In pieces | 2Jae

16, Change

Jaebum sits on the swing next to Youngjae and after staring at the older one for a while, Youngjae turns his eyes away. The two of them stay in a silence for a long time like that, swinging gently while looking at the ground or the park around them, basically looking at everything but each other.

"The stars are pretty..." Jaebum mumbles and Youngjae jumps a little at the sudden noise. He glances at the person next to him and sees an eye pleasing picture. Jaebum is looking up while leaning against the swing's chain with his head, his eyes are sparkling against the park's lights and his gorgeous side profile is well matched to the stars above. As if feeling Youngjae's eyes on him, Jaebum turns his eyes to the younger one. Immediately Youngjae looks away but it's too late, Jaebum saw his stare already. The leader can feel a tug in his stomach and once again the AmeriKong couple's words are playing in his ears. Youngjae can feel his face heating up.
"Yea they are", Youngjae tries to save the situation by answering but even to his own ears, his voice sounds weird. Even though he is wearing a jacket and a mask, he has been outside for quite a long time and is starting to get a bit cold. Youngjae rubs his hands together and breaths into them to warm them up. This action is not something left unnoticed by Jaebum. Youngjae keeps breathing into his hands trying to warm them up and the leader takes the pair of gloves out of his pocket. He forgot about them and is now regretting his slowness. Of course Youngjae would be freezing. Jaebum breaths into the glove a few times to warm the inside a little and then turns his eyes to Youngjae who's already looking at him. Without a word, Jaebums cold hands reach out. Gently he takes a hold of Youngjae's freezing hand and puts it inside the glove. Then he blows inside the other glove and puts Youngjae's other hand inside that one. The younger one can't do anything but stare. His mind is completely empty. What... What just happened..? Jaebum gets up from the swing and shakes his body to get rid of the coldness. He stands still, calming his breaths before turning to Youngjae once again. He could try to be mean but he no longer sees any reason to do that. Why would he? Why on earth would he?
"Let's go back. We have schedules tomorrow and it's really cold", Jaebum says and for another few seconds, Youngjae just stares.
"O-oh. Yea, let's go", he finally manages to say and gets up too. Jaebum gives Youngjae a small smile and turns around as he pulls his hood up.

Youngjae can feel a bang in his stomach. Jaebum just gave him his gloves and smiled at him. Not only that, he also blew in the gloves to make them warm. "Jaebum likes you"  Mark's voice teases Youngjae as he starts walking after the leader. He keeps staring at the older one's back, not really paying attention to anything, deeply in his thoughts. "Jaebum. Likes. You. I mean that he really really likes you, and not the way group-member is supposed to like other group-member."  No no, that's not possible. He can't like me. No, Mark must be wrong. There's no way. "Jaebum got drunk and told Jackson about it! I know for a fact that he wasn't faking it."  Jackson must've been lying to Mark... But for what reason would he do that? This is not something you lie about, this is serious and fucked up, this is something people don't go around joking with. Even though Mark and Jackson are slightly more open-minded than the rest of us, there is no way they would ever think that something like this could be a funny joke. There's no way either one of them would be cruel or insensitive enough to play around with something like this... Not after I confessed. Mark would never, never in thousands of years, say something like this as a joke even after being there when I broke down. So, they were saying the truth. But... That doesn't mean it's actually true! Yes right, they might think that's the truth but it's very much possible that Jackson misunderstood Jaebum somehow and this is all just his interpretation of the situation! Yes, that's it! It's all just a big misunderstanding!
At first, Youngjae is satisfied with his new theory and then he realizes all the pieces that don't fit together. A dark feeling grows in his stomach as his thoughts turn less and less convincing. If it really is just a misunderstanding, why has Jaebum been acting so weird strangely? Youngjae's eyes widen and he stops right then and there. Surely... There is no way Jaebum knows about Youngjae's feelings?!