Jung Hoseok didn't know when he had slumbered off but when he opened his eyes, what awaited him was certainly a pleasant surprise. Huge cocoa brown eyes stared at him in what was unmistakable awe as he stirred and squinted his eyes. When the owner of the eyes noticed that he was awake, she quickly cleared her throat and looked away. "You're here too? Good, good."
Hoseok sat up straighter in the chair, propping his elbows up on her bed as his golden-amber eyes assessed her. She seemed to be doing fine. Awfully fine considering what she went through. Maybe that Healer angel wasn't that bad after all. Questioningly eyeing her white angelic dress and back at Hoseok's ivory blonde hair and golden eyes, Sia leaned closer and whispered out, "Am I in heaven?"
A smile almost bloomed on his lips but he muffled it. "I don't know."
"Right, they must call it something else. What was it again? Court of judgment?" She inquired, enthusiastically though she refrained her voice to a whisper. His grin didn't stay repressed too long. Right. This was the Sia he knew. Nosy and a little touched in the head. Not a cry baby.
"Not sure."
Sia pouted in displeasure before she ran her eyes over her surroundings and the room, "By the way, this place looks really like my bedroom. See? This mattress even squeaks like the one in my room back home." She bounced on her bed in demonstration and it was all he could do to not burst out, "Did they do that so that I won't freak out or anything?"
"Can't say..."
"What do you know then?!" Sia whisper-shouted, throwing her hands up in the air in frustration and he exploded into chuckles puzzling her even more. "What?!"
Hoseok shook his head, "Why are you whispering?"
Sia looked a little sheepish at his question, "Because we're in heaven?"
Believe her when Sia says that it was the biggest surprise of the century when she immediately felt two arms wrap around her in a warm embrace and the weight of a head burying in her shoulders. Sia went stiff as cardboard as her hands awkwardly lifted up in the air by her sides and she sat stock still, too afraid to move. She blinked once. Twice. She took her merry time registering what was going on. When she did, she took an additional ten minutes to actually collect her voice and her wits since they seemed to have gotten stuck somewhere in her, refusing to come out. A few more seconds of awkward staring at the wall of her room later, she slowly let out the breath she'd been unconsciously holding for long.
"Wow, I must really be in heaven. The popular guy from school is hugging me..." Sia finally whispered out in a daze, eliciting a small laugh from her shoulder, flinching as a hot breath tickled her skin.
"You're not dead, dumb-dumb. We're alive. We won."
Sia scrunched her nose in puzzlement, "We won? What do you mean we wo—"
There was a sharp intake of breath. Soon two hands clamped down on his shoulders and jerked him back, feral eyes searching his entire being for some kind of validation as she stuttered out, "Y-you're Hoseok?"
Hoseok beamed gladly, "Yes."
Sia gulped down disbelievingly probing his face for an answer, "Jung Hoseok?"
"Mm."
"My Hoseok?"
"Ye— No. Not yours."
"Tch." Sia sent him an unamused look, giving him a light shove back as she removed her hands from his shoulders. "You're right. You are Jung Hoseok."
There was an outbreak of giggles as Sia sat staring at the man, her lips twitching in amusement. "Yeah, don't think for a second I've given up on you though cuz..." she strummed an imaginary guitar as she squeezed her eyes shut and sang, "Never gonna give you up! Never gonna let you down! Never gonna run around and desert—"
"Alright, I get it!" He cried somehow collecting himself before she woke up her whole family from her awful singing. It was still pretty early in the morning and from what he deduced, her parents didn't know about her brief escape from home to fight supernatural monsters. And he'd like to keep it that way and make his exit without any interventions to take his well-deserved rest.
She huffed indignantly at his blatant interjection and sighed, "Well then spill. What happened? How are you alive? Cuz I'm pretty sure I stabbed you with a sword through your heart."
"Wow, are you serious?" Hoseok gawked at the airiness of the real Sia Winters and the stark contrast between her and the Vile One Sia he encountered earlier. The memory sent a shudder through him. Sia shrugged unfazed by his shock. "And I asked NJ to bring you back. That smartas$ angel must've figured out a way then. Strange... I can't remember anything after that."
"Well about that," Hoseok scratched the nape of his neck, "You got possessed by Vile One."
"I WHAT?!"
Retelling the story took more energy than he thought as he was already completely drained and besides, he figured he needed to omit a great deal about Vile One's actions, stumbling over some of the delicate details that he wanted to keep a secret a little while longer, earning a few suspicious glances from Sia. In the end, he managed to choke out exactly how he ended the Vile One's existence with Sia fangirling over certain aspects of the story that he strongly believed weren't supposed to be taken in the context she was shamelessly taking it in. The girl was the weirdest thing he'd ever encountered in life, he swore. But then, he'd been with her long enough to figure out that it was simply Sia's coping mechanism.
"So that's how it all ended. I swear Si, I was so scared when I suddenly felt him coming out of me. It was nothing like before where I would just blank out. It was different. I could see into his head! I could see what he planned! I was so afraid, I tried to fight but I guess that annoyed him because the next thing I knew, he was reaching for the bracelet and I couldn't hold him back..."
