He doesn't get to do it much anymore, what with the underground slowly taking over his life, but when he finds time he goes out on the streets, hands in his pockets and hat pulled low over his head, and looks around at the people rushing like a river around him, faces blurring together yet standing out, each an individual droplet in the endless stream. He stands still and the deluge surges around him, as if he's nothing but a rock in the creek. It makes him feel insignificant, makes him realize how little he's done in the world.

 

He wants to change that.

 

There are days he sits at a table by the window in a coffee shop, watching the people hurry by outside as he cradles a hot drink in his hands, thinking about barely anything.

 

That's how he meets Seokjin, in that café. He's writing something down in his notepad, some flash of inspiration, when suddenly there's a rustling of winter clothes and someone sits down across from him. He looks up, surprised, and then there's a yank at his heart strings at the sight of the stranger staring back at him.

 

"Hi," the stranger says. 

 

Namjoon, for what feels like the first time in his life, doesn't know what to say.

 

The man looking at him with half-lidded eyes and smirking lips is really, really pretty. His hair is a rich brown, stylishly messy, and his earrings catch the light. They're pink. He smiles expectantly at Namjoon, waiting for a reply.

 

"Hey," Namjoon manages to say. His voice sounds strange in his ears, hoarser and higher than usual. The stranger smiles.

 

"I'm Seokjin. You?" He offers a hand; Namjoon shakes it briefly, fingers tingling when the contact breaks.

 

"Namjoon," he introduces himself quickly. "Kim Namjoon." 

 

"Kim Namjoon," Seokjin repeats, a pleasant hum in his voice. He nods at the notepad in front of Namjoon. "You write?"

 

Namjoon feels a jolt of panic. He shoves the notepad into his bag hastily, saying, "Nothing much, nothing really." From the look on his face, Seokjin doesn't believe him.

 

"Sure," he says, drawn out with a hint of humored disbelief. "Mind if I ask what that nothing much is?" He inches a tentative hand across the table, eyes locked on Namjoon's the whole time.

 

Namjoon shakes his head quickly. Disappointment flares in Seokjin's expression, then he shrugs and withdraws his hand with a good-natured smile. Namjoon inwardly sighs in relief, but at the same time his heart speeds up for a reason he can't figure out as he stares at the stranger named Seokjin.

 

"Well," Seokjin says suddenly. Namjoon blinks. "Nice meeting you, Kim Namjoon. Sorry if I pushed too much." He makes to stand up, but Namjoon stops him.

 

"No, wait, sorry—can I give you my number?" he blurts out. When Seokjin looks bemused, he adds, "I mean, if you want to see what's in the notepad sometime..."

 

Seokjin almost laughs. "Of course." He pulls out his phone (an expensive looking piece of tech, Namjoon notes) and gives Namjoon another expectant look. Namjoon recites his digits at a pace he thinks might be a little fast, but Seokjin keeps up with his odd fingers. Namjoon remembers just in time it wouldn't be polite to ask.

 

Namjoon's smart, very smart, but the brunet named Seokjin is making it hard for him to think straight. Seokjin finally leaves, and Namjoon's mind clears, but the thought of him still lingers.

 

 

---

 

 

Seokjin calls him two days later—while he's practicing with his underground crew.

 

"Hello?"

 

"Done anything new in that notepad of yours?" the voice that had been echoing in his dreams asks cheekily. Namjoon all but chokes on his saliva.

 

"Seokjin," he manages to say through the heart that's leapt into his throat. His friends glances sideways at him strangely. Namjoon swallows and clears his throat as he gives the other rapper a crooked "I'm fine" smile.

 

"That would be me. Are you busy right now?" Seokjin's voice is casual and lilting, making Namjoon's head go fuzzy and god damn this is bad. 

 

"Uh... no, not really. Why?" Namjoon pointedly ignores the increasingly questioning stares coming in his direction as he flips through his notebook. 

 

"I was thinking we should meet up."

 

Namjoon freezes. 

 

"... Namjoon?"

 

"Right," he says quickly. "Sure, no problem."

 

"Oh, good." There's relief in Seokjin's voice now. He laughs airily. "Does this afternoon work? At the café."

 

Namjoon's memory fails him, something it's hardly ever done. "Sure. What time?"

 

"How about two o'clock?" Namjoon mumbles agreement. "Alright, see you then! Bring that notepad, okay?" With that, the call ends with a beep. Namjoon drops his phone from his ear and stares at the screen until someone hits him on the shoulder and says, "Hey, loverboy, we have a job!"

