Work Text:
lately, jeonghan's place has been smelling more and more like smoke. minghao feels like he could suffocate, his lungs squeezing between his ribs pressed all too tight together.
jeonghan slouches over the table, a dying cigarette dangling from his fingers, the smoke curling around him. with a final exhale, he snubs the cigarette butt into the ashtray, the flame hissing out. minghao stares through the smoke, eyes watering, scared that jeonghan too will dissipate into ash and nothingness if he dares blink.
“you’re here.” jeonghan sounds tired, like the smoke has gotten to his mind and he can’t think clearly. his shoulders somehow sink more into his chest, more frail and sickly than minghao has ever seen him. he doesn’t propose dinner. barely even looks at minghao’s way despite not having seen him for more than a week. they had both been supposedly busy with work.
minghao doesn’t know why he bothered to come.
he digs his fingers into his palms, so hard his nails draw blood and leave behind crescent imprints on his skin. bracing himself for something he doesn’t know what. something tells him he doesn’t want to know either.
“you seem tired,” minghao hears himself say flatly. it’s more of an observation than an invitation to conversation. his voice cuts through the heavy silence that had drifted over them, which hadn’t really been a stranger to them recently.
jeonghan looks at him then. but it’s not like he really, truly looks at him because his eyes are all out of focus. not like they had looked at minghao the night they had their first kiss, so bright and glimmering it had filled minghao with a warmth his heart had desperately been trying to reach for as long as he could remember.
the silence between them grows heavier still, settling like black smoke around minghao’s legs. in the dim lighting of the shabby apartment, jeonghan’s face looks even dimmer, cheeks sunken in. did he always look this hollow?
“minghao, i think we should break up.” jeonghan says suddenly, his voice equally hollow, a fluorescent harshness against the faded apartment wallpaper.
minghao really feels like he can’t breathe now.
he sits, unmoving and frozen in space and time. “what?” his voice echoes through the room, much too loud, much too out of place. maybe it’s always been like that. out of place searching for a place to belong. minghao is suddenly freezing, despite the winter jacket bundled around him that he hadn’t bothered taking off.
“you’re right. i’m tired, minghao. of life, of work, of trying to keep this up,” he trails off and minghao morbidly thinks to himself that it's the first time he’s seen jeonghan at a loss for words.
why did i come here? minghao thinks again. it’s like he was expecting it to happen, like they were collectively barrelling towards a happy ending with a broken train track somewhere along the way. he doesn’t want to admit it, but he doesn’t even feel surprised.
he lets out a dry laugh at the absurdity of it all.
“did we even try, jeonghan?” he whispers to jeonghan across the room, feeling like there’s a hundred miles between them growing with each tick of the clock, which was definitely the loudest thing in the room right now.
he hates the way he sounds, hates how the edges of his words give away how close he is to breaking, hates how they leak desperation into the cold air enveloping him. he knows the answer to his own question. it seemed like the spark between them had flickered out like the dying ember ashes sitting in the ashtray and neither of them had put in the effort to bring it back to life.
“what’s the point in trying to save a dying relationship?” jeonghan asks, voice barely a whisper. minghao hears him perfectly.
minghao starts to feel the edges of his eyes prick.
the room is stifling, the air stilling around him, the smoke slowly seeping into his skin, his eyes, his ears, as he sits there, digging his heels into the shitty stained carpet. he doesn’t think he’s breathing anymore, his chest wrapping tighter and tighter around his ribs, his lungs, his heart.
“i should leave,” he manages to gasp out before jeonghan can say anything more, the words melting hot over his lips and settling over the carpet. there’s a scream lodged at the back of his throat, one that he thinks would shatter jeonghan into pieces. the words mold themselves over minghaos feet.
he doesn’t get up to leave.
jeonghan reaches for another cigarette. minghao watches him, watches the way his face seems to age five years every time he exhales smoke.
“you never cared about what i had to say,” minghao spits out, “even now.” the smoke stings his eyes, jeonghan’s shape a swimming mirage in front of him.
jeonghan doesn’t make any movement, doesn’t open his mouth to even bother defending himself. just sits there stupidly in his stupid chair, stupid cigarette burning shorter and shorter between his fingers. all the while the distance between them growing wider and wider.
minghao should really leave. he can’t tell what’s more suffocating: the silence or the smoke.
something about the way jeonghan’s face looks pisses minghao off. maybe it’s the passive half-lidded eyes, the curl of his lips into the hints of a scowl. he doesn’t mean it of course, but minghao’s desperate. and he’s pitiful when he’s really desperate. minghao finds it hard to believe this was the person he once looked at like he was his entire world.
“I’m sorry,” jeonghan starts, eyes finding minghao’s.
“stop,” is all minghao can choke out. minghao wants to dig into his ribs and claw out his entire heart to stop it from still speeding up every time their eyes met. he hates himself for the way the tears always threatened to spill over his eyes every time he felt frustrated, always had.
jeonghan ignores him. “i’m sorry i haven’t been trying. haven’t been doing my best at this whole thing. at taking care of you. like you did for me. i’m sorry minghao, i just… i think we should take a break.” the tiredness that seems to have filled jeonghan’s entire being in the time that minghao had been away bleeds into every word.
minghao doesn’t realize his legs had carried him over to where jeonghan was slumped until he finds jeonghan’s shirt collar gripped in his hands, his face inches away from jeonghan’s. he can really smell the smoke now, really see the dark semi-circles carved under jeonghan’s eyes.
“stop talking,” minghao whispers out between gritted teeth, his voice sounding so stupidly small and insignificant. “i don’t need you to apologize. it sounds like you’re pitying me and you know i fucking hate it when you do that. stop going on about all that shit about taking care of me.”
he’s shaking jeonghan in between clenched fists. with every forceful shake, jeonghan’s body rocks back and force lifelessly, bones rattling underneath the thin layer of skin that was barely holding him together.
“when was the last time you took care of yourself? do you see the state you’re in?” minghao hisses out and he despises himself for the way his voice finally breaks and he feels the first traces of wetness on his cheeks, despises himself for the way he’s still talking like he cares about an almost stranger. his bones ache like all the energy has been drained out of him.
he drops the top of his head to jeonghan’s chest and leans in. looks down at their feet because there’s no looking up from here. “you look like shit,” he manages the energy to spit out and it’s ironic, because he probably looks just as terrible. his chest heaves with sobs he tries so desperately to swallow.
jeonghan's arms twitch and reach up to wrap around minghao’s waist out of reflex. minghao wishes he does.
he doesn’t.
jeonghan looks up at the ceiling then, letting out a shaky sigh and dropping his hands back to his sides. the ashtray embers crumble and die out into black ash.
when jeonghan looks at him again, his eyes are glossy, mirroring minghao’s. “you should leave, minghao.” there’s a finality to the bite in his words.
“yeah.” minghao grip lingers against the fabric of jeonghan’s shirt, his fingertips remembering the feel of jeonghan for what he knows, deep down, to be the final seconds of this song. he doesn’t want to leave.
but the train tracks are diverging and they’re being pulled apart by the shifting ground beneath them.
minghao’s letting go and he’s standing in front of his car out in the cold and jeonghan’s slipped away again.
disappeared behind all the smoke once more.