Chapter Text
“Have you ever thought about what you’d do if you suddenly died one day?”
Kim Seokjin was hiding in front of an abandoned warehouse’s fuel tank, tightly gripping a stun gun. Through the night-vision goggles, everything was a hazy, eerie green, only occasionally disturbed by a rabbit or deer rustling out of the bushes.
He didn’t even know what he was doing there. He felt like a spirit that had died long ago yet continued to wander this place. But some instinct told him he was waiting for someone who was going to appear.
“Shut up.” He shot the other man a sideways glance.
Min Yoongi was crouched behind a pile of grass at his ten o’clock direction, keeping watch. The camo uniform and cap concealed him almost completely. He had the binoculars pressed to his eyes, motionless, like another wandering ghost.
“How much longer? I’m about to fall asleep…” Yoongi lowered the binoculars slightly. Through the night vision lens, Seokjin could see the glow of his eyes in the dark.
“Stay focused, we're still on a mission!” But the moment he said it, he paused. “Wait… what is our mission?”
Yoongi shrugged. “How should I know? Isn’t this your dream? You were the one talking about resurrecting me at dinner earlier, so I got summoned here.”
He hesitated, taking off the night vision goggles. Under the moonlight, he could see cuts on Min Yoongi’s cheek and forehead. When he put the goggles back on, the wounds vanished. That’s impossible, it shouldn’t be like this. He muttered to himself, a vague sense creeping in that the entire world was becoming unreal, as if he was being dragged into a massive whirlpool, sinking endlessly.
“Are you real?” he asked Yoongi.
“What are you talking about? Of course not,” Yoongi replied casually. Then he pointed ahead. “But look, someone’s coming.”
In the distance, a man was riding a bicycle slowly toward them. Tiny wind chimes dangled from the bike, ringing crisp ding ding dang dang sounds every time he pedaled. Seokjin was still trapped in that infinite chaos and void, feeling he was about to wake up, that everything was about to end. But he rushed forward anyway, and struck the man with his stun gun.
The next second, he jolted awake on a canvas cot. Everyone working late in the office had already fallen asleep. It took him two seconds in the dim room to regain his sight and realize that the wind chime sounds from his dream were actually just a coworker stirring a cup. The person saw him sit up, assumed they’d woken him, gave an embarrassed little smile and whispered an apology before tiptoeing away.
He had no idea why he’d suddenly had such a bizarre dream. Seokjin pinched the bridge of his nose and blamed it on the drinks from last night’s team dinner.
Through the slits of the blinds, he could see that the sky outside had already brightened.
The overseas customer service line had finally come online after waiting all night. Seokjin opened the chat window, coordinated with them, and finalized the company’s largest coffee bean order. Then, after a quick tidy up, he grabbed his things and walked out of the office building.
Starting the day after tomorrow, his twelve-day vacation would officially begin.
The subway in a big city hits rush hour by seven in the morning. The smell of rice noodles, fried veggie dumplings, and fried dough sticks mixes with the breath that people exhale when they yawn, forming a strange, complicated scent in the train car.
Kim Seokjin had just finished a night shift rotation, yet his exhausted expression looked exactly like that of everyone heading to work early. He stood near the train door. The moment it opened, one wave of passengers flooded out and another wave immediately surged in. He was pushed out toward the platform and then squeezed back inside again, flattened like a sheet of dough by the people behind him.
“Soya!” A girl’s voice sounded among the crowd of office workers hunched over their phones. Seokjin lifted his eyes and glanced through the window’s reflection. The girl called Soya smiled and said, “Hey! What a coincidence! Why are you up so early? Going to work?”
“Yeah,” the other girl replied, annoyed. “Ugh, if I left any later, I wouldn’t even be able to squeeze onto the train.” Soya said, “Right, can’t risk being late. I can’t believe time passes so fast, you’re working already!” The girl sighed, “Don’t remind me. The company makes us stay late every night. If I leave before nine it feels like a miracle. And the pay’s crap.” Soya said,
“Same. The competition is brutal. Every time I see a new hire, I want to tell them to run while they still can.” The other girl replied, “Exactly. We work ourselves to death, have no personal life, and after rent there’s barely money for food or transport. I’m not even sure if I’ll go home for New Year.”
The train arrived at a station. A wave of people squeezed off, and even more squeezed on. The two girls were shoved behind Seokjin, continuing their conversation.
