ෆ╹ .̫╹ෆ

It wasn't self-deprecation, not exactly.

It was more like a mathematical certainty, the kind of cold hard fact you could hold up to the light and examine from every angle.

Clark Kent was good. And you were not.

You knew this because your mother had made sure to tell you so. In fact, you can hardly remember a night where she didn't drill into your head how utterly pathetic and useless you were.

At the time, you wanted to scream. How could a five year old be pathetic?

What have I done? Why do you hate me so much?

But then you turned eight, and then twelve, and soon enough you were sixteen not having received an ounce of the love you deserved. But you accepted it. You understood that this was simply the way things were.

The way you were.

You were useless and pathetic, and of course your own father had no reason to stick around.

Your mother told you that. Or did you?

It was hard sometimes because your mother would shout and you would listen and she would shout and shout and shout, and you would listen and listen and listen, until you weren't sure which voice in your head was hers and which was your own.

It didn't matter much at the end of the day anyways whose voice it was.

The message was always the same.

You came around to that truth as you stepped into adulthood.

You were nobody but yourself, and who were you to demand anything more than what you deserved.

You did not get to accept kindness and respect and love from your mother because that was not what you earned.

You did not deserve the love your father had to give you, so you accepted that he was gone too.

Everyone was gone, or mean, and took and took and took until all you had left was a life that you felt deserved to be put under everyone else's.

Once you accepted that, it was almost far too easy to sit back and allow all of your other relationships to walk all over the trampled and mangled mess that was your heart.

You had no backbone.

Your first boyfriend was able to sit there and treat you so terribly, and you let him because at least he was there. Unlike your father. At least someone was willing to touch you, even if his hands left bruises. At least someone was willing to look at you, even if his eyes were always scanning for flaws.

He called you dramatic when you cried. Told you that you were too sensitive, too emotional, too much. You learned to swallow your tears, to choke down the sobs until they became something hard and indigestible in your chest. 

You had no tears left to cry anymore.

And when he left—because of course he left, because everyone left—you told yourself it was fine. You told yourself you'd expected it. You told yourself that this was simply what you deserved.

The next one was worse.

He was the kind of man who used silence as a weapon. Who could make you feel like you were vanishing just by looking through you. You'd scramble for his approval, desperate for any scrap of affection, and he'd withhold it just to watch you squirm.

You stayed for two years. Two years of feeling like you were slowly disappearing, becoming less and less until you weren't sure if you existed at all when he wasn't in the room.

When he finally left for someone prettier, you didn't even cry. You just sat in your apartment and stared at the wall and thought, of course.

Of course, this is simply what I deserve.

Naturally you'd developed a type.

A terrible talent for finding people who confirmed your worst beliefs about yourself. The ones who wanted you for your body and nothing else. The ones who praised you in public and tore you down in private. The ones who made you feel like you were too much and not enough, simultaneously, impossibly.

In a sick way, you had started to enjoy it.

The ones who used you and discarded you. The ones who made you feel like your only value was between your legs. The ones who wanted your body but couldn't be bothered with your heart.

It was familiar, and it made you feel worthless and pathetic, and it was familiar.

You learned to give them what they wanted. You learned to perform desire, to become the woman they wanted you to be.

You liked sex.

Physical intimacy was easy. It was just mechanics, just bodies, just a transaction where you traded your flesh for a few moments of feeling wanted and you didn't need to use your brain.

But you never let them stay. You never let them see the real you, because the real you was a ruin, and who would want to live in a ruin?

You built walls. You built them high and thick and impenetrable. You filled them with all the sharp objects you'd collected over the years—all the cruel words, all the broken promises, all the moments where you'd been made to feel small.

And then you met Clark.

Clark, who was so impossibly kind that you almost resented him for it. Clark, who looked at you like you were something precious and didn't seem to understand that you were just a collection of cracks held together by habit.

He asked you out for coffee, and you said yes because you couldn't think of a good enough excuse. He asked you out again, and you said yes because he was persistent and you were tired of fighting.

You told yourself it wouldn't last. You told yourself he'd see through you eventually.

But he didn't. He just kept showing up, kept being kind, kept looking at you like you were the most fascinating person he'd ever met.

It was exhausting. It was terrifying. It was the most wonderful and frightening thing you'd ever experienced.

━━━━━━━

You had a countdown.

You gave it only one more month (maybe two) before you broke up with Clark. Or he broke up with you.

Whichever came first honestly.

A twinge of guilt crept up your spine for even thinking about it, especially now of all times. But you couldn't help yourself, this was when those thoughts were the loudest.

Clark kissed your neck, then your shoulder softly and gently pulled out from inside of you. You managed to only wince slightly now, his above average length being something that you've grown used to taking.

"How's that? You doing okay?"

Clark continued to hold you in close, placing soft kisses at your hairline. You let him cuddle you, wrap his large arms around your naked frame. More for his benefit than yours. You didn't really need this part.

Instead you tried to manage your squirming and let Clark bathe you in his care, for at least a couple minutes.

Sometimes you weren't entirely sure why he still bothered to ask. Your answer was always the same.

"Yes, of course, Clark. I'm just going to run to the bathroom."

It was the same thing every time. Once your mental clock had deemed it enough time in his arms, you unraveled from him and reached for your clothes on the floor. The familiar post-coital urgency clawed at your chest. 

The need to cover up, to retreat, to put distance between your vulnerable, naked body and his warm, soft emotions.

"Baby, stay a little longer with me before you get up. You always rush to leave."

Your heart panged at his words. But still you couldn't bring yourself to open up that vulnerability that he so desperately wanted right now.

"I have to pee, Clark. I don't want a UTI." You told him, with just enough lightness in your tone to make him not feel hurt by the rejection.

"Okay, I know, just hurry back. I miss you already."

You laughed, placed a soft kiss on Clark's warm lips then got out of bed. The second you managed to make it to the bathroom, you shut the door and stared at yourself in the mirror.

Fuck. What had you gotten yourself into.

You were in far too deep with Clark.

You quickly turned on the faucet with shaky hands and splashed your face with the cold water. This was bad. So so bad. You never meant to actually date him for this long. At least not long enough for things to actually get so intense between you two.

It seemed like everyday you spent with him, the closer it was that you were inching towards that countdown. Towards the inevitable.

How could you let this happen? You're smarter than this. You've dealt with this before, it's no different.

Your heart rate started to pick up, palms growing sweaty at the thought of this becoming something you could no longer quickly disengage from. You splashed yourself with more cold water. Again. Went to pee. Then splashed your face one more time for good measure.

A sharp knock on the door startled you. "Sweetheart? You've been in there a while now. Are you okay?"

"Yes Clark, I'm fine, just go back to bed, I'll be out in a second."

The door unlocked and slowly opened anyways.

Clark's head peered in ever so carefully, not sure if you were in a compromising state, though he's not too sure anything could be more compromising than how he just had you a few moments ago.

"Clark," you sighed, disappointment evident. "I told you I was fine."

Clark fully entered the bathroom now, boxers haphazardly thrown on and took in your appearance. He scanned you head to toe making sure that your words were truthful. He could sense your heart rate picking up speed.

Seeing that everything was alright, Clark sighed a breath of relief. Still though, you could sense there was something wrong. He fidgeted on his feet.

"Clark?"

"Have I done something wrong?"

You sucked in a breath, not expecting those words. Was he really doing this right now?

"Clark I—"

"I just, gosh, I don't understand. At first I thought it was a one time thing, you know? Because you were nervous or it was a lot. You getting up or-r running away. But we've done this so many times now. 13 times to be exact! And each time you get up and you leave me and you hide, and I'm not sure what I've done. Do you not feel comfortable with me? Have I done something or said something or do I push you too hard during it, because I know sometimes I can forget my own strength. Please, just help me out here?" Clark rambles.

The questions hung in the air, heavy and suffocating. You could feel the walls closing in, the familiar panic rising in your chest.

"Clark, that's not—" You stopped, because you didn't know how to finish the sentence. That's not what? That's not true? That's not fair? That's not how you feel?

You didn't know how you felt. You never knew how you felt. Your emotions were a foreign language, one you'd never learned to speak. You just knew that you didn't want to feel this. This confrontation that could very much be avoided.

"Then what is it?" His voice cracked slightly, and you realized with horror that he was close to tears. Because you couldn't be normal. Because you couldn't just stay.

"I don't know," you said, and your voice was hollow. "I don't know how to explain it."

"Try," he said. "Please. Just try."

His eyes were red-rimmed, his shoulders slumped, his expression a mixture of hurt and confusion. He looked so vulnerable and so human, and god it confused you and made you feel so strange and pathetic for not being able to just be normal.

Deciding against it, you shook your head, brushing past him and headed straight for the bed again. The bed you told Clark to stay in. Why couldn't he just listen and stay in bed?

"I don't want to talk about this right now, Clark. I'm tired. Can we just go to sleep?"

Clark quickly strides through the room after you, joining you on your side of the bed. "Don't do this to me, baby, don't shut me out. I just want to be closer to you."

"Were we not just close enough?" You retort back, growing more and more irritated whilst tucking yourself under the covers.

Clark releases a frustrated sigh, "You know that's not what I meant. I just don't think that running away like that after sex is good for you. For us. I mean, it's a known fact that aftercare is important for—"

"Clark," you snap, "Please spare me the lecture of the importance of aftercare. Honestly I'm not in the mood. Now will you please just get into bed so that we can get some sleep. I have to be at work early tomorrow."

Clark stood there, frozen, his expression shifting from hurt to something harder. You'd seen that look before—the moment when people finally realized they'd had enough.

"Fine," he said quietly. "I'll sleep on the couch."

"Clark, don't be ridiculous—"

"I'm not being ridiculous." His voice was flat, emotionless in a way you'd never heard before. "You clearly don't want me in your bed. I'll give you some space and I'll sleep on the couch."

He grabbed a pillow and a blanket from the closet and walked out of the bedroom without another word. You watched with your jaw slack, before flopping back down onto the pillow. God, you're such an asshole.

Probably an even bigger one for not begging him to stay too. Fuck.

You lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, and you told yourself this was for the best. This was what you'd wanted. This is who you are. This was what you deserve.

You dreamt of your mother for the first time in years that night.

━━━━━━━

The next morning, you woke up to the smell of coffee and bacon.

You lay there for a moment, disoriented and alone, before remembering the events of the night before. The argument. Clark sleeping on the couch.

You got up and padded into the kitchen, bracing yourself for the worst.

Hopefully, he would spare you the trouble of starting an awkward break-up conversation and have it already prepared. That'd be nice, you think. This was a good run.

But Clark was at the stove, wearing his ridiculous apron, making breakfast like nothing had happened. When he heard you come in, he turned and smiled, a bright, warm smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Morning, sleepyhead," he said, his voice overly cheerful. "I made breakfast. Your favorite—pancakes with blueberries and bacon. I know you have to be at work early, but I figured you could eat something before you go."

You stood in the doorway, frozen. This was... this was the opposite of what you'd expected. You'd expected cold silence, accusations, maybe even him being gone entirely. Not this. Never this.

"Clark, you didn't have to—"

"I wanted to." He crossed the kitchen and wrapped his arms around you, pulling you into a tight embrace. He kissed the top of your head, then your forehead, then your cheek. "I'm sorry about last night. I shouldn't have pushed or confronted you like that. It was unfair. I'm sorry."

You stood stiff in his arms, not hugging him back. You didn't know how to respond to this—this overwhelming, suffocating kindness that felt like a weight pressing down on your chest.

"It's fine," you said, pulling away. "Don't worry about it."

Clark's smile flickered for just a moment, but then it was back in place. "Okay. Well, sit down, breakfast is almost ready."

You sat at the table and watched him plate the food. He was humming, moving around the kitchen like he didn't have a care in the world, like he hadn't spent the night on the couch because of you.

He set a plate in front of you and sat down across the table. He reached across and took your hand, squeezing it gently.

"I love you," he said honestly.

You looked at your hand in his. You looked at his face, open and earnest and full of love. You looked at the perfect breakfast he'd made for you, the apology you hadn't asked for, the kindness you didn't deserve.

And you felt nothing.

No, that wasn't right. You felt something—a familiar pressure in your chest, a desperate urge to run, to escape, to get away from this suffocating display of affection.

"I need to get ready for work," you said, pulling your hand away. "I'm going to be late."

You stood up, leaving the untouched food on the table, and walked out of the kitchen.

Behind you, you heard Clark say, "Baby, you didn't even eat—"

But you were already gone, and the food was growing cold, and you could not find it within yourself to accept that this was what you deserved after such an argument.

━━━━━━━

It seemed, however, that no matter how much you pulled, Clark pushed even harder.

Even if he didn't understand the meaning behind your sudden disdain towards him, or your tendencies to pull away, Clark tried so hard to keep from losing you completely.

He brought you coffee at work, showed up at your apartment with dinner. He was always smiling, always cheerful, always trying to bridge the gap that you kept widening.

Still, his efforts seemed futile.

Clark sat at his desk at the Daily Planet, staring at his computer screen without seeing it. He picked up his cell phone, checked for any missed messages or texts from you. There was none. Put his phone down. Then checked again five minutes later.

He'd been doing this a lot lately—staring into space, trying to figure out what he was doing wrong. What he could do differently. How to reach the woman he loved.

He was losing you. He could feel it, like sand slipping through his fingers.

"Hey, Smallville." Lois's voice jolted him out of his thoughts. She was standing at his desk, one eyebrow raised. "You've been staring at that same article for twenty minutes. What's going on?"

Clark opened his mouth to say 'nothing,' but the word wouldn't come. He was tired. He was so tired of pretending everything was fine.

"It's..." He trailed off, running a hand through his hair. "It's nothing. I'm fine."

"You're a terrible liar, Kent." Lois pulled up a chair and sat down. "Talk to me. Is it the story? Because if you're having trouble with the alien angle, I can—"

"It's not work," he admitted. "It's... it's her. My girlfriend. I don't know what I'm doing wrong."

Lois's expression softened. She'd heard about you, of course—everyone at the Planet had. Clark was the kind of person who couldn't help talking about the people he loved.

"Okay," she dragged out. "What's going on?"

"I don't want to burden you with our problems, Lois, really it's fine."

"Clark." Lois sat on his desk. "I'm your friend. You can share what's on your mind with me. Clearly this is bothering you and you aren't focused on work. It might help to get off your chest."

Clark sighed. "Yeah, you're right."

So Clark told her. Everything.

Lois was frozen for a minute, processing all the details being shared with her.

"Say something. Please. Before I freak out, Lois," Clark rambles.

"Woah, hey, chill. Sorry, I'm just processing." Lois stopped him. "I think maybe the best thing to do is…"

She paused. Opened her mouth, then shut it again, before finally saying one word.

"Stop."

Clark blinked. "Stop what?"

"Everything."

He frowned. "I don't understand."

"You're trying too hard."

The words hit him strangely. Lois leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Look, I don't know her that well. I've only met her a couple of times, but I don't know her. So take everything I'm about to say with a grain of salt."

