Quiet | Seungjin

44

A frustrated sigh fell from Seungmin's lips as he shuffled through all of the assignments he had to finish. Even though there were two months until graduation...that didn't mean the teachers lightened the work load. If anything it felt as if they were assigning more.

"Are you alright over there?" Hyunjin questioned as he turned away from the painting in front of him.

Seungmin only looked up at his boyfriend, a frown resting on his lips.

"Hm?" Urged the elder. When he saw Seungmin shake his head, he set the paintbrush in his hands down and walked over to his bed. The younger had the contents of his backpack sprawled out over the space.

"Too much..." Seungmin grumbled at last.

"We should take a break...well you should take a break. I haven't been doing anything productive for the past hour."

Seungmin leaned forward and squinted in the direction of the desk in the corner of Hyunjin's room only for the elder to cover his eyes.

"It's not finished yet—you can't see."

"Why not?"

"Cause all my paintings looks stupid before they're finished."

Shrugging at the elder's words, Seungmin turned back to the papers spread out in front of him. He reached out to sort what he'd already finished from the unfinished, but was swatted away by Hyunjin. Wordlessly, the elder stacked up the worksheets and set them at the corner of the bed.

"Hey," Hyunjin started, "focus on me instead. I want attention too."

A soft smile rose to Seungmin's lips as he nodded. Maybe homework could wait just a little bit.

"I was texting my friends last night...and they all really liked you. Especially Chan. He said you were really sweet and he can't wait to see you again."

"They were...nice," Seungmin said with some difficulty. For some reason, he was having a harder time speaking. Every word felt like it was burning his throat as he spoke.

Reaching out to grab one of Seungmin's hands, Hyunjin interlocked their fingers and muttered, "I like it when it's just us hanging out...they're so loud all the time. They were only civil because they didn't want to scare you away."

Seungmin nodded once again, his eyes fixed on their hands. "Can you..." he started in a whisper. His voice quickly trailed off, embarrassed by his own thoughts.

"Can I...?" The elder urged.

Eyebrows furrowing together purely because of the fact Hyunjin couldn't read his mind, Seungmin huffed.

"What? You can say it."

"...kiss me."

"Kiss you?" Seungmin's eyes fell back down to his lap and Hyunjin wasn't quite sure if he was shy after asking such a question or simply nervous for what came next. "You want me to kiss you? Is that okay?"

Just for a moment, Seungmin lifted his head and looked at his boyfriend. After what felt like an eternity of no response, the younger finally nodded.

Smiling at the boy, Hyunjin reached out to place a hand on the side of his face. "If it gets too much for you, or you just want to stop, tell me," Hyunjin voiced softly.

A small hum came from Seungmin before he flashed Hyunjin a reassuringly smile, trying to tell the elder that he'd be okay. Hyunjin seemed to get the message as the elder leaned forward and pecked Seungmin's lips.

He waited a moment to see if his boyfriend was going to have a negative reaction, but he seemed to be doing just fine. Slowly, he captured the boy's lips in a soft kiss.

Kissing wasn't something that felt awkward to Seungmin, but he wasn't quite used to it yet. He wondered if with time it was possible to get used to somebody's lips. Maybe the whole point of kissing wasn't worrying about how it felt but instead feeling the other person's emotions as your own.

Seungmin felt like putty in Hyunjin's hold as the elder's hand cradled the back of his head. He felt safe. For once in his life, Seungmin didn't feel the least bit overwhelmed. It almost felt natural.

"This isn't what I had in mind when I told you to focus on me...but I like your idea better," Hyunjin teased as he pulled away from the younger.

A quiet laugh slipped out of Seungmin, suddenly finding it hard to hold eye contact with his boyfriend.

"You're cute," mumbled Hyunjin as he finally took his hand from the younger's face. The moment he did so, Hyunjin was suddenly interested in studying his own hands. "Shit," he hissed, pulling his sleeve over his hand and bringing it up to scrub at Seungmin's cheek, "there was paint on my hand...you're kinda blue."

✨✨✨

After Seungmin went home for the night, Hyunjin returned to his room to do his own homework and maybe tidy up the space if he found the motivation. But before he could do any homework, covering up the paint he left out was his first priority.

On the desk next to the still drying canvas, there was a folded up piece of lined paper with Hyunjin's name written on the outside along with a stolen sticky note that said, I don't think the painting looks stupid.

Deeming his homework irrelevant, Hyunjin plopped down in the chair and unfolded the piece of paper Seungmin left.

Hyunjin,
Today in therapy, Mrs Park told me I should talk to you more about what happened, but I don't know how to do that. I think that might be something I can't force and we can talk about it as it comes up. I wish you could read my mind. That would make things a lot easier.

Anyway something I can talk about is that my brother came over last weekend. He kept apologizing to me and I'm not sure if he really was sincere or if he felt pressured by my parents. I wish he would apologize to you.

Either way, the first thing that came to my mind was to tell him that I loved you. I'm not entirely sure what it means to be in love with somebody romantically...but I think I do love you and I hope that some day you'll love me too.

Seungmin.

Folding the letter back up, Hyunjin held it tightly in his left hand while fishing for his phone with his right. He clicked on Seungmin's contact and called him, patiently listening to the ringing of the device.

"Hyunjin, I—"

"I love you too, Seungmin—I love you right now," he interrupted eagerly.

"Oh."

Hyunjin smiled at his response. Phone calls between then were always awkward because he couldn't see the younger's face. To him, something as simple as an oh from his boyfriend was enough of an answer. "That's all I wanted to say," Hyunjin concluded softly, "Goodnight, Seungmin."

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