you fit me (better than my favourite sweater)
title: you fit me (better than my favourite sweater)
pairing: bobby-centric, hints at pre-slash golden trio
rating: g
length: 3.7k
summary: bobby is an idiot, hanbin and jinhwan are santa's little helpers.
Late December’s snow falls quietly in Seoul, covering the city in a layer of white. The brightly lit store fronts and windows decorated with festive decorations reminded Hanbin that while Christmas will be here soon, he couldn’t say the same for that letter.
“Hyung… Hyung, wake up! ”, Hanbin’s quiet whisper is followed by a tug of Jinhwan's blanket, effectively unlodging the boy from his cocoon of warmth and pulling a huge groan from Jinhwan.
The older boy's hand snakes out from where it's trapped between his chest and the mattress, "Wha - , Hanbin, it's - " His eyes land on the clock and Jinhwan rolls over with another groan. "Four A.M., it's four in the morning..."
Hanbin's lips turn up into a little pout as he squeezes himself beside Jinhwan, cheek pressing against Jinhwan's shoulder, "Maybe the letter came last night! You have to check!" Honestly, he didn't understand why it took so long for the letter to be delivered, America wasn't even that far away. Okay, maybe it was, but it's been an entire week and there still isn’t a letter from Bobby's mother.
Like all other boys his age, Hanbin is an impatient little shit, and so not before long, Jinhwan is shuffling downstairs in his house slippers with a yawn. Who made up the rule that the oldest should be on mail duty anyway?
The mailbox was empty save for a flier advertising: TWO-ROOM APARTMENT FOR RENT, 5 MINUTES TO SEOUL STATION. CONTACT XXXX-XXXX IF INTERESTED!!
Jinhwan picks them up with a frown because why would anyone promote their apartment for rent at a place where people are already staying, and why was it even necessary to have the entire thing in capitals? The piece of paper lands with a small swish in the nearest trashcan and Jinhwan goes back upstairs, pulling his hood over his bed head.
Their dorm is quiet when Jinhwan gets back, front door creaking a little when it closes behind him. The mess of shoes at the doorway makes it seem like nine boys are living here instead of three and the chaos should be unsettling to Jinhwan, but it’s comforting. There’s a warm feeling in his chest and he smiles slightly, corners of his lips pulling up.
Trainee life is hard, like Jinhwan expected, but what he never expected is that he’d have Hanbin and Bobby to lean on.
Now that they have become such an integral part of his life, Jinhwan can’t imagine waking up alone again, to not hear -
“Kim Hanbin, that’s mine!”, Bobby’s voice echoes loudly in the apartment and Jinhwan rolls his eyes, as always. Not long ago, Hanbin had found out that the best way to wake Bobby up was to steal Pooh from his grasp. Bobby’s extreme attachment to the plush toy made it impossible for him to not get out of bed to save his Pooh-sel in distress from the evil Han-ster’s clutches.
A familiar ruckus starts in the room with a lot of thumping and thudding, and Jinhwan lets out a long-suffering sigh before he goes into the room to intervene in the little boys’ squabble, like he’d done a hundred times before.
Bobby should know better than to start up an argument in the early morning, because every time this happens, Hanbin returns the elder’s Very Prized toy soon after. But Bobby’s fast temper when it comes to his Pooh bear is the extreme opposite of his usual chill vibes.
Pushing them apart and positioning himself between the teenaged boys, Jinhwan grabs the bear and hands it back to Bobby, rousing protest from both of them.
“Hyung, I wasn’t done with -”
“You’re the one who refused to wake the hell up and you were the one who suggested putting up the tree today!”
Bobby laughs sheepishly and sets Pooh down on his pillow -- the bear’s usual vantage position. “Okay, okay but let’s have breakfast first please? I’m starving.” He’s a growing boy but somehow, he had the greatest appetite out of them three. His stomach that was practically a black hole.
Settling into their seats after they fill their bowls with rice, they begin to eat and Bobby’s mouth is stretched open the entire meal, like an -
“Idiot.” Hanbin says, but with signs of an identical smile tugging on the corners of his mouth.
"But hyung's mom makes the best kimchi!". Their visits to Jeju where Jinhwan's family resides at usually end up with them lugging boxes upon boxes of kimchi back to Seoul, enough to feed them for weeks.
They smile the same way,, Jinhwan notices. Bobby’s smiles were wide and unbridled while Hanbin’s were smaller and more controlled,but both reminded Jinhwan of the sun and its brightness.
"They remind me of home," Bobby adds, almost quietly, under his breath, and Jinhwan feels a small stab in his chest.
Hanbin hears the same longing that Jinhwan hears in Bobby’s short statement, and they look up in almost-unison.
“You know, my mom is your mom too.”
“Mine too, I’ll even let you borrow Hanbyul for a bit.”
