↱SEMPITERNAL↲ ⇾seongjoong⇽

thirty eight

1950, Seoul.

There's an unobtrusive knock on Hongjoong's door Saturday night.

Seonghwa's knock, gentle, just like him.

He didn't expect it.

Seonghwa hasn't been home in weeks.

He supposes he should have expected it, considering how they parted a few days prior.

He opens the door, and Seonghwa's there, arms wrapped around himself, shoulders hunched.

It's not cold.

"Hi," he says. "Come up?"

"Up?"

"Come to bed. With me."

"You're not upset?"

He smiles, tight-lipped.

He shakes his head.

"I'll change your bandages, too. Your wound needs to be cleaned."

__

He sits cross legged on Seonghwa's bathroom floor, his forearms dangling over the edge of bathtub.

Seonghwa's perched there, too, on the rim of the tub.

His old bandages sit frayed and stained dark brown with blood and yellow with antiseptic in a small pile by Seonghwa's bare feet.

He hasn't looked up at Seonghwa's face.

He knows he won't like what he finds there.

His hands are so gentle against his wound, still it hurts.

Spirit and gauze, still stings when it pulls against his stitches.

A fresh roll of gauze cracked out of brown paper, Seonghwa wrapping it around his forearm, careful, slow.

"You're good at this."

"Yeah?"

He nods.

The bandages are secured in place and Seonghwa rolls his sleeve back down.

They're done, but he doesn't move.

His fingers trail softly down over the bit of fresh gauze peeking out beneath his cuff, over his wrist and knuckles, trace a gentle band over his little finger.

"You don't want to wear it," he says. "Did I burden you with it?"

Hongjoong dares himself to look up, and Seonghwa looks distraught.

His jaw is clenched and his shoulders are drawn in and his toes are curled in and he's holding himself together so tightly.

Hongjoong tangles their fingers together and draws his hand to his chest.