Single Father • Namjoon + BTS!Kids

lxxxviii.

warning: explicit language

Namjoon grabbed Lisa's wrist as she tried to pass him.

Lisa stopped but didn't look at him. "If you're going to just say sorry or something like that, then just let me go. Okay? If you're going to break my heart, that's fine, just do it quickly. I can get over a crack here or there. But don't shatter it altogether by dragging this out or making me think that you feel things that you don't, things that you've never felt."

Namjoon was silent, his mouth open slightly, trying to find the words.

Meanwhile, Lisa felt like a small girl in the body of a woman, vulnerable and insecure. She just wanted it to be over with.

I'll go home and cry my eyes out, and when I wake up, I'll just force myself to keep going. I'll get over him, one day at a time. I'll throw myself into work, into my nephews, into whatever it takes to get this stupid man out of my mind. Whatever it-

"I'm sorry," Namjoon finally said. "I...I didn't know that you felt that way."

"Well, I did. I won't bother you about it anymore so you don't have to worry about it," Lisa said, trying to be brave when all she wanted to do was run to her car, unlock the doors, and leaned her head against the steering wheel.

"I'm sorry, I really fu- really screwed this up," Namjoon mumbled, catching himself before swearing reflexively from spending most of his time around children. "I'm sort of out of practice with...um..." He looked like he wanted to scratch the back of his neck, but he also didn't want to let go of Lisa's wrist, so he just swallowed awkwardly. "I haven't been out in a while as, you know, a single adult and not as a father. I'm just...My mind hasn't exactly been in the right place for that sort of thing, not since...not since she left, not since Jimin-" He exhaled sharply before looking up at Lisa. "Can we continue this outside? In private?"

Lisa pursed her lips but nodded. She didn't want to talk, couldn't bear to. She didn't know what words would come out.

Namjoon got out of the booth, his fingers still loosely curled around Lisa's wrist. He could have taken her hand, but that seemed too big of an action, too symbolic of things that Namjoon was scared to acknowledge.

He mumbled a brief apology to the hostess before leading Lisa outside and to his car, where he finally let go of her wrist and turned to face the driver's window, staring at his own reflection in the glass before looking down at the dark puddles in the craters and cracks of the parking lot blacktop.

"I'm sorry for getting your hopes up," Namjoon said quietly, staring down at the puddle. "I can't...I haven't let myself see anyone in that way. Not since..." He took a slow breath in through his nose, closing his eyes. "Not since her."

"Do you still love her?" Lisa asked, her voice broken like shards of glass from a mirror that had been smashed. "Is that it?"

"Fuck, no." Namjoon tried to laugh, but the only sound that came out of his mouth was a dry cry, for help, for understanding, for a peace that he'd lost long ago and couldn't get back.

Happiness, he'd come to figure out, wasn't the same as peace. Happiness was transient, unstable, imbalanced, hopelessly ideal. It was wishful, naïve, a big word for a thin feeling. Happiness felt good in the morning, maybe in the afternoon. But it wasn't guaranteed to exist at night, when he wanted to close his eyes and sleep without being ripped apart by worries and doubts and insecurities that he couldn't control or contain. He could be happy, he'd come to figure out, and still feel at war with the world or, more desperately, with himself.

He'd had peace once, or at least, he'd thought he'd had it.

He couldn't remember what that had been like.