Chapter Text
so sweetly, like a lie, i walked with you in my dream.
Namjoon remembers.
Most people don’t, but Namjoon does. Snippets of lives past, dreams of different worlds. They come to him in dreams, in moments when his surroundings blur and fade into the past, or in sudden, brief remembrances. Sometimes he’ll be reading a book when he remembers watching the queen release pigeons in the courtyard of a Mughal palace. He dreams of tying so many threads on a machine that his fingers bleed in turn of the century England. Once, he’s sitting in a cafe when everything goes blurry, and with each blink he uses to clear his eyes, things change. The metal tables turn into wooden benches; the sofa in the center becomes a marble fountain. Instead of jeans and t-shirts, the people wear robes and turbans. For a moment, just a moment, he’s a server in an Ottoman coffeehouse.
He loses time and focus during these moments. It’s easy to forget who he is when he’s been everything. He even catches a thought one day of a solitary life spent standing at the riverbank as a tree. So brief are his recollections that they feel more like dreams than past lives, and he rarely catches any concrete details. In the beginning, he only had dreams; his parents dismissed them, pegged them on an active imagination. When the hallucinations started, they took him to a psychiatrist. Since then, he has learned to keep his mouth shut and understand that most people don’t know what it feels like to have the weight of a thousand lives on your shoulders.
Layers upon layers of lives are stacked in his mind, and like a color coded file cabinet he keeps them organized with what he has of each. It took him a while to figure out how to keep things straight, and now it’s become a practice of meditation. The life as a tree is green; the coffeehouse is a deep, chocolate brown. One life is red because he only remembers a searing fire and the scent of burning flesh.
Rarely, he recalls details with an alarming strength. He remembers being a potter once, so clearly that even now he has a knack for the art. He had an older sister in another life. Seolhee, with silky black hair and an infectious giggle, who died at seventeen of a fever that left her shaking and crying from visions. That was eight centuries ago in the Goryeo Dynasty, but he still wakes up some days with an ache in his chest at the thought of her.
And three lifetimes ago, Namjoon remembers falling in love.
Nothing else from that particular life remains. Not where he lived or his name or what he did. But he remains. His laugh, sweet and bubbling. His eyes, sparkling, that crinkled when he smiled. And the feeling of being in love—he can’t forget that. Like he’s floating, like anything is possible. Like his entire being depends on someone who matters much more than himself. It’s the best feeling, and the worst.
He might have forgotten everything else but he’ll never forget him.
---
Hoseok cards his hands through his hair with a frustration not bred of anger. Sunlight filters through the window to bathe him in a soft glow and turn the ends of his hair golden. “He’s fucking perfect,” he says, a look of wonder in his eyes and an awed, surprised sort of smile tugging at his lips.
Namjoon knows what love looks like.
“Oh, yeah?” Namjoon answers, fondly.
“Yeah,” Hoseok breathes, eyes drifting shut. “He’s—I can’t explain it. I’ve never met anyone like him in my life.”
“I know. Never seen you this damn whipped.” But he’s only teasing.
“Shut up.” Hoseok laughs.
“So when are you gonna ask him out, huh?”
“Tomorrow. After work.” Nervousness is etched into the lines of his forehead. “He teaches the little kids’ hip hop dance class, I told you that, right? We always get done at the same time.”
“Take him somewhere nice, not those shitty places you’re always at.”
“I’m gonna take him to the nicest place I know.”
“You really are whipped.”
“Fuck,” he mumbles. “What if he says no, Namjoon, what if I weird him out or—”
“You’ve never been this afraid of people turning you down before.”
“That’s cause no one’s ever mattered before.”
Namjoon has known Hoseok since they were young enough to think girls had cooties, and he has never been much into the idea of relationships. He’s a hit with guys and girls both, but anything beyond casual sex has never interested him. Never once has Namjoon seen Hoseok so hung up over anyone. Never once has he seen Hoseok nervous.
“You ever been in love, Namjoon?”
He answers thoughtlessly. “Yes.”
