The day was quiet, Nia sitting on the living room couch comfortably, her head resting against the back of the sofa. It hurt, her fingers gently touching the bandages that covered her nose. 

"I really hate being alone," she mumbled, her knees going up to her chest while her arms wrapped around them.

Besides the pain, besides the loneliness, Nia just wanted some comfort. She wanted someone to hug her gently and tell her she wasn't going to be alone ever again. The echoing of her sighs made her loneliness more obvious.

When Nia had gotten home after being discharged from the hospital, she had found the apartment empty, a scary sight to say the least. May's room was disorganized as if she had been in a hurry, Nia worriedly looking through the room in hopes of finding some sign of where she had gone or if she was okay. 

She had missed her while in the hospital and wanted to talk to her, to ask her what had happened after she had been sent in to have surgery. She had wondered if the rest of BTS had made it out okay, if anyone else had been hurt, or if anyone had tried to apologize for hurting her, but she wouldn't get any answers.

May had left a note for her on the kitchen table instead, one that said that she would be spending some time with her family during the holidays and that she wouldn't be back for a while, Nia being both confused by May's rash decisions -since May was not a fan of her parents- and also sad that she would be spending the holidays alone. 

But it was okay, she thought, keeping her head away from anything that would get her nose hurt, her eyes scanning the TV screen carefully.

"In other news, today's weather will be snowy and cold with low temperatures of-"

Nia grabbed the remote, turning off the TV and laying down on the couch, her hands around one of the frilly pillows that always rested on the couch. After a couple of messages between her and May, May reassured her she'd be back, providing little comfort to Nia. She knew something had happened, even if May was unwilling to say much, Nia knew something was off. Nia ran through all the scenarios and all the possible reasons for May to be acting out, but none helped ease her anguish. A small tear rolled off the corner of her eye, Nia quickly cleaning it off as her hand accidentally hit her nose. Nia winced, her eyes tearing up more than before.

It was painful for Nia to even put on clothes, the extra-large shirt she wore giving her head just enough space to not bump her nose with it, and now she had hurt herself more. She hated being alone, and more so if she was hurt. She wasn't useless, yes, but she felt lonely and needed someone to complain to or someone to comfort her while in pain.

"I hate it here."

She laid there for the better part of six hours, her mind contemplating what to even do for the rest of the day. The house was a mess, the shuffling, or rather quick escape of May had turned the place upside down. She eyed the pile of Namjoon merchandise that laid on the floor, the bags of trash and cans of beer that littered the coffee table her legs rested on. 

"Been a while since she drunk so much," she mumbled to herself.

"I guess I should clean a bit. Can't spend Christmas in a dirty house."

Before she could get up to begin cleaning, there was a gentle knock on the apartment door, Nia sluggishly moving to open it, remote control in one hand.

"Going, Going," she muttered, wondering if maybe May had decided to come back or had forgotten something. Maybe she had returned to take care of her, or maybe it was one of the members of the Men in Rose or one of the members of the BTS Defence Force.

As she opened the door, the remote nearly hit the floor when her eyes fell on tall, broad shoulders, and browned-eyed man in front of her. He stood gallantly, a soft smile spread across his face, his eyes slightly squinted like crescent moons from smiling. 

"It's...you...why- how-"

"Hello," the man said in a gentle voice.

The Kim Seokjin was standing at her door and she couldn't help but feel flustered. Her heart began to race, her guts turning like they hadn't done before, and her throat felt like it had gotten a lump stuck in it. His genuine smile and words made her feel something. Guilty. Why? Why was it that when she dreamt of a time like this, the setting was so different, the circumstances so dreadful, and her state so pitiful? Here she stood, a large bandage covering the middle of her face, standing in sweatpants and an oversize penguin t-shirt while he looked like he had come out of a shoujo manga. He looked like a prince, liked an idol, like someone she could never obtain. 

"Just came by to see how you were doing. May I come in?"