Out of the three of them, Bobby was the one who called home the least even though his parents lived the furthest away. Despite him never articulating the reason, Jinhwan and Hanbin knew the gist of it: Bobby didn’t want to hear his mom’s voice and miss them even more, separated by the oceans.
Watching his bowl pile up with the various side dishes, Bobby hits Jinhwan’s chopsticks away with a shaky laugh, “Stop that, god. I’m fine.” But the sunlight reflected the hint of wetness in his eyes, giving him away and Hanbin scoots his chair over to lean against Bobby’s shoulders.
The youngest one was the most sensitive one and he says, “But you didn’t even call home on your birthday and you missed your mom’s call because we came back too late.”
Bobby shrugs, jostling Hanbin’s head slightly and Bobby ruffles his hair before pushing him away, “Don’t worry about me, worry about yourself -- you can’t sleep without looking at Hanbyul’s drawings.”
“I can sleep! I just -”, the indignance is clear in Hanbin’s protests but he’s ignored, Bobby’s attention going to Jinhwan instead.
“And you, hyung. The browsing history on the laptop is just you naver-ing ‘cheap flights to Jeju’.” Jinhwan flushes and he goes back to spooning rice into his mouth. Bobby was right, they did miss home too, but only he would take to the extremes and avoid all contact just so he wouldn’t miss America more.
Growing up in a predominantly White city with only a small Korean community, Bobby was out of his comfort zone here, having to speak only Korean without being able to understand most of the teenager slang. He is the typical Korean brought up overseas, stuck in limbo. He doesn’t miss America per se because he feels like he belongs here but at the same time, he misses what he grew up with: basketball and this family.
The conversation ends when Bobby places his plates in the sink and goes back into the room, without another word to Hanbin nor Jinhwan. He knows they worry, but it was difficult for him too. Korea was a strange place, familiar and yet not so at the same time.
But he’s okay, he’ll be okay and he just has to stay and continue in the path he chose for himself
till the day he can make his mom proud.
Until then, “I’m not going to call her till we debut!” sounds from their room, it’s muffled but Jinhwan jumps, eyes meeting Hanbin’s and they snort, setting the plates down beside Bobby’s abandoned ones. Bobby was too much of a mommy’s boy for that.
“Three hours after he sees the letter.”, Hanbin says, a cocksure expression on his face.
“Nah, I bet an hour and he’d be crying into the phone again.”, Jinhwan adds on and they hi-five, before going to drag the carton containing their disassembled tree out.
Bobby buries his face into the pillow, it smells faintly of his shampoo and sweat. Training wears them out and some days, he knocks out in bed while waiting for Jinhwan to be done showering and the sweat just stays on the fabric.
“Hyung?”, Hanbin pushes open the door hesitantly because Bobby on his homesick days is sensitive and short-tempered. He would never intentionally hurt Jinhwan nor Hanbin but it was way safer to give him space and quiet.
(”No, you go!”
“No, you! You know he has a soft spot for you.” Jinhwan tries to keep his volume low, nudging Hanbin towards the ajar door. Bobby can never say no to Hanbin whenever the youngest boy looks at him in that way, “Just do the look thing!”
“Are you exploiting me?”, Hanbin fakes a outraged expression, one similar to that one guy on that cable show.
((Bobby watches late-night reruns of American variety shows sometimes, about families “famous just for being famous” and about pastry shops. Hanbin and Jinhwan understood little from the shows but it was always nice to spend time together, Jinhwan curled up on the couch and Hanbin and Bobby on the floor, leaning into each other.))
Jinhwan rolls his eyes and Hanbin is pushed into the room, stumbling a little before steadying himself against the door. )
“Yeah?”, Bobby is lying on his side, head pillowed on Pooh and eyes towards the wall. Hanbin thinks his voice sounds slightly nasal and he knows it’s because Bobby had been crying. Not that he’d ever tell Bobby that they do know when he cries, there were some things they could keep to themselves.
(For now. When all this is over, they’d look back and laugh together. )
“Come put up the tree, if we let Jinhwan hyung have free rein, we’re going to end up with a shrub or something.”
Bobby lets Hanbin pull him out to the living room where they see Jinhwan sitting in the middle of a mess of (artificial) branches and the skeleton of the tree standing where Hanbin had left it and still bare, save for a giant plastic star perched precariously on the top.
“Hyung, isn’t the star supposed to be put last?”, Bobby questions with a frown.
Jinhwan looks up at him for a mere second before turning to continue arranging the branches by length, the longer ones for the bottom and the shorter ones for the tip of the tree, “Shhh, trust me, I’m the Christmas-Tree-Putting-Up Expert in this house. I’ve put up more trees than you have!” Fine, maybe he hasn’t, he was only a year older after all but hey, he’s put up at least one more than Bobby and two more than Hanbin.
