~~~

“I can’t find my jacket!”

“You...bastard.”

“Get up and help me look for it before I freeze to death-”

“You bastard.”

“-and try not to trip over me like you did last time!”

“Bastard.”

With a roll of his eyes, Jongin mumbles a low ‘whatever’ as his palms scurry across the surface of the ground in search of his jacket that he’s absolutely positive he discarded somewhere near the wall. If his phone wasn’t broken and nearly split in half, he’d take to using its built in flashlight and he curses the high Heavens for simply not choosing to end his call earlier and shove his phone in his pocket instead.

The night has been dead silent for quite a while now, and still is, save for Sehun’s occasional low hisses of pain as the latter rolls around on the ground. You had it coming and you know it damn good and well, Jongin thinks to himself before biting his lip and wincing when he accidentally bangs his hand against the pole of a streetlamp.

As well as being dead silent, the alley they’re in is also extremely dark, which does absolutely nothing to help the blond as he feels his muscles start to tense up from the cold. He curses under his breath when he continues searching, desperately wishing his hand would come in contact with the soft material of his jacket, only to turn up with nothing.

Well isn’t that just great, Jongin thinks before he hears Sehun’s clothes rustle as the latter, slowly, gets back up and onto his feet.

“Any luck?” Sehun asks, walking towards the blond and brushing himself off.

“Can’t find the goddamn thing anywhere,” Jongin curses and shivers. He’s honestly starting to believe his jacket somehow managed to grow wings and fly away during his ordeal with Sehun a little while ago.

“I’m fine, thanks for asking,” Sehun mumbles under his breath before reaching down and gently rubbing Jongin’s shoulders, making the latter jump a little. “How about we just leave it?” he asks after a couple more minutes of Jongin’s blind searching. “You'll never find it in the dark, we’ll have to come back here tomorrow morning and look for it, alright?”

“I can’t do that!” Jongin squawks. “I’ll freeze to death on my way home, you out of your mind?” he adds and quickly slaps Sehun’s hands away when the latter proceeds to ruffle his hair. “Don’t touch it, you’ll mess it up! And you asked for that, by the way, so why should I ask you how you're doing!”

Sehun chuckles. “It’s flat as hell,” he snorts before kneeling down and gently resting his chin on Jongin’s shoulder, and the latter wonders how he managed to do it so effortlessly given the darkness. “What do you mean by ‘home’, by the way?”

Jongin blinks and suddenly feels himself flush (again, he’s glad Sehun can’t see it). He swallows and moves to stand up, trying to put as little strain on his back as possible. “I uh...what?” 

“The movie, remember?” Sehun places a hand on Jongin’s waist as the latter gets to his feet. “Stand up slowly, don’t hurt yourself even more.”

“Whaddya mean, ‘yourself’?” Jongin squawks, trying not to flinch at Sehun’s touch. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the way his entire body seems to twitch whenever Sehun touches touch him. Not that he minds, anyway. “Y’know, that’s real funny coming from the one who nearly gave me permanent cranium and spinal damage,” he adds as quietly as he can, half hoping Sehun won’t hear. The latter does, of course, and the blond curses under his breath.

“True, but come on!” Sehun whines when the blond huffs. “I said sorry like ten thousand times! And I did it with the best of intentions!” His voice suddenly turns serious. “You’re not really that hurt, though, are you?” He isn’t sure if Jongin is bluffing or not, or simply over exaggerating (because with Jongin, you can never be quite sure, Sehun figures), but he opts to ask anyway because despite being skeptical, he won’t deny that his tackles do pack a rather big punch. In fact, come to think of it, he vaguely remembers shattering an opponent’s hip bone a few years ago because of it. It sends a chill down his spine at the thought of possibly injuring the blond the same way. He bites his lip in concern when Jongin doesn’t say anything. “Hey, answer me, are you really hurt? I could call an-”

“The movie?” Jongin asks in confusion, ignoring Sehun’s question completely, much to the latter’s irritation. He mentally facepalms when his hands move to reach for his phone. Right. Damn thing's broken. With no way to check the time, Jongin presses his lips together. If he remembers correctly, Sehun had said the movie started at half past nine. Well, I’ll be damned if it isn’t ten already. “But-”

“Answer me first, are you hurt?” Sehun asks with a stern grip around the blond’s wrist. “I need to know before we do anything else.”

