With the Noise of Falling Snow
Title: With the Noise of Falling Snow
Author eoryndal
Rating: pg
Pairing: ChanKai (KaiYeol?)
Warnings: I couldn't write them without touching very slightly on the issue of shadeism because, you know.
I hope I'm not chasing anyone away with this but I'm aware of the importance of warnings in general so I figured I'd put that here. On top of that, I made Chanyeol cry D:
Summary: It starts with a cheerful snowball fight and ends with Jongin in a hospital. That's not what Chanyeol wanted and he's left with trying to find a way to fix things.
(Inspired by this.)
Baekhyun and Kyungsoo are the first to squeeze through the door, almost getting stuck because of their thick winter coats. Chanyeol follows behind, shouting loudly, and waving at a group of fangirls who have gathered in front of the SM building even in this freezing weather. The other three run after them, ploughing happily through the shin-deep snow that has piled up over the course of the last few days and keeps falling even now in big, round flakes.
Infected by the childish excitement that always comes with the first snow, the boys have decided to take a detour through the nearby park on their way home from training. It is already late at night, but the moon shines softly and the ground is covered in glowing, pure white so it doesn't seem too dark.
Kyungsoo reaches the park first and just lets himself fall with a delighted shout into the first patch of untouched snow. Baekhyun who sees this almost doubles over from laughter when Kyungsoo starts making snow angels while lying face-first in the cold powdery whiteness.
Sehun tackles Joonmyun and jumps on his back even though he's about a head taller than the older boy. Joonmyun pretends he is too heavy and topples dramatically into the snow, rolling on Sehun in the process who promptly grabs a handful of snow and smashes it in his hyung's face. Then the maknae jumps up on light feet and runs away, chased by Joonmyun and also Baekhyun who deems joining their snowball fight more exciting than watching Kyungsoo's attempt to hug the snow-covered ground.
Chanyeol runs around with his arms outstretched, shouting, and generally giving off the impression of a six feet tall, lanky stork that has gone crazy. Occasionally, he stoops down, picks up an armful of snow and throws it in the air, preferably to run to the spot where it falls down again and getting it all in his hair.
Jongin, with his hands pushed deep into his pockets because he's not wearing mittens, is kicking snow up with the tips of his boots and comes to a stop near Kyungsoo, tilts his head up and smiles at the snowflakes. After a moment, he opens his mouth, pushing his tongue out and waits for the flakes to come drifting into his mouth. If he listens closely, he can hear the soft, almost indiscernible hiss of icy-wet snowflakes falling on the ground everywhere around them. Baekhyun sees him and ceases his chase to stand next to him in the same pose, head tilted up and tongue out, eyes crinkled in a smile.
Joonmyun is laughing and panting, begging Sehun for ceasefire. The youngest approaches him with an outstretched hand, a peace offering, so Joonmyun takes it. But Sehun is a dirty little cheater. He pulls Joonmyun into a hug and uses his free hand to drop a clump of snow down the back of his neck into his clothes. Joonmyun squeaks and complains and jumps around with his shoulders drawn up to his ears, as the icy stuff melts down his back, while Sehun laughs at him.
Finally Chanyeol takes pity on their leader and pulls the back of his jacket up, shaking the hem deftly until the half-molten clump falls out. Sehun watches from what he thinks is a safe distance but what he has not reckoned with is Jongin sneaking up behind him and knocking his winter hat off with a well aimed snowball. Now it is Joonmyun's turn to laugh at Sehun's scandalized face but then he picks his dongsaeng's hat up, dusts the snow off and places it lovingly back on his head.
Chanyeol grins from ear to ear and that smile is too good a target for Jongin to pass up. His next snowballs hits Chanyeol square in the face and envelops his head in a burst of white, out of which he emerges with wide-eyed surprise and a playful yell. He makes to lurch into a chase after Jongin but trips over Kyungsoo's legs which Baekhyun has started to bury under heaps of snow, and so he plummets into Jongin, knocking them both over.
They wrestle in the snow, each trying to beat the other over the head with a handful of snow. The last thing Jongin notices is Joonmyun fuzzing over Kyungsoo's buried legs and how he will catch a cold if his pant bottoms get soaked, before he realizes that Chanyeol is steering them purposely towards a little slope and he tries in vain to lean his body against Chanyeol's efforts. Chanyeol huffs, pushing, and rolls them over until Jongin's world is suddenly a dizzying whirl of white, cold, bumpy mounds and Chanyeol's equally bumpy, long limbs all spinning around each other until they come to rest at the foot of the slope. Chanyeol is laughing his booming laugh, Jongin is groaning and trying to feel if his head is still on his body. That definitely left a few bruises.
When Chanyeol calls his name, he turns his head -- which is a mistake because the next moment, he's spitting snow and wiping chunks out of his eyes and nose. Jongin is probably the one least fond of snow out of them, always a boy who belonged in the blazing summer rather than the harsh cold. He's not a wimp but that right now, that fucking hurt.
It not the faceful of snow per se, it's the fact that it came from Chanyeol that triggers something in Jongin. Chanyeol has hurt him one too many times. He heaves his body up and clambers onto Chanyeol, knees on either side to sit on his stomach, and as the other boy looks up at him with wide eyes, that infuriating, dumb smile frozen on his face, Jongin grips the front of his jacket by his throat as if he's going to hit him.
He does. Something breaks in him, something as fundamental as a crack in a glacier before it crashes into the sea, and he slaps a fistful of ice cold snow on Chanyeol's left cheek.
"For every time you made fun of my skin colour," he spits.
Another fistful is rubbed painfully on his right cheek. "For every time you shoved me aside like I was fucking nothing."
