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It is clearly a dream, Seokjin tells himself as he stares agape at the silhouette at his door.
It has to be a fucking dream, it fucking has to be, because he has definitely fallen asleep all over his unfinished manuscript and right now, he is letting his subconsciousness take over the dream department in his brain. The air is cold as it breezes across the porch and lets itself inside the warm, warm house, almost making him doubt the unreality of this moment. So he does what he thinks is the most appropriate: he closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, readies himself for the pain and pinches his arm, hard. He waits for about a moment longer than necessary, only to open his eyes to the same damn scene: the silhouette leaning against the doorframe, their shoulders trembling.
“Hey.”
It’s only a breathy whisper, the kind Seokjin had been used to even just a few weeks ago and right now, it’s about all he can do to not start banging his head against the wooden door to wake himself up. But of course, his mouth has always been more proactive than his brain, so he hears himself return the greeting with guilty ears. Now the silhouette leans a little forward, almost as if seeking the warmth emanating from inside the house, and he notices the new splash of color in the otherwise shiny black mop of head. Then he lets his eyes fucking finally glide down the suited body, halting at every place the white shirt clung onto rather skillfully and inhales to realize he is breathing in his favorite cologne, mixed with the undertone of something edgily fruity.
“Were you sleeping?” Now the face presses itself against the side of the doorframe, and the living room lamp catches itself on the many curvatures and dips on the visage, making the face look all the more endearing and breathtaking. Seokjin settles his askew glasses back in position, on the bridge of his nose, and coughs to make the cobwebs of sleep retreat into their places. Fine, he is not dreaming. Or maybe he is, but it doesn’t hurt to let your mind get what it wants.
“Uh, no. I was. . . writing?”
“Oh.” Another whiff of icy cold air whispers against his cheeks and the shadow before him shudders. Almost instinctively, Seokjin is about to reach out and offer them his own throw-blanket pooled on the couch where he had been nodding off not a moment ago, but halfway up the path, his hands remember they are not supposed to do such a thing anymore, and hence they make a detour. He cards his fingers through his own soft, unruly hair and lets another moment linger by before either of them utter any word. He should ask them to come inside and sit down before hypothermia eats the shit out of them both, given that he is only in a skimpy jumper and shorts and the other is in a simple suit, but he just. . . he just can’t bring himself to. So, Kim Seokjin, a man of true charm and a killer smile, rubs his hands all over his face, huffs a little and decides to face the music already. Fuck it anyways.
“Namjoon, what are you doing here? It’s t—”
“Two in the morning? Hyung, I have a watch.” Kim Namjoon, the stranger at his doorstep, holds his left wrist up to Seokjin’s face and a little chuckle escapes his chapped lips when Seokjin moves away a bit as if expecting the Ryan watch to hit him in the eyes.
“Exactly. What do you thi—?”
“Can I come in? It’s pretty cold outside, you know, and I am way too drunk to be standing here on your porch.” Namjoon sticks his face forward, letting some more of the light from the floor lamp slant across his cheekbones and long lashes, and smiles. Smiles exactly in the manner that used to and still gets Jin’s knees a little shaky and his palms clammy with anticipation. Seokjin moves out of the way, simply out of habit, and watches Namjoon stumble inside his lonely abode, planting himself face-first on the sofa. A chuckle rumbles through the younger as he straightens himself against the furniture and finally settles down on it, all under the watchful glare of Seokjin’s.
“What are you doing here?” He asks one more time, this time steeling himself to not let emotion dance across his eyes. Seokjin has done everything he could the past few weeks to avoid running into Namjoon and all those reproachful words from Jimin’s and Hoseok’s texts seem to vanish into thin, vain air as Namjoon looks up at him, puffy red eyes open wide and the tip of his nose red. This marks as their first meeting ever since. . . since November.
“Could you sit down? Beside me? I just want to talk.”
He knows where this is going. But Seokjin is going to be lying to himself if he does not admit how much he wants to hug Namjoon right now. The man is clearly drunk out of his wits, and this vulnerable side of Namjoon’s is a rare sight that only ever surfaced when things had not been going good, and he needed reassurance from bottles of liquor and Seokjin’s kisses that he could pull himself back. Yet he could not let the last part of the deal be fulfilled; it would be unjust on both of them and the next morning Namjoon would only regret it further.
