THE ORANGE GIRL

chapter seventeen

Sunday, 8th November 2015

10:11AM | Yoongi's Apartment

Yoongi had not returned to the Headquarters since the day he finally felt you in his arms, beneath his own sheets, limbs wrapped together like origami, folded and folded again into a single being. The gang was a wreck, there was a godawful lot unanswered for, but he simply could not bring himself to untangle from your fingertips, he did not want to leave you alone within the apartment. The phone would ring through, the pounding front door never opened, he was either too busy carding his hands through your hair or grounding every inch of his being into you, filling the emptiness of your blank slate mind with his lips and palms instead.

And you let him, you wanted him to. There was a certain comfort in the way he would draw his thumb up your wrist, sit upon the leather sofa with you curled like an infant in his lap, mouth breathing hot, hot air around the shell of your ear, most likely sleeping beneath you. He was beautiful when he was in the realm of dreaming at that, completely ethereal, harmless, no crimson drying underneath his nails or a wicked grin gleaming on his teeth. Just his lips, soft and pink, pouting against the pillowcase with his hand absentmindedly catching at the air, grabbing onto something that you could not see but was as vivid as orange and red within his mind. Then, his thin black eyelashes would part, nose scrunching, he would see you and look oddly relieved, wrapping his arms around your waist and drawing you close, kissing you wordlessly and you would be melting, molten mercury.

Though today when you awoke, Yoongi was already gone.

Laying there with the sheets wrapped around your aching figure, still accommodating the remnants of bruises and scarring gashes, you wondered if maybe he had finally decided to return to the Headquarters. But then there was a shuffle, the soles of feet scuffing lethargically against the floor, and when you peered over the peaks of white you found him entering the bedroom, a yawn stretching at his lips. You sat up, the duvet pooling in a sea of cotton around your waist, exposing your bare chest and Yoongi smiled as though he had spent the entire night awake, wanting desperately to curl around you but no, no there was something important to do.

He paced into the walk-in wardrobe and returned with a thick black sweater, approaching the bed and kneeling on the side. You lifted your arms, he dressed you, embraced you, kissed the under of your eyes and then lightly on your lips, whispering into the grooves there is something you need to see.

"What is it?" You murmured, trying to deepen the kiss with your tongue laving over his bottom lip, but he was pulling away, neglecting. He grabbed your hands that were roaming aimlessly down his chest, lacing the two of you together by the knuckles.

Yoongi smiled warily, started pulling you up. "Come and find out."

After a slight scowl, you relented rather easily, letting him guide you out of the bedroom and into the living space. But no, you kept going, walking further and then you noticed the door that was always locked now slightly ajar, the entrance that you had practically forgotten about since there was no way that you could possibly enter. Yoongi gently glided the door all the way open, swinging wide to reveal what you had always assumed to be his office within, and it certainly was.

Bookshelves lined the walls opposite to one another, like a passageway of literature that lead to the large oak desk perched before a floor to ceiling window. Atop it was stacks of loose papers, files marked confidential in threatening red, an unloaded gun with its bullets neatly lined up beneath a silver lamp, and a large cardboard box situated at the centre of it all. On the wall where the entrance was embedded hung a large whiteboard, scrawled over with markers and string and old newspaper clippings, the words Clan of Clandestinestanding out and instantly making you turn your head away, towards the hundreds of leather and paperback spines that were neatly lined on the lacquered shelves instead. It was a beautiful space, marked with the aroma of old smoke and dried ink and paper, and Yoongi watched with fascinated interest at the way you let go of his hand, walked ahead and towards the table, smoothing your fingertips over the grain.