TIME AFTER TIME ; jjk

20

Taehyung smiled. "Okay."

"But don't you think Soohyun isn't asking us to hang out even when she's available because of Kim Namjoon? I've seen him a few nights around here."

He looked surprised. "Oh. Sucks to be us, then. I need someone who'll wait for me as I get off my shift, too."

"And ditch me?"

He shot me an incredulous look and arched his brows. "What? Would that make you sulk? I won't purposefully ditch you for anyone. But sometimes, you've got to set your priorities..." Taehyung picked up his mug of coffee and drank down the rest of it in one go. "Jungkook."

"Yes?"

"Have you thought of settling down? Even for once?"

I was stunned by the sudden turn of conversation, the seriousness quickly emanating from his expression. I watched him play with the retractable pen between his fingers, spinning and clicking. "Not yet. Have you?"

"It crossed my mind a few times. But I didn't give it much thought because I don't even have a person to do it with. I'm not in a rush, you know. But now that I turned thirty, it makes me think what I'll do for the next years. Am I just going to study and train as a doctor as much as I'd like to? What comes after? I'm having fun right now and I'm happy with everything I have, although I haven't accomplished my dreams of having my license, my own house and car yet. Those things..."

I gave him a nod, processing his words, trying to be understanding. "That matters for now, right? You're happy. The future is such an appalling idea. Too unpredictable. You don't know what it holds for you. Sometimes, though you have planned everything out, things don't go your way. We've seen it all. Both of us know what we have planned before didn't happen even if we worked hard. And it's hard not to think about the future, but I'd rather not to. The present is already difficult to process and carry on our backs." I sighed at how pretentious that sounded, and I wondered if Taehyung took me seriously.

"But don't you want a family of your own?"

"To be honest, I'm not sure."

"Me, too," he said.

"I'll take it slow."

"I guess that's the best we should do."

"We have long years ahead of us."

"I agree."

"There's a lot to do, you know. Develop as an individual. Personal growth. Pick more hobbies and interests."

Taehyung continued. "Plus travel! God, why do I talk like we're running out of time? We're still young. And building and raising a family isn't easy as it sounds."

"Big responsibility. Not ready for that," I said.

"The thing here, my friend, is that we'll never be ready for anything."

A single day encompassed so much. I had done a few consultations and assisted senior doctors on anything they asked us to do. Visited our patients and monitored them closely, a few chit chats here and there, updating on our clinical study and another documentation work, saw Soohyun and was kind of glad she smiled at me, then got back to series of activities that were listed in the job description.

If there was something I wanted to do the most, it was to forget the kiss that didn't happen. Much to my surprise, lately Soohyun had been on my mind. Like the apparent absence of her shadow had marked a space on me and I couldn't get rid of it.

A terrifying thought.

Worse that I didn't know why it could have so much power to terrify me.

I used to be able to get through this. Absence was supposed to get me back on track.