#taehoon thread 1

it's hyunwoo's first week off in maybe years. like, actual time paid off, not because he had to study, or be bed ridden, or forced out of work due to bad habits. no, he had taken an actual paid holiday leave in an attempt to recover from the past few months of studying and working and studying and being a horrible fucking friend and flatmate. the thought makes him sighs as he looks at his phone to see how much of the timer has to go. he's baking salted caramel cupcakes for them.. well, mainly for taehoon, a quiet apology for the shit he had to deal with the past while. it's embarrassing, to an extend, at least hyunwoo finds it that way, some of the things he said and did from stress and anxiety and things pilling up.

he wasn't sure if it was worse because he was working full time on most days or nights and coming back straight to study or what, but he wasn't fully himself for way too long. he feels bad, it makes his cheeks and neck burn red with embarrassment just at the thoughts of how he was acting. he is so forever grateful that taehoon never took him too serious, at least he didn't smell like he did, hyunwoo can only hope that was actually the case.

he is sat in on the floor of the kitchen, in front of the oven and after a while, his gaze moves from the oven screen to his phone again to look at the time, it's decently late, dark outside and despite that, he hasn't bothered turning on any of the big lights. "wonder when he will be back." is all he mutters to himself as the timer finally rings and he pushes himself up with a heavy sigh. hyunwoo's not bothered about calling or checking in when his friend will come back home, because they are adults and worked odd schedules. so he busies himself for a while longer. he isn't the best cook, or baker for that matter, but he spend a good while on the cupcakes. batter and icing, salted caramel all the way. he knows that the cupcakes had a deceiving look, but they tasted great after he had one just to make sure nothing had gone wrong. the whole place smelled so sticky sweet, he is positive that taehoon will know about this from about a block away. oh well, surprise one way or another.

he puts the tv on, something to run in the background while he cleans up his mess. he is just finishing wiping the counters down (scentless cleaning products are a blessing the more he thinks about it) when he catches the smell of taehoon somewhere close, it's faint still, but it enough to make hyunwoo pause in his moves.. taehoon smells stressed, even from so far away it's easy to tell. hyunwoo physically feels like he deflates, ears dropping low and tail slowing down from the initial excited wags of his flatmate coming back home. taehoon's not doing well, wonders what's happened to cause that. did he miss it while he was going through his own mood swings?

he leaves the cloth and the spray on the counter top, he can deal with that afterwards. the tv gets turned off, the rest of the lights get turned off as well, leaving only one tall yellow light lamp in the corner as the main source of light. hyunwoo moves almost on auto pilot. they have lived together for long enough to know what to do, how to make things at least a bit easier for taehoon. he takes one final look at the shared living room and kitchen, debated if he should take whatever leftovers they had out of the fridge and re-heat them, but instead he makes his way to the front door, unlocking it before moving back further into the flat and leaning his shoulder against the wall.