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As usual, Jeno wakes up to scattered sheets, an empty bed and a cold plate of waffles and greasy bacon waiting for him on their kitchen counter.
Jaemin leaves at 9 a.m., early (or, early enough for Jeno) for his work at the downtown shopping district's bakery on Thursdays. Jeno doesn't know why he's always on a rush to get busy in the morning other than his need for the extra pay, but he wouldn't really mind if he didn't get so lonely at times, considering he had all four rooms of their apartment miserably to the company of no one else but himself. It's been like this since five months ago, but Jeno isn't anywhere near used to the feeling even when it should practically count as routine.
Since Jeno only mostly does his own form of work on weekdays by scraping off the rust from the railings of their balcony and wasting off in the couch while he stares at his laptop, he's in-charge of staying home, primarily-- even if those two things are all he ever does besides either taking a three-hour bath, working out, or ordering Chinese take-out for lunch. Being aware of his routine makes the endless cycle of his apartment hoarding so unbearable, but it's not like there's anything else he could do, and it's not like it isn't what Jaemin does himself-- besides actually being responsible with his time-- when Jeno leaves to start his shift at the pet store on the weekends.
Dozing off by the counter at 12:17 in the afternoon, he starts to think about the past.
Na Jaemin was everyone's-- but mostly his college sweetheart, four years and numerous attempts to look squeaky and presentable ago, and everyone else who had even some vague understanding of this information probably thought that Jeno was the dysfunctional kid-next-door, the charity case-- or the kid who's not even sure why they're in school, even though contrarily Jeno's the one who gets higher grades, was in Honors English and got fat nods for being in their school's track team between the both of them.
It wasn't until the last week before their graduation that Jaemin had told Jeno that he wanted to stay with him forever. It sounded significant, that night in the Shakey's joint beside their campus, the way Jaemin said, in near tears, I wouldn't know what to do with my life if it's not your face and your voice that I wake up to , and Jeno didn't think twice about letting Jaemin in, because he knew that was the same thing he was thinking. And then, at the slightest point in time he's had nothing else but doubts about what this whole thing with Jaemin would end up being, even when they're living together, practically a happy, married family, minus the kids. Four years and that's still the case-- Jeno, insecure, doubtful about some unnamed aspect in his relationship that was essentially geared to last a lifetime. Something in his mind tells him it might always be that way, that he might always find something to worry about every three seconds; but maybe now it's because he's just hungry, so he decides to tiptoe to the counter for a much needed bite.
He eats his soggy plate of waffles, miserably, while he saddles up for the rest of the afternoon he's going to spend watching outdated DVDs on their television. There's only one text from Jaemin on his phone, sent an hour ago: cant believe hyuck's not even here yet, :((( oh man. Jeno thinks of replying, but Jaemin's probably working, and he didn't even know when's the next time Jaemin's going to touch his phone or decide it was time to text back. Instead of pondering over that possibility, he tosses his phone as far away from him on the couch as he could manage before he shuffles over to their coffee table for the TV remote, pressing forward, and then play. The early remnants of a sketchy horror movie flashes on the screen, and Jeno can't believe it's not even ten seconds in and he's already tired.
Hours pass by quicker when Jeno's bored, for some reason. Somehow, he falls asleep five minutes in on his fourth horror movie, when it's half past 3 in the afternoon, the TV remote wedged between his arms as his eyes start to droop slowly. He can't remember what he was watching, partly because he didn't really pay attention, but mostly because he only ever does pay attention when Jaemin's talking his head off about what's going on in the screen. By the time he's fully dozed off, the screams from the television have muted to a blur, reduced to nothing else but thriller static, forgotten. He wakes up about an hour later to eerie background music and a black screen, the credits of the movie already rolling. Hazily, he decides that's enough staring at the TV screen for today, and then gears himself for a steamy, post-rest shower.
