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I woke up incredibly dazed and confused, still sitting on the couch in front of our now dark TV. The rest of the room was blanketed in darkness, as opposed to how it’d been when I’d fallen asleep. Also unlike before, I was suddenly alone. Jimin and Hoseok must’ve gone off to sleep in their real beds while Anna probably went off to do the same in mine. I was just surprised she hadn’t woken me.

Nonetheless, I wasn’t enjoying the empty space by my side, especially having just finally refilled it hours ago. I rose to my feet, reaching my arms up above my head to stretch out my body. I shuffled over to my room, so familiar with my living space of over seven years that I didn’t need any lights to get there.

The closer I got, the more clearly I could hear strange muffled sounds coming from inside. It was when I heard a soft whimper that I understood what was going on.

Without any warning, I pushed the door open to see Anna sitting on my bed, her knees pulled up to her chest and her head buried in them as she cried. Exhaling a sad sigh, I went over to her, crawling onto the bed myself and immediately taking her up into my arms. I pulled her onto my lap, where she cried and cried into the crook of my neck. She held onto me tightly, desperate for my support, and I held onto her just as tightly to give her it.

“I thought you’d hit your crying quota for the night,” I teased gently, rubbing her back comfortingly. She shook her head.

“I didn’t once stop to think about anyone else’s feelings when I isolated myself from you all,” she admittedly guiltily, choking out a few more soft sobs. “I was so selfish.”

“You can’t be serious,” I said, pushing her away by her shoulders to look her in the eyes. I brought my hands up to cup her face, wiping away the streamline of her tears with my thumbs. “Is that really what this is about?”

She nodded sheepishly, her puffy red eyes looking at me with a heart-wrenching amount of innocent sadness.

“You’re an idiot,” I scolded her lightly, pulling her face to me so I could kiss her forehead. “You may be a lot of things but selfish is not one of them. You weren’t obligated to confide in us, we just wish you did. But you’re doing that now and that’s all that matters.”

At my words, she began crying harder. My hands were so wet with her tears that my efforts to dry her eyes only left a larger pool of water under them. I whined sadly.

“Seriously, haven’t you cried enough by now?” I teased sadly, tugging the sleeves of my sweater over my hands and drying her tears with them instead.

“I know, I hate it,” she sniffled. “It just… all hurts so badly. I can’t even help it anymore.” She dropped her head in defeat, another soft whimper escaping her lips. “I miss her so much.”

I frowned and pulled her back into my body, pressing her as closely against me as possible. I held onto her, trying to keep her together however I could.

“She was my best friend,” she cried, despair so thick in her voice that I almost wanted to cower away. But I couldn't. “What am I supposed to do without her?”

“You’re gonna do whatever you have to. And I’ll be with you the whole time.”

She leaned back, looking at me with her big brown eyes as they swam in red. “You promise?”

I pressed a small kiss against her lips. “I promise.”

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I made sure to keep that promise, so much so that it started to take a major toll on me. Finally having real emotional support didn’t mean things were much easier for Anna. She still sobbed, still found herself trapped in such a cloud of unease that she couldn’t sleep. Therefore, I couldn’t sleep. If I were to do so, she’d be left alone to wallow in emotional solitude while I’d lay peacefully by her side. What kind of man would I be to subject her to such a situation?

Not one deserving enough to be called her man.

So, I’d stay up with her to hold her while she’d cry. I’d stay up and listen to her words of grief until she had no more words to share. I’d stay up with her and tell her that one day, everything would be okay. I knew she didn’t believe me so I stayed up and waited for the day I could tell her ‘I told you so’, just so I could get a rise out of her. Because at that point, I would finally know that she was in fact okay and well. And that was all I wanted.

But I wasn’t getting what I needed as a human being- sleep. But Anna wasn’t either so I thought I’d be fine. It wasn’t like I was the best sleeper in the first place. But under the influences of sheer exhaustion and emotional duress, I was wearing myself out. I still had to work and still had to function like a normal human. But to do those things, I couldn’t take much more of my current pattern.

As all of this was happening, I was working on a collaboration with Namjoon that I’d promised him weeks in advance, far before every cruel thing we’d ever been through was even more cruelly put in perspective. I sat leaned over our workstation, messing with a few plug-ins on our song’s session. I could feel the unwavering stare of the man next to me but I had always been particularly good at ignoring things and this time was no exception.

“You look terrible,” Namjoon eventually voiced despite being aware that I was completely capable of ignoring him for the rest of the day.

“Thank you.”

“Are you sleeping? Eating?”

“Eating, yes. Sleeping, no,” I told him simply.

