MIXTAPE | hyunin ✓

twenty six

Jeongin woke up in a cold sweat, his chest heavy as he clutched onto his shirt tightly, looking around his empty room illuminated by moonlight.

Hurriedly, he reached for his phone that sat on his bedside table, instinctively calling someone he knew would pick up regardless of what time he called at.

"Yang it's 4am—wait, are you crying?"

Jeongin nodded habitually, uttering a soft yes once he realised that Hyunjin couldn't see him. He heard a sigh from the other end of the line and a commotion before his voice broke the silence again. 

"You want to tell me why?" 

Truth be told, Jeongin had no idea what had caused him to start dreaming of such things again seeing as how everything in his life was slowly coming together with his career and his relationships (both platonic and romantic) being completely stable. 

His dreams rarely haunted him ever since he had gotten  older and yet, when he thought that life was truly the most beautiful, they came back as though reminding him that he could never truly be happy no matter what he did nor who he met. Those dreams served as a reminder to him that life would always, always, be riddled with endless torment and pain and guilt and—

"Hey, you don't have to tell me but I'll stay with you on the call yea?" Hyunjin spoke, his voice so quiet that Jeongin would have assumed he was dreaming if he weren't shaking out of fear. "Do you want me to come over?" 

"I-I left you hyung," Jeongin muttered, the weight on his chest becoming heavier and heavier with every word that he spoke. "I-I left you alone and I..."

"You didn't mean to so don't blame yourself for it-"

"You were dying and I left you!" Hyunjin was taken aback by the sudden rise in volume but before he could reassure Jeongin again, the younger boy spoke up once more. "I-I don't deserve anything. I-I left you. Wh-why would you ever look for me again?" 

Memories of him being driven out of their small town to Seoul played in his head. He remembered hugging his backpack close to his chest, his mother's announcement of his friend having had died ringing so prominently in his ears. He remembered watching as the scenery changed from the ever present trees to the tall buildings and flashing lights that Seoul wore and he distinctively remembered having been able to move on from the death of his first friend and his saviour. 

He had moved on but finding out that that same person had been looking for him all that while brought about a heavy sense of guilt on his heart and he felt as though he were underwater, slowly but surely running out of breath as he thought more about it. 

Hyunjin had never meant to save him back then. If anything, he was simply curious as to why anyone would be sitting on a bench all alone in the pouring rain. And so, he approached the boy and held an umbrella over his head, protecting and shielding him from the rain. 

"Why're you sitting here all alone?" he had asked then, hovering over the small boy who had brought his knees to his chest, his chest falling and rising rapidly due to his frantic, almost desperate, breathing. When the boy didn't reply, Hyunjin had opened his shoulder bag and hurriedly wrapped the boy in his jacket, the younger of the two finally meeting his eyes and that was when Hyunjin saw tiny crystals on his lower lid, fully aware that if he blinked, those tears would fall just as heavy as the rain did. 

Then thunder struck and the younger boy yelped, his hands immediately flying to cover his ears as his already panicked breathing became more disorientated. 

"We should get to shelter!" Hyunjin had suggested then but the boy shook his head, shivering as a cold wind blew by. "Why not?" 

"My dad said he'd come back for me."

"And how long has that been? " When Jeongin didn't answer back then, Hyunjin remembered sighing before sitting down beside him, getting his skirt completely soaked with rainwater. "If you're waiting, then I guess I'm waiting too."

"Hyung, you always waited for me but the one time I had to, I couldn't. I-" He heard his doorbell ringing and, glancing quickly at the clock that now read 4:38am, he quickly grabbed a jacket and went to open the door, his phone still in hand. "Th-there's someone at the door-"

And the second he opened it, he was met with the same boy he knew years ago, albeit taller with his long black hair now cut short. "I know," he said into the phone before hanging up and wrapping his arms around Jeongin. 

Jeongin immediately nuzzled his head into the crook of his neck, the pieces fitting like a perfect puzzle just waiting for the other. 

"I won't ever mind waiting for you Jeongin. I didn't mind then and I don't mind now. You can leave me all you want but I'll always, always, look for you. Yes, I was upset and I thought that by being cold towards you, I'd feel better for you leaving me but I realised then that that wasn't what I wanted." Hyunjin pulled Jeongin even closer towards him (although there was barely any gap between them to begin with). "What I wanted was to be in your life no matter what. You mean the world to me Yang Jeongin and I really don't want you to keep beating yourself up for something like this. The past is the past — we can't change jackshit from there. But, we have our whole life ahead of us and, I don't know about you but I'd rather focus on the fact that we've found each other again and this time, trust me, I'm not letting you go away that easy Yang Jeongin—"

"I love you."

"I-wait what?"

Jeongin continued hiding his face in the crook of Hyunjins' neck, shaking his head as he was completely unable to say those three words again. Hyunjin smiled to himself, taking in the distinct smell of strawberries before finally replying to the words Jeongin had said.

"I love you too Innie."

ミ☆

iDK WHAT THIS WAS
(im writing while on medication pls send help i have too many ;-;)

but also, yall really make me smile a lot and i appreciate you guys so so much you guys are my motivation and my strength (why am i so cheesy for) but yes