122. FANFIC: "When we wake on Sunday mornings"
Title: When we wake on Sunday mornings
Fandom: EXO
Pairing/Characters: kaixing / Kai & Lay
Genre: Romance
Rating: PG-13
Words: 2.1k
Summary: Inspired by “Sunday Morning” a poem by tt
Author’s Note: A very happy birthday to Jade :D You said the other day (...weeks ago) that you wanted a kaixing fic based off this poem; I hope I don’t disappoint you too much ;A; This is just my way of saying that I’m so glad we met and thank you for being my friend ♥
Yixing is used to waking up to the sound of Jongin stumbling into the apartment at three, four in the morning, a little too shaky on his feet to be called tipsy. He hears shoes being kicked off haphazardly, keys being clamorously dumped on the coffee table in the living room. The hinges of the bedroom door whine as Jongin pushes it open; Yixing doesn’t have to open his eyes to know Jongin is languidly stripping off his clothing in the dark, leaving a trail of evidence in his wake. Without a word, Jongin stumbles and slips in between the crisp sheets of Yixing’s bed, a hand that feels like fire creeping up Yixing’s side under the wifebeater he wears to sleep, thumb rubbing small circles into the skin.
“Wash up before you fall asleep, Jongin,” Yixing mumbles half into the pillow.
A warm finger presses on his lips. “Shhhh,” Jongin says, before replacing his finger with his lips. He ends up almost missing, planting a kiss at the corner of Yixing’s lips. Using the hand he has up Yixing’s side to draw himself in closer, he nuzzles his sweaty, grimy face into the crook of Yixing’s neck.
Jongin smells like expensive vodka and a cologne Yixing doesn’t recognize; the alcohol is nauseating, but Yixing doesn’t push him away.
In the morning, Yixing wakes up to the sight of Jongin’s tanned skin peeking in between the folds of tangled white sheets and ruffled dark hair sticking up in all directions with remnants of last night’s hair products, tickling Yixing’s chin. Jongin’s arm has crawled from his side to his back during the night, but his head is still neatly tucked against Yixing’s chest.
Yixing extricates himself from Jongin’s limbs (ever so slowly disentangling Jongin’s long legs that have wrapped around his) and then turns to look at Jongin still sleeping in his bed.
This, Yixing decides, is when Jongin looks the most beautiful. Not when Jongin is walking down the runway with hair slicked back and skin airbrushed to glossy magazine cover perfection. Not when he wears heavy eyeliner and the latest trendy clothes in another photoshoot from some high profile designer. But when Jongin has black smudges under his eyes and patchy foundation because half of it has rubbed off on the pillow (Yixing’s pillow, never Jongin’s, because Jongin always refuses to sleep on his side of the bed), when he has a small line of drool running from his mouth down the side of his cheek, when Yixing can simultaneously see the stress surface and the years peal away in Jongin’s face - this is when he wants to wake Jongin up with ferocious kisses the most, kisses all over his face, neck, chest, and anywhere his lips can reach.
But he doesn’t.
Yixing knows he’s going to have to put the sheets into the laundry again, just like every morning after Jongin decides to stay the night. He doesn’t mind; he never minds.
His body having finally registered the bed cooling down with the lack of Yixing’s body heat, Jongin slowly stirs awake, stretching like a cat.
“Morning, sleeping beauty,” Yixing says.
Jongin just groans and holds up a hand to say five more minutes, please.
--
Sometimes Jongin stays for one night, sometimes for a week or more. Everything is seamless, the way when Yixing stays up late and there’s morning light streaking across the pitch black night sky before he even notices, even when he’s sitting up in bed and staring out the window.
But Jongin always comes in late at night, never in the morning or the afternoon. He smells like whatever high-class drink they served that night at the socializing party Jongin went to, mixed with a different cologne each time. Other times, the hand Jongin always slips up Yixing’s wifebeater, raising goose bumps on his bare skin, travels further up (or down) than usual, but Yixing always stops him - not when you’re drunk, Jongin.
