Beastly Beauty ✓

39. The Hunters

39 | THE HUNTERS

"It was never supposed to happen," Hoseok told me after we arrived on campus. I'd stayed quiet for the last few minutes of the drive attempting to process the new revelation.

The snow had started back up again, just a dusting of white particles that melted the moment they met my skin. I let him continue while we headed to the opera house where we had agreed to meet Taehyung and the others.

"He was one of the only classmates I had who took an interest in getting to know me instead of being afraid or making fun of me. He must've noticed more about my abilities than the others, because he asked me one day about what I could do. Asked if it hurt when it flared up, asked if my face changed and if that's why I wore the bandanna. No one had ever asked me so directly and it freaked me out. I tried to avoid him, but he always followed me around. Then one day, I was walking home and he kept pushing for answers so I cut into the woods with the hopes that he'd give it up. But he didn't."

I glanced at Hoseok, noting the tension that pulled on his brows, the lowered gaze that kept him far from our present surroundings. My hand reached out to entwine with his.

"It's so strange remembering everything that happened but forgetting who he is," he mused quietly. "I can still feel the guilt even though I can't remember who it's for."

"What happened in the woods?" I gently pressed.

"He just kept pushing. He wanted to rile me up to the point where I'd lose control so he could see the full extent of what I was. And I let him. I let him hit every nerve until I was panicked and angry and then I shifted into that beast."

"And you bit him," I finished so he wouldn't have to. But he went on.

"It was barely more than a pin prick. I managed to pull myself away from him and kept breathing until I wasn't that thing anymore. It was the first time I ended it so fast, but it didn't matter. It only took a minute for his eyes to start glowing, and another minute for flames to light on his fingertips. He almost seemed excited in the beginning, but then the transition started. He cried and screamed, and I stayed and did everything I could to help him through it."

"At least he wasn't alone," I whispered, though I knew it was a weak attempt at comforting him.

Hoseok stopped to look at me. "Jangmi, I know you always try to see the best in a situation. I know your instinct is to protect me or help me come to terms with things, but this... I don't want you to try justifying what happened. I've accepted my mistake and I know it's something I'll always regret. I made him the same as me, and at one point I was glad that I did. But looking back now, I'll always have to live with the fact that I sentenced a kid to suffer the same pain I bore all my life."

He was right. Every muscle in my body had to fight the urge to defend him or rationalize what happened, but in the end, it was something terrible that Hoseok had to come to terms with long ago. It wasn't my place to make it all okay when he had already taken responsibility for it.

"So you became friends after that? I mean, that's when you introduced him to me and Jungkook, right?"

"Yeah," he answered, taking my hand again as we resumed our walk. "He needed my help to learn how to control it, so he stayed by my side. And it felt like he forgave me once he started adapting and accepting what happened. Sometimes it even seemed like he was thankful for what I did, like he enjoyed what he became. So I trusted that he didn't hold it against me and introduced him to you guys, and then we were all inseparable for a while."

"So that night I remembered—when he lost control and started shifting... that was quite a while after you'd been helping him?"

Hoseok sighed. "Several months later. That was my fault too, in a way. He got all worked up because I confronted him about you."