Fic: Enough In This World (BTS, Namgi)

[notevenyou]

 

Title: Enough In This World

Fandom: 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS

Pairing: Kim Namjoon | RM/Min Yoongi | Suga

Rating: Teen

No Archive Warnings Apply

Tags: Alternate Universe, Exes to Lovers, Infidelity

Summary: After years studying abroad, Namjoon is back for a visit, a kind of goodbye before starting a new life, but a walk under the fall foliage puts him on a different path. 

Notes: For the inaugural week of bts flash fics. Normally, I don’t find deadlines to be something I personally enjoy in a hobby, but with Ao3 down, there's an air of misrule about, so why not try being a different person? 

Title from Guess by Friko

Words: 4840

As strange as it is to be here, the park is beautiful like Namjoon remembered. Moreso, since he’s never come in the fall. The leaves are a riot of fantastic reds, oranges and yellows, a stark contrast with Namjoon’s last memory of the place - spindly winter-bare branches and earth a frosted-over gray-brown. The park had been mostly empty then, few people braving the cold for the drab view. Today it’s full, the path around Seokchon lake crowded and slow - some walking for exercise, some taking pictures of the foliage, couples slowly strolling together, enjoying the view and basking in each other’s presence. 

Namjoon tries not to pay attention to them, tries not to resent their happiness, but it’s as if each couple has a spotlight on them, drawing his eye inevitably. Namjoon was supposed to be here with his boyfriend James. The two of them were visiting Korea for just under two weeks including travel. A rare trip back for Namjoon since he’d moved to London six years ago to complete a graduate degree in art history. He’d met James there. And this was the first time in three years of dating that the two of them had been able to visit Korea, a celebration of Namjoon finishing his degree, a sort of goodbye before committing to a life and career in England. 

They’d spent the first part of the trip visiting Namjoon’s parents for Chuseok. It had been…fine. Namjoon was lucky that his parents took his sexuality in stride, but an English boyfriend, James, had been a bit more of a challenge. There was the language barrier of course, Namjoon stretched thin constantly translating, but James had been struggling with the time difference as well, with the unexpectedly warm weather, and, most disappointingly for Namjoon’s mother, with the food. Everyone had been carefully polite with each other, but Namjoon had missed the way his parents used to laugh with his friends, used to dote on… 

His mother had asked, just once, when James was taking a jetlag nap in the middle of the day, about him. Yoongi. If Namjoon ever talked to him. Namjoon shook his head, swallowed the ache in his throat, and told her that he’d heard Yoongi had a girlfriend now. Namjoon’s mother had frowned down at the soup she was stirring and hadn’t asked any more. 

And now, here Namjoon was.  

He hadn’t meant to come to Seokchon lake. Hadn’t planned on bringing his current boyfriend to where he had such important memories of his ex, but James had wanted to go to Lotte World. It wasn’t how Namjoon would have spent his last full day in Seoul, but it was the only thing left that James really wanted to do. The last few days of tourism in Seoul had been a challenge, Namjoon struggling to pinpoint what James would enjoy and James struggling in the humidity. They had a pretty good day at the national museum, air conditioned and filled with art - the thing they had in common - but everything else had been hit or miss. So, if an amusement park would make James happy, Namjoon didn’t mind. 

 But James had slept poorly again, and then picked at breakfast even though Namjoon had taken him to a cafe with a range of Western style pastries. The weather wasn’t helping, still warm but oppressively heavily, the weight of a gathering storm making everything feel muffled and thick. They’d made it to Lotte World, fighting with a post-holiday weekend crowd that also wanted to get in one more roller coaster ride before the cold weather set in. James had taken one look at the throng and pled off. He said he just wanted to find some food that agreed with him and to recharge before the long flight tomorrow. He told Namjoon not to worry and to enjoy his last day. Namjoon had only put up a token protest, sensing that James wanted some time alone and not particularly interested in spending his final day in a McDonald’s. He’d given James some directions to food that James had half-listened to, and then Namjoon was alone. 

