(exo) feeling this is like to fall awake.
feeling this is like to fall awake.
exo. jongin/kyungsoo. r. 085. whisper.
jongin's new house is much too big for him. it a western-styled estate outside of the city, a mansion. it has floors and gates and a long driveway that curls. there's four more bedrooms than jongin needs. there's a spiral staircase that makes him think of the titanic and every once in a while when he passes under the giant chandelier, he waits for a gorgeous redhead to make her way down the stairs.
on the fifth night, its not a redhead he sees, but a mess of dark hair and big dark eyes. when jongin blinks there's no one on the stairs, and he rolls his eyes at himself.
jongin didn't buy the monster of a house he finds himself inhabiting. it's inheritance, left by an eccentric old aunt who had painted pictures and shunned the entire world. he doesn't remember her because she never even visited the family, so when the lawyer had called and let him know the old bat had left him her house, he was stunned. jongin, honestly, wanted to sell it. he only hadn't because joonmyun had just about keeled over himself when he'd mentioned it, talking about history and artifacts and "think of all the things she's left behind!" he still doesn't know why he let joonmyun talk him into accepting the house.
sometimes, when jongin sleeps, he feels eyes on him. its a pressure that squeezes at his chest. it's not quite night terrors because he isn't afraid. when he wakes up in the morning, the chair left by the fireplace is always right beside his bed. he shivers, moves the chair back, and tries not to blink when he passes the spiral staircase.
he's lived in the house for a month when he finally sees the boy again. it's a boy, he realizes, as he stands frozen at the foot of the stair and watches the figure take form at the top of the spiral. its the same boy, with his curl of jet black hair and the widest eyes jongin's ever seen. his mouth is a pretty shape, a hint of rose coloring, open softly as if he's in mid-word. he makes his way down the stairs, one foot at a time. jongin can hear the way the boy's hand rasps against the railing.
the boy pauses on the platform that divides the stairs into two, some ten feet in front of him. this close, jongin can see that the boy's eyes are dark, full black. no irises, just the deep dark pulling him him and in and in.
his eyes seem to get bigger and bigger. jongin can't make himself look away, the black soon seemingly filling his entire vision. and then there's a tiny breeze and he blinks and realizes that the boy is standing mere inches in front of him.
jongin screams.
"you think the house is haunted?" sehun snorts at him, but zitao's eyes go so big jongin shivers.
"like, a ghost?" zitao's soft voice seems even breathier in something like excitement, and kris rolls his eyes as he cuffs the boy against the shoulder.
"no, like a vegetable. yes like a ghost." sehun doesn't hide the roll of his eyes. zitao doesn't even have to look at him to reach forward and punch him in the shoulder, hard. sehun yelps and cowers back.
jongin, his chin resting on his hands, nods. "yeah. i keep seeing this boy..." he tries to explain what he saw but the words are caught in his throat. he feels a shiver run down his spine. jongin shakes his head and closes his mouth. "it was weird," is all he manages to say.
jongin's almost afraid to go home. he never turns the lights off these days, even in his room when he sleeps. the house blazes from miles away, even with the lights of the city not too far away. it's still not quite enough, he realizes, as he makes his way inside. jongin's only stepped foot into the front hall when he hears a whisper. it dances against his skin.
"jongin-ah."
jongin doesn't think twice as he turns on his heel and leaves. he spends the night at jongdae's, because jongdae never questions too much.
it takes him three days to work up the nerve to go back home. the lights are still on. he walks in cautiously, but there's no whisper, no sad-eyed boy waiting on his stairs. he breathes a sigh of relief.
he eats dinner in the formal dining room, which feels strange. dinner is left-over fried rice on a plastic plate, and he sits cross-legged on his chair as he eats. the table seats twelve and he feels like a child as he sits at the head of the table and stares down the length of tabletop.
jongin watches movies as he lays in bed, sprawled out with the covers tugged nearly over his head as he watches alice kill zombies. its a marathon of the first three movies and for a good six hours jongin doesn't worry about ghosts. he feels surprisingly pleased when the last movie is over, the adrenaline of the movie in his veins. he turns around grab the remote from the nightstand.
the yell never leaves his throat because it gets caught in his lungs, all the air whooshing out when he meets gazes with the boy sitting on the chair pulled beside his bed. for a long moment jongin can't move, and then all the functions of his body comes back all at once, and he yelps and scrambles for the other side of the bed.