Chanyeol lies wide-eyed and shocked, taking it all without a sound. Jongin grabs another heap of snow and takes a shuddering breath, lifts his fist and Chanyeol screws his eyes shut. "For every time you didn't--"
Jongin's voice breaks and when Chanyeol dares to crack his eyelids open, he sees him with his arm still raised. But his bare hand is shaking and crushing the snowball tightly before his arm goes limp and then his whole body slumps forward on top of Chanyeol's. His wet, ice cold fingertips come up to brush the snow off Chanyeol's face and soothe his raw cheeks. All it does, in fact, is make the little cuts and scratches sting more but Chanyeol barely notices it over the dull hurt in his heart. He pretends he doesn't hear the suppressed sniffles coming from Jongin but he doesn't trust himself to speak with the lump in his throat either.
Instead, he catches Jongin's wrists and lifts his hands gently away from his face. Then he pulls off his own mittens and quietly stuffs Jongin's hands, like a child's, into them. Jongin blinks down at him, and the snow has ceased to fall but a tiny flake has caught in his eyelashes and the moon is shining behind his dark hair. He's so, so still and beautiful and looks so far away that Chanyeol can't take it. He feels like Jongin might just disappear into the night sky if he doesn't hold him now.
He pushes himself up with all his strength to counter Jongin's weight on his stomach but knocking the surprised boy off of him is easier than calculated and the momentum throws him back into the snow between Chanyeol's legs, head hitting the ground hard. Chanyeol wants to laugh sheepishly because this is typical, this is so typical for him, but when he crawls over the younger boy he doesn't see him glaring or pulling his mouth into an angry line. "Sorry," Chanyeol says awkwardly but still Jongin doesn't open his eyes.
"Hey, Jongin-ah..." Chanyeol calls and shakes him by the shoulders a little. Something colder than the ice crystals around them could ever feel crawls up his stomach towards his heart. "Hey, don't fuck with me," he says, pleads almost, and there's panic in his voice. "If you want to scare me, okay, you can open your eyes now and laugh at me." His trembling fingers slide into Jongin's hair to lift his head up but Chanyeol jerks back when he touches something wet that's too sticky and warm to be molten snow. He stares at his fingertips in horror. Even in the moonlight it's too easy to recognize the dark stains for what they are.
"No," Chanyeol chokes out. "No no no no. Shit!" He blinks back the stinging in the corners of his eyes and yanks his scarf off his neck so fast that he chafes his skin. Bunching the scarf up, he presses it against the back of Jongin's head and in the process, his knuckles bump against the pointed edge of a stone hidden under the treacherous layer of soft snow.
"Hyung!" he calls over his shoulder as loud as he can with his choked voice. "Hyung, help!"
Soon he hears footsteps approaching, crunching on the frozen snow, and as Joonmyun's silhouette appears at the top of the slope, he can't hold his tears back anymore. "Ambulance! Jonginnie hit his head." The shaking of his voice must've shown that this is not a joke and Joonmyun pulls out his mobile phone immediately, while the others come half running, half stumbling and sliding down the slope. They bend over Jongin's unconscious form but Chanyeol doesn't allow anyone to touch him until the paramedics arrive and carry him out of the park, lay him on a stretcher and lift it into the halogen-white insides of the ambulance car. He looks so pale.
An outstretched arm holds Chanyeol back from boarding the car but he screams at the paramedics until they let him. Blue and red rotating lights flash over the snow outside and the remaining boys' silent, worried faces until the doors are closed on them and the ambulance rushes off to the nearest hospital. Everything is a blur to Chanyeol as they drive and then stop and then run through corridors and then--
Then a hand on his chest stops him from entering the ER and he doesn't know what to do next. He doesn't know what time it is, or what part of Seoul he's in, or if he should call Jongin's parents, or if he has to talk to a nurse and do some paperwork, or why his lungs feel like he's trying to breathe underwater, or what the others are doing right now. He sits down on an empty chair in the corridor and waits. Notices that he's still holding his bloody scarf and stuffs it into the pocket of his coat. Tries not to think.
What if this is like in those horrifying stories you hear sometimes, about children playing and one of them shoving the other so that it falls accidentally, hits its head, and dies?
What if those words Jongin had said were the last words he'd ever speak to Chanyeol?
He only notices he's crying again when he's pulled out of this black space at the back of his mind by a voice calling his attention and he blinks up at a middle-aged woman dressed in white offering him a hot chocolate from a vending machine. As he accepts the steaming plastic cup gratefully and eventually sips on it, he tries to ignore the crusted blood on his fingers. The warmth that the cocoa spreads in his stomach extends all the way down to his legs, which are freezing and that's odd because Chanyeol never freezes, but it doesn't help lifting the weight off his chest. The nurse smiles politely and sits down next to him.
"Are you with the boy who just came in?"
Chanyeol nods gingerly.
"I'm sure he'll be fine," she says. "If you don't mind, could you tell me what happened?"
Chanyeol's heart squeezes painfully and hot tears well up in his eyes. "It's my fault." He spills everything about the snowball fight, only leaving out Jongin's words, but it wouldn't have made much difference either way because his story is so garbled by sobs that it's almost unintelligible. But the woman nods in understanding, rubs his back and engages him in a conversation he doesn't remember later until her buzzer has her rushing off to another part of the hospital.
With nothing to tell the passing of time by, Chanyeol doesn't know if he's waited for five minutes or an hour when the doors of the ER open. He almost crushes the plastic cup in his hands as he jumps up. When doctor steps to him, he's torn between directing his attention on him and trying to catch a glimpse of Jongin as they wheel him on a stretcher through the doors and down the hallway.
The doctor touches his arm and smiles gently. "He'll be alright. He received a laceration to his head but he doesn't even have a concussion. We just had to stitch him up a bit and in a few days, he'll be as good as new. No need to worry. Now tell me, how are you feeling? You looked like you had a bit of a shock when you got here."
