Aberration.

word count: 17839

 

Kyungsoo has a collection of favourite photographs.

They don’t go in the photo album with his proper work, but rather, are kept wrapped in an old, stretched-out elastic band, bundled together in a way that bends them slightly, and slipped underneath the album of his other pictures, kept in a shoe box under his bed.

In the first, another boy around his age grins at him from across a dance practice room floor, where he sits doing stretches. The picture quality isn’t good, since Kyungsoo didn’t have his camera settings adjusted right, and then also his own reflection is caught in the practice room mirrors in a classic photography faux pas. It’s not the worst photo in the world – the room looks warm and well-lit enough that the picture is still visually interesting – but it’s still nothing that any kind of photographer, casual or professional, would write home about.

And yet here it is. Developed, and sitting under Kyungsoo’s bed, like it’s something worth caring about.

Another one in the collection is of a young seedling. The only thing remarkable about this photo, is how remarkably bad the photography is. The picture doesn’t follow the rule of thirds, nor is it in perfect symmetry, and the top branches have been clumsily cropped off. All in all, it’s a picture most self-respecting photographers would have deleted from their camera reel without a second thought. But here, Kyungsoo has it in physical form, and hidden away like something precious.

The next one is of Kyungsoo himself, from the torso up, cutting off his legs. He’s got one hand lifted to block his face from the camera lens, and another covering his mouth in an attempt to smother his own laughter. The picture is slightly blurred, almost as if the photographer was laughing as hard as Kyungsoo was, fingers shaking too much to keep the camera steady when he pressed down to capture the image.

The fourth is a selca. It’s of him and the boy from the first picture, their cheeks mushed together forcefully as the other’s arm disappears out of view to snap the picture. The entire thing is skewed, and the proportions are weird, with their foreheads looking too big, and their chins too small. It’s even taken on a cell-phone camera, and Kyungsoo’s photographer heart should sneer in disdain.

It doesn’t though.

The last picture is the only one that could pass as even remotely photographically sound. This one is of the same boy that’s in the first and fourth pictures, and this time he isn’t smiling. This time he’s asleep, lying amidst pools of dark blue blankets, a sunbeam catching in his eyelashes. This one is in perfect detail, tan skin so flawless it’s almost tactile. It’s visually brilliant, and it probably belongs in the photo album along with his other professional work, but Kyungsoo hordes it away, keeps it in the small collection of photos meant only for his eyes.

To anyone else, the series of pictures might seem random, disconnected. But Kyungsoo knows that they all have one thing in common.

Kim Jongin.

Kim Jongin is the one doing stretches on the practice room floor, and the one smushing his face up against Kyungsoo’s in the awkwardly endearing selca. He’s the one who took the terrible picture of the seedling, and the one who snapped the unwilling picture of Kyungsoo’s laughter.

He’s also the one asleep, nestled into too many of Kyungsoo’s blankets on a cold day. He’s serene and picture perfect, and completely unaware of the camera.

Kyungsoo hopes to keep him that way.

Because while nobody knows about Kyungsoo’s secret little stash of photographs – and nobody ever will if he has his way – the last person on this earth he wants to find out about them is Jongin.

And the problem is that he’s not even entirely sure why.

But what he is sure of, is that Jongin can never know.

That would be complicated.

 

---

 

The first picture is taken the day that he first meets Jongin properly. It’s chilly in the dance practice room, and Kyungsoo shivers under his school blazer and scarf, watches Jongin rocking, restless, back and forth on his feet.

“Just pretend I’m not here,” Kyungsoo says, as he clicks the lens of his camera into place and doesn’t look up at the other boy. “The photos are meant to be natural, not posed. So don’t do anything special for the camera.”

Jongin nods, but remains silent as he shifts his weight off of one foot, and begins rolling his ankle to warm it up. If Kyungsoo were looking up from where he is now wiping down the camera lens, crouching in front of his camera bag with all of his equipment laid out, he would notice the other’s eyes flitting to his hunched figure in the practice room mirrors every now and again, curiously.

He sighs softly to himself as he pushes the battery pack into his camera.

He’d rather not be here right now.

And it’s all Baekhyun’s fault that he is.

It started in the school newspaper club room, with him, Minseok, Junmyeon, and said Baekhyun huddled together around plastic cups of lukewarm tea from Junmyeon’s thermos. Minseok had commented on the dwindling popularity of the club and of the newspaper itself, and had asked for suggestions on how to increase interest within the student body.

“We could have a Q&A section,” Junmyeon had suggested, hands wrapped firmly around his cup in order to glean as much warmth from it and into his hands as possible on such a cold, late-November day. “Or like, one of those advice column things.”

“We had something like that back when Jongdae was president,” Minseok replied, eyes downcast as he jotted down the idea anyway. “’Wasn’t very popular. Got about two questions in total and had to be scrapped.”

They sat in silence for another minute, knees bumping together in the middle of their small, misshapen circle, listening to the metallic clicking of the space heater doing absolutely nothing to keep them any warmer. Baekhyun had shifted, ruffling the synthetic outer layer of his puffy jacket and drawing Kyungsoo’s attention away from the window and the last of the orange and red leaves outside.

“I have an idea.”

Minseok had tapped his pencil on his notepad twice before looking up, and Junmyeon had crossed his ankles.

“We could do a series of articles on actual students.” Baekhyun had paused then, cleared his throat, shook his head, and tried again to rephrase what he was saying. “What I mean is, we choose a particular student each week, and write a brief profile piece on them. Like what their hobbies are, how it is they get such good grades, or whatever the case may be with that particular person.”

Junmyeon hummed in interest, and Kyungsoo studied Minseok’s shoes.

“The trick is that we choose the more popular students.” Baekhyun is excited, shifting restlessly in his seat. “People that the other students want to know more about, so that they’ll read the article. Sorta like giving them celebrity gossip, I guess.”

There was a pause.

“It could work,” said Junmyeon.

Minseok looked up from where he had been scribbling Baekhyun’s words down into his notebook.

“We might as well give it a try,” he’d said, glancing out at the Autumn leaves himself. “It’s not like we have any other ideas.”

“Great!” Baekhyun had bounced in his seat, enthusiasm too bright for the quiet of the clubroom, in Kyungsoo’s opinion. “And I know just the person to start off with!”

And it turns out that just the person to start off with was Kim Jongin. Attractive, swoon-worthy, most-popular-with-freshman-girls, Kim Jongin. Someone who Kyungsoo doesn’t know personally, and doesn’t really care to.

And Minseok, who was supposed to do the photography for this section, is home sick with a cold, and had begged Kyungsoo to step in and take his place, promising that he’d be better by next week, and would photograph for the next article.

So now Kyungsoo is here, in a dance practice room, with Kim Jongin, feeling a little awkward from the way Jongin examines everything he does so closely.

Watching Jongin warm up for one of his biweekly ballet practice sessions.

But he’d rather not be.

Because if it weren’t for Baekhyun, he’d be out snapping pictures of the gardening club’s newly planted seedlings, for an article that was scrapped in order to make space for the profile section. And it’s not that Kyungsoo has anything against Jongin, per say, but…

People are complicated. They confuse him.

And Kyungsoo likes photographing nature and scenery more anyway. Seedlings can’t move just when the lighting is right, don’t make him miss the perfect shot. Nature doesn’t try to speak to him when he’s concentrating.

He presses the power button on the camera now, bringing the viewfinder up to his right eye so that it skews his glasses a little. It’s when he clicks to capture an experimental shot of Jongin bending down to touch his toes, that the other finally speaks.

“Your name’s Kyungsoo, right?”

Kyungsoo glances at him briefly as he lowers the camera, and is met with an unreadable gaze. But he’s not very good with eye contact, so he looks back down almost immediately, goes to fiddle with his aperture levels.

“Yeah.” Then Kyungsoo thinks about that. “How’d you know?”

“Uhh,” Jongin pauses as he lowers himself to the floor, legs stretched out in front of him as he leans back on his palms and points his toes. “I’ve seen you ‘round before.”

Kyungsoo’s eyes flicker up and he’s glad Jongin’s not looking at him now. He watches Jongin point and flex his toes a couple of times, before he opens his legs and leans over to the side, fingers reaching out to rest on the pointed toe of one soft leather ballet slipper.

“You’re friends with Chanyeol, aren’t you?” And oh, that stare is back on him, studying. Jongin’s got very intense eyes, and it’s a little unnerving. “And Baekhyun, right?”

Kyungsoo hums and nods his assent before dipping back down to adjust the shutter speed on his camera. He raises the device again to take another picture – this time of Jongin reaching forward, palms flat on the floor as he stretches out his back – and this one comes out a little better than the first, the warm lighting playing on golden skin and soft brown hair.

“You don’t talk much, do you?” Jongin asks, as he shifts sideways and attempts to do the splits. It’s a valiant effort, with him being about five centimetres away from completely touching the floor, but Kyungsoo isn’t looking at that. His eyes flicker up to Jongin’s face, trying to detect any signs of the malice or judgement he’s gotten so used to there.

But there isn’t any. Just the soft way Jongin smiles at him. It’s almost fond, and Kyungsoo doesn’t like it, so he lifts the camera, twists the focus ring, and takes another picture.

“I don’t.”

Kyungsoo watches Jongin’s smile widen from through the viewfinder.

“Makes me wonder how you get on with such loudmouth friends.”