 

"Loverboy?" Namjoon repeats incredulously. Donghyuk scoffs.

 

"Did you see your face? What pretty boy's messing with our resident genius's brain now?" He flicks Namjoon in the forehead before turning away. "Let's run through this again. We need to have this down by next week."

 

"Um." Namjoon glances at the time. "I have to leave before two." He's remembering the problem with that now: Ikje and Hunchul are coming at two so they can go through the entire performance and oh god, Donghyuk's going to kill him (and possibly Seokjin, if he can get his hands on him) for missing it, with their big stage in a week. 

 

Donghyuk turns to face him slowly. Namjoon inwardly flinches at the iciness in his eyes.

 

"You're telling me," he says, "you're ditching practice to go on a date with some brainless flower boy." 

 

"Seokjin is not brainless-!" Namjoon protests before he can stop himself. He's not the type to leap to other people's defense, especially people like Seokjin—nothing but a pretty face. Donghyuk's eyes flare.

 

"Seokjin who? Pretty, brunet, fingers bent all weird?" he asks sharply. When Namjoon nods hesitantly, he clicks his tongue disapprovingly with a shake of his head. "Waste of your time. I've heard about him. Breaks up with everyone within a few weeks, can't handle ."

 

"I already told him I'd meet him today," Namjoon argues weakly. 

 

"Waste of your time," Donghyuk repeats. "But if you absolutely insist, I'm not stopping you. Just don't blame me when you show up at the gig with some half-assed performance because you were ing around with some flimsy pretty boy."

 

 

---

 

 

Namjoon is determined to prove his friend wrong. The thing is though, Donghyuk's almost right. 

 

Keyword almost.

 

Namjoon realizes over the weeks that Seokjin is gentle, kind, and that underneath the thin veil of confident flirtatiousness he first displayed he's almost painfully self-conscious. Every compliment Namjoon mumbles makes his attractive features light up, his wide eyes smiling. But he's far from a waste of time, Namjoon thinks. Seokjin keeps messing with his head, filling his brain with static, but in the best way possible, in a way that makes Namjoon want only to press closer and keep coming back for more. He doesn't understand why Seokjin singled out him out of all the more handsome, nicer people, but when Seokjin laughs at something he said or brushes his hand against his, he stops caring about why and just lets it happen.

 

Donghyuk and the others are betting not so inconspicuously behind Namjoon's back on when it'll fall apart; Donghyuk gives them a week, Ikje two days, Hunchul one. 

 

It actually takes three months.

 

 

---

 

 

Seokjin says he's too bitter. Namjoon bites back with an accusation of "you're too sensitive."

 

The hurt that flashes in Seokjin's eyes drives regret into him instantly, but it's too late now, because Seokjin is gathering himself up and spitting, "Or maybe you don't care enough."

 

Namjoon is for the fourth time in his memory at a loss for words. A chord's been struck in him; maybe Seokjin's right. He's been more focused on the underground than he's ever been, closing out everything else. The scathing rhymes he recites in his raps are leaking into his everyday speech, he realizes, even as Seokjin is standing up to leave, pulling on his coat. 

 

His notepad lies open on the kitchen table in front of him. Seokjin was looking through it, something Namjoon very rarely allowed, when he came across the page filled with anger and contempt and that must have been what drove Seokjin to say what he said—not that it matters now as Seokjin opens the door without a word and leaves. 

 

Namjoon still sits at the table, frozen, because what is he supposed to do when his boyfriend of three months knows him better than he does?

 

 

---

 

 

Namjoon doesn't meet Donghyuk's eyes the next day when he walks into practice. Donghyuk knows.

 

"He lasted longer than we all expected," he says, as if that would somehow make it better. 

 

"ing great," Namjoon snaps without looking up as he sits down and pulls his notepad out. "That's just ing great. I'm so glad he surpassed your pathetic expectations. I'm just so ing glad." He doesn't know why he's saying this, why he's lashing out at one of the few people who have always helped him out (even if it was in a off-hand way) over some stupid breakup—it's not like he's never done this before, hooking up with some stranger and splitting up not much later, but Seokjin is still in his head and it's messing with him in a way he can't bear now, because the static in his brain is too much without Seokjin there in the flesh and oh god, Kim Namjoon got attached to a pretty boy.

