Side by side, they stand in silence as they watch the pitter patter of the rain come clashing against the ground. It’s all Jongin can focus on. Or it’s all he chooses to focus on. He read somewhere about the effect of rain on one’s brain. Specifically in individuals with anxiety. Specifically him. Calms him down, allows him to tune out the unnecessary stuff like the zooming of cars on the road that only vexes him to no end. It’s nice.

“It’s raining,” Sehun says, and Jongin breaks out a titter at that.

“No ,” Jongin quips back.

Sehun spares him a side glance, a hint of a smile stopping by his lips before it disappears altogether with the mirth twinkling in his eyes. Instead, it’s replaced with worry. Jongin watches the whole thing play out before him. He unashamedly stares up at the way Sehun checks his phone. Before the latter could catch him staring, Jongin turns back to look straight ahead at the rain.

“It’s not going to stop soon,” Sehun says, voice low and pensive.

“Seems like it.” Jongin looks up at the dull grey clouds spilling rain down onto earth. “It looks like it’ll last a few hours.”

“Probably.” Sehun sighs.

Just as Jongin inches his left shoe a little to the front so he could catch a droplet of the rain onto it, a car wheels past and its tires roll past a deep puddle. It splashes, and worse, on Jongin. He’s soaking wet, his hair dripping and his clothes sticking to his skin. Jongin slowly releases the tension clumped together in his eyelids, and he opens his eyes once the cold attacks him.

“Can this day get any worse?” Jongin asks with a laugh. Though, it’s obvious he doesn't find it funny.

Sehun shakes his head, eyes darting from Jongin to the rain. He doesn’t want to say anything in fear of pissing the other off even more but when Jongin crouches down and hangs his head low in seething anger, Sehun knows he has to do something.

“Let’s go,” Sehun announces. Jongin snaps his head up, a hint of a glare fading away as he zeroes his eyes on Sehun’s outstretched hand.

Jongin releases a breath filled with pent up anger, and he slowly brings a hand up to let Sehun pull him up. There’s a moment of silence that Jongin doesn’t mind lingering between them. It’s all Jongin notices right when he straightens up and is balanced enough for Sehun to release his hold. It’s like a feeling that comes straight from a song, this peaceful feeling of mayhem within him. And it reminds him of when they were younger, when Sehun lets go of him. History is repeating itself.

“Go where?” Jongin asks. Any traces of anger left in the creases that decorates his face dissipates into smooth, glistening skin. “It’s raining. We’re stuck.”

“You’re already wet and I don’t mind running in the rain.” Sehun brings a hand up to gently pick something off from Jongin’s cheek before letting Jongin see it. “Eyelash— we can stop by my house and you can wait the rain out over there. It’s warmer.”

Jongin’s about to shake his head no, ready to insist that he’d be fine waiting in the same spot for the next hour or so, but a crackling thunder booms in his ears. He jolts at the sound, his eyes instinctively scrunching close. When the echoes of the rainfall tunes back in, Jongin finds himself shivering non-stop. He opens his eyes and meets Sehun’s. Fear, pure fear. That’s all he sees in Sehun’s eyes.

“O-Okay.” Jongin nods. “Let us go.”

There’s a moment of hesitation lingering but Sehun eventually throws himself into a sprint to cross the road. Jongin follows after him.

“He only asked for you.” The math teacher darts his eyes from the homeroom teacher at the front of the class to Jongin who’s sitting upright in his seat. “He ignored everyone else.”

It takes Jongin a minute to gather himself into a comprehensible state. He springs to a stand almost immediately, the chair he was sitting on screeching against the classroom tiles. It takes a few more seconds for his homeroom teacher to hesitate on letting him go but the desperate look on Jongin’s face is all that is needed. Within a second, Jongin’s already stepped across the door.

He pads after the teacher who leads him to an empty classroom at the end of the hall one floor down. As they make their way there, Jongin abruptly notices the cold creeping on his skin. He looks out the small windows lined up within the wall, and he sees droplets free falling down to the ground. Then he sees a flash of lightning strike down onto the football field just a few yards away. The thunder startles him.

Outside the class that they’re heading to, a group of Sehun’s friends crowd around by the entrance. They’re talking in not-so-hushed whispers, faces masked with nonchalance even though they’re probably annoyed or mad for some reason. Jongin tries to get past his previous bullies. It takes a lot of effort. He’s secretly crumbling in fear on the inside but he shows a brave front for Sehun. It’s all for Sehun.

“He doesn’t want anyone near him. He’ll throw at you. Believe me.” Jongin would like to believe that Sehun’s friends are trying to help him, warn him that it’ll just be bad news to even attempt being 10 feet away from Sehun. But the way they stare him down, try to subdue him and condescend him in a manner that he finds insulting, Jongin knows they’re just mad at him.

“He’ll want me with him.” He doesn’t know where his confidence came from but he knows it takes Sehun’s friends aback. For some reason, he takes pride in the way their expressions dim into something a little more murderous.

One of them shoves Jongin’s left shoulder back, throwing him off balance for a millisecond before he catches himself again. “Who do you think you are?”

“I’m his friend,” Jongin states.