“You’re drunk, Joon. You are not supp—”
“Hyung, please.”
It almost feels like home when Namjoon climbs onto his lap and buries his head into the crook of his neck, the light stubble on his upper lip tingling the goose bumped skin, until Seokjin feels heavy, wet tears dampening the collar of his jumper. A muffled sob quakes the younger’s shoulders and purely out of instinct, he reaches out and soothingly runs his open palm down Namjoon’s back. The next thing he knows, Namjoon is a sobbing mess. He silently cries in his neck and Seokjin, utterly heartbroken at the sound, lets him, cradles him until his sobs dwindle down to sniffles and he emerges with crystals in his eyelashes. Namjoon hesitantly leaves the warm embrace of Seokjin’s arms and wipes his face on his coat sleeve, mistakenly leaving behind snotty remains. Seokjin leaves the room to get a glass of water and when he returns, he finds him stationary in his stance on the sofa, his eyes fixated on the wall clock.
“It was Sohee’s wedding today.” A silence follows Namjoon’s declaration, and Seokjin suddenly remembers how they both had planned on gifting Sohee, Namjoon’s first cousin, a bake-and-share-8-platter-set on her wedding day as a joke, simply because she loathed cooking and never failed to set the kitchen on fire whenever she tried. Seokjin had snorted his almond milk when Namjoon had explained that such traits ran rampant in his family blood, and each one of the cousins acquired different levels of ability to control their unexplainable pyrotechnics. They even had the set gift-wrapped and had placed it in the topmost shelf in their cabinet, back when planning Sohee’s wedding gift meant cuddling sessions with a laptop gracing their laps and glasses of red wine staining their lips.
“Shit, I forgot all about it.” The invite to the wedding is actually on the his table, hidden from view, incase he had had the urge to go and undoubtedly face Namjoon. Seokjin sits down on the opposite cushion on the sofa and hands him the glass of water, only for it to be cast aside on the coffee table. The moment they had just shared on the couch not minutes ago seems to have gone poof in the air when Namjoon looks up to meet Seokjin’s eyes, and the elder is hit square in his chest with the waves of emotions rolling out from the epicenter that is situated on the opposite side of the two-seater.
“Jin, I saw happily married couples there and,” he takes a deep breath before continuing, as if all of this pains way more than it should, “I couldn’t stop thinking how. . . how that could’ve been us. . . in the future.” He whispers the last words more to himself than anyone else as he looks away from Jin, his hands clutched within themselves in a tight lock, as if afraid he would flutter away if they didn’t. Jin is stock-still, not quite letting the raging emotions surface across his eyes and he does not offer the tissue box on the side table when Namjoon starts wiping tears on his coat sleeve again, his tears and snot mixing and staining the pristine material.
They are grown-ups, aren’t they? They should be better at this, better at handling the emotional mess of a blissful year and a half, and their uncalled-for separation. Not showing up at their ex’s place at two in the morning, drunk out of one’s mind in a dashing suit that compliments their still-existing upturned Dorito and make their still-moping exes want to chuck their separation out the bloody window.
“Gran asked about you when I went up to her for a dance, and hyung, I. . . I didn’t have the courage to tell her. They always liked you more, didn’t they? I couldn’t tell Ma and Dad and Geong why you weren’t there at the wedding when they asked.”
And now Seokjin really, really wanted to rewind time and slash their breakup from the script. The Kim family had embraced Seokjin with open arms, had showered the same love on him as they had on Namjoon and their attention and love had smoothed out a little bit of the painful past he had suffered. Jin understands why he could not tell them about their separation yet: the family is dead set on their probable marriage. Every past Seollal visits had subtle teasing mentions of rings and anniversaries from Namjoon’s parents over gul tteokguk, and remembering all this, Seokjin suddenly feels burdened with the guilt of hurting them. The fight is between Namjoon and him, not the quartet of loving Ilsan that regarded him as their son-in-law and maybe even more.
But how long would they hide it? How long would it be until Geong picked something up from their phone calls and decided not to be the lying daughter to their hopeful parents?