"please don't."
the words are said so softly they shouldn't be heard, but they're amplified in the room so loudly that jongin freezes, his back pressed against the wall as far away from the boy he can get.
the boy's face is expressionless, his hands folded neatly on his lap. he's wearing a dark jacket over a lighter turtleneck, and jongin notices useless details like the silver buttons and that his hair is cut short at the sides.
and he looks so sad.
"please don't leave," he says, and it makes jongin's skin crawl because his mouth moves much slower than the words fall out of it.
jongin swallows, hard. "who are you?" he asks. his voice shakes, but he prides himself on not asking what are you. "why are you in my house?"
the boy blinks, slow motion. "kyungsoo. i'm kyungsoo. i live here." his fingers tighten minutely around each other.
"no you don't," comes out of jongin's mouth without thinking. "i live here."
the air in the room seems to turn colder. jongin shivers, his hands coming up to rub over his bare arms, and the boy -- kyungsoo -- suddenly looks terrified.
"she's here."
and then he vanishes.
"you look like shit," sehun says. the words are blunt but his voice is short. his hand touches jongin's hair and jongin leaps away from the touch. sehun blinks at him in confusion, his hand hanging in mid-air. "yah... you okay?"
jongin shakes his head. he crosses his arms and brings his feet up to the edge of his seat, staring blankly out of the cafe window. he hasn't slept since kyungsoo, four days ago. he only manages to eat a few bites at lunch, dinner has been a small bowl of rice. the dark circles under his eyes are much too obvious. he tries to sleep, he does, but when he closes his eyes he thinks of kyungsoo's face and how scared he had looked and he can't sleep. he sits in bed and stares at the chair that now stays beside his bed, unconsciously willing the boy to come back to him.
he hasn't yet.
sehun talks about class. jongin doesn't listen.
jongin sleeps over at sehun's for a couple of nights. sehun's boyfriend makes him eat and gives him two sleeping pills, and jongin doesn't wake up once during the night. but when he wakes up in the morning, sprawled on the couch, one of the kitchen chairs is drawn beside him. jongin doesn't wake anyone up as he leaves.
when jongin closes the door behind him at home, kyungsoo is standing at the foot of the stairs. he's wearing the same clothes, his hair is the same way, and there's a hint of a smile on his face.
"welcome home," he says.
jongin feels cold.
kyungsoo waits for him at the foot of the stairs every day when he comes home from school. he doesn't say any more than those two words, and he doesn't stay. he walks back up the stairs and doesn't come back down. he doesn't visit jongin in his bedroom anymore, but his chair never moves from beside the bed. when jongin sleeps, he feels safe.
it turns into a routine. jongin no longer remembers a day when kyungsoo hasn't been waiting for him.
he starts meeting with his friends less and less. sehun calls less and less. jongin dreams about kyungsoo when he sleeps.
"welcome home." kyungsoo gives him the same barely-there smile he's given jongin for weeks, but this time when he turns away, jongin reaches out for him. he grabs his wrist, and he half expects his hand to go right through him, but it doesn't. it closes around cold firm flesh and kyungsoo freezes.
"don't leave me," jongin whispers.
kyungsoo turns back to him, very slowly. the eyes jongin once found so horrifying are now all he thinks about. he wants to get lost there. kyungsoo slips his hand to lace his fingers with jongin's. "i'll never leave you," he says, and jongin no longer watches the way his mouth and words don't match.
"stay with me tonight," jongin pleads.
jongin tugs kyungsoo closer to him. this is the first time they've ever touched or been this close. he discovers that kyungsoo is shorter than him, at the perfect height to fit his head against the curve of jongin's shoulder. jongin never realized how much he wanted him to do it. "stay."
kyungsoo doesn't blink as he looks up at him. "okay," he finally answers.
jongin draws him into their first hug, and he marvels at how perfectly kyungsoo fits against him.
kyungsoo is so cold. his body is pale in the harsh light of jongin's bedroom. jongin can't get enough. he kisses kyungsoo slow and gentle, afraid that the body in his hands will disappear if he presses too close. kyungsoo moves slow as he twines his arms around jongin's neck. he tastes sweet when jongin sucks at his tongue.
he's cold even inside. jongin tangles their fingers together and presses them to the bed on either side of kyungsoo's head, and kyungsoo wraps his legs around him. they rock together, and every thrust inside of him is sweet, seems to suck a little bit of jongin's energy away. he makes sounds jongin will always remember, breathy and short, pants of air as he stares unblinkingly up at jongin.
