[F43] YOU WERE A KINDNESS
Prompt Code: F43
Title: you were a kindness
Rating: pg
Side Pairings (if any): baekhyun/yixing
Warnings: none
Word Count: 7k
Summary: “It’s just pretty unlikely that this many people in one group will find their soulmate in high school,” Jongdae says.
“To be fair,” Chanyeol muses, “this is boarding school.”
AN: none
Jongin is running late to math, as he finds he almost always is. His uniform is badly put together, tie and pants loose, and he barely had time to piss, let alone shower, so his face and skin are oily and discomfiting. All in all, it's proving to be a terrible morning.
So when he crashes into someone as he turns the last corner between his dorm and the classroom, he can't find it in himself to be shocked. At all. He's just grateful that neither of them falls.
“Hey, are you okay?” the person-guy, it's a guy, shorter than him with a burst of jet-black hair-asks, steadying him with two hands on his shoulders.
“I'm fine, thank you,” Jongin rushes out, moving away and faster towards math, just as unobservant and hectic as before.
Thankfully, he doesn't run into anyone else. Not that he'd need to.
It's not until he's well-seated and no longer has to avoid his teacher’s annoyed looks that he notices the ache in his shoulders.
“Are you okay?” Tao whispers, leaning forward and speaking into his ear while their teacher drones on and on about last week’s test grades.
“What? Why?”
“You keep rubbing his shoulders. Is your body finally having physical reactions to someone as attractive as me around you? I can understand,” Tao answers, patting him softly on the back. Jongin can't see his face, but he's sure that it's housing an insufferably smug smirk.
Honestly, Jongin didn’t notice how often he's been touching his shoulders until Tao pointed it out. He isn't entirely sure why, but his shoulders have a weird and awkward feeling to them right now, these gentle pulses interspersed with sudden… tingles? As if he's very softly and carefully being shocked.
“Oh,” Jongin says. “I don't know.”
“Maybe you're dying,” Tao says cheerfully. Their teacher shoots them a look-mostly just him, Tao has never been caught as the overwhelming primary source of chaos in the junior class-before Jongin can shoot back what he's sure would have been a very brutal and funny comeback.
Possibly the weirdest thing about the ache in his shoulders is how strangely good it feels. It hurts, but the more he's conscious of his fixation with it, the more he notices that he wants more of it. It's s good burn. He wonders why that is.
It’s not until class has finally ended and Tao hooks his arm over Jongin’s shoulders as they walk out that-well, he expects it to hurt like a pressed bruise, flinches in expectation of the pain, but instead the feeling disappears.
“What'd you do?” Jongin exclaims, shrugging Tao’s arm off.
Tao slaps his arm, giving him an incredulous look. “What the hell do you mean? Since when is touching you a fucking crime?”
Jongin opens his mouth to explain, but of course that's when Jongdae and Chanyeol bound up and immediately start recounting every single aspect of their morning, looking far too bright and alert for nine o’clock.
“Let's go eat,” Jongin interrupts. If there's one thing that will distract him from how stupidly annoyed he is that Tao touched his shoulders, it's food.
“This is probably the worst you've ever looked in your life,” Tao tells him once they're sat in the cafeteria, table full and cramped with the very belated addition of Baekhyun and Yixing. It's not very hard to figure out where they were and what they were doing, but Jongin finds that he sleeps a lot better at night when he doesn't ask for confirmation. Baekhyun always gives more details than anyone needs.
“Thank you,” Jongin garbles, mouth stuffed with rice. “I know.”
“I think you look dashing,” Baekhyun gushes, hand on his chin and cheeks flushed with the remnants of-God, he doesn't want to know. He doesn't.
Jongin grins.
“Hey, close your mouth,” Jongdae says, leaning across the table just to slap his shoulder. Jongin wants his shoulders to be left alone. “Do you think I want or deserve to see that?”
Jongin closes his mouth, scowling at Jongdae. Yixing laughs. He opens his mouth to say something, hopefully to defend Jongin from Jongdae’s terrorizing evil, but Chanyeol doesn't notice and speaks up first.
“Jongin-ah, Kyungsoo told me that you were sleeping on your feet this morning and ran into him.”
“Who?” Jongin asks. He thinks he's heard the name before, especially if Chanyeol knows him, fond as he is of documenting every speck of his life, but there's no spark of recognition.
“What do you mean who,” Tao all but shouts from behind a bowl of soup, garnering the judging looks of the tables around them. Jongin understands where they're coming from. Most of the people he knows shouldn't be allowed to leave their rooms until noon when the rest of the world is finally awake.
“What the hell,” Jongin complains. “How is this an issue for you?”
Tao is glaring at him. “He's one of Kris' best friends. We've gone over the entire roster. You're supposed to know and always be alert of them.”
“What,” Jongin says.
