Work Text:
After he leaves, Seokjin keeps finding pieces of Namjoon everywhere.
This shouldn’t be completely surprising, and yet it is, somehow. Namjoon tended to leave a trail of a mess behind him, without even really realizing that he was doing it. Seokjin had always found it to be a talent, of sorts, even when it often leaned towards being annoying.
Now it just hurts. Seokjin will be looking for a pen and will find a to do list that Namjoon had written on a post it note. He’ll be going through a drawer in the bedroom and find a pair of Ryan socks shoved all the way in the back. He’ll find a shirt in the closet that doesn't fit him right. Namjoon is everywhere, but where it matters he’s gone, and it hurts.
Seokjin just starts a box and puts everything of Namjoon’s that he can find into it. One day, when it’s full, or Seokjin can no longer bear to look at a physical manifestation of Namjoon, Seokjin will give the box to Yoongi to give to Namjoon the next time they see each other.
For now, though, he collects. He puts every piece of Namjoon that he still has left into one space and leaves it there, controlled and completely manageable.
Seokjin finds the shoe box on accident. He’s in bed on a Sunday, after a long work week, and he promised himself that he wouldn’t even try to get up on his one day off.
Sundays used to mean hours of lazy sex in the morning before they got too hungry and Seokjin would make breakfast while Namjoon was delegated to tasks like pouring juice or cutting up fruit, which still tasted good no matter how much they were mangled. They went out together, holding hands while shopping, or walking through parks, finding hidden places to kiss before moving on. Perfect, idyllic days, when both of them had all the time in the world for just each other. Now they mean waking up alone. He still makes breakfast for himself, but finds that sometimes food doesn’t taste as good when it’s not made for someone else.
The only reason he bothers to get out of bed is because while reaching for his phone he knocks the glass of water off the bedside table, the glass hitting the carpet with a dull thud. Seokjin groans but rolls over until he’s standing, and bends over to get the glass, his spine popping. He doesn’t know why the box catches his eye on that particular day. It’s a shoe box, from a brand of fancy shoes that Namjoon really liked but Seokjin could never see the appeal of. Namjoon was always the more adventurous, fashion wise, of the two of them. There’s no way the box came from a pair of Seokjin’s shoes.
Seokjin takes it out from under the bed and goes to put it in the box of Namjoon’s things, but for some reason he’s curious. He opens the box and finds five envelopes tied together with a pale pink ribbon. Seokjin hesitates before he unties the ribbon, sends it fluttering to the floor.
The envelopes are made of thick paper, heavy, expensive. Seokjin can feel the weight of the paper inside of them too. There’s nothing on the back of them except small numbers written in faded pencil in the corners, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. This was done with care. This was done with purpose.
Seokjin knows that he probably shouldn’t open the letters. He knows he should let Namjoon have this privacy. But Namjoon left, he left, and Seokjin doesn’t owe him anything. The envelopes are unsealed, anyway, and Namjoon won’t ever know that Seokjin opened them, if he ever got them back.
And so Seokjin opens the envelope with the number one on it, and begins to read.
Dear Seokjin,
Have you ever noticed how violent the language of love is?
We fall in love. Our hearts break. Someone steals your breath. You devour a person with your eyes. We are consumed by our emotions. It’s scary, really, how brutal this all is.
This is a bad way to start a love letter. I know that. I’ve never written a love letter before.
I wrote my way through college. I write an article every single day. People read my name in print all the time. I’ve written so many words, possibly millions by this point, but I’ve never written a love letter. I’m not sure I know how.
You’re the first person that makes me want to write them.
There will be more, I think. Lots more. Maybe ones that aren’t about how vicious love is. Count this as a rough draft.
Just know I think about it a lot. The violence of love. What it all means.
Just know that I love you, even if it’s scary.
Yours,
Namjoon
The way Namjoon and Seokjin met is honestly boring. It was for a work mixer, one that Seokjin went to only because he had just been hired, and he had no friends in this town. He shared a cubicle with Yoongi, who was the one that had pulled him over to meet Namjoon.