Hoseok’s brows raise. He mustn’t have realized what he was asking, because Hoseok knows very well that Namjoon has never fallen for anyone seriously. But Hoseok doesn’t question him, perhaps registering the way Namjoon’s face closes off.
For a moment Hoseok waits, and then he says, “It’s the best feeling. And the worst.”
Namjoon smiles. He’s thought that countless times. “Bring him over if you’re so serious, yeah? I wanna see how amazing he is in person.”
“You won’t be disappointed.” Hoseok laughs breathlessly. “He’s perfect.”
“You mentioned.”
“Hey, I’m serious.”
“I know. I get it.”
If anyone gets it, he gets it.
---
Every year on the anniversary of Seolhee’s death, Namjoon travels to a forgotten field in North Jeolla that was once home to a quiet village. The village is long gone, as are its inhabitants, but when he nears Jeonju, the memories start to flit in and out of his mind. Most of them are of Seolhee. Time has swallowed up all markers of her grave but on the outskirts of the city Seolhee would know only as Wansan-ju, Namjoon remembers. If someone were to ask where he was going he would have no answer, yet his feet carry him to the field where he and his family buried Seolhee with surety.
There he cleans sticks and leaves from the ground, bowing and offering food. Though he is no longer religious, he prays, because Seolhee is of a different time, and when he is with her, so is he. He sits and collects his thoughts, has Jeonju bibimbap in the city, and then he leaves.
Instead of going straight home when he returns to Seoul, he stops by Yongsun and Byulyi’s apartment. It’s one of those days where the past is overwhelming and his fragile hold on himself wavers. Caught between what was and what is, Namjoon feels lost. So he seeks comfort with Yongsun, the only other person who remembers.
Yongsun has a better sense of her lives than Namjoon does. Not only does she remember more, her approach toward her past is more clinical. She has learned to separate herself from her memories and focus only on the present. They first met five lifetimes ago when she lived in his village during the Joseon Dynasty. He has known her, and Byulyi by default, in every lifetime since. Byulyi and Yongsun have one of those loves that lasts through every life—soulmates, some people would call them.
Yongsun has a mug of hot cocoa already waiting for him when he gets there. He always feels at home in their apartment, cute and cozy and littered with knickknacks. She pats the sofa next to her, tossing a knitted blanket covered in cats onto his lap.
“You don’t look so good,” she says.
He leans his head back and closes his eyes. “It’s like I’m caught in this never ending state of nostalgia.” A longing ache for time that will never return. Every minute that passes feels like losing something when he is so aware of how the present will turn into memories.
“Seolhee unnie died eight hundred years ago and you still visit her grave. You’re making yourself nostalgic.”
“I can’t help that some memories are so strong.”
“You’ve got to separate yourself. How will you look forward when you’re always looking back?”
“You think I don’t know that, noona?” He already finds it hard enough to focus on the present. He doesn’t know how to center himself when the memories of the past tell him everything he does now won’t matter at all in the next life.
“I think you’re not trying hard enough.” Namjoon glances away, frowning, and Yongsun takes his hand. “You’re only going to end up hurting yourself.”
---
Namjoon meets him a week later.
They stop by on their way to their date because Hoseok, in his nervousness, forgets his wallet. Namjoon steps out of his room at the sound of voices to find him, hovering shyly by the door until Hoseok beckons him inside. He’s dressed to kill. That’s what Namjoon notices first. Dark blue sweater, slim black jeans, shiny boots, and a trenchcoat to top it off. Namjoon starts to smile, ready to crack a joke about how Hoseok possibly caught a guy like this when all he ever wears are sweats and beanies, when he looks, really looks, at the shy stranger in their apartment.
The empty glass of coffee in Namjoon’s hands falls.
He doesn’t even move to catch it. He’s too busy taking in the wide smile and crinkling eyes. He knows those eyes. He’s dreamed about them for three lifetimes.
“This is Jimin,” Hoseok says, but Namjoon hardly hears him. There’s a roaring, rushing noise in his ears. His head feels light. “Jimin, this is Namjoon. He breaks three glasses a day.”
