Chapter Text
the clock is obscenely loud in the quiet of the classroom, accompanied with that scratching sound of pen nibs against paper, the little taps as college students finish the word they’re struggling to remember. namjoon’s eyes scan around, consciously avoiding looking at other test papers so he can avoid being branded a cheat by the eagle eyed lectures monitoring from the front.
namjoon’s own test paper lies empty.
it isn’t that he doesn’t know. he knows the answers — he knows what it’s asking of him in the same way he knows exactly what they want him to write.
he just doesn’t know what he wants from himself.
namjoon could finish this test and get what they call a good grade, just to work himself to exhaustion again and again to fill out another test. and repeat. it probably wouldn’t be so bad if it was something he was interested in, wouldn’t be so mind numbingly boring if he had even wanted to apply in the first place. or maybe that’s not fair — he didn’t want to apply to college but he didn’t not want to either. he just...did. he just followed what his teachers said, what his classmates said, as they repeated the same things as his family and his parents and the people he knows nothing about behind the small talk they’ve shared.
it was the expectation that he would be sitting here, two years after getting in. he followed the expectations placed on his shoulders perfectly. so maybe namjoon’s exhausted and bored and feels like he’s drowning but at least the people who only cared for him out of convenience were proud.
namjoon aches, inside and out. even if he could force himself to pick up his pen and write anything - what’s the point?
that’s the question that haunts him, that spins and spins around his brain day and night. what’s the point? he gets a good grade so he passes his year so he can pass the next and then he gets a degree in a disinteresting subject in order to get a job that he couldn’t care less about. where’s the point to that? what’s the point to him? when was the last time he did anything just because he wanted to? has he ever?
someone coughs and the clock ticks and the lecturer sighs and it’s — it’s too much and too little and namjoon’s leaving everything but his bag behind as he stands up, letting his feet lead him out the door and as far away as he can get.
his test paper doesn’t even say his name.
despair weighs down namjoon with his every step as he feels himself leaving the buildings on campus, going towards the wooded area at the very edge. it’s nothing but a few trees and a lot of bugs but it’s the only place he’s felt at home.
his hands shake.
he doesn’t know what to do.
running away hadn’t been the key to unlock those shackles around namjoon’s wrists.
“fuck,” is the first word namjoon’s spoken aloud in three days. he’s about to sit on the floor at the bottom of a tree and maybe stay there forever until they share the same roots but then there’s — there’s music.
there’s the gentle strumming of guitars dancing at his ears out of nowhere and namjoon’s first action is to check his phone even though he knows, without a flicker of a doubt, that this is no music he’s heard before, this isn’t a song that something as pitiful as a — as a human could create.
namjoon looks up and sees a dark, wooden hand with bark falling off like old skin, flowers entangled around its fingers and nectar dripping out of wooden fingertips like raindrops from a cloud, reaching out to him from above.
his left hand drops his phone harshly on the ground as his right lifts up, slow and shaking, to take the one from the trees.
the music gets louder in that split second before it all goes black.
namjoon’s eyes take far longer than he’d like to open, eyelids heavy with sleep and who knows what else.
he is not where he used to be.
flowers. all he sees around him are flowers like nothing else in the world. with awe, namjoon realises that there are not trees shading him but kind sunflowers taller than he, bluebells tickle gently at his nose rather than at his knees, luminous marigolds shine as they make eye contact. there’s nothing in front of him but green stems and rainbow petals and soft leaves and namjoon, tired and human, he — he unwillingly sheds a tear with a smile.
“am i dead?” namjoon lets the question fly from his mouth into the open air. it does not go unanswered.
the flowers around him shake their heads, gentle as not to send their pollen flying but enough for it to be obvious, enough for it to be an answer.
namjoon cannot stop his hands from shaking.
“ah!” a light voice makes him jump, sending him looking around to try and find any kind of humanoid figure. he blinks again and there’s — a boy? a man? at first glance, he looks the same age as namjoon but namjoon barely even considers himself a person let alone an adult. namjoon’s considerably sure that this person in front of him is no human and it’s surprisingly unsurprising. everything about him is perfectly balanced, like a painted portrait come to life.
