Burnout ⊗ Jeongchan

⑤⑦ The Heart on Your Sleeve

He placed the razor down on the bathroom counter.

Careful not to put any more unwanted cuts in his skin, he tossed the old one into a neighboring garbage can, not even seriously considering why he spontaneously decided to switch out the blades. Possibly not spontaneously; Chan was complaining that he accidently cut himself on the dull blade moments prior to this, making an effort to curse out the toiletry item before taking a place on the couch and falling asleep against the cushions. If the bags under his eyes said anything about his current state, the street racer needed those few moments of rest. Always seemed as if recently he was busy. Constantly moving. Never had much time to relax besides when he was around the younger. Even then, his absences from his own home were becoming more and more frequent as the days carried on.

Jeongin braced himself against the bathroom sink, a heavy sigh rattling his chest as his head dropped to the ground. His own body often felt like it was being dragged into the deepest depths of the universe itself. But it was nothing. As he ran his hands under cold water to wake himself up, it was nothing. Even when he returned his arms to their position to steady himself, he reassured himself that it was nothing. Not to ignore it, far from ignoring it, but rather an acknowledgement that feeling was there.

The bathroom's mirror seemed to move. It warbled, and shaped, and as Jeongin stared at it he could feel himself be sucked into that parallel world. Like this one, but rearranged. A different plane of reality, another mindset he was desperately clawing away from. That stranger on the other side glowed in a way he didn't before. In all honesty, the stranger he used to scrutinize didn't seem as malevolent as Jeongin used to think he was. After all, he was also changing that bloodlust driven broken razor, and setting it somewhere that wouldn't let it cause any more injury.

He couldn't love that stranger, but... The least he could do was understand him, right?

His hands pressed away from the bathroom sink, and tried to pry open the door without it miserably squeaking and violently waking this entire corner world with indemnifying tremors that shot earthquakes throughout the foundations their morals stood so proud on. The door knob was cold in his fists despite the humid fog radiating from the shower, a light layer teasing his palm and reading his lifelines without another care. It slowly caved in to his will, and let him waddle his way from the bathroom to the open space of the flat's main room.

A certain someone perched on the couch. His arms expanded along the backrest, fingertips stretching to rival even the wingspan of a condor that stalks it's prey as he relaxed into that strange position. He held an unlit cigarette between his lips, the tip of it slipping back and forth as if it were a metronome ticking down the seconds to make a curt decision of this or that, the answers hidden in the smoldering embers that have yet to stain the end of that cylinder as it did so many other instances. More and more frequently. The gentle drum of his heel against the floor matched time with the rhythm of the cigarette end, his leg bouncing in compliance to the urge.

Jeongin hopped over the back of the couch as he looped a pair of harsh fingers over the unlit cigarette, ripped it away from his torn lips, and tossed it to the glass coffee table. The street racer scowled at it for a few beats, the sharpness in his eyes only softening when his focus flipped to the younger. In other words his focus flipped to Jeongin, who was struggling to get comfortable on the couch next to Chan. He kept wiggling in his spot, shoulder trying to dig under the other's arm or hand smacking random parts of the world around him to get comfortable. Though like the unrest he experienced in the bed, the more the tried to settle, the more restless he became. Eventually, the exasperation was too much to take and he threw a leg over the older's hips to straddle him. From the amount of times he chose to be in this position before, he at least knew it was somewhat satisfactory. For now.