AWAKE.

Stay awake.

Namjoon rubbed his eyes and suppressed a yawn.

He didn't get very much sleep the night before. Jin the Stranger had him laying in his bed and staring at the ceiling, just thinking about windows. Namjoon lost sleep to windows! Windows that revealed people, signs, stores, shops, cars, trees, and sidewalks! Speeding by people, signs, stores, shops, cars, trees, and sidewalks! He just kept thinking about them. People. Signs. Stores. Shops. Cars. Trees. Sidewalks. Repeat. People. Signs. Stores. Shops. Cars. Trees. Sidewalks. Repeat. Over and over again.

He found himself trying to name at least one facial feature of someone he saw walking by. He tried to remember the sign of a shop, the first numbers of a license plate on a cat, a type of tree. Yet he couldn't!

He turned over on his side.

He was getting worked up about something stupid that Jin had said. But it wasn't stupid, Namjoon admitted. It wasn't. It was a genius metaphor using windows and for that reason Namjoon found himself staring at his digital clock at 2 in the morning.

That was wasn't the only thing.

"People like you. . . are. . . beautiful." Jin's voice reverberated in Namjoon's head. Over and over again his words danced in his mind, a ballet, twirling, spinning, and gliding the night away!

He closed his eyes.

He remembered what he had replied. "Beautiful? You certainly are a peculiar specimen."

Jin's choppy laughter never got old. "I may be, but it's true. People like you are beautiful. You remind me of butterflies."

"Butterflies?"

"Butterflies! Yup! Butterflies! Graceful, pretty, admired by many from a distance! Yet you carry on with life, not paying attention to anything or anyone, and people still notice you. It's hard not to notice you! You're so different! You can tell!"

He reopened his eyes.

Different, sure, he thought, but to the point where it's noticeable? No. Can't be.

He was just like everyone else. How is it that he can be that noticeable? What did he do that was so noticeable?

Jin is just another human being in this world, he tried to tell himself. He's a number. Just a number. A tiny percentage of the human population. What is so special about him?

But Jin noticed Namjoon.

How could've Namjoon not noticed Jin?

The big surprise that slapped Namjoon in the face was that Jin was his new next door neighbor in the apartment complex! He had just moved in that day!

Jin.

Jin.

Namjoon couldn't get the name out of his head. How was it that some random person was able to take up such a big place in his brain? His brain was too cramped to be thinking of such an insignificant being.

"Kim Namjoon," Mr. Lee said, tapping the chalk board, "falling asleep in class, eh? Please come up to the board and solve for x."

The senior sighed and walked up to the board and took the piece of chalk in the palm of his hand. He had already solved it in his head before the math teacher even finished the problem, already knowing what he was going to write down. Namjoon wrote the solution and explained how he did the problem within a minute and a half and quietly sat back down when Mr. Lee excused him.

"Namjoon, I hope you keep your eyes open for the next problem," he said.

Namjoon only nodded, his mind already drifting off to the porcelain doll boy with the choppy laughter.

He saw him there, tilting his head up and letting his tongue relax on his bottom lip as the rain drops fell into his mouth.

The boy who had been stuck in his mind all day.

Jin.

Namjoon stood from a distance, observing him. He didn't feel like having another sleepless night, yet he didn't feel like going another day without any social interaction.

He was stuck.

Namjoon didn't like the rain, but he continued to stare just to watch the brunette, letting him decide. If Jin spotted him then another sleepless night it was going to be. If he didn't notice him then hopefully a better slumber but longing for another interesting conversation as the downside. How long he was willing to stay there, was yet to be determined.

Jin had his eyes closed and spread arms, his pink sweater, his brown locks, his ripped jeans, all drenched in clear liquid. He didn't seem to mind, though. His facial features indicated that he was relaxed and had no care in the world at moment.

Namjoon watched him stay like that until he lost track of time. Even when the boy turned his head and opened his eyes in Namjoon's direction he was still staring.

Jin smiled, noticing him. He put his hands down and shifted his body towards the younger boy standing a few feet away.

"Namjoon!" Jin waved enthusiastically.

Namjoon approached him with an awkward smile. "Hyung."

Another sleepless night decided.

Jin's pale skin glowed faintly like the moon. His wet hair stuck to different places on his head and his eyes frowned with delight. "Why stare at me when you could just talk to me?"

Namjoon tried to laugh it off. "Staring? What a waste of time."

