As much as Sunghoon liked Jake, and how he seemed to just know things, how he could look at a person and tell exactly what they were thinking and feeling without having to examine their body language like a science experiment, how he just got 'it'(whatever 'it was), he didn't like how he sometimes assumed things. Sure, assuming was natural, cause certain actions usually meant or showed certain feelings. It just makes sense. But however, it's just sometimes Jake couldn't look at the broader picture. Just like now. He heard Sunghoon say a few words back inside, and automatically put a label onto what they meant inside his head. Just because he assumed that he 'knew'. When really there could be thousands and thousands of other labels that could have been put on those words he said. Inside Jake's head, he would go with what just seemed right and didn't explore those thousands of other possible rights.
"Are you okay? I know that you don't really like confrontation-"
"No, I'm fine, okay. The confrontation had nothing to do with this."
"Oh, I just thought that's why you got so upset."
Sunghoon scoffed and kicked at a little brown rock beside the shoes he put on seconds after Jay had demanded he'd go outside. Which he was also quite annoyed with. He didn't see the point in talking with someone to calm down, when talking is what got him acting like this in the first place. Why add more of the inevitable miscommunication that came from two human brains? He'd honestly rather be by himself so he could sort his head out, but he knew it would just stress everyone out. Which was his struggle currently.
It was like this back home too. Whenever he'd get slightly annoyed, his mother and father would push and push for him to talk about why, then assume why he wasn't talking. They'd say 'you can't shut down every time someone says something to you that you don't want to hear'. Which he totally agrees with. But it just wasn't the case for him. He was fine with hearing such things like 'you need to do the dishes more often' or 'you can't keep skipping practice', and yes even Jay saying he was pushing Jungwon too hard. Because they were all true. It's just the illogical assuming of his feelings and intentions that would come with it that made him want to shut down and not talk. If his parents had just asked him why he wasn't doing the dishes instead of assuming he was being selfish and not considerate of everyone else in the house (which really hurt if he were to tell the truth), they would have found out that he had just been so nervous and cloudy headed about nearly every aspect of his life at the time, that he couldn't even notice that the kitchen was messy for the two minutes he had been in it. And they hadn't even asked him to do them in the first place, they just wanted him to 'know when to do them'. He really just thought that if they wanted him to clean the kitchen they should have just asked because he's not good at the 'knowing'. The gut feeling of assumption will usually just back up and help guide his logic, not start it like everyone thinks it should. But not once did his parents ask. It's not like he even tried to tell them though. It was a miscommunication on both parts, and he'll admit that.
He just didn't like people trying to read him. Because usually, the reading went wrong. He always feels like an open book, having eyes on him all the time. He'd be okay if people read the words on the pages of his skin correctly, but they never do. The pages were written in a language only he seemed to know. Even Jake doesn't know the said language. He might understand the alphabet, but not the vocabulary. Cause Jake assumes. And even if Sunghoon likes him, and spent several minutes zoned out by the way his lips (pink and soft with mint chapstick that Jay loaned him) curved around the words of the songs he, Heeseung, and Jungwon sung at the stream across the road from Ten and Lisa's house, he still hated him assuming.
Right now Sunghoon could feel Jake looking and attempting to read his pages. And Jake didn't look at the words and realize he didn't know the language, he looked at them and assumed they were English or Korean for some reason. And Sunghoon wanted to snap his book shut and continue kicking the small rocks that made up the driveway in peace. The boy he like's eyes may be beautiful, but they still felt like hot coals against his cold skin.
"Was it Jungwon not telling you about-"
"No."
"How about-"
"Nothing! I'm okay, geez. I'm just feeling the basic human emotion that is not being able to communicate my confusion correctly because I never actually get into these types of discussions with people because I avoid them cause nearly everyone on this planet assumes shit! I'm just annoyed at the general population, not someone calling me out on how much of an asshole I'm being right now. I knew what I was doing before Jay even said it."
"Oh well, that's-"
"Can we just be quiet? If we talk now I'll get angry at you too."
"Well, you kind of already are."
"Exactly."
Sunghoon's hands reach down to pick up one of the rocks. His thumb rubbed over its slightly smooth surface. His eyes traced over it and onto his hands. It was now silent and he could only really hear his own breathing and the gentle wind pushing past him and Jake. He counted over all his senses.
Sight. The rock. It was darker and more grey than most of the others. It seemed suiting of his mood. It stood out, but it also was still a bit plain and boring. He thought about the colour in his sight. He liked grey. Others might not, but he somehow put it together in his head that it was special. It was black with a hint of white. It was dark with a hint of light. Sadness with a touch of hope. He liked it. Of course his favourite colour of indigo though. As he always just assumed it's what he as a person was. He assigned personalities to different colours and shades, and indigo just felt right. He didn't put logic behind it like most other things, he just went with it somehow making sense. He 'assumed' he had an indigo personality.
Hearing. His breath. It was a little shallow but still calm. The birds sitting on trees, talking to each other, probably assuming what the tones of their chirps meant since they really had no real set definitions. Unless somehow birds were more advanced intellectually than we think. He hears the stream across the street too. He remembers how Jungwon, Jakes, and Heeseung voices moulded together in a song. The emotions in each of their thoughts had caught up to his ears. Each voice sounded a bit different. Each had an underlying hurt.
