Are You There - Chapter 46: Chapter 46

Hoseok groans at the sudden cloud that fogs up his entire mind. Why, of all the times his connection with Changkyun could come back, does it have to be right now? Right now, in the middle of an obviously private moment-
"What's your problem?" Minhyuk, sat still beside the fae, spares only half a glance for Hoseok. "You sick? 'Cause I don't wanna be around if you are-"
"It's Changkyun," Hoseok admits around a grimace. With a hand to his head, he attempts to rebuild the wall he once held so firm between their connection. He has been getting odd flashes of a dead Jooheon for the last thirty minutes, and while those have been unsettling to say the least, he did not assume they had anything to do with Changkyun. And now he is stuck with this. "God they're gonna fuck-"
Minhyuk sighs, standing himself up and motioning for Hoseok to follow. The fae stares up at the telepath in confusion, trying his hardest to remain focused on his own reality and block out Changkyun's as best he can. "Will anybody be upset if you don't keep the shop open today?" Minhyuk reaches out for the crook of Hoseok's elbow, leading him towards the storefront.
Hoseok glances about, half-expecting his father to wander in and scold him for considering leaving. Shrugging, he admits quietly that he is not really sure. "My parents stayed home today, so I guess only I would really know about it. And they'd probably assume since I won't make any sales-"
"It's settled then! We'll have a date."
Hoseok drags his feet into the flooring beneath him, startled by Minhyuk's suggestion. Startled really by the rather open admittance of it. "I have to work though-" Minhyuk gives the broad man's arm a sharp yank, sending Hoseok stumbling forward after his lithe form. "Minhyuk wait-"
"Come on!" Standing a full metre ahead of Hoseok, Minhyuk cannot help but sigh in a slight annoyance. "Hoseok, you realize that half of my two of my closest friends have died this week, and me, right? Don't you think we should just... Have a single day where nothing matters, nothing is worrying, and nothing is wrong?"
Hoseok wants that. He wants all of that, but he has a responsibility to his family and this stupid store. "I can't just wander out with you. I know this week has probably been the worst for all of us in a long time, but I can't promise a day out will make anything better-"
"It'll make me happy." Minhyuk is not smiling now, and he has not done so very easily in the last few months. His mother's death had taken a large chunk from his core, and though whatever Hoseok had done to him days ago had awoken a new power within him, he cannot say he is happy. But today, one day, with Hoseok under the spring sun... "It would make me so happy."
The telepath forces a smile onto his thin lips, blinking slow as Hoseok visibly struggles to fight the idea. Thin fingers tighten around Hoseok's broad arm, urging him closer towards the store's main door. With a sigh of his own, Hoseok finds himself giving in easier than expected. "We can't stay out all day, and you have to buy some tea when we get back, or my parents will kill me.
Minhyuk giggles like a child with a handful of sweets, his cheeks crinkling beneath his eyes with a too-large grin. It is not that he is with Hoseok, that is not why he smiles so wide. It is merely because he has all this pent up energy, and he really does not know what else to do with it. Hoseok and he both know about the transfer that had gone down when the fae saved the half-blood. Neither of them have mentioned it yet, too scared to broach the topic. Minhyuk figures today should be the day he finally bursts and asks every question he possibly can. Before even that, he wants to discuss things he spoke to his father about. The sudden instance he had with the dead man, seemingly ages ago, reins supreme in Minhyuk's mind still. He cannot move past anything without telling Hoseok everything about it.
The store grows dark and empty as Hoseok shuts it down after only an hour of business, Minhyuk's eyes lingering in the front windows and trailing down shelf upon shelf of herbal remedies. "Which ones of those have nectar in them?" He lifts a thin hand, pointing through the window so Hoseok understands the question.
The fae, with only half a glance as he locks up the front door, gestures towards the right of the store. "Towards the back, in that glass cabinet. They're locked up behind a charm so vampires and incubi can't smell them."
