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dreamscript · 6 years ago

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The Fires Within: 9 - final

a hellhound au twist on this request

Yoongi’s still recovering, but in more ways than one. Now if only he could stop sending murderous glares towards your sparring partners...

8.2k words, yoongi/reader, hellhound au

You hack and slash viciously at the air, at the wind sprites that Jihun keeps on sending after you. He manages to just barely deflect a potentially fatal blast of magic you send his way before he’s dashing towards you at blinding speed and you’re revving your fist for a good old fashioned punch in the gut.

Luckily for him, Jihun notices and blocks it with his forearm, but grunts harshly. He backs away.

“Man, who the hell pissed you off today?” he asks, panting.

“I don’t know, maybe I’m just feeling the extra energy from my afternoon coffee,” you reply, assuring him that you’re fine and not about to blow up, both figuratively and literally. But of course, what you really mean and what Jihun doesn’t--and shouldn’t know because that would be weird and awkward--is that you’re actually replaying the entire conversation you had with Yoongi an hour prior, irritation and anxiety and worry and concern building up by the minute.

// ONE HOUR EARLIER

He calmly sips at his half-finished coffee, looking at you boredly, expectantly, as you try and slow down your desperate panting. You eye him murderously as you slump into your seat, sweaty, barely giving the waiter a glance before ordering a nice, ice cold drink. Yoongi makes no comment on your current state of disarray.

“You know, you could’ve at least chosen a closer meeting spot, for those of us who are not gifted with the ability to travel at high speeds,” you say, irritated.

“I’m sure you’ve travelled greater distances before, _________,” Yoongi replies, taking another sip from his cup. You realize that it’s been enchanted, from the way it twinkles and keeps the liquid inside from sloshing about too much. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be admitted as an active member of the League.”

You glare at him even harder. “That’s different. You know that. Typically I don’t run a full six miles just to go to a coffee shop. Sure, I’m more about damage over time rather than slip in, blow up shit, and slip out, but that doesn’t mean my body is capable of working overtime for extended periods.”

Yoongi shrugs. The waiter returns and sets down a tall glass of juice, sorbet-yellow blending into a rich fuchsia. The condensation conveniently moves away wherever you put your hand on the glass. You take a huge gulp, eyes trained on Yoongi, waiting for his response.

He sighs. “It’s a nice shop,” he justifies. “Anyways, what did you want to talk about?”

If you could glare at him any harder, you would have burned holes straight through his stubborn thick skull. “You. And stop playing dumb.”

He merely raises a brow. “I’m pretty sure we’ve advanced beyond being mere acquaintances at this point, but if you insist… My name is Min Yoongi, I’m from the capital, I’m currently registered as an inactive assassin in the League--”

“I said stop. Playing. Dumb.”

He sighs. You look at him. Waiting.

After a minute of silence, he finally speaks up. “My friends… you met them. And I’m pretty sure during this time period you’ve become close enough that they’ve become your friends as well.”

You nod.

“...did they not tell you anything about me? Were you not scared? The League is full of dangerous people, you know. Just because you’re all under the same umbrella doesn’t mean you’re safe.”

“Jimin told me you were a murderer,” you reply. “And of course that threw me off. And I obviously was wary, though admittedly still naïve… regardless, things turned out fine. Call it intuition, I guess. Fae are good at that.”

“You’re not Fae. I’d call it beginner’s luck instead.” Yoongi drums his fingers on the table, coffee untouched. “And regarding what Jimin said...did you not see? What happened?”

“What’s happened has happened. You cannot change it,” you reply carefully, but after thinking briefly of Hoseok and the lanky veteran Tao, add, “at least not in this timeline.”

He sighs, off put. “Still happened. Even though the hound’s gone I still feel like a monster. It’s actually still really hard to think that it isn’t… there anymore. It’s been with me so long that I guess I just got kinda used to it. Being there.”

“You’re not a monster. That’s gone. You, Yoongi, never were one.”

“I was.” He insists, still looking a bit defeated, lost. “Anyways, about you,” he continues, diverting the conversation, “Did you go on any missions.”

It doesn’t even sound like a question; his tone is so formal and tight it almost sounds like he’s being forced to ask about you, or maybe he’s too embarrassed to admit that he cares.

“N-no,” you reply, still trying to decipher him. “I only just got cleared to do solo missions. Like, I could’ve done group ones but I never really… found a suitable group to party up with. Most of the squad are still above my caliber in terms of experience, and Kibum hasn’t tried cajoling me into doing any so…”

“Oh really?” He looks strangely… pleased? Satisfied? by your answer.

“Yeah. Everything’s been paperwork up until now, really.” Yoongi hums in understanding. The past few weeks he’s been in and out of the hospital and the mental ward, filling out forms and talking about his current condition.

“So…” you say, deciding to bring up the part that you’ve been really wanting to ask this entire time, “are you going to tell me why you’ve been so deftly avoiding me, or are we just going to continue this anti-me zone that’s been going on around you?”

Yoongi presses his lips into a thin line. “I’ve just been busy, is all. I needed some space to find my footing again, by myself. I didn’t realize that such a zone was even a thing. My apologies.”