Jeno gets in and out of the bathroom between a thirty minute interval, and fishes out his phone to be greeted by a text from Jaemin that reads , how can u leave me on read???? how????????? HOW???? u monsterrrrrrr... Jeno sends a black heart emoticon, just to tease, and then the hours pass by quick, again-- like they've ever really stopped.
By 7 p.m., Jeno has successfully pigged out for the whole afternoon, and possibly for the remainder of the evening. He chugs on his third mug of warm Sprite and feasts on his second cup of ramen while he flips through the channels on the television before ultimately deciding it'd be better turning it off. Not even the reruns of the shark documentaries on NatGeo count good enough to fish his interests, especially at this time of the night, when his whole state of mind is practically hotwired to reserving his full attention to Jaemin the moment he gets home. Hoping he gets home quick, Jeno waits, because that was always the best part of his day.
Usually, Jaemin gets off of work at this time, but it wasn't until a quarter past 8 when he comes barging in through their front door, when Jeno was busy wading through their kitchen shelves in search for his unopened pack of Cheetos that Jaemin's probably had for himself when Jeno wasn't around.
Jeno sneaks a peek from behind the counter under the sink, a smile creeping through his face even when he spots Jaemin walking through their halls and plopping down on the sofa a little less livelier than usual.
"Bad day?" Jeno asks, instinctively aware.
"Not really-- not anymore." Jaemin smiles back, genuine yet somewhat weak. Jeno makes a turn for the living room to walk over to Jaemin, who was sprawled against the couch cushions and who, apparently, still hasn't stopped talking. "This is the you part of my day, so it's good. The rest-- uh, isn't. But it's not, like."
"I guess that's something to talk about." He chuckles, finally able to pat the top of Jaemin's head, to which the latter softens into. Calmly, he chimes, "Do you want to?"
"No." Jaemin pouts, his cheeks pressing against the cushions when he turns his face away. "Don't want to talk."
"Okay. But I'm ordering take-out," Jeno says, already dialling the local pizzeria's hotline on his phone. "Maybe on a full stomach, you'll want to."
Jaemin shakes his head profusely, whines out, "sleeep--" in a childish little tone, throwing his hands forward, clasping and unwinding his fingers together to somehow make a tacit signal for Jeno to carry him to bed. "Just want to go to bed-- please?"
Jeno gives in and does what he's told, leaning down to scoop Jaemin up in his arms and onto their bed, carefully. He helps Jaemin out of his clothes, stripping them off and off and placing them somewhere on their nightstand, letting them fall from from the edges to the patterned carpet laid over their bedroom floor. Jaemin sits up against the headboard in nothing else but his boxers, his post-work tension weighing him down hopelessly.
"I feel like shit," Jaemin winces, and it sounds hoarse, nasal, like shit.
"I have a cure for that." Jeno says back, already geared for his NyQuil run.
"I don't need it," Jaemin only shakes his head, and Jeno finds that adorable for some reason. "You're obviously enough. So, you can-- just take care of me, Jen-- you're so good at it."
Jeno opts to stare mindlessly at Jaemin's tired disposition, but instead he paces back, and runs straight to the kitchen for a clean spoon and for some medicine beside their fridge. He runs back to give a grumpy Jaemin a tablespoon of NyQuil before tossing the blanket over his bare body. Jaemin huffs when Jeno pulls the spoon back, thumping against the bed, but the sound that he makes when he burrows his face against the sheets soothes Jeno.
"Your side of the bed?" Jaemin hums, suddenly calm, sniffing the pillows and smiling.
Jeno only nods, even if he knows Jaemin can't see it when he had his eyes closed. "You can move over if you don't-- like it."
"I like this better though." Jaemin says. "Everything smells like you."
He cringes. "You mean like my sweat,"
"Whatever." Jaemin moans, pulling Jeno down by his neck and tackling him to the bed, and because Jaemin was weak and Jeno was trying to be nice, he tramples on his own feet and thumps on his stomach against Jaemin's chest in a severely scripted fashion. Jaemin lands a soft peck against the top of Jeno's head in a child-like manner when he falls, high and proud. Jeno laughs back, enticed and amused.
