He reminded himself over and over again that he is not allowed to get used to this, he cannot possibly have anyone, he should not start getting attached. To accept you now is to have someone to lose again.

But here you were… holding him again and again, even after he pushes you away, again and again. Why did you believe that he was not the part he played? The character that he portrayed just so that he can lie to himself that even if everyone leaves him, they were right anyway?

“Even if it hurts, I’m not leaving”, was all you said.  

He recalls all the instances you offered up yourself to share his pain… Even in this moment, you held him steadfast in your arms as though you were not afraid of that awful feeling resonating from within him. He should at least let you in, no, he wants to let you in.  

He starts to cower a little inside your arms, and he raises his hands to return your embrace. You felt his hands on your back, jolts of pain spread across where he held onto you. Then he snuggles his face into the curve of your neck, you felt a tiny droplet of something. Now your heart hurt way more than your body ever could.  

“It’s ok”, you whispered, to assure him that you were ok, and that he was going to be ok too.  

He only pulls you in closer.  

—

The moon shone bright as you walked with Jungkook back to the university. He wanted to send you back to your dorms but you insisted that he was the one who needed to be dropped off instead, so you both ended up heading to his practice room lair. On the way, he filled you in on what had happened.  

“Do you hate them? Is that why you ran away?”, you asked.  

He didn’t answer. Did he hate them?  

—

“You’ve been sleeping here these few days?”, you were appalled as you walked into the messy room.  

“Yeah, I’ve been spending the past few nights here, although there is hardly any sleeping involved…”, he moves to sit down on the couch, resting both elbows on his thighs, his hands soothing over his eyebrows.  

You see a pillow strewn on the floor and you picked it and dropped it nearer to the head of the couch before plopping yourself onto it.  

“Are you tired? You can sit here”, he flicked his head, gesturing the empty space next to him on the sofa.  

Shaking your head, you replied as you sat cross-legged on the floor, “I’m not leaving tonight till I see you fall asleep.”  

“But I can’t…”, he quipped.  

“Then I’m not leaving this pillow”, you shrugged, “… let’s see… oh right I have a morning class tomorrow and then I gotta go to work after that. Guess I’ll just be really tired out since you wouldn’t sleep.”  

He doesn’t say anything, only just stares at you, knowing how relentlessly stubborn you can be. Almost begrudgingly, he lies down on the couch, resting his head on the side facing you.  

His eyes lock with yours, just long enough for him to read all your features like a bedtime story. Then he closes his eyes in contentment, trying to lull himself to sleep so that you can get some rest too.  

You mentally commended yourself for having formulated the tactic of dealing with this boy. He doesn’t care about himself, but he cares about you. You smiled to yourself.

—

Jungkook’s eyes flutter open, it was too bright at first and he resorted to squinting. When his vision finally came into focus, he thought he must still be in his dreams. Your face rested so close to him, leaning against the armrest of the sofa, having fallen asleep from watching over him last night.  

A minute must have passed but he felt like time stopped as he continued to observe you. The room seemed to be filled with all of the world’s softest things – the morning sunlight, your sleeping face and the trembling feeling in his chest.  

But the sharp ticking of the clock in the room reminded him. “Y/N”, he calls out quietly.  

You slowly wake up. “Heol, it’s morning already…?”, you slurred.  

“Aren’t you going to be late for class?”, he whispers.  

You glance at the time on the clock. “!”, you scrambled up, grabbing your bag and running off to class. He tosses himself over to face the ceiling. He inhales, and his heart swells. He exhales, and his lips curl up a little. This is new. 

—

“Bye Mr Hwang, see you tomorrow”, you waved to your store manager as you left work.  

You fumbled inside your bag for your phone while walking out of the bookstore and narrowly miss bumping into the human that jumped into your path.  

“Were you late for class this morning?”, you looked up and to meet Jungkook’s eyes.  

Was he waiting for you to get off work? No no, you reminded yourself not to be presumptuous like you were last time. He might be here for other reasons, his family owns this mall after all.  

“What are you doing here?”  

He shrinks back one inch in shock. “To pick you up of course, why else? Isn’t that a given, now that we are, you know, dating?”  

“We are what?”, you gasped, without missing a beat, shocked by the suddenness of the assertion.  

“You were the one who hugged me last night, are you just gonna pretend like it didn’t happen?”, he was in disbelief over your feign oblivious attitude.  

“Wow for someone like you, I’d expect a hug to just be like shaking hands with a stranger”, you replied.  

“Well between the two of us, the benchmark should probably be you. Unless you just go around hugging everybody?”, he gasps this time, raising his hands to cover his mouth dramatically.  

You chuckle at his acting and he smiles too.  

“Aren’t you hungry… I got so hungry waiting for you”, he grouses.

—

Over dinner, Jungkook realised how fascinated he was with the notion that he is just sitting across from you. He held his food in mid-air, eyes fixed on you. That same trembling feeling in his chest appears again. He feels like he’s about to get a heart attack from just doing the most mundane things with you, things like walking, waking up or eating.  

“Why are you staring at me like this?”, it was making you uncomfortable.  

Your question snaps him out of his trance. “I wasn’t staring…”, he rebuked while choking a little.  

You gave him a ‘yeah-sure’ face until he resigned, “fine… maybe I was staring… a bit.” His confession making you smirk subtly. “But you were the one who hugged me first…”, and he just had to throw it in teasingly.  

It was your turn to choke on the food and you could only side-eye the petty boy sitting across you.  

