Anya chuckled on hearing it, "I know." She said. "You made the words disappear? Is it just a hallucination?" she asked, indicating the diaries before her.

"No." Joon was content having her in his arms, content to stay just the way they were.

No? it was no hallucination? "You erased everything??" Anya asked with increasing alarm not wanting that to be true. All those years of emotions, everything that he went through-

"Its no longer needed Little Fruit. It made you cry. What use is there of it now? If you want to know something, ask me. I recall everything written in those pages because everything there was related to you. No one else needs to know, no one else will understand."

So there was no need to have them in the world.

Still.

The words hurt her. Its disappearance pained her now.

Humans really were creatures of regret.

"You will lie?" Anya whispered.

The hand cupping her cheek shifted slowly, trailing across her neck, her breast to encircle her waist. Joon adjusted her slight weight easily, lifting her to position the cushions behind her, carelessly swiping all the journals to fall off the bed.

Having seated her with her back against the headboard, he sat close, facing her, "There is nothing left to lie now, is there?"

Anya gave a small smile, "So calm and confident about me not wanting to run away from you?"

The lights in the room were switched off, the windows opening to let the cool summer wind bring in the slight salt of the sea breeze in.

Joon lifted one of her palms and kept it on his, the difference in size making his gaze soft, "Did you not understand yet? You cannot run anymore Blueberry. I won't let you." Playing with her fingers, he still had that quiet joy thrumming in his voice, "But knowing that you don't want to is what makes me feel that even cursed with such fate, such existence, I am blessed."

Anya looked at his head bent over her hands, wearing only a light shirt with cuffs rolled up. He looked peaceful, like someone who had got everything he had ever desired right before him.

She whispered, not bothering to hide the ache in her voice, "Why did you never tell me Joon? Why did you go out of your way to hide? Did you ever consider that more than being oblivious, I feel betrayed?"

Hearing her, his movements stopped.

Anya continued, "You think I am your everything, but why did you never consider what you are to me? A lot of what you struggled with, I should have been there beside you. That, was my right Joon. You took that away from me. Why?" quietly, she spoke in a whisper filled with hurt, "How dare you?"

Agitation manifested as restlessness in the man, as he shifted closer to her, his hands now caressing her arms but not no answer came forth. Nor did he lift his gaze.

Observing him for sometime, Anya let the topic go. As he said was the instance with the journals, now too, asking these questions was pointless.

"Don't hide from me Joon. Flawed, warped or contorted. Any descriptions that you think you belong to, you seem to forget the very first thing you that you really are."

Joon smiled with a sad humour, "Dead?"

"Mine."

Joon froze, going as still as a beautifully dangerous statue bathed in the moonlit darkness of the shadows playing on his gorgeous frame.

Anya leaned forward, cupping his face with one of her palms, placing her forehead over his. They breathed the same air, an intimacy far greater than any,

"Before anything else, you are mine Joon. I claimed you the day I held your hand in mine and made you run away from that funeral 14 years ago. There was never any doubt of who I would love. Progressing with my age, you were my friend, my protector, my crush and my only love. You have been mine since the time you trusted me to never hurt you. Why did you not see it Joon? Just like you, it was my responsibility to protect you. Only ever mine."

Anya felt a slight, very slight tremor. Joon was trying his hardest to hold back, keep his emotions from showing.

Tears in her eyes, pain in her heart with a smile on her lips, she lightly hit his shoulder,

"You were the Monster I befriended dummy. Why did you leave me to go haunt others?"

He shifted back slightly, then placed his forehead on her shoulder, burying his head to hide in her nape. His hands encircled her, bringing her close to him.

"You silly, foolish ghost." Her tears fell down as she held him in her hug, the person who was desperately unhappy, he love, who needed her comfort, "I never needed you to be someone you were not. I only wanted to be the one person who knew you the best, the one person could share all your secrets. I never cared if you were normal or dark, I only ever cared that you were happy."

Her chuckle held a wealth of pain, a sea of regrets for the lost chances never to be regained, "You betrayed me Joon. You betrayed me with denial to the things that were my right."

"Anya." Joon put his weight on her and she willingly fell on the bed with him still on top of her, "Forgive me."

Anya heard the furious pain in him, but she still lightly said, "Never."

She felt his agitation increase at her answer, storming through his frame, but she gave him no chance to escape. She soothed his back as with other hand she combed through his hair. His shockingly cold body always a reminder of the irreversibility of the fate they were sailing on.

Things could never turn back. Time, was not going to be kind enough to gift her a trip back.

She was helpless and that, fueled her sad anger.

"You don't understand."