They fake wrestle for what lasts about a minute, arms jabbed against knees while the sound of bubbly laughter fills the room, but only until Jeno gains the upper hand and reigns victorious when he finally pins Jaemin down on the bed in puffy little breaths. Jaemin shrinks like this wasn't what he was expecting-- the end, or Jeno saying he should sleep, or Jeno basically just cutting him short of getting what he wants, even though that was bound to happen tonight.
"Sleep." Jeno says, firm, his hands gripped tight on Jaemin's sides.
"What?" Jaemin scoffs and turns to his side with Jeno still looming above him. He covers himself under the blankets; hoping to God he sounds like he's joking when he follows up with, "No good night fuck?"
Jeno blinks, blushing. "That's what you want?"
"I didn't say that," he argues knowingly, but it's blank and weightless. Lacking its usual bite.
"Close your eyes now, then." Jeno sighs, crawling up to Jaemin's side to spoon and snuggle him over the blanket, planting a kiss to his nape. "Sweet dreams."
Then, he flicks off the lamp on their nightstand, his arms landing snug against Jaemin when he leans back down and yawns. His body grows slack in slow heaps; he expects his restlessness to kick in sooner than later, so he lets himself be lulled ever so gently to sleep by the sound of Jaemin's comforting breaths, like they're whispers of his guardian angel guiding him on his journey back to their shared piece of heaven, home.
On the contrary, though, Jaemin pretends to be asleep for a solid hour, his movements far from still, and Jeno just lies stiff, cradling Jaemin in his arms; it's the most he can do to let Jaemin know he's only pretending he believes it.
****
As usual, Jeno wakes up to scattered sheets, an empty bed, but -- he stares at the desk clock. It was only nearing 2 a.m., way too early, and when he sits up he wonders what Jaemin was doing or where he could've gone, especially at this time, when it somehow couldn't wait.
He grows alarmed at the sound of humming and rustling from somewhere outside of their empty bedroom. As soon as Jeno pulls himself out of his groggy reverie, he puts his glasses on (the wrong way, at first), and, after slipping into his flip flops, he dashes straight for the door, both needlessly anxious and more than willing to get this over with. He bursts out of their bedroom in a calm funk, and sighs immediately to a full view of Jaemin wrapped up in nothing else but a pile of blankets while he's seated calm and giggly on the kitchen floor, the refrigerator wedged wide fucking open, the only source of light in the whole room. Jeno stares at it long enough to wonder how long Jaemin's been sitting in front of it, and how much it's going to cost them after he realizes it's definitely, inevitably skyrocketing their electric bills.
Jeno walks over, and says, to Jaemin, aggravatedly: "I thought you wanted to sleep."
"Yeah. I did sleep," Jaemin chuckles, drunk, looking up at Jeno and gesturing him to sit down. "But, actually, I'm-- I feel like talking my head off now."
"What, 'cause you're high on NyQuil?" Jeno winces, because right now he's supposed to be angry at the fact that somehow all the brandy they've stocked on their cheap decanter is near gone. "Or because you're a cheap drunk?"
"Not drunk-- just." He seems to ponder over that for a while, blinking away his brandy-dwindled daze, but he ends up giggling it off in the end, asking, "Did you know there was a couple who fought in front of the bakery today?"
Jeno wishes he could be mad, even just a little, but instead he sighs the tension off, finally deciding it's only for the best to sit down and listen to Jaemin talk about anything he wants while he steers to the buzzing of the refrigerator for some comforting background music. Coincindentally, the fridge did just fine as mood lighting, too.
"I didn't." Jeno says, giving in. "Was it bad?"
"It was bad. I mean-- they had a kid, who was crying beside them while they gawked about their bills, or something? And, like, Hyuck c-couldn't even fend them off." Jaemin says, but mostly he just slurs the words out. "Usually they'd know to stop when someone t-tries to shoo their asses away, right? And it wasn't even until some policemen pulled up that they realized they were in deep shit."