Jimin. This time his name’s Jimin. Jimin bows in greeting and Namjoon returns it automatically, distractedly. Hoseok’s voice has brought him back to his senses. He picks up the mug, thankfully unbroken, and places it on the counter with shaking hands.
Hoseok’s in love. He has been talking about Jimin, perfect Park Jimin from the dance studio, for weeks. Namjoon has never seen him so in love before, never seen him in love at all, really, never seen him give anyone more than a few nights. But this boy standing in front of him is no stranger to Namjoon. He’s been waiting for him for so long he barely remembers what it’s like to have the empty space inside him filled.
“You go to K-ARTS, too, right?” Jimin is saying, his voice distant to Namjoon’s ears. He finds himself nodding. Jimin’s voice is light, airy; Namjoon wants to hear him sing. “What are you majoring in?”
“Music composition.” He’s not even sure how he’s speaking. He just keeps staring, fixated on Jimin’s face and the eyes he has only ever seen in his dreams.
Jimin stares back, tilting his head like a curious puppy before he says, “You look familiar.”
Namjoon can’t breathe.
“Got it.” Hoseok emerges from his room, waving his wallet triumphantly. “You guys getting along?” His arm slips around Jimin’s waist so easily.
Namjoon feels sick.
“I’ve gotta go,” he mumbles, and rushes to the door without looking back.
He doesn’t know where he’s going. The way passes in a haze. Maybe it isn’t him, he thinks, maybe he just wants it to be. He’s been thinking about him so much lately that his mind is playing tricks, confusing coincidence for reality.
They say you can see a person’s soul through their eyes. Through lifetimes where appearances change completely, Namjoon recognizes people by their eyes—because their bodies might change, but their souls remain the same. That’s how he recognized Yongsun and one of his teachers, who was his neighbor in his last life.
And that’s how he knows Jimin. He may play at doubt to comfort himself, but in his heart the truth is undeniable. Jimin is the one he’s been looking for.
And if he is, then it’s over. Namjoon will never have him again. He tries to tell himself he’s being dramatic—it’s just a date, after all, not as if they’re getting married. They might decide they aren’t for each other, and then Namjoon can get to know Jimin and—he stops himself there. It’s silly, and it’s selfish. How can he wish for his best friend’s relationship not to work out, especially when he knows how much Hoseok cares? Were it any other time, Namjoon would have no problem fessing up to Hoseok and asking him to back off because Hoseok is never invested in the people he brings home. But this time it’s different. This time Hoseok is in love.
And Namjoon can’t get in the way of that.
---
“So.” Jimin clears his throat awkwardly. He stands across the kitchen counter from Namjoon while Hoseok makes coffee.
Three weeks have passed since their first date, and Namjoon has been avoiding Jimin like the plague. He cancels plans with Hoseok if he knows Jimin is involved and comes home so late he starts to feel sick from lack of sleep. It’s another matter that he can’t sleep even when he tries, because when he does he dreams about Jimin and wakes up feeling sick from guilt instead. It doesn’t help that, for some strange reason, Hoseok and Jimin really want them all to hang out together. So far he’s managed to avoid that—at least until now, when he made the mistake of coming home between classes to find them already there.
“How are classes going?” Jimin offers.
“Fine.” He fiddles with his phone, pretending he doesn’t see Jimin’s face fall.
“Namjoon’s been working on this big assignment for his production class,” Hoseok says, placing their coffee mugs in front of them. “He’s in the studio all night, basically.”
“That’s rough. I get like that when I’ve got a dance solo coming up, too.”
Hoseok is a naturally touchy person, and with Jimin he’s even worse. So when he comes to stand by him, he wraps his arm around Jimin’s waist immediately. “When do you find out the dates for the next one, anyway?”
“Next week.” He takes a sip of coffee and smiles up at Hoseok. “It’s good.”
