October (MYG X F!Reader) - Oneshot
October (MYG x F!Reader) - Oneshot
Pairing: Min Yoongi x F!OC/Reader
Genres: interns!AU, heavy heavy heavy ANGST (you have been warned), sfw
Warnings: ANGST (did I say that already), a story about love that’s not a love story, some cursing, mentions of traumatic accident and brain injury/coma, mentions of hospitals and medical issues, mentions of life support and end-of-life-care, mentions of miscarriage, sadness and just generally people being assholes (including Yoongi), MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH, please be kind to yourself and don’t read if any of these things make you uncomfortable or sad (your wellbeing is valued and important)
Word count: 8.3k
Summary: Yoongi can’t remember his life before the fall. He doesn’t want to either - being with you while the mugunghwas bloom is enough.
A/N: Hi everyone! Putting this out there that this is probably the longest (and angstiest) thing I’ve ever written, and I cried a lot while writing it. This story is based on the Bollywood movie October, which is single handedly one of the most amazing films I’ve ever seen in my life. This story deals with heavy topics (read at your own discretion), but I really tried my best to use my healthcare knowledge and some research to make this an honest portrayal. I recommend reading Being Mortal by Atul Gawande if this topic interests you more. Honestly, it was a journey for me to write this, and although it’s very sad, I’m really proud of it, and if you choose to read it, I hope it speaks to you in some way. Also, big thanks to Suzie (@lcksndkys) for beta-reading this and helping out on the medical side of things (she’s the best, pls give her a follow)!
November
“Hello, welcome to the Signiel, how may I help you today?” your chipper voice cuts through the din of the hotel lobby, a warm smile lighting up your face.
“Yes, can you tell us what’s good to see in your city?” The man’s accent is foreign, but kind. He seems genuinely in awe of the posh decor that surrounds him, and the subtle chill emanating from the sliding doors as they woosh open and close.
“Ah yes, there’s so much to see in Seoul! There’s Gyeongbokgung Palace, the Samsung Museum of Art, Namdameun Market…,” you drone on, sharply aware of a pair of cat-like eyes gazing at you from the corner of the lobby.
Your fellow intern Yoongi is there, mopping away at the already pristine marble floors, likely cursing his entire existence for accepting this internship. As interns, you expected you’d be in charge of greeting guests, taste testing the house specialties and coordinating events.
However, the menial tasks were a surprise. Sweeping floors, doing laundry, flushing toilets. Most of the interns, including you, took it in stride. Yoongi, however, was different.
Your eyes can’t look away from him as you watch him furiously mop, back and forth, back and forth, so hard you think he’ll knock the dirty bucket of water over and Manager Im will have his head.
Eventually his movements slow, coming to a complete halt. He lets out a deep sigh, the rich baritone of his voice cutting through the monotony of voices and travelling to your equally tired ears. He’s turned away from you now, instead staring wistfully at the beautiful grand piano tucked away in the corner, its pristine facade reflecting every tiny moment happening in the lobby with immaculate detail.
Glancing back towards the guests, you muster up another smile and offer them their room keys. When you look up again, Yoongi’s gone.
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The clinking of champagne flutes and the echoes of footsteps can be heard as you prepare for tonight’s event. A wedding - one of Seoul’s richest CEOs marries its biggest social butterfly.
You remember reading the groom’s name in a magazine somewhere, and now it currently dwells at the back of your mind. Kim Taehyung? That sounds familiar.
Banishing the intrusive thoughts of handsome Mr. Kim from your mind, you turn back to the task at hand. Napkins should be perfectly folded, not a single crease visible, and the edges should be neat and even with one another. Flowers go in the specific order indicated on your index cards, and candles should be placed in the center of the table, far enough away from the edge that they don’t fall and burn the whole place down.
As you finish placing the last flowers on the table, you’re rammed into by someone. The petals scatter to the ground, the petals creating a large mess where a sophisticated centerpiece should have been.
“Shit, sorry, I-. Here, let me help you,” the person groans out, ennui evident in their listless tone.
“Hi Yoongi! How are you today?” you greet him, carefully bending down and tenderly picking up each stray petal. The mugunghwa flowers feel soft in between the pads of your fingers, their smell light and sweet.
Yoongi lets out a sharp grunt of acknowledgement, as he hunches over and desperately shoves the flowers back into your hands, like a man possessed. As the last bloom finds his way back to you, he nods and makes his way towards Manager Im standing all the way by the stage.
Trying your best to refocus your attention, you catch the faint wind of their seemingly unpleasant conversation from where you stand.
“Need off on the 30th and 31st -- parent’s anniversary -- silver jubilee.”
“Hotel at full occupancy -- should know better -- go get a haircut and stop bothering me please.”
“Fucking fine, keep me here to do your dirty work, then. All I’m asking for is a job that’s worth my qualifications, you know, like the fucking degree I’m supposed to be getting for this?”
You wince at Yoongi’s last comment, knowing the words ring painfully true yet no one else is brave enough to voice them. Manager Im doesn’t bat an eye, ushering Yoongi away with a sweep of his arms and moving on to another part of the room.
As he huffs past you to leave the room, you offer a weak smile Yoongi’s way.
“Thank you for your help picking up the flowers again, Yoongi! I’ll see you later.”
Shoes tapping against the marble, he lifts his head but doesn’t turn as he makes his way out of the ballroom, failing to spare a single glance in your direction.
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December 31st
“You know what your problem is Yoongi? You’re constantly annoyed,” Yeri drawls, scowling as the whipped cream topping her coffee drips onto the ground.
You swing your legs from side to side on the curb, avoiding eye contact with Yoongi as he pushes himself out from underneath the hood of your car.
“You know why I’m irritated? It’s because I’m constantly surrounded by you two,” he gestures to you both and scoffs.
“Yah, don’t tell me you’re annoyed about me calling you irritating,” Yeri’s voice goes shrill as Yoongi flips her off, slinging his bag around his shoulder and walking over to his motorbike.
“Thank you for the oil change Yoongi!” you shout, but your voice is drowned out by the whirring of the engine as it fades away, the bike zooming down the road and away from you both.
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Tinsel and fairy lights shimmer along the vast hallway as Yoongi vacuums the carpet that is now full of glitter from the guests’ merrymaking. Despite the cheery exterior scene, the inside of Yoongi’s headset is blaring Seo Taji and the Boys, not Deck the Halls.
He’d unceremoniously landed himself in hot water with Im again, his frustration getting the best of him. Not surprisingly, Im had retaliated by putting him on cleaning duty the one night he knew all the interns were having their holiday party.
Yoongi groans loudly, blinking his eyes and letting his mind travel. If just thinks hard enough, he can almost imagine the bass thumping outside, the clinking of glasses as the drunkest one in the batch gets up to make their yearly toast… he can imagine you, full of warmth and laughter, sparing a smile for everyone you come across.
Yoongi hates that he can’t hate you like he does the others. That you’re always asking him about his day, thanking him for doing the bare minimum when he could be doing more, appreciative of his mere presence when all Im and the others want is for him to get lost. To disappear.
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“Yah, Namjoon, why are you on the ground again, are you drunk?” Yeri screeches, trying her best to lift up the gentle giant of a man who’s made himself at home on the grass by the pool.
“Druuuunk onnnn youuuuu babyyyy!” Namjoon shouts with vigor. Namjoon’s candid behavior has you smirking to yourself, thinking how nice it is to see the kind, reserved intern let loose and enjoy himself a little. Yeri seems to be enjoying it too, a faint blush coloring her cheeks despite the grimace on her face.
“A toast,” Seokjin, the broad shouldered senior intern exclaims, “to another year gone by!”
“Happy New Year!!” The chorus is loud and raucous.
Glasses are raised and hors d'oeuvres consumed, the golden lights twinkling in the night.
“Seokjin, another drink?” Yeri reaches out, offering up a beer in her hand.
“Nahhh, I’m okay,” he counters. “Besides, gotta drive home with Yoongi at the end of the night, you know how it is.
“Come to think of it,” you ponder. “I haven’t even seen him, where is Yoongi?”
You hoist yourself up onto the railing, dizzy from the effects of the alcohol reaching your head.
You feel the wet, slippery dew drops against your fingers and suddenly, nothing.
Slipping through space, the air whooshes around you as you fall, staring up at the sparkling lights one final time before you hear a loud thump and everything fades to black.
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“Patient is in acute respiratory distress —- I’m having trouble finding a pulse --- might need intubation,” the static crackles through the radio.
Yoongi was slumped against the hallway, eyes closed. Lost in a dream world of allegros and sonatas, he’s jolted awake by the jarring dissonance of a wrong note. Blearily, he rubs his eyes, but the note remains prolonged, piercing his eardrums.
It’s a siren. His pupils dilate as the bright red lights hit them. Something’s wrong.
Yoongi doesn’t know when he started running, or how, just that he’s skirting on death’s edge, skipping stairs two at a time, making his way down the emergency staircase to the ground floor exit.
He’s greeted with the sight of Manager Im, face blanched and brows furrowed, speaking to a police officer.
“Her name is ___. She fell from the third floor swimming pool, but normally no one goes there.”
The officer nods along, jotting Im’s statement down on a notepad, and it’s then that Yoongi turns and sees the blood.
A pool of it, and you, in the middle. Before he can even think, EMTs are strapping you in and lifting you onto a stretcher.
“Current status, 23 y/o F patient who will need mechanical ventilation, sedated, no movement. Pulse 110”, the voice blares through the megaphone.
All Yoongi can do is tremble, Seokjin coming to wrap an arm around him. He watches the ambulance as it drives away, wondering where and when everything decided to go so wrong.
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January 2nd
The fragrant perfume of gochujang and crackling of oil permeates the air as Yoongi pulls up to the tteokbokki stall, shaking out his windswept helmet hair from the frantic drive over.
Seokjin gives him a pitiful glance, Yeri and Namjoon both avoiding eye contact.
Yoongi decides to speak up first. “Dude, you could have told me what happened that night.
“Yoongi, I called you. I must have left at least 15 messages.”
“Listen up, interns,” Im sneers. “You will not breathe a word of this to anyone, okay? Not until the police report is complete. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes Manager,” Yeri and Namjoon answer monotonously, Seokjin nodding along.
“Min,” Im says, “here’s an extra entry pass. Go and see her, and report straight back to me afterwards.”
Yoongi gapes at the keycard Im hands him, unsure of how to breathe.