Seokjin hadn’t thought anything special about Namjoon, other than noting that was wearing all black with round specs, an outfit that was definitely not work appropriate. Seokjin had ordered a drink and made pleasant, polite small talk with Yoongi and Namjoon, who seemed like they were trying to get a feel for him too.
Seokjin hadn’t thought anything special about Namjoon, other than he seemed like he was an interesting, smart guy, same as Yoongi. And then Namjoon had smiled, and he had dimples, and something in Seokjin had gone ah, even if he hadn’t known it yet.
It takes almost a year of knowing each other for them to start dating. They were friends first. And then one day Namjoon had come up to Seokjin’s desk, pink cheeked, and asked, “Hyung, would you like to have a drink with me later?”
“Of course,” Seokjin said, wondering why Namjoon was so red. “Is Yoongi coming too?”
“Ah, no, just the two of us. If you want. Yoongi hyung can come too, of course. I was just hoping that it could be just us. As...a date. If you wanted! It’s not a big deal if you don’t.” Namjoon smiled then, and Seokjin could see that he was trying so hard that it was endearing.
Maybe that was why he said, “Okay, yeah. Sure, Namjoon-ah. I’d love to go on a date with you.”
“Great,” Namjoon said. “I’ll pick you up at seven, then.” He ran off shortly after, his face still flushed.
“That could’ve been worse. I guess,” Yoongi said suddenly, on the other side of the cubicle. Of course he had been there for the entire thing. Of course.
“Hush, you. He was very sweet,” Seokjin had said. “I think I could like him a lot.”
It turns out, Seokjin was right.
Dear Seokjin,
There’s something that they don’t tell you about love, when it happens. In every book I’ve ever read, in every movie, in every drama...the list of media could go on forever, but one thing about them is the same, the moment that someone falls in love it’s always a cataclysmic event. There are fireworks, the world shifts, everything is completely different. Love happens after disaster, it happens after dramatics, after near death experiences. It happens only when someone realizes that they’re going to lose someone else, or after they know that that their love can’t be returned. There’s always a climax, in a love story.
It didn’t happen that way with me. I never told you this, but I remember the moment that I realized that I was in love with you because it was so utterly boring.
It happened one morning after we’d had sex. You woke up and I had nothing in my fridge, as usual, but you wanted us to have breakfast together, also as usual. I’d never had anyone want to have breakfast with me the mornings after, the way you did, so I always agreed.
We had breakfast at the crepe place you liked so much, and you got a strawberries and cream crepe that morning. You were laughing at something you had just said, your face a little red with it, the way you always get when you’re truly happy and you laugh too hard. You had whipped cream on your face, and you couldn’t get the words out, because you couldn’t stop laughing.
The morning was nothing special, not really. And yet I knew that I had slipped from not being in love to being in love with you. Just like that. It was that easy. Falling in love with you was that easy.
Being in love with you was harder, but nothing that I couldn’t handle. After all, as of writing this, I’m still in love with you. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
Yours,
Namjoon
Seokjin had asked Namjoon to move in with him a little over six months into dating. Namjoon’s lease was coming up, and he had been complaining about his landlord again. He lived in a dump, he said, but finding a new place to live was even worse. Better the enemy you know than the enemy you don’t, and all that.
“Why don’t you just come live with me?” Seokjin had said in the middle of this. He knew the spiel. Namjoon had been grumbling about it for close to a month now.
It made sense, for Namjoon to move in with him. Namjoon stayed over at least five nights a week, because Seokjin’s place was closer to the office. Half of his closet was already in Seokjin’s. Seokjin had Namjoon’s laundry mixed in with his. Namjoon even had a toothbrush in Seokjin’s bathroom. Seokjin had plenty of room for another person. A rent check being split would make both of their lives easier.
And yet, Namjoon still said, “I should probably think about it.” Seokjin nodded and they continued eating, like nothing had happened.
It had hurt, a tiny bit, when Namjoon hadn’t agreed immediately. Seokjin would have thought that the timing seemed perfect, but then again, Seokjin might have been moving too soon. Maybe he thought this was something a little more serious than it was. It had hurt to realize that maybe he and Namjoon weren’t on the same page.
