"I keep breaking down, can I do this? I need tonight to say goodbye."

~S.L & others

༺═──────────────═༻

Naomi enjoyed 3 hours of sleep by the time she woke up. At first, she can't remember what happened last night, but snippets of it flash back like an old tape until they're all she can see. Red and hot, they blink and dart, too fast to follow. Evidently, talking to Taehyung shook loose the dreams she had managed to repress until now.

Oh, the dreams.

They're about golden hair entangled with silver, falling and falling until they converge in a sea of blood. They are whisked away into a cavern she can't reach across, and each time, she launches herself at the yawning abyss only to be pulled back by an invisible hand. A knife slices into flesh so slowly that she can only take it as erotic.

The result is fitful nights of unrest that never cease to wake her in a sheen coat of sweat and fresh guilt rolling off in waves.

Maybe if she had satisfied him more, accepted his poisoned love with a bigger smile, they wouldn't have died together in such disgrace. It would have been her, instead.

How she wishes it was her in that pool of blood. Seeing it through a static TV screen didn't do the forest green in Eve's eyes justice, where golden specks of dust danced in her irises like lanterns. Her perfect cupid's bow that quirked up with the edge of her mouth when she heard a half-baked joke.

Naomi could even find something beautiful about Professor Kim in his passing. It always seems that when someone is gone forever, it's easier to look back on the memories and tell yourself they weren't too bad. That maybe you should've cherished them while you had the chance, even though you know they were never worth cherishing in the first place.

She shakes the thoughts off and rises from the tangled sheets, where Taehyung still sleeps soundly. His eyelashes catch the morning light while his chest lets it stay and bloom, golden and loving.

She can't see this version of Taehyung as the same person who was about to tie her up and leave no mercy to beseech him, but here he is. In her bed. In her heart. She almost wants to climb back into bed and watch him until those eyelashes flutter open for the second time, but one glance at her watch and she knows she has to leave for her first class. 

She hopes he doesn't hold it against her that she left before saying goodbye. The others always understand.

Putting a note on the nightstand, Naomi kisses Taehyung's forehead and locks the door behind her, relying on the growing sunlight to wake her lover up again. 

.｡*ﾟ+.*.｡　✧　ﾟ+..｡*ﾟ+

At least Professor Kim's replacement lets her concentrate. She had just gotten used to the sly smiles in her direction and the spontaneous affection during class time, as if daring anyone to make assumptions about their relationship. Now, sitting in the front got her nothing, and she could theoretically take notes in peace.

And then he had to go ahead and die, didn't he?

Ironically, instead of that unfortunate event helping with her schoolwork, it only made it worse, and any attempts to psychoanalyze herself resulted in crippling numbness, one that let her space out for an hour at a time without noticing.

But who can she really talk to? She doesn't have the time nor the budget for a therapist of her own, and what would it say about her to not handle herself when the time comes to put her training to use?

And forget about her friends. They can't know the true extent of her codependency on the professor, how she thought that being favored somehow made her more deserving of new love outside of him.

He didn't pick her, even in the end. And that crushed her more than she wanted to admit.

Maybe that's why she hadn't heard from Jungkook in awhile. It seemed easy to drive him away when she needed space, and he never had a problem with not hearing from her for quite some time. It used to irk her when he wouldn't text until she texted first, but now, she considered it a rare blessing.

Hearing her phone buzz, Naomi gives it a side glance in between taking notes.

Hobi
Down to brunch?

A slow smile spreads across her face as she hears the professor dismiss the hall, and everyone eagerly bolts up to head out the door. Naomi breathes a sigh of relief; Hobi always has a way of sensing something off with her, and his mysterious powers didn't fail to pull through this time, either.

She hops up from her desk and goes to trail after the rest of her peers, but just as she brushes the doorframe with her shoulder, the professor's voice cracks through the air like a whip.

"Ms. Yamamoto, can I talk to you for a moment?" she asks, and Naomi slowly turns, then nods, determined to end the conversation—whatever it concerned—quickly.

Come on. Keep Hoseok in mind, your only hope for today.

She makes her way over to put a hand on the oak table, fingers finding the edge and drumming along it.

"Of course, Professor Brown. Is everything okay?" The social psychology professor stares at her face with no emotion in particular, and Naomi notices how her cheekbones look so austere as it offsets her tight bun, streaks of grey weaving itself into the otherwise jet-black sea. The clock ticks the seconds away.

Finally, her face softens as she counters, "Why don't you tell me?"

Her hand slides over the table to retrieve a paper, and from the header, Naomi recognizes it to be her own essay about social cognition. At least, she thinks so. Frankly, she forgot it was due the day before and pulled an all-nighter to finish it about a few weeks ago, and she had a feeling it would show. Professor Brown shifts to reveal the grade; an F. Out of the countless others she has gotten.

"I-I don't understand," she says, though she understands completely.

Professor Brown sighs. "Ms. Yamamoto, I don't have to point out that the quality of your work has gone down significantly during this semester." Her gaze falls to Naomi's fingers which tap with the determination of a woodpecker. She ceases immediately. "You're at risk of failing the whole semester."

Naomi's eyes widen at the last sentence. She couldn't have heard that right.

"The whole... The whole semester?

Professor Brown's lips tug, but it quickly settles into a tense line.

"Fortunately, I like you, so I won't let that happen. Hell, I wouldn't have pulled you aside like this if I didn't. However, if this continues, you are in danger of having to retake the course and losing all of your clients to someone more capable."

