[fic] block b: and this one's for you (jaehyo/kyung, jiho/yukwon) ][g]
Title: and this one's for you
Character/Pairing: en route towards Jaehyo/Kyung; background ZiKwon.
Summary: Jaehyo is not actually a shoujo manga hero, except in all the ways it matters.
Rating: G
Length: 4.5k
Warnings: Highschool. Dick jokes. Block B.
Author's notes: thank you to Jolie and B for not letting this turn into Juno because I was, trufax, one scrapped scene away from turning this into awkward high school mpreg and I'm not ashamed. Written for remplissant for the blockbtime exchange.
The first day back at school, Jaehyo meets with the second and third year representatives of his official fan club and walks away with a proposal of this year's events, a neatly packaged bag of fangifts, a handful of pink perfumed letters with a regrettable amount of lipgloss stain kisses and more boxed lunches than he can eat without losing his enviably svelte figure.
The gifts he leaves in the bag to take home and reads the letters over a shared lunch with his seatmate/best-friend/rival ulzzang (after a carefully angled commemorative selca is taken and posted to their respective fancafes and twitter feeds), Minhyuk.
("It's bibum now," Minhyuk says serenely over a selection of fruit cut into animals and hearts and stars.
"Unique?"
"B-bomb," Minhyuk spells out with a careless wave of a decapitated apple rabbit. "My fancafe got revamped. There was a poll."
Jaehyo nods and makes a muffled sound of agreement through a mouthful of fried chicken.)
"This," Jaehyo proclaims over the detritus of their triumphant battle over way too much food for which no photographic evidence exists even though they're probably attractive no matter what the circumstance, "this is going to be a good year."
"This year," Kyung announces at the entirely-not-imposing-what-do-you-mean-that's-ridiculous wrought iron gates that lead into the institution that will be their lives for the next three years, "will be my highschool debut. I will shine. No longer will I be held back by my shackles. I will fly free."
"The contacts look good," Jiho offers. "You know. Given your face."
"I will have it all." If by all, he means a faceful of cherryblossom, that is. Undeterred, Kyung splutters through and grins rakishly (probably) at the small group of girls looking at him strang- admiringly. Right. Because now he is someone to be admired. Instead of being the funny awkward kid, Kyung is now totally the funny cool kid. He's grown his hair out of the fuzzy buzz cut and has only two eyes instead of four and his very most favourite minion-husband-musical genius rival-creature is back from study abroad in the States.
Life was good.
"You have crazy eyes," Jiho says because he is a cruel beast and came back too tall for civilization. The repeated head trauma from waking into low doorframes probably turned his empathy centres to mush. "And we have the first year's welcome ceremony to get to."
"Yeah, okay," Kyung concedes and lets himself be dragged along.
The auditorium is full of first year students, perfectly pressed blazers and short skirts and the overpowering smell of cheap deodorant. Kyung carefully scopes it out, looking at the fluttering groups of pretty girls with their curled hair and heavily mascara'd eyelashes, and thinks about the perfect avenue of approach - which is how he entirely misses Jiho leading them over to a couple of empty chairs in the middle back right.
There's a sleepy looking guy sitting there alone, slitted eyes a lazy flicker when they stand in frount of him. He's already a little rumpled, the top two buttons of his shirt undone, the perfect windsor knot of his tie loose and pulled down.
"Hi," Jiho says because he is a smooth dog, let no one say different.
"Oh my god," Kyung blurts out, appalled.
"Hi," Sleepy offers back and Kyung recoils at the force of his smile, supernova bright.
Sleepy's name is Yukwon and he came to this school because, "My hyung is here and my noona graduated here a few years ago."
Jiho already has an arm casually slung around the back of Yukwon's chair, angled towards him with his long legs open in a sprawl, knees almost touching the row of chairs in frount of them. Whatever. Kyung isn't jealous of that extra height at all.
"We're here because Jiho has a mancrush on this vocalist he stalks in Hondae," Kyung says with a sort of cheerful maliciousness, making certain to stay just out of arm's reach.
Jiho snorts. "Like you're not with me at every show."
"He's a very good singer." Kyung shrugs, absolutely unashamed.
"Huh," Yukwon says, and then, "You mean Taeil-hyung?"
The look that Jiho gives him is so patently assessing that Kyung is actually a little embarrassed for him. "You know him?" Jiho says in a voice that makes it sound more like, how did you get even more perfect?
"He's a friend of a friend," Yukwon says and then they're hushed up by the feedback squeal of the microphone, for three long, intensely painful hours of welcomes and speeches.
At the end of it, they stumble out into the bright sunshine of the real world, blinking and bleary and entirely not prepared to be set upon by what seems like the entire population of the school in the recruitment drive for the clubs. It's a pretty good tactic, as far as these things go, and Kyung forcibly pulls Yukwon away from someone waving a poster of a large-eyed ball of fluff masquerading as a kitten.
"I like cats," Yukwon says sadly.
"So," Kyung says loudly over the top because, really, no. "Was there anything you were actually planning on joining?" In middle school, Kyung had been a Math Olympiad and a Science Triathlete and owns a trophy half as big as his torso, shaped mostly like a chess piece bishop and a little like a grotesque sextoy. He'd laughed until he'd almost thrown up when he received it at the end of year dinner for the Chess Club.
"Dance, I think," Yukwon answers obligingly enough. "And I think hyung wanted me to help out with his club."
"What club is that?"
"Well," Yukwon says and points to a teeming mass of girls surrounding a guy that stands and entire head and shoulders over the crowd. "His fan club, actually."
Usually, the structure of his fanclub means that Jaehyo is pretty much three people removed from the more enthusiastic of his fans but there are special occasions where he's required to put in more public appearances. The annual recruitment drive is one of them and he tries exceedingly hard not to feel awkward surrounded by the hungry gleam of pretty, made-up eyes.
"Um," Jaehyo says. "I mean. Welcome. To this school. And congratulations."
Jaehyo is the most eligible bachelor in the entire school zone and all the online polls say so, as well as research through all the surrounding schools (most of which have official chapters of his club and pool online resources in a disturbingly efficient way), and it is entirely because of how smooth and charming he is, really.
"I hope you'll. Have a good time here?"
