↱SEMPITERNAL↲ ⇾seongjoong⇽

twenty three

1948, Seoul.

Hongjoong slips an arm around Seonghwa's back, feels Seonghwa's own arm sliding over his shoulders.

He adjusts Seonghwa's arm, curls his hand tightly around his wrist.

"Lift now?" he asks softly.

Seonghwa makes a small sound, discomfort, maybe, pain?

Fatigue?

Hongjoong doesn't know.

He just puts his strength into lifting him out of bed, and he doesn't look, doesn't dare to look at the way his legs are dragged limply out from under the covers, the way they almost buckle under Seonghwa's weight when he finally gets him standing.

They're back home now, now that Seonghwa's woken up and smiled weakly up at him from the hospital bed, brought breath back to Hongjoong's chest.

I felt really sick, and I was thinking about a lot of things so I thought I'd take a walk and... just a short walk, it wasn't too cold, Seonghwa said.

Then all of a sudden, I felt so light headed, I couldn't stand anymore, and then... yeah.

He stared at Hongjoong's tired face.

Thank you, Hongjoong. For looking for me.

Hongjoong's tired, frightened face.

I'm sorry if I scared you.

They brought him home five days after that, after a course of iv antibiotics, medicines for his fever, and now he's so, so weak.

"I can walk," Seonghwa says.

"Hyung," he says.

That's it, nothing more, but the tone of his voice, the fraught ends of that one word, silences Seonghwa.

He doesn't move his arm from Hongjoong's shoulders, and Hongjoong doesn't move his from around Seonghwa's waist.

"Walk now?" Hongjoong asks again, and Seonghwa nods.

Ten quiet steps to the bathroom door, and then four more to the tub.

Steam rises from the water's surface, leaves drops of condensation on the windowpane.

Seonghwa withdraws his arm, but Hongjoong doesn't move.

He doesn't think Seonghwa would be standing if it weren't for the arm wrapped securely around his waist, holding him pressed close to his side.

"I, uh..." Seonghwa trails off.

He needs to undress.

"Should I just..." he mumbles, his ears burning. "I'll just..."

He raises his hands to the highest button, and Hongjoong keeps his gaze resolutely on the fogged up window.

He can see it out of the corner of his eye, that downward path his hands take, till all the buttons are undone and the shirt hangs loose off his shoulders.