on opposite ends | vsoo

THE VILLAGE HOUSE

CHAPTER THREE.

The office was uncharacteristically quiet. Jisoo always did complain that she could never get any work done here because of the noise pollution that matched that of a pub's during peak customer hours. But now she could hear every breath she took and every muscle she moved. She walked towards the long, dark-tiled hallway and stopped in front of the door to Jinyoung's office.

She was here again, after almost tearing herself apart last night just to reach a final decision.

She had thrown last week's issue of the Daily Prophet into the fireplace, his face screaming at her as the pages burned. It's hard to forget that it's the same face she used to touch so lovingly under the moonlight when they snuck out to go stargazing, the same face that would laugh at her every time she tripped over her own two feet during their walks in Hogsmeade, the same face that looked at her, that night after she accepted her post as an Auror, with shock and disappointment to the point where he told her he couldn't be with her anymore and the same face Jisoo looked into one last time with their right hands clasped in each others' hold.

Jisoo had belatedly realized what a coward she'd become. Hiding in the anonymity of a muggle town, escaping her magical life and this magical world that she stumbled into when that Hogwarts letter came in the mail when she was eleven. She was running away from everything, including Taehyung. While her comrades, her friends, gave their life for the cause and did everything in their power to stop the Dark Lord despite experiencing the same pains and losses she herself had felt. She was ashamed and guilty when she looked at the obituaries printed on the Daily Prophet last night and cried at how devastated she was knowing that these people had once been so close to her and at how frustrated she was with herself because of how quickly she gave up.

"It's different," she cried out loud, trying to make herself feel less guilty. If anything, she was only being selfish and fearful at that point. "I lost so many people in one night. The most important people. They left them there to die."

But it's not all that different from what everyone else has experienced and suffered these past months. Enough is enough, she had decided in the end.

She knocks once and the door to the Head of the Auror's office swings open by itself. Jinyoung is seated behind his desk in a plaid black and gray suit with his arms folded over the top; Seulgi is standing in front of him because the only other seat in Jinyoung's office is being occupied by a man Jisoo didn't think she'd see this early.

She's clearly surprised but she quickly regains her composure and feigns indifference as the man turns around in his chair to watch her enter the room. "Good day, Minister." She says sombrely, as if she were speaking at a funeral. It might as well be her funeral. This meeting was inevitable from the moment she agreed to this arrangement, she knew this already but she just didn't expect for him to drop by so soon.

The Minister of Magic bows his head curtly and the amused expression in his face tells her all she needs to know: he's not exactly jumping in joy at the return of arguably the best Auror the Ministry has produced to date, but he's also not cross with Jinyoung and Seulgi's decision of recruiting her back. "I thought you were a lost cause, Kim Jisoo. And I thought Jinyoung and Seulgi here were off their rockers trying to persuade you to join us again, but here you are. Wonders never cease, do they?"