Homeless ➹ 2jae [✓]

- 09 -

"Jinyoung?" Jaebum asked while Youngjae was in the bathroom. "Can I talk to you outside for a minute?" Jinyoung was in the middle of finalizing a presentation he would do the next day, too deep to feel like being interrupted.

"Could we... talk later? I'm kinda busy," he replied, clearly annoyed and trying to block out Jaebum's voice.

"I- I just really want to ask--"

"Ask here."

"Why can't we talk outside? It'll only take a few minutes," he defended, stepping back when Jinyoung stood up.

"Alright..." The two walked outside of the room, Youngjae unsuspecting, and stood near the door. The hallway was quiet, creating an uncomfortable atmosphere for the both of them. It was nearing the end of the night, so it made perfect sense that there wouldn't be many people lingering around. Even so, they were still quiet. "What's so important, Jaebum?"

Before the older began talking, Jinyoung suddenly felt a realization panning over him, and he couldn't have been any slower to realize it when Jaebum began to ask, "I'm just wondering, what--"

"You know, Youngjae's past isn't any of your concern." Jinyoung looked down at his feet, failing to see Jaebum's begging eyes staring at him. He felt it, though; The eyes that were so curious, but being prevented from answers, only making them water in frustration.

"What?" Jaebum asked, an unexpected crack in his voice that he scolded himself for, unknowing of what the reason was.

"That's what you want to ask me, right?" The taller stayed quiet, unwilling to admit that Jinyoung was right. Jinyoung picked up on this, and continued with, "If he won't tell you himself, with his 'It's a long--"

"How do you know he said that?"

"I was awake, you moron!" Jaebum was taken aback by Jinyoung's choice of words, with little understanding of why he was speaking this way to him. "Besides, he always says that. If he won't tell you, then why bother asking me? I don't understand why you're so persistent."

"I only asked him once..." Jaebum answered, little confidence in his tone, unlike other times. He noticed that he was acting differently than he would in other situations, in which he would probably get angry and slap the other party, but he wasn't angry at all. Instead, it was Jinyoung who became angry when he was usually the calm one. "What harm is there in that?"

"Jaebum- I..." Jinyoung began, unable to form his argument correctly. "Why are you so eager to know about it anyway?" he asked, seemingly more calm than he was just a few seconds prior.

"I just want to get to know him, Jinyoung..." Jaebum walked around the younger and rested on the door, looking down at his feet with his hands crammed into his tight pockets. His head hung low, dissatisfied with the situation that presented itself.

"You can do that without prying into what already happened." The words hit Jaebum with a jagged arrow – a feeling that hurt much more than a feeling that would be valid to have. Jaebum knew that he wasn't granted with an unwritten permission to know about what Youngjae had been through; It was only his imaginative curiosity besting him for a second time in his life.

"It- It's still a part of him--"

"Well, it's a part of him that he wants to leave behind, and I know that." Suddenly, the silence did nothing but thicken, soon feeling like a physical barrier between them and wherever they stood. It was like, if they moved, they'd be blocked by a dense air that wouldn't allow them to breathe. It rang in Jaebum's ears, like little knives piercing through his head, and he wanted to get rid of it.

"Was it really that bad?" he wondered, voice wobbly, though he still didn't know why. He thought of the innocent boy, probably sitting on the top bunk with a book in his hands, and the cute face he had when he read. He thought of the pink hue he'd seen upon his cheeks, and how it was brought on because of him. He didn't want to believe that he'd gone through such hardships. He thought, maybe, that was why he was so curious; So he could find out the truth from Youngjae's pink lips.

"Yes," Jinyoung simply answered, feeling relieved that the dry silence had finally disappeared, inhaling and exhaling through his mouth. "I'm going back inside. Don't ask him anything, alright?" Jaebum nodded, staying out in the hallway even when Jinyoung went back in the room, where Youngjae was sitting on the bunk bed with a book. Jinyoung had picked one up for him at the school's library; It was a book on mental health.

"Huh? Where did Jaebum go?" he asked, eyes wide and eyebrows high.

"Oh, he's outside. I guess he'll come in soon," he said, slight annoyance in his tone. Youngjae sensed that there was an issue, but didn't say anything. He knew Jinyoung, and knew that it was better to let him do his own thing when he was feeling like this. He observed Jinyoung walk into the bathroom, coming out in the clothes he would wear to bed.

"Jinyoung, let's go to sleep, hm?" he calmly suggested, scooting back to his side of the bed. "Jaebum will come in when he's ready." Jinyoung's tired eyes made their way to the person he'd cared so much about for a long time, and he nodded his head in agreement.

"Yeah, okay."

In the end, they fell asleep with their foreheads up against each other's and their knees touching. It wasn't intentional, the way they did things sometimes, but it made them remember that there was a mutual care for one another. Jinyoung wouldn't let anybody hurt a hair on Youngjae's fragile being, and the same went for Youngjae.  

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a/n: wow, i'm sorry this chapter's so short! chapters will son be much longer, i promise! :P