He puffs out a soft breath of laughter just as he takes, making him jostle the camera so that his next shot comes out a little blurry. But when he goes down to look at it, Jongin’s smiling at him so genuinely from the captured still on his camera screen, that when his finger hovers just over the bright red ‘delete’ button, he hesitates.

He should, he reasons. He should delete that photo. He’s a photographer, after all, and every picture on his memory card taking up space should be one that’s potentially useful, not full of blurry warm smiles, and a pair of twinkling eye that have far too many admirers for Kyungsoo to be adding to the list.

Jongin is just photographic. That’s all.

So, as the photographer, it’s natural that he’s a little taken.

But there are plenty of photogenic people in the world. And it isn’t as if Jongin is somehow special because of it.

He doesn’t delete it though.

When he next lifts his camera, Jongin has raised himself from the floor and gone to stand by the barre, finally finished with his stretches.

“I’ve just known them for a long time,” Kyungsoo speaks softly, hiding behind his camera. “That’s all.”

Jongin hums in understanding, and drops down into a demi plie that Kyungsoo takes a picture of, all strong flexed calves, and soft, graceful arms.

But it’s not just that, if Kyungsoo’s honest. It’s not just that he’s known Chanyeol and Baekhyun for a long time.

It’s that they get it – that Kyungsoo doesn’t really do the whole socialising thing. They understand that Kyungsoo is quiet. That he doesn’t usually have much to say. That he isn’t always comfortable in large groups.

And they’ve never judged him for it. Never teased or bullied like all of the other kids in their middle school used to do.

And for that, Kyungsoo will be eternally grateful.

Besides, the fact that they talk so much is a nice complement to him talking so little.

He lowers his camera to his lap once more, toggles a couple of the settings again, and lifts it just in time to get a picture of Jongin bending down into his last grand plie, just before he moves into a series of quick tendus, toes sliding out and snapping back against the wooden floor so noisily that it almost overpowers the soft music flowing from Jongin’s portable speakers.

This is the first picture to come out just right, the shadows from Jongin’s long lashes replicated slightly out of focus in the mirrors behind him. Kyungsoo lifts himself off of the floor, and finds a better position to photograph Jongin from – one where his own reflection won’t be caught in the pictures.

He watches as Jongin continues with his barre work, moving from tendus to rond de jambe, from rond de jambe to assembles. Once he’s done at the barre, he shifts to the centre, and Kyungsoo backs himself up to click away pictures of glissades and relevés. At one point, he shuffles over to his equipment to change over to his wide-angled lens, so that he can capture Jongin in the warmly-lit expanse of the entire practice room.

Jongin’s good looks and the aesthetic of the postures in which he holds himself make for some really breath-taking photographs, and Kyungsoo finds himself enraptured in his task. He imagines that if this is what Jongin looks like in a practice room on a normal day, then onstage, with the lights and the makeup and the costumes, he really must be stunning.

He watches Jongin spin and spin and spin across the wooden floor, and catches himself thinking: this is what talent looks like.

But then, he’s no expert really.

And when he notices that the light streaming in through the window closest to him has darkened dramatically since he last glanced out, he looks down at his watch in alarm.

It’s nearly time for him to be leaving.

He lowers his camera and sifts through the taken pictures to check whether he’s captured enough material. The takes are good – Jongin has a face that the camera likes, and he comes out naturally glowing in each picture. There’s one of him mid-pas de chas that Kyungsoo is particularly proud of.

He moves back over to his equipment, beginning to pack it all away, when Jongin speaks again.

“You’re leaving?”

He turns to peer over his shoulder at Jongin, who has stopped working on his pirouettes to breathe heavily, arms elevated and hands on the back of his neck, regarding Kyungsoo interestedly.

 “I have hagwon.”

“Ahh,” Jongin nods in understanding, and stands back in fifth position, lowering his arms as if to start all over again.

And Kyungsoo usually doesn’t ask questions out of turn, usually wouldn’t speak unprompted, but his curiosity gets the better of him.

“You… don’t go to hagwon?”

Jongin drops his arms from where he had them raised in first position.

“No, I don’t really… have a need for it?” Jongin scratches the back of his head as he searches for the right words. “I mean, I’m going to be a dancer, so I don’t really need my marks to be high. Dance academies don’t look at that.”

“I see.”

Kyungsoo turns back to his equipment so Jongin won’t notice the corners of his mouth turn downwards.

I’m going to be a dancer.

Jongin sounds so sure.

He stands up, slinging his camera bag over his shoulder.

“Thank you for letting me sit in today, Jongin-ssi. I have enough pictures so I won’t be bothering you again.”

Jongin smiles so warm and radiant that Kyungsoo has to look away.

“You didn’t bother me at all, Kyungsoo-sunbae.”

Kyungsoo nods once, lips pressed into a thin line, and he exits the room to the sound of Jongin’s pirouettes against the practice room floor.

I’m going to be a dancer burns itself onto the backs of Kyungsoo’s eyelids.

 

---

 

“Wow,” Junmyeon breathes, as he clicks through the photos on Kyungsoo’s camera.

“These are really good,” says Minseok.

“Thanks hyung,” Kyungsoo mumbles, a tad awkward as he scratches the back of his neck. “Which ones do you want to use?”

“The first wide-angled shot is really nice.” Kyungsoo takes a pencil note in his day planner. “As well as that one of Jongin-ssi bending over by the barre.”

“Also that one of him in mid-air is a good idea too,” adds Junmyeon. “The lighting really makes it pop. Send that one as well.”

“Will we have space for all three?” Minseok wants to know, turning back to Junmyeon. “Remember Jongin-ssi also sent Baekhyun-ah that baby photo, which I don’t think we can cut out. I mean, it’s really adorable.”

“Ahh right. Send all three anyway Kyungsoo-yah. I’ll make the final decision when I do the layout.” Junmyeon tucks a pencil behind his ear and Kyungsoo nods.

It’s when Junmyeon has already left the clubroom and Kyungsoo is packing away his things that Minseok places a hand on Kyungsoo’s shoulder.

“We weren’t messing around, you know.” Kyungsoo’s eyebrows furrow in confusion and Minseok hastens to explain himself. “Earlier I mean. Those photographs really are amazing.”

“Thank you hyung,” Kyungsoo repeats, straightening up at Minseok’s touch.

“Have you ever… considered doing this professionally? You’d be really good.”

Kyungsoo blinks.

“I…” He pauses. Thinks about his words before he speaks. “Photography’s just a hobby for me hyung.”

Minseok looks at him a moment too long for Kyungsoo to be comfortable, before dropping his hand and turning to leave.

“I see. Have a good day Kyungsoo-yah.”

“You too hyung.”

 

Later, when he’s sorting through the photos on his memory card, putting them into their different folders on his flash drive, he comes across that blurry photo of Jongin grinning at him again.

There’s something about that picture, something about how the blur reminds him of his own soft laughter jostling the camera, of Jongin cracking jokes about Kyungsoo’s friends, and smiling so wide when he’d managed to make him laugh, that makes Kyungsoo keep it.

But it doesn’t belong in the folder with pictures he’s lined up for editing. And it doesn’t go with the pictures he’s sending to Junmyeon either. Nor does it have any place with all of his favourite works, already edited, photographically perfect pieces that he keeps in a third folder on his flash drive.

He ends up creating a new folder. Clicks and drags the picture to move it inside.

His fingers hover over the keyboard when he goes to rename that folder, unsure.

Letting out a soft sigh, he opens his email and sends the chosen pictures off to Junmyeon.

He closes his laptop.

The folder remains under the name ‘new folder’ for the foreseeable future.

 

---

 

The second picture is taken two days after the first.

Today finds Kyungsoo outside, with his scarf pulled up high around his face, and an extra jacket layered on top of his blazer for warmth. The school newspaper is running the story on the seedlings after all, since the principal wasn’t too happy about a piece on the faulty water pipe in the second story bathrooms they had planned to run. They’d had to scrap that story, and find something else to fill its empty space with.

It’s really getting cold outside, since early December means that the Autumn weather has finally been switched out for Winter iciness. Kyungsoo’s hands have it worst, since his gloves make it hard to hold the camera steady, and he’d given up long ago, stuffing them into his front pocket instead.

He’s already fully immersed in his task, standard lens swapped out for the wide angled one, kneeling down so that he can get a nice panoramic view of the row of trees, when he hears someone call his name.

At first, he ignores it. Baekhyun and Chanyeol have already gone home, and as far as he knows Minseok and Junmyeon aren’t around either. And there’s no one else in the entire school he can think of that would risk these frigid conditions to come out and talk to him.

It must be his imagination.

But the second time he hears someone call “Kyungsoo-sunbae!”, and it’s closer this time and sounds kind of out of breath, he whips his head round to look over his shoulder.

And there, lo and behold, is the last person he expects to see braving the cold weather to trot towards him, slowing to a walk as he gets nearer.

Kim Jongin.

“Kyungsoo-sunbae!” he repeats, now that he’s close enough, and Kyungsoo gets up to turn and face him. Jongin’s breath is coming out in visible little puffs of smoke, and he drops his hands to his knees for a moment to catch his breath. “Hi!”

“Hi?” Kyungsoo lets go of his camera to tug his scarf down from over his mouth, and lets it hang from the strap around his neck.

“Yeah,” Jongin breathes out again. “Hi.”

Kyungsoo presses his lips into a thin line.

This silence a little awkward, if he’s honest.

“Did you want something?”

Jongin straightens up now with a grin.

“No. Not really.”

Kyungsoo isn’t impressed.

