"All right, dear sister," Jimin said with his signature smile as he pulled her wrist toward wherever he was heading to. "I was told that there'll be no practices for today. As a responsible and a loving older brother, I won't let you have your rest."

Chaeyoung grinned widely, quickened her steps to match his and Jimin finally let her go. Ever since he had gained a position as one of the official Healers responsible of very serious injuries, he barely had time to help her.

"Are you not going to tell me where we are heading to?" she asked.

Jimin's smile only widened. "It's a surprise." But a moment later, he groaned and laughed. "I'm so excited myself I don't think I'm able to keep it a secret for long."

"Oh, you are bad at being secretive anyway," she scoffed playfully. After a while of walking, realization fell on her when the surrounding became full of trees. The path was familiar to her, although it had been so long. Chaeyoung and her brother used to frequent the path, a small path with trees lining up on each side leading to a place where they used to play with a good friend. Her pace slowed down. "Jimin?"

Jimin turned to look at her. His smile almost tore his face into two. "Why are you stopping?"

"Are we heading to –"

Jimin grabbed her hand and pulled her with him as he ran, giggles floating around. "We can't let him die!" she heard him shout over the wind blowing excitedly at her ears.

They stopped running when they were in front of a house. The house was bigger than she remembered. Large trees still surrounded the house. Dried leaves everywhere on the ground. She spotted new trees, too. Her eyes flickered toward the front door of the house and a figure appeared.

A familiar face that she had last seen years ago, Kim Taehyung stood at the threshold of his house. His features had changed so much. He was taller, broader than she remembered. It seemed as though everything about that place went through changes. What once was small had enlarged. All happened in a little over five years.

Taehyung displayed a smile at them, the same smile he had years back. His friendliness was just like before, never changing. Her lips pulled into a smile, returning him with one just as big as his.

When Taehyung stepped out of the threshold, leaving the darkness of his house behind, her eyes reflected shock, her smile faded in an instant when the daylight finally bathed his entire body.

His whole arm had large cuts all over the place. Dried bloods somehow still looked fresh and new she could almost smell them. The cuts looked too deep to be true. For one moment, she wanted to believe that it was all red paints and Taehyung was just being himself, playing tricks on others.

"What happened?" she asked when he stood before the two of them.

"I picked the wrong plant to breed. A wild herb that feeds on meat. Stubborn one, indeed. It gripped my arm, ate my flesh and it wouldn't let go even when I was already bathed with blood," he explained, chuckling at the end.

Chaeyoung's face crumpled, eyes widened in horror. Jimin, on the other hand, laughed gently, congratulating Taehyung for surviving.

"You make me wonder if you are even suited to be a Cultivator, Taehyung," Jimin teased and Taehyung pushed her brother's shoulder, laughing out loud as if his arm wasn't nearly cut off by the horrible plant.

Chaeyoung's eyes lingered a little longer, and if she was anyone but a Healer, she would have puked upon the little display of Taehyung's bone in between the dark red of his wounded flesh.

"I topped in almost all of the lessons, nonetheless," Taehyung defended himself. "Enough reasons to prove I am indeed suitable."

"The plants will kill you sooner before you even get to be in any battle if you're not careful," Jimin told him with a chuckle and a smile, but Chaeyoung was able to feel the concern in her brother's voice.

"Something you should know, my dear friend, plants can only hurt a Cultivator, not kill," Taehyung corrected. "After all, what's the use of a Healer friend, then?"

"Now that you mentioned," Jimin said. "I know you requested for my service but it's a little impossible with the duty I have right now where I can be summoned at any time, so..." her brother glanced at her briefly and placed a hand on her shoulder, "I hope you don't mind Chaeyoung replacing me."

Chaeyoung looked surprised, a little embarrassed. She was thankful for her brother giving her a patient to practice her skills more without any other Healers watching since they were in the Cultivation Sector, where it was almost impossible to see Healers around. It kept the pressure at bay. However, she also knew the agenda behind his decision. It was very clear from the glint in her brother's eyes.

"I don't mind." Taehyung lifted his good arm and waved a hand. "As long as I get a Park as the Healer, I know I'll be fine in no time."

She threw a nervous, worried look at Jimin and the latter smiled at her reassuringly. "Then I shall leave you with her." When Taehyung went back inside his house to wait, Jimin rubbed the back of her shoulder that was tensed. He probably sensed the worry that was starting to consume her. "You will do well."

"I never fully healed someone," she stated, "and he expected me to do so with him."

Jimin stared at her, concern replacing the smiles he had. Gently, he said, "You worry too much of your failures. Don't let them control your mind. A failure... It is what distracts you."

Chaeyoung smiled sadly at her brother. "I failed too many times, faced too many failures. Their presence in my head is inevitable."

"Two important things to remember when trying to heal any wounds, what are they?" Jimin asked.

She looked up at him with a soft sigh. "Confidence must live. Hesitance must die."

"Follow them well and you'll be fine along the way."

She did. Every single time she tried to heal, she followed them. If those really were helping, why hadn't she succeeded even once?

