LOVE KNOWS NO BOUNDARIES...Chapter 4/? (Kyungsoo's POV)
Title: Love knows no boundaries...
Author: tikibuddy91
Characters: Kyungsoo (D.O), Baekhyun, Jonghyun, Miyoung (Tiffany), Taeyeon, Chanyeol (with mentions of Minho, Taemin, Kibum (Key), Jinki, Jongin and Sehun)
Word Count: 3900
Rating: G
Genre: College, AU, crossover
Summary: Four guys have an unique condition. Most of them are college students...You can consider them to be unique...They just feel out of place. Some call it a disability. Some call it an ability to prove people wrong. Flirtations lead to relationships, between two parties of people that you could not possibly dream of.
Bzzzzzt…bbbzzzzttttttt…BBBZZZZZZZZTTTTTT.
Park Kyungsoo wakes up to his pillow vibrating, wondering how the heck is his pillow vibrating. He realizes that it must be his cell phone vibrating in alarm. He reaches under his pillow to find nothing before he reaches inside his pillowcase and finds his cell phone there. He flips it open and looks at the time. It is 7:00AM. He looks up from his bed and sees the bed above him, with a human arm dangling out. He knows Baekhyun, his older twin brother, is not awake yet so he pulls a prank on him by throwing up his pillow to smack him. There is no reaction.
Getting up from his lower bunk bed, Kyungsoo stands up to stretch and looks at his twin, who is blearily awake, stretching his body to an extent a cat would stretch. Baekhyun then turns his head slightly to face his younger brother. Kyungsoo makes out a faint, muffled groan in his ears that must be from Baekhyun, and smiles at him.
“Good dream last-“ Kyungsoo was about to sign “night” when Baekhyun mumbles something and turns his head around. Frowning, Kyungsoo resorts to speaking and prods his older twin awake, “Hyung…wake up! It’s already 7:00AM! Isn’t your boyfriend coming over soon?”
This gets Baekhyun up from his mattress, resting on his elbows.
“Oh crap, Chanyeol’s coming over around 7:45AM! Wait, what time is it, Kyungsoo-yah?!” Baekhyun panics and looks around for their clock. Kyungsoo tries to understand his brother’s mumblings and scrunches his face in confusion at Baekhyun.
“…What? Hyung, look at me when you talk. Your lips were too fast and blurry for me to read, slow down”, Kyungsoo shoots back, “but uhm…the clock says 7:05AM.” He holds up their clock in his hand so Baekhyun can see the red digital numbers staring back. Just then, a male voice belted out, “OH! I’M CURIOUS~ YEAH!!” Baekhyun groans and flops back down to his mattress.
oh~mkyurs…
Kyungsoo looks around as he hears a faint garbled sound but he does not miss the look of despair on his brother’s face as Baekhyun brought his pillow to cover his ears.
“Did you hear something, hyung?” Kyungsoo asks.
Baekhyun lifts his hand to sign, [Yeah, J-H-hyung scream-sing recent. T-o-o early morning!] (Yeah, Jonghyun-hyung just belted out loud…and it’s too early in the morning for singing), he raises his head from the pillow to speak.
“Ugh…it’s just that my boyfriend’s coming over, what’s so exciting about it that makes him sing? Shouldn’t it be me that’s supposed to be in a good mood and singing?” Right on time, Jonghyun sings another line, “I'M SO CURIOUS YEAH~ I’M SO CURIOUS!” Baekhyun rolls his eyes at that.
“Kyungsoo, why don’t you go ahead and shower while I have a talk with hyung. If he continues like that, I’ll tell the noonas about him,” Baekhyun instructs Kyungsoo, facing him while he gets off his bed, and climbs down the ladder. With a nod, Kyungsoo heads to the bathroom, grabbing his towel on the way. Baekhyun groans as he wakes up further out of his reverie and leaves the room for the kitchen.
