Work Text:
Motion
1 - Inertia
An object at rest will remain at rest unless acted on by an unbalanced force
He’s a wanderer; that typical genius type without any direction. Namjoon has never wanted anything in his life but to think. He doesn’t know what he wants to do to make a living- all he wants to do is live and to live well.
He’s the type to walk around aimlessly for hours, kicking at stones and throwing pebbles across lakes. All in the hopes of finding something to make him try and move.
When he learns about colors and soulmates, the first thing Namjoon does is hope.
Namjoon has always hoped for blue. When people lucky enough to find their soulmate described the sea, they called it blue. He doesn’t know what blue looks like, but he thinks it’s beautiful. Sometimes, he even knows it is.
On days when he walks the bay and the sea spray sprinkles his legs and he smells the ocean breeze, sometimes, he thinks he knows that the sea is a beautiful blue. He falls in love with it; just enough to think that he sees color near the horizon.
Sometimes, he hopes for red. His mother’s favorite flower is red, or so she says. Namjoon thinks that she’s fooling herself, loving a color that only his father can see. But when Namjoon sees the way she looks at her flowers and the way his father looks at her, he feels enough to believe that the grey of her cheeks matching the grey of the flowers is as lovely as his father says.
For someone who loves to think about color so much, it could only be fair for the universe to still be grey when he meets Seokjin.
He’s sitting by a table in the library, laptop open and Philosophy paper waiting to be typed up when a tall good-looking (more than good-looking – he looks like he would be blue or red) pulls out the chair in front of him and looks at Namjoon testily. He’s enamoured, immediately. The man looks no older than him, swept back hair with fringes covering his forehead, lovely shaped lips that Namjoon could guess looks lovely enough to be red, and collar bones that seemed to form the deepest crevasses he could think of.
“Hi.” The stranger says… slowly. Slow enough for Namjoon to realize what’s happening. In the 2 seconds that the stranger blinks, Namjoon’s probably blinked fifty times, his heart beats a hundred times.
The world revolves around relativity – connectedness. His time would be relative to the stranger in front of him, and everything the stranger sees would be relative to Namjoon. The thing is, 5 seconds for Namjoon could feel like a blink of an eye for his soulmate. Time is relative and what Namjoon wants to believe in is that it depends on who you spend it with.
“Hello… can you tell me what color my shirt is?” Namjoon finally says, sucking up his courage, pushing down the butterflies and wiping his sweaty palms on his khakis. The stranger’s eyes widen in surprise. “So, it’s really you?” he asks. “I’m Kim Seokjin.” He continues, not giving Namjoon the time to answer.
“I’m… Kim Namjoon.” He says, smiling.
There’s a troubled look behind Seokjin’s smile that Namjoon doesn’t need color to see. “Are you okay?” he asks, closing his laptop so they could speak face to face.
“There’s something you need to know.” Seokjin begins, fidgeting his hands that are currently folded upon each other on the table. He tugs at his collar like he needs air to breathe and he clears his throat.
“You’re my soulmate right?” Namjoon says quietly, moving his books to the side too. There’s a lot of weight in his simple words. They seem to be asking for a lot of things. A lifetime of the other describing colors to him, commitment, trust and everything in between. It’s hard enough to make friends for Namjoon, but he can feel within the space in between his bones and his skin that he wouldn’t mind spending the rest of his life with Seokjin.
“Yes and… there’s something else.” Seokjin says quietly, and Namjoon stops rearranging his things so Seokjin could talk without any distractions.
“Go on I’m fully listening.” He replies and Seokjin gives him a grateful smile.
“I think it’s really important that I say this before anything else. I have… a brain aneurysm.” He says softly, earning a “What?” from a confused Namjoon. I think you need to know that… before you decide if you want to still… get to know each other. When it ruptures, the doctors say the results may vary. I could have anything from anterograde amnesia to…” Seokjin pauses.
“To brain death.” He finishes with a short breath, looking down at the table where he’s picking at a white spot on the wood of the ledge.
There’s a few minutes where Namjoon isn’t sure if he’s slowing down time or if it’s really just passes by achingly slow, but he manages to clear his throat.
There’s a weird decision-making process that goes on in Namjoon’s head. It’s a flurry of logical cause and effect ideas, romantic optimism but also realism that he had to process through.
In moments that pass as mere seconds in the real world, Namjoon stares at Seokjin. He doesn’t know if it’s really because they are soulmates, or maybe it’s just a placebo effect, but he feels more and more attracted – no – pulled towards Seokjin and the small smile he gave him when he first pulled out the seat in front of Namjoon.
Is hurt worth the risk of getting to know – as what they say – your other half? In time, Namjoon knows he’ll lose Seokjin, but death is what makes life fragile, isn’t it? We live well because one day, we know we won’t be able to. The idea of just turning away what could be the most right thing in his life, just because he knows he would lose him later on, is wrong in all ways for Namjoon.