Jimin left after patting her back, urging her to get inside the house with that glint back in his eyes. If she had ability similar to Jungkook's, she would have thrown her brother daggers. Once, she saw Jungkook formed daggers that float beneath his palm and it took all her might to remind herself that she should not be requesting him to do it again just for fun.

Chaeyoung gave Taehyung an apologetic smile when she got inside. She wasted no time to take a seat beside him, facing the wounded arm of his. She let her gaze lingered for a moment at the arm that didn't look like one with all the cuts. The beautiful golden skin of his was destroyed with the color of dried blood.

If it hadn't been her multiple experiences of seeing deep wounds that went beyond flesh, she wouldn't be able to last a second looking at Taehyung's arm that seemed like it had no space left for uninjured skin to be seen. She remembered how Taehyung had been the one who would be easy to drop tears when he felt even the tiniest pain. Looking at him now, it was clear how he had really changed. A good change.

Chaeyoung was fond of him. In fact, too fond of him. It didn't take her long to realize how her fondness wasn't simply a fondness toward a friend but of something else. It was during the moment of understanding what her feelings for him meant when Taehyung was assigned to go through lessons at a rural area in the Cultivation Sector to prepare himself as a true Cultivator that would serve the village along with his peers.

Once Cultivators have fully learned and went through each and every lesson, only then they will be released. Only then they are allowed to reunite with acquaintances from other sectors.

The many months of his disappearance from sight had felt like a great loss. Lonely and empty had described the life of hers. She had really thought that she would be engulfed in a life full of sorrow.

She was wrong, though. Her feelings for him changed. She realized that it wasn't quite love. She grew up so much that the memories were embarrassing but also sweet and laughable when they flashed in her mind.

"How are things going outside of this sector?" Taehyung asked. His face showed deep interest. "I hope any changes are good changes."

Chaeyoung offered a smile. "There isn't much change. Things are still quite the same."

"Impossible," he shook his head, "you have changed. Jimin has changed. Has it really been only five years since we saw each other?"

"What change are you referring to?"

"You look real lovely than the last I saw you," he said like it was the most normal thing to say and Chaeyoung felt her cheeks slightly flushed at the comment. "You have grown so much. Have you always been this tall? And Jimin, he looks... he no longer looks like a child."

"Well," she shrugged lightly, "so do you."

Taehyung's face lit up brightly, his dark green eyes slowly glowed. A very common thing when he was happy. "I knew I have looked more masculine than before!" he laughed happily, tried to flex his good arm and his charming smile grew broad on his face. "Anyway, has anything happened outside?" he asked cautiously. "I don't believe that nothing happened at all."

Chaeyoung tried to think, because there really wasn't something very serious happened when he was not around. Enemies hadn't made themselves present. All she could think of was the poor people at the Defense Sector that she had regularly visited.

"There are more poor people in the Defense Sector this year compared to the last. Every year, it seems to increase," she informed him. "They are mostly around the area near the training ground, asking for food from the guards, especially."

"Aren't guards of all sectors prohibited from making interactions with those people?" he questioned.

She nodded to confirm.

"And they still asked from the guards?" he raised a brow.

"Oh, they're mostly children," she smiled. "That's why I have been visiting the site to give them food."

Taehyung looked slightly surprised, his eyes went slightly big. "Aren't the Newcomers dangerous? You're not slightly afraid walking close to their training ground on your own?"

It was a well-known fact among many that Newcomers, youths of the Defense Sector, were violent and bold. They'd try out their skills in public either to scare others for fun –people of their own or from the other sectors –or to compete with their fellow Newcomers.

Children of the Defense Sectors were forbidden from trying out their special abilities for they were only allowed to use them once they were officially Newcomers. Before becoming Newcomers, their trainings were mostly of how to defend without their special abilities.

"Not all of them," Chaeyoung shook her head and smiled softly at Taehyung. "There is nothing to be afraid of anyway. They will have no time to bully me when they are tightly held by their intense training sessions."

He nodded slowly, brows knitted. "The lessons for Cultivators have also increased and packed. We almost had no time to rest. They must want us to be fully prepared, I think."

Chaeyoung lightly chewed her bottom lip, thinking back of all the slow progresses of her skills in healing. Everyone else around her seemed to be improving, making her feel timid.

"Well, if they are really preparing us for the worst, I want to be able to deal with that wild herb," he chuckled. "How long will it take for this arm to heal completely?"

Her gaze lowered, then. She was embarrassed to reveal it, but then she didn't want him to feel even more disappointed with her if history repeated itself. It would be far more painful to see the disappointed look of Taehyung later on than now.

"Truth is, Taehyung, I am not... capable of healing the entire arm at once," she admitted, eyes could only look at her hands on her lap. "I can't promise an arm of yours without a single mark."

"Oh..." he responded and Chaeyoung felt the embarrassment grew larger and stronger, pulling her down and trying to bury her beneath the ground. "Well, it would be lovely to have my beautiful skin back, but strengths to control plants don't come from my appearance. So long as my arm does not ache and my strength is back, I'm fine with it."

She found herself smiling when she looked into his eyes to search for pretenses but found none. He had always been pure, genuine and kind and she was relieved to know that a few years of going through changes so drastic, his personality remained.