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Two blankets, check; a movie, check; food? No, not yet. The popcorn was still in the pot.
In all honesty, you were a little nervous. Maybe it showed. You had spent the entire afternoon frantically preparing for Yoosung’s return, thoughts scrambled and anxious flutters dancing about in your chest.
You needed to talk to him.
As much as you were inclined to believe Yoosung would try to avoid the topic, you knew it had to be discussed sooner or later, and the sooner it was, the less sleep you’d lose over it.
It was a couple of minutes now until his return, so you went to the kitchen and put the popcorn into a large bowl - stuffing the pot into the sink to be dealt with later. Yoosung was your priority now, so you took a seat on the couch, turned the television on and waited for him to come through the door.
Two and a half hours in, you started getting drowsy.
You awoke with a start when you heard the front door being opened. Getting out of the blankets proved to be a clumsy process, because it was dark (really, why was it so dark? Usually when he came home it was still afternoon) and everything within eyeshot was pitch black.
Hurriedly, you pushed the door opened to find him standing in front of it, keys in hand, ready to use.
He was surprised, then apathetic, and then a swirl of guilt pressed down on his features so hard he couldn’t even meet your eyes.
“Yoosung! You’re really late today.”
It may be too late to watch a movie, you couldn't help but think.
“Ah. Sorry,” he mumbled.
You stood dumbfounded for a second. It took a blank few moments for you to realise you were probably expecting an explanation, wherein Yoosung did nothing but awkwardly shift on his feet, his lips pressed tightly together. An icy breeze brushed against your face.
“Can I - come in?”
“Huh?”
“It’s uhm. It’s cold.”
“Oh yeah, of course,” you said - stepping aside and realising the blanket was still tightly wound around your foot. He came in and closed the door behind him.
It was quiet.
As he took his shoes off and put them into the cabinet, he said nothing, and the awkward stiffness in his movement instilled an unsureness in yours too. Furthermore, there was something oddly uncomfortable about his physical closeness - as if he were a stranger.
“I didn’t think you’d still be up,” he said.
His tone felt strange.
“No, I just woke up. I fell asleep waiting for you.” Your eyes turned towards the popcorn on the table. “I thought that maybe we should… talk.”
He didn’t respond.
“I could maybe put a movie on too. If you're not feeling up to it yet. It's late, and I know you have class in the morning, but...”
Still nothing.
“There’s erm, popcorn on the table. ”
You ran out of things to say.
Dissatisfied with the silence, you took a deep breath and turned towards him, so you could gauge his expression.
“I just think that -” you started, but your breath cut away from you before you could even form the next word with your lips.
His eyes were glazed.
“I'm sorry,” He finally responded. His voice, a feeble sound that cracked at the edges and almost deafened you in the late-night silence. “I’m so sorry.”
Yoosung pulled you in towards him before you could see anymore of his face. His hair brushed against your neck, and his wet cheeks nestled into your shoulder.
“I didn't - I thought you wouldn't want to see me.” His hands too, almost dead-weight at his sides, and yet you swore you'd never felt them tug at your shirt harder.
“It's alright,” was all you said for a little while, gently stroking his back.
It took a few minutes, but Yoosung eventually withdrew, and when you caught a glimpse of his face again you could see his entire skin was mottled.
“Should we sit on the couch?”
In response, he sniffed and nodded pathetically, letting you take good hand in yours and carry him there, where you both sat down facing each other.
“I didn’t -” he wiped at his eyes. “I didn’t mean anything I said. I’d never hurt you.”
“I know.”
Absentmindedly, you wished you had prepared tissues.
“Sorry, I know I should have said something before, but I just didn’t want you to think I was creepy. Or that I’d do something to you.”
The tremors in his hands reached down to his arms, and even his legs were shaking. In an attempt to get closer, you pulled your leg over his and sat flush in his lap, supporting the back of his head and pushing him into your collar.
“Yoosung… It’s alright to get bad thoughts you know. I’m not going to think any less of you just because you told me about them.”
Yoosung’s hands were clenched tightly into fists. You felt the weight of his arms from your back, where he was holding onto your clothes like a lifeline.
You continued. “If I’m a policeman, and I meet two people: one who stole something valuable, and one who wanted to steal something valuable, which one of them am I going to arrest?”
“The one who stole it,” he mumbled. You felt the vibrations from his voice travel into your collarbone.
“Am I going to do anything to the one who wanted to steal, but didn’t?”
He sniffed.
“No.”
