➜ 011; snowflakes
Title: Snowflakes
Pairing: Jonghyun/Key
Rating: PG-13 (possible trigger warning)
Summary: Your face is pale, your body's cold.
“Did you know it takes about 3,5 to 5 minutes to finish a cigarette?”
“No, I did not.”
Ash flicked on the ground, smoke crawled from his lips as he spoke-or at least it seemed like smoke, but it could be his breath forming small clouds in the cold night air, too. Kibum wasn't sure.
“And did you know that one cigarette takes about 11 minutes off your life?”
“No, I did not know that either.”
He was shuffling cards again, and throughout the years they had known each other, Kibum had never figured out why he did that. He never played cards, just carried a pack with him wherever he went just like he always carried a pack of cigarettes with him, and whenever he got a chance to sit down, he would take it out and start to shuffle. Kibum did know, however, that Jonghyun knew seven different ways to shuffle cards. But he didn't play.
A small, red circle lit up the darkness around them. It was freezing outside and the leftovers from that day's snow storm were still scattered across the ground, yet he was sitting in those same leftover snow flakes in nothing but basketball shorts and a loose shirt. Jonghyun had noticed the goosebumps on his skin hours before. “Aren't you cold?” he'd asked. “I am,” Kibum had responded, smiling, “but I like the way my skin looks when it's cold.” Jonghyun had only smiled, somewhat glad that there was at least something Kibum liked about himself.
“So now that you know one cigarette takes away more minutes of your life than it takes to smoke one, are you going to quit smoking?”
“No, I am not.” A card fell out of his hands and he looked down at it for a few seconds, disappointment clearly shown on his face. Kibum liked the way he looked, in all honesty; that frown that screwed up his too-handsome features, the way his bottom lip jutted out. He wanted to lean in at nip at it, but Jonghyun moved to pick up his fallen card.
“Do you want to die?”
Jonghyun chuckled. “If I did, I would have jumped already,” he said calmly, not mockingly, and nodded at the railing that separated the roof they were on from ultimate disaster.
“Some people don't have the guts to actually do it, but they still want to.”
“People like you?”
Kibum inhaled sharply, the ice cold air burning in his nose. “...Yeah.”
The older guy flicked his cigarette to the side and Kibum's eyes followed their journey through the air until they smacked on the ground, bouncing a little, joining the rest of Jonghyun's cigarette butts. It stopped burning the very second it hit the snow. When he turned back, Jonghyun already had another cigarette propped between his plush but quivering lips-he was all bundled up, thick shoes and thick socks and long pants and a thick sweater with an even thicker jacket, but he was still cold-and lit it, an explosion of smoke coming out of his mouth when he exhaled, before properly dragging from it.
Despite hating the habit, and even more so hating his mother's outraged lectures when he came home smelling like smoke once again because she refused to believe “a friend of mine smokes” would explain it all, there was something very fascinating about watching Jonghyun smoke. He never held the stick, he always kept it between his lips, or between his teeth, Kibum couldn't tell. He liked the way Jonghyun's words were depicted in nicotine whenever he talked, like his words were meant to be toxic. He liked the way Jonghyun slightly narrowed his eyes and frowned whenever he took a drag. He even liked the way Jonghyun's hair and clothes smelled like smoke whenever Kibum came close enough to notice it.
“Can I have one?” he asked, already reaching out for the pack that lay between them, as if it was testing him, luring him in, staring up at him with those Marlboro-red eyes.
“No, you cannot.”
Kibum's hand awkwardly lingered in the air. “But I want one.”
“No, you don't.”
Whenever Jonghyun decided to shorten his words, Kibum knew he had to quit. His hand fell on the floor, fingers scraping for snow, feeling it melt against the tips of them. It stayed quiet save for the shuffling of Jonghyun's cards, the movements of his fingers against them, and the occasional sound of blotting paper burning whenever Jonghyun took a long, always a long, drag.
“Did you know I'm in love with you?”
“You're not.”
“I am, though.”
“Kibum, you're seventeen.”
He gritted his teeth and wanted to say “so are you”, but he knew that argument wasn't valid, because it was Jonghyun's birthday in a few weeks.
Sometimes, he wondered why Jonghyun still bothered to hang out with him. They could have good conversations from time to time, but at the same time, most of their time was spent in silence. Kibum had a loud mind and an even louder mouth, but when it came to Jonghyun, he found his mind going completely blank save for the questions and words to say in order to make Jonghyun talk back to him. Sometimes, the older insulted him to the point Kibum's heart ached. But at least he talked.
