rely.
@idjowi, san’s apartment late at night, half-drunk off of wine.
san figures his bond with jowi is one of those once-in-a-lifetime things. a shooting star of a relationship that lodged inside his chest, firecracker-bright and burning. he relies on her, more than he might even realizes. often regards her far higher than he does himself. but despite all of this, jowi is never who san runs to first when he’s going through something. or, not in a way where they would exchange emotional baggage, where she could help him cut down to the crux of a problem, why he’s upset, figure out his next best step.
jowi is who he goes to when he feels like shit and wants to try (for the umpteenth time) to drink his problems away (and wouldn’t you know, it never really works out). perhaps it’s because they both deal with problems in the same, unhealthy manner. they just end up as a sounding board for each other, unintentionally pushing each other into the same patterns again and again. and part of san is still unsure when it comes to the realm of relationships, love. even in the platonic sense. there’s always that belief rattling around inside his head that it’s conditional. he and jowi have worked out this dynamic, and so what happens if he breaks it? what happens if you day he trips and spills his relentlessly stupid issues at her feet and she just doesn’t want to deal with them. him. doesn’t want to help him clean up whatever fucked up mess he’s managed to create out of seemingly nothing?
they’re friends, and he loves her. trusts her. but there’s always that edge of uncertainty. hesitancy that he’ll cross some unspoken boundary and everything will get yanked away. it’s something san’s grown up around. tiptoeing carefully around emotions and desires, bottling them all up instead, hiding them away. because when they come up, people get upset. when he spills them out, that love has a tendency of getting yanked out of his reach. like a child, with spilled juice on the floor, sticky-fingered and grabbing for something precious and clean. that’s how he feels, sometimes. and it’s a little shameful. a little humiliating. so san keeps that to himself, too.
it’s why, now, inside his apartment with a bottle of wine nearly gone (and another on standby), san still hasn’t told her why he’d invited her over to binge-drink and watch slasher films (the tipsier he gets, the less san’s able to find the will to read the subtitles). this isn’t unusual. but he knows she’ll come, and he knows she’ll drink along with him until he passes out on the couch or makes himself sick. whichever comes first. “i think this movie’s worse than the last one.” san decides as too-red blood sloshes around the screen. his voice lilts out, like it’s wobbling along on a merry-go-round.
he drops his head to rest against jowi’s shoulder and curls himself in closer. like stealing physical affection can somehow be the balm to whatever wound he’s managed to self-inflict. his phone’s still in kitchen. it’s turned off, he’d talked to his manager about needing a new number, but he’s not sure it’s been resolved yet. he’d had to pull out his computer to message jowi to come over. so he leaves it abandoned for now. “how’s album prep going?” san asks, but his voice comes out like an ulterior motive, a little wheedling. a question that’s masquerading as a request for her to stay the night, if she’s free enough the next morning.