When Jongin leaves, it’s always at night, too, before the crack of dawn. No matter how little noise Jongin tries to make, Yixing always wakes up to the sound of Jongin slipping on his clothes, groping in the dark to find where he had left his clothes lying around the bedroom floor the past week (or days). Yixing just pretends to be asleep, watching him go with barely opened eyes.
The morning after those kind of nights are not all too different from the nights when Jongin sleeps over. There are no hints of darker skin offset by the crisp white sheets, no tangled dark hair greeting Yixing when he wakes up, but there are still traces of Jongin left all over the apartment: Jongin’s toothbrush still in the same cup as his, a jacket lying forgotten on the armchair...
Yixing knows, from past experience, that Jongin will return and collect the things he’s forgotten, as if saying, hyung, I’ll come back to pick up the pieces, only to leave again with more items left behind.
Jongin, however, never forgets to take the apartment keys with him.
--
“You know what he said to me?”
Jongin suddenly starts talking to Yixing in the dark even though Yixing is barely awake; he doesn’t even clarify who ‘he’ is but Yixing has his guesses.
“He said I was too untouched for him.” Jongin scoffs. He’s rambling, slurring his words from the effect of alcohol. “I mean, I work in the modeling industry, for crying out loud, and he says I’m too untouched? What does that mean, anyway, to be too untouched, honestly, I’m not innocent, you know-”
“I don’t think that’s what he meant, Jongin,” Yixing simply says.
--
Later, when Jongin’s breathing evens out:
“You’re looking for love in all the wrong places, Jongin-ah.”
--
“Can you believe it?” Jongin says as he slams down the pan on the stove. They’re in the kitchen, Yixing watching Jongin make them breakfast. “The bitch said I could stand to lose a couple more pounds.”
Yixing stares at Jongin’s bare back, as if he could see the self-doubt knotting up the muscles under the skin. “So what did you say?”
“What did I say? I said she should go to the nearest ice cream parlor and get herself a scoop of shit to eat, that’s what I said.”
But when they go out for dinner that night and Yixing sees Jongin order a salad, dressing on the side, it's Jongin who's the one going to the nearest ice cream parlor, Yixing dragging him by the hand.
“Three scoops of double chocolate fudge, please,” Yixing tells the girl behind the counter. He points to the largest waffle cone on display, chocolate-dipped with rainbow colored sprinkles. That one? she asks. “Yes, that one. He really loves sprinkles,” Yixing smiles, giving a small cock of the head to indicate Jongin, standing a little behind him.
Jongin says I don’t want it in a loud, angry tone, but from the way Jongin is leaning in towards him, Yixing can tell otherwise.
--
Once, Yixing catches Jongin standing in front of the mirror completely naked, staring and inspecting, with the bathroom door left wide open.
Jongin sees Yixing’s reflection in the mirror and hurriedly pulls his boxers back on. He shoots Yixing’s reflection a dirty look, a certain challenging glint eclipsing the hollowness in his eyes, saying what do you want? “Don’t creep up on me like that,” Jongin says.
Yixing doesn’t say anything; he just walks up to him and wraps his arms around him. It’s awkward; Jongin is larger than he is, but still Yixing hugs him, his chest flushed against Jongin’s back, the side of his face resting on the curve where Jongin’s neck meets his shoulders. He feels that if he hugged Jongin any tighter than he is, Jongin would be crushed.
The younger man just shrugs him off. “Stop it.”
Done shrugging his t-shirt back on, Jongin stops and stares at Yixing through the mirror. “Do you see this?” he asks, gesturing to himself. “I’m just a shell. That's all people care about, anyway. My job has sucked the soul out of me. Everyday, people telling me to network with this and that person, to wear these clothes, asking me, have you let yourself go?”
“What do you want me to stop doing, exactly?” Yixing asks.
