Work Text:
Most stories end pretty much the way they start. Something about poetic justice, things coming full circle and all that. Namjoon would definitely have something to say about that. Kneeling beside a grey chunk of stone in the rain, mud dampening his trousers and the roar of the open skies surrounding him, Yoongi closes his eyes and lets his mind teleport him back.
Eleven
The rain conspires to make them meet one rainy, grey day in June, when it feels as though the water can fill the world right to the brim.
Yoongi makes sure not to miss a single muddy pothole on the street. As much as he liked his own company, nature came a close second; after a week of drowning himself in adventure comics, he needed to be outside under the sky. And once he got outside, the water-filled potholes beckoned like a siren’s call. He imagines himself to be a protagonist in his comics, brandishing his imaginary sword at the thunder. His mother would scrub him pink and raw later, so he is determined to get as grubby as possible before then.
In the midst of his watery adventure, he spies someone behind a large boulder, a purple umbrella in the crook of his bent arm as he crouches low. The other boy appears to be observing something intently, stock-still. That boggles Yoongi’s mind-how can anyone not skip puddles on a rainy day?
“Hello,” he calls once he is close enough. Bright eyes meet his from behind glasses. Yoongi has never seen him before; this must be the boy whose mother had moved into the empty house behind theirs.
“Hello,” the boy says. He offers nothing more, and goes back to staring at the ground.
“What are you looking at?” asks Yoongi, curious.
“A frog,” says the boy. “Want to know his name?”
“Uh, sure. I’m Yoongi. Who are you?”
“I’m Namjoon. You can call me Rex. This is Nari.”
“Oh!” he breathes in excitement when he sees the emerald-green frog on a small rock near Namjoon’s feet. As he watches, the frog wiggles a little. Yoongi giggles, revealing gums that all the adults in his life coo over far too much, in his opinion. “That’s so cool!”
Namjoon sighs. He seems sad. Yoongi doesn’t understand why, so he asks.
“Because I can’t keep him safe. He’s too tiny,” Namjoon replies, offering a finger to Nari. He (she? Isn’t Nari a girl’s name? Yoongi resolves to ask Namjoon-Rex-about it later) leaps onto the offered digit, making Yoongi gasp in awe. “Will he be able to get home? What if he gets lost? What if he gets eaten, or hurt?” His voice gets progressively higher with each question.
Yoongi thinks about it. “Maybe this rock is his home.” He pats the large, wet boulder a few times. “Maybe he is home already.”
At that, Namjoon’s entire face lights up. “You,” Namjoon pauses, looking between Nari and Yoongi, beaming, “might be right!”
They bid Nari goodbye and watch the tiny creature take shelter under the boulder. Namjoon picks a droopy wildflower and leaves it with Nari for company.
“Why is your name Rex, anyway?” Yoongi asks him a little later, as he teaches Namjoon the right way to jump into a puddle for maximum splash effect.
“It’s a nickname,” says Namjoon, with all the smugness of a ten-year-old having learnt a new word and is determined to use it as much as possible in twenty four hours. “T-Rex is my favourite animal,” he adds, concentrating way too hard for a small leap.
“Cool,” smiles Yoongi. He knows what a nickname is, too, obviously. “Well,” he says, with the nonchalance of a hyung a whole year older than his new friend. “Mine is Suga.”
Namjoon giggles. Two deep craters appear in his cheeks, making Yoongi’s eyes widen. He’s never seen that happen with cheeks before.
“What’re these?” he asks curiously - attention span deliciously short as it is for boys their age - finger poking at Namjoon’s cheeks where the indents had appeared.
“Eomma says they’re called dimples,” smiles Namjoon, dimples momentarily making an appearance again. Yoongi is fascinated. “Is it because you like sweets?”
Yoongi shifts his train of thought seamlessly to match Namjoon's. “Not really,” he says. “But my cat does, so.”
Namjoon nods seriously, as if he perfectly understands.
Guiding a nervous Namjoon to another puddle, Yoongi knows they’ll be good friends.
Sixteen
“You think too much,” snorts Yoongi, regarding his friend. Said friend is seated at his desk, a heap of papers on it. He runs his hand through his hair, making it stand up in every direction.
Namjoon sighs. “This is too hard,” he groans.
“It’s really not,” points out Yoongi, flipping a page of his sketchbook. “You have a high enough GPA to pick any university you want. Pick one and be done with it.”
