A Heart is a Heavy Burden
Ch. 2 | Ch. 3
She doesn’t know how long she swam through the darkness, but her body refuses to move no matter how much she tries. It is as if a huge weight is on top of her, keeping her down in the depths of the abyss.
An echo finally appears in what felt like the front of her head. She can’t place the noise but she knows she has to find it. As she gets closer to the noise, it become more clear. The familiar voice is saying something to her, calling her out to consciousness. The dull pain that she felt as she was swimming is awakening once again. Her head pounds and her ears ring when she finally hears her name.
“Y/N! Oh my gosh, Y/N! Come on! Wake up!” The voice frantically calls out to her, desperate for her to wake up. She feels his hands roam her body checking for any injuries she may have obtained from whatever happened. She groans and her body begins to stir. The light is overly bright when she opens her eyes. She blinks back the darkness and looks up to see who’s voice she followed back.
“Y/N! Thank God you’re awake. Are you okay? What happened?” Fluffy brown hair frames a long face with high cheekbones. He looks down at her with worry written all over his face. She could feel his hands shake in both fear and relief.
“Hoseok…h-how did you get here?” Her arms move up under her to push herself up, but a sharp pain runs through her arm causing her to hiss and fall back down. Hoseok’s hands quickly find her shoulders pulling her up before she collapses back to the floor. Her eyes move down her arms in search for the cause of her pain. A blood red circle made of two snakes encasing a flower is burned across her wrist. A large, black bruise blooms just beneath it allowing a dull throb to match the beat of her pounding heart. A gasp escapes her lips as she studies the intricate marking.
“I was on my way home when I saw your door open. I looked in to find you laying on the floor. You-” Hoseok’s eyes follow hers. His mouth falls open as soon as he sees it permitting an inaudible gasp to fall out. One of his hands moves under her arm to hold it in place as his fingers delicately trace over the pattern. She winces at his touch but doesn’t pull away. His touch somehow soothes her skin enough for it to be bearable. He pulls his eyes up to hers, a million questions running through them. Her eyes mirror his but she finds something she doesn’t expect.
A thin silver ring surrounds his iris but quickly disappears as soon as she notices it. Her eyebrows furrow but before she can say anything, Hoseok is getting up and walking into the kitchen. He grabs a small towel and wets it with cold water. He brings it back to her and wraps it around her arm. The cold cloth calms her inflamed skin and a small bit of tension is released from her shoulders.
“Y/N, what happened?” Hoseok’s voiced is laced with anxiety as he stares at her fragile state. She looks down but quickly meets his eyes once more.
“A witch was here tonight.” Saying it aloud made the dream become reality. She stares at Hoseok gauging his reaction. When he stares back, she feels the need to continue, “A few weeks ago, on the way home, I was being followed by someone or rather something. I was prepared to defend myself but someone else came and saved me. It was someone I had met before when I was a little girl. He looked exactly the same though, I don’t know how. Anyway, he made the thing disappear and I came home like nothing happened.”
She wishes he would give her any type of reaction but he didn’t. He sat there patiently listening with intent. “Tonight, a witch barged in asking how I knew someone. I had no idea what she was talking about so I asked her to leave. That’s when she attacked me. I blacked out and then you found me.” Her voice falls flat with every word. She wasn’t one to talk over enthusiastically but her words left an odd taste in her mouth. When she looks back up to Hoseok, his eyes have changed. They no longer stare at her but at the ground. “Hoseok?” She calls his name and he immediately snaps his head up.
“Who was she looking for?” He asks with urgency. His breathing noticeably increases as he waits for the answer.
“You- Now you don’t look good. Hoseok, what’s wrong?” His face becomes pale the more she asks. His eyes continuously flicker between her and the floor as if he was avoiding something.
“Who was she looking for, Y/n?” He makes his voice strong again but she can tell something is really bothering him.
“Kim Taehyung.” The name causes her to whisper. She doesn’t know why but it carries weight. Her wrist stiffens as the syllables leave her mouth like the scar is listening to her speak. The throbbing pain that was subsided with the cold towel once again returns causing her eyebrows to knit together in discomfort. Hoseok sees her face change and reaches up to feel of the now dry towel. He carefully unwraps it from her wrist and goes into the kitchen to dampen it again. She studies her mark but Hoseok returns quickly and wraps it up again. He sits on his knees and sighs heavily.
“We better get that looked at.” He stands up before offering his hand to her. She accepts his offer and manages to pull herself off the floor with his assistance. Her body is stiff from laying in an awkward position for who knows how long. She carefully shakes out her limbs and attempts to get her body back to normal, as much as she can at least.