“Yoongi,” Yeri breathes out, struggling to hold back tears. “Go and see her. 3rd floor, neuro ICU, bed 28.”
Yoongi steps backwards. One step. Another. He feels as though he’s dragging his feet through a pool of quicksand. If he doesn’t get on the bike, he wouldn’t be able to go to the hospital. He wouldn’t be able to see ___, broken and bruised. He would be able to pretend that nothing had happened, that everything was normal, that you’d pop up out of nowhere and say “Hi Yoongi!” with that wide smile of yours.
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“Dr. Sungchul Kim, please report to the cardiology department.”
The loudspeakers are garish and blaring, befitting of a circus rather than the serious, sterile institution Yoongi finds himself in.
Yoongi thought the behind the scenes of the hotel was the most depressing thing ever, but he was wrong. The white walls and the smell of antiseptic taunt him, reminding him of the way these walls act as a prison for lives barely hanging on. Lives like ___’s.
As he approaches the ward, he can make out a haggard looking woman with kind eyes, conversing with a police officer towering over her.
“___ was a good girl. She would never drink alcohol so recklessly, and all her friends at the hotel were such good influences. I know my daughter. She didn’t just fall, someone pushed her.”
“Ma’am,” the police officer starts, “I understand your concern, but we have to consider all possible options here.”
The officer’s conversation with your mother drifts away as Yoongi finds himself at the entrance of the neuro ICU. The guard gestures for him to remove his shoes and sanitize his hands.
Then, Yoongi is ushered into room #28 with a gust of cold air following behind him. He wonders if you were cold when you fell. He hopes not.
He tiptoes through the room, silent, as if one wrong footfall could wake any of the patients in here. People who sleep but don’t dream, don’t know when or if they’ll wake up.
At the end, towards the window, he stops and sees you. Small and frail-looking, bright spots of red and purple littering your entire face. They’ve cut off your hair, he muses. He remembers how you always used to wear it in a tight, neat bun, and how keeping it off your face highlighted your eyes.
And the tubes. There’s so many. Yoongi counts 19 in total, all hooked up to different machines and making their way into your body. He wonders what they’re all for, how they manage to keep you alive when you look anything but.
The nurse comes by to change your IV, and Yoongi feels sick. He’s an intruder, and he doesn’t belong here. Doesn’t deserve to be here. He turns on his heels and walks out of the ward, the monotonous beeping never leaving his head the whole time.
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January 16th
It’s hot and muggy in the apartment, the pressure cooker letting out the last bits of steam as Seokjin scoops out an even portion of rice, placing a perfectly shaped dome on Yoongi’s plate.
Silence was never an issue between the two of them, but now, it feels overwhelming. Like both of them have forgotten how to speak, forgotten how to live.
The days since the accident have all passed like this, in still and stagnancy.
“I still can’t get over how swollen her face was, and did you see all those tubes?” Yoongi’s voice is gruff, hoarse from days of no use, from keeping his head down and changing sheets and mopping floors.
Seokjin stares at him questioningly, wondering why Yoongi chose to broach this topic of conversation when they haven’t spoken in a week.
“I felt like I had the wind knocked out of me just standing there,” Yoongi drawls on.
“Is that why you never went back? I’ve been there twice already, you know. Namjoon has gone at least three times, and Yeri goes as soon as she gets off work every day.”
“I-, it’s not that, it’s the machines. They make it hard to concentrate,” Yoongi counters, feeling ashamed that while he was lost in a haze, his fellow interns were using their free time to visit the hospital.
“She asked about you, you know? Right before she fell. She asked, “Where is Yoongi?””
The same feeling of sickness from the ICU washes over Yoongi again, his breath heaving and palms becoming clammy. He wishes he could admit himself into the hospital too, maybe then he wouldn’t feel so guilty.
“Bro, something’s wrong with the food, it doesn’t taste right today” Yoongi starts, hauling himself up off the ground. “I’m gonna go to the tteokbokki stand and eat. You want anything?”
Seokjin looks up at him, cheeks full of food. “It tastes fine to me.”
“Alright then, see ya later man.” The door closes on a concerned looking Seokjin, as Yoongi makes his way out to the parking spot.
The cool air on his face has Yoongi feeling lighter, breathing easier, and he feels brave enough to detour from the tteokbokki stand and follow the green and white exit sign to Seoul National University Hospital.
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Inside, the ward air suffocates Yoongi once more, as he makes his way to room 28.
He sees your mother again, and another smaller version of you, trapped in yet another conversation, this time with the doctor. A sister maybe? He always thought you were an only child. Yoongi surprises himself constantly with how much he never knew about you, how much he could’ve found out if only he took a chance.
Passing by, neither of them fail to acknowledge the blonde haired boy making his way into ___’s room. Glancing again towards the end of the bed, he sees the same nurse from last time, clipboard in hand, recording your vital signs.
She takes notice of him lingering behind her. “Are you family?”
Yoongi shakes his head no.
“Her boyfriend then?” Another shake of his head.
“The other boy that was here, is he her boyfriend?” Yoongi’s throat tightens, but he somehow manages to croak out a no.
“Sir, if you don’t have a reason to be here, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I hope you understand, these are the rules.”
She beckons Yoongi out of the room. He turns and gives ___ one final wave, passing the two women on his way out, before being cast out into the frigid chill of the winter air once more.
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February
“Off again, Yoongi?!” Namjoon calls out, as the door shuts in front of him, and he and Seokjin hear the kickstart of the motorbike once more.
Yoongi’s been disappearing multiple times a week, firing up his bike and blazing through gas money. Somehow he always ends up at the hospital. Sometimes, he’s brave enough to go in and spend a minute, or five, or ten by your side. Sometimes he just lingers outside the ward, especially when he sees the nurse go on. Most of the time, he just sits outside on the bench, listening to conversations between the doctors and staff that work there. Yoongi would consider himself halfway to an MD based on the things he’s overheard sometimes.
Today, though, he’s possessed by the unknown urge to see you again. To check up on you. Maybe it’s based on the conversation he overheard last week between your mother and the doctor. About how you’re in a deep coma, and neither awake or alert. About how your case might be hopeless. He hears your sister cry, your brother (who he’d seen recently) with the doe eyes suck in a gasp, and your mother plead to give them some more time.
He wants to tell you that time’s running out, that you need to wake up soon or everything will be over. And yet, he wants someone to be gentle with you. To tell you that despite how hard it is, you can take all the damn time in the world. Just as long as you keep trying, keep fighting.
“Excuse me sir? This is a day pass.” The guard outside the hospital stops Yoongi.
“Shit, I-, I left my night pass at home. Can you just let me in please? I have to speak to someone, it won’t take long at all.”
“No entry without a pass, sir. Rules are rules.”
“Fuck, listen, I just need like five minutes please? I’ve been coming here everyday, they recognize me. I really need to speak to her.”
“No entry without a pass,” the guard becomes aggressive, pushing Yoongi away. Yoongi struggles in his grip, cursing out the guard with every breath, but he finds himself back on the curb, head held in his hands.
“Excuse me? I couldn’t help but overhear that you’re looking for a night pass. You can borrow mine.”
Yoongi stares up at the mellifluous voice, and does a double take. Kim Taehyung. The Kim Taehyung whose wedding he’d coordinated mere months ago. Before the fall.
“Are you sure you don’t need it?”
“I’m Kim Taehyung, I can get another hospital pass any time I want. My wife’s in the hospital for pregnancy complications. She’s staying for a few days, but I know she’ll be okay. That we’ll be okay. You, on the other hand, don’t seem so sure. Take it, please.”
“Mr. Kim --- Taehyung --- sir, thank you. Thank you so much. I hope your wife is okay.” Yoongi’s gummy smile shows for the first time in a long time, as he snatches the pass and presents it to the guard standing there with an astounded look on his face.
Kim Taehyung watches the other man with a wistful smile. Give a life, save a life. He and his wife couldn’t save their baby, but maybe for the man with the gummy smile and the sad eyes, there was hope yet.
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“Hey. Hey ___. Wake up.” Yoongi whispers, flailing his arms around, trying to catch your attention.
He yearns to reach out and stroke the short spikes of hair that now adorn your head, hoping that a tender touch would jolt you to life.
“___, wake up please. I have something important to tell you.”
Yoongi feels the tears building up in his eyes, and he wants to fall to the floor from exhaustion. Working shifts at the hotel, then coming here and spending time with you. He wants everything to go back to the way it was before.
“You wanted to know where I was that day? The day you fell? Actually I was…. I wasn’t around. I wasn’t there.”
Yoongi chokes the words out, reaching behind his head to ruffle his hair and relieve the nervous itch that has built up in his bones.
That night, Yoongi sleeps on a bench outside, the bitter tang of tears and unspoken apologies clogging his throat.
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March
For the first time in months, Yoongi wakes up and heads to work on time. The hospital was important, but today, the hotel housed something even more important. ___’s car.
The abandoned red station wagon is parked in the same spot outside the hotel, collecting dust that flies away with each gust of the spring breeze.
“What do you need this time?” Yeri’s voice is clipped and harsh as she approaches Yoongi by the parking lot.
“Did uh, ___ ever talk about me? Like in college?”
“Are you kidding me Yoongi? That’s what you called me over to talk about?”
“Yeri, please! I need to know.”
“No, Yoongi! No! We had better things to talk about than your lazy ass! Why would she have cared?!”
“But she did Yeri! Why would she have asked about me before she fell? And none of you thought to tell me either! People’s last words are special, they’re not just something you can ignore!”, Yoongi is roaring, rage boiling in his veins.
“Look Yoongi, I really don’t think she was interested in you. You guys were too different. Now, if that’s all, both you and I should get back to work,” Yeri says icily.
“Fuck that, I’m out of here. See you around, Yeri.”
. . .
“Hey!” Yoongi gestures to the valet, pointing at the station wagon. “Do you have the keys for this?”
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Your mother is a professor, Yoongi muses. Another thing I didn’t know about her, he ponders to himself as he pulls the now shiny and sparkling station wagon into the driveway of your family home. Your mother steps out onto the porch, wide-eyed and shocked at seeing the familiar vehicle being driven by such an unfamiliar person.
“You’re the one from the hospital. How did you get our address?” her tone is laced with shock and surprise.
“My name’s Yoongi, I was one of ___’s fellow interns. I got your address from Yeri. I’m sorry for not letting you know in advance that I was coming, but I thought it was time to return the car to where it belonged.”
Tears fill the old woman’s eyes as she breathes a sigh of relief.
