GYEOMIE POV:

I watch as MJ hyung and Jinyoung hyung move around (Y/N), at the significant exhaustion on her face as she curves into Eunwoo's side, head resting on his shoulder, eyes fluttering with sleep as the two of them flit around gathering tonics and balms.

Anything to lessen her fatigue. Anything to lessen the dark circles and the way she had swayed as they'd hugged her after opening the door, hugging her not only in greeting but to keep her upright, to keep her from crumpling to the ground.

"Chickie...you've been getting nightmares again haven't you?" Jinyoung hyung says with a sigh, thumb brushing over the dark circles and looking wearily hurt on her behalf.

She gives a small nod, sighing with content when Eunwoo's arm wraps around her waist to tug her close, I approach with the mug of tea with dismay, she'd been hurting because of nightmares, she'd been hurting and finally that dull constant pain in our blood bond was finally given a name.

I hand the mug over to Jinyoung hyung, who gives a small smile before uncorking a small vial to tip into the tea, droplets of cloudy lilac mixed into the fruity tea.

And then he presses the mug carefully into her hands, scooting aside to let me plaster myself onto her other end, to brush my fingers across her shut eyes and lightly massage at her temples- trying to ease the headache away.

"Mallow...you promised to tell us if they came back. Maybe you should take Ryan hyung's advice. About seeing that consultant to take them away." I offer softly, words careful and slowly spoken.

Her nightmares had always been such a source of distress to her, always came back to surface whenever she was stressed, or whenever something triggered them- whether it was even seeing Ryan hyung and Deok-mi noona, visiting back home or talking about her parents.

To see her hurt once more didn't make the pain lessen, didn't make it easier to see my bloodmate hurt. And Eunwoo's gaze that meets mine over her curved head is equally worried and silently fretting, even if he gives a light tap to her cheek.

"Drink the tea marshmallow. You're losing the cheekies once more." He says playfully and though the nervous tremor in his voice is apparent no-one comments on it, not even   (Y/N) as she raises her head with a resigned sigh, to tighten her grip on the mug- his hand retreating from it now that she's sitting up.

She takes a small sip, tentative of burning her lips, but smiles when it goes down easily, when she doesn't push it away and reject it like she always did to food and drink when her nightmares were particularly bad. She smiles and the four of us beam in response, the four of us have that clenching feeling easing when she doesn't gag at the tea or clamp a hand to her mouth.

"The nightmares have changed." She confesses in response to my question, to the offer about visiting the consultant.

"What are they about then?" MJ hyung asks, hands moving busily to disguise the fretting clear in his eyes, head bent as he clears up the table of vials and balms.

"Chul Kang-Dae." She answers shortly, fingers trembling slightly as she raises her mug once more, eyes ducking away from us.

At the mention of his name, everyone freezes and stiffens, the air seems to still alongside us, becomes a heavy weight as we turn to face her. As Eunwoo's jaw tightens and his hand around her waist becomes protectively tight, drawing her close, my own reaching out to hold hers around her mug when she lowers it slowly.

Jinyoung hyung's face is hardened with rage, eyes burning crimson and a quick dart at MJ hyung shows he's no better, almost vicious as he slams the tray he'd lifted up back down, a loud cluttering sound as his hands grip the edge.

"How long? How long have you had nightmares of him?" Jinyoung hyung asks, voice low and almost fearful of her answer.

"Nearly two weeks? At first they were about my parents but now...now that I'll always remember him not only as a murderer but as someone who took away everything. He just won't leave." She whispers, voice shaky as she tells us, as she whispers the burdened truth that though he's dealt with and gone, his deeds are still burning her mind.

It makes my throat swell up and threaten to close in on itself when I think of how stained those bed-sheets had been, how saturated with her blood they'd become. It made me bolt up screaming sometimes when I thought of her not responding, when I felt the bond between us snap and when I remembered that sickening moment when it felt like the world was ripped away from me.

