There was very little to distinguish Iphorus from the regular world, Eden noticed. The moon still shone through the curtains and glittered everything in its path, the forest animals still called out in the darkness, and the wind still battered against the window.
The only difference, as far as she could tell at that moment, was that she couldn't sleep.
She tried everything possible; she counted sheep, told herself a story, faked it, even poked her head into the hallway to ask Jeffrey for a cup of warm milk. Despite all of that, she was still awake, staring out the window.
Yoongi, on the other hand, had fallen asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. He barely had enough energy left in him to say goodnight before he was out. This wasn't surprising though; it had to be a tiring few days for him— mentally and physically. He was kidnapped, almost died, and then captured by his father.
Though she wished she were sleeping too, a bigger part of her knew Yoongi deserved the rest. His words from before kept echoing in her mind.
"My freedom was a ticking time bomb."
Eden couldn't imagine how exhausting it must be to be on guard 24/7. Everything and everyone posed a potential threat to the seven of them, and Yoongi assumed responsibility for it all. He was carrying the weight of 7 lives on his shoulders for years, trying to save them from being trapped in this hell again. Which, truthfully, was probably why he was able to sleep so well. Yeah, they were in the worst case scenario, but they were in it. There was nowhere to go but up from here.
She sighed, sitting up in her place on the bed. Even if she didn't have as much mental responsibility as Yoongi did, she still wanted to sleep. But, since the sandman seemed to skip her tonight, Eden figured the next best thing to do was to find some entertainment. Maybe Jungkook was up playing a game on his phone, or maybe she'd talk to Jeffrey until her eyes couldn't stay open anymore.
Just as she swung the blanket off of her legs, Yoongi stirred in the bed next to her.
She paused, her eyes widening as she slowly turned back to look at him. He hadn't woken up, thankfully, but he rolled onto his back, now giving her a clear view of his face.
His face was scrunched up into a pout, and sweat poured down his temples. His skin was red, and even though it was pretty warm outside, their room definitely didn't warrant that amount of sweat. It was cool at most.
Still, his face looked like he just stepped from a sauna. His hair fell limp and stuck to his forehead, tangling in his eyelashes as he writhed around on the bed.
Eden stayed still, fearing that the smallest movement would wake him up. She watched silently as he brought his hand up to his face, pawing at his hair with a whine that sounded too childish to come from his throat. He looked absolutely miserable. She tangled the comforter around in her fingers, watching and debating whether she should reach over and wake him up.
Yoongi's eyes shot open, scaring Eden so much she nearly fell off the bed. He was breathing hard, almost like he'd been running a race for the last two hours instead of sleeping. The redness of his face started to fade as he panted, but he still looked sweaty, miserable, and scared. He sat up slowly, and Eden noticed his eyes shifting around the room quickly without focusing on anything in particular.
"Yoongi?"
If he heard her, he paid her no mind.
He reached a trembling hand upwards on his body, pausing just under his collarbone. His shaking fingers traced the raven's wing burned into his throat, his entire body trembling as his eyes continued shifting around the room, almost like he was looking for something.
A bit scared, Eden tried again, easing her way back into the bed and hoping the movement would catch his attention. "Are you okay?" She whispered.
Rather than answering her, his eyes welled with tears and his shaky fingers turned into fists, scratching and hitting his clan symbol on his neck.
All at once, the memories of her first talk with Jin flooded her mind.
"Yoongi used to have these horrible nightmares—night terrors, really. But it's been a while since he's had one."
Oh. Shit.
Yoongi's silent tears turned into sobs as he pulled his knees up to his chest. He buried his head between them, his entire body shaking with sobs as he continued clawing at his throat.
Eden had no clue what to do.
It was obvious he was still asleep, even if his eyes were open, and he wouldn't be able to hear her if she said anything to him. She thought about reaching over to touch him, but that could wake him up, and she didn't know if you were supposed to wake up someone having a night terror or not. Panic rose in her chest as she realized she wouldn't be able to handle this— not on her own at least. She needed someone.
