pastel [3]

thirty nine

Third Person point of view

Jungkook's driving was borderline reckless as he wracked his brain for places Taehyung could have gone whilst desperately trying to organise something about his work. He had to find Taehyung but he'd already missed so many days that it was becoming almost too many. There was a fear in the back of his mind that he would lose his job. That insignificant fear couldn't surmount the dreading concern that he was going to find Taehyung either dead or a murderer.

"Jungkook? Shouldn't you be here by now?" One of Jungkook's colleagues answered the office phone, their grating voice blaring through his car speakers as he balanced his phone on his lap, breaking several laws in the process.

"Yeah, just, put Namjoon on the phone." After a few grumbles and arguments of the fact that Namjoon was in a meeting his work mate finally went to go get their boss. Whilst he did so Jungkook repeated the list of places he could think of finding the blonde boy

Water.

He had narrowed it down to the river, a public pool or the beach which was a ways away. He wasn't sure which one it would be but he knew Taehyung had a connection to the river and wanted to try there first. Thankfully it wasn't too far away, what concerned him was that if Taehyung wasn't at the river, the other options were a much longer drive.

"Jungkook? What's going on, Hakyeon sounded pissed."

"Joon, I need to cancel work today –"

"Okay Kook, you can't keep doing this, I'm already pushing my chances by gifting you my leave." Right now he didn't care, swerving into a free car park out the front of the reserve where the river was.

"I know. Fire me, do whatever, I just... I need to find Taehyung, he's gone missing and he called me sounding really distressed. There's something wrong with him." He heard Namjoon sigh on the other end of the phone.

"I'm not going to fire you. Is it something you can handle on your own or do you need backup?" Unbuckling his seatbelt he jumped out of the car and sprinted down the path, ignoring how insane he must look scrambling through the foggy dawn in a fluffy jumper and half his cop uniform.

"I'll be fine, I just need to find him. Joon I swear, when he is safe I will come into work, I'll do extra shifts and make it up to you!" It felt pathetic how desperately he was begging with each word, skidding to a stop in the icy dew of the cold grass to scan over the river. The area was empty, an early morning of icy threats keeping everybody safely inside. It was almost eerie how silent it was. "Please... just one more chance?"

"One more chance, that's all Kook. I'll keep my phone on me in case you call. Please be safe." Jungkook sighed deeply with an immense relief flooding through him, he gave far too many gratitudes to the older before hanging up his phone and beginning to search the perimeter of the area.

The ground was muddy and slippery, creating an extra challenge as he stepped carefully across the banks of the river searching anywhere that the blonde boy could be hidden. After walking along the main area for over twenty minutes his conscience started to insist that Taehyung wasn't there. It made no sense, where else could he be? Why would he leave the places that were familiar to him? From the time they'd initially spent together, Jungkook got the impression Taehyung was the kind of person to not travel tok far from home. Except there was no other bodies of water in their local area except for a public pool an hour drive away. That had to be his next option.

Too caught up in his thoughts, Jungkook hadn't realised he'd stepped on a softened piece of the bank until he felt the dirt under him cave, body toppling to the side before plummeting into the shallows of the river. He expected the water to be freezing. Instead as he fell a searing heat washed over him, and the water he plunged into was not the dirty brown of unfiltered nature, instead it was a thick black ichor that pulled his body beneath its depths in one sudden push.

Every one of his senses was suffocated under the heavy liquid, too terrified to scream with the fear that the ichor would fill his mouth and drown him. So instead he lay silent, eyes squeezing shut and desperately holding his breath. For awhile nothing happened, and he laid motionless under the surface. Then with a bright light that burst through his eyelids, images began to flash. Each blinding vision had his body flinching back, falling deeper, losing oxygen. Yet it didn't matter. It was like the substance around him was fueling his insides, and so he let it in, mouth gasping open and feeling the burning drip down his throat, amplifying the images he saw into higher detail.

It was all hard to put together, grim creaking of old hinges as doors of a beach side store swung back and forth. Blood was splattered across the store's glass windows in an arc, evidence of someone being slashed remaining. There were hands that he looked down upon, blood coated fingers that shook with a realisation of what they had done. Then his vision shifted as the person suddenly bolted, streaming past shops that were impossible to identify within the dark atmosphere. He needed more, so he took in a deep breath, insides ripping apart with the intensity of the heat the ichor produced. It was unbearable, body writhing beneath the surface with each swallow of the blackness within his body.

It was just enough for him to make out the signpost of a street the person he was almost certain was Taehyung had run past. That was all he needed, mind screaming for release as he pushed against the oozing fluid and kicked from the river floor. And with that additional strength he broke the surface of the water, thrashing to claw for the river bank and pull himself up onto it.

Now the water that soaked him was ice cold, burning his skin in a new kind of way. He lay on the bank gasping up hiccuped breaths, still feeling like the unsettling ichor was filling his lungs. When he managed to squint down upon the river, Jungkook realised the whole thing had been his imagination, the river running down stream, murky and dark but undeniably normal.

"Epiales you ass," croaked Jungkook with a weak shove to get himself to his feet. His clothes were completely drenched, dripping and cooling against his skin. "Beach... he's near the beach." That was what it had been for. In the most unconventional way possible, he had managed to find the answer to his questions through a nightmarish vision, which made no sense since it was broad daylight. Right now he wasn't going to complain, patting down his clothes for where his phone had disappeared to. "Shit, no no no I need that!" He gasped suddenly, looking back towards the river to see if it could be spotted under the surface. There was nothing, and his eyes welled up with a panic that now there was no way for Taehyung to contact him.

A flash caught his eye and he spun around to see the shiny glitter of his phone case buried in the grass a few metres away from the banks. "Oh thank the gods!" He cried out in an all too dramatic shriek, snatching up the device and immediately searching up the street name he had been able to identify. "I know I called you an ass Epiales, but thank you, thank you for showing me whatever that was." He muttered as he ran back to his car, not even sure if his father was listening or caring about his circumstances.

Right now nothing mattered but Taehyung. So he got back in his car still sopping wet, setting up the gps and blasting the heaters before setting out on the two hour drive it would take to get to the beachside.

Hold on I'm coming.