And sometimes, he wondered why he even bothered to call Jonghyun and ask if he could come over. He never asked the older guy to come over to his house, because Jonghyun lived in an apartment all by himself with an accessible roof and he thought that was pretty cool. He was sure Jonghyun had some negative reasons for it but that didn't matter because it looked like he was free, and not trapped in the cage of having parents around like Kibum did. Maybe if Jonghyun liked him back, they could make great use of that freedom, but he doubted that would ever happen.
“Would you believe me if I were older?”
Jonghyun paused in his movements for a second and dragged from his cigarette, before he took it out from between his lips. He looked at Kibum through the curtain of smoke he exhaled and blindly tapped off some ashes. “You never kissed me, though.”
“I don't want to kiss an ashtray.” Kibum frowned when the guy in front of him merely grinned. “Maybe I will kiss you when you stop smoking.”
“You're just afraid of being rejected.”
“I don't want you to die.”
“You don't want to be left alone.”
“I won't be alone.”
Jonghyun chuckled, and Kibum could read the words off of his face; “Yeah, you will be”. He didn't even have to say them out loud. He wasn't sure what hurt more, knowing Jonghyun was right, or knowing that Jonghyun simply knew he was right. Every single word. His eyes felt damp and he'd like to believe it was but the cold air blowing into them, but he knew better. Like clockwork, Jonghyun's grin was replaced by a somewhat concerned twitch of his lips. His eyebrows were knitted together and his eyes wandered over Kibum's skin, making the younger boy shiver even more.
“Kibum, your nails are purple.”
He looked down at them and snickered. “I guess they are.”
“Your skin is white.”
“It always has been.”
“No, I didn't mean pale, I meant white.”
He lowered his legs, which had been drawn up to his chest, to the ground and compared them to the snowflakes. There was no difference; a pure white. There were little specks on his skin, fine lines that were only barely visible against the color of his skin now, hidden beneath the goosebumps on his skin. He heard Jonghyun ask something, something he couldn't even register, but he shook his head. He flexed his fingers and looked at the tips of them, the faint blotch of red that elicited beneath his skin, but he didn't feel them. He poked his skin, but nothing.
“Do you want to go inside?” Jonghyun asked. Kibum looked up at him and noticed his cigarette has been thrown away, apparently, and his cards were neatly stacked inside the cave of his folded hands.
“Did you know-”
“Kibum.”
“I'm fine.”
Kibum wasn't used to spitting and Jonghyun wasn't used to being spat at, and it made the younger of the two feel dizzy just off the satisfaction to see Jonghyun offended, for a change. He sighed and reached out for his pack, but he didn't take it; he just reached out, hesitated, and retreated his hand. After a few seconds he was back to shuffling, and Kibum watched him carefully, lights dancing before his eyes which he knew wasn't possible, wasn't real, because the sky was a dark gray and they didn't have any lights with them.
“Light another cigarette.”
“I thought you didn't want me to die.”
“I find it pretty and you won't let me light one, anyway.”
Jonghyun seemed to notice the way Kibum's voice had dropped to a slow, soft murmur, so he reached out once again and propped a cancer stick between his lips. “You're so weird,” he muttered around it before lighting it. Kibum briefly wondered how it was possible for his friend's lighter to still work after being tossed in the damp snow several times already. The darkness was temporarily gone by the light at the end of Jonghyun's cigarette and Kibum smiled to himself, letting the image literally burn on his vision. He blinked a few times, but it didn't go away. For some reason, it felt reassuring.
“Do you see the Thanksgiving turkey now, little match-seller?”
Kibum snickered and drew his legs to his chest again, folded his arms over them and let his face rest on them, cheek pressed against his cold skin, face still turned to Jonghyun. He was starting to feel tired, but he wanted to watch Jonghyun. He wondered what time it was. How long it had been since he left home. His phone was at home and he knew Jonghyun's was downstairs, in his room, on his bed to be specific.
He closed his eyes for a second, and thought about it. How many times did his mother ring? Maybe she had left angry voicemails on his phone. “Are you asleep?” Jonghyun asked, pulling Kibum out of his thoughts and back to the dim reality.
“You're talkative tonight.”
As if to prove him wrong, Jonghyun merely hummed.
“I like when you're talkative.”
“Well, you also like when I ruin my lungs, so I am not sure how to take that.”
Little snowflakes danced down from the grim clouds above them and Kibum lifted his head to look at them, to feel them land on his skin. He didn't actually feel them, but he noticed them on his eyelashes, and he batted them a few times to get rid of the flakes. Winter was his favorite season, even if it was drawn out to even this time of the year. But so was autumn; not spring though, and definitely not summer either.
“Shall I tell you a secret?”
“Sure.”
Kibum smiled to himself, wiggling his bare toes in the snow. “I swallowed a whole bottle of pills before I got here.”