She'd been there for me, sleepily answering the phone and keeping me company until morning with her voice, more often than not she'd snuck out to meet me, to climb into the nesting room at the coven to tuck herself close and soothe me to sleep, hands laced together and asleep by the time the day finally dawned.

But...I hadn't been there. I hadn't been there for her in turn. Because she was hurting and she'd hidden herself away. With that same self-sacrificial intent to hurt but only alone. To not bother anyone else.

"And you didn't tell anyone? You didn't think to tell your mates or maybe even us? Someone who's family?" Eunwoo asks, voice tight with protective anger, rising in his hurt, in his raging concern.

Because unfortunately this was a pattern that Eunwoo and I had become painfully familiar with over the years growing up with her. Because it always took pushing and prodding until she snapped until she told us or until she caved under the burden alone.

It was just that the same young girl we'd seen with tearstained cheeks and glassy eyes had grown into a young woman who hid that pain, hid it even as she gripped the mug for something to keep herself rooted to, but the glassy sheen to her eyes was painfully familiar, a small sniffle coming from her bent head.

One small sound.

And it has Eunwoo melting and curling close with contriteness but also the immediate need to first comfort, the beratement would happen later.

"Marshmallow...if you'd told us then they would've stopped by now. You need to start talking about your hurts." I add, fingers brushing across my mark on her wrist, comfort and love pulsating in the bond between us as we huddle close to her.

She nods.

"I know...it's just so hard to let go of old habits. I didn't want Yoongi oppa feeling guilt, I didn't want the others hurting and I didn't want to burden you with it." She mumbles.

A hand reaches out to take the mug from her and when she raises her head it's to see Jinyoung hyung kneeling in front of her, taking her other hand as he smiles at her, even if his eyes are filled with the crimson of protectiveness.

"Don't you remember sweetheart? You're our nestling. You always have been even if you're part of a mated coven. And that means your hurts are something we deal with together." He says.

She gives a tiny jerk of her head, biting down on her lips as a few tears streak down her cheeks.

His other hand immediately darts out to wipe her tears away, softly cooing and murmuring to her.

"Yugyeomie has a point my darling. Why don't you get rid of the memories that hurt you so much?" MJ hyung asks from over Jinyoung hyung's shoulder.

She gives a small noncommittal shrug.

"It feels wrong to. I couldn't get rid of the memories of that night because it's the last memory I have of them alive. And it feels wrong to get rid of something that reminds me that my life changed, that I can't be the old person I used to be." (Y/N) says with an almost hushed whisper, opening up this rawness, this vulnerability.

It makes me ache because I can feel the hurt and emotional jumbled mess she's feeling, feel it resonate through our bond.

"And your mates? None of them have noticed?" Eunwoo asks, voice sceptical. Because given how smitten and downright consumed they were by their love for her, there was no way they hadn't picked up on it. 

It doesn't make sense.

She raises her head, guilt in her eyes at being caught out.

"I always go to clear my head when I have nightmares." She mumbles.

But there's something still missing from that. Surely her emotions would've woken up at least Yoongi hyung.

"And?" I prompt.

"And...they think I've been working for the new opening. They're used to me getting out early and think the negative emotions are because of my worries." She adds.

I look at her in disbelief. She's been letting her mates misunderstand the emotions, the reasoning behind them. She's let them take the dark circles and exhaustion as signs of her working hard once more.

I knew their relatively newer bond as a completed coven also meant they couldn't detect lies or unconscious tells so quickly, so innately, in the same way that I'd brushed off my own nightmares as just restless sleep. But she needed to know it was fine to feel weak and vulnerable, to let them share that burden.

She was doing this all to stop Yoongi hyung from hurting, because he was overcoming a much longer, much deeper trauma with Chul.

I hated and loved her for it.

There's a small sound of discontent that slips past Jinyoung hyung's lips.

"Chickie...we've known the coven for nearly a century. I know they will beat themselves up more if you keep it in for longer. These things are better said earlier." He says.

She ducks her head down.

"I just want it to stop. I'm scared to sleep but I'm so tired that I can't help it." And there's no mistaking the panic hysteria beginning to climb in her words.

