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thepencilnerd · 4 years

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maybe we’re just | not |meant to be

➵ absolute value [ab·so·lute val·ue] (n.) the magnitude of a quantity, irrespective of sign; the distance of a quantity from zero.

➵ pairing: min yoongi x reader

➵ This was not the first time you’d met Min Yoongi. In fact, you had encountered him throughout many of your previous lifetimes—and yet unbeknownst to either of you, fate was hard at work trying to keep you together as much as destiny was trying to pull you apart. Maybe in another life, another time, another world, another universe...

How many chances did you get until you were finally granted the opportunity be with your soulmate? Would there ever come a time when both of you could find peace in this never ending cycle of life and death—or will the two of you be at the mercy of space and time, forever swimming along the cosmos in search of one another?

➵ genre: definitely a soulmate/multiple past lives AU, love triangle, fluff, heavy angst, bit of historical fiction, modern timeline, time jumps, alternate/parallel universes

➵ warnings: swearing, alcohol consumption, fighting, blood, terminal illness, main character death

➵ word count: 15.9k

a/n: brainstormed this over the course of four hours and started writing on May 2nd :’) please have tissues

The first time you had met was at the fall festival. Each year, your parents were adamant on being the hosts and holding the gala at the palace. Your dress, tailored by your dearest friend, sparkled bright red against the warm glow of the paper lanterns that decorated the path. The festival was alive underneath a beautiful autumn sky, and the vibrant sound of the town’s laughter and jester music echoed throughout the quiet night.

As you were walking past the booth where children were bobbing for apples, there he was. You saw him first, of course. He wore a plain blue mask and a black cape, undetectable to any non-speculative passerby but you. Even behind his seemingly plain mask, your gaze met his the same moment his eyes locked onto yours.

Despite having a fully decorated mask with gemstones, gold lace, and the works to cover your entire face, his stare pierced through yours with the strength of a thousand daggers. His face didn’t ring a bell, not in the slightest—but he felt all too familiar.

You found out later that he was the son of the town’s blacksmith.

“Min Yoongi.” His name rolled off of your tongue like melted candle wax, coating every syllable with another layer of intrigue and curiosity. “Min. Yoongi. Yoongi...” You rested the tips of your fingers over your mouth while repeating each word, feeling how every small muscle twinged and produced the lovely sound that was his name.

His hand traced an invisible swirl along your skin, following the curve of your shoulder down to forearm and then to your hand. “______,” he spoke softly. You opened your eyes to see Yoongi lying parallel to you, the small distance between you no bigger than an arm’s reach away.

“______...” He spoke in an even quieter voice this time, afraid that if he said your name in vain that you would evaporate into thin air and leave him—all alone. Your name sounded like poetry as it danced across his lips.

Reaching over to him, your fingertips gently brushed over his lower lip as he continued to say your name. Even though he’d visited your chambers hours before, it paled in comparison to the intimate moment you were sharing now.

He lifted his hand up to your face carefully, brushing the soft skin of your cheek before settling on your cupid’s bow. Mirroring each others actions as you called each other’s name one after another, your voices slowed to a series of silenced murmurs as you lulled each other to sleep.

“Do you love him?”

Hidden underneath his anger, the hurt in his voice began bleeding through his words. You turned around to face him. His face was clear despite the pitch black darkness of the night, and his eyes glimmered in the moonlight.

“Do you love him?” he repeated, louder this time as he began walking toward you. The breeze was refreshing as it blew past the trees, rustling the leaves in its wake and causing his scent to surround you. Grabbing your hands, he gently cradled them in his; they were always so warm. He brought them close to his lips and pressed a soft kiss to them, the wetness of his tears trailing down the back of your hand.

You cupped his face and brought him closer to you, his hands still wrapped around yours and heartbeat so loud you could feel it thump against yours.

“No.” Your mouth felt like it was glued shut, but somehow you finally managed to speak. “No I don’t love him. I never have and I never will, Yoongi.” Each word stung more than the last.

He sniffled, biting his lip as his shoulders began shaking slightly.

“Yoongi,” you started while you held back tears of your own. “I love you so much.”

His knees buckled from beneath him as he kneeled by your feet, clutching desperately at your legs as if it were the last thing anchoring him on this earth. You felt the warmth of his tears seep through the material of your dress, breaking off another piece of your already shattered heart.

Kneeling down to comfort him, he couldn’t hold back the wash of tears after what came next. “But I have to marry him...”

You couldn’t do anything except hold him. Nothing you say would make him feel better; nothing you did would ever help him heal from the scars you gave him; nothing would ever be the same.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered. “I’m sorry, Yoongi. I’m sorry...” Enveloping each other in a hug so tight it seemed to shut out even the cold wind, you felt tears of your own trail down your face. He held you tighter, burying his nose into the crook of your neck and memorizing every little part of you before—

“I love you,” he said. “I love you, ______. I know he will never be able to make you happy or love you the way that I do, but I love you and I don’t care if you marry him. No matter how long it takes, I will wait for you even in death.”

You couldn’t find it in your heart to speak, knowing you would burst into a wailing mess of screams and tears, and the last thing either of you needed was to be discovered by the royal guard. You began shaking at the realization that this was really it; this was the last you’d ever see him, hold him in your arms, kiss him, touch him—be with him.

Grasping the sides of his face, you pressed your lips against his for the last time. The salt from both of your tears mixing with the taste that was entirely him felt bittersweet. “I will wait for you, Min Yoongi,” you promised. “Even if I have to find you across in life, I will find you and we’ll be happy together.”

Before sharing one last kiss, he took your hand and put it over his chest. The pronounced beating of his heart made your vision watery again. “Promise.” It wasn’t a request or a question—it really was a promise.

Blinking back your tears, you brought his free hand over your chest and held it close. “I promise.”

“Large stack of pancakes no butter or whipped cream and a hot coffee!” Gustav shouted, the small bell on the kitchen counter ringing like the telephone.

Grabbing the piping hot plate, you piled it on your forearms with the rest of your orders and hustled to get them to their tables.

“Small kid’s meal with a side of fruit salad, an old fashioned with extra bacon, and an egg-white breakfast omelette with no tomatoes,” you recited cheerily, handing out each of the plates to the family sat at their table. “Enjoy!”

Thanking you, you whizzed by table after table until your arms were colored a bright red and indented with marks from the weighty plates. It was only lunch and you were already feeling the anxiety of rush hour at the diner. You were grateful when the giant bell finally rang from the cash register, signaling your break.

“Hey ______, do you mind pouring this man a fresh cup of joe?” Marcie called over, waving to you from the opposite end of the aisle. With one hand wrapped around the phone wire and the other punching numbers into the cash register, you ran over as quickly as you could to help.

You grabbed a freshly brewed pot from the machine and poured it into the mug, still warm from being fresh out of the dishwasher. “Any cream or sugar?” you asked the man hunched over the lunch counter with newspaper in hand.

“None, thank you,” he replied curtly. “Black is fine.”

Raising your brow at the voice, you turned around and set the cup down in front of him. The newspaper was fully opened and covered the entirety of his face. Assuming it was just your brain tricking you, you tapped Marcie on the shoulder and pointed to the back door. reminding her that it was your lunch break. Shooing you away, you grinned and wiped your hands before taking off your apron.

The quick rustle of paper crumpling was the last sound you heard before you were out the door.

“What was her name?” Yoongi asked Marcie who was still on hold with the real estate brokers. He kept the newspaper half-folded in one hand.

“Huh?” she replied. “Oh! That’s ______. Been working with us for a while. Real nice gal. Sad to see her go.”

Yoongi let out a bored ‘hmph’ and drank his coffee. There was something oddly magnetizing about you that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. “She found a new job?”

Marcie took a few more notes down with her finger held up at Yoongi, bidding him to wait. He sipped in silence.

“Yeah, she finally got that job she’d been pining for on the east coast. Where was it... some banking company or stock market businessy title, can’t remember,” she rambled. “Today’s her last day.”

After a few seconds without a response, Marcie looked up and saw the young man in a daze. “Why? Cat got your tongue?” she joked.

He shook his head, coming back to his senses. “No, nothing. I just thought I saw her somewhere.” Covering his nosy curiosity with a mutter, Yoongi ignored his accelerating pulse.

“Bad timing I guess,” Marcie sighed, sensing the disappointment in his voice.

Without a second thought, Yoongi’s fist clenched the grayscale paper as it let out a satisfying crunch. Marcie’s eyes widened at this, making him clear his throat awkwardly.

"Sorry, finger cramps,” he stuttered. “I should get back to the office.” Gathering his coat, Yoongi tossed all the spare coins he had into the tip jar and left the diner. For some reason, he didn’t feel like eating lunch there ever again.

“Happy Birthday!!” you screamed in unison with all of your friends.

The lights flickered on, revealing a stone-faced Yoongi and overexcited, freeze framed Hoseok right behind him. After a few moments of awkward silence, the delayed sound of Namjoon’s popper going off made everyone burst into laughter.

Seokjin facepalmed. “Really, Namjoon?” Jimin and Taehyung shook their heads like disappointed children scolding an adult.

Yoongi was holding back a childish grin. “Thanks guys.” Even though his reaction was sub-par than what you expected for a surprise party, you smiled.

“Let’s cut the cake!” Hoseok shouted as if he were already on a sugar high.

Turning on the stereo, Jimin, Taehyung, Jungkook, Seokjin, Namjoon and Hoseok began dancing like they were already in college. Admissions decisions were coming out next week and you all needed to relax. Luckily, Yoongi’s birthday was right around the corner and posed as the perfect opportunity to get together.

Laughing at the six boys’ and their antics, Yoongi walked over to you with a smug grin. “I told you I suck at reacting.” Popping open a bottle of mini-champagne you splurged on just for today, you handed one to him before opening your own.

“What can I say,” you shrugged, taking a drawn-out sip before continuing. “If it means we can all spend one more crazy night together, it’s worth it in my book.”

Yoongi sighed. “Why do you always talk like we’re going far away and never seeing each other again? We’re all staying in-state for tuition.” He took another swig before finishing his thought bubble. “None of us can even afford dorms, meals, or apartments anyway.”

You smiled at his seemingly naïve outlook on the situation. “Yoongi, we all know Jimin and Hoseok are already set for scholarships in NYC. Taehyung and Seokjin probably have acting gigs booked that they’re keeping a secret until the graduation, and Jungkook and Namjoon talked about how they wanted to go to Europe for a gap year.”

Yoongi clenched his jaw at the reality that washed over him like cold water. “We’ll be okay. As long as you’re staying here with me, these—” he paused to gesture at the group of boys messing around like a pack of wild animals. “—dingbats are the least of my worries.”

Your ears perked at his choice of words. “I worry you?” you asked, voice going two octaves too high for your comfort. His hand stopped mid-air while bringing the bottle to his lips, only then realizing the weight his words carried.

Clearing his throat harshly, you felt heat rise up your throat and pink dust your cheeks. It was the alcohol, right?

“We’ve been best friends for 18 years,” he defended. “Knowing how clumsy preschool you was and how stupid high school you can be, of course I’m worried about you.”

More color began rushing into your face. You chugged more of your drink to convince anyone else who’d ask you what was wrong that it was the alcohol, not your best friend’s words making you feel—no. You were friends. Best friends. Don’t blow anything out of proportion.

“Right back at you muffin man,” you winked, the alcohol giving you a bit more confidence than you usually had. Shooting you a gummy smile, you clinked your glasses together and felt the buzz flood your senses.

“Yoongi! ______!” Taehyung called from across the room. “Stay cheese!” Holding up his polaroid, the flash caught you off guard. Yoongi’s arm came up reflexively to shield your eyes, making your heart flutter even more. Note to self: expensive alcohol equals stronger alcohol.

Of course that wasn’t fucking true, not in the slightest.

Jungkook and the others groaned, chanting in unison for one more picture.

“Why not a group picture assholes?” Yoongi scoffed. “It’s my birthday so I get all the birthday wishes granted.”

Seokjin tsked. “Because you two look cute together and it’s an au naturale setting!” Giving into their relentless pleas, you wrapped your arm around Yoongi’s waist and gave the camera a goofy smile. Taken aback by your sudden physical contact, Yoongi’s heartbeat picked up at lighting speed. You could hear it through the thin fabric of his shirt.

The guys howled again. “Yoongi!” Jimin whined. “Come on! It’s just a quick picture!” Slinging his arm over your shoulder, you could’ve sworn he pulled you in closer for the shot. He rested his cheek on the top of your head and you felt his muscles pull into the gummy smile you had memorized by heart.

Taehyung snapped a picture as quickly as he could, but groaned after shaking the developed photo. “Shoot, my finger was covering part of the lens. One more, I promise!”

Yoongi let out a huff. Looking up at him, he lowered his chin and stared back at you. You never noticed how—pretty—he was until now. His eyes were more angular than you remembered, but his lips remained the same from when you were kids. He’d always pout whenever he got in trouble for playing too rough with the other guys.

You’ll never forget when he shoved Hoseok down the slide in 2nd grade and went on time out for the entire duration of lunch. Innocent 7-year old you felt bad for your best friend and snuck him the other half of your PB&J when the teacher wasn’t looking. This didn’t go unpunished of course, as you soon found yourself in the same time out corner as Yoongi. Strangely enough, you weren’t angry in the slightest.

The annoyed expression on his face slowly melted into one you struggled to map. Focused? Shocked? Surprised? Happy? Was there something smudged on your face? The edges of his lips formed into a gentle smile and he parted his lips to say—

“3, 2, 1!” the boys shouted in unison before the loud click of a camera shutter sounded again.

“God, I feel like I’m going to puke.” Your heart felt like it was going to dig itself out of your ribcage and run a marathon. “Why am I so nervous?” Fiddling with your fingers to try and calm your anxiety by shaking your hands around vigorously, Klaire grabbed you by the shoulders and looked at you with a wide eyes.

“______.” Her usually quiet voice was now firm, but still gentle. “Calm down. Breathe for me. I don’t need you hyperventilating in your dress.”

Letting out a deep breath you trapped inside your lungs for what seemed like hours, you closed your eyes and tried to steady the relentless pounding that was your heart rate.