"i love you," jongin whispers.
kyungsoo doesn't say anything back, but his body tightens around jongin's cock and jongin stands no chance. he comes with a gasp of kyungsoo's name, tries to hold him close, but the air in the room suddenly drops in temperature and kyungsoo stiffens underneath him.
it gets so cold jongin's teeth start to chatter, and he manages to lift his head from kyungsoo's shoulder with all the effort left in his body. kyungsoo looks terrified. "jongin jongin jongin," he chants. "don't let her get me. don't let me take me with her."
jongin doesn't know who she is. a gust of wind makes everything in the room shake. his door slams open, the lights flicker. he's so cold he can't breathe properly, but he manages to wrap his arms around kyungsoo and hold him as tightly as he can. "i will never let her have you," he manages to gasp out between clacks of his teeth. "you're mine now."
a scream rips through the room, it vibrates against jongin's skull and tries to rip his skin apart and jongin screams back as the world goes black around him.
a scream wakes him up in the morning.
jongin clings tighter to kyungsoo's body automatically before he opens his eyes. sehun is standing n the doorway, eyes wide. zitao, standing behind him, doesn't move for a moment before he turns and throws up in the hallway.
"what are you guys doing here?" jongin mumbles.
sehun's eyes grow wide and his face is pale.
jongin remembers kyungsoo in his arms. "oh, right, this is-" jongin turns his head to find an armful of bones and maggots and decomposing flesh where kyungsoo is supposed to be. the skull on his shoulder has kyungsoo's eyes.
the police discover that his aunt had been killing boys for years. she picked them off of streets and brought them to her home. jongin had never checked the basement. there's a room full of dried blood and dull knives. they manage to find four bodies on the grounds.
jongin moves to an apartment in the city. kyungsoo's remains are cremated and scattered across the ocean. when jongin wakes up in the mornings, there's always a chair beside his bed.
exo. jongin/kyungsoo. r. 085. whisper.
jongin's new house is much too big for him. it a western-styled estate outside of the city, a mansion. it has floors and gates and a long driveway that curls. there's four more bedrooms than jongin needs. there's a spiral staircase that makes him think of the titanic and every once in a while when he passes under the giant chandelier, he waits for a gorgeous redhead to make her way down the stairs.
on the fifth night, its not a redhead he sees, but a mess of dark hair and big dark eyes. when jongin blinks there's no one on the stairs, and he rolls his eyes at himself.
jongin didn't buy the monster of a house he finds himself inhabiting. it's inheritance, left by an eccentric old aunt who had painted pictures and shunned the entire world. he doesn't remember her because she never even visited the family, so when the lawyer had called and let him know the old bat had left him her house, he was stunned. jongin, honestly, wanted to sell it. he only hadn't because joonmyun had just about keeled over himself when he'd mentioned it, talking about history and artifacts and "think of all the things she's left behind!" he still doesn't know why he let joonmyun talk him into accepting the house.
sometimes, when jongin sleeps, he feels eyes on him. its a pressure that squeezes at his chest. it's not quite night terrors because he isn't afraid. when he wakes up in the morning, the chair left by the fireplace is always right beside his bed. he shivers, moves the chair back, and tries not to blink when he passes the spiral staircase.
he's lived in the house for a month when he finally sees the boy again. it's a boy, he realizes, as he stands frozen at the foot of the stair and watches the figure take form at the top of the spiral. its the same boy, with his curl of jet black hair and the widest eyes jongin's ever seen. his mouth is a pretty shape, a hint of rose coloring, open softly as if he's in mid-word. he makes his way down the stairs, one foot at a time. jongin can hear the way the boy's hand rasps against the railing.
the boy pauses on the platform that divides the stairs into two, some ten feet in front of him. this close, jongin can see that the boy's eyes are dark, full black. no irises, just the deep dark pulling him him and in and in.
his eyes seem to get bigger and bigger. jongin can't make himself look away, the black soon seemingly filling his entire vision. and then there's a tiny breeze and he blinks and realizes that the boy is standing mere inches in front of him.
jongin screams.
