Ships Passing In The Night ｜Markhyuck (OT21 AU)

Chapter 38

TW: Blood (mild). Someone gets a boo-boo, because he's a bonafide dumbass.

"NaNa."

As Donghyuck let the front door fall shut behind him, he hopped unsteadily on one socked foot and tried to shove the other into one of the shoes he'd picked up in his hurry to follow Jaemin. One pair was small, white and covered in large applique daisies--probably belonging to his mother--so he gave up on those almost immediately, tossing one and then a second down onto the ground at his feet. The other pair was significantly larger, black and decidedly scuffed around the heel. Donghyuck thought he remembered seeing Jaemin arriving in them earlier in the afternoon, so he abandoned his plan, figuring that Jaemin would probably need them more than he did--if he could actually find the younger boy.

"Jaemin?"

He worried for a moment that Jaemin had decided to walk to Jeno's house barefoot, a harebrained plan he wouldn't entirely put past his hot-headed friend, but then he spotted a figure sitting cross-legged on the neighbour's lawn to his left. Jaemin's back was to the door, like he'd been heading diagonally towards the road when he'd taken a premature break, but he'd made it less than halfway to the curb.

"Are you okay?" Stepping carefully, Donghyuck navigated around several large, viciously sharp rocks as he made his way across the driveway towards Jaemin. Even with socks on, the gravel underfoot stabbed up between his toes and bit into the sensitive skin of his instep, so he could only imagine how uncomfortable it must have been for the other boy, who didn't have the luxury of socks.

"I'm fine," Jaemin told him dully, attention singularly focused on one of his feet, which he cradled in his lap. As Donghyuck crossed onto the grassed area, which, while damp, was mercifully soft underfoot, he could see that a small trickle of crimson seeped out from between Jaemin's fingers, which were pressed firmly against the pad of his big toe. "I just impaled myself on that."

Jaemin tilted his head towards a small, particularly jagged stone that lay on the wet grass beside him, and Donghyuck winced in sympathy. That had to have hurt, he thought, although the tiny menace had certainly just made his life infinitely easier. He'd been worried that he'd have to chase Jaemin halfway down the street, but this reality was vastly preferable. This way, they'd be able to talk things out before Jaemin could call a cab, or flag down a bus--whatever he'd been planning on doing to reach Jeno's house.

"How bad is it?" Donghyuck contemplated the clean, dry pyjama pants that he wore for a long moment, reluctantly eyeing the darkened grass at his feet and scrunching his toes up inside his already sodden socks, before realising that he didn't really have a choice. Jaemin didn't look like he was planning to move anytime soon, and Donghyuck needed to buy Renjun and Dongyoung some time to talk inside. It was cold out here, and the clouds overhead promised imminent rainfall, but he and Jaemin needed to talk too. He sat down, scooting as close to his friend as he could manage.

"It's bleeding a lot, but I don't think it's that deep," Jaemin said with a shrug. He turned to look at Donghyuck, lifting his fingers off the wound slightly as he did so. There was a steady trickle of red, enough that Donghyuck couldn't see the full extent of the damage underneath, but it looked like it was already slowing.

"I think you'll live," Donghyuck told the younger boy, flashing him a reassuring smile. Jaemin didn't return it, pressing his fingers back over his toe, but he did lean into Donghyuck and rest his head heavily on the older boy's shoulder.

"I did a great job of storming out, didn't I?" Jaemin said after a minute or so of silence. "I didn't even make it to the end of the street." Donghyuck could feel icy moisture starting to permeate through the fabric of the seat of his pants, causing him to shift uncomfortably at the accompanying tingling sensation, but he tried not to jostle Jaemin too much. The boy seemed a lot calmer than he'd been expecting, considering the anger with which he'd made his exit, and that made him a little nervous.