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the wind isn’t rough, but it’s definitely present. a natural force whipping through his hair, trying to blow out the ember on his unnatural death stick. there are many things to distract someone standing up here in front of the city lights, the city sounds drifting to your ear from far, far below. but under the dull glow from the room behind him, hoseok stares; he doesn’t take his eyes off the pills in his hand.
contemplation is something hoseok likes to do very often. he thinks about what dances he should work on perfecting, whether there is an important word in another language that sounds like their word for milk. he wonders if yoongi might like the new artist recently living inside his headphones, or if they might be more of namjoon’s varied taste. in a typical week, hoseok’s mind wanders from the contents of his bank account to the contents of his stomach, and maybe his cigarette packet if he might be running low.
hoseok has never liked the idea of a slow death, but he’s never been fond of a messy one either. guns and jumping and blades to a vein all cause a lot of blood and gore, and as someone who doesn’t like those things all too much, hoseok doesn’t think it would be very fair to shove that discovery on someone else. he supposes the joy of finding a dead body in any circumstance probably isn’t the best one, but he’s thought about that part too.
he wouldn’t want any of his friends to find him, much less any of his family. even someone who goes to his school wouldn’t be a prime contender. he doesn’t assume the experience of laying eyes on someone you once saw alive and breathing, cold and gray with rigor mortis starting to set in is particularly pleasant. it would haunt them for the rest of their lives. he doesn’t want to subject anyone to that.
the obvious solution would be to go somewhere no one would find him, but that proves to be difficult when the police receive a missing person’s report and are required by law to search for his body. he supposes he could just go to someone who’s already well accustomed with death; saunter into the morgue, lay down on a table and tell them he’s ready to end it right there. the only problem is they’d probably try to stop him if he downed the pills in front of their faces, rushing him to a hospital before they have time to do any real damage. that’s where the practicality of a gun to the head might come in handy, but that was crossed off the list before it even got written on there.
terrified of pretty much everything, hoseok really doesn’t enjoy the thought of a scary death. he wants one that’s effective, though not painful, one that’s over fast, but not messy. a gentle death, that isn’t dragged out so he can feel his organs begin to shut down. as someone who thinks of dying on the daily, he’s picky, very much so, but it is the way he’s going to die, so it’s fine to have a preference, right?
pills, though not ideal, have always seemed like the way it’s going to go. he turns the pot round in his hand, absently reading the label he learned he could recite two years ago. he flips the lid open with a thumb. this is his full pot, the one he’s been passively collecting for the last few months, so a few tumble down to the street. he doesn’t bother to follow them. with a smokey exhale, he clips the lid back on, turns it a few times more, and flips it open again. none fall this time. he nudges the lid back on. click.
repeat.
the wind isn’t rough, no, but it’s there against his skin. chilling, sweet, maybe just longing to be noticed. under the dull glow from the room behind him, and the dark clouds caging light from the cityscape, jung hoseok, someone who doesn’t want to die at a pace, holds a slow death in one hand and a slower death in the other. he’ll stand there for a long time after his light burns out. this is the only time he doesn’t live in the future, the only time he isn’t living thinking about the day he’s going to die. this is the time he’ll well and truly imagine the weight of those pills on his tongue, the process of losing his breath until his last one is gone. he’ll die tonight, then he’ll look back on how it feels; did he pass his test? are pills the way to go? it’s a different conclusion every time.
he’ll die tonight, once in his mind at least. and then after that, who knows?