“Thank you,” she whispers. “Would you like to come in for some tea?”
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Everywhere Yoongi looks, baby pictures of you adorn the walls. You’re alone in some of them. In others, you’re accompanied by a mini you and a doe eyed boy. The common theme among all of them is that your smile is bright, eyes wide and filled with kindness. You’re happy. He’d never seen you any other way until the fall.
“Yoongi,” your mother calls out. “Please come and sit.”
She clears her throat, starting again. “Between here and the hospital, things have been so hectic, we forgot all about the car. Thank you for bringing it back for us.”
“You know,” Yoongi speaks, startling everyone at the table. “When I was a small child, I fractured my left arm. It should have healed in three weeks but it didn’t. I thought I’d never be able to play piano again. But eventually it healed. In the same way, ___ should have been okay by now, and she’s not. But she will be. She just needs a little more time.”
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April
The underside of ___’s bed has become a familiar place to Yoongi. Every day, he checks the bag filled with yellow fluid underneath, using it as his one sign that ___ is still alive.
“Nurse, isn’t her urine output a little more than usual today? What could that mean?”
Nurse, unfortunately, has never warmed up to Yoongi in the few months they’ve known each other.
“Don’t you have anything better to do?”
Yoongi flashes his teeth and lets out a gummy smile. “You’re right, I actually do have something I need to do. Bye, ___. See you soon.”
The little girl is anticipating Yoongi’s arrival in the waiting room. He plops down on the seat next to her, and pulls out a book from his bag.
“How much longer until your mom has the baby?”, he asks.
“I don’t know,” she whines. “You should ask the baby.”
“You’re right,” he chuckles, flipping open the pages of the book. “Now where did we last leave off? I think our hero was about to fight the mighty dragon…”
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The bland mush of the hospital café’s offerings leaves a strange taste at the back of Yoongi’s throat. Huddled around a table all together, ___’s uncle is the first to speak.
“I’ve seen cases like this before. I think we should pull the plug. If she has to live like this, like a vegetable, what’s the point of torturing her? She won’t even recognize us anymore, is that what you really want?”
“Please Won-jae, don’t start again with the negativity,” your mother looks this close to losing it, hair frazzled and clothes rumpled.
Yoongi clears his throat, startling the table guests once again. He notices they all seem intimidated by him, as if he’s a stranger that makes them uncomfortable, scared to admit their hopelessness.
“Just because she can’t recognize you, that doesn’t mean you can’t recognize her. She’s still the same ___.”
“I think he’s right,” the shy boy with the doe eyes speaks up. Yoongi had recently learned your younger brother’s name. Jungkook. The younger boy had looked at Yoongi with stars in his eyes, asking him for help with his homework and talking to him at any chance he could get. Yoongi would spend every second of the day with Jungkook and your younger sister Sooyoung if it meant the sadness in their eyes would disappear little by little.
“Anyway,” Yoongi says. “I have to get going. I’ll make sure to stop by the pharmacy and get ___’s medications before I leave. Is there anything else you need me to do?”
“No, Yoongi.” Your mother offers him a faint smile, tenderness in her gaze. “You’ve done more than enough.”
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May
“You’ve been spending a lot of time at the hospital these days,” Seokjin says the moment Yoongi walks in the door. “I was beginning to think I’d never seen you at home again either. Not like I see you at work these days anyway.”
Yoongi ignores him, leafing through the fridge for anything to eat. He finds nothing. Disappointed, he slams the door shut, Seokjin’s broad frame cornering him against the fridge.
“Only like the taste of hospital food now?”
“What the fuck is your problem, Seokjin? If you have something to say, just spit it out.”
“Fine. I will. I’ve covered 6 of your shifts over the past month. Yeri has covered 4, and Namjoon has covered 3. I can’t afford the apartment anymore because I’m the only one bringing money in since you never come to work, and I’m this close to asking Namjoon to move in with me.”
“Your point is?”
“You know what it is Yoongi! Why are you doing this? What was she to you anyway, it’s not like she was your best friend. The doctors said it themselves, her chances of survival are low.”
“Seokjin, you’re telling me you only do something when there’s a 100% chance it’ll work out? If there’s a chance, even a small chance that she’ll make it, I have to help.”
“Yoongi, you have to start living in the real world again. What you’re doing isn’t practical. You’re not helping anyone - not me, not you, and not her.”
“Don’t you dare say that, Seokjin. Don’t you dare,” Yoongi wants to continue on, but is interrupted by the blaring of his ringtone. ___’s mother. Seokjin looks at the phone, daring him to pick it up, to confirm his suspicions that Yoongi is no longer capable of rational thought when it comes to you.
Accept call. With no hesitation, Yoongi leaves his best friend and roommate behind, revving up his motorbike and disappearing into the night once more.
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“___ has had a massive stroke. While her brain activity spiked, she wasn’t able to regain control of her movements. It’s likely she’ll be paralyzed for life.”
The doctors deliver the crushing blow to the family huddled in the stairwell, Yoongi standing in the corner beside them.
“You heard what the doctor said, and yet you still foolishly cling onto hope. Why can’t you all just be practical for once? What kind of a person would want to live like this?” Won-jae’s biting words cut through the air, and Yoongi can see their devastating effects, watching the hope slowly drain from your family’s eyes.
There were many socially unacceptable things Yoongi would like to say to your uncle right now, but for the sake of avoiding chaos, he decides to be gentle instead.
“Maybe she wants to live like this. Maybe she wants to live, period. Maybe she doesn’t. In any case, who are we to decide that for ___?”
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“Your uncle has the patience of a wild boar,” Yoongi says to you. He hopes you’re listening, that you can hear his rant. It’s not like Seokjin wants to speak to him anymore, so he only has you to let it out to.
“So what if you need the machines for a little longer? There are times when my motorbike doesn’t start either. So then, I just give it a good kick and it starts. The machines will do the same for you, so just bear with it ___. Okay? Just bear with it for me. For us.”
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June
The chill air of the morning greets Yoongi the moment he steps out onto his balcony, craving the iced Americano he always used to get from the hotel kitchen. The hospital coffee is absolute shit, he decides. And it wasn’t like he had money to afford fancy coffee from any of the cafés surrounding it. Seokjin had stopped loaning him money long ago, instead preferring to sulk with Namjoon and Yeri any chance he got.
A strange sight greets him across the parking lot. His bike, perched against a blooming tree, covered in a fresh blanket of mugunghwa flowers. He hadn’t even noticed the seasons changing, the sterile white walls of the hospital obscuring every ray of light that dared filter in through the windows.
An idea crosses Yoongi’s mind. He chucks on his sandals and makes his way to the carpark. Kneeling by his bike, he painstakingly picks up every single blossom, the light floral scent permeating his senses.
Not less than fifteen minutes later, he’s dumping the blooms out onto your hospital bed, dozing off in the chair next to your bed as he prepares for the long day ahead.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He wakes to the appalled gasps and shrieks of the nurses, rubbing his eyes and balking at the sight before him. Your nostrils. They’re moving. You’re breathing on your own.
Dr. Sungyuk Park is by your bedside, the most renowned neurosurgeon in all of South Korea. The man who knows everything seems lost for words, and behind him, he sees Sooyoung and Jungkook hugging your mother tightly, tears in their eyes.
“Coma patients can often respond to strong external stimuli, like the smell of these flowers. In this case, it’s a very positive sign that we’re on the right track,” Dr. Park explains, and Yoongi feels the burden upon his shoulders lift with each word.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
July
“____, today at 5am, you opened your eyes. You’re doing very good, I want you to try to do a little bit more? Can you do that for me?” Dr. Park’s voice echoes across the ward.
Yoongi can’t believe it. A month ago, he brought the mugunghwa flowers to you. In that time, you’ve started slowly waking, coming back to life before him and your family’s eyes.
He rests a hand on your mother’s shoulders, fearing that the poor woman may fall over from sheer joy.
“I want you to look to your left for me,” Dr. Park continues, your orbs bloodshot but still beautiful to Yoongi’s own eyes following his finger slowly and precisely.
“Aaaand to your right please,” you follow seamlessly, the opening of your eyes mark the beginning of a new chapter in your story.
As Dr. Park steps out, your mother rushes to your bedside, gently reaching out to stroke the long bangs that now fall over your face.
“Unnie,” Sooyoung cries. “Your hair is so pretty now Unnie. Now please get better, Unnie. Get better so that we can all go home soon.”
“It’s been too long,” your mother sobs, collapsing against Jungkook. “It’s been too long without you, my daughter. Please come back. Come back soon.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sweat drips down Yoongi’s back, restaurant duty causing him to hover between the dining room and the kitchen behind it, cleaning up scraps, carrying plates, and bussing tables. Manager Im has him working double duty on probation, threatening that if he doesn’t show up for his shifts, his degree will be terminated and he’ll never graduate from the management program.
Normally, Yoongi wouldn’t have minded the hours. In fact, the old Yoongi would have taken this chance at redemption in stride. The new Yoongi, however, is filled with butterflies. He longs to see you every day, to see your pretty eyes looking up at him, to ask you how your day went.
The other day, Sooyoung ran up to him and hugged him tightly, saying that after just two weeks, you’d moved from being able to open your eyes to croaking out words.
Eomma had been your first. Garbled in tone, but the meaning crystal clear. Sooyoung had been with you all week, trying to teach you the syllables.
“SOO-YUNG,” she lisped out, the air escaping between her two buck teeth. “Soon you’ll learn my name too, Unnie!”
Yoongi’s thoughts are interrupted by a plate being shoved towards him.
“Excuse me, waiter boy? Are you even paying attention? I told you to take this food back.”
“Why,” Yoongi seethes. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”
“Don’t talk to me in that tone! This food already tastes like shit and we’re paying for it, bring us something else on the house.”
Yoongi takes a deep breath, putting on his customer service voice. “I’m sorry the meal wasn’t to your satisfaction. Unfortunately, I can’t refund the order completely. I’m sure we can bring you another replacement that’ll be more to your liking.”
The man sneers, disdain evident in their expression. “Listen to me you fucking nobody, your job is to make people like me happy. You don’t have a life. I control your paycheck, and therefore I control your life. So, it’ll do you good to just shut up and do what I say.”
White hot rage blinds Yoongi’s vision, and before he knows it, the plate is clattering to the ground and his fist is flying into the asshole’s face. A scuffle starts, people jumping in from left and right to prevent the two of them from hurting each other.
