Slow Down - Jaywon

22: 'Avoiding confessions'

It ends like this.

It's late in the evening, closer to night than it is to the afternoon. The room stays warm with the heat of two figures, one asleep and the other wide awake. Jungwon's feeling held captive in his own body, grimacing to the feeling of Jay near him, horrified by what they had done.

His gaze taped to the ceiling. Coming up with many possibilities but never fully thinking about one. His heart is beating but in that uncomfortable trigger-happy way. Jungwon's uneasy. He wants to leave. Scrub his skin raw and wash himself until there's no rememberance of Jay left. He wants to get out of this situation altogether and go back to the state of just roommates that they were in.

Jungwon is too frozen to shuffle out of Jay's grasp. Too tired to. He's remaining uncomfortably stock-still. Jay's in his room, in his bed. Jungwon's with him, right beside him. He doesn't like it.

The cold, heart dropping feeling of pure betrayal, done by him to him. Jungwon betrayed himself. He keeps his mouth shut just incase the urge to vomit strikes him out of nowhere, but in doing so the water supposed to have built in his mouth raised to his eyes.

Disgusting. So disgusting.

Disgusting how he did this to himself. So disgusting how he lives strictly like how his parents tell him to. Horrible that he could only hate himself for hating it, and not just change it. Jungwon disliked how he acted, but he could only dislike how he disliked it because he couldn't change it, for if he tried to change it, he had to give up Jay. And he's too far out to come back in.

Jay wakes up eventually, with a gentle groan, and honestly Jungwon doesn't know how. Then Jay's hand comes up to swipe against his cheek.

"You're crying."

Jungwon hates it that Jay notices before he does. Hates the multitude of realizations that breach into his mind like a broken dam. Hates how this fluttering feeling feels.

"Yeah," Jungwon whispers, but almost too quietly for it to be counted as such.

"What's on your mind?"

A creeping feeling creeps over his voice. Capturing his ability to speak just before he does. Tight. Rigid. He knew he could still speak though, with ease say the truth, but he couldn't. Jungwon hated that.

He shook his head.

"Not ready to talk about it?" Jay asked him.

Yes.

"Do you want me to move? Are you uncomfortable like this?"

No. Yes.

"Hey, hey," Jay croons.

This time Jungwon realizes that his tears are active, but he couldn't help them. It wasn't a save your tears situation.

Fortunately, Jay soothing action, brushing Jungwon's bangs back, his fingertips grazing just behind Jungwon's ear, makes him feel a bit better. It's comforting. Domestic. He closes his eyes and counts up to ten in the same rhythm of Jay's soft strokes and like magic it works. He feels better, his heart has slowed, his breathing has deepened. His tears stopped flowing.

Jungwon turns towards Jay and for a second Jay's touch moves down to his jaw, to his neck. Then he scoots closer until the subtle scent of the older boy wraps around him like a blanket, and his nerves are at ease. Jungwon keeps his hands to himself, and just holds his hands in between the space of him and Jay, but he's close enough for the tips of his hair to touch against Jay's chest.