"Then make me." Anya countered, "That is what I wanted Joon. Make me understand."

For a few minutes, Joon did not move. They remained as they were, neither speaking, both lost in the feeling of being so physically close. The closeness highlighted the impossibility of them being together, but both chose to ignore it.

At last, Joon eased his grasp on her and properly laid her down. He gently settled her down, spreading her hair on one side of the pillow, this fingers combing through the silken mass. As Anya stretch out to lay on her back, Joon's fame too settled right beside her. Propping himself on his elbows, he looked up.

His scarlet gaze connected with her blue ones.

Anya picked off his glasses and kept them aside, "You are some ghost." She smiled.

Joon chuckled back but it stopped Anya's light humour. Because even the light hearted joke was somehow melancholic to Joon.

"Even as a ghost, I am not normal Blueberry."

His arms banded around her waist, while he lay his head over her breasts, listening to her heartbeat. He closed his eyes as he said, "My death turned me into something else. I am a Ghost for the memories I am immersed in while another force in me is constantly trying to break free. It took me a year to subdue that part of me, because there was an innate fear in me that if I allow that part of me to win, if I let that part of me to remember, I might go from this world."

"Remember?"

"My soul, is unlike others Blueberry. I am not human. I never was. I was only born as one." Joon laughed sorrowfully, "I never could be anything else but a darkness trying to devour your light."

Instinctively, Anya tightened her hold over him. she did not want to know anything about this. This. . . whatever this was, a soul deep denial lashed out in her mind, making her flinch away from the subject.

She instead asked, "Narie's son. Did you kill him?"

"I gave him a choice. He chose the one he wanted."

"That does not answer my question, Joon."

Hidden from her, a dark smile spread across his lush lips, "He chose to live. So I let him."

Biting her lips, Anya asked, "How many more people did you give that choice to, today?"

"None."

"So. . . tonight. . ." She hesitated, not being able to rightly frame the question she directly did not ask.

Joon, let out a low laugh, then turned his head to look at her from where he lay on her chest, "What do you wish to know Little Fruit? How many I killed tonight?"

Seeing her guarded expression, the dull red of his eyes steadily swirled deeper, brighter, "How many do you expect?"

Knowing the truth about him now, Anya had no excuse to still keep being a foolish innocent. Otherwise it would just be a hypocritical righteous excuse to hide her being a rigid imposter after claiming to want to understand him.

Anya, wasn't that.

"None." She replied simply, "I expect you to kill none."

Joon lifted himself to hover right over her. He took his arms away from around her and placed them both beside her head, shifting to place both his knees on the either side of her waist, completely caging her small body, towering over her like a predator savouring his prey.

"Oh? Why? You don't want me to be someone who kills?"

"Because you are not someone to show mercy." Anya unflinchingly replied.

She was relaxed, even amused, as she watched Joon's anger drain out, confusion making him a little puzzled.

"Because death would be a mercy." She further elaborated, "You would only grant death to people who least anger you. I asked Narie who were present in the house she ran from except her husband and son. The names I got. . . none of them would have-"

"You are wrong." Joon interrupted, "Ji Oh just added the poison in the drug she gave Narie. Sung Ki never even acknowledged your existence."

At first Anya truly did not understand what he was saying. It made no sense or connection.

"So I killed them out right. My death. . . . it hurt you so they had to take the consequence."

"What about you?" Anya asked in a daze.

"Me?" Joon was puzzled again, "What about me?"

"Ryong ruined your childhood. He was the person who should be held responsible for all the abuse you suffered. Everything was because of him" her voice, started getting louder, a high pitch of incredulity, "He destroyed your mother, drove her to mental instability, made sure that she saw you as the reason for it. Since you were a boy, you were hit, beaten up, mistreated! They annihilated any chance of your healthy growth, made you hear things no child should, made you take blames that no child can even commit-"

"Anya." Joon shushed her. His lips brushed across hers, their touch only brief, a soft greeting. When he saw she became silent, he asked, "Do you want me to kill him? Then I will."

Thick tears clogged her voice making it hoarse, "No Joon. I want you to be angry at him for what he did to you."

"Okay. If you want me to be angry at him, then I am." Joon solemnly said, "Stop crying please."

Those cold fingers kept uselessly wiping the water as more kept pouring out.

No Joonie. No. Not because I said. Because you should be.

His world, really was just her. Just her.

But this in itself, was again wrong. If only one person became someone's world, that world became unbalanced. It became an ownership, the absolute, ultimate slavery, where one person could command the other in its truest sense, could even command them on what to feel, what emotion to have. Could easily redefine that slave's rights and wrongs, be the only rule he followed.