Minhyuk's chin dimples as he drops his lips in thought, not realizing there was such a charm. He has read through plenty of practice books, and he supposes now is a great time to test out his abilities, but there is too much he does not yet know. "Are you any good at charms?" Minhyuk knows that the man is good enough at creating knots, having been at the receiving end of several captive ones when the fae was angry.
"It's the only thing I can do well," Hoseok admits with a frown. Turning to Minhyuk with his shop keys hooked around a belt loop, his frown does not disappear quick enough. "You however, suck at them."
Minhyuk nods his head from side to side, his ears tinging a gentle shade of pink as he admits wryly to the truth. "You're not wrong, but I've done a few recently." Neither men drove today, so they turn towards the street rather aimlessly. They head North as one, no destination in mind though Hoseok would like some kind of distraction from whatever Changkyun is doing. Flashes of pale skin and dark eyes glint across his mind, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to block out the farther he and Minhyuk walk.
"Where are we going?" The fae's voice is rushed, and his breathing is bated as Changkyun's emotions start to hit him, like slow waves of warmth that Hoseok definitely does not need right now. The fae's cheeks flush as too many passionate thoughts hit him all at once, none of them his own.
"Strip club?" Minhyuk feels the most natural grin fold his lips upwards when Hoseok chokes on his breath, clearly disturbed by the idea.
"It's not even nine in the morning-"
Minhyuk cuts the larger man off with a clap to his back, the smile fleeting and already dissolved. "I think Master's spending the day at his shop." He takes a breath to explain the rest of his idea, but Hoseok interrupts him with a fresh frown.
"Hyungwon has a shop?"
"That's not the point," Minhyuk tells the fae with a frown of his own. "He'll be there all day, which means I can show you what I've been working on at his warehouse."
Hoseok's hairs stand on end all down his arms, the mention of Hyungwon's dungeon unsettling to say the least. The damp and generally dim basement is uncomfortable, the remnants of too many souls itching at him each time he visits. Yet the mention of Hyungwon does give him a bit of intrigue. Hoseok is not much interested in the vampire per say, but more interested in why Hyungwon trails after the fae like a child.
Or perhaps why Hyungwon is so adamant about keeping the fae close. They have had discussions recently about the Claim that holds them together, and how desperately the vampire would like to hold it for longer. For safety purposes, he always explains each time, to which Hoseok never replies. Hyungwon knows how he still feels about a connection to a vampire, a practical ownership, yet he continuously prods at the fae about keeping around one another for longer.
"Well what have you been working on at the warehouse?" Hoseok shakes Minhyuk's hand away from his arm, scared that the telepath will see something of Changkyun he does not care to witness. Minhyuk almost immediately laces their fingers together instead, tugging the fae forward hand in hand.
As if a channel on the television has been flipped, Hoseok's mind drops away from Changkyun and Jooheon, drifting to other lanes. Sunny skies and the pavement beneath his feet, and Minhyuk's hand in his. That is all his mind registers now. Smiling over at the younger man, he let's a content sigh pass his lips. "Thanks for that."
Minhyuk returns the grin, eager to please. Tightening his fingers around Hoseok's, he walks just a bit faster, pretending he is not seeing everything instead. Pretending that his own mind is not flooded with a pair across the city twisted together. That all he sees is Hoseok beside him on the street, the pavement and the sun and their hands together just like Hoseok feels.
For just a few moments longer, he hides his abilities. He feels happy.
[ x ]
"You're here early-"
Hyunwoo cuts Kihyun off with a hand held high in the air, eager for a moment of thought without the smaller man's interruption. "I wanted to get here before you opened today. I've been doing some research the last few days."
Kihyun swallows hard, worried about what that could mean. "What, brushing up on the Klingon language?" The broad man behind the comic shop counter does not even look up at Kihyun, staring down instead at the pile of papers before him.
"Did you believe me the other day?" Hyunwoo's already thick lips grow plumper as he purses them together, not expecting an answer but waiting all the same.
"What, when you told me I was a dirty liar and never to see you again?" Kihyun cannot keep the bite out of his voice, it is impossible with the glare Hyunwoo has on his face. Kihyun misses the way the broad man used to gaze up at him, adoringly from his stool. Now it just hurts; he takes that pain and uses it against Hyunwoo in return.
