BLUE | k•th ✓

•twenty eight•

The instructor follows the two of your soon after and all three of you put your mouthpieces in. Going underwater, the instructor leads first, grabbing onto the anchored ropes that connect between the boat and the bed of the sea. You grab onto it with gloved hands, pulling yourself across the rope as you attempt to pull your body deeper into the bright waters. Turning your head, you check on Taehyung and see that he's right behind you.

When it's deep enough, all three of you let go of the rope, coming closer to the sea bed. Kicking your swimming fins, your body digs into the depths of the ocean, climbing deeper and deeper below as you claw your way through the waters. The sea doesn't restrain too much against you, inviting you to explore as it lets you swim further down.

Though your sea goggles block some of the clearness, what sits before your eyes still amazes you. If you didn't have a mouthpiece in your mouth, your jaw would've dropped all the way down to the floor of the sea. Its beauty takes you by surprise.

The coral is dusky pink with cream nodules. A smile leaks under your mask, it's hard to do with a breathing tube in your mouth but you feel the upwards twitch. The coral is living, burning alive with seahorses that take shelter with it. Their angled heads and tubular mouths bob and sway in the current, their transparent fins fluttering in waving motions.

Each of them is clasped to the branches by a fragile tail, hardly looking more robust than a baby's finger. Deep down under the water, it's like being in a different world. Through the water there are schools of bright-hued fish and strange sea flowers that freely decorate the sand floor.

The freedom is as intoxicating as if you were swimming in vodka. You can move in any direction or even just stop and float a while, not even birds can do that. Yet it isn't clear like the liquor, it's blue like a perfect sky.

You and Taehyung look at each other and even though you can barely see each other's eyes, you know the two of you are sharing the same wondrous thoughts.

The instructor points out that you should be moving up to the surface now. Your air tank will only last so long; but something keeps you lingering. There is something of your childhood wishes looking back at you, perhaps it was creatures like these that fuelled your love of the ocean. Your air bubbles make their way to the surface with every exhale; they are the only thing down here in a hurry to leave.

Taehyung watches as the instructor heads back up, his fins swimming upwards. He sees you taking one last look that sweeps your surroundings, then you follow. He too looks around one last time, wishing he could stay all day if his tank would last, but his time here is metered by the oxygen on his back.

With a mental sigh, he moves to start swimming up to the surface but as he tries, he's tugged back, his body halted by an unknown force. His head turns back, searching for the obstacle and his eyes catch his tube connected to his tank being caught on a large coral.

His face scrunches in discomfort and he pulls on the tube but it doesn't budge one bit, permanently glued to each other. Bubbles blow through his mouth and he knows there are bare seconds before he runs out of oxygen.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. The swear word clogs his brain, stopping him from thinking logically and coming up with a solution as panic drowns him.

He looks back up, neither you or the instructor are in sight. All he can see is the big rope idly before him that he so badly wants to grab onto so that it can take him to the surface.

It's in that moment that he realizes how much he doesn't want to die. For so long, there were always morbid thoughts that would consume him and always lead him down the same path on wanting to give up and wanting to find an easy way out of his life because of how much he hated every second of it.

Entrapped at the bottom of the ocean, looking up to where you would be, it's then that he sees how long it's been since he had those thoughts. It's you who makes living so easy and it's for you that he wants to keep on living. But the blue around him is working against him, now when he finally wants to live, the world doesn't want him to?

I can't fucking win, he thinks, gritting his teeth.

He screams, his useless mouthpiece falling out of his mouth while numerous air bubbles escape. As hard as he can, he tries to wrench the tube out of the coral reef, praying to a god he doesn't believe in to let him go. Again and again he pulls and pulls but nothing moves, the ocean keeps him in place while his legs flail.

His head starts to pound ferociously and he looks up. He doesn't know how long it's been, time is non-existent underwater and he doesn't understand how no one has noticed he never made it to the surface.

Every cell in his body is screaming for more oxygen that he doesn't have. Out of nowhere, his vision is engulfed by red and black blotches and he can't remember if his eyes are open or closed anymore.

Is this just a really bad dream?

He doesn't know anymore. All he knows is that the warm waters around him have turned cold and that he is no longer with himself. His mind is drifting, drifting, drifting further and further away from him. He no longer knows himself.

Maybe it is just a really bad dream. Maybe he is just falling into a deep deep sleep where he'll never wake up again.

____________

Oh snap. Will he wake up again?

I'm curious, what does the colour blue signify to you guys?

Ty, for 56K reads, my lovelies! Plz vote and comment 💞