“Why does Jongin have to be on his toes for your crush’s friends?” Baekhyun asks. “Does that make sense? I feel like that doesn't make sense.”
“First of all,” Tao starts. Jongin already knows where this is going. “He's not a crush. I'm not twelve. He's my soulmate.” Across the table, Baekhyun is mouthing along word for word. Chanyeol is trying, and failing, not to laugh.
“You don't know that,” Jongdae reminds him.
“If I don't then who will, sunbae,” Tao hisses, setting his bowl down loudly.
“Don't be so rude, Zitao,” Yixing chastises.
“You guys weren't like this with Baekhyun or Yixing," he whines. “Why are you being like this to me.”
“This is plagiarism,” Jongdae complains. “Give credit where it is due.”
“Probably because Yixing and I had spoken at least three words to each other,” Baekhyun offers. “Which is three more than you and Kris have.” Jongin worries that Tao will have an aneurysm.
“It’s just pretty unlikely that this many people in one group will find their soulmate in high school,” Jongdae says.
“To be fair,” Chanyeol muses, “this is boarding school. Not high school.”
"Anyway,” Tao continues loudly, clearly choosing to sweep their comments under the rug, “Jongin has to be aware because his actions reflect back on me. Same goes for all of you. What if he's angry that he bumped into him and tells Kris and they end up hating Jongin and then me by association? What if my soulmate hates me? How can no one ever think about my feelings?”
Yixing sighs.
“Did he say anything about me that could ruin Tao’s reputation?” Jongin asks. Honestly, Jongin doesn't remember bumping into anyone this morning, but he only just gained full consciousness, like, ten minutes ago, so he's not all that bothered.
“No, he just laughed,” Chanyeol answers. “It was just a passing comment.”
“At least he knows which one Jongin is,” Baekhyun says.
“Jongin has the observance of moth,” Tao says, mouth stuffed with what might be three pieces of kimbap at once.
“That's true,” Jongdae agrees, with various noises of assent from the others.
"This is why I'm gonna start eating in the library by myself from now on,” Jongin tells them, shooting accusing looks at Yixing. Yixing is supposed to defend him. Yixing shrugs.
“You'll probably forget that you said that ten minutes from now,” says Chanyeol.
Jongin actually does forget.
Regardless, the week after during dinner, he finds himself eating from a snuck-in tray in the library. He has three more pages of a five page literature paper due at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning, and he knows that if he has dinner with his friends, they'll end up in Jongdae and Chanyeol’s shared dorm playing video games and screwing around until three in the morning, and his grade can't afford that.
Who even puts a paper due on a Saturday, anyway, is what he wants to know. He fucking hates boarding school.
There's only so much he could fit onto the one plastic box they're allowed to leave the cafeteria with and by this time he's done, chopsticks coming up with nothing when he aimlessly reaches out, he's still hungry. He had basketball practice today, and he feels like he could eat for two hours nonstop and still be hungry.
Jongin sighs, puts the volume up on his headphones, and continues writing the essay.
A little while later, there's a soft tap on his laptop that makes him jump at least seven meters into the air, yanking his headphones out and looking up with wide eyes. He really hopes it’s not the librarian. He doesn't know who the librarian is, but he knows they'll be annoyed to see that he was eating here.
“Um, hi,” the person, a guy, says. Jongin feels a very loose and vague sense of familiarity but not enough to know where it comes from or a name. He probably just has one of those faces. “Jongin, right?”
Jongin blinks. “Yes?”
The guy must see the lack of recognition in Jongin's eyes, because he says, “I'm Kyungsoo. Chanyeol's friend?”
Chanyeol has a lot of friends. Jongin blinks again.
“Kris’s friend?” Kyungsoo tries.
“Oh!” Jongin exclaims, remembering Tao’s spiel. “Oh, yes, hi!”
“Hi,” Kyungsoo replies, lips quirking up. He lifts a bag and shakes it a little. “I was on my way here from hanging out with Chanyeol and he begged me to bring this for you.”
“What is it?” Jongin asks, taking the bag when it's offered to him. He peeks inside and then gasps. It's food, and definitely a lot. “Holy shit. Thank you so much.”
“Tell Chanyeol thank you,” Kyungsoo responses. “I'm just the delivery guy.”
“The only reason my stomach won't collapse on itself tonight is because you agreed to bring it for me,” Jongin counters. He feels so friendly and outgoing now that he has a reason to live.
Kyungsoo’s lips curl up again.
After he leaves, the library gets suffocatingly quiet, somehow worse than before, but Jongin is pretty sure that's only because he hasn't eaten yet.
He doesn't finish the essay until two in the morning and after printing it out and dropping it in the mailbox outside his teacher’s room, he sleeps and sleeps and sleeps.
It's not until his roaring stomach startles him awake in the late afternoon that he finally gets out of bed. He drowsily gets dressed and brushes his teeth. It's only seven, so he thinks that even though all his friends are probably done by now, he can catch dinner in the cafeteria. They serve fried chicken on Saturdays. He's so happy he didn't get up at eight.