If he says no now, doesn’t that mean he lost Seokjin sooner than later? Real love is always chaotic. You lose control; you lose perspective. You lose the ability to protect yourself. The greater the love,
the greater the chaos. It’s a given and that’s the secret.
“What do you want?” he asks in consequence, simple enough to make Seokjin understand that he’s alright with it, that it’s worth knowing Seokjin even for a limited number of days, months or years.
“What do I want?” Seokjin’s head snaps up, looking quizzically at Namjoon until he understands what he means.
“The thing with anterograde amnesia is memories before the brain damage is spared. I think… well even if the chances are small of it being anterograde amnesia, I don’t want to remember that I didn’t get to know you when I had the chance to.” Seokjin says in a tight voice and Namjoon fingers curl in on themselves to prevent his hand from reaching out.
“It’s settled then.” He says with a smile, starting to put his things in his backpack, slowing down time so the day would be longer for the two of them. “Where are you going?” Seokjin asks, eyebrows forming a worried crease on his forehead.
“Let’s get some coffee?” He says as he stands up and grabs Seokjin’s wrist.
With four words, his unbalanced force going by the embodiment of Seokjin, an angel, starts to move him through the stark greys that engulf his vision.
2 - Acceleration is produced when a force acts on a mass.
Namjoon doesn’t know if he’s trying to make up for lost time, or trying to make up for the time he’s about to lose. Everything is fast though, and Namjoon doesn’t know any other way to go about the predicament they’re in.
Sometimes, time slows, without any push from Namjoon.
On those days, he usually finds himself staring too much at Seokjin. It feels like a slow song is setting the rhythm of their day, and all Namjoon wants to do sing with his fingers on the sharp lines of Seokjin’s jaw, to trail his fingers down his arm and intertwine their hand together.
There’s a day when he tries to do so, willingly slowing down time to give him time to calm down. It’s a cold winter night and they’re walking down a dimly lit street, going back from that restaurant Seokjin really wanted to try.
It was all laughs and corny jokes, but Namjoon couldn’t feel more at home than when Seokjin stood up and grabbed his hand on the way out. He lets go though, after a few moments after realizing what position they were in when Namjoon decides he has too much time to lose to worry about places in a relationship. Relationships are made of people and not places, people holding each other and that’s not really exactly what Namjoon does but he thinks it’s enough when he loops his pinkie finger with Seokjin’s gloved one.
They meet a few more times, sometimes after Namjoon’s classes or after Seokjin’s thesis writing. He feels like its unfair (because Seokjin brings him food every time, and Namjoon could tell it’s homemade because it’s always his favorite chicken in a Ryan bento box) because Namjoon rarely gives anything in return. He really wishes he could, but there’s this nagging voice at the back of his head always telling him to be cautious because if he gives too much, he might lose so much in the blink of an eye, too.
He doesn’t know how to be selfless, he realizes, one night right after he asks Seokjin if he could end their call early because he was exhausted from a full day of classes. As soon as he gets under his covers, he feels a weird ache at the back of his neck, a weird psychosomatic twitch that he gets when his subconscious knows he’s done something wrong.
He calls Seokjin back, and he answers after three rings.
“Hello?” a tight voice from the other end of the line says.
“Jinnie, I’m sorry but are you still up to talk?” he asks apprehensively.
“Yes, sure. How was your day?” Seokjin says after a breath and Namjoon sighs in relief.
“Too long. I….”
“I miss you.” He says after a few beats and he can hear Seokjin laugh at the other end.
“I miss you too. I’ll see you tomorrow - ” He asks, saying that he’ll be bringing food by again.
“No, no. I’ll pick you up. I want to take you somewhere.” He says softly, cutting Seokjin off.
“Really? Oh… well alright then. I’ll be by the library when you get off from university.” He says, followed by a yawn.
“Okay.” Namjoon says, and he can’t but smile at someone miles away. “I think you’re tired too? See you tomorrow?” Namjoon says and waits for Seokjin’s “See you!” before he puts the phone down and goes back to peaceful sleep.
-
The first place he thinks to bring Seokjin is the sea, but the weather is too bad and there aren’t much ships sailing out in the winter. The seaside then, could do.
It’s somehow freezing by the port when they arrive, and he regrets not taking a thicker coat. Seokjin has more sense, wearing both a moss green trench coat and a pink parka jacket. Not that Namjoon could really see the colors, or even understand them but Seokjin’s taken a habit of describing everything to him in color.
He doesn’t know when it became habit, but he finds himself holding Seokjin’s hand as they stroll by the bay. It’s one of the cheesiest scenes he’s ever found himself in, and it brings a warmth to his face but he isn’t ashamed, not at all. It’s when he watches Seokjin watching the horizon that the scene paints itself quite achingly.