Yoongi feels a pair of arms drag him away from the man, Seokjin holding him steady.
“Yoongi man, stop, just stop. Leave it alone, leave it!” Seokjin implores him to calm down.
Yoongi yanks himself out of Seokjin’s grasp, untying his apron with a groan and throwing it onto the luxurious hotel carpet. He can feel Im’s seething stare from behind his eyelids, but he no longer cares about Im, or the hotel, or this job. All he wants is you.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As dawn approaches, Yoongi once again finds himself by your bedside. Except, this time, he’s not alone. Dr. Park is there, checking your vitals and jotting notes down on a clipboard.
“Dr. Park, does this mean she’s fully conscious now?” Yoongi gazes expectantly upon the old man, willing him to inject some much needed hope into his day.
“Thalamus… cortex… medulla oblongata… dorsal plexus of the spine. These medical terms have one spiritual connotation… the soul. And the soul never goes into a coma. Have patience, she’s trying.”
And with that, he makes his final notes and leaves the room.
Yoongi takes this moment alone to stare into your eyes. He’s never properly looked into them, he realizes. Even when you’d always greet him daily, he always looked past you. Never at you. He takes all the time he has left.
“____. Hey ____. Listen to me, can you say Yoongi? YOON-GI. It’s simple, just try it.”
You look up at him with a blank stare. No response. Yoongi panics, his chest becoming heavy. For a moment, he entertains the terrible thought that you’ll never recognize him again, that maybe he doesn’t mean anything to you, even though you’ve come to mean everything to him.
“___, please. Please say something, do something. It’s me. Yoongi. You asked about me before. Please, please. Look to your left if you recognize me.”
When he sees your eyes shift to the left, Yoongi almost sobs with relief. He wants to collapse and hug you for making his insignificant existence feel worth something again. But he doesn’t want to scare you. Instead, he lifts himself up gently and waves goodbye, pinning something on the wall before slipping out of the ward before the first rays of morning light filter into the room.
When he doesn’t come back to your bedside that day, your family is left speechless. Gone, nearly without a trace. The only proof he’d existed at all was the small passport photo he’d clipped to the railing of your bed, the black ink of the Hangul lettering spelling out a single word. Yoongi.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
August
The new hotel brings a strange feeling with it. Yoongi’s not used to the crisp air of the mountains, growing up among the fog and fumes of Seoul. He’s not used to having a fresh start, to being unburdened by the weight of others’ expectations. He doesn’t know how to feel, so he settles for just living for now, spending every day training staff and overseeing operations.
When the Signiel offered him a new placement, Yoongi was reluctant to leave you behind. He’d paced for days on end, chewing his fingernails raw, wondering how to break the news. Your mother beat him to that.
“Yoongi, you’ve done more for us than you could imagine. Please, it’s time for you to go on and live your life. You’re still so young. We’ll manage.”
And so, Yoongi headed towards the hills. The cozy chalet he worked at was full of nothing but friendly and forgiving people. He struck up a friendship with the assistant manager, Hoseok, and the two of them would often roam the grove of Japanese Maple trees adjacent to the hotel, wandering and rambling on for hours and hours. Hoseok reminded him of Seokjin, and of Yeri and Namjoon, people he should have held close to his heart, but instead, he let go.
He wondered how you were constantly. Amongst preparing the drinks, dusting the decor, and planning excursions. His thoughts never strayed from you. Were you still in the hospital? Were you home? Was someone taking care of you?
He’d given the nurse strict instructions before he left, telling her every little detail he noticed you liked or responded to. The nurse waved him off with a smile, saying he was a fool in love. And that’s what solidified Yoongi’s decision to run.
Love. The feelings he developed for you were dangerous. Love made people selfish, it made people succumb to their deepest desires without a second thought for others. Yoongi decided that wasn’t fair to you. You deserved to live out a full and happy life. You deserved to live unburdened by his feelings, feelings that were out of his control, but could have sent you reeling off the rails were you ever to find out. Yoongi never wanted that for you, and maybe he’d never find out the reason you asked for him the day you fell, but he’d made his peace with it. The mountain air had done him some good.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peace, however, is a fickle thing. Yoongi’s startled awake in the middle of night by the blaring of his phone, your mother’s contact name lighting up the screen.
He scrambles to answer the phone, breathing heavily as he rasps out, “Hello? Ahjoomah, is everything okay? Is ___ okay?”
“Yoongi,” your mother sobs out. “The last few days have been so difficult. First ___ stopped responding, then she had another seizure. We had to take her back to the ICU, and the doctor told us she’s at a severe risk of cardiac problems. Once the seizure subsided, she started to become violent towards others and herself. They’ve had to restrain her.”
“Ahjoomah, I-, let me help you, please.” Yoongi pleads, tears pricking his eyes. “What do you need from me?”
“Yoongi, I just wanted to let you know since you’ve become so close. Don’t worry about us, this is now part of our lives. You focus on your work, okay?” her voice cracks on the last syllable, and the line cuts dead.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
September
“___, can you please lift your leg for us again. Please try one more time,” the physiotherapist asks, struggling against your lashing figure.
Yoongi looks at the scene with grief, chastising himself for leaving. After the phone call, he’d packed his bags and caught the first train to Seoul, leaving an apology note for Hoseok. Come the morning, he’d woken up in the hospital waiting room to your mother’s shocked face, catching the faint hint of disappointment emanating from her.
“Doctor?” Yoongi says. “Is it okay if I just take her out into the hallway for a bit?”
He nods a reluctant yes, and Yoongi wheels your chair out into the sunny yet secluded alcove at the end of the hallway.
He leans against the wall, looking at your face that’s lolled to the side, turned away from him.
“I know you’re mad at me. I’m sorry. I’ll never leave you again I promise. Now, don’t you want to get better?”
As Yoongi falls asleep that night, his phone buzzes with a text from Seokjin.
You’re back, and you didn’t think to tell me? The keys are in the flower pot outside the door. There’s food in the fridge. I made samgyeopsal, your favorite. Oh, and Yoongi? When you come back in, please take a shower. You probably smell like sterile piss.
He lets out a loud laugh and looks up at you, suddenly stopping in his tracks when he sees the ghost of a smile flicker across your face.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bringing his foot down onto the plywood, Yoongi jumps on the makeshift ramp he’d built to commemorate your homecoming, testing it out for signs of weakness. Driving to your house each morning, checking out the ramp, lifting you in and out of bed, making sure there was fresh air circulating in your room… it had all become part of his daily routine.
His mornings, afternoons, and evenings were filled with you. He’d cook breakfast for Sooyoung and Jungkook in the kitchen. He’d strap you into the wheelchair and take you out for a spin every afternoon. In the evenings, he’d sit at the dining table with you and your mother, her professor side out in full force as she taught you how to write shaky letters once more.
Today, on his daily stroll with you, he’d stopped in the park for a moment. The weather was chilly yet enjoyable, but he still made sure you were bundled up in a coat and scarf.
Yoongi lets out a groan and plops down on a bench, right beside your chair. The falling leaves have him reminiscing on his life a year ago, and how different everything was back then. How you two were two ships in the night, navigating the same murky waters yet never crossing paths. And now you’d become his anchor, and he was your lighthouse, guiding you to safety and security every hour of the day.
“Do you ever want to go far, far away?” Yoongi blurts out, unable to contain his thoughts. “Where would you go? You never imagined you’d go into a coma, right? None of us did.”
The last words are a whisper, Yoongi being careful not to dwell on the past. All that matters is the road to recovery.
“Can I ask you one final thing? That night, when you fell, why did you ask for me? Why did you ask for Yoongi?” The door was closing on this chapter for the both of them, but Yoongi would always wonder about the what ifs. What if he had been there that night, what if she had never gone into a coma, what if life for the both of them hadn’t morphed before their very eyes?
A strangled noise interrupts Yoongi’s thoughts once more. He glances over to you, and is shocked to find your lips moving.
“Yoon-gi,” you croak. “Yun-gi.”
Recognition fills your eyes, and Yoongi is incapable of doing nothing but hiding his head in his hands, not wanting you to see the tears of joy that fall and mix with the dew drops on the vibrant green grass.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
October
The call came in the middle of the night, annihilating Yoongi with the weight of its impact, and for once, he’s the weak one. Sobbing helplessly into his sheets as Seokjin throws his arms around his roommate and holds him through the night.
____ had another seizure last night. Her lungs collapsed. She passed away at 2:27am.
The words echo in Yoongi’s brain as he makes his way to your front door, pushing past the crowd of mourners as numbness encapsulates his entire being.
He passes your uncle, hunched over in the recliner, weeping into his hands. He passes your mother, holding on tight to Sooyoung and Jungkook, almost as if they too will slip out of her grasp at any moment.
He gazes into your room, surprised to still see you lying among the pillows. You look so peaceful, almost as if you’re asleep. It’s the most he’s seen you look like your old self in a long time and Yoongi feels nothing but pain as tears burn in his eyes. Pain that you were awarded a brief moment of peace, of normalcy, before it was all snatched away so soon. Pain that you’d never live out the life you deserved to have, to achieve the happiness that you were meant to achieve. And he’d never be there to see it too.
He stays the night, and the night after that, and the next two nights, helping with the signing of documents and ushering the guests out, one by one, until it’s just your mother and siblings with him at the table.
“We’re moving to Daegu in two weeks,” your mother gasps. “For a fresh start.”
Yoongi knows that their paths diverge here, that in two weeks, all traces of you, and Sooyoung with her buck teeth, Jungkook with his doe eyes, and your mother’s loving smile will be erased from his life. He keeps quiet, afraid to say anything. Afraid to tell them that he doesn’t want them to go, that his soul that had finally found an anchor would be cast out into the depths once more.
“You know Yoongi,” your mother chokes out a sob. “___ loved mugunghwa flowers. They were her favorite. Every year, she’d eagerly wait for October when all the flowers fell from the trees and she’d collect them on a sheet with her father and count them one by one. Mugunghwa are known for their extreme resilience, weathering the worst of conditions to produce something beautiful. They’ll always be known as the “eternal blossom”, and I couldn’t think of a better way to describe our ___.”
The magic of the mugunghwa isn’t lost on Yoongi. He watches as your mother gestures out to a potted shrub in the yard. “____ had a plant of her own. Every day, she would come home and smile at it, water it, and tend to it. She’d pick the flowers when they fell and put them as a centerpiece on our table. I don’t…. I can’t just leave it here to die.”
