before you love me | jjk

chapter three

*words in bold lettering are where they're speaking in English
**translations included in the authors note !

━━━༻ ˚✩‧₊ january 2020₊‧✩˚༺━━━

Narae was unpacking her things in her new room. It was bigger than what she had expected, but to be fair, the last time she had stepped foot in dorms had been over three years ago, so she wasn't exactly operating from updated knowledge. Whilst she was happy to be back in the dorms and living with actual people, she couldn't help but long for her old members' presence. The acrid smell of burning food as Haneul tried unsuccessfully to cook herself a meal; the hilarious sound that was Sol's laughter as she ran around the apartment, the blaring of Asa's music at all hours of the day. She missed her old members so much.

Shaking herself out of her memories, Narae resumed her unpacking. The room itself was nice, with light cream walls and was quite spacious. As you entered the room, there were was a queen-sized bed with white framing against the left wall, with two large windows covering the entire wall opposite the door, allowing natural sunlight to filter into the room and cast a warm glow over it. A wardrobe filled with drawers, shelves and a mirrored cupboard made up the entire right wall with a desk and vanity built in. She figured she'd have enough space to fit the most important items, anything that couldn't fit she'd just leave in her own apartment.

She had brought her plants that couldn't survive a night without water, and had plans to bring over the rest of her babies over the next few days. Narae wasn't especially fantastic at taking care of plants - her green thumb was more turquoise than emerald. Nevertheless, she didn't let that stop her. The sense of grounding, peace and stability she got whilst tending to them was enough for her – as long as they didn't die, she was cool.

Having set up her various plants on the windowsill, she faced her looming stack of books.

"Why don't rooms these days ever have bookshelves?" She wondered out loud.

Shrugging, she decided to place her books in the shelves in the wardrobe that she was pretty sure were supposed to hold either clothes or her toiletries. The leftover spillage of books, she placed in neat piles around the room. From there, she shoved her clothes in the drawers, hanging a few that she didn't want to have to iron.  To everyone else, her unpacking would seem messy and disorganized, but for Narae, there was a clear system. She lined up her various colourful platform shoes along the bottom part of the closet – if she wasn't at least two inches off the ground, she wasn't happy.

Earlier, Narae had been given a grand tour of the dorm. It was two floors with a large modern kitchen, dining area, living room, four bedrooms and two bathrooms on the ground floor and a studio, two more bathrooms and the remaining bedrooms on the top floor. Namjoon, Jin, J-Hope and Jimin occupied the top floor bedrooms, whilst the bottom floor bedrooms belonged to Suga, Taehyung, Jungkook and now Narae. She didn't get the chance to see everyone else's rooms, but she figured she'd have plenty of time to see them over the coming months.

A soft knock on the door led Narae shuffling to the door in her bunny slippers, sweatpants and hoodie, hair tied up in a bun to keep it out of her face and glasses perched on her nose. She opened it to reveal Namjoon smiling, dimples on full display, clad in a similar, relaxed outfit to hers of grey sweatpants and a fitted white t-shirt.

Lord give me strength.

"Hey, just wanted to let you know that the food's ready if you want to come eat with everyone."

"Yes, I'd love to. I'm so hungry I didn't even notice till now! Thank you so much for cooking!"

"No worries, it was mainly Jin hyung anyway, I'm not really allowed in the kitchen." Namjoon laughed, moving out of the way so Narae could leave her room and walk with him to the dining area.