❝my youth is with you❞ yeonbin

chapter 5

Agreeing to the sleepover was solely based on having no reason to object to the suggestion. Yeonjun kept on hoping to fall asleep as soon as he lain his head on the pillow, trying to not acknowledge the presence of his friend next to him. While he tried his best to be as good as his word, Choi Soobin was showering. However, the chaos of that day wouldn't leave his head. Being left alone in the silence, the excitement, and all that stress became unbearable. Shutting his eyes tightly he hoped for a dream.

In the meantime, Soobin has already come back from the bathroom. His hair hasn't dried yet, and the borrowed shirt was a bit too tight in the arms. Entering the room with lights off, and sensing no movement from the boy, he dared to speak no word. He quietly snugged himself under covers, turning on his right side to face Yeonjun's back.

"Yeonjun?" he whispered, but receiving no response, he backed away a few inches. Then he reached for his phone, the light screen blinding his eyes for a brief moment.

His phone vibrated with notifications as soon as he went online. Being absent for a whole day meant a load of his favorite idols' updates and replies from his mutual followers on Twitter. Choi Soobin was quite a big fan of some K-pop groups. As one of his favorites had a comeback recently, he tried to keep up with the new content. The ongoing situation prevented him from spending so much time online.

"Not sleeping?" Yeonjun turned to face Soobin. He was getting tired of playing pretend, and his eyes started to hurt from the pressure on his lids.

"Suffering from jet lag," Soobin explained with a tired smile. "Did I wake you up?" he whispered back. He blocked the phone screen so the light wouldn't bother Yeonjun.

"Can't sleep," he sighed putting his hand under the pillow, which was cold and gave him a nice feeling. Their voices cracked here and there. "And if you're not sleeping, then it's rude for me to do so."

"When did you become so polite?" Soobin giggled.

"Always been, you just never gave me a reason to be nice to you," the boy chuckled, teasing him.

"No, you've always been nice. To anyone," Soobin said, Yeonjun thought he was smiling, but it was too dark to say for sure. "You were nice to the guys, so that's why we all became friends, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember how you hated Taehyun's guts," Yeonjun laughed a bit too hard, he stopped when realized, that his parents were sleeping in a room next to his. "Did you have many friends in Australia?" He answered, back to whispering.

"You know me, it was difficult at first," he began, Yeonjun listened to him in silence. "I wasn't good at English, and most of them already knew each other, so no one really was willing to talk to me. I made a Korean friend, and we hung out all the time, as he also didn't have many friends. When we went to high school, things changed. Some people like us didn't know anyone. So we quickly got closer."

In the meantime, Yeonjun reached for the little lamp standing on the windowsill behind the bed to turn it on.

Soobin kept on talking about his friendships and some funny stories about school life. Sometimes he'd add how funnier it would have been if the rest of the guys had been there with him. That made Yeonjun feel happy, but miserable at the same time. Seeing how Soobin missed all of them only deepened his guilt of not contacting him for the past years. Seeing Soobin's expression in the dim light, he easily sensed how hurt he was.

"Isn't it hot?" Yeonjun tossed and turned all the time, uneasy feelings made his cheeks redder and the hot night worsened the situation.

"A bit-" Soobin stopped mid-sentence when Yeonjun took off his shirt and lain on top of the covers. "-hot. I'm hot too." He did the same as Yeonjun, taking his shirt off and exposing a naked torso.