Taeil walks out onto the street, shaking hands shoved deep within his coat pockets and face down.

His eyes sting, stuck on the concrete immediately in front of his feet. But he doesn't allow himself to cry. He saves his tears for later, a shower, midnight, no one else around.

Nobody deserves to see Lee Taeil's tears, not even himself.

As he walks he feels heavy, sad, angry, like every conflict inside him has come together to form a mass of weight to slow him down, mire his legs in quicksand and his heart the same. But he just keeps walking, does it because it's the only thing he can think to do.

His feet take him down the path to Jiho's apartment, not the dorm's, and he's so goddamn angry at Jiho, so hurt, but he loves him too much to let that anger morph and grow and fall into hatred, so he doesn't turn away.

He passes a lot of people on the sidewalk, none of them recognize him. It's late enough that the only ones walking about are young, his age, most are drunk and surrounded by smiling friends, leaning against each other as they hobble. Taeil is struck by the differences between himself and them, Others, and he picks up his pace, boots loud on the sidewalk as he avoids who he could have become.

Jiho's apartment building is plain and drab, average, discreet. An immediate attractant to an idol.

Taeil punches in the code to get into the building, feels like it's tattooed on his fingertips, and walks past the elevator and into the flat grey stairwell. He climbs and climbs and climbs before he's at Jiho's floor, and the burn of his legs helps draw heat from the simmering embers of frustration that had kept themselves fed by the memories of Jiho's words.

Once inside the coolness of Jiho's apartment Taeil pauses, sighs. His thumbs feel heavy as he types out a message, telling Jiho where he is consicely before turing his phone off and tossing it onto the kitchen island.

His heart feels heavy as he waits for Jiho to come back, tries not to dread it. Snuggling into Jiho's sheets, smelling him and hints of his own cologne, his fire is nearly completely extinguished.

Now tired more than anything, he dozes off while he waits.

He's woken fully by a delicate touch to his shoulder.

His back is to the door, to Jiho, but he doesn't turn to face him. He doesn't want to have to see him right now, see the look on his face that he knows will make him forgive him instantly.

He doesn't want too.

He simply sighs to let Jiho know that he's paying attention, huddles in around a bulb of blanket between his hands as something to ground himself.

Jiho sniffs once, throatily, and Taeil can tell that he's been crying. His toes curl beneath the sheets. Jiho has to clear his throat and it's loud enough that Taeil's breathing skips a moment, not out of fear but familiar worry. Jiho really has been taking too much onto his shoulders recently.

Taeil wonders how he would deal with that weight.

"Hyung," Jiho starts, and Taeil shivers a bit. "I want to apologize."

Which in itself is not an apology, so Taeil stays quiet and stays facing the wall.

There's a sigh, hot enough to tickle the back of Taeil's neck.

"I'm seriously the worst, huh?"

Taeil shrugs. Silent.

"Really, I'm- I don't really know why that... happened, but I know that I let my own personal issues take over and it made me treat you poorly, and I'm really, really sorry."

And he really sounds like he is, which loosens something within Taeil that he'd been desperately trying to ignore, something that's been trying to tell him that it was his fault, he deserved what Jiho said to him. It's absence takes away with it the last spark of anger, and he finally turns around.

He opens the blankets, not commenting on Jiho's red-streaked face, the darkness of his eyes, the expression of genuine remorse on his face.

Jiho looks at him for a while, quivering eyes flitting all over his face. No doubt he sees and catalogues the trace swelling around Taeil's eyes, but he stays quiet as well, and crawls in. He's distant, cautious, but Taeil is sick of feeling bad and angry and just wants to sleep with his boyfriend in his arms until they both wake up naturally, no alarms. Just them.

He pulls Jiho to his chest, pulls his head to against his bone. Jiho's hands instantly take hold of Taeil's shirt and don't release, locked.

"Sleep now," Taeil says, his voice a whisper of a sigh. "I'll forgive you in the morning."

And they sleep.