Lavender Bubbles °• Changjin

○ 44 ○

Alright.

Changbin paced around the compact space of his living room, meandering quickly to match the speed his thoughts were racing at.

Nothing on the floors but the cheap carpet he continuously stubbed his toes on while he matched, every bit of grime covered trash wrapper he could scrounge up from the pits of Tartarus throw where they would never be seen again, any hints of lingering dust swept up by the taking hands of his broom's nylon and polypropylene scraping bristles. The apartment was more spotless this morning than it ever had been in the year he lived inside it's poorly painted walls. Sure, there were stains on the thrifted couch and a few trail marks from shoes on the upper wall (Don't ask). But everything he could get rid of to make the place hold the crisp mask he wanted to show off to his company, he did.

Alright, you can do this.

His nails dug into his biceps. Folded tightly over his chest, knotted up in a hard bundle, firmly wrapped, looped one over the other, fingers pressing so hard into the ink-covered skin he felt the forming imprints of irritation marks underneath the touch. The tattoos, although they looked badass on his skin, did not shield him against the pain his nails were clawing into him. Nor did they prepare him for how uncomfortably painful the taking would be; Having the tattoos drilled into his skin hurt, but the anxious crawl hooking down was mind numbing.

What's so bad about this anyway?

Changbin's nose scrunched up in thought, another loop of the living room completing what must have been his thousandth pace since that early morning.

Nervous? Him? Seo Changbin? No. Seo Changbin didn't know was nervousness was. He was fine. The reason he was pacing around his living room was not necessarily because he was nervous. The reason he spent from the first miniscule shimmer of the dawninf sunlight on the waking world to about ten minutes ago organizing his apartment, turning it upside down in all the best places possible, arranging the finest details down to the amount of dust specks relaxing on the underside of his kitchen table, was not because he was nervous. The reason he tried to find clothes that decently fit him, only to resort to his most comfortable pair of cargo pants and a lazy hoodie to not cluster his breathing, was not because he was nervous.

No.

Not at all.

Not even a little bi—

A knock rapped gently on the front door of his modest homestead. 

Changbin lurched in surprise, nearly knocking over the cup of water he forgot on top of his end table in the process. And if the end table was actually just a dumbbell he had yet to put back in it's proper spot, he prayed the other wouldn't notice.

He arranged the cup on the dumbbell end table, ensuring it wouldn't fall again with a flurry of apologies meant to satisfy it's displeasure with being ruthlessly tipped to the side, before marching to the front door. And the person who waited outside. Both of his hands sweaty. The perspiration spilling from his palms enough to fill three reservoirs stuck in the middle of an avid drought. The soft thundering of his heart in his eardrums doing wonders for an excuse of a cardio exercise. Who needed to go for a jog in the morning, when he could ask his boyfriend to come over and have his heart beat the same amount?

Without allowing himself another second to quickly come up with an excuse to jump out the window and never be seen in the country again, Changbin violently ripped his front door open.

To meet Hyunjin.

Standing casually in his doorway. Beautiful, stupid little puppy eyes wide with a surprise before they melted away into a soft smile.