wander [ hyunlix ]

06

The walls of a bedroom were filled with hushed sounds, words of comfort being whispered every so often.

In a certain small house near the downtown of the city, a boy laid on a large mattress in his dimly lit bedroom.

"Don't worry. It's gonna be okay," came the soft words from another nearby.
A boy with a sort of pale orange hair knelt down next to the mattress, gazing down at his best friend with a mix of sympathy and sadness.

All he could see from his point of view was the other boy's back. His best friend's dark, curly hair naturally obscured his face from view, but anyone with two eyes and a brain could understand what the low, hiccuping sounds coming from the boy meant.

"Channie, please..." the orange haired boy placed a hand on his best friend's shoulder.
"It'll all be fine. I promise you."

"How can you promise that, Ji?" came the stressed response from the older boy, whose hoodie sleeves had slowly become damp with the presence of warm tears.

"Well..." the orange haired boy, Jisung, couldn't even finish the sentence. He couldn't promise anything, and they both knew it.

All he could do was try to comfort his best friend, for now.
Jisung crawled onto the mattress towards the weeping boy, and took a seat next to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders securely.

"He's strong, yeah? Have some faith in him," Jisung squeezed the curly haired boy gently as he attempted to motivate him.

Radio silence.
A small teardrop fell down onto the mattress.

"Come on, Chan! You'll just feel worse if you keep dwelling on it," Jisung attempted a different approach.

Chan turned only to send Jisung a pained look.
"I can't not dwell on it. What if something happened to him?"

"Felix is smart, Channie. He's— he's probably completely fine!" Jisung insisted, becoming a little panicked as he saw his best friend's sobbing begin to get worse than it had been.

"How can you be so sure? He... he didn't even say goodbye to me, or..." Chan rambled, stuttering out his words with uneven breathing. "There was no note—"

"Chan," Jisung cut him off. "It's fine. Chances are he's okay..."

"Stop saying it's fine!" Chan ranted back at him. "All... all you do is say it's fine, it's fine. It's not! Tell me where he is if it's fine!"

"Chris..." Jisung could only say his name in return, the elder's stress getting to him. He'd never seen him act like this before, and it was, to be honest, terrifying.

The dark haired boy only let out a ragged breath, trying to calm himself down as he buried his face in his hands.

"Do you think it's our fault?"
Chan mumbled, voice muffled by his sleeves.

"No...!" Jisung answered with an air of hesitance that wasn't all too comforting.
"It couldn't be. Remember, the day before he... left... wasn't he extra clingy?"

"But why else would he leave? I don't understand... if his family's fine, we're fine, his grades were fine..."