vixx: effuse, always
Title: effuse, always
Pairing: N/Ken
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 5.8k
Warnings: slight homophobia and mentions of bullying
Summary: Hakyeon discovers magic when he's seven.
There’s a choice here, Hakyeon thinks, scanning the playground and watching. Slide. Swings. Sand box. Kids are swarmed around each, and Hakyeon, the odd one out, chooses the swings after momentary deliberation. He’s seven and doesn’t see enough shovels to share over in the sand, little boys and girls crowding around and knocking each other over. The slide is much too high.
He trots over to the swings and sits. He starts to kick his feet, paying no attention to the conversation beside him, between the two girls. One of them has a bow in her hair decorated with cartoon characters. Hakyeon thinks he’s seen that cartoon on TV.
No one talks to him that day.
The next day, when it’s time to go to the playground, his knees hit the dusty pebbles; his mother won’t be happy about that. The little boys mutter a sorry, but they don’t seem too worried that they knocked him over. Hakyeon opens his mouth to say something -- his hands hurt, so do his knees -- but then he firms his lips together. His mother told him to not say mean things.
Maybe it was an accident. And they did say they were sorry. Hakyeon watches as they go, laughing and hitting each other, and he stands in place with dirty pants.
Then a pop of a voice, a sprinkle of noise like a starburst in his ear. “Are you okay?” It’s a fussing sound, pitched high and the words run together, one falling over the other. The boy has fluffy curls and he’s shorter than Hakyeon is, small arms that cover his knees as he crouches to look at Hakyeon’s pants. “You got knocked down; are you okay?” Sounds like he’s missing a tooth.
Hakyeon notices the wand in the boy’s hand, the wand that sticks out from the classroom’s dress up box, the one with the broken end. It’s his second day of school but Hakyeon knows this much. This is the boy who jitters in his seat during class, that can’t sit still during class, the one the teacher has to talk to with a firm voice to reign him back in -- during class.
Out of class, outside on the playground, Hakyeon didn’t see him yesterday.
“What’s your name?” The boy taps Hakyeon on the arm with the wand, staring up with round eyes. Hakyeon thinks of his older sister, her eyes. “I’m Jaehwan. I had to stay inside yesterday. You’re new?”
Hakyeon looks around the playground. No one else is looking. He looks back at Jaehwan, to his pink wand, to where the boy’s shrunken before him, and slowly sinks to his level. “I’m new. I’m Hakyeon.” His mother told him to say nice things, to be polite. “You have big eyes. Do you always carry the wand around?” He can think of nothing else to say, and this is what he asks.
“Yeah!” Jaehwan stuffs his hands against his mouth, covering the toothy smile. “It’s mine because I’m a fairy.”
Jaehwan sits next to Hakyeon. Every day, even for lunch. He follows him to the playground except for when Jaehwan is held inside to talk to the teacher. He gets in trouble for being too talkative, too excited, and Hakyeon is lonely when he has to swing all by himself.
Jaehwan’s nice. He’s one of the few to include him, and Jaehwan always has a spare crayon for him to use, a corner of his paper for Hakyeon to scribble on. He breaks off his cookies, dividing them, sharing them. Hakyeon always accepts.
The wand is used on Hakyeon frequently. Softly on the back of his head, on his shoulders, hips, knees. Whatever Jaehwan can reach. He’s playful, and Hakyeon ends up smiling because of the joke he’s said or Jaehwan’s purposeful over-reaction to Hakyeon’s mild words.
“What does she talk to you about?”
They’re both coloring on a wide, blank page. Hakyeon is doing his best to draw his house, his parents’ faces peeking out of the windows, and Jaehwan-- Hakyeon looks over. Jaehwan’s scribbling in colorful circles.
But now he pauses, blue crayon tucked by his cheek in his fist. “You mean when they keep me inside?”
Hakyeon nods.
“About how I need to pay attention. She’ll talk to me for a little bit and then let me color or something in here.” He takes his crayon and dots the outline of Hakyeon’s arm, where it’s resting on the paper. Hakyeon doesn’t tell him no. “She told me that I’m good at having fun, but I need to learn to wait.”
Hakyeon watches Jaehwan dot closer to his house.
“I’m gonna tell you a secret.” Jaehwan’s words are still funny because of his missing tooth, but the white is starting to push through his gum. Hakyeon noticed. “I’m a fairy.”
“You told me that.” Hakyeon remembers. His second day of school, and Jaehwan said that. “You’re not a fairy.”
Jaehwan’s hand stills. “Look at my ears.” He’s serious, no smile, eyes heavy as they stare into Hakyeon’s. Hakyeon has no choice but to look at the ears he sees daily. “I had wings. I used to fly.”
Hakyeon makes a face, and Jaehwan whacks him with the ever-present wand he keeps in reach. “It’s true!”
“Fairies aren’t real, Jaehwan.”
“Well,” the boy laughs, like Hakyeon is being stupid, “I am one.”
“Prove it.”
Jaehwan seems a little thrown by this. Prove it? He’s already proven it with his ears, and the wand he carries, and he had wings once! He seems to say all this with his screwed up expression, and Hakyeon looks back down at his house drawing, working on his windows. “Until you prove it, I don’t believe you.”
Jaehwan pouts. “I used to fly….”
Hakyeon draws.
“I- I had wings, but they got ripped off. Look.” He tugs up his shirt and twists around in his seat to show off the twisted scars on Jaehwan’s back. The skin is pink, different from the rest. Hakyeon’s attention is caught.
“Woah.”
“Told you.” Jaehwan pouts, fists gripping crayon, wand, and shirt. “I’m a fairy. I’m magic.”
Hakyeon goes home to tell his mother. He feels silly even asking, feels even sillier when his mother shakes her head. “Let him pretend,” she says. “Don’t be mean to him if that’s what he believes. He’ll grow out of it.”
Hakyeon doesn’t tell Jaehwan he doesn’t think he’s a fairy.
His family is new to town, uprooting themselves after fifteen years. Hakyeon, switching schools, missing his old house, doesn’t like the change. His friends are nowhere near. He wants to go out, down the street to the playground, but he knows very few kids, and his mother at least wants him with a friend if he’s going out.
Knocking the toes of his tennis shoes together, Hakyeon informs Jaehwan, “I live up the street from you.”
Jaehwan looks at him and grins. “I should come over.” He goes back to drawing the outline of Hakyeon’s hand and doesn’t see Hakyeon’s fidgeting. “Or the playground. We’ll have lots of fun.”
They end up building a fort in Hakyeon’s room on a rainy weekend. Hakyeon brings him over after school one day, and Jaehwan grins so wide when he jumps on Hakyeon’s bed -- he looks to never move from the spot. Until, that is, Hakyeon tosses pillows and blankets onto the ground and they get to work.
In the fort, the walls are wide, soft ceiling tall. Hakyeon turns on a flashlight and shoves some of his older brother’s comic books inside. He was right to predict Jaehwan would enjoy them. Hakyeon’s read them all before, but he lets the boy show him what parts he likes, different funny faces he sees.
They bring cookies and milk underneath their blankets, and Jaehwan uses his hands to throw funny shapes onto the covers with the flashlight. Hakyeon giggles until he feels tired, and they fall asleep like this, empty cups and crumbs surrounding them, blankets and chairs and pillows encasing them.
Jaehwan becomes Hakyeon’s friend.
They build forts and excavate the sandbox when no one is playing there, and Hakyeon stays in class with Jaehwan when he can’t come out, after he’s been laughing too loud in class. Hakyeon draws pictures with him, laughs at his jokes, brings him home. He feeds Jaehwan cookies and milk, and never ever -- never, not once -- does he tell Jaehwan he doesn’t believe him.
They grow up. They go to the school a few blocks further with the older kids and are thrown into a stream of unfamiliar faces. Jaehwan doesn’t mention he’s nervous, but his hands are shaking on his backpack straps. He’s left his wand at home.
