t = d/c
| t = d/c | pg | shinee | jinki/kibum | 2308w |
Jinki is the boy who waits. Based on "Voices of a Distant Star"
Notes: Pinch hit for the Musical Chairs exchange at melodicword. Prompt: "Dancing" - Elisa
“I’m tired.” Kibum complains with an exaggerated sigh, sinking into the couch, his arms spread wide. “My feet hurt and my back is killing me.”
Jinki presses his lips together and heads for his room, where he spends the next forty three minutes not thinking about what he has just seen. When sleep does come, it’s fitful, and he spends it chasing an echo of laughter that sounds just familiar enough to be painful.
-
The truth is, Jinki hasn’t seen Kibum in eight years, and he doesn’t expect to see him again for another eternity.
-
Morning finds him weary, exhausted from a night of things he’d much rather not think about. His hand slips under the pillow to retrieve his cellphone.
No new messages. It says. Jinki sits up in bed, plants his feet on the floor, and gets ready for another day.
-
Rewind and you would have found Jinki a cheery, outgoing boy whose biggest worry was getting into the same high school as his best friend. Or rather, his best friend getting into the same school as him, because the averages were competitive and Kibum wasn’t the type to work hard. He was one those people who preferred to devote his time to more interesting things, more abstract things. He also liked to dance, having an almost unnatural awareness of his body’s position in relation to the space around him.
Jinki used to think that Kibum would’ve had a very exciting job one day, perhaps in entertainment or one of those newer, innovative sciences. He himself would have been content at a regular deskjob, occasionally meeting with friends on weekends and leading a sedentary, routine life.
But that was before the war started.
-
On the fifth anniversary of the Mars base establishment, people around the world looked up in the night sky for a glimpse of the red planet, their voices full of pride and wonder. They all knew someone who knew someone who was living there now, readying the base for future expansion. They talked of going there one day for a visit, maybe, to experience the lighter gravity and enjoy the sights in one of those new resorts.
Three days later it was razed to the ground by a race who called themselves the Tarsians. Their solar system had gotten too crowded, and they needed a new place to settle.
-
It was all the news networks would talk about in the following months. Jinki would have been worried, but in his world of cram schools and exam scores, what had happened didn’t really permeate until Jonghyun started talking about combat robotics.
“They’re starting to build them, you know, those huge robots you see in cartoons. I’ve heard they’re putting in some pretty expensive guns on those things.”
“Wait,” Jinki said slowly, “we’re actually going to fight them?”
“Fight them? Of course! They destroyed our Mars Base. It’s practically a declaration of war.”
“But…but the last I’ve heard, we’ve agreed to give them a nearby solar system instead?”
“Maybe they’re afraid they would try to attack again.” Minho said, “Besides, if you look at the universe, the distance between two solar systems is pretty small. They probably figure it’s safer to chase them away now than risk future confrontations.”
“Well, I suppose, but we’re not really a match for…”
“Oh trust me,” Kibum finally interjected with grim smile, “all the countries are bringing out their ‘newly discovered’ technology. We’re not as behind as you might think.”
“Huh. And to think,” Minho murmured pensively, “that all it took for international cooperation was an extraterrestrial race threatening the future of humanity,”
-
Yes, it was a tragedy and yes, it changed the course of Earth’s history has they knew it, but for Jinki, life continued on. Jonghyun still wanted to be a rock star when he grew up and Minho still played soccer everyday after school. Kibum, after showing a sudden interest in advanced robotics, had taken up dancing again, often leaving after school to attend lessons.
Jinki went to cram school and learned English, which he figured would help his scores. That spring, his exam results came in first place in his grade. He was pretty proud of himself for that.
“Keep that up for another year and you’ll definitely make it into that school.” Jonghyun said, giving Jinki a congratulatory slap on the back. “I guess I’ll need to find someone else to copy off of in high school. Maybe Kibum. You know which school he’s planning on going to?”
Jinki didn’t, but he really hoped they would stay together for many more years. They said it was easy to lose your middle school friends when you graduate to different schools, and Jinki didn’t want to risk that at all.
-
Rewind back a bit more, and you would see that Jinki had, well, kind-of-sort-of always been taken with Kibum.
At first it was admiration, because Kibum was smart and said what was on his mind and didn’t care if he offended people. On many occasions, he was the one who defended Jinki when the other kids’ teasing got a bit too out of hand.
“So what if his parents are butchers, you stupid twerps. He’s still got more brain cells to rub together than all of you. Combined!”
