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A redo. That’s what the voice promises.
Jin exhales shakily at the idea. All of them back at the beginning. None of them missing, none of them dead.
Their minds free of the dark tendrils of desperation and mental instability.
“What’s the price?”, he asks the voice that offers. The young man sits on the neatly made bed, the window in front of him closed, but he can feel the warmth of the sun coming from outside. Six petals on the floor by his feet.
One for each of his friends.
“Nothing important. Only their memories of before and your jump.”, comes the vague answer.
Before. Before the fire that burned down Yoongi’s house, before Taehyung spilled blood, before Jimin and Hoseok were locked away, before Namjoon ran away, before Jungkook jumped.
“Yes, please.”, Jin breathes slowly. The voice stays quiet.
Jin takes the petals and goes to the window, opening the white curtains at once, his face bathed in the sun of the setting star. The window opens and the petals are carefully left to fly away on the strong wind current. Jin closes his eyes with a smile. This time, he thinks, this time will be the last time. It’s a promise to them and maybe to the voice, kind enough to let him fix his mistakes again and again.
“Once you jump, you will be back here and they will forget, but they will move on and live in a way that they were never able to. If you wish to watch them, you will use the window. That is my demand.”, the voice demands.
One life, for six, Jin weighs out. He doubts that there would have been a better way to solve this.
“Yes, please”, this time steady, with confidence. The voice seems to accept his decision and quiets down to a low hum in the back of Jin’s head.
---
They are running all together, laughing and shouting in pure ecstasy. Taehyung and his sister finally moved out of their parents’ house and with some relatives close by, although Taehyung is going to be attending University soon where he will be able to live on campus. Hoseok has been taken in by a dance agency, just like Jimin and Namjoon and Yoongi have put out their music after taking up rookie jobs as producers in an Idol Agency. Jungkook seems to have worked out whatever problem he had with Yoongi and the both of them now share an apartment with Namjoon.
Jin runs faster than all of them, thinking of a different time, when running was all they did, metaphorically and literally. He runs first and they follow and he leads them to his car knowing that it is now or never.
One life for six, he promises them, even though they can’t hear him.
His trusty camera glued on his hand as always, shaking with his rapid arm movements. On it are all the memories the others have lost. The parties before Yoongi and Jungkook could not see eye to eye, Jimin drenched and lifeless on the floor of his bathroom, an unfinished lollypop on Namjoon’s University applications, Hoseok bandaging Taehyungs hands carefully as the other refuses to meet their eyes, Hoseok’s last smile on the night before the institution came and took him. All things that Seokjin once saw with his own eyes and accidentally (or not so much) recorded.
No one but him has held the camera, not that they’d understand. They have forgotten, and soon they will forget him.
They all dressed in white for the occasion, “the end of winter is not a festivity”, Yoongi had complained earlier but with the three youngest pulling their saddest kicked puppy eyes, he was in no position to say no and therefore dressed like them in white.
They make it to the stone dock that protrudes the water, all of them piled into Jin’s car and get out one by one.
They all stand by their usual sitting spot, looking quietly out into the water. No one utters a word, no one needs to. Even Yoongi who first felt this excuse of a holiday ridiculous can’t help but understand the heavy atmosphere that settles in.
It’s a calm happiness that engulfs them and makes them smile, almost breathless at its intensity. Jin loves this, loves them. He hopes they find it in their hearts to forgive him. He turns his head and forces his eyes onto the metal railings barely stable enough to climb and remembers the time it was Taehyung at the top.
He moves and the others shuffle but only reposition themselves so some of them can sit. Jin breathes deeply and starts moving away from the group, camera firmly in his hand.
Now it’s his turn. One life for six, he reminds himself.
“Hey guys watch this!”, he shouts, as he goes to climb the metal bars. The others cheer him on, clapping, wolf whistling and shouting his name. Jin’s smile is hard to will away at that.
Once at the top of the platform he looks back down through his camera lenses, capturing how Namjoon blows him a kiss and the others continue waving. He wishes he could bid his goodbyes, true ones where he apologizes and explains how he would jump a thousand times rather than seeing them hurt ever again, but he knows that open questions in their minds only lead to worse ends.
He can feel one set of eyes following his movements, even after he turned the camera towards the water. Taehyung stares and won’t stop. Something seems to burn on his tongue yet he does not feel himself capable of sharing as Jin is so far away. The eldest knows how Taehyung always seemed to know a bit more than the others, understand faster than the others and accept faster than the others. He just hopes the younger will forget once he has jumped.
The edge of the tower gets closer. One for six, he tries to justify. It’s not that he wants to back out, no, he’d rather do this than ever let them feel pain again, but he regrets all the words unspoken.
“Goodbye.”, he whispers quietly, and dives headfirst into the icy water.
---
Jin looks out the window, his vision still blurry. Behind him I the camera and in front of him are his friends, miles away and yet so close.
He watches them play in the turquoise water, their shirts becoming transparent and freezing them to the bone. They laugh and shout, a joy in their voices that transcends past the distance to Jin.
His eyes focus and he smiles.
They are happy, they are living and they will stay that way, for as long as they are alive.