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Namjoon started journaling a while ago. At first, he was just jotting down lyrics in the margins of his school notebooks and on post-its or random scraps, but then Yoongi gifted him a proper, bound notebook and something about the official nature of it made him start to write other things as well. Not a daily chronicling of his life, he wasn't dedicated enough for that, too many other things occupying his time and too many days that didn't feel noteworthy enough, but occasionally he'd write out his thoughts and feelings as a narrative instead of as bars.
He brought his notebook to the military with him, amidst some books he wanted to read and other offline forms of entertainment that he was allowed. And as he got further removed from his idol life, from his music making, from his members, he found he started journaling more often. First to himself, then addressing other people whom he thought would enjoy or relate to whatever story he had to tell that day.
After six months, when he flipped back through previous pages, he noticed that his entries were more and more often addressed specifically to Hoseok. He ran the pad of his thumb over his scrawling of Hoseok’s name.
“Dear Hobi,
I’m sore. Why am I sore? I used to work out everyday before this. We had dance practice all the time. I was in shape. What is it about running in the rain with a full pack that finds new muscles I haven’t trained? I miss Jungkook’s massages. I… miss yours too, from our early days. I miss that we stopped doing that. I know why. I know it felt too… much as we got older. Why though? Why did it become awkward with us but not with the others?”
They were supposed to enlist together. It was the plan. It was Namjoon's plan with Hoseok. They both wanted to be in the military together for support, for comfort, for the chance to catch each other's eyes across platoon lines and know without words everything the other wanted to say. They’d been the two pillars of their group for so long and it felt natural to carry that partnership into leading new recruits together.
Hoseok had told him that he didn't want to go in alone—had confessed it late one night when honesty was easy and platitudes weren't necessary. Namjoon had the gaul to pat him on the back, squeeze his shoulder, and promise he wouldn't. They'd already agreed to go in as a pair.
And then Namjoon changed the plan.
“When I first started here, it was a bit easier than I expected for me to fall into a rhythm. I think it’s because there are so many young kids around me and it was like I was transported back to our trainee days. But now, a year in, I remember how much I hated our trainee days, how much pain and frustration and exhaustion we went through… at least we had a prize at the end of that. We suffered, but we got each other. We got BTS. We got our music.
What the fuck is the prize at the end of this?”
Enlisted life wasn't the worst. It wasn't the best, but it wasn't the worst. He had company in Taehyung. He joined the band. He made new friends. He stayed in shape. He had so many new stories to tell, not just in journal entries to the other members but as fuel for future songs. Entire albums and eras and winding tales spanning across decades of music unfurled in his mind. If nothing else, the military certainly gave him space away from the pressures of the world and plenty of time to think.
“Your release date is coming up and I’ve realized what’s been keeping me going.
Seeing you.
There is a prize at the end of this tunnel after all, it’s just something I never thought I’d ever have to give up in the first place.”
They were supposed to go in together. The guilt that gnawed at Namjoon ever since he broke that oath was still finding new crumbs of his heart to consume. Hoseok had told him an infinite number of times that it was fine, it was okay, he'd be fine, Namjoon needed to sort himself out and spit out the vitriol of Right Place, Wrong Person before the military was going to try to reshape him into their own likeness…
But it wasn’t okay. Not for Namjoon.
“You were supposed to be here with me. No, that’s not fair. It’s not on you. I was supposed to be there with you. God, just thinking that hurts. You did this alone. Seeing me and the others doing all the things we were still doing outside while you were in here, curled around your phone for one hour each night, liking and commenting. I know what kind of a void that expands in your heart. I know it now, being here and living it myself.
I'm so sorry, Hob-ah.”
He wrote a song about longing for forgiveness. He wasn’t sure if it was meant for the world outside or just the one in his journal.
“I saw Tae today. I thought it would be better being in here with him, but in some ways it’s even harder? Seeing the wall behind his eyes for that split second before he recognizes me… This place is too tightly bound for someone who needs to float free. It hurts seeing him diminished.