“You should te—”
“I miss you so much, hyung. Everything feels. . . empty without you there and I can’t, I can’t stand it alone. Hyung, I was so stupid to let go of you.” The living room is too quiet and Seokjin is certain the crickets outside have stopped as well. “Please, come back.” Namjoon, in his broken voice, slurs his words as he tries to sit up, still wiping at his eyes and trying not to let more tears fall. Something takes hold of Seokjin’s cerebral coordination as he watches the love of his life try to hold in his emotions, and his hands reach out to cup the younger’s rosy cheeks in his palms. He thumbs the fresh tear blossoming at the corner of his left eye, and continues reminding himself that they had broken up one November evening, when the breeze was rippling with the last of the autumn leaves and Namjoon had broken both their hearts and scattered the remains across their apartment corridor.
“Baby,” Jin coos and wipes at the other eye as he watches Namjoon’s eyes widen at the nickname, “don’t say things you’ll regret in the morning. You need to sleep the champagne off.” He presses their foreheads together, and then kisses his brow bone; a small gesture to show Namjoon that he too missed their lives entwined, missed Namjoon like a lost limb and wanted more than anything to chase away the past few weeks’ worth of loneliness by letting each other back in, but Namjoon had been clear about it all. “I’ll call in an Uber, okay? Now, drink the water, it’ll help.” Oh, his omnipresent caring conscience peeking over the headboard of the couch.
But luck seems to be out partying on its weekend as Jin continues rooting around in the app for a ride, with nothing confirming Namjoon will get back home. He waits a little more, hoping his best that someone will be at least in the preferred mile radius and show up, but yet, half an hour and an empty water bottle later, nothing floats. He is about to ask him how the hell he got here and if he still had the driver’s phone number, but Jin is met with a softly snoring Namjoon, body curled up and cheek plastered against the velveteen material of the furniture and eyes still swollen. A familiar, pained feeling of endearment washes over him at the sight, at Namjoon’s soft, unstyled burgundy mess of hair and plush lower lip jutting out in a pout. He reaches out and cards his fingers through the mess of hair and a pang reverberates in his ribcage, his nerves in his fingers jolting as they realize how they hadn’t been in close proximity with Namjoon for so damn long.
Namjoon does not stir when Seokjin scoops him up in his arms and cradles him to the bed. His chest rises and falls with even spaced whooshes of air and Jin embeds the soft halo of peace surrounding him in his memories. He gently shrugs off the jacket and the tie, because of course he knows how much Namjoon hates sleeping in his suits and plans on tossing the thing in the dry cleaner bag when he would drive out for grocery shopping in the morning. He tucks him into the bed and sits beside him for a long time, until his own eyes blur his vision with tears and he cannot help the first gasp of a sob. Clamping is hand across his mouth, Jin lets go of the dam and his body wracks with his shuddering cries, the quiet of the wintry night ruptured by his muffled sobs. He wishes he could take back everything that had led them here. He wishes they hadn’t fallen out of love like Namjoon had said. But all the wistful whispers and safe nights in each other’s arms are gone now, replaced with the cold sheets in the bed at night and clammy hands bringing up the gallery in his phone.
Maybe they can solve this, this mess they are in, but Jin can only push himself to the edge if Namjoon wants that too.
•••
It takes Namjoon more than a qualified minute to register that his mouth tastes like dog shit and the sunlight happens to be streaming inside the room from a different angle, not from his usual right. The comforter smells of Jin and something along lines of gardenia, and he snuggles his head further into the pillow, drinking in the fragrance until he realizes his bed sheets smell of the lavender spray Geong had sent from China and cigarette smoke, not what his olfactory nerves seem to be picking up at the moment.
