Homeless ➹ 2jae [✓]

- 24 -

"Hey! Did you talk to him?" Youngjae woke up faintly in the middle of the night to find that Jaebum was pacing by the kitchen. Suddenly it felt cold.

"Yeah."

"What'd he say?" He only barely heard the phone conversation through his tired head, the night becoming blurry. Soon, he fell back asleep, not thinking about what the call was about. He wasn't curious at all; He figured it had nothing to do with him anyway.

—

"Youngjae... Youngjae, wake up." Jaebum stood at the door with the younger's bag full of his things, but his call wasn't heard. He decided to be gentler, to see if Youngjae would wake up from his hair being played with.

"Hm..." His eyes finally opened slowly before seeing Jaebum so close; hand in his hair, noses only so far apart.

"Wake up, babe, we gotta go."

"What am I, your girlfriend?" he chuckled and sat up, rubbing his eyes, while Jaebum blushed internally. "Where are we going anyway? It's still dark out..."

Jaebum defended, "Yah, I call everybody that!" but that simply wasn't true. "And we're going to see Jinyoung, so come on."

"Wh-"

Before he realized, Youngjae was being picked up off the floor and walked towards the exit.

"Wait what?"

"The train's gonna be there in like 10 minutes, Youngjae, I don't want to miss it." Youngjae was still hardly awake while he and Jaebum were walking quickly inside the bustling crowd of people going to work. It felt like only seconds before he was staring into the blaring light above him, the smell of rush hour coffee sticking to him like cigarette smoke. He leaned his head against Jaebum's shoulder, exhausted, and closed his eyes once again.

Meanwhile, Jaebum's heart beat just at the surface of his chest, like it was stuck almost. He held Youngjae's knee for the duration of the ride, watching outside the window for their stop to arrive.

—

"Jaebum, please tell me what you're doing. Why are we here?" Youngjae's sleep on the train gave him an extra few hours of energy, but he still was worried about being back at the university.

"I'll tell you, Youngjae, but I need to talk to the Dean first."

"What!? No— Jaebum!"

"Youngjae, it's okay!" The older turned around with wide eyes, looking at the shaken boy in front of him. "I spoke to Jackson last night, and he told me to bring you to the Dean so you can stay in the dorm until we can get you an apartment. This way, you don't have to live with some strange guys." Youngjae's breath hitched in his throat. "Is that okay?"

He was still silent.

"You—?"

"Yeah. Yeah that's fine."

Jaebum smiled a bit before turning back around and into the building. The two traveled the distance to the Dean's office, by now the sun was up, and waited for him to arrive. Jaebum called the boys to let them know he was there with Youngjae. Only Jinyoung was awake, so he ran to the office in his pajamas to see his best friend again.

"Hey, you okay?" he asked, kneeling to meet Youngjae's sitting height.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Youngjae couldn't help but smile seeing Jinyoung again. It hadn't been very long, but he missed him after not seeing him for days in a row.

"Good morning, boys," the Dean said, catching their attention. "Come on in, guys." Youngjae and Jaebum walked in while the other stayed behind. "Jinyoung, you can come too."

While they all found a place to sit, the Dean sipped his coffee and got ready to discuss what the situation was looking like. "Well," he started, "certainly, Youngjae, to my understanding, you've had a lot of trouble recently, hm?" Youngjae shook his head and clenched his fists in his pockets. "Um.. Can you explain to me exactly what happened?"

So, Youngjae went on explaining the story over again, dreading every memory with a bitter tone in his voice. He relived the times between showing up in Seoul to ending up back in the university, somehow afraid that it would all happen again.

"Alright, this is what we've decided on doing. We don't usually do this, but we're making an exception for you since you have good reason. It's clear that you haven't been bothering anybody by staying in the dorm, and I apologize for not realizing your situation, but rules are rules; However, you can stay. Don't worry about looking suspicious or anything, the staff knows you'll be here for now."

"Ah- When do I need to find an apartment?" Youngjae asked.

"By the end of this year, so you have time. Winter break is in a couple weeks, as well, so you can have some time to decompress while most of the students are away." Youngjae nodded slowly, taking in what he was faced with.

"Will this work?" Jinyoung asked, looking towards the boy with a stern face.

"Yeah... Thank you so much," he told the Dean. "Really, I appreciate this a lot."

"Of course," he smiled. "You three should go back and get some rest. Jaebum, skip your morning classes if you need to."

Jaebum grinned with a, "Thanks," and laughed while he walked into the hallway.

—

a/n: fucccckiing hell it's been a month -_-;;;; i'm sorry~~~~~~

please forgive me, i'll write a lot this weekend <333