#4 [SHINEE. JONGHYUN/JINKI]
Fandom: SHINee
Title: Waiting For This Life To Change (Seems Like It's Taking Me Forever)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Jonghyun/Jinki
Length: 3,932 words
Summary: Jinki waits for any news of Jonghyun after he goes missing one afternoon. When he decides to move on from his grief and move into Seoul, Jonghyun himself shows up - different and definitely fine. He finds himself confused and flustered because everyone saw the blood on the floor that afternoon.
Notes: I hope I did this story justice ;_; I didn't want to use too much of the dialogue from the original story because, obviously that's what the original story is for. I tried to keep it as faithful to the original as possible while still adding my own things and flings in there.
Remixee author: itachibana13
Title of work you remixed: You Keep Me Wide Awake and Waiting For The Sun
Link to work you remixed: http://semecomplex.livejournal.com/16640.html
Jinki places his hands on the smooth, cold, ebony and ivory surface and presses down on familiar keys. He lets his fingers lead him into the song, he counts two chords in and begins singing, a soft melody that he whispers to the empty music room around him. He closes his eyes and lets the song take him wherever it pleases - to a place where it’s only him and this piano. He feels like it’s the kind of place where he would be surrounded by clouds and birds and he’s just floating up there, singing and playing. He hardly gets to have times like these anymore; he’s just so focused on his studies now, always trying to be the best and bring home the best grades, that he’s nearly forgotten what it was like to have time for himself amongst the flurry of red checks and printed scores.
He builds up into the chorus, and he thinks he imagines it at first, but a voice overlaps his - higher and much more confident. Their voices harmonize and resonate, raising goosebumps on his pale skin.
He finally opens his eyes and there stands a boy with spikey hair, wide eyes, full lips and a sharp jawline that moves in sync with his. The boy’s wearing the same uniform as he is, but he’s as sure as the coming sunset that he’s never seen him before. The warm light that pours into the room colours him in striking shades of gold, orange, and red; shadows and highlights more dramatic at this hour of the day, on that kind of angled face.
The boy joins him on the bench and Jinki makes space for him as he transitions into the next verse. Their arms are brushing and it kind of makes the room all that much warmer for him, but he doesn’t mind. This boy’s full and strong voice dances into his ears and he’s never heard this song as perfect as it is at this moment.
By the second chorus, their voices are louder, more passionate, molding together and rising up above the two of them and surrounding them with notes and words. They’re looking at each other, staring into each other’s eyes - singing to one another, and Jinki thinks this must be what it feels like to be in love - to be so in sync with another, to trust someone wholly, and to just be complete.
*
“That was great; you’re a really good singer,” the boy says, a crooked grin over taking the melancholy and pain his face held earlier. “You play the piano so well too. I’m more of a guitar player, really. I find it so much easier than piano, but that’s just me.”
Jinki smiles and holds out his hand. “Thank you. My name is Jinki, by the way. Third year.”
“I’m Jonghyun. Second year, hyung.”
They laugh at the way the honorific kind of sounds weird coming from Jonghyun after what Jinki likes to think was the greatest song he had ever sung in a duet.
“If you know Romantic and sing it with me, I’ll let you drop the honorifics.”
“Are you kidding?! That’s, like, my favorite ballad from SHINee! Their vocalist is really good; if he wasn’t so famous, I’d probably be dating him by now.”
Jinki blinks and smiles at Jonghyun’s enthusiasm. He begins playing the first few notes of the song while Jonghyun continues to rave about the vocalist of the aforementioned band.
“-ink it’s kind of cool that we have the same name. That’s what’s awesome about living in Korea, I guess, you get to share your name with a bunch of other people! And- Oh, wait, you don’t mind do you?”
Jinki guesses they’re skipping the first verse. “Mind what?”
“That I’m, you know, gay and stuff? Actually, I think I might be bisexual; I swear that Key is secretly a girl and-“
“Jonghyun, if I minded, I would’ve told you earlier on.”
“Oh, oh yeah.”
*
It’s been a few months since Jinki’s met Jonghyun and he didn’t honestly think he’d be so fond of someone as he is with the younger boy. Despite his tendency to talk Jinki’s ear off for three minutes straight and his need to sing louder than the music that Jinki plays on his iPod dock, Jonghyun’s warm personality and his wide, crooked grin overshadow his annoying moments.
They spend afternoons out in Jinki’s backyard, lying down on the grass and watching the sky bleed red and fade into dark blue. Sometimes Jonghyun would stay for dinner and enjoy helping Jinki’s mom cook some meat and sometimes jonghyun would invite jinki over to his house for dinner where jonghyun’s sister would coo over him. It was a routine Jinki’s gotten used to so when six pm rolls around one Friday afternoon and Jonghyun still isn’t skipping through his gate, he starts to worry. He phones a call to Jonghyun’s mom and she tells him that she’s sent Jonghyun to go buy some juice but it had been over half an hour back. So he grabs his jacket and heads out of his house, gets on his bike and pedals as fast as he can to the convenience store Jonghyun frequents.
