Burnout ⊗ Jeongchan

bonus ✘ Jack of Diamonds

Forewarning: Drug use/abuse, descriptions of overdose, implied illicit sexual activity but no descriptions of such, suicidal thoughts/actions, violence.

A long chapter (10,000+ words) and most of it is pretty depressing but there's soft jeongchan at the end that doesn't have any of the aforementioned content if you want to scroll all the way down.

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The man fiddled with his watch, fingers dancing around the clasps as he watched the clock in that dark hotel room. Not a single light, not a single hint of illumination. No salvation. Only a sickening nausea, an aromatic hint of a potent alcohol lingering, a bundle of money he nicked from his wife's emergency stash pressed patiently on the nightstand, and an irrefutable decision he knew without a doubt he would regret when he woke in the morning, surrounded by these unfamiliar white sheets, and laying next to a stranger that would only stay with him for the night to relieve the pressure sitting on his chest. Stress. That's all it was. Stress at work, stress at home, stress as he waited alone for whoever was supposed to be joining him. His fingers undid the latch of the watch, and popped it back into place.

It didn't seem right. It wasn't right.

On the verge of standing from the edge of the bed and scrambling away, leaving the money behind for whoever was supposed to meet him here, going home and praying for forgiveness, the card scanning lock of the door beeped. Quietly, it pressed open, the hinges it was hooked on as unsure as the person who was guiding. The business man finally looked up from his watch, eyes coming to land on the new addition in the room as the door slammed shut.

The young man pressed his lit cigarette out against the top of his wrist, the skin underneath screaming at him with every second he didn't let up on the scalding pressure. The end of it burned out. Ashes latched to the blistered skin. He tossed the cigarette on the small square table near the entrance, his leather jacket following suit as it slipped off his stiff shoulders and was thrown on the carpeted floor of the hotel room. He couldn't have been more than seventeen, eighteen at most, but even that was pushing the limits. And yet, he was here. In this room, rolling up his sleeves to show the vicious cigarette burns and unforgiving bruises dusting deep shades of purple across his wrists, a sharp tongue about him as he scanned over the other's reluctant face, "Let's get this over with."

The business man watched his movements for a few steady beats. This boy was barely half his age. In a past time or if he wasn't careful, he was just old enough to have sired the young adult approaching him and feel undeniably uneased by it. Uneased by this entire situation he managed to get himself jammed in. He may have been stressed from the complex workings of his life, and he may have been desperate to get away from it all for an hour or so, but not enough to cross this unburnable bridge. Not enough to ignore the uneasiness he felt coming here, waiting in this room, and now witnessing his fate standing in front of him and lightly caressing his face like they had known each other for more than the twelve seconds it truly was. No, it wasn't right. None of it is.

The businessman jerked away from the touch, body cringing with a discomfort as he stood from his seat at the edge of the bed and backed away from the other.

The young man furrowed his eyebrows at him, "Is something wrong?"

"I won't go through with this."