{NINE.i}
{pt.3 of Highschool Lovers}
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Joohyoung swears the warmth spreads through their palms, tightly pressed against each other. Wanders through his own fingertips and straight into his stomach, where it lives on as the soft shine of a candle in...
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Their freedom turns to retreat into the endless ocean of remaining school days until graduation just as cruelly. Joohyoung has barely blinked, and it's already the last weekend of their summer holidays. He finds himself in Jiho's room yet again, the fan on full blast as the heat is throwing its blanket over the city one last time before it will begrudgingly make way for seasons where it's easier to breathe in actual oxygen instead of sticky humidity.
They are watching The Cat Returns. It's all a bit bizarre, but that's what Joohyoung has grown to like about the world in these movies. Not everything makes sense, because that's not the point. Seen from the other side of things, it's all real and perfectly reasonable and what is considered normal beyond the screen doesn't matter. The rest of the world doesn't matter.
It's somewhere towards the latter third of the movie when Joohyoung excuses himself to go the bathroom. When he comes back, Jiho has paused the film and is mindlessly chipping away at remnants of popcorn sticking to the long white sleeves he is wearing underneath his Totoro shirt.
"I can't believe you aren't sweating buckets." Joohyoung throws himself back onto his spot on the beanbag, right by Jiho's side. He taps against his sleeves. "This plus the body heat. How are you still alive, man."
"I don't mind." Jiho shrugs. "I get cold really easily, though. For balance, I guess."
"I'm so jealous. I could be half naked and still feel hot all the time."
"Nobody is forcing you to stick to me like glue," Jiho laughs. "I mean yeah, it's pretty warm and I could roll up my sleeves. But I don't feel much of a difference. There's also nothing to see, so. Don't have any reason."
"Nothing to see," Joohyoung slowly repeats.
His thought go haywire at the image.
Fuck, he was doing so well at pushing it away.
There must be a shift in his face. A falter in his smile or a little frown he doesn't notice, because Jiho — sweet, attentive Jiho — suddenly sits up and stares at him with his stern fox eyes. Under his gaze, Joohyoung's tediously built composure starts crumbling away like it's nothing.
Jiho has always been more emotionally aware than he is, like his own honesty extends to be able to see the truth in Joohyoung's eyes when he himself hasn't figured out yet where to look for it. It's the PC room all over again. The convenience store, the first handholding.
Jiho pouts slightly, thinking. Then he places his hand on Joohyoung's, but doesn't intertwine their fingers.
"What's wrong?"
Joohyoung's breath stutters in his throat regardless.
Jiho knows, he always knows.
Joohyoung feels a nervous laughter escaping him. Jiho's warmth on the back of his hand is the only thing keeping him grounded at this point. He needs to wither away. Scream. He's crying, bleeding, losing, TXT style. And oh god, he's internally monologuing in the language of shitposts again, this is bad.