When he gets there, there’s a commotion by the alleway. He abandons his bicycle by the curb and runs towards the elderly store owner.
“Oh, Jinki! Jinki, it’s horrible! Jonghyun, he’s- he’s-“
“He’s what, eomeoni?” he tries to keep the panic from his voice but he fails and while he’s trying to get a straight answer from her, something glints from the corner of his eye and he turns to it.
It’s the necklace that Jonghyun always wore - a simple chain necklace with a silver J attached to it. They bought it together when they went out to the mall joking around that it could be a secret code for the two of them - J for Jonghyun, and J for Jinki. It’s lying in a pool of half-dried blood broken into two halves as if it was grabbed straight from Jonghyun’s neck and ripped off.
*
Jinki packs his things into five boxes and a backpack a year later when he’s finished choosing what things to bring to Seoul and what things to leave behind. He’d doubted making the decision to move a couple of months ago, but looking at his half-cleaned out room now he thinks it might be just the thing he needs. He sighs and stares at the necklace clutched in his hands, cold and glinting in the early morning sun. The ‘J’ sits heavy in the middle of his palm and he grips it tightly before placing it inside a small plain box. He hides the box away where maybe even he might forget it if he doesn’t come back for longer than a while.
He takes a final glance around the room and feels a strange warm feeling in the pit of his stomach. For the so few months that Jinki’s known Jonghyun, it would seem as though they’d known each other for years. Every bit of his room reminded him of Jonghyun like a slap in the face.
Jonghyun would sit on his bed and glance through his books while he did his homework; he would sit on his swivel chair playing his guitar while Jinki took an afternoon nap; and they would both sit on the carpeted floor of his room and sing together - no instruments, no background music - just the two of them and their voices.
No one knew where Jonghyun was; people were claiming him to be dead. Jinki wasn’t sure what hurt more; the fact that people gave up, or that there really was no hope to hold on to for Jonghyun to come back. But he’s pushing himself to move on, otherwise he’ll always be holding on to that single strand of hope that’s so close to snapping. So he applied for a scholarship in a university in Seoul, got accepted, and now moving to an apartment there. He isn’t sure what being Seoul would be like, there could be many risks. But if moving away from all this - from Jonghyun - is the only way he can finally end his grieving, then it’s a chance he’ll have to take.
*
So far, Seoul hasn’t been bad. Jinki found a job at the bookstore, he’s found friends, and, well, no one ever said school was easy, but he’s been having a great time. True, there were some odd moments when he thinks he’s going crazy like that time he dreamt of bloodshot eyes and Jonghyun screaming in pain or that time when he bumped into someone at the club one of his friends, Joon, brought him to and thought he saw Jonghyun. However, now would be a great time to start phoning the mental hospital and asking for a doctor because he’s definitely staring at Jonghyun with his hair dyed and his face sharper than he ever remembers.
“Jonghyun,” he manages through the harsh beating of his blood in his ears.
The other acknowledges him with a hello and stands up, still shorter than he is and Jinki’s thankful for this familiarity. “Jinki.”
Strangely, they have a conversation, one that doesn’t involve screaming and sobbing. His mind, however, is a completely different story. He can already picture the mini-Jinkis in his brain running amok and looking around in file cabinets for his views on missing people and blood on the pavement. Jonghyun doesn’t seem to notice his inner turmoil and continues answering Jinki’s questions without fail.
“What about you? You look reasonably… well off.”
“I ran. And, well, let’s keep that last part a secret,” the other replies and moves past him towards the doors. Something’s different, Jinki can tell. There’s just this vibe coming off of him that totally throws him off. He watches the younger disappear past the doors of the bookstore with words for goodbye and doesn’t move for the next few or so minutes.
*
Jinki doesn’t understand how it could be possible. He saw all that blood on the floor; he saw Jonghyun’s necklace lying in that pool of blood; and he saw the stricken look on the shopkeeper’s face when she told him about how Jonghyun was pulled aside by some beautiful woman and was attacked by her, but as soon as she ran outside, both were gone. So why should Jonghyun be here, now, all of a sudden after all those months of painstakingly waiting for any news of him? And if Jonghyun was alive this whole time, why didn’t he bother to contact Jinki? Was he running from someone? Was he afraid that woman would find him again and hurt him? Was he afraid she would attack his loved ones next? Attack him?
“Jinki, class is over. Let’s go grab a drink, okay? I need caffeine.”
Jinki nods and stands, following Joon out of the classroom. He lets the cold air bite at the tips of his ears while he wraps his neck with a scarf and buries the bottom half of his face in it.
“So what’s up with you today? You look spacey.”
“I’m just- I don’t even know. I think I just might need caffeine too.”
