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The day of his last birth, a voice called upon him from the other side of the emptiness he slept in, as it always did. “Come, my child,” it called in a language no longer spoken “your time has come once again.”
SeokJin got up to trembling feet, letting his body change and grow as he got closer to the end of the corridor. “You'll do great things, my child. You'll bring happiness and comfort. You'll be good. Are you ready?”
“Will it be easy?” SeokJin asked
“No.” the voice lamented.
“Will I be with them?
“Yes.”
SeokJin pondered.
“I'm ready, then.” he declared, closing his eyes.
The light of birth is very bright and overwhelming, as it always is. He cried out, gasping for air that came in huffs to his lungs. The room was brighter than the last times, smelt better, too. A woman with glowing blue eyes held him close, shooing him. “It's a boy!” she declared, and his new life began.
He was very lucky, this time around, born into a wealthy family with beautiful eyes and great education. He's grateful for that. The feeling of hunger still haunts him.
As the years pass by, he feels the memories melting. As it is costume, he'd be stripped of them when his journey began. Those were always the darkest of times.
He told himself stay strong, work hard, be resilient, because he knew those would be of huge importance in the future.
His parents would smile at him as he drew pictures with colorful crayons. He wouldn't understand, but would still play his role. Those were medieval battles, those were the techniques that built the pyramids, those were his people's escape tales. Those were history.
By the time reached nineteen, they no longer made any sense.
He found them once while looking for his notebook, leaving them behind and heading to college. It was at the bus station that a man found him, apologizing for intruding, handing him a little pamphlet. That had happened before.
Accept it, a voice inside him said, this is meant to happen.
The pamphlets leads him to an audition in a run down building, where the men in front of him say he's mediocre at singing, terrible at dancing, but a valuable visual, and that with enough training, that'll upgrade.
“Will you work hard?” they ask him, and well, he's nothing but a hard worker. The voice inside his head tells him to say yes, so he does.
He's twenty now.
The company is called BigHit, and his colleagues are three teenagers with rage issues and internalised misogyny. YoonGi, the oldest after him, seems to have a problem with authority figures, and crowded places.
They get along well enough.
They're joined by other three, a boy with chubby cheeks, a dancer with skinny legs and a little smiley boy with too large ears. For some reason, or another, he feels drawn to them.
He isn't sure if they feel the same at first.
One night, after singing and dancing until his legs feel numb, after one too many drinks, he meets the voice again..
The dream is cold, and warm at the same time. He's standing at the edge of the world, looking down into the dark.
“It'd been hard, hasn't it, my child?” a voice behind asks. SeokJin nods. “You mustn't give up.”
“But it hurts so much. I'm tired.” SeokJin says.
“You mustn't give up. Not you, not any of the others. This is meant to happen.”
“I could have so much better”
“You mustn't give up.” it repeats “There is good fortune to come. This is meant to happen. You must not give up.”
“Why should I trust you?” SeokJin questions.
“Because you've done it before.”
“But I don't remember you.”
The voice hums. “You'll have to trust me blindly, then.’
““Have you ever failed me?”
“Not once.”
SeokJin contemplates. “Will we be okay?”
“As long as you're there.” the voice answers “As long as you're together. You've done worse. But you mustn't give up.”
The abyss starts to hurt his eyes.
“I won't.” he promises “We won't.”
They're fighting, one day, wrestling like they usually do when angry, when HoSeok says with a trembly voice that he thinks he's going to quit, that it's too hard, that it won't work out.
JeongGuk starts crying in his arms. SeokJin rushes towards the two, takes HoSeok's hands, places it above his heart. “Can't you feel it?” he asks desperately “This is meant to happen.”
“How can you know that, hyung? We could be doing better. We could cut it, there's still time.”
“We mustn't give up.” SeokJin repeats, the words coming ourtof his mouth effortless “There is good fortune to come. As long as you're here, as long as we're together.”
HoSeok chuckles, getting up to his feet and heading out the front door. “You're too much of a romantic, hyung.” he says.
Maybe so, but the next day, he's the first one sitting down for breakfast.
Their debut happens in June. After the showcase, SeokJin's hands are trembling, and JeongGuk cries on his shoulders.