He’d left the crowd around the Lotte World entrance behind and just wandered, finding himself eventually at the lake, and then the east side, away from the shrieks of delight from the rides. As if led by instinct, he’d ended up at the little pavilion tucked up on the side of a hill where some of his best and worst memories had been made. It was empty despite the crowds below where the view of the water was better. 

It’s not that special. Namjoon has dragged James to more impressive, more traditional architecture over the past few days, but it was where Namjoon had been so young and so in love. This was where Yoongi had confessed, brave even as he’d been too nervous to look at Namjoon, staring out over the summer-green trees and the calm surface of the lake instead. This was where Namjoon had confessed back, his shirt sticking to his back, damp with excitement and nerves and the humid summer heat. He hadn’t been able to look directly at Yoongi either, only managing darting, sideways glances as he stumbled through his response. When he’d finally gotten the important part out, Yoongi had turned to him, somehow shocked and their eyes had met. They’d burst into laughter - all relief and shared affection. Then their mutual regard became something too heated for a public park, the laughter fading. With little discussion, they’d left straight for the apartment they shared with Hoseok and Jimin, to the privacy of the bedroom they split, and the intimacy of Yoongi’s bed. There they had their first kiss and soon many other firsts. 

For a while after that, things seemed almost perfect. They’d lived together, worked on music together, and loved one another. But things had started to fall apart, perhaps more quickly than either of them wanted to admit. Namjoon was balancing school with music and never seemed to have enough time for either. At least he had the support of his family, but Yoongi did not, and, although he didn’t have school taking up his time, he had work, constantly exhausted by a series of terrible jobs. As little time as either of them had for music, they had even less time that overlapped. Namjoon often wished that when they did, it could be just for them, but for Yoongi, music always came first. Yoongi resented the time that Namjoon spent on school, not understanding that it wasn’t an imposition, that Namjoon loved art just as much as he loved music. It frustrated Namjoon that Yoongi seemed to see that as a betrayal, and that Namjoon could never share his excitement over the things he was learning without causing a fight. 

The pressures wore them both down. Namjoon became increasingly snappish - mean, he could admit now, although at the time he felt justified in his bitterness. Yoongi became more and more withdrawn - depressed, Namjoon suspected with the benefit of hindsight and some hints from Hoseok in the subsequent years. By the time Namjoon finished his undergraduate degree, his advisor’s encouragement to apply to graduate programs overseas had seemed like a welcome new start.

Namjoon had brought Yoongi back here, back to the pavilion where they’d confessed, to announce that he was going abroad and to say that he thought they should break up. It had seemed like a full circle moment when Namjoon planned it, but afterward he regretted it. His old, happy memories of that first declaration of love had been forever tainted by the end of things - the bitter memory of that winter day, Yoongi’s empty, exhausted expression, the bony, bare branches of the leafless trees, the cloudy splotches of fragile ice marring the surface of the lake. 

Standing here now, Namjoon can recall both as if they were only a moment ago - Yoongi’s bright, happy smile overlaid with his later hollow blankness. Namjoon doesn’t know what he expected coming back here, what he hoped to accomplish by pulling up these old memories. Perhaps only to feel the sting and the joy of them one last time before Namjoon tucks it all away again. Part of his final goodbye before Namjoon commits to the steadiness of a life in London with James. Namjoon has already put off that commitment longer than he should, taking another temporary position over the summer rather than job hunting in earnest. A life in London makes sense. Namjoon has contacts there. He has James. But Namjoon had wanted to come back one more time. He had wanted to see James in Korea, to put those two pieces of his life together if only for a few days. Namjoon had expected it to settle something in him, but so far he’s only felt more out of place - familiar things made foreign to him by James’s polite confusion. 

Strangely, here, alone looking out over the crowd, Namjoon feels more settled than he has for the last two weeks, maybe even the last six years. He moves to lean against the railing, but feels something uneven under his shoe. He looks down and sees a notebook on the ground. 

Namjoon picks it up, marvelling. It’s exactly the type of notebook that Yoongi always carried around to jot down lyrics and music ideas. It feels like a magical coincidence, like Namjoon conjured it up just by thinking about Yoongi, but it doesn’t really mean anything. It’s a cheap, common notebook. Well, common here in Korea anyway, Namjoon hasn’t seen one in years which is probably why it seems so important to him now. He turns it over in his hand, feeling the familiar weight of it, the cheap binding and the thin sheets of paper sliding against one another. 

