Until the Days of Spring || NamJin [✔]

Chapter 1 - Coming Home

Notes:

Here we go!

So, throughout this fic there's going to be some links to songs/covers like the one right up there. They're basically music that fits the tone of the current chapter or scene, so if you want you can listen to them while reading. Or just ignore them, up to you.

But anyways thank you for giving this story a read! I hope you enjoy :)

⊱────── {☽.⋅✿⋅.☽} ──────⊰

June 13th, 1980

The rush of icy water fills his lungs. Suffocates his ribs. He's robbed of any sense of orientation. Everything is but a dark world of current, mercilessly rapid through his eyes, his mouth, his ears.

Every inch of him flares up in pain as the river ravishes him away to an unknown fate.

Still he holds his hands tight, tighter, determined with his very life to not let go. Never. This is all that matters - never let go.

Then he hit rock bottom.

Hot white pain explodes down the side of his face. He screams, but the voice is drowned by the water, and soon he'll be too. His lungs burn, he tastes a glimpse of blood. At this moment he's sure he will die.

And yet.

Don't let go. Don't let go. Save him.

His skin drags along the sharp rocky bottom. In one last effort, blindly he searches for his footing, gaining just a nick of purchase. He feels his bare feet graze at the river floor. With everything he still has left, he pushes up. Up. Up. Save him .

There; the surface.

A single circle of light engulfed his vision. Its pale glow pierced through the waves, and for a moment it is his whole world.

The moon. Up in the night sky.

Then the world fades away.

Namjoon jolted awake.

His heart pounded, and his eyes wide as his chest heaved up and down. It took a moment for his mind to catch up. Slowly he registered the warm sunlight against his skin as it danced among the leaves on the tree branches. The refreshing breeze helped ease his heart and cleared his head, whisking away the nightmare's residue.

Namjoon let himself relax back against the soft hay. He's fully aware now as he listens to the whirl of the old truck driving down a dirt path.

It was a warm summer's day of June 13th 1980, and 25 year old Kim Namjoon was hitching a ride at the back of a hay truck, on his way to the village he grew up in. He watched the path roll away from him, felt the gravel kicked up by the moving wheels underneath him. He gazed as the view of the city shrank away in the distance, the trees became denser and taller. Cherry blossoms, Namjoon recognized them easily, despite lacking their distinct pink color since it was the beginning of summer. It's been a few hours or so since he left the city, and now the village he's heading to is a few mere minutes away. He knows - he can recognize this cherry blossom guarded pathway anywhere. He was, after all, raised in this very village.

Namjoon let his mind wander for a moment. How long has it been since he was last here? He left for the city when he was around sixteen so...nine years? Damn. He wondered about how much has changed.

He might have been too lost in thought, though. He didn't realize the truck had stopped.

The driver popped his head out the window. "Hey, kid!"