“Seokjin!”

For a moment I felt my lungs burn, but as quickly as I had felt the sensation – everything went numb.

“No, let go of him! Take me instead! Take me back instead!” I screamed, thrashing against both predator’s grips on my arms.

What happened after that felt like a lie. I had never wanted to be separated from the only person I had loved in this world.

They’d have to kill me first, is what I had always thought.

But one quickly realizes how useless and powerless they truly are in those moments.

“Yuri! Yuri, please! I need you to calm down, you’re scaring me!” Jimin pleaded as his hands hovered over me, knowing that I probably wanted nothing to do with him. And he was right. His kind took everything that I loved away from me. I stood up as the anger shook my frame, Jimin slowly getting up himself from his crouching position on the ground.

“You want me to ing calm down!?” I stared at him with fire now burning in my eyes, hoping that they’d pierce right through his. “Your ilk took everything away from me and you want me to calm down?!” I inched closer, not caring about the distance or about what could happen to me. All I could feel at that moment was blinding rage. “You have no right to tell me !”

Jimin flinched and looked down at the ground, effectively leaving me speechless. Watching such an expression come over his features made all the anger I felt dissipate in an instant. The urge I had to comfort him overwhelmed me and it shocked me how he had such an effect on me, but I refused to give into these feelings for him. They’d have to be erased. I had to fight them off because he couldn’t be trusted.

“All this time, you were gaining my trust and for what? Are you going to turn me into the government now?” I said as fresh tears threatened to swell over, the hurt in my voice evident. Truthfully, I was more upset with myself than anything else. I had let myself get too comfortable around Jimin. I had even started to trust him. How could I have been so stupid?

I had always been wary of people, but he came into my life and immediately began breaking down the walls I had built. How could I have let that happen? How foolish of me to believe I could trust Jimin with a secret like mine… And now that he knew what I was, what would become of me?

“You make me sick, turning on your own people like that,” I ended, my voice cracking a fraction. I turned away from him, already looking for the quickest exit. There was no way in hell I’d wait for him to turn me in. But just as I began to head for the kitchen window, I heard him.

“Run faster, Yuri! I need you to run faster because then they can’t get to you. I won’t let them!”

What horrible timing.

But then again, our timing was never the best.

Tears immediately resumed running down my face as I held onto the glass wall next to me for support. These vivid memories that I had blocked out purposely for years are now too much to bear. It was as if he were right there in front of me, a bright smile on display as he dared me to catch up to him. I could feel my chest caving in more and more as the flashbacks continued to come across my vision. It felt like I was dying for the second time in my life and the bullet I took for Jimin didn't count. That hurt far, far less than this.

“Please, whatever happens,”

“Stop,” I whispered to myself, putting my left hand on top of my eyes as if that would shut off everything.

“Survive. Live your life. You deserve to be happy.”

“I was happy,” I murmured as I slid down the glass wall in hysterics, so lost in the memory that I didn’t realize Jimin was watching me the whole time.

“And know that I love you. I have always loved you.”

“I’m not strong enough this time, Jin,” I mumbled shakily into my tear-soaked hands.

I’m not, I’m not, I’m not.

It wasn’t enough to miss him or have these memories of him. My brain remembered the scent of his skin so vividly, it drove me crazy. It also remembered how unique and dorky his laugh was. How his fingers weren’t exactly perfect, but they intrigued me, or how his eyes were so blindingly icy white it took my breath away. After all this time, I still remembered every single little detail of his.

And I hated it.

Because these memories were torturous and cruel. They kept me up at night when all I had ever wished for since that night was peace in my heart. How futile that thought had been… But it was the only thing that made me believe I’d see him again one day.

“Just let me be with you, Jin.”

I closed my eyes for a second when I suddenly felt a warmth spread around me and I wondered for a minute if it was him, giving me a sign that everything was going to be okay. But then I heard Jimin whisper ever so gently, “Who’s Seokjin?”

My eyes flew open at the sound of his voice and I backed up into the wall even more, if that was even possible. He continued to hold his hands up in surrender, crossed legged on the floor across from me now. I looked down at myself, barely registering the thin blanket that had been draped over me. “What is this?” I swiftly hardened my demeanor.

“Look,” He began hoarsely, “I won’t deny that what I did was lowly. I was a horrible person with ambitions I didn’t understand the consequences of.” He peeked up at me from under his eyelashes tentatively, then moved his right hand to the ring adorning his left index finger. Was he doing that on purpose?

“But I promise you, that’s in the past,” He said, making eye contact with me. I tried my best to stay calm and not flinch, gripping the blanket in between my fingers tightly. “I’m not going to turn you in. You’re safe here.” He uttered the words slowly as if that would help convince me of his sincerity. Unfortunately for him, I didn’t need any sort of convincing.

“I don’t believe a word you say anymore.” I stood up and made a run for the window again when I felt a sensation on my wrist that pulled me back instantaneously. “Where are you gonna go, Yuri?! The predators are looking for us both!” He spun me around, never using more force than necessary. I felt my heart pounding in my ears now, dizzying me the slightest bit. This body of mine reacted to his touch before I could even think, and it was starting to irritate me. “I can’t let you leave, just for you to get caught by one of them! Pleas-”

“Let me go, Jimin!” I yelled, just as a flashback popped into my mind for the second time.

“They can’t get to you. I won’t let them!”

The wording couldn’t have been more different, so why? Why, why, why? In fact, I was tired of always asking why. I’d had enough.

All I wanted was for this pain to end.

“I don’t ing care if I get caught anymore!” I shouted. “I don’t care if they catch me because they can’t kill me!” I struggled against his grip on my arms. It was useless, wasn’t it? Futile, that I wanted to survive because Jin told me I should. If I didn’t care anymore, why was I still fighting?

I slowed down and stopped my thrashing, the only thing left being my heavy breathing as I stood. “God, how I wish they had killed me.” It had been a long time since I had felt what I was feeling now, at least to this extent. The numbness that I had felt when he was taken away from me.

My eyes widened at her words. That couldn’t be true. “Yuri, you don’t mean that…” The breath caught in my throat, nearly choking me up. I stared at her and could only see an unfathomable amount of pain and the only thing I could think of was wanting to take it all away from her.

It was possible for me, after all.

“I do!” She screeched back, raspy from all the yelling. I inhaled a deep breath and tried to concentrate on her pain, attempting to locate it. A blur of pitch black darkness appeared on her head and I exhaled my breath. Her caligo was a formidable size, much larger than what I had been trained to undertake. “I just want to be with him!” Yuri cried.

I was standing there, frozen in place, watching her break down in front of me.

I had held back so many times before because I knew she had her reservations about me. I knew she didn’t care for me in the way that I had grown to care about her in the short time we had known each other. I knew that. But watching her be in so much pain was the breaking point for me. Scared of how she would react and o