warning: explicit language
"We're fine," Mark said forcefully for the twentieth time while shoving Namjoon out the door. "Now hurry up and get to your dinner date," he said.
"It's not a-"
Mark slammed the door shut, quickly flicking the locks while sighing. He could not fathom why this was the man his sister was hung up over, even while plenty of men were hung up over her.
A man that fussed over literally every detail even though Mark was a perfectly capable adult and could handle a few kids and a house.
A man that checked in with each one of his half-dozen children at least four times, assuring them that he wouldn't be gone long and making sure that they were okay with him going out.
A man that had misplaced his wallet three times and broken one lamp in the mere process of leaving his house.
Mark didn't understand it.
But if he's the one my sister wants so badly, even though I keep telling her that she could do so much better, then I have to do my best to make sure she gets him. Not that he deserves her.
Even if it means babysitting way too many kids who all have it out for me.
"Mark-hyung!" Jin greeted, grinning, and Mark felt a little of his initial misgiving fade away. "Come play a game with us!"
Mark smiled and went over to the kitchen table. Even if he acted like Namjoon's kids were a handful, he secretly enjoyed hanging out with them.
(Quite possibly also because his possessive wife didn't often let him hang out with any women or men from his work for fear that someone would take Mark away from her, not that that would ever happen because Mark was actually perfectly faithful and because they had two energetic children tying them together. All of which simply meant that most of Mark's social time was spent with children.)
"All right, I call the little dog one," Mark said, reaching for the metal game piece, but Jin was faster.
"No, the dog one is mine," he said, grinning cheekily.
"Um, excuse me? Who's the adult here?" Mark asked sassily, giving Jin an expectant smile while reaching out his hand.
Jin and the others made a big deal of looking left then right. "Adult? What adult?"
And so the night wore on.
***
Namjoon drove to the restaurant where he had arranged to meet Lisa and parked in the first spot he saw, already pulling out his phone as he put the car in park and calling the home phone.
He waited impatiently for three rings before he heard a click followed by a, "Hello? Dad?"
Namjoon smiled. "Jiminie. How are you doing, sweetie?"
"Good. How about you?" Jimin answered automatically, and Namjoon just laughed.
"I'm fine. I just got to the restaurant, and I wanted to check in before I have dinner. Is everyone okay? Are you having fun? Is Mark behaving?"
"Yes, Dad," Jimin said, giggling. "We are taking care of Mark very well. Will we get paid for babysitting him? Yoongi said so."
Namjoon snorted. "How about I buy you all food and pay for the house and send you all to school."
There was a brief moment of silence in which Jimin thought about how one of those things wasn't true, but he didn't want to bring it up and ruin his dad's once-in-a-blue-moon night out. "Okay, okay. Have fun, Dad!"
"All right, I will. Oh, and Jimin? Can you make sure the oven is off? And check the locks on the doors? The windows too, just in case, although-"
"Mark-hyung said I should hang up on you and he's scarier than you are right now so bye!" A panicked pause. "I love you, Dad! Bye!" Jimin quickly added before hanging up, and Namjoon stared at his phone in astonishment.
"I leave Mark alone with my kids for half an hour and he's already corrupting my children," he muttered as he got out of his car, slamming the door. "Teaching them to hang up on me, telling them to ignore me..." He trailed off as he locked his car and went inside. "Hello, I have a reservation for two under Kim?"
"You'll have to be a little more specific," the hostess said, giving him a look. "Half the reservations are under a Kim something or other."
Namjoon shook his head, realizing how out of it he was. "Sorry, Kim Namjoon."
The hostess checked the list and nodded. "Right this way," she said before leading him to a booth, but upon arriving, he was surprised to find it already half occupied.
"Lisa," he said, partially shocked. Both that she was there before him and that she was wearing a dark red dress that was cut in a way to accentuate certain features that he had to steer his eyes away from. Of course, Namjoon had to blink several times to actually register what Lisa was wearing since it had been such a long time since he'd been out at night alone with a woman outside of some work-related venture. He had to remember what a woman was.
And what she was made out of.
But then Namjoon remembered that it was Lisa, an old friend and work associate.
It was just Lisa.
"Is this not your companion?" the hostess asked, confused as to why Namjoon was just standing there, and Lisa rolled her eyes.
"He's just being stupid. Stop gawking and sit down already, Namjoon," Lisa said, feeling amused and a bit victorious.
Namjoon laughed and sat down. "Sorry. I've been spacing out a bit lately. It just puts me on edge, leaving the kids alone at home," he said as the hostess left them.
Lisa tilted her head in confusion. "I thought Mark was watching them?"
"Oh, he is, it's just..." Namjoon gave her a skeptical look. "Well, let me put it this way. Last time Mark was babysitting for my kids, he let Yoongi give Jungkook a bowl cut. Do you know how long that takes to grow out? Months. He looked like a coconut for months."
Lisa smirked as she took a drink of water. "Like you haven't had a bad haircut or two."
Namjoon winced, thinking back to a time long ago where he'd had a very interesting take on hair aesthetic. The hairdresser had tried to save him, but no, he'd insisted that it was what he had wanted, that it would look cool.
It was a dark memory for him, like a freshman year photograph in the yearbook - an image that he wanted to forget, one that would haunt him forever.
"Let's not talk about it," Namjoon mumbled before also taking a sip of water. "So, how have you been?"