Clark nodded.

"But from what you're telling me? You're chasing her every time she runs."

Clark jumps to defend himself. "Well, of course, I don't want her to think I don't care."

"I know."

"I love her, Lois."

"I know that too."

Clark continues, "And if she's struggling with something, I want to help."

"I know, Smallville."

Clark looked down at his desk. "So what am I supposed to do?"

Lois sighed. "Maybe stop trying to fix it."

His eyebrows pulled together. "I'm not trying to fix her."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Because you keep talking about what you can do differently. What you can say. How you can make her comfortable. How you can convince her you're not going anywhere."

Clark opened his mouth. Then closed it.

Lois softened. "Clark, maybe she believes you. Maybe that's the problem."

"What?"

"Maybe she knows you're not going anywhere."

He stared at her. "And that terrifies her."

Something in his chest cracked open.

Lois continued carefully. "People who are used to being hurt sometimes don't know what to do with someone who isn't hurting them. They don't trust it. They wait for the other shoe to drop."

"I would never—"

"I know."

"I'd never hurt her."

"I know, Clark."

He swallowed sheepishly. "Then what do I do?"

Lois looked at him for a long moment. "You give her the chance to choose you."

Clark's heart sank. "And if she doesn't?"

Lois didn't answer immediately. She didn't need to. The answer was already sitting between them. Clark nodded slowly.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah."

He looked down at his phone, at the empty messages. "Yeah, I think I've been making it about me."

Lois raised an eyebrow, urging him on.

"How?"

"Every time she pulls away, I panic. I think she's leaving. So I try to stop her. I keep pushing and asking questions and…" He rubbed his face. "Maybe I haven't actually been listening."

Lois gave him a small smile.

"That's probably the smartest thing you've said all morning."

"Thanks."

"Don't get sentimental on me."

He smiled faintly.

But when Lois walked away, the smile disappeared. How on earth was he meant to pull away from the love of his life? Not knowing how she would react already has his heart falling apart. And if what Lois said is true, the last thing he wants is for you to think that he's leaving just like everyone else.

No, he'd have to be smart about this. And he knew just the thing to do.

━━━━━━━

You think that today is the day the countdown clock has finally run out.

It must be.

Because Clark was being unusual.

No texts. No phone calls. Nothing. Radio silent on his end. Yup, it’s finally happened, you think. He’s had enough of your bullshit and he’s finally breaking up with you.

You took in a shuddering breath. 

You had been telling yourself that you were ready for this to happen, that you expected it, and now that it was knocking at your door, you were suddenly unsure. 

You would miss him. He was obviously the best boyfriend you’ve ever had. It’s going to suck having to let him go. You have even started to lov— No. Stop. Get a grip, you couldn’t think these thoughts anymore. You pushed him away. What’s done is done.

You waited outside his apartment, deciding to delay the inevitable as much as you could, pacing a few times before finally building up the courage to use your key and open the door.

Bracing yourself, you stepped inside.

You could do this. No matter what he said, or how he said it, everything was okay. You did this to yourself, so you would not falter. You deserved this, so you would take it.

Your eyes scanned the apartment as you toed off your shoes and dropped your bag. Your heart immediately began to pound.

"Clark?"

He looked up from his place on the couch. Oh yeah, you're definitely done for, you think, Clark never just sits on the couch staring into space. He was waiting for you.

"Hey."

"Hi."

"Come sit down with me. I wanted to talk."

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

You immediately felt your body tense as you walked over and plopped yourself on the cushion next to him. He turned and took your hands in his, and those began to tremble. No, fuck this actually. You wanted to break up first, you're disengaging first too.

"No."

He blinked but did not waver. "No?"

"No. I don't want to do this tonight, Clark. Please can we not do this."

"Okay."

You frowned. That was it? He didn't argue, he just nodded.

"Okay." Something inside you twisted. This isn't right. Something was very, very wrong. "That's it?"

Clark looked confused, and now you were confused as well. "You said you didn't want to talk."

"I know, but—"

"So I'm respecting that."

The words shouldn't have hurt as much as they did. You tried to back track. "Are you mad at me?"

"No."

"Are you upset?"

"Yes."

Your stomach dropped. Fuck.

"But I'm not going to make that your problem."

You stared at him and for the first time noticed that Clark looked exhausted.

"I love you," he said quietly. "And I don't think that's something I should apologize for."

Your throat tightened.

"But I can't keep chasing you every time you run."

You looked away.

"I don't run." You scoff defensively. Clark gave you a pointed look.

"You do."

"I don't."

"You do."

Of course you do. Its all you fucking do. Push and push and push people away.

Your lips were starting to join the trembling of your hands. This confrontation might just be the death of you. And was it getting hotter inside? Sweat beads formed on your forehead.

"I don't know how to do this," you whispered, deciding to offer up a truth.

"I know."

You swallowed the lump in your throat harshly. Your eyes might be starting to water too. Fuck, you did not want to cry. God, you felt pathetic right now. "Then why are you making me? Please don't make me."

"I'm not." Clark stood, your eyes tracking his movements like a hawk. "I've spent so much time trying to convince you that you're safe with me that I forgot something."

You didn't speak, holding your breath.

"I can't make you feel safe."

Your heart began to beat faster.

"I can love you. I can be honest with you. I can tell you that I'm not going anywhere every day for the rest of my life."

His eyes glistened.

"But eventually, you have to decide whether you believe me."

You looked at him.

And for one horrible second, you wanted to.

You wanted nothing more than to believe that Clark Kent, the man who has showered you in endless love and has not once made you feel like the worthless person you felt you were, was speaking truthfully.

Gosh, you wanted to throw yourself into his arms, and you wanted to cry and cry and cry and you wanted to tell him everything because if there's anything you knew was that he would listen and listen and listen.

You wanted to tell him that every time he loved you, some frightened little piece of you screamed that he was lying.

But the words wouldn't come. Instead, you did what you always did. 

“So that’s it then? You’re done with me?”

Clark said nothing, and you didn’t wait for him to. You stood up. You walked to the door. You left.

━━━━━━━

The walk home was a blur.

You don't remember getting to your apartment. You don't remember unlocking the door. You just remember the silence.

The deafening, suffocating silence.

You stood in the middle of your living room, trembling, and waited for the tears to come.

They didn't.

You'd used them all up years ago, you realized. Every tear you'd ever had to cry was already spent on people who didn't deserve them. You had nothing left for Clark, who deserved everything.

So you just stood there. Frozen. Broken. Alone.

He's gone.

The thought hit you like a physical blow.

It’s really done.

And it was your fault. It was always your fault.

You sank to the floor, your knees giving out beneath you. You wrapped your arms around yourself, trying to hold yourself together, trying to keep from shattering into a thousand pieces.

But it was too late. You were already broken.

The days that followed were a blur of nothing.

You went to work. You came home. You stared at walls. You just existed, going through the motions, waiting for something to change.

But nothing changed. Clark was gone.

You'd see him at the Daily Planet sometimes when you would walk by—or rather, you'd see his back, or his profile, as he walked through the bullpen. He never looked at you. He never acknowledged you.

It was like you were invisible.

And maybe you were. Maybe you'd always been invisible. Maybe that's what you deserved.

You'd catch yourself staring at his desk, watching him laugh with Lois or Jimmy, and something in your chest would crack open. He was still good. He was still kind. He was still everything you'd ever wanted.

And you had thrown it all away. You were useless and pathetic. Your mother's voice echoed in your head.

You believed it. You'd always believed it.

But for the first time, you didn't want to.

You finally broke three days after the argument.

You didn't even know why. You were sitting on your couch, staring at nothing, and suddenly your eyes were watering and you were gasping, ugly breaths that tore through your chest.

You felt everything. Everything you could’ve possibly avoided emotionally came back and hit you all at once. For your mother, who had never loved you the way you deserved. For your father, who had never tried. For all the boyfriends who had used you and discarded you.

And for Clark.

Clark, who had loved you with his whole heart. Clark, who had seen all your cracks and stayed anyway. Clark, who had believed in you even when you couldn't believe in yourself.

You cried until you had nothing left.

And when the tears finally stopped, you found yourself thinking about something Clark had said.

Eventually, you have to decide whether you believe me.

He'd been talking about love. About trust. About believing that he wasn't going to leave.

But it was more than that. It was about believing that you deserved love. That you were worthy of trust. That you were good enough.

You spent the next week thinking.

About everything. About your mother, who had made you feel worthless. About your father, who had abandoned you. About all the people who had hurt you.

And about Clark, who had shown you that love didn't have to be conditional. That kindness didn't have to come with strings attached. That you were worthy of being loved.

You thought about how you'd pushed him away. How you'd refused to let him in. How you'd convinced yourself that he would leave, because that's what everyone did.

Because if you let yourself be happy—if you let yourself believe that Clark loved you and that you loved him back—then you'd have something to lose.

And you'd already lost so much. You didn’t want to lose anymore.

Fuck, you didn't know if you could change. You didn't know if you could learn to trust. You didn't know if you could ever be the partner Clark deserved.

But you knew one thing.

You didn't want to live the rest of your life wondering what if.

So you made a decision.

━━━━━━━

Clark had been watching over you.

It seemed only reasonable to him to do.

You were his girl, and he had to push you away for you to find yourself, but that didn't necessarily mean that he would have to keep you far as well.

Everyday after the breakup—no, not breakup, he refused to call it that—every day after the temporary separation, Clark found himself hovering outside your apartment window.

Not in a creepy way, he told himself. In a protective way. In a I-still-love-her-and-need-to-know-she's-okay way.

He'd float there, invisible against the night sky, and watch you move through your space. He'd watch you sit on the couch, staring at nothing. He'd watch you pick up your phone, scroll through your messages, and put it back down. He'd watch you curl into a ball on your bed and gasp until you had nothing left.

And every time, it took every ounce of his willpower not to swoop in and hold you.

She needs space, he reminded himself. She needs to figure this out on her own.

But god, it was hard.

He watched you leave for work in the mornings, your eyes red-rimmed, your shoulders hunched. He watched you walk home at night, your steps slow and heavy. He watched you forget to eat, forget to sleep, forget to take care of yourself.

And he wanted so badly to fix it. To make it better. To wrap you in his arms and tell you that everything was going to be okay.

But he couldn't. Not yet.

So he did the only thing he could do—he stayed close. He made sure you got home safe. He made sure no one bothered you. He made sure that even though you felt alone, you never actually were alone.

She needs to come back on her own, Lois had said. Give her the chance to choose you.

So he waited. And he watched. And he hoped. But of all he believed. 

He knew you, and he knew your heart. So he would wait. And he would watch. Because he hoped. Hoped that you would choose him, just as he chose you.

━━━━━━━

Two weeks.

Fourteen days of watching you fall apart. Fourteen days of wanting to hold you and not being able to. Fourteen days of praying that you'd find your way back to him.

And then one night, he saw something different.

You were pacing your apartment. Back and forth, back and forth, like you were working up to something. Your hands were shaking, and your lips were moving, and you kept stopping in front of the mirror and staring at yourself.

He watched you take a deep breath. Watched you square your shoulders. Watched you walk to your door, grab your keys, and step outside.

His heart stopped.

She's coming.

He didn't wait. He flew back to his apartment, his heart pounding in his chest. He changed out of his suit, ran a hand through his hair, and tried to look like he hadn't been waiting for this moment for the past two weeks.

When the knock came, he took a breath.

And he opened the door.

You stood there, looking like you'd been through hell and back. Your eyes were red, your cheeks tear-streaked, your whole body trembling.

But you were there.

Gosh, you were there.

You took in his appearance, drinking up the face you missed so dearly for two weeks.

He looked tired, but so relieved. There were shadows under his eyes, and his hair was a mess, and he was wearing the same rumpled sweater he'd been wearing the last time you saw him.

But he was there. He was real.

And he was looking at you like you were the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

You opened your mouth, but nothing came out. The words you'd rehearsed were gone, replaced by a jumble of emotions you couldn't name.

You started to cry.

"I'm sorry," you choked out. "I'm so sorry, Clark. I don't even know where to begin. I've been such a jerk to you, and you've been nothing but amazing. Better than amazing—you've been perfect. And I didn't know what to do with that because I didn't think I deserved that kind of love."

"I've spent my whole life believing I was worthless," you continued, the words tumbling out. "My mother told me I was pathetic. My father left without a word. Everyone I've ever loved has treated me like I was nothing. And I believed them. I believed I didn't deserve love."

You wiped at your eyes, but the tears kept coming.

"But you... you showed me something different. You showed me what it felt like to be loved without conditions. To be seen without judgment. To be held without fear."

You took a shuddering breath.

"And I pushed you away. Because I was scared. Because I didn't know how to accept that you actually wanted me. Because I thought it was only a matter of time before you left, just like everyone else."

Clark's eyes were glistening now.

"But I don't want to be scared anymore," you said. "I don't want to spend the rest of my life wondering what if. I want to be with you. I want to learn how to trust. I want to learn how to let you in."

Your voice cracked.

"And I know I don't deserve a second chance. I know I've hurt you. I know I've been awful. But I'm asking anyway. I'm asking because you're the first person who ever made me feel like I was worthy of love. And I don't want to lose that. I don't want to lose you."

You were crying openly now, ugly crying, the kind of crying you thought you'd forgotten how to do.

"I love you," you said. "I love you, Clark. I've loved you for so long, and I was too scared to say it. I'm not scared anymore. Or—I am scared. I'm terrified. But I'm willing to try. For you. For us because I love you, and I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

The silence stretched between you.

Clark stood in the doorway, and for a horrible moment, you thought he was going to close the door. You thought he was going to tell you it was too late.

But then he smiled.

It was small at first, just a twitch at the corner of his mouth. But then it grew, spreading across his face like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. Clark laughed, and it was the most beautiful sound you'd ever heard. He pulled you into his arms, and you let him. You let yourself be held. You let yourself be loved.

You had spent the last couple of weeks waiting for something to happen, although you couldn’t have said what that something was supposed to be. Nothing in your life had changed enough to justify the feeling. Work was still work, your deadlines were still piling up in the same irritating way they always did, your friends were still dragging you out to places you didn’t particularly want to go, and you were still sleeping at whatever hour people who worked in music apparently decided sleep was optional. There was no crisis, no heartbreak, no sudden realization that you had chosen the wrong career and needed to disappear to a cabin somewhere in Vermont. If anything, everything was going suspiciously well. Which, somehow, was making it worse.

You sat on the closed toilet lid in the bathroom of someone’s apartment in Brooklyn, one knee pulled against your chest while the bathroom fan struggled uselessly against the smoke filling the room. Someone had opened the tiny window above the bathtub, but it hadn’t made much of a difference. Three of your friends were crowded around the sink, passing a blunt between them and arguing about whether a guy they had met downstairs was actually attractive or just tall. You had been listening for the last ten minutes, occasionally laughing when you were supposed to, but your attention had drifted somewhere else a while ago.