“I don’t think we can just show up to a hospital and say that a witch did this. That would raise too many questions that we don’t have answers to. I don’t even know who they were.” Her mind flips through the stories she’s heard of people going to the authorities or hospital about supernatural attacks. They usually didn’t end well.
Hoseok stares at the wall contemplating what to do. She can see his mind working as fast as it can to think of a better idea. Finally he speaks,“I know of a place. Let’s just hope they are as friendly as the rumors say. Get dressed.” Hoseok pauses and looks at her with an odd expression, “but don’t look in the mirror.”
“What do you mean?” She is already headed to her room when she hears the last part of his sentence. Instead of going into her room, she turns into the bathroom and turns on the light. The sight she is met with causes her jaw to lose all tension. Standing before her was not her reflection. Her hands fly to her hair and pull at it frantically. The eyes that stare back at her are full of shock. Silver hair frames her face, still curly from the tight bun she had earlier. Grey eyes sparkle in the light above the mirror. She even has silver eyebrows to match. She quickly moves around the bathroom trying to find fault in the reflection. A pit opens in her stomach as she studies herself. At a moment like this, one usually would scream or cry or just utterly panic. She is confused yes, but she also feels numb. This makes the pit even bigger.
Movement in the doorway catches her eye and she immediately turns to Hoseok in confusion. Instead of panic, he looks sad. He looks her up and down but finally meets her eyes. “It will be okay. They should be able to help. We will get you back to normal, but we need to hurry.”
The pit in her stomach seemed endless but she knows she has to get moving. She exits the bathroom, pushing past Hoseok who continues to watch her from the doorway as she moves into her bedroom. She gathers her clothes and looks at him, silently sending him away so she can change. They have been friends for years but that didn’t mean she no longer required privacy. She can see in his eyes how disturbed he is. From what he has told her, he has had dealings with magic before but not like this.
He keeps an eye on her as she moves throughout the apartment collecting things she might need. He can sense whatever encloses her aura and he doesn’t like it. More has changed than just her physical appearance but he doesn’t know the exact extent yet and that troubles him deeply. He cares for her and will take extreme measures to protect her no matter what. Guilt fills his chest as his eyes follow his now silver haired friend, he wishes he could have come home a little sooner. Maybe things would be different. He smiles at her when she finally announces that she is ready to go but his smile does nothing to reassure her. His eyes tell her that something is very wrong.
~~~
She didn’t know where they were going but she trusted Hoseok enough to know that he wouldn’t lead her into any danger. He took her through many back alleys and main avenues before she finally could figure out the familiar path. Some of these streets are ones she uses to get to work but some she didn’t recognize at all. She would be lost by now if she wasn’t following closely behind Hoseok. You have to be lost to find things that don’t want to be found. A voice echoes through her head reminding her of her childhood. She hasn’t heard that saying in years and it brings a little comfort to her with all the chaos that has happened lately. Her thoughts flip through her mind about her past as she and Hoseok round an unfamiliar corner connecting to another alleyway, although this alleyway pulls her out of her thoughts immediately.
Cracked, weathered bricks surround the two of them leading to a dust covered shop that looks as if it has been left untouched for ages. Confusion settles over her and her feet come to halt. This is the third time she has seen this shop and somehow it feels wrongs. She feels as if no one should lay eyes upon it except maybe once in a lifetime on a chance that it allows itself to be seen, but this is the third time now that she gazes upon it. It feels wrong… but it also feels right, like she belongs there. Like she is meant to view this shop as many times as she wishes.
Hoseok looks behind him to make sure she is still following him. When he sees that she stopped he grabs her hand delicately and pulls her along. It doesn’t take much for her feet to move again and they quickly walk up to the shop.
“Hoseok, what are we doing here?” He hasn’t said a word to her since they left and they have been walking around for at least two hours. Hoseok turns to her with confusion written all over his face, “Wait, you’ve been here before? When? How?” His gaze is fixed upon her waiting for her reaction when something moves behind out of the corner of her eye. She barely catches it but she knows she saw it. Out of the corner of her eye, a golden wisp of light moves across one of the windows on the second floor. Glittery flakes of amber trail behind it as it quickly moves out of sight.
“Y/n.” Her name being called pulls her attention to the man in front of her. “How do you know this place?” His look of surprise turns into something she has never seen before. Hoseok’s face contorts into fear and anger. She can’t even guess his thought process but she knows whatever it is, it isn’t good. “Hobi?” The affectionate nickname pulls him out of his thoughts enough for him to cover up whatever he was feeling. He breathes in deep and slowly releases it with a heavy sigh. She’s never seen him act like this. The carefree Hoseok that she knows was not this man that was standing in front of her. He looks deep into her eyes before turning and walking towards the door with her in tow. His grip on her hand is gentle but firm as if he is the one in need of reassurance.
