Kyungsoo tentatively lifted his hand; fingers curled loosely into a fist, and gave a few knocks on the wooden door. He stands in the hallway, shuffling on feet like he is doing some tap dance. After a few minutes of nothing, the door creaked open.

"Again?" Jongin says as he presses his lips together into a thin line, the grey cardigan loosely hangs on his shoulders over a black t-shirt and grey sweats, he looks disheveled.

Kyungsoo gives him a measured smile, eyes down casted and shoulders hunched low as the tiredness seeps through his bones. With a sigh, Jongin side steps to let him in.

Kicking off his Italian dress shoes to a corner carelessly, Kyungsoo makes a beeline to the couch and dropped himself into it. The door clicks in place behind with a clack.

It's a small place, a lot smaller than Kyungsoo's, maybe it would fit his living room. But it's cozy and warm unlike his big, spacious and cold place.

A small sized, one room apartment but with a functional whole kitchen fixed in its walls. Few cabinets along with the sink, a small oven and a cook top, with a mini sized fridge tucked in and the kitchen counter to sit and eat. The area for living space filled with a single couch and stairs at one corner, leading up to the loft bed upstairs right above the kitchen space. Some work space right in front of the bed downstairs and a tiny bathroom tucked under the staircase. Just enough for Jongin to eat, work and sleep without bothering too much about cleaning or taking care of the place.

"How is it going?" Opening the fridge, Kyungsoo takes out a water bottle and chugged down half of it.

"Am stuck." Jongin's voice comes from somewhere in the back followed by a grunt, from the work place he assumes.

Kyungsoo walks to Jongin's work station circling around the table to the moping figure. Jongin is sitting on a stool with papers spread around all over the top, with his upper body sprawled on the table, eyes closed. A steady wave of air leaving his nose forcing the nearby paper to tremble and move along, the drawing pad on the side is plugged out; lifeless.

Running his hand in the messy hair, Kyungsoo tucks a few stray strands of hair behind the other's ear.

Jongin opens his eyes slow and catches Kyungsoo's with his. Making happy little noises as the nimble fingers scratch the scalp, he gives a smile, which Kyungsoo returns with one of those pleasant ones, unlike the ones he gives to the people at work, strictly business.

"Eating ramen again?" Clicking his tongue, Kyungsoo gives him a disapproving look tugging his ear playfully, eyeing the already half-eaten cold instant ramen cup with chopsticks still in it.

Jongin is really a careless mess to let the cup sit along with the papers he had worked so hard on. Given his clumsiness, the cup can get knocked over anytime and paint the papers a shade of the curry powder mix, which the publishing company would not approve for mass printing for sure.

Jongin pouts, his lower lip jutting out dramatically, in hopes to get off the hook. Kyungsoo can nag quite a lot at times, when it comes to food, health, self care and all that jazz which Jongin doesn't bat his eyelid at. Ruffling Jongin's hair back into a bird nest, Kyungsoo takes the cup with him and dumps it in the sink, grimacing at the bloated strands of starch. The artist whines like a spoilt puppy at the loss of petting, Kyungsoo bites back a smile.

Jongin's eyes lit up when Kyungsoo bent down to check the fridge for anything possibly or remotely edible ingredients. "You need to stop eating all these unhealthy food, " Kyungsoo says, lifting a can of something to eye level with just two fingers. Jongin doesn't remember opening and leaving it inside. It must have gone bad by now by the looks of it or by the look Kyungsoo is wearing on his face.

Kyungsoo scratches his nose, scrunching at the unpleasant smell and dropping it in trash can immediately. A few more faces the same fate.

Jongin thinks he looked cute. Not that he will say it out loud for the sake of himself.

After 20 minutes of raiding every cabinet and every corner of the fridge, Kyungsoo was able to scrape together a decent dinner of rice, eggs and stew of-whatever-ingredients-we-have. He set the table for two first, then beckoning Jongin to join him.

Jongin almost burns his tongue in attempt to taste the stew, and Kyungsoo scolds him.

"You should have told me it's hot!" Jongin glares, mouth open and tongue out like a dog on hot summer day.

"Well, I just took it off from the stove in front of your eyes." Kyungsoo rolls his eyes as he hands him the glass of water, and tissues to clean the mess he made. Jongin chugs down half of it in one go, a few drops escaping the corners of his lips and making their way down his neck... exposed chest ... till gets stopped and devoured by the t-shirt. Kyungsoo gulps. The stupid t-shirt has a really low neckline, showing a lot of skin and at the same time, not enough.

"Horror again?" Kyungsoo asks, while poking around the yolk with chopsticks to separate it from white part, at least it's distracting enough than the glistening warm looking skin. Once it falls apart, he transfers the yellow part of his egg onto Jongin's rice bowl. Jongin beams happily stuffing it in his mouth. He hums around it, staring at Kyungsoo's hands holding the chopsticks and poking around the white cutting it into smaller pieces.

"I am including romance in it this time," Jongin says, after a thoughtful second thinking back to what he is working on.

Kyungsoo snorts, with the stew almost coming out of his nose, somewhere between suffering and laughing.