Sometimes, it is actually really, really hard to be beautiful.
Off to the side, the third year representative - Kim, referred by last name only, razor thin, all sharp, efficient angles and no patience for idiots or inefficacy who had taken control of his fans with military precision back in first year in order to stop him from 'disrupting class with his personal issues' and never learned to give up control - rolls her eyes at him. Good job, she mouths and gave him a tight, close-mouthed smile.
Help, Jaehyo does not mouth back, though he raises his eyebrows and widens his eyes very eloquently in her direction.
Across the courtyard, there's a familiar flash of bright red hair - a completely not respectable shade, unlike Jaehyo's subtle chocolate brown that highlights the pale porcelain of his skin, his stylist had promised - which inadvertently makes Jaehyo smile in a way that means that love poetry dedicated to his face will be written in the near future. One of the girls swoons.
"And. I have to go. Now. But Kim-sshi will be here to explain all the things," he finishes with all the grace and poise expected of someone with a substantial fanbase. That call him Prince.
It's only ironic with some people.
Jaehyo gracefully extracts himself with the crowd, trying very hard not to listen to Kim explain membership to the fancafe and the levelling up process, pop quizzes about his favourite colour and preferred style of underwear.
Eventually, they're herded into the classrooms, a long stretch of rooms that line the second floor and look out over the sports grounds. By luck (theirs, and the teacher's distinct lack of it), Jiho and Kyung are in the same class, with Yukwon a welcome addition.
They slouch towards the back row, Yukwon taking the window with a languid stretch, face turned towards the sunlight that sparks off his red hair.
"I don't believe there are fan clubs," Kyung says flatly, ignoring the way that Jiho is an embarrassment to men everywhere. "For students. Here."
"Only two," Jiho grins at him. "Though maybe I can make it three."
"Ha," Kyung says, pointing. "And ha again. No."
"I'm hot property. Zi-ah-co," Jiho laughs and takes the opportunity to tell Yukwon all about being a rap artist, struggling underground, being an independent musician and (hopefully) wildly sexy.
Kyung bashes his forehead against his desk and thinks about tall seniors with perfect hair and skin, the hold of his wrists when he gestured as he spoke and how utterly unfair the entire world was.
Eventually, school life becomes mostly routine. Kyung wakes up at 6:30 in the morning, swears at his alarm clock for four minutes, falls back asleep until 7:00 and then rushes through his morning routine to get to school seven and a half minutes before the bell rings, which is enough time for the majority of the school girls from other schools to disperse but enough unfortunately early enough to see Ahn Jaehyo, school idol, finish up his morning greetings to an adoring crowd.
"He's not that bad," Yukwon says from his desk between Kyung and Jiho's.
"I hate his face," Kyung says, only mostly hysterical.
Yukwon shrugs fatalistically. "I think it's insured."
"I may just hate everything about him."
"He's not actually a bad person," Yukwon says, a little apologetically. "You know. Given life."
"You're obligated to like him," Kyung says bitterly. "You're childhood friends. Why don't you love me? How can you actually be helping him out?"
"Eh," Yukwon says and slumps lower in his chair. There's just enough time for a three minute nap before the bell rings.
"Why doesn't anyone love me?" Kyung rages and Jiho laughs at him, open mouthed and obnoxious.
"Channel your emotions. Write a song about it."
"Worst. Minion. Ever." Kyung hisses, eyes narrowed at Jiho's stupid laughing face.
"Well," Jiho says contemplatively. "Maybe if you had nicer thighs."
"Urgh," Kyung says reflexively. He grabs the sadly still awake Yukwon in an affectionate headlock, pulling him halfway across Kyung's desk. "At least Kwonnie will support me."
"If I say yes," Yukwon says consideringly, "will you let me go back to sleep?"
"No."
"No."
"Then no," Yukwon says and flops limply in Kyung's arms. "You're all terrible."
A few times a week, Yukwon goes up two flights to the third year classrooms for lunch. He's never stopped, even though the corridors are guarded jealously against first-year interlopers, which Jaehyo attributes to the terrifying efficacy of his fanclub and Yukwon says is due to his growing jailbait charms.
Jaehyo can't, actually, in good conscience dispute that since whenever Yukwon comes around with the first year fanletters and fangifts, he spends a good ten minutes sitting with the girls in Jaehyo's class, letting them coo over his cheeks and slip him candy.
Jaehyo is a terrible influence. Yukwon's brother is going to kill him one day and he's going to have absolutely no defence against it.
Case in point, Jaehyo is fairly certain that Yukwon is carrying more per-volume candy for himself than two day's worth of collected things for Jaehyo.
Jaehyo looks at him accusingly. "You'll get fat."
Yukwon shrugs and unwraps a lollipop philosophically. "I'm even cuter when I'm round."
"You terrify me."
There's a moment's silence where Minhyuk stares unbecomingly at Yukwon shoving an entire lollipop the size of a small whale into his mouth, and Jaehyo sadly contemplates how his life has come to this. He sighs, resigned, and mutters into his hand held despairingly over his face. "Are you still chasing after that noona?"
Yukwon pulls his candy out of his mouth with a loud pop. "I might have a boyfriend," and then, "I'm wearing her down."
"You have a-"
"Maybe," Yukwon shrugs. "I'm working on it. Both of them."
In no way did 18 volumes of Otomen and repeated watchings of Gokusen and Reply 1997 prepare Jaehyo for the realities of actual high school life.
"She's in university," Jaehyo says, pained, because how was that the less controversial subject.
"On the plus side," Yukwon says, supremely unconcerned. "I'm not in middle school anymore."
Minhyuk continues staring and Jaehyo contemplates the possibility of actually willing himself dead.
"Why do you have no morals?" Jaehyo asks plaintively when he feels like he can speak without having a heart attack.
"It's mostly the people I hang out with," Yukwon says, unapologetic.
"Hooligans."
Yukwon shrugs. "He just has a lot of feelings about your face."
Jaehyo sighs and tries to smother himself with his own hands.
Jiho has really terrible ideas. It comes from being a really terrible person, Kyung is pretty sure, but on the odd occasion, his advice actually sticks and Kyung finds himself scribbling on crumpled sheets of paper between classes, trying to think of words enough to express his loathing of Ahn Jaehyo's entire being.
