can i walk with you - heejay

chapter six

"shit, i gotta go," quickly grabbing his phone, jay rushed to the door, making his way back to school for heeseung's game.

once jay had arrived at the school, he quickly got out of the car, making his way towards the gym. the first thing jay heard when he entered was sunghoon and sunoo arguing. the boy sighed, walking further into the gym, deciding to let jungwon handle the argument for now, jay could already hear him scolding the two.

turning to look at the court, jay saw most of the players already warming up, heeseung being one of them. for a while, jay stood there, just watching heeseung, not noticing the opposing team enter. feeling someone staring at him, heeseung turned toward the crowd, immediately spotting jay.

heeseung started walking over to jay, a barely visible smile on his face. unfortunately the tall boy didn't make it far before the coach blew his whistle, telling the players to head to the locker room.

jay let out a disappointed sigh, he wanted to talk to heeseung at least a little bit, as he started making his way to the group of loud boys he called his friends. he saw sunoo and sunghoon arguing again, but this time niki was the one trying to calm the two down, jungwon just sat on the side, rolling his eyes.

"shit, i'm late-," jay flinched as he felt someone's shoulder brush past him. turning his head to see who the culprit was, jay came face to face with someone he didn't expect.

there was a pause, the air becoming thick with tension. neither said anything just staring at each other. jay felt as if he couldn't move, frozen by fear, his feet tingling. only a few seconds had gone by, but it felt like years to jay, when one of them finally spoke.

"jay?"

jay felt his stomach drop when the boy spoke. his palms grew sweaty, his mouth became dry, and his heart started racing at an impossibly fast pace. the familiar sense of dread overtook jay's senses.

the brunette quickly looked to the court, franticly looking through the sea of faces, trying to find one in particular. jay started having trouble breathing properly, clenching his shaky hands as he continued to anxiously look through the crowd.

jay's vision became blurry, gasping for breath. his head started pounding as he felt a familiar pain in his chest arise.

"jay, focus on you're breathing. you're okay," jay heard a soothing voice cutting through his foggy mind.

"i'm going to take you to somewhere quieter, okay?" jay heard the boy drop his backpack to the floor, soon after a hand was placed on his back, guiding him to an empty hallway that led into the gym.

"follow my breathing, in and out." jay listened to his words, shakily taking a breath in, tears running down his face. "in and out. good job, you're doing great," the boy spoke. jay's hands shook as he grabbed onto the shirt of the boy in front of him. the two boys repeated the process until jay regained control of his breathing.

"i-is he h-here?" jay said, or tried, hiccuping so much the sentence was almost unintelligible.

"no, he's not here. you're okay, jongie. i promise." the boy spoke, gently wiping away jay's tears.

the boy pulled jay into a tight hug, engulfing the boy's small, shaking frame. jay closed his eyes, resting his head against the taller's chest, he was exhausted.

"where are your meds?"

"taehyun has them," jay replied, his eyes still closed, ready to take a nap.

"come on, i have some honey and chocolate in my backpack." jay slowly lifted his head, eating something usually helped him calm down, especially if it was honey or chocolate.

the two walked to the gym, retrieving the backpack that had been left on the floor. as the boy grabbed a chocolate bar from his backpack, the two walked over to the bleachers, sitting down at the far side by the door.

"sungchan, coach needs you." the two raised their heads only to see a player from the boy's team. the player left right after relaying the message, leaving the two boys alone. sungchan sighed as he stood up, he didn't want to leave jay alone in this state.

"it's okay, chan. go ahead," jay spoke quietly, looking down at the bar in his hands.

sungchan crouched down, his face right in front of jay's, "are you sure?"

jay just nodded in response, slightly shivering. the taller boy sighed to himself, taking off his hoodie, giving it to jay. the hoodie was white and on the back in bold letters was sungchan's last name, jung, along with his jersey number, twenty-seven.

"finish your chocolate, i'll be back soon."

jay quickly put the hoodie on, leaving the hood up, trying to cover his red eyes. the boy opened the wrapper, looking around as he started to eat his chocolate.

turning his head in the direction of the locker rooms, heeseung's team finally came back out.
jay immediately looked back down at his chocolate when heeseung directed his gaze toward the crowd, looking for someone. apparently he couldn't find them because he turned back to his team, seeming disappointed.

little did he know, the small boy in the white hoodie that he merely glanced at, was the boy he was looking for.

sungchan was not, in fact, coming back soon. it looked like the coach wanted him to stay on the bench and watch the game with him. though sungchan would constantly look at jay throughout the game. he could tell the boy was checking up on him, so jay would give him a small smile, trying to ease his worry.

it seemed sungchan wouldn't play today, that wasn't much of a surprise though. the coach didn't play his star players until the season actually started.

as for heeseung, he was amazing. he made every shot with the utmost precision, jay could tell heeseung practiced very hard to be where he was at today.

soon the game was over, heeseung's team winning by a few points, though it was all a blur to jay who was too tired to really pay attention.

jay could faintly hear sunghoon's laugh as he gathered his trash, he sounded so carefree, so happy. yet here jay was, with crippling anxiety that constantly weighed him down.

"i'll take you home, you need to rest." sungchan spoke, startling jay. the boy bent down to retrieve his backpack from beside the brunette, smiling at the sight of the small boy in his hoodie.

when the two boys had left, heeseung came out of the locker room, approaching his group of friends.

"was jay here?" heeseung asked, trying to be indifferent, but the boys saw through him.

"he texted saying that he was on the way. something probably came up, don't worry about it," jake said, though he knew heeseung would definitely get worked up about it later.

heeseung could've sworn he saw jay by the door earlier when he was warming up. maybe something really did come up.

"thank goodness you didn't lose," niki teased, trying to steer the conversation away from the previous topic.

"as if i'd lose on my own court," heeseung scoffed at the younger, who in turn just rolled his eyes.

"you up for going to a cafe?" jake asked heeseung, the others had already agreed.

"nah, i'm kinda tired. i'm just gonna head home."

heeseung made his way to his car, slipping his phone out of his pocket, eyes trailing over the group chat messages.

heeseung is whipped💀

jake🦮
yo jay
do you want to meet up at a cafe?

jay never responded to the text, this had the boys slightly worried. something was definitely going on, he always made sure to respond when the boys texted. but even though they were worried, they didn't want to pry, so they left it at that.