Nia nodded quickly, without thinking, her eyes looking back at the mess in her living room and hesitating. It looked like someone had ransacked the place, Nia placing her hand up against Jin's chest and stopping him as he walked forward.

"Let me just...clean a couple of things up," she mumbled.

Jin smiled, taking a step back as Nia closed the door in his face. Running around the living room, it only took her a couple of minutes before opening the door back up, her forehead sweaty while Jin continued to stand smiling just as nonchalantly as he had done before.

"C-come in," she coughed out.

"Thank you, how have you been?" he asked as soon as he had walked in.

"I- um-  have been feeling better."

"Has the swelling come down at all? Still taking your pain medication?" he questioned like an anxious parent would a child. 

"Yes- Yes sir- I mean Mr. Kim, I-"

"Jin would be just fine. I brought some groceries. Would you mind if I made lunch for you?" he asked politely. 

"Here? For me?"

"For who else silly?" he chuckled.

"I mean- It would be an honor but I don't want to take time away from your work."

Jin walked over to her kitchen area, motioning for Nia to show him where she kept all her pans and pots. She quickly opened cabinets, showing him where the cups were, and where the chopsticks were kept at. 

"No worries. We have a couple of days to stay on the down-low after you were hurt. And before you try and tell me not to go through the trouble, it's no trouble at all," he smiled.

Nia's heart was beating quickly.

He had always been someone she admired, that man named Kim Seokjin. Tall, handsome, but his most important trait, confidence. He was kind and so friendly he could give you a sugar rush from how sweet he was to people. His smile appeared genuine, but behind it, she could feel his worry. She felt that although he was sympathetic, he also was cautious and if his nervous eyes and uneasy smile didn't give it away, the way he kept his distance from her did. 

"I could-"

She bit her tongue, holding back the urge to say she could just wait in her room if he was worried about being near her. It was impolite to assume she knew how he felt, and in all honesty, she didn't. She didn't know a thing about the man in front of her. Walking over to the dining room table, she sat quietly while watching him cook from a distance.

She could tell that it made him feel more at ease, his shoulders rolling back as he stood up straight. He felt more comfortable now that she wasn't close, now that she too was vulnerable as he was to her.

"You have family here in Korea?"

"Nope. My parents live are from a different country," she replied.

"I'm guessing you miss them, hu?"

Nia thought back at the first time she had spent the holidays away from home. She had been in her freshman year of college and hadn't seen her parents since she started classes. Going back home was not an option with how expensive plane tickets were for a broke college student. Even after May had offered to pay the ticket for her, Nia still preferred to stay there.

Going back home during the holidays always brought her bad memories, memories of the one she loved the most in the world.

"Yeah, I miss them, but I'll be fine."

He continued to cook in silence, both exchanging small remarks here and there as the hour went by.

She didn't know how, but Nia had come to witness a whole other side to her idol that she never fathomed to exist. He was standoff-ish the entire time he went to the hospital to visit, and saw her not as a woman but a child. Who could blame him since, in his eyes, she was but a stranger?

"Coffee or tea?"

"Water would be just fine-"

"I insist," Jin interrupted.

"Tea."

Silence filled the room again, Nia starting at his face before moving to his hands and back up to his eyes. He was focused, basically ignoring her existence besides the few questions of taste he had for her. She had never felt more distant from someone, and that was saying a lot since even the cold-hearted May had more to say than the man in front of her. He wasn't the man she had been infatuated with for years. No, he wasn't Kim Seokjin from BTS. This man was Kim Seokjin from Gwacheon-si. He was no longer an idol but another stranger, another man who roamed the Earth with thoughts and feelings of his own, and much like Nia, he was someone who wished for nothing more than to be at home.

Placing a plate of food in front of her, he walked back into the kitchen to grab some chopsticks and her drink before serving himself a plate of his own.

"Thank you, again. I'm sorry for having you come over here to cook. I apologize for the inconvenience."