The ocean tinges the sky a bit more grey than usual, and the smell of the breeze is enough to make Namjoon’s chest ache for something warm and familiar.
It’s quiet in the winter, the seaside too cold for most people to bother going to. He hears the few seagulls waddling on the port, he hears the last fishing vessels going home for the day quite far away too. The wind is sharp and it stings Namjoon’s nose, so he pulls his hand away to rub at his face to keep it warm for a while.
Feeling the absence, Seokjin turns around and looks at Namjoon rubbing his face in earnest. There’s a slight tinkle of laughter and he brings out a face mask from one of his many pockets.
“Here.” He says, as he pulls Namjoon’s hands away from his face and puts his mask on for him. Warmth fills Namjoon’s cheeks and it’s probably not because of the face mask.
Seokjin turns around to look back at the sea, and it takes Namjoon a while of just staring at Seokjin before he steps forward to join him in watching the sunset.
“It’s so beautiful, in color.” Seokjin sighs out, and Namjoon looks over.
There’s a sad beautiful contrast on the planes of Seokjin’s face. Bright cheekbones next to stark hollow indentations. If he’s this stunning in black and white, he doesn’t know how to look at Seokjin, if he could see in color. “Tell me.” Namjoon says, looking at Seokjin and pulling gently at his arm.
“It looks like autumn,” Seokjin begins, glancing at Namjoon before he looks back at the sunset. “It’s… looks like how you make me feel…” he sighs out quietly, not looking at Namjoon. He pulls at Seokjin’s arm again to make him continue. There’s a warm longing beating against Namjoon’s ribcage, telling him to pull Seokjin closer, but he doesn’t want to interrupt.
“It feels warm Joonie, like what autumn streets look like. It looks like how warm coffee makes you feel in the morning. It…” he starts again, looking at Namjoon now.
“It looks like it won’t ever end, Joonie. It’s too beautiful for it to be ever gone, but I know the sun’s going to set soon and this, this beautiful thing would be gone and I’m so afraid. I’m so afraid..” he says quietly, and Namjoon can’t take his eyes away even when the tears start pooling in Seokjin’s eyes.
“I’m not even close but… I can’t… I don’t know how to deal when this ends Joon… I’m so afraid..” he cries as Namjoon pulls Seokjin in between his arms.
It’s a long reach because of their thick coats, but they fit none the less, and Namjoon is holding Seokjin’s waist when he starts to speak in the tightest voice.
“There’s always tomorrow Jinnie. There’s another sunset tomorrow, we could go back if you like. There’s always tomorrow.”
-
It’s on their nth date that Seokjin brings the topic up again.
“So… There are some things I want to do before I… before I go.” He says after licking the ice cream off his spoon. Namjoon looks up from his book that he’s studying and gives a soft look to Seokjin.
“What is it?” he asks as Seokjin puts down his ice cream cup. It’s winter and only Seokjin would still want to eat ice cream after their meal at the gastropub down the street.
“Well, first… I want to experience snow.” He says, eyes crinkling in a way that makes Namjoon hurt.
“My friends are going to the mountains for the New Year, I turned them down because… I wanted to spend time with you but… we could go?” Namjoon asks after a pause, smiling at Seokjin, hoping to calm him down.
“Really?” he asks, laughing and throwing his head back. “That’s perfect! Thank you so much! I… “
I love you
“I’m so grateful for you.” Seokjin says, in a noticeably smaller voice. It makes Namjoon smile more than anything really. The small pause he managed to catch and slow down, the look in Seokjin’s eyes that tells him everything he needs to hear.
“You’re welcome, you’re always welcome.” He says with a smile as he goes back to his book.
-
Namjoon’s friends are more often than not hospitable, but they jump at the fact that it’s his soulmate they’re meeting and they’re a little bit more than friendly.
“What’s he like, to you?” Taehyung asks, resting his chin on his hand on the table as they’re sitting down at a pub, getting their fill before going to the cabin they rented for the weekend. They’re sitting side by side and Namjoon squeezes Seokjin’s hand in confidence.
“He’s good. He’s really good to me.” Seokjin says gently with a smile, and the light above him just fools Namjoon into thinking that he’s a bit brighter than everything else in the gray pub. “Awww hyung! “ he chides Namjoon and the rest laughs, Hoseok giving him a particularly hard clap on the back. “That’s good Joonie!” he laughs out.
It’s when everybody starts dancing that Seokjin gets restless.
“Come on Joonie! Let’s have fun!” he says as he pulls Namjoon’s arm. He thinks Seokjin wants to go dancing, which is ridiculous. “I can’t dance!” he whines out through a mocking frown and Seokjin starts his signature rambling.