But then the next day Namjoon told Seokjin, “I want to move in with you. That is, if you still want me to.”
“Of course I do,” Seokjin told him, leaning in to kiss Namjoon’s cheek. It was cute how flustered Namjoon could get, even after all these months of dating later. “Feel free to stay forever.”
Dear Seokjin,
I think people were born to love.
Otherwise, what’s the point? What’s the point of all the bad things that happen to people if love isn’t something that people hold on to? Why do people fight wars over it, and lie, and cheat, and steal, if we weren’t meant to love one another?
Love comes in so many shapes and sizes, and I see it everywhere. At work, when people truly enjoy what they’re doing? On the streets, with mothers holding the hands of their children. At the grocery store when someone is picking up ingredients to go home and make a meal for someone else.
Not all love is good. Not all love is true. I know this, but I think enough good outweighs the bad, and that’s what makes all the bad worth living through. That it has the power to overcome even the worst of the worst.
Maybe saying that I was born to love you is too much. Too much of a leap of logic, like soulmates, or twin telepathy, or magic like the kind out of stories. I don’t want to go too far with this. I just want to go as far as reality will let me.
So I don’t know if I was born to love you. I don’t think we’ll ever know. But what I do know is this: if I was born to love, then I’m glad that you’re the one that I give my love to.
Yours,
Namjoon
Seokjin bought a ring after they had been dating for almost two years.
The band was simple, just unadorned silver. Knowing Namjoon, he might have wanted something fancier. They could go look, later, if that was what Namjoon wanted, after he had seen the ring that Seokjin had picked out for him.
It was a symbol more than anything. A gesture. Seokjin looked at Namjoon and saw the shape of his forever. They didn’t need rings for that, but Seokjin wanted that. Wanted some kind of official permanency, something to say, Kim Seokjin and Kim Namjoon were here, together, for the history books.
Seokjin bought that ring and put it in his pocket and felt the way that it weighed him down, in the best way possible. He was happy to have it.
That night, Namjoon had come home later. Seokjin hadn’t even started dinner yet, not really wanting to cook.
“Do you want me to order take out?” Namjoon asked, from the sitting room. Seokjin had been sitting in their bedroom after putting the ring in the back of the sock drawer, but as soon as he heard Namjoon’s voice he wanted to see his face. So he forced himself to get up and go to where Namjoon was taking off his shoes.
Seokjin reached out and wrapped his arms around Namjoon, who did the same. Namjoon slid his hands into the warmth of Seokjin’s cardigan and kissed him once, lightly. “I love you,” Seokjin told him.
“I love you too,” Namjoon said easily, into Seokjin’s neck. “So, take out for dinner?”
Seokjin pulled away reluctantly. “Take out for dinner,” he confirmed, knowing that he was lucky that this was his life. He had a ring for his boyfriend in one of his socks, and a boyfriend who was rummaging through the take out menus in the take out drawer.
When Namjoon finally felt Seokjin’s gaze on him he looked up. “What?” he asked. “You’re looking at me weird? Are you okay?”
“I’m just happy,” Seokjin said, and meant it.
Dear Seokjin,
Have you ever realized that the most famous love stories are the ones that end in tragedy? Romeo and Juliet. Antony and Cleopatra. Jingnyeo and Gyeonu. The list goes on, really, forever. A tragic ending seems to be the only way that things are burned into cultural memory. Most literature is considered literature because there is no happy endings (which I know you think is bullshit--we’ve had this conversation before. Many times, actually. Is it weird that I love how you yell when you’re passionate about something, when you’re really making a point? Even when I don’t agree with you, I do, and I know that’s weird), because it’s sad.
I didn’t want us to be remembered. I didn’t want our story to be a tragedy written in the stars, or remembered story books. What I wanted was simple. I wanted us to have a house where we grew old together, where we raised a family, where we spent years of love and laughter together. I wanted us to die days of each other, for our ashes to stay beyond each other forever.
No one would have written about us. No one would have remembered us except our family, a family that we built together. And even then we would fade some day, down the line. We would fade into oblivion, with no one to remember us, but at least we would have been together.
