"What?" Namjoon questions, eyes wide as he stares over at their manager. "Are you sure you can't do better than that?"

The manager nods his head slowly, already waiting for the other man to begin speaking quickly and giving intellectual arguments against his decision.

"Sir-"

"It's out of my hands now." He states.

Namjoon's shoulders droop as he stares over at the man. Disbelief is written all over Namjoon's facial expressions. His eyebrows are furrowed in a confused expression. His lips are parted in a small 'o' shape and the corners of his mouth are turned downwards. His eyes are filled with slight tears as he stares over at the man.

He immediately blinks his tears away before speaking, his voice slightly shaking and coming out as unconfident as he speaks.

"Okay... if that's all you can do then I apologize for giving you a hard time." Namjoon states. "Thank you." He says quietly before turning around and making his way out of the meeting room.

He closes the door behind him before leaning against the door, hand now making its way towards his face as he closes his eyes. He begins massaging his thumb and index finger against the bridge of his nose as he thinks for a second.

How is he going to be able to tell this to the members?

"Namjoon!" Hoseok excitedly shouts as he makes his way towards where Namjoon is standing. Namjoon immediately puts his hand down away from his face.

"Uh oh..." he mumbles to himself as Hoseok approaches closer.

Namjoon puts on a fake smile as he sees Hoseok getting closer to him.

"Any news? Y/N has been asking me for the past few days. She misses us like crazy." Hoseok states. Namjoon inhales a deep breath before speaking.

"So, I asked him about it and he agreed to letting her come back-"

"Sweet!" Hoseok states while gently slapping the palm of his hand on Namjoon's shoulder.

"But there's an issue." Namjoon finishes. Hoseok freezes with his hand on Namjoon's shoulder before gripping onto his arm.

"What kind of issue?" he questions.

"We're going to be having another flight attendant with her... as a precaution."

"I don't know what the issue is with that. We had a few flights with that one rude girl before." Hoseok states.

"The issue is that the other flight attendant needs to room with Y/N and Y/N can't leave her room by herself." Hoseok furrows his eyebrows, starting to follow along but still unsure of how this is bad news. You will be protected after all.

"But that's what we wanted, right? For her to be back as our permanent flight attendant and for her to be safe."

"Yeah, but with a coworker around, you two can't be flirting. If she also can't leave her room by herself, you two can't even sneak around even if you wanted to." Hoseok's shoulders drop.

"So, the only time I can see her is when she's taking care of us on the plane... when most of us sleep the whole time anyway?" Namjoon nods.

"I tried negotiating so she can have at least a little alone time but it's going to still feel like long distance relationship for you two..." Namjoon says quietly, already scared of how upset Hoseok, the normally sunshiny personality, is going to react.

Hoseok gulps before taking a deep breath.

"Well, this sucks." He states. Namjoon nods and rests his hand on Hoseok's shoulder.

"I know, hyung. I'm sorry." Namjoon responds. Hoseok sighs before shaking his head.

"You know what, I'd rather have her here and know that she's safe and see her in person like this instead of worrying about her while she's in Korea." Hoseok states. Namjoon smiles softly as he hears Hoseok say this.

"Always optimistic. You have no idea how relieved I am that you're okay with that." Hoseok smiles softly when Namjoon says this.

"Guys, rehearsals start in a minute." Jimin's voice now echoes throughout the room. He's standing at the door, one hand placed on the doorframe as he peeks his head into the room to look at Hoseok and Namjoon.

"We're coming." Hoseok says before the two follow Jimin.

As the two follow him, they step out onto the stage, looking around as they see their view of the stands. The rest of the members are already holding their microphones in front of them, making funny noises. The others are laughing as they mimic the sounds.

Namjoon, Hoseok, and Jimin grab their microphones and start making noises into them as well.

"Testing... testing..." Namjoon says.

"Ayo, ARMY!" Hoseok yells into his microphone, already knowing that there are ARMYs outside of the stadium, listening to the rehearsal.

Hoseok laughs while smiling widely as he hears some screams from outside of the stadium once he speaks.

Namjoon shakes his head, grinning widely enough that his dimple is now showing.

Jimin laughs, eyes squinting before he steps over to Hoseok. He puts an arm around his shoulders and shakes his head.

The music starts playing and Jimin places the microphone in front of his mouth, starting to sing along.

*-> *-> *-> *-> *-> *-> *-> *-> *-> *-> *-> *-> *->

"So, your mother passed away before your graduation?" Your therapist questions.

It's your fifth session now with Dr. Kang. Thanks to you having such a long break off of work, it gave you plenty of time to get used to this therapist.

You just recently started getting comfortable talking about your mother and father with Dr. Kang.

You nod as you stare over at Dr. Kang.

"And your father passed away while you were in high school?" You nod and gulp before looking down at your hands.