Hoseok swoops down and kisses Jimin’s cheek. Jimin flushes immediately, shooting a glance at Namjoon. Namjoon’s stomach rolls. Hoseok asks Jimin something. Namjoon isn’t listening; he’s too busy tracking the way the red spreads down to Jimin’s collarbones. In the middle of Jimin’s answer Hoseok kisses his nose. Jimin pushes him away halfheartedly with a hand to his chest; Hoseok takes the hand and intertwines their fingers.
“You guys are gross,” Namjoon says, trying for a lighthearted tone. He pours his coffee into a to-go cup. “I gotta go. Don’t fuck on the couch.”
He walks out the door to Jimin’s flustered objections and Hoseok’s no promises!
Namjoon was seven when his parents first took him to the psychiatrist for his hallucinations. The news spread around school pretty quickly. Teachers whispered about it with each other until students overheard and convoluted the story.
I heard he’s crazy.
Don’t crazy people always turn into serial killers or something?
He ate lunch alone every day and spent recess hiding from the older boys who thought it was funny to trip him and watch his glasses go flying. Even now he remembers clearly Hoseok’s sunshine smile the first day he sat next to him at lunch. Wanna play video games after school? For a long time, Hoseok was his only friend.
He was sixteen when his parents kicked him out of the house for telling them he wanted to pursue music. For three months he stayed with Hoseok, where he was treated like family, until Namjoon’s own parents finally brought him home.
A friend like Hoseok doesn’t come around every lifetime. Namjoon won’t let him go for anything.
It’s just his luck that he runs into Jimin again that evening, coming out of a classroom. Jimin waves, calling, “Hyung!”
Namjoon nods and keeps on walking, even when Jimin starts to talk. “Gotta go.”
He feels guilty as soon as he turns his back on Jimin, but it’s better this way, he reasons. Keep his distance and it won’t hurt so much. But his plan backfires, because when he gets home that night Hoseok is waiting for him.
“Hey. Why are you being such an asshole to Jimin?”
The guilt weighs him down. His shoulders slump. “I’m not—I—”
“He’s really sensitive. He thinks you hate him or something.” Hoseok hesitates. “It kind of seems like you do.”
“It’s nothing like that. I’ve just—the song for my production class is kicking my butt and I haven’t been sleeping all that well and—I’m tired. That’s all.” When Hoseok doesn’t answer, he adds, “I’m sorry if I’ve come off that way. I’ll make it up to him.”
Finally, Hoseok nods. “I figured you were just stressed.”
Namjoon is working in one of the school’s studios a few nights later when someone knocks softly on the door. He calls for them to enter, and when Jimin steps just inside the doorway, Namjoon is so surprised he fumbles the pencil he holds.
“Am I bothering you?” Jimin shifts from one foot to the other, a plastic bag clutched tightly in both hands.
“Uh—no—I mean, of course not.”
“Hoseok hyung said you’ve been staying in the studio really late these days and he’s worried that you aren’t eating and I was here dancing and I figured you still were too so I thought I’d bring you some food and—I hope I’m not bothering you,” he finishes his breathless explanation lamely, glancing at his feet.
Namjoon pats the empty chair beside him and tries to look less intimidating. “I was really hungry. Thanks, Jimin.”
After that he makes an effort to avoid him less, and Jimin jumps on the encouragement. He texts him cute stickers, finds him at school, wanders into his room to talk when he’s over. A day comes when Jimin stops by the apartment while Hoseok is at work.
“Hoseok’s not here.”
“I came to see you,” Jimin says, cheerful and woefully ignorant.
Jimin becomes a permanent fixture in Namjoon’s life. He comes over for dinner, joins them at the gym, brings them snacks when they’re stuck in the recording studio at school. Namjoon feels like an awkward third wheel around them, but for some reason they like having him around.
He hates being around.
He hates seeing them together. Although Jimin seems shy about public affection, Hoseok has no qualms. He can’t go two seconds without touching Jimin—rubbing his back, nuzzling his hair. And the way he looks at Jimin, like he’s everything, like no one else is even worth glancing at. Every time Namjoon sees the way Hoseok looks at Jimin, he is reminded of why he’s fighting his feelings. Why he’s alone.