Now, not only will we not be remembered, we will also be apart.
Yours,
Namjoon
The day Namjoon broke up with him, Seokjin had been able to feel it coming. He’d woken up with a bad feeling in his stomach. Namjoon had slept beside him so peacefully, and Seokjin had leaned over and kissed Namjoon’s forehead. Namjoon had stirred but hadn’t woken up.
Namjoon had been in work meetings all day. He had been in meetings a lot, lately, but whenever Seokjin asked he’d clam up. He wouldn’t talk about it, even when Yoongi prompted, and that made Seokjin nervous. He was more used to Namjoon waking him up in the middle of the night, sometimes, to ask him things like Do you think souls are stored inside the part of our brains that make up our personalities? when his thoughts became too big for him. Not this silence.
Seokjin went home first. Namjoon’s meetings were taking much longer than usual that day, and so Seokjin didn’t see the point in waiting for him.
Dinner was simmering on the stove when Namjoon came in. Usually, the first thing Namjoon did after he took off his shoes was throw his tie onto the couch, he hated him so much. Today, Namjoon didn’t do that. He didn’t so much as loosen it before he said, “Seokjin, we have to talk.”
Famous last words, Seokjin could hear Yoongi’s voice in his head. Seokjin told Yoongi to shut up and then stuffed him into a trash can. “About what?”
“I got promoted today,” Namjoon said.
“Congratulations,” Seokjin said, and smiled, and knew that he did not want to hear the rest of this.
“They want me to be the lead reporter on a story, but they want me to move to Seoul. In two weeks.”
“Two...weeks?” Seokjin managed to croak out.
“The story is time sensitive. Apparently.” Namjoon wasn’t looking at him. He never could, when he was uncomfortable and unhappy. He was shrinking in on himself, a little bit. “I’ll try to have my stuff out of here in a week, tops.”
“Do you even have a place to stay? Two weeks can’t be enough time-”
“They told me they’ll pay for a hotel, at first. It’s all going to be taken care of. Don’t worry, hyung, I’ll be okay.”
Seokjin thought about the ring in his sock drawer. A year had passed, and he hadn’t given it to Namjoon yet. Seokjin now had a sinking feeling that now he never would.
“What about us? Are we going to be okay?”
Namjoon smiled like his heart was breaking. “No, hyung, I don’t think so.”
Dear Seokjin,
I don’t know if you’ll ever see this letter. I don’t think that you ever will.
I don’t know why I’m writing this. I guess there’s a part of me that just wants to say goodbye, even if you don’t know. I can’t explain exactly why I’ve broken up with you, but I guess I just want to reaffirm to myself that the reason isn’t because I stopped loving you. I guess I just can’t bear the thought of us becoming a long distance relationship couple whose relationship dwindled away. I couldn’t bear to watch us wither into nothing.
Doctors say a clean break is the best. So that’s what I’m trying to do.
Our life together was, honestly, boring. No one will write novels about how we bickered over whose turn it was to pick up the milk, or how I would move your moisturizers around when I was feeling petty, or how you’d get jealous sometimes even when it wasn’t necessary. No one will pen an epic poem talking about how lucky I felt every day to wake up next to you, even when we were angry at each other, even when you hurt me and I hurt you back. There won’t be songs on the radio played about how I grew to love you more, over time, just by spending time with you.
We never did anything particularly exciting, but being together was more than enough.
I planned to write you more letters. Every letter that I wrote to you before this was meant to be read. I wanted to give them all to you one day, in the future, when we had matching wrinkles on our faces and our hair was the same shade of grey. I wanted you to read them when our children were grown and we had achieved that happily ever after.
Now, we won’t have that, because I was scared.
If you’re reading this, right now, I want you to know that I probably still love you. It doesn’t matter if you read this in one day or one month or one year or even in ten, twenty, thirty. I think there will always be a part of me that will always love you.
I don’t regret that.
Eternally yours,
Namjoon
The train takes four hours. Four hours, and Seokjin reads the letters again. And again. He asks Yoongi for Namjoon’s new address which he receives with a bunch of question marks in return. Seokjin doesn’t respond to them. He just keeps looking forward.
