Well, here goes nothing.

This time around, I'm not playing. I'm not making the same mistakes. I did not bring Jungkook with me and if my phone rings, I am not answering it.

I spare a glance at the wall to my side, remembering how my fist slammed onto it and how even now, days later, I can feel a bit of pain from the collision.

Nope, I am not thinking about that today. Absolutely not.

I literally let out a sigh of relief as I walk into the hospital and see that the lady helping people find where they need to go is not the same one that was here last time; the bitchy one, who judged me about not knowing which ward Jungkook is at. This one is actually smiling as I approach her. "Hello. I came to visit a patient."

"Which ward?"

"I'm not sure," I admit. "I know that he is in... um, in a coma."

"Can you give me a name sweetheart?" she smiles at me.

"Yes, Jeon Jeongguk," I tell her.

"Please wait a moment," she smiles at me before focusing on her keyboard.

"Excuse me, did you say Jeon Jeongguk?"

Taken aback, I turn around to look at the man who asked me the question; at first glance, I wouldn't say he's much older than I am, if he's older at all. Good looking and confused, that's what he is. I can tell in the way he's looking at me, trying to figure out if he knows me, if he remembers me.

Please let it be his brother and not his friend. Please let it be his brother and not his friend.

"Yes," I say because what can I do, lie? "I came to visit him," I elaborate and I wait for him to decide just how unusual this is on a scale from 1 to 10. I wait, silently cursing my luck. Really, universe? I couldn't just visit Jungkook without running into someone who will wonder who the hell I am?!

"I'm going to visit him as well," he finally speaks up. "I will take you there."

"Thank you," I nod and wobble my way after him, smiling awkwardly at the receptionist lady before following him to the elevators. He presses the button before turning around and looking at me again.

"Um... who exactly are you?"

Yeah, I really should have seen this one coming. "I'm JJ," I introduce myself; it's only when he raises his eyebrows do I realize that doesn't count as a formal introduction. "Jang Jihyun. J as in Jang, J as in Jihyun."

"How do you know Jungkook?"

"I'm sorry but I think I should know who you are as well," I sound a whole lot braver than I actually am, seeing as I can't really lie for the life of me.

Hmm, is that true? Because I've been sharing a room with a ghost for like... two months now and no one has noticed a thing. I'm a damn good liar but right now, I'm not in my comfort zone. Every second, I am one sentence away from having my cover blown and how the hell am I going to explain myself then?!

"Oh, sorry, I'm Taehyung," he smiles at me; wait, wasn't he suspicious one second ago? "Kim Taehyung. I'm Jungkook's friend."

Shit, shit, shit!

A brother is different than a friend. Jungkook even told me he and his brother weren't as close before his accident like they once were; I could have easily passed as Jungkook's friend, a friend he simply did not mention. A friend? Possible best friend? Yeah, this guy probably knows 99.9% of Jungkook's friends.

"Oh, nice to meet you," I force a smile. "I'm... I don't know if I can classify myself as a friend but I do know Jungkook," I admit. That's better than pretending we're besties, right?

"Huh," and he's back to suspicious. "He never mentioned you."

"He hasn't mentioned you to me either," I shrug.

"Yeah, Kookie was never much of a talker, was he?" Taehyung chuckles as the elevator doors finally open and I follow him inside. I don't know which version of Jungkook he had the pleasure of knowing but the Jungkook I know is very much the talker. "Wait, were you one of his coworkers in the coffee shop?" he asks.

Shit. Yes or no, yes or no, yes or no?! "Yeah," I nod my head. "Only for a short while though, it wasn't for me. But yeah, that's how I got to know Jungkook."

"And this is the first time you're visiting him?" he sounds as if he's accusing me of something, his eyebrows only enhancing that impression; the moment I think I'm off the hook, he's suspicious again.

"I only found out recently what happened to him," I deadpan and watch as guilt appears on his face.

"Oh," is all Taehyung says before the elevator stops and the doors open. I follow him outside, trying to ignore the feeling of this being a very, very bad idea. I was caught off guard and I'm not sure how well I managed to bounce back. This needed to be done... in privacy.

Walking down the hospital hallway feels like an eerie countdown, each step taking me closer to the end of something, something I can't quite define. The silence isn't helping; the silence between Jungkook's friend and myself, the silence of the entire ward and the visitors, the silence only broken by an occasional beep of a machine that is probably keeping someone alive.

