As soon as the meeting ended, (y/n) found herself trailing across the camp alone, her tent in sight and tired again. She wanted to warp herself in her sheet and lie still. The bench (y/n) had sat on left her hips aching and her legs numb, but there was now a plan, one positive thing to outweigh the negative. More than that, Jin, Yoongi, Hoseok and Jungkook were truly helping, Their minds seeing something she had so easily missed.
When (y/n) reached the tent, she practically fell in. The air had cooled since she'd last been in there. So, she wasted no time wrapping herself up in the blankets until (y/n) protected all but her face from the chill. The night had felt long, and any energy the nap had brought her had gone. Now, all she longed for was for her eyes to close and for sleep to come. However, despite her best effort, it felt like something was pulling her eyelids open. Her eyes felt so strained and tight that she practically had to hold them closed. It must have been from reading all the paper in low light or just being up too long. It didn't matter why. All that mattered was that it was sending (y/n) mad. The need to rest had been growing in her bones, and the muscles that always moved with grace had become slow. There was a deep, weary feeling that (y/n) could not dissolve or would not evaporate with the sun's rise the next morning.
Her mind was so focused on squeezing her eyes shut that she failed to notice the night blade approaching. The said nightblade hated how he had crawled back to this practical tent as soon as his brother had fallen asleep, but no matter how much he shunned himself, he made the trek down the muddied path into the far end of the camp, where the small red tent sat. Yoongi didn't bother knocking, but she could see it was dark and that (y/n) should have been asleep. He intended to slip in next to the girls and leave before she ever woke. He still felt a bit embarrassed over last night's escapade. He couldn't remember the last time he had cried like that. What made it worse was that it was in front of (y/n) he had hardly spoken with her. She had always cried in front of him. She was open with her tears. And after all those moons, maybe that was why he crawled to her bed.
Yet when he came through the door, Yoongi was met with big eyes, backlit by his lamp. He cursed under his breath, thinking she had woken him up. As he looked closer, her eyes were clear as day. They did not possess the haze one had when awoken suddenly. He breathed a sigh of relief, letting his body fall next to her. (y/n) once again, didn't say anything about his arrival; she just shuffled over to give him room.
The idea of sleep had utterly left the girl's mind; there was no point when Yoongi looked on edge. If he had had another nightmare, she wanted to be awake to comfort him just like last time. They may not have spoken much since they reunited, but (y/n) felt deep remorse for all the nights she had gone to him. It was only fair to repay the favour.
It looked like neither felt the need to lie back down; they just sat silently with a weird tension. It was as if they had set a competition of who could hold their tongue the longest. What felt like hours had only been minutes, but it was long enough for (y/n) to decide something had to be done. The nightblade reached for the small truck of belonging and pulled out a bottle of something clear. It was a bottle of alcohol, gifted by Akira as a thank-you present when she had first moved into the camp. It wasn't a big bottle, but it was a drink strong enough to serve them well into the night. (y/n) thought she saw a slight hint of a smile on the male's lips as she sat back and opened the lid.
It had the distinctive smell of alcohol, but an ethereal note of cherry blossom, tea, citron, and pepper briefly emerged, leaving as quickly as it came lulling into disinfectant. Each aroma dissipated the next until she plucked up the courage to take a swig. If she could not fall asleep on her own, this would help or give her the guts to talk to Yoongi; either worked. The bitterness overwhelmed all other flavours as the liquid hit her pallet. It trickled down her throat and let a pleasant burn. (y/n) handed the bottle over, and Yoongi took it without hesitation, following suit by taking a drink.
(y/n) watched him carefully as she wiped her lips on the back of her hand. "where did you get this?" Yoongi asked after his face settled from scrunching up.
"Akira gave it to me," She answered, secretly proud that she wasn't the first to break the silence. (y/n) eyed him as he took another shoot and handed it back. She copied, taking another for herself. There wasn't any occasion to use it, so why not now? They locked eyes for a moment, and she almost laughed. It left like she was a little kid doing something she wasn't meant to, not a grown adult having a drink.
