They Were Not Friends
rating: pg
genre: high school!au
pairing: kai/do
length: oneshot
word count: ~4k w
summary: It all started when Jongin was seven and Kyungsoo was five.
They Were not Friends
A story by Yoonis
It all started when Jongin was seven and Kyungsoo was five. Jongin was new to the neighborhood and made it very clear that he didn’t need any help rolling his bicycle from the truck to the garage, and Kyungsoo just could not take a hint. And Jongin’s dad was of no help either, saying that Kyungsoo was just being friendly. Ever since then, Jongin didn’t trust Kyungsoo or his eyes or his dimples when he smiled or the sweaters he wore with parrots printed on the front even in the middle of summer. He didn’t trust Kyungsoo one bit.
They were not friends.
--
Kyungsoo was just always around.
He knocked on Jongin’s door more than the actual people who lived in his new house-which he was still trying to convince his dad of being evil and needed exorcimismsm, or whatever the adults called it so that he could move back to their old apartment in the city.
Kyungsoo visited every day, never without a toy or food in his hands, and he’d ruin Jongin’s pristinely made bed or touch his things and Jongin. Didn’t. Like it. And he asked too many questions, “hyung, do you like scary movies?” and then answer them himself, “I don’t.”
He would chase Kyungsoo out, only to have the kid come back the next day. It was like having a little brother that he never asked for.
--
When they were older, Jongin teased Kyungsoo about puberty only taking heed of his eyes because they seemed to be the only thing about him that was growing. Kyungsoo tried tape, his mother’s eyeliner, even cold spoons, but none would hinder the owlish nature of his eyes.
He told his mother, “If my eyes don’t get smaller, Jongin will never like me!”
And when his mother merely smiled and said that that could not be far from the truth, Kyungsoo drew more thick black under his eyes and said, “You don’t understand.”
--
When Jongin entered high school, everyone started calling him Kai. Kyungsoo wasn’t sure if he liked Kai very much. Kai was a cruel freshman who laughed at his sneakers and hid his bag just to impress his friends. He took every opportunity he could to make Kyungsoo’s remaining middle school years hell, and he didn’t know how to stop it. He knew that he always had the option to battle Jongin with intimate details that he knew about him, like how he wet the bed well into his teens, and that he still had the same bed sheets as he did when they were children, but he kept quiet and just avoided Jongin instead.
So Kyungsoo didn’t stop by his house anymore.
They were never really friends anyway.
--
When Kyungsoo was finally a freshman in high school and Kai was a junior, he tried to sit by his hyung’s side during lunch. He thought that maybe now, they were on some sort of middle ground, and he was no longer chasing after Kai.
Kai let the first time slide. But he didn’t speak to Kyungsoo even when he tried to make conversation. He didn’t even look at his friends when they snickered behind their hands every time Kyungsoo spoke. He knew that Kyungsoo didn’t belong anywhere that he was, and he didn’t want Kyungsoo to fool himself into thinking that he was.
It was the happiest that Kyungsoo had ever been in a while. Even better than the time his parents got him his first guitar. It was the first time that he had been in the same room with Jongin in a long time, and he noticed all of the subtle changes. Jongin wore his hair differently now, with observably more product, and he switched his cologne to something similar to what his dad wore.
“You look different now, hyung.”
Jongin gave his parrot sweater a look, rolled his eyes and sipped his water. “You didn’t age at all.”
He thought about it all day, Jongin’s cologne. He thought about the places on his body where Kyungsoo could smell it the most. There was a lot on his neck, Kyungsoo thought. Maybe somewhere behind his ear. He wondered if Jongin was still sensitive in that area. If when he sprayed cologne there, did he flinch or make a face. He smiled at the mental image, thinking that he probably did.
--
The next day, when Kyungsoo tried to sit down with Kai and his friends, Kai rolled his eyes and told him to eat somewhere else. To this, Kyunsoo was confused. “Did I do something wrong?”
“Just go over to that table, Kyungsoo. No one’s sitting there, see?”
“But… I want to sit with you.”
Kai’s friends mimicked his weak voice, laughed when he didn’t say anything against it and just walked off. Kai didn’t want anything to do with him, and he knew all of that from the very beginning. He just wondered how much of Jongin really meant all of those things.
--
Jongin didn’t see Kyungsoo around much after the previous day. Not even during lunch. He wasn’t worried or anything. It’s just that his mom and Kyungsoo’s mom were friends since they first moved, and he sometimes hears their conversation on the phone when he happens to pick it up by complete accident.
Kyungsoo wasn’t doing very well, apparently. He was eating less and he slept most of the day. His mother was worried. And so was Jongin’s mother.
When Jongin’s mom knocked on his door that same night, he thought that Kyungsoo had said something about the other day and that he was in trouble. But all his mother said was, “Jongin, would you mind spending some time with Kyungsoo during the weekend. I know you might have plans, but his mother is worried that he isn’t doing well in school. He’s such a nice kid. Maybe you could talk to him and find out why he’s been acting distant.”