Jongin is pretty excited to be eating alone today. Jongdae always tells him he's going to have early aneurysms if he keeps eating that much fried chicken every week and then his soulmate will have to live a long and lonely life because of his greed, but Jongin is mostly sure that it won't kill him. Even so, at least he'll die a happy man.
Jongdae isn't there; Jongin would have heard him the second he walked in. But when he instinctively does a quick sweep after getting his food, he spots Chanyeol. He’s sitting with Junmyeon sunbaenim, senior class president and the only other person in his math class as sad to be there as he is, and the person from the library last night. Kyungsoo, he thinks.
“Jongin-ah!” Chanyeol shouts, waving his arms high in the air and beckoning him over.
“I really thought you'd died,” Chanyeol says once he's seated and comfortable and greeted everyone, chopsticks in one hand and chicken wing in the other. “You slept for at least two full years.”
Jongin grunts in reply. He has a mouthful of chicken, and he doesn't want to make a bad impression.
“How did your essay end up?” Chanyeol asks. Jongin shrugs. “Why did you never text me thank you for the food?” Jongin chews, and shrugs.
“Yah, leave him alone,” Junmyeon says. “Can't you see he just wants to eat, Chanyeol?”
“He just likes to hear himself talk,” Kyungsoo says, glancing over at Jongin. “I don't think he's ever shut his big mouth since he first learned how open it.”
Chanyeol pouts. “You two like my big mouth,” he sniffs.
“I can't think of anyone on the planet who does,” Junmyeon replies.
Jongin laughs, and then Kyungsoo does, too. He has a very nice laugh.
Overall, it’s a pretty uneventful dinner. They're one of the last people in the cafeteria, so they eat quickly and Chanyeol and Junmyeon talk a lot. The only thing Jongin really remembers--there's a point where Kyungsoo is leaning over the table to steal Chanyeol’s unused chili paste, and when he rearranges himself, he's close enough that his knee is touching Jongin’s. It seems like he doesn't notice, staring intently at Junmyeon as he enthusiastically tells a story. Jongin thinks he knows what the story is about, but it's proving hard to focus. There's a shock coming from his leg and shooting up his body, but he doesn't know why that would be. He hopes he's not dying.
“Jongin,” Kyungsoo says, patting his arm. Jongin jolts, eyes widening.
"Yes?” he says, blinking rapidly as things come back into focus, Kyungsoo’s face especially. He's pretty handsome. Jongin finds crushes pointless, especially when there's someone out there for him already, but Kyungsoo is definitely not hard to look at.
“Why are you talking so informally with him this entire time,” Chanyeol butts in before Kyungsoo can reply. “He's a full year older than you, Jongin.”
“Oh,” Jongin says, feeling his face heat up and a little embarrassed. He hopes Kyungsoo doesn't think he's been rude on purpose. He kicks Chanyeol under the table for good measure, hard, and ignores his jolt and whine. It's his fault, anyway. “I'm sorry, Kyungsoo sunbaenim.”
“It's fine,” Kyungsoo reassures him. Across the table, Chanyeol jolts and whines again, much louder. Junmyeon laughs.
“How did your essay go, Jongin?” Junmyeon asks. Jongin wonders for a moment how he even knows, then remembers whining about it for a straight week in math. He's had his moments.
“Terrible,” Jongin replies. “Sunbae, I think that might have been the most traumatic experience of my life. I really don't think Ms. Ryu is human.”
“She isn't,” agrees Chanyeol. “I haven't taken her but I know she isn't.”
“She's not so bad,” Kyungsoo says.
Junmyeon snorts. Jongin is speechless.
“Are we talking about the same person?” Jongin asks in disbelief.
Kyungsoo shrugs. “I took her for language last year and it felt like any other class.”
“So you'd be more than happy to write my essays for me, right, sunbae?” Jongin uses his softest voice and widens his eyes and looks under his eyelashes when Kyungsoo glances directly at him and tries hard not to break the charade and laugh at how serious Kyungsoo’s face looks.
Any chance at a laugh quickly dies down. Something in Kyungsoo’s gaze shifts somewhere between one blink and the next, and then Jongin’s face feels warm, like there's heat rising up where he can't see. He feels bared open.
“Um,” Chanyeol says, and that's what finally wrenches Jongin’s gaze away. Kyungsoo licks his lips before his looks away. “Are you two okay?”
Kyungsoo licks his lips again. “Why wouldn't we be?”
The third time Jongin sees Kyungsoo, it’s once again unexpected. On his part, anyway.
It’s the following Saturday, and he’s stuck in the library again in ominously familiar conditions. Ryu assigned another essay only four minutes after the first one was due, and even though Jongin has been trying to write a few paragraphs a day in hopes that he wouldn’t be as swamped for this one, he has several others classes, a lot of other homework, and can’t just quit basketball because one teacher doesn’t seem to understand this.