"Why does he give you so many gifts?" Yoongi questioned all the previous tension seemed to of gone.
"I think he feels indebted, and it's a way of saying thanks."
"Thanks for what though it doesn't seem you've done much." He was looking ahead, but she could hear his smile; the alcohol had already begun to work, losing them up for what seemed the most ordinary conversation she had had in a while. Rather than reply to his taught with words, (y/n) grabbed the book she had been trailing around and threw it on his lap. Yoongi recognised the book from the night he killed Doeksu.
"In there's proof of all I do here,"
That book had nasty memories attached to it, one of death and his surrogate father. Yoongi was curious to know what the girl did. All he had seen was the odd snippet and a few meetings, things he had never given his full attention to; Yoongi still wasn't sold on being in this war and getting involved didn't feel right. He knew it wasn't worth revisiting the night from many cycles ago.
"I'll believe you, " He pushed the book off his lap to rest on the be. He said, "Why are you even doing this? I don't get it,"
"I keep telling you I don't have a choice."
"yes, but Why?" The mood dropped, short-lived as it was. The way Yoongi forced those words out sounded as if he might have caused some capillary to bust; it was as if every frustration of the past few years had configurated into his question.
(y/n) sighed. It was going to have to come out eventually. She had dodged it with everyone else when they questioned her motives. It wasn't from the goodness of her heart to help the kingdom she grew up in; it was self-preservation. Pure and selfish over something she could have bared. Staying on the island sounded like the most heavenly thing right now. She would have wasted her days there in a heartbeat if she knew she would have to admit what was to play out to Yoongi. But there was no way she could hold her tongue now, not when he was looking at her so expecting. With another drink, she began to tell.
"To get off that island, I had to convince them. They came up with this deal and told me about these nightblade that had fled the island to join the second kingdom. They do not like those who left could expose the island's existence, so I have to hunt them down and kill them. I'm also to make sure Akira becomes king. They think it's the safest bet out of all the lords. If I don't do this, they will kill me. If I do, I'm free to do as I please." She spoke slowly, choosing her words carefully to avoid stumbling or miss-talking.
It was a subject she had spent days upon days thinking about but saying it aloud made it real. It was like she was confirming her demise with each word. Though when she looked back at Yoongi, she got no sympathy. He was staring straight ahead with little expression, but the tiniest of creases on his bow showed her was thinking, mulling it over in his mind.
It took a while for him to speak, but when he did, he did it quietly. "If the island is such a big secret, what makes you think they're not just going to kill you anyway after you've done their dirty work." It was not said maliciously or harshly; it was a simple question to a point she had purposely choose not to think about.
"I'm just hoping," Was all (y/n) could reply.
"Explains why you've dragged us into this mess then," He said, once again with no malice or ill intent, just as if he was stating a fact - a fact she could neither disguise nor deny. It was annoying how she couldn't gauge his thoughts; those blanket statements did not indicate if he was angry, so she thought it best just to explain herself. "I think those nightblades could wipe me out easily, and I have no idea how to win a war. I guess I thought you guys had a better skill set."
There was quiet for a long time as they both sat there drinking.
"Well, shit,"
"yep," (y/n) agreed as she sunk into her pillow; it was a statement that summed up everything pretty well. "Please don't tell anyone, though," She heard Yoongi hum as he, too, settled further down. It was nice that Yoongi hadn't made a fuse about it. She half expected him to get more enraged or annoyed as he would if she messed up back at the hut. But that was so long ago, and she had forgotten that she was no longer in their life that way. He had no reason to shun her for her mistakes, only those involving him and his family. And if telling him this meant they would leave after knowing how foolish she had to be to agree to such stakes, she would understand. It was perfectly fair. She didn't know when she fell asleep, but perhaps having some of the weight off her chest helped not only that, but the buzz in her brain helped.
