#evangelene

Apparently, one of Jisung’s gang (clan? You guessed it was a clan now?) had the ability to teleport.

They wouldn’t tell you what Jisung’s ability was though…probably because he didn’t have one before he walked out and became clan leader.

“It’s just a small clan. They will be crushed easily.”

The boys had tried to persuade you, but there was something entirely unsettling about how absolutely quiet Namjoon had been in the corner, his eyes lost in space somewhere out the window.

Comforting, especially to a human who jumped when the wind rustled the leaves in the trees a bit too rough for her liking.

“Y/N.”

You jolted your attention back to Seokjin, giving him the weakest yeahtotallywasn’tscaredatall smile you could manage. “It’s great.”

With a deep sigh and a roll of his eyes, he yanked open the door to the shed; it look like it required muscle—even for a vampire (you blamed it on the fact that nature looked like it had tried to glue it shut with some unholy substance). “Just take a look inside, would you?”

So…the inside was even worse than the outside, which was saying a lot since the roof looked like it was about to slide off the structure entirely. As you stepped up, you were surprised to find that your foot didn’t immediately crack through the rotting wood; however, that didn’t prevent you from having to hopscotch around already existing holes, rat shit, and poisonous smelling black mold. The place itself was dusty and unkempt to the point that it screamed “disease.” But, you know, you were fine with it.

As far as you were concerned, it was far enough away from the main complex building and it wouldn’t allow any vampires to access any of the fear you may exude.  Another plus: it had a sink so Seokjin could like…you know…sanitize things? You didn’t really know much about medical shit, which was probably why you were on your deathbed months ago.

Yay for you being a helpful and self-sufficient human being.

“I mean, we can make it good.”

Seokjin chuckled. “Of course I will make it acceptable. I am aware of how easily humans fall ill—I won’t allow it to be anything but sterile.” You sent a look over your shoulder that had Seokjin frowning. “Are you doubting my abilities now, of all times?”

“I’ve seen you heal, not clean. Besides, what are you going to do? Vacuum the spores from the air?”

“It will need to be aired out for a bit anyways—speaking of that, you should probably get out of there for now.”

You were on the same level as a feline and therefore gave no fucks for the vampire who could easily yank you out by your pinkie if he so chose to. Instead, you used the sleeve of your sweatshirt to dust off the one and only table in the shed; surprisingly, the furniture itself wasn’t nearly as compromised as the actual foundation of the building.

“Y/N. Out.”

“Woof.” You glared at him from your musty seclusion, slowly parkouring your way back out the door and onto semi-solid grass.

He seemed to age in that moment, even though vampires really…don’t…they just kinda die looking hot and young and shit. How nice. You blamed it on the poor man having to deal with your constant bullshit.

But, then again, if you had to listen to his puns then he had to put up with your tantrums.

“So it’s just going to sit there for a week or whatever while you guys go off and do your dangerous top secret mission?”

“Pretty much.”

“You know, I really hate secrets.”

He let out a bark of a laugh, his hand placed between your shoulderblades in order to guide you forward—well aware that you’d already taken a spill once already (stupid tree root) and had a 99.9 percent chance of repeating your mistakes. “You’re one to talk with the one you’re keeping.”

“He keeps far more than I do. It’s not fair.” You frowned at the ground, keeping your gaze cast down in order to prevent a sequel to the greatest fall of the century. “I prefer transparency; I’ve had enough secrecy in my life.”

“You are still useful, Y/N.”

A shudder ran its way up your spine.

“He has reasons for keeping things from you. You are not ready to see him feed; you are not ready to learn what he does when he’s away from you. The missions he does--the business he conducts--you are far more fragile than we are.”

“I’m not a fucking flower.”

“Physically, you may be able to handle more than we suspect; but, do remember, you had just jumped out of your skin due to naturally occurring wind. Would you be able to hold yourself back at the visual of a human being tortured in front of you?”

You pressed your lips into a line.

The tip of the tree hung down from his chest, broken by the impact of his body crashing backwards into it—despite the thick material of his vest and jacket. Human bodies contained so much blood, why didn’t you ever realize that before?

“So?” You dug your nails into your palms. “If it concerns me, then why can’t I know these things? You all are no better than humans.”

“You’re insulting yourself.”

“I’m good at self-deprecating humor.” You sighed, dropping your defense mechanism for the moment—but only the singular moment. “You know what I mean.”

“I do. Sometimes, your own species can be your worst enemy.”

There was a prolonged pause between the two of you, both of you walking in tandem but somehow still so far away from the other that you could have been on different planets.

“Part of me hopes that you’ll fail.” You murmured. “Part of me would rather go out like that—no pain and put under anesthesia. It’s easy. And then I wouldn’t have to…I wouldn’t…”

“There are bigger secrets you’re keeping from him than this one.” Seokjin didn’t word it as a question, as if he already knew everything swimming around the stagnant pool of thought in your head—he probably did. You briefly remember someone mentioning that he grew up with humans.

It wouldn’t surprise you if his emotions developed in a similar fashion to your own.

“I started to become more human being surrounded by vampires. Is that weird?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a rhetorical question you asshole, let me finish.” But he was repressing his laughter and you were huffing on a smirk as you cleared the trees. “I don’t want to feel those things anymore—I don’t want to remember what it’s like to be human, not when nothing good can come of it; not when there’s a chance I could lose it.” You paused at the door to the compound, soaking in the rays of sunlight while you still could. “Promise me you’ll bring him back safe.”

“He’s stronger than any enemy we could face out there, Y/N.” But he didn’t promise you, and that alone was enough for your stomach to constrict in the most unpleasant way. You could feel Seokjin’s gaze on the side of your face as you closed your eyes and faced the sun. Part of you hoped that the sun would smite you where you stood so you could escape everything—however, while you were fearful of living, you were even more terrified of death. “You love him, don’t you?”

“Denied.” You murmured without a second though, the metaphorical doors to your heart slamming shut so quickly it almost felt like you were shot point-blank in the chest. “I refuse to love something that can’t love me back. I can’t lose anything more in this life. I can’t lose him, and I can’t tell him that I can’t lose him. I can’t love him, and I can’t tell him that I can’t love him.”

“You are overcomplicating things, Y/N.”

You opened your eyes, squinting through the sun to meet Seokjin’s gaze. “I think that’s the one thing I’m truly good at.”

~.~

Namjoon refused to explain any part of his “mission” to you. And yes you totally put air-quotes and a stupid face to the word mission. To you, it seemed like bullshit; to you, it seemed like he was out doing the very same things that the human hunters did. To you, it seemed like he was keeping secrets and pulling strings behind your back.

To make matters worse for your worried and easily annoyed heart, he had to take all of the six with him.

Well, originally he had planned on leaving Taehyung, Hoseok, or even Seokjin with you—but, upon your inquiry of just how damn dangerous his stupid idea was, you forced him to have his entire crew by his side. You remembered how quickly his expression had darkened, the impassivity to his gaze that had you wishing that you could read his mind like he could read yours.

Idiot.

Then again, he probably just called you a bunch of terrible names in his mind just like you did in reference to him.

Despite your energy and your lack of understanding, you tried to be that™ person; you tried to be that™ supportive girl that stood by her loved person, waving them off with a handkerchief and tears glistening beautifully in her eyes. First off, you were never graceful in anything you did, and the old movies would never be you; that™ person would never be you.

You were too much of a salty, bitter hag. Salty because he wouldn’t tell you what he was going to do, nevertheless where he was going to do this mystery action; even saltier still because whatever incredibly dangerous thing he was going to do could be the end of him and, even in your anger, you wouldn’t be able to take not knowing where he went or what happened to him.

So, like the woman you were, you resorted to pursing your lips at him from the corner of the room as he gathered his things. Part of you wanted to see his face in case you forgot it, but the stronger part of you said that your actions were out of spite rather than anything else. You damn well wanted him to know just how pissed you were. Subtlety? You don’t know her.

“I can still leave Taehyung here with you—I…I don’t trust the others here with you.”

“Jiwoo’s here. I’m fine.” You grunted, arms tightly crossed over your chest.

“She doesn’t have any abilities. Taehyung could at least—“

“Namjoon.” There was something exhilarating about the power you had over him when you simply said his name—it was almost enough to dissolve your anger…almost. “Yoongi and I spoke about this when I said I wanted them all with you—he agrees that she has a hell of a survival instinct and an even greater protective streak. I will be fine; I’m locked up to holy hell in here anyways.”

Honestly, you remembered how quickly that conversation had went—Yoongi had offered her to you without a hint of hesitation. It was almost as if he didn’t care that his mate could possibly die for you if the situation arose. And here you were, with a mate who didn’t trust you with a fucking spoon.

You were sure your face was going to gain permanent wrinkles from frowning so intensely.

“You’re angry, why?”

Leave it to the vampire to be blunt.

“I’m not.” Yeah, Y/N. Good job. Continue to sulk like an absolute child because, of course, maturity is for LoSErS.

“Sure, but if I accept your words at face value then you will only become more angry. I am not stupid to you at this point. You’ve been here for over a half a year now.” He sighed, pulling on his jacket. “What is wrong?”

You cast your gaze to the floor, if only because he was now openly staring at you and your pride won over your anger—you couldn’t let him see you turning red at such an inopportune moment.

“Why can’t you just tell me what you’re doing? Or where you’re going?”

Part of you wanted him to be like human men, you wanted him to hold your face in your hands and kiss you and make you feel something other than this icy distance between the two of you. Maybe then you could take not knowing.

But that wasn’t the case, and you were infinitely reminded that this wasn’t a human man in front of you.

“This is what clan leaders do—they go out and stake their claim, mark their territory and make sure it is still theirs. You have no business here.”

Anger boiled under your skin and, god, did you really just want to smack him. But with the sheer amount of muscle in the monster man, you knew you’d hurt yourself more than you’d hurt him. “You’re not going out there to stake your fucking claim, Namjoon. I’m not stupid. I know you’re not telling me the truth.”

You could feel his stare burn into the side of your face, but you refused to meet it just to satisfy your petty rebellion. “I want you to be safe in all senses of the word. Can’t you be satisfied with that?”

“No.” You snorted. “I can’t.” Your hands were balling into fists, lips pressing into a line so thin you swore they might burst and disappear entirely. “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask for your protection—I didn’t ask for you to be a clan leader, I didn’t ask for you to sacrifice your life for mine. What I asked for was your honesty.”

He paused for a second, clearly thinking out his words so that you wouldn’t continue to be mad at him. But, for a vampire still learning the complexities of the human mind, you were both well aware that he didn’t have the right toolkit to attack this problem.

“There’s a lot you can’t give me, and I’m learning to accept that. But like hell will I put aside the truth and accept your lies. What are you really going to go and do?”

It was your last lifeline, your last chance for him to grab the rope and tug him back into your good graces.

At first, it seemed like he was taking grasp of it with both hands, stepping closer towards you with intent--like he maybe was going to hold your hand, like he maybe was going to brush your hair off your neck and kiss your cheek. But, of course, he did none of those things.

Instead, he slipped past you entirely. “I promise we will return as soon as we can.”

By the time you calmed yourself enough to turn around, he was gone.

~.~

Jiwoo was a heaven-sent existence—despite being the very thing that fed on fear, you were convinced that she was an angel. It was her personal mission to make sure that you never felt alone, and that you were able to sort out all your feelings and complaints, allowing you to throw them all onto one vessel.

With her sweet smile and her unvampirely crave for contact; she was everything you needed in the wake of being pissed off at Kim Namjoon.

It was hard not to laugh as she grumbled to herself while setting up her side of the bed for the night. “I know he’s my leader, but he’s a prick.” She huffed, fluffing her pillow with slight violence only to freeze and stare at the door when there was a particular loud noise a floor below you two. There was a moment where she had offered to lay out a sleeping bag for herself on the floor, but when you offered to let her next to you, her eyes lit up and part of you wondered if maybe she could be your mate instead.

She understood your human needs far better than grumpypants.

“He wouldn’t let me visit with you as much as I would like, so I’m going to soak up every opportunity I can get.” She threw herself on the bed next to you, those bright eyes of hers boring into yours. “Maybe it’s a female thing, but I feel I can understand your thoughts a bit better than those dumb boys.”

“Maybe.” You chuckled. She was probably the exact opposite of Yoongi—far too bright, bubbly and touchy-feely for the man who recoiled at breathing the same air as another being. You paused for a second, wetting your dry lips with your tongue. “Can I ask you something?”

“No question is too strange for me.” She giggled. “Yoongi says that I ask too many weird ones that anything anyone could ask of me would seem normal in comparison.”

Somehow, you could see it. The girl radiated a personality that only existed in characters from outer space.

“Why are you so fascinated with me? I mean, I’m not really special—just your average human.”

She shrugged, moving to adjust herself into a comfortable sitting position. “Well, I liked what I saw when I first met you. And, well, I don’t really feed from humans because I pity them. I prefer the fear from my own kind—and Yoongi’s really good about making sure I can get fed enough from that alone.” She paused for a moment to ruminate on her words. “Humans…Well…I feel bad for hurting something so innocent for my own gain. They can’t even properly fight back.”

“Some do.”

“Even then, it depends on the human and their deeds—but it’s not like I’m really clued into those too well. Vampires…well, we’re often terrible beings. Maybe more so than humans.” She sighed. “But you, man, when you stood up to Jisung I swear I’ve never seen our leader more whipped for a being in his life. I wanted to know more about you because of that, too.”

Was it possible for a vampire to be vegetarian? Well, the vampire equivalent of the term. Was that cannibalism?

Honestly, you could have probably busted your last three braincells pondering a stupid label.

“Are there more vampires like you?”

Her eyes sparkled. “Probably. But they may all be dead. You and I, we are a rare breed—with mates powerful enough to ensure that we both survive.”

As you withdrew inside of yourself to contemplate the heft to her words, her hand reached out to grab your own, as if on instinct. “Humans are soft.” She murmured. “I like physical contact with them.”

“You are so weird.”

She only grinned wider at that.

For a moment you considered spilling everything to her—everything you couldn’t say to your mate, to humans, to anyone. You contemplated telling her your whole life story if only because there was a being there in front of you who looked so willing to eat it all in and learn everything there was to know about you.

This person was a vampire, and that was enough to stop you.

“There is something on your mind.” She hummed.

“Yeah.”

She cocked her head to the side. “Do you not trust me?”

You put your free hand up. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Woo, I just…I don’t…I don’t think that you can understand me if I told you.”

“Okay.” She murmured. “I probably won’t, but its okay to tell me. My job in the clan is to not ask questions and make sure that things run smoothly. I am a glorified secretary; if there are things I am not supposed to know then I will not seek them out nor will I lose my trust if those secrets come into the light. I am supposed to tell my clan leader everything.” Her eyes scanned yours. “So it concerns him, does it not?”

“What in my world doesn’t concern him anymore?”

She chuckled, her grin faltering for a moment. “Y/N, I never said I was good at my job. Yoongi and I…we were a pairing mated by genes and not by choice—not that I mind, as I’m terrible with making decisions.” She licked her lips in the dry air. “I understand that feeling of wanting more.”

“You…” Your furrowed your brows, trying to find the right words even though the synapses weren’t fully connecting the loose ends to the equation displayed before you. “You don’t love Yoongi, do you?”

She pursed her lips, her eyes lost somewhere over your shoulder. “What Yoongi and I are certainly is not the same kind of bond that you humans call love. So if what you are worried about is how our clan leader cares for you, then I’ll have you know that I have never seen a vampire care for his mate to such extremes before. I’m jealous.”

Something that must have been akin to fear flashed through you quick as lightning, because Jiwoo’s eyes burst red for a second, narrowing in on you before dulling back to their neutral color. “I don’t want Namjoon, Y/N; don’t be afraid of that. I’m envious of the bond between you two, not what you hold—that connection, it seems so special.”

“Have you told Yoongi any of this?”

“No. I don’t see him enough to warrant it.” Her eyes softened. “Perhaps that’s why I enjoy your company, being with you annoys him enough for him to seek me out.”

Your eyes scanned her face, searching for hidden feelings and answers that she was slowly bringing to the surface. It was nice to feel a little bit less alone in a sea of people that made you feel like an anomaly. “We’re similar, aren’t we?”

Her gaze met yours. “We are.”

You tucked your lips between your teeth, trying to make yourself say the words. Trying to will yourself to let it out to her—if you could let it out to anyone, it would be her.

After all, she just indirectly told you her own personal traumas—why couldn’t you say the one thing that was always running through your head ever since you realized it enough to deny it whole-heartedly?

“I…I…”

“You love Namjoon.” She murmured, her irises bloodying to an intense crimson as you inhaled through your nose.  When you said nothing, she only squeezed your hand. “Well, I can’t say that I was unaware of that, but maybe one day we’ll get you to say it out loud, huh?” She chuckled. “Then again, isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black, as you humans would say?”

~.~

Jiwoo did not have the luxury that the other vampires around you had—she had not been trained for years to accommodate human nature into her life. She was not one who was ready to easily adapt to a human friend and, therefore, she was unable to maneuver you through the compound with the grace that Namjoon and his six had.

AKA, every horror hid from you was unfolded in a searing burst of white-hot fear.

This was, after all, a place for vampires—not humans.

The blood, the bodies, the strewn bits and pieces of lives tortured and lost were not things that startled her.

You, on the other hand, were a different story.

Turning to vomit up your entire lunch into the nearest receptacle—because why would vampires have trash cans every four feet like humans?—you nearly didn’t make it and therefore missed the bright red flash of Jiwoo’s eyes as she furrowed her brow on you in concern.

“Y/N! What happened? Are you alright?” Her worry was a palpable presence in the air, smothering you much like she was doing. Contrary to the vampires you had met thus far, she seemed to think that contact was the salve to every ailment.

You screwed your eyes shut, desperately trying to erase the images of bruised and beaten bodies, parts of humans too mangled to identify. Corpses yet to be disposed of, personal belongings dropped and bloodied in the shuffle, remnants of humans like yourself.

That could have been you. The woman in the corner with a bloody cleave from her neck to chest, she could have been you if you didn’t meet Namjoon. The man on the floor with his spine half pulled out of his back could have been you if you weren’t saved. The child—

There wasn’t anything left to vomit, but your stomach was sure as hell going to give it a go anyways.

“I--” You wanted to straighten your spine, you wanted to stand up tall and meet her in the eyes like loss of life didn’t bother you—like you weren’t terrified of the shadows of ‘what ifs’ that hung heavy above your head. You had to get used to this; that was the saddest part of it all. You, by all means, should be accustomed to death, to the lingering monsters that manifested themselves into your reality. Namjoon fed off of people like you.

He probably fed off of the people at your feet.

However, your stomach jolted into another hefty, dry heave.

“I will be okay.” You whispered, Jiwoo’s hands on your shoulders. “I’m…not all humans are accustomed to these sights.”

She took a glance around, and you could feel the apologetic sympathy roll off of her aura in waves around you without her ever uttering a word.

“I’m stupid.” She murmured. “I’m sorry, Y/N.”

“It’s not your fault.” You laughed, hands tightening around the trashcan. “Humans….”

“—Humans have too much empathy for things, especially for their own kind. I read that in a book somewhere.”

“Perhaps.” You snorted. “I think humans have too much empathy for all things, living or not. We are often pointless creatures.”

“I don’t believe in pointlessness. Everything has a reason.” She rubbed soothing circles between your shoulderblades, and, you think that she probably learned this from watching a mother soothe a child once.

You can’t help but catch a bit of dried blood out of the corner of your eye, the resembling of human flesh beside it. “When does Namjoon feed?”

She paused. “Not as often since you’ve arrived—besides prepping for their mission, I can’t remember the last time he was down here. I don’t think he wants you to see that side of him.”

“Are any of these…are any of these his?”

Jiwoo didn’t get up right away, she instead studied your expression as if to make sure that this was something that you really wanted to do—something that you felt you needed to see. She must have found her answer, because she then pushed up to her feet, leaving you huddled over the trashcan. You watched her every move with close precision if only because, if you looked away from her, you’d see more than you wanted to.

When she stopped and looked back at you, you wordlessly got to your feet and stepped carefully around the haphazard mess around you. Despite every aspect of your being trying desperately not to show fear, your palms still sweat and Jiwoo’s eyes still glowed a hazy red.

Her hand found yours as you stared down at the body before you. It was a hunter, that was evident by the uniform, though she was remarkably intact.

Something told you vampires didn’t often keep their victims looking so clean.

He made sure he could hear your screams; he wanted to drag this out—suck out every last bit of your energy and fear until death finally took you. He wanted you to suffer.

Her neck was snapped, her hair curtaining her expression that was stricken in horror. Though her eyes were closed—something else told you that Namjoon had done that when he was finished.

Some sick part of you wanted to touch her, to empathize with the body. You wanted to see yourself in that girl, you wanted to see some remnant of care you had for humanity. However, the second the Hunters Association’s uniform was involved, that fear--that horror--was dampened immensely.

You squeezed Jiwoo’s hand. “I’m okay.” You murmured. “This, I’ve seen bodies before—at least, bodies in this garb.” You bent down, recalling times where you were ordered to strip the bodies, salvage what equipment you could, and let some other sad soul dump the bodies into the incinerators. You had rarely been assigned that task because you were slow and threw up too much for their liking. Though it did become the ultimate punishment for when you mouthed off just a little bit too much.

You murmured a soft apology to the dead woman as you shifted her, your eyes latching onto the embroidered holster buckled around her hips. Numbly, and in a trance to keep yourself from losing what little stomach contents you had left, you unclasped your prize and slipped it free from Namjoon’s meal.

Brushing off the dust and debris, you fumbled with the zipper to slide open that pack and peer at the contents inside.

The bullets that lay inside the embroidered pockets sewn next to the holster shone like a beacon of light and hope in a dark and damp place.

You shifted them, ducking your head to sniff the contents. They obviously had been down here for a while; their garlic scent had significantly decreased from the potency standards that the Hunter’s Association usually had. However, they weren’t useless.

“Can I take this?”

She shrugged as you slung the holster over your shoulder. “What you carry is no concern of mine; I think it wise that you have something to protect yourself from my own kind. I know that not all of us are to be trusted, especially not with you.” She paused, cocking her head at the body of a vampire. “Besides, if their mission is as dangerous as they make it out to be, then the consequences of it may meet up with us here at the compound at some point. If everything goes to shit, I would rather you have something. Vampiric guards are not perfect protection.”

“Jiwoo, I love you.”

She chuckled. “I’m learning to understand the sentiment.”

~.~

Jiwoo attempted to cook—not because you didn’t offer to do so, but because she was adamant that she wanted to try it herself. To give her credit, it smelled good; to make yourself feel better, you hadn’t once stopped looking over her shoulder. The only vampire you trusted to make you food was the one that had lived with humans as a child.

And that vampire was most definitely not Jiwoo based purely on the way she held a spoon.

“The big part goes in the pot.”

“That’s not a handle?”

You pursed your lips, stifling the urge to laugh and cry in hopelessness at the same time. “No.”

However, both of you quickly became distracted when the outside world burst into noise. Jiwoo met your gaze before nodding. “They’re back.” That statement, though it rang true through your bones, did not allow your feet to move. Instead, you only watched as Jiwoo temporarily put the pot aside to go towards the window.

