this is my "ken-fession" (oneshot)
this is my "ken-fession"
vixx, n/ken
pg, 1939w
Hakyeon sat at his laptop and tapped his fingers on the edge of the keyboard in barely contained agitation. Sitting on the floor behind him, Wonsik was blissfully unaware and absorbed in his ipod, while Sanghyuk was playing somewhere in the back of the practice room and Hongbin and Taekwoon were conveniently elsewhere. That only left one person unaccounted for, of course, but that was exactly the person Hakyeon was trying so desperately to ignore.
Ever so slowly around the edge of the practicing room, like a lion cornering its prey, Jaehwan was prowling.
If this had only started that afternoon, or even yesterday, Hakyeon wouldn't have batted an eye. Doing utterly inexplicable things at inexplicable times was kind of Jaehwan's thing, after all, and Hakyeon understood that. They all did, which was probably why no one else in the room was bothered by Jaehwan's behavior despite the fact that this had been going on for a week.
That, and for whatever reason Jaehwan's predator-like mannerisms were all directed at Hakyeon and Hakyeon alone.
Turning around in his chair so quickly the wheels squeaked, Hakyeon locked Jaehwan in a glare. "Jaehwan. No."
Jaehwan froze, eyes wide like a deer caught in a hunter's spotlight, just before scampering from the room.
Behind Hakyeon, Wonsik laughed, and promptly received a kick to the shin.
Back in the dorm, Hakyeon stretched out on the living room floor and contemplated his fingers a moment. Taekwoon was reclined on the sofa nearby, but otherwise Hakyeon was alone. And to be honest, Hakyeon had come to feel pretty comfortable with just having Taekwoon around, to the extent he basically felt like he was alone anyway. It was easy to voice his thoughts aloud around the quiet boy, like talking to a wall but better.
"He could be mad at me," he mused out loud, but dismissed the thought immediately. "Does Jaehwan even get mad?" In all their time together, Hakyeon couldn't recall a single incident where Jaehwan was genuinely angry. Whiny, definitely. Sulky, now and then. Annoyed, rarely. Anger wasn't an emotion that seemed plausible for someone so seemingly carefree as their unpredictable main vocalist. "Maybe he's just trying to bother me," he amended, and nodded to himself because that seemed much more likely.
From the couch, Taekwoon continued to play with his cell phone. The only indication he gave that he was listening was his lack of headphones.
Hakyeon was about to continue with his little soliloquy when one of the bedroom doors slowly creaked open. A wary face peeked through the crack, and zeroed in on Hakyeon's presence immediately. Centimeter by centimeter, Jaehwan crept out from behind the door. His eyes remained locked on Hakyeon as he moved painfully slowly, like he expected Hakyeon to run at him. There was something uncharacteristically focused and determined in Jaehwan's eyes, but that only pissed Hakyeon off more.
"You-" he started to complain, but the second he moved, Jaehwan took off down the hall. The bathroom door slammed behind him, but Hakyeon followed soon after. "What the hell is wrong with you, huh?"
When he returned to the living room, Taekwoon was watching him in serious contemplation.
"You know," he began in that quiet, gentle voice of his, "he might just want to play."
Hakyeon stared at him, not quite sure what to say because one, Taekwoon speaking, letting alone giving advice, was startling, and two, he couldn't understand why he hadn't thought of that himself. Jaehwan loved games, especially ones that made no sense to anyone but himself. If this was Jaehwan's newest game, Jaehwan was most definitely winning, and Hakyeon couldn't let that slide.
Two could play at this game.
When Hakyeon and Jaehwan happened to step into the hall at the same time the next morning, both froze. Jaehwan took a step back, and so did Hakyeon. Hakyeon carefully slid behind the door of the bathroom just as Jaehwan moved to do the same behind the bedroom door. A spark of recognition lit in Jaehwan's eyes, and the smallest hint of a smile pulled at his lips. Hakyeon barely returned the smile as he peeked around the door. Jaehwan moved to take a step outside, and so did Hakyeon. They both immediately shot back behind their doors.
