silver lining ⇢ chensung

trois

the morning started with nothing but gasps and sighs as footsteps followed closely behind, and distant shouts almost in sync with the pace.

jisung clutched chenle's hand as he powered through the streets, with the older lagging and stumbling behind as the two paced with feverish steps, eyes peeled to find a place to temporarily hide from anyone noticing their uncannily suspicious behaviour.

chenle knew the survival documentaries were worth it, even though they were in a completely different environment than what he was familiar with. and now with this creepy man following them, seemingly like a predator, they have nothing left other than to run and run like a deer running for its life.

jisung's attention went to a nearby residential backyard chock-full of trees, so he turned to a sharp right as he pulled chenle along with him, not wanting to lose his poor friend in the midst of his comparatively lesser speed. finding a tree with a lot of branches, he immediately jumped and clung to the bark, letting go of chenle's hand in the process. as he eased in to his escape place, he heard his friend whine as he looked longingly at him.

"what are you waiting for, climb up fast before that man catches us!" jisung beckoned, his tone feverish and slightly frustrated.

"i don't know how to climb!" chenle spoke out in the same tone as jisung, his eyes darting to the other places where he could potentially use as a hiding spot. sighing, jisung reached out his hand as he looked out for any signs of the man chasing them, and chenle immediately grabbed his hand like his life depended on it.

"put your leg on that branch over there, and then grab this branch where i'm standing on. come on, be fast!" jisung instructed chenle as he glanced at the broken yet sturdy small branch near to the older. doing as he said, chenle reluctantly stepped on the small branch and feverishly jumped to reach out to the branch where he was standing on, only to slip and lose any grip he had.

thankfully enough, jisung grabbed both of his hands and pulled him on the branch, accidentally pinning him on the trunk of the tree as he leaned forward.

both boys were pretty much gasping for air after the whole entire chase, so much that they literally forgot their extremely close, nose-touching proximity to each other. "god, that was such a bad idea..." jisung gasped out, his words spaced out by deep breaths.

"why are they chasing us anyways? they made the food, we are supposed to take it, right?" chenle scoffed as he asked him, his tone annoyed and confused. "i miss the creepy man that used to slide me food to eat now, i hate having to run like this..."

they practically ran for over an hour because they raided a bakery and stole most of the bread loaves there. the owner was obviously pissed off by the two gremlins and hence he chased them for doyoung knows how long, and now, they practically won as the owner was nowhere to be seen, with enough food that could last them a week.

jisung sighed as the memories of last night hit him; he ended up with a mental patient who really does not know how the world works. he frowned as he glanced at chenle with a serious gaze, ready to explain the basic things which one needs to know for survival. "look, there's this...thing called as money, and when you give money to them, they give us food. what we did was stealing, we didn't give them anything and we took their food away from them."

that gave jisung a flick on the forehead, almost tumbling out of the branch.

jisung winced as he rubbed his forehead, retorting while glaring at chenle. "ow, what the fuck was that?! i was just trying to tell you what money was!"

"why didn't you give them the money then?! we could have stopped running all the way to here!" chenle retorted, his dolphin voice quite a bit too loud for jisung's ears to handle.