Before you disappear

Chapter 53

Standing frozen in the door way, her eyes widened as she looked at him.

For what felt like a minute, she didn't respond to his question. Then she inhaled sharply and stepped back.

"S-Sure," she said and opened the door further so he could come in.

"You expected someone else?"

"Oh, no, definitely not! Well... Maybe. I mean... It's just that-"

It was meant as a joke, but her response told him she didn't see it as that.

He held up his hands. "It's okay, I'm just teasing."

Her cheeks flushed red and a warmth rose inside his chest. They locked eyes for a moment, before Jungkook turned away from her to look around the room.

"This is a nice room," he commented as he sat down on the couch. "Are you comfortable here? Do you have everything you need?"

When she didn't respond, he turned to look at her. The painful expression on her face made him worried. Leaning forward, he tilted his head. "You're not."

She blinked, then held up her hands shaking them midair. "No, no, it's nothing like that. This room-" She raised her hands sideways. "-is SO luxurious and beautiful and it has everything I could possible need or want, but it's also-"

"A lot to take in," he ended her sentence, smiling knowingly. She responded exactly the way he did when BTS started gaining popularity and how that showed by the kinds of hotel rooms they were booked into.

"Yeah." She smiled apologetically. "It's hard for me to just accept this and not throwing my money to the receptionist to pay for it myself."

His right eyebrow raised. "You don't need to pay for this room."

"I know."

"I wanted you here, so the costs are not your concern."

"I know."

"Please don't go to the receptionist."

She started laughing. "I won't. Trust me. I've already had this conversation with Sehun. He, too, pressed me not to worry about the money." She came to sit across from him. "I think it's just something that's natural to me; I don't want to be seen as taking anything for granted."

"I don't see you as that." His voice was soft as he spoke the words.

Her face softened. "Thank you for saying that."

The silence between them was comfortable, something Jungkook found highly interesting. Was it because they'd been living each other's lives that made them feel comfortable around each other, or was it something else?

"What happened in the car was weird, wasn't it?"

Her question made him look up, but before he could ask what she meant, she continued.

"Until Sehun commented on it, I never realized I'd been talking in Korean. Why do you think that is?" She gasped as a realization hit. "Do you think I'm talking in Korean right now? Why wouldn't I know this?"

"Perhaps because the language was your mother tongue when you were me," Jungkook suggested. "I mean, I'm not thinking 'Hey I speak Korean' when I speak Korean. It just comes naturally. Perhaps the same goes for you."

"But does that happen to you, too? I mean, do you speak in my language without realizing you do?"

"Those women at the airport," Jungkook remembered. "I'm sure they don't speak Korean."

"No, they're from the UK."

"And I don't remember switching to English. To me, it felt like I was speaking Korean. I wasn't translating anything in my mind, before I said it. And before we switched, that was the way I spoke English. By translating it first."