"Sure, he's good-looking," Kyung rants, frothing slightly at the mouth. Jiho carefully edges his desk away, leaving a catnapping Yukwon where he is as a human shield. "But what else does he have besides inhuman good looks?"
"Height," Jiho says smugly.
Kyung makes an inarticulate sound of pure rage and launches himself at Jiho in a flurry of limbs. Using some previously unknown sixth sense, Yukwon mutters in his sleep and slides peacefully under his desk as the battle rages on overhead.
"Does anything actually rhyme with 'bilious'?"
"You have problems."
"You actually wrote a song about his face."
"I don't see why you're surprised," Kyung huffs, crossing his arms. "You're the one that suggested it."
"Yes," Jiho says patiently, like he's talking to a not particularly bright child that liked to eat paste. "But I'm a dick."
"You really are," Kyung says agreeably.
Jiho's eyes light up in a truly disturbing fashion. "A really big-"
"Can we not discuss your junk?" Kyung holds up a hand, pained. "Please?"
"I don't mind," Yukwon weighs in, even though his eyes are still closed and he is, to all appearances, fast asleep on his desk as usual.
"It's either that, or Jaehyo's face again and I like my dick a lot better." Jiho grins, utterly unrepentant.
"I. Am not going to make 'rock and a hard place' similes," Kyung says, feeling the last bare remnants of his sanity trying to squirm out of his fingertips. "Because. Reasons."
Jiho's grin is utterly filthy. "Good call."
"It's not the first time someone's written a song about Jaehyo-hyung." Yukwon rolls and stretches and his smile is just as incandescent as the first day they'd met him, though it was far easier to see the undercurrents of pure evil now. "Most of them tend to be odes."
"This is not an ode," Kyung says, only minorly offended. "It's a diss track."
"Mm," Yukwon hums. "Do you want me to pass it on to him?"
Sometimes, Kyung thinks, Yukwon is also a dick.
ahn jaehyo @prince_jaehyo
Thank you, @holke for the song. I don't really get rap but I'm sure you're very talented.
[ 96 RETWEETS | 81 FAVORITES ]
Yeah, okay, Kyung thinks through the rising fog of hysteria when he checks his twitter feed during a slow moment in class. Clearly, Ahn Jaehyo had to die.
"Here, hyung," Yukwon says, uncharacteristically disgruntled, dropping a handful of letters and a small gift bag on Jaehyo's desk. "Delivery."
"Thank you, Kwon," Jaehyo says, entirely too chipper, looking up from fixing his bangs in the frount camera of his phone. He shoots Yukwon a practiced smile, ignoring Yukwon's twitch and muttered 'hyung, no!' in response.
"Kwon-ah!" one of the girls calls from across the room. "Come here, noona has something for you."
Yukwon perks up just the slightest bit because offers like that mostly result in food, candy or embarrassing pictures of Jaehyo's face, any or all of which would be completely satisfactory. He trots over obligingly, leaving Jaehyo to preen and coo over his fanmail.
It's pretty standard at first - there's a phone charm in the bag, a simple thing in silver and purple crystals that Jaehyo promptly attaches to his phone - and three letters in varying shades of pink, smelling of light florals and vanilla. Mixed up amoungst them, though, is a single sheet of roughly torn-off notebook paper, edges ragged. The only thing written on it, in a meticulously neat and rounded hand, is a time (now!), place (behind the science block? how strange) and 'I'll b waiting'.
Probably Yukwon will be able to tell him more about it, so Jaehyo neatly shuffles together his letters and looks up - only to freeze when confronted with half a dozen shark-like smiles and Yukwon giggling gleefully over one of the girl's phones.
"Hyung~" Yukwon calls out, and Jaehyo hastily decides that no, he doesn't really need to know, he can go and deal with this in person like someone polite and reasonable and definitely not fleeing from the vipers masquerading as high school students.
"Sorrygottago," Jaehyo says with a nervous smile, then turns to frown briefly at Minhyuk. "You can't eat with just your eyes."
"I think I can," Minhyuk says peaceably, barely audible over the scrape of Jaehyo's chair being pushed back, but Jaehyo's gone too fast to have to think up a good response.
The science block is far away enough from the third year classrooms that Jaehyo is almost (almost!) able to compose himself and think (almost!) rationally. He's had confessions from boys before - though most of them had sent letters nicer than that- and if Yukwon had delivered it, it was probably a first year. On the whole, first years were tiny, harmless things bar a few exceptions that Jaehyo really wishes Kwon would stay away from because of reasons. Good ones.
So it's with a happy and open heart that Jaehyo rounds the corner. And promptly has a small heart attack.
Or at least that's what it feels like, though Jaehyo is a little too busy gaping wildly to really analyse how his entire body has seized.
"Y-you-" Jaehyo chokes out.
"Ahn Jaehyo," Park Kyung sneers (not altogether unattractively, Jaehyo thinks faintly) and takes a step forward.
"YOU STAY RIGHT THERE," Jaehyo says in a rather high pitched shriek, throwing one hand out in the classic 'stop!' pose. He can feel his eyes getting unbecomingly wide.
"Wha-"
"I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN." Jaehyo's generally good at matters of the heart but he'll chalk this one up to wilful blindness to matters that shouldn't ever be thought of. "People don't hate me. Of course you don't hate me. WERE YOU REDIRECTING YOUR INTERNALISED HOMOPHOBIA AT YOUR FEELINGS FOR ME AT ME? BECAUSE THAT IS WRONG."
"Um-" Park Kyung says.
"IT IS PERFECTLY OKAY TO BE GAY," Jaehyo continues determinedly, even though at this point he's staring at his own hand because Park Kyung called him out to this deserted spot with an anonymous note and everything is awful. "EVEN IF IT'S YOU."
"Hey!" Kyung interjects forcibly and takes two steps forward.
Jaehyo takes a skittering step back, pressed against the safety of the wall. "I should have known when you wrote a song about my face."
Kyung makes a noise like a cross between a kettle boiling and Yukwon a kitten, a sort of shrill squeak. "That was a diss track! I hate your face!"
