Waiting Game | pjm ✓

056. Loved One

The wind picked up; crying, warning, howling like a pack of wolves into the night. The marble gravestones glimmered under the full moon, illuminating the whole graveyard in ghostly white.

"So I guess I underestimated you," Hyukjae's mother murmured, unnaturally long thin fingers crawling up Aera's face like tarantula's legs. Sharp red nails notched into the skin until a bloody trail rolled down her chin. "You're not as gullible and foolish as your mother used to be." She snarled. "But are you as weak? Perhaps we'll have to see."

Petrified, Aera's whole body knotted up. The hateful name had been buried somewhere deep in the back of her head. Jiah. Jungkook ended up being right. The truth had been in front of them all along, her grandmother even told her so in her dream. But she had been too stupid to see the real picture, blinded by her hatred for her half-brother and Yoongi.

"It was you all along." she gave a little whimper of pain.

"Correct." Jiah grinned crookedly, increasing the intensity of the pain.

"You... aren't human." Aera winced.

"Well now you're just being a show-off," Jiah spat out, face twisting with indignation. "I said you were smart, but that wasn't a compliment. You're still a whiny, pathetic, spoiled little brat!" With those words, she shoved Aera to the side violently and the girl fell on her right hand, the bone cracking sinisterly under the weight of her body.

Confidently, Jiah strutted towards the grave, her long red dress gliding on the ground behind her. She came to a halt just in front of the tombstone, performing a little pirouette as she spun around to look at the breathless Aera, amusement flickering in her scarlet orbs.

"What do you want?" Aera rasped, wrapping her hand around her injured arm. She was by no chance delusional enough to think that she could deal with Jiah on her own. Help was more than needed, but she was clueless if someone might even come to her rescue. Jimin was probably still angry with her, and he was the only person who could ever figure that she might be at her parents' grave. The others had no idea she was even there.

"I want you to die," Jiah simply stated in a monotonous voice. "Why won't you die already, Aera?" she shot forward to kneel before the trembling girl, eyebrows dipped slightly as if the subject made her deeply distraught. "Why? Are you that stubborn?"

"Were you the one dictating Hyukjae's actions?" Aera questioned, astounded by the clarity of her own thoughts. She was desperate, feebly clinging onto any stalling tactic her brain could produce.

"Yes I was," Jiah giggled, flattered by Aera's perturbation. "It didn't take much to control my son, he listens to everything I say anyways." She became dark. "But this isn't an interview, so stop asking me dumb questions."

Quickly, she hoisted herself up and made a circle around the bench, her feet barely touching the ground like a ballerina. Her bright red hair glowed in the dark, streaks of orange and copper mingled in the scarlet hue.