Her mind reels as she thinks about all of her lost opportunities. The puzzle pieces that went into place promptly fell apart after he... left, and there was nothing in her control to turn back time. For her sake or theirs.

Naomi mentally hits herself for the thought. How could she even focus on letter grades right now when real lives were lost not just two months ago?

"Are you alright? I know this isn't very appropriate of me to ask, but is there something going on at home-"

"No, nothing's happening. I'm just, uh..." The tapping increases with a mind of its own. "I just have a lot on my plate with cases and everything. Not like I'm saying I don't want them. I do. I can handle it."

"Ms. Yamamoto, I know you've been struggling since..." Professor Brown shifts her half-moon glasses up her nose in an effort to seem casual about bringing up trauma, but it only ends up at a standstill.

Naomi's lip trembles. Her only goal in life is to make her parents proud and have fun doing it. She will not fail, not when her family and clients count on her.

"Really, everything's fine. I'm- I'll try to get my grades up by the end of the semester. Just have faith in me," she says, a new resolve in her eyes. She doesn't know if it'll hold for much longer as Professor Brown continues to stare at her, putting her degree to good use as she tears down the shaky wards her student has built for herself, but she finally lets up with a terse nod.

"Of course, Ms. Yamamoto. You're dismissed," the professor says with a wave of her hand. "And do me a favor."

Naomi gulps. "Yes?"

"Get some sleep. You look exhausted."

With a silent thank you, the pink-haired girl turns on her heels to do a light jog out the door with the tiny shards of dignity she has left. Not that she bothers keeping count at this point, anyway.

Hoseok is already waiting for her outside by the time she arrives in front of his Econ lecture hall, and his infectious smile is enough to ease the knots in her shoulders.

"Hey! Ready to go?" he asks. "I'll drive, obvi." 

"Good, because I was gonna cancel if you weren't," she says with a grin.

"As one would naturally do."

It feels so easy, laughing and talking to him as if everything's okay again. His subconscious empathy comes in handy when she's too tired to say anything; he'll pick up the pace on his chatter until she's ready to talk, and when she is, he falls quiet, so silent that sometimes she looks to see if he's still listening.

She lives for his spontaneous nature, lives to be him in a way, but most of all, the love he gives out so freely. And maybe she can learn to be content with just that for the rest of her life.

After a five-minute walk to Hoseok's Lexus, he suddenly spins around to motion with his keys.

"By the way, I invited Lily and Jungkook. They'll be here in just a sec," he chortles.

Naomi blanches but retains it with a shallow smile, slowly climbing in alongside him. The thought of seeing the two of them at the same time makes her want to puke all over Hoseok's maroon leather seats, not that she has anything against them under normal circumstances.

It would just be more effort to hide what she has become.

"You did? That's... Cool..." she sputters, trying to focus on the vivid green cup holder on her side, and when she dares to look up at the red-haired boy, his face splits into an ill-contained smile.

"Dear lord. Your face!" Hoseok cackles, shaking his head to create the image of a dog shaking off water after a long-overdue bath. Apparently, she wasn't that good at hiding it. "I'm kidding, babe. They're not crashing our date anytime soon. I need a teensy break from them, anyway."

"You haven't even seen Jungkook in like, a month."

Hoseok rolls his eyes and shifts the gear into drive as he replies, "His macho man routine is enough to last that long. I mean, seriously, we get it. You get pussy. We don't need to see the whole lip-biting, up-and-down fuckboy thing every five seconds. To think girls like that shit."

Naomi laughs but grimaces internally. It's easy for Hoseok to say, having those high standards of his, but she remembers a time when she would've done anything for Jungkook Jeon. As cheesy as it sounded, she always thought they were endgame.

Even when he'd brush her off for another girl or ghost her for days at a time, the only thing that attached her to him was the belief that he would change for her. His aloofness would disappear with maturity that came with time, and things would be how they should be. At least, what her teenage brain interpreted that as.

But maybe they were better this way. Forbidden by their self-imposed walls, leading separate lives that only converged when carnal desire overtook their willpower to resist each other. They could come apart just as easily and live in the knowledge that they simply weren't compatible enough to be endgame.

So she's committed herself to finding something that won't last a mere fortnight, uses her training to her advantage. She becomes a little more forgiving, more flexible, but hides a glint of something in her eyes to attract suitors to her like hyenas to a rotting carcass.

The only constant interest in her life had been Jungkook until Taehyung, and his aura is unmatched by anyone she's seen, both in the workplace and out. There is a code switch in him that is too rapid for human detection, but if one were to spot it, it would be in his eyes, umber pits that sink its teeth into anyone who dares look too long.

Where one would play it by the book, he reinvents her own game for the final kill. He moves like a predator. She knows her place as prey, and it makes her breathless not knowing when she will take her final breath in his arms.

And maybe that's the fun of it.

༺═──────────────═༻

안녕 여러분! I hope everyone liked this
little filler chapter for Naomi. I wanted to get into her psychology a little bit.
What do you guys think? Let me know!

QOTD: What's your favorite fanfic genre and why?

I personally like horror and
one-shots the most. Sometimes I don't
feel like waiting around for the character development to get to the
uh... good stuff... and I also really like horror in general,
and it gives people a chance to get creative in twisted ways 😈

Until next time, happy reading!

Love,
Haneul