“Excuse me,” someone calls, voice as familiar as Namjoon’s own. 

Namjoon feels a jolt of shock through his spine even as he’s somehow already turning around without any conscious choice.  

“That’s my-” Yoongi cuts off as Namjoon turns, looking just as shocked as Namjoon. 

They blink at each other in stunned silence until Namjoon gathers himself enough to stiffly hold out the notebook. Yoongi takes it and their fingers brush. A deep shiver runs through Namjoon,  emotions filling his chest like that glancing touch was enough to release all the feelings Namjoon has tried to keep caged away for the past six years. The unleashed emotions swell and roil within him, and Namjoon has to blink quickly to fight back the threat of overwhelmed tears. 

Yoongi holds the notebook against himself, arms crossed over his chest protectively. “Jimin said you were in town, but I didn’t think…” 

Namjoon wonders how Jimin knew. Namjoon hadn’t told any of his old friends. James had posted on instagram but Jimin had hardly used social media back when Namjoon had known him well. Namjoon doubts that’s changed much now that he’s in the middle of some prestigious post-doc in…biochemistry? Some complicated science. More likely, Hoseok had been the one to notice what James had posted and told Jimin, knowing that Jimin would tell Yoongi. Hoseok had been the one to break it to Namjoon that Yoongi and Jieun had gotten serious, back when Namjoon had been waffling about whether or not he should go on a third date with James. 

What does it mean, that Yoongi had known that Namjoon was in town and had come here, to this place that meant so much to the two of them? Had Yoongi wanted to see Namjoon? Had he hoped, like Namjoon (only now able to admit it to himself) that they would run into each other? Namjoon can’t tell. Yoongi had always been opaque when he wanted to be and Namjoon is six years out of practice at reading him. Studying his face, Namjoon only succeeds in noticing how good he looks. Namjoon feels like he himself has aged at least a decade, not just six years, but Yoongi looks hardly any older than he had at twenty-four. Younger in a way, so much less exhausted than when Namjoon saw him last. 

Namjoon realizes he should probably say something. “How have you been?” Then he remembers what he can’t allow himself to forget. “How’s Jieun-ssi?” 

Yoongi doesn’t answer right away, studying Namjoon for a long, weighing moment. Namjoon has never been as good at hiding his emotions, Yoongi can probably see all of Namjoon’s messy mixed feelings - regret at ever breaking up with him; bittersweet comfort at the idea of Yoongi being happy even with someone else; sour, immature jealousy. Yoongi’s eyes are sharp, absorbing it all. He finally says, “We broke up last summer. We decided we were better off as friends.”

Namjoon’s heart leaps in his chest, but immediately plummets when Yoongi continues. “And how is your boyfriend?” 

“Oh,” Namjoon says. He hadn’t exactly forgotten James, but for a moment James had seemed unimportant. An acquaintance, not Namjoon’s very serious boyfriend who he lives with and plans on spending the rest of his life with. “He’s good. He’s having a little trouble with the time difference.” Namjoon immediately regrets the second sentence. Admitting even such an inconsequential thing feels like a betrayal - aligning Namjoon with Yoongi against James in some intangible way. But at least Namjoon hadn’t said anything about James’s struggle with the weather or the food. 

Yoongi only nods, dark eyes still focused on Namjoon. “I’m sure you have some good advice after adjusting to England.” 

Namjoon tries not to react to that, not wanting to compound his betrayal. James has brushed off everything Namjoon has tried to say about adjusting, as if James is the first and only person to suffer jet lag or have to eat food that was different from what he’d grown up with. Like beans on toast were a fundamental fact of the universe. Like a person couldn’t truly miss perilla leaves since James didn’t like them. 