"No one hates my face," Jaehyo explains kindly. He tips his head back to rest against the wall and closes his eyes with a mournful, "This is the worst day of my entire life."
He regrets it a second later because suddenly, Park Kyung is in his personal space and then there's touching (rather forceful contact between Kyung's shoe and his own shin) and pain and Jaehyo pushes past Kyung, hopping frantically on one foot until he's a good few metres away and can clutch defensively at his leg.
"PLEASE DON'T TOUCH ME."
"Are you actually insane?" Kyung is all shrill voice and crazy eyes. Jaehyo is not impressed.
"YOUR TSUNDERE LOVE IS NOT APPRECIATED," Jaehyo says but immediately feels bad because that is not the right way to deal with heartfelt emotions, even if they're unexpected. "WAIT. I APPRECIATE YOUR CONFESSION BUT I AM AFRAID THAT I CANNOT ACCEPT YOUR FEELINGS RIGHT NOW I HOPE THE BEST FOR YOUR FUTURE GOODBYE."
Kyung takes a half step forward, but Jaehyo can feel the edges of his sanity crumbling at an extreme rate so he throws out one last line on automatic ("AND I AM SURE YOU WILL FIND SOMEONE TO CHERISH YOU SOON.") and makes a run for the dubious safety of his classroom.
So maybe that hadn't worked out exactly the way he'd planned.
"Will you please stop laughing," Kyung grits out.
"AHAHAHA," Jiho howls, clutching at the tree trunk for balance. "AHAHAHAHAHAHA."
Kyung can feel his hands spasmodically clenching into fists. "It's really not that funny."
Jiho pauses for half a second to peer at Kyung's face, then slowly topples over clutching at his midsection. He's laughing so hard that barely any sound is coming out, face red and sweaty and highly unattractive. Kyung hopes he chokes.
"Goodbye," Kyung says pointedly and turns on his heel to stomp away from the totally cursed science building and the wheezing gasps of Jiho's laughter.
Kyung doesn't make his way back to the classroom until the chimes of the warning bell have almost faded, which stalls Jiho for exactly 0.2 seconds.
"So," Jiho grins, like a shark. "You have to admit. It makes sense."
"Nothing about today makes sense," Kyung does not wail because he is a manly man and the entire class was looking at him.
"You wrote a song about his face."
"It was a diss track," Kyung says for the nth time today. "It was about how much I hated his face."
"You mentioned his eyes seventeen times," Jiho points out maliciously.
"They're very mentionable eyes!" And, well. His stupid skinny wrists and knees that were just on this side of knobbly and the curve of his neck. It couldn't be helped. Kyung is an artist, he notices these things. And puts them in song rap. "His eyelashes are abnormal, okay. They shouldn't be that long."
"I'm just saying," Jiho says, because he's awful.
"Please don't."
Yukwon, silent up until now (and probably because he had been using his eyes as lasers trying to stare into Kyung's soul), motions with his hand. "You know-"
"I don't know anything," Kyung says bitterly.
"There's easier ways to get Jaehyo-hyung's attention."
Kyung stares at him, open-mouthed, for a few very long and painful seconds. "Why would I even-"
"It's okay," Yukwon smiles, bright and sweet. "I'll help."
"Kwon-ah," Jaehyo moans into the curve of Yukwon's neck, clinging to his shoulders and trying hard not to break down and cry. They're in Jaehyo's room, sitting on the previously neatly made bed, and several hours have not been long enough to put the trauma behind him. "Why is everything terrible?"
"Probably because it's you," Yukwon says heartlessly.
People had been staring. There are probably fan accounts in his fancafe because people are terrifying and Jaehyo is going to have to relive being ambushed by forbidden rival-shipping BL forever.
Jaehyo makes a low and piteous sound of heartbreak. "Why have you betrayed me so?"
"There, there," Yukwon says with a pat on his shoulder, utterly unsympathetic. "It's not that bad."
"My entire worldview has been shaken," Jaehyo says solemnly.
"I thought it reaffirmed your belief in universal love. For you. Besides, it's not like you have a problem with the gay."
Jaehyo looks up, startled out of his tormented misery. "Has someone been giving you a hard time? Do I need to have words? Because your love is perfectly natural, even if he's a juvenile delinquent that bleached his brain. And it's not even statutory rape with this one."
"Thank you," Yukwon says. "Really."
"I support you in all of your life choices," Jaehyo says encouragingly. "Even when they're awful."
"You know," Yukwon says loudly, because deep down inside he's still that five year old that followed Jaehyo around and not just the spawn of Satan he appears to be these days. "Park Kyung isn't that bad."
"Well. No," Jaehyo concedes. "He likes me."
"He likes you," Yukwon repeats in a tone that Jaehyo can't quite quantify.
"He wrote me a song."
"You liked it."
Jaehyo frowns. "I prefer ballads."
"You didn't hate it," Yukwon amends.
"I really don't understand rap as a medium," Jaehyo says apologetically. "But it was very emotive. There was English in it."
"Was it really that bad?" Yukwon asks, the stroke of his hand up and down Jaehyo's arm almost hypnotic in how soothing it was. Yukwon, Jaehyo keeps on forgetting, never really learned how to play fair.
"Well," Jaehyo says reluctantly. "It could be worse."
Yukwon smiles.
Kyung's deep and true abiding loves include his graphics calculator, his laptop, and the clean sweep of a new sheet of square lined graphing paper; which is why when he gets home that night, he takes out his graph paper pad and draws up a list.
An hour later, he puts down his pen and looks at the neatly itemised list. It starts with his hands, the way they gesture in the air just a little too stiff but graceful nonetheless, and passes by the way he smiles when surprised, and meanders through how he always tries so hard all the way to nice, which should be the simplest - a throwaway point, a lukewarm compliment like 'good personality' - but has a half page of dot points underneath.
"Huh," he says out loud. Perhaps it's time to rethink his approach.
Author's notes: THIS IS HOW THIS FIC WAS DESCRIBED IN MY NOTES;;
kyung sees like, all the fangirls and whatever that jaehyo gets and develops great bitterness in his heart, because he's a cucumber. and would also like a fanclub, pls.
Title from Your Song because, ahaha.
