Heartbeat // JK

22- Expensive Silence

I wish I were the kind of girl who knew she belonged in places like The Polo Bar.

Not just walked in.
Belonged.

The kind of girl who didn't second-guess her lipstick shade or wonder if the sleeves made her shoulders look too broad or if the shoes screamed trying too hard. The kind of girl who didn't Google the damn menu three times and try to memorize how to pronounce bœuf bourguignon like a native.

But I wasn't her.

I was the girl currently standing in the middle of her apartment with seven dresses on the floor and one on her body and still not sure.

The outfit I landed on looked too perfect to feel like mine. Black, tight, just sharp enough to cut.

My hair was glassy-straight, my makeup sculpted, my boots tall enough to feel like armor. In the mirror, I looked like someone with a team — a stylist, a manager, a publicist — not a girl pacing her apartment and spiraling over the word "dinner."

I didn't smile at the mirror.

Didn't wink. Didn't whisper anything motivational.

I just looked. At myself. At the girl who somehow got this far with nothing but chaos and instinct and songs that were never meant for anyone else to hear.

My eyeliner was sharp. My lips looked expensive. My hair actually listened for once. I looked ready.

So why did I still feel like I was wearing someone else's skin?

I leaned a little closer to the mirror, studied the girl staring back — the smudged eyeliner, the clenched jaw.

"You walk in. You listen. You survive." I said to myself.

Because tonight wasn't about being brilliant.

It was about being authentically myself.

And I was.

I held my own gaze for another breath, then reached for my phone like it was muscle memory.

Not to scroll. Not to stall.
Just... to hear his voice.
One last time before I stepped into whatever tonight would be.

I tapped Jungkook's name.
The line rang once.

Then came Taehyung's voice — smooth, indulgent, and already mid-performance.

"Well if it isn't Brigitte Bardot reincarnated, causing international incidents in a public restroom."

I blinked.

"Tae?"

He gasped — dramatically, like I'd personally offended his sense of art.

"Airport security called," he said, syrupy-smooth.

"They want their dignity back."

My entire spine lit on fire.

"Please tell me you're joking."

"I'm never joking about love affairs and global scandals," he said sweetly.

"And you two? You're practically the Louvre's new exhibit: Girl Devours Idol in Public Lavatory."

I choked on my own breath.

"I hate you."

"Mm, that's fair." A pause.

"But not as much as you clearly love cornering my bandmate against cold tile walls. Honestly, I'm proud."

I groaned, dragging a hand down my face.