A few moments passed before Eunji recovered her senses. Clutching her keys between her fingers, she made her way down the stairs and to her car. Night had not yet fallen and the sky was azure, stray clouds breaking up the endless blue. Buildings, some lit and some not, punctuated the sky. The number of cars on the road had not changed—people were still out doing business or getting ready for a night out or some other thing. The sun pierced Eunji's eyes, and she had to pull down the visor to provide relief. Eunji drove home as the sun sank below the horizon, and let herself into her family's apartment. Her father and sister were nowhere to be seen, but her mother was sitting at the dinner table, typing on her laptop. 

"Good evening, eomma," said Eunji.

"Good evening. Where have you been?" said her mother, in the tone that mothers commonly adopt: composed, with a hint of annoyance.

"I had dinner with my friends."

"Friends," she repeated. "You saw them last week."

Eunji realized that her mother was referring to Eunji's 'group'. "Well, I saw them again."

"No, you didn't," said her mother shortly. "Sumi and some of the others were at your school, conducting some sort of beginning-of-the-school-year business. And...you can't possibly run errands that long, and you weren't exercising, because you don't look sweaty. Where did you go?"

She so, so wanted to lie, but anything Eunji thought of seemed like too much of a stretch to be true. "It's kind of a long story," she said, digging her own grave.  It was true. Eunji would have to go back to January and explain everything from there. She would have to tell them the real reason she'd requested to go seek a mental health professional. "Appa and Euni might want to come."

In a few seconds, the family was seated at the dining table. Her father looked irritated—he'd probably been aroused from his sleep. "What's your story?" her mother asked.

"Eomma, appa," Eunji began, "I got a boyfriend," she mumbled.

"What?" said her father.

"She's got a boyfriend," said Euni.

Her mother's eyebrows shot up her forehead. "When?"

Eunji stretched her arms, preparing to tell her story. "Please don't say anything until I'm finished. I met this guy in January. Remember when I said I was going to buy groceries for us? Even though I never run errands?" They nodded slightly while Eunji mentally prepared herself for her next words. "I was actually going to go jump off of a bridge. The Mapo Bridge, to be specific." She hoped they could infer what she'd meant. Looks of astonishment and pity settled onto each of their faces, and Eunji knew she'd succeeded. "I was about to jump, but this stranger, he stopped me from doing so.

"I thought that might be the end of it, that I'd never see him again, but at the freshman college orientation, I saw him. His sister was there to check out the campus, and I went up to him."

"How did you remember him?" asked Euni.

"I said no questions until the end. We met up a week later, and I guess we just built a relationship," Eunji said, being vague on purpose.

"What does he do?" asked her father.

"All these pressing matters, yet you ask her what her boyfriend does for a living," her mother remarked. Then to Eunji, "So that's why you wanted to go seek help? Because a stranger told you to?"

"It's not like he was telling me to go do drugs or anything," Eunji defended.

Eunji's mother waved her hand. "Whatever. What matters is that you're still here and alive. Tell us more about this...boy you've been seeing."

"What about him?"

"Anything. How old is he, what does he do?"

"His name is Kim Namjoon. He's 23 years old, and he produces music for a living."

"You fell in love with a music producer?" said her father. "How much does he make?"

"I don't know, I never asked," Eunji said. "It's not like I'm going to marry him, Appa. He's got a sister and parents living in Ilsan. He moved to Seoul to pursue his career."

"A career in music producing," said her father.

Her mother shot a look at her husband, then turned to her elder daughter. "We're glad that you're branching out of your friend group. If you feel like you've reached a certain point in your relationship with him, feel free to bring him home and have him meet us."

"Okay," said Eunji, standing up. She went to her room and deposited her purse on her desk, then went about her nightly routine. Once finished, she sat on her bed, on top of the covers, and checked her phone. Her messages were dry, devoid of texts. Usually, she and Namjoon would've exchanged their daily good-night messages by now, but he was M.I.A.

She became anxious at the thought of Namjoon's absence. He'd never missed a day since the beginning of their relationship, so the only logical explanation for this was that something had happened. What that something was, Eunji didn't know. She just had to believe that he was in a building somewhere, safe and calm and tranquil—she didn't want to consider what might happen if he wasn't.

