It has been three years.

Yet you still saw the day of his departure in your mind, memory as fresh and painful and raw as if it had been yesterday. Your panic, worry, and loss from that day still haunted you, and it has repeated itself in your mind so frequently that you had lost count.

It ate you alive from the inside out.

It still felt like a stab in the heart every time you tried to call his old number, and the cold, monotonous automated voice reminded you that line was now disconnected. Yet it never stopped you from trying again.

From the outside, you looked perfectly fine. Your were twenty three now, had a stable career, and lived on your own in the same, tiny apartment as three years ago, because you simply didn’t have the heart to leave the only place that still carried his memories. But only you knew that on the inside, a black abyss with untrimmed edges now sat where your heart was mercilessly torn out, where no human or light could walk in or shine through. You were waiting for the person that took your heart away to return it back to you.

It has been three years.

He thought he could forget you. He thought that his newly found passion and career as an idol and rapper could cleanly and completely wipe you from his mind. And it worked for a while. It worked when he was too busy practicing, preparing for a new comeback. It worked when he was on stage, soaking up the energy and love from his fans. But whenever practice came to an end, and he reached for his towel to wipe off the sweat from his brows, he would remember how you used to do the same thing, only your touch was gentler, slower. The moment he stepped off stage, he wished to see you behind the backstage curtains, jumping and shouting to cheer him on. But of course you weren’t there. And every time reality slapped him across the face with your absence, he would hate himself for thinking of you again, a habit he had failed to break, even after three years.

He tried. He really did. In fact, the first place he went to after he landed in Seoul was the phone company. He changed his number so that you wouldn’t be able to reach him, so that you wouldn’t be able to shake up his heart, his feelings again. But little did he know that it did not require a phone call to do that, it just required his memories. Every time your smiling face floated up before his eyes, the bubbly and smiley façade he had hid himself behind for the past three years would come crumbling down a bit, right before he would clear his thoughts and build it up again, even thicker and more fortified than before. He repeated that routine countless times, and each time it got harder and harder.

s knew he was hiding something, yet they never pried, because they loved him like a brother, and understood that it brings him extreme pain. Hoseok appreciated and loved them equally much, because they helped him fulfill his dream, and distracted him from thinking about you once in a while.

Both of you thought that your fates had split off in different paths, branching off in opposite directions, never to intersect again. But fate was a difficult, stubborn, and funny thing that tormented people like you guys, making sure that the most unexpected thing always occurred.

And unexpected it was.

You didn’t think you would ever see his face again, never mind his radiant smile. Yet when you lifted your head one ordinary day to observe the new, and very large, LED billboard the city had installed on your way to work, there it was, in all its glory and brilliance, an exact replica of the one from your memories. You rubbed your eyes, and stared at it again, positive that it was just an illusion, that you just missed him too deeply. But it remained there on the screen, along with six other smiling faces. You didn’t realized that you had stopped in the middle of the ongoing traffic, simply staring, dumbfounded, at his face, wondering how he could be so unchanged by life’s rapid, moving clock.

And just as much as you didn’t expect to see him, he certainly didn’t expect to see you.

Especially not at his fan meeting, where your face was supposed to blend with the many others that were present in the room. He was supposed to see you just like how he saw the rest of his fans, simply another person in a haze of faces. At first he didn’t notice you, sitting quietly in the very rear row, biting your nails furiously, a bad habit he had tried to help you break for years but in the end just gave up on. You wondered in that moment, camouflaged against the other excited fans, what had worked up your courage to fly yourself to Korea, to purchase tickets to this event, and why you had convinced yourself it was an good idea. What if he didn’t recognize you? What if he didn’t want to see you?

You had figured out, within the three years since he left, the reason behind Hoseok’s sudden departure. You recalled back to every longing and lingering glance he casted your way, and thought about every situation where his fingers stayed on your shoulders just a few seconds longer than it had to. And you blamed yourself for not noticing these signs earlier, although what good would it do if you did? To you, the relationship you shared with him had long gone past the possibility of being romantic, and he knew. But you refused to let yourself use that as an excuse to justify your ignorance, because you realized that you had put him in a lot more agony than he did you. So what made you think you could just show up and appear in front of him again, out of the blue? What did you want to achieve? You didn’t know, and you would fully understand if he hated you and didn’t want to see you because of all the things you have done to him. But you missed him, and that was persuading enough for you to muster up every ounce of courage in your small, thin body and step up his table.