“It’s easy for you to say,” snaps Namjoon. Yoongi fumbles with his pencil in shock at the tone; it is not often that he has been at the receiving end of Namjoon’s anger.
“Hey,” he says, “c’mon, Joon-ah, just calm-”
“No!” Namjoon explodes. “You don’t get it! It’s easy for you, you’ve always known what you wanted. It's not a big deal to you , but I have too many decisions to make, and it's not easy! I need to look at the scholarship money, the distance from home because my mom is sick. I need to find someplace that offers both pre-med and literature, because I need a back-up track in case I fail in med. I don’t even have any other friends to talk to because I’m seen as some weirdo who talks to plants and animals a-and-”
Like a firecracker that’s suddenly been dunked in water, he goes quiet. The pause that balloons in the air between them expands and expands until-
Large, shiny tears glitter on Namjoon’s lashes, as he seems to realise belatedly that he’s yelled at his best friend. There’s something else there too, something that Yoongi had seen a few times earlier through their past decade of friendship - and frequently lately - but was too fleeting for him to comment on it.
Almost as though Namjoon is scared. But why…?
Yoongi mentally goes through Namjoon’s little tirade, and the answer is startlingly, achingly clear. But in the time it had taken him to review the situation and come to a conclusion, Namjoon’s emotions seemed to have gotten the best of him. Yoongi’s mental reviews tend to make him look frighteningly intimidating, as Namjoon had once told him. It’s like a book suddenly snapped shut in front of your nose; you’d have no idea if the end of the story would remain the same when you opened it again. As his best friend, Namjoon is the best at patiently waiting out Yoongi’s musing moments, but right now, it’s obvious he’s jumped to the worst conclusion.
That has to be rectified.
Yoongi leaps up from the bed, skidding on his socked feet. Namjoon has gone stiff, like a wooden marionette whose strings are a hair’s breadth away from being cut.
“No,” Yoongi breathes, hands hovering. “Is it okay if I hug you?”
Namjoon sighs, a small exhale of air that speaks of stress, relief and a dash of self-deprecation all in one. He is fluent in Namjoon’s sighs, so Yoongi doesn’t wait any longer. He throws his arms around his friend, squeezing. Unlike other boys their age, the two had never shied away from physical affection as they grew up, open in their fondness for each other.
Namjoon pauses for a second, then buries his head in his shoulder, trembling. Yoongi takes a deep breath. “I’m so sorry that you felt you couldn’t speak seriously with me about this stuff, and I’m sorry for assuming that you had it easy. I know how hard it is at home for you.” Yoongi tightens his grip. “It is a big deal. We’ll figure it out together, okay?”
This time, Namjoon’s sigh is more peaceful. Like a weight has rolled down his shoulders. “It’s not entirely your fault, hyung. I’m sorry too,” he mumbles. “I’m just overthinking again.”
He's right; Yoongi was usually the wave crashing on the shore, Namjoon was a small ripple in a lake. But they were both made of the same essence. “Be that as it may, what are best friends for?” He looks over at the cluttered desk. ”Is this your short-list? Where’s your notepad? Let’s make a list. You know I love lists.”
Namjoon lets out a wobbly chuckle. “Okay.”
Yoongi nods. “And you let me know who called you a weirdo. I need names.”
The laugh Namjoon lets out this time is a little louder. “You need to practice boxing somewhere else.”
“Practice is practice, and no one talks crap about my best friend,” says Yoongi, only half-joking.
Ten months later, as they stand outside their new dorm room in the university they had both, serendipitously, been accepted to, Namjoon grips Yoongi’s elbow. “Thank you, best friend,” he says. Yoongi grins, bright as the sun.
Twenty-six
Namjoon relays the news that his parents have set him up for a date with their friends’ daughter with an air of resignation and tiredness that comes with pursuing a residency in one of the nation’s leading hospitals and simultaneously dealing with his publisher about his next poetry chapbook . Yoongi accepts it in a manner befitting an ambitious urban designer-slash-architect struggling with insomnia and a creative block. Neither talks about it further.
Yoongi, for his part, certainly doesn’t address the strange sense of disquiet that hovers over him like a thundercloud for the rest of the morning.
Then, at around six in the evening, just as he’s wrapping up for the day, he gets a call.
“What?”
Silence greets him.
“Namjoon? Are you there?” asks Yoongi. “Don't you have a date to get ready for?” he can’t help but add, a little more sharply than he had intended. He just wants to go home and wallow, the six pack of beer in his fridge, fried chicken take-away and his Netflix account keeping him company.
