a drop in the ocean • JUNG HOSEOK

Part 16

.....DON'T HATE ME SINCE I PROMISED I'D KEEP TO MY SCHEDULE AND UPDATE EVERY OTHER WEEK AND HAVEN'T UPDATED SINCE DECEMBER AND LEFT IT AT A CLIFFHANGER UNTIL 3 MONTHS LATER AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Haha on another note I did not win the Serendipity Award but Ill be willing to enter more contests in the future! :)

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Everything arises instantaneously.

Hoseok's body distillates into the capacious flame of fire he has ever felt. The spark that had ignited was miraculous and agonizing as it almost could have compared with a electrifying, colorful supernova of space. Silent and bright. Everything was resonating, and he couldn't assemble a fraction of words in his own mind, everything was blank and it almost felt like he didn't exist and ascended elsewhere, down the black hole that was ripping him apart.

He couldn't seem to choke up or in anything at all. Water and air giving his body entirely different responses.

His whole world was being engulfed from him and he was going unconscious.

The one thing he signalizes through the swirls of sounds is a voice calling out his name.

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The sunlight hits him in all the wrong places as it harshly beams down on the parts that now feel grimly disparate, and the more he coughs up water the more he feels the convenience of hands straining to give him personal space and wrap around his body at the same time.

Hearing a few swear words, Hoseok can feel the soothing pace of hot palms on his aching back and he thinks this is the best angel he's ever met. His body continues to get rid of any bizarre water trapped in his throat and it painfully dawns on him that he's actually gasping for air. His heart strumming against his racing heart.

"How did this happen?" The voice tells him urgently, and it's Jin, Hoseok smiles happily.

Hoseok doesn't know how his voice would react, and it comes out high at first and promptly sounds coarse. "I'm glad you're here."  

"Oh shit Hoseok." Jin says, and Hoseok wants to tell him to calm down but he feels dizzy and delirious and like he wants to lay down in the warm sand. He does so. "What happened, tell me what happened."

"I was getting ___ jacket." Hoseok informs him, not sure if he likes how air feels in his chest. "I think I might go back in the water now. It's better there."

"She called me to check on you this morning. Said you both ... aren't okay." Jin grabs tight to his wrists. Hoseok was confused by his lack of his usual chipper self. He watched Jin breath in and out. "But, you're not going back into that water."

With a twist of an apathetic pout, Hoseok tried to curve his way out of Jin's inflexible grip. "How come?"

A red blush followed after the narrowing of his eyes and the wounded tone of his voice. "Because you're-" He halts himself midway to shake his head and blurt out, "Look for yourself."

He couldn't fathom what would cause Jin such distress and Jin allowed him to perch himself onto his elbow, his bone creating a small creaking sensation and Hoseok winced in the shift of the odd pain. His eyes scanned from his stomach down to the discovery of two slimmed out legs, he caused the muscles of the calves to twitch once and he was in a state of neutral shock. Those weren't there before, he thought instantly.

His thoughts drifted out onto his lips as he coated them in his slavia. "Huh."

What wasn't so pleasant was the way Jin shot a poisonous look that could kill a person at his general direction.

"What?" Hoseok asked him, his throat dry so he coughed a bit and felt the pang of the need for a thirst.

Strewing his hair with a sweaty palm, Jin nearly stumbling on his words with how fast he's processing all of this. "That's all you can say? You're human!"  

Hoseok takes his time staring into Jins pupils and felting himself breathing in air through his lungs and the heavyweight he felt in his chest. He sniffed, "I'm dead aren't I?"

"Of course you're not." Jin tells him, trying to suppress laughter coming from the hollows of his throat, trying not to make Hoseok agitated about the situation.

He couldn't control the speed in which his brain desperately wanted to catch up with him to somehow make any sense of this situation, the legs leading to his torso, or the fact that he was naked in Jin's arms. The murky pond shimmered with invitation and Hoseok didn't feel any need now to go back. There wasn't anything keeping this from stopping and its now in full drive. "I need ... to puke maybe...?"

The moderate feeling was now coursing through him at almost an alarming weight, and felt different. Sort of like panic. He felt this feeling of near heartbreak when he watched you walk away and sand irritating his skin as he advance through the sand. He ached all over now.

Holding his hair to the side, and gripping his shivering shoulders, Hoseok puked anything that was left in his body.

"You alright?" Jin softly inquires when he stops trembling, his fingers sweeping aside the dry pieces of hair out of Hoseok exhausted face and laid him on his lap; the new human gazing at the blue sky of the morning and the fluffy clouds blowing past.

"No." Hoseok breathes, only because he didn't wish for any of this to happen. He doesn't know how to be a human anymore, he didn't mean to die. He didn't need the water anymore. But he wanted to run back into the water and let it engulf him, he wanted to feel secure, there was no way he was up to be human, obtain this second life and keep it well. "I can't leave my things behind down there."

"Your things? We can get you new stuff Hoseok -" His voice goes quiet and his clenching throat and trails into the light breeze, the look on Hoseok face stops him completely. Hoseok's eyes are tearing up, lips are shivering under the wilt of sustaining his will, then he begins to sob. He can't begin to fathom why those things matter so much to him but they all do at the end of the day. The last piece of his life he lived for gosh knows how long was there in the bottom of that lake, and he couldn't go back. The universe pushed him to start a new life and he doesn't know how, he's terrified of the consequences. "I'm sorry."  

Hoseok sits up and out of Jin's lap, only to drop to the sand to curl into himself, recalling his former past to having done the same fetal position. He hadn't even noticed your jacket around his legs and Jin pulls it up reluctantly around Hoseok, not wholesomely sure if he should touch Hoseok at the moment.  Honestly, Hoseok didn't mind, but he felt nauseous as the jacket smelled more like you than the sand.

"What can I do to help?" Jin asks softly, hovering in his periphery as Hoseok tucks his chin onto his knees. "I'll take you to ___ place right away, she's working, I have the keys to her apart -"

"No." He was still trying to process everything. "Just stay here." Hoseok tells him, reaching to place his hand over Jin's arm. Jin nodded and the soft, pink blush dusted over his cheeks. He stays for his friend.