Heights and when not to be afraid of them - JongYu
Title: Heights and when not to be afraid of them
Pairing: JongYu (others if you squint really hard)
Genre: General, fluff(?)
Rating: G
Summary: Without noticing, he also started shouting and laughing, Jinki’s own laugh vibrating against his back
A/N: So I've been sick and got some time to write it up~
--
He had always been the shortest of all the boys. His mother and even he told himself endlessly - someday you’ll be taller - when he was still young and too wild not to retort the sour, teasing comments his classmates did every once in a while. He always ended up reprimanded for hitting his classmates or saying bad words.
Having once fallen from a staircase and fractured his elbow made him unable to play at slides or treehouses. Teachers warned the others not to force him to play what he didn’t want, and Jonghyun tried not to hear the laughs behind his back, the smirks they gave him when they thought he didn’t notice.
He started counting much faster than the rest of the students. More than simple numbers, he also started counting centimeters, inches, feet. It became a habit to ask people’s height and calculate the difference to his own.
As he grew up, so did everyone else, always towering over him for a few inches. And as he grew older, he taught himself there wasn’t anything he could do about it; he might as well embrace it. Taemin wasn’t ever going to shrink back , nor Minho would ever stop lowering his gaze by two degrees to speak to him. Even Kibum, his best friend since junior high times couldn’t stop himself from growing a few centimeters taller even if he promised he’d never be taller than Jonghyun.
“You don’t look bad, Jjong” Kibum commented while going through some albums in his notebook, “So stop tilting you head every goddamn time we take a picture! You don’t look cute, you look stupid” Jonghyun threw Kibum’s favorite plush toy at him. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know, it wasn’t as if he’d ever stop being bothered by his height, even if he could laugh and joke about it now.
While strolling around the city with Taemin one afternoon he accidentally met Jinki, an online friend he made through a random fandom he didn’t even remember being part of - his unconsciousness told him Kibum had something to do with this but he shrugged it off in favor of bowing to the supposedly older boy.
“H-hi, nice to meet you” Jinki stuttered in a polite tone, obviously nervous. Jinki was three steps too far for his liking, but no feet nor inch counting came to his mind, for some unknown reason.
“This is Taemin, my boyfriend” Jonghyun introduced, pulling Taemin in a headlock.
“Hyung!” Taemin shoved him, laughing, Jinki did so as well, although a bit more quietly.
There was a reason he read and wrote closely to the paper even if he didn’t have any sight disorder, why he held the others by the neck to whisper in their ears, why he touched and stared so intensely at whoever person he was talking to. Distance, heights, gaps, none of those words and what they meant appealed to him.
Jonghyun was a touchy person in consequence, so it was only natural he’d touch Jinki as well, now another one for their group of friends (and roomates). Jinki was taller than him, no different from the others, but somehow the way Jonghyun needed to lean up so as to whisper in his ear or whenever Jinki looked at him, it felt different. Somewhat, Jinki felt ‘closer’ than others, but he couldn’t quite understand why, even if all the older did was to get as stiff as a rock, be a little distant and act like the most uncoordinated person in the planet.
Minho’s shouts along with the match going on the tv vibrated through the dorm. Jonghyun was bored as fuck, completely ignoring the assignments sprawled all over his bed as Jinki studied quietly by his own like in any other night on the other corner of the room.
Boredom topped with sheer curiosity made him tip-toe towards the older, peeking over his shoulder. Spirals, bunnies, clouds, stick-men in all sort of poses were drawn not only at the corners of the book’s page but also in between the lines instead of the supposed answers.
Jonghyun started laughing at one stick-man that reminded him of Kibum and Jinki jumped on the chair in shock. Snatching the pencil off his hand, Jonghyun placed his free hand on his shoulder as he doodled a mass of hair on top of the Kibum-like stick-man as well as dinosaurs eating Jinki’s bunnies.
“Yah” Jinki protested in between chuckles, grabbing another pencil from his bag and retaliating. It was only when Taemin and Kibum arrived much later with take-out dinner that they called it truce, the side of their hands turned black from the graffitti, sharing grins during dinner that only the two were able to understand.