“sorry,” golden petals sprout like feathers from the tanned skin that sings of health, growing all the way from the skin on his neck to the top of the head, between the strands of brown, and namjoon’s reminded suddenly of a lion, “i thought they’d dropped you on the other side! i really need to spend more time learning how to speak tree, honestly.”
“um,” is all namjoon can say. the stranger laughs, cheerful and sunny and namjoon finds his overwhelmed tears drying.
“hoseok,” the flower man says, bowing elegantly, “it’s a pleasure to meet you.” around them, the flowers extend their own greeting, a soft bow. out of reflex, namjoon bows back.
“i’m namjoon,” namjoon’s voice breaks on his own name, shame flooding his cheeks. hoseok doesn’t even blink.
“confused?” hoseok asks easily, stroking the closest flower to him, reaching on his tiptoes to pet the furthest away petals.
“very,” namjoon stutters as the flowers closest to him start vying for attention to.
and it’s — it’s weird and inhuman and all namjoon did was abandon a college test and now he’s here, wherever here is, with sentient flowers nudging him asking for attention like a lonely puppy.
gentle and hesitant, namjoon leans up to touch gingerly at a petal closest to him. it’s soft. delicate. fragile. warm from the sun in the sky. it’s alive and for what feels like the first time in his life, so is namjoon.
hoseok hums happily as a solitary rose carefully rubs against his cheeks, “the trees like you.”
“they...like me?”
“yeah! they like you, so,” hoseok’s mane of flowers flare when his voice raises, a gentle halo of yellows and golds, “they saved you. took you from there and brought you here.”
namjoon’s silent for a minute or two. hoseok doesn’t push, just watches as the information sinks in.
with a swallow, namjoon asks the question he fears most. “where is...here?”
hoseok detaches a hand from a flower, and reaches his open palm towards namjoon. before namjoon’s own eyes, a green stem breaks through the skin on hoseok’s palm, shooting up and dancing into multiple stems before buds burst out, bringing themselves into fully developed flower heads. hoseok pulls the natural bouquet from his palm with a quiet snap.
offering it to namjoon, hoseok simply smiles, “wherever you want it to be.”
his palm is unscarred.
namjoon thinks of his family and his almost-friends and his classmates and his tests and his money and his phone and all the other things lying in the world behind him.
he takes the flowers.
“your clothes aren’t as weird as i expected,” hoseok muses after his interrogation about where namjoon’s from has finished. they’ve both given up on standing, sitting cross legged on the grass and dirt beneath them. the flowers taller than them have gently arranged themselves to provide the best shade they can from the happy sun.
namjoon just laughs slightly, staring at his wide legged trousers and plain shirt, “people where i’m from thought they were weird.”
hoseok frowns for the first time, his mane of petals bristling in distaste. his own outfit is similar to namjoon’s except hoseok’s flowing top and shorts are a pure white, a soft floaty material that namjoon’s sure isn’t possible to buy in shops.
“well,” hoseok pouts, “you’re not there anymore and i think they suit you very nicely. maybe a bit hot, especially for when the second sun comes out soon,” hoseok shrugs that sentence off easily, “you’re a very beautiful creature, namjoon.”
the flowers rustle in what namjoon reads as silent agreement and it’s — namjoon’s been called handsome a few times when he was younger but...beautiful. that’s a first and it calls his blood to come rushing up to his cheeks, painting him with a pretty blush. hoseok just giggles.
“jimin will like you,” hoseok decides, mostly to himself it seems, punctuating his sentence with a confident little nod. the flowers seem to agree once more. “i’ll introduce you two! in fact, let’s do it right now.”
hoseok’s up on his feet in seconds, offering out a hand to help namjoon up to his own, “come! you’ve met my flowers, now you’ve got to meet the rest of my favourite souls.”
hoseok chatters easily as he leads namjoon delicately through the flowers and namjoon just — takes it all in, starstruck.