“You’re not even listening,” Maya said, pointing at you with the blunt.

“I am.”

“What did I just say?”

You looked at her for a second, then glanced at the others as if one of them might have been paying enough attention to rescue you.

“Something about his eyes?”

“See?” Maya said, looking unbearably pleased with herself. “She’s gone.”

“I’m tired.”

“You’ve been tired for three weeks. You’re not even sharing one with us.”

“Well maybe I’ve been tired for three weeks.” You repeated her words like that explained something.

That earned you a round of laughter, all your friends too high to think it was a great joke, although you only smiled before looking down at your phone again. You had been checking it more than usual lately, though you had yet to figure out why. There was always something waiting for you anyway. A producer sending a revision at two in the morning, a manager asking about a session, someone needing lyrics cleaned up before a demo was sent off, or one of the artists you worked with deciding that a song they had collectively abandoned six weeks ago was suddenly the most important thing in the world.

Your own work had become particularly strange lately. You were still writing, obviously, but everything seemed to take longer. You would sit in front of a notebook and know exactly what you wanted a song to feel like without being able to find the right words for it, then spend an hour changing one line and another hour convincing yourself the original had been better. It wasn’t writer’s block. It wasn’t even frustration with the work itself. You simply felt distracted in a way you couldn’t explain.

Maybe you needed a break, maybe you needed to sleep. Or maybe you just needed to stop saying yes every time somebody asked you to go out.. God, you were getting old.

Your phone buzzed in your hand. You glanced at the screen and saw Yoongi’s name.

For a moment, nothing about it felt unusual. You had been working together for a few months now, long enough that late-night messages from him weren’t particularly surprising. His new project was still mostly floating around in pieces, half-written ideas and unfinished melodies that existed in voice notes, scattered documents and whatever you happened to remember after a session. He was still working with his group, too, which meant your schedules were constantly shifting, so your work together tended to happen whenever you could find a few hours that belonged to neither of you.

The message contained a file and nothing else. You stared at it.

You: are you at the studio?

His reply came quickly.

Yoongi: Yeah

You: why

Yoongi: Couldn’t sleep

You smiled faintly, mostly because it was such a typical answer from him.

You: you have a session in the morning

Yoongi: I know

You: a group session

Yoongi: I know

You: so go to sleep

There was a longer pause this time.

Yoongi: got an idea.

You looked at the file he’d sent again, then at the time in the corner of your screen. It was nearly two in the morning.

You: for what? a personal or group project?

Yoongi: I don’t know yet

You could practically hear his voice in the vague little word.

You should have told him to send it tomorrow. You probably should have told him to stop working and go home, because whatever inspiration had decided to show up at two in the morning could survive until breakfast when you were in your paid schedule and sober enough to know what you were thinking about... Instead, you found yourself opening the message again without actually playing the song.

“Who you talking to?” Maya asked.

“Yoongi.”

She hummed. “Your Yoongi?”

You looked up. “He’s not my Yoongi.”

“I didn’t say he was.”

“You literally said ‘your Yoongi.’”

“Because you work with him.”

“Right.”

Maya raised an eyebrow at your defensiveness but wisely decided not to continue.

Your phone buzzed again.

Yoongi: Are you busy tonight?

You glanced around the bathroom, at the smoke, the cramped space, the people talking over each other, and then at the unopened song sitting on your screen… Busy? Not really busy now were you?

A minute later, you were typing before you could think too much about it.

You: i’ll come by.

His response was almost immediate.

Yoongi: okay

Yoongi: I’ll wait for you

That was it. No questions, no surprise, no attempt to talk you out of it and tell you how you should be out on a Friday night instead of working like him…

You slipped your phone into your pocket and stood, brushing imaginary lint from your jeans. “I’m leaving.”

Maya stared at you. “To where?”

“The studio.”

“At two in the morning?”

“Apparently.”

“Why?”

You shrugged, already reaching for the bathroom door. “I’m bored.”

That was true, at least.

It was easier to believe you were leaving because you were bored than to admit that, lately, there was something strangely comforting about the idea of being around Yoongi. Not exciting, not romantic, not anything you could put a name to yet. It was just comforting. You had started noticing that you felt more settled after your sessions, even when you hadn’t actually accomplished much, you had started looking forward to working with him in a way that felt slightly embarrassing considering you spent most of your life complaining about having to work.

Yoongi just gave you a sense of comfort about your work and understood how important was music for you. Working with him had become a pleasure.

Outside the bathroom, the party was louder than you’d remembered. Music shook the walls, someone was laughing loudly in the kitchen, and two people you didn’t recognize were making out against the hallway wall as if they had paid rent there. You found your coat among the pile near the door, waved goodbye to your friends, ignored several attempts to convince you to stay, and stepped outside into the cold Brooklyn night.

The air felt good against your face. You stood on the sidewalk for a moment, pulling your coat tighter around yourself while the noise of the apartment disappeared behind the door. New York was still awake, as usual. Cars passed at the end of the street, a cab slowed near the curb, and somewhere a siren echoed between the buildings before fading into the distance.

You checked your phone again. Nothing from Yoongi. You shoved your hands into your pockets and started walking toward the studio, telling yourself that you were only going because you had nothing better to do.

By the time you got to the studio, the city had gone quiet, the streets were still full of people but the noise had softened into something distant and almost comforting. You let yourself in with the code Yoongi had given you a few weeks ago after the company gave him a studio there. You shrugged off your coat as you walked down the familiar hallway. You had been there enough times now that you didn’t really think about it anymore. The studio had stopped feeling like a place you were visiting for work and started feeling like somewhere you could show up without needing a reason, which was probably why you hadn’t thought twice about coming over at two in the morning.

There was light coming from underneath the studio door. You knocked twice before pushing it open.

Yoongi was sitting on the couch with his laptop balanced on one knee, headphones hanging around his neck and a half-empty cup of coffee sitting on the table beside him. He looked up when you walked in, and for a second his expression was almost surprised, as if he hadn’t actually expected you to come despite having told you to. Then his mouth curved into a small smile.

“You actually came.”

“You told me to.”

“I didn’t tell you to.”

“You sent me a song at two in the morning.”

“I sent you a song.”

“At two in the morning.”

Yoongi nodded thoughtfully, as if you had made an excellent point. “Right, because that’s so different.”

You laughed as you dropped your bag beside the couch. “That’s practically begging.”

“It isn’t!.”

He shifted to make room for you, and you sat down beside him, close enough that you could see the project open on his laptop. There were several tracks stacked across the screen, most of them labeled with names that were barely distinguishable from one another, along with a handful of notes he’d apparently written for himself and then forgotten to make comprehensible for other people.

“So,” you said, leaning forward to look at the screen, “what exactly was so important that you couldn’t sleep?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Great.”

“I said I had an idea.”

“You sent me a twelve-second clip.”

“It’s a good twelve seconds.”

You looked at him and he looked back at you, completely serious.

You laughed again, and he finally smiled properly, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he tried to hide it by looking back at the laptop. You had noticed his smile before, obviously, but you still found it slightly strange how different he looked when he actually let himself grin. Yoongi had a naturally quiet expression, one that could make him seem more intimidating than he really was if you didn’t know him, but when he laughed properly, that entire impression disappeared. His gummy smile made him look almost boyish, and you had already seen it enough times to know that he smiled a lot more than people probably assumed he did.

You had learned that about him over the last few months.

When you’d first started working together, you’d assumed he was going to be difficult to get to know. Not because he’d been unfriendly, but because he seemed like the sort of person who could spend an entire afternoon sitting in silence and genuinely enjoy himself. You had prepared yourself for short answers, long stretches of awkwardness, and having to carry every conversation yourself.

Instead, once he’d gotten comfortable with you, you’d discovered that he talked. A lot.

Yoongi made stupid jokes when sessions got too serious, complained dramatically whenever someone suggested changing a part of a song he liked, sent you random voice notes that had absolutely nothing to do with whatever you were working on, and had somehow developed a habit of asking your opinion on things that had nothing to do with music. He was still quieter around people he didn’t know well, but with you, he seemed to have no problem filling the silence.

You liked that. And you liked working with him, too.

It had actually been one of the first things he’d told you when he’d mentioned wanting to keep working together beyond the album he was currently finishing with his group. A few months earlier, after one of your sessions had run much longer than expected, he’d casually mentioned that he had a lot of unfinished ideas and that, if he eventually put together another solo project— or even if he just wanted to keep making music without necessarily knowing what it would become— he wanted you involved.

“You have a good work ethic,” he’d told you at the time, like it was the simplest explanation in the world. “I like working with people who actually want to finish things.”

You’d laughed because you’d never considered yourself particularly disciplined, but you’d understood what he meant. You were stubborn about your work. If you started something, you wanted to see where it went, even if that meant staying in a studio until three in the morning arguing over one line.

That was how you’d ended up there, months later, with an unfinished album, dozens of half-written songs, and a friendship you hadn’t really expected to make.

And because of that, Yoongi texting you at ridiculous hours wasn’t unusual anymore.

Sometimes he wanted your opinion on a lyric. Sometimes he had a melody he couldn’t place. Sometimes he sent you something at three in the morning with absolutely no explanation and expected you to understand what he meant from context alone. You did the same thing to him. It had become part of the rhythm of working together, and somewhere along the way, the conversations had started lasting longer than the work.

Tonight wasn’t any different. You listened to the melody a few more times, stopping it occasionally to point out something you thought could work better. Yoongi played around with the chords while you hummed different possibilities, and eventually the original twelve seconds had turned into almost a minute of music.

“This part,” you said, pointing at the screen, “feels like it wants to go somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere.” He looked at you. You shrugged. “That’s why I said feels like.”

“You’re very helpful.”

“I came here for free.”

“I didn’t ask you to come.”

“You literally sent me the song like you were begging for help.”

“I sent you the song because I wanted you to hear it.”

“And now I’m here because of those actions.”

“And now you’re complaining.”

“I’m always complaining. Be glad I’m here.”

“I’m glad you’re here.”

You smiled and leaned back into the couch.

For a while, the conversation drifted away from the song entirely. It happened naturally, like it usually did with him. One minute you were talking about the melody, and the next you were telling him about the party you’d just escaped from, complaining about one of your friends and the guy she’d spent the entire night talking about. Yoongi listened with the same amused expression he’d had all evening, occasionally interrupting with a question or making some comment that made you laugh.

“Should we try putting some lyrics?” You grimaced at that. He immediately noticed. “What? Too tired now?”

“Nah. I just don’t know if now I’m able to write a song,” you said with honesty.

“What do you mean?”

With that, you found yourself telling him about the strange feeling you’d been carrying around lately. “I don’t know,” you said, picking at a loose thread on your sleeve. “I’ve just felt weird recently.”

“Weird how?”

You thought about it. “I don’t know. That’s the problem.” He waited. You looked down at your hands. “It’s like I know there’s something I want to write about, but every time I try, it doesn’t sound right. And it’s not even one specific thing. It’s just… this feeling. It’s been there for a couple of weeks.”

“Maybe you’re overthinking it.”

“I always overthink.”

“I know.” You gave him a look but he just smiled. “You do.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m helping.”

“You’re really not.”

He laughed softly, then leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Maybe you just need to force yourself to write it down.”

“Force myself?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry about whether it makes sense. Just write whatever comes into your head.”

“That’s terrible advice.”

“It’s literally how writing works.”

“Not for me.”

“Why not?”

“Because if I know it sucks, I won’t leave it alone until I get it perfect.”

“Just write something that sucks and get it out of your system.”

You laughed under your breath. “That’s easier said than done.”

“You’re a songwriter. You’re allowed to write a bad song.”

“I know.”

“You don’t seem like you know.”

You turned your head toward him. “I won’t write a bad and stupid song!”

Yoongi smiled again, softer this time. “Just try it.”

You looked at him for a moment before nodding. “Fine… Maybe I will.”

The conversation moved on almost immediately. He started telling you about something ridiculous that had happened during a group schedule earlier that week, and you listened, laughing when he exaggerated certain parts of the story. At some point he reached across you for the laptop, his arm brushing lightly against yours as he pulled it closer so he could show you something on the screen.

You looked down at the screen while he explained what he’d been trying to change, his voice close beside you, his shoulder nearly touching yours. You nodded along, half listening before you looked at him.

And something inside you shifted. Not because he’d done anything different. That was the worst part… It was completely ordinary. So ordinary that you didn’t even think about it at first.

He was still Yoongi. Still your coworker, still your friend-ish, still the person who sent you unfinished songs in the middle of the night because he trusted you enough to listen to them before they were ready. He was still the same person you’d been sitting beside for months, the same person whose bad jokes you had started anticipating, the same person whose messages you’d begun answering even when you were busy.

You simply looked at him and suddenly understood why everything had felt strange.

Why you’d been checking your phone. Why his messages had started standing out among all the others. Why you had started looking forward to sessions even when you were exhausted. Why you felt strangely disappointed whenever someone else had his attention. Why leaving the party at two in the morning had seemed like the easiest decision in the world. Why being around him had started feeling like something you needed rather than something you simply enjoyed.

Your stomach dropped.

Oh.

Oh.

You looked away so quickly that Yoongi glanced at you. “What?”

“Nothing.”

He studied your face for another second, clearly noticing something you didn’t, before turning back to the laptop.

“Okay.”

You swallowed and stared at the screen, although you couldn’t tell him what he was showing you anymore. Because suddenly the feeling you’d been trying to write about for weeks didn’t seem so mysterious.

You knew exactly what it was. You just really, really wished you didn’t.

——————————

Realizing you had a crush on someone was embarrassing enough on its own. Realizing you had a crush on someone you worked with was worse. Realizing you had a crush on someone you worked with, actually liked as a person, and had absolutely no intention of doing anything about was, in your professional opinion, humiliating.

You spent the next few days trying very hard not to think about it…. This proved to be considerably more difficult than you had expected.

The problem was that there were too many reasonable explanations for what had happened at the studio that night, and you intended to use every single one of them. You and Yoongi had been working together for months. You had spent countless hours in studios together, usually at unreasonable times, talking about music and life and whatever else happened to come up when you were both too tired to keep pretending you were only there to work. Songwriting was intimate by nature, anyway. You had to be honest about things you would probably never say out loud otherwise, and even when the songs weren’t autobiographical, there was something about sitting beside another person and pulling apart emotions until you found the right words for them that made you feel closer than you probably should.

Maybe that was all it was.

Maybe you’d simply confused intimacy with attraction because you’d been spending too much time with him.

It happened… Probably.

You had read about it somewhere, or maybe you’d invented it to make yourself feel better. Either way, it sounded plausible enough.

And Yoongi was nice. Really nice. He was funny, he listened to you, he respected your work, he remembered stupid little details you mentioned in passing, and he had somehow become one of the easiest people in your life to be around. None of those things necessarily meant you wanted him. They just meant you had a good friendship.

That was normal.

