Chaeyoung forced a smile to appear on her face as she bid her colleagues goodbye before stepping out of her workplace. Just as she seated herself in her car, she took her phone out while her other hand buckled the seatbelt. For the whole day, she hadn’t even taken the device out of her handbag, trying to have her brain and mind focus on her work because she knew that Jungkook was right, that life must go on no matter what.

Things happened and it was not her place to stop it from happening, she had no power to reverse death, and forcing the suffering onto her would only make things worse. Taehyung wouldn’t want that, his mother wouldn’t approve it. While she couldn’t help but think of the impossible, that if only she had agreed to work with Taehyung for his mother’s happiness, she would always get reminded of how the lady had said that honesty was much more preferable.

No one was to blame for the loss of the beautiful soul. After days, she had finally begun to accept that fact and although it was difficult, she needed to keep moving on. And she needed to help Taehyung go through it.

Her thumb brought the device to life, teeth lightly nibbled on the inside part of her lower lip as she stared at the screen. There were miscalls and messages all from the same person, Jeon Jungkook. After wasting a few seconds just being still in her seat while her eyes stared at the phone, she eventually made her thumb work to send commands to the phone to make a call to him.

He answered the call in an instant, with a panicked merged with a slight relief in his voice as he called her name. “Chaeyoung?”

She leaned backwards as she quickly responded to him. “I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.”

“Where are you? I came home early, went over to your place but you weren’t there. You’re not anywhere in my apartment too. Are you… are you okay?”

The corner of her lips lifted slightly. She took a deep breath, nodded lightly as though he could see it. “I’m okay. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I was at work. And I didn’t check my phone.”

There was a long, relieved sigh on the other line. “So you’re going home now?”

She bit on her lips briefly, thinking of the person she had in her mind even in her sleep. “I…” she began hesitantly. “I want to visit Taehyung. I need to check up on how he’s doing.”

Silence from his side lasted for a few seconds before his calm voice replied her, “Okay, careful on the road.”

It was totally unnecessary for her to tell him what she told him next, but she felt as though it was needed. “I’ll definitely come home tonight.”

He chuckled softly. “I know.” The way he spoke to her, soft and gentle, everything about it made her insides felt like they were being caressed with a sort of warmness that would calm down any uneasy feeling at all.

Chaeyoung stood in front of Taehyung’s apartment then, her index brushed against the doorbell with hesitancy building up inside of her. All the what-ifs began to take turns to pollute her mind. What if he knew she was at the door but refused to open it? If he opened the door, would he tell her off? With a slight shake of her head, she breathed out heavily, pushing away those unnecessary thoughts out her head. She pressed the doorbell once and waited patiently, shifting the plastic bag in her hand to the other hand before pressing it again.

She already knew from Jungkook that Jennie said Taehyung refused to see anyone except Namjoon, but here she was with that tiny hope that Taehyung would make her an exception. It was nearing five minutes when she finally decided to text Taehyung to open the door for her. Soon after she saw that her message was delivered to him, she attempted again to press on the doorbell.

Her heart was restless at every second she spent on waiting for any sound the door would make to give her at least a glimpse of Taehyung. It was probably only a couple of seconds after her last attempt to ring the doorbell, but Chaeyoung was already feeling as though she had stood there for at least thirty minutes that it would be wise to leave when the door suddenly opened while she was staring at her feet.

She lifted her gaze slowly, her eyes were on him from head to toe before they settled on his eyes, his tired eyes. “Tae…” she murmured, her hand spontaneously reached forward to hold his. She had a big expectation that he would swat her hand away when their skins came in contact, but he stayed still, showing no reaction for probably one good minute.

Taehyung’s chest rose high as he took the deepest breath, his eyes blinked weakly at her and Chaeyoung felt him responding to her hold on his hand. He squeezed her hand gently, released his breath heavily and took a step backwards. “Come in,” he invited, his voice deep and slightly rough like he hadn’t spoke for days.

She set the food down on the table in his kitchen. “Have you had your dinner?”

He shook his head. “Namjoon will arrive in an hour with dinner.”

“Tell him he doesn’t need to come today,” she gently told him.

He didn’t protest or show any sign of disagreeing as he nodded his head lightly before he made a brief phone call to Namjoon. Chaeyoung prepared everything on the table with silence, telling Taehyung to just take a seat and wait. She tried to ignore the clenching of her heart at the silence coming from Taehyung as he sat quietly, doing just what he was told while his eyes blankly stared at the space across him.

It wasn’t the first time for her to experience this Taehyung, but it was definitely rare for him to be acting this way. And the fact that his mother’s death was the reason why he was this quiet this time around was so heartbreaking to her. The inner side of her was about to break down, but for him, she needed to be strong.

They ate together in deep silence although she had things she wanted to say. But she figured that perhaps, it wasn’t the right time to be saying anything at all. She waited until both of them were finished that she, with so much effort, forced just anything to come out of .

“How have you been?” she asked cautiously.

It was the first time he smiled for the whole time she was there, but it was definitely not a smile she should be happy to see because it was only two seconds, didn’t reach his eyes and it was almost difficult to detect if she hadn’t been studying his face for a long time.

“I’ve been better, honestly.”

She could feel that the answer was not laced with any untruthfulness at all and Chaeyoung nodded her head, understanding it completely. Her fingers fidgeted lightly as she thought of the next thing to say before he asked her, “How are you doing?”

She swallowed, lowering her eyes. “Okay.”

There was no response and she was already scared of hurting his feelings, thinking hard of how that response she gave could actually sound insensitive. She really didn’t know what to tell him because she didn’t know how exactly she was doing. It was so indescribable. She had all the feelings from negative to positive combined with each other. To say that she was doing well would probably be a lie, but at the same time, saying things like she wasn’t fine would be a lie as well.

When she looked up at him, he was frowning softly and she bit her lower lip hard at that.

“I heard that you’re not coping well with this,” he said.

She met his eyes again, staring at him confusedly because it didn’t sound interrogative, and it certainly wasn’t a tone he used when he was angry.

“How could I?” was the only response she could manage, and she herself noticed how weak her voice had sound with the slight tremble.

He looked away just for one brief second, sighing softly as his brows furrowed before he turned to look at her again. “Chaeng…” he stopped momentarily to lean forward on the table. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to say to you.”

She looked into his sad eyes, sending a silent request for him to say it. Taehyung didn’t say right away, though. He ran his palms against his face as he exhaled shakily. When he brought his hands down, uncovering his beautiful face, he looked like he was thinking how to start it all.

“I talked to her the night before she got admitted,” he finally began. “I told her things I should have told her long time ago. I told her what exactly happened. I told her about you, me, about us, about how our relationship ended, why I cheated, all the possible whys, the how – just… everything. I confessed to my mom about everything involving us.”

She felt her breath caught in her chest, her mind giving her images of the lovely woman and she got herself wondering how the woman reacted to every single thing Taehyung told her.

“And you know what happened?” Taehyung asked, his deep voice came out so tenderly. Chaeyoung watched as he chuckled, saying nothing as his smile, a delicate smile lingered on his face while he looked like he was reminiscing all the best things ever happened in his life. “Instead of showing how disappointed she was at me, she hugged me. She rubbed my back. She patted my head. She told me it was okay. She assured me she wasn’t angry. And at that time, I felt like I was a small child again… her little boy… making mistakes, big mistakes that should have angered her. But as always, she never got angry at me. No matter how disappointed she was. And at that point, Chaeyoung, I hated her for it. I wanted her to be like everyone else, be angry at me, let out all th