Yoongi opens his eyes to someone frantically shaking him awake.
"Yoongi-ah! Come on, wake up," Jin says.
"Ugh I'm up now," he groans, feeling like his head was going to split in two.
"What happened? Why are you sleeping here at the kitchen table? Are you sick?" Hobi asks, putting his hand to Yoongi's clammy forehead.
He immediately retracts his hand and looks at Yoongi with wide eyes.
"I came down here to eat and that's all I remember," he says groggily, a wave of dizziness and nausea hitting him as soon as he sat up straight.
"You need to see a doctor hyung. You're burning up," Hobi says, grabbing the half empty plate off the table.
"No, I'm fine. I think I have the flu or something. We have medicine for that," he says groggily, attempting to rub his eyes.
His left hand moves accordingly but his right hand felt particularly stiff and heavy. He tries to wiggle his fingers, only managing to get them to twitch on the table making a sharp pain shoot up his arm. He cries out at the sudden pain and Jin and Hobi look at him in alarm.
"What's wrong?" Jin asks, but Yoongi's gaze remains fixated on his hand.
"Is it your hand hyung?" Hobi asks, leaning down to take a look.
He gasps and drops the flu medicine when he sees a large bruise on the outer part of Yoongi's right hand. It was an angry red and purplish color that stood out in comparison to the skin around it and it was starting to spread down his forearm.
"You don't have the flu Yoongi-ah. You-" Jin starts.
"Don't even say it hyung," Yoongi cuts him off.
Even though he couldn't see it for himself from this angle, he knew that only one thing could cause that reaction.
A fucking soulmate bond bruise.
✨✨✨✨✨✨✨
Crystal woke up with a headache and discovered that her bruise had spread halfway up her forearm. Her arm was heavy and painful but she ignored it the best she could, doing things with one hand as she got ready for the day.
"What are you doing up?" her mom asks as she makes her way into the kitchen.
"I've got work and I've got to drop the kids off to school," she answers, ruffling her little brother's hair.
"Hey!" he giggles and she kisses his cheek and sits beside him at the table.
Her little brother, Christian, was ten years old, but didn't really know what was going on because he has autism. He had thick, curly hair and brown skin like their mom but his facial features were all his dad. It always made Crystal wonder if it hurt her mother to look at him sometimes since he was so strikingly similar to her late husband.
"What are you doing up sis? Shouldn't you be resting?" Cheyenne asks, getting her bag together for school.
Natalia runs over and hugs her tight, careful not to jostle her painful looking arm.
"What? No people. I have to get things done too," she says, hugging her younger sister back.
"We know. We're just worried so be careful and if you start to feel sick then come home or go to the hospital if it's bad. I mean it Crystal," her mom says, pointing a spatula in her direction.
She nods and gives her mother what she hopes is a convincing smile.
"Okay, breakfast sandwich for you three. You don't have much time to eat this here," her mom says, making three sandwiches for her and her two sisters. Christian always eats while Naudia is cooking.
Crys grabs some orange juices for them out of the fridge and ushers them to the door so they wouldn't be late. Cheyenne and Natalia went to the same school she she dropped them off first, watching sadly when they kept looking back at the car instead of going with their friends. Her eyes water and she looks back at Christian, who is already looking at her.
"Don't be sad Crissy. You'll make me sad," he says, pouting his lips.
"Okay Chris. I'll be happy okay?" she replies, matching the smile that spread out on his face.
She dropped him off next, making sure he got into the building safely before leaving.
Now that she's alone, she lets her smile fade, her true emotions showing. She was getting worse. The smell of the breakfast sandwich was making her nauseous and she was becoming really thirsty, both symptoms of the bond. She pushes the feeling away as best she could, not having the heart to throw out the sandwich. She'd just give it to one of her understudies once she got to work.
Just thinking about her job made her heart ache at this point. Hell, thinking about the mental checklist of things she'd stayed up all night preparing were making her heart hurt.
One one hand, she had faith that they'd reunite before it was too late. BTS is one of the most successful bands in the world right now. There's no way they'd let one of the members die. They're probably doing everything they can to track her down.
On the other hand, she needed to be prepared for the worst. She thanked her lucky stars that she worked for a law firm at this point because she needed to prepare a will. She'd never talked about her "last wishes" with her mother because she never would've guessed she'd need to at her young age of 25. Thankfully, she did have a hefty life insurance policy of a hundred thousand USD and the company she worked for matched each policy fifty percent so in the event of her passing, her family would receive a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. At least she could do that for them.
She got out of the car and swiped her ID to get inside the building, greeting people on her way to her small office. She'd gotten promoted to head intern last year so she got to move out of her cubicle and into an enclosed office. However, she stopped and greeted her understudies once she got to the common area on their floor and sat the sandwich and juice in front of her friend, Bora. She gave her a small smile that didn't reach her eyes and makes her way into her office, closing the door behind her.
She immediately grabs a few bottles of water out of her mini fridge and sits down heavily. It only took her a few seconds to down the first one so she paced herself with the second, not wanting to make the nausea worse.
She looks up when there's a knock on her door.
"Come in," she calls, throwing away the empty water bottle.
"Hey girl, are you doing okay? Don't take this wrong, but you don't look very well. Are you sick?"Bora asks, stepping inside and closing the door behind her.
"Is it that obvious?" she asks, finishing the second water bottle.
"Kind of...you going to tell me what's going on? And why so many water bottles? Please don't tell me you're extreme dieting," she widens her eyes, sitting in one of the chairs across from Crystal's desk.
Crystal sighs and stands up, sliding her blazer jacket off. She was suddenly feeling hot.
"What happened to you?" Bora asks, her eyes widening when she sees the nasty bruise that had spread from her fingertips all the way to her elbow now.
"My soulmate happened," she says, unable to keep the distaste out of her voice.
"What?! Well why do you still have the bruise? This is dangerous girl you need to heal," she says, gesturing towards Crystal's arm.
Bora had a soulmate but she was one of the lucky ones. She had been working with a client on a case and touched his hand to comfort him, activating the bond. They had been bonded for almost a year now without any issues.
"Because I bonded at the BTS concert..." she says, watching as Bora's face crumpled in concern.
"Oh no...your soulmate could be anyone," she says softly, concern shining in her eyes.
"I know who it is, but if I tell you, you can't tell anyone Bora," she says, giving her a serious look.
"You know I'd never tell, but I think I know where this is going," she replies, caught between excited and mortified for her friend.
"It's Suga. He accidentally dropped one of his rings and it landed right in front of me so I picked it up and gave it back. Our hands brushed and this started forming immediately. I tried to tell security and then a staff member but she just brushed me off like I was some saesang. She had the nerve to say that this was probably makeup. Who the hell has time to do makeup in a damn crowd at a BTS concert? Anyways, I emailed all the emails under the contact page on Bighit's website using my company email. I don't know how else I can get their attention without drawing attention to myself," she stresses, shaking her head.
"I think I know how how to help. It's maybe not the best way to get their attention but it'll have to do. You don't have much time," Bora says, gesturing to Crystal's arm.
It was almost completely numb now and she couldn't even wiggle her fingers at this point.
"What do you have in mind?"