His eyes faltered for a split second, from kindness to confusion, before returning to the same drawn-on expression he usually carried.

"It's okay. Least I could do, no?"

Nia smiled politely as a response, waiting for him to start eating before taking a bite of the food.

Fake.

It was a fake persona.

It was all fake and just then had the walls finally come tumbling down along with the pedestal she had once placed him on.

No, he wasn't him.

No, he could not save her.

He was Kim Seokjin from Gwacheon-si.

Kim Seokjin from Gwacheon-si.

~

Nia took a step into the snow. 

It had been about a couple of weeks since the incident, her face no longer wrapped in bandages and her body finally feeling ready to return to work. It was the week of Christman, and luckily for her, she had recovered just in time. She knew she could have probably covered her scars with her Santa Claus makeup and gone to work far earlier, but she wasn't sure if she would have been able to cover the pain she as in half the time. 

Opening the door of the tiny workshop, her eyes instantly fell on a tall figure wearing a snowman costume, some murmured voices heard from the hidden back room.

"Oh, you're here early," she smiled.

Before she could even react, the tall man rushed towards her and took her into his arms.

"You're back!" he cheered.

Nia blushed, her eyes slightly widened at his reaction.

She too had missed the place, but she never remembered being that close to Jungi before. Pushing away from him gently, Nia gave his Snowman head a small pat before turning towards the door of the backroom.

"Charity today?"

"Yep. We leave in an hour. Should you even be here? Is your nose any better? Are you healing well from the stitches?"

Nia stopped at the foot of the door. 

"How did you know something happened to my nose?"

"Uh- the manager mentioned you had been in an accident and um- I remembered you saying you were going to go to the airport not long ago for your favorite boy group, a simple google, and- uh, you know?"

Nia smiled sadly while nodding.

For a second, Namjoon felt like his heart would stop. He knew he had almost screwed it all up. She had briefly mentioned going to the airport, and never really talked about anything else but her favorite group, but never did she connect the two for him. 

Opening the door of the backroom, Nia looked up to find a small flat-screen TV that had never been there before.

"New?" she asked while pointing at it.

"Yep. Managed said he wanted to brighten the place up for us when we are on our time off. Honestly, probably an excuse to binge TV while we are out," Namjoon chuckled from within the snowman suit. 

"Sound's about right."

"I've been waiting for your return," Namjoon said without thinking twice.

Nia's eyes looked over at him with a creeped-out expression.

"You know, can't be doing all this by myself, haha," he chuckled in hopes of saving face.

He hoped she'd buy it, her face changing from disgust to a deep sigh. He was not used to those expressions from women. Not that he was some sort of casanova, but everyone and their grandmother knew who BTS was. No, it was the fact that she did not know who he was that made it feel different, it felt human. Namjoon had brought his cousin to take over for her while she was gone, asking their boss nicely to let him help pick up for her. He had even asked for her return date so he could shoo away his cousin just as quickly in hopes of not inciting suspicion.

That day's charity event would feel so short for him, both of them standing outside a food bank in full costume, Namjoon's Snowman costume wearing a thick sweater.

"Heard it's going to get colder tonight," he commented as Nia looked at her phone.

"It's already 10 and it's already below 50F. How much colder is it going to get?" she sighed. 

"Heard it might get to 30s by the time we leave."

"Brr, I should have brought a coat," she sighed.

Unlike Nia, Namjoon had prepared and worn warmer clothes under the Snowman costume. He would be lying if he said he wasn't starting to feel the cold, but he remembered Nia didn't ever really wear anything warm under her Santa costume since it would get in the way of her movement and helping out with things. Looking over at her, he took a good look at her pink nose and fluffy beard. 

Slowly taking off his coat, he placed it on her shoulders while helping out a family that had just walked up to them. Nia's eyes widened, glancing over at Namjoon and taking a second to organize her thoughts.

A small smile spread crossed her lips.

"Jungi, you're a really considerate person, you know?"

"I-I am?" Namjoon asked, confused.