"I'm fine!" For now, it's the truth. Chanyeol could almost scream, so tremendous is the relief he feels. "Thank you so much, doctor! Can I see him?"
"He's sleeping right now but if you want to, I can call one of the nurses down to take you to his room."
Chanyeol nods eagerly and after the doctor walks off, he waits impatiently for a nurse to come fetch him. She takes him to a room with six beds, only two of them occupied as the drawn curtains indicate. The nurse shows him to the bed on the right side of the high window and excuses herself with a bow that Chanyeol returns, not forgetting his good manners. When he parts the curtain, he's surprised to see two persons already standing at the bedside, a man and a woman. The man has Jongin's skin tone albeit with a few age spots, and the woman has the same tiny bump on the ridge of her nose as Jongin. They look tired. Chanyeol greets them politely.
"Oh, Chanyeol-goon, wasn't it?" the man asks. "I'm glad you came. My wife isn't feeling well and it would be great if we could catch the next bus home. We were just dropping off a few necessities for our Jongin and checking how he's doing. The doctor said it's nothing serious. We'll leave him in your care for now."
Chanyeol is a bit overwhelmed but he stammers an answer and it all happens so fast that he has barely had time to look at Jongin when he finds himself taking the backpack Jongin's father hands him and bowing them goodbye as they leave, the man's hand lightly around his wife's shoulder in a comforting gesture. Chanyeol wonders who had called them and also, wryly, whether they would still leave Jongin in his care if they knew it was his fault he got injured in the first place.
Clutching the backpack to his chest, he steps closer to the bed. Jongin looks like he's sleeping; there's no beeping monitors, no IV, not even bandages. There's also no chair for visitors, so Chanyeol sits down on the edge of the hospital bed, texts Baekhyun about Jongin's condition, Kyungsoo to tell him to make sure they all eat, and Sehun with the order to drag Joonmyun to bed so he stops worrying.
Everyone says to tell our Jonginnie 'get well soon' when he wakes up, Baekhyun texts back.
Because today is an emergency, I will cook again. They'd better eat well!, Kyungsoo sends and attaches a picture of himself with a grim face stirring a pot.
Sehun's answer reads I'll just knock him out if he doesn't shut up, ending with a cute, innocent looking smiley. Chanyeol wonders if Sehun uses this exact wording just to spite him before he remembers that the others don't really know that he's basically knocked Jongin out. Sehun probably isn't aware of how his text hits Chanyeol sore spot. He turns his phone off with a sigh.
What to do now? Watching over Jongin's sleep would be nice but it would make him feel like a creep. Instead, he looks down at his hands in his lap and just breathes.
He's not quite asleep but in a deep stupor when he senses rather than sees a movement next to him. Jongin is finally stirring and opening his eyes. Chanyeol's heart hammers excitedly against the heaviness on his ribs and he would jump on Jongin in the blink of an eyes if his mother hadn't taught him as a child to be gentle with sick people. On the other hand, he thinks he read somewhere that people who received severe blows to their heads can suffer from amnesia.
"Jongin-ah. Do you know who you are? Do you recognize me? Do you remember what happened? Want me to tell you where you are? How... How do you feel?"
In lieu of an answer, Jongin's lips pull into a lopsided smile and he squints up at Chanyeol. "Glad to hear some things never change," he mumble as if to himself.
Chanyeol beams at him. There's an inexplicable warmth spreading through him, much better than hot chocolate.
"Oh, your cheek..."
Slightly confused, Chanyeol lifts a hand to his cheek and remembers the scratched skin there, but that's really the least thing on his mind right now. He's had more than enough time in the last few hours to mull over the things Jongin had said to realize he'll have a lot of damage to repair. He wants to mend all the gashes his thoughtless actions have left and he knows it's not going to be as easy as stitching up a physical wound. But he doesn't know where to start and what to say, so--
"I'm sorry."
Chanyeol feels like his stomach drops through the floor. He catches Jongin's dark brown eyes which seem to be glowing warmly from the inside, undefeated by pale cheeks and the stark white hospital pillowcase framing his head instead of moonlight.
"Jongin..." It comes out as an unintelligible sob because Chanyeol is choked up again. He presses the heels of his hands to his prickling eyes. "Why are you apologizing to me?"
"...Are you crying?" Jongin's voice is barely above a whisper.
"No!" Chanyeol's head shoots up and the trademark grin he plasters on his face is brave but totally transparent, especially with his watery eyes that threaten to spill over once again. He can only hold the smile for a second, anyway, before it crumbles and the tears roll down his cheeks. The salty liquid stings in his wounds but he thinks he deserves the pain.
"Look." Jongin touches one of Chanyeol's clenched hands and sits up. "They shaved a spot where I had to get stitches." With a tiny smile, Jongin lifts some strands of hair at the back of his head to show Chanyeol the missing chunks. "Noona's going to scold me every day until it grows back and she can style my hair normally."
He looks at Chanyeol like he wants him to laugh about it.
It only makes Chanyeol cry more and he flings himself into Jongin's chest, hands tearing at the back of his hospital gown in agony. "I'm sorry I keep hurting you all the time," he wails. "It's my fault you hit your head. You had to go to the hospital and get goddamn stitches and your head probably still hurts, and it's only because of me. I hate myself for hurting you and I hate myself for every time I didn't even realize I was hurting you. I'm sorry for shoving you aside and, fuck, I'm so sorry for making dumb comments about your skin. I'm just... I'm so sorry!"
Jongin is silent throughout this whole thing. And when Chanyeol's cries finally subside enough for him to look up with nose, eyes and forehead feeling hot like he has a fever from all the crying, he sees that Jongin's mouth is set in a hard line.
