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“A horror movie?” Chanhee asked, eyes trained on the laptop screen that played scenes of scary footages combined with eerie sounds, “Are you sure we’re going to watch this, Juyeon-ah?”
A plop and a relieved sigh came beside him as his boyfriend made himself cozy with a pile of blankets. “Yep,” he said confidently, as his fingers fiddled with the laptop, raising the volume of the film, “I guess it’s been quite a while since we watched horror, don’t you think?”
Chanhee pursed his lips. Juyeon’s films of choice usually suited Chanhee’s taste, or even if they weren’t, it would at least have some characteristics that Chanhee would really like. And it has been quite a long time since they had a movie night together, being busy with work and school. Horror film was an odd choice and Chanhee certainly did not like it.
“But we haven’t even watched The Pianist yet…” Chanhee whined, angry pressing the spacebar to pause the film, “Why should we watch The Ring right now?”
Juyeon laughed a little, scooted to be closer to Chanhee and dropped a blanket around him. “Don’t tell me you’re scared, Chanhee- ah . I know you hate horror movies and you know it.” Juyeon asked, and the mocking tone inside his voice made Chanhee throw a soft pillow on his face, “Okay but I really want to watch The Ring , Chanhee! Please watch it with me!”
Chanhee glared, with all of his might. He couldn’t really glare at Juyeon, per se, but the way his eyebrows twisted in the middle was a clear indication that Chanhee was this close of being angry. “Tell me, Juyeon- ah . Which friend do you want to impress that suggests you to watch The Ring ? Tell me right now.”
“No one!” a silent then followed, “Okay fine, it was Sangyeon, but I also want to watch it.”
A groan and a huff of a cheek became Chanhee’s first answer. “Fine! Let’s watch it then.”
And the film started with Juyeon happily and cheerfully pressed the spacebar. Chanhee, being true to the stereotype of his physical build, spent more than two-thirds of the film hiding inside his blanket, or using Juyeon to shield himself from the jumpscares. The one-third part where Chanhee was actually looking at the screen, he covered most of his eyes so all he could see was the subtitles. Juyeon was also showing signs of startling, screaming when the frightening scenes came up, and sighed with relief when the film finally came to an end.
Both found themselves in complete silence minutes after the credit finished rolling up, with Chanhee sitting on Juyeon’s lap (when did that happen?) and Juyeon propped his chin on Chanhee’s shoulder (no wonder it was heavy).
Chanhee groggily cleared his throat. “Well, that was actually fun,” he said, “I’m glad you made me watch it. Now I know why people hate Sadako so much. She was indeed very, very scary.”
“I —I k-know, right, haha, ” Juyeon chuckled, in a way that Chanhee noticed was quite odd, as if Juyeon was trying to hide something, “I —I mean—ehm, Sangyeon said that it was very scary but yeah, well, at least it’s over now.”
Yeah, Chanhee raised his eyebrow. Definitely something. Juyeon never said that he’s glad that the movie was over. He would almost always want to discuss the film further, figuring out which scenes were Chanhee or his favorite, and fantasizing about an alternate ending. Yeah, something was definitely up and Chanhee had a gut about it. But he wanted to have fun with them first.
“Well then,” he jumped off of Juyeon’s lap, brushing his shortie pants before he smiled sweetly to his boyfriend (who admirably, looked even paler than Chanhee usually was), “I’m going to take a bath now, then.”
“Okay.” was simply Juyeon’s hesitant reply. Chanhee could even see that he was starting to bite his lower lip, as if he was trying to say something.
“You can take your own later after I’m finished, don’t worry.” Chanhee smiled, noting the not-so-subtle shift in Juyeon’s sitting position. Oh boy, Juyeon was not going to back down easily this time.
“Weeeell,” as Chanhee expected, Juyeon raised to his feet and dropped both of his hands on Chanhee’s tiny narrow shoulders, engulfing him in a forced back hug no one was asking for, “You always complained that the water bills are crazy because I shower too long, so what if we’re showering together?”
