Eden awoke the next day feeling like absolute garbage.
One look in her bathroom mirror, and she immediately knew she was sick. Her eyes were puffed up with a series of bags under them and she looked pale; her usually caramel skin was now pasty with a twinge of green.
She knew staying outside in the cold was a bad idea. After staring at the stars with Jungkook she even dozed off a bit. It wasn't until Jimin came outside and chewed them out for being out there without proper jackets that they went inside. She barely warmed up before she climbed into bed and knocked out.
Eden sighed and reached for her toothbrush, brushing her teeth to get the taste of sickness out of her mouth. It was already seeming like it would be a long day, and she just woke up.
Once she was done in the bathroom, she made her way out to the front of the house to see which of the boys were awake. Hoseok and Namjoon were seated in the dining area, each of them with a cup of coffee in their hands. She started to cough as she turned the corner, making both of them turn around to look at her.
"Oh— are you alright?"
Hoseok shot from his seat and went to get a bottle of water from the fridge, guiding Eden to an empty chair at the table. Namjoon peered over his cup, concern settling in on his features.
"Sorry," she sniffled. "I'm alright. Just woke up kind of sick."
Hoseok shook his head. "It's probably because you were outside in the cold so late," he tsked.
She groaned. "I already got yelled at by Jimin, not you too Hobi."
The brunette grinned slightly at the sound of his nickname, before shaking his head again.
"Didn't Yoongi say he was sick too?"
Namjoon sipped his coffee with his eyebrow perched. "Maybe he really was sick," He continued.
"But I felt fine last night?"
Hoseok sipped his coffee and sighed. "I wish we knew more about the soultie bond. We all left way too young to have found ours."
"Is there no, like... Sirid Google you can use to look it up?"
Namjoon snorted, nearly spilling his coffee. Hoseok grinned too, sliding a paper towel over to his counterpart. "There's a big library in Iphorus full of old sacred texts, but all the texts on soulties were burned."
"Burned?! For what?"
The two men looked at each other, neither of them wanting to be the one to explain. After a few seconds, Namjoon blinked, losing their unspoken staring contest. With a sigh, he sipped his coffee and turned to tell Eden the story.
"Sometime before we left, the leader of Iphorus at the time got exposed for killing his wife's actual soultie and stealing his name so he could marry into power. A lot of people gave up on them after that— thinking that they were just fairytale nonsense. People gave up their searches and stopped socializing to avoid meeting them." He paused for another sip of coffee. "If they don't know, then they can marry for love instead of obligation."
"So, are soulties just not a thing anymore?"
"No they're very much a thing. But it's really considered a bad thing— almost a curse, if you've met your soultie. They'll stop you moving up in the clan freely, from training, all of that. You're basically stuck with them by your side for the rest of both of your eternities."
"Is that why you guys left?"
Namjoon smiled. "You're quite curious aren't you?"
"We left for a lot of reasons," Hoseok added. He took a long sip from his cup."That was definitely one of them."
Namjoon and Hoseok started their own conversation, leaving Eden to sit quietly. The new information was working hard to process in her brain.
A curse, huh?
Maybe that was why Yoongi was treating her so poorly. Without knowing, she had barged in and doomed him to a life of complacency and settling. He couldn't run off to do his own thing anymore because if she got sick and died, so would he.
I don't know if you expected a fairytale with me, but you can't have one.
Jin had mentioned Yoongi already carried a lot of guilt from his time in Iphorus. Now, with an extra mouth to feed and an extra life to be in charge of, all Eden was doing was making that guilt worse.
"Good morning everyone!"
The trio turned to see Jimin and Jungkook in the doorway of the dining room. Jimin smiled brightly, running an inked hand through his fiery red bedhead. Eden noticed Jungkook looked perfectly fine; there wasn't a hint of sickness on his face, just exhaustion. She, on the other hand, knew she looked like roadkill. Jimin looked over and caught her eye, his mouth dropping open as he rushed over.
"Oh my— Eden are you feeling alright?"
He rubbed her back with concern, and Eden could feel a little better with each circle. "I just woke up sick," she said. "I shouldn't have stayed out in the cold so late."