Jongin even surprised himself when he just nodded and turned back to face his laptop.
--
Jongin had never been inside Kyungsoo’s house before, he realized as he was shown to his room by his mom. She knocked on Kyungsoo’s door, not getting a response. This must have been a normal occurrence recently because all she did was knock again and say that Jongin was there to see him.
Suddenly, Kyungsoo’s muffled voice could be heard from the other side. “Jongin hyung?”
His mother confirmed, and minutes later Kyungsoo opened the door in another one of his hideous parrot sweaters.
“I’ll leave you two to it, then.” Kyungsoo’s mother walked off before either of them could protest. Jongin saw the look of terror on Kyungsoo’s face, and it was evident that he was both shocked and horrified to be in the same space as Jongin again.
“Why are you here?” Kyungsoo asked.
“My mom made me come,” was Jongin’s immediate response.
“Oh.” Kyungsoo sounded disappointed. “That’s nice of her. You can let her know I’m okay.”
Jongin used his hand to stop the door when Kyungsoo was about to close it. “Hey.”
“What, hyung.”
Jongin had never heard him speak so flatly, like he was finally tired. Jongin should have been happy about this because he had accomplished what he had set out to do since he was seven, which was to get Kyungsoo off of his back. “I wanted to apologize.”
“It’s fine.”
“No. No, it’s not fine. My friends are jerks. I’m a jerk.”
Kyungsoo looked down at his feet. He wanted to deny it, like he did many times when he was defending Jongin to the students who would say that he was a jerk. But he also agreed with it right now, and he had no desire to lie to Jongin. “Why do you hang out with those guys?”
“When I was younger, I thought they were funny,” was the best reply Jongin could give him.
Kyungsoo didn’t want to keep him and be even more of a bother. For a while, Kyungsoo was certain that he didn’t mind being a bothersome thorn in Jongin’s life, thinking that maybe he’d come around one day. But he didn’t want this at all. He didn’t want pity. “Okay, well. Thank you for coming.”
“What is that?” Jongin kept his hands behind his back the whole time, except for when he pointed at the box that he saw over Kyungsoo’s shoulder.
“I ordered a series of old comic books. They’re for my English. And so that I could read comic books while studying.”
“Good call.” Jongin smiled.
It made Kyungsoo’s face feel warm. “Would… would you like to see?”
Jongin just blinked for a few beats after that. And just when Kyungsoo was ready to lie and say he was just kidding and that Jongin should head home, he stepped inside Kyungsoo’s room and shut the door behind him.
--
Suddenly, it was nearly dinner time, and Jongin already said that he’d stay for dinner. Even when they have had three bags of chips too many, and Jongin was getting crumbs everywhere as he sat on Kyungsoo’s bed, sketching him the younger boy while he read his comic books out loud. Jongin wore the first parrot sweater that he saw Kyungsoo in when he was seven and the other was five.
It was tight and shrunken on Jongin, but he didn’t mind that it showed his belly and looked like a quarter sleeve nap shirt. It was hilarious. Kyungsoo thought so, too.
“I’m done.”
Kyungsoo stopped reading when Jongin turned over his artwork. And Kyungsoo quickly balled the sketch and threw it at Jongin’s laughing face when all he saw were two golf ball-sized eyes drawn on a very small face, and nothing else.
Jongin and Kyungsoo were stuck doing the dishes after dinner. As Kyungsoo walked past to the dish rack, he blew lightly at the back of Jongin’s ear.
The older boy made a face paired with an ack that reverberated off the tiles of the kitchen. He twisted the dish rag and whipped Kyungsoo with it. “What’s wrong with you?”
Kyungsoo merely laughed and continued to help him.
--
Kyungsoo was still worried when he went to school the next day. He had a great time with Jongin last weekend, but lord knows that his hyung was unpredictable.
He was on his way to the library, head tilted down. Something grazed the tip of his nose, two fingers lightly gliding along the slope. That made Kyungsoo stop in his tracks. He spun on his heel, in search of the perpetrator.
He didn’t have to look far. Because just a few feet away, Jongin spun around, too, walking backwards as he beamed at Kyungsoo and waved.
Kyungsoo couldn’t stop smiling for the entire day.
--
Kyungsoo thought that if Jongin just knew how they were meant to be friends, and how they would have so much fun together, he’d finally be satisfied. He was greatly mistaken.
Because the closer they got, the more Kyungsoo familiarized himself with the longing he felt in his chest. And it revolved around one very simple form of release: a kiss. He wanted to kiss Jongin. He wanted to kiss the living shit out of Jongin. He wanted to kiss Jongin until they were both out of breath and had forgotten their names. He wanted to kiss Jongin everywhere, all the time, and it was evolving into inconvenient levels.