A different sadness settles on Chanyeol, one that doesn't bring tears but makes the cold weight on his lungs press down even heavier.
"I don't know how but I want to make it up to you. If there's anything, anything, please..." Seeing as his words don't sway Jongin, don't soften the line of his lips, Chanyeol braces himself to say the words he knows he has to say. His insides are shaking and it hurts. But he says it.
"If you want me to get out, I will."
Jongin nods.
Later, Chanyeol doesn't remember what he did right afterward but he has a vague recollection of a cold, white wall against his back and the shifting of light as a grey morning begins pouring in through the window at the end of the hallway as he waits for the first bus to take him home.
He refuses to get out of bed the next day and even fakes a cold when the others ask him if he wants to go visit Jongin together with them. He knows it's a cowardly thing and that he'll have to eventually work something out with Jongin for the sake of the band. But right now, he reasons, Jongin probably doesn't want to see him anyway. He lets the remorse eat him up slowly. It feels like he's the one who tripped and hit not his head but his heart on a sharp-edged rock.
There's a careful knock on his door in the afternoon.
"Are you awake, Chanyeol-ah? Do you need cold medicine?" It's Joonmyun's voice and Chanyeol is determined to lie still and ignore him until he goes away. Their leader won't be happy if he finds out that Chanyeol is just faking the illness. There's a murmured conversation outside and then another knock.
"Chanyeol, if you're awake... Jongin wants to talk to you."
Jongin?
Wants to--
Chanyeol is out of the bed in a heartbeat, sprints to the door and yanks it open. True enough, there stands Jongin, looking at him from behind Joonmyun, directly but almost shyly. There's something guarded in his eyes. Chanyeol doesn't know when and how he'd expected Jongin to be released from the hospital but definitely not so soon and not looking any different from the days he comes home after practice, tired and silent but with his back held straight. His eyes sweep to the floor as he fiddles with one string of his backpack, and when he looks back up, it knocks the breath right out of Chanyeol's lungs.
He remembers things, Jongin smiling at him when he speaks, leaning closer almost as if he wants to lean his head on his shoulder, grabbing onto his hand in front of cameras as if Chanyeol can give him steadiness in a sea of confusion. They're just little scenes that held no meaning before but now, under Jongin's careful gaze, the weight shifts and Chanyeol thinks it's impossible.
A warmth blooms between his shoulder blades, a ghost of all those times the silent touch of Jongin's hand had rested there. It crawls up the sides of his neck and engulfs his cheeks. It makes his heart sing together with the knowledge that Jongin wants to talk to him. He doesn't ignore him and he doesn't have that hard line on his mouth anymore that makes his lips look sharp and cold.
"Well..." Joonmyun says cautiously. "I guess I'll leave you to talk now. Uhm, dinner is in an hour and if you need anything, I'll be in the kitchen."
After he's left, Jongin asks Chanyeol if they can talk outside. Chanyeol looks down at his wrinkled shirt and sweatpants and thinks about how much he had wanted to do nothing but stay holed in all day today. But that was before Jongin came back. So he just grins at Jongin, and in no time pulls a thick sweater over his head, then his winter coat, and crams a warm hat on his unkempt hair. He wants to reach for his scarf but it's not in his pocket anymore. He must've lost it at the hospital. But he can go without a scarf. After pulling boots on his feet, he's ready to go and looks up at the other boy only to find Jongin smiling a little at the floor. When he notices Chanyeol is fully dressed, however, his hand comes up to grab Chanyeol's the way he has always done.
Chanyeol lets himself be pulled to the park that started it all, in a way. Jongin walks fast enough for the few people they meet on the way not to recognize the two skinny, bundled up boys for the idols they are. They stop at the bottom of the slope down which sleigh traces run now but the children have gone home already. In winter it gets dark early.
Chanyeol waits for Jongin to speak but the other slides one strap of the backpack off his shoulder and pulls something out instead.
"What's that?" Chanyeol eyes the packet Jongin pushes into his hands.
"A new scarf." He digs the tip of his shoe into the snow. "Since I got blood all over your other one, you know. I tried washing the stains out but..." He trails off and looks up at Chanyeol with a little, apologetic frown on his face.
"Why... You... But I'm..." Chanyeol stammers and, fingering the wrapping paper that rustles around its soft content, settles on saying quietly. "Jonginnie, you didn't have to."
"But I wanted to. The doctor said I would have been in trouble if you hadn't stopped the bleeding. And I know you got that scarf from your sister and it meant a lot to you."
Chanyeol traces his fingers over the wrapping paper, unable to meet Jongin's eyes, and opens the packet slowly. The fabric that spills into his hands is of a plain, fuzzy white but the softest, warmest thing he has ever touched, softer than the fur of the pet ferret he'd had as a child, softer than the snow flakes falling silently again today.
"Does this mean you forgive me?" he asks haltingly, unsure, like maybe it's too much to hope.
Jongin shrugs a little, making tiny snow piles with his shoes and squashing them flat again. His hands are pushed into his coat pockets but a sliver of bright colour tells Chanyeol that Jongin is wearing mittens this time, his mittens. Weird, that he only notices that now when Jongin has pulled him by the hand all the way here. Chanyeol almost laughs at the irony of how that seems to reflect their whole relationship.
"Is there anything I can do for you to forgive me?"
Jongin stays silent for a moment. Chanyeol can't be sure in the dimness of night and snow falling around them but he has that warm glow surrounding him again. He almost misses his quiet words.
"A promise."
Chanyeol nods and holds the white scarf tight in his hands.
"Promise me that you'll listen to what I'm about to say. And that... that you won't think I'm disgusting. That, no matter what your answer is, we'll still be friends afterwards."
"I promise," Chanyeol says from the bottom of his heart.
