The water suddenly reached his chest, and Jin was torn from his thoughts : he couldn't think of anything but where he was right now, and it was not on a laughing star. He began to gasp, feeling his heart beat suddenly slow and his breathing becoming very labored.

       "D-d-d-damn h-h-h-heart, w-w-why a-are y-you s-s-s-still b-b-b-b-b-beating?!" he cried, clutching his aching chest under his coat, his teeth chattering with cold and his lips frozen with the cold almost preventing him from speaking.

     When he did this, his right crutch, left abandoned, was carried by the waves towards the beach.

     "Oh n-no!" he cried weakly, vainly stretching out a hand in the direction of the crutch which was drifting towards the beach, carried away by the wavelets

     He held the other for a few more seconds before realizing that it would no longer be of any use to him. So, he threw it too and watched it float, dragged to the surface by the plastic tips. Without them, he couldn't walk. But in the water, he didn't need to walk, right?

     He suddenly had an irrepressible urge to swim to go further and let himself be carried away by the waves but knew that his coat would get in his way. He took it off, as well as his soaked scarf and his gloves, which had become useless, and then felt lighter, as if ready to dive into the immensity of the sea. He was even suddenly and oddly a little less cold.

     As the end loomed more clearly than ever, his mind was filled with thoughts of the life he had led and was about to end. He had, all in all, lived well, been well surrounded, had received more love than hate, had participated in the most beautiful adventure of a life alongside the most important people to him.

     It was true that he wanted to spend his whole life - a long life - with BTS, but unfortunately, it was impossible. He shouldn't regret his decision just because he wished he could stay with them longer. Not now that he had made up his mind.

     He must not forget why he had made this decision.

     A hated face then imposed itself on his mind and helped him get rid of his last doubts. Lee's face. The monster that had hurt him the most.

    Then, the face of the girl who had hated him so much as to stab him.

     Then the faces of those who had beat him for no other reason than to despise him.

      Then, the face of journalists who harassed him and who thought it was no longer beautiful enough to be the visual. If he wasn't the visual, what legitimate place did he still have in the band?

     Then the faces of all his trainers and managers who told him that what he did was never enough.

     Then the faceless people who sent him thousands of messages that had put him down throughout his career. Fans and haters of his group.

     Then all those who had asked him to leave the group.

     And those who had threatened him with death.

     And finally, those who had asked him to kill himself.

     He heard all of their voices in his head, even the ones he had never heard and it made his head hurt and his eyes shine with tears. He brutally clapped his hands over his ears and shouted:

     "You can all shut up now! I understand, I'm going to disappear and you can finally leave me alone!"

     This spiral of hatred towards him had to end in sight. He wanted it to end. He was relieved to see the end of it.

     Not just to make his dongsaengs and fans happier. But so that he himself finally finds peace and is no longer tormented. Yes, that's why he made that decision to die.

     And he wouldn't go back on it.

     He took a deep breath, letting the icy air fill his lungs, then pinched his nose and closed his eyes, before letting himself sink like a stone.

     But as his chin and then his mouth slowly and painfully crossed the cold surface of the water like the door that separated the living from the dead, he suddenly thought he heard a scream in the distance and it made him stop as half of his face was submerged. He sat up, letting his body stick out of the freezing water up to his shoulders and he listened and squinted.

     Around him, everything was black and the wind produced such a groaning sound in his ears that he thought he was dreaming. A faint light came from the beach, dimly lit by the urban lights of the street which skirted the beach further but he could not distinguish anything on the beach, except perhaps for one of his crutches which had just washed up there.

     Something was wrong : he knew that voice. It belonged to one of the faces that had appeared in his happy memories. It was Jungkook's. But Jungkook's voice couldn't be real, it was probably just the sound of the last voice he wanted to hear before he died. The one who kept trumpeting "Jin hyung!", "Jin hyung!", "Jin hyung!" to get his attention since they first met and introduced years ago.