Jesus, you make it sound like . “No, I’m fine,” Jongin blurts out, instinctively turning his face away at the unexpected contact. “I, uh, yeah, I’m good. My back hurts a little but I think I’ll be fine.” He doesn’t believe himself, in all honesty, and he wouldn’t be surprised if his back actually was broken, but he blames Sehun’s hand, which is dangerously close to his own hand, for meddling with his head and preventing him from thinking straight. “I’m fine, really. And uh, since you wanted me to ask, how about you?”

Audibly exhaling in relief, Sehun chuckles. “A little bruised in the Southern region, but besides that, I’m good, too,” he says and lets out a loud laugh when Jongin swats his arm. “Jesus,” he adds with a wince, “I always knew hockey players had killer biceps but I never thought you’d be capable of hitting that hard.” He reaches behind him and massages the small of his back, where the blond had mercilessly been punching him earlier.

“I played for a while, what can I say,” Jongin says smugly. “I had plenty of time to train,” he adds and proceeds to run a hand through his hair. “Not to mention I was freaking the out the entire time. Oh, and like I said, you totally asked for that so I refuse to apologize,” he adds, fighting the urge to stick his tongue out.

“Excuse you, it’s hardly my fault you are, indeed, easy to kidnap,” Sehun squawks before grabbing Jongin's shoulder, pulling the latter towards him and enveloping him in a tight hug. “Hey, it’s time for you to explain yourself, by the way.”

Dear God, he’s warm. “Um.” Jongin’s brain is so busy trying to process the fact that Oh Sehun is hugging that it takes him a full minute to process the latter’s words, too. “Uh. What do you mean?” he asks dumbly and swallows when he feels a tingling sensation in his stomach. He seriously hopes it’s the butterflies returning because regardless of what it is, he seriously, seriously doesn’t want to vomit all over Sehun and send the latter running off, never to return ever again. 

“I did what I did because I thought you’d been abducted, like I said, and you assaulted me because you thought I was a psychopathic alcoholic who’d murder you, correct?” Sehun asks and blinks because dear God, Jongin’s heart is beating like crazy. He’s in the midst of wondering if the blond is about to go into cardiac arrest when the latter nods his head and he instantly forgets about it.

Jongin doesn’t know what makes him do it but as usual, he blames Sehun and his godforsaken touches and their ability to reduce his brain to a pile of useless, pink goop, but before he has time to process what he’s doing, he’s blurting out a less than discreet ‘Because I thought you’d been killed’, and he promptly curses his entire existence. .

Sehun is silent for a while. “Because you thought I’d been killed?” he echoes, confusion (yet a hint of amusement) prominent in his voice.

“I’msorryI’llshutupI’msorry-”

“No, tell me.” Sehun runs a hand through Jongin’s very, very matted hair. God, does he need a trim. “I want to know.”

Jongin sighs in defeat. He's about to open his mouth to speak but he quickly clamps it shut when an icy gust of wind passes and he scrambles to wrap his arms around himself, praying he won't die of hypothermia on the spot.

When Jongin is sure it's safe to remove his arms, he open his mouth again and nearly chokes on his own saliva when he suddenly feels something weigh down on his shoulders, and it takes him a painfully long time to realize that it's Sehun's jacket. The latter's jacket smells just like him, if not even better, and the blond stifles a dreamy sigh when he inhales the taller's scent with every breath he takes. He doesn't know if the warm sensation pumping through his veins is due to the pre-warmed material of the garment or the fact that he's literally surrounded by Sehun's scent. He settles for the latter. 

Jongin is so caught up with feeling the warmth of Sehun's jacket penetrate his clothes, engulf his body and numb his senses (in a good way, of course) that he doesn't realize the latter has asked him a question. In fact, Sehun has to reach out and place a hand on Jongin's shoulder in order to get the latter to snap out of his trance. It works to say the least, because the blond nearly jumps out of his own skin at the unexpected touch.

Sehun blinks. "Jesus, sorry, okay, wow," he chuckles, a hint of alarm in his voice. He can't see Jongin in front of him at all, but he doesn't need to - the latter's blush is practically glowing in the dark.

