86 Chapter 83: Promise

"Don't leave me."

Hiro murmurs in his unusual baritone and groggy voice, gone his tender and sweetened words.

Its resonant hugs Jin's ears and Jin flinches as it vibrates all the way down to his nervous heart like it was trying to reach out to him.

He swallows down his saliva as his heart heavies and clenches painfully inside his chest, completely melting at his painful cry.

"Kajima (Don't go) . . . Don't leave me."

Hiro repeatedly wails out the same mantra over and over until his arms that were already wrapped around him tighten even more—tighter where even he can feel how pressed their bodies were.

"Hiro wait." He calls out, worried.

Instead of listening to him, the man's stubborn hands gripped him firmly under his clothes, shake his head, and refused him with a firm 'no'.

It was as if he was determined to never let him go.

"You can't, Jin-ah."

His voice sounded hopeless and . . . hurt and all Jin could do was bite his lips and endure the continuous numbing pain in his chest.

His heart hurts as it couldn't stand seeing him like this.

Why is he acting like this?

"Please." Hiro pleads to him again, pushing his despondent face to the side of his head.

The same shivering boy Jin held a while ago was back, but this time, he can sense a familiar drastic fear and animosity within him.

His dark and obscure pupils were twitching as they look down unto his, beseeching to hear him out.

And Jin heard him.

He slowly cups the man's face, "Breathe, Hiro. Breathe." He murmurs softly to him and rubs his thumb gently across Hiro's damp cheeks.

Hiro parts his lips and breathes noisily as he's told between his low sobs.

The young fellow's eyes soften as he repeatedly consoled the unstable man before him, "Hush now. Why are you crying?" Even the warm air fanning against his skin from his moist lips was shivering.

He's just too soft, at this point he's assuming Hiro also has heart complications like his.

Such a cry baby he indeed is.

Jin studies the way the man's lids close, expecting more of his cold touch, and the way his lips trembled in anticipation.

With a small warm smile over his lips, he swept Hiro's hair back and leans in, pressing his lips slowly against the warm skin of his forehead and then traveling down to the tip of his ever-so-pointed nose.

Unconditionally, he's in awe of him.

Even though he has seen the same phenomenon twice this day, he doesn't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.

From one in a millionth, Hiro actually had an idea of what was going on—he's aware of the possibilities of what's going to happen to them both.

But a small part of him hoped, he doesn't.

That he'd remained the same stubborn man who'd coaxed him enough to not care for anyone. That at least one of them would stay from another level.

Maybe if he does that, it wouldn't hurt that much to turn his back on him.

"You're not playing fair," Jin adds, his voice dejected. Hiro always wasn't. Nothing's working as he expected.

If Hiro looks at him with those broken and crestfallen eyes of his, he viewed that were once stern and assertive.

How can his heart and soul not melt?

Why should a proud man such as him act this anxiously over something replaceable?

Yes. Replaceable.

He's aware of how many among the young women or men would try to seek or even invade on his radar.

He doesn't have anything that ten times Hiro has.

Beside him, he's just a distant relative in the name of papers.

He just can't understand what Hiro wants.

"I'm begging you. Don't, Jin-ah."

And Jin's barriers shook and crumbled into ashes, "Hiro—" He pants.

"Please." He insisted.

This is what he was exactly talking about.

"I'm not leaving you." He swallowed up his courage and slowly wrap his arms around him, too, consoling his unknown anxiety down.

Hiro doesn't respond to his petite arms embracing him as his heart pondered over. Does leaving and running away not the same thing?

His quivering lips thinned, "Then don't run away."

Jin's lips pursed, restraining his emerging grin as his cheeks puffed in exasperation, "I'm not going to do that."

What makes him think he's running away when clearly at the moment he's trapped in this car with him.

Finally, after almost an eternity, Hiro loosened his grip on him but did not completely let him go. His head draws back and he looks at him with his head tilted paired with his confused and baffled raven black eyes.

"You're not escaping?" he asks, puzzled.

Jin copies the way his head tilted, "No, that's impossible at the moment."

Maybe if his head was suicidal just like his, he would not hesitate to jump while the car's running and have his dead body rolling on the foreign street.

Alarmingly, Hiro's pupils shook and his entire face fell from what he said, and Jin stared at him thinking which part of what he said was wrong.

What is it?

What is it again this time?

"So you were thinking of running away?"

Hiro looks dead pale and Jin's eyes grew wide in horror. Goodness. "No!"

He unconsciously yelled and he covered his lips with his hands then turned his head behind him, to see if the driver from the front has heard his boisterous loudness, but he can't tell.

"So you're not leaving me?" Hiro leans in and submerges his head to the side of his face, inhaling his flavorful scent,

"Hontuo ni?" (Really?)

"Y-Yes. Really."

When Jin looks back at the moody cougar underneath him, the peculiar beast before him had a wide and buttered sweet grin painted across his once frowned lips, and the glistening marks that his tears left on his face were evident.

He just looks . . . downright beautiful.

His cheeks were red and his eyes gleamed like they never did before. He leaned closer, staring at him straight in the eyes with a promising determination, "Tell me you'll stay."

His loosen arms and hands trail south, skimming his fingertips across his sensitive back.

Jin whimpered, his shoulders jerking upwards and his back arching from the ticklish sensation he feels inside.

"I-I'll stay . . ." He was breathless. What else can he do than to abide in?

The man starts peppering light and small kisses on his cheeks and his intrusive hands finally slip under his gartered underwear, his warm hands rubbing against his bare behind with such longing, "With me?"

Jin nods his head, hypnotized in his beautiful mischievous radiance.

"Yes." He pauses to breathe, "With you."

Never had he felt safer than hearing those words himself.

Hiro traces the tip of his nose over his jawline, looking up at him with darkened eyes, "Promise?"

If such day comes unknowingly.

If Hiro leaves him with nothing but traces of distant coldness in his eyes.

He'd just keep the pain all to himself.

It's the only way to tell that what they had were real.

That looking at him and being able to hold him such as now was real.

Jin bit his lips suppressing his tears as he surrenders and just nods his head as the man continues to lean his face closer to his.

What he felt towards the man was not just a simple admiration.

He loves him.

And their lips met with a taste of sweet longing and promise they have sealed together in their hearts.

For eternity.

Forever . . .