Min Yoongi wanted to will it all to be a dream. Or a filming for a soap opera; albeit with a really bad plot, but at least something in the fictional realms. He could handle that at least.

But this? The I have met the reincarnation of my wife, and she looks and smells like the exact one even if there seems to be two of them but I just know, and this is something you can’t just shove to me when I’ve nearly got my soul out just a few hours before kind of ? He didn’t sign up for this. ( you, life.)

So, yeah. There he is now, feeling like he’s just been walked on by ing stilettoes all over, and the numb feeling from submerging his body in sub-zero degrees of water is slowly fading. He’s wrapped in multiple comforters like a human burrito, and he can practically feel his body becoming one with the comfort of the bed. And in front of him, sitting at the foot of his bed, is a sleeping woman who looks too alike with his dead wife. And smelled a lot like a field of violets.

She’s even got the same placement of the mole and everything. The only thing that’s different is that the tips of her long hair is dyed in a mint green; other than that, he might as well be back to the time when life was much simpler and the Hunters didn’t try to with them.

How does he handle this? And who is she?

There was this some sort of panic that was building up inside of him. He didn’t know if it was panic over the thought that this might be the time where the Tree is probably saying, Yeah. He should be die. He’s way too overdue; or maybe if it was panic on not knowing what to do or say to a person who looks too much like his wife. But even with that panic inside him, he feels strangely calm on the outside.

(Maybe it’s with the fact that he nearly got his soul out of him a few hours ago, and he just wants to ing sleep.)

(And so, he does.)

 

~

 

He could feel laser beam vision being focused on him, through the closed lids of his eyes. It didn’t burn him or anything, but it bothered him a lot. Aside from that, he felt like he was lying on a field of violets. The scent of his wife. The only thing that calmed him down.

But the stare was relentless.

“Whoever you are,” he says with a horrible grumble and rasp in his voice, satoori seeping in, “please say whatever the ’s on your mind and don’t ogle at me like a display in a museum.”

There was a startled whimper from the other, and a short, quick sound of a chair scraping the floor. “Sorry,” a woman replies, almost in a whisper that Yoongi can barely hear it.

Yoongi sighs, and opts to open his eyes. He’s gotta wake up one way or another, anyway. There is a flood of bright yellow light from the window above his head, painting the white ceiling with a pale, warm yellow. He looks around him, and freezes at the sight in front of him.

“Are you OK, now?” the not-his-wife asks, pursing her lips. She pushes back a strand of her hair behind her ear, a helix piercing glinting as it hit the light. The not-his-wife stands up and places a warm hand atop his forehead. He’s suddenly washed over by violets. “Eun Hee didn’t say anything about you not wearing appropriate clothing for running away in a cold night, so you were running a fever when we got you back in Jimin’s house. Are you OK, now?” she repeats her question.

(Eun Hee? Is that her twin?)

Yoongi doesn’t answer her question, and she starts to look uncomfortable with the intense stare he’s following her movements with. She eventually lifts her head and deems that he doesn’t have fever anymore and that she should call her sister to be even surer about it, then leaves the room in a blink. Yoongi feels as though the skin where she’s touched him was burning, and he could hear the deafening sound of his heartbeat echo in the silence of the room.

(If that Eun Hee is her ing doppelgänger — ing —)

A few moments later, the not-his-wife is back . . . along with another version of her, minus the facial mole and the mint tips. (Yoongi would really much like to talk to the master of the universe and why they wanted to with his life like this so badly.) She has short black hair, though, with blunt bangs and a dragon snaking up her earlobe as a helix piercing. Yoongi then remembers that this is the same girl from the night before, where it prompted him to freak out and run away.

Now that they’re side to side, they don’t look that alike anymore. Nor smell the same; the other one has a smell of sweet cinnamon.

The short-haired one walks calmly to Yoongi’s side and pauses there, her sister(?) right behind her. She then reaches a hand out over him and floats it over him from head to toe, like a human scanning machine.

“Did I scare you that badly the other night, Min Yoongi-ssi?” she asked, trying not to break into an amused grin. “You suddenly disappeared when I got back to check on you.”

Yoongi doesn’t say anything and instead eyes her hand that’s hovering over him.

“You’re lucky my twin sister—” (sister, then) “— isn’t busy with one of her projects and was around to help us look for you,” she continued to speak, possibly ignoring the glare Yoongi is doing at her hand. She lets out a huge breath and brings down her hand. “Well, it seems like you’re fine now. Your temperature is back to normal. Your heart seems fine. No more fever. And, right,” she added, bowing her head slightly, “Choi Eun Hee, at your service. The pack’s Healer.”

Yoongi bows back at her and in an even more upbeat voice, she grabs her twin sister’s shoulders and almost shoves her to stand in front of him this time.

“This is my twin, Choi Eun Hye —”

“Eun Hye?” Yoongi feels as if there’s a thorn stuck in his throat.

The mint-tipped girl blinks. “Um,” she says hesitantly. “Hi?”