Suddenly awake, with his head still stuck in the sleepy fog, he sits up on the bed and a rundown of last night’s film reel where his drunken impromptu decision to meet Seokjin ended him on the bed, makes his groan out loud. Fumbling around with a nail being drilled on the side of head, he realizes his suit and tie are nowhere to be seen, although his shirt is still intact around his torso and the bed on the other side is neat and arranged, as if Jin had not slept on it since forever. His eyes hurt as he tries to squint around in the blinding sunlight in search for his suit and tie, but gives up another minute later when the pounding in his head prevents him from rooting around much. His phone blinks 11:01 at him when he pulls it out of his pocket and guilt whacks him in head, for the timing is just way too inconvenient to be sleeping in on your ex’s bed, even for a lazy Sunday morning. Namjoon paces around the room to pluck up the courage to open the bedroom door and face the music before it is too late, but just as he touches the handle, the door itself creaks open and Seokjin’s head, seemingly detached from his pink jumper clad body, looks at him. All the oxygen that Namjoon had inhaled a second ago leaves his body in a whoosh and his mouth agape without words. Jin smiles at him, the one he used to pull on him quite some time ago, the reassuring one where he would squeeze his hand and tell him that everything was alright and he didn’t mind that he had slept in.
“Good morning.” The sun needs to go back sleep, Namjoon is not ready to face Seokjin. “I was going to come and wake you up, but it looks like I don’t have to.” He opens the door wider and gestures with his hand for him follow. “I made enough breakfast for the entire street. Come on, someone has to help me finish it.”
The small table is laden with bowls and platters of soups and fruits, with toasts stacked on one end. Reminiscence plunges Namjoon deep in cold water as remembers how Jin used to do the same back when he would return home with an empty flask in one hand and off-key tones rolling off his tongue.
“You didn’t have to…you know?” He seats down on the only other available chair and looks up at Jin guiltily. “I am sorry for the trouble.”
“Hey, I didn’t make all this for you. I was feeling like a big breakfast, so here we are. Now tuck in to your soup, because that headache isn’t going to disappear so soon.”
Jin seems intent on carrying a conversation, Namjoon notices as he slurps up his galbitang, and he lets himself flow with the rhythm Jin tries to set. They start on smaller, easier topics, how Sohee’s wedding went, did Jimin enjoy himself with Jeongguk at the ceremony?, Yoongi and Hoseok’s sudden Filipino holiday, and Namjoon starts genuinely smiling at the little quirks Jin exhibits as he gesticulates his part of the conversation. He almost forgets that they aren’t even together anymore as the jokes and smiles fall off their lips with easy routine, and Namjoon lets himself bask in the warmth radiating from Jin, because he realizes it is short-lived and might go off as soon as they leave the table.
Later, he helps him clear the table, the headache now languorously receding back into its horrendous lair, and as he wipes the plates that Jin pass, he wonders how they could have reached the point they did. They are synchronized with how the other reacts to every stimulus, yet they had called it off over the dead reason that they had actually fallen out of love, Namjoon being the one to initiate the dreadful conversation. The blue velvet box is still hidden in the shadows of his cabinet in the apartment they had once shared, now bared of any sign that Jin had lived there once. He watches Jin putter about the kitchen with the cutlery and cleaning the counters, his expression animated as he relates one hilarious incident with his publisher where Hyolin had called up an underground rapper instead of her new assistant recruit, and Namjoon wishes they could give themselves another chance, another honest try. But, he still does not understand why Seokjin is being like it is absolutely normal for his ex to drop by at an ungodly hour to fess up to him, and Namjoon is wholly perplexed by how natural he makes it look like.
“You should change into something comfortable before you leave, I was planning on passing by the dry cleaners today and I could drop your suit and pant there.” Jin takes off the yellow apron and hangs it on the cast-iron hook sticking out from the wall beside the kitchen window. And the scene itself is peaceful, until Namjoon decides to blurt his mind out.
“Why are doing this, all of a sudden?”
Jin halts in his tracks and seems at a loss for words as he meets Namjoon’s stare. He takes in a deep breath and smiles, and whirls around to turn the coffee mixer on, before gesturing for him sit down as he takes the opposite chair. He lets another couple of moments pass before he finally gathers up the courage to speak.
“Last night, when you came stumbling in, I realised some things. But you were drunk out of your wits and I couldn’t say them out loud in front of you, because honestly, who are we kidding, that would have been so embarrassing.” He chuckles; the deep rumble of a laugh, but Namjoon is digging his elbows into the wood and listening with rapt attention. “I thought you only came by because it would have been a, I don’t know, a good chance for you hammer at me fo—”
“Jin, I wouldn’t dream of verbally hurting you just because I drank way more than I should have.” He is certain his face looks stricken and Jin is suddenly fumbling for words to reassure him.
