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───AND THEN, just as Jeongguk's heart finally begins to desire to pump blood around his cold body, the blond on the motorcycle chuckles this deep chuckle, standing the tiny hairs all over Jeongguk's body up on end.

"You wouldn't know what to do with that information, love," He states simply, voice deeper than anything Jeongguk could have come to expect from his face. His tone is velvety and warm, like the suppressor for a gun that gets shot into the dead of night.

"Please," Jeongguk asks again, anticipation rising in his throat in a manner that makes him much more than just uncomfortable. "I feel like... Like I've seen you somewhere before."

"This isn't the first time. Won't be the last," The other replies, elusive, but not for fear, no. There lies a deeper meaning behind his self-made secrecy, dragging Jeongguk by the shoulders through an ocean of confusion that swallows his head beneath it's unsteady current. "Tell me, do you want to take a ride?"

Jeongguk looks at the stranger's motorcycle with calm eyes, unsure of why he'd even consider such an offer made to him by someone he didn't know at all. But he finds himself nodding, regardless, allowing the man to help him onto the bike.

He takes his hand, skin to skin, a perfect caricature of a feeling that'd become so foreign to the boy who had lived in oblivious suspension for years, and guides him onto the back of the motorcycle.

Jeongguk's same hand is then guided to rest on the man's hip and his body is pulled close, other hand soon joining the position to hug up to the firm chest of the stranger.

"But understand," The blond starts up the bike. "The things I'll show you— you can never unknow them."

"Enlighten me."

"Of course," comes the stranger's reply.

And then, the world breathes new life as the scent of raw leather fills Jeongguk's lungs, thick and heavy against his cheek as the biker takes a hold of the handle bars and speeds off onto the highway with a vacancy of care for the pure stupidity of their acceleration as he nips and cuts, swerving like a madman.

His knuckles adorn many fancy pieces of metal, some simple, some more intricate, but all breathtaking. One catches Jeongguk's eye in particular; a serpent, wound around his index finger. It's eyes are blacked out, but glint in a dark gemstone that beseeches Jeongguk's attention until the rattle of the bike against the pavement begins to become more prominent at the forefront of his mind.

Streetlights fly by, glares of each lamp merging into one long streak of never ending blindness which leads to Jeongguk having to bury his face in the other's neck, breathing in the scent of sweet spices and lingering pangs of fine oils. He finds refuge in the aroma, eyes taking a relaxed rest, closed and unmoving as the vibrations from the motorcycle speeding down the highway grow more rampant.

They swerve on straight roads, much to the blond's delight, who laughs and breathes in the harsh air as it whips around his body.

There's this hecticity around the jitteriness of his movements and the constant gain of speed that makes Jeongguk's blood run cold, fear circulating his veins and fingers gripping tighter on the stranger's arms.

"Why're you going so fast? Are you trying to kill us?" Jeongguk yells into the man's back, making that same chuckle reverberate through his body more than the vibrations of the bike ever did.

"If I was, would you be afraid?"

The question terrifies Jeongguk.

How casually the topic is brought up— it makes him more than nervous, gulping as he peeks up at the stars that seem to hide themselves away behind the clouds as if to resign from watching over this suicide mission.

"Of course I would!" He replies, grip tightening on the leather jacket as sparks fly through his fingertips like electricity. And it feels so intense. On a bike with a man driving as though he were possessed.

"Do you think God would save you?"

Jeongguk wants to get off. He wants to jump off and take his chances surviving the fall even when simply looking towards the buildings that whip by makes his vision blur and his gut sink in fear.

"Why are you saying this? I don't even know if— I don't even know that he exists! Why would he save me?" His eyebrows knot together as they take another sharp turn, a straight few tens of meters of road to travel before they hit the edge of the highway and go over into the ocean. But surely he wouldn't. Surely he couldn't.

"I've let you down," Says the nameless boy, increasing the speed once more, the engine of the bike stuttering as it kicks in with more power. "We've let you down."

"Who the fuck are you?" Jeongguk's chest boils now, frown so strongly set into his features that it nearly hurts. Why is this man pissing around like this, scaring someone he doesn't know at all in this manner?

"Well I'm God, aren't I?"

And Jeongguk's world melts around him as he tries to laugh, but he can't. "You're high off your head," He wants to say, but the words falter on his lips, die in his throat, get dragged back by his tongue before they have a chance to leave his mouth. They won't come out.

It's a scary sort of revelation, even to think for a second that everything you'd debated for years of consciousness could possibly be ended with one moment of madness caught in the twilight of a 3 am motorcycle ride, hugging close a stranger with a celestial body and a manner of prestige in his scent.

The fear of death itself.

But Jeongguk feels alive, doesn't he? Feels, under the pressure of everything slipping, like he's not ready to let go.

"—And you don't know how to live." The boy continues.

Jeongguk comes to question it all, then. Say this is God— Say he's really here in the form of a person; he doesn't look a thing like God. He looks like satan. With lips that spin words of temptation, set in cold mornings that bleed with the remains of a fire; an attire that would send mothers' judgemental eyes in the way of their daughter's swooning hearts; and a voice, smooth and deep, swimming in and out of Jeongguk's ears like a whispered sin.

"You — You're satan." He finally manages to speak in reply.

"I have many names, I suppose. But if you refuse to accept me into your mind as I am, at least use Taehyung to address me."

God sounds like a gentleman, just as you'd expect. But the youth radiating off of his skin makes it hard to view him as anything more than another flawed human.

The name, Taehyung, it burns Jeongguk's tongue with familiarity. Eyes screwed shut, he suffers a billion clips of a million faces that all share the same name, the same smile, the same voice. A million men, a million women, who all portray the same body.

"God," He whimpers, unsure of why. All he knows is that the relief that the name holds on his heavy tongue feels more of a burden than the wind pressure on his red cheeks because they're still speeding up.

They're going to drive off of the edge.

"Don't be afraid of death," Taehyung says, unnervingly calm as they draw dangerously close to the edge.

Jeongguk's heart is racing. He can't open his eyes. Can't feel his limbs, just knows they're heavy and they're unmoving— woven into the leather that threatens to be the last things he ever feels.

"Don't be afraid of sin and of temptation."

"But isn't that what you preach against?" Jeongguk's words are rushed. He needs the answer before they meet the piercing chill of the water below them. Before the impact of the cement barrier shatters his bones.

"Forget what you think you know. Look at me with fresh eyes. I have made you lost, but I've found you now."

The bike hurtles the last meter before the barrier.

"Stop! Okay! I believe you! You're God! Just— You're going to kill us!" Jeongguk yells, using one hand to blindly reach for the handle bars and try to tug them in the other direction. The bike swerves slightly before the front tire meets the cement and the back one flies into the air.

"Breathe," Taehyung whispers and as if on command, Jeongguk's lungs expand just one more time as he feels himself weightless in the cool air, his gut flipping as he clings to Taehyung, to God, in confusion and in fear and in awe.

And even when it all goes white and he feels nothing, he feels everything.

Every paper cut, every broken bone, every let down, every rejection, every surprise, every hot summer, every kiss. But he feels it from far off, like his body is below him, taking all of this damage and he can feel it, but he's not with it anymore.

Because Jeongguk had lost and found God in the space of five minutes.

It's 3:08, and he feels morning on his eyelids, the kiss of a far-off aurora on his lips, and the gift of oblivion at his throat.

It's 3:08, and Jeon Jeongguk has been abandoned by faith once again.

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✧･ﾟ: *✧ ﾟ*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
who knows if this is even
written in english at this point
i don't remember writing it but
if u see something shifty just
chuck me a comment and i'll
probably fix it maybe i guess