“Stop wasting your time with me,” Jongin spits. “Stop being so gentle with me. I hate it when people treat me like I’m innocent and fragile-”
In the moment when Yixing crashes his lips on Jongin’s, fingers pressing bruises into Jongin’s upper arms, Yixing understands that some people are broken shards of a mirror who don’t want to be put back together again.
There are some people, though, who can love all those pieces, broken or not.
--
It's a Sunday morning when Yixing wakes up to Jongin's big brown eyes staring at him, face just inches from his own.
“Can I ask you something?” Jongin murmurs.
Yixing squints at him, his silhouette lit up softly from behind by the blue-gray light of early morning streaming in from the bedroom windows. He lifts his head slightly from the pillow, peering over Jongin's bare shoulder to read the clock on Jongin's bedside table. 5:00AM. “Jongin, go back to sleep-"
“Why do you always let me back in?” Jongin asks.
Yixing stops for a moment. He licks his dry lips and fishes a hand out from underneath the covers to brush Jongin's bangs out of his eyes. He traces Jongin's temple and along his jaw with the same hand. Even in the weak morning light, Jongin appears in sharp contrast with the white sheets of the bed, locks of dark hair splayed out on Yixing's pillow.
“What are you talking about, Jongin?” Yixing asks, voice raspy with sleep.
“We're not together. Why do you never take back your spare key and lock the door?”
“I can't do that,” Yixing says. “I can't do that, not when you look like this.”
Jongin rolls onto his back. “Oh,” he says, with a steel edge to his voice, “oh, so this is nothing but physical attraction. You're no better than-“
“That’s not what I meant,” Yixing interrupts, propping his head up with one arm on the pillow. He can see Jongin's profile clearly like this, the slight bump of his nose and the swell of his lips, dark against the morning light. “I meant, you look like nobody has loved you before.”
Yixing watches as Jongin's brow furrows. “Yixing, don't even start with your poetic shit to cover up what you really meant to say. I get it, okay?”
“Like nobody has ever loved you before,” Yixing repeats, “including yourself.”
Slowly, gently, Yixing straddles Jongin around the hips and leans over the larger man so that Jongin can't look anywhere but up into his eyes. With one finger, he gently smoothes away the wrinkles of Jongin's brows. “I have to love you twice as much as any other lover, for you and me.”
He bends down, bracing himself with one hand on either side of Jongin's head, giving Jongin's right cheek a small kiss. “I love that when you sleep in my bed, you wake up with the folds of the blankets pressed into your cheeks.”
A kiss on the tip of the nose. “I love that your side of the bed is always empty when I wake up, because even when you stay the night, you end up tangled with me.”
His lips moves to Jongin's; they're pressed closed as if Jongin isn't sure he wants to let Yixing in or not. “I love that when you come home at night, you give me an innocent good night kiss no matter how drunk you are.”
“Must be hard work,” Jongin barely whispers, swallowing. “Loving for two people.”
“Well, yeah,” Yixing replies, the dimple in his cheek threatening to deepen with a smile. “But it’s work I enjoy.” He brushes Jongin's hair out of his eyes again. “I love you on Monday, on Tuesday, on every day of the week, even on those days I wake up and you’re not here in my arms.” He kisses Jongin on the lips again, and this time Jongin yields.
“Stay,” Yixing breathes, “and let me pick up your pieces.”
“You’d grow sick of me if you saw my face every morning,” Jongin says.
“I doubt it,” Yixing answers.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Yixing rolls onto his side again and Jongin automatically fills in the empty spaces in between them with his body. “Morning, sleeping beauty,” Jongin says, lips against Yixing's collarbone so that Yixing feels every syllable reverberating throughout his body.
Jongin hums appreciatively when Yixing chuckles. “Good morning to you, too,” Yixing says. “Now go back to sleep.”