I immediately turn to her, Eunwoo's body caving in protectively as I look at my mate with hurt in my eyes, silently telling him to stop because she was hurting. 

But then, the front door to the nest opens, the familiar presence of a mate stepping in brushes through the bond, a light caress in greeting.

"I'm home! Look who I found on the doorstep!" JB hyung's voice comes calling through, the shift in the nest alerting us to someone else entering.

But when they do step through to the living room, the two of them together, both pair of eyes flash red. Vibrant vermillion red.

One that burns red with surprise and then alarm.

And the other with urgency and sheer relief.

JB hyung and Yoongi hyung.

And I know in that instant that there's no hiding from him now. There's no way for (Y/N) to escape or avoid this. Not with her emotions bleeding out of her unconscious posturing, or with the way the four of us are huddled around her.

There's no hiding it and no avoiding it.

Not when Yoongi hyung's face crumples and he's darting forward immediately for her, rushing forward to his mate.

To the one whose emotions are yanking him forward, yanking him to her.

And as he folds (Y/N) into his arms, cradling her like she's the most precious thing he sees, the most precious being, I know that even if it's hard to open up, to share her agony that her mates won't let them shoulder it alone. That even if it's been a few years since they've mated, they've still got a lifetime to navigate together.

This was something they'd grow from. Learn from.

Even if I wished she'd not been hurting in the first place.

(Y/N) POV:

Yoongi oppa doesn't say anything, and yet somehow that's infinitely worse. Silent as he watches JB oppa gently nudge aside his mates so he can cup my cheeks, red eyes flitting over my face and catching immediately onto the dark circles, a tight set to his lips as he reaches a conclusion, reads the room and know what's happening. Silent as his arms fall away to let the others move close, that moment of contentment of being near him slipping away.

And still Yoongi oppa stays silent as Jinyoung oppa hands me a packet of balms and tonics, as MJ oppa brushes a kiss to my temple and murmurs to call him later. Silent as Eunwoo and Gyeomie slowly and unwillingly draw their arms away and let me move forward.

And he's silent even as he takes my hand, a light squeeze to our laced fingers- silent comfort given but no words yet spoken as we leave, as the others bustle close for a final hug or peck.

And silence that we go home in. I wish he'd speak, wish he'd say something, anything that didn't make me feel as if I was spiralling into panic, wondering what each beat of silence meant, dragging on what felt like distance between us. But at the same time I was glad, it let me have the small respite of trying to figure out a way to say it without hurting him, a way to tell my mates without making them feel guilt.

Because this was on me.

And as we drive closer and closer to home, it makes a nervousness build in my stomach, a violent churning that makes me feel nauseous at the thought of facing my mates and of having to say the words aloud. To voice the thoughts that had been haunting me, it felt like saying it would make it feel more real, more horrific to process.

But my inner panic comes to a halt when Yoongi oppa speaks.

When he finally breaks the silence.

"We don't have to speak about it. Not if you don't want. But...we will be speaking about the exhaustion. It doesn't feel like post cycle fatigue and there's been this sorrow clinging to you. It's not able to be hidden no matter how much you've been trying." He says quietly, voice soft and pained.

"So let us help. With sleeping better, with helping you heal even if it means it's not with us." he adds, hands tightening on the steering wheel, the tick in his jaw giving away how much it's bothering him.

But this is why I didn't want them to know, because he only knows the bare glimpse and is already hurting, already feeling my emotions and is being affected by them.

"I just...I just think my problems should be dealt by me. And I never said I don't want you all to help me heal, it just feels like I'm always causing one sorrow or the other to you all." I say, hands clutching at the package.

He sighs, a frustrated exhale of breath, it has me stiffening and feeling guilt roll in heavily, has me unsure as to how to respond, how to turn to him.

It has my fingers creasing the paper package.

"So your problems are your own? But ours aren't? So you can help us, you can hold us through nightmares but we can't be there for you? How does that logic work?" he says, voice slightly sharp, heavy and thick with hurt and the beginning of anger.