The redhead tilted his head in confusion. "Are you sure that's it? How come Jungkook isn't sick?"
All 4 sets of eyes trailed over to the youngest, who was mid yawn. He scratched behind his head before noticing they were all looking at him. "What?"
Eden squinted. "Do you guys even get sick?"
Jungkook smirked. "Yeah, but not me. I'm a tank."
Hoseok rolled his eyes. "We can get sick. Jungkook just seems to have a stronger immune system than the rest of us. But if he stayed out all night with you, he should at least have the sniffles right now."
"Did you leave your window open while you slept?" Namjoon put his coffee down. There was an edge to his voice, like something was starting to make sense in his head.
Eden shook her head. "I can't get it open."
Namjoon and Hoseok shared a glance. The taller brunette stood up, gulping down the rest of his coffee in one swig. "Hobi, let's take a trip to see Yoongi, shall we?"
"He's not in his room," Jimin mentioned. "We walked past his room and the door was open and he was nowhere in there."
Eden opened her mouth to speak, but a fit of coughs replaced her voice. She covered her mouth with one of the fresh napkins on the table, each cough vibrating through her chest with vigor. Jimin rubbed circles in her back, concern dripping from his face. He signalled for Jungkook to get Eden something to drink.
She managed to pause her coughs enough to choke out, "Check the garden."
Namjoon and Hoseok nodded and stepped out the back door quickly, leaving their mugs behind on the table. Something in the air shifted— it no longer felt like a quiet, lazy morning. It felt electric, the way the air feels right before a thunderstorm.
Upon finishing her coughing fit, Eden found herself sandwiched between Jimin and Jungkook; the former tapping away on his phone and the latter sliding a hot cup of tea in her direction. She scrunched up her nose at the cup once she got a whiff. "Ginger?"
"It's good for colds," Jungkook argued. "Drink it."
"But it tastes so bad."
He rolled his eyes. "This is no time to worry about taste. Drink the tea."
Begrudgingly, Eden lifted the cup to her lips and took the smallest sip she could. Jungkook watched intently, his normally innocent doe eyes now twinkling with a hint of seriousness. Paired with Namjoon and Hoeseok's sudden absence, it was too intense.
She cleared her throat, trying to ease the tension that just formed in the room. "I'm alright, guys," she mumbled weakly. "I'm probably just going through some Sirid puberty or something."
Jimin looked up with an eyebrow raised and a smirk on his lips. "You really think this is Harry Potter, huh?"
"Do you guys not get some type of coming of age thing?"
Jungkook chuckled, his two front teeth poking through cutely. "We're all born completely developed— powers wise, at least. We just go through training to control it better."
Eden took another sip of the tea while Jungkook had his eyes on her. "How come I don't know my clan or powers then?"
"Our magic is like a muscle," Jimin mumbled. "If we don't use it, it weakens. Especially since we've been in this realm for so long. That's why we try to use our powers every day in little ways."
"Exactly," Jungkook agreed. "That's why Jimin and Jin are so touchy, why Namjoon always looks like he's pondering life's meaning when he's really deciding what to drink— little things like that keep us prepared for trouble."
"I never see Yoongi use his powers," Eden piped curiously.
"We're not really— It's better if he doesn't." Jimin's words were careful. "But he uses them."
Jungkook scoffed, his top lip curling up in anger that Eden had never seen in him before. He slouched into his seat, looking away from the two he was sat with. Before she could ask what happened, the back door of the house slammed open.
The trio whipped around to see Hoseok and Namjoon standing at the door, both of them panting like they ran the whole way here. Namjoon moved first, hustling into the house and making his way toward the bedrooms. Jungkook and Jimin shared a look, before Jungkook shot up and ran after him. Hoseok followed quickly too, leaving Jimin and Eden alone in the dining area.
Jimin gripped Eden securely, nearly pulling her into his lap for safety. "Drink your tea," He murmured, absentmindedly bringing the tea closer. He rubbed her back slowly. "Everything will be fine."
Eden knew in the back of her mind that everything probably wasn't fine. But Jimin's powers were at the highest she'd ever felt them, and she couldn't find it in her to believe otherwise at the moment. She felt pleasantly muddy in her brain as she took a sip from her mug of tea, letting the warmth fill her body and calm her down.