He had just leapt onto Jinki’s back, just because (and maybe thanks for some extra coke he had shared previously with Minho). Jinki stumbled two steps forward, then somewhere even Jonghyun wasn’t able to tell because the entire world was spinning - the floor was too far away from where he stood on Jinki’s back, 6.04 feet or 184 centimeters were really a lot from up there - and when he knew it, they were sprawled on the floor, laughing like mad men. When Kibum found them like that, he didn’t hesitate to jump on them, hands touching places that weren’t supposed to normally be touched, but before Jonghyun could think about it, Taemin was also joining the human pile with an animated cry, and if it wasn’t already enough, Minho completed the mess- Jonghyun felt his thigh go numb.
“You okay hyung?” Jonghyun asked in gasps, still laughing as the others stood up. Jinki rolled over on his back nodding and Minho crouched over to check for injuries just like Jonghyun had been doing.
Jonghyun completely hovered over Jinki, pretty much pushing Minho out of the way, who merely shrugged and went to join the other two on the sofa. Jonghyun looked straight into Jinki’s eyes - there was an unmistakable song playing on the tv, one of his favorites maybe, but he paid little attention to it - and stopped for a fraction of second. Jinki’s face was still flushed, he wasn’t able to tell if it was due to the incident or for something else. He brushed off the locks of hair from Jinki’s face and helped him onto his feet.
Much later when he had already joined the others on the sofa, excluding Jinki who was showering, he wondered why looking at Taemin or Kibum in the eye didn’t faze him at all.
Jonghyun had been looking for his microeconomics book. He was sure he had left it over Jinki’s desk earlier because he had been distracted, but now it was nowhere to be found. He revolved all the book shelves, his bag and even Jinki’s and shoved all the clothes that had been piling up over his bed to the floor. Another stack of books was by Jinki’s bed and when he knelt down to inspect further, the corner of a styrofoam peaking from under Jinki’s bed called his attention.
He gaped at the huge insect collection displayed. There were more than 100 in there- beetles, moths, bees, wasps, ants, butterflies and even some pupas of all types, many of which he had never seen before. Why Jinki never talked about this or why he never saw it before was beyond his comprehension.
He heard a gasp coming from the door and Jinki started spluttering non-sense as he tried to pry the insect collection off his hands but Jonghyun wouldn’t let him.
“This is awesome hyung!” Jonghyun complimented sincerely, smiling at Jinki’s embarrassed expression. It seemed Jinki collected insects as a free-time activity more than a serious hobby, reflecting how much of a nerd he was.
“The smaller ones” Jinki answered Jonghyun’s question of which he preferred the best, “They’re a lot more difficult to find, to catch them even more”
“What’s the name of this one?” He asked strangely giddy and the two spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the middle of Jonghyun’s scattered things with Jinki explaining where he had found this and that as well as general information as Jonghyun drank in the different colors and shapes. Jonghyun later found Jinki had taken his book to check the answers and also to add some silly, enormous doodles and short messages at random pages.
“Wow the view is so great up here!” Kibum shouted, tugging hard on his sleeve but he didn’t bulge, avoiding to stare down at the valley, his hands going damp with cold sweat. Kibum had nagged about it for more than a month nonstop and the two youngest were more than willing to go anywhere. The trip was decided when Jinki also agreed it’d be good if they went out, so there was nothing Jonghyun could do but to let himself get dragged.
“Wrap your arms around me” Jinki whispered as Kibum skipped ahead, Taemin and Minho somewhere behind them. He gulped once, wishing he wasn’t feeling light-headed but did as he was told, slowly facing the scenery.
Cliffs were surrounded by the mist and the farthest ones couldn’t even be seen. The trees had lost their green color, now gaining an orange-ish tint. The sun barely showed up, but some rays made through the clouds, brightening up all the colors.
It was just after long minutes in silent wonder that it hit him he hadn’t shown any bad reaction so far. No cold feeling at the bottom of his stomach, no goosebumps, no nausea. Jinki was solid in his arms, giving him stability and safety.
There was a whirlwind inside his stomach, his hands were trembling and his heart beat too fast, but this time it wasn’t so bad.
