The Bottom Namjoon Collection!

Enigma (part 2)

Namjoon was tired.

God, he was so tired.

Every morning, waking up seemed more and more like a chore he wasn't sure if he wanted to undertake again. That sounded horrible, but it wasn't in a suicidal way, more in a bone-deep exhaustion kind of way.

More in a... let me sleep for 50 years and then wake me with true love's kiss. Now, that was probably more of a pipe dream stemming from his many missed hours of sleep, leading to sleep deprivation.

It was a good dream, though, more of a daydream since actual dreaming required him to be asleep, something that was seemingly not allowed, even to attempt.

It had gotten worse over the years. While he loved BigHit and their management, as the company became more corporate, there was no way around the fact that what used to be a close-knit, not small company was now a billion-dollar enterprise, and the familiarity it once held was no longer there.

Instead, it was replaced with people who didn't know Namjoon personally, only familiar with RM, and who showed little concern for him as an individual, caring solely about what he could do and how he could do it. They all knew that if they had something that needed fixing with any members of BTS, it was much easier to contact Namjoon, and he would solve it.

They weren't abusive; they just... lacked a certain care. For them, it was just work, something they did during the day before going home to their families and actually living their lives.

It was probably for the best. If anything, it was probably a good work-life balance, but it also meant that they didn't care much about how much they were burdening Namjoon. They cared about getting things done, and Namjoon was the easiest person to help them do it.

Back when it all started, Namjoon had wanted to prove himself, to be useful. Even then, one of his biggest fears was being useless, being a waste of space that everybody wanted to get rid of. He just... wanted to help.

When he learned that he was to be the leader and that three of his members were older than him, the desperate want and need to be seen as useful and capable, someone younger than them who was still worthy of respect, only grew.

That was how it started, the need to prove himself. But he couldn't deny that the reason it kept going was that... this was Namjoon's love language. It was how he showed that he cared, by doing things for the people he cared about.

It had gotten out of hand. Logically speaking, Namjoon knew it had gotten out of hand over the years. But nobody had ever stopped him, nobody had sat him down and told him to take a moment to breathe. Nobody had offered to share the workload.

He loved all the members of BTS so much, more than what was normal for a man to love his platonic group members. So, Namjoon wanted to do right by them. He wanted to give his best, give them everything, but it was slowly ruining him.

Sometimes he wasn't even sure if he qualified as being human anymore. He felt as if he was watching and perceiving the world through a lens.

Leaving Seokjin back at his flat was harder than it should have been. It was something he had done before. It wasn't any different from all the other times. It was Namjoon finally being able to breathe, only for that to be taken away from him.

What was different was that it was the first time Seokjin seemed to think something was wrong, the first time he put real effort into making Namjoon stay, and the first time Namjoon almost did.

He expected that maybe something would change after that. Maybe Seokjin would say something, maybe they would talk about it. Namjoon couldn't be the first one to bring it up; it felt like a failure if he did. But if one of them sat him down and talked to him, maybe it would be okay.