❤︎ Day 12 - 07:34 AM ❤︎

POV: Saeran Mode

Saeran was having a bad day.

First, he'd gotten knocked out during his attempt to retrieve his Savior's chosen one from her former dwelling. Then he'd woken up in an unfamiliar building in the middle of nowhere while restrained to a couch, with the girl he was supposed to bring back with him saying that there was no way for him to get back to Mint Eye. Later, he had fallen asleep after his captor had tried to feed him (very badly), before waking up in what might have been the softest bed ever.

He then traveled back to the place of his former captivity only to see his jailer with a dog lying on top of her. They talked about resets and..remembering..before Saeran had noticed the time on the wall and everything had gone downhill so fast in such a short period of time.

He'd been sick for almost ten hours now. He was so tired he could barely move, and although he'd never admit it, part of him was thankful that the woman keeping him here was kind enough to make sure he didn't die in her care. She was running back and forth to try and find some way to get him to stop throwing up every time he attempted to eat something. If he wasn't feeling so awful at the moment, he might have even laughed at how concerned she was.

When he asked her why she was so worried about his health, she simply said something about 'not letting him down this time' before dashing away to find her laptop so she could research remedies to whatever it was he was ailing from. After trying several different methods that failed to work, she started panicking.

"Is there anything you can think of that would cause you to start feeling this way? Cause so far the symptoms aren't matching up with anything I've looked up so far." She'd moved him back to the bedroom upstairs a while ago, and was currently sitting next to him with her laptop resting on top of her thighs, emergency bucket to the side just in case of any more incidents. Saeran opened his eyes and waited for the room to stop spinning before replying.

"I used- I had to take medicine when I was at Mint Eye." She shot him a look of confusion.

"Why? You seemed perfectly healthy up until now." Of course she wouldn't understand.

"The Savior made it for me," He briefly let an expression of pride flash across his face. "I was weak before, but she helped me to get stronger." His triumphant smirk vanished when she placed the back of her hand against his forehead.

"No fever..so it can't be any sort of illness. If it was food poisoning I'd have gotten sick too since we ate the same thing..." She sighed with disappointment before setting her laptop aside. "How often did you need the medication when you were at your weird religious cult place?" Saeran glared at her but refrained from snapping only because he was tired and his throat was raw, so he answered the question.

"Every day." He didn't understand why she needed to kno-

"Every day!?" His thoughts were interrupted when she shot up off of the bed and spun around to face him. "My goodness, I don't know how I didn't see it before." Her eyes were full of pain, and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't worried about what her reaction meant for him. However, if he was expecting anything, it wasn't the sudden sensation of arms wrapping themselves around his middle and hair tickling his cheek as his captor pulled him into a one-sided hug.

"I'm s-sorry! I'm so sorry!" Now she was crying and Saeran was both confused and startled at her sudden change in attitude. "I should've tried harder to help you but- I didn't know! I wish I'd known!" The next moment she was withdrawing and looking at him with tears pouring down her face.

"I'm going to make this right, I promise. Just stay here and try not to move a lot. There's a glass of water on the side table in case you get thirsty. I'll try to be back before noon!" Then she was running out the door, hair flying as she sped towards her car.

Her shout of 'Look after him, Jamming!' echoed through the house before the soft roar of an engine came from outside and drifted away. After a few minutes, he could hear the soft jingling of a dog's collar approaching his room, and it wasn't long before a large black mass of fur came around to climb on top of the bed covers and curl up beneath his hand, which immediately started petting the soft curls.

"...You wouldn't happen to know why she was so frantic, would you?" His question only got him a soft woof in response.

"Hah..didn't think so."

She didn't return until a little after one, her arms laden with bags, and with a mug full of tea in each hand. He'd been asleep, but the sound of the door slamming against the wall jolted him awake and brought the nauseous feeling to the forefront of his mind. He squeezed his eyes shut and focused on taking deep breaths while the sound of rustling plastic permeated the room.

"I'm back! I know what's wrong with you now but I didn't know which one of these would help the most so I just got everything," She looked over the silent boy lying beneath her sheets. "Was everything okay while I was gone? Did you finish your water?" He'd finished the glass on the table shortly after she left, but he was too tired to get up to refill the cup, opting to just sleep instead. As soon as she mentioned it, he could feel the dryness in the back of his throat and he coughed.

"Oh no, you're not coming down with a cold now too, are you? I can't take you to the hospital like this." She set the bags on the floor before carefully maneuvering the handles around the mugs and offering him one. Saeran reached over and accepted the cup before taking a long draught. It was slightly bitter, yet thankfully only just on the tolerable side of hot.

"Why are you so worried anyway? I t-tried to kidnap you...and we both know that wasn't the first time..." He tried to focus his eyes on the tiny flecks of leaves sitting at the bottom of the mug. "You can't be doing this for no reason. What is it that you want from me?" Looking up, he tried his best to glare at her but faltered once he noticed the somber expression on her face. She was staring at her lap, but a few seconds after he finished speaking, she slowly turned to lock eyes with him.

"I've been so selfish...all this time. I never thought about your place in all this until you sent me that message nine days ago." As the tears started flowing from her eyes, Saeran noted that this was the second time in less than twenty-four hours that he'd been witness to this girl crying. Except this time, she was crying over him and not the RFA. He didn't know what to think about that.

"For every eleven days I've lived in that apartment, I never thought about your situation." Saeran felt a tightness in his chest at her words. He didn't, couldn't understand why this girl cared so much about him. She was someone who, by all rights, should be a complete stranger to him, except she wasn't and they both knew that. "I don't think I even considered the fact that...you might need me as much as they needed me." She wiped her tears away with the heel of her palm before giving him a watery smile.

"I want to start over with you...please." He didn't know how to react to this situation, but then she was holding out her hand to him like an offering, a look of hopefulness in her eyes. "My name is Zai, and I want to get to know you."

His eyes drifted from her face to the hand in front of him. Maybe it was the fact that she'd somehow gone through all the effort to getting him here, or that after he got sick, she had gone and bought anything and everything she thought he'd need to get better, but for some reason, he wanted to learn more about the girl in front of him. He wanted to understand her with words instead of reading through a printed and packaged file. He wanted to know her as a person.

Stretching out his arm, he wrapped his hand around hers and marveled at how soft it was.

"My name..is Saeran Choi, and I..want to get to know you too."

Maybe, just maybe, staying in this place wouldn't be so bad.