Archive of Our Own

Namjoon has been writing letters to the moon since he started university, two and a half years ago. He tried to keep a diary first, but it wasn’t for him; it felt too much like screaming into the void without anyone there to listen. His letters to the moon are more gentle, like he’s coming home to someone who asked about his day.

There’ve been all kinds of letters: sleepy letters, lonely letters, happy letters, one heartbroken letter, seven month ago about a boy in his Ethics class, and hopeful letters. 

Namjoon feels like he’s told all of his deepest secrets, secrets that he could never tell anyone else, to the moon. Once even, when he was drunk and tired, he even wrote it a love letter. Rambled on and on about how pretty it was, how it lit up the night sky and never made him feel like he was alone in the dark. He’s a bit embarrassed of that one, but he still keeps it with all the others. Maybe he’ll like to read it again, when he’s older, to see how much he’s grown and to find parts of himself again that he might’ve lost over time. It’s the reason why he keeps them all.

The letters were never meant for anyone else’s eyes, just his. And the moon’s, but he never thought someone was out there, reading every single word.

Until he comes home late from class one evening and finds someone sitting outside on his windowsill, his back and white hair pressed against the window as he looks up into the night sky.

“What the-” Namjoon murmurs, dropping his bag by the door and taking off his shoes before making his way over. The stranger must’ve noticed the movement and is now looking at him, curiosity in his dark eyes. He looks the same age as Namjoon, but Namjoon’s pretty sure he’s never seen him before.

He carefully pushes the window open. “What are you- How did you even get here?”

His one bedroom apartment is on the second floor; the boy wouldn’t die if he fell, but he’d probably break something. It’s far from the ideal spot to sit down at and admire the sky from.

And how did he even get there?

He doesn’t look like he was trying to break in before he noticed Namjoon; he was just sitting there. It’s a little reassuring, but Namjoon can’t for the life of him figure out why he’s sitting on his windowsill like he has nothing better to do.

“I…” The stranger hesitates for a moment. “I flew.”

“You what ?” Namjoon is officially lost. The other doesn’t sound like he’s joking, but Namjoon has met good liars before. There’s no way this boy flew to his windowsill. Humans don’t fly, period. Besides- “Why?”

The boy ducks his head, a little shy. It also pulls Namjoon’s attention to the fact that he’s only clothed in a black sweater and black skinny jeans; way too cold for the very, very beginnings of spring. (It’s February, so technically it’s still winter, but Namjoon likes to view things positively.) 

“Because I wanted to meet you,” he says quietly. 

“What the-” Namjoon says again, but there’s a lot of cold air coming in through the window. His apartment already was cold - he always turns off the heating when he goes to class - and if he leaves the window open any longer, it’ll take the entire evening to warm up again. The boy doesn’t look like he’s here to do harm, and Namjoon sighs. Maybe he’s always trusted too easily, but he makes an effort to keep his heart soft. It might get him hurt, but so far, it’s been worth it to love easily. “Okay. Do you wanna come inside, then?”

The other nods, and moves to climb in when Namjoon opens the window further. He’s scared shitless that the boy is going to fall, so he offers his hand and helps him inside. The other’s hand isn’t freezing cold, Namjoon notices. It’s weird, especially since he had looked like he’d been sitting outside for a while.

The stranger stands awkwardly in the living room area, looking the complete opposite of how relaxed he looked on Namjoon’s windowsill. It’s weird.

No, scrap that, this whole situation is weird. Namjoon just came home from class and had been planning on warming up yesterday’s leftovers, and instead he’s dealing with a boy who he’s never met before outside his window. And who said that he flew there, for fuck’s sake. It’s definitely the weirdest thing Namjoo has experienced in a while.

“What’s your name?” Namjoon figures that that’s as good a place to start as any, and he gestures the other towards his two-person couch. He would offer the other something to drink, but he wants to know what’s going on first.

“Yoongi. I’m Yoongi. And you’re-” Yoongi cuts himself off, then repeats the last two words in a questioning manner. 

Namjoon has no clue what it means that Yoongi sounded like he already knows Namjoon’s name, but there’s more things he has no clue about. Hopefully, Yoongi will tell him. He said he’s here because he wanted to meet Namjoon, after all. “My name’s Namjoon. You said you’re here for me?”

“That sounds…” Yoongi’s eyebrows furrow a bit while he thinks. “That sounds vaguely threatening. Like I’m here to kill you, or kidnap you.”

“Are you?” Namjoon asks. His parents aren’t poor by any means, but they aren’t rich enough to pay a lot of ransom for him. He’s not the son of the president or anything like that, just the son of two people who were somewhat successful in life. Not the person you’d kidnap.

Besides, Yoongi doesn’t look like he would kidnap someone, but Namjoon has only met him five minutes ago. He might trust easily, but he’s not naive. He knows that he could be dead wrong.

“No,” Yoongi denies with a shake of his head. “I only wanted to meet you.”

“Why?”

“I…” Yoongi hesitates. “You’re the one writing the letters, right?”

Letters? Namjoon hasn’t sent letters in a long time. It’s been at least a week since he even sent an email to anyone. “What are you talking about?”

“The letters to the moon,” Yoongi elaborates, and Namjoon freezes. Nobody was supposed to read those . “That’s you, right?”

“How do you know about those?” Namjoon asks sharply. The folder holding all of them is still on its shelf, he sees when he briefly looks at it. There’s no way Yoongi knows about them, unless he did break and enter Namjoon’s apartment, but then it wouldn’t make sense why he was waiting for Namjoon outside , in the cold. 

“I read them,” Yoongi says quietly. “You wrote them to me, so I thought- I thought it was okay.”

Namjoon’s mind comes to a complete stop. “I wrote them to the moon .”

“You shouldn’t have forgotten your old religions,” Yoongi murmurs, sounding like he’s talking to a more general ‘you’ instead of Namjoon specifically. “I am the moon, or, if you wanna be more precise, its spirit. You literally addressed those letters to me. I only figured out that you didn’t actually mean for me to read them when you said you could be honest because nobody would ever read what you wrote. I stopped after that, I promise, but recently… I got five in the last two weeks, and last time you wrote that many it was because you weren’t feeling great. I wanted to- No, I want to know what’s wrong.”

Namjoon lets his head hit the back of his armchair as he tries to process everything that Yoongi just threw at him in less than five minutes. Even less than two, probably. “Can we- Can you pause for a moment, and rewind when I ask you to?”

“I- Yeah,” Yoongi says hesitantly. “Was that too much? I know you don’t- that not many people believe in shamanism anymore. I’m sorry if I overwhelmed you.”

“It’s fine,” Namjoon reassures him, half out of a reflex and half because he really means it. If what Yoongi is saying is true… If it’s all true, it’s not his fault for overwhelming Namjoon. He just needs some time to work through it all, first of all that someone actually did read his letters, and that that someone is sitting in front of him right now. 

It’s a small relief that apparently Yoongi didn’t read all of them, and that he stopped once he realized that Namjoon never meant for him to read them. Namjoon appreciates that, and thinks that someone worse than Yoongi could’ve read them.

Second, the moon thing. 

Namjoon has heard of shamanism before, even though it’s only a small religion in South Korea. He’s never really given it much thought, but he knows that the variety that’s most common in his country is based on a belief in many gods and supernatural beings such as nature spirits, which Yoongi seems to be. And apparently, Namjoon accidentally addressed his letters to him, which led to Yoongi coming here to check up on him. 

He tries to remember what he wrote in the last five letters that Yoongi apparently received, but all that stands out about the last two weeks are the two kittens that his neighbor adopted recently. They are the absolute tiniest beings Namjoon has ever seen, and their owner invited Namjoon in when she spotted him melting at the sight of them through the window. They’re not allowed outside yet - they’re too young and should learn where their home is first - but they love to play and his neighbor doesn’t mind Namjoon coming over to spend time with them.

He vaguely remembers rambling on and on about them in his letters.

“I…” Namjoon feels his cheeks warm up in embarrassment, but he pushes through and explains what might’ve caused the increase in letters to Yoongi. He thinks it’s the least he owes the other.

Yoongi grows more and more amused as he starts to understand why he had been on the receiving end of more letters. 

“So you’re telling me,” he laughs by the time Namjoon is done explaining, “that I’ve been getting more letters, which made me all concerned, only because your neighbor’s kittens are too cute and you couldn’t handle how you feel about that?”

“...Yes,” Namjoon admits. “I’m sorry for making you worry.”

