His limbs were heavy. As he tried to make his way to his room, he found it was more of a shuffle than a walk. His feet were cinderblocks that made a horrific grating sound against the wooden floors. In reality, it was just the sound of his slippers, but his ears weren’t working right. It was the slowest he’d ever moved, he was sure of it. And the longer it took to get there, the longer he had to deal with the sound.

His insides were drooping. It was as if, all this time, gravity had pulled a little harder on him and he was just now feeling the long-lasting effects. His heart was the most weighty. It threatened to drop through the floor and the ground below, but that wasn’t because of gravitational pull. Maybe the gravity of the situation, but not literally, of course. As he lowered himself onto his bed, he didn’t want to move just in case his bones snapped under the extra pressure. They were creaky enough; he didn’t need to see any more damage done. He was getting old—too old for all of this.

While everything else was heavy, his head was surprisingly light—too light to be comfortable. There was a sharp pain toward the back on his left side to accompany the throbs of frantic blood, but the space around it was weightless. He almost preferred the weight and pressure of the rest of his body. He couldn’t even lie still, eyes clamped shut, without feeling dizzy.

What were supposed to be the whites of his eyes were still pink, though they were working on fading back. After crying away all the moisture in them, they stung from being so dry. It was like his personal reservoir had dried up. There were no more tears to cry, even if he wanted to. Blinking didn’t help because the back of his eyelids felt the same as sandpaper and his eyelashes were still matted together.

There was still lingering emotion in the form of a lump at the back of his throat. He couldn’t swallow around it and found his breathing to be a little labored. The air had to fight its way around it—it was fighting a losing battle, obviously. He felt nauseous. He wished he could vomit up what was stuck in his throat, in his heart, on his mind.

Nothing was comfortable—not his clothes, the sheets, the pillow, or the mattress. He might just be feeling resentment toward the world, but taking it out on stupid things like that was easier than dealing with the real problems at hand. Even his skin felt tight on his body, especially on his cheeks where steady streams evaporated into nothingness from the waning warmth coloring them. He felt that he had some right to complain about that, but his feelings weren’t to be trusted, come to find out.

He was flustered and his thoughts didn’t come out right—not even in his head. There was a big jumble of this and that, and he wasn’t willing to put effort into undoing it at the moment. Let them settle. Once they became stagnant, he’d deal with it. For now, he just wanted to lay in the darkness and soak up the silence.

Silence had never disappointed him, neither had being alone. Silence was simple. It was when people, expectations, and feelings were added to the mix, did he get like this. This wasn’t like him—crying, brooding, doubting, and regretting were not in his nature—but those three things did it to him every time. He wasn’t used to coloring inside the lines and having the same feelings others had to deal with. He was supposed to be bubbly and care-free.

At the moment, he couldn’t even remember a time when those things were even relevant in his life. They seemed surreal at best—a concept he couldn’t quite grasp because his hands were wet with the tears he’d just wiped away.

He would just lay there for a while, repress everything that had happened, everything that overcame him, and come out smiling like he always did. He’d bury it down somewhere and apologize as if he’d done something wrong, just for the sake of peace. He’d smile real wide, smile like he meant it.

Jinki… Jinki was so, so tired.

He’d never been good at fighting with people, and this was no exception. No, this was definitely worse than fighting with just anyone. He was fighting with his whole world—his Kibum—and that’s why everything felt so wrong and it just hurt so much more. He knew holing himself up in their room was childish, but that’s what he was at heart—he was a child that didn’t have a handle on these things.

Jinki was passed being confused. His brain had long turned to a swampland’s equivalent and he was nearing disorientation. At the moment, he didn’t know if he should turn to the River Styx or the River Acheron in order to find Charon to ferry him over to the dark lands of hell, or maybe he was already there. The line between still being in pain and being dead was starting to blur, so he couldn’t be too sure. Left or right, it probably didn’t matter. He’d be stuck on the shores of either river because he didn’t have the proper fare, the proper knowledge, for the trip anyhow. There were no leads. Kibum made sure of that.

The man was a piece of work that Jinki didn’t know how to approach. He certainly didn’t know how to tell one line from the other. Madness, sadness, gladness—he was still on his way to figuring out the differences in patterns in the other’s eyes. He gave no outward hint at which one he was feeling at any given moment and Jinki never knew if he was crossing a line or drawing a new one.