Lonely, Lisa wanted to say.
Cold, Lisa wanted to say.
Missing you, Lisa wanted to say.
"Good," she said, smiling as she adjusted her napkin. "You know how it is. Busy with work. That sort of thing."
Namjoon nodded. "Thank you, though."
"For what?"
"For your work. Without you, I never would have gotten Jimin back," Namjoon said, smiling, although he didn't understand why Lisa jolted, freezing up. He glanced down at the menu. "Pick whatever you want, I'm paying tonight, all right? As a thank you for bringing my little boy home."
"Namjoon."
Lisa's sharp voice made Namjoon look up, meeting her eyes quizzically. "Yes?"
"Is that why you think I'm here?"
"Excuse me?" Namjoon asked, still confused.
"Is that why you think I'm here?" Lisa asked again, her eyes narrowing as she leaned over the table. "Is that why you think I keep texting you? Is that why you think I wanted to see you? So that I could extract all the gratitude out of you that I possibly could until I'd leeched you dry? Is that it, Namjoon?"
Namjoon blinked. "Lisa-" He cut off, expecting her to say something, but she just gave him a look, forcing him to speak. "Well, isn't it? I mean, not in those terms but...we're here because of Jimin, aren't we?"
Lisa's lips shifted into a frown, and Namjoon couldn't figure out for the life of him why. "No. Maybe that's why you're here but dammit, Namjoon, for a guy who's supposed to have at least an ounce of intelligence in him, you have to be the stupidest man I've ever met."
Namjoon's eyes widened. He was surprised, and he had no idea what he was supposed to do. He didn't feel offended by what Lisa had said, mostly just confused and curious.
"A woman doesn't text a man every day or two because of his kid. She doesn't save his contact in her phone with a heart emoji because of his kid. She doesn't put on makeup and shove on painful shoes and squeeze into an overly revealing dress because of his kid, Namjoon. And she sure as hell doesn't leave her empty apartment an hour early because she's so happy to finally have dinner alone with him because of his kid." Lisa was shaking slightly, looking extremely pissed off, but Namjoon knew it was to cover up her pain because her eyes were wet and the makeup that she had put on - apparently not for Jimin's sake - was slowly sliding off in twin rivers.
Lisa, swallowing tightly, grabbed her napkin and pressed it to the corners of her eyes, catching the smearing makeup. "Eyeliner," she said, her tone somewhat composed, even though Namjoon hadn't asked for an explanation. "It's a bitch to put on, a bitch to take off, and a bitch just about every other second, especially when you buy the cheaper stuff that isn't waterproof even though I tell myself to stop getting hung up on the extra 59 cents and just buy the damn waterproof one."
"You know," Namjoon said, still unsure how to tackle the situation. "Someone once told me that 59 cents was nothing to cry over."
Lisa just blinked at him, pulling the napkin away and giving him an Are you effing serious expression. "Are you seriously weighing in on which eyeliner I should buy after everything that I just told you?"
Namjoon opened his mouth before shrugging, throwing his hands up. "I don't know! You're the one who started talking about eyeliner! What do you want me to say?!"
"Is it that unclear?" Lisa snapped, throwing the napkin down on the table. "Do I have to feed you the words one at a time? I want you to realize that I'm not texting you, that I didn't dress up, that I'm not here for Jimin, Namjoon, that I'm here for you because I fucking love you Namjoon. I probably wasn't supposed to, and if you asked me if I regret it, I'd probably say yes right about now considering what an egg head you're being. I don't know when it happened, I don't know why it happened, only when I see your face or hear your name or just think about you in general, my heart finally feels whole, like it's beating for a reason instead of just fulfilling some anatomical function. When you talk about your kids, I feel like you're sharing them with me, like they're ours, like there's a family that I'm a part of, somewhere I belong." Lisa exhaled sharply, shaking her head and looking down at the table. "I don't know why it had to be you. You're a mess, and you'll care more about Jin's burnt eggs and Yoongi's in-school suspension and Hobi's sleepover and Jimin's English scores and Taehyung's movie selection and Jungkook's outer shell than you'll ever care about me. But I want that mess. I want you. I want you, and I want Jin and Yoongi and Hobi and Jimin and Taehyung and Jungkook and yes, even Lala. I want all of it, even though you want none of me."
Lisa finally looked up to see Namjoon still gaping at her. She blew out a breath, smiling, but nothing about her expression was happy. "And you're probably too pre-occupied wondering if Yoongi is giving Jimin a haircut to even process anything that I just said. But at least I said it. Now hopefully I can stop feeling so fucking in love with you and-" Lisa's voice cracked as her tears started up again, only this time, she didn't wipe them away with a napkin, just looked off to the side so she didn't have to look at the source of her pain. "-and maybe I'm feel a little sorry for myself because I feel like I might just be allowed to. Only I'm a little pissed off that this will mean that Mark was right about this whole thing being a disaster. Damn it," she whispered softly, staring down into her lap and letting the tears roll down her cheeks and fall onto the red fabric. "I hate it when Mark is right."
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and when she let it out, she opened her eyes. She smiled at Namjoon. It hurt, but she needed to do it. For herself. "You'll stop getting all my annoying texts. Sorry to bother you for all these years for something so stupid. Enjoy your dinner," she said, her words getting closer together and less enunciated the longer that she spoke because she just couldn't hold it together anymore.
Then Lisa stood up and walked away from the booth.