A few days later, Yoon Min was at a familiar place. She wasn’t alone though. She was with her cherished pet, caressing the pegasus in front of her and murmuring sweet compliments. It was the first time she found herself smiling in a long time.
The pegasus was nickering a bit too much as if he wanted to tell her so many things he bottled up inside his stomach. She could feel what was going in his head.
“You miss him, Eclipse?”
He let out a quiet groan, nodding his head.
She sighed lightly before brushing her hand over the side of his neck, “I miss him too.”
It mattered to her that usually Seokjin used to visit him every week and spend time with him. Now that he was gone, no one was visiting the pegasus anymore. So she started visiting him and spent a quality time with their pet. Every little thing reminded her of him.
The stars were bright and shining that night. Pink and maroon lights danced across the sky like the tides of an ocean. Sometimes it feels like the whole ocean is in the sky, or the sky in the ocean. Whichever it is, it’s one of the best magics of Almighty. The sparkles were illuminating the universe.
Suddenly she heard her name being called from behind. She turned around and found her friends pacing towards her. They seemed anxious and eager to spill something. Which made her curious as well.
“Yoon Min, you won't believe--oh my God, what is that?” Sung Rin immediately hid behind Koushi who wasn't scared.
“It's a pegasus, dummy. Winged horses.”
“Oh.” Sung Rin exclaimed and slowly developed an interest on the creature as she was looking at him with heart eyes.
Yian pointed her finger at the pegasus's wings, “Look how big they are! Can he fly?”
Eclipse neighed cutely, being proud of his majestic wings.
“Of course, he can. Now can you guys tell her the news first?” Koushi was the only serious guardian among them.
Myeong Jo took the lead, “Yoon Min, you may need to sit down for a minute.”
“I'm alright. Just tell me.” She replied, shrugging her shoulders off.
“You sure? 'Cause I highly think--”
Yoon Min sighed and gave them a deadly stare which expressed she was so annoyed by their absurdity and wanted them to get to the point. Her friends were a great support though. It's just sometimes they tried to act like unemployed clowns.
Myeong Jo blabbered, “Okay fine. We heard Jin Seonbae's back.”
A long silence stretched out across the environment. There was a deadly pause before the clenching of her stomach began. And a shaky frantic shuddered breath left her body as slowly shock danced on her face. Eyes wide and frozen by the mention of his name. Her hand that was on the pegasus dropped in a slow speed.
“It's breaking news. Everyone is gathering in front of Princess Aereum's office. The senior guardians managed to bring him back. They just arrived 15 minutes ago.” Koushi quickly informed her.
“And we thought we should let you know.” Sung Rin chirped.
Yian finished, “You should go, Yoon Min.”
Even though they were encouraging her, what they didn’t know was she lost every cell of courage in her body after hearing the news of his return. Going ramrod, the thought of him had nausea threatening to claw at her throat, pleading internally for him to be alright and safe. She waited for this moment eagerly, she thought she would be excited and happy to see him. But she didn’t expect her whole body would develop all sorts of threatening reactions of sadness and surprise.
He was really back?
Myeong Jo placed both her hands on her friend's shoulders. “You need to go now.”
“What you waiting for? Let's go!”
“Don't push her, Yiana. She needs to stay calm.” Sung Rin advised the other who immediately listened.
Their voices sounded morphed and their faces were turning blurry. Something was wrong with her. Her breaths turned rough as she stepped back, tugging her away from her friend's hold. Head spinning lightly, millions of thoughts crossed her head, adding to the burden and pressure. It was difficult to take in the reality that he was indeed back. Her eyes shut randomly, realizing the time had come sooner than she expected.
She was scared to think he wasn’t just her senior anymore. He was the guardian who failed to save her and her lawfully wedded husband when she was alive. She needed to be more brave, more careful to be able to converse with him. She shouldn’t let the past trigger as a trauma between them. That was going to ruin everything.
But even after these mature, responsible thoughts, she was able to remember his heartwarming voice, his kind gaze, his funny charms and his romantic gestures. He was the only person who loved her unconditionally and chose to protect her. She remembered how much of a good man he was.