Sometimes watching them makes Namjoon sick to his stomach from want. He would give anything to have what they have. He would give anything to hold Jimin without a care, just to look at him without worrying about being obvious. And once Jimin starts to consider them friends, it becomes even more difficult to hide. The first time Jimin calls him Joonie hyung he wants to curl up into a ball and disappear because it’s too hard, living like this.
It doesn’t help that Jimin really is fucking perfect. Sure, he looks in the mirror too much and gets upset if Hoseok doesn’t call him every day, but he’s thoughtful and hardworking and kind of selfless and Namjoon starts to realize that the memory of love cannot hold a candle to the feeling of really being in love.
Because he falls in love with Jimin more and more every day. With the laugh he flings his entire body into, eyes squeezed shut. With his mischievous side, which surfaces now and then to tease them mercilessly. With the hardworking nature that traps him in the practice room even later than Namjoon. And with his kindness, how he’s always looking out for everyone but himself.
Before, Namjoon loved a memory; now, he loves Jimin. He finds it makes things so much harder.
---
He comes home late one night to an extra pair of shoes by the door giving away Jimin’s presence. The living room and kitchen are empty, so he tiptoes to his room in the hopes of avoiding him. But as he passes Hoseok’s room, he hears it—a soft moan, too high to be Hoseok’s. Namjoon flushes, stumbling. It’s followed by another one, longer, more wrecked. His body heats up so fast he starts to sweat. He has a sick, desperate wish to stay and listen, to hate himself because he’s not the one causing Jimin to make those sounds. For a brief, helpless moment he wonders—would he be able to steal Jimin away if he tried?
He runs. Forgets his coat. Shoves his shoes on and doesn’t tie the laces. Down the stairs, down the street, he doesn’t care where. He ends up at a pojangmacha, where he sits in a corner of the plastic tent at a rickety table and orders too many bottles of soju. He drinks to forget but instead he can’t stop thinking about it. Can’t stop thinking about who Jimin would choose if it came down to it, if he tried and if he succeeded and he knows Jimin thinks he’s attractive, he knows it. Maybe he would leave Hoseok for Namjoon if he knew how Namjoon felt.
He drinks until he’s crying, slamming his fist into the table. “I’m such a fucking asshole, such a fucking asshole,” he says it, over and over and over again to chase away his cruel thoughts until someone’s wrapping their arms around him and saying his name.
He wakes up in Yongsun and Byulyi’s apartment and doesn’t remember how he got there. They’re both tiptoeing around him like he’s fragile and he hates it. Yongsun has a bowl of haejangguk waiting for his hangover and won’t let him leave until he drinks it.
“Namjoon, you’ve got to get yourself together,” she says. He doesn’t look up. “Namjoon.” She reaches across the counter and takes his face between her hands, forcing him to look at her. “We may be born again, but we are not impermanent. Don’t let your past lives interfere with this one.”
Jimin is, thankfully, gone when he returns. Hoseok’s face melts into one of worry when he sees the state Namjoon’s in.
“Hey, are you okay?”
His kindness makes Namjoon feel worse. He doesn’t deserve it. He brushes him off and locks his door and curls up under his covers. Night falls; he dresses well, fixes his hair, and leaves.
Namjoon kisses a stranger in an Itaewon club and goes home with him, seeking comfort in the arms of another, but he leaves emptier than before. So the next night he goes back and gets in a fight instead. This time he really does find solace in the crack of a fist against his jaw, in blurring vision and the taste of blood. Each blow he receives feels like retribution, every blow given like salvation.
By the time they get kicked out and the other man scurries off after spitting at Namjoon’s feet, Namjoon is already worse for wear. He can’t go home and face Hoseok looking like this; he definitely can’t go to Yongsun. Somehow he chooses the worst option of all—he stumbles into the dance building of their university, walking past empty practice rooms, looking for someone he knows will be there even though it’s too late to be stuck at school.