“Of course not. Because bad thoughts don’t make anyone a bad person. Yoosung, you’re the best boyfriend a girl could ask for: you make breakfast for me before you go to school, you let me take gold from your LOLOL account to use in mine, you call me if I’m ever late coming home, you drop everything and comfort me if it looks like I’m feeling down, and you’re most of the way through getting your medical degree and becoming a certified doctor.”
You felt Yoosung’s breathing relax to a slow pace.
“Never, even for a second have you ever made me doubt that you love me, even when I do something that annoys you, like bother you when you’re busy studying. It's because you make it so easy for me to believe in you, that I can be so sure that you’d never do anything to hurt me, itches or otherwise.”
All you felt was his chest pressing into yours, as he took a deep breath. He seemed, comfortable almost - you mused. For a second, you were almost sure he fell asleep.
“I would never do anything to hurt you,” he said, but it sounded less like his attempt to convince you, and more of him blankly repeating your words. Letting them sit on his tongue, swirling them about, trying them on in different sizes.
You nodded.
“I love you,” he said, once he'd thought about it enough.
Your reply was almost immediate.
“I know. Me too.”
Again, you felt him sigh before he pulled away from you. With your eyes completely adjusted to the dark, you saw damp paths of water where his tears ran down his cheeks.
“I’m gonna go and put those tablets in the bin.”
“Alright. Wash your face too, you’ll feel refreshed.”
The couch heaved as he stood up from it, and you replaced the cold air that took his place with a blanket pushed up all the way up to your neck.
From the kitchen, you could hear as Yoosung fiddled about with the cabinets. It took a little bit of shuffling for him to find the tablets, because they were buried right at the bottom of the medicine box.
You thought you wouldn’t mind either way at first, but when the bin flap closed and you could hear the cardboard box fall into the trash, a surge of relief strong enough to give the back of your neck goosebumps passed over your skin like a wave of cold seawater.
After that, it was the tap. A few seconds of seeing him bend over the sink to splash water into his eyes before using a tea towel on hand to wipe it away.
All the while, you waited for him, staring at him not because you felt the need to, but because out of everything else in the room - your eyes wanted to rest on him the most.
“Although, you know…” You started, and watched him turn around. “Some girls find posessiveness kind of hot.”
The sharp straighten of his back was almost slapstick. It was as though someone had literally shoved a metre long rod down his shirt. He grew an extra few centimeters just from posture.
“Wait? What? Really?”
You attempted to keep your smile down and give him a straight answer, but the laughter trickled up, and soon you burst out into a loud chuckles that gave you away.
Gradually, the shock on his face receded into gentle distaste. When he walked close enough for you to make out details in his features, you saw that the tips of the hair framing his face were still damp. He kneeled above your torso, and the couch dimpled around his weight.
“It’s not fair. The only time you don’t treat me like a child is when we’re having sex. It hurts my pride, you know.”
You snorted.
“Probably because you still say things like ‘it’s not fair’ with a straight face.”
Yoosung didn’t give you a proper response. Instead, he leant into your neck and began drawing lines of kisses down your jaw. You felt a low thrum begin in your chest, and then roll outwards up to your throat and out of your lips - where it came out as a soft hum of approval.
“Honestly though,” you begun, pulling up his chin with the tip of your fingers and looking into his eyes. “I can’t imagine what my life would look like without you. I think you should stop trying to imagine it too.”
The little smile that dipped into the corners of his cheeks was positively exuberant. As you ran your fingers up his shirt and down the skin on his ribs, you remembered how much Yoosung had grown.
“Yeah, you’ve said this before. It’s about living in the present, right?”
The biggest changes happened after the party, but little things like putting more into his schedule where he knew he could manage it, or studying as much as he could handle without burning himself out came about slowly, and later.
“Something like that.”
Even his sweet smiles were shaded with an almost innocent maturity. A sort of happiness that comes only from knowing that your life is on the right path, and you're enjoying every single day - while simultaneously working to make it better.
“See what I mean? Usually, you tease me whenever you can, but as soon as I start kissing your neck suddenly we’re both fourty-fourty and having mature conversations.”
You couldn’t help but laugh.
“Why fourty-four?”
“Uh, isn’t it what level you’re on in LOLOL?”
Maybe it ruined the atmosphere, but your snicker came out on its own.
“So much for mature conversations. That was so random.”
Before you could even finish your sentence, Yoosung groaned in frustration against your ear. The sound wasn’t inherently sexual, and yet the thrum returned, this time as a ball in your stomach that went down all the way to your core.
Gently, he pushed your top up a little - just enough to run his hands down your stomach.
‘Stop teasing me’, his fingers said.
‘Alright,’ your eyes responded, by locking with his.