“You’re marrying the love of your life,” she reminded. “You’re just excited.”

You gulped another welling bubble that came up your throat. No matter how many times you tried swallowing, your throat was as dry as a desert. You couldn’t drink water either because it was your mother’s wonderful idea to get a wedding dress with a corset. Talk about old fashioned, right?

“Were you this nervous for your wedding? Would you be this nervous?” The questions slipped out instinctively before you could stop them. “Like pit at the bottom of your stomach that feels like it’s ripping through your guts and weighing you down to the dark depths of hell?”

Klaire laughed at your ever-ornate vernacular that remained even when you were stressed out. “I’d be nervous if somewhere deep inside my heart, I knew he wasn’t ‘the one’.” Air-quoting the last part of her sentence, she patted the baby hairs that had been tussled during your mini fit.

The words sliced through your foggy mind like a hot knife, making your eyes widen and the color of your face wash out.

Seeing your reaction, she was quick to reassure you. “But you love him and he loves you! I promise, ______, you’re just excited. I was nervous on my wedding day!” She overemphasized her words and clasped her chest to try and be more convincing. “You’re getting married for God’s sake! It’s normal to be nervous!”

You needed to sit down. “Yeah...” A dry laugh escaped your lips. “I’m getting married.”

Three knocks sounded from the door. Turning around, you saw a familiar group of heads poke through the open crack. “Well, well, well,” the youngest smirked. “Look who it is.”

The corners of your lips curled into the biggest smile you’d mustered all day. “You guys!” Getting up, you ran over to Seokjin, Namjoon, Jimin, Hoseok, and Yoongi as fast as you could with the heels you had on. They brought you in for a group hug, being careful not to get tangled in your veil or snag your dress.

Klaire left the room as discreetly as she could, mentioning something about a cake or the balloons needing some double-checking.

“You look beautiful,” Jimin complimented, a genuine smile lighting up his eyes.

Seokjin had his hand clasped over his mouth, purposely overreacting to make you laugh and calm your nerves. “Who are you and what have you done with ______?”

Shaking their heads at the eldest’s incessant rapport for comedy, Yoongi refrained from elbowing his side.

“You do look really amazing, ______.” Namjoon also smiled, keeping his hands behind his back to not cause any accidents. Knowing him, it was a miracle Jimin didn’t bring cable ties with him as backup.

“Is it too late to ask you to marry me?” Hoseok chirped. Winking at you, you scoffed and shook your head, containing your laughter as you shoved his shoulder playfully.

Yoongi remained still, his eyes still scanning over your attire. Noticing how silent he was, the four cleared their throats all at once, snapping him out of his trance. Looking up and around at the guys, his eyes honed in on you.

“Yeah,” he agreed blindly. “You look—great. Stunning.”

Hoseok and the guys sensed the tension in the room. “I think we should go check up on Jungkook to see if he needs any help,” Jimin filled in. “God knows if he knows how to work a mic at his first announcer gig, right?”

The others chuckled and told you they’d see you at the reception. Giving them one more hug and bidding them goodbye, it was just you and Yoongi left in the room. Taking a seat on the couch, you ushered him over to sit beside you.

Instead, Yoongi opted to sit in the empty chair across the sofa. You couldn’t help but feel hurt by his pseudo passive aggressive decision. He seemed more quiet than usual—no, he was more quiet than usual.

“So,” he finally spoke after what seemed like a million years of silence. “Marriage.”

Biting your lip, you picked at your nails again. Klaire would kill you if she saw how much you’d ruined your manicure in the span of a few hours.

“Yeah. I’m getting married.” The words rolled off of your tongue like a foreign language, strenuous on your tongue and your heavy mind. “Your wedding is next week though, so don’t count me out,” you tried to laugh, but only succeeded in making yourself feel worse for whatever reason.

A ghost of a smile grazed Yoongi’s lips. His eyes flickered back and forth between his engagement ring and yours. “Are you excited?”

“Yes.” You answered robotically. The more you talked, the more each sentence out of your mouth felt like tar; acidic and painful, scorching your mouth raw. “Aren’t you?” you asked, referring to his engagement.

Yoongi nodded slowly, pressing his lips together and raking his teeth across his lower lip. “Of course I am,” he blurted out in a hasty tone. “Really, really excited. I can’t wait.”

Silence filled the room again. You wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out. Why did this feel so horrible? Like you’d just stabbed your best friend in the back with a dull knife?

“I’m really happy for you, ______,” he declared. “I'm really happy that you’re happy.” His eyes fluttered softly and his throat bobbed.

Another pang reverberated in your chest. “I’m really happy for you too, Yoongi.” No matter how hard you tried to sound confident, your voice was on the verge of tears. He leaned over the space between you, he placed his hands over your clasped ones and kept his eyes down.

“Please stay happy,” he pleaded, unable to meet your gaze for fear of letting you see how watery his eyes were. “Please be happy. Live a long, healthy, happy life. For me.”

Choking back your own tears, you nodded.

You managed to find the strength in your voice to speak. One last wish before saying goodbye to your youth.

“Please don’t forget about me.”

"Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the groom!” Jungkook announced grandly, gesturing toward the French doors at the back of the hall. The youngest really was good at everything he set out to do.

Opening the doors, your fiancé stepped out with a humble bow and waved at everyone; with his father’s wedding tux on, meticulously brushed up hair, and a single red rose pinned by his pocket square, he looked as handsome as ever.

After the clapping settled down, Jungkook continued. “And now, I would like you all to give a warm welcome to the beautiful bride!” The applause was louder than before and made your stomach feel like it weighed a thousand tons.

“Don’t let me fall?” Opening your eyes to look at Seokjin, he held your hand tightly and spoke with nothing but sincerity in his voice.

“Never.” On cue, you began walking down the aisle. It was just like the movies, except it was about a million times more terrifying since you were the one actually walking down the obscenely narrow aisle. Locking eyes with your beloved, his lips were parted in awe from the moment you stepped onto the walkway.

The soft music that echoed from the speakers flooded the auditorium and added an extra blanket of comfort. Reality kicked in and you were overcome with the feeling of sheer terror, excitement, happiness, anxiety, joy, and every emotion in between.

You were getting married.

You stared straight ahead so you wouldn’t fall and clutched onto Seokjin’s arm as tight as you could. Once you made it to the altar, Seokjin kissed your cheek and made his way back to the tables.

“Dearly beloved,” the officiant began. “We are gathered here today to celebrate the union of this beautiful bride and groom as they proclaim their love and commitment to the world....” His voice suddenly blurred into muddled bubbles of distorted bass. It wasn’t until your gaze wandered and found Yoongi—he was already staring at you.

Pain flooded your chest again like the burning hot steel rod that was used to poke charcoal pits. Pain like that time you went to Splash City for a 7th grade field trip and fell down the water slide. You weren’t able to stand up straight, so the guys worked together to carry you back to where Miss Isles and the TA’s were sunbathing. Yoongi was crying more than you. A dull ache blossomed in your chest and spread to the tips of your fingers like ink droplets in water.

Pain.

The warm sensation of hands holding yours brought you back to the present moment. “And now—” The bellowing voice returned. “Kim Taehyung, do you take ______ to be your wife?”

Without a second of hesitation, Taehyung squeezed your hands gently and his eyes gleamed brighter than the sunset skyline. “I do.”

“Do you promise to love, honor, cherish, and protect her, forsaking all others, and holding only unto her forevermore?” the officiant continued.

“I do,” he repeated confidently.

Turning to you, the vows continued. “And ______, do you take Kim Taehyung to be your husband?”

No longer looking at Yoongi, your heart was flooded with the love you shared with Taehyung just long enough for you to say, “I do.”

“Do you promise to love, honor, cherish, and protect him, forsaking all others, and holding only unto him forevermore?”

Your eyes drifted to Yoongi for just a second before gazing at Taehyung and letting the words leave your lips.

“I do.”

The officiant smiled, blind to anything but you and Taehyung. “May the ring bearer—which to my knowledge, is the best man—bring forth the rings?”

Stepping towards the altar, Yoongi handed the velvet box to the officiant and didn’t dare to meet your eyeline.

“______ and Taehyung will now exchange rings as a symbol of love and commitment to each other,” he said for what was probably the billionth time in his entire career.

The rest of the vows passed by like a smudged blur. All you remember is hearing, “You may now kiss the bride” and Taehyung’s soft lips pressing against yours. When you pulled away, everyone was whistling, clapping, and cheering, overjoyed at the new union that was Kim Taehyung and ______, husband and wife.

Everyone except Yoongi.

He was frozen.

All he could do was put on a big smile for his best friend, happily married to the man she loved.

All he could do was hide his truth—

so that’s exactly what you did, too.

The reception was bustling with crowds of people dancing. Seeing as you didn’t recognize a handful of faces, you were pretty sure more than half of them were all co-workers Taehyung had invited.

“Okay, okay!” Jungkook’s voice sounded through the speakers, cracking the slightest bit from his energy. “It’s time for everyone to give their toasts to the wonderfully wed bride and groom!”

You tried your best not to roll your eyes by shaking your head and biting your lips. Hoseok ran to the mic first, butting Jungkook out of the way like he always did since elementary school.

“______, Taehyung—” He exhaled as he began speaking. “If there’s any couple who’s been more in love with each other since the day they met, I’d pay a million to see their faces when they see you two.” Keeping it short and sweet, a few whistles sounded from the back, causing you to blush.

Namjoon was next. “We all met ______ in kindergarten and have been best friends ever since,” he explained with a hint of nostalgia in his voice. “When she’d go to the bathroom or back to the cafeteria to get an extra cookie, we all talked about who’d get to marry her during lunch. Taehyung always had it bad for ______, and dreams do come true!”

Covering your face to hide your the redness of your cheeks, you looked over to see that Taehyung was doing the same, except he was peeking through his fingers to look at you lovingly. The sound of the guests’ laughter and cheers made your heart ring in your ears. Taehyung reached over to grab your hand; the feeling of his large hand encasing yours made a wave of relief wash over you.

Jimin waltzed on right after. “Going off of that, I remember how Yoongi would always glare at us and tell us to ‘shut up’ or that ‘______ never wanted to get married and live with her cat forever.’” Everyone chuckled. “______, Taehyung, congratulations on the beautiful life you’ll share together!”

Watching everyone raise their glass into the air, you hesitated before grabbing yours and taking a mouthful.

Seokjin went after Jungkook, who insisted that he was supposed to go first as the main host. As a result, he made it his best interest to publicly roast Hoseok on the stand and earn a round of laughter from all of the guests.

You looked back to Yoongi. Some part of you secretly hoped that he waited for his turn as a “save the best for last” type of speech. He was clenching a piece of paper tight in his fist, hell-bent on making it into nothing but a wrinkled ball of smudged ink and flecks of fiber.

Right on cue, he stood up and jogged up to the stage. Jungkook handed him the mic with a confused expression, but played it off as best he could with his signature wide-toothed grin.

Yoongi turned away from the mic to clear his throat away. Taking a deep breath, he struggled to find his voice despite the deathly quiet auditorium.

“______,” he said. “I remember the first day I met you like it was yesterday. We were in kindergarten and you were the new kid who got transferred to our classroom.” He wasn’t reading off of the paper he had out earlier.

This wasn’t his plan.

“You wouldn’t stop crying, saying how you didn’t know anyone in the class and all of your friends were gone,” Yoongi said as he chuckled to himself, remembering the memory crystal clear. “I told you to stop whining because it was getting annoying, and you started crying even more.”

You remember that day. Taehyung remembers that day. As did Namjoon, Hoseok, Jimin, Seokjin, and Jungkook. You were all in different grades, but in the same school and shared the same classroom.

“I remember feeling so bad for making you cry, I gave you the last piece of candy I had stuffed in my cubby. I saved up twenty gold stars for that.” Another soft wave of everyone’s laughter crashed against your ears. “Then in middle school, we all went to the water park for a stupid field trip. You fell down the slide and hit your head so hard, you were barely conscious.

“I carried you halfway across the park on my back. The guys were all screaming from behind me to put my flip flops on so I wouldn’t get any cuts on my feet.”

You never knew that. The week after you had the accident, Yoongi was in a cast for a month and refused to tell you why. The guys wouldn’t spill either, defending that they made a promise to Yoongi that they’d never break.

“When you agreed that going to prom would be a nightmare straight out of a 90′s rom-com,” he paused to bite back his lopsided smile. “I asked you to come with me since it would be our last cheesy high school memory with the group.

“For your birthday, we went to the botanical gardens. You went on for hours about how much you loved the roses there.” How could you forget? Yoongi pulled up to your house at 6 in the morning and told you to be out in 10. You were sleeping peacefully for the entire 5-hour drive—until he woke you up by plugging your nose and nearly suffocating you on your birthday.

Despite the growing ache in his throat, he pressed on. “I still have those pictures of you getting stung by that bee. I told you not to get too close to the flowers, but you never listened to me.”

More laughter. Not a single ounce of it came from you.

Yoongi’s voice grew quiet. “I remember talking to you right before midnight. You seemed stressed out about something...” His focus was entirely on you now. “Namjoon’s New Year’s party.”

Oh. How could you forget...

“Taehyung could not have timed his proposal more perfectly with the last clock strike.”

There it was.

“I guess what I’m trying to say,” Yoongi stuttered, collecting his thoughts. “Is that I really—I’m really happy for you, ______. And you too, Taehyung.” He added the last part in with a gummy grin that you could spot as painted on from a mile away.

“I wish you a long, healthy, happy, and exciting life together. Don’t forget about the rest of us, okay? I love you, too.” He barely skipped the pause between the last two words to sound like “you two,” but his message rung loud and clear.

He loves you.

Min Yoongi loves you.

The faded edges of the polaroid felt dull against your fingertips. You spent the past hour sitting in front of the fireplace with the old pictures of you and Yoongi in your hand. You only had three; all of them were from his birthday party, senior year.

The first one was blurry, but the memory was imprinted in your head as clear as day. Yoongi’s arm shielding you from the bright flash of Taehyung’s camera in his sneak attack of a photoshoot. You didn’t notice until now how closely you were pressed against Yoongi’s side.

