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they hadn’t seen each other in two years.
previously, before enlistment, they could only go hours without talking to each other, but south korea ripped them apart, and they begrudgingly learned to live without each other for a while.
now, they weren’t bangtan sonyeondan anymore. they weren’t the biggest kpop group in the world. they weren’t rm and suga and j-hope and v anymore. they were just namjoon, yoongi, hoseok, taehyung, jimin, seokjin and jeongguk.
military enlistment had taken a bit of all of them. even though they never faced real battle, real gunshots and bombs and threats, the pressure and authority wore on them, chipping away at their built up joy and pride.
jeongguk had been forced to learn what it was like to be in the real world without cameras in his face and a microphone in his hand. seokjin wasn’t very interested in dad jokes anymore. hoseok couldn’t fake a smile as well now.
in the military, they weren’t bts. they were just seven men, just like any other seven men. they were no exception, rules applied to them as they did anyone else.
the south korean government had offered them immunity from the mandatory enlistment, but who were they if they didn’t go? what kind of idols and role models were they if they allowed themselves to be left out of the horror?
so they went, and they tried not to be upset about it. but they all knew what came with being in the military, that being a soldier and giving more than you expected was a packaged deal. they still owned their dorms, the multimillion dollar apartment complex in the heart of seoul, and their awards still sat on their shelves, their clothes still hung in their closets.
the minute they were released from service, the first things they told their former managers was that they wanted to see the members. the staff asked them, “but don’t you want to see your family?”
“but they are my family,” they would say.
they knew each other so well. always in sync, no matter if it was during practice or on stage or after two years apart.
so they were respectively driven to the dorms. namjoon got there first.
he saw the kitchen in which seokjin would make kimchi and bulgogi. the couch that jimin would throw himself upon to watch movies and kdramas. the studio in which yoongi would hide and make magic out of song notes. the dance practice room where hoseok would practice for hours on end, striving for perfection in his fluid movements. the closet that held taehyung’s tie collection and articles of clothing he would express himself with. the computer setup jeongguk used to play overwatch or edit golden closet film videos, the members being the stars of the picture. the notebook in his room that told stories in song lyrics, spelled out in namjoon’s messy script.
everything was just as it had been.
yoongi was the next to come home. namjoon heard the door open, heard a duffel bag drop onto the floor, and turned to see his friend of so many years running toward him, arms open. yoongi rushed toward the younger, wrapping his arms around namjoon’s waist and he buried his face in his chest, namjoon locking his arms around yoongi’s neck.
yoongi squeezed namjoon’s waist, bringing him closer, and namjoon thought he could hear the older crying. namjoon tried to pull away, but yoongi held firm, not letting him escape his grasp. namjoon’s heart broke a little.
they stayed there in that embrace until hoseok walked through the door, then taehyung, then seokjin, then jimin, then jeongguk. one by one, the members walked into the dorm they had known so well, leaving bags at the door as they rushed to meet their brothers.
namjoon couldn't believe how much he missed them. missed seeing hoseok’s heart shaped smile and hearing seokjin’s laugh and seeing jimin’s soft eyes and hearing jeongguk’s voice and seeing taehyung’s boxy smile. he didn’t realize you could miss someone as much as he had missed them.
they all held on to each other like the world depended on it—well, maybe it did—and they were crying and saying how much they loved and missed each other and they all knew that yes, they had been apart for two years, but it felt as if nothing had changed.
they all pretty much looked the same as they had, namjoon noticed—their hair turned back to black as the bleach faded and skin void if makeup. they had lost weight and gained more muscle, just as namjoon had. but they were still the same boys he had grown up beside, had struggled with in the years where they weren’t known yet, had stood next to when they received their first awards, had danced and sang and rapped with.
he walked with his friends through the rooms, each of them stopping at looking around their respective bedrooms and studios with teary eyes, until they reached the space where they kept their awards. namjoon hadn’t dared look here without the other boys.
korean awards, american awards, youtube awards, vlive awards, and everything in between sat on those shelves, marking where they came from and who they became, what they accomplished and what records they broke. marking that they had really made it. had fulfilled all their dreams and more.
they stood side by side, arms around shoulders and waists and hands wiping away tears as they looked at their awards. it didn’t matter what they had gained, the money they made or the trophies they received, it mattered that they had been together through it all, loving and supporting each other.
namjoon didn’t know where they went from here. they said before they left that they would return to music when they came back, and bighit promised to sign them again if they wished, but after all was said and done, were they ready to go back to that world? would they still have fans, or would everyone have forgotten about them? would people welcome them back with open arms, or were they tired of their relentless pursuit of singing for a better world? were they too old, too overdone?
and did the others even want to be bts anymore?
or had they found in themselves something else, something better? namjoon couldn’t imagine anything better than what they had, but maybe they could.
so many questions, and so few answers. he didn’t want to push the members into responding so soon. he would give them time.
so they sat on their couch, just as they had a million times, and they recounted stories of service, exhilarating and exhausting and boring and frightening. they tried to tell the hard stories, and assured each other that they didn’t need to explain if they didn’t want to. seokjin cooked, jeongguk played music over the large speakers, jimin told stories, and when namjoon closed his eyes, he could pretend the last two years hadn’t happened.
but they had happened, and they couldn’t erase the scars they had gotten. even when they were doing banal, useless jobs, they witnessed and heard unforgettable things. and now they had to battle those thoughts as they entered their heads.
enlistment wouldn’t have been half as bad if he had seen his brothers everyday or heard their reassurance or could embrace them in times of need. but they were with each other now. even if time and life separated them, even if they started families or moved away, they could call each other and depend on each other again. they could be brothers again.
they decided not to sleep in their old rooms. instead, they pulled mattresses from bed frames and pillows from closets and lined up the beds beside each other in the large living room, jeongguk and hoseok sleeping on the couches. they couldn’t stand to be apart again, for even a night.
as namjoon drifted off to sleep, the soft snores and deep breathing of his friends lulling him into unconsciousness, he heard taehyung singing.
you know it all…
you’re my best friend…