The Siren's Song

Chapter 78- and joys of the present

KOOK POV:

The day dawns like always. Sun rising and slowly filtering through the slithers in the curtains. And yet it's different.

Because when I wake the memories of last night seep in, filtering through that sleepy haze. Of (Y/N) curled up asleep in Joon hyung's arms, head resting on his chest and his arms wound around her, face shining with both joy and tenderness as he shushed us, tucking her in close. Of her sleepily protesting about not wanting to wake up, and then the tears, her sleepy face crumpling with distress and hurt as she tried to fold herself away from us and of the seemingly small snippet of her life but one I knew meant so, so much. And I realised that all that sleepy haze had vanished in the instant when Jin hyung as he was waking her had called her poppet, had called Joon hyung as Joonie and triggered a painful aching sorrow. He'd inadvertently reminded her of the people she'd lost, of her family she was no longer able to see. 

It made me wonder that she'd probably been dreaming of them, if her pained sleepy eyes were any indication, or the almost subtle hidden way her eyes had darted around the room and her posture had caved slightly. That she wasn't where she was dreaming of. 

It had been hard letting her go to bed alone after that. When she'd looked so hurt as the memory clung to her even after she'd relaxed, had stopped crying- each tear kissed away, the soft warmth of her cheeks as she'd slightly relaxed and leaned into the touch. But even so, all seven of us had hovered in the doorway of Yoongi hyung's bedroom, torn between gushing over how she was practically swallowed up by one of my larger sweatshirts, having shyly asked me for some clothes when the others had been debating what to give her to change into and to just close the distance to hug her, hold her, tell her that she didn't need to spend the night alone. But she hadn't asked and we hadn't pushed.

I had noticed that she still seemed slightly lost and vulnerable, that maybe something large and soft would be more comforting to wear and when she'd emerged from the bathroom looking all cuddly and soft and slightly settled I'd known that the decision wasn't wrong.

But even so that hadn't stopped me from restlessly fidgeting and shifting as I'd tried to fall asleep, Yoongi hyung's knowing eyes watching me through sleepy slanted eyelids.

"I know Kook-ah. It just doesn't feel right does it?" he sighs, forgoing the pretence of trying to sleep and abruptly pushing the blankets away and sitting upright.

"Want to check up on her with me?" he asks, already swinging his legs out to slide his feet into house slippers, moving to the door as I scramble out eagerly.

But we'd come to a standstill in front of the door. 

Wondering whether or not to knock. If we did and she was asleep then we'd be distracting her, if we didn't and she was awake then we were intruding.

Yoongi hyung sighs, looking equally torn, before he raps his knuckles gently against the wood of the door, the sound so quiet in the dimly lit hallway that it makes me shake my head.

"She's not gonna hear that, even I barely heard that!" I exclaim when the sight of the door swinging open inwards has me startling and turning to face (Y/N), somehow not expecting her to have answered so quick.

But then a frown appears on my face when I see how wide awake she looks, the sleepy vestiges from earlier vanished as she peers at the two of us.

"(Y/N) you're not asleep." I state, taking in the way she gives a small nod, hands lost in the fabric of the sweater's sleeves.

"Not tired or couldn't sleep?" Yoongi hyung asks softly.

"Couldn't sleep." She confesses.

"You're not used to the different space." I realise aloud and her wry look is answer enough.