Having a crush on your friend was not. Especially not when your friend happened to be someone you were professionally involved with, someone whose music you were helping shape, someone who trusted your opinion and had made it clear that he wanted to keep working with you beyond the current project. There were lines you didn’t cross simply because you were capable of understanding consequences, and you were, at the very least, supposed to be an adult with a functioning brain.

You were a professional, for God’s sake!

So you decided the best way to deal with the entire thing was to write about it. It was what you always did when you didn’t understand something. You put it on paper until it stopped being yours.

You sat at your desk one evening with a notebook open in front of you and your laptop pushed aside, determined to finally get the strange feeling out of your head. You weren’t going to write a song, exactly. You weren’t even going to write anything good. You just wanted to give the feeling somewhere to exist so it would stop taking up space inside you.

For a while, you stared at the blank page.

Then you finally started writing. You wrote about wanting something you didn’t have a name for. You wrote about how easy it was to mistake familiarity for desire, how spending too much time beside someone could make ordinary things feel important when they weren’t. You wrote about a voice that had become familiar enough that you could recognize it through a crowded room, about hands resting on a piano, about someone laughing when they were trying not to, about the strange comfort of knowing somebody would answer if you called them at an unreasonable hour….

The more you wrote, the more obvious it became that you were writing around the thing rather than about it, carefully avoiding the center of whatever you’d been trying to understand. So you kept it vague. You turned it into a poem instead, something distant enough that you could pretend it belonged to somebody else.

By the time you reached the final lines, you were almost annoyed with yourself. You stared at the page for a moment, then wrote the last sentence.

But maybe it isn’t anything at all.

You looked at it. That was good. That was exactly what you wanted. You added one more line underneath it.

But maybe it is only a feeling, and feelings passed.

Then you put the pen down.

There. Problem solved.

You tore the page out, folded it twice without really looking at what you’d written, and threw it into the trash beside your desk. You sat back in your chair and let out a quiet breath, suddenly convinced that you’d just performed some sort of emotional surgery on yourself.

It wasn’t important, it was just a crush. A stupid, inconvenient, temporary crush. You could handle that. And if you ignored it long enough, eventually it would disappear…

A few days later, you found yourself back at the studio with Yoongi and the rest of the group.

The session had been much more crowded than the ones you usually had with him, mostly because they were working on something together and you had been asked to help with a few sections. It was different seeing Yoongi around the others. He was louder, more animated, constantly interrupting someone or laughing at something happening on the other side of the room, and every once in a while you caught yourself watching him before remembering that you had promised yourself you weren’t going to do that anymore.

You were doing very well… Mostly.

By the time the session wrapped up, it was late enough that everyone was starting to gather their things. You were slipping your notebook into your bag when Yoongi looked over from the computer.

“You’re leaving?”

You glanced at him. “Yeah.”

He nodded toward the screen. “Can you stay for a bit? I want to fix something and I could use another opinion.”

You hesitated for approximately five seconds. “Um, yeah. Sure.”

Totally normal.

You were coworkers. Friends, technically. People who worked together. Nothing unusual about staying late at a studio with him. You were very normal about this.

You sat down on the opposite end of the couch, leaving what you considered a perfectly reasonable amount of space between you. Yoongi looked at you for a second, then went back to the computer. You tried to focus on the track, you really did. Unfortunately, your brain had apparently decided that now was the ideal time to become hyperaware of every single thing about him. The sound of his voice, the way his fingers moved across the keyboard, the little crease that appeared between his eyebrows when he concentrated. You became painfully conscious of the fact that he was sitting only a few feet away.

This was ridiculous.

You shifted farther toward the edge of the couch.

Yoongi looked over. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“Why are you sitting over there?”

“I like this part of the couch.” He stared at you and you looked around trying to ignore his eyes.

Yoongi seemed unconvinced but didn’t say anything. Instead, he turned back to the computer, played the section he’d been working on, and asked what you thought.

You listened carefully, giving him a few suggestions, and slowly the tension in your shoulders began to disappear. It was strange how quickly that happened around him. Within twenty minutes, you were back to normal, arguing about a lyric and laughing when he insisted one of your suggestions was “objectively terrible.”

“You’re the one who asked me.”

“I regret it.”

“You always regret asking me shit”

“Because you’re mean.”

“You can handle it.”

Yoongi didn’t directly looked at you. He only smiled behind his fingers before shaking his head. “See? Mean.”

You smiled despite yourself.

The rest of the evening passed almost exactly like every other session you’d had together. The work became less important as the hours went on, conversations drifting from music to food to his schedule and then somehow to a story about one of his members that made you laugh so hard you had to put your head down on the table.

You forgot, for a while, that you were supposed to be worried about liking him.

You realized that was the thing with Yoongi. He made it too easy to forget. There was something calming about being around him that you hadn’t fully appreciated until recently. You could sit beside him without talking and it didn’t feel awkward. You could complain about something stupid and he would listen without making you feel stupid for complaining. He never seemed to expect you to perform a particular version of yourself around him. You could be tired, irritated, sarcastic, quiet, distracted, and he treated all of it like it was normal.

By the time you finally looked at the clock, it was well past midnight.

“Oh, shit.”

Yoongi glanced over. “What?”

“It’s late.”

He checked the time too. “Yeah.”

“I’m going home. I have an early session tomorrow.”

“Okay.” Yoongi didn’t seem bothered by it. He simply saved the project and started shutting things down while you gathered your things.

“You staying?”

“Probably.”

“You should sleep.”

“I’ll do that eventually.”

“That’s why people always complain when you fall asleep in random places.”

“I’m trying to survive.”

You rolled your eyes. “Barely.” He smiled. You put your coat on and slung your bag over your shoulder, lingering for a second longer than necessary before finally heading toward the door “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight. Get home safe.”

You walked out before you could think too much about the fact that you’d spent another night with him and survived.

See? It wasn’t that bad.

Maybe you’d exaggerated everything in your head. Maybe the crush really was just a crush, something small and harmless that had appeared because you’d been spending too much time together. Maybe you could simply acknowledge it without doing anything about it and eventually it would disappear on its own.

By the time you got home, you were almost completely convinced.

You changed into your pajamas, washed your face, crawled into bed and stared at the ceiling for a while, thinking about absolutely nothing in particular.

Except, unfortunately, you thought about Yoongi.

You remembered his laugh. Then the way he’d smiled when you’d made that stupid comment about him handling when you were mean. You remembered his hand resting on the edge of the laptop. His fingers on his lips. His voice. The way he’d looked at you when you were leaving….

Stop!

You closed your eyes. It wasn’t a big deal, it was just a crush. You could live with a crush!

Eventually, you fell asleep.

And sometime in the middle of the night, your brain decided that all of your careful reasoning had been completely irrelevant. What usually ended up with dreams about future lyrics or anxious thoughts over what will you be working on tomorrow… it all changed suddenly. Now you dreamed about him.

Not about music, or work, or some vague version of him sitting beside you in the studio. You dreamed about his mouth. His hands. The warmth of him standing close enough that you could feel his breath against your skin. You dreamed about his long fingers brushing against yours, against your mouth this time, you dreamed about looking up at him and somehow knowing exactly what was going to happen before he leaned down and kissed you.

It felt real enough that when you woke up, you heart was already beating way too fast.

Your eyes opened fast. You lay completely still, staring at the ceiling, your heart pounding so hard it felt ridiculous. Your skin was hot, your hair was sticking to your forehead, and you were breathing like you’d just run several blocks.

You covered your face with both hands. “Oh, God.”

You stayed like that for another moment, desperately hoping that if you didn’t acknowledge what had just happened, it would somehow stop being real. It didn’t. You dropped your hands and stared into the darkness of your bedroom.

You groaned and pulled the blanket over your face.

You didn’t just have a crush on Yoongi. You were falling in love with him.

This was going to be a problem.

——————————

The worst thing about realizing you’re falling in love with someone was that, eventually, you had to admit you were falling.

There was no pretending it was a crush anymore, not after the dream, not after the way you’d spent the following morning thinking about him before you’d even properly opened your eyes, and definitely not after you caught yourself checking your phone three separate times before breakfast in the hope that he might have messaged you. You had crossed some invisible line somewhere between one late-night studio session and the next, and now you were on the other side of it, looking back at the person you’d been a few weeks ago and wondering how she’d managed to be so blissfully unaware.

You were falling in love with Yoongi.

It was a ridiculous thing to know about yourself with such certainty.

You tried avoiding him at first, mostly because you thought distance would help. You told yourself that if you stopped accepting every invitation to the studio, stopped replying immediately when he sent you something, stopped finding reasons to linger after sessions, the feeling would eventually become less intense. It was a sensible plan. Mature, even. You could give yourself some room to breathe and allow your brain to remember that he was a person you worked with and cared about, not the center of the universe you’d somehow made him into.

The problem was that you didn’t actually want to avoid him.

That was the part you couldn’t seem to explain away.

You could spend an entire afternoon convincing yourself that you needed to create boundaries, and then your phone would light up with his name and you’d find yourself smiling before you’d even opened the message. If he asked whether you were free later, you were free. If he mentioned that he was going to be at the studio, you somehow found a reason to be there too. If he sent you a song, you listened to it immediately, even when you were in the middle of something else. You wanted to know what he was working on, what he was eating, whether he’d slept, whether the ridiculous story he’d told you about one of his members had actually ended the way he’d claimed it did. You wanted the insignificant pieces of his life just as much as the important ones, which was perhaps the clearest indication that this had stopped being a simple attraction a long time ago.

You wanted time with him. You wanted all of it.

And there was something humiliating about knowing that while simultaneously having no idea whether he wanted the same thing.

That was the worst part. You could spend hours trying to interpret every little thing he did, but there was no way of knowing what any of it actually meant. Yoongi was affectionate with people he cared about. He was attentive. He remembered things. He listened when you spoke. He had a way of making people feel like they were the only person in the room when they had his attention, and because you had become one of the people he trusted, you couldn’t tell whether the things that made your stomach flip were simply the way he treated his friends.

Sometimes you’d catch him looking at you across the studio and immediately wonder what he’d been thinking. Maybe he was wondering whether you’d finished the lyrics. Maybe he’d noticed that you were staring at him first. Maybe he was thinking about something completely unrelated.

You wished you could read his mind. You wished you could sit inside his head for five minutes and find out what he thought of you.

Not even what he felt romantically, necessarily. You wanted to know how he described you when someone asked about you. You wanted to know whether he considered you a close friend or simply someone he enjoyed working with. You wanted to know whether he ever thought about you when you weren’t around, whether he ever saw something during his day and instinctively wanted to tell you about it, whether your name ever appeared on his phone and made him feel the same small rush of happiness that his name caused in you.

Mostly, you wanted to know what he would say if he knew.

Because sometimes you imagined telling him. Not actually telling him, obviously. That would have been insane. But you’d imagine sitting across from him after a session and finally saying, I think I have feelings for you.

Then you’d imagine his face.

Would he laugh because he’d already known? Would he go quiet? Would he look uncomfortable? Would he tell you that he’d never thought about you that way? Would he say something kind because Yoongi was incapable of being cruel even when he had every reason to be? Would everything suddenly become awkward between you?

That last possibility was the one that scared you most. Because whatever you were feeling, whatever had happened inside your head over the past few weeks, what existed between you and Yoongi already felt like something worth protecting.

You didn’t know exactly when the two of you had become friends.

There hadn’t been a moment where either of you had announced it. You had simply started knowing things about each other. You knew what kind of coffee he preferred when he was tired and what kind of coffee he ordered when he was pretending he wasn’t tired. You knew which songs he was proud of and which ones he refused to play for anyone until they were finished. You knew when he was genuinely annoyed and when he was pretending to be annoyed because he wanted you to argue with him. You knew that he talked more when he was comfortable, that he got quieter when something was actually bothering him, and that his laughter changed depending on how funny he found something.

Yoongi knew things about you too.

He knew when you were lying about being tired. He knew which parts of your writing you were insecure about. He knew that you hated being interrupted when you were trying to tell a funny story and that you tended to tap your fingers against whatever surface was closest whenever you were thinking.

None of it was extraordinary but, somehow, it was everything.

One afternoon, you were sitting across from him in the studio while he worked through a melody, and you caught yourself watching his hands instead of the screen. He noticed after a while. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“You keep staring.”

“I’m thinking.”

“About?”

“The song.” He looked at you skeptically. You held his gaze for a second before smiling. “I’m allowed to think.”

“I know. I’m just curious what you’re thinking about.”

You almost told him. The answer was sitting right there, painfully obvious, and for one terrifying second you wondered what would happen if you just said it.

You.

Instead, you pointed at the laptop. “I think the second verse needs something.”

He nodded and turned back to the screen. You breathed again.

Another time, he sent you a message asking if you wanted to grab food before a session. You spent the entire walk there wondering if he’d asked anyone else or if he’d thought specifically of you. When you arrived, he had already ordered something for you because he remembered what you liked.

You stared at the food. “How did you know I wanted this?.”

Yoongi looked up from his phone. “I think by now I pretty much know everything you like.”

It was such a simple answer but you didn’t like how much it affected you.

“Right. We are spending a lot of time together.”

He smiled. “We are.”

You wanted to ask him what he thought about that.

You wanted to know whether remembering you was something he did without thinking because he knew you well, or whether there was some part of him that actively paid attention to you in the same way you paid attention to him.

But you didn’t ask, you never asked. You became an expert at almost asking.

You’d start a sentence and change it halfway through. You’d look at him for a second too long and then pretend you were distracted. You’d find yourself wondering what would happen if you leaned closer, then immediately move away as if your body had betrayed you.

And Yoongi never seemed to notice… Or maybe he did.

That was the other thing driving you insane.

Sometimes you’d catch a look on his face that you couldn’t interpret, something quiet and thoughtful that disappeared before you could decide what it meant. Sometimes he seemed to anticipate what you were going to say before you said it. Sometimes he’d look at you for a little longer than necessary, and you’d spend the rest of the night wondering if you’d imagined it.

You wanted to ask him. God, you wanted to ask him so bad. But every time you came close to the idea, you remembered what you already had.

This new friendship, those stupid late-night messages. The jokes that weren’t funny enough to justify how hard you laughed at them. The comfortable silence. The way you could walk into a room where he was and immediately feel less tired.

You had spent your entire life believing that knowing whether someone loved you was the most important part of loving them. Now you weren’t so sure. Because the more you thought about it, the more you realized that even if someone could guarantee that Yoongi didn’t feel the same way, you still wouldn’t want to lose him.

You would still want to sit beside him in the studio. You would still want to hear all his unfinished songs. You would still want him to send you ridiculous messages at two in the morning. You would still want to know what made him laugh, what annoyed him, what he was thinking when he stared at the ceiling after a long session. You would still want to be his friend… And maybe that was what frightened you most.

You had always thought love was supposed to make you want more.

