Forbidden | KTH

| 6 |

One week later

Your POV

I've been out for a 'walk' every night since last week to 'clear my thoughts after my near death experience', that handkerchief pushed into the pocket of my zip-up hoodie. Every time I'd neatly folded it up, but I always ended up seeking the same place for warmth for my hands. By the time I returned home, it was always creased with the brown stains edged into the crooks. He'd have to wash and iron it anyway.

For the seventh night now I was walking around Seoul with my hood up it hopes of concealing my identity to any hunting groups I was supposed to be enemies with. My hopes of finding him so far have been helpless. I've seen one group of Kims, but none of them wore his unmissable, glossy red hair. Some of the others I saw did have coloured hair, but they were all washed out and closely bleached, or subtle colours like maroon.

What minimised my motivation the most was that I had no idea where he went or when he went while he was hunting. From what I know he could have been yelling around the city every night over the past week and I've simply missed him. Me wandering around aimlessly with a scrunched up piece of fabric in my pocket started to feel silly and pointless.

But there was a burning determination for me to return this to him. For me to repay him for helping me. To show that I cared about his well being. That I understood him.

To see him again.

I longed to see his face - his smooth nose curving over the centre of his face, his lips forming to look like a heart shape at the top. And his eyes - they made him look ethereal, unreal, shadowed perfectly by his bold and dark brows. The image of him looking down at my injured neck in pure shock and worry had stayed in my mind, even though it had happened over a week ago. How his strong and deadly expression which lusted for blood suddenly turned so soft.

And I wasn't just comparing his reaction to the stereotypes about his family that I'd been told as a child. I stopped believing in anything I was told years ago. Something about him seemed special. I could tell that he was different from the rest of them. I could see in his eyes that he was doing something he didn't want to do. Something which I large part of me related to.

I was dressed in a skirt, tights, trainers and the same black zip-up hoodie I'd been wearing for the past week, the patches situated underneath my armpits starting to smell and the hoodie itself sick of having to carry a bloody handkerchief around with it. My used trainers were collecting brown stains from the cloudy puddles I stepped through.

After this time, I was starting to become sick of the same sights of the urban parts of Seoul - concrete buildings decorated with graffiti and flooded with orange lights had become a part of my routine. The piles of bottles and ashy cigarettes huddled together by kerbs and down drains. Even the same cars taking their daily commutes home from work.

Eventually I turned a corner, off the main street into a pedestrian area sandwiched between a multi-story car park and a park. It's similar to where we had last week with those Kims. With him.

I gaze up at the sky as I slowly walk along the uncared for pavement, dotted with small holes and unevenness. The stars aren't visible because of the light pollution by the crescent moon curves along the sky smoothly. Despite the fact I probably won't reach my goal of seeing Taehyung again and returning his handkerchief, small moments like this when I could appreciate the little details I never noticed about city seemed worth it.

As I reached a corner which turned into the entrance of the car park, I heard a collection of heavy, quick feet approaching me. I could hear them mumbling to each other but I too flushed with sudden panic to pay attention to what they were saying.