Namjoon's Orchid

CH. 2

I wake up to a dimly lit hotel room. I can remember leaving my office with Namjoon and getting into his car, but it's a blur from there. I don't remember coming to a hotel at all. I hear the sounds of a shower running from the bathroom. I sit, thinking over everything that had just happened. My bag! The thought comes to me in a wave. I look around the room then and locate it in an armchair beside a small desk. I jump down from the bed and rush to it, digging around for my phone. Pulling it out excitedly, thinking of speaking to Jin after all this, I'm met with a disappointing message 'no service.' I frown.

"I'm sorry. I had to take out the sim card. They could track us using that." I hadn't registered the shower shutting off, but Namjoon is standing in the bathroom doorway, wearing jeans and a t-shirt with towel dried hair.

"Oh," I sigh. "I was hoping to talk to Jin.

"Jin is okay. I talked to him earlier actually. He's on his way out of the country right now."

"What!? I didn't know he was traveling!" I'm shocked. Jin always tells me when he's taking a vacation or has a business trip. It would be weird if he didn't, considering we live together.

"Well he didn't have plans to until I told him about what happened tonight." Joon says simply, as if that cleared everything up.

I roll my eyes, feeling more annoyed than anything else. "Namjoon, I need you to start talking. I want to know what the hell is going on. Why did those men show up at my work and attack us? Why is Jin traveling out of the country unexpectedly? And why are you being so cryptic!?" I sort of yell the last part. I note, with pleasure, that it makes Namjoon flinch a little.

Namjoon looks weary as he makes his way to the bed before speaking. I slide into the chair at the desk across from him, my eyes never leaving him. I feel like it's the first time I've really looked at Namjoon. I've known him almost as long as I've known my own brother. Jin and Namjoon met in first grade. They've been inseparable ever since. I was in kindergarten at the time -into my first year with my adopted family. The Kims adopted me when I was 4 years old. I don't really remember anything before my life with them. But I've heard enough to know that my biological parents weren't the best of people. I've never really wanted to know much more beyond that. The Kims have always been my family.

After they died unexpectedly in a car crash when I was 17, Jin took on the responsibility of keeping us afloat. He was 18, had graduated from high school, and was working full time at a tech startup. I worked part time at a local bakery as I finished high school. It wasn't an easy time for us, but we were a strong team. And Namjoon was ever present during this. He could relate to our pain in a small way, with his parents living in South Korea while he had grown up in the States with his aunt. Then, just three years after the death of our parents, Namjoon's aunt lost the fight with cancer. I'm not sure any of us would have gotten through those times without the support from one another.

Still, I don't think I have ever looked at Namjoon the way I do right now. It suddenly occurs to me, that despite how well I know him, secrets clearly lurk beneath the surface. I feel a tingle in my spine. I'm not entirely sure I'm ready to know those secrets.

Namjoon sighs, bringing me out of my reverie. "You have to understand. Jin would want to be the one to tell you all of this. He's been back and forth so many times on whether he should, but we worried for your safety. I guess that doesn't matter now though." Namjoon spoke as if I wasn't in the room. He seemed lost to the story he was about to tell. "We haven't just been studying MMA all these years."

I laughed. I couldn't help it. "What? That's 100% not what I was expecting you to say. I've been to your matches -you've clearly been studying something?" I flourish my hands on the last word, hoping to emphasize my impatience.