Because Jongin would sleep over and change clothes in front of him, and Kyungsoo would get red in the face and iffy in the pants and he felt like he was betraying Jongin’s trust. There were times when he would think that he was okay. He would give himself a pep talk every morning in the mirror, or hours before Jongin showed up to hang out, and he’d tell himself that he didn’t want those things, that he was confused and lost and that Jongin was just growing up to be a very beautiful man.
Really. Beautiful.
Like, a lot.
--
And just when Kyungsoo thought that this could not possibly get any worse, Jongin came to his house one day and chirped, “I finally made it on the team!”
“Huh?”
“Soccer team! Go Black Hawks!”
“First string?”
“First string!”
Kyungsoo was ready for a handshake. He was not ready for a full on body hug with body shaking and being lifted off the floor and thrown on the bed. So, of course, Jongin just had to do the latter. It was so much worse than Kyungsoo thought, too. Because Jongin was just so close that Kyungsoo could smell something garlic-y in his breath and mint from his hair and sweat from his pores all at once.
He kicked Jongin off of him and off the bed. Jongin fell on the floor with a resounding thud, laughing when he shot up, “Why’d you do that? Do you wanna die?”
In your arms, yeah… Kyungsoo hated his own thoughts, hated himself, hated Jongin. He kicked his knee and marched downstairs, leaving his best friend to limp after him with promises of Kyungsoo’s murder.
--
And it got even worse when Jongin began playing soccer. Not just because the sight of Jongin determined and glistening in sweat was sweet, sweet, torture, but because Jongin was visibly getting darker. His skin was adopting a caramel shade that drove Kyungsoo up the walls. Everything he did was just adding to the masterpiece that he already was. And every time it was all too much, Kyungsoo just took to kicking Jongin’s knee. And all of this time, Jongin thought it was because he did something that was too dorky even for Kyungsoo, and dubbed the kick well-deserved.
He had no idea what those kicks entailed, how they were more from the bottom of Kyungsoo’s heart than anything that he had ever done or said.
--
It was confusing, to say the least. There were days when Kyungsoo was convinced that Jongin belonged with him. Not in an obsessive kind of way. He didn’t want Jongin as a boyfriend, he didn’t want to force Jongin into committing, not when he belonged to everyone who was ever friendly to him.
His smile wasn’t difficult to acquire, and his company wasn’t something he deprived of people. Jongin was friends with everyone and everyone was in love with him. Maybe not in the way Kyungsoo was, but in some capacity, they were. He was beyond Kyungsoo’s reach. To dream of him was to dream of something far greater than eternal fame or wealth. Kyungsoo didn’t dare to dream.
There came a time, in the blur of their friendship, in which it became painful just to be around him. He never understood what it meant to be so close yet so far from someone at the same time until he met Jongin.
Kyungsoo decided that a little distance would do them both some good. He started small. Pillows placed between them when they would sleep in one bed. Jongin didn’t question it, he didn’t mind. From there, he began making up excuses to not hangout. He didn’t run out. The one advantage of school was being able to use it as a reason for isolation.
Again, Jongin let it go. He was getting busy, too, now that he was a senior. Then, Kyungsoo just stopped returning his texts. And instant messages online. And gradually, he was able to find ways to avoid him in school.
It wasn’t easy for him either. Especially when he would sometimes peek at the corner of the hallway and find Jongin waiting at his locker for him. He was a jerk, too, when he wanted to be.
--
One thing that Kyungsoo didn’t think through was the school fair.
He had been staying in school until eleven at night helping with the decorations as well as the preparations for the haunted house, and the lack of sleep had gotten to him, created a chink in his plan.
When Jongin came marching into the classroom where Kyungsoo was guarding the ticket station for the haunted house, he did try to hide. But he was much too late. He made a quick escape into the darkened haunted house, thinking that he’d dodge Jongin, not at all considering the fact that Jongin could just walk in and follow him.
“Where have you been?”
“What? What do you mean? I’ve been guarding the ticket booth.”
Even in the darkness, as the students passed between them, Kyungsoo could detect his grimace. “Why are you lying to me?”
Since when was Kim Jongin this insightful? “I really was busy. And still am.”
“But that’s not all,” Jongin paused when another set of students had to pass by them to enter the haunted house, which he wanted to compliment Kyungsoo on for the job well done, but didn’t want to lose his train of thought, “and I know there’s something else. Sehun saw you the other night at the mall.”
“So?”
“So, I called you that night asking to come over, but you said you’d be in school.”
“I… I was going to go to school. I was on my way.”
“Stop lying to me. What am I missing here?”
Kyungsoo, also getting deeply frustrated because he was being squeezed dry, held his arms open as though saying that he had nothing else to give. Which was partly true. He had watched Jongin grow and had loved every stage of the metamorphosis and he hadn’t slept properly in weeks, and he was just shutting down. “I don’t know what else you want to hear.”