She needed Jin.
The problem with that was, she had no idea which room he went into, and she didn't want to cause unnecessary panic by waking everyone up looking for him. But Jin was the only one who knew what to do, and she didn't want to imagine what would happen if she just let Yoongi cry.
Said blonde's cries were growing louder with every passing second. He managed to curl himself up into a ball in the farthest corner of the bed, way out of Eden's reach. Incoherent words poured from his lips, and the few words Eden could understand didn't make sense. They were fragments pieced together with pain. The poor boy sounded like a distraught child rather than a 23 year old.
"Yoon," she muttered, the now familiar nickname rolling from her lips and dissipating into the air. "What do I do?"
Just as tears began to prick her own bottom lashes, an authoritative but soft knock vibrated the wooden door.
"Eden? Are you awake? It's Jin."
Thank fuck.
She slipped out of the bed quickly and padded over to the door, yanking it open to see Jin and Hoseok standing outside the door with concern written all on their faces. If it wasn't for their messy hair and wrinkled clothes, she would never have guessed they had just woken up from their sleep.
Hoseok's eyes bored holes into her own. "Are you alright?"
"It's Yoongi," she breathed. "I-I think he's having a nightmare. He was really sweaty and then he woke up and started scratching himself— I don't know what's wrong. He won't answer me."
Jin nodded, his eyes trained on the crying man behind her head. His hair was pushed up and away from his face, making him look more serious than usual. "It's alright," he said absentmindedly. "Go with Hobi, I'll take it from here."
The brunette reached out his hand for Eden to grab, pulling her gently out of the room when she did. "Come," he whispered gently. "You can sleep in our room tonight."
She glanced behind her. "Will he...?"
Jin patted her on the back softly. "He'll be alright," he mumbled. "I've got him."
With that, he waved the two outside the door and closed it, cutting off the sound of Yoongi's cries to the outside.
In the dimness of the hallway, Hoseok and Eden stood in complete silence, staring at the dark wood of the door. Through the wood, she could vaguely make out Jin's voice shushing Yoongi, trying to get him to calm down. A small light appeared by her feet, and she assumed Jin turned on the light to help him wake up.
Hoseok sighed and put his arm around Eden's shoulders. "Come on."
He pulled her into the room diagonal from the one she shared with Yoongi and ushered her to sit down on the bed. She sat, completely dazed, watching blankly as Hoseok shut the door and rested his forehead against it before letting out a long sigh.
"I didn't know what to do," she mumbled.
He pulled away from the door and turned to face her, giving her a sad smile. "It's alright. Only Jin really knows how to handle that. Yoongi's in good hands now."
He made his way over and sat down on the bed, blowing a puff of air out of his cheeks. "I don't remember the last time he's had a night like that," he breathed. He paused like he wanted to say something, but he stopped and shook his head, his dark brown hair flopping from side to side as he did. "Anyway, are you okay?"
"I could be better."
He grimaced. "Did he wake you up?"
"No," she mumbled. She fiddled with her fingers. "I never actually fell asleep. I was actually about to go find Jeffrey or something."
"You haven't slept? It's almost 4 in the morning!"
Eden shrugged weakly. "I just... wasn't tired, I guess?"
The brunette shook his head. "No way. You have to be tired. You haven't slept properly in nearly two days and you just travelled through realms. Something's wrong up here." He tapped his finger on Eden's forehead to punctuate his sentence.
"So you think I'm crazy?"
"Not crazy. Scared or confused? Maybe."
Hoseok's heavy brown eyes peered into her own, a glint of curiosity in them. "You've been given a bunch of information to process and none of it's been explained to you. You're anxious because you don't know what to expect, and you still don't know who to trust. You feel powerless in this situation, don't you?"
Eden blinked. "Do all Achitia's have this weird 6th sense?"
He grinned, tapping his finger on her nose. "It's not a sixth sense. I'm just listening to your shadow."