Taemin and Minho kept looking funnily at them afterwards, snickering over some pictures in Minho’s camera. Jonghyun tried not to scowl as Jinki turned slightly pink and Kibum started singing a very off-key Titanic tune. Jinki didn’t let go of his hand though, and for the rest of the trip Jonghyun stared down at the cliffs without fear.
Jonghyun didn’t draw the curtains before shutting the window as he was used to, even if he knew they were at the 15th floor of the hotel. He watched the pale moon for a while before daring himself to look down. The queasy feeling hit him hard and he took a step behind, the color on his face draining rapidly. A hand grasped his - Jinki’s - before he could get away and the discomfort stopped. Jonghyun closed his eyes once, willing the tug in his stomach away and tried again.
”Hyung” Jonghyun called after some minutes, still staring, eyes wide as a child’s seeing something for the first time, “Do you think they have skydive around here?”
Jinki smiled brightly, gripping Jonghyun’s hand firmer, “What about bungee jump?”
Jonghyun shoved Jinki down on the bed, mock-hitting him on the stomach. Jinki hit him back with a pillow nearby and it soon became a mess. Their didn’t stop when Kibum threw a pillow at them (-would you stop with all this noise at such goddamn hour in the night?). Jonghyun and Jinki exchanged glances and attacked Kibum with pillows simultaneously. It didn’t take long for Minho and Taemin to join in.
“I can’t do this!” Jonghyun shouted over the loud wind against their faces, his head turned away from the exit, the hair sticking out of his hat tickling against Jinki’s face.
“Kibum’s gonna kill us if we stop here” Jinki walked them a little forward, only for Jonghyun to grip the metal doorframe harder, “He must know it by now we used his money in this”
“You must jump now” The instructor hurried them, watching the scene in mild amusement.
“C’mon Jjong” Jinki nudged again, unwinding Jonghyun’s death grip on the doorframe and gripping it with his own, “I’m right here, remember?” He emphasized by pulling one of the straps that linked them together.
Jonghyun took the only step left forward. He wasn’t sure if he was shouting or if he went mute- all his senses had gone numb. With his eyes severely closed, he could only feel the air pressure constricting his clothes and that horrible feeling in his stomach doubled, triplicated, but Jinki’s hand was holding his, and the feeling wasn’t that bad anymore.
All of sudden they were pushed upwards, only to fall again but in a much slower way- Jinki had pushed the parachute open and the instructor wasn’t too far away from them, giving them thumbs up.
Jonghyun stared down, meters and meters separating them from the vast grass field where he could spot Minho, Kibum and Taemin. Heart beating a mile per hour, Jonghyun was sure he was cutting the blood flow from Jinki’s hand, but Jinki seemed as excited as him, shouting uselessly to the three slowly growing bigger as they reached the ground.
Without noticing, he also started shouting and laughing, Jinki’s own laugh vibrating against his back. He didn't think he had ever experienced such a feeling before.
“I’m starting to think the aliens took Jonghyun away and replaced him with a perfect copy” Kibum let out alarmed as Jonghyun and Jinki landed in a ruckus.
“Don’t you have any phobia?” Minho asked, watching the two struggle to get from under the deflated parachute.
Kibum scoffed, “Phobias are for the weak-”
Minho never thought Kibum could weight so much when Kibum all but jumped in his arms not a second later.
Taemin made the courtesy of killing the oversized grasshopper and smirked, “Say again, hyung?”
The instructor helped them out, freeing them from all the straps and security locks. Jinki still had his googles on when Jonghyun whipped around and tackled him yelling, just a bit shaken. Adrenaline still running hotly in his veins, Jonghyun accidentally let his lips brush against Jinki’s and before the two could even react, the other three reached them. Kibum was flustered, yelling incoherent things at the two youngest, who helped them up.
“Kibum has insect phobia” Taemin whispered and an idea that had never hit him before clicked in his head. He turned to look at Jinki who also turned to look at him and mirrored grins appeared on their lips. They knew what they could do with Jinki’s insect collection now.
