"I am having trouble loving myself and that's only one person, how do you expect me to love seven more?"
In which the Bangtan boys compromise to help a girl in need and it ends up becoming something much much more...
Warning: I am new to the ARMY f...
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For the next week, everything continued in a seemingly normal fashion. Each and every night, Jae and Sang-Hoon would abandon their own bedroom in favour of slipping into Aera's room to give her a pep talk. For the entire seven days so far, they had been attempting to persuade her that this was the very best decision she could ever make- and she had been self-consciously resistant. Every single day, she would get the outfits ready, make breakfast for everybody and help the members get changed- entirely professionally. They each seemed uncertain of her passive expression, she had apparently perfected a face of indifference. But after an entire week of ignoring the inevitable and pretending that nothing was happening, Aera knew that she had to come to a decision.
She had her worries and concerns, she was sure that everybody would- she was completely terrified but each and every day made it harder to stay away. One day when she was fixing Namjoon's collar, she had the overwhelming desire just to break down in tears in his arms and have him hold her. When did life get so complicated?
Aera's careful routine of professionally helping them, vanishing to her room when they returned at night and then waking early to fix any frayed hems or broken zippers was disturbed on day seven when they came barrelling through the door at midday as she cleaned the kitchen with Jae, attesting that they had been let off early as filming was slowly running dry. Aera couldn't help but take that as a sign as she watched them all chatter, getting changed into ordinary clothes so their costumes could be protected from the general wear and tear of everyday life. They all avoided her, swerving and pretending she wasn't there and it did happen to upset her slightly though what did she really expect? This was exactly the response Yoongi had promised her. She was being given space, all of them acting as if nothing had ever been asked of her in the first place and it was so utterly heartbreaking to Aera that she knew she had to snatch up the offer before it vanished from underneath her.
The imploring eyes of Jae was enough of a prompt for her because he knew it too and if an outside opinion could also see the distance being formed- it meant she finally had to act. It was the moment of truth, Aera was terrified and reasonably so but at the same time- as she mentally decided in the course she would take, her chest lightened as if a weight had been lifted and a warmth of relief flooded through her. It was as if Aera's body was proud of the decision her mind had made. She knew she had to be careful with this, that the only way to insure the slow relationship that she desired was to start it off slow. And that was why she took a shot in the dark. Aera mustered all the confidence she had in her shy body, pushing away all self-consciousness and negativity as she progressed up the stairs to the higher landing.
And that was where she waited for him. The girl toyed with the curls in her hair nervously, a twitchy habit of fiddling that she'd once been chastised for as a child. But now it was the only thing that gave relief to the churning, sickening nerves in her gut as the time bore on. Originally, time felt to be stretched out excruciatingly as she waited but the second the door opened, it felt as if it had been such a short moment, as if no time had passed at all. And she wished the door would shut once more and provide her with another minute to pre-rehearse the speech she collaborated in her head. No amount of extra minutes would ever be enough to dismantle her mountain of nervousness. Was she really doing this?
