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Beneath my feet were the bones of a thousand years. I thought: I cannot bear this world a moment longer.
Then, child, make another.
— Madeline Miller , Circe .
The moment Jungkook is born, Jimin can feel the magical shift in his life. Despite only having a year of difference, he vaguely remembers the sudden infatuation and constant amazement at everything related to the younger boy. His parents constantly told him as he grew up how Jungkook and he were always in each other’s spaces, magic spells flowing between them as they learned not only each other’s likes and dislikes in the world, but also their magic together.When they were around five and six, Jimin and Jungkook would do everything they possibly could only with the aid of magic and nature.Warming water for baths, getting wood, warming, or cooling their food to their preferred temperature— if there was a way nature could help them, they’d use it.At a certain point, their mom had to intervene. When Jungkook learned how to use their magic to befriend and make animals trust them easily and both showed up at their home riding ponies, she declared that “that’s enough magic for now, isn’t it?”.By the time they were thirteen and fourteen, the two were in perfect sync with the world around them, doing most things with minimal need from the newfound technology their world was developing. A walk to the main town? No need for cars, Jimin and Jungkook could find themselves in the woods during day and night time better than human hunters. A trip to another county in need of magical supplies? Airships were the last thing in their mind. Their father, seeing how much they were devoted to their nature, taught them how to sailboats and navigate in rivers and sea.Technology, cities and new things popped every single day. The gold and silver explored by the kingdoms alongside the intricate designs of druids and scholars that led to a wave of change.
(Plus, Jungkook wasn’t fond of heights. Jimin wouldn’t just leave him in the middle of the sea alone, right?)Having a witch as a mother proved to be not only the best thing for the druid boys, it also bonded the family in a sense humans couldn’t understand. Never would.Their bond was, without a doubt, unique and beautiful, a rare encounter of two souls who even when seeing things in a different light, simply mend their visions and aspire to create a new color in which they can both rest and find happiness in. Their parents thrived in seeing them grow up to be strong and independent boys who could do many things that younglings in their days were long forgotten. They thrived in knowing that no matter what happened, Jimin and Jungkook would always find a home in each other.That was why when Nadia Park and Bonhwa Park passed in a targeted Witch Hunt a nearby village conducted, killing many innocent people, they didn’t fear for a second. They set their boys in their path as soon as Nadia sensed danger, and hoped that the world would be kind to two teenagers who would be in much pain.
🍃
Nature always answers a call coming from those who serve them so truthfully.
🍃
It didn’t take long for them to find solace in the magical community again.Humans were once again losing themselves in their ignorance and it was no longer safe for druids, witches, or any magical beings to live in communities so close to those with such close minds. Jimin was fifteen and Jungkook was fourteen when after two months of search through the woods, they found Sea Inn.
Master Tania was an old Oracle who took one good look at them, gave a long sigh, and said, “I thought you boys would arrive last week. Come—come in Jimin, don’t give me that strange frown. You and Jungkook are safe now, my darling. Apollo warned me of your arrival.”To say he was relieved was an understatement. Jimin might’ve been older and had a sense of responsibility much bigger than Jungkook, but they were equals when it came to magic and Jimin always treated his brother as such, which meant that from the moment they escaped from their village until they got to another city, they walked side by side and shared tasks without a bias. It also meant Jimin worried twice as much, even knowing there wasn’t a need.They adapted to the Sea Community in the span of a week. Where Jungkook was reserved, dark brown hair resembling their father and a serious face resembling their mother, Jimin took after their mom’s golden locks and his father’s bright smile and easygoing personality.
It was a switch and match that fitted them both like a glove— Jimin charmed and swam through people like a fish in a pond, finding and making friends from the bartender in the bar they could only visit in the day time to Master Tania, who mostly kept to herself.
Jungkook, on the other hand, was a quieter one who mostly won every one by his shyness and general adorable demeanor, always so polite until you gained intimacy and found him fondly mocking your bed hair, his baby eyes always winning the old ladies from every Apothecary.They found their place in the new village, for now, their home was in each other.
🍃
When the illness came, Jimin felt the deep and piercing dread in the bottom of his gut on day one.Jungkook never got sick— too healthy, free and wild to ever properly be sick, having run through miles of woods and endured every change of weather without needing as much as a soup laced with honey from their parents.At first, Jimin pretended the Healers' words were soothing.
“Ah, Jimin-ah, don’t worry about Jungkook. It’s normal for people to get sick, even wild spirited druids such as he,” said Níf.
He nodded, pretending that it was Winter in the corner bringing harsher winds and cold steel breaths, pretending that maybe it was the fact that Jungkook went swimming with Minhyuk after their Potions lesson in the previous week— surely that would amount to enough reason for Jungkook’s bed rest and sudden illness.
Every time he passed Minhyuk that next week, he felt awful for desiring to see him sick as well, and then felt twice as horrible when he remembered that his brother didn’t look any better.
The pierced hook in his gut was getting tighter, a reminder that whatever horrible thing was in store was getting nearer and it wouldn’t take much for Jimin’s sadness to turn into angry despair.
It took precisely 43 hours.As soon as he woke up to his brother’s lungs sounding week, his cough sounding horribly wet and the rim around his eyes green for some unknown fucking reason, he heard a knock on their door and snapped.On the other side stood Master Tania, her eyes far more yellow in the late-night hours than Jimin’s ever saw them; she asked to see Jungkook and he simply nodded, grabbing everything he needed and thought about that entire week, only stopping to glance at Jungkook in the bed before running out of the Inn and their community.It’s not that Jimin didn’t trust Master Tania.
To be fair, he would trust her with his life. His life and Jungkook’s, on the other hand, were two completely different stories.Those past two years they spent in her care being were more than enough for him to know that she’s far more powerful than anyone he’s ever met, far more dangerous than any cross-eyed warlock he dreaded finding in the streets and more importantly, she cared for them in ways he knew ran deeper than a magister and student relation.
Still. He could never trust his brother’s life on someone else’s hand.Not enough to completely disregard a second opinion and backup plan, however dangerous that may be for him.
🍃
In the two years they lived in Sea Community, Jimin heard of the Stone Witch exactly three times.The first was right after the Debate Class when Master Tania invited the main town’s jury Luca to be her opponent, with the job to advocate in favor of magical and human unity in the community.
He, surprisingly for Jimin, was the party in favor whereas Master Tania was the party against it. Their debate was so intense and inspiring that he stood after class waiting for an opportunity to say to jury Lucca just how amazing he was when he overheard him speak with another one of Sea’s Schola’s professors.“...just glad that we solved that matter with the lead Master Tania presented. Next thing on the Chief’s mind was the Stone Witch and that was the last thing I wanted.”“I can understand the reservations of accusing the Stone Witch of kidnapping a series of kids,” the professor said with a sarcastic tone.“Oh no, you misunderstood me! My reservations weren’t because I didn’t want to accuse her, it was because I didn’t want to offend her in the first place by making her think I even considered her as a suspect! You know how— oh, hi young man. Are you waiting for Master Tania?” Jury Lucca said with a smile as soon as his eyes landed on Jimin.The boy shook his head and spoke with him about what he thought of the debate, engaging in a conversation much longer than he expected, his mind completely forgetting the subject the man was talking about before he diverted his attention to Jimin.
It wasn’t until later that night talking to Jungkook about it that he noticed that if a Jury as important as Lucca didn’t want to offend the witch in question, some power she had.The second was a few months later when he overheard two ladies speaking in the Apothecary he was shopping, their hushed tones enough to make everyone else miss the conversation, but Jimin, being on the shelf right under the stair while looking for his sage, was perfectly in place.“—couldn’t make it in the daytime! It’s not like I’m going to visit the Stone Witch when the night’s brimming and I’m a human, Kay.”“She’s not gonna eat you, girl.” Although he couldn’t see them, Jimin felt the eye rolls slipping through the other girl’s words.“Easy for a Nymph to be talking. You turn into a tree and I wanna see who could and would eat you! What the fuck do I do if I get lost in the woods around her house? I bet there are like, traps and stuff all around it. It’s her . I can’t do much other than run, it’d be pretty stupid of me to go too late.”“Uh-huh, now get back to the story.”“Anyway, you know my dad‘s a stubborn dick on top of being a shifter, so I know it’s not just anything. He got something on his last trip and... I don’t know, Kay, I’m gonna go back there as soon as I can. He’s withering away in bed and the Healers are just spilling bullshit, trying to get my coins. They’ve got no idea what’s wrong with him!”“You’re right, you should try to get to her cabin. If there’s one person who can help, baby, it’s her. Just be careful, you know that— oh crap, I can’t believe he’s here. What is Marco doing here? He doesn’t even live close to...”He blinked out of his stupor, silently scolding himself for listening to others’ conversations and went back to his weekly shopping.By then, Jimin had completely forgotten about the name, but now, the memory rang clear in his mind.The last time was during the same week Jungkook got sick.
He had run downtown to buy more supplies for his coffee and teas so he could try and get some sleep when he heard nothing but the name. Someone must’ve been talking about her, maybe whispering about secrets and fears, but all the wind carried was simply the name that right then, was all Jimin needed.There was still one last person to consult and he’d find her without a doubt.
🍃
Finding her didn’t prove to be as much as a hassle Jimin initially thought it’d be.
Having lived in the middle of the woods himself and all his years wandering with Jungkook by his side, learning how to navigate without getting lost and using tracking spells to find traces of magic was all it took before he was in a clear magical trail, meaning she wouldn’t be too far and she wasn’t as hostile as he feared since her magical residue was all over the place.His first impression of the Stone Witch was that she was older than he imagined.
Although witches aged differently than humans and most supernatural beings, he could see in her raven wavy hair various strands of white and silver, the colors mingling with the black as if three were thinking of becoming one.Her gray eyes had wrinkles of age underneath them and despite her long and lean frame looking younger than the face, she walked holding a cane.“Ah, Jimin,” she said without ceremony as soon as she opened her door. Like he had used one of those telephone things and called , asking if he could come. As if he was a visit that came by weekly—someone she met long, long ago. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she continued with a monotonous tone, almost like he had arrived fashionably late.
His eyes initially widened at her words, but then he shook the surprise off real quick, realizing how long it had been since he’s been in the presence of a witch. A pang of miss hits his chest, squeezing the area around his heart with more force than he expected.The years without his mother smiling at him, fond and so knowing, as only a witch can be. The Stone Witch’s behavior wasn’t much different than the stuff he grew up with, so he takes a deep breath and tries to ignore the overflow of feelings inside of him before bowing his head in respect.He excused himself verbally before entering the cottage, removing his shoes and placing his bag beside the door is a sign of respect for her home.
The witch looked back at him and captured both gestures, an easy smile spreading in her face.“Always good to receive younglings who still have manners,” she joked, moving further inside and gesturing for him to follow.He didn’t know how much she knew, so he simply shrugged shyly in response and waited until the woman came back to the living room and took a seat in a chair, gesturing towards the couch in an invite for Jimin to do the same.
He hadn’t dared touch a thing or look around too much—his mother might’ve been a witch and he now lived with an Oracle, but he always found that knowledge of magic and the occult never prepared you for what you can find in the home of someone you don’t know, so he opted for the simpler choice and simply did not look.“So, my druid boy, may I ask what you seek?” she asked him before sipping on her tea that was already served at the table by her side.Jimin watched as a green snake carefully and slowly made her way up the witch’s leg, and the latter must’ve been accustomed to the creature’s behavior for she didn’t even blink.
The intense fear he was feeling for Jungkook was much more obvious then, when he couldn’t even find it in himself to be irked by one of the animals he mostly kept his distance in nature.“My brother is ill,” he finally managed to speak, after a beat of silence where he tried to ignore the goosebumps that seeing her pet had given him.
His voice was even, clear in the open and quiet cottage, speaking things that cut deep in his skin.
“They can’t… they don’t know what it is. He’s been the same for a week—doesn’t leave the bed, barely eats or sleeps, green around his eyes that I’ve never seen before.”“I see,” she commented, her deep gray eyes nodding in encouragement for him to continue.“The Healers tried to help,” he swallowed down the fact.
They did try. It still wasn’t enough.It wasn’t enough and Jimin was stupid, so fucking stupid in ignoring his gut feeling that told him from second number one that Jungkook doesn’t get sick and that it wasn’t normal, no matter how much the adults tried to sweeten his words around him. He should’ve gone directly to Master Tania and if that didn’t work—Jimin blinked harshly a couple of times to blow away the useless thoughts, muttering. “I should’ve come earlier.”“Now, now, nature isn’t made of ‘should haves’ and ‘what ifs’. What’s done is done my boy and the fact that you are here now is all that you have control over,” she told him simply, her tone the same as the one she used when welcoming him, giving him a sense of calmness.“What if—” he started, then stopped. He had to ask, but didn’t want to. He opened his mouth and tried again. “What if it’s too late?”“Ah, it’s never too late until it is too late, Jimin.” The witch caressed the snake methodically, listening to Jimin’s words without looking him in the eye. “Is he dead?”“No!”“Then it isn’t too late,” she said with a final voice, gaze fixed on him. “Do you wish me to visit him?”The same gut feeling that told Jimin that what Jungkook had wasn’t a simple illness had warned him from the second he pondered about the Stone Witch that Master Tania wouldn’t enjoy the woman’s presence in her home.
He wasn’t stupid to ignore the Spark that resided deep within him more than once, so he shook his head as an answer, got up from the couch and moved to where his bag was.The Two Faced Mirror was a simple magical artifact owned by very few people.
The center itself was nothing but a mirror, but the mold was made of round shaped gypsum stones, polished under Full Moons, and blessed in rituals.
It wasn’t easy to get the stones blessed by a coven of witches since the mirror was often used wrongly and without consent, so more and more often they refused to give those stones the blessings people wanted.Luckily for Jimin, his mother’s coven when she was a teenager made several Mirrors for them with a binding spell promising to use them always with consent.Jimin hung the other mirror in the chandelier in his and Jungkook’s room and brought the other piece with him, so the witch could evaluate from her own place.
If she couldn’t get a verdict this way, then Jimin would have to think of something else.“Will this do?” he asked her and raised the mirror towards her.
On the other side, clear under the daylight was Jungkook. He saw then the wonder in her eyes when faced with the mirror, but chose to say nothing.When she picked it up and stared at it for a few seconds, clearly examining Jungkook’s appearance, Jimin sighed internally in happiness.Not only was she doing it from here, but she also didn’t feel the rune’s power embroiled in the Mirror.His mother had taught him that there weren’t such things as ‘too many precautions’, and since the matter in hand was Jungkok’s life, he wasn’t about to take chances, no matter the odds of her finding what he did and deeming it offensive.
Jimin didn’t know her, there was no way other than magic to make her speak the truth, but right now, holding the mirror with a simple and elegant spell taught by his mother, whatever she spoke to him, it had to be true.
Otherwise, the gypsum mold would turn dull instead of the shiny natural way, snitching on her lies in a subtle way.“He is profoundly ill, child, I won’t lie to you,” she told him solely. Her eyes still trained on the mirror, she gave a long sigh. “There is only one potion I can think of that will help him, but the main ingredient, as it usually goes in potions as rare, isn’t easily found.”Jimin’s eyes went wide.Jungkook was ill, but there was a way he could get better.
He could rise again and whatever poisoned him could be destroyed, which meant that there was only one answer for Jimin.“I’ll find it. I’ll look for it, and I’ll find it.”The Stone Witch’s eyes burned holes in Jimin’s body and slowly, she raised her eyebrows at the force of his words.“Very well. But know this: you’ll have to travel. You’ll have to look for it in every imaginable corner, you’ll use your magic to extents you haven’t before to keep you safe and this will take spirit, child. What you look for is Kadupul, a flower as rare in beauty as it is in power. There are few potions out there that could help your brother, but most of them would weaken the poison for years until it came striving back someday, but the Flower? That has the power to kill it. It can save your brother,” she finished it, giving the mirror back to Jimin.He took it with weak and cold hands, his fingers feeling numb at the way his magic flew and coursed alight in his veins, begging to touch the surface, to do something.Gripping the mirror tight, he started nodding, already planning in his head the way for his trip, places he knew where he could start from.He lifted his gaze again and found her watching him closer still.“Once you find it, you must bring it back to me. This illness is cruel and slow and your brother has two years, at best, before his body gives up on him,” she told him as he put the Mirror back in his bag, head filled with ideas. “I’ll brew the potion and help you, in exchange for a favor that, as the clear laws of nature state, shall harm none. Can you do that? Do we have a deal?”Jimin took a deep breath and leaped with the last advice his mother gave him regarding deals with witches.
“Never make one unless you do as I say, Minnie, do you understand? ”“Yes, mama. ”“Promise me that this is the only condition under which you'll deal with a fellow sister. I need a clear promise, Minnie. ”“I promise, mama. ”
“On one condition,” he told her.He could never break a promise to his mother.At his words, the Stone Witch sat back, truthfully surprised. He continued. “My mother, she—she was a witch. And told me to only make a deal… with a witch whose name I know. We have a deal once I have your name.”She stared at him for what it felt like hours.
Jimin could feel the hairs on the back of his neck had risen, could feel and hear his heartbeat pounding right in his ears.
Maybe she would say no, and he’d have to look for another one, but she already gave him the name of the thing he needed most.
He knew it was probably a potion that could only be brewed by a witch’s power, but Jimin would have to find a—.“Essylt.”The voice in which the name was spoken was deeper, the echo seeming to fill Jimin in for a small eternity that carved the name in him somehow.
He felt the ground beneath his feet quietly tremble, as if murmuring the name right back to her, giving Essylt back the power she emitted when announcing her Name.Jimin took a breath to clear himself and then nodded. “We have a deal, Essylt.”That night, Jimin returned to the Inn and talked to Jungkook in hushed whispers.
He promised he’d return with a cure, with the knowledge to save him from whatever it was that had him.
Jimin gave him his opal necklace and told him to guard it now because he couldn’t lose him on the trip, and he knew from the way that Jungkook stared at him that he was scared.“Don’t be frightened Kookie. You trust me, right?”The younger nodded, so Jimin continued. “Then trust me to come back with what I need.”Jungkook nodded at him. “Okay. And alive.”“Can’t bring your cure as a corpse now, can I, stupid?” Jimin laughed, ignoring the wetness in his cheeks. “I love you, Kook.”“Love you too, hyung.”As he hugged Jungkook, Jimin repeated the words to himself several times, speaking them into existence and resonating them inside himself.
I will come back with what I need, and it will save Jungkook.
I will come back with what I need, and it will save Jungkook.
I will come back with what I need, and it will save Jungkook.
🍃
A year after he leaves, Jimin finds himself in the Hylst Forest.The path that led him there wasn’t arduous as much as it was long and dark, restless nights and even more restless mornings with the huge weight of never finding what he left looking for hanging on his shoulders, roads filled with insane and doubtful strangers always trying to get a piece of or make a fool of him. Sometimes both.
To put it mildly, Jimin’s only in a good mood on the very few times Jungkook’s well enough to call him through the Two-Faced Mirror to update him on how much Master Tania will beat his ass when he returns, talk about town gossip or tell him about a new book he’s been reading.
(The last one only happened a handful of times given how much the illness takes out of Jungkook. His brother can’t read properly with how irritated his eyes usually feel, but he also can’t stop himself from something with his brain so every chance he gets, he chooses a new book. It takes him much longer to finish, but according to him, “ I need to work out something, hyung. If it can’t be my body, might as well be my brain, that’s gonna be of use someday, right? ”)
So, yes. Bad mood every time he’s not around Jungkook.
Which is a lot.
His biggest lessons in the road weren’t that he’s pretty enough to gain favors from old ladies wanting to indulge, or that he can charm his way out of Officers wanting to do a search in his room or, even worst, that humans are getting even crazier with their golden technology and their Airships — how much bigger to these things need to get? — but, that most of all, everyone wants a piece of rarity.
He sees the irony just fine—Jimin’s a nineteen year old druid looking for a flower whose magical properties belong in a Potion complicated enough that only witches can brew, wanting to heal an illness no one can find the source to, apparently, but he indulges in his discovery nonetheless.
The advantage of knowing how to navigate in land and sea and having magic is that he finds all sorts of shit.
Well, technically not shit, they’re rare magical items who usually benefit people in a very simple way that would require a lot of other things instead of just one necklace or one lucky, gnome penny, but to him, they’re still junk.To him. To others: rarities. An even bigger advantage is that Jimin, slowly, without noticing, became sort of a badass.He was never, not even for a second, some frail golden druid who didn’t know how to aid for himself, but on the road, he had to learn while escaping stupid humans and stupid supernatural creatures, sometimes a punch in the throat is the right way to go.
He learned that having tattoos — and gods, his father was probably hollering in his grave right now with how many there were — was much easier than having to draw runes all the fucking time.After three rough months having to draw simple spells such as Warming, Tracking, Protection, and Illusion to keep his identity as safe as possible, he simply decides to stop at a Magical Parlor that looks clean and proper enough and pays in silver coins for most of those.Magical tattoos need to be made by magical beings with special infused ink, while the tattooed person muttering the incantations behind them as they’re perforated by the needle and ink. They can also look like anything you want.It’s safe to assume Jimin has a little fun.
He doesn’t want to parade around towns he doesn’t know and could have nasty people hanging around with what are clearly magical inscriptions all over his arm, so he goes with what he loves best: nature.
After a year, Jimin’s not only a badass, he has a full sleeve made of forest trees and a river, a bear looking positively terrifying standing on some rocks, a Blood Moon and a white snake in one arm, whilst the other hides smaller symbols a witch’s hand holding a stone and a dragon.
He’s content with that, at least.
The rest, he thinks, can go fuck itself.(He had also developed a sailor’s mouth just like his mother and grandmother. The road and family blood apparently do run thicker than anything.)
All in all, Jimin’s lost a bit of his eye smile, his patience with humans, his belief that they can ever learn how to properly respect nature, gained the knowledge that whilst education is always on demand, respect is earned and that you never, ever say no to and dismiss someone’s kindness, even if it comes from someone you wouldn’t usually expect.The last one he knew, but had to learn how to practice.The only thing remotely good so far was his late book discovery—the grimoire of the Sahk family, provided by an old man who did him the kindness of paying him a drink in the last Inn he stayed at, had information about several, countless kinds of wood and their meadows and, most importantly, their flowers.Jimin gave him not only a huge hug but also a bracelet who drank from the Moon to bless their user with better vision. The man had one bad eye and cried so much that Jimin thought he’d have to give him another gift to try and cheer him.
The Sahk grimoire wasn’t of use to him anymore since he was the last of his family and not a witch, so Jimin took the gift without remorse.
Which was how two months later he found himself a few towns south, hugging his cloak and coats closer to block the Winter winds which were getting stronger, searching the Hylst Forest for what it had to offer.
He was warned by the townsfolk — who were very wary of him — that the forest wasn’t a good place to wander around in the night and he had answered with an understanding smile, a nod and an assurance that he wouldn’t just wander alone in the dark in the middle of an unknown forest.
By night time, he had not only dismissed their concern but was actually thinking of it with a fond and slightly condescending smile.
Why are they always so quick to assume I’m useless? he’s thinking to himself as he walks around.
At that moment, Jimin’s looking precisely for cave locations, since most of the flowers on the notes grow under dark, humid and cold environments. He plans on mapping the forest the best he can and looking through every meadow necessary—he can feel a shift in his search, the purpose of why he was in the road in the first place bubbling under his skin and telling him to trust that he needs to do what he needs to do.
What he also needs after finding the caves he’s looking for is a good place to set camp, since he’s determined to sleep in the Forest to waste less time moving in and out of town.
He’ll probably be twice as tired given how often he’ll have to use his spells to block the shitty weather, but at least he’ll—.There’s a sound. A branch snaps and immediately, Jimin’s whole body is on alert.
He stops walking and diminishes he’s breathing almost completely, until he can hear his own heartbeat. Magic simmers under his skin, boiling like water.
Jimin hears the wind, followed by a stone-cold silence that doesn’t belong in a safe space.
The woods are alive, constantly moving and changing, whether in day or night.
Silence means danger, but this kind of silence? It means big-time problem.
He keeps quiet, only moving his lips slowly to announce the words for his Body Protection spell.
It doesn’t do much to block actual wounds, but if he does get attacked and the threat lives, it uses all his other runes to power his healing faster.
As soon as the words are muttered, he feels the bear make one rapid movement, sending the rush of power from his left arm to the rest of his body.
He feels the effect spreading extremely hot from the left arm to the rest of his body, but as soon as it’s done, it feels as if someone spilled warm honey all over him.As soon as the magic finishes its job, Jimin’s sharp senses realize the change.
The smell of warm blood, metallic and disgusting hits his nose the same moment he feels the ground under him vibrate with the sound of big, huge paws in a large number approaching.
It’s the howling that makes his blood run cold, but he knew as soon as he smelled the blood and the wood that he was fucked.
Direwolves would be at least five foot tall, a legitimate pack of ancient wolves, bright and intelligent, always seeking their prey.
If not Direwolves, then they were Lycans: humans in wolf form. All the ones he encountered so far were nothing but feral and egotistical creatures, lost in pack wars and politics far too gone for anyone to snub a finger at.
Both options meant Jimin was food and he should’ve been running since that was his best bet against a pack.He gives a second to thank Nyx and the gods for the lack of snow yet, and sprints.
There was barely time to run and look up, the sky is mostly blocked by the huge trees and obscuring his vision of the stars, but he knows that running towards the town was a lost bet.
He remembers the townsfolk talking about not going East for “in the Eastside lived evil” and prays to all his gods that it means a witch or any creature with more logic and thinking capacity than the things running in four paws after him.
He doesn’t care if he ends up face to face with a fucking troll, he thinks as he runs, because one troll he can take, while for the pack of fanged animals running and howling talking isn’t even an option, so Jimin keeps running.
His stamina is proven to be even better than he imagined because he sprints and jumps through the rocks, trying to keep a steady and clear path towards the East.
There’s no way he’s going to die because he didn’t know this fucking town had goddamn werewolves. Lycans. Stupid fucking wolves.There’s no way he’s going to die without bringing back Jungkook the Kadupul he needs to survive, he’s thinking.
There is no way—he thinks.
The floor shakes and Jimin can hear a loud sound, which he later connects as his own screams. The presence behind him draws closer and then, all his world is pain.There is no way he’ll survive the open wounds those fangs make when they collapse against his ribs and his stomach.
He won’t win a fight against a wolf, so Jimin does the only thing he can think of before he passes out from the wound—he takes a deep breath, sensing very clearly at that moment the blood already dried in that wolf’s fur, the fangs deep inside him and the others arriving behind the Alpha; he takes a breath, closes his eyes and unleashes all his runes at once, screaming at the pain, the loss and the pain. I can’t believe I’m gonna fail Jungkook like this, he thinks.
And then he faints.
Min Yoongi isn’t, as his Sire used to put, a ‘people’s person’.
He’s living through his Sixth Century already, but it didn’t take him one year of training with his Sire to realize: being a vampire didn’t change much for him. He still loathed humans, loathed their disrespectful ways towards anything and anyone and, as one usually finds out, he isn’t that fond of the magical community as well.
Given all of that, living in a castle is one of the best things that has ever happened to him.
Immortality is overrated.He finds solace in discoveries and the very few supernatural beings that enchant his life. He knows he won’t be able to do this forever, never found a purpose to brighten his day as well as the things he does at night, but for now, he has a goal and his piano, so he gets by fine.Although his human years are already long forgotten and he can’t remember what his family looked like, he knows that he wasn’t always so… closed. When he had friends and helped his father at his shop, he used to be a shy boy, but a good one. Yoongi always liked his books, his music sheets and trying to paint the ocean the best way he could.With time, though, he learned that eternity was a second skin—a layer of a persona that is created for survival, one that thickens with each Solstice.It was hard to live for so long without building walls around yourself and impossible to make it through without losing your soul in the middle of the supernatural community without protection .He learned that the hard way, long ago.Vampires were the ones most known for their isolation, extravaganza, and sinful ways. He’s seen enough of what great Sires and Ancients do to keep themselves entertained—the lengths these types of creatures go to in order to feel something. The constant drama, curses, backstabbing. The blood. So much blood, he thinks to himself.Ever since he was turned, Yoongi sees the world through red lenses.The Moon bleeds, his victims do, the ones who stand between him and his path bleed the most and, even on certain occasions, so does he.There was only one reason to stay in this cursed world for good, and Yoongi pursued that with everything left in him.
🩸
Anytime his Oracle demands a visit from him, Yoongi gets out of his castle immediately.He doesn’t make it a habit of leaving. Most of his prey are pulled towards the castle by his traps and baits spread through the forest: every corrupt man or woman, abusive and lost souls who take advantage of the innocent, the naive, and the youngest ones—they all Fall.Min Yoongi learned long ago how to put the correct smell in the mist, the oasis sight perfectly was drawn to attract them. They all fall under the spell of his manipulated Shadows and Darkness and end up knocking on his door.Other than that, he remains recluse.Every time he ventures outside, his cloak long enough to shield him from the harsh winters, he sees another invention or foreign object roaming the skys far ahead, in the direction of the City.Yoongi watches all of them, his sharp red eyes observing the way humans advance with their technology, contrasting how so many of them only go backward with their knowledge and thoughts.Making his way to the City of Moldavia as soon as the Sun goes down, he walks in human pace to take it all in. The trees turn into fields, which turn into small streets that lead straight into the busy town, bursting with cars and carriages, elegant and big houses, buildings stretching taller and taller.He walks without being noticed, getting further in deep, the address already familiar in his mind.On the outskirts of town, far North, there are houses hidden by tall and old trees, already starting to mingle again with the forest behind them.In one of those cabins, almost hidden by enormous oak trees, is the house of the Oracle and the Loba Witch.He doesn’t bother knocking, since he was already invited a long time ago. Arden, being the one who invited him in the first place, is aware that he’d come, so Yoongi makes his way inside like always. He slides through the Darkness and passes straight into their living room.The Oracle is sitting in their chair, their palms extended forward in direction of the large wood bath laying in the middle of the room. Inside the bath, there’s a boy shaking in the water, blood dripping from his eyes.“Fuck.”The appearance of the boy startles Yoongi. The vampire searches for something, an answer, or an explanation in Arden's eyes, but they remain focused, palms forward while they whisper incantations continuously. They’re no healer or witch, so there isn’t much they can do, but Yoongi knows that having a witch for a wife must’ve taught them something.When the boy groans loudly, Arden stops whispering and after taking a deep breath, they lock their mossy green eyes on Yoongi.“Make yourself useful. I need curare liana, some goldenseal and a lot of ginseng. Get them in my cabinet in the greenhouse, please.”Yoongi nods and without wasting time, moves in a blink towards their greenhouse at the back of the cabin. He’s grateful that he’s learned in his Sire’s Herbology classes enough, otherwise he’d be in much more panic than he currently is. He locates the three ingredients Arden asked and goes back with speed.“He wasn’t supposed to be so sick,” Arden tells him while they get the ingredients from his hands and start mixing it all together. “He’s a Fire Ox.”When he received the message initially, Yoongi imagined Arden had found a New Moon’s Ox baby. Yoongi had been searching for them ever since his project initiated. A baby who was a Fire Ox born under a New Moon was a key for Yoongi’s plan.They were also nearly impossible to find.“When did he start feeling ill?” Yoongi asks, watching the fast work of Arden’s hands. They apply the paste they made with the herbs and something else all over and around the boy’s neck, but Yoongi can still hear the wheezing of his lungs and how difficult it is for him to swallow. “He’s in a lot of pain, Arden.”“I know. Don’t you think I know? It’s clouding my vision, just let me—let me try, Yoongi, goddamn it.” Arden puts the bowl they used in their chair and Yoongi stands frozen by the side of the bath, helpless to do anything. “Tomas. Tomas, look at me. You were telling me about your trip to Moldavia, I want you to try to finish the story. Can you do that? Do you remember how you got here?”The boy coughs and grunts, trying to answer the Oracle’s questions, but only groaning louder every time he tries.“Fuck, fuck, god fucking damn it,” Arden nearly growls.It’s strange to see them curse. Yoongi is used to seeing them composed, their long and beautiful hair framing their cute cheeks adorably, giving their general appearance an almost angel-like aura. Arden was calm, they were a quiet and firm whisper in the darkness that felt like absolute Power.Seeing them lose their control, even if slightly, was the proof of how unnatural this death was. Whatever got to the boy — Tomas, he recalls — is something that crawled in the peripheries of one of the best Oracle’s sights.Arden holds Tomas’s head between their hands, patting his cheeks softly.“Tomas? Tomas, you asked me to get the poison out of you and I’m trying, but you asked for that so you could speak. So speak. What is wrong?” Arden insists, dark green eyes focused on the boy. When the only reply they get is more groaning, Arden sighs deeply.Tired, so visibly wrecked and without anything else they can do, they sink on the floor with a thud, ignoring all the blood and creamy paste they still have on their hands. They look up to Yoongi with bags under their eyes.“End his pain. Please,” they add with despair.
Finally being able to do something other than just watch, Yoongi takes a step towards the boy and with one swift movement, snaps Tomas’s neck.There’s the sound of the bone-cracking and his lump body sliding down inside the bath, then complete silence.Yoongi sits down on the couch beside Arden, then slowly puts one of his hands on his friend’s shoulder. Despite not being the best person to console anyone, Yoongi cares deeply for the Oracle. They’re one of the few people in the community who he trusts and reaches to, takes care of.They put their own dirty hand on top of Yoongi’s and it’s a contest to how much Yoongi adores them that he doesn’t even care about the goo and blood. He allows them to feel the loss that just happened since he knows that beings such as Arden feel death much differently than a dark being such as himself.He has no feelings over snapping the boy’s neck. Matter of factly, his thoughts are in the fact that this was most likely the reason why he came, and now it’s dead.He doesn’t comment on that, of course.When they feel better, Arden gets up and goes to their kitchen to pour themselves something to drink before they come back to the living room. While they’re away, Yoongi rids the house of the body, burying it quickly on the land behind Arden’s house.There are dirt and blood on him afterward, the bottom of his pants and of his cloak wet and filthy, but at least he feels better.The kid deserved the decency of being buried and well, Yoongi doesn’t like corpses.When Arden returns and sees the bath emptied, the body nowhere to be seen and Yoongi sitting on the couch looking a little worse than he first came in, their eyes widen for a second.“I think I owe you one,” they say, voice still low and tired. “I hate burying people.”Yoongi scoffs. “I don’t think anyone likes doing that.”“Fair,” they scoff back. After they sip their drink, their knowing eyes lock on Yoongi’s. “You’re thinking it was useless to come,” they comment.It’s the confusion hidden deep in their voice that makes Yoongi raise one his eyebrows.“Was it not?” he asks.Arden frowns at him. “It was I who asked you to come, you idiot. Whenever I want your company, I go to your castle and pester you right there, don’t I?” they ask with a knowing tone. When Yoongi doesn’t answer, they continue. “I opened my eyes and Saw you here, so I asked you to come.”“The Fire Ox is dead, Arden. What other point would I have in dislocating myself all the way down here? It’s like this nine out of ten times. I take one step forward and then a hundred years backward,” he spits out, emotion taking over him.Arden allows him to burst out his feelings, continuing to watch him with their beautiful and all-knowing eyes.“I know you’re frustrated—,” they start but get interrupted by Yoongi.“Frustrated? Frust —Arden. I am tired. All I want is for this to be done. I want to stop searching, I want to stop feeling the entire fucking world has it against me. And you know the worst part? I can’t give up. I just… I can’t. So no, I’m not frustrated. I’m just so fucking over all of this.”The outburst takes even him by surprise.
He doesn’t know why, but sitting outside his layer and the safe, protected walls of his castle, he feels lost.Yoongi feels like he hasn’t been able to go home in so many years, centuries, and it’s so tiring that he can feel it in his bones.“I’m sorry, my darling,” Arden whispers to him. They have a sympathetic and sad smile on their face, the crinkle in the corner of their eyes telling Yoongi that they understand exactly what type of pain he’s feeling. “But don’t feel like coming here was a waste, Yoongi. There’s always a deep and certain reason for every sight I see and if this Fire Ox wasn’t the end goal of your visit, then something we still can’t comprehend is.”The words register slowly in Yoongi’s mind and after a few seconds, he nods. They’re right. Yoongi never had a single reason to mistrust Arden’s actions, he shouldn’t start now.Life is just unbearably hard with very few worthy moments in between all the hardships.He rubs his face thoroughly and sighs deeply too, trying to rid himself of the sudden rush of emotions.“Do you want a cleaning spell? I think my wife left a bottle or two of those around,” Arden offers.Yoongi nods in acceptance and while they leave to pick that up, he pops by the kitchen to pour himself some whiskey. He’s sipping it while looking at the new items around the house when he feels a small flask of glass being broken against his back and the horrid feeling of cold ice dropping from his head down to his toes.“Fuck” he shouts, not having noticed Arden coming up behind them. They always get masked when they hold or touch their wife’s magic, disappearing from Yoongi’s sharp and trained senses. “Fuck, Ardie, goddamn! A warning next time, maybe?”He hears them chuckling before he turns and sees a smile on their face.“This shit feels awful,” he groans, shaking himself almost like a dog to wash away the cold lingering. “Fuck. Please tell your wife that I want the world to end in fire.”Arden laughs out loud at that, sitting back on their chair.“Poetic, but I don’t think you mean that,” they add with a pointed look.Yoongi looks at them and rolls his eyes. Of course they’d remind him that if he truly meant and wanted that, all he needed to do was step outside, remove the gauntlet their wife made for him which allowed him to roam under the Sun and his request would be fulfilled.Through long and torturous hours under the sunlight, his world could end in fire.“I do, I really fucking do,” he jokes, shaking his head one last time. “Where’s she, anyway?”Arden smiles at the mention of their wife, their lips curling into a private and fond grin that makes Yoongi’s lonely heart ache deeply.“Left town for business a week ago. She should be back in a couple of weeks,” they explain. “Gods, I hope she’s back in the next fortnight,” they add with a groan.“Why?”Arden shakes their head. “Intuition tells me we’ll have a busy end of the year, that’s all,” they say.
Yoongi never minds their mysterious answers, since he knows most of the time Arden only has half of the picture themselves.“I’ll look forward to hearing the world burning from my East Wing window, then,” he teases with a serious face.Arden rolls their eyes at Yoongi, then asks how things are at the castle.They update each other on how life has been ever since they last saw each other a few months prior, speaking softly and laughing over their own cups of drinks. Yoongi loves the taste of whiskey on his tongue, especially the good kind that Arden and Loba keep around.Arden, for their turn, tells Yoongi of their last big sights and a couple of predictions they had made for the wrong people.Between the lines, Yoongi can connect the dots and imagine what Loba is doing on the road. Protecting Arden always came first, above everything else in her life, including her apprentices.They must talk for hours because Yoongi can hear the town slowly become quieter behind them, the shops closing and all the people turning into their homes.They’re discussing the Balls that the Ancient Kalif has been throwing for the past couple of years, always becoming grander each time, when they hear it.“Do you think he hides something?” Arden asks with curiosity, referring to Kalif. “Never liked him for some reason.”Yoongi looks at them with a frown.“When the fuck did you meet that old and sick weirdo?”“He invited Loba to one of his Balls last year and she had to go for some reason, so I kept her company. He gave me the creeps,” Arden says, lips curling in distaste.“He gives any sane person the creeps.”“She hates him, I heard her mumbling and cursing the whole night,” Arden adds with a giggle. “I thought she was gonna put laxative on his drinks at least three times.”Yoongi laughs, seeing that scene unfold perfectly in his mind. He knows Loba well enough to confirm that she’d definitely do such a thing.“It’s his mouth. He fronts anyone he meets, always so fucking mouthy. I don’t go to these things for a goddamn reason. Ever since I saw him in the Committee and he was one of the judges for my case, I avoided his castle. I tried once and I swear it’s like he wanted to piss me off, he wanted me to snap and try to kill him with my bare hands, so… yeah. No more balls for me,” Yoongi finishes, downing the rest of his drinks.Arden’s looking at the cabins with a pensive look, but slowly, they nod in agreement.“Yeah, I see what you mean. He wants to get under people’s skin and see them lose control—I just don’t see why .”“Open your eyes,” Yoongi jokes, giggling at his own joke. When he lifts his gaze to meet Arden’s, the Oracle is giving him an unimpressed blank look. “C’mon, that was funny.”“As funny as me asking you to come along on sunny walks on the beach.”“You always ask me that, though. You know you don’t have to make excuses Arden. You can just say you miss me,” he teases.“I’m not the one who uses the other as a scapegoat for Kalif’s invites, am I? The last time he—,” Arden stops talking.Far distant in the woods, there’s the clear and loud sound of howling.Granted, it must be clearer and louder for him than for Arden, and nearly impossible to listen if you’re a human in the city, but for them, it doesn’t go unnoticed.Yoongi lived long enough to stay sharp at the sound of a wolf’s calling.Arden as well. They both stop talking altogether, listening for what follows. When he hears the rest of the pack, Yoongi feels a shiver climb up his spine.The kind of shiver that only comes from aversion, from the library in his mind of sounds that he loathes.“You should go,” Arden whispers.When Yoongi glances at them, Arden’s eyes tell him everything he needs to know.Their eyes are a deep mossy green, but when their magic is flowing in their veins, there’s a faint glow to the color. When they speak, their eyes are unfocused and distant.It’s the Oracle who tells him to leave the house.Yoongi nods, leaves his glass on the sink and then plants a chaste kiss on his friend’s forehead before he exists.The cold and windy evening greets him, but Yoongi pays no mind. His feet move quickly through the town, making his way back home.The forest between the town and his castle isn’t neutral ground, but the path he decides to make cutting through the Hylst Woods behind Arden’s house is.His instinct tells him that’s where he’s supposed to go through, so he follows. His movements are too quick for any human to register, but he isn’t surrounded by humans.When the first direwolf runs past him, Yoongi can feel the hate and disgust pouring inside of him.The pack rushes by many meters away from him, but it’s still close enough for him to recognize the leader. At last, after all the gigantic furry beings have run in the opposite direction, a familiar Lycan passes in his vision field.Yoongi almost snaps.For one second, he wants to run after them.He wants to stop the entire pack, their leader in particular and wants to feel the weight of their fur under his fingers. He wants to hear their bones breaking.He curls his hands into fists and forces himself to breathe.He can’t break a treaty that was signed by him, even if it’d bring him much pleasure.Even if it’d brighten his mood for centuries.He’s inhaling deeply when he stops dead on his tracks the second time that same evening.The smell of blood hits his nose like never before.A sweet, powerful, and strong smell. Sweet like honey, Yoongi registers.His mouth literally waters, but when he runs in the direction of the heavenly scent, he can’t bring himself to move when he’s faced with the body.Lying face flat on the woods’ dirty ground, there’s a boy.In the neutral ground, any of them are allowed to hunt. Yoongi himself has hunted in these woods many times, but he knows this wasn’t a hunt like any other. The boy simply presented as a threat and as consequence, was eliminated by the pack.Coming closer, Yoongi can see his leather satchel with books and a few personal belongings a few feet away from him. When he’s close enough to inspect the body, Yoongi sees the blond strands of hair dirtied by the ground and a little bit of blood.Half of him expects the boy to be dead and the other half sort of wants it. An excuse to drink him dry, to sink his fangs in that delicious and mouth-watering scent that’s all around him like a heat blanket.Instead, Yoongi finds that his skin is slightly glowing.There’s a faint golden sparkle on his skin, mingling with all the blood and the dirt. All the pack did was a single bite—on the other hand, a direwolves’ fangs are as big as a human's palm, so Yoongi can see how fast the boy is losing blood.Losing his life.Against his old instincts and everything else he has done over the past two centuries, Yoongi kneels down beside the body and turns him around.When he sees the face of the dying boy, Yoongi’s heart is squeezed like someone reached inside of his chest and grabbed the organ with their own hands, gripping it tightly.He doesn’t know whether it’s the angelic and perfect features on his face or truly how perfect he still smells for Yoongi so close to his death, but the more he stares at the blond, the more despair creeps on Yoongi.He cradles the boy on his lap, cupping his face on his hands.“No…” he whispers. He can feel how the gold and magical dust lingering on him slightly burns him, but he doesn’t care.It’s the tangent proof of how strong the boy is—he’s fighting for his life with whatever’s left of his magic, but it won’t be enough.If Yoongi doesn’t move soon and finds a way to stitch the open and gigantic wounds those fangs caused on his left side, there’s no way he can heal himself. Yoongi looks down to where he was bitten, grimacing in sympathetic pain.“Stay with me,” he whispers to the boy.Cradling the body the best he can, Yoongi thinks fast. If he returns to Arden, their wife isn’t there to help. His hands move faster than Arden’s, so stitching the boy up himself is the best option.Without understanding where the need to save someone else came from and why he cares so damn much whether the boy lives or not, Yoongi moves as fast as he can in the direction of his castle.Getting there and making sure the boy stays alive is, for the first time in a long time, more important than anything else.Yoongi looks down at his face again, feeling the weight of his heart on his chest and pleads that he makes it. Hang in there. Just hang in there. Please.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The body always betrays itself—it blushes, it trembles…— Richard Siken, Love From a Distance.
As soon as the boy is settled in one of the rooms on the same floor as Yoongi’s suite, he takes a few seconds to allow himself to freak the fuck out.He can’t believe that after nearly a century alone, focused and keeping his promise to look nowhere but North and find an answer for the curse that had fallen upon him, he had done such stupid thing.How could he rescue another magical being so carelessly like that is beyond him.Yoongi paces around the corridor of his own castle, glancing every now and then to the wooden door that leads to the room where the boy now lies. His ears pick up on the sizzling of his magic, coursing through his veins and fulfilling their duty of healing him the best way it can.Yoongi hears the boy’s labored breathing, the weak and unsure beating of his heart and then, with a startle, realizes that it’s his own heart that he hears as well.His vampiric and dead heart which only serves the purpose of beating the blood he drinks from others to every inch of his body, beating so hard that it almost sounds… human.His own breathing becomes uneven and when he looks down to his pale hands, sees that they’re shaking.Yoongi might be having an anxiety attack.The feeling and the thought are so foreign to him at this point that it takes him a few seconds to make sense of what’s going on.He can’t even remember when was the last time he felt that way. Probably when he was first turned and awoke in darkness, panicked and more terrified than he’d ever been in his existence.“Okay.” Yoongi closes his eyes, trying his best to take deep breaths. “This is fine. It’s fine. Arden told me to go and I went this—this is fine .”Saying it out loud helps him a bit and the thought of the Oracle definitely brings him enough peace to open his eyes, breathing better.Of course this is okay, he thinks. Arden told him to go. They had never failed him in his miserable and long life, so Yoongi had to get a grip of himself and stop this nonsensical panic.If the Oracle had told him to go and… find this boy, that meant he couldn’t be a threat to Yoongi’s life or plans.With a final breath, he looks with thin sharp eyes in the direction of the door and straightens his posture.He isn’t about to let a druid boy be his undoing, no matter how powerful he is.Yoongi enters the room and—fuck.The dirty blonde hair, the parted plump lips that he had been trying to convince himself he had over-exaggerated in his mind, the way that even in his deathbed he looks like the most beautiful thing Yoongi had ever seen in his life. It was insane. He had a very long life and still, he wasn’t thinking those words lightly.He shakes his head one more time for good measure, nearly growling at himself.He isn’t about to let a druid boy be his undoing, no matter how insanely beautiful and angelic he looks.The prettiest sight.He huffs, annoyed at his teenage infatuated thoughts and gets to work.If he had rescued the boy, the least he could do was to make sure he stayed alive in the first place.Knowing better than to touch the wounds without the druid’s explicit permission and ending up triggering something, he decides to work his way around the wound.There’s still the faint glow of golden sparkle, like shiny glitter dust, vibrating around the nasty and ugly bite on his left side. He’ll avoid that bit for the moment.He goes to his bathroom and prepares a bowl of hot water, then runs to the only room in the entire house who’d still have some healing oils. After the water is infused with those, he grabs a few cloths and runs back to the main guest room.Yoongi does his best job to get all the excessive blood from his face, cleaning the rest of the dirt on his body. When he’s clean enough, Yoongi removes his ragged clothes so they don’t mend with the injury and risk infecting it.Once Yoongi deems a job well done— he doesn’t have any more dirt on himself and there’s nothing touching the wounds, leaving it with its magic to work it out, he decides to investigate the rest.The only thing he found with the druid was his leather satchel bag.Inside of it, there’s exactly what Yoongi would’ve expected from a powerful and, apparently, extremely smart druid.There’s a grimoire — book from magical families — who used to belong to the Sakhs but now, has found its way to him. Perhaps he’s one of them and has inherited, but Yoongi doubts it.There are vials with all types of plants and herbs that Yoongi doesn’t know, some old ornaments and trinkets that have a lot of value, from the looks of it, but what calls his attention is at the bottom.There’s a Two Faced Mirror in there.And that one, that definitely belongs to him.He can hear the same humming of magic. It’s powerful, old and heavy somehow. The Mirror is one of the artifacts that once Yoongi learned about, was already curious to see it in person. They were rare, since they needed an entire Coven of Witches to bless it.Yoongi looks from the Mirror back to the boy in the bed and gently puts the item down back where it belongs. The panic comes back, even if slightly. His kind of power is the type that an intelligent being would never underestimate. Smell them, Yoongi. Everyone you meet, his Sire’s voice echoes in his head. He can almost see him walking in the sunlight, almost floating between the corridors of his garden. Their scent will say everything you need to know about them. If they’re good, if they’re powerful, if they’re bad—if they’re terrified. Hmm, I love the smell of the last one. The point is: they can hide their look, mask their heartbeat, but they will never, ever be able to avoid their nature. If you grow to be a smart Sire like myself, you will learn this most valuable lesson. He scoffs to himself, an amused smile on his lips.Lesson learned.But with knowledge, comes worry, and with the latter, comes paranoia.Yoongi closes with keys every room in the castle that the boy couldn’t walk in if he — for some miracle — managed to wake up, not pass out from the blood loss and how horribly hurt he was, and then start roaming the castle.After everything is secured and he checks on the druid one last time to make sure he isn’t dead, his panic subsides plenty. He knows that he won’t be able to lay in his bed and turn off his mind for a single second, so he does what’s been on his mind since he found the boy and dragged him home.He goes back to Arden’s house.If he’s going to panic, he might as well drag with him the person who was the spark for this disastrous fire.When he enters the house through the shadows in the back, he hears Arden in their room on the second floor.“Can you bring me the cookie jar on your way up? Thank you!” They speak from their room.Yoongi rolls his eyes, but grabs the jar before he makes his way to the Oracle.
When he opens the door to Arden’s main bedroom, he finds them sitting in the middle of their bed with several books around them, papers spread and many symbols Yoongi doesn’t dare ask about. He places the jar on top of their bed and starts glancing around nervously, trying to gather his thoughts.Arden looks at him from under their long lashes, a knowing grin on their face.“So.” Yoongi averts their unnerving gaze and scoffs to himself. “You Saw him?” he asks, curiosity taking over him, as well as his fear and panic that refuses to be tamed. “Or was it more of a… hidden message? Did the voices who live in your fucking head just decide, ‘Bring forth your vampire friend. Let’s make both of you watch a Fire Ox die. He’ll have a lovely walk home’?”When he finishes his rant and looks back at Arden, his friend is shaking their head slightly at his drama. They pat the spot beside them on the bed and look at Yoongi.“You’re so fucking dramatic,” Arden comments with amusement. “Sit down.”As old as he is, Yoongi is no match for the spirit that lives inside of Arden. Being an Oracle gives them that aura that Yoongi’s only ever seen in his own Sire. The ever-knowing eyes of someone — or something — who is much older than most things around them.Arden and their wife are the only people who still make him feel safe, but on the other hand, they’re also the only ones who still manage to make him feel young at times.Like an apprehended kid.He sits down with a huff, an annoyed crease in his eyebrows.“I already told you I can’t explain my Sights,” Arden starts whilst gathering the papers around them. “And that my bed isn’t an inn for unemployed spirits to fuck around rent-free day and night,” they add sassily, giving Yoongi a pointed look.He laughs despite himself, picking on the skin at the side of his fingernails.“I’m sorry, I’m just… scared. I don’t know why, Arden.”“Neither do I, my darling.” They finish organizing their books and place them all neatly at the bottom of the bed, then scootch backward until they’re resting against the headboard.Yoongi mimics them, leaning against the bed’s headboard and placing his hands on his lap.“What I do know is that I saw you coming here,” Arden continues in a low voice, turning their head sideways to look at Yoongi better. “I saw your red eyes reflected above my fireplace and then later, I saw you leaving.”“I said goodbye, by the way,” he adds in an afterthought, knowing that Arden most likely doesn’t remember it.Arden chuckles and bumps their forehead gently on Yoongi’s shoulder.“Thanks.”“Can’t you… ask them?”“Doesn’t work that way,” Arden says for what it must be the thousandth time. “What I can do is try to diminish your fear, but I need to understand where it comes from in the first place.”Yoongi turns his head sideways too, looking into Arden’s eyes. His heart thumps in his chest strongly for the second time that day, hammering against his chest.“It’s not his power that terrifies me, Arden. It’s... his blood. I could… I could smell it from miles away, much further than I usually can and it—I can’t even describe it. I can’t put into
words the way my mouth watered as if I was a fucking newborn, a young vampire teething and wanting to ravage everything in front of me,” he explains, the words flowing out of him like water.It’s only looking at Arden’s eyes that Yoongi can pinpoint the source of his turmoil.Yoongi recalls exactly how perfect the druid smelled.His scent, which crawled under Yoongi’s skin, was something he never felt.Arden’s eyes go distant for a second, thoughtful. They hum, thinking of Yoongi’s words. “I've heard of such things. Honestly, I didn’t think it was fucking true, it souded a lot like Dark Beings tales made to drawn humans to their lair and lure any fool into the bait. But… I’ll look into it, okay?” Once they see how wide Yoongi’s eyes are at knowing that whatever this is — this attraction, this pulling towards this boy —, that it’s real, they shake their head and hands in Yoongi’s direction. “Oh no! Calm down. It’s nothing bad .”“You’re telling me that this… scent of his, that this wasn’t just in my mind?”Arden shakes their head, a grin showingin their face.“Vampires are such big fucking babies, my gods,” they mutter, laughing at Yoongi’s despair. Now that they found the origin point of everything, Arden relaxes. “That’s what got you into a fit? I thought you were gonna have a heart attack at your place, did you know that? Ridiculous,” they mock, giggling at Yoongi.The vampire rolls his eyes, shoving Arden hard against the bed and hiding his own laugh when they fall against the bed laughing even harder.“Shut up!” he yells, unable to stop a smile. “I was terrified. I thought—I knew, for sure, that this boy would be my undoing. Do you have any idea of how much blood I’ve smelled my whole existence? I’m talking lakes, Arden. Rivers of blood. I could drown a thousand times in the amount of blood I’ve touched, smelled, drank. Humans could be cut in half in front of me and I wouldn’t blink, completely unaffected.”“Sounds like you got it bad, then,” Arden teases with a serious face. Upon seeing the warning daggers that Yoongi shoots in their direction, Arden stifles their giggles and raises their hands in surrender. “Sorry, sorry. Go on with your drama.”Yoongi scoffs out loud, shaking his head. His cheeks feel strange already, smiling too much. It only happens when he’s in the presence of friends, which isn’t very often.“You’re the fucking worst.”“I could be telling you that sounds like a curse falling from the skies directly into your lap. One you can’t escape,” Arden says with a monotone, looking at him expectantly.“Fair point.”Arden smiles at him, then gets up to put away their study material.“From what you told me, it just sounds like a very specific case of… chemistry. Intense and rare attraction,” they say, storing their books underneath then bed. They hum thoughtfully, then support their chin on the bed, looking at Yoongi with curiosity. “What have you found out about him?”Yoongi thinks about it carefully, thinking about the clues and facts he could gather from the little he saw.Arden closes their box of books and hops back on the bed, looking at Yoongi expectantly and patiently.“He’s smart,” he starts, surprise and appreciation evident in his tone. He can’t hide that, and it’s not something he says often about people he meets. Arden nods at him, encouragingly. Yoongi looks down at his hands and continues, “Very fucking smart, actually,” he confesses with a stifled laugh.“How so?”“He would’ve died from the attack if he hadn’t done… whatever the fuck he did right before passing out. I don’t even know what it was,” Yoongi says, surprised. He hasn’t even awakened and he’s already surprised Yoongi more than once.“What did his wounds look like?” Arden asks intuitively.“Uhm, sparkly? Golden dust sparkle. It looked like foggy golden dust was covering the whole wound,” Yoongi describes, closing his eyes and seeing the wound as clear as day. When he opens them, Arden has their knees tucked in their chest and an appreciative look on their face.“Rune combo,” Arden tells him with a wicked smile, then they whistle wistfully and Yoongi can recognize the look of respect on their face. “Did he have tattoos?”Yoongi frowns at the question, wondering how the fuck Arden knew about all the intricate and beautiful drawings he had seen inked all over the boy’s arms and chest, then nods in response.Arden nods to themselves, having confirmed a theory somehow.“Runes are intricate spells and hexes that we must draw to release their power, right?” they ask Yoongi, checking if he has that knowledge. Yoongi didn’t understand magic in-depth, but that information he knew, so he nods. Arden continues, smiling at him. “Experienced druids tend to tattoo spells and runes they use the most on themselves so they don’t have to re-make them every time. He must’ve used his last breath to release the power of all his runes before he passed out. It’s like—an explosion. It probably hurt whatever bit him as well.”The thought of the druid laying on the woods’ ground with fangs sunk inside of his body and still finding a way to release his power, exploding the direwolf far away like a kicked puppy, brings a rare gummy smile to Yoongi’s face.“Fucking awesome,” he whispers, making Arden laugh in agreement. He thinks about what else he can tell about the boy. “He’s powerful too,” he tells Arden, who raises their eyebrows questioningly. “His scent. He smelled strong, healthy and… powerful.”“Hmmmm.”“He had a Two Faced Mirror,” he adds, watching Arden’s expression.Their eyes go wide, mouth hanging slightly open. “I've never seen one,” they comment with wonder.“I hadn’t either,” he agrees. Then, thinking back, he smiles. “Sire used to have one, but it was an ugly thing. The coven did it last minute and blessed it hurriedly, they were going to use it to communicate after they escaped. Witch hunts never got to the biggest and oldest Covens because of them, he told me.”“Yeah, it’s not exactly easy to capture witches,” they comment with a smug smile. Yoongi rolls his eyes at the implied notion there and Arden laughs at him and his fake distaste for their romanticism. “So. Really fucking smart, resourceful, goes down fighting. Anything else?” The prettiest sight I have ever seen in all my six hundred years, his mind offers in the same heartbeat.Yoongi blushes at the thought, shaking his head vehemently to answer Arden instead. He knows they must’ve caught on that he’s hiding something, but given that it’s clearly embarrassing, they just smile and allow him to let go.“What do you plan on doing, then?” they ask curiously.He stops moving altogether, realizing he hadn’t thought of that.What would he do with the boy? He didn’t know whether they’d be acquaintances or not after Yoongi saved his life, but he knew one thing was certain—he wouldn’t let him die.Yoongi would nurture him back to health and then, most likely, the druid would want to make his way back to whatever quest or path he was taking.He looks back at Arden who is watching him intently. “I’ll help him get better. It’ll take a week probably before he can even get up by himself and another week ‘till the wound is healed. It’s not like—I’m not gonna throw him in the streets as soon as he’s done, obviously,” Yoongi muses out loud, thinking about his recovery. “He’ll get better and then… he can figure it out his way back. Right?”He adds the last word with uncertainty, wanting confirmation from his friend that this isn’t some crazy plan.Arden, for their turn, is simply smiling at Yoongi, their head supported on their knees.“Sounds good,” they say in a gentle, but a little condescending tone.Yoongi frowns. “What is it? Spit it out,” he pokes Arden with his feet impatiently.“Don’t poke me with your dead feet, your fucking corpse,” Arden laughs, tightening their cloak around their bodies and shoving Yoongi’s feet away from them. When Yoongi gives them a pointed look, Arden shrugs their shoulders. “I don’t know. You could… offer him a deal.”A deal?Yoongi doesn’t even know the boy’s name, he thinks. It’s something that’s irking him, itching the back of his neck. Calling him ‘the druid’ — or pretty boy — in his head feels so impersonal and awkward. What kind of deal could he make with a person whose name he didn’t even know?“What kind of deal?” he echoes to Arden, squinting his eyes.Arden’s smile turns wicked.“A mutual one. He seems to be on a quest and well, so are you. Perhaps you two have things you could offer each other,” they say easily, as if Yoongi is the type of being who goes around making deals with unknown beautiful blondes whose life he saved.“I don’t have a good track record with deals,” he says, the memories of Jada and her red eyes glowing behind his eyelids in a flash. He shakes the feelings that come with her name off, looking back to Arden.They’re looking at Yoongi with a grimace on their lips, disgust evident on their creased eyebrows and green eyes.“Don’t mention that. The mere thought of that Ancient Whore under my roof makes me want to vomit,” Arden says, hatred spilling between each word. Their voice sounds clearer when they’re laced with emotion and Yoongi raises his hands in apology.He may not hold the same feelings Arden does towards Jada, but he understands that his friends are protective and would still like to kill the other vampire. If Arden’s wife were to ever cross paths with Jada, Yoongi knows the Ancient woman would die a slow and painful death.Arden huffs out a breath and extends their legs forward, looking up at the ceiling.“Anyway. The druid isn’t some… fucking bloodsucking leech with an agenda. He doesn’t even know you, Yoongi.”Yet again, a fair point.Yoongi says as much.“What kind of deal would we make, anyway?” he asks Arden, laying with his back to the mattress, his head laying beside Arden’s body. “What would he have to offer me?”Arden looks down at him and there, illuminated by their faint yellow light, Yoongi sees what Loba does.Their long, luscious and beautiful brown hair shine and frame their face, but it’s the smile that looks so innocent on the first look, but hides devious thoughts underneath that make Yoongi grin back. Arden looks incredible, all-knowing and way too clever for their own good.No one who looks that angelic should be so wicked.“That’s up to you to find out, isn’t it, Yoongi?” they ask with a mysterious and sultry tone. When they see that the words sink in meaningfully in the vampire’s brain, they sigh happily and look back to the ceiling. “My wife should be back in a few days, anyway. If he isn’t who we think he is, she’ll kill him herself.”“I have no doubts about that.”
🩸
For the next three days, Yoongi hears the sounds of the druid’s groans and heavy breathing.
He doesn’t enter the room except for a single night visit to make sure nothing else has happened to him, knowing that if something changes he’ll be able to listen from anywhere in the castle, especially considering that the more he listens to the boy’s heartbeat, the more he gets in tune with it.