This went on for twenty minutes, until Wonsik finally decided he'd had enough and shoved Hakyeon into the hall, and Jaehwan disappeared back into the bedroom.
In the practice room, after practice had ended, Hakyeon and Jaehwan circled around each other, peering across the room warily and hardly moving as they tried to predict each other's movements. Seated comfortably on the couch, Sanghyuk and Hongbin watched the game progress.
"The wild Jaehwan wants to get to his lunch, but a rogue Hakyeon stands in his way," Hongbin's melodramatic narration echoed in the room's acoustics. "Ah! A Taekwoon has appeared!" Taekwoon leaned against the doorframe and took a moment to observe the situation before he turned and walked back out. "Ah, crisis averted. Everyone knows how territorial the Taekwoon can be when provoked."
Hakyeon was pretty sure Hongbin had no clue what he was saying, but he had to admit this game was pretty fun. Well, this morning had been fun. Now, after practicing for so long, he had to admit that trying to keep up with Jaehwan's endless supply of energy was exhausting.
"It looks like the wild Jaehwan has age on his side," Sanghyuk chimed in as Hakyeon slumped to the ground. Jaehwan remained on his toes, alert and careful, but Hakyeon just couldn't keep it up. "This Hakyeon may be the stronger predator, but his time for fighting is nearing the end."
Hakyeon shot Sanghyuk a look and Jaehwan took the opportunity to dash past and out of the room. A few seconds later Wonsik stepped through the door, a baffled look on his face. "I thought you were going to do something about that," he said with a smile in Hakyeon's direction.
Hakyeon's water bottle hit him square on the chin.
"If it bothers you so much, why not just talk to him?" Wonsik asked. Hakyeon almost snapped at him for not being more helpful, but he couldn't blame Wonsik for not wanting to help the guy who'd thrown a water bottle at his face. In his defense, a water bottle can only hurt so much. Still, Wonsik's expression made it clear he wasn't in the best mood for helping with Hakyeon's problems.
Hakyeon handed Wonsik a cookie from the package he was holding. Technically, they weren't supposed to eat anything after seven at night, but it was almost four in the morning, the managers were asleep, and Hakyeon was pretty sure he could count this as part of breakfast. "How can I talk to him when all he does is act like that when we're in the same room."
Wonsik accepted the cookie and that was enough to get him to loosen up a little, as expected. "Simple. You have to win the game. It's not like it'll be hard. You run faster."
The idea left a bad taste in his mouth, but Hakyeon had to admit it was logical. "I don't know, he does seem to enjoy it." He frowned and crinkled the cookie wrapper in his hand. "But it's weird, you know? Jaehwan is usually always around, and now he's not." He ran a hand through his hair and sighed in frustration. It wasn't something he really wanted to put into words, his feelings about the whole thing. The fact of the matter was that he was used for Jaehwan being by his side. Or at least to being able to call Jaehwan to his side whenever he wanted. Jaehwan was many things, but he wasn't a distant person. He was a presence Hakyeon was used to, and maybe had grown a little too used to.
In the end, Hakyeon just plain missed him.
"Stop being such a girl and tell him that," Wonsik yawned and rolled to his feet. Hakyeon almost threw the empty cookie package at him, but decided he didn't have the energy.
Hakyeon awoke to the sounds of someone moving around the bedroom. He didn't know the time, but his body told him it was obscenely early, though any time might have felt as such when he'd gone to bed at five. The bedroom door opened and closed before Hakyeon finally managed to look around the room. He wasn't surprised to find that Jaehwan was the one missing.
A disturbingly perfect opportunity.
Even if it was the last thing he wanted to do, Hakyeon yanked off his blanket and shoved himself into a standing position. He stepped out of the room at the exact moment Jaehwan padded out of the kitchen, a bottle of water in his hand. He blinked his eyes sleepily and stared at Hakyeon. "Hyung?" he called quietly. Hakyeon smiled because he couldn't remember the last time Jaehwan had addressed him directly.
"Not going to run?"
Jaehwan blinked again, and then appeared to remember. He flinched and looked around, as if looking for a place to hide, but his mind was not ready for their new game. Hell, neither was Hakyeon's. Maybe that was why this was the perfect moment.