>> 'Distances and when to overcome them'
--
DIS be what inspired me to write this all. It's still one of my fav gifs /sobs
Pairing: JongYu (others if you squint really hard)
Genre: General, fluff(?)
Rating: G
Summary: Without noticing, he also started shouting and laughing, Jinki’s own laugh vibrating against his back
A/N: So I've been sick and got some time to write it up~
--
He had always been the shortest of all the boys. His mother and even he told himself endlessly - someday you’ll be taller - when he was still young and too wild not to retort the sour, teasing comments his classmates did every once in a while. He always ended up reprimanded for hitting his classmates or saying bad words.
Having once fallen from a staircase and fractured his elbow made him unable to play at slides or treehouses. Teachers warned the others not to force him to play what he didn’t want, and Jonghyun tried not to hear the laughs behind his back, the smirks they gave him when they thought he didn’t notice.
He started counting much faster than the rest of the students. More than simple numbers, he also started counting centimeters, inches, feet. It became a habit to ask people’s height and calculate the difference to his own.
As he grew up, so did everyone else, always towering over him for a few inches. And as he grew older, he taught himself there wasn’t anything he could do about it; he might as well embrace it. Taemin wasn’t ever going to shrink back , nor Minho would ever stop lowering his gaze by two degrees to speak to him. Even Kibum, his best friend since junior high times couldn’t stop himself from growing a few centimeters taller even if he promised he’d never be taller than Jonghyun.
“You don’t look bad, Jjong” Kibum commented while going through some albums in his notebook, “So stop tilting you head every goddamn time we take a picture! You don’t look cute, you look stupid” Jonghyun threw Kibum’s favorite plush toy at him. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know, it wasn’t as if he’d ever stop being bothered by his height, even if he could laugh and joke about it now.
While strolling around the city with Taemin one afternoon he accidentally met Jinki, an online friend he made through a random fandom he didn’t even remember being part of - his unconsciousness told him Kibum had something to do with this but he shrugged it off in favor of bowing to the supposedly older boy.
“H-hi, nice to meet you” Jinki stuttered in a polite tone, obviously nervous. Jinki was three steps too far for his liking, but no feet nor inch counting came to his mind, for some unknown reason.
“This is Taemin, my boyfriend” Jonghyun introduced, pulling Taemin in a headlock.
“Hyung!” Taemin shoved him, laughing, Jinki did so as well, although a bit more quietly.
There was a reason he read and wrote closely to the paper even if he didn’t have any sight disorder, why he held the others by the neck to whisper in their ears, why he touched and stared so intensely at whoever person he was talking to. Distance, heights, gaps, none of those words and what they meant appealed to him.
Jonghyun was a touchy person in consequence, so it was only natural he’d touch Jinki as well, now another one for their group of friends (and roomates). Jinki was taller than him, no different from the others, but somehow the way Jonghyun needed to lean up so as to whisper in his ear or whenever Jinki looked at him, it felt different. Somewhat, Jinki felt ‘closer’ than others, but he couldn’t quite understand why, even if all the older did was to get as stiff as a rock, be a little distant and act like the most uncoordinated person in the planet.
Minho’s shouts along with the match going on the tv vibrated through the dorm. Jonghyun was bored as fuck, completely ignoring the assignments sprawled all over his bed as Jinki studied quietly by his own like in any other night on the other corner of the room.
Boredom topped with sheer curiosity made him tip-toe towards the older, peeking over his shoulder. Spirals, bunnies, clouds, stick-men in all sort of poses were drawn not only at the corners of the book’s page but also in between the lines instead of the supposed answers.
Jonghyun started laughing at one stick-man that reminded him of Kibum and Jinki jumped on the chair in shock. Snatching the pencil off his hand, Jonghyun placed his free hand on his shoulder as he doodled a mass of hair on top of the Kibum-like stick-man as well as dinosaurs eating Jinki’s bunnies.
“Yah” Jinki protested in between chuckles, grabbing another pencil from his bag and retaliating. It was only when Taemin and Kibum arrived much later with take-out dinner that they called it truce, the side of their hands turned black from the graffitti, sharing grins during dinner that only the two were able to understand.
