for nerveless
Title: In the Easy Morning
For: nerveless
Pairing: Kyung/Jaehyo
Rating: PG
Word Count: 5,159
Summary: This is the way life happens, with a dash of drama and a whole lot of mediocrity.
“Ugh... Kyung you said you were going to fix the alarm clock.”
Kyung wakes up to a face full of the blankets and pillows tossed around by Jaehyo and his increasingly frantic chant of “I’m late. I’m late. I’m late.”
He stays in bed, huddled in blankets and pillows and watches as Jaehyo gets ready. He dips a toe out from underneath the duvet, finding that February morning is still chilly.
Jaehyo fumbles through the drawers and slips on the itchy argyle socks Kyung had told him not to buy, which Jaehyo had insisted on and had complained that he didn’t have enough socks-to which Kyung had retorted he should probably stop carelessly throwing socks around and leaving them in hotel rooms on his business trips.
He watches Jaehyo wrestle with the tie, knotting it messily. Kyung knows he’s going to fix it later in the cab when he has more time. He always does so whenever they go to semi-formal events together because Jaehyo has the worst timing when it comes to getting ready and is almost always late; such events include but are not limited to the firm dinners Jaehyo drags him to or Kyung’s niece’s much more pleasant piano recitals. Jaehyo would always re-tie his tie in the car and ask Kyung how it looks.
“I’m so late. Kwon is going to have my ass.” Jaehyo braces himself against the dresser as he itches at his ankle underneath the sock.
“I’m suppose to be at the negotiation like-” He glances at the clock with the broken alarm, “like now.”
Jaehyo stands up straight and gives his shirt and tie a pat down, before turning to seek Kyung's opinion. He scratches at the soft spot behind his ear and kicks the sock drawer shut.
Kyung knows it’s petty, but he pretends to be asleep when Jaehyo looks at him with a sort of look that says he’s hoping for some words of encouragement. Kyung relaxes his eyelids and slows his breath, shifting his feet lazily for the added effect. It's just this particular morning that he doesn't want to deal with Jaehyo, not yet at least. He’s gotten quite good at pretending to be asleep.
Then the room goes quiet after Jaehyo shuffles about and collects his jacket and briefcase and Kyung knows he's moved on to the kitchen. He opens his eyes, blinking away the sleep as he plays with the loose thread on the end of the pillow sham.
“I know you’re awake.” Jaehyo shouts with a mouth full of what sounds (and smells, Kyung takes a whiff) like burnt toast. “Please fix the alarm clock.”
There’s the sound of Jaehyo knocking over the umbrella stand as he frantically slips on his shoes. “Or at least replace it.”
Then the door slams shut and Kyung notices Jaehyo hadn't even bothered to pick up the umbrella stand.
He decides to give himself exactly five minutes of moping time, observing the way his fingers sink into the down pillows and the ghostly imprints they leave behind, before getting up and facing his own day, which begins by cleaning out the toaster and picking up the umbrellas.
#
“Guys I just won the lottery.” Jiho comes bouncing into the office with way too much enthusiasm for nine am. He carelessly shoves Kyung’s usual cup of coffee into his hands and the liquid spills a little onto the printouts Kyung is preparing for the eleven o'clock meeting. Minhyuk gets a cup too and Jihoon, since he has not arrived yet, gets his set on his desk. Kyung grabs a few tissues for his handouts, mildly annoyed because it took him quite a while to figure out the correct print settings in photoshop.
Jiho meanwhile sits himself down on Minhyuk’s desk as if his own were not two cubicles down. “Well not really I mean it was a dream, but it was so vivid. It felt so real. My winning numbers were 23, 3, 98, 80-”
Kyung zones him out as he continues dabbing uselessly at his hand outs and tries to remember the exact settings he had used to print them out.
“-I mean I kept most of it, and also gave some to charity, you know because I’m a good person.”
Jiho takes a small sip of his coffee and kicks his feet against Minhyuk's office chair. “It was awesome, but then I woke up.”
Minhyuk just stares at him, his fingers hovering on the home row of his keyboard as he’s in the middle of replying to an email. “That story was a complete waste of the two minutes I had to spend listening to it. Now please get off my desk. I have no elbow room.”
Kyung thinks about what he could possibly do with that much money. A lot of things, obviously. He could probably move into a better house-they could probably move into a better house. He could probably pay off his student loans, set up a college fund for any possible future offspring, or maybe they’d go somewhere nice for a trip. Maybe it’d be enough money for Jaehyo to take a day off once in a while.
“Hey,” Jiho nudges Kyung’s shoulders, “You still on for tonight?”
Kyung thinks about it for a moment, mostly about the umbrella stand Jaehyo forgot to pick up and a little bit about the dinner they're suppose to have later. Maybe it'd be enough money to help him with his dilemma. “I don't know, maybe. I think I might have plans with Jaehyo.”
“You think?” Jiho looks at him with a kind of skepticism Kyung doesn’t like.
“I might.”
He doesn’t really need to defend his relationship to anyone, especially not to Jiho who probably couldn't even spell commitment and especially not since the relationship is already four years old. There’s one of those crystallization dates for relationships, a milestone of sorts. Habit isn't exactly the right word to describe it, but it's the first one that comes to his mind.
“Alright, but it is Jihoon’s birthday.” Jiho points to the empty cubicle belonging to Jihoon, who is never punctual for work but somehow never gets caught.
Kyung weighs his options. Part of him doesn't really want to go to dinner with Jaehyo, even if he was the one who made the plans in the first place ("Let's get dinner at the usual place. I have something to tell you." Kyung had communicated via text message a few days ago when the guilt finally overwhelmed him.)
“I’ll try to make it.” Kyung says while staring at his coffee stained documents. "So where are we going again?"
"I'll forward you the address." Jiho flicks the back of Kyung's head before he shrugs and struts to his own desk.
Kyung scowls at his ruined pages and spends the next thirty minutes adjusting photoshop settings and wasting a lot of paper and ink before finally printing an acceptable copy of the new homepage layout for the eleven o’clock meeting.
He was offered a promotion to manager a few days ago. That's all he's trying to tell Jaehyo. Maybe he's just being too dramatic. It's just dinner.
#
“You are 100% late to this negotiation.”
“I’m five minutes late.”
“That’s still late, and please fix your tie oh my god.”
Normally Yukwon is not one for punctuality, but there is a possible office space upgrade on the line-for Yukwon, not Jaehyo. Jaehyo had recently moved into a stately new office with glass walls, leather chairs, and a remarkable view of downtown. He suspects Yukwon's zealot is being piloted by his jealousy. Jaehyo even gets a fancy new name plate to make it all official: Ahn Jaehyo, Junior Partner. Yukwon gets jealous easily.
