congratulations || jeongchan

- 19 - Please -

How could you be so fine?

"Hyung, you have to go back, please," Jeongin was in hysterics by the time they reached his apartment, "Please, he needs you."

"I will, I promise, but I need you to be safe first." The elder boy was, understandably, frantic - he was supposed to be responsible and yet he couldn't even think. He had never heard of anything even vaguely similar to Chan's case.

"Woojin, please." Tears were streaming down his face, finger with black from the thin tracing of mascara on his eyelashes. "Please." It seemed to be the only word that he was able to choke out. The only thought in his head. His vision was going blurry and Jeongin couldn't process anything. He was vaguely aware of a slight pain in his arm, but chose to ignore it - instead focusing on the thin stripes of the cushion on his couch, attempting to pinpoint the one which he knew was slightly thicker than the rest.

"Innie, I'm going to go and help Chan, okay? I'll come back to you later and call you as soon as I know anything, okay? Please don't do anything stupid." Jeongin nodded reluctantly, barely processing the words before they immediately left him. As did Woojin.

As had Chan.

Jeongin focused on the sound that the rain made against the window. It was soft but frantic at the same time. As if it didn't truly know what it was that it wanted. Whether it wanted to come in and invade or if it wanted to isolate itself. If the boy had been more alert then he may have taken note of how poignant that was. Instead he just sat there, staring at the floorboards: counting and recounting them over and over and over again. Until the number twenty seven was the only thing his mind could process. 

Apart from Chan.

Jeongin noticed a mark on his arm. He tried to concentrate, willing his mind back into a state of near consciousness. The words came into focus for the first time; stretching from the inside of his elbow to his wrist and trailing onto his pinky.

The first conversation he and Chan had ever had was staring back up at him. Punctuated by tiny drawings of flowers, flowing red ink pen and the harsh strokes of his own Sharpie. A small bruise like circle was beneath his thumb, Chan had wanted to test out whether the theory around other people's writing not showing up on your soulmate's skin was true. It was a very basic conversation, small talk and quietly probing questions.

Trying to scope out why the universe had decided that they should never be apart. Why the universe had gone back on that decision. Unless it hadn't. 

Jeongin didn't feel the tears rolling down his cheeks until it was too late, his eyes had only just recovered from the previous onslaught but that didn't stop them from falling. It was like his soul. Jeongin was seeing his soul laid out before him. The very beginning of him as a living being. Before Chan, he had only been existing.

The older boy had taught him how to live.

When his tears came into contact with the writing, it disappeared. 

And so the cycle continued: arranging their first meet up, after discovering that they went to the same high school and had probably vaguely known of one another for the entire duration that they had been speaking; Chan asking Jeongin for help with his music for the first time, which was soon to become a regular occurrence - although neither of them could have known that; the sweet little reassurances that they left on one another's palms, as a tangible reminder that everything was going to be okay; their first date at the park in the middle of the night; the first 'I love you', written in haphazard black biro.

All the milestones in their relationship seemed to appear, scattered randomly across his arm. Jeongin couldn't tell if the tears were pained or happy from the memories. Maybe they were both.

It was the little things that stung the most, causing the breath to catch in his throat: poems and song lyrics and recipes and dumb shit their friends had said and homeworks that had been missed and test scores and tiny drawings and all the little domestic things. Everything that Jeongin missed most about Chan.

One caught his eye in particular.

'Come home'

One could have been forgiven for thinking that the boy was mad. Yang Jeongin ran through the streets in his pyjamas, mascara smudged down his face and his arm array with swirling writing. His feet were bare and his hair tangled.

He didn't care though.

He was going home.

A/N - This is so cliché could I just not