Chapter Text
When you are in too much pain, you stop feeling it.
There were voices around the bed I’d been lying on for the past twenty-seven hours.
“Patient’s ICP is increasing!”
“Contact OR immediately.”
“He won't make it there.”
The voices started to blur, as though they were on land and I was miles under the ocean.
No, I won’t make it there. I won't make it anywhere.
I won't make it.
“He's flatlining!”
“Ready the defibrillator!”
Hands pulled the clothes at my chest.
“Clear!”
Cold metal plates touched my skin and a jolt coursed through me, lifting me from the bed and slamming me back down again.
“Clear!”
Another jolt more powerful than the last.
For four more times they tried. Yet my stubborn heart didn't yield, refusing to start beating on its own again.
I won't make it.
A long and steady screech pierced the air.
That moment on, RM ceased to exist.
So did Kim Namjoon.
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I didn't believe in reincarnation, nor do I believe that angels would descend upon your last breath and usher you into a splendid afterlife.
That was why I'd worked as hard as I had— powering through packed schedules despite injuries, performing every time as if it was my last, writing songs after songs.
You only get one chance to live. You don't get to do it again.
But death wasn't what I’d expected.
I’d thought that I’d simply stop being, that my soul would disperse into units of energy that returned to nature, that the world would fade as though the stage curtains had fallen to a close.
No.
I was still in the room, occupying a corner of it as I watched the doctors and nurses step away from the bed. Nobody noticed me.
In death, my body looked unfamiliar to me with its heavily bandaged head, a slackened mouth, and eyes that’d never open again.
I turned away from myself.
A doctor left the room, and I followed. My members and the managers were in the corridor just outside. Some leaned against the wall while some sat on the black plastic chairs or on the floor. All of them had their eyes on the ground. The members were still in their stage clothes from the day before.
When the doctor emerged, they rose and converged upon him.
Hoseok grabbed the doctor by the sides of his arm. “How is he now?” He looked at the doctor with so much hope in his eyes that it stung me.
The cliched shake of the head and the pause that followed was so much louder than anything the doctor could’ve said.
A sob choked out of Jimin. Taehyung stumbled into the wall, as though the news of my death had sapped him of all energy. Jungkook’s eyes were wide the way they were whenever their owner was scared or in shock.
Hoseok’s hands fell away in a daze. “That’s impossible.”
“The patient’s injuries were too severe. The trauma to his head—”
Yoongi barrelled to the front and tried to shove the doctor back into the room.
“Go save him then!”
Jin hooked his arms under Yoongi’s and held him back. “Yoongi, no.”
The doctor was sympathetic. “We tried our best to—”
“Don't give me that bullshit,” Yoongi snarled. “If you tried hard enough, you’d be able to bring him back. Namjoon wouldn't, he wouldn’t…”
His voice became too shaky to finish his words. He balled his hands into fists, and his shoulders shook. Jin held Suga close, stroking his back while he swallowed his own tears.
I'm still here, I tried to say, but I could produce no sounds.
I reached out a hand to lay on Jungkook’s shoulder, but it passed right through him.
Of all the things I’d accomplished as their leader, this was the thing that left me helpless. I could not tell them how sorry I was. I could not offer any comfort.
There was nothing I could do except to watch as they, one by one, fell apart in front of me.
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The coffin on the remote-controlled metal cart moved steadily toward the colossal oven waiting at the other end. Above in the viewing hall, mourners dressed in black had their hands locked in front of them, their heads solemnly bowed.
My family and my members took the front row.
The cart stopped in front of the oven. The coffin rose. Smoothly but slowly, it slid off the cart and into the oven.
Tears pattered down onto the glossy floor beneath the mourners’ feet.
There was a sense of finality as the oven’s gate came down. I felt empty, surreal. Even if I could come back to life, there’d be no body for me to return to. In three hours, maybe less, I'd be ash.
My mother swayed, and my sister folded her into her arms. My father wept silently.
But it was my members whom I was worried about the most. Hours ago, they’d been my pall bearers. We weren't related by blood, but I’d spent the the largest, most vibrant part of my life with them.
