"Eomma, Eomma, Eomma, Eomma!"
Little Jeongguk gripped onto the wrist of his mother and pulled, hard. Even though he was an seven-year-old, he was strong enough. He bet he could lift a car, just like those stories about mothers who would lift cars off their babies.
He tugged and tugged but all it really did was make his mother shift centimeter after centimeter. He still kept tugging until finally, she flipped over and fell onto the floor.
"Eomma, wake up!" he yelled in her ear, but she didn't seem to hear him. She must've be really tired if she couldn't even hear her son screaming. "Get up, I have to show you something! I made you something! Come on, look!"
Jeongguk ran into the living room and grabbed the picture he'd just drawn. He figured, since he woke up before her for once, he'd surprise her with a drawing. She had always seemed so tired in the morning, even after she drank her tea and ate her vitamins, so maybe she just needed some motivation from her Jeongguk.
He ran back into the bedroom, where his mother hadn't moved quite yet.
"Look, Eomma, look, I drew us!" he says, bouncing. He points to where he's drawn himself. "This is me. I'm wearing my favourite overalls. And this is Appa. I don't really remember what he looks like, so I just drew him. And this is hyungie, before he left! Look, his hair's all long. And this is you, Eomma! I drew you with a big smile because you don't smile a lot, so in this, you'll smile all the time! And you're wearing your favourite red dress with the paint on it!"
He waited for her to finally get up and see what he made for her. He waited a minute. And then another minute.
"...Eomma, are you still sleepy?" he asked quietly. Maybe she was ignoring him because she wanted to keep sleeping. "Here, I'll put this here for you, 'cause I have to go to school. But you can look at it when you wake up." He put the picture down, and to make sure she didn't get cold, he grabbed the blanket and covered her up, and then grabbed her favourite pillow and put her head on it, and planted a little kiss to her hair. "Love you."
She didn't respond, since she was still asleep, and he got dressed and went to school.
When he came home, she was still asleep.
"Eomma, did you wake up and then go back to sleep?" he asked. He poked her side. "You've been asleep all day, Eomma, are you sick?"
With his little hands, he pushed her so she could lay on her back.
Her eyes were open.
"...E-Eomma?"
He shoved her a little, but she didn't respond to it. He put his little head on her chest to see if he could hear that heartbeat he'd felt so many times when she hugged him. Her chest wasn't even moving and her skin was really cold.
"Eomma, wake up." He climbed onto her lap and looked right down into her eyes, which weren't colourful anymore. They looked grey and white. Her lips were all chapped, rather than wet like when she kissed him and left a big spot on his cheek. "Eomma."
She didn't even move.
Jeongguk picked up the phone and dialed 119.
"Hello, police?" he said into the phone. "I think Eomma's sick, s-she won't get up." They asked him what she looked like. "Really, really pale and white. And her eyes are white, too. She won't move, and her heart isn't moving, n-not even when I hug her."
They told him to go into another room and stay there while they sent someone to help.
When a big man with a uniform and a badge came in, he asked Jeongguk where she was. He pointed to the bedroom, and wondered why there was an ambulance and a big, person-sized bag on a rolling bed.
"What's wrong with her?" he asked finally, and he hadn't been sure what it meant when they said she was dead.
____________________________________________________________
Jeongguk wakes up, startled, to white walls, white sheets, white lights. Everything is white and he can't figure out what to concentrate on first.
"Oh, my God, you're awake," someone says and he turns to see someone sitting in a chair to his right, next to the door. It starts to hit him that he's in a hospital.
"Where am I?" he asks. "Who're you?" That's when he figures out there're five others who're also in the room, staring at him in awe. "Who're...all of you?"
"Jeongguk...," a short one says, and Jeongguk blinks.
"How do you know my name?"
Everyone starts talking at once and he winces at the noise before a nurse comes in and tells them to settle down. She permits one person at a time, at Jeongguk's request. He picks the man with the long legs, and everyone else shuffles out.
"What's going on?" he says before the man can even start.
"Jeongguk...," he says slowly.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Namjoon, we met a little while ago."
"...What- How long ago?"