And Jinki was grateful, because although he didn’t care about what the other kids said, he didn’t want his parents to be ashamed of themselves when they hear he’d been teased because of them.
It was a strange sort of friendship. Polar opposites through and through. Jinki liked that he could say anything to Kibum and not be looked at strangely (although sometimes his jokes did fall a bit flat). It was also strangely flattering to be one of the only people Kibum genuinely enjoyed being with.
So that’s how they wound up spending many of their weeknights, weekends, and holidays together, working on school projects and talking about nonsense. Jinki respected Kibum’s intelligence, the latter having skipped a few grades to be in his class, and Kibum respected Jinki’s work ethic and plodding patience.
They were polar opposites, but they were good friends, and Jinki wanted them to stay that way as long as possible. So even though sometimes his thoughts would stray to Kibum’s lips or Kibum’s hands would linger a bit too long on his arm, Jinki would smile, affectionate and bland, and inquire if Kibum would like to go over their math sets again.
-
“Congratulations,” said Kibum, smiling, “and you kept worrying you wouldn’t make it.”
“It was close though,” Jinki scratched his neck, which was red from all the compliments he’d received that day, and ducked his head humbly “I almost didn’t.”
“Bullshit, you placed first in the exams again. Why wouldn’t they want you?”
Jinki shook his head and looked up, a bashful smile on his face. “But what about you? Have you heard back yet?”
“I probably will in time.” Kibum shrugged. “It’s nice out today. Want to go out for a bike ride to celebrate? We can get ice cream on the way.”
“Sure,” Jinki grinned, “but only if I get to pay.”
-
Like Kibum said, it really was a beautiful day. The warm spring breeze played through their hair as they sped down the bike path. The Han River seemed especially bright, sparkling like the myriad facets of a jewel. Overhead, the sky was blue and endless, the sunlight on their backs only broken by flitting shadows of magpies and pigeons.
It was when they were beside the stone go tables in the park that they heard the loud engines overhead. Suddenly, everything was shadowed by the biggest aircraft Jinki had ever seen.
“The Lysithea,” he whispered, more to himself than anything else.
“Yeah,” Kibum said, arms around Jinki’s waist in the passenger seat. For all of his grace, Kibum had never learned to ride a bike, always preferring to have Jinki take him on his. “They say it’s leaving tomorrow for Pluto with the largest space fleet ever amassed.”
“It’s hard to believe that we’re actually going after them.”
“Isn’t it?”
“There must be a lot of people on board to run that ship.”
“Must be.”
“And to pilot those robots Jonghyun was talking about.”
“Mmmhmm.”
“Anyways,” Jinki cleared his throat, taking the hint that Kibum didn’t want to talk about it, and turned around to ask, “where do you want to go for ice cream?”
Kibum looked distracted, as if he were a world away. “The usual place is good,” he said, and Jinki tried to swallow past the sudden knot of dread in his throat.
-
After ice cream, it was time to go home. Jinki had to help start dinner and Kibum had another dance lesson later that night.
“Don’t be discouraged.” Jinki said, “I’m pretty confident you’ll get in too.”
“Thanks.” Kibum said, but his heart wasn’t in it. He had been quiet and withdrawn ever since they’d seen the Lysithea earlier. Jinki was worried, which only made him more talkative.
“Have you looked at the electives in that school yet? I was thinking we could choose them together. I mean, I know we have different interests, but we might do better if we helped each other in some of them.”
“I would really like that.” Kibum said. Jinki could hear the small sigh in his voice.
“Are you alright?” He asked, concerned.
“Oh I’m fine.” Kibum shook his head, then his voice brightened visibly. “I guess I was just a little worried about not getting in.”
“You shouldn’t at all! You’ll - “
“Pft, of course. I’m pretty sure I will. Not sure why I ever worried about it.” Kibum said, returning to his old self, “You know, I hear they’ve got a home-economics class. Maybe you can take that and learn to bake me a cake.”
“You’re the one who enjoys cooking.” Jinki retorts, “And - “
But what he was about to say was cut off by the sound of other space vessels overhead. They were flying lower this time, and looked much more massive and intimidating than the one before. It got too loud to speak with the ships passing above them, but Jinki didn’t mind. He was more than content to just look up and enjoy the moment with Kibum’s hands braced tight on his shoulder, his breath tickling the back of his ear.
But something’s not right. Kibum’s grip was so rigid it was starting to hurt, and Jinki could feel him shaking against his back. What in the world was going on?
When the ships finally passed, Jinki was determined to get to the bottom of everything. He had a flurry of questions ready on his tongue, but it was Kibum who made the first move.