More time, more certainty, more closeness, more of the person until eventually you couldn’t imagine being satisfied with anything less. But with Yoongi, wanting more didn’t make you want less of what you already had. You wanted him desperately, yes, but you also wanted to keep the exact relationship you had with him now, even if it meant carrying this ridiculous, aching secret for as long as you had to.

Maybe that was love too. Maybe love was wanting someone so badly that you were willing to let them remain exactly where they were, simply because having them in your life was better than having nothing at all.

So you stopped trying to figure him out. Not completely, of course. You were still curious. You still wondered sometimes what he would say if he knew, still caught yourself studying his expression when he looked at you, still wished you could reach into his mind and steal one honest thought about yourself.

But you stopped needing the answer. Because whatever Yoongi thought about you, whatever he might or might not feel, there was one thing you already knew. He was your friend. And you loved him.

And for now, that was enough.

——————————

You had written three versions of the same chorus, hated all three, deleted two of them, and were currently staring at the third one as if looking at it long enough might make the words rearrange themselves into something worth keeping… They didn’t.

The cursor blinked at the end of the line, patiently waiting for you to figure out what came next. You played the melody again, fingers moving absentmindedly over the keys while the piano filled the studio with something soft and unfinished, and the moment the chorus came around you made a frustrated noise and stopped playing altogether.

“God, this is so stupid.”

You leaned back in your chair and rubbed both hands over your face.

The problem wasn’t that you didn’t have anything to say. You had too much. And that’s what made it so unbearable. For the first time in your life, you understood what it meant to have a feeling that was bigger than your vocabulary. You had spent years turning emotions into songs. Heartbreak, jealousy, loneliness, desire, grief, infatuation, all of it had always been manageable once you had a melody and enough time alone with a blank page. You could take something messy and private and turn it into three minutes of words that made sense.

But this was different. Every line sounded too small. Every metaphor felt embarrassing. Every attempt at describing what you felt seemed almost insulting to the feeling itself, as if reducing it to a lyric made it less true. You had written about someone’s hands and deleted it because it sounded too obvious. You had written about someone’s laugh and immediately hated yourself for how sentimental it looked on the page. You had tried writing about wanting to be around someone all the time and decided it sounded like something a seventeen-year-old would put in their diary.

Nothing worked, nothing came close.

You played the chorus one more time, grimaced, and started pushing two notes with anger making the piano sound horrible.

“Stupid ass song. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you—”

The studio door opened behind you.

“If you break it you’re gonna pay it.”

You turned your head, stopping your tantrum. Yoongi stood in the doorway, one hand still on the handle, looking at you with a small smile. You stared at him for a second before turning back toward the piano. “Hi.”

“Hi.” He closed the door behind him and walked farther into the room. You heard him move around behind you, followed by the quiet sound of him dropping his things somewhere near the couch. You didn’t turn around again. You were too busy pretending that the last thing you’d said hadn’t been heard. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Working.”

“Doesn’t look like it.”

“I’m working badly.”

“Ah. Makes more sense.”

You heard the couch creak as he sat down behind you.

For a moment, neither of you said anything. You adjusted one of the controls on the equipment in front of you even though there was nothing wrong with it, then played a few notes without really listening to them. Yoongi didn’t interrupt. That was something you’d learned about him. He never rushed you when you were struggling to explain something. He didn’t fill silence just because it existed. He seemed perfectly comfortable letting you take your time, even when you were obviously trying to figure out how to say something.

Eventually, he spoke again. “What’s wrong with it?”

You sighed. “Everything.”

“Be more specific for me.”

“I’ve been trying to finish this for hours and I can’t.”

“Why? What’s it about?”

You hesitated. Then you shrugged, pretending like it wasn’t something big. “Love.”

There was a small pause behind you. “Love?”

“Yeah.”

“Since when do you write love songs?”

You turned your head slightly, just enough to look at him over your shoulder. “I’ve written love songs.”

“You’ve written songs that sounded like love songs.”

“That’s the same thing.”

“No.”

You narrowed your eyes at him and he smiled. You turned back around, trying not to smile yourself. “Whatever.”

He was quiet again for a moment. “So what’s different about this one?”

You stared at the keyboard. You could have lied and you almost did. Instead, you said, “I’m trying to write how I feel about someone. How I’m… in love with someone.”

The words felt strange as soon as they left your mouth. Not because you hadn’t admitted it to yourself. You had. You’d spent weeks thinking about it, arguing with yourself about it, trying to write it away and failing spectacularly. But saying it aloud made it real in a way thinking about it never had.

Behind you, Yoongi was silent.

“Oh.”

You couldn’t see his face. But didn’t turn around anyway. For some reason that made it easier for you.

You watched the little light blinking on the equipment in front of you while you continued, your voice quieter now. “I thought I could just write about it, because that’s what I do when I’m overwhelmed about my feelings… But I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

You rested your elbows on the desk and leaned forward. “Everything I write sounds stupid. I keep trying to describe it and it just feels…” You searched for the word. “Wrong.”

“Wrong how?”

“Too small.” He didn’t say anything. You swallowed. “It’s like I know what I feel, but I don’t know how to explain it. And that’s never happened to me before.”

Yoongi hummed quietly, thoughtful rather than judgmental.

“Maybe you’re trying too hard to explain it.”

You frowned at the screen. “What does that mean?”

“Maybe you don’t have to explain the feeling.” You looked over your shoulder again. Yoongi was still sitting behind you, relaxed against the couch, his attention on you even though you weren’t facing him properly. “You always try to make everything make sense,” he continued. “Maybe this doesn’t have to.”

“But it’s a love song.”

“I know.”

“So it has to make sense.”

“Does it?” You opened your mouth to argue but nothing came out. Yoongi smiled faintly at that. “You could just write what happened.”

“Nothing happened.”

“Something happened.”

“No, I mean…” You sighed. “Nothing happened between us.”

That earned a brief silence. You hadn’t intended to emphasize the us. You immediately wished you hadn’t.

Yoongi didn’t comment on it but instead, he asked, “So what happened to you?”

You looked down at your hands. “I just started feeling differently.”

“About them?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

You laughed softly. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

“Maybe you don’t need to.” You looked at him again. He shrugged. “Maybe you just like them.”

“Him. I love him.”

The words came out too quickly. You froze in place for a long second. It was the first time you had said it out loud. You loved him.

Yoongi didn’t say anything for a second. “Okay.”

You looked back at the keyboard. You weren’t sure why saying it in front of him made your chest feel so tight. You wanted to throw up so badly. Maybe because you’d never told anyone. Maybe because you’d spent so much time trying to convince yourself that it wasn’t serious, and hearing yourself say I love him made every excuse you’d invented seem ridiculous.

Yoongi’s voice was gentle when he spoke again. “Does he know?”

You shook your head. “No.”

“Are you going to tell him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why not?”

You smiled bitterly. “He’s my friend.”

“So?”

“And we work together.”

“That’s complicated.”

“Exactly.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then he asked, “Do you think he’ll be upset?”

You thought about it. “No.”

“Then what’s stopping you?”

“I don’t want to lose what we have.” There was something about the silence that followed that made you feel as though he’d understood more than you’d actually said. You kept your eyes on the keyboard. “I really like what we have now,” you admitted. “They’re one of the few people that understands me. I don’t want to risk that just because I decided to develop feelings.”

“You can’t really control that.”

“I know.”

“Then maybe you don’t have to do anything.”

You looked over your shoulder. Yoongi was already looking at you. You couldn’t quite read his expression from the angle, but there was something soft about it, something that made you look away again before you could think too much about it.

“Have you ever felt like that?” you asked.

“Like what?”

“Like you loved someone and didn’t know what to do with it.”

He considered the question. “Yeah.”

You turned slightly in your chair, just to see him properly. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“When?”

He smiled a little, looking at the other side of the room now. “A while ago.”

“Did you tell them?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t want to make things complicated.”

You stared at him. For a second, you wondered if he was talking about someone specific. You didn’t ask, you didn’t want to know really . Instead, you looked back at the piano and said, “So we’re both idiots.”

Yoongi laughed quietly. “Maybe.”

You smiled. The tension you’d been carrying in your shoulders seemed to loosen a little. There was something comforting about knowing that he understood, even if you had no idea whether his experience had anything to do with yours. He didn’t try to convince you to confess. He didn’t tell you that you were being stupid. He simply listened, offering small pieces of advice when you needed them and leaving everything else alone.

Eventually, you played the song again. This time, you didn’t try to fix the words. You let the melody run while you listened to it, thinking about what he’d said. Maybe you didn’t need to explain everything. Maybe the feeling could exist without being perfectly translated. Maybe the song didn’t have to capture all of it, maybe it didn’t have to be the greatest melody or the most heartfelt lyrics.

Maybe it could just be a stupid song.

“That part,” Yoongi said from behind you, “is good.”

You glanced back. “Which part?”

“The melody of the chorus.”

“It’s unfinished.”

“I know.”

You smiled. “It’s still bad.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“Wow. High praise.”

“I’m serious.”

You turned back toward the piano, trying not to smile too much.

For another few minutes, you worked quietly while Yoongi sat behind you. He didn’t offer more advice unless you asked for it, and eventually you realized that you weren’t struggling quite as much as you had been before he’d walked in.

When you finally stopped playing, you leaned back in your chair.

“I think I’m done for tonight.”

“Good.” You heard him stand. He walked around the chair and stopped beside you, looking down at the notes scattered across your desk. You expected him to say something about the song, but instead he simply looked at you. “You got this.”

You smiled tiredly. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Then he reached down and gave your shoulder a gentle squeeze, the kind of casual gesture you’d seen him make countless times before, and stepped away. It shouldn’t have meant anything. It was just Yoongi being Yoongi. You watched him grab his things and head toward the door. “Goodnight,” he said.

“Goodnight.”

The door closed behind him. You stayed in your chair for a while, staring at the empty doorway.

When you turned back toward the piano and looked at the unfinished song for once you didn’t hate it. It still wasn’t enough to say everything you felt. But maybe that was okay. Maybe some things weren’t meant to fit neatly into three minutes of music.

——————————

By the time dinner started, you had almost convinced yourself that you were doing better.

Not better in the sense that you had stopped loving Yoongi, because you weren’t delusional enough to think a few days of trying not to think about him could undo months of growing closer. But you’d gotten better at carrying it. You could sit beside him without analyzing every word he said. You could listen to him talk about music without wondering whether every opinion he gave you had some hidden meaning. You could leave a studio after spending four hours with him and make it all the way home without replaying every second of the evening in your head.

You were learning how to live with it… Which was why it was particularly unfair that the universe had apparently decided to test you at dinner.

It was supposed to be an easy night. Nothing formal, nothing work-related, just a group of friends getting together at a restaurant in Manhattan because it had been too long since everyone had been in the same place at the same time. You had arrived in a good mood, genuinely excited to see everyone, and for the first hour or so, you had almost forgotten that you were supposed to be worried about anything at all.

Yoongi was sitting across from you, laughing at something one of the others had said, and every once in a while you’d catch his eye from across the table. He’d smile, you’d smile back, and then you’d go back to whatever conversation was happening beside you.

It felt normal and comfortable… Until she arrived.

You had known who she was long before you’d ever met her. Most people in the industry did. She was a well-known producer, someone who had worked with Yoongi for years, long before you’d ever been introduced to him, and their history together was one of those things people seemed to know without ever knowing exactly what was true. There had been rumors about them dating years ago, speculation that had never really disappeared despite neither of them ever confirming anything. They were close, obviously. They had worked together for years, understood each other’s music almost instinctively, and had the kind of familiarity that came from knowing someone long before anyone else had a reason to pay attention.

It didn’t bother you at the start. Even before you had feelings for Yoongi, you’d noticed them. You’d noticed the way she could interrupt him without apologizing. You’d noticed how easily they fell into conversations that nobody else at the table could follow. You’d noticed the way he laughed around her, the way she leaned toward him when she spoke, the way he sometimes looked at her like he already knew what she was going to say.

It had never mattered before. Or at least, you’d never had a reason to let it matter. Now, sitting across the table and watching her lean closer to him as they talked, you felt something inside you quietly collapse.

It wasn’t even anything dramatic. She said something you couldn’t hear over the conversation happening around you, and Yoongi laughed, lowering his head for a moment as she nudged his arm. She laughed too, covering her mouth with her hand, and then she leaned closer again so she could say something else.

You looked away so quickly it made you dizzy for a second.

You tried to keep eating. You tried to listen to the person beside you talking about something that had happened at work, nodding at the right moments and making the occasional comment, but your attention kept drifting back to the other side of the table.

You hated yourself for noticing every little thing. You hated that it was bothering you. Most of all, you hated that you didn’t have the right to care.

Yoongi wasn’t yours. He had never been yours.

He hadn’t promised you anything, hadn’t led you on, hadn’t done anything wrong. He was sitting at dinner with a friend and talking to someone he’d known for years. There was nothing inappropriate about it, nothing you could point to and say there, that’s the problem. The problem was you. You were the one who had fallen in love with him without permission. You were the one who had started wanting things you had no claim to.

By the time the main courses had been cleared, you were barely participating in the conversation anymore. Your mood had gone from bright to flat so gradually that nobody seemed to notice. You weren’t angry, you weren’t even exactly sad, you simply didn’t feel like pretending anymore.

When someone suggested ordering dessert, you shook your head.

“I’m good. I think I’m probably going to head out.”

Several people immediately looked at you. “Already?”

“Yeah. I’m really tired.”

It was a terrible excuse. You knew it. Yoongi knew it too. He had looked at you the moment you said it, his expression changing slightly as he studied your face. “Hey. You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“You sure?”

“Just really tired.”

He didn’t argue about that. You said your goodbyes, hugged a couple of people, and slipped your coat on. You were almost at the door when you heard footsteps behind you.

“Hey. I’ll take you home.”

You turned around and Yoongi was already reaching for his coat. “Oh, you don’t need to. I’m taking a cab.”

“It’s safer if I take you home.”

“It’s just a car. I can’t take a taxi by myself. You were having a great time here I don’t want to bother you.”

You stared at him, starting to get a little irritated. Yoongi stared back. “I’m taking you home.” There was something so matter-of-fact about the way he said it that arguing seemed pointless.

“You really don’t have to.”

“I know.”

You sighed, already feeling exhausted. “Fine.”

The drive started quietly.

You sat in the co-pilot seat looking out the window while Manhattan passed by in streaks of light, your hands folded in your lap. Yoongi drove with one hand on the steering wheel, the other resting near the center console, and for several minutes neither of you said anything. Which actually made you a little glad, you didn’t want to talk at all.

Eventually, he turned the music down a little bit.

“Was dinner bad?”

“No.”

“You didn’t even wanted to stay for dessert. That’s when the conversation gets better.”

“I guess I’m really tired.”

“Yeah. You’ve said that twice.” You looked out the window. Yoongi didn’t push. Instead, he tried something else. “Did something happen?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

You could tell from his voice that he didn’t believe you. You didn’t blame him, you weren’t doing a great job either trying to hide your frustration.

