“You said goodbye to me,
every night before I went to bed,
I hated that even more than dying,
It feels like this night is the end of you and me.”
- Love is not over
Seconds feel like minutes, minutes feel like hours, hours feel like days. I lost the only constant in my life. The only thing that I hoped to always be there. My mother was my hero all my life. She protected me from everything bad. She was the shield that hid the awfulness of this cruel world from me.
I was numb. Completely numb. Tae didn’t even dare to leave my side. We sat there for two more hours and I saw the sun starting to rise again. I finally look up. My face was buried in his hoodie the whole time and he didn’t make single move. The only thing he did was caress my back and I appreciated it. “You need to go home. You need sleep. The other miss you.” I say and to be honest, I don’t even want him to go. I want him to never leave my side. “I stay until you are better.”
“But I shouldn’t be your priority. You are an Idol. There are more important things in your life than to accompany a random person you just met.” Self-hatred starts consuming my mind. I am not worth his company. I will never be. He will always be too good for me and I should always remind myself of this.
A young man entered the café.
“Here you are hyung. I searched nearly the whole town to find you.”
It was Jungkook. He looks exhausted. Sadly, I couldn’t understand what he said but I think it was something like ‘Come home’.
“I am sorry. I needed to accompany Syra. Her mother just died and I couldn’t just leave her alone like this.” Tae answers while looking at me. The depth of his voice makes me feel comfortable. I always had a thing for deep voices.
“Your luck that our practice today was canceled since Yoongi-hyung got ill again. Should I leave you two alone?”
“Ask her not me.”
“Should I go, Syra?” he doesn’t have such a strong accent as Tae, but it is still cute. “I think I should go home anyway. Amy may wonders where I am.” I replied. “You OK?” Tae asks me with a caring look again. “Yes I am. I survived more than this. It’s... It was just the shock that took me down. I am totally fine. Yes. I am fine.”
“You are not.” Jungkook says from the other side of the room. “Of course I am. I have never felt this good before.” My voice cracked while saying this and burning tears start to fill my eyes again. How am I supposed to let this guy leave when I cannot go five minutes without crying? Tae hugged me again. He places his chin on my head. It was a meaningful gesture to me. It somehow shows that he protects me.
“Stay with me.” I say under my breath, so quiet that I didn’t even hear it myself. “Always.” Was the only thing he says. ‘Always’. Hearing this word, I start crying again. It was something my mother always answered to this question. And now Kim Taehyung says it. He barely knows me. The only thing he knows is my name. And now he says that he will stay with me always? This all seems like a dream. A really awful dream.
Jungkook just stands at the other side of the room. You can read in his face how awful he feels seeing me cry and not being able to do anything to change it.
¤¤¤¤¤
Just as I thought my life couldn’t get worse, I look to Jungkook and spot a face behind him looking inside the café through the big window. Her eyes get bigger with every second and she storms in.
“Jungkook! Taehyung! OMG IT’S REALLY YOU! AAAAAAH!”
She shouts like they would want to kill her. I only see her through a blur since my eyes are still filled with tears. She finally looks at me, but as seeing me and realizing I am not one of them her smiles fades and she immediately takes out her smartphone to take a picture. Tae realizes what she is up to and tries to hide me from the camera but she already got her picture.
“We need to leave.” Jungkook says and pulls me and Tae out of the café. We just run, I don’t know where we go but I just follow them. I mean, what should they do to ruin my day? It’s already completely ruined. And not only my day, but rather my whole life is. I was stupid enough and met with an Idol and thought we could talk like normal people. How will he be able to look at me now? Even when I don’t know much about an Idol life I can imagine how big of a deal it is when he gets caught hugging a foreign girl.
“Where are we going?” I finally ask after 5 minutes of running. “Our dorm.” Tae answers. “We don’t want them to know where you live. They would follow you.” Jungkook adds. They would follow me? But I am just an ordinary girl, nothing special. No talents. No famous family. Just a random girl lost in the stress of beginning a new life. I obviously failed.
We entered their dorm and 5 pairs of eyes are staring at me.
“Why is she here?” Was the first thing I heard. I think Yoongi asked it.
“Just look through Twitter, she should have already posted it.” Of course I am totally lost again. Not understanding a single word sucks. Namjoon stands up and makes his way to me.
“Are you OK?”
“I… I don’t know. I don’t know what to think or to say anymore. My life is just falling apart into a million pieces and I cannot do anything about it. I can just watch and suffer from it but I cannot prevent it.” And I was right. I can just stand here and watch my life falling apart. AGAIN. I start crying again and Namjoon is now the one who hugs me. “Everything will be alright. Whatever happens, we will be here to help you.” He says to calm me down while petting my head.