In such an unbalanced world, love could never truly exist. Because devotion would replace it. Obsession would tear it apart.

Both of those emotions were blind, none of them allowing a moral compass.

And Namjoon, was dominated by only these. Especially after his death, he became inclined to them in its slippery slope where with each passing day, he was slipping deeper in its gnawing, thrashing hell.

Slipping past her reach to pull him out.

His views would slowly get corroded with the imbalance, his greed, his selfishness causing him to inflict harm on any he perceived to be a threat. He would not stop, he would never understand where he was going wrong.

Deaths of innocents by his hands for the smallest of transgressions would become normal, death surrounding anyone who would come close to her.

Family who loved, friends who joked, elders who scolded, a home to call your own. A love, who cherished.

All of these were needed for someone to be balanced. Without balance, there could never be an existence whose thinking followed rationality. Without balance, dark would always become evil.

"Stop it Blueberry!" Joon half pleaded, half angrily shouted.

"Joon. . ." Anya could only say his name, her senses, her heart, her emotions taking a severe hit. The gut wrenching, agonising sadness drowned her completely.

Her Joonie could not be saved.

If this continued, it would-

End with him becoming what he most feared. What he hated the most.

"Anya?" Joon, desperate to stop her tears, slipped his hands behind her to hold her neck as his lips clashed with hers, devouring her mouth.

Anya too held him closer without restraint, her lips pressing harder on his, trying to escape from it.

The kiss was violently passionate. . . . and filled with a panicking sorrow.

Joon realized it fast and wanted to withdraw but Anya clung to him, her lips coaxing, pleading, commanding him to continue. Her tears never stopped, flowing over their lips, salty as a heartbroken dance in sea but addictive in its bitterness.

He tenderly held her head as he sipped from hers, his tongue softly tasting hers, comforting her.

The malicious Ghost gently and patiently soothed the devasted girl who grieved for him hidden in the darkness sheltering them from the world.

When Anya let go, she choked back on a sob and turned her head to one side, refusing to look at him.

"Silly Fruit," Joon gathered her closer still as he nuzzled her cheeks with his forehead, "I should change your name to Leaky Faucet."

"I promise yo-you s-so-something Joon. I vow i-it." Though speaking through her sobs made her words fragmented, something in them made Joon's senses sharper, fiercer.

"I will give you what is needed to be balanced. I w-w-will make you value f-family. I will make it so that you place the same love, same significance as me on your family. I will give you a home filled with people you will want to cherish and protect just as much as me. I will make sure that you get elders whose scolding you will dread, but treasure at the same time. Brothers, with whom you will be annoyed and irritated and happy."

Anya turned back, to pierce him with eyes, that shone with devastating sincerity and a beaming strong oath.

"I will claim you Joon, like the queen you keep calling me. And I will lead you to a door and wait for you to build up the courage to open it. Respect, Patience, Understanding, Sympathy, Protection, Freedom, Family, Friendship, Belonging and Love. I will drown you in it until you forget everything of your past. I will protect you Joon. In a way that not even you will have a way of wronging yourself. You will laugh, you will be embarrassed, you will sigh, you will be able to cry."

"Anya. . . ." Joon felt a heavy clenching in her heart, her words affecting him to an extreme degree. But it was impossible. What she said, could not be achieved.

He countered, "Love is only one kind-"

"NO! No Joon, no." he didn't even know this. Anya felt sore from all the emotional stabs she was taking, "Love is different for different relationships. Friends, brothers, elders. Every form is important and just as beautiful as a lover's. Every one form. Narie wanted your love in a different way than mine."

Draining. The tragedy of his loss was heavy, so heavy that it was draining her. He had lost so much but he didn't even know its absence.

"I will make you realize it. I will make you understand it."

He still nodded, humouring her, "In next life? Okay. But it's a long time away Little Fruit. You are very young, and I will not let you die. Not in any accident nor by anyone's design. Nobody in this life will be capable of harming you."

Anya remained silent for a moment, then said, "Yes. Next life." She let her arms fall to her side on the bed, "I am tired tonight Joon, sleep with me?"

Without another word, Joon turned her to one side, and spooned her from her back, securely holding her in his arms, obeying her words in an instant. It did not go unnoticed by Anya, whose eyes became even more dull.

"Goodnight Little Fruit. We have many more nights in the future."

Anya. . . did not reply.

"Because even in that state, the soul will realise that it has someone. When the time comes to give up, leaving will not have regrets, will not have grudge. It will not turn evil."

It took her 15 years, but Anya finally knew what the stranger was talking about.

💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫

A/N : if you like the story, please do consider voting and commenting.