(i love this prompt!! it’s kinda hard to make him out-creep hiyori since. well. hiyori is hiyori. but i did my best)

tags: roommates, friends to lovers (??), obsession, miscommunication, attachment issues, ISSUES IN GENERAL, kidnapping? but not exactly?

By the time Shin’s eyes landed on Hiyori’s hands, busy packing his clothes, a bitter taste invaded the back of his throat.

“Are you leaving me?” Shin’s mouth moved to speak before he could even question his own thought process. He wasn’t thinking, not properly. “Again?”

In turn, his friend — slash first love, slash roommate, slash the worst person he knew — blinked owlishly at him, like he had just grown a second head in front of his very eyes. “Hmm? What’s up with you?”

“I asked,” He breathed, afraid of letting the words out and of the possible outcome. “if you’re going to leave me, Hiyori.”

The other man hummed. He didn’t utter a single proper response, though; the low, noncommittal sound was the only sign of acknowledgment that he had decided to show.

It felt— wrong, it felt like punishment. It felt like staring at the ceiling for endless, pointless, completely wasted hours of school nights, and he was suddenly fourteen again, experiencing grief that wasn’t truly grief for the very first time, and he wished that it had been grief, so he wouldn’t have to face the inevitable consequences of giving away pieces of his soul, his body, his everything— so he could breathe again.

“Wow.” A voice snapped him back to reality. This one, in particular, always did. “Is this how you feel when I stare at you? How fun.”

He was self aware, then, the fucker. Shin let out a shaky sigh, massaging his temple. He ignored the numbing cold that permeated his skin. “Answer me.”

Hiyori looked away. Maybe it wasn’t his intention, not particularly.

It still felt weird.

“We’re no longer kids, Shin. I’m just going on a small business trip, not vacation!” The older man’s smile stretched until his eyes were shaped like crescent moons. He went back to packing seemingly random clothes — some of them looked like they belonged to designer brands, while the rest was likely stolen from a dead clown’s closet.

“When will you be back?”

Hiyori merely kept grinning, promptly ignoring the question. It was so very nice to see the frustration overflowing in Shin’s eyes, after all. “And I would totally take you to a vacation trip, maybe fold you up and put you in my larger bag— no, perhaps on the smaller side—”

“Shut up, oh my God, shut up.” Shin groaned, feeling nauseous. If God existed, why hadn’t he taken that green thing away from him as soon as they met? “Just answer me!”

His friend’s actions paused at that. He slowly let go of a jacket he had been folding, turning around to stare at Shin.

Oh, Shin thought. I know this kind of stare.

“Are you… really worried that I’ll leave you?” Hiyori questioned, employing an entirely serious tone — as if Shin was being absurd, nonsensical. How incredibly ironic, judging by his past actions —, although the nearly imperceptible quirk of his lips didn’t escape the younger man’s eyes.

“Seriously? That’s a bit rich coming from you.” Shin scoffed, now gazing at the ground. He wondered if he could spontaneously merge with it if he tried hard enough.

“I will be back in a week, pinky promise!” Hiyori dramatically waved his finger as if to prove a point. “You’re being so overly serious about this, my—”

“A week?” Shin asked, paling; the dizziness had only gotten worse. “That long?”

Hiyori adjusted his posture as he tilted his head to the side, looking at the younger man quizzically. It was strangely amusing to see Shin like this, however, he knew when things bordered on risky territory. “Is there a problem?”

He was expecting his friend to protest, after seemingly being so against the idea — it was endearing, in truth, to see that he had become a strictly necessary component of Shin’s life once again. His chest fluttered at the thought of representing what the other man needed to function, to exist, to breathe.

Therefore, he truly didn’t see it coming when Shin turned around and left the room. Against all the fucking odds.

He immediately followed after him, akin to a kicked dog. “Hey! Where are you going? That was so impolite.”

“You’re not leaving,” was the hushed answer he received from his friend, so obviously involuntary that he had barely managed to hear it. Shin kept walking, nearly running, now, out of breath, “you’re not.”

Hiyori stopped in his tracks when his eyes landed on his friend’s hands. Shin had reached the door and looked behind his shoulder before fiddling with the locks.

“What are you doooing?” If Sou Hiyori of all people didn’t have a great feeling about this, the situation certainly wasn’t ideal.

Shin didn’t respond. After a few seconds, he let go of the keys, stuffing his hands somewhere near his pockets and away from Hiyori’s eyes.

“Shin. What are you doing?” He was still smiling his usual smile, albeit slightly strained. “Wasn’t the door already locked?”

“I added a few extra locks. Recently.” Shin gulped, looking away. Hiyori didn’t know what he was thinking, exactly, for once.

He raised an eyebrow at the display of nervousness. It wasn’t rare, per se, but the current situation didn’t truly require anxiety, at least. “For what?”

“…Extra safety.” It sounded more like a question than an affirmation. How cute.