Sia silently gazed down at her lap, an emotion that he'd never seen before flaming in her eyes. At the end of his retelling, she raised her eyes to meet him. "So what did you do about it? Did you give him what he deserved?"
"Ran the sword through his heart and gave him a taste of his own medicine. Just the way he did it a thousand times. He died. Pathetically. Erased from existence actually." Hoseok answered her with conviction, the flame burning his own molten irises and Sia sighed in satisfaction. "Atta boy! That's how you do it."
The Hoseok he was before would have scowled at the compliment. The Hobi in him would have shied away. But right then, the Jung Hoseok he was grinned out wide, mischief twinkling from the golden set of his eyes that shone in the dim lighting. "Pleasure to be of your service."
Comfortable silence engulfed them as they sat, conveying all words of gratitude and praise with their eyes before Hoseok decided it was time for him to go. Apparently, Sia didn't feel the same.
"Wait, you're leaving?"
He shrugged, "Yeah, cuz my job's done. Besides, I don't think I can stand for a second longer in this pigsty." He replied, gesturing to her room and she protested.
"Hey, it's not that bad!"
"Not bad?" he asked incredulously, unable to believe his ears as he ran a judgmental eye over all the papers and articles of clothing littered on her floor, not to mention the atrocities she plastered on her walls as 'decorations'. He pointed to a mountain of her apparel lying in a corner, "How long has it been since you last did your laundry?"
"Those are actually washed. I just forgot to hang them up." Sia quipped and Hoseok wondered how in the hell it was possible when it was the largest pile in the entire room and the one most unattractive thing that drew his attention. "FOrgot?" he sighed, "Forget it. I'm leaving."
Hoseok turned in preparation to leave but Sia wasn't having it. She caught the sleeve of his shirt and tugged him back so that he couldn't go, making the loose and flowing material of his angel shirt slip right off his shoulder.
"Hold on, one more thing— Oh, oops!"
"Let go of my—"
"You dumb@ss! Keep it quiet! You woke me—" A third voice hollered in from the doorway and the duo paused only to be met with the horrific sight of Sean watching the scene with his mouth wide open. A moment of pregnant silence befell around them. Slowly he swallowed down his surprise, shoving a finger in Hoseok's direction.
"A g-g-guy in my sister's room?" Sia cursed, springing up from her breath and Sean inhaled a deep breath.
"Sean! Nononono—it's not what you think—"
"MOM! DAD! SIA'S GOT A BOY IN HER R—Mmmph! Umph!"
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Hoseok stepped out of Sia's home with a series of flustered bows and apologies which were only answered by refusals and invitation to come by again before Sia quickly shut the door behind them.
He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, "Uhh, your parents seem nice."
"Believe me. They're just relieved because I'm not practicing abstinence or rejecting love like they think I'm doing."
"W-what?!"
Sia shrugged, "I stopped dating after sophomore year of high school, you see? They've never really seen a boy or girl with me after that except Jinnie who's practically family, so naturally, they thought I was into that." These were the moments Hoseok realized that he didn't really know Sia like he thought he did. The girl was strange in her own ways but her parents were even stranger.
"I thought I was going to die when they came inside the room," Hoseok informed truthfully, reliving the memory of terror as he faced her parents for the first time, a meeting he wasn't prepared for.
"They trust me. Especially because Mom knows I'm not that kind of person. That's why you're alive. Trust me, if they'd known about all the stunts you put me through, you'd be dead by now." She flashed him a sweet smile and Hoseok didn't bother questioning the information. The scrutinizing eyes of her Father and the politely phrased questions from her Mother he had to struggle through before they apparently decided that he was not a threat was proof enough of that. Sia's brother didn't seem too happy about it. The chilling glare he'd sent Hoseok the whole time sent a shiver down his spine.
Sia seemed to have read his mind, "Sean is a brat. Don't mind him. He's just jealous."
"Your family is interesting."
"They are." She replied fondly and her love for her family was evident in the way she sighed. "I guess you're leaving then."
"Most certainly," Hoseok replied firmly. He was tired and a hell of drained and if he didn't get his few hours of sleep before his classes started, Hoseok would have to sleep through them which he was not a fan of. Besides, the girl would need it too after all that she'd been through the previous night.
"Alright then. I won't hold you back. Go ahead. See you at school if I'm alive. Bye." Sia bowed, dramatically sweeping her arms out for him, showing the way to his exit. Hoseok shoved his hands into his pockets as he walked away. "Bye."
The sun had already risen enough to dazzle his surroundings in a fresh hue of orange and Hoseok walked on, inhaling the sweet humid scent of the morning, content with everything he had for the first time in his life because he had finally rid himself of the weight of someone's crimes whose identity he had had accidentally acquired. Hoseok couldn't say he was sorry about it. After all, he believed, he deserved it more than an evil trickster who plotted to eradicate fae and humankind alike.
That was right. Jung Hoseok deserved this life more.
He was halfway through the way, preparing his mind to vanish back home when Sia's voice called him from behind.
"Hoseok!"
Hoseok turned around, "Yeah?"
"Happy Birthday!"
A grin bloomed on his lips before he turned away to disappear from there.
"Thanks."
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A/n: another update coming up