july 23, 2021 — an empathetic heart. excerpt from a para never posted
Was everything okay? A sigh that seemed ancient in built-up answered at first for Jae given the fact that it was hard to find even the smallest of things that could be considered even slightly okay. Except for maybe the Tonga flag bearer. He had made the world a...shinier...place for a few moments. Knowing his expressions went far with Kian's own moods, Jae pushed his signature closed lips smile to the surface for Kiki before vanishing into the kitchen for a moment. Grabbing two soju from the fridge, he cracked his open in one hand as he offered the closed one out to Kian in case he didn't want it before collapsing sideways in the arm chair he'd vacated to clean. Nudging the larger than normal ottoman with a foot, he knew Kian would know it was an invitation to sit there closest to Jae as an option on the list of others. Deciding to stick to the native language most familiar to them, he began. "Nothing's been okay for awhile." He decided to vocally admit, pausing for a drink. "I know I'm not my old self lately but I don't know how to get back to him yet, I'm sorry. And..I'm sorry for our fight. The visual tone just didn't sit well on top of everything else plus with the disappointment I felt that we couldn't make it a family trip. Well, your family and me." He couldn't help it, Kian emphasising that they were his grandparents still stung like a bee's stinger lodged in Jae's heart. "But I can't..." Inhaling sharply through his nose, jae's jawline tightened and twitched as he fought off the burning rush of emotion on the shaky exhale. "I can't handle potentially losing you too so I'm sorry."
Kian’s eyes locked onto Jaesang the second he didn’t respond back right away and instead turned away to get them drinks. Reading people and into his surroundings had already become a second nature skill Kian utilized to the full, but when things came to Sunwoo and Jae, Kian was so sharp that it was like attuning to their souls. He picked out the sag in Jae’s shoulders, how suddenly Kian felt like he was holding the breath he could see Jae holding despite how the older had sighed. The coolness of the soju bottle in hand anchored Kian back into the room with Jae, but against this unexpected bout of exhaustion, Kian felt a copy of Jae’s first sigh escape through his own lips. The freeness of a few moments ago drastically became unimaginable as Kian felt a burdensome weight sinking down on him as he followed after his friend. He sat quietly, trying to silently take in what he was experiencing. It felt like forever since he felt someone else so strongly.
When he blinked up at Jae’s apologies, his eyes had gotten watery. It startled Kian that his throat was suddenly so tight, no matter how many times he swallowed down to catch air his throat just felt thicker. He was glad to hear Jae’s apologies, he ran a hand over his arm when slight goosebumps rose hearing Jae admit the truths that Kian had pointed out. As a tear slipped free down his cheek Kian was quick to wipe it away, cursing at how he was reacting. This probably looked so childish to Jae, typical of the younger to start doing. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’s not anything you’ve said I promise.” Kian gasped out, trying to manage his feelings. Maybe Jae had been holding this hurt in for so long Kian was catching every remnant of it. “It’s okay. I know you’ve been going through a lot. I shouldn’t have snapped back at you. I should’ve been more understandin’, yakno?” Kian tried swallowing again, keeping his tone at a moderate level. More tears slipped out and again he was quick to wipe them away. Finally he had to try and explain the wimpy way he was immediately reacting to the conversation. “You’re so sad, Jaesang…”
If there was something one could be more dependent on than Tuesday coming after Monday, it was Kian tuning into your emotions both the openly shared and the attempted to conceal, so Jae didn't even take a pause when the other started to cry. If anything, he would have been concerned if Kian hadn't shown an attached reaction. "You're doing the best you can, this is uncharted territory for BOTH of us. I've never... I've only gone through something close to this only recently and even then, sometimes this hurts more than that did. I've never completely exposed myself and opened up like a vulnerable ass little bitch before so it going the way it went just kind of...broke the pieces of myself I had refused to let out before. And you, you're not used to me not being myself. How can you deal with this version of me when I don't even know what the fuck I'm going to feel like at a given second. Sometimes I'm handling it, sometimes it actually physically hurts to breathe. Sometimes I want to just lash out to feel better but no matter what, it should never at any level be directed towards you. Even if I feel like you're giving an edge to me first, I shouldn't. Somedays, we're all we got ya kno?" Jae missed the way he finished off with a Kianism as his head was shaking. " Don't apologise for being you. You being you is the only thing I know I can always depend on. "
He didn't, right away at least, touch on Kian saying he was sad even if part of what he'd just said definitely covered it either way. Instead, he took a quiet break to set his drink aside and get up to pull Kian up and into a tight hug, one they both needed. "You big cry baby." He teased lightly, one arm holding Kian in and the other rubbing his back. "It's all good though, you can get it all out of my system for me." Staying like that for a bit, Jae eventually let go and sank back into his seat with another expressively emotional sound escaping as he did. "I'm real sad, Ki." Eyes focusing past Kian a bit to a family picture on the wall, he repeated it softer before looking away from it and took a long drain of the beer. "There's too damn much breaking away at me and I don't know anymore if there's going to be a way to ever really be a true full happy again but it's okay. I probably don't deserve to be top of the world, anyways. What'd I ever do to deserve that anyways, right?" It wasn't really self-deprecating, just a truth he had long believed in. "Stuff was starting to feel so good and shit was going great so it was bound to crash, right? Crash right back to just the two of us in the living room. " Pausing, Jae didn't want Kian to mistake what he had said so he lifted a foot to nudge into Kian's knee playfully. "I'm happy here though, I promise. Hanging out with you." He was quick to clarify at the end since here wasn't exactly the happiest place to be location wise anymore either.
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