That's exactly what you were doing, Namjoon! he screamed in his head. What's wrong with you? All for one dude!

Jin laughed lightly and stuck his index finger in the dongsaeng's dimple hole. "You're cute when you're flustered."

Namjoon immediately leaned away. Physical interaction wasn't his thing. He didn't like being called cute either.

"Please don't call me cute. . . Or touch me."

Jin didn't seem phased. He nodded, as if he expected Namjoon to say that. He looked up at the sky as if he saw something interesting fly through it.

"I like rain," said Jin, lowering his head. "It's a shame butterflies aren't a fan of it. You're probably not a fan of the rain either."

"How would you know?" Namjoon asked.

"Because butterflies don't like it."

He rolled his eyes and gave him a dry smile. "Right. Because I'm like a butterfly to you so anything a butterfly does its linked to me, right?"

"Sure it is," said Jin.

How absurd and childish, thought Namjoon.

He crossed his arms. "Well just because an insect you're infatuated with hates rain doesn't mean I do as well."

Jin blinked and tilted his head, looking like a child trying to solve a complicated puzzle. "Well, do you like the rain?"

He didn't respond.

A victorious smile crept back on the older boy's face. "I'll take that as a no."

Namjoon thrusted his hands in his pockets and huffed. "The bus doesn't come on rainy days, you know. Floods happen here a lot so the roads that lead here are closed off for the day."

"Oh. Really?" Jin asked rhetorically. He pressed his lips together and let the information sink in, nodding. "Then what are you doing here?"

That was right. What was he doing there? Namjoon knew very well the bus wouldn't be coming, yet he still walked to the bus stop. And for what? Who did he expect to be there? He shook his head. It couldn't be because he wanted to see if the brown–haired dork he was talking to at the moment was going to be there. He refused to believe it.

"This is the way to the apartment complex," Namjoon tried, knowing very well that it was the other way.

There was probably a 70% chance Jin would realize it was the other way but Namjoon couldn't think of any other excuse. Not with him.

Jin stared at him, squinting, eyebrows knit together. He leaned forward, as if he was trying to read something too far away.

"You must think I'm terribly stupid," said the older male. "Either that or you're terribly tired." He pointed behind Namjoon. "The complex is that way."

"Right." Namjoon hit his head with the heel of his palm. "My bad. I'm pretty tired, yeah."

"Well since we both don't have a ride how about we walk home together?" Jin offered.

It would only be logical to do that. Their chances of getting mugged if they both stuck together would decrease by 24.8%, Namjoon calculated. However, it would be more logical to sit somewhere warm and wait for the storm to pass.

He nodded. "Yeah. We should probably go somewhere warm first. Our chances of catching a cold will increase by 30% if we don't."

Jin chuckled softly, shaking his head. "A whiz at math, I see. There's a coffee shop nearby here. We can grab some hot chocolate and maybe you can help me with my homework. I can already tell you're way better at college math than I am."

"Most likely," Namjoon agreed, nodding.

Jin smiled. "Let's go, then!"

"No, hyung, you flipped the two numbers. You're not supposed to do that," said Namjoon, erasing what Jin had written down.

Normally, yes, he didn't like to play tutor, but Jin would not stop pleading for his help. And it did benefit Namjoon since he offered to pay him.

Jin ran ruffled his own hair. Namjoon noticed that he tended to grab a fistful of hair into his palm and pull on it when he got frustrated or confused.

"Listen carefully: You can't flip these two numbers," he explained, pointing at the equation, "because then you'll end up with an unbalanced answer and that wouldn't make any sense. Do you follow?"

Jin took a sip of his hot beverage and nodded. "Yeah. So I just leave these two to be? I just leave those numbers alone?"

"Exactly," he said.

"Okay." The older boy rewrote the problem. After he finished he leaned back in his chair and watched as Namjoon checked it.

He nodded approvingly. "Good. So that's all for your math homework?"

"Yeah," said Jin before putting all the papers away. "Hey, do you speak English?"

Namjoon nodded.

Jin sighed in relief. "Oh thank goodness! How well?"

"I'm pretty fluent," he said. "You need help with that, too?"

"Yeah!" Jin beamed. "Can you help me please?"

"More change in my pocket," he said. "Shoot."

Jin took a piece of paper from his binder and held it out to Namjoon.

Namjoon took the sheet and scanned it.