He’s been living alone with his songs and this only seems like a new one.What he doesn’t expect is to hear a grunting followed by a spike in a heartbeat he already knows so well on the fourth morning. He was expecting the healing would take him a whole week, but apparently, his magic goo had done its job.Yoongi gets to the room in less than a second, opens and closes the door behind himself and watches as the boy slowly opens his eyes, taking his surroundings bit by bit.It’s the most exciting thing he’s experienced in a century.He stands there, perfectly still, waiting for him to open his eyes, for him to be conscious in Yoongi’s presence for the first time.When his eyes finally open and lock into Yoongi’s, the vampire knows he’s utterly and completely fucked.
The druid has the most breathtaking brown eyes, a gaze so powerful and steady that seems to pierce through all his six hundred years and the soul he doesn’t even know if he has anymore.It’s the gaze of someone who’s just as lost in this moment as Yoongi, which soothes a need deep in Yoongi’s chest somehow.It’s obvious from the way the boy leans against his right forearm to stand up a bit and look properly at Yoongi that he’s not even one bit scared of not knowing where he is, how he’s alive or who the hell Yoongi is.It makes him want to smile. Not only is he smart and incredibly beautiful, but he’s also bold.Without blinking, right at that moment, Yoongi would bet all of his fortunes that this boy could charm and conquer anything and Yoongi’s an Ancient fucking being of the Night. He is loaded.
That he’s this world’s most beautiful sight Yoongi already knew, but watching him take ragged breaths, the cover Yoongi had placed over him with draping over his naked shoulder, Yoongi thinks he’s also the most interesting thing.He is analyzing Yoongi.It makes him want to smile, but then he remembers how his Sire always reminded him that without a context and due to his supernatural aura being too tightly tied to Darkness and the Night, it could pass over as predatory.He doesn’t have much time to think about anything else, though.The next thing Yoongi notices is that he’s been staring at the beautiful druid like an idiot for— how long has it been, anyway? Time is a concept that has sort of lost meaning to him, but he makes a note to try to keep a better track now that he has visited.
Taking a deep breath and swallowing down his nervousness, Yoongi takes a step ahead and says, “Hello. I’m Min Yoongi,” he raises both hands in a surrender gesture, so he doesn’t seem more as a threat, especially considering how the blond is in an unknown environment.He doesn’t know what he expects from his greeting.A greeting back, perhaps. Fear to sparkle in his eyes is also an option, since most people who live in the supernatural community are aware of how dangerous and Dark creatures like him can be.He expects panic, the smell of sweat to grow in the room until it’s all he can breathe.What he doesn’t expect is what follows.Before he can say anything else, he feels both of his elbows locked against his sides by an unknown and invisible force and the once glazed, interested gaze in the druid’s face is completely gone.Yoongi sees him with eyes wide as if a spell had been broken. As if his words were enough to make the boy realize exactly where he is and with which company.The druid’s got the fucking air around him locking him in a tight spell.
He should be pissed off— this isn’t a great start, but still.Yoongi wants to bet his whole fortune on this boy even more, somehow.His first instinct is to use whatever is left of his own magic inside of him and hex Yoongi to stay still. Yoongi wants to smile even more, but he doesn’t want to scare him even further. Knowing how weak and how much blood he has lost, Yoongi calculates that he has five minutes, maximum, before he passes out again from exhaustion.
Using magic is a bold move and, in his condition, another tell of how much power he holds inside of him, but nonetheless—a limited move. Yoongi almost feels bad for how fast he’ll burn out.“Um… what are you doing?” he asks in a very calm tone, trying his best to contain a laugh.“One more fucking step and I’m crushing your ribs. Every single one of them. You’re not going to enjoy it, Min Yoongi,” he answers in a tone far too sarcastic for someone who’s in a disadvantage. His voice is low and melodic and Yoongi drowns in it, blinking slowly.He sounds beautiful.
Yoongi’s learned to recognize when someone has honey in their throat and this boy—god. He must sound like an angel if he sings.“Right. Well, I’m going to pretend I just took your advice and not that... you know, I can’t move anyway,” he confesses. Although the spell is strong and took Yoongi by surprise, he can feel the weak spots in the druid’s magic. It would take very little wiggling for him to get out of the magic hold, but he allows him the benefit of this in order for him to feel a little safer.Speaking of ‘him’, Yoongi asks. “Are you going to introduce yourself as well, or do I keep on calling you ‘druid boy’ in my head?”“Druid boy? Really?” he asks in a completely unimpressed tone, one eyebrow raising. Cool, Yoongi thinks. He can see from the grimace he’s trying to hide that the pain in his side starts to get bigger. Yoongi smells the sweat dripping down his neck.“That or pretty boy, both work,” he continues in a bold move. Jimin frowns deepens, so he shakes his head and hands in a silent apology. “It would seem better if I knew your name, considering I carried you all the way here with blood all over yourself. I think we can’t call ourselves acquaintances after that bonding experience,” he tries, teasing him.Jimin squirms in the bed, hiding his pain incredibly well.
He has to lift his hand higher to keep his spell intact. “You found me with blood all over myself and did me the favor of carrying me here? Quite impressive,” he spits out.The banter eases Yoongi completely, so he rolls his eyes at the druid. Talking to him is so ridiculously easy that Yoongi nearly it’s almost as if they’ve known each other for so long. Plus, Yoongi enjoys the way the boy speaks to him. A lot.
“Please, child,” he huffs, unable to contain a laugh at his comment. “Your—”
“Child? ” Jimin whisper-yells, interrupting him.Yoongi snaps his mouth shut and tells himself not to smirk.“Magic boy, I’m an Ancient being. You bathing in your own blood was barely registered,” he lies through his teeth. “You’ve been bleeding in my silk Egyptian sheets for three days and yet, you’re already using magic. I’d say that’s impressive,” he adds with a smile.A part of his brain yells at him asking why and where the hell is all his sass and witty comebacks coming from. Apart from the Oracle and Loba, very few people are able to draw him out of his quiet persona.The first part of what he said was not entirely true, of course. The blood all over the druid was registered before anything else Yoongi knew about the boy.Matter of factly, it’s still registering.
He can smell the druid all over the guest room, in every inch of furniture, drapes, the bloody walls. The mixture of blood, sweat, dirty and magic that comes off from him is nearly
intoxicating, but that’s not exactly the type of information that eases a visit in a vampire’s castle.He opts for the half-lie. Although it was registered — very thoroughly, imprinted on his mind forever, he thinks —, Yoongi still had perfect control of his feral and supernatural instincts.The druid boy seems to be calculating how long he’s been out.
His magic must be doing him some good because even though he’s still in pain, he doesn’t seem to be getting worse.He does seem to be getting weaker, though. His eyes blink a beat too slowly and when the scent of sweat goes up again, followed by the color draining from Jimin’s face, he intervenes.“Uhhh, darling? I honestly don’t mean to be rude, but are you sure you want to hold this up for too long?” he asks, wiggling against his magic to make his point. He then adds,
“You got mauled by a huge direwolf not long ago, as you recall.”Magic boy doesn’t have time to answer.He opens his mouth one last time and then, his body starts to collapse back against the bed.The spell evaporates one millisecond before he loses consciousness, so Yoongi has time to reach him and hold his head, laying his body with gentleness.He looks pale and weak again, but Yoongi now knows he’ll be getting better soon.He opens a crack in one of the windows to ventilate the room a bit, moves the boy’s satchel next to the bed for him to have his belongings close when he wakes up again.Before he leaves the room, he takes another glance at the druid. He looks so peaceful in his rest that one could think he’s simply asleep. Yoongi goes back to cover his naked chest with one of the blankets and then thinks about how he’ll need nurture.Yoongi must go to the town’s fair and buy food to cook and the trip is needed for more than a reason. He makes a mental note of all the supplies he could need to take care of a human body and closes the wooden door of the druid’s room behind him with a faint smile on his lips.He never got the boy’s name, but his voice is music ringing in Yoongi’s ears.Yoongi was a fool to think he couldn’t get more beautiful.
Later that same night, Jimin woke up again.Yoongi is in his master bedroom getting in front of the panel of strings he has hung up on a wall, all threads that contain the traps of magic he has set all around the forest and the city to capture fools, checking to see if any human was stuck in any.He’s thinking about going to his music room for a little while but, as usual, the thought of going there is quickly dismissed.He knows very well what he will play if he sits in front of his piano and Yoongi isn’t in the mood to make himself sad. No matter which of the 26 songs he has finished he picks to play, each one of them is laced with notes of sour pain and shattered pieces of his soul.The melodic sounds of the piano are the only thing that draws him out from the depths of his Darkness whenever it dares try to swallow him, but it’s now a bitter medicine.He sees one of the threads slowly tremble, the red string vibrating in a low frequency, creating soft waves. It passes quickly.Someone just brushed their lips in a tentative kiss with Death.He smiles, but the sound of a soft groan at the end of the corridor makes his expression change rapidly. His shoulders tense and he leans his head forward, listening closely for the sounds the boy is making.When the druid’s breath picks up, Yoongi quickly moves from one room to the other.He doesn’t bother with knocking at all, since the entire castle is bathing in Shadows. He moves through them, entering the bedroom through the shadows in the wall and as soon as he’s inside, he stays hidden, watching.The strands of blonde seem to shine a little brighter under the Moon’s light.Yoongi had left one of the biggest window’s drapes open, allowing some illumination to shine through. The boy’s skin glistens with a thin layer of sweat, but it’s his hair that calls Yoongi’s attention the most.The golden glow makes him look even more like an angel…There’s a sharp intake of breath from the druid’s lips and then, his weak voice croaks out something.“Guk…”Yoongi frowns deepens, head tilting sideways to watch the concern that spreads across his visitor’s face. There’s a crease in his brows and he twitches in bed every second, moving as if trying to escape whatever his mind is showing him.“Jungkook.”Oh.Whoever he is, the druid boy holds something inside of him.A person.“Jungkookie…” the name is muttered again then, in a lower voice.It’s clear to Yoongi that the druid is having some sort of nightmare, his worried and weak mind falling under traps of his subconscious and diving into the fears and concerns that barricade every corner of our brains.When his twitch is followed by a wince of pain, Yoongi takes a deep breath and tries to break himself out of his stupor.
Watching the boy suffer isn’t something he wants and whoever this ‘Junkook’ person is, they’re the reason that even while unconscious, this beautiful angel lying in Yoongi’s bed winces and whimpers in distress.
Beautiful angel.
Good lord, Yoongi thinks. He hasn’t even heard this man’s name and is already so enraptured by his beauty that he’s foregone all logical thinking, thinking about the curvature of his lips under the moonlight or the scent he radiates on Yoongi’s sheets.With a sharp shake of the head, Yoongi gives two steps forward and with cold, dead hands, touches the boy’s elbow.It’s a gentle and minuscule touch, but through the tip of his fingers, Yoongi allows the mist to move, gelid like the night, and laced with sedative side effects, specifically designed to disorientate and get high the victims that are unlucky enough to cross a Vampire’s path.He uses just enough to make the druid’s body relax, anesthetized by the magic.When he deems that the blond should get sleep now, Yoongi exits the room immediately, not wanting to linger around while the boy sleeps like a creep.The hypnosis that Yoongi seems to feel around him is definitely stronger than anything he’s ever felt.He walks with heavy steps, looking down and biting his bottom lip nervously, the Oracle’s words dancing in his mind alongside the new name that was muttered, laced in concern and dripping with love.When Yoongi stops, he’s taken aback for one moment.Instead of going back to his own room, his feet had dragged him to the black double doors that he told himself not minutes ago he wouldn’t go in.Boldened by an invisible force, he opens them wide and his eyes find his piano immediately.For a few heartbeats, all he does is look.The piano has even a layer of dust on top of him, sitting lonely in the middle of the music room, the mirror walls reflecting the dust that swirls in the air.With slow steps, he reaches the bench and sits down slowly, arranging his cloak properly underneath himself.When Yoongi’s fingers touch the keys, his lips part in a silent gasp, sliding through the keys more and more until the notes become melody and the melody, music.He plays a track he hasn’t heard since the last Ball he went to.For some reason, the tune plays in the back of his mind clear as the first day he heard it, enticing and joyful, sensual and teasing. He can almost hear the strings of the violin accompanying it, elevating the music to new heights.Yoongi plays that night for hours at end, letting his fingers play the soundtrack of the highest Balls the world has known, but not seen.Balls where vampires, lycans, faes and witches dance and mingle in politics, love and blood, dancing a very dangerous waltz with Darkness and Light, always turning on an eternal wheel of pain, joy, betrayal and destiny.His fingers play tirelessly and he rejoices in the tune.By the time “Till Death Do Us Part” by the Sire Peter Gundry leaves the tip of his fingers, Yoongi’s face is taken by his gummy smile and his body even moves to the sound of the keys.A part of him understands that evening that whoever the boy is, he poses no threat.If he was able to bring music back to Yoongi’s life so simply, even while asleep, then there must be a reason for his presence.He plays until morning, washing his soul in the rivers of melody.
Pain in his whole body is the first thing Jimin registers when he barely regains his consciousness.
It’s somehow all over him even though his latest memory is of fangs on a specific part — his left side entirely bitten and probably open to the whole world to see —, it’s his entire body that aches.He remembers that he had cast a spell before he ran away, but he doesn’t know if it worked.It’s too hot and everything hurts way too much for him to think, but he realizes that if he’s feeling pain, it means he’s not dead.
If he’s not dead—Jimin allows himself to feel the pain because even in the haze he can think only one thing:
I haven’t failed Jungkook yet.
He drifts in and out of consciousness several times, but never for more than a few seconds that only serves to register that yes, he’s still in pain and he nearly died, but if he made it out for a reason, he’s going to pull through.Those are the only thoughts that slip by.
🍃
When he truly wakes up, body coming in terms with his state and breathing easing in, Jimin tries to take it slow.
His last memory is of trees passing by in a blur as he ran faster than he ever did in his life, the heavy sound of several huge paws following him and then—a clash against him. Pain. Visceral and mind-numbing hurt. Nothing.He’s alive though, if the throbbing ache in the left of his body is anything to go by, so something in his burst of energy must’ve helped.It’s then that he notices—he’s hurting alright, but he’s… comfortable.More comfortable, actually, than he’s ever been.
Comfortable as in he’s laying down on something far better than anything he’s even laid in. There’s softness all around him and even his clothes that should be clinging to him, dirty and bloodied, making matters much worse, are gone.
His chest is bare and he doesn’t feel the gross layer of dirt and dried blood he’d expect on himself, meaning that not only did someone find him, someone found him and was smart enough to remove anything that would further complicate his healing process.
He opens his eyes, blinking a couple of times to adjust to his surroundings, which—what the fuck.
Jimin’s most definitely nowhere closer to the woods.
The room around him belongs in a castle, the walls covered in a beautiful tone of dark blue, the only window he sees is shut down by a red velvet curtain and on the door—he freezes. Is that a person?His eyes lock into theirs and Jimin’s breath is immediately punched right out of his lungs.
If that’s a person — which it can’t be, no one looks that perfect — they’re staring right back at him. Their eyes are a dark red and their skin a little pale, but so, so smooth.
Jimin decides that that, most definitely, is not a human being. It looks like a statue that would belong in the Great City, in one of those fancy museums that collect all things ancient and beautiful.Suddenly, Jimin’s reminded of when his mother used to say—that when you look at someone that isn’t afraid to look back, they’re more likely to be worthy of your trust. Eye contact can be a door into someone’s soul, Minnie, she said.He understands it now.The stranger stares back, staring right at Jimin as if memorizing every inch of him, inches that he’s now embarrassed to remember are dirty and probably covered in a little bit of blood.And then, as if breaking a spell, the stranger is no longer a statue that belongs in the Great City’s museum because it fucking moves, his eyes blinking for what it feels like the first time, takes a few steps towards Jimin and saying, “Hi. I’m Min Yoongi.”As soon as those pale hands — those beautiful and big hands, he takes note — raise in a gesture surrender, everything his mother ever taught him rushes back to punch him in the gut again.He’s in a castle, he ran East to where evil lives and he’s laying on a bed that costs more than everything he’s ever known.The dark red eyes staring at him almost sound like an offense. Jimin, you fucking idiot.Of course he’d fucking end up in a vampire’s lovely home.Before he can take any more steps towards Jimin, the druid locks and pressures the air around him so he can’t move, because even if a druid’s magic is useless against vampires, he sure as fuck knows how to handle himself.Take that, bloodsucker.Jimin knows he shouldn’t do it. He fucking feels it, fueling a rage he didn’t even register before and he knows he overdid it the second he sees a red spot on his vision. His spell isn’t going to last and the vampire speaks to him, engaging in an easy banter and conversation as if they’re friends.He tries to hold his own, sassing the man back instead of replying or offering his name, but the control was never in his hands.It makes him feel like a child, knowing that Yoongi could rid himself of the spell at any time.It angers him and makes him feel useless which already was his most hated feeling, but became his biggest insecurity over the past year.Sweat pools on his lower back and the red spots that dance around his vision only become more frequent and bigger.Jimin can’t hold on much longer than that.He has the time to think, ‘Well, at least Min Yoongi doesn’t seem too bent on murdering me or drinking me dry ’ before he passes out again.Maybe he should’ve just said his name.
🍃
When Jimin wakes this time, his eyes are quick to search around looking for Min Yoongi.He saw the vampire’s perfect frame in the few dreams he had while unconscious, different scenarios in which Yoongi appeared out of the darkness, his hands up in the sky and his velvety voice saying “Hello” over and over again.In some, Jimin recalls that Yoongi smiled and it felt so predatory that it soon evaporated into a cloud of red and black smoke. In others, Jimin kills him with his spell and then realizes the mistake he made. He ends up roaming around the castle lost, without ever finding his way out.After looking around and not seeing him anywhere, Jimin breaths a little easier and tries to make sense of the situation at hand.The vampire didn’t appear to be a serious threat.
Well, correction—his nature was clearly one of the most dangerous when it came to the supernatural community. Vampires were part of the elite, their magic and age carrying a deep strength, something that resonated in nature. They had many different powers, all of them posing threats bigger than the scale of whatever the most common creatures could assemble, and the older they were, the higher the danger.The actual truth was that they belonged in a place very few people and creatures had access to.And Yoongi was an Ancient, whose age varied from six hundred to a thousand. Older than them were only the Sires, beings who held all the powers and knowledge, creating and educating the youngest who showed potential.They were so recluse that at the end of the day, very little was known about them. The myths according to how to deal with them traveled even in the supernatural community, so Jimin seemed to be in deep disadvantage here.On the other hand—.Yoongi seemed actually... nice.
He rolled his eyes at Jimin and didn’t fight with all his strength against his spell, breaking it, and then proceeded to strangle him or drink all of his blood.He was also very obviously giving Jimin a few moments to compose himself, because after a few minutes pondering about Yoongi, the latter knocked on the door.A smile subconsciously opened in Jimin’s face.
It was such a common thing to do that it somehow lessened the worries in Jimin’s heart. He didn’t have to knock, this was his castle after all. He could’ve just entered the second Jimin woke up like the last time, but had chosen to stay outside until Jimin composed himself the best he could.“Come in,” he answers.
His voice comes out rough and his throat feels dry, but he’s spared of the discomfort for too long because standing in the door is Yoongi holding a platter with a glass of water and a bowl.It makes the smile disappear, his mouth hanging slightly open and his eyes wide.
When he looks up to Yoongi’s face, he catches him staring right at Jimin with a look that speaks for itself. It’s almost funny how Yoongi is looking at him apprehensively, the tray in his hands a silent peace offering.He could kill Jimin and make it look like an accident and yet, he’s looking at him through thick lashes and sharp eyes that still manage to look… reserved. Shy.“No spells this time,” he mutters, sure that Yoongi will be able to hear it. It’s as good of a peace offering as the food and water, but he adds something else for good measure. “And... Park Jimin. My name. It’s Park Jimin.”Yoongi looks at him surprised and with measured steps, places the tray at the bottom of his bed.“Oh. I didn’t know if it was safe to ask again. Didn't want to risk being tied up without any safe words established between us at all. Or getting blown up” he jokes easily.Jimin blushes at his teasing, but looks at the tray with hungry eyes. Yoongi follows his gaze and gives him a silent nod of encouragement, moving the tray closer to him so he doesn’t have to move much.
It’s all he needs before he moves with extra care to grab the glass of water and drink it.
“How do you feel?” Yoongi asks him, way more softly than any vampire had the right to. He waited for Jimin to finish his drink, too, patiently sitting in a leather chair Jimin hadn’t noticed in the corner of the room. “I’m really sorry about what happened to you.”
Gods, who was this dude?
Jimin could feel his skin tingling all over, Yoongi’s voice awakening his body as if it was asleep in more than one way. It’s so low and velvety, as if he drank bottles of honeywhiskey before talking. He kind of wants to ask Yoongi if he’s trying to seduce him, but then shakes his head at the stupid thought.Here Yoongi is, being an educated and polite ancient being, probably abiding by rules written by his own mom on how to behave when having supernatural visits and Jimin wants to ask if the guy is hitting on him.As if.He probably has a maiden wife of a thousand years that looks like Aphrodite reincarnated. Or two.“Uhm, thanks?” he doesn’t know why, but it comes off as a question. He feels distressed in the man’s presence, more flustered than anyone had ever left him. “The only thing I’m sorry for right now is not being able to get me some wolf fur. I’m so fucking pissed off, I can’t fucking believe that— uhm... you don’t mind me swearing, do you?” the realization that he’s speaking with someone much older than him hits him mid-sentence, in between curses, and Jimin almost slaps himself again.He knows it’s not his fault since he’s never encountered a vampire and thus doesn’t know the proper etiquette on how to act around one, but still.
Maybe Yoongi’s old fashioned like Master Tania and he’d rather not hear “Language!” every sentence he lets out.A fun expression appears on Yoongi’s face, one that says Jimin’s missing out on a very private joke right now, then he says. “I couldn’t give less of a fuck, Jimin. Please, go on,” he informs the druid in a soothing tone.Right. The joke is that he’s just as bad, if not worse, than Jimin himself.Smiling shyly and feeling the tip of his ears burn, Jimin focuses on the food tray to continue. Looking at Yoongi and speaking seems like too much at the moment.“What was I saying? Right, wolf fur.”“I have some around here somewhere if you just want to have the pleasure of laying on it,” Yoongi says, a smug grin taking over his face. He gets up and in fluid moves, pours another glass of water for Jimin. “You should drink it, I’ve heard magic residue is a worse nightmare than hangovers.”“Thanks,” he whispers before drinking it.It’s disconcerting having someone so beautiful and so obviously nice being so close to him while he looks like crap, but Yoongi gives off such an easy vibe that Jimin can’t bring himself to care that much.After he finishes the other glass, he watches as Yoongi puts a spoon inside the bowl of food Jimin was looking so intensely at.
When Yoongi speaks, he sounds concentrated and his lips form a slight pout. “It’s a Saffron fish stew with white bean soup. I haven’t cooked in a while because the restaurant I usually go to is moving spots in the City, but I don’t think it tastes bad. You have to tell me if it does, alright?”Jimin hardly thinks the education his parents gave him will allow him to tell his host who saved his life that his food is shit, but still. He could lie.Yoongi keeps staring at him and as if smelling the future lies, he whispers in a conspiracy tone. “I can’t taste the food, Jimin.”“Oh! Right. I’ll tell you.” He moves the bowl closer to himself. “But still... thank you, Yoongi.”“It wasn’t an issue. I’m going downstairs to clean the mess I made while trying to remember the recipe, I’ll be back in a few, alright? Then we can talk if you’re not too tired. I’m sure you must have about one thousand questions. I could answer them and maybe— maybe I could try to help you with your wounds?”While he might have one thousand questions, Jimin realizes that none of them include the safety ones he usually goes through with someone new on the road.The only questions that come to mind when he looks and thinks about Yoongi are questions he could ask the vampire, questions that vary from “what happened if I threw you under a very sunny beach, like, for real?” to “good gods, are you single?”.Funnily enough, Jimin has his wounds and pain to thank when there isn’t enough blood to reach his cheeks and embarrass him when Yoongi’s standing so close.
“That sounds great,” he answers, smiling as well. He does need help and if the one helping him is Yoongi, that’s just his luck.Jimin takes a long and deep breath as soon as Yoongi closes the door behind him, then his eyes widen, thinking about exactly what type of creature he’s dealing with.Yoongi being an Ancient means that he’s way beyond the powers of anyone Jimin’s met before and he has to hold back a groan when he recalls how he first reacted upon waking up.If his behavior is anything to go by, Yoongi truly doesn’t care that Jimin threatened his life.Jimin raises the spoon to his lips and blows the steam, tasting it with the tip of his tongue. His eyes close involuntarily and he has to hold back another groan.This one would’ve probably sounded like a moan because wow. Yoongi may have forgotten how to cook but his senses surely haven’t forgotten the point for things. The soup is delicious and Jimin has to go slowly with it, even though his desire is to down it in one gulp.He can feel the immediate change in his body too.His tattoos which previously felt itchy don’t anymore and the intense discomfort he feels due to the open wound even diminishes for a few seconds. When he’s done, Jimin places the bowl back on the platter and lays his head against the headboard of the bed, breathing properly for the first time in days.The headache that was present when he woke up disappears and a smile opens in his face.Out of all the places he could’ve ended up with and out of all the people — horrible, rude, dangerous people — he ended up there.Laying in Egyptian sheets, most likely smelling like absolute shit with one of the most interesting and incredible creatures.As if summoned by his thought, there’s a knock on the door.The anxiety crawls back under Jimin’s skin, but it’s mostly due to how he looks and how shitty he feels around the vampire.He’ll have to get through this silly infatuation, so he breathes in and says, “Come in.”Yoongi walks in and removes the platter from the bed, then places a medical kit there instead and looks at Jimin with a smile that looks more like a grimace.“This won’t be pleasant, but I’m quick, so…” he shrugs, trying to make Jimin less worried.He appreciates the gesture. Smiling at Yoongi, he moves a few inches closer and lowers the covers so Yoongi has access to the wound. Jimin only looks down for a few seconds, hating the sight of flesh and blood. The holes are the worst part and what could use a few stitches, so Jimin grips the sheets tight and nods at Yoongi.“Better you than a healer. I imagine you move a little faster than them,” he chuckles, trying to hide his pain too.Yoongi is moving the line through the needle when he answers.“And equally as precise, so looking at the bigger picture, you’re winning here,” he comments.He gives Jimin one last look as if to confirm if he can start and when Jimin nods, he places his very cold and dead hands on top of Jimin’s ribs to hold him still, then starts stitching.“If you want to ask me questions, it would help you distract yourself,” he tells Jimin in his soothing, low voice.Jimin is gritting through his teeth, but after a few seconds of tensing his body in pain, he realizes that his runes must be numbing most of the pain.He actually feels the needle going through his skin and yes, it’s unpleasant and it makes him want to squirm away from the sensation, but it’s not the acute and stinging pain he first imagined it.Slowly, his body relaxes.“Huh. A little worse than tattoos, but it’s actually… not bad,” he comments. His voice sounds breathy, but given that Yoongi is sewing an entire imprint of a direwolve’s mouth to make sure Jimin isn’t open to the world anymore, that’s not too bad. Suddenly, a thought makes him frown. “Do you think it’ll scar?”Yoongi pauses his ministrations momentarily and lifts his gaze, looking at Jimin a little dumbfounded.“What? I don’t have super healing powers, you know. My magic just held my insides together, but that’s basically it. The healing is a little faster than a human, but it’s still slow ,” he explains, looking in the vampire’s red eyes. Groaning at the realization that a good portion of his body will always be severely disfigured, Jimin looks away. “Fuck. It’s never gonna go away,” he whispers angrily.Yoongi is still staring at him, he feels it.After a heartbeat, he goes back to his task.“I hardly think a scar, as big as this one will be, will affect you in anyhow, Jimin,” he says calmly, closing another one of the holes. Jimin grips the sheets a little tighter when the needle has to go deeper, but his mind doesn’t make sense of Yoongi’s words. “You’re alive, after all. I can’t imagine how many people I’d say that survived an encounter with a pack of direwolves led by a Lycan in a hunt. When I found you, I thought for sure that you died.”Jimin focuses his eyes on the flower that sits under the big window of his room, unable to look at Yoongi while he speaks.He knows that a scar isn’t a big deal, but hearing that someone almost found him gone makes him want to slap himself.“I knew when I laid eyes on you that you were a powerful and very stubborn little druid,” Yoongi comments with a chuckle, eyes finding Jimin’s glancing gaze. Jimin looks away at once, blushing at the flattery. “I did mean what I said. The fact that you were able to protect yourself and make them go away is amazing. Most people would try to attack them and then die, becoming a dog treat for the night.”At that comment, Jimin’s head snaps back in Yoongi’s direction.“Direwolves eat people?” he asks in awe, fear coursing through him even though he’s in the safety of Min’s castle.All he sees is the mop of black hair shaking in denial.“No. The Lycan does.” Yoongi looks up again and Jimin finds that the red in his eyes seem to glow for a moment. Whether it’s the faint light streaming in the room or something else, it makes him look even more dangerous. “Direwolves are just sniffing dogs. They have no interest in human flesh, but when they’re led by those mindless and stupid creatures, they’ll hunt anything.”Red stares at him, drowning him momentarily in pain, blood and anger.Jimin understands what Yoongi is saying and the amount of danger he was under hits him, making him shake his head.“I was so stupid. So fucking stupid.” He huffs, not even wincing anymore at the needles patching him up together. The pain is there, there’s sweat on the nape of his neck too, but his mind is focused. “I can’t do this type of shit. I have to—I need to pay attention. I’ve been doing so good and I almost—,” he stops on his tracks, sighing again, then wincing at the needle entering his skin. He deserves this pain. “Fucking stupid druid. My mother would’ve had my fucking head if she saw me right now. Dad too. Fuck .”Their parents would be ashamed of him, ignoring verbal warnings of townsfolk like that because he thinks himself to be so good that he can just roam unknown forests at night.Arrogant, stupid little boy, he tells himself. For one moment, the voice sounds like Master Tania and that feels good. He acted rashly and almost got himself killed.Everyone that trained him would be disappointed, but worse than that… he could’ve died and never returned. Never found the reason why he left in the first place.Jimin closes his eyes and exhales shakily.He cannot fail Jungkook.“I got careless,” he continues in a small voice, without knowing why he’s speaking so freely and honestly with a vampire he’s just met. “They told me not to go to the forest at night. They told me it was dangerous.”Yoongi hums, cutting the line with a scissor so he can begin on another part.“I understand what you mean, but I imagine you’re capable of looking after yourself. You certainly look like it,” Yoongi offers, hand waving in the direction of all his tattoos.Jimin raises his eyebrows, smiling at him.“You know what they do?” he asks, surprised.“Yeah. Intelligent of you,” he chuckles. “I can also imagine a lot of people underestimate you and your abilities. You didn’t mean to get hurt, don’t be so hard on yourself. I don’t know your parents, but I imagine that while they’d reprehend you for ignoring a warning, they’d be happy their boy is here.” Yoongi’s words are so simple and yet…Jimin feels his eyes watering and thanks the heavens he’s looking the other way.“Like I said,” Yoongi continues, his hand moving lower on Jimin’s side, holding him still. “What you did was impressive, Jimin. You did not fail and more than that, you helped yourself. Then, destiny helped you a little more,” he adds with another chuckle, obviously referencing to himself.The comment makes Jimin smile. He wipes the tear that slides down his face on his own shoulder, trying not to look like a sentimental idiot. Yoongi may not know, but his words ring and echo in Jimin’s chest, bringing him the comfort of summer evenings spent on grassy hills when things weren’t so complicated. They’d be happy their boy is here, Yoongi said.“I’m the happiest when I’m with my boys. When you’re here, my babies. My love,” is what Jimin’s mind offers him, the voice of his mother giggling as she held both Jungkook and Jimin in her arms, peppering their faces in kisses while looking in the eyes of her husband, overfilled with joy.“Thanks,” Jimin answers, a little choked.Yoongi must notice that something in what he said comforted Jimin because he nods without lifting his head and for Jimin’s ultimate shock, he can see a very faint pink painting at the tip of Yoongi’s ears.“No problem,” he clears his throat. “So. No vampiric questions? I must say that’s a first,” he jokes, trying to change the subject and lighten the mood.Jimin almost straightens his posture in giddy excitement if it weren't for the strong grip of Yoongi’s hands on him.“I kinda forgot,” he confesses with a smile.
He rummages through his brain trying to think of a question that is valid and doesn’t sound too stupid. There’s so little known in fact about vampires and so many rumors that honestly, Jimin has questions for days.Looking down at the wound — that is now half sewed, looking less worrisome than before — he guesses that many days is what he’ll need to recover.Jimin looks over to where the long end elevated windows are. On the right side of the bedroom, there are three of them and only the main, center one has their drapes pulled to their side, allowing light to stream in.There’s shade in the bed and it isn’t incredibly bright out, but the first question that pops in his mind is, perhaps, the most common.
“What happens if you get locked outside when the sun’s out?”He stops what he’s doing again, eyes going to Jimin’s face with clear amusement. He must see the childish excitement in Jimin’s curiosity because he can’t seem to help it—Min Yoongi bursts out laughing.“That’s what’s on your mind?” he asks Jimin, who is appreciating the way he laughs with his whole upper body, a gummy smile on him that brings youth to his features.Jimin shrugs.“I mean, yeah. Most knowledge the supernatural community has of you guys is the same shit humans know. Do you combust when you’re under the sun? What happens if I make rain garlic over here? Can I see your reflection? Can I say, uh—you know who’s name?” he finishes, the ramble coming out of him before he can stop himself.At the last bit, Yoongi starts laughing all over again, “Just—gimme a second, oh fuck, you’re funny. Is ‘you know who’ Jesus Christ? Because all the religious bullshit is just that, bullshit” he explains, shaking his head to himself.
Jimin pouts a little bit at him. “At least you answered the last one.”Once Yoongi’s laughter subsides a little, he goes back to cleaning Jimin’s wounds methodically, a smile still plastered on his face.“No need to pout.” Yoongi tells him unceremoniously before answering all his other questions. “I don’t combust—and I say I because the sun factor is related to age. The older you are, the better your tolerance. Young vampires, especially Neferatos who live in caves die within two seconds. Once you grow older, it’s just a huge motherfucking pain and a great inconvenience because we still can’t just wander around in the sun, but no, we don’t combust.”“How’s it just a ‘huge motherfucking pain’?” Jimin asks, curiosity still clear in his face.“If you let me under the sun, I’d wither away for days, burning in an endless circle of healing and burning continuously, until either my mind went crazy or night came. Ancient vampires can’t be killed immediately just by sun exposure, you’d have to leave us very well tied for days for the sun to take our life away,” he explains carefully.Jimin sees he’s examining his own work meticulously. It’s clear Yoongi’s trying to do a very good job and it only serves to make Jimin’s stupid heart swell again, wondering whether that was his plan from the start or if he’s trying to diminish the look of mauled that the scar will be.He wants to thank Yoongi again, but decides against it. Instead, he just whistles at the explanation.“Sounds like fucking torture,” he says.“Yeah, it’s the worst kind of death imaginable.”
Yoongi puts the needle and line aside on top of a metal tray for a second, then uses a wet cloth he had to start cleaning the wound so he can see better and finish it up.
When he seems satisfied with the cleaning, he goes back to his answers.“Garlic’s a myth propagated by the church itself, which is incredibly stupid. Many vampire hunters have actually died because they dared believing throwing food at a creature of the night’s actually gonna do something. Fucking unbelievable,” he grumbles. “And no, people can’t see our reflection unless it’s a mirror whose frame is pure silver. The last one’s not very known.”Jimin nods at all that, taking in the information.“So basically, nothing we know about you is true,” he reasons.“Mostly not.”“Wow.” Jimin shakes his head and winces more at the part where Yoongi is finishing up, pulling the line closed and closing the gap that was there. Another thing pops up in his mind and Jimin voices it so he can focus on something else. “You know, they warned me not to come to the east side. It’s where ‘evil lives’, I heard. Is that…” he starts, but doesn’t finish, choosing to look in Yoongi’s direction instead.Yoongi’s eyes find his to nod his agreement, showing honesty.“That would be me, I’m afraid.” He snaps the line with the scissor again and then straightens up, looking at Jimin’s side with a small smile. “And you’re all done.”Jimin sees in his face why Yoongi doesn’t smile so often.There’s something about when his lips curl only slightly that looks devilish. It’s like a hidden smile, a smirk of someone who knows a joke only they get the punchline to.Instead of finding it intimidating or, even worse, scary, Jimin finds it interesting.He tries to push those thoughts away and looks down at his injury, analyzing the work Yoongi had done.It’s sad and slightly uncomfortable to see all those stitches on himself, but the wound looking cleaner and more contained makes his chest breath easier, at peace.He looks up to Yoongi and finds him looking back, waiting patiently for Jimin’s reaction with attentive eyes.Jimin is overwhelmed by his feeling of gratitude, even more so because he knows he has nothing to offer in return. Yoongi is doing this out of his free will. He could be preparing Jimin as a meal, for all the druid knows, but he finds that hard to believe when the man standing in front of the bed is looking at him so open and honestly.Again, he could be manipulating Jimin. Lulling him into a false sense of safety before striking.Jimin would dwell in those thoughts if it weren’t for his guts, which told him that that wasn’t the case. If there was one thing Jimin would never do is to ignore his instinct.He smiles openly at Yoongi, nodding at him. “Thanks. At least my future scar has a chance of looking not so messy now.” Yoongi smiles back at him, gathering the things he used on Jimin and taking them to the bathroom he hadn’t even seen there. “You know, you didn’t have to do any of this, actually so… thank you a lot, Yoongi. If all Evil acted like yourself…” he jokes, knowing Yoongi can still hear him from where he is.When the vampire returns to the room, he’s looking at Jimin intrigued.Rubbing his hands together, he speaks softly.“I was at a friend’s when I heard the howls and was told I should go,” he tells Jimin. “It wasn’t your time, Jimin.”Jimin exhales shakily at that.“Thank fuck. I have lots of shit to do yet,” he laughs.Yoongi's smile widens and he sits at the bottom of Jimin’s bed, at a respectful distance.“I imagine. As for being the evil who resides in the east…” Yoongi looks up to the ceiling, sighing wistfully. He chuckles to himself, at a joke Jimin didn’t know. “I imagine that due to my—my nature,” he says, picking his words carefully and with eyes going back to stare into Jimin’s. “You must wonder what type of Night creature I am. I’m not a fucking saint, Jimin, but I’m honest when I say you have nothing to worry about. Townsfolk think of me in such a way because, well, I’m not exactly fond of humans. On the other side, I don’t indulge in the mindless killing. All the prey whose life I take are only people whose minds are horrible enough to be enticed by my traps.”Jimin feels goosebumps rising all over his body at Yoongi’s words.He feels the fear and the venom in his power, in the traps he says he has spread. Jimin came from a mother who died saving an entire village, a powerful woman who would rise one day from the ashes like a phoenix, so he understands power.What he also understands is the wrath and ignorance of mankind.He holds no dear feelings for them either. Yoongi keeping the doors of his castles closed to them is, in Jimin’s opinion, a smart choice.“I can’t say I’d keep my door open to any human if I were your age, too,” Jimin confesses through the wave of fear that washes his shores. It comes and goes easily, only existing for a second. “I remember what they can do,” he whispers.Yoongi must see in his eyes—the fire, the screams, the pain.He doesn’t dare ask.“Oh! And it goes without saying that you can stay for as long as you need,” Yoongi adds, smiling more genuinely then, his gums showing. Jimin decides that’s his favorite smile and almost immediately slaps himself at the thought. ‘Favorite’ smile.A scholar teenage girl has more control over herself than him, at this point.“I should warn you, though, that your spells don’t work on me, so if you want something or need anything, you’d have to ask,” he continues, smiling almost apologetically.Jimin’s own smile falls a little at that. He had considered putting Silencing spells in the room so he could speak with Jungkook privately, but apparently he can’t.As always, when it comes to his own life, Jimin is okay with trusting his instinct.
That feeling doesn’t extend towards Jungkook and strangers. Ever.As nice, wonderful — and handsome — that he is, that is all Yoongi is still. A stranger. Jimin isn’t comfortable with the idea of him knowing Jungkook’s existence or condition so soon, so fidgeting and hating himself for having to ask something when Yoongi has done so much, he speaks.“Could I get privacy during the night?” he asks, carefully.Yoongi nods firmly. “Of course. You’re a visitor, Jimin. My Sire would have my head if I didn’t extend the courtesy of giving that to you,” he grins. “I have a music room that is soundproof even for me, so I can go there after midnight and close the door for a few hours. Until five, right before sunrise, how does that sound?” You always sound perfect, a traitorous little voice — that sounds precisely like his own — speaks.Jimin feels his cheeks heat up a smidge, but smiles thankfully as if nothing has happened.“That’s more than enough. Thank you again, Yoongi.”“I’m gonna let you rest, for now. Your things are on that chair, by the way. I don’t know if you saw,” he points to a fancy velvet chair at the corner of the room and laying on top of it, is his leather bag.His enchanted leather bag holds everything that he needs.Jimin lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and right there, he wants to jump across the room and hug Yoongi.He feels overwhelmed once again and shaking his head, repeats for what feels like the thousandth time. “Thank you… I don’t even know how I could repay you,” he chuckles bitterly.
What do you give to a person who has everything?Yoongi smiles sadly at him and waves his hands dismissively. “If you leave my castle with the promise to take really good care of yourself, that’s more than enough for me,” he says with his hands up in the air, smiling at Jimin through those thick lashes, with those intense cat-like eyes.Jimin wants to yell at having met him like this.“If you need me, I’m at the door at the end of the corridor, yeah?” he asks.Jimin nods, not trusting his own voice.When Yoongi leaves, Jimin does a quick spell to levitate his bag to the end of his bed and then feels the exhaustion taking over him.He can smell himself and he hates it, but the pain and the weariness of how much magic his body used in the past days catch up to him. He certifies that all his tattoos are still, their powers and runes drawn back to their original source, leaving the wound now to heal itself on its own.He’ll speak with Jungkook later.As for the emotions Yoongi swirls inside his chest, he will deal with those… hopefully never. At best, he leaves this castle with a friend for life.At worse, embarrasses himself in front of the most beautiful man he’s ever met. Jimin groans and lays back against the pillow, allowing darkness to take him.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
I will never mourn anyone as loudly as I have mourned you.— Caitlyn Siehl, Ressurect.
Although being alive in itself is a gift—having it happen in a castle, laying in dark silky sheets and even better company, is even better.After Yoongi and him are properly introduced, Jimin has more than enough time to freak out over what staying in his castle should be like. He casts the doubts and voices in his head aside for a few hours after midnight to call Jungkook and update his brother on how he is, but even then, he can hear the faint whisper in his subconscious.Jimin looked around, panicked at the sight of where he was when the hour to speak with Jungkook struck.He realized then how much a parent’s opinions have an impact on a child’s future world view. Upon arriving at the castle, his first instinct was to make sure Yoongi knew he wasn’t defenseless and that, if the chance to kill him presented itself, Jimin would take it.Now, all he could see was his father half-hiding behind a curtain with sharp, narrowed eyes, eyeing the carousels that arrived in the village, spitting out that they better not be any ‘bloodsuckers’.
If Jungkook got a whiff or even dreamt about where Jimin ended up in his quest, he was sure to have a heart attack. Even if Jimin explained who he was with, told him in detail how safe he felt or all that Yoongi had done for him so far—Jungkook wouldn’t believe him, driven mad already by concern, all scenarios would form in his brother’s mind.Ideas of Jimin being possessed, poisoned, cursed.No. Instead, Jimin made the insane effort to get up and reach one of the chairs that stood against the wall and sat on it, sweat pooling on his forehead and all over his back.He grimaced in disgust and discomfort, both from the pain and the fact that he could not stand being this weak.Jimin was not only a strong and independent person, but he was also very vain. He loved that about himself. Smelling his own odor of sweat, dirt and blood for so long and knowing that he looked like absolute shit didn’t do it for him. Actually, he knew it was only a matter of time before it started bothering him so much that even his mood would be altered.He’d cross that bridge when he got to it, he thought, and then picked his Mirror.On the other side, smiling and sitting against the headboard of his own bed, Jungkook’s clever eyes caught on to the decor in the first second, just as Jimin knew he would.“Where the fuck are you?” he asked. Jimin heard a distant LANGUAGE! being yelled at him and he giggled, knowing Jungkook was probably in a room with Master Tania herself.Jungkook winced and muttered a fake apology, but his eyes roamed through every inch of the wall he could see. “What kind of Inn is that? It looks like one of those Blood Brothers our dad spoke so much of,” he mocked, laughing at Jimin.Jimin waved his hand dismissively at Jungkook, trying not to blink too much or think about how hot he already felt. “Shut up. It’s the house owner’s taste, what can I do?” he answered truthfully, dodging a straight-up lie.“It looks like you’re in a whorehouse,” Jungkook offered with a shit-eating grin, but then, he shrugged his shoulders. “A very, very fancy one.”Jimin stared at his brother with a blank face. He looked at the ugly green that rimmed Jungkook’s eyes and how he could see his clavicle peaking out even more underneath his black shirt.Ignoring the churning in his stomach, Jimin raised an eyebrow. “Are you done judging my accommodations?”“Just about.”“Cool. You look less like shit,” Jimin offered as a conversational change, smiling harder at the way Jungkook lit up. “Master Tania found something that help, I imagine?”“Yeah! God, hyung, she did like, this potion, right? And it’s kinda like the tonics mom used to make when we were young, remember, the ones we had to drink once a week?” When Jimin hummed in agreement, Jungkook continued excitedly. “It’s like those, but this one tastes like horseshit. And trust me when I saw this because I fell once on horseshit and I’m a hundred percent sure that it’s the same. Or at least, the aftertaste.”“Sounds like she’s finally getting her revenge on you for all those vials and bottles you broke while learning electric magic,” Jimin laughed and Jungkook joined him, nodding in agreement.“It feels like it.”“But it helps, yeah? You don’t look so tired,” he said, breathing easier.“I definitely feel less tired,” Jungkook looked around sheepishly, his shy smile barely lifting his adorable cheeks. “I’ve been getting lots of help from Draco.”“Oh, he’s finally shown his face around the Inn?” Jimin asked, surprised.Jungkook nodded, clearly trying to hide his blush from his brother’s inquisitive eyes.“Yeah, he brings me books and stuff. Says he’s keeping an eye on me ‘till you come back and make me better,” he answered with the softest voice he’s ever spoken.Jimin recalled the name. Draco was apparently a human boy from the woods that Jungkook met while learning archery with the older collectors. They hunted for food and herbs to bring back to the Inn and took Jungkook under their wing happily, basking in his talents.The mysterious Draco was someone Jimin never saw with his own eyes. According to Jungkook, he was too shy and also slightly scared of the supernatural community, so he never pushed.Something about not knowing and seeing with the eyes mother Nature gave him this boy who was so obviously stealing his brother’s heart was… disconcerting. Like an itch or a tiny rock in your boot.None of that was spoken out loud, of course.Jimin only smiled and, as always, said. “Tell me more.”Jungkook beamed, lighting up like a sunflower during the daytime and then, spoke.Jimin listened to his tales of what the last couple of weeks have been like, getting updates on the books Jungkook had finished, started and abandoned.Amongst “Draco this” and “Draco that”, Jimin read the close and carefully designed web that Master Tania had created to keep Jungkook inside close quarters.Something deep in his gut told Jimin that she was also simply waiting for one of her baits to catch and that soon, Draco would be nothing but a fly on her territory.Slimy boys never escaped Master Tania’s eyes. The Oracle who lived inside of her was dormant most of the time, she told them one day, but still could See everything.She always reminded Jimin of a spider.Nothing that happened in the Sea Inn or anywhere near Wallachia went past her.“What about you? How have things been?” Jungkook asked Jimin, finally done with his recap. His eyes narrowed and he brought the mirror closer to himself. “You look like shit. Are you sweating?”Jimin had known this moment would come and, after much thought, had decided he would settle for a half-lie when Jungkook confronted him. The only benefit of the Mirror’s truth spell not working within the family — something to do with the blood of who created the spell — was this, he could spare Jungkook more pain.He couldn’t, even in the worst possible scenarios, find himself lying to his family in any circumstance. Jungkook was the only family he had left, he would never dare to risk his last words to him be a lie or worse—Jungkook finding out that he did it to his face like that.With a deep breath and hiding another wince at the pain that shot up with his discomfort, Jimin explained.“I was attacked by wolves a few days ago—relax! Fucking gods, you lost the only bit of color you had on you. Relax, I’m okay, see? I’m alive. I’ll be fine, Ggukie.” The wide eyed, pained and fearful expression that stared at him through the Mirror was the whole reason why he couldn’t bear telling Jungkook the full truth.Not yet. Not while he wasn’t himself.Jungkook was a mountain.Ever since he was a kid, Jimin saw himself as the woods—old, rich and filled with life, dangerous or not. Jungkook was no forest. Jungkook was an old, ancient and tall mountain, a peak of strength between lands—he was the hideout for the most dangerous creature, the damnation of the prideful and arrogant.Untamable, brave and striking.The Jungkook that blinked slowly across the Mirror and wiped away his tears was also his brother, but without half the soul. Something was sucking it away, blasting bombs at the impenetrable fortress that was Jeon Jungkook.That was why even through miles away, Jimin risked his life. Spoke with him whenever he could.He needed a reminder that he would put an end to it.“I found help. Someone rescued me and took after me, which is why you’re staring at this lovely decor right now,” he teased, watching Jungkook relax as he explained. “I’m gonna take a few more days to fully heal the wound and then I’ll go to the actually interesting bit. I have great news, Ggukie. I was gifted a grimoire from the Sakhs and… they used to be alchemists, Gguk. There are three whole chapters on flowers and locations,” he told him excitedly, his own pain forgotten for a moment.Jungkook’s eyes lit up, mouth gaping open.Jimin never gave him news unless it was good because no hope is better than false hope, so when he spoke of the Sakhs grimoire, he made sure to tell every detail he could.By the time they were done speaking, it was nearly five am, the time Yoongi had said he’d leave his studio.They got so lost in discussing theories and reminiscing the things they knew about alchemy and herbology, their parents coming up in the conversation often, as it tended to happen when they were alone, that Jimin almost missed the time.Regardless, happiness was the only thing he felt.Jungkook looked better and he had hope for the first time in months, something solid and tangible with the new material he found.“Promise me you’ll take at least a week to gather your strength back, Minnie. Please,” Jungkook begged as he blinked heavily, eyelids drooping with sleep already.He didn’t want to, but there was no saying ‘no’ to his brother.He could also use the rest, he confessed to himself.Smiling at Jungkook, he nodded. “I promise. Now go get sleep, Master Tania will be pissed off if I keep you ‘till the sun rises.”“She’d never be pissed off at you. You’re her… favorite. And you know it,” Jungkook got out between yawns.“Sleep, Guk.”“Okay, Minnie.”“I love you dearly and forever.”“I love you dearly and forever,” Jungkook echoed, repeating the words their parents used to say to them.When the two of them put the Mirror down and the communication finished, Jimin sighed out loud.The only reason why he got up and dragged himself back to bed was that he didn’t want to risk sleeping there and waking up with Yoongi’s carefully made stitches being ripped out.He imagined he couldn’t handle Yoongi touching him and closing his wounds one more time.
🍃
After sleeping through the morning and most of the afternoon, Jimin has only moments of peace after he wakes up before the nervousness settles deep inside him again.He realizes, laying in bed while looking through the window, that he has no clue of what Yoongi’s days are like.He doesn’t know if he’ll bother or interrupt anything by calling for him — but he knows they are alone — and even if he can call Yoongi, nothing tells him that he should.Yoongi stated that Jimin is a visitor, welcomed and that he’ll be cared for. He never said anything about spending time with Jimin. Why would he, Jimin thinks? He must have everything he needs in the castle.His worries that Yoongi is only doing all of this out of a sense of chivalry or obligation are real and present as well, but they later prove to be a joke.It’s when Yoongi knocks on his door and peeks his head in after Jimin calls him forward that he sees it: Yoongi is nervous as well.Years of living on the run and not being able to trust a soul gave Jimin a very useful skill— he is great at reading people’s emotions.
It can be harder when his own emotions are clouding his visions or when the being — like Yoongi, for example — have decades or centuries on him and can use it to their manipulation, but otherwise, it never fails him.In this case, Yoongi’s behavior has only been earnest, so Jimin shuts down and dismisses every crazy theory and intrusive thought that pops up in his presence, giving him the benefit of the doubt.His first apparition in the day is a quick visit.“I came by to check on your stitches,” he explains with a shy smile.Jimin groans, pouting. It hurts and he knows it looks bad, but it’s not that which annoys him the most.Yoongi waits for him to go through his denial, not moving an inch before Jimin gives him permission.“I slept on my right side, I think it helped,” Jimin tells him when he sits.He has his medical kit with him, which he places on the blood-red duvets. Jimin uncovers himself and turns his body slightly to the left so Yoongi can get a proper look.The silence while Yoongi examines him with cold — dead — hands starts to make him fidgety.“Stop squirming,” Yoongi demands in a calm voice.Jimin’s instinct is to reply with ‘don’t tell me what to do’, but given the situation, he swallows down the response.“Is it bad? You gotta give me something, doc,” he jokes, chuckling nervously.It works because he hears the huff of breath from Yoongi’s chuckle hitting his hot skin and then, the cold hands are gone. He sits back against the headboard and looks forward to Yoongi, lifting the covers against his naked torso.Yoongi is smiling at him, pleased.“I don’t think I’m fit to be a doctor. These would get in the way,” Yoongi answers, lifting just one corner of his top lip and thus, allowing Jimin the sight of one of his very sharp fangs. It’s a quick move and when he’s done, he chuckles and moves to slide the medical kit underneath Jimin’s bed. “I’ll leave this here in case you need it for anything.”“I suppose they would,” Jimin indulges, eyeing his every move. Licking his lips, he looks for something to say before the silence settles. “Thank you again for my privacy.”“I told you, it’s nothing,” he dismisses, not used to being thanked so much. Yoongi ducks his head and then gazes back into Jimin’s eyes. “I’ll bring you food in a few hours. If you’re still tired, you should allow your body to rest as much as it needs. You’ll be better in no time, then.”For a moment, Jimin’s mind starts going haywire with sirens going off, yelling at him in bold colors that the vampire wants him out of his castle, wants him good and gone in no time, but before the panic can fully settle, Yoongi gets up and adds with a smile.“Maybe if you can stand on two feet, I can show you around the castle,” he says.The sentence seems to put a lid on a bubbling cauldron, simmering any of Jimin’s worries. Stop trying to paint him in a bad light, he hisses to himself.“I think I’d need a few days to see a whole castle,” he jokes.“You have them. That’s not going anywhere anytime soon,” he points at Jimin’s side. “And neither are you if you’re not well, so,” he shrugs his shoulders as a way of finishing, but then, realizing how his last words might’ve come out, he adds with wide eyes. “If you don’t want to! You… the main door is always open.”Standing by the side of Jimin’s bed, concerned that Jimin will think he’s trying to keep him a prisoner, is when the druid realizes that Yoongi is just as terrified of him.A memory sparks in his mind, this time, of his father.He sees the wolf, the very first time Jimin had met one. Standing tall in his backyard while Jungkook and he shook in fear, screaming for his father.As it turned out, it was only a pup and it was injured.“See? He’s as terrified of you two as you are of him. ”“I’d only leave if you kicked me out, at this point,” he jokes, giving Yoongi what he hopes is a comforting smile.The vampire smiles back, his gums showing. He nods along. “I’ll keep that in mind. Kick Jimin out once you realize he’s stretching his visit too far,” he pretends to write in his own palm then, looks up at Jimin with a grin. “Rest, Jimin. I’ll be back.”Jimin watches Yoongi go and falls back against the pillows, wrinkling his nose momentarily. His features change to a smile when he thinks of how coy and shy Yoongi is around him.He can fix that.If he must stay, then the least he can do is gain a new friend.
At night once the chance presents itself, Jimin takes it.Yoongi returns with food that he prepared — something with lots of meat, “so you can get your strength back” — and he places it in front of Jimin with a tentative smile.Jimin smiles appreciatively and moves it closer to himself, bringing the plate to his lap with care. He almost misses Yoongi slipping out of the room just then.“Wait!” he calls when he sees Yoongi by the door. “Where are you going?” he asks in a small voice.Yoongi looks around, confused.“I’m going to leave so you can eat in peace,” he offers, face blank.Jimin shakes his head. “You don’t have to leave. You can, if you want to, obviously” he states. He picks up his fork and knife and smells the plate, sighing happily. “If it’s worth anything, I’d like you to stay.”It works.Jimin sees from his peripheral vision that Yoongi nods and then moves to the chair underneath the main window, a black leather armchair that looks very comfortable.When he gets his first bite and thinks fuck it, moaning at how good the food is, he almost regrets having asked Yoongi to stay.When he hears soft chuckling coming from his corner, Jimin feels his cheeks grow a little hotter.“Shut up,” he spits out when he swallows, looking up at Yoongi. “This is good and I’m hungry.”“I’ll take your word for it,” Yoongi answers, smiling and looking back at him.He seems satisfied with Jimin enjoying his food. He watches closely as Jimin takes another bite, his smile widening when Jimin closes his eyes momentarily and chews happily.
Yoongi pulls a book from underneath the armchair and opens it where the bookmark is, giving the space Jimin needs to eat his food in silence. He’s grateful for it because if it were up to him, Jimin would talk with his mouth full just so he could engage in conversation with Yoongi.There’s no need for that, so he eats slowly and takes his time to appreciate it, glancing every now and then to Yoongi reading.He looks so… young that way. His parted lips are full and rosy, his hands are graceful as he flips the pages and if he notices Jimin staring, he makes no comment.By the time Jimin’s done, Yoongi closes the book on his lap, lifting his gaze and his eyebrows at Jimin.“Approved?” he asks with a smirk.Jimin lets his rolling eyes be the answer to that.They both laugh afterwards, the aura of the room light with happiness.“Fuck. Thank you so much, it’s been so fucking long since I’ve had good meals,” Jimin comments after a few heartbeats.“My pleasure. It’s been even longer since I’ve cooked, believe me. I’m just happy to know I still know how to work the kitchen,” Yoongi answers earnestly.Jimin looks back to him at that. “You always liked to cook?”He nods. “Always. I stopped once there was no one else to cook for anymore, but it’s one of the loveliest things to do in life. Creating and changing something.”“You sound like my mother,” Jimin tells him with a laugh that grows in his chest, making his head fall back. “I hope you know this isn’t—I’m not mocking you, okay? She just used to say the same shit. It’s funny,” he adds with a last giggle.“I’d never think you were mocking me by comparing me to your mother,” Yoongi replies with a tone so honest that Jimin wants to groan again, for different reasons this time. “She knew what she was talking about.”“Witches often do.”“Hmmmm. That’s true. It’s… what do they call it? The ‘nature—’”“—whisper’,” Jimin completes, looking up at the ceiling. “ Nature always answers to those who speak to it from the heart .”“Misses Park, I presume?”“Yup. The Pink Moon Witch,” he recalls, his heart squeezing itself into a ball at the mention of his mother’s witch title. Nadia. The Pink Moon Witch.
He feels breathless for a second, like the Moon herself had pulled the invisible strings in his chest, then closes his eyes. He feels a breeze blow on his earlobe, sending a shiver to his whole body.There isn’t a single window open in his room at the moment, but he feels it.He lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, aftershock shivers still coursing through him.“You forget your mother’s blood runs in you, Park Jimin,” Yoongi speaks with a voice that sounds very distant. “I sensed… rosemaries? And coffee beans…”“Her scent,” he breathes out, still shaken at the magic that was brought by her name. He doesn’t stop it or shake the feeling off.Even though it hurts, it’s a bittersweet pain.When he feels like his soul has fully settled back inside his body, he locks his eyes with Yoongi’s again.Looking in his red eyes, Jimin recognizes the fond lines on their corners, sees in the blood that fills up Yoongi’s irises that he knows the type of pain Jimin is feeling currently. He understands it.Yoongi, looking at him, asks in a soft voice. “Is there anything I can do to make you feel more comfortable?” he breaks their locked gaze, looking around the room as if he’s trying to find a flaw in it. “I don’t know how much technology you kids use nowadays, the most I have are clocks, showers and stupid machines that I don’t know how to use half the time,” he comments with a self-deprecating laugh.Jimin looks around the room, wondering what else could possibly be missing there. When he finds nothing, he shakes his head.“I’m not much of a technology person,” he says, shrugging. “Druid boy, remember?”His adversity to technology was, matter of factly, deeply embedded inside of him.The march for new paths and machinery that humans embarked in resulted in beautiful and glorious inventions, but also in the further deepening of their blissful ignorance, fueled by their ever-growing fear of the unknown.Witch hunts returned. The supernatural community, as real and as present as theirs, was forced more into hiding and protecting their own.Their response to knowing what was real was either wanting to explore, study, torture and dissect it, or outright kill it.Jimin gets by just fine without technology. Some of them are useful, he admits — and appreciates from afar — and some are even nice, but his pettiness would never allow him to say so.Yoongi, seeming to realize with whom he’s speaking, rubs a hand against his forehead, looking angry at himself.“I’m sorry. I’m an idiot, I didn’t even think—”“Yoongi,” he interrupts. The vampire stops talking immediately and when he glances at Jimin, the latter shakes his head. “You’re not them. You have nothing to apologize for.”Yoongi nods at that, then looks away from Jimin’s eyes with an expression the druid can’t read just yet.“You know…” he starts, stopping mid-sentence for a light chuckle. His shoulders relax visibly and Jimin catalogs that smile on the corner of his lips. “My Sire used to say the funniest things about them. The cruelest too, but he never lied.”Jimin’s curiosity peaks, so he straightens himself in bed.“What did he say?” he asks, giddy. He never met a Sire before and Yoongi is the closest he’ll possibly get to one, so he doesn’t hide his curiosity.By the amused glint in Yoongi’s eyes, he doesn’t mind it. He seems to enjoy it, actually.“That humans are the greatest paradox nature has ever created. Nothing less, nothing more. They can either be the most intriguing of creatures and yet, the most predictable and boring ones. I used to think that applied to every being, human or not, but I came to my senses after a couple of centuries,” he tells Jimin, deciding to leave his armchair to sit by Jimin’s side on the bed.
