Hoseok's POV:

The red and blue lights flashing in the nightclub do nothing to ease my broken, lonely heart. The sadness still follows me wherever I look, and when my eyes meet his, the loneliness consumes my heart and destroys all peace within me.

His smile is like a cherry blossom on a Spring day, but his eyes are like the darkness creeping around my brain, his words like a mantra repeated far too many times. His emptiness sinks deep into my skin and buries itself within my heart, hiding away, shying away from me, putting distance between us. Distance that I wish to walk, miles that I need to cross.

But I can't.

He's everything beautiful, everything perfect, everything mesmerising, but he's everything broken, everything painful and bleeding.

He turns and walks towards me, his eyes glinting with something mischievous, his lips pulled up into a wide-smile. A rueful, lying smile. His smile is a lie, his lie is a deception.

And I've been deceived.

"Hoseok, you okay?" His fingers are on my cheeks, brushing away the tears clinging to my skin, running over the fear on my face and taking my breath away. He's so close I can feel his body heat emanating off his sweaty skin, he's so close that I can feel his shoulder brushing mine in the crowded club. He's just too close.

The tears are drying up, and his fingers pull away hesitantly.

"Hey, what happened?" His voice is deep, honey-filled, a low, rich baritone of every flavour of seduction. My fingers reach out to grab his arm and pull it back so I can tell him everything, so I can spill out that loving your co-worker and friend is really hard. That all these parties meant so much more than just a work celebration for reaching the top 5 in Korea.

Words escape me, floating around and reality crashes into me. Namjoon is drunk and the heavy smell of alcohol surrounds him, his words slurred. He doesn't care, he's never cared and he never will. If I tell him he won't acknowledge it, if I tell him he'll blame it on getting smashed at the last party and having drunken , and then he'll tell me to ignore the wounds that keep breaking out across my injured heart.

He'll pretend there isn't blood soaking my chest.

"Namjoon...," I say softly, just another hoarse whisper in the loud club. He actually looks like he's concerned, but he's not, it's just the alcohol affecting his emotions.

Her fingers shoot out and wrap around his wrist in a tight grip, but he probably doesn't even notice how tightly she's grabbing him. Her - Eunwoo - his sister's best-friend, has loved him since he was a child. Namjoon had explained the inconvenient situation to me before we departed for the club, and it really hurt to see her touch him so easily.

With her model-like body and angelic smile, she is the daughter every mother wants to raise. Everyone loves her, but tonight, earlier, I witnessed another side of her. I caught glimpse of the real woman beneath her gentle mask. She was truly a devil in disguise.

First she chooses her prey and, like the predator she is, she uses them like a demon; she's the woman who gets into everyone's pants for a night but then moves on with the grace of a devil on a mission. She's the predator that finds prey to feed on, and then she leaves their corpses after she's done. She's the woman that I can't win against, she's the woman who loves him with a fiery passion.

And God, I hate her with a burning passion.

Because she's trying to steal him, and now she has succeeded, and he's looking at her the same way I look at him. It hurts. It really does.

"Hoseok, this is Eunwoo, my new girlfriend. And Eunwoo, this is Hoseok, my co-worker," Namjoon slurs, almost drunkenly, but not. He's always been more of a lightweight than me.

She sends me a warm smile, but deep within her soft brown-eyes is a hidden threat only meant for me. She looks like a cat getting ready to take possession of something that isn't hers. Eunwoo rakes a blood-red, manicured finger down his back, her lips curved up into a fake smile.

"A co-worker? Is he your friend?" she purrs against him, her body plastered all over his as if she owns him, and it takes so much restraint not to just grab her and push her off him.
Namjoon hesitates and that's all it takes for him to crush whatever remained of my heart.

"He's just a co-worker," Namjoon finally says, and the self-hate turns into anger towards him.

Eunwoo flashes me a smirk and runs her fingers down his shirt, her other hand moving up and tangling into his hair. Disgust wells up in my stomach and nausea overtakes me until I feel unsteady on my feet.

Namjoon's face breaks into a lazy grin and he tugs her closer, his fingers inching around the bottom of her shirt, his hands slipping under her shirt and giving me full-view of the pale, milky skin of her waist.

Jealousy boils inside me and it takes everything I have not to scream at her to get off him, and it takes everything I have not to shout at him to stop this before he regrets it.

She lets out a loud moan and presses closer to him, reaching up to whisper something into his ear before her fingers reach down to his jeans.

The music is pounding in my head and making me feel dizzy and sick. Everything is blurring.
I can see them stumbling towards the bathroom, laughing with recklessness in their voices, fingers mapping eachother out against the wall, hips pressed closer than I've ever been to him.

It's all a blur.

I don't even remember running out of the night-club and stepping onto the road without a care, a car barely missing me as it passes by at an alarming speed. I can barely see past the anger and tears, even as I collapse on a bench and curl up, burying my face in my knees and wishing Taehyung were here. He would know what to do.

By the time I'm on the phone with Taehyung my fingers are shaking and my eyes are red and swollen, an empty, hollowing ache filling me. Sometimes I wish I had never met Namjoon, sometimes I really wish I had never fallen for his dimpled-smiles and charming words. Sometimes I really wish I hadn't fallen in love with him.

"Hoseok?" His deep voice sounds tired, as if he had just woken up from a good sleep, and the guilt barely filters through me.

"Taehyung, can you pick me up?" I murmur, and the line goes silent before the sound of rustling fills the echoing silence.

"Of course, where are you?" he asks me almost a breathy whisper over the phone, in a way that tells me he doesn't want to wake Jimin up.

I tell him the name of the club before we say our goodbyes and a little spark comes back, not large enough to cover the negative spirit but enough to bring me back to my senses.

But it still hurts, and the night-sky reminds me of Namjoon too much. Especially when we used to go out at night and he would tell me about what the stars meant to him, a fond look in his eyes and a nostalgic, calm smile spreading across his lips.

"The night isn't lonely, there are stars to keep it company. They may be apart but their presence is enough."

I miss him, I miss his smiles aimed only towards me. I miss his grins only made for me and I miss the person he thought I was.

I really miss Namjoon, but he doesn't miss me.

Taehyung pulls up across the street but he doesn't question my teary eyes or frowning lips, he doesn't question the reason as to why my fingers are clenched, nor does he ask about my disheveled state. And that's why I love Taehyung, because he doesn't question and I don't expect one.

"Sorry for waking you up."

And even if I know Taehyung doesn't care, even if I know he would never hate me for calling up, everything makes me want to apologise.

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