Bobby’s snort doesn’t go unnoticed by the looks of Hanbin holding in his laughter and Jinhwan continues, ignoring them, one year made all the difference. “Plus,the star is the most important part and it was either that,” he looks pointedly at the gold star on their tree or what was to be their tree, rather, “or me. Get it? The star? Me? I’m the star?”
Jinhwan’s proud little grin causes Hanbin to explode in laughter and he is followed very closely by Bobby, clutching onto their stomachs as they tear.
In between chuckles and giggles that somehow manage to turn into uproarious laughter each time, they manage to force out something along the lines of “Oh my god, hyung... That was so bad… One of your worst ones…”
Zero respect, zero respect at all, that was the amount of respect they had for Jinhwan aka none and he was their elder. Getting up on his feet, he hears his knees crack, the result of dancing under Hanbin’s eagle eye and high expectations, and Jinhwan breaks into a little run, landing on Hanbin and Bobby with a little oof.
Jinhwan’s mouth is close to the small of his back and Hanbin can feel the boy’s breath through his thin t-shirt, hot against the skin of his waist. Jinhwan’s weight is evenly spread out between Hanbin and Bobby, his chest against Hanbin’s back and pelvis snug against Bobby’s stomach, and they could feel the rise and fall of each other’s chests.
They haven’t had much time for themselves since they entered the company with all the time spent in the dance studios, recording studios and . Other boys their age would go out with their friends during this time of the year and some even had girlfriends to spend Christmas with, but they were content with each other and thankful for the break, for the time they got to finally breathe again.
“Hyung, you’re crushing me.” Bobby grits out, short of breath from the weight on his stomach.
Jinhwan snorts, “Now you call me hyung, what was I when I was so very disrespected a few moments ago?”
“You were - “
“Trash.” Hanbin says from beneath him, earning him a slap on the back.
Their tendency of finishing each other’s sentences is somewhat new and Jinhwan still isn’t that used to it yet, but he likes it. It’s amusing most of the time, excluding times like this when they gang up on him.
Rolling off the boys, Jinhwan ends up at the foot of the tree and he simply reaches for the scattered branches, sticking them into the holes in the “trunk”. He throws a bunch to Hanbin and Bobby, “If we don’t start now, we’re going to be the ones with no tree on Christmas day.”
Their tree turned out lopsided, branches sticking out at odd angles, long and short ones intermingling instead of having them increase in length from the top but hey, it was their tree and they liked it.
Okay, maybe they didn’t like like it, but they liked that they built it on their own and it was their tree.
“Selca time!”, Hanbin whips out his cell, an early Christmas present from his parents, and they squeezed together, Bobby in the middle with Hanbin and Jinhwan flanking him, their faces pressed together.
“One!”, a normal picture first, with them grinning into the lens.
“Two!”, one of them pouting and making sad faces.
“Three!”, the last one was always the ridiculous one, imitating the expressions they had while doing facial exercises, their features either stretched across their faces or scrunched up.
The sun is setting, its orange rays shining in from their floor-length windows and the night inches closer, “Christmas is just a few hours away,” Hanbin thinks to himself as he buttons his shirt, a crinkle etching itself between his brows again because the letter still hasn’t arrived and the postmen don’t work nights. The letter may not come in time.
“Hanbinnie, we’re going to be late if you don’t hurry up!” Bobby's voice rings out from the living room, the company Christmas party was held in a hotel on the other side of town and during peak hour aka in fifteen minutes, the roads would be jam-packed. The higher-ups would not be pleased to have trainees late.
Rushing into the lift, Jinhwan is still tightening his tie, Bobby staring into the mirror as he smooths down his hair and Hanbin putting his cufflinks on. This is their first formal event and let’s just say that suits and ties are a far cry from their usual jerseys and jeans.
The night feels long, standing by the sidelines with Minho and Taehyun and bowing politely to everyone that passes them. Bobby stares at G-Dragon as he enters, patting them on the back and telling them to work hard and he feels the fire burn hotter in his chest, that one day, he’s going to be just like Jiyong-hyung.
Hanbin has had the same dream since he was ten, starring in an MC Mong video and catching the CEO’s attention at a young age. Jinhwan was talented and his voice, Bobby felt, could summon angels from heaven. And Bobby? Bobby was just a kid from America, he had his dreams on his shoulders and the tearful mein of his mom comes to him in a flash whenever he's on the verge of giving up. He gave up too much for this dream, his only dream at that.
He dreams of his family on the car ride home, of his hyung and his dad and his mom. He dreams of the fork in the road ahead, he dreams that he fails and he goes back to America with nothing but the shattered pieces of his hopes and aspirations. He dreams that he succeeds and stands on stage with his brothers, and they write their names in blood.
The dorm they shuffle sleepily into is their home now, it’s small and cramped and messy as hell but it’s home and the three boys fall into bed, with their tops somehow lost on the way in and their pants became undone.