The left side dips slightly with Yoongi’s lightweight and the vampire settles against the headboard, mimicking Jimin’s position, hands on his lap.He smiles shyly as he continues.“It was funny because—gods, I can almost see him,” Yoongi says, chuckling. Jimin turns his body to the side so he can look at Yoongi better and from here, he can appreciate his profile as the man fondly talks of someone who’s clearly long gone. “He used to philosophize like an old greek man while he roamed his greenhouse, it was hilarious. The contrast of his red eyes and his words against the pale white calla lilies. Fucking ridiculous ,” he laughs.“He had a greenhouse?” Jimin asks excitedly. “I fucking love them.”Yoongi turns his head to the side and Jimin’s caught off guard for a moment with how close they are. Even though he sat at least three palms away from Jimin, it’s the closest they’ve been in a while.From here, Jimin can see his eyelashes and how silky his black hair looks.“Yeah. I can take you there once you feel like you can walk,” he offers.“I’d love to,” Jimin accepts, smile widening.“You’ll be right at home, won’t you?” Yoongi teases. “Amongst the flowers, deadly and poisonous or not.”“He has a lot of those?” Jimin asks. Yoongi nods, a wicked glint in his eyes. “Of course he did,” Jimin snickers, slapping himself mentally. “My kind of greenhouse, then.”“Like I imagined,” Yoongi comments.“What else did he used to say?” Jimin asks, leaning his head against the headboard.
Yoongi smiles with his gums showing, giving Jimin a sight of his fangs and the prettiest smile that’s ever graced his life, then shakes his head slowly.“Where should I start?” he asks wickedly.For the next hour or so, Jimin hears stories of Yoongi’s Sire and his words. Yoongi seems more than content in dwelling in the past, reminiscing memories that he hasn’t touched in a long time.Jimin allows him to talk, knowing how healing speaking of things can be.He doesn’t know how many friends Yoongi has or how much he allows them to see, but if he can be a bridge between Yoongi and his past in a way that it doesn’t hurt, he’ll gladly be that.Having someone who understands your bittersweet taste of life is like a breath of fresh air.Jimin barely registers any pain when he falls asleep that night. He doesn’t even notice it when it happens, being lulled to unconsciousness by Yoongi’s deep and raspy voice retelling his Sire’s words of philosophy.
For the next couple of days, Yoongi and Jimin fall into the loveliest routine.He tries his best not to feel too happy about it, about how easy it all feels and how nice it is having someone with him during the days and nights, another conscious mind to speak with and share ideas, memories, a good laugh. Especially someone so endearing and intelligent, quick-witted as Park Jimin.Yoongi closes his eyes sometimes when he’s alone, blinks at his pale reflection in the mirror and tells himself this is temporary. I must remember that, he tells his reflection.Jimin isn’t staying for too long and even if he needs a while to recover, that doesn’t mean they will be friends afterwards. All Yoongi can do is behave the best way he can in hopes he gains a friend in him.With him around, the fondness inside Yoongi grows like grass.Jimin makes it impossible not to.When Yoongi brings him lunch at the start of the evening the following couple of days, he sits in the room in silence while Jimin eats and they share smiles above their plate and book, quietly and peacefully enjoying the other’s presence.As soon as he’s done eating, Yoongi addresses his wounds, which are healing wonderfully. By the time the week is done, there’s no part of Jimin’s insides visible anymore, all the holes have closed completely.Admittedly, Yoongi feels for the boy.He recognizes the vanity in Jimin’s look when the boy gazes at his side, and can’t help but feel just a little sorry for him. What Jimin has now is a battle wound: his encounter and dance with fate.It’s gnarly to look at.
Yoongi can recognize that while he’s checking on it and applying the salve of herbs Jimin himself prepared. He knows the scar will be minimized a lot by Jimin’s own power and knowledge of herbology, turning nature into healing ointments.Nevertheless, the mark of his dance would surely be there.Direwolves were ancient and magical pets. There would always be the design of forty-two holes forming a denture around his left stomach, a gigantic bite mark all the way up to his ribs.If it were anyone else, chances of survival would be less than one percent.Jimin practically had Fate themselves save him. The Oracle’s green glowing eyes appear behind Yoongi’s eyelids sometimes, when he blinks with gazed fixed in the wound he’s helping heal.
Personally, Yoongi thinks that however it looks, there’s no way it’ll diminish Jimin’s beauty. In his opinion, it’ll only increase how real and strong he is, a new attestment to how difficult it is to fight against Park Jimin and win.Scars were life’s own tattoos on one’s body and from Yoongi’s eyes, this one could only add to Jimin’s allure.If only he thought the same.The wounds are not the only thing Yoongi pays attention too, lips going dry whenever his gaze shifts up by accident.At dinner, after stealing a glance — or five — more than he should, he gives up and asks Jimin before he’s caught staring and makes a fool out of himself. The tattoos on the druid’s body have an elegance and artistry that attract Yoongi in ways he never expected.“What inspired them?” he blurts out when he builds enough courage. One of his hands is putting pressure on the purple around the stitches while the other holds Jimin’s side.His voice is steady, thank gods, but his eyes betray him.They glance upwards again, finding the muscled and tanned torso adorned in tattoos right there on his face.Jimin catches his sight and looks down at his own body, eyes falling on his tattoos.“Oh, them?” he points at his own inked chest and arms. Yoongi swallows dry and only nods. Nyx in the sky, bless me, he thinks. His mind is a bit hazy and he catches himself thinking about how they must taste before he has to slap himself mentally.Ashamed of his own mind going crazy with so little being presented, he gets up quickly and occupies himself with cleaning his hands and putting away the ingredients as Jimin answers him.“The first ones I did had meaning, I think, but the rest were mostly inspired by what I loved seeing the most. I like beautiful things,” Jimin shrugs, the last part said like a confession. “First I did my arms with stuff that mattered to me—some runes that rekindle to my mom and dad’s power, my family’s honor motto and shit like that. By the time I ran out of “inspiring and meaningful”, I just went to the next best thing which, for me, is Nature. So then you have… this, and this and this…” he finishes off, pointing at the rivers, the bear that Yoongi adores a lot and the rest of his arms, painted and drawn in breathtaking natural scenarios.As he speaks, Yoongi allows himself to look.Jimin is explaining why he got them after all, so he’s allowed to gawk a little. His eyes follow Jimin’s small and chubby fingers pointing at them, his honey-sweet voice almost making Yoongi feel faint-ish.When he feels Jimin’s eyes going up to him, Yoongi knows that his face has a slight blush to it.His Sire had once explained to him how vampires' bodies worked mysteriously, but in its majority, in a simple way. It was the blood that rushed in his veins that allowed his muscles to move, even if the blood had to be taken from someone else.All functions related to his blood worked perfectly fine. Although it was more complicated to make a vampire blush, it was still possible.He knew his cheeks were peach, feeling the heat in them ever since he laid eyes on the bear and the snake and the way the black ink contrasted with Jimin’s gorgeous skin.Their gaze locks and Yoongi sees the surprise in Jimin’s eyes, followed by a reddening of his own cheeks. Huh.His reaction to seeing Yoongi flustered was to feel shy himself.For some reason, that burned holes even deeper in the vampire’s mind.Before he could explode or worse, blush even harder, Yoongi blurted out. “Would you like to walk a little?” Yoongi needs to breathe because being trapped in the same room as Jimin and his… well, everything, is too sudden. “You get to meet at least maybe one corridor. Check on how you feel in general.”He thought his idea was a good one, or least a distraction from what actually pained him at the moment.Instead, he realized his mistake a beat too late.After passing Jimin his white (and washed) shirt, Yoongi calculates that he should help.
Walking is still a strenuous activity for someone who has just healed his insides, so he moves to the side of the bed and lets Jimin get up on his own, but offers his arm as soon as the druid is standing.Jimin eyes the arm with cheeks still painted, matching the tip of his ears, but takes it without hesitation, supporting himself as much as he needs on Yoongi.That is how Jimin spends his night, watching with attentive eyes the corridor that he’s in as Yoongi talks about the castle, explaining it’s story.For two nights, Yoongi shows Jimin as much as he can.They don’t walk too much or too far, but the exercise seems to help boost Jimin’s immune system and magic and once he completes a full week under Yoongi’s care, all the holes are finally closed and his colour fully back on his skin.Yoongi and Jimin talk about nothing and everything at all, between shared meals and walks inside the castle.The druid offers stories of learning magic with his parents. Yoongi learns he has a brother and they are very close, but asks no further questions since Jimin doesn’t offer too much information on it. He speaks of their Master Tania, an Oracle who took them in her community after he and his brother had spent years on the run.In return, Yoongi offers stories of his own.He has plenty to tell, but for some reason, ends up sharing the ones closest to his heart with Jimin.It’s on the morning of his eighth day in the castle that Jimin learns even more about Yoongi and the latter receives a visit.Jimin wakes up feeling well enough to venture himself and coincidentally, his herbs run out. It’s him who suggests they walk to the greenhouse.“Could we go, Yoongi?” he asks with polite and pleading eyes.Yoongi looks at where his glass vials lay on the bed, most of them empty. He realized after a while that Jimin had a very intricate spell in that leather satchel of his, storing much more in there than Yoongi expected—or could see with his own eyes.He glances back up to Jimin, who’s smiling sheepishly at him.He nods, trying a smile. He hasn’t been in the greenhouse ever since he laid his Sire’s body inside his chamber, unable to step a foot in there without him. It felt weird, like an invasion of privacy.
None of his plants needed Yoongi’s direct care, either way. All he needed was to turn on the irrigation system and redirect shade or light to the plants that needed it. They never looked quite as green and healthy as when Sire took care of them, speaking in soft conspiracy tones all his secrets to the green plants.“They need interaction, Yoon. And they adore the sound of my voice. They keep my secrets and I help them grow, it’s a lovely transaction,” Yoongi hears him say in a distant memory.Walking inside with Jimin feels right, though. Like a new beginning. A worthy visitor.“Of course,” he nods, stretching out his arm in an offer. He smiles, “It’s a long walk down the side stairs, you better hold on.”Jimin puts his shirts on while rolling his eyes — a custom he does often — and then accompanies Yoongi downstairs while supporting half of his weight on him, speaking about all the salve, balms and unctions he creates for the road.The sight of the greenhouse comes in when they make a turn in the stairs and Jimin halts, bringing Yoongi to a stop as well.Granted, Yoongi understands why. His Sire’s greenhouse is enormous. The inspiration had come from the same artist which drew the Botanic Garden in Brazil, in Panamá state.With three glass arches and white structures, it was the most beautiful place in the castle without a doubt.Yoongi looked to the side to watch Jimin’s reaction to the view and as expected, the boy is staring ahead, mouth agape and eyes shining.
With the castle standing in one of the highest parts of the mountain, the horizon stretched for what it looked like infinity.
The sunset was in its final moments, painting the sky as a canvas, like only nature could. Shades of burgundy, pink, orange and purple dotted the sky and Jimin looked at loss of words for several seconds.While Jimin watched the view — and it was a splendorous one, Yoongi himself had stopped to appreciate it many times — Yoongi concluded that at that moment, he had better things to look at.The flush on Jimin’s cheeks and the wind cutting his cheekbones, waving his dirty hair in every direction was a more alluring sight than the beauty of the sky and the glass mingling, shining and reflecting each other.“Wow,” he breaths out, huffing in awe.“Beautiful,” Yoongi answers automatically.His eyes are still on Jimin.Thanks to whatever gods still watch out for him, Jimin doesn’t notice his slip of mind, the filter between his head and mouth failing him for a moment. Jimin nods, eyes still glued on the greenhouse, agreeing as a smile spreads from ear to ear. “Yeah, that’s an understatement,” he scoffs.Yoongi has only the time to look away, feeling a gummy smile take over his features as well, before he feels Jimin’s eyes on him.“Can’t you help my momentarily useless ass, oh Ancient one?” he giggles, overtaken by happiness. Yoongi sees it reflected in his warm chocolate eyes that the amazement did wonders for Jimin’s soul.The vampire knows the consequences of being holed up in a castle with its cold and dark walls, never seeing the reality outside—the time moving, the sun disappearing and things changing.Jimin is taken by a sense of familiarity and decides to tease Yoongi, continuing. “Don’t you have powers to get us there a little faster, it’s so fucking far away. Move through the shadows? A mist? Turn into a bat?” he names, trying to gauge a reaction from Yoongi’s blank face. He glances from the greenhouse all the way down to where they are, all the way up the four long flights of stairs. “It’s gonna take me forever if I have to limp all the way down there,” he sighs dramatically.Yoongi keeps the amusement he feels out of his face, staring at Jimin.“If you weren’t sick I would totally move you through Darkness just to be a dick,” Yoongi informs him in the flattest tone he can. Jimin giggles at him, which only encourages him. “You’d puke on me and I don’t need vomit on this cloak. It’s velvet, see?” he asks, running a smooth hand down his own torso.He feels Jimin glance down to it, laughing even harder.“Sure you’d do that, Ancient Min,” he teases, looking up to Yoongi’s eyes.Feeling bold, Yoongi leans forward and smirks at Jimin, feeling the way his eyes must look like a pool of red smoke. “Test me again in a week, pretty boy,” he warns him in a low tone.Jimin blushes immediately at the nickname Yoongi had given beforehand, looking away from the vampire with an exasperated huff.“Be my guest. Let’s go, one by one,” he jokes, giving a tentative step forward.Knowing Jimin is right, he uses a little more strength than usual, which proves to be enough. With both hands holding Jimin’s two elbows, he lifts the druid from the ground with care and ease, not even feeling his weight.“Woah,” Jimin says, startled at being lifted like he weighs nothing. “Uhm…”“May I take you downstairs?” Yoongi asks with a shit-eating grin.Jimin looks bashful for a moment, realizing how close both of them are and how light he must be for Yoongi. When he looks down and notices he’s about to basically fly all the way down, a shine of excitement and adventure shows in his eyes.He looks at Yoongi with a large smile. “Yeah,” he agrees.Yoongi has to bring Jimin’s body directly in front of his so it gains support and doesn’t suffer from whiplash, which results in the vampire pulling Jimin a little closer.In one moment they stand on the top of the stairs and at the count of a few heartbeats… One… Two… Three… they are down.As soon as Yoongi stops and places Jimin back on the floor so the boy can gain his sense of space back, he whispers behind Jimin. “Breathe deep, Jimin.”The boy obeys as if Yoongi’s words bring him from underwater, gasping for a few deep breaths. He turns around to stare at Yoongi, wide-eyed and smile growing back on him.“I felt...I was as light as a leaf,” he explains in low tone, astonished.“No one never managed to explain it,” Yoongi chuckles, smiling at him. “I’m glad you didn’t puke.”“Oh, I feel dizzy like hell, but it’s manageable,” Jimin argues, laughing. “‘Glad you didn’t puke’, you could at least invest a little faith in me,” he adds in a fake offended tone.Bickering with Jimin is so easy that Yoongi has to bite his tongue not to do it too much. He doesn’t want to miss it when the silence reigns in his absence.They both turn to the door of the greenhouse which is where Yoongi landed them and enter, Yoongi opening the door for Jimin and putting a hand back on his elbow for balance and support.“Holy shit, Yoongi…” he curses, looking around with admiration.All of his Sire’s plants looked alive and cared for, but Yoongi could see the difference between what was before and now.“Oh! And the best part…” Yoongi jumps, remembering something important that will help Jimin to explore the greenhouse and collect anything he needs to restock his collection of ingredients.He removes the hand from Jimin’s elbow slowly, making sure the druid can stay up before he moves away. He doesn’t miss the way Jimin smiles thankfully at him. Yoongi keeps an eye for any sign of discomfort coming from him.Looking around the greenhouse, his eyesight catches onto the chair easily.One of his Sire’s technological creations was a chair that was strapped to all of the corridor’s and moved between aisles at the flick of handle. The design of the greenhouse was in long corridors and all over the floor there were rails of golden metal that in Us and curves that went through the entire greenhouse.Yoongi walks to it, sits on it and eyes the golden handle that’s attached to it, being able only to see his Sire’s long fingers, filled with ringers, moving it left and right, sliding like a ballerina through his plants.He uses it a little slower than Sire, but when he stops with the chair right in front of where Jimin was, eyeing the golden rails with curiosity, the boy gasps out loud.“Oh my god.”“Yup,” Yoongi chuckles, getting up. “You can have fun. I know I did when Sire first showed it to me. It was one of his simplest creations and to this day still one of my favorites. It was the last time I felt like a child again,” Yoongi shares, seeing the way Jimin can’t close his jaw.The druid sits down slowly in the leather-coated golden chair. His hand goes up to the handle and the way he looks at Yoongi makes the Ancient wonder if that was the same look his Sire had seen in him.Wonderstruck.Pure and genuine amazement.Jimin turned the handle to the right and felt the chair sliding in the direction and just like that, he startled giggling.“Oh my fucking god,” he whispers.And those are the last words Park Jimin speaks before he loses himself in the discovery.Although he isn’t a fan of technology, Yoongi is aware that some things are just too good not to enjoy. Jimin slides left and right through the corridors of plants, his giggles evolving into laughter, which only grows louder and louder.He starts yelling at one point, sliding as fast as Sire used to through the long corridors, shouting in amazement every two or three seconds.His happiness and enjoyment are so contagious that Yoongi starts laughing too, standing in the center of the whole greenhouse, watching with sharp eyes and a lot of adoration as Jimin discovers the plants, the flowers and herbs that his Sire keeps.All Yoongi hears for at least five minutes are gasps and exclamations as Jimin goes back and forth. Yoongi lets him be, recalling when it was him on the chair, hearing the shouts and whistles of excitement and cheer at the sidelines and at the center of the greenhouse.The voices mingling as Yoongi slid as well, laughing with his family.He only falls back in reality when he hears Jimin sliding all the way to the center, stopping right in front of him.He’s flushed from the outburst of excitement, cheeks dark red matching his rosy lips.“That was the coolest shit that I have ever done and this is the coolest fucking thing I’ve ever seen,” he states with an intense stare and a huge smile.“I know. I was the first one to test it,” he wiggles his eyebrows.They laugh at each other, shaking their heads at the beauty of what a mind could do. Jimin slaps the arms of the chair, cataloging every detail of the chair under him with amazement.“Fuck! Jungkook would love this,” he says with so much conviction.Yoongi feels a smile on the corner of his lips, the name already familiar.
Jungkook.
Jungkookie.
Ggukie .For the past mornings, when Yoongi exited the music room after five, that’s all he hears. He can associate the name and the feeling it evokes in the druid with the stories, knowing who Jimin refers to.
Even still, he doesn’t ask or prod, knowing that whatever information comes out about the only member of Jimin’s family who appears to be alive must come out of trust.At the same moment, Jimin looks up and adds.“That’s my brother’s name,” he says as an explanation, fondness written all over his big brother’s face. “Jungkook.”“That’s a beautiful name. Park Jungkook,” he says.“Oh, no! He actually prefers our other last name. We have two, that is. When my mother and father married, they both kept their last names,” Jimin further explains excitedly, sliding his chair back to the front of one of the plants, retrieving the satchel he had brought with him to his lap.“So you’re not just Park Jimin?” Yoongi checks.“Nope,” Jimin shakes his head, opening a toolset and starting to nip some buds from what it looks like a carnivorous plant.
If Yoongi isn’t going crazy, Jimin seems to pet the thing beforehand and the plant actually slides smoothly against him, as if enjoying it.“I’m Jeon-Park Jimin. It’s not common, I know, but my mother loved her maiden name and my father had no problem sharing it, since he loved it as well,” he says it simply. Jimin looks at the plant with a smile that reaches his eyes and chuckles. “It’s funny ‘cause when I think about my parents, I think of them with the same last name I prefer to use?” he tells Yoongi, sounding like he’s asking if Yoongi gets it. “I wonder if Ggukie does the same and thinks about them as like… the Jeons,” he giggles.“That’s unusual, but not the first time I heard it happening,” he tells Jimin.He’s good at keeping up with Jimin as the druid slides now through the greenhouse collecting what he needs. Yoongi usually sits on the balcony as Jimin does whatever he must.“I understand her. I’d like to keep my last name because it was my mother’s, but I wouldn’t mind if my partner wanted to keep theirs. In fact, I’d probably ask. Lots of people just assume one needs to take the other’s name and let the other ‘maiden’ one be forgotten, but we should get to choose, shouldn’t we?” he asks Jimin.The druid is looking up at him approvingly.“I couldn’t agree more,” he states with a smile. “Jeon-Park Nadia and Jeon-Park Bonwha taught me that I always have a choice,” he speaks with ownership, breathing in.The air that enters the greenhouse that time is a stronger breeze, the names of such powerful witch and a druid long passed still evoking the element’s reply.Yoongi breathes in the now familiar scent of rosemaries and coffee beans, then closes his eyes and separates that from what else the wind reveals to him.Bonwha’s scent is so homey that Yoongi feels homesick for a second, standing in his own house.“Pinewood, lavender and tobacco,” he whispers to Jimin.The druid only nods, eyes simmering with happy tears.“Yup.” Jimin sighs deeply then, shaking his head. “Gods, I miss them,” he chokes out, then puts his hands back in the plants. “But enough about me. What about you , huh? Any other friends who you’ve brought to this lovely place?”Yoongi nods, thinking about who’s been here except for his family.“Arden, my friend who I spoke to you of, remember?” When Jimin nods, he lists one finger up. “They were invited by my Sire as the first ‘non-house guest’.”“What did they think of it?” Jimin asks.“Well, Arden’s really attached to their cabin and their plants, but they appreciated more the creation and some unusual plants than the greenhouse itself, if it makes sense?” he asks Jimin. “I mean, they don’t like anything big like this. Arden went on and on about how difficult it’d be to clean this by themselves,” he chuckles.“They had a point. I’m sure that people who don’t use all these plants wouldn’t be as excited,” Jimin concludes.“Yeah, I think they’re nice, but you know, that’s it. Never spoke to them or anything,” Yoongi teases, checking for Jimin’s face.The druid rolls his eyes, again.“Of course you don’t.” Jimin slides the chair right past Yoongi with a sarcastic smirk. “That’s why they don’t like you.”Yoongi gapes at him, unable to hide his laugh from his friendly bickering.“I’m not speaking to them. I’ll leave that to you druids and witches and crazy fucking Sires.”“They’re good company, if you must know,” Jimin argues back, bickering while smiling too.“I’m sure they are. Gods, you should meet Arden,” he adds with a scoff. “You two can have wet and dirty talks about all this.”“Aren’t they married? I thought you said they were married.”“They are. They’re not a monogamous couple, I’m sure if the spark was there you three could work it out,” Yoongi teases while looking at his own fingers, ignoring the feeling of Jimin’s eyes on him.“Is anyone who lives eternally monogamous?” Jimin asks, curiosity overtaking everything else.“Hmmm. Some rare cases are, but from experience, no. Most discover that they can love each other and sometimes others too. Some of those who learn that accept things for what they are, others pretend to and some simply don’t, condemning us to decades of nonsensical drama, betrayals and many marriages,” he comments bitterly.He sounds just like Sire.“Glad to know your friends are the ones in the first category and don’t give you a headache,” Jimin comments with a smile. He’s on the other side of a corridor now, but Yoongi can still see him through the plants.“Arden and Heba would never fail me—”, he starts, but his mouth is sealed shut by the loud and imponent sound of a lightning right above their heads.Both of them freeze, caught totally by surprise. The air drops several degrees in the next two seconds and that is when Yoongi realizes what he’s done.He spoke El Loba ’s name in her own land.He has just summoned the witch.The greenhouse grows much darker within seconds. The air looks like it was momentarily poisoned by a cloud of black and grey smoke, bringing the cold and the wind with them.Jimin stays put in the chair, looking at Yoongi through the plants as he holds on tight to the counter.The sky rumbles, echoing the thunder across the land. There’s another strike of electricity which burns ecstatic in the air, but this one sounds so much closer that Jimin jumps, yelling in surprise.Yoongi only blinks harder, eyes adjusting to the intense and dense cloud of smoke that appears. The air changes frequency, tensing and swimming with matter transforming constantly, until the process is done. Loba is standing two corridors behind Jimin.When her body is materialized, Yoongi feels the gelid shiver of having said her name run through every cell in his body. Jimin must feel it too because he trembles from head to toe, turning slowly to his back to see the new visitor.Yoongi lets the cold dissipate and pass through, shaking his head once.Heba was a Winter child, born in one of the harshest and longest Winters that Moldavia had.She steps out of the shadows with her grey eyes shining like a Full Moon, eerie and powerful. Loba looks the same Yoongi recalled—her clothes were always the best quality, corsets and leather pants that protected her from the cold and hid many weapons. Her cloak was long and black , a magical item that Yoongi admired a lot.Her glowing, almost white eyes were a contrast to her dark brown skin and dark long hair. The way her posture was tall and steady only elevated her elegance and beauty.Yoongi always had a faint and distant crush on Heba, El Loba.She exuded everything that attracted him in woman—the confidence and power, a sharp-wit and intelligence that was unmatched, a strong mind that still knew how to speak softly when needed and mostly, a heart made of gold.On the outside, Heba looked the part: Loba Witch, with eyes glowing like the Moon and a smile that was always nearly-there.Her inside hid the softest and kindest heart, with so much love to give.Jimin seems to need a couple of seconds to gather himself in her presence, but when he does, he speaks first.“Good evening, ma’am,” Jimin speaks clearly, looking in the direction of where Heba is. Her eyes fall on Jimin’s frame and the boy bows his head slightly in a sign of respect. “A pleasure to meet you, I’m Park Jimin. How may I call you?” he asks with a polite smile.Yoongi recognizes his endearing moon-eyes, the same shy grin that he saw when they weren’t familiar yet with one another.Heba, for her turn, hears him speak and immediately turns back to Yoongi, awestruck.“You found one that is intelligent and polite. Fuck, I’m gonna eat him,” she announces to him, then turns back to Jimin. “You may call me Loba, honey. I’m the Oracle’s wife,” she greets him, nodding in respect to him as well.“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Jimin states, glancing briefly at Yoongi.“All good, I hope. I didn’t imagine I’d meet you before my lover, but apparently, honey boy over there is more comfortable around you than we imagined, he even slipped,” she tells Jimin, making herself more comfortable in the greenhouse and sitting besides Yoongi on the counter. “Can’t remember when was the last time you accidentally summoned me, kitten. Must’ve been ages ago when this place was still a mess,” she tells him, grinning wickedly. Kitten.He looks away from her shit-eating grin and beautiful high cheeks, not liking where this is going.Jimin and Heba in the same environment mustn't be good for his health.“Shut up,” he argues.“I’m sorry, who accidentally summoned you?” Jimin asks, a grin that screams trouble on his face too. He supports his chin on his hands, batting his angelic eyelashes at Yoongi and Heba.The latter, delighted with Jimin’s faux ignorance, indulges him in a theatrical tone.“Oh, don’t be mistaken or mislead by this one’s blank look and mysterious aura, Jimin. He’s a kitty . Pet his head, I tell ya, you’ll see what I’m talking about. It’s adorable,” she adds, blowing him a kiss.“Where the fuck has life taken me?” Jimin whispers out loud, shaking his head in disbelief at the scene in front of him. “I’ll keep that in mind. Ancient Min enjoys cafuné .”Heba seems taken back by Jimin’s casual slip of another language because her knowing grey eyes snap back to him, narrowing.“Wait, did you say your name is Jimin?” she asks, eyeing him more closely, examining his whole face.Jimin blinks in confusion for a few seconds, but then nods. “Uhm, yeah.”Heba continues to watch his features, eyes narrowing even more.“You look like her… But... you’re lacking a last name. When she married, she tooks his as well,” she whispers as she examines him, trying to see if her eyes and mind are connecting the correct dots.The coincidence of knowing Heba is right on spot because Jimin had just told him that makes Yoongi smile like a kid on December festivities.“He does! He’s Jeon-Park Jimin,” he informs with a proud smile.Heba stops looking at every inch of Jimin’s face, her chocolate eyes going wide and lips parting. She stares at Jimin completely still, her gaze becoming distant and then present, following the waves of her mind.Yoongi wishes he could see what she’s seeing right then.The recognition dawns on Heba’s face and it’s beautiful. She must see exactly where Jimin takes after his mother, given that from his parents, this was the one that Heba quickly associated him with.He wonders if Jungkook looks like Bonwha.“Nadia, ” Heba whispers.For the third time on the same day, Yoongi scents Park Nadia all around him and this time, he allows himself to bask in her comforting smell.“Good gods, boy. You look just like her,” Heba barely gets out, still awestruck.Jimin blushes at her comment, head ducking to the sides in shyness. He smiles thankfully, nodding a few times. “I heard that before, yeah,” he shrugs, tip of his ears going red. “It’s the hair, I guess.”“And the cheeks. The distinguished eye-smile, fuck—yours even look like hers, little crescent moons,” Heba adds with an emotional tone, her hands going up to cover her mouth in surprise. She giggles, a sound Yoongi isn’t used to hearing coming from her. “Your lips are a little bigger than hers, but I can still see the resemblance.”Jimin is positively flushed by the end of Heba’s comments and for his turn, Yoongi is delighted. He can paint a picture of what he imagines Pink Moon to be like, drawing inspiration from her own beautiful creation and Heba’s words.“She was the most beautiful woman I ever saw, so thank you,” he gets out, still shaking his head in denial and shyness.“Where did you meet Pink Moon from?” Yoongi asks, curious.“Oh! We went to Oxford together,” Heba explains, looking back and forth between Yoongi and Jimin. “She was one of the brightest newcomers I had seen in a while. Arden and I were at our final three years when she arrived. I remember we took her under our wing for her first semester and then just… watched her fly,” she recalls, speaking with her hands, gesturing like a bird in the sky. “She returned to us at the end of the year though, funnily enough. Before Bonwha, she spent a lot of time with Arden and I,” Heba offers with a shy smile of her own.Jimin wonders if Nadia was one of the many lovers that Arden and I conquered with their charms, wooed and peppered with love. From her look, Yoongi would say that wasn’t an unlikely guess.“I’m really glad to know my mom had such good company,” Jimin replies with a fond smile. He shares a look with Yoongi and it’s in his eyes that Yoongi sees the happiness. The bittersweet pain is in there too, glistening in the corner of his eyes.Mostly, though, Jimin is just happy.“What was she like back then?” he asks excited, darting his eyes towards Heba.“I am so glad you asked me that question,” Heba giggles again, leaning to support her own chin in her hands. “I have stories to tell.”Yoongi sits back, watching the two of them interact.He feels no need to butt in the conversation for the moment, glad to sit in the sidelines as Heba retells stories of what Nadia used to be like during her university years.It’s impossible not to laugh along with them and eventually ask his own questions, but he feels welcomed in the conversation whenever he does.Heba and Jimin get along like magnets or sugar and water. They melt into each other, drawing laughs, giggles and whispering conspiracies as the stories are told.The witch laughs out loud at hearing what Nadia became as a parent, smiling and nearly crying at Jimin’s memories of his parents’ wedding, which was a private ceremony. The druid gasps and yells in surprise, laughing at how his mother used to act out more her rebellious thoughts.Yoongi spends the most delightful evening with the two of them, joking that they need to be separated for getting along too well.When the older beings notice the strain and tiredness starting to take over Jimin, Heba bids her farewell of promises to return with Arden.“They want to speak with you, anyway,” Heba tells Yoongi after giving him a hug as tight as she gave Jimin. “I arrived yesterday, I’m glad your distracted state made you slip, it spared me having to write to you.”“Glad to be of service,” Yoongi answers. “Is it anything bad?” he asks, stuck on the part where Arden wants a word.“Nah, nothing like that. Kalif is up to something, that’s all. He’s invited me and them to a Ball in three weeks, the first one this year. We just wanted to get your input, your invitation should be arriving at any minute,” she adds with a knowing look, pointing her finger at him.“I imagine,” he sighs. “Drop by whenever you two want, okay?”“We will,” she smiles. When she turns around to face Jimin, she puts her hand inside her cloak and retrieves a glass vial as big as a cup, filled with a red drink. Her eyes are glowing when she opens them again, but the glow fades away quickly. “Do you know what this is?”Jimin eyes the vial with hungry and happy eyes.“Yeah,” he nods, smiling.“Good. Drink it,” she hands it to him and hugs him briefly again. “Sleep well, boys.”Jimin and Yoongi smile at each other when Heba disappears in Darkness once again. They return to the castle speaking in hushed tones since their voices seem to carry out in the late night. They talk about Loba all the way up to their rooms and when they bid each other goodnight, both share a small touch.Yoongi places a hand over Jimin’s elbow and the latter covers the vampire’s wrist with his warm hands for a second before saying “Goodnight, Yoongi.”“Goodnight, Jimin.”That evening, Yoongi plays the piano while scenting rosemary and coffee fills the music room.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Just because there’s not a war, doesn’t mean there’s peace.— X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
“Can I use your shower?”Yoongi blinks once, then twice. He’s sure that he’s still roaming the depths of his subconscious, turned off from this world because the sight and the question couldn’t be from real life. When he blinks again, though, Jimin is still standing there outside of his bedroom door.He’s leaning against the frame, supporting his weight on his right side, his satchel bag is on his shoulder and he looks… good.Healthier.When Yoongi doesn’t answer, Jimin seems to go over his greeting and rethink his choice of words, sheepishly scratching the back of his neck.“I meant a shower. You told me you had one and when I felt better I thought, ‘you know what, this seems like a good moment to ask Ancient Min for the permission to use his shower, get rid of all the layers of sweat, dirt, and blood on your skin from the last few days, it’d surely be better for everyone involved. Imagine if you meet the rest of his friends looking like this mess?’ and here I am. Also, good morning. I should’ve started with that, but I think Loba puts guaraná or just simply snow white on her tonic because I’m awake,” Jimin blurts out all at once, his accent getting thicker and voice deeper as he goes. When he’s done, he blushes a little. “Sorry about the ramble.”Yoongi blinks out of his stupor and smiles at Jimin, chuckling at the morning greeting.This druid might turn into Yoongi’s death.“Of course you can use it,” he rasps out, opening his door even further in an invitation for Jimin. He starts moving inside in the direction of his bathroom and continues. “You have one in your room as well, but you should use mine this time. It’s got a supportive bar which is better for now, I don’t want you passing out,” Yoongi states, getting inside his bathroom.He hears the footsteps of Jimin slowly entering his room, one step at a time.“Thank you, Yoongi,” he drawls out. Although Yoongi can’t see him, he pictures Jimin walking through his room, eyes darting everywhere and picking on every detail. He’s noticed how observant the druid is, catching on things much quicker than most.Yoongi’s shower is a big and golden thing. The contrast of it and the golden bar against the stone walls are beautiful, but Yoongi rarely uses it. There’s a long and black curtain as well, covering whoever showers in it all the way to their chin. After he’s done with that, he turns to the bathtub that lies in the middle of the bathroom and starts filling it up, dropping the salves and healing mixes his Sire once left there for him.When he returns to his room, Jimin is standing there fiddling his fingers and looking around sheepishly, his posture contained and shy.“Shower’s ready,” he announces with a smile. Jimin jumps a little, not having seen him coming, but shrugs and bows his head as a thank you. “I started running a bath for you as well. You don’t have to, but I put some healing oils that could do you good. If you want, just close the tap when it fills up, okay?”Jimin looks at him with a smile growing on his face and nods again. “Thanks, Ancient Min,” he chuckles.It feels a bit strange hearing Jimin call him the same way everyone else does and Yoongi wonders why he feels his ears burn a little from it. Whoever meets him always shows the utmost politeness towards him, but coming from Jimin, it seems like teasing.The title sounds different on the tip of his tongue.Yoongi blinks away his own momentary shyness and clears his throat.“I’m gonna prepare your breakfast while you shower, okay?”“You’re the best,” Jimin smiles at him, beaming.Before Yoongi can do something utterly stupid like, for instance, answering Jimin with “No, Park Jimin. I’m convinced you are the best, ” he chuckles and leaves the room.He takes his time cooking so Jimin has time to shower properly. He returns with the food tray and leaves it on top of his bed.Inside his bathroom, he can hear only the sound of water running and a soft melodic piano playing. Yoongi doesn’t recall any music record players there, but he remembers that Jimin brought his bag inside.When he hears no sound from the druid, he frowns, worried.“Jimin?” he calls out. What if he fell? He gets closer to the door and knocks softly. “Everything okay there?”The heavy door between them muffles the sound of Jimin’s answer and Yoongi purses his lips, wanting to barge in.“I didn’t get a word of that,” he answers a little louder when he hears Jimin not talking anymore.“Just come in!” Jimin yells.Embarrassment fills Yoongi as he thinks about when it was the last time he had seen someone naked. Surely Jimin wouldn’t be naked and in sight inside and he clearly wouldn’t have asked Yoongi to enter if he wasn’t uncomfortable, and yet, Yoongi finds it in himself to blush.He opens the door and steps in, immediately spots Jimin lying inside the bathtub.The shower has been turned off and there are no traces of the rancid smell Jimin had been carrying for the past week. All Yoongi scents are lavender and vanilla in the fog. In the tub, Jimin is sitting underneath a huge layer of bubbles, the water steaming with heat.All around the bathtub are items from his satchel, both things Yoongi recognizes and others that he had no idea were there or that could fit in there. Jimin has the grimoire Yoongi had seen in his hands, but he puts it behind him when Yoongi enters.There’s a beautiful pink tint in the druid’s cheekbones and Yoongi swallows dry.“I was just… asking if you were okay,” he drawls out a little slower than he expected. Jimin makes the emptiness that echoes inside his chest feel tight, as if small little rocks were filling it bit by bit.“Wondering if I had slipped and cracked my skull?” the boy teases.Yoongi smiles at that, his shoulders relaxing at the easy banter. He chuckles and nods, analyzing how much better the druid looks.His hair is wet and the water he’s lying in looks clear and smells fantastic. The color on him is actually much more prominent than Yoongi would’ve expected, which begs the question.“What on earth did Heba give you on that greenhouse?” he asks, walking until he can sit on the other side of the bathtub.Jimin’s shoulders tense a little at the name and his eyes dart around, so Yoongi explains. “Summoning spells don’t work inside the castle walls, Jimin.”“Oh. Right.” Jimin stops looking around and averts his gaze from Yoongi, most likely embarrassed by the blush that climbs to his ears. “She gave me a tonic. Mom used to make it for Ggukie and I when we were little, it’s a potent vitamin mix with healing properties, etc. Hers tasted a little different, but I guess that’s a magic differential thing,” Jimin explains to him.“Ahhh, that explains why you don’t look two seconds away from fainting anymore.”Jimin laughs too and lifts his gaze, nodding. “Yup. Send her a thank you if you can.”“I will,” he smiles. Jimin returns it and they share a look, something that seems small, but feels meaningful. Yoongi sitting there by the bathtub side while Jimin relaxes, completely naked, isn’t exactly where he thought his morning would go… but thinking about that is the last thing he needs in the boy’s presence, so he clears his throat and shifts his gaze to all the items lingering around the tub. “Just how much stuff can you fit in that ridiculously small thing?” he asks after a few beats.At that, Jimin genuinely laughs, throwing his head back and allowing Yoongi the view of his beautiful neck.Good gods, entering this room was a mistake.“Many more than you can imagine,” Jimin answers. “You can ask Loba when she visits you again about the spell, it’s a pretty useful one.”“She should be here again soon enough. Knowing her and Arden, both are just waiting to meet my new visitor.”“Arden is an Oracle, right?” Jimin asks, his hands slowly sliding across the bubbles.Yoongi follows the movement, nodding. “Exactly. Arden must’ve seen the invitation arriving yesterday, so they should be here this week.”“Faster than you imagined,” Jimin points out, recalling his conversation with Heba.Yoongi’s invitation to the ball is still lying on top of his piano. The previous night when Jimin retired to his room, Yoongi found the black and red envelope sitting at the front desk, right by the castle’s main entrance. He was closing the castle’s doors and stared at the item for longer than he remembers, his heart beating faster inside his chest and rage filling his veins like poison.“The last one to get it,” Yoongi states, looking at Jimin.“That seems a bit… rude,” Jimin comments tentatively, as if he doesn’t know whether he can or not say it.“It is,” Yoongi confirms. “He was making a statement.” Jimin lifts his eyebrows at that, his head dipping to the side in curiosity, so Yoongi explains further. “Sire Kalif isn’t exactly… fond of me,” he tells Jimin with a sarcastic chuckle.“By which I can presume that he loathes your existence?” Jimin assumes wisely, smirking.“Correct,” they both share a grin and, feeling emboldened by Jimin’s genuine curiosity, Yoongi dips his own cold hands inside the hot water for a distraction and starts again. “Kalif is Wallachia’s Sire. He’s been throwing Balls for a few years now. Invites the people he wants… keeps the ones he doesn’t want very far away. He invited Loba for a minor one, not one in the castle, and she and Arden went, but realized it was only to rub in their faces something horrible he’d done. He’s hated me because of my Sire and my family for a really long time and he was in the Court that judged a case of Lycans against us. He’s… volatile. Has very strong opinions about the separation of the supernatural community from humans. Even worse opinions about humans themselves and well— let’s just say I learned my lesson.”“What lesson?” Jimin asks a bit breathless.“Going to his Balls means a problem . It only creates problem, attaches you to them and—fuck, I’m tired of problems, Jimin,” he laughs bitterly, looking away from the druid’s knowing eyes. “I should go to his Ball because the Lycan I saw leading the pack of direwolves who attacked you shouldn’t be so close to my fucking territory in the first place and something tells me he has a finger on that, but I can’t go there alone. I can’t. I’ll kill someone this time. And that would get me killed and whilst I’m tired of living, I can’t go yet.”The outpour of words surprises even him.He doesn’t understand why it’s so easy to speak with Jimin about anything, but it is.His bathroom vibrates and hums with the druid’s energy and the air itself seems to exist in a frequency of power. Good and strong power, something so sweet and resembling the aura of his Sire that Yoongi wants to drown in it.Jimin makes him feel safe. Listened to.When he dares to look back at him, Jimin is looking at the water with narrowed eyes.“He seems like a rightful prick,” Jimin spits out, an acidic and cold tone to his voice that Yoongi hadn’t heard yet. He lifts his gaze with a sad smile, “I don’t blame you for not going. Even if you think you should.”“Oh, I know I should, but I’m trying to avoid a bloodbath for now,” Yoongi nods. He takes a deep breath and exhales loudly, wishing all thoughts about Kalif and his horde of problems away. He points to the grimoire Jimin put aside, “What were you reading?”Jimin perks up at that, his smile widening. “Oh! This is the Sakh grimoire. Apparently, a big part of the mountains here in Moldavia was used as an ingredient field for alchemists so I was studying the locations and uses. I’m gonna have a lot of work mapping these places by myself, but,” he shrugs his shoulders, picking up the grimoire with care and caressing his hand on top of it. “It’ll be worth it.”Yoongi hums, eyeing the grimoire and everything else Jimin had separated around himself.“I can help, you know,” he offers casually, trying not to sound as eager as he feels at the prospect of having something to offer to this sweet boy. “I know the land really well and it’s a place with a lot of creatures. I could offer some backup while you… do your thing,” he finishes lamely, gesturing around without even knowing what he’s pointing to.At the offer, Jimin’s eyes widen comically.He stares at Yoongi for a couple of seconds, blinking slowly and trying to understand what he’s been offered. When he replies, he sounds a little breathless. “Yoongi…” he starts, but doesn’t finish.
First, he looks away, giving Yoongi once again a view of the side of his neck. This bathroom visit is sure to haunt Yoongi’s dreams for the next century to come.“You don’t have to. You’ve—I think you’ve done enough, don’t you?” Jimin asks, chuckling at himself ironically. “I mean, I—I would’ve been dead if it wasn’t you. You know that,” he adds with a smaller voice, swallowing thickly. “I couldn’t possibly ask you for more. No, no, no, no, you don’t have to—to go out of your way to help me. I know you met me under circumstances that make me seem a little incompetent, but I promise I’ll take good care of myself,” he adds with a sheepish smile, trying to make light of the situation.Firstly, Yoongi doesn’t care one bit for the way Jimin speaks of himself. Secondly, he realizes he didn’t make himself clear on how much he wants to help.Of course, there’s also the option that Jimin wouldn’t want the help of an old bloodsucker like himself. Maybe he’s dying to get away from the darkness that seeps through the castle or maybe he just doesn’t think Yoongi wants to do this.Then, before he can answer, he recalls Arden’s words.He seems to be on a quest and well, so are you. Perhaps you two have things you could offer each other.This, Yoongi thinks, is what he could offer him.He takes a deep breath and smiles. “I want to help,” he clarifies. “But you’d feel like that’s too much, Arden had advised me to maybe—we could make a deal? I offer you help in this and you, whenever you can, help me in return if it’s within your reach.”As Yoongi speaks, he watches Jimin’s eyes go from sheepish and shy to calculative and wondering. He narrows them, his thick lips closing in a thin line.He looks down at the grimoire in his hands and then back up at Yoongi, thinking about something Yoongi can’t figure out, but would love to.He doesn’t interrupt the boy’s thoughts or push him further, patiently waiting for the reply. After a few seconds, Jimin starts nodding slowly, a smile growing back on his face.“That… seems a little better.”Even though he had made the offer, the acceptance takes Yoongi by surprise.It must be visible on his face because Jimin giggles at him — giggles, like some sort of fairy from the woods or a succubus hiding in the corner, Yoongi can’t tell which — and then sprays some water on him.“What, didn’t think I’d say yes?” he teases. “Gods, who offers a deal expecting a refusal?”“Someone who hasn’t offered many deals in his life, give me a break,” Yoongi throws water right back at him, delighting himself in the sound of Jimin’s laughter. “I’m glad you said yes. We can start mapping things when you feel a hundred percent, how about that?”Jimin nods eagerly, putting the grimoire back against the cold tiles and then playing with the bubbles, rearranging them so they continue to cover his body.“That sounds great,” he smiles at Yoongi.The way he smiles is hypnotizing. Yoongi can’t help but stare at the flush against his neck or the way Jimin slightly tilts his head to the side, water droplets falling down his clavicle.Yoongi wonders if there’s a part of his heritage that came from forest nymphs.Succubus.It’s not normal, is it? Someone looking like that.Before Yoongi can stare any longer or, worse, make Jimin uncomfortable, he clears his throat once again and gets up, patting his clothes.“I should leave you before the bubbles disappear, yeah?” he jokes, seeing the crimson he loves so much paint the druid’s skin a darker tint. He chuckles, “Your food is on my bed. Make yourself comfortable, Jimin.”“Thank you for the thousandth time,” Jimin teases.“No need to thank me. I mean it.”With a shared smile, he exits the bathroom and takes a deep breath once he’s safe outside.The smell of Jimin was penetrating his mind and his body in more ways than he’d care to admit.To ground himself, Yoongi makes a beeline for the Eastwing. Being there always hurts every corner of his soul and whether he’s punishing himself or not, at least he feels grounded once he’s in there.He needs to feel like he isn’t floating before he forgets why his feet are still on the ground in the first place.
🩸
Over the course of the following week, Yoongi’s world revolves around trying to make himself remember why he can’t have nice things during the nights and then, when morning comes with Jimin’s smile beaming like sunlight itself, forgetting what he worked so hard to think about in the first place.Something about the shared intimacy of being in the same room while Jimin showered breaks any lingering tension left between them.Jimin is smart about his recovery, too. He rations the potion given by Heba in three, so every couple of days, he took another dosage and woke up looking luscious, glowing and even better than before.Yoongi wanted to thank Heba profusely for her help, but he also wanted to choke on thin air every time Jimin smiled at him brightly and laughed with his whole body, the pain completely gone from him.Their routine becomes intertwined and established.Living with Jimin than Yoongi had ever expected something like this could be. He wasn’t an easy person to share space to begin with. Too much noise bothered him, uncomfortable silences could amp his anxiety a lot, but there was none of that with Jimin.At night, he retreated to his music study as promised, composed and played tracks in a rhythm he hadn’t had in a long time. Between breaks and making sure he didn’t listen to anything, he made his way to the East Wing and analyzed the parts of his project which were there and needed maintenance.
Inside the Wing, life and death hung in a balance, magic thrumming like a hummingbird between both.
The chambers of gold stood tall against the right wall and the chambers of silver on the opposite side, where three humans laid naked and unconscious, preserved frozen by magic and technology.Yoongi made sure all of them were kept under the spell and the cryo, then checked for the other ingredients before going right back to his music.He hunted once while Jimin slept, seeing in his rooms the glowing sign that one of his traps had gotten a prey. He makes it a quick work, going to the center of town through Darkness and finding the culprit still fumbling, confused. Yoongi only realizes how hungry he was when the lifeless body is left for the police to be found, right next to the crime he so desperately wanted to hide.He leaves with a smile on his face and a satisfied feeling in his guts.His days were reserved for Jimin.It was like sunshine was, once again, a part of Yoongi’s life.Small things that made Jimin who he is slowly started to become Yoongi’s favorite new discoveries. His manias, the way his eyes crinkled on the side whenever he was laying unashamed and manipulating things with his sweet smile.Despite knowing all that admiration was bad and would eventually lead to Yoongi getting his face smashed against reality sometime soon, there was no stopping it.On one side, there was his logical brain telling him that Jimin was temporary. The druid was on a quest, determined to help his brother and would one day return to the life he knew and loved in the community that became his home.On the other, there was his whining, bickering and pouty whispered ‘hyung’ whenever he was being a brat.There was no competition.So Yoongi smiled as they walked through the castle, as Jimin read his own books and grimoires studying while Yoongi distracted himself with his own books. They enjoyed the evening in different parts of the castle, which were now being filled with memories and small knowledge of Jimin.Those were his favorite.In the middle of the week, for instance, Yoongi discovered that Jimin’s father, Bonhwa, was most likely rolling in his grave somewhere, distraught by the notion of where his son found his rest. Between telling Yoongi about his magic and what he was looking for, Yoongi found out where Jimin and, by extension, his brother, had gotten their “prejudice” against vampires.They were sitting in Yoongi’s library with the windows open. Jimin held books and notes on his lap while Yoongi hid from the sunshine on a chair a few meters away from him, but conversation flew easily as always.“I never thought I’d get to see dark magic in person, you know?” he asked Yoongi, smiling excitedly. “I was reading yesterday about the powers your guys gain over the years and frankly, it’s quite unfair the amount of cool shit you can do.”Yoongi rolled his eyes. “I’m certain there are many spells and magic—whatever, that can copy the effect of most of them.”Jimin scoffed, exasperated. “There isn’t!” That’s my point. Darkness and Mist are exclusively a bloodsucker’s ability, didn’t you know?” he asks in a teasing tone.Coming from most people, the term ‘bloodsucker’ makes his lips curl in distaste but, coming from Jimin, he found he didn’t mind.“I didn’t, actually,” he shrugged. “And don’t give me that pouty look, it’s not as if a druid’s spark isn’t powerful enough on its own. I have seen the wreckage you lot can cause.”At that, Jimin nodded, eyes averting from Yoongi, thoughtful and full of mirth.“Hm, I guess you have a point,” he confessed in his fake-disappointed tone. “I remember when Jungkook was learning his affinity and woah, the mess that boy left behind,” Jimin laughed loudly, lost in a memory Yoongi didn’t know.“What’s his affinity?”“Electric magic,” Jimin told him, eyes returning to Yoongi. They always shone the brightest whenever Jimin talked about his family. “Master Tania realized it soon. There was a big storm a couple of weeks after we arrived in the Sea Inn and the following couple of days after it, Jungkook was like—angry, you know? As if something had happened. Angrier than he used to normally be. He’s a pretty relaxed guy.”“Pent up energy,” Yoongi concluded, getting a nod of confirmation from Jimin.“Yup. So she started training him. There were a lot of explosions, believe me,” Jimin smiled. Fiddling with his pen, he looked down at his books and continued with a smile a little more shy than the previous one. “My affinity is almost the opposite.”Yoongi frowned at that, trying to imagine what was the opposite of one of the biggest forces of nature.“Ceremonial magic,” Jimin explained at his confused look, a sly grin on his face. “Dad said I had an affinity with it because he and mom could barely do it for the life of them. It just always came so… easily. I designed a lot of rites after I realized it. Spells and runes became an instinct, basically. It’s how I learned to defend myself against Night Creatures, actually,” he added as an afterthought.Yoongi had given that a lot of thought.Not many people knew how to contour a Night being’s magic, unable to fight for their lives because the simple tricks and basic protective methods they learned were, for the majority of them, useless against them.Jimin’s first encounter with Yoongi resulted in the druid threatening to break each bone in Yoongi’s body and he was broken, edging between the bridge of life and death.Only in his wildest dreams could Yoongi imagine what Jimin was like at his peak and meeting an enemy.“Did you learn by yourself?” Yoongi asked, curious.Jimin shook his head. “No, dad really liked that part. He was a great warlock, honestly. A little prejudiced and because of that, he taught Ggukie and I a lot of defense mechanisms against possible threats.” Jimin looked at the shelves of books right behind Yoongi’s chair, expression softening. “I owe him my life at least ten times over.”“He wasn’t a fan of my species, I take it?” Yoongi asked with irony, knowing full well the answer already.Jimin laughed wholeheartedly at that, throwing his head back and clutching his hands closer to his body — favoring his left side still, Yoongi took a mental note — and then, nodded eagerly.“Yoongi, my father would be making the sky crash down on your castle until it either drowned or lightning struck and everything became cursed,” he answered, painting a perfect picture of just how much Bonhwa disliked vampires.Granted, he was right to think so.“I can almost see him grumbling to himself like an old man, peeking behind the curtains in town whenever a fancy carriage or car arrived and he wanted to see if it was ‘ a goddamn bloodsucker’ or not,” Jimin continued, shaking his head.“He’s right to think so,” Yoongi offered easily, chuckling a little.Jimin’s laugh was contagious.Apparently, his comment was unexpected because Jimin startled, giving Yoongi a look of disbelief.Yoongi gave him a look of fake innocence.“You think I’m gonna advocate for my species?” he asked in disbelief.Jimin shrugged his shoulders. “Most do.”“Oh, not me. And not any—decent vampire you’ll ever meet. We’re one of the worst Night Creatures someone could bump into, Jimin,” he explained, seriousness taking over his tone as the words came out. Even though banter and teasing dominated their conversation, Yoongi made sure to look Jimin in the eyes when he continued. “I’m glad your father installed that notion on you and young Jungkook as well. Vampires are… complex. If this world exists in shades of gray, we’re swimming in the darkest nuances of it, always leaning towards the imbalance and the dark. Please, never act differently when meeting one. Make sure they know that your power is real, as are you. That if the chance is granted, you’ll take without hesitation and turn them into ash. Into nothing.”Jimin’s expression mirrored Yoongi’s, becoming serious and somber as he went on.“Promise me,” Yoongi finished, needing to hear it. A rush of protectiveness overtook him, wanting to know that the lessons of Bonhwa wouldn’t be forgotten. That Jimin would always take care of himself, especially in the face of such danger.Jimin stared at him, boring holes into his soul with his gorgeous chocolate eyes.After what it seemed like a small piece of eternity, he nodded, serious.“I promise. I’ll always take care of myself in the face of Night Creatures,” he amended, unknotting a deep worry that Yoongi himself didn’t know where it came from.A few seconds passed by in silence, where both of them lingered in the feeling of a promise being made.Yoongi looked down, trying to push away all the unexpected feelings that kept surfacing despite his struggles to keep his humanity as buried as possible. Only available so he can be a good host, perhaps even a friend.Keeping his emotions in check seems to be harder than he imagined, because the feeling of wanting to protect Jimin and make sure his laughter is what makes the majority of his day don’t go anywhere, no matter how much he wishes them away.When Jimin cleared his throat, he lifted his gaze with the same glee that Yoongi was growing to l—adore. To adore.“What about you? Any affinities other than the kitchen?” he asked, grinning.“Some, which I can show you if you feel brave enough, but… I think the kitchen is where my true talent lies. Wouldn’t you say so?” he asked, trying to maintain his serious face on, but crumbling when Jimin started giggling again. “See if I make your food tomorrow.”Jimin rolled his eyes at him, as if the notion that Yoongi would leave him to starve is already ridiculous to him.He’s right, of course.Amongst other things he discovers about the druid, there are also the things Jimin discovers about him.A couple of days after the library conversation, Jimin demands to watch Yoongi prepare a meal since he can’t ‘return the favor’, as he puts.They make their way downstairs and while Yoongi cooks, Jimin decides to organize and clean his sacred satchel bag, which indeed carries much more than Yoongi could ever dream.The druid watched as Yoongi rummaged through the kitchen with his white blouse lifted to his elbows for a few minutes, but then started to grow bored and decided to do something.He touches Yoongi’s forearm and sighs, “I’m gonna do some organizing since you won’t let me help anyway, okay?”The place where Jimin’s hands meet his skin makes Yoongi burn.His hands are so soft and so incredibly warm that Yoongi wants to live in them. Grab the wrist above them and lift those tiny palms so they can run over more exposed skin, maybe more parts of Yoongi’s body. Fuck.The small touches were a new development since the shower as well and they were growing each day with Jimin becoming more and more comfortable in Yoongi’s presence.They were simple things like a touch on the wrist, the curve of his back or, like now, the exposed skin of his forearm. Yoongi noted that Jimin preferred when there was skin for him to touch.Feeling the tip of his ears hot, Yoongi simply nods, not trusting his ability to speak in the moment.Jimin puts the record player to fill the enormous kitchen with some dark jazz and then lays on top of Yoongi’s counter so many magical items that everytime he turns, he lists something new.When he spots the Mirror once again, he can’t help but comment.“You know, I never thought I’d see one of those,” he says, pointing with the spatula to the Mirror.Jimin’s eyes lift from the list he’s holding which seems to be an inventory and when follows Yoongi’s movement, landing on the Mirror with a knowing smile.He looks back and forth from Yoongi to the item a couple of times, then shrugs in understanding.“Not many people do, beings of the Night or the Day,” he answers with a cocky smile, eyes back on his checklist. “You can grab it if you want,” he adds without even lifting his gaze from the paper.Not one to deny an open offer like that, Yoongi puts a lid on his pan and cleans his hands on the black apron on top of his pants, grabbing the Mirror with care.It’s so damn beautiful.“It’s gorgeous,” he echoes, unable to keep the thought to himself.“Mom and her Coven made it,” Jimin offers with a light voice, his pen tipping against the paper. “I personally like the style too. Most Mirrors like that one are rushed and ugly things.”Yoongi agrees. Looking at the Mirror he can’t see his reflection given that it isn’t revested in silver, but the kitchen reflected on it looks good.If Yoongi had one, he’d end up doing something stupid to it, like decorating it.“I could never have one,” Yoongi voices his thoughts. “I’d just… decorate the whole thing.”At that, Jimin lifts his gaze. There’s a smirk on his face Yoongi hadn’t seen yet and when he leans with his elbows against the counter, he looks happy as hell.“With what? You seem like—I don’t know, actually. Extravaganza or classical? Hmmm, I think classical. Something beautiful and simple, like flowers, but still unique to you. Tell me Yoongi, what’s your favorite flower?” he asks, grin widening.For a second, Yoongi wants to scoff and tell him in the coolest tone he can muster that ‘I’m old, Jimin. I don’t have such things as a favorite flower or a favorite color, before you ask me’. Even if he always ends up answering Jimin in the end. Just for the sake of teasing, for the sake of the push and pull that keeps them so incredibly in sync.Instead, the answer is pushed out of him as he looks closely at the gypsum stones, already on the tip of his tongue.“Chocolate cosmos,” he replies truthfully.Because he must.He drops the Mirror fast on the counter, but still careful not to break it. As soon as his hands are free, he holds them close to his chest, startled at the realization of what the fuck just happened.The Truth Spell embedded in the Mirror was so powerful and wonderfully crafted that even he didn’t notice.Jimin stands on the other side of the counter with wide eyes, the smile from his face gone. He seems to be scared for a moment that Yoongi took offense to his joke because yes, the vampire is aware he was joking.
Jimin didn’t ask important questions or approach serious topics while he held it.He looks in Jimin’s eyes with a gummy smile forming on his face.“Nadia Park and company—you lot are fucking incredible,” he whispers in awe, looking up at the sky with so much respect. The scent of Nadia carries through the kitchen and Jimin laughs at that, relieved and happy that Yoongi understood what had happened.The druid shakes off his momentary concern and then gets back to his checklist.“That’s payback for going through my stuff, by the way,” he tells Yoongi in a matter-of-factly tone without bothering to look at him. The cocky smile is back on his face and Yoongi likes that look on him more than he’d care to admit. “Your food is gonna burn too, Ancient Min.”“Fuck .”Why must things with Park Jimin be so easy?Life water from a current or the certainty of finding comfort in the Moonlight—Park Jimin was sure to bring forth peace with his presence.Yoongi rejoiced in it.
