Next morning, Jinsol waited for the train, and as it was already usual, she began to feel this weird thingy moving inside her stomach as soon as she got on. She bowed a little bit to the driver and then made her way to her seat. Well, not ‘her’ seat. It’s not like it was really hers. But by now, she was used to Namjoon saving it for her. Or that’s what she liked to think, because it was most likely that people were too scared to sit with him.

“Morning,” he said, meeting her eyes.

She raised an eyebrow. He was never the one to speak first. Certainly, not to say “morning” in such a deep, husky voice. Was this his morning voice?

“Morning…”

“Are you sleeping on my shoulder today?” she turned around to face him, taken aback by his question. Or by his sudden words. Why was he being so talkative today?

“Am not,”  she narrowed her eyes, as if she was trying to explain herself what the hell was going on, but she was actually embarrassed.

“Can I sleep on your shoulder then?” Jinsol’s face was unreadable by now, but she forced herself to nod. Why did he have to ask? She never asked him anyway. She just slept.

In the end, he let his head fall on her shoulders before she even gave him an answer, and something warm walked through all her body. She tried not to move too much, so that he wouldn’t wake up. The road from her stop until theirs wasn’t that long, but she wanted him to sleep. Last time she was at his place, she found him having trouble catching his sleep, and she didn’t know if that was something usual, but judging from the bags under his eyes, it probably was.

In a moment of weakness, she turned her head to take a look at his face. And she stared more than she would’ve liked. There was something really attractive about him that didn’t let her take her eyes off of him.

“Like what you see?” he asked, still resting his head on her shoulder. The girl looked away immediately, but she could feel the heat in her cheeks already.  He chuckled, but then quickly went back to his serious self. “I couldn’t sleep at all,” he started, and she listened carefully. He was slowly opening up with her, and Jinsol appreciated that.  “Taehyung told me something yesterday, and…” he hesitated for a second, but continued anyway, “I really want to help him, but I don’t think I can do something for him, you know?”

He went back to his normal position and looked at her, as if he was expecting the answer to his problem to come from her voice. And he really did, she always had something comforting and kind to say after all.

“Sometimes listening is enough of a helping hand,” she said, and Namjoon thanked her mentally when he felt a weight off his shoulders. 

He really needed to hear those words from her. He didn’t doubt her advice at all; Thinking about it, Taehyung seemed relieved after he told Namjoon everything. He breathed, and cried, but by the end of their talk, he looked calmer than ever. He even said he would get out of the damn gang in order to go to college. He even teased Namjoon about dropping the honorifics since they would be at the same level if they attended college together.

Feeling a bit cheered up, he found a place on Jinsol’s shoulder and slept there, more peacefully than he had slept in a while.

Later that day, they both went to their respective work places: Namjoon walked in the company, and as soon as he was out of sight, Jinsol got out of school and made her way to Jin’s. Turns out, he was waiting for her at the beginning of the hidden and not-so-safe area.

“It doesn’t hurt that much anymore,” he explained, “plus you always come at the same hour.”

“But still,” Jinsol hesitated shyly before they both walked to the house in a rather not-so-awkward but not-so-comfortable-either silence. Jinsol took out a new book that she got from her mom’s bookshelf and busied herself fixing the stuff in her school bag while Jin began to leaf through the book eagerly.

“Tae convinced me to go home today,” he said, and that got Jinsol’s attention immediately, causing her hands to stop moving as soon as she understood what that meant.

“That’s really, really good,” the words of encouragement came out before she could process them, and she was afraid that she sounded too excited. Just thinking of how Namjoon –and actually everyone-, would feel when he saw his hyung made her feel at ease. Well, not at ease, actually her heart was pounding quickly, but not in a bad way.

“So, you don’t have to come here every day anymore,” Jin announced gleefully, but she had put that part together already.

Anyway, something else was bothering her. When he said ‘here’, an idea came to Jinsol’s mind. There was a random thought at the back of her mind and she was curious about it, and even though she couldn’t tell if it was the right moment to ask it or not, she still went for it. “This was Namjoon’s house, wasn’t it?” she tried to put her thoughts in order, but thinking of how hesitating she was to put a feet into the house wasn’t helping at all. “This is where Taehyung and Namjoon lived when they were kids.”

Jin’s eyed widened, and he made a terrible attempt not to feel disappointed. He wasn’t dumb, and he certainly wasn’t a fifteen year old trying to guess a girl’s mind. And being sincere, there was nothing to guess about Jinsol. She was an open book. Her face was too easy to read, and she wasn’t particularly someone who manipulated herself to hide what she felt.

She didn’t seem to mind either, it was more like she didn’t even try to hide anything. Jin noticed how her voice was softer when she mentioned Namjoon’s name, and her eyes seemed genuinely interested in the answer to her question. Her fingers were moving up and down in a nervous rhythm, her lips slightly parted in surprise.

“How do you know that?” he asked, with absolutely no intentions of settling down for a lie, or a shrug, or anything except for a direct answer. “Tae told you?”

She shook her head.

“Namjoon told me they used to live somewhere near here, with his parents. Until Tae helped him and they met you… And seeing how Tae brought you here…” she made a weird gesture with her hand, because of course, that made a lot of sense.

He smiled heartlessly.

Namjoon told her. Namjoon who took almost an entire year to open up to Jin, Namjoon who rarely talked about himself with anyone, Namjoon who rarely talked to anyone, he to