Jinhwan is in the middle, flanked by Hanbin on the left, his face buried in Jinhwan’s neck and Bobby on the right, leg hiked up on the elder boy’s thighs and an arm thrown around his torso. They were practically human furnaces and Jinhwan wakes up all warm and satiated, who needs heaters when you have human bolsters?
Christmas morning doesn’t look any different from the usual winter morning, but it felt different. There was an air of excitement in the air and the festive spirit festering for the past month seemed to have finally boiled over. Even Hanbin wakes up happy, scratching his arm absently as he shuffles out the room, smiling his gummy smile at Jinhwan, who's laid out on the couch.
"Merry Christmas, hyung." Hanbin pulls Jinhwan into a tight hug before loping off.
Bobby is already sitting at the side, forehead pressed against the windowpane as he stares out at the slow snowfall. A shadow falls over him and he just knows it's Hanbin, ruffling his hair before taking the empty space by him.
It’s a quiet morning, and for once, it isn’t because they’re busy composing (Hanbin), writing (Bobby) or listening to song recordings (Jinhwan).
It's a nice change and the silence is only broken by the ring of the doorbell, the crisp sound of the chimes making them jump. They rarely had visitors and furthermore, it was Christmas Day.
Bobby gets up with a loud groan, courtesy of Hanbin's sudden collapse on the floor, "I'm still asleep!" and he gently pushed to the door by Jinhwan's foot on his butt (read: he was kicked). The postman is standing there with a huge smile, the parcel in his hands equally large. And the boy realises that, the civil service doesn't rest, even on public holidays.
"Mr. Kim Jiwon, Bobby?", he asks, manouevring the carton to show Bobby his name and address in thick marker, in a very familiar script too.
Bobby blinks in confusion before nodding, "Oh yeah, me, that's me, where do I sign?"
The middle-aged man holds out a clipboard, pointing to the dotted line at the bottom of the slip, "Here, please." When he is done, the parcel is handed to him with a happy little "Merry Christmas!" and Jiwon closes the door behind him, struggling to set the parcel down because it weighed a ton.
“Dude, it’s from America! Did your mom send it?”, Hanbin stares at the parcel, noticing the return address at the side, written (almost printed) in graceful script.
Bobby is quiet as he opens the box, the sound of tape ripping off cardboard echoing. He rarely gets parcels, or even letters, preferring to see his mom on Skype instead of words on paper.
Jinhwan peers over his shoulder, chin leaning on exposed skin and the heat of the elder boy’s chest against his back has Bobby’s palms dampening; a sealed Tupperware of kimchi, one of many, almost slips out of his grip. Jinhwan has always been touchy but recently, he’s so much more attuned to the elder boy’s presence (and touch).
"She sent so much!", Hanbin says gleefully, stacking the boxes up one by one as he grabs them from the carton, which was seemingly bottomless.
A letter was sitting right at the bottom, cushioned by the mass of bubble wrap that helped the kimchi arrive safely. Picking it up, Bobby stares at it for a moment before he feels his eyes pricking, tears starting to well and he runs to the room, door slamming behind him.
Hanbin and Jinhwan are left on the floor, boxes of kimchi forming a pseudo-moat around them.
"Hyung, is he okay?" Hanbin asks, blinking slowly, a little worried. "Is he going to cry? Does he need tissues? Were we too much?"
"Yeah, just give him some time." Jinhwan says. "It's Bobby, c'mon, he still sleeps with a horde of plush toys, he'll probably call his mom later and cry an ocean. But before that, we should hide."
Jinhwan is right.
The moment Bobby gets himself together, he keeps the letter under his pillow and gives his pillow a little pat before sneakily prowling out of the room.
Hanbin is attacked with a loud roar and he falls off the couch, Bobby straddling him with a photo of Hanbyul in his hand. "Don't ever do that again, don't tell my mom I miss her again, or I'll crush all the photos you have of Hanbyul, got it?"
Hanbin laughs and he pulls the picture from Bobby's grip, pushing the elder boy off me, "Hanbyul will send me more pictures and we were just worried because you were being - "
"Stupid." Jinhwan adds, "Your mom sent so much kimchi we could eat them for months, tell her 'thank you' for us when you call her later."
"I'm not call - Fine." Bobby turns to lie on the floor, looking up at the ceiling, "I just didn't want to miss her more, okay?"
And Bobby knows they get it when he's engulfed in a three-way hug.
Bobby does cry, not an ocean, but maybe a bucket and he falls asleep sandwiched between his two best friends.
They wake up to a new day, one day closer to the new year and one step closer to their dreams coming true.
Together.
a/n: a late fic to celebrate bobby’s birthday/ christmas and the new year + late christmas gift fic for teddyescher and i's lil exchange. merry christmas, i hope you like this!!! +++ first ever ikon fic!!! this was supposed to be fluff but- somehow… went out of hand. but uh yay!1! happy golden trio!11!
title taken from lana del rey’s “blue jeans”.
twitter / ask.fm
also posted to ao3
pairing: bobby-centric, hints at pre-slash golden trio
rating: g
length: 3.7k
summary: bobby is an idiot, hanbin and jinhwan are santa's little helpers.
