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Everything was quiet and far away.
His eyes were always closed in the pictures he posted on their Twitter, but when the sky was this bright and this wide and this blue, it was quite possibly the last thing Namjoon wanted to do. It made something inside of him feel like it was bursting, like his skin was soaking up the sunlight and infusing it into his veins.
He didn’t understand how one person could exist with so much inside of them. How the earth was crawling with people who had the same magnitude of emotions. How the world could hold so much, how it could be so loud and so quiet at the same time.
The leaves overhead fluttered as a breeze snuck by, quiet and unhurried.
Jimin stood on the opposite side of the path. He wore a dark hoodie and a black cap over his recently dyed hair. His street clothes were a far cry from the pastels they liked to dress him in for shoots and interviews. Sometimes the very best feeling was waking up and just pulling on whatever was lying around and not thinking twice about it.
Jimin looked up. He’d been examining a tiny waterfall and taking pictures of it with his phone. He met Namjoon’s gaze, smiling, the dappled sunlight shining down through the leaves overhead sneaking beneath the rim of his hat.
He held up his phone again. “Do you want a picture, hyung? The light’s really cool.”
Namjoon was about to ask for one, anyway. Jimin was good at knowing what people needed. Namjoon was half-convinced he had some sort of superpower. Or maybe the sunshine was pretty and Namjoon was just predictable.
He closed his eyes and smiled, tilting his head upward till the sunlight turned the backs of his eyelids orange.
“Okay,” Jimin said. Namjoon opened his eyes again. Jimin crossed to his side of the path and leaned his back against the railing overlooking the edge of the hill. He tiled the phone screen toward Namjoon.
He wore a soft white shirt with his sleeves bunched around his wrists, khaki shorts and near-spotless hiking boots he didn’t get to use nearly enough. He wore a gray beanie over his head, sunlight scattered over his entire body. The sky in the background was clear and blue beyond the trees, not a cloud to be seen.
“Perfect.” He looked back up at Jimin and smiled. “Thanks.”
Jimin shrugged, pleased with his work, and stuffed his phone back into his jeans pocket. “You can post it later, when we get service again.”
Namjoon nodded. There was something almost exhilarating about being in a place that wasn’t connected to the outside world by a text or a phone call, or anything instant. The world of the internet was buzzing with talk, all day, all the time, constant, about them – Tweets generated and thoughts posted and videos edited and memes created right now at this very moment – and while he didn’t always look at it all, it was nice to know it was impossible to do that now. That it was possible for the world to just be quiet. That one photo of him could be taken and saved for later because now wasn’t necessary.
Jimin had turned around, was looking at the view, at the wide blue sky and freshly bloomed trees. His face was shadowed by his cap, away from the sun, but a small speck of light just reached his chin.
Namjoon had the urge to reach out and touch it. But why? It would just feel like skin.
(Why, why, why. He knew why.)
Jimin was his favorite companion to have on these excursions. Jimin could be a ball of energy and a lot of sound and a forceful presence that demanded attention, cameras or not, but there was also…this.
(Maybe his skin would be warm. Maybe it would be soft. Maybe Jimin’s breath would catch in his throat and he’d tilt his eyes up at him beneath his bare lashes.)
Namjoon was relieved, at times, to be reminded that many personalities, many moods, many personas and temperaments and charms, many needs and interests, could exist in just one person.
(Jimin was all of that. Jimin was everything.)
The breeze crept by again, ruffling Namjoon’s shirt and playing with the strings of Jimin’s hoodie. It was cool against the bare skin of his face and legs. Namjoon was glad he’d worn long sleeves.
“Hyung?” Jimin said, turning his head just slightly toward him, eyes flicking upward and back down. The sunlight on his chin spread wider.
Namjoon looked away, embarrassment tickling the back of his neck. Caught.
(Because they could never. Jimin would never. Jimin didn’t. )
(No matter how many lumpy heart-shaped clouds Namjoon had stupidly wished over.)
They stood there, looking over the hills, not a single other person passing along the path. Namjoon was glad for it. He wanted to comment on how much he enjoyed the quiet, but he didn’t want to break it. He didn’t want to disrupt the breeze and Jimin’s soft, easy presence beside him. He wanted to stand here for just a little longer.
Because they’d talked about this stuff, he and Jimin, on these walks. The bigger stuff, the existential stuff and the emotional stuff and the fact that Namjoon felt too big for his body out here and too small for it in the face of hundreds of thousands of millions of billions of trillions.
Not that he was ungrateful, he always felt the need to add. They always all felt the need to add.
“I think you can be grateful and overwhelmed at the same time,” Yoongi had said a long, long time ago, when they were just starting out.
He felt that way about their careers. He felt that way about standing beneath an enormous blue sky, too.
“Hyung,” Jimin said again, voice low. The sunlight touched the bottom of his lips.
Namjoon pushed the lump in his throat back down to his heart.
“Jimin-ah.”
Jimin’s eyes flickered to his again, and then back down to where his hands were gripping the railing. The tips of Jimin’s fingers pressed flat and white.
“Jimin-ah?” he said again, frowning slightly.