Joon grins at his answer and slings an arm around his shoulders, leading him to the Starbucks closest to their campus. When they get in, Jinki unwraps the scarf from his neck and lets it drape over his shoulders. He goes to find a table while Joon orders their drinks. As he takes a seat by the windows, he lets out a long, suffering sigh and stares out at the streets. He just can’t seem to get over it. Jonghyuns eyes. They were different; they’d always been a chocolate brown, never a burning amber. And his lips never used to be so red. What had changed? Had everything changed? Or had nothing changed at all with Jonghyun? Maybe it was Jinki who had changed? Had the city changed him? Had the lack of Jonghyun’s presence in his life changed him? Maybe that was a bit too dramatic, but Jinki was at his wits end.
When Joon sits at the table with their drinks, Jinki momentarily forgets his troubles after his first sip of the hot coffee. They talk school and they talk girls - mostly on Joon’s part because Jinki just doesn’t really want to venture into that side of his social life just yet. Then they move on to more serious matters such as their upcoming project which they both needed to work on. With the mention of their upcoming due date, they stand to leave and get started. He hadn’t meant to take a look around the café, it was just a force of habit that he’d acquired when he was younger. But when he did, he noticed two familiar people sitting together across their table.
“Krystal! And… Jonghyun, is that you?” The girl waves and beckons them over.
“I didn’t know you were friends with Krystal,” he frowns a little, “when did that happen?”
“Last week-ish?” the other answers. “Er, if we’re intruding on you and your friend or anything, then we’ll just-”
“No!” Jinki finds himself saying and making excuses. He doesn’t understand what he’s doing, but when has he ever, really? He wants to speak to Jonghyun, wants to find out what’s happened to him all this time.
Krystal and Joon leave the two in an awkward silence in an extremely public place where people might or might not just be staring, but Jinki needs answers, and he wants them now.
*
Jinki knows he shouldn’t have, but he’s gone past that boundary. He brought Jonghyun back to his apartment like they were highschool kids again (which Jonghyun still technically should be, but Jinki isn’t really sure anymore), like nothing ever happened, and just what happened? Jonghyun runs out on him after a lengthy confession. The only thing he can say for now is I knew it and fuck, jonghyun’s a vampire and he likes me. Jinki isn’t sure if he’s supposed to worry or rejoice, but he’ll stick to worrying about the ‘vampire’ aspect of this story for now.
So the next day, at work, he approaches Krystal who is, apparently, close to Jonghyun. He wants to take offence in the fact that Jonghyun never told him that Krystal was his friend because he’s got this niggling feeling in the back of his mind that Krystal was in on Jonghyun’s secret, but he doesn’t because, well, what can he do about it? So he asks her and he gets his answers. But when he does, it only leads to more questions. If being a supposedly mythical creature is actually possible, then he’s got a whole bookshelf to learn about being a vampire - and definitely not the Young Adults bookshelf because even Jinki knows that vampires just. don’t. sparkle. and it’s just so stupid really.
For the next few days, he spends his extra time reading up on vampires. He doesn’t really like everything that he reads about them - especially that bit about seducing young women and making them victims because it makes Jinki think about Krystal and Jonghyun together and it makes him wonder. He scratches the back of his neck at that thought and continues reading.
He’s so caught up in a book one day he doesn’t even notice that the looming figure over him is Jonghyun. So when he looks up from the book he’s reading and sees Jonghyun, he can totally imagine the other with a tux and a velvet cape on.
“Hey, uhm, Krystal left me a book? She says she left it somewhere around here.”
Jinki blinks and nods. “Sure, let me try and look for it. What was the title?”
“The Castle. Kafka.”
He tries and looks in all the cabinets and shelves that they have behind the counter, but he can’t seem to find the book that Jonghyun was looking for. Maybe it’s a scheme, maybe Krystal is one of Jonghyun’s women, but that doesn’t really make sense. Jonghyun wouldn’t do that. Would he? Jinki breaks his musings when he’s looked through their last cabinet and doesn’t find a Kafka book anywhere.
“I’m sorry, I just- I don’t know, it’s not here. Are you sure she left it here?”
Jonghyun affirms this and Jinki dives back in. For some reason, he just can’t bring himself to look at Jonghyun. Who knows what he might see in those eyes, what kind of seducing Jonghyun just might do to him.
“I wouldn’t hurt you. I don’t hurt Krystal,” he hears Jonghyun say and he wonders if he can read his mind. He says nothing. He doesn’t know what to say. What would someone do if a vampire confessed their feelings for them? When Jinki hears Jonghyun leave, he straightens up from where he’s crouched behind the counter and rushes towards the Young Adults section and heads over to where the books starting with the letter ‘T’ are.