But cute was not a word suited for this, not when Hiyori didn’t have complete control of whatever Shin had in his little brain. “Give me the keys, then.”

The answer came in less than a second. “No.”

He blinked. “Pardon?”

“I said no.” Shin huffed, walking away from the door. He didn’t spare much of a glance at Hiyori, who was staring at him like he had just insulted his mother in his face, or something. “Let’s go to sleep. It’s late.”

“Shin. I told you to give me the keys.” He approached the younger man; if he tried to tower over him whenever the familiar semblance of submission threatened to fade, nobody had to know. “Come on. Why aren’t you listening to me?”

Shin looked away from his face, in turn, but didn’t move. “Why aren’t you listening to me? I’m not handing you the fucking keys.”

“Watch your language.” Hiyori leaned forward, giving him a dark look from above. His friend paid him no mind. “What’s your problem?”

That seemed to turn a switch inside of Shin’s head, and he scowled at the older man.

“You— you have been trying to leave me and I am the problem?” He suddenly raised his voice, unconsciously pointing an accusatory finger at his friend’s chest. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice? You’re so fucking distant these days, and I— I don’t want to think about it, okay?”

Hiyori was… baffled, to put it simply. Perhaps this was the mentality he did expect from Shin — but he wasn’t convinced that the other man would verbalize it so bluntly.

“Stop making things up in your head. It’s not good for your health.” Hiyori grinned, finally having a full grasp on the situation — he had been so blind, indeed. The problem was as clear as water. “I’m not going anywhere, okay? No more business trips, just for you. Just because I’m so kind.”

Shin merely stared at him, and something in his eyes shifted. “I don’t trust you.”

Ouch. Oh, well. “I didn’t expect you to, but don’t you think it’s slightly… extreme to lock me up in our apartment, like I’m your pet?”

“You treat me like a pet, though.” Ouch 2x. He deserved that one. “You don’t like how it feels?”

“…Awfully feisty today, I see.” Hiyori stepped *closer,*dangerously so, inclining his head towards Shin’s right ear. “C’mon, where are the keys? Should I try to find them myself?”

Shin opened and closed his mouth at least thrice. “I’ll tie you up if you don’t shut your mouth.”

“Where did you learn that?” Hiyori hummed. His hands were hovering over Shin’s torso, as if choosing where to land. “Hmm, it doesn’t matter. I’m into that.”

Shin gave him a weird look. “Wha—”

When he least expected it, Hiyori’s hands found his lower body — touching his sides, covered skin, slowly reaching his ass. “Did you really put them in your back pocket?”

“It’s— what the— no, they are not.” He clumsily placed his hands on his friend's shoulders as he tried to shove him away (with 10 or 100 percent of his strength, there was no way to know). “Stop groping me—”

“That’s an awful way to word things,” Hiyori hummed again, happy with himself. He felt the keys’ texture somewhere between his fingers, then, and lit up. “Ah, is this it?”

All of a sudden, Shin’s demeanor— changed. The strange little feeling was seemingly back to his mind, influencing his actions like a drug, and he slapped Hiyori’s hands harshly before stepping away from him. “Don’t.”

“Are you serious?” His roommate huffed, looking at the reddening skin. “Do you understand what you’re doing?”

“I fucking do, Hiyori.” Shin’s gaze didn’t falter; with newfound determination, he stepped closer once again to grab Hiyori’s hand — who didn’t stop him. “Do you understand the things I’d do for— for this, for you? You don’t, do you?”

“What are you saying?” Frowning, Hiyori let himself be guided by his friend, who looked completely out of it. “Hey, where are you taking me?”

Shin didn’t speak at all until they entered their shared room. Closing the door behind them for no apparent reason — to the older man’s eyes, at least —, he let out a suspiciously satisfied sigh.

Hiyori liked to see a lot of expressions on Shin’s face. This was not one of them.

“You taught me so many things, Hiyori.” The younger man breathed, speaking slowly and quietly. There was something entirely wrong about his stance, but Hiyori couldn’t pinpoint what, exactly. “Things I didn’t even need to learn. Until now.”

“…What do you mean, Shin?” He had taught his friend lots of things, indeed, but how could they possibly be important at the moment? “Ahahah, are you about to put me to sleep or something?”

Sou Hiyori and his big mouth.

Shin finally smiled at him, as bright as the sun — no, perhaps the moon when bathed in sunlight. If the moon was a young adult with undiagnosed mental disorders (yes, plural) way too severe for his age, that is.

“Well…” He searched for something in his pocket, but no key jingling sounds could be heard. He looked oddly content as he grabbed onto something. “You should’ve just touched my front pockets before the back ones, freak.”

Freak, he said, as if he wasn’t lunging forward and gripping Hiyori’s neck the next instant.

If Hiyori felt a damp piece of cloth against his nose and mouth for a few seconds, he didn’t do anything about it.

And if he woke up to a dark room with ropes tightly encircling his wrists and ankles, that, too, wasn’t a big problem.

He was quite proud of Shin, after all.