Cat Boy

26 | countdown

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Vernon watched the hands of the clock as they move around the circle's perimeter, the way they've been doing for the past twenty minutes. He should know, he's been watching them for who knows how long—except he does. He's been watching and counting and it's been exactly twenty-four minutes and sixteen seconds. Seventeen seconds.

It's not a thing one normally does, but for him, the situation is hardly normal. At this time, he's usually downstairs jotting down orders and making little bite-sized sandwiches for college kids before the evening classes. Something to keep him busy and distracted, the way he had told Joshua would be better for him in a time like this, but the pink-haired boy had refused him outright, saying something about how coffee should be made with love, not heartbreak.

It's a silly superstition, but for some reason Vernon gets it.

He's been sitting in his room with nothing to do for too long now. Focusing isn't hard for him, but usually the thing he's focusing on isn't a clock's long second hand as it ticks lazily as time slips by, a little faster than its brethren but lazy still. Vernon had thought it would make him feel tired, but he sits just as alert as he had been twenty-four minutes and thirty-two seconds ago.

If he closes his eyes and counts to ten, he can almost believe he's never stopped counting. Or started. It feels like he's been counting his entire life, even though it's only been minutes. That's what counting does. It takes the rest of his consciousness and turns him into a medium of measurement, seconds and minutes and maybe, if he were brave enough, a whole hour.

The sounds of the atmosphere turn into nothing except this white noise in his head like a wave of emotion is churning in the sea of his normally calm and measured thoughts. The wave moves, but he stays still. Vernon feels sick and off-balance.

He can almost believe he's alone in the room.

"Are you going to stay here forever?" Vernon murmurs, his eyes staying glued to the clock. His knees are drawn up to his chest, arms locked in a hold around his legs like he's trying to make up for a cavity in his chest. A crater where something smashed into him and left a hole that he can't seem to fill.

The chair next to him moves, and he hears the sound of its feet dragging across the floor as the person sitting on it moves. Probably just switching positions, though that isn't very obvious. Vernon's just observant—more so now, when he has nothing else to do or see.

"As long as Joshua keeps me on timeout," Jeonghan mutters back a few seconds later. He doesn't sound angry or agitated, like Vernon had expected him to, just kind of bored and vaguely dissatisfied by the condition he's in. "Are you ever going to stop counting?"

The question doesn't break up Vernon's focus, but it does drive a spike through it, and he feels his concentration waver as his forehead twitches into a momentary frown. "How did you know I was counting?"

He hears the soft sound of a held-in breath being released when Jeonghan exhales through his nose. "Joshua told me you count the seconds when you're upset."

"I'm not upset." Even as he says it, he sounds upset.

"Right," Jeonghan mutters. He draws himself up, taking his sock-covered feet off the side of the bed, and Vernon feels the bed heave under him. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine it to be a wave moving under him, taking him somewhere far, far away. Far away from all of this so he wouldn't have to face it anymore. "Don't you have anything better to do than stare at the wall like a prisoner in a jail cell?"

Vernon's frown deepens, but he doesn't take the bait, knowing that Jeonghan is simply bored and trying to egg him on into arguing with him so there is some form of entertainment. "I already did my homework," he says. "And the class is going way behind me in most subjects. Don't you have anything to do?"