At all the commotion, a familiar head of black hair popped into the kitchen curiously. Jin's hair was brushed out and over his eyes, covering them like a thick curtain. He was still in his alpaca pajamas, and if it weren't for her dazed state, Eden might've started laughing.
"Oh— Eden, you don't look too well," He said softly. His eyes popped up to Jimin's. "Is something going on? You look startled."
"They, um..." Jimin trailed off, his plump lips staying parted as he tried to make sense of the situation.
Jungkook came back first, zipping past Jin and into the living room. The three heard Taehyung yell in surprise as the younger boy knocked into him.
"Fuck," Jungkook yelled. "He's not here!"
Jin whipped around, suddenly at attention. "Who's not here?"
Namjoon and Hoseok made their way into the dining room, panic evident all over their faces. Namjoon's jaw was set tight. "Where's Yoongi?"
"Isn't he in his room?"
"We checked everywhere in the house. He's not even in the garden."
Hoseok's fists shook at his sides. "I don't feel his shadow here anywhere," he muttered. "He's not on the property."
Jungkook and Taehyung joined the other in the dining room. An air of panic set over the room, and slowly everyone's eyes trailed over to Eden. She sat with half of her body on Jimin's chair and half on her own, with Jimin's arms wrapped around her tightly as insulation for his power.
"That's why Eden's sick," Hoseok mumbled. "Yoongi must be long gone."
"He's so fucking— ugh."
Jin shoved into the kitchen and put the kettle on for tea, drumming his fingers on the counter in annoyance. "I can't believe he would do something so irresponsible. He's lost his mind, and I'll be the first to tell him when he comes back."
Taehyung fidgeted with his shirt sleeves. "What makes you guys so sure he just... left?"
"Hobi or Kook would've sensed a different shadow in the area," Jimin muttered. "But nobody sensed anything. And he was being so moody for a long time."
"Eden, I know it might be a sore subject, but I have to ask." Namjoon's face was serious as he slid into a seat, void of his usual dimples. He used his hand to comb his hair up and off his forehead. "It's important we know what you two argued about."
Eden blinked slowly, trying to fight through her brain to get words out. "It didn't seem like anything too serious," She muttered. She reached for her tea. "I just told him I can't handle his wishy-washy behavior and that he needs therapy if he's gonna be such an ass all the time."
Jungkook snickered before receiving a swat on his wrist from Hoseok.
Jin sighed. "That's nothing different from what we tell him every other week. Why would he leave now?"
Taehyung's face held a curious look. "Maybe it hurt more because he likes Eden."
"Hey!" Jimin whined. "Yoongi likes us too!"
"No you dunce. He means romantically."
Eden choked on her tea, putting the cup down before she could spill it all over her lap. Jimin tapped her back, shooting a glare at Jungkook and Taehyung.
"We should find him first before we put words in his mouth," Jin sighed. He poured himself a cup of tea. "Jimin and I will stay here with Eden. Who's going to go searching?"
"Hobi and I can go," Namjoon offered.
Jungkook whined. "I can help!"
Hoseok ruffled the younger's hair with a half smile on his face. "Your powers aren't as strong as mine. Besides, if both of us go, who's protecting the house? You should stay here."
Jungkook sighed, sitting at the table reluctantly. Jin reached over and rubbed his shoulder. "Be safe you two. Make sure you use every bit of your powers that you can."
Hoseok and Namjoon nodded and slipped on their jackets and shoes, bundling up for the bitter winter air outside. With a final wave to the remaining five, they left.
The house was silent once the door closed behind them. Jimin continued doting on Eden, making sure she drank her tea and was still coherent. Jungkook, although still sulky, leaned back into Jin's hands and let the oldest pet his hair. Taehyung sat quietly and just observed.
Through her hazy eyes, Eden glanced over at Jin, who's eyes were trained on the door, silently pleading for Yoongi to come in on his own.
She leaned back into Jimin's hold and sighed, letting her mind race as exhaustion started to win.
This better just be an asshole move, Yoongi, she thought. You better be fine.