It's only when my face hits the space between Taehyung's shoulder blades do I realize that he had stopped walking. I jump back, apologizing as I watch him force another smile. "Stay here, I'm going to let the nurse know he has visitors," he tells me. Before I could say anything, even if I had something to say at all, he walks away and leaves me alone in the hospital hallway.

People that know me well could have told Taehyung that I should not be left alone when I am in mission mode. Unfortunately, no one was here to warn him and I am on mission mode.

That being said, I don't exactly want to barge into a hospital room of a complete stranger. Taehyung didn't point out Jungkook's room to me and despite grilling him days before, the only info I could have gotten from Jungkook was the hospital he is at – nothing more, nothing less.

It's a lucky guess, if lucky is the word to be used at this moment. I open the door in front of which Taehyung stopped; the door in front of which he left me; I open it, slowly and quietly, hoping not to awake a patient that is absolutely not Jungkook.

As I inch the door open, no sound other than the machine beep comes out of it; I open the door wider and I step foot inside, looking at the man lying on the bed.

Despite knowing very well what I was going to see, I still freeze in place, shocked.

It's him, I can tell that much. It's him but it looks like a... poor shadow of the Jungkook I know. His skin is pale. There's... less of him. He's lying on the bed, covered with ugly hospital sheets but I can see that he is skinnier than the Jungkook that's waiting for me to come home. His cheeks aren't as full but that might be because there is no blinding smile on his face, no cheeky grin that shows all his teeth.

The tube inside his mouth makes me sick; so sick I have to cover my mouth and hope that coffee I drank on my way to the hospital can stay inside me; it gets even worse as my eyes trail down his body and all the vires and pipes he's connected to.

Seeing his hands is too much; the back of his hand shows veins sticking out, showing just how he's nothing more than skin and bones.

He looks dead.

I get it now, all of it. I understand why he doesn't want to come here, why he has no desire to talk to anyone other than me. I understand the gloom, the dark humor, the lack of will to live. He looks dead already and after months of being like that, I can't blame him for not wanting to try to change it.

I can't blame him. I don't want to. All I want to is to hug him and lie, say it'll all be okay.

"Jihyun?" Taehyung's voice sounds like it's coming from a different room, far away from me; it's not until he puts a hand on my shoulder do I register that he's right behind me. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I nod, confused by the worried look on his face. "Why?"

"You're crying."

I touch my cheeks and sure enough, there are tears there. "Oh. I'm sorry. I don't know."

"No, don't apologize," he shakes his head, squeezing my shoulder in reassurance. "I didn't realize Jungkook and you were that close."

"Ironically, me neither," I admit. "It's just that at one point he really felt like my only friend."

Saying that out loud hits me like a speeding train. I knew it, of course I did. Those memory blanks I wished for are still very much absent and I remember clearly how Jungkook was the one who sat front row for my BUT WHY DID HE DUMP ME show. It might seem trivial, stupid even but not to me; I've never dealt with heartbreak before and if it weren't for Jungkook, I would have been all over the place, like a headless chicken.

As stupid as it might sound, it sure did hurt. And Jungkook was there for me.

I knew it, of course I fucking knew it. The problem is, knowing and openly admitting are two very different things. Hence the speeding train metaphor.

Feeling as if things aren't going to become any weirder than this anyways, I walk closer to Jungkook; the closer I am to him, the harder the next step is. He looks worse up close, barely hanging on to the little life that is left in him. I push it back, ignore it and I walk until I'm next to him.

His hand is warmer than I thought, confirming that there still is some life inside.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Actually, I'm not," I let go of Jungkook's hand to face Taehyung. "Can we talk? Like... somewhere else?"

"Why somewhere else, you think he can hear us?" Taehyung lets out a dark chuckle; it's crystal clear how he's his best friend – an ass and an ass; I'm sure they got along like two peas in a pod.

"I know he won't hear us but... I can't look at him like this. It's too much."

For the millionth time, I'm subjected to Taehyung's judgmental eyes. I can't even begin to guess what kinds of questions are popping up in his mind. I can't blame him either. This whole situation is as weird as it gets. Yet despite that, he still shrugs. "Sure, let's go grab some coffee."