“I’ll take it,” Yoongi says. “I’ll take care of it, don’t worry. It’ll be safe with me.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
November
The heat of the spotlight burns the hairs on the back of Yoongi’s neck. He’s going to suffocate in this damn suit. He’ll have to talk to Seokjin to see if Yeri would be able to find him a replacement.
With a flourish of the keys, he ends the song and clears his throat into the microphone.
“That’s all for tonight, folks. My name is Min Yoongi, grand pianist at the Signiel Hotel, and the piece you just heard was called October. Thank you for listening.”
A/N pt 2: I didn’t want to put this in the summary, but this piece is dedicated to a classmate of mine that passed away suddenly this semester. I’ve been wrestling with a lot of grief surrounding their passing, wondering if I could’ve done or said something to make things turn out differently. Like Dr. Park says, the soul can never be put into a coma, and I hope that wherever they are, their soul is resting easy and at peace. As always, any feedback or comments are much appreciated, but I appreciate you all anyway. Lots of love, Isi 💜
More Posts from Tannieschim and Others
Hii! I loved your cal fic so much it was so good! I was wondering if I could request a fic where cal and the reader are already dating but she gets attacked by a crazy fan and cal has to do something about it. Thanking you :)) xx
Hello!! Thank you so much for the compliment, and this is a great idea! I’ll definitely put it into writing as soon as I can 🤍
idk how many times I edited this stupid thing but I really hope this is the last time. if you’ve liked this a long time ago and come here now you’re probably like ???? what happened?
long story short, tumblr has a limit on posts, I think it’s the amount of links you can put in one post. so I had to come up with a solution and the one that I liked the most was making masterlists for each group (reactions and scenarios) and then each idol. it’s a lot of masterlists, but it’s a lot cleaner too and ordered, so I’m actually quite happy with it. simply click on the masterlist you want to check out and it’ll redirect you to where you want to go ♥
→ bts reactions → bts scenarios → kim seokjin → min yoongi → jung hoseok → kim namjoon → park jimin → kim taehyung → jeon jeongguk → ot7 → diamond maknae → dal
→ got7 reactions → got7 scenarios → mark tuan → im jaebum → jackson wang → bambam → kim yugyeom
→ monsta x reactions → yoo kihyun → chae hyungwon → lee jooheon → im changkyun
→ shinee scenarios → choi minho → lee taemin
→ red velvet reactions → kim yerim
→ nct reactions → john seo → lucas → mark lee → lee donghyuck
→ jessica ho → sunmi
→ chou tzuyu
→ song yuqi
→ im yoona
→ blackpink scenarios
→ exo reactions → exo scenarios
→ seventeen scenarios → vernon
→ txt scenarios → txt reactions
→ ateez scenarios
→ ot5 → a.c.e reactions
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don’t mind me, just crying myself to sleep over how soft and fond honey boy is for his family
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it can get pretty sickening
go1denjeon’s opm series [m.list]
During August, we celebrate our language, Filipino. In celebration of it, here are seven stories inspired by some of my favorite OPM songs. I hope you enjoy.
PREVIEWS BELOW
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this is so cute i crie
Hug-o-gram | Yoongi
→ summary:
“This is probably the dumbest idea you’ve ever had,” Yoongi hisses, but it’s kind of hard for Seokjin to take him seriously when he’s wearing a cardboard sign around his neck that says ‘Huggie Wuggie Machine!’ in bubble font.
“Like, even worse than when we DIY’d your car into a convertible by sawing the top off?” Seokjin asks, genuinely curious.
“Worse,” Yoongi admits, trying his best to stay out of your line of sight. His cheeks redden, matching the gaudy pink kitten ears he was forced into wearing.
{or alternatively: Seokjin is a terrible wingman. He also runs a profitable business by sending hugs to people’s crushes for a fee. Mix them together and you have a recipe for Min Yoongi’s worst nightmare.}
→ genre: college!au, hugging booth!au, fluff, humor → warnings: yoongi is so smitten that he’s a walking disaster, so much shy!yoongi to the point where you’ll want to scream, seokjin just tryna get his homie some y/n love coochie bro ;o; → words: 13.3K → a/n: another commission by the lovely @jincherie because she’s epic like that!! she literally just told me to write whatever the hell i wanted and well… yoobie got me Good… anyway here’s more yoongi fluff bc apparently i’m a fluff writer now and sometimes i just want my boy to be happy… appa yip yip
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“This automatic popcorn machine is absolutely divine,” Seokjin moans, his mouth agape as he waits for the Mister Popcorn Robot to bestow him with another morsel of goodness.
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flawless ✨
IV. Something Has to Change
(banner by @/itaeewon)
Title: My Feet to Follow, and My Heart to Hold (Masterpost)
Rating: NSFW - minors dni
Genre: college!au, roomie!au, angst, s2l, the absolute slowest of burns
Pairing: Namjoon x female reader, unrequited Taehyung x reader
Beta'd by @/kookstempo, @/casuallyimagining, and @/toikiii - thank you endlessly!
Summary: You know a lot about the many types of love thanks to Kim Taehyung. You love him as the only person you see as “family”, you love him as your very best friend, and you love him as the beautiful, funny man he’s become. But when a twist of fate during your senior year has you rooming with his good friend Kim Namjoon, you just might find that you have plenty left to learn about love.
Lesson One: there are such things as a right way and a wrong way to love and to be loved.
//
Your friendship with Taehyung starts to show its cracks.
Section Warnings: language
WC: 7.5k
The world is mine: blue hill, still silver lake, Broad field, bright flower, and the long white road A gateless garden, and an open path: My feet to follow, and my heart to hold. - Journey | Edna St. Vincent Millay
Saturday October 20th
You text Taehyung before going to sleep just to confirm he didn’t die in a ditch, but it’s radio silence from him until almost three o’clock the next afternoon. When he does finally answer you - “alive but at what cost?” - you roll your eyes and turn your phone over, screen down. You’re sitting in the living room, two author anthologies open on the coffee table, bookends to your open notebook.
Apparently he’s displeased with your silence, because your phone buzzes again a few minutes later - the longer buzz, indicating a call of some kind. With a huff of aggravation, you flip it over to see it’s a video call, his preferred method of communication. You slide the button to accept the call, but let him stare at your ceiling.
“What?” you demand. “I can’t talk, I have to go call off my search parties.”
“I was asleep,” he defends himself. “I texted you as soon as I woke up!”
“Didn’t sleep last night, huh?” you joke, but the sting is there. Just a little.
He avoids the question. “What are we doing tonight?”
You laugh at the audacity of his whole existence. Admitting to your face that he’d been up all night with a girl, and then calling you first thing upon waking like he knows you’ll just be there, waiting for him. What would happen if you weren’t?
Not to mention asking what the Saturday night plan is thirty seconds after waking up with a hangover.
“I’m assuming you won’t want to go out?” you ask.
He hums, runs a hand through his messy hair. “Depends. I could be persuaded, maybe. Wouldn’t mind just hanging out, though. What about a movie? We have that one we’ve been saving?”
We.
You’re not sure why, today, it’s bothering you so much. The truth is, Taehyung’s acting and speaking the same as always. So what’s different?
You don’t want to examine the answer to that, so you focus on the plan instead. “I like the sound of a movie,” you agree. “Wanna see if anyone else is interested?”
“Yeah,” Taehyung says. “I’ll text everyone.”
“Sounds good. See you around eight?”
“Should we order dinner before that?” he asks.
Something in your stomach turns. You don’t want to. You don’t want to keep getting your heart stepped on. You don’t want his metaphorical scent on all of your clothes, so that you can’t go anywhere or do anything without him lingering on you.
And at the same time, he’s your best friend. He’s your family. You love him, in multiple ways.
It feels like being tugged in opposite directions. It feels like lose/lose. It feels like there’s no right answer, nowhere to turn, no option that doesn’t hurt.
“Not tonight,” you hear yourself say. “I have too much homework.”
“Okay,” he says easily. “See you around eight, then. I’ll let you know if anyone else is coming with me.”
You try to return to homework after you hang up, but your focus is shot. You lean onto the cushy back of the couch, closing your eyes. You’re still sitting like that when you hear the front door open. Namjoon hadn’t been home when you got up, had been out the whole time.
“Hey,” you say, eyes still closed.
He gives a chuckle. “Everything okay?”
“I think my brain is broken,” you tell him. “Can Edna write about something besides death?”
He huffs out a laugh, and you hear him drop his keys onto the counter. “I think she does,” he says, coming closer and peering at the anthology you still have open on the table in front of you. “Nature. Rebellion. Men. Women. Love. Sex.”
Your cheeks burn, like you’re thirteen damn years old, just from hearing the word sex in his low, steady voice.
Get a grip, you scold yourself silently.
“I guess so,” you admit. “But today everything I read is about grief.”
“Take a break,” he suggests, moving into the kitchen. You hear a cabinet open and the sink run, and then he comes in carrying a glass of water. He sits down a few feet away from you on the couch and copies your pose, leaning back against the cushions.
It occurs to you that you’ve never sat on the couch at the same time as him before. In fact, your Uber ride last night was the closest your bodies had ever been.
“We’re gonna watch a movie tonight,” you find yourself telling him. “That new one with what’s-his-face, Raven’s Prophecy? Around eight. If you want to join.”
“Yeah,” he says right away, surprising you. “Sounds good.”
–
The movie’s good - really good. You’re all crowded around the living room - Namjoon on one end of the couch, Yoongi on the other, you and Taehyung and Jimin on the floor. The coffee table has been pushed to the side to make room for you, the lights turned down. Taehyung is sitting with his back against the couch, legs extended in front of him, and you have a throw-pillow leaning against his knees, laying perpendicular to him. Jimin sits next to Taehyung, one of his legs resting lazily over top of yours.
It feels normal, and it feels nice, and everything weird from earlier seems to float away. Maybe you had just been tired.
“That’s totally foreshadowing,” you pipe up, raising a hand to point at the screen. “Because when he-.”
“Hey,” Taehyung says loudly, reaching over to flick the back of your arm. “No nerd talk. Just enjoy the movie. No one asked for a literary analysis.”
“But, look -.”
“No,” he repeats firmly, and Jimin giggles, used to this exact squabble. “This is fun, not school.”
“Foreshadowing is fun!” you protest, laughing, but you let it go.
A second later, your phone buzzes in your hand.
