lucas is warm, and it has nothing to do with wook.

the world is quiet, the night young, the air humid like a thick, damp blanket that hangs overhead. such is a hallmark of mid-summer seoul. there's a little stumble in his step, a little slur in his speech. lucas hadn't intended to drink this much, but he couldn't let a friend drink alone—not when he was the one who dragged said friend out under the guise of letting loose, just for a bit, just for tonight.

he doesn't know how they got here—here, being in the middle of an empty road, orange street lamps lighting their way back to wook's. a car comes with its headlights flashing. lucas laughs as he pulls wook back onto the sidewalk. he jokes about saving him, as if it wasn't his fault that they're on the road in the first place. ( when's the last time you did something risky? you gotta get yourself out there. c'mon, trust me. )

they make it back to wook's place in one piece.

lucas reaches the door first. he tries his keys—realizes they are, in fact, his keys—and turns back to his dear companion, who currently has his hands full with two bags of convenience store snacks ( no guesses to whose idea that was ). "hold on, i got you." the smarter, more obvious course of action would be to take the bags from wook, but logic and rationality knows nothing next to a less than sober lucas.

he steps closer, tilts his chin up, and smiles at wook all sweet. for a moment, it looks as if he wants to say something, as if he's about to let wook in on a secret—he's but a fool to think that he can hide anything from the person who knows him best. his hand slips into wook's front pocket, and there, it remains for a moment more as he searches wook's eyes for— ... something. anything.

( you're getting too close, that small voice in his head whispers. do you want him to die? do you want to make that sacrifice? )

"ta-da ~" lucas singsongs as if he pulled wook's keys out of thin air. no need to take a bow. he turns back around to open the door, and once inside, he flicks on the hallway lights, shucks the keys onto a random countertop, announcing, "home, sweet home."

is that what this place is?