He's fine. He's okay. We're all fucking fine and okay, aren't we?”
Some days were harder than others. Some days, the fact that things actually did seem fine was even more terrifying.
“Fuck these boots.”
Time was a social construct. He realized that for the first time during quarantine. It expanded and contracted to fit your life, your experiences. It slowed when you wish it wouldn't and flew by just as cruelly.
The days were slowing.
“I joined the band.
Being around music helps. And it’s not that I haven’t done plenty of music without you all before… but it’s different being on a new ‘team.’ They’re great. Good guys. Well, maybe one I could do without, but mostly they’re becoming fast friends. It’s nice to not have to have a musical director and not have to lead. I don’t… know if I could. Lead them. Or, I mean, of course I could because they’re great guys and doing anything related to music while stuffed in these barracks is a blessing, but… it would be like being a facsimile of the kind of leader I want to be.
I only want to be a leader for you.”
It had been weeks. It had been months. It felt like he had enlisted yesterday, but now Seokjin was already being discharged.
Playing the sax at Seokjin’s camp was far better than crumbling into a heap encircled by the brothers he never wanted to let go of again, realizing how much time still separated them from a more permanent reunion.
“Today’s lunch was almost exactly the same as one of the last meals Seokjin cooked for us. I nearly cried in front of a hundred people who think they know me.”
His album documentary was premiering at the 29th Busan International Film Festival. And he wasn’t there to see it.
“I can’t wait to never wear boots again.”
He had a day off. He’d been cataloging all the things he wanted to do and people he wanted to see and food he wanted to eat for the past several months and it was more than could fit into 24 hours. But his next day off wasn’t for any of that, it was for Hoseok.
“Someone said something once— that there’s a reason we get more emotional and nostalgic at night before bed. I can’t remember the exact quote and I’m honestly too tired to care right now. My body hurts so much that my brain isn’t working anymore and I don’t know how I’m going to wake up tomorrow and do this all again when it feels like I’m never going to see you again.
I want to tell you I love you.”
Hoseok was going to discharge tomorrow.
Namjoon still had so much time left, but Hoseok was almost out and Namjoon thought yet again—we were supposed to go in together. He curled onto his side on his tiny bed and punched his pillow.
“This fucking fucked world. Did tensions run high at the DMZ just because they knew I was about to see you and wanted to keep me locked down? Was this a cruel trick by some unseen god who knew how much I needed this for myself, for my brain, for my heart, and then said NOPE?! Fuck them. Fuck this!”
Only Seokjin was able to greet Hoseok. Namjoon watched it hours later during his phone time and hid his tears of frustration in threadbare cotton.
“I want to fuck you. Fuck, I just want to fuck. Anything. Everything. I’m so fucking horny. How did you last two years without getting off? Or did you??? I can’t imagine you acting like the kids here who do it in the showers or in their bunks when we can all feel the frame shake let alone hear their heaving breathing.”
Namjoon jacked himself off in a bathroom stall.
“I can’t find any more silver linings to being in this place. They’ve all rusted over to become the iron bars that imprison me.
I saw Tae the other day. His hugs are getting longer. You’d think we’d see each other all the time being at the same post, but we’re in different units and barracks, so it’s like we’re a city apart. I guess I can’t complain about that with you. You did this alone without even the glimpse of one of us. You and Jin-hyung and Yoongi-hyung are the strongest of us.”
The frozen ground was defrosting into mud clumping on his godforsaken boots.
“We’re two days out— two days and I’ll be free of this prison. My body has never been stronger and my mind has never been weaker. I’ve been thinking about being on the other side of this and I’m no longer sure if I’m excited or scared. It’s been 18 months of me alone with my thoughts— not a musician, not a leader, not a role model to ARMY, just me. How do I become all those things again? Will that mantle be lighter or heavier because of our absence from the world? I’m conflicted, both wanting less of a burden but also not wanting to have lost the following we’ve built up after so much hard work.”
