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they're in rok soo's tiny apartment, sprawled on his thrifted linen couch. it's hot, twenty-seven degrees, but the fan is broken. rok soo had expected complaints, but cale had just smiled when he walked in and set down his twelve-pack of seltzer vodka-and-raspberry on the scratched coffee table.
cale is drunk-happy, giggling and draping himself over rok soo, never still and bubbly, drooling with nonsense spilling from slurring lips as he moves around on the couch, his kinetic energy emanating off him in waves of buzzing, flushed joy that ripples off rok soo like small electric shocks. laughter drips out of his mouth, oozing and gooey, saying, 'rocky, haha, ha-' and twisting the bad luck beads around his wrist, poking the end of a fake canine charm with the pad of his finger.
rok soo is silent when a drop of blood appears, and only wipes it off gently, replying, 'what?' cale sticks the wounded finger in his mouth, pushing it up against the incisors of his teeth, and laughs more, heavier. his other hands fumbles and twists with the barbed wire necklace that hangs loosely around his neck and pokes at his warm, flushed skin. (cale has always liked strange jewellery, plucked out off flea markets and pop up shops with nail-bitten fingernails, even though he could surely afford classy, gemstone-gilded ornaments. rok soo supposes he can't judge, and either way he thinks cale looks great in them, no matter how tacky they may be.)
cale smiles faintly, unnervingly with eyes blank and hazy as rok soo puts his hands on the wire and lifts it off slowly, watching as the necklace is put next to the cans that lay next to the pair on the table. (rok soo hasn't taken a single sip.) cale pauses before moving to pick one up and drinks it in gulps before pulling on the tab, ripping off with a low screech. he takes a twine string out of his pocket and slides the tab onto it, shaking it as it rattles, metal clinking next to each other. (rok soo knows he has four other bracelets, of just beer tabs. cale tells him it's a sort of tally, a way of keeping count.) he flicks through them absent-mindedly, but rok soo can tell there's something in his thoughts, frantic, unsettled. it's why cale drinks.
"what were you going to say?" rok soo mutters. he eyes the cans almost with consideration, with want. cale looks up at him, broken out of a trance, smile falling and replaced with a small, confused jut of his lips. "before," rok soo says gently, "you said my name." he tugs cale's shirt with a hint of fear, though he isn't sure what he's afraid of.
"mmm," cale licks his lips, "did i?" his smile is there again, smooth and well-crafted in its looseness. this smile pecks rok soo on the cheek lightly. he manoeuvres his way over rok soo's lap, burrowing himself into the armrest and the cushions. his arm reaches out to brush at rok soo's bangs, low-hanging bracelets draping over his forehead as cale does so. his hand rests on the nape of rok soo's neck before pulling in him forward and onto cale's stomach. rok soo's cheeks burn hot at the closeness.
rok soo doesn't know what it is about cale that makes him so nervous. he knew the moment he first met him in that dingy club that he wasn't trash, vicious and reckless like his reputation makes him out to be. well, he was reckless, but not in a repulsive way. somehow, there's something about cale that rok soo is enamoured with, yet also anxious. as complacent and serene as cale acts around him, he can't help but feel some sort of dread along with his anticipation and eagerness to spend as much time with him as possible.
it's presumptuous for rok soo to have thought that, and even now, two weeks after knowing cale. they're barely close friends, and yet cale seems to be so open and carefree and trusting with him, but there's something... wrong, just off-kilter, that shifts awry under the façade of his skin. and that just draws rok soo in more.
cale pokes his cheek, pinches at the soft skin. "what are you thinking about, rocky?" he asks, and there's an undertone of sobriety in his inquiry; more often than not, rok soo is the one that feels drunk instead, left swaying with how cale seems to be so much more together than him (he doesn't know how it happens, he's spent his whole life making sure he can stand fine and upright on his own, but cale always seems to shatter his nonchalance with one easy smile). rok soo finds himself just as addicted to his voice as cale is to his vodka cans. it's a shame rok soo can't keep souvenirs of it like cale's bracelets, only able to store the sound in the recesses of his mind.
"you," he says, quietly, honestly, not wanting to let his own voice to override the magic that seems to flow out and off cale's tongue. he tilts his head away from cale's hands, and cale takes it in stride, instead moving his palm up to tousle his hair, downy and violet-black like a raven's feathers. rok soo lets his head lift up into the touch, and in a fleeting curiosity let loose his nails play at the hem of cale's pricey designer shirt before tugging it up just an inch or so to spy at the stitches. five, with red scarring going through each blue threading as an angry but healing jagged edge. gently, almost hesitant, he presses at the raised skin, the thin stitching. cale's grip on his hair tightens, stills, but does not tug at the strands- just watching, waiting, but not protesting.
rok soo is able to suppress the urge to kiss the scar, but he does tilt his head up, meeting cale's gaze (cale's eyes are glossy, hazy and unfocused, but his pupils still seem to see through his very soul, trembling and shaking with his sole attention-) an unspoken inquiry, a plea, even. rok soo never found himself predisposed to begging, a single time in his life, but he brushes a knuckle over the wound, almost tenderly if he dared to admit it, and he thought he might have.
cale gives him a small mercy, and answers him before he has the chance to do so. "was never too coordinated," he provides, "just had a clash with a table. i'm starting to pick fights even with inanimate objects nowadays." he confesses easily, accompanied with a puff of laughter, but his eyes lower from rok soo's to settle on his chest, instead, signalling not lying, exactly, but maybe omission of the truth.
