Notorious ⊷ Haechan

42 ⊷ Circles

⊷ 42

Ji-yoon grabbed Haechan's hand.

"You brought me up here," she mumbled tiredly. "You can't leave now."

"Then what do you want me to do?" he asked carefully, then watched as Ji-yoon scooted to the side and made space for him to lie down. She pulled at his hand.

"Join me."

"I am not tired though," he argued, making her sigh.

"You are difficult," she muttered under her breath, too tired to properly argue with him or try to sway him whatsoever. "Then leave."

Did he hear her right?

Baffled, he wondered, "You aren't going to try and convince me?" It would be a first.

"I'm too tired," she simply said in return and loosened her grip around his hand. But she was the only one holding on, so when she let go, nothing stopped her arm from falling down.

Nothing - not until Haechan decided that he didn't want her to slip past his fingers like this. He grabbed har hand just before it could fall.

"I'll stay," he said quickly before he intertwined his fingers with hers. He sat down on the bed, eyes on the girl that watched him curiously. "I am staying, so just sleep."

A smile tugged at her lips. It was impossible to hold it back, yet it vanished before it could properly show itself since the moment she knew he'd stay, she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Mere moments, not much longer, and she was already gone.

Haechan watched her, torn between feeling content to see her sleeping and unhappy that she was this tired to begin with.

"She must've been exhausted," he whispered to himself as he used his free hand to push her hair behind her ear.

Her chest rose slowly, her lips touched only barely as shallow breaths streamed past them. The only light in the room came from the sunlight that fell inside through the tall windows. Its orange tint made her skin look less pale and drenched the room in warm colours.

Ji-yoon wasn't usually this calm and the scene wasn't usually this simple. Ji-yoon was loud and vibrant and hard to read. It wasn't easy to tell when she was serious and when not.

Getting to look at her like this really just helped confirm how he felt. When there were no distractions and when he wasn't busy keeping his guard up or trying to read her, it was almost as if he was drowning in the heavy beats of his heart and the craving to never let her out of his sight.

It was so easy to tell now, yet remained hard to admit.

Something kept bothering him and he couldn't get rid of it no matter how hard he tried. Maybe that was why he was still looking for her - not Ji-yoon but whoever she used to be.

Whoever she was had long vanished. Whatever life she lived had already faded. Pictures. Memories. Scars.

He knew that was all that was left of the past but not knowing how these pictures came to be, not knowing what was in these memories, not knowing who caused those scars... he couldn't feel at ease with all these questions on his mind.

As he thought about that, his eyes found her phone that was lying on the bedside table. He reached for it, unlocked it.

He had guessed her password a while ago. It wasn't very surprising to him.

"But if you want to try another way," Jaemin said, "there is one person - besides her brothers - that knows her name."

He opened her contact list.

He shouldn't.

It was better not to.

He couldn't help it though.

Conflicted yet he still scrolled down until he reached the contact.

"BBQ..." he whispered to himself, still confused by the name.

He didn't know what he had expected or what he was going for. He didn't want to read their messages, he didn't want to call him to see if he would pick up.

He decided to just save his number for now.

So Haechan grabbed his own phone while he placed Ji-yoon's on his knee. He had only one hand to do this all, so he gave his best to be swift about this.

He typed the first few numbers.

The next ones.

Then he stopped.

He wasn't done typing the number and he wasn't going to continue either.

"I think it's someone we know though. No one from Dream - that I would have noticed." He tilted his head from side to side. "But she said she sees him all the time."

Haechan's eyes were glued to the name that popped up underneath the number that shone on both, his and Ji-yoon's phones. It was just his phone's suggestion. A quick note that essentially said,

Hey the number that you are typing in right now is already saved on your phone.

And when his eyes landed on the name the number is saved under he whispered nothing but, "Him?" He wasn't sure himself whether or not he was surprised by the name.

Then again he didn't know whom he had expected.

He put their phones away, looked at Ji-yoon. One question less, yet another had been added.

It was bizarre. Looking at her was...

Looking at her was all he wanted.

He moved closer, dragged his legs up on the bed and lay down next to her.

All of a sudden, Ji-yoon hummed as she moved closer to the boy. She opened her eyes a little.

"Oh," Haechan exhaled in surprise, voice barely above a whisper. "Did I wake you?"

She nodded, yet quickly added, "It's fine."

She pulled her hand away from him, fingers slipping past his as she got out of his grip. He looked down, surprised to feel her pull away - until he noticed her slide her hand between his arm and waist. She moved a little closer, so that their noses were almost touching, her hand on his back.

Eyes on her arm at first, he let it travel up after that until his gaze met hers. She looked at him carefully, inspected his brown orbs and his features. He seemed relaxed.

"Is that okay?" she asked softly as she drew a small circle over his back with her index finger.

He offered her a smile as he moved his arm over to her, his fingertips brushing over her back until he reached her neck, then the back of her head. He placed it there gently, ran his thumb up and down.

"Mhm," he confirmed with a hum, his smile jumping over to Ji-yoon's lips. A deep breath, eyes already closing again. "Sleep well."

With two fingers she grabbed Haechan's shirt, trapping it loosely between her fingertips before falling asleep.

Circles ⊶