Namjoon lives in a nice part of Seoul, a decent and safe residential area, only a few train stops away from an area that’s busier, with more businesses. His apartment building seems nice too. Namjoon seems to have settled well, if his surroundings are any indication. Seokjin doesn’t care about that.
He waits, like a creep, until someone walks into the building and comes in behind them. Namjoon lives on the tenth floor and going up the elevator is torture. So close and yet so far. Seokjin can’t help but tap his foot, jiggle his leg, do something for the entire ride up.
He knocks on Namjoon’s door hard, fast. Namjoon is probably home, right? He should be home, in any case. It’s a late Sunday night. He has work tomorrow. He has a life to get back to tomorrow. He should be home. Seokjin really hopes that he’s home.
All of his fears are laid to rest when Namjoon opens the door, wearing messy black sweatpants and a t-shirt that’s drowning him. Seokjin recognizes these clothes. They’re what he wore, before, back when he lived with Seokjin.
Seokjin doesn’t let him say anything, just walks in and waits for Namjoon to close the door behind him, before he starts talking. “Why are you so dramatic?”
“Um. What?” Namjoon asks, looking more and more confused the longer this all goes on. “Me? I’m dramatic?”
“Yes, you.” Seokjin waves the letters around, and Namjoon pales considerably.
“I. You weren’t. Those weren’t for you to-”
“This is the twenty-first century, you know. There’s skype and facetime and the internet. I could text you videos of myself every single day. I don’t work weekends! I could visit you at least three times a month, if you wanted. I could meet you somewhere in the middle, if you were able to. We have so many options. There are so many ways for us to be together now, even when we’re apart! Long distance relationships don’t have to be the end of the world, Namjoon, they don’t. But you left without even talking to me and I...I let you. And I shouldn’t have.”
“I’m sorry,” Namjoon says finally. His eyes are shiny. “I’m sorry I left without talking to you first. I’m sorry I broke your heart. I’m just...Seokjin, I’m sorry. I’ve regret it every day since I left.”
“Your last letter said that you probably still love me. Do you?” Seokjin can’t stop the way his voice cracks on the word you. He can’t, not when they’re finally having a conversation again, not when Namjoon looks like his heart is breaking all over again. Not when Seokjin can feel something in his chest doing the same.
“Yes,” Namjoon says finally, his voice soft and hoarse. “Yes. I don’t know how to stop.”
“What if you don’t have to stop?”
He doesn’t know who moves first. Seokjin doesn’t know who makes the first move or who reaches out first. All he knows is that he’s kissing Namjoon again, finally, after so many months of space between them. Now there’s nothing but their skin on each other’s skin and they’re kissing and maybe crying a little and Seokjin feels like every piece of him has come together again.
They’re lying in Namjoon’s bed, naked, when Namjoon finally speaks again. “I’m going to call into work tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Seokjin says. “I will too.”
Silence stretches between them, but Seokjin is done with that. They need words. If Namjoon’s letters have taught him anything, it’s that. “We’re going to have to talk about this, you know. About all of it. I want to be with you again, but we can’t unless we talk. We broke up because we didn’t, and I don’t want that to happen again.”
“I know,” Namjoon tells him. “I don’t want that to happen either. I want to talk to you about what happened, and why I broke up with you. And I’ll call you every single day. I’ll even write you a letter every day, if you want me to. I know it’s going to be hard but...you’re worth it, Seokjin. You’re more than worth it to me.”
“We need to talk, but first, I want to have sex again,” Seokjin tells him, ignoring the way his heart clenches. Namjoon just smiles at him, his eyes so warm Seokjin wants to melt into them.
“Okay, I can do that,” Namjoon says, and presses his mouth to Seokjin’s again.
Namjoon keeps his promises. They have a nice, long talk over breakfast that morning, and then they have sex again. Seokjin leaves Seoul with a light heart. He knows that he will be back.
Namjoon keeps his promises. Seokjin starts receiving letters two days later.
The first one says only this:
Dear Seokjin,
I love you.
Yours,
Namjoon