Nada

Startled

The phone rang. Y/N knew it was still early back on the continent she used to live on, but she didn't really care.

"Hello?"

"Elaine?"

"Oh my god, Y/N! How are you?! I'm sorry, I can't talk for long." Elaine was already ahead to the next sentence before Y/N got a chance to reply.

"I'm good. I just wanted to make it clear. Please don't pass on any more messages to me. The answer is no, it will always be no."

"I understand, sorry, I figured you'd want to know."

"It's fine, thank you for letting me know. But it's done."

"Sure thing. So how is Korea, we haven't talked in ages!"

When their brief conversation was done Y/N tossed her phone onto the bed and sighed, wrapping her arms around her knees and resting her head on them. She was strong. She was a different person now. It was over. The messages would stop.

-

Ding, ding, ding. Namjoon frowned as Y/N picked up her phone, checked her notifications, and then muted it.

"Sorry, I didn't realize I had the sound on for my messaging app."

"Someone's really eager to talk to you." He noted, eyes scanning the journal article in front of him. They had been studying economic language, him teaching her Korean and her teaching him the English.

"Opportunity cost." Y/N ignored him and went straight to quizzing him.

"You choose an option, opportunity cost is not getting or doing the other options."

"Correct."

"Mingan sobi?"

"Private consumption, non-government using of resources."

"Coooorrect." The sound on her phone was off but the screen lit up, showing she was getting more messages. "I can wait a second if you need to respond to somebody..."

Namjoon swore a chill swept through him as she glanced up at him. For a second, Y/N looked completely different. She looked....scary. And it was gone, just like that.

"No, it's fine." She looked down to find another word, flipping her phone over so they couldn't see the screen light up anymore.

She didn't look at it again until they were done and Namjoon had left for class. And then it was with trembling fingers that she unlocked her phone.

Yo sis, there's some random guy who says he knows you and would like to talk to you that messaged me....? Who is he?

Her family. Now he was trying to reach her through her family. And through other people. The phone dropped to the table as she sat back and ducked her head, thoughts swirling.

They hadn't cared. None of them had reached out. None of them had bothered to hear her side of the story. Now suddenly they all cared?

When she had calmed down she quickly messaged her sister, telling her to block that person, and left everyone else on read. They didn't deserve a response. They didn't deserve her time.

-

"Damn, you're getting a lot of messages." Hoseok had glanced over to see Y/N's phone lighting up in her lap as she absent-mindedly stared out the window and chewed her lip. She was unusually quiet, she hadn't even really argued when he'd insisted on driving her home this time.

"It's nobody important." She said quietly.

Hoseok didn't think much of it, figuring maybe it was family. She had a family, right?

She didn't even wait to walk up to her apartment door before blocking people who had never cared before.

-

It had been a month. One month since Elaine's first message. One month since he had attempted to contact her through multiple people. One month since she had dodged all her sister's questions. She blocked people but one or two others would message her. All ignored. She started preemptively blocking but then realized that this was taking more time out of her day then she wanted it to. She thought about deleting her messaging app but she felt like that was surrendering, letting him win.

She sighed when her screen lit up the ceiling, fumbling for it on her comforter.

And she froze. No. No it couldn't be. How....?

Why are you ignoring me?

How was he able to message her? She'd had him blocked. Her profile was unlisted. Her hand shook as she took a deep breath. No. He didn't have control over her. She'd never let him have that again. She wouldn't let him affect her.

Block.

-

For the first time ever, when Jimin ran up to her and caught her on the way to see her adviser, Y/N jumped. Jimin frowned.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." She gave him a small smile.

"Sorry, I didn't expect you. You just startled me."

Since when had they startled her?