“Then why are you here?”

Perhaps that could have come off as a little rude, but Kyungsoo doesn’t care. Not when Jongin just continues to smile like there’s nothing in the world that phases him, and Kyungsoo continues to be irritated by it.

“I came to see what you were doing.”

Kyungsoo frowns.

“I’m taking pictures.”

Obviously, he doesn’t add.

“Of these trees?” Jongin wants to know, finally looking away from him as he gestures to the row of seedlings behind Kyungsoo, who nods in reply. “Why?”

“The gardening club just planted them,” Kyungsoo explains with a sigh. He really does hate talking. Especially to people he hardly knows, and who think it’s appropriate to come and bother him when the weather’s so cold it’s on the verge of snowing, thus interrupting his progress and prolonging the time he’ll have to spend outside. “And Baekhyun’s writing an article about it.”

“I see,” Jongin nods, rubbing his gloved hands together to try and keep them warm.

But he still doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere, and it irks Kyungsoo.

He likes his nice, quiet nature photography for the way it doesn’t talk to him. And here’s Jongin just ing that all up.

“Don’t you have dance practice or something?”

He’s well aware that the tinge of annoyance in his voice doesn’t go over Jongin’s head, because the other’s smile slips just a notch.

“I twisted my ankle last time, and I have to rest it for today or it will get worse.” Jongin pouts now, and Kyungsoo supposes people might find that somewhat cute. “Can’t I hang out here with you? I’m bored.”

Kyungsoo sighs. Jongin’s practically roped him in with that pout. There’s no way to get him to go away now without being a complete and utter douche about it.

“Fine,” He concedes, turning away and bending down to his camera bag to get his other lens. Jongin skips forward to trace his fingers down the bark of the nearest seedling. “But I’m gonna need you to keep out of the shot.”

“Sorry,” Jongin grins as he comes back to Kyungsoo’s side, watching, enraptured as Kyungsoo switches over to his standard lens. “What are you doing?”

“I’m changing the lens.”

“Why?”

Kyungsoo sighs yet again, and Jongin’s mouth twitches in amusement.

“Am I annoying you?”

Yes, thinks Kyungsoo.

“I like quiet.” He says instead, avoiding answering the question.

Jongin seems undeterred though, and when he suddenly steps forward, reaching out a finger to run along the plastic focus ring of the lens he just took off of his camera, Kyungsoo is so startled that said lens slips from his fingers, aiming for death on the concrete walkway beneath his feet. Jongin is, however, also quick enough to catch it in the cup of two palms, but Kyungsoo can’t help the way his heart tries to beat its way out of his chest at the sight of a very fragile two and a half million won taking a dive towards the pavement.

“Sorry,” Jongin smiles up at him as he tucks the lens into Kyungsoo’s camera bag at his feet. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

Kyungsoo presses the palm of one hand to his chest. Closes his eyes.

Two and a half million won.

“Do not. Drop. My lens.” He chokes out from behind clenched teeth.

“Sorry,” Jongin repeats, a little soberer.

Jongin quiets down for a little while after that, kneeling down next to Kyungsoo’s camera bag to watch him adjust the zoom and focus rings on the standard lens. Kyungsoo snaps a couple of pictures, but, dissatisfied with the result, goes to toggle with his other settings. In fact, Kyungsoo gets so absorbed in his task that he almost forgets the other’s presence, getting a little bit of a fright when he next speaks.

“So why’d you change the lens?”

Kyungsoo lowers the camera to shoot him a look.

“Yeah, I know, I know. You like quiet.” Jongin shrugs. “But I feel like you must be used to people talking to you a lot with friends like yours.”

Kyungsoo lets go of the camera completely, letting it hang by its strap and reaching his hands up to rub at his eyes behind his glasses.

Being around Jongin is somewhat tiring.

“Chanyeol and Baekhyun…” he begins, chewing on his lip. “Talk over me mostly. They usually don’t expect me to respond.”

Jongin full out laughs at that, and it’s one of those loud inappropriate ones that makes even the corners of Kyungsoo’s mouth tick up in amusement. Jongin makes this high-pitched wheezing noise in the back of his throat as the laughter dies out, and Kyungsoo thinks he’s kind of ridiculous.

“Why am I not surprised?” he giggles.

Kyungsoo’s still smiling just a little when he brings the camera up again to snap another picture, this time with a crack in the clouds making weak, wintery sunshine illuminate the bark on the seedling closest to him. It’s a good shot, in Kyungsoo’s opinion.

“The lens I was using earlier was a wide-angled one,” Kyungsoo speaks without lowering the camera or looking at Jongin as he takes another picture, answering his earlier question. “It’s used for wide, panoramic shots, usually landscapes. I was just using it for a little bit of variation. This one is the standard, used for normal photography, and I also have a zoom lens. That’s used for when you can’t get close to your subject matter, like photographing animals for wildlife photography, for example.”

Kyungsoo glances down at Jongin as he twists the focus ring just slightly. Jongin blinks.

“Of course there are lots of other kinds of lenses, but those are the common three most photographers own and use.”

Jongin is silent for a moment, and the only sound that can be heard is the repeated clicking of the camera lens shutter every time Kyungsoo takes another photo.

“That’s the most I’ve ever heard you speak in one go,” Jongin comments when the moment is up.

Kyungsoo shrugs.

“I just know a lot about photography.”

He’s wholly not ready for Jongin to be on his feet and bouncing into his own personal space a moment later.

“Can I try?” Jongin asks, and Kyungsoo doesn’t even have a moment to register what he’s saying before Jongin has taken the device from his hands and lifted the strap over his neck. He’s completely horrified as he watches Jongin aim the camera towards the nearest seedling, pressing down to capture an image that Kyungsoo can already see is photographically awful.

“Give me some tips, hyung,” Jongin demands, and Kyungsoo doesn’t even have time to wonder when he became Jongin’s hyung because he’s hastily taking his camera back, slapping away Jongin’s grabby hands.

“No,” Kyungsoo tries to breathe through his nose. “You cannot try. Don’t touch my camera.”

Jongin pouts again. Kyungsoo’s beginning to realise he’s not as cool as everyone thinks he is.

In fact, he’s kind of… really childish.

“Geez,” Jongin sulks. “Protective much.”

“You would be too if you had a four-million-won camera you could barely afford in the first place.”

“Fair enough,” Jongin concedes. “Was my picture good though?”

Kyungsoo clicks back to look at the most recently taken picture.

No. It really wasn’t.

“You want my honest opinion?” Kyungsoo raises an eyebrow at Jongin.

“Yeah.”

“It’s awful.”

The pout is back.

“Now you’re just being mean.”

“I thought you wanted honesty.”

Jongin peers over Kyungsoo’s shoulder at the picture he took.

“I think it’s great though,” he says flippantly, as he sits back down. “Don’t delete it hyung.”

“Fine, fine,” Kyungsoo waves him off so he can go back to taking more pictures.

And Jongin keeps him company for about another half hour, making pointless small talk and keeping Kyungsoo mildly entertained before he has to pack up his stuff and leave for hagwon.

It’s funny, Kyungsoo thinks, that towards the end of the afternoon together Jongin had stopped annoying him nearly as much as when they’d first started talking. Kyungsoo had almost been able to forget his own severe dislike of any conversation that wasn’t with Chanyeol or Baekhyun or his parents.

It’s almost like he likes Jongin or something. Which is impossible.

But what’s funnier is that when Kyungsoo is sorting through the new photos on his memory card, he hesitates when he gets to Jongin’s picture.

It really is bad. He’s cropped the top branches off in a way no photographer would ever do, and this is not a photo that’s ever going to serve any practical purpose in Kyungsoo’s life.

He should delete it.

He remembers Jongin’s flippant “Don’t delete it hyung,” and he doesn’t even think the other boy meant it but –

He doesn’t.

He doesn’t delete it.

Instead, he slips it into that unnamed ‘new folder’ along with that blurry picture of Jongin doing stretches from two days ago.

He doesn’t know what he’s going to do with these two photos.

All he knows is that he doesn’t want to delete them.

 

---

 

The next day, when Kyungsoo is out on the bleachers photographing the school’s weekly basketball practice for another side-piece Baekhyun is writing (“because that transfer student Kris is just too hot, and Kyungsoo, your gay deserves every excuse to blatantly stare at some homoual eye-candy” were Baekhyun’s own words. Chanyeol had laughed to the point of tears, and Kyungsoo had hit them both), he spots Jongin coming towards him from the other side of the court, skirting around the edges so as not to disturb the game in progress.

Kyungsoo ignores his presence by hiding behind his camera and pretending he doesn’t see him until Jongin is right up next to him, grinning and too imposing for Kyungsoo to ignore his existence anymore.

“Hi,” he says reluctantly, lowering his camera.

“Hello,” replies Jongin pleasantly.

“You want something?”

Jongin takes a seat next to him and jams his hands in between his thighs to keep warm.

“Not really.”

“Oh.” Kyungsoo picks up his camera again. Then: “Your ankle’s still sore?”

“Yup.”

And Jongin continues with that same pleasant small talk as yesterday, happy with nothing more than a couple of nods and hums and no’s and yes’s from Kyungsoo. It irks Kyungsoo just how much Jongin’s company doesn’t irk him, how he can already be so comfortable with someone he’s only really known for three days.

Normally, someone who is as foreign to him as Jongin is, would send him into a cold sweat by seeking out his attention this much.