“I still know you’re lying to me.”
Kyungsoo dropped his hands, weak and worn out. He shook his head, out of words, so afraid that he’d either faint or admit the truth, both prospects looking dim and unappealing.
“So that’s it? After all of these years, you just drop me out of your life? It’s that easy?”
Kyungsoo stopped talking, merely staring at Jongin now as he wore his hurt just as beautifully as everything else.
“You were nothing like I thought you were. I don’t understand any of this, but I hope that whatever it is that you’re not telling me is worth all of this. Because I tried, Kyungsoo. And I’m glad I did. I like being your friend. But I sure as hell am not taking your shit anymore.”
That had Kyungsoo’s blood rushing to his face, anger bubbling. “My shit? What about me have you ever had to put up with that kept you up at night?”
“This! This-whatever this is! This makes you a bad person. Who does this? Do you even know what you did to me?”
Kyungsoo’s voice was just a bit higher in comparison. “Do you know what you did to me?!”
And Jongin matches it, veins etched along the sides of his neck. “No! Because you won’t tell me!”
Kyungsoo charged after him and shoved him hard. Which earned him a shove right back. To which he retaliated with another shove, pushing Jongin to the wall where the toy spiders dangled by thin threads. Kyungsoo threw the first punch, hard enough to knock Jongin to the side where he had to cling to the black curtains that weren’t supported as well as they should have. Everything came crashing down.
--
Jongin had an even fatter lip by the time they were seated outside of the prefect of discipline’s office. He pressed a cold bag to the side of his mouth while Kyungsoo stared blankly at the clock, exhaustion weighing heavy on his body, even when his head was light, like it was disembodied and floating away.
Jongin dropped the cold bag on his lap, breathing raggedly, his left leg bouncing up and down as they waited. He wasn’t mad anymore and neither was Kyungsoo.
After a heavy exhale, Jongin ventured, “I just… need to know why-“
“I’m in love with you,” Kyungsoo said without blinking, “but I’m working on it. So don’t worry about it.”
The prefect came out of her office and called Kyungsoo inside. Just as Kyungsoo stood up, he felt as though the weight of those words left him the moment he said it, and transferred to Jongin who could only blink at the chair he sat in.
--
Kyungsoo wore a sign around his head that read “No Talking” in red ink as he kneeled on one side of the empty hallway of the school on a beautiful Saturday morning. He had his arms outstretched, and two books stacked on top. He had just a few more minutes left out of his forty minutes of the first half of his punishment.
He was reading the cover of the book over and over when he heard footsteps heading his way. He quickly snapped his gaze back up, assuming the proper position that his teacher asked him to do so he wouldn’t be given any more time.
Kyungsoo exhaled in relief when he saw that it was just Jongin who stopped beside him to check up on him. He crouched to level with Kyungsoo, taking out a bottle of power ginseng from his bag and settling it next to his knee.
“Mrs. Cho told me that you took all the blame.”
Kyungsoo bumped his chest out a bit to point out the sign that he was wearing.
Jongin grinned. “Yeah, that actually works well for me.”
Jongin took out the books from Kyungsoo’s arms one by one, ignoring the look of dread on his face. With his arms outstretched, it didn’t take much effort for Jongin to maneuver them into a hug. Kyungsoo, true to his punishment, didn’t move. He was breathing with a lot of effort and his heart rate was going higher the longer they hugged.
But then, Jongin did something amazing. He leaned back, searched Kyungsoo’s face, and before Kyungsoo could warn him off, Jongin planted one kiss each on both his eyes before pressing his bruised lips gently against Kyungsoo’s dry ones. It was awkward, inexperienced, unsure, but it was enough to get Kyungsoo to wrap his arms around Jongin’s waist and close his eyes. It was even better when he cut out the other senses. When he couldn’t see, or hear, or smell, his sensations were dominant.
By the time Jongin leaned back again, Kyungsoo took a big gulp of air, looking like he was ready to faint.
“I’ll see you when you get home.” Jongin stood up, helped Kyungsoo’s arms back into position so that he could stack the books on top again, a small smile on his swollen lip. While Kyungsoo could only allow him to guide him whichever way he wanted because he could only stare in awe.
He watched Jongin walk to the end of the hall and disappear around the corner. He dropped the books then, breathed deep with his palms on the floor.
“Do Kyungsoo, that’s five more minutes.” He hadn’t realized that the teacher was right on the other end of the hall, watching pointing at him accusingly.
“What, no, I-“
“Wanna make it ten?”
He shook his head, fighting back a laugh when he placed the books over his arms, failing the first time, and stared straight ahead.
