MOONCHILD, kim namjoon

08. world war era woman

Jaehyun knelt down to kiss Heeji on the forehead. "Be good, don't trouble your laoye and waipo too much, okay? And your parents too." He went forward to whisper the next part, "and if your parents do that cuh-duh-ling thing again and trouble you, I give you full right to come back right into my arms." 

Heeji nodded and giggled at the last part.

"Hey! Am I supposed to be knowing something?" Xumin's voice enveloped over them, to which Jaehyun and Heeji looked at each other, smirked, and shared grins.

Sangjun sighed and muttered, "Kids. One of them physically, the other mentally."

Their flight to Shenyang was at ten am after which they would board a train for Haicheng, but Xumin said that they leave at eight "just in case." Jaehyun didn't understand how that worked, because the airport was fifteen minutes by a vehicle from their house, and any 'just in cases'es happening could be that the flight came super early. Or there was an earthquake. 

Eunha couldn't come to see them off because she had university, and she was fine with saying a short have a good time over the phone. Jaehyun was the World War era woman who had to give kisses, hugs, and say don't forget to keep in touch! over and over again. 

Anyway, that was one event of the day. 

The second was, it was their date. 

And Jaehyun kept telling himself that it wasn't a huge deal, it was just like those days whenever Namjoon came around because he was passing through the neighbourhood, or because he just couldn't wait to share this idea he got with Jaehyun, or because Namjoon's sleep-drunk writing was so undecipherable that he had to call the author to ask what he wanted to convey. But he knew it was a lie, they both were meeting today because they. . . Jaehyun had trouble even thinking about it, liked each other. It was like whenever he thought about it, about how, not a long while ago, Namjoon had held his wrist like that and said that stupid ass sentence— yeah, Jaehyun's brain was going hazy. It felt like someone had zapped him with electricity just at the thought of Namjoon, and Jaehyun's mind was thinking so much at the time he just wished he could vomit out of some of it.

He couldn't tell Xumin about it, because he was, well, afraid. Whenever he got the tiniest bit of courage and went ahead trying to tell it to his sister-in-law (or deputy mother), the vivid images of the day he had come out as pansexual ran in his head, whispering to him words about how Xumin could turn out that way, too. His brother wasn't married when he had came out, and Jaehyun was just eighteen, when he had looked at pictures of the Seoul Queer Culture Festival, and had decided that if they can, then I can. 

Which, as Newton said, had both, an equal and opposite reaction. 

Eunha was nothing but supportive. He would say that he was the emotional one out of the three, but Eunha was almost crying tears of pride that day. He had been so hesitant, anxious, scared, but her reaction made him think that it was okay. He was okay. His sister supported him. She did not hate him. She was not disgusted. It wasn't much of a surprise, owing to the fact that they'd watched Banana Fish together, but still, watching media about it was different. Having your sibling be queer was a whole other thing. 

And, of course, it had the opposite reaction as well. He remembered when, as soon as Jaehyun uttered those words out of his mouth, his brother's face had turned staunch. His lips had been pulled into a tight, thin line, and it was at that moment Jaehyun knew. It was like the world's weight was lifted off his shoulders when he confessed to his sister, and when he told Sangjun, it was like all the weight had come back down on him— crumbling him and everything in him. 

The next few minutes— it could've been an hour, Jaehyun couldn't really remember, passed like a blur. After he had seen his brother's face, it was like Jaehyun had lost himself. He had lifelessly stared into his lap from where he had been seated on the couch, gripping the armrest like it was the only thing keeping him rooted. He could make out the voices of Eunha yelling at Sangjun, the latter retorting back, but it all had felt like a distant, frail echo to the then teenaged Jaehyun. 

Present-day, right-now-26-year-old-Jaehyun didn't know when his eyes got watery, but there were fresh, hot tears rolling down his cheeks as he was sitting on the same couch that he had been sitting on that day. Like a relfex, Duri, one of his dogs (that had almost chewed a book off) came and put his leg on his thigh, gently nudging him. Wooju, who was mostly asleep nowadays, came towards him and rested on his foot, because he had small legs and couldn't climb up to the sofa. 

Jaehyun smiled amidst the tears and reached down, petting both of them behind their ears. 

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When the doorbell rang, Jaehyun did not spend two minutes panicking over his outfit, which, Jaehyun's mind supplied, wasn't something that happened in the books. Because if this were a novel, he would be worrying himself with whether he looked good enough, giving ridiculous last-moment touch-ups to his hair.

But he simply did not care. Through the five years they had known each other, Jaehyun and Namjoon had so many overnight cram sessions together when they looked homeless, dark circles adorning their eyes like smeared makeup, that something as small as a crease on his black Survey Corps shirt did not really matter. His hair could be sticking in all directions, even the colour was fading, but somehow it didn't matter, which was surprising, really. Jaehyun was a  Huge Panicker™️, and you could usually expect him to be worried about every small thing. 

He took a deep breath, and opened the door. "Hi."

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being committed to a story can be so hard im so sorry 😭

anyways here's the chapter!! yes Huge Panicker™️ jaehyun does NOT panic when hes on a home date

hope you liked it <33