"Sorry," Jin said. "I forgot to ask if you could read."

"Read, certainly. In English, I'm not the best, but I can."

Jin lightly punched his arm, smiling. "You know what I meant!"

"Touching is a no–no."

"Oh come on, Namjoon! Lighten up, will you?"

Namjoon ignored him and recited from the poem, "My heart is screaming at me/but my mind is built of walls/Help me, help me/My brain is leading me one way/but O, my heart is leading me another/I don't need either of them/ to tell me what to do/I need you/to tell me what to do/If I give you my all/will you break me?"

Namjoon took a moment to swallow, rereading it a couple of times in his head. It was almost as if the words were humming something faint, familiar, but he couldn't remember what the song was called. An unidentifiable tune that his heart and his ears recognized, but his brain could not, would not recall.

"What does it mean?" asked the brunette.

"How much did you understand?" he asked, eyes locked on the sheet.

"Only a little. The part about the heart and someone wanting help and something about breaking."

Namjoon recited the poem again in Korean so Jin understood.

"It's talking about someone who trusts their mind more than their heart," he elaborated, prying his eyes off of the inked letters that still hummed in his body and soul. "Then someone comes along and that person's heart is telling them one thing, but their mind is telling them another. The person then says that they don't want to trust either organ anymore, instead trust the person they're in love with. The person wants to give in and be with their love interest but they don't want to get hurt."

"Ah," Jin said, nodding. "That's deep. Has that ever happened to you, Namjoon?"

"Of course not," he said, though he didn't feel like he was being completely honest with his answer.

"Do you believe in true love?" The brunette asked.

Namjoon shook his head. "I believe in unconditional love. True love like soulmates and things in fairy tales don't exist."

Jin smiled at him, his teeth white as snow. "That's a first. Most people I've asked have said yes or no. They didn't say any specific type of love like you did. That's interesting." He looked at Namjoon the whole time he talked, seeming like he was trying to memorize every inch of his face, like it would disappear in a moment's notice. "Would you like to come over to my place today?"

Namjoon's lips stretched into a thin line. "I appreciate the offer, but I'm afraid I'll have to politely decline. Can I take a rain check?"

"Of course," he said. "Of course. Come on, Namjoon. The weather cleared. Let's go home."

His cell phone rang.

He was afraid to answer it.

Ring. Ring.

He stared at it as it silently sung, calling him over.

Ring. Ring.

He took a step towards it.

Ring. Ring.

He reached out his hand.

Ring. Ring.

He paused and stared at the green button as it taunted him, itching with a new update, ready to break him.

Ring. Ring.

He moved his thumb and clicked on the green button, glowing with almost a triumphant, mocking aura.

The ringing stopped.

He put the phone to his ear.

"Hello?" he greeted.

"Hello, Namjoon," came the nurse's voice, rich and sweet, like Jin's, but more delicate and quiet.

"Hello, Nurse Kim," he said again, numbly. "So. . . How'd the surgery go?" He already knew the answer, but he still asked.

"I'm very sorry, Namjoon," Nurse Kim mused. "I wish I could bring you good news and say that it all went well, but. . ."

He hung his head as the words harshly shoved themselves into his ear and sunk into his brain, into his heart. Chills ran down his arms and he suddenly felt very ill.

"She didn't make it," he said, letting his shoulders slump. He ran a hand through through his face. "I've prepared my sister's room. When will she be moving in?"

"As soon as tomorrow," Nurse Kim notified him.

Namjoon sighed and nodded, not caring that she couldn't see his head. "Thank you for all that you've done," he quietly said and then pressed the end button.

He set his phone on the table and ran his fingers through his blond hair, breathing, breathing. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

He took a seat and tapped his fingers on the round dining table he owned in his apartment, letting everything sink in, letting himself drown and waiting until he hit the bottom of the sea. He looked over at a picture of his mom that sat on the dark wooden dresser by the table. She didn't smile looking into the camera as she held baby Namjoon. Her face was flawless, young, and beautiful. Her brown hair healthily tumbled down her shoulders, complimenting her pale skin. She was only eighteen at the time.

"Don't worry, Mom," he told the picture. "I'll take care of Min for you. You can trust me."

Aaaaahhhh! I can't wait for the next chapter! Things are going to get quite a bit more. . . Interesting as you see the relationship between Namjoon and his sister! Stay tuned!