Jaebum found himself staring at Jinyoung every few minutes. It was hard for him to keep his eyes off the angel since he was a bit paranoid that something bad might happen. He mostly tried to shake off the feeling, but he was sure that both he and Jinyoung shared the same worry.
They'd been sat on the couch watching TV ever since Youngjae left, not knowing when he'd get back. Jinyoung was a bit antsy just sitting there doing nothing; it was obvious how much he wanted to help but was frustrated that he couldn't. Jaebum felt even more frustrated though, since he was human, he has no power or knowledge whatsoever. He couldn't help even if he wanted to, so he was stuck just sitting and waiting along with Jinyoung.
The least he could do was make himself useful by calming Jinyoung's nerves; he could tell the angel was quite tense and could practically see all the thoughts racing through his head. Jaebum reached out for Jinyoung, tugging him by the shirt to move closer so he could wrap his arms around him. Jinyoung let out a heavy sigh as he leaned into Jaebum, his lips set in a pout that he'd been wearing the entire time. Jaebum couldn't fight the urge to curl his finger under the angel's chin and kiss the pout away, feeling how easily Jinyoung melted in his hands.
It only lasted for a few seconds though, as Jinyoung quickly pulled himself back and wiped his lips as if he'd tasted something bad. "You can't."
"What? Why not?" Jaebum whined as he tried to tug Jinyoung back to his lips. "I want to kiss you and touch you and-"
"Stop. Save it for when Youngjae gets back with answers." Jinyoung retorted.
Jaebum sighed, mindlessly running his hand through Jinyoung's hair. "Are you worried?"
Jinyoung's eyes dropped to his lap, his head nodding slightly. "Yeah, a bit..."
"He'll be okay. He seems to be a bit hopeful that he'll find something." Jaebum offered to try and look at the brighter side of things.
If he's not, then he'll be in trouble, and I'll be in trouble, and I'll be taken away from you. We could've just made things a whole lot worse for us."
"Or we found a solution. At least Youngjae's willing to help us out."
"I wish I could've gone with him..." Jinyoung mumbled.
Jaebum sat up, gripping the angel's soft hands. "Jinyoung, you're powerless and temporarily banned from heaven. I'm just a human. Neither of us could help if we wanted to, we have to trust him."
Jinyoung shook his head, not wanting to believe that truth but knowing he couldn't do anything about it. He let out another heavy sigh that slipped through his lips, deflating himself even more. "I need a hug."
Jaebum opened his arms, beckoning Jinyoung to fill them. "Babe I'm always right here-"
"I can't hug you. What if they're watching?"
"Who? The council people or whatever?" Jaebum guessed. He shrugged his shoulders, honestly not caring much about them, or anyone else for that matter. He only cared about his friends and the one he fell in love with. "Friends can hug."
"You know hugging for us will lead to other things..." Jinyoung mumbled, turning away from Jaebum's open arms. "Youngjae said to stop showing affection for a bit, and I agree. We gotta pretend that we're not in love, okay?"
"Won't whoever's watching us already know we're bullshitting it though?" Jaebum asked, considering how weird it would look to suddenly pretend they weren't dating, as if they hadn't made out dozens of times in the past few days.
Jinyoung shrugged. "Well, hopefully they're not watching us too closely. I would often sleep on the job of watching over humans, so a lot of things would slip by me. It was just so boring to watch over them all the time, humans literally don't do anything fun but the same thing everyday--"
"Excuse me, your boyfriend is human." Jaebum reminded him before he went too far.
"Of course, you're the boringest."
Jaebum narrowed his eyes at the angel, his heart throbbing in yearning for him. Normally one would think insults are a turn off, but Jaebum lived to hear Jinyoung's sharp tongue since every word came from a place of love and affection rather than pure contempt. "Shut up or I'll really kiss you."
Jinyoung chewed on his bottom lip, his eyes flickering over to Jaebum's own lips before he shook his head and moved further away. "We gotta stop being in the same room."
"Why? Can't hold back your attraction towards me?" Jaebum asked through a teasing grin. Just by the way Jinyoung looked at him, he could tell the angel was fighting a battle against his own urges.
"Deflate your ego please." Jinyoung waved away Jaebum's response, refusing to acknowledge it as a truth despite them both knowing that it was. "Just remember they could be watching us anytime. Hopefully no one knows we talked with Youngjae, but we have to be careful just in case."