--
P.S. I’m sorry, Jade ;A; you probably wanted smut hahahaha but I’m too innocent for that okay. And I’m sorry that this is a week late, sob. I am the world’s slowest fic writer OTL
P.P.S. I’M SORRY TO EVERYBODY IDK WHAT THIS IS. This was only supposed to be a drabble and now it is kind of... not a drabble oops
Fandom: EXO
Pairing/Characters: kaixing / Kai & Lay
Genre: Romance
Rating: PG-13
Words: 2.1k
Summary: Inspired by “Sunday Morning” a poem by tt
Author’s Note: A very happy birthday to Jade :D You said the other day (...weeks ago) that you wanted a kaixing fic based off this poem; I hope I don’t disappoint you too much ;A; This is just my way of saying that I’m so glad we met and thank you for being my friend ♥
Yixing is used to waking up to the sound of Jongin stumbling into the apartment at three, four in the morning, a little too shaky on his feet to be called tipsy. He hears shoes being kicked off haphazardly, keys being clamorously dumped on the coffee table in the living room. The hinges of the bedroom door whine as Jongin pushes it open; Yixing doesn’t have to open his eyes to know Jongin is languidly stripping off his clothing in the dark, leaving a trail of evidence in his wake. Without a word, Jongin stumbles and slips in between the crisp sheets of Yixing’s bed, a hand that feels like fire creeping up Yixing’s side under the wifebeater he wears to sleep, thumb rubbing small circles into the skin.
“Wash up before you fall asleep, Jongin,” Yixing mumbles half into the pillow.
A warm finger presses on his lips. “Shhhh,” Jongin says, before replacing his finger with his lips. He ends up almost missing, planting a kiss at the corner of Yixing’s lips. Using the hand he has up Yixing’s side to draw himself in closer, he nuzzles his sweaty, grimy face into the crook of Yixing’s neck.
Jongin smells like expensive vodka and a cologne Yixing doesn’t recognize; the alcohol is nauseating, but Yixing doesn’t push him away.
In the morning, Yixing wakes up to the sight of Jongin’s tanned skin peeking in between the folds of tangled white sheets and ruffled dark hair sticking up in all directions with remnants of last night’s hair products, tickling Yixing’s chin. Jongin’s arm has crawled from his side to his back during the night, but his head is still neatly tucked against Yixing’s chest.
Yixing extricates himself from Jongin’s limbs (ever so slowly disentangling Jongin’s long legs that have wrapped around his) and then turns to look at Jongin still sleeping in his bed.
This, Yixing decides, is when Jongin looks the most beautiful. Not when Jongin is walking down the runway with hair slicked back and skin airbrushed to glossy magazine cover perfection. Not when he wears heavy eyeliner and the latest trendy clothes in another photoshoot from some high profile designer. But when Jongin has black smudges under his eyes and patchy foundation because half of it has rubbed off on the pillow (Yixing’s pillow, never Jongin’s, because Jongin always refuses to sleep on his side of the bed), when he has a small line of drool running from his mouth down the side of his cheek, when Yixing can simultaneously see the stress surface and the years peal away in Jongin’s face - this is when he wants to wake Jongin up with ferocious kisses the most, kisses all over his face, neck, chest, and anywhere his lips can reach.
But he doesn’t.
Yixing knows he’s going to have to put the sheets into the laundry again, just like every morning after Jongin decides to stay the night. He doesn’t mind; he never minds.
His body having finally registered the bed cooling down with the lack of Yixing’s body heat, Jongin slowly stirs awake, stretching like a cat.
“Morning, sleeping beauty,” Yixing says.
Jongin just groans and holds up a hand to say five more minutes, please.
--
Sometimes Jongin stays for one night, sometimes for a week or more. Everything is seamless, the way when Yixing stays up late and there’s morning light streaking across the pitch black night sky before he even notices, even when he’s sitting up in bed and staring out the window.
But Jongin always comes in late at night, never in the morning or the afternoon. He smells like whatever high-class drink they served that night at the socializing party Jongin went to, mixed with a different cologne each time. Other times, the hand Jongin always slips up Yixing’s wifebeater, raising goose bumps on his bare skin, travels further up (or down) than usual, but Yixing always stops him - not when you’re drunk, Jongin.