The answer is clearly not entirely truthful yet not entirely false, but Yoongi looks so stubborn and irked by your question that you bite back the accusatory remarks and physically restrain yourself from busting out an entire list of his actions the past week that would turn his statement upside down. He’s in a mentally fragile state, you remind yourself. Over and over and over again. He can’t do well under pressure; he’ll break.

“...I see. Well, in that case, I suppose it was just a… misunderstanding. If that’s all, then I’ve nothing else to discuss. I’ve got to go, anyways. Training with Jihun today,” you say, with a grimace. In reality you could have probably skipped, but you’re done here, and the lack of answers really makes you want to beat shit up.

He raises an eyebrow. “Jihun? How did that happen?”

“Um, he asked me?” You give him a look.

He narrows his eyes. “Be careful around him.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I figured that out within the first day of our pre-training with him, but thanks.”

“I’m serious,” he continues, “I don’t trust that man.”

“Yoongi,” you say, feeling your annoyance start to get the best of you, “you don’t trust a lot of people, so that isn’t really all that convincing.” You pause, study him, the equally irritated look on his face. “Anyways, I’ll let you decide whether or not you want to continue… taking time off, or if you want to actually sit down and… talk. I know there’s a lot on your mind, but I’m not going to hunt you down and corner you until you spill your thoughts out to me. We’re both adults, so we’ll handle this like adults, yeah?”

He says nothing, just looks away.

You clear your throat. “Anyways, sorry for taking up your time. I’ll be going now, can’t leave Jihun waiting, right?”

// PRESENT

Jihun manages to use his free hand to wipe a stray bead of sweat from rolling into his eyes and makes one last thrust toward your body before sheathing his sword. Even though you know it doesn’t do shit to his legendary blade, you blast magic at it anyway out of spite. He gives you a look.

“Well, we all have our days I guess.” He studies your face, still catches the fire behind your eyes. “Unfortunately, we have to end the session here, though.”

“Yeah. It’s getting a bit late anyways,” you reply, looking at the horizon, where the reddened sun sinks ever lower, bleeding into the sky. “Will you be down for, say, two days from now?”

He shakes his head. “Actually, I’m coming off my post as trainer tomorrow. From then on I’m just a regular member of the League, so I’m taking a couple of missions that’ll have me busy for the next month at least. Gotta get out while I can, y’know?”

“Oh,” you reply, disappointed. It’s not that you can’t spar with anyone else; it’s more of like Jihun is simply a great sparring partner, being a registered trainer and all. Instead of just throwing stuff at you, he’d also give you tips and guidance.

He notices your frown and gives you a wry smile. “I’m surprised you’re not taking any missions yourself, actually.”

“Y-yeah,” you reply. “There aren’t any that caught my eye.” The reality is, you haven’t exactly been looking. Ever since Yoongi woke up, you’ve been caught up with him, and the thought of leaving the area even for a bit seems out of question. There was this fear of just completely missing out that was particularly gripping.

“Well in that case--” Jihun taps his chin thoughtfully “--I could hook you up with a colleague of mine who’s been itching for a new sparring partner. We mostly just spar with each other--my friends and I--but lately we’ve been trying to expand out of our circle to, y’know, grow our abilities. We all kinda know each other’s fighting styles by now so everything is getting a bit monotonous. What do you say?”

You perk up. “That--that sounds great, wow! Who are they?”

“His name’s Kihyun,” he replies. “A mage, kind of like you, though he does also use weapons. That is--if you can call cards weapons. It wouldn’t be the strangest thing here, but it is still unconventional, if not extra. But trust me--he uses them well. And he also used to be a trainer, I’m pretty sure.”

“That sounds fantastic,” you gush, already getting giddy from the thought of finally sparring with another mage. “Can you send me his contact details?”

“No problem,” Jihun replies, shouldering his sweat-soaked towel. “I’ll ping them over to you later--I gotta run now. See ya!”

And then he’s gone, figure warped and blown away in a sudden cyclone of wind. You sigh. People at the League really did have a penchant for sudden and dramatic exits.

What was it, really? That feeling--it controlled him from the bare edges of his mind, made him feel jittery and sick and fearfully moody all at once. Maybe it’s a result from the phantom pains, or the mental scarring that still has yet to heal over, or something that’s always been there from the start and he’s only just noticed until now.

The therapist discards his gloves, jots some notes down in his tablet. “Well, it looks like your mental health still needs some improving. You’ve been taking the supplements prescribed to you, correct?”

Yoongi nods wordlessly. Although he hasn’t always been particularly consistent with it, he still takes them relatively often. They taste good.

“Interesting…” More notes. “Well, at least you’re healing, I suppose. At a slow rate, but it does tend to progress at a crawling pace, particularly at the beginning. Mental wounds are always so difficult to heal, much more so than physical ones. Those are done automatically, but these… require a lot more conscious effort.”

“Yeah.” Yoongi purses his lips, wondering when the man was going to stop blathering and repeating just what every single healer has been saying to him since he woke up.

“I managed to repiece and mend some scars from your mind today, but as you probably know, a lot of the actual work also depends on your own body. Have you tried talking about your feelings or opening up to friends or family? Most of our struggling patients find that talking to a close confidant helps them cope.”

