RECKLESS.

He appears at Baekhyun’s door, somewhere between disheveled and an utter mess. He fists up a hand ready to knock when the door opens without it, to a Baekhyun who pulls him in without question. Even if Baekhyun doesn’t ask, Jack’s the one answering: 

“I didn’t know where else to go.” 

When Baekhyun’s finally got his eyes on him, he smiles and something hurts. 

“I didn’t have anywhere else to go but here.”

Time moves so slow, and whether it’s the alcohol or how at home he feels next to Baekhyun, he isn’t sure of. The neither of them have said anything beyond his couple epiphanies at the door mat – and yet the quiet is comfortable, one he finally remembers how to breathe in. He’s got his head on Baekhyun’s thighs, laying there because he wouldn’t have it anywhere else but. His eyes are closed, even if he can feel Baekhyun constantly scoping his face, looking for answers to the way he’s not Jack today, but someone unfamiliar.

When he opens his eyes, Baekhyun meets it, unafraid and ready. It’s Jack that’s not ready for it, the confrontation of conversation. “My mom’s in jail.” When it admits it, his own voice rings in his head and the words in itself seem humorous. A joke. Cynical. He surveys Baekhyun’s face, but there’s not an ounce of judgement; just willingness, and the closing of proximity – Baekhyun’s language of asking him to continue. “Remember I told you my mom’s pretty big and important? Well. She’s the president. Well, ex-president now. Yeah. I know. You think I’m drunk.” He’s laughing but it’s never really what a laugh is supposed to mean. At it, Baekhyun shifts on the couch, and places one of his hands on Jack’s forehead. At it, Jack lulls, his body and mind doing the same.

“She hates me. And I don’t like her that much either. I mean, come on. What she did was fucking terrible. She was so corrupt. She always was.” He speaks half with his hands, arms always in motion and too active. Even with how nimble he is, Baekhyun remains calm, unruffled. “But she’s still my mom at the end of the day. She always was.”

His voice trails somewhere else, and he quiets, the room quieting with him. Somehow, Baekhyun’s place seems much smaller today, while the world seems so vast outside his very door. Everything is happening too much, and he’s not ready for any of it.

“Hey Baek?” His words slur, the alcohol still affecting his speech. “Don’t find me weird or anything when I tell you this but… I was with so many people today. People that liked me and some that despised me… and so many in between. I met so many new people and there were just so many bodies surrounding and around me…” He closes his eyes once more, relaxing to the circles that Baekhyun draws on his chest. “But it didn’t feel like it. Among all the people… all I could think about was how you weren’t there. Your absence. I almost felt lonely. It was so strange. There were so many people… and yet none of them were you.” Baekhyun’s fingers cease, and Jack holds a breath the same way. “And yet here, I feel so…”

He exhales. “Not alone. With.” He breathes. “With.”

The next time he opens his eyes, he tugs at Baekhyun to lay with him. When he settles, he’s pulling Baekhyun into his chest, arms surrounding him. “You’re the only place I know to go, Baekhyun.“

“And that’s okay.” Baekhyun whispers, almost for the first time that night. Jack remains, still, unmoving – his hands no longer so jittery, and his heart steadfast. 

There’s a quiet that tethers him here, solemnly, and surely. 

Baekhyun’s exhales in between his inhales are the only bit that serve as a reminder that time continues to move on. That the night continues to live on, without a care about how many still lie awake, for no particular reason one can pinpoint.

“Jack, you don’t understand.” He tries to catch him, but Baekhyun slips right between the spaces of his fingers, and leaves him steps behind. “I’m sorry, but you don’t.” Baekhyun’s shoulders shrug, as if defeated, his palms and eyes all closed like he’s trying to keep everything out and ten feet away. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but you just can’t understand. God, I sound like an asshole but that’s just how it is, Jack. Please.” He’s not sure what to say. He never does; never has.

“Can we talk about it, at least?” It’s a request, and his voice shakes with it, his hands pleading with him; the body earnestly asking for some kind of absolution of conversation.

Baekhyun looks at him and they’re with eyes he’s never seen before. His gaze cuts him in two, right down and across where it matters the most. “My issues are going to go away in a day. They aren’t – they just, aren’t, Jack.” Baekhyun’s eyes drop from him, and a smile graces his face instead. It’s the kind that doesn’t sit right, an antithesis to it’s purpose. 

“I’m sorry.”

