Dragonfly

Namjoon has been interested in you since high school, but it seemed longer to him, as do all uncomfortable situations. You were always the life of the party—not that he went to any back then—and that carried on in all aspects of your life, at least from where he was standing.

Whenever Namjoon saw you, you were surrounded by people, chatting and smiling, joking about something, being your cheerful self, and each time made him think you were far too different from him. He wasn’t even sure how he came to like you and what exactly had caused it, but once Namjoon figured it out, there was no going back.

When he was younger, Namjoon used to compare you to the sun—he would gravitate towards you whenever you were around him, even though it burned him by making him realize he’d never even get the chance to talk to you. Someone like him couldn’t even get the courage to say hi to you in the hallways, let alone have a normal conversation with you. Nowadays, he found this whole “sun” concept cringy and childish, but it still stuck with him. Namjoon did gravitate towards you, even if it let him down time and time again.

High school was dreadful and he hated every single second of it, mostly because people treated him like he was less than in comparison to others just because he didn’t share their interests like partying, drinking, small talk. Namjoon always stood out even though he tried his best not to, which is what made him so different from most people. Some of his friends, though, weren’t trying to be noticed either, but people gravitated towards them too.

Jungkook and you were alike in that regard—most people enjoyed your company, said hi to you even though they didn’t know you, and felt comfortable asking you two to come to their parties or join their new school club. Nobody has ever asked Namjoon to join anything, let alone come to a party.

Despite losing some, Namjoon managed to keep most of his childhood friends, and this made him thankful. He wouldn’t have survived the mocking in school otherwise. His friends made it easier to pass the time in school or during recess.

Namjoon had to admit he’d also feel good when he’d get to see you in school, even though he knew you were no different than the popular girls in his classes—it’s just that you were never mean to him and there was something really attractive about you. Namjoon didn’t have sex or even talk about it so people presumed he wasn’t as interested in it as others were, but that was far from the truth.

Namjoon was just not interested in sex without emotions, in sleeping with someone and then seeing them with someone else at the next party and feeling replaceable, or in being mocked. He watched too many movies where cruel people made fun of nerds like him to know not to fall for it.

Most of the time, Namjoon felt like you never knew he was alive. He’d never caught you looking at him, had never caught your glance or your smile, even though you talked to almost everyone and genuinely seemed interested in getting to know people around you. Still, you’d never shown interest in him.

He’d passed you in the hallway so many times and you never even looked his way, let alone greeted him. You always seemed more interested in talkative people, people who could approach you, people who could make you smile, and he was none of that. He thought you were dumb, he had to admit, but you were also beautiful.

He also thought you were shallow, especially after he’d met Olivia.

Now, Olivia represented everything Namjoon grew to despise during his schooling—she was superficial, self-obsessed, careless, loud, and thought she was better than everyone else.

At first, Namjoon didn’t mind her that much because he had no contact with Olivia. Sometimes, he’d overhear her conversations in the bus or the library or the hallway because she was one of those people who didn’t know how to keep her voice down, but other than that, they never spoke, and he was more than happy with that.

And then she decided to join the book club—his book club—the one place where he felt at ease, mostly because he knew the other six people in the club well and was happy to discuss the books with them. They didn’t hang out outside the club, but he enjoyed hearing their takes on literature and looked forward to club meetings because of this.

After Olivia joined, he tried to be welcoming and not think about her as simply stupid, but she made that very difficult. Olivia read everything, she understood the point, but for some reason, she always made it about her in a way. While people would discuss the message of the literary piece at hand and tried to find some deeper meaning, she’d talk about things that seemed irrelevant and always found a way to make it about men and sex, and that's not what you talk about in book club.

Well, not if you’re Namjoon.

Besides, whenever Namjoon would contradict her because he just couldn’t let some things slide, Olivia would roll her eyes at him or would take it rather personally, so he stopped doing that. Namjoon wanted to avoid any contact with her since she seemed like someone who could be cruel when she felt like her ego was being attacked.

But, that was high school and thankfully, it was over now.

On the other hand, college was going okay for Namjoon, so he was happy with that aspect, but along the way, things started getting messy—a few of their household appliances decided to die at the same time, so Namjoon helped out, which drained his savings account, and this meant he had to take more shifts to earn back the money. Namjoon liked his job, but he was exhausted because of the double courses he was taking.

Sometimes Namjoon felt bad about making that decision and he wished he was like everyone else. Maybe he’d be more like Jungkook or Hoseok if he had more time to be social and put himself out there. Then, he’d have more time to study and to work and to maybe have a normal social life, but that would never happen.

Whenever Namjoon would get into an awkward situation at school, he thanked himself for making the decision of taking double courses since it meant the torture would be over twice as fast.

Then, to top all of that off, he got paired up for an assignment with you. When Namjoon realized that the professor wanted the two of you to work on this assignment together throughout the entire semester, Namjoon almost passed out.

His mind stopped working and all he could hear and focus on was the erratic beating of his heart. How in hell would Namjoon work on this with you? He couldn’t even look you in the eye. He wouldn’t know what to say to you.

Then, even worse thoughts flooded his mind: what if you could tell he liked you?

Did you know Namjoon was into you? Did you ever notice him staring? Namjoon hoped he’d never stared at you, but it might have happened.

How would he be able to look you in the eye after getting off to you so many times? Namjoon felt ashamed when he thought about that, but he had no other choice. He wasn’t dating someone and he wasn’t attracted to that many people. You were the only person he’d been attracted to for years without stopping, so you were his go-to person to think about in a time of need. And now he had to spend time with you and pretend he didn’t think of you that way. How would he hide it?

Would Namjoon get boners around you? Fuck! If that happened, he’d have to drop out ASAP.

The first couple of times he had to spend with you were absolute torture—he was stuttering, he was nervous, couldn’t look you in the eye, couldn’t think straight. Namjoon wanted to look at you so badly now that he finally had the chance, but he didn’t have the guts to do it.

You were talkative, very much so, but you were also nice. Of course, you needed to pass this class, so you wouldn’t be rude to your partner. With time, he started to understand that he got you all wrong—you weren’t an airhead like Olivia.

On the contrary, you surprised him with your thinking on numerous occasions. The fact that you were as good as he was at math meant a lot to him. It made Namjoon realize that he was wrong for judging people based on their looks, which is what people had done to him so many times in the past.

He did the same thing to you when he thought that you were shallow and dumb like your friend. Namjoon was one of those people who loved it when life proved them wrong because that meant they still had a lot to learn. He took each such instance as a sign of him growing, and he never wanted to stop doing that. So, finding out you had a lot more to offer than looks was his own personal awakening. Namjoon was wrong about you!

And then he saw him at your place.