The Seven Wonders of My Life (BTS) ✔

Chapter Twenty Eight

How fragile and ethereal life can be.

A wise man once said, "the thing about life is, it pushes you until you break just to see if you can put yourself back together. But the twist about it is, you can never be put back the way you were prior to the ordeal. There will always be a scar left behind or a lesson learned."

His body lay limp in my arms, cold sweat dampening his flushed face. Those lush lips that have only ever smiled at me and called my name in joy, gasped for breath. With every haggard rise and fall of his chest, my heart clenched tighter.

My trembling hand cupped his face as a teardrop slid down my face. "Why?" I managed through a gasp.

His eyes rather than his lips smiled. A sad one.

"Farewell, my love."

Or a dear one lost.

It will be hard but you'll be just fine. I'll be just fine.

"Right, Tae?" I circled my arms around the man standing before me, who was blinking with confusion. Last night's dream was hard to forget since it seemed as real as the past months' events. Misfortune and loss weren't aspects so far from my real life. Images of those events were burned on the inside of my eyelids. We've all been hurt, the memory still fresh in our minds. I've lost someone dear to me. Someone we've all misjudged. But a part of me still believes that he's out there somewhere, watching over me.

It was still a mystery to me though why the face of the man in my dream wasn't that of the one we had actually lost.

There was also another face that I'm certain we would never encounter again. That of the man we had all considered our enemy. A face that I had believed for quite some time belonged to a dead man until a certain afternoon some weeks ago. It was a day when I had been out at the market and Eunji had barely left my side when I saw him in the distance. At first, I had frozen in my spot as disturbing memories flashed before my eyes. Until the face of the man who had once been my captor broke into a sad smile. One of unspoken pain and guilt. It was a fleeting second of weakness before his hood fell over to cover his features and he disappeared into the busy market's crowd. And I knew that it will be the last I ever see of Namjoon.

We've moved a long way, leaving all the pain behind us and have started a new chapter of the rest of our lives. As I nuzzled my head into the front of his shirt, Taehyung sighed and ran a comforting hand over my back.

"There, now," he whispered into my ear. "You're doing just fine."

Then the room that was already buzzing with excitement and chatter, erupted in a round of applause as the bride and groom entered.

***

The celebration went into the night, guests from all of society's hierarchy conversing and dancing, children scurrying around the white-clothed tables in an endless game of tag. Flowers in every shade of yellow and blue adorned the Jung's garden, from its fence to the front door and every table in between. I've watched Lara hand-pick and fuss over them all afternoon and I would bet a fortune anytime that she was more thrilled by the occasion than the couple themselves.

"I'm just relieved that it turned out well," she sighed, a hand clasped to her heart.

"With the amount of effort you put into it, I doubted it would be anything but perfect," I assured her as we watched the bride and groom head in our direction.

"After everything we've been through, this is the least they deserve." She leaned against me, her back against my front. "A happy ending."

It was just where I always wanted her to be. Close and safe. "We deserve just as much, don't we?"