“Hey, hey, I didn’t mean anything like that.” He reaches out and places his hand over his, before realizing his mistake and hesitantly withdrawing. “It’s just something I assumed would be the reason you came for, because honestly we hadn’t really talked for months and it was the first thing that came to my mind. So, like I was saying, I didn’t know why you came by, and then the next thing I know, you were crying on my shoulder and saying you had…” He trails off and his eyes widen, as if finally realizing that those words could have been just said on the spur of the moment, and his shuts his mouth with finality. But Namjoon is not going let this go so easy, he is not going let this, whatever it is, slip away just because Jin did not feel like sharing anymore mid-conversation.
“What is it I had said?” He asks after seconds pass by and Jin does not elaborate further. “Hyung, you do happen to realize I was drunk out of my mind last night? Please tell me if I have said anything that hurt you. Please,” he pleads, “I need to know.”
Almost an eternity elapses before Seokjin looks up from his hand; his fingers clenched and knuckles starkly bleached against the dark burnish of the wooden table. “You said you missed me.” His timbre does not rise above the white noise streaming in through the open kitchen window, but every word he utters, reverberates a hundred times inside Namjoon’s pounding head. “You asked me to come…back.”
He is not sure if Seokjin hears it, but inside him, his heart lodges itself at his constricting throat and starts cymballing at a hundred and ten miles per minute. He feels the blood evacuate from his face, his eyes unable to look away from Jin’s and he wants to drown himself in the Chungju Lake. Because he had spoken from the deepest recesses in his heart last night, and right now, he is scared, absolutely terrified that Seokjin will calmly tell him to get over everything that they had shared in the past years and still continue to share (a hopeful example: their hearts). He knows their parting words had been the exact opposite of what he had voiced when he was inebriated, but he had spoken the truth. He did miss Seokjin, no matter how many times he had convinced himself otherwise for the sake of his own conscience, and he still loves him. Loves him from the cracked toenail on his left foot to his soft, tousled bed hair, misses every one of his insufferable jokes and loving, reassuring back hugs. But he also knows he had told Jin to move on. To let go of their shared memories and—
“And I want to. Because, believe it or not, I realized we were both stupid about it. Stupid and absolutely childish about the entire fucking ordeal. Namjoon, what we needed was a breather, not a goddamn heartbreak session.”
What?
“You only made yourself suffer more because you thought it would lead me to a better future. But what you didn’t understand with that IQ148 brain of yours is that after a total of seven years of mutual endurance, I wouldn’t just up and go because we stopped being in our honeymoon phase of the relationship. God, I was so stupid! How could I even agree with you that night?” Jin’s agitated voice reaches Namjoon through a thick mesh of emotions and a broken reel playing that night’s scene over and over again. “I let you decide what’s good for me and I didn’t even fight back. I told the others that it was a mutual separation where in reality, I now realize, you were the one orchestrating the entirety of this. You absolute dumb git, I still love you, okay? I still love you, and it hurt me every day that I let your stupid, bastardly intelligent brain decide we were over. I am so sorry that I didn’t see through that wall you built around yourself, I am so sorry, Joon-ah, I was so goddamn dense.”
Belatedly, Namjoon realizes Jin is crying in his hands, the paws of his jumper turning a shade darker as the salty tears seep through the wool. His words slowly sink in, and Namjoon wishes he could smack his past self for deciding it was best to separate instead of letting each other try their best. He reaches out, his fingers tugging the hands away from the face and he thumbs at the fresh tears pooling at the corners of each eye. Jin closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, readying himself to bear whatever Namjoon throws at him.
“You shouldn’t be sorry, you know,” Jin’s breathe hitches visibly and he is momentarily still, “It was my fault, the entire way. I shouldn’t have built those walls around me, not when you wanted to help.” The aroma of soaked coffee beans floats about them, beckoning them to talk it all out. A small smile tugs at the corner of his plush lips and Jin opens his eyes to Namjoon leaving his chair and kneeling in front of him. The clouds behind his eyes are not gloomy as much as they look guilty, and Jin lets him bury his head in his lap.