Yoongi shakes his head. “I tend to keep things to myself.”

He hums. “That may be why--you see, when you do that, you let all those negative emotions build up, and essentially pit yourself against yourself. With someone else to talk to, even if it’s just a little bit--and it doesn’t necessarily have to be all personal--it could definitely help ‘purge’ those feelings, if you will, or at least make them more manageable. Humans are still social creatures, not matter how reclusive. They tend to crave the comfort of another… but of course, not as much as yordles, oh god, those things--”

“Does it actually help?” Yoongi interrupts.

“Wha--oh, yes, sorry. Yes. I would highly recommend it. Try giving it a go before your next check in? I’ll make a note here for whoever checks up on you next.”

Yoongi purses his lips again. In all honesty, he’d rather not. But… the logical side of him berates himself, telling him he’s better than this, that he’s worth it, that he can’t fall back into that vicious cycle again, promising himself that the road to actually feeling normal will be worth it, although it’s been so long he isn’t sure what that actually feels like.

And also…

This time, there’s nothing holding him back. Instead, all there is are wide open arms from his friends, all trying to reach out and help. He’d just been too blind with fear to see it before. He sighs.

And he can’t stop thinking about you. It feels almost a bit wrong, to turn to you for help when he’d been avoiding you so deftly before, but…

“I’ll let you decide… I know there’s a lot on your mind…”

“Yeah. I’ll try it.”

The blow dryer smartly snaps itself back into its place on the wall, collapsing neatly into a small disc. A part of you almost wants to say thank you to it, but you stop and hold your tongue when you realize it probably doesn’t have a conscience advanced enough to articulate human speech. So you don’t, feeling suddenly over-conscious about talking to an inanimate object.

You turn to the mirror and quickly fix your hair, eyes glossing over the different bruises and cuts from the day, tug at your towel, and take two butt-naked steps towards the door where your bathrobe hangs. It’s cushy and soft and if you could fall backwards into it you totally would.

Instead, you find yourself jumping slightly from the sudden ping from your messaging system. Startled, you reach for your communication vox that’s been sitting on your small coffee table, and see that it’s a message from Jihun.

From: JIHUN [ attachment (23k) ]

From: JIHUN Sorry this is late lmao almost forgot nd got caught up w stuff

You open his message with a roll of your eyes, settling down into your cushy couch.

CONTACT CARD

[ K ] kihyunnie - id: 3-239 - ext: 566-284

You tap on the little popup and select “yes” when it asks if you wish to save him into your contacts. Immediately afterwards, you hear an additional two pings and see that he’s already sent you a couple of messages earlier in the day.

From kihyunnie -- you make a mental note to change his name later-- Hey what’s up _______ it’s kihyun, jihun told me u were interested in sparring

From kihyunnie I’m free in a couple of days if ur down

Excited, you prop your feet on your table, sit back, rename him, and type out a response.

To Kihyun Hey! That sounds fantastic! What time? I was thinking of going to the proving grounds if it’s the morning/afternoon. They’re always empty then

From Kihyun Ever been to the bilgewater themed one? It’s p new

To Kihyun Wait that one opened?! I had no--

You’re interrupted by a terse knock from your door. With a frown, you set your vox down, adjust your bathrobe so it doesn’t accidentally fall off, and pad over to peep through the eyehole.

To your utter surprise, it’s Yoongi. He’s staring soullessly straight through the small opening, as if he knows you’re on the other side, shocked. You open the door.

“Yoongi?”

He doesn’t say anything, just looks at you, eyes immediately zeroing in on the bruise at the base of your collarbone. To be fair, it’s in a fairly… questionable place and could definitely pass as a hickey, but you roll your eyes nonetheless and wave your hand in front of his face to pull his attention away from it. When he looks back up at you, there’s a burning, deeply suspicious look reflected in his eyes.

“Listen, you’re like the tenth person to comment on that, and I swear that it’s a legitimate bruise from sparring,” you say, rushing ahead of yourself before he can possibly get accusatory or form some weird fantasy of you and Jihun randomly hooking up in the midst of beating each other up. “It’s from all the flying rocks that got caught up when Jihun summoned his mini-tornado-thing. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but it’s still fucking terrifying, and if you get knocked up in there you’re done for. I’m serious. I think I almost died.”

Yoongi blinks at you, the look fading. “I didn’t say anything.”

You give him a pointed look. “Your actions spoke for you; I totally caught you staring.”

He shrugs. “Was it really that bad? I know Jihun can get kind of cruel, but I didn’t think he’d go all out. Not to be demeaning or anything--but he is a longtime veteran of the League, and his abilities are probably far more… advanced than yours. For now.”

“Oh--totally. He was definitely still holding back on me, but not too much. Guess he’s a trainer for a reason.” You shrug. “In any case, I wouldn’t want to spar with someone who’s any less than me. It doesn’t create much room for improvement.” You rub at the bruise, once again aware that Yoongi’s back to staring at it again, as if trying to burn it away.

“Next time let me participate,” he says finally. There’s an unsaid sentiment that hangs in the air, one that reminds you of early mornings and burning lungs and sweat-drenched clothing. Of old times.