All those emotionally nostalgic memories caused her to long for him again and to see him even for a second. Seokjin was back. She had to see him now; see him and tell him nothing had changed between them. They could still love each other.
With heavy emotions, she along with her four friends travelled back to the department in order to meet him and fix things for once and all.
There were tons of guardians and fairies and employees crowded in front of the princess's office, chattering and hollering about the senior guardian. It was unclear why they were excited to see him or why they're building a camp here. Did they miss their heartthrob guardian that much?
Yoon Min arriving at the scene, was surprised seeing the huge crowd forming there. She couldn’t understand why his fans were creating a scene unnecessarily. Not to mention how Senior Guardian Yoongi was guarding the door and acted like a security guard by continuously requesting them to calm down and leave the place. He was having a hard time all alone there.
That wasn't going to stop her. She started to think of his condition right now inside the office. Maybe Aereum was interrogating him without showing him a bit of kindness or pity. Maybe she was charging him and accusing him wrongly. He must be feeling devastated and disappointed in himself, terrified of what he had done in the past. Her heart crumbled bit by bit, imagining the hell he was going through.
So in order to help him, she had talk to him as soon as possible. She started pushing her way through the crowd without thinking anything. The guardians immediately gave her space once they recognised her presence and murmured behind her back. She walked past them hastily while their chatters slowed down to a level of whisperings.
Yoon Min was finally in front of the door and was about to go inside. But Yoongi lifted his arm to stop her, earning a surprised gasp from the crowd.
“You can't go in.”
She should've expected this. “Seonbae, please let me go in."
“No. You heard me. You're not allowed.” His voice was professional and serious as if he didn’t know her the slightest.
She furrowed her eyebrows and began to raise her voice out of choice, “What do you mean I'm not allowed? I've the full right to see him!”
The way she shouted at him proved the thought of keeping her away from him made her bitter and angry. The volume of her protest was enough to take a guess that those inside the office must've heard her voice as well.
Yoongi didn’t like her attitude. “Need to remind you he ran away from the universe and stayed out there on the Moon all by himself...because of you?”
She got hurt by his words but she chose to ignore that. Caring about those petty things will only delay her goal. “That doesn’t give you the right to--”
“Princess Aereum ordered me not to let you in. None of us want you near him, Guardian Yoon Min.”
The crowd was helping out by playing the audience. They kept exclaiming and passing comments which were absolutely revolting.
“I just want to see him. Please, you have to let me in.” Eyes stinging, she almost begged the senior guardian.
He didn’t bother to repeat his words.
She pleaded again, “Seonbae, please! I have to talk to him!”
Yoongi shouted at her, “No, Guardian Yoon Min! This is the final time I'm gonna say this: You are not allowed to see him. So just leave!”
A nerve-racking silence broke through the air among the people as they were speechless. As for her, she tried her best to stand strong and unbreakable inspite of going through difficult procedures just to see him. She didn’t want to cry like a child but her vision was blurring due to incoming tears. Why couldn’t no one understand the fact she wanted to help him?
She could clearly see he didn’t mean it when she saw the pupils of his eyes shaking and his face crumpling before he moved his head away. Hence, she wasn’t getting mad at him for treating her poorly.
The doors opened unexpectedly, surprising everyone including Yoongi and Yoon Min both. But it didn’t open wide, just enough for Nam Joon to get out of the room. He had the door slightly open as he asked with a hint of irritancy.
“What's all the fuss about?”
Yoongi complained, “Glad you're here. She wants to see Jin Hyung.”
The tall guardian sighed and mumbled to the other, “You go in, Hyung. I'll take care of it.”
Yoongi sparing a look of apology to her and without wasting time, entered inside the office while the other came out and faced her, ready to repeat the same words again. But he managed to pull it off in a gentle manner.
“Guardian Yoon Min?” He grabbed her full attention and almost got his heart broken when he saw her blurry eyes.
“This isn't the right time for you to meet Jin Hyung. Princess Aereum's orders and I personally think that as well. Let him catch his breath first. Okay?”
Yoon Min blinked her eyes. She still argued, “But I just want to--”
“You will. We will let you meet him soon. Just not now, okay? He's not doing good in there.” He whispered the last sentence.
