Waking up is a laborious effort. As Sehun shifts around in the bed, his eyes lazily opening and closing, there is still an arm curved around his side and still a sleeping body behind him. It takes him a few moments to regain sense of his surroundings, but when he does, he sighs in disappointment that he is not home. The aroma of his friend’s room is in fact so similar that it could deceive him into thinking that he is in his own bed, waking up on a Saturday morning alone.

Sehun really isn’t against the current state of his morning, however, as his body is relaxed underneath the sheets of Jongin’s bed. What concerns him more is the aftermath of everything. Sitting in Jongin’s locked hold, he would assume that the two of them wouldn’t discuss this again, but their position itself is too intimate to silently forget. He scrunches his nose and slides his hand down to grip the solid, unmoving arm.

Jongin’s relaxed breathing comes out in small puffs of air, and when it grazes his bare neck, he finds himself squirming from the ticklish sensation. He leans forward by instinct, biting his tongue inadvertently and painfully. There’s a sound and a recoil from the harsh feeling in his mouth, but Sehun instantly cups his hand over his mouth to mute any further noises. He looks back at Jongin to see that he is still breathing undisturbed, chest rising and falling periodically.

After a few moments of thought and hesitation, Sehun decides to break free of this prison-like hold. Gently, he lifts up the arm and tumbles off the bed, his feet just barely being able to land properly on time. Again, he turns back to look at Jongin’s soft expression and smiles faintly. There’s an angelic appearance to his countenance, and his blissful expression seems to even calm the air around him.  

As Sehun heads to the bathroom to wash up for the morning, he can’t help thinking about it and the way it lingers around in his mind. Even so, as he converses with the reflection in front of him, he reminds himself to be calm and practice self-restraint. He wets his hands under a stream of water and pats his cheeks with slight aggression.

When he examines his face in closer detail, he realizes that there’s a duller quality to it. Two darkened spots dip under his eyes like crescent moons, and aside from his crimson ears, the tone as a whole has whitened into a paler shade. Sehun figures he’s just tired, but then again he wonders to what extent is he tired. Physically, emotionally, mentally…

Whatever. Despite a residual bitterness inside, he feels inclined to be happy in the presence of his friend. Nevertheless, the frown in the glass of course makes it hard to seem satisfied, so he manages to flip its corners and exit the room with a warmer ambience.

His absence had apparently awakened Jongin, as the boy was upright on the bed. “Why are you up so early?” Jongin whines out, lazily collapsing down.

“Why are you up so late?” Sehun retorts, leaning over to tear the blanket off Jongin. Their playful dynamic naturally appears, and it makes the morning a bit brighter.

“Whyyyy,” the victim groans into the mattress. “Come back to bed please. I’m tired.”

“You’re just going to waste the day like this if we sleep all day,” Sehun scolds the other. “Do we even have any idea what we’re doing today? Or are we just going to stay here at home?”

“I wanted to go to the movies,” Jongin mumbles into his pillow with embarrassment.

“What did you say?”

“I wanted to go to the movies,” he repeats, this time without the muffling. Sehun raises his eyebrows at the prospect of another date, but he chooses to ignore it and press on with his questioning.

“Going to the movies is just a few hours. What do we do after?”

“I don’t know,” the other whines.

“You know what? Just go take a shower and we’ll go out somewhere,” Sehun suggests with fake irritation. There’s not much he can do with a whiny Jongin except give him orders, so he tosses him off the bed and shoves him into the bathroom forcefully. Jongin lets out a large yawn before closing the door shut, leaving Sehun back alone.

With curiosity, Sehun steps over to the far window and pulls open the curtains, letting the rays flood the room.

~~~

The sun is almost setting by the time they step into the crowd. Jongin throws out excuses that he just had to go check out that last shoe store because the sale would end tomorrow, and Sehun responds with a roll of his eyes. “Just because there’s a sale, doesn’t mean you have to try on almost everything in the store,” he huffs. Jongin pouts at his side and lowers his head in shame.

Today had been a pretty dry day in terms of events. Their breakfast had been half-assed, their lunch had been eaten in a nearby diner, and all of the time in between had been spent aimlessly wandering the streets. The experience itself did not bother either of them, but the feeling of it all hung over them like a dark cloud.

Jongin initially tried to reform his forms of affection on this occasion, and just as expected, nothing was effective. If his hand wasn’t locked with Sehun’s, it was either slung over his shoulder or lowered around his waist. Sehun was no better, though, as he kept on tugging at Jongin’s sleeve for attention and accepting all of his skinship without protest. It was such a normal aspect of their relationship, yet it infuriated both of them in the same way.

As the two boys find themselves standing in front of the cinema, Sehun uncurls his fingers from their shared grip. “What do you want to see?” he asks, gazing up at the selection of movies printed in bold letters.

“I have one in mind,” Jongin cheerfully says, and within seconds he’s heading through the doors without Sehun.

With a shrug, the abandoned boy trails behind and is hit by the heat inside the theater lobby. As he pulls of his cap, he glances in the distance to see Jongin already at the desk with his wallet out. The boy seems to be chatting with the worker joyfully, and once he notices that Sehun had entered, he points him out to the worker. There’s an exchange of smiles, and eventually Jongin turns away to return to Sehun.

“Do you know him, or are you just talking with strangers?” Sehun chuckles.

“No, I know him,” Jongin defends. “He’s on my dance team, actually.”

“Oh really?”

“Yup. In fact, he recognized you as soon as I pointed you out. He was telling me that you really stood out that night we performed,” Jongin elaborates with a knowing grin. Sehun is only reminded of his frantic yelling and flushes, s