utaitai
Title: Utaitai
Pairing: Suho/D.O
Word Count: 3257 words
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: -
Summary: It's so easy to talk and think about the things everyone wants, but it becomes another thing when it comes to actually getting it.
Author's notes: written for capsandpizzas exchange.
How important are dreams?
Many people might not know the answer to this question, but Junmyeon and Kyungsoo sure aren’t one of those.
A dream can be defined as getting well to a sick patient. Or getting into their dream school for students. Even a new toy for a child. But to Junmyeon and Kyungsoo, a dream means making it big in the music industry. They want to hear the screams even when they aren’t on stage, feel the adrenaline rush when they’re performing for a big crowd. They want to feel the lights shining on them and they want their cheeks to hurt from smiling because they are truly happy. They want and want and want.
But see, you can’t have everything. A dream is something you’ll have to work hard to achieve and there is a path you have to take. Here is the catch - there are sure to be obstacles. You can dream of tasting the sweat drops of hard work and returning home to a luxurious flat but you have to sacrifice things, sometimes even people to get there. Some have it easier, and others realize their dreams faster.
Unfortunately for Junmyeon and Kyungsoo, they were born to be fighters.
//
That isn’t to say that things are very difficult to them-maybe slightly.
Things get boring in life. To Kyungsoo, life is almost routine. Wake up, get out of the bed and go to school. Come home after to his father nagging yet again before he tries to slam the door with all of the subtlety that he doesn’t have (as much as he would like to, he can’t say much to rebut his father because then he’d threaten to cut his allowance and Kyungsoo can’t allow that. Less allowance means lesser savings in his Dreams piggy bank and he needs all the money he can get. Life is hard, he sighs.)
He might be late for school by ten minutes or so if he wakes up later or if there’s a traffic jam, but even these minute disturbances don’t make much of a difference to his day. People still walk past him without waving unless they know him and his mother still doesn’t try to stand up for him even when his father tells him to do something useful. Hey, at least I don’t waste my money on cancer sticks, Kyungsoo thinks.
Kyungsoo does his best to concentrate and finish his work back in his room before he gets out to meet Junmyeon. Same place, same time. And that’s pretty much the only part he likes about his days. The only familiarity he treasures.
He likes Junmyeon. Don’t get him wrong, his thoughts do not go any further than wanting to get out of this town together with him so that they can achieve their dreams together because right now, nothing else matters. They had started out as childhood friends, the neighbours kind. Baekhyun was the one who delighted in pulling the girls’ pigtails, while Kyungsoo and Junmyeon had preferred sharing a seesaw together. Maybe even the swing, if they got to the playground early and no kids were fighting for it. As kids who barely knew anything about the world, the big, scary, world, they liked the little amount of control they got, even when their feet could barely touch the ground. There was always something else they liked in pushing each other’s back when they sat on the swing or when they went up and down on the seesaw more than being chased after by girls anyway.
In a way, they enjoyed helping each other reach closer to the sky perhaps. The other kids never dared to approach them much because they seemed too close for the others to try. Baekhyun had always been a little special.
That isn’t to say that they don’t have any friends though, but like each other with their best friends, they keep each other closer to their hearts.
//
Back to present, Kyungsoo frowns in concentration until his phone buzzes, and he scribbles a quick answer, slams his pencil down, then gets up and out of his chair to get ready. Kyungsoo didn’t even have to look at the screen to know that it’s time for him to head over. (Not that he really needed the reminder, really. He’s got his schedules-especially those with Junmyeon-burned into the back of his brain but it wouldn’t hurt for him to be a little more on time, especially when they had more to do on that day. He loses track of time while doing work sometimes). They don’t do much on Thursdays, maybe a little vocal training and that’s about it. Young and still in school, they feel that they have a little more time to waste.
There’s something to be said about the way Kyungsoo gets there within seconds, literally. Walk out of the door, cross the road and turn left before walking to the end of the street. There are some things he knows like the back of his hand, like his math formulas. Like his preferences and likings. Like the way to Junmyeon’s house.
