✄ ───

Chan wakes up with his arms full. Warmth is trapped within them; his own little personal fire. But outside them, where the blanket has fallen away due to shifting around overnight, it's cold. His nose is buried in a mess of dark hair, taking in a faint, mixed scent of shampoo and stale sweat. Clean and dirty, all at once. Mixed, like the feelings in Chan's gut at the moment. Bittersweet. So Minho.

It's light and bright out on Saturday morning. With his eyes open now, he can see: he's in Minho's bed. Still dozing, Minho's wrapped around him, having rolled onto his side and somehow inched as close as he can possibly be to Chan's chest. Can he even breathe?

Chan's not sure how Minho is so deeply asleep and yet still managing to hold his shirt in a death grip. He has to pry small but strong fingers away from the fabric in order to adjust his hold on Minho, and to coax his head just slightly away to give him a chance at getting more oxygen.

It gives Chan a chance to look at him, too.

With his eyes closed; his features are totally at rest— making no effort to make himself look any sort of way. Lips pulling into no alluringly mischievous grins or cute little puckers; brow never raising suggestively. He's... well...

Gorgeous is the wrong word.

'Gorgeous' doesn't explain the way his insides are turning to mush at the sight of Minho's messy morning hair and puffy face   'Gorgeous' doesn't account for the compulsion to lean down and let his lips ghost along Minho's forehead, pressing so softly against it, barely making a sound with the most gentle kiss his lips have to offer.

At that, Minho's eyelids flutter; his brow twitches. For one more fleeting second, he is wrapped in incorruptible beauty. But then... it's like when you step into a pond full of settled water. At the slightest disruption— intrusion coming down from the surface— clouds of murkiness erupt under your footsteps.

All of a sudden, the other hand tightly fisted in Chan's shirt opens and releases him. Then a pair of big, wide, unsheltered eyes open. They fix on Chan within a split-second, and blink slowly. Panic comes first, too fast for him to mask right away, especially so soon after waking. Though, it's not long before thick, inky, murkiness begins to swirl within them, obscuring everything Minho doesn't want to show.

Warmth vanishes as Minho pushes at Chan's chest in a half-assed, groggy attempt to get him off. Chan pulls back, giving him a little space. But not letting him escape just yet.

"Hey, um, I—"

Minho's stinging glare shuts Chan up in miliseconds. The pounding, screaming headache he's sure to have is not helping either of them.

Exactly what is Chan meant to do at the moment? Propped up on his side next to Minho, he waits, and listens. For what? Maybe for the sound of Minho snapping.

The snap doesn't come. Minho's gaze goes flat, like the silt that Chan unwittingly kicked up has mixed in thoroughly, and now it's all just one vat of mud in his eyes. Then his gaze falls away entirely. Minho's eyes squeeze shut in exasperation, perhaps. His hand grips harshly at his stomach. "Ugh, just... go. Somewhere. Get out. I'm gonna go spend the next several hours hunched over a toilet."

"I um... don't have anywhere to be," Chan shrugs. The words creep out of his throat as if on their own, without consulting him and his reputation first. His hand moves almost of its own accord down Minho's cheek. Touch even softer than his tone. 

He never acts like this in the morning. He doesn't even stick around to begin with. This softness and tenderness is always a show; always bait, and it always comes before. In the evening. But, fuck. Shit. It feels... genuine, this time.

Trapped under him, Minho stares blankly at him for several seconds. He doesn't immediately fawn for Chan's sweetness the way most people do (even when it's an act); no blush creeps onto his cheeks and no fluster overtakes his features. He doesn't shyly turn his head away to momentarily escape Chan's intense, warm gaze. In fact, nothing changes about Minho's face apart from his lips— which begin to set into a deep frown. "I said get out."

There's a darkness about Minho's voice that makes Chan's insides twist.

He'll have himself saying it's because he's so childishly upset that Minho refused him again.

But Chan knows it's a sign that something's off here. Very, very off.

Sighing, Chan rolls off of Minho and sits up. He lingers for a moment more, looking Minho up and down as if searching for evidence of some faulty parts or something that would make him act so... strangely.