Staring out the blinds, her shoulders visibly relaxed at the sight before her. “He looks okay.” You knew how she felt in that moment because, on some deep, repressed level, you could understand her sentiment.

Yoongi was okay.

How is he? How is Namjoon?

It was almost as if, for a moment, the woman could read your mind: “Namjoon is alright.” She grinned at you as if that could make you feel better about all of your troubles. “Namjoon is alright.”

“That’s good.” You mumbled to the stew on the stove, mindlessly stirring it with the wooden spoon.

“He’s looking up here.”

You frowned at the pot, refusing to move if only because you were stubborn. Out of your peripherals, you could see her gently waving, shaking her head.

“He’s concerned for you.”

“That’s nice of him to be concerned for his human pet.”

Jiwoo sighed. “You know you mean much more to him than that.”

Instead of garnering her a proper response, you curled your free hand into the countertop to stop yourself from giving into your urge to run and make sure he was as fine with your own eyes. “Is he really okay?”You hated the way your voice cracked as her gaze seared the flesh of your cheeks.

“Are you?”

~.~

By the time Namjoon made it upstairs and into the kitchen, your food was done and you were at the table, enjoying your meal with a magazine Jiwoo had found outside the compound. Once her clan leader reared his face, Jiwoo quietly excused herself but not before you could thank her. She had done so much for you that even an awkward situation between you and her leader wouldn’t allow you to just let her slip away so easily.

Even if you didn’t even want to speak in front of your asshat “mate.”

Once you were left along with Namjoon, you could immediately feel the tension in the room rise to the point that you were sure that your blood was frozen in your veins. You could feel his stare on the side of your face, but you forced yourself to eat and focus solely on the magazine before you.

He sighed, but it did nothing to encourage your speech.

Swallowing his pride after several moments of rising silence, he gave in first. “Is there a reason you are ignoring me?”

You frowned at your magazine, fork poised by your mouth. “What did you do on your mission?”

He let out another weighted sigh. “Y/N—I can’t—it’s too danger—“

“Fine.” You cut him off, finally lifting your gaze to his, even if only for a brief moment to nail your point into the ground. “Then don’t expect me to talk.”

He sighed once more, running his fingers through his hair almost as if he wished to rip the strands out at the root. You could feel his gaze on you, feel the heat of his stare as if he could make you look at him, talk to him—as if you could actually hear his thoughts like he could hear yours.

“If you had the power to, would you go backwards? Would you change things? Would you change me?”

You frown only increased in depth, positively fucking up your features for aging later on—if you lived that long.

What in the absolute hell are you talking about?

“Would you find a human mate? If you could be rid of me, would you?”

You sighed, tilting your head up to the ceiling, staring at it as if it could have the answers to all of life’s questions. “Nothing in my life has been by choice, even if I went backwards, nothing would change.” You shifted, thinking about what a human partner would look like for you, thinking about your life without Namjoon.

It would be dark, lonely. You’d be back at the Hunter’s camp; you’d be dead—if not physically then emotionally; there was nothing to look forward to in your old life.

You imagined waking up to a world without Namjoon, without his straightforward nature, his indirect care. You imagined a world without his conversation, his small smiles, and his occasional laughter.

“Would you change me?” It was too loud for the silence of the room, and you found yourself holding your breath for his reply.

Silence encompassed the room, your heart dropping deep into the depths of your stomach the longer it stretched on—but maybe that was your brain screaming from the lack of oxygen.

Vampires find mates solely for optimal offspring, not necessarily a human’s definition of “pairing.”

Vampires are creatures of instinct; they run based on efficiency rather than emotions.

Your hands curled into the magazine, your legs poised to shove the chair out, to run and escape this conversation. You wanted to disappear, curl up into the comforter, crawl into a closet and never return. Anywhere that wasn’t that fucking kitchen would have been a better option for you in that moment.

“I would change me.” It was so quiet you almost didn’t hear it past the slow sound of your heart crashing uncomfortably in your chest. When you didn’t say anything, he continued. “Not you.”

Somehow, that didn’t make your heart lift from its newfound home on the roof of your stomach.

“Why?”

His gaze was no longer on you; rather it was downcast to the floor, focusing on the tile as he carefully chose his words. “I would make myself human.”

“You’d be dead.” You said stupidly, staring at him in confusion to words spilling from your mouth so quickly and so surely you were amazed that you were able to translate all of the jumbled thoughts careening in your head. “We’d both be, I wouldn’t have met you—the hunter’s association wouldn’t have kept me around. So you saying that you would change yourself would mean that you would ultimately change me.” You pushed your chair out from the counter. “We can’t go back, we can’t change what is, only what will be. Why the hell are we even talking about this? What are you so afraid of? Why is it so hard to tell me where you were? What you were doing?”

“If another clan found out about you, if you had information to give, they would never stop hunting you. They would torture you until you begged for death—and then they wouldn’t give it to you, they’d wait until they fed every last drop of information and fear from you before finally letting you decimate yourself.”

“I thought you said you wouldn’t let any of that happen.”

“I can’t make promises, Y/N, this world isn’t—“

“Okay.” You pushed yourself to your feet, leaving your half eaten food and your magazine on the table.

“Y/N—“

“I think…I think I’m going to go to bed now.”

He made it seem like he was almost going to reach out and grab you, but he retracted his hand at the last second.

He only ever touched you because he thought you wanted it, not because he did.

“Good night.” You threw the words over your shoulder, because you didn’t want him to see you cry. He’d seen you cry enough. Crying was weakness, and god were you already pathetic enough as a human being to even think, for a moment, that maybe you weren’t alone in your denied feelings.

Maybe he was right. Maybe it would have been easier if he was human and you two never met. Maybe it would be better if you weren’t in his life.

But would your life be better without him in it?

~.~

You had slept like the dead, cliché phrase you know, but sobbing into a pillow until your eyes were puffed to the point that you couldn’t see made you sleep like you hadn’t in months.

Yeah, you probably could have been six feet under with your lack of response to the world around you. You didn’t wake up when Namjoon entered—you sure as hell didn’t wake up when he came in to wrap you up all nice and tight (you only assumed that he did it based on the fact that you were one-hundred percent sure that you fell face first into the plush bed). You definitely didn’t wake when Jiwoo came in to check on you, nor when Namjoon came and went for the second time. Oh, and you sure as hell didn’t even fucking stir when someone booked it down the hall past your bedroom.

You couldn’t even talk about the building shaking with the force of an explosion outside.

What did finally wake you up was whatever internal alarm built within your genetic code that screamed danger when Taehyung burst into the bedroom at full speed.

Groggily, with your eyelids screaming out in pain and horror, you forced yourself into a sitting position.

You know, you made it sound all fancy, but any normal person would have woken up to the explosion—you just woke up to a dude running in your room with his body language screaming “trouble,” screaming “danger.” And, though you hated to admit to your tendencies to actually give a flying fuck about the man, it scared the barely conscious you to think that this incident involved the vampire closest to you.

Taehyung, luckily or unluckily for you, didn’t regard you at first, and you used that time  to fully wake up and orient yourself to the situation before you. As if drugged, you wiped the drool from the corner of your mouth and lazily watched Taehyung slam the door behind him, reaching for a chair to tuck up under the handle—like that was going to do anything against whatever was causing him to panic.

The instant awake button was found when Taehyung turned around and you got a damn good look at his split lip—accompanied by the bruising underneath his eye. The cherry on top of his injury cake was the gashes that you could see through the fresh holes in his shirt when he spun around, blood dribbling down to the waistband of his jeans.

“What’s going on?” Your voice came out as a hiss that sounded more like a gunshot on the tense silence of the room.

His breath came in fast gasps as he turned towards you, his gaze landing anywhere but you—looking for exits, danger, weapons—

“Taehyung!”

He nodded, eyes finally meeting yours. “No windows. Good.”

It didn’t answer your question, but you were pretty sure that he didn’t hear it anyways.

Sitting back into your hips, you ran your fingers through your hair to gather it into a ponytail. “I don’t give a shit about windows; Taehyung, what’s happening?” And then, like the desperate spiral of a worried human being you were, you didn’t even give him time to answer. “It’s Namjoon isn’t it? Where is he? Is he alright?”

He held his hands up to take the brunt of your verbal assault, breath heaving in his chest. “He’s…he’ll be fine.”

“Bullshit.” You detangled yourself from the sheets, adjusting your shirt. “I want to see him.”

“I have orders to make sure you don’t leave this room.”

You froze, frowning at the beaten man before you. “Taehyung—orders or not—you are not going to stop me from going out there.”

“Y/N.” His voice was dark and strained in a way that you most definitely didn’t like. “I have orders; I have to protect you.”

What would your life be like without Namjoon?

You two stared at each other, that same tense silence falling between you.

And then, like the idiot you were, you burst out of the bed and towards the bedroom door.

Naturally, as a fucking vampire, Taehyung was faster than you. His arms wrapped around your waist hard—too hard, but he obviously wasn’t used to handling humans in a way that was gentle; especially when panicked—spinning you around to fling you back onto the bed.

However, you were dumb, and that meant you didn’t know when to give up. In an instant you were back on your feet, bolting towards the door once more. If he had any hope of being delicate with you, it was out the metaphorical window with your second attempt at escape. You crashed to the ground with all the grace of a whale beaching itself, skidding back towards the bed post.

“Please stop.” Taehyung pleaded, body poised to block you. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

You rolled to your hands and knees, hissing in pain. “Then just let help, let me out of here.”

“Y/N! They will kill you, don’t you see that? You see what they did to me—what the hell do you think will happen to you?” He was desperate, all but screaming at you in a way that would have scared you were your heart not slamming itself against your ribs.

If he looks like this, what does Namjoon look like? Where is Namjoon?

You threw a glance at the bed, at the space between the mattress and the box spring—the space where you stashed your hidden prize. Without thinking of anything else but the way Namjoon’s hand felt around yours, you shoved your hand underneath the mattress, fingers wrapping around the handle of the gun as you whipped it out at Taehyung. A shaky breath slipped past your lips as you switched off the safety, staring down the barrel at your unfortunate target. With a furrowed brow and a steeled resolve, you nodded to the door, one hand slowly leaving the gun in order to fasten the holster around your waist. “Taehyung, open it.”

“You’d shoot me?” His voice was so sad, so concerned and weak that it broke your heart to do this to him.

But I have no choice.

You remembered Namjoon’s face as he held you, the furrow to his brow as he watched a romantic comedy just to try and understand you better.

He didn’t, but he tried.

“If it means that there’s even a small chance that I can keep him from losing his life—from getting hurt—then, yeah, I would.”

He let out a sigh from deep inside his chest, holding his hands up in surrender. “You know that, if he loses you, this whole thing—everything he’s worked for—it’s all over.”

“But is the outcome really that much better if I lose him?” You jerked your chin to the door once more. “Open it.”

As your gun remained trained on his back, loaded with faded but still garlic laden bullets, Taehyung removed the chair and pulled the door open. Satisfied that he wasn’t going to do anything further to stop you, you thumbed the safety back on and ran down the hall full speed. Skidding across the tile like a madwoman, you swung yourself into the kitchen—the fried synapses of your brain lighting up with an idea. A horrible idea, but an idea nonetheless.

The bullet pouch slammed against a forming bruise on your thigh as you hurriedly threw open the cabinet doors in your squirrel search for the pasta jar you had panicked about so long ago.

“What are you doing?” Taehyung murmured, defeated twice in one day—once by vampires and once by a human scared of a leaf.

“The garlic in these bullets won’t be enough. Bullets lose their soaked properties by half in a month, three-quarters in two. They’re going to need to be refreshed.” You grinned with the jar in your hand, wiggling it within his view.

“Yah! Y/N!” He was only able to let out an exhausted shout as you remembered your self-imposed mission and burst past him, Taehyung hot on your heels.

All playfulness was zapped from you the moment you threw open the doors to the compound.

The difference between the quiet chaos instead the building and the cacophony of the world outside almost gave you whiplash.

The sky was overcast, but only within the vicinity of the area around the compound—in the distance, you could see places where the sun beat down on the ruined earth. All you could hear and see were bursts of bright flashes, sounds of lightning and screaming that seemed to echo even in the open space reverberated through your core. It was as if titans walked the earth and were crashing into each other, bodies slamming against one another. The fencing was dented in, but not broken, bodies strewn just outside and particularly dense around the gates.

Someone was trying to get in—but like, nO ShIT Y/n.

For a moment, you were stunned; for a moment your resolve and your footsteps stuttered.

You wondered if you had as much blood as your partner, strewn up on the tree. You wondered if you, too, would lose your insides to the ground, if the vampire with its hand around your neck would gut you until you were a shell.

Until there was no more blood.

Namjoon slowly overlapped your past self, images of him in a vampire’s hold—images of him strewn up on a tree, him dangling from a grasp until his intestines were on the ground.

Without thinking any further, without dwelling on the fact that this would probably get you killed, you ran towards the fence. Taehyung called out your name behind you, but it sounded garbled as if he was miles away—you were far too focused on not losing the one person that irritated you most.

Your free hand looped through the chain-link, your eyes scanning the haphazard mess of fighting until you finally saw that shock of hair and that shoulder-shape that you would (don’t fucking read into it, you’re still in denial) recognize anywhere.

Your heart leapt into your throat despite all efforts to stamp it down, despite all efforts to continue to pretend that you didn’t give a shit.

He was hurt.

Blood dribbled into his eyes, some running down to his grimace of pain as he used his good hand—the one not broken at an inhuman angle—to utilize his demonic vampire abilities that had every species in the country cowering in fear.

However, what concerned you the most was that you saw Jisung standing there with a wicked grin, as if he was the only one who wasn’t afraid.

That fact alone concerned you as to what kind of abilities he had—he was a clan leader now, wasn’t he? The gold flash to his eyes told you that your gut instinct was true.  He wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t fucking afraid?

That made you even more so—but not for yourself. In that moment, you couldn’t give less of a shit about yourself.

Jisung was still, standing between guards but laughing, close to insanity as Jimin’s body jolted and his head snapped back, a cast of purple sliding over them. Jimin grabbed his face, turning towards Namjoon only to lash out at his own leader.

And, just like that, you realized why Jisung wasn’t afraid.

How could you be afraid of someone when you could turn the people your enemy cared about against them?

You unscrewed the cap to the sauce, fishing out a bullet from the holster to dip it in the substance before loading it into your gun. Hunter’s guns were designed for wet ammo—bullets had to be soaked one way or another, often times they weren’t entirely dry when used. It should still work. Though, it probably would have been smart to test the damn thing before this very moment.

Biting your lip in concentration, you fired at Jisung without any further hesitation.

There wasn’t panic this time, your hands didn’t shake—so the shot took, though not quite where you wanted it—his bicep wasn’t the most fatal place to be hit, but it would do.

The cast left Jimin’s eyes as Jisung’s attention travelled elsewhere…along with the attention of everyone else on the street.

All gazes snapped upright, Namjoon’s eyes meeting with yours at the exact same time Jisung found the source of his new injury.

All it took was one look at Namjoon and you could practically hear his voice in your head—you could feel his anger, his worry, and his own fear radiate through the ground towards you as if it was a lightning strike.

So, because you were smart and because you obviously didn’t give a rat’s ass about Namjoon’s worry for you, you dipped a bullet and fired another shot at Jisung.

Okay so maybe smart wasn’t the word for you.

“Y/N!” The shout came from all angles, from Taehyung still scrambling to chase after you from behind, from Seokjin who was trying to wrestle a very confused Jimin away from Jisung’s radius, from Namjoon who turned to tear after Jisung with renewed vigor because he knew that was the only way to save you.

After all, you’d forgotten that one of Jisung’s gang could teleport.

Suddenly, as if you had an epiphany, you remembered why you weren’t supposed to get close to the fence—but in reality it was because you were now face to face with the ugliest man (vampire or human, didn’t fucking matter if you had a mullet and a slight overbite) you’ve ever seen. Like this was some damn superhero movie, he flashed through the fence, his hands enclosing around your wrists.

He’s got freckles. Was your last stupid thought before you were launched into another reality, another fucking dimension that was far too fast and all too confusing for you to comprehend.

Luckily for you, you were still holding onto the pasta sauce jar—even when you suddenly found yourself outside of the safety of the compound and on the asphalt. You didn’t really think too much of it because you were too busy trying to unfurl the ball of nausea in your gut.

You barely had time to look up and see your mate only a few feet away--his eyes wide as he desperately and quickly tried to dive for you—before you were slammed back into that disorienting world that was both reality and not at the same time.

Freckles twisted with you, his laughter tickling the shell of your ear though it seemed to echo all around you in the foreign space.

Somehow, you knew what was up and what was down enough to come to the realization that you were now beneath him.

Shit shit shit.

You wondered if Namjoon could still hear your thoughts in this world. If so, you were probably scaring him more than yourself.

But like, you were pretty damned scared so maybe not; you could die.

You would die, at least if Freckles had you hit the ground first, at least if Freckles used his weight to slam you underneath him; vampires were strong after all.

You could hear people yelling your name through the thin fabric of time and space; your mate’s panic wrapped around Jisung’s laugh and was sprinkled by never ending shouts of your name. However, with every second in this false world, they were getting further and further away from you.

You could feel Freckles trying to manifest you back into your normal realm of existence, your body tilting backwards as the world shifted around you. In a last second panic as you careened head first, you swung the jar in your hand, slamming it into the side of Freckles’ face as hard as you could manage.

You had to give yourself some props at least, the glass shattered in a spray of spiced garlic and tomatoes, the world snapping into clarity around you as he let go, leaving to you clatter to the ground in a mess of limbs.

Freckles manifested behind you, clutching at his sizzling face in agony as you gathered yourself onto your knees, prepping yourself for the next blow to come. In the distance, about a block and a half away, you could see Namjoon.

Oh yeah, even from this distance you could tell he was pissed with a capital P.

“Fucking bitch!” Freckles howled, his glare one that shot a spike of fear straight through your chest as he towered over you.

You reached for your gun, only to realize that you must have dropped it back inside the compound when this asshole first appeared—leaving you defenseless as he grabbed you by your neck. For whatever reason, it seemed that vampires seemed to favor that as a point of grip. It probably was because it immobilized any human seeing as they could die if they didn’t struggle or if they struggled too hard.

Either way, it would be nice to face a vampire that didn’t aim for your jugular.

You kicked and flailed, gritting your teeth against the pain and the disgusting slough of skin that had become the right side of Freckles’ face. You had been lucky enough to see garlic wounds only through projector screens until now—they looked much worse in person. You would have vomited were you not suspended by your fucking throat.

Out of the corner of your eye, you caught the tail end of a flash of that warm, bright light that could only have come from Namjoon. You heard Seokjin shouting something, but everything was getting blurrier and blurrier the longer Freckles’ hand was holding you.

“Do all of the six have abilities?”

Jiwoo rested her face on her hands, staring at the board game before the two of you as you finished your turn. “Technically yes, but I haven’t seen all of them. I don’t go on missions much—at least not with them.” She reached to grab the dice in the middle of the board. “Why do you ask?”

You shrugged. “I don’t know, it just…it seems like Namjoon regards them all so highly and, well—at least at the Hunter’s association—I thought that the vampire hierarchy is based on abilities.”

She chuckled, the dice thudding on the hard board. “It is, normally. Namjoon, however, is not particularly a normal clan leader.”

You kicked with whatever strength you could manage, black spots dancing at the corners of your vision.

“So Seokjin is second in command because of age then?”

She made a face, moving her piece five spaces. “Partly, but that is the one case where abilities do play some sort of factor. Namjoon’s hierarchy is based on trust—the reason the six are as high up as they are is based on loyalty and proof that they have earned his trust. Seokjin…Seokjin showed this trust with his abilities.”

When you only stared at her in confusion she laughed.

“I suppose you wouldn’t know, apologize for me assuming that you did—after all, it seems that, aside from Namjoon, you are closest with him.” She sent you a wink that had you frowning at her. “Seokjin is a nullifier—which is a huge ability in a world of clan leaders. He could take over the clan if he so chose to.”

“But he doesn’t—he chooses to follow Namjoon?”

She nodded. “He trusts his leader as much as his leader trusts him.”

Suddenly, there was a force that knocked into Freckles’ back—hard enough to send both of you careening to the side only to slam into the ground far too hard for your liking.

Everything moved lethargically around you, your body stuck to the ground as your mind reeled to catch up with the sudden intake of oxygen. When you finally managed to get yourself to a sitting position you saw Seokjin wrestling with Freckles, his teeth grit in an animalistic snarl as he desperately tried to get your attention.

He was yelling something at you, but in the fog of your brain it was hard to hear.

However, you were pretty decent at reading lips.

“Run.”

You didn’t need a second glance to make sure that you heard right, you didn’t need to be told twice to do the one thing your busted fight or flight response was good at. You hauled your sore ass up off the ground and took off running.

Well, at first you pitched toward the side, hit the ground and then had to haul yourself up again—but you know, you had to cut yourself a break because you were just getting your oxygen back.

However, running, for whatever reason helped—it helped clear the fog and bring back your hyper-focus, it helped bring back the whole reason you found yourself outside the compound: the vampire not focused enough on the enemy he was fighting; the man who stared at you as if you held his life within your chest.

Whatever fear had been there dissipated the moment you saw how injured he managed to get himself in the moments that you had been fighting with Freckles’. All those cuts and bruises and gashes—even with his vampiric healing it would still take him over two weeks to get rid of those injuries entirely.

So what does the concerned human with bleeding pasta sauce hands and absolutely nothing else decide to do when her mate is in need? Call in reinforcements? Figure out where she dropped the Vampire Hunter gun? Well…no, it’s you—what do you expect?

After all, you were not and you would never be a vampire hunter.

So, like the rabid koala you always wanted to be (not really) you latched onto Jisung’s back, your garlic soaked fingers digging into the skin  of his face—his mouth, his eyes, whatever place you could find to debilitate him. Namjoon stared at you over Jisung’s shoulder, his face gritting with renewed anger as he slammed the heel of his palm into Jisung’s jugular.

It was going well until your added weight on Jisung’s back caused the both of you to topple backwards, the enemy vampire slamming on top of you hard enough to knock the wind out of you. Jisung screeched in pain, his hands gripping your wrists in a vice, threatening to crush the bones. Namjoon, in a fit of anger that terrified you (even though it wasn’t directed at you)—even knowing that you were the person that he would never intentionally injure.  He grabbed Jisung by the jacket, picking him up with a grunt and a growl of anger only to throw him over you. You shouldn’t have been surprised by how far the enemy vampire flew, but then again, Namjoon wasn’t the most infamous clan leader in the entire continent for nothing.

You leaned your head back, watching Jisung clamor to his feet.

“Hwi! Fall back!” He shouted in pain, Freckles responding to the name by ripping free from Seokjin’s grasp. The teleporter ran full speed at his clan leader, vanishing into thin air the moment his hand met Jisung’s shoulder.

Both you and Namjoon held your breath, watching as the remainder of Jisung’s clan ran back into the ruined city and away from the compound.