Junmyeon’s mother barely bats an eyelash when she opens the door for Kyungsoo now, knowing what it is for. She used to raise eyebrows at him before she knew about their jamming sessions in his garage, often questioning his presence not with words, but with the way she seems to watch them disappear to the back curiously until one day Junmyeon tripped over a cable and electricity tripped did his mother find out. Junmyeon’s mother is a little more supportive of Junmyeon’s-their-dream. Only because she likes that he has something he wants to do in the first place, knowing very well that Junmyeon could have easily been one of those who would go on with the flow of life without resisting, struggling to float wherever he’s brought.
Kyungsoo heads down towards the garage where Junmyeon’s family truck would be, and hyis heart beats a little faster in anticipation of what would be happening. He would never get tired of this.
Junmyeon looks up from where he was tuning his guitar when he hears Kyungsoo pushing the squeaky door open, sending him a small smile. One that Kyungsoo returns as he steps in, careful not to step on or trip over any of the cables that were lying around lest he causes any unwanted trouble.
Gesturing at the space next to him, Junmyeon moves over to make space for Kyungsoo, to which Kyungsoo happily follows through by filling up the empty space. No words were exchanged as Kyungsoo watches Junmyeon tune his guitar, watches Junmyeon’s skilled fingers strum and listen out for the note. His own ears perk up as he instinctively followed with trying to identify the note before he could help it, though he doesn’t voice anything out because he’s sure that Junmyeon’s more skilled at this than he is.
They start off with small warm ups of their voices and eventually end off after much louder sessions of rocking out to either their own self-written songs or their favourite songs. It’s not like they like to boast, but they do carry a certain pride that is evident in the way their shoulders are a little more puffed up every time either one of them mentions that they have composed songs before. Alone and together. They’d like to think that they make a great pair.
They end off the session by flopping down onto the floor, and while that might not be the wisest thing to do, the cold against their slightly sweaty back provides enough relief for them to not want to get up anyway. Chests heaving as they drag each breath of air in, they lie there and try to make sense of some of the thoughts running across their heads in those moments.
Junymeon worries over disappointing his parents and Kyungsoo worries over not being able to get out when the time comes. As things go, they might have the same dream, but they both have fears they need to overcome, and along with that, they fear that they would not be able to overcome them as well.
They are very much the same, and very much different at the same time.
//
The perks of living in a small town include having pretty much everyone know your name. Residents are sort of tightly bonded because there’s only those few people, and almost everyone knows everyone. It is no longer a surprise when one finds that he or she has friends in common with someone else.
But there’s also a downside to it - only these many people know your name. Living in a small town also means being cut off from the city greatly, even with electronice devices like the television and the telephone, they are still not fully connected to the outside world and there are many things that they are unaware of.
Kyungsoo and Junmyeon like being known as the musicians, they appreciate it because they do not get much exposure to the outside world, and while the others jam to contemporary and pop, Junmyeon and Kyungsoo stick to their much simpler definition of music. But having only the people in his town know him are not enough. To be able to make it big, they have to have so much more. It is what they’ve seen on the other televisions back when they were younger and the television boxes easily weighed more than they did. They saw how people sang and how others clapped and cheered loudly in appreciation, others in admiration. They wished that they were able to get that kind of reaction out of people one day too.
And that’s pretty much how they started.
Originally, it was almost a plaything. Something they used to pass time. While other children their age ran around, they tried to figure out which keys played G and which played A minor on the piano. While boys kicked soccer balls around, they tried to write lyrics. Of course, as kids, the things they wrote about were juvenile. It might have been about ice cream or other food stuff, but it did help them in trying to get the words out later on. They were different, to say the least, but it wasn’t like they were never invited to play with the other kids too. They were lucky to be understood and to be able to grow up in an environment where they were respected if they didn’t want to play outside because they were lazy and would rather stay in to fiddle around with their instruments instead.
They had sort of expected themselves to abandon these instruments while growing up, so even though they had spent a lot of time on them, they never bothered with hiring a teacher or learning them in depth. This was also why Junmyeon was the one who knew more about instruments because it wasn’t like Kyungsoo’s family could afford them anyway.