Late December’s snow falls quietly in Seoul, covering the city in a layer of white. The brightly lit store fronts and windows decorated with festive decorations reminded Hanbin that while Christmas will be here soon, he couldn’t say the same for that letter.
“Hyung… Hyung, wake up! ”, Hanbin’s quiet whisper is followed by a tug of Jinhwan's blanket, effectively unlodging the boy from his cocoon of warmth and pulling a huge groan from Jinhwan.
The older boy's hand snakes out from where it's trapped between his chest and the mattress, "Wha - , Hanbin, it's - " His eyes land on the clock and Jinhwan rolls over with another groan. "Four A.M., it's four in the morning..."
Hanbin's lips turn up into a little pout as he squeezes himself beside Jinhwan, cheek pressing against Jinhwan's shoulder, "Maybe the letter came last night! You have to check!" Honestly, he didn't understand why it took so long for the letter to be delivered, America wasn't even that far away. Okay, maybe it was, but it's been an entire week and there still isn’t a letter from Bobby's mother.
Like all other boys his age, Hanbin is an impatient little shit, and so not before long, Jinhwan is shuffling downstairs in his house slippers with a yawn. Who made up the rule that the oldest should be on mail duty anyway?
The mailbox was empty save for a flier advertising: TWO-ROOM APARTMENT FOR RENT, 5 MINUTES TO SEOUL STATION. CONTACT XXXX-XXXX IF INTERESTED!!
Jinhwan picks them up with a frown because why would anyone promote their apartment for rent at a place where people are already staying, and why was it even necessary to have the entire thing in capitals? The piece of paper lands with a small swish in the nearest trashcan and Jinhwan goes back upstairs, pulling his hood over his bed head.
Their dorm is quiet when Jinhwan gets back, front door creaking a little when it closes behind him. The mess of shoes at the doorway makes it seem like nine boys are living here instead of three and the chaos should be unsettling to Jinhwan, but it’s comforting. There’s a warm feeling in his chest and he smiles slightly, corners of his lips pulling up.
Trainee life is hard, like Jinhwan expected, but what he never expected is that he’d have Hanbin and Bobby to lean on.
Now that they have become such an integral part of his life, Jinhwan can’t imagine waking up alone again, to not hear -
“Kim Hanbin, that’s mine!”, Bobby’s voice echoes loudly in the apartment and Jinhwan rolls his eyes, as always. Not long ago, Hanbin had found out that the best way to wake Bobby up was to steal Pooh from his grasp. Bobby’s extreme attachment to the plush toy made it impossible for him to not get out of bed to save his Pooh-sel in distress from the evil Han-ster’s clutches.
A familiar ruckus starts in the room with a lot of thumping and thudding, and Jinhwan lets out a long-suffering sigh before he goes into the room to intervene in the little boys’ squabble, like he’d done a hundred times before.
Bobby should know better than to start up an argument in the early morning, because every time this happens, Hanbin returns the elder’s Very Prized toy soon after. But Bobby’s fast temper when it comes to his Pooh bear is the extreme opposite of his usual chill vibes.
Pushing them apart and positioning himself between the teenaged boys, Jinhwan grabs the bear and hands it back to Bobby, rousing protest from both of them.
“Hyung, I wasn’t done with -”
“You’re the one who refused to wake the hell up and you were the one who suggested putting up the tree today!”
Bobby laughs sheepishly and sets Pooh down on his pillow -- the bear’s usual vantage position. “Okay, okay but let’s have breakfast first please? I’m starving.” He’s a growing boy but somehow, he had the greatest appetite out of them three. His stomach that was practically a black hole.
Settling into their seats after they fill their bowls with rice, they begin to eat and Bobby’s mouth is stretched open the entire meal, like an -
“Idiot.” Hanbin says, but with signs of an identical smile tugging on the corners of his mouth.
"But hyung's mom makes the best kimchi!". Their visits to Jeju where Jinhwan's family resides at usually end up with them lugging boxes upon boxes of kimchi back to Seoul, enough to feed them for weeks.
They smile the same way,, Jinhwan notices. Bobby’s smiles were wide and unbridled while Hanbin’s were smaller and more controlled,but both reminded Jinhwan of the sun and its brightness.
"They remind me of home," Bobby adds, almost quietly, under his breath, and Jinhwan feels a small stab in his chest.
Hanbin hears the same longing that Jinhwan hears in Bobby’s short statement, and they look up in almost-unison.
“You know, my mom is your mom too.”
“Mine too, I’ll even let you borrow Hanbyul for a bit.”