"Like, metaphorically?"
He shook his head, looking to the floor beneath them raising his eyebrows.
She followed his eyes downward to see their shadows splayed across the carpet. She expected her shadow to be next to Hoseok's, the same way she was next to him on the bed, but instead her shadow overlapped with his on the floor.
"That's not... what?"
With a soft grin, he reached his hand down to the carpet, resting it on the dark spot under his feet. Eden watched as his shadow twisted around before it crawled up his arm and under his sleeve, completely disappearing from her sight.
"What the fuck."
Hoseok laughed, patting his arm and sending his shadow back to the floor. "Powers are stronger and have more abilities here," he said. "In your realm— well, the human realm— shadows are stagnant. They're not flexible or malleable, they stay stationary wherever they appear. So we can blend in with them, sense them, things like that. But here..."
Eden watched as their shadows moved around on the ground, almost looking like they were having a conversation of their own.
"Here they're almost their own consciousness. We can talk to them, move them, use them. They're almost like pets."
"And mine just happens to be whispering my innermost thoughts in your ear?"
Hoseok chuckled, leaning back onto his hands. "Yeah. More or less."
Eden puffed her cheeks up with air, letting it out in a rush as she threw herself backwards on the bed.
Hobi (more like her shadow) was right. She was scared, and very confused. From what she gathered, Yoongi's father seemed like an enormous piece of shit, yet here they were, sleeping in his guest bedrooms rather than trying to escape. Wasn't the 'next bus to prison' thing just an empty threat? Yoongi was his son, after all, and there's no way he would bring him all the way here just to have him sent away and not complete whatever task he has for him. Not after he went through so much to bring him here.
Besides all of that, the boys were wanted criminals. Shouldn't they be hiding somewhere less obvious than a 4 story mansion on the top of a hill with bright blinking lights? Hiding in plain sight might be a well known tactic, but this was too much.
Hoseok's eyebrow was raised curiously as he peered at her. "What're you thinking about?"
"Everything," Eden breathed.
"Like?"
The words flew from her mouth before she could process them. "Why we're still here and not trying to escape, why Yoongi gets nightmares, your collective past, what jeffery's deal is, why you were so angry on the ride here—"
"Woah! Slow down for a second. One thought at a time."
Eden stopped to take a breath. It was unrealistic to expect Hoseok to have all the answers, especially in the middle of the night when they should be sleeping. She was just about to tell him not to worry about it when her curiosity piqued.
He would know the answer to the last question.
She paused, trying to find the right words. The last thing she would want to do is come off too strong.
"Well... why were you so upset in the car?" She mumbled. "It was a little scary."
He hummed. "I didn't realize it showed."
With a sigh, Hoseok moved his hands and let himself fall backwards onto the bed, keeping his eyes trained on the ceiling in thought. Curiously, Eden copied his actions, half expecting to see the answer on the ceiling.
"I was mostly angry for Yoongi," he muttered. "He hates his father, and for good reason. I know he seemed apathetic in the hospital, but he's having his nightmares again. I know he's scared, angry— there's too much going on in his brain right now."
The brunette groaned as he ran his hands through his hair. "I know it's the fact that we're here too. In this fucking house. It sucks the life out of people."
"You gathered all that from the last few hours?"
"No. This isn't my first time in Yoongi's house, you know."
She raised an eyebrow. "Really? I thought you all ran away from your homes and met in some abandoned building?"
He shook his head. "Not all of us. The others met in different ways— I'm sure you know Jungkook's story already— but I've known Yoongi for a long time. Since we were kids."
Hoseok stretched his hands up towards the ceiling, cracking the bone in his shoulder before continuing. "You know about the training thing, right? How every Sirid child has to start training when they reach a certain age? Well, Yoongi started training really young. Like, really young."
"How young?"
He twisted his lips in thought. "Maybe... 5?"
"Five?! Like, five years too early?"
"Nope. 5 years old."
