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miscelunaaa · 1 year

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in the midst of the earth | knj

pairing: doctor!namjoon x eastern orthodox novice nun!reader

genre: angst.

summary: After your grandfather is hospitalized following a massive stroke, Namjoon watches you pick up the pieces and try to hold them together all by yourself.

rating: 18+/M for dense, mature themes

word count: 5.7k

warnings: Hospitals. Athiest!Namjoon. Strokes and associated adverse medical events. Probable medical inaccuracies. Religious themes. Difficult family dynamics. Grief. Emotional fixations. Inexplicable tension. Minor character death. Meltdowns. Author knows nothing of what it is like to be a doctor or how treatment works behind the scenes. Author is also not a nun in any religious tradition, so there’s likely inaccuracies in that regard as well. Meltdowns. A single moment of weakness; kissing. Lofty science metaphors. Ambiguous ending.

notes: Hi. Welcome to Nun Fic. This fic has haunted me for like six months, and it’s taken almost as long to draft it. The idea first came to me during fic name game I did ages ago; the title has since changed but the motif that stemmed from the title does make an appearance a few times. This story is rooted in enough of parts of myself (probably too many in the first place) that to run over them here would take too long, and likely weaken the integrity of what I want this story to do. There are very likely some inaccuracies around how the medical or clerical parts of this fic work together. This is all to say perhaps have some discretion when responding to this, if you choose to do so? It remains that something doesn’t have to be wholly correct in order to be true. Some notes that may help you along as you read, or confuse you even further:

St. Kassia (Wikipedia)

Salvation is Created (YouTube), the eucharistic hymn from which I yoinked the title. For background on the piece, here’s a link to its Wikipedia page.

Also like, this is technically inspired by an Elvis movie??? Which I do not make a habit of watching ever but I was raised by a late boomer-aged white man who lives for cheesy romance so um … yeah like idk do with this but here’s yet another Wikipedia link if you’re curious.

Anyway, I have no excuses other than idk what the hell this is, just that it’s so excruciatingly important to me that I hardly know what to do with it now that it’s done. It’s not for everyone, and that’s okay. If you do read it, I hope you find it valuable in some way :)

my masterlist | my disclaimers | read on ao3

There’s something about you that bothers him, Namjoon decides. It’s not the fact that you’re a nun, though the overt piety of your very existence does in fact bother him more than he’d care to admit.

It’s the fact that you’re the singular quiet person in your entire family.

He’s met some jovial ecclesiastics in his time, so it’s seems incredibly strange. The other sisters he’d met at some time or other were far more talkative than you, and this is to say nothing of the numbers of priests and pastors he’s witnessed giving service at bedside. You’re so shockingly quiet that the only way he knows you’re around is the faint scent of incense coming off your clothes.

More than once you’ve startled him, sneaking up behind him like some strange, half-real shadow. He’s read about why you wear all black, why even your hair is covered with a weird little cape that looks like a black Christmas tree skirt. You’re supposed to be dead to the world.

You’re quiet enough to be, but the dead don’t smell like incense.

&&&

There’s a lot about Namjoon’s job that he likes, and there’s a lot that he dislikes. The feeling of first walking into the room when he’s had a new patient assigned to him is one of the things he dislikes the most. Now that they have this new patient stabilized, they have to look at next steps as they find out more information; he’s the one who has to convey all of that to the family.

The wide eyes of the each member of your family turn to him all at once, even yours. The room falls silent, each face looking at him with varying levels of hope and exhaustion.

And then the hard part of his job comes. It’s never pretty.

There’s so many people here for one person; it almost makes Namjoon sick. He’s watched patients rot away alone, with no one but a friend or a disinterested child to watch over them. It’s not uncommon for a patient to have no one at all. And this guy gets ... What, like ten people? Twelve? There’s so many that they sent him to a waiting room to discuss what’s happened to your grandfather.

A murmur passes through the family as he tells them that their patriarch has had a massive stroke. It’s unclear, he says, what the prognosis is. Only time will tell what the damage is, and that will dictate what happens with treatment and rehabilitation.