He had just leapt onto Jinki’s back, just because (and maybe thanks for some extra coke he had shared previously with Minho). Jinki stumbled two steps forward, then somewhere even Jonghyun wasn’t able to tell because the entire world was spinning - the floor was too far away from where he stood on Jinki’s back, 6.04 feet or 184 centimeters were really a lot from up there - and when he knew it, they were sprawled on the floor, laughing like mad men. When Kibum found them like that, he didn’t hesitate to jump on them, hands touching places that weren’t supposed to normally be touched, but before Jonghyun could think about it, Taemin was also joining the human pile with an animated cry, and if it wasn’t already enough, Minho completed the mess- Jonghyun felt his thigh go numb.
“You okay hyung?” Jonghyun asked in gasps, still laughing as the others stood up. Jinki rolled over on his back nodding and Minho crouched over to check for injuries just like Jonghyun had been doing.
Jonghyun completely hovered over Jinki, pretty much pushing Minho out of the way, who merely shrugged and went to join the other two on the sofa. Jonghyun looked straight into Jinki’s eyes - there was an unmistakable song playing on the tv, one of his favorites maybe, but he paid little attention to it - and stopped for a fraction of second. Jinki’s face was still flushed, he wasn’t able to tell if it was due to the incident or for something else. He brushed off the locks of hair from Jinki’s face and helped him onto his feet.
Much later when he had already joined the others on the sofa, excluding Jinki who was showering, he wondered why looking at Taemin or Kibum in the eye didn’t faze him at all.
Jonghyun had been looking for his microeconomics book. He was sure he had left it over Jinki’s desk earlier because he had been distracted, but now it was nowhere to be found. He revolved all the book shelves, his bag and even Jinki’s and shoved all the clothes that had been piling up over his bed to the floor. Another stack of books was by Jinki’s bed and when he knelt down to inspect further, the corner of a styrofoam peaking from under Jinki’s bed called his attention.
He gaped at the huge insect collection displayed. There were more than 100 in there- beetles, moths, bees, wasps, ants, butterflies and even some pupas of all types, many of which he had never seen before. Why Jinki never talked about this or why he never saw it before was beyond his comprehension.
He heard a gasp coming from the door and Jinki started spluttering non-sense as he tried to pry the insect collection off his hands but Jonghyun wouldn’t let him.
“This is awesome hyung!” Jonghyun complimented sincerely, smiling at Jinki’s embarrassed expression. It seemed Jinki collected insects as a free-time activity more than a serious hobby, reflecting how much of a nerd he was.
“The smaller ones” Jinki answered Jonghyun’s question of which he preferred the best, “They’re a lot more difficult to find, to catch them even more”
“What’s the name of this one?” He asked strangely giddy and the two spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the middle of Jonghyun’s scattered things with Jinki explaining where he had found this and that as well as general information as Jonghyun drank in the different colors and shapes. Jonghyun later found Jinki had taken his book to check the answers and also to add some silly, enormous doodles and short messages at random pages.
“Wow the view is so great up here!” Kibum shouted, tugging hard on his sleeve but he didn’t bulge, avoiding to stare down at the valley, his hands going damp with cold sweat. Kibum had nagged about it for more than a month nonstop and the two youngest were more than willing to go anywhere. The trip was decided when Jinki also agreed it’d be good if they went out, so there was nothing Jonghyun could do but to let himself get dragged.
“Wrap your arms around me” Jinki whispered as Kibum skipped ahead, Taemin and Minho somewhere behind them. He gulped once, wishing he wasn’t feeling light-headed but did as he was told, slowly facing the scenery.
Cliffs were surrounded by the mist and the farthest ones couldn’t even be seen. The trees had lost their green color, now gaining an orange-ish tint. The sun barely showed up, but some rays made through the clouds, brightening up all the colors.
It was just after long minutes in silent wonder that it hit him he hadn’t shown any bad reaction so far. No cold feeling at the bottom of his stomach, no goosebumps, no nausea. Jinki was solid in his arms, giving him stability and safety.
There was a whirlwind inside his stomach, his hands were trembling and his heart beat too fast, but this time it wasn’t so bad.
