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“Ah, Namjoon-ssi - I see they gave you someone to balance out the scale!”
Namjoon’s heard this, or something very similar, more times than he can count in the span of a very short time, and he’s still not sure if they’re referring to Taehyung’s beauty to balance out his own homely looks or his brainiac tendencies to balance someone they assume must be simple because of said extreme good looks.
In all honesty, when Namjoon was handed the file on his soon-to-be-spouse, he also thought there must be some kind of mistake. Kim Taehyung was too pretty, too young, and too - happy? - to be stuck with Namjoon.
“There’s one they couldn’t hide,” one of Namjoon’s coworkers snidely remarks when they see Taehyung come into the office, dropping off the lunch he’d made for Namjoon and Namjoon stupidly forgotten, not used to such niceties or even eating lunch most days.
Namjoon clears his throat and the guy apologizes quickly, scampering off down the hall, and if he was sure of the guy’s name, maybe he would say something, but to who? He’s supposed to be the boss.
“Hello, husband,” Taehyung says happily, dropping the lunch with a kiss to the top of Namjoon’s head. He blushes; their kisses are almost all from Taehyung to Namjoon, and mostly on his head or occasionally, his cheek.
Today, Taehyung’s wearing flare bell bottoms in green with a button down tucked in and tie. Little slide on loafers over his painted toe nails. He sticks to pants when outside of their apartment, but Taehyung never blends in all the same.
“You didn’t need to bring this all the way here,” Namjoon says quietly while accepting it all the same.
“Oh.” Taehyung shifts from one foot to the other. “I shouldn't have come.”
He looks down at his feet, biting his lip. Taehyung doesn’t work and won’t ever be given a job. It was unlikely before they were matched together, but especially now that he’s Namjoon’s spouse, he will never be assigned one.
“No, Taehyung, it’s fine.” Namjoon had to stamp out the use of honorifics after their commitment ceremony. It still feels strange to think of him familiarly though. “You are always welcome to stop by. Please.”
Taehyung bites his lip to nod, but Namjoon can see his natural boyouacy is gone from when he walked in the door. “Hey, instead of you cooking tonight again, why don’t we go out?” Namjoon suggests, hand on Taehyung’s back. Has to tell himself to put it there.
Taehyung brightens enough that it’s worth it; he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to dine out much before, and if it’s one of the things Namjoon can offer his husband, then he’ll take Taehyung out every night.
“Hyung!” Taehyung squeals. One of the women in Namjoon’s office startles at the noise, knee cracking on the underside of the table. “What should I wear?”
His question is genuine, Namjoon can tell, but he can’t tell if it’s a test. If Taehyung would come in a dress. “Whatever you want is fine,” Namjoon assures him even if that’s not the truth. Namjoon didn’t go through everything he went through to be scared of taking his government-appointed husband out in a dress.
Namjoon takes him to one of the places that is supposed to be romantic. High end food with a scenic overlook at the top of a building, not unlike the one Namjoon works in and one that they both moved into after they were married. Taehyung continues to look starry eyed, hangs off Namjoon’s arm so no one will doubt his place at the establishment. He does not wear a dress; he wears plaid printed wide trousers with a matching blazer. It compliments the rich blue of Namjoon’s navy suit.
There are orange hair clips in his hair though, criss crossed over each other above his ear.
They sparkle.
Taehyung came to Namjoon with his wardrobe of wonders; he wonders where Taehyung got the things he wears. They wouldn’t have been issued, nor would he have had the money to buy them for himself. Now, he can. Namjoon’s told him he can go out shopping and use his name anywhere.
So far, the only charge on his account has been at an art supply store, but Namjoon hasn’t seen said evidence of that purchase yet.
Because of his job, Namjoon is more often at work than at home, but Taehyung never seems to mind. Always his sunny self, often laid out in front of their floor-to-ceiling windows when Namjoon comes home, day or night. Under the sun, Taehyung’s eyelashes are washed out and almost blonde. Under the moon, Taehyung’s skin looks almost silver. He’s usually there to greet him despite the lack of schedule Namjoon keeps, and if he’s not there, he’s in the bathtub usually, water often run cold by the time he finds his husband there. Asleep. As if that’s not dangerous.
Taehyung laughed when he mentioned it; “That’d be ridiculous, hyung. People don’t drown in the bathtub because they fall asleep. I’d just wake up as soon as water hit my nose.”
