Healing (KTH, featuring KNJ)

Chapter 8

Now that Taehyung felt like he had Namjoon's blessing he quickly moved to figuring out how to spend more time with Clara so they could discover whether they could like each other enough to turn it into something. He wanted to be careful, both remembering Namjoon's ominous threats and knowing it would be hard for her to enter a new relationship after the heartbreak of her last one. He wanted to keep things casual and take it slow while also pushing the boundaries a bit to start to test the waters on whether it could be something more.

First things first, he needed some basic advice on how to ask her to spend time together. Middle school was the last time he asked a girl out, and he was nearly certain that his approach of dropping a note in her locker wasn't an option. Don't get the wrong impression, he had gone out with women since, but they had always approached him. Being an idol meant lots of girls approached him and honestly he never had to put much effort into those relationships because they always seemed more interested in him than he was in them. So he just went along until it became too inconvenient which would lead to an inevitable breakup.

But the last girl he had gone out with really messed with him. She was gorgeous and he couldn't deny that she was a lot of fun at first. But as time went on she became increasingly upset and controlling about how busy he was. When he told her that he thought they should break up she became violent. Then there were all of the pictures of him that she shared with the media, and worse yet she told the tabloids all sorts of lies about him. He cheated on her. He was abusive. And she told them that he was using drugs.

While the company eventually cleaned up the mess, it was terribly stressful for all of the members and Taehyung began to second guess his judgment. His members assured him that it wasn't his fault, she was just crazy. But he decided that it really wasn't worth the risk, so he stopped seeing women and became very cautious around any strangers just in case.

Now, after almost two years, he was ready to dip his toes back into the water, but he felt like he had lost his practice being with girls particularly one on one. He needed to build up some courage to give it a try.

Taehyung knew that Clara often snuck into the apartment to play the piano, so he decided the best option to invite her out would be to go to see a jazz piano concert a friend had told him about. It wasn't very easy for him to go out in public but he thought they might be able to get seating by the edge.  And if necessary they could sneak out a few minutes early. Hopefully she would enjoy it as much as he did. But the concert was in only one week, so he needed to figure out how to ask her quickly.

Each morning he psyched himself up, preparing to ask her if she stopped by the Big Hit building. He was pretty sure that his members could tell he was distracted, especially Hobi who had taken to glaring at him for most of dance practice where Taehyung seemed to be doing the wrong steps more often than not. But he really didn't want to have Namjoon as the middle man to his invitation. He was both too embarrassed and he wanted to do this on his own.

After not seeing her for the next four days, he knew time was running out and he'd eventually need Namjoon's help if he wanted this to happen. After breakfast at the dorms Taehyung pulled Namjoon to the living room asking if he had a few minutes.

"Hyung, I haven't seen Clara in a few days, is she doing ok?"

Namjoon responded with a smirk "Yes Tae, she's fine. She was just staying with my parents for a few days. Why do you ask?"

"Hyung" Taehyung whined, "please don't make this harder for me than it already is".

"Ok, ok, I happen to know she is coming back to Seoul tomorrow and she will probably stop by the building the next day."

Taehyung considered. That would be cutting it very close to the concert. He didn't want to invite her over the phone, but he also didn't want to wait so late.

"Hyung, can you give me her number? I want to send her a text to invite her to a concert this weekend".

Ruffling Taehyung's hair, Namjoon agreed. He really was proud of Taehyung for making the effort, and he hoped for both of their sakes that they might find some comfort and healing in spending time with each other.