Jongin takes a deep breath.
Author eoryndal
Rating: pg
Pairing: ChanKai (KaiYeol?)
Warnings: I couldn't write them without touching very slightly on the issue of shadeism because, you know.
I hope I'm not chasing anyone away with this but I'm aware of the importance of warnings in general so I figured I'd put that here. On top of that, I made Chanyeol cry D:
Summary: It starts with a cheerful snowball fight and ends with Jongin in a hospital. That's not what Chanyeol wanted and he's left with trying to find a way to fix things.
(Inspired by this.)
Baekhyun and Kyungsoo are the first to squeeze through the door, almost getting stuck because of their thick winter coats. Chanyeol follows behind, shouting loudly, and waving at a group of fangirls who have gathered in front of the SM building even in this freezing weather. The other three run after them, ploughing happily through the shin-deep snow that has piled up over the course of the last few days and keeps falling even now in big, round flakes.
Infected by the childish excitement that always comes with the first snow, the boys have decided to take a detour through the nearby park on their way home from training. It is already late at night, but the moon shines softly and the ground is covered in glowing, pure white so it doesn't seem too dark.
Kyungsoo reaches the park first and just lets himself fall with a delighted shout into the first patch of untouched snow. Baekhyun who sees this almost doubles over from laughter when Kyungsoo starts making snow angels while lying face-first in the cold powdery whiteness.
Sehun tackles Joonmyun and jumps on his back even though he's about a head taller than the older boy. Joonmyun pretends he is too heavy and topples dramatically into the snow, rolling on Sehun in the process who promptly grabs a handful of snow and smashes it in his hyung's face. Then the maknae jumps up on light feet and runs away, chased by Joonmyun and also Baekhyun who deems joining their snowball fight more exciting than watching Kyungsoo's attempt to hug the snow-covered ground.
Chanyeol runs around with his arms outstretched, shouting, and generally giving off the impression of a six feet tall, lanky stork that has gone crazy. Occasionally, he stoops down, picks up an armful of snow and throws it in the air, preferably to run to the spot where it falls down again and getting it all in his hair.
Jongin, with his hands pushed deep into his pockets because he's not wearing mittens, is kicking snow up with the tips of his boots and comes to a stop near Kyungsoo, tilts his head up and smiles at the snowflakes. After a moment, he opens his mouth, pushing his tongue out and waits for the flakes to come drifting into his mouth. If he listens closely, he can hear the soft, almost indiscernible hiss of icy-wet snowflakes falling on the ground everywhere around them. Baekhyun sees him and ceases his chase to stand next to him in the same pose, head tilted up and tongue out, eyes crinkled in a smile.
Joonmyun is laughing and panting, begging Sehun for ceasefire. The youngest approaches him with an outstretched hand, a peace offering, so Joonmyun takes it. But Sehun is a dirty little cheater. He pulls Joonmyun into a hug and uses his free hand to drop a clump of snow down the back of his neck into his clothes. Joonmyun squeaks and complains and jumps around with his shoulders drawn up to his ears, as the icy stuff melts down his back, while Sehun laughs at him.
Finally Chanyeol takes pity on their leader and pulls the back of his jacket up, shaking the hem deftly until the half-molten clump falls out. Sehun watches from what he thinks is a safe distance but what he has not reckoned with is Jongin sneaking up behind him and knocking his winter hat off with a well aimed snowball. Now it is Joonmyun's turn to laugh at Sehun's scandalized face but then he picks his dongsaeng's hat up, dusts the snow off and places it lovingly back on his head.
Chanyeol grins from ear to ear and that smile is too good a target for Jongin to pass up. His next snowballs hits Chanyeol square in the face and envelops his head in a burst of white, out of which he emerges with wide-eyed surprise and a playful yell. He makes to lurch into a chase after Jongin but trips over Kyungsoo's legs which Baekhyun has started to bury under heaps of snow, and so he plummets into Jongin, knocking them both over.
They wrestle in the snow, each trying to beat the other over the head with a handful of snow. The last thing Jongin notices is Joonmyun fuzzing over Kyungsoo's buried legs and how he will catch a cold if his pant bottoms get soaked, before he realizes that Chanyeol is steering them purposely towards a little slope and he tries in vain to lean his body against Chanyeol's efforts. Chanyeol huffs, pushing, and rolls them over until Jongin's world is suddenly a dizzying whirl of white, cold, bumpy mounds and Chanyeol's equally bumpy, long limbs all spinning around each other until they come to rest at the foot of the slope. Chanyeol is laughing his booming laugh, Jongin is groaning and trying to feel if his head is still on his body. That definitely left a few bruises.
When Chanyeol calls his name, he turns his head -- which is a mistake because the next moment, he's spitting snow and wiping chunks out of his eyes and nose. Jongin is probably the one least fond of snow out of them, always a boy who belonged in the blazing summer rather than the harsh cold. He's not a wimp but that right now, that fucking hurt.
It not the faceful of snow per se, it's the fact that it came from Chanyeol that triggers something in Jongin. Chanyeol has hurt him one too many times. He heaves his body up and clambers onto Chanyeol, knees on either side to sit on his stomach, and as the other boy looks up at him with wide eyes, that infuriating, dumb smile frozen on his face, Jongin grips the front of his jacket by his throat as if he's going to hit him.
He does. Something breaks in him, something as fundamental as a crack in a glacier before it crashes into the sea, and he slaps a fistful of ice cold snow on Chanyeol's left cheek.
"For every time you made fun of my skin colour," he spits.
Another fistful is rubbed painfully on his right cheek. "For every time you shoved me aside like I was fucking nothing."
