A Belief in Vision and Other Parts [✳️]

The Empty Chasm of Light - Part 2

(( Soojung isn't the type to question the universe but when one begins to live one's life as a ghost, parts of one's belief is bound to change. She thinks that time and space are odd concepts once you're dead. She can blink once and come to find her surroundings completely changed in the nanoseconds it takes for her to shut her eyes and open them. She could be in Taemin's room one second and then be out in the stark white hallway once again, all by her lonesome. Sometimes she finds herself floating by Jinri, following her through her rounds until she reaches Taemin, while other times she's by the pretty doctor's side—the one who tried to save her—to watch her work and try to move on from her guilt.

The doctor is still as lovely as ever but she's a lot more demure now, Soojung thinks. Keeping to herself and avoiding Taemin's doctor all the more. It makes her wonder what happened to them before the crash and what her death and Taemin's accident had done to their relationship. She wonders why she finds herself following these strangers, looking into their lives and caring for them as though they meant something to her when she was alive.

She's dead, this is a fact she's accepted. So why them? And more importantly, why is she still here?

"You'll hurt your head, thinking like that." A voice says and she almost jumps out of her skin if she had any left. She is usually very much alone when she in the hallway, but today as it turns out is not the same as yesterday.

Soojung turns and finds herself faced with a blond-haired boy with narrowed, mischievous eyes. He looks to be around her age but she wasn't too sure what to make of him. After all she is dead, haunting a boy's hospital room. A ghost. What the hell is he?

"I'm a ghost too, duh." He answers, reading her thoughts and she really does jump back in surprise.

"I've never seen you before." She replies, brow crinkling at him. A smirk lights up his face and Soojung finds herself bristling at the half-amused, half-exasperated look he gives her. It was a look that Taemin would give her sometimes, when he talked about the mechanics of a so-and-so engine and she would ask an inane question he'd already answered minutes before. It was a look that made her feel very small, very stupid and she was neither of those. She wasn't even human anymore.

The blond starts walking, passing by her before speaking close to her ear, "You haven't seen me because you hadn't needed to until now."

"What is that supposed to mean?" She asks, whirling at him. "What do you I hadn't needed to see you until now?"

"Exactly what it means, Soojung." He counters, looking back at her. The white of the room made his blond hair look even brighter, practically platinum in the light. It hurt her eyes to look at him, but she couldn't look away either. "You haven't wondered why you were here until now. So here I am."

"What are you? Some kind of spirit guide?"

"You could say that." He shrugs, grinning at her. Offering up his hand, he motions for her to follow him further into the white. Soojung doesn't particularly want to but her feet moves anyway. She's by his side in flash before she's able to speak again.

"Where are you taking me?"

"To where you should be." He tells her, grabbing her hand and dragging her down the hallway. The room begins to change around her, filling up shapes that were not there before into actual objects. She recognizes them as they slowly fill in color and when she blinks again, she knows that she is already days into the future since her last visit in the living world.

She takes in the look and smell of Taemin's dorm. Everything is familiar and new here. The desk is still riddled with screws and bolts and parts of machines she's given up long ago to understand. Shoes lines up the wall near where the TV sits on top of a dresser Taemin and Jongin had taken apart and made into some sort of bookshelf/cabinet. Bottles of waters litter the floor next to a chair where a jacket had been slung over haphazardly. And finally Taemin is where she expects him to be, sleeping soundly on his bed in the very early hours of morning—completely healed and bruise-free.