(for rainbolicious89) it takes an ocean (not to break)
For: rainbolicious89
Title: it takes an ocean (not to break)
Pairings: Kai/D.O, brief mention of Suho/D.O, brief mention of Kai/Unnamed
Rating: R
Word Count: 2,624w
Warnings: Brief graphic sexual description
Summary: If there are two objects, and one is in constant motion while the other stays stagnant, then it is inevitable that they eventually separate. Jongin dances his way across the world. Kyungsoo does not.
Author’s Note: This fic was born from the prompt: "When I envision you I think of your sheets tangled up beneath me. Your body inching closer, closer to the edge. I got a hold of you then." - Drove Me Wild by Tegan and Sara (basically a prompt of that whole song)
I read through the lyrics, listened to the song, and ran with it. I hope the result is something close to what you wanted.
I had so much fun (and pain!) writing this. It's been a long time since I've actually written anything fic-y, and it's my first time writing Kyungsoo, and most of this was crunched out right before (or a little after, sorry mods!) each deadline, but I love how this little contribution to the vast Kaisoo literature turned out, and I hope you will too. I take some artistic freedom with tense changes, and hope that instead of detracting from your reading of the fic, it helps to build up the mood, which was my intent. The title is pulled from the song Terrible Love by Birdy.
It was raining, the sort of rain that fell down in fat, heavy drops, torrents and torrents of it crashing into the dry earth long over-due for the first summer storm. Despite the rain, it was still hot and humid, moist air clinging to every movement and article of clothing like a particularly awful perfume. It was the sort of dreary day that made Kyungsoo want to simply roll back into his blankets and keep sleeping, the soft warm hug of his bed almost impossible to resist. Kyungsoo forced himself to throw off his blankets and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth, powered with the knowledge that it was, thankfully, Friday. Bleary-eyed even after washing his face with depressingly cold water, he stumbled into the kitchen to start the coffee machine. As he was waiting for his coffee to brew, he checked his phone, rotating through all of his social media accounts.
There were 50 unread messages and, frowning, he scanned through the messages. There was a couple reminders about due dates from Joonmyun and a couple spam messages; the 40 other messages were all from Jongin, one or two characters each, all of which pieced together into an invitation to the movies. There was also a selca with the caption “new haircut!” and the only perceivable difference was perhaps a little trim in the length. Smiling amusedly, Kyungsoo replied with one word - “okay.”
Almost immediately, the response came - probably Jongin was riding the bus on his way to school.
“Okay as in yes you’ll go to the movies with me? Or okay as in my haircut is just okay?”
“Both.”
Kyungsoo could practically hear Jongin pouting across the other end of the screen. Phone in hand, he poured himself a cup of coffee and he had only sipped a fifth of his cup before his phone started pinging with notifications again. Scanning the messages he saw that Jongin had now resorted to spamming him with different emoticons. Taking pity, he quickly typed in - “Calm down, I’ll see you later okay?”
A string of heart emoticons was his reply. Shaking his head, Kyungsoo drank the rest of his coffee and dressed for work. It wasn’t that he particularly hated his job - in the sad state of the economy, he knew he was incredibly lucky to have found such a well-paid starting position his first year out of college, but still. A sense of dull, greying boredom seemed to permeate the very walls of the maze of cubicles he worked in. Accounting wasn’t exactly a glamorous job, even if you were doing it for a rather large financial conglomerate.
As he looped his tie he was already thinking of the end of the day, forming vague plans to pick up some food before going to meet Jongin at his dance studio. Maybe over the weekend they could go to see a movie, and if Jongin didn’t have too much work they could laze around a bit. Kyungsoo was very fond of his memory of Jongin lying lax and sleepy in the morning sunlight, his skin golden and molten against the sheets. Sighing, Kyungsoo snagged his briefcase and headed out the door - first though, he had to get through work.
Kyungsoo had never been particularly popular in school; as a general rule he was quiet and had preferred to stick to his small circle of friends. Jongin was the exact opposite - even though he was a year under Kyungsoo, by his junior year even Kyungsoo had heard of the immensely talented dance major whose entry as a soloist to the prestigious San Francisco ballet company was almost guaranteed. Kyungsoo, one of many aspiring vocalists who chickened out half-way and declared his major as accounting instead, could never quite understand what the younger boy had seen in him.
