⊱Je te cacherai⊰

I will hide you

┏━━━━━━༻♔༺━━━━━━┓

My feet moved on their own. My head was pounding and my legs acted on their own, taking me wherever they wanted.

When the sad melody entered my ears, my vision cleared up, and I realized I came back to the garden where the soft looking man played the piano alone.

Sometimes, I would find myself here. The piano sounds had such deeply rooted grip on me that the urge to walk here always prevailed. It soothed my tired soul. And the sight of the man became something I needed to see.

Today, I just wanted to find comfort in the piano. Exhaustion had finally caught up to me and grabbed me to slam me onto the cold hard ground. Uploading a notice that my flower shop was temporarily closed was painful. I used to push myself to take care of multiple things at the same time no matter how weary I was. But now, even walking was grueling.

I did not want to wake up tomorrow to go to work again.

I sat down on the bench and watched him play. Yoongi, as he introduced himself one time, looked alone and pitiful all the time. As if sadness was his second nature. Did he have family? Friends? What did he do for living? I grew curious again. He never talked about himself whenever we spoke to each other for longer than a minute.

Sometimes he made fun of me and my diligence. Sometimes he consoled me that I did not need to work so hard. Maybe because he himself was lazy. Even his way of talking was sluggish and calm. Like he had all the time in the world.

If only I had so much time, too. 24 hours was not enough for a day. The evenings and Saturday and Sunday were not enough for my flower shop business. I wanted to sleep longer than 5 hours. Go out to watch a movie sometime. Have dinner with someone else not because I was required to with my coworkers. Travel to a different country. Not worry about how much money I had left in my account.

I was sobbing.

When was the last time I cried like this? Tears kept flowing and pouring like a heavy rain and painful cries burst out, unable to be kept inside my chest. My heart was crying out. I was too worn out to stop it.

Warm embrace made me hiccup and my tears stained the material of a shirt. Yoongi was hugging me.

"There's no one around," he whispered. "Don't worry. I'll cover you even if there is."

My cries grew louder that my throat stung. I clutched his shirt and cried onto it, muffling my broken voice.

This was stupid. Just yesterday, I was doing well. Crying? I was smiling and not even thinking about bawling my eyes out like this.

For what felt like hours, I embarrassed myself in front of him and finally calmed down. I was out of tears or I was way more exhausted to keep going. Either way, I apologized to him and took out tissues from my bag to wipe my face. Luckily, I did not have a full makeup on.

"Tough job, huh?" Yoongi sat down beside me. "A friend of mine once cried when a customer yelled at him for hours. He used to work in the service industry."

"That's tragic," I said, my voice sounding hoarse. "Now that I remember, some customers yelled at me in my flower shop, too. I forgot about those."

"Good for you."

I stared at him sitting motionless beside me, eyes staring off into nothing. "Where do you work?"

"Somewhere far from here. Kinda shitty place," he chuckled. "You could say it's in the service industry, too. My life depends on my customers."

I winced. "That's an exaggerated way of describing a job."

He shrugged nonchalantly. "I mean I would definitely quit, but if I did, I would die."

I frowned at him but he grinned back at me. It was a gummy smile, the biggest smile I had seen on his usual sullen face. It was rather heartwarming. Why did he not smile often?

His eyes softened but were filled with warmth. "I just don't have reasons to smile."

I blinked, bewildered. "What?"

"Except when my brothers do something stupid, that is."

"Oh. You have brothers?"

He shook his head, laughing. "Not my real brothers. Friends."

"I see." I stayed silent for a while, not knowing what to say. "What about your parents?"

His expression fell and settled into his usual one. "Gone for a long time now."

I knew how that felt. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I have forgotten them for so long. I'm not sure if I remember their faces even." He turned to me with a small smile. "But that's not what matters. What matters is what you're going to do now."

I exhaled deeply. "Why does that matter? I'll continue what I'm doing."

He hummed. "I see."

"Can you play something cheerful on that?" I pointed at his piano.

He smiled. "Pay up, little miss. My performance is expensive."

┗━━━━━━༻♔༺━━━━━━┛

I'm churning out chapters like hot cakes 🥞 😮‍💨