Nothing Namjoon could say to that would be appropriate, but he should say something. It’s his turn. That’s how conversations work. Namjoon can’t think of anything to say, and he can’t stop staring either, drinking in all the little details about Yoongi that had become fuzzy in his memory. Yoongi’s stupid sandals, the bluntness of his knuckles, that one lock of hair that never wants to lay flat. And all the things that Namjoon had remembered very well and missed deeply. Yoongi’s pretty eyes, the sweet shape of his mouth, his strong shoulders.              

Namjoon’s heart is racing. It’s wrong. He has a boyfriend. An objectively handsome boyfriend. Maybe occasionally a little self-centered, but kind. Friendly and open to everyone. It’s true that sometimes, selfishly, Namjoon wishes that James would be just a little less even handed, a little more partial to Namjoon. That he could just be on Namjoon’s side sometimes, instead of always seeing everyone’s perspective. But it’s a small thing. Not enough to justify the thoughts Namjoon is having right now. Not enough to… 

Standing next to Yoongi, having Yoongi’s eyes on him, talking with Yoongi, everything suddenly feels brighter, more right. Namjoon is filled with the feeling of welcome that he had expected when he planned this trip. The feeling that has been eluding Namjoon for the last two weeks even when he was eating his mother’s food (trying to find something that James would eat without offending his mother), or visiting all the tourist places in Seoul (places Namjoon hadn’t visited since grade school). And here it is, even in the midst of this stilted conversation. 

But it’s worse than that. It would be one thing if it was only the renewal of old emotions. Bad enough. But the truth is, it’s not just nostalgia. Namjoon’s heart isn’t racing because of the warmth of a faded love, it’s racing because Namjoon wants Yoongi. Wants him now, the man standing in front of Namjoon, not a memory. Wants him in a way that isn’t fair to James. 

The silence grows heavy between them, Yoongi’s eyes still locked on Namjoon, almost challenging now. Namjoon realizes that Yoongi knows. Knows that Namjoon wants him. And Yoongi wants him too. Namjoon can see it in the way Yoongi is watching him. Can see in the angle of his body that Yoongi would let Namjoon break every promise with Yoongi. All Namjoon has to do is say it and Yoongi would take him back to wherever he lives now and- 

And he would be so smug afterward, that’s obvious in the curl at the corner of his lips, the barest hint of the smirk to come. Perhaps that should be a turn-off, but Namjoon has too many memories of how well Yoongi earns his smugness to feel anything but arousal at the sight. Namjoon longs to reach out, to let Yoongi take him back to his bed and prove himself one more time. Namjoon makes himself look away. Then, when he feels steady enough, takes a step back. 

With a little more distance between them, Namjoon chances another glance at Yoongi. Yoongi is looking out over the water, his expression blank again. 

“I should go,” Namjoon says. 

Yoongi nods, but says, “Just a second.” He flips through his notebook and then, with a startlingly sharp noise, rips a page out and gives it to Namjoon. 

Namjoon glances between the page and Yoongi, but Yoongi doesn’t offer any explanation and Namjoon needs to leave now, before he does something awful. Namjoon folds the paper in half and then again another three times until it fits easily in his pocket. He nods awkwardly at Yoongi, who is focused on the water again, and leaves. 

Despite being a single sheet of thin paper, tightly folded, the page feels outsized in Namjoon’s pocket all the way back to the hotel. He keeps touching it, tracing the texture of it as if he can read Yoongi’s words with his fingertips. He should throw it away, shouldn’t he? Namjoon can’t go back to his boyfriend with whatever this is in his pocket. In the train station, Namjoon passes two trash cans, but he doesn’t throw the page away. Namjoon passes another three at the station by their hotel and one in the hotel lobby. And yet, Namjoon makes it to the elevator with the paper still in his pocket. As the elevator rises steadily, Namjoon steels himself. He’ll throw it away in the hotel room. James won’t go through the trash and wouldn’t be able to read it even if he did stumble across it. Namjoon swallows the ache in his throat and crumples the paper in his fist, ready to casually throw it in the trash right in front of James. 

But when Namjoon opens the door to their room, the lights are off and James is asleep, still off schedule after almost two weeks of ignoring Namjoon’s advice. He’s sprawled out over the bed as usual. So different from Yoongi, who always curled into himself no matter how much space he had. 