Jaebum nodded, a small smile resting on his lips as he gazed at his lover. "I'm just glad you're still here. The hell would I do all day without you?"
"You were trying to send me to the freakin country, what the hell would I do all day?" Jinyoung retorted.
"Make friends with the cows, you should fit right in."
Jaebum flinched as a shoe was suddenly flung in his direction, a burst of giggles escaping him. Jinyoung was laughing too, his eyes full of adoration as he stared back at the man who changed his entire life. He wouldn't be sitting there, giggling happily if it weren't for Jaebum. He wouldn't know what love felt like if it weren't for him. Jinyoung was forever grateful to experience such wonderful emotions for the first time, and he wouldn't know what to do with himself if he ever lost the one thing he's grown to cherish most.
"...I love you, Jaebum." He suddenly confessed, his eyes falling back to the floor, fingers tugging at the hem of his shirt.
Jaebum was surprised to hear it so suddenly, but was happy nevertheless. The fact that Jinyoung felt free enough to express his fondness meant a lot to him, he held every word deep in his heart. "We've been saying that a lot recently, huh?"
"When we thought we'd never see each other again. Now I'm just saying it 'cause I feel like it." Jinyoung shrugged, still avoiding making eye contact with his boyfriend.
"You're so sweet, it's disgusting." Jaebum groaned as he reached out and pulled Jinyoung closer again just to pepper his face with kisses. "I love you too."
Jinyoung's smile was as radiant as the sun, Jaebum would give anything in the world to see him happy like that all the time. He hoped things would turn out well, and that they would find a way to stay together forever, since a world without Jinyoung's glowing face and beautiful smile was a world Jaebum didn't want to live in at all.
Jinyoung playfully fought Jaebum off, standing up from the couch to adjust his clothes. "Okay enough of this, I'm taking a nap."
This time Jaebum was pouting, his arms already feeling too empty without Jinyoung in them. "You don't wanna stay here and hang out with me or anything?"
"Hang out? I can't think about anything else but Youngjae and if he'll come back with answers. I need to rest my nerves. And knowing you, you'll try to make a move on me every two seconds." Jinyoung replied.
Jaebum scoffed, throwing his hands up in confusion. "But you're my boyfriend, of course I'll make moves on you!"
Jinyoung chuckled, slowly shaking his head. He leaned down, his fingers brushing over Jaebum's cheek as if they were made of fragile glass as he pressed a soft kiss to his lips. "Not now. I just... need to clear my head, okay?" He mumbled.
Jaebum could still feel how tense he was. Even after their joking around Jinyoung was still really worried, and was trying his hardest not to show it. Jaebum gripped the angel's hand, gently kissing his palm and nodding.
"No, you're right. We should probably stay put for now and try to keep calm." He gently released Jinyoung, watching him retreat back to their bedroom to hopefully clear his mind. "Rest well, angel."
Jinyoung glanced back, his cheeks flushing a light pink as he flashed a small smile, before disappearing behind their bedroom door.
🕊
Hours passed by with no signs of Youngjae's return at all. Jaebum figured his trip must be taking longer than expected, or maybe time in Heaven worked differently than time on Earth. Either way, he himself was growing just a tad bit antsy the longer it took.
He decided to try and calm himself with a steamy shower, spending nearly half an hour just relishing in the warm droplets splashing again his skin. He felt refreshed when he got out and took his sweet time drying off since he was in no rush to go anywhere. He threw the towel hanging on a nearby rail over his head, mindlessly humming as he dried his hair.
He heard a faint murmur, but didn't think too much of it as he was more focused on making sure his ears were cleaned out than anything else.
"Jaebum?"
That time he caught the murmur clearer, immediately pausing his hair drying process as he wasn't sure if he'd heard what he thought he'd heard. "Huh?"
"Jaebum?" A faint voice called again.
Jaebum recognized the voice, but was utterly confused on where it was coming from. He tugged the towel off his head and frantically looked around for the voice's owner. "Y-Youngjae? What?"
"Look in your mirror."
Jaebum slowly turned to his mirror, to his surprise seeing a slightly transparent apparition of Youngjae on the reflective glass. He was too shocked to really respond properly. "What the fuck?"
