penumbra

Chap. 12 - I'm Sorry

Major tw for this one: panick attacks and emotional breakdowns are described in detail in this chap.

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The afternoon was coming to an end and Seonghwa was still on his laptop. His fingers were starting to hurt from typing for hours, his head was pounding, his mouth felt dry and the way his notebook and pens and pencils were scattered around his desk just made him even more stressed.

"Hwa" Hongjoong whined from the bed. "How much longer are you gonna stay there?"

"Joongie, it's finals week" the older replied with a heavy sigh. "And this is my last semester, I can't fuck anything up. Otherwise I won't be able to graduate."

"You need to take a break, I swear I can actually see smoke rising above your head" Hongjoong pouted, rolling onto his back with his head off the mattress, looking at the other upside down with pleading eyes. "And I'm so bored..."

Seonghwa rolled his eyes light-heartedly and turned his desk chair to look at Hongjoong. The younger had a cheeky smile on his face. He could use a breather, indeed.

The blonde looked at the other's body for a few moments, the small frame swallowed by the older's pajamas, and realized: he still hadn't gone out to buy Hongjoong his own clothes. He'd totally forgotten. With the end of semester approaching rapidly his mind just filtered out pretty much everything that wasn't college-related.

He looked at the hour on his phone.

05:27 PM

Well, they had time.

"Then let's go somewhere" Seonghwa chirped, getting up.

"I'm all ears," Hongjoong replied, not moving a muscle.

"I thought that maybe we could go to the mall..."

Hongjoong shot him a confused look.

"I wanna buy you some of your own clothes," the older explained, walking over to the bed and crouching down.

The raven-haired hair immediately sat up with big eyes. "Wait, really?" Seonghwa nodded with a small smile. "B-But Hwa... I have no money to pay you back..."

"Hongjoong, it's fine. I've been taking care of you for over a month, let me do this one more thing. I really don't mind you using my clothes but and think you should have your own stuff. Things that are more like you."

Hongjoong was touched by that, speechless.

"I won't be able to get you that many but a few pieces are a good start, right?" Seonghwa grinned.

The younger chuckled, unable to look the other in the eye for a moment before looking at him again with a pout. "So that means I'm not going to smell like you anymore?"

Seonghwa froze and felt goosebumps running down his spine at the question, trying hard to keep a straight face. "Just go get ready, dumbass" he ultimately said so he could hide how flustered he was.

Hongjoong went to the shower in a giggling fit.

They took the subway to the mall and entered through the access inside the station. The younger looked immediately overwhelmed by the place, his dark brown eyes squinting with the lighting change before darting rapidly everywhere. He looked at every decoration, every storefront and struggled to process the amount of people passing him by at every second.

Their hometown was kind of small and didn't have big bustling malls like the one they were currently in, so Seonghwa assumed that was the reason for the reaction, although he didn't expect that it'd be that intense. He had to admit that it was truly a bit much to take in, though, especially as the younger was spending most of his time at home.