Work Text:
Namjoon found hate came easy to him. On days where the sun had long since set and his mind continued to flood over with thoughts of anguish, self loathing and disgust, hate was more comforting than anything for him.
In a world where your life was dictated by the genes you were born with, the attributes to you physically and not your character, Namjoon found it was beyond easy to slip into a dull disregard for the people around him.
When no one afforded him pity or kindness it was all he could do to force himself to showcase some kind of false empathetic emotion, to robotically rattle off words of sympathy and compassion for those who didn’t deserve it and had yet to face an unkind word for being born in the wrong skin.
Namjoon hated society simply put. They had fucked him over from the moment he was born and it had only grown worse too quickly when age, had yet to keep up to mature him, disgust did.
He was born in a purgatory.
Most hybrids could be adopted into families, given love, support, and with laws in place to assure few hybrids where abused, it worked, it was beyond ideal and the fairytale endings of days that blended into each other from their uneventfulness left Namjoon weak to his knees with need.
Most hybrids could be adopted. He couldn’t. He had come to learn that the week he was born hybrids had been divided, split up.
Rare or endangered hybrids couldn’t be sold, while average ones could. Not many hybrids were born into the first category each year and so he could only imagine the shock the government had been awarded with the news that Korea’s first koala hybrid had been born.
With the passing of new legislation however, unlike hybrids born previous to him, he couldn’t be adopted, even with his consent, instead he was shoved into a human adoption agencies with bastards who didn't know anything close to kindness or compassion and harassed him constantly on the days he didn’t shut himself out from their hateful words and piercing gazes.
He almost found it ironic that he was born a koala hybrid, one of the clingiest species in the world with no one to so much as send him a concerned glance when he would fall down and skin his knees.
Then again, no, he didn’t find it ironic because yes, of fucking course, he would crave the constant need for someone’s presence besides his own, to hold him tight, in a world where it was illegal for him to have a guardian or owner, and he was thrown into the mix of ignorant children who had never seen a koala let alone a hybrid, and found it appalling when he didn’t like to have his ears tugged on. He couldn’t even go to a proper agency that specialized in hybrids, nor could he actually be adopted because it was illegal.
He hated it all. Life, society, sometimes himself- he hated too many things for him to even consider keeping track of.
Being a koala hybrid, he did everything to defy the desperate need for companionship of some kind that would resurface once his head hit feathers.
For twenty two years he had managed to bottle it all up, choke it down so that anger and spite could erode at the sticky emotion from where it sat in the pit of his stomach.
For years he had managed to shut it out. Ice over his heart so that not much got through to him, even seeing the misjustice of his own kind.
When he was eighteen, and had finally been able to escape the humans at the orphanage he had long since forgotten many of the emotions he would feel too often when he was younger, the emotions that made tears bloom to the surface and bursts of pain to erupt in his throat, the emotions that made the label of clingy bleed through his skin so many times even for the people he hated so much, emotions that as disgusting as it was, once made him human.
He was human, half at least, but society never saw him that way and it was just too easy to let his emotions wear away when he’d yet to receive a hug to help tear down his walls.
Life was a blur for him he supposed, but not in the way he had once longed for. He woke up, went to work, then lied in bed until daybreak forced him to his feet once more.
Namjoon could successfully say, at the age of twenty-three, that he had failed. For nearly two decades he had shut out most of his emotions, but Park Jimin seemed determined to rip through the chances of him having a third anniversary before he was even half way there.
His co-worker had been obnoxious at first. Overbearing when he barely knew him, and it made his blood boil to a dangerous simmer every time the concept artist would plop down to sketch at the tablet beside him instead of at his assigned art station a few chairs over.
Namjoon hated every moment he opened his mouth because he was always anticipating something unkind, malicious, something that would sting in a new way he hadn’t felt yet.
He hated it because Jimin was everything but foul and all of his friendly ‘good morning’ and ‘your drawing is really coming along’, seemingly innocent comments, put him on edge because he knew he was trying to buy into his trust so that when he sunk his teeth into him it tore through to his heart.
Slowly but surely the warmth of his smiles seemed to reach him, thaw out the anxiety that iced over his throat and laid heavy on his chest, when he looked like he wanted to say something.
He hated that too, because he knew nothing good could come from being so vulnerable to a human who was as sly as ever to everyone but him, if his interactions with the coworkers he was friendly with where any indicator.
He hated it with all his heart, more than the harsh tugs on his ears, the bitter shoves when he would hopefully ask to play with one of his fellow orphans, or the disgusted looks he would be sent when someone caught him hugging his pillow to his chest.
He hated it more than all the unrequited heartbreak he had experienced in his life because falling for Jimin was easy, fast, and left him breathless especially when he was so kind and seemingly innocent, seeming to genuinely feel for him and slowly he found it impossible to ignore Jimin’s routine ‘good mornings’ with less than a few worded reply.
He wasn’t sure when he stopped hating Jimin, started trusting him and coming to accept that maybe he wasn’t like the children at the orphanage.
Their dynamics simply slipped together and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t pinpoint the moment he realized that it was okay to let someone in, even if it was just one human with stupidly bright smiles and enthusiastic rambles on pointless subjects.
On the other hand, Namjoon did know the exact moment he had fallen for him and only because it was right fucking now and he could feel his arms fighting to snake protectively around himself, because he was not prepared to realize that he was in love with the bastard human who seemed to be a saint, if he excused the number of times he would sketch out an obnoxious penis on his tablet screen when he would get up for a coffee break.
He had been crushing on him for a few months, he didn’t want to say he was in love, he just really liked him and he knew his koala-ie-ness was simply amplifying his emotions for the too pretty for his own good human.