The silence returned and you watched the city outside, trying to settle the uncomfortable feeling in your chest. You didn’t want to talk about it. You didn’t want to lie to him, either. There was no version of the conversation where you could explain why you’d suddenly become miserable without saying something you weren’t ready to say… so you stayed quiet.

After a few more minutes, Yoongi spoke again. “You know you can tell me if something’s bothering you.”

Your throat tightened. You wanted to cry so bad it felt almost pathetic. “I know.”

“Okay.” He left it there. A few blocks later, he glanced at you. “Did I do something?”

You turned toward him. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

He nodded, but you could see that he was thinking. You looked back out the window. He didn’t ask again. That somehow didn’t make it better. You knew he was giving you space, but you also knew he was paying attention. He wasn’t going to force you to talk, but he wasn’t going to pretend he hadn’t noticed either.

When he eventually pulled up outside your building, you unbuckled your seatbelt. “Thanks for driving me.”

“Of course.” You reached for the door but eh called again. “Hey.” You paused and looked back at him. Yoongi was already looking at you. “If you change your mind…” You waited and he smiled faintly. “You know where to find me.”

You were supposed to complete the inside joke with ‘At the studio. As always’. Instead you nodded at him slightly before looking away. “Goodnight.” You stepped out of the car and closed the door.

You were halfway to the entrance when the window rolled down. “Hey!” You turned and Yoongi was watching you with that same patient expression. “You really were quiet tonight.”

You shrugged weakly, not knowing exactly what to say. “I guess.”

“You don’t have to be.”

You stared at Yoongi but he didn’t elaborate. He didn’t need to.

For a second, you wondered if he knew. Not everything, surely. Not the extent of it. Not the fact that watching another woman laugh with him had made something inside you ache so badly you’d wanted to disappear. He couldn’t possibly know that… Could he?

You smiled faintly, because you didn’t know what else to do. “Goodnight, Yoongi.”

He held your gaze for another second before nodding. “Goodnight, Y/n.”

The window rolled back up and you walked inside.

You didn’t see him leave. You didn’t see the way Yoongi stayed parked for another minute, staring at the entrance you’d disappeared through, or the small sigh that escaped him as he finally started the car again. You didn’t know that he’d recognized the look on your face the moment she had sat beside him. He had noticed the way you’d gone quiet. He had noticed the way you’d stopped laughing. He had noticed that every time he looked across the table, your eyes were somewhere else.

He had even wondered, for a brief moment, whether he should move away from her. Not because there was anything between them, there wasn’t. There hasn’t been anyone… for a very long time. But because he’d started understanding you well enough to know that sometimes you needed things to be said without actually asking for them.

Yoongi hadn’t known whether you’d wanted him to move. So he’d waited. He would keep waiting. Not indefinitely, perhaps, but patiently. Because he wasn’t interested in guessing games, and he wasn’t interested in making you jealous just to see what you’d do. He stopped guessing and trying to read your mind the second he saw that look on you three months ago. The one he could recognize immediately because he had been wearing it for months before you even had the chance to wonder.

That’s why Yoongi didn’t want to manipulate whatever you were feeling into becoming something you weren’t ready to admit. He simply wanted you to know that if there was something you wanted to say, you could say it… And if there wasn’t, he would still be there.

That was the difficult part about caring for someone who hadn’t caught up to you yet. You couldn’t drag them there. You could only leave the door open and hope, eventually, they decided to walk through it.

——————————

It was insane how much you could think about one person.

You had always assumed there was a limit. A reasonable amount of time a human being could spend thinking about another human being before their brain simply became bored and moved on to something else. Apparently, you had been wrong, because Yoongi had managed to occupy an unreasonable amount of your thoughts without even being there.

It had gotten particularly bad over the last few weeks. His group had been busy promoting their new album, which meant their schedules had become impossible, and your usual late-night sessions had almost completely disappeared. You had seen him only a handful of times, usually briefly, usually surrounded by other people, and your conversations had been reduced to messages sent between schedules. Sometimes he’d send you a song or a voice note, sometimes you’d send him something you’d been working on, and every once in a while you’d manage to have an actual conversation that lasted longer than five minutes.

It shouldn’t have been enough to make you miss him but it was.

You missed him in embarrassingly specific ways. You missed hearing him complain about songs he was the one who had written. You missed the way he’d lean back in his chair and close his eyes when he was listening to a new melody. You missed his stupid jokes and the way he’d pretend to be offended whenever you told him one of his ideas was terrible. You missed sitting in the same room with him without having to talk at all.

You even missed his messages. That was when you knew you had a problem. You had started sleeping badly too, which would have been easier to blame on work if your dreams hadn’t become increasingly inconvenient. Yoongi had somehow managed to make an appearance in your subconscious often enough that you were beginning to resent your own brain for its lack of boundaries. You could go an entire day without seeing him and then wake up the next morning having dreamed about him as if you’d spent the entire night with him.

It was exhausting and very humiliating. But, worst of all, there wasn’t really anything you could do about it. You couldn’t exactly call him and say, Hey, I’m thinking about you so much that my own dreams have become a hostile environment.

… So you worked. You worked until late nights and early morning, because work was at least something you could control.

And one nigh, by the time you finally shut down your laptop and started gathering your things, the studio was almost empty. You stretched your arms above your head, rolled your shoulders and checked your phone before slipping it into your bag. Nothing from Yoongi. That was totally fine. You haven’t heard from him in three day, you could live like that… Yeah, you were lying.

You had just reached the hallway when you nearly walked straight into him.

You stopped so abruptly that your bag swung against your hip. Yoongi looked up from his phone. For a second, neither of you said anything.

You blinked confused. “What are you doing here?”

He smiled. “Hi to you too.”

“Hi.” You looked at him again, as if there was a chance you’d somehow mistaken him for someone else. “You’re supposed to be on promotions.”

“I am.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Finished early.”

“Oh.”

It was ridiculous how much relief you felt at seeing him. You tried very hard not to let it show, although you weren’t sure you succeeded.

He looked tired. Not exhausted, exactly, but there were faint shadows beneath his eyes, and his hair looked like he’d run his hands through it too many times during the day. He was still wearing the clothes he’d had on for his schedule, and something about seeing him like that, still carrying the evidence of a long day, made the familiar ache in your chest return.

“You just finished?” you asked.

“Yeah.”

“And you’re going to work?”

He glanced toward the studio. “I was going to.” You waited as he lazily shrugged. “Don’t really feel like it anymore.”

You raised an eyebrow. “You came all the way here to not work?”

“I guess.” There was something almost amused about the way he said it. You didn’t think too much about it. He looked at the bag hanging from your shoulder. “You’re leaving?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you eaten?”

You hesitated. “Not really.”

“Do you want to?” You looked at him. He nodded toward the elevator. “I mean, I’m hungry. Could use some company.”

There was no reason to say no. “Sure.”

His gummy smile appeared almost immediately. “Okay.”

You followed him toward the elevator, trying not to think about how stupidly happy you suddenly felt.

And if dinner was supposed to be quick, it clearly wasn’t.

You ended up at a small restaurant a few blocks away, sitting across from each other at a table near the window while the city moved around you. It wasn’t particularly fancy, and neither of you seemed interested in making it anything more than what it was. You ordered food, Yoongi complained about how hungry he was, you made fun of him for acting as though he’d been stranded in the wilderness, and within ten minutes you had fallen back into the rhythm you hadn’t realized you’d been missing so badly.

You had almost forgotten how easy it was with him.

He told you about his promotions, about how chaotic the schedules had been, about one of the members nearly falling asleep during a waiting period and another one stealing his food. You laughed at all the parts you’d already heard through messages, mostly because the stories were funnier when he told them himself.

“You look tired,” you said.

“I am.”

“You should sleep more.”

“I’ll sleep.”

“You always say that.”

“I do sleep.”

“Eventually.”

He smiled. “You’re keeping track?”

“No.”

“You are.”

“I’m not.”

“You remember everything I tell you.”

You looked down at your food. “I worked with you a long time.”

“That’s not an explanation.”

“It is.”

He smiled to himself. You hated that you couldn’t tell whether he was teasing you or genuinely pleased by the fact that you remembered things about him.

The conversation moved on, and eventually he asked about your work. You told him about the song you’d been struggling with, leaving out the part about what it was actually about. He listened carefully, resting his chin against his hand. “Did you finish it?”

“Kind of.”

“Kind of?”

“It’s not finished.”

“You always say that when you don’t like something.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Why?”

You shrugged. “Because it doesn’t sound right.”

“Still writing about love? Is the same song ?”

You looked up, caught in action. He was already watching you. You had forgotten you’d told him that. “Yeah.”

Yoongi nodded slowly. “How’s that going?”

“Badly.”

He smiled. “Maybe you’re getting better at it.”

“Or worse.”

“Could be.”

You laughed. There was something about the way he looked at you when you laughed that made you want to look away, but you didn’t.

For a few seconds, neither of you said anything. It wasn’t really awkward. You could sit there with him, looking at him across a table in the middle of a crowded restaurant, and somehow feel like you were alone. You found yourself wondering what it would be like to have this all the time. Not the studio or the late nights, or the unfinished songs. But dinner after work. Talking about nothing, knowing how his day had gone. Knowing he’d be there when yours was over.

The thought was so simple that it almost hurt.

Yoongi reached across the table and stole something from your plate.

You stared at him. “Did you just take my food?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s mine.”

“You weren’t eating it.”

“I was going to!”

“Too late.”

You shook your head, laughing. “You’ve become really annoying.”

“You’ve known me for months.”

“And you get more annoying over time.”

“But you’re still here.”

You looked at him and he was already smiling.

Something in your chest tightened. “Unfortunately.”

“Sure.”

You rolled your eyes, but now you were smiling too.

He leaned back in his chair, looking completely comfortable, and you realized how much you’d missed this. Not simply seeing him, but being around him without a schedule, without a deadline, without a room full of other people. You had forgotten how much you liked the version of Yoongi that appeared when he wasn’t working.

He was softer, looser. He laughed more, he talked about stupid things. He looked at you like you were someone he had chosen to spend time with rather than someone he’d happened to end up working beside. And that thought stayed with you. Because you couldn’t stop wondering why he was here.

He could have gone home, he could have gone back to the studio and worked. He could have called one of his friends. Instead, he’d found you leaving and asked you to dinner.

You didn’t let yourself read too much into it. You couldn’t. Maybe he was simply hungry. Maybe he really had wanted company. Maybe you were just projecting because you were hopelessly in love with him and had started turning ordinary kindness into evidence. So you pushed the thought away. You focused on him instead. On the way his eyes softened when he talked about something he cared about. On the way he smiled when you made him laugh. On the way he remembered things you’d mentioned weeks ago without you ever having to remind him. On the way he seemed to know when you were about to change the subject because something had made you uncomfortable.

You wondered, not for the first time, if he knew you were in love with him.

Then you immediately decided that was impossible. If he knew, surely things would be different… Wouldn’t they?

You didn’t notice the way Yoongi watched you when you looked away. You didn’t notice that he’d spent the last week thinking about seeing you. You didn’t know that when his schedule had ended early, the first place he’d thought of going was the studio because he knew there was a good chance you’d still be there. You didn’t know that he’d checked your usual working hours before leaving the building, or that the decision not to work had been made long before he’d found you in the hallway.

You only knew that he was sitting across from you now. And that you wanted him so badly it almost frightened you. You were sure nobody has ever wanted another person like this. Not with this much tenderness, not with this much patience. Not with the strange certainty that even if you never got what you wanted, you would still be grateful that you’d gotten to know him at all.

When dinner was finally over, neither of you seemed particularly eager to leave. You two slowly stood outside the restaurant together, the night air cool against your face.

“Thanks for keeping me company,” Yoongi said.

You smiled. “Thanks for asking.”

“I was hungry.”

“Me too.”

He chucked. You started walking toward his car, but after a few steps he fell into pace beside you.

“I’ll take you home.”

This time you didn’t fight him. “Thanks.”

You looked at him and he smiled softly at you.

And as you drive beside him through the city, talking about nothing and everything, you found yourself thinking that maybe this was enough. Maybe you didn’t need to know what he felt. Maybe you could just keep having nights like this. Maybe you could keep loving him quietly, keep writing songs that never quite captured it, keep pretending that your heart didn’t jump whenever he looked at you for too long.

Because if this was all you ever got, you thought, you’d still be happy… You didn’t know that Yoongi was thinking something remarkably similar. Only his conclusion was different. He didn’t need you to say it tonight. He could wait.

——————————

By the time you finally gave up, there were pieces of paper everywhere.

Some were crumpled tightly enough that you couldn’t remember what you’d written on them. Others had been folded in half, crossed out so aggressively that the ink had nearly torn through the page, while a few had been abandoned beside the piano with single lines written across the top and nothing underneath. Your notebook was open in front of you, several pages covered in half-finished verses, arrows, corrections and words you’d circled so many times that you’d almost worn holes through the paper.

You had spent the better part of the evening trying to write a love song. Again.

You had started with different type of music in your mind. But then you came up with a lovely melody, then changed it. You’d written a verse, hated it, rewritten it, hated that one too. You’d tried something softer, something more honest, something less obvious, something that didn’t sound like every other love song you’d ever heard. You’d tried metaphors and descriptions and memories and everything else you’d spent years learning to use when feelings became too complicated to say plainly.

Nothing worked and eventually, you had stopped trying.

You pushed yourself back in your chair and stared at the ceiling, letting your head rest against the backrest as the silence of the studio settled around you. The equipment was still on, little lights blinking quietly across the room, but you had stopped listening to the melody hours ago. For the first time, you weren’t angry about it. You weren’t frustrated anymore. You had simply accepted it.

Maybe some feelings couldn’t be turned into words.

Maybe that was all there was to it. You had spent your entire career believing that every emotion had a language if you were patient enough to find it, that somewhere beneath the mess of a feeling there was always a sentence waiting to be written. You’d built your life around that belief. You’d made a career out of taking things people couldn’t say and finding a way to say them for them.

And now you were sitting in the middle of a room full of paper because you couldn’t describe how much you loved one person.

It was almost funny….

The studio door opened. You didn’t move.

“What the fuck?”

You recognized Yoongi’s voice immediately. You lowered your eyes from the ceiling. He was standing in the doorway, looking around at the state of the room with an expression that was somewhere between amusement and genuine concern.

You sighed. “Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Good, let’s keep it that way. Don’t say anything.”

He ignored you. “I was going to ask what happened.”

You gestured vaguely toward the floor. “This.”

He stepped inside, carefully avoiding the papers scattered across the floor. “Did you lose a fight with your notebook?”

“I lost a fight with songwriting.”

“Again?” He asked jokingly.

You looked at him annoyed. “Again.”

Yoongi smiled faintly and closed the door behind him. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

He looked at the mess again. “Sure?”

You laughed quietly. “Yeah. I finally accepted something.”

He pulled the other chair closer to you and sat down, turning it slightly so he was facing you, your knees brushing. “What?”

“I can’t write love songs.”

