“Can you tell me about it?”

Glancing at you, Jinyoung sighed. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything,” you urged, leaning forward in earnest. It made him hesitant with your eagerness, considering what you were asking of wasn’t something to get that animated over. You acknowledged the evident unease Jinyoung was experiencing and gently reached for his hand, curbing some of your enthusiasm. “I’m sorry; I wasn’t trying to act as if you were a circus creature. I just… I want to understand more so I can better be there for you.”

“You do enough,” he whispered, gnawing on his bottom lip as he contemplated his life story. You had already told him of yours. As the daughter of the head patron of this township, you hadn’t faced a whole lot of troubling times in the short years you had on this earth thus far. You had been sheltered, fed daily, clothed decently and never felt the harshness of winter within your bones like he had. Further, you had been loved – a concept Jinyoung still couldn’t quite fathom.

“Still,” you persisted, patting his forearm softly, soothing him and loosening off some of his control. “I have been far too privileged in this life. I want to understand the life you have lived so I never do anything to upset you.”

“Bitterness is bound to happen between two very different people, Y/N.”

“So can support and comfort. Let me be there for you, hm?”

He swallowed roughly, nodding as tears formed in his eyes. “I don’t remember much of when I was younger. I never had parents or a home. I don’t know who helped me survive until I was big enough to get by but when was a bit older I remember being found in the woods and dragged to a village. I was hungry so I followed for food…”

“But it was a camp for the Forsaken, right?”

Jinyoung nodded grimly. “If you don’t have anything in life, they give you this and take you as their own.”

Lifting his sleeve away on his right arm, he showed the numbered tattoo scored permanently into his skin. You it tentatively and he shuddered with your touch. Smiling softly, you undid the leather band around your wrist and slipped it over his, hiding the numbers effectively. You then smiled up at him. “I know I can’t remove it for good, but you don’t need to worry about that anymore. You’re safe here with me.”

Jinyoung smiled sadly. If only he could truly believe that.

For a moment, Jinyoung wondered if you had ever truly understood what he was back then. For you, he was just a friend, a lover, a special person you had seen under the warm light that was your world. It didn’t seem to matter how often he would remind you he wasn’t the same as you were, you still didn’t seem to understand who he was.

Born as a Forsaken, the tattoo on his arm would never stop bleeding into his soul despite your efforts to erase it.

Still, for Jinyoung, your treatment of who he was always made him desperate for more of it. He lapped you up with an insatiable hunger, greedy for more of your light to brighten his darkness. The longer he spent around you had made him almost believe his hardships were over. At your side, he only experienced happiness and acceptance.

Maybe that’s why it hadn’t taken him long to race after you, yearning for those emotions once again.

He knew what path you had taken without seeing you move that way, the years spent lurking in the dark making Jinyoung an excellent hunter. Travelling towards the forest as fast as he could, dread filled him. The nightshift would have begun and Mark was assigned this area tonight. He was a first-rate archer, and he hadn’t missed a target in the ten years Jinyoung had spent with him. Pushing himself to move faster, he breathed in relief when he saw you dashing through the forest like a deer. You were too free, not truly understanding how deadly this world could be for someone as dainty as you were. And as he predicted, he saw Mark up ahead, the man reaching for his weapon to harm his prey. Jinyoung dove towards you, grabbing you and spinning you away from the arrowhead that now pierced firmly into the tree trunk he had soared by. The force hurtled you both into a neighbouring tree and he let off a signal whistle of their battalion, watching as Mark lowered his next arrow and retreated into the shadows.

Jinyoung then turned back to you, your eyelids clamped together in fear. He sighed, knowing full well you weren’t ready for death. Someone who feared the end never wanted to take their last breath early. Slowly, your eyes opened and you stared up at him in surprise, your hands reaching for the front of his shirt and anchoring yourself there.

Why did this action always make his heart beat erratically over you? In the face of death or with the anticipation of his lips upon yours, you had always gripped onto him like this.

It made Jinyoung desperate to keep you there, casting reality to the side. “I’ll follow you to nowhere, so don’t try and leave me yet.”

Soul searching, you stared back at him for an immeasurable moment before slumping into his arms, burying your head in his chest. He held his breath,