Love You, Hate You - Kim Namjoon [✔]

7 - July 2018 1/2

Namjoon knew that he shouldn't have seen it, and the fact that she hadn't let him approach her for the past month of work was a sign that it had deeply damaged her pride, or the simple fact that she was hiding it. He could have ignored the tattoo, like he had every other one that littered her entire left side of her body, but no. He had to stop and comment on it. It was the fact that the tattoo was always behind her hair, unseeable when she let it grow and the fact that it was in a style that he didn't see much often. Without forgetting that it was rightly different from the number of cartoony and colourful drawings she preferred.

He wanted to apologise, even show her his own tattoo if she wanted them to be on the same level. But she was running away from him as if he was the plague itself.

One week of working together, staying in the same hotels, and she still managed to slither away from his grasp. And then she took the step too far and used her holidays right then and there. Like she had done back in 2016, but this time she had wanted to run away from him.

When Namjoon said that she was avoiding him, he meant that. Leaving Seoul altogether and taking those days as her own.

She had needed a break.

To hide from the things she hadn't wanted to encounter.

-

"You do know that you are at my house?" She asked him incredulously. He nodded, hands tightly holding onto themselves behind his back.

"I do."

"And you do know that we are both on holiday?" She rubbed her face, uncertain about what he wanted to tell her. Wasn't it clear that she didn't want to talk to him.

"I do." She groaned and looked away from him for a second, muttering something about him being confusing.

"So, why the fuck are you doing here? Next to Mount Bohyun? 200 kilometres from seoul? On my doorstep?" She looked around her, far from his puppy eyes and apologetic mannerism. She looked towards the mountain in question, and then down the valley to the closest city. How had he even found her grandparents' old home was a question in itself.

"I came to apologise. As I'm sure you know." She did know, each time he had looked at her while they worked in May. She noticed his persistence. But she also noticed the way that their colleagues were chirpier than usual, basking in the harmonious and calm atmosphere that had come with Namjoon and her not talking. Tense atmosphere, but quiet.

"I should have apologised immediately after, but I couldn't. And that is not a valid reason. I know that you prefer keeping your mark private, just like me. And if you want to see mine as a given-taken kind of situation, then you may. There isn't a deeper reason other than I am not sorry for not apologising earlier for commenting on your tattoo." She wished he would just shut up. She turned back to face him, why was he even bowing at her, they were the same age for god sake.

"That was the worst apology you could come up with." He straightened, a goofy grin on his face.

"But it was what you wanted, no?" He asked hopefully, he had been able to read her very well since they had started to work together. But apologising to her was, by far, the hardest thing he had to do in many years.

"I'm still angry at you." She didn't have the energy to, actually, but he didn't need to know that. On the opposite side of her sat Namjoon, one that over-thought everything and couldn't for the sake of himself show emotions on his face while they talked. But right now he was different.