"I feel really lonely at times because of it." You state. "I have moments where I feel like I lost them for a reason... like maybe they passed away so early because I'm not worthy of having people who care about me."

Dr. Kang tilts her head to the side as she stares over at you. She sets her pen down on her notebook before closing the notebook as she crosses one leg over the other.

"Not worthy?" she questions. You nod as you stare over at her. "So, you feel like a burden to your friend Jisoo and your boyfriend?"

You shrug.

"Sometimes." You respond before reaching your hand up to begin picking at some dead skin on your lower lip subconsciously.

She watches you intently as you do this.

"Y/N, how long have you been doing that?" she questions.

"Doing what?"

"Picking at your lip." She responds. You glance down at your mouth and realize what she's talking about. You immediately pull your hand away from your mouth before looking over at her.

"Oh... um..." you think for a second before speaking. "Now that you mention it, probably around the time my mom died." You respond.

She nods before reopening her notebook and starting to write some things down.

"So, Y/N, I think there's more to this than you just being lonely." She states before looking up at you.

You nod for her to continue talking.

"Based on everything you've told me the past few sessions, you show some habits of someone who has a mixture of depression and anxiety." She states.

"Depression?" you question while she nods.

"Yes. You tend to feel like a burden, or guilty, about being happy while around your friends. Feeling guilt like that tends to be an uncommon symptom of depression. Based on what you said about your interactions with friends, you seem to mask your feelings of depression by pretending to be fine; that's another sign." She says while staring over at you.

You grow quiet as you listen intently to everything she's saying.

She's right.

"As for the anxiety, you pick at your lip during our sessions, which is a sign of anxiety. You also tend to overthink your interactions with your friends whenever you describe them to me. For example, when you mentioned the last time you and Jisoo were together, you mentioned how you weren't sure if she wanted to hang out with you." She states.

Nodding your head, you take a deep breath before looking down at your shoes.

She begins writing something onto her notebook once again.

"So... now that you know what's wrong with me-"

"There's nothing wrong with you." Dr. Kang interrupts. "Anxiety and depression are very common nowadays; that doesn't mean anything is wrong with you."

You nod when she says this before she begins ripping out a piece of paper from her notebook. She leans over her chair to hand it to you. You take the paper and look down at it, seeing one medication listed.

You tilt your head to the side before looking up at her.

"That's a prescription that I want you to try out. It should help with your anxiety and depression and if it doesn't, there's plenty of other medications we can try. I think this one is a good first test." She states.

"Will I have weird side effects?" you immediately question. She smiles softly.

"Potentially some fatigue, nausea, indigestion, loss of appetite. These side effects aren't guaranteed to happen to you, however, and if you do have any of these side effects, we can switch to a different medication."

You bite hesitantly onto your lower lip.

"I kind of wanted to get my issues fixed without having to self-medicate." You respond.

Dr. Kang nods her head before speaking.

"And that's understandable. You don't have to fill the prescription, it's just an option for you to use if you want to take that route. If not, we're continuing these sessions and can work on getting these issues resolved through talking, mental health exercises, etc." she states. "I just want to give you all of the options you have available so you can decide what's best for you."

You nod before folding the piece of paper and stuffing it into your pockets.

"I think I want to continue the therapy first and try those exercises. I don't want to be relying on pills for the rest of my life unless that's the only option left." She nods when you say this and smiles softly.

"Sounds good." She states. "Just keep me updated on your work schedule when you get word that you're going back to work. When you do, we can test out our video sessions before you leave so we can make sure there's no connectivity issues." You nod your head before you hear your alarm going off, indicating that you're out of time.

"Thanks, Dr. Kang." You respond.

"Any time, Y/N." she says before standing up. She leads the way to the door as you follow behind her.

When you're exiting the building, you get a text and pause while standing in the hallway.

Pulling your phone out of your pocket, you look down at the screen and your eyes widen immediately.

Finally.

Finally, some updates on this sasaeng situation.

Hoseok 🥰: Hey beautiful! Namjoon just got news about you coming back... you're coming back in two weeks! Call me when you're free so we can go over the details 😊

You smile widely as you stare down at the screen, eager to see the boys again.

*****
I hope all of you are doing well.

I'm slowly starting to feel like myself again but I still have my moments of crying and grieving. It's been about 3 weeks since I lost one of my closest family members. I have a permanent hole in my heart and I know that healing and grieving takes time. I'm just slowly trying to get through one day at a time.

I've been writing my Taehyung story to cope and managed to find a way to let my emotions out in there. I'm hoping to release that story sometime this year once this story is complete.

Speaking of this story, we are about 10 chapters until it is finished. I do want to take a small break once this story is finished. Not a long one, probably only a few weeks, but a break nonetheless.

Thank you to everyone who sent me their prayers and positive thoughts about my loss in my life. It means a lot to me and I really appreciate it.

I purple you.
Kim.