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Vagabond
With a coffee mug, half-empty, besides him, Himchan was finishing up his drawings for the upcoming meeting with the new clients of his company. He had been working nonstop on this project for the past two weeks, locked inside his little apartment, not having any indication of what day or time it was. He was that focused on whatever he was doing. The meeting itself would be three weeks from now on, but that didn't stop Himchan, however. He was punctual, not to mention perfectionist, too. Getting the work done in advanced meant he could analyze it later several time and improve it. Besides, not like he had anything better to do in life.
Himchan loved his work. Loved it so much that nothing else mattered to him. Sure, he could get a girlfriend and maybe marry someone and have a family; that wouldn't be hard if all the attempts of his female coworkers on seducing him were any indication. But he felt like he didn't need any of that. Was he happy with his current life? He didn't really know himself, but he knew that there was this one empty feeling deep inside him and he hadn't meet anyone in his life so far who he judged could make that feeling go away.
As Himchan pressed his pen against the ruler to draw another perfect line, the window of his bedroom was slammed against the wall by the violent winds. A loud thunder was heard while the sky had momentarily flashed bright with the lighting and everything became dark inside the room the second later.
Himchan sighed and put his pen down. He was completely unaware of the storm outside. Actually, he was unaware of everything going on in the world right now. He wouldn't even know if someone had barged into his apartment while he was working. But now, there was no electricity and everything was pitch black. He slowly d for his cellphone and pressed the home button once he found it. The screen of his iPhone flashed; the light was bright enough for him to walk out of his room into the bathroom where he found an umbrella. And with that umbrella in hand, he stepped out of his apartment. Locking the doors he climbed down the stairs since the elevator wasn't working.
There was a convenience store right across the street from where he had often bought most things he needed, which meant ramen and other packed, easy-to-make food. He would surely find some candles or something and get back to work just like before he was roughly interrupted.
The storm was more violent than Himchan had imagined once he was completely outside the building. The heavy rain and the harsh winds were making the walk a lot longer than usual, but Himchan judged it was worth it. What was he supposed to do? Sit back in the dark and patiently wait for the electricity to get back? He couldn't sleep either; it was merely one o'clock, meaning too early for him to go to bed.
Right when he was about to open the door of the store, he heard a loud thunder followed by a cry, making him halt his current action. Did he hear right? Why would he hear a child's cry at this time, in this condition? He waited a bit to see if he would hear anything new, but the following moments passed in silent, so he decided to get inside the store and buy the candles.
When he had stepped out of the store, he heard another whimper. This time, he was sure there was someone, so he quietly followed the soft, muffled sobs, which lead him to the back of the store, where he found a figure sitting on the ground. He approached the shaking figure and the closer he was getting, the clearer his vision got and he could now tell the person was clutching their knees against their chest and had buried their face in it.
"Hey," Himchan spoke up when he thought he was close enough for the person to hear him, and he was right because the next moment, the young boy's head had snapped and his sparkling eyes were locked with Himchan's own. Staring at that pair of eyes, Himchan felt dizzy for a moment before he had blinked away and asked in a very gentle voice, "What are you doing here?"
Himchan waited several minutes but no answer came. The boy didn't even more an inch or blinked. He was still staring at Himchan with those red, swollen eyes, making Himchan slightly uncomfortable.
Biting his lips, Himchan lowered himself until he was on the level as the boy sitting on the ground. Smiling softly Himchan tried to talk once again; he didn't even know why he was doing this, but he didn't feel like questioning himself right now either. "My name is Himchan," he said while giving out his right hand.
The boy only followed the hand with his eyes and stared at it for few seconds, without taking it before uttering in a very low voice, barely above a whisper, "Jongup." But Himchan had heard him anyway.
Himchan smiled once again at him, but Jongup was looking down at the ground. "Well, Jongup, isn't it too late and a bit dangerous for you to be sitting here right now?"