"You remind me of someone," she chuckled, the man next to her having the head of his costume turned backward after stumbling through some boxes.

"A-and who might I remind you of, Nia?"

Her eyes saddened at the sound of her name. It was the same pitch her brother use to use.

"It happened my freshman year of college," she struggled to say.

"You don't have to tell me if it makes you uncomfortable."

Namjoon had noticed the saddening in her eyes, how the small spark that usually made him feel all sorts of uneasy appeared to have disappeared. She hated seeing her sad and hated how he could never say more than what a normal Mr. Snowman costume-wearing man would say.

"My brother Jonathan. Tell me Jun, how old are you next year?"

"30."

"Has it been that long? My brother would have been about your age by now. He had a pregnant girlfriend. Both of them died in a car accident on their way to the airport. I had run away from home, then. You know Jun, I never wanted to come here. Only one thing drove me to Korea," Nia admitted in a sad tone.

"Was it an idol?"

"Yep."

"Kim Seokjin?" he asked, hoping she wouldn't respond.

"My brother. He died on Christmas Eve. He died chasing me. I'm pathetic. And now that I've met the man I idolized and swore to one day hold hands with I- it's lonely. He isn't who I thought he was. It was all a lie. He is a good person but his persona, his smile, even his laugh, it's all a lie. And now I'm alone."

"Well, you still have your friend no? The one who comes here often? M-May was it?" Namjoon asked, the name of the woman getting stuck in his throat as he said it. 

"She left. She went with her parents."

"Oh. I see," Namjoon mumbled.

"Was he really not to your liking?" he asked after a long pause.

"His looks were definitely to my liking. His personality though. He fakes his smile so hard that if I had seen him from a distance I would have believed it," she sighed out.

Namjoon knew what she meant. Although Jin had always been a smiling man, when it came to the fans, he knew how to put on an act and when not to. He had gone to school for acting so he knew he had practice, but the more uncomfortable Jin was, the more he showed that fake smile of his that everyone in the group hated so much. He always smiled for his fans, and his smile was always a charming and genuine one, but when it came to those people, the burning hate that came from his opened-eyed smile made the group shiver in fear.

"Don't get him wrong. He definitely loves his fans, he just feels uneasy- I assume."

"Thanks, Junnie," Nia replied, knowing the man next to her was simply trying to comfort her. 

"It's not that his smile hurts, it's that it's a lonely smile. I can tell he isn't comfortable around me yet he tries so hard to pretend. I hate people like him. Lies. I hate lies and being fake," she confessed, thinking of May, and then of herself.

Nia had lied too. She had told Jin that she wasn't obsessed, she had put on an act too, she had lied. She wasn't sure how good she had been at covering up her true intentions. She knew the Nia of before would have kissed the ground he walked on, she would have framed the chopsticks he used and wrapped up in plastic wrap the chair he had sat on, but she didn't. Her obsession, her need to make him her's and steal him from society, had vanished. She no longer desired him, she no longer saw him as an object but a person, someone who was just as good as lying as her. 

Namjoon swallowed hard at the sound of her words, Nia taking out her phone to check the time again.

"We should put up the food now. It's time for us to pack up. Let's hurry before I miss the last bus," she urged, Namjoon nodding while placing some of the canned food they had leftover in cardboard boxes. 

"Do you plan to spend Christmas by yourself?"

"I have no other option, now do I?" she sighed, picking up one of the filled boxes and carrying it inside the food bank.

Namjoons eyes saddened at her words.

"But don't worry too much. I've had company over, and he promised to come for Christmas so I shouldn't be too lonely," she added, thinking back at Jin's words.

"Let me apologize through my actions."

◈◈◈◈◈

🐨Hopefully, you guys are excited... About 3 more chapters before we start the ending...

I know this chapter took a long time to come out but I had finals week plus some adjustments of dates to do for this book. Hopefully, I didn't make you wait for too long.

Marili Cruz

~♡~