But Namjoon worries about Taehyung, alone in their apartment. Not just because of napping in water. He worries about Taehyung lighting something on fire, possibly an even worse cook than he, and he worries about someone trying to follow him in through the lobby because it’s a high profile building that scammers and the like try to enter frequently.
Taehyung never seems worried about any of these things. He wasn’t worried when it was his turn to marry a stranger in what is considered a high profile match, both due to Namjoon’s status but their joint status as a same-sex couple. One of the first recognized and mandated ones in the history of their government.
Namjoon had never said the words out loud to anyone in his life; when it came down from higher up that he should be married, he looked and looked and looked over the forms, but couldn’t bring himself to write down anything in the spaces left open for preferences. Silly things like age or height included, but it was assumed that it would be a woman.
So Namjoon just wrote male down in every open spot on the form.
He thought that might be the end of his career. Instead, he got the same package that everyone receives on the day a match is made, and had a photo of a boy on the front. It wasn’t the government issued portraits either - this one was clearly taken by Taehyung himself, too close and too blurry to see what his future spouse would really look like.
There was so much of Taehyung’s hair in the frame that Namjoon wasn’t sure at first glance; it wasn’t until he flipped open the information packet that he realized that he indeed was engaged to another man and his wishes had been honored.
He’s ashamed to admit that on the first night they spent together and Taehyung pranced into their bedroom for the first time, dressed in a long black sheer nightgown that was a dress - yes, definitely a dress - that Namjoon wondered if the agency was playing a trick on him. They wanted to make fun of the fairies so they sent him a husband in a dress.
But then Namjoon watched Taehyung unpack his things and saw too many dresses for it to be a prank. No one would have put that much effort into it, and Taehyung clearly adored everything he hung up and folded. Things that Namjoon has never seen another living person wear before - a bonnet appeared in his apartment at some point.
Everything on Namjoon’s side of the closet is a suit. Navy and black. Some white button downs. They’re all solid colors. Well, there’s one pink item now, but it was from a laundry incident before Namjoon requested Taehyung let the cleaners take their items for laundering. Taehyung had pouted about it - cutely - but acquiesced.
Because he’s always good natured about everything. He puts on his sundress and sunhat to sit outside on their balcony, because Namjoon stupidly asked if he was going out like that, and Taehyung, although a little crest fallen, had reassured him he was just sitting outside.
He was clearly not planning to just sit outside.
He feels the weight of representing not only himself and his agency, but also same-sex marriage. When they go to work related functions, Taehyung always asks what Namjoon would like him to say, do, wear. Never bothered when Namjoon fumbles his way through his thoughts. He tries not to be a dick and tell Taehyung what to do, but he then makes sure to gently steer Taehyung from some of the worst people at events. For Taehyung’s sake.
Where did he come from? Namjoon didn’t think people like Taehyung existed. Thought they were all squashed down by adulthood. Chewed up like Namjoon.
Taehyung laughs when Namjoon asks him this out loud. “I’m just a simple country boy, hyung.”
But Namjoon grew up in the suburbs, and he never saw anyone like Tae in the city or the farm lands.
“If I could take you abroad,” Namjoon says, asks. He’s nervous to ask out loud even. Taehyung looks up at him, wide eyed. International travel hasn’t been legal since before they were born. “If you could go, would you?”
There’s no point in imagining this scenario. There’s no such thing as a vacation abroad. Anyone who makes it out, makes it out and never comes back.
But Taehyung - other boys like Taehyung who like to wear dresses and are so pretty - they should be able to do that every day. Some other countries supposedly are like that. Welcoming. Supposedly.
As is, Taehyung barely gets away with his brightly colored suits and hair that is too long to be fashionable for a man, even if it’s way too short to be fashionable for a woman as well. He is afforded more freedoms now, as Namjoon’s husband, and Namjoon takes some comfort in that.
“What did you think your husband would be like?” Taehyung asks him one night. They’ve been married for six months now.
“I didn’t think I’d have a husband, Tae.” Namjoon loves calling him Tae. Feels like he’s in a real relationship now. It took so little time in the grand scheme of things for his husband to shoulder down his walls.
Taehyung laughs. “What, you would have just married some woman?”
“No. Yes.” Namjoon sighs. “Dunno. I was always glad to be told who to marry. In countries where they choose - I just couldn’t imagine it. I didn’t think I’d ever meet someone I liked enough to marry, and if I did - what are the chances they’d like me back enough?”