This time, it has nothing to do with Chanyeol. Kind of.
“He told me you were here and I just wanted to see if you need any help?” Kyungsoo offers tentatively, standing with his hands behind his back and what Jongin thinks is probably out of character hesitancy.
Why does Jongin feel like this is the first time he’s seen Kyungsoo without his uniform on? He’s only wearing black sweats and a loose t-shirt to match, but it all feels completely brand new and kind of strange. He knows he’s staring, hands frozen over his keyboard and eyes probably too wide, but-
“Jongin?” Kyungsoo says, waving his hands in front of Jongin’s face until he's finally snapping out of it and paying attention. Why does he feel like he's always zoning out around Kyungsoo? It's getting embarrassing and he doesn't even know why.
“Yes, sunbae, sorry,” he breathes, eyes stuck on where Kyungsoo’s shirt is riding down and exposing his collarbone, where its stretched tight around his shoulders and biceps. His breath hitches.
Maybe it's because he hasn't slept.
“Maybe this is invasive,” Kyungsoo starts. He sounds like he's talking to himself rather than to Jongin, not quite looking at Jongin, gaze somewhere over his shoulder. Jongin is having a hard time himself looking at Kyungsoo’s eyes and not his shoulders, but he can’t believe this is the same person who was so sure and deadpan just last week.
“It’s not,” Jongin says, cleaning his throat. He clears it again, blinks long and hard, takes a deep breath, and gets a grip of himself. It’s not like this is the first time he’s ever seen an attractive person in his life, or even the first time he’s seen Kyungsoo. He’s objectively realized it on their very few past meetings, and there’s really no logical or significant change for him to feel so winded. “It’s not invasive.”
“Oh, okay,” Kyungsoo says, finally looking Jongin in the eye.
“I’d love your help,” Jongin continues.
Kyungsoo smiles, soft and small.
“Kyungsoo is a really good teacher,” Jongin gushes the next morning, splayed across Jongdae’s bed, head on his arms and turned to the side.
"We know,” says Baekhyun dryly. “It's all you've been talking about all morning.”
Jongin wants to argue that all morning is a bit of a reach, but Baekhyun technically isn’t wrong. It’s not like it’s a crime to talk about someone.
“Well, no,” Jongdae replies when Jongin repeats his grumbling aloud, “but you’re not usually this open about strangers.”
“He’s not a stranger,” Jongin sighs. He wishes Tao or Chanyeol were here. They’d be more than willing to switch the conversation, if only because Jongin has the most blackmail on them. There’s more than enough on Baekhyun, but Yixing is also more than capable of making Jongin feel unfairly guilty with just one look. He doesn’t like to risk it.
“You’ve met him twice,” Yixing offers from where he’s slouched in between Baekhyun’s lap on the floor, head lolling on his shoulder. “Three times,” he corrects when Jongin opens his mouth to do it for him. “Three times, Jonginnie.”
“Extended conversation,” Jongin mumbles into his arm.
Jongdae raises an eyebrow. “We had to have extended conversation every day for, like, two months before you considered me an acquaintance. Yixing asked if you wanted help with your essay and you said you were fine. So, I mean. You should see why this is a bit out of character for you.”
Jongin sniffs. “I am evolving and changing every day.”
“No, you’re not,” Tao says as he opens the door and walks into the room. “What are we talking about?”
Chanyeol is right behind him, the two of them immediately crowding the room even more than it already was. Chanyeol flops down on the floor next to where Jongdae is sitting at his desk chair, but Tao hits Jongin repeatedly, in many places, until he finally gives up and moves over on the bed. He regrets ever wanting him to be there.
Jongin looks up from where his head is now on Tao’s lap, ignores his question, and tells Chanyeol, “thank you for sending Kyungsoo last night.”
“What,” Chanyeol says.
“Kyungsoo sunbae? He says you told him I had an essay?”
“Yes…?” Chanyeol says slowly.
“And he came and helped me with it,” Jongin says just as slowly. He doesn’t understand why Chanyeol is being so slow today.
“Kyungsoo did what?” Chanyeol exclaims, eyes widening. “Which Kyungsoo? Are we talking about the same one?”
“How many different Kyungsoos do I know,” Jongin hisses, getting annoyed. He’s pretty sure it won’t kill Chanyeol just say you’re welcome and be done with it. There’s no reason for him to be dragging this out.
"That just sounds very unlikely,” Chanyeol finally says after a moment of silence. “You’ve met each other, like, once.”
“Three times,” Baekhyun quips.
“He’s even more reserved than you are,” Chanyeol continues. “I can’t imagine him going out of his way to do that. I didn’t ask him to help you.”
Everyone’s eyes are on Jongin. “Then how did he know?”