They had met Kyungsoo’s senior year in a queue for tickets to the school’s production of Grease; Luhan and Jongin had been goofing off in the line when Luhan, who vaguely knew Kyungsoo because he had once tutored him for Statistics, dragged him over to make introductions. Jongin, Kyungsoo reflected amusedly, had latched onto him at once and somehow coerced him into agreeing to go drinking afterwards as well. By all rights, that one night should have been the last of their interactions, but they had consistently bumped into each other on campus afterwards, and on one rainy afternoon when they both ran into the same coffee shop to hide from the sudden downpour, Jongin, laughing and radiant and dripping water from the rain, had confessed over a latte and a half-eaten croissant.
Kyungsoo had stammered and nearly spilled his coffee down the front of his shirt. It was horrendously unfair how gorgeous Jongin was even when he was soaked to the bone and should by all rights look like a drowned cat. From the first moment, Kyungsoo had been absolutely, worthlessly unable to say no to Jongin the minute he pulled out his heart-stopping grin. If there was ever a power outage in Seoul, Kyungsoo was pretty sure that one of Jongin’s smiles would have enough wattage to bring power back to a better half of the grid
.
Jongin slowly but surely invaded Kyungsoo’s life on quiet, dancing steps. He raided Kyungsoo’s fridge and pantry, he took up Kyungsoo’s closet space, his large array of stage makeup had somehow taken over three-quarters of Kyungsoo’s bathroom counter, and when he slept he inevitably expanded to squeeze Kyungsoo to the edge of the bed, and stole the blankets. He also loved to wake Kyungsoo up by slipping beneath the sheets and slowly licking through Kyungsoo’s boxers until he became too aroused to feign sleep, and could let Kyungsoo fuck into him for days. On one particularly lazy Sunday Jongin had decided to test if he could come purely from riding Kyungsoo (the answer: no), and they spent the entire morning as a tangle of exhausted and grossly-sticky limbs under the sheets. For Kyungsoo there was a certain type of absolution to be found in the hollows of Jongin’s collarbones, the dip of his rib cage, the valleys of his vertebrae. In between the slow, hot slide into Jongin’s body and his next whimpery exhale, Kyungsoo fell in love.
He walked through the familiar hallways of the campus to find Jongin still in his practice room, the dull thump of bass beats vibrating through the door like an incessant heartbeat. When the music finally stopped he walked in, laughing at the way Jongin was slumped in the corner, a messy, sweaty mass.
“I brought cold drinks,” he said, raising the plastic convenience store bag in his hand. Jongin jumped up, like an overgrown puppy, and bounded over to seize the drinks from Kyungsoo’s hand, chugging down one of the cans of iced coffee before Kyungsoo had finished removing his shoes.
“Are you done with practice for today?” Kyungsoo asked. Jongin nodded.
“Want to come back to my place for dinner? I’m making kimchi fried rice.” Jongin nodded again, more enthusiastically this time.
“Can you add cheese to it? And meat, like you did last time?”
Kyungsoo shook his head and complained, “I swear all the money I make goes towards feeding you meat.”
Somehow, Jongin coerced Kyungsoo to put three servings of meat into the fried rice, and also a frankly terrifying amount of cheese. Kyungsoo only ate a quarter of the meal - the rest of it was polished off by Jongin, who, Kyungsoo reflected, had the metabolism of a giant condensed into his small frame.
Watching him clean off the last of his plate, Kyungsoo waited for Jongin to swallow his last bite before asking the question that was the reason he had fetched Jongin for the whole dinner in the first place.
“Look, Jongin,” Kyungsoo cleared his throat, already feeling a small flush on the tips of his ears, “I know you’re always complaining about rent, and half of your stuff is already here anyway…”
Jongin froze, his arm still reaching half-way for his water glass. Immediately, without even asking the question out loud Kyungsoo knew the answer.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to, I know it’s moving a bit fast, I just thought I would offer,” he quickly added on. Jongin smiled awkwardly, and rubbed the nape of his neck.
