never go back | p a r t s e v e n

< k i m s e o k j i n >
[ 11 / 04 / 2015 ]

SEOKJIN LOOKED AROUND in surprise. Everything was still the same.

They were sitting in an old abandoned trailer they had found, parked deep in the forest. Well, technically, it wasn't an abandoned trailer anymore; more like Namjoon and Taehyung's second home. The two discovered it on an "adventure voyage", as they called it (which was honestly just another way of saying "aimlessly walking around as we ditch class"), and when they realized it was abandoned they decided to claim ownership.

This trailer was their own little hideout. A safe corner from the rest of the world.

The events that unfolded in the princepal's office were sticking out in his mind, taking away from his attention.

— Seokjin felt his throat dry as he read the names over and over. "W-why?" he croaked, not able to say much else.

Mr. Han got up from his seat, walking around the desk to where Seokjin was sitting, and took a seat beside him on the desk. He placed a hand tightly on Seokjin's shoulder, as he instant tensed up by the feeling of his heavy hand. "This is all in the school's interest, son. We are just picking off a few bad seeds, that's all. You are not only doing this for your own interest, but also for the interest of this entire school and its image." —

Thinking back, to a spectator it may have seemed as though a principal was simply giving one of his students some kind words, but that was not the case whatsoever. Seokjin couldn't help but shiver at the memory of the look in this man's eyes — they were so lifeless, so cold. And Seokjin remembered every bit of it; the stern look in Mr. Han's eyes, his stern hand tightening on his shoulder, the envelope. He even remembered writing it in his journal and rereading the entry every day.

It was so real that it couldn't have just simply been a dream.

And what was worse was not just that, but also that Seokjin finally remembered something, filling in some of the blank spaces in his mind. He remembered how he was the reason why Yoongi, Hoseok, and Namjoon were expelled from school during their high school days. No one was able to find the whistleblower who ratted them out for spray painting and smoking on school grounds, and certainly no one suspected the perpetrator to be within the tight-knit group itself.

Though the encounter itself was crazy on its own, it brought back some memories he had buried deep inside him. He didn't want to go back to that, he didn't care if that as him being a coward — that was all he had left to not lose his sanity.

In order to distract himself, he continued looking around, absentmindedly taking in the familiar oddly arranged couches covered with the equally tacky blankets that never seemed to not-clash. His eyes travelled from the creaky, wooden floor, to the small refrigerator standing emptily in the corner.

Eventually, his eyes landed on the many sketches of tattoo sketches scattered, the memory of Namjoon sitting alone at his desk and drawing his nth sketch entering his mind.

It was all still the same.

"Hyung, are you listening?" Taehyung asked, snapping him out of his daze.

Seokjin blinked and smiled reassuringly. "Yes, of course I am. You were talking about how you and Namjoon were thinking of making a new 'project', right?" he spoke confidently despite having been caught off guard.

Taehyung's eyes twinkled as he smiled again. "Yes! Namjoon-Hyung and I have been thinking of hitting that old convenience store. The one with the blue closing gate. Not many stores have those gates anymore and we thought it would be a great place for our new spray art—"

Seokjin interrupted him. "You mean, your new graffiti tagging — as in the illegal kind," he spoke sarcastically, exaggerating his words.

Seokjin could see Hoseok shake his head in disappointment as he added, "I keep telling you two, you'll end up getting yourselves into some big trouble if the police catch you. Last time was close, too."

Last time? Oh, yeah.

From the bits and pieces he could recall, there was one summer when Namjoon and Taehyung almost got arrested for spray painting some symbol of "freedom against oppression" that Namjoon designed. They barely managed to escape last minute and, as he recalled, it was much more than simply a "close call".

Seokjin's eyes landed on Namjoon, sitting beside him on the couch cross-legged, a half-done cigarette in hand as he puffed out the smoke. Thinking back, Namjoon was always the one to come up with those designs. Seokjin knew if he had a single talent, beside his intelligence and the ability to get out of nearly any situation with simply his wording, he had a talent for creating new ways to express his hatred towards teen angst and rotten societal systems in his writings and graffiti. And Taehyung just went along with it for the fun and thrill of it.

The way Seokjin saw it, the two were closest to each other. They were the troublemakers of the group, always looking for trouble in all kinds of places.

Although all seven of them were all close friends (more so brothers than friends, really) each had someone special we were especially bonded to.

Namjoon and Taehyung were that for each other. Taehyung looked up to Namjoon, like his own elder brother. All those ideas and confident opinions he had on today's society reached Taehyung in some special place in his heart. And Namjoon treated Taehyung as his treasured little brother, replacing his parents with him as his only family — at least in his heart, that is.

