DreamScape

PART 2: THE HADRON COLLIDER EFFECT - IV

Pulsing light shone behind his eyelids. He opened them, expecting magic and wonder, but was met with an expanse of darkness. Somewhere nearby, someone was breathing, deeply and sadly. But he couldn't see them, couldn't see anything, and so the Dreamscape took him home.

***

"Jungkookie! How's it going? You've been giving me radio silence for the last week!"

He could hear the pink-haired man pouting through the phone, and it sent him into a whirlpool of guilt.

"I'm sorry Hyung," Jungkook mumbled back into the receiver.

"Jungkook, you okay? You don't sound right."

"I..." he stopped.

Was he alright? He was sat alone during lunch time, while everyone else was out getting food or meeting up with friends and colleagues for a much needed break. But Jungkook was sat there, unable to feel hungry, staring at his clasped hands resting on his work desk. His head felt empty but for the thoughts of lost dreams swirling incessantly. He was trying to concentrate at work, he really was, but everyday was more and more difficult, every night he slept less and less. He was restless, yet he couldn't move. He didn't know how to express what was happening to him, how lost and heartbroken he felt, so he went for the next best thing.

"I don't have the dreams anymore," he muttered without much emotion.

"You mean the realistic ones? With the musician guy?"

"Yeah..."

The 'realistic ones' really didn't cover what was happening, or had been happening. He had really been meeting someone real, he was sure of it. V was no more a figment of his imagination than Jimin was.

"I just can't dream of him anymore," Jungkook's voice tapered off in an unintentional whine. "I just see utter darkness when I close my eyes."

Logically, he couldn't explain why he felt this distraught, this broken, but the last five_ no, eight_ days had felt like they stretched forever. And not knowing why he couldn't see V, or if indeed he would ever see him again, was eating away at him.

"Well... maybe he's sleeping?" Jimin's said, his voice full of pity Jungkook wished he couldn't hear. "If he's sleeping, then maybe you can't dream of him?"

"Yeah, maybe. But I'm really struggling to sleep now too, so my work..." he ran a tired hand through his greasy hair, noting that he should probably shower today, if he could muster up the energy. "Well it's not the most focussed it's ever been. And they start filming tomorrow so..."

"Oh! that reminds me, Mina is leaving for pregnancy leave, so I'm taking over the costume department for your movie project! That's why I'm coming home earlier!"

Jungkook's eyes lit up slightly at the only bit of happy news he'd heard all morning.

"Congrats Jimin-shi!"

"Yah that's 'Hyung' to you, you brat! And if you ever listened to anything I said, you'd know this was happening, you know!"

Jungkook simply chuckled guiltily.

"So I'll see you tomorrow, alright? I'm coming in to go through the first proper filming tests, and then you and I are going to lunch together, " Jimin said over the phone, as lively as ever.

Jungkook didn't have the will to refuse his best friend, so he agreed quietly and they hung up. He pushed himself up and forced himself to make the daunting trek to fetch food, which unsurprisingly ended up tasting as bland as everything else he had forced down that week.