“It’s just,” he paused, hesitated for an endless moment, and then took a deep breath to finish his sentence. “I don’t know how much longer I’ll be in Seoul for.”
Kyungsoo froze.
“I got an offer from San Francisco, to finish up the remainder of my course work abroad, and at the same time dance in their corps, just to see how I fit in there. I was going to tell you earlier, but I just - ”
“I’m so happy for you,” Kyungsoo heard himself saying. “That’s wonderful news Jongin, it’s an amazing opportunity for you!”
Jongin smiled shyly, hesitantly.
“You really think so?”
Kyungsoo reached out to grab his hands.
“Of course I do, you’re chasing your dream. And it’s not like Skype and airplanes don’t exist, you know,” he added. “I’ve always wanted to visit the States.”
And there it was, the million-watt smile Kyungsoo died a little over every time he saw it. It almost made him feel like everything would work out, despite the ocean and uncrossable gap that would soon be between him and Jongin.
The beginning was easy, uncompromisingly optimistic in its belief that they can sustain their relationship through Skype in the small time frame when their time zones overlapped at reasonable times and texting and phone calls and maybe a visit over the holidays. Kyungsoo spent Christmas with Jongin in the chilled streets of San Francisco; they went ice-skating and Jongin took Kyungsoo to his practice room in the dance company and that evening Kyungsoo kisses every familiar vertebrae down Jongin’s back until everything felt vaguely the same again.
It slowly becomes more difficult, conversations lagging, phone calls getting shorter. Jongin’s speech starts to be sprinkled with English words Kyungsoo can’t quite process, and his new workload between the dance company and finishing up his senior year takes up more and more time until they are lucky if they speak once or twice a week.
Jongin finishes his senior year and is offered a permanent position as a soloist with the San Francisco Ballet. He leases a small, shabby, downtrodden apartment in downtown San Francisco with a two-year contract and Kyungsoo understands that he isn’t coming back.
That winter, Kyungsoo picks his way through the thick snowdrifts in Seoul because he wasn’t able to get enough time away from work, and Jongin is busy, up to his neck in new practice for his role in the Nutcracker anyway. Their phone calls end when Jongin falls asleep. Sometimes Kyungsoo lets the line stay open, and just listens to the deep, bone-deep exhausted breaths that Jongin is taking. More often these days, he hangs up.
On a chilly March morning, Kyungsoo receives a message from Jongin that says I slept with someone else. There are other words in the message, and apologies, but all Kyungsoo really sees is the first, unforgivingly harsh line, I slept with someone else, I slept with someone else, I slept with someone else.
His first thought is, this can’t be real, but a slow furl of disappointment built up to a snarl which died in his throat, the culmination of his biggest fear crystallizing into reality. He types back to Jongin on his lunch break, maybe this isn’t working anymore.
They are both terribly sorry, they will both remain friends.
They don’t really speak again for five years.
Kyungsoo is promoted, then promoted again. He moves into a new apartment because he can now afford a larger space, and also because he is tired of flashes of Jongin’s presence every time he turns a corner. Jongin rises from soloist to principal dancer, blazing a trail across the stages of the United States and Europe, and when his two-year lease runs out he has saved up enough for the down payment on a still-small but miles more comfortable apartment closer to the company.
When Joonmyeon asks Kyungsoo out for a cup of coffee, he accepts, and a couple months down the line goes with Joonmyeon to visit his parents. Jongin sleeps his way through half of the corps de ballet that travels with his company, and has a brief fling with a French dancer that can only communicate with him through their shared broken shards of English.
Their Christmas cards to each other are returned to sender.
Fifteen years later.
Kyungsoo walked past the aisles of canned goods and home products to the baking section; his oven mittens had been tragically demolished in a spectacularly failed attempt at making cheesecake. Scanning the options with wide eyes, he decided to go with the one made of thick silicon; the cotton ones were just too easy to destroy. He reached for the top shelf and groaned in frustration when, even on tippy toes, he couldn’t quite reach the gloves.
“Do you need help?” a baritone voice asked amusedly from behind him.
“Ah, yes please,” replied Kyungsoo, feeling a blush rise to his ears. He turned around and froze in surprise even as a tanned hand reached up past him to grab and drop a package of the gloves into his shopping basket. A pair of surprised brown eyes widened back at him.
