Jongin paces around the room, hands cradled in the warm press of his fingertips. The pads of his bare feet against the floor doesn’t help calm the rammings of his heart against his ribcage. Why is he getting anxious now? Why? Why now? He was the one who suggested this so why does his heart wants out right now? His phone rings again, Jongin’s head sharply turns towards it. He dives for his phone, picking it up before the ringtone ends.

“Yeah?” Jongin breathes out, chest heaving as he slowly pants. 

“Hey, your gate is the only one in the area with a huge animated picture of a dog looking eerily similar to Romeo, right?” Sehun’s amused tone causes Jongin’s anxiety to spike up to greater heights. 

“Yes…” Jongin whispers out. 

The call ends with a click and Jongin realises a second later that Sehun hung up on him. Jongin feels ticked off by that, more than he should, but that’s probably the abnormal fluctuations of emotions in him. Jongin decides for himself that it’s best if he takes a seat. Even when Sehun rings the doorbell, he still doesn’t stand up to answer it. Instead, he hopes Sehun could figure out how to open the damn gate and door himself. 

Sure enough after a few minutes of just staring up at the ceiling, Jongin hears the door open, followed by the overwhelming stir of air in the room. Jongin could feel Sehun’s presence looming over him. Then he feels the gentle touch of Sehun’s fingers running through his hair. His whole body starts trembling, a restrained sigh escaping from his system as he snaps his eyes to the side to look at Sehun.

“Who allowed you to touch me?” Jongin’s harsh tone should make Sehun take a step back to put a distance between them but a laugh is not what Jongin expected at all. 

He doesn’t resist the stare that comes almost out of impulse, and Sehun has the nerve to shoot a similarly distressed gaze in Jongin’s way. Sehun starts to let out a choppy laughter. The size of Jongin’s eyes narrow to small slits as he tries to swat Sehun away. 

“What’s wrong? What’s the cause of this hostility?” Sehun asks while laughing. 

“I don’t know. My body hurts.” Jongin groans, rolling over to his side to face away from Sehun. “Maybe it’s the anxiety.”

“Oho, because I was coming?” Sehun hovers over Jongin to take a peek of his face. Jongin quickly lands a strong pat on Sehun’s cheek, hard enough for it to be considered as a slap. “Guess not.”

Sehun straightens up before he stalks to the other side of the couch. He drops his bag at the foot of the couch before taking a seat next to Jongin who was silently contemplating whether he should flee. Sehun leans his head back the same way Jongin did a little while ago and lets out a sigh. 

“Hey, I wasn’t sure if you had my favourite cereal but I bought two boxes of them.” Sehun lifts a bag of cereals next to his backpack and excitedly runs to the kitchen. “I’m helping myself here, okay? It’s a self-serviced household.” 

“Yeah, only for you. Help yourself, shameless loser.” Jongin rolls his eyes. “I had cereal, by the way.” 

“But are they my favourite ones?” Sehun points out. When Jongin doesn’t answer at the right time, Sehun preens. “See? No.” 

“So picky. Beggars can’t be choosers, you know?” 

Sehun points a fancy silver spoon in Jongin’s way. “I can pick who to beg to.”

“Do you always have to have the last word?” Jongin asks incredulously in a high-pitched tone. 

“Not always. Just when necessary.” Sehun laughs when Jongin sighs in exasperation. “You want cereal? I can set you another bowl.” 

“What a gentleman you are,” Jongin snickers, “I might just marry you.” 

Jongin gives out a soft laugh but when he catches sight of Sehun with his eyes downcast and the tips of his ears sporting a deep shade of red, he goes quiet. Sehun refuses to meet his eyes for a few seconds more before he finally sighs and takes a seat at the dining table with his bowl of cereal. Jongin blinks in confusion. What was that just now? Sehun blushed? Right? 

“I can cook actual dinner, if you want. And then we can eat while watching a movie and oh! I prepared games for us—”

“You’re funny when you’re excited.” Sehun laughs. “It’s like watching a puppy—like watching Romeo.” 

As if on cue, Romeo barks and bounces towards Sehun almost too excitedly. Jongin gapes. “Are you siding with him now, Romeo? Do you want to leave the house, huh? Go for it, buddy.” 

“This morning…” Sehun starts. “Chanyeol told me something that was a little, um, questionable.”

Jongin pales, his eyes pinned on Romeo to avoid looking at the expression plastered onto Sehun’s face. If Chanyeol told Sehun how he thinks Sehun’s hot then it wouldn’t be a big deal. Sehun did hear him in the cafeteria early today after all. Jongin can’t think of anything else that Chanyeol could tell Sehun that could be questionable. But he can’t help but to feel on edge either way. 

“I told him I was going to sleep at your house, and he got all serious. He told me to go for it,” Sehun mutters, “And usually, when someone says go for it in that tone and with that context, it means hit on them. I don’t know if Chanyeol’s telling me to hit on you or for me to go for something else.” 

“Oh…” Jongin trails off. “Well…”

“Don’t worry. I won’t.” Sehun smiles.

Somehow, Jongin feels slight agitation swarming his brain. “Okay. Don’t.”

“I know. I won’t.” Sehun’s smile slowly fades away.

“Yeah, that’s good. Don’t.” Jongin’s frown slowly fades into place.

