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"Hobi, dinner is ready," I fist my hand and repeatedly knock on his bedroom door, but I'm only greeted by silence. I sigh. "Please come eat," I beg, "we got you a hamburger and sprite." Bribing him with one of his favorite meals isn't enough to bring the boy out of his cave.
"I'm not hungry," the grumpy boy responds, sounding like a despondent boy who just got rejected from the love of his life.
"None of us are hungry, we're in a video game," I pinch the bridge of my nose in frustration, "That's not the point. You need to eat so your health bar won't go down." Since we're constantly in this world now, eating has become just as important here as it is in the real world.
I press my ear to his door and wait for him to respond. Not a sound is heard from his room. I return to the kitchen where everyone else is eating. They all look up to me with hopeful eyes, expecting the personification of light and happiness to be trailing behind me, but no such thing will happen. If he were following me though, it'd be more like a dark grey stormcloud following me. Their smiles drop as soon as they see my gloomy mood.
"He's not coming?" Jimin pouts, already knowing the answer to his own question. I only shake my head in response. I grab a plate of food and a bottle of sprite and set it outside his door for whenever he's ready to eat. I take out a small sticky note and write a message for him.
"We love you. Feel better soon!"
I draw a picture of the sun with a smiley face on it, hoping that the small action will lift his spirits, even if only slightly.
Hoseok isn't the only one who has been so dismal. This house has been overwhelmed with a spirit of misery. We have been doing exactly what Namjoon said we would do; waiting. Waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Hours turned into days, and days turned into weeks. No one thought that it would take this long. Patience is growing thin, just like our hope for a solution to our problem to be found. With each passing day, our hope was replaced by fear and doubts. We've started trying to accept Elysium as our new reality, but that hasn't been going so well.
That night I couldn't fall asleep. I would toss and turn, glance at my clock, shut my eyes tight, and repeat the agonizing pattern over and over. At three in the morning I finally decided to get out of bed and try something else. Maybe if I wasn't trying to go to sleep I would get tired.
I walk downstairs to the main floor, doing my best to not miss a step in the complete darkness. The lines and details of the stairs start to get easier to make out as I get closer to the bottom of the staircase. Light from the kitchen is trickling through the hallway, enough for me to maneuver through my surroundings without bumping into something or tripping over anything. I quietly walk to the kitchen, wondering why the light is turned on. I try to remind myself that it would be impossible for there to be an intruder here since Jungkook only gave us direct access to this place.
