Slow Down - Jaywon

10: 'Can you help me?'

New days didn't bring new feelings, for the ravenous curiosity and ire was just as fresh as it was last night. For each and everytime Jay had left his room, he'd gaze over the door to Jungwon's room almost as if it was an innate instinct.

Why was Jungwon so confusing?
Why didn't he let him in?

Questions that bypassed but we're never thought to heavily over, for Jay would only overthink.

He heaved a sigh and he sat up in bed, he'd been doing quite literally nothing for too long. He needed to do something.

Sunoo had made it a point yesterday to tell Jay to make efforts with Jungwon and he only considered it at that time, but now maybe it was what he needed to do.

After all, classes would start up and little and little time would be provided for Jay to even try. Then the rest of the year—or semester—would fly by with them only being whatever they were.

Jay didn't want to live with that level of awkwardness perpetuating for months. So he pushed himself off of the bed and made his way out of his room. He was impulsive, and had thought not of a way to confront the situation or open the conversation, but he already found himself standing in front of Jungwon's door after he knocked.

"What do you want?" Jungwon asked, loud enough for him to be heard through the door.

He always sounded like this, annoyed and distracted. Jay was used to that.

"Can we...talk?"

"Why?"

There was that long forgotten irritation, biting at Jay to reply with something just as snarky to what could just be a genuine question. That irritation that was the root of this caustic and active antipathy.

"Can't you just let me?" Jay said.
He heard the click of a pen before it was slammed onto the table and Jungwon opened the door, standing straight in the frame.

Again. Sharp eyes with daggers in his gaze, made fierce by the shape but almost softened with the eyelashes of a doll.

Jungwon was the same Jungwon. Jay was the same Jay, but this time with the awareness that Jungwon was cute in ways he'd not confess.

"What do you want to talk about?" Jungwon murmured, restraining the stress in his voice. More than anything, he gritted in a whisper.

"Were you studying?"

Jungwon huffed and returned to his chair. Answering Jay's question by sitting in front of a table with notebooks and books organized across the surface. He reached for the pen and raised it to the paper.

"What does studying mean to you?" Jay asked, gingerly stepping into Jungwon's room.

Jungwon didn't reply, for he only pressed the point of his pen against the paper and began writing again.

Instead of asking again right away, Jay looked around and observed the room that he was in. For the most part, his room followed a color code; primarily blue. His blankets and pillows, as well as miscellaneous, and his notebooks and pens.

"Is blue your favorite color?"

"Is it not obvious?" responded Jungwon.

"It fits you," Jay said.

Jungwon looked over his shoulder, back at Jay with indifference. "Why do you say that?"

Jay cocked his head to the side and a small smile creeped to his lips. "Do I have to tell you?" And in response to that Jungwon just huffed and turned back around.

He looked around again, searching for more things that he could find that'd let him know about the boy he was now rooming with out of curiosity. It was about what was there and what wasn't there. And one thing that wasn't there was a family picture.