He stared at you. “That’s dramatic.”

“I’m serious.”

“So you’ve decided you’re incapable of writing about love?”

“I’ve decided that whatever I’m feeling isn’t something I can write about.” He nodded slowly, as if he understood the distinction. You looked down at the papers near your feet. “It’s driving me insane, though. I keep trying to forget about this but every time I sit down to write something else I just go back to this, it turns into this stupid love song, and then I hate it because it doesn’t sound like enough.”

“Enough for what?”

You hesitated. “For how I feel.” He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he leaned forward and picked up one of the crumpled pieces of paper beside your chair. You reached for it. “Don’t.”

He looked at you. “Why?”

“It’s terrible.”

“I’ll decide.”

“You don’t want to read it.”

“I do.”

You sighed and let your hand fall. He unfolded the paper carefully, smoothing out the creases with his palm before looking down at the words. You watched his eyes move across the page, suddenly much more self-conscious than you had been when you’d written it.

It wasn’t really a song anymore. It was barely even a verse. Just fragments of thoughts you’d been unable to organize, lines about wanting someone so much that it made everything else feel insignificant, about being so consumed by another person, about cliches, about stupid songs. There were lines you’d crossed out and rewritten, words you’d circled and then abandoned, little pieces of honesty you’d only been brave enough to write because you knew nobody was supposed to read them.

Yoongi finished. He didn’t laugh, he didn’t make a joke. He simply looked at the paper for another moment before folding it once along one of the existing creases.

“I told you,” you said quietly. “It sucks.”

“I don’t think it does.”

“It does.”

“It’s unfinished.”

“That’s a nicer way of saying it sucks.” He smiled but you looked away. “I just hate that I can’t explain it.”

He glanced back at the page. “You write about everything.”

“I know.”

“You’ve written songs about things you said you couldn’t explain before.”

“I know.”

“So what’s different?”

You thought about it. “I don’t know.” There’s seconds of silence and after a moment, you added, “Maybe it’s because I want the person too much.” His eyes lifted toward you. You continued before you could lose your nerve. “I want them so much that everything I write feels smaller than what I’m actually feeling. I want him more than any stupid song could ever say. And that’s the one thing I’m supposed to be good at. I’m supposed to be able to take something like that and make it make sense.” You laughed softly, but there wasn’t much humor in it. “I can describe heartbreak. I can describe wanting someone. I can make a stupid three-minute song about missing someone sound like the end of the world, but apparently when it actually happens to me, I can’t find a single fucking word that feels right.” Yoongi listened without interrupting. You looked down at your hands. “I think I finally accepted that maybe some things just aren’t meant to be put into words.”

Yoongi looked at the page again. “Maybe.”

You smiled faintly. “It’s annoying.”

“Yeah.”

“Especially because I keep writing them anyway.”

He looked at you. “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.”

You laughed under your breath. “You don’t have to be nice.”

“I’m not being nice.”

“You are.”

“I’m telling you what I think.” You looked at him. He was holding the paper loosely between his fingers now, his expression thoughtful. “I like it.”

“Yeah?.”

“Yeah,” his tone was softer. “And I think the person would understand.”

Something in the room changed.

It wasn’t obvious. There was no sudden movement, no dramatic shift in the air, nothing you could point to afterward and say that was the moment. It was just a look. Yoongi looked at you. And for the first time, you actually saw him. Not the version of him you’d spent months trying to understand from across studio tables and restaurant booths. Not the person whose smiles you’d memorized, whose messages you waited for, whose kindness you kept trying to convince yourself was simply kindness.

You saw his eyes. And you recognized them. Because you’d seen that look before. You had seen it every time you’d caught yourself staring at him in the reflection of a dark studio window. Every time you’d looked at yourself in the mirror after a long day and realized you were smiling because you’d been thinking about him. Every time you’d wondered what love was supposed to look like when nobody else was around to see it.

It was the same look you had.

It was him looking at you like you were something he didn’t know how to put into words either.

Your breath caught.

Oh.

You stared at him, suddenly understanding why he’d always been so patient. Why he’d never pushed. Why he’d always seemed to know when something was wrong without asking for an explanation. Why he’d found you at the studio after his schedule and claimed he didn’t feel like working. Why he’d insisted on driving you home. Why he’d sat in silence in the car and given you every opportunity to tell him what was wrong. Why he’d kept leaving the door open. Why he’d kept waiting.

You had spent so long wondering what Yoongi thought about you that you’d never considered the possibility that he’d been wondering the same thing.

Your voice was barely above a whisper when you finally spoke. “Would you…” You stopped for a second, and he waited again. “Would you understand?”

Yoongi didn’t hesitate. “I would.”

That was it.

Two words. Nothing poetic, nothing clever, nothing that could ever become a chorus or a bridge or a line worth putting in a notebook. But they were enough.

You looked at him, your chest suddenly too tight, your thoughts too quiet for once. Yoongi looked back at you. There was no uncertainty in his expression now. Now that you could see him clearly. There was only patience, only that same softness you’d been trying to write about for weeks.

You looked down at the crumpled paper still in his hand. “Don’t throw this away,” he suddenly said. “I think it can become something.”

You smiled faintly. “It’s a stupid song.”

“Well if you don’t want it,” Yoongi folded the paper again, more carefully this time, “I’ll keep it.”

You looked at him for a second longer than necessary before nodding. “You can keep it.” A tiny smile tugged at your lips. “It’s yours anyway.”

okay i’ll wait for you

his eyebrows furrowed as he put the phone to his ear, “jiwon?”

“you know, you could give your big sister a call every now and then.”

he chuckled, “i’ve been busy.”

“everyone’s busy,” she retorted, “i missed you. your niece and nephew also miss their uncle.”

“i miss them too, i just have a lot going—“

“i just got back from a business trip to dubai, where i argued with three stubborn billionaires for an entire week before they folded for my client. jason picked me up from the airport two hours ago and i’m still helping him meal prep for this week. i’ve got a lot of shit going on.”

right when jungkook opened his mouth to respond, jason faintly chimed in, “you’re doing great, sweetie!”

jungkook sighed, “i’m a single dad, noona.”

she scoffed, “don’t noona me.”

in an attempt to one up, jungkook scoffed back more aggressively, “what’s your problem?”

“look. all is forgiven if you let arin come over and spend the night tomorrow. jia and jay want to see her.”

jungkook almost laughed out loud. that was what she wanted?

“you could’ve just asked me that. i would’ve said yes.”

“i don’t know!” she shot back defensively, “i barely hear from you anymore!”

“i’ll drop her off at three.”

“we’ll be ready! and call me sometime.”

“love you.”

he hung up. 

perfectly on cue, the doorbell rang. his heart raced. he opened the door and forgot how to speak.

"good morning."

you smiled. the same sweet smile. the same bright eyes. you held up a small paper bag, “i brought breakfast."

he blinked.

"...you did?"

you nodded like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"i made too many blueberry muffins."

a tiny pause.

"well..." you admitted sheepishly. "i made the right amount. i just wanted to share."

his heart did something deeply inconvenient.

"thank you."

your cheeks pinked, “you're welcome."

there was an awkward little silence. not uncomfortable, just…strangely shy?

you suddenly looked everywhere except at him, “um..." you held the paper bag out farther, “they're still warm."

he reached for it. your fingers brushed his. you jerked your hand back so quickly he almost thought he'd imagined it.

"sorry!" you looked horrified.

he frowned, “for what?"

"nothing." you laughed nervously.

"i'm just clumsy."

you weren't. he'd watched you carry three grocery bags, arin  and a coffee without dropping a single thing only two weeks ago.

before he could question it further, his daughter yelled.

"pretty nanny!"

arin came flying down the hallway. you immediately lit up. you knelt before she even reached you, “good morning, sweetheart."

arin wrapped herself around your neck, “missed you."

your expression softened so completely that jungkook almost looked away.

"i missed you too."

you kissed the top of her head, held her just a second longer, then stood again. when you stood, you accidentally bumped right into him, “oh!" your eyes went wider, “s-sorry!"

again. you apologized again. he stared.

"you're apologizing a lot today."

your face somehow became even pinker.

"am i?"

"yes."

"huh."

you laughed awkwardly, “that's embarrassing."

you were being very strange. he couldn't figure it out. he watched you disappear into the kitchen with arin. you were talking normally. laughing normally. nothing seemed wrong, except every single time he looked at you, you'd already been looking at him. every single time your eyes met, you immediately looked away. he frowned. 

odd. very odd.

a few minutes later, he wandered into the kitchen. you were helping arin stir pancake batter. your sleeves had fallen over your hands again. you were trying to crack an egg one-handed while holding the bowl steady. the egg slipped. you caught it at the last second.

"saved it," you whispered triumphantly.

arin clapped, “yay!"

you giggled.

jungkook smiled without meaning to, “you're cute."

the words escaped before he could stop them. silence. you froze. completely. the egg was still in your hand. your ears slowly turned pink. then your cheeks. then the tip of your nose.

"thank you!” arin exclaimed. jungkook was eternally grateful for his daughter’s sky high confidence, but you knew who he was talking to. you wouldn't look at him. instead, you became incredibly fascinated by the pancake batter. arin looked between the two of you.

"why are your cheeks pink?"

your eyes got even wider, “they're not!"

"they are."

"it's...uh…”you looked around desperately before pointing toward the stove. "it's warm in here."

jungkook glanced at the stove. it wasn't even on. he looked back at you. you refused to make eye contact. his lips twitched.

"if you say so."

you made the smallest little embarrassed sound under your breath. something halfway between a sigh and a whine. it was unbelievably endearing. he had no idea why you were acting so strangely today.  he just knew that he liked seeing you smile again.

 whatever had happened after the school play, whatever distance had settled between the two of you, finally felt like it was beginning to disappear.

jungkook spent the rest of the morning trying not to think about the way you were acting. it was impossible. you were acting like yourself. but somehow not. you were still sweet. still warm. still the same person who remembered arin hated the crusts on her sandwiches and who somehow knew when he was about to skip lunch before he even realized it himself.

 there was something different underneath it. you laughed more. you teased him again. you called him jungkook instead of mr. jeon. every time you did, something in his chest loosened. he told himself it was because he missed the normalcy. it had nothing to do with the way his name sounded in your voice. absolutely nothing.

by the afternoon, he had almost convinced himself.

almost.

he had just finished a meeting in his office when he stepped out and found you and arin sitting on the living room floor.

there were coloring books spread everywhere. arin was drawing what appeared to be a family of stick figures. jungkook paused.

"what are we making?"

arin immediately held up the paper, “daddy, look!"

he crouched down. there were four figures: one tall, one smaller, one with a dress, and one with very large hair.

he smiled, "who's this?"

"that's me."

she pointed, “that's you." then she pointed to the figure with the dress. "that's pretty nanny."

his chest tightened.

your eyes widened, “i told her not to add me—“

“no, you fit right in” he interrupted.

you bit your glossy lip.

jungkook turned back to arin, “and the hairy baby?"

arin pointed to a tiny circle next to the four figures. “that's our dog."

jungkook blinked,” we don't have a dog."

"yet."

you covered your mouth, trying not to laugh, “she's been campaigning for one."

"i see."

arin nodded seriously.

"i think we need one."

"i'll think about it."

"that means no."

you laughed. a real laugh. jungkook found himself watching you instead of the drawing. again. he cleared his throat and stood, “I have to leave for a little bit."

your smile faded. only slightly. but he noticed. he noticed everything about you now.

"oh."

the little word came out before you could hide it.

jungkook paused.

"it's just a meeting."

you nodded quickly.

"right. of course."

you looked back down at the coloring book too quickly.

"i just thought you were working from home today."

"i am."

he held up his phone.

"but this one is with a client. they wanted to meet in person."

"oh."

there it was again. that tiny disappointed sound. he stared. were you upset because he was leaving? the thought was ridiculous. but then you looked up at him and he almost forgot how to breathe. he had never seen that expression on your face before. you looked almost...sad? there was a softness in your eyes he had never seen before, like you were disappointed the afternoon was ending.

"when will you be back?" you asked.

the question was innocent. jungkook looked away for a second, “maybe a few hours."

you nodded, “okay."

“why do you ask?”

"well..." you shrugged, “someone has to make sure you're taken care of."

his fingers paused against his watch. the words were simple, but the way you said them wasn't. he looked at you. you seemed to realize it at the same time. the air shifted just slightly. you looked away first.

"i mean,” you cleared your throat, “arin! you are her dad after all.”

a tiny smile tugged at his mouth, “right."

"yes."

"arin."

"exactly."

the two of you stood there for a second too long, pretending you didn't notice.

jungkook tilted his head, “are you sure you're not just going to miss me?"

your eyes widened. he immediately realized what he said. too late. your mouth opened. closed. opened again.

"what?"

he should have backed down. instead, because something about your flustered expression was too entertaining, he let himself tease, “you looked pretty sad when i said i was leaving."

your cheeks turned pink, “i did not."

"you did."

"i was just surprised."

"surprised?"

"yes."

"because i have to go to a meeting?"

"yes."

"not because you wanted me to stay?"

jungkook was surprising himself. where was he getting this confidence from? your entire face warmed. you looked at him with wide eyes. for a second, neither of you moved. the room suddenly felt too quiet. his gaze dropped without meaning to your lips. just for a second. you noticed. jungkook immediately looked away. what was he doing? 

your fingers tightened around the coloring pencil in your hand, “you should probably go to your meeting."

your voice was softer now.

he nodded slowly, “yeah."

you gave him a small, shy smile, ”don't be late."

his eyebrows lifted, "are you scolding me?"

"a little."

"you know, most people don't tell their boss not to be late."

you tilted your head. "most bosses don't forget to eat and sleep."

he laughed quietly. your smile grew when you heard it. that was the thing that got him. the way you looked happy when you made him happy. 

like that was enough.

"i'll try."

"good."

you pointed the pencil at him, “because i will know."

he raised an eyebrow, “is that a threat?"

"it's a promise. i need you."

the words hung there. your eyes widened slightly. his did too. both of you heard the way it sounded. you immediately looked back down at the coloring book, “i mean,” you laughed nervously, “because arin needs you."

"right,” he nodded, “arin."

"yes."

"of course."

he was smiling, and so were you.

arin’s face scrunched up, “this is weird.”

when he finally walked toward the door, he couldn't stop himself from looking back.

you were already watching him.  

when your eyes met, you both looked away. it was like you were children. like neither of you knew what was happening. jungkook stepped outside with a strange feeling in his chest. it was a feeling he hadn't felt in a very long time: hope. that scared him more than anything.

•••

conference rooms felt different when jungkook was in work mode. it always had. there was a certain version of himself that existed behind these walls that you had never seen before.

the ceo. the man who made decisions quickly. the man who could look at a room full of executives and know exactly what needed to be said. the man who could negotiate millions of dollars without his voice shaking once. it was easy. business was easy. people were not. especially lately.

"i think we're closer than we were yesterday," the client said, looking over the final proposal spread across the table.

jungkook nodded.