It’s unusual but makes sense. For Jaehwan’s sake, Hakyeon’s glad he left it.
They walk straight to class, Jaehwan’s hands tight on Hakyeon’s backpack as they slip through the bodies of older kids and young kids. Hakyeon looks at the different faces -- most, a majority, unfamiliar -- and he looks over his shoulder at Jaehwan. “It’ll be okay. Stay close to me, though.”
They almost get plowed down by a fast-walking thirteen year old, mass coming onto him that sharply contrasts Hakyeon and Jaehwan’s skinny legs and pointy elbows, but Hakyeon tucks him and Jaehwan against the wall in the knick of time. Jaehwan’s eyes look to him, and his hands are still shaking.
He’s never been known to be so shy; he’s always had so many thoughts ready to share, ready to spew into Hakyeon’s ear, but now he can say nothing. Just tremble and hold tight. Hakyeon takes a deep breath. He can lead Jaehwan to class just fine. He has to. He’ll be unafraid for both of them.
They share a class. Their seats are labeled on opposite sides of the room, and Hakyeon watches as Jaehwan takes his, tucking himself small into his chair. The desks fill up quickly, and there’s a girl that sits behind his seat and a boy to his right. She doesn’t wear ribbons in her hair, and he doesn’t tells jokes that get Hakyeon to laugh like Jaehwan can.
Jaehwan keeps quiet for the class, and it’s an odd sound -- lack of sound. It might be for the best. For now, Hakyeon thinks, jostling a knee.
They still build blanket forts. They ease into school, and it’s not so scary anymore, but Jaehwan’s not the same as he was back then. They’re eleven, and they’ve changed. But the blanket forts don’t. Jaehwan reads comics to Hakyeon, changing his voice for different characters, and he makes Hakyeon laugh. That doesn’t change.
In Hakyeon’s room, Jaehwan’s never changed.
“That girl that sits behind you likes you.”
Hakyeon makes a face. He had been listening to Jaehwan read, half-paying attention when this dragged him out of his thoughts. “She’s annoying. She pulls my hair.”
Jaehwan tugs on Hakyeon’s hair now. “She smiles when you’re not looking.”
Hakyeon thinks on this for a moment and ends up shrugging. “Well, if she wants me to like her, she’ll stop pulling my hair.”
Jaehwan doesn’t start reading again but flops onto the ground. He’s got a cookie in his mouth, between his lips. “My brother has a girlfriend,” he says, cookie garbling his voice.
Hakyeon’s siblings are quite older than him. His oldest sister might marry her boyfriend -- he keeps hearing his mother say this to his father. Hakyeon doesn’t think much of it. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Jaehwan’s quiet a little longer. Then: “Do you know how babies are made?”
Hakyeon thinks he does. He’s heard older boys talk about it, overhear them at lunch and in gym, but it’s rivaled against what else he’s heard, and he doesn’t know much at all. “Not really.”
“My dad told my brother. That’s all he told me. Why’s it a secret?”
Hakyeon shrugs again. “If they want to keep secrets, let them keep secrets.” He shifts onto his side, not looking at Jaehwan. “Probably not worth it, anyway.”
“This just means I really could have been a fairy.”
By now, Hakyeon’s heard of changelings. He’s read about them in books he’s borrowed from the library, always illustrated in different ways. A human child swapped for a child of the Fair Folk -- he looks up at Jaehwan to see if he’s serious.
Jaehwan’s smiling, but he’s quiet, like he’s thinking. Hakyeon’s about to say something -- of what, he’s not sure -- but then Jaehwan asks, “Do you think if I ask your mom she'll let me have more cookies?”
That’s worth a try.
Jaehwan is naïve. He trusts too easily, and he’s opened up more after growing comfortable in the classroom, but Hakyeon will watch as classmates take his paper, his pencils, his answers, with promise of a return when none will be given. Jaehwan laughs about it, but it doesn’t sit well with Hakyeon.
He tells him.
“It’s alright,” Jaehwan says, fingers tight on his backpack straps. It’s been awhile since they’ve stopped their trembling.
Hakyeon nods. If Jaehwan wants to give away everything then that’s what he decides. But Hakyeon keeps an eye watching -- the ones who take from his friend. He watches out for them. Some are forgetful but nice enough. Others are mean, undeserving. Hakyeon tries to stay quiet to not say what he wants to, to let a mean jab of words slip out. He can hear his mother’s reprimanding tone in his head, but he thinks, if she ever did find out, it might be worth it.
They get to their last year in middle school and catapult into a strange time. Girls in their year start to look swollen in places that they will never. Jaehwan likes to mimic them and hold his chest with hands -- this gets Hakyeon to laugh.
He finds out where babies come from. Jaehwan does, too, and neither comment on what this means for Jaehwan’s changeling theory. It could still be true. But they haven’t talked of that in near a year, and Hakyeon feels that Jaehwan’s finally realized it can’t be true.
Gym is a hell like it’s never been before. Hakyeon’s never bothered himself with what other’s think, with what boys yell across the locker room, but Jaehwan has. Jaehwan takes to changing in the bathroom stalls.
Hakyeon stands by his locker and dresses quickly, ignoring the guffaw to his side earned from a joke about dicks, and he’s tying his shoes when he hears syllables slide out that sound like Jaehwan’s name. Jaehwan. Who’s talking about Jaehwan?
It’s a conversation to his right, loud enough to show they don’t care who’s listening, but asking why does Jaehwan change in the bathroom? Does he have something to hide? And then a boy on Hakyeon’s left laughs and it’s as jarring as a cold shower.
“Probably can’t take the staring. Probably….” He makes a quick gesture with his hand, hovering at hip-level and Hakyeon’s cheeks burn hot, his laces loose in his hands. Then he remembers himself, and there’s an anger.
He bites out, “Leave him alone.”
The boys involved look at Hakyeon like they’ve just now noticed him. Hakyeon and Jaehwan are inseparable, and Hakyeon is genial and funny on his own, well-liked by a lot of kids, but these boys don’t seem too concerned about Hakyeon and how he feels. And why should he feel? They’re speaking of Jaehwan not him.
But Hakyeon’s cheeks feel like fire, bright beacons, and he leaves the locker room in record time. He’s the first to stand in the gym, alone with the teacher, and Jaehwan comes out some time later with the other students. They usually wait for each other. Leave together.
Jaehwan stands beside him, fingers pulling at Hakyeon’s elbow. A soft tug. A thrill of magic in Hakyeon’s tummy. Hakyeon’s face burns.
There is wonder in Jaehwan’s voice at why Hakyeon could have possibly left without him. There is a concern that can be heard. “What’s wrong?”
Hakyeon doesn’t tell him.
He doesn’t know how to tell Jaehwan that when his mother talks about his sister, to be married in the fall, he thinks about himself walking down an aisle. The person he faces, wears no identifying features. He looks down to their chest, he looks down to their legs. There is no dress, and there is no suit. There’s no blushing bride. There’s no smiling groom.
When he thinks of Jaehwan, he sees someone, though. He sees Jaehwan, in kindergarten, tapping him with a wand, and he sees him knocking on Hakyeon’s front door, grown up and big like his sister’s boyfriend. He’s permanent - Hakyeon feels. He’s been the constant in his life for seven years so far, and Hakyeon can’t imagine getting close as he is to someone else.
Jaehwan doesn’t pester him for this thought. He knows something is bothering Hakyeon. He does not know what, but he is there; he waits. Hakyeon’s not sure if he’ll tell him.
The accusation comes hot from spit-licked lips. The boy’s mad. Hakyeon’s got his gym shorts on, fists clenched, shoes untied. Jaehwan’s not with him; he’s in the bathroom stall down the hall in the locker room, and he can’t hear Hakyeon’s echoey words with the boys oooh-ing and ahhh-ing over Hakyeon’s anger.
He’s mad? They’ve seen him irritated; they’ve never seen him shake.
