ep 28: inferno
tw: mentions of anxiety/panic attack in second half of the chapter
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Seonghwa bit his lip as he continued to stare right at Hongjoong, taking in and committing his every feature to memory. His eyes traced over the shape of his brows, to the slope of his nose, and then to his lips, which still looked as inviting as ever. But most of all, Seonghwa was transfixed by the warmth burning in Hongjoong's eyes, by those vibrant oranges and calming yellows dancing within his irises. Seonghwa could stare into them for as long as he was allowed and he would enjoy every single second of it.
Hongjoong had noticed; of course he had. Immediately, those mesmerizing eyes of his crinkled happily at the corners, setting free those fuzzy butterflies that began rapidly multiplying inside Seonghwa's body. It was a beautiful feeling that surprised him time and time again whenever he experienced it, but it was certainly one he could get used to. The fact that Hongjoong's stare alone could evoke such sensations within him was a testament to how much power the shorter held over him, and Seonghwa would be telling the greatest lie if he said he disliked it.
"What are you doing?" Hongjoong asked then. His smaller hands were absentmindedly fiddling with Seonghwa's, and there was a faint bashful lilt to his voice. He sounded...shy.
"I'm looking at you," Seonghwa answered, unable to wipe off the horrid dopey smile that had undoubtedly stretched over his face. This was all so new; he'd never acted, nor felt like this towards anyone before. His chest felt nanoseconds away from bursting into blinding rays of sunlight with how chirpy, elated and fond he was. "I mean -- I like looking at you. So... I am."
Hongjoong giggled, scooting closer to their crossed knees were now tangled. He drew nearer until their noses brushed, and then flashed a big smile when he witnessed the way Seonghwa held in his breath, like he was waiting, anticipating the contact between their lips.
Seonghwa felt himself melting like putty when Hongjoong's lips slotted against his, the urge to just let himself sink in and just...let the shorter take over practically eating him alive. But Hongjoong, being the little tease he was, pulled back just as the older had begun to loosen up, and honestly Seonghwa did not appreciate that.
Hongjoong laughed at the way Seonghwa literally chased after his lips, his eyes closed with his dark lashes fanning his blemish-free skin. "Am I crazy if I say you're kinda obsessed with my kisses now?"
Seonghwa opened those gorgeous eyes of his just to playfully glare at him. "I'm not obsessed with your kisses."
"Oh yeah?" Hongjoong had started moving closer to the corner of Seonghwa's bedroom wall, and Seonghwa had no intention of letting him out of his sight.
"Yeah," Seonghwa admitted. The thin shirt Hongjoong had on was doing him wonders, and it felt velvety soft to the touch as he let his arms linger around the dip of Hongjoong's waist. The shorter boy was even softer, his lowered body temperature sending welcomed shivers up Seonghwa's spine. "I'm obsessed with all of you, not just your kisses."
Once again tonight, Hongjoong looked to be at a loss for words. But, in a moment's notice, he'd reverted back to his natural self. "Park Seonghwa, are you perhaps flirting with me?"
"Mhm." The taller boy kissed Hongjoong's cheek. "And what about it?"
"Nothing," Hongjoong grinned. "It's just...I dunno, a little unbelievable that you're this...open with me now. Maybe it's because we're currently dreaming...?"
Seonghwa thought about it, and maybe Hongjoong was right. Maybe the fact that they were alone was the main thing that added to his bravado. But it wasn't the only thing. "A little? I mean, the fact that we're literally sharing a dream and being aware of it is so surreal in itself, but I just... I'm really happy right now. With you."
If glee was a person, Hongjoong would've matched it to a T. Seonghwa felt his face flush hotly as Hongjoong entwined their fingers. "Aw, that's so cute. I can't blush anymore but your words do make me feel like a middle-schooler in love."
Middle-schooler in love? Seonghwa's face burned even more, but he tried hard not to let it show. Tried hard not to stutter or stumble all over his words. "Well..." He slightly squeezed Hongjoong's smaller palms, "what you did earlier was pretty concerning."
"What I did earlier?" Hongjoong mimicked with a raised brow. The mischief bubbling inside his eyes basically exposed the fact that he knew just what Seonghwa was referring to, but he still played naive.
"You pulled away when we were just getting into the kiss," Seonghwa deadpanned, pushing on the most serious look he could muster. If he laughed now, it'd ruin his entire plan. "It's a crime punishable by law, in fact."