Still--“Yoongi, you know you can’t just do that!”--sparring has always been a sort of invite-only thing. Like a friend date. With respectful violence. And like any other one-on-one meetup, bringing in an uninvited third party without prior notice just… is not… okay.

He scowls. “Che. Whatever.” You narrow your eyes; you can’t tell if he’s being jealous or upset or both.

So instead, you feign ignorance. “Anyways, what are you actually here for? Not trying to be rude, just genuinely curious. I didn’t know you had a clue as to where I lived.”

“Namjoon,” Yoongi replies easily.

“...okay, that answers my second, implied question, but it would definitely but beneficial if you could answer my first one. Directly.”

“Yes.”

You stare at him. “Yes? Yes you’re going to answer it? Or what?”

He sighs, as if cornered and pressed to find a way out. “My answer is yes.”

“Okay, so, why are you here?” His vagueness is mind-boggling. Sure, there was being ambiguous, and then there was Yoongi.

“No, what--not that. I’m saying yes to your… earlier question. From the cafe.”

You give him a confused look. Yes? To what--oh. Oh. You remember it now; you’d asked if he wanted to continue the talks (as opposed to giving himself “space”).

“So…. you want to continue the talks? Is what I’m getting?”

He shrugs. “My therapist recommended it.”

You raise a brow. “In that case I would be an asshole of a friend to decline.” You pause. It’s a bit disheartening that he’s doing it because his therapist said so, but it’s progress nonetheless. “So I’ll see you again next week? I know I’ll be free during the weekends…” And, despite it all, you find yourself biting your lip hopefully as he deftly avoids eye contact.

“Yeah.” And, in classic Yoongi fashion, he shadow flashes away, disappearing into the darkened corners of the hall.

It becomes a routine. A sort of mending therapy, eating pastries and making small and big talk.

“You know,” he says, tapping on the glass. “I’ve eaten these things before.” It’s probably the fifth? Sixth? Maybe seventh? Talk that you guys have had and each time he insists on going to a bakery, commenting on how you seemed to enjoy the food selections and you go along with it since you know that he’s too awkward to admit that he actually has a major sweet tooth. But also--he’s right; the food is actually quite good.

“Really?” you lean closer to inspect the pastry. It’s neatly cut and adorned with pastel decorations. “What is it?”

“It’s like a half-cake, half-cheesecake kind of thing. Fluffy sponge cake topped with creamy cheesecake, and in this case covered in ganache, it seems,” Yoongi explains. “It’s good.”

“In that case, I’ll have one.” Gently, you slide open the glass and fiddle with the magic pastry box. “Where’d you eat it before?”

He gets so quiet that you almost think that he didn’t hear you. You’re just about to turn around and ask him again when he opens his mouth to speak. “Back at home. When I was a kid. They were a specialty back in the Capitol.”

“Oh.” You try hard to suppress your smile--not because you found what he said funny or anything, but rather because this is the first time he’s really brought up his personal life. His past. The part he prefers to keep buried in the back of his mind. There’s an indescribable feeling of relief and joy at the sign of Yoongi becoming more open, where instead of hiding his feelings, he actually makes to share them.

“Here,” he says, holding out his hand. “I’ll pay for it.”

“Bu--”

“I said I’ll pay,” he says, this time a bit more forcefully. You pout at him as he cracks the slightest of grins and turns around, heading to the cashier. Because between the lines, held between his tongue and the roof of his mouth is the unsaid phrase of gratitude, of thanks, thanks for listening, thanks for reaching out…

He never tells you that he loves you, at least not verbally, but tries his best to show how he feels. There are a thousand ways to say “I love you” and Yoongi seems to explore nine-hundred and ninety-nine of them to the best of his ability. His gestures are so genuine and thought out, it’s nothing but a passing thought to forgive him for the countless other times he’d pushed you away, shut you out, ignored you.

He sets the cake down in front of you and gives you a gummy smile. You smile back and accept the fork he hands you.

There are these days, in which Yoongi is nice and less like a dick and almost almost seems normal and less haunted. But you know that underneath it all, Yoongi is still broken. It’s just that when things are good, they’re so good and well-masked that it’s hard to believe or even want to dwell on the fact that you’re still treading on eggshells and broken glass.

Kihyun is a bit shorter than you thought he would be. For some odd reason, you’d thought that he’d perhaps be around Jihun’s height, but in retrospect, Jihun is abnormally tall for an Ionian, but also...

“Just wondering--where are you from?” you ask, stretching out your arms.

He looks up briefly from where he’s bent over, stretching his hamstrings. “Serpent Islands.”

You wrinkle your brows. “Serpent Islands?”

He sighs, as if he’s used to people being confused. “Bilgewater. I’m from Bilgewater.”

“Oh, oh,” you say. No matter how much you studied the geography of the outside world, you always forgot that Bilgewater is, in fact, an archipelago island nation. On the other hand, that probably explains why he was so interested in visiting the new Bilgewater-themed branch of the League. “I’m sorry I woke up a bit late and all the grounds at Bilge were taken up.”