"you think the house is haunted?" sehun snorts at him, but zitao's eyes go so big jongin shivers.
"like, a ghost?" zitao's soft voice seems even breathier in something like excitement, and kris rolls his eyes as he cuffs the boy against the shoulder.
"no, like a vegetable. yes like a ghost." sehun doesn't hide the roll of his eyes. zitao doesn't even have to look at him to reach forward and punch him in the shoulder, hard. sehun yelps and cowers back.
jongin, his chin resting on his hands, nods. "yeah. i keep seeing this boy..." he tries to explain what he saw but the words are caught in his throat. he feels a shiver run down his spine. jongin shakes his head and closes his mouth. "it was weird," is all he manages to say.
jongin's almost afraid to go home. he never turns the lights off these days, even in his room when he sleeps. the house blazes from miles away, even with the lights of the city not too far away. it's still not quite enough, he realizes, as he makes his way inside. jongin's only stepped foot into the front hall when he hears a whisper. it dances against his skin.
"jongin-ah."
jongin doesn't think twice as he turns on his heel and leaves. he spends the night at jongdae's, because jongdae never questions too much.
it takes him three days to work up the nerve to go back home. the lights are still on. he walks in cautiously, but there's no whisper, no sad-eyed boy waiting on his stairs. he breathes a sigh of relief.
he eats dinner in the formal dining room, which feels strange. dinner is left-over fried rice on a plastic plate, and he sits cross-legged on his chair as he eats. the table seats twelve and he feels like a child as he sits at the head of the table and stares down the length of tabletop.
jongin watches movies as he lays in bed, sprawled out with the covers tugged nearly over his head as he watches alice kill zombies. its a marathon of the first three movies and for a good six hours jongin doesn't worry about ghosts. he feels surprisingly pleased when the last movie is over, the adrenaline of the movie in his veins. he turns around grab the remote from the nightstand.
the yell never leaves his throat because it gets caught in his lungs, all the air whooshing out when he meets gazes with the boy sitting on the chair pulled beside his bed. for a long moment jongin can't move, and then all the functions of his body comes back all at once, and he yelps and scrambles for the other side of the bed.
"please don't."
the words are said so softly they shouldn't be heard, but they're amplified in the room so loudly that jongin freezes, his back pressed against the wall as far away from the boy he can get.
the boy's face is expressionless, his hands folded neatly on his lap. he's wearing a dark jacket over a lighter turtleneck, and jongin notices useless details like the silver buttons and that his hair is cut short at the sides.
and he looks so sad.
"please don't leave," he says, and it makes jongin's skin crawl because his mouth moves much slower than the words fall out of it.
jongin swallows, hard. "who are you?" he asks. his voice shakes, but he prides himself on not asking what are you. "why are you in my house?"
the boy blinks, slow motion. "kyungsoo. i'm kyungsoo. i live here." his fingers tighten minutely around each other.
"no you don't," comes out of jongin's mouth without thinking. "i live here."
the air in the room seems to turn colder. jongin shivers, his hands coming up to rub over his bare arms, and the boy -- kyungsoo -- suddenly looks terrified.
"she's here."
and then he vanishes.
"you look like shit," sehun says. the words are blunt but his voice is short. his hand touches jongin's hair and jongin leaps away from the touch. sehun blinks at him in confusion, his hand hanging in mid-air. "yah... you okay?"
jongin shakes his head. he crosses his arms and brings his feet up to the edge of his seat, staring blankly out of the cafe window. he hasn't slept since kyungsoo, four days ago. he only manages to eat a few bites at lunch, dinner has been a small bowl of rice. the dark circles under his eyes are much too obvious. he tries to sleep, he does, but when he closes his eyes he thinks of kyungsoo's face and how scared he had looked and he can't sleep. he sits in bed and stares at the chair that now stays beside his bed, unconsciously willing the boy to come back to him.
he hasn't yet.
sehun talks about class. jongin doesn't listen.
jongin sleeps over at sehun's for a couple of nights. sehun's boyfriend makes him eat and gives him two sleeping pills, and jongin doesn't wake up once during the night. but when he wakes up in the morning, sprawled on the couch, one of the kitchen chairs is drawn beside him. jongin doesn't wake anyone up as he leaves.
when jongin closes the door behind him at home, kyungsoo is standing at the foot of the stairs. he's wearing the same clothes, his hair is the same way, and there's a hint of a smile on his face.