There was nothing Jimin could say or do, to himself or anyone else, that could take away the thoughts that plagued his mind.Even when he spoke to his reflection, it didn’t help. Neither did his late night conversations with his brother, nor the stern talks he had with his father’s medallion or even the thought of Master Tania discovering what on earth his devious mind was up to—none of it worked.Whenever he wasn’t focused on studying the path and the possibilities of finding Kadupul — because nothing in this world could completely take away his focus from the most important thing to him: his family —, he was thinking about what his soul was yearning for.The desire for him, his mind burning with images of Yoongi at random times is something that once he accepted as real, didn’t seem to ease or go anywhere.Loba’s tonic does wonders for him and allows him to explore Yoongi’s library while the man sits in one of his corners and studies diligently. He meets more of that castle that week, following Yoongi around as he ironically introduces many of the infinite rooms with sarcasm dripping from his tone, teasing Jimin as if he were a guide.“As you can see, my druid, this is yet another unnecessary room filled with random mobilia. Like all the others, it could be used as many things but, since I’d rather chew my eyes out rather than share this castle with strangers or worse, sublet it to humans — and may Nyx rid of me of such curse —, it’s empty,” he said, roaming around the room slash talking pit that looked like a couple of others Jimin had seen it.The fun, though, was watching Yoongi gesture widely with his arms spread open, a cheeky smile on his face.“I’m starting to understand why you Eternals like parties and problems so much,” Jimin answered him, looking around the tapestries and decorative items.“Why?”“One goes crazy living alone in a huge fortress like this, don’t you think? I’d prefer to fill it with people drinking and chatting and making the place alive for a little while, if I could,” he mused.“Good to know we won’t be roommates anytime soon,” Yoongi quipped back. Jimin shot him a look from above his shoulders and then rolled his eyes, trying to hide his smile.“You’re an introvert. And a nerd,” Jimin teased.“Both true, unfortunately,” Yoongi answered with a sigh.Jimin giggled and swirled back around, facing Yoongi once again.“To another useless room, milord! I need more exercise. Isn’t there a secret passage anywhere that you could show me? I don’t know, some mysterious rooms, dusty attics with coffins. I haven’t seen even one whip, anywhere,” Jimin said as they exited that room.“What type of establishment do you think this is, mister Park?” Yoongi asked in fake offense, but couldn’t stop the amused chuckle, pacing himself side by side with Jimin. “If only I knew this is where you wanted me to lead you, little one,” he added, voice dropping. When his posture changed, shoulders hunching a little higher and smirk taking over his face, Jimin knew it was supposed to be just some poking, but Jimin felt his heartbeat spike nonetheless. Yoongi’s proximity hit him differently. “All you had to do was ask,” he finished with a whisper.Panicked with the notion that Yoongi would hear the sound of his heart beating much faster, he shot a spark of electricity against the vampire’s rib, which worked immediately.Yoongi jumped back with a yelp, clutching his ribs with an “Ah, what the fuck Jimin!”Finally breathing, Jimin giggled and continued walking.“You were right, I shouldn’t trust you too much now, should I? You might wanna end up tying me in the same dungeon I ask to visit and I don’t like the irony of that,” he said with a voice as firm as he could manage.Yoongi picked up his pace to meet Jimin and then nudged the druid with his shoulders, laughing.“I’m thinking about tying you up now. That hurt, what the fuck,” Yoongi complained, still rubbing at his side.Jimin looked down at where the jinx hit and scoffed, still smiling. “You’re so dramatic. It was just a jolt of voltage.”“Just! You sound like my Sire, why do I always end up fucking surrounded by masochists, goddamn it,” Yoongi whined, walking on and leading Jimin somewhere else.In moments like those, Jimin looked at Yoongi from under his lashes, trying his best not to be too obvious with his staring.It was difficult because, well, it was him.Yoongi with those white baggy cotton blouses, the sleeves always rolled up. His sleek black pants and shiny shoes, always making him look sharp and elegant that Jimin could only describe as tasty.From the way he spoke with his lips in an almost-pout to the ease with which his entire persona shifted when he smirked, the nature of his powers sipping through his pores and his fans every now and then. When Yoongi scrunched his top lip, Jimin found it very hard not to think about biting.It was incredibly difficult.A part of him felt like the easy banter and the slight flush he could see on top of Yoongi’s ears sometimes meant he was being flirted with. The other part, a more obscure and insecure voice that insisted on living on the outskirts of his mind, snickered and called him a delusional innocent. Arrogant to believe that he was interesting enough to appease as more than a simple snack to an eternal being such as an Ancient.Pretty enough, Jimin knew he was.Those thoughts resulted in him turning to books and research in the free time he could find. Knowing what he was dealing with and the desires simmering inside of him was vital because Jimin woke up more than once terrified by his own dreams, by his own dark and deep scenarios. Things he never imagined his mind would want or conjure.After discovering that vampires couldn’t induce dreams, only alter already existing ones if the person was dreaming about the said vampire in the first place, Jimin accepted that the ridiculous crush was on him.He didn’t know what to do with it, yet.
The problem was that looking past the physical attraction part — which Jimin convinced himself was the case here —, he actually enjoyed Yoongi’s company. He was funny, easy to talk to and unlike most people who crossed paths with Jimin, wasn’t a predictable and disappointing mess.Jimin wasn’t stupid enough to believe the vampire didn’t hold secrets or flaws. He was realistic. Everyone, person or being had their own darkness to carry around.The only thing was: Yoongi’s darkness was something he wanted to touch. To have a taste of it, to see with his own eyes if it felt as good as it looked.At the end of the week that passed, Jimin got a glimpse of Yoongi’s world and could finally offer in return something to the vampire.The opportunity was handed to him in the form of Loba and the Oracle, passed on in a silver platter of unspoken words that rang loud enough even Jimin could hear them.It was a Thursday and both Jimin and Yoongi were sitting in Yoongi’s music room at the start of the evening.They had watched the sunset together from the top of the stairs again, so Jimin was happy as he analyzed a map from the surroundings of the castle and made comparison notes with the grimoire in his hands.The music room was by far his favorite place at the castle and while it was only the second time he stayed there together with Yoongi, he already felt at home.He’s cracking his neck from staying in the same awkward position for too long when one of the windows bursts open on its own, ushering a strong wind current inside and with it, a small black canary.Jimin’s startled by the sound of the glass and iron frame slapping open, but his surprise turns into satisfaction when the bird enters.“What is that?” he asks in a low tone, eyes frozen accompanying the bird flying across the room.“That is how my friends break my carefully crafted security spells just so they can enter through the window like a bunch of savages instead of, you know, knocking on the damn door or something,” Yoongi replies, closing the lid of his piano without even a glance at the bird.
Jimin giggles at the pained expression on the vampire’s face. Yoongi manages to look so tired, the dramatic actor, that Jimin would almost believe he really can’t stand when his friends do that if he didn’t know Yoongi better already.The vampire sighs and turns around right before the door of the music room opens and Jimin hears footsteps approaching.“Yoongi my darling! I brought company,” a voice he doesn’t recognize singsongs. “You’ve already seen her because you’re distracted a lot lately and name slipping everywhere, but I—oh my oh my. Hello. I can see exactly why you’re distracted. Hi. Aren’t you adorable, holy shit,” the person who now stands under the threshold says, eyes zeroing on Jimin.The most beautiful jade eyes that Jimin had ever seen stare right back at him, making him feel stripped off any protective layers, all his emotions laid bare for that small and fascinating creature to see.Behind the unknown newcomer, Jimin glances for a second and spots Heba, the witch. She’s leaning against the door frame with arms crossed against her chest and a private smile on her face, her eyes on the same person who stole Jimin’s attention.The first thing Jimin takes note is how small they are.The second is that Yoongi surely made a deal with the devil because there is no other explanation for how every single presence around him seems to come straight out of a painting.Green eyes has long, thick brown hair that falls on top of their black and white cape. They’re dressed in a long and high-waisted skirt, accompanied by a tight white corset and translucent blouse. On their neck, there are a few necklaces and those aren’t the only items that shine under the dim light of the room. Rings, earrings and silver peek from under their cape and Jimin think wow, I met someone who enjoys metal more than I do.“You must be Jimin,” they greet with a smile so innocent and breathtaking that Jimin wants both to hug them and ask if he can put them in his pocket and, at the same time, hide under the cushions he’s sitting.Why are they so gorgeous? He feels disconcerted, smiling sheepishly back at them.“I am. You must be—” he starts, but gets up immediately and hurriedly, dropping the items on his lap without care. He’s meeting an entity and the same as it was with Heba, he feels the pull to be as respectful as possible. Jimin can feel the energy vibrating in the Oracle’s aura, carrying them with an air of strength that spikes memories of his own father in Jimin’s mind. Jimin bows with both hands on the side of his body, feeling his heart beating inside his chest and the heat on his cheeks. “You must be the Oracle. It’s a delight and a pleasure, I’m Park Jimin.”He hears a soft giggle and an adorable shrieking, so he lifts his gaze.“Hello, Park Jimin. You may call me Arden, if you’d like,” they answer with a smile.“Hi, Arden. And hello, Loba,” he greets, looking above Arden’s shower to greet the witch.Heba smiles with a knowing glint in her eyes that says I understand the feeling, buddy.“Hi there,” she answers cooly. “You’re looking much better.”“It was your tonic, thank you so much,” he bows his head again.“You, on the other hand,” Arden says, their tone shifting and becoming sharper, scolding. “I don’t live on the other side of the ocean, you dick. You could’ve at least updated me.”“I’m sorry, I know, I know,” Yoongi answers, lifting both hands in surrender.“I told them that you were busy,” Heba offers, coming in defense of Yoongi. She walks towards him and leans against his piano, glancing between everyone present. “Arden couldn’t believe how much better Jimin already was, but I explained you were being a great host. Look at you, inviting people into your music room like a big boy! We barely get a chance to enter this place and we’ve been your closest and dearest friends for how long now?” Heba asks, feigning innocence.Jimin doesn’t miss the underlying implication that visiting this particular room in the castle is a privilege very few get to have, which makes his insides turn and flip in funny ways.Is that a good indicator? Does it mean anything?He tells the thoughts to get away and focuses on the present, watching Yoongi narrow his eyes in Heba’s direction.“Did you come only to tease me or can I separate some drinks and smokes for us to talk, hm?” he asks, not looking into her stormy eyes.Heba laughs in his face, but still nods.“Sure.”“Oh, and could you be so kind as to put up the spell of protection around my castle?” he asks, getting up from his bench and walking in the direction of the cabinets and dressers that stand in the right of the room.Heba catches Jimin’s eyes and shakes her head slightly at him, smile on her face. She gives him a look of ‘ can you believe him’ which makes Jimin smile in return, but she obliges to Yoongi’s request.Her bright gray eyes light up minimally as she summons her power forth and an orb of white light materializes out of thin air between her palms. If Jimin closes his eyes, he can sense the static and electricity in the air and most likely smell the vague ocean scent that her magic emits, but he chooses to watch instead.The orb vibrates and pulses for a couple of seconds before it explodes silently in an enormous wave, sending a plain breeze through the room. The wave must echo throughout the whole castle, given the speed with which it passed and expanded through the room.Jimin can almost visualize the magic spell closing a bubble around the castle, easy and simple.When Heba’s eyes return to their still state, Jimin realizes he was staring with his mouth agape as she practiced magic.He blushes, closing his mouth quickly and wanting to avert his eyes before she sees him staring like an idiot, but when she looks back at him again, he can see in the softness of her smile that she understands.A piece of his soul missed and always would feel the absence of watching this type of magic.“Beautiful,” he breathes out, barely a whisper.It’s still heard by the witch and if her shy nod of the head is anything to go by, she appreciates someone else complimenting the intricacies and beauty of her magic.While Heba put the spell back — and he watched, transfixed — the other two present were already moving around and talking amongst themselves in whispers.Arden was setting up an improvised talking pit on the floor in front of the piano while Yoongi gathered what was necessary to entertain all his guests.Jimin got up to help and in less than a couple of minutes, they had pillows and cushions spread in a circle. Inside of it there was a tall narguilé that Yoongi got somewhere in the room, even though Jimin had never seen it while analyzing the surroundings.
Heba and Arden separated some different smokes and Jimin, already knowing where most needed things in the kitchen were, summoned four glasses for them since he saw the drinks Yoongi had separated in a silver tray beside the narguilé.“C’mon, sit down Jimin, I wanna hear from you. I’m not talking to this corny fucker, he’s grounded for five minutes,” Arden informs him as soon as they sit down.It makes Jimin laugh. He’s taking out of his satchel his own supplies for smokes and placing them with everything else when he answers.“I… don’t know where to begin. Have you ever been bitten by an animal almost twice your size, Arden? It’s pretty cool. Neat experience. I learned more about myself than I ever imagined,” he tells in a sarcastic, but exasperated tone, laughing at his own disgrace.“I’ve been bitten by snakes before,” Yoongi offers to the circle, his lips blowing smoke into the air for the first time.Jimin hears Arden whispering ‘how the fuck did you light that up so fast’ under their breath at the same time Heba pours herself a glass of whiskey, but while maintaining eye contact with Yoongi. So cool, Jimin thinks.“You’re shitting me, right?” Heba asks in a flat tone. “He’s bringing direwolves into the table and you tell us ‘I’ve been bitten by snakes before’? Like, in what world do these two even co-exist?” she scoffs, mocking Yoongi.“She’s right,” Jimin agrees, lighting up his own cigarette. “You have to offer at least something as big as you, Ancient Min. C’mon,” he adds, trying to sound offended.Arden and Heba laugh at that, but Yoongi nods vehemently as if Jimin presented an excellent point.“Fair, that’s fair. Two bears, does that count?” he offers with a smile, smoke blowing out from his lips once again.“Now we’re talking!” Arden claps their hands together. Then, they turn to Jimin with a smile and a narguilé hoose hanging loosely from their lips too. “I, on the other hand, can’t say I’ve had the pleasure. Tell me more.”Over the past hour or so, Jimin is the center of the conversation.After living for an entire year by himself on the road, he had forgotten how much he adored socializing. Not only for the pleasure of having company, but for the opportunities to
share. The disgrace, the happiness, the numerous stories that one carried with themselves.A human being or not, he believed wholeheartedly that no one existed on this Earth with the ability — or purpose — to live and be alone.A great part of healing, growing and being genuinely happy was in the company you kept and how, as a group, one learned with the other.The sarcasm and irony offered with ease and class by Yoongi were completely matched in Arden and Heba.Jimin could understand why they were his best friends. Just like Yoongi and himself, they were quick-witted and not easily offended. The conversation moved from one topic to another between laughter, clouds of smoke and glasses of drinks that were downed and occasionally spilled due to too much excitement.Not for one moment did Jimin feel left out or like ‘the new addition’. The four of them got along perfectly well, no one overstepping the other too much, everyone teasing the moments that were recalled or the random wonderings that popped up.A couple of times, Jimin was happy to melt in his cushions with his herbal cigarettes and his own glass of whiskey and tonic—a gift brought by Heba.He watched as the three friends got lost in the memory lane and started talking in ‘best friend language’, completing each other’s sentences and understanding a train of thought mid-sentence, answering before the other could even finish.His cheeks were already hurting from smiling, but it was the best type of pain. Jimin endured it laughing even more whenever Yoongi rolled his eyes or Arden nudged him for confirmation, having claimed Jimin for themselves in that moment.Yoongi looked extremely good under the yellow-ish light of the music room, smoke swirling around him and making his red eyes and pale skin make him look ethereal and unreal. If he wasn’t speaking or laughing, this would be one of the moments where Jimin thought he was a painting.He certainly was a sight to behold, Jimin thought behind his own cloud of smoke.More than once, he saw from the corner of his eyes that Arden caught him staring unabashedly.After the first time being caught and blushing furiously, he realized not only did Arden not care, they indulged him at certain times.When the conversation eventually lands on the letter of invitation Yoongi finally caught from Kalif, Jimin joins in again after a few minutes.His voice is a lot hoarser already because of the smoke and the drink, but he’s also feeling much lighter and happier.“He was mumbling at himself around the kitchen yesterday about it,” Jimin snitches.Yoongi throws him a few daggers with his eyes, but sighs in defeat.“You know that feeling of… an obligation? Something you know you must do, but you dread it and postpone it so much that it only turns sourer the more you think about it,” he complains, then buries his face in one of the cushions and groans loudly.“Mood, dude. What a fucking mood,” Arden says, agreeing with Yoongi’s protests without looking up from their glass.“I don’t know how he has the audacity to invite us to an official Ball. Still. Every damn year, as if something has changed. We went once and look how that turned out,” Heba scoffs.Jimin feels lost once again in the context of someone he doesn’t know, but since he’s good at filling in the holes, he listens closely and tries to paint a better picture of who this Kalif being is like.“We’ve known him for longer than I’d like and common sense or a shred of self-preservation have never been traits he’s possessed, my love,” Arden offers bitterly.Their accent has turned thicker, not as clear as it was when conversation started. Jimin knows that’s an indicator of emotion more than a possible state of inebriation. They’re still sober. They only hate the Sire in question.“Hear hear,” Yoongi grunts, taking another drag. His eyes meet Jimin’s and a smile forms on the corner of his lips, which Jimin returns, feeling his insides stir.“I’d go with you, man, but…” Heba starts, voice drifting off into the silence. After a couple of seconds in silence, she continues with a humorless laugh. “The number of stories I’ve heard over the past year that started with ‘I was at Sire Kaluf’s annual Ball when’ are still skyrocketing, can you believe that?”From Arden’s look of hatred burning invisible holes in the wooden floor and Yoongi’s very honest scoff, Jimin can.“I can’t remember the last time I was at a party that didn’t turn to shit,” he blurts out.All three pairs of eyes turn to him and he feels his cheeks heating up a little.He might be slightly less sober than he’d thought.“Wanna know the worst part?” he asks rhetorically, but sees all of them nodding at him regardless. He smiles and tells them in giggles, “Out of the—what, ten last fights I got in, I think—at least two-thirds of them were my fault,” he confesses, leaning forward and giggling hiding behind his hands, hiding his face.He hears their exclamations of genuine surprise, all teasing him for more information.“I was justified in all of them!” he exclaims louder, feeling the need to defend himself from the teasing coming from all three corners. “I promise. I was. They were disrespectful dicks to me or someone else. And I may not have the best patience in the world, whatever,” he adds with a final laugh.“Hm, I can see that. Yup,” Heba speaks up on top of Yoongi’s teasing remarks and Arden’s adorable inquisition of ‘tell me more, what did you do’. “Your magic… it sizzles. It vibrates and sizzles—very electric and static. I got goosebumps when you got up in the greenhouse,” she says without hiding her surprise and admiration.Jimin feels a strange sense of pride crawl on his chest and he puffs up, smiling proudly with his pink cheeks.“I like the sound of that,” he confesses.“I didn’t know that,” Yoongi says with a frown, taking a drag and blowing smoke around. “Is it a specific thing? Do all druids sizzle and vibrate?” he asks curiously.“Nope, a personal thing,” Heba clarifies, but then winces, smacking her teeth. “Ah—depends. Vampires mostly feel like a pull. Druids are more of a feeling. Fuck, why do you always ask complex questions for layered things? The best way I can explain is that there’s a— think of a diagram. There are intercalations, a species has a general type of energy, but each one has their own… frequency to it,” she explains, looking sideways at her partner for help.Arden raises their hands in a defeated sign.“I sense magic visually. I wouldn’t know,” they offer, shaking their heads.Heba turns back to Yoongi with a square smile. “I sense magic like heat, I’d say. It’s why the first thing I notice around someone’s presence is hot or cold they feel. There are different kinds of pulls to me. When I met Jimin, it was like I could feel him vibrating, sizzling. Ready to explode in a fire dragon breath at the simplest ignition to his spark,” she explains further.Both Jimin and Yoongi gasp ‘ah’ in unison, visualizing perfectly what Heba is saying.Yoongi then turns to Jimin with a curious and open look, then asks.“How do you sense magic, Jimin?”The question catches him by surprise because firstly, he never gave it a thought.People had asked him what he could do with his magic, how much he could sense with it, but never how he felt it.He stares at Yoongi for a couple of seconds, thinking about it with his lips parted and the glass halfway to his mouth.“I… I feel it in the air,” he breathes out, realization coming to him. Yoongi lifts one eyebrow and when Jimin doesn’t continue, the vampire smiles at him and nods his head once, encouragingly.
Jimin blinks slowly and stares ahead at the patterns of white smoke being illuminated by light strings, thinking about it harder.“I’ve always perceived magic by the way the air changes. To me, it’s as if people’s natures carry them through the air. In some, you can barely feel it. Others almost seem like they float inside a room in a cloud, bringing an entire storm with them. The air fizzles, static and in different frequencies,” he explains.The other three all hum thoughtfully when he finishes, nodding at him slowly, letting his own view of the supernatural sink in.“I see them,” Arden offers with a roll of their eyes, as if they’re stating the obvious. “First impressions are everything to me. When I first saw Heba, all I could see was a lagoon at night, in an old forest with deep and tall trees. She had her back to me and was drying her hair and all I could see was her eyes glowing like the Moon. She looked… like her. Felt so powerful too,” Arden adds with a dreamy smile, looking at their partner with doey eyes.“What do vampires look like?” Yoongi asks.“Hm, I can see why she said a pull. When I saw you, I saw a door at the end of a corridor, painted in red light,” Arden recalls.Yoongi hums at that, narrowing his eyes at Arden.“Is that good?”Arden shrugs their shoulders. “Better than what I feel around most of you.”They all laugh at that, knowing that it must be true.Jimin has his eyes on Yoongi, watching how he seems lost in thoughts.
“What about you?” he asks the vampire.“Hm? Oh, I don’t feel people,” he explains blankly. This must be where being a night creature differs from a day one, because Yoongi doesn’t sound bad because of it. To him, it’s just a fact. He looks up at Jimin again. “Most of them, at least.”“What happens with some?” asks Heba.“If I feel them, something is wrong,” he chuckles bitterly. “Must be a nightly occurrence. If my nature picks up on someone too much, there’s something wrong about them. Probably. The only exceptions are old beings like you and you and, well…” he says, pointing first at Heba, then Arden and drifting off when his eyes meet Jimin’s.“I’m not old,” Jimin adds frowning, then blows smoke right in the direction of Yoongi’s face. “Rude .”Yoongi laughs at him, not minding the white cloud surrounding him, then shakes his head.“Not old, no. But powerful enough to call attention,” he explains further.
With his red eyes set on Jimin, the druid feels how his body immediately reacts to the knowledge that somehow, the spark inside of him awoke a drop of recognition through Yoongi’s dark nature.Jimin gulps down a sip of his drink, unable to look away.“I thought you were a statue,” he confesses, keeping his face neutral despite the heat he feels on his cheekbones. “The air was… still. Everything around you was. It was like looking at a painting and I don’t know whether it was the lack of blood or the pain, but that’s all I registered. I felt… calm. Usually, night beings make me nauseous, but—I just felt curious.”
Yoongi looks at Jimin with his glass forgotten halfway to his lips, staring at Jimin with his mouth slightly parted, listening intently. Jimin feels so hot and for a second, he can’t believe he just shared that.
He feels exposed and if his peachy cheeks weren’t enough, he knows that Yoongi is the only creature in the circle who can also hear the sound of his stupid heartbeat.Looking at each other, Jimin even forgets that they have company.“Then you moved and I thought ‘oh fuck’, you know?” he adds with a choked laugh, trying to lighten the air. “But yeah…”“I thought you were dead,” Yoongi blurts out, his eyes widening at his own words. He looks down at his glass and takes a sip. “For some reason, that bothered me. A lot. So I picked you up and when I saw your face I thought… ‘just hang for a little while’ and as I ran here, I could—is it normal for vampires to feel magic?” he asks with a glance towards Heba and Arden, but before either of them can answer, he shakes his head and continues, laughing. “I have no fucking clue, but I guess I did. I felt like I was carrying a tiny bomb and still, I just wanted you to hang on… I don’t think I even gave a shit if you blew me up in the process.”There’s a beat of silence as Jimin takes in his words.If the normality for Yoongi is the absence of feelings, sensing Jimin and his magic must mean he was right. Jimin never gave too much thought about how powerful he was despite coming from a lineage of very powerful people. Yet, having that confirmed by Yoongi makes him feel oddly proud of himself.Of his power.He smiles sheepishly, putting his glass down and avoiding Yoongi’s knowing eyes for the moment.Arden clears their throat by his side and Jimin almost startles, lost in a bubble of Yoongi Yoongi Yoongi Yoongi and almost missing the smartass looks that both Arden and Heba have at that moment.“Well isn’t that a lovely memory?” Arden asks teasingly. Looking at Yoongi, they nudge the vampire with their feet. “When was the last time you remember feeling someone that wasn’t a piece of shit, huh?” they ask laughing.Yoongi shakes his head, giving it a thought.“I have no fucking clue, I think—Oh! Yeah, last time it was definitely Argent. Yup,” he nods and then, all three of them sigh collectively. “Fuck, I miss her.”Curious with the common reaction, Jimin can’t help but ask.“Who’s Argent?”Arden looks down at their lap and Heba looks in their direction, reaching out with her hand to hold her partner’s hand. It’s Yoongi who answers him.“My Sire’s old sorceress,” he explains, giving Jimin a very sad smile. “She works for Kalif now.”“Oh,” Jimin looks between them, confused. “Was that a deliberate change or…” he drifts off, not wanting to offend anyone by asking if Argent was a traitor.“As much as you being a guest here was,” Heba compares, painting a picture for him.“She used to command any room she walked into,” Arden whispers, their voice laced with emotions.“Her magic felt so hot… I met her that night, remember?” Heba asks Yoongi, who nods with his head still down. Heba turns to Jimin with a sad smile of her own. “She was extremely pissed off. A group of Lycans bought a fight with Yoongi’s Sire and that was the first I ever saw her. She walked in the castle’s saloon and I swear it was like someone threw me in a volcano,” she breathes out.“We won because of her,” Arden adds. “But of course, every good thing comes with a price.”“Arden…” Yoongi starts.“No. Don’t,” they interrupt, choking up. “I know, okay? I know it was her choice. She chose to go with him, but—this is my burden to carry, Yoongi. She left because of me. She left because he wanted me and—and,” without finishing, Arden lets out a growl, slamming their fist on the floor.Everyone around them jumps and Arden lets go of Heba’s hand, gets up on their feet and starts pacing around the music room.“She would’ve done it a million times over,” Heba says after a minute of silence. “She would never let him take you, you know that.”“That doesn’t make it better.”“Arden. Kalif thinks the world as his own and he would collect people and beings like collection pawns for many more years if she hadn’t put a stop to it. The fact that she did it because she loves y—”, Yoongi starts, but before he can finish, Arden turns around to face him again, only this time, their jade green eyes are shining like a neon lightbulb. His words get caught in his throat and he shakes his head, looking away. “I’ll shut up.”“I’ve loved many people in my lifetime, Yoongi,” they mutter with trembling lips and Jimin feels the tears pooling in his eyes, unable to help himself. The pain in Arden’s eyes and voice is so guttural that he can almost feel it. “Losing them is never easy, but having them taken from under my hands like a trading item when I barely had the chance to love or be loved by them… that’s cruelty the world had never done before. Did you know she had proposed? Two days prior to that shitshow. She wanted to live with Heba and I, for good this time. And now she’s in Kalif’s court, sitting at his right side and she probably hasn’t smiled in decades, hasn’t seen the sunrise or hasn’t heard a word of comfort or love. For as long as he lives, she’s bound there. I know what she did put a stop to his rampage of insanity, but… Honestly speaking? I don’t give a fuck about that. It’s selfish and I hate myself for it, but I don’t. I’d trade all of them for at least one year by her side.”When they finish, Arden sniffles and cleans the tears that slipped from their eyes. Heba is up and with her arms around them in one second and Jimin looks at Yoongi feeling lost and hurt, wanting nothing more than to kill this Kalif being with his own hands.Yoongi looks back at Jimin and shakes his head, as if saying ‘there is nothing we can do’.Jimin gulps the rest of his drink and looks at the room, pondering what he would do in Arden’s place.Having love taken away from you before the right time — if there is any — is something he understands a little too much.“I can’t offer you consolation because I know how much it hurts to lose what we love,” he says in a low voice, looking down at his own hands. “But the same people I lost have taught me there’s one thing that always makes things better, so I can offer you that. Can I cook dinner for you guys?” he asks, lifting his gaze to Arden and Heba, looking at Yoongi as well.Heba is rubbing a comforting hand at Arden’s back and when the Oracle looks at him, a soft smile grows on their face.“I’d love some food,” they cry out, rubbing their face again. “Yoongi never feeds us,” they add with a small voice.Yoongi gasps. “The lies! This is outrageous—they’re lying,” he defends himself, eyes wide as they look at Jimin. “I always offer food and it’s always ‘oh no, thank you Yoongs, I’ll eat at home’,” he says.The couple laughs at him and just like that, Jimin feels his heart ache a little less.They all gather their items and dismantle the small fort they built to hang out in. Heba turns the conversation to Jimin’s childhood, asking him things about the place where he grew up and how things were back then as they clean up and move downstairs to the kitchen.Heba and Arden both take a seat behind the counter while Jimin starts separating the ingredients with Yoongi’s help. He doesn’t know when Yoongi has the time to go food shopping at markets, but he’s thankful for all of it.He lets Arden and Yoongi exchange quips and banter in peace as he cooks, content to laugh at them and share knowing looks with Heba, learning how to talk with her just with his eyes.As they explain to Jimin about the one party from Kalif they went to — not an official Ball, since seeing Argent would be too much — and how the Sire acted, Jimin starts understanding why Yoongi is so reluctant to go.Yoongi’s friends eat with him, Yoongi sips his wine and they all talk about numerous things as the food gets devoured.It’s one of the best nights Jimin’s ever had since he left the Sea Inn and he tells them so before they leave the castle.“We’ll come back, don’t worry,” Arden tells him in a hug. They hold Jimin by the shoulders and look at him with those deep and gorgeous eyes, making him blush slightly. “I like you, Park Jimin.”He giggles, shyly accepting the compliment.“It’s mutual.”“Goodbye, darling,” Heba kisses his cheek as she passes him and waves at Yoongi again. “Think about what I said!” She singsongs.When they’re alone again, Jimin and Yoongi smile widely, both happier than before.They walk upstairs together in comfortable silence and the idea that popped up in Jimin’s head during dinner grows and grows until he can’t think about something else.Before he enters his room, he pauses under the threshold.“Yoongi?” he asks.“Yes?”“Remember your offer? You help me find what I want and I help with something in return?” Yoongi looks at him seriously, nodding along. Jimin smirks at him. “I’ll go with you to the Ball. Our instincts should never be ignored and if company is all that you need, well… Here I am.”Yoongi’s eyes widen comically and he stares at Jimin for seconds without blinking.“You’d go to a Sire’s Ball with me?” he asks dumbfounded.“Sure. Why not?” Jimin shrugs.“Because they’re dangerous. Annoying. Highly likely to end up in problems, a fight, blood,” Yoongi lists off the bat, still looking at Jimin like he grew another head. “Jimin… your offer is—fuck, you are incredible. But I don’t want to put you in any danger. You just healed!” he adds, exasperated. “I don’t wanna hinder that.”Jimin rolls his eyes and leans more against the door, trying not to show just how much Yoongi’s worry fills him with giddy happiness.“You’re not putting me in anything. I am offering,” he corrects and then, using one of his best weapons, he smiles widely at Yoongi and gives him a little twirl. “Don’t you want good dancing company?” he asks, giggling. He starts a smile starting to form in Yoongi’s face so he feels bolder, nudging Yoongi with his shoulder.A few days ago, the proximity would have him bursting.Now, he wants more of it.He doesn’t step back, enjoying the closeness of Yoongi’s body in front of him.“We have a week to prepare for the Ball and a whole week for you to help me with my own thing,” he adds, biting his lips. “What do you say?”Yoongi keeps his gaze on Jimin, eyes sweeping everywhere—his eyes, his lips and his rosy cheeks. Jimin doesn’t shy away from the look and is rewarded by seeing how Yoongi’s ears turn slightly pink too.“Are you sure?” the vampire confirms, still worried. Jimin nods, eager. “You’ll be my date, then?”Jimin blinks at that, feeling hotter at the choice of words. He licks his lips and sees Yoongi’s eyes following the movement. He knows he could never regret this.“I’ll be your date, Ancient Min,” he answers, smiling.
The smile Yoongi gives as return is better than anything he’s seen so far.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It's strange what desire will make foolish people do. I never dreamed that I'd meet somebody like you.
— Chris Isaak, Wicked Game.
It’s easy to forget how observant Jungkook is.After so long away, Jimin almost slaps himself for not noticing it sooner. The way his brother's eyes averted through the room whenever they talked, his funny remarks about Jimin’s appearance getting better despite being kidnapped and getting stuck in a ‘lair’.It’s his fault, honestly.He allowed himself to be distracted for one second and all it took was one request for Jungkook to connect the dots.Jimin is stupid.Actually, scratch that. Jimin is smart as hell, his intelligence isn’t the issue at hand. The problem is when he forgets that Jungkook is too. It’s too easy and too comfortable to get lost in his big brother part and baby his brother to the point where he does dumb shit.Hence, why he’s currently feeling like an idiot.“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you’re in a vampire’s castle,” Jungkook blurts out inside the Mirror, making Jimin stop mid-sentence. He was thanking Jungkook for the book references he had asked a couple of days prior, leaning on the armchair in his room that had become his little spot. He stops with a grape halfway to his mouth, staring at Jungkook like a deer caught in the headlights. His brother only raises both eyebrows with a completely unimpressed look. “You’re a shitty secret keeper.”“I—No I’m not!” he protests, putting his food tray to the side and glancing around guiltily, wondering how the fuck Jungkook put two and two together. He sighs, rubbing his hands through his hair, knowing how useless it is to try to flat out lie. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Ggukie, I didn’t wanna scare you—,” he starts, but is interrupted by a scoff.“Why would I be scared that the person I love the most is somewhere I don’t even know in a vampire’s castle? Do you have any idea of how much I had to plea Tania not to do a tracking spell and go find you? She would’ve murdered you, you know. And I would’ve let her,” he scolds Jimin, voice getting higher as he goes. “What the fuck were you thinking!” he exclaims, more of a statement than a question.Jimin takes a deep breath and allows Jungkook to freak out, letting out his anger.“That’s why I didn’t tell you. No, Jungkook, listen,” he raises one hand, interrupting what probably was another string of curses and worries. “I know you’re worried, but you have no reason to be.”Jungkook scoffs louder, shaking his head in disbelief.“You’ve gone and lost your damn mind. I want you out of there!”“Listen to me,” he repeats, stern this time.Jungkook recognizes his big brother tone, shutting up immediately. Jimin takes another deep breath and starts from the beginning, explaining to Jungkook the attack — and still brushing it off as something less serious than it was —, but making sure to tell in detail what happened afterward. He explains how Yoongi found him covered in rivers of blood and did nothing about it, choosing to help him instead, taking care of him for days while he was useless and could’ve been the easiest prey in the world.As he talks, Jimin notices how hard it is to keep the fondness out of his voice.He wants Jungkook to know Min Yoongi is a good person, not how ridiculously attracted and infatuated Jimin is and if Jungkook adding the books and the place together is any tell, Jimin is aware that his sharp senses are attuned to every word that comes out of his mouth then.He tells Jungkook of Loba, the witch. The way her magic is as beautiful as she is, friendly and surprisingly, an old acquaintance of their mother. When he speaks of the Oracle Arden and how both of them are together and met Nadia, Jimin sees Jungkook visibly relax.It’s easier to convince Jungkook after that information that he’s in good hands.Jungkook still looks a little angry at being out of the loop, possibly even hurt that Jimin kept that from him, but he apologizes for his outburst and claims to understand why he had hidden such a thing.“It’s okay,” Jimin comforts him. “If it were you somewhere far from me, I wouldn’t want you surrounded by beings we don’t trust either. Plus, dad put a lot of stuff in our heads about vampires.”“You’re saying they’re not true now?” Jungkook asks, frowning.“Oh, definitely not. Yoongi himself said our dad sounds awesome and we should always listen to every word he said,” he chuckles.He sees in the way Jungkook scrunches his nose and bites the corner of his lips that he’s trying to hide a laugh.“He said you sound awesome too, just so you know,” Jimin adds with a proud smile, wanting more than ever to be close to Jungkook just so he could poke him in the ribs and pull the laughter hidden inside of him out.“You talked about me?” Jungkook asks, surprised.Jimin rolls his eyes at his brother. “Nope. Didn’t mention my family at all. God, you’re stupid. Of course I did. He’s helping me this week with the grimoire tracking of the woods, I’ve been nagging him and talking his ear off about everything,” Jimin adds, allowing himself to feel eager now that he can talk to Jungkook about this. “I have such a good feeling, Guk. I think—look, don’t get too excited, but I think this is it. From what I’ve been studying, somewhere around here is the location I’ve been looking for all along,” he finishes, his voice cracking up slightly at the end.His brother’s eyes shine with the tears pooling in them too and they share a smile of relief that means more than words could speak.“If what it takes to bring you back to me is befriending a bloodsucker and an amazing couple who probably dated mom… well, who am I to judge, right?” he chuckles, picking on his blouse. It’s his nervous habit and Jimin narrows his eyes at him, which is enough to make Jungkook spit out what’s the underlying meaning of that. “Draco disappeared.”“Oh.” Jimin doesn’t know what to say for a moment, but he doesn’t need to. Jungkook waves his hands dismissively, like it doesn’t matter. Like he hasn’t attached himself to the boy while Jimin was away. “It’s okay to be… worried, or anything of the sorts, Guk. I know you liked him,” he adds softly.“It’s fine, hyung. You know I’m cursed. Anyone I have an interest in is either an imposter, doesn’t like me back or just… disappears,” he shrugs off, speaking through his pout.Jimin makes a mental note to find and genuinely murder the fucker that made his brother feel anything less than loved and stores it in his ‘for later, do not forget’ file.For now, he has big brother duties to perform.He changes the subject to something else entirely, wanting to see a smile on his face again.Jungkook and Jimin discuss dark beings for hours, laughing with each other at things their father used to say. It’s what they both need. On Jimin’s behalf, seeing Jungkook looking bright and content is the only way he can cope with the thin-shaped face that stares back at him, the red-rimmed eyes and the greasy hair. Knowing his brother isn’t okay and constantly getting worse is one thing. Dealing with it is another matter entirely.On Jungkook’s behalf, Jimin believes it’s because sharing good memories is the only way he can find comfort in being alone.So they laugh and for as many hours as he has with Jungkook, Jimin forgets about everything else.
🍃
Growing up, Jimin’s mother taught him that every relationship is like a vial of a spell, sitting on a shelf.When well taken care of, they’re stable, glowing. If kept under harsh circumstances, they could crack, lose its value, or even it’s power. Most importantly, she showed him whenever he visited her in her Apothecary room that if anything was off-balance—heat, cold, pressure … they would always implode.The way he sees his relationship with Yoongi, their ‘spell’ is a top-shelf content.The top-shelf were always his favorites: Dangerous, but not necessarily volatile. Harder to break or be affected by outside circumstances, but contained something more precious than the average on the inside, so protecting it was always important.With the weeks, Jimin was safe to say a friendship had bloomed between the two of them. It was impossible not to. Both men existed in the same wavelength of sarcasm, cynicism, and many jokes that were simply a cover for their sensible hearts.Jimin could see through Yoongi’s quick remarks already, the rolling of his eyes barely meant anything anymore and if Jimin was honest, even some of his ‘dark allure’ was dissipating.Yoongi was more than that.He was the person who was now helping Jimin through thick woods and narrow paths, leading him through a forest he barely knew. Yoongi was the one insisting on short breaks between Jimin’s mapping on the forest and its caves and he didn’t stop there—the vampire made sure Jimin sat down now and then for a sip of water and to lower his blood pressure through the hike, concerned for Jimin’s newly healed side.Jimin almost preferred when he thirsted over Yoongi’s jaw and how good-looking his hands were — which was honestly ridiculous, how could someone own such attractive hands? — because that was simpler to deal with.Admiring the shine in his blood-colored eyes and his gummy smile threaded waters Jimin was terrified to venture in.The sources he had asked Jungkook to find were easy to locate in Yoongi’s enormous library, but the readings didn’t bring him comfort as much as it brought him questions and so many dreams he’d rather die than talk of it out loud.The first couple of days, Jimin filled in the silence telling him tales of the trips and the people he met along the way, searching.Now, Yoongi has started sharing some stories of his own.He recognizes the same people in them: His Sire, Arden, Heba, Argent, and two other nameless vampires who popped up and Yoongi simply referred to as ‘my brothers’.Jimin wants to ask several questions, but he knows just how much he doesn’t enjoy getting questions before he’s ready to share the answers, so he only laughs and inquires what’s important for the moment.It’s a good distraction from Yoongi’s black trousers hugging his beautiful and long legs so nicely, or the almost see-through white shirt he has on, perfectly tucked in with its sleeves rolled to the top.After Yoongi is done telling him the story of how he met Heba, Jimin says after a minute of silence.“You know… I don’t think that’s the most appropriate outfit for a hike in the woods,” he says.He’s panting slightly and after a couple of hours looking for any new caves on this side of the Hylst Forest, he’s already starting to feel the pulling ache on his left side.Ignoring it, he throws Yoongi a teasing look, biting his lip to try and keep the laughter inside. “What if we get attacked by bears, huh?”Yoongi rolls his eyes, knowing well enough Jimin is mocking him.He puts his hands in his pockets. “I don’t own any hiking outfits. I don’t need them.”“Yes, Ancient Min, I know. You’re a butterfly, forever trapped inside your cocoon,” he teases again.Yoongi narrows his eyes at him, but Jimin can see the smile hidden on the corner of his lips.“Sit down.” The vampire looks around for a few seconds and, deeming himself pleased with the location, finds a stump of a tree and sits on it with his legs crossed, eyeing Jimin expectantly. He’s already noticed Yoongi’s tendency to speak in commands at certain times, something that coming from anyone else would’ve ended in him flipping the person off. Sensing Jimin’s reluctance— as he always does, Yoongi further elaborates. “Your heartbeat is too high, Jimin. Five minutes break, please?” he tries again, smiling up at Jimin.Sighing and admitting defeat, Jimin takes off his bag from his shoulder and slides down to the forest ground, not bothering on finding a proper sitting place. The tree behind him is comforting enough.He leans against it and takes a deep breath, realizing how right Yoongi was.He can hear his heartbeat and feel it through his body.“You’re more stubborn than Taehyung was,” Yoongi mumbles, mostly to himself.Jimin’s eyes open at the comment and meet his, which makes Yoongi blush.The blushing was part of the reason Jimin’s curiosity was driven to the point of needing research. He didn’t understand a lot about vampires and it intrigued him too much. According to the latest book he read, any blood-related function worked perfectly fine.It was simply harder to draw human-like body reactions from them than regular living beings.Jimin took it as a good sign that he made Yoongi blush on more than one occasion.After Jimin says nothing and Yoongi just continues to look at him, smiling shyly, the vampire seems to feel free on continuing.“He used to follow Sire and me around the city a lot, even though he didn’t need to meddle in official business,” he says, voice low and gravely. Jimin recognizes the traces of emotion in the way he carefully picks his words. “Tae was always too stubborn to keep himself out of it,” he chuckles, looking down at the floor and getting lost in his memories. “I kinda loved it.”“I’m not too stubborn though, am I?” Jimin asks with a grin, trying to school his face into something innocent.Yoongi’s gaze shifts back to him and softly, he shakes his head. He’s smiling with his head cocked to the side in the way that tells Jimin he’s thinking of something that particularly pleases him.“No. Only with things you want, which is good,” Yoongi replies.For some reason, the answer makes Jimin’s heart flip.“I hope it is,” he says, his thoughts going distant. The weight of the grimoire on his lap seems to lift out of a sudden, and he’s immediately reminded of his parent’s teachings. “When we’re on the right path we always know. The things we need find their way towards us. That’s how you know.”“How long ago did you get that?” Yoongi asks, pointing at the grimoire which Jimin is gripping tightly.“Not long before I got here. It was the gentleman who transferred the grimoire to me who warned me off these woods, funnily enough,” Jimin laughs at the memory, recalling how the stranger seemed to take a liking to him after they were done with business and he was satisfied with the exchange. “East is where Evil lies, druid. Do not find yourself in those woods alone.” Yoongi joins in the laughter.“He was right. I hope you don’t come here alone again. It is extremely dangerous,” he adds with a vicious and predatory smile, teasing Jimin of the company he ended up with.“Sure thing, Ancient Min.”“I’m starting not to like the way you said it,” Yoongi adds with narrow eyes, making Jimin giggle. He leans forward with his body and doesn’t feel the scar bother him as much, he notes happily. “It’s like you don’t mean it.”Jimin laughs harder at Yoongi’s dramatics, gesturing at him to quit it.“I don’t even think it comes from the heart when you use my title,” Yoongi continues with a somber voice and Jimin can barely see him with the way Yoongi is making him laugh.“I can’t see, shut up!” Jimin begs, clutching his stomach. Out of all the people to rescue him, nature gave him the most handsome and yet dramatic man. Yoongi is a good actor, Jimin will give him that.When he’s done teasing Jimin, the latter feels better and decides to share more. Slowly, Jimin is starting to trust Yoongi.“I think we’ll find the place here,” he confesses in a low tone, knowing the vampire hears him well enough. Yoongi lifts his eyebrows in question, so Jimin elaborates. “The Sakh were alchemists and they made highly dangerous potions, harvested the toughest ingredients to keep around. It was exactly the type of book I needed to find what I’m searching for—an ingredient. Or I think it is?” he wonders, thinking of the Stone Witch.The image of the woman’s snake slowly slithering up her leg popped behind his eyelids and Jimin hummed lowly.“It’s all she asked,” he finishes.“Who is ‘she’?” Yoongi asks calmly, mirroring Jimin and sitting on the ground. Jimin watches his movements as he kneels in front of the stump and adjusts himself with his hands inside his pocket again, this time at eye-level with Jimin. “Is it Madam Tania? I recall you telling me of her.”Jimin grins, finding funny how Yoongi insists on calling Master Tania ‘Madam’. He thought it was because he had Arden as his oracle and as a sign of respect for them, didn’t use the title on anyone else.Instead, Jimin found it was because Tania was younger than Yoongi and since she was a stranger, “It’s only polite,” he had explained Jimin with a shy smile.Nevertheless, it wasn’t Master Tania he spoke of.Jimin wondered how would Yoongi react at the knowledge that Jimin made a deal with a witch— a very reckless and dangerous thing to do.He drummed his fingers against the spine of the grimoire and smiled sheepishly.“Not exactly. I might’ve...well, I fully made a deal. With a witch,” he tells Yoongi, watching closely for his reaction.The vampire’s eyes narrow when he starts, then widen at Jimin’s final words. He looks shocked—surprised, but curious as well. There’s a glint in the red of his eyes.“Are you serious?” he asks, a little of disbelief in his voice. “Your Madam Tania couldn’t help?” he added quickly.Jimin shakes his head, looking down at his lap. Sadness overflows him as he thinks of how much she tried to help, the hours which Master Tania spent besides Jungkook’s bedside, running her long fingers through his hair and pressing her full lips tightly together, refusing to let her fear seep through.It was upon seeing that scene when Jimin knew he had to do more.That wasn’t a simple sickness and worse, it wasn’t something their Oracle could’ve foreseen. Master Tania slowed and diminished Jungkook’s pain, but that was the extent of what she could do.“She tried. Relentlessly,” he affirms to Yoongi. “But it was beyond her reach.”“Had you heard from the witch you made a deal with before?” Yoongi inquires.“Of course,” Jimin can’t help but roll his eyes. “I wasn’t raised in a barn, Yoongi. I know a deal with one is… extreme, but I intend on keeping my word and as a result, she’ll have to keep hers. I knew what I was doing.”“Do you know what she wants from you? What she gets from this bargain?”Jimin shakes his shoulders. “Nope. Not a clue, but she stated clear as day that it would be a favor that would harm none, and honestly, as long as there’s that, I don’t care for what she asks of me. As long as she keeps her end of the word and cures Jungkook, she can have whatever she wants,” Jimin states.When Jimin looks up at Yoongi, the vampire is smiling at him, his gums showing and a few strands of his hair falling on top of his eyes.“He’s lucky to have you.” Yoongi looks around at the forest, hearing things Jimin can’t. “And I trust your word, I believe you knew what you were doing,” Yoongi adds gently as if giving Jimin a vote of confidence.“I know her name,” Jimin tells him cockily, just to watch the vampire’s reaction.Surely enough, Yoongi’s gaze snaps back to Jimin’s direction at those words, mouth opening a little bit before he starts laughing, not bothering on hiding his surprise.“Wow, Jiminie. Definitely not raised in a barn, huh? I might start getting my fake sleep back after knowing this. Stop worrying so much about dragging you into a Ball out of all things,” Yoongi informs him, chuckling at him. Jiminie. Good gods. As if his voice saying Jimin’s name wasn’t enough… Jiminie. The likelihood of a heart attack seemed to rise with each day he passed in this man’s presence.“I thought you believed I knew what I was doing,” he repeats in Yoongi’s face, trying his best to do an impression of Yoongi’s ridiculously low voice, whilst telling himself to let it go.The smiling face in front of him makes it hard to ‘let it go’.“Firstly, that is not how I sound at all and secondly, while I believe in you, you still never fail in surprising me. Does that make sense?” Yoongi asks in a completely honest tone.Jimin feels his cheeks heating up at the question so to distract himself from the embarrassment, he rolls his eyes once again at him.“It does, I’ll give you that,” he answers sassily. Inside his mind, there seem to be tiny little goblins running around still yelling in pure despair ‘Jiminie, Jiminie’. He wonders when he became a teenage boy with a gigantic infatuation. “And what is this about losing sleep over me in a Ball? I’m gonna do just fine,” he says, dismissively waving his hands at Yoongi. “Have you seen me? Spoken to me? Everybody adores me, baby.”Oh, shit.Jimin feels his facade of coolness slip as he becomes as red as Yoongi’s eyes, but when he sees with the illumination from his levitating orb that he isn’t the only one blushing, Jimin lets a nervous giggle out and shakes his head to clear his thoughts.“Anyway. You should get your sleep. I’ll even be at my best behavior, I promise,” Jimin continues after a couple of heartbeats in silence.“It’s not your behavior that worries me,” Yoongi speaks up, cheeks still matching his irises. He scratches the back of his neck. “It’s more the people that go to these things that are the problem.” Jimin nods at that, remembering the reluctance Yoongi had in the first place to attend the Ball. “I’m sure you’ll charm everyone. Trust me, if I have any worry, it’s that some of them might like you even too much,” he says in an even tone, keeping his gaze on Jimin. “I can’t tell you what to do, but I do advise on not accepting any dance requests. Most of them only need two minutes to get a person to say the exact words they want and I would like to leave the party with your soul intact and my hands clean.”The weight of Yoongi’s words barely register before Jimin’s brain picks up on another part of the speech much more important than ‘I would kill someone for trying to buy any piece of you’, which is “Not accepting any dance requests .”“Wait,” Jimin’s eyes go wide. “No. Please tell me you supernatural folks don’t do the ballroom dance things either. I’ve been picturing a mansion and several rooms filled with people engaging in boring conversations, pole dances, and lots of rooms with extremely dubious activities going on, but—no ballroom dance.”“Kalif is the dancer type of host, unfortunately,” Yoongi informs him in an apologetic tone. “Don’t worry. We have more than a week, I can teach you.”That’s a horrible idea.“Good! That sounds like a good idea,” Jimin nods, smiling through his panic. They smile at each other in a way that closes that topic and to stop himself from thinking about inappropriate thoughts about dancing chest to chest or even the stupid nickname, Jimin tries thinking of one of the questions he’s been meaning to ask Yoongi since he started researching. When he remembers something, he perks up. “Oh! Can I ask you something?”Yoongi nods at him. “Sure.”“How do you feed?” he asks, trying not to feel weird about it. Yoongi had told him after a couple of conversations where Jimin shyly asked about vampire things that he could ask anything. “I read there are vampires who do it differently and how it can all affect them and it just came to me that I never saw you feed all these weeks,” he explains, biting his lip in curiosity.Yoongi looks at him through his eyelashes, head tilting to the side.“Doesn’t that worry you?” the vampire asks first.“Not really,” Jimin replies honestly. “I’d be more concerned if I heard screaming.”Yoongi laughs at that, nodding. “You have a point.” Lifting his gaze, Yoongi explains with a smile. “I have a trap system. I… I set up traps all around the city. With a shift in Darkness, we can do things that work through the same mechanisms as a spell. I—I bottle up a thought, like “If you have thought this, stop here” and I place it in dark places all around town. If a person who steps through them has thought or done what I said, they’re lured to the nearest alley and there they stay. Until I show. They stay there like mouses in a cage, pacing back and forth and waiting for their destiny.”Jimin feels a shiver run down his spine, but he doesn’t look away from Yoongi.“What kind of people fall in your trap?” he asks, eager to know.Yoongi smirk widens.“People who have committed crimes and are burdened by it, but refuse to confess. Humans with twisted desires, who inflicted hurt on those who don’t deserve. Predators disguised in human skin, who commit acts as cruel as soulless creatures I have seen in my centuries…” Yoonig’s voice seems to lower the more he speaks and Jimin finds himself leaning forward, his knees lifted high and his chin supported on them. With a wicked smile and a soft whisper, Yoongi adds. “The last type tastes better.”Goosebumps lift all over Jimin’s arms and legs and he chuckles nervously, blinking away from Yoongi’s penetrating red gaze.“Sounds like a fair system to me,” Jimin offers, leaning back against the tree. Maybe he didn’t choose the best doubt to clarify if he wanted to stop his body from burning for Yoongi. “Do they suffer a lot? I mean… it must hurt,” he adds in an afterthought.
“They suffer enough,” Yoongi answers with a shrug. “It doesn’t necessarily hurt, but we can make it happen. For them, at least, it’s no pleasure.” For them.Jimin has another doubt regarding that, but asking about it threads too close to a line he’s not sure he can cross.His body tingles and remembering the stories and reports in one of his research books the previous night was either a blessing or a curse. Recalling the words ‘ bliss ’ and seeing the paintings attached to the pages, humans and other creatures’ heads tipped back in pleasure as bliss took over them, high on the poison being dipped in their veins as blood left their bodies.Jimin felt his dick twitch inside his pants and so, he decided his five minutes were up.“Happy to know that those who deserve as serving as tasty snacks,” Jimin jokes and then opens his map in front of him, opening the grimoire on the page it was. “Now… if you wanna read a little like the old man you are, I won’t be too far from you, as you know. I think the next cave is somewhere around here, so I’ll get back to that. Do you want another orb?” Jimin offers him, looking up at Yoongi.The vampire takes out the pocketbook from his pants and hums thoughtfully.“I prefer reading with lights if I’m honest.”Jimin presses on the small ball and watches as the spark inside it responds to his magic igniting it. The orb shines with light and slowly lifts up towards the sky, so Jimin pushes it in Yoongi’s direction.“I’ll be back,” he tells him, throwing his bag over his shoulder and guiding the other orb towards his path.Yoongi smiles at him and nods in affirmation.“Don’t go where I can’t hear you,” Yoongi sings to him.“Yes, Ancient Min,” he sings back, giggling.Yoongi’s low mumbling are left behind as Jimin walks through the trees, taking deep breaths and focusing once again in his surroundings.The information given to him by the grimoire is that the Kadupul can be grown and harvested from caves whose conditions mirror the ones in the Hylst Forest. When Yoongi had given him a map of Moldavia and Jimin took note of the numerous undergrounds and passages spread, he knew he had found his place.Thankfully, Yoongi allows him to roam alone whenever he’s close to a cave. He’s always quick to give Jimin his privacy and the cool and laid-back attitude is much appreciated by Jimin as someone who loves when people don’t suffocate or coddle him too much.He walks whilst glancing at the map, trying to find through the forests the indicating staircase they signaled the cave to be close to. For the Kadupul to grow, a cave as deep as one’s wishes must be found. Jimin read the paragraph describing the cave’s needed characteristics, both magical and spiritual as well as physical.When Jimin finally finds the wooden rail that leads to the staircase, he stops walking altogether, eyes ranking up and taking in the tall wall that hides the small cave entrance.Jimin hums under his breath, unsure about the dark entrance.It’s a good sign. He ranks his eyes around, taking note of the strong wind blowing his hair everywhere and how this must be close to the edge of the forest. Without further ado, he steps inside and starts walking in the darkness.The light orb follows him, revealing walls much taller than expected. For the Kadupul to exist, this cave needs to be as deep as Jimin’s desire but, sadly, he sees at the far end of the cave, about a hundred steps away from him, the wall closing off once again.He walks out, looking down to search for the next place to catalog.It’s whilst taking notes of the cave in his own grimoire that Jimin feels a harsher blow of wind raises goosebumps on the back of his neck.His attention is snapped to the present, high in alert of everything around him.It’s hard to see in the thick Forest, the only illumination coming from his floating orb, but Jimin’s eyes are good and well trained.He feels the magic humming underneath his skin as he attentively looks around, searching for the source of his chills.For a second, he thinks he sees a woman standing between the trees.He gives a step forward and narrows his eyes in the direction. Is it a woman, or a vision? He sees pale skin and red eyes, long black hair, but as soon as he gives one more step and blinks, it’s gone.
Yoongi…
Jimin’s goosebumps spread from the back of his neck to his arms and he closes the grimoire, putting everything quickly inside his leather bag.Undecided if the vision — and the name — were only in his mind or if something else is going on, Jimin decides to move on to the next spot, but he doesn’t venture too far.‘Yoongi…’ This time, the whisper comes from behind him, in the direction of the staircase. Jimin turns his head, trying to decide if exploring is simply a bad idea. His guts tell him something is wrong and he’d never ignore that, but the issue is that whatever is wrong seems to be attached to the voice.A ghost of something—a memory, a person, an event.Whatever it is, it’s lingering in the air and Jimin wants to clear it.Peace and balance deserve to be restored everywhere, he thinks as he walks towards the staircase. What if this is something Yoongi doesn’t even know of? Jimin could help, he realizes.The last thought is what makes him adjust his shoulders back and walk with confident steps to the direction of the wind. He expects a badly made staircase leading to a lower part of the forest, but he’s met with something else entirely.Close enough to touch the beginning of the rails, Jimin looks down to see that the wind is being blown by the huge drop in front of him. The forest clears and darkness stares back at him, the miserable staircase glued to the mountain looking ready to collapse at any moment.Well, that’s a deadly path if he ever saw one.“No, thank you,” he mutters to himself, turning to walk back to Yoongi, but once again, he doesn’t make it very far.Out of nowhere, the wind blows so hard Jimin hears his own screaming as his feet are lifted off the ground and his body is thrown back.Falling is nothing like in the movies.The only sensation Jimin feels is the hurtful impact of the unnatural wind against his middle, which throws him in the direction of the emptiness like a ragdoll.His scream must be muffled by the wind itself and the fact that he free falls, arms stretched forward desperately trying to grip something.It must be the release of his power or sheer dumb luck, but Jimin feels when his back hits the mountain and his feet crash against one of the wooden steps.He grips the first thing his hands find and falls a few meters down before he finally stops.
Fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck me.
Jimin only opens his eyes when he feels steady. He’s holding a vine and his feet are supported in one of the staircase’s wooden steps, but he doesn’t dare let go of the vine since the step feels fragile and soft beneath him. He’s breathing is ragged and desperate and when he looks up, Jimin sees only darkness and shapes.He must’ve fallen dozens of meters because the trees and the cave disappeared from his sight.His first instinct is to yell Yoongi’s name.He fights against it, whimpering as he holds on for dear life on the vine.The wind felt like a hand. Something supernatural definitely pushed him and he whimpers harder, sniffling away the tears of shock. Focus. Get back upstairs. You’re not dying falling off a cliff.There’s much to think about. His panic wants to question what happened and his fear wants to scream because he’s so high and he can’t see for shit, but there’s no room for panic or fear when there’s room for death.He tells himself to think. In his mind, his father repeats one of his life lessons for the millionth time and Jimin’s eyes snap open.He grips the vine so hard his nails must dig holes in his hands and he presses his body firmly against the mountain’s uneven wall. With a deep breath, Jimin empties his mind and feels nothing but the nature underneath his hands. It starts with a thought, but he repeats it enough times in his mind until his mouth is muttering as well.
Paths lead to an end, this is not mine.
There is wrong to be mend, I must be fine.
“Paths lead to an end, this is not mine, there is wrong to be mend, I must be fine,” Jimin repeats to himself, over and over again.Although he feels the vine slowly lifting him upwards, his mind concentrates on the rhymes only. While his insides are healed, having your freshly-closed wound be hit with the force of a truck takes away your strength more than Jimin could’ve imagined, but nature always comes for those who serve it truthfully.His body is dropped against the ground by the forest vines — which grew into roots — and when Jimin feels the soil beneath him, he rolls to the side with a grunt.He has no idea what the fuck has happened, but Jimin flips off the sky regardless. There’s sweat on his face and neck and he’s panting, but fuck the world if it thought that he’d be taken so easily.After a near-death experience only a few weeks prior, Jimin has no desire to taste Death anytime soon.He’s proven to be resistant enough to stick around.
Yoongi didn’t know what face he was making, but he guessed it wasn’t a good one.When Jimin returned to him with scratches all over his face and arms, Yoongi lept to his feet so fast he almost felt embarrassed for his motherly concern, but he saw beneath Jimin’s shrugging and dismissive attitude that almost falling off a goddamn cliff so shortly after finally getting to an ‘okay’ point shook him.Yoongi indulged him, of course. Jimin said there was no need for them to leave, masking his discomfort and shock in more research. It was easier to get him to accept Yoongi coming along and everything ran smoothly, they cataloged and checked two more caves before Yoongi finally convinced Jimin of returning to the castle.Once inside, though, Yoongi could finally take care of him and well, his distaste must be showing because Jimin sat in front of him with a frown, fiddling with the strings of his shirt.“Are you… are you mad at me?” the druid asks. His voice is nothing but a mumble, but he sounds extremely confused. Yoongi stops mid-motion, the cotton with alcohol a few millimeters away from his face and when he doesn’t get an answer immediately, Jimin continues. “‘Cause that doesn’t make sense, hyung. I mean—that wouldn’t make sense because I didn’t do anything wrong. I know I could’ve—I don’t know, called for you, but I was a bit preoccupied with—why are you smiling?” he stops too, frown deepening.Jimin crosses both arms against his chest, his lips forming a thin line.“Jimin. I’m not mad at you,” Yoongi shakes his head, chuckling. “Sorry that it looked that way. If I’m mad at anything, it’s at the—the fragility of the human body,” he explains, scrunching his nose in distaste.All while cleaning Jimin, Yoongi could only think of how fragile and easily killed a human body was.Jimin could be run with one of those car things and be gone. Falling from a cliff was something deadly to him and Yoongi, stupid — or just old — as he was, easily forgot about it. His family now consisted of supernatural beings with an immortal body or highly durable ones.He wasn’t used to people hurting.Wasn’t used to seeing blood so easily, or the possibility of death so often.Slowly he lifts the cotton and starts moving back on Jimin’s face while keeping eye contact with him, giving him time and room to back away. When the druid doesn’t, his face schooled into something calmer, Yoongi continues cleaning his wounds.After a couple of heartbeats in silence, he hears Jimin’s whisper.“You’re worried about me.”It’s the wonder in his tone that catches Yoongi off guard. He stops again, leaning back to look Jimin better, and is met with his eyes looking so bright and alive that it takes Yoongi’s breath away.He’s smiling too—a shy smile on the corner of his mouth. When Yoongi’s eyes fixate on him, Jimin’s tanned cheeks gain the prettiest shade of pink and he ducks his head lower, giggling a little.“That’s cute, Ancient Min,” he whispers.It’s his turn to be caught off-guard, but Yoongi clears his throat and goes back to the pretty bruised face again so it can heal better.“Of course I’m worried,” Yoongi huffs out after a while. Jimin’s shy smile turns into a full one if his eyes crinkling and turning into the beautiful crescent moons Yoongi’s learning to memorize are any indicator.“A huge chunk of me got bit out, I’m trying not to be so hard on myself,” Jimin comments in a light-tone.“And you’re right to. I don’t even know how you can use as much magic as you’re using,” Yoongi adds. “Well, you’re physically fine, but I’m just being a worry-wart. I’ve been told I can be one,” he shrugs, recalling Taehyung’s words over and over. ‘Stop moping and worrying, Yoongi-ah!’ “Argent kept books on the townsfolk of Moldavia, I should be able to find a trusted healer to come and check on you.”“I’d appreciate it,” Jimin keeps glancing at him and their eyes meet every now and then and Yoongi’s heart unclenches slowly with each shared smile. “She’s to be trusted, right?”“Hm? Oh, Argent? Yes, definitely,” Yoongi assures him. “I’ll tell you the full story sometime if you want.”“Ah, you spoil me too much. Good stories, good company, decent meals. It’s great.”Yoongi makes no comment on the ‘decent meals’, already too used to Jimin’s teasing of him in the kitchen. As expected, he laughs, pleased with himself and the reaction of a bitchy look from Yoongi. The latter waits for the druid to stop his giggles to return to his neck, the last part bruised of him.They stay in silence in Jimin’s room as Yoongi finishes the cleaning process and before he loses the courage to, he asks. “Would you let me go with you tomorrow? To the caves, I mean… and feel free to say no, of course.”Finished with the cuts, Yoongi puts the utensils down and looks up at Jimin expecting an answer.Jimin’s looking at him with the glint in his eyes shining brighter. The druid leans back against his bed, putting both hands at his side. It’s an innocent motion, but the posture change in Jimin is what makes Yoongi’s throat run dry.His torso leaned back and his chin tilted slightly up both make him look so dangerously inviting that Yoongi has a hard time swallowing the knot that forms in his throat.“Of course you can,” Jimin replies after what it feels like an eternity.That’s his cue to leave, he tells himself. He gets up and gathers his things hastily, nodding in appreciation. “I’ll leave you to your nightly talks, then. See you tomorrow morning?” he asks, looking down at Jimin on the bed.Jimin is looking up at him with a determined expression on his face and Yoongi’s long life allows him to watch the flickers of anxiety in his body as well, the minor twitches at the tip of his fingers or the corner of his mouth—Jimin’s mind is reeling a thousand miles an hour and then—.He’s up and closing the distance between them. A small kiss is planted on the cheek of a very frozen Yoongi, whose every muscle are stiffened so he doesn’t move and do something stupid, reckless.One second, there are soft and big lips against his cheek, a feather touch that feels hot and burning and Yoongi wants to open a window in that warm feeling and live there then suddenly—gone.