Chanyeol shrugs. “I mean, he asked why you weren’t at dinner and I told him you had an essay, that’s really it.”
Jongin bites his lip. He guesses it’s true that Kyungsoo never said that Chanyeol asked him to help, but he kind of… implied. Well, no, he didn’t imply anything. Jongin assumed, and now he’s confused.
“Maybe he has a crush on Jongin,” Tao muses, tapping Jongin’s forehead.
“Shut the fuck up,” Jongin responds.
“Not as big as the crush Jongin has on him,” Jongdae says, grinning.
Jongin badly wants to tell him to shut the fuck up, too, but Jongdae is technically his sunbae and he already refuses to use honorifics. Pushing it does not sound safe.
“Maybe he’s your soulmate,” says Yixing quietly.
Jongin sits up and stares blankly at him.
“Oh, shit,” Chanyeol swears.
“Maybe that’s a little… much,” Jongdae hesitates, glancing between the dead look on Jongin’s face and the introspection on Yixing’s.
“It’s not like it’s impossible,” Baekhyun says, rubbing his hand on Yixing’s thigh. “I’m sure Kyungsoo is done with puberty. Jongin must be, too. He’s pretty obsessed with him. I don’t think I even talked about Yixing this much.”
“You’re going to give him an aneurysm,” warns Tao. He has his palm curved over the back of Jongin’s neck; it feels like he’s restraining Jongin, and that’s probably the only thing stopping him from reaching the peak of dramatics and walking out of the room. “There would be indicators by now.”
“Are you Jongin?” Yixing asks, raising an eyebrow. “How would you know there hasn’t been?”
Baekhyun continues for him. “There’s no set deadline, it’s just a matter of how much physical contact is going to activate it.” He looks at Chanyeol.
“Kyungsoo hasn’t said anything to me about feeling sick,” he says, eyes on Jongin.
“And Jongin is clearly fine,” Tao murmurs, gently rubbing his thumb over Jongin’s pulse. He can be very comforting when he wants to be, but Jongin is too struck right now for it to be of any reassurance.
Yixing shrugs. “Just a thought.”
“I think you guys are just really desperate to not be the only pair we know,” Jongdae interjects.
Baekhyun grins, all teeth. “Probably.”
Yixing caught Jongin’s eye earlier, and they’ve been having a silent and, on Jongin’s part, frantic conversation for a few minutes, but he can’t take it anymore, not when Yixing raises both brows and his lips twitch up.
Jongin scowls.
Jongin gets sick the next day.
He jolts awake at five in the morning, feverish and sweaty, and barely manages to sit up and lean over before he’s vomiting into his trash bin.
“Oh, fuck,” Tao says.
Jongin supposes that it is very possible that he knows what is happening to him, but he never realized how scary it would be to come to terms with it.
“I’m going to call Chanyeol,” Tao tells him for the fifth time, adjusting the wet rag on Jongin’s forehead.
“No, don’t,” Jongin groans, eyes shut to try to fight this blaring headache. Logically, he knows he could take a gallon of morphine and he’d still feel this terrible. Logically, he knows that calling Chanyeol and having him give the final confirmation is the only thing that will help. It’s hard being logical sometimes.
Every weird and aching feeling he’s had when Kyungsoo touched him-the dull burn through his body the entirety of Saturday night, the crushing loneliness and borderline depression when he left, how he literally cannot stop thinking about him-they well up, threatening to overwhelm him.
He’s so scared.
“What if this is really just the flu,” he croaks, looking up at Tao with pleading eyes. This is all so sudden. He always imagined there would be some sort of buildup, but instead here he is in what’s really an unnecessary amount of pain for someone he barely knows. He doesn’t even think he knows Kyungsoo’s last name or birthday, and yet he knows it’s him.
“Don’t be annoying,” Tao sighs.
“Maybe it’s actually you.”
“Don’t make me nauseous,” Tao sighs again. “You’ve thrown up enough for both of us.”
Jongin buries his face into his pillow. How does he laugh along now when Jongdae makes fun of Baekhyun and Yixing for not even waiting until they’re nineteen to get paired when the same thing is almost certainly happening to him? He groans.
Tao starts, “I’m going to ca-” but then someone is knocking softly on the door.
Jongin squints up from his attempt at asphyxiation. It’s six thirty. Even through the hazy suffocation of his mind, he can’t imagine anyone they know who would be up this early or think they would be up this early.
Just for the sake of his dramatics, probably, Tao sighs a third time. “I am being tested,” he says before walking up to open the door.
“Oh, fuck,” Tao curses. Jongin doesn’t have any reasonable explanation why, but he knows who it is before Tao moves aside to show Kyungsoo leaning against the doorframe, baggy hoodie and, strangely enough, polka dotted pajama pants.
“Hi,” he says to Tao. His eyes are on Jongin the entire time. “Can I come in?”