Taehyung sits up in the tub. Namjoon is almost used to his nudity now. Almost. “If we had been able to meet - ”
Namjoon imagines it. Imagines Taehyung walking down the street in his eye catching outfit, looking so confident that Namjoon would never be able to approach him, except serendipitous forces knock them together when Namjoon opens a door right in Taehyung's chest and they flail, grabbing each other for balance. His mom used to watch reruns of old television episodes like that.
“I would have liked you,” Taehyung says, smiling so sweetly. Namjoon has to flee the bathroom so he can calm his heart. He’s only recently taken to sitting on the side of the tub sometimes while Taehyung bathes.
They wouldn’t have been able to hide that one, someone once said about Taehyung. As in - had they forced him to marry a woman for god and country, no one would have been fooled. The marriage would be a visible sham but - every marriage is arranged now. People still read and watch old movies about romantic marriages outside of an arrangement. They’re all aware that their own marriages would be a sham in light of other stories, other countries, but it’s these new same sex marriages that people turn their noses up at.
Namjoon knew he was gay when he was pretty young, all things considered. It wasn’t talked about, certainly never depicted in any of the stories given to him, but he knew by the time he was twelve and had kissed his first school yard crush. When he was sent away for it, outed by documentation from teachers, his high IQ saved him and put him into a gifted track that ultimately landed him where he was.
Had he not been a good test taker, Namjoon wouldn’t be allowed to be gay. He would have stayed where he was, been assigned a college degree and later job, and ultimately, a wife. Instead, he was lucky enough to mean something to the same people who could have cared nothing for him. Do care nothing for him. Because of his so-called intellect, he got the government clearing and was allowed this.
A chance.
Taehyung.
Taehyung would have not been allowed a husband if not matched with someone like Namjoon. There are a couple of other men out there like him - up high enough and willing to be watched and talked about - but they were mostly a decade older than Namjoon. One of them was even allowed to dissolve his first marriage with his wife. But - Namjoon can’t stand to think about what Taehyung might have been forced to be even in those marriages with those other men. Would they have respected him with his dresses? Would they have let Taehyung sit with his crossed legs and colored lips, or would they have required him to stand at attention when they entered the room?
Kim Taehyung becomes a celebrity in his own right; not allowed to work, but people recognize his face on the streets. He means something now; Namjoon hopes he means something to young kids out there, watching for changes in their government. When they attend the galas and the fundraisers, Namjoon holds Taehyung close to him so no one can mistake it for friendly touching.
Their kisses are still slow. Hesitant.
For a long time.
Namjoon wasn’t afforded the luxury of a boyfriend - just a husband. He has no idea what he’s doing, has no idea if Taehyung really knows what he’s doing either. They kiss and they hold each other and Taehyung is more than comfortable in his bare skin when they do those things too. Happy to writhe against Namjoon, moving from sultry to cute and back again in a heartbeat.
“Joon-ah. Hyung.” Taehyung traces over his chest with a pout on his face. Namjoon doesn’t feel all that comfortable walking around shirtless, but for Tae he does it. “Will you fuck me? Eventually?”
Namjoon squeezes Taehyung’s arms as he sits up in bed. Their marital bed. For - marital stuff. There’s a sweat on the back of his neck that wasn’t there a moment ago. “Tae-ah. I told you - I promised you I’d give you anything you want, didn’t I?”
It’s the least he can do for this boy who gives him everything that has meaning.
Namjoon doesn’t have expectations for sex, courtesey of all those years of believing he’d be forced to marry someone who he might develop some sort of feelings for, but never attraction. Always felt bad for his imaginary future wife too. Now, he fumbles his way through explorations with Tae, quickly discovering that he prefers to give pleasure than receive it, but whatever Taehyung wants, Namjoon will give him.
The other man clearly loves to be held down; any time Namjoon uses his larger stature to crowd the other in or hold him up, Taehyung bites his lip with a smile, and it’s the only time Namjoon ever sees that specific smile. Namjoon would be lying if he didn’t admit how much he likes it too; used to hate all the physical tests he was required to perform, the mandatory hours spent in the gym every week, but now they’ve at least given him this.
The first time they attempt to fuck with Taehyung held up against the wall in Namjoon’s arms is the first time he notices the other with a limp and wincing. Namjoon is distraught about it.
“I can’t believe I hurt you. Why didn’t you say?”
Taehyung laughs. “I liked it, hyung. The pain wasn’t bad. I like it when I can really feel it for a couple days after.”
