β. 001
braces. jongin/soojung. pg. 957w.
jongin runs his tongue against the row of his front teeth for the nth time today, feeling the cold metal wire and the bump of plastic brackets in a row.
a week ago, the company had told him to wear braces to 'refine' his teeth, although he thinks that there is nothing wrong with them. he's been told that his toothy smiles are beautiful - apart from his aegyo-ish dinosaur smile that comes with a claw; when he forces himself to smile, it just oddly comes out like that.
but nothing is wrong with his teeth. he is flawless, after all.
it's transparent, but he doesn't wear it on performances, so now that he's alone in the company while the others are chilling out in the dorm (except for sehun, he said he had plans), jongin has his braces on, mindlessly running his tongue along the wire as his feet shuffles to the beat.
the sudden click of the door surprises him, and poking her head inside is soojung - she's a friend, senior, label-mate, and also potential girlfriend and current crush of jongin. she grins at him before entering the practice room.
"i thought it was your day off?"
jongin was just going to open his mouth to answer when he feels the bump of his bracket against his gums. he clamps his mouth back shut, shaking his head to answer soojung. he doesn't want her to know that she wears braces - for really weird reasons because soojung's got really nice teeth that jongin really likes every time she laughs maniacally as she claps her hands when he throws a dirty joke or two when they hang out.
so he puts on that face; the fierce, charismatic one when he's performing because he's dancing right now and he hopes his sexiness will distract her from talking to him. it doesn't.
"you know, jongin, when you're given days off, you should enjoy it, seeing as you're very popular now, you won't be getting a lot of them," she says, unzipping her jacket and throws it to the corner of the room, landing next to jongin's bag. "what are you practicing?"
jongin grabs the cd case and shows the cover to soojung, avoiding answering.
"oh, neyo. part of the list, eh?" she tugs a corner of her lips upward in a smile, and he does so as well, unknowingly twisting his lips that results in a really weird expression. soojung chuckles, "you okay?"
he just stares blankly at her, not knowing what to answer, but soojung just shrugs, before starting to stretch while she blabbers about her best friend. "you know that sulli went out with sehun, right? i overheard them making plans over the phone last night. i was going to stalk them, but i ended up here-"
jongin really wanted to say what the fuck because how can sehun not tell him that he was going out with sulli. ugh, if only he could speak and tell soojung that yes, they really should stalk their friends. so he just shrugs, before doing a turn and slide.
soojung frowns, before walking over to turn off the tape. jongin stops in his tracks, looking at her, confused and nervous. his palms are sweating now.
"yah, are you ignoring me?"
shit. girls and there overdramatic minds. jongin shakes his head.
"then how come you're not talking to me? is there something wrong?" she raises her tone and jongin suddenly feels really bad, if not scared. "jongin-ah, if you have something to say, just fucking tell me, alright? you're annoying the hell out of me, jesus-"
"sorry," jongin mutters, looking down in guilt and in hopes of not letting her see his braces.
soojung raises a brow. "what?"
"i'm sorry."
"wait," she says, before suddenly cupping jongin's face and pulls him closer. he can feel his cheeks burning up under her fingers as he stares at her mischievous eyes, his nervous heart going thump thump all of a sudden. soojung's eyes darts to his lips, which cause him to gulp.
"you wear braces?"
jongin's mind races to find whatever decent answer he can come up with - he thinks saliva is a correct and suitable answer but it's sort of gross to say that to a girl, so he just sighs. "yeah."
"why? you have nice teeth."
"i don't know, the company told me to."
soojung chuckles. "the company tells us to do a lot of ridiculous things," she says and jongin laughs along with her, revealing the white rows of his braces-bound teeth. "so you didn't talk because you don't want me to see your braces? are you embarrassed with me or something?"
"yeah.." he replies weakly, and she oddly seems surprised. "i mean, it's just that you have really nice teeth and all so i don't want you to know i wear braces, although i think that there's nothing wrong with them, but what if there is?"
soojung stares at him for a second before bursting into a fit of chuckles. "well, thanks for the weird compliment, but jongin, you have really nice teeth, and besides, you look cute when you smile like earlier. nothing's wrong, it's cute."
jongin freezes. "you think i'm cute?"
"well, yeah, like nerdy cute," she says, playfully hitting his cheeks with her palms once before pulling away, grinning.
jongin rubs his aching cheeks, but smiles anyway at soojung. "now that i can talk to you, there's something i have been wanting to say," he leans in, stopping just about a centimeter away from her face, a playful smirk lighting up his own, "let's go stalk sehun and sulli."
the corners of soojung's lips tug up into a mischievous smile. "i thought you'd never ask."
a/n: my first attempt at a kaistal drabble? or ficlet. forgive me if it sucks because it does. just don't get sick of it yet because i still have, like, a lot of them.
well, here goes nothing.