Chanyeol lies wide-eyed and shocked, taking it all without a sound. Jongin grabs another heap of snow and takes a shuddering breath, lifts his fist and Chanyeol screws his eyes shut. "For every time you didn't--"
Jongin's voice breaks and when Chanyeol dares to crack his eyelids open, he sees him with his arm still raised. But his bare hand is shaking and crushing the snowball tightly before his arm goes limp and then his whole body slumps forward on top of Chanyeol's. His wet, ice cold fingertips come up to brush the snow off Chanyeol's face and soothe his raw cheeks. All it does, in fact, is make the little cuts and scratches sting more but Chanyeol barely notices it over the dull hurt in his heart. He pretends he doesn't hear the suppressed sniffles coming from Jongin but he doesn't trust himself to speak with the lump in his throat either.
Instead, he catches Jongin's wrists and lifts his hands gently away from his face. Then he pulls off his own mittens and quietly stuffs Jongin's hands, like a child's, into them. Jongin blinks down at him, and the snow has ceased to fall but a tiny flake has caught in his eyelashes and the moon is shining behind his dark hair. He's so, so still and beautiful and looks so far away that Chanyeol can't take it. He feels like Jongin might just disappear into the night sky if he doesn't hold him now.
He pushes himself up with all his strength to counter Jongin's weight on his stomach but knocking the surprised boy off of him is easier than calculated and the momentum throws him back into the snow between Chanyeol's legs, head hitting the ground hard. Chanyeol wants to laugh sheepishly because this is typical, this is so typical for him, but when he crawls over the younger boy he doesn't see him glaring or pulling his mouth into an angry line. "Sorry," Chanyeol says awkwardly but still Jongin doesn't open his eyes.
"Hey, Jongin-ah..." Chanyeol calls and shakes him by the shoulders a little. Something colder than the ice crystals around them could ever feel crawls up his stomach towards his heart. "Hey, don't fuck with me," he says, pleads almost, and there's panic in his voice. "If you want to scare me, okay, you can open your eyes now and laugh at me." His trembling fingers slide into Jongin's hair to lift his head up but Chanyeol jerks back when he touches something wet that's too sticky and warm to be molten snow. He stares at his fingertips in horror. Even in the moonlight it's too easy to recognize the dark stains for what they are.
"No," Chanyeol chokes out. "No no no no. Shit!" He blinks back the stinging in the corners of his eyes and yanks his scarf off his neck so fast that he chafes his skin. Bunching the scarf up, he presses it against the back of Jongin's head and in the process, his knuckles bump against the pointed edge of a stone hidden under the treacherous layer of soft snow.
"Hyung!" he calls over his shoulder as loud as he can with his choked voice. "Hyung, help!"
Soon he hears footsteps approaching, crunching on the frozen snow, and as Joonmyun's silhouette appears at the top of the slope, he can't hold his tears back anymore. "Ambulance! Jonginnie hit his head." The shaking of his voice must've shown that this is not a joke and Joonmyun pulls out his mobile phone immediately, while the others come half running, half stumbling and sliding down the slope. They bend over Jongin's unconscious form but Chanyeol doesn't allow anyone to touch him until the paramedics arrive and carry him out of the park, lay him on a stretcher and lift it into the halogen-white insides of the ambulance car. He looks so pale.
An outstretched arm holds Chanyeol back from boarding the car but he screams at the paramedics until they let him. Blue and red rotating lights flash over the snow outside and the remaining boys' silent, worried faces until the doors are closed on them and the ambulance rushes off to the nearest hospital. Everything is a blur to Chanyeol as they drive and then stop and then run through corridors and then--
Then a hand on his chest stops him from entering the ER and he doesn't know what to do next. He doesn't know what time it is, or what part of Seoul he's in, or if he should call Jongin's parents, or if he has to talk to a nurse and do some paperwork, or why his lungs feel like he's trying to breathe underwater, or what the others are doing right now. He sits down on an empty chair in the corridor and waits. Notices that he's still holding his bloody scarf and stuffs it into the pocket of his coat. Tries not to think.
What if this is like in those horrifying stories you hear sometimes, about children playing and one of them shoving the other so that it falls accidentally, hits its head, and dies?
What if those words Jongin had said were the last words he'd ever speak to Chanyeol?
He only notices he's crying again when he's pulled out of this black space at the back of his mind by a voice calling his attention and he blinks up at a middle-aged woman dressed in white offering him a hot chocolate from a vending machine. As he accepts the steaming plastic cup gratefully and eventually sips on it, he tries to ignore the crusted blood on his fingers. The warmth that the cocoa spreads in his stomach extends all the way down to his legs, which are freezing and that's odd because Chanyeol never freezes, but it doesn't help lifting the weight off his chest. The nurse smiles politely and sits down next to him.
"Are you with the boy who just came in?"
Chanyeol nods gingerly.
"I'm sure he'll be fine," she says. "If you don't mind, could you tell me what happened?"
Chanyeol's heart squeezes painfully and hot tears well up in his eyes. "It's my fault." He spills everything about the snowball fight, only leaving out Jongin's words, but it wouldn't have made much difference either way because his story is so garbled by sobs that it's almost unintelligible. But the woman nods in understanding, rubs his back and engages him in a conversation he doesn't remember later until her buzzer has her rushing off to another part of the hospital.
With nothing to tell the passing of time by, Chanyeol doesn't know if he's waited for five minutes or an hour when the doors of the ER open. He almost crushes the plastic cup in his hands as he jumps up. When doctor steps to him, he's torn between directing his attention on him and trying to catch a glimpse of Jongin as they wheel him on a stretcher through the doors and down the hallway.
The doctor touches his arm and smiles gently. "He'll be alright. He received a laceration to his head but he doesn't even have a concussion. We just had to stitch him up a bit and in a few days, he'll be as good as new. No need to worry. Now tell me, how are you feeling? You looked like you had a bit of a shock when you got here."