*
Jinki thinks about it and he realizes that, yeah, he has liked Jonghyun all this time. He’s liked the younger boy ever since he walked in on Jinki playing the piano and sang along. And now that Jonghyun’s actually confessed his feelings for him, he also realizes that the hardest part of this dating thing is over because Jonghyun’s opened that door for the both of them. All he has to do is take the next step in.
So he says “Hello,” sometime a week later, sitting down beside Jonghyun at the bookstore. He fiddles with his thumbs when the other acknowledges his presence. He tries to keep the conversation as smooth flowing as possible, but it’s difficult when he knows exactly what Jonghyun’s capable of.
“But I really like you as well. So I don’t know how this is going to work out.” He’s finally inside the door, now he just has to wait for Jonghyun to hold out his hand to him so he can take it and they can both skip off into the distance. His heart hammers against his chest when Jonghyun looks at him and his blood rushes faster than white waters when Jonghyun stands and kneels beside him. But when Jonghyun presses his red lips against Jinki’s own dusty pink ones, he can feel his bones melting and his veins popping.
“See, you can trust me.”
*
Jonghyun has a need for skinship and affection, that much Jinki has known even from way back when. But now he definitely knows why. Every brush of the lips sends electricity down his spine and tingles up his toes in a very, very good way. That doesn’t mean, however, that he’s quite ready for the next step. He’s never gone that far before and he’s tested enough unknown waters for the time being.
“You’ve never been to my house.” Jonghyun tells him one day after Krystal caught them being all “disgusting” in the back aisle.
He lights up with excitement because he wonders if Jonghyun’s house will be anything like Draculas or anything like the Cullens. He agrees immediately to going and they both venture out of the bookstore and through the streets of Seoul, hand-in-hand. They enter a tall building and go up to the 43rd floor which took them so long Jinki’s begun to hum to the elevator music even after they get off.
Jonghyun takes him in his room and Jinki is immediately floored.
“Where do you get the money for this?” he asks but receives no answer.
He is given a grand tour of the grand room and Jinki feels all granded out. Jonghyun has expo board, he has a fridge, which Jinki’s sure has absolutely nothing in it, and he has a plain room with black curtains, but it still all looks so great to him.
They open the sliding doors leading to the balcony and step out of it. He takes in the sight of Seoul from sugh a high place and wonders if he could ever acquire a fear of heights from this. He points out his school to Jonghyun and he doesn’t really think that anything he says is interesting to listen to because just before he can start pointing out where the bookstore is, Jonghyun’s tugging on his wrist and pulling him to face the other. Jonghyun presses his lips to his and that familiar feeling of drowning in a pool of sweet candy - or chicken, which is more to Jinki’s preference.
When he feels the kiss get a bit too heated, he tries to pull away but Jonghyun does this thing where he’s being irresistible and speaking in a low voice and kissing around Jinki’s face before claiming his lips again.
*
Jinki thinks he can get used to this intimacy - this feeling of just letting go and trusting wholeheartedly in a person. He ponders the many different stupid reasons he has stocked in the back of his mind for not confessing to Jonghyun before. He should’ve confessed before this vampire thing started, he should’ve confessed that afternoon that Jonghyun ‘died’.
He’s just getting into the rhythm of their hips when he feels a sharp prick in the side of his neck followed by a painful throb that’s overpowering any other feeling he’s experiencing. He thrashes about, trying to get Jonghyun off of him because he knows what Jonghyun’s doing and he’s afraid. He’s afraid because it hurts so much and he’s being drained and he trusted Jonghyun. He can’t feel the rest of his body anymore, just feels a dull twitch in his chest that’s supposed to be his heart beating. He can vaguely hear Jonghyun speaking to him. His vision is hazy and his senses are failing him.
The black haze around his vision almost completely fills out when something falls into his open mouth. It’s warm and sweet on his tongue. He feels his body crave for more and so he reaches out for the source of the taste and brings it to his mouth, feeding on it selfishly. A feeling of satisfaction and pleasure runs through his veins and he doesn’t know if he’s alive or dead or undead, but this, whatever this is tastes so very good.
The source of that delicious liquid is ripped away from him and he opens his eyes. So few minutes ago he could hardly see or hear, but now he feels like he can see things he never would’ve been able to see before. The lines of objects are more clear to him now and every sound made around him is like it was raised 100 decibels higher. He turns to Jonghyun and he thinks that Jonghyun has gotten even more handsome with his new vision. Each line of his face is like a painting in itself to Jinki.
“I’m hungry,” he tells Jonghyun. He doesn’t exactly feel his stomach grumble like it’s supposed to. He can just kind of tell from a tingling in his bones that he’s hungry.
Jonghyun smirks and takes him out to the street, where Jinki can experience the same world with a different perspective and enjoy it with Jonghyun. Jinki can finally stop reading all those books about vampires and just be one and know what it was like for Jonghyun.
Maybe Jonghyun could even teach him a few tricks, that is, after Jinki gets fed because he knows he’s craving.