The apartment that the brothers live in has an unusual layout. When entering the brothers’ apartment, the visitor would see an open floor space that has the dining, living and kitchen areas together, separated by half-walls. One half-wall is opposite the side of the swinging door, serving both as a mini counter to hold shoes and keys and a separation from the dining room to the entry and living room; another half-wall separates the kitchen from the living room to serve as an island. There is a huge flat screen tv on the wall facing opposite to the kitchen and dining rooms. The sofa is placed somewhere between the TV and kitchen, making a wide gap for people to walk through to the hallway. The “main” hallway is merely a rectangular area of space where, when entering it, one will be facing a wall with a door off centered to the right leading to the twins’ bedroom, with Jonghyun’s bedroom on their left, and the laundry on their right. The bathroom is inaccessible from the hallway but rather through either the twins’ bedroom or Jonghyun’s bedroom. They rarely have visitors but, unless it is someone they have known for a while, they never let their guests go through Jonghyun’s bedroom, since his room is not as neat as the twins’ room. Jonghyun is lazy to keep his room organized most times though he does clean his room at other times. No guest wants to wade their way through dirty clothes and comic books on the floor to reach the bathroom.
The brothers are not the only siblings in the Park family; they have older twin sisters living next door. Taeyeon and Miyoung, or as she prefers to be called Tiffany/Fany, have a 5 year gap with their younger twin siblings. Jonghyun and the sister twins are a year apart. They used to live in the same apartment as Jonghyun is living in now, but moved next door to give Kyungsoo and Baekhyun space to live in while the twin brothers go to college. These twin sisters are student teachers at the university nearby, which the twin brothers are currently attending. Jonghyun is a songwriter and does singing gigs at his boyfriend’s café. Baekhyun is pursuing music in college as he hopes to become a singer like his older brother, while Kyungsoo pursues to become a chef. Even if they all have different majors, music was a natural forte for all of them because they hail from generations of singers and musicians. Kyungsoo, despite his hearing loss, can still sing, but it took him several years to train and discipline himself to sing in tune.
Baekhyun enters the kitchen, and whines at Jonghyun about his belting so early in the morning and about his overexcited mood towards having a visitor. Meanwhile, Kyungsoo focuses on his morning routine. In the bathroom, he closes the door that leads to Jonghyun’s room before facing the giant mirror in front of him, studying his face and hands. He turns around to slide the door behind him open that leads to the shower and toilet, then strips and grabs a towel to wrap around his waist before shutting the door. He gets his toothbrush and toothpaste to start brushing his teeth as he walks over to the bathtub and slightly draws the curtain to reveal the faucets. He turns on the tub faucet to adjust the water to his suitable temperature for showering, and once it is warm enough, he switches it to the showerhead and closes the curtain. Kyungsoo takes off his towel and hangs it on a hook near the shower. Still brushing his teeth, he enters the shower through the other end of the curtain. When he is done brushing his teeth, he spits it out and begins to shampoo his hair and lather soap on his body, humming to an English song, Billionaire by Travis McCoy and Bruno Mars.
When I’m a billionaire, oh~ oh~…
Feeling fresh and clean, Kyungsoo takes his toothbrush with him as he gets out of the shower. He dries himself off with his towel and wraps it around his waist. He opens the door, places his toothbrush in the toothbrush rack and goes into his room to change clothes. Once he has his clothes on, he goes around the room to make his and Baekhyun’s beds, and to clean the floor of paper airplanes and crumpled up papers that were left from hours of studying and fooling around afterwards. Kyungsoo looks for his Dry ‘N Store box that is placed on his desk. This box keeps his hearing aids cool and dry over night, hence the name. Just then, Baekhyun enters the room and gets his own towel to shower. Kyungsoo spots him and picks up his hearing aids from the box. On his way out of their bedroom, he notifies Baekhyun that he has cleaned the room and it will be Baekhyun’s turn to clean up their room tomorrow. Baekhyun nods with a smile and goes to the bathroom.
Meanwhile, Jonghyun is humming while cooking up a hearty breakfast that his younger brother, Kyungsoo, has taught him a few months ago. He has been writing down all of his brother’s recipes and instructions on his notecards ever since the first time Kyungsoo decided to teach him what other foods to cook with a little more variation in their bland meals. He takes the notecards out to follow along whenever he feels like making a grand meal. For breakfast, he is making bibimbap, a hot bowl with rice, beef, chili pepper paste, vegetables and a raw egg on top so it cooks up on the hot surface of the pot. Along with that, Jonghyun plans to bring out the mini side dishes that he bought from a grocery market yesterday. The twins have complained in the past that Jonghyun has not tried to do something spontaneous with meals because it always consists of just rice, ramyun and kimchi. Now that Kyungsoo has taught him simple meals to make for at least three people, Jonghyun enjoys cooking for his brothers. It makes him feel more motivated and responsible around the kitchen, but sadly the same cannot be said about his bedroom. He does not have the motivation to keep his room clean, but he has the motivation to cook around in the kitchen.