(…)

“Are you asleep?” His voice is tender, with no strength to his words. “Did you finally fall asleep, Baekhyun?” Everything feels out of place (the clock ticking, the rumbling thunder outside the window, himself – Baekhyun), even here, where things shouldn’t. “Well that’s a relief. That’s…” The air presses up on him all too much, and it forces him to stand. “…good.” His steps fumble towards the speakers just a few meters away from where Baekhyun sleeps, as he grabs the ipod sitting besides it. He scrolls through artists he’s all too familiar with now, all thanks to no one but Baekhyun, and settles on the song he looks for from the beginning.

(–So much is going on / But you can always come around / Why don’t you sit with me for just a little while? / Tell me, what’s wrong?)

He lowers the volume until the music is static in his background, letting the tune filter in and out of focus to it’s own accord. When he returns to where Baekhyun sleeps, he isn’t sure if it’s his own wishes altering perception, but he swears that Baekhyun looks more comfortable. He walks over till he’s right besides him, taking a seat once more. Here he observes Baekhyun’s face, and how the light doesn’t seem to dare touch him, like it is afraid, of something even it doesn’t know. 

He doesn’t mean to, but a sigh escape him, before he bows his head against Baekhyun’s hand. His forehead touches at his knuckles, brushing over them while he tries not to notice how his hands seem to hold the slightest tremor to them. He tries not to notice it as much as he’s tried his best to look away from the way Baekhyun’s been touching his lips one too many times this month, or rubbing along his neck. All like a child, afraid of something he doesn’t know. 

Will never understand.

“You keep saying your problems aren’t going to go away.” He doesn’t lift his head when he speaks, because suddenly everything is so heavy. There’s something pressing against his chest, and another thing pushing at the skirts of his skin. When he feels the sun on his back warming up his skin, it’s the only reminder to pick his head up. But it’s enough.

(–You say the world, it doesn’t fit with you / Why don’t you talk to me for just a little while? / I can only try to make it right)

His hand’s in Baekhyun’s; not because he was curious about the way his own would fit into the other’s spaces, but more so because he wants to remember how to touch him before it’s even a second too late. The city’s pressing on them a little too much, the chill of fall his only excuse in the way his hands are still in motion, unable to keep still.

His lips open a few times, then close, because he can never find the right words to say. Maybe Baekhyun sees the ghost of his breath every time he does, because he laughs, and squeezes his hand a few times. He feels Baekhyun’s pulse, wrist-to-wrist, for a split second, and he tries to sever the feeling to memory. “There’s nothing that you can do. You’ve done enough.” Their hands part and soon he’s stopped his feet, when Baekhyun continues walking. “Thank you, Jack.” Even now, his lips stay parted, breaths hitching with his chest rising and falling all too quick, uselessly.

“I’ll see you next weekend.”

[message received, wednesday 3:58am] 응.

[message received, saturday 12:38 am] 어딨어?

on a thursday evening, jack drags baekhyun through a busy crowd.

“coffee is the answer. it’s always the answer.”

with the promise of escaping the cold, they take a shortcut into an alleyway and spill out onto the neighboring block. baekhyun feels out of place for laughing, but he does anyway, because it’s in this split second of a moment where everything, for once, seems okay.

(emotions come in fragments: relief, complacency, regret. all too quickly. all too overwhelming.)

once they reach the cafe, there’s only enough room to stand in line and wait, so they grab their drinks and head back outside. jack burns his upper lip and baekhyun wipes the foam from his skin, and everything becomes wordless from there. 

the silence is only a bookmark of where they left off on since last time. baekhyun keeps his shoulders narrow and palms clasped tightly around his cup to reinforce the lingering space between them, to render it existent and evolving, to magnify a constant gravity pressing him down. and it feels like everything is stuck moving in slow motion as if the earth is coming to a halt from its orbit. his eyes strain to keep up. his feet drag across the sidewalk like they’re planted in drying cement. because heaviness is a side effect of everything he couldn’t say to stay alive.

[message received, saturday 1:06 am] 변백현. 지금 어딨어? 빨리 대답해줘…

without looking, he can see the outline of an uneasy face plagued by doubt. it’s hard to tell what jack’s feeling, but it’s easier to assume that the thought is corresponding from the other side.

“you don’t have to act that way around me, jack.” baekhyun purses his lips in hesitation before glancing up with what feels like a smile, but it hurts just the same. just as much. he reaches out to wrap his fingers around jack’s hand as a token of reassurance, and the warmth that seeps through his skin settles his heart just a little bit. just enough. streetlights tune out the sky as they pass by them, and dusk watches over the city with caution as the remaining strains of sunlight begin to fade.

“i know.”

[message sent, saturday 1:08 am] 집.

“because nothing’s going to change.”