"Come on," Hakyeon mumbled, reaching for Jaehwan's arm. "It's too early for that. Aren't you tired of playing?"
Jaehwan let Hakyeon take his arm, his mouth struggling for a few moments to find words. "But Hongbin said--" His sentence faded off into sleepy mumbling, but Jaehwan had caught enough.
He was a little less than gentle as he pulled Jaehwan towards the sofa. He sat Jaehwan down and screwed open the cap on the bottle of water before placing it in Jaehwan's hands. "Hongbin said what, exactly?" All traces of sleepiness were gone from his voice, but he managed to keep his tone calm and friendly. He needed to maintain control long enough to know exactly what he was going to murder Hongbin for.
A blush spread across Jaehwan's face and he stared at his water bottle instead of drinking it. "That if you like someone-" he started, then his voice cracked a little and he began again. "That if you like someone, you can let them know by looking at them like... like..."
Hakyeon blinked. "Like what?"
Jaehwan shrugged, defeated. "Like you want to eat them."
Hakyeon hung his head a moment, and then laughed. "Are you confessing to me right now?"
A pause. "Yeah."
Hakyeon almost laughed again, but when he looked back up he held his tongue. As sleepy as he was, Jaehwan also looked pretty damn scared. It was impossible to imagine what had been going through Jaehwan's mind, what could have possibly made his game seem a logical way to express his feelings, but that only made it make more sense. Something this strange and illogical could only have been the product of Jaehwan's mind.
Through the window, the sun was moving higher into the sky. Hakyeon blinked his tired eyes and reached out a hand to pat Jaehwan's head affectionately. "Well, you did it. Good job." As he stood back up, he even kissed the top of Jaehwan's head. After all, Hakyeon had learned a lot about his own feelings the past few nights, though he wasn't quite ready to admit all that just yet. "Let's get some sleep, okay?"
Jaehwan practically beamed and took Hakyeon's hand eagerly.
Hakyeon wasn't sure how he was going to handle tomorrow, but one thing was certain: Hongbin was going to get it.
vixx, n/ken
pg, 1939w
Hakyeon sat at his laptop and tapped his fingers on the edge of the keyboard in barely contained agitation. Sitting on the floor behind him, Wonsik was blissfully unaware and absorbed in his ipod, while Sanghyuk was playing somewhere in the back of the practice room and Hongbin and Taekwoon were conveniently elsewhere. That only left one person unaccounted for, of course, but that was exactly the person Hakyeon was trying so desperately to ignore.
Ever so slowly around the edge of the practicing room, like a lion cornering its prey, Jaehwan was prowling.
If this had only started that afternoon, or even yesterday, Hakyeon wouldn't have batted an eye. Doing utterly inexplicable things at inexplicable times was kind of Jaehwan's thing, after all, and Hakyeon understood that. They all did, which was probably why no one else in the room was bothered by Jaehwan's behavior despite the fact that this had been going on for a week.
That, and for whatever reason Jaehwan's predator-like mannerisms were all directed at Hakyeon and Hakyeon alone.
Turning around in his chair so quickly the wheels squeaked, Hakyeon locked Jaehwan in a glare. "Jaehwan. No."
Jaehwan froze, eyes wide like a deer caught in a hunter's spotlight, just before scampering from the room.
Behind Hakyeon, Wonsik laughed, and promptly received a kick to the shin.
Back in the dorm, Hakyeon stretched out on the living room floor and contemplated his fingers a moment. Taekwoon was reclined on the sofa nearby, but otherwise Hakyeon was alone. And to be honest, Hakyeon had come to feel pretty comfortable with just having Taekwoon around, to the extent he basically felt like he was alone anyway. It was easy to voice his thoughts aloud around the quiet boy, like talking to a wall but better.
"He could be mad at me," he mused out loud, but dismissed the thought immediately. "Does Jaehwan even get mad?" In all their time together, Hakyeon couldn't recall a single incident where Jaehwan was genuinely angry. Whiny, definitely. Sulky, now and then. Annoyed, rarely. Anger wasn't an emotion that seemed plausible for someone so seemingly carefree as their unpredictable main vocalist. "Maybe he's just trying to bother me," he amended, and nodded to himself because that seemed much more likely.