It was only when he was satisfied that they were not going to spontaneously reappear that Namjoon finally addressed you, still lying on the ground like an upside down starfish. You, on the other hand, refused to meet his gaze because you were positive that it was a look of pure anger and frustration at your lack of give-a-shit to his instructions.

“Back up.” You murmured to the sky. “I’ve got garlic on me and you’ve got open wounds.”

He frowned, but you could tell that he only moved maybe a centimeter further away from you as he gathered whatever coherency he could manage from the renegade thoughts in his head. “You…why don’t you listen? Why don’t you ever listen? You were told not to come out here.”

His anger should have scared you, but this kind didn’t—you just didn’t want to see it. “I had to make sure.” Your chest tightened painfully. You wanted to blame it on the weight of Jisung slamming into you, blame it on being manhandled like a rag doll by Freckles.

But you couldn’t. Not anymore.

Not when you were out here despite yourself being afraid of everything that this outside world meant.

“I had to make sure that you survived. I...I—“

I think I love you. Was what you were going to think, but all thoughts of confession were ripped from your mind the second your body lit aflame with one single strain of thought.

Garlic.

The smell was far too strong for it to be the pasta sauce on your hand, and you couldn’t get yourself to your feet in time to beat the sound of the shot echoing through the streets.

You watched in horror as a puff of blood burst from Namjoon, a scream of agony ripping from his throat as he crashed backwards to the ground.

You couldn’t hear yourself, but you knew you were screaming his name, jolting towards him only to be stopped by the sudden pressure of a wire lasso tightening around your midsection.

As you were ripped backwards off your feet, past the blood rushing in your ears and the sounds of Namjoon’s screams, you could make out the telltale buzz of a two-way radio far too close for comfort.

Damn, you really needed to start thinking ahead a bit more—like more than the next hour, more than the next day. Planning wasn’t your forte, it was as if it was built into your character that you were weak-willed and destined to go along with whatever painfully kinked road life paved for you.  

“There’s a bathroom here as well.”

You nodded; raising your eyebrows like this was a new revelation. Toilet + shower + sink = bathroom. Got it.

Honestly, you felt like you were learning the alphabet for the first time.

L is for Library.

K is for Kitchen.

T is for the tortured screams of humans being fed from two floors down.

Yeah, you could hear that shit too—Namjoon promised to try and soundproof as best he could, but you told him not to worry about it, you know, like an idiot. It was almost as if you believed that this man next to you was human. It was almost as if you believed that, if you pressed your lips into a tight enough line, it would make him unable to sense your fear.

The ghastly scream of a woman dying only tightened your gut.

He looked at you over his shoulder, frozen with a quickly paling face and an expression that screamed ‘are you serious?’

You only mimicked his expression, raising one eyebrow but never loosening the purse to your lips. “What?” You tried to make it sound like nothing was wrong, but you were shifty and refused to meet him eye to eye.

It also didn’t help that the man you were trying to hide your fear from was the one species that could sense it better than any other.

“Y/N.”

“Mm?” You stared at the wall, admiring the shitty picture that all office buildings seemed to have. You know, that one same scene of a cabin in the woods with a nice little creek and a boat with no person in it.  Was this warehouse/compound/vampire-lair an office complex before? Or did Namjoon choose this painting of all paintings to stare at every fucking day?

“Why?”

“Why what?” You squeaked out, nearly jumping out of your skin at the howl of a man in pain.

“Y/N.” It was a command, one forced out through his nausea—and, consequently, one that only increased your fear.

Wiping your sweating palms on your jeans (new jeans that were apparently brought in by Yoongi, if only because he said his mate was the same size as you and she wouldn’t notice if some of her mountainous clothing went missing), you swallowed. “Well, um...like…you know? I’m human and they’re human and…like…that could be me.”

“That will never be you.” He growled—the safety of which would have been attractive were it not predator to your prey.

“B-but it could be.”

“Why is this bothering you now?”

You stared at him, blankly, like he was stupider than you were. “Well, when I was in that room I couldn’t hear a man scream for help. That room’s pretty damn sound-proof you know, which is even more scary to think about now so can we like talk about something else before you throw up and I pee my pants.”

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as he swallowed down whatever meal-less bile was rising in his chest.

Before you realized it, those moments of listening to real life horror movies playing out beneath your feet ended as quickly as you noticed them--your fear disappearing along with them. You had this hunch that Namjoon had made his clansmen feed elsewhere in the compound—a place out of earshot and without an echo. It fit the bill of his character, at least the only version of himself that you’d seen. Selfishly unselfish, if that paradox made any sense.

What hadn’t changed with your newfound freedom was the fact that Kim Namjoon was adamant that you couldn’t properly take care of yourself if left to your own devices.

So, okay, yes, it might have been absolutely true, but it wasn’t like you were complaining anyways—just stating the obvious. When he entrusted you to be a normal adult and be self-sufficient, he found you curled up with a bag of goldfish crackers instead of an actual meal, cry-laughing at a romantic comedy because…reasons. You may or may not have been on your period at the time and you may or may not have been unable to find any chocolate in the vicinity.

And that was how Seokjin, a pretty damn good cook for someone who didn’t actually eat like a normal human, became your honorary babysitter.

Again, you weren’t complaining—you were fed, had more freedom than you’d ever had at the Hunter’s Association and, more often than not, were graced with company that wasn’t a jock-head moron too full of themselves to note your strengths outside of a fear-filled realm of vampires.

Since when did you stop wanting to escape?

Probably when you started crying for the sake of a vampire mate you shouldn’t care about but inexplicably did.

The only immediate downside to your predicament was the damn near constant dad jokes.

“You know, for the pasta few days it’s been really nice getting to gnocchi you.”

You let out a sigh that had been slowly building for the past half hour stuck in the same room with Kim Seokjin, forgoing face-palming if only to keep hold of the book in your hands. “Do you even know what gnocchi is?” It was mumbled more to the pages than to the man trying not to almost steam his face off with boiling water. Though a brow-less Seokjin would make good blackmail fodder for later, you wanted to avoid the danger if only because you were shit useless when it came to helping heal vampiric wounds.

“No clue.” He shrugged, hissing when he grabbed a metal pot with his bare hand like an idiot (like you would have but, you know, this isn’t about you). “I just saw the word in a human recipe book and I thought that it fit nicely with the joke.”

“Okay now I dare you to try and make a pun out of cavatappi.”

“Pass.” He waved you away as you let out a bark of laughter to the ceiling. However, the fact that you laughed at all—even if it was at him rather than with him—seemed to goad his ego. “Hah! I win!”

“I only laughed because you’re stupid.”

“Still a win, stupidity or no stupidity.”

Rolling your eyes, you turned the page over only to come face to face with an illustration more baffling than understanding atomic diagrams in school—well, the schooling that was considered ‘normal’ instead of the Hunter’s Association’s vampire-killing training. You probably (no, you know) you looked like a doofus, your lip curled in confusion as you stared at the image; you were positive you would be able to grow wings on your forehead sooner than you would be able to make sense of the gibberish information spread out before you.

“And I thought human anatomy was difficult.” You frowned at the book. “What the hell is a vesticular astral plane manifestor? And why are there like seven of them? Gah! Does anything about vampires make sense?”

“We’re not any more complicated to understand than you, Miss I-have-203-bones.”

“Its 206.”

“Well you don’t know what a manifestor is.”

“Because humans are normal!”

He scoffed, though his lips were turned up in a smirk. “Yeah, sure ‘Normal’.”

Part of you really wanted to throw the 1800’s equivalent of “vampires for dummies” that you were straining your feeble brain over at him; but, the smarter part of you said that you were hungry and you weren’t willing to risk angering him.

However, you doubted that Kim Seokjin ever actually got angry—he was surprisingly levelheaded for someone who tripped over his own foot every two seconds.

Of course, you were one to talk.

“So like—is this a diagram of a mated vampire then? Or like?” You twisted the book sideways, as if seeing it from the different angle would make it easier to understand. All it did was make the legend harder to read.

“There’s no difference in the anatomy of a mated and an unmated vampire, Y/N.”

“Liar.” You furrowed your brow in concentration. “There’s got to be something to explain cranky-pants.”

“It’s called having a human mate.”

“Bullshit!”

“Do you ever refrain from swearing?”

“Rarely.”

He sighed, shoulders dropping at your proud grunt of victory. “Namjoon is just worried about you, that is all.”

“Hmph. Yeah right, then why does he always make Taehyung and Hoseok go do his random shit just to make sure I’m alone. I swear, if he could make you go away too, he would. What is the point of keeping me if I’m to have no contact with anyone outside of himself? Which is another thing--” You sensed yourself trailing off into a tangent, and, instead of finishing it, you let your voice wander off with your thoughts as you squinted at the tiny print of the legend.

Seokjin laughed, stirring the pot with one hand as he reached up in the cupboard for a strainer. “Yes, probably. Though, it doesn’t help that you are rebellious for someone who got scared of me opening a box of noodles.”

“I was focused!”

“Sure you were.”

Dropping your head to curtain your face with your hair, you let the redness of your cheeks heat and cool down outside of Seokjin’s gaze. “Shut up. I don’t get him.”

You could feel Seokjin’s eyes on you as he turned away from your dinner. “But you’re trying to, right?”

“I--” More redness, more shriveling up within yourself to hide the fact that you were now more tomato than human. “It’s only fair, right?”

Seokjin cocked his head. “Cute.”

You flipped him off.

“Why are you showing me your finger? Is there something wrong with it?”

You sighed, shoulders caving in defeat. “I’m hungry.”

With a roll of his eyes, the elder turned back to the pot to strain the pasta into the sink. “You know his crankiness is just how he shows affection—vampires aren’t known for outwardly caring.”

“Well it’s confusing.” You mumbled to the book, flipping the page if only because you felt a migraine building in your temple from staring at the jumbled image for so long.

“What’s confusing?”

You nearly jumped out of your skin at the sound of Namjoon’s voice, turning to see him leaning against the doorway, face screwed in disgust. Clutching the fabric at your chest, you relaxed enough to let out a sigh that somewhat calmed the erratic heartbeat slamming into your fingertips. “You deserve every bit of that.” You glared at him.

Swallowing the nausea, he raised an eyebrow at you with the smallest of smirks. “I suppose I do—however, it would be much appreciated if you learned to be less afraid of everything that comes your way; specifically, of the harmless factors in your life.”

Halfway through his speech, you turned back to the book splayed out on the table with a grunt that neither confirmed nor denied his statement.

Silence blanketed the room for only a few seconds, and then you sensed the agitation from the man in the doorway mere moments before his voice echoed across the room. “So you’re just going to ignore my question?” He lifted his gaze up from you to Seokjin who was currently too busy dumping pasta back into the pot via strainer.

Seokjin only shrugged.

Your attention was focused on the text rather than the clan leader, purposefully avoiding him for the sake of your own pride.

“Y/N.”

“Mm.”

He sighed, on the verge of banging his head against the wall just to get your attention. Part of you fully believed that he was attempting to direct his thoughts at you in the hopes that maybe—just maybe—you would be able to hear them; but, alas, you were human.

And even if you weren’t, you were denser than clay.

He licked his lips. “What is confusing?”

Ah, so it was like that.

He was a man that didn’t like to be left out of the loop—which was probably one of the traits that made him so crazy successful at being a clan leader. You were at least thankful that he was much more polite than people you’d met in the past who held a similar character trait. It might have been unwanted wishful thinking, but you wanted to believe that this unashamed desire to know what was going on was a trait mostly reserved for you and you alone.

The majority of you wanted to ignore the fact that you were becoming that much more intuitive to him.

“You are.”

He visibly relaxed when you finally answered, though the actual response seemed more troubling than your grumpy silence. “How so?”

You pursed your lips at the book, unable to formulate the answer in a way that would pass your lips aloud without your face turning the color of the pasta sauce Seokjin was grabbing.

Your affection is strange and confusing. I don’t get it. I just don’t understand why… You paused, head snapping up. Hey wait—doesn’t pasta sauce normally…

“Seokjin!” You nearly screeched, chair slamming to the ground behind you as you dove over the table with enough force to nearly flip it completely. Heart pounding against your sternum with adrenaline, you clasped his hand tight on top of the lid he was about two seconds away from unscrewing from the jar, nails digging in tight enough to bruise but not to cut—you were a nail biter, so there wasn’t much there to actually cut with.  “Don’t!” Was the only thing that you could manage to say past the blood rushing in your ears.

Heaving in air like you were freshly drowned, you stared at Seokjin as if he was the biggest idiot on the planet. Out of your peripherals, you could see Namjoon torn between puking and being frozen in a pose that suggested that the building was about to burst down in a hail of bullets.

It was strangely comforting that his first reaction was for him to come towards you rather than out the door, despite the fact that your fear made him sick as hell.

“What?” Seokjin stared back at you, wide-eyed and with concern knitting his brow.

You removed one of your hands from the lid, slapping his away with it in order to take the jar from his grasp. Spinning it towards you, you squinted at the ingredients label.

“There’s garlic in this you moron.”

“What?”

With a shaky sigh, you sat back on your heels and let out a laugh that was enough to relax both you and the males in the room. “Pasta sauce usually has garlic in it, idiot—did you not check it before hand?”

He shrugged. “How was I to know? I don’t eat human food—besides, I did see some sauce recipes that included garlic and some that didn’t.”

“So you didn’t think to check?” You repeated, clutching the jar to your chest like the garlic could seep through glass and hurt your babysitter and infuriating savior.

“It didn’t say so on the front so I assumed it was fine.”

You wanted to facepalm and/or throw something at the male; it was like talking to a two year old—but you supposed you had to give them the benefit of the doubt considering they didn’t know any better. They weren’t human.

It was probably the same thing when they spoke to you about the concerns of vampires.

“I…” You pursed your lips, holding onto the jar tighter in your death grip as if they might try and wrestle it from you and hurt themselves. “Just the noodles are fine.”

Seokjin cocked his head. “I’m sure we can make something that’ll taste better—I’ve read that noodles are bland on their own.”

You chuckled, feeling Namjoon’s eyes on the side of your face as you shook your head. “Its fine, Jin, I’m just thankful for the food as it is.” Climbing down off the table, you spun the jar around in your grasp as you analyzed the kitchen, deciding what to do with it. Because you were dumb and because you had no willpower to figure it out after that heart attack, you stepped towards the farthest cupboard to tuck the jar back up and away—out of sight out of mind, for now.

“But—“

“It’s fine, really.” You grinned at the elder man before turning to finally face Namjoon. You hated how his stare made your heart do strange gymnastics in your chest despite you doing everything in your power to stop it. “What?”

He raised an eyebrow at you, his head cocked to the side. “Nothing.”

There’s obviously something.

He only hummed in response and you didn’t have a spine strong enough to pursue it further.

~.~

Now that the world was open to you—well, now that you could exist in more than one room and one room only—you liked to sit next to the window when you read. Though, it was really only as close as you could manage to get to said window. Namjoon, being a clan leader, had gone through extensive preparations in order to ensure your safety.

Even if it felt more like baby locks on a cabinet door versus protection for yourself.

There were bars on the windows to stop things from getting in—or out, but you know, he glossed over that part—and on top of that, there was shit blocking the windows and a nice, strict line taped directly to the floor to indicate where you weren’t supposed to stand. The furniture blocking the immediate access to the window was even bolted to the damn floor; so, unless you were a spider monkey (you tried, you were not much of one), you couldn’t directly disobey.

Sitting on top of the tape—more on the side you shouldn’t be on than the side you should be on—you thought that it was kind of cute how worried he was about you. Also kind of borderline new parent in a game of “why is my child trying to kill itself?” but you know, cute nonetheless.

“Y/N, what if someone has a gun? That glass isn’t bulletproof!”

You stared at him like he was the most idiotic person you’d ever met—and damnit you had to meet yourself every single day of your life. “What vampire uses a gun?”

“Y/N!”

You had the same book in your hands—a book that you were beginning to look at with fondness now, maybe because it took so damn long for you to make sense of any of; or, maybe, it was because it made you that much closer to understanding Namjoon a tiny bit better.

Why you wanted to was a forced secret between you and your subconscious.

Flipping past the anatomy section, you moved onto the middle bit—the one you only opened when you knew you were absolutely alone. To be caught red-handed reading about vampiric mates would be embarrassing, especially when you’ve spent so long in denial.

Vampires are not creatures whose relationships strive off of physical affection. While monogamous, they focus on their intellectual connection and reserve touches for necessary occasions or for procreation.

You flipped to another page, enjoying the sunlight warming your face. It was nice to see something other than brick, drywall and the same four vampires.

Mates are the source of life for each other. While a mate’s fear is nauseating, there is power in having a mate by one’s side. This source of energy far outweighs any benefit gained by feeding from a human’s fear via death; one’s abilities are near limitless in presence or defense or their mate.

You pursed your lips as if you could actually comprehend that—it didn’t add up enough with your current experiences to make any sense. All you’ve noticed is that you have only ever been a hindrance to Namjoon. Annoying, loud, injured and afraid of everything that comes your way—none of those equaled power of any sort.

Despite the disagreement, you devoured the words page after page, the expanses of unread passing and decreasing in the blink of an eye. The book captured your attention to the point that the world dropped around you, transporting you somewhere far away from the compound—from the sun and the ground.

To touch a vampire is a rare occasion; one that should be cherished fully, for it is foreign. Be thankful, even if touched as nothing more than a meal. To any human who may have stumbled across this book written by vampires about vampires, it is a pity that your level of comprehension is lacking and therefore you cannot understand just how complex the workings of vampire communication are.

I pray that this book leaves your hands before you are made a meal of.

And, to any vampires who have found this, may this book bring you a greater understanding of self and may our future be prosperous—may our kind be pulled out of the shadows to rise once more.

“Okay, dude, you had such a good thing going and then you just had to shit on us humans, didn’t ya?”

You grumbled to the pages, still too lost to notice that you weren’t alone in the room. Still too lost to notice that Seokjin’s piercing gaze from the doorway was catching you in a place where you were obviously not supposed to be and reading a book you obviously weren’t supposed to be interested in.

Okay, the latter was only obvious to your ass backwards human emotions that said “FUCKING RUN DON’T LET HIM KNOW” anytime you showed interest in another human being…well...in this case…being.

“Is there something you wish to know about mates, Y/N?”

You nearly jumped out of your skin, the fear screeching up your spine and out of your body in a flash so quick that not even Seokjin had time to digest it; at least your recoveries were getting quicker.

“I appreciate the morsel, but you are off limits to feed from.”

You threw your finished book at him, the old leather creating an arc of dust that left a trail of sparkling particles lit up by the beam of sunlight. “If y’all would wear heels or something so I could at least hear you coming it would be great.”

He only laughed and, for a moment, you expected there to be fangs despite being well aware that the stereotype was incredibly false.

“Asshole.” You muttered, your calming heart allowing you to lean back so the weight of your body rested on the heel of your palms. “What do you want?”

“Well I came in pursuit of inquiring about supper, but now I’m more curious as to why you are investigating mates.”

Your head dipped to your chest, the rising heat of your skin causing you to want to put a barrier between you and Seokjin’s gaze.

“That’s a nervous tic of yours, you know that? You always try and hide your embarrassment.”

“No shit Sherlock, you think I’m unaware of this?” You curled your lip at your dusty, jean-clad knees. “You know, you don’t have to point out the obvious just because you notice it.”

“Who the hell is Sherlock?”

You groaned, rolling your eyes. “For fuck’s sake.”

“You swear quite a lot too, humans are honestly so vulgar.”

You really wanted nothing more than to flip off the vampire, but you knew that he wouldn’t understand the offense to the gesture and so you curled your hands into fists if only because, if you were going to go through the effort, you wanted him to feel your spite.

“What is on your mind, Y/N?”

You winced. Why did you wear everything on your face? You wondered if Namjoon was able to read you just as well, or maybe Seokjin was just well versed in the language of idiot. “It says vampires hate touching.”

There was silence for a moment while Seokjin gathered his words, as if sensing this was a sensitive subject for you. Why was it so sensitive? You didn’t know? Did you really want to hold Namjoon’s hand? Cuddle with him? Take long walks on the beach hand in hand?

Brain don’t you dare answer that, don’t betray me now.

Yes. Yes you did.

Fuck you.

The inner war had you making yet another face at your knees.

“Well, yes, we’re not fond of it. To us, it doesn’t really make much sense.”

You grunted, screwing your eyes shut to the memory of his hands on your face, brushing away your tears as you nearly hyperventilated in his chair. “Interesting.”

“What is?”

“Nothing.” You shook your head, ridding yourself of the memory with a shrug as you swiveled yourself to properly face him. “Actually, it’s nice timing that you found me. I have a proposition for you.”

He settled into his hips, one eyebrow raised. “Mm? But is this a proposition I’ll be interested in?”

You laughed, eyes sparkling with a dangerous fire. “Probably not, but I can be pretty persuasive.”

“Well, I shall be the judge of that.”

You smiled, tilting your chin. “How confident are you in human medicine, Jinnie?”

“Why do I not like the pet name? It sounds like you want something that I don’t want to give you and that is scarier than any vampire out there.”

“Answer the question.”

He frowned at you. “Why?”

You refused to pull your stare from his, nails digging into the wooden floor. “I want you to take out whatever bullshit you found in me. I want you to put me under—if you can, if you can’t do it while I’m awake—and open my chest and rip out that fucker. Preferably, I would like you to close me back up and make me better afterwards.”

His eyes widened with each sentence, growing even wider at the lack of a joke in your expression and the utter seriousness to the wicked glint in your stare.

“Y/N…Namjoon—Namjoon’ll—“

“He doesn’t own me.” You cut him off, shoulders relaxing as the elephant in the room finally reared its head and left. “This is what I want. This is what I need you to do for me.”

“Y/N—I don’t know…I don’t know if I’m able to do that without killing you. I’m not a surgeon, not a healer—nevertheless for a human. I’d have to read up on it and even then…”

“Then read. Figure it out. I don’t care what happens, if I’m—“ a spike of fear that you swallowed, it undoubtedly didn’t go unnoticed by Seokjin. “—if I’m going to be irreparable, if I’m going to be damaged or maimed afterwards, that’s fine. I would like to be alive—and unharmed—but if that doesn’t happen, it’s…” You screwed your eyes shut, remembering those warm gold eyes. “It’s what it is. I’m not going to watch him get hurt because of me.”

“You’re doing this for Namjoon?”

“I’m doing this for me, Jin. I’m doing this for me.”

“What happens when you die? What happens to me when Namjoon finds out what we did?”

You pursed your lips, raising one challenging eyebrow. “You won’t let me die that easily.”

He sighed, licking his lips as he stared at the wall, the bookshelves, the window—anything that wasn’t staring directly back at him and would allow him a moment’s contemplation. “Y/N, do you honestly trust me that much that you are willing to put your life in my hands? I am a vampire, I have control over my urges but…I—“

“I trust you.” You said with the utmost certainty. “If there’s anyone in this whole compound I trust, it would be you.”

He nodded, more to himself than to you, and finally, finally, lifted his gaze back to yours. There was a softness in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.

“I told you,” you chuckled, “I’m pretty convincing.”

