grin and ruffled his damp hair. “We’re alive!”

We were. We’d survived our first trial.

I felt a tired chuckle escape my mouth. “Alive,” I shaped the words with my lips. It was a glorious feeling. “Ahaha,” laughter bubbled out and I couldn’t stop it. Didn’t want to either. We were alive.

I leaned back and my shoulder touched Joon’s. He jolted for a second, but then relaxed. He looked at me and Thunder laughing like we’d gone mad from inhaling too much water. Seungho and G.O fell to their knees and joined in with our good-natured laugh. I looked up at Joon.

He turned away from me.

I bit my lip. Was he still going to be a stranger? After our trial together? Had he not seen what we could acomplish together rather than apart?

Then I got a proper look at his face. The corners of his lips were twitching. Was he?

Joon cracked up laughing. All four of us stopped to look at him in wonderment.

“What?” he gasped, rubbing tears from his eyes.

“Y-you…laughed?! You smiled!” I said.

“And?” his eyes creased with amusement. “What did you think I was? A soldier?!”

“But…you never laughed before. You never showed signs of wanting to be friends with us!”

Joon gave me a crooked smile that stole my breath away. “I’m guarded. What can I say? But it’s not like I hate you guys. I mean…you saved me.”

I blinked.

His turned away slightly so I no longer had a direct view of his face. “T-thank you…” he mumbled.

I felt my buoyant. “What did you just say?” I had to reaffirm what I had just heard.

His back went stick-straight and he trembled slightly. Then he gripped his hands tightly and turned to face me in the eye. “I said ‘thank you’!” His movement was so sudden that unexpectedly we were but a breath away from each other’s face. We both froze in that position, eyes locked on one another.

And then Joon was scooting away. “Sorry!” he looked mortified, his face turning a lovely shade of crimson. “I just wanted to…thank you for saving me.”

I couldn’t look at him. “It’s only natural,” I replied.

That made him swing his head back to look at me. “Really?” he whispered. “For a stranger?”

I matched his gaze and told him the truth. “You never felt like a stranger.”

It was his turn to blink. Then he laughed again, that infectious shoulder-shaking laughter that made my heart soar. He grabbed me in close and whispered to my ear, “Thank you Mir, for saving me.”

“I told you hyung,” I twitched uncomfortably. “It’s what anyone would have done.”

“But it was you Mir,” he held me in tight. “So it’s you I’m thanking. Thank you. Thank you for saving me. And for thinking me worthy of saving.”

[LEVEL ONE COMPLETE] 

[PROCEEDING TO LEVEL TWO]

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[AND SO, THE COUNTDOWN TO FIRST DEATH CONTINUES...]