And there’s that too: why is Jongin back at his side anyway? Surely someone as popular as Kim Jongin can find someone more willing and interesting to hang out with?

Yesterday Kyungsoo had brushed it off as a one-time thing.

Today, he just doesn’t get it.

“Are you messing with me?” Kyungsoo turns suddenly to look at him, cutting Jongin off mid-rant.

(Something about his dogs chewing up his favourite pair of shoes).

“Huh?” Jongin’s eyes go wide. “What do you mean?”

Kyungsoo swallows and takes a moment to think about what he’s trying to say.

“You. Being here.” It doesn’t come out right anyway. “Talking to me the whole time even though you know I don’t like it. Are you messing with me?”

The smile slips completely off of Jongin’s face.

“No? Why would you think that?”

Jongin looks upset, and Kyungsoo doesn’t even know if he’s relieved or not that Jongin isn’t trying to pull some kind of stupid prank, because now he’s even more confused.

“Okay,” he says, turning back to his camera.

Jongin is quiet beside him.

“Sorry,” he mumbles softly, a moment later.

Jongin grins and takes that as his cue to continue on with his story about his dogs.

 

---

 

The third photo is taken the following Monday, and Kyungsoo gets the fright of his life when he’s sitting outside with Chanyeol and Baekhyun during their break time, and suddenly there’s an arm slung around his shoulders, and a Jongin plopping down next to him.

“Hi,” he grins, shifting sideways to jostle Kyungsoo’s shoulder, whose hands fly down to protect the camera cradled in his lap. “Are you ever without that thing?”

Kyungsoo just raises an annoyed eyebrow and Jongin’s smile widens.

“Baekhyun-hyung, Chanyeol-hyung,” he greets with a nod, and the other two watch the scene with more interest than Kyungsoo would like. “How’re you guys doing?”

“We’re great Jonginnie,” Baekhyun replies, smirking when he catches sight of Kyungsoo’s annoyed expression. “But this is a surprise. Why have you decided to grace us with your presence today?”

“Sehun’s off sick,” Jongin pouts, and unlike Kyungsoo, both Chanyeol and Baekhyun chuckle and coo at the action, making Jongin laugh. “And I have no one to hang out with except my Kyungsoo-hyung.”

The arm around his shoulders tightens, drawing him closer, and Kyungsoo unwillingly tips sideways, only managing to stop himself from falling into Jongin’s lap with a hand on his knee. He turns and glares at Jongin, who looks far too amused by the situation, and the other two start laughing at the exchange.

He also wonders when ‘Kyungsoo-hyung’ became ‘my Kyungsoo-hyung’, but he doesn’t think he wants to bring it up in front of Chanyeol and Baekhyun.

“The most popular boy in school doesn’t have anyone to hang out with,” Chanyeol deadpans, looking at Jongin judgementally. “Somehow, I highly doubt that.”

Jongin’s smirk turning evil is the only warning Kyungsoo gets before Jongin grabs him, arms looping in a tight embrace around his torso and pulling him right over.

“Okay but none of them are as cute as my Kyungsoo-hyung!”

Alarmed, Kyungsoo clutches his camera to his chest in a weak effort to protect it as Jongin clings to him like a limpet, letting out a decidedly unmanly sound and kicking at Jongin’s shins until he lets go. He straightens up, completely disgruntled at all this manhandling, only to find Baekhyun and Chanyeol have joined Jongin on the floor from how hard they’re cracking up.

“’M not cute,” Kyungsoo huffs, his cheeks fuming.

The other three only laugh harder.

“With those big eyes?” Chanyeol’s tearing up as he joins in on the teasing. “I’d say you were, Kyungsoo-yah!”

“Don’t forget about his pretty lips!” Baekhyun squeals, just before he and Chanyeol dissolve into a pile of giggling Korean men.

Kyungsoo thinks they’re ing ridiculous.

And it’s just another one of those days when they decide to have a go at him – Jongin’s presence doing nothing to help – so Kyungsoo turns back to flick through the pictures on his camera, like he was doing before Jongin interrupted, trying to ignore the three idiots around him.

“Hyung’s really pretty, actually,” Jongin coos from beside him, and Kyungsoo ignores him even though he really doesn’t like being called pretty. “It’s such a shame you’re always the photographer. Someone should take pictures of you for a change.”

Chanyeol and Baekhyun have recovered from their laughter enough to simper sweetly along with Jongin. Kyungsoo resolutely clicks through to another picture.

“In fact –”

He has no time to prepare himself before the camera is snatched right out of his hands, the strap trailing after it in mid-air like a baton ribbon. Jongin smirks evilly as he turns the camera on him and presses some buttons, twists the focus ring.

Kyungsoo yelps and lunges forward to grab the camera but –

“Get him!” shouts Chanyeol.

 – suddenly, Baekhyun is diving for his waist, arms suffocatingly tight around his midriff as the other yells: “Get his legs!”

All one hundred and eighty-five centimetres of Chanyeol are, without warning, sprawled out and lying painfully across his legs. Kyungsoo tries to wiggle, but the other two hold him fast.

“Let me go,” he seethes, and Jongin’s laughing so hard there are tears collecting in the corners of his eyes.

“Smile hyung!”

Kyungsoo growls instead.

“God dammit Kyungsoo! Smile for the photo,” Baekhyun commands when Kyungsoo grits his teeth and glares as hard as he can in Jongin’s direction.

“This is your fault,” he accuses, and Jongin can hardly sit up from how badly the laughter shakes his body.

“Let’s tickle him,” suggests Chanyeol.

Kyungsoo’s eyes go wide, the anger on his face turning to panic as the two boys holding him down leer at him.

“No!” Is all Kyungsoo manages, before there are fingers dancing up his sides, making him squeal with laughter and writhe, the back of his head scraping painfully across the concrete. He shakes and wriggles so much that he manages to work a leg free, but as soon as he tries to kick Chanyeol in the head, the other swoops down and catches it again. Chanyeol’s weight is painful, and under normal circumstances he would groan and complain, but as it stands all he can do is laugh.

Kyungsoo laughs and laughs and laughs.

He can’t even breathe through it, can’t even make himself stop when he hears his own loud peals of laughter echoing through the schoolyard. He has just enough time to work his hands free, to cover his own mouth and begin to reach up to block the camera lens when he hears the shutter go off.

The tickling stops almost immediately, and Kyungsoo heaves in too many deep breaths of air.

“Alright, you can let him go now,” Jongin concedes, wiping his eyes with the back of his fingers.

The other two withdraw, leaving Kyungsoo lying across the concrete, breathing too hard and just staring up at the sky, wondering if it’s not too late to find a new set of friends.

“I’m going to murder you,” he promises, as he sits up and looks at Jongin.

Jongin hands him the camera back.

“At least the picture is cute,” he shrugs.

Kyungsoo whacks him over the back of the head, hard.

 

Later, after Jongin has run off, spouting something about not wanting to be late for a test, Chanyeol catches Kyungsoo’s wrist when he turns to leave.

“Since when do you hang out with Jongin-ah?” He asks, letting Kyungsoo’s wrist go once he has his attention.

Chanyeol’s smiling, too big for Kyungsoo’s liking, and Baekhyun’s just behind him, not far off of the same expression.

“I don’t.” He resolutely juts out his bottom lip.

Baekhyun raises his eyebrows.

“Then I suppose we just witnessed an illusion? A trick of the light? Tell me what that was then.”

“It’s not…” Kyungsoo shrinks back in on himself under the weight of two gazes, feeling scrutinized. “It’s more like he’s hanging out with me.”

Baekhyun blinks. Chanyeol chuckles.

“You’re so odd, Kyungsoo-yah,” Baekhyun sighs as he leans down to pick up his school bag.

But they both seem to let it go, moving off to their next class with rough shoves and loud shouts of laughter. But Kyungsoo can only swallow painfully past the lump in his throat.

Because Since when do you hang out with Jongin-ah reminds him of the first day they met, and the first day they met reminds him of I’m going to be a dancer.

Kyungsoo doesn’t want to like Jongin, he realises.

(But later that night, he cuts and pastes the new picture Jongin took of him and puts it in the growing ‘new folder’ of photos he has no idea what to do with anyway.)

 

---

 

The fourth photo is taken approximately a week after the third.

Jongin’s started greeting him in the hallways now – so much so that even his tall, straight-faced friend, Oh Sehun, gives him small waves of recognition whenever he sees him. He doesn’t know what to do with all this extra attention, so used to slipping through the corridors unnoticed. Now he gets these little looks from a whole lot of the other students, can feel their eyes on him, whenever Jongin smiles at him, talks to him, breathes near him.

Occasionally, he comes to sit with him and Chanyeol and Baekhyun at break times too. Sometimes he even drags Sehun along, and the other falls into the childish antics of the group like a natural.

So Kyungsoo’s used to Jongin by now. Used to his presence. Used to his smile.

He’s okay with being… acquaintances, or whatever they are.

But what he’s not so sure about is Jongin calling him up on a Saturday morning, and he wonders if this is how Jongin’s going to slip his way into Kyungsoo’s life on the weekends too.

It starts with his phone buzzing, vibrations amplified by the hardwood of his bedside table. He hardly ever gets calls, and the unknown number displayed on his screen is confusing.

“Hello?”

“Hey Soo.”

Kyungsoo recognises the voice immediately, but he’d know it was Jongin anyway. ‘Soo’ is the nickname he’d decided to give Kyungsoo last week, much to the combined amusement of their friends and none of Kyungsoo’s.