She left the other nightblade to ponder in the dying light of the lamp. The reason was too far from what he had expected, assuming the girl would have caught herself wrapped up in a snare. However, that being said, he didn't realise how imminent death was for the girl. It made his stomach lurch as his dreams felt closer to the truth than his imagination. It made this war feel a lot bigger, like everyone he loved was about to be stripped of their life, and there was nothing he could do about it. Yoongi had yet to build his brain for war tactics like Hoseoks. He had no skill outside of one-on-one combat to aid the fight like namjoon. Like the other, he had been left to fumble about throwing ideas that might have no value. And even then, he thought his words were the least helpful. He felt useless.
It then became clear that he feared death more than anything else, whereas his friends seemed unfazed. It was their way of life as nightblades. Death was crucial to how they lived. He had killed and killed, but it had shifted how he could be on the receiving end. Dying is part of the ecosystem of living, matter and souls, but preparing for it felt harsh. He couldn't prepare for his friends to go or for his own exit. And in some way, it left like he was disappointing Shiro; he had always spoken in riddles and poetry about accepting fate.
Yoongi tried to shake the thoughts, but it wasn't working no matter how hard he tried, and when his hands brushed against Doeksus's book, he made hast opening it. Anything to distract his mind. The book was several hundred thin off-white pages, each gentle to the fingertips. Upon them was the wisdom of Deoksu, passages channelled through great knowledge and a lifetime of meditative contemplation. And in humble ink, written over the top was the vitality of (y/n) brain, how her synapses danced. That book was what a person could accomplish in decades of their two souls forced to see how to execute death on a mass scale. And as he read each line and scribble, he found it made no difference, only now he saw the effort and the exertion poured into this war - little footnotes and comments made by the boys, Namjoons lists were sandwiched in between maps.
He pulled them out and held them to light; in messy handwriting, he could see lists of numbers upon numbers. Namjoon had always been good at cracking codes others couldn't see. And as his brain struggled, Yoongi read, pausing so he could pay attention to and make sense of the words. It appeared to be coordinated too many to comprehend. He slammed them back into the book and fell back.
It left him questioning if he was a faulty kind of man, his heart too tender and weak to face the truth. Yoongi had no clues embedded in his hands; he could extract and contribute. He didn't want to die, but what could he do when he felt like no special grain of sand? He was no undiscovered star; he was just scared. And if the universe set out such a great and holy plan, he didn't want to do it. All Yoongi wanted was to go back to the hut and pretend everything was back to normal.
He felt his brain slosh about in his head.
The worst thing was that Yoongi could see the others had embraced this new lifestyle; he seemed alone in this, though minus Jimin, but Jimin himself had been acting off. In a few days, most had taken to it like a duck to water, he had tried to join in, but deep down, it wasn't working. He felt like a spindle wound too tight, the thread ready to faction his body apart. He hadn't noticed that his heart had sped up so much until (y/n) placed a hand on his chest. She had rolled over to face him. His nerves had somehow spilt into the air to awaken her; in a sleepy fog, she shuffled over. Her body leaned ever so close as her arms snaked around, grounding him slightly. He watched as the girl quickly fell back asleep.
She looked tired even then, and suddenly, his death seemed so little. He could slip away, leave the camp and go on the run. It was not how a man, a nightblade like him, was supposed to behave. It's not the way the world was set out for Yoongi. Like (y/n), he was supposed to do all he could in the face of it. To take the charges and stand time for every fault he committed. After all, he was born to this life with a gift that came with a high price. Guilt reached his thoughts.
He looked down at the girl; how had she always managed to unwind his head? It what the way she had him practically talking to death wrapped in her grateful arms, questioning how he could play his card as every fibre shock. He closed his eyes as he tried not to fall apart.
Hello, all hope you're well. This feels like it read dead rush, so sorry about that :) But either way, I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for reading; Iove ya !!!!!