"Gosh. Now I feel bad," Jeno admits, halfway through the sound of Jaemin's rummaging between the shelves of their fridge for something decent enough that counts just fine as a 2 a.m. snack. Of course he goes for the ziplock bag of peanut butter cups, and he raises it up, shows it to Jeno with eyes that look like they were asking for permission that he didn't even need. Jeno doesn't say anything, but either way Jaemin still pins the bag close to his chest when he leans back, ass plopping down on the blankets bunched up on the floor while he tears the ziplock open impatiently, like he was a child.
"I did, too. I feel bad all the time. I feel bad right now, because I feel like that's all I do . Feel bad." Jaemin laughs inebriatedly, and shrugs it off out of reflex, for no reason. "But this time it was just for the kid, and for all of the people who had to walk down the street in the night just to see all that shit. His parents aren't, really-- I mean, I feel bad, because they're just-- fucking assholes, I guess."
"Maybe they usually aren't." Jeno croaks sympathetically, knowing all of Jaemin's attention has been inevitably diverted to his week-old bag of Reese's . He stole most of them, anyway, from the candy bowl on the counter of the pet store.
"Maybe they usually are." Jaemin says begrudgingly, unhindered by the mess of his own drunken chewing. "They looked like they were."
Before Jeno could even say anything, Jaemin shifts close, jittery beside him, just enough that their knees knock against one another in a way that shakes Jeno out of his restlessness for a second. He feeds Jeno half of a peanut butter cup, and then claps proudly when Jeno takes it in his mouth, like this was an achievement of some sort. Jeno laughs along when Jaemin does, mostly because he didn't know what else in the world to do.
Jaemin fidgets after a moment, eyes on his shaky, chocolate-covered thumbs. He stares, and asks, "Jeno?"
Jeno looks down, whispers. "Yeah?"
"I think I want to set up an aquarium." Jaemin beams softly, in a sing-songy voice. "You've always wanted to bring home some goldfish from the pet store, remember?"
"We can," he says, even though he's not even sure the old lady from the pet shop was even willing to resettle the offer of free goldfish they'd made ten months ago, when Jeno was just starting off with the job. "But, tomorrow, okay?"
"I want to grow a lemon tree too." A lemon tree sounded too conspicuous. Maybe that was drunk Jaemin talking. "Maybe we can plant it on a pot, for now? We'll probably be living in a big house-- like. By the time it's fully grown, right?"
"Uh, yeah." He lets out a throaty sigh, his lack of sleep finally getting the best of him. "Probably."
This goes on for about five more minutes: just Jaemin daydreaming-out-loud about the life he's so desperate to have with Jeno. At some point in between, it all blurs together in Jeno's mind, because he doesn't think he can keep his eyes open for longer. Even the courage to stay up had its limitations, and he doesn't run on caffeine like Jaemin-- who was now talking about splurging his money on baby clothes and a crib and a stroller and crayons and a 20-pack of glow in the dark stars.
"Jeno?" Jaemin mumbles then, dragging the O playfully. "Earth to Lee Jeno."
"I'm here." He says, tiredly, like a kid in class during their post-recess roll call.
"I said," he holds his breath, "I want to have kids."
"Wait," that shakes Jeno for a hot moment, but he catches himself quick, or quick enough to choke on his own spit. "Kids?"
"Yes, Jeno. Kids." Jaemin mutters shakily. "Because, that couple-- I thought about-- what we would do if we were the ones there. We probably wouldn't be shouting at each other in front of a bakery, and we sure as hell wouldn't let that kid cry because he's born with shitty parents... which he's too young to even ask for." He nods to himself. "We'd be a pretty happy family. We kind of are, now. But I still want-- everything. And a kid, you know?"
In the back of Jeno's head, he's thinking, no, you don't . But, God, even if Jaemin was drunk, he sounded way too sure.
"Alright, that's." Jeno dithers, but he goes on. "But we're way too young."
"Right." Jaemin says, like the only reason he's being mindfully attentive is because nothing's getting through. "What's the best time to raise a kid, then? When we're, like, fifty-seven or something?"