P.O. actually exists in this universe, but he's still over in middle school, scaring all the firsties with his booming devil's voice.
Character/Pairing: en route towards Jaehyo/Kyung; background ZiKwon.
Summary: Jaehyo is not actually a shoujo manga hero, except in all the ways it matters.
Rating: G
Length: 4.5k
Warnings: Highschool. Dick jokes. Block B.
Author's notes: thank you to Jolie and B for not letting this turn into Juno because I was, trufax, one scrapped scene away from turning this into awkward high school mpreg and I'm not ashamed. Written for remplissant for the blockbtime exchange.
The first day back at school, Jaehyo meets with the second and third year representatives of his official fan club and walks away with a proposal of this year's events, a neatly packaged bag of fangifts, a handful of pink perfumed letters with a regrettable amount of lipgloss stain kisses and more boxed lunches than he can eat without losing his enviably svelte figure.
The gifts he leaves in the bag to take home and reads the letters over a shared lunch with his seatmate/best-friend/rival ulzzang (after a carefully angled commemorative selca is taken and posted to their respective fancafes and twitter feeds), Minhyuk.
("It's bibum now," Minhyuk says serenely over a selection of fruit cut into animals and hearts and stars.
"Unique?"
"B-bomb," Minhyuk spells out with a careless wave of a decapitated apple rabbit. "My fancafe got revamped. There was a poll."
Jaehyo nods and makes a muffled sound of agreement through a mouthful of fried chicken.)
"This," Jaehyo proclaims over the detritus of their triumphant battle over way too much food for which no photographic evidence exists even though they're probably attractive no matter what the circumstance, "this is going to be a good year."
"This year," Kyung announces at the entirely-not-imposing-what-do-you-mean-that's-ridiculous wrought iron gates that lead into the institution that will be their lives for the next three years, "will be my highschool debut. I will shine. No longer will I be held back by my shackles. I will fly free."
"The contacts look good," Jiho offers. "You know. Given your face."
"I will have it all." If by all, he means a faceful of cherryblossom, that is. Undeterred, Kyung splutters through and grins rakishly (probably) at the small group of girls looking at him strang- admiringly. Right. Because now he is someone to be admired. Instead of being the funny awkward kid, Kyung is now totally the funny cool kid. He's grown his hair out of the fuzzy buzz cut and has only two eyes instead of four and his very most favourite minion-husband-musical genius rival-creature is back from study abroad in the States.
Life was good.
"You have crazy eyes," Jiho says because he is a cruel beast and came back too tall for civilization. The repeated head trauma from waking into low doorframes probably turned his empathy centres to mush. "And we have the first year's welcome ceremony to get to."
"Yeah, okay," Kyung concedes and lets himself be dragged along.
The auditorium is full of first year students, perfectly pressed blazers and short skirts and the overpowering smell of cheap deodorant. Kyung carefully scopes it out, looking at the fluttering groups of pretty girls with their curled hair and heavily mascara'd eyelashes, and thinks about the perfect avenue of approach - which is how he entirely misses Jiho leading them over to a couple of empty chairs in the middle back right.
There's a sleepy looking guy sitting there alone, slitted eyes a lazy flicker when they stand in frount of him. He's already a little rumpled, the top two buttons of his shirt undone, the perfect windsor knot of his tie loose and pulled down.
"Hi," Jiho says because he is a smooth dog, let no one say different.
"Oh my god," Kyung blurts out, appalled.
"Hi," Sleepy offers back and Kyung recoils at the force of his smile, supernova bright.
Sleepy's name is Yukwon and he came to this school because, "My hyung is here and my noona graduated here a few years ago."
Jiho already has an arm casually slung around the back of Yukwon's chair, angled towards him with his long legs open in a sprawl, knees almost touching the row of chairs in frount of them. Whatever. Kyung isn't jealous of that extra height at all.
"We're here because Jiho has a mancrush on this vocalist he stalks in Hondae," Kyung says with a sort of cheerful maliciousness, making certain to stay just out of arm's reach.
Jiho snorts. "Like you're not with me at every show."
"He's a very good singer." Kyung shrugs, absolutely unashamed.
"Huh," Yukwon says, and then, "You mean Taeil-hyung?"
The look that Jiho gives him is so patently assessing that Kyung is actually a little embarrassed for him. "You know him?" Jiho says in a voice that makes it sound more like, how did you get even more perfect?
"He's a friend of a friend," Yukwon says and then they're hushed up by the feedback squeal of the microphone, for three long, intensely painful hours of welcomes and speeches.
At the end of it, they stumble out into the bright sunshine of the real world, blinking and bleary and entirely not prepared to be set upon by what seems like the entire population of the school in the recruitment drive for the clubs. It's a pretty good tactic, as far as these things go, and Kyung forcibly pulls Yukwon away from someone waving a poster of a large-eyed ball of fluff masquerading as a kitten.
"I like cats," Yukwon says sadly.
"So," Kyung says loudly over the top because, really, no. "Was there anything you were actually planning on joining?" In middle school, Kyung had been a Math Olympiad and a Science Triathlete and owns a trophy half as big as his torso, shaped mostly like a chess piece bishop and a little like a grotesque sextoy. He'd laughed until he'd almost thrown up when he received it at the end of year dinner for the Chess Club.
"Dance, I think," Yukwon answers obligingly enough. "And I think hyung wanted me to help out with his club."
"What club is that?"
"Well," Yukwon says and points to a teeming mass of girls surrounding a guy that stands and entire head and shoulders over the crowd. "His fan club, actually."
Usually, the structure of his fanclub means that Jaehyo is pretty much three people removed from the more enthusiastic of his fans but there are special occasions where he's required to put in more public appearances. The annual recruitment drive is one of them and he tries exceedingly hard not to feel awkward surrounded by the hungry gleam of pretty, made-up eyes.
"Um," Jaehyo says. "I mean. Welcome. To this school. And congratulations."
Jaehyo is the most eligible bachelor in the entire school zone and all the online polls say so, as well as research through all the surrounding schools (most of which have official chapters of his club and pool online resources in a disturbingly efficient way), and it is entirely because of how smooth and charming he is, really.
"I hope you'll. Have a good time here?"
Sometimes, it is actually really, really hard to be beautiful.