“Jongin,” he said, stunned.
“Kyungsoo-hyung,” Jongin grinned, sunny and bright, and envelopes him in a hug, causing him to drop his shopping basket to the ground with a loud clunk. Kyungsoo felt like he had shrunk in the fifteen years since he had last hugged Jongin, or more possibly, Jongin had had yet another growth spurt.
“What are you doing here?” Jongin asked incredulously.
Kyungsoo laughed slightly.
“My company expanded its overseas branch, and I’ve been relocated to its San Francisco branch.”
“Still doing a boring office job,” Jongin teased, and Kyungsoo, unable to help himself, reached up and ruffled Jongin’s hair. The texture was still soft and glossy, reminding Kyungsoo of lazy days in bed, running his fingers through Jongin’s hair until he fell asleep, when they had not yet grown up and were still full of stardust and ambitions for the future.
“I’ll have you know I’m an executive manager now,” he said. “What about you?”
“I’m just another retired instructor with the company now, too many back injuries.” Jongin replied lightly, though Kyungsoo thought he could hear a bit of bitterness in his tone. In the next second, however, Jongin was smiling again, and swept over his fingers with a glance.
“No ring? No significant other?” Jongin asked. Kyungsoo blinked, and shrugged.
“It just never worked out with anyone.”
“So would it be terribly indecent of me to invite you out to dinner? And have you explain why you didn’t notify me of your relocation?”
Kyungsoo laughed.
“Terribly scandalous,” he said, and dared to hope maybe, maybe, things would work out.
When they walked out of the store, it was raining, the sort of rain that fell down in fat, heavy drops, torrents and torrents of it crashing into the dry earth long over-due for the first summer storm. Jongin is wearing a cologne that smells deep and woody, and it makes Kyungsoo want to stop him in his tracks and press him back into the wall and kiss him, even though they are both really too old for those sorts of displays now. It is still chilly, because nights in San Francisco, as Kyungsoo was beginning to learn, would always be chilly, and he lets himself fall back into Jongin.
Title: it takes an ocean (not to break)
Pairings: Kai/D.O, brief mention of Suho/D.O, brief mention of Kai/Unnamed
Rating: R
Word Count: 2,624w
Warnings: Brief graphic sexual description
Summary: If there are two objects, and one is in constant motion while the other stays stagnant, then it is inevitable that they eventually separate. Jongin dances his way across the world. Kyungsoo does not.
Author’s Note: This fic was born from the prompt: "When I envision you I think of your sheets tangled up beneath me. Your body inching closer, closer to the edge. I got a hold of you then." - Drove Me Wild by Tegan and Sara (basically a prompt of that whole song)
I read through the lyrics, listened to the song, and ran with it. I hope the result is something close to what you wanted.
I had so much fun (and pain!) writing this. It's been a long time since I've actually written anything fic-y, and it's my first time writing Kyungsoo, and most of this was crunched out right before (or a little after, sorry mods!) each deadline, but I love how this little contribution to the vast Kaisoo literature turned out, and I hope you will too. I take some artistic freedom with tense changes, and hope that instead of detracting from your reading of the fic, it helps to build up the mood, which was my intent. The title is pulled from the song Terrible Love by Birdy.
It was raining, the sort of rain that fell down in fat, heavy drops, torrents and torrents of it crashing into the dry earth long over-due for the first summer storm. Despite the rain, it was still hot and humid, moist air clinging to every movement and article of clothing like a particularly awful perfume. It was the sort of dreary day that made Kyungsoo want to simply roll back into his blankets and keep sleeping, the soft warm hug of his bed almost impossible to resist. Kyungsoo forced himself to throw off his blankets and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth, powered with the knowledge that it was, thankfully, Friday. Bleary-eyed even after washing his face with depressingly cold water, he stumbled into the kitchen to start the coffee machine. As he was waiting for his coffee to brew, he checked his phone, rotating through all of his social media accounts.
