Yoongi is not the best actor around. Even during elementary school, the best he could do was act as a camel on their annual nativity play. So this task of evading his nosy, loud, and observant friend of his seemed to be very daunting indeed. 

"G'morning Namjoon," he greeted while shambling through the overgrown side path of his cottage. 

"What's wrong with the front door?" The milk lad asked. At first his tone was purely one of formality, like that of a jest, as if he was asking Yoongi 'what do you think of this "fine" morning?'

But the way Yoongi stuttered through his answer and the way he hastily grabbed the tray of milk from Namjoon's hand while scurrying along the walkway out from his residence caused the other party to develop a splintering sense of suspicion. 

It didn't help that he heard a suspicious bump against the wooden door. A clear indication that something, or someone, was inside the supposedly empty house.

"Why are you taking the milk to the shop?" Yoongi scrunched his eyes in disdain when he heard that familiar inquiring tone coming from the huffing man beside him. The sound of his milk crate grinding through the gravel of Yoongi's garden didn't seem to mask the weight of silence that unfortunately fell upon them. 

"I uh... as you can see I'm late and I don't want to leave my customers waiting!" 

Yoongi swore if he could teleport himself to the marketplace just so he could escape the stares of Namjoon, he would. The stares, man, his stares when he knew something was wrong with your narrative felt like laser beams. Invisibility ray that completely peeled through the outer layer of pure lies. Even though he was wearing almost four sets of clothing (if you include his underpants), Yoongi felt just as awkward and uncomfortable as if he was walking in public buck .

Yoongi knew he shouldn't do anything suspicious at that moment in time. An example for that is: suddenly stopping in the middle of the road to stare at the road with a confused frown on his face, as if he was trying to make sense of the existence of the dirt path they were standing on. THAT is suspicious.

"Is there anything wrong...?" 

Yoongi ignored another one of Namjoon's question as he walked to the dried up indentation on the road and picked up a very familiar piece of 'jewelery' (or at least the very loose interpretation of it) from the ground.

Maybe because of the rain, and the panic, and the confusion, and the bundle of wet fur plastered in his arms, Yoongi didn't notice the pressed silver charm dangling daintily on the tattered lace collar that just last evening he essentially threw away without care. A few scratch to clear the specks of dried mud off the polished surface revealed that a name was etched into the circular pendant. 

"Ji... eun?" Namjoon sounded terribly like a fish out of the water as he once again stuck his nose into Yoongi's personal dealings, "is that a cat collar?" 

"Don't you have any other milk to deliver?" For once Yoongi was quite tired of this lad snooping around that he let out a very obviously annoyed huff. And for some reason, it worked. Namjoon walked ahead of him with his crate on tow and took the left turn that led to his farm. The satisfied 'now I know everything' smile on his face told Yoongi that he succeeded in getting himself off the milk lad's hook. At least for now. 

"I'm done for today! Goodluck with your shop, though. You'll need to sell a lot of cabbages of you want to keep that cat of yours well fed." 

Yoongi nodded his head politely to that observation and only allowed himself to let out a thankful sigh once Namjoon disappeared under the overgrown walls of ivy. 

"Well... he wasn't entirely wrong." 

He does indeed need to sell more cabbages to keep another set of mouth well fed. Unfortunately for him, it wasn't as simple as a cat.

- - - - - 

Yoongi rushed to close his shop when the last of his eggs were bought. Even the sleeves of Mrs. Kwon's coat was almost caught by the metal grates as he unceremoniously banged it down against the wooden perimeter of his kiosk. 

His apologies to the annoyed grandma came in the form of faint echoes, as by the time he finished yelling his 'I'm sorry', he'd made it around the bend that leads to his cottage. 

Thankfully, it wasn't raining that afternoon. It seemed as if the sky's finished dumping her sadness at around lunch time and now she decided to just lounge around with a calming hue of purplish orange spread all across the horizon. 

It was trully a perfect backdrop for something magical.

As Yoongi quickly turned the lock on his door and rushed in with a panting huff, it took him a few seconds to realize the odd thing in his livingroom.

The girl was there, don't worry, she didn't run away or turned back to a cat or anything. 