He finds Jimin in the middle of a dance, dripping with so much sweat his tank top sticks to his skin. Watching him roll through moves, practicing his facial expressions, doesn’t help anything. Still, Namjoon leans in the doorjamb like a masochist. The song ends and Jimin sees him reflected in the mirror. His eyes widen. He rushes to Namjoon with an exclamation.
“What happened to you?” He reaches as if to touch Namjoon’s face but draws back last minute. “You got in a fight.” His tone is slightly accusatory.
“Not on purpose,” he lies, fishing for Jimin’s sympathy.
“Should I call Hoseok?” Jimin pushes Namjoon inside, sitting him on the cold floor, his gaze traveling over the cuts and bruises on his face.
“Don’t call Hoseok,” he says quickly. “I don’t want to worry him.”
“There’s a first aid kit in here, hold on.” He rummages through the supply closet and comes out with a box.
Namjoon shouldn’t be here. It’s not too late to leave. But he lets Jimin clean the cut on his lip with an alcohol swab and dab ointment on his bruises, frowning in concern. Namjoon can’t look away from him. The upset curve of his lips, his furrowed brow. He knows it’s making Jimin uncomfortable, can see the pink dusting his cheeks.
“What?” Jimin finally asks.
“Nothing.” He closes his eyes but Jimin is burned onto the backs of his eyelids. “I’m sorry.”
“You know,” Jimin says quietly, “You really do look familiar. Think we’ve met before?”
Namjoon laughs. It breaks off in a strangled noise.
Jimin takes it for physical pain. “You should go home and rest.”
“I don’t want to go home.”
Something in his tone must alert Jimin to a greater problem because he reaches out and brushes strands of hair from Namjoon’s forehead. “Tell me what’s wrong, hyung.”
It’s so hard to resist when he speaks with such sweetness. Namjoon wishes he could tell him about how he’s lost and hopeless and half of it is because of him, but he can’t, so he just smiles. “I’ll be fine, Jiminie.”
He does go home, eventually. Hoseok is already asleep, but he sees the state of Namjoon’s face in the morning. Namjoon tells him he got in a fight and that should be all; they’ve both gotten in plenty of drunken fights before. But Hoseok knows Namjoon. He knows it’s not just a fight. And when Namjoon shrugs him off, he yells, what the fuck’s wrong with you these days, huh?
He spends most of the day smoking on a bench outside the university, too weary to attend classes but unwilling to face Hoseok. Hoseok isn’t home when he gets back that night.
His ceiling holds no answers but Namjoon stares at it anyway until minutes turn into hours and sleep remains elusive. It’s much nearer to dawn than it should be when Hoseok peeks into his room, quiet and hesitant.
“Namjoonie? Are you awake?”
“Yeah.”
Hoseok slips into the covers next to him. The bed is too small for the both of them, and they shift and bump into each other until they settle, Hoseok’s nose pressed into his shoulder and his arm flung across Namjoon’s waist.
“Did you have a nightmare?” Namjoon asks.
“Nah.”
Silence settles over them, a comforting weight. Namjoon knows Hoseok worries about him but can’t find the words to ask him what’s wrong. Unlike Hoseok, Namjoon has never been good at expressing his feelings, and Hoseok understands that.
Enough time passes that Namjoon starts to think Hoseok has fallen asleep when he speaks. “Remember when we were thirteen and tried to sneak into that club in Hongdae? To see that rapper we were obsessed with back then—ah, I don’t even remember his name.”
Namjoon smiles. “Remember how the bouncer who caught us tried to lecture us about the importance of school?”
“And you started debating it so I kicked him in the shin and ran.”
“You almost got us killed, asshole.”
“We made it out, didn’t we?”
“Barely.” Namjoon laughs a little. Sometimes he gets so caught up in the memories of past lives that he forgets about this one. “Man, we had a lot of dreams back then.”
“We still do.”
“Only I’m not naïve enough to think they’ll come true anymore.”
Hoseok sits up abruptly, nearly elbowing Namjoon in the face. “Don’t say that.”
“We’ll never really get what we want.”