*masterficlist | tumblr | twitter | comment here to be added
--Some fluff for you guys. i just had this image of them hugging in the middle of
an empty hall and felt compelled to turn it into a fic.
genre: high school!au
pairing: kai/do
length: oneshot
word count: ~4k w
summary: It all started when Jongin was seven and Kyungsoo was five.
They Were not Friends
A story by Yoonis
It all started when Jongin was seven and Kyungsoo was five. Jongin was new to the neighborhood and made it very clear that he didn’t need any help rolling his bicycle from the truck to the garage, and Kyungsoo just could not take a hint. And Jongin’s dad was of no help either, saying that Kyungsoo was just being friendly. Ever since then, Jongin didn’t trust Kyungsoo or his eyes or his dimples when he smiled or the sweaters he wore with parrots printed on the front even in the middle of summer. He didn’t trust Kyungsoo one bit.
They were not friends.
--
Kyungsoo was just always around.
He knocked on Jongin’s door more than the actual people who lived in his new house-which he was still trying to convince his dad of being evil and needed exorcimismsm, or whatever the adults called it so that he could move back to their old apartment in the city.
Kyungsoo visited every day, never without a toy or food in his hands, and he’d ruin Jongin’s pristinely made bed or touch his things and Jongin. Didn’t. Like it. And he asked too many questions, “hyung, do you like scary movies?” and then answer them himself, “I don’t.”
He would chase Kyungsoo out, only to have the kid come back the next day. It was like having a little brother that he never asked for.
--
When they were older, Jongin teased Kyungsoo about puberty only taking heed of his eyes because they seemed to be the only thing about him that was growing. Kyungsoo tried tape, his mother’s eyeliner, even cold spoons, but none would hinder the owlish nature of his eyes.
He told his mother, “If my eyes don’t get smaller, Jongin will never like me!”
And when his mother merely smiled and said that that could not be far from the truth, Kyungsoo drew more thick black under his eyes and said, “You don’t understand.”
--
When Jongin entered high school, everyone started calling him Kai. Kyungsoo wasn’t sure if he liked Kai very much. Kai was a cruel freshman who laughed at his sneakers and hid his bag just to impress his friends. He took every opportunity he could to make Kyungsoo’s remaining middle school years hell, and he didn’t know how to stop it. He knew that he always had the option to battle Jongin with intimate details that he knew about him, like how he wet the bed well into his teens, and that he still had the same bed sheets as he did when they were children, but he kept quiet and just avoided Jongin instead.
So Kyungsoo didn’t stop by his house anymore.
They were never really friends anyway.
--
When Kyungsoo was finally a freshman in high school and Kai was a junior, he tried to sit by his hyung’s side during lunch. He thought that maybe now, they were on some sort of middle ground, and he was no longer chasing after Kai.
Kai let the first time slide. But he didn’t speak to Kyungsoo even when he tried to make conversation. He didn’t even look at his friends when they snickered behind their hands every time Kyungsoo spoke. He knew that Kyungsoo didn’t belong anywhere that he was, and he didn’t want Kyungsoo to fool himself into thinking that he was.
It was the happiest that Kyungsoo had ever been in a while. Even better than the time his parents got him his first guitar. It was the first time that he had been in the same room with Jongin in a long time, and he noticed all of the subtle changes. Jongin wore his hair differently now, with observably more product, and he switched his cologne to something similar to what his dad wore.
“You look different now, hyung.”
Jongin gave his parrot sweater a look, rolled his eyes and sipped his water. “You didn’t age at all.”
He thought about it all day, Jongin’s cologne. He thought about the places on his body where Kyungsoo could smell it the most. There was a lot on his neck, Kyungsoo thought. Maybe somewhere behind his ear. He wondered if Jongin was still sensitive in that area. If when he sprayed cologne there, did he flinch or make a face. He smiled at the mental image, thinking that he probably did.
--
The next day, when Kyungsoo tried to sit down with Kai and his friends, Kai rolled his eyes and told him to eat somewhere else. To this, Kyunsoo was confused. “Did I do something wrong?”
“Just go over to that table, Kyungsoo. No one’s sitting there, see?”
“But… I want to sit with you.”
Kai’s friends mimicked his weak voice, laughed when he didn’t say anything against it and just walked off. Kai didn’t want anything to do with him, and he knew all of that from the very beginning. He just wondered how much of Jongin really meant all of those things.
--
Jongin didn’t see Kyungsoo around much after the previous day. Not even during lunch. He wasn’t worried or anything. It’s just that his mom and Kyungsoo’s mom were friends since they first moved, and he sometimes hears their conversation on the phone when he happens to pick it up by complete accident.
Kyungsoo wasn’t doing very well, apparently. He was eating less and he slept most of the day. His mother was worried. And so was Jongin’s mother.
When Jongin’s mom knocked on his door that same night, he thought that Kyungsoo had said something about the other day and that he was in trouble. But all his mother said was, “Jongin, would you mind spending some time with Kyungsoo during the weekend. I know you might have plans, but his mother is worried that he isn’t doing well in school. He’s such a nice kid. Maybe you could talk to him and find out why he’s been acting distant.”