Namjoon can’t imagine that - liking pain, but he’s always been a coward. Did everything in his power to avoid any kind of active military duty when he was accepted into the program. Others in his branch look down on him for what he did in the service, but they’re all still his subordinates now. Technically.
“Did you always think so little of yourself?” Taehyung asks, frowning. Namjoon isn’t sure why he’s asking - he was just talking about his bonsai. His bonsai doesn’t think so little of him. He thinks. Suspects. It’s alive, after all, and he’s had it for years now.
“Namjoon-ssi, your wife is here,” one of his men says one afternoon.
“My husband?” Namjoon corrects, craning his neck to look down the hall for Taehyung.
“He’s - he’s wearing a dress,” the guy says dryly. But also, Namjoon can hear the confusion under it, and he also feels bad for this man that he thinks about the world so little that he’s stumped by a man in a dress.
It’s actually not a dress; it’s a corduroy mini skirt that looks like a light wash denim skirt. Namjoon helped Tae pick it out recently. He’s wearing a cute and oversized sweater with it, Chelsea booties on his feet that they special ordered. He’s braided a silk scarf around the front of his head and through the back of his hair.
He smells like a cake.
“Did you need something, or did you just come in to tease me? And my coworkers?” Namjoon asks, fingers splayed out over Taehyung’s waist. It’s so small. How can a waist be cute?
“Hyung, you wanted to go for a ride today,” he says so sweetly.
“And you’re going to be comfortable on the back of my bike in this?” Namjoon gives the skirt a gentle tug. Taehyung rocks forward on the toes of his boots and bends as if to whisper something, but all he does is latch onto his earlobe.
Namjoon’s face bursts into flames, thankful they’re in the privacy of his office.
They go out for a ride on his bicycle because that’s what Taehyung wants, happy to be propped up behind Namjoon and clutching at his waist. His bare legs are almost wrapped around his lap the way he sits; smooth and hairless, almost polished looking. Namjoon swings the bike from side to side in the park, almost like they’re swinging from a tree. It’s a comforting motion.
Taehyung wants to be seen, and Namjoon sees him.
“You once asked about going somewhere,” Taehyung says in a hushed tone, head on top of his crossed arms on top of Namjoon’s chest. “Leaving here. Do you want to do that?”
It’s a loaded question, certainly. Is his husband asking if Namjoon wants to flee the country? Is he harmlessly asking Namjoon for a trip, perhaps anywhere, even just out of the city? Is he asking if Namjoon dreams of a different world where he doesn’t constantly worry about his husband’s safety?
“Do you want to leave?”
Taehyung shrugs. “I can’t really imagine it. Besides, I’m so much happier than I ever thought I’d be.”
Taehyung is the sort of person who can be happy anywhere. He’s happy here in this penthouse apartment acting a part of socialite, but he was just as happy before to live on a farm and share a single room with three other siblings. He’s happy with Namjoon, but did Namjoon ever do anything to make him happy?
In the spring, Namjoon rents a boat and paddles them down the river so that Taehyung can drape himself across the length of it in a white lacy dress and prop a matching lace parasol above his precious head. He dramatically drapes a hand over the side so his fingers skim the surface of the water. That night, he has vague tan lines of a lace pattern down his thigh.
Namjoon might hate himself, but he lets himself trace the lines with his tongue.
Taehyung still doesn’t really ask for things for himself, but they’ve been married for almost three years when a new file is dropped on their doorstep. Namjoon wishes he had been the one to receive it, but as such he comes home one night to see the file torn apart on their dining room table, little scraps of it cut out.
On their fridge, a photo of a baby.
“Hyung, look!” Taehyung says excitedly. “It’s our daughter!”
A girl, of course, because Namjoon is sure no gay couple will be given a son. He wasn’t sure this day would come, but isn’t surprised either. An insinuation had been made back at the start of all of this, before their own commitment service. Couples are arranged for one reason only, after all, and fail to do your duty and you might be remarried. Fail to do your duty as a parent when it’s time and they might take your child off your hands.
And give them to Namjoon. He wonders if Taehyung read between the lines in that folder. If he knows where this child comes from. More likely than not, it’s probably from a situation not so different from what Taehyung grew up in, those kinds of households becoming fewer and fewer. Maybe he knows and doesn’t care. Taehyung is a natural caregiver. Will be a wonderful parent. Namjoon doesn’t have to worry about the wellbeing of a child in their home. They’ll be given everything they need for the baby, but Namjoon has no doubt that Taehyung will scrap most of it to build out their nursery himself.