Which is fine.Jimin sits back against the bed with the tips of his ears red and Yoongi, well…He’s absolutely losing his mind on the inside. The rational part of him still working — a minimal spot, clearly — tells him that was probably a thank you.Jimin must’ve grown tired of saying the two words and—fuck, Jimin.His shoulders are starting to withdraw, a sign he’s overthinking his move because Yoongi is an idiot and hasn’t said anything yet, so—.“Uhm. Thank you.”He blushes at the words and Jimin bursts into giggles.“Funny change of roles. That’s my line, hyung,” he teases easily, shoulders relaxing instantly.Yoongi bites his lips and thinks he needs to leave Jimin’s room before the boy gives him a heart attack. “You’re right, so I guess thank you and good night. Sleep well, Jiminie.” he bows and then freezes for a split second realizing what he’s doing.He’s an idiot.He dashes for the door so quickly he doesn’t even look back for a final goodbye, closing the door behind him.He exhales shakily, trying to understand why the fuck he fights this so hard.Who is Yoongi trying to fool? ‘Jimin’s room’. Difficulty breathing just because the boy is leaning on the bed, smiling at him in a sunny sunset, laughing with his head tilted back at Yoongi’s horrible puns.Jimin is everywhere. His little details, the things Yoongi realizes about him, and simply can’t let go of.He tells himself it’s the embarrassment of his mind glitch that he’s running from when he sprints towards his bedroom — and the bowing truly was unnecessary — but he knows it’s only a pebble in a fountain.Yoongi doesn’t know for how much longer he can pretend he doesn’t want to drown in everything that is Park Jimin and never surface to breathe oxygen yet again.
🩸
The next afternoon and evening, everything starts the same.They cook together, laughing as they share stories and comment on whatever comes to mind.Yoongi had managed to gather his thoughts better after morning came.He spent the entire night in the East Wing, checking the solar timetables and the last three items lacking in his list still unchecked, staring at him dauntingly, letting him know his own mission is failing, standing still as it usually is for so long.A Fire Ox, a Blue Moon, and a sacrifice.Growing tired of his mission is not an option, but feeling restless and like a failure already comes as second nature whenever he opens the golden doors.Regardless of his emotions, his thoughts are kept in check after he studies under the whirring machines and cryo chambers.He wakes Jimin up with a polite smile and they plan their routine during breakfast.“I cataloged three of them, but I think we should leave this Northeast part for later. The biggest caves seem to be far North, you know?” Jimin asks with his mouth full.Yoongi stares, amused.“I remember some of them,” he offers behind his cup of coffee—the only non-alcoholic beverage he stills enjoys the taste of. “We can start by the ones we know.”“Sounds perfect!” the druid answers, but it sounds more like ‘soun porfft’.Yoongi chuckles, sipping his coffee.“No manners, I swear.”Jimin throws daggers with his eyes.“Shut up. I’m hungry.”It only makes Yoongi laugh harder.After Jimin is fed and they’re both geared up, Yoongi holds Jimin in an embrace and they move through Darkness towards the top of the Hylst Forest.It never fails to surprise him how easily Jimin accustomed himself with the weird aftertaste of vampiric magic, which Yoongi comments to him.They don’t catch the sunset where they are that day, but after four days exploring and observing the view of it, Jimin doesn’t seem to miss it. The afternoon soon rolls into a chilly evening, the barely-visible sky turning to so many colors before settling on a dark blue and finally, pitch black.Everything is running smoothly until the moment it isn’t.Yoongi, much more attuned to Jimin’s body and mind now than he was a day prior, catches on to the change as soon as it starts.Jimin is a chatty person, easily filling in the silence with his honey voice and easy stories, something Yoongi is much grateful for. They’re a good balance to each other, Yoongi being the silence and peace when Jimin needs the stillness and Jimin being… well, him.When his focus turns razor sharp and their conversation turns purely business, Yoongi doesn’t even mind. Jimin draws, writes down, changes, and updates the maps, occasionally asking Yoongi for his help with lighting or just to tell him where they’re heading next.The silence turns heavier and Jimin’s shoulders start looking stiff, his movements heavy and harsher.He’s frustrated and visibly tired, but Yoongi doesn’t comment on it.He walks by Jimin’s side and helps however he can, but lets Jimin take his time with whatever is bothering his mind.Yoongi has some ideas of what could be wrong and keeps them to himself, not wanting to upset Jimin any further. If he wants to talk about it, he’ll ask for it himself.It happens exactly when they exit the fourth cave of the night, Jimin looks up and sighs so deeply that a bit of his soul must escape for a second.He turns to Yoongi with bags under his eyes that are visible even with the dim lighting and says in a hoarse voice.“You know what I miss? Getting shitfaced.”Well.“I have enough alcohol to get an entire party shitfaced,” Yoongi puts his hands in his pocket and cocks an eyebrow at Jimin, who seems less annoyed at the prospect of the offer.“Show me the way.”They make it back to the castle together and after Jimin takes his things upstairs, he joins Yoongi in the library. The vampire stands in front of his liquor stash with a pleased grin.“Make yourself comfortable,” he says, extending both hands invitingly. Jimin looks at all the alcohol with raised eyebrows and parted lips and Yoongi recognizes the look of someone who desperately needs a drink.“Will you get drunk with me, though?” Jimin asks, pouting.Yoongi frowns at him.“Uhm, impossible, remember? I can get pleasantly buzzed, at most,” he shrugs apologetically, but Jimin is staring at him like he'd grown another head. “What?”“Oh, Yoongi.”The way he says it, as if Yoongi is so naive and adorable, telling Jimin something so utterly incorrect that it’s funny, startles him. First, he’s not used to being spoken like he’s wrong or, worse, like he’s cute.Second, he sees it in a grin that spreads through Jimin’s face that the boy is sure of where he’s coming from. Jimin extends his hand forward in an invite and smiles at Yoongi.“C’mon. I’m sure your Sire had wolfsbane somewhere around that beautiful greenhouse and we are getting shitfaced on it, what do you say?”Yoongi looks down at the small extended hand waiting for his answer, the rings adorning Jimin’s beautiful fingers and wonders how much of a terrible idea it would be to get shitfaced with Jimin.Worst case scenario, both end up drinking a sobering potion after telling embarrassing stories and sharing parts of themselves they might have not been ready to say without the aid of alcohol, inhibition thrown out of the window with shots.Best case scenario, Yoongi gets shitfaced for the first time in centuries with a person he really, really likes.He lifts his hand and holds Jimin’s.“Alright. I can’t promise to get—I mean, it wouldn’t be smart getting shitfaced after so long, but yeah. Give me alcohol,” Yoongi concludes lamely, looking up to find Jimin’s eyes already on him.They make their way to the greenhouse infected by Jimin’s giddiness.Yoongi has to give himself a pep-talk on the way.He can’t allow himself to forget the reason Jimin wants to get shitfaced to begin with and that part is what reigns over most of his brain. He doesn’t know when he became such a clingy and watchful sap, but the druid’s wellbeing ranks higher than anything on his priority list.Whatever thoughts are troubling Jimin’s mind is important, but Yoongi won’t push them out of there.They hold hands until they’re inside the greenhouse and Yoongi tries not to miss the heat of Jimin’s small palm being engulfed by his hand.From the way Jimin’s voice fills in the room loudly, the druid moving between the corridors with precision and ease, Yoongi figures he’s free to sit down and allow the other to do his thing.Part of him attunes to the rambling while the other only watches Jimin moving, the vague concern still louder than anything else on his mind.
It doesn’t take long for Jimin to prepare them an entire jar of a drink. His hands work so expertly with the wolfsbane that Yoongi doesn’t even smell the poisonous plant. Jimin prepares the drink with some of the distilled Yoongi had, as well as a minimal amount of wolfsbane extract.All whilst preparing, he explains to Yoongi every point of what he’s doing.It makes the vampire smile, a small and fond grin on the corner of his mouth as he observes. Jimin pours both of them a glass and then sighs deeply, some of the tension seeming to leave his shoulders.“Your drink, Ancient Min,” he walks towards Yoongi and gives him his glass, sitting in front of them.It’s almost like they’re at a bar, sitting on a counter after being served their drinks. Yoongi’s stomach flutters nervously because he knows he’d never approach someone like Jimin. Too much on his mind, always, too many years separating them and building the usual anxiety of not having things in common to speak of, the beauty of those brown eyes who have seen too much and the dread Yoongi would feel over adding any more hurt to him.So many worries. Too many, constantly beating at the corner of his brain.But, if it was Jimin who would speak to him…“It’s been so fucking long. You’re literally a godsend, I had given up on enjoying the taste and the effect of alcohol for such a long time I had tricked myself into thinking I didn’t care.” Yoongi concludes, a nervous laugh escaping him. He clears his throat and raises his glass, unable to meet Jimin’s eyes for now. “Cheers.”“Prost,” Jimin clinks his glass on Yoongi’s and at the first sip, Yoongi can’t help but close his eyes and sigh softly.“This tastes good. What the fuck, Jimin?! Drinks never taste good,” he looks at the glass and its innocent-looking yellow-ish drink.“Your Sire has honey,” Jimin offers as an explanation, drinking a larger sip of his own drink and tilting his head back in pleasure, all past worries apparently gone. “And we both needed it.” He had, Yoongi’s brain corrects Jimin immediately, which only makes him wince infernally.He downs the rest of the glass with one large gulp, feeling the mixture burning its way down, heat looking behind his eyes. His centuries alive tasting much worse than this are the only reason he doesn’t squirm.When he opens his eyes after a heartbeat, Jimi is staring at him with his mouth wide open and his eyes sparkling. He starts laughing then, shaking his head in disbelief at Yoongi.“Why would you do that?” he asks, laughing.“I might’ve needed that more than I thought,” Yoongi slurs out, and woah. Jimin’s body curls in more giggles and Yoongi can’t help a smile either, giddy at the warm feeling spreading through his body that he hadn’t felt in so fucking long.This boy in front of him is magical.“You’re magical,” he blurts out at Jimin, thankfully sounding as awed as he felt.Pleased, Yoongi watched Jimin’s eyes pressed into little crescent moons as he continued laughing, apparently finding Yoongi’s loose tongue extremely endearing. Yoongi is aware he’s kind of laughing at him, but making Jimin happy is such a nice thing that he can’t bring himself to care, so he goes on.“I mean, you already know you’re magical. Druid boy. I remember calling you just that in my head, but now—super duper magical. Fuck, you must be great at parties,” he groans, stupefied at Jimin’s existence at the moment.“Please stop, hyung! Oh—my stomach hurts,” Jimin pleads, hiding his face in his hands. “I didn’t mean to make it that strong, I’m sorry,” he amends, still giggling.“It’ll pass soon, it’s okay Minnie,” Yoongi says, sitting down in one of the chairs. He places his glass on the greenhouse’s counter, content to watch Jimin and enjoy the light buzz in his head. “Where did ya learn to make this? ‘s good. Tasty too.”Jimin is leaning against the counter since it’s high enough for him to support his elbows on it. He places his chin on his hand and looks at Yoongi with a cheeky smile.“I watched my mom while she worked in her Apothecary,” he tells Yoongi, his sweet voice barely a whisper, like it’s a secret.
It makes Yoongi lean on the counter too, curious out of the sudden, always so interested in what Jimin has to say. He’s so young, yet so magnetic. The shine on Jimin’s eyes ascended because of Yoongi’s behavior. He continues, smile growing softer at each word.“It was like, almost a whole decade, hyung. I got totally obsessed with my mom’s potion skills after she came back from her apprentice with Pendragon. I think it started because the first week she returned, she spent the whole afternoon and evening preparing a bunch of stuff in her greenhouse, dad, Ggukie and I made dinner and when she stepped outside — our greenhouse was inside our house ‘cause not everyone lives in castles,” he sasses, accent thicker and voice rising with excitement. Yoongi giggles at him. “And when she sat down at the table, she was complimenting how good and smelled the supper looked and hyung—,” his eyes shine, watery and sparkling a little, like tiny diamond stones. “She smelled so good. So fucking good,” he chokes out a burst of laughter and Yoongi finds himself laughing along, his own eyes burning with the threat of tears, even though his chest feels light.The happiness of Jimin’s memory spreads through everything and Yoongi realizes before the druid—the slow and steady change in the plants. Yoongi’s hawk eyes can almost see the dew forming on it.He blinks once, no time has passed yet and Jimin, lost in his own memory, simply continues, unaware of how nature blooms and blossoms as a response to his very nature.The shine on his eyes is not all in Yoongi's head either. Faintly, they’re glowing.“Whenever we say her name… that same smell, it was born that night when she came back. I remember her telling me when I was little how every person on the planet had their own scent and how each one said everything you need to know about a person. To never ignore when someone’s perfume made you feel safe or suffocated, wanting to turn your nose away.”Yoongi nods vehemently, agreeing wholeheartedly with Nadia’s words of wisdom.She sounded like a very smart woman whenever Jimin spoke of her.“That seems like a very good reason for espionage,” he comments seriously.
Jimin smiles at him. “Of course you would agree with my mischief,” he commented with an eye roll.“Does it really count as mischief if you had a reason, though?” Yoongi asks, smiling sideways with his fang showing, knowing how that expression makes him look every bit the trouble his species can bring. It’s worth it, ‘cause there’s the high-pitched giggling he adores so much. “You were born to trust your sense of smell before anything else, the same way I was. We’re magical beings and the truly smart ones always know which scent binds deeper in their magic and therefore, should always be heard,” he adds with a shoulder shrug. “Law of the smartest.”“Well, my mom didn’t really remember or agree with that logic when she found out about it,” Jimin smiles sheepishly and his body moves shyly, cooling into himself a little.
He almost seems to have the innocence of the boy who was caught and most likely whooped sideways by Nadia, but Yoongi sees the pride in his tiny reptilian eyes.
“I tried arguing, but—about as useful as you can probably imagine. I must’ve watched her for nine years and a half. I learned so much, fuck. That woman knew how to turn mold, mud and blood into gold if you asked. Looking back on it now, I’m glad I broke the rules and did that shit because half the things I know are thanks to that. There were many potions she made that weren’t age suited for me to be learning, obviously, which is why she was so pissed off when she found it, but the range of—I…” Jimin stops suddenly, mid-rant.Yoongi was running his index finger through his glass’s ring and listening attentively, so he caught the twist in his posture, a sudden loss of confidence after rambling for so long.“Sorry, am I talking too much? Maybe you wan—““Jimin,” he stops him, then smiles and gestures forward. “I love listening to you talk. You have a beautiful voice. Go on.”He doesn’t know where it comes from, if it’s still the boldness from the laced-drink or just the happiness in Jimin’s voice and the way he’s lighting up the room without even realizing, like sunshine beams between forest leaves. A cascade of yellow happiness.Jimin’s blush erupts from his neck up, his cheeks becoming a peachy dream.Yoongi feels like he made the Sun blush.He smiles at his own infatuation, wondering if he’ll run out of ways to think Jimin is beautiful that evening.“Look, I’m not the only one enjoying it too,” he adds when the boy doesn’t speak, gesturing around them to the greenhouse.Jimin snaps out of his face and looks around, features smoothing. His eyes widen when he observes how green and alive the entire greenhouse feels and looks like around them.The peach in his cheeks go spread to his ears too and he stifles a laugh behind his hand.“Oops.”“They haven’t done that in a long time,” Yoongi adds softly. He’s feeling better already so he lifts his glass to Jimin and raises an eyebrow. “Please?”He’s asking both for more alcohol and for more of Jimin and as always, he’s understood by the other in minimal words.
Jimin pours him another glass and goes back to talking about the experience of learning his potions skills, how he avoided Jungkook for weeks by telling his brother he was learning how to use blades and the inevitable fall of having to learn it to hide what he was doing.“Why didn’t you let him come?” he asks, curious as hell. He’s sipping slower this time, matching Jimin’s rhythm. “What’s the point of pretending you’re training alone just to have to train another day with him?” he adds, curiosity peaking higher.Jimin shakes his head fast, his blonde hair bouncing.“Hell fucking no. Jungkook? Hyung, as talented as he is, and the little motherfucker is talented because he learned all my unauthorized years of apprentice in, fuck—two? Three years tops? He could’ve never learned as young as I did,” Jimin explains factually, no smugness or bragging on his tone. “I’m an air druid. Was born under a Blue Moon, hyung. By the riverside. I can be dangerous, but my magic’s nature is fluid, which is incredible for performing different types of magic. Jungkook’s affinity is electricity, remember? No way that would work.”Yoongi nods—he remembers their conversation at the library. It makes sense, then. A window or a vial would’ve been broken and their mothers would’ve discovered the little feat much earlier. Yoongi smirks at Jimin’s tenacity to know something like that at such a young age.As the conversation continues, Jimin does most of the talking, prodded, and encouraged by Yoongi’s questions and clear interest.It’s easy to make him talk because he likes it, preens under the attention like the greenhouse did under his thumb.The druid caught on to how Yoongi is quieter, more subdued, and how it takes a while to coach him out of it since day one. Unlike most people, he was patient when Yoongi only wanted to listen. Jimin didn’t force him or push him to talk if he didn’t want to and Yoongi adored him more and more by it.He also didn’t confuse Yoongi’s short answers with disinterest and by the time they had both finished the drink on their hands, Yoongi was already laughing loudly, his body melted against the golden counter and loving the echo of their voices through the glass construction.Not every evening could be like that. In many years he learned that great conversations and amazing days like those were hard to come by. He blushed more often than he had since meeting Yerin all those decades ago. Pretty people could render him weak in ways he couldn’t explain and Jimin…Well.Jimin was pretty from his words, his face, his magic, his laugh, his voice and mischievous mind, all the way down to his damn does.They laughed so hard together that both their stomach hurt and the conversation switched effortlessly between topics. Jimin’s family, Yoongi’s preference of cities, what it was like where the druid grew up, what were his favorite destinations throughout that year and between more drinking and their eyes being locked on each other, Yoongi gets drunk more on Jimin than anything else.After the last two glasses are poured, counting three for each one of them, they’re both buzzed enough. Jimin pouts at the jar when he sees the drink is almost finished—places the thing down and scrunches his nose at it, then returns to his story as if nothing happened.Yoongi’s only thought throughout the whole story of getting stuck in a cabaret with his friends and having to be rescued by a none-too impressed Jungkook is that Jimin would get along so great with Taehyung.“—and never in all my years, I had been disrespected like that,” he finishes dramatically. “Ever!” He adds for emphasis, almost dropping some alcohol on them.Yoongi’s chest is shaking in laughter.“I told him never to call me again when he needed to get away from the girls and boys that were fawning over him, ungrateful brat.” Jimin’s voice is lower when he’s tipsy and his accent is thicker as well, two things Yoongi enjoys way too much. When the druid sees him laughing, he puts his drink down only to push both fists against Yoongi’s chest, laughing. “Stop laughing at me! You’re just like him,” Jimin complains, whining.“Your younger brother had to—outch! Stop hitting me! He rescued you from a Succubus Madam who owned a cabaret, you don’t—oh my god, you’re gonna fall. You don’t get to be mad at us for laughing at you,” Yoongi has to hold Jimin from laughing from his chair, holding onto his elbows as they laugh at each other.Carefully, the druid takes a seat back and breathes deeply, soothing his clothes with his hands like a gentleman. His flushed cheeks make his smile even more charming.“Whatever. You two would get along just fine, I could see it,” he comments with an eye roll, as if that’s a bad thing.Yoongi lifts his glass to his lips.“Funny, I was thinking the same.” At Jimin’s confused look, he adds. “Not about me and Jungkook—although, it’s amazing to know I’d have someone in the castle who actually appreciates my company, but about you and Taehyung. You two would be best friends,” Yoongi tells him, sipping his drink.“How come?” he asks. Not ‘who is he? ’. Just ‘how come’.Like always, he knows exactly what to ask.“You two are pure trouble, but look like freaking angels,” he snorts, placing his glass down and then—stops. Sighs. “Were,” he corrects himself. “He was one of my… brothers. Post-mortem brothers, he liked to call,” Yoongi tells him, speaking about a past that still haunts him, but doesn’t ache.Talking about them with Jimin doesn’t hurt for some mysterious reason. Maybe it’s the fond and open look he gets from the druid, that shy smile as he supports his chin on his head and looks at Yoongi beneath his eyelashes like he gets it.Maybe it’s the way he understands the missing.“Tell me about him,” Jimin asks in a shy tone. “You talk a little, hyung,” he adds with a giggle, teasing.Maybe it’s because he knows it’s because Jimin wouldn’t care if he didn’t, would just shrug and go back to talking without making Yoongi feel bad about it.Or maybe it’s just because it’s him.Because it’s Jimin.“Tae-Tae was the first young one my Sire ever turned. Until then, it was only Namjoon and me, who he Awoke around the same time.” Yoongi’s tongue doesn’t feel heavy in his mouth like it usually does whenever he speaks of them and Jimin is still smiling patiently at him. He looks up at the night sky and continues. “Taehyung was around your age, I think. Liked to get in trouble and somehow, always got away with it. Joonie and I were always whining to Sire about how unfair it was, how spoiled Taehyung was, but honestly, we didn’t really care that much.”“Please,” Jimin scoffs knowingly. “We complain about how spoiled they are and then spoil them ourselves.”Yoongi laughs, nodding in agreement.“Exactly. Joonie and I did it too. Tae was hard to control in his first years because his Awakening wasn’t something easy at all, but honestly, he always did his best. He felt horrible whenever he couldn’t control the Darkness around him because—you know those people who are so good that even if someone tried their hardest, made a spell, a curse, fuck—if the whole world tried, they still couldn’t make them bad?” he asks.Jimin nods again and Yoongi sees it in his eyes that he does.“I’m familiar with them, yes,” the druid smiles.“That was Tae,” he exhales softly—sadly. Yoongi feels the small sting of pain at missing him, and yet the smile doesn’t leave his face. “Seokjin said that I brought life to this castle, Namjoon brought consciousness and Taehyung brought a heart.”“Seokjin?” Jimin asks, eyebrows pinching together.“He—Seokjin was our Sire.”“Oh.” Jimin blinks slowly, taking in the information. Finally, he seems to add the new names to the faces he probably drew in his mind, and he nods satisfied. “A beautiful name.”“Yeah, he was—,” Yoongi chuckles, imagining if Jin could hear Jimin’s words. Beautiful name for a beautiful man, wouldn’t you say. He can still hear him, loud and perfectly clear. “It’s funny you say that, ‘cause ‘beautiful’ is the first thing that came to anyone’s mind whenever they spoke of Sire Seokjin. Beautiful and deadly, we always used to add. Whenever me and my brothers were in parties, conventions, travels—every time we met someone new and they sighed our Sire’s name, saying ‘Beautiful Seokjin’ we corrected them: Beautiful and deadly.” Yoongi speaks slowly, a smile curling at the corner of his lips, his mind drifting far away. He takes the last sip of his drink, shrugs his shoulders. “None of the fuckers ever heard us, but we always warned.”“Hyung,” Jimin whispers, sounding like an exhale.Yoongi looks back in his direction and sees the brown eyes already on him.“Have you ever—” he stops, bites his lip and tries again. “Do you know… the fear of disappointing someone? And I don’t mean in one single task, but in the way… where everything would change. Disappointing deeply, like a scar in your soul,” Jimin explains slowly, picking the words carefully.Each word punctures holes in Yoongi’s heart.“Do you?” the boy asks again, voice low.Yoongi thinks of golden chambers, decades looking at himself in the mirror and nothing but loneliness staring back—nothing but longing.Nothing but pain and the exact feeling Jimin described.He looks deep into the druid’s eyes and nods. “I do, Jimin.”“What do you do with that?” he asks, breathy. He sounds so small and scared that Yoongi wants to wrap him in blankets and shield him from the weight of his mission, but he knows he can’t.“You do your best, always,” Yoongi answers, shrugging. “It’s all we can do and all they’d wish us to do. Nothing less and nothing more.”Jimin listens to him and slowly, nods.
“Yeah… I’ve been doing it.”“Jimin?” he calls and Jimin’s wondering eyes go back to him.“Yes?”“If you were in this past year one third as determined and dedicated as I’ve seen you be in these past weeks, you’ve been doing your best and then some. Your journey isn’t simply the end goal, it’s also the path that lead you there. Sometimes the final line doesn’t look like how we want it, but how we carried ourselves there—that matters. That counts as much as the end,” he clarifies, because Jimin needs to know.For a few seconds, Jimin doesn’t answer him.He just stares at Yoongi, eyes becoming a bit shinier under the bright Moonlight.His body is hotter than it was before—Yoongi can feel it in the air.“That was very wise,” Jimin whispers at him, starting to smile again.“I tried channeling my inner Seokjin,” he jokes, smiling with his gums and all, because he knows it pleases the boy. “Did it work?”“Yeah,” Jimin nods at him. “How come you’re telling me so much about them? You don’t seem like the type that tells people about yourself.”Yoongi could answer so many things, but the weight inside his chest grows too big for him to think of excuses or rhetorics to contour the question—Jimin feels too warm and Yoongi feels good, he feels full.He shrugs his shoulders again. He could make something up or give an elaborate answer, but the truth is simpler and better anyway, so he tells him, “Because it’s you.”Because it’s Jimin.The shaky breath that comes out from Jimin seems to still every leaf and life existing around them.In his eyes, Yoongi can almost see the reflection of magic swirling all around them and he watches almost in slow motion as Jimin’s body contours the small curve of the balcony between them and stands in front of Yoongi’s chair with those same eyes he had before kissing Yoongi’s cheeks, then— “Yoongi…”He doesn’t ask in words, but Yoongi can practically hear the question.His head is nodding before his mouth forms the words.“Kiss me, Jiminie?” he whispers, sounding like a question—a plea.Jimin closes the distance between their bodies and lips without hesitance, but when their lips touch, Yoongi’s mind goes very still. There are no other thoughts, just the feeling of Jimin’s plump and honey-stick lips on his, smooth like a snake, but sweeter than anything.His mind goes oh.
Oh.
This is what Seokjin meant about the right kiss.Yoongi’s right-hand lifts slowly and fits in the curve of Jimin’s neck and jaw, cupping him closer and pressing their mouths closer together.Their lips touching sends electricity through his whole body and when Jimin draws back with a small gasp, Yoongi’s mind becomes very aware of how utterly fucked he is.Yoongi licks his own lips reflexively and tastes Jimin on himself—closes his eyes. The taste seems to imprint on his tongue and he has to lean his forehead against Jimin’s for support, because he doesn’t know if he’s supposed to be feeling this way because of a simple kiss.His mind, body and soul can only focus on him.“Jimin…” he whispers softly, breathing shakily. “Your lips taste good, baby.”“Hyung,” the druid whines, pressing their bodies even closer together, so close they’re touching everywhere—chests pressing, Yoongi’s thighs open instantly to accommodate his body between them and the vampire pulls him in for another kiss, their lips dragging against each other in a delicious and slow rhythm.They kiss like they’ve got all the time in the world, Jimin’s soft gasps and whines being captured by Yoongi’s hungry lips and as soon as his tongue drags on Yoongi’s lips, asking for more, it changes.What was slow and steady becomes hungrier, deeper. They kiss like they mean it, tongues tasting one another without rush, a kiss so filthy and open that Yoongi himself can’t help but moan and press against the druid, both his hands roaming from Jimin’s neck to his waist, his back and his nape.Jimin pulls back for air and Yoongi’s mouth dips lower. “Hyung—ah, fuck, Yoongi,” he gasps at the nips and bites Yoongi starts leaving on his neck.He slows down at his name, nipping on Jimin’s earlobe. He feels like a starved man even though he fed not long ago, but he knows it’s a different hunger that’s eating his gut.“If I said I’ve been wanting you, but—fuck,” Jimin whole body shivers when Yoongi’s grip tightens and he presses his tongue and sucks on Jimin’s neck, affected by Jimin’s words. “If I said that—and, and said I didn’t say anything, or do anything because I didn’t—god, please don’t think I’m stupid, I just didn’t want to lose your friendship? So I just. Is that silly? Or this? Because I’ve—”Yoongi stops his trails of kisses and backs away just a little, putting some space between them.Jimin groans, hiding his face between his hands and Yoongi pulls them away slowly. “Hey, stop—Jimin, look at me,” Yoongi sees the druid peaking at him through his fingers and smiles at him, kissing the back of his hands while keeping eye contact. He kisses his wrist too, for good measure. “I didn’t wanna do anything because I didn’t want to do anything you wouldn’t want and I also liked you too much to fuck that up, so. Not silly. Not lame or stupid or whatever you’re thinking.”“You like me too much?” Jimin echoes, taking both hands away, face still flushed.Yoongi blushes as well, but doesn’t back away.“Me kissing you back like this wasn’t clear enough?” he teases him, pulling Jimin closer again, but slowly. When the druid comes easily, he kisses his right temple. “Maybe I should kiss more of you?” he asks against the druid’s ear, tone still teasing, but when Jimin melts against his arms and places his mouth on Yoongi’s neck, the vampire can’t help but groan. “Jimin.”“We should move somewhere better if you’re gonna kiss more of me,” Jimin says and his voice sounds so different when it’s husky and low like that. Yoongi’s mind spins and his hands-on Jimin’s waist hold tighter when he teases, voice dripping with suggestion. “I might not get it if I’m pressed against a counter—oh.” He groans at the back of his throat when Yoongi’s hands dip below his shirt. “Your bed, for example, has enough space for that.”Yoongi stills for a moment, then pulls Jimin back just enough so he can look at the boy.“Really?” he asks, serious.Jimin smiles like a predator and Yoongi feels something snap inside of him.“I might take a lot of convincing.”It’s like everything around him spins—green and hues of blue because of the shining Moon. Everything shines.He smiles back. “I can try my very best.”
The journey to his room is quick and when he gets there, both of them get lost in a mix of limbs.Yoongi tastes every inch he can because Jimin’s skin is addictive—matter-of-factly, everything about him is. The sounds he makes when Yoongi strips him off his clothes, the high-pitched whining when Yoongi lays himself on top of Jimin still fully clothed and discovers how much the boy loves to be praised.It drives Yoongi mental, too close to losing control over the part of him that succumbs to animalistic instincts because he sounds like a dream. Like a prayer.Jimin moans loudly when Yoongi tells him to and his body flushes all the way down his chest, Yoongi finally discovers.“I want to hear you, baby,” he mutters, licking the boy’s nipples and he answers like he had so many times—a moan, which to Yoongi is music.“Hyung, please,” he sings.It’s desperate and beautiful, which is the only thing Jimin is allowed to feel.Which is why when he starts kissing down at Jimin’s stomach and sees the flash of distaste, his hand rising to cover the scar on his left side, Yoongi makes sure to put it away.“Stop. Hey—Minnie, look at me baby.” Jimin looks down at him and Yoongi holds his gaze as he kisses right on top of it. “You’re gorgeous,” he informs him seriously, continuing to kiss the memory. “All of you.” Another kiss. “‘S all beautiful,” and another. “Badass incredible baby, fuck—Jimin if you knew how fucking beautiful you are, baby. Your face and body and tattoos and every scar on you that tells the world how fucking good you are—brave, drop-dead gorgeous. That’s you, baby. No scar in the world that could change that.”“Yoongi —fuck, get here, get in here,” Jimin whines loudly, making grabby hands at Yoongi so the man smiles, gladly obliging.They kiss frantically and Jimin protests how many clothes he’s still wearing and just like that—warmth.He burns all, feeling the heat radiating off of their entangled bodies.Jimin allows Yoongi to kiss every inch of him, tongue running through his skin and tasting his sweat, the pre-come that pools at the tip of his neglected dick. Yoongi worships him like he’s wanted to for weeks and in return, Jimin flips them around out of a sudden and puts his mouth on Yoongi, wrapping his beautiful and pink lips around Yoongi’s cock like he was starving for it and Yoongi—fuck.Yoongi is gone.He moans and praises Jimin endlessly, much to the boy’s pleasure, getting lost in the sensation of his mouth. He lets Jimin do whatever he wants and has to basically bribe Jimin to get him back up, but it works.Jimin allows Yoongi to catch his oils and stretch him open right where he is, sitting on top of Yoongi’s hips. The view is more than enough, Jimin looking like a god with his skin shining with sweat and his cheeks flaming red.Then, Jimin lowers himself ‘till his mouth is against Yoongi’s, kissing the vampire messily, groaning at the fingers inside him stretching him open. “Hyung, it would feel good, wouldn’t it? If you bit me?” the druid asks as if it’s nothing.Yoongi has to stop altogether, his entire body stiffening, which obviously upsets Jimin, who wiggles on top of him.“Yoongi,” he whines in complaint.“Jimin…”“Just answer me,” he bites back.Yoongi swallows dry. “It would.” Jimin isn’t a victim. He can’t drink, not properly, because Jimin is still being recovered through magic, but a bite, technically, he could make it feel incredible.“Then do it.”Yoongi takes his fingers out, not caring too much for the whine of complaint at that, flips them back again so Jimin’s back is against the bed and—.He kisses Jimin before doing anything else.Melting on top of him, tasting him to ground himself.When he pulls back, he can see a line of spit connecting their bottom lips and curses at himself for finding Jimin’s fucked out face and everything turning messier so mind blowingly hot. “It’ll have to be quick,” he informs Jimin sternly, no room for arguing. “You’ll feel a bit high, but the effect will go away after a couple of minutes, so no need to panic, okay?”Jimin nods. “Do it. Then—inside me. You’ll fuck me, right, Ancient Min?” he asks, finding through his hazy mind to tease Yoongi. Oh, Jimin.Instead of answering, he flips the boy on his stomach and places a pillow under his waist. Jimin arches his back at the position and it’s that which does it—Yoongi was thinking he’d have to work himself up to bite him, but the way he presents himself, the way he can hear Jimin’s heart pumping high—Yoongi bites him.He tastes amazing, everywhere. As incredible as every inch of him.There’s something honey-whiskey about Jimin’s blood. Something addictively sweet, and Yoongi wonders if it was the alcohol or if it’s just his mind projecting the intensity of the night onto it. Regardless, it’s the best thing his tongue has ever tasted in all his years.He stops drinking altogether, too fast for Jimin’s liking and completely lifts his torso, putting distance between them.
Yoongi pins him down, face flat on the bed and Jimin’s mind is spinning in ways it never did before.
Jimin, who had been almost dead, fought a handful of battles, hell, he had a direwolf snap their gigantic jaw at the side of Jimin’s body, sinking their long teeth inside his flesh and opening a wound that he didn’t even know would ever close, and yet…It wasn’t this.
Yoongi’s body is hot, so hot where it presses against his ass. He feels his fingers digging hard into his hips, gripping tight enough to feel bruises and he moans loudly—something deep and guttural, burying his face into the silky sheets.
He must be spinning too much, actually.“Yoon..” he whines, so low he’s scared he won’t be heard, that Yoongi won’t say anything.“‘m right here.” He feels the hand gripping his neck loosening up and Yoongi leans lower, placing a gentle and wet kiss to the back of Jimin’s nape. “Love, I’m right here with you. Take a deep breath for me, Minnie.”“Hyung.” He called Jimin Love. I’m right here.Jimin feels warmth spread through his chest, light and easy. The breath that he didn’t know he was holding leaves with a soft sigh and he nods, drowning in those words.
Love, love, love.
“Feels so good,” Jimin whines, higher than before. His back is arching and his cock hangs heavier than before between his legs, neglected and leaking at the tip both from the high of being bitten while feeling so deliciously full—entrapped in Yoongi, their bodies vibrating with energy, hot and sweaty at the touch.“Need you to breathe again, Minnie.” Yoongi’s lips are close to his ear and he nods in understanding, feeling the brush of Yoongi’s lips against his earlobe. Jimin takes a deep breath and grinds his body back against Yoongi’s earning a chuckle from the other. “You’re back with me?”“Yeah,” he sighs content.“Do you wanna stop?” he asks, voice serious enough that Jimin knows he means it. He’s also stroking Jimin’s hair back in such a soothing manner that for a while, Jimin simply leans into it.Patiently, Yoongi waits.Jimin wonders how his body can still feel like that, as if he’s floating in a warm ocean.The effect from the bite dissipates after a couple of minutes — like Yoongi said it would — but pinned under Yoongi, feeling the vampire’s chest so close to his back, Jimin still felt his insides swimming in liquid gold.He focused on the feeling and noticed it was like an electric current, an answer in the magic inside his veins at the very touch of Yoongi.Every inch the vampire touched—his lips softly kissing Jimin’s temple, his strong body behind him, anchoring but still not smothering, those big hands firmly holding him in place… everywhere they touch, Jimin drowns.The words spilled from Yoongi’s lips sealed the heat inside him permanently because it was him , it was Yoongi and his sinful lips and his patient touches.Jimin never felt that way before, not by far, and Yoongi drips that into him like warm summer waves on a shore, making Jimin instantly addicted.“Say it again, Yoongi,” he says finally, after what it feels like an eternity.Yoongi hums behind him, having heard him perfectly, then repeats it, just because Jimin asked it.Because he wanted it.“Said I’m right here, love.” Yoongi starts placing kisses from his nape down to his spine, moving only inches. “And also asked if you wanted to stop.” One kiss. Two kisses. Down, down, down… Jimin squirms happily, remembering better now that the fog had cleared his mind just how horny he is. He whines and starts shaking his head profusely, but Yoongi doesn’t seem to catch it. “Do you want me to stop, baby?”
I’m right here, love.
“No! No, please, hyung. Please, go on. Told you, feels so good. Y’know it. Can’t you feel it? ‘m so hot, I want it again. Want you back inside me, please.”
Yoongi abides happily.When he lines himself up with Jimin’s stretched hole, he feels a hook of anxiety pulling inside of him, but it soothes when his lips kiss along Jimin’s jawline. He slides inside muttering Jimin’s name and he goes slowly, allowing Jimin’s body to take in the stretch and he doesn’t move until the druid begs him to do so.Their bodies move in unison.Yoongi fucks Jimin slowly at first, only his hips moving back and forth as he keeps Jimin pinned down and kisses wherever he can reach, but when Jimin starts meeting his thrusts, Yoongi goes harder, hips snapping faster.His room echoes with the sounds of skin slapping against skin for an amount of time that Yoongi can’t keep track of.Jimin’s and Yoongi’s name are both moaned loudly, repeatedly as they fall into a rhythm, fucking each other and losing themselves in the feeling of their bodies.Yoongi can’t tell when it was the last time he lost notion of reality, but inside Jimin, he almost loses notion of himself.Before they come, he flips Jimin back over again on his back because the younger stars muttering between his nonsense and soft ah ah, fuck that he wants Yoongi’s eyes so he switches, pushes back inside and it’s almost instant.Jimin’s arms lock around his neck and pulls him into a bruising kiss that ends with both of them breathing against each other’s lips more than anything.When they come, they come together.Yoongi is vaguely aware that somewhere inside the castle, he hears the sound of a window blowing up, glass shattering everywhere, but he doesn’t give a single fuck.He feels it, the burst of magic that results from the elated and mutual orgasm, both muttering each other’s name as they see white.He doesn’t know how long it takes his body or mind to come back to reality.Not that it matters. Reality and the magical mindplace he finds himself in for those hours are awfully alike: They both start and end with him wrapped in Jimin’s arms.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
❝ I have elected to become monster & beauty & grace & terror. I will not go.❞
— Venetta Octavia,
from “misotheism”.
Yoongi never thought he would get to wake up with this view.He didn’t think he would be able to fall asleep, for starters. Well—his version of ‘sleep’. The previous night, once Jimin was tucked in bed with lips parted and breathing softly, Yoongi smoked too many cigarettes to count before he could shut his mind off properly.In his mind, images of Jimin sighing and whining mixed with memories that haunted him, still fresh—always fresh in his mind.The soft curve of the druid’s lips pressing against his without a single drop of fear still echoes inside his chest.It’s difficult paying attention to anything else for hours.He wondered what Jimin would think of him if he knew about his quest if the druid caught a whiff of the horrors and wonders he accomplished just for the sake of his mission.Mostly, he replayed Jimin’s words in his head. I just didn’t want to lose your friendship.The notion that the boy laying in bed in front of him didn’t want to lose him, as if he could lose Yoongi in the first place, as if there was anything in the world that could derogate the vampire away from him other than Jimin’s own wish—he sighed happily. There were no scenarios possible for that to happen. Unless Jimin himself asked Yoongi to step back, to not contact him anymore, his worries were completely in vain.That didn’t mean his worries weren’t.Yoongi thought about that until he couldn’t think anymore and then decided to will himself into resting. Although sleeping wasn’t an option, staying fully alert and awake the entire time for your eternal life wasn’t an option either, so he recalled Sire Jin’s, laid beside Jimin in bed and willed his mind to quiet, opening his subconscious and seeping into darkness.When he’s brought back to the present moment, it’s to the view.It’s the boy’s stirring that brings him back to the present, soft sighs escaping his lips as he tosses and turns his body, laying on his side and consequently, facing Yoongi. He isn’t awake yet, but sleep must be evading him at this point, and Yoongi—.The vampire can’t help it. His hands are moving before he can stop them, taking the blonde strands of hair away from Jimin’s face as carefully as possible.He sees the way Jimin has to hide his surprise at the gentle and soft gesture, but when he hears no complaints, he lets his instincts finish what they started and he brushes through them with a content smile on his face.He’s never had the urge to just—to touch. Instead, every time Jimin’s body seems to be close to his, Yoongi somehow finds an excuse to have his hands on him. Even before he could—before he allowed himself the little touches, he’s always wanted them.Now that he can, he indulges. He trails down Jimin’s cheeks and he loves how warm they feel under his fingers, a contrast that he felt in every part of his body the previous night. It makes him feel hot too, even though that’s nearly impossible.By the sounds outside his window and the soft pink and yellow colors that paint the sky, he guesses it’s mid-afternoon. Yoongi gets to spend a few more minutes appreciating the beauty in Jimin’s relaxed and sleepy features—he could get used to the way Jimin’s lips look that morning, puffed and slightly bruised.
Even with his tousled hair pointing in every direction and his skin being marked in a few different colors, Jimin looks ravishing. Matter-of-factly, it’s exactly how he looks so debauched and yet so—innocently adorable, with that rosy blush on his skin that makes him look so good. Yoongi appreciates each of those details before the other stirs again, opening his eyes slowly.It’s heartwarming to watch the change and memories flood back into Jimin’s mind—Yoongi sees it in his chocolate eyes, the ghosts of last night’s memories making themselves known once again. He doesn’t know if being caught lovingly caressing his hair does it, or if Jimin believes what Yoongi told him when it started, but the smallest bit of tension that wakes up with the druid is gone after a few heartbeats.“Waking up feeling like I’m dreaming…” Jimin whispers, leaning his body towards Yoongi. “Mmm. I like it.”Yoongi feels Jimin cuddling closer to him, tangling their legs together and wrapping his arm around Yoongi’s middle so casually. He chuckles, kissing the top of Jimin's head.“Do you always sound and look like this in the mornings?” he asks in return, feeling and hearing the spike in Jimin’s heartbeat as a result of his words and smiling pleased to himself. “I like it.”Jimin fits himself better against Yoongi’s body, comfortable with touching now that they have crossed that line. Yoongi loves it and realizes how much he'd instead missed being touched; not only in the loving way that Jimin does, but in general. Other than Heba and Arden, there weren’t many people left in his life and the ones that remained were great, but they weren’t them—weren’t his family.“I can hear you thinking,” Jimin jokes, his lips pressed against Yoongi’s clavicle. “You’re always this talkative in the mornings?” he sasses, giggling a little.Yoongi smiles again, hugging Jimin’s body a little tighter for a second.“Hmmm, not really. I’m usually a bit quieter,” Yoongi jokes back.Jimin shakes his head against him, laughing quietly and Yoongi thinks about how perceptive he is. About his emotional intelligence when meeting his friends and how fierce he is with protecting his own family. He thinks about all that while Jimin stays in silence, enjoying the peace and quiet of waking up, not bothered in the least by Yoongi’s mind lost in thoughts.So Yoongi thinks about how Jimin deserves to know many more things other than just dancing before the ball, and speaks before insecurity bites his tongue and nothing comes out. “I wanna tell you about my family, Minnie.”The words feel heavy on his tongue and they weigh on more than just him—Jimin stills in his embrace, not by anxiety or anything bad. Yoongi knows that because Jimin pulls back just enough to lay his head on the same pillow as Yoongi and look at him with that open expression or surprise.“Are you sure?” Jimin whispers, knowing well enough how meaningful family is.Yoongi trusts him, he takes note. He trusts someone that isn’t his friends and the thought is both thrilling as it’s terrifying, but the second half doesn’t stand a chance against Jimin’s smile blossoming on his face, his eyes turning into crescent moons.“I’d love to hear,” Jimin answers with glee and excitement.It’s not easy thinking about them or their history, but the vampire has a sudden need to share this important part of him. He isn’t a being to have needs or urges—for centuries now he’s had a mission, and nothing else.The light of the afternoon illuminates the bed and looking at who he holds in his arms, Yoongi thinks that now that might not be all.He licks his lips, eyes darting away from the druid’s watchful attentive eyes, trying to think of where to start.“Do you remember when technology started shifting?” He asks, looking back at Jimin. Jimin nods with a solemn look.
From Yoongi’s calculus and his stories, Jimin’s family must’ve been one of the many targeted and persecuted for witchcraft—parents like Jimin’s were of insane value, the talents of women like Nadia were both desired by scholars who developed new technologies and religious fanatics with ignorant political agenda. Yoongi already imagined from the small pieces that Jimin let out that he and his brother had to escape at a young age, right when things began.“Well, that was when things started changing for us—supernatural beings, we started dividing. So far, most Kings and Queens openly requested Sorceresses to their courts, many druids and Oracles lived amongst the common folk and the highest ones in power, in the open, but—but we have always been 'them ', you see?” He explains. “And when those religious cults started widening their scope, aggression grew and we simply… retreated. It’s easier being amongst us. I recall you telling me of Sea Inn and those communities—villages, caves, in forests and undergrounds, they’re growing extremely common. But that peaceful separation isn’t enough for some of us.”Yoongi feels his chest tighten, the squeeze common already to him.There was a reason he and his family kept entirely to themselves. No amount of bloodshed would be enough for the eldest people who came before them and ironically, in all of old age, he preferred the younger view. They all did. They would’ve loved living in a community such as the one Jimin did, but the choice was taken from them before they could.“Are you talking of the Elders?” Jimin asks in a whisper and Yoongi’s attention snaps back to him, eyes going a little wide. Catching his surprise, Jimin shrugs his shoulder like he always does, half cocky half shy. “I snooped,” he stated in an obvious tone. “My parents were lousy at keeping both of us from knowing things. Ggukie had precognitive dreams at, like—four, maybe five years old, for a couple of years. I had a family curse to break from birth, so my connection with Death was wide and open and my nana—my mom’s mom, she was a High Priestess and an Oracle and foresaw a lot about this.”“Good gods,” Yoongi laughs, trying to think of the work Nadia and Bonhwa had in raising brothers like Jimin and Jungkook. Jimin laughs with him, probably thinking something along those same lines, and whispers to Yoongi.“We’re a handful, I know but at least we’re smart. And they drove us as crazy as we did them, I promise you that.”“I can imagine.” Yoongi smiles at him and tries to recall where he was, the knots in chest already forgotten. “Right. Well, the Elders who rule all the different branches of all supernatural beings are… as understanding and friendly as you can imagine a group of old, wrinkly and old things to be,” Yoongi says with a scoff. “And unfortunately, Sire was a part of that by heritage.”“Oh .”“Yes. ‘Oh’. I can guarantee you, meeting any of them is ten times worse than you think.”“Is Kalif an Elder?” Jimin asks curiously.“Gods, no. Although he wished very much he was,” Yoongi answers with a roll of his eyes. Why one would want the burden of trying to be heard amongst those horrible people, he couldn’t bear to understand. “He’s part of the Vampir Council, but not the Elders.”“Councils are by vote, right?” When Yoongi nods in confirmation, Jimin lays with his back to the bed, propping one arm underneath his head. “And Elders, only by heritage,” he continues, and Yoongi nods once again, sitting up on the bed with his legs crossed.“You snooped a lot, huh?” he asks, chuckling.Jimin blushes a little and nudges him with his thigh. “Shut up and go on. You said that peace wasn’t enough for them?” Jimin prompts him, shifting his hips and lying comfortably beneath the sheets.Yoongi’s eyes can’t help but dart lower, where the red silk meets Jimin’s naked hipbone. He wonders if Jimin is aware that he looks like a painting, his tanned skin beautifully contrasting the color of the sheets, which cover only the lower half of his body.His chest, gorgeously painted with tattoos, is filled with bruises and scratches all over them and it’s the first time Yoongi sees Jimin with marks and doesn’t feel an ache in his chest—on the contrary, actually.Seeing them brings a smile to Yoongi’s lips, a distracted and predatory grin of pride and delight, but when he licks his lips, he’s brought back to the moment when Jimin kicks him with his knee, laughing at him.“Stop ogling me and go back to the story.”Yoongi looks up and his face is bright pink, his smile huge and flirtatious.“I can do both,” Yoongi bites back, putting his hands on Jimin’s strong thighs. That’s better, he thinks. He enjoys touching the boy, so he does so, massaging Jimin’s thighs as he tries to gather his thoughts and go back to the story before he’s kicked once more. “Peace wasn’t enough because they still have the old mentality of Horus, sometimes. It’s like they are children, I swear, Jimin.”“An eye for an eye... Let me guess, they think communities are the cowards way out.”Yoongi scoffs out loud, groaning. “See?! Even a young man, who’s lived centuries less than them, can connect their dots within seconds. They’re supposed to evolve! Ancient and wise, that's what they're supposed to be! But no. They're a bunch of fucking children.” Yoongi protests, voice rising a little at the old anger which bubbles any time he thinks of this.“What would they have happened instead?” Jimin asks, sounding both curious and exasperated. “They wanted us to retaliate? Kill them all? We might be able to, but for how long? They’re a larger number than us and despite that not affecting the long-term fight, it’d still be a horrid and endless bloodbath. They’d rather have what—some centuries of battles and wars until we wipe them all out?” he asks, scoffing at the thought, but when his words register, he looks up at Yoongi with wide eyes. “No.”Yoongi sighs, nodding.“And try explaining to them that having that isn’t a logical way out,” Yoongi adds bitterly. “You’d be better off convincing them the sky is purple and gold is worthless.”Jimin sits up, his face scrunched in disgust. He leans against the headboard, trying to take in that information.“That’s insane,” he breathes out, still shaking his head in disbelief. Then, his eyes fix on Yoongi’s again and he asks with a low tone. “Was your Sire like them?”“No, and that was precisely what was wrong in their eyes,” Yoongi answers solemnly. He weirdly already misses touching Jimin to ground himself and as if hearing his thoughts, Jimin extends one of his hands forward, asking Yoongi to take it. The vampire smiles and holds Jimin’s hand between his, playing with his fingers. “Jin got in multiple fights. He wasn’t liked by many amongst them and he—,” Yoongi pauses, takes a breath. “We were attacked.”The words leave a sour taste in his mouth, but when Jimin’s tiny fingers squeeze his, he continues.“I don’t know if I’ll ever discover the real reason behind it, but there are many options. Back when it all started, around five decades ago, we had returned home earlier than expected and a group of Lycans was hunting in our territory. Not just any group, a whole pack of them, right under our castle. It was—fuck, I still tremble every time. The level of disrespect from those old sacks of fur, hunting a whole stadium of humans who were having an event in the City. Seokjin was livid, Jimin. Livid—I don’t think I had ever seen him that angry in all of our years.”“They were just—they were killing everyone?” Jimin asks in horror.“Yes. They started their hunt on the City and lured half of them to the woods for their sick games. I heard their leader when the fight began—Seokjin broke any wolf that crossed his path that night half, their leader claimed it was ‘payback’, but never said what for.”Yoongi feels Jimin’s body shivering, goosebumps rising on his skin from head to toe, but before he can ask if he wants Yoongi to stop talking, Jimin crawls on the bed to sit with his back to Yoongi’s torso, leaning against the vampire and pulling his arm to wrap around his middle.It almost takes him a moment, but Yoongi adjusts their bodies in a swift motion so he’s the one leaning against the headboard and Jimin can fit perfectly in his lap.The touch isn’t just for his comfort anymore.“And then?” Jimin asks in a low voice, resting his head on Yoongi’s shoulder.“Then,” Yoongi begins, looking at Jimin apprehensively as he swallows down his anxiety and remaining guilt, always tempered by the mourning that never leaves him. “We fought,” he speaks somberly, looking down at his own lap. “Initially, it was just Namjoon and I versus them, which wouldn’t have been much of a fight if we weren’t as well trained as we were. Our fast-healing bodies were the only reason why we didn’t die, honestly. Lycans are at eight-feet tall creatures of nothing but numbness and rage and—,” he stops talking again, not wanting to go into details.Those would never stop hurting.He wonders if this is why Arden hasn’t lost their mind yet. Speaking about events and feelings is much easier when you can hold onto someone who listens and understands. He imagines it must play a part. He takes a deep breath and— ”Namjoon and I did our best to help and we delegated Taehyung the task of trying to help as many women or kids as he could.”“That was smart of you.”“Yeah… I believe he managed to help many. In the end, I think that’s the only good thing about that evening. Namjoon got ripped in half when he rescued Seokjin’s body from being completely mauled and I—I was the bastard who got to live. I was always the fastest amongst us, but—gods, I wish I had been a little faster.” He stops for a second, trying not to lose his mind to the screams and visions which flash behind his eyes at. “The three of them were gone and I—I only realized I was the only one left standing when Arden touched my arm.” Yoongi swallows down the knot on his throat, leans his forehead on Jimin’s shoulder and takes deep breaths.Arden’s voice speaks in his ear, as clear as the day it happened.
"Yoongi. Yoongi, we have to take their bodies inside. Please.”
Jimin’s hand squeezes his one more time.“I hadn’t even heard them arrive. When I looked around, all I saw was corpses, blood, and them. Arden and Heba too—covered in red from head to toe, breathing hard and with eyes wide in horror—battle eyes, sharp and terrified.” Yoongi remembers looking at them that moment, seeing how Arden’s jade orbs looked hollow and haunted. It wasn’t easy for an Oracle to look so horrified, but they did. Heba’s eyes, which always reminded Yoongi of the shining Moon, looked like nothing but an empty and vivid foggy night, filled with horrors and stories that never dared be told again.
“Traumatized,” he adds with a bitter chuckle, focusing on the weight of Jimin’s body.They sit in silence for minutes as Yoongi takes deep breaths against Jimin’s nape and the druid runs his hands smoothly over his forearm, caring and careful.“I’m glad they arrived, Yoongi,” Jimin tells him in a shaky breath. Then, he turns just enough so he can look Yoongi in the eyes. His eyes are shimmering with tears and the smile he gives is a sad one, but when he touches Yoongi’s cheek with his hand, Yoongi feels okay. “And I am so sorry for your loss.”Instead of answering, Yoongi seals their lips together because the understanding in Jimin’s eyes of what mourning feels like is the best bittersweet medicine he could’ve asked for.Tasting his lips, Yoongi worries for Jimin in the Ball.“I must teach you some tricks before the Ball,” he whispers, a little desperate, very concerned. Jimin pulls him in for another kiss, nodding in agreement. “I’m serious—while dancing is important, I’d like to know you can deal with the sleaziness of my kind and some relatives to us.”Jimin giggles against his lips, pecking him a few times more before stopping.“Teach me your ways, Ancient Min.”It’s the glint in his eyes—the shine of a challenge that Yoongi saw last night so many times that makes him growl in his throat, grabbing Jimin by the hips and pushing him back against the bed.He wants to devour him.But first—, “I’ll teach you everything, darling.”
🩸
Teaching Jimin is as easy as expected.Which is to say—not easy at all.He was already a distraction when sick, but now with his side fully healed, he walked around the castle with confidence, gesturing wildly as they talked about Balls and innovations in the world. Yoongi still asks him to tread lightly—despite being fully healed internally, magical wounds like the one he sustained take a toll on magic and thankfully, Jimin listens to him.The healer he finds in Argent’s book drops by on a beautiful cloudy day, just as the two of them watch the twilight do its colorful dance in the main entrance staircase. The woman—who re-introduces herself as Vivia—examines him in Yoongi’s study and confirms the druid’s dreadful thoughts, the scar was there to stay. She also claims that the healing would only be fully complete when the reason for the hurt went away and Yoongi mulled over that phrasing for hours, only to understand it much later when the boy was already asleep.It made sense now that Yoongi still felt the wound to be sensitive—he touched Jimin’s left side with care each time, but now he could see why.The reason why he got hurt—his own quest to help his brother, was also ailing him.As long as he felt the burden on himself to finish this quest, that wound wouldn’t be fully done for.Other than that melancholic information, there were no bumps in their nights.There was still a week left to the Ball, which gave both of them plenty of time to learn several dances, for Yoongi to teach Jimin about the possible guests present and, of course, for Arden and Heba to dote on him as much as they wanted.It was great having them around. The encounters always left Yoongi feeling a bit better about any concerns he might have, and he always had one. Both of them took a liking to Jimin, which was amazing.Mostly.“I think I can hear the wheels in your brain turning,” Heba comments apathetically, munching on her snack.The four of them are in the greenhouse late at night. Yoongi and Heba stand leaning against the counter, on the same aisle where Arden and Jimin are practicing a potion—through a competition.“It’s not because of that, is it?” she points in the direction of the other two with an amused glee in her eyes that Yoongi does not care for one bit. It’s like she’s enjoying their little insanity with highly dangerous and deadly plants.
He shakes his head at her, scoffing.“Sometimes I wonder why shit doesn’t surprise you, then I realize I’m being stupid in the first place for having hope,” he bites back in a defensive tone, crossing his arms on his chest. Ignoring the way Heba giggles at him, he sighs. “But no, their possibly-deadly competition isn’t a problem for me.”“What is it then?”“What makes you think there is a problem?” he claps back, keeping his eyes on both Jimin and Arden’s movements.“The fact that you aren’t enjoying a free-show would’ve been enough of a giveaway without—hey, don’t frown at me with those judgy eyes,” Heba defends herself when Yoongi throws daggers at her direction, laughing at herself, but still keeping their tone low so they don’t interrupt or distract their partners. Heba pops a berry into her mouth and points a finger in Yoongi’s direction, a knowing glint in her eyes. “You always get that look on your face when you’re running a thought to the ground and don’t even realize it.”“What look?” Is he squirming? Yoongi feels squeamish out of a sudden, readjusting his robes on his shoulders.“That one,” she tells him with a square smile, gesturing to his face as a whole. “And as I was saying, if the face wasn’t a giveaway, your incessant unsteadiness would’ve been.”Yoongi groans and stops mid-adjusting the cufflinks on his shirt for what must be the thousandth time.On the stand, a few feet away from them, both Arden and Jimin add a new ingredient to their cauldrons which make the potion literally explode in a cloud of maroon smoke, and then both return to stirring in a rhythmic manner completely unfazed.Yoongi must admit, it is a nice show.“Ehhh, see?! When you don’t bury yourself ten feet under your own mind, you can enjoy the moment,” Heba nudges him with her shoulder, waggling her eyebrows at him.It does make him chuckle, the ridiculousness of it—Yoongi doesn’t even know what’s worrying him so much.Is it the possibility that Jimin might be in danger in this Ball, despite having offered himself to go and reminded him multiple times of the fact that he’s able to take care of himself? Maybe.Or maybe is it the way the vampire didn’t expect to be this troubled, twisted in concern over something other than his own quest, something that hadn’t happened in decades? It could be.