“Please tell me you prepared.” Yukwon says as he makes Jaehyo hold his coffee while he fixes his tie for him. His fingers are uncomfortably cold whenever they make contact with Jaehyo’s neck.
“Always.” Jaehyo says after Yukwon’s finished, which is almost ironic considering the state his tie had been in. He hands the coffee back and leads the way into the meeting room to meet the two young entrepreneurs at odds and hopefully negotiate some sort of settlement before things get ugly.
#
By the time the eleven o'clock meeting rolls around, Jihoon finally shows up. He manages to weasle half-hearted birthday wishes from everyone in the office before they file into the conference room.
Budget cuts mean less employees in total, but it also means less chairs available for the existing employees. Kyung finds himself standing along with Minhyuk at the back of the room. It's not that bad. They're standing directly under a vent that offers a nice rush of warm air to fight off the chill of February.
"So it's really Jihoon's birthday today?" Minhyuk leans over and whispers without breaking eye contact with the dry erase board the manager is frantically scribbling all over.
Kyung is half startled out of his own thoughts. He raises an eyebrow.
"Why would he make that up?"
Minhyuk shrugs.
"I mean it's Jihoon. Last time he told us his great aunt passed away just so we'd take him to that new restaurant downtown."
"His great aunt did pass away."
Minhyuk blinks a couple of times; a possible flush tints his cheeks.
"Well I just wanted to be sure."
"For what?"
"Nothing. Just that it is indeed his birthday."
For a fraction of a second, Kyung's mind jumps to dinner plans again but he doesn't really get to linger on the thought.
"So in order to minimize distraction, Kyung here has developed a new home page layout for us." The manager looks to Kyung but gestures at the board of scribbles supposedly resembling the new home page layout.
Kyung nods and leaves his warm spot under the vent to pass out the handouts. The rest of the meeting is mostly Kyung explaining to the grand total of five employees how the new layout is truly more efficient than the old one and how to go about navigating it in the content management system. Jiho reclines in the plastic seats and makes obscene gestures at Kyung the whole time.
Due to budget cuts, the web department has to share a break room with finance. It's actually not really problematic at all. It means there's always food in the minifridge and enough people to spread the blame around. Minhyuk's crouched down trying to see if there is anything worth salvaging in the shared fridge. He finds a promising sandwich.
In his hurry that morning, and the fact that Jaehyo had finished off the last of the bread, Kyung didn't get a chance to pack a lunch, but he's not particularly hungry anyway. He leans against the counter, lazily staring at the buttons on his phone, trying not to think about what he's going to do about dinner.
“This is why the rule to never date coworkers exists.” Minhyuk begins without being prompted. He uses his entire body to shut the fridge and sits on top of it afterwards. “Especially not ones who share the same general cubicle as you.”
He stuffs the rest of the sandwich he's holding into his mouth. Kyung wants to say that there's never been such rule exactly, but he keeps quiet and stares at the J on his keypad.
“I really hope he either gets fired for all the times he’s late to work, which is always. Or gets promoted for brilliantly doing so. Or maybe I could get promoted. I just prefer not to share office space with him. It is so uncomfortable.”
Minhyuk decides he's thirsty and reopens the minifridge without getting off of it. The upside down angle makes it a bit difficult to reach inside, but he manages to not fall off.
“Okay maybe once upon a time, I thought it’d be hot. Like you know we could do that thing where I suck him off under the desk and he has to maintain a straight face at anyone who walks by, but then I realized our desks are faced the wrong way and that ruined the fun. Plus Jihoon is a complete nutjob. Office sex is suppose to be hot, you know?”
He doesn't find anything in the fridge so he jumps off and starts flipping through the cupboards in search of a drink.
“Okay he’s not a nutjob. He just wanted different things than I did? Things that were not all in the realm of sex? Don’t tell anyone but he’s totally grossly romantic at heart. Does this make me a bad person? Jihoon seems to think so. This is why we’re not on speaking terms, which is awful because we share the same cubicle. At least we don’t face each other, but then sometimes when my screen is dark I can see him in the reflection and it gets really awful when he sees me seeing him in the reflection, and just GOD CAN I HAVE A DIFFERENT OFFICE ALREADY?”
Minhyuk slams the cupboard shut.
“You talk a lot.” Kyung offers the unopened bottle of coke that had been sitting next to him on the counter this whole time. Minhyuk downs almost entirely in one go.
"Please help me." Minhyuk says after he shoots the empty bottle into the trash and collapses onto a plastic break room chair.
Kyung chews on the inside of his cheek, 80% certain he's going to cancel dinner plans with Jaehyo.
"Are you going tonight? For Jihoon's birthday thing?"
"Hell No." Minhyuk almost shouts. "I mean... no I'm busy."
Kyung looks at him sympathetically and it's then that Jihoon walks into the lounge as well and starts sifting through the fridge, growing increasingly irritated as his search proves to be fruitless. He looks at Kyung and dodges the imaginary icicles being shot out of Minhyuk's eyes.
“Seen my sandwich?”
#
Jaehyo's lunch break isn't much of a lunch break. It's him and Yukwon pouring over legal jargon searching for some obscure precedent to try and save a client who was stupid enough to get himself into a situation this bad. Not much progress was made from the negotiation.
"Why..." Jaehyo buries his face into his hands and rubs his temples. "Just why did you not think to have your lawyers look these papers over before you signed them?"
The new business hotshot, Lee Taeil, simply shrugs as he reclines in the nice leather chairs of Jaehyo's office. The motion causes a few crumbs to roll off the front of his shirt.
"Honestly..." Lee Taeil scratches at the part of his head underneath his bandanna while simultaneously rubbing his stomach. "I thought those people were my lawyers. I mean the numbers looked good."
Jaehyo flattens both palms against the table. "Of course the numbers were good. Look. I don't think you understand how serious this is. If we don't find something in there to help you-"
He points to the daunting stacks of files.
"-You'll lose your own company." Yukwon finishes without breaking eye contact with the documents he's reading.
"No... I won't." Lee Taeil says, wiping his face for crumbs and dusting his shirt. "I have you guys."
He pushes the napkin of desserts towards his lawyers and adds a reassuring smile. "Biscotti?"
#
Minhyuk resorts to sending Kyung inquisitive emails to collect advice about his current co-worker situation.
Kyung replies to all of them with a simple please just reclaim him to put him out of his misery. Minhyuk in return insists he's not one bit interested in reclaiming Jihoon, the closet romantic of the office who curls his toes whenever he gets kissed under the jaw, to which Kyung replies is too much information and that his own point had been defeated. Then the emails stop.
