Sweet Lily (Ten Million Fireflies/Adopted by BTS one shots)

Burnout (탈진)

Nari let out a deep yawn and shut her laptop. It was the day before finals week and she was a nervous wreck. Nothing seemed to be going right this year, all the classes seemed harder than usual, the content was boring, and most importantly, her literature teacher didn't seem to like anything that she wrote.

Out of all the years she had been in school, Nari had never encountered anything like it. Studying wasn't easy to her by any means and she worked hard for every A she earned but her safe place had always been with books. However, even that was slowly deteriorating. She hadn't read for fun in months. It wasn't even that she didn't have the time, she was just so tired of it all.

The girl managed to heave herself out of bed and open the door to her room. The dorm was uncharacteristically silent for a Friday evening, usually the boys would be playing video games or watching a movie by now. Nari hadn't seen much of them for the past few weeks since she had been opting to study at home instead of at the studio. Nevertheless, their kindness still shone bright and she could tell that they were trying their hardest to encourage her. Namjoon made sure to give her a good morning and goodnight hug and kiss, Jin always made her a bento for lunch no matter how busy he was, Jungkook would slip little drawings under her door, and the rest of them tried to help her out in any way that they could. Nari knew without a doubt that those boys loved her.

But Nari knew that with love came worry, and she didn't want them to worry about her. Suga especially was on her mind a lot as she was surely on his. The girl tried not to look into his eyes when they were together because she knew that if she did he would be able to see how truly depressed she was.

She meandered downstairs to look for something and her face broke into a big smile when she saw Jimin in the living room.

"Hello sweetheart," He wrapped her in a big hug, "It's good to see you."

"You too." Nari let out a deeply held sigh of relief as she relaxed into Jimin's chest. He gave the best hugs, and just for a moment, everything felt okay again.

The boy let go and gestured to a spot on the couch, "Sit. I'll make us some tea."

Nari nodded and took her place on the couch. Usually she would have contested, but she'd been doing so much by herself lately that it felt nice to be doted on by someone else. The girl noticed a book that had been left on Jimin's side of the couch...with the pages face down. The poor spine of the book looked like it was giving all that it had. She shook her head and immediately picked it up, sneaking a glance at the cover. It was The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, one of her and Namjoon's favorites.

"Don't lose my page!" Jimin exclaimed playfully, setting their cups down on the coffee table.

"I won't," Nari replied and quickly dog-eared the corner of the page as she set it down, "Is this Namjoon's copy? You probably shouldn't set it down all bent like that, it ruins the spine."

The boy blew on the steam coming from his tea, "Am I not supposed to do that? I was just so excited to see you that I didn't think about it. I'm sorry."

"It's okay." Her insides grew warm from the mention of her presence, "I didn't know you were home today. Are you liking the book?"

"I put in some extra hours at the studio and finished all my lines on Friday so I could take it easy this week." He explained, "I figured that someone ought to be home with you, and since I'm not as involved with production on this album, it might as well be me. And well, how do I explain this...the book is kinda freaky. I don't know if I like it yet."

Nari laughed, "Well, then you've gotten the point." She sighed, "Maybe if I turned into a massive cockroach then I wouldn't have to write all these essays."