I don’t got this.

He’s standing in front of a slightly dumpy house, key clenched in a sweating hand. This is his house. Well, the dirty white siding, empty flower beds, and cracked front porch aren’t his per say, but they’re kind of his as long as he can afford rent. It’s a far cry from his penthouse back home, but it’s kind of wonderful in its own beat up way.

Once he opens the door and steps inside, this place will be home. He’ll be living here, alone, without Yoongi to look after or the other bosses to answer to. There won’t be any underlings to drive him to the most expensive tailor in town or a trusted secretary to screen his calls. Hell, he doesn’t even have a cellphone. Dinner won’t be made by a grizzled old chef who’s been in the business longer than Namjoon’s been alive. He’ll have to make his own dinner and do his own damn dishes, and is it weird to say that he’s looking forward to it, but is terrified at the same time?

Taking a deep breath, Namjoon slides the key into the lock, gives it a twist, pushes the door open, and steps inside.

It smells like fresh paint and the beige living room carpet is slightly dingy. According to the landlord, it’s a small house with two bedrooms, one bathroom, a tiny kitchen, and a joke of a living room. There’s no furniture to be seen, the walls are bare and white, and the floor creaks beneath his feet. The air conditioning hasn’t been running since the house has sat empty for a number of months, so the air’s warm and stifling.

Namjoon thinks he loves it.

He immediately explores every nook and cranny, which doesn’t take long, and picks out a bedroom. It’s the one with a double window on one wall and a single on another, bathing the room in golden sunlight. In no time his backpack is unpacked: his sweats and t-shirt are set on a shelf in the closet; the toothbrush, toothpaste, razor, single roll of toilet paper, and hair bleach goes in the bathroom, and the trashy romance novel from the airport quick-mart goes on the windowsill in his new room.

In five minutes, he’s unpacked and sitting in the middle of the empty living room, staring at the walls.

It’s all so surreal. This empty house. He’s going to have neighbors. They might invite him to dinner. Maybe he’ll get a dog. The realization that he can now do whatever he wants and the consequences are unlikely to be fatal for anyone sends a giddy feeling twisting through his stomach. He can’t contain the feeling and thumps his fist to his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut and grinning like he rarely let himself before.

“I’m out. I’m out. I’m out and I’m never going back.”

He flops backward onto the carpet spread eagle, eyes tracing abstract patterns in the ceiling.

“I’m going to eat macaroni and cheese.”

Namjoon lies on the floor for quite a while. Every time his mind tries to bring up the no doubt dire consequences of his flight if any of his old compatriots ever catch up with him, he very determinedly stares at the ceiling and thinks about furniture.

He could go to IKEA. He’s never been to an IKEA before. The foreign-sounding names intrigue him, as does the prospect of fully assembling a piece of furniture. No doubt he’ll be at it, but it doesn’t matter if he fails. What are the repercussions? A crooked bookshelf? His chair collapsing out from under him? A sore ? There’s no one here to notice or punish him.

Hell, Namjoon can strut around if he wants to. The idea’s tempting. He gets as far as sitting up with a hand on the bottom hem of his t-shirt before he remembers there aren’t any curtains. Giving the hypothetical neighbors the scare of a lifetime should probably be avoided, especially if he wants to be invited over for dinner eventually.

Furniture. Right.

He needs a table, a mattress, and a chair, for starters. A shape forms in his mind, squat, of dark wood, and covered in books. He places the imaginary coffee table in the middle of the living room and conjures up a cushioned recliner to go behind it. It’ll be green or brown and overstuffed. Maybe he’ll fall asleep in it with a book balanced on his legs while the light from the neighbor’s kitchen shines in through the east window.

That reminds him of the book he bought at the airport. The guy at the register looked at him suspiciously for buying a five dollar book with a one hundred dollar bill. He even pulled out a skinny marker and swiped it across the face to make sure it wasn’t counterfeit. The bill was real of course.

Namjoon crawls down the short hall and into his new bedroom, feeling silly and trying his damndest not to care. No one is watching. No one is here. He is alone.

The book is waiting on the window sill where he left it. It’s a thick paperback called The Candle Maker’s Daughter, the cover of which features a ponytailed, shirtless man more bear than human kissing a freckled woman in a low-cut bodice. According to the testimonial on the front, it’s “A unique, sensual story” that’s “surprisingly historically accurate.”

The short summary on the back filled him with such horrified amusement when he picked it up that he couldn’t force himself to return it to the shelf.

Hans has braved every conceivable danger during his secret adventures outside Germany, but he knows no one is in greater peril than a pretty servant in the employ of his lecherous father. And the only way to protect her is to pretend to be her lover.

Behind his bedroom door, their chaste friendship blooms into a connection more than the stories in any forbidden book. But desire, even love, may not be enough to overcome the forces society has arrayed against them…

He fell asleep an hour into his flight, meaning he only got as far as Hildegard, the pretty servant, cushioning Hans’s manly head in her lap and helping him take a drink of water because he was too injured to move.

Namjoon returns to lying on the floor, book in hand. He pulls out the airport boarding pass that doubles as a bookmark and settles in to read until it’s too dark to see. With any luck, Hans will up and about, ready to ravish before the sun slips below the horizon.