"Sorry, I-"

"That scream, though," Sehun snorts. "So not manl-"

"I know, shut up!" Jongin exclaims in exasperation, cheeks burning. "Uh, thank you," he mumbles dumbly after an embarrassingly long time before proceeding to slide his arms into Sehun's jacket. He tries to ignore the way his arms feel like they're on fire as soon as they rub against the soft material.

"Anyway, you were saying?" Sehun asks and Jongin can hear him trying his best, and failing rather miserably, to stifle a snigger.

Figuring Sehun doesn't deserve a smack in the arm, given that he gave him him his jacket, after all, Jongin presses his lips together. “Long answer short, I thought you were a crazy alcoholic but that changed to me thinking you were an alleyway murderer when I suddenly smelled your perfume and I panicked and thought you were dead, hence why you suddenly seemed to vanish when in reality you were less than twenty goddamn feet away and calling your bestie,” he mumbles, cheeks flushing because good God, did that sound lame.

“So you think I’d been killed because you smelled my perfume?” Sehun snorts and yelps when Jongin whacks him in the arm. “Hey, I-”

“Well yeah, lots of murderers get their victim’s scents and or fragrances on their clothes, it’s not rocket science,” Jongin squawks. “Anyway, uh, yeah.” He sighs in defeat and buries his face in the crook of Sehun’s neck, hoping the latter won’t feel how incredibly hot his cheeks are.

“True, but come on.” Sehun has to take a step back and break the hug so he can double over in laughter, while grabbing onto the hem of Jongin’s jacket for support. “Jesus, you’re so adorable, God-”

“Stop doing that,” Jongin squabbles before swatting Sehun’s hand away. “Seriously, I thought you were dead and that I was gonna meet the same exact goddamn fate,” he adds, turning his face away in embarrassment. Desperately wanting to change the subject, he clears his throat. “So, about the thing you sa-”

“Is that why you were crying?” Sehun asks before standing up and poking Jongin’s waist, making the latter yelp. “Because you thought I was dead?”

Jongin stills. “What?” How the he-

“It was dark, but not that dark,” Sehun chuckles, although Jongin can sense a hint of sympathy in his voice. “I think at some point the moonlight must’ve hit you in the right places; that being your face, and for like a split second I saw your eyes, which were awfully shimmery.” He chuckles when Jongin goes silent. “I’m honored, though-”

“I wasn’t crying!” Jongin squawks, face burning and he honestly wishes the ground would swallow him up right this second. He sighs in defeat when he can practically feel Sehun’s unbelieving gaze burning holes in his body. “Okay, fine, I was,” he huffs, “but it was only because I thought I was ten seconds from my own death.”

Sehun chuckles. “Right.”

Jongin squawks. “It’s true,” he exclaims, smacking Sehun in the stomach and blushing just at how defined it feels under his palm. “Shut up.”

“Actually, thanks for reminding me,” Sehun says, wiping his eyes, “because the way I found it was you and not some kind of child abductor was thanks to your perfume,” he cackles and the blond fights the urge to kick him in the face. “Which, by the way, smells awfully good, just thought I should tell you. But that was like, five seconds after I saw your wet- eyes, so.”

Jongin blinks, the urge to kick Sehun in the groin for the third time growing stronger by the minute. “My perfume?”

“Yeah,” Sehun says before clearing his throat. “Strawberry’s my favorite fruit.”

“It’s Jungah’s hairspray,” Jongin blurts out before he can stop himself. All of a sudden, the urge to disappear into the ground is stronger than ever and he clenches his jaw in humiliation when he hears Sehun’s laughter fill his ears. Me and my big mouth.

When he calms down from his laughing fit, around five minutes later, Sehun wipes his eyes. He’s suddenly reminded of why he fell for the blond in the first place. “Damn it, you’re so cute,” he wheezes before ruffling Jongin’s hair. “Hey, can I call you ‘Berry Boy’?” he adds and even in the pitch blackness of the night, Jongin can tell he’s got a -eating grin on his face.

“Call me that and I swear to God I’ll kick you so hard you’ll be crawling home on all fours,” Jongin growls in irritation. His right leg is itching to up and directly into the taller’s groin but he restrains himself, although with great difficulty. He suddenly regrets using hairspray in the first place. Why didn't I just use Dad’s hair gel instead.

