*One Month Later*

Jackson quietly closes the door to his room, and walks into the kitchen to find JB and Yugyeom, waiting for him. He stands in the kitchen and listens to Chrissy talking behind the door of her room. After that night, she moved into the guest room.

“Cooking lunch?” Jackson asks their leader. 

JB glances at him and then back to the food on the stove. “Chrissy taught me to make gumbo, so I’m trying by myself.” He keeps his eye on the pot, constantly stirring the brown thickening roux.

Jackson looks at Yugyeom and smiles. “And you?” He asks.

“I’m waiting to eat the gumbo.”

Jackson shakes his head and walks around the kitchen counter to sit in one chair next to Yugyeom. He looks towards Chrissy’s room where they can hear her talking. 

After the accident, a lot of the other victims reached out to her, so she made time every day to talk to them on the phone, or facetime them. For the ones who were too young, she’d talk to their parents. They even sent her letters and drawings. Unfortunately, some relatives of the deceased also reached out to her, and those that were grieving and angry would yell at her. Those nights, Jackson could only hold her while she cried. 

“Did you tell her how you feel?” Jinyoung asks him, still stirring the pot. 

“How can I Hyung? With everything she’s going through, how can I burden her with this?”

“Maybe she feels the same way. Or felt the same way before the accident?” Yugyeom adds.

Jackson shakes his head at the Maknae. “She needs someone to support her, right now.”

“Who says you can’t do both? Support her and love her,” Yugyeom says. “And besides, the only support we’ve been giving her is space and food. And even then Noona takes more care of us, than we do her. When she comes to visit me, I have to beg her not to clean and just rest. She does my laundry before I can even hide it, not that I’m complaining. I have to beg her to just bum around, or let us take care of her.”

Jacksons sighs, putting his elbows on the counter and his head in his hands. “It’s because of her past. She was so codependent before that she only wants to be independent now.”

“Letting us take care of her while she’s going through this doesn’t make her any less independent.”

“Try telling her that.”

JB reaches for some chopped vegetables near him, and adds them in, and they sizzle. “When we come over and camp out in the living room some nights… we can hear her scream from nightmares.”

Jackson quickly looks up at his leader. “I don’t know what to do, Hyung. She doesn’t like being held after nightmares because whatever she went through during the crash, but she won’t talk to me about it either. All I can do is sit beside her, when all I want to do is hold her tight and kiss her.”

“It’s only been a month,” JB says, “We have to give her time. She’s taken a break from work and stayed here with us. We just have to give her whatever she needs, and if she needs more, we’ll give her more. We’re here for both of you. Whether you admit to her your feelings or not, she’ll always be our Hyongsu (sister-in-law).”

Right at the second, Chrissy’s door opens, and they all get quiet. JB gets back to stirring. She comes out and smiles at everyone, even though they can see that she had been crying. She walks up to Jackson’s side of the kitchen counter, sands behind him, and she rests her hands on his shoulder.

“Ah, Maknae-yah,” she says to Yugyeom. “Are you hungry?”

“Why do you always ask him if he’s hungry,” JB whines, but still smiles. “You always take care of him first.”

“Because, he’s the baby,” she smiles.

“I’m already cooking,” he says, pointing to what’s on the stove. 

She sits down on the other side of Jackson and looks at what he’s doing. “It smells good, and it’s a nice color. Good job, hunny.”

JB smiles and focuses on what he‘s doing.

 “If you’re still hungry afterwards,” Chrissy says, looking past Jackson to Yugyeom, “I’ll make you some more.” She sits up and looks at Jackson. She puts her hand on his arm and his heart beats faster and faster. “You look exhausted,” she says, “you should go take a nap.”

Jackson smiles at her and shakes his head. “I want to spend time with you guys. We still have time on our hiatus, so I’ll sleep every chance I get later. Okay?”

“You better.”

“Noona,” JB says.

She looks up at him, and he looks around at the ingredients he laid out, confused. 

“I don’t remember the next step,” he says, “help.”

Chrissy gets up and walks around the counter, and stands by JB’s side, and she looks into the pot. Jackson watches her as she helps their leader. 

For an entire month, he’s had her just a reach away, and he’s watched and secretly loved her, and he wonders if she’ll change if he tells her how he really feels. “I’ll wait,” he thinks to himself, “until she’s healed. And then I’ll tell her.”

Chrissy looks up at him and smiles before looking back to JB to help. Jackson knows in his heart that there isn’t anything he wouldn’t do for her.