A Little Slice of Heaven [Namjin]

Chapter Twenty-Six: The Thing About Baggage....

AN: I totally forgot  to put my notes in here.  Oh well.  Enjoy!

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By the time he had reached the door to his apartment, Namjoon felt like he was going to vomit all over it. The anxiety of what he was about to do, what he was about to confess to having done, ate at every inch of his body, leaving him a jittery mess.

Knowing delaying the inevitable would just make it more difficult, he keyed in the code for the door and pushed into the quiet entryway. As expected, all the lights were off. It was close to midnight, after all. Jackson would be in bed.

Namjoon shed his shoes in the darkness before dropping his bags next to the couch. He fumbled around for the switch of the lamp on the side table, knocking a couple magazines to the floor in the process. Once he could see better, he scooped them up and dropped them back in place. Then, with a shaky breath, he turned to the hallway that led to their bedroom.

He momentarily entertained the thought of throwing the door open, flicking on the lights, and announcing very dramatically that he was done being a doormat. That idea quickly left him, though; it really wasn't his style. He would just enter quietly, turn on a lamp, and wake his soon-to-be-ex-husband with a light shake. Then he'd very quietly, but very firmly, tell him that their marriage was over, and why it was over.

He turned the knob to the bedroom slowly, trying not to make a lot of noise. Jackson might have been a heavy sleeper, but Namjoon didn't want to be mistaken for an intruder if he bumbled into the room unexpectedly. He knew he could have called or sent Jackson a text to let him know that he'd be back, but Namjoon really didn't want to do anything that would have potentially started a longer conversation before they were physically in the same place.

Standing just inside the bedroom, Namjoon paused, a frown flickering across his features. Jackson was a very sound sleeper, often snoring. The bedroom, however, was utterly silent.

Carefully, Namjoon moved to the foot of the bed and felt around on the blankets, finding nothing underneath. With a scowl, he strode to the wall and flicked on the light switch.

He'd spent the last couple hours running through the scenario in his head and not once did he consider that Jackson wouldn't be home. The anxiety dissipated almost immediately, replaced with a prickly irritation. Where the hell could he have gone?

Leaving the bedroom, Namjoon double-checked that the office was unoccupied. He then looked into every possible nook and cranny of the apartment, muttering under his breath at the audacity of Jackson's absence. He was supposed to be there so Namjoon could dump him.

With a growl, Namjoon grabbed his phone out of his back pocket, debating calling him. He saw a text from Seokjin that consisted entirely of different types of heart emojis, though, and smiled despite the situation. He tapped his lover's name and put the phone to his ear.

A somewhat sleepy, "Joonie-ah?" came across the line. "Everything okay?"

"Hey." Namjoon slipped through the apartment to the office. "Did I wake you? I'm sorry."

"No, it's fine. I wasn't really sleeping." Namjoon heard the muffled sounds of Jin moving around. "And even if I was, you know I'd wake up for you."

Namjoon bit lightly on his bottom lip as he opened his laptop with one hand, turning the power on. "How are you so nice?"

There was a confused hum on the other end. "I'm just being me."

"I know." He turned away from the computer, opening a filing cabinet while the machine started up. "But it's..." He hesitated, fingers pausing on the files. "It's just not what I'm used to," he made himself finish. He didn't really like acknowledging the less-than-optimal things he'd lived with, but this was Seokjin he was talking to. There was no reason to withhold anything from him.