[C] The Cosmos' Nonpareil || KookV BTS GOT7 (BL)

chapter 24 b

"You're ugly when you cry," Youngjae jibes, chuckling carefully because if he moved a millimetre more, he really might die from the pain from the cut near his mouth, and the wounds on every other part of his body.

"Don't," Youngjae hushes, and JayB swallows back the apology, silently disinfecting the injuries and changing the bandages for Youngjae. He almost didn't dare to look at them, the red burning his eyes.

"Can you sing that song that you made?" Youngjae asked.

JayB agrees, of course, but before he could start singing, Youngjae blacks out and JayB screams for help.

3 weeks ago

It was a different sort of sun JayB woke up to. Youngjae beamed at him and handed him soup, "don't get up, drink this first."

JayB groaned. His throat felt sandy and parched and his hangover feels like a thousand elephants trampling on his skull. He reached for the soup, finishing it in record time.

"A few months is not a long time to know a person, isn't it?" Youngjae asked.

"I guess?" JayB replied. Not enough to know each other's secrets, just like how JayB never told anyone where he came from and why Youngjae is so kind to him.

Youngjae leaned against JayB's beside table, an almost mischievous smile on his face, "but long enough to not hand me up to Lexicon?"

"What are you talking about?" JayB asked, fully alert now.

"When Lexicon told you that they can give you what you want on the condition that you bring me to them, why didn't you?"

JayB gapes, how did Youngjae know? Did he look through his phone? But it had never left JayB's side.

Youngjae shrugged, "we stay together. It would have been easy to drug me and then carry me along with you.

I know the corpses you summon are all men who had died to protect you. I also know that the Twins promised they can bring them back to life as long as you join them with me. A once in a lifetime chance, JayB."

Youngjae stepped away from the table and leaned over JayB who followed his movements in shocked silence, "don't worry, I do not intend to harm you and you don't have to struggle between having to choose them or me because...I am willing to go with you."

Youngjae picks up the bowl and makes a move to leave, "I'm going to put this in the sink and you'll wash it later, okay?"

"You...how...why are you...?"

"Let's just say there are some choices we have to make," Youngjae said and closed the door behind him.

Present time

JayB is going crazy.

It has been three weeks since he joined Lexicon and nothing is going to plan and there are fresh wounds on Youngjae everyday.

The Twins had treated Youngjae well at first, giving both him and JayB the best room and had told everyone Youngjae is an esteemed guest, until the Twins had an argument with him. Youngjae was brought to a cell the very next day and was kept for hours there before being brought back. They started cutting him a few days ago.

They were uninterested in JayB, always too busy to meet him but seem to want something from Youngjae.

JayB doesn't understand. Youngjae is not giving them what they want yet willingly goes to the cell everyday, and made JayB promise not to stop him. Just what is going on?

JayB goes back to sit on the floor beside Youngjae's bed. He had decided to sleep there in case Youngjae wakes up. JayB falls into a restless sleep, waking up multiple times throughout the night.

//

When JayB woke up to the sound of Suji opening the door to their room, he rushed to the front of Youngjae's bed.

"Stay where you are," JayB warned. "What do you want from Youngjae?"

Suji swept her gaze from JayB's head to his toes, "you're the one who brought Choi Youngjae to us. Hmm...you appear to care for him..."

Suji laughs softly, "but do you really? Or do you care more about what you want?"

Suji takes out a pill and puts it on the cupboard by the door and asked, "remember this?"

JayB's eyes flicked to the red pill. It was the pill the twins had given him before to feed one of his corpses. When the corpse's body healed before JayB's eyes, he had almost cried from the renewed hope that he could bring them all back to life.

The last soldiers who laid down their lives so that he could get to safety.

The Twins had said the healing is only a fraction of what they can do and that had JayB almost throw away everything to join Lexicon. He knows it was silly to trust them, but was willing to give all he had, even his life, if their promise was true.

But they wanted Youngjae.

Youngjae who had been nothing but kind to him and never asked for anything in return. Youngjae, his friend, and after several missions together, his comrade JayB trusted his back with. JayB got himself drunk, tormented between having to choose.

Suji said, "with Joohyun's spells, we can return the soul back to your corpses and truly bring them back to life."

JayB looked at Suji warily.

She smiles, "but only if Choi Youngjae gives us what we want."

Suji turns and leaves, confident that JayB would try to convince Youngjae. After all, if you can being back a loved one back from the dead, why wouldn't you?

But if this doesn't work...Suji exhaled sharply in frustration. Should she take JayB as hostage? Does Choi Youngjae care for him to that extent that this would work? In three days, if they don't get what they want, then she would do it.