And then the questions start coming. Everything is run of the mill, and everyone, it seems, has something to say or ask. Everyone, that is, except for you. When you’re not looking at him intently, making the hair raise on his neck, you’re glancing at the clock or at the face of whoever among your people is talking. Even as the questions die down, you say nothing.

You simply reset your jaw, and keep your head down, brushing your fingertips over a dark coil of rope wrapped about your hand.

&&&

It would seem you have no where else to be. You’re the one Namjoon sees most often at your grandfather’s bedside over the next few days. It’s so odd that even the nurses have commented on it. Some think it’s sweet that you sit at his bedside in constant prayer, others are concerned for your health. Not once does anyone see a member of your family ask if you want to leave and do something else, and the nurses have noticed.

And still, you ask him no questions. You just look at him calmly, never rising from your seat in the corner, never saying anything, hardly acknowledging him or others who come and go. A placid nod, nothing more.

He wonders, at that point, what it must be like to hide your emotions from the world like this. He wonders what you’re feeling, if anything at all. And yet the tight set of your jaw tells him that even still waters run deep.

Whatever you’re feeling, you’re bent on keeping it between you and your god.

&&&

It’s been a week since he took on this new patient, and you’ve been around just a little less. Namjoon’s glad for it, mostly because he feels like he’s no longer being haunted by your constant presence whenever he comes to talk about new findings. It’s still not looking great; the patient is going to be in the in the ICU longer than Namjoon would prefer.

On day nine, the doctor realizes that, contrary to his initial opinions, he’d rather deal with you than any of the other people on rotation at the patient’s bedside. It’s almost embarrassing that he’s not sure whose offspring you are, but with such a limited look at your appearance, he’s accepted it. After speaking with your grandmother and a handful of people in the generation before you, he realizes that he’d prefer your stoic silence to the barrage of strangers who seem to think they know his job better than he does.

It’s nothing he hasn’t dealt with before. When it comes down to it, there’s nothing he can do for the families of his patients aside from remaining honest and forthcoming. What this patient needs the most right now is someone to wait for him to wake up. You seem to know that too, and Namjoon hates that he only now sees that you know more than he would have expected at first glance.

&&&

It bothers him, the way your family treats you. He’s heard their snide remarks, seen their wayward glances, felt the ceaseless expectation that your mild manners will benefit them. He didn’t notice it at first, too quick to draw conclusions he knows now to have been unfair. And now he can’t unsee what he’s noticed.

“Oh, Y/N will do it, you’ll stay here won’t you, Y/N?”

And his ears prickle at the careful tone you reply with. He doesn’t look up from his computer screen, but he imagines your jaw is tight as it so often is. “I can stay here, yes. It’s no trouble. But please, use my rightful name.”

The original speaker huffs a little, and another speaks up, trying to be kind but sounding patronizing instead. “Of course dear, what’s your adopted name again?”

“Kassia.”

Namjoon’s mind wanders as the conversation veers away to other things. It’s no wonder that your were present at your grandfather’s bedside more than anyone else. He finds the way they treat you shocking, to be honest; your complacence with the way they treat you shocks him even more.

&&&

He’d been surprised to walk by you in the hall minutes later, but then, the look of reined in anguish wasn’t much of a surprise, given what he’d witnessed mere moments ago. You probably feel stifled, he thinks, and who wouldn’t? He feels stifled by the family and he’s not even related.

He glances back to see that you’ve stopped in front of the map of the hospital near the elevators. You’re biting your lip, eyes glassy, your fingers twisted together with the black coil of rope you always have at hand. With an inward sigh, he turns back down the hall.

“Sister, is there something I can help you find?”

His sudden appearance startles you, but only just. Beneath your black clothes, he can see that you’ve tensed up.

“Doctor Kim.”

“Yes,” he says carefully. “Do you need help finding where you want to go?”

He shouldn’t have asked, shouldn’t have gotten involved in what ever business you have wherever, but he’s always been bad at ignoring upset folks. You’re just another person on the list, or at least that’s what he’s telling himself.

Your voice is quiet, but steady. “I’m trying to find the hospital’s chapel on the map but it’s a bit convoluted …”

“I’m on my lunch right now, I can just show you where it is, if you’d like.”

