badbye | Namjoon x reader

7: Books

Of course, on the 15th, there you were, stood smoking a cigarette and facing the old man as he sat on the step of the ancient record shop. You knew you should probably stop the dirty habit, however you needed something to steady your nerves because you were on edge right now.

It had been 8 years since you'd hung out with Namjoon. Back then, it felt natural and easy. Now you felt awkward. He wasn't the 18 year old naïve boy with hopes and dreams anymore; he was a 27 year old man who had already made a life for himself. Just as the seasons change, so did Namjoon.

After feeling the nicotine rush collide with your melancholy, you shook your head as you exhaled a cloud of smoke. The old man thought you were nodding at him. He smiled back. Your eyes studied the Blue Kia. Someone was sat inside clearly pretending to read the newspaper. Reporters.

Bright sunlight burned into your shoulders and the top of your head. Even though the neighbourhood was relatively quiet, you could hear the traffic from the main road a few streets away as the cars slowly rolled by.

You felt sick as you waited for Rohito to let you in. When you saw him open the door, you quickly flicked your cigarette onto to the stone cobbles and extinguished it under your foot before following him into the building. Today, you didn't see anyone in the hallway. It was eerily quiet and as you ascended the stairway up to where Namjoon's rooms were, you wondered what you should say to him, if anything at all. After all, he said you didn't have to talk: just be.

When he answered the door, he smiled at you and thanked Rohito. After an awkward greeting, he gestured that you sit down on the chair. He pointed at the cup of coffee waiting for you on the table: you smiled at him but still didn't engage into a conversation. Instead, you took out your book from your satchel and began to read, staring at the words on the top of the paper. However, you weren't specifically reading: your eyes were on the page but you weren't focusing on the book. Using your peripheral vision, you watched what he was doing.

Firstly, he made his way silently over to the large pine bookshelf. It seemed as if he were being indecisive because his long fingers hovered for what seemed like an eternity over a selection of books. When he finally decided which one he wanted to read, he pulled it down lightly by the top of the spine but it tipped over and made a clattering sound.

You looked up from your book and raised your eyebrows at him.

"Oh... shit!" he whispered with a rather cheeky look on his face as if to acknowledge that you had seen his clumsy side.

Your eyes immediately darted to the typeface in front of you because you didn't want to laugh at him. Seeing him in full, for the second time this week, just intensified your feelings towards him. They hadn't changed during his absence; in fact, they were almost stronger. You just wanted him to be yours.

When he picked up the fallen books, he cleared his throat and sat down on the chair, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. In his other, he was holding one book in particular that piqued your interest.

Murakami.

He used to read this when you'd go to the park together...

"Namjoon, come on I need to go home! It's getting dark and I have got papers to grade," you half-heatedly complained as you grabbed him by the wrist and tried to pull him up off the grass pathetically.

There was no way you wanted to leave to go back and do stupid work, especially when the sun was starting to set. All you wanted to do was sit next to him, head resting on his shoulders as he read extracts of the book to you whilst you gazed up as the cosmos. However, being slightly older than him, you knew that you had responsibilities and a proper job that required effort: you had to go home especially as you'd stayed out late with him the night before secretly. His management had questioned why he'd gone out so he'd lied to them. You felt bad about that.