Thursdays are exceedingly dull. Part of Kyung is glad to see Jaehyo's Thursday is equally as dull.
Case is a drag.
Head hurts.
Quick tell me something funny.
Kyung frowns at the messages on his phone screen.
Jaehyo. Weird how those buttons seem to be smoother than the rest. I can't just be commanded to be funny.
You're always funny...
Kyung thinks there's a difference between being inherently funny and just wanting to see someone smile.
Not always...
You are to me.
This is when someone rolls his chair up to Kyung's desk and Kyung sets his phone aside, irritated because he was working up the courage to maybe cancel their dinner plans.
"Help me."
Kyung fully expects to see some variation of Minhyuk's exasperated face, but instead sees an equally exasperated Jihoon.
"Help me. Minhyuk-hyung is impossible."
"I don't understand why you people come to me with these problems." Kyung turns around and pretends to be immersed in what he's doing to look busy on the computer. He has to bite his lip though, because this whole thing is highly amusing. Even the finance department has heard all about the Minhyuk-Jihoon drama and even then no one knows what the drama is really over in the first place.
"Hello?" Jihoon says a little too loudly and immediately hushes down to a whisper. "You're the only one here who has been in a relationship for longer than a month. Like I mean you're in a real relationship. You're almost obligated to help me."
"I feel so appreciated."
"Minhyuk's refusing to talk to me. I'm not really sure what I did wrong? And it makes it infinitely worse that he stares at me through his computer? Can't you just talk to him?"
"You would only know if you were staring too." Kyung smiles. "I can't help you. This is too amusing."
"I'm uninviting you to my birthday." Jihoon attempts to threaten him.
"Then Jiho will be your only guest."
Jihoon's about to protest before Kyung speaks up again.
"Look it would probably be a lot easier if you both would just stop being so dramatic about everything." Kyung says as he clicks on random links.
"You think I'm dramatic?"
Kyung just looks at him. "Both of you."
Jihoon takes a moment to scrunch his face in contemplation before he slowly rolls back to his cubicle and pretends to be immersed in paperwork Kyung knows he doesn't have.
This is the point where Kyung closes out of his browsers and stares at his desktop, letting the word dramatic just sit on his tongue.
His phone vibrates again and it's Jaehyo asking if they can cancel dinner plans because he has to work overtime. Kyung masks his eagerness to do exactly that as he types a response expressing regret.
Minhyuk stops Kyung when he's getting ready to call it a day.
He has this very obvious look that says he wants to know what he and Jihoon had talked about.
Kyung just laughs as he shrugs on his coat. "You're an idiot."
He pats him on the back reassuringly before leaving, intending to go home and change before Jihoon's birthday dinner.
#
Dinner is unfortunately just soup from the kiosk on the third floor.
"Thanks." Yukwon says as Jaehyo sets a to-go cup in front of him. He hesitates before opening it. "For... you know... everything."
This is his way of thanking Jaehyo for all the things friendship entails... over a bowl of soup.
"... I know." Jaehyo replies, sliding a second soup down the table to Lee Taeil, who looks like he wants nothing else except to go home.
#
Kyung was right to call his two love struck co-workers dramatic. He's in the middle of announcing his possible promotion to Jihoon and Jiho (very much aware that he still hasn't told Jaehyo yet) when Minhyuk runs into the restaurant completely out of breath, almost knocks a waiter over, and says he needs to talk.
Jihoon looks between Minhyuk and Kyung and Jiho. "Then talk..."
"No I mean..." He takes Kyung's glass of water and takes generous gulps, "...privately."
Jihoon squints. "Did you run all the way here?"
He notices Minhyuk's still wearing sweatpants and sandals, despite it being February.
"... from your apartment?"
"Yeah, now can we talk?"
Kyung waits a few moments after Minhyuk drags Jihoon away (to the restrooms? Kyung thinks he sees) before he holds his hand out to Jiho, who begrudgingly drops a 50,000 won bill into his open hand.
"Told you Minhyuk is the real closet romantic of the office." Kyung says with a smug expression that only appears after one wins a bet.
Jiho rolls his eyes. "Damn I owe the receptionist over in finance 50,000 as well."
"Do we even know what's wrong with them?"
"No, and I'm not particularly curious."
Kyung just snorts. Jiho drums his fingers against the table top
"Well I guess now you can pay for the meal." He slaps Kyung's shoulder and climbs out of the booth before Kyung can even properly react.
#
Lee Taeil wants to celebrate because Yukwon was finally able to locate a document that could possibly, by a long stretch, save him.
"You know that we haven't really accomplished anything yet, right?" Jaehyo says with a rather flat tone. "We still have to file all of this with the court."
"Every milestone is a reason for celebration!"
Taeil's earrings sort of glisten in the moonlight, catching Jaehyo off guard, and he drapes his arms around both him and Yukwon as he leads them into a cab where they'll head to the closest bar. Jaehyo wonders how someone like Lee Taeil, juvenile and naive as his appearance makes him seem, even manages to be successful. He decides, regardless, that there's some truth to his statement.
#
Kyung comes back to a dark apartment. It's not cold because he accidentally left the heat on in his morning rush so there's not that desire to dive into the blankets or run under a hot shower after he discards his coat.
After the door slams and the deadbolts click into place, he decides he's going to tell Jaehyo even without a nice dinner to do so over that he's been offered a promotion. He needs to get it over with. He's making too big of a deal out of this anyway. Even if he takes the promotion and becomes manager, he can still quit any time and chase after that life he envisioned for himself when he was years younger and still in school. Nothing's set in stone.
Kyung drops the keys into the ceramic bowl his niece made for them in her grade school art class. The sound echoes through the empty apartment and seemingly tells Kyung what he doesn't want to hear: emptiness. It tells him as a sort of echo of his own thoughts that even though things aren't set in stone, he doesn't have that much mobility either. This is more or less his life.
The thought stays with him as he changes into more comfortable clothes, throwing the dirty ones into the hamper that is already full.
The sofa sighs when he sinks into it, the tv whines when he turns it on, the laptop creaks when he flips it open. Kyung just finds it all so distastefully mediocre.
He tucks his feet into his sweatpants because the cold starts to set in despite the heater being on; even the cup of hot tea he’s nursing isn’t enough to warm him up, and it's like this that Kyung dozes off half complacent with the cold.
Jaehyo turns in around the time the infomercials begin, which Kyung had resorted to watching because he got sick of all the melodrama on primetime TV.