Jongin even surprised himself when he just nodded and turned back to face his laptop.
--
Jongin had never been inside Kyungsoo’s house before, he realized as he was shown to his room by his mom. She knocked on Kyungsoo’s door, not getting a response. This must have been a normal occurrence recently because all she did was knock again and say that Jongin was there to see him.
Suddenly, Kyungsoo’s muffled voice could be heard from the other side. “Jongin hyung?”
His mother confirmed, and minutes later Kyungsoo opened the door in another one of his hideous parrot sweaters.
“I’ll leave you two to it, then.” Kyungsoo’s mother walked off before either of them could protest. Jongin saw the look of terror on Kyungsoo’s face, and it was evident that he was both shocked and horrified to be in the same space as Jongin again.
“Why are you here?” Kyungsoo asked.
“My mom made me come,” was Jongin’s immediate response.
“Oh.” Kyungsoo sounded disappointed. “That’s nice of her. You can let her know I’m okay.”
Jongin used his hand to stop the door when Kyungsoo was about to close it. “Hey.”
“What, hyung.”
Jongin had never heard him speak so flatly, like he was finally tired. Jongin should have been happy about this because he had accomplished what he had set out to do since he was seven, which was to get Kyungsoo off of his back. “I wanted to apologize.”
“It’s fine.”
“No. No, it’s not fine. My friends are jerks. I’m a jerk.”
Kyungsoo looked down at his feet. He wanted to deny it, like he did many times when he was defending Jongin to the students who would say that he was a jerk. But he also agreed with it right now, and he had no desire to lie to Jongin. “Why do you hang out with those guys?”
“When I was younger, I thought they were funny,” was the best reply Jongin could give him.
Kyungsoo didn’t want to keep him and be even more of a bother. For a while, Kyungsoo was certain that he didn’t mind being a bothersome thorn in Jongin’s life, thinking that maybe he’d come around one day. But he didn’t want this at all. He didn’t want pity. “Okay, well. Thank you for coming.”
“What is that?” Jongin kept his hands behind his back the whole time, except for when he pointed at the box that he saw over Kyungsoo’s shoulder.
“I ordered a series of old comic books. They’re for my English. And so that I could read comic books while studying.”
“Good call.” Jongin smiled.
It made Kyungsoo’s face feel warm. “Would… would you like to see?”
Jongin just blinked for a few beats after that. And just when Kyungsoo was ready to lie and say he was just kidding and that Jongin should head home, he stepped inside Kyungsoo’s room and shut the door behind him.
--
Suddenly, it was nearly dinner time, and Jongin already said that he’d stay for dinner. Even when they have had three bags of chips too many, and Jongin was getting crumbs everywhere as he sat on Kyungsoo’s bed, sketching him the younger boy while he read his comic books out loud. Jongin wore the first parrot sweater that he saw Kyungsoo in when he was seven and the other was five.
It was tight and shrunken on Jongin, but he didn’t mind that it showed his belly and looked like a quarter sleeve nap shirt. It was hilarious. Kyungsoo thought so, too.
“I’m done.”
Kyungsoo stopped reading when Jongin turned over his artwork. And Kyungsoo quickly balled the sketch and threw it at Jongin’s laughing face when all he saw were two golf ball-sized eyes drawn on a very small face, and nothing else.
Jongin and Kyungsoo were stuck doing the dishes after dinner. As Kyungsoo walked past to the dish rack, he blew lightly at the back of Jongin’s ear.
The older boy made a face paired with an ack that reverberated off the tiles of the kitchen. He twisted the dish rag and whipped Kyungsoo with it. “What’s wrong with you?”
Kyungsoo merely laughed and continued to help him.
--
Kyungsoo was still worried when he went to school the next day. He had a great time with Jongin last weekend, but lord knows that his hyung was unpredictable.
He was on his way to the library, head tilted down. Something grazed the tip of his nose, two fingers lightly gliding along the slope. That made Kyungsoo stop in his tracks. He spun on his heel, in search of the perpetrator.
He didn’t have to look far. Because just a few feet away, Jongin spun around, too, walking backwards as he beamed at Kyungsoo and waved.
Kyungsoo couldn’t stop smiling for the entire day.
--
Kyungsoo thought that if Jongin just knew how they were meant to be friends, and how they would have so much fun together, he’d finally be satisfied. He was greatly mistaken.
Because the closer they got, the more Kyungsoo familiarized himself with the longing he felt in his chest. And it revolved around one very simple form of release: a kiss. He wanted to kiss Jongin. He wanted to kiss the living shit out of Jongin. He wanted to kiss Jongin until they were both out of breath and had forgotten their names. He wanted to kiss Jongin everywhere, all the time, and it was evolving into inconvenient levels.
