[M] Part One. (1/1)

It was raining that night. She remembered that because it hardly ever rained where they lived. The sun was always shining and giving off beams of heat, but that night it had been cold and pouring it down with rain.On the news, they said there’d be a storm coming. In all her 22 years of life, she’d never experienced a storm. She’d begged Yoongi to stay with her, but she knew he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He didn’t have the type of job where you could just call in sick if you didn’t feel like going in.She didn’t even really know what it was that he did. He always told her that it was best she didn’t know. But what she did know, is that it was dangerous. That’s why on that cold, dark and rainy night, she wasn’t surprised when he stumbled in covered in blood. Some of it his own.She heard him before she saw him. Heard him grunting. Heard the sound of his satin bomber jacket scraping against the wallpaper as he dragged himself along the wall. Heard the distant sound of blood dripping on the hardwood floor.The harsh wind had blew the door shut and at the sound of it slamming she flew out of bed and down the stairs to see him trying to make his way to the downstairs bathroom. She flicked the light switch on, illuminating the hallway and getting a better look at her half battered boyfriend. A smile emerged on his cut up lip and she sighed.“I didn’t wanna wake you.” He said.She didn’t say anything to him. She grabbed his arm and threw it over her shoulder and urged him to lean his body weight on her. Usually he’d put up a fight and tell her he was fine and he could do it himself, but this time he must have been too exhausted because she practically carried him to bathroom. It wasn’t too hard on her, Yoongi had always been light.She took off his bomber jacket, along with his blood stained white tee, and stood there examining his body. She stilled. The fresh cuts and bruises only covered his old wounds. His torso, white and pale, was like a canvas of purples and reds and blues and browns. In a sick way, it was almost beautiful.Tearing her eyes away, she washed her hands at the sink and grabbed a pair of medical gloves. She’d taken a bunch from the hospital where she worked. This was hardly the first time she’d had to clean him up. He couldn’t go to the hospital with these wounds without raising suspicion, so she always had to tend to him at home. She often wondered if he’d approached her because he knew she was a nurse.Blood dripped on the white bathroom tiles as she grabbed the saline solution and a gauze and began to clean the worst wound on him. He’d obviously been slashed with something just below his rib cage and it had cut him quite deep.“This might hurt a little.” She said quietly. She stopped the bleeding first and then started cleaning around the wound. He wasn’t out right showing he was in pain but he was breathing through his nose very heavily and his fists were clenched by his side. When she’d cleaned and irrigated the wound to prevent infection, she grabbed the dressing and began to wrap it around him.“Your hands are cold.” He whispered. She looked up but gave no response yet again. He had another cut that was considerably smaller, above his pelvic muscles that she loved so much. It wasn’t really bleeding, so she just used a cloth and saline solution to cleaning. She ran her hand over the skin there and he flinched. Her eyes shot up to his in confusion.“Did that hurt?”“You’re standing in front of me in next to nothing and touching me. Of course it hurts.” He said weakly. Reaching for her, he pulled her to him. She looked down and realised that she’d only been wearing underwear and a small silk robe that she’d thrown on when she heard him come in. His lips were on her neck and his arms were wrapped tightly around her waist but she pushed him off.He staggered back a little and she pointed to his mouth.“Your lip.”He nodded in response and hissed when she cleaned his cut. A part of her felt sorry for him, but the other part of her was irked that he kept putting himself through this. He wasn’t always like this. He’d told her that before they met, he was sure he was going to have a career in music. A rapper, he said. He’d wanted to be a rapper. He wouldn’t rap for her when she asked him too, he’d get all shy and cute and bashful. But one day she found an old demo tape of his and he was good. Really good.She wanted to ask him, what had happened since then. How he’d gotten to this point. But she didn’t. Instead she took his face in her hands, urging him to look at her, and he did.“How long are you gonna keep doing this Yoongi? Do you think this is fun for me? Seeing you hurt and in pain every week? Worried sick about whether you’ll come home in one piece? Or if you’ll even come home at all?”He sighed. “I know baby,” He kissed her forehead. “I’m gonna stop. I swear.”“When Yoongi? Because you’ve said this before.”“I just need a little more time, before I have enough money to get us out of here. So we can start a proper life together someplace new.”He always needs “A little more time”. That little more time turned from weeks, to months to years. He always promised her that he’d stop but he never did. She was worried that one day, something was going to happen to him that she couldn’t fix. Something life threatening. The thought of losing him, had her shaking and the tears and the back of her eyes threatened to come forth.She cleared her throat and avoided eye contact with him. “I’m gonna wash your clothes.” She picked up his jacket and T-shirt and brushed past him stepping out of the doorway. She’d only got so far when she felt his arms wrap around her and his breath on her neck.“I’m sorry. I love you.”He always said those two phrases together. In that same order. She’d lost count of how many times he’d said that to her. He’d said it so much that it had lost its sincerity. She was sick of hearing it.“I know.” She said and walked away leaving him standing in the hallway.   He lay next to her watching her sleep that night. His heart was heavy and his head was riddled with thoughts. He couldn’t sleep.On the off chance that he’d had a good night’s sleep, he always dreamt about their future. They lived in a nice house, in a large but close knit suburban neighbourhood. They had kids and a dog and she’d look at him with that smile that lit up her eyes. The way she used to smile at him. She didn’t smile for him like that anymore no matter what he did. She was unhappy and he knew it was his fault. He wished that he could quit like she wanted him to. He wished that he could just up and leave with her but he knew he couldn’t. If he left, he’d be followed. If he was followed, he’d be found. And if he was found, he’d be dead.The biggest regret of his life was getting himself caught up in this mess. There was a war going on, and he was merely a pawn in 2 men’s blood filled chess game. He hadn’t accounted on her being a part of his life. He was more of a lone wolf, he liked to be alone.He’d met her in the early days, when he was still a naïve little rookie. A co-worker he was on a job with had been badly injured and like an idiot, the first thing he did was take him to the hospital. She had been one of the nurses that attended to him and he was mesmerized by her. They’d only shared eye contact for about 10 seconds but in those 10 seconds he knew he had to see her again. He found himself at that hospital almost every day when he was free. He’d find out whatever ward she was on, and sit and watch her. She told him she thought he was so creepy at first. Eventually, he plucked up enough courage to start little conversations with her. After a bit of awkwardness, they hit it off and she started spending her lunch breaks with him. When he had nights off, he took her to dinner, to a movie, to the local fair, they did everything together. She was like a light in this tunnel of darkness he’d been crawling through. She gave him reason to smile again, to want to live again. It took him approximately 1 month, 3 weeks and 4 days to fall in love with her, he’d counted. He remembered the first time he told her that he loved her. He thought there’d be no greater feeling that being in love with someone, but when she told him she loved him back, he realised that there was. From then, he asked her to move in with him. Asked her to be his family because he had none. He asked her to always love him no matter what and she agreed. That’s how they’d gotten where they were today. She’d had to put up with a lot, there wasn’t a lot he was allowed to tell her. The less she knew about that part of his life, the less danger she’d be in. But he knew that she was hurting. If he wasn’t so selfish, he would’ve let her go a long time ago. But he couldn’t. He needed her in his life.