“Jongin,” Kyungsoo sighs. “How’d you get my number?”

“Ouch hyung. That’s a cold way to greet someone.”

Jongin’s smiling and Kyungsoo can hear it.

“Jongin.”

“Okay fine,” Jongin heaves a long-suffering sigh into the receiver. “Baekhyun-hyung gave it to me.”

“I see.”

“You talk the same way on the phone as you do in real life, don’t you hyung?” There’s a tinge of something Kyungsoo hopes isn’t fondness in his voice. “Not nearly enough, in other words.”

“What do you want Jongin?”

“I’m kinda offended that you don’t simply want to enjoy this conversation with me. What’s your rush?”

“Jongin,” Kyungsoo reprimands again.

“Fine, fine,” Jongin feigns annoyance. “I wanted to invite you to the movies.”

Huh.

“Like, now?”

Jongin chuckles at that.

“Like, this afternoon hyung. There’s a two PM showing of that new Avengers movie,” he pauses, and Kyungsoo can hear him shift the phone, can picture Jongin with startling clarity, cradling the device between his shoulder and his ear, a soft smile on his face. “Chanyeol-hyung said you wanted to see it.”

Hmm.

He does want to see it.

But more pressing is the news that Jongin and Chanyeol have been talking about him behind his back. Even if they only speak about good things – every step that Jongin becomes further integrated into their group is a step that Kyungsoo wants to turn on his heel and run.

“I thought you usually went with Sehun?”

Why do you need me?

“I do, but he has a date today and he’s ditching me.” Kyungsoo knows Jongin is, as usual, pouting. “Please hyung? I don’t want to be that loser who goes to the movies alone.”

“He has a date?”

“Yeah, with that Chinese exchange student from our hip hop class – oh !”

“What?” Kyungsoo hears a loud crash from the other line and a yelp of pain. He can’t help the way his pulse jumps. “Jongin, what?”

“Sorry, I just, knocked something over –” Jongin cuts off and Kyungsoo can hear a muffled curse and more movement on the other line. “And I wasn’t supposed to tell you that. About Sehun and Luhan-hyung, I mean.”

Kyungsoo chews on his lip.

“Sehun doesn’t want anyone to know he’s gay,” he guesses.

“Bi actually.” Jongin pauses again but the background noise on his end has died out, and Kyungsoo guesses he’s finally stopped moving around. When his voice comes back onto the line he sounds more serious. “You won’t tell anyone right?”

“Of course not.”

There’s another sigh across the line. This time it’s relieved.

“Not even Sehun?” Jongin wants to know now. “If he knows I mentioned it to you…”

“No Jongin,” Kyungsoo tries to sound reassuring. “I won’t tell him.”

“Ok. Great. Thanks.”

The silence stretches over the line between them.

Then Jongin’s voice comes back, softer: “Do you mind?”

“Do I mind what?”

“Sehun,” Kyungsoo hears Jongin swallow. “That he likes guys too. Does it bother you?”

Kyungsoo blinks.

There’s something fragile here. In the air. In Jongin’s tone.

“No.”

“Okay.”

Then, brighter: “So do you want to go to the movies with me?”

And Kyungsoo should turn him down, and remind himself that he doesn’t want to like this Kim Jongin – this Kim Jongin who calls him up on peaceful Saturday mornings, who pouts and smiles and laughs endearingly all over the place.

But there’s something still so vulnerable about Jongin today, all mixed up with the thin string of hope when he asks whether Kyungsoo wants to hang out.

Kyungsoo should say no.

“Let me ask my mom,” he says instead.

 

The movie theatre is too loud for Kyungsoo’s liking, and everything’s bright enough to have him squinting behind the frames of his glasses. He’s starting to get a headache, and Jongin is late.

It’s been ten minutes now, and Kyungsoo is not in a good mood.

“You’re here,” a voice says from behind him, just as he is about to head back and leave Jongin to go and be late for the movies alone. He turns around and it’s Jongin, smiling in a way that has half of his annoyance melting right out of him.

Only half though.

“I said I would be, didn’t I?” Kyungsoo frowns, and maybe Jongin isn’t trying to make him angry with the way he glances briefly up and down Kyungsoo’s sweater-clad form, but it kind of ruffles his feathers.

“Yeah,” Jongin smiles even wider now at the expression on Kyungsoo’s face, and the last of his anger fades against his will. “You did.”

It’s now that he realises he’s never seen Jongin in anything other than school uniform or dance gear, and Kyungsoo’s never really stopped to consider how dark-wash skinny jeans, a form-fitting T-shirt and a black bomber jacket would make him look. He tears his eyes away to look back up at Jongin’s face, swallowing when he realises the corners of Jongin’s mouth may have ticked just slightly higher, that Jongin’s noticed him looking.

“Shall we go in?” He asks, gesturing towards the theatre behind them to break this sudden tension that Kyungsoo doesn’t really understand.

Jongin smiles, and before Kyungsoo knows what’s happening, he has an arm slung around his shoulder, and Jongin’s digging in his pocket for his phone.

“Let’s take a celebratory selca first.”

Kyungsoo raises an eyebrow and glances, unimpressed, at the all-too-happy face next to his.

“Why?”

Jongin holds up his phone now, grinning at the screen.

“Because this is the first time we’re properly hanging out. Smile hyung!”

And Kyungsoo’s used to Jongin’s skinship by now – he’s come to realise that the younger boy is really clingy – but nothing prepares him for Jongin mushing their faces together as he grins cheerily at the camera.

Kyungsoo’s face heats up, and he tries to wriggle free.

“C’mon hyung! Smile!”

And Kyungsoo hardly gets out a “hey!” when he feels Jongin’s arm move from his shoulders down to his waist (because this is crossing the line of what’s acceptable between friends, not that he and Jongin are friends –) before Jongin is poking one of the sensitive spots between his ribs, making him bark out a peal of laughter so loud that it has passers-by glancing at them judgingly.

He hears the camera shutter click just before he gets to smother his own laughter, and Jongin pulls away a few seconds later, glancing down at his phone to check on the selca.

Kyungsoo whacks him on the arm, and Jongin manages a loud “ow!” between breathless gasps of too much laughter.

“You can’t tickle me every time you want me to smile for photos, you know,” he grumbles, as they start walking towards the line to buy tickets.

“Your so cute hyung,” Jongin grins, as he pockets his phone and looks across at him.

Kyungsoo hopes his face isn’t as hot as it feels.

 

Later, when he sits at his desk scribbling his way through university applications, his phone buzzes again on his side table again, indicating an incoming text.

 

[From: Jongin

cute :3

1 attachment

Received: 20:38 pm]

 

He opens the attachment to find that Jongin has sent him the selfie from earlier. In the picture, their faces are pushed together clumsily, Jongin is grinning too wide, and Kyungsoo’s own face is scrunched up in laughter.

“Kyungsoo, honey?” His mother’s voice sounds from behind the door just before he turns to see her poking her head in. “I hope you’re working on your applications, not texting.”

He puts his phone down on the desk.

“Yeah, sorry mom. I was just checking the time.”

“Okay sweetheart.”

As soon as her head disappears back through the door, he picks up his phone again to email the selfie to himself. Later it will end up where all of the other photos he doesn’t know what to do with go.

His ‘new folder’ continues to grow.

 

---

 

The last photo is taken a day after the fourth.

It’s ten am, and Kyungsoo should be up and out of bed, changed out of his pyjamas and being productive (like his mother’s already told him to do five times), but instead, he’s lounging around under his duvet, watching stupid cat videos on the internet, like any other self-respecting high-schooler would be on a chilly Sunday morning.

His phone buzzes on his side-table, and he reaches out for it blindly, hoping it’s Chanyeol or Baekhyun texting him something stupid about memes, and not –

Kyungsoo groans.

 – not Jongin.

He has a split second debate over whether to answer the call or not. The thought that Jongin will simply spam him with missed calls, have his phone vibrating incessantly for the rest of the day forces him to pick up.

“What?”

“And good morning to you too hyung.” Jongin sounds smug.

“What do you want?”

“Are you like this with everyone on the phone, or am I special?”

“Seriously Jongin. What?”

“Geez you’re grumpy today. I’m just calling to say I’m outside.”

“Outside what?”

“Your house.”

“What?!” Kyungsoo pushes away his laptop and throws off his duvet, rushing to the window to look out at the street below. Sure enough, he can see Jongin standing down on the sidewalk just in front of his house, a little way off from his front door. He has his phone pressed to his ear, and he smiles when he spots Kyungsoo at the window, appearing from behind closed curtains, giving him a little wave. “Why are you here?”

“To hangout?”

Kyungsoo thinks he can see Jongin pouting all the way from the street.

“How did you even get my address?” Kyungsoo splutters.

“Baekhyun-hyung,” Jongin grins.

“Baekhyun needs to stop telling you stuff about me,” Kyungsoo grumbles, and Jongin laughs pleasantly into the receiver.

“So are you gonna let me in?” Kyungsoo thinks Jongin sounds hopeful more than anything else. “Or am I gonna continue standing out on your sidewalk looking like an idiot for the next hour?”

“Ugh,” is all Kyungsoo manages, before taking a moment to pause and compose himself. “Fine. Just – uhh – give me a minute.”

He glances around frantically when he hangs up. He’s still wearing his pyjamas – his Pororo pyjamas – for god’s sake.

But before he gets the chance to change into anything half decent, he hears his mother’s voice on the stairs.

“Kyungsoo? I think one of your friends is by the door.”