“What happened?” Jimin asks in Korean again.
“We met at the café like we said we would. It was nothing special. We learn together and the situation was very comfortable, until her phone started vibrating. She received a call from Germany saying that her mother died. Of course I comforted her, she cried for two hour, that’s why I didn’t come home earlier. A few minutes after Jungkook found us a fan saw us inside the café and went inside and took photos of me hugging her.” He talks a way to fast. He seems to be very nervous because he also touches his neck while talking.
“That’s bad. That’s really bad. Do you know if they got her face?” Jin says looking through Twitter on his phone.
“They did.” Hoseok now says. He shows a photo on his phone to Tae who buries his face in his hands after looking at it. I pulled myself out of Namjoon’s hug so I can also take a look at the picture. There it is. The picture that will probably ruin my life. No one can doubt that it is me, she got a good angle to make my face visible.
I turn around to look at Namjoon because he is the only one able to understand me now. “How am I supposed to live my life now? Everyone knows my face. They… They will probably haunt me or something like this. Amy told my a few stories about sasaengs. I don’t want to one of their victims. I… I have dreams to.”
“You won’t be hurt. We will find a way to let them know there is nothing going on between you two.” He replies calmly after I shouted at him. “He is hugging me on the picture Namjoon! Why should he hug me when there is nothing? You don’t go through the streets and start hugging randoms just because they are crying. Especially not as an Idol. You can do nothing to make them think different.” Namjoon knows too well that I am right. They won’t believe them. “I think you two should just get a bit rest now.”
“Rest? You tell me to rest? I just lost my mother and my privacy! How can anyone in my situation be able to get rest? My completely life was turned upside down!” Tae makes his way to me and pulls me in a tight hug. Even when I am angry, not at him but at my life, I cannot resist him. I inhale his scent. After so many hours he still smells like home. He loosens the hug an rests his hands on my shoulders to look into my eyes. One of his hands softly cups my cheek and he wipes away a few tears. “I am here. You are not alone.” This words make me smile. The first smile I was able to smile after the news of my dead mother. He turns to Namjoon but his hands stay where they were. “Translate?” he asks and Namjoon nodded.
“I am here for you, Syra. I will not leave your side until you tell me to. No one can keep me away from you. I don’t know why but there is something about you. I cannot resist you. You have me wrapped around finger without even trying. The first time I saw you, a few days ago at the airport, I couldn’t believe my eyes. You are so beautiful. Of course, your outlook isn’t important but we all know that our look attracts people and that our personality keeps them by our side. I… I think I am falling for you, Syra Lia.”
His facial expression was a mixture of sadness, happiness and fear. I couldn’t tell what of them stands out the most.
Namjoon translated what Tae just said for me and I start crying at those words. Did he just say that he is falling for me? Who am I to deserve this? We got to know each other in so bad conditions what can he say he loves me after watching me cry for hours? I am the ugliest person in the world when I cry.
I couldn’t find the right words to reply to this. “Tae… I... I… Don’t know what to say.” I smile after saying this so he doesn’t misunderstand the meaning of it. I cannot find the right words because I am overwhelmed by his confession. “Say what is in your mind.”
“I cannot understand how someone can fall for me. Especially an Idol. I am nothing special. I am just an ordinary girl that failed starting a new life in a new country. Tonight I lost my hero and my privacy. And… I… It sounds weird but… I am OK with giving my privacy up for you.” He just smiles at me. Of course he wasn’t able to catch every word so Namjoon translates it again.
Now he moves both his hands to cup my cheeks and leans his forehead against mine. “You do not need to.” He says. “We will find a way. You will be private.” I can feel his warm breath on the skin of my face. I look up to stare into his eyes. This seems like a moment out of a movie, those movies I always thought where ridiculous because they are total unrealistic. But now I am here, in one of those movies. “Always” He whispers before his lips were on mine.
And there it is again. This warm feeling in my stomach. ‘Yes, I am falling for Kim Taehyung. But I am fine with it.’ I thought to myself. Even when I am not worth him, I cannot resist him. Every time his skin touches mine it feels like the first step into a hot bath you just made. First it burns and hurts and you somehow know it is wrong to stay inside, to not resist this touch, but you also know that when you stay like this for a few seconds the burn will turn into a warm feeling forcing your body to relax. So every time he touches me I know it is wrong, but I cannot resist because I know it will be fine after a few seconds.