Yoongi shakes his head in amusement. “It’s fine. I just- I can’t believe I came here for that. I should’ve known; you ranted about a stray dog that you met in the second letter that you ever wrote.”

Namjoon remembers that. It’d been an elderly black dog that looked a bit skinny, so he started feeding her and slowly befriended her as time passed. Eventually, he’d been able to get a collar on her and brought her to a shelter. (He still wishes he could’ve kept her, but he was living in a different apartment back then that didn’t allow pets.) And he did indeed write the moon an elaborate report on everything, because he didn’t want to forget. 

“Did it bother you?” Namjoon asks in concern. He imagines that Yoongi, as the spirit of the moon, has better things to do than to read his letters, especially when they’re about dogs or kittens. “I’m sorry if it-”

“It didn’t,” Yoongi interrupts gently. “Most of us - the spirits, I mean - we sleep a lot, because there’s barely anyone calling upon us anymore. You and a little boy in Daegu are the only ones that regularly communicate with me. Others occasionally talk to me, or only once, but it’s- it’s nice to have you two.”

Namjoon watches him closely. “It sounds lonely.”

“It is, a little,” Yoongi agrees after a moment. “I have the other spirits, but like I said, we sleep a lot. It’s why- It’s another reason why I came down here, I think. I want to get to know you, if that’s something you want, too.”

“Oh,” Namjoon breathes quietly. “You- Really?”

Yoongi nods shyly. “I feel like I already know you, at least somewhat, and I want to be friends with you. Let you get to know me, too. If- If that’s okay.”

Namjoon considers him for a moment, thinks about the little bit that he’s learned about Yoongi so far. He knows that Yoongi cares, because he read Namjoon’s letters, even though he couldn’t have known who Namjoon was at first. He also knows that Yoongi respects Namjoon, since he apparently stopped reading his letters when he realized that Namjoon thought he wasn’t writing to anyone. He also remembers the stray dog that Namjoon wrote about a year and a half ago, and that even Namjoon himself had almost forgotten.

He thinks that Yoongi is the type of person he’d like to be friends with, too.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Yeah, it’s okay. I’d like that.”

A small but genuine smile breaks through on Yoongi’s face, lighting up his entire face. It’s a little like he’s glowing, Namjoon thinks, instead of just reflecting light like the moon does.

***

Namjoon realizes (truly realizes, not just glosses over it like he did before) that Yoongi said he’s a moon spirit about an hour later. There’s nothing in the moment that makes him realize this; he’s just going over the conversation again in his head and suddenly becomes aware that he didn’t spend much time thinking about those words yet. “Wait. You said- You’re the spirit of the moon?”

“Yes?” Yoongi says slowly. 

“Can you-” Namjoon starts, then realizes it’d be rude to ask like that. “It’s nothing personal, I promise, I just- I didn’t believe in shamanism before, but you’re saying it’s real, and I…”

Yoongi’s eyes go from curious and a little concerned to soft and understanding. “You’re having a hard time believing it?”

Namjoon nods shyly. 

“That’s alright,” Yoongi reassures him. “I’m not offended. I don’t think I’d immediately believe it, either. I can show you, but you have to promise not to freak out.”

“I can’t promise that,” Namjoon says, his voice slightly higher pitched than normal. “It depends on what you’re planning on showing me. You should take it slow, so there’s less chance that I’ll freak out.”

“I’ll take it slow,” Yoongi promises. “So I can show you?”

Namjoon inhales deeply, subtly bracing him for whatever Yoongi is planning. “Yeah. You can show me.”

Yoongi pulls his legs up until he’s sitting cross-legged, his hands on his ankles. He closes his eyes, his shoulders dropping as he completely relaxes, and then he moves. 

Except, it’s not moving in a way that Namjoon is used to. Yoongi stays in the exact same position, and yet his body rises a good few centimeters. His legs drop a little as they lose their support on the couch, and then Yoongi rises enough that his body isn’t in contact with anything anymore. 

He’s flying .

Well, more like floating, Namjoon thinks numbly to himself. Flying implies some kind of physical activity, and Yoongi still hasn’t moved from his position. 

And yet, he looks completely in control of what’s happening, especially when he opens his eyes and grins smugly at Namjoon. “Well?”

“I- You-” Namjoon stutters.

Yoongi raises his eyebrows, his expression amused. He looks like he’s thoroughly enjoying himself, now that he’s sure Namjoon isn’t going to freak out but only stumble over his words. “You believe that I’m the spirit of the moon now?”

“I didn’t not believe you before!” Namjoon denies immediately. “I just-”

“Yeah, yeah,” Yoongi waves him away. “You had a hard time believing it, I know. But do you, now? Or do I need to manipulate gravity around me, too? Warning ahead, I’m not responsible if that breaks something.”

Namjoon blinks at him, before he finds his words again. “You can do that?”

Yoongi nods, and he lets himself drop back on the couch. “Yeah. I just don’t have control over what I pull towards me, so that usually ends up being everything. It’s quite annoying, actually.”

“You…” Namjoon hesitates; he’s curious now, but he doesn’t want to sound too nozy. However, Yoongi gestures for him to continue, so he does. “What more can you do?”

“Water naturally flows towards me,” Yoongi says. “Because of the tides. My skin will stay pale like this, no matter how many hours I spend in the sun. It reflects the light, instead of absorbing it. But I guess neither of those are things that I can do , it’s just how it is. Being able to fly and manipulate my own gravitational pull are definitely the coolest things. Oh, and the ability to sleep for three years straight without waking up once. I like doing that, too.”

“Should I be worried that I won’t see you for two months after today because you fell asleep again?”

“Nah.” Yoongi shakes his head. “If I stay here, my body should naturally adapt to the cyclus of day and night. If I go back, I’ll make an effort to not sleep for that long.”

There’s more questions that Namjoon wants to ask - way, way more questions - but he swallows them all. He doesn’t want Yoongi to think that he only wants to be friends because he wants to learn more about spirits; while he is curious about that, he also wants to learn more about Yoongi as a person. The problem is that he doesn’t know what to ask, doesn’t know where to start.

“You must have more questions,” Yoongi says, his voice somewhere between gentle and amused again. “You don’t have to- You can ask, you know. I don’t mind.”

“I don’t wanna be a bother,” Namjoon says quietly, embarrassed at being caught like that. 

Yoongi smiles reassuringly at him. “I know more about you than you about me, so it’s only fair. Besides, I came here because I wanted you to know. About me, I mean. I knew you’d have questions, and I came here partially to answer them.”

Namjoon doesn’t know how Yoongi can say those things without blushing like crazy; he’s always had a problem himself with opening up to people and yet here Yoongi is, doing it like it’s no big deal at all. His anxiety shivers at the idea of telling someone else that he wants them to know him. 

“What’s the first question that pops into your head?” Yoongi prompts when it doesn’t seem like Namjoon is going to say anything.

“You- you said you could go ‘back’,” Namjoon says. “Go back where? Do you actually live on the moon or…?”

Yoongi shakes his head, and a grimace appears on his face. “No, thanks. I’d freeze my ass of in a second, and I hate the cold. No, we spirits live in… I guess you could call it a separate dimension? It’s more like an extra layer on top of this one that you’re not aware of, but when you’re up there, you can look through it and see down. From down here, you can also contact us, which is what the mu do. However, my view from up there is limited by the moon; I can only see the parts of Earth from where the moon is visible.”

“And now?” Namjoon asks. “How much can you see now?”

“The same as you,” Yoongi says. “There’s no bodies in the spiritual dimension; we kind of just exist, I guess. But here, I’m limited to this body, so I can only see what its eyes can see.”

 “That sounds… Isn’t it weird then, to have a body?” Namjoon can’t imagine not having a body, so maybe having one is the same to Yoongi.

Yoongi shrugs. “A little. I’ve come here several times before, but getting full control over each of my fingers separately usually takes a few hours, yeah. I’ll get more and more used to it the longer I stay here.”

Namjoon grows more and more relaxed as he asks questions and Yoongi answers them patiently, not once showing signs of annoyance or boredom. He talks about what life is like in the spiritual dimension - “I wasn’t kidding when I said we sleep a lot” - but also about his friends and what he does during the time that he is awake. Apparently, a lot of it is spent watching life on Earth, which is how Yoongi is so familiar with modern society.

Namjoon only realizes what time it is and how long they’ve been talking when his stomach growls. “Oh, shit! I completely forgot about the time; you must be hungry. I’m so sorry for asking so many questions.”