“Tae. Tae, are you sure?” Namjoon asks. Has to. “Once we have this, that’s it.” We’ll be in their back pocket forever. There will be no getting out. All this time he’s spent trying to stay afloat, trying to prove his life meant something, and technically, he’s being given everything everyone else has. Technically, he’s been successful.
It doesn’t feel like it.
He supposes everything will feel like a test forever.
“This is her, hyung. Look at her! She has your dimples!” Taehyung says, tracing the lines in the photo. The infant in it looks fresh - no more than a week or two old. Wrinkly, with no other characteristics, but Taehyung sees dimples.
They name her Hajoon before she arrives to their arms via military escort. Taehyung’s left a lot of their home up to standard code because of the possibility of visitors, but the nursery he prepares is all color. Not pastel, but bright and saturated. He spends most of his waking hours with her rocking in the old fashioned rocking chair that Namjoon had to hunt for, but it was one of the few things his husband’s requested, so he commissioned one be made from a nervous man out in the farmland.
It rocking back and forth barely makes a sound. Everything is too new, too replaceable. Namjoon in his head makes the creaking noise for the chair. Likes to watch the shadow of it from his home office.
“My pretty girl,” Taehyung coos, lifting their daughter up high in the air from the safety of their balcony. Ever since she’s arrived, Namjoon frets about Tae going out again. He’s taken to wearing dresses daily, sometimes matching subtly to Hajoon, but gone is the fierce love and pride Namjoon grew into. Now, everything seems especially tenuous and terrifying.
He begs Taehyung to stay in their apartment. Keep the doors locked, every deadbolt on, until a precise time. He promises to come home at the same time every night. Don’t open the door otherwise. Taehyung does, because when has he ever denied Namjoon, but their marriage feels like - something else now. Less theirs than ever before, even in the early days.
“Why are you so scared?” Taehyung asks, wrapped up in a shawl in bed with him. His fingers trace out the wrinkles growing in his forehead.
“You know, before us there were only four same sex marriages. Do you know how many after?”
Taehyung shakes his head.
“Eleven more. Just fifteen total. Spread out over two years, and then they were done with it. Half of those marriages were dissolved, Tae.”
“Yaebo. No one will separate us. Remember when you used to ask me to run away with you to another country?” he whispers.
“If I could send you and Hajoon away, I would.”
“You wouldn’t come with us?” Taehyung tugs at his earlobe, tries to get Namjoon to look him in the eye. “When will you give yourself the things you want?”
Hajoon is two, going on three, when they go to war. It’s been on the horizon for so long that it felt like they were at war already until they actually were. Namjoon is told to say his goodbyes in between a morning meeting and a welcome dinner that same night; he won’t need to bring anything from home with him, everything he needs will be provided.
If he goes home right now, he knows Hajoon will be lining her stuffed animals up along the floor of her room so they can watch her perform. Taehyung will either be rocking in his chair or drawing while he listens.
Namjoon doesn’t go home. Taehyung will assume he wasn’t given the chance.
Because of his skill set, Namjoon is sent to a bunker high up in the mountains. He doesn’t go outside. Doesn’t feel or see the sun and moon for weeks at a time. He’s allowed correspondence, and Taehyung constantly writes to him, sends pictures of Hajoon with missing teeth and blue lips from berries. The pictures are always of her, always close up. It fails to show much of anything, and Taehyung’s long letters are filled of nothing but niceties.
Fifteen months after he left, he’s allowed a short break to go home. When he gets to the city, it’s the same even if it looks different. People don’t linger out on the streets anymore, not after the first airborne illness. Those up high enough never leave their bunkers in the country, now a place for the wealthy and the poor have all been driven into the city.
Taehyung never told him they weren’t in the same place, the same high rise, but when he gets there, it’s clear he won’t be, or god, he hopes his family isn’t there. People are camped out in the lobby, in the hallways. Most of the apartment doors are left open for people to come and go. In his old home, Namjoon finds it’s one of the few units left empty. Glass on the floor and a few children’s toys.
Over their bedroom door are painted words: SORRY NAMJOON HAD TO GO.
Taehyung’s last letter arrived three months prior. They had slowed down over time, but Namjoon always assumed it had more to do with how they reached him than anything on Taehyung’s part.