Off to the side, the third year representative - Kim, referred by last name only, razor thin, all sharp, efficient angles and no patience for idiots or inefficacy who had taken control of his fans with military precision back in first year in order to stop him from 'disrupting class with his personal issues' and never learned to give up control - rolls her eyes at him. Good job, she mouths and gave him a tight, close-mouthed smile.
Help, Jaehyo does not mouth back, though he raises his eyebrows and widens his eyes very eloquently in her direction.
Across the courtyard, there's a familiar flash of bright red hair - a completely not respectable shade, unlike Jaehyo's subtle chocolate brown that highlights the pale porcelain of his skin, his stylist had promised - which inadvertently makes Jaehyo smile in a way that means that love poetry dedicated to his face will be written in the near future. One of the girls swoons.
"And. I have to go. Now. But Kim-sshi will be here to explain all the things," he finishes with all the grace and poise expected of someone with a substantial fanbase. That call him Prince.
It's only ironic with some people.
Jaehyo gracefully extracts himself with the crowd, trying very hard not to listen to Kim explain membership to the fancafe and the levelling up process, pop quizzes about his favourite colour and preferred style of underwear.
Eventually, they're herded into the classrooms, a long stretch of rooms that line the second floor and look out over the sports grounds. By luck (theirs, and the teacher's distinct lack of it), Jiho and Kyung are in the same class, with Yukwon a welcome addition.
They slouch towards the back row, Yukwon taking the window with a languid stretch, face turned towards the sunlight that sparks off his red hair.
"I don't believe there are fan clubs," Kyung says flatly, ignoring the way that Jiho is an embarrassment to men everywhere. "For students. Here."
"Only two," Jiho grins at him. "Though maybe I can make it three."
"Ha," Kyung says, pointing. "And ha again. No."
"I'm hot property. Zi-ah-co," Jiho laughs and takes the opportunity to tell Yukwon all about being a rap artist, struggling underground, being an independent musician and (hopefully) wildly sexy.
Kyung bashes his forehead against his desk and thinks about tall seniors with perfect hair and skin, the hold of his wrists when he gestured as he spoke and how utterly unfair the entire world was.
Eventually, school life becomes mostly routine. Kyung wakes up at 6:30 in the morning, swears at his alarm clock for four minutes, falls back asleep until 7:00 and then rushes through his morning routine to get to school seven and a half minutes before the bell rings, which is enough time for the majority of the school girls from other schools to disperse but enough unfortunately early enough to see Ahn Jaehyo, school idol, finish up his morning greetings to an adoring crowd.
"He's not that bad," Yukwon says from his desk between Kyung and Jiho's.
"I hate his face," Kyung says, only mostly hysterical.
Yukwon shrugs fatalistically. "I think it's insured."
"I may just hate everything about him."
"He's not actually a bad person," Yukwon says, a little apologetically. "You know. Given life."
"You're obligated to like him," Kyung says bitterly. "You're childhood friends. Why don't you love me? How can you actually be helping him out?"
"Eh," Yukwon says and slumps lower in his chair. There's just enough time for a three minute nap before the bell rings.
"Why doesn't anyone love me?" Kyung rages and Jiho laughs at him, open mouthed and obnoxious.
"Channel your emotions. Write a song about it."
"Worst. Minion. Ever." Kyung hisses, eyes narrowed at Jiho's stupid laughing face.
"Well," Jiho says contemplatively. "Maybe if you had nicer thighs."
"Urgh," Kyung says reflexively. He grabs the sadly still awake Yukwon in an affectionate headlock, pulling him halfway across Kyung's desk. "At least Kwonnie will support me."
"If I say yes," Yukwon says consideringly, "will you let me go back to sleep?"
"No."
"No."
"Then no," Yukwon says and flops limply in Kyung's arms. "You're all terrible."
A few times a week, Yukwon goes up two flights to the third year classrooms for lunch. He's never stopped, even though the corridors are guarded jealously against first-year interlopers, which Jaehyo attributes to the terrifying efficacy of his fanclub and Yukwon says is due to his growing jailbait charms.
Jaehyo can't, actually, in good conscience dispute that since whenever Yukwon comes around with the first year fanletters and fangifts, he spends a good ten minutes sitting with the girls in Jaehyo's class, letting them coo over his cheeks and slip him candy.
Jaehyo is a terrible influence. Yukwon's brother is going to kill him one day and he's going to have absolutely no defence against it.
Case in point, Jaehyo is fairly certain that Yukwon is carrying more per-volume candy for himself than two day's worth of collected things for Jaehyo.
Jaehyo looks at him accusingly. "You'll get fat."
Yukwon shrugs and unwraps a lollipop philosophically. "I'm even cuter when I'm round."
"You terrify me."
There's a moment's silence where Minhyuk stares unbecomingly at Yukwon shoving an entire lollipop the size of a small whale into his mouth, and Jaehyo sadly contemplates how his life has come to this. He sighs, resigned, and mutters into his hand held despairingly over his face. "Are you still chasing after that noona?"
Yukwon pulls his candy out of his mouth with a loud pop. "I might have a boyfriend," and then, "I'm wearing her down."
"You have a-"
"Maybe," Yukwon shrugs. "I'm working on it. Both of them."
In no way did 18 volumes of Otomen and repeated watchings of Gokusen and Reply 1997 prepare Jaehyo for the realities of actual high school life.
"She's in university," Jaehyo says, pained, because how was that the less controversial subject.
"On the plus side," Yukwon says, supremely unconcerned. "I'm not in middle school anymore."
Minhyuk continues staring and Jaehyo contemplates the possibility of actually willing himself dead.
"Why do you have no morals?" Jaehyo asks plaintively when he feels like he can speak without having a heart attack.
"It's mostly the people I hang out with," Yukwon says, unapologetic.
"Hooligans."
Yukwon shrugs. "He just has a lot of feelings about your face."
Jaehyo sighs and tries to smother himself with his own hands.
Jiho has really terrible ideas. It comes from being a really terrible person, Kyung is pretty sure, but on the odd occasion, his advice actually sticks and Kyung finds himself scribbling on crumpled sheets of paper between classes, trying to think of words enough to express his loathing of Ahn Jaehyo's entire being.