“It’s fine,” Yoongi shrugs. “I don’t eat much, anyway.”

“Still,” Namjoon insists as he pulls out his phone. “I think takeaway is the easiest and fastest, so I hope that’s okay with you?”

“You don’t have to feed me,” Yoongi says. “In the spiritual world, I don’t eat at all. When I’m here, I usually only eat a little bit. I’m fine, really.”

Namjoon frowns. He believes Yoongi when the other says that he doesn’t eat much, but his mother hasn’t raised him to only buy food for himself when he has company. He feels ashamed enough already for having forgotten for so long. “Can I order a small dish for you, then?”

Yoongi sighs, but there’s a small laugh hidden in the sound. “If you insist.”

“I do,” Namjoon tells him. “So what do you want?”

“Some kimbap?”

Namjoon nods and adds two portions of kimbap to his order, along with some bibimbap. He knows that getting the kimbap twice kind of defies the purpose of getting a small portion, but he doesn’t want Yoongi to feel like he can’t eat more. If they don’t eat everything, he’ll save the leftovers for another day. 

They continue talking while waiting for their dinner to arrive, but Namjoon is now determined to learn more about Yoongi as a person rather than as a spirit. 

“What do you like most about coming down to Earth?” he asks.

Yoongi blinks in surprise. “What?”

“I wanna learn more about you,” Namjoon explains with an blush reddening his cheeks. “Like, what kind of things you do and don’t like, where you’d go if you could go anywhere, that kind of stuff.”

“I can go anywhere I’d like to go,” Yoongi deadpans.

Namjoon suppresses the desire to roll his eyes. “Alright, so that question wouldn’t work. But I still wanna know what you like most here.”

“Music?” Yoongi guesses, like he’s not sure himself. “Music or dogs, I think.”

“You don’t have music in the spiritual dimension?” Namjoon asks. It does and does not surprise him at the same time; it makes sense that there’s no music if nobody has bodies with ears to listen to it, but he can’t imagine a world with no music. No music probably means no sound at all, and Namjoon feels anxious at just the idea of so much silence. 

Yoongi shakes his head. “Nope.”

“No dogs, either?”

“No dogs, either,” Yoongi smiles. “It’s a difficult life, really.”

The doorbell rings, and Namjoon accepts their food from the delivery boy. The conversation between him and Yoongi continues in a similar manner - he learns that Yoongi’s favorite colour is red, and tells him that his is green - while they eat. 

“I must be keeping you up,” Yoongi says eventually. “It’s pretty late already, right? You usually sleep around this time.”

“You’ve been keeping an eye on me?” Namjoon asks in surprise. During their conversation, he’d noticed that Yoongi already knew certain things about him - he guessed correctly that Namjoon’s favorite time of day is morning, which is why he tries to wake up early, and he knew where Namjoon’s university is without Namjoon mentioning to which one he goes - but he didn’t think Yoongi knew his bedtime.

Yoongi looks down at his thighs. “I- Yeah. I’m sorry, that’s probably creepy. I swear I didn’t do it to be creepy!”

“I don’t think you’re creepy,” Namjoon reassures him. “But what will you do when I go to sleep? Will you go back to the spiritual dimension?”

“Probably not,” Yoongi says with a shake of his head. “It’s exhausting to go from here to there and back again, so I figured I’d just walk around a bit. If you don’t mind seeing me again tomorrow? Not that you have to or anything, I just-”

“I’d like to see you again tomorrow,” Namjoon gently interrupts him when he starts to ramble. “But aren’t you tired?”

He looks a little tired, Namjoon thinks, and he realizes he has no clue at what time Yoongi came here or how long he sat outside of Namjoon’s apartment. He hadn’t looked like he was freezing, but maybe spirits don’t get cold as fast as humans. If they don’t get hungry as quickly, maybe it’s the same for temperatures? Yoongi could’ve been sitting there for hours for all Namjoon knows.

“A little,” Yoongi admits. “But it’s fine. So I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Wait!” Namjoon says when the other moves to stand up. He doesn’t want Yoongi to go, not when he seems to plan on spending the whole night just wandering around Seoul. It’s a Friday night, so there’s bound to be a lot of drunk people on the streets, and Yoongi doesn’t even have any other place to go. “You- I mean- You could spend the night here, if you want?”

Yoongi stares at him for a few moments. “I- I wouldn’t want to intrude like that.”

“You wouldn’t be,” Namjoon rushes to reassure him. “My couch isn’t big enough for anyone to sleep on, but my bed’s big enough for two. If you- If you want.”

“I…” Yoongi hesitates. “You’re absolutely sure that’s okay with you?”

Namjoon smiles. He is the type to offer more than he’s okay with, but he really wouldn’t mind if Yoongi stayed over. “One hundred percent. I have a spare toothbrush, but I fear my pajamas - well, all my clothes, really - they might be a little too big on you.”

Yoongi plucks at the hoodie he’s wearing, which is slightly oversized itself, Namjoon sees now that his attention has been pulled to it. “That’s no problem. I think I prefer clothes that way.”

“Then we won’t have a problem,” Namjoon says brightly. “So you’re staying?”

“If you’re really, really sure,” Yoongi says, but he’s smiling like Namjoon has successfully reassured him of that already.

Namjoon smiles happily. “I’m really, really sure.”

It’s been a while since Namjoon has slept with anyone beside him - probably one of his friends during a sleepover - and Yoongi is near quiet on the mattress next to him. He’s curled up on his side in a way that might make him as small as he can get himself to be. Considering he’s already not that tall to begin with, Namjoon finds it a little cute. Everything but the top of his head is under the blanket, his nose buried in the sheets.

“Are you cold?” Namjoon whispers, even though there’s no one else in the room and there’s no way Yoongi is asleep already.

Yoongi shakes his head as good as that goes. “No. Perfectly comfy. Thank you for letting me sleep here.”

“No problem,” Namjoon says quietly. “Good night, Yoongi.”

“Good night.”

***

The next few days are spent with Namjoon showing Yoongi all his favorite spots in Seoul and introducing him to his friends. Jimin is a little disappointed that he’s still the smallest of their friend group; Yoongi is just slightly bigger than him. Hoseok tells him that he still loves him despite his size, and kisses his cheek before Jimin can kick his ass for that. Jeongguk, Jimin’s younger brother whom they had somehow adopted when he decided to go to the same university as Namjoon, Hoseok and Jimin go, only laughs - and Jimin does kick his ass, since kissing his cheeks only works when you’re Hoseok. Jeongguk doesn’t even come close.

“I like them,” Yoongi says afterwards. “They’re nice.”

“They’re a bunch of idiots,” Namjoon says fondly, “but yeah. I’m where I am partially thanks to them. Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without them.”

Yoongi nods. “You talked a lot about them in your first letters.”

“I bet I still do,” Namjoon smiles. 

Yoongi stays over the next night, and the night after that and the one after that, and slowly, it starts to become normal to wake up next to him. They don’t cuddle (they barely even touch), but it’s comfortable to have him there. It’s nice to have someone who’s the last person you see in the evening and the first you see in the morning, even when it’s not romantic. 

***

One night, Namjoon wakes up because there’s sudden cold air against his skin. He’s still under the blankets, he finds when he flops his arm around in search for it, and seconds later the cold is gone again. He’s barely awake and would probably have fallen asleep again if it weren’t for the sound of bare feet on his floor.

“Wha?” he tries, still more asleep than awake.

“Go back to sleep,” Yoongi whispers. “Sorry for waking you up.”

It must be the middle of the night, because despite the fact that Namjoon’s curtains are really shit at keeping out the light, it’s still almost completely dark. The only source of light is the dim moonlight, which comes in because the curtains aren’t closed completely. If it was anywhere near the sunrise, Namjoon imagines that he could see around his room easily, but everything is either a dark or a dark er form.

He turns to his side and watches with half-open eyes as the shape that’s Yoongi makes its way to the window. The other sits down in front of it and looks up, staring outside. 

He must be looking at the moon, Namjoon realizes after it took his brain a few minutes of wondering why the hell Yoongi was even awake.

“You’kay?” he slurs as he tries to push himself up. 

Yoongi turns his head in surprise. “I’m fine. Go back to sleep, Joon.”

However, his voice sounds strained enough that even Namjoon’s sleepy brain can pick up on it, so he swings his legs out of bed and makes his way over to sit next to Yoongi. “Are you homesick?”

