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A body without a soul is a carcass.
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It's a new day with her seven. The morning is filled with giggles and laughs. They are happy. So much happier than ever. It seems that the weeks without each other was like years. They miss all the teasing, the jokes, and the silly talks. They miss the gentle caress as their skins unknowingly touch. They miss the tingles of their soul zing and the starry twinkle of their gazes. They long these moments, so small, seemingly so uneventful, yet causes festive beats on their hearts. The morning is simple yet at the same time grand. They hold each second and minute dear like precious treasures that they only have.
"So... How do you like your dresses?" Hoseok murmurs on her ears as he tucks her hair.
"That was fast. I was so surprised to wake up with all of the clothing." She sweetly smiles. "Thank you oppa." She hugs him tightly.
They are not just dresses. They are consisting of all the new trends of fashion but of course, all are according to her tastes. They are all beautiful and fits her so well, as if everything were made for her only. Some are curiously different, not part of the choices that Hoseok had presented to her.
"I added my choices on them." Taehyung winks.
'There it is. Mystery solved.' She smiles. "Really?" Daun stands from Hoseok's lap and transfers to Taehyung's to sit and squeezes him into a huge hug. "Thank you." She wiggles.
"Look at that. I should have known to buy you clothes. I should be receiving those hugs." Jimin playfully remarks.
"Then I'll give you one." She jumps away from Taehyung to embrace Jimin. The first groans in annoyance of her short attention while the latter just giggles, arms wide to welcome his darling. His babe.
They laugh at her silliness. She's playful as she herself initiates skin ship with them, until she freezes with the ringing of the doorbell.
"I think she's here." Jungkook voices. There is still a bit of irritation laced on his gentle tone.
"I'll guide her to the study. Let Daun-ah finish her breakfast and follow us after. Okay?" Yoongi says as he walks away.
Daun then goes back to her seat. She feels the air becomes still. No matter how all of them say that this is just a session of questioning and finding truths of what happened, they can't deny that they are worried. They had seen those bruises and how she convulsed, and that was not normal for a flicker soul bound. If what they think is correct, whatever it was, it was something dangerous and they could only hope that it would never happen again.
She can sense the tension inside the room the moment she enters with Jimin. The room is big. It's obvious how much the owner loves his books. Shelves of them are upright by the walls making the room rich and thick with knowledge. However, it's still made to be used by at most five people inside. With the eight of them, the study room of the rented mansion is already a bit crowded, and now by the head of the large study table another person adds.
Daun smiles. Mrs. Song's wrinkles show as her thin red lips mirror hers. There in her eyes, she can see the woman's gladness of seeing her once more.
Strangely, Daun can't harbor any hatred with the woman. Even with the suspicion of the woman's affiliation with her father. She still thinks her as her soother, a confidant, a mother she couldn't have. Someone who once told her lies. She doesn't persecute Mrs. Song with that though, for at that time, she needed someone to lie to her. Truths were just so much to bear.
Truths are painful. She knows that too well. Now with Mrs. Song, she doesn't prepare to numb herself, just like all those years and open herself to drown with her lies. The woman is here to stab her with truths.
Daun is afraid of it.
"Are you sure you can do this?" Jimin perhaps mistakes her cold hands as cowardice of facing the woman, yet she is not. She is just afraid that whatever truth, it would hurt them all. And hurting them is not in her agenda.
She only nods and softly smiles. He then firmly squeezes her shoulders as he pushes her towards a seat.
Just like all those times, Mrs. Song introduces herself as if it's their first meeting and asks to record their session. No matter how they don't like it, they permit it. After all, this is what Mrs. Song does. With that, the questions begin.
"What do you mean, when you said you did it to save Daun?" Yoongi starts with his question.
"How sure of you that she has soul travel?" Namjoon inquires with his doubts.
"Isn't it a myth? A part of those fictional stories made by imaginative authors?" Jimin asks as his fingers firmly holds her good one.
"Is this dangerous?" Hoseok asks.
And there are many more.
Daun doesn't even know what question to ask. Instead, she gulps and looks at the woman straight to her eyes. "Please Mrs. Song. I need the truth."