At Eden's wide eyes, Hoseok nodded. "Yeah. He didn't get to go to parks or kindergarten or do anything fun. As soon as he presented his powers he was put in training. I, on the other hand, got to go to school and parks and make friends in my neighborhood. Since the Achitia clan and the Chiattoria clan are both pretty powerful we share a lot of facilities, like parks and training places."
"When I started training I was about 11. On the first day, my dad took me to a training facility a long way from home. When we got there he bent down, pointed to a skinny kid with long black hair, and told me if I trained hard enough I could be just like him."
She hung on to his every word. "That kid was Yoongi?"
"Mhm." Hoseok sighed. "I didn't know who he was since I'd never seen him in the park or around town. I stayed behind my father's legs until Yoongi started practicing— and shit. He was so much better than I was. I introduced myself to him right after, and he was a bit apprehensive at first, but he talked to me. It took weeks for me to get him to say my name instead of calling me "kid", but he knew he couldn't get rid of me so we became good friends. I followed him everywhere. He was my role model."
Remembering his earlier comment, Eden hummed. "So you guys had sleepovers and stuff?"
He grinned. "No. His dad wouldn't let anything like that happen. He made it clear to my father and I that Yoongi wasn't like other kids, that he had a purpose. We were free to be training friends, but once Yoongi turned 18 we wouldn't have time to be friends anymore. He was expected to take over the White Crows as soon as possible."
"But he didn't," Eden filled in.
"He didn't. He packed us up and left."
Eden sat quietly, processing the information and waiting for more. Hoseok cracked his knuckles and ran his hands through his hair, nostalgia passing through his face.
"I've seen Yoongi at his worst. I've seen him after he's stayed up for days without eating, after he's cried for hours. And despite all of those bad days, he still took care of the 6 of us— this is why I'd do anything he asked of me without question. I watched him grow up and go through all those hardships and still find it in him to take care of other people."
He turned to look at Eden, his eyes suddenly serious. "That's why we're still here. I trust that he's making the right decision. He's never steered me wrong in the last 12 years and I doubt he'd start now."
"Wow," she mumbled. Her eyes trailed over to the door, wishing she could look through it and into the royal blue room to see how Yoongi was doing. She was sure Jin had him under control by now, but still.
The more she learned about his past, the more she wondered how he could still find it in himself to be a leader. He put the world of responsibility on his tiny shoulders and kept his feelings locked inside, even though he had a family that would take any of that weight off if he asked.
"Hey, he's okay," Hoseok comforted. "Jin has him."
Realizing she was staring, Eden startled slightly. "Oh," she whispered. "Right."
He pushed himself up off the bed, yawning and stretching his arms way over his head. "You need to get some sleep though," he sighed. "It's really late, and something tells me we have a long day tomorrow."
She nodded absentmindedly, peeling herself from her place on the bed to allow Hoseok to pull off the comforter.
The oversized crewneck and sweats she was given to sleep in swallowed her whole, and though they radiated the warmth from her body she still felt cold.
"Jin is going to sleep with Yoongi," Hoseok mumbled. "So you can take his spot on this side of the bed. I'll take the side by the window."
"Alright."
He peered up at her through his lashes, raising an eyebrow in concern. "You're alright to sleep, right?"
Eden nodded quickly. "Yeah! Sorry, I'm okay. Just thinking."
With a sad smile, Hoseok gently nudged her into the bed. "Tomorrow," he breathed. "We'll fill you in tomorrow."
Once Eden was settled under the covers properly, Hoseok rubbed her shoulder affectionately before turning around to flick the light switch. In an instant the room was bathed in darkness, and she could hear his footsteps shuffle around to the other side of the bed, before she felt it dip under his weight.
"Sleep well Eden."
"You too, Hobi."
With another sigh, she closed her eyes and prayed to all powers in the sky above that she would finally get some sleep.
*****
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Hope you enjoyed the chapter!
xoxo
layerjoon