The second was better. Taking note of how the camera was slightly zoomed in and leaning towards you, a melancholic smile flashed your face.

"My finger was covering the lens” my ass, you recalled. Taehyung did have feelings for you, even back then.

Your arm was wrapped around Yoongi’s side and his slung over your shoulder, both of your smiling like teenage idiots at the camera, thinking about god knows what.

Finally, you studied the third one for the longest. It was the one where you two were looking at each other, frozen like marble sculptures and unbound by the limits of time. His lips were parted just as you remembered them, torturing you ever still. You wanted nothing more than for this picture to come to life and speak those words to you, whatever they may be.

But you knew that it was just an old, fingerprint stained picture that would remain silent and lifeless forever.

“Are you coming to bed, love?” Taehyung’s deep voice called from behind you. Judging by how scratchy and groggy his voice was, he was definitely on the verge of falling asleep standing up. “It’s getting late and we have lots of exploring to do tomorrow.” Even though he was exhausted, he couldn’t hide the excitement laced in his voice.

After you got engaged, the two of you immediately settled on Crema, Italy as your honeymoon destination. From the hundreds of years of history, breathtaking scenery, rich culture, and not to mention the food, the past few days here had been pure heaven.

“Coming,” you assured warmly. Sitting on the photos to keep them hidden, you told him you’d be there after putting out the fireplace. He pouted and said that the bed was cold without you, and to hurry up.

His childish antics never failed to make your heart race. After he was back in the bedroom, you took another minute to look at the pictures.

With shaky hands and tears welling in your eyes, you threw them into the burning red embers of the fireplace one by one, watching them melt; the white plastic borders of the film curled inward and turned black, crumpling into nothing but a stringy mess of fumes; the ink that marked the date of that night disintegrated into the air as puffs of smoke, marking the end of something would never be.

If you weren’t nestled into Taehyung’s chest and deafened by the sound of his steady heartbeat, you could’ve sworn you heard that piece of your heart shatter that night.

Yoongi was lying comfortably on his couch. The T.V. was on but he didn’t hear any of it. The clock read 12:41 a.m. and as per usual, he wasn’t tired in the slightest. He didn’t feel like sleeping. He didn’t want to. He couldn’t.

“Yoongi?” a sleepy voice sounded from the bedroom. “Are you coming to bed?”

Lifting his head to the bedroom door, he saw his wife sticking her head out of the door crack ever so slightly. She must’ve woken up.

“Yeah, sorry,” he apologized humbly. “Had to finish some extra paperwork.Go back to bed, I’ll be there in a minute.” Getting up to quickly kiss her forehead, Yoongi promised her that he’d be there soon.

She gave him a half-asleep grin and nestled herself back into the covers. Yoongi turned off all the apartment lights and the T.V., leaving him in utter silence and darkness. The only reason he kept them running constantly was to block out the thoughts he had of you during the day.

Opening the coffee table drawer in front of the couch, he took out the wedding album from last month. When he opened it, he was surprised to find the three pictures of you and him from his senior year birthday party scattered on the first page. You always loved throwing surprise parties despite knowing that he would never react the way you wanted him to. It was sweet.

Looking at the polaroids, Yoongi was in absorbed into the memory of that night, eyes burning from not blinking for too long. The first picture was a blurry mess, but the second and third weren’t half bad.

He remembers your smile being his favorite. You’d get that crinkle in your nose and your eyes would turn into half moons like a cartoon character. Your teeth glinted like rare pearls from the ocean’s deepest depths, but your dimples were only noticeable from up close. Your smile was absolutely contagious.

The third frame was his least favorite. It was a moment captured in time that he would never forgive himself for; the biggest regret in his life—his living nightmare.

That was the night he was going to ask you to be his girlfriend.

It was the night everything was supposed to be perfect.

But it wasn’t.

Two weeks later, Taehyung came back from the tour for his debut film and had a party of his own to celebrate.

He asked you out.

You said yes.

He swept you off of your feet and kissed you like in the movies, twirling you around to the point where you couldn’t stop laughing. You were so happy. Yoongi didn’t have the guts to throw away the photos.

The two of you hadn’t talked since his wedding. It had only been a month, but it felt like an eternity spent in hell. He missed your voice; the sound of your laughter; that face you made when you scolded him and tried to be serious but ended up breaking into snorts. He missed you.

Flipping over to the next page, he found the letter from your wedding night. It was still badly tattered from when he let his anger seep through and needed something to clench. Everyone who saw it probably thought it was his toast to you and Taehyung, but no. It was his confession letter he’d saved from the night you got engaged at that stupid New Year party.

Dear ______,

If everything goes to plan, you’ll never have to read this. On the other hand and the even greater chance that things don’t go to plan, you still won’t be able to read this. I love you, ______. I can picture your face reading this. Close your mouth or a bug might fly in again. Don’t think I forgot when we visited the zoo for our bio class. I still have the video saved on my phone. I’m probably too late, right? I don’t care. In fact, I couldn’t care less. I love you more than I love myself or anything else in this world, and I don’t care if you feel the same. I just want you to be happy. I need you to be.

I’ve felt connected to you since the first day we met and I’ve loved you more and more every day after that. No matter how hard I tell myself that you will never feel the same about me, or even think and care about me half as much as I care about you, I can’t stop thinking about you. I care about you more than you care about me, and that’s okay.

You make me so incredibly happy, I can’t put into words how deeply I feel for you. You also drive me insane and make me the angriest, most frustrated, neurotic, and saddest person to exist in this entire universe, but I don’t care because it’s all thanks to you.

I will love you until the day I die and I promise you this with my life.

Please choose me. Love me. Be with me. I know it’s pathetic and hopeless and so fucking selfish, but I love you and I can’t live without you, ______. Choose me. Stay with me. Marry me.

Always and forever yours,

—Yoongi.

And with that, he slammed the album shut and buried his face into his hands, sheer agony, anger, pain, regret, and awe flooding every cell in his body. He started laughing. Not at himself or you, not even at anything in particular.

I guess I’m just laughing at how ridiculous this whole universe is. Fate an all. He tried reasoning with himself but was far from remotely sane. It felt like some big practical joke on a hidden camera T.V. show, like this wasn’t his real life, his reality. He begged for it to be a bad dream that he would wake up from any second now. He wanted it to be a nightmare.

But he never woke up.

If you had met in another time, another life, another world—how happy could you have been? In love? Together?

The steady beeping of the hospital monitor had become your new normal. Today was different though. You sensed it in your bones. It wasn’t a good feeling.

“Yoongi, you can’t die on me. I don’t want to be alone.”

He smiled faintly, trying to reach out and soothe your streaming tears. His skin was bleach white and his usually pink lips were tinted a sickly grey. He was dying and you couldn’t do a single thing about it.

“You won’t be alone. You have all of your family and—” He was cut short by your sudden outburst.

“I don’t want my family, I want you!” you sobbed, burying your face into his hospital gown. He held back tears of his own as he felt the fabric dampen on his stomach. “You’re only 27, Yoongi, you—you don’t—”

Pressing the palms of your hands into your eye sockets, you wouldn’t have been able get any more words out even if you forced yourself to. A stabbing pain spread in your lungs from the lack of oxygen, but you didn’t care. Your boyfriend, the love of your life, was on his deathbed and you would gladly take all the misery in the world, all the needles and knives, stitches and surgeries, broken bones, bruises and blood—every single piece of it if it meant that he would live.

“You don’t deserve to die, Yoongi...” you hiccuped.

He cradled your head against his neck, his half sitting up posture allowing your tears to flow down his collarbone. The last few months had been hell, but you refused to leave his side.

Every time he’d wake up in insufferable agony in the middle of the night, you were there with anything he needed: water, a bucket, damp towel, food, his medications, a nurse—anything and everything he needed, you were always there for him.

The two of you shared the last few months you had left constantly by each other’s side. It all felt like some sick joke. Six years ago, you had met the love of your life at a random coffee shop in Seattle and hit it off like sparks. You found out he was an architect major and finishing up his senior year just like you. He asked you out four months after you kept running into each other at the coffee shop, and moved in together five months after that.

Your relationship was absolutely perfect. Never in your entire life had you met a guy, let alone a human being, who was as selfless, kind, gentle, loving, and honest as Yoongi. There was a connection between the two of you that you couldn’t describe or frame into rational thoughts; you loved each other unconditionally.

It all came crashing down when he collapsed last year. It didn’t seem like anything major. He told you it was because of his anemia, but after insisting on making a visit to the hospital, the doctors broke the news to you.

After months of seeing him doubled over in pain and puking his guts out from all the medication and relentless testing, he told you right before your 5-year anniversary: he didn’t want to suffer anymore.

It took months of convincing you that he was okay with dying for you to even be able to look into his eyes. You couldn’t hate the man you loved for choosing to die peacefully rather than be greedy to live, but you had a hard time showing your full support and being okay with it. You don’t think you’ll ever be okay with it.

“I’ve lived a happy life, _____.” Recalling the memory as if it were yesterday, his voice was much stronger back then. “I have done everything I’ve ever wanted to do, seen everything, explored everywhere, and after meeting you, I know I can die without any regrets. My only regret is not walking you down that aisle when I had the chance.”

Pressing a kiss to his chapped lips, you couldn’t stop the ache that plagued your heart at the memory. It wasn’t over until it was over, so why did it still hurt so bad?

“______?” Yoongi whispered. “You awake?” He struggled to his head to face you, every little muscle in his body aching like a collective bruise.

You shifted your weight over to your side of the bed and propped yourself up on your elbow, studying his face one more time. “Do you need anything?” Talking for the first time after hours of crying stung, like rubbing alcohol was being poured down your throat.

His shook his head at you with a half-lidded gaze and lifeless smile. “I’m just a little tired, that’s all. It’d be nice if you could cuddle me to sleep.” You bit your lip to hold back the waterworks but let your smile shine through. He was the same Min Yoongi you’d met at that random coffee shop on a rainy Seattle day.

Opening his arms, he brought you safely into his chest, arms wrapped around you as tightly as he could with the little bit of strength he had left.

“______,” he sighed, drained from all the energy he’d put into making these these past few days worth it. “I love you.” He murmured the words against your temple like a prayer, breath tickling you ever so softly like the ripples of a cherry blossom petal falling onto the surface of a pond.

You looked up and saw that his eyes were fully open, but started to flutter shut again. He was using every bit of energy to keep them open and memorize your features. Kissing him tenderly, you felt your lips tremble against his. You didn’t want his last memory of you to be one where you were bawling your eyes out. Instead, you smiled as best you could and swiped your finger across his cheek as he leaned into your touch.

“I love you too, Yoongi. I love you more than anything in this entire universe we call home.” His eyelids drooped shut at your soothing lullaby, falling deeper and deeper into the comforting darkness of sleep. The weak beating of his heart grew quieter with each passing second.

“You can go to sleep, Yoongi,” you soothed while running your fingers through his thin hair. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“Promise?” he mumbled through your hair with the last drop of strength he had left in his body. His breathing grew shallow and hushed. His hands that were always warm and kept you cozy during the frigid nights in your apartment were now stone cold.

You swallowed down the lump in your throat as you felt his chest rise and fall for the last time.

“I promise.”

Taking in a deep breath, the cold air burned your nostrils and filled your lungs with the crisp scent of snow. “Why do you believe in soulmates?” you asked. Handing him the sandwich bag, he shrugged.

“I don’t know. Just seems like something that makes sense.” Tearing open the plastic pouch, he took a bite and immediately sputtered. "How do you mess up a PB&J?”

You smacked his shoulder lightly and scowled at him. “I’ll have you know that I happen to make the best sandwiches in the world, Min Yoongi!”

“Mhm,” he nodded with sarcasm and a smirk. Might you add that he was still eating his sandwich and seemed to be enjoying it.

Pressing your lips together in a thin line, you ate in silence together. It was a snow day in Manhattan and Central Park looked stunning from your dorms. It was your idea to go out for a picnic, and since it was winter break, who better to ask than your dearest friend Min Yoongi?

“I can’t believe you dragged me out here for a picnic in winter wonderland.” His voice seemed grumpy, but it was probably because you hadn’t given him any coffee yet. Point made, you rustled through your backpack and pulled out a thermos full of piping hot instant liquid gold.

With a mouthful of bread, he reached out to grab the metal thermos but you pulled it back and wagged your finger at him. “What do you say?”

“Give me my coffee,” he droned. Widening your eyes at him in disapproval, he huffed. “Please?”

You stuck out your tongue and poured him a cup. “I’d be more than happy to!”

If he rolled his eyes any harder, they would’ve fallen out of his head.

Taking a small sip, the hot steam curled in contrast with the freezing cold air.

“So you don’t believe in soulmates?” He retraced his steps back to the former topic of conversation. Turning towards him, you followed his eye-line to the small pond down the hill. A sigh parted your lips.

“If everyone had a soulmate, we wouldn’t have heartbreaks.” Your sentence caught him off guard.

“Don’t you think your soulmate is out there somewhere?” he badgered.

You shook your head and finished the last bite of your sandwich. “If he is, he should have popped up three breakups ago.”

Yoongi couldn’t think of a witty comeback.

“Do you think your girlfriend is your soulmate?” you asked this time, tweaking the question to fit his current relationship status.

“No.” The response was instant and dry, much like the coffee granules you poured this morning. “I don’t think she is. Do you think Jungkook is yours?”

You admired the trail of your breathing as it steamed up into a small cloud. “Not a chance.”

The only sound that came after was the brushing of tree branches mute thud of leaves as the fell onto the snow. If you concentrated hard enough, you could hear the frozen pond crackle in the distance, melting away as the seasons began shifting for reasons beyond mortal comprehension.

The ocean of screams and thumping bass was deafening. Cupping your hands over your ears to try and stop your ear drums from bursting, nothing you did could drown out the sea of shrieking fans at a concert.

“Los Angeles!” a tall man greeted from the stage. “How are you all doing tonight?” He didn’t even need to talk to earn a shower of over-excited adolescent spirit.

Another guy who was slightly shorter in comparison brought the mic up to speak. “What do you say we start off the night with a countdown?”

“1,” another younger member started counting.

“2,” the one standing beside him said in a velvety voice.

