the hours we keep || post military Namjoon x OFC

Prologue

Namjoon's POV

I thought it would arrive with noise.

Cameras. Voices. The sound of my name traveling across a field before I could fully remember how to answer to it.

At Sinbuk-eup Sports Park, the morning air felt too clean. Too bright, even behind these stupid sunglasses. Like the world had chosen the wrong weather for a man coming back in pieces.

I stepped out of the van with a saxophone in my hands because I did not know what else to do with all the feeling. Because ridiculous has always been safer than honest. Because if I made them laugh first, maybe no one would notice how carefully I was holding myself together.

Taehyung greets me before the crowd that waited for us came into view. He pulled me into a hug. He was smiling. We stepped away from the vans together.

The first notes of the Detective Conan theme came out uneven, familiar, stupid enough to make people react.

That helped.

Laughter moved through the press line. Staff smiled. Someone called my name. Someone called Taehyung's. He stood behind me holding both bouquets, watching me with that look he gets when he is trying not to laugh too openly. Like some things, at least, had survived.

Some things never change.

That was what everyone wanted to believe.

I wanted to believe it too.

When I pulled off the neck strap to the saxophone, my body felt strange without it. Empty. I handed it off to staff and turned back toward the cameras. We made our rounds saluting to every part of the media, waiting to salute ARMY last.

Someone from maybe the media or staff, brought over a bundle of microphones, taped horribly together. Taehyung tried to hand me his, but I knew we would both be getting our own.

For a second, the weight surprised me, but I began my speech I had memorized by this point.

As I thanked everyone for meeting one of my mics fell out. Not far. Not enough to matter. Just enough for my body to react before my mind did, fingers tightening fast around the bundle, as Tae grabbed the falling one.

Then I smiled because the cameras were already there. The little interaction was caught by ARMY that were there to greet us, and they awed at the moment.

"Mic drop," I said.

Only Taehyung heard it.

Taehyung made a sound, half laugh, half disbelief. When I glanced at him, his eyebrows had lifted like he was saying, really, hyung? Today too?

Yes.

Today too.

Because it was easier to be the man who made the joke than the man who did not know what to say after eighteen months of waiting to be free.

Once I completed my remarks, Taehyung took over. His voice calmer than mine had been. The words seemed less rehearsed than mine. He had a better time over the last eighteen months then I had.

Thankfully staff only allowed for one follow up question.

What are your plans now?

Plans. Already.

We answered that we both wanted the same thing, work hard and return to the stage.

I looked at the cameras, at the reporters, at the staff standing just beyond them. At the fans who had waited at a distance because distance was the only way this could exist without becoming too much.

They called our names like calling us home.

I bowed. I smiled.

I was grateful.

I had missed everyone.

I was healthy.

I was happy to be back.

None of it was a lie.

That was the problem.

The truth can be incomplete and still be true.

Beside me, Taehyung looked solid in a way I envied. Tired, yes. Moved, yes. But present inside his own body.

I wondered if I looked that way too.

I wondered if that was what scared me.

By evening, the cameras were gone.

The microphones were gone.

The saxophone was gone.

But the sound of everyone saying welcome back followed me back to the van, throughout HYBE for our live, and on the ride home.