Burnout ⊗ Jeongchan

⑥⑤ Eventide

Chan walked beside Jeongin.

Their steps were slow, methodical, each time they placed their soles against the pavement and tore away bits of their soul it brought them closer. And closer. But not to the other in their company. Despite that inevitable truth growing ever closer, Jeongin kept his hands laced together behind his back. Chan kept his arms close to his body. There was no contact. As if that touch would leave the other to be pushed away, shatter apart, tear at their threadbare seams.

I need to talk to him.

Jeongin gathered his courage, and turned to face the older, mouth opening with the beginnings of "I-"

"- realized how idiotic he was being. So I told him; There's a time and a place to wear speedos," Hyunjin told as he and Changbin brushed by, their footsteps falling in sync as the other listened to his story.

"This was before or after the pan issue?"

"Before, because he hadn't become an anthropologist yet. But that has nothing to do with the polish cow, you know?"

"What?" Jeongin laughed at the two, a joy filling his chest as he picked up the pieces of the story and abandoned his previous plan to talk to the older now staring at him shamelessly.

Hyunjin frowned, "It's no laughing matter, this is very serious."

"It's no laughing matter. This is very serious," Jisung mocked the other street racer, doing his best to mimic him down to the infamous gestures. And Hyunjin, he scrunched his face up, quipping back with something Jeongin wasn't able to hear but managed to aggravate Jisung with one shot. They began their usual banter, while Changbin and the dubbed bag carrier Minho were left to keep walking after them.

Behind them, Chan slowed to a halt. He muttered, "Sunset. When the day and night that chase each other finally meet. Very poetic. It's almost romantic."

"Yeah, it is," Jeongin stopped on the sidewalk next to him. The sun dipped low, a painful ache to it's hues, an ushering of a great moment hiding behind the mask of a tragedy, living as ghosts in that time between here and there. Shadows, and echos, such as the ones casted upon the ground without another thought. They were among those umbral wreaths until they could infect the world with their own case of holly. He hummed, "Kind of the end, isn't it?"

"Like hell it is," Jisung shouted as he got a running start and launched himself onto Minho's back, the latter barely being able to catch him and provide the forced piggyback ride that was asked for. He hit the street racer, an undeniable command for him to carry on no matter the weight they gritted their teeth against. With a grin, Jisung sung, "For us beasts who live in the night, this is the beginning of it all. We're just getting started."

⊕⊕⊕

Jeongin stirred. Throwing an arm over his eyes, the quiet groans of sore muscles spilled from his lips. The floor of the shop office was tough against his back. It offered no comfort, rhyme, or reason to it's harshness towards him besides the fact that it was hard, and cold. The shirt his head rested on wasn't much help to that regard.

Instinctively, his arm stretched out to the side, searching for a comfortable warmth that fell asleep against him. That warmth suffering through the brute force of the harsh floor for him, the brute force of the world around them, as long as that warmth was there. It held him, kept him safe, treated him ever so delicately, unlike every other falsified comfort from that fake hauteur of his family and peers. In the morning, under another warm from the sun he might have to say goodbye but tonight, that warm was next to him. It grew closer to him, it casted breath against his skin, it was...