It lingered in the back of her mind, the worst of all outcomes, sitting, crouching, waiting to attack. It was a grenade waiting to explode and embed shards of debris in the surrounding bodies. It was a bullet waiting to exit the chamber and bury itself in its victim. The thought of it made her heartbeat quicken, made her breathless with anxiety. No, it could not be true.

Could it?

Eunji picked her phone up to call Yoongi or Hoseok, then remembered that she didn't have their numbers, only Namjoon's. Who else did she know? Kyungmin? Jimin, Taehyung, Jungkook? Seokjin?

Seokjin.

Fingers trembling, she dialed his number. It was his work number, but it was better than nothing.

"Kim Seokjin," came his smooth voice.

"It's Eunji," she said.

"What?" he asked nonchalantly.

"Namjoon hasn't answered my calls," she said, omitting the good-night-text part. Seokjin did not need to know about their nightly text messages.

"Maybe he's taking a long sh—poop," said Seokjin, but there was a hint of fear in his voice.

"Can you call Yoongi or Hoseok or something?"

"I will. I'll call back if anything's happened to Namjoon."

"Thank you," she said, then ended the call.

Eunji had done everything she could; the only thing she could do now was sleep.

She didn't know how she'd calmed herself enough to sleep, but she woke up to the sunlight slanting through the curtains. She lay there, enjoying the warmth on her shoulders, like a hug from the universe. Of course, Eunji would have preferred a hug from Namjoon, but she couldn't have everything.

Eunji parted the curtains to a blue sky, stretching for miles. The trees in the distance swayed slightly, signaling a light breeze to provide relief from the sun. A large and fluffy golden retriever pranced around on the sidewalk, tugging excitedly at its leash as its owner struggled to restrain it. She smiled at the sight, wanting to plunge her hands into its soft fur. It was a pleasant morning.

She picked her phone up, awaiting a message There was one singular text from him: Call me.

Eunji called him. He picked up almost instantaneously. "Namjoon-ah, where were you last night? I was so worried."

"I was busy." She did not fail to notice the exhaustion in his voice, as if he'd run a marathon the night before. Maybe he'd been in the studio all night. She didn't want to consider some alternatives.

What mattered, though, was that he was in one piece.

"Busy doing what?"

"I was...in the studio. I wrote two entire songs in one night." The enthusiasm Namjoon had tried to infuse into his voice was noticeably fake. He probably hadn't written anything in the last 24 hours.

Eunji decided not to press him more. "I'm just glad you're okay, Joon-ah." Namjoon's breathing was his only answer. "Did you sleep at all?"

"No."

"Go sleep. You need it."

A long sigh. "I will. After I eat something." He paused, then said, "Oh, yeah. You know how we were planning a date? Well, it's canceled. Something came up on that day. I can't...tell anyone outside of Bighit. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," said Eunji, and she meant it. "We can just reschedule."

"Yeah," said Namjoon. Something had happened last night. As much as she wanted to question him more, she felt like he would provide one-word answers anyway.

So, Eunji settled with "I'm glad you're all right."

"Bye," said Namjoon, hanging up without another word.

"Bye," Eunji mumbled to no one. She removed the phone from her ear and threw it onto her bed, shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun. Damn that big ball of gas, impairing her ability to see. She tugged her T-shirt up onto her shoulders to protect it from the hot sun.

An old pickup truck emitting grayish-black fumes passed by, its bed holding four cigarette-wielding teenagers. Eunji could faintly hear a heavy bass from outside her window, presumably from said truck. "Smoking's gonna kill you," she muttered to herself, stepping over the stray textbook on the floor and heading to the bathroom to wash up. Pleasant morning her ass.

a/n: there is a very minor plot hole and it is that eunji deleted namjoon's number/contact earlier, so how could they text each other? well, she got it back after they began dating. before that, they just DMed each other on twt SKSKSKS i just didn't want to write every single moment between them, only the important ones

anyway i hope y'all are having a good day, go drink some water and eat something if you haven't in a while :)