Young and Free | BTS [√]

ni ju roku

"Just tell me one thing, Hoseok." Serim bit on her lower lip, her hands placed over her hips. Her looks defensive but soon it melted into a helpless shrug of her shoulders and her arms went loose. "Are you okay?"

The world was rotating around the sun in its usual routine but it felt like it had stopped, right that second when Hoseok felt his breathing hitch in his throat and a lie, assuring Serim he was okay with a bewildering smile almost slipped off but it didn't and Hoseok didn't know why.

"It's not a onetime thing. I notice that you..., sometimes you...," Serim looked around the dull vicinity of the hospital where no one else was around, as if she was looking for the right word.

What word? Weird?

"You just act, different. I noticed you running off to the toilet with tears in your eyes Hoseok. I noticed you avoiding our batch's party only to walk around the city aimlessly. I saw how you behaved at the news of the accident of our group assignment last day and those were not the only times."

If the earth had stopped rotating a few minutes ago, now it was spinning in full speed. Hoseok felt dizzy, nauseated, he could almost see his own complexion going pale. The shorter girl in a blue romper and pigtails on her head didn't stop however.

"I am not going to talk about the time you ghosted me on a date, the time I asked you out. You started avoiding me from the next day but I acted like none of it happened and never brought up the topic again just so we could stay friends. It hurt, Hoseok, because I can't understand you. We've been friends for so long and I thought you might have started liking me too but I guess you didn't."

He did like Serim. He liked how she had this strong persona, a short girl with a temper and a fist, passion that fumed like incandescent flames, yet she could be calm and levelheaded in dire situations like a white dandelion growing on the viridescent fields.

Plus Hoseok really liked how she either always had pigtails or braids on her head.

Actually, Hoseok liked everything about Serim. So much, that it hurt because he had never been infatuated with someone so much in his life before.

But with his condition, only a disaster and ruination could follow. He didn't want to hurt Serim nor did he want to get hurt himself.

"I really want to understand you better, Hoseok, but I can't." Serim looked like she was in pain, waiting for him to say something but he could say nothing.

He wanted to explain himself, say that he really wanted to go on a date with Serim. Hold her tiny hand and listen to her usual tantrums. The day Serim nonchalantly shoved him a ticket to the avengers movie and told him to show up at 7 in evening or else, Hoseok was truly floating on cloud nine.

He didn't know what happened the later part of the day. Perhaps, he dropped, he fell from high above the sky like a meteor crashing on the earth and he burned in his own flame.