[9:37 PM] Namjoon: 🤯
You bite back a smile, turning off your screen before the light can catch anyone’s attention, and then you cast your gaze up at the couch to find Namjoon looking right at you, a sheepish smile creeping up on one side of his face.
You’re thankful for the dark of the room, the light shifting and changing with the scene on the tv screen, as you feel yourself blush.
God, you think to yourself. Get it together. Two days ago, it hadn’t been like this, where every met glance cues up a shy smile, and each tiny smile elicits a flush. You don’t know who this girl is but she is un-fucking-recognizable.
You wait a minute or two, then turn your brightness down and send back, “but am i wrong?”. Then you glance back up to watch Namjoon read the text. He gives a laugh, one shake of his shoulders as he sees it, and then he meets your gaze. That same half-smile on his face, he shakes his head imperceptibly.
Behind you, beneath you, Taehyung shifts and you turn back to the tv quickly, feeling something akin to guilt simmer in your gut. You don’t see his eyes bounce back and forth between you and Namjoon, curious.
Monday October 22nd
Monday brings bright sunshine despite the chilly air, morning light illuminating the deep reds and oranges of the trees down the block.
Namjoon finds you in the kitchen, staring listlessly into an untouched cup of coffee.
“Good morning?” he greets you, a question.
You startle. “Shit!” you yelp and then laugh, heart pounding. “I didn’t even hear you getting ready in there. ”
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” he says apologetically. “I’m heading to campus in a bit… how about you?”
“Yeah,” you say glumly. “I have work and class.”
“Same,” he says, moving around you to rummage for some breakfast. “Class first, and then I’m TA-ing all afternoon.”
You give him a little smile. “I don’t think I’ll be needing your services today.”
“No?” he asks mildly. “Last few submissions went well?”
You quirk an eyebrow. “Bold of you to assume I’ve written anything worth submitting.”
He laughs, his back to you, and then settles against the kitchen counter. “I can help you brainstorm, too, if you’re stuck.”
You bite back the prideful I don’t need your help that rises to your tongue. He’s being nice. Instead, you say, “Hopefully I’ll make some progress on my own. Have fun, though. You still have that office to yourself? If I had that, I’d be so productive. Nothing to distract me.”
Namjoon shakes his head, smiling ruefully. “I find ways. I still have my phone. And a window.”
You laugh at this, and then rise, draining half of your mug of coffee in one go. “I need to head in. Are you leaving now, too? Or, later?”
“I can make now work,” he says, something warm in his tone. “Let me just go grab my bag.”
Out front, you blink against the sudden brightness, holding up a hand to shield your eyes as they adjust. Namjoon locks the front door and comes down the steps at a light jog, stopping next to you.
“Ready?” he asks.
“Yeah,” you tell him, and you start off towards campus in silence, the only noise around you the calls of birds and the hum of car engines from nearby traffic.
You stop at an intersection, watching the orange hand tell you to wait. “So,” you say, glancing up at him as the cars whiz by, “what’s your book about?”
He looks at you completely blankly, like he has no idea what you’re talking about.
“For the grad program,” you clarify. “You said you were in fiction, right?”
“Oh,” he says, as if he forgot. “Yeah. Um, I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.”
“Try,” you say dryly.
“It’s a coming-of-age, I guess,” he says, rubbing his chin as he thinks. He’s wearing his glasses today, and you have half a mind to tease him that he’s just trying to look like one of the professors so they don’t kick him out of his hijacked office. “And a bit of an unrequited love story.”
“The good kind or the bad kind?” you ask, a little absently. When he doesn’t answer, you look at him to determine why, and he’s looking at you like you’ve asked the most ridiculous question in the world.
You huff out a sigh. “Like - unrequited because the other person doesn’t know, or because they don’t return the feelings?”
“One of those is the good kind?” he asks, raising a brow.
“The first one,” you say, as if it’s obvious. “It’s… it always exists only as the idea of love, it’s untarnished, it can remain a beautiful and pure thing. It never gets messed up.”
“But you’re alone,” Namjoon counters.
“You still love someone,” you insist. “The meaning of life, and all that shit.”
Namjoon shakes his head as the stoplight above you changes from green to yellow, and then to red. “It’s not the same as loving someone and having them love you back, building it together and working to sustain it,” he says firmly. “That’s real love.” And then he heads for the crosswalk, his long legs carrying him swiftly away.
You hurry to catch up, feet following his without question.
–
The first leaf falls, a warning. Now the rest will follow. I watched them sway all summer. Autumn leaves me hollow.
There’s a promise in the air, I turn towards the icy bite. If autumn can’t make me happy, I wonder if winter might.
Aren’t those frozen days so dark? Isn’t catching snowflakes strange? Perhaps this could be something. Perhaps something has to change.
You frown at the page. Half of you is tempted to take Namjoon up on his offer to workshop during his TA hours, but you’ve got a good reason not to let him see this one.
“Y/N?” Kris calls from the register at the front of the store. “Did I leave my phone back there?”
Their voice brings you back to reality, pulling your focus from the page of your notebook open on your lap. You’re hiding in the stockroom, sitting on an unpacked box of what you hope are books, trying to cram in some coursework.
Kris’s phone is indeed on a table behind you, where you sling your bookbag when you come in to start a shift. You rise, slipping your notebook back into said bag and grabbing the phone, walking it out to them.
You’re alarmed when both phones buzz in your hands, a long, repeating pattern that you aren’t accustomed to.
“What the fuck?” you utter, even though if your boss heard you cursing on the floor you’d get a written reprimand for the first time in your life.
“Storm alert,” Kris says, reaching one grabby hand out for their phone. You pass it over and press your thumb to your own screen. Sure enough, it’s a severe weather alert.
You groan. “Great. I walked here.” You try to pull up the radar, but your shitty service takes too long to load it so you switch over to the hour-by-hour.
“See if your knight in shining armor will give you a ride,” Kris says with a twisted chuckle.
For a second, you aren’t sure if they mean Taehyung or Namjoon, and that fact is startling. Obviously they mean Taehyung, they know a lot of your history with him and they don't know anything about what’s happening with Namjoon. Nothing is happening with Namjoon, you correct yourself sternly. You had a weird desire to scoot closer while drunk in an Uber and had one sort of deep conversation. It’s not a thing.
And, actually, texting Taehyung for a ride is a pretty good idea. Outside, it’s not even raining yet, but the clouds hang low and the leaves that have managed to cling to their branches this late into autumn are flipping and shimmying in the harsh wind.
There’s a long line of students waiting to check out - probably grabbing last minute snacks and drinks before the rain starts, so they don’t have to go out later - so you slide next to Kris at the second register and swipe your access card. You work like this for at least an hour, the rain starting a pace outside the windows as steady as the flow of students trying to get what they need and hurry back to their dorms.
When you catch a minute, you send a text, holding your phone down under the counter and typing with one hand, as if it isn’t painfully obvious what you’re doing. When the answer comes in, you tap the screen quickly.
[4:22 PM] You: are you still on campus?
[4:31 PM] Namjoon: just finished work. can’t wait to walk back in this…
You giggle and Kris looks at you out of the corner of their eyes.
“That him?” they ask. They mean Taehyung, and you’re too damn aware of the lie as you answer, “Mhm.”
[4:34 PM] You: i’m done in 25 min if you want to suffer together
[4:36 PM] Namjoon: yeah sounds good you can make sure i dont drown lol
An “lol”? Oh, goodness.
[4:37 PM] Namjoon: you’re at the bookstore right? i’ll come there and wait for you
Oh, lord, Kris is going to have a field day with this. You don’t have time to focus on this, as your boss finally sweeps out of her adjoining office, announcing that you need to shut down the second register and finish everything in the back room before your shift ends. She’ll be the one to close the store tonight, as she does on Mondays.
When you emerge from the back room at 4:59 on the dot, your backpack on your back, Namjoon is loitering near the registers, and Kris is shooting you looks that are somehow mischievous, delighted, and wounded. You have a feeling you’ll be interrogated during your shift on Wednesday.
Outside, the rain isn’t that bad, but it is steady. The wind blowing makes it look like it’s raining left to right, in sheets.
“We’re gonna be drenched,” you groan. You follow Namjoon out of the bookstore, waving a goodbye at a still-disgruntled Kris, stopping at the glass doors that lead outside.
“It’s not that bad,” Namjoon tells you, voice a little fond, like he thinks your complaining is cute. “We’ll just go quick. I’m mostly worried about my laptop.”
“Ugh, same,” you lament. “We’d better be fast, I fully cannot afford a new one.”
“Let’s go,” he tells you, and leads you outside. Just like that morning, your feet follow his, like it’s natural. You walk in silence almost halfway home, the pace too clipped to really carry on any kind of conversation.
You’re practically panting for breath when you hit the major crosswalk, stopping to wait for the signal to walk. The rain seems worse when you’re stopped - sticking your hair to your head where it lands, raising the hairs on your arms as your body gives one dramatic shiver against the chill. Namjoon looks down at you.
“We’re almost there,” he says, reassuring.
“Mhm,” you manage, rubbing your hands over your arms to fight off the goosebumps. The light changes and you start across, following Namjoon and his naturally long stride. You keep your eyes on the ground, dodging puddles, watching the white stripes pass beneath you.
You’re just across, stepping up the curb onto the sidewalk, when it happens.
The sky opens.
One second it’s raining hard enough to be a nuisance, the next second it feels like someone dumped a bucket of water over your head. The sound goes from a soft patter to a sudden roar, like the rain is alive and it is pissed. You splutter, actually blowing water away from your lips, reaching up to wipe your eyes.
“Fucking shit,” Namjoon swears, and then he grabs your hand and tugs. “Come on!”
He’s not running that fast but there’s still a few seconds where you feel uneven, your gait awkward, trying to match his. Eventually your feet settle into the rhythm and you run just behind him. His hand, so large in yours it's almost swallowing it, is warm and solid and sure. His grip is tight - like he means it. He doesn’t look back as he runs, just squeezes your hand in his and trusts you to keep up.
When you round the corner of your block, together, you try to pull back, try to slow down. Your lungs hurt, your legs are burning, and you just want to admit defeat and walk the block letting the rain know it won.
Namjoon doesn’t let you. He slows his pace to more of a race-walk, gives your arm another playful tug. Not for a single second does he loosen his grip on your hand.
“You can make it,” he tells you over his shoulder. His hair is flattened from the rain, his face a little flushed from the run, but his dimples wink at you through the deluge.
When he reaches the front of the apartment, he finally drops your hand and takes the steps at a clip. At the top, under the safety of the awning, he turns to see why you haven’t followed him.