Getting this far without any professional help did make them a little cocky, but only for a short period of time, because they realized that they had so much more to learn before they were even a quarter as good as the ones they would be competing with when they audition in the town in the future.
Speaking of which, was still far away.
//
Junmyeon doesn’t drag his feet to school unlike Kyungsoo because he doesn’t have parents who nag at him as much over his ‘useless’ dreams. And Kyungsoo does not have to study too hard because he’s not expected to take over his family’s business. They try to meet up for lunch whenever they can because after all, Junmyeon is one year Kyungsoo’s senior. That also means that he’s getting out of school before Kyungsoo does, but that doesn’t mean that he’s going to leave Kyungsoo alone.
They have this plan of sorts where Junmyeon will stay behind until Kyungsoo graduates, and in the meantime he can continue to improve on his vocals and other skills because he needs the time. Also because they had sort of agreed to do this together, and they wouldn’t want to be without the other.
Lunch isn’t where they talk the most. In fact, they do not speak much to each other. Preferring to do instead of say. The only time where they properly talk is when they stargaze in Do family’s hay-filled shed.
When they were younger, they used to roll around in the hay and go home all dirty, but as they grew up, that place started to become the place where they could properly talk about how they felt-something even the garage didn’t allow them to do. Words between them come in little, but when they do speak, they seem to not need the rest of the world at all.
//
“So… hey.” Junmyeon chuckles awkwardly as he settles down next to Kyungsoo, arms folded behind his head as a pillow of some sort.
“Hey.” comes Kyungsoo’s softer reply, legs crossed and propped up while he gazes up at the sky.
On some nights, they try to make up constellations, joining the stars however they like. And that might be why they liked to call the sky a painting. Especially the night sky. They could read it however they liked, join the stars however they liked. They did not have to worry about having set rules or having to go this way or the other, unlike how their everyday lives were like. Kyungsoo and Junmyeon do not know much about constellations at all, nothing about the Big Dipper or Cassiopeia. All they knew were that the stars were like their dreams, and when they focused on one particular star, the others around it seemed to dim, as if they didn’t matter as much anymore.
(This, unlike their shared interest for music, did not start out that early. Kyungsoo wasn’t an easy one when it comes to friendships, and he would only bring his friends to this place after he felt comfortable enough. Junmyeon just happened to be the only one who stayed long enough to be able to see this place, see how Kyungsoo's actually like when he's alone and is given time to properly think.)
“It’s difficult, isn’t it?” Junmyeon ends the silence abruptly with a question, not that Kyungsoo minded it much. He doesn’t have to take long to understand Junmyeon, to understand what is the it he was referring to. They both know.
“Yeah, it is. But we aren’t giving up, right? Not when we haven’t actually taken the first step out.”
“Not when we haven’t tried.” Junmyeon’s hand finds Kyungsoo’s and he gives it a reassuring squeeze. They do not look into each other’s eyes or at each other’s faces at all, though Junmyeon couldn’t help but sneak a glance at Kyungsoo’s face. He had his eyes closed then, and-cliché as it was-he did look years younger. The whole dream thing and trying to put up with his parents’ ex[ectations have obviously taken a toll on him, more than what Junmyeon and the others could see from the outside.
He doesn’t think that he looks any different either.
They continue this for a good period of time, because why would they let go of something that let them relax this easily? To them, nothing lets them escape as much as their jamming sessions do, as much as their star-gazing nights do.
Even if they both don’t know how to connect the stars to form Capricorn, or the Virgo, their presence makes up for it.
//
They don’t really want to move too far away from one another, but when the end of the year starts to near, winter is approaching. And so are Junmyeon’s exams.
Kyungsoo is understanding because he knows that he will be going through this the year after, and their jamming sessions slowly come to a stop. Junmyeon has to study because he wants to have something to fall back on should he fail, should they fail. They never voice it, but there’s always this little voice that tries to tell them of all the What ifs, and they try not to let themselves get to it, but they fail sometimes. Kyungsoo thinks the same too (and because he does, no matter how much he dislikes it, he does study, much to his father’s pleasure).
