Insomniac//KNJ

Chapter Thirteen//Yoongi's Partner

  Sophie Hinton rolled to the side of her bed, taking the mass of blankets with her as she reached for the old-fashioned alarm clock on the bedside table. With eyes still sealed with sleepiness, she reached out, knocking her empty water cup over onto the floor, before turning off the offending alarm. With a sigh she sat up in bed, gathering her shoulder-length brown hair into a scrunchie. The dawn light filtered through her white curtains and she smiled slightly at the golden light cast onto her thriving houseplants. Throwing off her cover, she walked heavily to the windows, decidedly pulling back the light's barrier. She stood for a moment admiring the awakening city and its golden glow. Her top floor apartment gave the best view, she would never stop believing that. Sophie liked to examine Seoul's magnitude but also its smallness. There were so many places, so many people, but each had its own history, its own map of it had been.

   Sophie sighed again as she pulled herself from the window, it was time to get ready for work, and if she lingered any longer, she'd be late and Yoongi would give her one of his signature unamused grimaces. She had a strong desire to be punctual even if it wasn't motivated by escaping Yoongi's ire, after all her father had taught her that being on time was absolutely pivotal. However, she often found herself distracted by the world around her at the thoughts it provoked. After all, that was her job. To observe the world and to share it. She was a journalist working out of Seoul, and the large city definitely provided an abundance of events to share and an abundance of perspectives to share them from. She loved her job, and she tried to do it well.

    However, she rushed out of her apartment in her business attire with a cup of coffee and a time crunch of ten minutes. Her commute was at least fifteen minutes and she would need a miracle to escape her partner's disapproval.

Sophie was nearly always running late to everything in her life.

The bus was crowded when she stepped on, and she was reminded that maybe, after living so long in the city, she should have a car. However, she liked the scenery of the public transportation system. It always seemed to give her something to think about, whether it was through the conversations she overheard, the character like people she saw, and the views she could see from the windows.

Today on the bus ride, she could see the gathering clouds. The snow-laden sky was gray and brought winter's chill with it. Sophie had always been a fan of the sights and happenings of winter. She loved the falling snow and the blankets of white that would sometimes cause snow days when she was in school back in the U.S. She liked to watch the hustling people rush around in their heavy winter coats and boots. She felt a sense of excitement while looking out of the crowded bus window because of her and her partner's next assignment.

They would be going to report on a local children's shelter. Sophie checked her phone to ensure that the order of cupcakes she'd placed to bring to the volunteers and children were finished and ready for pick-up. She knew her partner, Yoongi, would roll his eyes at the extra stop, but she also knew that he would smile twice as wide as usual and he would be the one to hand out the first cupcake to the youngest kid at the shelter. Min Yoongi was a huge softie, and after working with him for some time, Sophie was one of the few people who knew that well.

Sophie looked up from her phone as the bus stopped near her office building. She shoved her way through the crowded space to the doors, without saying thank you. This of course, had been a shock to her when she'd first moved to South Korea, but over time, she'd gotten used to it.

Sophie smiled and greeted the security guard in the lobby as she walked past to the elevator. Everyone around her was groggy looking and silent, but Sophie just smiled and greeted them all in a polite and soft voice.

Yoongi, however, wasn't smiling when Sophie got to their cubicles. Sophie's smile fell as she eyed the clock. She was in fact, very late. Yoongi however, seemed to think it necessary to belabor the point.