𝔩𝔦𝔪𝔦𝔱𝔩𝔢𝔰𝔰 (𝔠𝔥𝔢𝔫𝔰𝔲𝔫𝔤) ✓

四

"let's change the stiff world to be flexible"

jisung wipes his face with his hoodie roughly, dropping his phone to the pavement. he climbs to his feet and places them firmly by the edge, trying to ignore the muffled sobs coming from the cracked screen.

it was now, or never.

taking a deep breath, he counts backwards from ten, not hearing the staircase door slam open behind him and the rapid footsteps racing towards him.

he tilts his head up at the sky, radiant stars peppering the darkness and smiles. a strange sense of calm washes over him, and as he reaches one, he slides his right foot over the edge.

just as a pair of arms wrap around his waist and he gets yanked backwards, landing on top of chenle, who lets out a small 'oof'.

a heavy silence falls over the two, only cut through by little sniffles coming from chenle.

it doesn't last long, however.

"PARK JISUNG. how could you?! i love you, ji."

chenle's voice wavers, and he sucks in a breath of the cool night air before continuing.

"do you know how broken we would've been if you jumped? how shattered i would've been? fine. maybe your dickhead of a father wouldn't have cared, but what about the rest of us? jeno, jaemin, renjun, haechan, mark? you're practically our family! you're the one who sat outside jeno's room for 3 days and brought him fruit when his mom died, and he couldn't keep anything down. you're the one who found the blade in renjun's pocket, covered in blood, and got him to stop cutting. so don't you dare tell yourself that nobody loves you, that nobody cares. because you're important, ji. you mean so much more than you know. if you had died tonight, i never would've forgiven myself. I can't even imagine my life without you i-"

chenle squeezes his eyes shut as seemingly endless tears stream down his cheeks. his shirt was starting to get wet at this point, and only then did jisung realize how chenle was still trying to catch his breath from sprinting to his apartment.

"di-did you run here all the way from your house?" jisung finally whispers, somehow gathering enough air to talk.

chenle nods, just barely, and jisung's head drops into his hands as he sobs uncontrollably. chenle lives over 5 km away. that means he sprinted a route that would've taken at least 10 minutes to drive in under 5.

and he did it for him.

"i-i'm so sorry." jisung manages to whimper between hiccups, reaching his arms out to chenle. he gladly slips into the embrace, linking his arms behind jisung's neck.

"i love you more than you know. that was the most reckless thing i've ever done."

"aside from you almost bleeding out in the school bathroom, you mean" chenle chimes in, voice now coarse from running and yelling.

sighing, jisung pulls back from chenle and wipes the tears off his cheeks. he can see the hurt buried in his friend's eyes, and his heart pangs when he realizes it's because of his impulsive actions.

"i promise, zhong chenle, that i will never do that again. i'll tell you the next time something happens. i swear."

jisung offers his pinky to chenle, and he wraps his significantly smaller one around it, pressing their thumbs together to seal the deal.

so the two friends fell into a comfortable silence, chenle's head tucked into the crook of jisung's neck. they stargazed until they fell asleep, and the last thing jisung remembers thinking is that if he had chenle to live for, he would never want to die again.