From the couch, Taekwoon continued to play with his cell phone. The only indication he gave that he was listening was his lack of headphones.
Hakyeon was about to continue with his little soliloquy when one of the bedroom doors slowly creaked open. A wary face peeked through the crack, and zeroed in on Hakyeon's presence immediately. Centimeter by centimeter, Jaehwan crept out from behind the door. His eyes remained locked on Hakyeon as he moved painfully slowly, like he expected Hakyeon to run at him. There was something uncharacteristically focused and determined in Jaehwan's eyes, but that only pissed Hakyeon off more.
"You-" he started to complain, but the second he moved, Jaehwan took off down the hall. The bathroom door slammed behind him, but Hakyeon followed soon after. "What the hell is wrong with you, huh?"
When he returned to the living room, Taekwoon was watching him in serious contemplation.
"You know," he began in that quiet, gentle voice of his, "he might just want to play."
Hakyeon stared at him, not quite sure what to say because one, Taekwoon speaking, letting alone giving advice, was startling, and two, he couldn't understand why he hadn't thought of that himself. Jaehwan loved games, especially ones that made no sense to anyone but himself. If this was Jaehwan's newest game, Jaehwan was most definitely winning, and Hakyeon couldn't let that slide.
Two could play at this game.
When Hakyeon and Jaehwan happened to step into the hall at the same time the next morning, both froze. Jaehwan took a step back, and so did Hakyeon. Hakyeon carefully slid behind the door of the bathroom just as Jaehwan moved to do the same behind the bedroom door. A spark of recognition lit in Jaehwan's eyes, and the smallest hint of a smile pulled at his lips. Hakyeon barely returned the smile as he peeked around the door. Jaehwan moved to take a step outside, and so did Hakyeon. They both immediately shot back behind their doors.
This went on for twenty minutes, until Wonsik finally decided he'd had enough and shoved Hakyeon into the hall, and Jaehwan disappeared back into the bedroom.
In the practice room, after practice had ended, Hakyeon and Jaehwan circled around each other, peering across the room warily and hardly moving as they tried to predict each other's movements. Seated comfortably on the couch, Sanghyuk and Hongbin watched the game progress.
"The wild Jaehwan wants to get to his lunch, but a rogue Hakyeon stands in his way," Hongbin's melodramatic narration echoed in the room's acoustics. "Ah! A Taekwoon has appeared!" Taekwoon leaned against the doorframe and took a moment to observe the situation before he turned and walked back out. "Ah, crisis averted. Everyone knows how territorial the Taekwoon can be when provoked."
Hakyeon was pretty sure Hongbin had no clue what he was saying, but he had to admit this game was pretty fun. Well, this morning had been fun. Now, after practicing for so long, he had to admit that trying to keep up with Jaehwan's endless supply of energy was exhausting.
"It looks like the wild Jaehwan has age on his side," Sanghyuk chimed in as Hakyeon slumped to the ground. Jaehwan remained on his toes, alert and careful, but Hakyeon just couldn't keep it up. "This Hakyeon may be the stronger predator, but his time for fighting is nearing the end."
Hakyeon shot Sanghyuk a look and Jaehwan took the opportunity to dash past and out of the room. A few seconds later Wonsik stepped through the door, a baffled look on his face. "I thought you were going to do something about that," he said with a smile in Hakyeon's direction.
Hakyeon's water bottle hit him square on the chin.
"If it bothers you so much, why not just talk to him?" Wonsik asked. Hakyeon almost snapped at him for not being more helpful, but he couldn't blame Wonsik for not wanting to help the guy who'd thrown a water bottle at his face. In his defense, a water bottle can only hurt so much. Still, Wonsik's expression made it clear he wasn't in the best mood for helping with Hakyeon's problems.
Hakyeon handed Wonsik a cookie from the package he was holding. Technically, they weren't supposed to eat anything after seven at night, but it was almost four in the morning, the managers were asleep, and Hakyeon was pretty sure he could count this as part of breakfast. "How can I talk to him when all he does is act like that when we're in the same room."