When Jongin leaves, it’s always at night, too, before the crack of dawn. No matter how little noise Jongin tries to make, Yixing always wakes up to the sound of Jongin slipping on his clothes, groping in the dark to find where he had left his clothes lying around the bedroom floor the past week (or days). Yixing just pretends to be asleep, watching him go with barely opened eyes.
The morning after those kind of nights are not all too different from the nights when Jongin sleeps over. There are no hints of darker skin offset by the crisp white sheets, no tangled dark hair greeting Yixing when he wakes up, but there are still traces of Jongin left all over the apartment: Jongin’s toothbrush still in the same cup as his, a jacket lying forgotten on the armchair...
Yixing knows, from past experience, that Jongin will return and collect the things he’s forgotten, as if saying, hyung, I’ll come back to pick up the pieces, only to leave again with more items left behind.
Jongin, however, never forgets to take the apartment keys with him.
--
“You know what he said to me?”
Jongin suddenly starts talking to Yixing in the dark even though Yixing is barely awake; he doesn’t even clarify who ‘he’ is but Yixing has his guesses.
“He said I was too untouched for him.” Jongin scoffs. He’s rambling, slurring his words from the effect of alcohol. “I mean, I work in the modeling industry, for crying out loud, and he says I’m too untouched? What does that mean, anyway, to be too untouched, honestly, I’m not innocent, you know-”
“I don’t think that’s what he meant, Jongin,” Yixing simply says.
--
Later, when Jongin’s breathing evens out:
“You’re looking for love in all the wrong places, Jongin-ah.”
--
“Can you believe it?” Jongin says as he slams down the pan on the stove. They’re in the kitchen, Yixing watching Jongin make them breakfast. “The bitch said I could stand to lose a couple more pounds.”
Yixing stares at Jongin’s bare back, as if he could see the self-doubt knotting up the muscles under the skin. “So what did you say?”
“What did I say? I said she should go to the nearest ice cream parlor and get herself a scoop of shit to eat, that’s what I said.”
But when they go out for dinner that night and Yixing sees Jongin order a salad, dressing on the side, it's Jongin who's the one going to the nearest ice cream parlor, Yixing dragging him by the hand.
“Three scoops of double chocolate fudge, please,” Yixing tells the girl behind the counter. He points to the largest waffle cone on display, chocolate-dipped with rainbow colored sprinkles. That one? she asks. “Yes, that one. He really loves sprinkles,” Yixing smiles, giving a small cock of the head to indicate Jongin, standing a little behind him.
Jongin says I don’t want it in a loud, angry tone, but from the way Jongin is leaning in towards him, Yixing can tell otherwise.
--
Once, Yixing catches Jongin standing in front of the mirror completely naked, staring and inspecting, with the bathroom door left wide open.
Jongin sees Yixing’s reflection in the mirror and hurriedly pulls his boxers back on. He shoots Yixing’s reflection a dirty look, a certain challenging glint eclipsing the hollowness in his eyes, saying what do you want? “Don’t creep up on me like that,” Jongin says.
Yixing doesn’t say anything; he just walks up to him and wraps his arms around him. It’s awkward; Jongin is larger than he is, but still Yixing hugs him, his chest flushed against Jongin’s back, the side of his face resting on the curve where Jongin’s neck meets his shoulders. He feels that if he hugged Jongin any tighter than he is, Jongin would be crushed.
The younger man just shrugs him off. “Stop it.”
Done shrugging his t-shirt back on, Jongin stops and stares at Yixing through the mirror. “Do you see this?” he asks, gesturing to himself. “I’m just a shell. That's all people care about, anyway. My job has sucked the soul out of me. Everyday, people telling me to network with this and that person, to wear these clothes, asking me, have you let yourself go?”
“What do you want me to stop doing, exactly?” Yixing asks.
“Stop wasting your time with me,” Jongin spits. “Stop being so gentle with me. I hate it when people treat me like I’m innocent and fragile-”
In the moment when Yixing crashes his lips on Jongin’s, fingers pressing bruises into Jongin’s upper arms, Yixing understands that some people are broken shards of a mirror who don’t want to be put back together again.