“Is that what this is?” Yoongi asks, sounding so, so small. He has his head leaned on his knees and his arms wrapped around his shins, looking just as curled up as how he likes to sleep. Namjoon thinks that he’d fall over immediately if Namjoon gave him even the softest push. 

“It’s when you feel sad, or lonely, and you just wanna be home,” Namjoon explains gently. “Sleep in your own bed, and be hugged by the people there. Eat your favorite food, which only your mom can make perfectly.”

“We don’t eat up there,” Yoongi whispers, “and I don’t have a bed. We don’t hug either, so what am I missing?”

Namjoon can’t answer that, because he doesn’t know either. Instead, he tries to offer the only thing that he thinks he can do; be there for Yoongi. “You’ve never been hugged?”

Yoongi shakes his head. “Spirits don’t have bodies, and you’re the first person down here that I’ve gotten close to.”

“Do you-” Namjoon starts hesitantly. “Do you want a hug?”

“I think so?” Yoongi says, his voice uncertain. It took him a few moments to even answer, but Namjoon lets him figure it out himself. “It’s- It’s nice, right?”

Namjoon nods. “Most people think so, but some don’t like it, so don’t feel awkward if you don’t. You can tell me; I won’t be offended.”

“Okay,” Yoongi whispers. “I think I want a hug, then.”

Namjoon wraps an arm around Yoongi’s body and pulls him into his side, the other shuffling a little closer so that he can lean his head on Namjoon’s shoulder. He doesn’t reciprocate except for that, stays curled up in a little ball, but as the minutes pass, he melts a little further into Namjoon.

“Better?” Namjoon whispers as they look at the moon together.

“Yeah,” Yoongi whispers back. His legs have relaxed somewhat and are now slowly falling sideways and over Namjoon’s, but Namjoon doesn’t mind. “Joon?”

Namjoon had been too asleep to react to the nickname before, but he’s awake enough now. It makes him blush slightly, but he decides that he likes it. “Yeah?”

“Can I- Can I hold your hand?” Yoongi asks, his voice so soft Namjoon can barely hear him. “People do that, right?”

Namjoon nods and offers the hand that isn’t still wrapped around Yoongi’s waist. Yoongi takes it in his own immediately, his fingers not perfectly slotting between Namjoon’s, but close enough.

“I miss it,” Yoongi admits quietly. “Being up there. But- But I think I miss the old times, when everyone was awake more often than we are now. I forgot what it’s like, for everyone around me to be so active all the time. It’s quieted down a lot over time, and I didn’t even realize until now.”

Namjoon doesn’t know what to say to that, so instead, he squeezes Yoongi’s hand to let him know that he’s listening.

“Seokjin - he’s the spirit of the Seoraksan mountain - he’s the only one with whom I still talk regularly,” Yoongi continues. “All of the others are usually asleep for months and the few times they do wake up, I’m often asleep. I think we all sleep way more than we are awake.”

“It sounds lonely,” Namjoon whispers.

Yoongi nods against his shoulder. “It is.”

“And moving to Earth - that’s not an option?” Namjoon asks. 

“It is,” Yoongi answers. “But if we start feeling too much like our home is here, we slowly become human. It’s irreversible; once we’re fully human, we can’t go back. Spirits have done it before, but it has always scared me too much.”

Namjoon wants to ask how he feels about it now, wants to say that he can always come here, but he thinks that’s a decision Yoongi will have to make without any pressure. He can tell from the other’s voice that he’s thinking about it as well, so Namjoon hopes he’ll make the decision that’ll make him the happiest.

They go back to bed when Yoongi starts shivering, but this time, he curls up a bit closer to Namjoon than normally. Their bodies are still too far apart for them to be cuddling, but Namjoon can feel some of the other’s body warmth. It’s enough to help him drift off to sleep.

***

“I think I wanna stay here for a while,” Yoongi says over dinner the next day. “Down here on Earth, I mean. Get a job, so I’ll earn enough to get out of your hair.”

Namjoon swallows his rice. “How long are you planning on staying on Earth?”

“I was thinking a few months,” Yoongi says, sounding like he’s speaking and thinking at the same time. “That shouldn’t be enough for me to become human, but enough to make getting a place worth it.”

“Most places are for rent for a minimum of six months,” Namjoon informs him. 

Yoongi taps his spoon against the edge of his bowl as he considers that. “It’d be a risk. Depends on the place, of course, but six months… I think I’d start to feel at home before my lease would be up.”

“You could also just stay here,” Namjoon offers after a moment of thinking about it. His current place isn’t all that big, but he thinks they’d manage. Yoongi hasn’t been a difficult roommate at all so far; they both seem to prefer the quiet and sharing the household chores had gone almost automatically. “Then you can stay as long or short as you want.”

“It feels like I’m taking advantage of you,” Yoongi says. “I just showed up here one day, and you’ve already given me so much. It feels so unfair to you.”

Namjoon understand that, but he doesn’t feel like Yoongi is taking advantage of him. It actually feels nice to not have all of his meals alone, and to have someone put the proper amount of coffee in his coffee maker. (Namjoon’s always too sleepy to be able to do that, so his coffee is usually too weak or too strong. Sleep doesn’t bother Yoongi like that, Namjoon thinks. Sleep only makes him very adorable in the morning, when he walks around with his eyes more closed than open and his hair sticking in every direction. Every single thing he does happens a bit more slowly, but he doesn’t make stupid mistakes about coffee. 

Namjoon always feels a little weak when he sees a sleepy Yoongi wandering around his apartment, though. It doesn’t help when he’s trying to do things correctly.)

However, he doesn’t think telling Yoongi that would solve the problem. Especially because Yoongi might figure out his feelings - he’s not in love yet, but he’s pretty sure he could be, if given the time - and feel even more like he’s taking advantage of Namjoon.

“If you get a job,” Namjoon starts carefully, not wanting to pressure Yoongi into anything, “we could share rent and household expenses. Most roommate arrangements work like that.”

“How can you not mind me introducing your space like that?” Yoongi asks, sounding like he’s genuinely confused. It’s kind of cute.

Scrap that. It is cute, period, end of sentence. Not ‘kind of’, Namjoon’s just lying to himself.

He shrugs. “You’re not the worst roommate in the world. I’ve been considering getting a cat; you’re a bit like that, but you actually respond in a way that I can understand when I talk to you.”

Yoongi furrows his eyebrows as he tries to process that. “I’m… like a cat?”

“Yeah,” Namjoon nods. “You curl up when you sleep, you don’t like the cold or getting wet, and you move around about as much as one. Your hair also often stands up like little cat ears in the morning.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment,” Yoongi says slowly, his eyes narrowed like he’s hesitant to trust Namjoon. 

Namjoon laughs at his expression, which looks a little like he’s in pain. “You can take it as one, if that means you’ll stay. Like I said, it means that you’re not the worst roommate in the world.”

“Neither are you,” Yoongi teases back, “so if you’re sure it’s okay-”

“Yes.”

“-then I’d like to stay,” Yoongi finishes. “I’ll get a job so we can share our expenses, and I can maybe eventually buy us a new couch.” 

“You don’t have to do that!” Namjoon protests immediately. “That’s too-”

“It’s nothing more than fair,” Yoongi interrupts in a voice that conveys he’s not going to change his mind. “I have no clue how expensive furniture is, but a nice couch can’t be more expensive than all of the furniture you already have. Or half of that, if we’d share how much that cost.”

“I still don’t like it,” Namjoon says with an expression that’s probably a pout, but he tells himself that it’s not. He’s a strong man; he does not pout.

Yoongi laughs at him like he’s definitely pouting. “And I don’t like using your furniture for free, so I don’t care.”

***

“Do you even know how hard it was to track you down?”

Yoongi and Namjoon are at the latter’s favorite coffee shop - which, by the way, is way too overpriced for its coffee, even if it’s amazing - to get some stuff done, because they’re currently dealing with a lack of enough desk area in the apartment. Yoongi has forbidden him from buying another desk, says he wants to buy one himself. However, he’s hell bent on catching up on everything that he does not know yet about modern society, so he’s taken to studying on Namjoon’s current couch until he’s saved up for a desk. But this morning Namjoon finally had enough of Yoongi cracking his back every half an hour or so and said the other would eventually damage his spine permanently, so now they’re here.

There’s a man at their table that Namjoon has never seen before in his life, but he’s not looking at Namjoon anyway. He’s looking at Yoongi with a mixture of annoyance and relief in his eyes, and Yoongi himself lights up like someone just told him his lifelong dream came true.

