Lavender Bubbles °• Changjin

○ 53 ○

"You can go home."

Hyunjin tapped the top of Changbin's head resting on the edge of the stiff hospital bed, his other hand busying itself with squeezing down on the fingers laced together. The grip help tightly, palm pressed to palm, interlocking in an unbreakable knot as the older feared to let go, feared to move his hand away from where their clutch rested in the young businessman's lap. As the older shifted his gaze up from the pillow of his arms to stare up at Hyunjin, a delicate set of fingers found themselves combing through his hair. Easing into the strands as he comforted him, "I'm feeling better, honestly."

Changbin huffed, flopping his head back onto the makeshift pillow of his arm as the fingers kept brushing his hair around. Their demure touch scraping delicately into his scalp, sparking an ease into his nerves. Cheek rubbing down into the muscle below, feelings it's tense ache tingling numb at the uncomfortable angle his joints locked their bend into. He must have been laying there for a while; Judging by the lights in the room acting as their guide, the sky outside a stark haze of a midnight hue covered by the glow of the city outside. He must have been laying like that for a long time, considering he couldn't feel his arm, or the bend of his legs in the uncomfortable chair, or his lower back with the angle he had to sit in to be with Hyunjin.

It would be a cold day in Hell before he openly admitted any one of those things to Hyunjin.

He was not about to complain to the puppy about his discomfort when those glittety eyes literally had a needle shoved up into his veins and a few hundred beeping machines monitoring him as if he was the newest biology experiment in a top secret science lab. One of them was in a far more difficult situation, and news flash: It wasn't him. Nor his nerves falling asleep. Nope.

He could deal with numbness for a few minutes more.

"You need to learn how to do journalling or something. Find a way to manage your stress," Changbin lectured him steadily, occupying himself from the aching muscles by playing with the hand bundled tightly in his.

Pressing each of his fingertips into the back of the gentle hand, adding pressure one by one before releasing their grasp out, squeezing each of the digits between his fingers, rubbing his thumb into the back of the hand, each motion ensuring he learned more of the younger's elegant fingers. Mapping and memorizing their patterns while he held him in the loving snuggle, relishing in the details they offered as they fit perfectly into his own hand. Slotting together. As if they were missing pieces to the other's open and incomplete puzzle. Though that metaphor was typically overdone; Instead, him thinking, as if Hyunjin was peanutbutter and Changbin was jelly and their hands were a sandwich.

Though he quickly scoffed and slapped himself mentally, Seo Changbin that is the dumbest fucking thought you'd ever had.

"I feel like I don't have time to manage my stress," Hyunjin argued back to him in a gentle tone, his hand loosening up from their grip as they found his head. The older tipped his eyes back to him, watching as his hands rubbed at his forehead, voice low in a mutter, "I hate this. I was in the middle of a meeting too."

Changbin would be damn lying if he said his heart didn't pang at the other's insistence. He would be fooling himself and his own stupid little love for the younger if he said he didn't ache while taking in the deflated appearance, the way his body melted entirely into the support of the mattress and puffy pillows holding him from completely slipping away. And if not for their support keeping him up, who knows where Hyunjin would be. Weeks of chest pain? Weeks of knowing his body was falling apart beneath his fingertips, and neglecting to have someone check him? Weeks of not having the time to go to a doctor or someone? Weeks of Changbin noticing something wasn't right and not doing more for him? Why didn't he keep pressing? How could Hyunjin ever forgive him?