With Chan off of him, Minho sits up too. Then he looks down at himself, head moving frantically for a second or two, down at his legs, up a little at his midsection, briefly at his arms. Checking his clothes. Ones he probably doesn't remember falling asleep in.

His head slowly rises again and he meets Chan's eyes with an accusatory glint, and with his mouth slowly falling open, it almost seems like he's going to say something else, but— all of a sudden he clamps a hand over his mouth and tears himself away from the bed.

As Minho books it for the bathroom, Chan starts to get up. He takes his time leaving, steps slow as he glances around Minho's room, gathering bits and pieces of information about Minho that had been previously hidden. Because something's not right. And something's daring Chan to stick his nose in and find out what.

The investigation begins as Chan's taking his would-be walk of shame for the first time in a year. Actually... for him, this one really is a walk of shame. A walk of failure.

...Or maybe it's not about him, but rather, about Minho. Chan's gonna get to the bottom of this (or at least find a clue of some sort) in the short time he has before Minho's able to stand up again and see him, still there. He's not snooping, per se, just observing the scenery on his way out.

Because he cares? No, no no no. You've got it all wrong. He simply needs to prove that the only people that can resist him are broken, psychopathic, sickos. This is all for the sake of his giant ass ego.

He couldn't possibly care. And you certainly never heard him say otherwise.

    The clothes strewn about tell Chan that he's generally messy; unorganized and chaotic. But that's something akin to a no-brainer. Evidently, Minho only has time to perfect his hair, his face, and his outfit, and the rest falls into disarray.

Empty glass bottles and crumpled beer cans are mostly congregated to their own corner, near enough to the trash can that you can tell he at least put in a bit of effort. But cups and glasses decorate every surface. Interestingly, though, there's not a single dish.

On the windowsill sits an ashtray; on the nightstand, a half-empty pack of cigs. On the desk, an array of art supplies, spread out in a fashion less than orderly. Charcoal pencils, sharpeners, shavings. A sketchbook, left open.

Oh?

The sound of Minho's violent wrenching was still consistent, still steadily ringing out from the room over. Without a second thought, Chan deviates from the path to the door and makes a beeline for the desk.

After viewing the state of Minho's room, Chan would've expect, perhaps, a quick, messy sketch at most. That's not far from what he sees— the spiral-bound book is flipped open to a barely-used page. It's marked with nothing but one little pretty picture in the corner: a unfinished and abstract-looking image of a rose. White chalk fills the half-formed petals, smudged with black from the sketch lines.

While the other, previous pages are neatly tucked under the book, one is flipped up, lying alone and separate on the desk, as if Minho had simply skipped to the next page and scrawled out the next thing in a hurry. Chan wonders what might be on that flipped-up page.

When his fingers dart out to flip it over, he's expecting another loose, faint, artistic sketch. Instead, he sees a perfect, precise rendering of a looped and knotted rope. Dark and heavy, and half in shadow, it jumps out at him. It's as if Chan could reach out and touch it and feel braided, bristly fibers under his fingertips. A chill runs down his spine; his stomach drops. Something's rising in his gut. This just isn't right. It keeps getting worse. Shit, he needs to get out of here.

He flips the page back to how it was before. Steps away; runs his hand over his face.

Okay, now Chan's looking for something specific. Yes, he is rifling through Minho's stuff. Call the cops on him, whatever. Lucky for him, it's not very difficult to find. It sits behind an empty glass on Minho's nightstand, and tops off Chan's insides with that unfamiliar, chilling substance: dread.

Fuck. Stealing's wrong, but Chan's conscience would've been on him way, way more, had he not slipped the little razor blade he found into his pocket before he left.

─── ♡︎

fyi I DO NOT CONDONE THIS BEHAVIOR 👎🏼👎🏼

DONT GO SNOOPING ON PEOPLES SKETCHBOOKS WITHOUT PERMISSION!!

(lol im KIDDING ofc ofc i dont condone ANY of this behavior <3 don't try this at home kids)