“Seokjin!” he grins widely. His gums are showing, and there’s extreme happiness in his voice. “What are you doing here?”

Ah , Namjoon thinks. Yoongi had told him during his breakdown a week ago that Seokjin was the one spirit that he still talks to on a regular basis, and Namjoon had briefly wondered if the other had noticed by now that Yoongi was missing. It’s been a few weeks since Yoongi came to live with him, but he has no clue how often the two had met up before. He’s glad to see that Yoongi has at least been missed. 

Seokjin’s hair is pink, which is the first thing Namjoon notices. The second thing he notices is that it looks extremely good at him, and the third thing is that almost everything would look good if you have a face like Seokjin’s. The guy could be a model, Namjoon thinks. 

“Why do you think?” Seokjin asks while he glares at Yoongi, but Namjoon doesn’t think he’s truly mad. “Maybe because I woke up a week ago and you were nowhere to be found? And the last time anyone saw you was almost twenty days ago?”

Yoongi seems a little surprised at that. “I didn’t… I didn’t realize people would notice that I was gone.”

Seokjin’s shoulders slump at that. “I’m not sure, but honestly? I think I’m the only one who did. I had to wake up half of the Korean spiritual community to even learn that you’d been gone for so long. I don’t think- If I hadn’t woken up or you’d returned while I was still asleep, I don’t think anyone would’ve noticed you weren’t in the spiritual dimension at all.”

“Oh,” Yoongi breathes, a little sad. “Well, I’m glad you did. That you noticed, I mean.”

“You would have noticed if I was missing, too,” Seokjin says, like it’s the most logical thing in the world. Namjoon is glad that Yoongi has someone like that, for whom noticing Yoongi’s whereabouts is as natural as breathing.

“Yeah,” Yoongi nods, “of course. Did you come down here just to find me?”

Seokjin pulls an extra chair to their little table. “You’re not even gonna introduce me to your new friend first?”

Yoongi jolts like he’s being electrocuted. “Shit! I’m so sorry, Joon, I promise I didn’t forget about you! I just- Seokjin surprised me. A lot.”

“It’s fine,” Namjoon reassures him with a smile. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Seokjin, so it’s nice to finally meet you in person. My name is Kim Namjoon.”

“Kim Seokjin,” the other introduces himself. “Spirit of the Seoraksan mountain, and possibly Yoongi’s only friend. Don’t know if that’s because our species sleeps so much or because Yoongi is just a hermit.”

“I won’t even bother,” Yoongi mumbles. “Namjoon is the person I’ve been staying with ever since I came here.”

He doesn’t mention anything about the letters or that he came down here to meet Namjoon, so neither does Namjoon. It’s between him and Yoongi, anyway. If Yoongi doesn’t want Seokjin to know, Namjoon won’t be the one to tell him.

“Guess I have you to thank for the fact that my little Yoongi is still alive, then,” Seokjin smiles at Namjoon. Yoongi sputters something about being perfectly able at taking care of himself, but Seokjin ignores him completely. “I was honestly a bit worried.”

“He’s been keeping himself alive pretty well,” Namjoon grins. “Only had to make sure he eats at least once a day three times.”

Yoongi glares at Namjoon for that. “I told you, we spirits don’t have to eat much!”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t,” Seokjin says with a shrug. “Besides, you have a human body now, even if you’re not a human yourself. The body needs food.”

“I’m fine,” Yoongi grumbles, and Seokjin only laughs at him. 

Namjoon moves to leave about five minutes later, because he thinks the other two have things they want to talk about without anyone listening in. They hadn’t been excluding him from the conversation or anything; Seokjin is a great person to talk to, and Namjoon hopes he’ll see more of the other in the future. There’s just been several looks shared between him and Yoongi, and Namjoon eventually figured he should let them do their thing, whatever that is.

“I’ll see you back at the apartment?” he asks Yoongi when he stands up.

“You’re leaving?” Yoongi asks in surprise.

Namjoon nods. “You probably have lots of shit to talk about, and I wouldn’t want to get in the way of that. It’s been nice meeting you, Seokjin.”

He says the last bit with a bow towards the other, who returns the gesture. “Likewise. I know I sounded like I was joking before, but thank you really for taking care of Yoongi.”

“It’s no problem,” Namjoon smiles before looking back at Yoongi. “So I’ll see you later?”

Yoongi agrees, so Namjoon tosses his paper coffee cup in the trash can before leaving the coffee shop to get the rest of his homework done at their apartment. 

***

Yoongi finds a job a week and a half later, at a record store about twenty minutes away from their apartment. Apparently, managing the store on his own was getting a bit too much for the elderly owner, so he was looking for someone to help him. It’s not really a problem that Yoongi doesn’t have any experience whatsoever, because the owner doesn’t mind teaching him what he needs to know. According to him, Yoongi was the best candidate personality-wise, so he figured it’d be worth it.

Namjoon hears all of this from Yoongi, who’s very enthusiastic about it. Namjoon himself has been in the record store before, and it isn’t that big but it’s very cozy. It has cds and vinyls on about every available surface, including on the floor and on the bottom steps of the closed-for-customers stairs. It’s a bit messy, but perfect for browsing around and finding hidden gems.

“I’m getting paid by the month,” Yoongi says. “So I’ll get my first salary after the due date for rent, but I’ll pay it back to you once I get it.”

“That’s fine,” Namjoon says. He’s always managed to pay rent on his own in time, so it’s no problem if Yoongi’s share is late.

***

And it is fine; they make a schedule for who cooks when and who vacuums the apartment, and it all works as close to perfectly as Namjoon thinks is realistic. Of course it takes them some time to settle into actually living together for the foreseeable future - Yoongi gets annoyed that Namjoon tends to leave his socks on the closest available surface instead of in the laundry basket, and Namjoon is woken up one night by Yoongi playing loud music (it turned out the other didn’t realize his earphones weren’t plugged in, and Namjoon forgave him the next morning) - but Namjoon is happy with the way things are going, and he thinks Yoongi is, too.

It’s a deal between Namjoon and his friends that they meet up every other Friday, which they made when it turned out that their classes wouldn’t make them see each other regularly. Yoongi has been seamlessly added into the group and Seokjin decided to stick around for the time being, so now it’s often the seven of them when they decide to watch a movie or visit some hole-in-the-wall place that one of them wanted to try out. 

Yoongi smiles and laughs a lot during those hang-outs, which is slowly becoming the death of Namjoon.

However, he does worry that Yoongi is starting to feel at home faster than they’d anticipated. He becomes friends with Hoseok quickly - with Jimin and Jeongguk also, but a bit slower - and he seems to love his job. After just a month and a half, the owner allows him to do the afternoon shifts on his own, and Namjoon hadn’t seen Yoongi prouder than when he came home the night after he received the news. 

Of course he’s happy that Yoongi is happy, but he’s scared it’ll take Yoongi away from him faster.

“Seokie,” Namjoon whines while he spins around in circles on Hoseok’s desk chair. He’d come here for advice, but so far, Hoseok hadn’t been great help. Or any help at all, really. “What do I do?”

“Are we still on the hypothetical situation of you being in love with a moon spirit?” Hoseok asks. “Also, do I have to pretend that I don’t know him?”

Namjoon had come here with the question of what to do if he happened to, completely hypothetically, be in love with an again completely hypothetical someone. Hoseok had blinked and then burst out in laughter, before he let Namjoon in. 

“No,” Namjoon answers. “But I never said it was a moon spirit that I’m in love with. Hypothetically.”

Hoseok sighs and glares at him. Namjoon would be intimidated, if he wasn’t so sure that Hoseok loves him. He knows that Hoseok would never actually do the things that his glare promises will happen if Namjoon doesn’t shut up right now. “My sincere apologies. I thought I was supposed to fill in the blanks myself. You didn’t deny it, though.”

“My mom taught me not to lie,” Namjoon says after a moment, knowing that he’s been exposed. If he was ever even hidden in the first place; his feelings are apparently very obvious to Hoseok. “So what do I do?”

“You tell him,” Hoseok says simply, and then returns to writing out the steps of the choreography he’s working on for his midterm performance. 

Did Namjoon mention that Hoseok has been of absolutely no help so far?

Luckily, Namjoon would not be one of Hoseok’s best friends if he did not have at least some blackmail information on him. Especially in regards to the time period before he and Jimin got together, during which all he did was pine after the smaller boy.

“Oh,” Namjoon says in fake realization, as if Hoseok just gave him world-altering information. “If only it was that easy, right?”