Hakyeon’s ears ring. The thing the boy’s said, that was meant to hurt him, to demean him, doesn’t make him blink. It’s that he keeps saying Jaehwan’s name. Won’t leave him alone -- leave him out of it. Jaehwan’s business is no one’s but his own, shut the fuck up.
The first swing belongs to Hakyeon. He’s at fault. This is what they’ll say when the boys are dragged to the principle’s office, phone calls being made, Mrs. Cha, your son was in a fight today.
The boy defends himself, but Hakyeon swings harder in defense of Jaehwan. These are wild shots. Nothing like the movies; Hakyeon barely lands anything. It’s a shame. He’s not sure how long he’s been like this, with the boy backed up against a locker, tearing at Hakyeon’s shirt, and Hakyeon swinging his fists around in a blind attack, but a teacher has him.
The teacher looks him in the eyes. Hakyeon’s hands are held against his sides. “Calm down.” Hakyeon can’t breathe. There’s red all around. He struggles, but the hold is tight. He’s being extricated from the throng of boys eager and jeering, and he ends up in a cool hallway then in the chilly office.
His mother soon is staring at him.
Hakyeon bears no wounds but bruises where the boy was trying to push him away, fingernail scrapes on his arms. He feels like he’s been cut open.
“What’s this about?”
Honesty is best here. Hakyeon’s standing in his kitchen; his father isn’t home. He’s fourteen, and he can take responsibility for what he did. His hands feel odd from being clenched for so long, and he releases them now. Maybe for the first time since leaving the school. He licks his lips.
His mother speaks first, however. “Was he making fun of you? You swung first--”
“Not me.” Hakyeon grits his teeth. “Jaehwan.” There’s a pause, an opening for Hakyeon to continue. “He wasn’t around to stick up for himself. They think he’s--” soft; gay; different,“--an easy target. Too nice to give it back to them.” Hakyeon works his jaw. His mother still hasn’t spoken. “And he is. He would rather make them laugh then act like them.”
Softly: “Then what did you do?” Hakyeon winces. “You stooped to their level for him?”
“I just…lost my temper this time.”
“Does your boyfriend suck your dick so you’ll be a hero for him?”
Hakyeon’s mother sits at the table, and he stays standing, awaiting what punishment she’ll give him. He started the fight. He should have walked away. He should have gotten a teacher. Instead Hakyeon decided to try and beat out an apology.
“I’m not angry, Hakyeon.”
Hakyeon looks up. His fingers twist together behind his back.
“Maybe a little disappointed, but you were sticking up for your friend.” She gestures for him to come nearer and brushes away his bangs, sticky with dried sweat. “Never start a fight again. If someone comes at you, then you act.”
But Hakyeon can’t help himself. “They’ve been terrible to him, and I’ve had to listen….”
“Jaehwan won’t have you to stand up for him all the time.” The words rattle something inside Hakyeon. He thinks of smiling Jaehwan, someone who hands out his pencils stamped with his favorite cartoon characters, against a bully twice his size, twice as mean as the boy today.
Hakyeon thinks of himself against Jaehwan’s imagined bully, twice his size, but with fists raised and ready to keep Jaehwan safe. Hero, is what he’d been called earlier. Hakyeon thinks that as long as Jaehwan is alright, it doesn’t matter.
Hakyeon disagrees with his mother but fakes a promise with a nod of his head. “No more fights.”
Jaehwan sits in his room, on the bed. It’s the weekend, and Hakyeon missed the week’s last school day as punishment for the fight. His brow is furrowed, thumb tucked under his upper lip, and he has something to say; Hakyeon wishes he’d just spit it out.
“You were fighting.”
Hakyeon raises his eyebrows and laughs. It’s such an obvious statement that he can’t help himself. “Yeah.”
“He said you fought him.” He means Hakyeon’s target. The one with Jaehwan as his target. “He was talking about it in gym.”
“Did you hear why?”
Jaehwan lays down on the bed. It’s springtime, and school is drawing to a close; the tree outside Hakyeon’s window is in bloom, budding with small pink flowers. Jaehwan stares out the window, to this tree. It’s awhile before he can say, “You didn’t have to fight him, though.”
Hakyeon makes a face. So he does know. “Happened anyway.”
Jaehwan sits up in a violent jerk. Nothing about him has ever been violent. Excited or muted, those are his fluctuations. His face is twisted in anger to match the scars on his back. Car crash scars. What he used to call his wings. “What if you had gotten hurt?”
“But I didn’t.” Hakyeon doesn’t count his yellowed bruises.
“And now they think you’re….”
“I’m--?”
“They were talking about you today.”
Half of Hakyeon is curious, the other half scared. Not of what they said -- of Jaehwan’s reaction. “They -- he and his friends -- called you names. Bad names. They said,” he can’t look at Hakyeon, “that you’re my b- boyfriend, and--”
“What did you say?”
“That they said you were--”
“No, to them. What’d you say to them?”
Jaehwan flushes. From his pointed ears to the round bulb of his nose, he flushes. “I didn’t say anything. I’m sorry,” he adds, rushes to spill out. “I’m sorry, Hakyeon, but I couldn’t. I wanted to, but I didn’t know what to tell them; I thought of things to say, but when I tried it- it wouldn’t come out. I’m sorry; I’m sorry.”
Hakyeon walks over to sit beside him on the bed. “It’s fine. If you said anything, they’d just go back to talking about you.” Hakyeon pulls a string on his comforter. Jaehwan’s knees are close to touching his own. “Are you okay?”
“Shouldn’t I be asking you?”
“I said I’m fine.” Hakyeon stares at Jaehwan’s profile. “Are you?”
Jaehwan rubs his nose, eyes averted. “I knew what they were saying about me. You didn’t have to do anything; if I ignored it, they probably would’ve stopped.”
Hakyeon shrugs. “Too late for that now.”
“Don’t fight them.” It’s a plea; he’s asking. “Hakyeon, don’t. It’ll make it worse. I’ll handle it. In my way.”
Hakyeon remembers his lie; he can tell the same one to Jaehwan. “Okay. I just….” He doesn’t finish his thought. Not because he can’t but because of Jaehwan’s expression. He can’t quite read it. Hakyeon curls his fits, digs his nails into his palms. “Read me a story?”
Jaehwan finally drags his eyes to him. He looks guilty of something. Hakyeon won’t speculate what that is. “Yeah, okay.”
The year continues on, and only once does that boy smile at Jaehwan, where he stands beside Hakyeon. “Hey, Jaehwan, do you guys share lotion?”
Before he can finish the rest of what he has to say, Jaehwan lets out a chuckle, his cheeks round, and says, “Why? You want some?” There’s a smattering of laughter from the other boys. “It’s fine if you do. It’s in my locker.”
The boy splutters. Jaehwan looks innocent to the intent of his meaning even though he isn’t. “No.” Offended, slightly angry. “No, you--”
Jaehwan grins. They’re ushered into the gym, and whether the others are laughing at Jaehwan or the boy is unclear. It doesn’t matter. So long as they’re laughing.
Jaehwan’s way.
High school -- it’s here. The boys’ schedules coincide for the most part, and Hakyeon thinks he can do this. After a long summer lazing by river edges and chewing on popsicle sticks, any weirdness that developed from their last months in middle school evaporated.
Hakyeon’s classmates spoke of attraction, boys more vocal and boastful to welcome ears. They talked about girls: thighs, rear, breasts, long hair. And none of it sparks a particular reaction in him. Girls are nice. Girls are pretty. Some boys are nice. Some -- Hakyeon looks sidelong at Jaehwan -- are very nice, beautiful.
This feeling is not something that’s gone in a week, that he can be talked down from. None of the girls or boys cause a reaction like Jaehwan, a need to protect him, to keep him near, to be there for him, to listen to him talk and provide a shoulder to rest on.
He holds onto Hakyeon, and this must be the magic Jaehwan spoke of so long ago. The feeling he has inside. It bubbles and sparks just like how magic is described; what if Jaehwan really is….