Wonsik accepted the cookie and that was enough to get him to loosen up a little, as expected. "Simple. You have to win the game. It's not like it'll be hard. You run faster."
The idea left a bad taste in his mouth, but Hakyeon had to admit it was logical. "I don't know, he does seem to enjoy it." He frowned and crinkled the cookie wrapper in his hand. "But it's weird, you know? Jaehwan is usually always around, and now he's not." He ran a hand through his hair and sighed in frustration. It wasn't something he really wanted to put into words, his feelings about the whole thing. The fact of the matter was that he was used for Jaehwan being by his side. Or at least to being able to call Jaehwan to his side whenever he wanted. Jaehwan was many things, but he wasn't a distant person. He was a presence Hakyeon was used to, and maybe had grown a little too used to.
In the end, Hakyeon just plain missed him.
"Stop being such a girl and tell him that," Wonsik yawned and rolled to his feet. Hakyeon almost threw the empty cookie package at him, but decided he didn't have the energy.
Hakyeon awoke to the sounds of someone moving around the bedroom. He didn't know the time, but his body told him it was obscenely early, though any time might have felt as such when he'd gone to bed at five. The bedroom door opened and closed before Hakyeon finally managed to look around the room. He wasn't surprised to find that Jaehwan was the one missing.
A disturbingly perfect opportunity.
Even if it was the last thing he wanted to do, Hakyeon yanked off his blanket and shoved himself into a standing position. He stepped out of the room at the exact moment Jaehwan padded out of the kitchen, a bottle of water in his hand. He blinked his eyes sleepily and stared at Hakyeon. "Hyung?" he called quietly. Hakyeon smiled because he couldn't remember the last time Jaehwan had addressed him directly.
"Not going to run?"
Jaehwan blinked again, and then appeared to remember. He flinched and looked around, as if looking for a place to hide, but his mind was not ready for their new game. Hell, neither was Hakyeon's. Maybe that was why this was the perfect moment.
"Come on," Hakyeon mumbled, reaching for Jaehwan's arm. "It's too early for that. Aren't you tired of playing?"
Jaehwan let Hakyeon take his arm, his mouth struggling for a few moments to find words. "But Hongbin said--" His sentence faded off into sleepy mumbling, but Jaehwan had caught enough.
He was a little less than gentle as he pulled Jaehwan towards the sofa. He sat Jaehwan down and screwed open the cap on the bottle of water before placing it in Jaehwan's hands. "Hongbin said what, exactly?" All traces of sleepiness were gone from his voice, but he managed to keep his tone calm and friendly. He needed to maintain control long enough to know exactly what he was going to murder Hongbin for.
A blush spread across Jaehwan's face and he stared at his water bottle instead of drinking it. "That if you like someone-" he started, then his voice cracked a little and he began again. "That if you like someone, you can let them know by looking at them like... like..."
Hakyeon blinked. "Like what?"
Jaehwan shrugged, defeated. "Like you want to eat them."
Hakyeon hung his head a moment, and then laughed. "Are you confessing to me right now?"
A pause. "Yeah."
Hakyeon almost laughed again, but when he looked back up he held his tongue. As sleepy as he was, Jaehwan also looked pretty damn scared. It was impossible to imagine what had been going through Jaehwan's mind, what could have possibly made his game seem a logical way to express his feelings, but that only made it make more sense. Something this strange and illogical could only have been the product of Jaehwan's mind.
Through the window, the sun was moving higher into the sky. Hakyeon blinked his tired eyes and reached out a hand to pat Jaehwan's head affectionately. "Well, you did it. Good job." As he stood back up, he even kissed the top of Jaehwan's head. After all, Hakyeon had learned a lot about his own feelings the past few nights, though he wasn't quite ready to admit all that just yet. "Let's get some sleep, okay?"
Jaehwan practically beamed and took Hakyeon's hand eagerly.
Hakyeon wasn't sure how he was going to handle tomorrow, but one thing was certain: Hongbin was going to get it.