Hoseok looks at him suspiciously. “It can literally be that easy?”

“If only the Hoseok from three years ago had known that,” Namjoon says cheekily. “Maybe he would’ve actually confessed himself, then. Instead of failing so often at trying to do it that eventually his crush got tired of it and took things into his own hands. Hands that the Hoseok from three years ago has had several breakdowns over, by the way, because ‘Joon, they’re so small, he’s so cute, what am I supposed to do with that?’”

Hoseok throws his pencil at him. “You have absolutely no right to speak. You two are just as bad.”

“I’ve never failed at confessing,” Namjoon points out.

“Because you never tried!” Hoseok’s eraser hits him right in the middle of his forehead. 

Namjoon shrugs, like that’s irrelevant. “Which means that I’ve never failed. Anyway, I can’t confess to him.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t even know how I feel!” Namjoon kicks against the desk to make himself spin faster. Maybe if he tries hard enough, he can spin away from the chaos in his head and in his heart. “It makes me so happy to see him smile so much, but if he feels too at home he’ll start to become human, and I don’t think he wants that. Which means that if he starts to feel too at home, he’ll leave. But I want him to be comfortable around me, which is a paradox and I don’t know what to do with it.”

“You talk to him about it,” Hoseok suggests. “You don’t even have to tell him you’re in love with him; friends can tell each other that they don’t want the other to leave. For what it’s worth, I don’t think Yoongi wants to leave either, so he’s probably also thinking about this.”

“But what if I make it sound like I want him to leave?” Namjoon says weakly, suddenly scared. “Or that I want him to stay and don’t care about what he wants?”

He thinks Hoseok would throw another thing at him if the closest thing wasn’t a notebook, which would hurt Namjoon quite a bit more than a pencil or an eraser. “First of all, I’m pretty sure you’re literally incapable of disrespecting someone else’s wishes like that. You’d, I don’t know, shrivel up and die, probably. Your heart wouldn’t be able to take it. Second, I don’t think Yoongi would let anyone disrespect his wishes, especially when it comes to something as important as this.”

“But what if-”

Hoseok groans loudly. “ Please , Joon. Just talk to him, I promise it’ll solve a lot of problem you’re currently having. And for the love of I-don’t-even-fucking-know, tell him you’re in love with him. It’s blatantly obvious and honestly a bit sad.”

“He knows?” Namjoon asks with wide eyes. He thought he’d kept it under control and Yoongi hadn’t shown any signs of being uncomfortable with the way Namjoon acted around him, but maybe he’s good at covering things up as well.

“No,” Hoseok shakes his head, “but I’m pretty sure everyone else does. Jimin, Jeongguk and I all figured it out separately, so it’s honestly surprising he hasn’t yet. Guess he’s as blind as you are.”

The last sentence is muttered, like Hoseok didn’t really intend for him to hear that, but he does. “What do you mean?”

“You’re both idiots,” Hoseok says. “Could you give me my pencil and eraser back?”

Namjoon does, because he’s not that annoying. “I’m not an idiot.”

“You are,” Hoseok deadpans and he returns his focus to his choreography again. It’s actually not due in another month, which is why Namjoon feels comfortable enough to continue bothering him. He wouldn’t if Hoseok had to finish this right now, no delays allowed. If that was the case, he would’ve postponed his crisis about his feelings a few days. But it’s not, so he continues whining.

“But what if he doesn’t like me back?” Namjoon asks the ceiling. Hoseok groans again and drops his head so that his forehead rests against his notebook. Namjoon continues anyway. “It’d ruin what we currently have, and I don’t want him to-”

“Namjoon,” Hoseok says exasperated, “oh my god. I won’t force you to tell him, but believe me when I say you’re both idiots.”

“He’s not an idiot,” Namjoon says this time. 

Hoseok lifts his head slightly, only to drop it back onto the table hard enough that it sounds like it actually hurt. “You don’t even know about it!”

Eventually, Namjoon figures out that Hoseok won’t tell him any more than that, so he leaves him alone to continue figuring out his choreography. Namjoon’s not even the littlest bit reassured that things will be okay - regardless of whether he speaks up about anything or not - but he swallows it down and prepares himself for behaving in a way that won’t make Yoongi worry something’s wrong.

***

As planned, Namjoon doesn’t say anything, and everything continues going onwards as normal. Hoseok and Jeongguk bother him about his crush on Yoongi when the other can’t hear them, and Jimin genuinely encourages him to confess his feelings to him. Namjoon keeps refusing to; he’s too scared that it’ll mess things up and he honestly doesn’t mind that things between them aren’t romantic. Hoseok calls bullshit and of course Namjoon would like to kiss Yoongi whenever he successfully cheats at a game and has this specific smile that betrays what he did, but it’s not bad . He’s not pining or unhappy, and he would never risk their friendship by telling Yoongi how he feels.

However, things inevitably go to shit when it’s almost four months since Yoongi turned up on his windowsill. 

Well, Namjoon thinks that saying everything goes to shit is a bit dramatic, but some things definitely are. He’s willing to admit that it’s not great, and that maybe Hoseok was right and he should’ve spoken up about it before.

“Joon?” Yoongi calls out one morning. Namjoon’s pretty sure he’s still in bed, otherwise he would’ve appeared in the kitchen already. Namjoon himself has already showered and is now making coffee for both of them (with the correct amount of coffee powder, because showering woke him up enough to be a properly functioning human being). However, the bedroom door is open, which is how he can hear Yoongi.

He stirs in some sugar in one of the mugs for himself. “Yeah?”

“I-” Yoongi breaks off to cough. “When you were sick a while ago, that made you feel like absolute shit, right?”

Namjoon stops stirring. “Physically, yes. It felt like my head had been stuffed with cotton, which gave me a headache and made me feel like I couldn’t even think. But you said spirits don’t get sick. Like, at all.”

He doesn’t think he’s ever heard Yoongi so much as cough, except for just now. 

“Because we don’t,” Yoongi says, his voice sounding slightly closer now. Namjoon turns around and indeed, Yoongi is slowly shuffling into the kitchen. One of Namjoon’s blankets is wrapped around his shoulders, and he does look like he’s sick. His skin is pale - more so than usual - and there’s a feverish blush on his cheeks.

Namjoon reaches out to press his hand against Yoongi’s forehead. “I’m pretty sure you have a fever.”

Namjoon’s thermometer proves that he indeed has a fever, which makes him tug anxiously on the blanket around his shoulders, even though it’s already tightly wrapped around him.

“So what does that mean?” Namjoon asks when it becomes clear that Yoongi isn’t going to say anything, even though he clearly knows.

“It means that I’m becoming human,” Yoongi whispers. “I’m not actually sick; my body is just trying to fight the transitioning. After a few days, the fever will break and I’ll start changing.”

“Oh,” Namjoon breathes. “So… what are you gonna do?”

He wishes he could hug Yoongi - the other looks like he needs one, and Namjoon definitely feels like he needs one - but he’s not sure if that’d be okay right now. Yoongi looks very upset, but also like he might lash out at anything or anyone. He’s never done that at Namjoon or any of their friends, but once, when someone was rude to Hoseok and Jimin, he coldly told them to shut up because nobody actually cared about their opinion anyway. The man had looked incredibly offended, but Yoongi turned his back on him to signal that he was, physically and mentally, done with the conversation. 

(A small girl with her mother came up to them later, and the girl told Hoseok and Jimin shyly that she thought it didn’t matter that they were both men, as long as they loved each other very much. Jimin reassured her that they did and told her that they were really thankful that she came over to tell them. The mom had smiled proudly at her daughter, and Namjoon’s heart still hasn’t fully recovered.)

But Namjoon would rather not have that Yoongi against him, so he doesn’t reach out.

“I guess…” Yoongi’s voice dies away as he bites on his bottom lip. “I guess that means I’ll have to go back to the spiritual dimension.”

“Okay,” Namjoon says quietly. He knows there’s no use in fighting for it, not that he wants to, because it doesn’t matter. Yoongi won’t stay when he doesn’t want to. Namjoon has known since the beginning that he wouldn’t stay forever, wouldn’t even stay for a full six months, but it’s different now that the moment is here. He wants Yoongi to stay longer , another day, another week, another month. But he won’t. “Okay. Should I let Seokjin know?”

Yoongi nods shakely. “Yeah. Is it okay if I go back to bed until he gets here?”

“Do you want breakfast there?” So what if Namjoon wants to spoil him a little. Yoongi deserves it, and this is probably his last chance. If Yoongi wants breakfast in bed, he’s getting breakfast in bed.

