Death Switch | KTH ✓

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[Taehyung's POV]

I had had my very first contemplative, marked suspicion that something had not been right as I had watched Mr Lovato strutting in front of me with creased eyebrows and pursed lips and when I had resumed watering the plants—the work I had been engrossed in doing before Mr. Lovato decided to interrupt me—and had requested him to speak of the matter that brought him here, however, he had replied that I should rather set aside my working and grant him my full attention as the matter was of utmost importance to him—then that undoubtedly had confirmed my suspicions that something was indeed very, very wrong.

Mr. Lovato had been my neighbor, a busy middle-aged man with a wife and no children and had been preoccupied with his work throughout the year as well as his wife, Mrs. Lovato, a woman of dedication that they both never, ever had gotten the tiniest bit of time to speak to their neighbors a few words of greetings. Therefore, watching a worried Mr. Lovato, who had been standing in front of me, I had no other choice than to believe that something was wrong.

That day, if I have not forgotten, had ended with chaotic, blurry scenes as I had been busy mending the wooden fence in the backyard of the Lovatos the entire of my afternoon, and after that had been with Mr. Lovato for the evening, circling back and forth of the police station to register our concern that according to him had been regarding the robbery in his house.

The police had reassured that they would catch the thief and though undoubtedly reluctant, Mr Lovato appeased at his reassurance. When the night fell, all I had desired was to go to my small house, make myself a warm bowl of soup, and then go to sleep but upon Mr. Lovato's insistence, I had found myself on the dining table of his house with Mrs. Lovato, serving me with delicious food that despite my denial, was yet served to me as a matter of gratitude that they had told.

"Consider this dinner as a token of thanks from us, child," had said, Mr. Lovato.

The day hadn't been as awkward as dining with Lovatos had been for it was rare of them to invite their neighbors to dine with them, as I had told, they were busy, preoccupied people who had had no time to greet their neighbors, dining was indeed far-fetched.

Being foreigners, settled in a country that was not theirs, I presumed it to be the reason why the Lovatos had been distant from everyone, conserved and immersed in their own lives but that night, the little conversation that I had with them, told me that they were frankly not bad people, just with a bit of insecurity but they were just like us, human.

One day of delicious food and sweet praising words had thrown me on cloud nine, wondering, feeling proud that I was of some help to the others and they—evident from their conversations—I thought, indeed liked me. However, I hadn't known that people reminisced with one another only when they needed help, then when it was over, everything was back to square one, me in the oblivious circle of life with nothing but bland food that I used to cook for myself.