Chapter Text
A month passed. Two. The Canadian winter dragging out behind them like a sodden wedding veil. Namjoon flipped the little wall calendar they'd picked up (generic, with soft floral landscapes on each month) to April, but the roads were still lipped with runs of salted slush, never quite melting enough to puddle properly.
"It's supposed to be spring, right?" Jimin asked, voice muffled slightly. Namjoon looked over to see him sprawled across the couch, exactly where he'd landed about twenty minutes ago after coming home from some exercise class or other. (Namjoon had tried to keep them straight, but he had never really been able to discern the difference between them anyway — he knew it wasn't the day Jimin filmed in the studio, because he always covered his body a bit more for that and his calves and a good chunk of his thighs were mostly out.) His face was pressed half into the cushions and it was a little bit cute. "I'm not just remembering wrong. April is supposed to be like — warm almost, right?"
Namjoon chuckled. "In general, yes."
"Then what the fuck," Jimin said, laughing a little as he rolled over onto his back, kicking out just a little with one foot. "What is this?"
"Canada," Namjoon said and Jimin sighed, exaggerated.
"Never let me make decisions ever again," Jimin said.
"Okay."
Jimin snickered and threw a pillow at him. Namjoon tried very hard to catch it, but it bounced off the tips of his fingers and hit the screen of his laptop and both the pillow and the laptop went bouncing off with a none-too-reassuring thump.
Namjoon swore quietly and reached to pick them both up. "But did you break it?" Jimin asked, voice almost lazy.
"Me?" Namjoon asked, laughing. He stood and strode across the room and Jimin curled up a little, laughing with his smile wide, eyes squinched up tightly and his hands waving in front of his chest. He was adorable, cheeks blushed a little pink, glowing just a bit from his workout earlier.
Namjoon flopped onto him and Jimin groaned like it was painful, but he wrapped his arms around Namjoon like this had been the plan all along, to coax him close. Jimin patted at him, mumbling something about how Namjoon was too heavy for this sort of thing but not letting go even as he protested.
Namjoon hummed, pulled up and kissed at his cheek, his nose.
"Hi," he said quietly.
"Hi," Jimin breathed, like he didn't dare speak any louder. His eyes were bright, excited. He ran his hands down Namjoon's arms and leaned up a little, asking wordlessly for a real kiss. Namjoon smirked at him for a moment before leaning just a bit more.
Jimin's phone rang and Namjoon could immediately see the loss in his expression.
"We can just ignore that," Jimin said quietly, but Namjoon flicked his gaze over to the phone and saw the request for a video call from Taehyung. He reached for the phone and handed it to Jimin who launched the call immediately.
"You cockblock!" Jimin said, pouting a little into the camera.
"Well hello to you, too," Yoongi said, pink lips pulled into a wry smile.
"Oh," Jimin said, smiling wide and embarrassed. "Hi hyung."
"We thought we'd say goodbye," Yoongi said, rubbing at the back of his neck. His cheeks were a little pink. "You know, before we head out, but if we're interrupting ... "
"No, no, it's fine," Jimin said, shaking his head just as Namjoon drawled something about how they definitely were. He heard Seokjin snickering somewhere out of frame.
"You called to say goodbye to Jimin, but not me?" Namjoon asked, plunking down on the floor beside the couch so Jimin wouldn't have to sit up.
"When have you ever answered your phone?" Jimin asked, before Yoongi could say the exact same thing.
"Fair," Namjoon chuckled.
Yoongi started talking about something, messing with his hair and scratching his ear a little as he did so and Seokjin popped into frame and said something self-deprecating and they looked nervous and maybe a little sad, but it wasn't too bad. They'd known this was happening for awhile now, had decided they were doing it together over a year ago now and it was just part of what they had to do — military service as much part of their future as coming back from it was, as the production ideas in Yoongi's folder, as the stacks of scripts Seokjin was being sent lately.
The worst part for Namjoon was that they looked old enough for it. He'd never stayed in touch with people after leaving, not like this. He'd never had to see them age like this. Had never had to see kindly lines spring up at the edge of anyone's eyes like Seokjin's had, had never had to think about how someone he'd been so close in age to would eventually look twice his age, three times his age.
He swallowed and it felt harsh.
"I'm going to miss you guys," Namjoon blurted in the middle of whatever anecdote Seokjin had been working his way through.
Yoongi looked embarrassed but pleased, flicking his shaggy hair out of his eyes, Seokjin laughed at both of them, the jostling and Yoongi shoved playfully at him.
"Awh Joon-ah we'll miss you, too. We'll miss both of you," Seokjin said.
The confession hung sweetly in the air for a moment, all crystallized sugar and soft vanilla, before Jimin asked when they'd have to shave their heads and the atmosphere went back to gentle teasing. It stayed like that until the end, even though the whole thing felt very — final. A closed door, the couplet at the end of a sonnet. They were leaving in the morning. The eventuality of more space stretched between them.
The call ended with laughter a few minutes later and Jimin immediately pressed his face into Namjoon's neck for a moment afterwards just to — to ground himself in something, maybe. To find an easy comfort he hadn't had to ask for.
The package showed up at their door with little fanfare, wrapped in some oddly textured brown paper and tied with purple string, almost as though it had been constructed from something more to make it look as unobtrusive as possible. Their address was written on it in spidery writing that listed across the entire front of the package. Namjoon tripped over it on his way in the door one afternoon and knocked his head none too gently into the doorframe.
Jimin's hands were on his face before he could blink, checking to see if he was alright and laughing slightly. Namjoon groaned and kissed at his fingers before opening the door, letting Jimin scoop up the package behind him.
"Do you think it's TaeTae again?" Jimin asked, dumping it on their little dining table with a thunk.