"Sure, he's good-looking," Kyung rants, frothing slightly at the mouth. Jiho carefully edges his desk away, leaving a catnapping Yukwon where he is as a human shield. "But what else does he have besides inhuman good looks?"
"Height," Jiho says smugly.
Kyung makes an inarticulate sound of pure rage and launches himself at Jiho in a flurry of limbs. Using some previously unknown sixth sense, Yukwon mutters in his sleep and slides peacefully under his desk as the battle rages on overhead.
"Does anything actually rhyme with 'bilious'?"
"You have problems."
"You actually wrote a song about his face."
"I don't see why you're surprised," Kyung huffs, crossing his arms. "You're the one that suggested it."
"Yes," Jiho says patiently, like he's talking to a not particularly bright child that liked to eat paste. "But I'm a dick."
"You really are," Kyung says agreeably.
Jiho's eyes light up in a truly disturbing fashion. "A really big-"
"Can we not discuss your junk?" Kyung holds up a hand, pained. "Please?"
"I don't mind," Yukwon weighs in, even though his eyes are still closed and he is, to all appearances, fast asleep on his desk as usual.
"It's either that, or Jaehyo's face again and I like my dick a lot better." Jiho grins, utterly unrepentant.
"I. Am not going to make 'rock and a hard place' similes," Kyung says, feeling the last bare remnants of his sanity trying to squirm out of his fingertips. "Because. Reasons."
Jiho's grin is utterly filthy. "Good call."
"It's not the first time someone's written a song about Jaehyo-hyung." Yukwon rolls and stretches and his smile is just as incandescent as the first day they'd met him, though it was far easier to see the undercurrents of pure evil now. "Most of them tend to be odes."
"This is not an ode," Kyung says, only minorly offended. "It's a diss track."
"Mm," Yukwon hums. "Do you want me to pass it on to him?"
Sometimes, Kyung thinks, Yukwon is also a dick.
ahn jaehyo @prince_jaehyo
Thank you, @holke for the song. I don't really get rap but I'm sure you're very talented.
[ 96 RETWEETS | 81 FAVORITES ]
Yeah, okay, Kyung thinks through the rising fog of hysteria when he checks his twitter feed during a slow moment in class. Clearly, Ahn Jaehyo had to die.
"Here, hyung," Yukwon says, uncharacteristically disgruntled, dropping a handful of letters and a small gift bag on Jaehyo's desk. "Delivery."
"Thank you, Kwon," Jaehyo says, entirely too chipper, looking up from fixing his bangs in the frount camera of his phone. He shoots Yukwon a practiced smile, ignoring Yukwon's twitch and muttered 'hyung, no!' in response.
"Kwon-ah!" one of the girls calls from across the room. "Come here, noona has something for you."
Yukwon perks up just the slightest bit because offers like that mostly result in food, candy or embarrassing pictures of Jaehyo's face, any or all of which would be completely satisfactory. He trots over obligingly, leaving Jaehyo to preen and coo over his fanmail.
It's pretty standard at first - there's a phone charm in the bag, a simple thing in silver and purple crystals that Jaehyo promptly attaches to his phone - and three letters in varying shades of pink, smelling of light florals and vanilla. Mixed up amoungst them, though, is a single sheet of roughly torn-off notebook paper, edges ragged. The only thing written on it, in a meticulously neat and rounded hand, is a time (now!), place (behind the science block? how strange) and 'I'll b waiting'.
Probably Yukwon will be able to tell him more about it, so Jaehyo neatly shuffles together his letters and looks up - only to freeze when confronted with half a dozen shark-like smiles and Yukwon giggling gleefully over one of the girl's phones.
"Hyung~" Yukwon calls out, and Jaehyo hastily decides that no, he doesn't really need to know, he can go and deal with this in person like someone polite and reasonable and definitely not fleeing from the vipers masquerading as high school students.
"Sorrygottago," Jaehyo says with a nervous smile, then turns to frown briefly at Minhyuk. "You can't eat with just your eyes."
"I think I can," Minhyuk says peaceably, barely audible over the scrape of Jaehyo's chair being pushed back, but Jaehyo's gone too fast to have to think up a good response.
The science block is far away enough from the third year classrooms that Jaehyo is almost (almost!) able to compose himself and think (almost!) rationally. He's had confessions from boys before - though most of them had sent letters nicer than that- and if Yukwon had delivered it, it was probably a first year. On the whole, first years were tiny, harmless things bar a few exceptions that Jaehyo really wishes Kwon would stay away from because of reasons. Good ones.
So it's with a happy and open heart that Jaehyo rounds the corner. And promptly has a small heart attack.
Or at least that's what it feels like, though Jaehyo is a little too busy gaping wildly to really analyse how his entire body has seized.
"Y-you-" Jaehyo chokes out.
"Ahn Jaehyo," Park Kyung sneers (not altogether unattractively, Jaehyo thinks faintly) and takes a step forward.
"YOU STAY RIGHT THERE," Jaehyo says in a rather high pitched shriek, throwing one hand out in the classic 'stop!' pose. He can feel his eyes getting unbecomingly wide.
"Wha-"
"I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN." Jaehyo's generally good at matters of the heart but he'll chalk this one up to wilful blindness to matters that shouldn't ever be thought of. "People don't hate me. Of course you don't hate me. WERE YOU REDIRECTING YOUR INTERNALISED HOMOPHOBIA AT YOUR FEELINGS FOR ME AT ME? BECAUSE THAT IS WRONG."
"Um-" Park Kyung says.
"IT IS PERFECTLY OKAY TO BE GAY," Jaehyo continues determinedly, even though at this point he's staring at his own hand because Park Kyung called him out to this deserted spot with an anonymous note and everything is awful. "EVEN IF IT'S YOU."
"Hey!" Kyung interjects forcibly and takes two steps forward.
Jaehyo takes a skittering step back, pressed against the safety of the wall. "I should have known when you wrote a song about my face."
Kyung makes a noise like a cross between a kettle boiling and Yukwon a kitten, a sort of shrill squeak. "That was a diss track! I hate your face!"
"No one hates my face," Jaehyo explains kindly. He tips his head back to rest against the wall and closes his eyes with a mournful, "This is the worst day of my entire life."