Kyungsoo curses under his breath, taking a second to shove a pile of newly folded clothes into his cupboard, glancing frantically around for something quick to change into.

“Yeah, mom, I know!” he calls back loudly. “I’m coming down now.”

No time to change after all.

He runs down the stairs past his mother, who mutters an annoyed: “How many times have I told you to get up and change into some proper clothes, young man?” as he gallops past.

Her complaint is ignored as Kyungsoo reaches the front door, pausing to catch his breath from his little race down the stairs before he pulls it open.

Jongin’s standing on the front doorstep, wrapped in a well-cut, stylish winter coat. The cold air from outside rushes over Kyungsoo, making him shiver in the thin material of his pyjamas.

Jongin’s eyes drop down to Kyungsoo’s shirt, take in the repeated pattern of Pororo making snow angles in a winter wonderland, and Kyungsoo really kind of wishes he could die right here and now, and not have to deal with this situation.

“Cute,” is the first word out of Jongin’s mouth.

Kyungsoo’s face colours.

“Shut up.”

“Kyungsoo, honey, don’t be rude,” his mother gasps from behind him, now that she’s moved closer to see what’s going on. “And who is this? A friend of yours?”

Kyungsoo shifts to the side a little, letting his mother get a good look at Jongin.

“Sorry mom. This is Jongin,” he gestures towards the other, and Jongin bows politely.

“Hello Mrs. Do.”

“Hello Jongin,” She smiles pleasantly. “Come in, come in, it’s freezing out there.”

Jongin walks into the Do family living room, glancing at the family pictures on the walls curiously. He bends down to toe off his shoes and pop the buttons of his coat open.

“Now Jongin I hope you’re not planning on staying too long,” Kyungsoo’s mother says as she pulls the front door securely shut. “Kyungsoo has an important maths test this week that he has to study for. Don’t you, honey?”

“Yes mom,” Kyungsoo says as he looks down at his toes, curled into the floorboards from the cold.

“I won’t bother hyung for too long,” Jongin tells Kyungsoo’s mother as she moves off into the kitchen. “Thanks for having me anyway!”

Kyungsoo shoots him a glare.

“You’re bothering me already,” he grumbles, too quiet for his mother to hear.

Jongin just grins.

“Alright then,” Mrs. Do calls from the kitchen. “Have fun boys!”

Kyungsoo sighs at Jongin’s general existence.

“Come to my room then, I guess,” he says as he begins to lead the way up the stairs.

“So do you like Pororo that much or do you just still fit into the pyjamas you owned as a kid?” He can hear the grin in Jongin’s voice as the other follows closely behind him. “I mean, it’s plausible. You’re still so short.”

“ off.”

When they reach Kyungsoo’s room, he disappears inside before shutting the door abruptly – and rudely – in Jongin’s face.

“I need to change,” he explains, voice muffled by the thick layer of wood.

“Alright,” comes the reply.

Once Kyungsoo has changed into jeans and a sweater, he lets Jongin in, and the other scans over Kyungsoo’s room, looking at the pictures he has stuck to the walls, and the one old Prince of Tennis poster he has over the bed.

“So what do you want to do?” Kyungsoo asks, breaking the silence when he begins to feel oddly exposed by the close scrutiny.

“What do you usually do for fun hyung?” Jongin asks, eyes now back on him as he moves to take off his coat and drape it over the back of Kyungsoo’s desk chair.

“Uhh,” Kyungsoo glances around his room as if the walls will give him an answer. “I normally just watch anime or movies or something.”

His life isn’t all that exciting, if he’s honest.

“Let’s watch a movie then,” Jongin suggests, taking a seat on Kyungsoo’s bed without invitation. “What do you have?”

Kyungsoo takes a tentative seat next to Jongin, and pulls his laptop towards them, letting Jongin looks through the selection on his hard drive. Even though it’s a double bed, Jongin seems hell bent on getting as close as possible, their thighs brushing together when Jongin shifts closer, making sure to lean into Kyungsoo every time he has a suggestion.

Kyungsoo doesn’t like it, but he doesn’t know how to make the other boy stop without making things awkward.

They eventually settle on an old action movie that Jongin wants to see. Kyungsoo’s actually seen it before, and doesn’t think very highly of it, but when he sees the way Jongin’s eyes light up, he doesn’t even think to mention it, and double clicks to open the video.

He also tries, very hard, not to think about what that means.

“Don’t you wanna turn off the lights?” Jongin murmurs as the opening credits start to play and Kyungsoo props the laptop up on a cushion for them to watch more easily. He glances back at the other and Jongin smiles softly, warmly, and suddenly the last thing Kyungsoo wants to do is turn off the lights, be alone in the dark with Jongin and his affectionate smiles.

He gets up and flips the light switch anyway, apprehension curling in his stomach when he turns back to face Jongin, the other still watching him. Jongin smiles again, his face illuminated with light from the computer screen, and pats the spot next to him.

Kyungsoo sits down carefully, curling his legs up underneath him. As the movie starts to play, he begins to relax, to shake off the tense atmosphere around them, to ignore Jongin’s quiet breathing, his restless shifting every few minutes.

He’s so absorbed in the movie that he almost doesn’t notice when a hand lands on his arm. He looks down and Jongin’s fingers are just there – just gently resting – on his bicep. He glances over at Jongin in confusion, but the other stares resolutely forward, doesn’t look at Kyungsoo at all.

Jongin’s hand is warm.

Kyungsoo’s face is too.

He doesn’t like Jongin. Nope. Not even a little. Not one tiny, little bit.

Kyungsoo looks back at the computer screen and shifts his position, dislodging the hand and putting more distance between the two of them. He can feel Jongin turn, can feel his eyes on him, watching, but he doesn’t turn to meet his gaze.

It’s his turn to stare forward, not dare to look to the side.

He doesn’t like Jongin.

 

Towards the end of the movie, once Kyungsoo’s seen one too many cheesy explosions for his own liking, he feels something brush against his shoulder, just briefly.

“Hey,” he murmurs absently, eyes still on the screen.

In the next second, Jongin’s whole head ends up on his shoulder, and all of the other boy’s weight is leaning into his side.

“Hey,” Kyungsoo protests slightly louder this time, but when Jongin doesn’t move, Kyungsoo looks to the side in annoyance, ready to shove him off.

What he isn’t ready for is to get an eyeful of delicate, long lashes resting against the tanned slopes of Jongin’s cheeks, just centimetres away from his own face, soft breaths disturbing a piece of hair that’s slipped down into his eyes. Jongin has fallen asleep on him, and Kyungsoo doesn’t even have the time to be indignant when the other looks so beautiful like this – with his face calm and relaxed and peaceful.

“Really now,” Kyungsoo tuts as he carefully moves his weight out from under Jongin, catches the other to stop him from falling. He lays Jongin back carefully, resting his head on one of the pillows, his body ending up nestled in the blue of one of Kyungsoo’s softest blankets.

He gets up now, closing his laptop and opening his curtains. If Jongin’s going to go and fall asleep on him, he has no reason to watch ty action movies by himself.

And when he turns back, a sunbeam from the window falls across Jongin, glittering dust motes filtering above him and catching in his eyelashes, turning him gold. Jongin frowns for a second, shifting and making a small noise in the back of his throat, but he doesn’t wake.

And Kyungsoo is just so, so taken.

He moves over to his desk to pick up his camera, pressing the power button to bring the device to life. Carefully, quietly, he adjusts the settings and the focus, and presses down to capture the image.

It only takes one try for Jongin to come out perfectly.

 

“Kyungsoo? Isn’t it time for Jongin to get going?” Kyungsoo’s mother’s head pops around the door at that moment. “Jongin, I think – oh.”

When she spots Jongin asleep on the bed, she lets the door swing open properly. Kyungsoo looks up from where he’s messing around on his laptop at his desk, and Jongin stirs just a little in his spot in Kyungsoo’s blankets.

“It’s fine mom,” Kyungsoo says, getting up from his chair. “I’ll wake him.”

“Okay sweetheart,” she says as she disappears back through Kyungsoo’s door. “Remember you have to study hard now, okay?”

Kyungsoo sighs as he approaches Jongin, leaning down to poke at his shoulder.

“Jongin,” he says, shaking him by the shoulder when he doesn’t move. “Jongin wake up.”

Jongin stirs and groans, frowning and rolling onto his side, his back to Kyungsoo.

“Jongin,” Kyungsoo sighs again, exasperated. “Wake up.”

He hears a sharp intake of just-woken-up breath, and Jongin glances back over at him, sleepy-eyed.

“What?” he frowns.

“My mom said it’s time to go,” Kyungsoo explains, sitting on the edge of the bed now. “I’m sorry, she gets like this. Doesn’t like me hanging out with friends too much, and since I already saw you yesterday –”

“It’s fine, I get it,” Jongin says as he sits up and rubs his eyes. “Just give me a moment to wake up.”

Kyungsoo fetches Jongin’s coat for him while the other blinks sleepily at the wall, trying to get him bearings.

Once Jongin has woken up and wrapped himself back up in his coat, they make their way to the front door where Jongin slips on his shoes. Kyungsoo’s mother’s sitting a little way off, watching television.

Jongin stands up.

“I had fun,” he tells Kyungsoo.

“You were asleep,” Kyungsoo rebuffs.

Jongin laughs and opens the front door, walking out and turning back to face Kyungsoo, who hangs in the opening of the doorway.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Jongin asks, and Kyungsoo doesn’t understand why he looks hopeful.