...he’s pretty average height for someone hailing from the malnourished slums.

Kihyun waves his hand dismissively.

“It’s fine. About Bilgewater--I know what you’re thinking,” he says, as he lifts himself up again to stretch out his calves, planting his foot backwards. “And you’re probably right. It’s every bit as raunchy and filthy and swashbuckling as you can imagine and then some. We also got haunted during The Harrowing, if you didn’t know.” You laugh although you have no idea what the Harrowing is while he quirks a wry smile. “But the place really does make a fighter out of a good lot of us, if I do say so myself. What about you?”

“Oh I would know. One of my friends is from there--Jimin, if you know him. Anyways--I’m from the Glade.”

Kihyun wrinkles his nose at the mention of Jimin. “Oh, I do. We’ve got some serious history--but that’s for another time. Wait--the Glade? That place actually exists? Wait--are you a fairy?!”

He stares at you in amazement, switches to stretch out his other calf. You laugh. “Yes and no. I was raised there, but I’m still 100% human, I can assure you of that. I’m surprised people actually have heard of the place… but I suppose we all have a fascination and insatiable curiosity with the mysterious.”

“Well,” Kihyun says, standing up fully. You’ve finished stretching, taking the time to roll your wrists around. “That makes it all the more interesting. Jihun’s told me a lot about you--and I can’t say that I’m just a bit excited to see this fabled magic happen.” He draws a card and you see him begin to twirl it slowly. Magic begins to hum in the air, half from Kihyun’s channeling, half from you. You cock a grin.

“Are you ready?”

“Come at me.”

“I’m tired,” Yoongi says, lying on the bed. It’s a lazy evening, in that time right after supervised his training and before the Hall opens for dinner. Freshly showered, he smells of tropical beaches and something refreshing, hair wet and towel draped over his damp shoulders.

“Me too,” you agree. The reality is, you’re actually on a sugar high, having just consumed an entire pint of Avarosan-style Freljord ice cream after a particularly rough spar that has your body aching and joints creaking. If you thought Jihun was cruel… Kihyun is heartless in battle. Not that Yoongi needs to know, of course. Might just try and invite himself again.

“No, not in that way. I meant I’m tired of not feeling… good enough, you know?”

You turn, narrow your eyes. “What do you mean?”

He pauses and takes a breath so measured and lets it out so carefully it feels as if he’s made of paper-thin sheets of glass, waiting to break yet keeping himself together in such a delicate perfection it’s hard not to admire.

“No… I just… don’t feel like I deserve this,” he replies, finally.

“What’s ‘this’?” you press, wanting answers, wanting confirmation, wanting more.

Yoongi turns his head to the side to look at you before facing back up at the ceiling. You keep your eyes trained on him, watching. Waiting. Searching for answers in his expressions.

The situation is awkward at best but it’s not like either of you have been painstakingly hiding your feelings--or at least, not as much as before. Rather, it seems now that the both of you have been skirting around them. Aware of their existence, but never acknowledging.

“All the support. And forgiveness that I’ve been getting.”

He doesn’t specify who and you suspect he’s referring to all his friends in general but then you catch how his eyes flick over to your briefly, as if sending a small, tiny signal that his words were more directed towards you than anyone else. The small downward set of his mouth molds into a distinctive frown of self-disappointment.

“Yoongi, stop being ridiculous. You’re perfectly human. A flawed perfection, as they say.”

“That’s a paradox,” he mumbles, “And perfection doesn’t exist.”

“Then why do you?” you joke, but also not really because you’re actually truly meaning every damn word you say, doesn’t he get it--

Yoongi laughs, and the sound is enough to have you laughing right along with him and thinking that everything was going to be okay.

You’ve come to the conclusion that one major downside to sparring with Kihyun is that you could never figure out how to sit, or lay in bed, or arrange yourself in such a way that you wouldn’t be lying painfully on one of the twenty-two cuts all over your body.

You groan as you accidentally roll on your side, applying unnecessary pressure on two particularly deep gashes. Damn Kihyun and his fucking enchanted cards. Of course, most of the cuts were made just enough to bleed but not deep enough to do anything other than itch terribly as the new skin formed underneath, but still. It’s annoying and almost a bit embarrassing to be covered in so many bandages--replacing them was a nightmare--while Kihyun prances around with just a couple numbing patches neatly tucked under his clothes.

“...and--are you okay?” Yoongi stops telling his story briefly, looking concerned as he sits in your chair.

Reflexively, you sit up despite the pain on your thighs. “Wha--no, I’m fine, just sore. Anyways, sorry, continue. I was listening, I promise. So, what were in Namjoon’s ‘secret scrolls’ that so scarred Jungkook?”

It’s probably the second time you’ve seen Yoongi ever get this animated, this enveloped in conversation. It takes extra concentration to just process his words when all you want to do is stare at his handsome face and smile at the way his eyes glimmer.

He laughs. “So we opened it up and Hoseok like, fucks up of course, and the whole lot of them come tumbling down and they unwind, and it’s just nude pictures, scrolls upon scrolls of them, covering the entire floor, and Jungkook is just standing there like oh my GOD this is unholy and uncalled for and holy SHIT and I swear to god he almost had an aneurysm.” You laugh out loud, picturing Jungkook’s wide eyes. “He was only a visiting member of the League at the time, so trying to convince him to join only got harder after that.”

