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Soul drain is a dangerous type of soul bound. One needs constant physical touch of the soulmate from their very first touch or their bodies would be drained with soul energy and would end up to paralysis or worse, death.
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Seokjin doesn't know if she's okay. If she's happy or sad. Elated or not?
He can't feel her.
He can't tell how she is faring yet he couldn't tell them that.
"Are you okay bro?" Hoseok asks.
The inquiry surprises him. Hoseok might have caught up with his unusual silence.
"Huh?" 'What to say?'
Startled, he panics a bit. He is not sure what to say. Is Hoseok asking for him or for her?
Is he alright? Is she alright? How to determine their emotions apart? Is this barren feeling his with her distance? Or hers with their distance? Is he the one feeling the loneliness even with the presence of his six brothers in their bond? Or hers with their absence?
"Are you alright?"
No. He wants to reply. He wants to tell them, yet he couldn't dare to unlit the light on the younger's eyes. Nor the happiness that the others have over the memory of her smiles and sweet goodbyes as they left her in Korea. He doesn't want to tarnish and give any reservations to her every calm and happy responses on their every video calls. He doesn't want to muddle up the vividness of her images in their heads with uncertainty.
Because he does not know what to say.
His soul feel is not working.
"Y-yes... I am alright...she is alright... I think." Jin only mumbles.
"You think? Can't you tell what she is feeling now?" His mumbling only ignites Yoongi's anxiety. It pushes the second eldest to question in nervousness.
Jin perfectly understands. He is nervous too, because it has been years that he had felt the consolation that wherever he is, he would know that she still exists. The security is there inside his being... in his heart... within his soul. He had been confident with his connection to her. Wherever he is, he trusts that his soul would tell him her feelings, yet his soul betrayed him with that.
It has been making him uneasy. It has been making him sad. It's making him want to constantly bombard their Daun with his calls and chats and ask how she is. But he couldn't always ask that. He couldn't, for it would reveal the secret that he had been keeping. Because his brothers, among all else, trusted his soul feel. Perhaps, more than him.
"She's alright Yoongi. I am just exhausted. I can't quite discern much what she feels right now." Jin admits.
True. He is exhausted. Exhausted and confused on why he can't feel her anymore.
He didn't know when it started. He couldn't tell the exact time. He just realized that when he missed her so much and called for her. He watched her on his phone screen and couldn't see the same gleam of happiness on her eyes. He had been thinking that the overwhelming happiness that he had been feeling was hers. He thought that the excitement brimming within his heart was hers only to see the reality within her dark brown orbs.
"I'm quite lonely right now. I miss you so much." The confession and the absence of light in her eyes was a punch to his gut. There, Seokjin realized that the happiness was only his. It was his excitement of finally meeting again their international fans. That the giddiness that he felt was because of the tour and not with Daun's penchant to beautiful paintings and art exhibitions. When he looked through deep inside, he couldn't see the same emotion in her eyes. He couldn't.
"Maybe you have to rest now hyung." Namjoon suggests and he follows.
His steps towards the second floor are heavy. It's field with the guilt of not telling them what he feels. They had promised each other to be transparent. The more that they have her in their lives. However, he had kept it. In fact, he had lied.
When the agency told them the choice of finishing the ten stops first, he was unsure. He felt like it would be a stretch to do that before they could see Daun again. However, when they told her, she sweetly smiled. He couldn't tell if it was genuine or not. He just wanted to trust their promise of being honest and had told everyone that she was okay with it. That she was one hundred percent on-board on their decision, whatever that was.
Before they could finalize any decision, they had asked him and he approved of it.
Now... he is not sure if he was right to do that. Something tells him that it was a big mistake. He may not feel her like before, but as her soulmate, he feels like he shouldn't have believed her smile at all. Not with her habit of keeping the pain as much as she could. Though she had sworn not to look herself as a burden anymore, but somehow, a habit is so hard to erase. Somehow, he feels like she is just playing fine for them not to worry.
He is about to twist the knob of his bedroom door when a chilling scream resounds from inside. It freezes him.
It's the voice that he wants to hear before he sleeps tonight. It's from the person he wants to gaze before he closes his eyes to dreamland and sees her there once again. But not with that pitch. Not with that gut-wrenching emotion that he can hear.
He hurriedly opens the door and there in his bed is a naked woman. Her hair is dripping with wetness as if she was just in a bath and had been tackled and thrown at the center of the huge mattress.
Seokjin gasps.
There is no mistake with it.
The woman in the bed is their Daun.