“Did it hurt a lot?”, his tone suddenly flipped entirely, taking a downturn.  

‘You always hurt a lot…’, you thought but did not say out loud. Avoiding the question, you asked him whether he was going to sleep in the practice room again that night. “You can’t keep staying in the practice room…”, you griped.  

He nods, “I’m planning to stay in the hotel for a while and I need to go back and pack some stuff…”, he mutters uncertainly. “But…”, he continued, stuttering, “… can you maybe…”.  

“I’ll go with you. Let’s go together after we finish eating”, you answered him casually.  

He was starting to believe that you really had superpowers.  

—

This was the first time you entered Jungkook’s house, it was what you imagined a chaebol’s house would look like and a little more. You realised that what the dramas have taught you were indeed true, the house was grand, but it felt lifeless, it felt cold.  

He walked up a flight of stairs, stopping midway to wait for you as you were still examining the magnificent structure around you. You quietly followed him up to his room and your heart was beating crazy fast because, well just because, you were in his room.  

“I don’t have much to pack, it won’t take long, you can just sit over here and wait for me”, he pulls out the chair in front of his computer desk and rolled it over to you.  

“It’s ok, I can help you.”  

He smiled shyly, the first time you sensed bashfulness from him, “Alright, if you really want to, why not you help me put those textbooks into my backpack.”  

You complied and turned to look at his table, a stack of textbooks piled up at one corner. While you were at it, you noticed his extensive collection of comic books on the bookshelf. There were also a few pieces of drawings on his table, most of them of comic book characters.  

You were done with packing all his textbooks and you secretly threw in a few comics for him. He told you to take the backpack downstairs and wait for him in the living room, “I’ll be down in a minute”, he assured you as you left his room.  

The grandness of the living room seemed to amplify the emptiness of the house. You stood alone, not feeling comfortable enough to sit down and wait.  

“Hi… You must be Jungkook’s friend…”, a female voice made your head jolt in her direction.  

“Hi Mrs Jeon…”

She was pleasantly surprised that you knew she was his mother, and she reaches out her hand in a welcoming gesture. You were about to reciprocate by shaking her hand, when Jungkook appears and grabs a corner of your sleeve, yanking you away from her.  

Her face falls almost immediately, more concerned than anything else. “Jungkook-ah… where have you been the past few days, you didn’t come home and I was worried, are you alright? Can we talk…”, she stammers, her lips were raised in a cautious smile but her eyes were full of sorrow.  

“I told Grandfather that I will be staying in the hotel for a while”, he said emotionlessly to her. “Let’s go”, and his voice takes a gentle turn as he gestures for you to leave with him.  

She didn’t try to stop him or say another word, but the look on her face somehow reminded you of him.  

—

“Do you really hate her that much?”, you asked as the two of you sat in the taxi heading towards the hotel.  

“Why do you say that?”, he knew immediately what you were alluding to.  

“I mean I have seen you run away from her at the hotel, and just now you didn’t even let me shake her hand”, you chose your words rather carefully.  

“I’m indifferent. And it’s not that I didn’t want you to shake her hand… I just didn’t want her to hurt you, like how I do.”

You peered at him silently. Since when has he realised this? That perhaps she felt the same way he did. He was still lying though, to himself. He wasn’t indifferent, he wasn’t entirely emotionless when it came to his family. But it wasn’t your place to push him to recognise it, you knew he needed time. Just like how it must have taken a long time for him to become like this.  

—

The hotel suite was stunningly furnished. He didn’t bring over many things, so you busied yourself making some tea while he unpacked his stuff. He steals a glance at you and stealthily takes something out from one of his bags before walking over to where you were.  

“I got this for you”, his eyes were flickering in the light, like a nervous little boy gifting a present to his first crush in school. You stared at the thing he was holding out towards you – a furry porcupine toy, around the size of a rugby ball.

“What for?”, you asked.  

You could swear he was blushing, “Uhh… just to commemorate… you know… us? Take it”, he was waving the toy into your face out of his embarrassment. Never did he think he would be doing such a cheesy thing for anyone. Truth be told he actually got the present for you some time ago, he just never had the opportunity, or maybe the courage, to give it to you.  

“It’s cute, but why a porcupine? Do I look like a porcupine to you?”, you asked as you accepted the plushie.

“Somewhat, you gotta admit you were quite prickly to me at the start”, he replied with a visible pout. It astonishes you how things have changed, you actually thought he looked innocent and cute.  

“Hey, that’s not fair! You had a reputation and I just…”, you were prepared to defend yourself.  

“Yeah that I admit”, he extended a finger in a thoughtful way, “anyway… it’s me. This porcupine is supposed to remind you of me…”, he tapped his fingers on the fluffy-looking porcupine in your hands, poking its soft belly a few times, “… because I always hurt you a lot… and you can’t even touch me because I’m prickly like him.”  

“So… what are you going to do about it?”, you demanded after a slight pause, raising your eyebrows.  

“About what?”, he was stunned.  

“About these,”, you pointed at the pricks made of fluff on the porcupine’s back, “Like I said, I’m not going anywhere. If you don’t want to hurt me, you have to do something about these.”

His laughter lingers only in his throat, “Must be fun for you to use all my lines against me now.” You also let out a muffled giggle as you start to realise how much you like it when he smiles.  

“I’ll think about it… about what I should do about these…”, he murmurs as he looked at you fondly but not without dejection, “… so that I can finally hold your hand.”