Summer sun would dapple Jaehwan as they lay in the grass, and Hakyeon could see clear as day where the wings would stretch from his back.
Jaehwan walks in the school doors with head held high and clutches to Hakyeon’s backpack but not so tightly, not like he’ll get lost if he lets go. Jaehwan, though, does walk shoulder to shoulder with him. Hakyeon’s the taller of the two, but Jaehwan’s gained quite a bit since they were small, and they almost walk in step down the hall. Young as they are, they push through just fine. They take their seats, able to sit beside each other, and Jaehwan begins to whisper in his ear.
Everything’s alright, Hakyeon tells himself. Everything is alright.
Halfway through their first semester, Jaehwan knocks on his door, still too short and not broad enough to match the image in Hakyeon’s head. The framed image of him calling and answering, and Hakyeon taking his arm and leaving with him. He answers the door, smile falling when he sees Jaehwan’s expression.
The image fractures.
There will be no more blanket forts. No more late night snacks with shadow puppets thrown against the blankets. No more readings, funny voices to match funny characters; no more hands to cling onto Hakyeon’s backpack while they walk through crowded hallways.
Hakyeon sets up their nest one last time, and they crawl under. They barely fit like this. Jaehwan ends up curling himself into Hakyeon; if he’s embarrassed about that he doesn’t show it, smiling softly like their world isn’t collapsing, like this won’t happen after tonight.
“Hakyeon, I’ll miss you.” It’s light, muttered in Hakyeon’s cotton shirt, and Hakyeon’s never quite held Jaehwan this way. He pulls him closer, hands coming up to hold onto his back, where Jaehwan once imagined his wings. His hands can’t be still. He’s losing it all.
Hakyeon shouldn’t tell him now. It’ll be better that way; after all, they’re still young. Time is mean; it’s changed them since seven; it’ll change them after this. What happens if they don’t fit together anymore? Jaehwan will find friends. He’ll fall in love. He’ll live a life separate from Hakyeon’s, and even he will grow up and adapt. Life continues.
Doesn’t mean it won’t hurt.
Hakyeon feels like his chest is being crushed. If he were to say it, it has to be now. Not tomorrow when Jaehwan will be toted away to a different city, miles pulling him away. Jaehwan’s his friend. As much as he wants to keep this from him, for once maybe it’s wrong to keep his silence.
“Jaehwan.”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
Jaehwan wiggles in his arms, and Hakyeon blushes. “For what?” he asks.
“For being my friend. But I have to tell you something, okay? Can you hear me out?” He’s shaking again. Hakyeon is shaking, and he only shakes when he’s upset. Jaehwan can feel it and sits up in a bolt, knocks against one of the fort chairs.
“What’s wrong?”
Hakyeon sits up as well. His hands won’t stop, and he lets out a sparse laugh. Unamused. He hates this. But then Jaehwan’s soft palms come up to rest under them and share the shivers. This has the opposite effect on Hakyeon than the intended reassurance it was meant to give him.
Hopeless.
“I want you to be happy,” Hakyeon starts out with. There’s really no place to sort out his feelings. He only knows half of what he feels, and only half of that can be put into speech. “Jaehwan, I don’t want you hurt -- ever.”
Jaehwan’s legs bracket him. He hasn’t moved away yet.
He wanted to be there for him -- to always stand beside him. Jaehwan may handle things better, but Hakyeon worries so much, and he-- he just….
“I got mad back then not because they insulted me.” He speaks of this again, and he can feel Jaehwan tense under his hands. He pushes forward. “Do you know what he said that day? What got me?”
“No. I knew- I knew what they said about me. Other times. Not then. Do I want to?”
Hakyeon tells Jaehwan, eyes only communicating this through the inches of air between them, that no he doesn’t. “I don’t care what they say about me because I can’t…say that I don’t like boys. And girls. But you,” Hakyeon draws in a breath, “I didn’t want to hear them talk about you that way.”
Jaehwan is very quiet; the blink of his eyes and the rise and fall of his thin chest is the only sign Hakyeon gets.
He takes it further to make Jaehwan understand. “Being your boyfriend -- that’s not an insult to me. It became an insult, in my mind, toward you because they were using it to…make you seem….”
“I get it.” Jaehwan is motionless. Nothing moves -- a rarity. He hasn’t let go of Hakyeon’s hands, but the moment will come. It will come.
“Jaehwan, please, if you get what I’m trying to say--”
Thumb, soft and not yet turned rough with age, brushes over Hakyeon’s lower lip. Jaehwan’s always taken his time to work through things. But when he finally sets into motion, he’s eager.
Jaehwan’s lips are as soft as his fingers, even softer, and the kiss is short in lasting, a quick touch of their lips together, but to Hakyeon it feels like a great expanse of time. One that encompasses all the moments leading up to now, the moments that would have followed if this wasn’t the last night.
Jaehwan pulls back. “My boyfriend. You’re my boyfriend.”
“If you want me to be,” Hakyeon darts to add. “Jaehwan, you’re my best friend, but I can’t-- I-- Jaehwan, I’m gonna miss you so much.” The tears start to fall; he didn’t feel them until now.
Jaehwan catches each on his finger, and they sleep under the blankets, in the fort they will no longer pitch, in the bubble of comfort they managed to preserve throughout all their years.
Hakyeon’s pillow is wet when he wakes the next morning.
He’s got a phone number scribbled onto a ripped sheet of paper. It’s Jaehwan’s. He could call him. Hakyeon sits by the phone. He’s never needed to call before; Jaehwan’s always been with him; he’s never needed that. But now, Jaehwan’s three hours away; he needs it now.
He stares at the phone. He dials and waits.
Hakyeon fumbles with his cellphone, squinting at the address typed into memos. He frowns. He smacks the steering wheel with his open palm and knocks his head against the headrest with a light thunk. His car is packed with clothes for the next week along with his school books, and he’s trying to focus more on the prospect of finding this damn house rather than what will happen once he does, but Hakyeon’s inching down this suburban street, looking like a creep.
It’s dusk, and it’s hard to tell what little distinguishing features these houses have from each other, so he’s got his head stuck out of his open car window. “Jaehwan,” he sings under his breath, “where are you.”
His mother’s box of cookies slides forward a bit on the passenger’s seat when Hakyeon hits the brakes. There’s a slip of paper written in her scribbles to Jaehwan -- “With lots of love!” -- and a smiley face drawn on the side. Hakyeon has a hand over this box. He grabbed it when he saw the floof of hair and a bright smile shine in the darkness, on one of the porches ahead.
Hakyeon’s heart pounds in an odd rhythm. Jaehwan’s bouncing down the steps and jogging down the sidewalk, and he’s a lot taller than he used to be. They’ve met up a few times since Jaehwan initially moved, but it’s been hard now that they’re both in college. Hakyeon, finally with his own car and a week break from school, decided to christen it with this trip.
“I’ll kiss it for you,” Jaehwan told him over FaceTime, with his pink stocking hat askew as his smile. Playful. He’s not wearing his hat now, hair bouncing as with him, and Hakyeon swallows thickly. He’s taken to wearing short shorts and long sweaters, fingertips peeking, and Hakyeon watches as they curl over his car door.
Jaehwan’s sweet face is in his window. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
It’s too dark to see the sparkles in Jaehwan’s eyes, too dark for Hakyeon’s flush to be as apparent as it feels, but when Jaehwan leans inside the car, smiling, and kisses Hakyeon, the magic is real -- he can feel it even still; he believes.
Their laughter is breathy when they break apart. After all, Hakyeon’s car is running in the middle of the street. Hakyeon tears his eyes away to hold the box of cookies through his window to him, and Jaehwan glows.
a/n: this feels so messy, but i was playing around with writing styles and this probably doesn't sound different from my normal stuff but it /feels/ different haha
i wrote most of this in one day and finally evicted it from my drafts i hope you haken kids liked it at least a little /_\, thank youuuuu
Pairing: N/Ken
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 5.8k
Warnings: slight homophobia and mentions of bullying
Summary: Hakyeon discovers magic when he's seven.