Laughing on a mini-eyeroll, he crossed his arms over his chest. “I haven’t made my mind up about that. However, I believe that I will agree to your proposal—on my terms. Firstly, it will take preparation. I need to read more and gather the necessary materials without Namjoon’s knowledge; secondly, I presume you don’t want him to be aware of this proposition?”

You cocked your head. “How likely do you think this would actually happen if Namjoon were to know?”

“Alright then.” He nodded. “I will also need time to find a space to do this in, and you will need to craft a proper time to allow this—a time when Namjoon is not around. I will leave that one to you as you are more aware of his movements than I am.”

“So, it’s a deal?”

He grinned. “We have a deal.”

~.~

There were a lot of things that you didn’t expect to happen when you found out you were captured by a vampire. You didn’t expect kindness, you didn’t expect someone to claim to be your mate and then not love you at the end of it. You didn’t expect to be healed and then treated like a precious pet. You didn’t expect to find friends and understanding in creatures that had only shown you pain and agony.

And honestly, the last thing you expected out of everything was to find the biggest, baddest clan leader of the entire continent huddled up under a blanket like an absolute child, his eyes glued to a television set positively blaring a really shitty romance movie.

Okay, maybe it was supposedly a good romance movie—but you cringed easily and thus you preferred romantic comedies because laughter eased awkward situations.

That wasn’t the point anyways, the point was that the room he had holed himself in screamed anything but good—like there were ghosts in the walls of people who had died and/or been tortured to hell there. It was a room that he probably thought that you would never go in, considering you were literally afraid of everything and this room screamed doom and terror. However, fear didn’t mean that you weren’t stupid enough to explore places you shouldn’t.

And thus, the idiot in a blanket watching two humans make out in a room with bloodstains on the wall and deep-rooted marks on the floor looked up as you threw open the door, his eyes wide and glowing gold at the scent of your momentary fear.

They dulled to a brown when your fear subsided at the absolute absurdity of him.

He paused the screen as if he wasn’t caught red handed watching something that would embarrass most human men. You had never seen Namjoon embarrassed, and he didn’t appear to be so now either.

However, he didn’t look entirely comfortable in your presence.

Adorable.

The two of you stood like that for a moment, him on the floor of the torture chamber and you standing in the doorway with the hall-light illuminating your back. There were no words—hell, not even a coherent stream of thought--bouncing around inside your skull.

Just confusion, lots and lots of confusion. Especially as your eyes took in the makeshift bed, the pillows, the things that suggested that you had finally figured out where Namjoon had been sleeping all these months.

Why here?

More confusion.

“You shouldn’t be here. You should be smart enough to know that this wing brings no good—you weren’t allowed to come down here.”

Your thoughts collided into clarity with your sudden sense of defiance. “And since when have I ever listened to where I can and can’t be?”

You thought of the time he caught you leaning against the window, having climbed over his barricades just to get some sunlight. He had been so angry and you had been so terrified that it should have prevented you from doing is a second time, a third time, the thirty-first time….

Well, it didn’t.

And the lack of amusement on his face now, surprisingly, didn’t make you feel afraid—instead, it only created plenty for yourself.

“Why are you watching this?”

He frowned at the television, his gaze refusing to meet yours—you had to say, that was the closest you’d ever seen the man come to your ‘human embarrassment’.

“I wanted to understand something, and I was told that this would be the best option to try to do so.”

You cocked your head, taking a deep breath as the pieces clicked just far enough and you stepped deeper into the room towards him. You tried your best not to jump as the door shut behind you and locked you in almost darkness, but you knew you failed when your steps skipped and you nearly fell on your face.

Namjoon only watched you approach him, his eyes never leaving you as you made your way towards him and lowered your ass to the cold, hard ground next to him.

You tried not to think about the bloodstains; luckily, it was easy enough when you had Namjoon next to you.

Even easier still when the glow from the romance movie hit your face as he pressed play on the remote by his side. Seemed he was one, enjoying the movie and two, impatient when it came to getting back to it.

“What did you want to understand?” You said finally, watching the couple on the screen run into each other in the rain, their kisses passionate and utterly cringey to you who could barely even touch the person who cared about but didn’t love you.

“I wanted to understand human affection, since mine is apparently so confusing.” His voice almost made it sound like he was pouting, and, to be honest, it was kind of cute and comedic to imagine that a clan leader was pouting over something so stupid.

His hands tightened around the blanket.

“So you did this because of me? And you didn’t want me to find out?” You curled your knees to your chest, the cold of the floor seeping through the fabric of your jeans, sending a freezing hand down your spine.

He nodded.

You wanted to tell him that it was fine, that he didn’t have to do all of this for you. He didn’t have to try and understand your version of affection, he didn’t have to pretend like he loved you, he didn’t have to do anything more for you than he’d already done. However, you couldn’t get the words out because the locked emotion in your chest prevented you from letting any of the lies escape.

It would be false, it would be wrong.

If you were to be stuck with someone, if you were to have someone claim to be your mate, you wanted them to love you. You wanted to be able to love them—you wanted that contact, skin to skin and heart to heart. The past few years devoid of any sort of care, touch or conversation at the Hunter’s Association made you want all of those even more. You wanted to care about someone, and you wanted them to care about you.

For some reason, you still had enough fight in you to believe that you didn’t actually care about Kim Namjoon.

The fact that you cried over his safety was enough to prove that your head and your body were at a disconnect and you desperately wanted your brain to be the truth teller.

You knew it wasn’t.

It never was.

“Thank you.” You murmured, suppressing your shiver as you rubbed out the goosebumps on your forearms.

Both of you watched the couple on the screen, watched how they kissed, how they spoke to each other and held each other’s hands. You watched them hug, watched them huddle on a bed and speak with their parent’s about a dramatic engagement that was fated to be disliked by whatever awful future-in-laws and evil bitches were trying to break it up.

God, honestly, romance movies were so damn dramatic.

“Why aren’t you afraid?”

You cocked your head at him, pulling your gaze from the television long enough to see him staring at you from the corners of his eyes.

“This room, by previous standards, should terrify you—but you’re not afraid. Not at all.”

There was heat creeping its way up your neck, spreading across your ears. For once, you didn’t have to duck your head to hide it from him—the room was dark enough as it was. “I—It’s not scary.” You murmured, trying to force the words from your mouth instead of your head—but, you were weak and it was easier to think them then to say them.

I think it’s because you’re here.

There was a moment where you almost believed that he didn’t hear you, that suddenly whatever mate bond the two of you had didn’t allow him to detect that string of thought. However, after a long pause, after a moment of studying the couple’s next kiss, he let go of one side of his blanket.

Suddenly, there was access to his flank.

You stared at him, confused and unable to read the nonverbal cues he was giving you.

“It’s cold.” He said, like that made any sense for him to no longer have a blanket on one side of himself.

“Yea.” You wanted to spit something else sarcastic at him, but for whatever reason there was a moment there between you that you didn’t want to shit on.

At least not yet.

“Humans get cold easily, do they not?”

“And vampires don’t like to touch. Why are we stating the obvious?” You said equally as stupid as the man besides you.

Seemed he, too, had a hard of a time getting out cheesy phrases.

“Y/N.” He sighed.

You ran your tongue along your teeth, opting for the coward’s way out since it was easier and you were terrified of the way your heart constricted at the thought that this was what you thought it was.

Can I?

Without looking at you, he reached his arm around you and brought your shoulder to his, winding the blanket around the both of you.

Surprisingly, he was warm. It shouldn’t have been surprising, they still had circulatory systems—they still had a heart that beat; you blamed the fact that everything that was associated with the word vampire before 2048 screamed cold. The chill from the floor was nothing compared to the furnace that was Kim Namjoon.

You kept your hands in your lap, if only because you were positive that, if they weren’t, they would find his—and this had to be enough. It was going to be enough for you. You were going to make sure that this was enough for you.

Maybe he would never love you, maybe he would never reach over to hold your hand or kiss you—maybe he would never tell you anything about how he felt. Maybe it would never be like how your parents were; maybe it would never be like the movies. Maybe he would never understand you and maybe you would never understand him.

But this was enough.

And you were starting the long journey of being okay with that.

“Why do humans kiss? It doesn’t make any sense and it seems incredibly unsanitary for beings that fall ill so easily.”

You groaned. “Don’t ruin the moment.”

“What moment?” He frowned, turning to look at you like you were speaking gibberish. For once, it might have been helpful if he could read your thoughts like a normal mate.

With a sigh, you reached up and gingerly touched his face with two of your fingers, forcing his expression back to the television. “Just watch your movie.”

“Do you like courtship movies?”

You let out an unintentional bark of laughter. “It’s called romance, dumbass. And not particularly, I like romantic comedies but I prefer action oriented movies in general—considering I’ve got the attention span of a squirrel.”

“You’re about as brave as one too.”

You contemplated smacking him, but you were too comfortable to put in too much added effort, so you resorted to making a stupid face that had him laughing without ever even looking at you.

~.~

The bedroom that you almost died in suddenly felt too cramped and too full—considering all seven aware of your existence were piled in there like it was some party. Lucky for you, Hoseok and Taehyung seemed adamant on making it one by inviting you to play a shitty board game they found in an abandoned apartment complex. You didn’t know whether to call this bedroom yours or Namjoon’s, considering he had probably used it before your ass came running down the street with a child in your arms and a vampire on your heels. However, you’d never seen him sleep there.

You assumed he resorted himself to holing up in that awful torture chamber of a room for your peace of mind at night.

He still thought that you couldn’t be vulnerable around him.

For once, the man that was usually right was dead wrong.

You had no idea why they all suddenly decided to burst in on you and the idiot brigade’s fun time. But, with Hoseok’s knee a millimeter away from touching yours and six other vampires in the room, you thought that it was interesting just how damn different they could be when it came to contact.

Taehyung avoided touching you, though you had this inkling that he was secretly a hugger. Hoseok hated, hated contact but enjoyed being almost there at all times. And then, well then there was Yoongi. Yes, granted he had a mate, and granted he was a grumpy son-of-a-bitch most days, but he was an outlier in the mix. If you thought Namjoon was bad when it came to physical contact, Yoongi, who only ever sat in a corner avoiding everyone’s advances, was a trillion times worse.

Rolling the dice to the game, you looked up as Namjoon made up the last and final of the seven by stepping into the room. Honestly, you didn’t mean to look up to him—you didn’t mean to be drawn to him—but it was like it was natural. He had that aura that exuded ‘leader’; it was impossible for all eyes to not be on him. Everyone was drawn to him—at least, that was the excuse you gave yourself as you tried to quickly look away.

As you tried to make it seem like you weren’t swept up in how nice his clothing fit him today.

“What’s with the emergency meeting?” Seokjin wasted no time, speaking before anyone else could even utter a word. You supposed it made sense, Jin was the eldest in the room and, as a result, he was the only one with a backbone strong enough to meet the clan leader eye to eye.

Or you know, piss him off without dying.

“I’ve made my decision.”

Seokjin’s jaw locked and you couldn’t help but look like a lost dog between the two men, their glares bouncing tension thick enough to cut in the air. “On that?”

“Yes.”

You, being you, blurted stupidly. “What topic? What the hell are you talking about?” However, you only received a passing glance as Taehyung looked on with you, seemingly as confused as you were. Hoseok turned to give you a warming smile that didn’t touch his eyes as he lifted his chin to stare back up at his leader.

“Good.” Yoongi muttered from the corner. “It’s about time.”

Seokjin’s eyes darkened, receiving his answer after deciphering Namjoon’s gaze. The elder man’s hands tightened on his biceps. “I think that this is a stupid idea.”

“I didn’t even say what my answer was.” But there was no anger in Namjoon’s voice, no annoyance—just a fact.

They were that close.

Sometimes, they felt closer than you and your damn mate.

I’m not jealous.

Mmhm, sure Y/N, keep telling yourself that like it makes it true.

“But you’re going to tell them.”

Namjoon sighed, rubbing the back of his neck to smooth out whatever stress had kinked it as he peered down at you. You hated how pity warmed in the depths of his gaze, as if his words were going to break you later.

If that isn’t some fucking shitty foreshadowing for the doomed-ness of my life then I don’t know what is. Your inner thoughts grumbled before you could get a reign on them.

“Yes.” He murmured. “I’m going to tell the rest of the clan about Y/N.”

Taehyung’s stare flit between you and Namjoon, his eyes growing comically wide.

“How long?” Seokjin sighed. “How long do you think you can fend them off if they choose to rise up?” He raised an eyebrow, nodding to the room. “Sure, we’re all here for you—we’re all here for her—but you do really think seven vampires against an army is a risk you’re willing to take?”

You could feel Namjoon’s gaze on you, expectant. It was as if he expected you to burst out into a fit of fear at any minute now. He seemed poised to grab you and run the second you showed any hint of being afraid of the situation—mainly because not all of the vampires in the room had control over their urges.

However, you didn’t even look up at him and instead moved your piece across the board upon the prompt of the die.

When you realized the entire room was holding its breath for your reaction, you looked up and shrugged. “Yeah I should be scared; maybe if I was the same girl I was six months ago. But I’m not.” You chuckled, lifting your chin to meet Namjoon’s gaze.

You won’t let me die, right? You won’t let anyone torture me—you said so yourself. So what is there to be afraid of?

“I think it’s a good idea.”

Seokjin’s gaze was wild, his own fear causing a knee jerk reaction that had Yoongi’s nose crinkling and Jimin holding down Jungkook before he could feed. “Y/N—“

You held up a hand to stop the speech you could sense coming from a mile away. “Hey, this has to happen eventually, right? How long do you think you are all going to be able to keep me a secret? How long do you think I’m just going to sit here like a locked up pet? The humans already know; why not the vampires too? Honesty’s better anyways—builds more trust or something like that.”

“Not all vampires are as tolerant as we are, Y/N.” Yoongi warned, causing you to shrug more to yourself than to anyone else.

“Kay, and? Any of you planning to side-step out of the way of the next vampire that charges at me?”

“No—of course not,” Taehyung murmured. “But Y/N—“

“Then come what may.” You grinned, hoping to relax the tension in the room—all you got was a strained expression from Taehyung and a scoff from Seokjin. “Hey, I didn’t ask for any of this, okay? But I’m here now and this is the sort of shit I’ve got to do. Deal with it. I’m fine with it; you all need to be too.”

“So that’s it then? The decision is made?” Seokjin growled.

Namjoon looked down towards you, eyebrows raised as you let out a harrumph of distress, handing the die over to Hoseok.  “She’s made it. I am easily swayed by her opinion—so if this is what she wants then yes, it’s official.”

You looked up at him out of the corner of your eye.

“I must abide by what my mate decides.” He chuckled, watching with fascination as you ducked your head once more, the barest hint of red lighting up your ears.

~.~

Apparently, this ‘introducing you to the clan’ was more like ‘the king and queen of the fucking world have an announcements for you peasants’ but like, if the king and queen ran a gang.

Okay so a clan wasn’t a gang, but like, close enough.

Namjoon was on this balcony that jutted out over a warehouse floor, leaning over a shoddy railing made of metal and chain link as the entirety of his clan stared up at him.

You knew it was a big clan, like the biggest on the whole continent but holy shit it was big. The warehouse floor was covered wall to wall with bodies and they were all looking up expectantly for whatever big announcement was to come.

You, however, weren’t allowed out on that balcony with Namjoon. Since your fear was far more potent than others and since you had the heart of a jackrabbit you were forced to stand behind a layer of two vampires and watch from the hall. Surprisingly, there wasn’t any fear.

Mostly, you were just awed that there were so many people under the thumb of one man.

Your man.

I’m gonna throw up if you pull that shit one more time, brain.

Namjoon looked over his shoulder at you, raising an eyebrow.

You made a face at him that had him laughing, seemingly causing him to relax.

Was he nervous too?

God, Y/N, how stupid could you be? Of course he was, he was just a hell of a lot better at hiding it than you were. Kim Namjoon looked so damn strong facing this army of a clan. He looked like he belonged there, like he deserved every bit of work and blood that had gone into getting where he was.

And he did.

If there was one thing that you knew about Namjoon, through all of this mess, you knew that he deserved everything he’d achieved.

But, if you squinted, you could see the slight tilt to his shoulders—you could see the way his hands tightened on the railing before him.

If you were stronger, and less afraid of being out in the open in front of a hundred plus vampires, you would have gone out there with him. You would have stood there to try and encourage him as if you actually had the ability to do so. It was so complicated with this man, because you knew you shouldn’t want to encourage the murderer—but while most of you knew the reasons why you were so torn, the stronger part of you adamantly refused them.

You were not and would never be in love with someone incapable of loving you back.

Keep telling yourself that, Y/N.

You knew that stronger part of yourself would eventually tire itself out, and you had to say, you were curious as to what would be the straw that would break it.

But you also didn’t want to find that out either.

Humans are so god damned complicated.

“Alright.” Namjoon’s voice silenced the hum of the crowd below, erasing your thoughts with just a single word. It helped that you could almost sense the fear of those below you, probably because they thought this meeting was held out of anger rather than due to an announcement. Either way, their fear allowed you to leak a bit out of yourself, allowing whatever emitted from you to be swallowed immediately by the two in front of you.

Namjoon straightened.

“Today, I have summoned you all here to inform you of my current situation—seeing as it is out of the ordinary for our kind. Be aware, before I start my message, that I am allowing those who no longer wish to be a part of this clan after today to leave of their own free will. If you choose to do so, after I have finished speaking, no harm will come to you unless you are stupid enough to taunt. May you know that, if you do choose to leave this clan, there will be no mercy shown to you the next time we may meet.”

You could tell that the people below wanted to whisper—they wanted to speak amongst themselves and ask questions that were going to be answered in the next instant. However, they were a well trained clan, hushed by the mere presence of Namjoon. It should have been frightening just how damn powerful the man before you was.

However, you could only imagine him wrapped in a blanket, watching a couple kiss in the rain.

“Don’t humans get sick from this easily? Why on earth are they daring illness for something as trivial as human contact?”

“I have found my mate.”  His voice boomed across the crowd.

A chill slipped its icy fingers up your spine.

That was you—he was referencing you.

Yeah, no shit Y/N. Of course it is you.

Still, the millisecond of fame was flattering—though entirely unwanted amongst vampires.

“However,” his voice silenced your inner ramblings, “she is human.”

Once more, the world broke into silence—complete and utter silence as every single person in the room bit their tongue in confusion, in awe, in shock. You were sure that they had things to say, but even in this moment, Namjoon scared them.

And he, giving them every bit of the leader he was, never once pulled his gaze from the crowd. He never ducked his head, he never hid. “You may speak.”

A thousand voices came from the walls, bouncing off one another. You heard bits and pieces, phrases from different people in different places. It was a cacophony of sound, of anger and betrayal—some of acceptance, but not many. Insults were thrown like bombs, and you let each one hit you with the force of a freight truck.

“A pathetic human?”

“Well where is she?”

“So weak she cannot even face us?”

“This is blasphemous!”

“It has to be a lie!”

“Stop joking with us, humans and vampires can never!”

“Where is this bitch?”

You lifted your chin when Seokjin turned over his shoulder to look at you, a small grimace of a smirk on your features. You shrugged.

You could take insults, slurs, threats. You were known to take a lot of things without fear—verbal wars were the only kind of wars you were good at.

The only kind of war you weren’t afraid of.

Now, maybe if you could see their anger on their faces, see the flashes of red in the crowd, you would find it in you to be afraid.

But again, you were a weak pathetic human hiding behind the protection of vampires.

And then you started to hear the verbal shots fired towards Namjoon.

“Pathetic.”

“I can’t believe he became our leader? How long did he know of this?”

“How could we ever follow a man like this?”

“He’s nothing better than those humans.”

“How dare he?”

“He doesn’t deserve to be clan leader.”

It was a slow boil for you, blood rushing in your ears until that very last insult hit too hard for you. Your anger peaked too quick to be able to stop, the rage burning every last trace of fear from your bones as you gathered your hands into fists at your side.

Without thinking and without any warning—at least, without any warning enough that would allow Seokjin and Hoseok to hold you back from the sheer idiocy of what you were about to do—you burst forward out of the hall and into the light.

You made yourself visible, without a shield, without anything other than you and your anger acting as a barrier between a whole fucking warehouse of killers. But you didn’t stop there. No, you rushed the metal railing, almost as if you were going to launch yourself over the damn thing and into the vampire’s nest below. Thankfully, your better judgment kicked in and only allowed you to crash your hips into the chainlink fence next to Namjoon.

“Shut the fuck up!” You shouted, your voice nearly breaking with the force of your rage. “Shut up!”

Namjoon startled by your side, his eyes boring holes through the side of your face and, were you not too enraged to notice, you would have seen how damn angry he was at you for foiling literally everything.

Plan wrecker Y/N, the only thing you were good at besides tripping over your own foot and cursing for no good reason. Wasn’t it plan wrecking that got you into this mess?

“Who are you to decide that? Huh?” You snapped, hands tightening around the metal dangerously, borderline about to pierce the skin of your palms. “Who are you to decide who deservers what? Did you fight tooth and nail to stand here? No? Are you a god or some other bullshit deity? Huh?” You weren’t giving them time to answer, because, if you did, your nerve would go away and be replaced with fear at your own stupidity. “No, you’re not even close to being a clan leader yourself so why don’t you all just shut the fuck up!”

The crowd was quickly decreasing their volume, if only because there was a crazed human daring to taunt them—you liked the phrase ‘put them in their place’ better but it wasn’t really fitting; it was more like an ant crawling across your barefoot in the middle of summer.

“You followed him long before you ever knew of his mate, and now, because there’s suddenly a human involved you think that he’s lost all sense and can’t be trusted? And you dare call him weak because at least he accepted his fucking fate and did something about it. What the hell are you doing? Are you fucking insane? Do you know how stupid you sound right now?”

The gazes from the vampire’s nest below conveyed a whole array of emotions that you didn’t dare decode or pick apart—probably because you knew that the equation didn’t come out to anything good.

You almost came down from your momentary rage right then and there—if it weren’t for the peanut gallery in the back.

“Human bitch, come down here and we’ll see who thinks they’re a god. You can’t be protected forever!”

Namjoon tensed next to you, about a second from tearing the moron a new one. However, before he could even properly react, you were leaning deeper into the metal railing as you shouted loud enough for the metal walls of the room to echo your voice. “I never claimed to be a god, asshole! At least I’m not saying who deserves what because if I had a damn choice I would be down there shoving a clove of garlic down your throat!”

Hoseok, who had approached you in the hopes to at least force you to let up on the chainlink fence, took a huge step back to fold over to the ground with sputtering laughter.

Apparently a couple other vampires in the crowd found you equally as funny, because you could hear mixed chuckles.

“Y/N—“

But you cut Namjoon off, you weren’t done yet. Not by a longshot.

It takes more courage to deal with humans than it does vampires.

“Say whatever the hell you want about me—I’m the new factor here, the new thing you can’t trust. Your leader is the one that hasn’t changed. He’s the one that you should believe in and put your faith in and continue to follow until the end of your days because I am human and that is exactly what I plan on doing!”

