There’s 2 types of people when shown a bouquet of lilies; those who only think to smell the flowers and move on and those who are reminded of the ones they’ve lost. “
Lilies symbolize that the soul of the departed has received restored innocence after death.” That’s what Jin’s mother said to him after he lost 6 of his friends to suicide.
There’s another 2 types of people; those who think that when they die they’ll just lay in the ground for all of eternity and those who think they’ll be met with white polished gates or gradient flames. But what about limbo? What if you hadn’t been the worst person but you also hadn’t taken every opportunity for a good decision? What was limbo? There were thousands of theories but the scariest one was not knowing whether or not you were dead. Making memories and living your life only to figure out that you were the only one to experience it or making memories and living your life only to figure out that you were the only one who didn’t experience it. White lilies was all Jin could see and limbo was all he could think of as he watched one of his best friends be lowered 6 feet under in a sleek black casket. This was his 6th funeral in a week, and his last best friend to kill himself. Jin didn’t understand, he didn’t understand how after years of parties, crying on each others shoulders, running from cops together and laughing together; each one of his friends could take their own lives. Jin was the oldest, he was supposed to protect them or at least tell them a simple,
“It’ll be okay”
But he didn’t, he didn’t protect Yoongi from engulfing himself in the flames that mirrored his rage, he didn’t protect Jimin from trapping himself under the icy waters that had become his world, he didn’t protect Hoseok from swallowing as many pills as the jokes he made, he didn’t protect Namjoon from numbing his incredibly smart brain with alcohol until he couldn’t breathe, he didn’t protect Taehyung from jumping off a platform into a lake in which he knew he couldn’t swim and lastly, the youngest, Jungkook. Jungkook passed soon after Hoseok, after funeral after funeral after funeral, he couldn’t handle it anymore. Who could at 17? Snapping himself out of his thoughts from the sound of Taehyung’s younger brothers wailing, Jin walked home. Slamming his door shut, he heard a light tap on his wood floor. Looking down, he saw his string of polaroids had fallen. Picking them up with a sigh, he began to put them back up one by one. Taking a quick peek at the first one, he remembered. It was when Jin picked them all up in his truck that he “borrowed” from his father and they headed to the beach, jungkook had whined, saying
“Why are we going to the beach? We should get lamb skewers, that’s worth missing school for”
However Jin just wanted to forget about things for just a little while. Reminiscing on each part of that day, he realized something was wrong. Jin was the only one in the picture. As he quickly sorted through each picture, he only saw himself. While he posed in the passenger seat next to Yoongi he remembered the flash hurting Yoongi’s eyes and the picture coming out funny. Yet while he looked at it now, he was sitting by himself. Every picture, only one person. Him.

Meanwhile, one of his friends wondered the same thing. Jimin was sitting on the couch, clad in black like his other 5 friends. Instead of remembering the loss they’ve experienced, he decided to look in the scrapbook Jungkook made, filled with the small plastic pictures from all the trips they had together. Picking up his favorite picture, from the day when Jin picked them up and took them to the beach, he looked at it closely, running his thumb over the edge and chuckling at how Yoongi had an angry look on his face in the picture, due to the fact that Jungkook had a sparkler in his face. As he looked to the far left, his face dropped and it was like his world had frozen over. Stuffing the picture into his pocket he left with a long goodbye to his friends, after this experience, he couldn’t imagine how they would feel. Getting back home he started himself a cold bath. It was like he couldn’t feel anything on the outside. Not even bothering to take off his suit, picking up a lighter and the polaroid as the water seeped through his suit. Sitting down and staring at the picture in which Jin was missing, he thought about how nobody acknowledged him or any of the other boys at the funeral, not even a hug or simple condolence. How Yoongi had grown a fear of fire and Taehyung a fear of large bodies of water, how Hoseok could never quite keep his eyes open or his head up anymore. Pressing the flame to the corner of the picture and letting it travel as he dropped it to the floor, he quickly let himself submerge into the bath completely. As Jin sat on his bed, head between his hands and crumpled lily petals at his feet, and Jimin slowly becoming blue and numb; they both wondered,
“Who was really dead?”