“Nini? Is that you?” Sehun’s raspy voice calls out from inside the room. The door swings open almost immediately. With teary eyes, Sehun stands before his group of friends with the most broken expression Jongin’s ever seen on him. His face crumples even more then. Along with a whimper, Sehun steps closer to Jongin and pulls him into a tight hug. “I’m— I’m so— so—”

Sehun doesn’t make it till the last of his sentence. Jongin hugs him back and starts shushing his stutter. He lets Sehun cry on his shoulder, wet a part of his uniform. After standing so still, wrapped in each other’s arms, for so long, Jongin starts to sway from side to side. It brings Sehun’s focus back just the slightest. Sehun pulls away.

“Let’s go wash your face,” Jongin suggests. He turns around and goes to pull Sehun to the toilet but the rest are still there. It startles Jongin because he forgot they were there. Jongin ignores them and politely asks them to move aside. They listen, but not without glaring him down as he steps past them.

“I’m so sorry…” Sehun apologises once they’re alone. Jongin thumbs the bags under his eyes and swipes his drenched fingers over Sehun’s forehead. He runs a wet hand through Sehun’s hair to comb it back, but it falls back on Sehun’s forehead.

“For what?” Jongin asks.

“I just— I don’t— don’t know… I don’t know what happens to me when there’s a storm. I get so shaken up and I can’t help but cry.”

“You’re scared of storms? Lightning and thunder?”

“Yes.” Sehun nods his head. “And I feel like such an idiot.”

“Being scared of something doesn’t make you an idiot.” Jongin sneers. Not at Sehun, but at the thought that fear amounts to idiocy. “You’re still an idiot, but because you think fear is a problem. It’s not.”

Sehun peeks his eyes up to look at Jongin with a meek expression. Mirth swims along his dilating irises. Jongin smiles at him, and it causes Sehun to smile back.

The words “thank you” hangs by the tip of Sehun’s tongue but he doesn’t say it. Not now, not later, not for the next three years.

The door closes with a snick, and Jongin is left to gape at the interior of Sehun’s house. It’s unlike Sehun, if Jongin had to describe it. He’d expect a minimalistic style with very few colours involved. To his surprise, Sehun has a mix of pastel purple, pastel green and pastel red. Jongin never really thought the three colours would go well together but it does. It surprisingly does. With the abundance of white all around, it makes the colours look less eye-straining.

“This is my humble abode.” Sehun gestures to the wide space. Water drips from his clothes and forms a puddle under his foot. Jongin grins looking at that. He looks under him, at the puddle he’s formed and starts laughing. “Why are you laughing?”

Sehun stares at him with mirth glinting in his eyes. He doesn’t know what’s so funny to Jongin but the glee Jongin radiates is getting to him. Sehun starts peeling his jacket off, tossing it into the basket meant for dirty clothes.

“Nothing.” Jongin titters. “Your house is very clean. I like it.”

“Yeah, well, I try my best.” Sehun shrugs.

Jongin grins even wider. “The rain’s stopped.”

“Yeah, uh, you can go and shower first. Enter my room over there and the toilet’s to the right. There’s a folded towel in the cabinet under the sink. There’s a bathrobe too.”

Jongin follows after Sehun who leads him into his bedroom. It’s conspicuously warmer than in the living room. Jongin releases a shiver that’s long been delayed and it causes Sehun to look back.

“Get in quick. You’ll get a cold if you don’t.” Sehun hustles Jongin into the shower and quickly twists the shower head on. Cold water makes its way out and the both of them screams due to that but the warmth gradually tunes in with the water.

“Take off your clothes,” Sehun mumbles. He’s too distracted trying to get the temperature of water just right that he doesn’t realise how inappropriate his words could be. Thanks to Jongin knowing that Sehun wouldn’t ever say that to him, there wouldn’t be any misunderstanding. Jongin freezes up almost instantly, eyes widening and he stones out. Sehun looks back at Jongin after the weight of his own words crushes him down. He stammers out, “I meant a-after I get out! Sorry! Just, um, put your clothes outside th-the toilet door and I’ll- uh- yeah! I’ll throw them in the dryer!”

He scurries out of the toilet in the speed of light, panting as he slams the toilet door close from the outside. Jongin could hear the loud stomps of Sehun’s feet fading away, out of the bedroom. Only when he inhales deep did he realise just how long he’s been holding his breath in.

Jongin shivers, body shaking as violently as it did while he walked in the rain a while ago. He turns back to the water and relishes in the warmth that it brings. Slowly, one by one, he peels off the clothing still stuck to his skin. Jongin slides the door just the slightest, big enough for his hand holding his clothes in a bunch to slip out. It’s dry enough that it doesn’t drip anymore so Jongin’s not worried about making a mess in Sehun’s bedroom.

“Hun?” Jongin calls out once he’s stepped out in a bathrobe secured around his figure. It’s made out of thick cotton and it makes Jongin feel safe for some reason. It’s great that both Sehun and Jongin are about the same size. Else he wouldn’t fit it.

“Yeah?” Sehun’s response echoes from the living room. Jongin takes light steps out to where the former is.

“You should shower too. You’ll catch a cold.”

A spark of electricity shoots down Jongin’s body when his eyes meet the sight of Sehun with his hair stuck to his forehead, skin glistening in water, body shivering in the cold. It brings him back to the old times. Jongin could have sweared he heard Sehun whimper. The latter stares up at him from where he’s sitting on the couch and takes a shaky breath in.

“It’s raining again.”

         Jongin gives Sehun a huge smile radiating with pride. When Sehun shoots him back with a perplexed look, Jongin chooses that moment to jump up and attack Sehun with a hug. The latter stumbles back, losing his balance for a second before he grabs ahold of the pillar next to hi