“No food,” Yoongi says. “But tea would be nice?”

***

Seokjin comes over an hour later, and Namjoon and Yoongi say goodbye. Namjoon can see in Yoongi’s eyes that he’s not the only one who’s always known that this moment would come, but who got too attached anyway. 

“I’ll miss you,” Namjoon mumbles in Yoongi’s ear when they give each other a last hug. “I’m so glad that you decided to visit.”

“I’m glad, too,” Yoongi answers, his head over Namjoon’s shoulder. Namjoon had to bent down slightly to press his forehead against Yoongi’s shoulder, but he feels the need to curl up into Yoongi as good as he can. “I’ll always remember you, Kim Namjoon.”

Namjoon bites back his tears. “I’ll always remember you, too.”

Seokjin is waiting patiently in the hallway, and he gives Namjoon a hug, too. It doesn’t feel the same as Yoongi’s, but Namjoon takes what he can get. 

“Guess- Guess this is it,” Yoongi says. He’s still in one of Namjoon’s hoodies, because the fever made him shiver. It’s oversized on him, and it only makes Namjoon want to hold him close even more. But if he does, he can’t promise he’ll let Yoongi go. Ever. “This is goodbye?”

“This is goodbye,” Namjoon nods. “Will I see you again?”

“I want to try,” Yoongi promises. “Once I have settled back down in the spiritual dimension, I should be able to visit. I won’t be able to stay as long as I did, though, because I already… Here is already home.”

“As long as I get to see you again,” Namjoon says quietly, a little embarrassed but wanting to Yoongi to know. “I will wait for you.”

“ Don’t ,” Yoongi says immediately, his voice sharp. “I don’t know how long it’ll take, and again, I won’t be able to stay. I don’t want you to wait for that, Namjoon.”

Namjoon would wait for whatever Yoongi is able and willing to give him, he thinks. What he wants the most is for Yoongi to stay here and maybe even spend the rest of their lives together, although that would be far into the future. He thinks he’d like to marry Yoongi one day, years from now, but he understands that that won’t happen. Yoongi’s home is somewhere else, and not with Namjoon.

“Okay,” Namjoon lies. He knows he’ll still be waiting, at least for a while. Yoongi isn’t someone you get over quickly. “Okay, but you will always be welcome, no matter how long it’s been since we last saw each other.”

“Thank you,” Yoongi says, his voice slightly thick because of his emotions. It’s a small relief that Namjoon isn’t the only one who’s swallowing them down. “I will remember that.”

And then, Yoongi finally leaves. He hugs Namjoo one last time, and then he grasps Seokjin’s hand tightly. “Goodbye, Namjoon.”

“Goodbye,” Namjoon whispers. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too.”

And then he’s gone. Namjoon watches him and Seokjin walk down his street, and when they turn the corner, they’re gone. He knows that even if he chased after them, he wouldn’t be able to find them. They’ve left, now.

***

Namjoon hangs out with Hoseok, Jimin and Jeongguk a lot during the following week to beat away the loneliness, but there’s nothing that helps when he’s in bed at night, alone again. He’s become used to hearing Yoongi breathe next to him, and now his apartment feels too quiet without him there. 

There’s no Yoongi to have breakfast with, no Yoongi to help him make dinner, no Yoongi to remind him to stretch every once in a while when he’s studying. There’s no Yoongi anywhere.

“I should’ve told him I love him,” Namjoon says over the phone to Hoseok, five days after Yoongi left. “He probably still would’ve left, but I wish he had known.”

“Didn’t you meet him because of the letters you wrote?” Hoseok asks. “Can’t you write him another letter to tell him?”

Namjoon hasn’t written a single letter to the moon since he found Yoongi on his windowsill, most importantly because whenever he felt the urge to write, he really didn’t want to leave their bed. However, there’s a few notes on his phone that contain the words that he otherwise would’ve written in a letter, but Yoongi never received those. He wonders if Yoongi would even read it, if Namjoon wrote him a letter now.

Hoseok must hear that he’s thinking too hard. “It wouldn’t hurt to try, right? If you really want him to know?”

“I guess,” Namjoon mumbles. He wants Yoongi to know, but he’s scared that Yoongi won’t return his feelings and won’t come back at all because of that. He expresses these thoughts to Hoseok, who hums as he thinks.

“Do you really think Yoongi is the type to break his promise to come back just because you’re in love with him but he isn’t with you?” the other asks. 

“No,” Namjoon says after a heartbeat. “No, he wouldn’t be like that, right?”

“I don’t think so,” Hoseok agrees. “You know him way better than I do, but what I’ve seen of him, I don’t think he’d be like that. He doesn’t seem like the type to be uncomfortable because one of his friends is in love with him, even if he doesn’t return those feelings.”

So Namjoon writes the letter that evening. The moon hasn’t risen yet, so Yoongi won’t be able to read along as he writes. Namjoon isn’t entirely how sure how that worked for all the letters he wrote before, at moments when the moon wasn’t in the sky above Seoul. Maybe Yoongi gets them anyway, because they’re addressed to him. 

But to be safe, he leaves the letter out on his desk in front of the window when he’s done. It means he has to sleep with the curtains open, which is a little annoying, but it’ll probably be the sunrise that’s going to be the real pain in his ass. But if it means Yoongi will read it, he considers both annoyances worth it.

It’s hard to fall asleep at first, and his mind gets stuck on everything that could go wrong and everything that he could’ve phrased better. However, he knows himself well enough that if he gets out of bed now to rephrase certain things, he’ll never stop. 

Eventually, he must fall asleep without realizing, because he wakes up to sunlight in his face. Like he’d predicted, he’s not all that happy about it.

He squints his eyes against the bright light and for a moment, he’s confused about why his curtains are open, but then he remembers the letter that he wrote. He rubs his eyes, and then slowly opens them to get used to the sunlight.

There’s someone on his windowsill.

Namjoon rubs his eyes again, scared that he’s just imagining, but the boy stays where he is. He hasn’t realized that Namjoon is awake yet, and he looks very similar to when Namjoon first saw him. 

“Yoongi?” Namjoon whispers, hopeful. He slips from underneath the blanket and puts on a sweater, and the movement must notify Yoongi of him. When Namjoon’s head pokes out of the sweater, the other is smiling his bright gummy smile at him.

Namjoon rushes to open the window, and Yoongi climbs in. “You wrote to me.”

“I did,” Namjoon answers, tentative smile on his face. The reason for Yoongi’s return can’t be bad if he’s smiling like that at Namjoon, right? “I didn’t expect you to come back so soon, though.”

“Neither did I,” Yoongi says. “But then, I didn’t know you were in love with me, too.”

“So you read-” Namjoon starts, then stops as Yoongi’s words fully process in his mind. “Wait, ‘too’?”

Yoongi hums, smiling smugly. “Yeah. I really like you, Namjoon. It’s why I’m here.”

“You- you’re- I-” Namjoon stutters, his heart beating rapidly in his chest. He is still half asleep; it’s too early in the morning for Yoongi to be dropping bombs like this one on him.

“Truly coherent,” Yoongi comments offhandedly. “I didn’t think my feelings would ever lead to anything, so I never said anything about them. But if you really want me here as badly as you said you do in your letter…”

“I do,” Namjoon interrupts. He’d tried to be as honest as possible when he was writing, and now it’s easier to be honest, too, because Yoongi already knows the truth.

“Then I wanna see where that could bring us,” Yoongi says. “I don’t wanna become human yet, but maybe, in the future… I don’t know. Maybe. All I know right now is that I wanna find out. With you, preferably.”

Namjoon pulls him into his arms and buries his face into the other’s shoulder. “I can barely believe you’re here.”

“Did you even hear anything of what I just said?” Yoongi laughs, but he tangles a hand in Namjoon hair and holds him just as tightly as Namjoon is holding him. 

Namjoon did hear what Yoongi said, but he’s too sleepy and too happy to process anything beyond the fact that Yoongi is really here. Because of what Yoongi had said before he left, Namjoon had expected that it would take months before Yoongi felt like it was safe enough to come back, perhaps even a year or more. Not less than a month, definitely not six days.

It’s only been six days since he hugged Yoongi last, Namjoon realizes as he thinks that. It’s only been six days, but it feels much longer. Maybe because he’d expected it to be much longer until he’d be able to, again. 

Right now, he doesn’t care all that much about the future. They’ll figure it out later.