Slowly, you settled back into your heels, your eyes scanning the room for any more complaints as if daring someone to say something more. Like you were actually going to be able to do anything.

What would you do? Fear them to death?

As if coming down from a possession, you felt like you shrank to five times your previous height, your eyes widening as you flit your gaze over to Namjoon. His golden eyes never left your face for even a moment, his lips parted with words he couldn’t say. You thought that, if you could read his mind, you would find all those dead words on his tongue just floating around in his brain.

“I...um…yeah.” You nodded to him as if you could actually read his thoughts. “Yeah.”

“Yeah?” He had a small smile on his face.

You nodded again, this time more to yourself than to him. “Yeah.”

The crowd, after the second half of your speech, broke out into a fresh bout of murmurs—voices rising louder. You couldn’t tell exactly what they were saying, you were too scared to try and discern what was what, who was approving and who wasn’t. You didn’t want to know how many people your existence had caused to leave, you didn’t want to know how much you devastated Namjoon’s efforts simply by being who you were.

And then, you were forced to come face to face with it when the same guy you threatened with garlic you didn’t have, scoffed.

“Are you all really going to let a human’s words affect you like this? Are we now sheep—cattle? Are we now just as weak willed as those we feed from?”  

Before another word could leave his lips—before you could retaliate—the world around you erupted into a flash of pure, blinding white. In that moment, you honestly believed that you died. You believed that the compound had been struck by a bomb, the humans had finally hit. This was the end for you. If this was heaven—or hell, you were pretty sure everyone and their grandmother in this life were going to hell (though the last time you said that out loud the heavy Christian population at the Hunter’s Association literally flogged you)—you didn’t care; it was warm.

It was comforting.

When the brightness passed, when your eyes adjusted to the regular florescent lighting, the world was still alive. You were still alive.

And Namjoon was next to you, his eyes dark with anger.

You followed his gaze to the man who had made it his mission to verbally oppose you every second he got, the peanut gallery in the back who was now folded over, clutching the side of his head. Blood seeped through his fingers, dribbling down his arm. Between his pointer and middle finger was a flap of skin hanging on by a thin stretch, the mangled flesh vaguely resembling what used to be an ear.

“What were you saying, Jisung?” Namjoon’s voice was hard, violent in a way that you had yet to hear. You knew of his capabilities, of how deadly the man that named himself your mate could be when pushed or bored. However, hearing and seeing were two different things.

You said nothing, if only because you were unable to find words anymore. The man, Jisung, only grit his teeth and looked up at the pair of you with anger.

Namjoon looked down at him, his gaze piercing in a way that you had never known it could be.

Perhaps that was because you were the lucky one.

Perhaps that was because you were his mate.

“All who wish to leave this clan, you may do so now.” Namjoon’s voice echoed across the room, quieting the murmurs once more.

There was a dreaded pause, a prolonged silence that continued until the door slammed behind Jisung and his crew, until bit by bit, one by one, vampires left. It wasn’t a lot, but maybe you didn’t want to know just how many people you caused to leave the man you knew was more than capable to lead them to the end. Each person that walked through the door was another apology muttered in your mind, each person that stepped away from the clan another reminder that whatever cloud you had been floating on thinking that life would be peachy-keen was dissipating around you.

Without thinking, you slid your hand towards his on the railing, close enough to link your pinkie with his. Sure, vampires didn’t like touches, they didn’t appreciate the feeling of hugs or hand holding—but this was the only thing you knew you could give him without overloading him.

As if on instinct, his pinkie curled around yours as he peered at you out of the corner of his eyes.

You gave him the smallest of smiles.

To ruin the moment, if only because they could and if only because it was in their archetype to do so, Hoseok and Seokjin came on either side of the two of you, leaning on the railing to assess the crowd.

“It’s a lot more than I thought would stay, I’ll give you that.” Seokjin chuckled.

“A hell of a lot more.” Hoseok murmured. “But you know, Y/N had a point and vampires respect fearlessness.”

You turned to make a face at him around Namjoon. “Since when have I ever been fearless?”

Namjoon’s hand never moved to pull away from yours—despite the fact that your pinkies were still intertwined together. “I didn’t think I’d ever see the day, but you were fearless back there.”

For me.

The unspoken words hung above your head, as if you were both thinking them but not saying them aloud. You didn’t know how, but for a moment, you almost heard the phrase in his own voice—as if you were gaining access to his mind for the first time. You doubted it, but the fact that you knew it was a thought running through his head was telling enough to have you ducking your head to hide your blush.

~.~

The announcement to the clan had allowed you more freedom—well, slightly at least. If you were to go anywhere besides your original level, you were required to have one of the seven with you.

Well, one of the six; Jungkook, despite your positive relationship, still wasn’t trusted to be alone with you—he wasn’t known for his control.

So, it was Seokjin who walked down with you when you decided that you wanted to meet a few of the clanspeople who chose to stay. Namjoon, who insisted otherwise, wanted no part in you risking your life. So, instead, he watched from above on that same railing, his eyes never leaving your form for a moment.

He probably let you go if only because Seokjin was allowed to cherry pick the people that you got to meet.

The first person you were brought to, under the guard of Seokjin and Hoseok, was a clanswoman who was murmuring to a group. She was thin, tall with these sparkling eyes that only intensified when she turned to face you. You couldn’t help the spark of fear nonetheless; however, she seemed to drink it in without reaction. Her eyes flashed red for only a moment before it was blinked away and replaced with a warm brown.

“I’m Jiwoo.” She smiled at you, taking your hand to shake it before Seokjin could even properly introduce you to her. You stared at the point where her skin met yours in baffled confusion. “This is a human greeting, right?” She tilted her head in concern, furrowing her brow on you. “Am I doing this wrong?”

You shook your head, which only seemed to make her smile bigger.

“Y/N, Jiwoo here is Yoongi’s mate. Jiwoo, this is the source of your missing clothes.”

“Ah! I was wondering why he kept thinking he was so sneaky taking things out of my closet! I’m happy they’re finding a good home!”

You, however, were dumbstruck, staring up at the side of Seokjin’s face like he just spoke gibberish. The two couldn’t possibly be more different from one another—but you supposed that you weren’t one to talk when it came to mates. Still, imagining the frowning Yoongi holding hands with the girl who seemed to enjoy contact and smiles was beyond your realm of capability.

“I—“

Her grasp tightened on yours, until she was holding your one hand in both of hers. “Do the boys take care of you okay? They’re all quite hopeless when it comes to the opposite gender.” Her eyes flit between you and Seokjin, worry creasing her brows.

“They do.”

She smiled.

“Why are you holding onto her, Jiwoo?” Seokjin raised an eyebrow. “That isn’t natural.”

“Mm. She’s soft, I like it.” She chuckled. “I like her. “ She grinned in the most adorable way and, for a moment, you honestly contemplated your sexuality. “I mean, I liked her already just knowing that she was our leader’s mate, but I found her endearing up there—I’ve never seen a human so protectively brave before.”

“I’m…I’m really not brave.”

She shook her head, chuckling. “Bravery isn’t measured by quantity, Y/N, only quality.” She winked at you, turning to peer over her shoulder. “I’ll have to see if the boys will allow me to visit with you some more, for now, I have a very grumpy mate somewhere in this room that is trying to find me.”

“I’d like that.”

Her smile only grew as she squeezed your hand once more before letting go entirely. “I’ll see you around.” And then, she was gone, disappearing into the crowd.

You were glad that Seokjin introduced you to Jiwoo first, since she seemed to pave the way for the rest of them—making vampires as a whole become significantly less scary. If there was one vampire with sparkling eyes who appreciated contact, then could they really be terrible creatures?

However, despite how many kind ones you met, how many gruff ones, how many strange ones, how many quiet ones Seokjin facilitated your interactions with, they were all quickly blurring together. You couldn’t remember which one was which; after Jiwoo, the names were gone from your brain, replaced with faces you could only vaguely make out.

Seokjin, angel he was, tried to point out which would be safe for you to go to if need be and which ones you were not allowed to be alone with, but your mind was on the brink of overloading.

“Hyung.” Hoseok murmured when you nearly went cross-eyed and collapsed. “I think she’s reached her limit for today.”

You nodded, looking up at the boy in a way that had him laughing. Seokjin only chuckled when that puppy dog stare of yours shifted over to him.

“Okay okay, no more. But before I take you to bed I have to make sure you’re fed first—Namjoon will kill me if he hears your stomach growling again.”

Feverently nodding, you let Seokjin lead you away from the warehouse floor. Despite yourself, you snuck a glance up towards the railing only to find that Namjoon had already disappeared down the hall.

~.~

You, being you, had carelessly thrown open the door to the bedroom after eating, surprised to find that you weren’t alone. Yes, you supposed your mate would search you out to check on you; however, it seemed that said mate was passed out spread eagle on the bed before you.

Quietly, you muttered a soft. “Namjoon?”

He didn’t respond, rather, he seemed more dead than alive—if it weren’t for the telltale rise and fall of his chest and the gentle snores.

Gingerly closing the door behind you, you padded deeper into the room.

He was probably tired, you noted as you studied his face. It was difficult to sleep in an area you weren’t used to, why should vampires be any different? Since he had holed his ass up in some damn torture dungeon for the sake of your comfort and fear, you felt some sort of responsibility for this exhaustion of his.

Logically speaking, it shouldn’t be entirely your fault—he was a clan leader, he made his own choices, blahblahblah…

However, you weren’t a being built on logic. Instead, the raw emotion tightened something in your chest as he slept.

He was asleep, so it was fine. It was fine. If he couldn’t see, then it was fine to give in to yourself just a little bit.

Just a bit.

It was fine.

Keep repeating that to yourself, Y/N like it makes you any less creepy.

One toe in the waters before you ultimately jumped in—unless your denial was stronger (it wasn’t).

Brow furrowed, you tiptoed your way towards the bed, extra careful so as not to wake him. It seemed he didn’t wake easily, but you weren’t about to take that risk. Very carefully, with the smallest of movements, you inched your way up onto the bed, forcing yourself to the very edge—to the point that you were nearly falling off the bed in an attempt to not interfere with his space.

This was a better position to watch him, like a stalker, but ya know. When else would you get this chance? For once, you could look at the man who saved you without feeling shame or that surge of denial that turned your face red and had you looking away. For once, you could truly see the person who took you from the human world and brought you into his own.

You had to admit, he was handsome. Maybe it was because that pull of fate was so damn strong, but you couldn’t help but find the way his eyelashes hit his cheek adorable, the way his dimples dented his cheeks when he smiled or got excited. You couldn’t stop picturing those gold eyes as they looked at you with curiosity, sadness, happiness, amusement…

Something else?

You found yourself wanting to reach out and touch him—you wanted to hold his hand, you wanted to have that contact that was the line in the sand between you. You stopped yourself if only because you didn’t want him to wake up. You didn’t want him to see you wanting to be close to him.

Instead, you stared at the curve of his lips, laughing at the small bubble of a snore that came out more gurgle than anything else. So maybe this man wasn’t as handsome when he was asleep—but did anyone? You were sure the sight of you drooling on your pillow with one hand buried in your rat’s nest of bed-head was anything but model status.

Your gaze drifted to his shoulders, as if you could remember him folding you over them to bring you inside, to set you against the wheel of a tire. But it wasn’t ever his shoulders you remembered.

Your eyes drooped.

He still had the same smile though.

When did he smile at you before? Somehow, you imagined that he had when he left you at the drop off point—when he first met you, as if he knew he’d see you again.

~.~

You only realized you had fallen asleep when you opened your eyes.

Namjoon’s gaze immediately bored into yours, his stare probably just as intense had yours had been when you watched him sleep moments (moments? Try hours) before. He seemed to watch every miniscule movement with interest, startling your freshly woken self.

When you tried to back away out of embarrassment, you found that his hand was over your outstretched one. Stupidly, you must had tried reaching out for him in your sleep—funny how, even though you didn’t remember what you were dreaming about, it was the best sleep you’d ever had.

“I—I’m—I’m sorry!” You hissed, trying to yank your hand out from under his.

His fingers tightened, refusing to let you go in favor of staring at the point where his skin met yours. “Don’t be.”

You were lucky that you were slow on the uptake when you were first woken up; otherwise you were sure your face would have been the color of lobsters.  

“I…I thought vampires were supposed to have colder skin.” You mused.

Smart. Good distraction Y/N. Couldn’t come up with anything better? Why do humans only talk about temperature when they have nothing else to say? Nice weather today? Ah pretty hot outside isn’t it? Funny how past preconceptions of vampires make my species as a whole stereotype you incorrectly, right?

He only chuckled. “Well, you feel warmer to the touch than I do—but I suppose we are warmer than you think because, while our circulatory system works at half speed, it doesn’t affect our internal temperature.”

You pursed your lips, following his gaze to your hands as nearly all of his words flew right over your head. With nothing better to say, you cut to the chase.

“Why?”

“Hm?” He cocked his head as best he could while lying down.

“Why are you holding my hand? I—I was—I was being a creep.” You whispered. “I don’t deserve hand holding.”

“Is this not what human pairings do? Hold each other’s hands? Admire each other?”

“Since when are we a…’pairing’?”

He raised one eyebrow, giving you that shit eating grin he had when he knew he caught you red handed. “You have no room to complain about personal space, miss ‘creep’.”

You felt the heat rising to your cheeks, and in an attempt to save some face you tried to duck your head out of Namjoon’s sight. However, his nails digging into the skin of your palm stopped you from fully doing so. He drank in the rare moment, scanning every bit of your reddened face. “Is this why you always hide from me when you experience chagrin?”

“It makes it worse!” You hissed, wanting to raise your voice but not finding the energy to do so.

His lips twitched. “I like it.”He murmured softly, his eyes flitting across your face as if he could memorize this moment and be able print a physical copy of it from his brain. “Do that again.”

“Do what?”

“Make your cheeks warm with color.”

“I—“ But you were weak, you were easily afraid, easily talked into things, easily convinced, and fuck, you were easily embarrassed. Your body obeyed his command.

He hissed in air through his teeth. “Why do I enjoy that?”

You laughed, unintentionally leaning closer to him. “Perhaps you are more human than I thought.”

"You know I will. God of destruction, remember?"

"I will add it to my fees, so make your body work like a normal human’s and we will be fine." You turned to the wall, staring at the hefty weight of a blank canvas. If there was one thing about Namjoon, it was that he was terrible at taking orders. Really good at listening, but just not following through—it was an infuriating combination. As such, he never left your side; instead, he wrapped one arm over your shoulders.

“Don’t overthink things; whatever you do will be beautiful. I wouldn’t have offered you this if you did shit work.” Another infuriating trait of his was knowing what you needed before you even realized there was something wrong.

“Lying will get you nowhere. I know you’re just here to feed your starving artist friend for a few months.”

Namjoon groaned to the ceiling. “And self-hate will only take you backwards, you brat. Realize your worth already.” He squeezed you once more before walking out towards your car, leaving you to stew alone.

Rather than wallowing in your bout of self-pity, you sat yourself down and stared at the texture of the brick, hiking yourself up onto a table to better get a feel for the space your mural would occupy. For whatever reason, your mind was instantly thrown back to when the both of you were in different universities and your idiot best friend invited you to the chaos that was his friend group. For some, stupid reason, someone as destructive as Kim Namjoon decided to join a singing and dancing club. They were great though; they utilized his rapping skills effectively and made him seem cooler than he really was. That didn’t mean the whole dancing thing worked in his favor—the guy was a human wrecking ball after all.

“Jungkook put a shirt on! She’s going to be here any second!” Namjoon was shouting, trying to take control of a situation that looked like it was about ten seconds from burning to the ground completely. Sweaty friends leaned half clothed against any surface imaginable—laughing at each other and reveling in your childhood friend’s pain. “Guys! Please!”

You raised an eyebrow, chuckling to yourself as you waited to see how long it would take for your normally level-headed friend to notice that you were already there.

“Hyung—“ One of the younger looking ones—one with cute baby fat cheeks that you knew would slim out in the future--nodded your way.

Namjoon’s face was bright red, his eyes widening on you. “I shouldn’t have invited you here, omigod. No one look—she’s off limits!”

“But she’s cute—“

“Hey, we’re not that bad—“

But you were already folded over laughing, grinning up at him.

That was the atmosphere you wanted--well, maybe with fully clothed people. But you wanted the dancers in the background, the music in the air, the lightheartedness that came from feeling surrounded by friends and kindness. You wanted that feeling of happiness, of being in a space that was more family than stranger. It was Namjoon’s coffee shop after all; he had a knack for making people feel like they belonged.

Your pencil scratched across the paper, your mind lost to the point that the world dropped around you. For all you were aware, you might have been in a black hole with just you, paper, a pencil and a brick wall. At some point, though you didn’t remember when, you grabbed the priming paint and started to slather white across the wall in thick strokes. And then, when you came to reality with the brush in your hand, that familiar, overwhelming sense of dread settled back in your stomach.

This was awful. This was an awful design, it was going to be horrible—you were going to hate it in the exact same way that you hated all of your other works. It was going to pale in comparison.

Comparison.

Namjoon had once said that was your first problem. You always compared yourself to other people, never seeing yourself as yourself.  However, existing in an art space made it difficult to live without comparing yourself to others. There was a reason your colleagues were more successful, there was a reason they did things you could not—you weren’t good enough, you weren’t—

You spun around, the brush still held out in your hand at the exact right angle to slap a streak of white across a very attractive and otherwise confused man. You froze instantly, hearing Namjoon in the background as a mumble rather than a voice, speaking to some customer about what you were doing. It was hard to focus when all you could see and hear was this poor person you had just unknowingly marred with paint that most definitely did not come out of clothing.

“Shit.” You slapped a hand over your mouth, nearly flinging the paintbrush onto the tarp stretched across the floor. “Omigod. I’m so sorry—I’m so, so, so sorry. I honestly didn’t know you were there—ah, omigod.” You didn’t know what to do; you were never good with confrontation and even less good with testosterone.  Did you mention that you had only ever had two boyfriends? One of which lasted a week in middle school because he called you pretty and wanted to kiss you. The other was maybe a month and ended with you finding out that you were a side-chick.  Needless to say, your experiences with men were scarring and strange—and then there was Namjoon.

The stranger just chuckled, wiping the paint speckling his face with the hem of his shirt. “It’s fine, really—this is just my workout shirt anyways. It could use a little sprucing up.” He was grinning, and you found it infectious enough to sooth the tension in your muscles.

“Ah.” It was the most intelligent thing you could manage. Though that wasn’t saying much; you usually had only two brain-cells and, whenever an attractive man was involved, they always seemed too busy fighting each other to focus.  

“Namjoon told me he got an artist friend to paint something for him—I thought I’d check it out.”

Your ears lit aflame and you ducked your head to avoid his direct stare.  He had a nice smile—like a really nice smile. Your heart was doing this thing where it was squeezing so tight that there was a 90% possibility you might throw up on his shoes. “Y-yeah? We’re actually childhood friends, so I’m sure it’s not as grand as you were expecting—well, I only started but yeah. Yeah.” Good one, Y/N. Real smooth.

The man’s eyes seemed to light up, his eyes flitting across your face until something visibly clicked and he let out a small noise of surprise. “Yah! Y/N, right? You’re Y/N?”

You were stiff once more, your feet nailed to the tile beneath you. He was excited, you were confused, and he was cute when he was excited which made for an awful bumbling mess in your stomach.

“I was hoping it was you—I’m Hoseok, Namjoon’s friend from university. I know you only came in once to our studio, I remember I was late and just missed you.”

“Oh.” You tried to fish for memories of Namjoon talking about the man but the only thought pulling free from the strangled thoughts in your head was ‘dancing.’ “You’re…the dancer, right?” You winced at the unsureness in your voice.

He grinned even wider and even more infectious in all the ways that made your feeble heart slam into your ribs. “Yeah, that’s me.”

“I have a friend who dances in her spare time.” You said stupidly, fishing for anything in front of you that would help you relate to a person as impossibly handsome as Hoseok. Minji was probably not the best choice, but she was the only other human you could maybe slap the label of “friend” to.

“Yeah?” He grinned at you.

“Yeah, she’s pretty amazing at painting too. It’s hard to be her friend sometimes with talent like her; I’m not particularly good in comparison—but I try. I’m thankful for this opportunity.”

Hoseok raised on eyebrow at you. “Is she now? I’ll have to get Namjoon’s opinion of this friend of yours; I trust him fully. He always knows the people around him best—after all, he talks endlessly about you.”

You cocked your head at him, face transforming into an even deeper shade of red.

“Ever since university, he never shut up about you. I mean, it was always ‘my cute sister—ah, she’s not actually blood but she might as well be’ and ‘Y/N is so talented, isn’t she?’ Actually, standing here, I see why he was so talkative.” He nodded towards your open and abandoned sketchbook, eyes glued to the page. “It’s hard to believe there’s someone in this world that can do something better than that.”

“I—“

“Hoseok?” Namjoon’s voice cut through your words, allowing you to pull back within yourself as Hoseok turned to watch his friend come towards him with an emotion that you were not yet ready to understand. “What are you doing here so early?”

“I wanted to see Y/N.”

“I’m sure.” Namjoon’s eyes were unusually dark, his jaw tight. Were you perceptive enough, maybe you would have saved yourself some tears—but you weren’t. ”How about you go let her get back to work.” Namjoon put a hand on his shoulder, spinning him away from you with a quick, worried glance towards you. “We’re meeting up over there.”

Hoseok only laughed, and, for a minute, you thought it sounded nice.

~.~

When you arrived at Beyond the Scene—Namjoon’s name for his coffee shop; it was better than previous drafts—you were surprised to find a person already sitting by your things with a set in stone expression that said he’d wait there until you arrived, no matter how long that would take. The second you stepped through the door, Hoseok’s eyes lit up with an emotion akin to recognition and mischief.

It was the latter that scared you.

He was still too new to you for you to feel like it was possible to act the same as you would around Namjoon. What you wanted to do was raise an eyebrow with your hands on your hips and throw a bickering comment to him. Besides the fact that his mere presence made your heart race, this intruder in your workspace seemed to have a force-field around him that dispelled all of your sarcasm and the meager scraps of yourself that you labeled as confident. Actually, it was probably because your chest squeezed too tight when he was near that you couldn’t be normal around him.

You opened your mouth with stupid words on your tongue. Instead, you swallowed them and said something even stupider: “You’re here.”

Hoseok laughed in a way that you should have found annoying. It was all high and loud and absolutely boisterous. But, it was infectious in all the right ways and you found yourself drawn to him because of it. Somehow, he was a duality of a man—one that screamed fuckboy and safety all at once.

You awkwardly shuffled towards your stuff, dumping your bag into a nearby chair so you could free up your hands to pull the tarp free from your box of miscellaneous paints and brushes.

To make your stiff and wooden movements worse, Hoseok was unfazed by your presence. He was comfortable as can be, leaning forward in his seat to be close enough to see but not close enough to invade your very large bubble of privacy. “I wanted to see an artist at work.”

You raised an eyebrow at him over your shoulder, but even that felt forced and ugly. “You can’t see that in the dance studio?”

