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People cope with sadness and grief in many ways. Namjoon has a thousand options to pick from, and none of them are as easy as he’d like them to be. But, there’s worse things to have to recover from, he thinks. A broken heart can’t be that bad, and in his mind he thinks of it as something akin to a head wound-- they bleed and look more serious than they are, but the wound itself is more superficial than anything. He’d survive it.
Jungkook isn’t the first to break his heart.
But maybe he’d be the last.
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Breakup cliches are just that. Cliche. In some ways the theatrics of them are more comforting than whatever is actually being done, maybe that was the novelty of it. Except Namjoon wasn’t really going through a breakup. Could it be classified as an almost breakup? A breakup between almost somethings? Like a half eaten apple with the core barely touched or a scar still pinkish around the edges. He doesn’t know.
“Joon, say ah,” Namjoon opens his mouth for another spoonful of ice cream, and Seokjin gleefully stuffs him full with it. He hasn’t kept track of how much he’s eaten, but judging from the cartons of Ben & Jerry’s scattered on his living room floor, it was probably a lot. He chews thoughtfully and swallows.
It’s a little scary how much he doesn’t care right now. He should be more sad, really. He’d spent a year being in love with Jungkook knowingly, and god knows how long unknowingly. But it’s like his heart is encased in ice that’s just waiting to shatter.
Seokjin is a good friend; he always has been. And he loves Namjoon enough to sit here with him and go through the aforementioned theatrics of a breakup cliche. He isn’t the type to immediately offer logical solutions, not like Namjoon typically would. Emotional support has always been more of his thing. Like he can just sense that being told to ‘just get over it and move on’ isn’t what Namjoon needs to hear.
That’s why he’s shovelling ice cream into his friend’s mouth on a Friday night instead of going out and partying, or something. Namjoon doesn’t need logic, he needs the temporary relief that friendship can provide. He’ll wake up feeling equally as shitty, but at least he’ll have ice cream. At least he’ll know Seokjin will be there to do it all over again if need be.
Namjoon barely notices when the credits for Titanic roll down the screen.
“Still gets me everytime,” Seokjin sniffles from beside him, wiping away non-existent tears.
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Namjoon wouldn’t be able to pinpoint when he realized he loved Jungkook.
All he really had to show for his feelings was an amalgamation of Jungkook’s entire being, the memories they shared, carefully mapped out onto a planner, complete with little notes, neatly tucked into a box and topped with a pretty red bow, pushed into a cabinet in some part of his brain. Some days he’d take it out and lovingly trace his hands over it. Read it over and over to the point that he could recite it all effortlessly, like it was tattooed to the back of his eyelids.
He had memories of different versions of Jungkook, too;
There was this version: “ Hyung,” a sunkissed, happy Jungkook smiles so brightly at Namjoon that he could rival the sunlight beating down on them. Namjoon can feel the gentle waves lapping at their feet, toes curling in the sand. “ You look so red, did you forget to wear sunblock?”
And then another version: Sleepy. His cheek pressing against his palm, trying to keep his head up and miserably failing. “Shouldn’t have chosen an engineering degree, I’m so tired.” A stifled yawn, then a dozy smile sent in Namjoon’s direction. “Thank you for tutoring me, hyung. I think you’re the only reason I haven’t flunked.
And another: Tear-streaked cheeks, dry heaving and swamped with grief. “I don’t want to do it anymore, I don’t. I’m tired, I just want--”
And one that Namjoon knows isn’t real, but likes to think about sometimes, even when it does nothing to alleviate the pain: “I love you.” A kiss to his mouth, again, again, and again like he couldn’t breathe without it. “Everything you are, I love you, and I’m happy you love me too. You have my heart, let’s be together forever. I won’t leave your side, I promise.”
It does more harm than good, but Namjoon learns about the theory of infinite universes. The theory that every choice we make creates a universe that deviates from the one we currently live in, following what would have happened if you made the opposite decision. He tries not to think too hard about it. But he realizes that, with the infinite universes being made, there certainly must be one where Jungkook loves him back.
