Andromeda

XIX.

I suppose I should say that the story ended there. That was, after all, when Andromeda left.

The boys went back to Korea. I went back to work, where my boss was surprisingly forgiving about my lack of attendance and patience. But I continued to watch over them, as I had promised Andromeda I would do. This is when I saw the youngest of them change. He was excellent at putting a smile on his face for the sake of others, but I could see in his eyes whenever he looked into a crowd, he was looking for her. Every picture that showed up on their social media at night showed him looking up at the sky. He was looking for her everywhere, even though we had all watched her leave. I could never blame him, of course. I, too, found myself staring up at the sky, or looking hard at the hawks I saw perched on tree branches to check for silver feathers, or blinking hard when a girl with bright silver hair walked on the other side of the road. Once, I wiped away surprised tears when I heard the sound of silver bells in an antique shop. But we both knew better. We knew that she was gone. That her leaving was the end of the story.

But it wasn't the end of the story. I knew that the second I answered Seokjin's panicked phone call, telling me that the three youngest had been in a car crash on the road leading to the old abandoned shopping mall. I had grabbed my car keys and thrown my bag in the car before Seokjin had even said the name of the hospital, and had turned on the ignition and put the car into Drive by the time he said the room number they were in. They would be okay, he promised me. I was still furious, but I could yell at them in person, I told myself.

One broken leg, two cracked ribs, a fractured arm, one bloody nose, one concussion, two black eyes, a good assortment of bruises and cuts, and seven very guilty looking boys is what awaited me at the hospital. Once the doctors had assured the four older boys and me that the three that had been in the accident would in fact not die, they left the room.

Before I had a chance to decide who I would yell at first, Yoongi sighed. "I know, we're terrible hyungs."

"Why were you guys even going there!?" I asked the three in the hospital beds.

None of them answered. Taehyung and Jimin avoided my glare. Jeongguk didn't even show any signs he was listening, he just stared ahead blankly with his head on the pillow.

Eventually, Namjoon sighed and answered for them. "We thought that going there could help Kookie. Tae and Jimin said they would go with him, so we let them."

"Why didn't you go with them?" I asked. A small shiver ran through me. The window to the room was open. It was still early fall, maybe by some standards late summer, but the day had been unseasonably cold.

"We asked them not to," Jimin said quietly, in a voice that was so pitiful I considered stopping the lecture there. But I had promised the star that I would watch out for her boys, and that meant yelling at them when they were idiots.

"Why didn't you call to tell me that you were even in town?"

"You're not her," Taehyung said, so softly I could hardly hear him.

"Taeh-" Yoongi started to scold him, but the younger boy continued speaking, regardless.

"I get that Andromeda liked you and all, but that doesn't give you the right to just take her place." Taehyung started to tear up, and I knew it was from more than the broken ribs and pain killers. "Why do you come in here and think that you can just -"

"Because she asked me to!"

The room went dead silent. Everyone except Jeongguk stared at me, wide-eyed. Without really thinking about it, I raised one hand to my mouth, as if to confirm that I was, in fact, the person who had just yelled. Raising my voice just really wasn't a 'me' thing to do.

Then again, who was I, anyway? I had entirely based my life on other people. Did I have my own role in this story? I looked up and saw myself in the reflection of the window.

I didn't recognize the person who stared at me.

"She said she'd come get me at the end of my life," Jeongguk murmured quietly, and the attention in the room went from me to him. He hadn't moved and was still staring emptily at the wall in front of him.

"What?" Jimin asked.

"Andromeda said that she would find me at the end of my life. What if-"

"Don't you dare finish that sentence." Yoongi's voice was cold enough to bring shivers down my spine.

"You're not wrong for missing her, Kookie," Seokjin said, twisting his hands nervously. I could tell that he wanted to go over to Jeongguk, but he was stopping himself. "But you can't keep going on like this."

The boy in the bed rubbed his eyes tiredly. He was pale and there were dark circles under his eyes. "I want to go home," he said.

Those were probably the words all the other boys wanted to hear him say, but the way he said them was all wrong. All the fight and happiness I had found in him when I first met the group had vanished.

I guess when one heart breaks, another one somewhere breaks the same.

"Okay," Hoseok said gently. "We'll go home."

I reached into my pocket, pulling out my keys. It was time for me to go. I had tried and failed. I couldn't protect these boys any more than Andromeda could now. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, knowing deep down that once I stepped outside that hospital door, I would never see any of them again.

A quiet knock on the door made me open my eyes.

One of the doctors from before and two policewomen in uniform were standing there.

"Hello," I said, more than a little surprised.

"Can we help you?" Namjoon asked.

"I hope so," one of the badges said. "We were hoping some of you could tell us about your friend that phoned in the accident."

I looked at the boys. They looked at each other in confusion.

"None of us called you, ma'am," Seokjin said.

"Yes, we know," the other woman said. "We'd like to know who did though. The caller said that her friends had been in a crash and gave us the location, but we only found you three at the sight of the crash, of course. She didn't give us a name. Your friend, was she in the car at the time?"

My heart was pounding in my chest and blood was roaring in my head. I fumbled around for something to say, something that made sense.

Thankfully, Jimin was able to come up with an explanation. "We panicked," he managed to say. "We- we couldn't remember the emergency number for this country, so we called a friend of ours. She called for us."

The police looked more than a little surprised. "Uh, okay," the first one said. "This friend, is she on her way here? We weren't able to get her phone's location from the call, and we'd like to know why."

"No," Jeongguk said, sitting up. I realized with a jolt of happiness that some of that joy had come back to his eyes. Or maybe it was a glimmer of hope. Either way, I wanted to cry just because I saw it. "She lives far away. But she'll see us eventually, she promised."

The women, for their part, did a great job of hiding how confused they were about why we were so happy to hear about this faraway friend. They nodded, wishing us all a good day and the three boys fast healing, then left.

I don't think any of us knew what to say for a while until someone - Taehyung - managed a sentence. "Does this mean she's still looking out for us?"

A gust of warm wind came in from the window, rustling my hair and the sleeves of my jacket. It swirled through the stale air in the room with a cleansing freshness. Then I heard it, so faint over the sound of the rustling dry leaves outside. A laugh. A carefree, gentle laugh like silver bells.

The breeze ended, but the warmth stayed. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something glimmering by the foot of Jeongguk's hospital bed. He seemed to see it too, and he reached forward and picked it up.

It shone like a jewel in the sunshine. But it was far more valuable than any jewel on this planet, and likely any other. It was a silver hawk feather.

- FIN -