"I'm fine!" For now, it's the truth. Chanyeol could almost scream, so tremendous is the relief he feels. "Thank you so much, doctor! Can I see him?"
"He's sleeping right now but if you want to, I can call one of the nurses down to take you to his room."
Chanyeol nods eagerly and after the doctor walks off, he waits impatiently for a nurse to come fetch him. She takes him to a room with six beds, only two of them occupied as the drawn curtains indicate. The nurse shows him to the bed on the right side of the high window and excuses herself with a bow that Chanyeol returns, not forgetting his good manners. When he parts the curtain, he's surprised to see two persons already standing at the bedside, a man and a woman. The man has Jongin's skin tone albeit with a few age spots, and the woman has the same tiny bump on the ridge of her nose as Jongin. They look tired. Chanyeol greets them politely.
"Oh, Chanyeol-goon, wasn't it?" the man asks. "I'm glad you came. My wife isn't feeling well and it would be great if we could catch the next bus home. We were just dropping off a few necessities for our Jongin and checking how he's doing. The doctor said it's nothing serious. We'll leave him in your care for now."
Chanyeol is a bit overwhelmed but he stammers an answer and it all happens so fast that he has barely had time to look at Jongin when he finds himself taking the backpack Jongin's father hands him and bowing them goodbye as they leave, the man's hand lightly around his wife's shoulder in a comforting gesture. Chanyeol wonders who had called them and also, wryly, whether they would still leave Jongin in his care if they knew it was his fault he got injured in the first place.
Clutching the backpack to his chest, he steps closer to the bed. Jongin looks like he's sleeping; there's no beeping monitors, no IV, not even bandages. There's also no chair for visitors, so Chanyeol sits down on the edge of the hospital bed, texts Baekhyun about Jongin's condition, Kyungsoo to tell him to make sure they all eat, and Sehun with the order to drag Joonmyun to bed so he stops worrying.
Everyone says to tell our Jonginnie 'get well soon' when he wakes up, Baekhyun texts back.
Because today is an emergency, I will cook again. They'd better eat well!, Kyungsoo sends and attaches a picture of himself with a grim face stirring a pot.
Sehun's answer reads I'll just knock him out if he doesn't shut up, ending with a cute, innocent looking smiley. Chanyeol wonders if Sehun uses this exact wording just to spite him before he remembers that the others don't really know that he's basically knocked Jongin out. Sehun probably isn't aware of how his text hits Chanyeol sore spot. He turns his phone off with a sigh.
What to do now? Watching over Jongin's sleep would be nice but it would make him feel like a creep. Instead, he looks down at his hands in his lap and just breathes.
He's not quite asleep but in a deep stupor when he senses rather than sees a movement next to him. Jongin is finally stirring and opening his eyes. Chanyeol's heart hammers excitedly against the heaviness on his ribs and he would jump on Jongin in the blink of an eyes if his mother hadn't taught him as a child to be gentle with sick people. On the other hand, he thinks he read somewhere that people who received severe blows to their heads can suffer from amnesia.
"Jongin-ah. Do you know who you are? Do you recognize me? Do you remember what happened? Want me to tell you where you are? How... How do you feel?"
In lieu of an answer, Jongin's lips pull into a lopsided smile and he squints up at Chanyeol. "Glad to hear some things never change," he mumble as if to himself.
Chanyeol beams at him. There's an inexplicable warmth spreading through him, much better than hot chocolate.
"Oh, your cheek..."
Slightly confused, Chanyeol lifts a hand to his cheek and remembers the scratched skin there, but that's really the least thing on his mind right now. He's had more than enough time in the last few hours to mull over the things Jongin had said to realize he'll have a lot of damage to repair. He wants to mend all the gashes his thoughtless actions have left and he knows it's not going to be as easy as stitching up a physical wound. But he doesn't know where to start and what to say, so--
"I'm sorry."
Chanyeol feels like his stomach drops through the floor. He catches Jongin's dark brown eyes which seem to be glowing warmly from the inside, undefeated by pale cheeks and the stark white hospital pillowcase framing his head instead of moonlight.
"Jongin..." It comes out as an unintelligible sob because Chanyeol is choked up again. He presses the heels of his hands to his prickling eyes. "Why are you apologizing to me?"
"...Are you crying?" Jongin's voice is barely above a whisper.
"No!" Chanyeol's head shoots up and the trademark grin he plasters on his face is brave but totally transparent, especially with his watery eyes that threaten to spill over once again. He can only hold the smile for a second, anyway, before it crumbles and the tears roll down his cheeks. The salty liquid stings in his wounds but he thinks he deserves the pain.
"Look." Jongin touches one of Chanyeol's clenched hands and sits up. "They shaved a spot where I had to get stitches." With a tiny smile, Jongin lifts some strands of hair at the back of his head to show Chanyeol the missing chunks. "Noona's going to scold me every day until it grows back and she can style my hair normally."
He looks at Chanyeol like he wants him to laugh about it.
It only makes Chanyeol cry more and he flings himself into Jongin's chest, hands tearing at the back of his hospital gown in agony. "I'm sorry I keep hurting you all the time," he wails. "It's my fault you hit your head. You had to go to the hospital and get goddamn stitches and your head probably still hurts, and it's only because of me. I hate myself for hurting you and I hate myself for every time I didn't even realize I was hurting you. I'm sorry for shoving you aside and, fuck, I'm so sorry for making dumb comments about your skin. I'm just... I'm so sorry!"
Jongin is silent throughout this whole thing. And when Chanyeol's cries finally subside enough for him to look up with nose, eyes and forehead feeling hot like he has a fever from all the crying, he sees that Jongin's mouth is set in a hard line.