There’s a choice here, Hakyeon thinks, scanning the playground and watching. Slide. Swings. Sand box. Kids are swarmed around each, and Hakyeon, the odd one out, chooses the swings after momentary deliberation. He’s seven and doesn’t see enough shovels to share over in the sand, little boys and girls crowding around and knocking each other over. The slide is much too high.
He trots over to the swings and sits. He starts to kick his feet, paying no attention to the conversation beside him, between the two girls. One of them has a bow in her hair decorated with cartoon characters. Hakyeon thinks he’s seen that cartoon on TV.
No one talks to him that day.
The next day, when it’s time to go to the playground, his knees hit the dusty pebbles; his mother won’t be happy about that. The little boys mutter a sorry, but they don’t seem too worried that they knocked him over. Hakyeon opens his mouth to say something -- his hands hurt, so do his knees -- but then he firms his lips together. His mother told him to not say mean things.
Maybe it was an accident. And they did say they were sorry. Hakyeon watches as they go, laughing and hitting each other, and he stands in place with dirty pants.
Then a pop of a voice, a sprinkle of noise like a starburst in his ear. “Are you okay?” It’s a fussing sound, pitched high and the words run together, one falling over the other. The boy has fluffy curls and he’s shorter than Hakyeon is, small arms that cover his knees as he crouches to look at Hakyeon’s pants. “You got knocked down; are you okay?” Sounds like he’s missing a tooth.
Hakyeon notices the wand in the boy’s hand, the wand that sticks out from the classroom’s dress up box, the one with the broken end. It’s his second day of school but Hakyeon knows this much. This is the boy who jitters in his seat during class, that can’t sit still during class, the one the teacher has to talk to with a firm voice to reign him back in -- during class.
Out of class, outside on the playground, Hakyeon didn’t see him yesterday.
“What’s your name?” The boy taps Hakyeon on the arm with the wand, staring up with round eyes. Hakyeon thinks of his older sister, her eyes. “I’m Jaehwan. I had to stay inside yesterday. You’re new?”
Hakyeon looks around the playground. No one else is looking. He looks back at Jaehwan, to his pink wand, to where the boy’s shrunken before him, and slowly sinks to his level. “I’m new. I’m Hakyeon.” His mother told him to say nice things, to be polite. “You have big eyes. Do you always carry the wand around?” He can think of nothing else to say, and this is what he asks.
“Yeah!” Jaehwan stuffs his hands against his mouth, covering the toothy smile. “It’s mine because I’m a fairy.”
Jaehwan sits next to Hakyeon. Every day, even for lunch. He follows him to the playground except for when Jaehwan is held inside to talk to the teacher. He gets in trouble for being too talkative, too excited, and Hakyeon is lonely when he has to swing all by himself.
Jaehwan’s nice. He’s one of the few to include him, and Jaehwan always has a spare crayon for him to use, a corner of his paper for Hakyeon to scribble on. He breaks off his cookies, dividing them, sharing them. Hakyeon always accepts.
The wand is used on Hakyeon frequently. Softly on the back of his head, on his shoulders, hips, knees. Whatever Jaehwan can reach. He’s playful, and Hakyeon ends up smiling because of the joke he’s said or Jaehwan’s purposeful over-reaction to Hakyeon’s mild words.
“What does she talk to you about?”
They’re both coloring on a wide, blank page. Hakyeon is doing his best to draw his house, his parents’ faces peeking out of the windows, and Jaehwan-- Hakyeon looks over. Jaehwan’s scribbling in colorful circles.
But now he pauses, blue crayon tucked by his cheek in his fist. “You mean when they keep me inside?”
Hakyeon nods.
“About how I need to pay attention. She’ll talk to me for a little bit and then let me color or something in here.” He takes his crayon and dots the outline of Hakyeon’s arm, where it’s resting on the paper. Hakyeon doesn’t tell him no. “She told me that I’m good at having fun, but I need to learn to wait.”
Hakyeon watches Jaehwan dot closer to his house.
“I’m gonna tell you a secret.” Jaehwan’s words are still funny because of his missing tooth, but the white is starting to push through his gum. Hakyeon noticed. “I’m a fairy.”
“You told me that.” Hakyeon remembers. His second day of school, and Jaehwan said that. “You’re not a fairy.”
Jaehwan’s hand stills. “Look at my ears.” He’s serious, no smile, eyes heavy as they stare into Hakyeon’s. Hakyeon has no choice but to look at the ears he sees daily. “I had wings. I used to fly.”
Hakyeon makes a face, and Jaehwan whacks him with the ever-present wand he keeps in reach. “It’s true!”
“Fairies aren’t real, Jaehwan.”
“Well,” the boy laughs, like Hakyeon is being stupid, “I am one.”
“Prove it.”
Jaehwan seems a little thrown by this. Prove it? He’s already proven it with his ears, and the wand he carries, and he had wings once! He seems to say all this with his screwed up expression, and Hakyeon looks back down at his house drawing, working on his windows. “Until you prove it, I don’t believe you.”
Jaehwan pouts. “I used to fly….”
Hakyeon draws.
“I- I had wings, but they got ripped off. Look.” He tugs up his shirt and twists around in his seat to show off the twisted scars on Jaehwan’s back. The skin is pink, different from the rest. Hakyeon’s attention is caught.
“Woah.”
“Told you.” Jaehwan pouts, fists gripping crayon, wand, and shirt. “I’m a fairy. I’m magic.”
Hakyeon goes home to tell his mother. He feels silly even asking, feels even sillier when his mother shakes her head. “Let him pretend,” she says. “Don’t be mean to him if that’s what he believes. He’ll grow out of it.”
Hakyeon doesn’t tell Jaehwan he doesn’t think he’s a fairy.
His family is new to town, uprooting themselves after fifteen years. Hakyeon, switching schools, missing his old house, doesn’t like the change. His friends are nowhere near. He wants to go out, down the street to the playground, but he knows very few kids, and his mother at least wants him with a friend if he’s going out.
Knocking the toes of his tennis shoes together, Hakyeon informs Jaehwan, “I live up the street from you.”
Jaehwan looks at him and grins. “I should come over.” He goes back to drawing the outline of Hakyeon’s hand and doesn’t see Hakyeon’s fidgeting. “Or the playground. We’ll have lots of fun.”
They end up building a fort in Hakyeon’s room on a rainy weekend. Hakyeon brings him over after school one day, and Jaehwan grins so wide when he jumps on Hakyeon’s bed -- he looks to never move from the spot. Until, that is, Hakyeon tosses pillows and blankets onto the ground and they get to work.
In the fort, the walls are wide, soft ceiling tall. Hakyeon turns on a flashlight and shoves some of his older brother’s comic books inside. He was right to predict Jaehwan would enjoy them. Hakyeon’s read them all before, but he lets the boy show him what parts he likes, different funny faces he sees.
They bring cookies and milk underneath their blankets, and Jaehwan uses his hands to throw funny shapes onto the covers with the flashlight. Hakyeon giggles until he feels tired, and they fall asleep like this, empty cups and crumbs surrounding them, blankets and chairs and pillows encasing them.
Jaehwan becomes Hakyeon’s friend.
They build forts and excavate the sandbox when no one is playing there, and Hakyeon stays in class with Jaehwan when he can’t come out, after he’s been laughing too loud in class. Hakyeon draws pictures with him, laughs at his jokes, brings him home. He feeds Jaehwan cookies and milk, and never ever -- never, not once -- does he tell Jaehwan he doesn’t believe him.
They grow up. They go to the school a few blocks further with the older kids and are thrown into a stream of unfamiliar faces. Jaehwan doesn’t mention he’s nervous, but his hands are shaking on his backpack straps. He’s left his wand at home.
