on opposite ends | vsoo

HANDS TO HOLD

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.

One month of rigorous training amid the beginnings of a full-blown war was enough for Jisoo to learn about how to be an Auror. Or at least, it had to be enough since she didn't have much of a choice between learning fast or getting killed. The Death Eaters were growing restless with each passing day. Multiple attacks were being reported from all over the city alone and even more were occurring across the country. The Ministry was lost on how to handle all of them at once with their basically non-existent man power.

Jisoo was watching the latest attack on the news. Four muggles dead and dozens more injured as a building had collapsed right on top of them. They were still searching for the other missing persons, crushed beneath the rubble. The muggle media was covering it up as a terrorist attack but really, they are not far off from the truth. Although, "terrorist" is too much of an understatement to describe the Death Eaters. It was a bloody scene even from the grainy television screen that Bona had cramped into the girls' shared apartment.

The city was no longer safe, and every capable Auror was dispatched and put on patrol. That included Jisoo and her batch who were still fresh off the oven. Still unqualified wizards with zero experience in fighting actual dark magic-wielding wizards.

But that was going to change soon. Jisoo hears she'll be assigned a partner and she just hopes it would be Bona, or at least someone with more field experience than her so she won't screw anything up and end up killing herself and whoever her partner would be.

The past month had been a blur of spell casting, broom flying, and diving in the rain and mud. It was intense and she got busy for a while. All that time spent in intensive training at the Ministry almost made her forget about what happened prior to when she stumbled into Bona's apartment with tear-stained cheeks.

Keyword: almost.

Sometimes, Jisoo's walls come crashing down and the memories flood her head, one by one. Visions of his face, his smile, his touch lingering in the back of her mind like a ghost standing at the corner of the room, ready to pounce at any given moment. Triggers are scattered everywhere in this damned city; the smell wafting from the doors of the bakery they frequented to when they were in town, a coat worn by a stranger that was the same like the one he had, the image of his face plastered on every newspaper in the wizarding world.

While Jisoo was training, fighting tooth and nail for her survival in this war, Taehyung was building his own reputation under his new group.

Nobody was as shocked as Jisoo, who knew him longer and better than anyone in the Ministry, or even in entire world for that matter. But apparently, she didn't know him enough.

She read about his crimes on the paper as if they were a plot device in a fictional story. At the back of her head, she's constantly doubting the truth of what the reports say. Taehyung couldn't of had slaughtered innocent muggles and muggle-born wizards like that, he can't have done what they're saying, that's impossible! There's no way he would do all of those things.

Jisoo's denial is as clear as day, but nobody dares to tell her anything different. Not straight up to her face, anyway. But she can feel the concerned glances Bona throws at her every time Taehyung's name is on television or in the paper. She can sense the undercurrent of disgust in their trainer's voice when they talk about the Death Eaters during their sessions, and how he must know bout Jisoo's affiliation with the worst of them.