Namjoon could kick himself for meddling in your affairs like this, but when you assent, he shoves the regret down in favor of being cordial.

&&&

The walk had been quiet. He found it strangely pleasing that you kept up with his long strides. Namjoon supposes he expected you to walk timidly, and instead he found that you walked with purpose, but without the intent to draw attention. You faded away, just like you did at the patient’s bedside; it’s not a monastic’s job to be noticed.

And yet he’d noticed you, in spite of your spectral presence. Namjoon’s noticed so much about you that he wants to notice no longer. He can’t help it at this point; there’s just something about you that draws him in. He feels like he sees too much when he sees you, and yet it’s still not enough.

He doesn’t like it. It makes him feel obsessive.

Now, as he stands at the back of the little chapel and watches you approach the altar, he can’t help but think that maybe it’s just wonder. How is it that you are so young, but so dead to the world? Invisible to everyone but him?

Namjoon watches as you approach the altar, crossing yourself as you bow. The chapel is simple, it has none of the trimmings that the one would find in the churches you’re used to. Somehow, it seems this is enough; you take a seat in the front row and he watches as your shoulders slump a little. Underneath the humming quiet of the space, he hears a your sigh shake from your lungs.

It strikes him suddenly.

He feels like he’s intruding on a moment between you and your god.

He sighs and checks the time. He’s needed elsewhere, and he knows it. But the longer he stays in the little chapel, with its dim lighting and thick silence, the more alone he is with you. It’s suffocating.

It requires more effort than he’d ever care to admit, but he finally tears his eyes away from your hunched figure. He doesn’t feel your gaze follow him out as he leaves the chapel.

&&&

Since showing you where the hospital chapel is, Namjoon’s noticed his mind trailing to thoughts of you as he goes about his days. He makes his rounds, visits patients in intensive care, look over files that all seem the same; each moment is accompanied by the memory of your eyes meeting his own.

When he finally visits your grandfather’s room, he expects that seeing you again will leave him unaffected. After all, he’s been constantly haunted by the press of your gaze. If only wishing made it so. He walks into the room, and sees you sitting at the patient’s bedside, alone as always. When you look up from your prayer rope, it’s the same as it’s always been. It’s as if you see right through him. Like you see all of him all at once.

You nod silently, your features hard, your jaw tense.

Namjoon chews on the inside of his mouth. Is there even a reason he needs to be here? There’s been no change in the patient’s condition, and he’s not yet well enough to move to a different unit. He’s just toeing lines of unprofessionalism at this point by lingering without saying anything.

“Dr. Kim, may I ask you a question?”

It’s been days since he last heard your voice. He feels disordered. He feels like a man lost in a desert finally stumbling upon an oasis at which to rest. He feels like a prisoner seeing light for the first time in years.

“Sure,” he says. He thrusts his hands in his pockets so that they have something to do besides twist and fret with nerves. Why is it that you’ve begun to affect him in this way?

“I want you to be honest with me,” you say quietly, your eyes falling to your grandfather’s frail figure. “I know you’re not sugar coating it with the rest but—” You raise your eyes to Namjoon, and he finds himself holding his breath. “—I feel as though you’ve not been allowed to be forthright with them somehow.”

You’re not wrong. Your family is so large and loud that he’s hardly been able to get his points across about your grandfather’s condition. Shit, he’s surprised you’ve been able to hear anything he’s said over their raucous, emotional reactions to each bit of news.

He crosses his arms and meets your eyes, and he tells the truth. It’s not looking good. He should have been able to wake up by now, he should have been able to get moved to a different unit, he should already be on the road to recovery. And yet, none of that has happened. Your grandfather’s looking at only ever being half there for the rest of his life, however long it may last. And it may not last long. There’s only so much they can do.

To your credit, you hold up an excellent front. Your features are finely schooled, your gaze still and cold as you regard him steadily. But when you glance at your grandfather, Namjoon notices your fingers twitch in your lap. The rope in your hands is the only thing that betrays how disquieted you are.

&&&

When one works in medicine, sometimes one just hopes to be wrong. Namjoon wants to be wrong every time he has to give a patient’s family bad news, and yours is no exception. Relaying the outcomes to patients, while depressing and difficult, is always hard, but it gets a little easier each time.

