21 December 2016

"You dick!" I push him, hitting his chest and trying to just get in one good shot, at least.

He grabs my wrists, leaning his face toward mine with a sickening grin. "You can try as hard as you can, Vic. But there's nothing you can do to stop me. I won't stop until one of us is dead. Get it?"

I hiss. "Don't call me that. We're not friends anymore, Seokjin."

"Anymore? Don't flatter yourself." He lets go of me, backing away into the shadows as the moon ascends into the sky. "We never were."

When he's gone, I hear Hoseok's panicked shrill voice on the other side of the bushes. "Victoria! Where the hell are you?!"

Victoria woke with a start. Her chest heaved and she struggled to catch her breath, as always. That dream always made her wake up gasping for air. It was almost ten years ago that those events had transpired, but they continued to haunt her every now and then. They were the reason she refrained from spending much time around Jimin.

If she wasn't freaked out already, she certainly was when she heard the door to her shop swing open violently and hit a shelf. There was the sound of glass shattering, thunder booming, and a distinctly male grunt.

"Shit."

Heart racing, she peeked her head through the curtains separating the shop from her room to find someone closing her door and staring down at a broken lamp. It was raining outside—hard. The water pelted her shop and the streets like shards of rock. At least, it certainly sounded like it.

He sighed and turned to the back, spotting her immediately. Something was dripping down his arm but she couldn't tell what it was in the dark like that. He began walking toward her and her pulse quickened further.

"I'll pay for that, I swear."

Oh.

It was Yoongi.

Victoria sighed deeply in relief and stood up before fully emerging from the curtains. She snickered in the dark and crossed her arms. "What are you doing here in the middle of the night?"

He shrugged and kicked the ground with his feet, hands in his pockets. "I'm bored. Let's do something."

"What's that on your arm?" she asked quietly, reaching a hand out.

Yoongi pulled away abruptly, voice hard. "Nothing."

Curiously, she leaned over a bit to reach the light switch and flicked it up, dowsing the room in light. Victoria gasped upon seeing Yoongi's state. Dripping down his fingers was blood coming from what looked like a shallow gash in his upper arm. The blood was smeared on his white t-shirt. On his other hand, his knuckles were bloody and raw. But his face was what really scared her. He had a nasty bruise covering his entire left eye, a cut on his nose, and a split lip. Blood seemed to be drying on his lips already.

"Oh my God!" she yelled, rushing to check him all over for more injuries. "What the hell happened?"

Yoongi shrugged. "I don't know. I'm bored. Let's go somewhere."

"No," she said firmly. "You're hurt. Come on."

Victoria grabbed his hand that was uninjured but still dripping with blood and tugged him toward her room. He protested, insisting everything was fine, but she wouldn't let him get away with it. And it was apparent that he must've actually liked her attention because he didn't resist physically. He was much stronger than her and could have broken her grip if he really wanted to.

She pointed to the "mattress" she slept on—which was a thin pad of fabric on the floor—and told him to sit. He obeyed and waited for her to emerge from the tiny bathroom with her first-aid kit. She sat down across from him and gently took his injured hand in her own. If it was up to her, she would have taken him to the emergency room. But something told her that Yoongi would never agree.

Silently, Victoria fixed him up. She cleaned the blood from his arm and disinfected all of his wounds before applying gauze and wrapping them in medical tape. Upon further inspection of the gash, it looked more like a bullet had grazed his skin. But she said nothing, only letting her face twist into worry.

Yoongi tried not to let her know that the disinfectant stung like hell or that the pressure applied with the gauze felt like a weight being dropped on it. He tried to settle for biting his lip or squeezing his eyes shut but only ended up wincing anyway because of his bruise and split lip.

She quickly ripped off the piece of medical tape she needed for his arm—that was already pressed around the wound, making him wince before squinting and wincing again from all the pain—and carefully patted it down to stick to the rest of the tape. She gazed at him apologetically as he sighed in relief from the lack of pressure.

"Poor baby," she mumbled, wiping away a few tears that had slipped out from all the pain. Yoongi normally would have felt humiliated, but as she began to clean his nose and apply a small piece of tape, he only felt loved.

Victoria had already made him hold a soaked cotton ball to his lip for most of the time. He wasn't really sure what it was, but it didn't hurt like the wipes in the kit. Once everything was done, she pressed dry gauze to his cut lip and then some antiseptic cream.

"Try not to move your mouth too much," she advised quietly. "It could open the wound again."

He sighed. "That's gonna be a problem."

"Why?"

"Because I really want to kiss you right now."

Victoria averted her gaze, a shy smile dancing across her lips. Yoongi's straightforwardness was something she both appreciated and loved. "I really want you to kiss me right now, too," she admitted while looking back up at him. "But you're hurt. You could infect the wound if you kissed me right now."

He pouted but winced at the strain on his lip, which made him screw up his face, which irritated his bruise and cut nose. "Ow! Damn it!"

She chuckled a bit and placed both hands on the sides of his face. "Close your eyes, Yoongi."

Yoongi only stared at her brilliant eyes for a moment longer before obeying. Her lips fluttered over his right eye, then his left. They traveled to the tip of his nose and the side of his lips that weren't cut. Then she picked up his injured hand and placed an open-mouthed kiss over the tape and gauze, using her other hand to trace reassuring circles on the skin just below the wound on his arm.

When she was done, his cheeks were flushed a deep red, but he only stared at her with something new in his eyes. "Damn this cut lip," he muttered, reaching his thumb up to run it along her bottom lip.

Victoria smiled and took his hand away to intertwine their fingers.

-

"Did you know that being a nuclear power operator is the highest-paying job that you don't need a degree for?"

Yoongi and Victoria were now laying down in the dark, facing each other. He played with her fingers while they spoke and tried really hard not to smile at everything she said.

She snorted. "Highest-paying because you'll be exposed to dangerous levels of radiation."

"We both qualify." He scooted closer to her so his nose was gently pressed to the top of her head. "Let's work together."

"More like die together."

He held back a laugh, instead wrapping his arms around her and trailing a finger up and down her back. "That would be super romantic."

They fell asleep in each other's arms, no longer plagued by dreams of the past or fears of being murdered while dreaming. When sleeping with Victoria, Yoongi no longer felt afraid. He felt safe and like he was capable of protecting her and himself. She gave him confidence.

If only it was permanent.