Stumbling Backward(JOOKYUN✔️)

stumbling

Changkyun finds it hard to explain to Jooheon just what exactly is happening, but when Detective Shin- along with a surprisingly frazzled Minhyuk- appears before the pair brandishing a badge and a frown, Changkyun cannot refute the truth much longer. So, driving behind the detective's personal vehicle, Jooheon listens carefully to every last word that the younger has to say. He must admit that this all seems like something out of a fairy tale.

Things like this don't just happen in real life, not to normal people at least. Serial killers, or arsonists, aren't related to anybody Jooheon knows. One couldn't be related to his Changkyun. Some other, sure, there's bound to be another around the same age with a brother. His Changkyun could not be the only one.

But the young man in his passenger seat is firm in what he says, confident in his words for the first time in the last few days. Jooheon has to believe him, so long as he wants to appear as a good friend. But it just seems so far-fetched.

"It's not," Changkyun informs the older when Jooheon says just this. "It's real life, and I need you to understand that. Because we can't be two idiots running back and forth. Okay?"

Jooheon grimaces as Detective Shin makes a sharp turn ahead of him, fighting against traffic to cross into the right lane and follow behind as closely as he can. A few cars honk behind the blonde, making Changkyun tense in his place, but no accidents rise up on this Friday evening, thankfully. Changkyun eventually relaxes back into the pleather of the car's seat, only when Jooheon's right hand reaches out to pat at his lower thigh, resting their after a few affectionate taps.

Changkyun stares hard at those fingers, not knowing if they mean something or not. They could just mean that Jooheon is there for the younger as a friend. They could mean so much more, however. The younger wishes for the latter to be true, for he is so desperately tired of searching for just a friend. They never seem to last.

"Are you alright?" Jooheon finally asks the golden question as they turn the final corner onto their street, the apartment building already in sight. The younger doesn't know what the right answer is. If he says yes, he will seem stronger than he is. If he says no, he might be lying.

The fact of the matter is that he is neither appeased nor disrupted. He feels almost numb to the fact that perhaps his life is in ruin. For Jooheon is sat here with a hand on his leg in comfort.

And somehow that is enough.

Awakening Saturday morn is one of the easiest things Changkyun thinks he has ever done. He had let Jooheon drag him to the blonde's room amidst the bustle of policemen filing in and out of the apartment most of the evening. Apologies of a ruined date, and for worrying the older had passed Changkyun's dark lips several times. But Jooheon had just shushed him with a few gentle smiles and coaxed him to lie beside him on the bed.

Jooheon had been careful to remain a safe distance from Changkyun, so as not to make him uncomfortable during the night. Yet now, as the younger peels his eyes apart, Changkyun can feel that Jooheon's arm is heavy across his stomach. He feels warm here, tucked away from the outside world with the older man just beside him. Only a breath's length away from him at that.

He could write lyrics about the way the early morning's sunlight catches fire against Jooheon's skin; sonnets about the way his long, dark lashes cast musically abstract shadows across the hallows of his cheeks. But somehow, though they are alone in the waning hours of the dawn, words refuse to escape the confines of his cherry lips and ghost through the intimate space.

So instead, he rises from his place and drags the covers that had fallen from the older back up, tucking them under his chin until the blonde smiles in his slumber. Changkyun has an early shift at Precious Paws today, and though he is nearly desperate to spend these few extra moments with a very much awake Jooheon, he instead turns to leave the room. He doesn't turn around for one last glance, terrified that he might give up on his first job- first sense of responsibility- just to stay in bed with the older for a few more invigorating hours.