Film Out

18. The Switch Up

When they left the walk-in clinic, Aspen, Jimin and Seokjin had more questions than they did answers. When Aspen and Jimin had heard what the doctor said about why Seokjin had looked familiar, Jimin was immediately on his phone looking it up. Seokjin was holding Aspen's hand again as they walked outside towards the car. Jungkook had taken a cab to work earlier so they could use the vehicle to go to the walk-in.

"Aspen," said Jimin. "Seokjin really does look like this dude."

Aspen pulled up short beside the car as she held out her free hand to take Jimin's phone. When she saw the black and white picture that stared back at her from Jimin's phone screen, she couldn't help but to see how uncanny the resemblance was. She looked from the picture to Seokjin who was staring in shock at his own face.

- Why is my face on the screen?

She read what he wrote, but she didn't know how to explain it. None of it made sense. She continued to ignore Seokjin's question as she dug out her own phone, convinced for some reason that if she looked it up on her phone that she'd receive a different answer. As she took her phone out, she saw that she had missed a text and a call from Jungkook. She had put her phone on silent when she went into the walk-in clinic so she hadn't registered the fact that he had tried to reach out to her.

"Jungkook tried to..."

Her words died out when she saw the picture that Jungkook had texted her. It felt like everything froze. The Black Swan cover. That was Jin's face.

"Jimin get in the car," she said as she put the voicemail from Jungkook on speaker.

Clambering into the backseat as Jimin got into the driver's seat, she listened horrified as Jungkook's message played out. She became increasingly more alarmed as the message played on, especially when she heard the banging in the background. What was that noise? Seokjin - who got into the backseat beside her - could only place a hand on her knee as the horrified expression on her face remained frozen there. Aspen tried calling Jungkook's phone after that to get the same voicemail box over and over again. Jimin drove as fast as was humanly possible from the walk-in to the theater, nearly screeching into a parking spot on two wheels.

Aspen couldn't fly out of the back of the car fast enough once they reached the theater. She didn't like how the voicemail cut off. That wasn't like Jungkook, and what with the bang, she was worried that something awful had happened to him. She seemed to almost fly as she tore off through the lobby. Seokjin and Jimin were fast on her heels as they all rushed towards theater room five. Aspen almost collided with the trolley that was left in the hallway.

"JUNGKOOK!" she yelled out as she slipped into the theater room. The lights weren't even on. The whole room was pitch black. She didn't waste time looking for the light switch. She turned the flashlight app on, on her phone and began to sweep about the place.

There was a small part of her that was convinced that this could be another joke pulled by Jungkook against her, but a bigger part of her was convinced that something had happened to him. Jimin found the light switch to the theater room, flicking it on before he and Seokjin tried to help her search for Jungkook.

"Check the balcony," she said to Jimin as she moved closer to the front area of the theater room where the blank screen was.

Jimin didn't have to be asked twice. He was starting to become alarmed by this point as he left and reappeared on the balcony in record time.

"The broom and dustpan are up here," called out Jimin as he made his way towards the projector room. "That's not like Jungkook to just leave things about..."

As Jimin worked towards getting to the projector room, Aspen walked up the steps and onto the stage. There was a black rectangle lying there that was causing the fear in her chest to blossom into full blown panic. She moved towards it, slowly bending down to pick it up. As she stood upright again, she turned the phone about in her hand. She knew she needed to wake the phone up to see who it belonged to.

'This could be anyone's cell phone,' she thought to herself to keep herself calm as she held it, moving a finger to hit the power button.

When the lock screen picture of her, Jimin, and Jungkook all smiling at the fair greeted her, she felt the tears spring to her eyes; the several notifications indicating missed calls from her at the top of the screen. This was Jungkook's phone without any Jungkook in sight. Jungkook never went anywhere without his phone. Seokjin had mounted the stage by that point, going over to stand behind Aspen to put a comforting hand on her shoulder as she felt a few tears slip down her cheeks.

"Where is he, Jin?" asked Aspen. "Why isn't he here? Why is his phone here? What is going on?"

"Aspen," said Seokjin clearly; the one and only word he could say.

His hands moved to turn her about, hugging her to him in the same way that Jungkook had hugged her yesterday when she failed her audition. The reminder was what caused the tears to fall more steadily as Seokjin held her tightly to his chest, rubbing her back gently with a hand.

As the two of them stood on the stage, Jimin had made it to the projector room. The door was still unlocked which he also found odd. As he entered, he noticed the movie cover that Jungkook had left near the projector. There wasn't any doubt that the man they had stumbled across was the same one that was pictured. Jimin looked at the projector before him, moving fingers to start the movie. He needed to see this for himself. He needed to see a living and breathing version of Seokjin on the movie screen to fully believe what was going on.

He didn't expect to see what he did when he turned the movie on. He ran out of the projector room and to the edge of the balcony.

"I think I found Jungkook," said Jimin as Aspen lifted her tear-stained face from Seokjin's chest.

"Where is he?" asked Aspen as she looked at Jimin.

All Jimin could do in response was point a finger at the movie screen. Aspen turned her head to look at the screen to see that a black and white movie had started to play. She was staring at a gray bedroom and at a man that appeared to be a mixture of angry and afraid of the world as he sat on the edge of the bed. As the man lifted his head to face forward, her heart sunk.

It was Jungkook.