It’s unusual but makes sense. For Jaehwan’s sake, Hakyeon’s glad he left it.
They walk straight to class, Jaehwan’s hands tight on Hakyeon’s backpack as they slip through the bodies of older kids and young kids. Hakyeon looks at the different faces -- most, a majority, unfamiliar -- and he looks over his shoulder at Jaehwan. “It’ll be okay. Stay close to me, though.”
They almost get plowed down by a fast-walking thirteen year old, mass coming onto him that sharply contrasts Hakyeon and Jaehwan’s skinny legs and pointy elbows, but Hakyeon tucks him and Jaehwan against the wall in the knick of time. Jaehwan’s eyes look to him, and his hands are still shaking.
He’s never been known to be so shy; he’s always had so many thoughts ready to share, ready to spew into Hakyeon’s ear, but now he can say nothing. Just tremble and hold tight. Hakyeon takes a deep breath. He can lead Jaehwan to class just fine. He has to. He’ll be unafraid for both of them.
They share a class. Their seats are labeled on opposite sides of the room, and Hakyeon watches as Jaehwan takes his, tucking himself small into his chair. The desks fill up quickly, and there’s a girl that sits behind his seat and a boy to his right. She doesn’t wear ribbons in her hair, and he doesn’t tells jokes that get Hakyeon to laugh like Jaehwan can.
Jaehwan keeps quiet for the class, and it’s an odd sound -- lack of sound. It might be for the best. For now, Hakyeon thinks, jostling a knee.
They still build blanket forts. They ease into school, and it’s not so scary anymore, but Jaehwan’s not the same as he was back then. They’re eleven, and they’ve changed. But the blanket forts don’t. Jaehwan reads comics to Hakyeon, changing his voice for different characters, and he makes Hakyeon laugh. That doesn’t change.
In Hakyeon’s room, Jaehwan’s never changed.
“That girl that sits behind you likes you.”
Hakyeon makes a face. He had been listening to Jaehwan read, half-paying attention when this dragged him out of his thoughts. “She’s annoying. She pulls my hair.”
Jaehwan tugs on Hakyeon’s hair now. “She smiles when you’re not looking.”
Hakyeon thinks on this for a moment and ends up shrugging. “Well, if she wants me to like her, she’ll stop pulling my hair.”
Jaehwan doesn’t start reading again but flops onto the ground. He’s got a cookie in his mouth, between his lips. “My brother has a girlfriend,” he says, cookie garbling his voice.
Hakyeon’s siblings are quite older than him. His oldest sister might marry her boyfriend -- he keeps hearing his mother say this to his father. Hakyeon doesn’t think much of it. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Jaehwan’s quiet a little longer. Then: “Do you know how babies are made?”
Hakyeon thinks he does. He’s heard older boys talk about it, overhear them at lunch and in gym, but it’s rivaled against what else he’s heard, and he doesn’t know much at all. “Not really.”
“My dad told my brother. That’s all he told me. Why’s it a secret?”
Hakyeon shrugs again. “If they want to keep secrets, let them keep secrets.” He shifts onto his side, not looking at Jaehwan. “Probably not worth it, anyway.”
“This just means I really could have been a fairy.”
By now, Hakyeon’s heard of changelings. He’s read about them in books he’s borrowed from the library, always illustrated in different ways. A human child swapped for a child of the Fair Folk -- he looks up at Jaehwan to see if he’s serious.
Jaehwan’s smiling, but he’s quiet, like he’s thinking. Hakyeon’s about to say something -- of what, he’s not sure -- but then Jaehwan asks, “Do you think if I ask your mom she'll let me have more cookies?”
That’s worth a try.
Jaehwan is naïve. He trusts too easily, and he’s opened up more after growing comfortable in the classroom, but Hakyeon will watch as classmates take his paper, his pencils, his answers, with promise of a return when none will be given. Jaehwan laughs about it, but it doesn’t sit well with Hakyeon.
He tells him.
“It’s alright,” Jaehwan says, fingers tight on his backpack straps. It’s been awhile since they’ve stopped their trembling.
Hakyeon nods. If Jaehwan wants to give away everything then that’s what he decides. But Hakyeon keeps an eye watching -- the ones who take from his friend. He watches out for them. Some are forgetful but nice enough. Others are mean, undeserving. Hakyeon tries to stay quiet to not say what he wants to, to let a mean jab of words slip out. He can hear his mother’s reprimanding tone in his head, but he thinks, if she ever did find out, it might be worth it.
They get to their last year in middle school and catapult into a strange time. Girls in their year start to look swollen in places that they will never. Jaehwan likes to mimic them and hold his chest with hands -- this gets Hakyeon to laugh.
He finds out where babies come from. Jaehwan does, too, and neither comment on what this means for Jaehwan’s changeling theory. It could still be true. But they haven’t talked of that in near a year, and Hakyeon feels that Jaehwan’s finally realized it can’t be true.
Gym is a hell like it’s never been before. Hakyeon’s never bothered himself with what other’s think, with what boys yell across the locker room, but Jaehwan has. Jaehwan takes to changing in the bathroom stalls.
Hakyeon stands by his locker and dresses quickly, ignoring the guffaw to his side earned from a joke about dicks, and he’s tying his shoes when he hears syllables slide out that sound like Jaehwan’s name. Jaehwan. Who’s talking about Jaehwan?
It’s a conversation to his right, loud enough to show they don’t care who’s listening, but asking why does Jaehwan change in the bathroom? Does he have something to hide? And then a boy on Hakyeon’s left laughs and it’s as jarring as a cold shower.
“Probably can’t take the staring. Probably….” He makes a quick gesture with his hand, hovering at hip-level and Hakyeon’s cheeks burn hot, his laces loose in his hands. Then he remembers himself, and there’s an anger.
He bites out, “Leave him alone.”
The boys involved look at Hakyeon like they’ve just now noticed him. Hakyeon and Jaehwan are inseparable, and Hakyeon is genial and funny on his own, well-liked by a lot of kids, but these boys don’t seem too concerned about Hakyeon and how he feels. And why should he feel? They’re speaking of Jaehwan not him.
But Hakyeon’s cheeks feel like fire, bright beacons, and he leaves the locker room in record time. He’s the first to stand in the gym, alone with the teacher, and Jaehwan comes out some time later with the other students. They usually wait for each other. Leave together.
Jaehwan stands beside him, fingers pulling at Hakyeon’s elbow. A soft tug. A thrill of magic in Hakyeon’s tummy. Hakyeon’s face burns.
There is wonder in Jaehwan’s voice at why Hakyeon could have possibly left without him. There is a concern that can be heard. “What’s wrong?”
Hakyeon doesn’t tell him.
He doesn’t know how to tell Jaehwan that when his mother talks about his sister, to be married in the fall, he thinks about himself walking down an aisle. The person he faces, wears no identifying features. He looks down to their chest, he looks down to their legs. There is no dress, and there is no suit. There’s no blushing bride. There’s no smiling groom.
When he thinks of Jaehwan, he sees someone, though. He sees Jaehwan, in kindergarten, tapping him with a wand, and he sees him knocking on Hakyeon’s front door, grown up and big like his sister’s boyfriend. He’s permanent - Hakyeon feels. He’s been the constant in his life for seven years so far, and Hakyeon can’t imagine getting close as he is to someone else.
Jaehwan doesn’t pester him for this thought. He knows something is bothering Hakyeon. He does not know what, but he is there; he waits. Hakyeon’s not sure if he’ll tell him.
The accusation comes hot from spit-licked lips. The boy’s mad. Hakyeon’s got his gym shorts on, fists clenched, shoes untied. Jaehwan’s not with him; he’s in the bathroom stall down the hall in the locker room, and he can’t hear Hakyeon’s echoey words with the boys oooh-ing and ahhh-ing over Hakyeon’s anger.
He’s mad? They’ve seen him irritated; they’ve never seen him shake.