There were 50 unread messages and, frowning, he scanned through the messages. There was a couple reminders about due dates from Joonmyun and a couple spam messages; the 40 other messages were all from Jongin, one or two characters each, all of which pieced together into an invitation to the movies. There was also a selca with the caption “new haircut!” and the only perceivable difference was perhaps a little trim in the length. Smiling amusedly, Kyungsoo replied with one word - “okay.”
Almost immediately, the response came - probably Jongin was riding the bus on his way to school.
“Okay as in yes you’ll go to the movies with me? Or okay as in my haircut is just okay?”
“Both.”
Kyungsoo could practically hear Jongin pouting across the other end of the screen. Phone in hand, he poured himself a cup of coffee and he had only sipped a fifth of his cup before his phone started pinging with notifications again. Scanning the messages he saw that Jongin had now resorted to spamming him with different emoticons. Taking pity, he quickly typed in - “Calm down, I’ll see you later okay?”
A string of heart emoticons was his reply. Shaking his head, Kyungsoo drank the rest of his coffee and dressed for work. It wasn’t that he particularly hated his job - in the sad state of the economy, he knew he was incredibly lucky to have found such a well-paid starting position his first year out of college, but still. A sense of dull, greying boredom seemed to permeate the very walls of the maze of cubicles he worked in. Accounting wasn’t exactly a glamorous job, even if you were doing it for a rather large financial conglomerate.
As he looped his tie he was already thinking of the end of the day, forming vague plans to pick up some food before going to meet Jongin at his dance studio. Maybe over the weekend they could go to see a movie, and if Jongin didn’t have too much work they could laze around a bit. Kyungsoo was very fond of his memory of Jongin lying lax and sleepy in the morning sunlight, his skin golden and molten against the sheets. Sighing, Kyungsoo snagged his briefcase and headed out the door - first though, he had to get through work.
Kyungsoo had never been particularly popular in school; as a general rule he was quiet and had preferred to stick to his small circle of friends. Jongin was the exact opposite - even though he was a year under Kyungsoo, by his junior year even Kyungsoo had heard of the immensely talented dance major whose entry as a soloist to the prestigious San Francisco ballet company was almost guaranteed. Kyungsoo, one of many aspiring vocalists who chickened out half-way and declared his major as accounting instead, could never quite understand what the younger boy had seen in him.
They had met Kyungsoo’s senior year in a queue for tickets to the school’s production of Grease; Luhan and Jongin had been goofing off in the line when Luhan, who vaguely knew Kyungsoo because he had once tutored him for Statistics, dragged him over to make introductions. Jongin, Kyungsoo reflected amusedly, had latched onto him at once and somehow coerced him into agreeing to go drinking afterwards as well. By all rights, that one night should have been the last of their interactions, but they had consistently bumped into each other on campus afterwards, and on one rainy afternoon when they both ran into the same coffee shop to hide from the sudden downpour, Jongin, laughing and radiant and dripping water from the rain, had confessed over a latte and a half-eaten croissant.
Kyungsoo had stammered and nearly spilled his coffee down the front of his shirt. It was horrendously unfair how gorgeous Jongin was even when he was soaked to the bone and should by all rights look like a drowned cat. From the first moment, Kyungsoo had been absolutely, worthlessly unable to say no to Jongin the minute he pulled out his heart-stopping grin. If there was ever a power outage in Seoul, Kyungsoo was pretty sure that one of Jongin’s smiles would have enough wattage to bring power back to a better half of the grid
.
Jongin slowly but surely invaded Kyungsoo’s life on quiet, dancing steps. He raided Kyungsoo’s fridge and pantry, he took up Kyungsoo’s closet space, his large array of stage makeup had somehow taken over three-quarters of Kyungsoo’s bathroom counter, and when he slept he inevitably expanded to squeeze Kyungsoo to the edge of the bed, and stole the blankets. He also loved to wake Kyungsoo up by slipping beneath the sheets and slowly licking through Kyungsoo’s boxers until he became too aroused to feign sleep, and could let Kyungsoo fuck into him for days. On one particularly lazy Sunday Jongin had decided to test if he could come purely from riding Kyungsoo (the answer: no), and they spent the entire morning as a tangle of exhausted and grossly-sticky limbs under the sheets. For Kyungsoo there was a certain type of absolution to be found in the hollows of Jongin’s collarbones, the dip of his rib cage, the valleys of his vertebrae. In between the slow, hot slide into Jongin’s body and his next whimpery exhale, Kyungsoo fell in love.
