Mission Wall-E || Jakehoon

Seventeen: Little Things

Heeseung snorted and rolled his eyes, trying to call the lost male again. Like Sunghoon would get a tattoo. Sure he never mentioned anything about getting or not getting them, but he definitely didn't seem like the type of person. He was just so... reserved?? And tattoos are kind... out there?? Especially in Asia. That's what they all thought.

"No. I seriously doubt it. I think the music store would be a lot more reasonable. Is there like a cafe around here? He has a coffee fixation of some sort."

Vanilla ice coffee. He always gets that. Not matter where they are and no matter what the brand. He doesn't like hot coffee because he likes the sound of the ice cubes against his cup and he likes how the jar always is colder than his hand, which he finds refreshing.

The boy and girl shook their heads and walked down the sidewalk again. This all was just weird. If there wasn't anything around here that he'd be interested in then what was the likelihood of him being here still? Maybe he dipped to the next town over.

"Maybe he is in a different place? Like where is there nearest city?" Mumbled Jake through a closing throat, picking at his nails. "It's been like, what, eight hours since we last saw him?"

"It's way too far. It's gonna be midnight soon and everyone is closing already. His phone probably just died and he crashed somewhere and he'll call us in the morning. I think we just need to call it a night, and I'll call the police so they can look while we are sleeping. And we'll check the music store and a few other places and talk to Bam before we go."

Everyone nodded, some more reluctantly than others. Except for Jake. He couldn't do that. No way. Not when Sunghoon could be literally dying right now. But he'll wait it out until they actually stop for the night.

One time his dog ran away in the middle of the night because someone left the fence open. And they searched all day, and right on their last run of the neighborhood, they found her.

But Sunghoon isn't a dog. Sunghoon has worries and has fears that probably run way deeper than that of a dog do. And he really wishes he could just be there to comfort him if he was scared or hurt. He never said it, but he knows he's slightly scared of the dark. He holds his hand more when it's nighttime. This whole thing was driving him up the wall.

And it got worse. No one had seen him at the music shop. Or the five other gift shops. And no one talked to him at the hair place or dollar store.

"Isn't he on end shift?"

"Yeah, I talked to him the morning."

There it was. A blue and black shop with see-through windows reading a sign labeled "black lotus" and "closed" in the neon letter. The last stop. But no one was in it. Sunghoon was not found like his dog. And he was three seconds from a breakdown. And no one wanted to be the first to say that was the end until tomorrow.

"Dude where the hell are you? I'm outside of lotus, it's not closing time for another fifteen minutes."

"Why are you speaking to me in Korean all of a sudden, Ten? Wait- isn't this Lisa's phone?"

Jake's eyes darted around nervously. The shop looked dead, but it put him off in a weird way. Why were they having no luck right now? Out of all nights, someone who could possibly help them, wasn't in the place they were meant to be at. Instead, his place of work looked like a graveyard as his voice played out the speaker of a phone. And actually, he believed if Sunghoon would be anywhere it would have been here. He's impulsive. What's more impulsive that a tattoo?

"Yes. I'm with some friends that are here from Korea and they lost their friend. We were wondering if you've seen him?"

"...what's his name?"

"Sunghoon."

The line went silent and Ten looked up, waiting, and confused at the shuffling on the other side of the call. Jake personally found the silence terrifying and just wished the guy would say he hadn't seen him and get it over with already so he could get back to his endless stream of irrational streams of worry already.

With the small moment of silence came the intense beating against his chest of broken china and all that came with it. Including waking up from a dream and wondering where the boy he always dreamed about went that one day. The dream where the boy never came back. He shivered. That quite literally was the worst part of the dream, every time. No matter how many times he had it.

"Hello?"

Everyone jumped at the new voice and scrambled to the phone, taking it from Ten who had a surprised face from the way everyone suddenly came towards him.

"Sunghoon?! What the shit, is that you?"

"...yes."

"Where are you?!? Jake was like negative five minutes from filing a missing person report!"

"I'm just at the airport. Bambam drove me."

Sunghoon's voice was tired and quieter than usual. And different in ways that were more slow. Jake could tell with just one sentence.

"Why?"

"Um... it's hard to explain."

"Then explain."

The line went quiet for a moment. And they heard a sigh, making Jake finally go forward and take the phone. He knew he sounded nervous, and Sunghoon doesn't like big crowds of people all asking him questions. He took note of it at Hanbin's 'interview session' at his place.

He pressed the speaker off and brought the phone to his ear.

"Hey, Hoon it's Jake. You're off Speaker... Are you going back home?"

"No."

"You can go home if you want to though. We'd understand."

"Jake. I'm not going home."

"Oh okay.... then why are you at an airport with someone who works at a tattoo shop?"

Quiet again.

"You don't have to tell me! It's okay if you don't want to, we just want to make sure you're safe cause we care about you, okay?"

Everyone was looking at Jake. All with suspense and impatience deep within their faces. But seriously, he didn't want to rush him. He could deal with it.

But a choke caught his attention. Not the one where Heeseung eats his rice too fast. Or the one where Jay laughs too hard. But the one he heard the last time that Sunghoon was at an airport. The choking of a sob.

His head moved around to his friends. Panic going back into him.

"Hoon? Hoonie it's okay. I'm not forcing you. You don't have to say-"

"Can you just come h-here? I have to stay here till four."

"Yeah, yeah of course, of course," Jake said, softly, trying to not show how panicked he was.

The last time he'd seen Sunghoon cry he just felt like he had to take care of him. It hurt to see. But now it really really hurt. And he couldn't even see him directly. But just the image in his head of his eyes red and swollen, hand in his cheeks trying to hide from everything and everyone, felt like a personal offense. And it made him tilt his own head up and blink to dry his own eyes, before bringing it back down.

"We'll be there in a little."

"Thank you."