“But you’re not there.” He cocked his head, as if the words that just passed through his lips had no effect on the heat of your skin. “Namjoon told you about the studio?”

“That you own one? Of course he told me—Namjoon tells me a lot. While I may not understand every word that comes out of the moron’s mouth, I know that he’s talented. Talent attracts talent; there’s obviously a reason he speaks about you.” You snorted, shaking your head. “I’m just the idiot he grew up with, that’s all. You came to the wrong place if you wanted to see true artistry.”

“I think I’ll be the judge of that.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees so he could rest his chin on his hands. There was this shit-eating smirk on his face that seemed to incinerate a hole through you, all of your defenses failing to maintain your normal, not lobster-red skin tone. “So, Y/N, what do you know about me?”

You busied yourself with setting the tarp up across the floor below the mural space. Occasionally, your gaze would flicker towards him, but it was easier to focus on other things and maintain your sanity rather than get lost in his pheromones. “All I really know is that you dance. Namjoon doesn’t like talking much about his male friends with me—what he does tell me is that they are all assholes and they play girls like musical chairs; I think that’s the older brother in him showing through.” You chuckled, your gaze drifting to the memory of a worked up Namjoon smothering you with blankets when you told him you had a crush on one of your classmates in high school. “That’s really all I know; to me, you are a one-dimensional character.”

“One without good traits.” He winced, his face effortlessly transforming into a pout that would put a baby to shame. “That’s not fair. Namjoon talks about you like crazy; I feel like I know you personally—like you’re my best friend too. Do I need to start a petition to change those dimensions? Or will you let me if I say please?”

You frowned at the wall with a shake of your head, but it did nothing to stop the heat pooling up to your ears. “Maybe if you say please I will.”

You could see him grin out of the corner of your eye, warmth immediately spreading across your back. Hoseok was like the sun—but not the sun during the day, the one everyone always compared people to. No, Hoseok was the kind of bright like that you could actually look at head-on; he was the warmth of a sunrise, lots of color and promises that may or may not be kept. “Please?”

You felt electricity run up your spine. There was something chemical about this boy; radioactively toxic in a way that no other male could compare to. “You have a lot of ground to make up, you know. Namjoon must tell me to stay away from you for a reason.”

Hoseok stood up and you turned to face him, watching as he stepped towards you and rolled up his sleeves. “Alright then miss, let me start by working while I cover some of that ground, hm? Let me help you.”

You grabbed a brush similar to yours, holding it out to him in a strategic way—one that wouldn’t allow his skin to touch yours.

Hoseok, however, had other plans and grabbed way too far up the paintbrush, his fingers meeting yours.

“Ah--" The heat was back in your chest. No matter how much you thought you could get over his presence, it seemed he purposefully did things that made you take one step forward and three back. “The wall will need a second coat of gesso.” You said, hoping to cover up the obvious fact that you were reacting to his touch.

His smile told you that you were unsuccessful.

~.~

“I should have mentioned that I’m really only good at dancing.” Hoseok chuckled a half hour later as you, begrudgingly, set yourself to going over the ‘work’ he had attempted to help with. He got more paint on himself than on the damn wall—no doubt proving the validity of his statement.

You sighed at him, shaking your head at the floor. “You really need to get cleaned up or your clothing is going to stiffen when the paint dries.”

Hoseok laughed, his hands immediately going to the hemline of his shirt so he could lift it over his head. However, you let out a noise more demon than human and alerted every customer in the shop to your red faced, flustered grasp on his wrists.

“I didn’t say to take off your shirt!” You sputtered, flames igniting under the skin of your face.

Hoseok only laughed at your chagrin, grinning at you in a way that you were positive would make any girl before him melt. You knew it had probably been used to manipulate a cult following, and it was, for that reason, why you wished you could be the exception. “What? Are you embarrassed? You’ve never seen a guy shirtless before?”

You pressed your lips into a line—an expression that half resembled a cartoon frog and half a frown. “This is a family establishment.”

He only shrugged. “It’s fine anyways. Namjoon’s not here-- he’s got the weekend off. I think I’m allowed to play while the giant is gone.”

You cocked your head and furrowed your brows in confusion. Hoseok’s eyes darkened on you with an emotion you had no previous experience with.

“Cute.”

You, realizing you had yet to let go of him, dropped his wrists and shoved him backwards—away from you. Unfortunately, you were a painter, not a weightlifter and you only wound up pushing him back enough for his weight to shift onto his back foot.

“Minji is cute—not me. I’m just average. If you’re going to compliment me, at least bring it down to my level.”

Hoseok cocked his head, eyes shifting somewhere further than the café. “That’s the name of your friend, right? The dancer and artist?”

You nodded. “She’s my only friend besides Namjoon; I can say for sure that she’s definitely something.”

If something was talented, self-centered, oblivious to other people and rude as hell.

“So, this girl, if you’re comparing her to yourself, she must be something of an absolute goddess.”

“Mm.” You confirmed his question with a nod. “She is.”

It wasn’t that you were clueless to the game Hoseok was playing; it was just that you were purposefully dodging every trap that he was setting up for you. You didn’t meet any of his glances; you didn’t let him gain any headway into your heart. If there was one thing you weren’t going to do, it was succumb to him—you were not going to walk right into his grasp like a fool.

Sure, you and people—men specifically—mixed more like oil and water than human interaction, but you weren’t stupid. Your good grades didn’t result in a lack of common sense.

“So?” Another chess piece moved on the board game. “Should I ask her out?”

You shrugged, swallowing the small knot of jealousy and disappointment in your throat. “I don’t see why not? You guys would be a perfect match.” You grinned at him.

“Okay, then could you give me her number so I can contact her?”

Namjoon was right about him. Namjoon was usually right; it shouldn’t have surprised you that this game wasn’t going to end in your favor. However, the blatant womanizing thrown in your face wasn’t an easy pill to swallow.

“Take anything my friends say with a grain of salt, okay? They’re all assholes. None of them know how to treat a member of the opposite sex—I don’t want to see you get hurt, Y/N.”

You pulled your phone out of your back pocket, scrolling through your contacts until you found Minji’s number. Handing it to him, you gave him a short nod before turning around to face the wall.

You had work to do if you wanted that paycheck at the end of the month.

~.~

Namjoon leaned over your shoulder as you sat at a tarp covered table, furiously scribbling out your original plans for the mural in your sketchbook. “You didn’t like your idea?”

You grunted, grabbing a fistful of your hair at the root. “I need a new direction—this one isn’t good enough for this place. It will close in the already small space—I need to open it up, not make it smaller and staler.”

“Oh geeze, thanks. The compliment on my shop makes me feel real good.” Your best friend said in a sarcastic monotone that had you wheeling around to smack his chest. Unfortunately, neither of you were gifted with grace so you wound up head-butting him and smacking him at the same time.

“Yah!”

“How was I supposed to know you were standing so close?” You snapped back. With a guilty sigh, you let your head drop onto the table as you let out a low whine/groan. “I don’t know what to do, Joon. I’m fresh out of inspiration.”

“I’ll say this as I always do: I think you’re being too hard on yourself. What you had was amazing.”

“Not good enough.” You grumbled. “Not good enough to be permanently attached to your café.”

He patted your back lightly, shaking his head. “You are good enough. Whatever comes from your hand will only add to my shop, not detract from it.” He lifted his head up to the blank, now white, wall. “Man, you painted this whole thing this weekend? That must have taken you a while.”

Without thinking, you answered stupidly. “Hoseok stopped by to help me. Said something about wanting to see my work or whatever.”

You felt Namjoon immediately tense, his jaw flexing to the point that you half expected to hear the crunch of his teeth breaking each other. “He knew I wasn’t here. There was no reason for him to be here.”

You blinked slowly up at him. “Correct. I think he just wanted Minji’s number.”

“I know you’re not that stupid, Y/N.”

“No, but I’m amazing at denial.”

He let out a scoff through his teeth, though it wasn’t directed at you. “I’m going to kill him.”

You sighed, folding your arm up under your head as a semi-decent pillow. “He seems decent enough compared to what you’ve told me. I mean, he’s nice, definitely overly flirty, but nice.”

“No—it always starts like that. You don’t get it, Y/N—Hoseok…He—He’s the one I’m the most afraid of when it involves you.  He’s relentless. Before he had ever even met you, he had shown interest. Even when he was well aware I had placed you as off limits, he still pushed it. I can’t—I’m going to kill him.”

“Joon, I don’t want to date him. I just said he’s kind of nice.”

“Y/N, I love you, but you have no experience with guys. You’re going to get sucked in and get yourself hurt. The best thing for me to do is murder him so that is not a problem.”

You rolled your eyes, Namjoon folding over you to snuggle into your hair. “I couldn’t bear it if you got hurt because of one of my friends.”

You let out a small sigh of contentment, closing your eyes. “It won’t happen. He’s not as interested as you seem to think he is—neither am I.”

“Who’s interested in what?”

The sudden voice of the devil himself startled both you and Namjoon—however, the male was the one to stand ramrod straight while you remained paralyzed in a quasi-relaxed pose. Namjoon spun, his anger a palpable presence in the air.

“Hoseok.” It was vicious enough to have the other male putting his hands up in surrender without even knowing why.

“What did I do?” He cocked his head in fraudulent innocence, only intensifying Namjoon’s anger.

“I told you she’s off limits to your bullshit—I told you-“

Sitting up fully, you reached out and snapped Namjoon back by his shirt, if only to save yourself some embarrassment. “Idiot! Shut up! It’s not like that and you know it, so stop.”

Hoseok’s eyes flickered between you two, decoding the small touches, the cuddling, the smiles, the way you two interacted all in a few seconds. Whatever conclusion he came to, it wasn’t one that he liked. “I just wanted to see her artwork, that’s all. You always told me she was so talented.”

“See?” You smacked Namjoon for effect. “That’s it.” There was a heavy weight on your chest, the hoof of a horse slamming into your sternum with the force of a car crash. “That’s all.”

Hoseok’s gaze fluttered down to the blacked out paper before you. “What happened to your idea?” He tried to address the question to you, but there was a roadblock of a human being between you.

“She didn’t like it—it didn’t fit the space well, she said.” Namjoon spoke for you, his stare still piercing holes through his friend.

There was some testosterone filled staring contest, some mano eh mano moment that you couldn’t even begin to understand between the two of them.

“She’s waiting for the right inspiration to strike.” Namjoon said, his gaze never leaving Hoseok’s.

“I’m sure she’ll find it.”

With a sigh that was part scoff, part exasperation, you gathered your sketchpad and pencils. Shooting a glare at both males, you pushed up to your feet. “There’s too much maleness happening here—I’m going to go sketch outside for a bit while you guys…I don’t know, cool it in the freezer for a second.” Shoving Namjoon out of your way, you headed out the front door.

~.~

Minji slapped the table with both open palms before actually sitting herself down across from you. It was her way of instantly alerting your attention to the fact that she was overly excited and about to start one of her whirlwind one-sided conversations.

“How come you never told me that you knew Jung Hoseok?” She nearly shouted even though you were maybe a foot away at max.

You ran your eraser along a misplaced mark, the pencil you had been using to sketch held between your teeth. “Probably,” You murmured through the wood base, “Probably because, up until a week ago, I didn’t.”

“Are you serious?” She sputtered. “Are you seriously not recognizing his name?”

You shrugged. “I mean, sure—he’s Joon’s friend, so of course I’ve heard the name.”

“No! You—ugh—you idiot!” She snatched the pencil from your teeth, much to your own outburst of annoyance. She waved you off, preventing any progress on your work with the hostage held in her hand. “He’s the top dancer in Seoul! He literally graduated at the peak of his dance class at the top dance school in the whole country. He owns and teaches a whole studio by himself! How in the ever-living fuck do you not know how much of a big deal he is?”

“Probably because I don’t dance.”

“You don’t have to dance to be educated.”

“And you don’t have to be uneducated to be stupid.” You hissed, waving your open palm in her face to signal your demand for your lost pencil.

She stuck her tongue out at you in one of the ugliest faces you had yet to see from her. “Well, whatever. I should at least thank you, because of your dumb ass I have a date scheduled with him.”

“I just wanted to see her artwork. That’s all.”

“Mm.” You grunted, fingers now waggling as your glare intensified.

With a scoff, Minji dropped the pencil into your palm, nose scrunching at the way you curled back into your sketch—like a snail retreating into its shell. “God, Y/N. You act like this whole painting thing is so difficult.”

If murder were legal, Minji would be your first victim.

You didn’t answer, only shot her a glare through your hair and continued your work.

“You know, what you need is a focal point.”

This time, you actually threw your sketchbook at her.

~.~

“And another thing that pisses me off, she’s actually right!” You shouted to the ceiling, placing your hands on your hips as you watched cars whiz by through the night on the street outside the shop.  Beyond the Scene was long since closed, but, since you were hired guns as an artist and also Namjoon’s friend, you had special access.

“You’re really letting Minji get under your skin?” Namjoon raised an eyebrow at you over his stack of books. He was a good friend to keep you company during your ranting, rampaging work at night. Granted, he was doing it more for your safety than your peace of mind. But still, the gesture was sweet. “You know what she’s like—nothing has changed.”

“You know what?” You spat to the wall, trying to merge your sketch and the wall together with nothing but your mind. When that, obviously, didn’t work, you refocused your attention on the passing cars. “She and Hoseok are perfect for each other.”

“No no. No no no no. None of that—take that back. Nope. No.”

“Why?” You stared at his reflection through the glass of the window pane outside, one eyebrow raised.

“Because, when you’re getting angry and that means you’re developing feelings for him. That’s not allowed. Not here, not now, not ever. Not for Jung Hoseok.”

You sighed, groaning to the poor ceiling once more. “I am not getting feelings for him, Joon. How many times do I have to repeat this?”

“Why would you even bring him up in this situation then? This is about Minji, not Hoseok!”

“Because they’re going on a date!” You hissed to his reflection. “This is the situation that caused her little tantrum!”

Namjoon dug his nails into the counter top, his shoulders tightening. “That’s bullshit. He was gunning for you and now he’s doing this to her and you—“

“Of course he’d go for Minji, I didn’t want any part of this—“

“No, Y/N. Not Minji.” He sighed, running one hand through his hair. “Hoseok isn’t the type of man to have just one girl on a string. You know what I’m saying?”

You shook your head, turning around to face him. “No. I really don’t.”

“Hoseok already has a girlfriend. Not Minji, not you, not even the girl he went on a date with last week—someone else entirely.”

Your mouth hung open in a small “O” as your gaze found solace in the pattern of the tiles on the floor.

Silence hung thick in the air, a sort of mulled tension that wasn’t directed at the other person. Rather, you both had things you had to work out in your mind before you could find the right words to say.

“They really are perfect for each other, then. Minji will think that she can fix him and he won’t ever be fixed.”  You snorted, staring at the stain on your shoe instead of him.

Namjoon sighed, his head dropping low as he laced his fingers together in a gesture akin to praying. “Please tell me that you don’t have feelings for him; please tell me that my gut instinct isn’t right. Please tell me that you won’t fall for Jung Hoseok.”

“Namjoon, I promise you that I have no feelings for him.”

At the time, that might have been true. Because, at the time, you still didn’t know him.

But Namjoon was always smarter than you, and his gut instinct was always right.

~.~

Curled over your book on the bench outside the coffee shop, you tried to sketch in the desperate hope that the change of scenery was enough to strike a chord of inspiration within you. It wasn’t.

In fact, the only thing you had managed to sketch was the street itself—which you didn’t entirely hate; it was just missing that factor that made it fun. As Minji would tell you “you need a focal point.” So, the street it was, you decided. At least if you started painting the buildings along the side, it would produce more time for you to think about the center.

You hoped by then you would have something you could be proud of.

As you were detailing out the surrounding buildings in your sketch, a body set itself down next to you, spreading its arms across the top of the bench to reach towards you as if he was actually welcome there.

He wasn’t.

You unfurled yourself from your sketchbook long enough to shoot a glare at the man beside you. Unfortunately for you, it was a person you weren’t expecting. You had thought Namjoon, since he was the only one comfortable enough around your aura of “leave me the fuck alone” to dare push the boundaries.  However, it seemed that Hoseok was oblivious to such intricate body language.

“That’s beautiful.” He nodded towards your sketch.

You stared at him as if he just called a trashcan stunning. “It’s literally just a shot of the street.”

“So?” He chuckled. “I can’t even draw a straight line-that looks like a masterpiece to me.”

“There’s not even a focal point!”

He only grinned, lightly patting your shoulder in a way that ignited a chemical reaction in your skin—he was warm, and gentle. It was undeniable that you were physically attracted to him, even though you shouldn’t be. “You’ll make one, I have faith in you. You’re not Namjoon’s favorite artist for no good reason. The guy has tastes like fine wine and cheese.”

The sudden idiotic statement had you sputtering out into laughter, snorting to your feet. “That makes no sense.” You chuckled, looking up at him mid smile only to find that his eyes were unable to pull away from you.

Danger. Warning. Run.

Your brain screamed signals that told you to get the hell out of dodge. However, your heart controlled your body better and you stayed there, smiling.

“Hey, I never was the smart one—as I said, my one talent in life is dancing.”

“I’m sure you have more positive points other than dancing.”

He tilted his head with a comedic grimace, his gaze on you so sincere, so pure, that for a moment you couldn’t believe that he was a player. You couldn’t believe a word that Namjoon said about him. No fuckboy smiled like sunsets, smelled like vanilla and cinnamon, and listened to every word you had to say with their full attention.

“Idiot! Shut up! It’s not like that and you know it, so stop.”

There was a moment where Hoseok was awkward, around you, with you—a moment where the fuckboy in him disappeared and he almost didn’t know what to say. Then, it was back with a vengeance.

“You should come to my studio—you need…you need to get out of the headspace that this place offers. Maybe you’ll find some inspiration in an entirely different setting, yeah?” He cocked his head to the side, his eyes reminiscent of a puppy that had never been denied anything in his life.

“No.”

He furrowed his brows on you, confusion settling in between them. “Why not?”

Your eyes flit across his face as you felt a weight peel off your shoulders, a chess game where you flipped over his last piece. You had his last secret, and now he knew you knew his game. Though, it was stupid of you to think that a boy who was great at lying wouldn’t still claim to see wolves. “It’s not appropriate.” You started. “I can’t dance anyways. I also wouldn’t want to hurt Minji in any way, not like that. What would she think?” You paused, seeing the fear in his eyes ignite before sputtering entirely. “What would your girlfriend think?”

You had never seen a look more ‘caught-red-handed’ than the one Hoseok gave you. He winced at his shoes. “Namjoon told you about Soonmi, huh?”

“He never told me a name.” You adjusted your focus back to the sketchbook, the sound of lead on paper the only noise aside from tires crunching on asphalt. “He just told me that you have a girlfriend and you’re pulling this. In a nutshell, he said you’re an awful human being.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it when there were no words to say.

You shrugged. “I don’t know if I believe that you are truly awful. I think that maybe you’re fucked up, but not a horrible person. A horrible person doesn’t help someone that slathered them in paint do said painting—even if they suck at it.”

He laughed, rubbing the back of his neck to alleviate some of his awkwardness. “I don’t suppose you’d let me explain?”

You smiled at your sketch. “I’m willing to listen; however, what I choose believe may or may not be another story.”

His eyes searched your face, even when you refused to look back up at him, you could feel him trying to find the lie in your words—trying to find some part of you that was going to look at him differently. He tried to find the weakness in the guard to your heart, but you thought yourself sturdy—armed to the tens.

“We started off as friends with benefits, you know? Both of us had our own flings on the side. It wasn’t serious. We just enjoyed each other’s company every now and again.”

He looked at you as if you were supposed to understand the sentiment; instead you met him with a deadpan stare. “Can’t relate.”

He let out a bark of laughter that you should have found offensive and annoying, but to you, it was only pleasant. Hoseok was pleasant. Even as a fuckboy, you felt that he had a warm personality—perhaps it was why people with weak souls such as yours were drawn to him like moths to a flame. “It makes sense, honestly. You’re pure—don’t give me that look—you aren’t a woman scorned, just someone who has never had their heart broken.”

“Excuse me, I have dated people.”

He rolled his eyes. “Not seriously. Namjoon said none of them even lasted a year.”

“Because men are stupid and, unfortunately, my sexuality only sways towards them.”

He laughed again, heat swarming your cheeks. “You must be warming up to me to be throwing such insults.” He ducked his head as your immediate glare. “I’m sorry; I’m not good at this whole explaining thing.”

“No.” You pretended to itch your nose in an attempt to pat out the redness to your face. “You’re not.”

“I—I’ve never been good at stating my true feelings, or you know, my actual opinions. I like to make people happy and, sometimes, I think I’ll say anything just to see someone smile. Its one trait that probably handed me the shovel I dig my grave with now. On top of that, I…I was never what you would call handsome. In fact, out of my friend group, females dubbed me as ‘the ugly one’.” His eyes darkened as he scratched the back of his neck, working out the kinks in his mind before he spoke aloud. “I guess I was just charming in a way that was only ever good for a ‘friends with benefits’ relationship at max. I mean, I still don’t think I’m charming, or handsome, or ‘boyfriend material’ but my mindset about how females see me has definitely changed thanks to Soonmi.”

“How kind of you to cheat on her as a thank you.”

“Hey,” He scoffed. “She’s not a saint.”

“She can’t be if she’s with you.”

Hoseok rolled his tongue across his teeth, letting out a deep, repressed sigh. “She told me that she had feelings for me—she was the first girl to see something in me that she wanted to keep by her side. Somehow, she made me believe that I actually wasn’t as ugly as I was made out to be. So I said fuck it and we started dating.”

You cocked your head to the side, lazily running your pencil along your sketchpad. “Maybe Namjoon is right; maybe you are an awful person.”

“I—It’s—Soonmi, you don’t get it, she’s a cunning manipulative bitch—which is, I guess, my type. She’s a horrible person who once put a laxative in someone’s drink just so they would miss out on a test and she would be the student with the highest marks. But she claimed to love me, and that was enough for me.”

You nodded along with his words, soaking in all of the facts laid out before you. Once your words settled into place, you set your pencil down and leaned back into the bench to better meet Hoseok’s gaze. “I was never bullied, never called ugly—but never called attractive either. I was just invisible my whole life—and I continue to be. As such, it is difficult for me to get to know people and become friends. Once I’ve warmed up to a person, however, there are no holds barred. Until the moment you make me comfortable, you are lucky to make me utter a proper sentence.” There was something knotting in your stomach, some pressure from the intensity of his stare as he listened to each and every word with his full attention. If nothing else, in this moment, you could believe that your words mattered to him. “So, Hoseok, I’m going to be completely honest with you. With everything you have told me, your explanation is a shit reason to excuse what you are doing.”

Despite the severity of your words, despite the fact that you saw something in his gaze shatter, his attention never wavered from you. It was intense enough to bring a stutter back into your speech.

Damn, how the hell could girls think he was ugly?

“What do you honestly feel towards Soonmi? What is the truth? Remember that my friend is on the line here and, though she fits the bill for your heartless bitch type, I still won’t hesitate to jam a pencil into your eye.”

