When Kim Taehyung's fictional romance with his costar Jeon Jeongguk starts to feel more genuine than anything he accomplished in his entire acting career, he believes it shouldn't be a problem: after all, it's just acting.
But isn't it wrong to be...
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Something happened to Taehyung in Seattle.
Out of all the anger, the resent, and the hurt she harbored for him, she couldn't bring herself to stop caring about his existence altogether. She couldn't help it.
Couldn't help but gravitate toward his name when she saw him trending on Twitter. Couldn't help but read through the flood of tweets, wishing him to feel better, or rather, hyping up his movie as pictures of Taehyung crying and red, puffy-eyed surfaced everywhere.
She stared at her phone that night, bringing the screen close to her face, eyes squinting as her other hand balanced a wine glass. Her entire apartment was dark. Not a single light was on besides the faint glow of the tv where she played a movie, keeping the volume low to feel a little less lonely. Take-out for one was scattered over the coffee table, along with empty alcohol bottles.
Moonhee knew he wasn't crying about the end of filming.
Although, it caught her off guard. It began with a crease in her brows before a frown tumbled onto her lips. She paused mid-sip, realizing that he was crying in public of all places. For a man who rarely cried outside of acting, it was a strange sight seeing him struggle to pull himself together in an airport.
Fans were horribly naive, that was for sure.
Mistaking pain for something else must've been more common than Moonhee thought.
She watched a clip of Hoseok handing him a pair of dark sunglasses when Taehyung stopped mid-walk, bringing the bottom of his palms to his eyes as he hunched over and tried to collect himself. The entire crowd stopped along with him, screaming his name, wishing him not to be sad. Cameras flashed. Phones recorded his every breath.
Moonhee played it over on a loop, watching his chest heave and his hands shake. His bodyguards began to swarm around him, pushing aside fans' cameras, but before anyone could do anything more, Taehyung quickly snatched the sunglasses from Hoseok, took a deep breath, and kept going.
She didn't realize how long she was scrolling through Twitter until she glanced over at the clock. Running a hand through her unwashed hair and setting the glass down on the table, Moonhee sank into the couch, staring at the dark walls, bleary eyed and lethargic.
She didn't know how to feel. In fact, she didn't really know anything except seeing Taehyung again ripped out the pieces of herself that she barely managed to stich back together when he tore her apart the first time. When she put her hand over her weary heart, it was beating violently like it always did for him, like nothing ever happened, which was funny.
Something did happen. And yet, no matter how many times his cruel words repeated in her mind, she just couldn't let him (the feeling) go.
He didn't come back to her apartment that night.
Or the next day. And the day after that.
She didn't know why she expected him to, especially after all the theatrics she pulled last time he was here. There was no reason for him to come back to her, and the thought of that stung worse than any drop of liquor she could consume.
