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it wasn't easy to be grown up. what did it even mean to be grown up? to know how to do taxes? pay bills? have a degree? was growing up just an excuse for kids to get their hands on every candy they weren't able to get because mum will find out! put it away quick! or was it for adults to reach into the very core of a child to tell them life gets more miserable as you grow up, 18 is where it all goes down the drain.
namjoon, for one, didn't know. he moved from ilsan to seoul to chase after his dreams, to be heard, for the kids like him to know life does get better - might not be completely ideal - but it's something to look forward to. and somewhere along the way, he turned 22, surrounded by people that also wanted to be heard. it's not easy to adjust to new places, often getting homesick, wishing he was hearing his mother humming a tune as she cooked instead of the sound of blaring horns and angry drivers with road rage. but sometimes he calls her and stays on the line, can hear her faint humming as she cooks dinner while namjoon reads a book for a small moment of reprieve.
so when rainy days end, the sun that shines down its warmth on wet concrete is a breath of fresh air. the rain tapping on his window ceased as a light breeze flowed in and the sun peeked through the blinds. on days like these, he likes to think about what it was like to a child, it's funny to him, how people just forget what they were once like. so beaten down into what they were needed for to remember what was once important to them. days at the beach turned to days at the studio, he knew the younger him would turn his nose at him in disdain, wondering how he could sit in one place for so long when the sun was out and there were puddles to jump into.
but he's grown up now, he has no time to jump into puddles because he feels like it, his shoes will get dirty.
sometime later when the sun was winding down behind skyscrapers, a knock on namjoon’s door pulled him out of his disinterested daze - he wasn’t that productive today despite how he started his morning.
“come in.” he breathes out as he saves his draft and looks back at the head peeking through the door.
namjoon feels his insides melt a little as he sees hoseok walk into his studio, today hadn’t been that eventful for him either he guesses. hoseok’s shoulders are slightly slumped in a way that tells namjoon he needs a distraction (sometimes working for your dreams has a way of biting your ass).
“wanna go to the pier?” hoseok suggests, shrugging his shoulders lightly as if to come off nonchalant but namjoon knows him too well.
namjoon doesn’t really ponder and figures the two-hour train ride is worth it, he doesn’t think either of them wants to be in the studio for a while.
“yeah, i don’t mind.” namjoon responds as he reaches for his jacket draped over the back of his chair.
when they arrive, the sun is well beyond the horizon and the sky is blanketed in stars. namjoon sits at the end of the pier with hoseok beside him, their beer cans separating them as they sit in silence. the sound of the tide rolling in and out softly felt cathartic, the lingering heat of summer sun with a light breeze that ripples through their clothes.
he feels younger, somehow.
falling in love with hoseok when he moved from ilsan to seoul wasn’t the plan, but he was glad he did. a hand over his own pulled him out of his reverie, he seems to be spacing out a lot today. it’s something summer does to him, like he’s turning over a new leaf and piecing together the new and old into something that feels like his youth and a little more like him today. namjoon isn’t old but he’s… grown up he reckons.
“remember a time where you were happy?” hoseok asks, his head a little fuzzy from the buzz alcohol gives him, namjoon is the same across from him where he sits on the pier as the waves continue to roll in and out and their cans in between them sit, half-empty and empty.
namjoon wouldn’t say he’s sad or well, displeased. he’s quite happy which he voices out to hoseok.
“well, i’m happy now.”
he rolls out the kink in his neck slightly before he looks from the water to hoseok, already looking at him with fondness in his eyes, the same kind of love he looks at him with in the mornings, when he knocks over something yet again and when he’s in his element watering his bonsais.
and then, hoseok smiles at the younger and namjoon feels his heart expand a little. the feeling in his lungs are real, he’s real, hoseok is real, what they have with each other is real and that’s good. that makes him happy and it feels more than enough. at least more than it had been these past few days that flew by in torrential rain and salad days.
“i’m happy as well.”