With no one to perform for, Namjoon’s resolve evaporates. He takes the paper in the bathroom and closes the door so that the light won’t bother James. He stares for a long moment at the closed door. Then as slowly and softly as he can, Namjoon turns the lock. Even more carefully, Namjoon smooths the page out and unfolds it, the crackling sound of the wrinkled paper damningly loud.

It’s a song. Of course.

After Namjoon had left, after he’d ceded their shared dream for another, Yoongi had never given up. While Namjoon was testing his classroom English against daily life in England and graduate level coursework, Yoongi had landed a producing job at a small entertainment company. He’d immediately made a reputation for himself, contributing to a series of successes that took the company from obscure to a household name. He could probably live the rest of his life on the income from those songs without ever working again, but of course, the best reward for Yoongi is being able to do what he loves. Of course, Yoongi still carries a notebook of song ideas with him. Namjoon isn’t sure why he thought it might be anything else. 

It takes Namjoon a moment to understand why Yoongi had given him this particular song, distracted by the scrawl at the top of the page that sketches out the melody and beat, the same mix of traditional musical notation and Yoongi’s own scribbled shorthand that he’d used all those years ago. Some of the shorthand is new to Namjoon, six years of evolution since he’d last interpreted Yoongi, and the details of the song remain frustratingly out of reach. It’s not until Namjoon gives up on trying to understand the melody that he realizes the song is written to him. That’s not ego, it’s literally titled, ‘For Namjoon,’ in Yoongi’s scratchy hangul. 

Namjoon rubs his thumb over his own name, over the strokes Yoongi’s pen had made when he was thinking of Namjoon. James can’t even sound out Namjoon’s name in hangul. They’d had to fill out a form at customs and James had asked if that was how Namjoon wrote his name in Korean, pointing to where Namjoon had filled out England as their country of origin. James had laughed at his mistake, and Namjoon had laughed along even though it hadn’t seemed that funny to him. It seems even less funny now. 

The lyrics are a work in progress, some words scratched out and others added around them, all the more precious for the glimpse into Yoongi’s mind. When they’d been together, even when Namjoon had been too tired to focus on music himself, he’d loved watching Yoongi create, loved seeing the way his mind worked. 

Despite being unfinished, the meaning of the song is clear - direct and blunt in the way that Yoongi’s lyrics often are. It says, I miss you, I want you back. The chorus says, I promised myself, if I ever saw you again, I would ask you to stay and now I’m asking. 

The verse on the back of the page is rougher, less finished. Namjoon thinks that Yoongi might have been working on it today. It’s about the place where a relationship started and ended. Come back, it says, let’s try one more time. It trails off there, the last pen stroke heavy, digging a groove into the cheap paper. Namjoon stares at that furrow, stark in the glaring bathroom lights for a long, long time. 

#

James is still sleeping when Namjoon leaves. Presumably, he sleeps through Namjoon walking back down the sidewalks he just traveled, back through the train station. Maybe he sleeps while Namjoon sits on the train, retraces his steps through the first station, past all the trash cans where he could have made a different choice, and walks back to the lake. 

The promised storm is starting to threaten, no rain yet, but the clouds hang heavy and gray, the sun setting somewhere behind them. In the gloom, the leaves seem darker, the reds and oranges rust and deep blood red, the yellows turning brassy. 

It’s absurd for Namjoon to be doing this. Ridiculous to even think of it. He has a life, has a plan. To give it up…it’s nonsensical. 

As he methodically makes his way back, Namjoon reminds himself of everything he would be leaving behind. His apartment, a little cramped for the two of them, but beautiful and comfortable. The little coffee shop around the corner where the baristas remember Namjoon most days. The park down the street where Namjoon goes to catch whatever sun he can during the gloomy months. His favorite museums, his hard fought professional connections, the career he’s been building. His friends probably - most of them are James’s friends too. Given what Namjoon is about to do, they will no doubt side with James and would even if Namjoon was still in the country to explain himself. And, of course, James. Namjoon can admit that he’s been annoyed with James on this trip, but Namjoon thinks of all his best qualities now - the way he always makes people feel welcome, his passion for art and his research, his love of plants and how he nurtures them, their apartment filled with beautiful green things. The way he made Namjoon laugh. Everything he taught Namjoon. About England, about art, about not taking things too seriously. The sweet way he kissed. The sex. 