“Is it because of Anna?” He asked, making me nod. “Is she okay?”

I glanced over at him. “That depends. Have you talked to her since the incident?”

“No, I haven’t gotten the chance.”

I nodded, returning my attention back to the computer and heaving a deep sigh. “If I had to sum her up in one word, I’d use ‘broken’, and that's still an understatement. She’s Anna so she’s still trying to smile but she’s really hurting. You can see it from a mile away.”

“I expected that much,” he admitted solemnly. “There’s nothing like losing someone who’s important to you, especially when you can’t get them back. Then, to have it happen in front of your very eyes… I don’t even want to imagine what that’s like.”

I hummed in agreement, down casting my eyes. The degree of Anna’s loss was nothing short of horrifying. Chun Hwa’s murder was gruesome at the least and it happened just feet away from her. I still couldn’t fathom how the world could possibly be so cruel and bring so much pain to those who didn’t deserve it. My face twisted in sadness.

“I just,” I began, shaking my head and releasing a frustrated huff. “I wish there was more I could do. She deserves the world but all it’s doing is crashing down on her. She used to be one of the happiest people I knew and now she can’t even smile like she used to. She’s pretending that she’s not struggling to get up every morning and it tortures me. I want all the best for her and she’s not getting anything near that.”

I was practically panting by the time I finished. I was hardly even conscious of the passion and intensity I had spoken with until I looked back on it. Namjoon stared at me with a look that I couldn’t quite read and it quite frankly added to my exasperation.

“What?”

“You love her,” he said, maybe even in slight awe. “Like, really love her.”

I held his gaze for a moment before dropping mine down to my hands and sighing. “Yeah, I do.”

“Have you told her?”

“No. Not in the middle of all this.” It seemed inconsiderate to me to put more pressure on her, even if it should’ve been good pressure.

“With most people, I’d typically agree but I don’t know, Anna’s different,” Namjoon said. “She's just... so loving in general, you know? I think it would have a good effect on her if she knew. Maybe be a ray of light in such a dark time of her life.”

“What if it worries her, though? Like, what if she doesn’t feel that way yet and ends up feeling guilty that she can’t say it back?”

“Hyung, you’re overanalyzing,” he deadpanned, trying not to chuckle at my dispense. “Besides, she’s so undoubtedly in love with you. Telling her you love her obviously won’t solve her heartbreak but I don’t think there’s a better time to do it.”

“But how?”

“You’re seriously overthinking,” he reiterated, unable to hold back his amusement this time. “You don’t need some kind of grand plan. When it feels right, you tell her. It could be at the top of the Namsan Tower or next to a trash can on Entertainment Avenue. Just as long as she sees you mean it, the magnitude of the words are enough to make any moment special.”

I held his serious gaze for a moment before quietly nodding. He was right, I needed to stop with my anxiety over these things. Love is natural and should stay that way. Being patient for the sake of the right moment was going to be difficult but worth it.

“I’m absolutely amazed by all this,” Namjoon voiced after observing me for some time. I gave him a look that urged him to elaborate. “I’ve never seen you like this. You may stress over a lot of things but you’re never so vulnerable about it, especially not when it comes to your feelings about another person.”

“Anna’s special,” I pointed out confidently, yet somehow still vulnerable, just as he said. “It may sound naive and cliche but I sometimes wonder whether she's the one.”

“It doesn’t sound naive. We’ve all discussed that possibility more than once.”

“All of you?” I chuckled skeptically. They all couldn’t have been that interested in Anna and me, right?

“Most of us,” he corrected. “Some more than others.”

I nodded with an amused half-smirk, knowing exactly who those people probably were. I then frowned, realizing there was one person that used to be on that list that couldn’t be anymore. One young girl who used to love and support us unconditionally. I shook my head sadly.

“How could any of this have happened, Joon?”

He sighed. “I wish I had an answer for you this time, hyung. Even I’m still at a loss.”

That was saying something. Namjoon wasn’t really one to let things get to him, one of the many reasons I was able to get along with him so well. He was logical like I was with the coolest of exteriors. I once saw a lot of myself in him.

“I know it may sound grim,” I began, earning only half of his attention as he returned to clicking through our music session. “But I sometimes wonder whether Anna will ever actually be okay after all this.”

“She will be.” He sounded so confident that it almost felt like a guarantee. “Just be prepared for it to be in a way that might not work out how you want.”  

“Such as?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. We’re just going to have to wait and see, aren’t we?”

Namjoon's words made me uneasy. It was selfish of me but I really didn’t want to see anything that would mean an unhappy ending for me and Anna.

So, I hoped that for one of those rare occasions, for one of those times when he wasn’t right.