"Hey, don't you want to drink something?" The woman asked kindly.

The girl didn't answer.

"Hey, look at me," The nurse kneeled down in front of the petite child, a warm smile on her lips, "I know that a lot is happening lately but you need to drink."

The six year-old remained quiet, didn't meet the other's gaze and just stared at the wall in front of her bed.

"Okay, I get it, you don't want to take water from a stranger." The friendly nurse nodded, "But there's no one else left for you to give you something to drink, sweetie."  Which were probably not the ideal words to tell someone who just lost their entire family.

She was met with silence. The loud kind of silence, that reeked importance in its own kind of way and was suffocating the one trying to listen.

The woman stood back up with a sigh and placed the glass she had been holding on the nightstand near the bed, "Alright, I'll just-"

"You're wrong," The girl chimed up, "Mr. Ghost is still here with me."

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There was blood dripping down the side of his mouth, as Hoseok walked towards me to hoist me up with one arm.

I hadn't noticed how cold it had been down there on the floor until I finally stood back again, although my knees buckled immediately, threatening to give up already.

A pair of strong, warm arms wrapped around my body, securing me on my spot and a wonderful warmth started to spread over my body.

Hoseok's arms were so warm, compared to Jimin's ice-cold hand. So warm and real and alive.

"Shh, it's okay, I'm here."

And fuck me if this didn't make me cry.

Because, yes, he was there. He was there every fucking time I needed him and I asked myself why the fuck we hadn't met earlier.

Through out the past weeks I had cried more than I allowed myself to for the past years, and maybe the blame for this was on Hoseok's hand gently rubbing my back, while the other held me upright, preventing me from falling back down while I was ugly crying, because that blue haired bastard Jimin had scared me more than any shadow, any ghost ever did.

"You'll be alright. No one can hurt you now, " Hoseok mumbled, hoping to calm me down with his words, "Just breathe."

I tried my best to follow his request, inhaling sharply, shaking all over and feeling pathetic as fuck during all of it.

"Hmm" He looked down at me with a small smile, "Do you need, like, a hug?"

I shook my head, feeling like I'd never calm down at this point, but wrapped my arms around him anyways, earning an understanding chuckle from the older.

He was so warm, so different to the cold that had surrounded me mere minutes ago and I felt how my body slowly stopped shaking violently.

"Let's get away from here, should we Flower?" The dark haired mumbled into my hair, and all I could do was nod.

I felt unusually small, embarrassed from my violent outbreak from earlier, but Hoseok didn't really seem to care as he was sitting next to me on a park bench, knees dragged up against his chest while we watched the cars passing by in the darkness.

"This dude just now... I had my fair share of encounters with him. He's an abusive asshole, uh... nothing you should worry about though." He looked at me with something that looked like a sorry smile.

I ignored his blatant lie (because, of course I needed to worry about someone like Jimin) and wrapped my arms around my chest, feeling cold all over again, now that I didn't have someone else's body warmth around me, "He... he isn't human, is he?"

The boy chewed on his lower lip, thinking a moment about his answer, "No... not anymore I guess. I don't know when or how it happened... but he somehow blurred the lines between being alive and being dead in the most disgusting way possible."

"And you?" I glanced over at him.

"Huh?"

"Are you...?" Human?

He laughed as soon as he understood, shoulders shaking slightly, "I get why you might think I'm not. I'm pretty impressive, now that I think about it."

I cocked an eyebrow at his sudden boastfulness, still waiting for him to elaborate his answer.

He snickered to himself once more before talking, "I promise you, I'm not like Jimin, I'm very human, just like you. But when you grow up the way I had to, with all this vileness, ghosts and monsters around... well, you learn to fight fire with fire."

His answer was still way too cryptic for my taste, but just like me did he not seem to like talking about his past, which seemed fair to me.

All I had was his promise to be human - which was on me to believe or not - and the fact that he felt warm and firm under my touch, real in every way. 

I forced out a smile, untangling my hands from around my body to rest them in my lap, "But you're still pretty insane, I'll have to admit."