You can’t help it - it’s all so ridiculous you have to laugh. Your hair sticks to your face like cooked spaghetti, your shirt clings to your arms, your backpack is dripping water like there’s a faucet in there, and even your socks are wet, making each step you take squelch like mud. Still cackling at the absurdity of this moment, of having been completely defeated by the season, of running all the way home and still ending up half-drowned, you look up at the sky. The rain slides down the sides of your face and you let it cool the heat that’s there from either running, or Namjoon’s touch.
You feel a little drunk from it.
“Y/N!” Namjoon scolds from the top of the stairs, but he’s smiling that same fond little smile he’d had on movie night a few days ago. “Come inside! You’re going to get pneumonia.”
You look back at him, the rain still assaulting you from above. There’s a second where you feel something. Something like… you’re half-drowned and chilled to the bone, but you feel warm with his affectionate gaze on you. Like you don’t want him to look away and leave you cold again. Like the rain was penance and now you’re all paid up.
Like for at least this moment, right now, the rain has washed away your histories and left you clean and empty, a blank page waiting for a new story to tell - where before, your pages were full of scribbles and scrawls that held such heavy meaning there was no room for anything new.
You’re thinking too much.
You’re standing in the rain, Namjoon is looking at you like you’re nuts, and you’re thinking too much.
Watching your feet, you head up the stairs, going through the front door that he’s holding open for you.
You squish your way upstairs, neither of you talking. Inside the apartment, Namjoon flicks on a few lamps.
“I’m going to grab a shower,” he tells you, voice quiet. “You should, too.”
“Yeah,” you agree. “That was my plan.”
You stand beneath the spray of hot water, tapping on the faucet to work it hotter by degrees, not wanting the temperature to jump and scald you. You feel drained, like your limbs are noodles. You lean your forehead against the tile wall, closing your eyes and just breathing.
“What the fuck…” you whisper to no one, “is going on?”
You wish you had a friend to talk it out with. Kris would go overboard, exploding with glee. Lin isn’t a talk about boys kind of person, or even a talk about your feelings kind. That leaves Taehyung, and the idea of trying to talk to him about your burgeoning feelings for Namjoon makes you laugh out loud, the single syllable echoing off the shower walls, echoing back to mock you.
When you finally make it back into the living room, hair blow-dried and wearing your fuzziest joggers and a hoodie, Namjoon is tucked away in his own room, the door open that familiar four inches.
You get settled on the couch and pull out your phone and realize practically with a gasp - you hadn’t even tried to text Taehyung to drive you, nice and dry, back from campus. Your brain had thought but I walked here with Namjoon and the option of “dry” went right out the window.
You cover your face with your hands, sliding down on the couch a little bit. What is the matter with you?
You feel right now like it’s all happening too much, too fast. What even is “it”? Do you like Namjoon? Despite barely knowing him? Despite having to live with him?
Despite the years and years of experience you have with loving Taehyung, and Taehyung alone, out of everyone in the whole wide world?
Luckily, Namjoon stays in his room for the rest of the evening, sparing you from any more self-reflection, any more soul-searching.
You still kind of wish he’d come out.
Tuesday October 23rd
One of the steady things that you and Namjoon share, that works for you as roommates, is that neither of you cooks. A whole kitchen of pots and pans just to heat up water for tea and ramen and to occasionally cook an egg.
So when you get home from class on Tuesday so late that it’s already pretty dark out and you hear the clanging and banging from the kitchen that indicates a meal being made, you genuinely wonder if you’re at the wrong door.
As you push the door open, the noise only gets louder. You round the corner and see the kitchen in chaos - two unmanned pans on the stove, bowls and whisks and colanders and cutting boards all over the counterspace. Namjoon has his back to you, a large kitchen knife in hand.
You ease around him, not wanting to startle him until the knife is set down. He spots you anyway, and gives you a sheepish grin.
“What… exactly… is happening here?” you inquire.
“It depends on the scope of your question,” Namjoon answers, because of course he can’t just fucking answer you like a normal person. “If you’re referring to the stove, I am burning some sauce on the left and burning some meat on the right. If you’re referring to the cutting board, I am -.”
“The stove is on fire!” you shriek, pointing, your spare hand flying to cover your mouth in horror. Flames crawl from underneath the pan of meat, over the top, devouring what’s in the pan and leaping into the air. Namjoon drops the knife with a clatter and whirls around, eyes wide.
“What do I do?” he cries, hands in the air like he’s going to swat the flames like gnats.
“Turn off the burner and smother it!” you cry, not willing to enter the kitchen and get closer to the danger.
“Smother it?” he repeats, the words a little wild as he screams them. Smoke has filled the kitchen, blurring your view of him, and the smoke alarm over the front door begins to blare.
“The lid!” you scream, trying to be louder than the alarm. “Turn off the burner and put the lid on the pan! Be careful!”
You add this last part in a shriek as Namjoon follows your directions, reaching towards the flame to twist the burner and then slam the lid over the top of the pan, hissing a little as he does.
The flames vanish almost instantly, but the smoke remains and the alarm keeps screaming. Namjoon looks at the pan, then his hand, then at you.
“Go run cool water on that,” you tell him firmly, and you cross the apartment to open the windows and turn on the fans.
You return to the kitchen to find Namjoon running the sink over his knuckles, brows furrowed.
“Is it bad?” you ask loudly - again, to be heard over the smoke alarm - as you open a drawer and get a kitchen towel, moving to stand in the kitchen’s doorway flapping away, trying to send the smoke towards the open windows.
“No,” he tells you, pulling his hand out of the stream of water to examine it more closely. “It’s just a little red.”
“Keep it there for a little bit,” you tell him, still flapping away. “I might have burn cream in my bathroom, I’ll check in a second.”
Eventually the alarm quiets and you both heave a sigh of relief. The cold air coming from the open windows chills you down to your toes, but smoke still clings to the room, blurring your vision just enough to wonder if you’re imagining it.
You find the burn cream in your medicine cabinet and return to the living room. Namjoon is looking at the ruined remains of his dinner with something like heartbreak on his face.
“Come here,” you tell him, sitting at the breakfast bar, ointment in your hand. “Come sit so I can do this.”
“I can do it,” he protests, but he heads your way.
“Sit,” you repeat, pulling out the stool next to you.
He does, silently and obediently, sliding his hand over to you. You can see the redness over his knuckles, middle and index the most. You uncap the tube and squeeze a little onto your fingers, then take his hand in your spare one to hold it steady. Gently you press the cream into his skin, making sure to cover each bit of redness. Namjoon watches you solemnly, wincing a little when your fingers touch his middle knuckle.
“See if that helps,” you tell him, his hand still resting on yours. “Want help cleaning up?”
He sighs heavily, and you both look at the kitchen in defeat at the mess of pans and bowls to wash.
“Do you ever just… miss your mom?” he asks plaintively, not looking at you.
The thing about grief - long-term grief, lifetime grief - is that you can go days, maybe even weeks at a time without noticing it. It’s kind of like a bruise in a hard to reach spot. It just takes one bump in exactly the right place, and it hurts just as bad as day one all over again. Namjoon’s words pierce you, and you take a slow breath. You were just caught off-guard, that’s all. You can be fine. You can be normal.
“Sure,” you say, trying to sound casual. Failing.
He narrows his eyes at you in suspicion. “Why’d you get weird?” he asks. “Do you have a bad relationship with your mom or something? I didn’t mean to -.”
“It’s okay,” you assure him, but you rise and head for the kitchen, starting to pick things up just to do something with your hands. “It’s just… I don’t have my mom anymore. She passed when I was little. My dad too.” Might as well get it all out there. It felt weird to let someone only know half.
It’s easier to handle this moment with Namjoon in another room. You don’t have to watch him react, don’t have to translate his silence and his body language. You slide all the chopped onion onto a plate just in case Namjoon still wants to use it, and turn to rinse off the cutting board in the sink.
He appears behind you, silently lingering in the doorway. “Y/N,” he says softly.
“It’s fine, Namjoon,” you tell him, scrubbing at the cutting board vigorously. You don’t turn to face him.
“I wouldn’t have been so blase about it if I’d known,” he says apologetically.
“I know,” you say. You turn - away from the doorway - to put the cutting board aside to dry. You grab the pan with sauce in it - all congealed and unappetizing now - and move to scrape it into the garbage can.
He comes up beside you; his fingers touch your elbow, feather-light, like he’s afraid he’ll spook you.
“Y/N,” he implores. “Look at me.”
You do, glancing sideways up at him, the pan heavy in your hand. “I’m not upset,” you assure him. “People just get so weird when they find out. I hate… navigating that, over and over again, with new people.”
He gives you a guilty smile, but there’s relief in it as well. “I will stop being weird immediately,” he promises. “I just felt like I stepped in it, you know?”
You shrug. “It happens to the best of us. It really is fine. It’s been a long time.”
You arm tingles where he’d touched you, but he stays put when you move back to the sink, running the water hot enough to steam before you put the pan under it. Then, wordlessly, he moves next to you, grabbing a cloth and starting to dry the cutting board you’d washed.
You carry on that like that, a perfectly synchronized dance, in silence until the countertop is empty. All that remains is the pan that had been alight about half an hour ago.
“Can I ask you something personal?” he asks, leaning against the counter as you scrape the remains of the charred meat into the garbage with a grimace. “I’m just curious. You can tell me to fuck off.”
“It’s so jarring when you swear,” you tell him.
He grins at you. “Hobi says my surprising potty-mouth is one of my best charms.”
You laugh at this. “I can see that,” you agree. “It is surprising.”
“Not charming?” he teases.
You shrug, feeling that blush rise up again. “No comment. Anyway - what did you want to ask?”
He lets you get away with evading the flirtation. “If you were little… who raised you?”
“Oh,” you say. You aren’t sure what you thought he’d ask, but it wasn’t that. “My grandma, until she couldn’t. Then my Aunt Lin took over, but she’s more like a big sister than anything.”
Namjoon nods. Then he asks, carefully, “Did Taehyung know your parents?”
The question makes you smile at the memories it pulls up - you and Taehyung as kids together, goofing off around your house, back when it had been filled with people.
“Yeah,” you say softly. It doesn’t occur to you to wonder why he’d ask that. It doesn’t occur to you to mask the tiny smile, that it might jostle his feelings even a little bit.
You look over at him when you realize he’s gone quiet. “Are you close with your family?” you ask, genuinely curious.