He doesn’t know how he’ll explain this to Joon.
Title: Waiting For This Life To Change (Seems Like It's Taking Me Forever)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Jonghyun/Jinki
Length: 3,932 words
Summary: Jinki waits for any news of Jonghyun after he goes missing one afternoon. When he decides to move on from his grief and move into Seoul, Jonghyun himself shows up - different and definitely fine. He finds himself confused and flustered because everyone saw the blood on the floor that afternoon.
Notes: I hope I did this story justice ;_; I didn't want to use too much of the dialogue from the original story because, obviously that's what the original story is for. I tried to keep it as faithful to the original as possible while still adding my own things and flings in there.
Remixee author: itachibana13
Title of work you remixed: You Keep Me Wide Awake and Waiting For The Sun
Link to work you remixed: http://semecomplex.livejournal.com/16640.html
Jinki places his hands on the smooth, cold, ebony and ivory surface and presses down on familiar keys. He lets his fingers lead him into the song, he counts two chords in and begins singing, a soft melody that he whispers to the empty music room around him. He closes his eyes and lets the song take him wherever it pleases - to a place where it’s only him and this piano. He feels like it’s the kind of place where he would be surrounded by clouds and birds and he’s just floating up there, singing and playing. He hardly gets to have times like these anymore; he’s just so focused on his studies now, always trying to be the best and bring home the best grades, that he’s nearly forgotten what it was like to have time for himself amongst the flurry of red checks and printed scores.
He builds up into the chorus, and he thinks he imagines it at first, but a voice overlaps his - higher and much more confident. Their voices harmonize and resonate, raising goosebumps on his pale skin.
He finally opens his eyes and there stands a boy with spikey hair, wide eyes, full lips and a sharp jawline that moves in sync with his. The boy’s wearing the same uniform as he is, but he’s as sure as the coming sunset that he’s never seen him before. The warm light that pours into the room colours him in striking shades of gold, orange, and red; shadows and highlights more dramatic at this hour of the day, on that kind of angled face.
The boy joins him on the bench and Jinki makes space for him as he transitions into the next verse. Their arms are brushing and it kind of makes the room all that much warmer for him, but he doesn’t mind. This boy’s full and strong voice dances into his ears and he’s never heard this song as perfect as it is at this moment.
By the second chorus, their voices are louder, more passionate, molding together and rising up above the two of them and surrounding them with notes and words. They’re looking at each other, staring into each other’s eyes - singing to one another, and Jinki thinks this must be what it feels like to be in love - to be so in sync with another, to trust someone wholly, and to just be complete.
*
“That was great; you’re a really good singer,” the boy says, a crooked grin over taking the melancholy and pain his face held earlier. “You play the piano so well too. I’m more of a guitar player, really. I find it so much easier than piano, but that’s just me.”
Jinki smiles and holds out his hand. “Thank you. My name is Jinki, by the way. Third year.”
“I’m Jonghyun. Second year, hyung.”
They laugh at the way the honorific kind of sounds weird coming from Jonghyun after what Jinki likes to think was the greatest song he had ever sung in a duet.
“If you know Romantic and sing it with me, I’ll let you drop the honorifics.”
“Are you kidding?! That’s, like, my favorite ballad from SHINee! Their vocalist is really good; if he wasn’t so famous, I’d probably be dating him by now.”
Jinki blinks and smiles at Jonghyun’s enthusiasm. He begins playing the first few notes of the song while Jonghyun continues to rave about the vocalist of the aforementioned band.
“-ink it’s kind of cool that we have the same name. That’s what’s awesome about living in Korea, I guess, you get to share your name with a bunch of other people! And- Oh, wait, you don’t mind do you?”
Jinki guesses they’re skipping the first verse. “Mind what?”
“That I’m, you know, gay and stuff? Actually, I think I might be bisexual; I swear that Key is secretly a girl and-“
“Jonghyun, if I minded, I would’ve told you earlier on.”
“Oh, oh yeah.”
*
It’s been a few months since Jinki’s met Jonghyun and he didn’t honestly think he’d be so fond of someone as he is with the younger boy. Despite his tendency to talk Jinki’s ear off for three minutes straight and his need to sing louder than the music that Jinki plays on his iPod dock, Jonghyun’s warm personality and his wide, crooked grin overshadow his annoying moments.
They spend afternoons out in Jinki’s backyard, lying down on the grass and watching the sky bleed red and fade into dark blue. Sometimes Jonghyun would stay for dinner and enjoy helping Jinki’s mom cook some meat and sometimes jonghyun would invite jinki over to his house for dinner where jonghyun’s sister would coo over him. It was a routine Jinki’s gotten used to so when six pm rolls around one Friday afternoon and Jonghyun still isn’t skipping through his gate, he starts to worry. He phones a call to Jonghyun’s mom and she tells him that she’s sent Jonghyun to go buy some juice but it had been over half an hour back. So he grabs his jacket and heads out of his house, gets on his bike and pedals as fast as he can to the convenience store Jonghyun frequents.