Crumbling stairs lead to two giant, solid wooden doors intricately decorated with twisted beams coming down the sides and across the arched ceiling. Their aged appearance very noticeable at the close proximity. Large splinters rest at the bottom, crawling their way up to the top and the old finish seems to be nonexistent allowing moisture to bow the wood at the sides. A sun resides on the left door and a moon resides on the right. Both looking to be hand carved and very special but the years have finally caught up to them allowing the workmanship to fade. Each step to the door causes a peculiar feeling to run through Y/n. The mark on her wrist stings as they take each step and the scar feels as if its twisting inside her skin. She looks down to find the two snakes surrounding the flower slowly spinning in the endless circle that they complete. Both eat the other one’s tail as they move. Disgust runs through her chest making the mark feel even more powerful. She pulls her sleeve down to cover it as Hoseok raises his hand to knock on the door decorated with the moon. She finds it odd that he knocked on the moon rather than the sun but this thought becomes fleeting when the door glows a bright white.
As if a mirage had been covering the whole building, the image before them melts away revealing a completely different building beneath it. The bricks no longer look worn and tired of the many ages they have stood there, instead a youthful red blooms through them. The windows look freshly cleaned and doors now look as if they just had been made. Silver and gold now run through the wood corresponding with the sun and moon. Y/n’s heart shifts as she stares at the new appearance of the shop. Instead of excitement, she feels…numb. She feels nothing after witnessing her first real taste of magic. How odd that she used to be excited and giddy when someone even mentioned magic but now her heart feels like a desert, dry of any positive emotion.
The radiant door opens to reveal a small face of someone she doesn’t recognize. Fluffy blonde hair falls over a small forehead and large, chocolate brown eyes sit above a soft round nose followed by plump, pink lips. Isn’t this where he lives? Why would someone else open the door? Many questions pop into her head but before she could think through them, the person behind the door speaks.
“Can I help you?” A soft tenor voice asks as confused eyes stare at them. The door remains cracked just enough for the man’s head to poke out, shattering any invitation of coming in.
Before either of them could speak, another voice sounds from behind the door. “Who is it, Jimin?” The man at the door turns to whoever was speaking from inside and says something inaudible. A sigh escapes Y/n and a new force blooms inside her chest. She pushes past Jimin and strides into the shop looking for explanations.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? You can’t just walk in here uninvited. I don’t even know how you did that.” The mumbled last sentence goes unnoticed as she enters the building. A man standing in front of a fireplace looks angry but at the same time disturbed. She knows it’s not right to come in uninvited and it probably will only lead to them getting thrown out but she has to get some answers. She at least has to find him.
“I’m here to see Kim Taehyung.” Her voice comes out strong, trying to hide the fear that is slowly devouring her. Hoseok stands behind her as Jimin closes the door. As his name leaves her lips, it’s like the entire room stops breathing. No one dares to make the first move or even make a sound. Determination is set in her eyes and the man at the fireplace can tell that she isn’t leaving without seeing him.
“How do you know that name?” Sparks appear in the man’s eyes when the name is spoken. He places the wood that was in his hands on the hearth and slowly clasps them behind his back. A small flicker of flame licks the man’s arm but quickly disappears behind his back where his hands hide.
“Please. We’re just looking for answers, not a fight.” Hoseok cautiously moves in front of her, shielding her from anything the man might throw at them. Jimin moves out of the corner of her eye but it doesn’t look like he’s putting up defenses.
“Yoongi.” A familiar deep voice calmly sounds off behind the man and the soft glow from the flames fade. He brings his hands back down to his sides and side steps revealing the owner of the commanding voice. Shaggy black hair and a sharp nose as well as the voice are the first things she recognizes. However, instead of excitement like she felt last time, all she feels is a dull anger. Anger? That surprises her. Why anger? It isn’t his fault this all happened. But is is. A voice from deep inside her itches he brain and changes her thoughts.
The man she now knows as Taehyung walks up to the group, studying each person. His eyes linger on Yoongi’s but rapidly meet her’s. His calm manner remains but his eyes say something else, curiosity but also worry.
“How did you find it?” The warmth she once felt when hearing his voice has now turned to ice. A cold bite envelopes her arms and chest, snaking its way to her heart. Instead of answering his question, the only answer she can think of lies on her wrist. She pulls up her sleeve and reveals the blood red signature the witch left behind.