The only time they properly meet is at night, when Junmyeon ends up falling asleep beside Kyungsoo on the hay that they used to find uncomfortable because he gets so tired. They barely talk during lunch now-not that it is a very big change because it has always been like that anyway, only that watching Junmyeon stress himself out makes Kyungsoo worried as well.
As much as they do not want to, they put aside their dreams for a while until real life allows them to get back to it. And till then, Kyungsoo is stuck with having to sing in the shower because he no longer goes over to Junmyeon’s to practice.
He also has to deal with his father telling him to quieten down. How nice.
//
The only good thing about winter is the snow, because it seems to pass by really slowly. But like everything else, it eventually ends, and Kyungsoo starts to see more of Junmyeon again.
They walk home together on the last day of Junmyeon’s exams and they manage to catch people singing on the television screens as they walk past. They look at each other and they share a look for a good whole minute, instantly reminded of the promises they made before and how they were going to fulfil it. Although they were also reminded of how they were nobodies with big dreams, struggling to swim after having been thrown in the sea after finding out what music was all about, willing to make sacrifices for what they believed in because they were young.
But they can always start again.
//
Time passes faster when one does not notice, and soon enough, it’s Junmyeon’s turn to walk Kyungsoo home after the last day of his exams. Another year passed by like all the others before, and while they have gotten a year older, their dreams haven’t changed. Kyungsoo’s more than happy to return to meeting up with Junmyeon over at his garage every time the hour hand settles on the number four on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, more than happy to return to his routine (that he used to hate) that basically involves Junmyeon a whole lot more now that he doesn’t have to go to school anymore. They are in the midst of getting all their savings together and planning out the way to town while they continue on with improving their skills, and Kyungsoo can’t say that he hasn’t missed this, hasn’t missed spending this much time with Junmyeon.
They might have had to face hardships, because the path to town, to their dream place, takes not only hours by train, but also an extra few years.
But when asked later on, they would say that nothing compares to the feeling of getting to sing in front of the judges, getting to show off what they had worked on for so long to the people who would finally be helping them get up to the stage, to where they really want to be and truly belong.
Pairing: Suho/D.O
Word Count: 3257 words
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: -
Summary: It's so easy to talk and think about the things everyone wants, but it becomes another thing when it comes to actually getting it.
Author's notes: written for capsandpizzas exchange.
How important are dreams?
Many people might not know the answer to this question, but Junmyeon and Kyungsoo sure aren’t one of those.
A dream can be defined as getting well to a sick patient. Or getting into their dream school for students. Even a new toy for a child. But to Junmyeon and Kyungsoo, a dream means making it big in the music industry. They want to hear the screams even when they aren’t on stage, feel the adrenaline rush when they’re performing for a big crowd. They want to feel the lights shining on them and they want their cheeks to hurt from smiling because they are truly happy. They want and want and want.
But see, you can’t have everything. A dream is something you’ll have to work hard to achieve and there is a path you have to take. Here is the catch - there are sure to be obstacles. You can dream of tasting the sweat drops of hard work and returning home to a luxurious flat but you have to sacrifice things, sometimes even people to get there. Some have it easier, and others realize their dreams faster.
Unfortunately for Junmyeon and Kyungsoo, they were born to be fighters.
//
That isn’t to say that things are very difficult to them-maybe slightly.
Things get boring in life. To Kyungsoo, life is almost routine. Wake up, get out of the bed and go to school. Come home after to his father nagging yet again before he tries to slam the door with all of the subtlety that he doesn’t have (as much as he would like to, he can’t say much to rebut his father because then he’d threaten to cut his allowance and Kyungsoo can’t allow that. Less allowance means lesser savings in his Dreams piggy bank and he needs all the money he can get. Life is hard, he sighs.)
He might be late for school by ten minutes or so if he wakes up later or if there’s a traffic jam, but even these minute disturbances don’t make much of a difference to his day. People still walk past him without waving unless they know him and his mother still doesn’t try to stand up for him even when his father tells him to do something useful. Hey, at least I don’t waste my money on cancer sticks, Kyungsoo thinks.
