pastel [3]

five

Jungkook's point of view

"I have a girlfriend."

The immediate drop of Yugyeom's face from that bold flirtatious smirk, to a gaping frown and dull eyes was intense. Watching his expression fall to an almost angry response had my own shoulders tensing up. He stamped his foot that had once been inches from my calf, arms crossing and turning away. I felt something resembling guilt rising to form a lump in my throat.

"Please don't tell me you come here every week just because you like me..." Yugyeom didn't reply, only reacting with a pissed scoff and a continuous stamping of his heel into the concrete floor. "That's... that's not okay, Yugyeom." An extra strong stamp of his foot made me jump. His growing hostility was a blaring warning sign that I needed to get out of here. So I stepped back and pulled the key to the cell off my belt, turning to leave.

"She's lucky..." He spoke, turning and smiling up at me. I couldn't tell if it were fake or not. I gave him one last encouraging smile before locking the door and leaving him alone.

---

This day that had started so beautifully was quickly spiralling into one that had me so drained by lunchtime that I could barely focus on anything. Why did Namjoon have to be so rigid? Why did the insane person who kept committing small crimes to end up in our holding cell every fortnight have to make a move on me? My capacity to deal with stressful things had plummeted years ago, destroyed by years of isolation and my mind shutting down. Even now, after hours of therapy and processing, I got so exhausted by even the smallest of things.

I was thankful that I was able to run the open day for some of the trainees at the academy. They were all in their early twenties, eager to learn the littlest things. I got to show them all the ways of working in an office station, and tell them stories of the work I had done throughout my levels of work. I never told anyone about my worst incident, the car accident that not even my co-workers spoke to me about because they knew it was a definite way to end up permanently on my bad side.

The pain of that day was something I still felt, unable to erase the senses that had torn me apart. Now I couldn't even think about the day without getting pulled in by the grief of being saved by a God who was entwined in my suffering.

One of the trainees did ask about the burn scars on my arms and I had to hastily change the subject before the fire ignited and burnt the oxygen from my lungs.

Now they were gone, I was left in the empty room tracing absently over each rivet of the white scarring in distant thought, eyes replaying the vision of being engulfed in flames only to be surrounded by water the next. I thought about the place she had taken me, where the sun would always shine and the windows were tall. I pictured what my skin had looked like in the first few days of healing, stomach crawling with sickness at the memory of the smell.

"Jungkook." The call of my name tore me from the internal spiral, fingers moving away from the burns to look up at Namjoon standing by the entrance to the room. He wore his signature worried frown, but instead of feeling comforted by it I was flooded with a frustration.

"Yes boss?" I decided to reply boldly, holding his worried gaze with my bitter own. He stepped into the room, picking up the feedback sheets by the door whilst keeping his concern clear on his face.

"Just checking in, you looked to be spacing out," I huffed, turning away from him and beginning to collect up the equipment we'd used to put it away. "Would you like to come to the cafe with us today?" He added when I didn't reply.

Yes. I do.

"No. Didn't you say it was inappropriate for us to be friends?"

"What? No... I didn't." Each placement of the items in my grip was forceful and slightly aggressive as I dropped the vests to the table and continued sulking through the pack up. If my brain wasn't so caught up in the overwhelming emotions, maybe I would've tried to slow down and sort this out. But right now all I wanted was to be alone with my partner and cry.