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– taekwoon really doesn’t have time, for the water sipping through the padding of his shoes and in further to soak his socks; he casts a hurried glance down at his feet as he walks and imagines how nice it’d feel with a steaming hot bath. kicking his left foot aimlessly to the side between his next two steps, he tells himself it rids him of some of the discomfort. the hurry he’s in is vaguely unreal and made up, there’s still a while until his bus leaves, but taekwoon is longing for his goal and he checks his phone every 40 seconds in hopes to find new messages from hongbin. it’s been 20 minutes since the latest one.
the screen is cold to the touch, and new, microscopic stains of rain water appear on it every time taekwoon swipes his thumb up or down, the pads of his fingers leaving new marks with every tap to the surface.
for a while, when he’s seated by a window and resting his aching head against it, he forgets where he’s going. the engine murmurs below him and the seat vibrates; his eyes fall shut and he sucks in one slow breath after the other, smelling flowers and spring and other people soaked with rain. he’s tired and wishes he’d slept more, that there had been more time for him to sleep, but then hongbin resurfaces in his mind and he gets lost in a slow trail of thoughts of the other’s apartment; the plain, spacious bedroom and the cluttered living room table and the warm kitchen floor.
the bus takes a sharp turn left - a reminder to taekwoon that there are only a few stops left, just a handful, few enough for him to force his eyes open and keep them on the side of the road, the trees they’re rushing past and the ditches and side streets. he feels as if his heart had stopped for those minutes his eyes were closed, and just sprung back to life, eager to keep him alive and to spread familiar warmth in his chest. taekwoon kept it to himself how itchy his fingers grew when he thought about how close hongbin was, wrists feeling wrong and off but his stomach fluttering and his teeth tugging on his lips as if on their own accord.
the stairways smell like detergent and dirt, the carpet by the door soggy with rain and what used to be dust, but hongbin’s apartment hints of lemon tea and that elderflower incense, the one jaehwan got him in japan and that hongbin had gone out of his way to find for himself ever since. it’s been two years, maybe three; taekwoon can’t remember if it was spring or autumn rain back then.
“you’re early,” hongbin chimes from the couch, glancing up from his book when taekwoon has managed to toe his wet running shoes off.
“i couldn’t sleep,” taekwoon explains quietly. “my room was cold.”
“nightmares?”
taekwoon shrugs, pauses for a second in the middle of the room, unsure if hongbin minds.
“i’m glad you’re here early, don’t worry about it,” hongbin’s voice is soft and forgiving, as if he could read taekwoon’s mind. it wouldn’t surprise taekwoon much if that was exactly what he did. “there’s tea, if you want. you look cold.”
taekwoon shrugs again, chews on his lip, but he is cold. the tea warms him up soon enough, and hongbin abandons his book to go fetch a blanket from his bed; tucking his body in next to taekwoon’s on the couch and pulling it over them.
“i’ve been working all night,” hongbin yawns, leaning his head against taekwoon’s shoulder.
he already told taekwoon that, but taekwoon chalks it down to sleepiness and searches for hongbin’s hand under the thin blanket, whispering an apology when he pokes at the other’s skin with a nail, and keeps his eyes running over the leaves of the small yucca plant in the window. they look sickly in the dimmed lights, swaying a little when a breeze makes its way through the upper windows left ajar.
“what time is it,” hongbin mumbles when taekwoon sets his empty cup down on the table, curling closer and pushing his hand holding taekwoon’s over to halfheartedly wrap his forearm over taekwoon’s stomach.
“last time i checked it was eleven,” taekwoon sniffs hongbin’s hair, the motions of hongbin’s arm pushing his shirt up an inch on his stomach. “i have no idea, really.”
“do you wanna go to sleep?,” hongbin murmurs next, all but attempting to merge with taekwoon’s body; and taekwoon doesn’t mind, because hongbin is warm. “i haven’t slept in two days,” he adds.
when hongbin dozes off in taekwoon’s arms later, it’s 1 pm and the thunder is just getting started. the summers back before they turned twenty simmer in taekwoon’s head, the days they would spend together, not sleeping; when hongbin would end up giggling and hanging onto taekwoon’s shoulder as they forgot what was funny in the first place; when they’d lie in the grass and describe in what ways their limbs felt out of place and foreign, how the hallucinations in the corners of their sight would grow darker and more real. hongbin would be the one with nightmares when they finally slept, whining between his heavy breathing and clawing at taekwoon’s arms, and when they got up the next morning, taekwoon kept quiet about the scratches. they didn’t bother him.
hongbin was in love with jaehwan back then; in love with his laughter and his sand blonde hair and his driver’s license and with going to the beach with him at night, nights he didn’t spend with taekwoon.
“you’re not sleeping,” hongbin notes one time when he stirs awake by taekwoon’s side, startled by a noise outside or the washing machine beeping in the other room, taekwoon wasn’t sure. “i thought you were tired.”
“i am,” taekwoon reassures him, thinking briefly about the sleeping pills he got prescribed the other week but had yet to open the box of.
he smoothes hongbin’s hair down with a slow stroke of his hand, tucking a stray strand in behind his cold ear.
“wanna talk about it?”
hongbin’s body stiffens a little when he crawls a few inches further up on the bed to nuzzle his face into taekwoon’s neck, his own neck resting against taekwoon’s shoulder; the skin is warm and clammy and taekwoon admits to himself that it was a feeling he’d been wanting for days.
“maybe later.”
with that, hongbin seems content enough, and he tangles his legs in between taekwoon’s before his body grows heavier again.
taekwoon dreams, sometimes, about a certain “i love you” that sparks and burns, tugs wildly at his guts and draws wide smiles and twinkling eyes from hongbin, but it never really comes. for the day he settles with a whispered “love you” from hongbin as taekwoon strokes his back, and he doesn’t sleep until the clouds have cleared up and there’s fog rising in the tired streets all the way up to hongbin’s bedroom window.