Jonghyun hears a noise behind him so he looks up from his cutting up vegetables to see Kyungsoo coming.
“Good morning, Kyungsoo-ah!” Jonghyun says cheerily and then looks down to focus back on slicing vegetables. He informs him, “I’m cutting up some vegetables for the bibimbap and the kimchi is still cooking. We have some leftover side dishes from last night that we can eat with our breakfast. Sounds good to you?”
At that moment, Kyungsoo is neither wearing his hearing aids nor does he acknowledge Jonghyun greeting him with a “Good morning”. Poor Jonghyun does not notice these when he asked him of his breakfast plans. So in that brief moment of silence, Jonghyun finishes slicing the last few slices of the bibimbap and turns around to stir the kimchi fried rice.
Jonghyun tells him again slightly louder than before, almost sounding a bit pissed, but trying to be patient, because he has not gotten any comment from his talented chef of a brother, as Kyungsoo watches his older brother cooking. Reading his brother’s face and lips, Kyungsoo hears some mumbling but there are no clearly distinct words to understand. He hurries to put on his hearing aids and waits for a few seconds for them to start up so he can hear his brother.
Silence…BEEP. A rush of noises enters his ears and he hears the fan running above the stove.
The second time, Jonghyun gets more pissed off that he has not heard any replies. Losing his patience, he turns around to shout at Kyungsoo, “YAH.” Kyungsoo jumps a little at the outburst and stares wide-eyed at his scary-looking brother. “Why are you not replying back to my cooking? Don’t you appreciate your hyung cooking breakfast for you all? I said ‘Good Morning’ and ‘what do you think of my cooking?’ But what did I hear? Noth-”
“Good morning, Hyung!” Kyungsoo interrupts with a shy, lip-biting smile, pearly whites showing and the sides of his big eyes crinkling. Jonghyun scoffs and turns around so that he is not facing his brother. Kyungsoo goes up to his brother and hugs him from behind. “The breakfast smells really delicious. And I just put on my hearing aids so I couldn’t respond earlier.”
Jonghyun immediately softens when he hears his brother greeting him. He turns around to regain his manliness and not get weak for his brother. His heart betrays him by melting even more when he feels his brother hugging him and resting his chin on Jonghyun’s shoulder. Jonghyun coos in spite of himself, “Aigoo. Our Kyungsoo is so cute with his shy aegyo.”
Kyungsoo draws back, pouting, and stands next to his hyung. “Hyunngg, I don’t do aegyo. What are you talking about?”
Jonghyun wheels around to look at him with his raised eyebrows, as if saying “You did it just now.” Kyungsoo stares back, frowning in defeat. It is such a total blow to Jonghyun’s being, his heart has already melted at the precious being of his brother, and he gets way too soft easily. Jonghyun smiles and brings his free hand to cup the back of Kyungsoo’s head and ruffles his hair. He leans closer and gives Kyungsoo a peck on his cheek. Kyungsoo is startled by the sudden affection, but does not show signs of disgust.
“Come on, bbo-bbo (Give me a peck),” Jonghyun says to his brother as he turns his own face. Kyungsoo pecks him on the cheek, and Jonghyun slings his arm over Kyungsoo’s shoulders. Kyungsoo knows his brother is easily too affectionate with his family members; after all, Jonghyun did grow up with two sisters for a while, he is the middle child, and the only child that does not have a twin.
Letting his arm fall out of Kyungsoo’s shoulders to grab a bowl for the rice, Jonghyun tells Kyungsoo to help set the table as he finishes cooking. There is a knock on the door. Kyungsoo looks at the clock on the kitchen wall, reading it as 7:30AM. Chanyeol’s really early, he thinks. But then the brothers hear a click and realize that it must be their sisters. Sure enough, Miyoung comes in with an English “Gooooood Moorrrnnninnn’!!” and Taeyeon comes in with “Aoooh, Miyoung-ah, you’re too loud for 7:30AM! We all can hear you just fine.” She chuckles at her eye-smiling sister who goes to hug Kyungsoo.
“Omo omo, it smells delicious. Jonghyun-ah, what are you cooking for your sisters?” Taeyeon smells and hears the sound of breakfast cooking as she heads over to her brother and jokes at him. She nudges her brother with her elbow.
