Her feet stumbled and she almost fell when Jimin pushed her into her room. “What is the matter with you?” she asked.

“Where were you?” Jimin asked in a hushed whisper. “You were late to your practice, I heard.”

Jimin briefly narrowed his eyes to look closely at the little cut on her cheek, only furrowing his brows slightly and questioned her nothing as he slid his thumb over it. Without touching the skin, she could practically feel how the cut had gone and she was healed. Only short seconds passed. She wished she could do that.

“I wasn’t that late. They hadn’t yet started when I arrived.” Chaeyoung told him, trying to sound calm.

Her heart hadn’t been able to stay calm after that kiss with Jungkook. Her mind had been distracted for the entire time she was at her practice, all the time lingering about the memory of Jungkook’s lips on hers. Tender, soft and gentle. Warm and soothing like an evening tea. It felt full. It felt meaningful.

“Is that why you are here? Just to ask me why I was late?” she asked, slightly worried on how she was to explain to her brother what had caused her to be late. Lying to him wasn’t necessary when he could notice that it was a lie from miles away. But then, sharing a kiss with someone of the Defense Sector wasn’t a good excuse for her unpunctuality either.

“No.” Jimin turned his head around and locked the door. “Listen. I overheard Father and Mother discussing earlier,” he said when he went to sit beside her. “They are going to tell you something very soon. It will be soon. That I am sure.”

“Tell me about what?”

“Today’s practice will be the last practice,” Jimin said, his tone serious. From the look of his eyes, she knew he wasn’t fooling around.

“What does that mean?” she asked with eyes narrowed, feeling her heart stopped beating for one moment.

Jimin looked down at his lap briefly and with a heavy sigh, he looked straight into her eyes. “They found you a husband. A Healer.”

“What?” she breathed. “No, no, no,” she shook her head. “They can’t do that to me. I’m –I’m almost there! I am almost there, Jimin. I can almost cure a wound in one attempt. I am only left with making the scar totally disappear, I swear.”

Her eyes began to shake, tears dropped, damping her cheeks.

Jimin looked around her room, rummaged through her things before he went out and came back with a knife. He sat beside her in hurry and Chaeyoung’s eyes widened when Jimin looked her dead in the eye. “What are you doing?”

He said nothing. His gaze dropped to his arm and before Chaeyoung could think of saying anything, Jimin gritted his teeth and stabbed his forearm, dragged the knife until it almost met his wrist before he pulled it out with a louder groan and watered eyes. He breathed heavily, teeth gritting, and the pale skin of his face reddened.

Chaeyoung gasped in shock, panic arising and her tears rolled down wildly. “Have you lost your mind?!”

“Now, heal me.”

“What?”

“Heal me!” he hissed. “We are going to prove to Father that you are not a hopeless Healer.”

Chaeyoung couldn’t breathe calmly and it was affecting her. She couldn’t see her brother hurt like that. Her eyes wouldn’t stop letting the water escape and she wiped them off roughly.

“Calm down,” Jimin said. “Please calm down.”

“What if I can’t heal you?” She shut her eyes tight briefly and more tears poured down. “You are an idiot, Jimin!”

Jimin reassured her with his smile through his own tears trying to suppress the awful pain. “You can. Now, do it. Confidence must live. Hesitance –”

“Must die,” she continued and exhaled loudly.

“Remember what I told you. Don’t let your failure control your mind,” he reminded her. “What do you want to do now?”

Chaeyoung looked at the blood staining her brother’s clothes, dripping down his skin and some dropped on the floor and on the edge of the bed. “I want to heal you.”

“Yes. You want to heal me. That’s the most important thing you want and need to do. Heal me. Now, are you thinking of your failures already?”

He was correct. Her mind was a crowded space. She thought of what everyone said about her. She thought of every single time she healed a person she ended up doing it halfway. She imagined Jimin’s arm having a large visible scar despite not feeling the pain.

“Get rid of them. Think of why you want to do it. Think only of that,” Jimin instructed. “If you do not do as I say, you will only able to imagine that you are in your mind. But you will not be there. Because your mind is crammed, there will be no space for you in your mind.”

Chaeyoung nodded.

I want to heal my brother. I want to heal my brother. I want to heal my brother.

Chaeyoung placed her hands on her brother’s bloodied arm. She felt the warm liquid wetting her skin. Her eyes shook with fear. In all the practices, all the patients she had, none of them ever had a wound so fresh the blood still warm. Jungkook’s wounds, too, albeit the appearance and the feeling they gave. They looked and felt new, but they weren’t. The same was with Taehyung’s. His arm was full of huge cuts here and there that revealed his bone, lo