To What Was Ours

xii (hoseok)

When the voice called him up, the way it had done for Seokjin, and then Yoongi, it had been completely silent.

Jimin's hand clung to the back of his shirt, a silent beg to stay a little longer, yet released him passively when he was out of arm's distance. There was no use for an argument. They did not waste their breaths to plea, cherishing each and everyone, not knowing which would be their last.

Hoseok had little time to regret. He regretted not turning and sparing himself a last glance. That remorse was already lost the moment he pulled open the door, revealing the only warning he would receive. The white sucked him in and cleared all thoughts for a few blissful moments. In the white, it was silent as well. A silence that was not anything one would find on earth.

But the moment that the burst of white faded, all Hoseok could register was the enthusiastic, passionate, screams of a ten thousand person crowd. It was no longer silent.

Nothing unfamiliar. He'd heard even louder, from an ever-larger source. Grew to adore it, even, counted down the seconds from the time one concert ended and the next began. Though there was no indication of what could be different, he felt that everything was.

Perhaps it was the unbelievably stuffy helmet on his head that covered the majority of his face, save for his eyes and mouth. The heat, hot enough that it had to be a midsummer day, reacted to the material the way a pot reacted to a gas flame. Inevitably, he was slowly cooking inside. The outside cheers were somewhat muffled, but not to the point that he could forget them. Instead, the voices echoed around inside, passing from one sweaty ear to the other. Chanting a phrase he could not understand.

He opened his eyes and found the sky through the small eyeholes, his only relief. The palest of blues. A bit lower and there was the ring of an open arena, curving like the horizon line. Lower, and the nosebleed section. Rows of indistinguishable faces clad in mono-colored fabric, raising their fists in sync with their enthusiasm.

A stage was not under his feet. Instead, it was dirt. Likewise, the arena was not a sleek black, lined with screens and tv's, layered with rows for optimized viewing and capacity, but made from earth, bleak in color thought not in design, void of all bright lights and colors, and the front row was twenty feet higher than he.

Truly, being sent back in time was a crazy thing to happen once, he thought, looking back to the practice room. Twice, he only had himself to blame.

His exact geography remained a mystery, as well as the date on the calendar, but looking down at the rest of his visible attire, the calf shields, the thick sandals, the edges of a red tunic, Hoseok was indefinitely elsewhere in history. Where he certainly did not belong.

The crowd snatched his attention once more. Their screams raised the pace of his heartbeat. He wondered what had them so riled up, what could be so interesting in a time where nothing modern existed. He was doing nothing but standing, idly, confusedly. Still, they chanted as though they were his own fans. Looking down at him.

All that frenzy centered around him - in his known time, that passion was flattering. This was dehumanizing. Terrifying. Reminded him of senseless paparazzi in his face, stalking at any cost, hiding behind trees and bush. Quickly, the urge to return to a known timeline was there, yelping at the door like a trapped dog, and serious consideration went towards screaming out for a forfeit if he could even be heard against the roaring crowd -

And then rationale caught up with the rest of his senses and he knew that the fear wouldn't outlive the gratitude. Sacrifice was a cruel cycle.