They both have school to go to tomorrow. Of course they’ll see each other.

“Yeah,” says Kyungsoo. “See you tomorrow.”

 

Later, when he’s told his mother that of course I’m going to study mom, what else would I be doing, he gingerly opens his laptop so his mother won’t hear, plugs in both his memory card and his flash drive, and flicks through to his last taken picture.

The picture he took of Jongin earlier ends up in his ever-growing ‘new folder’ and Kyungsoo finds himself again wondering what he’s going to do with all these pictures.

 

---

 

The next day, however, everything falls apart.

Kyungsoo’s photographing the Monday afternoon soccer practise for a section Junmyeon is writing. Normally, Minseok would play photographer for all of Junmyeon’s pieces, but he can’t exactly take pictures of a soccer team that he’s part of.

And Jongin’s ditched dance practice again, whining about his ankle being sore so that he can come bother him while he fiddles with his camera up on the bleachers. Kyungsoo’s starting to think that there’s nothing wrong with Jongin’s ankle at all, that he just likes to have an excuse to come annoy Kyungsoo, and he laughs at Jongin’s wail of outrage when he tells him as much.

“How could you say that hyung! I love dancing! I wouldn’t ditch practice just for fun!”

“Calm down Jongin,” Kyungsoo chuckles at the look on Jongin’s face. “I was just joking.”

“It’s true though,” Jongin mumbles, frowning down at his school shoes. “Don’t think I love you more than dancing yet, hyung.”

Oh.

Kyungsoo swallows, his amusement suddenly gone, and he glances back at Jongin trying not to blush. Jongin’s words are a little too much, and when he sees the other boy looking up, completely flustered, he’s not so sure he’s supposed to have heard them.

He turns back to his camera, giving Jongin a minute to cool off.

But then –

There’s something he really wants to ask.

He knows he shouldn’t, for his own sake. But he does anyway.

“Are your parents okay with it?” Kyungsoo asks, watching Minseok pass the ball to another player, whose name Kyungsoo vaguely remembers is Yixing, through the viewfinder. “You dancing, I mean.”

Jongin hums and leans back on his palms.

“I get that a lot,” he comments, as he mulls over the question. “But my parents have always been really supportive. They don’t care about me not acting manly enough, if that’s what you mean, though they were pretty worried I’d get bullied for it back when I first started.”

Kyungsoo nods. His mouth feels dry.

“And they’re okay with you… continuing?” Kyungsoo doesn’t even know why he’s asking, since he doesn’t really want to know the answer. “Becoming a professional?”

Why must he torture himself so?

“Oh yeah!” Jongin nods brightly, and Kyungsoo feels slightly nauseas with his next words. “They’ve always taught me that I shouldn’t let anything get in the way of my dreams, so when I told them I wanted to be a dancer, they said they’d support me no matter what.”

Ahh.

So, in other words, exactly what he thought.

Kyungsoo pauses a moment. Blinks down at the camera in his palms.

Then he raises it and snaps another picture. Like clockwork.

“What about you?” Jongin wants to know, watching him interestedly, and yeah, maybe he should have figured Jongin would ask eventually, but the question catches him off guard. “What do you want to do after school?”

And he doesn’t even know why he does it –

Kyungsoo doesn’t even understand, but –

Instead of that perfectly scripted little lie of his –

Instead of I’m going to be an accountant –

Instead of telling Jongin exactly what he told Minseok, Junmyeon… Chanyeol, Baekhyun –

Kyungsoo goes right ahead and tells Jongin the truth before he even realises the words have left his mouth.

“I want to be a photographer,” he murmurs.

And now he feels outright sick.

“I figured as much,” Jongin continues to chatter in the background, but Kyungsoo’s only half listening. “I mean, I know nothing about photography, so I can’t tell, but Baekhyun-hyung says you’re really great and I –”

“No,” Kyungsoo cuts him off, and he’s not sure why, because he doesn’t want to explain himself.

But now the damage is done. And he needs to.

“Huh?” Jongin looks up, eyes wide at being interrupted. “Hyung what’s wrong?”

“I mean,” Kyungsoo grapples for control over his voice, tries to keep it steady. “I mean I want to be a photographer. But – But I’m going to be an accountant.”

Jongin watches him, quiet a moment.

“Why?”

“My parents,” he grits out. Kyungsoo wants to choke. He wants to choke and choke and choke, and never be able to speak again, because the first person he’s telling this to shouldn’t be someone he doesn’t even like. “They – won’t let me.”

Jongin is silent another moment.

“So… all this studying, going to hagwon,” Jongin’s eyebrows tick down into a frown as he puts the pieces together. “It’s to get into university? Even though you don’t really want to go, right?”

Kyungsoo nods.

The silence between them stretches out for a few minutes, and Kyungsoo thinks that maybe, Jongin gets it. Maybe Jongin understands that this isn’t something he wants to talk about, that this isn’t something to work hard to overcome, that it just is what it is, and so be it.

But then: “You can still be a photographer though, if you really want to.”

Jongin’s voice comes back bright. Kyungsoo grits his teeth.

“I mean, it’s not one of those professions where you actually need the formal training, if you’re good enough.”

Says you, thinks Kyungsoo, bitterly. You – who’s never had that formal training denied from them.

“You could start building up your portfolio now, start doing small photography jobs, build a name for yourself…”

And Jongin continues, going on about all the hypothetical things Kyungsoo could do to become a photographer, to hone his skills – things Kyungsoo doesn’t have any ing patience to hear about.

Because Jongin just doesn’t get it.

His hands ball into fists at his sides.

Jongin with his supportive parents.

“– You don’t have to let this get in the way of your dreams hyung –”

Jongin with his bright, secure future.

“– You should never let anything get in the way of your dreams actually –”

Jongin who just doesn’t know what it’s like to not get the things you want more than anything else in the world.

“– And there are people who’ll believe in you and fight for you and –”

Jongin who just doesn’t. get. it.

“Go away,” Kyungsoo spits.

“Huh?” Jongin looks up.

“I said go. away.” Kyungsoo’s nails are digging small crescent-shaped indents into the palms of his hands. “God, I mean, this isn’t even any of your business.”

Jongin draws back slightly, alarmed, confusion swimming in his eyes.

Kyungsoo wants to scream.

“Can’t you tell that you’re annoying me?” He half-shouts, and a couple of the players on the field pause in their game to glance back at the commotion. “Why do you insist on following me around like this? I didn’t ask for your advice!”

Jongin withdraws in on himself completely now, his face scrunched up, all weird and pinched as he stares at Kyungsoo in utter dismay.

And Kyungsoo takes a small moment to consider what he’s just said.

Oh .

“I…” Jongin tries to speak, but his voice is weak, airy, and he loses it halfway.

His eyes dart everywhere, and he stands abruptly, running an agitated hand through his hair.

“Wow…” he breathes.

Kyungsoo stands up too, face melting in silent apology as he reaches out a hand to touch –

But Jongin tenses, draws back just infinitesimally, and Kyungsoo drops his arm.

Jongin’s silence is more nerve-wracking than any social situation Kyungsoo’s ever found himself in. The other glances out over the playing field once, hands curling into fists at his sides, and when he looks back at Kyungsoo, his eyes are hardened, but when he speaks, his voice shakes.

 “You know I – I actually thought maybe you liked me, or something,” He blinks vigorously, and maybe there are tears behind his eyes, and oh god, Kyungsoo’s ed up. He’s ed up so ing bad – “I guess you were just tolerating me this whole time.”

His voice has this bite to it, and now Kyungsoo wants to take it back, , he wants to take it back and –

“Jongin –” he reaches out again, but the other recoils, cuts him off.

“No, I’m sorry,” Jongin enunciates bitterly. “To have wasted your time, sunbae. I won’t bother you again.”

He turns on his heel before Kyungsoo can catch his arm, striding down off the bleachers at one hell of a pace. Kyungsoo’s torn between wanting to run after him, to catch him, apologise, and wanting to run away from his problems and pretend he didn’t just do a ing terrible thing.

But now most of the soccer team has noticed their little spat, and have turned to watch the scene unfold. Kyungsoo blushes and sits down.

He’s always been a coward.

He picks up his camera again. Doesn’t get up from his seat. Watches the players slowly, one by one, lose interest in him and Jongin and turn back to the game.

Even if Kyungsoo feels like absolute when he sees Jongin walking away from the other side of the field, furiously palming at his face to hide what must be tears.

He has to finish photographing the soccer practice, anyway. It’s his job as official school newspaper photographer. And Minseok’s glancing at him curiously now, every few minutes, and god, he’s so bad at explaining personal things to people.

So Kyungsoo just twists the zoom ring into place, convinces himself that the blur in his eyes is because the focus is off, and not because of the sting in the back of his nose.

It’s ironic, Kyungsoo thinks, that it took ing everything up monumentally for him to realise that yes, he does like Jongin. And yes, he does want to be his friend, or whatever they are.

Whatever they were.

But Kyungsoo always ends up losing the things he loves most. Whether it’s photography or Jongin, nothing he ever wants to keep around seems to be permanent.

It’s just that he hasn’t lost photography yet, and watching Jongin walk away from him the first thing to ever hurt this bad.

 

---

 

“So are you ready for the holidays?” Baekhyun asks Kyungsoo, stretching his arms up in the air as he yawns. “Because I sure am. Man, being a senior has me beat.”

