He manages to shake off the uneasiness enough so that he feels safe driving. Yet Jeongguk still finds himself looking out every window and through every mirror of his car, in the off chance he may see something suspicious. Although he doesn't notice anything or anyone following him, Jeongguk is greatly displeased to discover one of his side view mirrors is broken - someone must have hit it and chose not to leave any information behind as they should. It's irritating, but he knows there's nothing he can about it now so he simply makes a mental note to get it repaired soon.

It's not long after he starts driving that Jeongguk comes across the same spot where he found that wallet. The same spot he met that strange boy. It makes him nauseous. He brushes the thought aside but that nausea stays with him. Deep in his gut. He hears a pounding noise, feels his reverberating heartbeat strike his rib cage, brain mimicking the same effect. Worried yesterday's headache is coming back for round two, Jeongguk takes chances and speeds through yellow lights when he gets the chance - his mother isn't with him, so it's not like she can reprimand him for doing so.

He gets home safely and parks his car in a hurry. Before darting in the house, the boy takes one last look around. Across the street, down the sidewalks, even in his backyard, which he considers ridiculous for checking, but right now better safe than sorry is all that's going through his mind.

"What am I being so paranoid for...?"

Jeongguk shakes his head at himself as he closes the front door behind him. He heads straightaway to the kitchen to drop off the four remaining donuts he bought on his walk. No one's there, he soon finds. No one's in the living room, either.

Mom went out again, I guess. "Hyungi?" He calls up the stairs, then a thought stops him suddenly. No, she wouldn't leave Hyungi home by himself.

Taking out his phone, Jeongguk quickly sends his mother a text.

-

me
did you take hyungi out with you?

Mom
Yeah he's with me. I took him to the park and we're getting ice cream afterwards.

me
okay, just wondering

-

He breathes out a sigh of relief. Deep down, he didn't truly expect anything bad had happened, but it's always reassuring to receive confirmation.

On the downside of the current situation, Jeongguk doesn't know what to do. He's home by himself - an opportunity most teenagers would be thrilled to be granted, but to Jeongguk it's just a boring time slot he always struggles to fill.

Taehyung texted him not too long ago that he was hanging out with his sister for a change, however he followed up his first text with if you need a bro to hol' lemme kno'. And Jeongguk would love to invite Taehyung over right now. But he's not one to interrupt his friend's sibling bonding time just because he's bored.

He's dealt with boredom before he can deal with it again.

As he's already downstairs, Jeongguk decides to plop himself down on the couch. He grabs the remote from the coffee table and switches on the TV.

The Food Network. Jeongguk changes the channel. Some cliche romance drama. Changes it again. The News. He stops.

—

"Cherish's founder Song Nari has been under fire for a number of scandals she's allegedly been involved with, including the most recent allegations that she has been trying to bribe government officials into helping her regain custody of her son. Nari declines all the accusations made against her, however, and claims her brand is her top priority and that she has no intentions of getting involved with the authorities in any way. As things stand it looks like Song Nari will be continuing with her usual business and still plans to attend-"

—

Jeongguk turns the TV off. Out of nowhere his stomach flips over and brings back that wave of nausea from earlier, but stronger now. The boy practically throws himself off the couch and races to the kitchen just in time to hurl in the sink.

Nausea. Vivid, vivid nausea, in his head, he feels like he's throwing up his brain into the sink, yet it burns both his chest and throat. After a couple minutes Jeongguk feels his legs wobble and he collapses on the floor. With the ounce of determination he possesses, the boy gets back up and opens the refrigerator, grabbing the first bottle of water he sees and drinks half of it in one go. He breathes shakily. A surge of pain rushes to his temples. He downs the other half of the bottle.

He collapses again.

The headache is back.

Overwhelmed by the simultaneous pain and panic, Jeongguk stumbles to back to the living room where he left his phone lying on the coffee table. In a hasty attempt to grab it, ends up knocking the device off the table, and in an equally uncoordinated attempt to catch it, the boy falls forward and hits his forehead against the table's edge. Luckily for him, his pain seems to have piqued right off the bat, so this impact merely feels like a rush of numbness. Even still, his breath is knocked out of him as he picks up his phone again.

He pulls up his mother's contact and tries to call her.

It goes immediately to voicemail.

He calls Taehyung - voicemail again.

Yoongi, too.

"What is going on??" he whispers, beside himself with this sudden feeling of hopelessness. "Make it stop, please, just make it stop!"

There's a knock at the door. Jeongguk jolts in his feeble position on the floor but doesn't move out of it. For a split second it's a shimmer of hope - Mom's home. The boy quickly realizes, though, that it can't be, because his mother would have no reason to knock at her own house - same with his father, but he's still at work, anyway. And Taehyung and Yoongi always announce their presence as if expecting it will expedite the answering of the door, so it's unlikely it's one of them, either.

The knocking continues. Jeongguk curls up even more, squeezing his eyes and ears shut as he silently begs the visitor to leave. It can't be important enough that he needs to answer, he thinks. Nobody, nothing could be important enough right now.

