To What Was Ours

i (seokjin)

He awoke to his entire front soaked with sweat. The room, darker than before, startled him, his eyes used to a blinding light. Seokjin sat upwards before he could register that he was conscious, gasping a wet and heavy breath.

Reality slowly dawned on him as his heartbeat settled. His bedroom walls confined him, and his soft mattress underneath kept him from falling through the floor, yet he couldn't ease into his familiar surroundings. A string tied him to a reality beyond his imagination, and it was tugging hard.

Jungkook's voice danced around his head.

"What the fuck?" He swore into his palms, rubbing at the tear tracks on his face. His entire conscience had been there. His body. He felt the ground beneath his feet, how his eyes squinted, how the voice echoed through his ears.

Nightmares weren't uncommon. But none had even been so real, so unnerving. Calming down felt like relaxing from a real-life experience, not just a short, abstract, dream.

This wasn't like before. It wasn't like tire wheels squealing and hospital waiting rooms. Jin had been there, as possibly as he could. Something unexplainable had happened and a searing headache was already beginning to develop behind his eyes.

He cried for a few minutes, remembering what it sounded like - Jungkook's actual voice calling for him. A sweet, melodic, tone. He thought about how he'd drop whatever he was doing to respond, to help. Sometimes he'd be greeted with a mischievous smile or sad, doe, eyes. No matter what it was he'd bend over backwards for that silvery song, meeting expectations or going beyond just to see his smile widen.

But that was in the past, he reminded himself bitterly. Reminiscence wouldn't turn the clock back. He needed to digest, and allow for the dream to fade into scraps and pieces as they all did.

Knowing sleep was far off, he stood on unsure legs, heading into the living room. There, his mind would clear, and he'd be able to come to terms with what he had seen, and then he'd crawl back into bed. A familiar cycle for nights like this. Hurt, heal, fall asleep, and hurt a little quieter.

He glanced at his watch. An hour after midnight. He'd need to be up in five due to his schedule - if that was still intact. If his mind was still intact. Jin thought about the other voice, unfamiliar, foreboding. Not like anything he had ever heard. He wasn't sure if he had even heard it - felt was the better word. His back slumping and the urge to fall to his knees in some sort of beg for mercy. An indescribable sense of power.

Jungkook's voice was like a god to that king.

But it was only a dream. Seokjin had a creative mind. Perhaps everyone had an experience like this at one point in their lives. In the past, he heard vague stories of lucid dreams, though the basis of that was that the dreamer would be in control. What had happened had felt like the opposite. For no reason would he ever submit himself to that torture. But it was in the past, now a memory, and he could forget it. That meant he was fine, and everything else, was ultimately fine.

"Hyung?"

Despite none of his Dongsaeng's voices sounding remotely similar, the imitation knocked the wind out of his chest. Yoongi stood a few feet away, a figure in the dark, arms wrapped around his middle. Jin let out a small gasp of surprise, his next quick words breathless.

"Yoongi-ah," he shifted his slumped body upwards, "What - what do you need?"

He felt a suspicious pair of eyes. "Why are you out here?"

Forgetting that it was not a casual occasion to be found alone in the dark, sat upright, without any form of entertainment, Jin scrambled for an appropriate answer. "I was just . . I had . ."