"Because you all suffered for so long. Mine is something I should be over but I'm not. I shouldn't be still bothered about something that happened three years ago. I'm 24...and yet it still hurts just the same." I confess, frustration bleeding into my own voice.

"(Y/N)...you're a vampire now, three years is barely the blink of an eye at times for us. And so it is perfectly fine to still be hurting. We hurt over things that happened centuries ago, it still hurts us. So stop keeping a different, impossible, set of expectations for your healing and for us." Yoongi oppa speaks, and this entire time we haven't exchanged glances, haven't met each other's eyes and yet it feels like it's his soul and heart screaming with agony at mine. It feels as if the emotions that must've been detected by him and the emotions he's experiencing right now are spilling over in a confusing, jumbled mess.

It feels like we're both saying the right words, both saying what's inside but it just sounds so wrong coming out, sounds as if hurt is spilling out past our lips and just worsening.

It feels horrible.

Feels like the beginning of a deeply rooted pain that makes my soul feel as if it's caving in on itself, crumbling and shattering and becoming confined.

A vampire now. A human once but a vampire now. But it wasn't that easy to forget time ran differently, meant something different. It was hard to accept that when for me every day was still treated with the old knowledge that I was mortal, that I would age and die.

And his words just reminded me that I wasn't. That I wouldn't have that end to my life.

"I know. But my brain doesn't stop processing my life as very mortal. That it will end one day and that in that sense it feels like my life is wasted with pain." I bite out, hands curling into fists into the package, feeling the hard outline of the vials inside.

"It's not wasted! I know it's hard but (Y/N) it will—" he begins, tone of helplessness and despair.

"It will end, the pain will go. But I can't help hating my mind, myself for thinking of it all the time." I say, voice rough and hurt, that same feeling of nausea and panic that had been consuming me every time I woke in a cold sweat, can't help the venom and anger towards myself, towards Chul from slipping out in that moment.

That weak, pitiful part of myself that makes itself heard, makes itself come out, as if the emotions have been yanked out. As if just seeing Yoongi oppa, seeing my mate and seeing him hurt, seeing him angry and pained has me responded with just as much emotion if not more.

And I don't realise we've arrived until the car is harshly braking, until we're both jerking forward with the force and finally staring at each other. Finally meeting each other's eyes.

I see rage and anger and pain in his glassy eyes, red and burning as they're swallowed whole by emotion. I see his hand reach out to turn the engine off, see his other hand lift off the steering wheel as he turns to face me, twists in his seat.

But his eyes are raging even if his body is calm, is gentle as he moves forward slightly.

His hand moves off the steering wheel to reach out for me but my hand is already fumbling with the seatbelt, already undoing it as my other hand scrabbles for the car door handle, rushing to move away, to get out and away from this suffocating cloud of feelings. To get away from confronting them when I didn't feel strong enough to. Didn't feel able to process everything I'd spilled in the heat of the moment.

And stumble out of the car, hand darting out too late for the parcel that had been on my lap, the sound of glass crashing and breaking loud and grating to my ears, the sight of the stained, wet brown paper reminding me of that loss of focus for one moment.

My hand hastily grabs it, wrapping around it with too much force as the glass pricks and pierces my skin, fisted around it as I move away from the car.

There's the sound of a door closing, of footsteps.

"(Y/N) stop. Let's talk about this." Yoongi oppa pleads, voice shaky and distraught.

I did that.

His words come through a thick numbing blanket over my senses, distant and far away. And I move, move to get away, feet hastening forward, other hand pushing the door open to step inside.

And this time the soft habitual warmth of the hallway doesn't soothe me, it feels sticky and clinging to my skin, makes me swallow down the rolling wave of nausea once more.

"You're back! Where's Yoongi hyung...sweetheart what happened?" an excited voice trails off to panic and alarm.

I slowly blink at the sight of Minnie looking at me, eyes flashing red as he takes me in, drifting to over my shoulder.

To the presence I feel behind me, feel it like an ache.