Jonghyun says proudly, “Bibimbap and kimchi…along with some side dishes from the market last night. Kyungsoo says I’m quite the natural, hahaha.” He winks at Kyungsoo. In Miyoung’s arms, Kyungsoo smiles and rolls his eyes in amusement.
Miyoung looks around and asks Kyungsoo, looking at him in the face, “Eh…where’s Baekhyun-ah?” He replies, “Taking a sho-”
THUD THUD THUD THUD.
“NOONAS, I’M HERE!” Baekhyun screams excitedly from the bedroom. Everyone jumps at the sound and hear him coming into the hallway. They watch as he fiddles with the light switch nearby, making a strobe light effect. Jonghyun yells at him, “YAH, STOP MESSING WITH OUR LIGHT SWITCH. WHAT, HAVE I NOT TOLD YOU ENOUGH ALREADY?”
Baekhyun stops and can only giggle at his hyung. The eldest twin sister chuckles at the sight of her brothers and goes to Baekhyun, slinging her arm over his shoulders.
“Baekhyun-ah,” Taeyeon says with an air of humor as they walk to the kitchen/dining area, “you’re getting too old for those strobe light entrances. Yah, you and Miyoung-ah, you guys are too loud in the mornings. Jonghyun, you too. Miyoung and I heard you earlier singing to your own composition. Oh I’m curious~”, she mocks lightly at Jonghyun as he brings the fried rice to the table, sticking his tongue out at her.
“Ah! Unnie, we gotta go! It’s already 7:40! We have the staff meeting at 8, ugh, why do we even have these twice a week, why not just once a week? Anyway, Kyungsoo-yah, please save us some, okay?? Thank you~” Miyoung rambles as she gives each of her brothers a peck on the cheek and Taeyeon gives each of them a hug and a kiss on Kyungsoo’s forehead. “We’ll swing by later tonight! See you guys at school!” Taeyeon informs her twin brothers as she follows Miyoung out, shutting the door behind them.
The brothers snicker at what happened just now and are about to gather at the dining table when they hear a low voice saying “See you later, seonsaengnims!” and a knock.
“Ayo waddup, guys? Ah, annyeonghaseyo, Park Jonghyun-hyungnim…er…-sshi. Kim Chanyeol imnida.” Chanyeol enters to see Kyungsoo and Baekhyun in the dining room but when he opens the door further, he sees Jonghyun walking to the table, about to place the bibimbap bowl on the table. Chanyeol immediately bows to him with the greeting. Jonghyun smiles and nods in acknowledgment.
After taking off his shoes, Chanyeol comes in with his backpack and a smile that causes his right eye to twitch, and Baekhyun finds it adorable. The brothers smile and welcome him to the dining table for breakfast. Chanyeol puts his backpack near the sofa and joins the Park brothers at the dining table.
After the group sits down, they eat and chat for a while. To Jonghyun, Chanyeol seems to be very energetic one minute and then serious the next. He thinks to himself that Baekhyun surely has weird tastes in guys. However, Chanyeol’s bright, outgoing and eccentric personality causes Jonghyun to forget his doubts, and he lets himself be entertained with their new visitor. Chanyeol can be quite a loud chatter, but he knows his manners when it comes to talking with Kyungsoo around; not too loud to overwhelm the others, but not too soft for Kyungsoo to be unable to hear.
Chanyeol has met Kyungsoo often at school since the twins get together during their free time outside of their college classes. He is aware of Kyungsoo’s hearing loss because on his first meeting with Baekhyun’s twin, he caught sight of the hearing aids in Kyungsoo’s ears, and figured out how to converse with him in the most convenient manner possible. Whenever he approaches Kyungsoo alone, Chanyeol glances at Kyungsoo’s ears to check if he is wearing hearing aids or not. He faces Kyungsoo most of the time when it comes to one-on-one or group conversations because, although he has very clear articulation, he does not want Kyungsoo to feel left out, especially in the group conversations.
At the dining table, Kyungsoo looks at everyone’s lips to read their conversations, but he knows, judging by their body language and expressions, when to look away and not get into further conversation. When he feels that what Baekhyun and Chanyeol are about to talk gets a little personal, he can tell by how often they glance at each other and how close their bodies are. When it does get personal between Baekhyun and Chanyeol, he and Jonghyun look away and talk about other things.