Great. What are the ing odds? Yoongi would really like to get an appointment with the master of the universe. Or the Tree. Maybe he should’ve let the Tree burn a few more spots that time, if this was what it was going to give him. ing hell.

(He suddenly remembers the gentle brush of her hand against his forehead and he feels like he’s the one getting burnt alive. He tries to shake it off.) (And he fails, of course.)

Yoongi swallows hard, opting to ignore the awkward greeting and chooses to talk to the short-haired one. “What’s the date?” he asked, willing himself to think of that thesis he has to finish and not about warm hands and a mole near her eye.

“December 10,” Eun Hee replied. “It’s a Saturday, so you have nothing to worry about.”

He nods his head slowly. “Am I allowed to go now? I have things to do.”

(Like get his head straight from all the punches the master of the universe is pulling at him. It’s giving him a ing migraine, and he’s just recovered from nearly dying from hypothermia.)

Eun Hee shakes her head, crossing her arms. “You can’t, unfortunately,” she said. “Aside from the fact that Jimin wouldn’t allow it, you need to at least stay here one more day to make sure the Virtual Nightmares have been drained out.” She pursed her lips, and then let out a sigh, bringing down her arms at her sides. “Better if you rest for now.”

Well, Yoongi thought as he muttered an, “OK” at her. That was a given.

The twins leave the room, the mint-tipped one giving him a brief questioning look — that Yoongi couldn’t exactly decipher what for — before she eventually followed her sister.

(He would really like to have that appointment now.)

 

~

 

As soon as Sunday came around and Eun Hee raised the OK signal for him to be out of bed, Yoongi thanks Jimin and leaves his house in a rush. (But he doesn’t see Eun Hye anywhere when he leaves.)

 

~

 

Yoongi quickly figures out that Choi Eun Hye is a Fine Arts student in her sophomore year.

He smells her familiar scent first before he sees her at the Anthropology Museum of the school, sketching one of the bone displays in a small notebook with a graphite pencil. Her hair is brought in a messy bunny, showing off her neck and the helix piercing that’s glinting in one of the lights for the display.

Yoongi looks away and focuses on their Anthropology teacher talking about one of the early living societies in Asia.

(He tries to focus. And he fails immensely.)

 

~

 

It seems as though the master of the universe went deaf from Yoongi’s requests and did the thing again.

See, he doesn’t have any problem with the project or whatever; he doesn’t have problem with the fact that it should be done over the Christmas break because he doesn’t even have much to do; but the one thing that’s giving him headaches (and probably chest aches) is the fact that he has to work on it with her.

He’s probably (obviously) being dramatic, but he just doesn’t to be reminded so much of the past that he’s trying to put past behind him. Choi Eun Hye probably isn’t even really a lot like his wife, the poor girl — it’s just that Yoongi doesn’t want to get flashbacks of the life he used to live before it all got ed up.

But with the small pout and hopeful eyes he’s going up against, he’s teetering on the edge of giving in. (It’s unfair really how she looks so much like her, and the way she acts slams him to flashbacks.)

“Will you, Min Yoongi-ssi?” she asked in a small voice, fidgeting with a few strands of her mint tips. “I mean, you can decline if you want — I won’t force you — it’s just that I’d really appreciate a much professional and technical view on this prompt and —”

And she was starting to ramble. “OK, OK,” Yoongi gives in, feeling as though his heart just went from the highest peak of the rollercoaster and went to a drop. “I’ll help you.”

Choi Eun Hye lights up like a Christmas tree. (Jesus Christ. This girl.) “Really, you will?”

Yoongi nods his head, waving a hand of dismissal even though inside his brain, it was like that one episode in Spongebob where everything is on fire and tiny versions of him are either running while screaming their heads off, or sitting with knees pressed against their chest and rocking on their office chairs.

“That’s great!” she exclaims, clapping her hands. “Thank you so much, Min Yoongi-ssi! Thank you!”

And as she waves her hand bye (and Yoongi returning it like the nice person that he is) then sits with the rest of her other friends in their booth in the café, Yoongi begins to mull over why he is such a weak person. He faces his countless open books on Architecture, and then lands his face on it, grunting.

(Even from his seat, he could still see her helix piercing glint from the lighting of the café.)

 

~

 

Kim Sarang is one of Yoongi’s only friends (probably his only friend) in this time. She’s Fine Arts freshmen, and can be spotted easily in a crowd because of her curly hair that has an ever-changing color every semester, along with her signature long grey cardigan that often gets her sudden calls of, “Wingardium Leviosa!” (The joke died after the third time.) She smelled like clean linen.

And it also turns out that she’s currently roommates with Choi Eun Hye.

“You’re the infamous Min Yoongi that’s helping her with her new prompt?” she repeats, her eyebrows raised.

“Are there any other Min Yoongis you know of?” he muttered under his breath, sipping on his hot Americano.

“Well you’re certainly not the only Min Yoongi in this university,” she said, gesturing at him with a half-eaten cookie. “Remember that dude last semester?”

“Stop bringing that back,” Yoongi grumbled, scrunching his nose as he looks back down at his notes.