"What's so funny?" Jongin asks while handing a tissue, concerned about the well-being of Kyungsoo, who took it gratefully and wiping down his nose and the droplets of food that fell around the table.

"Nothing." Kyungsoo couldn't stop laughing, tears pricking his eyes and holding his tummy, breathing through mouth.

Pouting, Jongin tries to kick the other male's leg under the table but ends up kicking the table's hard wooden leg. It is making him wince in pain, and causing Kyungsoo to double over, laughing more.

Jongin stares, amused then asks "Is there something on my face?" Kyungsoo peers at him from where he is, practically lying over the table, lips still stretched into a small grin.

Jongin shakes his head, then stuffs the egg yolk and rice, with a spoonful of stew. "Mmm it's nice," he says around another mouthful.

It's nice to have Kyungsoo laugh till his stomach hurt. It's nice to have Kyungsoo cook for him. It's nice to have Kyungsoo with him of all. All his, even if it's for few hours.

"How was work today?" Jongin asks for the lack of Kyungsoo's honey voice to fill his ears after a long day of silence, sans the round tip of pencil making love to the paper as he constructs a whole new world again after crumbling pages and pages of unfit ones. Every drawing he did feels like it has already been done a thousand times, he needs the rough drawings first to put the rough draft together.

Jongin barely catches words involving some client and new projects, and the shareholders being pain in . It's hard to register something in his mind when all he can focus is how much he loves to hear the voice. Kyungsoo has such a nice melodious voice, its deep and smooth like expensive chocolate melted and poured into a glass. And even if he does, what does he know about the chaebol’s business word and what goes in those huge glass buildings. Nothing.

"You shouldn't have given up on singing," Jongin mentions out of nowhere, without thinking.

Kyungsoo stops mid sentence, with spoon still in mid air and filled with mint chocolate chip ice cream - Kyungsoo's favorite - which he stock up on, no matter which season. A little ice cream after their simple meals, a small joy.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to," Jongin jumps quickly to correct his mindless mistake as he realizes.

"I- it- its okay," Kyungsoo says resuming to eat not saying a single word after. And Jongin regrets bringing up the topic, the twinkle in Kyungsoo’s eyes for the night is gone, just like that.

***

The small air conditioner hums in the otherwise silent room.

Kyungsoo sprawled in his bed, as Jongin works for the rest of the evening.

"Won't you sleep?" Kyungsoo asks from upstairs, lying on the bed legs perched on the nearby wall and phone in hand. "It's so late.." he reminds.

Jongin's eyes shoots a glance over the clock hanging on the wall, from where he sat with a pencil tucked behind his ear and glasses perched on nose, hair all messy with locks flying in different directions as a result of messing them and tugging them a few times.

"It's 2am," Kyungsoo mumbles again watching Jongin make a face at the clock showing 11. It's probably out of batteries as the seconds stick dragging itself slowly in the never ending cycle of time.

"I have a deadline," Jongin insists, trying to come up with another idea.

"You need to be alive first to beat the deadline," Kyungsoo retorts, pulling his legs down and making his body sit in the middle of bed and looking over to where Jongin is wrestling with the pencils and papers.

It’s a stare down, and with Kyungsoo’s i-don’t-need-to-blink-for-a-minute eyes, Jongin had never won.

"You win," Jongin throws his hands in air, prompting a satisfied smile from a very sleepy Kyungsoo. He is smiling as Jongin drops the pencil on the table and starts to ascend the steps.

“Paper weight,” Kyungsoo  reminds.  Jongin gives thumbs up placing the clear glass weight over the rowdy papers ready to slip at any given chance or wind.

Jongin grabs a comforter from the stack piled up in the corner cupboard ready to get back down but Kyungsoo grabs his hand on the way and scoots over to make some space for him.

"I can sleep on the couch," Jongin says holding it close to chest.

"Or better, you can sleep here.." Kyungsoo suggests, grinning and pulls the hand down. Jongin jerks forward, his knee hitting the bed sidebar's hard wood.  Ouch.

"Sorry," Kyungsoo says, taking in his wincing face, eyes casting worried glances to where he had hit, releasing the wrist instantly.

"Nothing big," Jongin climbs into the bed, laying beside. Even before he can pull the comforter over his body, Kyungsoo is clinging to him, stealing body heat.

Kyungsoo is such a koala, he needs to have another body to hug to sleep, or just anything. The body pillow he hides under the bed and thinks no one knows about. Well, he can fool the world but not Jongin.

"You are suffocating me," Jongin grumbles under his breath, willing the blush to go away and pulling the comforter to cover his body with almost locked down limbs.

"Am sure you much prefer to be choked," Kyungsoo mumbles, followed by a sleepy yawn.

Air gets kicked out of his lungs, as Jongin squirms. If only Kyungsoo knows that those words can be very racy and have complete different meaning than what he intended. Or maybe Jongin is just a ert, well, he makes manga and writes double edged words for dialogues.

Jongin racks his mind to say something witty or just any response but the soft snores ringing in his ears puts his heart back at ease as Kyungsoo is fast asleep.

***

"You stink. When did you last shower?" Kyungsoo scrunches his nose.