Hoseok grinned prideful, shrugging in a way that clearly said 'that's how I am, ain't I cool?'.

"But why didn't you use Jimin's name against him right away? You have cuts all over you because of this." My eyes traced a very nasty cut on his left cheek as I said that.

He shrugged again, huffing when he roughly wiped away a blood stain that had been sliding down the side of his beaten-up face, "I- I guess I wanted to prove something to myself. That I could fight this fucker, although I'm just human." - I scoffed at the word 'just' - "Like I said, it wasn't my first time meeting him and the last times... well, the last times didn't go as well for me."

"How did you find out his name?" 

"I did a bit of research on him. The fact that he whole name thingy worked was, by the way, a proof that there still is a small part of him that's human. And if you search hard enough you'll always find out about those."

I snorted at that, "Those would be pretty scared if they heard your words."

He cackled, "Well, they don't need to worry, I don't care about anyone who doesn't attack me and actually manages to hurt me."

"Oh, I'm sorry Mr. I'm-Pretty-Impressive, that not everyone of us is worth of your unholy research about us." I joked, earning a laughter from him.

I too laughed at my own joked, slightly leaning over at that and hearing something rattle slightly in my pocket.

"Oh..." I muttered.

Hoseok gave me a weirded out look, "What?"

"I, uhm-" I was a bit embarrassed when I took out the chocolate bar I had bought for I'm earlier today, remembering how I had wanted to meet him so badly because of it. The chocolate was broken and crushed in it's package, looking absolutely sad.

"I bought this. For you. As a small thank you, you know? Because you keep getting in these insane situations 'cause of me-"

I looked away ashamed while I stuffed the tiny bar into his hand, missing the look on Hoseok's face as I did so.

"I know, it's not a lot, compared for what you've done for me, but I'm not really capable of more so-"

"Thank you."

My gaze snapped up at him, only to meet eyes with a beaming boy, who looked as if he just won the lottery.

"That's actually so sweet of you, I didn't expect this. From you." he sounded partly teasing, partly serious and I felt relieved that he didn't make fun of me. Just teased me for my usual anti-social behaviors, but I was fine with that.

"I'd hug you but I feel like that's out of your comfort zone right now."

I nodded at his words, "Pretty much, yes."

He stared down at the chocolate for a moment, as if it was his new-born child that turned out to be an alien but pocketed it quickly, shooting me a grin.

I didn't quite get as why he was so awfully happy about a broken chocolate bar, but was way too exhausted to try and understand the depths of Jung Hoseok's mind to think about it any further.

I leaned back against the bench, the chilly night air surrounding me like a cocoon, when I remembered something, "Hoseok?"

He averted his attention at me, "Hm?"

"There's one thing I noticed," I frowned when I recalled it, "Earlier, Jimin seemed to- to control these shadows. How is that possible?"

He looked at me for a moment, before looking back at the street in front of us, "I'll be honest, I don't know all about this whole ghost thing - although definitely more than you - and I by no means understand who or what Jimin is fully. But all I know is that these shadows are a power way bigger than this Park-midget. They really are a force on their own, I don't think that Jimin is able to control them."

I watched his face turn dead serious as he explained, brows slightly furrowed and curly hair framing his pretty face beautifully - serious Hoseok was kinda attractive.

"I think it's more that these shadows see Jimin as a part of them. Maybe that was his goal by becoming the way he is now. I don't know. It's crazy, the things people do to gain power."

I nodded, understanding the way he thought, fully agreeing to it even. I didn't know how to feel about all of this, this uncertainty Jimin had brought with him and that stayed even after he left.

My eyes snapped up when I felt a warm hand on my thigh, meeting gazes with Hoseok.

"Please don't worry now." He said with a smile, "I'll make sure that he won't come near you ever again."

And, honestly, I believed him.

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Did you listen to Cavetown's new album sleepyhead? He's one of my favorite singers, I highly recommend listening to his songs

xx