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Kim Soleum is easily spooked by. This, of course, is a ludicrous idea for anyone around him. After all, how could he, the stoic-faced top rank of his year, be a scaredy cat? But it’s the truth, one that Soleum himself can’t deny.
He’s scared of a lot of things. Of a cat jumping into the window, of the bushes suddenly shaking, of the loud boys in his classroom, of the squeals and squeaks of girls gushing to each other, all of it. He’s scared of quite literally everything, despite not being able to show it outwardly.
While everyone might think otherwise, his childhood friend certainly didn’t. Baek Saheon, who stuck with him since they were kids, knew better than that. It didn’t make Soleum’s naturally blank face anything less unsettling, and he is still pretty creeped out by that, but he does somewhat understand that Soleum’s a coward.
So here’s the situation. Two childhood friends who knew each other are still stuck in high school. If their kindergarten friends seem to not be weirded out by Soleum randomly grabbing Saheon’s arm, their highschool definitely didn’t.
See, Soleum likes touches. Saheon knew this even when they’re tiny because the bastard stuck to him like a superglue, always latching onto him in every way. It took a while to get him off because 1) he has a strong grip, and 2) otherwise Soleum will stare at him with his black hole for eyes and Saheon will cave because he’s scared it’ll manifest in his nightmares or something.
Because Soleum, for all he loves to read horror despite being really scared of it, needs to know when a touch is Saheon’s and when is not. In case …he doesn’t know, a ghost tries to replicate Saheon. Ghost stories like that are pretty popular, right?
One night during their elementary school days on a sleepover at Soleum’s house because his parents are out in a business trip and Saheon’s parents are more than happy to sacrifice him to a scared Soleum, the guy sat down on their shared bed in his bedroom and demand Saheon to give his hands.
Saheon reasonably thought he’s going to cut his hands off because his eyes definitely are sharp like a knife, but all he did is grasp it within his hands and memorize the curves and feeling of Saheon’s hand like it’s going to be in the exam happening tomorrow.
Which shouldn’t be possible since it’s a long holiday and Saheon’s hands definitely wouldn’t be an exam topic, but Soleum ends up memorizing how it feels anyway. He still does it, sometimes. Just simply grabbing Saheon’s hand to his lap and starts drawing invisible lines alongside his palm with the tip of his fingers, making him feel all ticklish. Saheon always lets him, because if not Soleum will stare at his hands from his shoulder and he does not want to deal with an unsatisfied Soleum. At all.
He doesn’t need much reasons to hold Saheon’s hand anyway, he does whatever he wants in pure Soleum fashion. He’d do it whenever and wherever since ages ago that the oddness of it disappeared within Saheon as if it’s perfectly normal for his friend to suddenly kidnap only his arm from his possession for a little bit.
In high school, Saheon and Soleum lived in a dorm as roommates. Every morning before Soleum gets off early because he’s in the student council, Soleum would do this thing where he wants to be the one who puts on Saheon’s eyepatch before leaving.
Saheon’s blind in one eye, he ends up putting a black eyepatch over it because it’s cool and he doesn’t like seeing the weird whitened eyeball whenever he looks at the mirror because it made him feel disgusted.
Every night, without fail, he’d put his eyepatch on the drawer beside bed, on his side, not Soleum’s. And every morning, without fail, he’d find it nowhere to be seen, knowing Soleum has it but doesn’t have the guts to ask for it since he’ll get it back in a while anyway. Plus, using it in the bathroom can make it wet, and Saheon doesn’t really want to deal with that a bit more than not liking to see his blind eye, so maybe Soleum’s teaching restraint. Or something.
Soleum also likes to brush Saheon’s hair. When asked why, the cryptic bastard just answers, “Soft.” and Saheon doesn’t know what to think about that since he stole Soleum’s shampoo for years now without the intention of stopping so he’s pretty sure Soleum also has soft hair, so why is he so fixated on Saheon’s?
At least it feels nice. Soleum has sharp looking fingers that looked pretty on one hand but looked like it could gauge out an eyeball better than a spoon on the other. Considering Saheon only has one working eye, it is very understandable that he’s a bit freaked out by this, so he always stares at it in trepidation whenever Soleum feels like caressing the skin under his blind eye. For no reason. He swears he did nothing!
He’s less scared of it whenever Soleum uses it on his head, in which he’ll melt. It feels nice, this bastard doesn’t need more weapons against Saheon, that’s what’s not nice. Saheon always had the instant alarm blaring on his head every time he remembers resting on Soleum’s lap is nearly equal to giving Soleum the invitation to stab him in the throat. In which case, he’ll roll over to face Soleum’s stomach, at least he could punch it or something if stuff goes wrong, clearly a threat.
Another thing Soleum likes to do because he’s a freak is fiddling with a lot of Saheon related things. His ears, the ends of his hair, his tie, his fingers. It’s driving him insane, his heart is beating so fast it’s either going to burst or go into heart attack mode, both ending in his miserable death, meaning bad.
One time he fiddles with Saheon’s tie because he doesn’t like how it looked judging by the furrow on his eyebrows and Saheon had to stop what he’s doing incase Soleum pulls him down and slams his head on the edge of the desk.
The friend Saheon’s been conversing with awkwardly eyes the way the two boys intently stare at each other as if they’re stuck in their own world, not to mention Soleum still has his fingers wrapped on Saheon’s tie, making it quite a sight. He does not know that Saheon is thinking a lot of red dripping from his own temple in a possible scenario of the future and Soleum is thinking of the crinkle on Saheon’s red tie.
If anyone asks, they’re childhood friends. If anyone asks ask, Soleum will say he’s a coward so he needs someone to cling to while Saheon swears to the heavens that Soleum is one scary guy that picked him as his victim.
The one asked wished they didn’t because what even is going on between those two.