Chapter Text
Seungkwan
12:01 a.m, June 14th
Deathcast hasn't called Boo Seungkwan, and that's a relief. It always is, surviving another day without that wretched company calling him or someone he knows.
Seungkwan stares at the screen on his cell phone, the clock reading 12:01. He smiles smugly, proud of himself for surviving the day, even if that day was as mundane as all the others that came before it.
With the advancement of Deathcast technology in the past decade, everyone Seungkwan knows has lived on edge, scared of the very notion of death.
Except Soonyoung. God himself could threaten Soonyoung and that boy would do everything in his power for God to smite him where he stands, Seungkwan thinks fondly.
His best friend is nothing short of entertaining, he'll give him that. Soonyoung might fight God.
Seungkwan, on the other hand, doesn't like to think about God or death. It's not like he's particularly religious or anything, he just doesn't like thinking about the infinite expanse of the universe and space-time.
It makes his brain hurt. And when his brain hurts, his tummy follows suit. Even thinking about not thinking about it makes him think about it, and that makes him nervous.
So he tries to think of something else.
It's summer break, and for once Seungkwan is sleeping at his own house and not Soonyoung's. While he likes his best friend's apartment and stealing the covers when he sleeps in his bed, he also likes being home alone.
His mother is on a business trip and won't be back for a few days, which Seungkwan thinks is fine. Before she left, she gave a whole lecture about how Soonyoung couldn't be trusted while she was away from home and how he's not allowed inside of the house while she was gone.
Then comes the usual stuff: turning lights off so that the bill doesn't run up, making sure that the stoves and things are off before going to bed... and of course, not letting any girls over the house.
Even though Seungkwan's eighteen years old now and could technically do what he wanted with a girl, he wouldn't want to anyways.
Because Seungkwan has a terrible, deep, dark secret. It's one that only Soonyoung knows and one that he plans to take to his grave no matter what... okay, that's a little bit dramatic. It's not that big of a secret, but he still hides it like it's deathly.
The secret is that Boo Seungkwan is gay. And well, most of the people in his life don't take super kindly to gay people. Especially his mother, who never failed to leave snide comment whenever a gay couple showed up on screen in a movie or if they'd seen a couple in person while walking around the mall.
Soonyoung likes to tease Seungkwan that he's so flamboyant that he was never in the closet to begin with and Seungkwan kind of wishes it were true. At least then, it would take the pressure off of him to come out to the people around him one day.
But nobody around him knows, as far as he knows. And he wanted to keep it that way.
Seungkwan just wanted to find his own space where he could be safe to be who he was. Maybe in a couple years, he could save up money for an apartment of his own. Maybe then, he could have a boyfriend of his own, who could come over whenever and openly love him back. Maybe Seungkwan could even put up a little pride flag in their living room and though that idea seemed sweet in theory, he knew it'd be tacky in execution.
Soonyoung starting his third year of university while Seungkwan's only starting his first in the fall. Soonyoung has his own apartment, while Seungkwan doesn't. It's a small thing that he shares with a roommate, decked out with tiger print furniture that he'd found at the thrift store (yes, really). Oh, and it smells faintly like Lifesaver mints and beer at all times.
Seungkwan doesn't have any assets to his name and only graduated high school like, two weeks ago. The summer just started and he's still young. But that means that he's pretty far off from having his own place to live, which sucks.
He wonders what to do during the summer break on the meantime, but gets into a bit of a funk. Every time he tries to imagine fun things to do, his mind becomes blank. He doesn't know what to do, not with the summer and not with his life. And not knowing what to do with your life is terrifying, especially when everyone around him knows exactly how they'll spend the rest of theirs.
It sends him into a bit of a spiral when he thinks about it too hard and he starts breathing really hard and then he's falling off of his bed, barely holding onto the nightstand for support and oh no, it's happening again.
In the dead of night, he starts to panic. His shaky hands open his cell phone after two failed attempts and he furiously dials Soonyoung's number, listening to the dial tone as Seungkwan prays he'll pick up.
It rings and rings and finally Soonyoung answers. Only then does Seungkwan realize that he's dialed him on FaceTime, when Soonyoung's face lights up the screen.
His room is still bright, colorful lights lining his walls and framing his window. His messy hair is cut short and freshly dyed blonde, and he's still got the eyeliner on from earlier, when the pair went to the mall together. Meanwhile, Seungkwan is nothing but a dark silhouette, a blob that Soonyoung can barely make out at all.
Soonyoung doesn't even look tired. Instead, he waves and sticks out his tongue playfully. "Hey, Kwannie-bear! I told you you'd get lonely sooner or later." He jeered, voice lighthearted.
Seungkwan only wheezed out a reply, his hands shaking softly. Soonyoung frowned and scooted closer to the camera at this.
"Woah! Hey, Kwannie." Soonyoung waved his hand at Seungkwan, trying to get his attention through the panicked breathing. "Are you okay? Please, you're scaring me." He asked quietly.
"Mm." Seungkwan looked up again and nodded, not speaking for a while. He heard Soonyoung shift around out of frame, grabbing his earbuds so that his roommate didn't hear their conversation. Clearly, it was more serious that he'd thought.
"Wanna tell me what's going on?" Soonyoung asked, usually excitable voice hushed.
Seungkwan nodded slowly. "Started thinking 'bout life and... stuff." He admitted, cringing at how ridiculous that sounded. In reality, it wasn't just 'life and stuff'. It was the existential crisis that he found himself having at least once a week. But he didn't have the energy to elaborate on that, only opting for 'life and stuff', which he hated.
Soonyoung seemed to get the hint and nodded, propping himself up on his elbow. "Is there anything I can do? You wanna talk about life and stuff?" He asked gingerly, watching in surprise as Seungkwan shook his head, his breathing returning to pseudo-normal.
He yawned. "Mm, no. I'm... sleepy." Seungkwan huffed out, wiping the sleep from his eyes. Soonyoung giggled on the other end and nodded in understanding.
"Cute. It's okay, I can watch you while you sleep." Soonyoung offers softly, smiling and scrunching up his eyes in that endearing way. "We can fall asleep on call. I do that with Jihoon sometimes."
Seungkwan nods, turning the volume of his phone down a little bit and turning to his side.
He murmured something to Soonyoung, but barely heard himself and didn't hear Soonyoung's reply at all. The light of his phone fell away into darkness and his head became light. He wasn't thinking about life and death anymore, because he wasn't thinking.
Seungkwan dozed off in no time, phone quickly slipping through his fingers as his eyelids become droopy with sleep. On the other side of the line, Soonyoung's eyelids started to fall heavily and he yawned, laying his own head on his pillow and following suit with his friend.
It was perfect and it was mundane.
It was survival, just as Seungkwan liked it.