Personally giving you the news himself made him want to believe in miracles.

When he sees you the next morning, you’ve already heard from whomever he’d talked to over the phone hours ago. Overnight, your grandfather experienced another stroke.

It was a rare moment, in some ways. No family had been with him, but Namjoon had been the doctor on call for the unit over night. He’s gotten little rest, he’s had little time to collect himself and stay grounded. He’s not been able to prepare himself to face you or anyone else. Chance is funny like that; you still ask him yourself and do it with that soft voice (the one that’s started to haunt him at ungodly hours) to tell you what happened and what the options are.

It’s not pretty. The patient has already started to experience massive organ failures and he’s comatose anyway, so it’s not like his systems are operating in a way that can keep him alive. For some reason he’s not letting go. Darkly, Namjoon wonders if he and his patient have something in common.

Before his thoughts can inspect that thought further, Namjoon forces himself to watch your reaction to the news. The steady, cold gaze with which you regard the world is cracking at the edges. He can see it. It’s there in the shadows under your eyes, the set of your jaw, even in the way your hands fidget in your lap as you sit at the patient’s bedside.

It’s only a matter of time before the cracks give and whatever you keep behind them comes crashing out.

&&&

After having to explain to the patient’s family—your family, all gathered in that stifling waiting room—yet again what the prognosis for this latest stroke event is, Namjoon’s feeling strung out and exhausted. It’s been a late night, he’s gotten very little sleep, and if he has to sit through another emotional moment with the family of any of his patients, he’s going to fucking loose it.

He finds himself walking briskly through the halls of the hospital over his lunch just to keep himself alert. He’d tried to resist the urge, but he even decides to walk in areas that he normally doesn’t frequent, including the wing the chapel’s on. It’s fortuitous, then, that the there’s a light shining through the frosted glass panes set into the heavy wooden doors.

Namjoon walks by once. And then he rounds back and walks by a second time after a few minutes. His curiosity gets the better of him when he sees the light still shining through the windows, and he finds himself carefully pulling the door open and ducking in.

You’re sitting in the front row, just like the last time he saw you in this room. It’s quiet—almost hauntingly so. The thick carpet and heavy doors deaden the bustle of the building. It feels like he’s stepped into another world; he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the sensation.

You don’t turn, not even when the door swings closed behind him with a thick thud. Not even as he deliberately shuffles to the front of the chapel and sits precisely where he sat days ago, the last time you and he were alone like this.

Namjoon regards you for a moment. Your eyes are cast low to the floor, your lips pressed tight, your jaw tense, the set of your shoulders beneath your habit somehow defiant. And still, your hands are tangled with that damned prayer rope, as if all you need to do is ask and your grandfather will magically be well.

When you don’t look up to meet his gaze, he settles back into his seat and looks at the altar. It’s plain; just a cross wrought out of wood and finished with a walnut stain on a wood-paneled wall. Two staves, not the four your church so often venerates. No icons, none of the brilliant gilding, no vats of sand for candles, no incense, none of the trappings you must be used to. And yet, you’re still here, alone in the silence.

“What do you need?”

His words surprise even himself. He never does this. He never reaches out to members of a patient’s family like this. Never one on one, never so isolated from the rest.

Namjoon watches as you shift in your seat. Air rushes from your lungs as a shaky sigh. When you meet his eyes with yours, all he can feel is your gaze and the feeling of his blood rushing through his ears and the itch to pull you closer to him. He speaks again.

“What can I do to help you?”

There’s something ablaze in your expression, something hot and heady buried deep within you, making your facade crack still more before him.

“I don’t need anything,” you say. The facade holds, it seems, but only just. Your eyes flicker from his and trace his face. He thinks they might linger for a moment on his mouth, but perhaps he’s just tired, or thinking wishfully.

It irritates him that you insist you need nothing. “Kassia, please. I—” The name tumbles from his mouth like it’s nothing. He has to fight reaching forward to touch you. “The hospital has grief counselors, they have social workers that can help you. You’re getting pushed into so much of your grandfather’s care and it’s wearing you out to do it all alone. It’s not good to internalize all this.”

