(Chapter 44) feat. RM: Is this Love

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Soulmates,

As I am writing this, the comments for chapter 43 is at almost 8000, with over 6000 being from the hardcore chat alone.

Everyone who leaves me a vote and comments... you are telling me that you support my writing, and you are making my writing worthwhile.
Thank you.

Soulkeys and everyone who spams comments, you are my hero.
You make my dreams come true with your godlike support.

I owe you everything.

So this here is for all of you.

Because lots of you wanted or asked if my different BTS soulmate bonded stories are in the same universe,

saying you want Bangtan and their soulmates to be able to hang out and support each other...

and I want you to have everything you want.

So although it was initially going to be separate,

I ended up adding Namjoon's story to Jungkook's in the end.

Now they could be in the same universe,

and share their experiences.

Ask and you will receive

Because my writing is for you.



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Please leave me a *highfive* here?

What did you do this weekend? :)

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Aug 18, 2019

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Flashback chapter.


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Aura

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She grips a bag of chips, listening to the airport announcement.

It's a bit confusing that the guys ahead of her take forever to pay for just two bags of gummy candy.

They push each other and laugh.

The tallest guy is standing in front of the cash register, fumbling through some bills, looking at them as though confused

and ends up dropping the entire crumpled handful.

There's more howling and teasing from his friends around him as he picks that all up

but drops his phone instead.

He laughs too.

He picks up his phone and lays it on the counter along with his wallet and money, trying to get a grip on the situation.

The guys seem like important people.

A large group of security or staff stand around them on the outer edge, and around the store.

Aura tries to look at their faces but they are all wearing hats pulled low, and a few even have cloth face masks on.

She checks the time.

The company had upgraded her to business class when they bought her the plane ticket. She could board anytime now.



Finally the hooligans are finished and they leave.

She takes their place and pays for the chips.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a brown-cased cellphone still lying on the corner of the counter.

It was the one the tall guy had dropped and picked up.


She turns to glance outside the store.

There he was, the tall guy, right outside, walking up to the same boarding gate she needed to be at.

They all head for the business class express boarding line.


He's at her gate.

Boarding her flight.

In the same cabin.


She was obligated to help him.

She sighs and grabs the brown phone, speed-walking toward the gate.

She hesitantly approaches his group, holding his phone up, hoping he would look this way and recognize it.

But he's busy talking to a slender guy, and what does drift to her is that they are conversing in fast Korean, way over her head.

She edges closer to them.

Right on time, he turns to talk to a different person, much closer to her, and now he is only a few feet away.



"Excuse me," she calls out to him, walking closer.

She holds his phone up high for him to see.



"HEY!"

Someone shouts, right by her ear.



A huge force slams into her side, shoving into her shoulder and hip.

She's knocked clean off her feet, the breath squeezed out of her lungs as the world tilts.





Sharp pain everywhere as she lands.

Her skin burns and tears as she skids across the marble floor.



And then everything hurts, her hands throbbing from flying out to brace herself.

Her knee is aching.

What the heck?

She looks up as her head clears.


Two men are standing over her, their expressions vicious and aggressive.

Their arms are out, knees bent, ready to pounce.

She freezes.




"What are you doing?!" one of them demands.




"No paparazzi filming past security!" the other one says, threateningly.

His voice is low and his brows are drawn together.




"No, I wasn't..." she stammers, pushing herself away from them, trying to get to her feet.


"Wait, that's my phone," someone says.

And then the tall guy from the store is there, pushing past his bodyguards,

picking up his brown phone from the floor

where it had skidded away to.




"Your phone?"

One of the aggressive guys is staring suspiciously.

"But she was holding it up high like she was filming with it."




"N-no," Aura squeaks, "I wanted to, to return it."




The tall guy turns to look at her, confused.




"You left it in the store. On the counter."

She lifts a shaking hand to point toward the convenience store across the walkway.




Understanding dawns in his eyes.

He nods at the other guys.

"I must have forgotten to take it, she's right."

He grips the fabric of his shirt over his chest, shaking his head.

"I'm so sorry," he says.

He sounds so genuine that she finally stops being afraid.

He walks closer and extends a hand to pull her to her feet, but Aura knows better.

She climbs to her knees and then her feet, slowly.

"I'm okay," she says.


Anything to get away from these men.

She picks up her purse, swaying on her wobbly knees.

She gathers a pen and a lip balm that rolled out of her purse.



"I'm so sorry," the guy repeats.

He is still watching her, and frowning like he was very bothered.

The bodyguards looked remorseful now too.

One of them bows his head and utters "Thank you for returning the phone."





"It's fine," she answers, hobbling away from them.

All the passengers at the gate were gawking at her,

gawking at the scene, and she would be a little embarrassed if she was not Aura.

But she is Aura.

And she limp-walked to the gate with her shoulders back and her chin up.


The lady swiping her passport looks at her sadly.

"Ouch. That looks bad. Are you alright?" she asks, studying Aura's chafed knees.




"I fell just now, but I'm fine," Aura answers.




"They'll have a first aid kit to help you clean that up," the lady says, handing the passport back.




"Thank you," Aura replies.

She has a slightly difficult time limping down the long bridge and then into the plane,

but the instant a flight attendant sees her, she is led to her seat.




"Let me get you something to put on that," the attendant says.

She brings a tiny plastic box, labeled "first aid" and hands it to Aura.

"Use whatever you need, honey, and make sure you disinfect."

She also sets down a stack of napkins and a small plastic bag.




"Thank you," Aura says.

She shoves her purse under the seat in front, and set out looking for saline in the kit.


She's rinsing the abrasion on the heel of her left palm into a plastic bag

when a bunch of male voices speaking Korean hits her.


No.

She turns slowly.

No.