A smirk grew on Namjoon's face as he spoke to Hoseok for Taehyung, "Ah, hyung! You need to calm down once in a while and live a little. If you keep living like you do now, you won't ever have any fun." As expected. He always said the exact same thing when warned about consequences.

Rolling his eyes, Seokjin began looking around again, this time at his friends. Yoongi was across from Namjoon and him, laying very comfortably beside the leisurely sitting Hoseok on another mini couch as he used his phone, a bored expression clear and apparent on his face. As for Taehyung, he sat on the floor next to Seokjin, leaning against the arm of the sofa Seokjin was sitting on. Seokjin remembered Taehyung explaining Jimin's and Jungkook's disappearance, making it very apparent of their absence to him.

Taehyung suddenly got up off the floor and mumbled under his breath, "This shirt smells weird."

He walked over to Namjoon's closet, pulling out a couple of random shirts. After a few rejections, he picked out the shirt identical to what Namjoon was wearing.

Oh god. Seokjin thought ruefully. Seokjin remembered this moment clearly. And he could honestly say he wished he couldn't.

절대 되돌아 봐 | never look back

Taehyung took off his ripped shirt while laughing gleefully. Under the low hanging light in the trailer box, Seokjin once again saw those dreaded bruises on his back.

Even though it was only a quick glimpse, it felt like time itself had stopped when he caught sight of them. Seokjin couldn't help but give Namjoon a worried look. Hoseok stared at Taehyung with surprised eyes, though he tried to hide it the best he could, undoubtedly thinking the exact same thought we all had in mind at the time.

Taehyung went over and looked at himself in the dirty mirror and laughed again, just as he always did. "At this rate, I think the police officers should be my best friends," he joked.

Yoongi, who was quietly watching the entire time, got up from where he was laying beside Hoseok, and lightly punched his younger friend on the shoulder.

Everyone went back to leasuring around again, but one. Seokjin sat, frozen in place.

"This can't be real, how did I know that was going to happen?" he mumbled in distress, barely coming out as a whisper.

Seokjin abruptly got up off his seat. He could feel the stares of his friends, but he couldn't look up or meet their eyes. Without another word, he grabbed his book bag and ran out of the trailer. He kept his fast pace as he ran, ignoring the calls of his friends in the background.

His heart beat in his chest a mile a minute, the same questions looming in his mind, as if on an eternal loop.

Why did I know what was going to happen before it did?

This can't be a dream, but it can't be anything else!

Can it?

Why the hell am I back here?

He ran, never once looking back. He ran and never stopped running. The sound of his feet as it hit the forest ground echoed, the leaves and branches as he ran filling his ears. His eyes stung and he felt something lodge in his throat, but he couldn't stop running. His entire body ached, as the world around him began to spin. Nonetheless, he never stopped running. He didn't know what he was doing or what he expected to happen, but he couldn't stop even if he had to.

Maybe it was the intent of never returning to that reality again, or the fact that his entire world was crumbling before him, he didn't know.

So, like he always did when things got tough, when things were too much to handle, Seokjin ran away.

His vision soon started to become blurry as he staggered. Even though he never stopped moving, his pace began slowing down, and his breathing became uneven. His runner's high was fading, along with the adrenaline.

Seokjin was well aware of what these symptons meant, he had felt them many times before throughout his childhood due to his weakened heart, ever since when his mother passed away in the same car crash he had been in. The doctors told him that, even at a young age, if his symptoms were to reach the extremities, he could die.

But he didn't care now — or more like he couldn't make himself care. He was too tired to. He didn't know how long he had been running as he got deeper and deeper into the forest, but the sun had set and the night sky was in full view.

Seokjin could feel his body shutting down as it always did when he exerted himself, his chest aching and his heart felt as if it would jump out of his body any second. And as it were inevitable, he collapsed on the spot.

He felt the pain slowly drift away. He smiled at the thought, deciding that he was dying. "Oh well," he whispered with a small smile playing on his lips, "I did too much." He didn't know why he ran so much or why in the end he couldn't stop, but he never regretted it.

After all, he got the outcome he had wished for oh so long. The final end.

Slowly, his eyelids dropped until they became too heavy to keep open. He lightly closed his eyes, exhaling one last time, feeling the cold earth shift along with it.

And as he did, the world around him cracked as if it was a ceramic façade, slowly fading into the similar white walls and paintings that started it all.

[ Never look back, never stop running. ]
[ 절대 되돌아 봐, 실행 중지 안. ]