“oh,” namjoon can’t help but ask when hoseok’s last sentence has come to an end, “where are the bugs? like the butterflies and the bees?”
unexpectedly, hoseok lets out an animalistic hiss at the mention of insects, “they aren’t needed here. they have such a god complex, i really can’t stand them.”
his hands fly around angrily as he scoffs, “they aren’t the only ones who can look after the flowers! besides, with their stupid flapping and gossiping? they’re just a nuisance! an absolute nuisance.”
a light giggle brings both hoseok and namjoon back to the present. belatedly, namjoon realises they’re at the end of the flower meadow and now they stand in front of grassy green hills with many coloured paths crossing over each other and leading around and away.
there, leaning on a lavender letterbox prettily painted with dusky red to read “hoseok”, is the most beautiful figure namjoon’s ever seen. where hoseok’s hair shines a light brown under the sun, perfectly contrasting to the gold of his petals, and while namjoon’s hair is a stark black, this strangers’ hair glows the colour of ripe tangerines, singing of the setting sun but feeling youthful and free like glimmering koi fish in ponds. one sharp catlike eye sparkles a mysterious sky blue while the right eye burns a captivatingly warm brown.
namjoon’s never believed in love at first sight but right now, taking in the way the strangers unique eyes crinkle up when he smiles at hoseok, he’s not so sure.
“jimin,” hoseok flings an arm around the shorter one’s — jimin’s — shoulders, “this is namjoon.”
jimin bows gently, “nice to meet you,” his voice as soft as his bow. namjoon bows quickly, goes too low and then feels immediately embarrassed. unlike from where he’s from, they don’t laugh. they don’t even blink even though namjoon’s standing there clearly flustered and awkward and it’s — like a breath of fresh air.
“namjoon,” jimin tilts his head, “like the month of june?”
namjoon’s taken aback by that but hoseok just rolls his eyes good naturedly, explaining that, “jiminie loves learning about that human stuff. he got a few books from the trees since some human must’ve left some in a forest somewhere and now he thinks he’s an expert. he’s just trying to impress you.”
jimin, who exudes elegance at first sight —especially with his outfit of a deep green top that shows his midriff (a place namjoon had very conscientiously avoided with his eyes for the sake of his own sanity) and delicate, flowing shorts in the same colour that barely covers even a quarter of his thigh — squawks in embarrassment, hitting at hoseok’s arm in an attempt to hide his obvious blush. hoseok just cackles, easily letting jimin react out of embarrassment. namjoon can’t help but laugh along, completely and utterly already endeared.
“you can call me joon, if you want,” namjoon offers, trying not to get flustered himself, “it’s — uh, spelt differently to the month but…” he trails off, expecting the worst, only to find jimin eagerly nodding.
“joon! joon and jiminie, joonie and jiminie, ” jimin hums proudly, “i like it. let’s be good friends, joonie.”
and, well. how could namjoon say no to that?
“ah, are you hungry?” jimin asks, his beautifully contrasting eyes suddenly full of worry as he stares at namjoon. hoseok suddenly looks worried too, the pair staring at namjoon in a way that makes him scratch awkwardly at the back of his head.
“um,” namjoon is about to lie before he reminds himself that he’s not at home; he can do what he wants to now, not what he thinks is convenient for other people, “i am a bit.”
jimin gasps, frowning at hoseok, “you know not everyone can just feed off the sun like you! he needs real food, you awful host.”
namjoon can’t help but gape, “are you saying hoseok photosynthesises?”
he probably should’ve expected the blank stares he gets in response, “sorry, never mind. i’m just surprised.”
hoseok waves off his apology with a gentle wave of his hand, “here, jiminie, take him to yoongi’s before the second sun rises fully. then we can figure out a bed and all that stuff, okay namjoon? after the second sun, we’ll still have a bit of time before it goes dark.”
and maybe namjoon should be paying more attention to where he’s going to live but instead he’s staring in shock as he realises, late once again, that there’s another sun beginning to rise while a sun of the exact same size still reigns in the sky.
“when they overlap each other,” hoseok’s picked up on namjoon’s amazement, “they call to the moon to take their place. the dark falls quickly here.”
all namjoon can think about is how he should be freaking out, how he should be trying to get home, how he should be trying to understand how planets can do some kind of magic or whatever this is but instead — instead, he feels peace, he feels something scarily close to acceptance. maybe all he ever needed were two suns to melt the shackles that had weighed him down for so long.
“hey, joonie,” there’s a gentle tug on his sleeve and jimin’s so close, close enough for namjoon to see golden freckles that glitter gently like little specks of magic, “let’s go get some food, hm?” jimin drops his hand from namjoon’s sleeve and into namjoon’s hand, easily intertwining his small fingers with namjoon’s long ones.