Hongjoong snorted, seeming incredibly amused. "What kind of punishment?"
"A million kisses." Seonghwa literally pounced on the shorter boy at that moment, caging him with his arms over the bed as he swarmed him with numerous pecks over his skin. It was obvious Hongjoong had not expected that if his surprised squeal was anything to go by, but he still entertained it; still laughed out loud at Seonghwa's display and eagerly returned his kisses whenever necessary.
"That tickles," Hongjoong breathed with a relaxed grin once Seonghwa slowed down, never breaking the pulsing eye contact between them.
Seonghwa, for what seemed to be the hundredth time that night, found himself observing and admiring Hongjoong again. As he alternated between getting lost in the younger's eyes and being awed by those one or two eyelashes of his that were differently coloured from the rest, Hongjoong mouthed something that he didn't quite catch.
"Hmm?" Seonghwa blinked, embarrassment swirling in his gut when he realized he'd been caught staring far too long at Hongjoong again. But it wasn't his fault. Like always, with every second that passed Hongjoong looked all the more breathtaking, all the more attractive. He was so beautiful, and with the way he was now staring him down, Seonghwa felt like he might just combust.
"You wanna tell me something," was Hongjoong's reply.
Seonghwa's breathing shallowed at the minimal distance between them, and he smiled when a sudden thought popped into his head. He stationed himself where he was, while Hongjoong dived in, as unsuspecting as ever. Just before their lips could graze, Seonghwa fell to the back and watched with barely contained zeal when the shorter boy almost toppled over trying to kiss him.
Seonghwa's smirk broadened at the oddly magnetic sound of Hongjoong whining. "How does it feel now, huh?"
"You fucking tease." Hongjoong attempted to kiss Seonghwa again, only for the taller to swiftly dodge him. "Aish. You're lucky you're insanely hot."
Seonghwa laughed, before walking over to his window. He could feel Hongjoong's curious eyes on him. "Let's go up to the roof."
"We can do that?"
"You must've forgotten you've got a seasoned dreamwalking boyfriend." Seonghwa's words left his lips so easily he it took a minute before he realized what he actually said.
Hongjoong stood beside him, the pale moonlight highlighting his gleaming golden eyes as well as his shirt that faintly hung off one shoulder, exposing smooth skin that Seonghwa spent an embarrassing amount of time ogling. "Boyfriend, huh?"
Seonghwa swallowed, before pulling up his window. Like reality, cold wind steadily streamed in. "I-I didn't say anything."
Hongjoong filed his hands through his chestnut hair. "Suuure." He pushed himself out of the window to float in the air, reminding Seonghwa of that time so long ago that Hongjoong had snuck up on him to take him to that dimension. Back then, they'd been strained acquaintances at best and strangers at worst, and they'd always argued and got each other so mad that Seonghwa could've never envisioned they would end up the way they were at this moment. In fact, it'd seemed impossible at first.
But as Seonghwa grabbed onto the hand that Hongjoong had held out to him, everything seemed to fall into place again. Like it was only natural he'd ended up falling for Hongjoong.
Just like Seonghwa had suggested, they spent the rest of their dream together by lying on the roof and admiring the twinkling stars and peaceful night sky. Seonghwa finally revealed what he'd seen the first time he'd shown up in Hongjoong's dream, not at all comfortable with hiding that kind of information from him anymore.
"I tried to call out to you many times, but it was like there was this barrier there," Seonghwa added, glancing at the boy beside him to gauge his reaction.
"That explains why I felt a little less...alone?" Hongjoong's brows furrowed in contemplation. "I mean -- whenever I get those nightmares, I usually wake up in a terrible, terrible mood. But, it hadn't been the case that time around. I still felt a bit under the weather, but I was better at handling it."
Seonghwa's heart skipped a beat as soon as he could feel Hongjoong staring right at him. A small, nervous laugh bubbled out of his throat. "What?"
"I'm happy my boyfriend has magical powers to make me feel all better."
Seonghwa pretended to look disgusted. "That's so corny."
"Hey," Hongjoong poked his nose, snickering when a pink-faced Seonghwa swatted his finger away. "Speaking of powers... Mind if I see your pyrokinesis again?"