Jongup didn't say anything, nor did he take off his eyes off the ground, but he slowly nodded his head. "Then, why are you here?" Himchan continued. He honestly had no idea why he even cared in first place. Himchan wasn't the kind to get up and go talk to someone first, so why was he even bothering now?
This time, though, Jongup looked up and his eyes meet with Himchan's once again. "I have nowhere to go," he said in a flat tone. These words sounded too awful in Himchan's hears no matter how sweet he had found Jongup's voice.
For instance, he was quite shocked and dumbfounded. He stared at Jongup quite too long without realizing, noticing small details about the boy in front of him. The ripped clothes were far too obvious to go unnoticed and so were the scars on his face and elsewhere on his body that seemed too fragile and weak at the moment, and Himchan was left with this need of protecting this visibly younger boy.
Himchan stood up and ordered, "Get up. You're going home with me." At that, Jongup quickly looked up at him, eyes wide with surprised, but he didn't move; he just kept observing the man. Himchan reached his hand and reassured with a heart melting smile, "Come on, trust me, I'm not going to heart you."
Jongup gazed at the hand doubtfully before slowly getting off the ground to his feet, always refusing to take the hand, and nodded. Himchan then grabbed Jongup's hand and pulled him closer to him, making the boy flinch in process, but he was quick to explain. "I've only got one umbrella, and it's raining really hard, you see."
Jongup's body was still tensed because of the proximity with the other man. He also didn't understand why he agreed on following this stranger, but at this point in his life, he had nothing to lose, so he just decided to put his trust into him because something about him was reassuring, almost calming.
On their way back to Himchan's building, there was another thunder as the sky roared sharply, making Jongup scream and jump onto Himchan, burying his face on the man's chest as his hands tightly gripped on his shirt. Himchan wanted to run a hand over Jongup's back soothingly to calm him down but in fear it might be too awkward or scare Jongup away, he resisted doing so, and just stood there under the rain, clutching the umbrella and letting Jongup hold onto him.
When Jongup had pulled away, he seemed highly embarrassed for doing this, but Himchan just bit back a smile and guided him to his apartment. Once they were inside, he had welcomed Jongup to go sit on the sofa while he went to the bathroom to bring some towels. He gave one to Jongup as he watched him take it shyly.
This was awkward for both of them; Himchan had never had any visitor before and Jongup was sitting inside a stranger's house at 1 o'clock in the morning. The silence was quite uncomfortable. "Would you like to change your clothes?" Himchan suddenly asked to break the silence.
Jongup pondered for a while before refusing, thinking he shouldn't cause any more trouble to this man who was already too kind to him. "I think you should; you're going to catch a cold otherwise," he said. "Wait, I'll be right back." And with that he had dashed out of the room, only to return back shortly with a set of pyjamas in hands. "I think they'd be slightly bigger, but it's not too bad. We can go buy you new ones tomorrow," he said scratching the back of his neck, as Jongup stared at him with wide eyes. Realizing what he said, he quickly added, "Well, if you want... I mean, you can stay here as long as you want if you have nowhere to go..."
Jongup kept staring at him for the longest time, and it was impossible for Himchan to distinguish the emotion on the boy's face until Jongup had broken into tears. Panicking, Himchan rushed over to his side, patting him. "Why are you crying? Did I say something wrong?" He asked, sort of afraid.
However, Jongup just fervently shook his head as he cried harder, as countless of "thank you" slipped past his lips.
Himchan tried to shush him and told him, "Hey, why don't you go change and I'll make us some coffee meanwhile and we can talk after, all right? Don't cry." He wiped Jongup's tears away with his thumbs before showing him the bathroom.
A smile stretched across his lips while he stirred the coffee. This was going to be a long night, and for the first time in his life, work wasn't the main and ultimate reason for him to stay awake all night.
AN: omg I'm so sorry for this. I don't know how it turned out; this bull is actually 1716 words but it still feels sort incomplete. But please still comment and tell me how it is. It's 2am so I understand if it's bad and full of typos lol
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