A different sadness settles on Chanyeol, one that doesn't bring tears but makes the cold weight on his lungs press down even heavier.
"I don't know how but I want to make it up to you. If there's anything, anything, please..." Seeing as his words don't sway Jongin, don't soften the line of his lips, Chanyeol braces himself to say the words he knows he has to say. His insides are shaking and it hurts. But he says it.
"If you want me to get out, I will."
Jongin nods.
Later, Chanyeol doesn't remember what he did right afterward but he has a vague recollection of a cold, white wall against his back and the shifting of light as a grey morning begins pouring in through the window at the end of the hallway as he waits for the first bus to take him home.
He refuses to get out of bed the next day and even fakes a cold when the others ask him if he wants to go visit Jongin together with them. He knows it's a cowardly thing and that he'll have to eventually work something out with Jongin for the sake of the band. But right now, he reasons, Jongin probably doesn't want to see him anyway. He lets the remorse eat him up slowly. It feels like he's the one who tripped and hit not his head but his heart on a sharp-edged rock.
There's a careful knock on his door in the afternoon.
"Are you awake, Chanyeol-ah? Do you need cold medicine?" It's Joonmyun's voice and Chanyeol is determined to lie still and ignore him until he goes away. Their leader won't be happy if he finds out that Chanyeol is just faking the illness. There's a murmured conversation outside and then another knock.
"Chanyeol, if you're awake... Jongin wants to talk to you."
Jongin?
Wants to--
Chanyeol is out of the bed in a heartbeat, sprints to the door and yanks it open. True enough, there stands Jongin, looking at him from behind Joonmyun, directly but almost shyly. There's something guarded in his eyes. Chanyeol doesn't know when and how he'd expected Jongin to be released from the hospital but definitely not so soon and not looking any different from the days he comes home after practice, tired and silent but with his back held straight. His eyes sweep to the floor as he fiddles with one string of his backpack, and when he looks back up, it knocks the breath right out of Chanyeol's lungs.
He remembers things, Jongin smiling at him when he speaks, leaning closer almost as if he wants to lean his head on his shoulder, grabbing onto his hand in front of cameras as if Chanyeol can give him steadiness in a sea of confusion. They're just little scenes that held no meaning before but now, under Jongin's careful gaze, the weight shifts and Chanyeol thinks it's impossible.
A warmth blooms between his shoulder blades, a ghost of all those times the silent touch of Jongin's hand had rested there. It crawls up the sides of his neck and engulfs his cheeks. It makes his heart sing together with the knowledge that Jongin wants to talk to him. He doesn't ignore him and he doesn't have that hard line on his mouth anymore that makes his lips look sharp and cold.
"Well..." Joonmyun says cautiously. "I guess I'll leave you to talk now. Uhm, dinner is in an hour and if you need anything, I'll be in the kitchen."
After he's left, Jongin asks Chanyeol if they can talk outside. Chanyeol looks down at his wrinkled shirt and sweatpants and thinks about how much he had wanted to do nothing but stay holed in all day today. But that was before Jongin came back. So he just grins at Jongin, and in no time pulls a thick sweater over his head, then his winter coat, and crams a warm hat on his unkempt hair. He wants to reach for his scarf but it's not in his pocket anymore. He must've lost it at the hospital. But he can go without a scarf. After pulling boots on his feet, he's ready to go and looks up at the other boy only to find Jongin smiling a little at the floor. When he notices Chanyeol is fully dressed, however, his hand comes up to grab Chanyeol's the way he has always done.
Chanyeol lets himself be pulled to the park that started it all, in a way. Jongin walks fast enough for the few people they meet on the way not to recognize the two skinny, bundled up boys for the idols they are. They stop at the bottom of the slope down which sleigh traces run now but the children have gone home already. In winter it gets dark early.
Chanyeol waits for Jongin to speak but the other slides one strap of the backpack off his shoulder and pulls something out instead.
"What's that?" Chanyeol eyes the packet Jongin pushes into his hands.
"A new scarf." He digs the tip of his shoe into the snow. "Since I got blood all over your other one, you know. I tried washing the stains out but..." He trails off and looks up at Chanyeol with a little, apologetic frown on his face.
"Why... You... But I'm..." Chanyeol stammers and, fingering the wrapping paper that rustles around its soft content, settles on saying quietly. "Jonginnie, you didn't have to."
"But I wanted to. The doctor said I would have been in trouble if you hadn't stopped the bleeding. And I know you got that scarf from your sister and it meant a lot to you."
Chanyeol traces his fingers over the wrapping paper, unable to meet Jongin's eyes, and opens the packet slowly. The fabric that spills into his hands is of a plain, fuzzy white but the softest, warmest thing he has ever touched, softer than the fur of the pet ferret he'd had as a child, softer than the snow flakes falling silently again today.
"Does this mean you forgive me?" he asks haltingly, unsure, like maybe it's too much to hope.
Jongin shrugs a little, making tiny snow piles with his shoes and squashing them flat again. His hands are pushed into his coat pockets but a sliver of bright colour tells Chanyeol that Jongin is wearing mittens this time, his mittens. Weird, that he only notices that now when Jongin has pulled him by the hand all the way here. Chanyeol almost laughs at the irony of how that seems to reflect their whole relationship.
"Is there anything I can do for you to forgive me?"
Jongin stays silent for a moment. Chanyeol can't be sure in the dimness of night and snow falling around them but he has that warm glow surrounding him again. He almost misses his quiet words.
"A promise."
Chanyeol nods and holds the white scarf tight in his hands.
"Promise me that you'll listen to what I'm about to say. And that... that you won't think I'm disgusting. That, no matter what your answer is, we'll still be friends afterwards."
"I promise," Chanyeol says from the bottom of his heart.
Jongin takes a deep breath.