What's weird was that she was sitting on the sofa. Sitting. Back straight, legs closed together, hands on her lap, prim and proper. If only she had yards of silk instead of a bulky towel draped across her shoulders, the enchanting rays of sunset lapping across her legs would've made her look like one of those ancient oil paintings of the royal family members. 

"Uhh... good afternoon...?" Yoongi timidly spoke, the unforeseen progression of his day catching him off guard. 

As if she didn't hear all the chaos of his entry to his own cottage, the girl, the lady, slowly turned her head so she could meet his confused gaze with hers that were filled to the brim with nothingness.

Nothing.

And that somehow terrified Yoongi to the core more so than his earlier fear of being caught by a nosy neighbor. A pair of empty eyes inside an automaton body that only 'acted' like how a human would. 

"May I... may I sit here?" He pointed at the empty spot beside her on the sofa and carefully plopped himself down to the plush cushion when the lady didn't show any sign of disagreement (to be fair, she also didn't give him any prompt that showed her agreement to this seating position, but to go somewhere else in life, sometimes you got to make a decision by yourself), afraid that any sudden movements would send her back to the feral state she previously showed. 

Although, compared to this ghostly shell, Yoongi wasn't sure which one he'd prefer more. 

Finally remembering the important tidbit that he'd so carefully shelf at the back of his mind, Yoongi began to fish around his pockets for a bit, momentarily panicking with the thought that he'd somehow dropped it somewhere in the great outside. He breathed a sigh of relief when he got ahold of the smooth silver pendant, "uh... is this, by any chance, yours?" 

He could see it, the momentary flash of life shining from within her when she saw the sterling circle resting on his open palm. But somehow, instinct told him to not let her have it. He didn't even know why he did the thing he did. The closest feeling he could compare it to, was the 'you know better than this' tingle when you were contemplating on eating that stale bread that'd been sitting at the corner of your counter top for three weeks. 

Truly sick to the stomach. 

When she picked her hand up from her lap and stretched it towards the pendant, Yoongi quickly closed his palm and placed it back to his pocket. 

"I-I'm sorry but I can't let you do that." 

The pout on her face was so jarring when put in contrast to her two dishes of emptiness, also known as her dead eyes. 

"I think it's better if we introduce ourself first? What do you think about that?" Yoongi chuckled nervously as he truly didn't know what else to do right then and there. He wiped the balminess of his palm across his trousers and ed a welcoming hand to the girl, who only stared at his face and completely ignored the friendly invitation for a handshake.

Somehow, Yoongi still got some tinge of initiative left in his veins and he carefully picked her right hand from her lap, placing it over his hand and giving it a soft squeeze. At least if she's nothing but a mindless automaton, a little teaching of manners would never hurt. 

"My name is Min Yoongi. Nice to meet you." With her limp fingers and limp arms and dead eyes staring straight into his soul, Yoongi managed to humor the pointless exchange and even accentuate it with a small up-and-down motion to make it at least a little less pathetic. 

"And well... if the pendant is indeed yours... then it's Jieun, isn't it?" 

What came about next could be most fairly described as a 'spring flower blooming'. Or an ink dropped to a jar of milk. 

Conscience, awareness, life itself bloomed from within her eyes like mysterious twinkles that would sometimes surface from inky blackness of a bottomless lake. 

Yoongi quickly noticed that he struck gold, literally. The circumference of her mismatched irises seemed to shimmer with something golden, flakes of life coming and going like tiny waves on the surface of said lake. 

Not willing to waste such important milestone in finding out the mystery of this strange lady, Yoongi perked up with enthusiasm and grasped her hand in a firmer hold, "Jieun, yes?"

Her previously limp fingers were no longer so. With them curling around his palm, finally reciprocating his handshake, and the smile growing along the length of her lips, Yoongi was more than content with the progress and wouldn't mind in calling it a day. 

Which was why he was caught off guard when she parted those lips and answered his question with a simple yet certain confirmation that no automaton, no matter how advanced, could've made.

Her voice sounded like someone just awakened her from a long slumber, 

"Yes."

A/N: yO FINALLY SHE'S AWOKEN
tbh what's this weird drabblish thing anymore
I enjoyed writing it tho LOL