To make matters worse, Jeongguk soon hears something beat against the window - could be the breeze having picked up considerably, but for some reason it's much more concerning than that. The knocking at the door becomes more aggressive, too, and with each knock that resounds through the house Jeongguk's brain repeats the effect. Taking what's external and making it internal.

The pain stirs up tears again. Forced out of the sides of the boy's eyes, running bitterly down his cheeks. Even they hurt. Everything. Agony. Vivid, vivid agony. He wants to fall asleep again, to find relief from all of this but sleep seems to be the last thing his mind has any intention of doing.

The knocking won't stop.

Rationality having been abandoned, Jeongguk scrambles to his feet in a fury and runs over to the door to swing it open.

Nobody is there. But something is.

A small box, a package of sorts that was left right at the doorstep. Breathing heavily, Jeongguk looks around - nobody there. He's hesitant at first but eventually bends down to pick up the box. There's a white label taped to the front, scribbled writing across it - it's sloppy, but he can still read it.

—

to my only love, jeon jeongguk

—

It pricks his heart, like a nail being dragged across its surface. Jeongguk looks around again. He darts out of the house to peer down both directions of the sidewalk.

Nobody, nothing. Even the streets are dead quiet.

Swallowing his breath anxiously, the boy runs back into the house and slams the door shut. He hurries into the kitchen and places the box on the table before grabbing a knife to cut the box open.

He dumps out the contents onto the table.

A knitted scarf, yellow and black in color. A note falls along with it. A folded piece of paper that Jeongguk snatches up in an instant. He opens it.

Inside, a message. The handwriting is the same as on the label - a bit messy, but readable.

And so Jeongguk reads it.

—

to the boy who told me he liked my hoodie, i've always loved your simplistic yet charming sense of style.

to the boy who called me cute when i hated the mere look of my face, i've always loved how your smiles seemed carefully crafted to make people feel welcome.

to the boy who held my hand when i was scared, i've always loved how unconditionally genuine and selfless you are.

to the boy who offered to be my shoulder when i was at my lowest point, i've always loved the kind sound of your voice when you comforted me.

to the boy who offered to fix my broken mirrors, i'm sorry for breaking yours.

to the boy who kissed me when i felt like nothing, i love you.

i promise i'm real. just tell me you are, too.

come back to me, my love.

—J̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷͔͝į̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̡̛͕͕̩͖̩̰̹̍͐͊͂̔̊͒̊m̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷͕͖̝̭̣͔̥̹̝͚̑̃̆̔̓̀̏̚͘͞ȉ̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̺̺̦̦̜̗̥̈͛͋̈̎͂ṇ̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̷̶̷̡̊͡

—

Teardrops spill over his eyelids once again. Not from the sheer agony of his headache, however, but from an inscrutable pain that emerges from the depths of his chest, an overwhelming, overflowing sadness he can't begin to comprehend.

The signature is scribbled out. Unreadable. Everything else is legible but that.

It hurts. Breathing hurts. Everything.

Jeongguk tries to hold the paper close to his face in an attempt to make out the signature. His efforts are to no avail, and as if to spite him further, a tear falls and stains the paper.

He breaks down. Letting his head be lowered and hit the table, Jeongguk allows the rest of his tears to escape and touch his cold skin which burns upon contact. It's a numbness that overtakes him. Unbearable. A scratching inside his brain, as if something is in there, dying to be let out, to breathe.

Right now, it doesn't even feel like he's breathing.

Vision, hearing, fading. Jeongguk struggles to lift his head.

There's a knock at the door.

Just one this time. No series of knocks, no obnoxious, continuous banging on the door - just one quiet knock. But it rings loud and clear like a bell in Jeongguk's head, and he feels struck by a compelling urge to answer it right away this time - a frantic urge, at that.

Clumsily, the boy shoves back his chair and trips over his own feet on his way to the front door. But he makes it. Twisting the knob, yanking it towards himself, expecting - rather, hoping, desperately - that whoever knocked would still be standing there.

They aren't standing there. But Jeongguk does see someone walking away.

With his blurry vision it takes a moment for him to register them as the same strange boy from earlier.

Walking away, back turned towards Jeongguk, but as the strange boy turns the corner Jeongguk can see that the mask and sunglasses are gone.

Walking away.

Away.

Jeongguk's heart stops.

"I know you..."

I know you.

I know you.

I know you.

I know you.

I know you.

I know you.

I know you.

I know you.

I know you.

I know you.

I know you.

I know you.

I know you.

I know you.

I know you.

I know you.

I know you.

I know you.

I know you.

I know you.

I know you.

I know you.

I know you.

I know you.

I remember.

His pounding head prevents him from chasing after the boy. Instead, Jeongguk has no other option but to collapse to his knees as his legs refuse to function. His mind refuses to function for a while, too, filling his brain with indecipherable thoughts that eventually morph into something vivid and comprehensible.

Vivid thoughts of him.

Jimin.

Jeongguk feels a hand touch his shoulder. With no strength to stand up, all he can do is remain as he is.

And from beside him he hears a soft, familiar voice.

"Wake up for me, Jeongguk."

—