He nods, eyes on the pan lid that he’s drying. “Very. I was a lost soul when I first moved to campus. I couldn’t do anything.”
“You burned dinner tonight,” you point out.
“I can do laundry now,” he retorts, smiling at you as you put the last of the dishes away. “I’ve come a long way.”
“Still room to grow,” you tease, reaching out to give his arm a playful nudge.
You’re giving playful touches now. That’s a thing that’s happening.
You ache, again, to have someone to tell.
Wednesday October 24th
You both love and hate Wednesdays - on one hand, you have your thesis double-feature, and you actually enjoy it. On the other hand, you go straight from double-class to closing shift at the campus store, and you don’t get home until dark. The day is long, and you’d rather be home. For several reasons.
Your morning goes as you expect - you make it through the lecture part of class, updating Professor Jemisen on how your research segment is going. During the break, you eat some leftovers you’d thrown in your backpack, and talk with Gloria and the other girls. After the break, your group helps you workshop your latest poem, the one about the season changing, and you do the same for them.
The season changing is happening in real life, all around you. Fall fades quickly, the days darkening, the chills lasting longer, becoming more pronounced. Gone are the autumn days that change their mood and become summer again for hours at a time.
You normally go straight to the campus store after class, but this week you’re hungry - the leftovers you packed weren’t enough to keep you until you get home. Instead of heading down the main paved path to the student center, where you work, you head for a large academic building you pass on the way there. You know there’s a little sandwich station on the lowest floor, tucked away past the mailroom like a well-kept secret.
You take a hallway off to the side, passing some open classrooms on your way to the staircase. You’re walking mindlessly, head thinking only about the sandwich you’re going to order. You slow your steps when you hear a familiar voice, low and calm.
“All I’m saying,” a girl is saying, and you stop in the doorway, listening, “is that while the idea of going to live alone in the woods is actually extremely appealing, Thoreau as a whole kind of sucks.”
“I might agree with you, but you need to frame that more academically,” Namjoon corrects gently.
A circle of students - freshmen, if you had to guess, maybe eight of them, are sitting at desks, their bags all forgotten on the floor by their chairs. Namjoon perches on the edge of the teacher’s desk at the front of the room, legs casually stretched out before him. He’s listening intently as the students debate.
“We have to specify the problem,” someone else in the group points out. “I’m all for metaphorically dragging down statues of the patriarchy and everything, but we need a solid argument.”
“Or,” a different girl says, voice just barely loud enough for you to hear from the hallway, “maybe instead of giving more attention to ‘classics’ we see as undeserving, maybe instead we should focus just on the underprivileged voices that we prefer to be amplified?”
“You mean pick a lesser-known author and shed light on their work instead?” Namjoon clarifies, and the girl nods.
The group begins to debate this passionately, and Namjoon lets them fight it out, taking a second to glance at his phone. You become aware of the fact that you’re just standing in the hallway staring. You’re about to move on when Namjoon notices you. He looks away quickly at first, and then it registers that it was you standing in the doorway like a weirdo, and his gaze flies back to you.
Caught, you have no choice but to lean into it. You give him a tiny smile, raising a hand in a guilty wave. He smiles back, just barely. You stay there another minute, smiling at each other, while the freshmen continue to argue. Then your feet spur you on, and you give him a little nod before heading down the hall. But the stupid fucking butterflies stay in your stomach the whole time you wait in line for your sandwich.
When you get to the bookshop, you toss your backpack behind the counter and slump onto a low stool that’s stashed back there. You lean your head on the counter next to the currently unmanned register and let out some unhappy grumbles.
Kris comes out from the stockroom - you can tell it’s them by their footsteps.
“What is happening here,” they say flatly, not exactly a question.
“Kriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis,” you whine, not looking up. “I think I need to talk about… my roommate.”
“Bitch!” they utter indignantly. “He has a name! What grade are we in right now?”
You stomp your feet lightly, needing to display your crankiness. “I am feeling very confused and conflicted and I need you to be nice to me about it,” you say petulantly, finally picking your head up so you can pout better.
“Okay,” Kris says easily, leaning against the wall. The shop is devoid of customers, so you don’t bother to lower your voice. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” you continue to whine. “It’s just how I feel.”
Kris gives you a level stare. “I need the whining to stop, like, yesterday. If you feel conflicted, there’s a reason. So, figure out what it is.”
“I already said I don’t know,” you tell them, still pouty, but sitting up straight now.
“Dig deep,” Kris deadpans. “Do it for the dimples.”
“Oh my GOD,” you say, unable to even make eye contact. “Never mind, conversation over.”
They shake their head, not letting you off the hook. “What’s the problem, Square?” It’s a nickname they gave you last year when you wouldn’t go partying - because… apparently you’re a square.
“You know the problem,” you grumble quietly, making them lean closer to hear you.
They lean back, something knowing in their eyes. “Ah. It’s the Taehyung factor.”
“Shh,” you scold, glancing around the empty store like someone might have materialized without you noticing. When you return your gaze to them, Kris is just staring at you plainly, waiting for you to elaborate.
“I don’t know,” you say, and then more emphatically, “I don’t know! If I… start something else… does that mean giving Taehyung up? Because I can’t say I want to do that. Not if I’m being honest.”
Kris nods silently, letting you work it out. You meet their eyes, suddenly feeling the squeeze of anxiety around your chest, like your lungs have something heavy they have to push every time you inhale.
“If I lose him,” you say in practically a whisper, “I will quite literally die.”
Kris scowls at you. “You will not.”
“I will,” you retort.
Kris gives you an eyeroll. “So dramatic,” they scold.
“He’s my family, Kris,” you try to explain. “In a lot of ways he’s my only family.” Your voice breaks as you ask, “What if I lose him?”
Now Kris softens, lips pulling together into something like a very pursed frown. “Maybe you should talk to him,” they suggest quietly.
You hate that idea a lot. “Maybe,” you say loudly, slapping your hand on the counter and standing as the bell over the door chimes and a group of lacrosse guys (the sticks are a give-away) enter the store with a burst of noisy chatter, “I should never talk about any of this ever again.”
Kris sighs heavily, practically doubling over. Now who’s dramatic? “You’re so self-destructive,” they complain.
“Don’t be mean,” you say, going back to pouting.
“Yeah, yeah,” Kris waves a hand at you. “Go write a poem about it.”
“And what if I do?” you demand, but you’re both laughing now, unlocking the registers as the lacrosse dudes line up to pay for their snacks and drinks.
–
Taehyung texts you near the end of your shift - “we haven’t hung out in five billion years :(“.
You roll your eyes at his dramatics and text back, “come get me from the bookstore then and hang out for a little”.
You’re pleased when he agrees. He shows up a little bit before closing, knocking on the already locked glass doors. You hurry to let him in, ignoring Kris staring knives into your back.
“Hi,” you say happily as he slips into the store, and you lock the door again behind him. “I’ll be done in about four minutes.”
“‘Kay,” he says easily, striding over to the checkout counter and leaning against it.
“Taehyung,” Kris greets him, nodding their head as they lock the register. “How’s it going?”
He sighs dramatically. “The usual. Classes. Parties. Trying to figure out why Y/N doesn’t love me anymore.”
You freeze halfway to the stockroom, your eyes wide, air catching in your throat.
Luckily, Kris is and always has been way more slick than you. They cock their head quizzically, letting a playfully concerned frown settle over their features.
“Y/N doesn’t love you anymore?” they echo, the poor baby pronounced in their tone. “What on earth do you mean?”
Taehyung shoots you a mischievous look; luckily, you’ve gotten your act together since he said those words.
“I had to beg for her attention tonight,” he says, clearly loving this bit. “I’m beginning to think she has a secret boyfriend she’s not telling me about.”
He’s teasing and you know it, but after a lifetime of friendship with Taehyung, you know this too: there’s a little sliver of him that must be hurt, or at least bothered, or he wouldn’t tease at all.
You feel both caught - despite not having a secret boyfriend or anything like it - and guilty.
“I’m sorry,” you tell him. “I just got busy with my thesis and everything. I promise I’m not out with other people and not you. Even Kris only sees me at work these days.”
“And Namjoon,” Taehyung adds plaintively, and your blood runs cold.
“Namjoon?” you echo, not sure you can form a different word.
Taehyung’s pouting now, which means he’s not too serious. “Yeah, he has no choice, you’re in his living room every day.”
“Oh,” you say, relief flooding through you. “Yeah.”
You don’t see the point in telling Taehyung that there’s a teeny, tiny something starting with Namjoon. Not when it’s so… unformed, insubstantial, uncertain. You don’t know which word fits best. It’s a maybe at best, and it just doesn’t seem worth rocking the boat over it.
What would happen if things started for real? Would you tell him? It shouldn’t have to be a secret… it shouldn’t stay a secret, not if you mean it. What would happen?
You’re afraid to know the answers.
You finish up in the store and you all head to the parking lot together. You tell Kris goodbye and drop down into Taehyung’s passenger seat.
“You’re gonna stay at the apartment for a little?” you ask.
“Mhm,” he says, fiddling with the heat until he gets it how he wants it. “Can I work on homework with you?”
“Definitely,” you agree. “I have so much shit to do. I wasn’t kidding when I said school is eating my life. Senior year sucks.”
Taehyung isn’t looking at you - he’s watching the road as he waits for an opening in traffic so he can pull out of the parking lot. But something crosses his face - relief, maybe. Something softens, anyway. Maybe he really had been hurt that you hadn’t been hanging out as much.
When you return to the apartment, Namjoon isn’t home - his door hangs open, his bedroom completely dark.
You and Taehyung settle in the living room, dragging out your laptops. It’s nice, hanging out like this again. You hadn’t realized how long it had been - over a week - since it had been just the two of you, like old times. Everything falls right into place. You swap snacks, hands brushing as you both reach into crinkling chip bags. You reach over and type nonsense into his paper when he isn’t paying attention, letting out peals of laughter when he figures it out and starts spluttering at you in outrage. You tell him about the customer at the store who argued with you over - of all the stupid things - a used copy of The Odyssey.
When he hugs you goodbye at the end of the night, swaying you playfully back and forth like he might drop you, both of you giggling wildly, you’re reminded of just what the stakes are. You’re reminded of just how much you have to lose.
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ahhhhh what do we think??!! there was hand holding!!!! are we clutching our pearls??!!!
as always thank you all so so so much for being here, i appreciate every one of you so extremely much!!!
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