He’s only been given a week off. It’s not long enough to track them down, and no matter how long he looks, he can’t find any clues in the apartment. If presented the chance, he’s sure Taehyung would have fled the country, but would he have been able to do it on his own? With a young child? And how on earth is he supposed to know which country he would have chosen, assuming he had a choice? Sure, they used to have clandestine whispers about it, but they never let themselves dream that far. Never picked a place.
Namjoon felt defeated when he was sent away as a child. He felt defeated when he was the only man his age in his department unmarried and they would all speculate why. He felt defeated when they declared war in his department first, then publicly second.
Now, he lies down in his military uniform in the dusty lobby among a few other people to stare out into the streets. It’s not particularly safe where they are, hence most of the building’s population spread out onto other floors, but from here Namjoon can imagine Taehyung and Hajoon exiting. Were there still doors when they left, or was it the gaping hole there now?
A kid shuffles up to Namjoon; he’s all of fifteen, sixteen, and one side of his face is textured, as if marked by fire or the pox that went around. He expects him to ask Namjoon what he’s doing there or if he’s got something to eat. What he doesn’t expect is for the kid to mutely hand off a roll of dirty paper.
It’s an address. Oh god - it’s an address written in glittery blue pen.
Before Namjoon can thank the kid, he’s shuffled off down the hall. He can still hear his footsteps, so Namjoon runs after him, removing his military jacket and throwing it around the threadbear shoulders of his tee.
If he were to bide his time a little longer, go back and pretend to do only his job, he’d have more time to make it easier for himself, but as is Namjoon doesn’t wait. He swaps out cash for goods where people still want cash, and he swaps out pieces of clothing here and there with people who need the warmer items enough to risk wearing the insignia on them.
The address isn’t out of the country, it’s just in the country. The country country - farmlands. It makes sense that Taehyung fled home, to the soil he was from. Everyone wants to return home eventually. It’s close to the border though - close enough it makes Namjoon scared witless to think of his child and soft husband there among all the hidden traps that line the perimeter. The countryside was originally less attacked for population reasons, but now those same principles don’t hold up, even if the war is being fought mostly through technology at this point.
The act of finding someone willing to drive him out there isn’t so hard. It’s hard to force his feet to walk up the loose dirt road though, dropped off about five miles away for his own reasons.
There’s a long and straight road. On one side, railroad tracks - unused, looks like - and on the other, a field of barley that comes up to Namjoon’s hip almost. At the end of the road is an old house, particularly large but run down looking. There’s a clothing line draped out one of the windows and what looks like a mangy dog in front of the door.
The canned goods in his bag clink together as he walks; it sounds like the creaking he used to imagine in his head for the rocking chair. It was nowhere to be found in the apartment, most likely taken apart for the wood. He keeps his eyes on the door, expecting for someone to see him coming and barge out. Maybe with a gun. Maybe it’s the wrong place, or maybe Taehyung isn’t even here anymore.
He doesn’t see a figure stand from the field. Dressed in all white lace, even if it’s a little dingy and torn. A smaller figure in a cream bonnet. They emerge bare foot, trailing behind his receding back.
“...Hyung?”
It’s so soft.
Namjoon gives himself a moment. One moment to remember what Tae looked like last he saw them.
When he turns, his husband looks in many ways the same. Same dress even, one he couldn’t part with perhaps because he told Namjoon he pretended it was his wedding dress, but a thinner look to his face. A wide streak of grey in his curly hair shocks Namjoon for some reason.
Beside him, Hajoon stands quietly, looking between her parents, even if she most likely doesn’t remember one.
There’s a creaking - this time, Namjoon isn’t imagining it. It’s soft too. Creak, creak, creak. Slower than his heart beat.
“You got your swing,” Namjoon says.
Taehyung cranes his neck, a smile starting. “In the back. I’m the only one who uses it.”
Namjoon smiles, crouches down. “Hi, baby.”
Hajoon looks up at Taehyung. “Let’s go say hi to appa,” he says, gently guiding her forward.
The house didn’t come empty. There are other people his family lives with - a man who’s not much younger than Taehyung but looks like a kid still, big eyed and shy smile who is so good with Hajoon. A few men older than Namjoon who were prominent enough to work in creative fields and give Taehyung the outlet he always needed. A sweet cherub of a person who soothes Namjoon’s fears on his darker days.
Namjoon wasn’t prepared for a life on the land. Fortunately, his husband in his smocks and dresses was. No one comes looking for Namjoon yet, and he’s confident once the war is over no one will. It’ll be different.