“Oh-oh god,” you say, laughing even harder, trying to imagine the group attempting to convince Jungkook to join them after witnessing… that. Deadly or not, at heart Jungkook is still a child.

“That totally reminds me of when I first came out of the Glade,” you say, rolling up the sleeve of your hoodie, beginning to sweat slightly, “and tried to play ‘pretend’ with another girl. The look on her dad’s face when he came to pick her up and instead saw me having tea time with an alarmed, sparkly pink unicorn plushie was priceless. I didn’t know any better back then--I thought randomly transfiguring things was normal. And I was utterly baffled when no one wanted to even walk near me after that incident.”

He laughs and you raise your arm to brush away a strand of hair, feeling the slight droplets of sweat forming along your scalp. Maybe choosing to wear a hoodie during the midst of summer was not the best idea—in your defense, the AC did get a bit too much at times. With a grunt, you pull off your jacket, letting out a sigh of relief when your sweaty skin can finally breathe.

You almost miss it when Yoongi’s laughter abruptly stops; you catch him staring at your exposed arm--that’s covered with cuts and bandages.

“Oh--my bad,” you mutter. Normally, you wouldn’t care; after all, it wasn’t like you were trying to hide it. Cuts and bruises and bodies beaten out of shape are normal sights within the League. Only in this case, he seems particularly taken by them.

He grabs your hand, points at the cuts below it. “What is that?”

“Um, my forearm?”

“The wounds.” He gestures at your other arm.

“Um, yeah. They’re cuts. On my forearm.”

He ignores your snarky remark. “Where are they from?”

You make to put your hoodie back on again, but he swats your hand away. You don’t contend; after all, it’s fucking hot.

“No--don’t. Let me see. How many?” Gently, he taps your cuts, fingers skimming lightly over the deeper ones, the ones you’ve bandaged more carefully than the others.

“How many what?”

He narrows his eyes. “Who’s the one playing dumb now, ______? How many cuts did he leave on you.”

“Uh, I counted twenty-two.”

“Yeah?” He grits his teeth as his eyes trace your body, taking mental inventory of your numerous cuts, all patched up and neatly dressed. Yoongi grits his teeth. “I’m going to fucking kill him.”

You laugh, tired, half-forced, thinking it a joke in bad taste.

“I’m serious,” he says, firmly. “I’m going to kill that card-wielding rodent.” And that’s when you notice a murderous look in his eyes, his blades just forming into existence. You immediately snap back into it.

“Wait what--no, Yoongi, it’s fine, I’m fine, I swear!” You wave your arms around in the air frantically to demonstrate that you are, in fact, alive and well. For the most part. “He felt pretty bad about it too but I said not to worry about it! It’s a spar, the whole point is to get roughened up so shit like this doesn’t happen in actual battle. It’s not supposed to be some oh-I-hurt-you-I’m-so-sorry kind of exercise, it’s supposed to be a let’s-beat-the-shit-out-of-each-other-but-somewhat-respectfully sort of thing!”

“I don’t care,” he says, darkly. “He shouldn’t have hurt you like this. Ever. You’re not getting close to him again, or any of Jihun’s friends. I told you--they’re dangerous--”

“Yoongi. It’s a SPAR,” you say, now angry, annoyed. “And also, you don’t fucking own me. Like, I appreciate your worry and concern and all, but I assure you, as you should already know, being a longtime member of the League, that this kind of outcome is far from abnormal. And Kihyun’s still a certified trainer.”

He seems slightly taken aback by your words, and takes a moment to recover. “Yeah, like his certification means anything,” he sneers. “I would know. Whatever--I’ve already belabored the point. Sorry for caring so much. I’m leaving.”

You send one last glare at him before he disappears.

If there was one major flaw of most fae, it would most definitely be their naivety. It didn’t quite matter that you weren’t a blood-born--you were typically categorized as a changeling, not that it actually mattered--since everything that had gone into your childhood, the way your foster parents raised you, what your masters put into your education, was all in the culture of the fae.

And so, like your brethren, you are naive, someone naive enough to think that despite all the chains holding him back, dark memories, post-traumatic stress, phantom pains and mixed emotions, that Yoongi was going to be okay.

Despite your best efforts to reach out and talk to him and apologize for the snappy remarks and also coaxing him to just come out and discuss your differences, things just… don’t work out.

You learn that nothing ever truly is “okay” in this kind of situation when Yoongi reverts back to his old moody, dark self by the next morning. When you go to greet him he avoids eye contact, rudely brushes past you. When you try to sit with him he deliberately gets up, goes to another table. It’s almost as if nothing during these past months has happened at all.

While your feelings--how you love and care for him deeply--haven’t changed, sometimes you wonder if his have. He loved you. You know that. If he didn’t, then the whole hellhound fiasco wouldn’t have happened, and you wouldn’t be here in the first place. But now you wonder if he’s moved on, consumed by a strange sort of disgust and horror over the kind of wreckage love has left in its wake.