Out of the three of them, Bobby was the one who called home the least even though his parents lived the furthest away. Despite him never articulating the reason, Jinhwan and Hanbin knew the gist of it: Bobby didn’t want to hear his mom’s voice and miss them even more, separated by the oceans.
Watching his bowl pile up with the various side dishes, Bobby hits Jinhwan’s chopsticks away with a shaky laugh, “Stop that, god. I’m fine.” But the sunlight reflected the hint of wetness in his eyes, giving him away and Hanbin scoots his chair over to lean against Bobby’s shoulders.
The youngest one was the most sensitive one and he says, “But you didn’t even call home on your birthday and you missed your mom’s call because we came back too late.”
Bobby shrugs, jostling Hanbin’s head slightly and Bobby ruffles his hair before pushing him away, “Don’t worry about me, worry about yourself -- you can’t sleep without looking at Hanbyul’s drawings.”
“I can sleep! I just -”, the indignance is clear in Hanbin’s protests but he’s ignored, Bobby’s attention going to Jinhwan instead.
“And you, hyung. The browsing history on the laptop is just you naver-ing ‘cheap flights to Jeju’.” Jinhwan flushes and he goes back to spooning rice into his mouth. Bobby was right, they did miss home too, but only he would take to the extremes and avoid all contact just so he wouldn’t miss America more.
Growing up in a predominantly White city with only a small Korean community, Bobby was out of his comfort zone here, having to speak only Korean without being able to understand most of the teenager slang. He is the typical Korean brought up overseas, stuck in limbo. He doesn’t miss America per se because he feels like he belongs here but at the same time, he misses what he grew up with: basketball and this family.
The conversation ends when Bobby places his plates in the sink and goes back into the room, without another word to Hanbin nor Jinhwan. He knows they worry, but it was difficult for him too. Korea was a strange place, familiar and yet not so at the same time.
But he’s okay, he’ll be okay and he just has to stay and continue in the path he chose for himself
till the day he can make his mom proud.
Until then, “I’m not going to call her till we debut!” sounds from their room, it’s muffled but Jinhwan jumps, eyes meeting Hanbin’s and they snort, setting the plates down beside Bobby’s abandoned ones. Bobby was too much of a mommy’s boy for that.
“Three hours after he sees the letter.”, Hanbin says, a cocksure expression on his face.
“Nah, I bet an hour and he’d be crying into the phone again.”, Jinhwan adds on and they hi-five, before going to drag the carton containing their disassembled tree out.
Bobby buries his face into the pillow, it smells faintly of his shampoo and sweat. Training wears them out and some days, he knocks out in bed while waiting for Jinhwan to be done showering and the sweat just stays on the fabric.
“Hyung?”, Hanbin pushes open the door hesitantly because Bobby on his homesick days is sensitive and short-tempered. He would never intentionally hurt Jinhwan nor Hanbin but it was way safer to give him space and quiet.
(”No, you go!”
“No, you! You know he has a soft spot for you.” Jinhwan tries to keep his volume low, nudging Hanbin towards the ajar door. Bobby can never say no to Hanbin whenever the youngest boy looks at him in that way, “Just do the look thing!”
“Are you exploiting me?”, Hanbin fakes a outraged expression, one similar to that one guy on that cable show.
((Bobby watches late-night reruns of American variety shows sometimes, about families “famous just for being famous” and about pastry shops. Hanbin and Jinhwan understood little from the shows but it was always nice to spend time together, Jinhwan curled up on the couch and Hanbin and Bobby on the floor, leaning into each other.))
Jinhwan rolls his eyes and Hanbin is pushed into the room, stumbling a little before steadying himself against the door. )
“Yeah?”, Bobby is lying on his side, head pillowed on Pooh and eyes towards the wall. Hanbin thinks his voice sounds slightly nasal and he knows it’s because Bobby had been crying. Not that he’d ever tell Bobby that they do know when he cries, there were some things they could keep to themselves.
(For now. When all this is over, they’d look back and laugh together. )
“Come put up the tree, if we let Jinhwan hyung have free rein, we’re going to end up with a shrub or something.”
Bobby lets Hanbin pull him out to the living room where they see Jinhwan sitting in the middle of a mess of (artificial) branches and the skeleton of the tree standing where Hanbin had left it and still bare, save for a giant plastic star perched precariously on the top.
“Hyung, isn’t the star supposed to be put last?”, Bobby questions with a frown.
Jinhwan looks up at him for a mere second before turning to continue arranging the branches by length, the longer ones for the bottom and the shorter ones for the tip of the tree, “Shhh, trust me, I’m the Christmas-Tree-Putting-Up Expert in this house. I’ve put up more trees than you have!” Fine, maybe he hasn’t, he was only a year older after all but hey, he’s put up at least one more than Bobby and two more than Hanbin.
Bobby’s snort doesn’t go unnoticed by the looks of Hanbin holding in his laughter and Jinhwan continues, ignoring them, one year made all the difference. “Plus,the star is the most important part and it was either that,” he looks pointedly at the gold star on their tree or what was to be their tree, rather, “or me. Get it? The star? Me? I’m the star?”