In the second between the pause that follows his question and the deep, shuddering sob that Namjoon breathes into the phone, Yoongi has already changed his plans to include his best friend. Clearly, something’s wrong.
“My mother,” Namjoon whispers. “She...she just died. Yoongi hyung, what do I do?”
“Nothing, Joon-ah,” Yoongi shoves away from the desk, already jogging toward the eleventors. “Hyung will be there. Give me ten minutes, yeah?”
Yoongi holds his friend through his grief for the rest of the night. The girl Namjoon was supposed to meet sends a single condolence message. It goes unread.
Twenty-nine
“Why?” his father asks. “Because-”
“I know what you’re about to say,” Yoongi stops him. “Because I need to settle down soon, become mature .” He uses air quotes for that last word. His dad looks a little annoyed and a lot baffled at that. His mom just looks contemplative.
“But,” Yoongi paces, reviewing his words, trying to sound self-assured. “I’m financially stable. I am growing in a career I love. And I know what I want. Who I want. I just need to know that you’ll be happy for me too.”
The silence is deafening.
“Okay,” says his mom.
“What?” Yoongi whirls around, shocked. “Okay?”
He suddenly notices wrinkles and grey hair on her face he hadn’t noticed before. But her eyes are the same; they hold the same warmth they had when she’d patched up his skinned knees a hundred times, when she fed him mandus, pinching his cheeks and comparing him to the delicacy on his plate, when he chose an ‘unconventional’ career, when he’d announced that he didn’t really think much about girls. She smiles, and he is reminded why he’ll only ever love one woman in his life.
“Will you be happy?” she asks. “And are you sure?”
His father looks at them incredulously, but she gives him a gentle pat. He quietens, a lifetime of experience having taught him when to hand over the reins to his wife. In that moment, Yoongi loves him a little more too.
“Yes,” he answers, confident.
“Then we trust you,” she says. His father nods slowly. “Be safe. We’ll talk about this soon,” he adds.
Later, he tells Namjoon what he’d wanted to since they were both twenty and busy discovering themselves. After gathering every ounce of courage he can dredge up, he speaks honestly with his closest friend. His mother always called him her quiet wild child, impetuous and chasing after his wildest dreams while throwing caution to the winds, but doing it quietly, like a soundless forest fire. This is no different.
In the shocked stutters that Namjoon replies with, Yoongi already knows what he is going to say. He sleeps with a heavy heart that night. It feels like a rock, but it is at peace. Prepared. At least a little.
Thirty
Sitting beside his best friend in a snowy park on Christmas Eve, Yoongi realizes that he has unconsciously learnt how to speak in an entire language made up of sighs and pauses. He knows the cadence, the intonation and the timbre of every sigh Namjoon sighs. He knows exactly how heavy each pause is, and what it means.
It is a strange thing about old conversations. Sometimes, you remember the pauses in between sentences more, the sighs, even the expressions, even if you cannot see them. He remembers them all vividly, how each pause and sigh had tasted and felt. Now, Yoongi doesn’t need to look at his face to know what’s coming next. Namjoon sighs, and Yoongi grips his hand in reply.
“It’s okay,” he grins, ear to ear. “I knew I’d wait for you, even if you didn’t.”
Namjoon shakes his head in disbelief. “For a whole year? How?”
“At the risk of sounding like a sap,” replies Yoongi, “some things are worth waiting for.” He smiles. “And even if you were to never respond the way I wanted, I was honest about my own feelings, so I am at peace.”
Namjoon sighs again, sounding a little regretful. “Yeah. After all, I was always an over-thinker. I needed time to wade through all my thoughts, my emotions. But you always knew what you wanted.”
“And who I wanted. Want , still,” Yoongi smiles.
Namjoon sighs-the last for the night-and it’s a gossamer sound in the dark. This one is full of joy, and as light as the snow that drifts around them.
“Hyung,” he says, and it sounds like their favourite yakgwa, sticky with a little regret but sweet - so sweet - with the promise of the future.
Eighty-nine
“It’s been a wild ride, huh, Joon-ah?”
Yoongi caresses the old boulder where they had met so very long ago. The rain lashes down upon him in torrents. He doesn’t have to wipe away his tears; it does the job for him.
“Goodbye, Namjoon-ah,” he whispers. Suddenly, a tiny frog leaps onto the rock. It is emerald green.
It fixes him with a bug-eyed gaze and croaks.
Yoongi smiles, and the clouds above him sigh with nostalgia for two lives well-lived.