Chapter Text
Namjoon was not actually a morning kind of creature. In any other situation, he would snore right through the alarm and keep his eyes closed until noon. But the sun hadn’t risen yet when he felt around in the dark for his phone – pausing only to tug a silky ear from under his own arm – and dismiss the notification before it even had a chance to go off. Then, all there was to do was crawl out of bed, open the curtains, do a stretch or two to limber up, and bound into the day!
Namjoon padded quietly from room to room, making sure to open all the blinds and ventilate their small apartment after a stuffy night. That was important. A crisp draught slid across his face, and he remembered how Seokjin hated the cold. He pulled it in then, leaving a small crack for the vital circulation of air before hurrying back to his room to put on clothes that would permit him entrance into the cafe downstairs. He had learned several weeks ago that pants were, apparently, mandatory.
The bleary-eyed barista did not return his cheerful greeting, but that did not deter Namjoon from taking the steps back up two at a time. He tried not to slam the door too loudly while closing it with his foot, nearly dropped the coffees when he tripped over his own discarded sneakers, but managed to make it safely down the corridor where he turned the doorknob more carefully and quietly than any other action he had performed so far that morning.
All was dark and still in Seokjin’s bedroom. Namjoon listened in the doorway for a few moments, his senses picking up soft, measured breathing and the pleasant smell of soap. Seokjin had a habit of showering last thing at night, saying he didn’t want any outside dirt on his bed. Namjoon self-congratulated himself for remembering this as he crouched down several deliberate centimetres away after placing the takeaway cup on the bedside table.
“Hyung,” he said in a low voice. “Jin-hyung, wake up.”
He watched the blanketed lump before him start to shift. A tousled head eventually appeared, and Namjoon’s tail began to wag when Seokijn blinked and squinted at the digital clock on the wall.
“Namjoon-ah. It’s not even. 5:30. Yet.”
“I know, I let you sleep in!”
Seokjin stared at him balefully, then sighed and pushed back the covers. The front of his pyjama top dipped as he pulled himself into a hunched sitting position, briefly revealing smooth skin over sharp clavicle. Seokjin grabbed the coffee and pulled his knees up to his chest, grumbling something about the unfairness of it all because only an unforgivable reprobate would get angry at a golden, and the view vanished. Namjoon’s tail flopped limply to the floor.
Seokjin immediately looked stricken. “No, that’s not what I meant! You’re right, it’s time to get up. Just give me 10 minutes and then we’ll get going.”
Namjoon had manners, so he waited closer to the front door than the bathroom one. And when Seokjin finally emerged also in “proper clothes”, he had also prepared water bottles for them both.
There were fewer things better than jogging silently through a slowly waking city, past shops rolling up their aluminium gates and stop lights that blinked at nearly nobody. Soon they escaped the buildings entirely, paved street morphing into a gravel path leading them to a park hidden amongst the highrises. It was spacious enough to host a green field speckled with wildflowers which they reached just as the sun gained its full strength, nothing else in the sky to prevent its radiance beaming down upon the world. Namjoon could swear a halo had lit up around Seokjin, setting the jaunty bounce of his dark hair aglow as he kept running.
This was his favourite time. All of this put together – the quiet and the flowers and the sun on Seokjin – filled Namjoon’s soul with some unspeakable, incredible joy that could only be expressed properly with a burst of speed. He surged ahead to the sound of Seokjin’s surprised laughter and only felt a fleeting regret at the “Namjoon, wait!” calling from behind him.
The field curved up into a little hill, and Namjoon attacked it with his feet, sending flecks of dirt flying around his ankles. He reached the top but that did nothing to expend his energy. Seokjin finally caught up to him a minute later, gasping lightly at the exertion of the run that easily melted into laughter again at the sight of a very tall man wriggling around in the grass.
“Silly dog,” Seokjin said with a flop to the ground, although he stayed firmly on his butt. Disappointing, but not surprising. “You can do your own laundry for all those stains.”
Namjoon rolled over. “I always do my fair share! And on time!”
Seokjin snorted. The skin on his neck glistened, and more sweat beaded down his temple when he tilted his head back to drink from the water bottle. He emanated warmth and grace and effortless perfection, somehow simultaneously so enchanting and down to earth, especially when he blinked a little too hard and wiped the shine off his cheek with an unceremonious shrug of his shirt sleeve. “Come on,” he said to the still-sprawled and thunderstruck Namjoon, unknowing of his effect upon him. “I’ve got to be on standby in like, an hour and a half.”