Kyungsoo does his best to concentrate and finish his work back in his room before he gets out to meet Junmyeon. Same place, same time. And that’s pretty much the only part he likes about his days. The only familiarity he treasures.
He likes Junmyeon. Don’t get him wrong, his thoughts do not go any further than wanting to get out of this town together with him so that they can achieve their dreams together because right now, nothing else matters. They had started out as childhood friends, the neighbours kind. Baekhyun was the one who delighted in pulling the girls’ pigtails, while Kyungsoo and Junmyeon had preferred sharing a seesaw together. Maybe even the swing, if they got to the playground early and no kids were fighting for it. As kids who barely knew anything about the world, the big, scary, world, they liked the little amount of control they got, even when their feet could barely touch the ground. There was always something else they liked in pushing each other’s back when they sat on the swing or when they went up and down on the seesaw more than being chased after by girls anyway.
In a way, they enjoyed helping each other reach closer to the sky perhaps. The other kids never dared to approach them much because they seemed too close for the others to try. Baekhyun had always been a little special.
That isn’t to say that they don’t have any friends though, but like each other with their best friends, they keep each other closer to their hearts.
//
Back to present, Kyungsoo frowns in concentration until his phone buzzes, and he scribbles a quick answer, slams his pencil down, then gets up and out of his chair to get ready. Kyungsoo didn’t even have to look at the screen to know that it’s time for him to head over. (Not that he really needed the reminder, really. He’s got his schedules-especially those with Junmyeon-burned into the back of his brain but it wouldn’t hurt for him to be a little more on time, especially when they had more to do on that day. He loses track of time while doing work sometimes). They don’t do much on Thursdays, maybe a little vocal training and that’s about it. Young and still in school, they feel that they have a little more time to waste.
There’s something to be said about the way Kyungsoo gets there within seconds, literally. Walk out of the door, cross the road and turn left before walking to the end of the street. There are some things he knows like the back of his hand, like his math formulas. Like his preferences and likings. Like the way to Junmyeon’s house.
Junmyeon’s mother barely bats an eyelash when she opens the door for Kyungsoo now, knowing what it is for. She used to raise eyebrows at him before she knew about their jamming sessions in his garage, often questioning his presence not with words, but with the way she seems to watch them disappear to the back curiously until one day Junmyeon tripped over a cable and electricity tripped did his mother find out. Junmyeon’s mother is a little more supportive of Junmyeon’s-their-dream. Only because she likes that he has something he wants to do in the first place, knowing very well that Junmyeon could have easily been one of those who would go on with the flow of life without resisting, struggling to float wherever he’s brought.
Kyungsoo heads down towards the garage where Junmyeon’s family truck would be, and hyis heart beats a little faster in anticipation of what would be happening. He would never get tired of this.
Junmyeon looks up from where he was tuning his guitar when he hears Kyungsoo pushing the squeaky door open, sending him a small smile. One that Kyungsoo returns as he steps in, careful not to step on or trip over any of the cables that were lying around lest he causes any unwanted trouble.
Gesturing at the space next to him, Junmyeon moves over to make space for Kyungsoo, to which Kyungsoo happily follows through by filling up the empty space. No words were exchanged as Kyungsoo watches Junmyeon tune his guitar, watches Junmyeon’s skilled fingers strum and listen out for the note. His own ears perk up as he instinctively followed with trying to identify the note before he could help it, though he doesn’t voice anything out because he’s sure that Junmyeon’s more skilled at this than he is.
They start off with small warm ups of their voices and eventually end off after much louder sessions of rocking out to either their own self-written songs or their favourite songs. It’s not like they like to boast, but they do carry a certain pride that is evident in the way their shoulders are a little more puffed up every time either one of them mentions that they have composed songs before. Alone and together. They’d like to think that they make a great pair.
They end off the session by flopping down onto the floor, and while that might not be the wisest thing to do, the cold against their slightly sweaty back provides enough relief for them to not want to get up anyway. Chests heaving as they drag each breath of air in, they lie there and try to make sense of some of the thoughts running across their heads in those moments.