Jinhwan’s proud little grin causes Hanbin to explode in laughter and he is followed very closely by Bobby, clutching onto their stomachs as they tear.
In between chuckles and giggles that somehow manage to turn into uproarious laughter each time, they manage to force out something along the lines of “Oh my god, hyung... That was so bad… One of your worst ones…”
Zero respect, zero respect at all, that was the amount of respect they had for Jinhwan aka none and he was their elder. Getting up on his feet, he hears his knees crack, the result of dancing under Hanbin’s eagle eye and high expectations, and Jinhwan breaks into a little run, landing on Hanbin and Bobby with a little oof.
Jinhwan’s mouth is close to the small of his back and Hanbin can feel the boy’s breath through his thin t-shirt, hot against the skin of his waist. Jinhwan’s weight is evenly spread out between Hanbin and Bobby, his chest against Hanbin’s back and pelvis snug against Bobby’s stomach, and they could feel the rise and fall of each other’s chests.
They haven’t had much time for themselves since they entered the company with all the time spent in the dance studios, recording studios and . Other boys their age would go out with their friends during this time of the year and some even had girlfriends to spend Christmas with, but they were content with each other and thankful for the break, for the time they got to finally breathe again.
“Hyung, you’re crushing me.” Bobby grits out, short of breath from the weight on his stomach.
Jinhwan snorts, “Now you call me hyung, what was I when I was so very disrespected a few moments ago?”
“You were - “
“Trash.” Hanbin says from beneath him, earning him a slap on the back.
Their tendency of finishing each other’s sentences is somewhat new and Jinhwan still isn’t that used to it yet, but he likes it. It’s amusing most of the time, excluding times like this when they gang up on him.
Rolling off the boys, Jinhwan ends up at the foot of the tree and he simply reaches for the scattered branches, sticking them into the holes in the “trunk”. He throws a bunch to Hanbin and Bobby, “If we don’t start now, we’re going to be the ones with no tree on Christmas day.”
Their tree turned out lopsided, branches sticking out at odd angles, long and short ones intermingling instead of having them increase in length from the top but hey, it was their tree and they liked it.
Okay, maybe they didn’t like like it, but they liked that they built it on their own and it was their tree.
“Selca time!”, Hanbin whips out his cell, an early Christmas present from his parents, and they squeezed together, Bobby in the middle with Hanbin and Jinhwan flanking him, their faces pressed together.
“One!”, a normal picture first, with them grinning into the lens.
“Two!”, one of them pouting and making sad faces.
“Three!”, the last one was always the ridiculous one, imitating the expressions they had while doing facial exercises, their features either stretched across their faces or scrunched up.
The sun is setting, its orange rays shining in from their floor-length windows and the night inches closer, “Christmas is just a few hours away,” Hanbin thinks to himself as he buttons his shirt, a crinkle etching itself between his brows again because the letter still hasn’t arrived and the postmen don’t work nights. The letter may not come in time.
“Hanbinnie, we’re going to be late if you don’t hurry up!” Bobby's voice rings out from the living room, the company Christmas party was held in a hotel on the other side of town and during peak hour aka in fifteen minutes, the roads would be jam-packed. The higher-ups would not be pleased to have trainees late.
Rushing into the lift, Jinhwan is still tightening his tie, Bobby staring into the mirror as he smooths down his hair and Hanbin putting his cufflinks on. This is their first formal event and let’s just say that suits and ties are a far cry from their usual jerseys and jeans.
The night feels long, standing by the sidelines with Minho and Taehyun and bowing politely to everyone that passes them. Bobby stares at G-Dragon as he enters, patting them on the back and telling them to work hard and he feels the fire burn hotter in his chest, that one day, he’s going to be just like Jiyong-hyung.
Hanbin has had the same dream since he was ten, starring in an MC Mong video and catching the CEO’s attention at a young age. Jinhwan was talented and his voice, Bobby felt, could summon angels from heaven. And Bobby? Bobby was just a kid from America, he had his dreams on his shoulders and the tearful mein of his mom comes to him in a flash whenever he's on the verge of giving up. He gave up too much for this dream, his only dream at that.
He dreams of his family on the car ride home, of his hyung and his dad and his mom. He dreams of the fork in the road ahead, he dreams that he fails and he goes back to America with nothing but the shattered pieces of his hopes and aspirations. He dreams that he succeeds and stands on stage with his brothers, and they write their names in blood.
The dorm they shuffle sleepily into is their home now, it’s small and cramped and messy as hell but it’s home and the three boys fall into bed, with their tops somehow lost on the way in and their pants became undone.
