#namjun

The meeting had been long and boring, taking place on the building’s top floor which offered a brilliant view of the city. Ji-eun watched the sky slowly darken through the wide windows which stretched along the length of the room, silently cursing the fact she wouldn’t get home until gone ten o’clock. The next few hours stretched slowly, with the journey home passing in a quiet daze; the warmth of her apartment greeting and caressing her otherwise cold skin as she walked through the door. Feeling tired, she showered quickly, lathering her long hair with raspberry-scented suds and enjoying the heat of the spray on her bare back. Her cell had gone forgotten throughout the meeting, dutifully turned off as per her manager’s instructions and buried in the bottom of her black handbag, so she had missed the call, not noticing it until after her shower as she headed to the bedroom.

The little notification light pinged brightly in the darkness, her hair and body wrapped in the fluffy confines of a towel and she swiped the screen as she perched herself on the edge of the duvet, selecting the voicemail icon with a frown.

She pressed the phone to her ear, waiting for the instructional message to finish, until a clicking sound signalled the start of the recording. “It’s Namjoon…” His deep voice took her by surprise, though she had heard it in person only two days before. He was clearly trying to find the right words to say into the empty device, his message full of pauses. “I was hoping we could talk...but, I guess you’re busy…”

Ji-eun suspected he would end the conversation there after a quick goodbye, and instinctively moved the cell away from her ear, getting ready to hang up, but held back when he slowly pressed on.

“I got here okay...the traffic was a little congested but I made it back on time.” His voice was low, distracted, as though building up to something and Ji-eun couldn’t help but feel nervous. “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to call for a few days, so I’m hoping you’ll hear this. I don’t know if you check your messages…”

She realised her spare hand was curling around the edge of the duvet, bunching it anxiously into her closed fist. It had been a long time since she had felt so jittery and the urge to move out of the dark room and into the kitchen was overwhelming. She couldn’t recall whether she had finished the bottle of Merlot she had started the previous night, but hoped not. His voice brought her back with another sigh.

“I’m sorry for making you uncomfortable the other night…” The short silence which followed told her he was thinking this through, trying to wrap his head around his own actions, and her heart rate increased in response. She felt its steady hum in her neck and fingertips as she clutched the phone tighter, her knuckles straining against the outline. “I don’t know what came over me, but I know it wasn’t right.” There was a sharp intake of air before he continued. “You worked hard to get the reservation...to make it special for me...and I…” He tapered off for a moment, and Ji-eun wondered whether he’d be able to bring himself to tell her what was wrong.

The short hotel-stay had been expensive, but she had wanted to get away from home. It had been too quiet in recent months...too lonely without him, and she knew making more memories together in that space before he was out for good would be too hard; she would have to continue eating and sleeping and living there until he got back; until they could resume their lives. The bitter memory of the morning after came flooding back; the way they dressed in silence at opposite ends of the bedroom, and the cold, stiff gesture of his lips against her cheek as he said goodbye.

“I really didn’t mean to hurt you.” She heard the sadness in his apology, the regret of his actions, along with something else, and what he said next made her heart sink. “I just don’t think I’ve been doing so well recently.”

His confession took her aback, but made sense. The last time she had seen him, he had been withdrawn; trapped in his own thoughts. Even then, as she lay silently in the double bed next to him, tucked under the heavy winter duvet, she wished she could get inside his brain and take his troubles away for him, if only he would let her.

“It never really hit me until a few weeks ago…” He continued in a hushed, quiet tone, as though fearing being overheard. “I figured I’d been through worse, and I haven’t that long to go…”

Ji-eun let go of the bed covers, giving in and heading towards the little kitchen down the hall.

“I guess I’ve just been thinking about what will happen when I come out, what will be waiting for me...” She held her phone to her ear as she walked, tucking the towel tighter around her bust before switching on the light. The glare made her eyes water, but she felt her way to the fridge and breathed a small sigh of relief when she found the bottle sitting on the bottom rack, a few mouthfuls left in the bottom. One handedly, she unscrewed the cap and found a clean glass on the drying board. “I know it’s been on everyone’s mind. Maybe some more than others…”

Silently, she made her way back to the bedroom, sipping slowly as she walked. Her shoulders had been tense and uncomfortable all afternoon, but seemed to relax as she sat heavily back on the bed. Namjoon carried on talking on the other end and, now he had started, it seemed his worries were slowly spilling out. It came as a relief. She wished she could have heard it from him first hand, but suspected he would have not been able to confess as openly if she had been there with him.

“It didn’t seem so complicated when I went in...I guess we all thought we would just pick up where we’d left off, but I’m not sure that’s the case anymore.” There was a small crack on the line and for a moment she worried he had been cut off or that the messaging timer had run out. He went quiet for a moment before his voice became clear, the first half of his sentence cut off. “...solo album, and with everything that’s happening with Taehyung…” Another sigh. “I guess I’m just wondering my place in all of this.”

It seemed apparent he had not voiced these concerns to anyone else; that she was the first to hear them and it suddenly occurred to her how trivial she had once thought his worries were compared to her own. When they first met, she couldn’t understand why he sometimes got so worked up in the other member’s lives to the point their grievances became his, but somewhere along the line she began to realise how much they meant to him and how hard he had worked for their achievements. They weren’t so different in that respect, and once it became clear, it seemed to make sense why he had been so attracted to her on the day they met five years before. He had seen a part of himself in her, and while it was not as fiercely visible on the surface, his ambitions and the sacrifices he had made along the way were just as strong as her own.

“It’s been playing on my mind for a while…” His tone became deeper, more solemn as he spoke. “The last few years at least, but seeing Yoongi get married...it made me wonder if I’m worrying about the wrong things. That maybe I’ve been neglecting what’s important to me. Neglecting you...”

Looking at her glass, she realised the wine was finished and placed the empty glass on the bedside cabinet carefully, her hands trembling a little at his confession and its implication. He let out a final, shuddery breath of air, and she knew instinctively that the one-sided conversation was drawing to a close. It came somewhat as a relief. As insightful as he was being, it was frustrating to not be able to talk to him, and she was ready for bed. The day had been long and she would have to get up early tomorrow in order to make her morning phone calls at the office to the seemingly endless list of international clients on her company’s waiting list.

“I guess we’ll talk about it soon…” Namjoon murmured, his own voice sounding tired on the other side. “I love you.” A pause. “I’m sorry.” She could hear the low sound of his breathing for a moment, before the line went dead with a click, the automated recording asking if she wished to delete the message or listen again. Looking at the illuminated screen, she clicked on the hang up dial, saving the message to some unknown folder in the depths of her phone and placing the device carefully beside the empty glass. Her hair was almost dry and she pulled it from the confines of the towel carefully, contemplating as she walked to the bathroom to brush her teeth whether it would disturb the neighbours if she used the blow-drier so late at night. She wondered when Namjoon would get the chance to call again and realised she wasn’t exactly looking forward to the prospect. It was difficult being apart and talking with him only seemed to make it harder. Not for the first time, it hit her that she didn’t have many people she could turn to and wondered whether it was her fault. Was she really so difficult to be around or had she pushed them all away over the years?

Looking in the mirror above the sink at her slightly flushed complexion, she became acutely aware that the low ache of an oncoming migraine had started to nag in the back of her skull and decided she would go straight to bed, with the hope it would be gone by morning.

***

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