Bewitched || kth

Chapter 36: Partners in Crime

"love is millions of years old... who says it hasn't been done before"

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"Why does your apartment building have so many stairs?"

"I don't know," I mumbled into his shoulder as my arms were slung around his shoulders. He had been carrying me home since we got out of the school trip as I had gotten a nasty cold from the night of chaos before.

Tae took on the last step before stomping his way to the door of my apartment. The click and clatter of him opening my door successfully surprised me in my state of numb consciousness.

The familiar scent of my apartment, reminiscent of a floral scent with notes of wild rose and lily, hit my face and my body instantly relaxed in the comfort of my home. I was thrown against my bed and when I opened my eyes Tae was sitting right next to me, looking down at my limp body.

"Your fever's getting worse," he said after placing the back of his hand on my forehead.

"I'll be fine," I mumbled out. "Can you pass me my hoodie? I'm cold."

He helped me sit up and pulled the soft purple oversized hoodie over my head, sliding my arms into the sleeves, and when I felt my body becoming heavier by the second, my arms inadvertently dragged something down with me.

We laid there in my bed with my arms slung around his neck and his around my waist, both of us sharing the same pillow. The silence that I once was disgusted by was blissful, probably because Tae was here and I was stuffing my face into his chest.

"Feeling better?" he spoke softly into the top of my head. I simply nodded before flushing my body more with his. The warmth he was radiating was so comforting and even his scent made me want to fall asleep.

"There's no scarring right?" he asked.

I peeked my head up to look at him before looking down at my stomach. Peeling away the fabric of my hoodie revealed the soft white skin that wrapped my sides, delicate and new. "No scars," I said as his fingers brushed against me like delicate feathers.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked me.

From his question I guessed he could feel the tension in my shoulders from his arms that were still wrapped around me.

"I don't know," I said with my voice mumbled. "I guess I'm still wound up from Dohyeon attacking me." Tae did not say anything but simply listened with open years and a tight grip on me. "If that was what it felt like to get burned from him I can't even imagine what dying would feel like."

What I said struck a chord with both him and I. Both of our heads filled with the flashes of the night that I would die. The strikes of lightning that will fill the cold and dark air. The burns that will decorate my body all over. Tae over me, will be heartbroken all over again.

"I told you that's not going to happen," he whispered to my ear in a wavering voice.

"I'm not sure about that anymore Tae," I whispered back.

"We'll find a way," the pressure around my shoulders increased to its max unlike the soft touch of Tae's hand against the skin of my torso.

Hope.

It was becoming scarcer by the minute, a faint gleam of light in the entirety of the galaxy, a simple speck of dust insignificant in the realms of the universe.

We laid there in silence clinging onto each other as if it was our last chance to touch each other, our last chance to breathe in one another's scent. I was scared of the moment when I would take my last breath, what it would be like, what I would feel when Tae would cry over my desperately trying to wake me up.