5

The bags sat by the door, half-unpacked, when they returned home that Sunday night.

Taehyung yawned, stretching as he looked around their apartment. "I forgot how good this place  when no one's traumatized."

YN snorted. "You realize we are the traumatized."

"Exactly. So the scent is... temporarily paused."

She shook her head, toeing off her shoes as she headed to the bathroom. He watched her disappear down the hallway - her steps lighter than they'd been in weeks.

They didn't say it aloud, but the silence that followed wasn't the heavy one anymore.

Monday morning arrived wrapped in clouds. Rainy, slow.

Taehyung left early - blueprints in one hand, thermos in the other, glasses on, and a kiss pressed to her forehead before he walked out.

YN watched the door close behind him, fingers grazing her temple where his lips had lingered. The touch stayed longer than it should've.

She brewed coffee and curled up on the couch with her manuscript, red pen hovering over a sentence about grief that didn't feel fictional enough.

Her editor had left a note: "Make this line more personal."

She stared at it for a long time.

Then crossed it out entirely.

-------------

That evening, she decided to walk.

The grocery store near their apartment wasn't far, and the air after rain always made her feel slightly less buried.

She moved through the aisles slowly - milk, eggs, tea leaves. At the baby aisle, she paused by accident.

Diapers. Tiny shoes with cartoon bunnies.

A little girl, no older than three, waddled past her with a plastic dinosaur and a chocolate bar clutched in her fists.

She was squealing something incoherent at her mother, who followed behind with a half-defeated smile.

YN didn't realize she was crying until she reached the next aisle.

She leaned against a shelf and covered her mouth, willing herself to breathe.

She had seen children before. Heard laughter in parks. But today - it hit differently.

Not because she envied the mother.But because she knew she could have been one.

------------

That Night

Taehyung returned home with muddy shoes and a soaked sketchbook. "I got caught in the rain and cursed out a tree."

She chuckled weakly. "The tree deserved it."

They ate ramen on the balcony - knees touching, silence between slurps.

He noticed her eyes were red but didn't push. She'd tell him when she was ready.

"I went to the store," she said finally. "Walked by the baby aisle."

He waited.

"A girl was screaming about dinosaurs," she added, laughing bitterly. "I lost it. In the pasta section."

Taehyung nodded slowly. "Did anyone see?"

"Probably. Don't care."

"I'm proud of you," he said quietly.

"For crying over pasta?"

Taehyung chuckled, throwing an arm around her shoulder, pulling her to his side.

"For feeling. That's braver than most people I know."

---------

It was nearly 2 AM when YN stirred in bed again. Taehyung was fast asleep beside her, breathing slow and even, one hand curled protectively near her hip like muscle memory.

But sleep wouldn't come to her tonight - not after what they'd spoken, not touching the wound with open eyes for the first time.

She slipped out of bed slowly, careful not to wake him, and padded to the far end of the room - where the lowest drawer of her old dresser sat.

The key was still taped beneath the frame, exactly where she'd hidden it.

She knelt down and pulled out the leather-bound sketchbook wrapped in faded cream cloth.

It smelled faintly of dust and lavender - and something softer... grief worn smooth by years of silence.

She sat on the living room floor, cross-legged, legs chilled against the wood, and opened to the first page.

A date.

December 14th, 2020.The day she'd found out.A tiny drawing: two stick figures - one tall, one shorter - holding hands. Between them, a third smaller figure drawn with pigtails, clutching both their fingers.

Beneath it:"I don't know who you are yet. But I already love you."

YN flipped the pages slowly.

Some were soft pencil sketches - a girl in a ruffled dress, a toddler reaching for her father's hand, a child curled against a warm chest, sleeping peacefully.

Others were half-finished - faint outlines, blurred shading. Some were tear-stained. She never redrew those. They stayed, imperfect, just like her memories.

There was one of Taehyung - holding a baby girl in his lap while she played with his ears. He was smiling in it. Genuinely smiling.

It had taken her three years to draw that.

Three years to forgive the image for not being real.

She didn't notice Taehyung had woken until she heard his voice from behind, hoarse with sleep.

"What's that?"

She turned. He stood in the doorway, shirt loose, hair wild, eyes half-lidded - but already aware.

YN didn't hide the book. She held it in her lap like something sacred.

"Ara," she whispered. "I... I kept drawing her. I don't even know if it would've been a girl. But... I needed to see her."

Taehyung stepped closer slowly, eyes never leaving the book. He crouched in front of her, gently lowering himself to the floor.

"You never showed me."

"I was scared," she admitted. "That it'd hurt you. That you'd think I couldn't move on."

He reached out - hand trembling just a little - and turned a page.

A sketch of Ara in a school uniform, one hand raised in mid-wave, the other clutching a lunchbox with a bunny on it.

"but why is she...faceless.," he murmured.

YN smiled through the ache. "I don't have guts to give her a face...but she is always loud in my head."

Taehyung's eyes shimmered.

"She would've been a handful," he said. "I would've spoiled her rotten."

He looked down at the book again.Then carefully, like he was holding the most fragile thing in the world, he touched the corner of the page with two fingers.

"Can I... add something?"

YN blinked. "You want to draw?"

"I want to try."

She handed him the pencil.Taehyung moved slowly, sketching beside her - his lines hesitant, rough. But then they settled. A pair of hands. Big ones. Holding a child's tiny palm. Then hers - overlapping them all.

Three hands. Different sizes.One family.

When he looked up, she was already crying.

He didn't say anything.

He just set the pencil down, leaned forward, and kissed her forehead.

Not to make her stop.

But to let her continue.

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it's not fair that only I cried rewatching the Bangtan Documentary, so..yeah, thank me later🚶