“Jinki-ah,” he finally said in a voice one might use to talk about the weather, “I’m going to be on that tomorrow.”
Jinki forgot what he was going to say.
-
Jinki had always thought that they were the type of friends who didn’t keep secrets from each other. Sure, maybe small secrets, like it was Jinki who took Kibum’s favourite pen without asking and lost it after, or it was Kibum who ate the jelly cups Jinki packed for lunch. Small, insignificant things.
(The romantic attraction, though, that wasn’t so much a secret as a temporary thing. There was no need to discuss that with each other. Jinki liked their friendship the way it was.)
But it had turned out that Kibum was keeping many secrets from him. Like how the dance lessons were actually pilot training and how he’d never applied for that school at all and how, most heartbreaking of all, he’d chosen to go with the Lysithea, chosen to be light years away from Jinki, who had loved him more than he was willing to admit.
Later, Jinki will wonder if that would have made a difference, if Kibum would have stayed had they just made their feelings clear.
-
i am the boy who waits
The routine life Jinki thought he had wanted just doesn’t feel right. It weighs him down and adds lines to his face. They say it’s nice to be free to lead your own life, but they never mention how lonely it is once you start doing so. Every evening he comes back to his empty apartment, kept neat and sterile by his compulsions, with some take-out and a newspaper bearing the latest news of the Lysithea.
Today it’s talking about their victory at the Orion system eight years ago. It gives Jinki a little hope that Kibum is still alive, because he hasn’t heard from him in over four years.
Kibum had explained this to him before he left, about data transmission and light years and distance as a function of time it takes to receive a message. Jinki had thought it surreal then, but was quickly rid of his disbelief when receiving an email three months later, sent by Kibum only a few days after he left.
The next one was a year later. There, Kibum was near Pluto and wished him well. The next was three years after, when Kibum wasn’t sure where he was but wished him luck on his university exams. Jinki replies the best he can, but wonders when, if ever, Kibum will receive his messages.
Sometimes, late at night in his empty bed, Jinki thinks that maybe, maybe, it’s time to stop waiting. Tonight is one of those nights where he wonders if he should try to find a girlfriend, get married, and start a family.
And suddenly, his phone rings with an email alert. It’s especially loud through the pillow.
His hands are shaking.
Hello the 24 year old Jinki. This is the 16 year old Kibum.
Jinki is the boy who waits. Based on "Voices of a Distant Star"
Notes: Pinch hit for the Musical Chairs exchange at melodicword. Prompt: "Dancing" - Elisa
“I’m tired.” Kibum complains with an exaggerated sigh, sinking into the couch, his arms spread wide. “My feet hurt and my back is killing me.”
Jinki presses his lips together and heads for his room, where he spends the next forty three minutes not thinking about what he has just seen. When sleep does come, it’s fitful, and he spends it chasing an echo of laughter that sounds just familiar enough to be painful.
-
The truth is, Jinki hasn’t seen Kibum in eight years, and he doesn’t expect to see him again for another eternity.
-
Morning finds him weary, exhausted from a night of things he’d much rather not think about. His hand slips under the pillow to retrieve his cellphone.
No new messages. It says. Jinki sits up in bed, plants his feet on the floor, and gets ready for another day.
-
Rewind and you would have found Jinki a cheery, outgoing boy whose biggest worry was getting into the same high school as his best friend. Or rather, his best friend getting into the same school as him, because the averages were competitive and Kibum wasn’t the type to work hard. He was one those people who preferred to devote his time to more interesting things, more abstract things. He also liked to dance, having an almost unnatural awareness of his body’s position in relation to the space around him.
Jinki used to think that Kibum would’ve had a very exciting job one day, perhaps in entertainment or one of those newer, innovative sciences. He himself would have been content at a regular deskjob, occasionally meeting with friends on weekends and leading a sedentary, routine life.
But that was before the war started.
-
On the fifth anniversary of the Mars base establishment, people around the world looked up in the night sky for a glimpse of the red planet, their voices full of pride and wonder. They all knew someone who knew someone who was living there now, readying the base for future expansion. They talked of going there one day for a visit, maybe, to experience the lighter gravity and enjoy the sights in one of those new resorts.
Three days later it was razed to the ground by a race who called themselves the Tarsians. Their solar system had gotten too crowded, and they needed a new place to settle.
-
It was all the news networks would talk about in the following months. Jinki would have been worried, but in his world of cram schools and exam scores, what had happened didn’t really permeate until Jonghyun started talking about combat robotics.