——
On the day he was released, he led with joy and put all his darker thoughts behind him. Maybe if he didn’t present himself as the stoic, wise, put-together leader from before, then people would allow him to be more human this time around.
Taehyung was shaking his leg in the car ride to the place they arranged to meet the press—and whatever die hard fans couldn’t resist not staying at home as they requested.
Namjoon cupped his hand over Taehyung’s knee to still the jitter. It was comical, though, because they both knew Taehyung was having an easier time with this than Namjoon was. Not easy, just easier. Taehyung had his own mental struggles that their time serving had brought him. Some of the free chaotic wonder that used to light his eyes was gone. His posture was straighter. He flinched at sudden movements.
Taehyung reciprocated with a hand on Namjoon’s shoulder and Namjoon couldn’t help but slouch under the touch. Physicality, the freedom of touch, the comfort of being touched by one who knew his moods so well, was a revelation after so long without.
“It’ll be fast. Over before we know it,” Taehyung said.
“We just have to get through the rest of today with these uniforms on”—with this mask on—“and then—”
“We’re free,” Taehyung finished with a grin and a tightening of his grip on Namjoon’s shoulder.
——
They did make it through. They did their welcome back live for ARMY, still shackled by the camouflage covering their body. They saw their crew, their hoobaes, Seokjin, Hoseok, Jimin’s writing on the practice room wall. There was cake and balloons and back slaps and laughter and, not to say that Namjoon had been without all those things, but it was like experiencing them for the first time again.
He crashed on his bed that night, stripped of his obligation and freshly showered from the showering of affection he had received. He was happy, sure, but it felt like the emotion was sitting on top of a forcefield around his body and he couldn’t absorb it just yet.
He let himself sleep instead.
——
After the candid live with ARMY the next day when he was as vulnerable as he wanted to be—as he felt he needed to be for people to understand that not just him but the others would need time to reacclimate—and after Jimin and Jungkook were back in their own beds, that was when he scheduled dinner with Hoseok.
Well, Hoseok was the one who invited him and made the reservation and arranged the inconspicuous travel to and from so there weren’t a million paparazzi waiting at the door. But Namjoon had accepted the invitation!
He did forget how to dress himself, though.
Admittedly, he had never really known how to do that, but thankfully his closet was filled with complimentary pieces from luxury brands and so not much skill was required to look put together. Hoseok showed up in an effortless-looking fit of mixed patterns that Namjoon knew wasn’t effortless at all to coordinate. Hoseok could see patterns in fashion the way Namjoon saw them in art. Different applications of creativity that always served to remind Namjoon that art was as unique as each individual person.
“You’re still shell-shocked,” Hoseok said with a laugh as the remains of their main course were being cleared from the dinner table. The food was good—layered flavors he hadn’t enjoyed in a while, but not so elevated from the mess at the barracks that it was wasted on his palette. No surprise, Hoseok knew how to find the right balance.
“Hm?” Namjoon glanced up from his wine and Hoseok laughed again.
He’d been laughing all night. He laughed even when things weren’t funny. He’d always been like that—it was like his body couldn’t contain all his happiness (or his anxiety?) and let it out in laughter instead of breathing.
Namjoon’s foot accidentally nudged Hoseok’s under the table.
Hoseok chuckled, but this time it was clearly because of nerves.
“I took you out too soon. I was thinking about how it had actually helped me when Jin-hyung kidnapped me on Day One of my discharge, but I think you needed more decompression time.”
Namjoon watched him for a minute. “You and hyung are stronger. You guys are super human.”
“Nooo,” Hoseok was furiously shaking his head. “Determined to make things work, maybe. Your force of will is just as strong, but you don’t have to be on a stage immediately. He—we did this to ourselves. We did this so you wouldn’t have to if you didn’t want to. Jin-hyung’s the real hero. First in, first out, no safety net in either direction.”