Though she wasn’t convinced entirely, she found no reason to keep pushing this matter when all of them decided not to let her meet him. The senior guardians were well aware she had no fault in whatever happened. They knew it was actually their friend who had cheated on his wife and later took his life out of guilt. They knew he was the one who messed up things. But they loved him too much to admit those facts yet.
They knew it was his fault, at the same time, they didn’t want to believe their friend caused so much pain and agony to a girl like her. For their own peace, they were trying to make it seem like it was because of her, he committed suicide and she's the reason he ran away from the universe. They knew they were being childish by pretending to be mad at her for no reason.
They should be helping her and supporting her. But instead, they chose their friend through his low. A deep side of their hearts knew they were doing wrong. To all of them.
They wanted to protect him from her, didn’t they?
Nam Joon smiled slightly, not enough for his dimples to appear as he turned around and walked inside, leaving her there. While he held the door open for no more than three seconds, Yoon Min mindlessly raised her head and like a flash of a photoshoot, she caught a glimpse of Seokjin inside the room and her dead heart doubled its aching, body stilling. It ached and wept and yearned for his eyes to look at her for one second.
Right before the door closed on her face, he looked back painfully slow and met her crying eyes.
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Yoon Min didn’t understand what was taking them so long. The princess and the senior guardians weren’t letting Seokjin out of the office even for a second. What were they doing to him? He had been inside the office for the whole night which was starting to scare her now.
What if Princess Aereum was trying to manipulate him?
Cursing under her breath, she leaned her back against one of the book shelves in the library. She let out a soft exhale and thought about him. Aereum must be brainwashing him since she believed distance was the right thing between them.
She wanted to break that. She wanted to help him, make the negative emotions go away forever. But the situation wasn’t letting her. They were keeping him away from her.
She was about to kick her feet but that's when she caught Jimin wandering among the shelves, looking for a particular thing, or person. His eyes were searching everywhere like a radar until she decided to make herself present to him.
“Jimin Seonbae?”
His eyes caught the presence of her and his eyes widened. Like a thief being caught red-handed, he shamelessly turned his back on her and jogged away.
She ran after him, “Wait, Seonbae! Don't you run from me.”
Reaching his pace, she blocked his path by standing in front of him and spread her arms on either side of her.
Jimin closed his eyes in defeat and whined. “I don't know anything! Please don't blackmail me.”
Yoon Min sweetly showed him a smirk, “Oh, I was only thinking to tell Myeong Jo that you--”
“Hey, hey, don't you dare mess things between us. I'm barely able to impress her already...” He actually sounded desperate.
“Well, you have a shot. Tell me everything that's going on. How's Seokjin?”
He didn’t look very happy to hear her question. But since he was a kind soul and didn’t want to be blackmailed, he finally answered, “Jin Hyung hasn’t spoken a word since he got here. When we found him on the Moon, he was just staring at Earth like a statue. At first, it felt like he couldn’t even hear us. It took us some efforts to bring him back. And now, Princess Aereum has been questioning him several things and rebuking him. But he isn't even reacting.”
Yoon Min's heart clenched in pity for him. She kind of guessed it.
Crossing her arms over her chest, she demanded, “And why aren't you guys letting me see him?”
Jimin replied straightway, “It's Princess Aereum's order. Partially, the other senior guardians also decided that. But the main reason why we're forbidding you to meet him is because we don't want him to hurt you anymore.”
She wasn’t expecting that. She guessed but she didn’t think it was actually true.
“We all know what you went through because of him, both when you were alive and after death. After everything that happened to you, it’s not easy for you to take a decision. Believe it or not, we all are trying to help you. Especially the princess. She cares for all.”
He continued, “And since he hurt you so many times, intentionally or unintentionally; we felt the need to distance him away from you, to stop you from getting hurt again. That's why...you know--”
Yoon Min pressed her lips in a straight line and her eyes dropped to the ground. They only were trying to help her. Yoongi pretended to act rude just to keep her away from him. All of them wanted to protect her. While she was thinking they considered her a threat for him.
It was unexpected, receiving this type of protection. Because she wasn’t in need of it now.
What she really needed was to let her help Seokjin.
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The next update will be on 4th Dec🙈