Pointing their mics to the audience, they all counted, “1, 2, 3,” in unison and you shriveled into a ball of discomfort at the sheer volume.

“This is my favorite song!” your friend shouted as loud as she could, but to no avail.

Leaning closer to her, you shouted back, “What?!” Ushering you to look towards the stage, you didn’t know what you’d be getting yourself into when you agreed to go to a concert. You’d heard about BTS of course, who hadn’t—what you didn’t know was how your friend managed to snag two tickets in the pit. To make it even more painfully cliché, you weren’t that into their music as much as the entire world seemed to be.

You overheard a few seconds of their songs here and there while changing stations on the radio, and who could forget seeing their names plastered on every single news headline, Instagram post, and Facebook and YouTube ad that popped up into your field of view. It wasn’t that you disliked them, you just found it hard to obsess over a single group when there were hundreds of other musicians you enjoyed listening to; too many artists, not enough time.

Come to think of it, you couldn’t be bothered to keep up with celebrities or social media, period. In all honestly, it just seemed like a gigantic, disrespectful waste of time to be buried nose-deep in someone else’s personal issues and life. To each their own, of course.

The sudden change in music made you fall back in touch with reality. The melodic tune of a piano filled the entire stadium as the crowd erupted into another round of cries. Drawing your attention to the stage, a single man sat by a grand piano as his fingers danced across the wooden keys.

Call it your wild imagination or your cloudy head from the overcrowded stadium, but you swear he locked eyes with you for just a moment. He began singing, the words flowing from him like trails of ink scribbles composed of his own sorrow, joy, happiness, and his life up until this point.

He was completely mesmerizing. After the song was over, he bowed to the audience and made eye contact with you. You saw a droplet roll down his cheek as his gaze locked onto yours. He seemed to snap out of the cloud his head was swimming in and immediately stood up straight to get a better look at you. Was he crying?

Breaking his stare as an unfamiliar weight deep in your chest began to pull you down, you turned to your friend—at least, where you thought she was the last time you checked. Another song came on, this one sound like the loudest of them all.

“I have to go to the bathroom!” you tried shouting to your friend, but your voice was already gone. Not from the yelling and screaming of lyrics to songs you didn’t know, but from trying to get your friend’s periodic attention for the past half hour.

She paid no attention to you and kept dancing along with the blaring music. You were starting to feel sick. Maybe it was from swimming in a sea of overzealous crowds of people you hated on a daily level, or from the stuffy and cramped space that was nothing but suffocating—whatever it was, you needed to get out of here. You couldn’t breathe.

Saying excuse me didn’t work in this case so you had to shove past sweaty bodies a bit too aggressively for your comfort, but what choice did you have? You made it to the bathroom just in time and proceeded to puke your guts out in the only stall with a working latch.

It was official: you hated concerts with a passion and would never be coming to one any time soon. Thankfully, the queasy sensation that started earlier was now gone, but instead, it was replaced by a different feeling. Your heart started racing like a bullet train on an endless track headed nowhere. A balloon of air filled your chest cavity and made you choke on your own breathing.

Clutching your chest, your jaw clenched to fight back the urge to cry and closed your eyes tight. You started breathing like your doctor told you to whenever you started getting chest aches. In, out, in out, in out.

You hated concerts.

Yoongi was staring out the streaky window of the tour bus as rain clouds began to loom over them. The guys were quick to notice how weird he was acting towards the end of the show, like he had—

“Dude, did you see a ghost or something?” Seokjin asked with genuine concern woven in. Yoongi didn’t have any headphones in like he normally did, but he didn’t pay any attention to what any of the guys were saying. They didn’t piss him off or annoy him, he just couldn’t concentrate on anything right now. Right after his solo, he had to run to the bathroom before he puked onstage. He didn’t even eat anything a few hours before their performance, but maybe that was exactly why he got sick. Performing on an empty stomach helped combat his nerves, but he’d never had to pay the price until tonight’s show.

“Yoongi?” Hoseok prodded, poking his shoulder from far away with the selfie stick he used to livestream earlier. Better to poke the sleeping bear with a selfie stick from a safe distance than to let the bear sleep peacefully, right?

“Hm?” Finally he said something. The past two hours of silence since the show closed out was too weird, even for Yoongi. “What?”

“You okay dude?” Namjoon looked up from his phone and to his friend.

Yoongi nodded, slipping in a pair of earbuds and closing his eyes. He was exhausted and didn’t feel like answering their bound-to-be relentless questions. He wasn’t acting weird, he was just emotionally and physically spent.

They shrugged and went back to their business, leaving the grumpy one to his own devices. In reality, he didn’t have any music playing through the buds and just needed to drown out their chatter and think to himself.

He tried remembering your face in the sea of flashing cameras, light sticks, signs, glowing wrist bands, and who knows what else. Your partially agape mouth that was so utterly fixated on his performance, not the group’s. His brows knit together when trying to picture your smile, only to come to a dead end. There were too many phones shoved in his face and the swarm of people that flocked to him when he tried coming down the stage to get a closer look at you.

Yoongi grunted in frustration, but because his eyes were still closed, the boys assumed it was just another bad dream. He’d been having a lot of those these days. Taehyung refused to share a room with him when they returned home because he would always wake up to Yoongi thrashing around and screaming in his sleep. Tonight would without a doubt be no different.

Yoongi couldn’t get your face out of his mind, regardless of how hazy and unclear it was. Who were you? What was your name? Why did you come to a concert if you were only going to be there for a few minutes at a time? Why did you leave after his song? What did you think of it? Did you get home safe? After hours of divulging a plan to find out your identity, he surrendered to defeat.

It was as if the world was telling him to stay awake until he knew exactly who you were, where you were, and what you were doing at this exact moment.

He didn’t sleep at all that night.

Staring out his window, he pressed his cheek onto the cold glass and closed his eyes. The icy pane felt satisfying in contrast to his burning hot face. This time of year was Yoongi’s least favorite. Winter—the season where everything died and left nothing but freezing cold, thick, white blankets of snow.

The season you left him.

He grimaced as the memory resurfaced, fists clenching so hard his nails dug crescents into his palms. He wanted to scream but couldn’t find his voice to.

“If you want to leave, then just leave!” he yelled. Gathering the clothes littered beside the bed, he threw them across the room and landed by your feet soundlessly.

Your expression remained stone cold, gaze burning holes that glowed brighter than the sun on the angriest summer day. “Yoongi—” He was quick to cut you off.

“No, ______,” Holding his hand up, he was fuming. “If you want to leave, then leave. I don’t want you here. Just go.”

You opened your mouth to speak but it was no use. He wouldn’t listen.

“If you’re so happy with Namjoon, why don’t you just marry him?” Yoongi’s spit out with pure venom and hatred dripping from his voice. He started laughing, delirious from what he was processing. “You know what? Fuck you, ______.”

Pausing to instigate a reaction from you, you stayed mute with arms crossed over your bare chest. He was still sat in the bed and you hadn’t moved away from the door for the past five minutes he’d been venting.

“Yoongi,” you sighed, completely drained from the hours you had spent arguing with him. He couldn’t even look at you when you spoke. “We’re not dating. This wasn’t supposed to happen between us. You knew that, Yoongi—”

He started laughing even harder, hands covering his face in a manic daze. “And you expect me to believe that it he was only texting you?”

That’s all it was. Namjoon asked you earlier today and asked if you wanted to go out for coffee some time. You made the glorious decision to stay the night at Yoongi’s place and keep your phone unlocked right by the nightstand. It wasn’t long before he discovered the series of texts shared between you and Namjoon that dated back two months ago.

You’ve been sleeping with Yoongi for a little over a year now, but never made it official.

Apparently, it still warranted this kind of a reaction from him.

“We never said we were dating, Yoongi.” Reminding him of all the times he told you that he didn’t date and how he wanted to stay as fuck buddies, a darkness erupted from his eyes. “It’s been—”

“You think blaming a stupid label is what this is about?” He stood up and walked towards you, his smirk and upturned eyebrows making your blood boil.

“I found someone who actually cares about me, Yoongi.” You stood up straighter. “He doesn’t just use me for his personal gain and wants to know more about me, not just for sex or whatever the fuck we’re doing.”

“Who said I didn’t want to get to know you?” he shot back at you. “Did I say didn’t want out take you out on a date? When the fuck did I ever—”

“You did, Yoongi! You!” Raking your hands through your hair, anger didn’t even begin to describe the seething hatred that filled your veins. “You told me that this was just going to be a fuckbuddy thing. You said that you would never date because relationships were high school shit shows waiting to happen. You warned me not to fall in love with you well guess what the fuck happened genius?”

Each pronounced word you cursed at him was followed by a shove to his chest. Just as he was about to bite back, you were running on autopilot. You couldn’t take it anymore. Clutching your throat, you thought you were drowning, water flooding your lungs and rising up your throat until you were moments from being taken under.

“Do you know how many nights I spent crying myself to sleep over you?”

An odd look flashed across his face that you couldn’t piece together.

“The hours I wasted, wondering, begging, praying and wishing that you would like me back...” You felt tears well at the back of your eyes. “You never gave me a sign. You never said anything and you didn’t do anything, Yoongi, fuck—fucking hell. You never—” Taking a moment to breathe, your hand came up to shield your eyes, refusing to let him see you cry.

“You never cared about me, Yoongi.”

His expression morphed even more. “I never cared?” It was a purely rhetorical question. “I never cared? I never cared? Really?” You hung your head in defeat and picked your clothes from the floor. You didn’t need this. Not now, not ever, not anymore.

Another dry scoff came from his throat as you started dressing. “Okay, _____. I never cared. I worked my ass overtime and saved up enough money to buy you that necklace because I never cared. I drove for six hours all the way to see your performance and take you home because I didn’t care. I stayed up all night writing you that birthday card because I didn’t care. I’ve been sleeping with you for the past 18 months, letting you sleep over, making us breakfast, and spending quality time with you because I never fucking cared.”

You froze. Why was he telling you this now?

“It’s too late, Yoongi.” No it wasn’t. It was never too late. “You should’ve told me this when you had the chance.”

“What fucking difference does it make that I’m telling you this now?!” he erupted. “Let’s just fucking—” He tugged at his hair, finally feeling the exact flurry of conflicting emotions you felt. “God, ______, let’s just calm down and talk it out, okay?”

You grabbed your phone from the floor. The screen was shattered from when you threw it at the wall earlier. It almost made you chuckle. Your temper got the best of you and you ended up chucking it at the wall when Yoongi kept probing for more answers.

Why did Namjoon text you, when was this, why didn’t you tell me, what were you going to say, were you ever going to—

“We’re done, Yoongi.” Your decision rang firm and cold. As you turned the doorknob, he grabbed you by the arm and held you still, fingers digging into your skin like shingles.

“If you leave, we’re through, ______.” He deadpanned like you hadn’t just said that. “I mean it, ______. Don’t go.” Never had your own name sounded more agonizing to hear and make you feel like bile was coming up your throat.

You refused to turn away from him when your words followed, feet firmly anchored in the ground and staring through him like glass. “Goodbye, Yoongi.”

Snatching your arm out of his grip, he scoffed through his nose. His jaw was slack and his tongue prodded the inside of his cheek, biting his lip to the point where he nearly broke skin. This was it.

“I hate you.” You could barely make out what he said because you slammed the door on your way out. His knees buckled and he fell to the hardwood floor with a thud. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you,” he kept repeating to himself long after you were gone. Maybe if he said it enough times it would turn into the truth. “I hate you. I hate you.”

Yoongi cupped his hands over his ears and began rocking back and forth, continuing his mantra and willing them with all his might to become reality.

I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.

“I love you,” he finally said. “I love you.”

I love you.

“BP’s dropping, set up a drip!” The resident on-call was quick to gather all the nurses and they had to work fast.

“Book an OR! We have to operate now!” he shouted at anyone who was listening, pushing the gurney down the hall and making people move out of the way like oil in water.

Each doorway burst open as the doctors and nurses rolled you down each sector of the hospital, juggling around medical jargon and ordering everyone standing idle in the aisle to “Get out of the way!”

The nurses shoving the IV needles into your arms was barely a tickle compared to the other things you were focused on. Your body hurt. It felt like everything was being crushed but none of the pain was registering in your brain because of how much it was. Your eyelids weighed a ton and it stung to even open them. It hurt to breathe. Every time you inhaled, it seemed like a knife was digging itself deeper into the side of your chest, ripping through flesh and piercing each individual bone.

“Please do something!” someone shouted, probably at the nurses. As if that would do anything...

The sound of footsteps clapped like thunder against the floor tiles, running towards you as fast as they could. “You have to save her!”

A nurse that was about two feet shorter than him, managed to hold him back with an iron grip. “I’m sorry sir, staff only. We promise we’ll do the best we can.”

This felt familiar. Nostalgic, even. Dare you say it, comforting?

“Where the hell is Yoongi?” Jungkook asked Namjoon, bright red and dripping with sweat from carrying you on his back. He swore he would never use the line, “We’re lucky we live right next to the school’s teaching hospital” as a joke ever again.

Namjoon paced back and forth while on his phone, calling everyone and telling them to get to the hospital as soon as they could. “I don’t know, he’s not answering.”

“I’m sorry, your call could not be completed—”

“Shit!” Namjoon swore and kicked one of the plastic chairs, earning a few nasty glares from the nurses and patients.

“Jungkook!” Turning around, the two saw Jimin, Seokjin, and Hoseok running towards them.

“What the hell happened?” the oldest asked. “Is she okay?”

Namjoon had to lean against the wall for support. His head was spinning. He couldn’t find it in himself to say anything.

“They rolled her into an operating room a few minutes ago,” Jungkook answered, voice shaking like a child’s. “We don’t know yet.”

“Taehyung’s on his way here right now,” Hoseok signed in exasperation.

Jimin asked what was on everyone’s mind. “Where’s Yoongi?”

“He’s not answering his phone.” Namjoon filled in with a bitter voice, now oddly calm. “One of you guys should call him. Maybe he’ll answer if someone he doesn’t despise calls him.”

All of a sudden, Taehyung burst through the double doors in a hoodie and sweats, running over to where the five were lined up along the wall. “Namjoon!”