“he’s a clingy one,” hoseok teases, “if he gets too much, just shake him off.”
“i think i’ll be okay,” namjoon surprises himself by saying, grinning back at hoseok while jimin squeezes his hand out of embarrassment, jimin’s other hand coming up to hide his face.
hoseok and his flowers wave a cheery goodbye in perfect unison with a promise to see them after their food.
“here, to get to yoongi’s we need to pick this red path here, see?” jimin points to the red path in question which is a paved brick, thankfully leading around the intimidating grass hill that lies directly in front of them instead of over like many others.
“so, who is yoongi?” namjoon picks up conversation as jimin swings their conjoined hands gently, namjoon’s shoes tapping at the bricks while jimin’s almost completely silent with his bare feet if not for his golden anklet jingling delicately with his every step.
“he’s a good friend,” jimin says, “he makes really good food but if you want some, you have to do him a favour.”
“a favour?”
jimin nods, “he’s really powerful, especially since he comes from a very old family. he can see things that will happen that no-one else can. that’s why he asks for favours, see, because there are some things he wants to avoid or things he just wants to be ready for.”
namjoon can’t help but feel in awe of someone he’s never met, “holy shit, that’s amazing.”
jimin frowns, “what did you say?”
“what?”
“never mind,” jimin lets out a strange combination of a giggle and a sigh, “i’ll ask about your weird customs later.”
the path leads them through an empty but beautiful green field, the second sun steadily rising to join the first, showering the land in a light like namjoon has ever known. a strange chirp steals namjoon’s attention, looking around for a bird of some kind when suddenly there’s an increase of the high pitched chirping, an obvious sign of a lot more of one...whatever it is.
“i wondered where they went!” jimin’s looking over at the meadow, instead of up at the sky like namjoon. following jimin’s gaze instead, namjoon sees — well. he’s not really sure.
at first, he think the creatures are deer considering they give off almost the same silhouette but as they get closer namjoon realises — they’re covered in long, twisted hair, like shaggy dogs but with long, shiny antlers ending with a sharp point that give off a gleam like newly polished wood. they jump through the grass rather than run, allowing namjoon to see that while at the front they have paws, their back feet are hooves. namjoon can’t hold back his amazed gasp. he doesn’t see, unable to tear his eyes away from the creatures that bound easily through the green, but jimin looks at him with enough warm to rival even three suns.
they settle in a herd just a little way away from the path, nudging at each other and chirping.
“what are they?”
“three-eyes,” jimin replies softly, “remind me to take you to see them when the moon is out.”
“oh,” namjoon can’t hold back his smile, dimples on show, “i won’t forget, i’m intrigued now.”
and it’s with a painful start, namjoon realises he had completely forgotten what it felt like to be genuinely interested in the world around him.
surprisingly to namjoon, who was expecting to be lead to some kind of cabin in the forest, the grass around the path slowly became shorter as a number of quaint little buildings came into show.
“here,” jimin squeezes namjoon’s hand, neither having let go during the whole walk, “once the path ends, you can see it properly.”
namjoon’s about to ask for some kind of explanation but jimin’s already gently pulling him off the end of the path and onto the ground and — oh.
it feels like a whole new world. where once was just the view of grass, the sea now reigns, making the little village into a seaside town. the sea itself moves in hues of purples, washing lilac onto the white side in its tides.
there’s more buildings now, obvious as houses, lining streets around them as they stand in the middle of what namjoon can only assume is the town square. a few people wander around, people with skin the colour of plums that jimin calls the natives of this place. a large fountain stands proudly in the middle but the water rises up in shapes of dragons and birds, flying out of the water and over their heads back to the sea. the water itself swishes and swerves like a beast alive, colour changing after every blink.