The entire group of bad luck, tall phone guy included, are milling into the aisles behind her.


No.


But of course.

She had forgotten they were on the same plane.


She wanted to slam her head onto the tray table.


She takes a deep breath.

Just ignore them, pretend they aren't here.




"Oh," a voice says.



She just squirts saline onto her knee, catching the flow with napkins under the wound.



"What is it, Jungkook?" a deeper voice asks.




"Hyung," a few seconds later, hushed this time, "it's that girl."





Aura calmly rips open the packaging on a band-aid, keeping her face turned downward.

There's a lot more muttering, all in faster Korean she couldn't catch,

and shuffling and general noise everyone stows their carry on bags and gets into their seats.



"How are you doing?" The same flight attendant comes back around.

Her pleasant voice carries loudly through the air in the somewhat quiet area, and Aura cringes.




"I'm fine," she answers, as quietly as possible.



The Korean murmuring conversations have all come to a standstill.





"You poor thing, that definitely looks like you took a nasty fall!"

The attendant bends down to look at the now-swelling-up-and-turning-purple knees.





"No, no, I'm fine, thank you," Aura tells her.

"Really."


Please leave me alone, she sends out quietly.

Slightly confused, the woman gives her a strange look and walks away.




Aura grabs her purse with the tips of her fingers, poking through and pulling out a headphone case.

It was rather difficult as every movement brought stabs of pain to her hands.


She drops the entire case into the aisle as she fumbles.

She sighs and rolls her eyes,

bends sideways awkwardly, trying to fetch it without moving her knees at all.





"Here," a deep voice says.

A large hand swoops down and long fingers easily wrap around to grab the case from edge to edge.


She looks up.

Of course, it is the Tall Guy.



He gently lays the case back in her lap.

"Hey, I want to apologize again for earlier. My security guys were just trying to do their jobs.

They thought you were filming me. I'm so sorry you got hurt."

Once again he's pressed a hand to his chest like it's heartfelt, and despite this being a terrible experience, she can't help but forgive him.




"I understand," she tells him.

"It's not your fault."




He's opened his mouth to say something else, but a different flight attendant comes through and gestures to him politely.

"Sir, if you could please take your seat, we'll be pushing back for taxiing any minute now," she says gently.




"Oh, yes, of course," Tall Guy responds, taking two large steps backward

and smashing into the side panel of a seat.


The flight attendant gasps.



"I'm OK," he says immediately,

and then instantly trips over his feet and falls sideways into the chair.


The flight attendant gasps again.


"I'm OK," Tall Guy calls out again.



"Yaaaa...be careful, you'll hurt yourself again," a dark head on the other side of his seat divider pops up and frowns at Tall Guy.




"I know, I know..." Tall Guy sighs.




Aura couldn't decide if she found him strange.

She settles for ignoring him.


As soon as the plane is at cruising altitude, she presses the button beside her to adjust the chair until she's almost lying down flat.

It's so comfortable that she can forget stabs of pain coming from her palms and knees.

She purposefully falls asleep.



-----



A very squeaky sounding laugh pierces the air and Aura wakes groggily.

She's still hugging her headphone case, which explains why it wasn't doing a good job of noise cancelling.

She clumsily unzips the case, trying not to disturb the broken skin on her palms.

It almost slides out of her lap

and she claps down on it, hard,

jarring both her hands and her knees on both sides of the headphones.


She hisses from the pain and blinks back her tears, exasperated.



-------



Namjoon is translating a speech, tapping his pen against his notebook

as he hears Jhope make a joke and Jin burst into laughter.

He looks around for a moment, just in time to see Phone Girl struggle to take her headphones out of its case.

Her hands look stiff as she fails.


He still feels terrible about what happened.

Namjoon unbuckles his seat belt.


"May I help you with that?" He stands over her chair and offers.




She looks up, and to his alarm, her eyes are swimming in tears.

"Um, no thank you. I'm fine," she whispers.




"Please, let me help," Namjoon insists this time, his tone firm.

He is already reaching out.

He unzips the case fully, pulls the headphones out of the case.

He puts both back into her lap.




"Thanks," she says.




"It's the least I can do, after what happened," he sighs.

"I always lose my phone. Thank you so much for returning it to me.

I feel so bad this happened."




She shakes her head, trying to worm her face past the ear cups of the headphones

because with her tender hands she can't pull them open far enough to get her head through.

It's the epitome of her shame now, being too weak to put headphones on.



Namjoon can't help but grin as her hair skews and the headphones fall back into her lap.

"Let me," he says.

He picks them up and pulls the ear pieces apart, gently setting them over her ears.


He's leaning down a bit closer to her, and he's surprised as she looks up to cooperate

and their faces are accidentally a bit too close.


He knows they are too close. She's just taller than he thought.


Up close, he can see the faint, faint freckles on her cheekbones.

So close, he can see the soft arch of her lips and fragile cherry shade they are...


And his heart skips a thud, suddenly speeding up and pounding in his chest.


Smooth, because he is RM of BTS after all,

he manages to keep his expression the same

and stands back up straight,

pretending it didn't happen.


"There you go," he says calmly.




What's happening?

He steps backward, keeping a polite smile on his face...




... and slams into the exact same plastic barrier he did earlier.





He knows it's loud, because even with her headphones on, she jumps at the sound.

Her eyes widen.


Namjoon knows he's blushing.

His ears feel hot.

God, why is he always like this.



Just as he's about to sit down and burn up in flames from embarrassment,

the surprised look on her face fades...





And she gives him a soft smile,

with her cherry lips.






Suddenly, a golden flash zaps across his line of sight,

brightening everything.





It fizzles as she turns away.






His chest feels hot.


Namjoon has stopped breathing.





He folds himself into his seat, gasping for breath,

tearing his eyes away from her,







as the realization hits him.





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