Fair warning: writer's block is real and this chapter may be . enjoy :)

Kibum was used to dealing with turmoil. He was absolutely certain 50% of his being was made out of it. It wasn’t shocking, then, that it found its way back into his life so soon after he had obtained some peace. This time it wasn’t Kibum’s, though: it was Jonghyun’s.

It had to of been around two in the morning when Kibum’s phone rang, the noise shocking him out of his slumber. He was able to sleep through most of his ringtones, but for some reason Jonghyun’s was able to break past the REM barrier. It may have been because ringtones were essentially alarms, and his subconscious recognized this particular alarm as his mate’s. Kibum would never know for sure though—he didn’t know how science worked.

Feeling around groggily for his phone, not even bothering to open his eyes, Kibum answered the call with a grumbled, hardly intelligible, “Better be good, or I’ll ing kill you.”

There was no answer for a moment. Just shaky breaths that sounded like they were rattling something awful between Jonghyun’s teeth.

“Imma go now. Kill you later,” Kibum yawned, totally intending on hanging up on Jonghyun.

“Kibum,” the puppysaurus whined in a wretched, strained voice. Had he been crying?

Great, just what I wanted to deal with at an ungodly hour of the morning. Just ing perfect.

“Ne?” Kibum drawled a bit, forcing himself to sit up so he wouldn’t fall asleep again.

“Could you please let me in?”

That took a second to process. In? In where? Jonghyun was making it sound like he was…

With a yelp, Kibum fell out of his bed in a mess of tangled blankets and sheets. He struggled to get free, but managed it and stumbled to the entrance of his apartment as fast as he could while still half asleep in a pitch black home. Flipping the lock, Kibum wrenched the door open and, sure enough, a dejected dog was standing pitifully on the other side. Kibum couldn’t see him well in the dark, but his shock of platinum hair reflected what little light there was. Why were the hall lights out?

“Annyeong,” Jonghyun sniffled, his blackened form shifting nervously. Kibum could just make out a large backpack pulling at the other boy’s shoulders, creating the illusion of even more despair.

“Don’t you annyeong, me,” Kibum huffed, grabbing Jonghyun by his collar and pulling him inside. His shirt was completely soaked, like he had been rained on. That explained the power, then. “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing showing up at this time of night?”

Kibum tried to flip on the light just inside the door, but it was out too. Stupid power lines.

“This was the first place I thought to go,” Jonghyun hiccupped. Clearly he was still crying.

Kibum didn’t do too well with crying people unless he was the one crying. Intense sadness in others made him uncomfortable as he didn’t always know how to handle it. Courtesy of his previous isolation, no doubt.

“Okay, umm,” Kibum bit his lip, seriously blanking on what he should do. “You… let’s get you changed first.”

Though a bit of a task, Kibum managed to get Jonghyun into dry clothes without being able to see. His boyfriend wasn’t exactly helping him, just standing there in a daze while Kibum struggled with an easy job.

“You still haven’t told me why you’re here,” Kibum mumbled when he finally got a pair of sweats over Jonghyun’s hips.

Jonghyun didn’t answer, choosing to shuffle blindly over to Kibum’s bed and flop down listlessly onto the mattress instead. Awesome. Crying, snotty boyfriend on his pillow. Kibum was having a grand night indeed.

Frowning, Kibum scooped his blankets up from the floor and got into the bed with Jonghyun. The dinodog curled around Kibum a soon as he laid down.

“Right,” Kibum said awkwardly when Jonghyun shoved his wet face into the crook of Kibum’s neck. “Sorry if this is a bit insensitive, but I will kick your out of the bed if you rub any snot into my throat.”

“Okay,” Jonghyun croaked.

Despite his threat, Kibum wrapped his arms around Jonghyun and kneaded his fingers into the man’s lower back.

“er, waking me up at two in the goddamn morning,” Kibum grumbled, already succumbing to the power of sleepiness.

“I’m sorry.”

“Shut…up,” Kibum sighed, letting the Sandman do his work. “Talk about it… later.”

Later to Kibum meant past noon. Like, one in the afternoon. It was Saturday, couldn’t he sleep in? The answer to that question was no. No, Kibum could not be happy and sleep till one in the afternoon. Myungsoo wouldn’t allow it.

“When the hell did he get here?! Myungsoo shrieked in a horrid pitch.

Kibum was once again torn from his friend, Sleep. Groaning his misery, Kibum whined, “I don’t know. He showed up at two in the morning crying, I couldn’t leave him outside.”