He pulls back slightly, and Yoongi’s hand slides down to his neck. For a moment, they’re just smiling at each other, and then Namjoon leans down so his forehead rests against Yoongi’s. “You said you’re in love with me.”

“I am,” Yoongi nods.

“And I’m in love with you, too.”

“Did I break you?” Yoongi laughs, and Namjoon can feel it against his lips. They’re so close.

He shakes his head. “Just slightly disbelieving. But if you’re in love with me, and I’m in love with you, does that mean I can kiss you?”

“Thought you’d never ask,” Yoongi mutters, but he closes his eyes and his other hand joins his first behind Namjoon’s neck. He pulls Namjoon down a bit, and Namjoon goes easily. 

Yoongi’s lips are even softer than Namjoon had imagined, for as far as he had allowed himself to think about it. The other comes alive under Namjoon’s touch, under his kiss, and he presses up and into him. Namjoon briefly thinks that he must be standing on his toes, but then Yoongi scrapes his teeth softly over Namjoon’s bottom lip and he forgets all things that were in his head.

“Fuck,” he mumbles against Yoongi’s lips.

Yoongi laughs, the brightest sound against Namjoon’s skin. He presses several more kisses against Namjoon’s mouth, then pulls back enough that they can look at each other. He’s glowing, Namjoon thinks, and he wonders if that’s the moon or just Yoongi. Probably just Yoongi. 

Namjoon feels a little overwhelmed by how beautiful he is, and how much he makes Namjoon feel. “You are so beautiful.”

It accidentally slips out, which makes him blush in embarrassment, but Yoongi brightens even more. It makes him even more beautiful, and Namjoon kisses him one more time because he simply has to. Yoongi’s too beautiful to not be kissed.

“You’re so sappy,” Yoongi says when they part. “Are you always gonna be like this, now?”

“Probably,” Namjoon says honestly. “Unless you mind?”

Yoongi shakes his head. “But if you get to be sappy, I want to be able to kiss you at all times, whenever I want. To make up for the sappiness, you know.”

“Oh no,” Namjoon says dramatically, and he would act it out, but he doesn’t want to let Yoongi go. Doesn’t want to go any further away from him than he absolutely has to. “How horrible. I don’t know how I will survive that.”

“I also demand cuddles,” Yoongi says with an amused smile. His eyes are soft, so, so, so soft. “I’ll make your life incredibly difficult.”

“Good thing that I also want kisses and cuddles at all times,” Namjoon laughs. His heart feels so light now that Yoongi is here and apparently feels as much for Namjoon feels for him. It’s one of the best mornings of his life.

***EPILOGUE***

Yoongi doesn’t come to live with him again, but instead finds a cheap apartment that he shares with Seokjin, who has also returned. Namjoon would’ve loved it if things went back to exactly the way they were before, but Yoongi had explained that if he did that, he’d go right back to transitioning and he wasn’t sure he wants that, yet. He wants to try this thing with Namjoon first, before he decides to make any life-changing, irreversible decisions.

However, that does not mean that they don’t see each other nearly every day. Yoongi has started taking online courses at schools in Seoul to catch up on his education, and they spend a lot of time studying together. They also go on dates now, small dates to the park or for coffee after class, and bigger dates like dinner at a nice restaurant or a visit to an aquarium. Yoongi looks beautiful with the blue water colouring his white hair, and Namjoon’s phone background is now a photo of him watching the jellyfish.

An entire month and a half passes before Yoongi whispers that he loves him, late at night. They’d watched a movie before, and decided that it was too late for Yoongi to return to his own apartment. It’s not the first time he’s staying over, but it’s the first time Namjoon hears the words.

He’d been almost asleep, but he’s immediately wide awake when he hears Yoongi’s quiet ‘I love you’.

He turns around immediately. “What did you say?”

Yoongi looks up to him with wide eyes, and what might be a blush appears on his cheeks. Namjoon can only see his expression because Yoongi likes to sleep with the curtains open, so he can look at the moon whenever he can’t sleep. It’d taken Namjoon some time to get used to, but now he even leaves them open when Yoongi isn’t there. 

“I said I love you,” Yoongi repeats quietly after a moment. “You don’t have to say it back, but-”

“I love you, too,” Namjoon interrupts him. “I have for a while, started thinking it two weeks after you came back. I’ve been wanting to tell you, but it was never the right time.”

Yoongi presses a soft kiss to his lips. “I didn’t want to keep waiting for the right time. If I had waited for the right time to answer the letters, I don’t think I would’ve ever come down here, and that was the best decision in my life. I love you, and I want you to know. I love you so much.”

“I love you more,” Namjoon whispers back, kissing Yoongi between the words.

***

It takes a little under three months before Yoongi’s fever returns, signalling that he’s started transitioning to human again. However, Namjoon has learned from his mistakes from last time, and so this time they talked about it before it actually happens. 

Yoongi said he thinks he wants to stay.

It still scares the shit out of Namjoon, but Yoongi asks for him to come over, so that’s what Namjoon does. If nothing else, he trusts Yoongi to make the right decision. 

Yoongi opens the door in his pajamas, blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He looks the exact same as the first time he got the fever, except not as sad. He must see the half-panicked state Namjoon is in, because he takes his hand and pulls him inside.

Namjoon kisses him the moment the door closes behind him. “How are you feeling?”

“Like absolute shit,” Yoongi says, honest as ever. “You know this means that I’m changing, right?”

“Yeah,” Namjoon says. Like he could’ve forgotten; of course he knows that that means Yoongi’s changing. “Yeah, I know. Do you still- You said you thought you wanted to stay, but I’d understand if you changed your mind.”

Yoongi looks up to him, feverish blush on his cheeks but his eyes are clear. He looks like he knows what he wants. “I want to- I want to stay. If you’re still serious about spending the rest of your life with me.”

“Fuck,” Namjoon breathes, relief flowing through his veins. “I’ve never been so sure about anything in my life.”

He stays with Yoongi the entire week it takes for him to complete the change, makes him tea and soup and watches all the movies that the other wants to watch. By the third day, Yoongi forces him to go back to class, tells him that Namjoon can’t continue to fake an illness for Yoongi’s sake, but he comes back to Yoongi’s apartment straight after. Yoongi pretends to be annoyed, but he kisses Namjoon softly and they watch a documentary together that Namjoon’s been wanting to see for a while. 

By the fifth day, he’s starting to look better, and by the seventh, his temperature is back to normal. 

“I’m human now,” Yoongi mumbles as he looks at his own hands, almost like he expects them to be different. Namjoon thinks his skin is slightly darker now, just an undertone of gold that wasn’t there before. They don’t know yet, but his white hair might also grow out.

“You are,” Namjoon agrees. “Still no regrets?”

He’s a little scared that Yoongi will eventually regret it, but he knows the other has thought about it enough. Knows he’s in no place to doubt his decision, even if he’s Yoongi’s boyfriend. This is a decision Yoongi made for himself, and he decided to stay with Namjoon. All Namjoon can do is love him, which he plans to do with all his heart.

Yoongi shakes his head. “None. I do wanna visit the little boy in Daegu, though. Remember him?”

“The one that also talked to you?” Namjoon asks. He remembers vaguely that Yoongi mentioned him, a long time ago. 

“Yeah,” Yoongi nods. “His name is Taehyung, and he’s five years old. He must be wondering where I am, why I’m not answering. I hope he’s not too worried.”

“I’m sure he’d love to meet you,” Namjoon smiles. 

***

Namjoon still writes letters to the moon, but Yoongi doesn’t read them anymore. They don’t know if there’s a new moon spirit, now that Yoongi’s gone, and if there is, they might read Namjoon’s letters, too. They might also not. Namjoon doesn’t know, and doesn’t particularly care, either.

All he knows is that there are no more lonely letters, and less sad letters, too. Of course there’s still the occasional one; having a boyfriend doesn’t mean he’s never sad anymore. But he likes that there’s less of them, and more happy letters. More letters in which he writes about Yoongi, about the dates they go on and the cats and dogs they meet. The kittens from his neighbour next door are growing up fast, and she asks Namjoon and Yoongi to watch them when she goes back to her parents for a weekend. That causes an increase in letters again, and Yoongi laughs at him when Namjoon expresses the worry that it’ll make another moon spirit come down in concern.

“I don’t want another,” he says. “You’re all I need.”

“Oh my god,” Yoongi says with a roll of his eyes. “You’re so sappy.”

Namjoon grins, and kisses Yoongi’s cheeks. “You were aware of that when you decided to stay.”