Your face remains anguished, your posture rigid. You seem so fragile now, as if a light breeze might make whatever wall you keep between yourself and the world—and, by extension, Namjoon—will make it fall to pieces.

And then quietly, your voice hoarse with emotions you refuse to show, you say, “This is none of your business, Doctor Kim. How I choose to be there for my family is none of your business.”

Namjoon sighs, falling back into his seat. He can’t look at you now. He can’t make himself watch as more pieces of your front fall away.

“Can I reach out to the chaplain for you? Do you want me to see if he can arrange for you to see a priest?” He hardly recognizes his own voice; the low murmur feels at odds with the authoritative tone he always uses for this job.

“No, thank you. I can manage fine by myself.”

&&&

It’s hard. Awful, really. The trickle of guests in and out of your grandfather’s room over the next few days is so typical of what Namjoon has seen during the final acts of similar cases. This case is so utterly normal in his line of work, and yet it’s nothing like anything he’s ever had to handle before.

You’re still a shadow, sitting in your corners, standing behind your family members; somehow always there but never seen, never acknowledged. Namjoon himself tries to forget you’re there, but that faint smell clinging to your clothes pierces through the static scent of the hospital. Sometimes he thinks he feels your eyes on him while his back is turned, or perhaps on his face when he’s not looking. He also thinks it’s in his head, a bias looking to be confirmed because he can’t escape you, even once he’s gone home and scrubbed the hospital from his skin in the shower.

Does he linger in your mind as you do in his? Do you see him in your dreams as he sees you? He’s never seen an inch of your skin and yet he’s seen it all, just not here, not in this reality. He can’t be rid of your presence. You cling to him somehow, like the scent of smoke clings to clothes.

Like the incense clings to your habit, even now.

&&&

It finally happens, just as his night on call is ending. The sunlight is trickling over the tops of buildings and trees, through a sterile window. The chime of equipment gently signals to nurses and himself that something has gone wrong and then, as suddenly as it all began, it all stops. The patient is gone, and the paperwork that Namjoon was given after the last stroke event means that he can let the old man leave in peace. He can’t bring himself to look at you as you stand to the side, pressed back against a wall, shaking silently as you process what watching a person drift away looks like.

&&&

It’s been a little while. Namjoon was supposed to go home hours ago, but he’s stuck around to help inform the patient’s family about what the next steps are. Assorted aunts and uncles and cousins are milling around in that same fucking waiting room. It’s strangely quiet, for once; there are few questions or comments as he explains what happened. Nothing breaks the silence but sniffles and small, piteous wails that make him feel numb and dead inside. This sort of thing only gets so much easier with time; dealing with it effectively comes down to fortitude and lots of counseling for the compassion fatigue.

You’re there in the corner until the very end, when Namjoon suddenly realizes you’re not. Like a ghost, you’d managed to sneak off, and he’d not even noticed. Neither, for that matter, had your family. As he leaves the room, he hears someone ask another where you’ve gone. They use your birth name, and not your given name, and it takes all he has to not return and correct them as he walks away.

His feet carry him to the chapel without his agency. It’s automatic at this point; he finds himself wandering by this part of the hospital on his breaks all the time anymore. Instead of walking by, he stops in front of the doors.

He’s sure you’re inside. And he’s sure you’re in anguish. He’s not sure, however, if it’s him you want to check in on you. He’s not sure how much he cares.

With the press of a palm, he opens the door and slips inside the chapel.

The door settles shut behind him. That eerie, velvet silence settles around his shoulders like a cloak. It’s still so thorough and surprising for him that he almost misses the quiet sobs creating texture in the space. The wall between you and the rest of the world appears to have finally crumbled, leaving you alone in the wreckage, without a care for the damage its dissolution has done.

As he nears the front of the chapel, you tense and cast a glance over your shoulder.

“For Christ’s sake, Doctor Kim,” you laugh wetly. “Don’t you have a patient or something you should be attending to?” If you’re supposed to sound sardonic or bothered or even put out, it doesn’t work. You only sound hollowed out and broken.

“My shift’s finished actually,” he murmurs. “You weren’t with the rest of your family.”