He certainly felt the knots tying all over again in his stomach when he observed Jimin in his element, masterly working potions and consequently getting his gorgeous blonde hair a little frizzed and crazy? Yoongi gulped down a knot. Jimin looked otherworldly as ever, in goggles and a leather vest for safety, working with ingredients from the greenhouse as if he belonged there all along.Or maybe it was those thoughts, the running crescendos that seemed to get only louder every time he got lost in thought these past days when his hands gripped Jimin’s waist and they waltzed through the dance room, looking deep into each other’s eyes.Yoongi thinks he might vomit.Heba, without realizing how Yoongi was once again lost in thoughts, had already turned her attention back where it was. “Hey, do you think that Ardie could—oh no, I lost you again.” There’s a deep sigh and then Heba grabs him by the elbows, turning him sideways so they can face each other. “Either spit it out or let me enjoy my show. You’re killing me here, Min,” she tells him in a soft tone, half-joking and half not.Yoongi doesn’t miss the way she glances sideways to keep up.“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he lowers his voice to a whisper, barely letting the words out.“Regarding…” she prompts, fixing her Moon-gray eyes on him.“Jimin.”Heba frowns, scoffing. “Are you kidding me? You helped him heal, he helped you come out of your shadows, you’re teaching him to dance—what’s not to like in this scenario?” she asks, baffled. In a softer tone, she adds. “You’re doing great, Min. Honestly.”Yoongi steals a couple of glances to the table as well, trying to take in Heba’s words and ground himself in the present a little more. The possibilities of her being completely right are, if history is any indicator, extremely high.“I’m just—I’m so—Heba,” he chokes out, eyes darting between the table of potion making and the understanding eyes of his best friend. Desperately, he adds. “He frightens me so much and I’m still—even then, I worry so much. Why? He surprised me so many times already, I know he can take of himself, but I still...I didn’t think—I never thought—,” he cuts himself short, but she knows him well enough.“You didn’t think you would feel this way again,” she finishes kindly.Yoongi nods, lowering his head and a long, deep breath.“I just—don't want him to get hurt. That’s my only concern right now,” he confesses and for reasons he doesn’t have the luxury of getting into at the moment, it makes him feel better instantly. Like the weight of three Suns lifting off of his shoulders.Heba nods at him, smiling encouragingly.“Good. That means your heart is in the right place, same as your head,” she tells him, rubbing her hands on his elbows. Her touch always comforts him and Yoongi feels his shoulders relaxing. “I mean—you’re literally covering all the corners here, kitty,” he knows she uses the nickname just to tease a smile out of him, but like most times, it works. She chuckles, “Have you taught him the phrases he’s forbidden of using there?”Yoongi nods vehemently.“'I accept, I bind myself and I vow to ’. Told him to lose it from his vocabulary,” he scoffs, eyeing back to the potion making station.“Good. You taught him some dances, what not to say, he’ll be fine, Yoon.” Heba then retrieves another lidded contained from her cloak as if it’s nothing and starts eating more berries, eyes completely back on the other stall. “Let’s analyze the situation at hand, shall we?” Yoongi looks in the same direction as hers, tilting his head. “Our loved are currently betting on who can create a Fiendfire potion quicker, which is by far one of the deadliest and most dangerous potions, as well as one of the most effective when fighting Nightly Beings,” she adds with a point of her finger, “and they’re not even breaking a sweat! Fucking look at them, Min. They’re killing this shit, this is better than theatre, oh my god,” she finishes with an awed look, eating faster.Yoongi sees Jimin and Arden chopping an ingredient he knows for sure is deadly with the speed and precision of a kitchen chef and he isn’t ashamed to say—it gets him a little bit hot.“Yeah…”“Yoon. Trust me, that boy is gonna be just fine,” Heba adds with a bark of laughter—which she immediately regrets, covering her mouth quickly after in hopes she didn’t startle either of them.It’s a silly concern, obviously. Yoongi’s sure actual bombs could start dropping nearby and still couldn’t detour those two’s attention from their potion.He watches the rest of the hour pass by as if they’re minutes, sharing Heba’s berries with her just to have something to do with his mouth and finally, when Jimin yells “FINISHED!” just three seconds before Arden, the two of them stare at each other for an intense moment before retrieving the potion in a vial with hungry and competitive eyes.The vial starts creating more smoke, the same color as before and before it can reach anywhere near them, Arden turns to them with a sorry expression.“You two should really head out, this smoke really isn’t good for you,” they say in a serious, doting tone and neither of them needs any more warning than scattering outside immediately.From the other side of the glass, Yoongi can hear Arden shouting in victory when their potion — for a reason his uneducated vampire eyes can’t tell — wins in quality, and smugly, they tell Jimin, “It was the way you cut that seaweed, you know that, right? You, youngsters, think speed is everything.”“I still finished first,” Jimin sasses back with a huff.Heba gives Yoongi a look that says ‘see? ’ and yes—Yoongi sees it.He feels it as well, deep in his chest, the echo of… feelings.Through the glass walls, he sees when Jimin turns in his direction, waving excitedly inside the greenhouse and pointing towards his potion animatedly, telling him: “I beat a new personal record! ” with an incredible proud smile, Yoongi can feel his heart being squeezed inside his chest, tight.He waves back at Jimin, unable to contain his own proud look.Heba, if she notices anything because of his solemn expression, doesn’t say it out loud. She’s always been a good friend like that—would let you take things at your own pace, talk about it when you were ready.And Yoongi wasn’t ready to address why the sight of Jimin flushed, glowing with happiness as he talked to his friends made him feel alive.
Amongst the places they spend the most time in, Yoongi’s music room must be in the top three.After the forest and Jimin’s investigation had taken a better part of the previous week, they had retreated to the castle now for the dance lessons, their routine a little busier than when Jimin was in his bed rest.They learned the main dances that occupied the saloons while the orchestra played in Balls such as this, Jimin studied his notes and cross-read the grimoire with a couple of previous books he’d brought, and Yoongi still gave him the hours he needed to speak with Jungkook.A few times, Yoongi had felt the funny curiosity of wanting to meet the boy, the one person who Jimin spoke of so lovingly of. He could never bring it up with the druid, too afraid Jimin would feel like he was intruding. It was stupid insecurity—he knew that, after all, they had established they were friends.When they don't have their mouths on each other, their naked bodies tangled, or, like in one more occasion after their first night, Yoongi’s fangs deeply buried in Jimin’s chest as his mind swam with the darkest and filthiest thoughts of the boy in arms—when they weren’t lovers, they were friends.As far as Yoongi was concerned, he enjoyed both.Jimin was as much of a Succubus as his mind had predicted the very few times he allowed himself to daydream about Jimin before.He walked shirtless at times, a sly and provocative smile on the corner of his lips, contrasting with the fake innocence in his eyes as he asked Yoongi to show him the moves once again.Jimin leaned against Yoongi’s piano whenever it pleased him and asked him questions about his hunts, about how different it was the feeling of feeding on him or others.“Do you feel pleasure too?” he had asked unabashedly, curiously batting his eyelashes. Like he was asking about the weather. Or home cooking. “When you bit me those couple of times, was it just… is it like when you drink because you need it—for. Food? To stay alive,” he clarified when Yoongi’s fingers stopped, hovering over the keys, blinking in silence. “Do you get high on it too?”Good fucking gods.“Jimin,” Yoongi breaths out, closing his eyes to contain his thoughts.The boy had laughed—giggled and then walked around the piano to sit on the booth beside Yoongi.“Sorry. You told me I could ask, though, and—y’know me. I’m curious.”Yoongi opened his eyes slowly, staring into Jimin’s. The blond smiled, nudging him with his shoulder, getting a bit closer. It was true: Jimin was a very curious person.Numerous times until then, amidst the countless conversations they’ve had had, Jimin always managed to ask questions that baffled Yoongi—left him speechless for a heartbeat, making it hard for him to breathe or just—just stop.The number of times Park Jimin had shocked him into stupor now were many and ever since the first time, when he realized what he had done, Jimin enjoyed it very much making an Ancient being perplexed, puzzled.“Do you?” he insisted, voice dipping lower.Yoongi snorts a laugh, and—”Yes, I do. I—Of course I do, Jimin, have you—,” he stuttered, body hot and flustered at the memories from both times.He had only mentioned to Arden how much Jimin’s blood affected him, and recalling that made his mind a bit hazy.He inched closer then, ending the rest of the distance between so their lips were only a brush from each other.Jimin wasn’t the only one who enjoyed being an enormous little shit.The flush rising higher in his cheeks at the proximity makes Yoongi extremely pleased. He wants to scoff again at the absurdity of the question.“Weren’t you there, my love?” He asked Jimin and saw the full-body shudder that went through his body.Jimin was a very curious person and Yoongi adored that so, so much.Because Jimin’s curiosity led to Mountains and unexplored parts of the castle that Yoongi hadn’t been in ages. It led to late-night drinks with Heba and Arden outside during a Full Moon, all four of them enjoying a Scotch as they traded stories.It led to Jimin sitting in his piano booth with his pants hanging low on his feet, his back arched against the instrument while Yoongi kneels in front of him and teases his body for minutes, enjoying the symphony that comes from between his lips.Jimin’s moans and whimpers; the way he breathes out Yoongi’s name and cries out for more at the same beat—that’s music that Yoongi might be getting too fond of… addicted to.One night, in that same music room, Yoongi discovers an item he thought was lost at the same time when Jimin sees something on top of his piano—something Yoongi left there because he didn’t care to open it in the first place.“Is this Kalif’s invite?” Jimin asks, looking at the black envelope.Yoongi is still looking at the two coins he finds while rummaging through his cabinet looking for his cigarettes. “Yes,” he answers to Jimin, rolling the coins between his fingers.They belonged to Jin and he could’ve sworn—he takes a shaky breath. Remembering him still hurts. Still sends daggers of pain to every corner inside of him.Yoongi believed these two items had been lost during the night of the attack.“Why didn’t you open it?” Jimin inquires curiously, sitting back down in his corner with the envelope still in hands.“What for?” Yoongi asks back, scoffing in disdain. “It’s the same bullshit he sends every year, darling,” he adds, his mind distant and wondering if the coins still work.It’s Heba’s spell so the likelihood of the artifact being broken is minimum to null.“Feel free, if you’d like,” Yoongi clears his throat and looks up at Jimin, smiling at the boy. With the permission granted, Jimin retrieves a small dagger from his clothes somewhere and opens the invitation with a smile on his face.Out loud, he reads the words Yoongi has come to know already.“With the razor-sharp waning Moon, we shall dance and thrive. On this Equinox, Join me, join us and let us be free. You are invited for a Dance with Night, rejoice.’ ” Jimin pauses, turning to see the back and then back to the front, then looks up at Yoongi with his lips curling. “Well that was a shitty invite,” he says unceremoniously.Kalif never had a way with invitations, Yoongi had to admit.“It is,” he agrees, sitting back down in his booth.“It doesn’t even have ‘cordially’ in here,” Jimin adds a little condescending, putting the invitation back in the envelope. “It’s supposed to say ‘you are cordially invited’—I thought you were joking before, you know? But you’re right. The older they get, the less they make sense,” Jimin scoffs, throwing the thing back on Yoongi’s piano. It floats and lands perfectly, right where it was. “Or maybe that was supposed to be rude. Oh no, that was totally intentional, wasn’t it?” he concludes, looking at Yoongi with a grimace.Yoongi can’t help but laugh even more.“Nothing flies by you, huh?”“I keep underestimating how much of a dick he’s going to be I think, but I know I’ll be surprised no matter how much I picture it,” he comments off-handedly.“On this matter, I’m afraid you’re right. It’s useless to try to imagine,” Yoongi agrees.“That bad?” Jimin asks in disbelief.“Remember Argent?” Yoongi prompts. Jimin nods, so he takes a deep breath and—, “When we arrive there, she’ll be the first thing you see.”“How come?”“By the main table where Kalif will be standing proudly in the middle, greeting everyone—she’s the first thing that catches the eye,” Yoongi tells him calmly, swallowing down the bitterness of the memory. “Ever since—acquiring her to work for him, he’s made sure to, how can I say—proudly present her. Kalif has a very carefully crafted family in that castle. Everyone in there, he wanted, pursued and—I want to say ‘conquered’? But that feels wrong.”“So good when families are born because of a true bond—conquering,” Jimin adds, ironic.Yoongi scratches the back of his neck. “Yeah. That castle isn’t exactly ‘home’ for neither of them. Argent is his Sorceress now, which you’ll know when you see her fully dressed in black and gold from head to toe,” Yoongi starts, seeing as clear as day the image of Kalif surrounded by his own. “Kalif’s wife—Yerin. That was—is, actually, a personal vendetta. I made her.”“What?”“Well, I turned her. She used to be a friend of mine back when I was a very young Newborn under Sire’s training and… it didn’t end well. Yerin turned obsessed and I didn’t want anything to do with what she believed in or did anymore, so we parted ways, after a lot of insisting on my behalf,” Yoongi tells him with dismissal of his hand. “Regardless. She’s cunning, powerful and—gods, I cannot stress this enough—crazy dangerous. So Kalif made her his right hand, of course. Anyway, there are also the twins Steritta and Adala—they have some sort of demonic descend. There’s his Guard, Whis. That one I still haven’t figured out what he is, but he is most definitely not there entirely out of free will,” Yoongi tells Jimin, listing the faces one by one.“Oh, this is not the scale of a party I am used to,” Jimin whines, letting his body fall back against the big cushion. “Yoongi. I’m gonna embarrass myself.”Yoongi rolls his eyes.“That’s the least of your problems.”“I’m serious!” he rises back up, speaking between pouty lips. “Why do they all sound like the people my parents used to talk about? It’s—It’s intimidating. I hate those high-class people, they’re insufferable.”“I’m not so bad, am I?”Jimin shrugs his shoulders. “Meh.”“Hey!” he throws the envelope right back at Jimin, making the druid dissolve into laughter.“I’m kidding, you’re alright, but—they, those people you were just talking about? Ugh. And you wanna know the worst part? One of them was your friend and actually seems like a nice person whom I’d like to meet, but I can’t because she’s in a miserable prison,” he adds pettily, crossing his arms. “I can’t even lure her to the corner to have a nice chit-chat ‘cause we’ll be in a spider nest.”Yoongi’s chest turns ice cold and his expression of glee falls out of his face. “Please don’t lure anyone anywhere. I might have a heart attack if you leave my sight,” he tells Jimin in a serious tone.Jimin’s smile returns to his face. “You’re such a baby. Do you want me to carry an invisible thread between us so you don’t lose me, Ancient Min?”Yoongi knows the brat is only teasing him, but that actually recalls him of the weight in his pockets now.“You’re not afraid of getting lost there?” Yoongi asks, genuinely curious.The teasing look disappears from Jimin’s face and he shakes his head profusely. “I was teasing you—I—don’t you dare leave me alone in that snake nest,” Jimin tells him, pointing a finger at him. Yoongi laughs at that, feeling much more relieved at seeing a normal display of fear from the boy for once. “I’m dead serious.”“I know. I’d never do such a thing,” Yoongi tells him with a kind smile. He takes both coins from his pocket and throws one of them at Jimin. “I just found that in my cabinet. Thought I had lost that, actually. Can you check for me if it works?”“What is it?”“Say my name, then yours, and ‘a path between us, a path to me.’ Threefold.”Without further questions, Jimin holds the silver coin with both hands and repeats what was asked. “Min Yoongi. Park Jimin. A path between us, a path to me,” he says three times.Yoongi watches attentively, his stomach turning now because of a different reason.Jimin asked no more questions.Jimin—a witch’s boy, a druid who definitely knows a spell when he sees one, said Yoongi’s words with this without a single question. He trusted the vampire.Yoongi feels when Jimin closes the spell for the third time the tingle of magic in the coin he still holds in his hand. Jimin stays quiet for a heartbeat, his eyes fixed on the coin as if waiting for something but when nothing happens, he raises his eyes at Yoongi with another pout.“Nothing happened,” he complains cutely.Yoongi smiles at him. “You have to think of me and squeeze it. Like so,” he closes his eyes because magic like this comes harder to him, but it’s easy to picture Jimin when the boy is sitting right in front of him. He then squeezes the coin, applying just enough pressure to feel the spell hitting.
The coin immediately warms up and he hears Jimin’s soft ‘oh ’ when the boy must feel his heating up as well.“Now what?” Jimin asks him in a breathy tone.“Close your eyes,” Yoongi instructs, opening his.Jimin closes his eyes softly, his lips a little parted. “I uh… I see you,” the druid chuckles. “Very clearly. Sitting at your piano?” he opens just one of his eyes, peeking at Yoongi, the smile on the corner of his lips widening. “You sure this is working?”Yoongi lifts a finger.“Close them again.”Jimin chuckles but obliges. When Yoongi is certified his eyes are closed, he moves rapidly through the shadows, leaving the music room and going to one of the top Towers to stand there.He stays there for a few heartbeats, breathing in deeply.The wind outside the castle blows his cloak everywhere and he feels the coin in his hand hot, which brings a smile back to his own face.With the same speed he left, he returns.Jimin opens his eyes when he feels the wind rushing, recognition flashing in his eyes.“I’ve never seen a location spell so neatly put in an artifact,” he breathes out in praise, looking at the coin in his hands. “My mom put one in Ggukie and I when we shopped in markets when we were little, but it was on our skin, nothing—this is fancy,” he chuckles amused, twirling the thing in his fingers just like Yoongi was.“It’s Heba’s spell. The coins are hers as well—she collects them.”Both silver coins are long-lost and rare items. On one side, it holds a skull. On the other, a phrasing. Memento mori. “I’m glad it works, actually, because you should have that coin,” Yoongi tells Jimin, walking to sit on the floor by his side. “So you don’t get lost.”Jimin looks from Yoongi to the artifact, that beautiful peach hue painting the high of his cheeks, a telltale that he’s more enamored than his shy smile lets on.“Why?” he asks with a nervous chuckle. “You don’t have to gimme this, I can—we can find each other through spells, you know?”“I do, yes.”“I saw the way you were looking at it, Yoon…” he adds, breathy and Yoongi thinks ‘there it is’. When Jimin looks at Yoongi, biting on his poor bottom lip again, he asks in the soft tone of someone who already knows his answer. “This is special to you, isn’t it?” he asked, confused.Yoongi looks at the coin, a simple silver thing that must not weigh one milligram.To him—no. It weighs at least a ton.He looks back at Jimin. “It was Sire’s.”“Oh.” Jimin blinks, so visibly shocked that Yoongi presumes he hadn’t expected it to be so valuable. “Yoongi …” he breathes out, voice cracking with emotion. “I—I can’t have this. You don’t need to gimme something so special just so you don’t—I won’t get lost, I promise,” he adds, trying to lighten the mood with his smile and laughter, but Yoongi sees beneath his shyness and surprise that Jimin is touched.Yoongi has learned enough to know what that shine in his eyes means.“Let me rectify what I said previously,” Yoongi tries again, moving closer enough to touch his knees against the druid’s. He extends his hands then, touching his knuckles against Jimin’s. When their eyes meet again, Yoongi smiles at him. “I want you to have it, Jimin. If you’d like it, of course. As you said, we can find each other through other means, but…” he shrugs his shoulders, feeling light with the decision. “I won’t be offended if you don’t want an old artifact like this as a gift, of course,” he adds in a joking tone, “but if you want it, it’s yours. I want you to have it.”Jimin presses his plump lips tightly together, but Yoongi saw it—the brief trembling. He sees the emotion when Jimin presses closer, shaking his head half in disbelief, half in wonder.He looks blissfully happy and Yoongi is almost certain he must not look so different.“This is a Roman magical totem, embedded with one of the most well done and beautiful location spells I’ve seen,” Jimin says matter-of-factly, a smile growing on his face. “Gods, why?” he insists, but he must not need much of an actual answer, because instead of waiting for one, he simply presses their lips together.Jimin kisses him, nearly falling in Yoongi’s lap with the way he melts.He kisses Yoongi with his soft, plump lips, groaning against Yoongi’s mouth when the vampire lifts him up by his waist and places Jimin on his lap without an effort.They kiss languidly and sensuously, but with no rush to it; Yoongi enjoys how Jimin’s arms automatically cross around his shoulders and Jimin lets go, turning to butter on Yoongi’s hands.When they part, Jimin’s lips are pink and a little swollen, so Yoongi feels the need to answer.“Because it’s you,” he says and by the sharp intake of breath he hears, Jimin must feel it too—the way those words twirl everything inside them like the wind twirls flowers on the floor on Autumn nights.Why would Yoongi do anything, honestly?Because it’s Jimin. Just like that first night in the greenhouse, when he leaped for something he wanted for the first time in so long, without fear of the fall. Because Jimin gave him the strength to do it.Why else.“I—I love the gift,” Jimin breathes out against his lips and it feels like more than just a thank you.They remain tangled between Jimin’s worksheets, then later between sheets, until it’s time for Yoongi to leave.He leaves Jimin to speak with Jungkook, but not before the boy surprises him one last time that night.Before he exits their room— his room, he corrects himself sternly, he sees Jimin throwing himself back on the bed, ruffling his own hair and picking up the Mirror, a huge smile on his face, clearly content with what he sees.“Oh my god. Gukkie! You look so good! Hyung, doesn’t he look good?!” he asks Yoongi, who stops frozen under the threshold of the door. “Say hi to him, Yoon!”“Oh my god. He does look like a statue, what the fuck, Jimin?! I look like shit! ” he hears coming from the other side of the Mirror where even from the distance Yoongi sees the reflection of a boy who looks vaguely like Jimin. Sand hair, the same kind and chocolate eyes, but a very different face structure stared at him baffled, eyes a little wide (and as sick as Yoongi had imagined, unfortunately). “Uhm. Hi. ”“Hello, Jeon Jungkook,” he finally gets out, trying out a smile that isn’t too open—no fangs when meeting new people, it’s the rule. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Jimin was right, you do look good,” he lies perfectly through his teeth. “But I think I appreciate more the guitar I see on the bed than the horrified look on your face at the moment. Do you play?”The doe, wide eyes turn a little friendlier, Jungkook’s cheeks gain a little color, but at least the horror turns into a smile.“Huh. You’re nice— I mean, yeah, it’s nice. The guitar. I’m learning still, but it’s better than the banjo or those other instruments, I think. I don’t like the sound of most, if I’m honest.”Yoongi tilts his head. “Even the flute? ‘Cause I must say—,”“Oh, no, you two are not going that road, no thank you,” Jimin interrupts them, turning the Mirror back to himself. “You two music fiends can have a talk about notes and re mi fas another day, now, Jungkookie, did it work? Did you find what you wanted in the convent?” he asks, excitedly. With one last glance to Yoongi, he waves happily. “Bye-bye hyung!”Brat.Scoffing and rolling his eyes, he sighs loudly. “Goodbye Jungkook!”“Bye Ancient Min!” he hears and then—, “You have no fucking manners.”“Shut up and tell me what was the result of your little investigation quest, c’mon.” Jimin laughs, throwing one wink at Yoongi. The vampire leaves, closing the door behind himself, listening as Jimin groans excitedly. “I knew she was hiding something. Did you discover anything? Tell me all, little red fox.”“Ugh, I hate it when you call me that. But I actually did discover something. And you will not believe me.”
Nothing could’ve possibly prepared Jimin for what was about to come.He had gone through many things in his short lifespan: persecution, prejudice, the loss of loved ones in hurtful ways which he couldn’t accept until this day—even betrayal, the sharp sting of a knife on your back from people you never expected to come from. Jimin’s seen and been through a lot, but none of it compared to this.The whole ordeal feels like an outside-of-body experience if he’s being honest. Not even his attempt to soothe his nerves by smoking a couple of joints with Yoongi helps, but it does make things fall into a nicer perspective at the beginning.Traveling from Moldavia to Wallachia only takes a few hours by car, a thing which Jimin never liked doing, but agrees to for the sake of practicality. Yoongi hires a black, sleek model that has more space at the back than any carriages Jimin’s ever been in and in all, it’s a nice ride.Outside the window, the scenario is beautiful and inside the vehicle, they fill in the silence with conversation every now and then. Jimin takes great advantage of the light mood before the inevitable storm.Ever since giving Jimin the spelled coin, Yoongi had calmed down visibly.Jimin, for his turn, had put the gift in a silver chain, turning it into a necklace. The first couple of days he had a hard time not squeezing it every time he thought about it, but after Yoongi teased him for what it felt like the hundredth time, he quit it.The only moment when the vampire seems to fall back into his nervousness is when he interrupts them mid-conversation to ask, “Oh! What can I introduce you as?” his eyes go a little wide at the question.Jimin, with his mouth still hanging open, shakes off his trail of thought about what they were speaking and laughs at him.“Whatever you feel comfortable with, hyung.” He doesn’t really care, to be frank, but it does make him happy that Yoongi’s thinking of the whole thing in detail. Perhaps it’s part of the reason why he feels so relaxed himself. “And safe with. I won’t mind, whatever it is you choose.”“Hmmm. Very helpful,” Yoongi answers in an ironic tone, but with a smile on his face.“You’re cute for thinking about it and asking me, but in the end, you’re the one who knows these events better than me,” he shrugs it off.“Yeah. You’re right—I do. I’ll think of something,” he concludes, taking a deep breath. With one shake of his head, he focuses back on Jimin, eyeing him up and down as he had ever since Jimin stepped outside the guest room with his outfit. “Go on about what you were saying…” he continues in a lazy tone, but by the far-off look on his face and the way his eyes are drifting, Jimin guesses he still isn’t paying full attention.It’s flattering, so while feeling the heat on his cheeks, Jimin continues either way.The outfit choice had been Arden’s, given the fact that Jimin didn’t have any clothes with him that were fancy enough to live up to the occasion. The Oracle had helped him pick one of Yoongi’s own suits since they were almost the same size, only differing in the width of their shoulders.For that, Arden had pins and needles and a hand for quick tailoring spells.They had helped Jimin fit in perfectly inside the three-piece silver suit, making it align perfectly with his body.When they were done and Jimin looked at himself in the mirror with glee, thanking them profusely, Arden said there was no need for thank you.“If you want to thank me, you can do it by passing along a message, of course,” they added with a nervous chuckle.Jimin turned around and nodded enthusiastically. “Anything.”Arden looked at them and pressed their lips tightly together, they stepped closer. “If you get a minute alone with Argent, could you say something?”“Word by word.”Arden smiled. “Tell her…” their eyes unfocused, jade-green orbs looking away from Jimin and getting lost somewhere that made them sparkle differently than Jimin had seen before. “I hope the Sun is smiling at you at every rise and if not, I hope the Moon makes up for it, whilst comforting you every night. ”Jimin had repeated those words to himself for every day after that so he wouldn’t forget in case the chance of passing the message came by.He also repeated them when the castle came into sight, a beautiful construction standing at the far end of a cliff, tall and enormous.The view was beautiful.A sight before the chaos, which Jimin also couldn’t have prepared for no matter how much he wished otherwise.At first, things go quite great.Yoongi is exactly what Jimin needed in a place like this, surrounded by the people he sees passing by them—he keeps Jimin close, whispers in his ears the names of acquaintances as if no one other than them could hear it and when they enter the gigantic wooden doors, Yoongi’s entire focus in on him.Jimin ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ his way up the staircase, then tries his best to swallow down his country-boy excitement as he hears the Ball orchestra approaching. In every corridor, he sees the doors of every room open with different types of attractions inside each of them—women hanging high in drapes, siren-looking folk breathing fire in the middle of conversation pits, groups of sharp and cat-like eyed beings who seem to be engaged in very… illicit activities.It’s breathtaking.Whether he’s ready to admit it to himself or not, Jimin is in awe of all of it, wanting desperately to see and explore everything his eyes and feet can reach.When they arrive in the Main Ballroom, Yoongi tenses by his side so Jimin does his best at being the partner he was there to be.“Do you think they can smell on me?” he leans in to whisper in Yoongi’s ear, whilst observing the organized and practiced dance going on in the center. “Like, ‘oh, there’s some fresh meat,
this is definitely his first-time’ type of thing?” he adds, looking at Yoongi.The vampire smiles at him — the full-blown, gummy smile which shows his fangs and he avoids whenever he isn’t comfortable around someone, or as Jimin calls it, his favorite — and then shakes his head with a chuckle.“I hardly think so, love.”Jimin tries not to preen so much with pride and glee at the nickname. He fails miserably.“Hmmm. There’s a chance, though?” he presses, following the Yoongi’s lead through the room.“The only thing I know for certain they can scent is how fantastic you smell,” Yoongi comments calmly, but his lips curl into a predatory smirk at the end.Feeling the familiar heat Yoongi brings to his cheeks, Jimin rolls his eyes, nudging Yoongi’s body with his own.“Charmer.”“Only for you, trust me,” Yoongi smiles wider.At that moment, Jimin notices they’re following a line behind the spectators watching the dance in the center. Couples and people who seem to be alone are all walking in an organized fashion towards and when Jimin cranks his neck to see where it leads, his eyes fall on a table at the far end.It’s undoubtedly the main dinner table or, as Yoongi had recalled, the host’s spot.It happens exactly like Yoongi said it would—when they’re close enough for Jimin to see the who is welcoming each guest with a bow and a few words, his eyes don’t fall on the host. Instead, they find a very short lady, dressed from head to toe in a fabulous black gown and a lot of gold.He doesn’t need to ask to know who it is.Louise Argent is a tiny woman with an ice-cold face that could send shivers down the warmest person's heart. She has the posture of a ballerina and Jimin loathes that he isn’t close enough to sense her magic, desperate to know how the air shifts around her presence. Although he’s staring, she doesn’t seem to notice—actually, Argent doesn’t seem to notice
anything around her. Her hands are clasped together in front of her and whenever someone says hello, all she does is look at them and then look away, unfazed and unbothered by the whole ordeal around her.Jimin’s awe is replaced by a sadness that could fill up a river.Her eyes — the same Moon gray as Heba’s, despite seeming much colder — are empty of anything, same as her expression.It’s undeniable she looks breathtaking, Kalif surely takes pride in buying things and doing his best for her to look so, but not even her auburn hair falling in beautiful waves all the way to her breasts seem to breathe some life into her.If Jimin could put a picture of what ‘melancholy’ looks like, he’d paint a picture of that witch right now.In his staring, he doesn’t even realize it’s almost their turn. He shakes off his shock and looks at the rest of the members at the table, but his focus remains on Sire Kalif until they reach it. He’s a tall white man with great sand hair, but even his good-looks can’t make up for the horrific and dreadful chill that his smile brings down Jimin’s spine.Looking at him is like looking at a bunch of piranhas feeding on prey. It’s disconcerting and Jimin has to put his best game-on face when they approach so he doesn’t do something
wildly stupid, like curling his lips in distaste at the sight in front of him.A valet says “Next!” and Yoongi pulls Jimin forward with him, so the druid takes a deep breath and does his best at smiling.“Greetings, everyone,” Yoongi bows his head slightly, eyeing each one of them. Jimin repeats his movement, seeing very clearly how Kalif’s eyes when they meet his do not leave him anymore. He still feels those predatory red-orbs on him when he looks up at Argent, smiling more genuinely. “The party looks great, as always. I brought a partner, this time. This is my druid and—great friend, Park Jimin,” Yoongi introduces him and woah.Yoongi’s introduction is not subtle at all, but it works. Jimin feels his heart beating twice as fast because one, Yoongi, in one way or another... claimed him—for the lack of a better word. My druid. He said those words without a single hesitation and two, the dramatic and completely intentional pause between the rest was not only cheeky, but effective.Jimin sees the way everyone’s eyes widen, but he can’t bring himself to care. Not when Louise Argent’s eyes fall on him, something a little more alive in them than before.“Oh my goodness! I never thought I’d get to see you again, Yoongi my boy. And you brought a friend,” Kalif says. Jimin hates his deep and loud voice, the condescending way with which he calls Yoongi boy, but he hides it all behind a close-lipped smile and mutters his own “Hello”. It seems to be enough, because the sire claps and looks at the woman at his side with delight. “Yerin my dear, look at him! What a delightful friend, huh, Yoongi? I have always known you have a great taste.”Yerin.
I made her.
Jimin preys his curiosity isn’t obvious when he looks to Kalif’s side, but the opening was given to him by Kalif, so he looks.The woman is gorgeous. She has raven black hair tied in a bun, red eyes and pale skin like many others in the castle, but with her, it seems like she was the first one to be born like that. As if she pioneered the beauty of looking like that.“I see,” Yerin replies, monotone and uninterested. “Welcome.”“We’ll be around,” Yoongi says with finality, but with one last bow directly towards Argent and a significant look in the witch’s direction, he adds. “It’s a pleasure.”If Jimin didn’t think Yoongi was a bold and crazy person before, he sure does now.They exit the line, making their way back into the saloon with shoulders back and heads high, but Jimin feels the way both of them hold onto each other’s hands a little tighter than before.When they finally feel out of sight, the look they exchange says more than enough. Jimin wants to yell you’re crazy but oh dear gods that was awesome and Yoongi looks like he’s saying I know I’m crazy but that was fantastic, which is more than enough for the moment.His words still echo in Jimin’s mind. My druid.“Can we find booze?” Jimin finally asks when they’re on the other end of the salon. From there they can’t see the table anymore—he double-checks it.Yoongi scrunches his nose. “I wish I could have your drinks.”“Better not have any loose tongues around here tonight,” Jimin laughs. “Plus, I just need one.”Yoongi nods at him, then makes sure to find a place where they can grab a couple of drinks.It’s kind of an out-of-body experience, Jimin thinks, to walk in the corridors in Yoongi’s presence and see all the crazy details his eyes catch on. If it weren’t for the high-stress situation of this “party”, Jimin could see himself actually enjoying these things.Ever since he started voicing his questions and thoughts about Yoongi without shame, he’d allowed his body and mind to think and enjoy whatever on Earth pleased him. Whether people claimed it was wrong or right, Jimin got thrill in exploring, dissecting, living.A thought occurs to him, then. He leans his lips closer to Yoongi’s ears as they walk and whispers, “Is there any friend of yours who throws parties like this? Because it’s very—” his words trail off when the next open door reveals a new scenario and Jimin stops, mouth still hanging open and eyes attentive, sharply watching.Two boys and two girls — humans too, if his guess of anatomy was right after doing a quick-body scan — were in the middle of the room with beautiful, glittery and shining belly dance outfits. Their bodies are glistening with some type of oil and the dark, lilac light that illuminates the room doesn’t hide the type of audience that is watching them.They moved with a sensual song, dancing and hypnotizing everyone around them in the conversation pit.By his side, Yoongi barks a laugh at Jimin’s stunned silence.“Oh, Jimin.” Yoongi’s arm tangling around with his goes to his waist and he pulls Jimin close enough that he whispers right in his ear, his lips purposely touching the druid’s earlobe. “Do you like the party, my dear?”Jimin nods, gulping. His eyes dart from the scene to his companion and when he sees the way Yoongi looks at him—hungry, wanting, as it always did now, he can’t help but lean in for a soft kiss.Just a brush of their lips together, while Jimin enjoys the thrill running his body.“I do,” he answers honestly, voice barely a whisper. “Perhaps next time you have to go through the dread of attending one, you at least know you don’t have to do it alone,” Jimin teases, his hands cupping Yoongi’s cheeks.“Is that so? You’d do the sacrifice of accompanying me?” Yoongi teases back.“I’m sure I could find the time.” Jimin kisses Yoongi’s smiling lips one more time, then looks back at the dance. “They’re not as bad as I thought.”From then on, Jimin actually makes Yoongi forget about the dreadful part of the party.For a little more than a couple of hours, there is no indicator in the air that the Ball had to be a bust, another bloodbath like Yoongi himself put it, one more memory for either of them to add in the ‘trauma’ part of their brains.Yoongi loosens up with Jimin’s light bantering and inquisitorial chatting, always one curious question at the tip of his beautiful lips. After the first two stops — to watch a dance and listen to a story being told —, the vampire manages to let go and simply enjoys the party, so consequently, Jimin does too.The druid finds Yoongi to be a very good companion. He knows when to introduce Jimin and when the druid prefers to keep them close to the wall, keeping the conversation private. He’s surprised when Yoongi shows no problem with displaying affection either—they don’t look by far like any of the couples present, tangled on each other from head to toe, but they don’t need to.One of Yoongi’s hands, wherever they go, is almost always touching him.If a friend of his or an acquaintance sparks up conversation, he introduces Jimin and doesn’t hold back in looking at Jimin with the same droopy and sexy eyes as before. Jimin didn’t realize he expected Yoongi’s posture to change, but when it doesn’t, he sort of… blossoms.When Jimin is clapping excitedly at a young mage’s show and leans too close, the vampire’s lips brush against his skin.It makes him feel safe in a place where he most certainly isn’t. Jimin’s mind was so preoccupied the previous days with what was their relationship, if they had any, that he was running very low on actual sleep due to his tossing and turning. The necklace hanging against his chest feels light and heavy at the same time. How had his life come at this point? he thinks.Yoongi is… a dream.Jimin sits at his side in a sofá and simply—he stares. Yoongi is smiling at a story a friend of his is telling in the middle and Jimin had long ago stopped paying attention — there is a girl sitting in the man’s lap and she is human, but she is also very young and it was bothering him — so he preferred his view instead.The room they’re in is much more illuminated because one of the walls is made of glass and leads to a small garden outside, so Yoongi is sort of shining and Jimin is a weak man, at the end of the day.Keeping his feelings at bay inside his chest were difficult when he kept thinking about how Yoongi made him feel like magic. Like actual magic.He hears himself at twelve years old asking his mom, "Will I have something like you and appa have? And his mom answering back, One day, my darling. And it’ll feel magical."Everyone around him laughs and Jimin snaps out of it, completely far away from here.Yoongi looks in his direction and raises one eyebrow, silently asking if he’s okay.No, I’m not. I might have feelings for a being of the Night. I don’t think I can hold my heart inside of me for too much longer, he wants to say.Instead, he gives a short wink in Yoongi’s direction, not trusting himself to smile because—fuck. Because Yoongi would know.With the response, Yoongi turns back to his friend — Azazel, he believes — and Jimin concludes he’d be better with at least another glass of champagne.As if summoned by his very thought, he sees a waiter crossing the garden with a tray and stopping by one of the desks outside, so he politely excuses himself and shakes his glass when Yoongi sends him another silent look.This time, it’s he who gets a wink back in response.Jimin leaves almost running. He feels like if he had stayed too long inside he might’ve forgotten how to breathe. The brisk air that hits his face when he slides the door is welcome and he thanks the waiter when he replaces the glass in Jimin’s hand with exquisite fluidity.Unfortunately, that leaves Jimin with a new drink and the question still ringing inside his mind.He turns around, looking to the inside of the room where Yoongi is still his handsome and charming self and wants to scream at the Moon, asking why .Why did he have to develop feelings for an Ancient, a being of the Night with far more experience, problems and everything else that he could bear to keep up with? Jimin sips his drink, feeling his heart pounding. He glances at the table where a few people are talking and prays none of them to realize his mini-heart attack.Why did he have to be attacked and fall on the most perfect man’s doorstep? And honestly, wondering all of this over a creature who probably would end up married to another immortal being of the night… was it worth it?Jimin gulps down half of his drink and feels the liquid go down, falling like acid on his anxious stomach.Of course it’s worth it. Because it’s Yoongi, he thinks.“He looks so good when he’s laughing, doesn’t he?” a voice asks behind him.Jimin whips around and oh—Yerin.He doesn’t know why he doesn’t feel anything when looking at her — she’s gorgeous, of course, and he did wonder if any spark of jealousy would crawl on him upon seeing someone that Yoongi had literally created, but… nothing. He expected there to be something, but no.Regardless of his lack of feelings, he did have his gut and that one told him she was not to be trusted.“He does,” he replies with a big smile, keeping his eyes sharp on her. With a scrunch of his nose and a friendly chuckle, he adds. “Although, I don’t mind the grumpy version either. He makes it work.”Yerin’s smile for him is as honest as a scarlet woman in a bar.She laughs—forced and short, eyes darting inside where Yoongi still is, but Jimin keeps his eyes on her.“Yes, Yoongi can be a charmer.” Her red eyes fall back on him. “I didn’t know he was in search of a druid.”Jimin doesn’t know what her angle here is, but he imagines none of it is just friendly curiosity.“He wasn’t. Us finding each other was—a funny thing, actually—nothing but a stumble of fate,” Jimin tells her, still smiling. He notices how his choice of words diminishes the smile on the corner of her lips just a bit. “I’ve been staying at the castle ever since,” he finishes.Yerin doesn’t say anything else for a couple of seconds, but she finally nods, chuckling.“That’s very sweet of him. Allowing someone he doesn’t know to stay over.”“Sure,” Jimin sips his drink.“Especially after everything that happened—well, he’s been more—hm, closed.” Yerin speaks in an unnerving monotone and if it wasn’t for how her eyes bring the instincts in every fiber in Jimin, he’d call this conversation quits. “But when fate calls—what can we do.”She also doesn’t think he knows what she’s talking about and there’s only an amount of time Jimin can spend without being a brat, really, so—”I would find it hard not to be closed off after such a tragic night,” he says, losing the smile. “Loss and pain make us learn difficult lessons.”And there it is.Yerin’s eyes narrow and when they do, Jimin feels a strange sense of dejá vu. He’s seen her somewhere before?She snorts, head tilting to the side. “It does, indeed. For instance, you think you know an Ancient being just from staying over and he hasn’t even extended the grace of telling you that all might not have been a—stumble of fate as you’d might think it was. Is naivety a consequence of your loss, Jimin?”Her words give him whiplash and he glances back to where Yoongi is, lost in conversation still. He looks back at her and slaps himself mentally from averting his eyes even if for a second because the demon is right there —in front of him.He visibly winces back, but she only seems to have gotten closer.He opens and closes his mouth a couple of times, trying to wreck his brain for what she could be possibly implying and then—”Are you referring to Arden? Because both Yoongi and them have already told me they knew of my attack.”The answer visibly shocks Yerin, who loses the ice-cold expression for a moment, blinking at him.“You—you know them? You’ve spoken to them?” she asks in a lower tone.Jimin tries to re-compose himself, mentally scolding his momentary distrust. This woman clearly wants to get in his head and he almost let her. Taking a deep breath, he gulps down the rest of his drink whilst nodding.“Arden and Loba,” he adds for good measure. If she wants to play this ridiculous pissing contest, he might as well indulge her. “Great friends, aren’t they?”From the look on Yerin’s face, Jimin is certified that he has managed to truthfully piss her off now.A smile starts appearing on her face and she nods vehemently which—creepy. So fucking creepy.“Oh, they fancy themselves to be great friends, yes. Particularly, I never saw the appeal, but hey—you can’t choose other people’s companies!” she adds with a ridiculously fake laugh. Jimin chuckles just to make sure he doesn’t piss her off beyond repair, but he desperately wants this moment to be over now. But she isn’t finished. With wide eyes of, Yerin continues, “I mean—if they truly were that great, they would’ve at least informed you that Yoongi only kept you because he intends to use your brother for his Resurrection experiment. Which—I’m guessing they haven’t told you, am I right?”Jimin blinks once, twice.The empty champagne glass feels as heavy as his insides now and he wants to look back at Yoongi—wants to scream for him to come outside expeditiously actually because—she can’t be saying the truth.“A little—what are they called, a fire ox, isn’t he? Your beloved—Jungkook,” she continues.Jimin feels his insides burning.His vision is tunneling and his hands are sweating too because the glass slowly is slipping from his grip and—Jimin thinks he might explode.It can’t be.“I think naivety is the consequence of your loss, Jimin,” Yerin goes on and Jimin’s mind wants to scream does this whore EVER stop talking, but it can’t. It can’t because Jimin feels his mouth dry and his lungs shallow with oxygen. “Thinking that an Ancient being is—what, your lover ?”Jimin might puke, which, looking at the person in front of him, might not be the most terrible idea.“Yoongi’s West Wing is proof of what I’m saying, if you have any doubts in the future.” While she speaks, Jimin recalls asking Yoongi what it felt like to take someone’s life and notices that right now, he wouldn’t mind finding out. He doesn’t know if his target of choice would be the yappy and so annoyingly familiar whore standing in front of him, or the person who, apparently, has lied to him. “I know I’ll pay for doing this very shortly in the future, but I want to pay knowing that you knew I was right.”Pay for it. The words sound very good to him, even though nothing else looks good…They look blurry.Jimin looks down at the glass in his hands, almost entirely out of his grasp now, and empty.He looks back up at Yerin and thinks: Jimin, you stupid fucking idiot. Before he finally passes out from being drugged, he finally connects why her face is so familiar.Yerin is the woman he saw standing outside the cave, shortly before he felt the same wave of air he feels when his body gives out.It was her features standing between the tall forest trees that day.Before his body hits the ground, he turned his face to the side just enough to notice the black smoke hanging in front of the glass mirrors and notices that Yerin had been blocking the view from the inside this entire conversation.Jimin passes out.
🍃
Later, when he wakes, Jimin finds out that the thing which alerted Yoongi was actually the sting of the necklace. Apparently, Heba had also compelled the coin to burn at the touch of anyone who she considered an enemy and when Yerin saw the necklace hanging around his neck, she couldn’t hold herself back from placing at least one finger on it.When he wakes, Jimin sees Yoongi’s clothes ripped in many different ways and the blood—good gods, there is so much blood.Later, Yoongi hugs him shaking from head to toe, apologizing profusely for not being faster, more alert, smarter.He tells Jimin that the drug Yerin had slipped in his drink when he glanced away would take a while to completely flush out of his system, which is why he still feels groggy, mellow, awful and disgusting.Like his insides are still melting.Later, he’ll feel the sharp sting of tears rolling down his temples as Yoongi brushes the hair away from his face, saying comforting words that Jimin can’t decide if he hates or needs so badly.Either way, they hurt.They hurt because while Yoongi’s shaky fingers run through his hair, Jimin’s shaky and weak fingers tingle like a thousand needles prickle them because he wants them to be squeezed into fists. He wants that woman standing in front of him again, but he can’t have that, so instead, he looks at Yoongi and tells him he just needs rest.“You should shower,” he tells the vampire, who has dried blood in places Jimin doesn’t understand how they could’ve gotten there. His stomach feels like one giant knot. “And burn those clothes.”It makes Yoongi chuckle and if it was only a few hours ago, he would’ve loved the sight.Now, Jimin just needs to be alone with his thoughts.And the poison inside of him.As soon he’s alone and the door of the room is closed, Jimin focuses on the snake that wraps around his right bicep, seeing her as clear as the day Jungkook drew her. The snake starts shining and from that same place on his body, he feels the heat radiating from her.His magic works slowly, but he doesn’t worry or rush it.The snake glistens in gold as it runs down his body, cleansing the toxins left by that fanged bitch away. He keeps his breathing steady while he does it, until he feels it all gone and he’s panting, sweating just a bit.If it weren’t for her words and how everything his father had ever told him screaming inside of him, he might’ve been able to keep it cool. Do things differently.But Jimin couldn’t.Not when Jungkook’s life was on the line.He was supposed to bring help, not destruction with him.So Jimin laid in bed and waited until he knew Yoongi would be in his private room, and he left.
Yoongi’s West Wing is proof of what I’m saying, if you have any doubts in the future.
The one place in the castle where Yoongi had verbally asked him not to go in because it was ‘private’. Jimin hated the feeling of lurking, but if there was any chance Jungkook was in risk of being involved in something, he didn’t hate it enough not to do it.He walked for a while before he found a door he couldn’t open. It looked like any other wooden door, tall and luxurious, but this one had a golden handle.Inside of it, he saw clearly why.Machines he couldn’t begin to comprehend and capsules, bigger than anything he’d ever seen, were displayed along the walls. It was a place filled with experiments and complicated gadgets, but it was in the center of it that Jimin stood still, staring at a piece of paper on a board.Three items stood in highlight in the middle of a complicated rite of Resurrection: a Blue Moon, a Fire Ox and a sacrifice.The last two, though, were what made Jimin stop and stare, the feeling of his heart beating hard—pounding loud enough he can hear it in his ears.They were crossed in the middle—like they were done.With quick calculus, Jimin took note of something else—not too long before a Blue Moon would happen, too.
Yoongi only kept you because he intends to use your brother for his Resurrection experiment.
“While I’m glad you’re up, I don’t understand what you’re doing here .”He turns to face Yoongi and he doesn't know how to describe it.Is his heart stopping, or breaking?“Don’t you have shame of hiding me this?” Jimin asks in a baffled tone, coming out of his momentary stupor. He looks back from board to Yoongi, feeling it harder to breathe. “You—there’s—a sacrifice? There’s a sacrifice in here” he exclaims.Yoongi snorts loudly at that, shaking his head at Jimin.“You can’t possibly be serious, Jimin. You, out of all people frowning at me over a sacrifice? You do remember what I am, right?”Jimin can almost hear his father’s voice telling him over and over how stupid he is.“Apparently, I’ve forgotten,” he whispers to himself.“You say that as if you wouldn’t have yourself ripped to parts just for your family,” Yoongi tells him and Jimin gives a step towards him.“Don’t you dare compare both of us—or
this.”Yoongi sighs at him, apparently frustrated at Jimin. “You’ve got this all wrong, you realize—”“No! Don’t tell me what a stupid man I’ve been, because I can see it very well by myself,” he furiously interrupts, too scared to listen to anything else Yoongi would have to say.The vampire takes a step back, as if hurt by the words. As if he has any rights to—as if he wouldn’t have used Jimin’s own brother for his gain.“You heard me calling him little fox,” he throws at Yoongi’s face, biting the words.Yoongi blinks at him, his jaw set in a harsher line. “I did, yes.”He needs to get out. “Am I still allowed to leave, like you once said, or would that not be part of your plan?” Jimin asks coldly, needing to get out of there.There was no poison inside of his body anymore, but it hurt all the same. There wasn’t enough oxygen in the room either, despite all the eight large windows open to the vast sky. There was no air, no relief and when he looked inside the chambers behind Yoongi’s back, he also noticed there were three men.The tall men that fit Yoongi’s perfect description of his family.“You can leave, Park Jimin,” the words echoed inside the large tower.“Okay. Then—then I’ll leave.”He felt the coin weighing inside his blouse and his fingers drifted towards it unconsciously for a single touch, but he put it back down nervously. The gift weighed more than his bag.Jimin turned towards the door and left for the Mountains, trying not to stumble on any of the pieces of his heart that he left on his way out. He left Yoongi’s castle wondering why leaving felt so wrong, why his mind felt so wrong.Jimin had no problem with a sacrifice, after all. He would do it for Jungkook too.He had no problem with a Blue Moon Resurrection rite, because he knew that for family, he would too.But nothing and no one would ever put Jungkook at risk.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Night seeps into us,
through the accidents we have
inflicted on each other.
Next time we commit
love, we ought to
choose in advance what we kill.
— Margaret Atwood , Their Attitudes Differ
After roaming for what it feels like hours, walking alone and at high-alert through the woods because of the pulsating fear inside of him that something like the last time would repeat itself, Jimin finds himself facing the same cave as before.It’s the same cave where he saw Yerin for the first time, the same one he entered feeling like something good might finally happen after so long only to be disappointed yet again. This time, the wind that blows at his hair and clothes coming from the canyon not too far didn’t feel threatening or suspicious—it’s just breezy. Blowing cold and sharp, a welcoming feeling since Jimin still feels so hot and hurt.It makes him feel worse, for some reason. He’s walked for far too long and he’s too tired, though, so he makes the only decision possible and enters the cave, knowing he’ll have to camp there for the night before he figures out what he will do the following day.The cave looks the same as it did before, but it feels colder. Jimin looks around as he strengthens the light from his orb, wondering if the cave is colder, or if it’s just him.He reaches the end of it, same as last time, but when he stops in front of the stone walls to think about how last time, Yoongi was sitting in a tree not too far reading a book Jimin himself had recommended, he feels a draft of cold air whooshing from his right.It is colder.The air is coming from a corridor didn’t notice there in his initial visit and his heart immediately starts beating faster. The muscles around his heart at this point must be as strong as a hummingbird’s, he thinks bitterly.In Jimin’s throughout and organized mapping of the forest, there was only one reason to enter the holes and caves in that dangerous old place—they were a possible candidate for the Kadupul flower.If he stepped inside this one, it was because it fit the descriptions required in his beloved grimoire, so Jimin gripped his bag closer to his chest and attuned his whole body to his surroundings, doing his best to silence his mind.He stays on high-alert in case of any danger, but the cave only proceeds further and further, no other sounds coming beside his breathing and footsteps.Jimin starts leaving a trail of colorful paint that shines in the dark at the right words so he won’t lose his way in and out and grabs both the grimoire and his dagger from his clothes.
For the Kadupul to grow, a cave as deep as one’s wishes must be found.
If that was the case, Jimin was on the right path.He flips his eyes down to read the words in the alchemist’s footnotes about the appearance of the flower and when he looks up—he isn’t alone.Jimin stops dead in his tracks.His heart which so far was beating louder than a hammer seems to still.In front of him, low on the ground a few feet away, he can see with the bright yellow light his orb throws in the environment that the soil turns red, loosely fluffy and moist. In the middle of that beautiful and rich dirt, there was a flower. Not bigger than two feet above the ground, held only by one rich-green pedicel, there was a lovely flower with open and wide petals, all hanging low and wilted, as if waiting to be watered.And, of course, the presence.Standing on the other side of the cave there was a clothed figure of at least seven feet tall, a faceless and body-less thing living inside a grey and old cloak. It doesn’t speak or acknowledge Jimin’s presence, so the boy has a couple of seconds to feel his entire being turned inside out when he realizes he did it.Even wilted, the bright pink color of the petals couldn’t be hidden, that and the striking difference from most common flowers by itself—the golden tips.The Kadupul.Jimin falls to his knees with a thud, pulled by the weight of his world crashing down around him.Of course destiny would be ironic like this. Delivering him everything he wanted for longer than a year, only after crushing his heart inside of his chest, leaving him nothing but a shell of all his pains.The flower doesn’t move, static inside the humid and dark cave, but Jimin’s entire world is spinning as if he was poisoned once again. This time, though, he knows it’s only his pressure and nerves taking the best of him.“Hello, Park Jimin.”The voice speaks—a loud and deep resonance, seeming to appear from inside his head more than come from the being in front of him. He snaps his eyes upward, focusing on the guarding presence. It’s strange how he can feel all the pieces of his heart beating, his weak palms sweating as they grip the dirt beneath them—he’s made it and whatever it costs now, all he has to do is listen.“You have found the Kadupul, one of the many creations in my garden. I am Gorin, the keeper of Déne, the sacred garden of creators.”The confirmation is like the last drop before the overflow—Jimin’s lips shiver and he feels it, hot tears coming down his cheeks as Gorin presents themself, making the entire cave come to life for one second at the mention of its name. The ground shakes for a moment, a rumble of response—of respect.Inside of him, there is only space for relief and anticipation.Jimin leaves behind everything else in order to feel the weight of this moment. He sniffles, nodding mostly to himself as Gorin explains who they are. He knows next will come something bigger, since a relic like Kadupul never came without an exchange.His eyes darted between the flower and Gorin, feeling and listening to the beat of his heart, his mind starting to run a thousand miles with only one word as fuel:Jungkook.
Jungkook.
“For the Kadupul to bloom, a sacrifice must be made,” Gorin starts once again, the words echoing in the walls of the cave and Jimin’s mind. He blinks away his tears and swallows his crying down with the words—’a sacrifice must be made’, he repeats to himself, knowing in his heart that no matter the price, it shall be done. “That is necessary to water the grounds where this flower grows, for every living thing needs a fertilizer. The only thing capable of making her bloom is the sacrifice you are willing to make.”There’s a flash, a momentary weakness where Jimin’s traitorous bleeding heart whispers oh, the irony. Jimin shuts the feeling down as soon as it comes, knowing now the same thing as he did then—if the price is asked of him when it comes to saving his family, he will pay it without hesitation.“I shall ask you something, and you have up to three offers to handle something worth it. The sacrifice, Park Jimin, must be something of extreme importance to you. So I ask: what is important to you?”Those words make something different ignite inside of him—possibilities.Jimin takes note of how there was no time established by Gorin, which means he has time to think this through, so he quickly cleans his face on his sleeves and nods again, unknowing if the keeper can even see him.“Whenever you’re ready, you may start.”Once those words are spoken, the silence feels defeaning. Jimin takes three deep breathes, trying to organize his running thoughts. He had initially brought something that was
priceless, a family heirloom that had been over for generations and generations in the Jeon family and that now, lived in the dark corners of Jimin’s enchanted satchel.Jimin starts rummaging through the bag as soon as he thinks of it, his hands looking for the specific item.He has only three chances of making this work, of literally blooming his brother’s cure.Jimin cannot, in any shape or form, fuck this up.His fingers finally brush with the familiar delicacy and he stops breathing, his eyes set on Gorin.Whatever kind of Bouncer he is between realms, he is the thing which will decide if whatever Jimin has of importance is worth it, but dealing with a faceless and inhuman thing only leaves space for Jimin’s own questioning, reasoning, and panicking.And he is panicking.But he is also on a mission and if there’s one thing he’s learned, is that he was right when he left the Sea Inn all those Moons ago—Jimin will return with what it takes to save Jungkook.That thought seals his decision and he grabs the artifact, placing it right in front of the Kadupul, a few feet away from Gorin.“I offer you the Graal of Magic,” Jimin speaks, his voice incredibly steady, the complete opposite of how his body feels. “Passed by generations in my family and retrieved from stolen hands, this cup already held the most powerful magic in the world so far,” he finishes, breathing out the words and hanging with his head low, unable to meet the emptiness which resided inside the cloak.Jimin waits with his palms sweating as the seconds drag by like a chain being pulled, then finally, Gorin speaks.“No.” Simple and short, the one single word makes Jimin want to recoil inside himself and beat himself over it, but then—, “You have not offered me what I desire.”Jimin breathes through his nose, closing his eyes one more time and repeating what Gorin had initially asked. “The sacrifice, Park Jimin, must be something of extreme importance to you.”Jimin feels stupid, his chest feels hollow with it and he wants to beat his own head with the stupid Graal—an artifact. A family heritage. Certainly, something of insane value, something that families and rivals would battle, die and kill for.But not something of importance to him.Jimin feels his eyes burning again with tears that threaten to fall and he immediately puts the artifact back where it came from. He wants to cry so bad, overwhelmed by the realization that he could offer Gorin all the titles of land on this planet if he had them—it wouldn’t make a startling difference.Kadupul won’t bloom unless Jimin breaks and parts with something meaningful to him, personally. His watery eyes find the flower again—just a pink and golden blur behind his tears.“How important?” he breathes out.He hears himself.
How hurt and small he sounds, standing in front of a single flower which holds mower power in one of its petals than he has in the Spark inside his very soul.“Very important,” Gorin confirms, the same deep and eternal echo as before—emotionless. Simple. “For you.”It hits him as soon as Gorin confirms it.There isn’t much Park Jimin can offer that makes a difference in his life.The biggest thing, the main important thing he loves, is what brings him to his knees in front of the flower in the first place, rendered powerless at the feet of Gorin.The other two after that—already dead.His tears hit the ground and Jimin hears the whimper caught in his throat, the sound threatening to break the dem he had so carefully created while roaming around the Hylst Forest for hours with pieces of his broken heart on his hands.There is something else he can offer, something— or someone, better yet—, that felt too good to be true.Someone that Jimin can’t think of with ill thoughts at the moment, unlike a few hours ago. Now, kneeling like a crying child who admitted defeat, Jimin doesn’t have the strength to lie to himself and say the lies he had been repeating after escaping— he doesn’t care. He never did, he only used you. It was all a lie. All the bitter thoughts are left behind now, because he can’t bring himself to lie when his mind works out a true proposition.
It couldn’t all have been a lie, but in the end, there was a betrayal and that, Jimin cannot forgive.He uses that feeling as fuel, knowing that if he doesn’t he might not find the courage once the rabbit hole of Min Yoongi starts getting deeper, and tries to work the best way he could do this.“Is whatever I offer gone permanently? Forever?” he asks in despair, the cogs inside his brain turning. “There is never a chance of getting it back?”He has to ask because this—magic of sacrifice, it isn’t easily interchangeable magic. He needs to know at least before he gives it all up, needs to understand if it cannot be reverted.“I can only declare what happens now. For the Kadupul to bloom, a sacrifice must be made. The balance must tip—first, with you. If what is taken is never recovered, I do not have a say over. The threads of the future do not belong to me, Park Jimin, only the threads of now.”Well—that sounds exactly like what he expected.The chances of this type of magic being reverted are the same as finding a needle in a haystack. It could happen, but the odds are not too bright.Knowing that his offer should need a physical totem of it, Jimin doesn’t even have to think about what to use when the option solidifies in his mind.His shaky fingers find the necklace around his neck, needing more than one try to break the cord since he can’t stop his hands from shaking. The coin feels as heavy as it did on the first day and the only thing Jimin can bring himself to hope for now is that this transaction doesn’t eradicate or take away the item as well.Shaking, he places the necklace on the ground.“I offer—” he starts, but his voice breaks in the middle. The rational — and still hurt — part of his brain tells him he’s doing the right choice, but everything else in his body feels like he’s jumping off a cliff without a safety spell to land on. He gulps down the feeling, swallowing it like bitter medicine, and tries again. “I offer—this necklace presents the offer of my memories with Min Yoongi,” he words carefully, unable to say the words he had thought of first. He can't offer everything he experienced with Yoongi.Ridding himself of only the memories doesn’t erase the feelings buried inside his chest and yes, Jimin knows that remembering only that shall be a worse death, but there is only so much he can part with.He sees another tear of his hitting the ground, then—, “Yes.”The word makes oxygen burst inside Jimin’s lungs for the first time since entering the caves.“I accept your offer, Park Jimin. Now watch it as your sacrifice blooms.”The coin in the ground shines with a light that didn’t exist before—a golden sparkle that widens for a few seconds before dissipating into the ground and moving up.It’s hypnotizing to watch. The light moves like water and as it moves, the ground moist ground around the flower darkens a few shades, taking in everything—his sacrifice; his memories, one by one.Jimin feels the first sting of pain on the back of his brain at the same moment the light starts going up the Kadupul’s pedicel. The sharp shooting pain makes him wince and close his eyes, which results in flashes of Yoongi’s face popping up behind his eyelids.Different moments, sights, and conversations all seem to pass by at the same moment and Jimin groans out loud, the hurt spreading from that single point to his temple and the back of his eyes, shooting agony inside of him for seconds that stretch for a small eternity.He misses the blooming, but Jimin doesn’t think that witnessing it is actually possible.There is no way to see through the tears, the pain, or the hollowness, he believes.When he opens his eyes with his head pounding and weighing more than a human body, the flower is standing proud and healthily, already cut from the ground on the Scythe that Gorin has and Jimin hadn’t even seen it.The flower sits on top of the weapon, magically still.When his fingers close around it, Jimin knows somewhere in his brain this is a victory—that this is happiness.But now that he has it, he sits alone in the cave, drawing short breaths and absorbing the pain of his sacrifice with the Kadupul safely in his grip.The necklace is still intact, sitting on the ground. Jimin feels like a ghost of a man when he reaches his hand forward to grab it, knowing that the object is important to him because he can remember the feeling it evokes.When he tries to remember why the coin hurts so badly, he can’t recall it, and the panic begins. A vampire. That’s right. Jimin sacrificed the memories with the vampire who evokes that hollowness inside his chest—the lack of memories from him torments him, afflicting him with a pain he’s only felt once in his life when watching his parents kiss his and Jungkook’s forehead before yelling them to go.Jimin starts screaming into the eternal cave, screaming with his whole dying and afflicted chest, mourning in the suffering of losing a man whose face he can’t recall and whose name doesn’t come forward, even though Jimin can still taste it on the tip of his tongue.He cries, and he screams, and he mourns—he does that until his throat is as hoarse and empty as the memories he sacrificed.