It was nearly 7:10 when Seokjin, now much drier and looking smart in a crisp pink button-up and dark slacks, crouched to put on his shoes. “Stop sulking,” he said to Namjoon, who was slumped beside Seokjin’s backpack on the bench and therefore taking up all the space. “I’m on gate duty this morning. Liam already said that he was going to wait right at the front so he could be the first to say hi to me.”
“He’s a turtle! Your other kids are going to outrun him easily.”
“I mean, maybe his parents can just grease his little shell and slide him down the street and onto campus.” He stood up, swinging the backpack onto his shoulder. Now fully straightened, he leaned over to give Namjoon’s hair a playfully condescending ruffle. “Come on, you have work to do, too! And you get to do it while lounging around this amazingly comfortable apartment, thanks to me.”
“What do you mean? If it were left to you, this place would look like a showroom. The decoration is all me.”
“Yes, the paintings are very nice,” Seokjin conceded graciously, “and the bookshelves make us look very grown-up. You can’t sit on them, though. Which is why my sofa wins.” He sighed. “Great, now you’re making me want to trade places. You can deal with little whiny Inez and how she gives up after writing a single sentence to flop over her chair like she has no bones. What do you say, Namjoonie? Want to take charge of 24 easily distracted nine-and-ten-year-olds for seven hours with almost no breaks?”
The sofa was indeed looking so very comfy, and gosh, commissions had probably piled up over the weekend so Namjoon really had to get on them. Seokjin smirked as he opened the door. “See? Now, don’t have a bad day!”
“I always do when you’re not around.”
Seokjin froze in the entranceway, ears reddening before he huffed. “That’s literally every day, and because I am a lame-ass hermit I never go out, so you can’t even say I’m not around.”
“Yeah, and I can still miss you!”
Seokjin opened his mouth to argue further, thought better of it, and then cut Namjoon – who couldn’t help flashing overly-innocent dimples up at him – a reproachful side-eye before giving a very firm goodbye and shutting the door. Namjoon bolted to the window and didn’t leave it until he saw a pink-shirted figure hurry across the street and down into the subway entrance.
Miraculously, he managed to finish a significant amount of copy during those four lonely hours until Hoseok came knocking at the door. “Go wash your hands,” he declared, striding past Namjoon to plop two large compostable takeout boxes on the kitchen counter.
It was amazing what a world of difference lunch with a friend made. Namjoon chowed down on a steak wrap while Hoseok, who had flexible hours as a personal shopper at a luxury retail chain, ranted away about the weirdest requests from his snooty high-end clients, not recognising the great irony where he exhibited similar qualities on his fashion-focused social media accounts. When it came to companionship, however, Hoseok was anything but snobby. He always made sure to check in on Namjoon regularly, and didn’t even complain when little blond hairs ended up on his expensive black jackets.
After doing the dishes, they decided to walk off the heavy meal. Within three minutes, Namjoon already felt the profound effect on his mood. He stretched his legs, twisted his shoulders, and glanced around with unabashed curiosity at other people taking advantage of the fine weather on their own lunch breaks. Hoseok had no love for bugs and pollen so instead of the rambling country park, they stuck to a professionally pruned one in between the office buildings. Namjoon didn’t mind. Outside was outside was outside! With the soles of his shoes sufficiently warmed from the concrete pavers that had been baking in the sun for hours, he was grateful for the occasional breeze wafting off all these burbling water features.
“This is a nice area,” Hoseok remarked. “How’d you and Jin-hyung manage to get a place around here? Rent must be crazy high.”
“Jin’s uncle is our landlord.”
“Oh, y’all nepo babies.”
“We still pay up!”
“At a sweet discount, I’ll bet,” Hoseok said, but he smiled all the same. “You’re so lucky.”
Namjoon had to agree. Meeting Seokin was one of the luckiest, most privileged things to have ever happened to him, even if it hadn’t started as the easiest. The opposite, in fact. Namjoon had first been made aware of Seokjin’s existence when, at age 17, he had opened an email from the prestigious university that had accepted him into their undergraduate humanities programme to inform him of his dormitory accommodations which included the name of his roommate, a human named Kim Seokjin. Their shared last name delighted Namjoon, for surely that was a sign of their perfect compatibility!