"I got bread!" He says a bit too loudly before he realizes Kyung had been asleep. He sets the plastic bag down gently on the counter and begins shedding his outerwear.
"It's late..." Kyung stirs. He squints at the TV through his bleary eyes, trying to decipher the time.
“I’m so sorry. The client just insisted and we really needed a deal with this one.” Jaehyo apologizes as he leans in for a kiss. Kyung grimaces apologetically afterwards because he realizes he hasn't brushed his teeth in a while and his body is covered with evidence of his late night snacking.
Despite that, Jaehyo, body languid and a little uncoordinated, still climbs over the back of the couch and settles into the spaces between Kyung and the cushion that he fits snuggly into.
“How was dinner?” He asks once they're face to face.
"It was good. How was yours?"
Jaehyo's answer comes in the form of slowly bringing Kyung's lips to his. Kyung finds himself tracing the contours he already knows by heart and tasting the lingering remnants of tequila and lime; his fingers absentmindedly find that soft spot behind Jaehyo's ears, which elicits an inaudible sigh from Jaehyo that ghosts over Kyung's bottom lip.
In the background he can still hear the dull hum of the television, or maybe it's the heater.
"I missed you today." Jaehyo says with rather difficulty with Kyung’s tongue in his mouth. It sounds less like “I missed you today” and more like a messy string of syllables only Park Kyung can decipher.
“On a scale of one to drunk, how much have you been drinking?”
Jaehyo pretends to think about it. “Five.”
He smiles and Kyung swears he hears a giggle as Jaehyo traces the veins on his neck down to the dips of his collarbones, which Jaehyo exposes with an effective tug of Kyung’s t-shirt (technically Jaehyo's t-shirt). Kyung, with difficulty, pushes him up.
“Ok good because I want you to remember what I’m going to say next.”
The corners of Jaehyo’s mouth turn upwards, his mind already churning its gears to anticipate what Kyung could possibly say.
“Mhmm... I'll remember.” Jaehyo smiles against his skin near his neck. His hand travels down the the planes of Kyung’s stomach and end up at the drawstrings of his sweatpants which Jaehyo begins to play with, winding and unwinding the cotton around his fingers.
Kyung reaches down to grip Jaehyo’s wrist.
“I-um...” Kyung begins very tentatively. Jaehyo looks up with a hazy sort of gaze and kisses Kyung again, biting lightly on his lower lip. His hands move from hovering above the drawstrings of his sweatpants to slipping under Kyung's t-shirt, inching back up his stomach, and tracing the sensitive skin there.
Its not really Jaehyo's attempt at distracting him, its more just Kyung can't spit it out, as if what he is about to say would change their lives in some dramatic way. The thing is, it doesn't. If anything, it means their lives aren't going to change very much at all. Sometimes that's even scarier.
"I-I'm getting promoted."
Jaehyo possibly smiles wider than Kyung expected. He expected support. He expected Jaehyo not to fully understand his dilemma over the promotion.
"Congrats."
"I mean it's not p-permanent, yet." Kyung blinks at Jaehyo, who is now positioned on top of him, "I haven't officially accepted."
He turns his head towards the TV to watch some lady try and sell an all-in-one juicer and blender.
"I was giving it some thought."
"What are you waiting for," Jaehyo takes advantage of Kyung's turned neck to suck at the exposed skin, "this is exciting news."
"Well..." He thinks about the ambitions holding him back and how this one isn't exactly the one he had been planning for. "Yeah... maybe..."
Sometime later after they've relocated to the bed, Jaehyo snakes an arm around Kyung's waist and pulls him close. His fingers gingerly trace the dips of Kyung's bare hips as he murmurs, "I know this might not be what you had in mind, but I'm glad this, what ever it is, happened."
Kyung relaxes his eyelids, slows his breath, and lazily shifts his leg for the added effect. He's quite good at pretending to be asleep.
#
"That smells burnt." Kyung says as he rubs the sleep from his eyes. He stretches his foot out from underneath the duvet to test the temperature.
"Well yes it is but only because I was busy making all of this." Jaehyp gestures to the tray containing unburnt breakfast items on the night stand. "Wanted to make up for missing dinner plans."
Jaehyo scratches at that spot behind his own ear. "What do you want to do today?"
"You don't have work?" Kyung squints up at Jaehyo. The morning light is s little bright but it plays off Jaehyo's features nicely.
"Yukwon can handle it. I need a day off once in a while. It's been a hectic year." Jaehyo sits with his back leaning against Kyung's side of the bed. "What do you want to do?"
Kyung smiles. "But why are you doing this?"
"To celebrate! You got promoted." Jaehyo tilts his head back over the edge of the bed to look at Kyung. "Every milestone should be celebrated, so use your new managerial powers and take a day off as well--"
"I don't know..."
"--Oh right we also need to shop for a new alarm clock."
"--and it also snowed last night. I know you hate the cold, but you might just have to deal for at least half an hour. I already dug out your snow pants from the closet. So we're going out there. Preferably before noon."
Maybe the smell of burnt toast is getting to him, but Kyung settles back into the blankets and smiles. This is the way life happens, isn't it? In the way that it doesn’t really at all. It's never been about doing something remarkable, necessarily. For Kyung, it's about accepting mediocrity and celebrating trivial milestones like accomplishments, anniversaries, half-anniversaries, birthdays, and half-birthdays; because this kind of mediocrity is the best thing that has ever happened to him.
"How about we start with a bath? It's freezing." Kyung shifts his body ninety degrees so that he can rest the soles of his feet against the top of Jaehyo's head.
"Says the one wrapped up in thousand thread count sheets and a down feather duvet."
"Mhmm," he massages his toes on Jaehyo's scalp, "but your head is warmer than either of those things."
"Are you indirectly saying I'm a hot head?"
"I'm saying you're warm and I like you."
"You better. I made you breakfast."
"Breakfast that's only 70% edible."
"Better than nothing."
In every sense, this is the life Park Kyung never dreamed he would end up having.
a/n: this is probably not what you wanted at all ;_; i sort of just took the domestic prompt and ran with it (domestic jaekyung is just kind of where my brain has been swimming lately) and i almost feel like it was a cop out, since you had other more detailed prompts and i used the least detailed one ;_; my first choice was doing some sort of summery sea world thing, but i was stuck on it for quite a while and came up with something much too late to have time to write it.
i just want to apologize everywhere. i will be willing to finish summer sea world if you would like after reveals ;_;
(also my knowledge of lawyers and lawsuits only extends as far as suits and the social network. taeil's lawsuit is obviously borrowed heavily from TSN, just to note.)
i hope you will still have a wonderful holiday and happy 2013 ;_;
For: nerveless
Pairing: Kyung/Jaehyo
Rating: PG
Word Count: 5,159
Summary: This is the way life happens, with a dash of drama and a whole lot of mediocrity.