Because Jongin would sleep over and change clothes in front of him, and Kyungsoo would get red in the face and iffy in the pants and he felt like he was betraying Jongin’s trust. There were times when he would think that he was okay. He would give himself a pep talk every morning in the mirror, or hours before Jongin showed up to hang out, and he’d tell himself that he didn’t want those things, that he was confused and lost and that Jongin was just growing up to be a very beautiful man.
Really. Beautiful.
Like, a lot.
--
And just when Kyungsoo thought that this could not possibly get any worse, Jongin came to his house one day and chirped, “I finally made it on the team!”
“Huh?”
“Soccer team! Go Black Hawks!”
“First string?”
“First string!”
Kyungsoo was ready for a handshake. He was not ready for a full on body hug with body shaking and being lifted off the floor and thrown on the bed. So, of course, Jongin just had to do the latter. It was so much worse than Kyungsoo thought, too. Because Jongin was just so close that Kyungsoo could smell something garlic-y in his breath and mint from his hair and sweat from his pores all at once.
He kicked Jongin off of him and off the bed. Jongin fell on the floor with a resounding thud, laughing when he shot up, “Why’d you do that? Do you wanna die?”
In your arms, yeah… Kyungsoo hated his own thoughts, hated himself, hated Jongin. He kicked his knee and marched downstairs, leaving his best friend to limp after him with promises of Kyungsoo’s murder.
--
And it got even worse when Jongin began playing soccer. Not just because the sight of Jongin determined and glistening in sweat was sweet, sweet, torture, but because Jongin was visibly getting darker. His skin was adopting a caramel shade that drove Kyungsoo up the walls. Everything he did was just adding to the masterpiece that he already was. And every time it was all too much, Kyungsoo just took to kicking Jongin’s knee. And all of this time, Jongin thought it was because he did something that was too dorky even for Kyungsoo, and dubbed the kick well-deserved.
He had no idea what those kicks entailed, how they were more from the bottom of Kyungsoo’s heart than anything that he had ever done or said.
--
It was confusing, to say the least. There were days when Kyungsoo was convinced that Jongin belonged with him. Not in an obsessive kind of way. He didn’t want Jongin as a boyfriend, he didn’t want to force Jongin into committing, not when he belonged to everyone who was ever friendly to him.
His smile wasn’t difficult to acquire, and his company wasn’t something he deprived of people. Jongin was friends with everyone and everyone was in love with him. Maybe not in the way Kyungsoo was, but in some capacity, they were. He was beyond Kyungsoo’s reach. To dream of him was to dream of something far greater than eternal fame or wealth. Kyungsoo didn’t dare to dream.
There came a time, in the blur of their friendship, in which it became painful just to be around him. He never understood what it meant to be so close yet so far from someone at the same time until he met Jongin.
Kyungsoo decided that a little distance would do them both some good. He started small. Pillows placed between them when they would sleep in one bed. Jongin didn’t question it, he didn’t mind. From there, he began making up excuses to not hangout. He didn’t run out. The one advantage of school was being able to use it as a reason for isolation.
Again, Jongin let it go. He was getting busy, too, now that he was a senior. Then, Kyungsoo just stopped returning his texts. And instant messages online. And gradually, he was able to find ways to avoid him in school.
It wasn’t easy for him either. Especially when he would sometimes peek at the corner of the hallway and find Jongin waiting at his locker for him. He was a jerk, too, when he wanted to be.
--
One thing that Kyungsoo didn’t think through was the school fair.
He had been staying in school until eleven at night helping with the decorations as well as the preparations for the haunted house, and the lack of sleep had gotten to him, created a chink in his plan.
When Jongin came marching into the classroom where Kyungsoo was guarding the ticket station for the haunted house, he did try to hide. But he was much too late. He made a quick escape into the darkened haunted house, thinking that he’d dodge Jongin, not at all considering the fact that Jongin could just walk in and follow him.
“Where have you been?”
“What? What do you mean? I’ve been guarding the ticket booth.”
Even in the darkness, as the students passed between them, Kyungsoo could detect his grimace. “Why are you lying to me?”
Since when was Kim Jongin this insightful? “I really was busy. And still am.”
“But that’s not all,” Jongin paused when another set of students had to pass by them to enter the haunted house, which he wanted to compliment Kyungsoo on for the job well done, but didn’t want to lose his train of thought, “and I know there’s something else. Sehun saw you the other night at the mall.”
“So?”
“So, I called you that night asking to come over, but you said you’d be in school.”
“I… I was going to go to school. I was on my way.”
“Stop lying to me. What am I missing here?”
Kyungsoo, also getting deeply frustrated because he was being squeezed dry, held his arms open as though saying that he had nothing else to give. Which was partly true. He had watched Jongin grow and had loved every stage of the metamorphosis and he hadn’t slept properly in weeks, and he was just shutting down. “I don’t know what else you want to hear.”
