101 Chapter 98: Safe in His Embrace
Amidst the viciousness of the silence settling everyone's senses to go blank, the entire lineage stiffens on their seats upon the abyssal nightfall staring back at them, blinding them with the darkness that begins to surround the room.
They hold onto their seats tightly as they feel and sense its vivid angst, driving them weak and vulnerable in their respective places.
Hiro turns with a clear warning engraved around every single fawn in the room as he leaves through the entrance they entered five minutes ago. His expression was unreadable.
Jin felt the coldness start to drift farther away from embracing him. His tense shoulders eventually fall to rest as the last shudder feebly escapes his lips.
"Mianhae . . ." (I'm Sorry) Hiro constantly whispers close to him. His voice was trembling in deep concern, and his desperate steps zoomed to pace.
"Kai!"
It was Mr. Harashi who yelled.
Feigning to be deaf Hiro's strides persisted to travel forth, bypassing the commotion that garnered behind him as soon as his destructive presence left the room.
Shu obliges to follow his master quietly, astonished that the venue was unscathed with everyone's limbs untouched.
Jin's pupils quiver beneath his lids. He moans very softly and lifts his head, pushing himself to open his eyes.
They were ten meters and counting away from the entrance. Despite his indistinguishable vision, he can see transparent mists rushing out of the doorless room. That's how alarmingly cold it was there.
He breathes out in neither disbelief nor relief. Hiro was back to strolling while bringing him to the empty west hallway they pass on earlier.
He meets his mother's eyes with the distance between them enlarging. She mouths 'I love you' to him silently with her worried smile plastered on her face and her hands placed on Mr. Harashi's chest.
It looks like she was preventing him from approaching them.
He turns his weakened gaze to the preoccupied man before him.
Hiro's face was empty without a single expression shown. His eyes were dim and different. Rather seeing its accustomed gentleness, they carried great coldness and remoteness.
"I'm on your way, am I?" He whispers and shoves his face to the side of Hiro's head, who flinches and stops on his tracks upon his movement.
Hiro heavily shifts his eyes down.
"You didn't have to leave because of me," Jin added. Hiro's peers and family are waiting for him back in the room. His frown deepened. It was already too burdensome of him to be carried all the way here, and now he didn't want to order him against his will.
Kai's dangerous thoughts that once clouded his head dispersed to thin air as his face eventually softened upon hearing his statement paired with his compelling delicate voice. He breathes in his comforting scent, "Don't strain yourself." He says, discreetly rubbing his face to Jin's. The heavens know he didn't want to stay either.
Jin listened to his calm breathing as he felt him pacing forth again with Shu Ahjussi trailing them far behind at a clear distance.
"Don't you want to be with your family?"
He squeezes his cheek lazily against his, and his weak arms cocoon around his neck carefully.
"I already am," replied Hiro with a timid smile.
You are my family.
Jin's slightly shaking pupils glance towards the entrance and finds no one before his gaze lowers to the austere marble floor beneath them to the red streaks on Hiro's ears.
He was blushing.
He leans back to look at him, and his curious eyes meet the man's bright slate black ones.
The glint of his eyes was back . . .
A gentle smile crept out of his lips. His cinnamon roll cougar had returned.
"I'm not sure if your dad will be pleased to hear that." His heart grew warm—too warm. He gazes at Hiro's face with full admiration, holding his smile to widen.
He swung his legs back and forth mid-air, and the man pressed his lips to his forehead.
"A man can dream, Jin-ah."
There goes that endearment again.
Jin chews on his lips and gapes at him for a few more seconds, feeling something tickled and fondled his heart just now.
His mysterious but dazzling tantalizing eyes stared back at him with tenderness. And as if he was psychic, Hiro stopped in front of a double-door chamber, never once breaking their eye contact. It occurred to Jin that he was within one of the Woo's properties. Of course, it stood only guileless for the man to know every inch and corner of this house.
Shu Ahjussi wordlessly spread one of the doors open and headed inside before coming back shortly. He left the door wide open for them and respectfully bowed to his waist before leaving, empty-handed.
When Shu's shadow was nowhere to be seen, Hiro went in, and Jin was welcomed by the pale white and pastel pink interior of a courteous room, fully giving off a delicate ambiance.
His luggage and the rest of his belongings were there beside the wide canopy bed with salmon pink bed linen. A two three-seater couch could be seen resting by the corner with a rectangular coffee table above the clean strawberry mat. The room smelled like faint candy mixed with Hiro's strong fragrance.
He closes his eyes and opens them afterward. Though he preferred smelling the latter.
Other than the mystifying glass door on the other side of the room inside another mini living quarter, everything was stunning and surprisingly spacious for a single person to occupy.
He was breathless. His heart pummeled inside his chest, presumably because of his adrenalin rush. His purple eyes got occupied studying the room in admiration—a room the once twelve years old him could only visualize in his dreams.
The shock and surprise that greeted him felt like Déjà vu.
And he remembered. It was the very same heart-pounding feeling he experienced inside the pink interior limousine they had ridden.
He turns his head and meets Hiro's thawing gaze.
Did he . . .
"Was this your doing?" Jin questions him with enough courage. He can smell and feel his placid mint breath against him. They were too close.
Hiro gives him his peculiar small smile. His lips were thinned to a beautiful curve as his breathtaking dimples momentarily chained his heart captive.
Jin's shoulder droops in defeat as he breathes out, overwhelmed and at a loss for further words, but somehow his weak heart was responding to his boldness.
At some point, exactly opposing his fears, this other side of him now has a special place in his heart.
Hiro moved to take and lay him gently above the bed, letting him sit at the edge.
Jin jumped when the door suddenly shut behind them before he saw the lock twist by itself.
" . . . "
"Sensors," Hiro murmurs to him upon seeing the horrified expression on his face.
He blinks at him and meekly nods his head. He lowers his open palms against the soft satin sheets below him. It was warm against his fingers.
Hiro kneels down in one leg in front of him and brought out his pair of pink slippers from the back pocket of his trousers.
His lips gradually parted.
He's been carrying it there with him the whole time?
"It'll keep you warmer," says Hiro upon finishing putting on the last pair of slipper to his tiny foot. "I'm afraid I have to go."
His obsidian eyes lift and meet the most beautiful shade of purple he's seen.
"I see." Jin beams down at him. He didn't have to tell him everything.
With brows disappointedly knitted, Hiro seized both of his ankles and flared his legs open. He leans with his arms and hands climbing up to stretch all the way to the space of the bed behind him.
"You should have said 'no'," whispers Hiro with a tangible hot breath pressing to him.
