Stark white and stuffy with the ghosts of people’s memories and fears, splashes of color here and there— old photographs and paintings and art, and spills he hadn’t bothered to clean up. Half-finished projects and letters scattered like ash. That’s all Jongin’s apartment was.

Two cups of tea sit on the bedside table, swirls of steam dissipating as the liquid grows cold. They haven’t touched it but the saccharine and rich aroma of the Sun Moon Lake tea still hangs in the air, fighting with the fragrance of Seoul, rain, and acrylic paint.

Sehun’s hands trace over Jongin’s skin, absorbs the warmth, the fear, and the remorse leaking from every pore. Don’t feel this way, he wants to say, but the words only linger at the edge of his thoughts, too scared to venture to his tongue, and fall from his lips.

“At first glance, no one would believe that I was the one who was dying.” Jongin chuckles, runs his fingertips over the taut skin of Sehun’s chest, bump over protruding bone. Sehun says nothing, opts instead for intertwining his fingers with Jongin’s.  Sehun’s hands are cold and Jongin’s are warm, and he never wants to let go.

Words roll off of Jongin’s tongue like smoke and regret, and his fingers curl lightly around Sehun’s wrist. And he feels at home, wrapped up in Jongin’s comforter stained with paint and coffee, tangled in strings of conversations and loose limbs.

Jongin’s eyes flutter, close for brief seconds before opening again. He looks at Sehun, smiles weakly, years of pain and exhaustion in the bags under his eyes, nothing but distress biting at the corners of his mouth.

“I’m tired.” He whispers, and his eyes close again.