Hatred: Nomin

Thunder: 7

Jeno felt his whole body tense up.

He knew Jaemin's parents. He remembered his mother's smile, comforting but stern, always sweet but never fragile. He remembered the way she used to run her thumb over worry lines on people's faces when they were upset, working the knots out of people's foreheads, saying the only wrinkles they should get were from smiling.

He remembered his father. Gentle, bumbling, like he didn't know what to do with the power in his limbs and like he never intended on using it. Hard working, kind, sometimes a little too much.

He saw them in Jaemin.

They were so young.

Jaemins brow furrowed, and all Jeno could think about was that there was no one there to brush that worry away.

"What? How? What happened?"

"I— I don't know. They were out at one of their new houses, they needed to fix it up and decorate before they started renting it out, and so I was at home myself that week, and they stopped answering my calls so I thought they were busy but then the police showed up and said there was a crash and that they were investigating and I didn't know what to do and..." before Jaemin could even finish his words he was choking back tears.

Against his better judgment, Jeno scooped Jaemin up into his arms. Partly for the fact he was also coming to grips with the fact two wonderful people's lives on this earth had just ended, and also because god that was nearly a week ago and Jaemin had been doing damage control on the issue for so long.

Jeno couldn't even imagine how bad it must've felt.

All his anger and hatred aside, even Jeno had to admit Jaemin had inherited his mother's strength. It was almost unfathomable that he'd kept all that grief and pain under wraps. And on top of that there was a very apparent imminent threat looming aswell.

Jaemin was in a state. Tears streaming down his face, it looked like he'd just completely given up, opened the floodgates and finally allowed himself to start feeling all of the stress and mourning he'd bottled up and locked away.

Jeno pressed Jaemin's face into his shoulder and rubbed his neck, soothingly running fingers through his wind knotted hair for a few moments. He could feel the Damp on his collar.

Jeno extricated his body from Jaemin's limp arms and stood before him as he slouched on jenos bed. There were tear spots on his jeans, and patches running on his face.

"I'm going to get you a drink. I'll be back in a second. I have some clean clothes, take what you like and get changed into something more comfortable."

Jeno shuffled out the door and closed it with a gentle click.

In the kitchen he found Chenle sitting cross legged atop his dining table tossing a ball he'd found somewhere in Jeno's house at a cupboard door whilst donghyuck slouched openly in a chair tapping away at his phone.

"So," Chenle started not halting in his tossing of the ball. "Care To explain?"

"Get out the both of you. And you can't mention this to anyone."

Donghyuck whined. "Awww whyyy I like your house we can be loud and no one cares. I don't want to leaveeeee."

"I know my company is just so appealing but I'm gonna need you out. Jaemin's a mess. It seems very complicated. For your own safety I urge you not to mention this outside of the house. Ever."

Chenle squinted at him. "I know you're serious like 80% of the time, but this is like serious, even for you."

"That's because It's important."