A/N: A thousand apologies for my absence. This is what happens when there is too much MCR and ETF on my shuffle. Thank you for reading. ♥
Pairing: Jonghyun/Key
Rating: PG-13 (possible trigger warning)
Summary: Your face is pale, your body's cold.
“Did you know it takes about 3,5 to 5 minutes to finish a cigarette?”
“No, I did not.”
Ash flicked on the ground, smoke crawled from his lips as he spoke-or at least it seemed like smoke, but it could be his breath forming small clouds in the cold night air, too. Kibum wasn't sure.
“And did you know that one cigarette takes about 11 minutes off your life?”
“No, I did not know that either.”
He was shuffling cards again, and throughout the years they had known each other, Kibum had never figured out why he did that. He never played cards, just carried a pack with him wherever he went just like he always carried a pack of cigarettes with him, and whenever he got a chance to sit down, he would take it out and start to shuffle. Kibum did know, however, that Jonghyun knew seven different ways to shuffle cards. But he didn't play.
A small, red circle lit up the darkness around them. It was freezing outside and the leftovers from that day's snow storm were still scattered across the ground, yet he was sitting in those same leftover snow flakes in nothing but basketball shorts and a loose shirt. Jonghyun had noticed the goosebumps on his skin hours before. “Aren't you cold?” he'd asked. “I am,” Kibum had responded, smiling, “but I like the way my skin looks when it's cold.” Jonghyun had only smiled, somewhat glad that there was at least something Kibum liked about himself.
“So now that you know one cigarette takes away more minutes of your life than it takes to smoke one, are you going to quit smoking?”
“No, I am not.” A card fell out of his hands and he looked down at it for a few seconds, disappointment clearly shown on his face. Kibum liked the way he looked, in all honesty; that frown that screwed up his too-handsome features, the way his bottom lip jutted out. He wanted to lean in at nip at it, but Jonghyun moved to pick up his fallen card.
“Do you want to die?”
Jonghyun chuckled. “If I did, I would have jumped already,” he said calmly, not mockingly, and nodded at the railing that separated the roof they were on from ultimate disaster.
“Some people don't have the guts to actually do it, but they still want to.”
“People like you?”
Kibum inhaled sharply, the ice cold air burning in his nose. “...Yeah.”
The older guy flicked his cigarette to the side and Kibum's eyes followed their journey through the air until they smacked on the ground, bouncing a little, joining the rest of Jonghyun's cigarette butts. It stopped burning the very second it hit the snow. When he turned back, Jonghyun already had another cigarette propped between his plush but quivering lips-he was all bundled up, thick shoes and thick socks and long pants and a thick sweater with an even thicker jacket, but he was still cold-and lit it, an explosion of smoke coming out of his mouth when he exhaled, before properly dragging from it.
Despite hating the habit, and even more so hating his mother's outraged lectures when he came home smelling like smoke once again because she refused to believe “a friend of mine smokes” would explain it all, there was something very fascinating about watching Jonghyun smoke. He never held the stick, he always kept it between his lips, or between his teeth, Kibum couldn't tell. He liked the way Jonghyun's words were depicted in nicotine whenever he talked, like his words were meant to be toxic. He liked the way Jonghyun slightly narrowed his eyes and frowned whenever he took a drag. He even liked the way Jonghyun's hair and clothes smelled like smoke whenever Kibum came close enough to notice it.
“Can I have one?” he asked, already reaching out for the pack that lay between them, as if it was testing him, luring him in, staring up at him with those Marlboro-red eyes.
“No, you cannot.”
Kibum's hand awkwardly lingered in the air. “But I want one.”
“No, you don't.”
Whenever Jonghyun decided to shorten his words, Kibum knew he had to quit. His hand fell on the floor, fingers scraping for snow, feeling it melt against the tips of them. It stayed quiet save for the shuffling of Jonghyun's cards, the movements of his fingers against them, and the occasional sound of blotting paper burning whenever Jonghyun took a long, always a long, drag.
“Did you know I'm in love with you?”
“You're not.”
“I am, though.”
“Kibum, you're seventeen.”
He gritted his teeth and wanted to say “so are you”, but he knew that argument wasn't valid, because it was Jonghyun's birthday in a few weeks.
Sometimes, he wondered why Jonghyun still bothered to hang out with him. They could have good conversations from time to time, but at the same time, most of their time was spent in silence. Kibum had a loud mind and an even louder mouth, but when it came to Jonghyun, he found his mind going completely blank save for the questions and words to say in order to make Jonghyun talk back to him. Sometimes, the older insulted him to the point Kibum's heart ached. But at least he talked.