Most stupid threats made guys look at you like you had a third eye, Hoseok, however, spoke without a second thought—his gaze so glued to you that you had to use every bit of energy to stop any sort of heat in and outside of you.

“I have no interest in Soonmi.”

Your eyes flit across his face, ready to detect any lie at a moment’s notice; you were shit at such intricate work, but damned if you weren’t going to try. “Then break it off with her—entirely. Don’t go back, don’t keep her number, don’t keep her things. Save her some pain and stop wasting her time.”

It was at that moment, that you caught a glint in Hoseok’s eye that scared you; some light that started as a small spark before bursting to flames.  The first fire to the end of a war. A checkmate. “I will—but only if you promise to come to my studio.”

You felt caught in a web; some intricately spun situation that you were entirely unaware was being constructed around you until the final thread was tied around your neck. “Minji—“

“She’ll be there—she won’t mind. If it’s you, she’ll be okay. So just…just come to one practice and I swear on my life that I will end things once and for all.”

The trap snared around you, the fuckboy teeth sinking into your flesh. You were caught.

Because his eyes were so warm and he was so soft and this person before you wasn’t supposed to be a womanizer but totally was.

He was a duality.

One that caught you on the edge, half on either side.

“Okay.”

~.~

Apparently, as you found out when she came bursting into Beyond the Scene a week before you were to ‘attend’ Hoseok’s class, the studio time would be considered Minji and Hoseok’s ‘second date.’

You didn’t think one could count it as a date if it was in front of a group of people the entire time, but it was easier to just let her imagination wander instead of fight her stupidity.

 “Y/N!” She shouted, taking a wrong turn the moment she entered the coffee shop. The poor group of people huddled at a table in the corner startled at the sudden outburst before Minji finally got her shit together and noticed that you could be found by the giant, white wall.

The one that she would have been aware of had she paid attention to you like normal friends did.

“Y/N!” You clung to the ladder as she approached, her footsteps more reminiscent of earthquakes than human gait. “You really outdid yourself with this one—he’s so much cuter in person than in his pictures; and he’s hella fine in his pictures.”

You, at first, weren’t sure who the ‘he’ in her reference was; it was only when your focused mindset drifted and reality settled into the cracks that the missing piece clicked. “Hoseok?”

“Who else? Seriously, you can be such an idiot—do you really think I just go on dates with random people all the time?”

You opened your mouth, but her threatening finger stopped you from starting your words.

“Don’t answer that.” As if finally realizing that you had been working on something high up on your ladder perch, Minji’s eyes flit to the blank wall. “You haven’t finished the mural yet?”

“Of course I haven’t!” You snapped. “I’m only just starting to transfer the buildings to the wall in the hopes that it’ll give me time to formulate an idea for the centerpiece.”

She made a face at the meager amount of color you had placed on the wall. “You really should have studied English or something else.”

It would have hit hard, were the words not coming from Minji’s vapid mouth. Instead, you rolled your eyes. “If I throw a glitter lipstick into the street, will you chase after it and get hit by a bus?”

Her expression could’ve fooled a younger version of yourself into believing that she was actually offended. “You’re such a bitch sometimes, you know that?”

You swiped a layer of thinned out acrylic paint across the wall, making the sketchy beginnings of the buildings you had yet to form. “I’m glad that we think the same of each other, Minji.”

“Oh don’t be salty. You know I mean it affectionately.”

“Mmm.” You snorted. “That’s one of us.”

She crossed her arms, letting the conversation go in place of another one you were not willing to have. “I’m going to see if I can get you a date to the studio, okay? You’re going to need a dance partner.” She smiled up at you as if she truly believed she was cupid herself. “Maybe that’ll put a chill pill down your throat.”

“Minji, I am not as dumb as you make me out to be--I’m well aware that you just want me distracted with someone other than the guy you’re eyeing. Just because I’ve talked to him and know him through Namjoon does not mean I have any intention of interacting. I am solely there to make you look better and work on my sketches.”

She tilted her head to the side, studying you. “You sell yourself short sometimes. You could be cute if you actually tried.”

“I really don’t want to. Me and the whole relationship thing don’t get along too well.”

“Well, I’m going to find you a date.”

You shot a glare over your shoulder, one that she only waved away with a laugh. There was nothing more you could say to her that would change her mind—once Minji’s decided on a path, she will run down it even if it means she’s going to burn straight into the ground.

Her headstrong nature was the sole reason you never told her about Hoseok’s girlfriend. She’d get a big head and would believe that she could change him for the better.

“Once you have Minji you never go back to basic.”

It’s precisely that ego that has caused her to be cheated on repeatedly without her knowledge. After all, there was a reason the only fist fight you’d ever gotten into was on her behalf. Contrary to popular belief, Minji was not as much of a shit person as she made herself out to be. Loyalty counts for a lot, especially in the face of absolute shitstorms of arguments. Despite it all, she stayed.

That counted for something.

“Good luck with that.” You murmured to the space where she had been standing, returning back to your work.

You didn’t know how long you sat perched up on that ladder, painting away the basic outlines to match your sketchbook. Maybe an hour? Three?  All that you knew was, when your stomach started rumbling, you decided to climb down.

One thing about being so into art that time utterly disappears is that you wind up having a lot of limbs that fall asleep without your knowledge. With the sudden shock of pain at your needle-stabbed foot, your weight shifted and you nearly buckled backwards and sideways off the ladder. It didn’t help that you were about as graceful as a whale on land. If it weren’t for the sudden hands that hurriedly clasped around your hips, you were positive you would have fallen and injured yourself beyond perfect repair.

Steadying yourself with shaky hands on the ladder and noodle knees, you heard the pants of heaving breath from your savior, his hands on your hips remaining as a tether of balance. Despite the kindness intended behind the gesture, it felt all too intimate for your liking.

You turned over your shoulder to finalize your decision to either smack or thank the person who helped you, only to find all of your vocal chords frozen and useless at the mere sight of Jung Hoseok. There was just something about the man that had speech leaving you every time his face popped up unexpectedly. At least when you knew he was going to be there, you could prepare.

Were you blinded by his handsomeness? His charm? The fucking sun? You weren’t positive; all you knew was that, right then and there, he was too damn bright.

Though you were obviously irritated by his touch, he was all smiles the moment your eyes met his; happiness seemed to ooze from his pores and buzz through his skin and into yours. You wanted to be mad at him, you wanted to hate him—but all you hated was the way your heart inflated at the sight and feel of his presence.

“What are you doing here?” You stammered, your hands fisting the ladder with enough of a death grip that, if you were to fall a second time, the thing would come clamoring with you.

He was still out of breath—which was normal considering he probably had to run to save your dumb ass. “I had to tell you the news and then…well then I saw you almost crack open your skull and I just—I—“

You cast a glance down to his hands in the middle of his speech. Though he saw the look, he made no effort to remove his grip from you.

You supposed he would have, had you used words instead of glares.

“Anyways,” He started, trying to tug you down from the safety the ladder promised you. However, you didn’t budge; in fact, you tried to climb higher out of his reach. It was a useless act considering you were an artist and he was a dancer—he was, naturally, physically stronger and you were unable to escape the black hole of emotion that was Jung Hoseok. “I wanted to tell you that I broke up with Soonmi.”

You couldn’t help the way your jaw hung open as you stared down at him, at a loss for words—which wasn’t uncommon when he was involved; this time, though, it was for an entirely different reason. “Seriously?” You whispered. “I—I didn’t think you’d actually go through with it. Like, I know we made a deal but the way Namjoon made you out to be—I just—I—“

He chuckled, removing only one of his hands to grab his phone from the depths of his back pocket. With a nimble thumb, he scrolled to the texts of a furious woman scorned.

You supposed she couldn’t be too happy to hear about her cheating, son-of-a-bitch boyfriend breaking up with her. However—damn.

“She’s got quite the sailor’s mouth, doesn’t she?” You said on the tail end of a low whistle, eyes glued to the proof on the screen.

He actually did it.

Maybe—just maybe--you could believe some of what Hoseok said.

Then again, he had Minji.

Why did he need you to believe him?

Hoseok laughed, causing a knee-jerk reaction in your body that had your cheeks flushing and your palms dampening around the metal of the ladder. “I deserve it, though. However, there’s more at stake for me if I chose to break our deal—wounded pride is just a Saturday for me.” His eyes sparkled with something you weren’t willing to address; especially not when said boy was stringing you along a necklace of pretty girls.

He said these things to every girl he met.

“He’s going to break your heart, Y/N.”

“Was Soonmi a dancer as well?” You lifted your gaze from the continuous strings of slurs and cursing on the phone to Hoseok, signaling that you were done reading. You’d seen enough of his personal life and dick pics of Soonmi’s ex ex to know that he was telling the truth. However, you would not get those images burned from retinas—despite how desperately you wished to forget how ‘well hung’ some asshat was.

He shook his head. “No, she actually went for psychology. Since we were on opposite sides of campus, it made it a hell of a lot easier for me to…well…be an asshole.”

You snorted, letting out a small noise of fear as you finally wobbled your clumsy ass the rest of the way down the ladder. It was only when you were in front of him, both feet flat on the ground, that Hoseok decided it was finally okay to let go of you. The ghosts of his fingers lingered. “Well, at least your date with Minji seemed to go good—or so I was told.”

“It was interesting, I’ll give it that.”

His expression had a mischievous smirk manifesting on your face. It was always fun to hear a guy’s reaction after the first date with Minji. It either went along the lines of “she’s hot” or “she’s batshit.”

Hoseok ran his tongue along his teeth, his chuckle delving into nervous laughter territory as his eyes fixated almost anywhere but you. “I—um—hm…how do I put this nicely? Let’s just…let’s just say I’m glad our next date is in a public setting.”

You frowned at him, arms crossing over your chest. “Keep it in your pants, leading without consulting your brain is what got you into that mess with Soonmi.” You turned your back to him, instead refocusing your attention back towards your open sketchbook. All this talk and no work did not equal food on your table.

“That’s not—“

You laughed, throwing him one quick pity grin over your shoulder. “Its fine, Hoseok—it’s a joke. I know she’s a bit handsy—hopefully my presence will prevent some of that.” Your fingers ran across the page of your sketch. “I am looking forward to this, I guess. You know? With all these dancers suddenly surrounding me, I think I’ve decided that I’d like to put one of them at the center of my mural.”

You couldn’t see Hoseok’s expression with your back turned, but you were sure you didn’t want to see it anyways.

“Yeah? I’m looking forward to it too.”

~.~

Because you hadn’t planned on actually dancing, you didn’t wear the proper footwear—which, actually didn’t matter anyways because everyone switched shoes before entering the studios. However, your unpreparedness didn’t end with shoes; you also weren’t dressed for the occasion. You had just gotten back from your day-job as a secretary for an upstart company, nearly running into the room dolled up in a satin blouse and black trousers.

For your own credit, at least you had your sketchbook in hand.

Minji, who was already there, looked up at you from the floor as she tightened the laces on her dancing shoes. Well, ‘looking’ was the nice way of putting it—rather, she was staring at you like you were flipping her off with a hand that you sprouted from your forehead.

“What the hell are you wearing?” She hissed through her teeth so as not to make a scene. It didn’t really work because you, yourself, were a walking scene and already had the eyes of the other dancers in the room. Apparently, full on business casual coupled with a running asthmatic wheeze wasn’t common in a professional studio space.

“I just got off of work, sue me. You didn’t actually expect me to dance? Did you?”

She waggled her finger at you, her manicured nail within just enough reach that you contemplated ripping the acrylic tip off of it. “You’re just lucky my blind date for you cancelled last minute.”

You rolled your eyes, knowing full well Minji forgot about her half-assed idea and was now making stupid excuses for her memory. Instead, you walked yourself towards the mirror, dusted off a spot you knew wouldn’t be clean regardless, and sat down with your sketchbook and pencil in hand. Pants were washable, as long as the dust wasn’t made of permanent marker or sealant, you were good.

Just as you were getting settled in, Hoseok burst in the door looking every bit the type of person that would make your palms sweat and your throat close. If you had forgotten that he was handsome, you were definitely reminded of it now. His tank was clinging to his thin frame, showing that it was a size too-small based on the skin you saw between its hem and the band of the sweatpants he was wearing low on his hips. Effortlessly, he brushed his hair off his forehead, the strands staying slicked back with sweat.

Hoseok’s eyes found yours before they found Minji’s.

His head cocked to you in an unspoken question that had you raising your sketchbook to him and giving him a small nod. With an “O” of understanding, he then turned his attention to the glaring Minji. Squatting before her, his demeanor changed much like hers did—riding a line between kindness and flirtation. Minji was much less subtle however, her lashes batting excessively as she leaned forward to offer him her towel.

Your hand started moving despite itself, wanting to capture the way the droplets of sweat ran over Hoseok’s Adam’s apple. But, when you finally realized what you were doing, your lines became a smattering of scribbles to blot out the voyeuristic image.

Pushing up to his feet, he made his way towards you to repeat his squat and talk method he seemed to be a fan of. Apparently, unlike you, Hoseok wasn’t the type to get his ass dusty.

“I can get you a chair, you know.”

You shrugged. “It’s too late—these are old pants anyways.”

He grinned at you, that warmth creating an ache in your heart that had your hand itching to draw him again. Maybe it was something about seeing him in his place of passion rather than in the wild outdoors of city life, but he was stunning. Captivating.

Intoxicating.

Even though the room smelled like sweat and he reeked of fading cologne and cheese, you didn’t mind it.

“You sure you don’t want to dance?”

You gave him a look that had him laughing in a way that cracked your forced seriousness into bubbles of laughter.

His eyes flit across your face, his smile a permanent fixture on his features. “I have to go start the class now.”

You nodded, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear as you pulled a pencil from your bag. “That would probably be a good idea.”

He was still frozen before you, as if there was something else he wanted to say—some other words eating their way through his brain with the intent to force them into his vocal chords. However, he said nothing more and, with a shake of his head, he was back up to his feet.

Minji was by his side instantly, her arm slinging around his waist in a way that would have been cute were you not aware that it was actually a possessive move on her end. Hoseok started to address the other dancers in the room, but your mind was floating elsewhere, watching the pair before you.

They really did fit nicely. Two attractive, talented people. Maybe Minji would be able to make him see that he was handsome; though she wouldn’t be able to fix him, it didn’t seem like he was as bad as Namjoon made him out to be—at least anymore.

He did break up with Soonmi after all. Not to say that there couldn’t be others, but you doubted it. Despite his airs of confidence, you knew he wasn’t lying when he said he believed he was ugly.

Only people with similar insecurities would be able to see that he was telling the truth.

Except for, you knew you thought worse of yourself than he did—after all, he had enough confidence to cheat in the first place.

And then, they started dancing.

Normally, you watched Minji with a strange sense of awe, a silent follower as she traipsed across the floor with effortless moves. However, Minji, who never once stumbled, looked like a novice compared to her partner. Hoseok was on another level entirely--off the deep end of your capability of understanding. When he moved, you could see every ounce of sweat, exhaustion, fear and happiness that went into his passion. He loved to dance; awful people didn’t hold things as close to their heart as dancing was to Hoseok’s. It made sense why Namjoon would always talk about him so fondly—aside from the whole relationship end—he never made him out to be a horrible human being.

Just a human being sharp enough to hurt you.

And, as Minji’s hand lingered on his chest and their faces got too close for comfort, you realized that maybe you should have listened to Namjoon. Maybe you should have run the other direction the moment you met him.

Somewhere along the way, your hand started sketching his movements, erasing Minji entirely from the scene; you fooled yourself into believing that it was because her form was not nearly as impressive as his. And then, it hit you—Hoseok would make a perfect focal point; after all, the sun is the focal point of the sky.

You ducked your head, losing track of where you were, how long the class was going on for, how long Hoseok was dancing with his date. None of that mattered, because you were staring at your drawing with lead on your fingertips from blending and fingerprints along the edges of your paper. It had been a long time since you truly lost yourself to your artwork, but, in that studio, you tapped into an energy that had eluded you for so long.

“That looks like a masterpiece to me.”

You hadn’t even realized the music had stopped until Hoseok and startled you from your mindless pondering. Throwing your head up, your gaze met Minji’s and she was so starstruck by Hoseok that she actually gave you a pretty cute smile.

It was suddenly very hard to breath in the heavy, sweat-laden air.

“Hit the showers!” Hoseok murmured as the ending to his mini speech to his class, clapping once more to finalize the statement.

You must have looked utterly confused when Minji walked past you towards her bag because she shrugged and let out a snort more pig than human. “The showers were installed after some dancers complained about having to work after practice. Now it’s just a regular thing, you know?”

“Are you going?”

She nodded, grabbing a bottle of shampoo and conditioner along with a change of clothes from her bag. “I’ll be back and then we can go, okay?”

You gave her a thumbs-up as she left the room, shifting enough to be able to start packing up your own things.

“So?” Hoseok’s voice echoed in the room, and when the door gently closed behind the last dancer you—all too late—realized that the two of you were now alone.

“So what?” It was pathetic how meek you were around him again, as if the sight of him dancing suddenly made him a different person that you had to acquaint yourself to.

“What did you think?” He leaned against a wall across the room from you, his eyes boring into your shoulders as your hands deftly tried to find a fallen eraser.

You felt like a rabbit in an open, grassy plain with a hawk staring at you from a tree.

“It was…” You tried not to think of your sketches, of the way Hoseok’s eyes seemed to darken on you across the room, at the way you couldn’t breathe. Instead, you tried to think that Minji wasn’t going to take forever in the shower (she was) and that she was going to be back shortly (she wasn’t). “You’re a really good dancer.”

“Just good?” He cocked his at you, peeling his back from the wall.

“Amazing.” You raised an eyebrow at him. “That better?”

He laughed, sending goosebumps down your spine—you wanted it to be out of fear, but you knew your body better than that. “Much.” His eyes shifted to your sketchbook as he walked towards you, his eyes inquisitive. “Can I see?”

You pressed your lips into a line, pulling the book closer to you. “Nope.”

It was the bullet that broke the tension in the air, and suddenly you were both laughing as he dove for you. With a bout of childish defiance, you slid the sketchbook underneath you, sitting atop it to prevent him from seeing your drawings. However, it had not occurred to you that Hoseok, while in the process of recovering from his adultery, was not in the process of overcoming his fuckboy tendencies.

His arms were around you, his voice high and whiny as he struggled to reach underneath you to rip your sketchbook and all your secrets from your grasp. You held on white-knuckled, putting as much of your weight as you could on top of the sketchbook whilst trying not to get lost in the expanse of chest in your face. He should smell awful; but for some reason, he didn’t.

He was a sweaty, tired mess and yet he still managed to smell like vanilla. He was so warm, his skin practically scalding you every time it brushed across yours. This was dangerous--something so utterly perilous if only because you had never wanted to kiss a disgusting boy and now, suddenly, you wanted to be in Minji’s place. You wanted to go on a date with Hoseok, dance with Hoseok; you wanted your arm to be around Hoseok’s waist, your face to be close to Hoseok’s.

He pulled away from you; the part of you that you had locked away in denial tore away with him. “Fine.” He pouted, unbeknownst to your sudden revelations.  “If you won’t show me, then at least have a dance with me.”

“You’re exhausted.” You whispered, the humidity and the sudden, physical struggle breaking a sweat across your forehead.

“So? I invited you here so I could dance with you; at least fulfill that wish for me.”

“I can’t dance.”

“Excuses.” He chuckled, throwing your own words in your face. “Let me teach you.”

“Hoseok--" But he was already up on his feet--already brushing the dust off his sweatpants. You didn’t have any more fight in you, if only because your body was betraying you in his presence. You wanted to dance with him if only to be close to him. There was no rhyme or reason why you fell hard for Jung Hoseok. In fact, everything that you ever knew told you that you shouldn’t even tolerate him. But somehow—a chemical connection maybe?—you found yourself starting to.

You found yourself wanting to take Soonmi’s recently vacated place.

He grabbed both of your hands in his, pulling you up off the floor and into his chest so he could adjust his grip and intertwine his fingers with yours. “I want to see how bad of a dancer you really are.” You rag-dolled in his grasp, letting him do all the work because your sudden gelatinous knees wouldn’t let you do anything but stand there.

You laughed, head falling forward into his chest if only because you tried to duck away but found that he was too close for such an escape. “I’m awful; you’ll see.”

“Mm.” He spun you around, turning so that you got a glimpse of yourself in the mirror. You wanted to retract inside yourself at the sight. There you were, an absolute mess, standing with this handsome yet crazy man who somehow inspired you in ways that you couldn’t even begin to explain. It was a contradicting sight.

You looked so wrong next to him.

“You know, Y/N.” He murmured as he twisted you into the first movement that you had seen him pull with Minji. “I realized something about you today—I’ve always known, but it finally clicked.”

“Hm?” You licked your dry lips, trying to imagine that maybe you were good enough to stand next to him. Maybe you weren’t as flawed as you thought.

But the mirror haunted the backs of your eyelids as Hoseok lightly moved you through a dance without music.

“You honestly think that Minji is better than you.”

Your eyes flew open, landing on his face in an expression that said “duh.”

He laughed, shaking his head as he pulled you into a pose that looked utterly stupid until he corrected your form with gentle hands and a smile that made your extremities feel fuzzy. “You shouldn’t.”

“You have your insecurities—let me have mine.” You murmured. “Minji is superior to me in every way—she’s pretty she’s a great dancer, and she can do anything she sets her mind to. We took an art class together and her raw talent made anything I’ve ever done pale in comparison. Even our prestigious professors stared at her work in awe.” You met his gaze for only a moment before shifting your eyes to stare at your own reflection. “Compared to Minji, I am a worm. All I can do is draw and paint—not even well.”

His movements got slower, more languid in a way that was meant to make you more comfortable in the foreign setting. But, there was no such thing as ‘comfortable’ when it came to Hoseok—when he was around you, your nerves were on fire and your mind couldn’t comprehend reality. Hoseok was a black hole for common sense, one that spit everything you ever knew right out the fucking window.

“All I can do is dance and you once told me that I was more than that; what makes you think that I shouldn’t be able to tell you that you are more than your opinion of yourself.”

You nearly tripped over your own feet, letting out a frustrated huff as you made eye contact with the floor instead of him. “Because you don’t get to tell me what to think of myself.”

“I want you to see yourself the way others see you.”

“Y/N! Hurry up you slow bitch!” Despite the brutal words from her mouth, you knew that there was little to no venom to it. Instead, you were gawking at the people gawking at Minji—she was all dolled up in her absolutely breathtaking dress that her mother had bought solely for this gala. For all of your effort, you might as well have been the carpet under her heeled feet as both genders gave heart eyes to the woman you called a friend.

“I’m coming.”

“I’m invisible to others; usually, I’m just a fly on the wall. People don’t notice me, Hoseok.” You chuckled darkly. “Just look at my sorry excuse for a love life.”

He frowned at you, his hand tightening in yours. “Fine—then don’t see yourself how others see you; see yourself the way I do.”

Your expression cracked in time with the rift forming in your chest—a Pandora’s Box to words that you weren’t ready to release. It all came out in a rush, in furrowed brows, glassy eyes, and a mountain of regrets. “Yeah? So I should just see myself as a million girls? A number in a little black book?”