Junymeon worries over disappointing his parents and Kyungsoo worries over not being able to get out when the time comes. As things go, they might have the same dream, but they both have fears they need to overcome, and along with that, they fear that they would not be able to overcome them as well.
They are very much the same, and very much different at the same time.
//
The perks of living in a small town include having pretty much everyone know your name. Residents are sort of tightly bonded because there’s only those few people, and almost everyone knows everyone. It is no longer a surprise when one finds that he or she has friends in common with someone else.
But there’s also a downside to it - only these many people know your name. Living in a small town also means being cut off from the city greatly, even with electronice devices like the television and the telephone, they are still not fully connected to the outside world and there are many things that they are unaware of.
Kyungsoo and Junmyeon like being known as the musicians, they appreciate it because they do not get much exposure to the outside world, and while the others jam to contemporary and pop, Junmyeon and Kyungsoo stick to their much simpler definition of music. But having only the people in his town know him are not enough. To be able to make it big, they have to have so much more. It is what they’ve seen on the other televisions back when they were younger and the television boxes easily weighed more than they did. They saw how people sang and how others clapped and cheered loudly in appreciation, others in admiration. They wished that they were able to get that kind of reaction out of people one day too.
And that’s pretty much how they started.
Originally, it was almost a plaything. Something they used to pass time. While other children their age ran around, they tried to figure out which keys played G and which played A minor on the piano. While boys kicked soccer balls around, they tried to write lyrics. Of course, as kids, the things they wrote about were juvenile. It might have been about ice cream or other food stuff, but it did help them in trying to get the words out later on. They were different, to say the least, but it wasn’t like they were never invited to play with the other kids too. They were lucky to be understood and to be able to grow up in an environment where they were respected if they didn’t want to play outside because they were lazy and would rather stay in to fiddle around with their instruments instead.
They had sort of expected themselves to abandon these instruments while growing up, so even though they had spent a lot of time on them, they never bothered with hiring a teacher or learning them in depth. This was also why Junmyeon was the one who knew more about instruments because it wasn’t like Kyungsoo’s family could afford them anyway.
Getting this far without any professional help did make them a little cocky, but only for a short period of time, because they realized that they had so much more to learn before they were even a quarter as good as the ones they would be competing with when they audition in the town in the future.
Speaking of which, was still far away.
//
Junmyeon doesn’t drag his feet to school unlike Kyungsoo because he doesn’t have parents who nag at him as much over his ‘useless’ dreams. And Kyungsoo does not have to study too hard because he’s not expected to take over his family’s business. They try to meet up for lunch whenever they can because after all, Junmyeon is one year Kyungsoo’s senior. That also means that he’s getting out of school before Kyungsoo does, but that doesn’t mean that he’s going to leave Kyungsoo alone.
They have this plan of sorts where Junmyeon will stay behind until Kyungsoo graduates, and in the meantime he can continue to improve on his vocals and other skills because he needs the time. Also because they had sort of agreed to do this together, and they wouldn’t want to be without the other.
Lunch isn’t where they talk the most. In fact, they do not speak much to each other. Preferring to do instead of say. The only time where they properly talk is when they stargaze in Do family’s hay-filled shed.
When they were younger, they used to roll around in the hay and go home all dirty, but as they grew up, that place started to become the place where they could properly talk about how they felt-something even the garage didn’t allow them to do. Words between them come in little, but when they do speak, they seem to not need the rest of the world at all.
//
“So… hey.” Junmyeon chuckles awkwardly as he settles down next to Kyungsoo, arms folded behind his head as a pillow of some sort.
“Hey.” comes Kyungsoo’s softer reply, legs crossed and propped up while he gazes up at the sky.
On some nights, they try to make up constellations, joining the stars however they like. And that might be why they liked to call the sky a painting. Especially the night sky. They could read it however they liked, join the stars however they liked. They did not have to worry about having set rules or having to go this way or the other, unlike how their everyday lives were like. Kyungsoo and Junmyeon do not know much about constellations at all, nothing about the Big Dipper or Cassiopeia. All they knew were that the stars were like their dreams, and when they focused on one particular star, the others around it seemed to dim, as if they didn’t matter as much anymore.