 

Donghyuk doesn't reply. 

 

Namjoon turns away from him as he pulls out a pencil and sets the tip on a fresh page of his notepad. He stares down at it, and Seokjin stares back up at him in his mind's eye, until he grits his teeth and squeezes his eyes shut and suddenly his pencil is flying across the paper, writing down lyrics blooming like a rose and just as thorny under the petals in his head, the scratch of the point against the page a satisfying, crisp sound. 

 

He barely stops as he writes, jotting down words he can barely read himself for some amount of time he can't measure. When he finally stops, the page is filled.

 

" you, I didn't need you," it starts.

 

"Not at first, at least, I didn't—I didn't need you. But now..."

 

He reads over what he just wrote quickly. He doesn't know how he's done this so quickly, but the thing is, these lyrics aren't as ty as he would expect.

 

If only they weren't about Kim Seokjin.

 

 

---

 

 

"Namjoon?"

 

At the sound of his voice, soft and hesitant and barely audible through the phone's ty speaker, Namjoon breaks. 

 

"Seokjin, I'm sorry, please," he begins without introduction, "I'm sorry I'm such an , but I can't even think right without you and I know that sounds stupidly cheesy and you're still going to hate me but please-" He breaks off for breath, and in that momentary pause, Seokjin's voice comes again.

 

"Namjoon." The simple utterance of his name sends shivers through him. "Namjoon, stop."

 

"Please, Seokjin, give me another chance."

 

There's a heavy silence. Namjoon counts the heartbeats. Six. 

 

"Tomorrow. The café. Meet me there."

 

"Th-thank you, oh my g-"

 

"Bring your notepad."

 

 

---

 

 

Namjoon quits his underground team a few weeks later. Not out of spite, not for the brunet named Seokjin—he quits because he doesn't know what he's doing there. It's doing him more harm than good, he realizes, so with a brief apology and a goodbye to Donghyuk and the others he leaves and doesn't look back.

 

He wants to do something in the world. 

 

But not like that.

 

He meets Yoongi and Hoseok sometime after Seokjin moves in with him; this, he thinks when he looks sideways at the other two, is how he would change things. Yoongi is tough but empathetic, and Hoseok is energetic yet wise, and the three of them click unlike any crew Namjoon's ever worked with.

 

Seokjin's happy for him. He knows Yoongi's boyfriend, a dancer named Jimin, and says he's a good guy. 

 

"They won't make you bitter," he says. "They're above that. You just don't get too full of yourself when you're famous, okay?"

 

Namjoon laughs at that. "Famous? Yeah, right."

 

 

---

 

 

"You don't people-watch anymore," Seokjin comments softly one quiet evening as they sit close together on the couch, half-watching the cheesy drama on TV and just breathing in each others' presence. Namjoon looks at him bemusedly.

 

"Huh?"

 

"Like when I met you. You were just staring out that café window—that's what caught my attention, you know. You looked like a thinker."

 

"I've been busy," Namjoon mumbles. 

 

"Of course," Seokjin sighs. "You're always busy nowadays." He leans his head on Namjoon's shoulder, a frown forming on his lips. Namjoon turns his head and kisses his hair gently.

 

"'Gi and I've been working on a new song," he says in explanation. "And Hobi's been ing around with that V guy so we've had to work twice as much. Plus with the big stage coming up..." 

 

Seokjin rolls his eyes. "You're going to overwork yourself at this rate." He tilts his face up and presses his lips to Namjoon's jawline, unhurried, and Namjoon responds with the same slow passion. It's been more than a year and they still do this the same way, the intimate nights at home, and Namjoon never tires of it.

 

When it's over, Seokjin shakes his sweat-damp fringe out of his eyes and stares up at Namjoon, murmuring, "Tomorrow. Let's go to the café."

 

Namjoon cracks a dimpled smile. "Whatever you say, princess."

 

 

---

 

 

Yes, he's sure, as he sits cradling a hot drink in his hands with Seokjin's arms around him, both staring out the window.

 

Namjoon likes to people-watch.

 

 

---

 

A/N: happy valentines day! here's some angst-ish namjin lmao

i know most of my subscribers rn probably aren't bts stans but i started this and kind of forced myself to finish it because i liked it so yeah here it is still i hope you like it anyways??

i'll be gone to camp for about three days this weekend so i won't be seeing any comments for a while but i always appreciate them! thanks <3