Hakyeon’s ears ring. The thing the boy’s said, that was meant to hurt him, to demean him, doesn’t make him blink. It’s that he keeps saying Jaehwan’s name. Won’t leave him alone -- leave him out of it. Jaehwan’s business is no one’s but his own, shut the fuck up.
The first swing belongs to Hakyeon. He’s at fault. This is what they’ll say when the boys are dragged to the principle’s office, phone calls being made, Mrs. Cha, your son was in a fight today.
The boy defends himself, but Hakyeon swings harder in defense of Jaehwan. These are wild shots. Nothing like the movies; Hakyeon barely lands anything. It’s a shame. He’s not sure how long he’s been like this, with the boy backed up against a locker, tearing at Hakyeon’s shirt, and Hakyeon swinging his fists around in a blind attack, but a teacher has him.
The teacher looks him in the eyes. Hakyeon’s hands are held against his sides. “Calm down.” Hakyeon can’t breathe. There’s red all around. He struggles, but the hold is tight. He’s being extricated from the throng of boys eager and jeering, and he ends up in a cool hallway then in the chilly office.
His mother soon is staring at him.
Hakyeon bears no wounds but bruises where the boy was trying to push him away, fingernail scrapes on his arms. He feels like he’s been cut open.
“What’s this about?”
Honesty is best here. Hakyeon’s standing in his kitchen; his father isn’t home. He’s fourteen, and he can take responsibility for what he did. His hands feel odd from being clenched for so long, and he releases them now. Maybe for the first time since leaving the school. He licks his lips.
His mother speaks first, however. “Was he making fun of you? You swung first--”
“Not me.” Hakyeon grits his teeth. “Jaehwan.” There’s a pause, an opening for Hakyeon to continue. “He wasn’t around to stick up for himself. They think he’s--” soft; gay; different,“--an easy target. Too nice to give it back to them.” Hakyeon works his jaw. His mother still hasn’t spoken. “And he is. He would rather make them laugh then act like them.”
Softly: “Then what did you do?” Hakyeon winces. “You stooped to their level for him?”
“I just…lost my temper this time.”
“Does your boyfriend suck your dick so you’ll be a hero for him?”
Hakyeon’s mother sits at the table, and he stays standing, awaiting what punishment she’ll give him. He started the fight. He should have walked away. He should have gotten a teacher. Instead Hakyeon decided to try and beat out an apology.
“I’m not angry, Hakyeon.”
Hakyeon looks up. His fingers twist together behind his back.
“Maybe a little disappointed, but you were sticking up for your friend.” She gestures for him to come nearer and brushes away his bangs, sticky with dried sweat. “Never start a fight again. If someone comes at you, then you act.”
But Hakyeon can’t help himself. “They’ve been terrible to him, and I’ve had to listen….”
“Jaehwan won’t have you to stand up for him all the time.” The words rattle something inside Hakyeon. He thinks of smiling Jaehwan, someone who hands out his pencils stamped with his favorite cartoon characters, against a bully twice his size, twice as mean as the boy today.
Hakyeon thinks of himself against Jaehwan’s imagined bully, twice his size, but with fists raised and ready to keep Jaehwan safe. Hero, is what he’d been called earlier. Hakyeon thinks that as long as Jaehwan is alright, it doesn’t matter.
Hakyeon disagrees with his mother but fakes a promise with a nod of his head. “No more fights.”
Jaehwan sits in his room, on the bed. It’s the weekend, and Hakyeon missed the week’s last school day as punishment for the fight. His brow is furrowed, thumb tucked under his upper lip, and he has something to say; Hakyeon wishes he’d just spit it out.
“You were fighting.”
Hakyeon raises his eyebrows and laughs. It’s such an obvious statement that he can’t help himself. “Yeah.”
“He said you fought him.” He means Hakyeon’s target. The one with Jaehwan as his target. “He was talking about it in gym.”
“Did you hear why?”
Jaehwan lays down on the bed. It’s springtime, and school is drawing to a close; the tree outside Hakyeon’s window is in bloom, budding with small pink flowers. Jaehwan stares out the window, to this tree. It’s awhile before he can say, “You didn’t have to fight him, though.”
Hakyeon makes a face. So he does know. “Happened anyway.”
Jaehwan sits up in a violent jerk. Nothing about him has ever been violent. Excited or muted, those are his fluctuations. His face is twisted in anger to match the scars on his back. Car crash scars. What he used to call his wings. “What if you had gotten hurt?”
“But I didn’t.” Hakyeon doesn’t count his yellowed bruises.
“And now they think you’re….”
“I’m--?”
“They were talking about you today.”
Half of Hakyeon is curious, the other half scared. Not of what they said -- of Jaehwan’s reaction. “They -- he and his friends -- called you names. Bad names. They said,” he can’t look at Hakyeon, “that you’re my b- boyfriend, and--”
“What did you say?”
“That they said you were--”
“No, to them. What’d you say to them?”
Jaehwan flushes. From his pointed ears to the round bulb of his nose, he flushes. “I didn’t say anything. I’m sorry,” he adds, rushes to spill out. “I’m sorry, Hakyeon, but I couldn’t. I wanted to, but I didn’t know what to tell them; I thought of things to say, but when I tried it- it wouldn’t come out. I’m sorry; I’m sorry.”
Hakyeon walks over to sit beside him on the bed. “It’s fine. If you said anything, they’d just go back to talking about you.” Hakyeon pulls a string on his comforter. Jaehwan’s knees are close to touching his own. “Are you okay?”
“Shouldn’t I be asking you?”
“I said I’m fine.” Hakyeon stares at Jaehwan’s profile. “Are you?”
Jaehwan rubs his nose, eyes averted. “I knew what they were saying about me. You didn’t have to do anything; if I ignored it, they probably would’ve stopped.”
Hakyeon shrugs. “Too late for that now.”
“Don’t fight them.” It’s a plea; he’s asking. “Hakyeon, don’t. It’ll make it worse. I’ll handle it. In my way.”
Hakyeon remembers his lie; he can tell the same one to Jaehwan. “Okay. I just….” He doesn’t finish his thought. Not because he can’t but because of Jaehwan’s expression. He can’t quite read it. Hakyeon curls his fits, digs his nails into his palms. “Read me a story?”
Jaehwan finally drags his eyes to him. He looks guilty of something. Hakyeon won’t speculate what that is. “Yeah, okay.”
The year continues on, and only once does that boy smile at Jaehwan, where he stands beside Hakyeon. “Hey, Jaehwan, do you guys share lotion?”
Before he can finish the rest of what he has to say, Jaehwan lets out a chuckle, his cheeks round, and says, “Why? You want some?” There’s a smattering of laughter from the other boys. “It’s fine if you do. It’s in my locker.”
The boy splutters. Jaehwan looks innocent to the intent of his meaning even though he isn’t. “No.” Offended, slightly angry. “No, you--”
Jaehwan grins. They’re ushered into the gym, and whether the others are laughing at Jaehwan or the boy is unclear. It doesn’t matter. So long as they’re laughing.
Jaehwan’s way.
High school -- it’s here. The boys’ schedules coincide for the most part, and Hakyeon thinks he can do this. After a long summer lazing by river edges and chewing on popsicle sticks, any weirdness that developed from their last months in middle school evaporated.
Hakyeon’s classmates spoke of attraction, boys more vocal and boastful to welcome ears. They talked about girls: thighs, rear, breasts, long hair. And none of it sparks a particular reaction in him. Girls are nice. Girls are pretty. Some boys are nice. Some -- Hakyeon looks sidelong at Jaehwan -- are very nice, beautiful.
This feeling is not something that’s gone in a week, that he can be talked down from. None of the girls or boys cause a reaction like Jaehwan, a need to protect him, to keep him near, to be there for him, to listen to him talk and provide a shoulder to rest on.
He holds onto Hakyeon, and this must be the magic Jaehwan spoke of so long ago. The feeling he has inside. It bubbles and sparks just like how magic is described; what if Jaehwan really is….