Just like you predicted, he didn’t recognize you.

As he smiled the same beautiful, warm smile at you just as he had to the fans before you, you stared at his features and tried to take a million mental shots just in case you never saw him again. Disappointment was all you felt when he dismissed you to go on to the next waiting member. You had officially lost your chance, and you would have to endure every other lonely night the same way you did in the past three years. But as he stared at your face, and then your back profile, longer, face slowly twisting in disbelief, he made his security guard stop you by the elbow, and drag you backstage.

Even until this day, you still couldn’t figure out how your thoughts managed to race a thousand miles per hour as you blindly stumbled behind his tall, built security guard into his waiting room, where he was sitting alone as he had lied to s and told them he was going to the restroom. And you remember the shock on his face as he pieced the puzzle together, and fitted your face into the one of the girl from his memories.

You could admit that you changed a lot. Your previous pitch-black hair that was always perched on the crown of your head in a bun has now turned a lovely shade of chocolate brown, which just coincidentally matched his, and spilled all over your shoulders. You opened your mouth to speak, but was cut off by Hoseok’s voice instead.

“Oh my god…”

“Hoseok. It’s me. Do you remember me? I’m-”

Your voice suddenly became muffled by his jacket as he engulfed you in a choking hug, three years of longing and misery all poured into one single embrace.

But he then came to his senses, and pushed you away quickly.

“What are you doing here?” he asked quite harshly, his tone frightening you a bit.

“I came to see you, Hoseok. I came because I missed you.”

I missed you too, he wanted to say, I missed you so much.

But he reminded himself of the pain, of the wound that had reopened itself as you catapulted yourself into his life again, this time the aching even more excruciating than the last.

“And what makes you think you can just come present yourself again after three whole years of silence, huh? What makes you think that you appearing suddenly is going to make anything better? Answer me!” He practically shouted in your face, and you cringed at the the loudness of his voice, his anger.

Yet you knew perfectly well that he had every reason in the world to be mad, furious even. After all he was the victim, and you were the culprit that had stolen his heart the same way he robbed you of yours.

“I didn’t want anything from this,” you replied softly, “I just wanted to see you, and make sure you were okay. I didn’t expect to be dragged back here, I didn’t even expect to be able to talk to you. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have came.” You walked backwards toward the exit. You were heartbroken, not because of his outburst, his fury, but because he didn’t even try to stop you as you pushed through the door.

He didn’t need you anymore.

Outside, you were met by six concentrated faces, all pressed against the wall in a line formation, trying to sneak even a little bit of the conversation out of the room. They all straightened as soon as they saw you exit. They took note of your now tear-streaked face, and the loud shouting that just transferred from inside the room. They didn’t know what it was, maybe it was the way your shoulders slumped in disappointment, maybe it was the soft, broken sobs that shook your frame, maybe it was an coincidence, or maybe it was just fate that made one of them chase after your seceding shadow and stop you.

“Do you have a place to stay?” he asked you. You shook your head, for you had not planned that far into the future yet. Today was your first day in Korea, and you were going to seek out a cheap hotel to stay in tonight. His expression turned sympathetic, and he placed a soothing hand on your shoulder. “It’s okay, you can stay with us.”

The rest of the members gaped at him with a look just as bewildered as yours. But they could only agree as the boy who confronted you nodded firmly at them.

And that’s how you ended up in BTS’s dorm.

They allowed you to shower first, seeing that you were the only female in the household. You were worried about Hoseok’s reaction when he found out you were going to spend the night under his roof, and your worries were confirmed when he stormed into the dorm with a dark expression on his face, demanding to know who it was that let you in. The boy who had offered you refuge, and earlier introduced himself as Jungkook, stepped up to him. Hoseok stared at him angrily for a moment, but then simply turned his head to speed into his own room, slamming the door behind him.