She appears frozen. So stiff and unmoving. Her eyes frantic. Her orbs are shaking. Her face is so pale and her plump lips are as white as the drapes of the windows. Her mouth wants to say something but it only trembles. He wants to run to her rescue yet his eyes widen with how her skin looks.
It horrifies him to the core.
It looks like she had been beaten up. Large patches of dark bruises are on her skin. It looks hideous and painful. It looks like blood would gash out in just a careless touch. They are swollen and reddish blue at the center. It freezes him once again, until one by one the rest of his brothers come.
Questions are asked. They are confused how she ends up on his bed. They want to know how she was thousands of miles away and now a few meters from them. He wants to know too but by the looks of it, she is much as confused as they are.
His gaze meets hers and there he notices her bleeding. It oozes on her chest down her belly as her left hand clutches her heart, as if it would burst out if she would not hold it in. The red liquid flows and stains the cream cover of the bed. Immediately he runs. His mouth screaming what is obvious. Yet, when he touches her, she flinches, like he is an abomination. Like he is a monster that she is so afraid of. It hurts him but he couldn't let go. Not with how she weakens and her eyes turn white as she convulses on the bed.
As her body shudders and crashes to the sheets, volts of electricity shock him. His body hurts so much, as if he is being hammered by millions of nails on his bones. His heart erratic and chills of full terror runs down his spine. He wants to scream. He wants to throw up as the feeling got more defined.
It's not his.
The feeling of being so afraid and lost is not his.
The intense pain is not his.
It's hers.
It's Daun's.
"Why this is happening?"
"Why is she here?"
"Hyung! We have to call 911!"
"No. It would take time. What if this is between life and death! Let's bring her to the hospital!"
"Which hospital?"
"I'm on it. I think I know."
"I'll drive."
Panic floods inside the room with all the others frantic and so shaken with what is happening. Everyone is talking almost at once yet Seokjin could not tell who is talking what. His mind is only with their Daun.
She looks lifeless. All the memories of him waking up with her by his side with all the beeping monitor rushed in. This can't be like before. By the looks of it, it appears worse.
He got so afraid.
He shakes. He sobs. He cries.
His tears run down his cheeks as he desperately holds her wrist to find her pulse. It's not there. He reaches out for her neck. It's not there. Her heart? Is it beating?
"Please...please... Daun-ah! Stay with me. Stay with us!" He screams as he puts his ears to her heart. And there he hears a slow beating. So minute. So faint, he almost misses it.
"Come on hyung... please move. Let's hurry."
Jin sits still as he watches Jungkook carries her to his arms and runs towards the door while Taehyung is supporting her head.
"Hyung! What are you doing there?" Jimin shouts and pulls him to his senses. "Come on."
Seokjin has to stand. He has to be strong. He should not be defeated with the pain that he is feeling. He has to be there for her...for them.
**********
The danger has passed. At least that was the doctor said. Actually, Dr. Jones couldn't even tell what was wrong.
It confuses them. The bruises on her skin were real. Everyone could vouch on it, however, they reduced to small swells of mosquito bites as they arrived in the emergency room. Before a doctor could check, they totally disappeared.
The seven of them thought that the doctor could tell them what was happening but he couldn't. Namjoon had to explain in the best way he could before the hospital could admit her and further run some soul scans and tests on her.
He sighs. He is exhausted but he can't sleep. Not with Daun by his side.
"Hyung... Is she okay?" Jimin asks.
"Yes... I don't feel any pain anymore." Seokjin answers.
"Yoongi hyung? Can you hear her?" Jimin turns to the second eldest.
"She is just sleeping. I couldn't determine much of her thoughts but it's the same when she has a chaotic dream or something like that." Yoongi answers.
"That's weird." Taehyung sighs.
It's weird indeed. Whatever happens restored his soul feel. After feeling that much pain, he now feels calm. He couldn't feel the pain even a bit of it anymore. It disappeared together with the bruises on her skin.
"I thought we would lose her." Jungkook chokes. The worry on his face never left.
"Jinnie-oppa?" Like gravity, everyone is pulled towards her bed and to her side.
Her voice is weak and raspy, like the morning when she wakes up. Her eyes are mellow as if nothing bad had happened.
"Hey." Seokjin whispers so softly.
"Why are you all here?" She asks confused and looks over the seven men that surrounds her. She then tries hard push herself to sit properly on the bed. She winces with a bit.
"Easy, love." Namjoon has to support her.
Immediately, Yoongi rashes to fetch a glass of water and brings it to her lips.
"Thank you." Her tiny smile is a sure light and finally they can feel calm.
"What happened to my hand?" She only asks as she looks at her bandaged left hand.