“You did good, kid.” YoonGi reassures him “You did great.”
“Could've done better.” the boy sobs
“But you didn't. We didn't. That's more to improve, isn't it?” SeokJin whispers in his ears. The boy nods shakey “Then we're good. We're gonna have lots of time to do better.”
But time runs quickly, they found, and soon it's their next comeback, and their clothing is all white, and then they're in uniforms, and then in tight red pants, and then, and then, and it just doesn't seem to end.
Then there's I Need U, and he finds himself in a wedding band white shirt, kneeling in the hard wooden floor with a sad expression and a flower in hand. It's a little thing, with hints of yellow, saturated against the blank room.
“I think SeokJin-hyung was a flower in his past life!” JiMin jokes in between the shoots. SeokHin laughes.
“I think we all were, JiMinie.”
“I wonder what ARMY will think of the MV.” NamJoon muses out loud “It's very different.”
“I think they'll love it.” TaeHyung says “I think this is gonna be the one. I think they'll like Run even more! We're going to get lots of awards.”
““Maybe it'll debut at 10 in Melon. Maybe we'll set a new record for most wins. Maybe we'll get a Daesang!” JiMin joins
“A new record for most daesangs!”
“Don't get carried away.” YoonGi scolds them, playing with the lighter in hands.
“Let them dream, YooGichi.” Jin smiles “They say dreams come true if we want then bad enough.
It's true.
The Daesang comes a year and a half later. He's 23, TaeHyung's 20, and the sobs YoonGi lets out make their hearts shatter in a million pieces. The thank you speech is rushed and trembly. Their hands shake accepting the awars. “This is it.” he remembers thinking “There is no getting better. ”. But the voice inside his head tells him to keep looking up.
Later that night, when they're all a little bit tipsy, NamJoon's breath finds its way to his ears in secrecy. “We did it, hyung.” he giggles “We're on top of the world!”
SeokJin shakes his head, though he doesn't understand why. “This is just the middle of the journey.” he says “There are still mountains to climb.”
But they're not montagnese goats, and as silly as that sounds, it's the truth. They fall, and tremble, and the air gets lighter the further up they go. It's lonely, it's desolating, it's confusing, to look down and find miles and miles of untouched ground.
“It feels like I'm losing myself.” TaeHyung cried one night, camping under the stars, the promise of victory heavy on his name.
“One of the makeup noonas called me by NamJoon yesterday, and it took me a second to respond.”
Through it all, Jin remains silent. He'll always have Seok on him, even if he feels far out of reach sometimes.
“Should we go back down?” HoSeok asks.
“But we haven't reached the top, yet.” JeonGguk says.
“I don't think we ever will.” he admits “Plus, I think we've gotten close enough. It's getting too hard to breathe.”
SeokJin understands. He suffocates, too. But he still smiles reassuringly when he speaks. “We should still go up.”
“How can you know that, Hyung?”
“I feel it. I feel much more ahead of us. I don't feel like returning right now.” he answers “I don't think any of us do.”
They don't speak after that, the crickets filling the silence. It's hard to sleep in the cold, but human warmth always suffices.
They wake up the next day to the first rays of sunshine, and climb with a little more strength. At midday, NamJoon brings him aside to rest under a shadow.
“What do you think is waiting us up there?” he asks.
“I don't know, Joonie, but I think it'll be very beautiful.”
“I hope it's high enough to see the sea.”
SeokJin smiles. “I think it is. When we go back, we'll go to the beach together.”
“I think we'll stay together for a very long time, you know that, Hyung?” NamJoon smiles “i think we'll go to Heaven together. Holding hands.”
SeokJin laughs. “Weren't you an atheist, NamJoon-ssi?”
“Not when it comes to us. This is really big, Hyung. This can't be the beginning, and it surely can't be the end.”
“You're a dreamer, Joonie.”
“We all are, Hyung.” NamJoon says “We wouldn't be here if we weren't.”
They're wavelength, they're associated power, they're resistance, they're the echo. They're seven, and what a relief, because as long as they're together, they can do this. They've gone through worse.
The next week, NamJoon comes with a newly finished song. It's called DNA, and it'll be first broadcasted in the US. It's a new top.
They'll come to find many along the way.
