"Maybe a dragon has to breathe on it," Jungkook pondered, chewing on his lower lip. He was laying upside down on the couch, head hanging down and legs put up against the back rest as his rich mahogany hair slightly swayed when he talked. "Or it needs the sacrificial blood of a thousand virgins to open." His eyes widened like those of a child telling a scary story around the bonfire.

"This sounds... extreme," Jimin mumbled, arms wrapped around Aera's form leaning back into his chest. Both of them installed on the couch across the room, his legs straddling her from behind and his chin rested on the crown of her head. Staying in this position with him seemed something natural for her now, about as right as breathing. "And to be honest, I'm not very keen on killing a thousand innocent people in order to open a fucking piece of metal."

"What do you guys think is inside?" Jungkook rolled over on the couch and sat back in an upright position, rubbing his eyes. Aera took notice how these days he seemed not to wear his glasses as much. Perhaps he didn't need them anymore. "What if it's a portal to another dimension? Or another timeline. That would be awesome."

Ever since Aera had known him, he had always been fascinated with the supernatural so it wasn't exactly a surprise that he was this excited. A little bit too excited maybe.

"It's too small to be the door for Narnia, that's for sure," Aera joked, goosebumps lining her skin as Jimin mindlessly started toying with a strand of her hair.

"Namjoon, can't you just turn back time to when our lives weren't so complicated?" Jimin groaned, glancing at the security leader who had sank into the seat behind the desk silently, long thing fingers pinching the root of his nose. "I feel like my head hurts from all of this."

Namjoon offered him a half-hearted smile. "I don't think that's how any of this works. I've been trying to make something like this happen again, but couldn't do it. Furthermore, maybe all of this is happening to us for a reason and we just don't know it yet."

"Yeah, maybe there's some big cosmic explanation behind all of this," Jungkook agreed. "Speaking of using our Powers, I have to tell you something guys. Yesterday I was trying to become invisible, you know, I thought maybe it wouldn't hurt to play around with this mysterious superpower now that I have it? Make it useful."

"And what happened?" Aera asked. "Did it work?"

"Well it was really hard at first. I spent about two hours trying to focus or whatever and nothing happened except I managed to bring this horrible headache on myself. But then just as I was about to give up, I felt this tingling sensation across my skin for a second and next thing I knew, it happened."

"Really?" Namjoon practically leapt from his chair. "You did it? You became invisible?"

Jungkook nodded, his eyes sparkling with excitement. "I think it was finally possible to happen because I relaxed and just didn't think too much about it. But that's when things got, um, complicated." A troubled expression painted over his face as he started fidgeting with his fingers.

"What do you mean?" Jimin scowled.

"Well, I became invisible, so that's great I guess," Jungkook mumbled. "Problem is, I couldn't get back to being visible after that. I got stuck." He gave a nervous gulp, scanning everyone's faces.

Namjoon hummed, deep in thought. "That's not good." He commented briefly before falling silent again.

"Tell me about it," Jungkook sighed. "I couldn't get out of it for at least two hours. The real victim here is Meisa though, because I managed to scare the crap out of her last night when I went into her room panicked. Really, I legitimately thought she was going to have a heart attack when she heard my voice. Not being able to see me for the next few hours didn't help either," somehow the thought seemed to amuse him, because he snorted in an attempt to hide his laugh.

"Oh my god, poor Meisa," Aera said. Now that Jungkook was telling it, the story seemed almost comical but she imagined that in real life the situation must have been really stressful for the mint-haired girl. Imagine chilling in your room and all of a sudden you hear this voice come from somewhere inside. Terrifying.

"So how did you get back to being visible?" Jimin questioned, stroking the skin of Aera's arm.

Jungkook shrugged, wearing the face of a man who was completely clueless. "No fucking idea. It just happened, maybe I needed to give it time."

"Good thing that you managed to come back after all," Namjoon commented darkly. Aera shuddered. Stuck in being invisible, that didn't sound so pleasant.

"But I was thinking that probably if we tried to control and master these abilities, we could make them work in our favor," Jungkook concluded.

"Hey, speaking of Meisa, did someone tell her about her brother joining the dark side?" Jimin asked, his words laced with sarcasm but it was evident in his voice that he was concerned.

All four of them exchanged troubled looks. Breaking this type of news to Meisa wouldn't be exactly easy.

"No," Jungkook let out a long, heavy sigh. "How could I tell her? She'd be devastated. My heart would break. She loves her brother so much." His lower lip slightly buckled upwards before he clenched his jaw.

"I still don't understand why he did it," Aera felt a dull ache tug at her heart. Sweet, kind Hobi. At least that was who he was before the alcohol corrupted him. Her mind desperately clamored for any type of justification for his actions. She refused to believe that he would turn out just as twisted as her vindictive brother. "I still hope he has some kind of reason. Or..." she trailed off, choking up.

Or they've lost him.

Dead silence fell upon them as each of them sank into their own thoughts. It was painful for Aera to know that someone dear to her would betray them like this. She still had hope in her heart for Hobi.

"Let's just have Meisa take her contacts off, look at Hyukjae and Yoongi and petrify them. This could make all of our problems go away," Jungkook grinned proudly.

Namjoon waved his hand in a dismissive manner. "We can't risk this. Meisa's ability is probably the one we know the least about, and we have no idea what would be the consequences of it. We don't know how this petrifaction works, if it's even petrifaction. Her eyes could be holding the power to do other things, too. How long it takes for the effect to wear of, if it even wears off.

"Yes, it seemed like her tears healed you, but we can't say that with absolute certainty. So it would be probably for the best if we refrain from using her for now if we don't want to bring another disaster on our heads. It's the last thing we need."