“you were concerned about scaling. we addressed that with the new infrastructure plan."

he tapped the document lightly, “you won't just be expanding. you'll have room to continue growing without rebuilding everything six months from now."

the client glanced down at the papers again. then smiled.

"that's what i wanted to hear."

a few moments later, hands were being shaken. numbers were finalized. papers were signed. his clients left the room. the deal was done. everyone in the room relaxed almost immediately. jungkook leaned back slightly in his chair, letting out a quiet breath.

another problem solved.

"nice work, mr. jeon."

he looked over. amber was standing beside the table, gathering her papers.

she smiled, “you really do make it look easy."

"it's not easy."

"you make it look like it is."

jungkook gave her a polite nod, “good preparation and an amazing team makes things easier."

amber laughed softly, “you always do that."

jungkook chuckled stiffly, “what?"

"avoid compliments."

he didn't answer. she wasn't wrong. amber had always been observant. that was part of what made her good at her job. she noticed things. sometimes she noticed too much. 

jungkook checked his phone. one message from beomgyu. three emails. a reminder about arin's school schedule.

then, without meaning to, his mind drifted somewhere else. in his mind’s eye, he saw his home. he saw pink socks. he heard arin’s ramblings. most importantly in his lovesick mind, he saw you. he wondered what you were doing. were you making arin a snack? he knew you were humming.

a small smile almost formed. then he caught himself. he looked away. he needed to stop doing that.

"you know," amber said, pulling him back into the room. he looked up. she was leaning against the edge of the table. too close again. "a lot of people at the company are going out tomorrow night."

jungkook already knew where this was going.

"are you?"

amber smiled.

“yeah. with pretty much everyone else." she leaned in, “besides you.”

he scoffed and turned back to gathering his papers, “is that so?”

“we were thinking of celebrating—“

"congratulations."

she tilted her head, “that's it?"

"what else would there be?"

her smile turned amused. she was so close that he could smell her strawberry lip balm. 

“i don't know. maybe you joining us. you work so hard. let us celebrate you, mr. jeon.”

jungkook looked at her. he subtly slid his chair away to make distance, “i can't."

amber raised a brow, “you didn't even check your schedule.”

"i know my schedule."

"do you?" there was a teasing quality to her voice.

jungkook sighed quietly, “i have my daughter—“

"you said she's staying with your sister tomorrow night."

he paused. she was right. he hated how he ran his mouth when it came to his daughter. technically, he was free. despite this, the implications of amber’s invite made something in his chest feel uncomfortable. amber noticed the hesitation.

"see?" she smiled triumphantly, “you can come."

jungkook looked at her. for a second, he wondered if he should just say yes. maybe he needed to prove to himself that he wasn't completely consumed by someone he couldn't have. that he could focus on someone who wasn’t younger than him or worked for him. you probably only saw him as arin's father. 

that thought hurt. you would never know how badly he wanted you. how you kept him up at night and keep him sane at the exact same time. maybe it was time to let it all go.

but then he pictured the club. he heard the loud music. he tasted the bitter alcohol on his tongue. he felt amber standing too close, her manicured hand on his arm. it all felt wrong. if he couldn’t have you, he didn't want anyone else.

amber waited for his answer.

"i'll think about it."

it was the safest response.

her smile widened, “i'll take that as a maybe."

jungkook didn't correct her. he gathered his things instead. "have a good night."

"you too."

he started walking away.

“mr. jeon?”

jungkook stopped. he turned slightly.

she smiled, “you should come. you work too much."

a normal person might have found the concern flattering, but all he could think about was someone else saying something similar.

"i'll see."

amber watched him leave. 

•••

expectations were weird. they always made the unexpected hit harder.

when jungkook  pulled into the driveway, he expected a normal evening. he was already thinking about arin, more specifically helping her get ready for bed. he thought about the fact that tomorrow night she would be at his sister’s house, and he would have an entire evening alone. normally, that would have sounded nice. lately, it just sounded empty.

he stepped inside, setting his keys down by the door.

“daddy!”

arin’s voice echoed from the living room. then came laughter. not just arin’s, yours. that made him smile before he even saw you.

“what are you two doing?” 

he walked toward the living room and stopped completely. he was not prepared.

you were sitting on the floor with arin in front of you, both of you surrounded by little makeup products and hair accessories. you looked up at him. jungkook forgot what he was going to say.

you were wearing a dress. it fit you almost too well. something soft and feminine. your favorite heels sat beside you, and your hair was styled differently than usual. you looked like you had somewhere important to be. he hated how much he liked seeing it.

“daddy,” arin announced proudly, holding up a tiny tube of lip gloss, “i’m helping.”

jungkook blinked, “helping with what?”

“her lips.” arin said it like he was stupid for asking.

she puckered her lips. 

you mimicked her, then laughed quietly, “she insisted.”

“i told her she needed sparkle,” arin explained.

you smiled. his chest ached.

“you look nice,” he said before he could stop himself.

your hand immediately went to your hair. it was a familiar nervous habit.

“thank you.”

your cheeks turned slightly pink. even after everything, you still reacted to compliments like that.

jungkook looked away before he stared too long, “is there a special occasion?”

your expression changed. just slightly. a tiny pause. then you smiled, “i’m going out tonight.”

his brows lifted.

“oh.”

he wasn’t sure why that surprised him. of course you had a life outside of his house. of course you had friends. of course you went places that had nothing to do with him. somehow, seeing the proof of it standing right in front of him felt strange, like he was being left out.

“that’s good,” he smiled softly, “you should.”

you looked almost surprised by his answer, “really?”

“yeah.”

he shrugged, “you’re always taking care of everyone else. you should have fun.”

something softened in your expression. before either of you could say anything else, the doorbell rang. you froze. jungkook noticed and immediately wondered why.

“is that your ride?”

you stood quickly, “yeah.”

“i’ll get it.”

“wait—“

too late. he didn’t think anything of it. not until he opened it and saw him.

a young man stood on the porch. around your age. maybe a little older, but still younger than him. he was dressed nicely, holding a bouquet of roses in one hand. jungkook stared.

the boy smiled politely, “hello sir, i’m here for—”

you rushed to the door, “he’s here for me. hi, daniel.”

silence. jungkook blinked.

“for you?”

“yeah.”

the boy looked slightly confused. 

“we’re going out tonight,” he said like it was obvious.

something in jungkook’s brain stopped working. you. going out. tonight. right. that made sense. that was what people did. they went out on dates with people who weren’t their bosses. with people who were normal.

“oh.”

it was the only thing he could say. behind him, he heard your footsteps.

“jungkook?” your voice was nervous.

he stepped aside slightly. you came into view and immediately looked embarrassed.

“hi.”

you smiled at the boy, then looked at jungkook. the silence stretched too long. finally, you cleared your throat.

“jungkook, this is daniel.”

the boy smiled, “nice to meet you.”

jungkook looked between the two of you.

daniel.

“…nice to meet you.”

his voice sounded normal. you looked between them.

“daniel, this is jungkook.”

there was a tiny hesitation. jungkook noticed. of course he did. he noticed everything about you.

“he’s arin’s dad.”

the explanation came quickly. too quickly. you were making sure there was nothing else to explain. jungkook felt something strange twist in his chest.

“right.” 

daniel nodded, “yeah, she told me about your daughter.”

arin appeared behind you suddenly.

“is that the flower boy?”

you gasped, “arin.”

jungkook immediately looked away to hide his reaction. he almost laughed. daniel looked amused.

“flower boy?”

arin nodded, “because you brought flowers.”

“that’s very observant.”

“thank you.”

you covered your face, “i’m so sorry.”

“don’t apologize,” daniel laughed.

jungkook watched the interaction quietly. how easy it was. how normal. how someone your age could stand there holding flowers without overthinking every single thing. how much more sense you and daniel made than you and jungkook ever would.

“we should probably go,” you said softly.

jungkook looked at you. for a second, he forgot what expression he was supposed to have. you looked excited. the same way you looked when you were at his doorstep before the play. except this time, it wasn’t for him.

“have fun,” jungkook said through a poker face only a man running a tech company could have. he forced the words out.

your smile softened, “thank you.”

you turned toward arin, “i’ll see you after your sleepover, okay?”

arin immediately frowned, “but you’re leaving.”

you laughed, “just for tonight.”

“okay.”

arin hugged you. jungkook watched. you grabbed your purse. daniel held the door open. before leaving, you glanced back at him, “goodnight, jungkook.”

his heart betrayed him.  

even after knowing you were dressed up for a date with another man, all he could think of was how beautiful you looked under the pale moonlight.

“goodnight.”

the door closed. jungkook stood there for a long moment.

arin looked up at him, “daddy?”

“yeah?”

“why do you look sad?”

he looked down at his daughter. then toward the closed door. he didn’t know how to answer. the truth sounded ridiculous. he had no right to be sad. you weren’t his.

but watching someone else make you smile felt like losing something he never got to have. 

he grabbed her tiny hand, “let’s go to bed, princess.”

she looked up at him with big eyes, “okay, daddy.”

arin had fallen asleep almost immediately. she always did after exciting days. jungkook lingered in her doorway for a moment, watching her tiny chest rise and fall beneath the blankets. one arm was wrapped around a stuffed bunny. her nightlight cast little stars across the ceiling. 

he brushed a strand of hair away from her face, “goodnight, princess."

she mumbled something completely unintelligible in her sleep. he smiled despite himself, then quietly shut the door.

his own room felt too quiet.

he loosened his tie, changed into a t-shirt and sweatpants, then climbed into bed.

sleep never came. instead he thought of you.

and daniel.

his name alone irritated him. he sat up with an annoyed sigh. daniel was like a brain eating parasite. once he entered jungkook’s brain, he wouldn’t leave. everything about him was stupid.

his mousy and messy hair was awful. the boy was going on a date with you. he should’ve at least tried. you clearly did. jungkook audibly groaned. he slid open his nightstand and dug in the drawer far too aggressively.

his eyes were far too excited. excited for what? what was he expecting from you? it better be nothing. you wouldn’t do that on the first date. or would you? jungkook grabbed his tiny, red lighter and pack of cigarettes. he stood with newfound purpose.

jungkook didn’t know you like that. he wished he could. wished you both could stop hiding behind the thin veil of professionalism and truly open up. the way you didn’t even have to worry about with daniel. he went down the hallway, down the stairs to the furthest corner of the backyard. he lit his cigarette with a snap. he faced away from the house. he knew this habit was wrong, but he had the right to destroy his own lungs for an ounce of reprieve. he hated his dad for smoking when he was a boy. as a man under immense pressure, jungkook grew to understand him, even if it was shameful and dangerous. 

he kept it far away from arin. her precious, pink lungs didn’t deserve the harshness of his cigarette smoke. he never did it around you, either. he knew you would hate it. he couldn’t imagine a world where you wouldn’t.  jungkook could see it now. your face scrunched up in that way you were whenever he did anything self-destructive. your head shaking. your arms crossed.

“that’s not good for you,” you would say, completely disappointed.

he wondered what you were doing.

right.

you were with daniel. 

that asshole had the audacity to pull up to jungkook’s house with flowers. those weren't even your favorite. he frowned. they'd been roses. passable. but whenever you and arin went through your encyclopedia of flowers, you always loved the tulips. the pink ones. he knew that. you'd spent almost ten minutes drawing them while arin drew dandelions and proudly declared them "princess flowers."

you liked tulips. not roses.

he frowned harder.

the bouquet itself wasn't even big. he'd seen better arrangements in grocery stores. the wrapping paper looked cheap. he inhaled, the bitter tang of the tobacco hitting his tongue.  it was all wrong. daniel was all wrong. too young and dumb. not enough experience. he couldn’t handle you. he couldn’t protect you. he couldn’t appreciate you.

if someone was taking you on a date…

if he was taking you on a date—

his thoughts stopped. jungkook blinked at the stars.

he exhaled, watching smoke fly into the sky. what the fuck was he doing? 

he let out a humorless laugh. this was pathetic. he was smoking next to his daughter’s swing set, criticizing another man's bouquet. all because of some pathetic, impossible, one-sided crush. he covered his face with both hands. get a grip. he was thirty-two years old. daniel was... what? twenty-one? twenty-two?

he was barely a man himself for thinking like this. jungkook was mentally competing with someone over a woman who wasn't even his girlfriend. wasn't his wife. wasn't anything. you had every right to go on dates. every right to meet boys your own age. boys who could stay out until two in the morning without worrying about getting a daughter ready for preschool.

you deserved someone who wasn’t divorced. someone  without emotional baggage. someone who didn't spend friday nights reviewing quarterly reports. someone who could actually give you the carefree college romance you deserved.

he had no claim over you. he didn't deserve you in the capacity he already had you. you deserved someone who could give you everything, not someone who constantly forgot to eat lunch. not someone who fell asleep at his desk. not someone who carried around years of grief and responsibility.

and certainly not someone who had once imagined you with a ring on your finger after knowing you only a handful of weeks.

his stomach twisted. fuck. that thought alone should've been enough to scare him. instead, he still wanted it. he still managed to want impossible things he had no business wanting. things he had wanted since he was a boy had foolishly felt possible with you.

after one failed marriage, he thought he would be done with nuptials forever. done with romance. he thought that harsh realities of paperwork and years of deep seated resentment had ruined all of that for him. but once he saw you with his daughter, something in him broke in ways he still struggled to understand. 

he wanted that stupid, american family unit. a white picket fence. a work-life balance. to come home to you. not you as arin’s nanny, but you as his. 

yoonseo was right about one thing. 

he was so pathetic.

he dropped his cigarette. stomped it out abruptly. 

this was exactly why people told divorced men to get back out there. he'd become isolated.  his imagination had gotten too big. his entire life revolved around work. arin.

and lately, you.

he needed to remember there was a world outside the little domestic fantasy he'd accidentally built around you. he needed to talk to adults and have a drink. he had to forget about this ridiculous crush before it grew into something impossible to hide. jungkook’s phone sat in his pocket. he stared at it for a long moment, then reached for it.

his messages with amber were almost entirely work-related. his thumbs hovered over the keyboard. finally, he typed: 

i’ll come tomorrow.

author’s note:

oooooo cliffhanger

congratulations! you just got through the first my girl chapter written on a computer! i’ve always written completely on my phone and this was a way easier experience lol. i am SO grateful to be able to afford a personal computer lol.

there are some other changes too! you just read the first gguksprincess fic that was edited without grammarly! i got some asks saying that grammarly isn’t the best for fiction and makes your writing worse, and i think they’re right! it took way more time than normal, but i think they’re final product shows my style a lot more without it, but please give me your thoughts!

one more thing! i don’t know if this’ll end up being relevant later but this story takes place in silicon valley, california, usa! if you’re not american, it’s basically the main tech hub of the country! there’s a really funny show about it too lol. jungkook and jiwon were raised in south korea, but moved to america as adults!

anyways, thank you for reading🤍

xoxo,

kandi