Quiet | BTS ✓

8

"That's all for today," Mr. Min says as he concludes the lesson.

As the students all rise and begin to make their way out of the classroom, Yoongi stays in his seat as he observes Aria in the seat next to him. She's been writing non-stop in a notebook the entire class, scribbling and erasing furiously with her eyebrows furrowed in concentration. Yoongi isn't even sure she was listening to the lesson at all. She hasn't looked up from the notebook this entire time. Not when Yoongi came into the classroom and sat next to her again, not when Mr. Min started the lesson... whatever she is doing, she is completely focused on it.

"What are you doing, if I may ask?" Yoongi asks softly as he turns himself in his chair to face her.

Aria stops writing and finally turns her eyes away from the paper to face Yoongi before quickly closing her notebook and shoving it into her backpack.

"Private stuff. Sorry," Yoongi apologizes, holding his hands up in surrender. "I just want you to feel like you can trust me. I know we're still strangers but if we are going to do this duet together, I feel like we should try to be friends."

Aria takes a deep breath as she finishes putting all of her belongings into her bag, moving her gaze from Yoongi to the doorway at the front of the classroom.

"Aria, I know you feel like you can't open up ever since you lost your parents, but I really need you to know that-"

Yoongi stops talking abruptly as Aria whips her head back in Yoongi's direction, her gaze burning into his own.

Anger.

"Aria, are you ready?" A voice echoes from the doorway. Aria and Yoongi both turn their heads to see Hoseok at the door, his own backpack slung over his shoulder as he stares at Aria with his eyebrows raised. "Um, why do you look like you want to kill me?"

With thick tension in the air, Aria moves quickly to exit the room, intentionally bumping her shoulder into Hoseok's on the way out.

Hoseok turns his confused gaze to Yoongi who shrugs. "I mentioned that she should try to open up to me for this duet to work and that I know she feels like that is hard to do because she lost her parents."

"Crap," Hoseok groans as he massages the bridge of his nose.

"She didn't want me to know about that, I'm guessing," Yoongi says, slumping down in his chair in defeat.

"I'll talk to her. She's probably more mad at me that I told you," Hoseok says, sighing before turning around to leave the classroom. "Just don't give up on her. Please. She needs this more than you realize."

And with that, Hoseok leaves Yoongi alone in the classroom.

Yoongi stays seated in his chair, swimming in the sea of his mixed emotions.

He saw her eyes when he brought up Aria's parents. Right before the anger took over her being, he saw something else for a split second. He saw the sadness he heard in her song that night in the music room.

Yoongi has never seen a sadness like hers. It is so deep, rooted like a tree into her very core, its roots spreading throughout her soul and her heart, clinging to her and sucking the life out of her, feeding itself in the process. To most people, they would only see the mask she wears in front of people. Only when she is alone does she take the mask off and let the sadness out through her music. Only when she is alone does she let her true self be free.

Yoongi was not meant to meet the real her. He was only meant to see who she wants people to perceive her as. Mr. Min has seen the real her through the countless hours spent mentoring her and hearing her play. Her best friend, Hoseok, has seen the real her through years of knowing who she was before her tragedy. But Yoongi wasn't supposed to see. He's a stranger who opened that door into her life without her permission. She sees him not only as a stranger, but as an intruder.

And yet again, he intruded on her privacy by bringing up her parents. Her mask cracked when they were mentioned. And as a defense mechanism, she hastily glued the mask back together with the first emotion that surged forward to protect her from the stranger in front of her.

Anger.

Anger at Hoseok, anger at Yoongi, anger at herself. Truly, deep down, she is not angry. She is sad. So utterly, heartbreakingly, devastatingly sad that if the mask cracks too much, it will be beyond repair and the hurricane will overtake her. It will swallow her whole, unforgiving in its destruction of the purity that is Aria.

How can a stranger, an intruder, possibly help Aria to slowly and safely remove the mask from herself without the hurricane destroying her?

There is only one way.

One way to see her true self through her mask. And maybe through this one way, Yoongi can slowly undo the mask and let it fall from her face. He can help her only one way... through music.

Through music, he can hear her; he can truly hear her and her pleas for help. She pleads for someone to hear who she really is and what she truly wants. As badly as Yoongi wanted freedom from his old life for so many years, he knows a plea for freedom when he hears it.

She wants to move forward. As much as she is not okay, she wants to be okay for her parents' sake. But not once has she shown any interest in becoming okay simply for herself. She wants to be okay for other people. But in her own mind, she is lost, alone and broken.

How can someone who has never spoken a word to Yoongi become so easy to understand to him?

Through music.

That one song he heard her play... he heard all of it.

That one song he was never meant to hear, the one that held every single dark secret that she clings on to in her eternal silence... Yoongi heard her words. Her pleas. Her sadness.

Hoseok's words return to Yoongi's mind.

"Just don't give up on her. Please. She needs this more than you realize."

"I know, Hoseok," Yoongi whispers to himself as he stands up from his chair. "I won't give up. I can't."