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His destiny is Sea Inn’s community, but Jimin doesn't leave Moldavian lands as soon as he should.He finds the first Innkeep that doesn’t seem posh enough for him to draw attention to himself, and not sketchy enough that he’ll have to worry for his belongings every time he closes his eyes. Although he remembers making conversation and arranging a room for himself, those mostly feel like memories from another person rather than himself.It hurts.Not physically, which—ironically, after all that has happened, he would actually prefer to this.His pain comes from the horrible, crushing feeling that doesn’t leave his chest, even after conquering his quest.He doesn’t call Jungkook, he doesn’t smile in victory—not one sigh of relief. Nothing.Jimin cries himself to sleep multiple times over the course of the following days, frustrated and irritable in ways he never imagined a being could even get. His brain eventually does start hurting, a result of him frowning at every reflection he passes across and stops in front of, trying to evoke something inside of him.His fingers spend more time now fiddling with the necklace around his neck than his eyes do watching the Kadupul inside her glass container.Jimin finds the name of the vampire he erased, eventually—Min Yoongi.There are enough notes to evoke the faint and distant spark of something in his brain, but no matter how much he wishes and obsessively thinks about it, nothing more than feelings and echoes—whispers, ghosts of phrases and things come to him.It’s the worst feeling he’s ever felt because that’s the only thing he has left: feelings. And
oh, does he feel.He knows by calculation and some of the notes how long he had spent with the vampire and from the way his heart feels broken and scattered inside his ribs, Jimin guesses that the visit was far more than to heal himself from the last thing he actually remembers.So he cries. And he mourns.The pain is something that demands to be felt—scratching at the barriers of his brain are the scents that evoke something every now and then, a word he hears in the bar or while going up the stairs that whisper a whole different sentence most likely said by someone else entirely, begging him to know what he has given up.After two days pass, though, and he's leaving his bathroom whilst rubbing his temple with one hand and touching his coin with the other, Jimin stumbles.He trips against the wooden stool beside his bed and drops a few items from this bag, one of them catching his eye immediately: The Mirror.It’s a message as clear as the day. He has had his time to cry himself dry, now he owes his brother his return.Jimin makes the packing and getting ready a quick ordeal—he cleans the room of his things, gets dressed, and checks if he has everything with him, then heads downstairs for a final drink before he once and for all leaves Moldavia behind.The future, same as Nature, works through its own laws.His plan was to have enough drinks to dim down his headache and then make his way out, no looking back.Instead, he’s faced with a person sliding across the booth and sitting in front of him without an invite, startling him away from his thoughts.He stops messing with his necklace and doesn’t miss the way the newcomer’s eyes dart from Jimin’s face to the item, then back.They’re familiar, somehow.“Oh, Jimin,” they say with a trembling and sad voice, clearly sorry for what their jade-green eyes are seeing. Jimin feels a knot on his throat at being called by his name, but he already knew by the feeling the person evoke that they had crossed paths. “I would ask what have you done, but I see it more clearly than I would like.”“I see it”, they said. Inside Jimin’s brain, a new whisper, but this time louder— Arden.“Arden,” he chokes out, echoing the name which came to him out of nowhere, knowing that if he doesn’t say it out loud the thought will slip out before he knows it—it had happened enough these past couple of days.The person — Oracle, his mind corrects — nods at him, their knowing eyes still so deeply sad as they look at Jimin. Arden looks back in a different direction and Jimin immediately follows their eyes, landing on two people who are still standing against the counter of the bar, far away in the busiest part of the tavern.One of them is a black girl with dark and long hair, their witchy grey eyes also very familiar, so familiar in fact that Jimin feels like his gut is being punched. The woman is looking at him sternly and distantly, her face set in an impassive look.Besides her, there is a woman with lighter skin and auburn hair, dressed in black from head to toe and carrying the same witchy eyes—the same stone-cold look too, it seems. She’s a little less familiar, but being stared so coldly by her still evokes a sadness in him that tells him he was acquainted with her as well, somehow.Two witches, both standing close enough for their arms to touch, their eyes glued on what is happening.The rational part of him that knows he’s met these women and that they meant something to him is crawling like an angry and hurt beast inside of him again, throwing a tantrum like a newborn unfed baby. You knew them, it seems to scream as it cries. And now you can’t even remember their names! It accuses him.Despite having cried himself out of tears, Jimin feels in that moment that he could muster a few more of those if he looks at them long enough.He doesn’t have the time to discover if there’s still liquid inside of him for such a feat because the weight of Arden’s eyes on him snap his attention back to them.“I thought we were too late and you had already left, but—,” Arden starts, chuckling sadly. They don’t hide the tear that slips from their eyes, wiping them with the back of their sleeve. “It seems like we were still late in different ways.”“I know that I—,” he tries, choking on his voice. He hears how hoarse it sounds, scratchy, and low. “I knew you, right?” he asks for confirmation.Arden only nods, their eyes going once again to the necklace on Jimin’s neck. As a reflex, his right-hand closes around it too.“I got what I needed to cure my brother,” he informs the person standing in front of him. He doesn’t know what brings him to comfortably say the words, but he’s come too far to ignore his instincts now. “And it demanded something from me.”“I can see that,” they nod, setting their lips in a straight line. “Do you remember his name?” they ask sadly, and neither of them needs to know who they refer to.“Min Yoongi,” Jimin answers in the same heartbeat, voice barely a whisper. His fingers squeeze around the coin, the familiar affliction building up inside of him once again. Why had he done this again? “I only did it because—because I knew it was fair. He might’ve—the feelings might’ve been real, but there was—he betrayed me. I remember clinging to that very thought before I shared my offer, Arden. There was a betrayal and no matter how much the feelings lived inside my very bones, a betrayal I couldn’t forgive.”Those are the words Jimin had clung to for the past seventy hours or so. At least I gave up someone who would’ve given me up too, he had thought many times.Arden doesn’t answer him at first, so Jimin finds their eyes and tries to look for the answer himself. In those mossy green pools, he only finds more hurt.Underneath their beautiful eyes, Jimin sees the heavy and dark circles that indicate they’ve had as much sleep as Jimin. Upon inspection, their beautiful long hair is frizzy and wild too, a sign that whatever happened these past two days on the other side of the story must have been as pretty as Jimin crying until he went hoarse whilst clutching a coin inside his palms until it bruised—which is to say, not appealing at all.“You’re wrong, you know?” they ask him and Jimin closes his eyes at that, visibly wincing. Arden doesn’t mind and continues. “You know what’s wrong in our community, Jimin?” they ask in a genuinely curious tone.Jimin opens his eyes with trembling lips and wonders how many times can a heart be broken in the span of a few days before it can’t take it anymore.“Not really. The division between species? Blatant prejudice against our own—or perhaps the stereotypes some of us face?” he blabbers, trying to deflect himself from his raising heartbeat.“The miscommunication,” Arden corrects him.How many times can a person cry until there are literally no tears left?“And the lack of information,” they continue.“No! I—I remember that I knew,” he fights back, uselessly.Arden shakes their head calmly, looking at him like one looks at a child. “You had part of the information, Jimin, and jumped to the conclusions from then on. It’s okay, we’ve all done it. But he tried telling you. He did,” Arden affirms, nodding their head while Jimin still shook his, feelings his eyes stinging. “Even though it hurt him that you accused him of something so horrible, he tried once to swallow down his pride and make it right. I thought you should know at least that.”“I can’t!” he claps back in a louder tone, closing his eyes firmly to shut down the inevitable waterworks. “I couldn’t have put the life of the one person who never left me in danger. I could not do that. He could’ve lied to me. He could easily manipulate me and then—who would help him, Arden? Who would help my Jungkookie?” he cries out.Arden keeps on looking at him for a few moments longer and Jimin wants to ask about it, but he can’t take any more chances at being wrong. He doesn’t care even if he offends and ancient Oracle, there is no room for more mistakes on his behalf.“How can I know that you aren’t lying to me right now?” he insists, trying to push the poison he feels inside of him to the outside.Arden takes a deep breath at the question and seems exhales slowly, a more solemn look taking over them.“I can tell you all you wish to know, but are you sure you could handle knowing that you were wrong right now?” they ask seriously.Jimin thinks at that moment, his fingers squeezing his totem—the proof of all that happened—so tight that it hurts, he thinks that the heart can break as many times as necessary.“I could,” he answers.“I imagine you must have something on you that compels the truth,” Arden says in a more even tone, placing both of their hands clasped together on top of the table. They look serious with no smile on their lips, but it’s in their eyes that the conversation happens. Jimin can see the hurt in them, even though their voice doesn’t show it anymore. “I can tell you.”Jimin sniffles and cleans away the tears that dared to escape, shuffling his bag for the familiar Mirror as soon as Arden is done talking.He extends the Mirror towards the Oracle, who looks at the item with some sort of recognition on their face. “Oh—,” they exclaim in a low voice, eyeing the Mirror carefully in their hands. Jimin figures it must be recognition of a Two-Faced Mirror itself and not his in particular, knowing he would never let just anybody touch it. Arden holds the item firmly in their hands and then looks up at Jimin with a determined set in their eyebrows. “A lot of this might just go over your head, but I’ll try to keep it as—informative as possible.”Jimin nods, waiting patiently. He has to squeeze his hands between his thighs to stop them from touching the necklace again.Arden takes a deep breath, and starts. “As it turns out, the Sire whose Ball you attended with Yoongi was the culprit behind the attack which killed Yoongi’s entire family,” they speak between their teeth, saying the words carefully. “Sire Kalif hated Yoongi’s Sire because of his heritage and rightful claim to Wallachia’s throne instead of him, and thought killing the family would suffice for his plans, but—of course not. Seokjin’s heritage passed straight to Yoongi, his chosen one, and Kalif was left with no way into the Council he wanted.”Like Arden had said, a lot of it goes over Jimin’s head, but the important parts stick easier.Kalif’s name ushers flashbacks forward, his limp and dosed body at a party. A lady whose name he can’t recall and a glass of champagne flash behind his eyelids and Jimin comprehends somehow through the fog of his lost memories one thing—Yoongi lost his family too, and it was no accident.“Wh—what happened to him?” Jimin asks.“Yoongi? Well—when Yerin captured you at the party, he found you faster than she imagined. Actually, he found you faster than anyone imagined,” Arden corrects themselves with an apprehensive tone, looking at Jimin sideways as they elaborate further. “You were unconscious, Yerin thought she would get to play her sick games with you and Yoongi arrived right at the middle of Kalif’s deranged jealous raging fit. He let out all the truth in his explosion and before anything else could happen, Yoongi killed him.”Jimin’s jaw drops almost all the way down to the table.Why would a vampire kill another vampire like that? His head was already hurting trying to connect the dots when so much of the information was missing, but Jimin shook his head physically to get rid of the aching and the confusion and tried focusing on the parts he could.Arden is not done. “Yoongi killed Kalif at the Ball and from that moment on three things were certain—One, he would kill anyone in his way if that’s what it took to get you out of there. Two—he called Heba ad I for help because he was now the Sire of Wallachia by rightfulness and three—many things he believed to be true were, in fact, nothing but lies.”Jimin shakes his head harder, wanting to get up and run. “Why would he do that?” he breathes out. “Why would he—he risked it all. Why would he?”“Jimin. We both know the answer to that question, don’t we?” Arden asks in a kind, sad tone. “What is the only reason why we do anything crazy and dangerous?”Jimin wants to laugh between his tears, because that is the only answer he does have.It’s the answer to his entire life, actually.Because of love.Like many other times, the wind whispers words to him that comes from a broken and stolen place inside his soul now. Because it’s you.Jimin’s hand raises to cover his lips, trying to stop the sob that attempts to escape.“And then what?” Jimin chokes out. “I—I was wrong how?”“You thought Yoongi wanted Jungkook as part of his sacrifice for his family, but you were wrong, Jimin. He needed a Fire Fox, and I found one. The morning of the Ball I informed him so. You connected the dots, but to the wrong conclusions.” Arden sighs deeply, running their hands through their face, tired. “These past couple of days have been—challenging, to say the least. Kalif wanted so desperately to keep Seokjin and then Yoongi out of what he claimed to be his land that his own greed was his downfall—if he hadn’t allowed and enticed Lycans around here, you wouldn’t have gotten attacked and Yoongi would’ve never found you. He would’ve never found the thing which would shine a light on his life, on many corners.”It was too much.Behind his hands, he feels the tired and inevitable tears win the battle against his logic.He doesn’t know these people, but he once did. He doesn’t know Min Yoongi, but he did, and he loved him.Jimin loved him, for there is no denying the feeling once it's there, still alive and blooming like magic whenever you place it on an artifact. It's there, still in Jimin's chest, despite all the memories that have created such feeling being banished from his brain. Even still, even without the reasoning why, Jimin is still able to feel the result of the time he had spent with the vampire: Jimin found him, developed feelings, somehow managed to have him.And then he lost him.When Jimin can finally look into Arden’s eyes again, he sees them almost shining, illuminated by the light and their own tears.“I saw a lot of you when I first met you, Park Jimin,” Arden tells them, placing the Mirror down carefully in front of the druid. “And it pains me that it’s all fading away,” they add, voice breaking at the end. “I’m not used to being wrong, but I was right about one thing—it was a pleasure.”Jimin nods through his tears, sniffling without a care for the mess that he looks outside. It doesn’t hold a candle compared to the ruins inside of him.“Likewise,” he answers, knowing the Oracle will see the truth in his words.When Arden leaves, they take the two witches with them, trailing a couple of meters behind. Both of them send the same look they initially did when he first saw them, only now it hurts twice fold.Jimin might’ve succeeded in his quest, but the outcome of his stay in Moldavia—the buried memories that feel like ashes spread across the cemetery in his chest— that was certainly a failure.
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On the journey home, Jimin’s heart and mind reach a certain balance as to his success and his failure.He chooses to travel back by boat, carriages, and horses instead of taking trains or cars. The cargo he carries with him is too important to put it at chance—if he lost the Kadupul to a robbery or a usurping, Jimin would surely end up as a ghost, stuck for eternity in the limbo of an unfinished business that stains your soul.That choice, however, means he has to deal with his incessant thoughts, yet again, for much longer.He leaves Moldavia with his chest light and hollow: Mission accomplished, but empty of heart.He does cry himself out before he hits the road, thank god, but the numbness left inside Jimin by said ‘balance’ between heart and mind only tipped for the good, or the worst. When it came to the first case and his mood ended on a good note, it was because he could envision his life getting better now that Jungkook would be better.His mind doesn’t want to think about the future—about possibilities, chances, options.Every time he has to make small conversations, Jimin cuts people short with a tight-lipped smile and keeps it to himself, trying to steer his mind on the only thing he needs to care for at the moment: Getting to Jungkook and restoring his health.What could come after that, he doesn’t want to think about it.(Which means, of course, that he does.Jimin sleeps less and less, awaken every time by the ghost of a half-stranger lips against his skin, against his scars. Never in his life had he felt so naked and exposed, and his chest aches because he had also never felt so cared for. Hugging his belongings, Jimin breathed steadily, counting to five and repeating to himself that it’d be okay.He could deal with the aftermath of his choice, and would live hearing and seeing bits and pieces of the one Min Yoongi every once in a while.)The only thing that comes close to heal the wounds in Jimin’s insides before the expected and memorable sight of his brother Jungkook, is the scent of Marealta, their city.Jimin smells the scent of factory fumes, expensive and sweet perfume and underneath, the underlying and eternal smell of earth. Marealta, with its many mines, could never hide the scent of nature—that, and the amount of supernatural which it was home to.No matter how much he missed home, however, Jimin’s mind had focused to appreciate only one thing that day. If you asked him what had happened between walking the enormous iron gates of Marealta and finally meeting Jungkook on their arranged spot in the woods far Northeast, he would say only a second had passed and nothing more.One second, Jungkook and Jimin lock eyes from a distance and the next—they’re colliding.Jimin knows he does most of the running—Jungkook actually crumbles, both his knees visibly giving out at the sight of his brother, the tears immediately filling up his tired and red-rimmed eyes. He looks a little worse than when Jimin had to leave him — and a little here is a happy and keyword — but he hugged just the same.Jimin drops everything at their feet and throws both arms around Jungkook’s middle, squeezing his still frail body tight and lifting him off the ground.They’re both crying when it happens (although both will deny it afterward for all the next years to come), sobbing into each other’s shoulders and hugging as tight as they can, repeating the other’s name over and over, like a prayer.Next, they cup each other’s faces in their hands, the same way their parents used to do it when they were kids, to examine how much they had changed.Jimin doesn’t think about anything when his brother is in his arms, except how happy he is.He feels happy—elated with joy, laughing and wiping the tears out of Jungkook’s face even though he is still crying like a baby.More than half of their conversation is useless at the beginning. They’re talking more to hear the sound of each other’s voice than to have an actual conversation, but when the euphoria eventually dies down and they both sit in a tree log, Jimin can finally put his thoughts together enough to ask him.“Are you ready for this?” he asks, voice barely a whisper. They sit close enough to touch and Jimin is so attuned at Jungkook at that moment that he could hear him if he thought too loud, Jimin thinks. “I brought the only thing she asked for, did you take what I told you?”“Of course,” Jungkook rolls his eyes, always the brat. He’s smiling though—that teethy and bunny smile that Jimin loves so much. “I found the recipe so fucking easy. Master Tania really needs to upgrade the protection spells on her stock and greenhouse, they’re so shitty.”“I thought you made them for her?” Jimin asks, confused. He recalls Jungkook being Tania’s favorite spell designer—she doted on his skills to create and innovate wards like their mom doted on Jimin when she learned his potion-making skills. “After you broke in her stock that first week in Sea Inn, she said you—”“—had better either fix this precisely the way I cast it,” Jungkook interrupts.“—or create one yourself which is as good, if not better! ” they finish in unison, bursting out laughing at the memory.That day, Jimin and Jungkook were caught sneaking and thought for sure their lives would end there and then, or worse, they’d be expelled from the Sea community and have to go back to fending for themselves.Master Tania was frightening with her yellow and deep eyes and when she spoke down at them that day, the brothers nearly burst out crying, frozen on the spot.Now it was kinda funny.“I still can’t believe you actually created a new ward for her,” Jiming adds, wiping a tear from the corner of his eyes from laughing too hard.“I didn’t know hers step-by-step!” Jungkook defends himself, giggling again. “You know she’s fancy with her wards. Tania loves designing, I would’ve never guessed her own damn ward and then I’d have to live forever cursed with, like—being blonde or something.”Jungkook shudders and this time, Jimin is the one rolling his eyes.“That might be true, but you were a bold and bratty thing since you were born. I just hadn’t noticed until then that you were like that to everyone,” Jimin states.Jungkook shrugs his shoulders, smiling innocently.“She liked it at least,” Jungkook laughs it out.“I believe her precise words were ‘not a horrendous job, after all. There’s potential here’.”“Which for her, is the same as a compliment, a hug and a pat on the head,” Jungkook defies.Jimin pauses, knowing he’s right.“It was a nice ward,” Jimin muses out loud, as proud of his brother for his boldness and talent now as he was back then.“And I was fourteen,” Jungkook adds smugly.“Ugh. You’ve always been too good at learning shit,” Jimin corrects when he sees Jungkook running his hands through his
— now very long — wavy hair with that cocky smirk. Jimin gets up, trying to contain his own smile as he extends his hand to Jungkook. “Let’s go. I wanna do this before it gets dark.”They walk to the Stone Witch’s house together, knock together, and enter together.She introduces herself to Jungkook and, with a very eerie and pleased smile, leads him to the living room to examine him.Part of Jimin’s mind for the past four traveling days was greatly occupied by his first and only encounter with the woman. He played it in his head, going over the details of everything she said, always trying to ignore her snake slithering up the corners of his mind.Having her witchy eyes on him once again is a strange experience—Jimin doesn’t expect how much it’d make his skin crawl to see her lay Jungkook on the sofa and with one swift movement, render him unconscious.“It’ll be better this way, faster too—he mustn't be awake,” she says out loud as she performs her magic, walking animatedly around the room while Jimin looks around, wondering where her pet animal is hiding.“How long will this take?” he asks in return, keeping his eyes on Jungkook.She hadn’t even warned him before doing this. He swallows down the discontent of seeing him asleep while the witch rummages through her cabinets.“Huh?” she turns around in confusion but then shrugs it off, her eerie smile back on her face. “Right, right—the potion. It’s quick! Nothing longer than thirty minutes, actually. It’ll be done soon, yes,” the last part, the witch mutters lower, clutching the ingredients and bowls tight against her chest, walking away in hurried steps.Normally, Jimin wouldn’t follow a witch uninvited inside her own house.Under normal circumstances, not only would that be highly inappropriate behavior for a raised-by-a-witch boy, but also a very stupid one.Right now though, his brother is lying ill and unconscious on the couch of a stranger whom Jimin doesn’t trust in the least.This isn’t normally, so Jimin walks too.“Will you need anything from me other than what I brought?” he asks in the kindest tone he can muster, trying to hide how inconvenient he feels walking a few steps behind her.The woman ends up in her green room without sparing a glance to him, apparently unbothered by his actions.“No, my dear. You brought everything you needed, worry not. Strain no muscle,” she chuckles.Jimin stands under the threshold, watching as the Stone Witch organizes and initiates her potion with agile and experienced fingers, moving with the precision and speed of a chef under Saturday pressure.His gaze shifts from her to the other items spread all around her greenhouse, not wanting to disrupt her pace by walking around or distract her somehow. Jimin stands under the threshold with one hand inside his satchel tightly gripping the flower, his heartbeat steadily rising inside his chest.Her presence feels wrong, something that he sensed when he first stepped inside, but now couldn’t ignore at all. The feeling was bigger, stronger than on his first visit. With one glance at the witch, Jimin felt the hairs on his arms and neck rising when she glanced towards him as well, their eyes meeting.The spark that lives inside of him and ignites his magic sizzles and the moment she looks away, his stomach starts feeling light too—like when he drinks too much or eats something that isn’t good anymore. The queasiness starts getting to him as his eyes continue sweeping the shelves in the room.“Where is it?” her voice is loud enough to be heard over the bubbling inside her cauldron. The witch clears her throat a couple of times, lifting her hand to cover her lips. “I’ll need it in a second. You can put it on the table, you’re allowed to come in,” she affirms, coughing a couple more times.Jimin enters the room with a nod, silently thanking her for the verbal permission.When he takes the Kadupul out of his bag, his hands move slowly, placing it on top of the table with the rest of the ingredients.Everything inside him starts screaming to get the flower, run away! Get this flower and run away right now, but Jimin fought against it. No matter how sketchy she was or how much her thankful smile felt eerie to him, Jimin had to be here and he’d have to pay whatever she asked of it afterward.That was the deal.She was the only way to save Jungkook.He started repeating that part to himself, trying to convince and silence the doubt swirling around him that everything was going to be okay. There was no reason to believe any harm would fall upon Jungkook and as long as that was true, Jimin could deal with anything.Her hands chopped, cut, and measured.Jimin looked away, repeating comforting words to himself as she cooked her potion and he tried distracting his nagging thoughts with anything. The jars and ingredients the Stone Witch kept around were all neatly in conserve, liquids he recognized and some that he didn’t keep everything inside the glass jars in perfect conditions.
They varied in size and shape, but the soft glow inside some of them called his attention.Sure, his mother had taught him not to look too much into things that a witch kept inside her own home — “ A witch’s home is a reflection of herself, and that might not always be an easy sight”, she said —, but this was a different situation and he needed something to do. A distraction.Like analyzing the jars. They were nothing but ingredients, after all, nothing but plants, rocks, and leftovers. Bones. Skulls. Teeth, nails, skin.A body.Jimin feels his insides turning into cold ice when they spy it—it’s small, as small as a jar that could fit pickles in it. But it’s also not the only tiny body.The lower shelves, hidden in the darkness and foggy humidity of the witch’s greenhouse, keep several jars, some as big as Jimin’s chest, filled with tiny bodies. All of them look about the same: infants, newborns, and maybe even miscarriages, all locked inside jelly and watered pots, waiting to be used.He thanks the gods that witches can’t hear heartbeats, because Jimin can feel and hear his own from where he stands.His hands start sweating and his mouth runs dry because if everything his mother had ever taught him was worth anything, it was this:“Only Dead Witches use humans for their own purpose, my dear. Witches whose souls are long gone. Whose power has withered long ago, and their time has come many times. Death comes for them and when they refuse to be taken, they make a pact: Souls for their power. For themselves.”Witches who refused to live and let themselves die, who refused the only eternal truth: That all things come to a circle.That nothing is endless.Jimin’s Ouroboros tattooed on his right arm is his own protection against that kind of greed: His soul would never be used for craft purposes, but his soul was not the one here in danger.As if mocking him for his destiny, the witch’s pet slithers across the floor, startling him out of his stupor, yet thankfully creating a diffusion for his choking moment.“Oh my god,” he breathes out, holding his hand against his heart. If he can sell out his pretend dumbness, he might have a chance. “Why can I never get used to these?” he asks with a chuckle, still not feeling brave enough to look into the woman’s eyes.The witch doesn’t answer and Jimin feels it—he swallows the bile that comes up down, calculating his routes and options. Calculating how he will wake Jungkook.As the seconds in silence stretch out a bit longer, Jimin can’t deny himself anymore—he looks up, taking a deep breath for whatever he may face, but all the oxygen he sucks in gets stuck in his lungs, as another bucket of ice water seems to drop out of the sky and freeze his entire body on the spot.
Essylt.
Her name echoes in the walls of Jimin’s brain, but he has to blink twice to mend the sight of what’s in front of him with the sight of whom he met. The Stone Witch’s appearance that day was nothing short of a scene, he notices. She must’ve done a spell to appear younger, more well kept than what she truly looked like so she wouldn’t scare him away.Her raven long hair, which he thought had a few strands of white, is actually as silver as the Moon.The ‘few’ lines of age around her eyes aren’t few at all—they’re in every inch of her wrinkly old skin.Her gray eyes don’t hold a shred of life in them anymore. Looking at her, Jimin feels like he’s staring at an old road in the side of a mountain, a foggy and long road which leads to fucking nowhere.“I had in me to actually give your brother the potion, you know, since I was the one who cursed the life out of him in the first place,” Essylt speaks, without pretense. Her voice sounds as old as one gets, low and scratchy. It sounds like nails on a chalkboard. “Then as the curse of the dead left him and he felt like himself again, you two would hug. At that very moment, I would take your lives, so your spirits would roam happily and without unfinished tethers to this world,” she continues, stepping closer to him.Her words register one by one, gluing him even more in place.“Before you question the reasons as to why Jungkook, there was none. I curse unfortunate souls every year, Jimin, so that they bring me life themselves as they die on my porch and I take their vitality and transform it into fuel, or I can set them on a quest for another alternative of longer approach,” she says, eyes landing on the stem of the flower, left on top of the table after being used.The Kadupul, a flower from the garden of the dead, was clearly her preferred choice.Essylt laughs then, as if finding something amusing. “You were the first one to actually bring me it, did you know? After eleven years, you were the only one who didn’t fail and become food for my worms. I guess I should give you the respect for that, Park Jimin.”His head starts swimming with denial and Jimin wants to drown in the rage that swirls up in him. He had thought of everything. He took care of everything, and yet he still failed.
She takes another step towards him and, shaking his head, Jimin takes a step back.“I—I won’t let you take him,” he speaks up, voice cracking.Jimin had made sure to use his Mirror she would speak only the truth, he analyzed her words carefully as she spoke, and yet she still beat him at this stupid game. He feels stupid, underneath all his rage.“Take me instead,” he says, still walking backwards. “If it’s a life you want, take mine.”Jimin replays the moment where they had a conversation and he notices where he went wrong when he sees the snake’s head appearing on the witch’s shoulder, the animal’s tongue out. He sees the snake and it’s then that he remembers—Essylt had given him the Mirror back before claiming that she would use the potion to help him.She told the truth until a point, handed him the Mirror back, and lied straight to his face.And he, charmed by the idea of a cure for a curse she had brought on, had nodded, taking the lie in.His rage builds up to a bubbling point and Jimin feels his eyes burning along with his skin, which means his eyes must be faintly glowing as he unconsciously awakens his runes.“The Mirror compelled with truth was a nice touch, child, I’ll give you that,” she chuckles, getting closer to him. “But your brother is under a heavy sleeping spell, you are weak, and you are alone. There is nowhere to go, Park Jimin, so I’d avoid a fight if I were you. I would've taken the potion out of his dead body then, and I still will.”Jimin feels a couple of tears sliding down his cheek, but he’s always been one to cry when he’s too angry or feeling cornered—which, ironically, was the scenario.What hurts, even more, is that she’s right.Jimin is alone and he is also weak.Taking a couple more steps back, he hits one of the shelves and allows himself to feel all the rage, the pain and the hurt that’s been living inside of him for the better part of the past week. Jimin feels it all, hearing a single sob escape his lips as he focuses one last jolt of magic out of his finger.She might’ve been right about the last two things, but the first was a mistake.If there was one thing Jimin could do, was wake his own brother up.Whether it was natural sleep, a potion, or a fucking witch curse—Jeon-Park Jungkook was still his brother and there was nobody on earth who knew him better than Jimin himself. All you needed to wake Jungkook up was a key ingredient, a secret taste of his that exuded a particular scent:Banana milk.Jimin’s jolt of electric magic silently and invisibly left his hand and traveled all the way to the living room, but as soon as it hit Jungkook’s ribs and went up to his nose with the smell of his favorite thing in the world, he was awake.Jimin had two goals only: To get the potion, and to get Jungkook out.For that, he’d need to distract her.“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he confesses.Exploding anything inside the place would be a bust considering he could implode the entire house, so Jimin prays she’s as old and weak as she looks and chooses the next best thing: Jimin focuses all the energy inside his spark in a blast of power and magically throws Essylt’s body several feet back through the air, her back cracking the glass doors of the greenhouse open.She must fly at least thirty yards back, landing somewhere far on the back of her property.Jimin exhales, his entire body shaking with fear and adrenaline, but he doesn’t have the time to stick around and check if he’s committed his first murder.With shaky hands, he compels an empty vial out of his bag and magically pours the potion inside of it, locking the glass with magic, too. He takes one look back to the empty hole in the (almost) shape of Essylt, and dashes off running too.Jimin runs out of the house with everything in him, praying that Jungkook is so far off that he’ll have the time to check on him, but he doesn’t make it very far before he sees the frame of his brother leaning against a tree, obviously panting.Jungkook turns around when he hears the hurried steps of Jimin getting closer and his eyes glow as if he’s ready to explode whoever’s coming too, but they return to normal when he sees it’s Jimin.Without wasting a single second, Jimin stops running when he’s right in front of Jungkook, and ignoring the inquiry that starts falling from Jungkook’s lips when Jimin stops running, he finds the vial and pushes it against Jungkook’s hand.“Shut up and drink this right now,” he says, interrupting another question from Jungkook.Jimin glances towards the direction of the house, his entire body still rushing with adrenaline, and his senses distantly pick up the sound of something.Jungkook doesn’t waste a second — he’d thankfully learned long ago when to listen to Jimin’s I’m not fucking around tone — and downs the potion in two gulps. The effect is immediate: Jungkook starts coughing roughly, a cough that comes from the depth of your lungs, harsh and dry coughs that seem to be trying to rid him of a nail stuck on the bottom of his chest.His coughing fit brings him to his knees and Jimin watches as Jungkook retches, finally gagging out what looks like a ball of melted coal. It’s a ball of black tar that looks disgusting and way too big to have passed through someone’s throat, but as soon as the thing is out, Jungkook looks up and—.Jimin's hand goes up to his mouth again, covering the sobs that threaten to escape.He is Jungkook.“What the fuck was that?” Jungkook asks, coughing a bit more.Before Jimin can answer, the ground rumbles beneath both of them and he recalls that he just threw a Dead Witch out of her own fucking window.
(Technically, she flew out of the roof. Jimin doesn’t think that somehow makes it better.)“I just threw a Dead Witch out of her own window,” he repeats out loud at the same time a loud screeching comes from the direction of her house. “Please run.”“What? No! I’m not running right when—,”“Jungkook,” he interrupts, holding his brother by the shoulders when he gets up. The screeching gets louder and closer. “This isn’t a request. I didn’t just bring your life back for you to throw it in the trash. Run.”With Jimin’s yell, Jungkook purses his lips into a thin line and thankfully, he listens.Jimin watches Jungkook running in the direction of the town and turns back North, feeling his sweaty hands. The ground rumbling can only mean one thing—the dead.Jimin can smell them almost like he can feel them: the scent of rotting flesh and sewage is unmistakable. He steps closer to the house, knowing several, maybe dozens of putrid and lifeless bodies will be waiting to tear his own flesh into pieces.Dead witches have one thing in common, after all.Only when the screeching ceases that Jimin realizes how loud it had gotten. He looks around as the remaining light of the sky starts fading away—dark grey clouds start forming and grouping together much quicker than natural and he hears himself asking a question, in a memory that doesn’t belong to him anymore. “What’s it like? To end someone’s life? ”Jimin lifts a veil of protection, a magical wall that should keep some of the lifeless bodies away when they try passing.His own voice asking that question rings deep in the places of his mind that hurt now whenever he thinks of the past he rid himself off, and the pain he felt and tried ignoring all those days return to him, but they amplify tenfold when he feels a shooting pain in his left side.“Ahhhhh!” he screams, falling to the floor.
Jimin looks down, shaking and with vision blurring, and he notices that the fucking bitch shot an arrow through him, right where he was bit.“Fuck! Fuck, god fucking damnit,” he groans, clutching at the arrow and ignoring the stickiness of blood on his hands and clothes. “Fuck, fucking bitch,” he moans in pain and runs West, thinking quickly about what he could do.He feels himself drifting away and he knows he’ll have no time to come up with a plan or even get a shot at her if she isn’t in distress either. Jimin moans, stops running, and leans against a tree, seeing in the distance one of the lifeless bodies walking towards him. Okay, he thinks. It’s either my meanest shot or my life down the drain so… I’m sorry mom. Jimin shoves his blood-sticky hand inside his bag and retrieves the only thing he needs to give himself a fighting chance: His scroll.His vision is blurring when he looks at it, but the seal is the same and Essylt’s screeching returns, which means she must be doing another summoning, so Jimin tells himself to stop overthinking and just do it.He breaks the seal and holds the magical spell on his hand, feeling it vibrate between his fingers.When the lifeless corpse is close enough, Jimin watches it with his blurry vision, calculating it’s steps. He doesn’t even have to kill it, all he needs is to get close enough.The thing takes one, two, three steps—Jimin opens his palm, closes his eyes and mutters the words.
“In this blast, a maze. In these words, a curse. In this loop, your mind. In this puzzle, your fears.”
The golden smoke blown in the corpse’s direction stills the being and Jimin knows that this curse is powerful enough to be passed through magic: The dead body contains Essylt’s magic and therefore, it now contains his small mind curse.With Essylt locked inside her a maze of her own phobias, Jimin thinks he might have a shot.Maybe Jungkook will return with Tania… Maybe he won’t.Jimin looks down at the arrow, knowing that the bitch got to him.The blood loss allows him only to run a few more miles before he trips and falls again, this time without the strength to get up right away. The arrow lodged further inside of him and he knows it must’ve had some sort of poison in it—Essylt isn’t dumb enough to just physically hurt him.With the sky darkening and the pain returning, Jimin wonders why even in death he can’t escape the pain in his heart.The forest ground is kissing his cheeks and the blood from the arrow wound seems to be gushing out more than he cares to keep up, but neither of those things hurt or weight more than the necklace still hanging around his neck.Jimin’s hand flies to it, squeezing the item through his aching.Even without a single memory of what he was like, Jimin feels how much he misses the man. He wishes Yoongi was here, even though he can’t remember why. It must have something to do with the safety that his name brings, or maybe it’s the blanket of warmth that seems to be draped on top of him whenever something of the vampire does slip through the cracks.Jimin’s tears stop being because of his impending death or his blood loss, and start coming because of his mistake.He wishes he weren’t alone.He could’ve had people here.“I could have people here…”The coin feels light against his fingers, which don’t have the strength to squeeze anything anymore.“Yoongi.”The name brings him peace. Smiling, he thinks about him, allows himself to feel him.“Yoongi… and Heba.... and Arden,” he recalls. “I could have—,”Jimin faints against the cool and damp forest ground, an arrow still lodged inside of his wounds.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
I carry your breath in my hands
like warm sun at dusk.
Your laughter vines through my hair,
roots growing into my heart.
— Patty Dickson Pieczka , Autumn
Yoongi hates the bloodbath.If there was one thing he insisted to his friends, to his family, something he never got ‘used to’ despite how much he had been told he would—the bloodbath, which surrounded everything in the supernatural community.
It was so much blood, and at all times—blood on him, around him, blood staining his vision and dripping like water; it was so much that the color red has lost all its meaning to Yoongi.The blood hadn’t, unfortunately. Red, on the other hand, in all of its shapes and textures, now was like any dull brown or gray. It was nothing.Their nature and the instincts running rapidly through their magical veins must have something to do with it, he muses sometimes. Regardless of what was the reason, they killed each other over anything or nothing at all.When Awakened by Seokjin, the only relief and peace of mind he had came from the fact that he wouldn’t be too close to that insanity. Seokjin himself hated the drama and the feuds, always trying and preaching for better days and a more united community. He lived to himself, most of the time, and when Yoongi met him and Heba, the (then) young witch with already half a dozen apprentices following her brilliant mind—Yoongi knew he had lucked out.A second chance in an afterlife, and with people who still valued the good things about being on this Earth.Now, all that was left of him was his memories and to Yoongi, the blood.After the Ball, he sat on the armchair next to his bed, seeing his reflection on the wall mirror, trying to evoke a feeling other than hatred, but it was impossible. He sat there, his clothes covered in Kalif’s blood, unable to move.Yoongi felt betrayed in ways he couldn’t even grasp. His chest was a tight and confined bottle of long-repressed feelings, the words he had heard from Kalif’s lips still ringing in his ears.“I had that bastard and his kin murdered because Wallachia belongs to ME!”All those years thinking and wondering why such a tragedy had happened, and it was no tragedy at all. Yoongi sipped on scotch, hating more and more how he didn’t feel a tinge of effect from it given that it doesn’t have Jimin’s special touch.Yoongi stared at the blood of his hands for hours, listening in to make sure that Jimin’s heart was still beating. Attuning himself to the familiar sound, which brought him comfort like nothing else ever did. The hatred burning in his veins, a force that couldn’t have been defeated even by Yoongi impaling Kalif against the wall— crushing him, the copper cane wrecking a hole in the middle of the Sire’s body.The poisonous and livid hatred which turned his vision bloodied while Yerin screamed in shock; a beast of grief.Ripping Kalif’s head out of his body with his bare hands and then standing in front of Yerin, allowing the monstrous darkness turn his eyes a complete and bleeding red—, “Touch Park Jimin ever again and you meet a worse fate, Shi Yerin. I won’t give you a second chance anymore. Not with him, not ever again.”None of those things had comforted Yoongi from the knowledge that his family’s murder was nothing but a trick—a planned attack from a greedy and soulless bastard, someone whose only ambition in life was to dictate and decide what happens to other’s lives and their happiness.When not even the sweet, yet rapid taste of revenge fed him, Jimin could.His heartbeat sufficed.Knowing he was alive and well, that at least this time Yoongi had arrived before even more tragedy ensued; it was enough to soothe the aching and racing beating of his heart, and eventually bring him back to himself so he could do what Jimin suggested and rid himself of the blood and the memories.What Yoongi didn’t expect was for his peace to be even shorter than his revenge.Later, it’s Jimin who rips the heart out of his chest with his bare hands by accusing him of a betrayal too.It hurts so much, burning inside of him and tainting the feelings that Yoongi was allowing himself to harbor for the boy, yelling at him that he’s nothing but a fool. It stuns him so much, being pointed at as someone who would use Jimin’s family for his own gain, that he doesn’t try to defend himself more than once.If Jimin believes that and doesn’t want to listen, all left to do is to let him go.So he does.Yoongi tells Jimin he’s allowed to leave, even though his insides are crying for Jimin to stay.“You heard me calling him little fox .” Jimin had sounded so broken and small. As if Yoongi had planned out the entire conversation and fed the words into Jungkook’s mouth, as if he knew about Jimin’s family and decided the best and most delicious plan to sew Jimin’s brother onto his dark plan.Yoongi had felt the words like punches in his ribs, one by one.He had thought “ No, Jimin won’t do this. He’ll ask me what this all means. There’s no way that everything you saw was in vain, he’ll know that this part could’ve never been a part of your plan .”But Jimin preferred asking if he could leave and when he did, Yoongi looked up to the chambers fixated on the walls, the same ones Jimin had briefly looked at with a flash of recognition passing through his face, and stared at the project he had been working on for so long.Kim Taehyung, Kim Namjoon and Kim Seokjin all stood inside the golden cryo chambers, their bodies stitched together by Yoongi’s and Arden’s hands all those years ago, now safely kept inside for when the sacrifices would one day open path for life to be breathed inside of them.Yoongi stared at his own family, the only people besides his friends who never once dared to leave or doubting him. He stared until he convinced himself he was allowed feelings other than the one of responsibility and then—Yoongi cried.It was so strange to partake in such a human action, but the pain that was rooted inside his heart and rapidly growing branches all around his chest, spilling through his ribs—the pain was too much to be as dead as his inhuman body.The pain was human, it was attached to the only part of him that fully worked as it once did when he was nothing but a man: his heart.Yoongi’s tears and sobs echoed in the West Wing, the long and tall tower with its incredible architecture sounded a lot like a theatre. His wretched sobs of heartbreak were all that it heard, for hours. He didn’t know if it was the presence of his family which brought him a fraction of safety or homeness, but Jimin leaving through the main door broke his heart in ways he couldn’t ignore.Because he loved him.He loved the druid—loved Park Jimin in every ounce of his beauty and braveness. That must’ve been what attracted and hooked Yoongi in the first place—Jimin was so brave. Sure, his smile felt like sunshine, which he hadn’t felt for centuries, and his touch and kiss felt like the warm fire that one feels when laying under the afternoon sun, but none of those were the reason for Yoongi’s tears.Jimin had just left, but he seemed to have taken with him all the joy. The braveness.His jokes and light, yet dark humor were still in the walls of the castle, hurting Yoongi as he walked back to his room. Jimin’s messiness was everywhere too, the clothes and jackets left forgotten, the batter and chocolate he found in the cabinets and used for late night cookies. Yoongi could spy it everywhere—in the sheets of paper that were still hanging in his bathroom or on his unmade sheets.He was gone. Jimin’s and his mind—his sharp and emotionally intelligent, beautiful mind.Yoongi doesn’t know for how long he cries, but it’s inside his room, cooped up in the darkness, where his friends eventually find him.All three of them: Arden, Heba, and now Louise.Yoongi had barely gotten the chance to appreciate how Louise was back, no longer kept under the leash of Kalif’s influence, because his world was tunneled down to an aching he didn’t even know he could feel anymore.Even at the sight of the mess he’d become in one single day, they’re nothing but the best, as always.
Louise and Arden say they’re going downstairs to make him actual alcohol, so they can all drink, and Heba stays in bed with him, placing his head on her lap and running her fingers through his hair as if he’s a child.It’s the first good thing he feels ever since he felt Jimin calling out for him at the Ball.“Is this all because of him?” she asks kindly, her tone low inside his darkroom.The air feels heavy too, and Yoongi wonders if he should open the windows. He also knows that she’s referring to the Fire Fox that she and Arden had found, but had left back to their own city after an emergency, annihilating Yoongi’s chance of taking advantage of the Blue Moon at the end of this month.
Even though he knows he should feel bad about that, Yoongi can’t bring himself to do it, same as he can’t bring himself to lie to his friends.“Yeah,” he simply answers.“Hmmm.”Heba’s fingers stop treading through his hair and Yoongi hears the sizzling of her magic before he sees it—she opens a couple of his drapes and windows, letting the air inside.“I don’t think he has left the city yet,” she informs him, going back to his hair. “Something tells me he’s still around.”“It doesn’t make a difference,” he says, feeling the hot burn of tears in his eyes again. For someone who hasn’t cried in so long, Yoongi seems to be catching up with lost time. Whenever he thinks he’s done with it, he remembers why he’s crying, sees Jimin’s sheepish smile or hears his breathy giggle against his neck and it hurts just as bad as it did the first moment. “He made his choice.”“I agree,” Heba says, nodding to him. “But I also know I haven’t seen you care about anything other than us or your family in so long, Yoongi. You deserve a chance at happiness, you know?”“He doesn’t want a chance with me, Heba,” he fights back, sniffling. “He’ll never fully trust me. I’m just—I’ll always be a being of the Night in his mind.”Jimin’s betrayed look flashes in his mind, his wide and terrified eyes.“Didn’t you say he appeared to like it?”That question does the impossible, turning Yoongi’s heart even further inside the grinder, turning the pieces into itty bitty ones. That part of their relationship is still what stings him more, making Yoongi curl into a fetus position. Jimin did like it—or so he thought.The numerous times when Jimin asked him, curious and wondering, what certain things felt like. “What it like? To end someone’s life?” or “Do you use compulsion frequently?” asked in a cheery and almost child-like giddiness made Yoongi’s heart do cartwheels almost daily.Jimin’s mind was filled with gray areas—he was a good person, undoubtedly, but he was also a complex one. He had dark desires, he loved the Ball, Yoongi knew. Jimin was perfect even then, it seemed—perfect in the way that he seemed not only to accept Yoongi’s nature, but embrace it.Enjoy it.Or so he thought.“He did,” he chokes out. “I thought he did. I must’ve been wrong.”“That doesn’t happen often,” Heba muses out loud.“I know you’re trying to make me feel better,” Yoongi tells her, sniffing and wiping his tears away. “But I’m actually gonna use that against you in the future.”Heba scoffs at that, laughter bursting out of her.“You’re fucking impossible,” she tells him with a smile.“I was also wrong,” he bites back, bitterly. Yoongi sighs loudly, hating the sound of his own voice, hating how weak he feels.He sits on his bed by Heba’s side, their backs against the headboard. She stays in comfortable silence with him, only moving her hand to hold his in a silent gesture—she’s there, it’s what it means. Heba, just like Arden, is his best friend. She knows him well enough to know that Yoongi doesn’t need much when it comes to comfort. He needs his friends, and he needs physical touch, but he doesn’t need many words.As long as they allow him to wallow in pity for a while and feel all his stupid feelings, he ought to be fine, eventually.Just in time, Arden and Louise return with four glasses levitating between them, a small smile on both of their faces.“Everyone’s favorite drink!” Louise announces, happily distributing the glasses. Yoongi looks at her with a smile of his own, a small part of him feeling better with her presence back where it rightfully belongs. “Now—I’m completely out of the loop and honestly, it’s a bit embarrassing,” she starts, sitting on the bed in front of Heba and by Arden’s side. Her voice is light, trying to make fun of the situation, but Yoongi finds the comforting support and love that she always had when looking at him. “So it’s up to you what we do tonight.”“Which means, we can talk about dancing on top of Kalif’s grave, which, personally, I vote for,” Arden says with a devilish smile. “Or, you know—you can talk about him. Maybe tell Lou about the story, see if you want us to chase after him and clock him in the head, bring him back…”“Yeah,” Louise agrees, grinning. “Just stating your options. No pressure either way.”Yoongi glances between them, chuckling at how natural it feels to have the three at them in the same place once again. They had had so little time for themselves, but now they’re free—Louise is, at least, which means she’s free to love Arden as much as Yoongi knows she does, and fawn over Heba and gaze lovingly like she always did.When his eyes fall on Heba, the witch shrugs too, agreeing.“I could hear the story about you impaling Kalif one more time, it was really fucking entertaining.” She smiles sweetly. “I wanted to have arrived earlier there, I still can’t fucking believe that the only time we don’t attend a Ball with you, you pull this shit.”“He’s been to other Balls without us,” Arden frowns.“Yeah, but when it counts we’re always there.” Heba sighs wistfully. “I could’ve seen Yerin piss herself. That’s a tragedy I’ll never recover from, I think.”“I could probably recreate that picture.” Louise picks up her glass and slowly, her eyes glinting with devil-ish curiosity. “Project it in the mist.”That makes Arden perk up, and the Oracle bounces a couple of times on the bed, poking Louise’s side a couple of times. “Projection! You must teach me! I forgot—How did I forget about this? I was almost able to do physical ones, d’you remember? I had like—the—how do you call it?”“Smoke presence,” all the other three present say, in unison—then laugh together, Yoongi relaxing at last in his bed.“That!” Arden agrees with a pleased smile. They turn to Louise and open one of their signature charming smiles. “Could we throw those lessons back on the mix?”“Sure thing, my love.”“You’ll learn quickly, darling.” Heba smiles at them, but turns to Louise with an inquisitive look. “Now back to that scene recreation,” she says, suddenly serious. “How realistic are we talking about here?”Louise’s smile turns wicked. “Extremely.”Yoongi sees Heba’s eyes glowing, and wonders how and why the hell he always ends up surrounded by sadists.“I love you,” Heba tells Louise, unceremoniously.The other witch giggles, her cheeks blushing faintly. “Love you too.” With peachy cheeks, she turns to Yoongi, sipping on her alcohol as if it’s tea. “So, what’s on that beautiful mind?”Yoongi sips the drink she made for him.Finally, he states. “I could tell you about him,” he states with a shrug of his shoulders, feeling the weight of all his memories with Jimin on him. “I might—,” he starts, but stops short and corrects himself. “I’ll cry a lot, though,” he admits in a lower voice, feeling his lips trembling.Louise chuckles at him.“Yoongi baby, I just spent the better part of the last few years crying. It was my pastime other than gardening and plotting a single vampire’s dismay,” she informs him in a friendly tone, sipping her drink. Her smile softens, “I won’t mind seeing someone else do it, I promise you,” she tells him in a joking tone, but he sees the truth in her eyes.Yoongi looks around him, to Heba and her sweet smile as she squeezes his hand, to Louise’s attentive eyes and kind, encouraging smile, to Arden’s soft gaze and sad expression—if he’s out to break down, he thinks, he can’t think of a better place.Or better company.He takes a deep breath, filling his lungs with oxygen and trying to air out the branches and roots that Jimin’s absence had created.Although there is only one thing now missing to put his life on track — a Fire Fox —, Yoongi still feels like everything is missing.With tears streaming down his face, he starts. “I was just heading to Ardie’s house, actually, when I felt something strange…”
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When it comes to love, Yoongi has seen it all through all his lifetimes.He’s seen and experienced most forms of it—parental love, friendship, the family you find in friends, the adoration and respect for a mentor, and, of course, the many shapes that romance takes and finds its way inside one’s life.Apart from the love one harbor for their kids — an experience Yoongi hasn’t had, but knows in some parts of him he still wishes to experience — he believes he has known love in all its forms.With time, as decades turn into hundreds, things take a turn. As a human being, you have only one lifetime, and the chances of you mending a broken relationship or living a life of happiness by someone’s side are minimal. When you become Immortal, the possibilities for that open up, but so do the chances of being hurt beyond repair.Feelings and bonds evolve differently, making it harder for new connections to be established. Falling in love, opposite to what most people believe, isn’t a common occurrence in immortal being’s lives—after all, meeting someone that pushes past the invisible requirements you develop with so many years is difficult, impossible some would way.
For someone like Yoongi, not many people surprise him and therefore, not many can awaken and evoke feelings deep in his soul.He knew when he lowered his protective walls around Jimin that he was also opening himself up for the possibility of hurt—and yet.Yoongi gulps his feelings down, too tired of crying.Even though his rational part knew, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. Just as much as any heartbreak he’s had — and they were few —, it hurts.Because of Jimin, it hurts like never before.Arden and their wives returning from a tavern with solemn and devastated looks on their faces twisted the knife deep into Yoongi’s wounds, and he knew without even getting the news that whatever Jimin had done, it certainly would kill another bit of his soul.And it did.“All his memories of you two,“ Heba has told him, voice low and sad—all of it gone.He tried to console himself by convincing that Jimin must at least have hurt too to give that up, but each time it got harder. The voices inside his brain got meaner, the doubt whispered crueler things with each passing hour and it got only harder to believe that this could possibly be hurting Jimin as it was hurting him.Yoongi’s only consolation after a few days buried in his pain and work comes in the form of a ceremony, a joining of souls that he wished years ago to have had the pleasure of performing, but was only managing occurring now.Arden was to Yoongi, in many ways, a lighthouse in the middle of his inner forest.They were a beacon of light that guided him with their green light towards paths that were worth it, which reminded him of why being alive was still needed. Every time Arden helped and led Yoongi ever since the two of them met, Yoongi ended up on roads he knew that alone he would’ve never taken.It was what drew him to them in the first place.Love—unconditional, nurturing and liberating love, were the message and the purpose of his friend, and Arden deserved from the universe the same amount reciprocated equally—no, reciprocated tenfold.The thought lightened some of the swirling darkness inside of Yoongi, the nagging thoughts about himself and what he deserved. Of what he didn’t deserve. No, today was about having the pleasure of conducting the ceremony between Arden and Louise, allowing the two souls the opportunity to promise each other to fulfill what they wanted ever since they met—to love.“I know what you’re thinking, Min Yoongi,” Arden says, startling Yoongi out of his running thoughts.Yoongi’s hands were smoothing the collar of Arden’s vest for what must be the fifth time.“This is as perfect as it gets,” they comment, looking down at Yoongi’s hands and capturing them between his own. Arden looks at him with the sweetest eyes, smiling shyly. “Thank you, love.”“You don’t read minds,” Yoongi replies stubbornly, pouting a little.Arden rolls their eyes, but they don’t let go of Yoongi’s hands either. “I don’t need fancy mind-reading to know what my best friend is thinking.” They take one of their hands and lift it to Yoongi’s slicked-back hair, putting a strand back in its place.“And pray do tell, what was I thinking about?” he indulges.“Love,” Arden answers without pretense, looking deep into Yoongi’s eyes. It makes the vampire shiver a little, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. “And then wrongful things about yourself, most likely.”“Arden—,” he starts, but they lift a hand to stop him.“Don’t. I’m going to tell you something, but only because you need to stop your trail of negative thoughts about yourself and your worth, do you hear me?”Yoongi frowns at that, but seeing the seriousness of Arden’s expression, he nods, wanting to know.They take a deep breath and glance to their sides a couple of times, as if waiting for either Heba or Louise to burst in demanding to know what they’re talking about. Leaning in, Arden whispers to Yoongi in a conspiratorial tone.“I still see him, okay?” they confess, looking into Yoongi’s eyes, not knowing how their words make his heart race. “You need time, you have the matters of Moldavia and Wallachia to think about. Whether to join the Council or not. Think about those and let Park Jimin decide what he does with his life once his brother is healed, alright? If he returns to you or not, I can’t tell, but I know that even in the current state he is, he wonders about his mistake.”When they finish, Arden nods one time and turns away, letting Yoongi soak in that news.Jimin wonders about him. Even without memories, somehow the effect of Yoongi on his life is still enough to get past whatever he did and for now, that’s more than enough for Yoongi.The vampire starts smiling and finds the watchful gaze of Arden through the mirror where they’re analyzing their styled hair, making his grin widen.They look incredible for the event.Arden’s long and luscious hair are neatly styled into a braid that has Heba written all over it. Intertwined between the loops are small, delicate flowers that perfectly match the color of their full lilac skirt. Their blazer has the prettiest high collar, and the outfit is splendidly matched in style and complementary colors.“Are you ogling me?” Arden asks, barking a laughter. To others, their tone and comment might sound a little mean, but Yoongi simply blushes, knowing the laughter is from pure amusement on Arden’s part.“You look really good,” Yoongi shrugs.He often forgets how sensible Arden is, reminded mostly in moments like this when he makes them tear up out of nowhere, just by stating the truth. “Yoongi!” They leave the mirror and walk over to wrap their arms around Yoongi’s neck. “You’re too sweet.”“Not really, you’re just that hot.” He comments, just for the way Arden feels laughing against him. “And fashionable.”Arden pulls back with the biggest smile.“Flattery will get you nowhere.” They comment seriously, then split into a grin. “Today.”Gods, Yoongi loves them. “Let’s get you married,” he states, smiling back at them, “Again .”“Again!” Arden repeats louder, giggling and moving to hug Yoongi. “Please don’t give Heba honey whiskey this time,” Arden whispers to him, pouting and blinking at Yoongi adorably. “I can only take one wife dancing on top of a table at a time.”Yoongi bursts out laughing, memories of Heba and Namjoon dancing on the day of Heba and Arden’s wedding flashing in his mind. The way Heba danced was adorable, but matched with the killer smile of her bright and happy face, it made her look too ethereal.Part of Yoongi still believes Namjoon fell a little bit in love with the gorgeous witch that night.“I don’t think I have any more
honey whiskey,” Yoongi informs Arden as they walk the corridors of the castle in direction of the gazebo where the ceremony will take place. “You rascals ended my stock that day.”Arden gasps. “No, we did not!”Yoongi scoffs at them. “You most definitely did. Namjoon alone drank at least two bottles.”This time, it’s Arden who scoffs. “That’s because he was losing his cute little mind over developing feelings for Heba.” Arden stops once they reach the corridor where the ceremony is and turns to Yoongi with a blinding smile. “Once we wake him up, you should tell him to man up and ask her out, be a good friend. Poor dude suffered for a while, I think. I didn’t wanna be the one to tell him to do it, I think it’d just scare him more,” they comment with a giggle.“I—you think I should?” Yoongi asks, dumbfounded like every time when either Arden or Heba speak so freely or their love.Arden gives him a strange look. “Of course,” they reply as if it’s obvious. “She thinks he’s a cutie,” they add with an eyebrow wiggle.“He is a cutie,” Yoongi affirms, making Arden laugh even harder.With happiness stamped all over his friend’s face, he decides it’s the time and extends an arm forward, waiting for Arden to take it.They walk to the gazebo and find Heba and Louise there, both talking in hushed and animated whispers, Yoongi feels the happiness all around him blooming inside of him as well.He knows that Heba and Louise connected on levels that only witches could with each other. Yoongi saw it in Louise’s eyes when he met the older woman that she was infatuated from day one and, if the way Heba looked at her with appreciation was anything to go by, Heba wasn’t too far from fond either.Yoongi could only imagine what it was like to love so freely as people like Arden and Louise did, but he knew he was still selfish with his feelings. With his people.Which was why conducting the ceremony felt elating, just like last time.The words he spoke came from the bottom of his heart, words of wisdom and stories of unforgettable moments that brought many laughs and so much healing. Yoongi and Heba are both the ceriamonalists, giving away the hand of both Arden and Louise respectively, helping the couple to swirl the silk around their joined hands and repeat their vows.It is one of the loveliest moments Yoongi has had the pleasure of witnessing.Their happiness is more than just visible—it’s contagious. After the words are spoken and they exchange rings — Louise and Arden choose their left middle finger for their rings, Yoongi can see that Arden had only left one other ring for the ceremony in their hands, the band they shared with Heba — the two of them celebrate in cheers as Arden and Louise exchange a loving kiss, Heba going as far as making magical fireworks blow up inside the gazebo, amidst all the flowers.From there, the party moves to other parts of the castle and music and alcohol runs free for the night.Louise is a mess—and rightfully so. He can only imagine how much and how many feelings the woman must be feeling that night. She tells them a lot about her time in Kalif’s castle and in exchange, Heba talks of her apprentices and the difficulties with molding youngster’s mind in such a troubled moment, Yoongi talks of his almost finished project and his doubts about his future, and Arden shares their own fears about some of the sights they have seen.Their chests are left open and vulnerable by the time the sun rises. The jars of drinks fill up their livers, but empty their minds as words fall like a cascade from their lips, not shying away or stopping now that they have all drifted back together.Yoongi misses and years for the rest of his family.The light shines on his friend’s happy features and he thinks, they will be here soon.Life was taken from them and they deserve to go on their own accord. Yoongi would make that right, he was sure of it.
Every one of them deserved happiness, just like the part of his family that stood now in front of him dancing around a fire, bottles of wine and whiskey on their hands and songs that others have long forgotten.Taehyung deserved happiness. Yoongi recalls how his young soul was full of joy, and how despite one of the most loving beings on the planet, he hadn’t yet had the pleasure of true love. The boy deserved that, the same way Namjoon deserved closure in all his wonderings and questions—deserved love too, like everyone present.Yoongi breathed deeply, trying to say the same words about himself.If he deserved it or not, that was a matter he might still struggle with, but one thing Yoongi can admit by the time the evening has ascended into late night—he wanted it. Yoongi wanted deep in his soul to share his family and his happiness with one person.He could only hope he would eventually feel the same way.That’s what he’s still thinking about — fantasizing, really — by the time the party comes to an end.When the morning is almost dawning, the four of them are wandering between armchairs that were brought to the outside of the greenhouse, surrounded by the litter of their eventful night. Heba eventually finds comfort on the large and velvety sofa Yoongi had brought for himself and when he blinks a couple more times—Louise and Arden are there too.He must be drunker than he thought.Louise is leaning against his body too, while Arden lays half on top of her, dead to this world already.Yoongi feels more comfortable surrounded by them than he had all those days alone in his bedroom, but something tells him he shouldn’t sleep here.He suddenly remembers why when he looks up to the sky.“Wait! No no,” he mumbles, slurring the words out. Something calls his attention and when he looks down—is this a bottle in his hand? Fuck. He throws it away. “I can’t sleep ‘ere, guys,” he tries again, his voice a low rumble.Heba groans at his side, half of her face covered by her cloak.“Shhhh darling, I’m trying to sleep,” she shushes him. Her voice is hoarse too, from singing so loud for long—she sounds tired and sleepy, but not too tired to put a finger over Yoongi’s lips to actually shush him. “No talking.”Yoongi groans at that, shaking his head and almost immediately regretting—physically hurts. No more shaking.“I can’t sleep here you dick, I’m gonna wake up burning,” he contests, but doesn’t make any further moves to avoid his impending doom.Louise cranes her neck to look at him and from how close up she is, Yoongi can see her dilated pupils. She whispers to him, “We won’t let it,” and yawning, she snuggles herself comfortably back in place. “Heba was right, shush, darling.”Yoongi throws her an undignified look, but he can sense the smile on his face.Fine. If they say so, then it is. Yoongi closes his eyes once again and drifts off, still too drunk to register anything other than his friends, comforted finally in the silence and the heat emanating from them.He fades away happy, feeling nothing but safety and happiness for the first time in days.Which is a thankful note, given how Yoongi wakes.Correction—how he is woken.
