"So, I was thinking..." Seokjin started as Soora, Hobi and Jisoo gathered for dinner in the therapist's house. "I have a test for you, Soora-ya." He said with a bit of hesitance, as his fiancée squeezed his hand under the table, away from the curious eyes of their guests.
At his words, Soora stopped shoving food on her mouth mid-way and snapped her eyes wide to look at him. Hoseok too stopped eating, anxiously waiting for what kind of test the therapist would suggest.
"Test?" She asked with her mouth full, trying to chew and swallow the food quickly.
"Hm. My professor said it was time to push your limits a bit more, but I thought that everything should go on your own time. Pushing you never works for the best, and he understood it, but still said that you should try to push the boundaries of your safe space a bit more." He firstly explained, showing how much he respected her boundaries even though his mentor said Soora could do more.
"More than she already has? She just started to go to the Wonderland Café whenever Yoongi goes there, she already does small car trips. I don't think there's any need to push her to do more when she's doing so much already." Hoseok said a bit defensively.
It has been almost 8 months since Yoongi moved in and a lot has already changed for the better for Soora, and if there was something they learned, was to let everything have its own time. But for one, Soora felt she could do more, but she had no idea of what.
She still surrounded herself with a safety net. Yes, it has been a couple of months since she started to sometimes go to the Wonderland Café, only because after that Star Wars marathon night with Yoongi, they started to speak about other saga's lore.
Yoongi said that the Wonderland Café had a few good books she should buy, and Soora pouted thinking that she wanted to go there to check it but couldn't and that had to just buy online.
The experience wasn't the same, she barely remembered the last time she went to a bookstore, her small feature getting lost between the rows of bookshelves, sparkly eyes wandering through the diversity of books she could choose from. Buying online was the safest, most comfortable, but it was impersonal, cold. It made her almost not want to buy any book.
But Yoongi was a mastermind of bringing forth new challenges and excitement, and somehow he made the 101 maknaes to keep the Café open privately past the closing hour. That way she could visit without the overwhelm of dealing with strangers, something she was still unable to do.
Being late at night, the streets were empty, so Yoongi drive her there with Hoseok and Chaeyun, where they met with Jimin, Taehyung and Jungkook, who receive them as they would any other client.
After the first positive experience, her visits started to become a habit, where once in a while the boys would close the Café an hour earlier and would prepare a dinner for whichever neighbors that wanted to show up. Meanwhile, Soora would get lost in the small bookstore, or on the music section, combining both while the dinner was getting ready and the guests would arrive in the meantime.
It was another positive step in her recover, but it didn't come without its mishaps. Sometimes, the day after her visit to the Wonderland Café, she would feel drained of energy, in an almost cathartic state that would take one to two days to recharge back to her "normal".
Even if she pushed her limits every week, she could do only so much without feeling like hiding herself again in her cocoon. So if she one week went to the courtyard to watch the games, she wouldn't go to the Wonderland Café, and vice-versa.
Also, if she had one too many dinner dates one week, she would skip going outside the building altogether. So everything had to be very well-timed and agreed with everyone, the dinners, the courtyard games and the visits to the Wonderland Café.
Sometimes Soora felt like she was giving everyone so much trouble that she refused to leave her apartment altogether or have the habitual close people around her, which included only Hoseok, Seokjin, and Yoongi, beside her sister, of course.
So Hoseok felt that pushing Soora further than she was already pushing herself, could have the opposite effect, when Seokjin came up with the topic.
"And I agree with you wholeheartedly. Sometimes therapist tend to be greedy when they start to see some progress on their patients." Seokjin nodded.
"Then? What test is this?" Soora questioned, confused, because she felt that Seokjin's initial discourse wasn't matching with his recent statement. Seokjin then looked at his fiancé, who smile and nodded at him, turning her attention to Soora, to answer in his stead.
"My family has a countryside house that we use for vacancies once in a while. It's pretty much secluded from the neighbors, and it's a good 30-minute car ride from the closest town." Jisoo spoke and Soora started to see where the conversation was going. "Jin and I thought of going there with a few friends to celebrate our engagement, instead of doing a bachelor party. It would be intimate and small." She finished with a warm smile.
"But I wouldn't know your other friends." Soora rebutted.
"Actually, I was just thinking of inviting only some of our neighbors." Seokjin replied.
"But you surely have other friends, oppa. It wouldn't be fair to just invite people that I'm comfortable with to your engagement retreat."
"You're right, I do have other friends, school friends, childhood friends, but none of them are as close as you or some others from this building. I will have a dinner date with them, like a bachelor party, closer to the wedding date, but this retreat... I want you to go, and I want our friends to go too." He reinforced, and Soora sighed.
"What about you, noona?" Hoseok questioned, referring to the same question.
"Honestly I don't have many friends beside you guys, and the few close ones I have can't take the time off for a retreat, so I will do the same as Jinnie and do a Bachelorette Party later." She explained, feeling kind of abashed on her admission to the lack of friends.
Soora found herself surprised by this, but at the same time she deeply related to it and seeing Jisoo's pleading eyes, made her decision falter.
"I-"
"You don't have to say yes." Hoseok assured.
"I want to go. I'm- kind of excited to go, actually." Soora admitted a feeling she had felt right at the moment Jisoo spoke of the place, but that she had held on up until now.
"Really?" Jisoo asked, elated.
"Yes!" Soora said with a small squeal that Jisoo followed, leading to a heartwarming lefter from the boys.
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a/n: I'm sorry for the long wait, been really busy and unmotivated to write :/
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✔ Save me ⌇⌇ JHS + OC
Fanfiction[COMPLETE] Shin Soora lives cloistered in her apartment due to a variety of diseases. Everything she does is online, which makes her into a really lonely young adult. None of the other neighbors can really understand her, treating her like a weirdo...