You couldn’t pull away fast enough; you couldn’t gather yourself enough to escape his grasp and his stare. Instead, his hands were on either side of your face and, as tears ran down your cheeks, Hoseok was kissing you.

They say that when you kiss someone that you like, fireworks should go off and sparks should fly. Maybe that wasn’t true unless there was a chemical reaction between the two of you—some elements that, when they click together, explode. Every fiber of your being was on fire, bursting to flame at his touch, at something as simple as the pressure of his lips on yours.

Hoseok kissed you with the same passion he showed for dancing, and, if it weren’t for the buzzing alarms in the back of your head, you probably would have allowed him to swallow you whole.

You shoved him off of you, scrubbing at your face with the back of your hand. “I—“

The door opened and in walked Minji, her body freezing at the sight of both of you.

You could only imagine the two of you, covered in sweat, mouths bruised and swollen. Some of your lipstick was on Hoseok’s chin and there were streaks of mascara on your cheeks.

Minji’s eyes flit between the two of you, and, for a moment, you believed she was going to turn on you. She was going to blame you, she should blame you. You just kissed her date—she had every right to call you every name in her repertoire.

Instead, wordlessly, she grabbed your hand, her bag and yours, and let the door slam behind the two of you.

~.~

For a long while, and for a rare moment between the two of you, it was silent. Normally, Minji would be talking your ear off--her high, raspy voice filling the small space of her car as she sped her way to your place.

However, this tension wasn’t normal. There was nothing normal about this behavior—yours, hers, or Hoseok’s.

The silence was only broken when Minji’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, her gaze burning holes into the road before her. “You like him, don’t you?”

“Hoseok?” You whispered, hands folded neatly in your lap.

“Who else would I be talking about, you moron?” She curled her lip at her dash instead of you, letting out a sigh that seemed to have been building up for the last century. “He likes you too, you know.”

“That doesn’t happen.” You said quickly, turning to her as if that could make her understand that you didn’t want to hurt her—you didn’t want to take from her, you honestly didn’t mean for any of this to happen. “No one chooses me over you.”

“Y/N, Hoseok just did.”

“He—he did no—“

She let out a shout that had you slamming your head against the roof of the car, your eyes wide on her. “You are absolutely infuriating!” Her volume was much lower than her shout; it must have released some pent up energy within her chest because her shoulders were finally starting to relax. “And yes, yes I am pissed—not at you, at him. For now. I’m awful at holding grudges, you know that.”

“But he—“

“He did. Do you really think I’m as dumb as I look?” She frowned at you through the rearview mirror. “Don’t answer that.” With another ancient sigh bursting from the confines of her chest, she shook her head. “He chose you, Y/N. Give me five minutes and I’ll be over him—I go through guys like candy, you know that.”

You ducked your head, frowning at the seat. “No one chooses me over you. No one chooses me—hell, I know he didn’t choose me out of every other girl on this planet.”  You whispered, trying to keep it all locked in. But, the ghost of Hoseok’s kiss lingered and it broke your heart to imagine that same passion given to another girl.

“There have been plenty that have chosen you—plenty that have looked at you instead of me. You just don’t notice. You know, despite all the shit I give you, you are not by my side only to make me look better; Y/N, you’re not horrible to look at. Actually, you’re quite cute--that was why I liked you when I first saw you.”

“You hated me.” You snorted, unable to hide your laughter.

Minji shrugged. “Same thing.”

“Who are you and what did you do with Minji?”

She smacked your arm, her eyes never leaving the road. “Look, I’m not going to say that I’m not hot shit and better than 99.9% of the people on this planet—I know I am. But, the one thing I fail at is making friends. For some reason, people think I’m conceded.” She laughed, her nails tapping on the wheel. “But you stayed my friend. Even if this friendship is built on a house of cards and is so fake it would make my mom’s boobs look natural, this means something to me. Don’t let my kindness go to waste. Say something nice to me too.” She lightly hit your thigh with the back of her hand, causing you to wipe your snot nose on your sleeve and give her a good, genuine smile.

“This friendship isn’t fake. Like, 13% of the time I actually consider you my friend.”

“Aww.” She held her chest in mock emotion. “I’ll take what I can get.”

“Same.”

You were both laughing now, in a moment that was so rare you were sure it would take three unicorns, two wishes on a shooting star and a whole field of four leaf clovers to bring another around. But that was fine, because you had this moment.

“You like him, don’t you?” She repeated.

“I—there are so many reasons—“

“That’s not what I asked you. I asked if you like Hoseok.”

You ducked your head, but your hair was pinned back so there was nothing to curtain your expression from Minji. “I do.”

“I’m not going to break a nail for you.”

You stared at the side of her face in confusion.

“I will use my mom’s money to hire a hitman however, and those are expensive. So please, let this shit work out.”

Reaching over the center console, you gave Minji the most awkward, yet genuine hug that either of you had.

“We need to go to the club tomorrow,” she growled, patting your arm in an attempt to reciprocate your hug and drive at the same time. “I need a man and I need a man pronto—I’m not going to lose to you.”

“But you didn’t—“

She let out another howl that echoed in the car. Only this one wasn’t out of frustration, more the sort of light annoyance that siblings had for each other. “Stop being so damn cute! Go back to being broody and depressing so people will feel bad for me and I can get laid tomorrow.”

You grinned at her. “So does this mean that you actually liked my sketches?”

“No.” She rolled her eyes. “I still don’t like them. But remember, I majored in dance, not art—since when have you ever taken my artistic criticisms seriously? Remember when I thought that Van Goat dude was actually just a brand of fancy cheese?”

“Van Gogh?”

She snorted. “Yeah, Y/N. You look stupid taking my words to heart—I flunked art history three times.”

“Four.”

“I slept with that professor to get me a D so I wouldn’t have to take it again.” She winked at you, your face frozen in a horror-stricken expression that did nothing to erase the unbidden mental images.

“Can I change that ‘not fake’ percentage to 12?”

“Nope.” She smiled. “Get ready to have your depressing ass worked hard tomorrow—I need a good man on my arm.”

~.~

Namjoon brushed your hair off your forehead and out of your eyes, groaning at the puffiness. “Please tell me that you were not crying over him.”

You glared at him, shoving your bag into his stomach and nearly through him just to put it behind the counter. It was too far of a walk towards the mural and you currently wanted to be anywhere but in the public eye—even if it was only the public of a small, busy coffee shop.

He watched you brush past him, watch you hide your things as if they were you—as if you wished to crawl underneath the space between the register and the storage bin for paper cups.

“Y/N.” His voice had you curling your lip at the ground, body struggling to stand.

“Fine.” You snapped at your backpack instead of at him, it wasn’t Namjoon’s fault after all. You were your own demise, always had been. “I was. And then I realized I did even stupider shit than cried over him—I cried over my fucking sketchbook which I kindly forgot in the hurry to get the hell out of his studio.” You burst up to your feet, the fight or flight instinct in you broken to the point that you felt like running into a wall. “So your mural is screwed too, and then I cried more over that because I’m…I’m—I—I’m a big cry baby I guess!” You threw your hands up into the air, incoherent words stumbling together on your tongue as you tried to reign in the tears once more; your tear ducts burned and you didn’t think you could take another bout of self-pity crying.  “I don’t have anything to put in that giant hole on the wall and you were right, you were totally right, Joon. That’s what you want to hear, right? That I should have listened, should have stayed away?”

His arms were around you, pulling your face into his chest so his sweatshirt could snuff out the dampness of your face. “I didn’t want to be right; it’s not what I want to hear. I--" he sighed, “I wanted you to let me know what’s going on in that head of yours. You keep yourself so tightly locked up that sometimes I’m afraid that you’re keeping me out with the rest of the world.”

“Never. You know too much about me and the destruction cavity most doctors call my brain.” You grumbled through a mouthful of fabric.

He laughed, the vibrations warming the cold in your chest.

“Even if it was all a lie—even if he told a thousand other girls the same things—it meant something to me, Namjoon. I liked the version I saw, the one that seemed so honest. But it’s not true, right? None of it was true? I can’t…I went in knowing I can’t believe anything he says and I still—“

“It’s not your fault.”

You slowly peeled yourself from his grasp, wiping your snot nose on his sweatshirt as a parting gift. “I—I’m going to go clean up my face and come up with a plan b.”

“I’ll get your sketchbook back, Y/N.”

You started towards the “employees only” swinging door, frowning at the porthole window. “I don’t want it; I couldn’t focus on the other dancers anyways. It’s all him; it’s all Hoseok. He really is amazing, you know.”

“But so are you.”

The swinging doors fluttered shut behind you before he could finish his words.

~.~

As you approached the hallway that led out towards the counter and, consequently, into the main hub of the café, a certain voice stopped you from bursting through the employee doors. The part of you that had just put itself back together with cold water and glares into the bathroom mirror shattered to the ground. As if he could see you through solid matter, you pressed yourself flat against the wall and snuck closer—but not too close. No, childish fear had you keeping enough distance that there was no chance in hell he would see you, even if he got close enough to the porthole window.

Through the crack between the rubberized edge of the door and the wall, you watched Hoseok thumbing through something atop the counter. Namjoon partly obscured him and the object from your vision, his shoulders square and angry.

“I’m glad you had the decency to return it; I’ll give you at least that much.” Namjoon said like an overprotective father with a shotgun.

Hoseok seemed unfazed by this persona. “I’m not a thief.” He murmured. “She’s gotten even better. These sketches…they’re amazing.”

“I’m aware.” Namjoon’s knuckles tightened on the countertop as he tilted his clenched jaw into view. “Now what are you actually here for, Hoseok?”

Hoseok’s eyes never lifted from the pages of your sketchbook. “I really like her, hyung.”

“You like a lot of things, Hoseok. You like pretty things, shiny new people and girls who look in your general direction. You latch onto anyone who thinks you’re handsome because you don’t see it in yourself. And then, you leech them dry—you spin your web and play them like a fucking piano before leaving them strung up for the crows to pick at. You have currently ruined any chance of a real relationship—I highly doubt you know how to truly love something for what it is and not what it says, Hoseok.”

Hoseok listened to every word, screwing his eyes shut as he dipped his face into his hands, elbows on the countertop. “Ouch.”

“I’m not going to sugarcoat things for you when you pulled this shit with my little sister—blood or no blood, she’s as important to me as my family.”

“She’s the exception to every rule, every standard, everything.” Hoseok mumbled through his hands.

“No, she is the one rule, the one exception, the one line I told you not to cross and you crossed it.”

“No.” Hoseok growled. “You don’t—you don’t understand. She was the catalyst, the—agh.” His shoulders shook with his frustration, his voice cracking on a desperate plea. “Remember when I first visited your dorm room? Back when we were just starting to be friends—remember? You had that work on your wall, that thing that looked like a sketch but wasn’t?”

“The first lithograph Y/N made? Of course I remember, you tried to buy and trade for it with me the entire year until I finally took it home and out of your sight.”

Hoseok lifted his head, pointing to the wall—though his gaze was lost somewhere else in a distant memory. “Yes, that’s the one. I wanted it because I had seen it before—back when it was on display in the library. You know, Seokjin and I were friends since high school, and he’s always been more into art shit than I ever had. I only gave a rat’s ass about dancing, but when he dragged me and Yoongi with him to that conglomeration showing I—okay, so first off, most of them sucked; don’t believe a word Seokjin tells you.”

Namjoon sighed. “Are you going somewhere with this story? I do have things to do, a business to run, a dog to feed and walk before going to bed.”

“It’s noon, calm yourself.” Hoseok grunted. “I saw that work there—it was the only thing that I thought was worth something. The more I looked around, the more I kept circling back to it. I must have stared at that work for an hour, because Seokjin and Yoongi both left me there to go to dinner by themselves. I memorized every detail about that piece—the name, the title, the medium—fuck if I still even know what a lithograph is. It was just this small thing inside a tiny seedpod, darkness all around it. It couldn’t break the shell even if it wanted to—and I—I--“

“Again, where is this leading?”

“I’d always thought art like that could be done by anyone. All that crap in the show was all the same, could have been done by a million people or by one—but her piece made me believe that only some people can create true art; only some people can make things that actually mean something. You always said I’d shown interest in her without knowing her—that’s why. I wanted to meet her; I needed to meet her. So I went to the art building to find her.”

“I’m glad I’m just finding out about this now.” Namjoon sighed. “It doesn’t change my stance, but it’s somewhat comforting to know that there’s a shred of human kindness towards females in your heart.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “And you found Soonmi instead, and it wasn’t until you saw the piece in my room that you realized—“

“Exactly.” Hoseok whispered.

“So you’re an asshole because you’re stupid.”

“Yes—no, but yes.” Hoseok laughed, but there was no humor to it. “If I had found her instead, if I hadn’t believed that—if—god why was I so stupid? If I had just let Soonmi go right then and there--“

“A lot could have changed, yes. And I will admit, as much as I think you don’t deserve her--" Namjoon’s glare silenced any hope in Hoseok’s eyes. “—you two do have some weird chemical connection that I can’t explain.  However, you’ve made your choices and I’m not letting you be one of hers. I can’t trust you with her, Hoseok. How do I know you’re not lying to me now? How do I know that, when I turn around, you won’t be making eyes with the next girl that walks in here? Those tendencies, once formed, aren’t easy to break. I can’t let her give you her heart; it’s too precious for your hands.”

“What if I—“

“Hoseok.” The finality and anger in Namjoon’s voice sent a small shock of fear down your spine. “Enough. I am not going to watch her go through this with you. If you come near her—if you dare hurt her again—I swear that years and years of friendship won’t save you from my wrath.”

Hoseok nodded, pushing himself off the counter. “Just…just give this to her the next time you see her, okay?”

Namjoon grabbed the sketchbook, staring at Hoseok’s back as he left the coffee shop.

You, however, remained curled against the wall, your squat turning into more of a sit the longer your thighs burned. But, the physical pain wasn’t what you were focused on. Instead, your mind was still reeling, trying to comprehend the words you weren’t meant to hear.

What parts were lies? What parts were the truth? How did one believe someone who lies as easily as breathing? Did he truly mean those things he said?

How did one trust the boy who lied about there being wolves?

~.~

You leaned back from your work, nearly up to your elbows in paint as you chugged what was left in your beaten and almost flattened water bottle. It was done.

It was finally done.

The paint was still glistening, tacky but fresh, clinging to the wall with all its might so as not to smear and dribble down your depiction of Hoseok’s movements.

As stupid and strange as it was, the process of painting Hoseok oversized on a mural wall was incredibly therapeutic. Maybe because, when there was a brush in your hand, you could believe that you were painting the version of the boy you wanted to believe in. Maybe, when you were painting him on a wall before you, you could believe that this was the boy who didn’t lie and flirt with anything with two x chromosomes—the boy who was handsome and talented, the boy who only saw you. It was enough for you to be able to ease the sickness in your gut and disassociate the Hoseok in your reality to the one that you fell for in your head.

The real one, the one that lied and told a million girls a million things to get in their pants, you could believe that you had not fallen for that one.

Until you turned and smacked directly into a familiar, wired chest with your paint sodden hands. Once again, Hoseok found himself the victim of a cruel and unsuspected attack by paint.

You stared up at him, fingers splayed, eyes wide and body shell-shocked.

And just like that, all the things you made yourself believe—the bullshit self therapy washed down the tubes. The lump was back in your throat tenfold, threatening to choke you as his warm gaze met with yours.

How many?

How many others were looked at like this? How many women were on his cell? How many were waiting for texts? A ring? A call? A message? How many had pictures of him as their backgrounds, his stare warm and loving and lying?

“Is that supposed to be me?” He murmured, his gaze never leaving you.

You, however, looked anywhere but him—only rewarding his words with a short nod.

“He looks better than me. Do I really look like that? Do you really think I look like that?” He felt along his jaw, his lips and his brows as if the feeling from his fingers could translate to the image before him.

“I think so. At least…at least when you dance you do. But don’t flatter yourself too much; you look best when you’re dancing.”

“Part of me wished you would use that half-assed sketch of Minji with her finger up her nose.”

You snorted, muffling your laughter through your fingers; you could feel paint cling to your face. Once you gathered your composure, you straightened your shoulders as if that could do the same to your resolve. “Why’re you here, Hoseok?”

“I—“

“I heard your talk with Namjoon. I was—I was here. If you think that I’m going to believe what you said just because you said them then you—“

“I didn’t expect you to. I figured you were in the building, but I didn’t know you would hear what I said.” The sincerity in his voice shut you up, the way his eyes softened and darkened in emotions that you could feel but couldn’t name tore your vocal chords from your throat. “I didn’t say them with the hope that you would believe them—I am a person who does a lot of things untruthfully; I am a person that you probably will never trust. But I thought I should give it a chance despite it.” His gaze flit back towards you. “I am willing to throw everything I have on the railroad tracks for the artist that made ‘the one that didn’t bloom.’ A long time ago, I thought that, if I met the person who made that work, maybe I would understand why I felt like I couldn’t blossom. But I screwed that up, and so now, I’ll do anything to give that belief a second chance.”

“Well, better hope those tracks are out of service, because guess what, Hoseok? That artist would have and is going to tell you that you can’t blossom because you are already a full-fledged flower.” You brushed past him, stuffing your nearest supplies into your backpack in the hopes that you could escape quickly and come back later when he was gone.

If he was gone.

“So,” you murmured, angrily tugging at your zipper, “mystery solved.”

Before you could start towards the door, Hoseok’s hand was on your wrist, keeping you bolted to your spot.

“Why do you keep running from me? Do you think that I’m not going to chase you? Do you think that, after all this time, after everything I’ve told you and shown you, I’m just going to stand here and watch you leave?”

It was the five stages of grief in a fucked up order when it came to Jung Hoseok. Somehow, anger came after depression, after bargaining and denial.

“Yes!” You whirled around to face him properly. “That is exactly what you are going to do. I can’t stay here, I can’t stay like this—I can’t stand here and pretend like whatever the hell this--" You gestured angrily between the two of you, but you were sure it looked less threatening and more like a chicken. “—isn’t something more. I can’t sit here and know that there are lines of people in your texts just waiting for you to call them up and invite them into your bed. Hoseok, this may come as a surprise to you—why, I don’t know, maybe you’re blind or something—but, guys don’t like me. I’m not too fond of them either; probably, because of this—probably because there’s always better options out there in the world. A million fish in the sea, or some bullshit analogy like it. And you, the man with gold in his bones and a smile like the fucking sun, yeah, you’ll find the best of the best. And it’s not me. It is never me!”

However, Hoseok’s grip on your wrist tightened at the sight of the gloss forming through your lashes. He was fishing his phone out of his back pocket like a man possessed, his gaze rooted to yours. “This phone is what you’re worried about? The people on here? What if I text them? What if I call every girl on this phone with you standing right here? What if I send them pictures of you, tell them to fuck off? What if I block their numbers, delete their contacts? What if I—“

“You’re not listening!”

Hoseok growled, his hand shaking on yours. You were thankful it was 6pm and no one fucking got coffee at 6pm except for college students and tired business men—none of which were in the building.  Because damn, the two of you were causing a scene.

“And you’re not listening to me! There is no one better, Y/N! There is not a single person out there that is better than you.”

You pressed your lips into a line, trying once more to feebly pull your grip from his. “You don’t get it! You just don’t understand it at all! I don’t know what to believe in anymore, Hoseok. I don’t know which guy you are—are you the one that’ll cheat on his girlfriend and sleep with an entire campus? Are you the guy that’ll tell this to every girl he sees? Or is it the one that says he likes my artwork—is it the one that says he likes me and only me?”

“That one.” He croaked out. “What can I do to prove to you that I am the second guy? What can I possibly do to show you that I am the guy that would do anything just to see you smile? What can I do to show you that I’ve been stupidly in love with a girl I hadn’t met until the beginning of this year? What can I do to show you that it’s you, Y/N, it’s always been you and it will always be you? I’ll put my neck on a guillotine if it means you’ll let me fight to make this something. I’ve never wanted anything between anyone to be something as much as I’ve wanted this. I’ve never wanted someone as much as I’ve wanted to see you—it scares me to think that if you’re not here you’re gone and I’ll never see you again.”

You scoffed at the drama of it all, finally pulling your grasp from his. “There is nothing, Hoseok. There’s nothing you can do. Short of destroying your phone there’s absolutely nothing you can—“

You were cut off by the glint of light as the fragile touch screen of Hoseok’s phone flashed once in the lights on its deathly plummet to the ground, whipped from his hand. The second the plastic resounded against the tile with an awful thud, Hoseok’s heel was slamming down on top of it hard enough to pop off the back, to shatter the glass of the screen and destroy the camera. The S.I.M card went flying, crunching under his boot.

“Hoseok!” You screeched, shrill and piercing. “What the fuck are you doing?! I wasn’t serious—omigod!” Now it was you holding onto him, shoving and pulling him back away from the bits of his destroyed phone as if you still had hopes of saving him from taking a huge hit to his wallet. You dropped to the ground, flicking the pieces around as if that would make them come back together. “Did you save anything?” You stared up at him from the floor. “Your pictures? Contacts? What if your mom’s phone number was on there? Do you know her number by heart? Omigod, Hoseok! Are you crazy?”

He watched you with amusement glittering in his eyes until laughter finally fizzled down and burst from his chest. “Probably.”

You however, were still absolutely lost. “This…I didn’t…I wasn’t serious. How are you so nonchalant about this?”

Hoseok shrugged, dropping down to squat next to you and meet your gaze eye to eye. “If it gives me a fighting chance, then nothing else matters.”

You brushed your hair back off your face, slicking back your wild baby hairs. “Namjoon is so going to kill you.”

“Well… I don’t have a phone now, so it’ll be difficult for him to contact me and hunt my ass down.” But he was laughing despite the impending death threats looming in the distance.

“So really?” It was a question that made no sense to anyone, but Hoseok seemed to understand because he nodded.

“Really.”

“I like you, Hoseok. I really, really like you.”

He grinned, one eyebrow raised. “But…?”

“You’re batshit insane.” You held up the broken bits to his line of sight with a snort, shaking your head. “I…I can’t trust you, I hope you know that. But I guess I’m into insane too, since I’m falling for it—for you. “

His grin only seemed to grow, somehow bringing in more sunlight into the shop even though it was getting late and dark. “I’m willing to do whatever it takes to earn your trust. Maybe not today or tomorrow or a year from now. But someday. And, hey, that’s what I like most about you.” He murmured, helping you pick up the pieces to his phone--if he was going to try and make it up to Namjoon for breaking his only rule, then he was going to have to start with a clean coffee shop. “You have an insanity kink.”

“Ah, I’ve decided I’m going to download tinder and go on a date with someone else instead. After all, one of us still has a phone.”  You pushed up to your feet quickly, throwing away the bits of his destroyed cell while evading his flailing grasp.

“Hey!”

Before you could reach the door, he caught you, spinning you so you were facing him, your back pressed against the wall; butterflies ignited into fireworks in your chest. When you looked up at him and smiled, Hoseok’s lips were on yours instantaneously. This time, you let him.

This time, your smile grew into his.