(This, unlike their shared interest for music, did not start out that early. Kyungsoo wasn’t an easy one when it comes to friendships, and he would only bring his friends to this place after he felt comfortable enough. Junmyeon just happened to be the only one who stayed long enough to be able to see this place, see how Kyungsoo's actually like when he's alone and is given time to properly think.)
“It’s difficult, isn’t it?” Junmyeon ends the silence abruptly with a question, not that Kyungsoo minded it much. He doesn’t have to take long to understand Junmyeon, to understand what is the it he was referring to. They both know.
“Yeah, it is. But we aren’t giving up, right? Not when we haven’t actually taken the first step out.”
“Not when we haven’t tried.” Junmyeon’s hand finds Kyungsoo’s and he gives it a reassuring squeeze. They do not look into each other’s eyes or at each other’s faces at all, though Junmyeon couldn’t help but sneak a glance at Kyungsoo’s face. He had his eyes closed then, and-cliché as it was-he did look years younger. The whole dream thing and trying to put up with his parents’ ex[ectations have obviously taken a toll on him, more than what Junmyeon and the others could see from the outside.
He doesn’t think that he looks any different either.
They continue this for a good period of time, because why would they let go of something that let them relax this easily? To them, nothing lets them escape as much as their jamming sessions do, as much as their star-gazing nights do.
Even if they both don’t know how to connect the stars to form Capricorn, or the Virgo, their presence makes up for it.
//
They don’t really want to move too far away from one another, but when the end of the year starts to near, winter is approaching. And so are Junmyeon’s exams.
Kyungsoo is understanding because he knows that he will be going through this the year after, and their jamming sessions slowly come to a stop. Junmyeon has to study because he wants to have something to fall back on should he fail, should they fail. They never voice it, but there’s always this little voice that tries to tell them of all the What ifs, and they try not to let themselves get to it, but they fail sometimes. Kyungsoo thinks the same too (and because he does, no matter how much he dislikes it, he does study, much to his father’s pleasure).
The only time they properly meet is at night, when Junmyeon ends up falling asleep beside Kyungsoo on the hay that they used to find uncomfortable because he gets so tired. They barely talk during lunch now-not that it is a very big change because it has always been like that anyway, only that watching Junmyeon stress himself out makes Kyungsoo worried as well.
As much as they do not want to, they put aside their dreams for a while until real life allows them to get back to it. And till then, Kyungsoo is stuck with having to sing in the shower because he no longer goes over to Junmyeon’s to practice.
He also has to deal with his father telling him to quieten down. How nice.
//
The only good thing about winter is the snow, because it seems to pass by really slowly. But like everything else, it eventually ends, and Kyungsoo starts to see more of Junmyeon again.
They walk home together on the last day of Junmyeon’s exams and they manage to catch people singing on the television screens as they walk past. They look at each other and they share a look for a good whole minute, instantly reminded of the promises they made before and how they were going to fulfil it. Although they were also reminded of how they were nobodies with big dreams, struggling to swim after having been thrown in the sea after finding out what music was all about, willing to make sacrifices for what they believed in because they were young.
But they can always start again.
//
Time passes faster when one does not notice, and soon enough, it’s Junmyeon’s turn to walk Kyungsoo home after the last day of his exams. Another year passed by like all the others before, and while they have gotten a year older, their dreams haven’t changed. Kyungsoo’s more than happy to return to meeting up with Junmyeon over at his garage every time the hour hand settles on the number four on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, more than happy to return to his routine (that he used to hate) that basically involves Junmyeon a whole lot more now that he doesn’t have to go to school anymore. They are in the midst of getting all their savings together and planning out the way to town while they continue on with improving their skills, and Kyungsoo can’t say that he hasn’t missed this, hasn’t missed spending this much time with Junmyeon.
They might have had to face hardships, because the path to town, to their dream place, takes not only hours by train, but also an extra few years.
But when asked later on, they would say that nothing compares to the feeling of getting to sing in front of the judges, getting to show off what they had worked on for so long to the people who would finally be helping them get up to the stage, to where they really want to be and truly belong.