there's a secret in this place
closeness is like a mask-like gimmick

The treeline speed past, the green and brown blurring into each other as we drove past at an alarming speed. Everything looked dark and shaded all around, the only source of illumination being the headlights of Taehyung's GTR.

He drove in the rash, familiar way I remembered from the first time racing with him, my knuckles white against my grip and his tight-fisted hands gripping the wheel recklessly, the grin on his face as wild and free as a creature of the wind. But this time, his grin was gone, faded into the background like the trees and the road.

The car pulled into a neighbourhood after what seemed like hours, a nondescript, muted place that was as dull as Taehyung was bright. The houses were all the same—gray, squat, lined along both sides with the unfamiliarity of complexes where normal people lived, people who didn't associate with criminals and weren't running from something that had already outrun them.

He pulled the car into the driveway of one of the houses, the same as all the others, into the garage yawning in front of us. It was like going into the mouth of a beast, with its gaping black maw and the certainty of finding something I didn't want to find.

"Come on," He said, his first words since he picked me up from Taeyong's car. I bit my lip, following, but my heart beat in the same uncontrollable way as it had minutes, or hours, or seconds ago, with fear and worry and pain.

The garage's door slid down slowly behind us, soundlessly, cutting off the minimal light from the other houses' parted curtains and night-lights. I blinked hard, blinded momentarily, hesitating on my feet, then Taehyung's hand was at my elbow. Not exactly touching it, but brushing it slightly, guiding, warm as the blood that rushed in his veins.

Though I couldn't see much, I heard the usual creak of a door being pushed open as I tried to balance my senses in the darkness, then I was ushered into a smaller, warmer space, and the door closed behind me.

Thousands of words seemed stuck in my throat, so many thoughts, so many questions, but I was afraid that if I spoke, all that would come out would be a scream.

Taehyung's hands found my arms again, fluttering next to my skin, not making much contact. Every touch seemed weak, lacking his usual strength, and when he finally and reluctantly pulled away, the light switched back on.

It was blinding; I raised my hands over my eyes, squinting against the brightness of it like so many suns. The movement reminded me of when I'd done that in the car, thinking that the windshield was going to break.

"Just a moment," Taehyung spoke, his thready voice breathing right next to my ear. Something was off about the way he said it, like he was in pain and the sleeper hadn't started to take effect.

I lowered my arms, blinking against the light with watery eyes. The room was definitely built like a kitchen, but it seemed too orderly and neat, too un-lived in. The cleanness of the beige and gray was unnatural.

Of course. The safe house.

No one could suspect this place to house runaways or criminals, not with a quiet neighborhood like that. I was scoffing lightly to myself, taking in the simple ingenuity of the idea, when he took in a ragged breath.

He was leaning against the counter, face scrunched up in slight pain, as if he was unable to support himself. My eyes widened as I took a step towards him, not sure what I was supposed to do. "Taehyung—"

"Don't worry about it." He waved me off, straightening with some difficulty as he gestured towards a door. "We're staying here for the night."

I pursed my lips, but obeyed. The next room was slightly bigger than the kitchen, but it was completely bare, save for a lone window and a small cabinet.

"No lights," Taehyung said from behind me, moving past me with a strange urgency and parting the curtains just a crack. "We can't have lights."

He shut off the singular tubelight from the kitchen. My eyes adjusted faster this time, the moonlight filtering through the glass cast a thin white strip along the floor. Taehyung moved into the space, handing me a roll of cotton and a box.

"Clean me up."

I stood, stumped, as he stood a few feet ahead, the darkness almost swallowing him whole. The fear had pushed itself to the back of my mind now, still very much present but not wholly influencing my actions.

Taehyung shed his jacket before I could realise what he was doing. The white t-shirt came next—dropping onto the floor softly.

My voice caught in my throat. Only part of his back was visible in the moon's dull glow, the curve of a shoulder blade, the slope of a well-muscled shoulder. Black ink swirled around part of his back, just over the back of his right shoulder, like a starbust. My brow furrowed as a memory tried to tug at my brain, like fish hooks and sharks—and as I noticed it, the world seemed to stop spinning.

How is it? The voice was comfortable, fading at the back of my mind, the softness and sharpness of it. The perfection and balance.

It's beautiful. Scary, even.

"Y/N," Taehyung said, lightly touching his upper left arm. "I'm not asking you to do anything else, it's alright if the blood makes you uncomfortable..."

I blinked, hard, once and multiple times, and dropped the roll of cotton, taking a couple of steps towards him, as if in a trance. The tattoo was starting to become clearer as I made my way towards it, the black lines of it over his pale skin, curling around the edge of his ribcage and just over the top of his neck. My breath hitched in my throat, but it was as if I couldn't stop moving, like there was something magnetic pulling me towards him with a mammoth force.

It was supposed to be... Do you know why I don't show this to people?

Veins and muscles overlapped each other under the art, building his broad back and thin waist. He was beautiful, and he shivered as my fingertips came in contact with the ink, with his skin, exhaling a little in a puff of hot breath. I swallowed, laying my hands flat against his back, feeling the light bump of white scars and black tattoo on him, on all of him, on all of me.

Why a wolf, though?

His head tipped back, just slightly, the bare light touching the base of his throat and a sliver of his closed eyes, the sweep of his eyelashes casting a long shadow against his cheek.

Not me, them. Hands on my cheek, my neck, the warmth of his gaze and the coolness of his gaze. Them, because they will never let us be. Them, because they made me who I am, bent me and tore at me. The wolves.

