Sempiternal: • A.L.I.V.(d)E(ad)? • || BOOK 7#

39. Reflectors and ovations

"Are you feeling bad?"

"No. I'm just thinking things. I'm fine."

Namjoon squints his eyes, not knowing what to think about it. Jimin might be lying. He usually does after all. However, he decides to leave him alone. Him being quiet and looking out the window isn't exactly a bad thing. In case he behaves strangely, he will ask again and insist.

Jimin, on the other hand, is looking out of the window. The clouds fluffy and orange from the sunset. They would arrive in the United States after dark. So bright lights will be able to. So different from the stars that could not be seen in Korea with the clouds so thick and nights in hiding.

"What's sad about female?"

Jimin doesn't even bother to look at Hajun, who is in the front seat, sitting sloppily and awkwardly. He doesn't fit in this world. He doesn't fit among the furniture, among the vehicles. He doesn't really belong in this world.

"Maybe it makes you sad to know that you can never get rid of that stigma."

Leeseung is also alien. Despite his human and normal body, his simple and comfortable clothes, it is as if he has no place in the normal world. In the world of the living and conscious. Somehow, he lost the way to belong in this world of normality.

Of being... human.

Even though he tried to become one again.

Hajun has never been able to stay in this world.

The question Jimin asks himself is: Do I belong to this world? Can I really inhabit it? They come from asking him to give roars like the beasts that made a nightmare of his life; he is able to feel them close, he is also able to command the Yagtalja as if he were one of them.

Is he really human?

Does he belong to this world?

Maybe he does. So long pining for the normal world made him forget that it is also horrible. The way they are judged, the way they are belittled for a thousand different reasons. Each one more imbecilic than the other. For what they lived through, for saying they lie, for seeing them as murderers, for believing them a pest; xenophobia, homophobia, racism; hate for doing it and nothing else.

This world is not a fairy tale. It never was and facing it again makes you rediscover it. Of course, it is much more discreet and less aggressive than what you experienced in Korea. That is a fact. However, why would it be impossible for him to adapt to such a destructive world? He has already done it once.

His anguish has never had to be to adapt to the whole world again. Worrying about fitting in and being a threat. The threat is them. The crowd. Those who look at him and judge him. Just as it was in Gimpo. He has always had himself and no one else, so he sits just to his right, comfortable and acclimated in this ancient environment that Hajun and Leeseung are unable to fit into.

What he has to achieve is...

Be one with others.

With those who truly are the world of peace he so idealized and missed. He turns his head, finding Hoseok, Taehyung and Jungkook goofing off, being that he can walk around the plane with no problem; Jin and Yoongi sleeping with their mouths open and the biggest headphones ever, Namjoon working on his laptop, wanting to finish his album

"It's always been there. What you're really looking for."

Jimin purses his lips, his hands together and his heart beating a little fast. It must be true. That must be what's so hard for him to accept: that no matter where he is, the environment and the masses are not going to be kind to him.