Sunghoon wonders why each of them sounded so sad singing that song. Maybe because the song itself was sad. But now that he recalls the sense of hearing how soft and defeated Heeseung's voice sounded, as he leaned on Ten's shoulder, he can also feel the sense of sight crawly back in.
'In another life. I would be your girl.' That lyric of the stupid Katy Perry song that they all chose to sing for the third and second to last song of the night before they all went to bed yesterday, sounded breathy. And the low volume of 'hearing' collided with the loud sight of 'seeing' that was his oldest friend holding his own hands in the bright hoodie he was wearing, and the also (maybe even more) loud sight of him staring at Jay's hands that were passing in and out of the stream in front of his feet while listening to the three songs.
'All this money can't buy me a time machine' That lyric is when he heard and saw Jungwon. He didn't have much emotion in his 'hearing', it was more of a reflective tone that. One that caged himself in. He seemed calm, but the 'seeing' of his own arms being wrapped around his body, pinching at the fabric covering his arms was curiosity inducing.
And the lyric that his senses focused onto Jake, who looked like he had mixed with the moon shining on his skin, 'We'd keep all our promises. Be us against the world', sounded both mournful and hopeful. His eyes seemed not particularly sad, but not happy by any means. And his smile didn't fit the tune of the song.
But he came back to the present, forgetting the song from earlier, and came back to his senses. It smelled like earth. That's all he could really label for that sense, but it seemed to envelop his entire body just like how Sunoo hugged him the last time he'd seen him. He momentarily wondered what his best friend was doing, before dismissing the thought.
Taste. He still had leftover remnants of the flavour of the breakfast that Jay made them, that he didn't get to finish at his own fault. It tastes familiar. He's had his breakfast made by him many times before. But now it made him feel guilty, cause as he was taking note of his senses and how they made him feel (something he didn't normally do), his head filled with nothing but how aggravating and annoying he was being towards the male.
Touch. The last of his five basic senses. The rock between his fingers. Smooth. And don't forget the touch of Jake reaching to hold his wrist, and rubbing at the small bone that poked out below his thumb before it disappeared.
All five senses then seemed to join. His sight told him Jake was standing up, and that he looked ethereal (a word he never really thought he'd ever use to describe a person) within the sunlight that fell on top of his skin and hair. His sight also said he looked good in the shirt that revealed his shoulders and arms, even when his hearing earlier in the morning told him that he felt shy wearing it. Smell, the shampoo Jake uses briefly reaching his nose from the movement of him standing before it left. Touch, nothing anymore. Just his fingers on a rock that Jake stared at before mumbling "I'll be back" and leaving the steps on the front porch they'd both been sitting on.
Sunghoon felt better after naming his senses. He wasn't so angered about the assuming people did. But naming his surroundings brought him back to sanity, and he then realized he assumed things too. He assumes that everyone assumes.
"Where are you going?" He asked, words feeling heavy and thick.
Jake's feet travelled back to the steps and touched his hair just like he'd seen Jay do to Heeseung before everything happened at the breakfast table. He smiled. It seemed a little forced but still genuine and caring.
"Just give me a moment, okay?"
Then he was gone.
Sunghoon was back with senses, and Jake was no longer a part of them. He didn't feel worried or sad about it though. He understood if he wanted to leave. He himself wouldn't really want to be around someone who completely dismissed a conversation that needed to happen. He could have at least told him he needed a moment to calm down before talking, instead of just saying that he didn't want to talk at all. Or to at least imply that.
Having someone else, or multiple someone else's in his life was odd he decided as he went back to naming his surroundings. He now had to worry why Jungwon didn't want to tell him things. He had to worry if he was alright. And he had to deal with the possibility that he could be lying to him about some things, with the way he was acting. He now had to wonder if he had missed things about Heeseung and Jay's friendship, despite how much he thought he correctly had analyzed the two of them. And most of all, he had to keep track of how his own emotional unavailability and avoidance of needed communication made Jake feel. He knows Jake gets worried about others easily, but he still talked to him like that. With the harsh tone. The second side of the hurricane, he supposes.
"Here."
He looked up once again and set the rock in his hand down. Jake's hand was extended to him, implying he wanted Sunghoon to hold it. He was confused as he took it, and stood to be taller than him. He noticed the small sling back on the other's shoulders that he recognized as his art bag. He's seen the bag sitting next to Jake a lot, but he mostly associated it with the drawings and paintings that came from it. Specifically, the one he watched be made of Ni-ki the day before, from start to finish. He thinks of all the colours and shapes.
"C'mon," Jake said, walking forward on the driveway, pulling Sunghoon's lost hand and mind behind him.
"What are we doing?"
"I'm taking you on a date."
"What- why?"
"Because you are salty and need to calm down. Plus I want to take you on one."
The two stopped in the middle of the path and met gazes. Jake squeezed the hand in his and swung it back and forth just barely. Sunghoon felt frozen in thought and a sudden wave of unfamiliar feelings.
"...why?"
"Cause I like you. We've been over this already."
Right. Jake likes him. He seems to have forgotten so many times already and it's only been a day or two at most. It just didn't make sense for someone to look at him the way he looks at Jake. He couldn't seem to comprehend the idea of having shared emotions with another person.
"I know... but I didn't think it meant-"
"Do you not want to go on one?"
"No- no! I do, I just- I've never been on one."
"So I'll be your first! Great."