His words of wisdom echoed in Aera's brain. Namjoon's presence had always been very soothing and he had always radiated calm knowledge and reason, but not in a sense of firm, cold logic, more like the gentle guidance of the kind and caring person he was. She was starting to appreciate this even more now in this tumultuous time, and was happy to have him by their side.

Slowly, Jimin's fingers ran down to take her chin and he gently tilted her head so that she could look at his mesmerizing abysses. For a second there she almost got lost in them. She was so head over heels for this man it was insane, how could he rob her of all of her thoughts with just his eyes was beyond her.

"How long do you think it would take Taehyung to open the box?" he asked her softly.

"I don't know but usually it wouldn't take him so long," she sighed deeply.

It had been some days since she had dropped off the box at Taehyung's garage and an uneasy feeling was starting to pool in her gut. What if he had deceived her and in actuality never planned on helping her? He was unpredictable and probably not trustworthy enough. This wouldn't be too surprising.

"Maybe we should go and check on him," Jungkook suggested. "Just to see if, you know, he isn't a snitch." He said through gritted teeth.

It was probably for Aera's sake, but it seemed like everyone was trying not to be too hostile when talking about Taehyung once she had told them he would help them. Clearly, they still had difficulties trusting him.

"I assure you he's not," she shook her head but deep down inside, she wasn't completely convinced putting her faith in him was the smart thing to do.

"That's a lot of expectations to live up to," someone said. "And to be fair, I'm just too good at disappointing people."

Pivoting her head to look at the door, Aera let out a soft gasp. Relief washed over her at the sight of Taehyung's cocky smirk. A silver bandana keeping his disheveled raven black hair back, in his hand he was holding the security box, waggling it smugly.

He came.

"Did you..." her voice disappearing, the words caught in her throat. She didn't want to get her hopes up for nothing and was far too cautious to get happy over something these days. But the smile adorning Taehyung's mouth ignited a spark of hopefulness in her.

He paused as his teeth caught his lower lip, nibbling on the silver lip ring. "Of course I did," he said finally. "A piece of cake. I was done with it ever since the day you left it at my garage, but just wanted to keep you fuckers in suspense for a little while more."

Scoffing a laugh, Aera let her lips stretch into a grin. So typical of him. Yet she couldn't be mad at him, not when he had fulfilled his promise to her.

With a creak of his chair, Namjoon stood up and cleared his throat. "Thank you for doing this," he said, kind eyes gazing at Taehyung who seemed a little bit uncomfortable by this outburst of gratitude.

"Whatever," he shrugged, putting the mask of indifference back on. "I don't think that you're gonna find what was inside useful though." He said, shuffling towards Namjoon's desk and putting the box on it.

Quickly, everyone gathered at the desk like ducklings following their mother duck. Taehyung gestured towards the box before stuffing his hands into his pockets and pressing his lips into a thin line.

Curious, Aera peeped inside as well, only for confusion to spill across her face.

The content of the mysterious box consisted of an old book bound in brown leather. She could tell that it was old by the faded hardbacks and the dusty smell that hit her in the face once she dipped closer, like the inside of an attic. The book seemed old-fashioned but tarnished, like its owner hadn't been taking particularly good care of it, its original stitching barely holding it together.

So, nothing spectacular. No rays of light, no portals to another dimensions, no philosopher's stone.

She glanced up to exchange looks with the others. Everyone was silent, unsure of what to say. Aera had no idea what they had expected to find. It certainly wasn't the Flaming Sword or the Holy Grail. But this... this seemed a little bit too ordinary for them to be excited.

"This is... interesting," Namjoon uttered, straining his voice to sound optimistic.

"I think you mean disappointing," Jungkook grumbled. He seemed to be the most discouraged out of everyone. His face expression had dropped and he had become glum.

"Wait for it," Taehyung scoffed. He reached down to take the withered book and unexpectedly handed it to Aera. "I think you should do the honors."

Perplexed, she took it from him begrudgingly. The book felt heavy in her hands even though it wasn't that big and the pages seemed so thin and delicate, like snowflakes. Staring down at it before even opening it felt almost enthralling for Aera.

The leather felt soft as she turned the cover, unintentionally holding her breath while doing so. This could give answers to all of their questions. Resolution to their problems. Maybe even help her find some closure on her parents' death.

Squeezing her eyes for a second like she was about to rip a band aid, she exhaled heavily and slowly opened the brittle book.

There was nothing there.

At first she thought the ink had faded due to the book's poor condition. She started thumbing through the pages, growing more frantic by the second. They were completely blank.

"What the fuck?" Jungkook cussed under his breath, his hands darting to rest on top of his head in frustration. "There are no words!"

"There are," Taehyung muttered, looking at Aera pointing with his chin. "Check the first page."

She ran her fingers over the pages before stumbling on the first one. There, in coal black ink, was written her grandmother's name.

Lee Adara

Aera slumped, eyes examining the thin paper as if she expected something else to appear on it. This book echoed some kind of familiarity to her but she couldn't exactly put her finger on it.

"Hey, Aera," Jimin's soft voice drew her back. "How long has it been since you've paid your grandmother a visit?"

author's note:

so idk if you guys know but 'Waiting Game' won 1st place in Jimin category in the PurpleLightsAwards 💜
I have never won 1st place in anything and for it to be with this particular story, it just makes me so happy.

Fun fact: this story was originally supposed to be about Aera struggling to overcome her addiction to sleeping pills and her family shunning her out while Jimin remains on her side and helps her go through it. This was what I had in mind while writing the first chapter. It was supposed to be really dark (and depressing lol). The fantasy element came to me much later while I was mapping out the plot. I have to say I'm not mad at all with how it turned out. I got attached to all the characters so quickly so I wouldn't want it any other way. ^^