"We're not even married." Jeno continues, enumerating and weighing out how much of a point everything in his head made before he says anything more. "And you can't just bear a fetus in your nonexistent womb, not even if you pray hard enough."
"Do I look like I think that's an option?" Jaemin quakes, offended. Jeno shakes his head in lieu of pointing out that Jaemin did look like he was considering, but only because he looked like he was about to cry right then and there.
"Maybe." He mumbles, nervous. "Look, we're both barely saving up for a house, and for a new car, and for an aquarium, and for a lemon tree, and-- you don't even like your job. And I wouldn't--"
"Yeah, Christ. Don't look at me like you don't already think I know all of that, okay?" Jaemin tenses up, pouty, stiff and lonely. "I was just thinking. About what it's like. Kids, you know? That'd be something to wake up to."
Jeno softens. It's not all the time that he can be so overly calculative, and it's not all the time that Jaemin can dream . He looks at Jaemin and inches close, brushes his hair away from his face like that would make Jaemin understand his fear a bit more. "Hey." He whispers, guilty. "Maybe, if I can get my hands on some adoption papers,"
"Jeno, what!" Jaemin hiccups in shock, his hands flying towards Jeno. The blanket falls lower down his shoulders when he clasps his hands tight around Jeno's arm in assertion. "You don't-- this was-- dumb. And we can talk about this when I'm older, or sober-- alright? Or when you don't feel like you have to give me everything I ask for, because you don't, and that's fine. I know that much, so, really, you don't have to do anything."
"You're right." He pauses, because that wasn't his point. "But this-- not this, Jaemin. It's like that night you told me you wanted us to live together, and I spent what was left in my bank account just so I could let you squeeze in." Jeno shakes his head solemnly, feeling like he could be just as drunk as Jaemin when he mutters, surely, "I want it, I always have. And if it's a house and a tree and a kid you want, one or ten or twenty, then. I want that, too."
"You must be drunk." Jaemin curls his brows in his own attempt to comprehend, then laughs, leaning his head slowly on Jeno's shoulder. He hums satedly, and Jeno can feel the smile etching its way to Jaemin's face, like he can't help it.
"Drunk enough to make such a humiliating, ridiculous speech? I don't know, I guess I am." Jeno says.
"It wasn't ridiculous. It was-- sweet, really." He grins, giddy. "But twenty kids is a bit too far."
"Just a bit?" He chuckles low, snuggled against the nook of Jaemin's pastry-scented hair. "So fifteen's not even a stretch?"
"It is," he leans up to plant a soft kiss against Jeno's lips, trembling, like he thinks he could be sneaky about this. He starts pulling back to smile toothily again. "But I'll take it."
"So take it," Jeno grins back, like that meant something. Right now, it doesn't, but it will, and he hopes to God that, to Jaemin, that much will manage to get through. He takes Jaemin full between his freezing, firm hands, stares at his face as the angles shift with the dim, yellowish light of the buzzing refrigerator, and decides that this is really all he could ever want-- when he kisses all the tremors and the worry out of Jaemin's shaky lips.
It's clear, now. Jaemin is what he wants-- his whole miraculous, godsent being, nothing else, not even anything more, and if Jeno has to stake and spend his whole lifetime wishing he could always have him so close, and even so much closer, then he would feel like it was a lifetime worth it.
This whole thing is so arbitrary-- but so what, if he listens to Jaemin talk drunk about things that'll always matter while they lie still on the kitchen floor, chuckling against the humming edges of the refrigerator? It's times like these that urge Jeno to grip tight, to buckle down, to sink his hands in deeper than they are and deeper than they have, anyway. He knows, for the longest time-- for four years-- he only thought: This is something worth so much more than holding on to.
Tonight, though, he soaks it in, imbibes it, believes it. And for what it's worth, drunk talks by the light of the fridge or goldfish and lemon trees or silly kisses that taste like bland peanut butter cups, he knows he's sure of this. And that makes all the difference.