Namjoon suddenly, almost desperately, wanted to see Seokjin. He settled for texting him. He wanted to say “I love you” but instead sent a silly Superman meme. He knew Seokjin would interpret it in the same way.
“I was thinking of dessert, but maybe we should get you home instead.” Hoseok didn’t ask it as a question and Namjoon could sense some disappointment in his tone.
“Weren’t you bragging earlier about the sweets you brought back from Japan?”
Hoseok cocked his head. Namjoon cocked an eyebrow.
——
Hoseok’s house was clean, but comfortable. There were prized collectables featured on shelves, but also an abundance of soft and colorful pillows on his couch. Namjoon collapsed into them while Hoseok busied himself in the kitchen.
They chatted, idly, Namjoon asking random questions about Hope on the Stage while Hoseok brewed tea and brought them small plates of something mildly sweet. Namjoon didn’t remember if it was white bean or red bean or something else entirely, but it was soon gone from his plate.
“Joon-ah,” Hoseok sing-songed with a little wave in front of Namjoon’s face.
Namjoon shook himself back to awareness again.
Hoseok was close enough that their knees touched. They were sitting perpendicular to each other with the corner of the L-shaped couch wedged between them, so it was easy for Namjoon to trace a line with his eyes from Hoseok’s knee to his hip to his chest to his face. Their eyes caught and Hoseok traced the same path up Namjoon, but with the tips of fingers.
Namjoon shivered and trapped Hoseok’s hand when it was just under his chin.
“Hobi—” he swallowed. Every journal entry for the last several months played through his head, but most especially—and unhelpfully—the ones about wanting to jump Hoseok’s bones.
He tried to imagine it now. Would Hoseok kiss him without him needing to ask? He always knew everything else about Namjoon before he needed to verbalize it. Namjoon hated that, despite the months-long desire for such a thing, it didn’t feel like the right time.
Hoseok’s touch didn’t linger after Namjoon released his hand. It had only been a graze, a test. Namjoon realized that now and felt guilty as Hoseok sat back and picked up his tea, a gulf of vacuous air filling up between them.
“When was the last time you saw your family?” Namjoon deflected because he couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge the offer he'd just turned down. He knew it was presumptuous that he even read the situation that way. Hoseok hadn’t been privy to his inner thoughts for the past two years. Writing them down as letters addressed to Hoseok didn’t mean they had been magically projected into Hoseok’s mind. They'd never acknowledged if there was something between them before or not.
Hoseok picked up the conversation without hesitation because either Namjoon had been reading too much into that teasing hint of skinship or Hoseok was as smooth in conversation as he was on stage. Never let them see you slip.
“I let you go and I don’t even know if I know why.
Maybe you were right— I was still in post-enlistment shock and wasn’t ready. No amount of thinking about being with you suddenly makes it easier once you’re in front of me. I’m shy. You know I’m shy. Don’t you? You had to know I’d be as shy about this as anything else.”
——
They left Korea.
“LA is a breath of fresh air, despite not always literally being that. The fires earlier this year left a mark, but still, being here, being away from Korea, it’s helping my brain so much. The expectations were already starting to press in on me at home. Also, but fuck I missed you guys. I missed you so much that I even missed living with you, which is not a thing I’d ever thought I’d say. We all have such different preferences.
But now… I’m sitting on our patio and Jimin just brought me lunch and I can hear you inside talking to Yoongi and the kids and, even though Jin is still away finishing his tour, I feel whole again. You all are just… I dunno, man. I didn’t feel like I could breathe in and actually expand my lungs in Seoul. The relief I’d been waiting to feel from finally being free of the military, I’ve only been able to feel it surrounded by you all.
Namjoon looked inside and watched Hoseok fling himself backwards, laughing at something one of the others said.
By you.”
They went to the beach. They played, they laughed, they ate cheap hot dogs, they talked about nothing important.
