Where We Begin & End II K.N.J II

Chapter 4 - The Dream

A/N: MMA and MAMA are to blame for the delay. The black swan performance is haunting me and I'm not complaining.

Also sorry, this is a bit of a filler chapter. Although, there is something very important that I wanted to highlight in this chapter but you'd have to think pretty emotionally to get it. It's quite personal so before I knew it I wrote 3.5k words and I had to physically stop myself from adding more. As always, enjoy!

Love,

MsNoShelfControl.

--------------------Namjoon's POV----------------------

The tension inside the car was so thick and palpable you could cut into it with a knife. I've never been at ease in the face of conflict and though I could understand that the current clash with my two friends were out of concern for my well-being, I didn't have the strength to appease them at the moment.

All I could focus on was the alarmingly motionless human I was cradling to my body. Looking down at her still form, I placed shaky fingers to the base of her pale throat and let out a breath I didn't know I was holding when I felt the steady beat of her pulse underneath the skin. It was weak, but still there, letting me know all hope was not lost yet.

"Is there any improvement?" I looked up to see Seokjin staring back at me, his concerned eyes fixated on the girl.

"She's breathing," I answered, noting the barely visible movement of her chest rising and falling with her body's strained effort to hold on. "Barely, but she's breathing."

"What about her temperature?"

I shifted her closer to me, her face burrowing into the crook of my neck and I had to hold in a shiver at the contact of her ice-cold skin. I met the concerned eyes in front of me again, my own chest filling with dread. "She's still so cold. What do I do, hyung?"

Seokjin looked like he was pondering for a minute before he pointed to her, "Why did you idiots cover her with those wet clothes? She needs to get out of those."

"There should be a blanket somewhere at the back, it won't do much for warmth but it'll be dry at least," I glanced at Hoseok who spoke from the steering wheel, his eyes still fixed firmly on the road ahead that was starting to brighten up with street lights as we neared the city.

Searching around me for the said blanket, I sighed in relief when I found it stuffed not far behind our seats. Reaching an arm behind me, I winced when I felt a sharp pain shoot from my shoulder.

I guess I did take more than a few scrapes from the fall.

Grabbing the thin but soft knit blanket, I pulled it down next to me. I almost jumped in surprise when an arm extended from the front of the car, already ahead of me and peeling off the dripping wet jackets we had piled onto the girl and dumping them onto the floor of the car. A small flicker of warmth stirred and spread in my chest as I watched Seokjin tend to a stranger he knew nothing about, despite the obvious ire and questions he was harboring for me.

It was one of the many things I admired about him. You would never find someone more doting than he is. He'd been the same when I had met him over a decade ago, when he took me under his wing and nursed me into who I am today.

Despite his overflowing compassion, he wasn't very open with it, and so to a stranger looking in, it would be all too easy to misread his consistent nagging for apathy. But I'd long learned to read between the lines with him. His abundant heart was there for all to see, in his constant habits of making sure everyone he loved was fed, his ridiculous dad-jokes ensuring laughter never left our bellies and his small acts of service that would seem inconsequential to everyone else but spoke of his unconditional affection to those of us who knew him.