“I was scared, hyung. So scared of hurting you and making you hate me. I didn’t mean for you to hurt. I didn’t. I loved you so much and it scared me, Jin, that I was capable of letting someone break my heart because of my own mistakes. And in the past months, I realized that is exactly what I let happen.” He looks up at Jin, and softly kisses the knuckles on Jin’s hand. “I pushed you away only to realize it hurt too much. Hyung, I would give anything for a second chance with you. I would give my best this time, I promise, only if you’d agree. I wouldn’t put up my walls thi—”
Jin cups his face in his hands and pulls him out from his blubbering mess and smiles, the lingering pain slowly trying to fade behind his eyelids. Everything about this is genuine, he knows and he wouldn’t push Namjoon to break down all the barriers at once just because he thinks he wouldn’t come back otherwise. He always knew they needed nothing more than the impromptu breather and he wants to give them another try as much as Namjoon wants, but maybe this time at a slower, far more observant pace. Everything had been more or less rushed between them when they had realized that they had long since transitioned from being best friends to something a little more, and Jin wants this chance to catch up wherever on the spectrum of being more than friends they had missed while letting the world decide what course their relationship should take.
“Joon, you better stick to it, because I won’t be letting go of you the next time you pull this stunt.” He slips his fingers through Namjoon’s, locking their hands with purpose and hope, and leans down to kiss the faint mole right on Namjoon’s left cheekbone. “I want it as much as you do.”
•••
No action ever implemented while under influence is considered brave or anything to be proud of. Mostly because you are at your wit's ends while your body goes on a party brimming with intoxicants. But as another year passes by to let the crisp winter return, Namjoon falls under the blankets and slips his arm around the tapered waist. He buries his face between the shoulder blades of the one person who still manages to make him feel unhinged every time he looks at him, and he is proud of all of his drunken confessions that night. Jin shimmies back into the embrace, his own hand twining their fingers together, and rubs his chilly feet across Namjoon’s only to fill the latter’s chest with spring blossom in the middle of January.
“Finally realised you missed me slobbering attention all over you?”
“Oh shut up, I missed the bed.”
“Well then, what is the thing cosying up to me?” Jin turns around in his arms, the lights from the window casting a soft glow on his features and presses a chaste kiss on his lips. Namjoon chases his lips eagerly only to be given another slow kiss and their arms tighten around each other as they continue kissing idly, fatigue and sorrows of the day washed away by the minute ripples of affection rolling off one another.
They talk more now. The walls are still there, but they both had shifted around a few of the bricks from the foundation so that each could at least slip their hand in through the gap and both boys had something to hold onto. The bridge that had pushed back on them is slowly being pulled apart, bit by bit, and the love is still as strong as forever. The blue box is empty now, the ring softly glinting on Jin’s hand under the streetlights when their fingers entwine for warmth, and their eyes flicker down to it, only for a smile to emerge on their lips. The new apartment has an overhanging balcony with a nice view of the little park, where, amongst the pot plants and the pair of wicker chairs, Jin plans on fucking each other’s brains out as the public below is effectively scandalized. The family gatherings and their friends are now buzzing with delightful plans for the eventual nuptial and the honeymoon (both of them are planning on sneaking away on a road trip to Seonyudo just so no one knows), and Namjoon feels a sense of contentment finally nudging into him. Namjoon learns to keep holding on, and with his help, Jin learns to let go of some of his traumatic past. They still struggle on difficult days, but the hand through the gap slots together, and some of the pain is alleviated through kisses, tears and Chinese takeouts.
They are working through it all, step by step, and as Namjoon wakes up each morning to a drooling Jin pressed against his collarbone, his heart swells with pride and bliss. There are days when he fears waking up from it all and realising the reunion had only been a figment of his overactive imagination, but then he feels Jin's fingers rubbing circles on his knuckles, and it grounds him. It pulls him back from his insecure thoughts and places him right beside Jin, who looks at him and knows. Knows that they had been lucky enough to be given a second chance at everything, and neither is going to let their past ruin this. As they say, mistakes have the power to turn you into something better than ever before.
la fin