He walked through the familiar hallways of the campus to find Jongin still in his practice room, the dull thump of bass beats vibrating through the door like an incessant heartbeat. When the music finally stopped he walked in, laughing at the way Jongin was slumped in the corner, a messy, sweaty mass.
“I brought cold drinks,” he said, raising the plastic convenience store bag in his hand. Jongin jumped up, like an overgrown puppy, and bounded over to seize the drinks from Kyungsoo’s hand, chugging down one of the cans of iced coffee before Kyungsoo had finished removing his shoes.
“Are you done with practice for today?” Kyungsoo asked. Jongin nodded.
“Want to come back to my place for dinner? I’m making kimchi fried rice.” Jongin nodded again, more enthusiastically this time.
“Can you add cheese to it? And meat, like you did last time?”
Kyungsoo shook his head and complained, “I swear all the money I make goes towards feeding you meat.”
Somehow, Jongin coerced Kyungsoo to put three servings of meat into the fried rice, and also a frankly terrifying amount of cheese. Kyungsoo only ate a quarter of the meal - the rest of it was polished off by Jongin, who, Kyungsoo reflected, had the metabolism of a giant condensed into his small frame.
Watching him clean off the last of his plate, Kyungsoo waited for Jongin to swallow his last bite before asking the question that was the reason he had fetched Jongin for the whole dinner in the first place.
“Look, Jongin,” Kyungsoo cleared his throat, already feeling a small flush on the tips of his ears, “I know you’re always complaining about rent, and half of your stuff is already here anyway…”
Jongin froze, his arm still reaching half-way for his water glass. Immediately, without even asking the question out loud Kyungsoo knew the answer.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to, I know it’s moving a bit fast, I just thought I would offer,” he quickly added on. Jongin smiled awkwardly, and rubbed the nape of his neck.
“It’s just,” he paused, hesitated for an endless moment, and then took a deep breath to finish his sentence. “I don’t know how much longer I’ll be in Seoul for.”
Kyungsoo froze.
“I got an offer from San Francisco, to finish up the remainder of my course work abroad, and at the same time dance in their corps, just to see how I fit in there. I was going to tell you earlier, but I just - ”
“I’m so happy for you,” Kyungsoo heard himself saying. “That’s wonderful news Jongin, it’s an amazing opportunity for you!”
Jongin smiled shyly, hesitantly.
“You really think so?”
Kyungsoo reached out to grab his hands.
“Of course I do, you’re chasing your dream. And it’s not like Skype and airplanes don’t exist, you know,” he added. “I’ve always wanted to visit the States.”
And there it was, the million-watt smile Kyungsoo died a little over every time he saw it. It almost made him feel like everything would work out, despite the ocean and uncrossable gap that would soon be between him and Jongin.
The beginning was easy, uncompromisingly optimistic in its belief that they can sustain their relationship through Skype in the small time frame when their time zones overlapped at reasonable times and texting and phone calls and maybe a visit over the holidays. Kyungsoo spent Christmas with Jongin in the chilled streets of San Francisco; they went ice-skating and Jongin took Kyungsoo to his practice room in the dance company and that evening Kyungsoo kisses every familiar vertebrae down Jongin’s back until everything felt vaguely the same again.
It slowly becomes more difficult, conversations lagging, phone calls getting shorter. Jongin’s speech starts to be sprinkled with English words Kyungsoo can’t quite process, and his new workload between the dance company and finishing up his senior year takes up more and more time until they are lucky if they speak once or twice a week.
Jongin finishes his senior year and is offered a permanent position as a soloist with the San Francisco Ballet. He leases a small, shabby, downtrodden apartment in downtown San Francisco with a two-year contract and Kyungsoo understands that he isn’t coming back.
That winter, Kyungsoo picks his way through the thick snowdrifts in Seoul because he wasn’t able to get enough time away from work, and Jongin is busy, up to his neck in new practice for his role in the Nutcracker anyway. Their phone calls end when Jongin falls asleep. Sometimes Kyungsoo lets the line stay open, and just listens to the deep, bone-deep exhausted breaths that Jongin is taking. More often these days, he hangs up.