When they returned to the condo they were renting, Namjoon was walking wide and singing loud. He exited the shower loose and content all the way down to his bones. He opened the bathroom door to see Hoseok poised to knock. There were a few bathrooms in the rental, but everyone was taking showers to wash off the sunscreen and sand from the beach. Namjoon saw some flecks across the bridge of Hoseok’s nose where it was rosy from the sun.
Namjoon didn’t think, for once, and brushed the sand off with his forefinger.
Hoseok’s eyes widened and he bobbled on his feet. His hair was caught in attractive clumps from salt water and ocean breeze and Namjoon was overcome by how handsome he was. He leaned forward without a plan, pure instinct tipping him into Hoseok.
Hoseok tuttered, his hands coming up to rest on Namjoon’s bare chest. Namjoon only had a towel wrapped around his waist—he hadn’t brought clothes into the bathroom with him. Hoseok was in his swim trunks and an oversized tee. Namjoon hooked his waist to steady him, his splayed palm bunching in the thin cotton of Hoseok’s shirt.
Hoseok’s mouth opened, quick breaths about to turn into a warning or maybe Namjoon’s name.
Namjoon kissed him. After the first press of lips, after Hoseok didn’t protest or push him away, Namjoon licked at the seem of Hoseok’s open mouth and tasted the salt of the sea.
“You’re gorgeous,” Namjoon groaned when they parted. He didn’t know how to do subtle.
“Namjoon—Namjoon-ah,” Hoseok panicked, patting at Namjoon’s shoulders. He was trying to move Namjoon, to redirect him, and Namjoon resisted until he realized that Hoseok was trying to shove them into the nearest bedroom. Hoseok shut the door behind them and held Namjoon at bay with an extended arm.
“Wha—what are you doing? What is this?”
Namjoon didn’t know how to summarize three journals worth of thoughts, feelings, and realizations into a single sentence. Actually, yes he did.
“I like you.”
Hoseok closed his eyes and Namjoon wished he knew if he was hiding happiness or worry behind the closed lids.
“I like you too,” Hoseok said patiently, opening his eyes with an expression of professionalism. Namjoon wanted to toss him back into the ocean immediately.
“No,” Namjoon interjected quickly. “Not that, Hobi—I like you. I love you. You’re my family, you’re my brother, you’re my partner—not any of that. I’m attracted to you. I want to—I’ve wanted—for so long, fuck, I want to kiss you.” He pushed against Hoseok’s still outstretched arm. He lifted one of his own to clasp Hoseok’s bicep. “Don’t you want more with me too?”
He felt bold saying it like it was a proven fact. He felt bold in general. Possessed. All his introspection, uncertainty, fear, shoved down so far his analytical brain couldn’t access it in this moment. All that was left was desire. And he knew—knew—that there had been something charged in Hoseok’s gaze for a while too, long before he’d enlisted. It had been there that night at dinner after he was discharged and it was still there now.
“I—but—”
Namjoon watched Hoseok’s brain calculate every inconvenience this could cause, the professional difficulty, the danger. He stepped forward to stop Hoseok from spiraling and Hoseok allowed his approach, his elbow no longer locked but instead bending to let Namjoon in.
Namjoon got close enough that focusing on each other’s faces was difficult.
“Can we have this? Even just this once, Hob-ah, please.”
Hoseok’s gaze softened. He brought his hands up to cup Namjoon’s face.
“I didn’t make this up,” Namjoon said it as a statement, but this time it was also a question. “I thought about it so much while I was in the military… did it change for you while I was gone?”
Did the tension from two years ago no longer dominate Hoseok’s consciousness like it did for Namjoon? Had he moved past it?
“No,” Hoseok exhaled quickly, loudly, the force of the air hitting Namjoon reassuringly.
Namjoon’s eyes widened hopefully.
Hoseok’s hands were still holding him in place. He slipped them to the back of Namjoon’s head, entrenching his fingers into Namjoon’s damp hair. It was finally long enough for it.