As shitty luck may have it, it isn’t the one he’s in.
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The thing was that they could have been something.
That was what made it hurt more. The proverbial almost. Namjoon might’ve read it right. They were dancing to the same beat, toeing the very same line that split between friends and more than friends.
Because, well, friends-- they don’t crawl into your bed tipsy, following the instinct that told them that they needed to curl against you and press wet, open-mouthed kisses to your neck and mumble about missing you. You don’t usually give friends a spare key to your apartment for the sole purpose of them letting themselves in to do that exact thing (because they do it often enough to warrant getting a new key made so you don’t have to get up at ass-o’clock to open the door for them).
Ever since Namjoon had gotten rejected by Jungkook, he hasn’t heard his door unlock with a click in the middle of the night.
It wasn’t messy. It went a bit like--
[ “Jungkook, I’m in love with you. I have been for a while. I’m sorry if this is weird, and too cheesy and poetic, but I love you.” Under cherry blossoms, flourishing for spring. Namjoon was in fact cheesy enough to believe that spring was all about new beginnings and hoped that Jungkook would be one of those new beginnings.
Jungkook had stared at him, wide-eyed with shock. And Namjoon hadn’t exactly known what to expect.
“I don’t feel anything for you, hyung.” He had said slowly, but quick enough to make it feel like ripping off a bandaid just to get it over with. “You’re sweet, kind, and everything, but I don’t think we’d work.” ]
People usually saw Namjoon as closed off, not very affectionate. But he had put his heart into someone else’s hands one too many times. Most times without a single sound. Plopping it into their hands regardless of whether or not they knew or expected it. Then later finding it in a gutter, discarded, tattered, used. Jungkook genuinely wasn’t his first rodeo, but Christ, if he wasn’t tired of it.
Most people that flitted in and out of his life, and those that remained, knew he didn’t like being touched. But it was a very strange type of dislike. He didn’t like it because he desired it so, so much. He didn’t like it because his want for it controlled him at times. He wanted to be held so tightly that he could shatter and reform without losing a single shard. And at times he hoped for the wrong people to hold him.
This time he’d hoped Jungkook would hold him this time, beyond those nights he’d sneak into Namjoon’s bed and further blur those lines between being friends and being much more.
He was tired of hoping, of wanting.
Quietly, he vowed to stop missing Jungkook. But for now he could lament, for now he could trace the tender, broken flesh of his own heart and feel how the corners throb painfully. For now he could be alone and not alone at the same time. He had his memories of Jungkook, and he could drown in them as much as he liked. Then he could wash ashore and cough them out, only to dive in again and again. Until he got tired of that too.
Then he could move on.
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The thing was that Jungkook knew he loved Namjoon back.
However, the act of loving was not as simple as just that. He didn’t see himself as pure, not like Namjoon. Namjoon who glistens pure white and speaks to the wind softly like he could get carried away by it. Namjoon who gave him a spare key knowing Jungkook would invite himself in and greedily take what he pleased.
Namjoon, who effortlessly wormed himself into Jungkook’s heart.
Whenever Jungkook would fall asleep at night, it felt almost like he could never fully sink into it. Like a small part of him would have an eye open, jittery, waiting for something, waiting for someone. He didn’t know what, and didn’t figure it out for a while.
Not until clumsy, sweet Namjoon answered all of his 3 am calls, listening to his stories, his strange conspiracies, without a single complaint. Not until Namjoon would poke at all his sharp edges without being afraid of being hurt. Like Jungkook was worth the risk-- when he wasn’t. He just wasn’t.
And yet--
“You’re a fucking liar, Jeon Jungkook.” Seokjin tells him, harsh, and frank. “I know damn well you lied straight to Namjoon’s face that day, because otherwise I wouldn’t be having to give both of you the same treatment.” Yet another spoonful of ice cream (plain vanilla because Jungkook likes that) shoved into his mouth. It doesn’t taste so sweet now that he knows that Namjoon had experienced the same thing too.