Once everyone has eaten breakfast and the boyfriends have had their talk, they face their other two dining members with shy smiles and give each other a peck on the lips. Jonghyun exclaims, “YAH, you guys. Not at my table. We dine at the table, not make out.”
Across from Jonghyun, Chanyeol blushes with an innocent look and a tight-lipped smile as he side-eyes Baekhyun. Baekhyun looks at his older brother and nods in acknowledgment. Kyungsoo smiles and points out to Jonghyun, “Hyung, you and Kibum-hyung kiss in the kitchen and it’s not for kissing, either. Plus, you guys do more than ju-.”
Jonghyun clears his throat and his face whirls slowly to Kyungsoo. Slightly miffed, he gives him a warning look that makes Kyungsoo halt his words. He scoffs and explains, “That’s because I’m already out of university. You two, well three, are not yet out of university. Holding hands, I’m fine with that here at the table but. No. Kissing. Got that?”
Under the table, Chanyeol reaches for Baekhyun’s hand and intertwines their fingers.
Jonghyun notices the slight movement of Chanyeol’s arm towards Baekhyun and he doesn’t fail to catch Baekhyun’s slight blush, and he sighs. “You two are really inseparable, aren’t you? Aish…” Shaking his head, he gets up and gathers the plates as he looks up to the clock in the kitchen. “Yah, you guys, it’s 8:30. You better go to your classes now! I’ll clean up the table.”
Chanyeol, Baekhyun and Kyungsoo stand up to leave the dining table and the twins get ready to leave, going to their bedroom to grab their backpacks. It has not yet registered to Jonghyun how tall Chanyeol is compared to him, as Chanyeol is leaning against the half-wall. He looks up at Chanyeol and tells him, “You know, earlier, I didn’t mean to give you the wrong impression that I didn’t like you. Well to be honest, I had my doubts with you but it was funny ‘cause you’re not what I imagined based on Baekhyun’s description. I didn’t think you’d be that…tall. But Minho’s tall, too, so…this shouldn’t be any different. Minho is Taemin's boyfriend, and Taemin's brother is my boyfriend, Kibum. I swear, tall people are just everywhere I go.” He huffs as he brings the dishes to the sink and goes back to the table to clean up and put away the food for later meals. “Anyway, don’t worry about it. You have a nice personality and I like how you treat my younger brothers, especially Kyungsoo. He doesn’t really have much friends at school, other than Daehyun that I hear about, but not much.”
Chanyeol’s ears perk up at the names of “Minho”, “Taemin” and “Kibum”. He recognizes these names, and something clicked in his mind. He gapes at Jonghyun and asks him, “Do…you know Park Jinki?”
Jonghyun has just started washing the dishes when he looks up at Chanyeol warily. “Yes, I know him. He’s my boyfriend’s boss and I’m friends with him. Why?”
Chanyeol brings his fist to his lips and silently chuckles, with his fist covering his mouth out of respect. He then bows to Jonghyun, “He is my hyung. So this is the Jonghyun that I’ve been hearing about from my brother. It’s such an honor to meet you in person! Baekhyun didn’t tell me you work at my brother’s café! This is so cool!!” His voice has gotten louder towards the end of his praises.
Washing the dishes, Jonghyun goggles at Chanyeol and says, “Seriously? Wow,” he looks at the young adult a little dubiously. “You don’t look like you’re related to Jinki, though.”
Chanyeol insists, nodding his head. “Oh but we are! I just colored my hair and there’s the height difference too. I wouldn’t blame you, hahaha. Oh! Here they come.” Baekhyun and Kyungsoo join in, carrying their backpacks and looking at each other as to what was going on with the loud chatter between their older brother and Chanyeol.
As Jonghyun places the washed dishes on the dish rack, he tells Baekhyun, “Nothing to worry about, Baekhyun-ah. Chanyeol and I were getting more acquainted with each other. Now go go! You guys will be late for class!”
Kyungsoo goes to Jonghyun to hug him, bids him goodbye and warns him to not mess up the stove while they are away at school. Baekhyun waves at Jonghyun and grabs Chanyeol’s hand before leaving out the door. Kyungsoo follows them and shuts the door once outside the apartment. They then walk to school, with Chanyeol talking most of the time, joking around with the brothers, while Baekhyun goofs around, dancing foolishly, and Kyungsoo just laughs and enjoys their company.