When he gets there, there’s a commotion by the alleway. He abandons his bicycle by the curb and runs towards the elderly store owner.
“Oh, Jinki! Jinki, it’s horrible! Jonghyun, he’s- he’s-“
“He’s what, eomeoni?” he tries to keep the panic from his voice but he fails and while he’s trying to get a straight answer from her, something glints from the corner of his eye and he turns to it.
It’s the necklace that Jonghyun always wore - a simple chain necklace with a silver J attached to it. They bought it together when they went out to the mall joking around that it could be a secret code for the two of them - J for Jonghyun, and J for Jinki. It’s lying in a pool of half-dried blood broken into two halves as if it was grabbed straight from Jonghyun’s neck and ripped off.
*
Jinki packs his things into five boxes and a backpack a year later when he’s finished choosing what things to bring to Seoul and what things to leave behind. He’d doubted making the decision to move a couple of months ago, but looking at his half-cleaned out room now he thinks it might be just the thing he needs. He sighs and stares at the necklace clutched in his hands, cold and glinting in the early morning sun. The ‘J’ sits heavy in the middle of his palm and he grips it tightly before placing it inside a small plain box. He hides the box away where maybe even he might forget it if he doesn’t come back for longer than a while.
He takes a final glance around the room and feels a strange warm feeling in the pit of his stomach. For the so few months that Jinki’s known Jonghyun, it would seem as though they’d known each other for years. Every bit of his room reminded him of Jonghyun like a slap in the face.
Jonghyun would sit on his bed and glance through his books while he did his homework; he would sit on his swivel chair playing his guitar while Jinki took an afternoon nap; and they would both sit on the carpeted floor of his room and sing together - no instruments, no background music - just the two of them and their voices.
No one knew where Jonghyun was; people were claiming him to be dead. Jinki wasn’t sure what hurt more; the fact that people gave up, or that there really was no hope to hold on to for Jonghyun to come back. But he’s pushing himself to move on, otherwise he’ll always be holding on to that single strand of hope that’s so close to snapping. So he applied for a scholarship in a university in Seoul, got accepted, and now moving to an apartment there. He isn’t sure what being Seoul would be like, there could be many risks. But if moving away from all this - from Jonghyun - is the only way he can finally end his grieving, then it’s a chance he’ll have to take.
*
So far, Seoul hasn’t been bad. Jinki found a job at the bookstore, he’s found friends, and, well, no one ever said school was easy, but he’s been having a great time. True, there were some odd moments when he thinks he’s going crazy like that time he dreamt of bloodshot eyes and Jonghyun screaming in pain or that time when he bumped into someone at the club one of his friends, Joon, brought him to and thought he saw Jonghyun. However, now would be a great time to start phoning the mental hospital and asking for a doctor because he’s definitely staring at Jonghyun with his hair dyed and his face sharper than he ever remembers.
“Jonghyun,” he manages through the harsh beating of his blood in his ears.
The other acknowledges him with a hello and stands up, still shorter than he is and Jinki’s thankful for this familiarity. “Jinki.”
Strangely, they have a conversation, one that doesn’t involve screaming and sobbing. His mind, however, is a completely different story. He can already picture the mini-Jinkis in his brain running amok and looking around in file cabinets for his views on missing people and blood on the pavement. Jonghyun doesn’t seem to notice his inner turmoil and continues answering Jinki’s questions without fail.
“What about you? You look reasonably… well off.”
“I ran. And, well, let’s keep that last part a secret,” the other replies and moves past him towards the doors. Something’s different, Jinki can tell. There’s just this vibe coming off of him that totally throws him off. He watches the younger disappear past the doors of the bookstore with words for goodbye and doesn’t move for the next few or so minutes.
*
Jinki doesn’t understand how it could be possible. He saw all that blood on the floor; he saw Jonghyun’s necklace lying in that pool of blood; and he saw the stricken look on the shopkeeper’s face when she told him about how Jonghyun was pulled aside by some beautiful woman and was attacked by her, but as soon as she ran outside, both were gone. So why should Jonghyun be here, now, all of a sudden after all those months of painstakingly waiting for any news of him? And if Jonghyun was alive this whole time, why didn’t he bother to contact Jinki? Was he running from someone? Was he afraid that woman would find him again and hurt him? Was he afraid she would attack his loved ones next? Attack him?
“Jinki, class is over. Let’s go grab a drink, okay? I need caffeine.”
Jinki nods and stands, following Joon out of the classroom. He lets the cold air bite at the tips of his ears while he wraps his neck with a scarf and buries the bottom half of his face in it.
“So what’s up with you today? You look spacey.”
“I’m just- I don’t even know. I think I just might need caffeine too.”