"No," the dark man admits as he stands in his place. The long checkout counter looks dwarfed when he takes a deep breath in, his chest puffing out and broadening his stance almost impossibly so. "When I told you I love you."
Love.
Kihyun is thrown off by the lack of past tense on that word. He would have almost expected it at this point, after days of childish arguments, thinly veiled insults, and glares. Kihyun is not prepared to guess if Hyunwoo still feels anything for him.
"I believed you," Kihyun admits easily. His head nods twice, firm in his words. "That's why I told you the truth about me. Because you need to know the truth about what you think you love-"
"I don't wanna play dramatics," Hyunwoo interrupts again. Typically a man of few words, he works out just what to say here without taking up too much time. Gesturing down to the counter before him, he indicates the papers he's scrawled across in the last few days. "I've done research on this incubus thing."
Kihyun's perceptive eyes glance down at the papers, picking out a few words of Hyunwoo's messy writing. Strengthened senses. Shapeshifters. Seduction. Demons. None of them leave Kihyun particularly settled. In fact, he is more terrified of the truth now than he has ever been before.
"And a lot of the things I found online helped explain some random things that went down while we were together."
Flashes of hefting Hyunwoo out of bed, smelling fire before the smoke alarms across the apartment complex- Not to mention Kihyun bleeding on the street with lash marks that sealed shut overnight. Every instance that did not ever make sense begin to collide with the words he read and wrote down.
"So what are you trying to say?" Kihyun scratches at the back of his neck, nervous under Hyunwoo's heavy gaze. "You did research 'cause you believe me? Or-"
"No." Hyunwoo's dark hair, lying flat against his forehead after days of forgetting to use product in it, flops into his eyes as he shakes his head. "I did research 'cause I want to believe you. Because even though lying is the thing I hate the most, you are the thing I love the most."
Kihyun drops his hand away from the nape of his neck, his cheeks flushing through in a deep crimson that almost burns him. Though he has heard the words before, he is still embarrassed to see the honesty in Hyunwoo's eyes. He is terrified by the truth there, especially after the mess Kihyun has already created with his own truth. "I wasn't lying," the incubus says quietly, his eyes falling to the floor beneath his feet. His bag feels heavy over his shoulder, weighed down with books he bought last evening at a competitor's store. The incubus had not wanted to let his boss or Hyunwoo know that he was trying his hardest to read what they usually would; so he purchased a hoard of graphic novels in secret and stored them close in hiding. "I've never once lied to you-"
Kihyun cuts himself off, the statement not entirely true. He had never lied, per say, but he had withheld a complete truth several times, just to save face. Just to protect Hyunwoo. Or perhaps it has ended up hurting him more in the long run, Kihyun cannot tell at this point.
Hyunwoo rounds the counter, his eyes dropping as he realizes just how nervous he is to face the truth. His hands come out at his sides, palms up and empty as if in surrender. He walks until he is stood just before Kihyun, his chin up so he can stare down his nose at the smaller man. Kihyun feels dwarfed before Hyunwoo, as he often does, but the aching desire to reach out and hug the larger man is still present. He misses his lover, though they have only fought in the last few days.
"I do love you," Hyunwoo repeats around a deep sigh. "And that's why I'm giving up on everything I believe and letting you explain to me everything." Hyunwoo takes a minuscule step forward, invading Kihyun's space and breathing hot onto his face. "I want you to start with the day I found you on the street half dead."
Hyunwoo lets his eyes scan down Kihyun's face, picking up all the emotions there easier than any book he has ever read. Kihyun in himself is a book all his own. Hyunwoo's favorite novel.
"I want to know all of you."
Kihyun's lips purse in thought, wondering if he should make some kind of joke. He cannot hold back the chuckle as he lets the words slip past his lips. "Which one of me do you wanna know?"
Hyunwoo does not get it, but he is eager to learn. As long as it means Kihyun is with him like this. Smiling, laughing, and in love. As long as he has Kihyun for himself.