     His mind was playing tricks on him. Maybe it was a budding fever that was driving him delirious, he thought, because he was shivering with cold uncontrollably, and his wet clothes clinging to his skin made him feel like he was burning. He shook his head and whispered to himself:

     "Don't be fooled, Jungkook can't be here. Focus on what you have to do, you're almost done. A little more and it will all be over, all you have to do is dive. The sea will take care of the rest, and everyone will be relieved..."

     He looked up at the sky one last time, and this time there were hardly any clouds which allowed him to see with great clarity the round lonely winter moon which diffusely illuminated the sea and the beach.

     "What a beautiful moon..." he whispered, thinking that it would be the only witness to his disappearance and that, all in all, it suited him very well.

     Then, he took a deep breath and was about to dip his head under the water again, promising himself that this time he wouldn't come out again.

"JIN HYUNG!" 

     The voice in the distance shouted in the night. It looked breathless, as if the person was running.

     Why wouldn't that voice in his head leave him alone? It was weakening his resolve, Jin knew that, he shouldn't listen to that voice, he had to dive right away and stop listening to it, throw himself into the arms that death seemed to hold out to him... but this voice had succeeded in weakening his resolutions and he began to feel fear rising in him.

     "At three, you dive," he immediately ordered to himself.

     Again, he inspired deeply the icy air:

     "One... "

     He inhaled again.

     "...Two... "

     He closed his eyes as hard as possible so as not to open them again but tears of fear still flowed from under his trembling eyelid.

     "Eomma, Appa, Jk, everyone... I'm sorry."

     And inhaled one last time through his mouth and cried:

      "...THREEEEE--...! »

      "JIN HYUUUUUUUUUUNG!!!!!!!!!!!" a yell cut him off with.

      The yell was too loud and too distinct to ignore it this time. Jin opened his eyes and turned back towards the beach. Squinting, he saw with amazement a dark shape running on the beach at a prodigious speed and which finally stopped, out of breath at the edge of the water before straightening up, directly in front of him, several tens of meters further.

     Jin's eyes widened as he recognized that face lit by moonlight. He would have recognized him among a thousand, even in this semi-darkness and at this distance:

     "J-J-Jung- K-K-Kook?" he whispered, unable to move his lips enough to speak audibly and reach the beach, as his teeth chattered.

     Jin wanted to ask him a lot of things as they stared into each other's wide eyes and a breathless Jungkook caught his breath as best he could: what he was doing there, if he wasn't a dream, how he found him, how he was doing after everything that had happened to them and all the time they had been away from each other...

     And many other things he however wouldn't need if he was to die now.

     However, he no longer had the strength to scream, he had reached his limits. He was almost completely paralyzed by the cold, he had difficulty breathing and could only stand on one foot.

     At that moment, he just wanted to let himself sink, he was ready, so why did Jungkook have to appear now?! Jin didn't want to die in front of Jungkook, but it was too late now: his body was already submerged in freezing water, a few more minutes and he would freeze to death.

     Jungkook's urgent voice came to him again after he had found a semblance of breath after a few seconds:

      "HOLD ON HYUNG, DON'T MOVE!!! I'M COMING TO GET YOU!!!"

      "N-no..." Jin whispered, barely shaking his head, "I d-d-d-don't want you t-t-to c-c-come, s-s-stay over there. You m-must live and I m-must die. Just me.... "

     Powerless, he saw Jungkook hastily take off his coat, sweater, hat, shoes and socks and find himself barefoot and shirtless in the biting cold and the snowy sand.

     Jungkook took a second to exhale loudly and gather courage before stepping into the freezing water to join Jin.

    It was during that one second that Jin saw something behind Jungkook, like a bright lightning, a moon reflection on metal that chilled his blood even more than the freezing water and wind had done so far.

     He gathered all his remaining strength and poured it out in a single word that he shouted in the wind:

     "KOOKIE!"

__________________________

Just because I'm cold.

https://youtu.be/gset79KMmt0