Joon grins at his answer and slings an arm around his shoulders, leading him to the Starbucks closest to their campus. When they get in, Jinki unwraps the scarf from his neck and lets it drape over his shoulders. He goes to find a table while Joon orders their drinks. As he takes a seat by the windows, he lets out a long, suffering sigh and stares out at the streets. He just can’t seem to get over it. Jonghyuns eyes. They were different; they’d always been a chocolate brown, never a burning amber. And his lips never used to be so red. What had changed? Had everything changed? Or had nothing changed at all with Jonghyun? Maybe it was Jinki who had changed? Had the city changed him? Had the lack of Jonghyun’s presence in his life changed him? Maybe that was a bit too dramatic, but Jinki was at his wits end.
When Joon sits at the table with their drinks, Jinki momentarily forgets his troubles after his first sip of the hot coffee. They talk school and they talk girls - mostly on Joon’s part because Jinki just doesn’t really want to venture into that side of his social life just yet. Then they move on to more serious matters such as their upcoming project which they both needed to work on. With the mention of their upcoming due date, they stand to leave and get started. He hadn’t meant to take a look around the café, it was just a force of habit that he’d acquired when he was younger. But when he did, he noticed two familiar people sitting together across their table.
“Krystal! And… Jonghyun, is that you?” The girl waves and beckons them over.
“I didn’t know you were friends with Krystal,” he frowns a little, “when did that happen?”
“Last week-ish?” the other answers. “Er, if we’re intruding on you and your friend or anything, then we’ll just-”
“No!” Jinki finds himself saying and making excuses. He doesn’t understand what he’s doing, but when has he ever, really? He wants to speak to Jonghyun, wants to find out what’s happened to him all this time.
Krystal and Joon leave the two in an awkward silence in an extremely public place where people might or might not just be staring, but Jinki needs answers, and he wants them now.
*
Jinki knows he shouldn’t have, but he’s gone past that boundary. He brought Jonghyun back to his apartment like they were highschool kids again (which Jonghyun still technically should be, but Jinki isn’t really sure anymore), like nothing ever happened, and just what happened? Jonghyun runs out on him after a lengthy confession. The only thing he can say for now is I knew it and fuck, jonghyun’s a vampire and he likes me. Jinki isn’t sure if he’s supposed to worry or rejoice, but he’ll stick to worrying about the ‘vampire’ aspect of this story for now.
So the next day, at work, he approaches Krystal who is, apparently, close to Jonghyun. He wants to take offence in the fact that Jonghyun never told him that Krystal was his friend because he’s got this niggling feeling in the back of his mind that Krystal was in on Jonghyun’s secret, but he doesn’t because, well, what can he do about it? So he asks her and he gets his answers. But when he does, it only leads to more questions. If being a supposedly mythical creature is actually possible, then he’s got a whole bookshelf to learn about being a vampire - and definitely not the Young Adults bookshelf because even Jinki knows that vampires just. don’t. sparkle. and it’s just so stupid really.
For the next few days, he spends his extra time reading up on vampires. He doesn’t really like everything that he reads about them - especially that bit about seducing young women and making them victims because it makes Jinki think about Krystal and Jonghyun together and it makes him wonder. He scratches the back of his neck at that thought and continues reading.
He’s so caught up in a book one day he doesn’t even notice that the looming figure over him is Jonghyun. So when he looks up from the book he’s reading and sees Jonghyun, he can totally imagine the other with a tux and a velvet cape on.
“Hey, uhm, Krystal left me a book? She says she left it somewhere around here.”
Jinki blinks and nods. “Sure, let me try and look for it. What was the title?”
“The Castle. Kafka.”
He tries and looks in all the cabinets and shelves that they have behind the counter, but he can’t seem to find the book that Jonghyun was looking for. Maybe it’s a scheme, maybe Krystal is one of Jonghyun’s women, but that doesn’t really make sense. Jonghyun wouldn’t do that. Would he? Jinki breaks his musings when he’s looked through their last cabinet and doesn’t find a Kafka book anywhere.
“I’m sorry, I just- I don’t know, it’s not here. Are you sure she left it here?”
Jonghyun affirms this and Jinki dives back in. For some reason, he just can’t bring himself to look at Jonghyun. Who knows what he might see in those eyes, what kind of seducing Jonghyun just might do to him.
“I wouldn’t hurt you. I don’t hurt Krystal,” he hears Jonghyun say and he wonders if he can read his mind. He says nothing. He doesn’t know what to say. What would someone do if a vampire confessed their feelings for them? When Jinki hears Jonghyun leave, he straightens up from where he’s crouched behind the counter and rushes towards the Young Adults section and heads over to where the books starting with the letter ‘T’ are.
*
Jinki thinks about it and he realizes that, yeah, he has liked Jonghyun all this time. He’s liked the younger boy ever since he walked in on Jinki playing the piano and sang along. And now that Jonghyun’s actually confessed his feelings for him, he also realizes that the hardest part of this dating thing is over because Jonghyun’s opened that door for the both of them. All he has to do is take the next step in.