At the moment, Jimin was sprawled out on his stomach on his living room floor, scrolling through his phone and humming a soft tune he didn't recognize. His feet were moving from where they were angled in the air and it was stupidly cute.
Namjoon was besides him, on the floor, because his couch was too good for Jimin and with Jimin on the floor he found it easy for him to migrate to coffee stained and yellowed carpet.
It was like any other day. For the past several months Jimin and him would visit each other at their homes, never doing anything of interest and instead simply spending their time in each others company while narrating whatever was going through their mind. It was weird. Domestic almost but the two weren’t dating so he knew better than to label it as such.
Jimin being here, by his side, normally made his heart pound heavy in his ears, instead his heart seemed oddly still, and time seemed abnormally slow as he let his eyes lazily rake over sunkissed skin and toasted hair.
Jimin looked relaxed. Like he didn’t have a care in the world and like he was perfectly content to stay in this position for the next few years, and he couldn’t say he felt any different.
It was weird having Jimin at his side so casually, but it was also nice. Really nice in the way that he wasn’t afraid of how much of himself Jimin would see because he had yet to judge him and even if he did he knew, it would only become light hearted teases, gentle nudges and fond ruffles of his hair that would always came shy of touching his ears.
With the very fact that he was so incredibly aware of Jimin, and not just him, but how considerate he was around him, and how much it meant to him. It felt like waves of steal had been crashing over him to realize that all of this wrapped up meant he was in love, which was really more obvious than it should be.
What probably horrified him the most was realizing that Jimin didn’t act much different than himself.
With Jimin, Namjoon found it easy to let himself cling to the human, hug him and hold onto him for too long because the younger never objected and often initiated the warm embraces and fond smiles. But then again, Jimin wasn’t genetically clingy, and the longer he thought about it the younger would never press himself against anyone but him.
The question continued to pang at his mind as he stared at the human who seemed oblivious to his internal turmoil.
“Jimin?” He asked slowly and the humming stopped to allow a grunt to slip past. “What are we?” The question had sounded bolder in his head but as soon as it had left his tongue it had begun to taste bitter in his mouth.
Jimin’s eyes peeled from his phone to find his own with a questioning look.
“What do you mean?” He asked. He sounded casual and yet he could hear the fear in his voice and for once he was thankful he was a hybrid to be able to pick up on it.
He repeated the question, holding Jimin’s gaze as he worried his bottom lip between his teeth.
“Well friends right? But as you were saying the other day, labels are more harmful than not and used to conform society to an ideal,” Jimin hummed lazily but his eyes remained anxious on his own. “Do you not...like the way things are?” The question came out hesitant. He forced himself to nod and Jimin sucked in a breath.
“I don’t like the label,” He started and Jimin snorted as if to say of course you don’t. “Do you like it?”
Jimin looked surprised, brown eyes wide as he processed his words, maybe even the implications of them as he slowly nodded.
“I...I suppose I don't,” Jimin swallowed and he could hear the unasked question lingering beneath the surface.
“Do...would you like to go out sometime- maybe?” He forced himself to ask and Jimin held his gaze, eyes burning through his own and for a moment he wondered if he had fisted hot coals from how sweaty his hands felt.
“We go out all the time…” Jimin spoke finally, voice leveled but he didn’t look disgusted by the question as he had begun to fear. If he didn’t know better he would say he looked hopeful even.
“I mean in a…”
He let his words die in his throat at the sight of the human nodding, brown hair bouncing in a way that settled his racing heart.
“I know Joonie…” Jimin didn’t sound like he was upset with the idea either. He sounded objective, and it did nothing to fuel his hopefulness.
“Would you uh, be my boyfriend...or something?” Namjoon forced himself to ask and he really wished Jimin would pull his bottom lip out from between his teeth because it was doing nothing for how on edge he felt nor his sanity.
“I’m happy with whatever you want us to be,” Jimin mumbled after what seemed like years and he blinked, realizing the humans cheeks were tinged pink.
“Do you want to be my boyfriend?”
Jimin nodded shyly and he could feel his lips pulling into a grin on their own accord at the look of embarrassment that had washed over his face.
“I...I want to, but I don’t want a lot to necessarily change for us...” Jimin moved to sit up. “Like I like us now...I don’t think the label friends fits though,” he nodded slowly. The two of them weren’t too platonic, far from it if he looked at it from an outside perspective. They've kissed, held hands, and all in all had zero indicators of personal space. “I’d like to kiss you more, t-touch you...and stuff...if you’re fine with it,”
“I’m fine with that,” He breathed immediately and Jimin’s lips pulled up, eyes shining happily and suddenly all the anxiousness had melted from his demeanor.
“Yeah...so, does that mean I can kiss you?” Jimin asked slowly and his heart froze at the request. Jimin never asked before, he just did it whenever the time was right, but now he was asking for seemingly no reason and he found he could only nod shakily.
Without further hesitation Jimin leaned in, pressing a warm hand to his cheek and pillowy lips to mold against his own. Jimin didn’t hold the kiss for long and after several seconds he pulled back, leaving his mind weak and heart wanting more.
He opened his eyes to find the humans eyes gentle on his own. He looked happy. Content. He could feel his emotions becoming contagious as vines of warmth enclosed around his heart.
He would have been fine with Jimin never loving him, with the two of them staying as they were, but knowing that Jimin felt the same and that his gentle touches and long gazes weren’t meant to be platonic- it made his heart sing, his throat clenched around his eyes water, because this wasn’t what he had wanted in life, it was far from it, but at the moment he couldn’t help but think that letting Jimin in, hadn’t been as bad as he had initially thought, and that now, with Jimin by his side maybe he would be able to get to the point of not being able to count how much he loved.