Our little moment of intimacy was interrupted by someone knocking on the door. Namjoon opens the door and a man enters.
“Good morning. I think you already know what happened since I see Taehyung with this girl.”
“Yea, Sejin, we all know what happened.” Namjoon replied. Sejin. I think he is their manager. He seems very… angry? I cannot tell. Maybe it is rather a mixture of angriness and disappointment. Who can blame him? An Idol hugging a foreigner is a scandal they cannot handle while they are just becoming big.
“Have you ever thought about the consequences of your act? Hugging a foreigner in public. I told you to be careful. Tae… you cannot hug random people in public.”
“To me she isn’t a random person.”
“But to the rest of the world.”
No one dares to say a single word. They all know how bad the situation is. Also I do.
“It… it wasn’t his fault. It was just a reflex. I cried and he wanted to comfort me. Can… Can you blame him for this? It wasn’t his or my intention to cause a scandal. In this situation… I… I wasn’t able to catch a single thought. I didn’t think about the consequences regarding to this.” I say to help Tae somehow… to protect him. Somehow.
He sighed. “What now? Her face is everywhere. On Twitter, fancafe, Youtube, Facebook. Simply everywhere. At this moment I am sure nearly every Army knows about her.”
Everyone was quiet. “Maybe our little troublemaker has got an idea?” he says while looking at me. “Me?”
“Who else should I call ‘troublemaker’? No one else but you and Tae caused trouble.” He shouts at me. Burning tears start to fill my eyes again. Why can’t he see how sorry I am for this? He waits for an answer but I just run away. I don’t know their dorm but I found my way to the bathroom and locked myself in there. I just sit on the ground, knees pulled to my chest and my face buried in them.
¤¤¤¤¤
I don’t know how long I already sit here. I can hear shouts from outside. It just feels like when I was little and my ‘dad’ argued with my mother. It is a memory I don’t want to remember but in this moment, it feels just too familiar.
Someone knocks on the door. “Syra, are you in there?” Obviously it is Namjoon. “Go away. I want to be alone. I am not worth you company.”
“Please come out. We can talk about everything.”
“I don’t want to talk. I just want to go back home, back to my mother, back to my old life. I thought my dream would be living in Seoul after my boss offered me the job here, but obviously I don’t belong here. I shouldn’t be locked up in your bathroom. I should be back home in Germany at work. Coming here ruined my life.”
“Don’t say this.”
“But I say it! I am just a piece of shit, Namjoon. I ruined everything. I got you band a scandal that cannot be taken back.”
“You aren’t a piece of shit. You are a beautiful woman, Syra. Stop talking bad about yourself and come out of the bathroom.” He says it in a bossy way.
“I better should leave you alone and never show my face again. Maybe it would be better when I kill myself so I don’t bother anyone anymore.” Saying this words my thoughts again drifted to the old days where my father made me feel like the worst person in this world.
“You don’t bother us.”
“I make everyone I like suffer.” I couldn’t bring out more than a whisper. “I heard you shouting because of me. It is all happening again.” Namjoon talks to someone in Korean. “Come out now. Tae is here. He worries about you.” Of course he does. This human is just too good for me. I got angry at myself for ruining his career, so I started punching the wall. “Ouch!”
“Syra, what are you doing?”
“Punishing myself.”
“Stop it! I will kick in the door when you don’t come out now!”
I give up. Maybe I should just face them. I walk to the door and unlock it, but I don’t have to courage to open it. Tae does. He opens the door and looks at me. His eyes start to fill with tears as he takes a look at my hand. It’s bleeding because I punched the wall. I start to shake under his glance. It hurts seeing him cry because of me.
You can say that he wasn’t sure what to do. He just stands there looking at me. I am falling down to my knees in front of him. I don’t have the strength to stand anymore. He also comes down to his knees next to me and places his hand under my chin to lift up my head. Looking in his eyes hurts. “I am sorry.” He says. He is sorry? Why is he sorry? “Your life is not yours anymore.” A tear streamed down his cheek and I raised my hand to wipe it away. As I wanted to take it back, he places his hand on mine so I can’t.
He gives me a soft kiss on my forehead and pulls me in a hug again. He is the only one able to calm me down now.
“What did you mean by ‘It is all happening again’?” Namjoon asks after a few minutes. Am I OK with telling them? Telling them about the worst part of my life? “It is… nothing worth talking about.”
“It is when it makes you suffer by just thinking of it.”
“It is just… my dad… he was an alcoholic and shouted a lot and somehow was the reason my life was falling apart as I was just a child. He… he…” my voice cracked.
“What did he do?”
“He abused me.”