Stay (BTS x Reader-Polyamorous romance)

Chapter 31

Namjoon POV:

"Can I get you anything else?" My voice was polite and kind as I spoke to the customer in front of me, a female snake hybrid with bright green scales on her cheeks and neck.

The customer shook her head. "No thank you. I eat enough of the pastries here as it is so I probably shouldn't eat any more." I laughed at her response then gave her the total before turning around to make her espresso.

After I handed over her drink and she left the counter, Owen came over to my side. "How's it going with the mate problems?" He gestured towards Taehyung who was seated at a table, drinking a hot chocolate and enjoying his break. Owen's astuteness continuously amazed me and I just gave him a look of surprise. "Yeah. I know all about it."

I shrugged my shoulders, not really sure how to respond. "It's not bad, but it's not great either. Y/N talked to Jimin a couple of days ago and I guess things went well. He asked for a chance and she was willing to give it to him, to let him into her heart."

Owen grinned. "I expected he would come around sooner or later. There's only so long that you can resist your female mate. And with someone as sweet as Y/N? It was bound to happen sooner rather than later."

Nodding my head in agreement, I looked over at Taehyung, who was scrolling through his phone, a small smile on his face. Turning my attention back to Owen, I asked the question that had been bothering me. "How do you know so much about hybrids?"

Owen's smile turned sad and his eyes went misty. "My best friend growing up was a hybrid, a Siberian Husky guy with the blondest hair I had ever seen. He had one brown eye and one blue eye and I used to think it was the coolest thing ever."

Sensing that there wasn't a happy ending to this story, I said nothing. Owen had been nothing but kind to me and I wanted him to know he could confide in me, trust me.

After a moment, Owen continued. "Right after I graduated college, I got a call from Easton's parents. He... he had been attacked coming home from the grocery store he worked at. They... they beat him then left him for dead." A tear slipped down Owen's cheek and my heart broke for my boss, my friend, the man who had showed me so much kindness. "He... he passed away before I could make it to the hospital to say my goodbyes. I rushed there to see him, but by the time I got there, he ... he was gone."

Owen's story shattered my heart and I wished things could be different, but I knew it was the things that Y/N went through every day. She saw the worst abuse cases, the worst neglect and when the conditions and injuries were too bad, she watched them die in front of her, holding her hand and finding comfort in the last moments of their lives. Those were the ones that hurt her the most. Knowing that no matter how tirelessly they worked, it was never enough. She dedicated her life to helping hybrids, saving hybrids and when it didn't work, it broke her.

Jin told me that she was the reason that they could be buried in the plot in the cemetery. When Y/N's parents died, they left her a sizable fortune. She used that money to pay for the burials because otherwise their ashes would be discarded. Instead, she used the money to pay for either a burial in the unknown hybrid plot at the cemetery or a burial and a headstone for the ones who had a known name. She had told Jin on more than one occasion that if they couldn't be treated right in this life then at least she would give them a proper sendoff. I had seen the after effects of their deaths and it was just another indicator of the size of my female mate's heart.

A hand on my shoulder pulled me from my thoughts and I turned to see Taehyung standing there, his eyes worried. I had been so caught up thinking about Y/N, Owen's friend, and the other lost hybrids that the scent of my mate didn't even register until he touched me. "You alright Joonie?"