“Hyung, I- ” Jimin started. Paused. He looked up at Namjoon, but he still hid his eyes beneath the lid of his cap. “I like it. When you-” His cheeks pinked slightly.
Namjoon blinked. “When I what?”
“When you look at – me.” He ducked his head downward so that his entire face was hidden.
Namjoon’s heart was suddenly beating in his throat. It felt dry. “When I look at you?”
Jimin didn’t look up. Despite Namjoon’s racing heart, he still marveled at how someone so bold and shameless on stage in front of thousands could turn into a bashful, blushing heap when they were alone, just the two of them, in the middle of the woods.
Jimin didn’t answer him. Instead he said, “The view is so beautiful.”
Namjoon looked back at it, just for a second, hardly seeing, and when he looked down again, Jimin was looking up at him.
Jimin’s blush crept over his nose. Caught.
Namjoon could feel his own face beginning to flush.
Jimin looked away again, up at the leaves.
“You always look embarrassed, but you don’t have to. It’s nice.” His voice had turned soft enough to blend in with the breeze. “I like coming to these places with you, hyung. I like taking pictures of you. I like being the one to do it. I like-” He broke off.
Namjoon’s whole heart was in his throat. “Yeah?”
Then Jimin looked back at him, and his entire face was in the sunlight. There was something in his eyes, wide and searching. He sucked in a breath. “Is there….is there a reason it’s me?”
Namjoon’s hands were suddenly clammy. Jimin knew. Jimin had to know. “I thought you knew.”
Jimin’s composure seemed to crumple slightly, and suddenly Namjoon was reminded of when, after a performance, after Jimin would record his parts in the studio, after a dance practice, after a photoshoot, when Jimin would look at them, would look at their staff, would look at the fans themselves and say, searching, “How was I? How did I do? What did you like, specifically?”
Jimin was incredibly smart, and capable, and so confident sometimes that Namjoon could forget that often he wasn’t.
Namjoon lifted both of his hands and brought them to Jimin’s face, barely thinking, and Jimin’s skin was warm, and soft. “Jimin, you’re- you’re, like- ” He was a rapper and a writer. Why did his words have to come out so clunky at the most important times?
Jimin stared up at him, cheeks engulfed in Namjoon’s grasp, eyes wide.
Namjoon let out a breath. His heart was racing so fast he wondered if the lightheaded feeling that had come over him was a result of that, or the fact that he literally held Jimin’s face in both of his hands. “What I mean is – Jimin. Can I kiss you?”
Jimin blinked. And then he nodded. A small, quick nod, but a nod all the same. Namjoon wondered if this was a dream.
Namjoon took a breath, and ducked down beneath the lid of Jimin’s cap and kissed him.
It was barely a brush of the lips, but Namjoon felt the sensation of it all the way down to his toes. Jimin’s lips were dry, and so were Namjoon’s, his face so close to Jimin’s he could feel the heat of his skin. It was their noses bumping and the sunlight warm on the back of Namjoon’s neck. It was Jimin’s light touch on his hip. It was every nerve in his body half a foot off the ground.
He pulled away, face warm, hands drifting from Jimin’s face. Namjoon looked at him. His heart was beating out of his skin, like now that Namjoon had actually gone and kissed the boy he’d been in love with for years now, it had permission to jump right out of his chest and into Jimin’s hands.
(He’d trust Jimin with it. He’d trust him with everything.)
“Hyung,” Jimin said, voice breathless, as the breeze shifted the leaves overhead and the sunlight filtered across his face. His cheeks were dusted pink.
Namjoon was on a cloud. He was bluer than the sky and greener than the leaves.
He licked his dry lips, chest pounding hard. “Does that answer your question?”
And Jimin - because he was sweet, lovely Jimin - he giggled.
And suddenly Namjoon ached to kiss him again, to feel that smile against his own mouth. But before he could decide if he was brave enough to do it a second time, Jimin wrapped his arms around Namjoon’s neck and pulled him back down.
This kiss was harder, closer, firm and closed mouth but forceful, and Jimin pulled away to take a breath before pulling him back and kissing him again. Namjoon placed his hands on Jimin’s shoulders because his brain was about to combust and he had no idea what he was doing.
Jimin started to grin against his mouth, and Namjoon felt a laugh bubble up his throat, embarrassing and overwhelming but unable to stop. Then Jimin was giggling into his cheek and Namjoon was snorting loudly into the quiet, and his hands had found a more comfortable spot on the small of Jimin’s back.
Namjoon had never imagined the precise, exquisite sweetness of hearing Jimin’s laugh so intimately against his skin.
Jimin pulled Namjoon’s ear to his mouth and said, voice low and soft, “I wished for this, hyung.” Like it was a secret from the trees and the sunlight and the leaves, but surely they knew, like the clouds and the sky knew Namjoon.
“I wished for it too, Jimin-ah,” Namjoon said so there was no question, but he didn’t think there was.
Jimin’s face bloomed like a flower in the sun.
Namjoon felt like he was bursting. Like everything was separating and coming together and filling him with light.
There is nothing better than being here, on this earth, at this moment, with this boy.
Namjoon could possibly look at him forever. Jimin didn’t mind.