Owning You - A Na Jaemin Fanfic

63. Freshman

TWO YEARS LATER

SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

My new roommate is a vibrant, pretty Business major. I've never roomed with a girl before, and it's kind of overwhelming.

Her name is Oh Seri, she's cute and bubbly and talkative.

"So you're reading Law?" she says animatedly. "Cool." She perches on the edge of her bed, bouncing on the springy mattress like she's high on something. I feel exhausted just looking at her. "You must have done really well to get in. I hear Law is really tough and competitive." Bounce. Bounce. Bounce.

"Um, yes, I guess." I am stilted in my reply. I don't warm easily to people, but she seems nice.

"What made you choose Law?" She looks at me, her eyes studying me curiously. Sizing me up. Instinctively, I stiffen.

"Nothing else appealed to me," I say reluctantly. I just met her and she wants me to share my life story with her? "What about you? Why did you choose Business?"

"Oh, a whole bunch of my friends are doing it. My family runs a retail clothing business, as a matter of fact. I have four older brothers and two younger sisters." I smile weakly. "My parents are keen on me joining the family business after I graduate." She laughs, a loud, braying explosion that startles me. Is it too late to switch rooms? "What about you?" Again, that flicker of curiosity. As if she can't quite make out who I am. The bed creaks alarmingly as she shifts. If she bounces any harder, she could hit the roof. "Do you have any friends here?"

"Suzy, my best friend is here, she's doing Social Sciences, and..." I hear my voice soften, "I've got someone else here actually. He's studying Medicine, he's in his Second Year."

Her eyes bulge. She stops bouncing. "He? A guy? Like...a boyfriend?"

"No," I clear my throat. This is the awkward part. "Um, he's my - "

"Husband." I hear his dry voice from behind me.

My new roommate's eyes swing past my head. Her jaw drops.

Jaemin's leaning at the doorway, smiling faintly. He's wearing a white T shirt and a black jacket and blue jeans, slung low over his hips.

He looks devastatingly, impossibly gorgeous.

And he belongs to me.

My Jaemin.

My Jaemin, who makes it easier to forget how hard the world is. My Jaemin, who makes it so much easier to breathe. My Jaemin, standing at the open door, hands tucked in his jeans pockets. My Jaemin, looking at me as if I am the only thing that matters, the only thing he wants to look at.

So many times, he has come to me such, in the dark; my phantom Jaemin, ephemeral and insubstantial, only to crumble to dust at first light.

At this moment, I could almost believe he is a figment of my imagination, some beautiful, elusive thing I had dreamed up to torment myself.

But he is not a dream.

He is real.

And he is here with me. Finally.

"Haeri," he says, my name a warm caress on his tongue. His mouth curves into a smile. "You ready to go for your grand tour?"

He steps into the room, and the world shifts, and everything recedes: the drab curtains, the grey walls, the alien mattress, the strange girl gawking at him. It's just him looking at me, his eyes filled with that odd, aching tenderness, as if he is memorising me, a thousand instances of me.