Having daydreamed and wondered about his roommate all summer, it had been rather a letdown to discover that Seokjin had not in fact, prepared to be his very best friend ahead of time. He was already set up at the window bed and desk when Namjoon arrived with all his boxes and suitcases, and although he smiled and bowed to Namjoon’s parents, consenting to watch out for their son when they asked him to, only sat down and resumed the computer game on his laptop once they had left.
Seokjin further disappointed Namjoon by being not at all determined to join any and every event the campus had to offer during those first couple of weeks, always declining invitations to go out in a polite but – as Namjoon had perceived at the time – indifferent manner. His class schedule was nearly the opposite from Namjoon’s, so that some days they didn’t see each other until Namjoon returned just before midnight and found his roomie already sleeping with the covers drawn up over his chin, effectively shutting him out. Namjoon began to treat their shared bedroom mainly as a storage and sleeping area so as to not bother Seokjin, whose eyes were almost always trained on a screen or book whenever in a conscious state. He responded to Namjoon’s questions with short, quiet answers to the point that he began to speculate that Seokjin had something against dog hybrids… until the afternoon when he popped in for a quick shower after intramurals frisbee to find Min Yoongi perched at the end of the far bed, his Shiba tail curled around one knee as he reached into an open packet of the jelly candies that Seokjin kept well stocked in his desk drawer.
The fact that Yoongi had been more willing to chat could only mean that Seokjin simply didn’t like Namjoon himself, this big clumsy puppy of a person who was too much in every way: spoke too much, moved too much, wanted too much from anyone. Seokjin was reserved and awkward as Namjoon was outgoing and talkative, independent and focused on his own tasks when Namjoon ached for connection and companionship. Later, Seokjin would express guilt at letting his own insecurities convince him that being such a homebody, he had no experience, interest, or understanding of the kind of life Namjoon seemed to want – but this turned out to bless them both after winter break.
Namjoon had not given up on his quest for friendship. He joined clubs and study groups. He tagged along to random people on their floor even if they were just going to microwave some popcorn. He went out with people he barely knew, interacted with maybe once or twice before recklessly trusting them with his safety, money, and emotions – and learned a harsh lesson one night when abandoned at the bar with a tab for a party of eight. He was forced to count his coins for the rest of the month, the frugality and solitude so sudden that even Seokjin had to notice.
“Hey.” Namjoon startled at the hesitant greeting and nearly dropped his phone. Seokjin hovered a few feet away. “The dining hall closes in 15 minutes.” He didn’t have to say what they both knew out loud: that Namjoon had been rotting in bed all day.
“I’m, um. Out of meals on my card.” And it was only Saturday.
Seokjin frowned. “You can’t not eat until Monday.”
Yeah, but Namjoon couldn’t do anything about it, and neither could Seokjin, who was still frowning when he left the room. Namjoon went back to his webtoon and tried his best to ignore both his rumbling stomach and restless limbs. He managed to doze off until the door opening alerted him again, and Namjoon was stunned when Seokjin set down a bulging plastic takeout bag filled with noodles, stew, side dishes, and sodas on his desk – and went with him to the laundry room to help wash his bedsheets after he spilled black bean sauce on them.
Their dorm room was different from then on, much louder for instance as Seokjin shed his headphones for all the games and shows he played, and Namjoon shamelessly yapped through all of it as a highly invested spectator.
It had been a slow start, but a solid one to a friendship that they both chose to continue in the next year, and the years after that, even beyond graduation. In that time there were plenty of situations where they fell out of sync and struggled with understanding one another, but those always ended in another piece of the puzzle clicking into place so there were few mysteries between them now.
Hoseok sighed in envy after hearing this long winded story. “Like I said, lucky. And honestly, very mature of you! Most people don’t learn to get along with their roommates and try to ditch them as soon as possible.”
“Do they?”
“My roommates hated me,” Hoseok said with great nonchalance as they strolled by a strange geometric art piece sculpted from corrugated tin. “They said I was an anal retentive neat freak, but I think they were just uncomfortable with facing the reality of their unhygienic habits. Which is so unnecessary if they’d just gone by the colour-coded cleaning schedule I made to help us stay on top of things!”
Namjoon thanked his stars that he didn’t meet Hoseok until a year and a half ago. “They didn’t appreciate you.”
“Exactly!”
When Seokjin finally got home that evening, Namjoon had been curled up on the sofa. There was a book on his lap, and while he really had been meaning to get into this speculative short fiction anthology for a while, it was now part of a grand plan to prove his incredible calm and relaxation at spending all afternoon on his own. The plan was dashed to pieces as once the telltale rattle of keys came to his ear, he had rocketed off the cushions to go hurtling towards the front door, only avoiding Seokjin coming through it by his own socked feet skidding along the floor.