The wolves.

"Y/N?" Taehyung's voice broke through, a chuckle in his tone but with a nervous touch to it. "I like what you're doing, but I'm not sure where you're going with this."

I stared at his back, then, snapping into the present, dropping my hands from his tattoo and taking a step back. "Nothing. I just—"

"Don't freak out, it's nothing." His tone was reassuring as he lightly touched his other arm. "Now, could you...?"

My eyes moved to his arm, and widened. It was matted with blood, earlier having been camouflaged in the darkness. Not too much, but enough, enough to tell me it had been grazed by something, though I wasn't sure what.

"How did that happen?" I asked him, worry coloring my voice as I hastily picked up the box. He just shook his head, wincing as the wound throbbed and fresh blood seeped into the drier red-brown patch.

"Not important," He said, gritting his teeth as I cleaned the injury to the best of my ability, hands shaking. I had never been the best medic. "They won't find us here, and the others will take care of the rest...there aren't enough supplies here, I mean, if you're hungry there's something, but relatively less for this kind of emergency."

I nodded before realising he couldn't see me, and turned the bloodied cotton over in my hands. The wound wasn't that bad, and I didn't know much first aid—always having left it to the others—but I knew it would have to be wrapped up.

"Distinfect it first." He breathed. "Went through dirty cloth, there should be rubbing alcohol or something in the kit—wrap it up later."

I swallowed, a million thoughts running through my head. The wound was beginning to look painfully familiar, and there were enough doubts in my mind whether or not it was caused by a gunshot. And if he had driven all the way here despite the injury—my stomach turned.

Taehyung didn't make a sound as I rolled thin gauze around it, after cleaning up as much as I could. There were moments when he winced, but he held on even when I fumbled. The dark didn't make the best working conditions.

"That's enough," He said a moment later, gently separating his arm from my hold, turning to face me. The fringe of his dark brown hair was matted to his forehead with sweat, and his chest heaved with heavy breaths, probably holding in a scream. I dropped my gaze, embarrassed at my lack of medical skill, but he didn't seem to care much about my thoughts at that time.

"How..." My question trailed off, and I shook my head, swallowing back the taste of bile and salt. "What happened back there?"

His face was ashen.

"Nothing you want to know about," He said, then paused. "At least, not just yet."

I bit my lip, studying the bloody spot on the white gauze covering his biceps with trepidation. A closer aim, and it might have hit his shoulder, where the subclavian artery—

"Don't go into shock, all right?" There was a teasing edge to his tone that, for some reason, set me at ease. "I'm the one who's been hit." He chuckled. "Though that's unfair of me, since you're not the one staying bare-chested for the rest of the night."

I studied his face curiously, but there was nothing except his usual smirk, and a tilt to his head that made him look hesitating, as if he wanted to ask a question but wasn't sure what.

"What?" I whispered.

He shook his head, subconsciously touching the dip of the muscles in his bicep, just under the graze. "Where do you come from?"

I frowned.

"Not like that, I just..." He broke off, chuckling, shaking his head minutely. In the pitch-like blackness of the room, his eyes seemed to flicker and glow like a raging fire, tongues of flame licking over everything and destroying all in its path. "When they recruited you, you know, we were running less."

"Running less?" The corner of my mouth twitched.

"Yeah." Heat seemed to roll in waves off his body, his bare skin that was so close to my own. "When they found you, everyone was curious, because we hadn't taken in anyone in such a long time." Again, his lips moved into a thoughtful line. "Then this happened, and you being so scared of being taken by them, and so unwilling to face any of them..."

My shoulders tightened, muscles over bones, fingers crossed in a cold cage. "Where are you going with this?"

The air seemed to change as his head tilted slightly to the side, the expression on his face morphing to something almost delirious. The atmosphere was charged, imaginary electricity humming in a low-pitched whine around us.

"I thought you'd be colder," Taehyung said, face and voice a mix of curiosity and finality, his hands coming up to cup the air around my face. "Level-headed, you know, because you must have a past with all this, because otherwise, why would you ever consider to join this circus of rituals and killers and secrets?" He shook his head again, like he was trying to shake off a persistent thought. "I was unsure, once, but you couldn't be that girl. You couldn't be scared shitless of just some people who hunted those they couldn't let go of."

Killers. Secrets.

It was as if I couldn't breathe. His head tipped lower, closer to mine, and his eyes closed when I breathed out, hands closing in on my face.

"I know not everyone would believe me, but I decided that this wasn't what they brought in." One of his hands caressed the apple of my cheek, the other resting on the side of my neck. "You couldn't be that scared girl. You couldn't be this—this person you're acting like, and I don't know why you're being like this, but this is not you. You ran, but you left yourself behind somewhere."

His lips were inches from mine, and I could breathe in the scent of him, the blood on him and the faint chocolate on his breath. "You're not running from something." His tone was decided. "You're running from someone."

A shudder ran through my body. Taehyung's chest was warm under my touch, and his lips touched the corner of my mouth just as he trembled under my hands, like he was coming apart. Like I was coming apart, too.

His mouth shaped mine, the curve and swell of it, and came to rest just a hair's breath away.

My eyes were wide, open, and his were lidded, slowed, burning like the fire under my skin. His thumb stroked the side of my mouth.

"Where are you?"

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Solitaire_diamond ❤

merry Christmas, kittens <3