The past days had been... calm. Strangely calm.

For one there hadn't been even a single tiny wheeny shadow bothering me, which was weird considering that the source of my nightmares ever since I was a child had come out to made a move to do... what ever he wanted to do to me, making me ask myself what eventually happened to Mr. Ghost and Hoseok.

It didn't even come to me that something crucial might've happened to Hoseok, knowing that there was absolutely no ghost who could compete with him. But the 'what ifs' were starting to well up inside my mind - what if something happened to him? Hoseok hadn't made a move to contact me once, and I didn't even know if I wanted to contact him in the first place. Maybe, it was better that way; Not knowing where he was at or what happened to him.

But not only the lack of scary ass shadows creeping up behind me was what caused the current calmness in my life.

The whirlwind, that opening up to my foster mom Chungha conjured every time, had faded to a gentle cool breeze, keeping me on alert but not preventing me from getting comfortable around her.

She never forced me to go to school, to do anything she knew I wouldn't be comfortable with, always being 100% understanding. Often times, we just sat together in her small living room in silence, her reading a book and me scrolling through my phone.

Only lately, I started to realize how hard I had been on her for no reason and how little she deserved it. She'd never been anything but nice to me, always doing everything in her might to make me feel at home, and I felt overwhelmed, now that I allowed myself to see the things she did for me.

My days were a weird mush of visiting Yoongi, doing only a few jobs for him that I knew were safe, chatting away with the small raven hair and coming home considerably early in the evenings, spending some time with Chungha, mostly in silence.

Right now, I was ready to go home and snuggle up in a blanket on our comfy, worn out couch and eat some of the soup Chungha had prepared this morning, but I felt myself halting on my way home.

I turned my body slightly, neck craning upwards as I eyed the building in front of me.

This was supposed to be the school I should be attending.

I'd only been there twice; The day Chungha registered me at the school and the second being my first day there, already being fed up from the pitying gazes and fake-friendly students after a couple of hours.

If I was to attend school now, I wouldn't be able to keep up. Not in class, nor socially. I didn't know how to make friends, never bothered to do so.

Yoongi said it was possible for me to go back to normal, and well, he also said that it was going to be hard. I started to realized how hard it was going to be.

All the lights were turned off when I came home, besides the small lamp in the living room, indicating that Chungha was currently reading.

"Hey." I mumbled, walking straight up to the kitchen to warm up some soup.

"Hey," Chungha answered with a smile when I walked back in the living room, closing her book when I sat down next to her with the steaming hot bowl in my hands, "I wanted to talk to you, Honey."

ugh

"You said you needed some time, but I've seen you change within the past days and honestly-" She stopped, obviously not knowing how to finish that sentence, "I just want to know what happened. That day you called me to pick you up." She gently reached out to stroke my arm with a comforting smile, "You never called me before, that was really a shock for me."

I should be wary, but at the same time I knew Chungha was unable to hurt me like others did. It would tear her apart, knowing that she did harm to someone.

And, honestly, I wanted to tell her. I just didn't know how.

'I got attacked by the ghost that made me kill my grandma' didn't sound all that great. But maybe that wasn't the part I wanted to tell her.

"I, uhm," I inhaled shakily, "I met this guy some time ago and he- you know I don't really have, like, friends. Because friends are usually people you can relate to, right?"

I saw her nod, encouraging me to keep on talking.

"And I didn't believe that there was anyone who could understand how I, y' know, functioned ad reversed. But this guy was like me and I understood him, somehow..."

"And you became friends?" Chungha asked with a smile.

"I... wouldn't say that," I heard my voice coming out a bit helpless, confused even, "Or not right away at least. But I spent more time with him then I spent with anyone else within the past.... 12 years. Only the couple of days before, eh, that incident happened that made me call you made me realize that he was someone I could call a friend, someone who was important to me."

"But?"

"He turned out not to be the person I saw him as." I scoffed, "Honestly, I should've expected that. He never turned out to be what I expected him to be, so why was I so surprised? I was dumb and let him lie to me naively. I found that out the day I called you to pick me up."

"That must've been shocking for you." Chungha hummed.

Yeah, no shit

"The problem is, I still kinda wanna see him, but at the same time I want to never ever meet him again."

"Because you are scared." Chungha deadpanned, and I'd lie if I said that her words didn't offend me, "You are scared to meet him again and see that he's a completely other person then you thought him to be, that he isn't like you at all."

It hurt to hear the words. I had always thought of this feeling towards Hoseok as anger. Because he lied to me.

But if Chungha was right, then this feeling wasn't anger, but fear. I was scared to meet Hoseok again. Yet, I wanted to.

"You know, Y/N." The blonde started, "I can't even imagine what you've been through. I've never met anyone who was scared of trusting people as much as you are and I'm not sure if I wanna know what made you like that. But if you want to get better, if you want to change, then you'll have to risk something."

"You'll just have to fight for it"

That's what Yoongi said. That's what Chungha was telling me now.

I was starting to realize that I was harder than I thought.

◆♤❦

It's been so long since Hoseok had talked to her last.

nah, it's been like, a week or sum

He fiddled the handle of the sword between his fingers, while he was balancing over the stone wall of the bridge, not minding the 50 meter abyss on his right side.

She hadn't contacted him, though he'd been sure she would. Did she think he was dead?

He groaned frustrated. Staying away from her turned out to be harder than he thought.

Even now he wasn't comfortable to get away further than 30 meters from her, having set the bridge as some kind of border between him and her, which he wasn't allowed to cross.

Okay, maybe he was a bit obsessed with her, but hey, she was the first human being he could truly relate to, so who could really blame him?

His main issue was that, although he was able to keep the shadows away from her, could help her physically, he wasn't able to help her emotionally anymore.

She was alone with her very own ghosts and ghouls, wrapping her head and her heart and Hoseok highly doubted that her christian foster mom was that much of a help.

He knew how she felt. He'd been there, too.

One of his hands let go of the sword, fiddling the silver mark that was always, still having around his neck. It still was there, after all those years.

◆♤❦

do y'all know your mbti personality type? mine's infp and it's exhausting

xx