02. RHYTHM OF LIFE? 
(is the heartbeat.)

That night, I didn't kiss him.

After dinner, we simply stood on the roof together, for a long, long time. The sun spilled over our cheeks as we stood like that, our hands one or two centimeters apart on the railing, his shadow overlapping mine.

As I looked out into the distance below me, I thought about falling. I thought about the wind whistling against my body, the blood roaring in my ears. I thought about the fraction of a second that would pass over, my last breath of air before I would die.

But, I also thought about Jungkook. I thought about the time I first met him, and then I thought about the look in his eyes when he'd said, "Yerim, let's get married."—like an ocean without waves, infallibly peaceful, silent. I thought about growing old together, year after year, that handsome face beside me filled with wrinkles and weathered by time.

Sometime while I was thinking, Jungkook brought out red wine.

The carmine liquid swirled in a glass between my fingers as I tilted my chin to look at him. His hair fell just above his eyes; it looked unruly, at the moment, a few stray locks catching the fading sunlight as the wind tossed them in the air.

"Jungkook, have you ever thought about meeting that person?" I asked him, voice a bit ragged from being silent for so long.

I wasn't drunk—I was simply wistful, and he met my gaze, then, with a clouded curiosity in his gentle eyes.

"What person?" He questioned, a slight raise in his brow.

I watched as he leaned back against the railing, elbows propping his body at an angle. His shadow thinned as his torso elongated, legs stretched out in front of him.

"You know, the 'one'. The person that you'll love for as long as you live." I answered, the bitter taste of wine off of my lips. "And don't tell me it won't ever happen to you—because it will."

He chuckled, then, a low rumble that sounded in the back of his throat, and it was a while before he spoke.

"I suppose I've thought about it. Yes, I've thought about falling in love...." he trailed off a bit before shaking his head, "But, love doesn't give me what I want in life. I want stability. I want certainty, and love can't give me either of those. Even when you say that I'll love this person for the rest of my life, I don't know if I will. I don't know—Yerim, I don't like to not know."

I nodded; I understood.

As a scientist, there wasn't anything Jeon Jungkook didn't consider methodically. As if life were an experiment, he wanted to procure the best result, and in doing so, he needed to maintain control.

Love is uncontrollable. It isn't fair from the start, and the only thing you can do after giving out your heart is hope that you'll get it back one day, still alive and beating.

It was quiet, before I raised my head and laughed.

I looked him right in the eye as I told him, "I know—but Jungkook, when you do fall in love with someone...I want you to know you can leave me."

—

Han Kang's The White Book:

"Each moment is a leap forwards from the brink of an invisible cliff, where time's keen edges are constantly renewed. We lift our foot from the solid ground of all our life lived thus far, and take that perilous step out into the empty air. Not because we can claim any particular courage, but because there is no other way."

The truth is, even though Jungkook and I try our best, it's possible that things won't work out the way we intended them to. As the ancestors say, "a fish doesn't always follow the path the river has made for it", and neither will the rest of our lives unfold according to our plans.

It's something I've thought a lot about these days, the thought that lingers on the forefront of my mind, the aching question on my tongue. It's what they call the "elephant" in the room, the grey area that we fear to confront—the what-if that leaves me feeling empty on the inside.

It's the same emptiness that shrouds me as I set my wine glass on the table, leaving my hands to fall at my sides.

In that moment, as we hold each other's gazes, Jungkook's eyes flash with a multitude of expressions—in the midst of questioning and confusion, there's an undeniable hint of disappointment.

"You think I'll leave you for someone else?" he finally says, after what seems like an eternity. His voice is slightly raw, almost terse.

A slight pang racks my chest as I study the lines of hurt etched in his face.

"Jungkook..." I sigh, running a hand through my hair. I don't know why I suddenly feel guilty, like there's a pit at the bottom of my stomach. "I don't mean it like that. You know me—I've always been this way. If I want to say something, I say it."

I pause, my hand reaching out to rest on his. My fingers latch around the circumference of his palm, almost naturally. "I just—don't want you to regret it too much..." I feel my chest fall as my breath leaves my lungs. "...when you find someone better."

The disappointment in his eyes, then, morphs into something I can't quite recognize.

"Kim Yerim." he murmurs, lips parted.

That's when I sense a gripping tug in my arm, before I feel his breath on my shoulder, his lips brushing against my neck. My face is pressed against his chest as he tucks me into his embrace, forceful, yet tender all the same.

We've embraced before—the kind of embrace that result as a natural side of friendship—as a way of greeting, after a long time of not being able to see each other, as a way of condolence, whenever either of us felt down.

But not like this.