“Ugh... Kyung you said you were going to fix the alarm clock.”
Kyung wakes up to a face full of the blankets and pillows tossed around by Jaehyo and his increasingly frantic chant of “I’m late. I’m late. I’m late.”
He stays in bed, huddled in blankets and pillows and watches as Jaehyo gets ready. He dips a toe out from underneath the duvet, finding that February morning is still chilly.
Jaehyo fumbles through the drawers and slips on the itchy argyle socks Kyung had told him not to buy, which Jaehyo had insisted on and had complained that he didn’t have enough socks-to which Kyung had retorted he should probably stop carelessly throwing socks around and leaving them in hotel rooms on his business trips.
He watches Jaehyo wrestle with the tie, knotting it messily. Kyung knows he’s going to fix it later in the cab when he has more time. He always does so whenever they go to semi-formal events together because Jaehyo has the worst timing when it comes to getting ready and is almost always late; such events include but are not limited to the firm dinners Jaehyo drags him to or Kyung’s niece’s much more pleasant piano recitals. Jaehyo would always re-tie his tie in the car and ask Kyung how it looks.
“I’m so late. Kwon is going to have my ass.” Jaehyo braces himself against the dresser as he itches at his ankle underneath the sock.
“I’m suppose to be at the negotiation like-” He glances at the clock with the broken alarm, “like now.”
Jaehyo stands up straight and gives his shirt and tie a pat down, before turning to seek Kyung's opinion. He scratches at the soft spot behind his ear and kicks the sock drawer shut.
Kyung knows it’s petty, but he pretends to be asleep when Jaehyo looks at him with a sort of look that says he’s hoping for some words of encouragement. Kyung relaxes his eyelids and slows his breath, shifting his feet lazily for the added effect. It's just this particular morning that he doesn't want to deal with Jaehyo, not yet at least. He’s gotten quite good at pretending to be asleep.
Then the room goes quiet after Jaehyo shuffles about and collects his jacket and briefcase and Kyung knows he's moved on to the kitchen. He opens his eyes, blinking away the sleep as he plays with the loose thread on the end of the pillow sham.
“I know you’re awake.” Jaehyo shouts with a mouth full of what sounds (and smells, Kyung takes a whiff) like burnt toast. “Please fix the alarm clock.”
There’s the sound of Jaehyo knocking over the umbrella stand as he frantically slips on his shoes. “Or at least replace it.”
Then the door slams shut and Kyung notices Jaehyo hadn't even bothered to pick up the umbrella stand.
He decides to give himself exactly five minutes of moping time, observing the way his fingers sink into the down pillows and the ghostly imprints they leave behind, before getting up and facing his own day, which begins by cleaning out the toaster and picking up the umbrellas.
#
“Guys I just won the lottery.” Jiho comes bouncing into the office with way too much enthusiasm for nine am. He carelessly shoves Kyung’s usual cup of coffee into his hands and the liquid spills a little onto the printouts Kyung is preparing for the eleven o'clock meeting. Minhyuk gets a cup too and Jihoon, since he has not arrived yet, gets his set on his desk. Kyung grabs a few tissues for his handouts, mildly annoyed because it took him quite a while to figure out the correct print settings in photoshop.
Jiho meanwhile sits himself down on Minhyuk’s desk as if his own were not two cubicles down. “Well not really I mean it was a dream, but it was so vivid. It felt so real. My winning numbers were 23, 3, 98, 80-”
Kyung zones him out as he continues dabbing uselessly at his hand outs and tries to remember the exact settings he had used to print them out.
“-I mean I kept most of it, and also gave some to charity, you know because I’m a good person.”
Jiho takes a small sip of his coffee and kicks his feet against Minhyuk's office chair. “It was awesome, but then I woke up.”
Minhyuk just stares at him, his fingers hovering on the home row of his keyboard as he’s in the middle of replying to an email. “That story was a complete waste of the two minutes I had to spend listening to it. Now please get off my desk. I have no elbow room.”
Kyung thinks about what he could possibly do with that much money. A lot of things, obviously. He could probably move into a better house-they could probably move into a better house. He could probably pay off his student loans, set up a college fund for any possible future offspring, or maybe they’d go somewhere nice for a trip. Maybe it’d be enough money for Jaehyo to take a day off once in a while.
“Hey,” Jiho nudges Kyung’s shoulders, “You still on for tonight?”
Kyung thinks about it for a moment, mostly about the umbrella stand Jaehyo forgot to pick up and a little bit about the dinner they're suppose to have later. Maybe it'd be enough money to help him with his dilemma. “I don't know, maybe. I think I might have plans with Jaehyo.”
“You think?” Jiho looks at him with a kind of skepticism Kyung doesn’t like.
“I might.”
He doesn’t really need to defend his relationship to anyone, especially not to Jiho who probably couldn't even spell commitment and especially not since the relationship is already four years old. There’s one of those crystallization dates for relationships, a milestone of sorts. Habit isn't exactly the right word to describe it, but it's the first one that comes to his mind.
“Alright, but it is Jihoon’s birthday.” Jiho points to the empty cubicle belonging to Jihoon, who is never punctual for work but somehow never gets caught.
Kyung weighs his options. Part of him doesn't really want to go to dinner with Jaehyo, even if he was the one who made the plans in the first place ("Let's get dinner at the usual place. I have something to tell you." Kyung had communicated via text message a few days ago when the guilt finally overwhelmed him.)
“I’ll try to make it.” Kyung says while staring at his coffee stained documents. "So where are we going again?"
"I'll forward you the address." Jiho flicks the back of Kyung's head before he shrugs and struts to his own desk.
Kyung scowls at his ruined pages and spends the next thirty minutes adjusting photoshop settings and wasting a lot of paper and ink before finally printing an acceptable copy of the new homepage layout for the eleven o’clock meeting.
He was offered a promotion to manager a few days ago. That's all he's trying to tell Jaehyo. Maybe he's just being too dramatic. It's just dinner.
#
“You are 100% late to this negotiation.”
“I’m five minutes late.”
“That’s still late, and please fix your tie oh my god.”
Normally Yukwon is not one for punctuality, but there is a possible office space upgrade on the line-for Yukwon, not Jaehyo. Jaehyo had recently moved into a stately new office with glass walls, leather chairs, and a remarkable view of downtown. He suspects Yukwon's zealot is being piloted by his jealousy. Jaehyo even gets a fancy new name plate to make it all official: Ahn Jaehyo, Junior Partner. Yukwon gets jealous easily.
