❝ you and i, against the world, crowned as kings in our savage kingdom ❞
in which jinyoung is the greatest distraction of the boy he is in love with. where jaebum's existence collides with someone whose impact in his life is terrifying.it's a tale o...
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The following morning, Jaebum finds the sunlight harsh and annoying and the single light bulb has died the previous night which means running another errand. Jinyoung sleeps peacefully on Jaebum's lap and upon peering at his ashen face, Jaebum gets onto the task of making the second attempt to nurse Jinyoung back to normalcy.
"Jinyoungie?"
Jinyoung wakes up at once which is pretty odd considering Jaebum knew him as a sound sleeper. Maybe he wasn't even sleeping, just lying down due to the weakness. And Jaebum has been right about that because Jinyoung would lie down repeatedly even after waking up. As if the strength of his spine has disappeared and he was folding into a lump of flesh and bones.
Bringing out the toothbrush and toothpaste, Jaebum helps Jinyoung with the whole cleaning ritual which he used to do with much joy once. But Jinyoung remains quiet and Jaebum has no clue about how long he can live through this radio silence before snapping his own sanity. And that would mean absolute disaster for both. So Jaebum reminds himself repeatedly to keep his head in the game.
Thankfully, Jinyoung doesn't protest when the toothbrush is shoved into his mouth and Jaebum takes it as a sign of fortunate progress. There is no water inside the farmhouse so they have to travel to the stream flowing behind the property in order to take a bath. Jinyoung walks alongside him, eyes fixated on the ground, arms interlocking with Jaebum's as he stumbles over nothing at every two of steps. They wash themselves or more like Jaebum does all the work as Jinyoung gets moved around like a lifeless puppet.
When they walk back slowly into the farmhouse, its closing towards noon and Jaebum has the next mission at hand. It was high time to get some food down to Jinyoung's stomach and Jaebum took it upon himself to feed him any which way he can manage. Praying to god, he opens another cup of ramen and prepares it.
Twirling the chopsticks to pick up a small amount of ramen, Jaebum blows on it to cool it down before putting the portion against Jinyoung's mouth.
"Here, open your mouth."
Jinyoung looks up, he actually looks up and Jaebum swears he could feel a sudden burst of electricity surge through his veins. Jinyoung has started to respond, he thinks. But Jinyoung is staring at him with his weary unblinking eyes and Jaebum faces difficulty to maintain an eye contact. They don't have a watch to check the time but Jaebum can feel that the time has frozen and Jinyoung is trying to navigate inside Jaebum's head.
"Please?"
Jaebum pleads once more, hoping his efforts to be fruitful this time and it does. Jinyoung parts open his mouth right about enough to allow the ramen hanging from the chopsticks enter. He chews slowly and Jaebum breaths out in relief.
"Why did you bring me here?"
The relief Jaebum experiences briefly, leaves him at an instant when Jinyoung speaks to him for the first time since their ugly fight. Not to mention Jinyoung actually asks him a question which informs Jaebum that he has been following whatever Jaebum did before and after bringing him to the farmhouse.