“No,” Hoseok repeated. “You didn’t imagine it then. And it’s not gone. I didn’t move on.” He dipped his head until they were close enough that they nearly touched foreheads. “I just—I also spent months thinking about it during military service and I still don’t have an answer of how we make this work.”
Namjoon had wormed two fingers under the under the hem of Hoseok’s shirt and was rubbing the skin of his back. Back and forth. Back and forth. He’d meant it to be comforting but it quickly became charged. He was still too amped up. The adrenaline rush of saying out loud things he'd held inside after so long and hearing them mirrored back at him was liberating. His body rocked into Hoseok’s and he was happy to discover that they were both hard.
“Joon-ah,” Hoseok whisper groaned. It was certainly as much a sound of frustration as it was arousal. “How do we do this? I can’t move forward without some kind of plan.”
Namjoon loved Hoseok so much it was scary sometimes. His heart literally ached with loving him so much.
He settled the movement of his hand and gently kissed Hoseok’s forehead, then he drew him over to sit on the edge of the bed. He didn’t fold them into each other, but also didn’t keep a respectful distance. He turned into Hoseok with one knee up on the bed behind Hoseok’s back. Their thighs were touching. Namjoon reached for Hoseok’s hand and held it between them, between both of his own hands.
“I don’t have a plan. What I have is five years of sexual tension that I can’t survive another minute of without some kind of relief.” Was that greedy? Namjoon wasn’t sure.
Hoseok looked at him. Really looked. His knee was bouncing with nervous energy, but his eyes were steady. They were staring as deeply into Namjoon’s soul as they always had. Time hadn’t distanced them.
“Will once be enough?” Hoseok asked. “For either of us?”
Namjoon tried not to look too hopeful. Hoseok’s concerns were legitimate ones. Ones that Namjoon shared when he was of a sane mind.
“No,” he answered truthfully, smoothing over Hoseok’s knuckles with his palm. “Do you think we’ll get ourselves into trouble if we let it keep going? Is it weird that I think we can pull it off? Our crazy idol life with this running in the background to keep me sane?” He didn’t say us. He didn’t want to assume too much.
Hoseok leaned closer, clasped Namjoon’s thigh with his free hand and pressed down with his full weight. It was such an inherently Hoseok thing to do that Namjoon was endeared yet again. More than hugs, Hoseok found comfort in these kinds of touches, the pressure of fingers digging into supple flesh or his body weight pressing as hard as he could into Namjoon’s soft spots. It had always felt to Namjoon like a way of asserting control when Hoseok’s emotions overwhelmed him.
He let Hoseok sink into him—he wasn’t so soft anymore now that he had a lot of military muscle and so he willed his very tendons to loosen and relax to absorb as much of Hoseok’s anxiety as possible.
Namjoon cupped the nape of Hoseok’s neck and Hoseok tipped forward and buried his head in Namjoon’s chest. He started to rub Hoseok’s back, but stopped himself from the generic soothing gesture that his body wanted to do by default and instead kneaded the back of Hoseok’s neck. He allowed Hoseok a few deep breaths, then pulled him back and tilted his head up.
Hoseok’s eyes were heavy lidded and lacked any hesitation. He leaned in time with Namjoon until they were kissing again. It turned deep quickly. The decision had been made. They were going to do this.
"Okay, okay." Namjoon’s heart fluttered with excitement. He’d thought about doing this for so long, but to be living it was thrilling. It was like he'd had five cups of coffee and every molecule in his body was buzzing wanting to move all at once. He didn’t know what to do first, so his hands fluttered around from Hoseok’s cheeks to his shoulders to his lower back and then back up to his neck.
Their mouths were wide and devouring and Namjoon let Hoseok lead as he sucked Namjoon’s tongue past his lips. This wasn’t about the romance of tasting each other or even the act of kissing. This was being apart for too long and suddenly realizing how important it was to be completely fused with another person.