The boys allowed you to sleep in the guest room, which was the only room still unoccupied. You buried your face in the pillow, the day’s events replaying in your head. Fate was cruel, you decided, as the soft material brushed against your cheeks. It was cruel for letting Hoseok enter your childhood in the first place. It was cruel for letting you fall in and out of love with him, while leaving him still helplessly in love with you. It was cruel for allowing him to leave so blatantly, and not letting you hear his voice until three years later. It was cruel for letting you see him again, for letting you crash into his life again. It was cruel for not allowing him accept you back as his best friend, a place you had longed for so desperately in the past three years.

As you concluded these things, Hoseok tossed and turned in his own room. He rewinded in his head the beautiful memories he shared with you, the agony of leaving you worried and frantic that day in the airport, the way he missed you so achingly for the past three years, and the things he said to you today when he finally saw you. He understood that what he did was for the best. If you left, life would continue on just as before, although a little more difficult and a little bit slower. But he couldn’t control his own body as he lifted himself out of bed, and stared out his window at the shining crescent hanging, worriless, in the empty sky. Before he could stop himself, his feet had carried him to the closed guest room door. in a deep breath, he knocked.

“Who is it?” Your voice was unclear through the wood of the entrance.

“Me.” was all he had to say before the door swung opened, revealing you in an oversized t-shirt Jungkook had lent you.

“Do you need something?”

His heart ached. Even until the last moment was he the first thing you were concerned about.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Oh…come on in then, I guess.”

He slipped past you into the room and plopped onto your bed, thinking of all the times he had done the exact same thing back in Los Angeles whenever he had something important to tell you.

“So, um, I’m really sorry about how I reacted today.”

“No, it’s okay, I understand.”

“Oh.” He grew silent, unsure of what to say next. “I just wanted to tell you that…that I missed you too. So much. The past three years was hell for me, no, it was worse than hell. And I was just so shocked when you showed up I didn’t know how to react. You really hurt me deep, you know, and I didn’t want to feel like that again. So I acted the way I did. And I’m so sorry, for that, for leaving, for everything. But I would really like to have you back now.”

You stared at him for a while, before opening your mouth, “I guess both of us have a bad habit of barging into each other’s rooms to make deep confessions.”

“Yeah, I guess.” he chuckled, knowing from twenty years of experience, and your soft tone that you had forgiven him. That you already had a long time ago. “So we’re even?”

“I guess.”

-TEN MONTHS LATER-

You watched as the guests started to stream in through the entrance behind a closed mahogany door. They settled around the circular tables, looking for their own nameplate. As they bumped into someone they recognized, a close friend, or an acquaintance, their eyes lit up, and soon were involved in a light conversation of how are you’s, what have you been doing, and topics as such.

You removed your attention from the tiny crack you had managed to create, and stepped back, heart beating at an incredible pace inside your rib cage. The ceremony was about to start, and the mere thought made you feel lightheaded, but in a good way. You were happy. Hell, you had never been this overjoyed in your life. You didn’t think this day would arrive so soon.

But as you had learned since a little more than three years ago, life was full of surprises.

You didn’t suspect a thing before he dropped to his knees that night on the cruise you guys were taking to Greece, his hair decorated by starlight. You especially didn’t expect yourself going to say “yes”. You were sure that when the words fell out of your mouth, the person that was most shocked was not him, who looked up at you, tears of joy in threatening to spill out from the corners of his eyes. It was you. But you still said it, and you wouldn’t trade it for the world. If you could go back once more, you would let the events play out exactly the way it did, and give him exactly the same response. If you went back a thousand times, you would remove your hand from your lips to choke out a quiet “yes, I will” a thousand times, just the way you had. For him, you would do it a thousand times and over.

Out of your peripherals, you spotted him, your fiancé, standing by the entrance through the sliver in the door. He wore a genuine beam on his face, much like yet unlike the one he usually had on. His delicate features were made even more beautiful by the sunlight that poured into the enormous hall. He greeted the guests that walked in, bowing his head politely at every single one of them, and shaking their hand. The tuxedo he wore accentuated his broad shoulders, the same ones you rested on a million times before.

