HOSEOK felt warm.
The sun shone gallantly, the atmosphere inside the cafe, tranquil. He could feel the tingles of sunbeams falling on the back of his neck from the glass walls, and his lips curved upward when he felt Serim beside him tuck a lock of his curls behind his ear.
"And here you were crying about not having a girlfriend," Jimin sighed as he averted his eyes from the opposite side of the table.
"Well, I'm glad we've gotten introduced now. At least one of us in the dorm is dating." Jin snickered with a playful look on his face.
"What girlfriend?" Hoseok glanced at Serim from his peripheral before he spoke. He saw how the girl immediately stopped swirling the iced coffee in her hand and he felt amused knowing an outburst was to be coming soon. "She's not."
"Asshole, do I need to show you my fist?" The girl snarled flicking her left braid behind her shoulder, her piercing gaze eyeing Hoseok.
"She curses just like the drunk Hoseok hyung!" Taehyung exclaimed, the rest of the table bursted out into laughter.
While Serim flushed in red, Hoseok laughed it off too. He was feeling warm, so warm to be around his friends, to be normal, and not be worrying about anything else.
Was this really him? He wasn't lying to anyone, right?
It astonished Hoseok how he felt like a part of this circle as if he really belonged here, as if there wasn't anything to be afraid of.
"You should visit our dorm someday, Jin hyung can cook for us and we can have dinner together," Jungkook spoke with joy. Hoseok scrunched up his eyebrows noticing how the youngest wasn't nervous around Serim unlike how he'd usually act around girls.
"He does," Yoongi added, a small smile on his lips, afternoon sunbeams reflecting on his porcelain skin. Hoseok was glad to see him look healthier than before.
But Yoongi never smiled before, did he?
"Only if you guys help me out," Jin said in a haughty manner. "At this point I can only rely on Taehyung and Jimin in the kitchen but even they finish everything up faster than I'm done cooking."
The said duo laughed mischievously, Serim joined too. Hoseok mentally noted that next time he would bring more of his university peers and merge his friend groups.
"I'm sorry, but if I try to assist in the kitchen I might cause a massive distraction to your tools," Namjoon piped in a low voice.
"Oh yes, you. No, you should be just sitting in the back," Jin responded.
While Serim started to tell them that she could be helping out too since she had a few knowledge on the cooking part, Hoseok almost commented that the last time he tried Serim's homemade kimbap he got an upset stomach. He was going to get cursed at again.
He stayed silent and instead looked at his back to notice that the sun had set already, the sky was blue in the falling evening. "How about we start for home now? I could drop off Serim first," he suggested.
Before long, the eight of them were outside, still conversing in joy and engulfed in the inside jokes of the dorm they were telling Serim about. How Jimin was so shy when he was a newcomer, how Taehyung was such a prick sometimes, how Namjoon kept more to himself, how Yongi was never inside the dorm, how Jungkook stole everyone's outfit, and more.
It was darker ourside than Hoseok had thought it would be. Suddenly he wasn't feeling warm anymore. His hands felt cold, the inside of his palms sweating but the skin, glacial.
When he breathed out, a puff of smoke erupted from his mouth. A misty fog was starting to encircle the area. He was starting to shiver but at least his friend's voices was there, the felicity within them was still there.
He was still normal.
Out of the blue, he remembered that their dorm didn't allow girls, and here they were all making so many plans together. He laughed to himself in amusement before turning around to break it to them.
No one was there.
Hoseok's heart stopped in its track. As far as his eyes searched, they only found darkened streets under the night with no streetlights, barren and cold buildings, in the distant silhouettes of passerbys walking around in the bleak winter.
Hoseok was trembling, not only for the cold now, but because he was alone, he was so alone.
His breath hitched on his throat, frantically he looked around to realize that he didn't know this area. The closed off shops, the buildings and the skyscrapers in the distant felt strange to him. How could he go home from here?
Hoseok started walking fast, hastily searching for his friends among the unknown faces of the strangers, searching for something he actually knew. He fastened his pace, faster and faster.
Soon he had started running, the fog around him thickening and the frosty wind whipping his face, flogging his flimsy body.
Please someone help me.
Please someone take me to home.
He was close to crying out, but no voice was uttered. His feet took him to streets and streets, eyes circling the places helplessly, his breathing got haphazard. Please someone.
There were other people in the road, unfamiliar faces that never even glanced at him. Ahead of him he saw a figure walking and he grabbed onto their side bag. The girl with two braids on her head turned around.
It was Serim. Hoseok felt like he had just found a bottle of water after wandering around the desert for ages like a pilgrim.
Blinking the tears away he choked out, "S-serim, I was looking for you!"
"Who are you?" She spoke in disbelief, eyes wide and lips parted.
Serim jerked her side bag away and started walking ahead again, not minding him once more.
Hoseok could barely believe that it really happened. He ran after her again only to lose her in the dark streets. Instead he bumped into three boys walking in a group.
They were Jungkook, Taehyung and Jimin.
"Hey, watch out man," The blue haired boy, Taehyung jeered, the other two observed him with scrutinizing eyes.
Soon they left too.
Hoseok finally cried out. Although the lump in his throat not letting him as much as he wanted to. He tried, he tried more, no one paid any attention to him. He started scratching on his sore throat so he could let it out, but to no avail he couldn't.
He started choking up. In the amidst of this he heard a loud ringing sound knocking on his ears nonstop.
Hoseok jerked his body upward. At first it was a blur, his throat was still hurting from growling and trying to speak. Scuffing his eyes with the back of his hand, he took in the ringing phone that laid beside his pillow. It was Serim in the caller ID, and Hoseok was still finding it hard to breathe.
It was a dream.
A nightmare, similar to those he would often have.
Trying to ease his fastened breathing, he first glanced to Taehyung's bed to check if he was there. It was empty. Hoseok then noticed how his own blanket had fallen off from the bed, no wonder he felt so cold.
Sighing he put down his phone. Enough of this afternoon nap, he needed to meet up his classmates, which included Serim in the evening to finish a group assignment.
Though he felt tired, his vision was unfocused. Hoseok didn't want to feel disheartened because of a mere dream yet here he was.
He didn't want to channel this energy to others, thus he sat on his bed trying to focus on happy thoughts while scratching on his stomach under his shirt, a stomach with skin that were filled stretch marks.
---
A/n: writing Hoseok's arc is going to be really really hard for me... for personal reasons.
Just a quick reminder, this arc might trigger a lot. Though whom am I kidding the whole book is a trigger at this point.
Anyway please give wonho's new English pre-release 'losing you' a listen. This song took me out of writer's block.