So he says “Hello,” sometime a week later, sitting down beside Jonghyun at the bookstore. He fiddles with his thumbs when the other acknowledges his presence. He tries to keep the conversation as smooth flowing as possible, but it’s difficult when he knows exactly what Jonghyun’s capable of.
“But I really like you as well. So I don’t know how this is going to work out.” He’s finally inside the door, now he just has to wait for Jonghyun to hold out his hand to him so he can take it and they can both skip off into the distance. His heart hammers against his chest when Jonghyun looks at him and his blood rushes faster than white waters when Jonghyun stands and kneels beside him. But when Jonghyun presses his red lips against Jinki’s own dusty pink ones, he can feel his bones melting and his veins popping.
“See, you can trust me.”
*
Jonghyun has a need for skinship and affection, that much Jinki has known even from way back when. But now he definitely knows why. Every brush of the lips sends electricity down his spine and tingles up his toes in a very, very good way. That doesn’t mean, however, that he’s quite ready for the next step. He’s never gone that far before and he’s tested enough unknown waters for the time being.
“You’ve never been to my house.” Jonghyun tells him one day after Krystal caught them being all “disgusting” in the back aisle.
He lights up with excitement because he wonders if Jonghyun’s house will be anything like Draculas or anything like the Cullens. He agrees immediately to going and they both venture out of the bookstore and through the streets of Seoul, hand-in-hand. They enter a tall building and go up to the 43rd floor which took them so long Jinki’s begun to hum to the elevator music even after they get off.
Jonghyun takes him in his room and Jinki is immediately floored.
“Where do you get the money for this?” he asks but receives no answer.
He is given a grand tour of the grand room and Jinki feels all granded out. Jonghyun has expo board, he has a fridge, which Jinki’s sure has absolutely nothing in it, and he has a plain room with black curtains, but it still all looks so great to him.
They open the sliding doors leading to the balcony and step out of it. He takes in the sight of Seoul from sugh a high place and wonders if he could ever acquire a fear of heights from this. He points out his school to Jonghyun and he doesn’t really think that anything he says is interesting to listen to because just before he can start pointing out where the bookstore is, Jonghyun’s tugging on his wrist and pulling him to face the other. Jonghyun presses his lips to his and that familiar feeling of drowning in a pool of sweet candy - or chicken, which is more to Jinki’s preference.
When he feels the kiss get a bit too heated, he tries to pull away but Jonghyun does this thing where he’s being irresistible and speaking in a low voice and kissing around Jinki’s face before claiming his lips again.
*
Jinki thinks he can get used to this intimacy - this feeling of just letting go and trusting wholeheartedly in a person. He ponders the many different stupid reasons he has stocked in the back of his mind for not confessing to Jonghyun before. He should’ve confessed before this vampire thing started, he should’ve confessed that afternoon that Jonghyun ‘died’.
He’s just getting into the rhythm of their hips when he feels a sharp prick in the side of his neck followed by a painful throb that’s overpowering any other feeling he’s experiencing. He thrashes about, trying to get Jonghyun off of him because he knows what Jonghyun’s doing and he’s afraid. He’s afraid because it hurts so much and he’s being drained and he trusted Jonghyun. He can’t feel the rest of his body anymore, just feels a dull twitch in his chest that’s supposed to be his heart beating. He can vaguely hear Jonghyun speaking to him. His vision is hazy and his senses are failing him.
The black haze around his vision almost completely fills out when something falls into his open mouth. It’s warm and sweet on his tongue. He feels his body crave for more and so he reaches out for the source of the taste and brings it to his mouth, feeding on it selfishly. A feeling of satisfaction and pleasure runs through his veins and he doesn’t know if he’s alive or dead or undead, but this, whatever this is tastes so very good.
The source of that delicious liquid is ripped away from him and he opens his eyes. So few minutes ago he could hardly see or hear, but now he feels like he can see things he never would’ve been able to see before. The lines of objects are more clear to him now and every sound made around him is like it was raised 100 decibels higher. He turns to Jonghyun and he thinks that Jonghyun has gotten even more handsome with his new vision. Each line of his face is like a painting in itself to Jinki.
“I’m hungry,” he tells Jonghyun. He doesn’t exactly feel his stomach grumble like it’s supposed to. He can just kind of tell from a tingling in his bones that he’s hungry.
Jonghyun smirks and takes him out to the street, where Jinki can experience the same world with a different perspective and enjoy it with Jonghyun. Jinki can finally stop reading all those books about vampires and just be one and know what it was like for Jonghyun.
Maybe Jonghyun could even teach him a few tricks, that is, after Jinki gets fed because he knows he’s craving.
He doesn’t know how he’ll explain this to Joon.