It was freezing cold and everything was pitch-black. Taekwoon felt his spine stiffen with an upcoming shudder as he exhaled, staring ahead of him, the mattress hard and uncomfortable under his bottom.

He had previously turned off all the lamps inside and lowered the temperature of the gas boiler so he could sleep (he always felt cold during the night, but it didn’t do to have the gas boiler on a high degree, it would simply cost too much), but halfway through going to bed, he forgot what he had to do in order to do so.

He sat on the edge of the bed in his jeans and cardigan, slippers on his feet, watching the darkness around him, enveloping him without any disturbance from a street lamp or the headlight of cars outside of the building—he made sure the blinds covered every patch of the windows. He had started to think when he had first sat down, think about his day or maybe his week, or maybe about that poster he had seen on the wall of a house across the street, but he forgot about it all and he wasn’t sure anymore what he had really wanted to think about in the first place.

His eyes hurt a little as he stared, breathing becoming a little difficult as he started paying attention to it, like when you suddenly become aware of your way of walking and can’t place one foot in front of the other for a few overly self-conscious moments without noticing something weird about it.

He closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, the bedroom was dimly lit by the bedside lamp in the corner, painting the furniture a sickly orange shade that Taekwoon didn’t like. Right. He had left that one on.

His right hand twitched, cramping around something, and when he looked down, he saw bony fingers in his palm, resting there like some sort of support, even if Taekwoon didn’t feel like he needed it. He glanced up and saw Jaehwan smile kindly at him, his beautiful eyes boring into Taekwoon and replacing the cold with warmth that spread from the very centre of Taekwoon's chest into his entire body.

He smiled back—a small upward movement of the corners of his mouth—, tightening his grip around Jaehwan's delicate fingers as he lay his head on Jaehwan's shoulder, pressing as close to him as he could.