Mrs. Song sighs and slides pictures on the table.
"Who is this?" Daun asks as she pics the bundle on her hands and studies the beautiful girl on it. She thinks she is in her teens. She is so peaceful as she sleeps. Then she shuffles for the next and gasps. There in the picture is the same girl with spots of bruises on her face and her arms. Daun swears there could be more underneath her hospital gown. She looks so much pained and thinned with whatever illness she had.
"What the fuck." Hoseok swears when he takes the pictures out from her hands. The others gasp as well as soon as their gaze lands to the dreadful picture. Why else, it is so familiar.
"My sister. My younger sister." Mrs. Song says, obviously holding the pain of her voice. "My only family."
"I...I'm sorry." Hoseok immediately politely says.
"Why are you showing us this?" Jin gently asks. His face a bit pale with what he had seen.
"She and I had been so close. I would tell her all my woes and she would tell me hers. There are many times that she would tell me detailed stories about her dreams. They were so vivid." Mrs. Song starts.
"Dreams?" Taehyungs asks.
"They are dreams of her together with two children and as we grew, the children also grew. Until a few months before her eighteenth birthday, she would say that she travelled to a dark house with wet floors and floating flames. There would be always two doors. She would open one and see a man in a hospital and the other in a soccer field."
"What's your point here?" Yoongi impatiently asks.
"Let her finish Yoonie." Daun whispers as she leans to the woman. With what is the woman saying, bits of her dreams come into mind. Bits that seem so clear yet hazed by time and her suppressions. It may be about Mrs. Song's younger sister's dreams, yet it feels like the woman is narrating hers.
"On her eighteenth birthday, she slept, and never woke up."
"What?" Jungkook gasps.
"She knew that the two in her dreams were her soulmates and so I searched for them. I remembered her telling me the hospital name, their names, and everything that she saw around them, as if she had walked around wherever they were."
"Was she correct?" Daun asks.
"Yes. She perfectly described everything. Later, I found the soccer player. He had sworn he had seen her once like a ghost, a spirit, as if she had already died. However, the other in the hospital was no longer there. After some questioning, the man was his best friend and had already died on cancer. No matter what we did, she wouldn't wake up anymore. We later decided to spare her as her body slowly rotted without her soul."
"Why are you telling me this?" Daun asks.
"She had soul travel like you Ms. Lee. I knew from the start when you talked about your dreams of playing around with children and how they grew with you. I knew then, that you have the same soul bound with my sister."
"B-but... I only remember the children... I... they are were so hazy." Daun asks confused as she looks around her seven. True. Daun's dreams are not that vivid like her sister's dreams.
"I did something about that. I had to." Mrs. Song admits.
"Wait... You mean you hypnotized Daun or something to make everything hazy?" Namjoon quickly grasps what she means. His tone is a bit angry and confused.
"Yes. As I told you. I had to - " Mrs. Song says.
"To save her?" Yoongi finishes her statement.
"Your sister's body rotted without her soul... what do you mean by that?" Jimin interjects.
"Soul travel is very dangerous to the bearer of such soul bound. I know people would say I am crazy for they had thought that it doesn't exist. It's so rare, but it does. It's just also hard to diagnose such soul bound if the person is secretive about herself or himself. Besides, who to ask if the person is asleep? A body without a soul is just a corpse. It would leave the person in a sleep state but as time goes by, the body starts to rot. Not unless the bearer would be touched by his or her soulmate."
"Like sleeping beauty?" Jungkook scoffs.
"Yes... In fact, I call this sleeping beauty syndrome." Mrs. Song casually responds, very much professional. "To think of it, how come a story such as that becomes a folk tale? Don't you think there is some kind of a truth in there?" Her eyes squint to the unbelieving Jungkook.
Chills run down to Daun's spine.
"So... the suppressants... what's with those?" Jimin inquires.
"To stop her soul from travelling."
"Why? She could have seen the seven of us and everything would be easy." Jungkook asks hurt, still can't grasp anything that Mrs. Song said.
"Nothing is easy Mr. Jeon. At that time, we didn't know who you were. We only knew that there were seven of you. Souls could be lost in the void of the soul corridors. She might see you... but it's not a guarantee that her soul would come back to her body. If that happens, her body will be left without a soul and would eventually rot and dies."
