Healing (KTH, featuring KNJ)

Chapter 29

The next several months progressed like a whirlwind. If it was difficult to get time with Taehyung before, Clara was just now really starting to understand how challenging his schedule could be. BTS was planning for a concert tour which had all of the boys excited. But at the same time it required a lot of work. And Taehyung was off filming a television show at all hours of the day and night, trying to get his schedules to line up. Several times Taehyung had called Clara on his drive between locations only to fall asleep on her mid-conversation, but she was glad for what little time they still had together.

Clara had eventually moved back to her apartment. After enough nights when Taehyung simply didn't make it home at all she started feeling like she was overstaying her welcome. While Namjoon assured her that they didn't mind, there really was no reason for her to stay if Taehyung wasn't even going to be stopping by. Clara saw Jungkook in Taehyung's room more often than Taehyung himself. Jungkook had been tasked with regularly packing a new set of clean clothes to take Taehyung on the days he didn't make it home. Each time Jungkook came in he immediately apologized for the interruption, and scurried as quickly as possible to collect what he needed before he was faced with the disappointment in Clara's eyes.

For his part Taehyung had taken to sleeping on a mat in the practice room, or on Yoongi's couch, multiple nights a week. It gave him a bit of extra time to rest. And he knew that if he went home to Clara he'd be wracked with guilt about waking her up only to leave in the early hours of the morning before he'd even had the chance to say hello. Honestly, he felt like he was starting to struggle to maintain even the basic formalities of a relationship, but Clara never seemed to judge him or mind the situation. She truly was an angel with an extra sprinkling of understanding.

Clara kept herself busy with work, continuing to attend regular therapy appointments, and meeting with the mothers weekly to continue her Korean "education". And she'd met a few of the other members' girlfriends. Jin and Hoseok's long time significant others already seemed to know each other well. But Jimin was in a newer relationship, so his girlfriend was also just being introduced around.

The boys seemed to like the idea of the girls spending a lot of time together, perhaps to help manage their guilt from their own absences. But Clara found they really didn't have much in common, beyond being the girlfriends of members of BTS. Jin's girlfriend was sweet and charming, but was equally driven by her own entertainment career. Hoseok's girlfriend was a model and spent most of her time talking about fashion and going to expensive stores and spas. And Jimin's girlfriend, well let's just say she spent too much time describing the couple's intimate moments together for Clara to really feel comfortable around her.

Overall they were fine, but Clara couldn't really see herself becoming particularly close to any of them. The other girls seemed to know that she really wasn't part of that world, and while they were polite enough, Clara eventually started coming up with excuses to see them even less. She really was more of a homebody and wanted to spend that time taking an online drawing class or reading a book curled up in a chair by the window instead.

As their time apart continued to drag on it seemed like Taehyung and Clara were starting to drift apart, though nobody wanted to mention it. She stopped expecting his calls and he started to abandon hope that he'd ever have enough time to have a real call, let alone see her in person. Their regular calls went from talking about their feelings and ideas, to covering the most basic surface information of what they had been up to, to simply dropping off altogether.

When Namjoon's parents asked Clara how things were going between the couple, they were met with a smile, a nod, and a clipped "good" response. Sometimes it was followed by a long litany of explanations on how busy Taehyung was, but other times she simply moved on to other topics after a one word answer. The parents were becoming a bit anxious about the health of the relationship, but kept their opinions to themselves as they both understood that Taehyung didn't have a lot of options, and Clara refused to speak about it anyway.

Namjoon could feel it too. It didn't take a high IQ to notice that Taehyung simply had absolutely no free time, barely enough to shovel a few calories in his mouth to keep going before his next opportunity to catnap. But as much as Namjoon sympathized with his situation, he really could offer no help. Taehyung being gone to film was disruptive enough to their concert preparations. Any request to management to give Taehyung even a single evening off would have been met with an immediate "no" and an exhaustive rehashing of how much work they still had to do. He'd thought about asking Clara to come to the company building to stop by for even a few minutes to say hello, hoping to refresh Taehyung and himself with her company. But Namjoon was simply too exhausted himself to imagine dealing with the glares and snide comments from management about the distraction.

So they continued, not quite anchored together anymore, but not fully adrift. Taehyung was frustrated with how things were going right now, but it was the knowing that he had months of work ahead of him without any escape that had him truly weighed down.

This simply was not working.