Jinhwan is in the middle, flanked by Hanbin on the left, his face buried in Jinhwan’s neck and Bobby on the right, leg hiked up on the elder boy’s thighs and an arm thrown around his torso. They were practically human furnaces and Jinhwan wakes up all warm and satiated, who needs heaters when you have human bolsters?
Christmas morning doesn’t look any different from the usual winter morning, but it felt different. There was an air of excitement in the air and the festive spirit festering for the past month seemed to have finally boiled over. Even Hanbin wakes up happy, scratching his arm absently as he shuffles out the room, smiling his gummy smile at Jinhwan, who's laid out on the couch.
"Merry Christmas, hyung." Hanbin pulls Jinhwan into a tight hug before loping off.
Bobby is already sitting at the side, forehead pressed against the windowpane as he stares out at the slow snowfall. A shadow falls over him and he just knows it's Hanbin, ruffling his hair before taking the empty space by him.
It’s a quiet morning, and for once, it isn’t because they’re busy composing (Hanbin), writing (Bobby) or listening to song recordings (Jinhwan).
It's a nice change and the silence is only broken by the ring of the doorbell, the crisp sound of the chimes making them jump. They rarely had visitors and furthermore, it was Christmas Day.
Bobby gets up with a loud groan, courtesy of Hanbin's sudden collapse on the floor, "I'm still asleep!" and he gently pushed to the door by Jinhwan's foot on his butt (read: he was kicked). The postman is standing there with a huge smile, the parcel in his hands equally large. And the boy realises that, the civil service doesn't rest, even on public holidays.
"Mr. Kim Jiwon, Bobby?", he asks, manouevring the carton to show Bobby his name and address in thick marker, in a very familiar script too.
Bobby blinks in confusion before nodding, "Oh yeah, me, that's me, where do I sign?"
The middle-aged man holds out a clipboard, pointing to the dotted line at the bottom of the slip, "Here, please." When he is done, the parcel is handed to him with a happy little "Merry Christmas!" and Jiwon closes the door behind him, struggling to set the parcel down because it weighed a ton.
“Dude, it’s from America! Did your mom send it?”, Hanbin stares at the parcel, noticing the return address at the side, written (almost printed) in graceful script.
Bobby is quiet as he opens the box, the sound of tape ripping off cardboard echoing. He rarely gets parcels, or even letters, preferring to see his mom on Skype instead of words on paper.
Jinhwan peers over his shoulder, chin leaning on exposed skin and the heat of the elder boy’s chest against his back has Bobby’s palms dampening; a sealed Tupperware of kimchi, one of many, almost slips out of his grip. Jinhwan has always been touchy but recently, he’s so much more attuned to the elder boy’s presence (and touch).
"She sent so much!", Hanbin says gleefully, stacking the boxes up one by one as he grabs them from the carton, which was seemingly bottomless.
A letter was sitting right at the bottom, cushioned by the mass of bubble wrap that helped the kimchi arrive safely. Picking it up, Bobby stares at it for a moment before he feels his eyes pricking, tears starting to well and he runs to the room, door slamming behind him.
Hanbin and Jinhwan are left on the floor, boxes of kimchi forming a pseudo-moat around them.
"Hyung, is he okay?" Hanbin asks, blinking slowly, a little worried. "Is he going to cry? Does he need tissues? Were we too much?"
"Yeah, just give him some time." Jinhwan says. "It's Bobby, c'mon, he still sleeps with a horde of plush toys, he'll probably call his mom later and cry an ocean. But before that, we should hide."
Jinhwan is right.
The moment Bobby gets himself together, he keeps the letter under his pillow and gives his pillow a little pat before sneakily prowling out of the room.
Hanbin is attacked with a loud roar and he falls off the couch, Bobby straddling him with a photo of Hanbyul in his hand. "Don't ever do that again, don't tell my mom I miss her again, or I'll crush all the photos you have of Hanbyul, got it?"
Hanbin laughs and he pulls the picture from Bobby's grip, pushing the elder boy off me, "Hanbyul will send me more pictures and we were just worried because you were being - "
"Stupid." Jinhwan adds, "Your mom sent so much kimchi we could eat them for months, tell her 'thank you' for us when you call her later."
"I'm not call - Fine." Bobby turns to lie on the floor, looking up at the ceiling, "I just didn't want to miss her more, okay?"
And Bobby knows they get it when he's engulfed in a three-way hug.
Bobby does cry, not an ocean, but maybe a bucket and he falls asleep sandwiched between his two best friends.
They wake up to a new day, one day closer to the new year and one step closer to their dreams coming true.
Together.
a/n: a late fic to celebrate bobby’s birthday/ christmas and the new year + late christmas gift fic for teddyescher and i's lil exchange. merry christmas, i hope you like this!!! +++ first ever ikon fic!!! this was supposed to be fluff but- somehow… went out of hand. but uh yay!1! happy golden trio!11!
title taken from lana del rey’s “blue jeans”.
twitter / ask.fm
also posted to ao3