"welcome home," he says.
jongin feels cold.
kyungsoo waits for him at the foot of the stairs every day when he comes home from school. he doesn't say any more than those two words, and he doesn't stay. he walks back up the stairs and doesn't come back down. he doesn't visit jongin in his bedroom anymore, but his chair never moves from beside the bed. when jongin sleeps, he feels safe.
it turns into a routine. jongin no longer remembers a day when kyungsoo hasn't been waiting for him.
he starts meeting with his friends less and less. sehun calls less and less. jongin dreams about kyungsoo when he sleeps.
"welcome home." kyungsoo gives him the same barely-there smile he's given jongin for weeks, but this time when he turns away, jongin reaches out for him. he grabs his wrist, and he half expects his hand to go right through him, but it doesn't. it closes around cold firm flesh and kyungsoo freezes.
"don't leave me," jongin whispers.
kyungsoo turns back to him, very slowly. the eyes jongin once found so horrifying are now all he thinks about. he wants to get lost there. kyungsoo slips his hand to lace his fingers with jongin's. "i'll never leave you," he says, and jongin no longer watches the way his mouth and words don't match.
"stay with me tonight," jongin pleads.
jongin tugs kyungsoo closer to him. this is the first time they've ever touched or been this close. he discovers that kyungsoo is shorter than him, at the perfect height to fit his head against the curve of jongin's shoulder. jongin never realized how much he wanted him to do it. "stay."
kyungsoo doesn't blink as he looks up at him. "okay," he finally answers.
jongin draws him into their first hug, and he marvels at how perfectly kyungsoo fits against him.
kyungsoo is so cold. his body is pale in the harsh light of jongin's bedroom. jongin can't get enough. he kisses kyungsoo slow and gentle, afraid that the body in his hands will disappear if he presses too close. kyungsoo moves slow as he twines his arms around jongin's neck. he tastes sweet when jongin sucks at his tongue.
he's cold even inside. jongin tangles their fingers together and presses them to the bed on either side of kyungsoo's head, and kyungsoo wraps his legs around him. they rock together, and every thrust inside of him is sweet, seems to suck a little bit of jongin's energy away. he makes sounds jongin will always remember, breathy and short, pants of air as he stares unblinkingly up at jongin.
"i love you," jongin whispers.
kyungsoo doesn't say anything back, but his body tightens around jongin's cock and jongin stands no chance. he comes with a gasp of kyungsoo's name, tries to hold him close, but the air in the room suddenly drops in temperature and kyungsoo stiffens underneath him.
it gets so cold jongin's teeth start to chatter, and he manages to lift his head from kyungsoo's shoulder with all the effort left in his body. kyungsoo looks terrified. "jongin jongin jongin," he chants. "don't let her get me. don't let me take me with her."
jongin doesn't know who she is. a gust of wind makes everything in the room shake. his door slams open, the lights flicker. he's so cold he can't breathe properly, but he manages to wrap his arms around kyungsoo and hold him as tightly as he can. "i will never let her have you," he manages to gasp out between clacks of his teeth. "you're mine now."
a scream rips through the room, it vibrates against jongin's skull and tries to rip his skin apart and jongin screams back as the world goes black around him.
a scream wakes him up in the morning.
jongin clings tighter to kyungsoo's body automatically before he opens his eyes. sehun is standing n the doorway, eyes wide. zitao, standing behind him, doesn't move for a moment before he turns and throws up in the hallway.
"what are you guys doing here?" jongin mumbles.
sehun's eyes grow wide and his face is pale.
jongin remembers kyungsoo in his arms. "oh, right, this is-" jongin turns his head to find an armful of bones and maggots and decomposing flesh where kyungsoo is supposed to be. the skull on his shoulder has kyungsoo's eyes.
the police discover that his aunt had been killing boys for years. she picked them off of streets and brought them to her home. jongin had never checked the basement. there's a room full of dried blood and dull knives. they manage to find four bodies on the grounds.
jongin moves to an apartment in the city. kyungsoo's remains are cremated and scattered across the ocean. when jongin wakes up in the mornings, there's always a chair beside his bed.