“Man, you’ve got to admit it’s funny,” Sarang continues, ignoring what Yoongi just said. “Dude successfully got a copy of one of your instrumental demos but didn’t even take time to edit it and take out the part where your voice got included and you were cursing —”

“Sarang —”

“— man, I didn’t know there that many curse words possible in both English and Korean —”

“Sarang.”

“Yes, love?” she says the last word in English, comically fluttering her eyes as if to flirt with him.

“ing brat.”

“Love you too, oppa,” she ing giggles, finishing the rest of the cookie in her hand.

(Has Yoongi mentioned that she can be a total piece of ?)

“Anyways,” Sarang says, completely brushing off the last topic like it was nothing, “Eun Hye? You’re completely smitten with her? Make sure you don’t forget to text her once in a while to give her a sign you’re alive. Treat her and like that. She likes being doted on.”

Yoongi glares at her. “I only said yes to helping her finish her project, Sarang; not her hand in marriage.”

Sarang gives him a wink, drinking her glass of water. After finishing the entire glass, she exclaims, “God, I ing love water.” She turns to him and adds, “You might have already.”

Yoongi’s mind turns blank at the latter words. “What.”

She shrugs.

(And that’s the thing about Kim Sarang; Yoongi hasn’t told her about him being the basics of a vampire — undead, isn’t fully human and is immortal — and anything about his past, but she oftentimes leaves questionable comments like these that make her seem as though she knows more than she looks.)

(Truthfully, he wouldn’t be surprised if she does. She’s Kim Sarang; she’s always been part-enigma.)

 

~

 

It turns out that Choi Eun Hye is actually easy to work with. Conversation is easy and their ideas barely clash. Working in the library, they start at about 8AM and finished at 14-something-PM. With grumbling stomachs, Eun Hye keeps everything and carefully rolls her final work in a Stadler container Yoongi let her borrow, and they clean up their work place.

“L-Let me treat you to lunch, Yoongi-ssi,” Eun Hye says as they both head towards the library exit. “It’s the least I could do for you for helping me with this project.” And then she gives him a smile that could melt the snow outside and could probably rival the sun on summer. (Yoongi almost trips on nothing.)

So that’s how Yoongi finds himself eating convenience store triangular kimbap and cup noodles with Choi Eun Hye. She’s tapping her feet along to the faint music in the 7/11 Store beside him at the counter, murmuring the lyrics to an RnB song as she unwraps another kimbap. Yoongi can see her hands slightly shake. (Maybe it’s not just him, then?)

“I’m really, really sorry,” she apologized earlier as they headed for the convenience store. “This is the most my allowance can take right now. The first prompt still drained me out.”

“It’s fine.” It’s not any different from Yoongi’s take outs and often times two-packed ramyeon nights. Sure, he’s got like, probably (obviously) a -ton of money (you know, from being alive for so long and managing to pick up some businesses), and could probably have five-star meals every single meal time — but there’s fulfillment with excessive sodium and grease; also, honestly, he wants to keep that college student aesthetic alive.

“So — uh, I don’t want you to think as though I’m intruding,” Eun Hye speaks up, in a timid voice, “but I just want to ask? Um, why did you suddenly run away when Eun Hee healed you?” Yoongi freezes in his seat. “Didn’t you know anything about her being part of Jimin-ssi’s pack?”

Yoongi doesn’t look at her as he replied, “It’s been a long time since I checked up on the packs my family has been making, if they ever decided to make one. Your sister . . . surprised me, that’s all.”

“Hmm.” She doesn’t sound or look convinced convinced by his answer. “It’s just that . . . you looked like you were looking at someone you didn’t want to see again.”

Oh, I’d definitely want to see my wife again, Choi Eun Hye-ssi, Yoongi thought as he took a bite out of the kimbap he’s holding. Just not in this kind of circumstance.

“You both look like someone I once knew,” he answers cryptically, still not looking at her. Especially you, he added in his mind.

“Oh.” Short silence. “Was she — was she a terrible person?”

“Who?”

“Um, the person we reminded you of?”

What the ? He finally looked at her with a frown. “What made you think that?”

“Uh — y-you both looked at us as though you were scared,” she stammered, quickly explaining herself. “I-I thought that she might have done something — I don’t know — b-bad or something. I’m sorry if I offended you.”

Yoongi deflated a bit after that. Right. Of course. Everyone doesn’t have a copy of his life story. “I should be the one saying sorry; I reacted too quickly,” he said, looking back at his half-finished kimbap. “And — no; she wasn’t a terrible person. She was good. The greatest.” She was the best.

Eun Hye looked confused. “But why did you look scared?”

He smirked, but he was feeling no amusement or whatsoever; instead, it felt as though something inside Yoongi’s chest — a wound that’s long over healed and left a faint scar, was giving him phantom pain. “Let’s just say that there are some things that I don’t want to repeat.”

This is all going to end the same way you died.

Yoongi closes his eyes and clenches his jaw. If his hunches are right . . . . He didn’t want them to be.

He turns to look at her, and catches her staring at him. She immediately looks away, letting her long hair curtain her face that’s flushed red. Yoongi can’t stop himself from sm