"A few weeks. A month, maybe." He pauses. "What year is it?"
"Um... 2015? I'm turning 21 this year." He shifts. "Oh, f- Where's Soonjung? Did anybody call her?"
"Soonjung? Who's Soonjung-"
"She's my girlfriend! Someone needs to call her and tell her if they haven't already." Jeongguk moves to get out of the bed, but stops when pain shoots up his leg and he winces. He throws off the blanket to see his leg stitched and bandaged. "...What happened to me?" he asks quietly.
"Um...," Namjoon hums, then shifts. "You were in a car accident last night. After you ran out a couple days ago, we had Jimin and Hobi- Hoseok, go looking for you and we-" He breathes in. "We found you on the ground."
"What?" He blinks a few times to get his bearings. "What, when?"
"Jeongguk, just relax, because this is going to be really fucking hard to swallow, okay?" Namjoon sits on the edge of the hospital bed. "Jeongguk, you- You were trying to kill yourself."
Jeongguk's breath hitches and he realises after a moment that he's panicking.
"W-What, why, what would I- Why would I do that-" His words come out jumbled and Namjoon breathes him through it.
"Excuse me, sir," the nurse pops her head in. "His brother would like to see him alone."
"Hyung?" Jeongguk raises his eyebrows. "But he's halfway across-" Then someone who's not his brother steps in and Namjoon steps out. "You're not my-"
"Don't ask," he says. "Do you remember me?" Jeongguk blinks blankly. "I'm Hoseok. Or...Hobi. I'm Hobi." Jeongguk watches as the name rolls off his tongue with uncertainty, like he isn't used to hearing it. "I told them I was your brother so they'd let me see your records."
Jeongguk watches as Hoseok pulls his blanket off his leg.
"...What happened?" Jeongguk asks, hoping that maybe Hoseok will give him a different answer than Namjoon.
"Jeongguk, when we first met...," Hoseok begins, then pauses. "When you first came to the house, to our house, you were like...an empty shell. You were there, but not...there. Namjoon explained to us what happened when he met you, properly, at the crosswalk, and you walked into the traffic and almost killed yourself until Namjoon pulled you away. He saved you, Jeongguk, and this entire time, we've been trying to help you and you've denied it all.
"You cut yourself, on your leg. Because, in my opinion, you wanted to know if you still felt pain. You stopped eating. You didn't take care of yourself because you believed, convinced yourself, that it wasn't worth the time.
"A couple of days ago, you slept at our house, and we were trying to help you. You talked about your mother, or at least mentioned her, and then you just...left. Jimin tried to go after you, hell, I tried. Yoongi even had to be held back because Seokjin told us all that you needed space after so much of our...coddling." Hoseok breathes in, shakily, like it almost hurts him to explain. "We didn't see you for a few days, and then Taehyung went to go out to the store and he... He found you. In the street. He called me immediately, then an ambulance. Jeongguk, you were unconscious and nearly dead already. If Taehyung hadn't found you, you might not be here right now."
Jeongguk can't breathe.
"Hoseok-ssi," the doctor speaks as she enters the room, and Hoseok adjusts himself, wiping imaginary tears. "If I could have a moment with the patient."
"Yeah, sure," Hoseok nods, leaving the room.
"I'm not depressed," Jeongguk says as soon as Hoseok's gone.
"Well, Mr. Jeon, we have reason to believe you're experiencing some head trauma and memory loss due to the accident," she says. "So it may take some time for everything to come back to you, considering you still believe it's 2015."
"It is 2015."
"Jeongguk, it's 2017. September 1st."
It's his birthday.
"It's my birthday...," Jeongguk says quietly. "I-It's my birthday, which means I'm...24. If it's 2017."
"Yes, Jeongguk. I'm going to recommend you stay here for a couple more days, while we check your vitals and see if you start to recover some of your memories. Don't push too hard. They'll come back naturally. You were lucky it was only a concussion, and nothing more severe than that."
Jeongguk nods monotonously, like a robot, because his brain's on hyperdrive and he still can't breathe and everything's too much.
Where's Soonjung?