“come, this way, down here,” jimin guides namjoon down the skinny pathway straight forward, a narrow little road between two massive trees whose branches seem to be the home of chattering little creatures that remain hidden to namjoon’s eye.
and that’s where there’s stalls full of items all up for sale lining up and down what jimin calls the market path. namjoon can’t help but stop at every one — from a woman with bat wings selling live eyeballs in glass jars to the goblin creature flogging every single kind of fruit possible all the way to the living statue silently exchanging stones for a wash of its stone hands. he thinks his favourite must be the beautiful woman with a harp who plays for nothing, refusing coins or beautiful stones or whatever else there is for offer and only accepting compliments as payment. namjoon’s hands shake but he tells her that she plays beautifully anyway.
jimin pouts, even as he’s pretending he isn’t , “you know, i’ll have to sing for you one day, i’m really good.”
namjoon can’t help but snort good naturedly, “and i bet you sing beautifully.”
jimin preens even as he blushes from head to toe.
“yoongi’s is just here to the left, as close to the sea as he could get,” jimin chatters happily, leading namjoon out of the bustling life in the square and the town itself to where the buildings significantly decrease.
a tower stands alone, almost on the sand. it’s not a large tower, nothing like a lighthouse, but it’s not the square of the other buildings. without being told, namjoon knows this is yoongi’s.
the door slams open without them knocking. there’s no-one visible on the other side.
“come in before it gets hot,” a deep voice rumbles through namjoon’s body.
“hi yoongi! did you cook something yummy?” jimin’s unbothered by the lack of appearance, simply ignoring the first room which namjoon’s surprised to see really is a circular café, with mint green chairs that hover in the air along with the floating tree trunks as tables. it’s far, far bigger than namjoon had expected. a little voice in his mind supplies that it’s like the tardis. they climb up the spiral staircase, namjoon’s head spinning as he realises that after he’s left, each step of the staircase becomes covered in open eyes, watching him from below.
the upstairs is clearly a lived in area, a kitchen to the left with too many things namjoon’s ever seen before to try and describe while the rest of the space is filled with far too many raggedy old sofas for one room. though, one is in use. an ethereal man sits cross legged in the middle of one, his eyes shut. curious mint green hair falls over his forehead and reflects against the pale white of his skin.
images of shut eyes cover the walls.
“on the table,” the deep voice comes from the man and jimin spots the plates of food immediately.
“here,” jimin says, plopping himself down on one of the levitating chairs at the massive table, handing over a plate of what looks like mushrooms and berries, “eat up, joonie!”
“wait.” yoongi speaks and the room stops. namjoon watches as yoongi opens his eyes, curious to see what colour they’re painted with only to realise there’s — nothing. yoongi has no pupils at all. pure white. the walls suddenly have eyes, open and moving, pupils alive in colours of red and black and white against the light brown of the walls, making namjoon flinch. it’s unsettling, the way hundreds of them cover all the walls and the staircase and the ceiling, omniscient.
“namjoon of the kim family,” yoongi’s somber, making namjoon’s heartbeat painfully in his chest, his breath quickening fearfully, “if you eat here, you will never return.”
jimin humphs quietly, causing namjoon to stare from yoongi to jimin in shock. jimin looks away, refusing to make eye contact. namjoon silently condemns him as guilty.
“could i return even if i didn’t eat?”
namjoon can feel jimin’s selfish glare on the side of his face but that’s an issue for another time.
yoongi hums, the eyes blinking when he does, “yes. you could ask the trees to return you if you wanted to.”
there’s something in his tone that has namjoon asking, “you can see stuff other people can’t, right? the future? can’t you already tell if i leave or not?”
surprisingly, yoongi lets out a short bark of laughter, the eyes squinting like they’re attached to his face.
jimin’s still pouting, stuffing his face with strange green fruit in the shape of pyramids that he has to peel, “joonie, you don’t wanna leave already, do you?”
namjoon lets himself think. lets himself imagine a life without his family or the people he occasionally thought of as friends. thinks about magic and the unknown and danger and hoseok and jimin and it’s — “i want to stay.”
jimin grins, mouth still full of food.
“then eat,” yoongi nods. and so namjoon does.
namjoon and jimin eat in peace, exchanging easy conversation with each other and yoongi before a loud bang has them both choking on the steadily heating up mushrooms.
“honey, i’m home!” a loud voice yells, tinged with an accent namjoon can’t recognise.
“seokjin!” jimin gasps, running to the stairs just as a tall, broad shouldered and beautiful man finishes making his entrance.