He was a simple man that liked to say things outright. All the guesswork was taking a toll on him. He knew Kibum was waiting for him to figure it out, but he was running out of patience in the process. It was like the younger wanted Jinki to fight for him in a way, but he wasn’t going to make it easy in the duration. They both could only take so much.

He didn’t want to give up, though. Kibum didn’t want him to, either. They’d spent so much time together, built up so much. Kibum was too precious to him to let it all go because of this. He was determined to figure the other boy out; he just needed a lot more time than either one had originally thought. He needed to stop overreacting like he currently was and work harder, right? That would do it, right? He could enjoy the spoils of victory after everything was figured out, right?

He was desperate to get things back to how they were—simple and sweet.

And he was just so tired… So, so tired…

But even if there was no other route around this problem, Jinki was tired of the lack of help and hints. Shouldn’t this be a joint effort?

There was a creak at the other side of the room, a timid and prolonged sound, and then the darkness was breached by the light of the hallway.

The footsteps that followed sounded like the cinderblocks Jinki was lugging around himself. Kibum was just as upset as he was.

The mattress shifted with the change of weight and something warm was pressed to Jinki’s back. It was something familiar and should have been comforting, but the wetness near the back of his neck stopped it from being that way. Kibum hadn’t cried himself out yet, apparently.

The weight of his heart doubled when Kibum whimpered and fisted the back of his shirt.

“Jinki… Jinki, please. I’m sorry.”

Jinki was always impressed with Kibum’s ability to talk while crying. He couldn’t do it. It physically hurt to force words out when he wasn’t ready. The lump in his throat decided when he was allowed, always. Jinki just wished Kibum would use his words to help him figure out the things the younger expected him to know. If they came out easily when he was crying, just imagine the possibilities when he wasn’t; all the things he could know…

“Jinki… please.”

“What do you want me to say, Kibum? I don’t… I don’t know what to say.”

He didn’t mean to sound so defeated this time. There was no anger—only sheer exhaustion.

“I don’t know, either. Just turn around and we’ll figure it out, okay? I’m sorry.” There was a sniffle to punctuate each sentence that came out of Kibum’s mouth. Jinki would have thought it was cute, if the situation didn’t dictate otherwise.

The younger man pulled at him a little and hiccupped. Jinki knew he couldn’t hold out forever.

So he turned around and faced the problems he didn’t want to earlier.

Kibum looked a mess.

Blonde hair was sticking up on the side of the younger’s head, probably from where he pulled at it in frustration. Jinki understood. He also understood the swelling around his eyes and the way he gripped at the space his heart was hurting in his chest, the way the tears fell sideways as he laid there and the way his perfectly pink lip quivered when he wasn’t talking, too. He understood all of these things now, but why couldn’t it be this easy all the time? He couldn’t reduce Kibum to this state every time he wanted to know how the other was feeling. What the was he supposed to do?

Making no move to touch or comfort the trembling boy in front of him, Jinki did something he’d done a thousand times before—he asked a simple question and hoped for a simple answer.

“What are you feeling in this exact moment, Kibum? I need you to tell me. I can’t guess anymore.”

But it ended up the same as it always did. Nothing was simple. There existed only some bouts of silence broken up by more sniffling.

Kibum looked him in the eyes and Jinki felt his heart clench from wherever it was down in the underworld. It clenched and he could feel Kibum’s clenching somewhere nearby. He was thinking. Jinki had waited this long, so he figured a few more minutes couldn’t hurt.

The hand grabbing at Kibum’s heart moved to the spot where Jinki’s should have been, cold and trembling.

“I feel like I’m being a . Everything I say and do is so unfair to you, baby, and I’m not even sure how to apologize or change it. Our relationship shouldn’t be the guessing game I’m making it out to be. It only frustrates the both of us, doesn’t it? I’m selfish and difficult and I’m sorry. I don’t know how to make it any better than that and I’m sorry for that, too.”

Fresh tears spilled vertically from the most beautiful pair of eyes Jinki had ever seen, and that was it.

Limbs that felt stiff and brittle before worked extra hard to hold Kibum close as his body shook with the effort of crying. Jinki’s mind cleared as if a ray of light was shining through all that fog, breaking it up, and his heart lightened, the strings attached reeling it back into place from the depths of his own darkness.

They were both being so stupid.

Author's note: Just what you wanted, more Onkey angst (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