“I still know you’re lying to me.”
Kyungsoo dropped his hands, weak and worn out. He shook his head, out of words, so afraid that he’d either faint or admit the truth, both prospects looking dim and unappealing.
“So that’s it? After all of these years, you just drop me out of your life? It’s that easy?”
Kyungsoo stopped talking, merely staring at Jongin now as he wore his hurt just as beautifully as everything else.
“You were nothing like I thought you were. I don’t understand any of this, but I hope that whatever it is that you’re not telling me is worth all of this. Because I tried, Kyungsoo. And I’m glad I did. I like being your friend. But I sure as hell am not taking your shit anymore.”
That had Kyungsoo’s blood rushing to his face, anger bubbling. “My shit? What about me have you ever had to put up with that kept you up at night?”
“This! This-whatever this is! This makes you a bad person. Who does this? Do you even know what you did to me?”
Kyungsoo’s voice was just a bit higher in comparison. “Do you know what you did to me?!”
And Jongin matches it, veins etched along the sides of his neck. “No! Because you won’t tell me!”
Kyungsoo charged after him and shoved him hard. Which earned him a shove right back. To which he retaliated with another shove, pushing Jongin to the wall where the toy spiders dangled by thin threads. Kyungsoo threw the first punch, hard enough to knock Jongin to the side where he had to cling to the black curtains that weren’t supported as well as they should have. Everything came crashing down.
--
Jongin had an even fatter lip by the time they were seated outside of the prefect of discipline’s office. He pressed a cold bag to the side of his mouth while Kyungsoo stared blankly at the clock, exhaustion weighing heavy on his body, even when his head was light, like it was disembodied and floating away.
Jongin dropped the cold bag on his lap, breathing raggedly, his left leg bouncing up and down as they waited. He wasn’t mad anymore and neither was Kyungsoo.
After a heavy exhale, Jongin ventured, “I just… need to know why-“
“I’m in love with you,” Kyungsoo said without blinking, “but I’m working on it. So don’t worry about it.”
The prefect came out of her office and called Kyungsoo inside. Just as Kyungsoo stood up, he felt as though the weight of those words left him the moment he said it, and transferred to Jongin who could only blink at the chair he sat in.
--
Kyungsoo wore a sign around his head that read “No Talking” in red ink as he kneeled on one side of the empty hallway of the school on a beautiful Saturday morning. He had his arms outstretched, and two books stacked on top. He had just a few more minutes left out of his forty minutes of the first half of his punishment.
He was reading the cover of the book over and over when he heard footsteps heading his way. He quickly snapped his gaze back up, assuming the proper position that his teacher asked him to do so he wouldn’t be given any more time.
Kyungsoo exhaled in relief when he saw that it was just Jongin who stopped beside him to check up on him. He crouched to level with Kyungsoo, taking out a bottle of power ginseng from his bag and settling it next to his knee.
“Mrs. Cho told me that you took all the blame.”
Kyungsoo bumped his chest out a bit to point out the sign that he was wearing.
Jongin grinned. “Yeah, that actually works well for me.”
Jongin took out the books from Kyungsoo’s arms one by one, ignoring the look of dread on his face. With his arms outstretched, it didn’t take much effort for Jongin to maneuver them into a hug. Kyungsoo, true to his punishment, didn’t move. He was breathing with a lot of effort and his heart rate was going higher the longer they hugged.
But then, Jongin did something amazing. He leaned back, searched Kyungsoo’s face, and before Kyungsoo could warn him off, Jongin planted one kiss each on both his eyes before pressing his bruised lips gently against Kyungsoo’s dry ones. It was awkward, inexperienced, unsure, but it was enough to get Kyungsoo to wrap his arms around Jongin’s waist and close his eyes. It was even better when he cut out the other senses. When he couldn’t see, or hear, or smell, his sensations were dominant.
By the time Jongin leaned back again, Kyungsoo took a big gulp of air, looking like he was ready to faint.
“I’ll see you when you get home.” Jongin stood up, helped Kyungsoo’s arms back into position so that he could stack the books on top again, a small smile on his swollen lip. While Kyungsoo could only allow him to guide him whichever way he wanted because he could only stare in awe.
He watched Jongin walk to the end of the hall and disappear around the corner. He dropped the books then, breathed deep with his palms on the floor.
“Do Kyungsoo, that’s five more minutes.” He hadn’t realized that the teacher was right on the other end of the hall, watching pointing at him accusingly.
“What, no, I-“
“Wanna make it ten?”
He shook his head, fighting back a laugh when he placed the books over his arms, failing the first time, and stared straight ahead.
*masterficlist | tumblr | twitter | comment here to be added
--Some fluff for you guys. i just had this image of them hugging in the middle of
an empty hall and felt compelled to turn it into a fic.