I hear his heartbeat, steady against my ear, and it suddenly relieves me when I remember that he can't hear the erratic rhythm of mine. I feel everything about him—the outline of his body, the warmth radiating from it, his scent—surrounding me.

"For two days, I didn't call you." he says, voice muffled by the fabric of my clothing. "I didn't want to push things, because I thought—you'd wake up in the morning, or the next day after, regretting that night."

He pulls back, then, his hands reaching up to hold my shoulders. "Yerim, I know I might be asking too much of you, but I want you to trust me."

"Trust you?" I repeat quietly, the syllables rolling off my tongue one by one.

He nods. "Trust that I'm in this for the long run. Marrying you—it's what I want, and our marriage is something that will be important to me, for the rest of my life. I meant it when I said I can be a good husband to you, Yerim. That means I won't leave you, unless you want me to."

I won't leave you, unless you want me to.

I ponder as his words echo in my mind: Would things ever come to such? Would I ever want Jungkook to leave me?

"What if I want you to?" I ask him, my voice small. "What if I'm the one who falls in love with someone? What if I'm the one who regrets our marriage?"

Jungkook smiles at me half-heartedly. "As long as that person is more capable of giving you a happy life than I am..." He pauses, his hand raising to ruffle my short hair. "Then, I'll let go."

I'll let go.

—

It's Friday morning.

My hair is tossed in disarray, my legs feel like they're about to fall off, and my head is throbbing like it's spent the last hour spinning in circles—but the only thing I can clearly think of at the moment is that Jungkook has many, many female secretaries.

Fifteen minutes ago, I walked into my office—only to be told that my father had returned a day early, landing in Seoul at 11 P.M. the former night. Fourteen minutes ago, I was informed by Joohyun that my father had in fact just left the building, on his way to meet a certain Jeon Jungkook. Twelve minutes ago, I sprinted into an elevator, ran in four-inch heels across the lobby and all the way to the employee parking lot, where I scrambled in my car and made a dash for Jungkook's laboratory facility—knowing that my father would surely visit Jungkook's corporate headquarters first, where he would eventually be told of Jungkook's true location.

Until then, I had ten minutes to get to Jungkook first—which was why, two minutes ago, I whisked myself straight into Jungkook's front lobby like Dorothy marching towards Oz.

In hindsight, my father knows everything before I tell him. The fact is, company rumors spread faster than wildfire—and a particularly popular gossip thread regarding the ring on my finger had only been something within predictable bounds.

This day was inevitable.

"Name?" An unidentified female secretary inquires as I drum my fingers against the desk. She looks to be in her young twenties, with her honey brown hair styled into neat waves behind her ear, perfectly winged eyeliner peeking out from behind her glasses.

"Kim Yerim." I answer with a light cough, "Dr. Jeon's, um, friend."

The woman finally looks up from her desktop screen to eye me from top to bottom. 

Although I don't dress shabbily—not just the fact that my mother would never allow it, but also because presentation is a very important part of my job—I feel a strange sense of self-consciousness crawling up my spine, as if her gaze makes me uncomfortable.

After her line of sight raises once more to scrutinize my face, she finally reaches for the phone behind her desk to page Jungkook.

"Dr. Jeon, Miss Kim Yerim is in the lobby." Pause. "Yes, right away."

The phone returns to its mount with an audible click.

"Alright, Miss Kim." The woman faces me once more with a thin-lipped smile. She adjusts her glasses once before gesturing ahead of her. "Please follow me."

—

The elevator ride is excruciatingly quiet.

When the heavy doors open at the fifth level, I'm relieved to hear Jungkook's secretary finally speak.

"I've never seen you before, Miss Kim." she says, one step ahead of me.

The hallway is long and straight, with glass-walled laboratories on one side, and office areas on the other. It's rather silent, save for the sound of shuffling steps and keyboards clacking, and I peer through the glass as we walk, as if in an art gallery.

Despite having been close to him all these years, I'd never visited Jungkook at work.

"It's my first time here." I explain with a grin, "Jungkook doesn't really like to be bothered when he's working."

I see her nod, pushing her glasses up on her perfectly sloped nose. She has a very pretty face, with a round, slimming chin, and double-lidded eyes. 

"I assume you're knowledgable in Dr. Jeon's work, then?" She asks, scanning her badge at a sealed door to reveal yet another hallway.

"No, no." I let out an easy-going laugh. "I've definitely got nothing to do with his field. I'd burn down Jungkook's lab before setting foot in it."

Suddenly, there's an unsettling feeling in my stomach when I see her smile.

"Of course." she says, her steps suddenly halting in the middle of the hallway. She taps the surface of a wooden door, aptly labelled in a nearby plaque—JEON JUNGKOOK, PhD. "This is Dr. Jeon's office. He should be up from the basement soon."