"I have no idea how to generate it," Seonghwa admitted. Of course, after that night where he'd learned about his and his mother's powers, he'd tried for a bit to see if his ability to control fire was in fact real and not just some twisted hallucination like that shadow he'd been seeing. But, nothing had happened, rendering every one of his attempts as failures.
"You can always try them again right now. Like, you can already dreamwalk -- which most people already can't do -- so I bet your power's more than likely to work here," Hongjoong encouraged.
Seonghwa chewed his lip in thought. "You can control water like those waterbenders from the Last Airbender, right?"
Hongjoong chuckled. "Right."
"So you just think about it?"
"...Yeah, basically. But I also practised a lot to get better at it. Wait!" With a hurried gasp, Hongjoong sat up and brought his knees up to his chest. "I can like, teach you."
Seonghwa copied the shorter male, watching closely as Hongjoong extended his palm only for a ball of water to swim across it before he could even blink. With a slight twirl of Hongjoong's finger, the ball of water thinned out into specks of ice that glinted like crystals.
"I used to use gestures a lot when I'd first started my training, which helps as it makes you visualize everything better," Hongjoong explained. "But as time progressed, it became more of a mental thing. I mean -- it always was, but now I've just learnt to rely more on it."
Hongjoong sighed. "Aaand now I'm rambling, aren't I?"
Seonghwa smiled. "You are, but it's cute."
"You're cuter."
Seonghwa made a show of fake-barfing. "Gross." It was a huge lie though; Hongjoong's words and actions -- his everything -- made him so irrevocably happy. He felt like he was eternally stuck on cloud nine.
That pleasant feeling only intensified as time progressed, Hongjoong's arms finding their way around him as the boy demonstrated ways he could display his powers easier.
Often times Seonghwa got a little distracted with Hongjoong's hands clasping his, especially when he could feel the shorter's soft breathing on his neck at certain intervals. But Hongjoong had never gotten mad or irritated or anything along those lines; he was patient and continued to shower Seonghwa with those loving gazes of his without a care in the world if Seonghwa caught him or not.
Seonghwa could barely contain his excitement when heat finally shimmered over his palms, dazzling flames soon flickering off of them.
"Yay!" Hongjoong clapped. "Now... Make them bigger."
Seonghwa thought about those small flames morphing into sizeable balls of fire, and just as seamlessly, the flames from his hands widened, shining orange hues everywhere around the two boys. It all seemed unreal, because here he was controlling fire, and it didn't hurt at all or take much energy from him in the process.
Seonghwa clenched his hands, watching with awe as all the fire simultaneously died out with his movement. He opened them up again, his grin matching Hongjoong's when those bright orange flames shot out of his palms for the second time.
"Can you try any tricks with the flames?" Hongjoong looked just as enamoured by the sight as Seonghwa.
Seonghwa slowly nodded, too elated by all this to mutter a spoken response. He moved his left hand to the side to test out something, and just like he'd predicted, those flames followed after it. He braved a glance at Hongjoong, amazed by the way his eyes seemed to mirror the exact shades of the fire perfectly. Only...his eyes were more entrancing to look at.
"Come on," Hongjoong spoke, dropping Seonghwa back into reality. "I wanna see those tricks."
"Alright, alright your Highness," Seonghwa scoffed, a smile dancing on his lips.
Before Hongjoong could get the chance to retort, Seonghwa drew a shape with as much precision as he could muster, noting how silent Hongjoong appeared to be until he was finally finished with his project.
"Seriously?" Hongjoong's eyes shimmered with adoration. "You drew a heart. Sloppily too."
"Shut up," Seonghwa replied, the smile on his face unwavering. He admired his work levitating only a couple feet from them both; a blazing, burning visual representation of a love heart. It was chaotically pretty, and frankly, one of the boldest acts Seonghwa had ever done, but the look on Hongjoong's face assured him he was on the right path.
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From the moment Seonghwa woke up that Monday morning, he'd felt this strange and eerie sense of foreboding that would not leave no matter how hard he tried to rid himself of it. Even the sight of his father smiling and being more chatty than usual wasn't enough to decrease his nerves, which sucked, since it wasn't often he got to see the man in a light-hearted mood.
The anxiety worsened as soon as he entered the school bus and saw Mingi. The taller's grinning face shoved him further into that guilt that he'd gotten far too used to feeling by now, but like always, he pushed it all aside and returned a grin of his own, trying to convince Mingi he was okay.
