↱FORBIDDEN COLORS↲ ⇾seongjoong⇽

air

[ A/N: super quick random question, would it bother anyone if i changed this book cover? or should i keep it? idk i can't tell honestly so im looking for second opinions :) ]

"Are those bite marks?"

Hongjoong had stilled immediately, mid-swallow as he looked up and saw the two circled bruises on either side of the boys wrists and –

Hot coffee rushed down his throat as he breathed, burning as it seemed to go down the wrong pipe.

He sputtered, barely managing to not spit it out all over the table and his fellow members.

San's heavy hand clapped twice on his back to try and calm the choking.

Tears welled in his eyes, but Hongjoong blinked through them, swallowing over the burning sensation in his throat to look up and meet the gaze of Seonghwa.

He looked concerned, maybe a little confused – mostly embarrassed, flushed from his ears down his neck and –

No.

No.

There was just no way.

It was a fucking coincidence or– or an accident.

"...Yunho bites in his sleep," the younger called out.

Yeah, or that.

Why not that?

Hongjoong looked to Yunho, ready to believe, but the younger's answer wasn't even a little but convincing and Hongjoong kinda felt like he was still choking over his coffee, maybe drowning in it at this point.

Hongjoong wrenched his phone from his pocket, fingers trembling as he opened up the text app.

It was nothing.

It was fine.

Right?

Right??

Hongjoong couldn't hear the words being exchanged over the thrumming in his own ears.

What did he type?

Because Hongjoong was surely just overreacting to some weird-ass coincidence, so what the hell did he say to not make this weird for the masked kid who was probably at work or some shit, completely unaware of Hongjoong's panicked turmoil.

Had a good time last night or some variation of that, Hongjoong couldn't be one hundred percent sure what he was typing in his panic, seemed good enough.

He hit send.

And immediately heard a distant buzz that seemed to set his chest on fire.

Seonghwa pulled the phone out, brow furrowing at the text before San said something and he was shoving it back in, a loud pitched, "No!" Falling from the boys lips.

And Hongjoong was drowning.

Like a house of cards that had been stacked up so carefully, incident after incident, sign after sign, and finally, the bottom one had been pulled free and it was all falling, collapsing around him and