You sat back down to the plushy chair when you heard your stylist call your name. She leaned over your face, a palette in one hand and a thin brush in the other, and continued with your makeup in short, gentle .

As she went through with her last finishing touches, she warned playfully, “You better not cry and ruin my masterpiece. This took 5 hours.” Then she winked at you, and mouthed, “Congratulations.”

“Thank you” was all you could manage. Your heart continued pounding.

And it did not cease to race as you waited, hidden behind a pair of large, wooden doors. You inhaled several lungfuls of air to adjust your breathing, and you wiped your sweaty hands across the curve on your gorgeous white dress, the embellishments scratching your palms. You broke out in a light sweat when the orchestra began their symphony, the fast paced beat matching your own heart rate. The doors opened.

The first person you saw was him.

He stood nobly on the opposite end of the aisle, not looking nearly as nervous as you felt. But you could tell from the almost unnoticeable creases at the sides of his pants where his arms fell, and the way he clutched tightly to the openings of his sleeves that he felt exactly the way you did.

“Is this really happening?” your dad wondered besides you, his eyes glossy with joy.

“I guess so.”

As you took your first steps, all the memories you held of him came flashing through your mind. The first time you caught his gaze, the first time he confessed how he felt about you, your first date, your first kiss, your first night… All of it flooded your emotions at once, and if you didn’t remember what your stylist had said to you, you would’ve let the tears fall. But you gripped the bouquet in your hands harder instead and held it in.

Before you realized, you were at the front of the aisle. You turned around to face the standing guests, all of them looking at you with proud, loving, and thankful expressions. When they eventually sat down, you turned your body again to face him. You could feel him examining your face through the veil, and you gave him a reassuring smile while squeezing his hand. He squeezed yours in return.

The rest of the ceremony whizzed past your memory in a hazy blur. You vaguely remembered saying your vows, and a ghost of his kiss still lingered on your lips. But the rest was already beyond you. You sat next to him, fingers intertwined, stared at the glass of champagne on the table in front of you as you tried to recollect the events. Nothing.

“Alright, ladies and gentlemen, I’m sure you’re all elated to be here, and are also very stuffed thanks to our newly wedded couple,” Yoongi gestured at two of you, and you blushed and looked down in embarrassment. “So before I say anything more, let’s all raise a toast to the happy pair, and wish them…”

The next thirty minutes continued like that, although you didn’t mind. Each of the six remaining BTS members rose, one after another, to give you guys their blessings. And you were very thankful for that, for they were perhaps the most important and meaningful people in your life now.

He stood up last, cheeks already a bit flushed with the pink tinge of alcohol. He steadily walked up to the stage, and placed his hands on the microphone the way he had done millions of times during their concerts.

“So I’m sure that our new couple have heard enough blessing for an entire lifetime in the past half an hour,” he started, and the crowd chuckled. “But I would still like to do it again. I am very close with both of them, and they mean more to me than anyone can imagine. He is my band mate, my brother. We’ve been through more than our fair share of thick and thin, yet here we are today. And she…” he paused, as if recollecting his thoughts, “she is an inseparable piece of me. There is no other way to describe her, and there is no other like her. And I would now like to congratulate them, as well as wish a happy and prosperous marriage, and life, to my dear brother and my best friend.”

He started to step off the stage, but turned back and grabbed the microphone again. “I would like to say something to the bride,” he stared straight at you, and his gaze burned, “(Y/N), we’ve had history together. I admit that it’s complicated, and I admit that I have loved you, and maybe i still love you, and perhaps a small part of me will continue loving you until eternity ceases to exist. But I guess we’re just not meant to be. I’m so glad for you, really. At least one of us deserves a happy ending, right?”

I guess no matter how hard we try, no matter how hard I try, fate just cannot intertwine our lives together the way I hoped, not even for just one day. We were just not meant to be.

A single tear ran down his cheek, but Hoseok beamed at you and your husband through his tears as he spoke the last few words into the microphone.

“Jungkook-ah, take good care of her.”

“Yes hyung, I will. I promise.”