Chapter Text
Soobin startled awake for seemingly no reason at all, though his heart was racing and he had that lingering sense of panic that came with falling in a dream.
Trying to catch his breath, he rolled over and squinted at the alarm clock beside his bed. It’d been less than a few hours since he’d fallen asleep, moonlight still pouring in from the single window in his room. After all the tossing and turning he’d done to fall asleep in the first place, this felt deeply unfair.
He’d had the strangest dream, but the more he tried to remember it, the more he could feel it slip through his fingers. There were only flashes. Silvery gray hair, the sound of the sea, a… poodle?
Instinctively he looked over to the other side of the bed but found it empty.
Right… the fight. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, wondering if Yeonjun was still awake. He hadn’t heard him walk past in all that time he laid awake.
Suddenly, all the anger and frustration he’d held onto just a few hours ago dissipated. It trickled away alongside the dream he couldn’t recall.
He pulled back the covers and stood up, squinting in the darkness of his room for a second before creeping out to the hallway.
With some mysteriously gained clarity of mind, he could now understand everything that he’d been so adamantly ignoring earlier that night.
The hallway was eerily silent, save for the distant tick of their kitchen clock. The small night light they kept plugged in lit the floor with a warm golden glow. It almost looked like firelight with the way it flickered. That sparked another memory. Or wait—was that part of the dream? It all felt muddled and confused. Glancing at the other doors for a second, he turned towards the living room.
Why had he been so afraid of backing down? Of releasing some of the control?
He rounded the corner and swept his eyes over the living room until they landed on the couch and body on it.
Was it because he’d been afraid that it meant releasing some of the blame as well? Of admitting his own flaws?
“Hyung,” he whispered, kneeling down beside Yeonjun’s sleeping face. “Hyung, wake up.”
Somehow, he failed to realize that even though Yeonjun would never hold his same thoughts and opinions and perspectives, it was these differences he loved in the first place. And he would be a fool to try and erase them. To try and control them.
Yeonjun’s eyes fluttered open, starry and red-tinged. “Soobin?” he breathed.
“Why did you stay out here?” Soobin asked softly, brushing his hair away from his face. For some reason, he was surprised it was brown, though Yeonjun had dyed it months ago.
“I didn’t feel like moving.”
“I’m sorry. About everything. I don’t wanna fight anymore.”
Yeonjun peered drowsily at him, sleep still clinging to him. “You are?”
“I was being such a jerk. I shouldn’t have called you all those things.”
The ghost of a smile started to creep across Yeonjun’s face, smushed into the pillow as it was. “I was being a bit selfish. I know that everything is crazy and hectic right now but I didn’t wanna admit it. It was just easier to take it out on you.”
Soobin reached out to caress Yeonjun’s face. God, he loved this boy. Why did it feel like he was seeing him for the first time in a long time? “We can talk about it tomorrow. Sleep?”
“Okay. Sleep.” Yeonjun replied, turning his head to kiss Soobin’s fingers and then sit up. Letting out a yawn, he stretched and looked over at the balcony door. “Actually, wanna get some air? Just for a bit?”
Soobin shrugged and stood. “Why not?”
Just as Soobin started to move, Yeonjun called after him, “Soobinie what happened to your knee?” He leaned over and turned on a lamp. Then reaching out, he lifted up the edge of Soobin’s sweatshorts. “Did you fall?”
There was what looked like an old bruise on Soobin’s knee and healed scratches down his calf. Tinged with green and yellow, the faded bruise definitely wasn’t something recent. Soobin frowned down at it, trying to recall what happened. He didn’t remember falling or getting hurt but there was something tethering just on the edge of his mind he couldn’t quite pull to focus. “I’m not sure…” he touched it gingerly. “I have no idea where it came from.”
“You gotta be more careful. How did you not notice something like this?” Yeonjun let go of his shorts and stood.
Still frowning at his bruise and the hazy memory, Soobin startled when Yeonjun slid open the glass door and then held out his hand for him. Oh well. It would come to him eventually. He accepted Yeonjun’s hand and followed him out to their balcony.
Yeonjun pressed himself against the railing, and Soobin wrapped his arms around him from behind. They fit so perfectly together. They always had.
The night air was warm, bringing with it the promise of summer. It was also so late now that even the sounds of traffic were practically non-existent. In fact, there was something about the night that felt extra special. Maybe it was the entrancing brightness of the moon or smell of their neighbor’s flower boxes but at that moment, that balcony felt like a bubble tucked away from reality.
It was almost like magic.
“Hueningkai has a doctor’s appointment next week,” Soobin said suddenly, breaking the pensive silence. “We’re supposed to have practice anyways but we can talk to the staff about rescheduling. If you borrow the manager’s car they don’t even have to drive us and we can go somewhere. It won’t be a whole lot of time but it’s better than nothing, right?”
Yeonjun looked over his shoulder at him in surprise. “I—yeah. Are you sure?”