“They’re starting to build them, you know, those huge robots you see in cartoons. I’ve heard they’re putting in some pretty expensive guns on those things.”
“Wait,” Jinki said slowly, “we’re actually going to fight them?”
“Fight them? Of course! They destroyed our Mars Base. It’s practically a declaration of war.”
“But…but the last I’ve heard, we’ve agreed to give them a nearby solar system instead?”
“Maybe they’re afraid they would try to attack again.” Minho said, “Besides, if you look at the universe, the distance between two solar systems is pretty small. They probably figure it’s safer to chase them away now than risk future confrontations.”
“Well, I suppose, but we’re not really a match for…”
“Oh trust me,” Kibum finally interjected with grim smile, “all the countries are bringing out their ‘newly discovered’ technology. We’re not as behind as you might think.”
“Huh. And to think,” Minho murmured pensively, “that all it took for international cooperation was an extraterrestrial race threatening the future of humanity,”
-
Yes, it was a tragedy and yes, it changed the course of Earth’s history has they knew it, but for Jinki, life continued on. Jonghyun still wanted to be a rock star when he grew up and Minho still played soccer everyday after school. Kibum, after showing a sudden interest in advanced robotics, had taken up dancing again, often leaving after school to attend lessons.
Jinki went to cram school and learned English, which he figured would help his scores. That spring, his exam results came in first place in his grade. He was pretty proud of himself for that.
“Keep that up for another year and you’ll definitely make it into that school.” Jonghyun said, giving Jinki a congratulatory slap on the back. “I guess I’ll need to find someone else to copy off of in high school. Maybe Kibum. You know which school he’s planning on going to?”
Jinki didn’t, but he really hoped they would stay together for many more years. They said it was easy to lose your middle school friends when you graduate to different schools, and Jinki didn’t want to risk that at all.
-
Rewind back a bit more, and you would see that Jinki had, well, kind-of-sort-of always been taken with Kibum.
At first it was admiration, because Kibum was smart and said what was on his mind and didn’t care if he offended people. On many occasions, he was the one who defended Jinki when the other kids’ teasing got a bit too out of hand.
“So what if his parents are butchers, you stupid twerps. He’s still got more brain cells to rub together than all of you. Combined!”
And Jinki was grateful, because although he didn’t care about what the other kids said, he didn’t want his parents to be ashamed of themselves when they hear he’d been teased because of them.
It was a strange sort of friendship. Polar opposites through and through. Jinki liked that he could say anything to Kibum and not be looked at strangely (although sometimes his jokes did fall a bit flat). It was also strangely flattering to be one of the only people Kibum genuinely enjoyed being with.
So that’s how they wound up spending many of their weeknights, weekends, and holidays together, working on school projects and talking about nonsense. Jinki respected Kibum’s intelligence, the latter having skipped a few grades to be in his class, and Kibum respected Jinki’s work ethic and plodding patience.
They were polar opposites, but they were good friends, and Jinki wanted them to stay that way as long as possible. So even though sometimes his thoughts would stray to Kibum’s lips or Kibum’s hands would linger a bit too long on his arm, Jinki would smile, affectionate and bland, and inquire if Kibum would like to go over their math sets again.
-
“Congratulations,” said Kibum, smiling, “and you kept worrying you wouldn’t make it.”
“It was close though,” Jinki scratched his neck, which was red from all the compliments he’d received that day, and ducked his head humbly “I almost didn’t.”
“Bullshit, you placed first in the exams again. Why wouldn’t they want you?”
Jinki shook his head and looked up, a bashful smile on his face. “But what about you? Have you heard back yet?”
“I probably will in time.” Kibum shrugged. “It’s nice out today. Want to go out for a bike ride to celebrate? We can get ice cream on the way.”
“Sure,” Jinki grinned, “but only if I get to pay.”
-
Like Kibum said, it really was a beautiful day. The warm spring breeze played through their hair as they sped down the bike path. The Han River seemed especially bright, sparkling like the myriad facets of a jewel. Overhead, the sky was blue and endless, the sunlight on their backs only broken by flitting shadows of magpies and pigeons.
It was when they were beside the stone go tables in the park that they heard the loud engines overhead. Suddenly, everything was shadowed by the biggest aircraft Jinki had ever seen.
“The Lysithea,” he whispered, more to himself than anything else.
“Yeah,” Kibum said, arms around Jinki’s waist in the passenger seat. For all of his grace, Kibum had never learned to ride a bike, always preferring to have Jinki take him on his. “They say it’s leaving tomorrow for Pluto with the largest space fleet ever amassed.”
