Home | Kim Namjoon

Two

Namjoon grabbed his phone off the nightstand to check both the time and his schedule and discovered he could sleep for several more hours if he wanted to. He plumped up his pillows and settled back into them, hoping sleep would claim him.

Hearing shuffling, Namjoon peeked over at the next bed. Talia had rolled over onto her back, one leg under the blanket and one leg over the blanket. Her tank top was still pulled up, bunched under her breasts, revealing her flat abdomen. One hand rested on her chest and the other was over her head, tangled into her long, silky hair. To look at her, she seemed completely relaxed and at peace. Namjoon wished his mind was as quiet as hers was right now.

Namjoon swallowed hard. He wasn't lying to himself anymore; he wanted to climb into that bed with her. He wanted to bury his face into her hair and smell its familiar sweet scent. He wondered how it would feel to wrap his arms around her and pull her close whenever he wanted to. Or to brush his lips against hers, just once...ok, more than once. He sighed; he knew he was never going back to sleep this way. He had to take his mind off her.

Quietly, he crawled to the end of his bed and reached down onto the floor to pick up the book he had dropped there the night before. He snuggled back into his covers and started reading. Finding it still wasn't light enough to read, he used his phone as a flashlight. Namjoon tried to read for about twenty minutes when he realized he had read the same two paragraphs three times. He couldn't keep his mind focused on the words in front of him.

Dropping the book on the bed beside him, he closed his eyes and listened to her soft, regular breathing. Matching his breath with hers, he drifted into that place between awake and asleep.

The weight of her carrier floated through his dreamlike thoughts. He could hear Jin complaining about how heavy it was and asking Talia how many outfits she thought she needed. All of a sudden, Namjoon was checking tall stacks of books out of the library. The librarian, a blue koala named Koya, asked him how many books he thought he needed, as he checked each one with a return date. Things went gray and foggy for a bit, and then he was suddenly climbing a mountain of books, which reached up into the clouds. Hand over fist, he pushed and pulled himself farther and farther up. Namjoon was almost to the top when the books began to give way, like a book avalanche. He felt himself falling and violently jerked himself awake.

Catching his breath, he sat up. What the heck was that? He looked at the clock--only seven minutes had gone by. That was weird, he thought.

Namjoon lay back down, thinking about the dream. He silently chuckled at the fact that he had dreamed about Jin complaining about how heavy Talia's carrier was. They had all thought, because she was a girl, it must have been full of clothes, but, in fact, there had been very few clothes inside. Namjoon had watched her unpack in the first hotel they had stayed in. Two dresses for work, three pairs of pants, and one pair of capris. That was all. Every available inch of her carrier was stuffed with books. No wonder it was so heavy! All the rest of her clothes were carefully packed into her carry-on bag.

Usually when he was on tour, Namjoon would sneak out to a little out of the way bookstore when he needed a new book. However, on this tour Talia kept him well supplied with reading material. She read a lot and she read fast. She flew through books and then she'd find someone to pass them on to. At any given time, Namjoon could look around a room and see five or six of the staff reading a book Talia had given them.

Namjoon hadn't known Talia terribly long, but it was clear to him that this girl checked off most of the boxes on his type list. He wasn't sure anyone could be more his type than she was. She was tall, with long legs, and long, straight hair--check, check, and check. She loved to read, was insanely smart, and a deep conversation with her could last for hours--check, check, and check. She was kind, she was giving, and she put others first--check, check, and check. He didn't know if she could sing and he knew she didn't wear Converse, preferring Vans, but those were the only boxes not checked off. He was pretty sure he could give her a pass on those.

Ugh, he had to get this girl out of his head. He was feeling things he wasn't sure he was ready for. As the leader of BTS, Namjoon didn't have time for a relationship. He knew when he signed on with this band that love was going to have to take a backseat to work.

If only he'd met her six or seven years from now, that would have been perfect. But love doesn't work on a schedule and it doesn't keep a calendar; it hits you when it hits you. Love? What was he even thinking? Why does that word keep popping up, he thought.