“Maybe I was too harsh,” you mumble, sitting with your legs crossed on your bed. A warm mug of tea is clutched between your hands, steaming hot.

“Perhaps,” Namjoon says. “You cannot allow him such freedoms. If he hurts you once, and you don’t ever sit down to talk about it or anything, there’s a higher chance he’ll hurt you again. And vice versa. You keep on letting him act out and then not pressing him harder to talk about it, so he eventually will learn to just do that. He will learn to act on his feelings instead of thinking and talking about them first.”

You think about all those times when there would be an argument, how the next day you two would be getting pastries and drinks, awkward, but easily gliding over the shattered remains of yesterday. How you kept on giving him excuses, both too scared of yet another confrontation, both wanting normalcy.

“But, I do believe he too is also at fault here,” Namjoon continues. “After all, you are both adults now. He should know it in himself that he is acting irrationally, and that this is no way to treat a friend, especially one who is tirelessly reaching out with a helping hand.” He sighs, shakes his head. “I’ll talk to him.”

“Are you sure?” you ask, hopeful.

“Of course. Someone needs to step in and fix this mess before it becomes any worse.” He gives you a firm, reassuring smile. You look down into your tea, staring at your distorted reflection.

“Thanks.”

“To make this really work for both of us, Yoongi, you’re going to actually start talking. I know you can do that much--I’ve seen you do it before. You can’t have lost your tongue so easily, just yet. I know you’d much rather not have this conversation, but you also need to learn you have to face your problems. And this is one of them, and a major one, at that.” Namjoon sighs, rubs his temples. “Both of you… need to come to terms with each other. All this wishy washy, back and forth, push and pull… you do realize what it’s all doing right?”

Yoongi stares blankly at the wall, seeing Namjoon shift just slightly at his peripheral. He’s been here for what seems like an eternity, droning on about responsibilities, problems, proverbs.

“I don’t know, why don’t you tell me?” Yoongi mutters, not really hearing what Namjoon’s just asked him. He’s tuning him out the best he can. If he ignores it, it’ll go away--or so that’s how things generally work for him. Usually.

Namjoon sighs, crosses his arms. “You could at least try and contemplate the answer, you know? Ah, no matter. When you do something like that, you’re sending out so many mixed signals that it’s damaging, you know?”

Damaging. “How so?”

“Well, we can put it in perspective: how does it feel to have something you really love, suddenly turn against you?”

Yoongi hates these types of questions. “I don’t know, it would suck I guess,” he grumbles, after much deliberation. The guilty feeling suddenly makes itself clear, and he fights hard to suppress it, too proud to admit wrongdoing.

“I know you hate it when I do this, but it’s the only way,” Namjoon comments. “On the flip side, how would you feel if something you’ve been pining for is suddenly within your reach?”

Yoongi remains silent. The answer is obvious, so why the hell is he asking? Does his answer really matter that much? Namjoon clears his throat. Yoongi rolls his eyes. If he didn’t have so much respect and owe so much debt to Namjoon, he’d be long gone from this room.

“I’d feel better,” Yoongi bites out in his grumpiest voice. “I guess.”

Namjoon sighs once more. “And so imagine that cycle, of sadness and happiness, going on and on--it’s enough to really wear and tear at one’s feelings.”

“Yeah.” Yoongi falls silent again, though he knows Namjoon is watching. He wonders if he can tell that he’s thinking of you now, wondering just how much his shittiness has done to your heart. He wonders if you’d ever loved him, and if you could even stand him now. Especially after the last spat…

He purses his lips. The sight of the cuts--they made him so livid, it was hard to think, to reason. He couldn’t stand the thought of you being hurt, even more so by someone he didn’t already know...

“She just wants to see you recover,” Namjoon says. “But she’s at ends. She doesn’t want to hurt you, so she keeps on giving you all these excuses for you to hurt her. Don’t you get it? She’s hurting herself so that you can finally find yourself. Not many others would go down that path, for so long, Yoongi. This is a once in a lifetime chance. Take it, or leave it. Doing this is only going to tear her down, and you know that she doesn’t deserve that. She deserves better, and a part of you inside is feeling so conflicted about your feelings, yourself, which is why you keep on going back and forth. You want to leave her, get away from it, but you keep on coming back because you’re inexplicably drawn to her… because you—”

“Shut up,” Yoongi interrupts, already having heard enough. He can already guess the next words to come out of Namjoon’s mouth: because you love her, because you can’t live without her. And he hates hates having the truth spit out to him, hates having to face his problems, hates the awful guilty feeling he gets whenever he has to sit and think about all the pain he’s put you through when really, it was the last thing he wanted to do, which is why he wanted to leave in the first place…

Namjoon finally reaches out to tap his shoulder. He doesn’t know how much time has passed, but it feels like a while. “Well?”

“I’ll talk to her.”

Namjoon hums. “You both have had many talks before, but none of them have actually hit on the actual subject at heart. This had better be the last time--afterwards, I’m going to manually intervene, and for good. So you’d better make this one count, Yoongi.”

Yoongi swallows, hard. “I will.”

Whatever it is that got into him, it seems that Yoongi never quite found out. He keeps on switching between pushing you away and drawing you back in, until he finally remains static, just pushing you away.