“I guess that’s why they call it 'strawberry blonde',” Sehun cackles, ignoring Jongin to the fullest and it takes every fiber in the blond’s being not to reach out and strangle the latter on the spot.

“First of all, my hair isn’t even blonde,” Jongin exclaims, throwing his hands in the air. “Well, not anymore, at least. And second of all, were we gonna watch the damn movie or not?” he adds and nearly covers his mouth with his hands. . “Wait, nevermind-”

“Oh yeah, right!” Sehun exclaims in excitement. “The horror thing, right.” He checks his phone and bites his lip. “We’ve most definitely missed it, if we run we’ll make it to the last twenty minutes but what’s the use,” he mumbles.

Jongin is seconds away from blurting out a ‘good, I ing hate horror, let’s do something else’ when all of a sudden, Jongdae’s words pop into his head.

It’ll give you an excuse to cling onto him and hold his hand without making yourself seem like you’re coming on too strong.

Quickly closing his mouth, Jongin presses his lips together. “Uh, I’m pretty sure they’re showing more than just one tonight,” he says. “Can’t we go to another theatre?”

“They’re all closed at this hour except for that one,” Sehun mumbles before shivering slightly when a gust of wind passes. “On a side note, I really wish that goddamn streetlamp over there was working.”

“Let me check their website, I’m sure that can’t be the only horror movie they’re showing tonight,” Jongin practically whines. “And same here,” he adds, turning to face the streetlamp behind him, to which the silhouette is barely visible in the dim moonlight. “Why, though? Is it because you wouldn’t have tripped over m-”

“Not being able to see your cute little face properly makes me anxious,” Sehun says casually and he blinks when Jongin emits an inhuman squawk. “Are you oka-”

“You can’t just say things like that!” Jongin babbles, fighting the urge to take all his clothes off before they get a chance to constrict around him. Talk about unromantic. “Anyway,” he coughs, “give me your phone so I can check out their website, mine’s as good as dead.” His entire body feels so hot he momentarily fears he’ll set fire to the entire block.

“My bad,” Sehun says, although awfully unapologetically, before reaching into his pocket and easily fishing out his phone. “It’s true, though.”

Jongin rolls his eyes. Yup, definitely unromantic. He’s about to open his mouth and ask Sehun to hand him the phone when he suddenly feels as if somebody is stabbing both of his eyeballs with a thousand needles and the next thing he knows, he’s emitting a rather unattractive squawk before instinctively scrambling to cover his eyes.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Jongin momentarily wonders if he really is living in a dream, and that in reality, he’s not standing in an alleyway, but in the middle of a train track, which would explain why he’s greeted with a harsh, white light when he peeks through his index and middle finger.

The blond is in the midst of bracing himself for the sound of a train whistle when he suddenly hears another sound; a different sound, ringing through the air. He soon recognizes it to be Sehun’s laugh. What the fu-

“Oh good, I can see your face now,” Sehun cackles before turning the flashlight off on his phone, promptly plunging their surroundings into darkness again, and extending his hand. “Don’t worry, you look as cute as always,” he adds when Jongin promptly emits yet another loud squawk.

“Whatthewasthatwhatdidyoujustdo!” Jongin croak-garbles as he flails his hands and arms in the air, and he worries he might whack Sehun in the face. On second thought, he doesn’t. At all. “God, I hate you,” he mumbles, furiously attempting to blink away the reflection in his eyes, before taking a step forward and grabbing the phone from Sehun’s hand.

It’s not until Jongin holds Sehun’s phone in his hands that a sudden wave of self consciousness washes over him and he swallows. His hair is probably a matted, tangled mess atop of his head given how many times Sehun has felt the need to run his hand through it, his makeup has most certainly washed off of his face by now and he wouldn’t be surprised if his clothes are rumpled, wrinkled and downright filthy, either, as a result of rolling around on the ground earlier while trying to fight off his ‘killer’. Point is, he seriously hopes he covered his face well enough for Sehun not to notice. On a side note, Jongin doesn’t even need a flashlight or the streetlamp a few feet away to work to know that Sehun is most certainly, without a doubt, looking as sharp as he always does. Jongin doesn’t know if the fact pisses him off or makes him love Sehun a little more.