“So you came here,” you sniff. “To what end, Doctor Kim? You can’t honestly be here to pray.” You’re on your feet now, rounding on him like some wounded animal fighting for the chance to be left alone. “I’ve seen the way you look at me, you hardly know what to do with someone like me.”

Namjoon takes the tirade in stride. You’re finally allowing yourself to feel something, and he’s not about to stop it. And you’re not wrong, not entirely.

“The nun has fucking feelings, a shock to everyone I’m sure,” you cry, words falling from you bitterly, like you can’t stop it. “I’ll be fucking damned if any of them give a shit about how I feel in all this. They got to go to work and live their lives and I was stuck here, watching him suffer.”

Namjoon watches as you start to crumble right before his eyes. He might have missed your walls coming down, but some part of him is glad he’s here for you to fall apart. Someone needs to pick up the pieces. It may as well be him.

“I’m the one who told him it was okay to go. I—” Tears are filling your eyes, spilling down your cheeks. “I held his hand j-just hours ago. I told him it was okay t-to let go. That it was t-time to just f-face whatever the fuck is out there when you die.”

He watches as you bring hand to your face to brush tears away, but instead the sobs wrack your body and you bare your teeth as you cry anew. He doesn’t know what to say. What could he possibly say to make any of this better for you?

Instead, Namjoon steps closer and holds his arms open. You fall into his chest unbidden, and he wraps his arms around you, pulling you into his body as close as he can. The way your warmth feels against his own is strange, because it feels far better, far more natural, than it has any right to be. You’re supposed to be dead to the world, and right now you’re anything but that for him in this moment.

You clench fistfuls of his shirt in your palms. This ache, this hurt … this isn’t something he can fix, and yet it seems he’s the only one who’s ever cared to even fucking try. It breaks his heart more than loosing any of his doomed patients ever could. He finds himself trailing his fingers over your back in what he hopes are soothing circles.

He’s not even sure you’re really with him to hear him say, “Shhh, it’s alright, you’re okay, I’m right here for you,” until you suddenly raise your head to look him straight on. Tearstained cheeks, shining eyes that are starting to look a little swollen, just like the lower lip you’ve probably chewing on nonstop. And yet, Namjoon can’t help but feel drawn in by your gaze, still magnetic and haunting as ever.

Your fists tighten around the fabric inside them as you glance between his eyes and his lips. Namjoon realizes, suddenly, coldly, that your faces have become close, that he can feel your shuddering breath creeping across his skin.

He’s not sure who moves first. He’ll never be sure. It’s so instantaneous that it feels almost inevitable, like this is what the movement of the universe has been leading to all this time. His entire life feels like it hinges on the moment your lips meet his own and fit together as if your mouths were never meant to be parted.

His hand is suddenly cupping your face, tilting it so that he can slip his tongue against yours. You don’t just open to him; you draw him in, nipping at his lips, sucking at his flesh, finally allowing yourself a moment to be greedy.

Namjoon can’t get enough of your hot skin against his palm. His nails brush against your habit and god, he just wants it gone. He wants it out of the way. Something primal has taken hold of him, he knows it, even as he finds himself pressing forward against you. The small whine that escapes your throat makes him long to pin you against the chapel wall and let you take from him as he wants to take from you. With the way you’re pulling at his shirt, at his hair, his heart, you feel it too. Whatever this is is so massive that neither of you will ever be able to escape the tug of its gravity.

As quickly as it all started, it’s over.

His front is suddenly empty and cold, but for the blood stirring in his heart with bitter bile in his abdomen. He’s not sure who steps away first, just that it’s perhaps the most unnatural thing he’s ever experienced. Your eyes are wide, aflame with more emotion than any person should ever have to hold within themselves. Over the silent hum of air circulators working, he hears the sound of you breathing in time with himself, panting as you both come down from the high of indiscretion

Before Namjoon can say anything, an apology or an explanation or just fucking anything to keep you from hating him, you walk away. It’s as if he’s sprouted roots as he watches you walk away and out of the chapel. The stoic curtain has been drawn around you again and he’ll never get the chance to pull it away. Just as it felt inevitable to kiss you and be kissed by you, this feels just just the same. It’s inexorable. There’s nothing he can do to stop you.

