best friends forever | jung hoseok

One

Rain had been falling all day. Usually a very sunny person, Hoseok felt grumpy at being confined by the weather. He looked out the window and saw there was a break in the falling rain. He decided to head outside for some fresh air. It was already dark out, so he figured he would be safe from being recognized if he went for a brief walk.

Hoseok walked briskly down the street towards a nearby park, trying to shake his bad mood. He spent about an hour wandering along the treelined paths that surrounded the lake at the park.

He grumbled to himself, "Well, this isn't helping at all. I guess I'll head back. Maybe I just need to go to sleep and end this waste of a day."

When he came to a small corner store, he went in to buy a drink. By the time he picked up his drink and went to the cash register, the sky had opened up and it was pouring again.

"Great. I should have just stayed home. What am I going to do now?"

There was one small table in the corner by the big window at the front of the store. However, there was already someone sitting there...a very cute someone. Hoseok stood by the window watching the rain come down. Out of the corner of his eye, he also checked out the girl, who was completely engrossed in reading her book. She's pretty, he thought absentmindedly.

After a few minutes, he sighed. Without looking up, the girl pushed the opposite chair out with her foot and continued reading her book. Hoseok took this as an invitation to sit down, so he did. However, the girl ignored him, still reading.

Rude, he thought to himself.

A few more minutes went by and Hoseok started to feel awkward. He fidgeted and cleared his throat. Well, here goes nothing...

He smiled as he said, "Hello. Thank you for letting me sit with you. My name is Hoseok. What's your name?"

The girl finally looked up and Hoseok was shocked by how intensely blue her eyes were. With her thick, wavy, dark hair and her fair skin, he decided she was more than pretty; she was beautiful.

She said, "Oh, I'm sorry. You didn't look like you wanted any company, so I left you alone. My name is Rosalie. I'm so happy to meet you! It looks like it's going to rain for a while, which means we're stuck here, unless you have someone you could call to come pick you up. Um, I have a bunch of books here, if you'd like to see if there's any you'd like to read...or we could talk. Whatever you want to do. Oh my goodness, now I'm just rambling on and on about nothing. Sorry. I don't get to talk to many people lately, so unfortunately..." She shrugged her shoulders and grinned at him.

Hoseok loved to read so he looked through her bag of books and was surprised there were several on his to-read list. He would have figured the bag would be full of romance novels, but no. He smiled his brightest smile at her, then asked, "So why are you not talking to many people lately?"

Rosalie sat there staring at him, unable to look away. Oh my goodness, she thought, he was beautiful before he smiled; now though, wow! You better watch out, Rosalie, this one could be easy to fall for and you definitely don't need that. Oooh, but there's something about that smile... She pulled her hair over one shoulder, a nervous habit.

"Uh...hmmm? Oh right, not talking to people. I just moved to Korea recently and just really don't know anyone yet."

"Did you move here for your job, or maybe you have family here?" Hoseok asked.

Rosalie shook her head, "No to both questions. My job is pretty much my own schedule, as long as I'm not on a deadline, and it can be done from anywhere. I've always wanted to travel and learn about different cultures, so I decided to take several years and see the world while I'm still young enough to do it. I literally threw a dart, named Destiny, at a map and it landed here. So here I am for at least the next year. I've already spent time in Iceland and England."

Hoseok leaned on the table, still looking through her books, "You speak Korean though? Not many people outside of Korea just know how to do that."

Rosalie laughed, "Well, I didn't just throw the dart and pack up and leave; I did prepare. I've always been a quick study, so when I knew I was coming to Korea, I enrolled in language classes at the university. I'm not perfect yet; I'm probably butchering most of what I'm saying, but I think I'm getting along fine so far."

"You're doing great! So you really moved here without knowing a soul? That's brave! Maybe you and I could be friends?" he offered. "We seem to have the same taste in books, at least that's something." He thought, she doesn't seem to recognize me. Maybe we really could be friends.

"So, what is it you do for a living that's so portable?"asked Hoseok.

"I guess you could say I'm an artist. I have a blog, that's sort of a personal diary. I draw things from my day or things I'm feeling, and then I write a bit about it. It's actually taken off quite well. But I make the majority of my money drawing illustrations for books...children's books, textbooks, a few book covers," she explained.

"That sound like an amazing job. Would I have seen anything you've done?"

Rosalie laughed, "I don't think any of the books I've done would have made their way over here to Korea. But if you want to see some of my stuff, I'll give you my Instagram account. I post my artwork on there too."

Rosalie wrote out her info on the bookstore receipt and included her cellphone number. She handed it to Hoseok and they kept talking. Quite a while later, Rosalie noticed the time on her phone.

"Oh no, it's after midnight!" she exclaimed.

Neither one of them had noticed when the rain stopped hours ago. They gathered up their things to head home. Hoseok checked his phone and was surprised how many text messages from the other members he had missed.

~Jimin: Where are you?~

~Jimin: Are you ok?~

~Jin: Hobi...~

~Jin: Hobi wth?~

~Namjoon: Where the hell are you?~

Oh well, he was already in trouble; he might as well go for broke.

"How far is your apartment from here? Let me walk you home. It's far too late for you to be out on the streets alone," he offered.

Rosalie shook her head, "No, it's ok. It's only about four blocks away. I'll be fine."

Hoseok flashed her a smile, grabbed her hand, and pulled her out of her chair. If she thought she had a choice about this, she was mistaken. They thanked the clerk on their way out and walked into the night.

~~~

Two hours later, Hoseok walked into the dorm, right into two very angry band members. Jin and Namjoon stood there with their arms crossed and neither one of them were smiling.

"How dare you leave us to worry like that! Where have you been? You do understand you're not just a normal person who can go off on their own whenever they please, right? Do you know how close I was to calling Bang PD?" lectured Namjoon.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I just went for a walk and lost track of time."

Jin snapped, "For six hours? C'mon Hobe, where were you?"

"Really guys? I'm 25 years old! I can take a walk by myself!" Hoseok exclaimed.

With that Hoseok stormed off to his room. He remembered that Jimin was probably asleep and barely managed to not slam the door. He quickly showered and went to bed. He was just about to drift off to sleep...

"Hobi? You ok?" whispered Jimin.

Hoseok answered sarcastically, "Just great."

"Well, Jin and Namjoon didn't kill you; at least that's something," Jimin pointed out.

"At least not yet," said Hoseok, "actually Jimin, I had a pretty good night. Totally worth whatever they do to me now."

Hoseok picked up the receipt Rosalie had written her info on and looked at it again, smiling to himself. Yeah, totally worth it!