“ We’re at a pub and they’re playing Christmas songs endlessly. You make me put down my drink and drag me to the dancefloor even though I’m crap at dancing! You take my hands and drag me through the sea of merry people,” He says standing up
“Dancing as silly as you can while walking backwards. You hit some guy and make his drink spill on himself. You say sorry and you laugh sheepishly at me but soon enough you’re dancing as klutzily as before and I can’t help but grin and smile at you. You catch me staring and smiling and you laugh that big hearty laugh of yours and you grab me again, now forcing me to dance with you, as the song turns to a pop Christmas song that I could jump to! THAT’S WHAT I WANT YOU TO DO OKAY SO CAN YOU JUST – “
He pulls Namjoon off their bench.
“GET UP?” He says as he pulls Namjoon towards the dancefloor and there really isn’t anything Namjoon could do but follow the scene painted by Seokjin.
-
They get back to the cabin by two in the morning and they fall into bed by three.
He thinks Seokjin is glowing white, but it’s just the lamplight from the window against Seokjin’s back.
“Are you excited for tomorrow?” he asks as he places his fingers in the spaces between Seokjin’s.
“Yes. So much. Thank you for taking me on this trip.” Seokjin says softly, squeezing his palm.
It’s a hard feat, but Namjoon tries to paint a scene for Seokjin too.
“We slide down the mountain hand in hand and I tumble into you. You laugh as if everything was alright and nothing was hurting – because I won’t let anything to.” Namjoon begins, and a small smile plants itself on Seokjin’s lips.
“You laugh as you help me up, because I’m just too heavy for you. We race back to the top laughing and out of breath as we reach our goal! You buy me a cup of americano at the small cabin coffee shop nearby and I buy you your favorite pastry.”
“The pink one?” he asks softly, slowly falling asleep. “Of course, “ Namjoon nods subtly
“We talk about our plans for tomorrow and everything that has happened today long enough to warrant me buying you a drink and you buying a pastry for me too. We continue on till 2 am because we’re chasing time – “
“I love you.” Seokjin says, cutting him off and it makes Namjoon stop.
Time slows down because he wants it too, but also because this moment deserves more than just a few selfish seconds that the world gave it. He detests that it’s fleeting. He hates that when time resumes it’s normal rate, Seokjin’s eyes would flutter close. He hates that he’s afraid they won’t open again. He pulls Seokjin close when he let’s go of time and mumbles a soft “I love you too” against his hair. For now, that’s all he can give.
3 - For every action there is an equal and opposite re-action.
Namjoon’s days are filled with bright laughter and the kind of love that listens and doesn’t impose. He doesn’t know why it’s Seokjin taking the part of the understanding and giving one, when he’s the one running from time. He should have the most demands, he should be doing everything that he wants to be doing until –
Namjoon gives back too, though. Not because there was a social contract for him to do so, but because he wants to. He wants to give all the time he gets when he slows down a few seconds into minutes and add it to Seokjin’s limited –
Lately, his thoughts are developing a habit off cutting off when he thinks about it. He doesn’t know what to do when the day comes, and he knows less than that on what he should feel.
Somehow, the universe is as dark and menacing as the spaces between the stars and it punishes him for god knows what. He’s been on edge for days and he hates that somehow, he knows what’s coming. He’s selfish and he doesn’t want anything but to slow time down until then, until the moment.
He takes Seokjin out everyday. From trips to the arcade or just good food beside a good view, they never miss the sunset. Each sinking of the sun that comes with the promise of dawn.
One day, time slows down and he knows it’s the last. It’s a bit too coincidental that they’re by the seaside today of all days when he feels something weird in his chest.
He can feel it.
Slowly, the ropes of their intertwined soul, slowly fraying as Seokjin’s breaths fall more and more infrequent. There’s a tight squeeze around his right hand and for the last time, Namjoon slows down time.
It’s painful.
It feels like an eternity of slowly letting go of the biggest part of yourself.
“Are you sleeping?” he asks quietly, his voice betraying the tears he managed to swallow down.
“I’m so grateful for you. For the time that we had and the time that we could have had. I’m so grateful for the day that I said yes to you and dragged you to that coffee shop. I’m thankful that I found you and I let you find me too. Thank you, thank you for bringing so much color, so many different hues and I know what my mom means now, when she says she can’t see the colors but she knows what they look like. Thank you, thank you so much. I guess what I’m trying to say is – “
“I love you. I’ll wake you up and let’s watch the sunset again tomorrow, yeah?”
There isn’t a reply, and Namjoon slows down time as much as he can, as slow as he can, for the longest sunset in his life because, he’s the one crying now, over and ending sunset. Because he knows the one tomorrow can never compare to this last one.