DreamScape

PART 2: THE HADRON COLLIDER EFFECT - III

They spent two more blissful weeks together. Jungkook would rush home after work, dodging any and every delay. He would wolf down some food and throw himself into bed, and the Dreamscape would carry him away to Taehyung regardless of if he was tired or not.

It wasn't meant to last though.

One morning, Jungkook woke to the tingling sensation of prickling skin. Confused, he looked down at his once injured hand which had already healed just fine, and grit his teeth.

The flames were darker than ever, deep sapphire swirls inking his skin, and just under the surface... light. It was very faint, but it still made his skin glow slightly, and it itched.

He went to work feeling confused and short-tempered, his hand wrapped more securely than ever in the now ever-present bandages. By mid-day he could barely concentrate on work, the sensation intensifying, until around 2pm when he got up, dizzy, and stumbled out the door under Namjoon's worried gaze.

Across the city, Taehyung was climbing into Seokjin's car. The late nights spent with his ghost were taking it's toll, but they filled him with spirit and songs, so he didn't mind. He adjusted his schedule accordingly, and so when Seokjin picked him up, he lay in the back of the car and closed his tired eyes. The pair set off and before long Tae was lulled to sleep by the soft rocking of the vehicle.

He didn't know where he woke up. Didn't know if he woke up. All he knew was that the next time he opened his eyes, he was blinded.

He was facing what looked like the sun; something so bright he had to turn away and blink furiously to regain his vision. When the world steadied around him, it settled in the shape of bathroom tiles. He focused on the dark blue and pale pink floor, eyes lingering over a crack under the nearest sink. If you squinted a little, it looked shaped like an elegant number seven. To his right were several toilet stalls, and spotlights shone from the stark white ceiling.

The room was small. Far too small to contain the miniature star which exuded waves of colour in front of him, and Taehyung felt his throat close up as he finally looked at the apparition again and his blood began to dance in his veins, bubbling with wonder. Beams swirled in a strange shapes, hiding half of the room from view. From inside the cloud of light, cerulean waves blossomed, suddenly overtaking the whole whirlwind and it exploded, washing over the four walls, sweeping across the floor and colliding with the ceiling.

Peering from within the storm, Taehyung glimpsed the silhouette of a young man with brown, slightly wavy hair. He realised he'd forgotten how to breath, tried desperately to inhale a breath but his lungs refused to comply. He panicked, unable to get his chest to cooperate, mind losing grip as he squinted, until the cloud shrank again and came to a hover around the strangers' head.

Taehyung drew in oxygen drunkenly, his heart now beating erratically in his chest.

The colours were indescribable, they pulsed to a foreign heartbeat and called to him. Still speechless, he attempted to take a step forward, didn't plan it, just let his body answer to the siren's song. But his shoes were glued to the tiles, and he refused to look away from the man in front of him for even a second in order to figure out why he couldn't move.

Then he looked down at what the man was doing, noticed the sink he stood in front of and the water running over his hands. And he saw that the stranger's skin danced with indigo flames, licking at his fingertips, coming from within the wide palm. Taehyung gasped at the haunting blaze, pursed his lips at the sigh of relief which came from the man holding his wrist under the stream. He found himself unable to speak, unsure what of he could say.

Suddenly, he was furious at whatever spirit was attacking the smooth skin, making its barer grit his teeth in pain. He wanted to rush forward and smooth them over, relieve the pain and remove the fire. But he couldn't because suddenly he was sinking through the floor, reaching upwards for some sort of anchor, found none.

Even as he got dragged away, the colours of the star glistened behind his iris.

Taehyung jerked awake with a gasp, hand flying to his heart and chest heaving in deep breaths of air.

"Tae, you okay?" Jin peered at him worriedly from the front seat.

"H-hyung? Where are we?" he asked, eyes darting from one extreme to the other in panic.

"We're at BigHit Entertainment Tae, we literally just parked and you woke up. Bad dream?"

Taehyung blinked back at him, feeling calmness battle the confusion still swimming around his body before he finally succumbed to common sense and rested his head back on the seat behind him.

"I'm fine Hyung, sorry for worrying you."

And although he said so, Taehyung wasn't fine. He couldn't be just fine, because sheer wonder and amazement were still rippling through his mind in the shape of azurean ripples, echoes of the dream playing silent songs behind his eyelids.

That night, Taehyung played the piano and fiddled with new lyrics, lied in bed and stared at the ceiling, counted sheep, watched random videos online, waited for hours for Kookie to show up. But by 1am the younger still wasn't there, and Taehyung, who was hoping to talk about what had happened to him earlier that day, fell asleep with whirlwind thoughts sailing him through his dreams.

In the morning, Jungkook woke up in his flat, blinked away the remnants of a silly, insignificant dream involving lamb skewers, and sighed in disappointment. He wondered out loud if there was a reason why he hadn't met V in his dreams, but no one answered him.