“Don’t have to keep doin’ this, if you know the truth, then.”
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In another world perhaps Jungkook could have let Namjoon love him.
The Jungkook that Namjoon knew was not him, because that Jungkook was one that was cut down into manageable pieces. Into bite-sized chunks easier to chew, easier to swallow. That was the only reason why Namjoon sunk his teeth into him and thought he loved him. It’s easy to love someone like that, when they’ve cherry picked all the bad things and buried it all under the good. But it wasn’t real, and he couldn’t keep lying like that.
A fraud was what he was. He wouldn’t be able to bear the day Namjoon found that out too.
So he’d let Namjoon chew on those pieces a little more. Soon, the other would get tired of it too. Then Namjoon would move on and find better. Then Jungkook would stay awake a little more and think of the almost-something they could have been. Then he’d move on too, and attempt to forget. Then he’d fail and carefully mix his coffee every morning to match the brown of Namjoon’s eyes.
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Namjoon diverges from the script. Actually, he does more than that. He takes the script and scribbles on it in neon colors and rips it up with his teeth and spits it out.
He’s not the confrontational type. Being a gentle giant at heart, he’d never dream of grabbing anyone with force.
But Jungkook isn’t just anyone, and Namjoon is in love and sick of needing. Sick of how his wants replicated hunger, how he wanted something so simple and couldn’t have it.
“We don’t have to be-- anything. Anything other than just friends.” Namjoon rushes out. Another cliche, added on further by the fact that he was soaking wet from the rain after running all the way to Jungkook’s apartment in the dead of the night. He shivers and not from the cold, but from Jungkook’s heavy, weighted stare. “You don’t love me and that’s-- that’s okay. You still matter to me as a friend. You still have a key to my place and that says,” A deep gulp of air. “A lot. It says a lot. I still worry about you and just because you don’t feel the same doesn’t mean you can’t be safe with me. God it’s late and I’m not making sense but what I’m trying to say is that we should be friends still. I’ll push away these feelings. You matter more than just--”
Jungkook hands him a towel. “I know what you’re trying to say, hyung. We can be friends.”
Namjoon glows.
“But not now. Maybe when you don’t look at me like I’m all your hopes and dreams.”
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Jungkook can’t keep up a lie forever, and that’s proven when, after a month, he crawls into Namjoon’s bed once again, more than tipsy, not just on the typical things, but on wanting.
He doesn’t listen to how his sober self is screaming somewhere in his mind when he admits things to Namjoon in babbles that shouldn’t make sense.
“ I’ve always had that fear of being too much, you know. Taking up too much space, Imposing too much of myself onto others. I wanted to stop doing that. I wanted to shrink. So I did, and I lied to you. Would you still love me if I didn’t shrink, if I had just somehow found a way to live and be loved without having cut my existence into tiny pieces that you could chew and swallow in moderation? Would you still be here if I could have learned to love you in ripples instead of tidal waves that I keep trying to hold at bay? Or would you have left just the same way? Hyung?” Jungkook speaks in shuddering breaths, almost incoherently, and if it hadn’t been for how Namjoon was listening to his every word, wide awake with his heart pounding, it would’ve all been lost.
Namjoon physically trembles as he holds Jungkook. This night feels almost unreal, like something his grief-addled imagination dreamt up to lessen the pain. But it’s too vivid to be a dream, Jungkook is heavy on his torso and it’s all too much.
“I still want all of you, Jungkook. Bite-sized or not. I’d swallow you whole if I could.” Namjoon means it. He was so hungry for Jungkook’s entirety in a way that, he hoped if he held him tight enough they’d merge and Namjoon could stay lodged in the softness of his abdomen, in the warmth of his ribcage, and never want anything more than that.
If they wake up the next morning remembering everything they said, yet still pretending, and dancing the same old rhythm they always have-- neither of them comment on it.