dicey ↬ nomin

Ch.35

"What do you want to do now?" Jaemin asked as they had already worked their way through a tube of Pringles, a packet of biscuits and half way through a tub of jellies. They were just chatting about anything and everything, skilfully dodging the topic of Jaewoo even though Jaemin was bursting at the seams to talk about him.

Mrs. Na had taken Jaeri out to the twenty-four-hour café to give the boys the house to utilise. Currently, lying spread out across the sofa, the two were staring at a blank television and at their reflections. "I'm up for a movie."

"Ah, romantic. Let's find something to watch then." The pinkette stood up off the couch and disappeared upstairs to grab his DVDs. Jeno looked blankly at his hands and held them together, unsure of why he was feeling empty. He could guess that it was possibly the lack of presence beside him, who was now clambering back down the stairs with a handful of movies, or he could argue that it was the nerves of wondering what Jaewoo would do to him tomorrow.

"So, there's this one," Jaemin began, his eyes trained on the cover of the movie he was brandishing while reading the description, "This is a good one. But there's also this one," he lifted another DVD and looked over at Jeno to see his reaction. As he examined the cover, he frowned. "Actually, what even is this movie? I've never seen it in my life. Mark probably left it here by accident last time."

Jeno squinted his eyes and felt them glow up at one in particular. "That one," he beamed and pointed excitedly at the cover. "I've seen the beginning, but I've never watched it to the end. The kids always want to watch Power Rangers and take the tv remote off me."

Jaemin looked at the cover too and gulped, noticing the zombie on it. "I dunno, Jeno. Can you stomach it? It looks pretty hardcore, of you ask me."

"Except I didn't ask you, and it looks to me like you're a scaredy-cat. Are you afraid of a bit of blood?"

Jaemin huffed and shook his head, playing at confidence, but remembering the last horror movie he watched with Jisung and the nightmares that plagued him for nights following. "A bit of blood hurt nobody."

Jeno smirked, knowing that the boy was pretending, but also knowing that if his fear was bad enough, he would have completely objected. Since he wasn't telling Jeno not to force him into watching the movie, there was nothing he could do but let Jaemin scare himself.

"My arms are open for you to jump into when you get scared," Jaemin cooed, playing a bit too hard at the façade.

"Same. Now, let's start up the movie."

***

"JESUS F***ING CHRIST! THAT THING ISN'T EVEN HUMAN!" Jaemin screamed and let the sound carry through the whole house.

"Because, Jaemin," Jeno sighed, having had enough of the screaming and the overreaction to the badly acted death scenes, "he's a zombie. There's nothing human about him." He pinched the bridge of his nose when another guttural scream erupted from the boy's throat like the morning rooster trying to wake everyone up.

"You're so brave," Jaemin cried, leaning towards Jeno and finding solas in snuggling. "I've just been scared this whole time."

"I know," he snapped quietly and tried to push the bubbling anger back down, half of him wanting to smack the guy and tell him to shut the hell up, and half of him wanting to turn the movie off altogether because the important moments had been completely buried in strangled screams.

"The person who made this must have been mentally unstable," he whimpered, finding no more power to squeeze out another yell.

"No Jaemin, they just knew that people like you would be watching. That's all."

The front door clicked open and startled Jaemin again, leading him to hurtle his cushion full-strength towards the door while screaming again, hitting his mother square in the face.

It was quiet while Jeno stifled a laugh, watching the cushion fall and hit the ground and the mother and daughter standing in shock. The door was still open behind them, washing moonlight into the dimmed house since the blinds had been pulled down. The living room they had been watching the movie in was open-plan, allowing them to see the front door from the couch.

"Were you watching another horror movie?" Mrs. Na asked, completely straight faced and devoid of emotions. "I thought you hated them."

"N-no way," he puffed out his chest as his upper body was turned towards the door with his knees tucked into his chest. "I love watching these. The thrill is," he gulped, "rejuvenating."

There was more silence as the two girls walked inside and Jaeri ran up Jeno for a hug. Mrs. Na wandered away upstairs, probably to her room to put her stuff away. "How was the café?" Jeno asked Jaeri, who smiled up at him in attachment.

"It was pretty cool. We saw Hyora there with a guy your age. She called him..." she stopped and knitted her eyebrows in thought, obviously trying to remember the name. "...Something foreign."

"Chenle?" He asked inquisitively and tilted his head.

She nodded enthusiastically and stepped back, preparing to go back up to her bedroom to play with her dolls. "That's the name."

"We were in the middle of a good movie," Jaemin sighed and shooed his sister away.

"How would you know?" Jeno smirked. "You screamed through the important parts."

"No, Jeno, you screamed through the important parts."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night," he shook his head and looked back at the television screen.

They resumed the movie and watched in silence, record silence at that, and their eyes stayed on the screen to catch some important information. It was silent, until the one thing that made Jeno's heart race happened on the screen. He felt his stomach lurch as a tiny little white kitten scrambled across the pavement, a wave of zombies approaching the area in the distance.

"No no no no no," he said shaking his head in dismay. "I didn't sign up for this. It was supposed to be zombies versus humans, not little vulnerable animals."

Jaemin looked at him in surprise and clamped his mouth shut, eyes glued to Jeno's expression changing from stoic to close-to-tears. "There's something we have in common," he mentioned and smiled at his friend. "I guess neither of us care too much when a person dies in a movie, but we cry when the animal dies."

"I don't just cry," Jeno huffed and covered his eyes, "I die along with it. I hate when the animal dies."

Jaemin weighed up his odds at being pushed away, but threw the results away anyway because he wanted to risk it. He scooted over to the ravenette and put his arms around him, hugging him from the side.

"You're pushing your luck," Jeno said, but didn't make any move to push him away, so he took it as an invitation. He couldn't deny the feeling of those sparks that always accompanied Jaemin's touch. It was soothing and immediately made him relax, like a familiar smell that makes your muscles soften.

"You're so warm," Jaemin commented and kicked the other cushion off the sofa for extra comfort. He kept his own eyes off the tv too, opting to watch Jeno's face hidden behind hands. "And you're so cute."

Now, rather than hiding his eyes from the tv, the hands covering his face were doing a good job at suppressing the blush too. There was nothing he could do to stop the heat from radiating off his cheeks, so he just took a deep breath and pretended to be yawning.

But Jaemin did see the red ears that he couldn't conceal, and he thought it was very cute. Instead of pointing it out, he looked back at the tv and waited for Jeno to take his hands away. His heart fluttered without consent and he looked down in embarrassment, knowing that this was definitely not a great time for his heart to be acting this way.

After all, he had only just found out a secret that was bigger than anything he had ever been involved in.