“Alright, I get it. I won’t.” Sehun shoves the spoonful of cereal into his mouth and snaps his jaw close, chewing with maximum vigor. 

“Good. I already said don’t.” Jongin’s voice raises an octave higher. 

“And I already said I won’t!” Sehun replies even louder, standing up with his bowl of cereal before stomping into the kitchen.  

“What’s your problem?” Jongin stalks after him, tone now sliding right into an angry one. 

“I don’t have a problem! What’s your problem?” Sehun shoots right back. He almost wants to slap himself from his very original comeback.

“Nothing! Do you want to play jenga?” Jongin smoothly asks while he’s still shouting.

“I don’t know! Do you?” Sehun shouts back.

“Yes, I do!”

“Okay, then let’s play!” 

“Why are you still screaming at me?” Sehun asks in a normal tone now.

“I don’t know. I’m still kind of annoyed, I guess.” Jongin pivots on his heel, turning to the living room to look for the stack of jenga he swears he has. 

“At what? That I won’t hit on you?” Sehun gurns, his tone lilting in incredulity. “Why are you annoyed at that? Do you want me to hit on you?”

Jongin, from bending over to look in the bottom shelf for the damned jenga, shoots straight up to give Sehun a blank look. He blinks once in silence, then a few more times, lips sealed shut. He’s thinking. Sehun’s right, he shouldn’t be annoyed. There’s no reason to. 

Instead of saying a simple no, Jongin dwells on his words to really convey the message that he is dead set on not wanting that to happen. Sehun an eyebrow up, waiting for his response. 

“That’s dangerous territory,” Jongin says. He immediately regrets his words after hearing it for himself. The corner of Sehun’s lips twitch up. 

“So you’re saying that if things weren’t in… danger anymore, you’d want me to hit on you.” Sehun nods his head. “I see how it is.”

“I’m not saying anything,” Jongin counters back. “Why are you lingering so much on this topic? It’s like you want to hit on me.”

“I would.” Sehun’s words made him feel something. They smacked Jongin in the back of the head, doused him in a bucket of ice cold water, grabbed him by the collars and threw him out onto the road where there’s a speeding truck with a faulty brake pedal heading his way. “If I was gay. And if I liked you that way.”

“Of course you would, I’m Kim Jongin.” Jongin smirks and all the tension that existed before crashes down onto the ground in one single motion. Sehun rolls his eyes and turns around to plop onto the couch. “Hey, people want me.”

“Yeah. People like Jaehyun.” Sehun snorts. “What is up with him, anyway?”

“What what is up?” Jongin pulls out a heavy box of blocks, rejoicing at the fact that he finally found the jenga. “I think he’s fine.”

“He’s rude. Controlling too. And a little bit possessive of you. Which is weird considering you don’t even like him that much.” Sehun slides down the couch to sit on the floor across from Jongin, watching deft hands rearrange the jenga blocks. “And don’t say I’m assuming stuff. You don’t even like him as a person that much, how are you going to like him like that?” 

“Why are you so talkative today?” Without having anything to disprove Sehun’s claims, Jongin can only change the topic. “You go first.” 

Sehun sighs, easily pulling out a block in the middle, grinning when he does so. “I always talk a lot.”

“No, you don’t.” Jongin scoffs.

“I was depressed when I was younger, okay? We’ve all been there. Plus, I liked listening to you talk. That’s why I was always so quiet and a little bit gloomy.” Sehun almost pulls the wrong block out, cringing when the whole structure sways. He looks for another piece to pull out. 

“You’re sweet.” Jongin smiles. Sehun glances up at Jongin, choosing to ignore him in favour of playing jenga. Jongin pulls on a face to mock Sehun. “Hey, come to think of it, you weren’t quiet. I was just noisy.”

“Thank you!” Sehun exclaims, finally getting past his turn without any losses as he finds a loose block somewhere. “And thank you to you too for realising that.”

“Welcome,” Jongin mocks. “Also, how are we going to do this Representative thing? They told me to get along with someone I don’t get along with. But I get along with you.” 

“You do?” Sehun asks. 

“Of course I do, Hun. I go to psychology sessions with you in the room. What do you think?”

“Maybe we can tell our story to them. I heard the other departments are choreographing a play together. There’s also one team that is doing trivia questions about each other which is a little weak.” Sehun knows he’s suggested a good idea—or at least piqued Jongin’s interest—when the latter stops mid action and stares. 

“Tell our story? How?” 

“Oh, come on. You’ve been doing it your whole life,” Sehun drawls, a bigger grin taking its place upon his lips. 

“What?” 

          The door creaks as Jongin pushes it open. He stands by the doorway, hair dishevelled and face probably swollen from crying too much in his sleep. He had another dream, a nightmare. He saw Daein standing before him with a pair of scissors, getting ready to snip his hair off. That happened years ago, and the last Jongin has ever thought of that was 2 years ago. 

Jongin makes his way to the kitchen, his fingers absentmindedly raking through his mess of a hair. The lights stay off because Jongin likes it that way. He reaches for a glass in his dish rack but it slides past his hold, crashing onto the floor with a loud piercing sound. Jongin stands in his spot, mind blank before he’s tasting his own salty tears on the tip of his tongue. He’s so tired to clean it up right away. J