martyrs & maniacs. | tbz jujae

27.

He remembers how the woman in front of them turned around to glare at Hyunjae for being loud, to which the latter just squeaked out a small apology before looking at Juyeon like he's about to burst out laughing again. Juyeon made sure to tuck that memory carefully in his brain.

Hyunjae's rehearsal starts at 2 PM, which means they still have about two hours left. Juyeon never wanted time to slow down so bad.

"I've been thinking about dyeing my hair." His friend starts after they found an unoccupied table. Juyeon silently steals their order's number from Hyunjae's hands to avoid it from being lost. He looks at his tawny locks. "Maintaining this color is so painful. I don't know how I even managed to last months with this."

"What color are you planning to do?"

Hyunjae shrugs. "I still don't know. Black, silver... something along those colors."

"I see." Juyeon nods. He tears his eyes away temporarily from Hyunjae to motion the waiter carrying their food to their location. "You always look good." He quickly returns his gaze to him. "I mean, no matter the hair color, you still look— yeah."

The blond man becomes silent. "...Thank you."

"No problem." Juyeon stammers, rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment. He focuses his attention somewhere to calm himself down and avoid showing Hyunjae how ridiculously flustered he became. It's a useless attempt though, because he felt his face burn even more upon hearing Hyunjae's next words.

"You always look good too."

♡

Hyunjae insists on walking Juyeon home before he attends his rehearsal, and Juyeon takes note of how the older man raises his voice in a whining tone the longer they argue. It makes him smile and finally agree to his insistence. Hyunjae lets out a cheer that, again, Juyeon files in one of the folders in his mind.

He doesn't know when it started, but all he knows is that he's been picking up even the smallest of Hyunjae's habits and mannerisms. He doesn't even try — he just unconsciously does it until Juyeon one day found himself knowing so much about his friend.

It feels weird to be walked home by someone. Back in his past relationships, he's always the one taking his lover home and not the other way around. This new arrangement makes Juyeon feel like he's being taken care of. It's such a small gesture, and yet it makes Juyeon feel special.

"Cold?" Hyunjae asks beside him, chuckling at the way Juyeon weakly nodded at his question. It wasn't this cold when he was on his way to the mall. He regrets not wearing his thickest pair of gloves. Juyeon's hands feel so cold.

"Well, who was the one who insisted that we hang out despite the weather? You're so stubborn."

Juyeon exhales, a small misty cloud escaping from his lips. "I just wanted to hang out."

"We could've just watched something in your living room and asked Younghoon and Eunseo to tag along."

To be honest? Juyeon never really considered that option. Well— he did, but only for a short second. Freezing due to going outside in winter in exchange of spending time with Hyunjae alone sounded like it was worth it in Juyeon's mind earlier that morning. And he still thinks the same despite his hands about to go numb.

"Yeah, but," Juyeon pauses. "Nevermind."

He sees Hyunjae throw him a confused glance at the corner of his mind, but he ignores it in favor of pointing out that they already arrived at Juyeon's apartment.

"Talk to you later?" He tries to say when Hyunjae walked him right in front of his door.

The older man just smiles, stiff and awkward. Juyeon furrows his eyebrows. "Hyung?"

It's freezing; Juyeon's pretty sure the weather forecast warned them about some sort of heavy snow, but he can't bring himself to enter his place and turn on the heater when Hyunjae looks like he wants to say something.

"You know how our club's doing our last musical production for this year?" The slightly shorter man presses his lips into a straight line, the corners moving every other second as if he's nervous about something.

"Yes? The premiere night is just a few days away, isn't it?"

Hyunjae laughs awkwardly. "Right. I'm just wondering if you want to watch me— I mean, the show again. I got the lead role again and I'm having another solo and even though it's short I still want to ask if you want to watch it again and since they started selling the tickets today I figured I should ask you before I rese—"

Juyeon places his mitten-covered hand in Hyunjae's arm. "Hyung." He laughs, amused, interrupting Hyunjae's word vomit. "I'd love to watch you perform, don't worry. And I'll be there even if you never asked me."

"Oh." Hyunjae's ears turn red because of the cold, probably. "Well, uhm, I actually reserved a front row seat ticket for you. I just need to persuade Jacob a little more for it to be free, though."

"I don't mind paying for it." Juyeon shrugs, lips still unable to stop themselves from forming a soft smile. Hyunjae mirrors his expression.

"How about Eunseo's and Younghoon-hyung's tickets, by the way?"

Hyunjae's smile drops. "Oh shit. I forgot about them."

Juyeon can't count how many times Hyunjae endeared him today. "I'm sure they haven't sold out all the other front row seats. Don't fret about it."

"I hope so. Well... I should get going then."

"Thank you for walking me home."

"No problem." Hyunjae waves him goodbye, and soon he's on his way to the location of his rehearsal. Juyeon enters his own apartment after seconds of watching Hyunjae's disappearing figure, but not before biting his bottom lip to suppress a smile when he heard the other boy shout at him, "I had a lot of fun with you today!"

Juyeon's cheeks already hurt with the number of times he smiled today.

Me too.

I hope moments like this, with me and you, will never end.