“Please tell me you prepared.” Yukwon says as he makes Jaehyo hold his coffee while he fixes his tie for him. His fingers are uncomfortably cold whenever they make contact with Jaehyo’s neck.
“Always.” Jaehyo says after Yukwon’s finished, which is almost ironic considering the state his tie had been in. He hands the coffee back and leads the way into the meeting room to meet the two young entrepreneurs at odds and hopefully negotiate some sort of settlement before things get ugly.
#
By the time the eleven o'clock meeting rolls around, Jihoon finally shows up. He manages to weasle half-hearted birthday wishes from everyone in the office before they file into the conference room.
Budget cuts mean less employees in total, but it also means less chairs available for the existing employees. Kyung finds himself standing along with Minhyuk at the back of the room. It's not that bad. They're standing directly under a vent that offers a nice rush of warm air to fight off the chill of February.
"So it's really Jihoon's birthday today?" Minhyuk leans over and whispers without breaking eye contact with the dry erase board the manager is frantically scribbling all over.
Kyung is half startled out of his own thoughts. He raises an eyebrow.
"Why would he make that up?"
Minhyuk shrugs.
"I mean it's Jihoon. Last time he told us his great aunt passed away just so we'd take him to that new restaurant downtown."
"His great aunt did pass away."
Minhyuk blinks a couple of times; a possible flush tints his cheeks.
"Well I just wanted to be sure."
"For what?"
"Nothing. Just that it is indeed his birthday."
For a fraction of a second, Kyung's mind jumps to dinner plans again but he doesn't really get to linger on the thought.
"So in order to minimize distraction, Kyung here has developed a new home page layout for us." The manager looks to Kyung but gestures at the board of scribbles supposedly resembling the new home page layout.
Kyung nods and leaves his warm spot under the vent to pass out the handouts. The rest of the meeting is mostly Kyung explaining to the grand total of five employees how the new layout is truly more efficient than the old one and how to go about navigating it in the content management system. Jiho reclines in the plastic seats and makes obscene gestures at Kyung the whole time.
Due to budget cuts, the web department has to share a break room with finance. It's actually not really problematic at all. It means there's always food in the minifridge and enough people to spread the blame around. Minhyuk's crouched down trying to see if there is anything worth salvaging in the shared fridge. He finds a promising sandwich.
In his hurry that morning, and the fact that Jaehyo had finished off the last of the bread, Kyung didn't get a chance to pack a lunch, but he's not particularly hungry anyway. He leans against the counter, lazily staring at the buttons on his phone, trying not to think about what he's going to do about dinner.
“This is why the rule to never date coworkers exists.” Minhyuk begins without being prompted. He uses his entire body to shut the fridge and sits on top of it afterwards. “Especially not ones who share the same general cubicle as you.”
He stuffs the rest of the sandwich he's holding into his mouth. Kyung wants to say that there's never been such rule exactly, but he keeps quiet and stares at the J on his keypad.
“I really hope he either gets fired for all the times he’s late to work, which is always. Or gets promoted for brilliantly doing so. Or maybe I could get promoted. I just prefer not to share office space with him. It is so uncomfortable.”
Minhyuk decides he's thirsty and reopens the minifridge without getting off of it. The upside down angle makes it a bit difficult to reach inside, but he manages to not fall off.
“Okay maybe once upon a time, I thought it’d be hot. Like you know we could do that thing where I suck him off under the desk and he has to maintain a straight face at anyone who walks by, but then I realized our desks are faced the wrong way and that ruined the fun. Plus Jihoon is a complete nutjob. Office sex is suppose to be hot, you know?”
He doesn't find anything in the fridge so he jumps off and starts flipping through the cupboards in search of a drink.
“Okay he’s not a nutjob. He just wanted different things than I did? Things that were not all in the realm of sex? Don’t tell anyone but he’s totally grossly romantic at heart. Does this make me a bad person? Jihoon seems to think so. This is why we’re not on speaking terms, which is awful because we share the same cubicle. At least we don’t face each other, but then sometimes when my screen is dark I can see him in the reflection and it gets really awful when he sees me seeing him in the reflection, and just GOD CAN I HAVE A DIFFERENT OFFICE ALREADY?”
Minhyuk slams the cupboard shut.
“You talk a lot.” Kyung offers the unopened bottle of coke that had been sitting next to him on the counter this whole time. Minhyuk downs almost entirely in one go.
"Please help me." Minhyuk says after he shoots the empty bottle into the trash and collapses onto a plastic break room chair.
Kyung chews on the inside of his cheek, 80% certain he's going to cancel dinner plans with Jaehyo.
"Are you going tonight? For Jihoon's birthday thing?"
"Hell No." Minhyuk almost shouts. "I mean... no I'm busy."
Kyung looks at him sympathetically and it's then that Jihoon walks into the lounge as well and starts sifting through the fridge, growing increasingly irritated as his search proves to be fruitless. He looks at Kyung and dodges the imaginary icicles being shot out of Minhyuk's eyes.
“Seen my sandwich?”
#
Jaehyo's lunch break isn't much of a lunch break. It's him and Yukwon pouring over legal jargon searching for some obscure precedent to try and save a client who was stupid enough to get himself into a situation this bad. Not much progress was made from the negotiation.
"Why..." Jaehyo buries his face into his hands and rubs his temples. "Just why did you not think to have your lawyers look these papers over before you signed them?"
The new business hotshot, Lee Taeil, simply shrugs as he reclines in the nice leather chairs of Jaehyo's office. The motion causes a few crumbs to roll off the front of his shirt.
"Honestly..." Lee Taeil scratches at the part of his head underneath his bandanna while simultaneously rubbing his stomach. "I thought those people were my lawyers. I mean the numbers looked good."
Jaehyo flattens both palms against the table. "Of course the numbers were good. Look. I don't think you understand how serious this is. If we don't find something in there to help you-"
He points to the daunting stacks of files.
"-You'll lose your own company." Yukwon finishes without breaking eye contact with the documents he's reading.
"No... I won't." Lee Taeil says, wiping his face for crumbs and dusting his shirt. "I have you guys."
He pushes the napkin of desserts towards his lawyers and adds a reassuring smile. "Biscotti?"
#
Minhyuk resorts to sending Kyung inquisitive emails to collect advice about his current co-worker situation.
Kyung replies to all of them with a simple please just reclaim him to put him out of his misery. Minhyuk in return insists he's not one bit interested in reclaiming Jihoon, the closet romantic of the office who curls his toes whenever he gets kissed under the jaw, to which Kyung replies is too much information and that his own point had been defeated. Then the emails stop.