he ducks his head and allows to let it slip by, swallows his sugar-coated words easily, but traps the artificial sweetness of the white lie under his tongue. it has a bitter aftertaste, and his mouth pinches at it despite his attempt to stomp it down. his hand is fueled by this bitter that slithers out from his closed lips and into his veins, and his fingers get jittery with it, like caffeine, and he swallows it down and pulls up the fabric, further, sees the darkening bruises like patches of ink spilled onto cale' chest. cale is not caught by surprise by his sudden movement, he never seems to be caught off guard, yet rok soo's breath hitches instead at the sight. shock replaces bitterness, makes his skin itch unpleasantly.
cale sighs, low and wispy like the breeze under a weeping willow, and it sounds like seeping, as well. he pats rok soo's head gently, the earth soothing the growing tempest, the rising winds that threaten to thunder. rok soo feels his lungs stutter in his ribcage, and his breathing becomes erratic in turn. "you- you, ah, why, how-" he really is begging, now, and his newness to it is obvious as the words are unable to string together into proper pleas, but raw in their emotion. his hands stumble, though sober, as they sweep over cale's purpled stomach, go upwards until they grip cale's shoulders, desperate. "who," he mutters, "who did this, cale, please, please," he isn't sure who he's begging for.
when cale shakes his head, smooth hands clasping over his own and prying them off his shoulder blades, rok soo grinds his teeth together, but he doesn't protest, just glares defiant at him. "the inanimate objects must be acting up, huh?" he bites out, yet he finds himself distracted at how cale's hands lower to wrap around each wrist, thumbs pressing onto his pulse. his heart beats under cale's digits.
he smiles at rok soo, a gentle curve, with a peek of sharp teeth. "yeah, yeah," he says, voice light, "and one animate person, i guess. but you shouldn't get so worked up about it, darling." darling. the word is partnered with a gentle, grounding squeeze around rok soo's wrist, making his pulse quicken again, although this time for a much better cause. affection blooms in his chest, tender and warm.
"so you want me to ignore it?" a trembling whisper, fragile and precious and breakable, a sheet of gold laid bare in front of cale to mold. "just tell me who did it, please."
this elicits a small hum, and only now rok soo remembers that cale is drunk, looking at how the flush of his cheeks ruddy the skin as it hosts an intoxicated, languid grin. "i can't, darlin'," the drawling endearment has always caught rok soo by surprise every time, unsuiting his rich, educated background, but he supposes a lot about cale contradicts that. "you know him. by association, yes, but i don't want you to get into a fight with a friend because of me." his hands rub idly at the flesh of rok soo's wrists.
rok soo repeats the memory of cale's darlin' in his head, relishing the slurred cadence, lets cale prod at his arms, before murmuring, "it was choi han, wasn't it," something churning, broiling in his gut. shame, he realises, because he had been talking to cale about how unbearably nice choi han was to him when he visited him and jung soo just earlier today, and cale had listened with keen, fond eyes. "but why would he...oh. harris."
choi han, in his innocent, passionate guts and glory, had oozed adoration for his hometown the moment they met. rok soo knew of cale's mother and her demise that had settled there in the eye of an unsteady storm, and cale suspected, sinister foul play, confessed to him in his bedroom as he had downed another bottle. the reason for their collision is see-through. however, rok soo has trouble not seeing it as less than a collision but a one-sided beating. he knows choi han is a skilled martial arts student; he wouldn't have needed a single ice pack for nonexistent wounds.
cale must feel his arms tense up with his hands wrapped around them, and he moves them up to lace their hands together. "it's fine," he coaxes, "i'm not meeting him again."
rok soo almost bites onto his tongue. he settles for grinding his teeth togather instead. "you were never going to tell me? just let me keep talking to him?"
"i knew you would find out sooner or later," cale shrugs, gazing at their interlocked hands. "you shouldn't stop talking to him now, rocky. he doesn't know we're friends. you don't need to."
"i don't need to. but i want- you think i'm just going to keep being friends with him?"
he looks at cale in disbelief, meets his eyes, stern even though they're glazed over with alcohol. cale ducks his head, an attempt to avoid it. "he isn't a bad person, you know that. it was just a... conflict of interests. you don't need to do that."
"you don't know what i'm going to do." cale sighs again at that, and rok soo thinks he probably does have an idea. cale always sees through him, one way or another. cale doesn't need to meet his gaze to know at every crevice of his soul, and maybe he should be wary about that, how much he lets down his defenses and high walls for cale, how he scales up them and clambers over them with ease. how rok soo looks forward to it.
cale flexes his fingers, squeezes their palms. "let's just forget about it for today, at least, then." he releases his grip on rok soo's hands and reaches for another can of vodka seltzer. he smirks at the hiss of the tab opening, plucks it off as he sips at it. "i'm going to pretend i don't know what you're going to do and you're going to let me finish off this twelve-pack."
rok soo relaxes, lets the knot of his heart come loose and blood finally pumps itself properly around his body. a pleasant shudder runs through him as he smiles, watches him drink. "okay. but i'm driving you home."
cale pats his leg. "i was thinking i could stay the night. actually."
rok soo finds himself okay with ignoring everything for one night. he can wait till later to rip choi han a new one, can wait a little while before he stops being the vulnerable one and finally figures out what's hiding under cale's loose, carefree façade. he'll stave away everything for eternity for this.
he preens into his touch, lets everything dissipate except for the fleeting feel of cale's hands on him. "i won't stop you."