Namjoon dropped his hands to Hoseok’s lower back again and pulled until Hoseok was properly seated in his lap with his knees on either side of Namjoon’s thighs. Hoseok didn’t hesitate before grinding down and starting to ride Namjoon through the towel and shorts that frustratingly dulled the sensation.
"Yessss, fuck," Namjoon cursed. He used his strength to hold Hoseok up on one of his upswings and then quickly ripped the towel off his hips and tossed it away. Before descending again, Hoseok started pushing at the hem of his shorts before realizing that he couldn’t remove them in his current position. He groaned angrily—a rather petulant sound for Hoseok.
Instead of telling him to stand up and suffering through a single moment of complete separation, Namjoon kissed his cheek and then flipped them so Hoseok’s back was flat on the bed with his legs hanging over the edge. He tugged Hoseok’s shorts and underwear off with one hand while keeping the other on the bed by Hoseok’s waist. Hoseok’s hand was wrapped around Namjoon’s elbow and he used it as leverage to surge up into Namjoon for another kiss once Namjoon discarded the clothes.
Hoseok drank of him for several heartbeats, but then pulled back to yank his shirt over his head. "C'mere," he beckoned Namjoon back with a hand gesture.
Namjoon dove for Hoseok’s neck once it was exposed, then kissed down his chest as he laid Hoseok back down on the bed. They both crawled themselves up to the headboard so they could be fully prone, kisses never stopping whether on lips or body. Their heavy breaths filled the otherwise quiet room.
At one point, Hoseok dug into the top of Namjoon’s ass so they could grind again.
“Ah shit—” Namjoon swore, now feeling the delicate sensitivity that came with bare skin on bare skin. It was a tender thing—arousal wanting to make them clash, but their unprotected skin warning them to be careful and go slow.
“Lube,” Hoseok gasped. His hand was between them and trying to ease their friction by smearing their precome, but it wasn’t enough. The salt of Hoseok’s unwashed body was sucking up the moisture that they were trying to create.
Namjoon laughed, kissing Hoseok’s clavicle sweetly. So endeared, always.
“I didn’t plan this. The thought popped in my head the second I saw you in front of me.”
Hoseok grunted angrily again. This time it was less petulant and more exasperated as if Namjoon should have prepared for his own spontaneity. He pushed at Namjoon’s shoulder to give him space to move.
“This is Taehyung’s room,” Hoseok said as he squirmed out from under Namjoon to stretch for the bedside table.
“Is he gonna need to use it now?” Namjoon asked in a panic, glancing at the closed, but definitely unlocked, bedroom door.
He would’ve been surprised if the others didn’t know there was some kind of something between him and Hoseok, but he didn’t think any of the other members would imagine that they’d act on it while they were still inside the house.
“No,” Hoseok laughed as he dug through drawers. “I mean, who knows, he might, but I think he was hungry.” Hoseok shook his head, not meaning to fall into the trap of answering Namjoon’s nonsense question. He swung back around, triumphantly holding a mini bottle of lube and a condom. “Tae comes prepared when he travels.” He grinned.
“Yessss,” Namjoon drawled happily—not lingering too long on how Hoseok knew that—reaching for the items without questioning who was doing what. They’d experienced puberty and the crazy horny years immediately following together. There were few lines they hadn’t crossed as a group when playing drinking games or even when naked in changing rooms and showers together. Hoseok was verse. Namjoon topped.
“On your stomach,” Namjoon commanded, his voice dropping an octave.
He got a special thrill when Hoseok obeyed immediately. Being able to demand anything of someone as confident and intimidating as Hoseok and having him listen… it made Namjoon feel powerful. So did draping his body over top of Hoseok and dwarfing him. They fit together so well. Namjoon’s chest rumbled in satisfaction as he started to press kisses to the knobs of Hoseok’s spine.
Hoseok arched towards his mouth, tossing his pillow aside to bury his forehead directly into the mattress instead as it gave him better leverage.
“Joon-ah,” he gasped, “Quick, please, I want you in me before I come and it won't take long considering how long it's been since I...”