Taemin and Minho kept looking funnily at them afterwards, snickering over some pictures in Minho’s camera. Jonghyun tried not to scowl as Jinki turned slightly pink and Kibum started singing a very off-key Titanic tune. Jinki didn’t let go of his hand though, and for the rest of the trip Jonghyun stared down at the cliffs without fear.
Jonghyun didn’t draw the curtains before shutting the window as he was used to, even if he knew they were at the 15th floor of the hotel. He watched the pale moon for a while before daring himself to look down. The queasy feeling hit him hard and he took a step behind, the color on his face draining rapidly. A hand grasped his - Jinki’s - before he could get away and the discomfort stopped. Jonghyun closed his eyes once, willing the tug in his stomach away and tried again.
”Hyung” Jonghyun called after some minutes, still staring, eyes wide as a child’s seeing something for the first time, “Do you think they have skydive around here?”
Jinki smiled brightly, gripping Jonghyun’s hand firmer, “What about bungee jump?”
Jonghyun shoved Jinki down on the bed, mock-hitting him on the stomach. Jinki hit him back with a pillow nearby and it soon became a mess. Their didn’t stop when Kibum threw a pillow at them (-would you stop with all this noise at such goddamn hour in the night?). Jonghyun and Jinki exchanged glances and attacked Kibum with pillows simultaneously. It didn’t take long for Minho and Taemin to join in.
“I can’t do this!” Jonghyun shouted over the loud wind against their faces, his head turned away from the exit, the hair sticking out of his hat tickling against Jinki’s face.
“Kibum’s gonna kill us if we stop here” Jinki walked them a little forward, only for Jonghyun to grip the metal doorframe harder, “He must know it by now we used his money in this”
“You must jump now” The instructor hurried them, watching the scene in mild amusement.
“C’mon Jjong” Jinki nudged again, unwinding Jonghyun’s death grip on the doorframe and gripping it with his own, “I’m right here, remember?” He emphasized by pulling one of the straps that linked them together.
Jonghyun took the only step left forward. He wasn’t sure if he was shouting or if he went mute- all his senses had gone numb. With his eyes severely closed, he could only feel the air pressure constricting his clothes and that horrible feeling in his stomach doubled, triplicated, but Jinki’s hand was holding his, and the feeling wasn’t that bad anymore.
All of sudden they were pushed upwards, only to fall again but in a much slower way- Jinki had pushed the parachute open and the instructor wasn’t too far away from them, giving them thumbs up.
Jonghyun stared down, meters and meters separating them from the vast grass field where he could spot Minho, Kibum and Taemin. Heart beating a mile per hour, Jonghyun was sure he was cutting the blood flow from Jinki’s hand, but Jinki seemed as excited as him, shouting uselessly to the three slowly growing bigger as they reached the ground.
Without noticing, he also started shouting and laughing, Jinki’s own laugh vibrating against his back. He didn't think he had ever experienced such a feeling before.
“I’m starting to think the aliens took Jonghyun away and replaced him with a perfect copy” Kibum let out alarmed as Jonghyun and Jinki landed in a ruckus.
“Don’t you have any phobia?” Minho asked, watching the two struggle to get from under the deflated parachute.
Kibum scoffed, “Phobias are for the weak-”
Minho never thought Kibum could weight so much when Kibum all but jumped in his arms not a second later.
Taemin made the courtesy of killing the oversized grasshopper and smirked, “Say again, hyung?”
The instructor helped them out, freeing them from all the straps and security locks. Jinki still had his googles on when Jonghyun whipped around and tackled him yelling, just a bit shaken. Adrenaline still running hotly in his veins, Jonghyun accidentally let his lips brush against Jinki’s and before the two could even react, the other three reached them. Kibum was flustered, yelling incoherent things at the two youngest, who helped them up.
“Kibum has insect phobia” Taemin whispered and an idea that had never hit him before clicked in his head. He turned to look at Jinki who also turned to look at him and mirrored grins appeared on their lips. They knew what they could do with Jinki’s insect collection now.
>> 'Distances and when to overcome them'
--
DIS be what inspired me to write this all. It's still one of my fav gifs /sobs