“Yes, sunbaenim,” Tao answers quickly, moving over completely as Kyungsoo steps aside. “Actually, I’m really hungry and going to get breakfast,” he rushes out, grabbing his coat from the hook on the door and all but running out. Jongin has never seen Tao leave their room without BB cream on before.
“Sunbae,” Jongin breathes. He sits up, feels less woozy and disoriented than the last time he tried.
Kyungsoo looks as terrible as Jongin imagines he himself does. His face is ruddy and glowing with sweat, hair stringy and flopping over his eyes limply, bags under his eyes and pupils dilated. As embarrassing as it is to even think, Jongin doesn’t think he’s ever been more relieved to see someone in his life.
“It’s you, right?” Kyungsoo asks. “I’m not losing my mind?”
Jongin shakes his head.
Kyungsoo runs a hand through his hair. “No to which?”
Jongin looks down, breaking the gaze. “You’re not losing your mind.”
In seconds, Kyungsoo is across the dorm, lifting Jongin’s chin, pulling him in for a kiss.
Jongin's mind goes blank.
“Did you guys fuck?” Baekhyun asks later that morning, leaning all in Jongin’s space at breakfast with a warm hand on his knee.
“What is wrong with you,” Jongin hisses, pushing him away.
“I’m just saying,” says Baekhyun, putting both palms up. As if he’d ever surrender to anyone’s wishes but Yixing. “Emotions run high. You two were alone in a room. It happens to the best of us.”
“You’re the worst of us,” Jongin tells him, slapping his hands down. “Just because you got down on your knees for Yixing in the first five minutes of the bond doesn’t mean the rest of us have to.”
“But you thought about it,” Baekhyun offers.
Jongin flushes furiously and shoves rice into his mouth. Jongdae cackles.
He started feeling better the very moment Kyungsoo walked into the room, but it all melted away for sure when they kissed. Kyungsoo is a really good kisser; of course he had thoughts. That doesn’t mean that he had to act on them. He’s not a monster.
"I can’t believe Jongin bonded before me,” says Tao, face cradled in his hand.
“I can,” Chanyeol says. He hasn’t spoken as much as he usually does, still in shock over the bond. Jongin is thankful. He’d be teasing just as much as Baekhyun if he didn’t know Kyungsoo.
“It’s time to give up on Kris,” Jongdae says, patting Tao’s shoulder.
“I’m still maturing,” Tao argues.
“Oh, for sure,” Yixing agrees. “You have a lot of that left. But you’re done with puberty, Zitao. Don’t you think circumstances would have led up to it by now?”
“You can die,” says Tao. Yixing smiles.
“Stop wishing death on my boyfriend,” Baekhyun says.
“I didn’t wish for him to die. I said that he can die. I would be unbothered if he did die,” Tao explains. Jongin can’t help but laugh, especially when Baekhyun flicks a lone chopstick at Tao’s face.
“Would it kill you and Jongin to use honorifics even once in your life?” asks Jongdae.
“You can die, too, sunbaenim.” He dodges Jongdae’s smack. “Is that better?”
Jongin looks towards the cafeteria doors for what must be the tenth time that minute, and this time Chanyeol catches him. “Where’s Kyungsoo? Aren’t you two supposed to be on top of each other right now?”
In the first year or so of the bond, it can be both physically and mentally inconvenient to be separated for more than a few hours. Resistance builds up over time, and long-term bonded adults can often last for several days, but prolonged exposure can cause a repeat of the first bodily breakdown.
Or so his textbooks say. Jongin just knows that it hasn’t even been an hour since he last saw Kyungsoo, and he already feels antsy and on edge.
“Showering. Getting dressed. I don’t know,” Jongin grumbles, swirling his chopsticks around his stew.
“Wait,” Baekhyun begins. Jongin sighs preemptively, pushing his bowl aside and dropping his head onto his arms. “Only now? So you’re telling me he was in your room from six to nine and all you guys did was kiss once? Chanyeol, is Kyungsoo asexual?” Kyungsoo is, in fact, not asexual, Chanyeol confirms. Jongin groans and slumps further down in his seat; now Baekhyun really won’t ever shut up about it.
“I never said we only kissed once,” Jongin mumbles.
“You kissed for three hours?” asks Baekhyun incredulously.
Jongin exhales. “I never said that either.” His head jerks up as the cafeteria door opens, and though he expects the same disappointment, this time it actually is Kyungsoo. Jongin can’t help the smile that breaks across his face when their eyes meet, or how much wider it gets when Kyungsoo reciprocates.
“Lover boy is here?” Tao asks, turning his gaze to match Jongin’s. “Oh, he is. He looks more alive. Probably because Jongin bent over for him.”
“I did not,” Jongin says.
“You at least sucked his dick,” Baekhyun insists. All of Jongin’s nightmares are narrated by Tao and Baekhyun’s voices. Jongdae at least knows when to shut up.