Thursdays are exceedingly dull. Part of Kyung is glad to see Jaehyo's Thursday is equally as dull.
Case is a drag.
Head hurts.
Quick tell me something funny.
Kyung frowns at the messages on his phone screen.
Jaehyo. Weird how those buttons seem to be smoother than the rest. I can't just be commanded to be funny.
You're always funny...
Kyung thinks there's a difference between being inherently funny and just wanting to see someone smile.
Not always...
You are to me.
This is when someone rolls his chair up to Kyung's desk and Kyung sets his phone aside, irritated because he was working up the courage to maybe cancel their dinner plans.
"Help me."
Kyung fully expects to see some variation of Minhyuk's exasperated face, but instead sees an equally exasperated Jihoon.
"Help me. Minhyuk-hyung is impossible."
"I don't understand why you people come to me with these problems." Kyung turns around and pretends to be immersed in what he's doing to look busy on the computer. He has to bite his lip though, because this whole thing is highly amusing. Even the finance department has heard all about the Minhyuk-Jihoon drama and even then no one knows what the drama is really over in the first place.
"Hello?" Jihoon says a little too loudly and immediately hushes down to a whisper. "You're the only one here who has been in a relationship for longer than a month. Like I mean you're in a real relationship. You're almost obligated to help me."
"I feel so appreciated."
"Minhyuk's refusing to talk to me. I'm not really sure what I did wrong? And it makes it infinitely worse that he stares at me through his computer? Can't you just talk to him?"
"You would only know if you were staring too." Kyung smiles. "I can't help you. This is too amusing."
"I'm uninviting you to my birthday." Jihoon attempts to threaten him.
"Then Jiho will be your only guest."
Jihoon's about to protest before Kyung speaks up again.
"Look it would probably be a lot easier if you both would just stop being so dramatic about everything." Kyung says as he clicks on random links.
"You think I'm dramatic?"
Kyung just looks at him. "Both of you."
Jihoon takes a moment to scrunch his face in contemplation before he slowly rolls back to his cubicle and pretends to be immersed in paperwork Kyung knows he doesn't have.
This is the point where Kyung closes out of his browsers and stares at his desktop, letting the word dramatic just sit on his tongue.
His phone vibrates again and it's Jaehyo asking if they can cancel dinner plans because he has to work overtime. Kyung masks his eagerness to do exactly that as he types a response expressing regret.
Minhyuk stops Kyung when he's getting ready to call it a day.
He has this very obvious look that says he wants to know what he and Jihoon had talked about.
Kyung just laughs as he shrugs on his coat. "You're an idiot."
He pats him on the back reassuringly before leaving, intending to go home and change before Jihoon's birthday dinner.
#
Dinner is unfortunately just soup from the kiosk on the third floor.
"Thanks." Yukwon says as Jaehyo sets a to-go cup in front of him. He hesitates before opening it. "For... you know... everything."
This is his way of thanking Jaehyo for all the things friendship entails... over a bowl of soup.
"... I know." Jaehyo replies, sliding a second soup down the table to Lee Taeil, who looks like he wants nothing else except to go home.
#
Kyung was right to call his two love struck co-workers dramatic. He's in the middle of announcing his possible promotion to Jihoon and Jiho (very much aware that he still hasn't told Jaehyo yet) when Minhyuk runs into the restaurant completely out of breath, almost knocks a waiter over, and says he needs to talk.
Jihoon looks between Minhyuk and Kyung and Jiho. "Then talk..."
"No I mean..." He takes Kyung's glass of water and takes generous gulps, "...privately."
Jihoon squints. "Did you run all the way here?"
He notices Minhyuk's still wearing sweatpants and sandals, despite it being February.
"... from your apartment?"
"Yeah, now can we talk?"
Kyung waits a few moments after Minhyuk drags Jihoon away (to the restrooms? Kyung thinks he sees) before he holds his hand out to Jiho, who begrudgingly drops a 50,000 won bill into his open hand.
"Told you Minhyuk is the real closet romantic of the office." Kyung says with a smug expression that only appears after one wins a bet.
Jiho rolls his eyes. "Damn I owe the receptionist over in finance 50,000 as well."
"Do we even know what's wrong with them?"
"No, and I'm not particularly curious."
Kyung just snorts. Jiho drums his fingers against the table top
"Well I guess now you can pay for the meal." He slaps Kyung's shoulder and climbs out of the booth before Kyung can even properly react.
#
Lee Taeil wants to celebrate because Yukwon was finally able to locate a document that could possibly, by a long stretch, save him.
"You know that we haven't really accomplished anything yet, right?" Jaehyo says with a rather flat tone. "We still have to file all of this with the court."
"Every milestone is a reason for celebration!"
Taeil's earrings sort of glisten in the moonlight, catching Jaehyo off guard, and he drapes his arms around both him and Yukwon as he leads them into a cab where they'll head to the closest bar. Jaehyo wonders how someone like Lee Taeil, juvenile and naive as his appearance makes him seem, even manages to be successful. He decides, regardless, that there's some truth to his statement.
#
Kyung comes back to a dark apartment. It's not cold because he accidentally left the heat on in his morning rush so there's not that desire to dive into the blankets or run under a hot shower after he discards his coat.
After the door slams and the deadbolts click into place, he decides he's going to tell Jaehyo even without a nice dinner to do so over that he's been offered a promotion. He needs to get it over with. He's making too big of a deal out of this anyway. Even if he takes the promotion and becomes manager, he can still quit any time and chase after that life he envisioned for himself when he was years younger and still in school. Nothing's set in stone.
Kyung drops the keys into the ceramic bowl his niece made for them in her grade school art class. The sound echoes through the empty apartment and seemingly tells Kyung what he doesn't want to hear: emptiness. It tells him as a sort of echo of his own thoughts that even though things aren't set in stone, he doesn't have that much mobility either. This is more or less his life.
The thought stays with him as he changes into more comfortable clothes, throwing the dirty ones into the hamper that is already full.
The sofa sighs when he sinks into it, the tv whines when he turns it on, the laptop creaks when he flips it open. Kyung just finds it all so distastefully mediocre.
He tucks his feet into his sweatpants because the cold starts to set in despite the heater being on; even the cup of hot tea he’s nursing isn’t enough to warm him up, and it's like this that Kyung dozes off half complacent with the cold.
Jaehyo turns in around the time the infomercials begin, which Kyung had resorted to watching because he got sick of all the melodrama on primetime TV.