Soya said, “Isn't it bad not to go back?”
The girl answered, “Going back means visiting relatives and spending money on gifts. Not like you, local girl, you can stay with your family.”
She let out a dry laugh. “Honestly, I have to pay household expenses every month. After that, I barely have enough to feed myself. I can’t even afford to get sick. Let’s stop the misery competition.”
They fell silent for a couple seconds. Then she perked up again and said brightly, “But I have a cat now! A tabby!”
He got off the train, rode the escalator up, crossed the footbridge, scanned his access card, and opened the door to his apartment. Kim Seokjin didn’t even bother taking off his shoes, he tossed his briefcase aside and collapsed onto the sofa, completely motionless.
The scent of coffee and toast lingered in the air, which meant Jung Hoseok was already awake.
“Back already?” Hoseok had just washed his face and was patting on toner, poking his head out of the bathroom. “Perfect timing, I wanted to show you something. Look at this, I picked up a flyer from a travel agency yesterday.” He squeezed toothpaste onto his toothbrush and pulled a sheet of paper from under a placemat. “Looks pretty good! Pairs of two, you’ll have a partner. Safer to travel with someone watching your back!”
Seokjin nodded. “Are you going with me?”
“I wish. No vacation days,” Hoseok said, brushing his teeth with muffled speech. “But you should go, you might meet someone who vibes with you!”
“If you’re not going, what am I supposed to do there?”
Seokjin tossed the flyer back onto the coffee table, but missed, and it fluttered to the floor. He didn’t even try to pick it up. “I finally have time off. Let me rot at home in peace.”
“Oh come on, think about it! It's not easy to get a chance to go out and travel,” Hoseok, mouth full of toothpaste foam, shoved the flyer back into his hands.
“Sleeping bags and tents all provided, just pay a deposit for the bike. You pick up food at the supply stations each day, no set itinerary, and tons of free time! You can go wherever you want!”
Seokjin almost wavered. So he picked up the flyer, glanced at it, and was immediately put off by the copywriting.
Seven days, six nights cycling adventure, Encounter unique cultures along the way!
Unique cultures, his ass. He wasn’t about to spend seven days and six nights with a complete stranger.
“And what’s with ‘encounter’? What if my partner’s a 60-year-old grandpa? I’ll have to pedal and babysit at the same time? No thanks, I’m not wasting money on this.”
Hoseok looked like he had predicted that response. “You don’t have to pay. I already did.”
“What?” Seokjin almost shouted before taking a closer look of the price on the poster. He simply slapped the crumpled paper against Hoseok’s chest. He grabbed the blanket and pulled it up to his shoulders. “Whoever paid, goes. I’m not signing up for that torture.”
He rolled over on the sofa, presenting only the flat back of his head to the world. The room fell silent behind him. Hoseok spat out the toothpaste, rinsed his mouth thoroughly, wiped away every trace of foam from the corners of his lips, poured himself a cup of coffee, and came back to nudge Seokjin’s shoulder. But Seokjin continued pretending to sleep.
“You really won’t go?”
No response.
“It’s a cycling trip to Achasan…”
At that, Seokjin opened his eyes again, but still didn't speak. Ever since Min Yoongi was gone, he often felt this instinctive sense of responsibility, like as the older one he had to be stronger, had to carry things alone, and not fall apart like before.
“You still haven’t accepted what happened to Yoongi hyung, have you?”
Seokjin wrinkled his nose, pretending nothing was wrong as he sat up and shifted over to make space on the sofa. “Why are you bringing this up out of nowhere…”
“I just hope you can move forward, like me.” Hoseok’s tone was earnest, then he added quietly, “Even though it’s hard.”
Seokjin pressed his lips together. Since when did you start pulling these ‘act first, explain later’ tricks like Yoongi…?
“This was the last place he never got to visit,” Hoseok continued. “I thought… maybe if you could go see it for him, it’d be something.” When he spoke of his former lover, an unconcealable sadness in his voice, but it loosened just as quickly as he continued, “If you really don’t want to, that’s fine too. You know me. I’ll always support whatever you decide.”
Seokjin sniffed, almost mistaking the sting in his nose for tears, but he held it back. At least in front of Hoseok, he wanted to stay composed.
So he unfolded the wrinkled flyer once again and saved the contact number of the organizer.
“You know,” he muttered, “sometimes I really don’t know what to do with the two of you.”