“It’s hard to believe that we’re actually going after them.”
“Isn’t it?”
“There must be a lot of people on board to run that ship.”
“Must be.”
“And to pilot those robots Jonghyun was talking about.”
“Mmmhmm.”
“Anyways,” Jinki cleared his throat, taking the hint that Kibum didn’t want to talk about it, and turned around to ask, “where do you want to go for ice cream?”
Kibum looked distracted, as if he were a world away. “The usual place is good,” he said, and Jinki tried to swallow past the sudden knot of dread in his throat.
-
After ice cream, it was time to go home. Jinki had to help start dinner and Kibum had another dance lesson later that night.
“Don’t be discouraged.” Jinki said, “I’m pretty confident you’ll get in too.”
“Thanks.” Kibum said, but his heart wasn’t in it. He had been quiet and withdrawn ever since they’d seen the Lysithea earlier. Jinki was worried, which only made him more talkative.
“Have you looked at the electives in that school yet? I was thinking we could choose them together. I mean, I know we have different interests, but we might do better if we helped each other in some of them.”
“I would really like that.” Kibum said. Jinki could hear the small sigh in his voice.
“Are you alright?” He asked, concerned.
“Oh I’m fine.” Kibum shook his head, then his voice brightened visibly. “I guess I was just a little worried about not getting in.”
“You shouldn’t at all! You’ll - “
“Pft, of course. I’m pretty sure I will. Not sure why I ever worried about it.” Kibum said, returning to his old self, “You know, I hear they’ve got a home-economics class. Maybe you can take that and learn to bake me a cake.”
“You’re the one who enjoys cooking.” Jinki retorts, “And - “
But what he was about to say was cut off by the sound of other space vessels overhead. They were flying lower this time, and looked much more massive and intimidating than the one before. It got too loud to speak with the ships passing above them, but Jinki didn’t mind. He was more than content to just look up and enjoy the moment with Kibum’s hands braced tight on his shoulder, his breath tickling the back of his ear.
But something’s not right. Kibum’s grip was so rigid it was starting to hurt, and Jinki could feel him shaking against his back. What in the world was going on?
When the ships finally passed, Jinki was determined to get to the bottom of everything. He had a flurry of questions ready on his tongue, but it was Kibum who made the first move.
“Jinki-ah,” he finally said in a voice one might use to talk about the weather, “I’m going to be on that tomorrow.”
Jinki forgot what he was going to say.
-
Jinki had always thought that they were the type of friends who didn’t keep secrets from each other. Sure, maybe small secrets, like it was Jinki who took Kibum’s favourite pen without asking and lost it after, or it was Kibum who ate the jelly cups Jinki packed for lunch. Small, insignificant things.
(The romantic attraction, though, that wasn’t so much a secret as a temporary thing. There was no need to discuss that with each other. Jinki liked their friendship the way it was.)
But it had turned out that Kibum was keeping many secrets from him. Like how the dance lessons were actually pilot training and how he’d never applied for that school at all and how, most heartbreaking of all, he’d chosen to go with the Lysithea, chosen to be light years away from Jinki, who had loved him more than he was willing to admit.
Later, Jinki will wonder if that would have made a difference, if Kibum would have stayed had they just made their feelings clear.
-
i am the boy who waits
The routine life Jinki thought he had wanted just doesn’t feel right. It weighs him down and adds lines to his face. They say it’s nice to be free to lead your own life, but they never mention how lonely it is once you start doing so. Every evening he comes back to his empty apartment, kept neat and sterile by his compulsions, with some take-out and a newspaper bearing the latest news of the Lysithea.
Today it’s talking about their victory at the Orion system eight years ago. It gives Jinki a little hope that Kibum is still alive, because he hasn’t heard from him in over four years.
Kibum had explained this to him before he left, about data transmission and light years and distance as a function of time it takes to receive a message. Jinki had thought it surreal then, but was quickly rid of his disbelief when receiving an email three months later, sent by Kibum only a few days after he left.
The next one was a year later. There, Kibum was near Pluto and wished him well. The next was three years after, when Kibum wasn’t sure where he was but wished him luck on his university exams. Jinki replies the best he can, but wonders when, if ever, Kibum will receive his messages.
Sometimes, late at night in his empty bed, Jinki thinks that maybe, maybe, it’s time to stop waiting. Tonight is one of those nights where he wonders if he should try to find a girlfriend, get married, and start a family.
And suddenly, his phone rings with an email alert. It’s especially loud through the pillow.
His hands are shaking.
Hello the 24 year old Jinki. This is the 16 year old Kibum.