There are some people, though, who can love all those pieces, broken or not.
--
It's a Sunday morning when Yixing wakes up to Jongin's big brown eyes staring at him, face just inches from his own.
“Can I ask you something?” Jongin murmurs.
Yixing squints at him, his silhouette lit up softly from behind by the blue-gray light of early morning streaming in from the bedroom windows. He lifts his head slightly from the pillow, peering over Jongin's bare shoulder to read the clock on Jongin's bedside table. 5:00AM. “Jongin, go back to sleep-"
“Why do you always let me back in?” Jongin asks.
Yixing stops for a moment. He licks his dry lips and fishes a hand out from underneath the covers to brush Jongin's bangs out of his eyes. He traces Jongin's temple and along his jaw with the same hand. Even in the weak morning light, Jongin appears in sharp contrast with the white sheets of the bed, locks of dark hair splayed out on Yixing's pillow.
“What are you talking about, Jongin?” Yixing asks, voice raspy with sleep.
“We're not together. Why do you never take back your spare key and lock the door?”
“I can't do that,” Yixing says. “I can't do that, not when you look like this.”
Jongin rolls onto his back. “Oh,” he says, with a steel edge to his voice, “oh, so this is nothing but physical attraction. You're no better than-“
“That’s not what I meant,” Yixing interrupts, propping his head up with one arm on the pillow. He can see Jongin's profile clearly like this, the slight bump of his nose and the swell of his lips, dark against the morning light. “I meant, you look like nobody has loved you before.”
Yixing watches as Jongin's brow furrows. “Yixing, don't even start with your poetic shit to cover up what you really meant to say. I get it, okay?”
“Like nobody has ever loved you before,” Yixing repeats, “including yourself.”
Slowly, gently, Yixing straddles Jongin around the hips and leans over the larger man so that Jongin can't look anywhere but up into his eyes. With one finger, he gently smoothes away the wrinkles of Jongin's brows. “I have to love you twice as much as any other lover, for you and me.”
He bends down, bracing himself with one hand on either side of Jongin's head, giving Jongin's right cheek a small kiss. “I love that when you sleep in my bed, you wake up with the folds of the blankets pressed into your cheeks.”
A kiss on the tip of the nose. “I love that your side of the bed is always empty when I wake up, because even when you stay the night, you end up tangled with me.”
His lips moves to Jongin's; they're pressed closed as if Jongin isn't sure he wants to let Yixing in or not. “I love that when you come home at night, you give me an innocent good night kiss no matter how drunk you are.”
“Must be hard work,” Jongin barely whispers, swallowing. “Loving for two people.”
“Well, yeah,” Yixing replies, the dimple in his cheek threatening to deepen with a smile. “But it’s work I enjoy.” He brushes Jongin's hair out of his eyes again. “I love you on Monday, on Tuesday, on every day of the week, even on those days I wake up and you’re not here in my arms.” He kisses Jongin on the lips again, and this time Jongin yields.
“Stay,” Yixing breathes, “and let me pick up your pieces.”
“You’d grow sick of me if you saw my face every morning,” Jongin says.
“I doubt it,” Yixing answers.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Yixing rolls onto his side again and Jongin automatically fills in the empty spaces in between them with his body. “Morning, sleeping beauty,” Jongin says, lips against Yixing's collarbone so that Yixing feels every syllable reverberating throughout his body.
Jongin hums appreciatively when Yixing chuckles. “Good morning to you, too,” Yixing says. “Now go back to sleep.”
--
P.S. I’m sorry, Jade ;A; you probably wanted smut hahahaha but I’m too innocent for that okay. And I’m sorry that this is a week late, sob. I am the world’s slowest fic writer OTL
P.P.S. I’M SORRY TO EVERYBODY IDK WHAT THIS IS. This was only supposed to be a drabble and now it is kind of... not a drabble oops