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in this light you look like heaven - seungjin

Hyunjin texts Seungmin at three a.m. saying that he wants to run away. Seungmin rolls out of bed to come with him.

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Hyunjin's text—it's not the first time he's floated an idea like this, but this time felt different. Maybe it's the fact that they're done with school now, and everything feels more uncertain than ever. It felt charged. Electric. Like an omen—he was really going to leave, and Seungmin couldn't deal with him leaving alone. What if he never came back? - hyunnies 

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It all starts with a text message.

It's the middle of the night—closer to three than four, but Seungmin is still awake playing a puzzle game on his phone. Graduation was last week. After a whirl of exams and stress and college applications, they're now stranded in the liminal swampland of a summer that feels epochal. The last of its kind. The first of its kind. There is only uncertainty looming ahead and he can't think too much about it without shivers of dread clawing at his heart.

So, the puzzle game on his phone, his headphones plugged in. Deep breaths and sugared caffeine churning in his veins. The overhead fan whirrs, but he is still overheating. He kicks at his duvet to flip it around.

hyunjin
don't u ever want to just run away

He hesitates for a second, thumb hovering. He wonders if he should call, but it's late. Too late. And they don't call so much anyway.

you
sometimes

hyunjin
i'm going to
i need to get away from here

This time—no hesitation. His heart kicks in his chest and his throat constricts, a fanged beast of worry in his underbelly. For years, anxiety has lived in his body, real and physical as an organ, wedged right next to his spleen. Always there. Always there, especially when thinking about Hyunjin, and isn't he always thinking of him?

you
tell me when
i'm coming with you

hyunjin
now
right now

It is half three in the night, but still he rolls out of bed and pulls on a grey hoodie. He throws a few garments into a rucksack along with toiletries—elastics for his braces, contact lens solution, his back-up glasses that he doesn't like to wear because they give him a headache. He grabs his phone charger and his wallet, tiptoes down the staircase, toes into his trainers, and locks the front door behind him. He doesn't know what he's doing or where he's going and there is a bird trapped behind his ribs, a small one, its tiny, sharp beak piercing him from the inside. He should've woken up his parents, probably, but they might've told him no.

He can't say no.

Hyunjin's text—it's not the first time he's floated an idea like this, but this time felt different. Maybe it's the fact that they're done with school now, and everything feels more uncertain than ever. It felt charged. Electric. Like an omen—he was really going to leave, and Seungmin couldn't deal with him leaving alone. What if he never came back?

So he doesn't wake up his parents, scared they'll order him back in bed. Don't be stupid, Seungmin. Don't go running after boys that won't ever kiss you, no matter how desperately you wish they would.

He promises himself to text them when he's with Hyunjin and give them a ring tomorrow. He'll explain things then. What's that saying—better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission? Yeah. Story of his life.

He breezes down the abandoned street and sucks in a deep breath of night air. He finds Hyunjin at the end of the street, his mother's car parked haphazardly with the engine still running. Seungmin slides into the passenger's seat and throws his rucksack in the back.