"I got bread!" He says a bit too loudly before he realizes Kyung had been asleep. He sets the plastic bag down gently on the counter and begins shedding his outerwear.
"It's late..." Kyung stirs. He squints at the TV through his bleary eyes, trying to decipher the time.
“I’m so sorry. The client just insisted and we really needed a deal with this one.” Jaehyo apologizes as he leans in for a kiss. Kyung grimaces apologetically afterwards because he realizes he hasn't brushed his teeth in a while and his body is covered with evidence of his late night snacking.
Despite that, Jaehyo, body languid and a little uncoordinated, still climbs over the back of the couch and settles into the spaces between Kyung and the cushion that he fits snuggly into.
“How was dinner?” He asks once they're face to face.
"It was good. How was yours?"
Jaehyo's answer comes in the form of slowly bringing Kyung's lips to his. Kyung finds himself tracing the contours he already knows by heart and tasting the lingering remnants of tequila and lime; his fingers absentmindedly find that soft spot behind Jaehyo's ears, which elicits an inaudible sigh from Jaehyo that ghosts over Kyung's bottom lip.
In the background he can still hear the dull hum of the television, or maybe it's the heater.
"I missed you today." Jaehyo says with rather difficulty with Kyung’s tongue in his mouth. It sounds less like “I missed you today” and more like a messy string of syllables only Park Kyung can decipher.
“On a scale of one to drunk, how much have you been drinking?”
Jaehyo pretends to think about it. “Five.”
He smiles and Kyung swears he hears a giggle as Jaehyo traces the veins on his neck down to the dips of his collarbones, which Jaehyo exposes with an effective tug of Kyung’s t-shirt (technically Jaehyo's t-shirt). Kyung, with difficulty, pushes him up.
“Ok good because I want you to remember what I’m going to say next.”
The corners of Jaehyo’s mouth turn upwards, his mind already churning its gears to anticipate what Kyung could possibly say.
“Mhmm... I'll remember.” Jaehyo smiles against his skin near his neck. His hand travels down the the planes of Kyung’s stomach and end up at the drawstrings of his sweatpants which Jaehyo begins to play with, winding and unwinding the cotton around his fingers.
Kyung reaches down to grip Jaehyo’s wrist.
“I-um...” Kyung begins very tentatively. Jaehyo looks up with a hazy sort of gaze and kisses Kyung again, biting lightly on his lower lip. His hands move from hovering above the drawstrings of his sweatpants to slipping under Kyung's t-shirt, inching back up his stomach, and tracing the sensitive skin there.
Its not really Jaehyo's attempt at distracting him, its more just Kyung can't spit it out, as if what he is about to say would change their lives in some dramatic way. The thing is, it doesn't. If anything, it means their lives aren't going to change very much at all. Sometimes that's even scarier.
"I-I'm getting promoted."
Jaehyo possibly smiles wider than Kyung expected. He expected support. He expected Jaehyo not to fully understand his dilemma over the promotion.
"Congrats."
"I mean it's not p-permanent, yet." Kyung blinks at Jaehyo, who is now positioned on top of him, "I haven't officially accepted."
He turns his head towards the TV to watch some lady try and sell an all-in-one juicer and blender.
"I was giving it some thought."
"What are you waiting for," Jaehyo takes advantage of Kyung's turned neck to suck at the exposed skin, "this is exciting news."
"Well..." He thinks about the ambitions holding him back and how this one isn't exactly the one he had been planning for. "Yeah... maybe..."
Sometime later after they've relocated to the bed, Jaehyo snakes an arm around Kyung's waist and pulls him close. His fingers gingerly trace the dips of Kyung's bare hips as he murmurs, "I know this might not be what you had in mind, but I'm glad this, what ever it is, happened."
Kyung relaxes his eyelids, slows his breath, and lazily shifts his leg for the added effect. He's quite good at pretending to be asleep.
#
"That smells burnt." Kyung says as he rubs the sleep from his eyes. He stretches his foot out from underneath the duvet to test the temperature.
"Well yes it is but only because I was busy making all of this." Jaehyp gestures to the tray containing unburnt breakfast items on the night stand. "Wanted to make up for missing dinner plans."
Jaehyo scratches at that spot behind his own ear. "What do you want to do today?"
"You don't have work?" Kyung squints up at Jaehyo. The morning light is s little bright but it plays off Jaehyo's features nicely.
"Yukwon can handle it. I need a day off once in a while. It's been a hectic year." Jaehyo sits with his back leaning against Kyung's side of the bed. "What do you want to do?"
Kyung smiles. "But why are you doing this?"
"To celebrate! You got promoted." Jaehyo tilts his head back over the edge of the bed to look at Kyung. "Every milestone should be celebrated, so use your new managerial powers and take a day off as well--"
"I don't know..."
"--Oh right we also need to shop for a new alarm clock."
"--and it also snowed last night. I know you hate the cold, but you might just have to deal for at least half an hour. I already dug out your snow pants from the closet. So we're going out there. Preferably before noon."
Maybe the smell of burnt toast is getting to him, but Kyung settles back into the blankets and smiles. This is the way life happens, isn't it? In the way that it doesn’t really at all. It's never been about doing something remarkable, necessarily. For Kyung, it's about accepting mediocrity and celebrating trivial milestones like accomplishments, anniversaries, half-anniversaries, birthdays, and half-birthdays; because this kind of mediocrity is the best thing that has ever happened to him.
"How about we start with a bath? It's freezing." Kyung shifts his body ninety degrees so that he can rest the soles of his feet against the top of Jaehyo's head.
"Says the one wrapped up in thousand thread count sheets and a down feather duvet."
"Mhmm," he massages his toes on Jaehyo's scalp, "but your head is warmer than either of those things."
"Are you indirectly saying I'm a hot head?"
"I'm saying you're warm and I like you."
"You better. I made you breakfast."
"Breakfast that's only 70% edible."
"Better than nothing."
In every sense, this is the life Park Kyung never dreamed he would end up having.
a/n: this is probably not what you wanted at all ;_; i sort of just took the domestic prompt and ran with it (domestic jaekyung is just kind of where my brain has been swimming lately) and i almost feel like it was a cop out, since you had other more detailed prompts and i used the least detailed one ;_; my first choice was doing some sort of summery sea world thing, but i was stuck on it for quite a while and came up with something much too late to have time to write it.
i just want to apologize everywhere. i will be willing to finish summer sea world if you would like after reveals ;_;
(also my knowledge of lawyers and lawsuits only extends as far as suits and the social network. taeil's lawsuit is obviously borrowed heavily from TSN, just to note.)
i hope you will still have a wonderful holiday and happy 2013 ;_;