“oh, lovely jiminie,” seokjin coos, scooping jimin into a big hug. seokjin’s blond hair moves for a second, giving a hint of something hidden on his forehead.
“do you love jimin or i?” yoongi almost whines, hands grabbing out to where he clearly knows seokjin is. namjoon finds it hard to equate this pouting, whining yoongi to the somber and serious man he had first met.
seokjin just coos, gently pushing jimin back towards the table as he makes his way over to yoongi, pulling yoongi into a tight hug against his stomach. “if i loved jimin,” seokjin has a smirk, “i probably would have fucked him by now.”
both namjoon and yoongi choke — one on food and the other on his own spit.
“don’t pretend like you still don’t want to,” jimin’s smirk mirrors seokjin’s.
“hey,” yoongi grumbles, causing the room to fill with narrowed eyes, “stop that.”
seokjin just sighs, “don’t get jealous, stupid, we all know who’s been marked by who here.”
namjoon can’t help but let out a confused noise which finally brings seokjin’s attention to him. they share a quick bow before seokjin frowns, checking namjoon up and down.
“you’re human?”
“the trees brought him here well before the second sun rose,” yoongi supplies, tone surprisingly careful.
seokjin’s joy is truly gone now, sadness replacing the look on his handsome features, “you felt that bad?”
jimin just pops another berry in his mouth, much like namjoon, unable to understand why seokjin is so upset, “seokjinnie used to be human too.”
“used to?”
yoongi sighs loudly, clearly not in the mood to dance around in circles, “the trees know the most out of any being. they saved you because they saw decay growing in you. they saw death. so they saved you. you went to them and they brought you here. the same happened to jin a long, long time before you.”
the silence is heavy. stifling. namjoon’s suffocating on both words and silence. he didn’t — he didn’t know he felt that bad but — but maybe he had. maybe he’d felt that rotten for so long that he forgot what it was like to be happy.
namjoon knows he’s the one who has to speak first, “i guess we are both very grateful to the trees then.”
seokjin just nods, the negativity flowing off his face like water, “yes, indeed. anyway! the fae,” yoongi and jimin groan displeased at the term, “shut up, you two. anyway, the fae mark the one they bond with their own special touch.”
seokjin lifts up his hair from where it lies on his forehead and there, open and looking, sits an eye, staring and blinking.
jimin giggles to himself before he says, “well, now we don’t have to bother looking for the three-eyes anymore because we have our very own here!”
with a large hand, seokjin swats at jimin like he’s a pest, the pair of them childishly sticking their tongues out at each other. namjoon can’t say that he doesn’t feel like he’s just out of reach of the punchline but he lets himself laugh anyway, unashamed.
“but namjoon,” yoongi waits until it’s quiet again before his serious tone rings out, ocean of eyes shifting and blinking, “if you are to stay here, you must be bonded with and marked soon. there’s no other way for you to survive here. time may move differently here but you are still running on something borrowed.”
the thought of leaving causes fear to cling to namjoon’s bones like moths to a light.
“but what does that mean? bonded?” namjoon fights to keep his voice steady, mind already guiltily drifting to jimin if it means what he thinks it does, sure of the romantic connotations. that little voice in the back of namjoon’s mind condemns him for acting like a lovesick puppy already, sure, he’s spent a lot of time one on one with jimin already but that’s nothing and he knows it.
all three of the eyes adorning seokjin’s face roll displeased, “don’t act like you haven’t guessed, we can tell you have from that blush on your face. it’s an unbreakable bond, meant for soulmates. along with the mark,” seokjin’s third eye blinks pointedly, “it opens a path between your magic — hence why it’s the key to both you and i being able to stay here. we can’t give any out, sure, but we can absorb. your emotions get shared as well. the only thing is, you can’t be away from each other for too long. even if you try,” seokjin shrugs, “you’ll end up back together whether you choose to or not.”
“so the mark is kind of like a wedding ring?”
the unexpected question has seokjin laughing, high and squeaky, while yoongi frowns at the mention of something he has no understanding of. meanwhile, jimin’s brow furrows as he wracks his brains to try and remember something about “wedding rings” from the human books. it’s painfully cute, the way the clogs in his brain seem to visibly turn.