I shake my head, feet clumsily toeing off my shoes before moving to the stairs, before moving to get away.

"(Y/N) what's wrong?" Joonie oppa's voice appears, sharp and concerned, hand coming to reach for me as he comes down the stairs.

My hand clutches at the railing, fingers curl around the package and distantly feel the glass embed itself deeper.

There's a sound of alarm.

"Don't. Just don't..." I wheeze out, breath shaky and strained and then my body is pushing past his, moving to get away, feet feeling stilted as I hasten.

I get to the first landing, staggering forward to move towards my bedroom, towards that haven it offers to become.

The door to my room is barely closing behind me when I'm slumping down, legs giving out as I clutch at the handle, head curved towards the frame. My breath comes out shuddery and weak, lungs aching and burning as I clutch at the door handle, clutch at it even as my other hand goes limp around the package, as my fingers finally let go of it and feel the glass pull away.

And even as I finally enter my bedroom, finally find myself in a place I feel safe in, I'm alone.

And for all that I'd moved away from the swirling haze of noise and voices, deep down my soul yearns, it yearns and longs past the pangs of pain. Because deep down, past the pain I knew I didn't want to be alone.

And yet I was.

And it was because of me. Because I was experiencing the aftermath of my own actions.

Because I'd pushed them away when I most needed them, wanted them.

Because even now a part of me, a part that won over too often, which had pushed me to keep it from them felt defeated now.

And then the gentlest voice that speaks from the other side of the door.

That comes to pierce through that heavy blanket over my senses.

"(Y/N)...sweet mate will you let me in?"

And I don't know whether my head spins from relief or something else.

But at his voice I crumple, hand slipping away from the handle and body drooping. At his voice I fall away from the door and it opens a bit.

With his voice I find something to cling onto even if shame rolls in.

But yet it was if I couldn't bring myself to care or be bothered by it. Because the sight of Hobi oppa standing there was both a relief and a horror.

I just didn't know which it was I was feeling.

(SO!! WHEN I SAID I'D BE DOING A TIMESKIP CHAPTER I DIDN'T REALISE THAT IT WOULD END UP BEING ANGSTY AND HURTY AND JUST...THIS EMOTIONAL MESS. AND ALSO GYEOMIE MADE HIS LONG AWAITED COMEBACK AS BLOODMATE AND FIERCE PROTECTOR! BUT THERE WE GO!! IT'S BEEN A FEW YEARS EVEN IF THAT HASN'T BEEN BLATANTLY OBVIOUS...BUT DON'T WORRY IT'S NOT ESSENTIAL TO THIS SPECIFIC CHAPTER BUT JUST A MENTION JUST SO YOU'RE AWARE! LET ME KNOW HOW YOU FOUND THIS CHAPTER...AGAIN NO PLANS INITIALLY FOR THE ANGST BUT IT'S MADE ITS COMEBACK! AND I HOPE IT MAKES SENSE AS WELL...YOONGI AS AN EMPATH IS ALREADY SO SENSITIVE TO EMOTIONS AND HE'S JUST HIGH STRUNG BECAUSE SHE WON'T SHARE AND BECAUSE HE'S BEING INFLUENCED BY HERS BEING ALL OVER THE PLACE AND POOR BABY MATE IS JUST SO EXHAUSTED. LET ME KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS! THERE WILL BE A PART TWO TO THIS! TAKE CARE AND STAY SAFE LOVES!)

Sometimes it feels like our hearts are empty vessels that fill and fill with the emotions and experiences and relationships we'll gain in life. Sometimes that vessel will feel empty, will have that space where we doubt, where we hurt and where we feel alone but don't forget that there are parts filled with love, filled with the people around us. Sometimes our hearts feel full, feel as if they spill over with the intensity of what we feel. And sometimes it feels like our hearts shatter, that through the cracks and holes our emotions seep out. But this all is okay. This too is part of life. And you all will find yourselves living with filled hearts and lives full of love. That time will come.

Borahae! 💜💜💜

PurpleQueenie <3