I dip my head gratefully as I approach the door, reaching for the handle.

"However, the next time you visit, I would recommend a different choice of shoes, Miss Kim."

My fingertips pause mid-air.

"Excuse me?" I question, a bit shocked and confused at the same time.

Is something wrong with my shoes?

I glance down at my black pointed-toe pumps, finding nothing wrong with their compatibility to my striped navy blazer and matching slacks.

"It's nothing much," she replies, rather airily. "Just that Dr. Jeon doesn't prefer women who wear high heels."

Oh.

That's when I suddenly understand.

I exhale a breath, my heels clicking on the floor as I turn to face her. My gaze floats over her lapel, where her name is pinned to her blouse.

"Secretary Jung." I say, to which she raises her head bravely.

"Miss Kim." Secretary Jung responds smugly, red lips morphing into a simper.

Luckily for her, however, this isn't the first time I've suffered the brunt of being the enemy to someone's love. Back when I was twenty-one and dating Jung Jaehyun, I'd learned a lot about the worst sides of women. I'd been tripped, tugged at, and had tequila poured down my dress. 

So, the moment I see Jungkook's figure at the end of the hallway, I formulate an effective plan almost immediately.

"Here, why don't you come with me." I say to her, before marching straight towards Jungkook—who, speaking of which, looked absolutely charming in a white lab coat, both hands tucked in its pockets.

"Ye—"

"Jungkook." I interrupt him as I approach him, before grasping him by the lapels and placing a solid peck on his cheek.

He looks down at me, stunned—I simply smirk, undeterred. My arm circles around his before I swing around to meet Secretary Jung's seething stare.

"Secretary Jung here says you don't like women in high heels." I start, an innocent pout ghosting the curve of my lips. "Is that true, Kookie?"

At the sound of his childhood nickname, a flash of amusement flickers through Jungkook's eyes. He peers at me as I cling to his shoulder, batting my lashes deviously.

"It depends on who is wearing them." he answers, his gaze refusing to leave mine. There's a knowing smile tugging at his lips as he says, "However, I think they suit you just fine."

"Ah." I nod, watching out of the corner of my eye as Secretary Jung practically foams at the mouth. Her cheeks turn a bright, uncanny red as her fingers clench at her sides.

"Well, do you think I should pursue a degree in pharmaceuticals?" I ask again, despite the looming afterthought that I may have been too cruel this time. "Secretary Jung thinks it's important for me to understand your line of work, you see."

Jungkook shakes his head, still staring at me. "I don't see that necessity." he says, before finally turning to address Secretary Jung, who is nearly about to burst with tears. "Secretary Jung, this is my fiancée, Kim Yerim."

I grin from ear-to-ear.

—

"I should have known you were up to no good," Jungkook chuckles, as soon as Secretary Jung is out of earshot. "The moment I heard you were in my lobby, I had an ominous feeling."

I release his arm quickly, smoothing down my shirt as I toss him a glare. "What am I to you? The 'Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse'?" I raise my eyebrow accusingly with a snort.

He laughs, sticking his hands in the pockets of his lab coat once more. "I'm being serious, Yerim—Is something wrong?"

Suddenly, I'm reminded of my urgent mission to save the man before me from his impending doom.

"My dad—he's coming." I begin to explain bluntly, sheer panic finally fizzing through my veins. Nervous hiccups bubble out of my chest as I struggle to form a coherent sentence, short of breath. "He—he found out before I even got to tell him a-and Joohyun says he'll be here any minute and I—Well, I'd rather not give up the wedding for a funeral."

Jungkook and I stare at each other for what seems like an eternity before my gaze flickers down to his lips, watching as they form a shy smile.

"Yerim—"

"You really aren't going to run for your life, are you?" I gawk in disbelief.

Jungkook shakes his head as he reaches out an arm to steady me. "Your dad, actually, is already on his way upstairs. I had Secretary Lee bring him up a moment ago."

I hear my heart pound like jeolgu drums in my ear as Jungkook checks the watch on his wrist.

"He should be here just about now—"

If there's one art I've particularly mastered, it's one that involves running away from my problems. Another would be acting impulsively, but it's one I'm not so proud of.

Right when I hear the beeping of a door granting access, I grab Jungkook by the hand, pulling him into the unlocked room across from his office. The door slams shut just as another opens, letting my father, Uncle Baekhyun, and yet another young female secretary through to the hallway—and enclosing Jungkook and me into a supplies closet, pressed up against a shelf of pipette tips.

"Don't. Move." I whisper fiercely as I lean into his shoulder, avoiding the window opening of the door. I close my eyes and hope for the best, knowing that I've unarguably done all that I can. 

The rest is up to fate—and, inevitably, to quote Shakespeare's Macbeth, "Come what come may."