“pretty much except there’s no such thing as divorce here,” seokjin shrugs and that’s — namjoon knows what ‘unbreakable’ means but to have it put so simply is terrifying. that really is...forever.
“so,” namjoon gulps, “i have to tie myself to someone for the rest of time within, what, a few days? or i’ll...die?”
“yes. i don’t know what a ‘day’ is but i’d say you have two rises of the first sun at most,” yoongi sighs, giving up on trying to understand the little things that stick out in namjoon’s sentences, “you’ve got three choices. return home, stay here and die, or stay forever and be marked.”
seokjin smirks, standing up to begin tidying around the kitchen, “no pressure.”
it’s dark by the time namjoon and jimin finally decide to leave, both suns missing from the sky and replaced by a beautiful, large, blue moon that takes namjoon’s breath away. until namjoon definitely makes his decision, it’d been decided that he should stay with jimin for now. sure, it undeniably feels like a setup, but neither jimin nor namjoon had protested at the suggestion. jimin seemed excited to show off his home, chattering happily that all they need to do is take the pink brick path — apparently, jimin’s closer to hoseok than yoongi and seokjin’s home but is the closest to someone named taehyung’s pond.
floating, tiny lights decorate the world around them, acting like street lights, reminding namjoon of fireflies. maybe it’s just exhaustion setting in but at the reality of the situation, namjoon feels a pang of homesickness. he can’t even begin to explain why but it almost hurts, that sick feeling in his chest at just how far away he is from everything he knows.
jimin seems to sense the dip in namjoon’s mood and lets his melodic voice trail off.
“you know, joon,” jimin chooses his words carefully, angelic as he’s caressed gently by the luminous moonlight, “i may not know you very well yet but…i think, no, i know that you deserve good things. and i think that if the trees had to save you, then where you’re from wasn’t giving you what you deserve.”
“jimin…,” namjoon starts and stops, staring at jimin in surprise.
jimin’s golden freckles dance in the floating orange lights as he smiles slightly, “i think you should stay. i don’t think i’m supposed to tell you that i don’t want you to leave but it’s true. there are so many good things waiting you here, namjoon.”
the pain in namjoon’s chest burns into a warmth like he’s not felt before.
“but i need to do that whole bonding thing,” namjoon’s voice gets stuck in his throat, “who would want to spend forever with me? without even knowing me? it’s impossible.”
“i will.”
the world stops, blinks, and stutters back to life.
“i’ll bond with you, joon, i’ll give you my mark,” jimin’s painfully earnest, mismatching eyes soft, “we can make it work, i promise.”
“you don’t have to answer me right now,” jimin takes over again once he realises that namjoon can’t do anything but gape and rapidly blink away tears before they can fall, “i won’t take back my offer. you’re a good soul, joon, i don’t need to have met you for many moons to know that.”
a newly familiar chirping answers instead of namjoon, a larger group of three-eyes bounding past and clicking over the path in front of them. jimin’s earlier joke about seokjin suddenly makes perfect sense — a third eye has opened on the back of their heads, a shocking red orb with a viscously yellow pupil dilating and pulsing.
the last three-eye has just disappeared over a green hill before namjoon speaks again, “jimin, i want to take you up on your offer. please. you can change your mind! i know you said you wouldn’t but — please — i… i’d like to try a forever with you, whether that’s, uh, platonic or not or whatever, really! i…fuck.”
and well, that’s definitely not how namjoon wanted to say that, especially since jimin finds himself in a flood of giggles, eye smile fully out to play. the heavy atmosphere exists no longer, successfully beaten by a tired tongue-tied namjoon.
“come on,” jimin’s still recovering from his giggling fit, pawing at namjoon’s arm so they can link together, “let’s get you to your new home.”
“platonic means as friends, doesn’t it?” jimin asks a little while later, breaking their peaceful silence.
“yeah,” namjoon can feel his embarrassing blush climbing up his neck, “i, uh, don’t really know the rules of bonding, unsurprisingly.”
jimin hums thoughtfully, “i can’t say i know of any friends who have bonded but that’s not to say we can’t be the first.”
with a somewhat meaningful side eye, jimin speaks again, “let’s just see where fate leads us, okay? don’t worry.”
he tilts his head back, staring up at the blue moon, “the universe will take care of us, joon. always and forever.”