Yoongi is woken with a startle, an odd occurrence to happen inside the protected wards of his castle which he still calls home. Nothing startles him in there, given that it’s his safe haven, locked tight with spells by the greatest (Heba).When he startles, it creates a chain reaction, taking everyone else who were peacefully and soundly sleeping at his sides with him, all of them jumping frightened and alerted in a domino reaction, hands getting ready for a fight and eyes glowing with the sudden blast of power—being woken in this world was not often a kind and simple ordeal.What awakens him isn’t a threat, thankfully, but a totem.An amulet.“Everybody—breathe,” he states firmly.Yoongi had sewn the Memento Mori coin onto one of his oldest and favorite leather bracelets, not wanting to part with it anymore. The coin burned in a yellow and golden glow—it burned until he leapt up, breath quickening as soon as the material makes his brain start turning and the math adds up to a conclusion:Jimin is calling him. Yoongi… his voice whispers, as if coming from inside the coin. ...and Heba… it continues, getting tinier and weaker. Heba’s shiny gray eyes tear up immediately, her hands still shaking with the surge of power.
...and Arden… he goes on, making the Oracle whimper, their hands gripping Louise’s clothes. I could have… Before any word comes out, the glow of the coin fades away, and Yoongi’s heart seems to sink to his feet.Thankfully, thank all the gods that he still believes exist out there, he is surrounded by family.He is surrounded by people who meet his shocked and desperate gaze and don’t wait a single second before getting to their feet, all of them holding hands without needing to vocalize a single word. Yoongi stands frozen on the couch until his eyes leave the amulet and meet Louise’s, who is standing between Heba and Arden with her eyes on him.“Let’s go?”Yoongi gets up faster than a second and joins his hands with to Arden’s and Heba’s.“Make it fast,” he tells the witches, taking a deep breath. Hang in there, he thinks to Jimin for the second time in his life, and hopefully the last. Just hang in there — please.
🩸
With time, beings start ranking the fights and battles in which they’ve been from ‘best’ to ‘worst’. The ones that never make it into either of these categories are forgettable memories, petty rivalries that were so unnecessary or silly that in the end, nothing is left from them. It's kind of a sick game, of course, or perhaps an acid take on pretty traumatic events, but—it's immortality. With it, while some things can't exactly be normal in one's mindset, you must admit to yourself that they will happen, whether you like it or not. So, you start ranking some weird shit.Memories like the one where he found Jimin are the type that end up being in his file of ‘best’ moments, despite having started as one of the worst. Even for Jimin, Yoongi remembers that the traumatic event, once it had passed, and Jimin was finally healed, became a laughing matter.“Well, at least you never got mauled by a werewolf, darling,” he mocked Yoongi on several occasions, smiling smugly at him like he knew the level of a badass he was for surviving such a thing. He used now as a poking stick, shrugging his shoulders whenever he offered the information.Surely, Jimin developed an overwhelming fear of the beast and at times, he woke up cold in sweat when he laid in Yoongi’s arms—inevitable, he thinks. No one comes out of those life experiences without scars, mental or otherwise.Ranking the second time where he meets Jimin’s body lying half-dead on yet another forest ground is trickier.Initially, just as the first time, nothing about it is good.All he registers is the blood — always the blood, the never-ending river of dead that led Yoongi through the path of his life — and then, the corpses.The smell is putrid and Yoongi hates it the moment he scents it, but he doesn’t understand what it means until Heba and Louise’s face turn into one of pure disgust.“Dead Witch,” Heba gags out the term, looking around and seeing things that Yoongi could not.He was holding Jimin’s body in his arms with his heart beating on his throat, too worried about the only blood loss he cared about—the one oozing out of Jimin's wounds.“How many?” Louise asks, two daggers falling out from inside the baggy sleeves of her cloak.“Hundreds,” Arden affirms, taking a few steps back from the direction of the fight, coming to kneel besides Yoongi and Jimin.“The three of us could take them,” Heba says, a chain whip falling from her clothes. The two witches share a look and Yoongi watches as their gray eyes become shining orbs simultaneously, in perfect harmony. Heba pointed towards East, Louise nodded sharply and pointed west, and as soon as the first four bodies popped up from behind the trees with their mouths gaping wide, a gurgling noise coming out of it, the witches sliced the four of them with insanely practiced ease. Heba's chain whip swung around and divided a body in half while Louise made thorny vines curl and roll up around two of them in one second and—boom, before the fourth one can even dream of getting close to Arden or Yoongi, Heba's magically redirects a wooden log through it's middle. It lands on another tree, making a very loud sound.Yoongi’s eyes widen momentarily, but he shakes the surprise off quickly. He notices that Heba was looking at Louise and him when she says they can 'take them', but he doesn’t know whether he’s capable of leaving Jimin’s body. Frozen in his spot, he's momentarily shaken by how low Jimin's heartbeat is—Yoongi thinks it might be driving him slightly insane. Jimin’s fading away, he can feel it, and all he can focus is that.The despair is actually so big that Yoongi misses when the first dead-living corpse walks too close to Heba, only looking up when he hears the sound of the chain whip slicing the thing in half, it’s coagulated blood and gory insides flying everywhere.The sounds of footsteps start getting closer and Arden places one hand on his forearm, looking at him with reassurance.“I got it,” they promise.“Yoongi!” Louise cries his name, one of her long and double daggers pinning a body in place, the other then beheading it. “We can kill as many of these as we want, it won’t matter ‘till the witch is dead,” she says louder, when the groaning and moaning of hundreds of dead bodies getting closer starts getting louder. “Find her!” she demands, kicking another body with her boot and sending it directly into the practiced swing of Heba’s chain saw.Yoongi shares one last look with Arden, and then nods. Louise is right. Yoongi leaves them behind, running in the direction of the danger in the exact way Seokjin had taught him.If there is one thing he is good at, is hunting.The darkness which lives in his nature allows Yoongi to swiftly breeze past the corpses, led by his sense of smell that picks up the source of where all the rotting is coming from. Although he had only heard of dead witches before, Yoongi knew that their power lied in raising the dead, making it almost impossible for the souls which they longed for to escape their hold.He wasn’t an insect to get trapped inside of that sticky web, though.If anything, Yoongi is a bat, eager and ready to devour the needless and spineless creature that is lurking and taking advantage of promises from young druids like a curse in the night.He
wants her dead.When Yoongi finds her, she’s walking around her own yard, her mouth wide open with steamy black smoke coming out of it, but something is off about her—or inside her, it seems. The witch seems to be stuck in some sort of spell, shaking her head vigorously and trying to get away from whatever is troubling her from the inside out.She's muttering to herself, and every time she opens her mouth it seems like she wants to let out a scream, but is unable to—it stays open until she wrecks a sob, shaking her head once again. She's in despair. Stuck in something
very unpleasant, something that is torturing her mind to the point of numbness.
Jimin got to her, he thinks with a smile.That’s his fucking baby.Her name was something else he had given Yoongi. A fit of curiosity had brought him to ask for it, and Jimin had written it out for him in one of the margins of his grimoire, grinning like a brat to Yoongi.His smile widens and the darkness around him dissipates like icy water, slithering elsewhere: directly towards her.“Essylt.” His voice echoes. A cloud of thick black smoke, swirling with electricity, suffocating—it curls around her entire body. “I bind you.”The witch’s eyes focus on him one beat too late—one single moment, and Yoongi is right there in front of her.
He looks into the fogginess of her dead gray eyes, and cocks his head to the side.“You shouldn’t have hurt him,” he tells her solemnly.With one twist of his hands, he snaps her head out of her neck and hears the thunderous sound that echoes through the sky when he does so—the sound of the witch's soul being liberated towards the hand of Death at last, after a long-overdue wait, whether Essylt wanted to, or not.Yoongi drops her body on the ground unceremoniously and returns to the thing that matters.
🩸
Once it’s all done, Yoongi believes he’s able to rank the fight amongst one of the best.Only when Jimin is laying on the couch of the now-deceased Essylt, his body no longer perforated or poisoned since Heba retrieves most of it. After his friend drops on the ground, her hands bloodied and a bit of her face too, and she claims with a relieved sigh that, “He’ll be fine", that's when he can see the good in things again.Yoongi breathes too.He looks around Essylt’s living room for a second, eyes landing on Louise and Arden who sit next to Heba on the floor, their clothes also dirtied by blood and other things, then glances over to where their weapons are painted with red on the floor. Dripping.
Well. “That was really fucking badass,” he informs them, filling in the silence in the cabin.All four of them exchange looks, bursting out laughing.“And you missed the best parts,” Heba informs him matter-of-factly, huffing proudly at herself and the other two. “You were taking so long back there I thought she had gotten to you and then—bam! The sky is falling apart. Fucking sick,” she laughs.“I never saw someone suture a body so fast,” Louise comments dreamily, her eyes landing on Arden’s. They don’t change much when they dart towards Heba to say, “Or someone using magic with one hand and a weapon with another so effortlessly. What combo was that at the end?” she asks in an awed tone, making whooshing sounds and imitating a movement that must have happened while Yoongi was away. "I couldn't even see what you used to get that row of undeads that were walking behind you," she huffs, awed.Yoongi sees Heba blushing while Arden nudges her with their elbow, smiling.
“She practices at home in the garden,” Arden comments nonchalantly, before directing their dreamy eyes to both of them. “It’s adorable. You gotta see it.”“You guys missed it too—,” Yoongi interrupts, his attention fixed on Jimin’s sleeping body. “Jimin must’ve put a curse on him before he hit the ground—she was so fucked up,” he tells them with a proud laugh. "Walking around like a stupid fucking cockroach, fuming outta her mouth." He shudders. "Black smoke, that shit looked nasty.""Black smoke?" Arden inquires, their eyebrows creasing."Yeah." Yoongi nods. "Looked a bit like fire—like something hot that was oozing out.""Woah," Louise and Heba say together. "Nice one," Heba huffs out a laugh. "Mind curse."Oh, Yoongi thinks.
Jimin's more of a badass than I think, he wonders for what it must be the hundredth time.Eagerly, all three of them start asking for more details of the encounter to Yoongi.It’s in that situation that Yoongi meets the infamous Jeon Jungkook.Sitting on the floor of Essylt’s now empty cabin, while hundreds of decaying bodies linger dismembered and twice-dead all around the house, with Jimin’s body lying still on the couch and talking animatedly amongst themselves about the battle as if this place was a tavern or pub and they were talking about the town festival—that’s the sight Jungkook finds them in.Granted, with all the adrenaline of battle and worry for Jimin, Yoongi had forgotten about the boy.The same can’t be said for their meeting—an encounter they would both remember for life.Yoongi’s body was turned to the door and his hand was checking on the salve and leaf that Heba had placed on top of the boy’s wounds while the others talked, making sure that it was sucking away any remaining poison, when Jungkook burst in with a sword on his hand and his eyes glowing enough to illuminate bits of his face, stunning everyone in the room into silence.He spies the three of them and while the fear turns visible on his face, so does the determination.Yoongi sees none of that, only feels the air binding in place—a familiar spell too, he thinks with humor later on— while Jungkook’s eyes frantically drag between all four of them.“Nobody move,” he announces firmly, the sword shining on his left hand. “Whoever you are, do not fucking move. If you do, you’re fucking dead.” he states with purpose. In his voice, none of them hear a trembling or hesitation.Even with the high tension, a surge of pride bursts in Yoongi.“Jungkook. It’s me,” Yoongi says, not knowing whether to crane his neck and risk being split in half, but he doesn’t have to.The boy must recognize his voice, because the glow disappears and his shoulders slump.“Hyung?”The spell fades away and he drops on the floor with a small groan, his shoulders aching from where Jungkook’s spell squeezed him.“You’re strong,” Yoongi states surprised, rubbing at his shoulders. “And he’s fine,” he adds with a nod to Jimin. “Essylt is dead, and he’s fine.”Jungkook’s breath of relief makes everyone else in the living room, since they all had tensed up at the sight of the new druid arriving with nothing less than an Arthurian sword, looking ready to dismantle anyone who made a sudden move into itty bitty pieces.Yoongi feels a smile creeping on his face at the sight of Jungkook looking that way. He imagines this must be the version of his brother that Jimin knew all his life.That he saved.Jungkook looks up from Jimin’s body and scans the people around the room, his sword lowering completely. It’s amusing to watch the way his demeanor changes when he sees that the people in Yoongi’s company are most likely his friends—the flash of recognition that passes in his eyes too when he sees the familiar color of Heba and Louise’s eyes, as well the soft glow in Arden’s big green irises.He had burst through the door looking like a Goliath ready to behead any dragon, but as he puts his sword back in his holster, Jungkook’s cheeks gained a faint blush as he nodded in greetings. In under a minute, he becomes the youthful druid Yoongi's heard so much about.“Uhm—hi. Sorry about the—” he starts, pointing at the door he had exploded, but then he registers where they are and shakes his head. “Nevermind. This isn’t your place,” he shrugs it off, shy and scratching the back of his neck.“I didn’t meet her, but I feel she had it coming,” Arden answers nonchalantly, grinning a little at Jungkook. Yoongi recognizes that friendly and innocent smile—it’s the one they use to make people feel welcomed and calmer. Jungkook laughs at that, making Arden’s smile widen. “Hi, I’m Arden. One of Yoongi’s best friends, unfortunately,” they add, pointing at Yoongi and rolling their eyes like being around the vampire is such a burden.Yoongi narrows his eyes at them.“You love me,” he corrects them. Arden just continues smiling at Jungkook, totally ignoring him.It does the trick. Jungkook giggles at them, charmed and already won by the Oracle, then takes a few steps closer to the living room, looking between everyone.“Hi, I’m Jungkook,” he introduces himself with a sheepish and boy-ish smile and Yoongi can see from the way Louise melts and Heba tilts her head pleased—he already won them over. “I didn’t know he was bringing friends over—well, we didn’t get to talk much.”“I’m Loba,” the witch introduces herself, sitting on the couch and putting her chain whip elsewhere. Jungkook’s eyes follow them to where they’re placed on the table, right beside Louise’s daggers.“And I’m charmed. Is that a chain whip?” he asks, eyes glinting very dangerously. “And long daggers?”Yoongi sits down by Jimin’s feet, looking at Jungkook and seeing every single story Jimin told that ended up with something being blown over or the two of them running away in a fit of giggles, escaping the wrath of their father or the undignified yells of farmers around the mountains.He sees the two of them in the main big Cities with their parents, a spell of tag of the back of their necks so the two troublemakers don’t run away.One interesting smile from Jungkook and his eyes shine exactly as Jimin had described.“It is,” Heba answers, delighted.“The daggers are mine,” Louise says with a shy smile of her own. “I’m Argent.”“Hi!” Jungkook greets her. Then narrows his eyes, tilting his head to the side in a thoughtful way. “I don’t recall Jiminie mentioning you,” he adds, thinking about it out loud more than anything else. Immediately, he startles to correct himself, “I have a shitty memory! He might have—I’ve been so out of the loop that—gods, I’m sorry.”“Relax, Jungkook,” Louise chuckles. She looks at Yoongi then, knowing much better than Jungkook how much he missed, actually. The witch and the vampire exchange a look, and then her eyes land on Jimin’s frame. “We only encounter once—twice, actually, if you count his last day in Moldavia.” She turns back to Jungkook. “We might have a lot to tell. What’s the last thing you remember?”At that moment, Jungkook turns to Yoongi as if asking for confirmation.“Well—the last I heard was before the Ball.”Everyone in the room except for Jungkook takes a deep breath at that, and Yoongi wonders if telling this story once again will hurt a little less.Perhaps. Nothing hurts the same as before—not when Jimin is lying safe and on his way to recovery so close to him, not when Jungkook is looking healthy and his friends are all around.Yoongi smiles at him.“From the Ball, then.”
🩸
The amount of time it took for everything to go to absolute shit—three exact days, first with the Ball, the following day with Jimin discovering the West Wing, and finally the exchange for the flower. Three days—that’s all it takes too for things to go back to normal.The following day in Essylt’s house, they had all woken with the sundown. It was an eventful day, setting the pace for the following ones, where everyone got used to each other’s presence. It was strange for most of them since they had been alone, caged or worse, for the past years. Yet, when everyone gathered around the table to share their first meal, Yoongi could see reflected in everyone’s eyes how familiar it felt to have people you love surrounding a table.All it took was Arden and Jungkook cooking in the kitchen together for laughter to fill in the house, the two of them getting along wonderfully. Louise, Heba and Jimin seemed to be doing just fine too, getting the good plants and herbs from the deceased's greenhouse and garden. The three had the same type of acid and teasing humor, always a smart or bratty answer at the tip of their tongues—they fell together like sugar in water, all of them.Lunch finalized the friendliness between everyone, even Yoongi and Jimin. The awkwardness that both of them expected doesn't come, despite the odds. They talk very little, but it's with thankful smiles and easy words. As everyone eats, Jungkook had informed Jimin that he did, after all, plan on helping Yoongi with his Ritual of Ressurection.It was interesting to see the way Jimin and Jungkook’s brotherhood worked at that moment, to say the least. Yoongi himself was fucking terrified—before the meal, he and Jungkook had spoken quite a lot and after Yoongi told him everything about Kalif and how his family had been targeted, Jungkook frowned and held up a finger, saying “hold on a sec’”, only to come back with a map.His eyes widened when he saw the next Blue Moon was only a few days away. He obviously knew how rare the occurrence was — not
extremely
rare, but a couple of years of wait wasn't just
nothing — and immediately asked as soon as his eyes spot the date.“Do you have one to help you?” Jungkook looked up at him, worried. Yoongi couldn't understand why he was worried about a stranger, but it made his heart feel oddly warm. “A Fire Fox?”Yoongi shook his head. “Arden had found one—the day of the Ball, actually. They told me about him, but the boy apparently had to leave to take care of family matters. Heba’s still searching, though,” he added with a hopeful smile.Jungkook frowned at him.“Why look? I’m right here.” He closed the map and opened a square smile. “And finally in one fucking piece. I’d love to help.”“Uhm. You—Jungkook, are you sure you understood what it entails?” he asked dumbly, blinking in awe at Jungkook’s willingness to jump at such a complicated and intense ritual.Jungkook rolled his eyes at him for the first time, and Yoongi knew right there he was surrounded by yet another brat.“A high-level performance, yes.” Simple and short. “Yoongi-hyung, this may sound a little—a lot,” he corrects with a chuckle, “strange to you—but it’s true. I love testing my limits. Before—well, before all this shit happened, I was thinking a lot about putting some money together and find a good warlock to train me, you know?” he shrugged, eyes going a little distant. “I know how to stop too, so don’t worry about me doing more than I can take,” Jungkook assured him. “I’ve learned my lesson with that, believe me,” he laughs, wincing a little.“You want to help me? You’ll—you are willing to do a Resurrection rite to bring me my family back,” he clarified.“I don’t ‘want’ to. I will,” Jungkook affirmed with the cutest smile Yoongi had ever seen. He looked slightly like a bunny when he smiled with his teeth like that, upper lip twisting a little. With a shyer shrug of his shoulders, he added, as if recalling he was speaking with someone much older than him. “If you’ll let me, of course.”Yoongi could only think about one more question.“Would Jimin be okay with that?”At that, Jungkook snorted loudly. “Unless it’s life-endangering, we try not nagging each other too much about what we do,” he joked. “I’m not ending as a sacrifice on a metal table, am I?” Jungkook asked with fake worry, blinking his eyes exaggeratedly.“No,” Yoongi rolled his eyes.“Then I’m the man for your job.”Jungkook shared that particular information while putting enough meat on his plate to feed a small army, and Jimin had tilted his head, keeping his eyes solely on Jungkook.Everyone in the table had silenced for a second, unconsciously. After what it felt like a small eternity — but was only a couple of seconds —, Jimin brought the fork to his mouth and chewed on his food looking completely uninterested.“You better read every footnote,” he commented dryly, and Yoongi’s blood had run hot like ice before Jimin finished. “Last time you did a big rite and skimmed read what was written on it, you know what the fuck happened,” he added with an insanely satisfied giggle.Jungkook stopped his motion to stare him down.“I looked fabulous with red hair,” Jungkook offered equally dry, making the entire table burst out laughing. Just like that, the rest of the tension was broken, and—, "Oh, boy. We've all been there," Heba comments with a wince, doubling the laughter."First year apprentice me almost went bald," Louise offers while chewing, eyes distant and a half-smile. "We don't usually make the same mistake twice, though," she shrugs, looking over at Jungkook.The boy nods satisfied, pointing at her with his fork. "See? We've all been there, hyung," Jungkook argues. "Don't think I've forgotten your misuse of fairy dust. Tragic." Jungkook sent Jimin a wink, while the blond flipped him the bird. "And I liked my hair quite a lot like that."Jimin shrugged his shoulders, sipping on his wine.“And yet I had to handle your whining anyway, because there were ‘too many eyes on me, hyung ’,” Jimin smiles smugly at his brother. “I’m just saying. Don’t end up with blue hair or some shit.”In a very mature display of exactly what their relationship was like, Jungkook showed Jimin his tongue, to which Jimin answered with a flick of his fork, making a piece of food fly straight into Jungkook’s forehead.That was only the beginning of the bantering, intertwined with the best stores and a lot of private, comforting smiles between the two brothers.Yoongi saw it all and took it all in, sipping on his drink and offering input in the conversation every now and then.His eyes and Jimin’s met more than once, and each time that happened the first night, Yoongi took a sip and tried drowning the flying butterflies in stomach in scotch.It was only their luck that Jungkook had gotten along so well with Yoongi’s friends, because the latter was sure he and Jimin had gotten lost in a little world of their own more times than it was probably acceptable. Thankfully, Jungkook had the others to talk to and get to know, so Jimin and Yoongi were left to their own dance.Whether intentional or not, they didn’t find themselves alone for far too long for the entire trip back to the castle.It was only a couple of days by car, even if they took their time resting each day. With their number a little larger, the group picked the best Inns for themselves for the short trip, drinking in their taverns at night and exchanging yet more stories, getting to know each other even more.There was no awkwardness between Yoongi and Jimin, despite how much everything indicated that there should be.There was tension, surely, but not one of the bad kind.They still had perfect harmony, and bantering even came easier to them than it came to Jimin and Jungkook—it was natural, of course. A dance they had done before, pitching their own cents while the other talks, teasing and complimenting each other so easily, momentarily forgetting that they’re alone a few times.It still aches a little bit, a faint and distant throbbing whenever he wants to say ‘remember when’ but recalls right on top that Jimin doesn’t, but he shakes them off quickly and goes back to the present.The present is nicer.The present has Jimin always drifting and orbiting Yoongi somehow—whether they’re having drinks, making dinner, or just in the car: the tension is there.Yoongi is thankful when they all get to the castle that he still has Heba, Arden and Louise with him, because introducing Jungkook and Jimin to the castle would have been much harder without them to respond and match the enthusiasm they both feel.They’re curious—it’s a family thing, Yoongi thinks.And the curiosity comes in the same bratty ways, Yoongi discovers later that evening.He’s sitting in one of the castle’s balconies, positioned right under a tall light pole so he can see the sheets in front of him better. Composing always came easier to him at night and to get rid of his nerves about the Ritual the following day, Yoongi was finishing up a piece he had started the day of the wedding.It’s while taking notes and humming under his breath to the tune of the song drifting off from his vinyl player that Yoongi notices how lost he was in music, when the Jeon-Park curiosity almost startles him to death.“How is being Undead?” Jungkook asks, out of thin air.Yoongi breaks the pencil on his grip and Jungkook sees from his whole-body jump that he scared the fuck out of him.He chuckles low on his voice, and quickly apologizes. “Sorry, hyung.” He scratches his nose, and Yoongi watches him.The early predictions made by Jimin that Yoongi and his brother would get along well were right on spot. It was easy to talk to Jungkook and he was a funny, intelligent guy to have around. Yoongi often found himself snorting at Jungkook’s remarks, identifying himself with Jungkook’s quiet demeanor which turns much louder if he’s comfortable around you.Even still, Yoongi can sense the apprehension Jungkook has to be around him sometimes. It’s in the small things—how he stops himself from nudging Yoongi at times, thinking the older won’t notice, or like this time, when Jungkook simply stands under the marble arch of the balcony and doesn’t move closer until he asks him to.He’s tall — taller than Yoongi, at least —, but still looks like a shield with the thick blanket wrapped around his shoulders like a cape, his expression set on the innocent and doey-eyes look he usually has when he’s not teasing or being teased.Jungkook just looks curious, and it evokes a strange desire in Yoongi to pet his cute forehead, to tell him he’s too cute for his own good. Instead, Yoongi recalls the boy had asked him a question and gestures for the other armchair placed beside his own on the balcony. “Sit, kid.”Without anyone else around, Jungkook doesn’t hold many pretenses this time. He smiles brightly and sits obediently, without sparing Yoongi a bratty or correcting him on the use of ‘kid’.“I asked because—well,” Jungkook gets a look on him, those huge black eyes that resemble tiny universes glinting dangerously as if a supernova is happening. Yoongi braces himself, knowing what’s to come. “You all told us it’d be better to travel normally rather than by a teleportation spell, since those take a toll on the body—which I knew—, but what I didn’t know was that the—uhm, how do you guys call it? Darkness? Shadows?” Jungkook inquiries, talking faster and faster.“Darkness,” Yoongi offers, trying to hold his smile.“Exactly. That thing. The Darkness which you use, the most practical and harder skill for a vampire to polish—you said that’s straining on our bodies too. I didn’t know that,” he finishes with a sad tone, sounding pitiful of the fact.Yoongi shrugs. He had missed the strange questions, the ones that only minds raised to be so inquiring could ask at all times.“It does,” he confirms. Jungkook pouts at him, and Yoongi stares at his disappointed face with a lot of amusement “Our powers aren’t as intricate or complicated as people with sparks, for instance,” he continues, suggestively raising his eyebrows, “And they come from our bond immortality. Our source of power is the tether between the living and Death herself, so it’s more of, uhm. I think about what I want and it comes?” he tries explaining. “Yeah. I just… think very carefully about what I want or need, and focus. Vampires’ struggles are more with control than anything.”Jungkook listens intently as he speaks, nodding along every now and then. He seems to be taking in every bit of the information, joining it with his previous knowledge.“Uhum, I can see that.” He continues staring at the darkness unfolding in front of them—the miles and miles of forest that stretch in front of the castle, illuminated only by the stars in the night sky.
Jungkook brings a cup to his lips, blowing at the steam, and Yoongi hadn’t even noticed he had something with him. The scent when the cup is out of the blankets is clear—hot chocolate with scotch.Yoongi chuckles at the boy’s good taste, and it makes Jungkook blink out of his thoughts, glancing at Yoongi with confusion.“Want some?” He offers the cup with a smile, but Yoongi shakes his head no. “I’ve always wondered—,” he starts again, mind already drifting back to the thousand questions Yoongi knows are bubbling inside his head. “What it’d be like for a witch, or a druid like me—what it’d be like to be turned.”“Awakened?” Yoongi asks in clarification, stunned.“Yeah.” Jungkook shrugs. “Dad used to warn us a lot—too much, maybe, about Night creatures. One gets curious.” A Park-Jeon curious? I’ll bet, Yoongi scoffs.“I’ve never heard of a witch or druid who made the transition, to be frank.” Yoongi can’t even imagine, beings so deeply and profoundly connected with nature and all things living, forever imprisoned to a sunless life and all things that are dead.“Don’t think we could take it.” It’s not a simple and honest statement, and Jungkook seems to be lost in thoughts most likely similar to his. “If you told me I could never control the earth ever again, I’d probably wither away and die.”Yoongi bursts a laugh at that. “Very dramatic.”“Realistic,” Jungkook corrects him, laughing too. “Is it a pity I’ll never get to control a person’s mind with the ease a vampire could because of compulsion? Definitely,” he answers himself immediately. Then, cocking his head sideways with the smug look Yoongi was growing familiar with, he adds. “Our magic is so much harder, in the end.”“Ugh, please tell me you’re not another magical elitist who loves going on and on about the intricacies of ‘real magic’,” Yoongi groans, making air quotes at the final words.Jungkook sees from the vampire’s grin that he’s only being teased, but he almost looks truly serious when he answers with a blank face.“Can you put up a ward of protection around this castle?” he deadpans. Yoongi only narrows his eyes in response, and Jungkook’s smirk gets cockier. “Thought so.”“You sound just like Jimin. And Loba. And Louise.” Yoongi sighs dramatically.“Glad to know I’m surrounded by individuals who see clearly,” Jungkook giggles.Teasing aside, both he and Jungkook know that he’s correct, in fact. There are math, intention, and design that goes behind a spell—years of study to comprehend other alphabets, learn how to create diagrams on the spot, write in runes to elicit the powers they hold.Jungkook goes back to sipping his drink happily. They sit in comfortable silence, their features illuminated by the intense shine the Moon exudes so high up in the sky.“I missed it a lot, you know?” he asks, voice suddenly much lower.When Yoongi glances to his side to get a better look at him, Jungkook’s face is still serene, but with a tinge of sadness on the corners of his smile. It’s melancholic for him, the same way it was for Jimin. Yoongi saw it multiple times in the blond’s eyes how much he loved watching Heba perform her magic.“Watching that kind of magic, right?” Yoongi confirms, and Jungkook nods.“That level of raw—of power,” he exhales shakily, eyes glossy. “I used to see it all the time. All the time. It was in everything around me when I grew up, and suddenly—gone. It was so fucking weird, and it’s even more amazing now to watch it fully grown up because I can understand it much better.”The enthusiasm with which Jungkook approaches the subject makes Yoongi’s fond smile return in full force, and he nods in understanding and encouragement, wanting to hear more from him.“Your friends are so fucking awesome,” he whispers to Yoongi in childish-like glee, leaning forward to share that bit of information like it’s a secret. “Hyung, I saw Loba \putting up a ward around this entire castle in one fucking go—and it was like— boom, there, done,” Jungkook says in a poor rendition of Heba’s sultry voice, making Yoongi laugh with his whole body. “Effortlessly! Like this castle isn’t one of the biggest fucking places ever. Just—boom. Magic.”“She breaks the wards almost every time she enters the place.” Yoongi’s laughter only increases when he sees the shocked and disbelieving eyes Jungkook throws at him for that information.“See, that’s what I’m fucking talking about.” He sighs wistfully. “Argent? Bewitched that last Innkeeper into believing we were never there without even sparing him a glance, then as an afterthought made him swear to be kinder to his bartender and give her a raise. Then left, without breaking a sweat or even thinking about it.” Jungkook tells him, without knowing Yoongi heard the entire conversation from the outside too. “Like—what the fuck?” He throws Yoongi a sharp look. “You got any idea how difficult mind spells are? How complicated? They’re worse than advanced math, hyung. I meditated to see how big this castle is, you know—so I could calculate how heavy putting up a ward is. I’d kill myself with the strain before I could lift one in a minute like Loba.”Jungkook tells him all those information fully knowing Yoongi is aware of them already, but without a care for that.He makes it so easy to talk that Yoongi starts babbling too.“I know that for a druid to perform that level of magic it’d require a lot of intense training, but if there’s one—well, if there are two druids I
can see reaching that peak, it’s you and Jimin,” Yoongi says calmly, seeing how Jungkook’s awed look changes into one of fondness, which is probably what loosens Yoongi’s tongue even more. “I’m not blowing smoke up your guys’ alley or anything like that, before you think so. I’ve—I saw what Jimin can do, and he was injured for the most part of that,” Yoongi scoffs, still in awe for how naturally powerful Jimin’s spark is. “You spit out a curse and not an hour later, was ready to absolutely fucking destroy a whole room of people for your brother.”The emotion he felt when meeting Jungkook in person, even though laced with fear, would always be of deep pride that Yoongi wasn’t used to feeling for anyone other than his closest friends.Seeing Jungkook with his chocolate eyes glowing and a sword in hand, ready for business—Yoongi smiles at the memory.“It’ll take some time, but—,” he shrugs, meeting Jungkook’s gaze. “You two are young. Your mom was seventy-two when she met Loba and Arden and they say ‘till today that she was only beginning to show her powers back then.”The glance Jungkook sends him then is both fond and teasing.“I’m just picturing you and your friends talking about my mom,” he giggles. Suddenly, he adds with a gasp. “Wait, did you just say seventy-two?”“I did, yes.”“My mom was seventy-two five years before she met my dad? Eleven years before she had hyung?” he looks absolutely shocked, leaving forward in his armchair and throwing his arms up the air, “I just realized I have no fucking clue how old my own mother was. Is that normal? I don’t think it is. Well—probably not to most.”Yoongi watches the whole thing unfold, not nearly as surprised as Jungkook by Nadia’s age. In the picture Heba had shown, she didn’t look a day older than a mid 20s woman, but witches had always lived ridiculously long lives, ever since the dawn of time.Jungkook’s meltdown isn’t over, because he turns to Yoongi with narrowed and suspicious eyes, analyzing the man with such scrutiny that the vampire recoils a little, scrunching his nose at Jungkook.“Aish, don’t stare at me like that. What is it?”“How old are you?” he asks in the lowest voice, like the other math had been done. As if just now it’s registering on his brain that Yoongi is an ancient being.“Oh, Jungkookie,” he laughs. “I’m over six hundred.”The boy’s jaw drops open, Jungkook staring at Yoongi unabashedly, like he’s seeing a flying snake or a fight to the death for the first time.“Okay—no, just no. My view of time has just—I think it’s fucked for good, now.” Jungkook hums. “Yup. Totally gone. One sentence and just like that, time isn’t fucking real anymore. I like it. This is entertaining—can you tell me more about your Sire? And the other two as well?”
In under five seconds, Jungkook manages to completely freak out and come back to himself, accepting that this is his reality right now and immediately falling into his default setting—curious. It's the funniest thing ever to watch.Yoongi’s smile widens and gladly, he starts talking.They must sit and talk for at least a couple of hours, Yoongi’s cheeks already hurting from laughing with the enthusiastic way that Jungkook partakes in conversation. Something warm and fuzzy sets into Yoongi’s chest as he lets Jungkook in on a few family secrets—as he makes Jungkook up to date a bit of their history, ending in several tangents with the boy on philosophical sides and family stories of his own.If anyone had asked Yoongi he would’ve preferred to have spent the previous night of the Blue Moon in which he’d finally be blessed with his family again, he doesn’t know what scenarios would have crept into his mind.Certainly, not bonding with Jimin’s brother so well.It was the best gift Yoongi could have gotten.Eventually, when the conversation circles back at one point to the ability and potential both Jungkook and Jimin have for great magic, the boy gives up on staying up there mid-yawns. Yoongi sees it when Jungkook finally gives in to his tiredness because he snuggles the blanket closer, blinking slowly and letting his eyelids droop lower.“I mean, I have—hm, I’ve talked to Jimin about it,” he said, and yawned. “About Loba. And Louise, as like…” another yawn, and he closed his eyes. “Mentors. Or advisors. Dunno if they—if they got the patience for—teaching,” two more yawns, and Jungkook snuggled himself closed in a blanket cocoon again. “I’ll ask him tomorrow about it.”“You do that.” Yoongi smiled at Jungkook. “After you rest—a lot,” he emphasizes. “Don’t you tired and fucking up my carefully planned Rite now, do we?” he sasses with a blank face, and it works.Jungkook giggles, getting up slowly.“You kick me out when I’m about to do something so nice for you. So fucking rude,” he claps back, already walking in direction of the corridor that leads inside. “Should’ve never told Jiminie that you’re nice and deserves his annoying ass. My mistake.” Jungkook knows exactly what he’s doing when he comments that so nonchalantly, throwing the last quib with a smile over his shoulder. “Even though the pining is excruciating to witness. You two are gross, you know?”“I—you—,” Yoongi scrunches his face, frustrated at how heavy his tongue feels inside of his mouth, his peace of mind gone in a second, just like that—because he is surrounded by brats, of course. “No one is gross.”Jungkook snorts loudly at that, leaning his frame against the wall.“Hyung, no offense, but I have no idea how your friends could stand the pining for weeks before. Just—you two need to put yourselves and everyone else out of misery and stay in the same room for longer than five minutes.”“We stayed alone for longer than that,” Yoongi uselessly argues, but Jungkook continues without sparing him a glance.“I said it to him, I’m pretty sure Louise did too—we even promised to keep the teasing to a bare minimum.”“I really fucking doubt that,” Yoongi deadpans.“That we promised it?”“Of course you promised,” Yoongi nods. “But neither of you are capable of keeping that. And we all know it.”Jungkook stares at him for a second, then goes back to his loud musings as if Yoongi hadn’t said a word. “We told him— just to it, Jimin. Jump his bones. I’ve been waiting for it to happen so the eye fucking can stop because frankly, that’s the worse bit for me.” Jungkook stares at the wall opposite to him and then, with the look of someone who’s thinking about something very specific, he shudders. “Ew. Anyway. I’m off to bed. Night night, hyung! Don’t forget what I said.” He says and starts walking back inside the castle.“Which part?” Yoongi calls out loud enough for him to hear it.“You know the one,” Jungkook sing songs loud as well from inside the corridors already, voice echoing beautifully. “He hasn’t slept more than a couple of hours for days because he can’t do it without dreaming about a
certain someone,” Jungkook adds in a lower tone, knowing fully that Yoongi can still hear him perfectly. “I have no idea what you two are waiting for.”Instead of yelling out an answer, Yoongi slumps back in his armchair, ignoring the heat he feels inside his chest and on his cheeks, trying not to think too hard about Jungkook’s words, but only accomplishing the opposite of that for the next hour. It’s useless, he thinks. For either of them to deny what’s going on—that there is a remaining spark between them from what they’ve had. That it was more real than Jimin or Yoongi could’ve imagined, the way their lives were intertwined and all the possibilities for how much more it could get.The only small obstacle—not small, precisely, but only an obstacle nonetheless, was the lack of memories.Yoongi knew that their absence was exactly why he and Jimin were so nervous, jumpy and blushing around each other. Yoongi felt how much Jimin was still thinking his way around that, calculating and probably overthinking his decision from every corner or angle possible.He felt too how his patience and respectful distance helped, in every thankful look and tentative touch that Jimin extended.Yoongi grilled those thoughts and the memories, the latter which for now were still only his, until he couldn’t fathom working his brain any longer and he was finally tired enough to drift off the way his body craved, so worked up from the past week and everything in between.Walking back to his room, Yoongi kept replaying the same melody that was humming on the back of his brain earlier when he smelled and sensed movement on the same corridor as his, bringing him to a halt.With one sniff, Yoongi recognized the presence before it even finalized its turn.Lavender, vanilla and rum.Intoxicating and delicious, as mouth-watering as it had always been.Yoongi wonders if he’s in that corridor by curiosity or by muscle memory. Jimin had always liked the music room better than any other room, and a part of Yoongi screams for them to get out of there, for him to lead Jimin away because the music room is too much, too painted and tainted in memories of Jimin’s soft gasps and dirty words.The music room was their room, the place where Yoongi fed grapes into Jimin’s lips while the other wrote, the room he had taken his favorite antique loveseat just because of the boy, just to have a large and comfortable surface where he could take Jimin apart with his tongue or just sleep with the boy in his arms, comfortable, safe.It was where Yoongi had known, even though he hadn’t accepted or allowed himself to think too loudly of the words.He hears the sharp intake of breath when Jimin’s lit candle shines a light on Yoongi’s frame and he’s startled—vampires' presence didn’t emanate anything that allowed others to be aware of their surroundings. “Kitten,” Jimin would giggle in his ear whenever Yoongi disappeared and reappeared right behind him.
“Jesus fucking christ.” Jimin forces himself to take a deep breath, then opens his eyes with an apologetic glance. “Sorry. You’re like a fucking cat.”
Kitten.
It breaks the initial ice—Yoongi’s shoulders relax when he laughs, and he hadn’t even noticed he tensed in Jimin’s presence.Boy, Jungkook is so right. They desperately need to be in each other’s presence longer than five damn minutes.“That’s fine. It took you a while to get used to this the first time,” he offers gently.“You’re telling me this gets better?” he asks with a suspicious look and a smile hiding on the corner of his lips.“Well, yeah. You got used to being spooked, said you needed some toughening up anyway,” Yoongi jokes with a straight look, trying to gauge Jimin’s reaction.The boy rolls his eyes at him, and Yoongi thinks about how much he missed this brat.“Sure I did.”“I’m serious,” Yoongi pushes, keeping the smile at bay. “You said you needed a tougher skin, something about—hmm, not being intimidating enough?”Jimin’s eyes narrow and he takes one step further. “Me? Not intimidating enough?” With only one more step, Jimin gets to watch as Yoongi tenses visibly at their proximity and even though that’s exactly what the younger one wants, Yoongi can’t help to freeze on the spot, too close to the body who could bend and break him in half. “You’re a shitty liar, hyung.”“And you’re a fucking brat,” Yoongi bites back blankly.Jimin gives him a shit-eating grin.“Ah, you do know me.” He goes back a step again and looks around. “So—is this part worth exploring?”Yoongi’s heart skips a beat, and he has to work to hide the sting of pain that comes with that question, but Jimin still catches on. So he doesn’t make Jimin feel bad, Yoongi tries his best to look casual when he asks. “Why don’t you give it a go? Why were you wondering here in the first place?” he asks too, encouraging Jimin.It works. Jimin starts walking again, this time with Yoongi by his side.“Dunno. Couldn’t really sleep,” Jimin answers with a shy shrug. “Walking helps me, in some way.”“You should get some rest. I can make you some tea if you want, to try to help with sleep. Maybe some food? I don’t know if you’re hungry or not.”When he asks the last question, Jimin’s step slows down minimally, something that perhaps a human wouldn’t notice. Yoongi does, turning his head to watch as Jimin’s mind seems to fly elsewhere, rendering the boy quiet for a few seconds.Finally, when Jimin shakes his head, he asks Yoongi in a lower voice. “You offered me that a lot, didn’t you?”Oh. Yoongi’s heart starts racing, noticing how it was a memory. Perhaps faint and distant, or maybe only a ghost—a whisper. Whatever it was, it made Yoongi smile.“Not a lot, technically. I offered the few first times, but then bringing you food just became something I did,” Yoongi confesses.Jimin apparently has nothing to say about that, only glancing in Yoongi’s direction with a lot of questions behind those chocolate eyes. He looked thoughtful, and beautiful. His silky blonde hair illuminated by the candle framed his high cheeks, which were now a lovely shade of pink, a beautiful contrast with the peach blouse Jimin wore to sleep.Yoongi only noticed he was staring, unashamed, when Jimin broke their gaze and looked at the door behind himself. They were apparently just standing there in front of it, both only looking at each other.The door that had stopped Jimin’s walk and now seemed to call for his attention was, obviously, the one Yoongi had been expecting. Why do I still fight fate?
He thought. It was fate who brought him to me, after all. Like his friends had made sure to comment, Yoongi’s music room was, previously in his life, a very private room for him. It was his resting and thinking place, no Sire to tease, entice and stimulate him—somewhere without Taehyung’s bright and mischievous energy or Namjoon’s mysterious and powerful aura. It was just his.Jimin walked in without even asking if he could, because somewhere in him he knew the answer already.Yoongi followed shortly behind, swallowing the knots that tie and untie on his throat at the sight of Jimin back here.It was like watching the boy walk back inside his heart, one step after the other, and Yoongi had difficulties already accepting his luck for the first time, it was only harder to do it a second one.He closed the door behind them and obligated himself to look away from Jimin, to let him explore the semi-new place at his own accord.As always, Yoongi naturally found himself sitting in his place: the piano.The instrument called to him like the hand of a comforting friend, always guaranteeing him something to do other than anxiously think about his next step or any other daydreams he may have—he sat in front of the large keyboards and tuned out from the world, as Jimin walked around the extremities of the room and gently ran his finger through almost everything.The melodies, as always, started drifting from Yoongi’s fingers like second nature. The way a bird starts singing when sitting on a branch, or perhaps how Jimin always had a question at the tip of his tongue whenever something new crossed his inquiring pair of beautiful eyes.[mood: claude debussy — claire de lune]While the music distracted him, in a way, it was only for a short period of time. Even through the keys of Sire Claude’s favorite song, Yoongi’s heightened senses found themselves attuning to the familiarity that it was Jimin.Jimin there, with him.Standing in front of his piano.He looked as angelic and comfortably in peace as he had in the last few days, but the minimal twist on the corner of his mouth and the way his eyebrows creased with a frown even if just for a fraction of a second indicated to Yoongi that Jimin was thinking hard about something—something hard for him, that irked him somehow.It was only a matter of time before—, “Hyung,” Jimin’s voice whispers, barely making a sound above the notes.“Yes, Jimin?” he asks with his eyes on the boy, watching him.“We had a great time here, didn’t we?” he breathes out, only managing a sad smile.Yoongi, on the other hand, feels anything but sad.Knowing Jimin remembers faint echoes of their memories is frankly more than enough for Yoongi. All those days wondering and questioning—always debating, the ugly insecurities which live inside every of us crawling at Yoongi like angry beasts, always making him wonder what ifs —those moments all faded away.He looked up at Jimin and nodded, smiling genuinely.“We did, Jiminie,” he answers, the nickname slipping by easily. His fingers keep ghosting over the keys, expanding the melody through their conversation. He gestures his head towards the new shelves filled with books Jimin had brought from the library, plus new notebooks that were empty and ready to be filled by his eager mind. “That’s your corner, right there. You used to sit there for hours comparing notes and updating your own grimoire.”Both his smile and his easy answer make Jimin’s shoulder relax, his posture changing completely into the open and inviting aura that Yoongi got to know much better.“I found one of them!” Jimin exclaims, happy. “I mean—I have the three of them on my bag with me, but I only really got through one of them.” He explains further, leaning against the piano with his upper body like he always did.Yoongi’s mouth starts running dry, but he ignores it.“I found all sorts of cool information in there and I saw that you—a lot in there was info you gave me, according to my note.” He’s blushing as he shares the information, a telltale that he’s both nervous and excited for some reason. His eyes find Yoongi’s and the gratitude that shines in Jimin’s eyes catch Yoongi a little off guard. “Thank you for being so open and understanding. For sharing all of that—god, fucking incredible information. I know you Ancient beings kinda forget how valuable information is, but all the things you told me guarantee that anyone inside the Jeon-Park family, for ages, knows a lot about vampires. And that—,” Jimin scoffs, looking away from Yoongi, obviously overwhelmed by the idea. “That’s awesome.” He takes a deep breath, and the smile grows back on his face. “No one in our generations will have a prejudice against you guys, at least.”“Your father was a product of his time and age, Jimin. In the end—much better than most people, but with his apprehensions and as always—he was within his right to have them,” he defends Bonwha, for what it must be a thousand time.Yoongi watches as his favorite phenomenon happens—Jimin’s eyes go unfocused and distant, completely away from the conversation at the moment.He had noticed already that some phrases or maybe smells awakened forgotten ashes inside Jimin’s brain and turned them into a little spark of magic—a little whisper of the past.It happened right in front of him as he continued filling the walls of the music room with the same lullaby.With Jimin’s favorite piano song.In a breathy tone, he says.“Ah, a defender of my father, I—I vaguely recall.” This is better, Yoongi thinks. He’s making light of it already.Yoongi laughs, amused. “I made you promise once that you’d always recall his words in the presence of us.”“And I shall,” Jimin agreed with a nod.“Good.”Jimin looks around, his waist wiggling as it does whenever he’s feeling shy, but confident.“I recall writing a lot about what I experienced,” he comments.Yoongi hums in return. “You asked me for a lot of stuff.” Many of them being very intriguing questions, he adds in his mind, because he isn’t sure if Jimin could handle that type of information yet.“I’m a curious guy,” he giggles at Yoongi, eyes still darting back and forth to the other items around them. In an unconscious moment, Jimin’s hand wanders to the necklace around his neck and Yoongi’s heartbeat goes staccato—the Memento Mori coin always takes his breath away, but only because Jimin seems so damn attached to it. “Yoongi?” he asks again, voice suddenly lowering.Playing, he asks, voice low as well. “What is it?”Jimin turns his head back to look Yoongi in the eyes and what the vampire finds in there makes him almost stop playing altogether. Jimin’s gaze is intense and serious, like his mind finally settled in a thought, and it’s a grave one.“I want you to know it wasn’t easy,” he breathes out, fingers fiddling with the coin. “To give our memories up,” he adds, voice breaking.Yoongi’s fingers almost miss the notes, so he looks down at the piano to answer, distraught by his own rising heartbeat.What would he say to that? He opened his mouth a couple of times, but no sound left him. On the third try, he looked back into Jimin’s eyes and the answer slipped out. “I can imagine.”Jimin’s fixed gaze burns a whole in his chest, and he nods solemnly at Yoongi.“I—I had to make a sacrifice,” he goes on. “To obtain the Kadupul. And it had to be something important—personally, you know?” Yoongi nods, so Jimin breathes in looking less stiffen. “A lot of it has tried escaping the confines of wherever Gorin put our memories, but I just—I wanted you to know they were worth it.” Jimin glances at Yoongi, finally letting go of the necklace. “More than gold,” Jimin chuckles.The ending makes goosebumps lift on Yoongi’s forearm, and the vampire chuckles nervously, uncertain about how to approach the confirmation that everything not only mattered, but that it mattered that much.They exchange smiles, and Yoongi decides he’s had enough of music, so he slowly starts to fade away the song into its last notes. At the same time, Jimin starts moving around the piano, stopping only when his thighs brush against the piano booth.Yoongi presses the final keys and Jimin takes his seat, shyly choosing to place himself at the end of the booth.
It feels like an eternity. Time stretches when Jimin stands there so close—their bodies so far yet so close, vibrating from being so close to each other. Vibrating so loud at the electricity that runs between them that both of them can almost hear the result—can almost taste it too, on their tongue as well as on their skin.Staring at Jimin’s features like a starved man in a desert doesn’t feel like such a bad fate when the action is mutual. With the way Jimin’s staring at him, Yoongi can’t even bring himself to care about the distance left between them or the fact that a bit in Jimin’s eyes still hold that sad note.He’s thinking about how much he wishes he could take that thing away when Jimin, at last, breaks the silence, “I want them back,” he whispers, breathy.The words hang heavy between them and Yoongi tastes them on his lips.Jimin’s memories.His eyes dart lower to Jimin’s lips. “You could say no to it, of course—,” he cuts himself short, licking his own lips. It makes them rosier and plumper and Yoongi wonders if this is what it feels like to lose one’s mind. “But I have a theory.”“Which is?” he asks immediately, eyes focused on Jimin's mouth.“I only need a trigger that’s—,” Jimin swallows hard, his words getting caught in his throat, and that’s what makes Yoongi glance up.He sees that Jimin’s eyes, just like his own were a second ago, are solely focused on the vampire’s mouth.“Strong enough,” Jimin finishes, body leaning a little closer.When Yoongi tells people about that moment, right there, he jokes that if anyone else were in the room, they’d be able to see the tension.What he doesn’t know is that his words are a fact.The bottles, books and artifacts all vibrate inside the shelves in a low frequency, all of them affected by the spike in energy in the room.Yoongi’s brain seems like nothing but white noise. He licks his lips, nodding. “Anything you want, Jimin.”
He would give the boy anything.The answer elicits a chuckle from Jimin, who’s biting his bottom lip so hard it’s bruising.“Could I—would you—,” he starts, interrupting himself both times. He swallows a knot that’s on his throat and Yoongi does the same unconsciously. “I think a kiss—it’s a good start.”The air around them no longer vibrates—it’s still. Everything is, from the breath Yoongi holds inside his chest to Jimin’s face expression, eyes a little wide and frozen in expectation.“You think so?” Yoongi confirms, feeling his throat dry.“Yeah.” Jimin moves close enough so their thighs touch and Yoongi’s brain goes from nothing other than white noises to complete chaos. The way Jimin is looking at him—shy, blinking those big eyelashes slowly as his eyes dart between Yoongi’s eyes and his lips. “Only if you still want it—want me,” he breathes out, like a confession.“I told you. Anything for you,” Yoongi nods, knowing he must look like a fool in love. He feels the smile that’s on his face. “Why do you think it’ll work?’ he asks, frowning a little.That seems to be exactly the question Jimin was hoping for.His shyness fades away and the glint on his eyes goes from a sparkle to constellations—Jimin looks breathtaking and he’s leaning in closer, one of his hands lifting to cup Yoongi’s face so gently.“I was hoping you asked that, you know.” Jimin whispers, face impossibly closer. “‘Cause I have the feeling—I only have those, but this feeling—it tells me I haven’t had the opportunity to say these words to you yet, and—it’s simple, really.” Yoongi’s hand gravitates to Jimin’s waist and before he can ask the latter why, Jimin sucks the breath Yoongi’s been holding with three simple words. “Because it’s you.”The words echo inside of Yoongi and just like magic, it’s almost as if they heal every part of him that’s been hurting.Because it’s you. The same words—the only ones he could use to explain to Jimin that night at the greenhouse why he wanted him. The only words he could muster to justify all the feelings that Jimin made bloom inside his chest—words that he had told the boy two times only, but that felt heavier than anything.Despite all the energy swirling both inside of them and around them, they don’t crash against each other.Their lips meet in a soft brush, a tentative encounter of two bodies who need each other so much that if they crash, they’ll burn.Slowly, Jimin’s lips start moving and that’s enough to set Yoongi in motion, snapping him out of his stupor. Their bodies draw closer, close enough that their chests are touching. Jimin’s other hand finds Yoongi’s vest and grips on tight, while Yoongi’s hand that isn’t on Jimin’s waist goes up to the boy’s neck, guiding and deepening their kiss.With their lips sealed together, Yoongi feels the dem inside his chest is broken.He whimpers against Jimin’s mouth and he feels how that raises goosebumps all over his skin—Jimin groans back and he’s shaking, his arms and back are shivering, but Yoongi knows it can’t be from the cold.They kiss with the passion of two starved lovers who haven’t seen each other in centuries, needing the reassurance that they’re still there. Jimin’s the first to bite on Yoongi’s lips, his movements becoming more desperate and erratic—he’s trembling all over, but nothing seems to stop him from wanting and getting more.So Yoongi keeps on giving.He kisses Jimin’s lips, sucks on his tongue ‘till Jimin’s whimpers become louder, squeezing every inch of him that he can. He kisses Jimin’s face too, peppers him all over with kisses and hears the way Jimin’s breath is shaky, feels the desperate need with which Jimin kisses him back—his lips, then his face and his neck, burying himself into Yoongi for a few seconds before throwing himself even more on top of Yoongi.Yoongi pulls Jimin up with ease and places him straight on his lap when he feels the boy leaning against him with all his weight—each of Jimin’s legs wrap around Yoongi’s waist with practiced ease, with the muscle memory of someone who had done that so many times.“Yoongi,” he moans against the vampire’s mouth, sounding broken.Yoongi only stops because he feels the wetness between their cheeks, so he pulls back and cradles Jimin’s face in his hands. He’s crying, his whole body shaking and Yoongi gets terrified for a moment. “What’s wrong? Baby, what’s wrong?”When ‘baby’ slips out from his tongue, Yoongi feels Jimin’s thighs squeezing his waist, the boy diving back for another kiss.He indulges him, kisses him back, but slowing the pace until Jimin calms down enough. “Please talk to me,” Yoongi whispers against his lips, caressing his hair and his back.“You took care of me so well,” Jimin cries out.“Baby—Jimin, baby. Of course, I did. How could I not?” Yoongi answers him, feeling his own eyes sting with tears.“You did—,” Jimin repeats, kissing Yoongi’s face again. “It’s not—my head hurts, fuck. I don’t remember everything, but—I think some bits are coming back, s—some conversations. Yoongi—,” he chokes on his words, wanting to kiss Yoongi more, but being unable because of his trembling lips.Carefully, Yoongi lifts Jimin’s face ‘till their eyes are fixed on each other.“I love you,” Yoongi states, looking deep into his eyes. They’re blurry with tears and the smile that appears every couple of second between his whimpers, and they’ve never looked more perfect.“Why?” Jimin asks, smiling even wider.Knowing what he wants to hear, Yoongi can’t help his own smile.“Because it’s you, my love.”Jimin sobs, and kisses Yoongi’s lips several times more. “I love you, too. Love you so much—fuck,” he kisses other parts of Yoongi’s face, since his lips are too occupied smiling. “Loved you since you made stupid silly jokes, love your laugh and your gummy smile and the way you pick me up like I weigh nothing and take me to bed and love every inch of me, Yoongi. You love me so well, I remember it—I feel it. Wanna love you like that too, want to love you for so long that you won’t remember what not being loved by me felt like.”The more Jimin says it, the more Yoongi feels like he can’t breathe.“Can we go? Please?” Jimin asks, pulling Yoongi by the neck to press their lips together again. “Wanna feel you.”He doesn’t need any more words other than those.Yoongi takes Jimin back to their room while both of them smile at each other like a couple of high teenagers, giddy with excitement only they can understand.For the whole night, they kiss each other passionately, tongues battling for more, for a taste of everything. They undress each other with shaky hands and tear-stained eyes, but with smiles on their faces the whole time.Yoongi feels it in every inch of his body and mind that there could never be a person like Jimin. There could never be someone to bring out the best in him that way, to make him want to be the better person—to be himself, too. Freely and completely.Yoongi and Jimin run their hands and their tongues through every inch of each other’s bodies, unable to keep separate for too long, incapable of not whispering sweet and nasty things under their breath, only to gauge a reaction from the other.They spend the first night — of many to come in their lives — doing what they’d always do from then on:Loving one another passionately and truthfully.
The following day starts peaceful, passes through the cloud of chaos which is the ritual, and ends in the same peace as it started.It goes like this:Jungkook is fully prepared and with all of them inside the West Wing — Arden, Louise, Heba and Yoongi staying put against the wall only for supporting purposes —, and Jimin by Jungkook’s side, reading him the words and giving back what it needs.Yoongi felt it before it even started.He knew the moment the ritual began that something immense was about to happen, but not for a moment did it cross his mind what it would be.The first two Resurrections happen without a single problem—first, Namjoon, then Taehyung.(Later, Yoongi and all of them will laugh about their reactions at being brought back to life.They’ll laugh at Namjoon’s body, still letting out smoke from the lightning and still disoriented, looking up to find Yoongi’s gaze and muttering, “ I fucking love you .”They’ll laugh even more at Taehyung’s reaction. The priceless moment forever imprinted on everyone’s mind where Taehyung fell from the cryo chamber right on Jungkook’s feet, opened his eyes and wondered out loud: “Are you an angel? ” and then immediately regretting when he hears the snickers coming from the audience. Taehyung finds Yoongi’s gaze and (blushing), says a low, “Ah, I see.”It gets even funnier because while Taehyung blushes, it’s nothing compared to the red tomato that Jungkook’s face becomes for a few seconds.Yoongi’s very thankful that Louise calls Taehyung to them so he doesn’t distract Jungkook more than he apparently did.)Jungkook is flawless at delivering the rite and while all of the spectators can see the strain on him, how much it takes from his strength and how much focus he needs, they can also see that he’s perfectly capable of handling everything.On the third and final resurrection, Yoongi’s heart starts hammering so loudly on his chest that even Heba and Louise can hear it, both of them throwing him worried glances.When the lightning strikes Seokjin’s body, trying to breathe life back into it and nothing happens, nothing at all—Yoongi knows.Jungkook fights for him. It’s both beautiful and sad to witness because Yoongi feels it in his chore that even if Jungkook fought to his last punch, it wouldn’t matter.Seokjin opens his eyes only and, with a smile, whispers looking right into Yoongi’s eyes.“Let me go.”With three words, Sire Seokjin’s empire comes to an end.Jungkook fights, of course—Jimin has to yell at him to let go when his brother’s nose starts bleeding, but it’s only when Yoongi says, “It’s okay, Ggukie. Let him go.” that the boy does.They all gather outside to put his body in an organic egg and bury it, turning him into a tree right behind the greenhouse’s back.The funeral isn’t short. Seokjin’s life was too long for it to be—all the remaining living beings say a few words, some more than others, and then they all retreat back inside for drinks and an assessment.Taehyung and Namjoon are vaguely out of it, their minds still reconnecting with the world and everything around them, but talking to their old — and new — friends is exactly what they need to heal their minds.All eight of them drink together, drawing stories and laughter from one another. Namjoon is extremely excited to meet the person who stole Yoongi’s heart, and he and Jungkook get along really well too.Taehyung is shyer at the beginning of the night, keeping himself mostly to Louise and Arden’s side. His attachment to Seokjin’s old Sorceress is big, and she makes him relax, but it’s not anything bad that seems to be the issue.His blushing cheeks and glowing eyes every time he spares Jeon Jungkook a glance are obvious to anyone around them—to Jungkook as well, much to the boy’s own embarrassment.And excitement.“I never saw him be shy in the presence of anyone,” Jimin whispers to Yoongi.They’re sitting together on the loveseat while the others are on the sofas and on the floor, and Yoongi knows no one heard them because Namjoon and Heba are in the middle of the living room telling a wedding story.“Is this the one you said would get along well with him?” he asks, his lips right on Yoongi’s ear.Yoongi sips his drink and nods, humming. “The one and only.” He laughs at Namjoon’s etics, feeling his chest light like it had never been before. He gives Jimin a glance and whispers back with a smirk. “Didn’t know it’d be like that.”Jimin giggles, and presses a quick kiss on his mouth.“I don’t mind.”“No?”“Nope.” He kisses Yoongi’s lips again, ignoring the call from Arden telling them, “Stop sucking face!” and while flipping them off, he says. “He deserves someone who thinks he’s an angel.”“Even if they’re a bloodsucker?” Yoongi teases, nosing along Jimin’s jaw.“Especially then.” Jimin is smiling, Yoongi can tell. He doesn’t need to look to see the smile when he has that voice—with a press of Jimin’s lips against his neck, he feels the confirmation that he was right. “They make great partners when they’re in love,” he whispers.“That’s gross, I can hear the two of you,” Namjoon whines loudly, but the complaint falls short when they all see his big dimpled smile.Yoongi takes Jimin’s advice and ignores their friends for a while.“Love you, baby,” he says, pressing a kiss to Jimin’s temple.Because he can.“Love you more,” Jimin answers, breathing in deeply and letting it out in a happy sigh.They turn their attention back to the room, watching as Namjoon and Taehyung now try to explain what it felt like to be in the limbo between the living and dead.Yoongi listens, with Jimin sitting on his lap and so much love bubbling in his heart that he wonders if it’ll burst.At least it’d burst after he got exactly what he craved for: his family.The only thing different, he thinks, is that now that his family is back — and amplified —, he doesn’t want to leave life behind the way he wanted to previously.No.Yoongi listens to his brothers talk, his friends laughing loudly at it, his new brother-in-law finding his gaze with a smile and lastly, Jimin.Their eyes meet and Yoongi sees in Jimin’s eyes the most beautiful sight in the world for him, the sight he’d get addicted to and would look for throughout the rest of his life: reciprocity. All his feelings echoed right back, and the same desire living in the corner of Jimin’s lips—to enjoy their new family, for as long as they have each other.