But as Mingi readily conversed with him about the stuff he'd gotten done in the weekend, Seonghwa wouldn't stop thinking about the fact that he kept hiding things from him. Mingi didn't even know that he and Hongjoong were technically dating now, and the thought kept pounding away at Seonghwa's mind until he couldn't take it anymore.
"Mingi, I -- "
The bus rolled to a stop and students began to file out, creating a disruptive ruckus that both boys found themselves caught up in.
Classes begun, but Seonghwa's heart couldn't stop thundering under his ribs. Dread and panic shot into his veins, transforming into full-blown paranoia at a frightening pace.
Right then, as the teacher stepped out to get something, Seonghwa felt as if everything had gotten a thousand times hotter. Mingi continued to draft a graph beside him like normal -- like most of the others were doing at that moment -- so why was Seonghwa burning up?
Slowly but surely, the classroom started to turn like it'd been tilted to the side, and with each breath Seonghwa inhaled, the walls caved in more and more until everything narrowed with little to no space.
Mingi caught on quick. Seonghwa could feel his hand on his back, the taller no doubt asking him if he was feeling alright, but Seonghwa couldn't utter a single word. He couldn't respond. His body felt weak, sunken, his surroundings slowing down but rapidly increasing its temperature.
Then it came. That same human-like silhouette that'd already started to haunt the darkest parts of Seonghwa's dreams, invoking nothing but terror whenever it showed up. And following after it were the flames that wasted no time in engulfing the first half of the classroom, reducing it to charred remains and smoke.
Deadly, large chains made of fire slashed out of the masked shadow's grip, boiling the atmosphere. Seonghwa's lungs felt like they were being ripped to shreds, and as the shadow gradually approached, he felt his knees give way.
He could hear his name being yelled, but he didn't listen, didn't bother hesitating or spending one more second in there. Soon enough he'd bolted out of the classroom, his lungs feeling like they were about to explode altogether. His chest felt too tight for his own body, and all he could see when he closed his eyes were those toxic fumes and the wild, maniacal glint in that shadow's eyes.
Seonghwa began to run down the halls, not even giving himself the luxury to stop as his heart was still heavy and soaked with fear. He didn't stop even when his joints rippled with pain from overexertion, because he knew he had to get away. He had to get away from everything.
"Seonghwa!"
Every breath Seonghwa took felt like he was inhaling needles. Thoughts and images of fire and destruction ravaged his mind, rendering him unreactive when a hand suddenly hauled him inside the bathroom and slammed the door shut.
"Seonghwa. Seonghwa," the person continued to call, their tone getting more desperate as the seconds ticked on. "Seonghwa, please. I need you to look at me."
Seonghwa's eyes were enlarged, darting and through every nook and cranny of the bathroom to make sure that shadow, that thing, was nowhere to be found. But even when it wasn't, the pressure in his chest did not cease.
"Seonghwa, breathe." Soft, cool hands held Seonghwa's head in place to keep his eyes from hurriedly searching the area, but Seonghwa's heart wouldn't calm down. "Take in a deep breath. I'm here. You can see me, right? And I'm fine. You and I, we're both okay."
Seonghwa forced himself to keep looking at Hongjoong's face. Yes, the shorter boy was there. His eyes were warm, yet scared, decorated with glitter that matched with his silver cashmere sweater. He was holding Seonghwa right now too, and he wasn't hurt. He was fine.
Seonghwa's muscles weakened as his loud heartbeat subdued. He let himself fall into Hongjoong's embrace, salty teardrops clinging to the corners of his eyes.
Hongjoong steadied him with no problem at all. "That's it, Hwa. Keep taking in deep breaths. You're already doing so well."
Seonghwa didn't have it in him to feel ashamed by this entire interaction. He was just so relieved and glad Hongjoong was there. He brushed his lips against Hongjoong's, his panic gradually easing away when the smaller boy kissed him back in stride, gently combatting Seonghwa's apparent despair with tenderness and familiarity.
"Hwa!"
The door opened and in stepped Mingi.
Seonghwa's head throbbed with a vengeance at the taller's stunned expression. His limbs almost failed him, but Hongjoong's firm grip on his body prevented that from happening.
"S-Seonghwa..." Mingi's hand dropped, letting go of the singed paper he'd been holding.
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a/n: oooh cliffhanger!
also fave comment is by HJ11O798 cause its so true lmao
thoughts?
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