“Geez, Joon. You’re going to split your head open one of these days, I swear.” Seokjin did a precarious shoulder lean against the wall to kick off his shoes, his arms at a strange angle not to drop another plastic bag of snacks from the convenience store.
“Hey, hyung! Did you have a good day? Why were you late? Was there some delay on the train? What’d you get for us? Oooh, seaweed chips.”
“What do you mean by late? It’s 5:30!”
Namjoon took his nose out of the bag and wrinkled it. “It’s 5:33.” Seokjin rolled his eyes and dumped his backpack on the floor. “So, tell me everything. Was Liam the first one in? Or did someone beat him to it?”
This was his favourite time, letting Seokjin pour out all his honest emotions about the day’s challenges, overcome or not. He had finally found a way to get Aaron, the overexcited and easily bored husky hybrid, out of his hair by giving him little jobs at every subject change like handing out worksheets, collecting pencils, and closing the door on the way to PE. Karisma was a human girl but still struggling with her own perfectionist tendencies. She attempted to hide her work from Seokjin while he monitored their activities, although she was slowly coming out of her shell by answering questions during discussion, so progress nonetheless! Liam came out of his literal shell only when the bell rang for lunch after he had tucked himself inside it before their spelling quiz and ignored all requests to stay with us, please, Liam! And Chloe had fallen asleep on the carpet during quiet reading time, so deeply that her purring snores distracted all the other students and hardly stirred when her parent had come in and helped her up, little kitten body all limp and relaxed.
“Wish that were me,” Seokjin sighed, reaching for the controller of his Switch after they had ordered delivery. “Just completely checked out and having someone else take me home.”
Now that was an idea. “Do you want me to come pick you up sometimes?” Namjoon’s tail swished slowly as he considered it, and sitting so close on the sofa meant that it brushed against Seokjin’s arm. “It takes about 20 minutes by train, right? So I could leave at–”
Seokjin laughed, ears reddening as he booted up Super Mario Bros Wonder. “Nah, I don’t need more fuel added to the fire. Jimin would have a field day.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t worry about it, Joonie.” Seokjin settled back on the sofa. “Just watch me kick some goomba ass.”
“Okay!”
No, this was his favourite time: side by side on a comfy cushioned surface, the final traces of their indulgent meal collected in the corners of their containers, and a soundtrack of silly sound effects coming from the television set that Seokjin matched with yelps and sighs as his red-hatted character hopped across mushrooms. They yelled and laughed and barked without any bite while ignoring the clock, just like they always had done as undergrads – until Seokjin panicked at the fact it was almost 10 PM, so Namjoon generously volunteered to deal with the cleanup. He wiped down the coffee table and sorted the recycling, completing the task before finally flopping down back on the sofa. His ears perked up at the steady sound of water pattering onto the tile in the bathroom beyond, and with that comforting sound echoing faintly, Namjoon closed his eyes.
He became aware of a hand on his head, and when he opened his eyes there sat Seokjin on the edge of the sofa. His hair was all fluffed up but already drying, and his face that had been scrubbed bare now glowed from the steam. He smiled down at Namjoon.
“I think you’ll want to move to your bed,” he said. “The last time you napped here, you ended up kicking so hard you fell onto the floor.”
“I was dreaming!”
“About what? Chasing rabbits?” Seokjin squeaked with laughter. “It’s so funny when your dog side comes out.”
Namjoon didn’t move. While it was true that sleeping on his bed was way more comfortable and probably good for him, that would mean the night was over. That would mean he couldn’t see Seokijn until morning, and that was hours away. Hours! He lay there, not wanting the crooked fingers carding gently through his hair to stop.
Alas, they eventually did. Seokjin gave him a firm tap on the forehead before standing up. “Come on,” he said, reading Namjoon’s mind as usual. He always said it wasn’t hard; Namjoon’s expressions betrayed everything. “I need to sleep, and you need to sleep. Morning can’t come without it.”
In the end, one could not fight against such logic. So, Namjoon sat up, and Seokjin moved away. He flicked off a few lights as he did so until it was just the corridor, where he paused and turned around before going into his room.
“Goodnight, Namjoon-ah.”
“‘Night, hyung.”
A few hours, that was all. Namjoon could wait.