They come in many ways, in many different shapes. They come in records and recognition. They come in pioneering. They come in discreet smiles and reassuring words. They come in letters of thank you. They come in devoted screams. They come in filled stadiums, and they come, and they come.
The 40th Daesang happens in December, years after that midless wish. That night they drank, and JiMin laughed, refused to be called anything else other then Daesang Recordist Park JiMin.
Then, later, he cried in SeokJin's arms. Such a strong boy, he thought, the strongest.
“I don't wanna fade away, Hyung.” he sobbed. SeokJin smiles adoringly “I don't wanna be anyone else other than this me.”
“You have always been this.” SeokJin spoke, voice firm, the wisdom of millennia behind it, even though he didn't know that “And I'll make you a promise right now: this is all you will ever be.”
JiMin nodded, eyelids heavy. They'll have another day.
He doesn't exactly recall when, but they're at the top, one day, laying down underneath the gentle Sun, letting the wind refresh their worn out skin. From behind him, SeokJin hears their names being called. It's NamJoon. It often is.
They come to find him at the edge of the mountain, staring over the horizon. “Wow. It's the sea.” YoonGi says.
“Wasn't it a desert?” JeongGuk asks.
“Ecology successions, kid. They happen.”
“How long have we been climbing?” TaeHyung questions. Nobody answers. It feels like days, but also decades.
They stare into it for hours, the great blue, the endless waves, the feeling of being no more than a drop of water. They stare even as the skies turn from blue to yellow, and to yellow to pink, and finally a warm shade of purple.
They eat their food over the rocks, and SeokJin stands up to make a toast. “This was always meant to happen.” he declares “This is the good fortune.
“So formal, Hyung.” HoSeok complains. The others agree.
“So disrespectful.” SeokJin retaliates with a laugh, but his face is soft as he continues “I'm glad to have climbed with you. I'm glad to be here, together, as seven. What a relief.”
The others cheer and drink, with the Moon up above, the charming sound of laughter mixing with the quietude of the night, of the purplish reflection of the infinite sea.
As long as they're together.
The first one to go is NamJoon, who died on his eighties, resting comfortably on his favourite armchair after waving goodbye to his grandchildren. Then JeongGuk, and JiMin and TaeHyung, HoSeok, and shortly after YoonGi.
SeokJin's the last, just as he asked for eons ago.
It's a peaceful death, on his sleep, a sweet lullaby guiding him to the white door. The voice is waiting for him when he got there, just as it always is.
“Welcome back, my child.” it greets, invites him to sit down at the wooden table in the middle of the room “How did you find it?”
“The world has changed.” he muses.
“That, it has.”
They stay in silence for a minute. “Where are they?” SeokJin asks finally.
“Around.” the voice answers “Waiting for you, I think, to hold hands into heaven ”
“That's what Joonie used to say.” SeokJin smiles
The voice hums.
“Can I see them?”
“Not as of now. Maybe later.”
SeokJin nods absentmindedly “All this time, and it's not gotten a bit easier to leave them.”
“That's you're humanity, my child.” the voice explains “Humans often find it hard to say goodbye.”
“They called us soulmates.”
“The humans?”
“Us, too. We've sung about it a couple times, even.”
“I know. I listened, and enjoyed greatly.” the voice tells “You had a beautiful singing voice, this time around.”
“I did, didn't I?” he smiles “No wonder they used to cheer so loudly for me.”
“I told you you'd be okay.”
“As long as we're together.” SeokJin completes.
The lullaby is but a humm now.
“Are we?” he asks in silence “Soulmates, I mean.”
The voice doesn't answer at first. “I suppose you could call it that, but I wouldn't.”
“Why?”
“It's not just about souls, not for you. You were built together, petals of a flower. You're there for each other. You're there because of each other.” it says “Soulmates feels meaningless.”
SeokJin wonders.
“But I must go, now. The next century will begin in a bit.” the voice declares, helping SeokJin on his feet “Try and rest, my child.”
SeokJin doesn't answer, heart heavy with missing. “Will I see them again?”
The voice chuckles. “Of course. You always have,” it promises “and you always will.”
His eyes start to close, the weight of being Kim SeokJin dying down, and soon he's floating in between. He hopes it won't take long.