While Hoseok calls it a dick move and Jungkook calls it PMS, you call it a defense mechanism--mainly because you’ve seen him do this before. To you, to his friends, to everyone around him. Back when he still had the hellhound in him, he did his best to push others away for fear of hurting them, all the while holding back his own desire to interact with others and live life the way he wanted to.

It’s the only way he’s known.

If you had to describe him, you’d say that he was–is–like a cheerio that had been poured into a bowl with other cheerios and milk, and then someone ate all the other cheerios and drained the milk and then–and then forgot. About that one last cheerio. And left it out for a day.

(You’d found a few of those at the bottom of a bowl on his counter, shrunken and sitting pitifully in a pool of their own wheat grains. The milk that was once there had caused the sugar inside them to melt, making them stick firmly to the surface. After some struggles, you’d managed to peel them off, tossing them into the trash can.)

He’s the type who would get caught up in the little things and let them wash over him like a tidal wave, up until he’s drowning and six feet under. But even after everything passes and things change, he’d still get stuck there, the only one still lingering on the issue.

It’s almost as if he can’t get over things. Like how he thinks he isn’t ever good enough.

But the thing is, he just doesn’t understand–or maybe doesn’t want to–how much you love him, want him; at times, you find yourself practically begging him to shut up and just get it. That what you want and need is him, and not whoever, whatever he’s thinking.

If anything, he’s just deluding himself in his own thoughts. Sitting pitifully in a puddle of his own self-doubts.

As you said, he is very much like a day-old cheerio from a drained bowl of cereal.

Which is why you knew that despite all the hurt and pain, you had to be the one to pull him out of there, from the bottom of the bowl. Namjoon seemed to understand this fact, particularly after your conversation earlier, and even more so after his own with Yoongi. He’d told you, with a firm warning, that this would be both of your last chances, that this had gone on for far too long.

And so now, you’re sitting here, leaning on Yoongi’s dusty couch and staring at his hunched over figure, waiting for him to utter a word. He takes a deep breath. You suck one in.

“Maybe we should stop this.”

But unlike the cheerios, you aren’t so eager to toss him away.

“Or maybe we don’t have to.”

“I’m not the man that you should end up with. You deserve way better. What you need is someone who I could never be.”

The AC kicks on, causing the generator to emit a low hum. On any other day you would be catching your breath, cheeks burning, heart pounding in anticipation. The fact that Yoongi would ever openly acknowledge your mutual feelings for him and address them would send you reeling--

“If only you knew,” you reply to him, soft.

“How?” You don’t miss the way he clenches his fist, furrows his brows even more. He’s raging inside--not at you--but at his own inability to understand how you could ever possibly love someone like him. “Why?”

You look at him serenely, then place your hands gently on either side of his shoulders. Inhale, exhale. You lean in close, slowly, waiting for a reaction. He simply stares into your eyes, searching for answers.

“Because,” you say, your voice a mumble, “I love you. That’s why. I don’t just date someone out of necessity, I have a relationship with them out of love. I don’t need anyone; it’s not about what I do and don’t deserve; it’s about what I want. And what I want is you. Not ‘some other man’ or whatever you’ve got in mind.”

“But,” he says, voice deep and throaty. He doesn’t take his eyes off yours, not for a second. “I’ve hurt you. So much.”

You shake your head. “That’s in the past now Yoongi. We don’t live there. And we’ve hurt each other, and will hurt each other. That’s life. And that’s what makes a relationship all the more meaningful: that we learn from our pains and let them serve as a bond that we grow from. We’re in this together, okay? It’s not just your pain or my pain anymore--it’s our pain.”

Yoongi stares at your some more before sighing, breath hitting your cheek. Gently, he removes your hands from his shoulders and turns away, figure hunched.

It takes you a second to realize he’s crying.

“Y-Yoongi? Are you--”

“Stop,” he says, voice thick. “Stop. It hurts. I love you so much it hurts. God--what did I do to deserve you?”

You smile just slightly, stepping back towards him. “I told you already, it’s not about deserving--”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it now. You and I--we’re going to walk this road together from now on, okay? No backing out.” He still doesn’t face you because he’s still crying and it almost sounds like he’s trying to convince himself to hold on, keep it together.

“Yeah. You and I.” You reach out to him again. At first, he does nothing. But then, after another moment, he abruptly tugs you into his arms and then kisses you.

Sweet, loving.

You pull away but remain close enough to breathe each other’s air.

Hot, passionate.

A love that keeps on burning from within.

a/n: AIWOEJFEW IM FINALLY DONE WITH THIS IT TOOK LIKE ALMOST TWO YEARS ITS FINE BC IM DONE YAY also i’ve had that last paragraph written since forever and yes it used be a drabble but now its Upgraded

ANYWAYS THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR SUPPORT AND LOVE <33

taglist: @babydanixox @lookinalittleblue

#btswriters #networkbangtan #bts scenarios #yoongi scenarios #bts fanfiction #yoongi #bts #writing #hellhound au #runeterra au #the fires within #drama #wowowow #q: hur dur dur'ing around #ITS DONE

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