"I did not suck his dick,” Jongin hisses, slamming his chopsticks down on his tray.
Behind him, someone clears their throat. He closes his eyes.
"Kyungsoo!” Chanyeol greets. Jongin drops his head back on the table. He doesn't know how he can spend the rest of his life with Kyungsoo when this is how they're starting off.
Yixing must have dragged Baekhyun away from where he was near on top of Jongin, because next thing he feels is the tingling warmth he now knows to attribute to Kyungsoo, Kyungsoo’s touch, Kyungsoo’s body so near his. Jongin can't believe he was ever scared, even if it was only a few hours ago.
“Hi,” says Kyungsoo, voice low and deep. Under the table where the others can't see, Kyungsoo laces his fingers with Jongin’s.
Several months later, Jongin is having a hard time remembering the hazy warmth and wonder of the beginning of their bond.
“Who knows the next time I'll even be able to see them all again,” Jongin complains, standing to the side of where Kyungsoo is sat at their desk. He's reviewing an essay, as he has reminded Jongin several times, but Jongin knows for a fact that it is neither due today nor more important than what he wants to do.
“They'll be here next weekend, too,” Kyungsoo says, not looking away from his laptop. “And next month.”
"Someone always cancels, Kyungsoo-” Kyungsoo shoots him a look, “-sunbae, and Tao and I have an exam next week, how are we even going to have time to even think about seeing them then?”
“Exams have never stopped you before.” Jongin resists the urge to snap, but they've been having this debate since last night and he's getting really annoyed.
He's in his senior year now, and Kyungsoo in a weird balance of a gap year that isn't actually a gap year. He should be in college right now along with the rest of their friends, but the bond prevented that type of separation, and since exceptions legally have to be made for bonded pairs, their boarding school is letting him stay on an extra year as what is essentially just a glorified tutor. Jongin can't imagine staying here for a day longer than necessary, but it's working out for Kyungsoo. He's always been a lot more patient than Jongin.
Take, for example, now. “I really don't think you're being fair,” Jongin says lowly.
Kyungsoo huffs out a laugh. “I'm not being fair?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean, yes, you're not being fair. Would it kill you to concede just this one time?”
Kyungsoo turns his stare onto him, eyes blank and mouth set flat. Jongin is very rarely the object of Kyungsoo’s anger, but he knows that he hasn't done or said anything worthy of it. He resists flinching and stares him back down.
“I'm going,” Jongin says. “It's your choice if you're going to come along or let us both get sick, sunbae.”
“Why is Kyungsoo so quiet today?” Yixing asks later that day, in line for burgers while the rest claim a table in the corner of the packed American restaurant.
“Kyungsoo is always quiet,” says Jongdae.
“Everyone is always quiet in comparison to you, Jongdae. Jonginah, did something happen?”
Jongin shrugs. “He didn't wanna come today.”
Jongdae looks confused. “Then why is he here?” When Jongin shrugs again and says because he wanted to be, Jongdae squints at him warily. “You’re fighting?”
“We're not fighting,” Jongin disagrees. “We just had a conflict of interests.”
“How did you win?” Jongdae asks. “Why did you win? Why didn't you just stay? We’ll be here next weekend too, and senior exams are a joke. You could come then.”
“I don't mean to sound mean, but Kyungsoo’s a pushover,” Yixing offers. “Especially to Jongin.”
“No, he's not,” Jongin says. Kyungsoo is many things, but Jongin is pretty sure he's not that. “It took all day to get him to concede.”
“Kyungsoo concedes to possibly everything you want, Jongin.” Jongin still looks unconvinced, so Yixing adds, “did you somehow forget that he's supposed to be in college with the rest of us?”
“I didn't ask him not to be,” Jongin mumbles. He's uncomfortable with where this conversation is going.
Yixing raises a brow. “Exactly. We all know that as the only one who was legal at the time of the bond, he had total leeway to do whatever he wanted, and if he decided to, you wouldn't have had a choice. Why be difficult with him about something so small when he's sacrificed an entire year for you?”
“Yixing has a point,” Jongdae says, leaning on Jongin and pulling him forward as the line moves. “You would have hated to transfer your last year of high school.”
“And,” Yixing starts. Jongin resists the urge to groan. No wonder Baekhyun is tamed so easily whenever Yixing is around. He gets it; he's a terrible, inconsiderate soulmate. “He could have moved you two out when you turned nineteen in January, but he didn’t because he knew this was your last year before Zitao goes back to China.”
By the time they reach the counter to order, Jongin has been well humbled.
“I don't want to make you feel bad,” Yixing says as they pile up on ketchup and soda.
“It's a little too late for that,” Jongdae snorts, patting Jongin on the hip. Jongin’s lip twitches weakly.
“It's just that I've been in your position. Baekhyun stayed at his parent’s place last week because he says I was being an asshole.”