“Sure you could have,” Myungsoo growled, stalking over to Jonghyun and pulling him away from Kibum so he was flat on his back. “Ya, what makes you think you can just show up whenever…Oh my God, what the hell happened to your face?!”

Well, if Kibum wasn’t awake before, he certainty was now. Sitting, Kibum grabbed Jonghyun’s chin and turned the boy’s sleep-woozy face his way to get a good look at it.

“Oh… that looks painful.”

A big, fist sized bruise covered Jonghyun’s left eye, the poor thing swollen shut and an angry red-purple.

“Don’t touch it!” Jonghyun whimpered, swatting away the finger Kibum was poking into a tender cheekbone.

“What happened?”

“I had a fight with Jongseok,” Jonghyun murmured.

“So he hit you?!”

Myungsoo was yelling. Myungsoo may not have been a big fan of Jonghyun, but he was, by nature, protective of those he felt were weak and Jonghyun looked pretty damn helpless.

“It’s not that big a deal.” Jonghyun murmured, rolling back over so he could hide his face in Kibum’s hip.

“Bull. Why, I outta go over there and give that jackass a piece of my mind!”

Myungoo was ranting and raging so hard that by the end of his tirade he was tired from all the exerted energy. He settled for huffing and puffing while his battery recharged, pulling at his hair and pacing madly.

“Oh,” Jonghyun grumbled, ignoring Myungsoo’s fit. He pulled a buzzing phone from his pocket and glared at the screen when he say the name. “It’s my sister.”

In a split second Myungsoo had that phone out of Jonghyun’s hand and up to his ear.

“Wait, Myungsoo hyung, don’t—” Jonghyun reached out, though Kibum knew it was a futile attempt at saving his poor sister from Myungsoo’s wrath.

“YOU HAVE FIVE SECONDS TO TELL ME WHY YOUR LITTLE BROTHER SHOWED UP AT MY HOUSE AT AN UNGODLY HOUR OF THE MORNING LOOKING LIKE HE GOT HIS FACE KNOCKED IN MY A GOLD CLUB!”

Well, Kibum thought that was kind of dramatic. Jonghyun’s face would look much worse if he has been hit with a golf club.

Myungsoo stormed out of Kibum’s room, screaming into the phone all down the hall and undoubtedly waking the neighbors. Jonghyun was shocked silent. He was staring at his hand like he could will his phone back into his hand and away from the lunatic shouting in the living room.

“Well… he cares about you,” Kibum said encouragingly, patting Jonghyun’s head. “That’s a good thing. Probably.”

“I-It wasn’t her fault,” Jonghyun grimaced, clenching his hand into a fist and letting it fall to the mattress.

“Ah, he probably knows that, but he gets crazy when he’s mad. He did try to kill you, remember?”

Jonghyun didn’t even crack a smile; he just stared at his lap in contagious desolation. Kibum could feel his own mood falling, and he didn’t need any help with that. He was perfectly fine at becoming depressed by himself, thank you very much.

“I… I don’t know how to help,” Kibum sighed. “I want to, but I don’t know what to do.”

“Don’t get sweet on me, now,” Jonghyun finally chuckled, resting his cheek against Kibum’s shoulder. “Say something mean. You’re good at that.”

“Oh, well, in that case, you look like death. You should fix that before you go outside.”

Snorting, Jonghyun pressed a kiss into Kibum’s shoulder and said with a grin, “You’re a sweetheart.”

“…Maybe you didn’t hear what I said.”

“I did.”

“Oh. I think you got hit pretty hard, then.”

“I really love you, ya know.”

“We need to take you to a hospital.”

They went back and forth like that for a while—Jonghyun saying sugary things while Kibum insisted that they needed to go to hospital right now because obviously he had a concussion—until Myungsoo came back somewhat placated and less angry looking.

“Come on, Jonghyun. We’re going to go get your .”

“W-What?”

Jonghyun blinked owlishly in confusion. Myungsoo rolled his eyes, and pulled Jonghyun up by his elbow.

“We’re going to go get your stuff. You aren’t staying there if that’s how you’re going to be treated.”

“I don’t have anywhere else to—”

“Oh, for crying out loud, you’re staying here! Put on your shoes and get your in the car.”

Jonghyun gaped at Myungsoo’s back as he left the room, then looked at Kibum like his boyfiend had answers or something. Kibum shrugged.

“I told you he cared.”

A/N: It's been a minute. It's been a fat minute since I last updated, but I promise I haven't forgotten about this story! I'm a week away from finishing my first year of college, so hopefully more free time will encourage me to write more often. Thanks for reading, and I'll try to update more often :)