Seoul City

Ch. 44 - But Not Forever

4 Months later.

Without Chaeyoung, the dull hours faded into tiring days, days turned into weeks until, eventually, 4 months had gone by. Time itself melted into a pointless, abstract concept that he tried his best to ignore. It was as if the colour in his life had been stripped away and had been replaced with a cloud of grey and white.

Jungkook could not, for the life of him, stop thinking about her. Whether he was listening to a song on the radio or riding his motorcycle – she invaded his thoughts at every turn. Was she eating well? Was she getting enough sleep? Was she safe? Did she think about him half as often as he thought of her? When he drove by the hospital, his eyes naturally wandered – searching for her familiar scrubs and messy work hair, only to be disappointed when they didn't find them. She was everywhere and no where all at once.

There were moments where he wanted nothing more than to call her or even knock on her front door, to run to her and reveal exactly how he felt about her – but then, he remembered how completely heartbroken she'd looked in the hospital and stopped himself. Seeing her in so much pain ripped his heart apart, but it also showed him the deepness of her love for Taehyung. So, he understood why she needed time and chose to respect her wishes.

Normally, he would've gone through dozens of women by now in a futile attempt to forget her, but she'd changed him. Ever since she snuck into his heart, he hadn't so much as looked at another woman. No one could compare to her and no one could replace her.

Instead, he spent the past couple months burying himself in work – attending back-to-back meetings, planning business projects for hours nonstop and writing more papers than he'd ever written in his life. The company reaped the benefits of his hard work, with productivity reports reaching an all-time high and their stock value nearly doubling. He was known as one of the youngest and most successful businessman in the country and could buy himself anything except for the one thing he truly wanted.

Distracting himself with work was exactly what he was doing on that particular evening. As he sat on the white, leather sofa in his bedroom with a fresh stack of paperwork to sort through, he could hear the faint tapping of raindrops against his window ledge. When the low sound of thunder rumbled above him, he tore his eyes away from his papers to spare a glance outside. It was on nights like these that he missed Chaeyoung most, as he recalled that morning on the camping trip-

He immediately snapped himself out of these thoughts and returned his focus to work, fearing that if he began thinking about her again, he wouldn't be able to stop. It wasn't long though before he was interrupted again, this time by a knock on the door.

He remembered placing a large 'do not disturb' sign on his door to prevent his housekeepers from interrupting, so he initially tried to ignore the knocks, hoping whoever it was would soon get the message. Instead, he was annoyed to hear the taps only grow louder and more forceful. Heaving a frustrated sigh, he finally got up.

"Can't you see the sign?" he snapped as he swung the door, before he even saw the person on the other side.

But, as soon as his eyes landed on Chaeyoung, he froze in place, his eyes growing wide in shock.

She was drenched from head to toe in rainwater – the short, red dress she was wearing clinging to her body and her dark hair framing her face in long, wavy tendrils. In her hands, she was holding the black sweater he'd given her on the camping trip along with the leather jacket he'd given her at the hospital. As he gazed into her warm, chocolate eyes, he could tell she'd been crying.

"I'm sorry, I know this is sudden," she said softly, "but, I was just at Jimin and Jennie's rehearsal dinner where I had to listen to and give speeches about something I've only recently begun to understand: love. The entire time, images of you were flashing in my head and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't shake them away. I realized that you'd invaded my thoughts and wondered how long I was thinking of you, but then I discovered that since the moment I met you, you'd always been there – in my mind and in my heart. And then, as I was driving home, "nothing like us" started playing on the radio and your voice was the only one I could hear. Suddenly, my eyes were flooded with so much tears that I couldn't see the road properly and had to pull over. When I did, I remember that your leather jacket and sweater were still in my car and I instinctively reached for them, expecting to smell your familiar scent. But, I couldn't. The scent was gone and for some reason that completely broke my heart. It made me realize that you could disappear from my life just like the scent disappeared from your clothes and that thought was just devastating. I started driving again, letting my body take control as my mind blanked, and before I knew it, I was standing on your front steps."