For You and Me

Chapter 17: Fear

"Are you ok?" 

Seungjun's words eerily remind him of the police in his dream.  Was it really just a dream?  He couldn't remember anything so traumatic ever happening to him but then again Jihun really couldn't remember anything from when he was that young.

"Jihun?  Are you alright?  Did you hurt yourself when you fell?" Seungjun grasps his hands on Jihun's shoulders while his tone becomes concerned.  When Jihun says nothing and continues to stare at the bag in his hand Seungjun lightly tugs at the bag and Jihun let's him pull it away from his face.  His breathing has mostly returned back to normal. 

Seungjun looks around the room and then reaches over to the small bedside table to grab his phone.  He taps on it a few times and then turns the shining screen to Jihun.  The sudden unnatural light kicks Jihun out of his spiral of thoughts and his eyes focus in on the screen.

"Talk to me Jihun, please." Seungjun says while grabbing hold of one of Jihun's hands and pressing the phone into it.  Jihun closes his hand around it and then slowly brings it a bit closer to his face so he can see the words he is typing.  He notices Seungjun relaxing a bit as his thumbs start to touch the screen.  

I'm sorry.

He shows the screen to Seungjun who shakes his head as he reads.  He levels his gaze with Jihun.

"Was it another nightmare?" He begins digging.  Jihun turns the screen back to himself but as his thumbs hover over the virtual keyboard once again, he can't bring himself to put to words what he had just dreamt.  He nods his head once and his eyes slowly meet Seungjun's gaze. 

"Was it really bad?" He asks once he realizes that Jihun isn't typing an explanation.  Jihun nods once again.  Seungjun's hands come up and he rubs Jihun's arms from his shoulders to his elbows in a comforting way. 

"You're ok Jihun, I promise. It was just a dream." Seungjun feels Jihun stiffen under his hands.  "It may help you get over it faster if you talk about it." Jihun feels his hand begin to shake around the phone as the words he wants to say nag at him.  Seungjun notices Jihun's hands shaking and he reaches out and grasps them feeling like he may start shaking himself from the worry that is beginning to eat at him for the man in front of him.

"Jihun, please." His tone is pleading and his eyes look urgently into Jihun's.  "Please, tell me."  Jihun gathers up courage from the nervous pit of his stomach and begins to type.​​​​​​

I don't think it was a dream.

His hand begins to fall just like his spurt of courage, and his nerves, and his thoughts, after the words are typed.  Seungjun catches his hand and gently turns the screen enough for him to read it.  Once the sentence registers his thoughts go back to the last nightmare that Jihun had told him about.  He feels his heart beat a bit faster as his horror grows.

"It's not the same as the nightmare you had last night is it?"  Seungjun asks.  Jihun gives him a look that confirms his words.  His hand gingerly comes up to lightly cup Jihun's cheek.  Jihun's mind continues to churn through the events of both of his dreams feeling like Seungjun's thumb rubbing lines into his cheek is his only tether to the present.  

"Jihun, what can I do?  How can I help?"  Seungjun pleads.  Jihun focuses on his face once again.  On the worry etched between his brows and extending to his forehead.  He focuses on the chocolate brown pools of concern and longing that reflect in his stare.  Jihun's eyes continue moving around Seungjun's face as if they are trying to assure his suspicious mind about who is really sitting in front of him.  They stop on Seungjun's lips.  One is trapped between his teeth, the bottom one.  And as that lip pops out from its cage of teeth Jihun moves forward and captures it in his own.