fiendish heart [1]

17 。too damaged to love

„What are you doing?" Hoseok scoffed, tearing the book from Yoongi's hands to inspect the script scrawled in type upon it. He flicked through each page, trying to find some sort of sense in their format. When he failed to do so, he gave a begrudging glance at boy staring up at him with a sly smile, and gave it back.

„I'm reading, Hoseok. You know when you interpret a text with different characters, themes and -"

„Yes you smartass, I know what reading is." Yoongi smiled triumphantly, closing the book after marking his page in the hardcover book given to him by Taehyung on one of their hunts together. It was a book about a boy and his struggle through a war, a war that descended through his family and left scars for generations. There was something so deeply personal about the book that made him cling to it. Despite not having experienced the same things this boy had, he understood his pain, he felt that universal language of suffering and made it his own.

Taehyung was a misfit that Yoongi admired. Something about him was so starkly different from any other boy he had met for he took interest in the smallest of things and found importance in the insignificant. He thought about that time they had been hunting game, and he'd spotted Taehyung sitting on the forest floor documenting the local flora like it was the most beautiful thing in the world. He didn't care about hunting animals, he never did. Yoongi recollected his memories with a smile as he rested the book in his lap.

He looked up to see Hoseok glaring at him, arms crossed and nose scrunched up in snivelling disgust. It was a familiar face he had seen a dozen times, Hoseok always had this funny expression when he was tense, and he didn't exactly take well to humour. 

„Sorry, I shouldn't have said that." Apologising was the best approach with everything going on. Their loss of Taehyung cut deep into Hoseok more than it had the rest of them. He had been fond of the clever boy, and to think he would not return was hurtful, souring his mood and disrupting the peace.

„Don't apologise, I am being an asshole. Just help me get this fire started and we can finish dinner." Yoongi nodded obediently, getting to work with no further question. Hoseok watched for a second in adoring wonder, always pleased to see him follow his orders. „Why do you listen to me?" He murmured mindlessly, stepping forward and running three fingers through his soft brunette locks, dropping by his side.

„Because you are my leader," Yoongi replied, focusing his attention on the fire as he tried not to blush. Hoseok was a cryptic man, his emotions were difficult to read at times and he was hardly an open book. But he was so full of affection for anyone willing to care for him, Yoongi had fallen for that in the days they'd met. "Because you saved me. He would have killed me. My father, he would have burned me if you had not found me that night."

"Kook helped," Hoseok added quietly, sitting down cross legged as he began to help light the kindle. "He got you out."

"But you found me. You chose me over any other kid in that disgusting town. Why?"

"Because I knew then and there, that you were my lost boy."

-

Kook had run away from reality, just like he'd done all of his life. No one knew how to deal with the dangerous youth whom had fallen in love with a forbidden boy. Maybe Taehyung was the fate Kook begged for so many years ago, maybe not. But Kook believed him to be so, and the idea of losing that one chance at love broke him.