"The suppressants... How do you know that it would work?" Yoongi asks as he grits his teeth.
"We didn't, but we had to try." She whispers.
"We?" Daun inquires. "Were you referring to other people? Did someone know what you did?"
Mrs. Song sighs. "You were still underage Ms. Lee. I had to call your guardian about it."
"Uncle knew?" Daun asks in pain. She trusted her uncle so much. Yet, he had betrayed her as well.
"Mr. Inoue also knows about it."
"Papa?" She is much confused. "As if he cared." She mumbles.
"Mr. Inoue is just a man full of guilt and hurt. Sure, he has violent tendencies. He had done something in his bound that he didn't suppose to. Your father loves you Ms. Lee. In fact, he would still call about you. He always asks about you." Ms. Song tries to reach out for Daun's hand but she would recoil from it.
'Is this why Mrs. Song would always call me? Was she asking for papa's sake?'
"Why did he approve then?" Daun chocked in her question.
"I can't disclose anything about the struggles of Mr. Inoue Ms. Lee. You have to ask him yourself. All I can say that, he was afraid to lose you just like your mother who was suspected to be a soul traveler like you. He instructed me to do everything what I could do and even allowed me access in his pharmaceutical company. That's where I got your suppressants that I had to mask as depressants."
Daun starts to sniff. The truth and the horror are just too much.
"What do you think happened the other night?" Jin asks, swerving the conversation back to what is recent and more important. "You said that she has Soul travel? How come she flickered?"
"I have a theory. You were away from each other for too long. Her soul yearning was too much that her soul had to search for you. Good thing that the seven of you are always together, or her soul would be lost finding each of you, one by one. With such yearning, and since you had already established your soul bounds, her body was pulled with her soul."
"Is that still dangerous as the sleeping beauty syndrome that you had mentioned?" Namjoon seriously inquires. His brows tight and his jaw gritting.
"Yes. I think so." Mrs. Song sighs and leans her back on the chair. "Our souls are already mature even when we were newly born. The type of soul bound is already itched in our DNA. The soul only waits for the body to mature to take its effect. If the body is not meant to flicker, then it is not meant to flicker. If my theory is true, then, you couldn't let Daun's soul travel once again. She should not be far away from you for too long. Next time, we don't know, her body might not be pulled with her soul anymore." She explains.
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"So, you have to stay with us always, sweet." Hoseok whispers to her as he kneels in front of her, while holding her good hand. "Hey... why are you crying?"
She can't say anything with everything that she had known. The truth is indeed terrifying yet she is more terrified now. Terrified of leaving them behind because her soul is lost with the void. That explains why she had been so afraid of that dream. It had been reoccurring on their absence. What if a time would come and she would be trapped in that vast nothingness forever? What if she wouldn't wake up and see them again? What will happen to them?
The hurt of thinking of her hurting them so much is much worse than being in pain herself.
"Hey, sweetheart." Taehyung hushes her as she sobs unknowingly. Her heart is heavy of the thought of not seeing them anymore.
"We won't let that happen, Daun-ah." Yoongi gingerly says as he lovingly holds her shaking shoulders. "We make sure that we always see each other."
"We will be staying as long as forever. You will be with us forever." Jungkook soothes as he touches her head. He too is afraid. She can hear the desperation in his voice.
"Shhhh... come on. We are always here. We won't be away anymore." Taehyung gently soothes her as he encloses her tight to his embrace.
She breathes deeper and looks at the silly boxy smile of her Tae Tae and looks up and sees the gentle smiles of the others. A small bud of happiness now sways into a gentle bloom. Yet before it could fully open as a beautiful flower of hope and love, it is nipped and the bud bends helplessly on its stalk. She has to suppress the water on her eyes to spill again as her eye's lands to one with a forlorn face. It worries her more. The person can't even meet her own gaze.
She wants to inquire on the shadow that looms his face. Yet, she is afraid to even say a whisper even his name.
"Hyung?" Yoongi faces the man. Yet instead of saying something, he just turns back and walks away from the rest of them.