- namjoon has an existential crisis that might look a lot like the fear slowly burning in the stomach of yours truly
things were - are changing and namjoon is terrified. completely fucking terrified. he was only a junior in high school, he didn't have all the time in the world to dwell and worry but he was doing it anyway because in a year so many things would be different. what would his friendships become without the crutch of school to bring them together everyday? what would happen to his boyfriend, who was taking a gap year to travel around the world while namjoon was stuck in his shitty little town without a clue in the world what he wants, what he needs - or, at least, what he actually needs.
what namjoon needs is for time to just stop, to give him a break. things were changing too fast and he couldn't keep up with the looming fact that in a year he was going to be stranded in the middle of a town he calls home with no friends and nothing to say for all the years he's worked other than a piece of paper scrawled over with fancy print.
what namjoon needs is to lock all of his worries into a little box and come back to them later, but instead what he does is sit on his bed and have panic attack after panic attack, each wave hitting him merely a minute after the prior, never giving him time to breathe or regain his bearings.
namjoon just let it happen, a distraction from the impending doom that is his life. he has tried and tried again to trick his brain - to trick his heart - into thinking he wants this. into thinking he wants changes. freshman year he had signed up for scholarships and picked out his top three schools and even gone on college visits, trying to stomp down the horrible feeling that soon this would be his life, a big campus with no friends and no family and no one to catch him when he inevitably falls flat on his face.
he had smiled when his mom brought home a stack of scholarship entry forms, and namjoon had filled them all out right there, eager smile on his face. he'd written all the drafts for all the papers purposely in front of his mother, would use the excuse that he needed to type them out on the desktop upstairs, slip into the office, lock the door and crumple to the ground in a pile of worry and doubt.
namjoon knew he was smart, he'd been told all his life, he had the grade cards and standardized test scores to prove it. he had no doubts of getting into college, but as he typed each essay out, gently pressing the keys as slowly as he could, he couldn't help but worry. what if he got in? what if he got in and they wanted him for early admissions? namjoon's whole world would fall apart - is falling apart.
namjoon doesn't have any constants, not really. he's got a mom and a dad but he's got a mom that's trying to live her life through him and he's got a dad that expects nothing less than greatness and namjoon doesn't know if he's got that in him. he doesn't know if he's got anything in him anymore, the amount of panic attacks he's had have seemed to run him completely dry.
namjoon looks around his room, at the college letters and the administration sheets and the four envelopes sitting on his desk that he can't even pick up without wanting to vomit. he looks around the room at the paint color that's been the same since they moved in, at the desk that hasn't moved for four years when it was placed there. at the posters of bands he doesn't listen to anymore and the books that he's surely grown out of intellectually. namjoon can't do change. no way.
namjoon rolled his shirt between his hands. even his clothes were old, this particular article came into his life eighth grade year. he hasn't really grown. he eats the same thing for lunch everyday, wakes up each morning and does the same routine of pee, dress, eat, brush teeth, run out the door because he's probably running late. namjoon hates change.
he still has numbers in his phone from friends that moved away, from boys who broke his heart. he scrolls past them, each time his finger hovering just over the delete button before he scrolls farther, back to looking for the number he needed. namjoon hates change.
namjoon hates change and everything around him is changing and he's not adapting. he's sitting in his room, curled up in a blanket panicking and crying his eyes out and refusing meals and refusing invitations to go out because at the end of the night, when his friends hang out of the car windows and the sunroof, all screaming out goodbyes that probably wake up the neighbors, it all becomes too real.
it's too real when his mom hands him mail, maybe this is it, joonie! it's too real when his father slaps him on the back, something namjoon thinks is praise, just like your old man, you'll be a great lawyer. it's too real when his friends talk about leaving their little town for bigger and grander escapades. it's too real when his boyfriend kisses him on the mouth and wishes him a goodnight before retreating to his car. it's all too real.
things were changing - things are changing, and namjoon is terrified.
