Okay, first off, I am soooo sorry for not updating sooner. I had a bad bought of writers block, and just couldn't seem to get this chapter written. But, here, at long last, it is! Please forgive me for my tardiness! I have a break from school now, so there should be a new chapter shortly (for real this time!)

Thank you as always to new readers and subsribers! <3

Enjoy~

          Junhyung perched himself on the bed awkwardly beside Hyunseung, who had taken to staring blankly at his hands, his chin tucked into his chest, much like the way a pouting child might. His bangs had fallen into his face, thus covering his eyes, which were, by this point, dry and bloodshot, and thought of crying long since gone from his mind. His arms were wrapped tightly about his middle, his shoulders trembling as though he was cold.

          For a moment, Junhyung sat with his hands on his lap, his mouth open just a fraction of an inch, and his tongue running continuously over the roof of his mouth. Should he say something? Should he stay silent? Constantly he flipped between the two, as if they were no more than a particularly frustrating page in a book, one that required multiple attempts to fully understand. But, as Hyunseung let out a particularly uneven huff, he decided on the first of the two options.

          He cleared his throat first, hoping the brunette would glance up at him. However, unfortunate as it may have been, the latter did not.

          “How’s your cheek?” he said, voice barely above that of a whisper. The brunette would have to respond for him to know the answer.

          Hyunseung mumbled something under his breath.

          “Sorry. What was that?” Junhyung tried, an attempt to get the other to repeat what he had just said.

          It was to no avail though. For instead of speaking up, Hyunseung only shook his head. ‘Figures,’ Junhyung thought, inching closer slowly.

          “Let me see it.” He demanded when he had moved himself a full three inches closer to the brunette.

          For the second time, Hyunseung shook his head, curling in on himself a little further.  That, alone, however, was enough to frustrate the gangster. The corners of his mouth pulled back, lips pressing together to form a thin line, and he lurched forward, suddenly taking the brunette’s face up in his hands. There was a low rumbling in his throat, something akin to a dog’s growl as he looked at the now frozen male before him, lifting a finger to let it hover daringly over the steadily darkening bruise present that was now in plain view. He let the finger fall, slowly applying pressure with an angry glimmer in his eyes.

          He would have kept pressing, had Hyunseung not let out a breathy whine, fresh tears springing to his eyes the moment the pressure was removed. Junhyung scoffed, letting out a sort of ‘tch’ before dropping his hands back to his lap.

          “It’s just a bruise.” he said stiffly, now pretending to be incredibly interested in a patch of dried blood and dirt of his pants. His thumb and forefinger found the edges of the patch quickly, and he set about picking at it in the silence that consumed them.

          In the meantime, the brunette at his side was failing miserably to stifle his sniffling with the back of his hand. And even one of those special mattresses Junhyung remembered seeing advertised once on the TV, the kind that no-amount-of-shaking-and-jumping-can-tip-the-wine-glass (which Junhyung, naturally, thought was a lie), could hide the deer-boy’s trembling.

          “I guess I’ll leave you be then,” came Junhyung’s last remark as he pushed himself off the mattress. “Changing and such,” he continued, as if to offer some means of explanation.

          He was about to turn to face the door when, as if out of the blue, he was stopped—there was something tugging on his shirt. It didn’t take the gangster but two seconds to conclude  that Hyunseung had opted to take up a fistful of his shirt, fingers twisting themselves tightly into the tattered fabric, and was now pulling him back.

          “Stay.” The brunette pleaded in an all too childish tone of voice for someone of his age.

          Junhyung raised a single eyebrow in response – to which Hyunseung could feel the heat building in his cheeks, embarrassed by his own behavior. But before he could even form the words of his excuse, the other had already dropped back to his previous position. And though the gangster might have tried to hide it, there was a spark of understanding written across his features.

          The next few hours passed slowly. Painfully, Junhyung would think should he ever chose to look back on the event. At some point, both males had decided to lay back, Junhyung awkwardly on his back, staring expressionless at the ceiling, while Hyunseung slowly inched closer to his side until – as surprising or unsurprising as it may have seemed – he was nuzzled in the dip between Junhyung’s hip and shoulder.

