Nights in the Studio - Taejoon

45

Namjoon's POV

The airport gates hit us with the wet breeze of a familiar city, one in which some of us had our names. We don't see it for long, but we know it's out there, with the buildings being nothing more than facades of the home they left behind, I wonder if there is anyone who might not miss where we came from.

They direct us almost immediately to the van that is supposed to take us to the booked hotel. I sit in the back with Hoseok next to me, letting him lean on my shoulder and get some sleep. I don't want to admit that I am also tired, much more so than I have been in several weeks; it's just that sometimes flying can be such a suffocating act for me, like a dream that is cursed when the condition of my body ceases to be a priority in the order of my work.

Taehyung sits with Jin, a little more awake than me, I see in his eyes that he wants to hold my hand, I smile to tell him that I do too.

I'm no longer afraid that he can't understand me with just a look.

Upon arrival, we are given the option to choose our rooms, resulting in the same old situation: Jin and Yoongi Hyung, Hoseok and Jimin, Jungkook alone, and of course, me and my love. Ever since the night I called him that out loud I can't stop repeating it to myself. While I walk, or eat, or exist, I tend to call my love as if he could listen to me attentively, as if somehow he could suddenly appear to show me his happy face when we are together, or that he can talk to me about how excited he is for his release, or the new things he wants to do once he stops promoting his music...he'd like to take up saxophone injuries again, and he's trying to convince me to join him in some dance; I tell him that he must want to humiliate me with his talent but he just says that he likes to see me tired. I don't know how to tell him that I'd rather for him to tire me out.

Lately, the sessions have become somewhat less impactful for him: he is happier now, doing exercises in his little notebook, telling me about things he loves about himself, talking about concepts of forgiveness, and sometimes crying himself to sleep with existential questions. It's like we're teenagers again, because sometimes I even join him in crying thinking about the same thing, even when I know it really doesn't make any sense. It doesn't matter: many times, one has to be an idiot to be happy. He has his first couple session with Jimin in a couple of days, that has us both trembling with curiosity and fear, not because of the conversation but because we both agree on the idea of ​​forgiveness.

"You should know that doesn't justify what he did, nothing does. That's not love." I spat at him when he insisted that it was best to let the wound heal completely, based on the forgiveness of his best friend. I had to say those words to him because I didn't know how to convince him of how bad his pity towards Jimin made me feel, regardless.

"Joonie," Taehyung called out to me, taking my hand, "I've decided to do this. I want to forgive him, and I want to tell him that I will. I want to leave everything behind."

"But making him your friend again is something I consider..."

Taehyung came over to kiss me on the lips, leaving me speechless. Even though he's done it so many times he can't help but feel the same shock when he touches me, as if the time apart had made me immune to the reality in which I hold him in my arms, in which we surrender.

"It won't be like before; I do not want us to be the same friends we sued to be; but I must try." He continued once we parted "I need you to be with me, will you be?"

A heavy silence entered my head. I decided that it was very innocent to think that control was tied to love, that I could manipulate his life with what I considered correct: in the end he continued to be his own: our love was just a way of sharing himself with me. Therefore, I had no right to control him, or risk binding him to me. I let him follow himself.