“Hmm, on the second note—” Chanhee pursed his lips, acting like he was thinking, “I think we should go showering together. We can use the bathtub and I can finally use the strawberry bomb I bought that time; do you still remember that?” The sparkles in Chanhee’s eyes should have made Juyeon winced because it wasn’t showing any excitement—but mischief, “You know right, the red one? We can also reenact the scene where that girl was pulled into the bathtub and there was blood everywhere and—”
Chanhee could see that Juyeon’s face was gradually getting paler and paler as the description went on, but Juyeon did not say anything. As a matter of fact, Juyeon was incredibly (and out-of-characteristically) silent during their bath time together, even when Chanhee teased him by rubbing his bare back on to his broad chest. Nope. Nothing happened. No butterfly and fluttering small pecks on the trail of his slim neck, no small pokes on his pale legs. Chanhee almost wanted to coo his boyfriend when Juyeon frantically asked to finish their bath when Chanhee started to make the Sadako noises.
It was hilarious. Definitely hilarious. Chanhee couldn’t get enough of it. Not until Juyeon himself admitted that he was actually scared to death and would faint when left alone.
Juyeon spent the rest of the night trailing Chanhee along, because Chanhee was moving around so much in their one-bedroom apartment. He went with Chanhee to the kitchen, helping him cut onions and cried a lot just because he didn’t want to stay in the bedroom playing games like he usually did while Chanhee prepared dinner. Juyeon would follow Chanhee recycling bottle cans downstairs and gave his favorite sausage from dinner to a stray dog because he didn’t want to be left behind in the apartment all by himself for ten minutes.
And now, when it was time to sleep and they had light’s out already, Chanhee could feel that Juyeon was tossing around inside the blanket.
“Chanhee, are you awake?” Juyeon whispered, already sitting up on his side of the bed. He shook Chanhee’s small frame and it took all Chanhee’s might not to smile or chuckle at that point. “Chanhee? Do you hear that noise?”
Desperation filled Juyeon’s whisper, but Chanhee didn’t bulge. Juyeon sighed frustratedly and he spent two to three minutes trying to convince himself that nothing was going to come out from the dark and pull him into the darkness before he walked slowly to the bedroom door and opened it. Of course, the small bravery didn’t last long.
“Chanhee? Don’t you want to pee?” Juyeon whispered again, getting louder and louder and more panicky as his words went by “Chanhee? Chanhee—please wake up! I know you’re not asleep! Chanhee! Chanhee! I can practically see your smile, you evil minx!”
“So, are you ready to admit that you’re the one who can’t watch horror?” Chanhee smirked, quite happily, slowly getting up from their bed, “And that I tried to warn you?”
“Fine! Fine!” Juyeon, very reluctantly and very angrily, stomped his feet and whined, “I’m scared, Chanhee! Please go with me to the bathroom! I want to pee!”
And of course, Chanhee totally ate the confession up. He laughed, and laughed, leaving Juyeon pouting all by himself by the door of their shared bedroom. Oh boy, finally. It was not their first rodeo on this whole `being paranoid after watching horror` thingy, but Juyeon would never stop trying to be brave, even in front of Chanhee himself.
It was adorable, actually, to see Juyeon’s face red with devastation while trying to hold his pee. And being all paranoid while at the same time trying to protect his own face. As if Chanhee didn’t know already that he was actually really scared of horror movies and only want others to see how brave he was (which Chanhee knew was a deliberate prank attack because everyone but Juyeon himself knew that they were pretending they didn’t know Juyeon couldn’t handle horror films).
“Chanhee, please! I want to pee, really!”
“Okay, love, I understand,” a peck was given to the pouty lips, before Chanhee locked their fingers together and pulled Juyeon along to the bathroom. He was not going to have his boyfriend peed himself just because he was too proud to immediately admit that he was actually scared. “Now let’s get you to the bathroom, alright? I promise I won’t leave all the fun to Sadako.”
“ Chanhee! ”