He just watches you leave before sinking into a seat in the front row of the chapel and putting his head in his hands.

&&&

It’s been a long week. For months it’s felt like Namjoon’s had nothing but long weeks, but this one seems so particularly bad in a way he can’t describe. Patients making strides and then loosing all the ground they gained. The families of patients becoming aggressive and distraught when they learn the news that their beloved kinsperson will not be making whatever recovery they envisioned for them. Nurses and medical assistants being berated and then taking it out on each other, or sometimes him. Other doctors shirking their duties. And of course, he’s nothing if not a self-loathing workaholic, so he shoulders every ounce of slack until it’s close to breaking him.

It takes a more senior doctor asking to speak to him in the hallway for him to realize how fucking bad he’s been internalizing his stress. He almost snaps like a twig in front of five people, just because the man asked him for a moment of his time.

“Take a walk, Doctor Kim. I don’t want to see you for an hour.”

Namjoon doesn’t realize he’s wandered to the chapel until he’s looking at the heavy wooden doors. They stand before him like an immovable barrier. He hasn’t been here since you left. It wasn’t so long ago, he knows it’s only been a month or three, but it feels like it’s been an age. Long enough that he’s lost track of the time, but not so long ago that he’s forgotten the way your flesh fit against his.

The memory stirs in his throat as he gently reaches to pull the door open and step inside.

The chapel’s preternatural silence settles over him like a blanket. In the past, it’s been an uneasy sensation, but now it’s welcome. He could use some quiet, some space to just feel and decompress. He sits a few rows back from the front and listens to silence ring in his ears, letting time slip by without registering how much of it goes.

Abruptly, Namjoon hears the doors behind him close with a thud. He turns to see a priest, smiling sheepishly as he gives him a little wave. He’s got a bulky briefcase in his hands and a sweater over his black shirt. At his throat is a priest’s collar.

“I’m so sorry to disturb you, doctor,” the priest says with a warm smile. “I didn’t expect anyone to be here this early before the service.”

Namjoon finds himself rising before he can even think about it. “No, please, don’t be sorry. I just needed somewhere quiet to be for a moment.”

“Well, this is the perfect place for that,” the priest says, glancing down the chapel’s center aisle at the altar. “I don’t believe I’ve met you before! I’m Father Herman.”

The doctor grasps the priest’s outstretched hand to shake it as he give his own name. “I’m not usually around this part of the hospital but it’s—well, it’s been a week,” he laughs nervously.

Father Herman nods, as if he understands Namjoon’s struggle completely. “The church is a place of healing, first and foremost. Whenever a soul ails, we always pray that they finds their way here.”

Namjoon thinks about you sitting in the front of the chapel, with your prayer rope and silent suffering. He thinks about the unending way his life has stretched before him since you left. He says nothing, however, as he watches Father Herman walk to the front of the chapel and set his bag in one of the chairs.

He must sense the doctor staring at him, but he seems unperturbed. Maybe he’s used to getting stares. “Was there something else you needed, Doctor Kim?”

The words are kind, but they rattle around Namjoon’s brain for a moment before he can really let them sink in. He hasn’t thought about any of his needs for what feels like weeks. No one’s asked about his needs for much longer.

“Um, yeah, maybe. I think I might have some questions for you, if you don’t mind.”

“Absolutely, son. Fire away.”

Thank you for reading! Drop me an ask and tell me what you think. Find me in various places at my carrd :)

©miscelunaaa 2022. My work is only found on this blog and under my ao3 pseud. Do not, under any circumstances, copy or repost my work. Thank you.

posted: 11.2.2022

#bts fanfiction #kim namjoon fic #namjoon x reader #kim namjoon fanfic #knj fic #knj x reader #knj x female reader #namjoon fic #namjoon fanfic #I don't even know what else to tag this with lmao #namjoon angst #bts angst #it's just an angsty little jaunt my friends #complete with notes #I'm sorry ahead of time #but hey if you liked sodium vapor then this is the shit for you #miscelunaaa #this is going to flop so hard hahaha and I'm not even mad

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