"I doubt he's found another set of wooden utensils that he thinks we need to have so soon and it's not either of our birthdays, so ... no?" Namjoon said rubbing at his forehead. Jimin patted lightly at his shoulder and made a face like he didn't much care for Namjoon being hurt, but also maybe like he wasn't particularly surprised.
The bottom part of the package was just a bit damp, spring air dripping the last of the snow from the roof and onto their stoop, but the object inside was wrapped in an unfamiliar plastic to protect it where the paper hadn't. Jimin regretted letting Namjoon be the one to open it as he ripped carelessly at the plastic. He hoped whatever it protected wasn't too breakable — it wasn't often that they got presents, as cut off as they were from the real world. He didn't want to have to explain to whoever that they'd broken their gift.
Another moment of Namjoon tearing indiscriminately at the wrapping and he'd revealed a book, weighty and leather bound, embossed with rich purples and blues and golds.
"What's that?" Jimin asked, coming up behind Namjoon to rest his chin on his shoulder.
"It's — it's a book," Namjoon said, turning the object over in his hands.
Jimin snorted and swatted at him. "No, I mean like —"
"Oh it's —" Namjoon set it down carefully, rubbing his thumbs over the textured cover. It was titled, but not in a language he recognized. He got the gist though. "It's from the witches."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, they must have ... I called them when the troll was in our yard."
"I remember."
"And I was — this isn't really the kind of thing I'd consider my element. Like, sure, it's my world more than yours, but I've never really had to know this sort of thing."
"Sure."
"Yeah," Namjoon breathed, eyes fixed on the cover. He paused for a moment and Jimin watched as he dragged his fingers over it. Careful and almost like he was a little transfixed. Like he'd been dragged into whatever the book contained already, pulled beneath the surface.
"Joonie," he prompted after a moment. Namjoon hummed. "What is it?"
"Oh!" Namjoon said, like he'd forgotten where he was. "It's like a creatures book. The title is something like —" Namjoon waved his hand like he wasn't really sure how to phrase it, like he was going for an overall concept instead. "— Enchanted Creatures of — well, it's not Earth but, something like the Realm? But it's also kind of a joke if I understand the context, which I might not. It's ... what?"
Jimin was giggling, forehead pressed into Namjoon's shoulder, shaking him slightly as he tried to explain. Namjoon swatted at him, but that seemed to encourage Jimin more than anything else.
"You're such a shit," Namjoon said fondly, turning awkwardly to kiss at Jimin's hair.
Jimin kept giggling.
Lookit this!! Jimin texted Taehyung with a picture he'd taken from the book. The creature was gigantic, larger than anything he could properly articulate. The closest thing he could think to compare it to were skyscrapers, but even that felt wrong. Inadequate in expressing the vastness.
Not a moment later Taehyung sent him a long series of exclamation points, and then a few minutes later a selfie showed up, only half of Taehyung's face, just a blur of long eyelashes, fading green hair, the long line of his nose. Something about his expression was almost — Jimin almost wanted to say urgent, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen that expression on Taehyung before. Earnest, sure. Worried, definitely, but not — not quite whatever had settled into Taehyung’s eyes.
Jimin shook his head. Maybe it was just the cut of the frame.
Jimin frowned, laughing a little at himself and sent Taehyung a picture of his knee before pulling the book back into his lap.
He'd been spending a lot of time with it lately, curled up with it. The reading was relatively slow going. When Jimin glanced at the pages they didn't look like anything he'd ever seen before, just long lines of characters that didn't make any sense, but after concentrating a bit the letters seemed to clarify themselves somehow. He could figure out what they were saying. Lots of it was dull descriptions of wars and things decaying, but then he'd turn the page and there would be either a creature he could never imagine or one he'd read about in some fantasy book or other (unicorns, manticores, etc).
It was addicting in a way. All the information he'd asked for grasped within his hands and he was so careful with it, tentative in the way he turned each page, in the way he slid beneath its depths.
"Learn anything new today?" came Namjoon's voice at his shoulder some time later. It could have been ten minutes or three hours and Jimin would have believed either one. He blinked hard to clear the words from his eyes.
"Hi," Jimin said softly, reaching for him.
"Hi," Namjoon said back, smiling and bending closer to kiss him. His lips were sweet with the honey from his tea and Jimin savored the taste.
"There are monsters in almost every lake," Jimin said when they pulled apart.
"That's why I only swim in pools," Namjoon said, deadpan and nodding.
"Is it really?" Jimin asked, head cocking a little.
Namjoon laughed, "No, of course not. I didn't know that at all."
Jimin snickered along with him and swatted at him with the hand that wasn't holding the book. When he pulled back his arms wrapped protectively around it, holding it close to his chest on instinct or maybe something else. They talked for a moment longer, Jimin asking about the work Namjoon had gotten done, Jimin telling Namjoon little tidbits before they kissed softly once more and Namjoon withdrew to try and cobble something together for dinner.
He popped his head into the living room again a few moments later to ask about Jimin's preference of vegetable and found him with his nose in the book again, frowning gently at the page, completely sucked in and curled up on one end of their couch. He was pretty like that, soft, with pink sunset light falling through the window behind him.
"I like this," Namjoon said, quiet and to himself.
Jimin hummed, a little noise of agreement, but Namjoon knew he hadn't heard him. It didn’t matter though, it hadn’t been for Jimin. He’d just felt like he’d needed to say it.
They’d only been here for a few months and some of it had been jarring, sure, and it still felt like things were changing around him a little. Some things still up in the air. Something just waiting out of sight to jump out at them maybe, but he had Jimin, soft in their living room whose whole face scrunched up when he laughed and was so ready to dive into anything and who always and inexplicably felt like home. This was beginning to feel like home, too.
Namjoon went back to cooking.