Beastly Beauty ✓

36. The Reunion

"What happened?" he asked, his voice rough as he pulled back and dropped our embrace. I tried to catch his gaze, but he was looking at Jungkook.

"Let's sit," his brother said quietly.

"You don't believe him, do you?" he pressed on.

"Come on," I murmured, trying to grab his hand to bring him to the bed where Jimin sat. But his hand escaped my grasp.

"I'll...stand here," Hoseok said stiffly. It wasn't personal and I knew that, but the words still felt like an arrow lodging into my breastbone.

As I moved to sit beside Jimin at the edge of the mattress, I had to avoid my best friend's sympathetic stare.

"He is a Descendant. There's no denying that," Jungkook started, having settled against the wall across from us, standing next to Hoseok.

"What did he show you exactly?" Hoseok asked. He was glaring at the floor, and I had to convince myself it was out of concentration, not some attempt to avoid seeing me.

"These glowing blue orbs, a light sort of like mine but more controlled. There was ice too."

"A Moon Descendant..." Hoseok's eyebrows furrowed, setting a deep frown over the visible parts of his face. A small part of me was glad I didn't have to see his lips that were surely turned down or held in an unforgiving line. "I didn't think there were any. I mean, I only ever read about the power of the sun being distributed."

"The same could've happened with the moon as time went on, if it got weak enough," Jungkook said, glancing between each of us. He shrugged. "We don't even know which parts of the legend are real and which aren't. What's important is that he is more or less like Jangmi, and that means he'd be on her side... right?"

Jimin brushed a hand through his navy hair, and the bed creaked as he adjusted his position. "It just doesn't feel right. Like I said before, why wouldn't he have told you sooner? Why wait this long?"

"He made it sound like he couldn't say anything to me until I knew what I was. I guess if I didn't know about any of this, it would've been pretty hard for him to explain things to me," I reasoned, despite my unwillingness to believe Taehyung. His claim wasn't as doubtful as I wanted it to be.

"And if there really is some organization or group out there, it could be one of their rules for all we know," Jungkook added.

"Organization?" Hoseok asked, finally lifting his head to glance at his brother.

Jungkook nodded. "He said the three of them are part of some type of group that tracks Bul-Gae."

"I'm pretty sure I would've known if I was being followed or watched all this time."

"But would you?" Jimin cut in, then paused as he thought over his next words. A slight scowl pulled on his face like he hated what came to mind. He turned to me. "The necklace. Taehyung gave it to you and said it was to help with the nightmares, right? He said it was to help against Hoseok," he looked across the room, "and it does bother you, right?"

Hoseok crossed his arms. "Yes."

Jimin went on. "If they really are part of these... watchers, hunters, or whatever they are, then they would know things like that. They'd have gone through training and they would know of weaknesses and things to use against Bul-Gae. So maybe they knew how to keep you from finding out what they were doing."

My heart jumped. It was making sense. Taehyung's necklace had shielded me, at least in some small way, from both the Hood and Hoseok. Namjoon had always taken steps to check in with me in one manner or another, and Yoongi had always been keenly aware of everything going on around him. If they really were meant to keep an eye on me, their behaviors weren't quite so out of place after all. Even their hesitancy to have Hoseok around, their watchful stares whenever I talked to him... if they only knew of Hoseok and not the Hood, it made sense that they assumed he was the one endangering me.