Namjoon stopped his wandering mouth and dipped a slick finger into Hoseok. “This’ll be fast for me too,” he admitted, reassured, as he stretched Hoseok. He’d wanted this for too long, been thinking about it too often, and was too amped up from playing at the beach. He felt like a taut string about to snap with the barest touch.
He pushed into Hoseok in one long stroke. His exhale was so loud that Hoseok laughed.
“Shut up,” Namjoon said affectionately and nipped at Hoseok’s shoulder.
“That good? Or that tired?” Hoseok continued to laugh. The shaking of his body jostled them together and Namjoon’s vision whited out for a second. He groaned again and pistoned his hips unconsciously, chasing the pleasure Hoseok’s body was giving him.
“Good, good, so good,” he grunted mindlessly.
Hoseok had stopped laughing and was grunting in time with Namjoon’s thrusts. His whole body was sliding against the mattress with the force of Namjoon’s movements. He’d fisted one hand by his head and Namjoon lost time for a while watching his fingers flex and release in concert with their bodies.
It felt surreal, after so many months locked away, to be here in this space with the man he loved. To be reminded of Hoseok’s touch, his voice, the way he could know everything about Namjoon with a single, piercing look. To feel his body reacting to what Namjoon was doing is what sent Namjoon over the edge.
“Hob-ah!” he gasped with release.
Hoseok groaned and rutted forward into the bed, milking Namjoon as he chased his own orgasm.
“There—there!” he panted and cried out as he came on the sheets. His body seized up and Namjoon inhaled, sensitive from still being inside of him. He pet the back of Hoseok’s shoulders and kissed his ear.
They took a few minutes to breathe, their bodies melting further into each other now that their muscles were no longer flexed.
Namjoon rolled off to the side and discarded his used condom in too many tissues before throwing his arm over his face. He was so euphoric that it rumbled out of him in a deep laugh. He’d been laughing so much more often now that he was in Hoseok’s constant presence again. Now that he was free.
Hoseok flipped around to look at him with a raised eyebrow. He shoved at Namjoon’s side. “Hey, what’s that for.”
His tone was affronted, so Namjoon immediately removed his arm from blocking his vision and rolled into Hoseok’s side. He had forgotten that Hoseok was sensitive to others laughing at him despite how much he laughed at others. Especially, probably, because they’d just had sex for the first time.
“Nothing bad!” he said, though it would’ve been more convincing if his mouth wasn’t still set in a wide smile. They’d both come so quickly. That part at least even Hoseok could find humorous.
Hoseok scoffed, so Namjoon wrapped him up in a hug and rolled them back and forth together while trying to kiss Hoseok’s neck and cheek and lips.
“I’m happy,” Namjoon admitted in disbelief. It had been so long since he’d felt this kind of happiness and was unburdened enough to appreciate it. He squeezed Hoseok tighter, burying his face in Hoseok’s neck. “I love you so much.”
Hoseok’s arms snaked up around him at that. The brotherly patting of Namjoon’s back settled into more tender, more intimate strokes.
“I missed you,” Hoseok admitted in a quiet, shaky voice. It sounded just like ‘I love you’ to Namjoon.
They held each other for a long while after that.
“I thought I’d stop journaling when I was finally out of the military. But, it turns out, just like before enlistment, my thoughts never stop even when I have people around me to share them with. I think I have to acknowledge that life will always give me something to ponder. Sometimes something new, but often it’s just the same questions that I reapproach at different times of my life. Like- what is love?
Love has been my mother making me lunch. It’s been friends making me laugh. It’s been ARMY picking up what I’ve been throwing down. It’s been realizing that family aren’t always born of your own blood. It’s been wanting to give everything to someone else and also wanting everything for myself.
And it’s been you. Sneaking into the corners of my days and posting up in my treacherous mind until the word ‘alone’ has become a temporary state of physical being and not an inescapable mental phantom.”