Panting like he’d just run a marathon, he didn’t bother catching his breath before asking what happened. “Have they helped her yet? What’s wrong?”

“We don’t know,” Jimin replied. “They haven’t told us anything yet.”

It was unclear whether he was talking about the doctors or Namjoon and Jungkook, but Taehyung didn’t bother asking what he meant.

Jungkook asked Taehyung what Namjoon refused to. “Did you call Yoongi?”

Taehyung shook his head. “It went straight to voicemail...” Behind him, Seokjin, Hoseok, and Jimin were all taking turns calling Yoongi, probably blowing up his phone with hundreds of messages, voicemails, and missed calls.

He never answered.

Yoongi was never a fast runner. He did P.E. in high school and sprinted 50 meters on the field whenever he needed to burn off some steam, but he never enjoyed running.

Running to the hospital made him hate it more than he thought humanly possible.

Each time his feet struck the concrete sent a shockwave up his knee, pins and needles pinching his nerves like no other injury he’d endured before. It was a miracle he hadn’t tripped over his own feet yet. He didn’t care, not one bit. He needed to get to you right now and if that meant suffering shin splints then so be it.

When he finally turned his phone back on, it didn’t take him more than two seconds to read the first message before he was sprinting out of his apartment.

59 missed calls

22 new voicemails

65 unread messages

______’s in the hospital

Every footstep after that was synchronous with each ring of his phone; a new text message, another phone call, a bunch of voicemails that no one ever listened to on a regular basis other than when you really had nothing else to do.

Yoongi can safely say that his lungs have never burned, ached, or pulsed more in his entire life than right now. His vision was blurry and he could hardly see straight, but he managed to make out the faint outline of Namjoon’s lanky frame. He would recognize him anywhere—it turns out people remember the first fistfight much better than they give each other credit for. However, this time, it was Namjoon doing the swinging and Yoongi being the receiving end.

Nonetheless, he didn’t expect a swift hook the moment he opened those hospital doors.

“Namjoon!” Jungkook and the others rushed to hold him back, nurses and surrounding staff calling security at lightning speed.

“It’s fine!” Yoongi held his hand up towards the staff and pinched his nose. Leaning forward, he felt blood trickle down his knuckles and into his mouth. The faint metallic tang took him back to the night he and Namjoon almost killed each other at your apartment.

The doctors looked at each other, silently debating whether or not they should have them kicked out. After a few moments of reading the air, they understood the nature of your situation and let it pass, just this once.

“Where is she.” Yoongi’s question came our more like a callous statement.

Hoseok’s hand came up to touch Yoongi’s shoulder but he smacked it away like he’d just been burned by a hot stove.

“Where the fuck is ______, Namjoon,” he growled, facing Namjoon head on blood-streaked face and all.

Namjoon didn’t say a word. He simply stared at the guy he used to call his best friend and waited. Waited for another question, an answer—hell, even a punch or a kick would suffice if it meant getting a reaction from Yoongi. A full minute passed in utter total silence and the others sat quietly in the surrounding chairs, monitoring the two ticking time bombs just in case things escalated quickly.

Seokjin tried to calm him down. “She’s in the OR. We’re still waiting for an update.”

“Glad you made it,” Namjoon’s voice cracked, practically spitting at him. “What took you so long, Yoongi?”

“Kim Namjoon,” Yoongi muttered through clenched teeth. “Where. Is. She.”

Namjoon began laughing, a livid flame burning behind his dark eyes. His chuckles were soon replaced by shallow breaths, gasping and coughing, until he broke down into sobs.

“She was going to see you,” Namjoon trembled, rage and sadness wrapping their tendrils around every fiber of his being. “—you unbelievable fucking idiot.”

Yoongi’s eyes narrowed into slits and his eyebrows furrowed. “What?”

Namjoon was sitting on the ground with his back against the wall and head buried between his knees. Lifting his head up, he kept his eyes focused on the floor tiles. If he looked at Yoongi, he’d be more than tempted to deck him again. This time, he wouldn’t stop after a single blow.

“She came over to my place and told me that she couldn’t be with me,” he reaffirmed. “Because she loved you.”

Yoongi’s world came crashing down. You loved him? You loved him back?

“She said she needed to go see you,” Namjoon continued. “I told her to hurry up and go before you fell asleep. I told her to go and she actually listened to me.” All eyes were on Namjoon now, anticipating what would come out of his mouth next.

Namjoon bit the inside of his cheek and covered his mouth, holding back his whimpers. “She ran outside before I could even say a proper goodbye and th—”

Jungkook broke. “I was on my way upstairs when I heard the car all the way down the street... ” His voice hitched on the truth, only now comprehending the gravity of their new reality.

“Lady blew a .19,” the older one sneered. “Said her drink was spiked but we all knew she was just fucking wasted and wanted to take her new ride out for a spin.”

The bustling background noise of the hospital was now mute. Deep down inside Yoongi’s heart, something snapped. Anatomically or physically, he didn’t know, but it was even more painful than anything he had experienced in his entire life. His fingertips began buzzing like static ran through them and the sounds around him grew fuzzy, as if he’d been plunged twelve meters deep into the darkest trench of the ocean.

Yoongi’s hand flew up to his chest, a tearing sound he swear he could hear echoing like a cannon ripple. His friends stumbled to their feet and screamed to any nearby medical personnel for help. Namjoon was shellshocked, frozen like a deer in headlights. He’d just seen your lifeless body get rolled into the hospital wing. Even though he refused to admit it, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he lost another friend today.

His ears was ringing like when he had the worst migraine back in senior year. Finals season, go figure. Yoongi snuck into your room and stayed there with you all night. Sure, you managed to get a little bit studying done.

“Fucking do something!” Taehyung screamed. “Help him!”

Yoongi kicked and thrashed at anyone who tried touching him, moaning and crying out until his throat went raw. An excruciating pain spread throughout his body. It felt like his muscles were peeling apart from his bones and his bare body was being dunked in battery acid.

Then came the pit.

It started with a numb cramp. Then, a hole opened up from deep inside his chest, swallowing all of his air and making it impossible to breathe. It was unbearable. He was going to pass out from the pain; he wanted to. Anything was better than this. God, everything fucking hurt and he just wanted to go to sleep.

The last thing he saw was a hoard of nurses running into the room across his and the sound of of defibrillator paddles charging. With all the blood streaked across your face, he could barely make out the scar on your temple. It was from sophomore year—you fell down the bleachers after a night of bad decisions and way too many drinks. If Yoongi hadn’t caught you, you probably would’ve snapped your leg.

He doesn’t want to remember what happened after that.

Another week passed before you decided to leave the house. It had been exactly 18 months since you moved here and yet, the city still felt foreign to you. Sure, you had a cozy studio apartment decorated well enough to remind you of home, a job you loved with all your heart, kind neighbors who treated you like a local, and not to mention a tightly-knit circle of friends you treasured more than anything.

So why on Earth did you still feel so undeniably out of place?

Pulling back the blinds, the sunlight streamed in like rays of heavenly light. It wasn’t supposed to be sunny today, but you weren’t one to complain. After weeks of staying cooped up in your own apartment and using “the holidays” as an excuse, your pasty complexion deemed itself worthy of some vitamin D and fresh outside air. You weren’t entirely sure how to explain it, but something was bugging you, willing you, to go outside.

Yeah, you definitely needed some fresh air if some weird gut feeling was what finally convinced you to go outside.

Throwing on a thick wooly coat you snagged from the thrift shop during your first month here, you had to slam the door shut with as much finesse and gusto as Houdini himself. Cheap apartments didn’t come without their share of cons, but you liked to think that your bank account thanked you each month.

Skipping down the street right after the snow melted was the perfect equation for disaster. That didn’t stop it from being fun. You were in a good mood today for some unknown reason. Everyone had their good days as much as they had their bad ones, didn’t they?

The warm smell of freshly baked bread wafted in the air. It flooded your nostrils with the most delightful, comforting, and delectable scent you’d ever had the pleasure of smelling. It also reminded you how hungry you were and that it was a bad decision to skip breakfast. You apologized to your wallet before venturing off to find the nearest café. At least it was cheaper than eating at a restaurant.

You lied. It was all in the name of really good coffee and you happened to know exactly where to find some.

The jingling of the door chime was something you had grown accustomed to over the course of 10 months. This was the only café that actually poured bottomless cups of black coffee and only charged for every two refills on lattes, cappuccinos, and other milk drinks.

“The usual I presume?” your favorite host offered, already getting a cup ready.

You smiled wide. “You know me oh so well, Jimin.”

Flashing you his signature grin and a cheeky wink, he got to work steaming the milk for your double-shot flat white. “Where’s Namjoon?” you wondered aloud. “Isn’t it his turn for the lunch shift?”

Jimin chortled. “It always blows my mind that you seem to know our schedules better than we do.” You rolled your eyes at his backhanded compliment; flattering because he appreciated how attentive and close you were with everyone who worked here, but mildly insulting because he was implying that you spent so much time here that you didn’t get out enough.

Finishing up cleaning the last row of plates, Jimin slung the dish towel over his shoulder. He beckoned you to come closer and you leaned over the counter. “Joonie has a date,” he whispered in your ear.

“I don’t see those hands moving, Park Jimin!” You’d know that velvety voice anywhere. “Don’t forget you’re taking out the trash later if Seokjin catches you!”

“Just keeping me company, Taehyung!” Sipping the top layer of foam from the red ceramic cup, you sighed in pure bliss.

Sticking his head out from the kitchen, his lips formed into a giddy smile. “It’s been a few days princess! How long did you sleep for this time?”

“Hardy har har,” you jeered, scowling at his never ending tirade of Snow White jokes. “At least I still get my beauty sleep.”

Taking mock offense to this, he didn’t get a chance to react before Seokjin snuck up from behind him smacked the back of his head with a wooden spoon. “Stop flirting with customers and finish table eight’s order, doofus.”

“We don’t open for another hour!” Taehyung wailed.

You suppressed the snort that almost escaped by taking another sip of your coffee. “Missed you too, Seokjin,” you greeted. He smiled heartily at you and waved before picking up the phone. Running a business while having your best friends work for you wasn’t exactly the best recipe for success, so to speak.

“So this ‘date’ Namjoon has,” you hummed. “Is she pretty?”

A pair of hands from behind you snaked their way your waist, tickling you into a fit of forced laughter. “It’s not good to butt your nose into other people’s business!”

You were too busy choking on your giggles, you couldn’t talk. After an incredibly long six seconds, Jungkook pulled away and greeted you with an innocent grin. His nose was crinkled the slightest bit and his eyes were inviting half-moons.

“That’s the least you deserve for leaving me with these idiots for the past three days...” he immediately broke into a pout.

At this, Jimin swung the towel off his shoulder and smacked Jungkook straight across the face with it. His reaction was straight out of a cartoon. If you hadn’t finished your drink beforehand, flat white would have spewed out of your nostrils all over the counter.

“Watch your mouth kid,” Jimin warned in a melodramatic voice, and even he was holding back a series of cackles.

“See what I mean!” Jungkook whined to you, tugging your sleeve and pouting. “They’re so mean to me and steal all the tips!”

From the kitchen, Taehyung tsked to scold the younger one and waved his spatula around for extra emphasis. “We don’t steal them, you’re just to busy chatting up all the customers to pay attention to the little details.”

Jungkook’s mouth contorted into a pucker and he started mouthing their words to mock them. You forced yourself to stay quiet and pressed your lips together to force back any reaction.

The ringing of the door caused you all to turn around. It was Hoseok and his—friend?

"______!” His voice was telltale surprised and ecstatic to see your face after a couple of days of absence. “Kook, Chim, Tae, guess who I brought?”

“Well well, and I thought we had seen our share of ghosts for the day,” Taehyung gawked, ignoring the pet names Hoseok coined for them in elementary school.

Jimin wore a look of awe. “You must be a vampire or something, you’re still as young and as pale as ever.”

“So I did get taller!” Jungkook blurted out like the child he still was.

The man standing beside him currently had his back turned towards you, focusing instead on the antique decor that adorned the walls, tables, chairs, and ceilings of this establishment. He wore a simple outfit, bearing nothing but a white hoodie, dark jeans, and frayed navy blue sneakers.

When he finally turned around, you thought your heart did a triple somersault and landed in your throat. Did you know him? Didn’t you know him It wasn’t as simple as the fact that he looked familiar, he felt familiar. Everything from his face, gaze, aura, energy, and even his scent engulfed you in a cloak of solace. You knew him from somewhere, yet you had no idea who he was or where he was from.

The moment he turned around, Yoongi was immediately drawn to you. Everything else flew out the window and you were the sole focus of his mind. A forcefield of curiosity and yearning overrode all of his thoughts and he was consumed by one wish and one wish only: he needed to know your name. He needed to know who you were.

With wide eyes and an invisible string pulling the two of you towards one another like polar ends, you didn’t notice that he had made his way right in front until Jungkook coughed up a lung.

Hoseok broke the silence in the air. “______, this is Yoongi. Yoongi, this is ______.”

He was still drinking in your features. the tiniest details of your uneven dimples, delicate lips, baby hairs, down to the way your eyes sparkled and twinkled like the brightest stars in the sky.

Likewise, you were sketching out every single detail of his face; the almond-shaped creases of his eyes, pouty lips, flawless skin, and of course, the half a second he let his gummy smile slip past his lips.

“Hi,” you finally murmured, quieter than the sound of a cricket chirping in the dead of night. A small grin crept along the edges of your lips as he parted his lips to speak.

Yoongi couldn’t stop the smile that lit up his features. “Hi.”

“Psst—” Taehyung craned his body over the serving window to whisper in Jimin’s ear. “What’s up with them?”

Jungkook, Jimin, and Hoseok shrugged, looking back and forth at each other, then at you and Yoongi.

“It’s really nice to meet you.” So this is what it’s like...

He held out his hand, the distance between you staying the same yet growing shorter each second.

Taking his outstretched hand into yours, you slowly closed your fingers around his, admiring how they seemed to fit perfectly like a lock and key. It was as if a spark had ignited between your two bodies, embers flying like fireworks underneath the pitch black darkness of night. How were his hands so warm?