Jongdae gasps. “The infallible Zhang Yixing, an asshole?”
“It was midterms,” Yixing offers. Jongdae hums in understanding. “It happens to the worst of us.”
“You're the best of us, hyung,” Jongin says as they reach the table.
“I am?” Chanyeol asks, arm slung over Kyungsoo’s shoulders. “I completely agree.” Kyungsoo looks comfortable and relaxed, smiling at whatever they were speaking about, but his mouth twists and flattens when Jongin sits back down next to him. He shrugs Chanyeol’s arm off.
He really is even quieter than usual today. He doesn't take any of the many open opportunities to laugh at Chanyeol and Junmyeon, and his face even remains neutral and closed off when Baekhyun accidentally dips his elbow in ketchup. Jongin feels so horrible.
“You two are such downers today,” Baekhyun tells them when they're all squeezed into Junmyeon's minivan on the way to the movies, seventy-five percent of his body on Jongdae’s lap. “Are you already sick of seeing our faces? After the longest three weeks of my life? I could be sleeping right now and instead I'm watching you glare out the window?”
“Maybe it's a lovers’ spat,” Junmyeon offers, looking through the rearview mirror
Tao pokes his head up from the very back. “What'd you do, Jongin?”
“Zitao,” Yixing says. Tao recedes his head.
"We're fine,” Kyungsoo murmurs, cheek pressed against the window.
Forty-five minutes into the movie, Jongin decides that he cannot wait any longer to make things right. It's a loud blockbuster with excessive noise and crashes and screaming, so he knows he runs no risk of being heard and shushed, and since no one trusts him or Baekhyun enough to not fall into clichés in the dark theater, they have the row to themselves.
He leans in and presses his lips to the corner of Kyungsoo's mouth, and when Kyungsoo doesn't push him away like he was so afraid of, he gives several more in succession. With soft hands and a hopeful heart, he cradles Kyungsoo’s face and angles it so that he can kiss him full on. He knows that a kiss is not an apology, but words have never been his strong suit, and he wants to think this is a start.
Onscreen, Jongin thinks someone is running a car off a cliff. In front of him, Kyungsoo is finally loosening into the kiss, and Jongin is rubbing his hand over Kyungsoo's inner thigh, creeping further up with every movement.
“This is a bad idea,” Kyungsoo murmurs into the kiss.
Jongin burrows his face into Kyungsoo’s face as he undoes his zip. “I think those are the only ones I know anything about.”
Kyungsoo pulls back and stops Jongin’s hand from slipping inside his pants. “I’m not going to let you give me a blowjob out of guilt,” he says.
Jongin’s mouth twists. “I could give you a handjob out of guilt.”
Kyungsoo huffs out a soft laugh, and Jongin can’t even begin to describe how relieved he is to have it aimed at him after this long and painfully awkward day. “We could talk about it later instead.”
“There isn't much to talk about,” Jongin argues. “I was an asshole and I didn't think about your feelings at all. And I'm sorry. That's all there is, sunbae.”
"You weren't an asshole,” Kyungsoo says. Jongin looks at him in disbelief. “I'm not just saying that because we're bonded.”
“Yes, you are,” Jongin replies.
“I'm also saying it because I love you,” says Kyungsoo, grinning, all teeth in the dark haze of the theater.
Jongin groans and covers his face with his hands, angling away from Kyungsoo. “Stop, that's the most embarrassing thing you've ever said.”
“You've said worse.” Kyungsoo pulls him closer and peels his hands away from his face, enfolding them between his.
"Not where Chanyeol’s bat ears can pick up,” Jongin whines, sighing in resignation as Kyungsoo lifts the armrest away and all but lifts Jongin onto his lap. Kyungsoo kisses the back of his neck.
They're quiet for an impressive amount of time, considering that Jongin is directly on Kyungsoo’s crotch and adjusts himself fifty times per minute. Ignoring the near lapse in judgement earlier, he knew that he could never be as bad as Baekhyun.
Finally, Jongin cracks. “Sunbae,” he whispers.
“Hm?” Kyungsoo’s neck is hooked over his shoulder, arms wrapped loosely around his waist
“I have Junmyeon hyung’s keys,” he says. Kyungsoo doesn't require any further explanation, and Jongin is almost positive this is why they're soulmates.
When they turn the corner to finally descent out of the theater, Junmyeon is there, face half hidden in the darkness.
“Give me my keys,” he says, placing a hand out.
“I need to get something from your car, hyung,” Jongin lies.
"If you take off even a sock in my car, I will know, and I will call the police,” says Junmyeon.
“You're being dramatic,” Kyungsoo says.
“Keys,” Junmyeon repeats. Jongin sighs and gives him the keys. “Go back to your seats.” They go back to their seats.
On the other side of the barrier, someone is laughing. Jongin can't blame them.