Youngjae must've been using some sort of handheld device to contact Jaebum, judging by the way the image in the mirror shook around. His eyes visibly scanned down Jaebum's body, widening in shock as he realized the elder was totally nude, his face scrunching up in disgust. "Please cover yourself, I kinda see everything."
Jaebum looked down at himself, quickly wrapping his towel around his waist to cover up his important parts. "H-How are you... in my mirror?"
"It's just a projection of me onto your mirror. Like a skype call that transcends our different worlds." Youngjae quickly explained.
Jaebum was still utterly confused, but he already guessed that it was something he'd probably never understand due to his lack of knowledge in that sort of stuff. "O-Okay?"
"Where's Jinyoung?" Youngjae asked, searching Jaebum's surroundings for the other.
"Still asleep I think..." Jaebum replied.
"Well get him up, I'm in the library right now and I'm trying to figure out where to look." Youngjae responded.
"O-Okay..." Jaebum opened the bathroom door so the slumbering angel could hear him calling from the bedroom. "Jinyoung!"
A minute passed before the bedroom door opened with a sleepy Jinyoung shuffling out of it. He rubbed his drowsy eyes, his gaze setting on Jaebum who stood on the other side of the apartment. He looked incredibly cute for just waking up; Jaebum felt somewhat bad for interrupting his sleep, but also grateful that he could see his lover looking so adorable.
"Come in here please?" Jaebum requested while beckoning the younger to approach.
"Why?"
"Just come."
Jinyoung silently gave Jaebum a full body scan, immediately noticing that he was only wearing a towel."Jaebum I'm not doing anything dirty with you-"
"It's not dirty! Just come."
Jinyoung let out a soft sigh, slowly making his way over to the bathroom. He entered the small room, his eyes tracking from Jaebum's bare abs that he was shamelessly admiring over to the mirror where Youngjae's face filled the surface. "Youngjae! You're okay!"
The other angel nodded, his eyes distracted elsewhere as he was looking at something off screen. "Yeah, getting in here is easy when you're elite status. Now help me figure out which files to look through."
"Is there a section for humans?" Jinyoung asked.
"Um..." Youngjae took a moment to scan his surroundings, his eyes lighting up when he saw what he was looking for. "Oh! Yes, there is."
"Try looking there." Jinyoung suggested.
"Okay..." Youngjae went quiet for a few moments while Jinyoung and Jaebum stood by and waited for the results of his search. "There's a lot to look through Jinyoung, I dunno how long it'll take me to comb through it all."
"It's okay, we'll wait." Jinyoung assured. He was a bit jittery; despite saying they'll wait, he seemed quite impatient but still remained silent until Youngjae said he found something.
Youngjae looked back at them through the device he was using, giving them a thumbs up in response. "Okay-"
"Excuse me, we got signals of a projection coming from here. As you know, contacting anyone who's not Elite status in this part of the library is prohibited. May we see who you're in contact with?" A deep voice off screen suddenly cut Youngjae off, the vision of Youngjae's face disappearing instantly as he hid whatever device he was using in his back pocket.
Jaebum frowned, a bit worried and confused about what was happening. "Whats going on-"
"Shh!" Jinyoung quickly covered his mouth, the two's eyes glued to the all black image on the mirror.
"I wasn't in contact with anyone. Talking to myself." They heard Youngjae respond.
"May we see your device?" The deep voice asked.
There was the sound of shuffling before they lost connection, the mirror turning back into a reflective surface that showed Jinyoung and Jaebum's worry filled faces.
"Fuck." Jinyoung whispered.
Jaebum still felt lost on what just happened. "What?"
"Those guys who approached Youngjae sounded like officials. Basically security, similar to the dudes with me at the bus center. Hopefully Youngjae's okay." Jinyoung explained as he stared into the mirror as if Youngjae would suddenly reappear.
"Do you think he got caught?" Jaebum questioned.
"I... don't know..." Jinyoung ran his fingers through his hair, still deeply worried about the other. If Youngjae can't come back with any information, then that would just spell the end of him and Jaebum being together, which Jinyoung wholeheartedly wanted to avoid. "Hopefully he'll check out those files and come back with something..."
Jaebum slipped his hands around Jinyoung's waist, hugging him from behind and kissing the top of his head to hopefully ease his heightened nerves.
🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊🕊
(*I love casual kisses like sorry there's so much kissing but JJP giving each other simple kisses on the cheek and forehead and lips is just 😍😍😍*)