Any remaining drop of apprehension you ever had was now gone, replaced by a bright, glowing light that outshined everything else.

“The pleasure is mine.” Finally.

The air hung heavy with nerves as you and Yoongi stood absolutely silent, fingers still entwined with one another. Hoseok coughed from the serving counter. When did he get there—

“You gonna catch up with us or leave us hanging again, Yoongs?” Jimin teased, a mischievous smirk painting his features. Letting go of his hand, the feeling of cold air grazing your palm was instantaneous. Jungkook slung his arm over your shoulder jokingly. “What have you been up to, Yoongi?” He was desperate for some kind of attention, he was willing to piss his best friend off for it. You tried to refrain from giggling.

“What am I, cold turkey?” Taehyung complained from the back. Crossing your arms to shelter your hands, you notice how icy they’d become in the span of a few seconds. Yoongi climbed over the counter in the blink of an eye and whacked the chef behind his head.

“Show some respect you goofball, you haven’t seen me in months,” the older scolded. Chuckling, his gums were the slightest bit visible as he smiled wide, another wave of familiarity swallowing your senses.

You stepped outside five minutes after the guys started chatting and catching up with each other, awkwardness overcoming your ability to carry on a normal conversation. Yoongi’s presence made you—flustered, to say the least. Ideally and in any other social situation, you would have stayed and introduced yourself to him further, but you felt like you were already intruding on a private conversation.

After an hour of pacing back and forth and pretending to be busy with a phone call, you went back inside and told the guys you had to get back home. “I forgot I had some extra papers I still haven’t sorted through,” you lied through a forced out dry laugh. “Don’t want my boss to kill me.”

The guys waved goodbye, and Yoongi looked like he’d been slapped across the face. “It was nice meeting you,” he managed to pry out. “See you around.”

Flashing him a tight-lipped grin, you scooped up your things from the counter, bid the boys farewell, and hurried out the door. The moment you set foot out the door, it was as if something tugged the hems of your coat. Did you forget your phone? Bag? Journal? Wallet?

Patting yourself down thoroughly, you shook it off as just another misled gut feeling. You hadn’t visited the café in a while and started the day off on an off foot in the first place.

You were a few meters from the café when someone called out to you—shouted, actually.

“______!” Their footsteps drew closer, each dull thunk on the pavement instead reverberating like a crisp knock on hardwood.

Turning around, your looked down at the figure hunched over directly in front of you and gasped. Yoongi was panting heavily, shoulders rising and falling as he supported himself by resting his hands on his knees. Patting his back out of habit like you’d done for your high school teammates after a track meet, he reached out and gripped your forearm for support.

Biting back a chuckle, you had to ask. “Are you alright?” Had he really sprinted that far just to catch up to you? Damn, you really did leave your phone back there, didn’t you...

Clearing his throat, he stood up straight and tried catching his breath. “Never been better, thanks.” He was still holding your arm. “I was going to ask if you—if you uh, God this is weird—,” he stuttered, eyes falling to the concrete pavement beneath his feet.

You tried your hardest not to interrupt. While he kept tripping over his words like an adorable nervous wreck, you relaxed your arm so that his hand slid into yours, slotting together perfectly like two matching puzzle pieces. Feeling the warmth radiate from his touch, you saw his expression ease immediately. He squeezed your hand. When you returned the favor with a shy grin, it gave him the courage to speak.

“Do you want to go out for dinner sometime, ______?” he finally asked, your name flowing off of his tongue like the most beautiful song you’d ever heard. Yoongi’s eyes glimmered with anticipation and hope.

Looking deeper into his entrancing gaze, you didn’t have to think twice. “I would love to, Yoongi.” His heart exploded in his chest when you said his name, a trapped butterfly escaping from its cage with a vivid flurry of colors and radiating light.

Love at first sight always seemed like nothing short of a fairytale, but you had a feeling that this came pretty damn close to it.

Soulmates weren’t always romantic lovers. Sometimes, they were close friends or merely acquaintances. More often than not, they even lived their entire human life without finding each other, the closing chapter of their lives spent with their loved ones, twin flame, an unlinked soul, or in complete solitude.

Each life was given to you for a reason. Every experience, painful memory, death, birth, and ounce of love and loss you endured throughout all of your past lives was entirely out of your control. It was neither your destiny nor fate to remember the lifetimes with or without your soulmate, and doing so would be a waste of the time you were given in this current life.

Fate, karma, destiny, divine logos, universal divinity—call it what you want.

We do not remember our past, nor are we better off predicting our future.

All we have is the present moment and ourselves, and that is more than enough.

5/5/2020—3:43:01 AM

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myheartrevealedocs · 4 years

Text

Untouchable- Ch 4: The Popular Kids (S1E10)

Summary: A Spencer Reid x OC fanfic that retells select episodes, starting in season 1, from the point of view of Lydia Ambers, a forensic scientist.

Warnings: death, murder of teens, swearing, death threats

Ch 3 | Ch 5

~ ~ ~

A few weeks later, Lydia was woken by a call from her sister. She did her best not to sound shocked as she picked up, but Rebecca always seemed to know what she was thinking. Lydia considered herself a very good liar until Beck was around.

“Hey Beck, how have you been?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t call you back, okay?” Right out of that gate, she was pissed. But Lydia felt some relief to know that she wasn’t calling because something was wrong. “You know that I’m just frustrated you left again.”

“I know,” she replied. “How’s school?”

She could hear her sister huff on the other side. “Boring. I don’t see what mom expects me to learn there.”

Lydia grimaced slightly when Rebecca said ‘mom’, but quickly recovered.

“College is good for you. It’ll help you figure out what you want to do.”

“You know how often I change my mind. I don’t understand how I’m supposed to just… decide my whole future. And if school didn’t help me the first 12 years, what’s another four going to do?”

“You have more freedom in college,” Lydia reasoned, but it was just more fuel to the fire.

“Which you obviously took and ran with,” she grumbled.

“Beck, I went to Santa Cruz. That’s barely an hour away.”

“Yeah. And then as soon as I thought I was getting you back, you hopped on a plane to DC. And I wanted to follow you, but mom keeps insisting that I go to community college first.”

“Sonia is just trying to look out for you,” Lydia explained. “I mean, what are you going to do when you get here? Have me take care of you?”

The other end was silent for a minute. Lydia felt guilty, knowing that implying her sister was a burden really wasn’t the best way to handle this situation, but Rebecca sometimes forgot that if she wasn’t making money for herself, someone else was.

“When will you be back?” she demanded.

“I don’t know. I’m going to try to keep this job as long as I can and after that I’m going to go where the work takes me. But I’ll come visit as soon as I can…”

As she spoke, her phone vibrated against her ear and she pulled away to see a message from Gideon.

Round table room in 20. Bring a go bag.

She sighed. “Beck, I have to go. My boss just texted me. Tell Sonia I miss her!”

Her sister was quiet for a minute, before snapping, “That job is going to suck the life out of you,” and hanging up.

Lydia shut her eyes tightly, counting the seconds between breaths. “I love you,” she whispered into the unresponsive phone.

~ ~ ~

“McAllister,” JJ started as Lydia rushed in, stepping up next to Gideon. “Western slope of the Massanutten mountain in Virginia. Two bodies discovered in the woods, both with apparent blunt trauma to the head.”

“Skeletons?” Reid asked as he looked over the photos in his case file.

“One of them. The second victim was just killed this morning.”

“How do we know there’s a connection?” Elle asked.

“Found about 75 feet apart with nearly identical head wounds,” Hotch explained.

Lydia shook her head slightly, still looking at the details over Gideon’s shoulder. Forest is an open area and the victims didn’t look like they’d been tied there. How could someone plan to hit both of them in the same spot over the head, when the victims were in open space and could move easily? That was difficult.

“Where’s the rest of the case file?” Morgan demanded.

“There isn’t one. The sheriffs are on the scene waiting for us.”

“Their location is only a half hour away by plane,” JJ explained for Hotch.

“What’s the rush?” Morgan continued.

“Well, there was evidence on the scene that could cause a bit of public uproar.”

As Hotch said this, Gideon picked up a picture for Lydia to see. Someone had carved a pentagram into a tree with the words ‘SATAN LIVES LOD’ underneath it. They were filled in with a red liquid, but Lydia highly doubted it was blood. It was too bright. Blood would be absorbed pretty quickly by the bark and definitely leave a dark stain. It was likely just paint.

“Satanic cult,” Gideon mumbled, dropping the photo onto the table for the rest of the room to see.

Hotch was obviously unimpressed. “Grab your stuff. We leave now.”

~ ~ ~

Lydia looked around curiously as they boarded the jet. It looked nice, but Lydia didn’t have much experience with flying, much less private jets. Gideon gestured for her to sit across from him, which she quickly did, noticing the rest of the team's hustle to get on the plane and take off.

Gideon gave her what she could only call his ‘profiling’ look as she got into her seat.

“What?” she started, calmly.

“You were almost late to the meeting,” he stated and she scoffed.

“You didn’t give me much notice.”

“Your apartment’s not far.”

“Well, public transportation’s a bitch,” she argued.

This was a game to him. Profiling people was his job, but getting them to come clean was an added bonus. He knew Lydia was busy when he texted her, otherwise she wouldn’t seem so distracted. Trying to get into her head and figure out what it was was fun for him. But Lydia was ready to play.

“Do you know anything about satanism?” he asked, veering from their previous topic.

She shook her head. “You think this is a satanist?”

“You don’t?”

Lydia smiled at him. He was good at opening up the floor for other people to discuss. “It feels planted to me. Blunt force head trauma is usually an extremely… violent way of commiting a murder. One hit wouldn’t be enough to ensure death. And they were killed out in an open space so I doubt the unsub had a lot of control over where they hit them. Identical wounds? That’s impressive.”

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t satanism,” he argued.

“No, but they wrote the message in red, usually meaning they want to pass it off as blood, but this…” she held up the picture “...is not blood. Who puts fake blood by a non-bloody victim?”

“I’m sure the victim was bloody when they put the message up,” Morgan said, Lydia turned to where he was seated.

“Well, I’m no profiler, but if these killings were supposed to be a message about worshipping Satan, why wait so long after the first person wasn’t noticed to kill another?”

He seemed to think about this for a moment. “Touche, Lydia.”

She smiled and turned back to Gideon. “Again, that doesn’t indicate whether or not it’s satanism, but…” she trailed off, letting him consider the suspicious circumstances.

“Try to keep an open mind when examining the crime scene,” he warned her, to which she agreed.

“Total blank slate,” she joked.

And her heart lifted at the sight of Gideon’s amused smile.

~ ~ ~

Lydia had already started pulling on her latex gloves as she followed Gideon off the path and towards the skeletal body. Reid and JJ were close behind them, trying not to slip on the steep ground or piles of leaves.

The body was surrounded by branches, arching over it ceremoniously. Lydia made a quick mental note to ask if one of the sheriffs had cut away the trees or if they’d found it like that.

“Mornin’,” a man called, approaching the group. He had on a blue deputy’s jacket and a gold badge. “John Bridges.”

“Yeah, we spoke on the phone. I’m Agent Jareau, this is Agent Gideon, Dr. Reid, and our crime scene analyst, Lydia Ambers, with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit.” JJ recited the greeting so fast Lydia barely heard it. She couldn’t imagine the practice JJ had with introductions.

Lydia ignored the group as they continued speaking to the sheriff and started to examine the remains. She tried not to act surprised as she felt the presence of Dr. Reid leaning over her shoulder, making notes as well.

The clothes were torn and faded, but they hadn’t completely decomposed. Judging by how thin the fabric was, she would have given it a couple years before disappearing, meaning the body might not have been left that long ago. Maybe even less than a year. No wedding ring, but those are easily stolen.

“You guys must get a lot of this, huh? Satanic stuff?”

“Not really,” Gideon mumbled. “Who found the body?”

“Hiker found the first one at the trail,” Sheriff Bridges explained. “My deputies located this one while searching for evidence. Don’t even know if it’s a man or a woman.”

“It’s a man-” Lydia said at the same time as Reid. They both looked surprised for a moment and she gestured for him to keep explaining while she searched for more.

“The male pelvis is more narrow, and the opening at the bottom is heart-shaped, as opposed to oval,” he continued. He then picked up a stick, seeing as he didn’t have gloves, and poked at a weird substance at the bottom of the tree. “Melted wax?”

“Candle wax?” JJ inquired.

Lydia peeled a piece away, rolled it around in her fingers, and hesitantly smelled it.

“Candles are used in rituals,” Reid prompted, but Lydia shook her head.

“This was recent. Colored wax fades over time and some kinds of wax rot. This body is not anywhere near that fresh. If there was a ritual here, it wasn’t a killing.” She dropped the piece she had collected, rubbing the red flecks from her fingers. She looked up at the sheriff. “Did you have to move these branches when you found the body?”

He shrugged. “Yeah. It was buried down there.”

“I thought I told you not to be biased,” Gideon scolded.

“I’m not,” Lydia defended. “But this feels… placed.”

“Explain your reasoning,” he challenged.

She crossed her arms, standing up to meet his eyes. “The recent body was found on a hiking trail. That’s basically begging for someone to find it. This one was secluded and basically buried by the other trees. Possibly to hide it, which would make more sense for satanists, or because it’s been here so long that the elements grew around it. Both would indicate a different killer. Then, there’s the fact that the wax is new and was probably left after the second killing, not the first, so why leave it by the first body? And, as I said about the carving in the tree, if that was a message, they wouldn’t have waited for so long between kills and if it’s just part of the ritual, we would’ve found another one by the other body.”

He raised his eyebrow and Lydia waited for someone to argue with her, but he simply said, “Not bad.”

She let go of a tension she didn’t realize she was holding.

“Does L-O-D mean anything to you?” he asked Reid.

“Uh-uh,” he denied. “I don’t know of any significance in satanism, either.”

“Well, I’d have Garcia research this ‘LOD’ thing, if I could get a call out,” JJ admitted, frustrated.

“Not much of a chance of that out here,” Sheriff Bridges informed her.