“Yes, we will. I know we will. Look at you, Namjoon, you’re one of the best production students in the university. If you’re not going places no one is.”
Namjoon snorts quietly. “Thanks.”
“Is that why you’ve been so down?” Even though he can’t see Hoseok’s face in the dark, Namjoon can picture his troubled expression perfectly. The crease between his furrowed brows, the stubborn set of his mouth.
“You know that song I’ve been working on all semester? I failed the assignment. Professor said it wasn’t genuine.”
“Everyone fails assignments. That doesn’t mean shit.”
“It must mean something.”
“It means you try something different next time. You try harder. Anyway, art is subjective, grades are bullshit.”
“Thanks, Mr. Nonconformist.”
“I mean it.”
He passes a hand over his face, ashamed of the way his voice trembles when he answers. “Sometimes I feel like everything is hopeless. Every effort I make leads to nothing.”
“I know.” Hoseok settles back down beside him, clutching the hem of his shirt. “Sometimes I feel like that, too.”
“What’s the point of trying if you’ll never get what you want?”
“Well. Sometimes what you want isn’t what you need, you know? Maybe you won’t get what you want, you’ll get something better. Or maybe what you want will come around later, in a way you weren’t expecting. Just because it’s not working out now doesn’t mean it never will.”
Namjoon feels like the biggest piece of shit in the world because he’s lying next to Hoseok thinking about Jimin. He curls into him, resting his cheek on Hoseok’s head. I’m sorry. “Yeah. Maybe you’re right.”
---
Namjoon is very well aware of the truth of the phrase “nothing lasts forever.” So when Jimin announces he’s leaving, Namjoon thinks it must have been inevitable.
Hoseok comes home one night, crying. Jimin’s mother is sick and his family is struggling financially; his father needs help caring for Jimin’s mother and younger siblings. So he’s transferring to Busan Arts where he can live at home and watch over things for a while. I don’t do long distance relationships, he tells Hoseok. We can make it work, Hoseok says, but Jimin is adamant. And Namjoon thinks a part of Hoseok knows it’s better this way, too, because neither of them are ready for such commitment.
So even though it hurts, Hoseok lets go.
Namjoon is too caught up comforting Hoseok to dwell on how he feels himself. The news doesn’t quite hit him until Jimin knocks on the door two days before he leaves.
“Hoseok isn’t here,” Namjoon says automatically.
“I came to see you. To say goodbye.” He rubs the back of his head. His face is drawn, dark circles prominent beneath his tired eyes. He may have been the one set on breaking up, but Namjoon thinks Jimin might be taking this harder than anyone.
“Come in.”
“No, it’s okay. I just—just want to get it over with.” He’s looking at his feet.
“Oh.”
“Hurts.” He looks up, laughs without humor. “Saying goodbye to everyone.”
“How’s your mom?”
He shrugs. “She needs me.”
“Yeah.”
“Well.” He steps forward and wraps his arms around Namjoon. Namjoon hugs him back, resting his cheek on his head and clutching his shirt so tight his fingers turn white. Jimin is warm and smells like coffee and soap and Namjoon can feel his heart breaking. He’s losing him again. “Stay in touch, yeah?” His voice cracks, and Namjoon holds him tighter.
“Yeah.”
It’s a cruel irony. Jimin and Hoseok aren’t together anymore but Namjoon still can’t have him. He will have to comfort himself with the memory of this embrace, all he’ll ever have of Jimin, for the rest of his life. Maybe the next one, too.
Jimin pulls away first. The emptiness in Namjoon threatens to swallow him whole. “I gotta go now. Finish packing.”
It doesn’t make him feel any better to see that Jimin’s crying, that at least he cares about Namjoon enough to shed tears. “Yeah.”
Jimin steps back, shoving his hands in his pockets, reluctance written all over his face. He hesitates, like he’s steeling himself. Then he nods. “Goodbye, Joonie hyung.”
He smiles, one last time, the big one that shines brighter than the sun. Namjoon knows he’ll be dreaming about it for days. Jimin doesn’t look back as he walks away.