TIME AFTER TIME ; jjk

26

Chapter 26

JEON JUNGKOOK

Soohyun had stopped crying after she said she needed to get back to work, leaving me with no choice other than to get coffee with Taehyung. I told him that Soohyun couldn't come and he didn't ask anymore, which I was grateful for because I didn't know what and how to say anything to him, and it wasn't really my place to tell.

It was more of just a quick coffee run, and we talked about nothing in particular. When we got back to the hospital, I threw myself into work over the following hours and managed to make it until 8 pm. I clocked out by then, thinking if I should come and check on Soohyun and tell her that if she needed a friend, Taehyung and I were just waiting to let her open up, and even if she didn't want to talk, we could indulge her with silence. Though in some ways, she probably already knew that, and I didn't need to constantly shove it in her face that hey, we're your friends, you can lean on us anytime, because that would be pushing. I stopped myself when I saw Soohyun walking towards the entrance as I reached the first floor, looking tired and resigned, with the towering figure of Namjoon following suit. They needed to talk. He had a lot of explaining to do. I couldn't help but feel infuriated, because putting aside what I felt for Soohyun (which had mellowed out, I thought), I was her friend before anything, and I wasn't saying that Namjoon was a bad person, but I hadn't expected Namjoon would do anything as bad as this to her.

But who am I to definitively think of that? Friend or not, I was still an outsider in their relationship, and my interference would mean nothing else. I was confident Soohyun knew better than anyone had ever given her credit for.

I glanced away and left when they had disappeared out of my sight.

. . .

PARK SOOHYUN

I shouldn't have let him in, because I didn't think Namjoon deserved stepping over my boundaries after all the mess today, but I chose to ask him to tell me the truth, if ever he was capable of doing that. He reluctantly walked in as I had turned on the lights in the small living room of my apartment, and he stared at me all the while with worried eyes. He sat on the couch and it was funny that he suddenly seemed out of place, like he never meant to fit in at all. I remained standing, maintaining a safe distance from him. If I got too close, I would possibly break down and I didn't want him to touch me as I fell apart.

I began, snapping through the disconcerting silence with hostility in my tone. "Look, I've been looking for you since yesterday, but it's difficult to see you right now."

This was the first time I had seen him appear vulnerable, as if his guard had voluntarily backed down with no intent of getting back up while his shoulders were slumped. "I'm sorry," he said in a weak voice.

I felt a lump forming in my throat. "That's all you could say? Why don't you make up some more excuses?"

'I'm sorry' sounded like an admission. 'I'm sorry' meant what I had discovered had some truth in it and I was deliberately lied to.

"I know my excuses are lame, but I'm telling you the truth. I got... scared. You probably think it's funny, but she... she threatened me that if I contacted you, she would find where you work and harass you, and I've known her for years. I knew she could do that. She forced me to give her my phone and asked me to stay at her place, so I did. I couldn't find a way to reach out to you while she was up my business the whole time – it's... it's crazy, I know – and maybe I didn't try hard enough. Earlier today, she just disappeared after telling me to look after our son..." The last word just kind of faded out, like he was struck with crippling affliction to say it out loud, and I let my own pain sit in my stomach, breathing in slowly and binding with reality as I felt like I was being separated from consciousness. I watched him fiddle with his fingers until his hands were shaking. He tried to conceal it, keeping his gaze on the floor. "I didn't expect that she would still do it. I never told her where you're working, I swear. I don't know how she figured it out, but it was stupid of me to tell her your name when she didn't stop asking. I know this situation warrants more than an apology, but I have to say sorry that I wasn't there to defend you, that she invaded your space, and I'm sorry for what I had done. If I just told you the truth, it could have changed everything, and what happened to you was not your fault, okay? This was all built around my hasty attempt to cover up one of my bad decisions in life.."