ROSE | K.SJ

III. THE REFLECTION

"It is love we must hold on to.
Never easy, but we try."

— — —

C H A P T E R T H R E E

WEEKS PASSED BY, AND THE EARLY SUMMER GREW INTO THE DENSE HEAT OF THE LATE SEASON. The July sun beat down upon the city of Seoul relentlessly, reflecting off buildings and cars, soaked up by the skin of the people who milled about. The warmth was well accepted by some, but others preferred the cooler seasons and found the summer heat to be unbearably discomforting.

Seokjin happened to be one of those other people.

He had not always preferred the cold air and frostbitten noses; warms gloves and cozy scarves wrapped around his chin. As a child, he recalled, summertime was his favorite season. Running barefoot through the gardens, soil between his toes and the scent of fresh blossoms filling his nose.

But he had changed since then. Now, he found himself counting down the weeks until the bright reds and pinks of summer turned to the dusky oranges and rich browns of fall.

"Seokjin!"

He turned away from the office window he had been looking through when he heard Rose call his name. She scurried into his office, a pile of notebooks, binders, and loose papers stacked so high in her arms that she had to crane her neck in order to peek over top of them. Her hazel eyes were focused, brightening once they landed on him.

"Are those all for me?" Seokjin asked with a quirked brow as Rose set the giant stack down on his desk.

She placed her hands on her hips and blew air through the corner of her mouth, moving a loose curl from the side of her face. "Not all of them—a quarter of them are for you, about a quarter are for Jungkook, and the rest are for me."

"That's a lot."

"Oh, and Jimin's complaining about his assistant again," Rose continued as she began to flip through some of the stack, setting certain things off to the side and leaving others in the pile. "I hate to say it, but we really may have to fire him soon—before Jimin kills him. And Taehyung says we need to schedule a meeting by the end of the day regarding our late shipment on those perfumes, then Yoongi said something about a journalist that won't quit circling the building, and—"

She halted abruptly in the middle of her report, eyes narrowing as they locked on Seokjin. He felt vulnerable beneath her stare; the intensity of her gaze was unreadable. It could have meant something good, something bad, or anything in between. Seokjin shifted his weight, swallowing as he waited for her to start speaking again.

She lifted her hand, pointing at his face. He felt his heart stop, his mouth going dry.

"You're sweating," she said. "It's way too hot in here! I keep telling Jungkook to call someone to check your air conditioning."

He let out a quiet sigh of relief as she brushed past him, moving towards his office window. For a moment, he thought that his concealer had begun to fade, or that it was poorly blended once again. After the slip up on Rose's first day, he could not afford another. At least, in his mind he could not.

The scar was small, but it was prominent. Noticeable. It clearly had not been there before. Seokjin did not know how he could explain its arrival, or why it looked like a scar that had been there for years when it had not shown up until a few weeks ago.

How could he give an explanation for something he did not understand himself?

It had been weeks since the dream—nightmare, in more accurate terms—and he had not had one like it since. The cut on his finger had healed rather quickly.