48 hours | minsung

9:21 AM

October 10 — Thirty nine hours and thirty nine minutes before The Tragedy.

The moment Jisung wakes up and opens his eyes, he feels calm. He stares at the ceiling while composing his body up to get out of bed, and he does not feel anything else aside from the fact that it is another day of accomplishing something while tolerating Hyunjin's noise from the room beside his own.

He immediately thought of what he needed to accomplish. The missing lyrics of Changbin's song. The final arrangement of Chan's two songs. The overall composition of his own song that is clearly not about his undying love for a certain someone. He thought about what he had accomplished last night before he let himself laze off and sleep those away.

God, Jisung has a lot on his plate today. Not that he's complaining, he likes it when he's busy.

Jisung chuckles before stretching his arms up with a soft yawn. He kicks the blanket out of himself and literally hops out of the bed quite enthusiastically. Making his way towards his desk, he noticed Hyunjin's phone along with a strangely familiar wallet and a set of keys beside his keyboard, but he didn't pay it much mind. He brushed his fingers against his hair—thank heavens it wasn't that too tangled while he slept—and looked up at the digital clock on the wall.

9:21 AM, it reads.

Strangely, he woke up a little later than usual.

Wait, 9:21 AM?

Reality quickly slams down on him before Jisung could ever form a coherent thought about what's happening. He collapsed on the floor, almost like he's immediately disintegrating as he suddenly cried out loudly. He was grasping on to anything on his body, desperately trying to feel anything else. God, how could he forget they're getting closer and closer towards their final moments alive? Tears once again sprung out from his already bloodshot eyes.

"Jisung!" He heard Hyunjin call out along with his quick footsteps towards the room and towards the crying man. He swore he heard another pair of footsteps with them when he entered. "Ji, what's wrong? Ji? What happened?"

"We're–" He took in a sharp breath and tried to contain the sobs that threatened to wreck their way out of his throat again. "We can't die, I can't– I haven't reached– I don't want t–to go yet, I ca–can't lose all of this yet, H–Hyun..."

Hyunjin's face contorted into an expression of pain. He knew it absolutely hurt him to see his closest friend in a state like this. Jisung couldn't help himself as he crumpled down further into the floor, the new pair of waterfalls cascading down his cheeks covering up the dried evidence of his tears from the earlier hours of the morning. As a loud whimper came out of him, he was scooped up from the floor into a familiar set of arms at the same time. The smell of cinnamon, coffee, and safety immediately wafted into his nose.

"M–Min?"

Seemingly sensing Jisung's disbelief, the man—Minho—gently pressed his forehead against Jisung's, something he always did when he wanted to try and calm him down from anything. The former flinched at the sudden contact. "You're not losing Hyunjin yet, Sung. You're still here. We're... still here. We still have time."

"He came over earlier this morning. He wanted to see you," Hyunjin explained, before stopping for a moment as he watched Jisung move himself closer to Minho. He clung to him like he was holding on for his life already, like nothing happened. "Hey, you know what? I can explain how he's here later. You need to calm down first, Ji."

Jisung's head felt like it was going to explode; he felt overloaded. So many things were happening all at once. The only thing he could do at that time was stare up wordlessly at Minho, who still kept him up and close to his arms as he and Hyunjin went out of his bedroom and made their way to the kitchen. When he turned his eyes away from the man after a while, he saw Chan and Changbin already sitting on the table.

He was about to ask about why all of their friends are suddenly in their unit, but he was directed away from that thought when he immediately caught the aroma of a perfectly cooked steak—the world is ending, of course they'd start doing things a whole different way—along with a whole mix of food they don't typically have for breakfast. He immediately knew it was all Minho's doing.

"You're okay, I'll be putting you down so you can sit down and eat," Minho gently spoke—stupid, stupid Minho and his stupid, stupid gentleness that made stupid, stupid Jisung's heartbeat crazily fast again—and carefully placed him down on the floor. Jisung immediately stumbled towards the chair closest to him, while the former took the seat beside him. Hyunjin sat down on the remaining space on his other side.

"We saw the news last night too. Figured we can't spend our lives in front of our laptops with music, so we decided to drop by and see how you guys were doing," Chan said, breaking the sudden silence that came after the three had settled in their seats. By then, Minho was already starting to cut up pieces of meat and place enough food on Jisung's plate so he could start eating. "Honestly, we don't know what to do."

"I was supposed to be finishing our music today," Jisung mumbled quietly with a sad sniffle. Hyunjin immediately reached to carefully rub his back. He sent a forced, small smile towards the dumpling boy before managing to take a small forkful of food that Minho fed him. Changbin's face hinted at nothing else but pure sadness as he seemed to have thought about Jisung's words.

It was supposed to be like that. The three of them should've been at Chan's studio, like the usual three dorks having fun with their music. Minho should've been at the dance studio right now, teaching choreography like he'd always do. Hyunjin should've been at his own art studio, creating his masterpieces in front of his own handful of mentees.

Jisung blinked rapidly when he felt a thumb carefully wiping something away from his cheek. He reached up his face, before realizing he's crying once again. He sniffled softly before looking at the owner of the hand, Minho, then hesitantly rested his head on his shoulder, completely defeated. "Hyung, I don't want to say good-bye to what we have accomplished yet."

"We'd continue this when we'd meet again in another life–" Oh, bad move, Changbin, the water works are once again on the loose, Jisung thought as he stared at the man with a trembling lower lip. "–so trust me, we will not be saying bye-bye to our group."

Silence once again filled the whole room, with the sound of utensils scraping against the plates along with Minho's quiet voice occasionally coaxing Jisung to continue eating being the only ones that made them know that they're together in the small space.

"Hey, since we're here, I have something to ask." Chan suddenly clapped his hands together in a delicate manner, so as not to surprise them. All of the eyes immediately went to his direction. "Would you all want to go to the beach? Just... a little get-together before we all succumb to our untimely death."