He regrets it a second later because suddenly, Park Kyung is in his personal space and then there's touching (rather forceful contact between Kyung's shoe and his own shin) and pain and Jaehyo pushes past Kyung, hopping frantically on one foot until he's a good few metres away and can clutch defensively at his leg.
"PLEASE DON'T TOUCH ME."
"Are you actually insane?" Kyung is all shrill voice and crazy eyes. Jaehyo is not impressed.
"YOUR TSUNDERE LOVE IS NOT APPRECIATED," Jaehyo says but immediately feels bad because that is not the right way to deal with heartfelt emotions, even if they're unexpected. "WAIT. I APPRECIATE YOUR CONFESSION BUT I AM AFRAID THAT I CANNOT ACCEPT YOUR FEELINGS RIGHT NOW I HOPE THE BEST FOR YOUR FUTURE GOODBYE."
Kyung takes a half step forward, but Jaehyo can feel the edges of his sanity crumbling at an extreme rate so he throws out one last line on automatic ("AND I AM SURE YOU WILL FIND SOMEONE TO CHERISH YOU SOON.") and makes a run for the dubious safety of his classroom.
So maybe that hadn't worked out exactly the way he'd planned.
"Will you please stop laughing," Kyung grits out.
"AHAHAHA," Jiho howls, clutching at the tree trunk for balance. "AHAHAHAHAHAHA."
Kyung can feel his hands spasmodically clenching into fists. "It's really not that funny."
Jiho pauses for half a second to peer at Kyung's face, then slowly topples over clutching at his midsection. He's laughing so hard that barely any sound is coming out, face red and sweaty and highly unattractive. Kyung hopes he chokes.
"Goodbye," Kyung says pointedly and turns on his heel to stomp away from the totally cursed science building and the wheezing gasps of Jiho's laughter.
Kyung doesn't make his way back to the classroom until the chimes of the warning bell have almost faded, which stalls Jiho for exactly 0.2 seconds.
"So," Jiho grins, like a shark. "You have to admit. It makes sense."
"Nothing about today makes sense," Kyung does not wail because he is a manly man and the entire class was looking at him.
"You wrote a song about his face."
"It was a diss track," Kyung says for the nth time today. "It was about how much I hated his face."
"You mentioned his eyes seventeen times," Jiho points out maliciously.
"They're very mentionable eyes!" And, well. His stupid skinny wrists and knees that were just on this side of knobbly and the curve of his neck. It couldn't be helped. Kyung is an artist, he notices these things. And puts them in song rap. "His eyelashes are abnormal, okay. They shouldn't be that long."
"I'm just saying," Jiho says, because he's awful.
"Please don't."
Yukwon, silent up until now (and probably because he had been using his eyes as lasers trying to stare into Kyung's soul), motions with his hand. "You know-"
"I don't know anything," Kyung says bitterly.
"There's easier ways to get Jaehyo-hyung's attention."
Kyung stares at him, open-mouthed, for a few very long and painful seconds. "Why would I even-"
"It's okay," Yukwon smiles, bright and sweet. "I'll help."
"Kwon-ah," Jaehyo moans into the curve of Yukwon's neck, clinging to his shoulders and trying hard not to break down and cry. They're in Jaehyo's room, sitting on the previously neatly made bed, and several hours have not been long enough to put the trauma behind him. "Why is everything terrible?"
"Probably because it's you," Yukwon says heartlessly.
People had been staring. There are probably fan accounts in his fancafe because people are terrifying and Jaehyo is going to have to relive being ambushed by forbidden rival-shipping BL forever.
Jaehyo makes a low and piteous sound of heartbreak. "Why have you betrayed me so?"
"There, there," Yukwon says with a pat on his shoulder, utterly unsympathetic. "It's not that bad."
"My entire worldview has been shaken," Jaehyo says solemnly.
"I thought it reaffirmed your belief in universal love. For you. Besides, it's not like you have a problem with the gay."
Jaehyo looks up, startled out of his tormented misery. "Has someone been giving you a hard time? Do I need to have words? Because your love is perfectly natural, even if he's a juvenile delinquent that bleached his brain. And it's not even statutory rape with this one."
"Thank you," Yukwon says. "Really."
"I support you in all of your life choices," Jaehyo says encouragingly. "Even when they're awful."
"You know," Yukwon says loudly, because deep down inside he's still that five year old that followed Jaehyo around and not just the spawn of Satan he appears to be these days. "Park Kyung isn't that bad."
"Well. No," Jaehyo concedes. "He likes me."
"He likes you," Yukwon repeats in a tone that Jaehyo can't quite quantify.
"He wrote me a song."
"You liked it."
Jaehyo frowns. "I prefer ballads."
"You didn't hate it," Yukwon amends.
"I really don't understand rap as a medium," Jaehyo says apologetically. "But it was very emotive. There was English in it."
"Was it really that bad?" Yukwon asks, the stroke of his hand up and down Jaehyo's arm almost hypnotic in how soothing it was. Yukwon, Jaehyo keeps on forgetting, never really learned how to play fair.
"Well," Jaehyo says reluctantly. "It could be worse."
Yukwon smiles.
Kyung's deep and true abiding loves include his graphics calculator, his laptop, and the clean sweep of a new sheet of square lined graphing paper; which is why when he gets home that night, he takes out his graph paper pad and draws up a list.
An hour later, he puts down his pen and looks at the neatly itemised list. It starts with his hands, the way they gesture in the air just a little too stiff but graceful nonetheless, and passes by the way he smiles when surprised, and meanders through how he always tries so hard all the way to nice, which should be the simplest - a throwaway point, a lukewarm compliment like 'good personality' - but has a half page of dot points underneath.
"Huh," he says out loud. Perhaps it's time to rethink his approach.
Author's notes: THIS IS HOW THIS FIC WAS DESCRIBED IN MY NOTES;;
kyung sees like, all the fangirls and whatever that jaehyo gets and develops great bitterness in his heart, because he's a cucumber. and would also like a fanclub, pls.
Title from Your Song because, ahaha.
P.O. actually exists in this universe, but he's still over in middle school, scaring all the firsties with his booming devil's voice.