And sometimes, he wondered why he even bothered to call Jonghyun and ask if he could come over. He never asked the older guy to come over to his house, because Jonghyun lived in an apartment all by himself with an accessible roof and he thought that was pretty cool. He was sure Jonghyun had some negative reasons for it but that didn't matter because it looked like he was free, and not trapped in the cage of having parents around like Kibum did. Maybe if Jonghyun liked him back, they could make great use of that freedom, but he doubted that would ever happen.
“Would you believe me if I were older?”
Jonghyun paused in his movements for a second and dragged from his cigarette, before he took it out from between his lips. He looked at Kibum through the curtain of smoke he exhaled and blindly tapped off some ashes. “You never kissed me, though.”
“I don't want to kiss an ashtray.” Kibum frowned when the guy in front of him merely grinned. “Maybe I will kiss you when you stop smoking.”
“You're just afraid of being rejected.”
“I don't want you to die.”
“You don't want to be left alone.”
“I won't be alone.”
Jonghyun chuckled, and Kibum could read the words off of his face; “Yeah, you will be”. He didn't even have to say them out loud. He wasn't sure what hurt more, knowing Jonghyun was right, or knowing that Jonghyun simply knew he was right. Every single word. His eyes felt damp and he'd like to believe it was but the cold air blowing into them, but he knew better. Like clockwork, Jonghyun's grin was replaced by a somewhat concerned twitch of his lips. His eyebrows were knitted together and his eyes wandered over Kibum's skin, making the younger boy shiver even more.
“Kibum, your nails are purple.”
He looked down at them and snickered. “I guess they are.”
“Your skin is white.”
“It always has been.”
“No, I didn't mean pale, I meant white.”
He lowered his legs, which had been drawn up to his chest, to the ground and compared them to the snowflakes. There was no difference; a pure white. There were little specks on his skin, fine lines that were only barely visible against the color of his skin now, hidden beneath the goosebumps on his skin. He heard Jonghyun ask something, something he couldn't even register, but he shook his head. He flexed his fingers and looked at the tips of them, the faint blotch of red that elicited beneath his skin, but he didn't feel them. He poked his skin, but nothing.
“Do you want to go inside?” Jonghyun asked. Kibum looked up at him and noticed his cigarette has been thrown away, apparently, and his cards were neatly stacked inside the cave of his folded hands.
“Did you know-”
“Kibum.”
“I'm fine.”
Kibum wasn't used to spitting and Jonghyun wasn't used to being spat at, and it made the younger of the two feel dizzy just off the satisfaction to see Jonghyun offended, for a change. He sighed and reached out for his pack, but he didn't take it; he just reached out, hesitated, and retreated his hand. After a few seconds he was back to shuffling, and Kibum watched him carefully, lights dancing before his eyes which he knew wasn't possible, wasn't real, because the sky was a dark gray and they didn't have any lights with them.
“Light another cigarette.”
“I thought you didn't want me to die.”
“I find it pretty and you won't let me light one, anyway.”
Jonghyun seemed to notice the way Kibum's voice had dropped to a slow, soft murmur, so he reached out once again and propped a cancer stick between his lips. “You're so weird,” he muttered around it before lighting it. Kibum briefly wondered how it was possible for his friend's lighter to still work after being tossed in the damp snow several times already. The darkness was temporarily gone by the light at the end of Jonghyun's cigarette and Kibum smiled to himself, letting the image literally burn on his vision. He blinked a few times, but it didn't go away. For some reason, it felt reassuring.
“Do you see the Thanksgiving turkey now, little match-seller?”
Kibum snickered and drew his legs to his chest again, folded his arms over them and let his face rest on them, cheek pressed against his cold skin, face still turned to Jonghyun. He was starting to feel tired, but he wanted to watch Jonghyun. He wondered what time it was. How long it had been since he left home. His phone was at home and he knew Jonghyun's was downstairs, in his room, on his bed to be specific.
He closed his eyes for a second, and thought about it. How many times did his mother ring? Maybe she had left angry voicemails on his phone. “Are you asleep?” Jonghyun asked, pulling Kibum out of his thoughts and back to the dim reality.
“You're talkative tonight.”
As if to prove him wrong, Jonghyun merely hummed.
“I like when you're talkative.”
“Well, you also like when I ruin my lungs, so I am not sure how to take that.”
Little snowflakes danced down from the grim clouds above them and Kibum lifted his head to look at them, to feel them land on his skin. He didn't actually feel them, but he noticed them on his eyelashes, and he batted them a few times to get rid of the flakes. Winter was his favorite season, even if it was drawn out to even this time of the year. But so was autumn; not spring though, and definitely not summer either.
“Shall I tell you a secret?”
“Sure.”
Kibum smiled to himself, wiggling his bare toes in the snow. “I swallowed a whole bottle of pills before I got here.”
A/N: A thousand apologies for my absence. This is what happens when there is too much MCR and ETF on my shuffle. Thank you for reading. ♥