Summer sun would dapple Jaehwan as they lay in the grass, and Hakyeon could see clear as day where the wings would stretch from his back.
Jaehwan walks in the school doors with head held high and clutches to Hakyeon’s backpack but not so tightly, not like he’ll get lost if he lets go. Jaehwan, though, does walk shoulder to shoulder with him. Hakyeon’s the taller of the two, but Jaehwan’s gained quite a bit since they were small, and they almost walk in step down the hall. Young as they are, they push through just fine. They take their seats, able to sit beside each other, and Jaehwan begins to whisper in his ear.
Everything’s alright, Hakyeon tells himself. Everything is alright.
Halfway through their first semester, Jaehwan knocks on his door, still too short and not broad enough to match the image in Hakyeon’s head. The framed image of him calling and answering, and Hakyeon taking his arm and leaving with him. He answers the door, smile falling when he sees Jaehwan’s expression.
The image fractures.
There will be no more blanket forts. No more late night snacks with shadow puppets thrown against the blankets. No more readings, funny voices to match funny characters; no more hands to cling onto Hakyeon’s backpack while they walk through crowded hallways.
Hakyeon sets up their nest one last time, and they crawl under. They barely fit like this. Jaehwan ends up curling himself into Hakyeon; if he’s embarrassed about that he doesn’t show it, smiling softly like their world isn’t collapsing, like this won’t happen after tonight.
“Hakyeon, I’ll miss you.” It’s light, muttered in Hakyeon’s cotton shirt, and Hakyeon’s never quite held Jaehwan this way. He pulls him closer, hands coming up to hold onto his back, where Jaehwan once imagined his wings. His hands can’t be still. He’s losing it all.
Hakyeon shouldn’t tell him now. It’ll be better that way; after all, they’re still young. Time is mean; it’s changed them since seven; it’ll change them after this. What happens if they don’t fit together anymore? Jaehwan will find friends. He’ll fall in love. He’ll live a life separate from Hakyeon’s, and even he will grow up and adapt. Life continues.
Doesn’t mean it won’t hurt.
Hakyeon feels like his chest is being crushed. If he were to say it, it has to be now. Not tomorrow when Jaehwan will be toted away to a different city, miles pulling him away. Jaehwan’s his friend. As much as he wants to keep this from him, for once maybe it’s wrong to keep his silence.
“Jaehwan.”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
Jaehwan wiggles in his arms, and Hakyeon blushes. “For what?” he asks.
“For being my friend. But I have to tell you something, okay? Can you hear me out?” He’s shaking again. Hakyeon is shaking, and he only shakes when he’s upset. Jaehwan can feel it and sits up in a bolt, knocks against one of the fort chairs.
“What’s wrong?”
Hakyeon sits up as well. His hands won’t stop, and he lets out a sparse laugh. Unamused. He hates this. But then Jaehwan’s soft palms come up to rest under them and share the shivers. This has the opposite effect on Hakyeon than the intended reassurance it was meant to give him.
Hopeless.
“I want you to be happy,” Hakyeon starts out with. There’s really no place to sort out his feelings. He only knows half of what he feels, and only half of that can be put into speech. “Jaehwan, I don’t want you hurt -- ever.”
Jaehwan’s legs bracket him. He hasn’t moved away yet.
He wanted to be there for him -- to always stand beside him. Jaehwan may handle things better, but Hakyeon worries so much, and he-- he just….
“I got mad back then not because they insulted me.” He speaks of this again, and he can feel Jaehwan tense under his hands. He pushes forward. “Do you know what he said that day? What got me?”
“No. I knew- I knew what they said about me. Other times. Not then. Do I want to?”
Hakyeon tells Jaehwan, eyes only communicating this through the inches of air between them, that no he doesn’t. “I don’t care what they say about me because I can’t…say that I don’t like boys. And girls. But you,” Hakyeon draws in a breath, “I didn’t want to hear them talk about you that way.”
Jaehwan is very quiet; the blink of his eyes and the rise and fall of his thin chest is the only sign Hakyeon gets.
He takes it further to make Jaehwan understand. “Being your boyfriend -- that’s not an insult to me. It became an insult, in my mind, toward you because they were using it to…make you seem….”
“I get it.” Jaehwan is motionless. Nothing moves -- a rarity. He hasn’t let go of Hakyeon’s hands, but the moment will come. It will come.
“Jaehwan, please, if you get what I’m trying to say--”
Thumb, soft and not yet turned rough with age, brushes over Hakyeon’s lower lip. Jaehwan’s always taken his time to work through things. But when he finally sets into motion, he’s eager.
Jaehwan’s lips are as soft as his fingers, even softer, and the kiss is short in lasting, a quick touch of their lips together, but to Hakyeon it feels like a great expanse of time. One that encompasses all the moments leading up to now, the moments that would have followed if this wasn’t the last night.
Jaehwan pulls back. “My boyfriend. You’re my boyfriend.”
“If you want me to be,” Hakyeon darts to add. “Jaehwan, you’re my best friend, but I can’t-- I-- Jaehwan, I’m gonna miss you so much.” The tears start to fall; he didn’t feel them until now.
Jaehwan catches each on his finger, and they sleep under the blankets, in the fort they will no longer pitch, in the bubble of comfort they managed to preserve throughout all their years.
Hakyeon’s pillow is wet when he wakes the next morning.
He’s got a phone number scribbled onto a ripped sheet of paper. It’s Jaehwan’s. He could call him. Hakyeon sits by the phone. He’s never needed to call before; Jaehwan’s always been with him; he’s never needed that. But now, Jaehwan’s three hours away; he needs it now.
He stares at the phone. He dials and waits.
Hakyeon fumbles with his cellphone, squinting at the address typed into memos. He frowns. He smacks the steering wheel with his open palm and knocks his head against the headrest with a light thunk. His car is packed with clothes for the next week along with his school books, and he’s trying to focus more on the prospect of finding this damn house rather than what will happen once he does, but Hakyeon’s inching down this suburban street, looking like a creep.
It’s dusk, and it’s hard to tell what little distinguishing features these houses have from each other, so he’s got his head stuck out of his open car window. “Jaehwan,” he sings under his breath, “where are you.”
His mother’s box of cookies slides forward a bit on the passenger’s seat when Hakyeon hits the brakes. There’s a slip of paper written in her scribbles to Jaehwan -- “With lots of love!” -- and a smiley face drawn on the side. Hakyeon has a hand over this box. He grabbed it when he saw the floof of hair and a bright smile shine in the darkness, on one of the porches ahead.
Hakyeon’s heart pounds in an odd rhythm. Jaehwan’s bouncing down the steps and jogging down the sidewalk, and he’s a lot taller than he used to be. They’ve met up a few times since Jaehwan initially moved, but it’s been hard now that they’re both in college. Hakyeon, finally with his own car and a week break from school, decided to christen it with this trip.
“I’ll kiss it for you,” Jaehwan told him over FaceTime, with his pink stocking hat askew as his smile. Playful. He’s not wearing his hat now, hair bouncing as with him, and Hakyeon swallows thickly. He’s taken to wearing short shorts and long sweaters, fingertips peeking, and Hakyeon watches as they curl over his car door.
Jaehwan’s sweet face is in his window. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
It’s too dark to see the sparkles in Jaehwan’s eyes, too dark for Hakyeon’s flush to be as apparent as it feels, but when Jaehwan leans inside the car, smiling, and kisses Hakyeon, the magic is real -- he can feel it even still; he believes.
Their laughter is breathy when they break apart. After all, Hakyeon’s car is running in the middle of the street. Hakyeon tears his eyes away to hold the box of cookies through his window to him, and Jaehwan glows.
a/n: this feels so messy, but i was playing around with writing styles and this probably doesn't sound different from my normal stuff but it /feels/ different haha
i wrote most of this in one day and finally evicted it from my drafts i hope you haken kids liked it at least a little /_\, thank youuuuu