We’d shared victories and defeat, joy and sorrow, anger and disappointment. We fought, we made up, we fought again. I’d been confident that I knew them inside out, but as I watched them now, I realised I was uncertain what my death would do, or had done, to them.
Their reactions as they lost sight of my coffin spanned a spectrum: Yoongi flattened his lips into a sullen line; Hoseok sank onto a bench and sobbed into his hands; Jimin tilted his head to the ceiling, as though that’d stop the tears trickling down the curve of his cheeks; Taehyung’s eyes were wide and dry as they stared blankly at where my coffin had been; Jungkook had his head bowed as his tears fell to the ground like raindrops, Jin’s arm around his shoulders.
We'd talked about death before, recognized and accepted in good cheer that we wouldn't be around forever. We’d joked about who’d outlast who. We'd imagined attending each other's funerals, where we’d cry a few tears then gather in a bar to raise a toast to the deceased and laugh over fond memories.
Back then, we could be blithe because death was a distant thing, a final destination that we moved slowly toward, not a shadow that slammed into us and claimed without warning, without time to say our goodbyes.
As I watched my members, I wanted to pry into their minds and gain access to the gamut of their feelings. There was one thing I desperately, desperately wanted to know:
What had my death done to them?
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Most of the people had left the viewing hall. Jin and one of the managers were talking to my family, pushing away their own grief to offer condolences. I was thankful for that.
Jimin sat next to Hoseok on the bench, their fingers tightly interwoven together. In his soothing voice, Jimin murmured words of comfort to calm Hoseok down. You could always count on Jimin to be the unwavering pillar even in the harshest of storms.
Yoongi, Taehyung and Jungkook were nowhere to be found. As I started to worry for them, I noticed someone looking in my direction. There was no other word to describe him than exotic. His face and stature was neither male nor female. The only thing that suggested the former was the men’s suit he was wearing. I couldn’t put an ethnic group on him because no one I’d ever seen looked the way he did.
Our eyes met across the distance.
He wasn't only looking in my direction. He was looking at me.
He raised a hand in a wave that I was too stunned to return. He approached me, passing right through people as though he was immaterial, just like I had in the past two days.
Another soul of the dead?
“The souls of the dead can't see each other,” he said, reading my mind. “So no, I'm not one.”
Who are you then? The thought had barely been formed when he answered.
“I bring spirits to where they belong.”
Grim reaper?
He crinkled his nose in what seemed like distaste. “I prefer to be called The Facilitator.”
Death was a strange thing that defied all of my pre-conceived notions.
Are you here to take me away? A surge of panic accompanied the thought. I didn't think I was ready to go.
“No, not yet at least. Not until you’ve used all of your five wishes.”
Again, he answered before the question was properly asked. It was disconcerting.
He seemed to notice how uncomfortable I was, for he stopped saying anything despite the questions whirling in my mind.
“Five wishes?” It made me feel better to ask with my own mouth, even though he'd probably seen the question coming a mile away.
“They are a privilege for those who died too suddenly.” He looked at me meaningfully. “The wishes help them find closure and transition to the next world in peace.”
I have never heard of this in any religion. I was skeptical, but I couldn't deny an excitement had been sparked.
“What can I wish for?”
“Anything you want. Except for coming back to life, of course.”
I refrained from rolling my eyes. It wasn't as if I had a corporeal body to return to.
“Be prudent though.” His eyes were of a pale, severe gray. “Think your wishes through. The more general your wish is, the weaker its effect.”
“That isn't how wishes are supposed to work.”
He shrugged, as though saying live with it. “Well, death isn't what you'd supposed it to be, is it?”
He pulled a pocket watch out of his breast pocket, checked the time, and straightened himself. “There’s somewhere else I need to be now. Remember, use your wishes wisely. Till then.”
He tipped his head and was gone.
For a long time, I digested the information. The people in the viewing hall left one by one, until only Jimin and Hoseok were left.
I still didn't know how the wishes work, but I’d take whatever I was given.
Five wishes.
Five wishes to make it all better.
TBC
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