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I love you so much that I hate you
Right now, it's so hard to blame you
'Cause you're so damn beautiful
You're so damn beautiful- Easier 5SOS
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Hoseok POV
Loving him is comfortable, like a well worn pair of shoes. Your feet slide into them easily and the laces haven’t been untied in years. Loving him is like a rainy day, soothing and pleasant to look at, and afterwards everything is crisp and clear. The problem with loving him is that when you put it together, the old shoes and the rain, you get cold and wet feet. You get stained socks and a tight chest from the humidity. You get torn to shreds without even realizing it’s happening.
I don’t know when I started loving him, Namjoon has always been the one constant in my life. It was all cute, friends to lovers to whatever we are now. We met in High School, I had just moved to Seoul and so had he. Moving your sophomore year of High School is never easy so we bonded over that, we bonded over music, art, and food. I taught him how to dance and he taught me how to garden. Before you knew it, we were inseparable, went from Hoseok and Namjoon to HoseokandNamjoon, no space in between. Slowly over time we taught each other how to love, but I guess you can’t teach something you don’t know.
College went by in a blur of colors and memories, we made lifetime friends and discovered just how many packets of Ramen a person can eat without getting sick. We were still inseparable, never knowing anything but being together. I guess we took a time of self discovery and wasted it looking too closely at each other.
That leads me to where I am now. Sitting in my bedroom wondering when everything got so messed up and wondering whether I should pack a big suitcase or just an overnight bag because he needs space but I don’t know how much. I’m contemplating how someone who hasn’t spoken to me in days needs space when I heard the front door open. He shuffled into the apartment quietly, graceful even which is surprising for someone with limbs as long as his. I hear him walk to the door, hesitating, but finally turns the knob. He takes one look at the clothes scattered on the bed and the bag by my feet and his eyes well up with tears, and so do mine, God I hate seeing him cry.
“Hey” Namjoon mutters quietly, still not directly meeting my gaze.
“Where are you going?”
“I think we need some time apart” rip the bandaid off has always been my motto.
He gasps as if he was expecting a different answer and takes a seat behind me, back to me on the other side of the bed. I hear him sniffling and almost break and turn to him.
“Namjoon please don’t cry, we need space”
“We haven’t properly been together for almost a week Hobi, how much more space than that do you need?”
Just like him to know my thoughts, but he can’t change my mind, for once I know what’s best.I’m silent for a bit, not knowing what to say. He interrupts my thoughts by saying
“I think we need the opposite of space. We’ve forgotten how to be near each other, how to be kind to each other”
I turn to face him on the bed and ask
“Joon that’s just it, every time I’m near you I’m just angry, I love you so much that I hate you, and I don’t like feeling this way.”
Joon chokes out a sob knowing I’m right, knowing that we looked so hard at each other that suddenly we were looking right through each other, became blind to what’s in front of us.
When you’re young, it's easy to be in love, it’s simple. You just simply love. Once you start adding the responsibility of making a living, love fell through the cracks.
I hear him sniffle one last time and he turns to me.
“ Okay, if you need space I’ll give you space, but don’t think for a second I’m letting you go Hoseok, we belong with each other no matter what”
His words make me cry even harder and I feel his hands gently cradle my jaw, he wipes my tears and presses the softest of kisses to my forehead.
“I love you” he whispers and walks away.
Loving him is old shoes, and rain. Easy and comfortable but unstable. The rain soaked through the shoes like my tears soaked through the pillow.
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Namjoon POV
Loving him was like holding an old book, the spine cracked and the pages soft. It was a warm flame and the sun on my cheeks on a cool fall day. Loving him was beautiful.
I don’t know when we fell apart, when the thread started coming out of the spine in our book but all I know is I noticed too late. By the time I had noticed that our story was falling apart it had already been set ablaze by the all consuming flame that found a home in both of our chests.
It’s been weeks since Hobi and I had that fight and to be honest I lost hope of him coming back the second he walked out the door. He was always meant to better things than me. I was too small for him, too quiet. He was the sun and I was just a plant absorbing as much as I could before nightfall.
It was a normal night and I was walking into my house way too late, using work as a distraction to keep me from coming back to an empty apartment, and I noticed that the lights in my bedroom were on, I haven’t slept in that room since he left. I walk towards the room as quietly as possible and turn the knob, and almost fell to the ground at the sight in front of me. He came back.
“ You came back” I could hear how surprised I sounded and I’m sure he could too.
“ Of course I did, we took a break Joonie it wasn’t a break up” his face was as kind as always and I could feel my eyes begin to tear and my chest get tight with so many emotions,
“I thought you weren’t going to come back, that was the worst fight we ever had”
“I just needed space to breathe Joon, and I’m sure you did too,” he said, eyes downcast.
At his words I could feel myself getting angry but pushed it down so I wouldn’t scare him away.
“That’s the thing Hobi, you needed space to breathe but I can’t breathe without you around, it felt like half of my heart was missing”
He looked at me surprise in his face.
“Joon…”
“You know I’ve never been one to make a fuss about things that bother me but this hurt Hobi, the fact that I suffocate you hurts, and right now it’s so hard to blame you because you’re so damn beautiful and I don’t want you to leave again.”
“Joon I’m not going to leave again, I promise you, would it be easier? Probably, but all I know is every night I had to spend away from you was a night that felt like an eternity. I don’t know if this thing between us will get easier I just know that I don’t want to stop”
His words spurred me forward and I embraced him in a hug and I could breathe again, I felt warm again, I was home.
Loving him was old fraying books and fire and sun, but now it’s everything. It’s a gentle wave in a deep ocean, all consuming and traitorous but worth drowning for. Loving him from this day forward was certainly easier.