“Are there any cults in the area that you know about?” Gideon asked. “Secret groups? People you see you don’t know much about? People who stay to themselves mostly?”

“This is a very religious area. Church on Sundays, fellowship of Wednesday, bible classes. If there was a secret group, I’d probably know about it.”

This made Reid laugh, and a cute smile tugged at his cheeks. “That’s an inherent contradiction.”

“Excuse me?”

Gideon stepped in. “He means if there was a group being secretive, you probably wouldn’t know.”

Sheriff didn’t take that one too well, but Gideon listened patiently as he argued that it couldn’t be someone from his town. Then, he instructed them to head back up to the trail where the other body was found.

“Find anything interesting down there?” Hotch asked as the four of them approached.

“Yeah, it does look like some kind of ritual site,” Gideon admitted. “Although Ambers has got some theories to suggest otherwise.”

The unit chief looked hesitant, but decided not to ask about them.

“Have any of you heard the expression ‘lod’ or the acronym L-O-D?” Reid asked as Elle helped him up the hill.

“Not me,” Elle responded and Morgan looked like he was about to agree before the whole team was distracted by a woman shouting.

“Cherish?” she cried, running up the hill. “Cherish?”

She was blonde and in her mid-forties. She was clearly distraught, trying to walk straight onto the scene, but the deputy held her back.

“Sheriff Bridges!” she shouted, still trying to push past the deputy.

“It’s okay, Harris. Let her in,” the sheriff said.

“Was Adam Loyd killed out here?” she demanded as she ducked the yellow tape.

“Who told you that, Veronica?”

“Was he?” she tried again. The sheriff tried to calm her, but she just interrupted him. “My daughter was with him. They were out running together this morning. Oh my god, and I can’t find her,” she started to ramble. “Cherish is missing. Cherish is missing! Help me, please!”

And finally, she broke down into sobs.

~ ~ ~

“What’s the protocol for murder turned missing persons case?” Lydia inquired as she followed Gideon around the trail.

“Well, you were right about one thing,” Gideon replied. “It’s not ritual satanism. We’ll build our profile after the search, but it’s starting to look like a killer cult.”

“Multiple unsubs. Easier to kill the guy and kidnap the girl. You think these people were targeted?”

“It’s possible. Cults aren’t usually prone to crimes of opportunity. They normally kill people as part of their message.”

“So, are the carvings and wax part of their message or are they trying to throw us off the scent?”

“Guess we’ll find out when we have more evidence,” he retorted. “Hey Hotch!”

They’d looped back to the site and Gideon immediately made a beeline for Agent Hotchner. Lydia was a few steps behind and missed whatever Gideon had said to him, but she could see his disapproval.

“Gideon,” he warned. “We talked about this.”

She caught up, standing next to her mentor.

“Ambers, you’ll be with Gideon during the search. Make sure the exercise doesn’t kill him.”

She smiled. “Yes, sir.”

Once he was gone and she was alone with Gideon once more, she turned on him. “What was that about?”

“I got into trouble after your first case,” he admitted. “The condition was that I would be in charge of you and make sure you weren’t making the FBI look bad.”

Her eyebrows shot up into her hairline. “Have I done something wrong?”

“No. But I’m not supposed to let you go off on your own. During your first case, I put you in charge of going down to forensics and looking for DNA while none of the team was present and then I let you take a vehicle by yourself to work with Hotch. You did good work,” he promised her, “but if something goes wrong, Hotch’s ass is on the line, just as much as mine or yours is.”

“I’m sorry.”

He sighed. “This is by no means your fault. I just want to give you more opportunities to work with the things you’re good at instead of following me around like a lost dog. My goal is to get our boss to realize you’re an asset to the team, but how am I supposed to do that if you aren’t allowed to make calls sometimes?”

“An asset…?” she asked. “Gideon, I’m just a forensic scientist. Barely that, I’m a crime scene technician. My job is to pick up things that look weird and put them in bags.”

“But you could do so much more,” he argued. “You were a chemistry major. You were at the same level as Reid down there and he’s got 3 PhDs. At the Crawford house on our last case, you were setting up the victimology with us. And like you said, that’s not your job. You record evidence, you don’t analyze it. Especially not in a big picture scenario. But today, you looked at the few photos we had and already determined that ritual killing didn’t make sense. I think you’re a wonderful addition to the team.”

Lydia tried to shake her head with disagreement, but another thought came to mind. “What did you just ask Hotch, then?”

“I wanted you to be in charge of one of the search parties.”

She laughed. “Really? What good would that do?”

“The more groups, the less people for each of us to profile. I thought we could trust you with it, but Hotch is still unsure.”

“No kidding. Gideon, I’m an intern. I appreciate the thought, but I really am okay with just… learning from you. Going to the scene and bagging the things you tell me to.”

Gideon smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re too smart to be quiet for that long. You’d break sooner or later and begin to explain your theories. Might as well just let you get it out from the start.”

“Maybe that’s best,” she agreed. “But I know I’m not an agent. Feel free to tell me if I step out of line.”

“Do you want to be an agent?” he inquired.

“I just wanna look at crime scenes,” she explained, failing not to smile. “I don’t need the gun or the badge. I doubt I’d be any good at being an agent. Not that I’d flat out deny the opportunity, but it’s not exactly my dream.”

“Well, I think you’d be a good interrogator.”

This was news to her. “What?! I’m not exactly intimidating.”

“No, but interrogating suspects can go many ways. It’s all just a show. Sometimes we want an unsub to be so comfortable they forget they’re being watched and they slip up. Sometimes we want to put them on edge and make them think that confessing is the best option. And you’re a good actor from what I’ve seen.”

“What have you seen?” she challenged.

“To start, you claim that you hide your anger issues very well.”

She nodded.

“And you still won’t tell me what you were up to this morning when I texted you.”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “I don’t see why you care! It didn’t make me late and it hasn’t affected the case!”

“When Garcia told you she was going to do a background check on you, you said you didn’t have any secrets,” he responded.

“Fine. I was on a call with my sister. That’s all. Now tell me why it matters to you!”

This put a stop to the pace of their conversation. He gave her his profiling look for the second time that day and said, “It went bad, huh?”

“My sister and I always seem to be at each other’s necks… it went as well as I suspected.”

Gideon swallowed. “I ask because I care about you, Lydia. Tell me about your sister.”

Her breath hitched. He wanted to just… talk now? Gideon had just decided to be her friend?

She felt guilty for questioning his motives, but the suspicious nature in her won. “We can talk about my family when we aren’t working a case.”

He didn’t seem surprised by her answer, but as he left, she noticed that he was definitely disappointed.

~ ~ ~

Lydia sighed, looking over the note Elle had brought in after the search had wrapped up. She dusted it for fingerprints, but the thing was such a mess, having been written in charcoal, that if there were any, they would have been smeared beyond belief.

The corner was covered in blood, which Lydia would have tested, if it weren’t for the fact that the note claimed Cherish Hanson, their missing victim, would be sacrificed that evening. The team didn’t have time for her to take it to a lab and if they did, it would mean pulling Gideon from work to monitor her… she was starting to see why he thought this mentoring thing was frustrating.

So, she sat in the station and listened to them give a profile while she mindlessly looked over the photos and evidence they had to see if she got any brilliant ideas.

Sheriff Bridges’s son, Cory, was present for the profile, although Lydia wasn’t entirely sure why, and as the team finished up their description of the unsub, he was the first to speak up, admitting that he knew someone who fit the profile.

They wrapped up the meeting and took Cory to a private room to discuss the kid he thought was responsible. It hadn’t even been five minutes before the team was filing back out, and towards the door of the station.

“Drop what you’re doing, Ambers,” Gideon ordered.

She jumped up, running out of the station behind them. “What’s going on?”

“Kid named Mike Zizzo. He’s got a place where his group, the ‘Lord’s of Destruction’, hang out. We’re going to raid it, once we’ve got the teenagers cleared, I want you to sweep for evidence.”

“Got it.”

Gideon let her slide into an SUV with Hotch, Morgan, and Reid, before closing the door behind her, shutting himself out. “I’m not going on the raid.”

Hotch stuck his head out of the open window. “What’s up?”

“I don’t know, yet,” Gideon replied and walked off. He was following a girl. A high schooler who had been at the search with them.

“Gideon, you can’t just-” he started and Lydia saw him glance at her in the rearview mirror. She knew for a fact that if she hadn’t been there, Hotch would have let him do whatever he pleased. But Gideon was gone.

Frustrated, Hotch rolled up the window and drove off.

Lydia hoped it wasn’t her. In fact, she knew it wasn’t her. Hotch was very rule-oriented and Gideon was putting him on edge. But she felt so bad.

“Sorry that you’re stuck babysitting me,” she mumbled as they hit the road.

Reid glanced at Lydia and Morgan turned to Hotch, both of them unsure what interaction had just taken place. For the second time, Lydia made eye contact with the unit chief in his mirror.

“What did Gideon tell you?” he sighed, guilt evident in his voice.

“That we were getting you in trouble.” Lydia made her voice as light as possible so that Hotch knew she wasn’t totally serious, but she felt weird bringing it up around the others. She wasn’t sure how close they all were yet. Maybe if she spoke about the tension between Hotch and Gideon right now it would spread around the office like a fire and Hotch would be dealing with rumors on top of everything else.

“I’m going to be honest, Lydia,” he said, automatically making her nervous. “I like you. I think you’re very talented. But I’m starting to wonder if you’ve got some kind of spell on Gideon, because he takes every opportunity to insist that I should demand that Strauss give you a full-time job and I… I don’t know you that well yet.”

“That’s totally fine,” she told him. “I don’t… need a job. I promise I had no idea he even wanted me on the team until today.”

“Dang Hotch,” Morgan spoke up. “Did you really think Lydia was manipulating Gideon? I doubt she’s capable of it.” He turned around from the passenger’s seat and gave her a smile.

“Thanks? But I get it. It’s not ‘cause he doesn’t like me… I mean, I hope not,” she joked. “I’m just… more trouble than I’m worth.”

“I think Gideon’s right.” It was Spencer this time. “You’d be a good addition to the team.”

She sent him a smile, but he wasn’t looking directly at her, so she had to wonder if he saw it.

“We’ll talk about it if she doesn’t get me fired before the end of the year,” Hotch agreed, pulling up to an old house and parking outside. There were clearly a lot of people inside, music was blasting and their shadows haunted the windows. “Stay in the car until I give you the okay to enter the building,” he instructed, turning around to look directly at Lydia.

“Yes, sir.”

The two younger agents started to hop out, guns at their sides, leaving her alone with Hotch.

“Thank you for being understanding,” he said softly, then jumped out of the car himself.

Lydia leaned back against the car seat. He didn’t hate her. And Morgan and Reid didn’t argue about her joining the team officially either. It was immensely relieving. But her relaxed state quickly retreated as she reminded herself not to get her hopes up.

The commotion in the house took a few minutes to die down after the agents and deputies rushed in. They had the kids leave in a line, the deputies surrounding them on all sides to make sure they didn’t try to pull any stunts as they left, but everyone there just looked disappointed and perhaps embarrassed they’d been caught.

Morgan escorted out Zizzo in handcuffs, Elle on his tail to help get him into one of the vehicles. Then Hotch stepped outside and waved Lydia in.

She grabbed a pair of gloves and ran up, dodging the darkly dressed, metal covered teens, and followed Hotch.

The place looked as much the same inside as it did out. The walls were covered in graffiti, but it was very artistic. Whoever had set the place up took a lot of care in their work, nothing like the chicken scratch on the note Elle found or on the tree in the woods. The tables were covered in candles, most of them a deep red. And tons of creepy statuettes of goat heads and caricatured satans.

“Gideon claims you’re good at analyzing a scene,” Hotch admitted. “What are your thoughts?”

Lydia glanced at him hesitantly. “Well… my first thought is that I love the wooden arched doorway. And my second thought is that if Zizzo set up this house, he’s not our guy.”

Hotch tried not to look surprised. “And you say that because…”

“Because it may be uh… devil worship?” she said, for lack of a better word. “But it’s really nice looking. All those kids just want to defy their super religious parents and he’s made this place feel comfortable for them. They get to enjoy the cool art and decorations, drink some beer, hang out with friends. That’s normal teen stuff. The person who snatched a cheerleader from a hiking trail and killed her boyfriend wouldn’t care about these people.”

“Maybe he only cares for the people in his ‘in’ group,” he suggested.

Lydia shrugged. “Maybe? But it sounds like these kids drift in and out. I mean, Cory was invited once and he never mentioned any sort of initiation. They didn’t make him prove his loyalty. I bet they just offered him a beer and left him to his own devices.”

He didn’t respond to that, simply started walking to the door, the last of the kids finally having been escorted out. “I’m going to leave you here with Reid and Morgan. Search the place from top to bottom. A girl’s life is at stake.”

“Will do!” she called to him, watching his form disappear out of the door.

When she turned around she almost jumped at the sight of Dr. Reid’s approaching figure.

“He left you with us,” Reid mentioned, curiously.

“He must trust you guys not to let me fuck up,” Lydia informed him. “Sorry you got passed the babysitting hat.”

“Don’t apologize,” he told her, stepping away to look at the building around them. “I’m curious to see what you find.”

The last of the deputies began to file out and Morgan eventually ended up joining the two of them as Lydia ransacked all the drawers and cabinets she could find.

~ ~ ~

After about an hour, the last of the deputies had to leave to give a report to the sheriff, meaning the three BAU members were left without a car in the woods with no cell signal.

The two boys had gone outside to see the last deputy off and Lydia was just finishing up her work. The house was so dusty she was starting to think she could drown in all the thick air. But so far, she found nothing incriminating except all the satanist propaganda.

She kicked around the rugs on the floor of the opening room, searching for loose boards or any obvious evidence underneath them, when she heard Reid’s muffled voice say, “You had no right, man!”

She turned her head abruptly, stopping what she was doing to listen to the altercation outside.

“I- I confided in you. This is- You know, this is exactly what I get when I trust someone. It gets thrown back in my face.” He seemed distraught and Lydia had to fight her want to go ask what was wrong with the knowledge that Morgan was probably better to handle this situation.