“Yes. I… I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier.”
“Then let me talk to the company instead. I know it’s usually you but let me do it this time. I’ll take care of it.”
Normally, Soobin would object because that wasn’t the “right” way to do things but what did it matter? Things didn’t have to be perfect or right all the time. He pressed closer to Yeonjun’s back. “Okay.”
“This is all I wanted, baby,” Yeonjun said softly into the night, his fingers tracing shapes over Soobin’s interlocked hands, “some time for us.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Yeonjun stopped his movements, instead leaning back and turning his head to press a kiss on Soobin’s jaw. “It’s alright. I love you.”
Suddenly, Soobin felt a little like crying for no reason at all but he held back, taking a deep breath and breathing in the familiar smell of Yeonjun’ shampoo. “I love you too.”
“Oh look! A shooting star! Make a wish!”
Soobin closed his eyes.
I want us to always be together.
ﾟ｡ ･ *. ﾟ☆ﾟ. * ･ ｡ﾟ
“Oh my god, are you okay?”
Soobin blinked, reaching up to hold his head. All of the sudden, he felt extremely dizzy and nauseous. He looked up at Yeonjun who was standing over him looking very concerned, silver strands of hair falling into his face.
There were also tear tracks down his face. Soobin touched his own face and felt wetness on his cheek.
Why were they crying?
His brain felt rattled and fuzzy, like someone had knocked about and rearranged things very quickly and very suddenly. But that was a silly analogy… right?
“Sorry, I… I don’t know what happened,” he murmured, looking around. They were in their room, of course they were. The windows were open because it was starting to get hot and Yeonjun didn’t believe in turning on the air conditioning until at least July.
The fog slowly started to lift. They were in their room and they were—
“You scared me,” Yeonjun sighed. He dropped onto the bed beside Soobin but didn’t quite look at him anymore, instead fiddling with a ring on his pointer finger. “The way you just stumbled back and dropped—I thought you were fainting or something.” The fiddling stopped. “Should I call an ambulance just in case?”
The ring. There was a matching one on Soobin’s finger. He’d gotten them as a gift for their seven year anniversary just a few months ago. He recalled the memory alongside a wave of sadness.
“No. I’m okay,” he replied, wiping at his cheeks. “I must’ve just stood up too fast.”
“I told you to take those iron supplements, didn’t I?”
“I guess I should’ve listened huh?”
Yeonjun snorted, looking up at the ceiling in disbelief and Soobin didn’t blame him because this was a kind of ridiculous conversation to be having in the middle of breaking up.
Neither of them said more, the silence a large and obvious wedge like the space Yeonjun had left on the bed between them. No one wanted to be the first to resume their previous conversation.
Just as Soobin was starting to wonder if they would actually sit there in silence all night, Yeonjun sighed.
“Well,” he said at last, flattening his hands against his knees, squeezing tightly. “I think we’ve said everything we wanted to say.” He stood up slowly, still very determinedly not looking at Soobin. “I-I can stay at Beomgyu and Haein’s for a bit. While we… get everything sorted.”
Pain ensnared Soobin as he looked at Yeonjun’s back. No. Suddenly he realized he couldn’t let things end like this. How could he? There would always be a plethora of reasons why things couldn’t work out but they were in reality just excuses.
Work, pride, frustration, time, annoyance. Things said in between tears and amidst shouts as defenses.
Love was a promise and he’d made this one long ago. Remembering the past now clear as day, he knew he couldn’t break it, no matter how many times he had to re-make it.
“Yeonjun-ah, wait!” Soobin lurched up from the bed to grab Yeonjun’s wrist. He spun him around and found a mirror of the anguish he felt deep in his core. “Please don’t leave. I don’t actually wanna break-up.”
“But… everything we just said…”
“We needed to say it. But it doesn’t have to mean it’s the end. We just have to work through it.”
Yeonjun drew a shaky breath, eyes starting to fill up once more, making his eyes glitter like diamonds and god he was beautiful. Even like this. Especially like this.
“Really? You think we can?”
“Of course. We can’t end it like this,” Soobin insisted, tugging him closer and taking his other hand. ”I-I can’t give you up. It’s a lie to say I can.”
The look on Yeonjun’s face was so tender and raw, it hurt to look at it. But his eyes remained steadily on Soobin as he stepped closer, fixing him with the full weight of it. “It’s not gonna get any easier.”
“But we know a thing or two about hard work, don’t we?” Soobin didn’t back down, taking in every inch of his face and squeezing his hands tightly.
It could have been a second or an eternity until something seemed to snap, and Yeonjun gave him a small tearful nod and the two of them folded towards each other.
Whether it be over months or years or even in an alternate universe or a dream, Soobin knew he would always find his way back to Yeonjun.
He would never grow tired of making that promise and out of all the things he could have been in life, he thought a sucker in love was not the worst one.