Finding Diamonds

“Does crying change anything?”  The boy asked, sounding amused as he took his time, darting closer to Jinhwan.

Jinhwan found himself backing away as he tried to recall how he is so familiar. He’s certain he’s seen him before. “Do I know you?” He asked, cautious and almost fearful. The boy surely made him feel unsafe in a way, but it also felt like he belonged there.

Jinhwan watched as a grave smirk mapped out into the boy’s face, his footsteps only stopping when he had the shorter boy cornered with no escape. “Do you even know anyone?” He questioned darkly, breath ghosting over Jinhwan’s face and his deep, husky voice filled Jinhwan’s mind like a cloud even when the world began shaking under his feet.

Jinhwan found shelter under the boy’s umbrella. He smelled smoke in the rain, and everything fell and crashed and burned in his periphery.

The boy pressed his body against Jinhwan’s and the latter clutched on his arm out of fear. He was cold, and he smelled like damp ground and antiseptic. He smelled like rain.

He couldn’t give him an answer but it didn’t seem like the boy was waiting for one.

An earthquake, or something equally destructive—Jinhwan thought, and the world continued to shake like it wouldn’t end. It was the only thing calming when he closed his eyes, and everything felt like they were breaking but that voice, those words—they stayed.

When he opened his eyes again, the rooftop was gone, and in front of him was the old library and the papery scent, not to mention a pair of eyes looking straight at him.

“Hyung,” Hanbin’s hand was on his shoulder, and Jinhwan recoiled his hand away from its place around the latter’s biceps that he didn’t know how got there, but at the same time, he wanted to wrap his arms around him.

“You’re crying,” Jinhwan didn’t miss how Hanbin’s eyebrows had a conversation as they met, and Jinhwan held his breath, because Hanbin had never been this close in so long and he still made Jinhwan feel the same twist in his gut, except now there was something else, something that hurt. Hanbin looked like he was genuinely concerned, and Jinhwan thought that wasn’t possible.

“A nightmare?” Hanbin asked as he thumbed away the tears. “You didn’t show up—Hongseok hyung said—I was worried,” Hanbin stumbled over his words, and after a half a moment, he asked, peering his head closer. “Are you okay?”

Jinhwan shook his head and turned away.

“I’m sorry,” Hanbin offered and Jinhwan shot him a pointed look before it quickly disappeared.

What for? He wanted to ask but got off the ground instead. Jinhwan gripped at Hanbin’s wrist to look at his watch, just like he used to. It read fifteen minutes past 1, and he broke off in a rush, muttering an ‘I’m late’. Hanbin followed after him.

“I don’t think you’re well enough to resume your classes,” Hanbin’s voice echoed in the hallway even as Jinhwan threaded up the stairs leading to his classroom.

“Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

“Right. I’ll meet you after school. I won’t take a no.”

Jinhwan stopped in his tracks and saw the smile lighting up Hanbin’s face, bright and expectant.

“See you,” Hanbin waved and Jinhwan gave him a small nod before he went about.

Jinhwan’s heartbeat was unstable when he took his seat next to Hongseok, and he had no idea why.

“Where were you?” the latter whispered under the teacher’s lecture on History.

“The library...I told you didn’t I,” Jinhwan didn’t bother raising his tone.

“I went there and I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

Jinhwan turned to him for a second before he darted his eyes back to the board. “Well, he did.”

“Who?”

“Him.”

And only then did Jinhwan realize that Hanbin was also late to his class, and it was his fault, no less.

“,” he muttered under his breath.

It was thirty minutes past dismissal and the campus was almost empty, Jinhwan could see from the classroom window. It was his duty to clean the classroom and so he purposefully asked Hongseok to go ahead while he stayed.

It felt