Yo sorry Im gonna be adding aesthetics and a bunch of stuff to all the chapters so I apologize for possibly blowing up your notifications-

─────────── ∙ ~ઇïଓ~ ∙ ──────────

ᴵᶠ ᴵ ˡᵉᵗ ᵍᵒ ᵒᶠ ʸᵒᵘʳ ʰᵃⁿᵈ, ʸᵒᵘ'ˡˡ ᶠˡʸ ᵃʷᵃʸ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵇʳᵉᵃᵏ
ᴵ'ᵐ ˢᶜᵃʳᵉᵈ ˢᶜᵃʳᵉᵈ ˢᶜᵃʳᵉᵈ ᵒᶠ ᵗʰᵃᵗ
ᵂⁱˡˡ ʸᵒᵘ ˢᵗᵒᵖ ᵗⁱᵐᵉ
ᴵᶠ ᵗʰⁱˢ ᵐᵒᵐᵉⁿᵗ ᵖᵃˢˢᵉˢ
ᴬˢ ᵗʰᵒᵘᵍʰ ⁱᵗ ʰᵃᵈⁿ'ᵗ ʰᵃᵖᵖᵉⁿᵉᵈ
ᴵ'ᵐ ˢᶜᵃʳᵉᵈ ˢᶜᵃʳᵉᵈ ˢᶜᵃʳᵉᵈ ᴵ'ˡˡ ˡᵒˢᵉ ʸᵒᵘ

─────────── ∙ ~εïз~ ∙ ──────────

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Everything happened too quickly.

One minute, Hoseok was like a painting drawn on a window while it rained: a beautiful art piece slowly washing away as the storm poured on. He was nothing more than air. But, as the faint lines of scarlet streaked over the sky, framing the sun and the clouds, I remembered Namjoon's words.

When the sun aligns with the scarlet morning...

When I blinked, he no longer was translucent.

No, far from it.

His appearance returned to its former grandeur when I first met him. Soft locks of black hair resting just below his brows, curtaining his almond-shaped eyes and complimenting his caramel-colored irises. His nose, a perfect slope, leading one's eyes to rest onto his lips that naturally formed a pout.

I drank in his features, fully understanding that it would be my last chance to see a side of him not captured in photographs or articles, a side I took for granted. A side that would be just Jung Hoseok without the cameras or the blinding lights.

He looked at his hands, his arms then felt his legs.

They never went through.

Hoseok pushed his hand against his arm, refusing to get his hopes up that he would be able to interact with things and not fall through.

After several failed attempts to phase through himself, he slowly lifted his head, and his eyes met mine.

And very delicately, he lifted his hand and held the side of my face with the candor and care like that of a child's reaching for a flower.

His hands were warm.

Much warmer than mine was when he reached and held it with his other hand.

I'm sure he felt the way my cheeks heated up, and I'm sure he felt how I smiled inside his hand, and I was certain he felt my pulse quicken and skip from my wrists.

How must've it felt to be in that situation? Not being able to physically feel anything? And then, suddenly experiencing everything all at once? If you think about it, something is always constantly touching us, and we are in contact with it even if we think we don't feel it. The air, for example. If you moved your hand just the slightest, the motion of your hand against the moving air molecules would create a subtle, cold feeling. And even the ground beneath you would affect you in some way.

To experience all of that again after being starved of any touch at all for so long, how did Hoseok feel during that moment? Was he overjoyed to have a sense of touch during his final moments? Or was he terrified?

I would never know.

"...We only have a minute, right?"

"...Yeah," I held the hand that touched my cheek, "Sorry that you have to spend it with me...I'm sure you have friends or family members you wanted to see one last time..."

"Nonesense, Minami!" He cheerfully said, "yes, it is true that I have other friends and family I would kill to see again, but they all either knew this would happen, think I'm dead, or wouldn't be able to see me. So, I think spending my last moments here with you is perfectly fine, since, you know, you were the only one who didn't fit into any of those categories."

He gently rested his chin on my head, and this time, I could feel it.

"...Will I ever see you again?" I asked, face buried into his chest.

"...Most likely not. Unless in your dreams." He said with a wink.

Despite the situation, I couldn't help but smile.

"You're still insufferable even moments before death...I guess the 'ho' in both 'Hope' and 'Hoseok' never left you."

At that, we both laughed, clearing away the years of tension that came between us.

"Minami..." he started when the laughter died down, "Remember me, okay?"

"I will."

"And remember to turn what you love into dreams, okay?"

"...I will."

"Remember to work hard toward acheiving your dream, okay?"

"I will."

"Remember to study for yourself and your future, not for other people, alright?"

"I will."

"Remember that it's okay to cry, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"And know that if someone ever wrongs you, my spirit will haunt their underwear."

"Wouldn't ever doubt it."

Maybe even the universe was stalling our farewell, giving us an immeasurable amount of time to fit into one minute.

But no matter how the universe favored us, life goes on.

"Take care of Ayumi for me..."

"I will."

A smile with hints of sadness settled on his face, "And stop replying to my orders with 'I will'!"

"I will."

The last grains of the hourglass were clinging to the top half.

Hoseok suddenly looked as if he had an epiphany.

"Oh," was all he said before letting out a bitter chuckle.

"I...I know what my wish was now. For spirits...once you have achieved your final wish, then you will move on. I tried to do that, Minami. My wish was to meet someone who was just like me and give them advice so don't end up like me. And I did that.

"But...I realized I wasn't ready to move on; I didn't want to let go. You gradually started genuinely smiling more. So I held off on telling mine so that there would be more time."

"...Did you achieve that wish?"

His sparkling teeth shone, "We'll have to find out. Once you achieve your dreams."

His words sat heavy in my mind and heart. To think I was the key ingredient to complete his wish...I don't even have any words to describe it, even now.

"But we'll meet again, I know it. Fate will be on our side. Because we've each suffered so much this lifetime, our next when we meet again will be luckier and happier. So, hopefully...maybe our story will have a happy ending that time?" He said.

For someone who had "Hope" as his alias, that paragraph didn't sound hopeful at all.

No.

He sounded certain.

"Thank you for always listening, Minami."

He opened his arms and waited for me to fall into them, and my eyes flickered over to the clock on the wall, pupils contracting at how close the hand calculating seconds was to twelve.

I then gritted my teeth, recalling the endless romance stories where the characters never even kissed before one of them died. And because the author wanted to make the readers sob ugly.

My story won't end up like that.

I was never athletic, but I had no other options when racing with time.

I ran to him, preparing myself to cling to him as tight as possible, and nearly knocked him down.

But, dear reader, I had a secret plan up my sleeve.

Instead of burying my face in the crook of his neck, I brought out my hands and tilted his face at an angle, and drove away any uncertainty. I knew I would've regretted it if I didn't do it now.

"Minami? What are you-"

And then my lips met with his.

I realized with dry humor that it was the same as Jungkook and Elysian, so I tried to convey every single one of my emotions during that moment: anger at the world, sadness at the departure, and most of all, love. Many of those emotions that weren't able to be conveyed with words alone were expressed through actions instead. His hand went to my hair, and both our eyes fluttered shut.

I wondered if any other instance in my life would have that many emotions mixed into it.

Neither of us wanted to let go, so it made sense when the words were practically whispered directly into my mouth.

"It's unfair, isn't it"

Then without a trace, he vanished, and I folded to the ground, choking back the tears that threatened to swallow me.

All that was left was cold air as the clock read 4:01am. 

__

My butterflies!

@ninjakoko - "The Night of Horror"

@cherryficss - "0.1134"

@christinaxmorton - "Reason"