A Little Slice of Heaven [Namjin]

Chapter Five: I'm Fine...

A/N: Incoming exposition of background information! I hope it came out making sense. Most of what I've written regarding laws are accurate, the exception being that I pushed Taiwan's same-sex marriage law to earlier than it was actually enacted. In reality, it wasn't legal until 2019, but I needed someplace close by they could go to get hitched. I doubt anyone will be too mad about the Timeswiggle :P

Also, things get a little deep in this one.  I put a note at the end explaining some of it.

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Namjoon was grateful that the horse seemed content to just follow the trail because he couldn't see a goddamned thing in the darkness. He had questioned his sanity at least three times since accepting Seokjin's offer to join the hotel worker and his friends out on some cape for a late-night bonfire. He blamed the soju at first, but as the horses plodded along the dim pathway, the ocean breeze blew crisply against his skin, chasing away the effects of the alcohol and leaving him with a relatively clear head. He wasn't sober by any means, but he had fallen into a gentle buzz instead of the unsteady slosh he'd previously been experiencing when they first set off for the stables. And, as he rode along, barely feeling the alcohol in his system, he realized that if Seokjin had asked Sober-Joon to join him, Namjoon would still have said yes.

Guilt was back in the ring in a new singlet and a lucha libre mask.

Seokjin had said that, to reach the fire, they would have to travel twenty minutes through a stretch of coastal forest that made it nearly impossible to see anything around them. Without anything to look at, Namjoon decided to use the time to contemplate what exactly he was doing. He argued with himself, as each clop of the hooves brought them closer to their destination, that he was just making friends. His husband had abandoned him to take this vacation on his own but there was absolutely no reason he had to actually be alone for the entirety. He was allowed to make friends and spend time with them; especially, he reasoned, if the alternative was to sit around by himself for three days waiting for Jackson to return. Thinking of the latter option made Namjoon roll his eyes. He spent most days waiting around for Jackson and was getting pretty tired of never being able to make concrete plans with their friends back in Seoul; the moment they planned anything, Jackson had to cancel or leave for something relating to his job.

It wouldn't have been so bad if Namjoon could have just gone out with their friends on his own, but they were all couples. Namjoon felt like a third wheel so he just opted to stay home. He hadn't ever thought about it before, but he realized with a touch of bitterness that the friends in question were also all originally friends of Jackson through work. He couldn't remember the last time he'd talked to anyone he'd known back in high school or college that had been just his friend.

It was depressing to realize he didn't have friends of his own. Depressing, and angering. Why didn't he have friends that were separate from Jackson's world? How did he lose track of everyone else in his life that would have been able to fill that role?

A tiny, nasty voice whispered in his ear that it was all due to the fact that he had put everything of his on hold so Jackson could pursue his career. Although the Wangs had moved to South Korea for Jackson's father's work, the bulk of the man's family was still in Hong Kong, and so after graduating high school, Jackson planned to move back there in order to attend the university his father had attended. Namjoon had originally wanted to attend – and had been accepted into – Seoul National University but Jackson had convinced him to move to Hong Kong with him, instead. Jackie had reasoned that degrees in literature were the same, regardless of what university they were from.

Namjoon, not having intended to attend school in Hong Kong, had missed the application deadlines. Never-the-less, he withdrew his attendance from Seoul National, packed his bags, and went with Jackson, figuring he could apply for the next session. He'd found himself a steady job at the on-campus library in the meantime and ended up staying there for two years before submitting his application. Namjoon accepted the late start to his higher education, though, because they needed to pay for the rent and Jackson's course-load was too heavy to allow him to work. Plus, Namjoon loved working in the library. He honestly thought he would have been perfectly content to remain a librarian and give up on his education but that plan changed when Jackson received a coveted six-month internship in Taiwan after his second year.