Wonder || JiKook

8

He'll be there when we go to sleep, he loves sleep too much to skip out on that, Jungkook thinks as he polishes off his apple and proceeds to stuff his face till he can't fill his stomach anymore. 

The spaceship rumbles to a start and people cheer as it finally lifts off.

Jungkook takes up as much food as he can in his arms and goes back to his bunk, dumping all the food on the lower bed before climbing up the stepladder to peer into Jimin's bed.

The clothes are still folded, the linens still pristine and wrinkle free.

Jungkook frowns. Why hasn't Jimin changed yet? He can't enjoy being in those tattered old clothes they were wearing.

Something very startling and increasingly unpleasant blooms in the back of Jungkook's mind but it can't be. He takes a deep breath and makes for the central commands.

The cockpit is barred off by a low set of metallic strings so that the people sitting in the giant lounge can see all the happenings inside, even talk to the crew if they fancied, keep an eye on the ETA and check their progress through the galaxy.

The ship has cleared the Earth's atmosphere and is slowly making its way towards Mars.

When they clear the last of Jupiter's moons, and only then can they go into light-speed travel. Any time before that and the power of the ship might affect gravitational forces of the first four planets and the point is to leave a much intact as possible.

"Hey, excuse me? Uhm, did everyone make it onto this ship?" 

Jungkook pulls himself up onto the raised platform of the cockpit and is greeted by a gentle-faced man with a stern smile.

"We haven't yet been able to recount the data, but that shouldn't be more than a couple minutes more. Is there someone you're looking for?"

"Yeah, Jimin, Park Jimin,"

Jungkook says, raising his fingers to his lips as if to chew on his nails but he catches himself last second and lowers his hand back down.

"Quite a common name," the man says, pulling up a list of names and scrolling through them. Jungkook watches, rocking on the balls of his feet.

"Do you know how old he is?"

"Uhm.... no? We're orphans... don't really keep track of that stuff."

"Ah, I'm very sorry to hear that," the man's voice softens along with his eyes as he lowers them back onto the scrolling list. Little green checks connected to each name and Jungkook hopes against hope that one of them is Jimin. His Jimin.

"Where is he from?"

"Busan. It's a tiny little district--we're both from there--"

"Ah yes," the man says, nodding as the scrolling slows and he pauses over one tiny little red x marked next to a Park Jimin, Busan.

He frowns, "It seems that he might have missed check in but I'm sure after the second round of confirmations, we'll find him. No one's missed a ship since the third one took off."

Jungkook takes a deep breath through his nose. His heart is pounding somewhere in his temples and his fingers feel cold, his neck too hot, the space around him doesn't have enough oxygen and he feels his vision slip in and out of focus.

"Just another minute or so before the second round of confirmations come in," the man says, tapping the refresh button at the top right corner of his list.

Jungkook closes his eyes and tries to keep still, tries to keep himself from tipping right over and falling off the edge of the raise platform. This cannot be happening.

"Ah..." the man's voice does not bode well.

"What?" Jungkook bites, eyes snapping open.