4 o'clock

EPILOGUE | 1000

Taehyung frowned at the thought of the missing-appearance Jimin, he hadn't seen him in forever. He understood he was sick, but it had been more than a week.

He'd thought if you got sick more than a week, you should've be brought to the hospital but there was no news of him being sent to the hospital. Even his mother did not say a word.

He tried dialling his phone number again, for what he thought had been the fourty-sixth time.

"Come on, pick up," he said under his breath, as he waited for him to pick the call up.

"Hello?" a recognizable voice could be heard coming from the phone call, but it wasn't him.

"Uh. . . hello eomeoni, it's Taehyung talking. Can I speak to Jimin, please?" he pleaded, but there was a silence between them. His mother stayed silent, there was no sense of another word to be coming out of her mouth.

"Taehyung, did he not tell you anything?" she asked, in a confused tone. Taehyung's mind started to rush with thoughts, recalling back whatever Jimin might have had told him before.

"No, he didn't. The only thing he told me was, he wasn't feeling well and that was a week ago. Why?"

Another silence.

He can't help but thinking of bad things that could've had happened to his friend, he tried thinking of normal ones but his mind would always come back to the worst he could think of.

"Jimin has been in the hospital unconscious for three days now. He was diagnosed with liver cancer level 4,"

He lost his balance and fell down, sitting on the floor, dominated by a profound sadness, fatigue engraved on his worn face. The strong desire to cry was real, as he felt his heart sinking to the bottom of his chest.

"I believe he has been keeping it from you. I'm sorry, Taehyung. I will text you the details," she said in a sympathetic voice, before hanging up.

He was speechless. That was the last thing he ever wanted to hear, coming from his best friend.

Sadness flowed through his veins and deadened his already dead mind. It was like a poison to his spirit and his living, he could not help but think of the worst thing that could be happening to Jimin.

Death.

...

He intertwined his fingers with Jimin's, which seemed like they had nothing but bones left. His chubby cheeks, they were no longer there. His jaws were so obvious to Taehyung's sight, he looked so skinny. He didn't seem like himself anymore.

"Jimin," he placed his palm softly on Jimin's temple, brushing it softly with his thumb.

"I didn't know about this either, until he had an extremely high fever late last week, and I had to take him to the hospital even though he refused to do so. That was when the doctor said he was diagnosed with liver cancer stage 4," his mother said, as she took closer steps to Taehyung and placed her hand on his shoulder, squeezing them gently.

"That was what the pain reliever pills was for," I whispered under my breath.

"What?"
"He has pain relieved pills. He dropped it when we were at the amusement park a few weeks ago, and when I gave it to him, he said those were for his migraine," Taehyung explained, and her eyes widen out of shock.

"He doesn't have migraine. . .,"
"That's what I thought," Taehyung moved his gaze from Jimin's mother's face, and turned to look at Jimin who was lying on the hospital bed, with wires and tubes all over his body.

"Does his friends at work know about his condition?" he asked, turning to his back and saw Jimin's mother standing behind him.

"Fr—friends? He never mentioned about having friends at work. He never really talked about work at all," she said, confused.