           Neither of them had worked their way beneath the covers. But, it wasn’t as though they were entirely necessary.  This summer was a particularly hot one, and the surrounding air was warm enough for the two of them—especially with their shared body heat and all. Besides, Junhyung found himself thinking, it would be uncomfortable to sleep under the covers with another male; it would be awkward. No, Junhyung decided rather pointedly, even if Hyunseung had burrowed beneath them, he would not follow – not even on the coldest of days.

          Hyunseung shifted, the ghost of a whimper falling from his lips as he nudged himself rather painfully farther into Junhyung’s side. Junhyung himself felt the air force itself out of his lungs as Hyunseung clumsily draped an arm over his chest, the limb making contact with far too many bruises for the gangster’s liking. And, quick as lightning, before the brunette’s arm could settle entirely, Junhyung found himself moving it slightly, just enough to keep it off his bruises, and to allow himself to breathe more freely.

          This, Junhyung thought tiredly, was going to be a long night. Especially if Hyunseung intended to snuggle the whole time.

          In the days after their little “run in” with Doojoon, Junhyung was amused to watch as Hyunseung developed several new habits. The first of which, and perhaps the most natural of them all, was the brunette’s new found obsession with locking and re-locking all of the windows and doors. Despite all of Junhyung’s insisting that the gang did not have the slightest idea where they lived, Hyunseung still vowed to do so. “Never can be too careful,” he would always retort. Periodically throughout the day, he would make his rounds—first to the front of the house, then to each of the sides, and then finally the back.

          A second and, less amusing habit (at least in Junhyung’s opinion), was Hyunseung’s demanding that Junhyung stay with him each night. The gangster new quite for certain that the other was terrified at the prospect of the gang coming into his house to throttle him in his sleep – but after such a minor incidence? Junhyung would scoff each night as they sunk into the mattress, mumbling about how utterly ridiculous this whole affair was to himself.

          Nevertheless, each night was the same. Junhyung lying stiffly on his back into the wee hours of the morning (at which point he usually nodded off to sleep) as he stared at the ceiling; thinking whatever thoughts came to him as they came to him, or perhaps counting the number of dots on Hyunseung’s ceiling – which, if one were interested to know, he was undecided as to whether or not there were 3,145 or 3,175. And, each and every night, Hyunseung would wedge himself up against Junhyung’s side, his lanky arms always draped across the gangster’s torso as he mumbled various nonsensical things in his sleep.

          When morning came, just like always, Hyunseung would detach himself without a single word and would slip out of the room silently, leaving Junhyung to sleep for however long he deemed fit. And when the gangster awoke? Neither party said anything to the other about it. They gave each other little nods, and carried about their day.

          Fortunately, as the days blended into weeks, the brunette’s panic began to lessen, and his obsession with locking all of the doors soon faded into a simple once-a-day occurrence. He did not, however bothersome as it might have been, drop his new habit of practically smothering Junhyung to death each night. Still, it was a relief to see the brunette slowly returning to the way he once was, Junhyung decided one evening as they sat on opposite ends of the couch, listening absentmindedly to the drone of whatever terrible drama happened to be on for the moment—another new habit of theirs. Hyunseung sat with his legs curled in towards the center, perfectly content for the time being, while Junhyung at his end, was slowly sinking into the cushions at his back, the fringe of the blanket they had opted to stretch across the seat, in a cheap attempt to hide the dark stains left by the gangster.

          Quickly, he plunged his hand into his pocket, only to withdraw it seconds later a sleek black phone in tow. He stopped and turned to lean against the nearest wall as he unlocked it, his face soon illuminated by the too-bright glow of the LED screen. His fingers moved rapidly to type in a simple message:

          My place in 30. Let yourselves in. You’ll never believe what I have to tell you. Don’t be late.

          His screen went dark as the messages were sent. He stuffed the phone back into his pocket, pleased, and began humming deep in the back of his throat.

          Oh, this was going to be so much fun.