Fine {DoTae} | complete

Twenty-Five

The sudden beam of the lights wakes Doyoung up the next morning. His eyes burn, head muddled as he sits up and squints through the room to work out what's going on. He hears Hyunseok's voice, a rustling of bedsheets beside him. The manager appears in the doorway a moment later.

"Twenty minutes late!" Hyunseok exclaims.

Eyes begging to close again, Doyoung slides back down into the pillows. Taeyong's legs are tangled with his own, the sheets are nearly off the bed, and Taeyong shows no sign of waking up any time soon. The manager continues to grumble. Doyoung knows they can't stay in bed all day, so he shakes Taeyong's shoulder to rouse him gently. When Taeyong does awake, it's with a groan and a muffled swear word.

"Hyunseok says we're late," Doyoung says.

Taeyong shuts his eyes again and hides in the crook of his neck. "Late to what?" he croaks.

The manager comes back to tell them about dance practice and vocal practice and the content Taeyong has to film today, and his stress is enough to drag them out of bed in sympathy for the man. While they sort through the piles of clothes on the floor to find something comfortable, the previous day's events slam back into Doyoung's mind. He sits on the end of the bed, crumpled t-shirt in hand, and combs his fingers through his hair. He's hungry, craving sleep, the lights are too bright for so early in the morning and anxiety starts to dry his throat like ash the harder he thinks about what happened. About what Taeyong told him. He watches Taeyong get dressed, regretful.

"Are you coming with me?" Taeyong asks while he helps Doyoung put his t-shirt on the right way round. How he's already so awake and smiley is beyond Doyoung because his own head is still fuzzy as though it's all a dream, the bed far too enticing even after Taeyong pulls the sheets back into place and smooths them down.

"Yeah," Doyoung says. He winces at the fear in his voice.

Taeyong kisses his forehead, lingers a moment until Doyoung leans up to catch his lips.

"We'll work this out together," Taeyong says after they share a kiss.

Hyunseok shouts through the apartment for them to get on with it so they have to go, gathering their things and traipsing after him to the van where two other staff members await. Paranoid, Doyoung looks over his shoulders and pulls his mask up higher, pulls his hat down lower, and doesn't breathe until the van doors are shut and he's sat beside Taeyong. The windows are so tinted that they appear black from the outside, but Doyoung still wonders if sasaengs can see through them, if Joowon knows the registration plate and will follow them to the company building. Joowon must know where the building is, he thinks.

But he has to trust Taeyong. Taeyong knows Joowon more than he does, even if he isn't sure of his full capabilities, and Doyoung leans on Taeyong's shoulder and worries that it could be the last time he gets to do this. He squeezes Taeyong's hands.

"You alright?" Taeyong whispers.

Over the blaring radio that Hyunseok put on to fill the silence, no managers hear him.

Doyoung doesn't confirm either way. Taeyong sighs, squeezes his hands back.

"Once we're inside the building, he won't be able to get to us. We have security, managers follow us everywhere, and he's probably all talk no bite."

"He broke into our place," Doyoung points out.

Taeyong sighs again, longer this time. "I don't know what to do," he admits. "We could leave it to the police to get him, but they didn't seem... I doubt they'll do much."

Doyoung hums in dim agreement. He sits upright and his head spins and his stomach lurches for a terrifying second. Taeyong jerks in alarm and coaxes him to lay his head back down on his shoulder.