On a chilly March morning, Kyungsoo receives a message from Jongin that says I slept with someone else. There are other words in the message, and apologies, but all Kyungsoo really sees is the first, unforgivingly harsh line, I slept with someone else, I slept with someone else, I slept with someone else.
His first thought is, this can’t be real, but a slow furl of disappointment built up to a snarl which died in his throat, the culmination of his biggest fear crystallizing into reality. He types back to Jongin on his lunch break, maybe this isn’t working anymore.
They are both terribly sorry, they will both remain friends.
They don’t really speak again for five years.
Kyungsoo is promoted, then promoted again. He moves into a new apartment because he can now afford a larger space, and also because he is tired of flashes of Jongin’s presence every time he turns a corner. Jongin rises from soloist to principal dancer, blazing a trail across the stages of the United States and Europe, and when his two-year lease runs out he has saved up enough for the down payment on a still-small but miles more comfortable apartment closer to the company.
When Joonmyeon asks Kyungsoo out for a cup of coffee, he accepts, and a couple months down the line goes with Joonmyeon to visit his parents. Jongin sleeps his way through half of the corps de ballet that travels with his company, and has a brief fling with a French dancer that can only communicate with him through their shared broken shards of English.
Their Christmas cards to each other are returned to sender.
Fifteen years later.
Kyungsoo walked past the aisles of canned goods and home products to the baking section; his oven mittens had been tragically demolished in a spectacularly failed attempt at making cheesecake. Scanning the options with wide eyes, he decided to go with the one made of thick silicon; the cotton ones were just too easy to destroy. He reached for the top shelf and groaned in frustration when, even on tippy toes, he couldn’t quite reach the gloves.
“Do you need help?” a baritone voice asked amusedly from behind him.
“Ah, yes please,” replied Kyungsoo, feeling a blush rise to his ears. He turned around and froze in surprise even as a tanned hand reached up past him to grab and drop a package of the gloves into his shopping basket. A pair of surprised brown eyes widened back at him.
“Jongin,” he said, stunned.
“Kyungsoo-hyung,” Jongin grinned, sunny and bright, and envelopes him in a hug, causing him to drop his shopping basket to the ground with a loud clunk. Kyungsoo felt like he had shrunk in the fifteen years since he had last hugged Jongin, or more possibly, Jongin had had yet another growth spurt.
“What are you doing here?” Jongin asked incredulously.
Kyungsoo laughed slightly.
“My company expanded its overseas branch, and I’ve been relocated to its San Francisco branch.”
“Still doing a boring office job,” Jongin teased, and Kyungsoo, unable to help himself, reached up and ruffled Jongin’s hair. The texture was still soft and glossy, reminding Kyungsoo of lazy days in bed, running his fingers through Jongin’s hair until he fell asleep, when they had not yet grown up and were still full of stardust and ambitions for the future.
“I’ll have you know I’m an executive manager now,” he said. “What about you?”
“I’m just another retired instructor with the company now, too many back injuries.” Jongin replied lightly, though Kyungsoo thought he could hear a bit of bitterness in his tone. In the next second, however, Jongin was smiling again, and swept over his fingers with a glance.
“No ring? No significant other?” Jongin asked. Kyungsoo blinked, and shrugged.
“It just never worked out with anyone.”
“So would it be terribly indecent of me to invite you out to dinner? And have you explain why you didn’t notify me of your relocation?”
Kyungsoo laughed.
“Terribly scandalous,” he said, and dared to hope maybe, maybe, things would work out.
When they walked out of the store, it was raining, the sort of rain that fell down in fat, heavy drops, torrents and torrents of it crashing into the dry earth long over-due for the first summer storm. Jongin is wearing a cologne that smells deep and woody, and it makes Kyungsoo want to stop him in his tracks and press him back into the wall and kiss him, even though they are both really too old for those sorts of displays now. It is still chilly, because nights in San Francisco, as Kyungsoo was beginning to learn, would always be chilly, and he lets himself fall back into Jongin.