↱GREAT ESCAPE↲ ⇾seongjoong/yeonbin⇽

18

[ sms from: hwa ] we need to talk

[ sms from: hwa ] meet me back at the room

suddenly, hongjoong wants to throw up.

he slips his wet t-shirt back on, cropped hair dripping, but not bothering to dry himself further. "i gotta go."

yeosang looks up from his plate of food. "what's up?"

yeonjun gives him a worried glance. "is everything okay?"

"i'll find out soon enough."

__

hongjoong finds seonghwa sitting on the wooden bench on the porch of their bungalow.

seonghwa's head hangs low and it doesn't seem like he noticed hongjoong walking up the steps.

they are quiet for a good minute before hongjoong starts, "what-"

seonghwa cuts him off. "why?"

hongjoong plays dumb, and he wishes he'd have played dumb from the beginning. "why what?"

seonghwa's voice is hard. "you know exactly what."

hongjoong pauses, clenches his jaw. "you know exactly why."

__

hongjoong remembers exactly when he stopped believing in god.

the very moment his entire world came crashing down around him.

"who was it?"

"hongjoong, please."

"who was it?"

seonghwa sat on the couch, head miserably held in his hands.

hongjoong stood in front of him, albeit back turned.

he couldn't look at seonghwa without wanting to throw up, stomach twisting into weird and painful knots. he felt his heart pounding hard in his ears.

seonghwa refused to answer, let each agonizing minute pass by.

the volume of the ticking wall clock was tormenting - mocking.

it took all of hongjoong's self-restraint not to grab seonghwa by the collar of his shirt, scream right in his face, and punch him in the jaw.

if only his legs didn't feel like they were about to give in.

still, hongjoong refused to sit.

he couldn't look at seonghwa, couldn't even bare the idea of breathing the same air, sharing the same space as him.

it felt like the walls were closing in on him.

his lungs were constricting.

he couldn't breathe.