“I’m gonna go take a leak for real this time, and I'll do my best not to get myself killed,” Sehun says, ruffling Jongin’s hair. “No code, so you’re free to go!” he chuckles before turning on his heel and running off towards the darkest part of the alley. Jongin hopes to God he doesn’t collide with a wall or run into a dumpster.

Listening to Sehun’s footsteps as they disappear into the distance, Jongin presses the Home button on Sehun’s phone and nearly cackles when he’s greeted with a photo of nothing other than a shelf, on which a handful of trophies are neatly placed out alongside each other. Upon closer inspection, the blond notices his school’s football mascot on one of the golden trophies on the top shelf and stifles a laugh, a warm feeling coiling in his stomach. Talk about devotion, he thinks to himself as he unlocks the phone.

Sehun doesn’t have a lot of apps on his phone, save for the default ones as well as Facebook (which has, much to Jongin’s slight annoyance, over 900 badge notifications) and a handful of football related ones. Other than that, he doesn’t seem to have any other apps for social media, much to Jongin’s surprise, and the latter mentally smacks himself for thinking he’d find at least fifteen different dating apps on Sehun’s phone. Not that he knows why, of course.

Jongin is about to open up Safari when his eyes suddenly land on a bright green icon in the upper left hand corner; the Messages app. He’s suddenly hit with the overwhelming urge to tap it; in fact, his fingers itch to do just that, but he stops himself when he finds his index finger moving towards the icon. As much as he believes what Sehun told him about how he’s never had a girlfriend or dated before, Jongin won’t deny that the urge to scroll through Sehun’s messages, just in case, but he quickly decides against it, blaming the rumors at school are beginning for messing with his head. Not to mention he doesn't think he'll be able to forgive himself it he were to do it. However, the urge is still there and the blond swallows and forces himself to click on the Safari app before he ends up doing something he’ll most definitely regret later on.

Jongin opens up and Safari app and waits for it to load. However, the page doesn’t get a chance to completely load when Jongin feels the phone vibrate, a text message popping up on the screen. And as much as Jongin wishes he could simply avert his gaze, he figures a message notification taking up ¾ of the entire screen would intrigue just about anybody. So he reads it.

From: Myeon

we won!!!!! yeah 🤙🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻

Jongin blinks in confusion. He barely has a chance to click ‘Dismiss’ when the phone vibrates again.

From: Myeon

i’ll send u a pic of the trophy in a bit when yeol stops fawning over it like an idiot

What. Jongin is about to dismiss whatever Junmyeon is talking about as a simple training session when it suddenly hits him that trophies are only given at really important tournaments. To be precise, matches against, in this case, other schools. Jongin swallows. Does that mean he-

Clearing his throat out loud, Jongin quickly hits ‘Dismiss’ and watches as Junmyeon’s message disappears from the screen. He’s positions his fingers so they’re hovering above the search bar, fully ready to type in the name of the cinema he’s got in mind, when the screen suddenly refreshes and a mint colored page pops up. Jongin is about to ignore it when he notices there’s already something written in the search bar.

signs a guy likes you

Jongin barely manages to pick up the words ‘Eye Contact’ and ‘Body Language’ written on the screen a bit below before he scrambles to delete the page and proceeds to type in the name of the cinema instead, all while ignoring the feeling of fuzziness, a feeling he hasn’t felt in a week or so, that blooms in his chest. In fact, his head suddenly feels like it’s stuffed to the brim with cotton and he’s surprised he’s even able to type out a word without any spelling errors whatsoever, much less scroll through the website without his thumb spazzing out.

The thought of watching a horror movie with Sehun both scares Jongin to the bone and absolutely enthralls him, as much as he despises horror movies, he honestly wouldn’t mind being curled up next to Sehun, while stuffing his face with popcorn and soda, no matter how grotesque and horrifying the scenes before him might be. In fact, the thought makes him feel that much more excited and Jongin has to stop himself from jumping up and down on the spot.  

In fact, he’s so busy trying to calm himself that it takes him a while to realize that Sehun’s phone has buzzed, again. And he takes a look.

And nearly drops Sehun’s phone (which he’s awfully glad he doesn’t do).

From: Myeon

hey btw when r u gonna tell that guy u love him???

~~~