Namjoon turns each coming loss over in his mind and finds each one tolerable. He can live without any of it. 

What Namjoon hadn’t considered at twenty-three, captivated by the idea of starting over somewhere new, is that splitting his life means that no matter where he is, he’s always missing something, always leaving somewhere and someone behind. 

And Namjoon finds now, that this he can’t give up so easily. The smell of the earth, the weight of the air, the color of the sky, the angle of the sun - all of it feels right here. The taste of his parent’s food, the sound of their voices from the next room over, the warmth of family gathered. Joking with friends in his own tongue, laughing over shared childhood experiences. Stories, both personal and cultural, that no one knows back in England. And Yoongi… Now that Namjoon knows that coming back could mean being with Yoongi again… 

After so long away, Namjoon believes that at some point when they were young, Namjoon and Yoongi had gotten twined together in a way that could never be untangled. Not even when Namjoon had made such a clean exit and gone so far. They’d been friends before they were roommates, and roommates before they were lovers, and yet, Namjoon isn’t certain that he hadn't loved Yoongi from the very first moment they’d met. Namjoon had been in Seoul for less than a month then, backstage at a set that was only one step up from an open mic. Yoongi had been quiet but not nervous. A direct contrast with Namjoon’s anxious babble. Namjoon couldn’t look away. Whether he’d truly fallen in love in that moment, or whether it’s only hindsight coloring his memories, Namjoon knows one thing now - he won’t ever stop loving Yoongi. Even when it had been too hard, Namjoon had loved him. Even if Namjoon stops now, turns around and gets on the flight back to London tomorrow. Even if he spends the rest of his life with James and never sees Yoongi again, Namjoon will still love Yoongi. 

What seems truly absurd, now that Namjoon is weighing it all against one another, is that Namjoon had been planning on that whole other life at all. It feels like he’s spent the last six years living in a tent - neither comfortable nor uncomfortable - there long enough that he had forgotten that there were other options. Then Yoongi had handed him the key to a house - hot water, electricity, heated floors - and suddenly the tent seemed unbearable. 

The crowd at the park has thinned out and Namjoon makes his way back to the pavilion much quicker than he’d left it. At first, it looks empty and Namjoon’s stomach sinks, but when he reaches the threshold, he sees that Yoongi is still there, sitting on the floor against the railing, back to the lake, facing the entry but with his eyes closed. 

He opens them when Namjoon steps inside. It’s too dark for Namjoon to read his expression as they look at each other in silence. Namjoon’s heart is pounding, his legs shaking, as he takes the last few steps needed to cross the small pavilion and kneel next to Yoongi. 

It’s cooled considerably as the sun set and the clouds rolled in. Yoongi’s lips are cold when Namjoon kisses him, but when Yoongi kisses Namjoon back, his mouth is warm. Namjoon holds him close, kisses his cold cheeks and lets him slide his icy hands under Namjoon’s shirt, both of them shivering at the touch.

A gust of wind blows over them and Yoongi shivers again, pressing closer to Namjoon. The clouds break, a sudden downpour all around them. Namjoon tugs Yoongi over to the center of the pavilion, wanting to keep him dry as well as warm. They sit there on the floor, Namjoon wrapped around Yoongi and watch the storm. Curtains of red, orange, and yellow blow past as the wind and the rain knock the leaves from the trees. Some land in the lake where they swirl in colorful eddies. 

“What does this mean?” Yoongi asks, watching a gust of red leaves speckle the surface of the lake. 

Namjoon presses a kiss to his temple. “I want to stay. In Seoul. With you.” 

“Okay,” Yoongi says, calmly. Then less calmly, he turns in Namjoon’s arms and hugs him tightly enough that it hurts. Namjoon doesn’t care. He buries his face in the crook of Yoongi’s neck and breathes him in, home at last. 

Comments

[celli]

This is gorgeous!

[notevenyou]

Thank you!! 💜💜💜