merry christmas, meanie

Project

Mingyu, being the good boyfriend he is, devotedly brings Wonwoo his stuff for the next three days. Any weirdly particular sheets of papers Wonwoo asks for, or the one particular pen Wonwoo wants -- Mingyu brings.

Mingyu had brought Jieun with him the day after he finally got to talk to Wonwoo. Jieun cried when she saw him awake and able to talk, and stayed there for the night. She wiggled in beside Wonwoo - who cradled her to sleep - after checking and rechecking whether or not he was okay with it or not. Wonwoo had just chuckled, and took her in his arms. Mingyu slept in the hallway that night, worried for both of them, just in case.

And three days later, Wonwoo was all ready to be taken back home. Mingyu eagerly waited for him as he got changed out of the crusty hospital robes, all of Wonwoo's stuff ready and shoved in a backpack Mingyu carried on his back. Then came the most difficult part - the way home.

It was clear Wonwoo couldn't handle the way back on foot, for obvious reasons, and Mingyu, albeit being terrified, booked a taxi. He kissed Wonwoo's hand over and over again throughout the ride home, which clasped tightly to its best ability on Mingyu's. Never had Mingyu felt this safe.

The ride was short, luckily, lasting not longer than seven minutes. Wonwoo struggled a bit when it came to walking up the small flight of stairs till the ground lobby of their apartment complex, but he had a content smile playing on his lips anyway.

Mingyu made him soup once they got home, after he got Jieun from Seungcheol's, which Wonwoo forcefully drank his way through. Wonwoo hates soup, but he gagged at the sight of any food that needed him to chew it. Jieun sat next to him for the whole time, although she yawned every two minutes, as she enthusiastically gave him updates about her life in the past two and a half weeks. Wonwoo paid deep attention to her jabbering, and if he were to be asked about anything Jieun rambled about in those twenty minutes, he would have been able to answer it without a second thought.

Jieun fell asleep way early that night, right in the middle of Mingyu's messy, undone bed. The rest of the room had been cleaned, though. Well, most of the stuff had been buried under both beds, but Wonwoo doesn't have to know that; Mingyu could clean it up properly sometime later.

And that night, after being deprived of it for nearly three weeks, Wonwoo slept peacefully in Mingyu's warm arms, wrapped around him throughout.

•

"Hey Gyu?"

"Yeah?"

"What happened to your project?"

Wonwoo has a strong feeling things would go south from here. Mingyu, who earlier never really shut up about his project which he'd been working on since Christmas, had suddenly stopped mentioning it lately.

Mingyu freezes. He knows he forgot to hand it in, since he'd been dealing with more important things during the open submission dates, but he doesn't want Wonwoo to know. But he can't bring himself to lie to the boy who looks at him with so much concern in his eyes.

"I- I didn't hand it in."

Wonwoo stops his work right then. He knows the project would have composed a fair percentage of Mingyu's final grade, had Mingyu submitted it. For all Wonwoo knew, it still might be lying somewhere in the boy's laptop, waiting to be run. "Why?" Wonwoo asks.

Mingyu feels overwhelmed by so many alien things just then. He wants to lie, but he's sure his mouth won't cooperate. He wants to hide, but he knows his conscience won't let him. "I couldn't do it..." An extremely vague answer he hopes Wonwoo wouldn't bother to understand properly.

Unfortunately, he does. "It was complete, wasn't it?" There's frustration lacing Wonwoo's voice, and Mingyu knows well enough Wonwoo has the full right to react this way. By the way Mingyu put it, he made it sound like Wonwoo's fault -- which was completely unintended.

Mingyu looks up to find the once-curious look in Wonwoo's eyes replaced by something much more serious. Wonwoo looks guilty, yet mad, when Mingyu doesn't answer.

"Mingyu I can't let you spiral because of me." Wonwoo says, with a hardness to his voice Mingyu hasn't heard before. "This," He continues, "this is what I was apologising for that day. It's always you dealing with me, I never do anything for you, and I don't like it. It isn't supposed to be this way."

Mingyu's in disbelief. He wants to put it in words, how just Wonwoo has done so much for him since childhood, and even when he thinks he isn't enough right now, Mingyu has a hard time presenting it coherently how much Wonwoo means to him.

And for once, Mingyu's speechlessness remains the way it is, just because he can't fucking explain the whirlpool his brain is.