“Mine started six months after I got into the BAU,” Morgan replied. Silence. “Yeah… Mine.”

She dropped down to search the wooden floorboards once more, but she couldn’t block out their conversation as she worked. She silently hoped that they wouldn’t come back in and find her eavesdropping on what appeared to be a very personal conversation.

Morgan started a story on one of his earlier cases as an agent. People getting strangled in Montana. He felt guilty for not starting a profile until after another death appeared, because he wanted to use it to confirm his theories. He started to have nightmares about the last victim, who died because he waited for the unsub to make their next move.

“What did you do?” Spencer asked.

“Gideon,” was Morgan’s reply. “He knew. I didn’t tell him. I was like you. I didn’t want anybody to know. He just… he knew.”

Lydia could feel a melancholy wash through her stomach as she realized that Reid was clearly going through something. And once more that was replaced by guilt as she realized she shouldn’t know that about Reid without his consent. She was just thinking about interrupting them, so she wasn’t subject to more of their secrets when Morgan said something that made her freeze in her spot.

“You think the team won’t understand? Take Lydia in there, for instance. Do you think she doesn’t see her roommate every time she shuts her eyes? To be honest, I don’t think I would have taken this job immediately after what she went through.”

There was an emptiness in her, consuming her and pulling her from her work. She really had tried to avoid thinking about Jenna at all costs. But it was difficult when her death was the reason Lydia had met the team in the first place.

“It’s been months,” Reid reasoned.

“Time means nothing when you lose someone like that. It will eat away at her for the rest of her life.”

Their conversation was put on pause when the sound of a car engine approached, coming to a rough stop outside the house.

“Did you find her? Cherish?” It sounded like Cory’s voice and Lydia stood up, wiping a tear with the inside of her arm before making her way to the door.

“No.”

“Did Zizzo say anything?”

“We don’t know. We’ve been here the whole time,” Morgan informed him.

Lydia stepped out of the house, trying to ignore the concerned look Reid gave her as she jumped off the porch and instead found herself almost running into the pacing teenager.

He stopped, looking shocked to see someone else there, and his gaze lingered on her gloved hands for a moment too long.

“Cory, calm down,” Reid instructed.

“How am I supposed to calm down? Cherish is missing. Did you check all over?” he demanded, trying to push past Lydia and get into the house himself.

“We searched the whole house,” Reid confirmed.

“It’s clean,” Lydia agreed.

“What about the outbuilding?”

“Outbuilding?” Morgan repeated almost immediately.

“Did you check the other area? Back in the woods?”

“I didn’t know there was another area,” Morgan said.

“Yeah, it’s like a- like a sluice structure or something. He took me there once. It’s this way,” the kid rambled before taking off into the trees.

Lydia raised an eyebrow at Morgan who shrugged, then said, “Let’s go.”

~ ~ ~

The hike was brutal. Lydia was starting to feel the weight of the day wearing down on her as she followed the boys farther into the woods.

“It’s up here,” Cory called back to the group. “This is their secret place.”

That was sketchy to Lydia. A secret place on top of their already secret place?

Morgan pulled out his flashlight, scanning the walls in search of anything suspicious. And he definitely found it. A pentagram and the initials LOD were painted on the side of the building, same handwriting, same red paint.

He insisted that they stay put until he had searched the outside of the house. He knelt down and waved his light underneath the building, which was elevated so that it was level to the side of the mountain. Then, once he was sure that no one was nearby, he nodded for Lydia to follow him and they made their way up the stairs to the front of the building.

Faintly, she heard Reid start talking to Cory, but couldn’t make out much other than the stress in the boy’s voice.

The door was shut, but Morgan didn’t even bother opening it, because the windows along the sides were large enough to step through and no longer had any glass coverings. He stepped inside first, sweeping the light in search of anyone in the room, then stepped out of the way for Lydia to follow.

And there she was. Poor Cherish Hanson, her skin all blue with a bloody rats nest for hair. She was long gone.

Lydia could see Morgan shaking his head, so she reached out and grabbed the flashlight from him. “You can go tell them. I’ll do a quick sweep of the scene and head right out.”

He nodded, but there was something in his eyes that made Lydia nervous. He seemed startled by the girl’s appearance, but after years on the job, she doubted that could be.

“Is she in there? Is she alright?” Cory demanded, the minute Derek had left.

Lydia shut them out for a minute, looking for anything out of the ordinary, but the place was long abandoned. The only places where the dust layer had been disturbed were around the door up to where the body had been left. But that was understandable, seeing as Cherish was likely killed while on her run and dragged up the mountainside. This killer was athletic alright.

Still, she kicked around the leaves on the ground for a minute to look for something out of place and gently looked over Cherish’s body for anything out of the ordinary.

There was a lot more to her murder than her boyfriend’s. The killer clearly didn’t expect her to be with Adam and had to hit her multiple times to ensure she was dead. The blood trailed down the side of her face and across her chest. But if there was anything to gain from the little details she had, she didn’t know what it was.

Seeing as the unsub had clearly used the door to bring the girl in, Lydia used it to leave and caught Cory’s attention as he spoke to Morgan.

“-because of that, we also gotta look for someone who might try to put himself right in the middle of an investigation so that he can influence things,” Morgan was telling the high schooler which suddenly struck Lydia as odd. Gideon had been insistent that the unsub would be on one of the search parties, for the same reasons Morgan was explaining to Cory, but Zizzo definitely wasn’t.

She removed her gloves and another thing occurred to her. Reid wasn’t there. She started down the stairs to ask Morgan where he’d gone, but Morgan didn’t stay there long enough for her to say anything and instead got closer to Cory.

“Especially if he knows exactly what it is that we’re looking for.”

She froze, her eyes fixated on the pair. Did Morgan think Cory had done this? It didn’t exactly fit their ‘killer cult’ profile from earlier.

Cory pushed away from the tree and instead stepped towards the building. “You mean, me?”

He faked innocence well, but Lydia could tell in that moment that he was panicking.

“That was more than just a lucky guess, wasn’t it?” Morgan asked, not yet realizing that Lydia had wandered outside or that Cory was slowly inching closer to her.

“I knew about the building,” he agreed.

“You also knew about Zizzo. And the satanism.”

Finally, he faced the two of them and realized the predicament Lydia was in. Cory had placed himself between her and Morgan, meaning if he got violent, Lydia was unarmed and Morgan couldn’t get to her.

And Lydia knew it, too. She made eye contact with the agent, hoping he would be able to signal to her what to do, but he hadn’t thought that much through. Sending Reid away was easy enough, but he had relied on the hope that Lydia would spend longer looking for evidence.

“I was only trying to help,” Cory argued.

“Well, you did that,” Morgan replied. Lydia saw him beckoning her forward with his hand at his side, hoping that if she could just get close enough, he could pull her out of harm's way. “We couldn’t have found this place without you.”

Once she took her first step off the stairs, Cory realized what she was doing. Before she could process what was happening, he had wrapped an arm around her neck and a gun was pressed into her left cheek.

Both the boys were yelling at her, she realized, but still failed to process what they were saying. Her hands were out in front of her defensively and she realized that Morgan had pulled his gun on Cory, but couldn’t shoot while she was in the way.

“Hey, Morgan,” Reid called, his voice coming from down the hill. “No one’s up there-”

“Reid,” he warned and the doctor froze at the sight before him, also whipping out his gun.

“This got all messed up,” Cory grumbled and Lydia couldn’t help but scoff.

“Clearly.” He pushed the barrel more firmly against her face, trying to increase the pressure.

“Don’t be stupid,” Morgan said.

“She wasn’t supposed to be with him. It was his run. He runs it every day, not her!”

“Cory, listen to me. We can fix this. But you gotta let Lydia go.”

“I never meant to hurt Cherish. But make no mistake, I will shoot your girl, right now.”

“No, you won’t.”

He awkwardly tightened his grasp on her to cock the gun. “Tempt not a desperate man,” he threatened. “Put the gun down!”

“Okay. All right.” Morgan turned his wrist so that his gun was facing another way and slowly lowered it. “You win.”

“Drop it. Drop the gun!”

“Ok. Ok! You win! I’m putting the gun down.”

He did as he said and after some hesitation, Reid did the same.

“You’re in control, Cory. Let her go.”

As Morgan argued with him, Lydia remembered her talk with Gideon that afternoon about having her questioning suspects. He told her that the profile would help them determine how to get an unsub to slip up. So, what did she know about Cory?

He was terrified. He’d really thought that his plan to frame Zizzo was foolproof. He hadn’t thought this far ahead and, by that logic, he wasn’t thinking about what he’d do if he made it out of this.

“What are you going to do, Cory?” Lydia said, steadily. “Shoot the three of us and then what? Skip town?”

“Shut up!” Her lips had been squished so far to the side of her face by the gun that she was barely understandable.

“I’d rather not. But listen, I’m gonna give you some advice. You’ll have to ditch the car and fast. It’s really nice, but it doesn’t blend in well. Switching the plates only gets you so far.”

“I said, be quiet! I will shoot you!”

“How do you plan to make money?” she inquired, still not listening to him. “You’re kinda screwed there. And I’d feel bad for you, but… you did kill two of your friends and are planning to kill me and two of my friends so the sympathy only goes so far.”

Morgan spoke up once more. “You’re just a horny kid who wanted to get rid of the cheerleader’s boyfriend.”

“No!” Suddenly, Cory’s anger was targeted back at him and Lydia felt his hand shaking, the gun relaxing then being pushed once more against her face.

“That was never my intent-” he started, as multiple things happened at once.

The gun was removed from her cheek in an instant and as he flung his arm towards Morgan, his grip across her chest loosened enough for her to extend an arm out and grab his left hand. Morgan took the distraction to run at him, knocking them both back against the stairs and Lydia struggled to keep Cory’s arm pointed away from them.

He got off one shot into the forest floor before she could grapple it away from him and she rolled off the stairs, hitting the ground painfully, to get out of Morgan’s way.

Morgan got in a solid punch across the face, leaving Cory with a bloody mouth and not much energy to fight back. And by that point, Reid had reclaimed his gun and had it trained on the boy as Morgan handcuffed him.

“You all right?” Reid asked, looking away from Cory and Morgan for a moment to watch her get up.

“Yep,” she replied. Her voice was strained after taking such a hard fall, but she didn’t seem upset. She brushed herself off and looked over her scraped up palms. “I did just get tackled by Morgan, though.”

The older man shook his head, pulling Cory up off the stairs. “You’re welcome, Lydia.”

~ ~ ~

Gideon sat against the back of one of the police cars, watching Reid and Lydia give their accounts of what happened to Hotch and Sheriff Bridges separately. Lydia was clearly exhausted, her clothes were covered in dirt, and there was a lack of patience in her face, but Gideon was proud of her.

As he stared, Morgan approached beside him, also leaning against the car.

“I see it now,” he said quietly, so only Gideon could hear. “Why you like her so much.”

“Do you?”

Morgan sighed. “Your girl had a gun pressed so forcefully against her cheek she could barely talk, but her voice betrayed no fear. I don’t think even you or Hotch could be that calm in a crisis. She didn’t talk at a fast pace or stutter on a single word. It was unbelievable.”

“When we questioned her about her roommate,” Gideon explained, “she seemed guilty to Reid and I. I said something insensitive to her to see how she’d react, maybe give something away. Her anger only revealed to me a recognition in her eyes. I realized that she’d been here before. Questioned mercilessly. Accused. And suddenly I was the guilty one. So, I tried to switch tactics, but before I could, she was apologizing to me. She said she’d always had some anger management issues and told me that she’d calm herself down so that we could continue the investigation.

“Have you ever seen that before? She’d just lost her best friend and was more concerned about our case than she was her feelings. I knew right then her heart was twice the size of an average FBI agent. I don’t know what that sort of compartmentalizing does to her. I’m still trying to find out. But from where I stand, she looks like she’s capable of saving a lot of people.”

Morgan sucked in his lips, in contemplation. “All right. How do we let her do that?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

~ ~ ~

Lydia followed the team back inside, expecting to be given some paperwork for the case before she could go back to her apartment, but Gideon stopped her as she stepped into the bullpen.

“Lydia, you should really go home. I’ll handle anything you need to do.”

She rolled her eyes. “Gideon, please don’t think I’m freaked out after what happened today. I can handle myself, I promise.”

“I trust you,” he said, genuinely. “But you’re clearly exhausted and you’ve just started graduate school if I remember correctly.”

She nodded and had to stifle a yawn in order to not prove him right so blatantly.

“Go home. Get some rest. You didn’t sleep the whole plane ride. I’ll drop all your paperwork off tomorrow morning. Or, if you’d prefer, we could have a cup of coffee during my lunch break and you can tell me about your phone call with your sister,” he suggested.

Lydia blinked, but it was such an innocent and friendly suggestion she couldn’t help herself from saying, “That sounds great,” and watching him walk off.

Over the course of just one day, a lot had been revealed to her about Gideon. The rest of the team trusted him so much. And after finding out he’d gone to bat for her in order to get her this job, she really couldn’t say no.

She came back to her senses after a second to watch Reid walk past her towards the elevator.

“Oh! Dr. Reid!” she called, suddenly.

He turned around, a look of utter surprise dawning on his features. “Yes?”

“How exactly do you plan to help me get my PhD in three years?” she inquired.

She’d been thinking about it a lot, now that she had begun her online courses. And everything about it seemed quite appealing, although she still couldn’t reasonably explain why. If she really was going to take this path, she knew she had to do it as fast as possible in order to save money, because she could barely afford the master’s degree she’d long since planned to get.

He smiled and Lydia couldn’t stop herself from smiling back just from seeing the look on his face. His presence was frankly a very welcome one, now that she’d gotten to know him better these past two cases and she found herself drawn into whatever he had to say.

“With my help, make it two,” he said, confidently and the two of them made their way to the elevator together. “Although, if I’m going to help you, I’d much rather you call me Spencer.”

“Spencer.” The name left an interesting feeling in her mouth, being attributed now to genius beside her. “Alright. As long as you’re okay with that.”

And he didn’t respond. Not because he wasn’t, or else he wouldn’t have suggested it. But just hearing her say his name so softly made his stomach do a flip… and he couldn’t understand why.

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