It’s a Wednesday, and the last day of school before the Winter vacation. Baekhyun and Chanyeol are all over the place with excitement, but Kyungsoo is suspiciously more reserved than usual.

“You say that like he’s actually gonna do anything except look at memes and hide out in his room all day,” Chanyeol laughs.

“Not true!” Baekhyun wiggles a dramatic finger in Chanyeol’s face as he smirks at Kyungsoo. “Perhaps our Jonginnie will whisk him away on another romantic movie date!”

Baekhyun’s mischievous expression is completely ignored, as Kyungsoo’s face darkens considerably at the mention of Jongin’s name.

He hasn’t seen a trace of him in the last two days. For someone who's usually so conspicuous in the hallways, what with all of his admirers, Jongin sure does know how to avoid a guy.

“Ahh! Of course!” Chanyeol exclaims, joining in on the joke as the two of them mistake Kyungsoo’s reticence for his usual mild annoyance. “A knight in shining armour to our helpless little princess Soo! Where has our lover boy been of late, by the way?”

Kyungsoo’s gut clenches.

“ you guys,” he spits, and the other two drop their smirks immediately at his tone of voice. “Don’t you ever know when to ing stop?”

He gets up, scooping up his backpack and disappearing into the school building, leaving the other two to blink after his disappearance.

“What’s with him?” Chanyeol asks, voice sober.

“Not a clue,” Baekhyun replies.

 

---

 

During the holidays, Kyungsoo stops checking his phone.

For the first few days he glanced at it every few minutes obsessively, hoping against all hopes that his argument with Jongin would erase itself, and he’d see a text asking to him hang out, or get a call saying he was by Kyungsoo’s front door again.

No such luck.

And Kyungsoo knows it’s him who ed this up, that if he wants things to be better he needs to work to actually fix them, but –

He’s a coward.

A socially awkward coward who has no idea how to reach out to someone. In fact, he’s not even that sure how much Jongin liked him in the first place. Would Jongin even accept an apology, if he had one to offer?

So instead of doing anything productive, he sulks.

He ignores all his messages, the constant invites from Chanyeol and Baekhyun to hang out.

He holes himself up in his room and mopes.

“Honey?” there’s a soft knock on the door before his mother tentatively peeks in. “Is everything alright?”

“Yes mom,” he replies. It’s a lie, but it’s a necessary one. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” She walks in now and takes a seat on the edge of his bed. And she must really be concerned, because normally, if it were two pm and he was still wearing his pyjamas, she’d have been giving him and earful about it ages ago. “You just seem kind of down lately. You know you can tell me if anything’s wrong?”

Kyungsoo smiles at her weakly.

“It’s really fine mom. I’m just tired.”

“Is it… Is it school?” She wants to know, and Kyungsoo fights the urge to scoff and roll his eyes, the moment broken, because of course she thinks it’s something related to his precious studies. “Are you worried about your marks?”

“No mom,” and maybe his voice is a little harsher than before, but he hopes she doesn’t notice. “I’m really fine. Really.”

“Okay,” she says, unconvinced, as she gets up from his bed. “Just tell me if you want to talk about anything, alright?”

“Okay,” Kyungsoo nods, and she slips out of the door.

This isn’t anything she can fix, anyway.

 

---

 

“This is an intervention,” announces Baekhyun, when he flounces into Kyungsoo’s room during the fourth week of the holidays, and the third week of Kyungsoo’s radio silence. Chanyeol follows in after him, and Kyungsoo glares accusingly at his mother who holds the door open for them and shrugs.

“I thought seeing your friends might be good for you,” is all she says, before she shuts the door, leaving the three of them alone in Kyungsoo’s room.

“Where’ve you been man?” Chanyeol asks, flopping down on Kyungsoo’s desk chair and spinning round in slow circles.

“We’re worried about you.” Baekhyun sits down on the edge of Kyungsoo’s bed, next to his leg. Kyungsoo frowns at his comforter. “No contact whatsoever for three weeks –”

“Not even any memes!” Chanyeol interjects dramatically.

“– Kyungsoo you can’t just disappear on us like that.” Baekhyun frowns and Kyungsoo thinks that maybe, just maybe, he’s more concerned and upset than he lets on.

“I,” Kyungsoo begins, but he loses whatever he was going to say. “Sorry.”

Baekhyun places one hand on Kyungsoo’s, gently.

“Apology accepted.” Chanyeol says from across the room. “But only if you tell us what happened.”

Kyungsoo bites his lip.

“Was it Jongin?” Baekhyun guesses.

Kyungsoo nods, hesitantly.

Baekhyun sighs, and Chanyeol scoots closer, sliding the wheels of the desk chair roughly against the carpet.

“Are you finally going to admit you have a big, fat, gay crush on him?” He asks.

“Hey!” Kyungsoo exclaims, indignant. He knew his friends couldn’t keep up the sweet and concerned act for very long, but now he’s just feeling outright attacked.

“Chanyeol, that’s not how you act supportive,” Baekhyun admonishes lightly, but he’s smirking and Kyungsoo feels betrayed.

“Sorry,” Chanyeol grins.

“Okay, okay,” Baekhyun waves his hands to get everyone back to the point. “So tell us Kyungsoo, what happened with Jongin?”

“Well,” Kyungsoo begins, acutely aware of the fact that he’s still in pyjamas, that he hasn’t brushed his teeth yet, that he’s acting like a sulky, stupid teenager. “I got angry at him.”

The other two nod in understanding.

“What about?” asks Chanyeol, but Kyungsoo shakes his head.

“Not important,” he waves it off. He hasn’t told these two about his photographer dreams yet, and how his parents won’t let him take that photography course he so badly wants to do next year, and knowing Baekhyun, he will go full fight mode, storm down the stairs and tell his mother to get her together. He doesn’t think he’s quite ready to deal with the aftermath just yet. “But in my anger I said some things I didn’t really mean, and I hurt Jongin’s feelings.”

“Like what?” Baekhyun wants to know. “What did you say?”

“I…” Kyungsoo’s voice dies out as he recalls the ugly words he spat at Jongin, remembers how Jongin’s voice shook, and he looks down into his palms. “I told him. Basically, um, that he was annoying and I didn’t want him around.”

Baekhyun and Chanyeol’s collective sharp intake of breath has Kyungsoo looking up, catching them glancing at each other worriedly.

 “That’s bad,” Chanyeol says.

“Worse than expected,” Baekhyun nods in agreement.

“I feel…” Kyungsoo struggles to find his words. “Bad. I feel bad.”

The other two turn back to him, and he takes their silence as an indication to continue.

“I want to apologise, but I don’t know how. You guys know me – that’s not just an excuse. I really don’t know how.” Kyungsoo pauses to rub at his eyes, displacing his glasses that end up skewed and halfway down his nose. He glances up at his friends pathetically. “I mean; I don’t know if he’ll forgive me – we weren’t even that close. What if I reach out, and he doesn’t –”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Baekhyun cuts him off with two palms raised, indicating for him to stop, and when he next speaks he sounds absolutely incredulous. “You and Jongin weren’t that close?”

Chanyeol scoffs from beside him, and Kyungsoo glances between the two of them, unsure.

“Yeah we –”

But he doesn’t get anywhere with whatever he was going to say, because Baekhyun cuts him right off again.

“Okay, come on Kyungsoo, I know you’re hopeless but that’s pushing it.”

“Yeah, man. Are you blind or something?” Chanyeol adds unhelpfully from his spot on the desk chair.

Kyungsoo continues to look so lost, and Baekhyun takes pity on him after another moment of looking completely judgemental.

“Kyungsoo, Jongin adores you,” he explains softly. “Like, I mean, nobody asks someone to hang out with them on the weekends if they don’t like them, am I right?”

“He said it was because Sehun-ssi couldn’t be there –” Kyungsoo interjects.

“And the most popular kid in school wouldn’t have anyone else to hang out with?” Chanyeol rebuffs with a laugh. “Yeah, I’m sure he was just forced into spending time with you.”

“Not to mention, the Sehun excuse doesn’t explain why he showed up at your house,” Baekhyun adds.

Kyungsoo huffs and looks out of the window. Part of him wants to believe his friends, but at the same time, if he believes what they say – if Jongin really does like him that much – that makes what he’s done just that much more terrible.

“And I mean,” Baekhyun’s tone is soft again. “You should see the way he looks at you.”

“Man,” Chanyeol chimes in again. “You make the rest of us feel like third wheels the whole time.”

Baekhyun hits him on the arm. Chanyeol groans.

“Kyungsoo, Jongin’s not gonna be able to stay mad at you if you apologise,” Baekhyun continues. “Trust me, he won’t brush you off. I know you’re scared, but believe me, Jongin likes you too much to keep this fight up.”

Kyungsoo juts his lower lip out and nods reluctantly. After another moment he speaks.

Maybe Baekhyun’s right.

“I – thanks,” he breathes out.

Baekhyun places his hand on Kyungsoo’s again.

“I know you’re scared, Soo,” and Kyungsoo swallows harshly, both because the words are so accurate, and because Baekhyun’s unknowingly picked up the nickname Jongin made up for him, not too long ago. “But it’s okay to want to be friends again. Or whatever it is that’s going on between you two, I won’t pretend I have a clue. Take a leap, just this once.”

Kyungsoo nods absently, in thought, and Baekhyun and Chanyeol smile at him now, warmly, fondly. Maybe he’s been wrong about the two of them this whole time. Maybe they are good at the whole soft, supportive friend thing after all.

And maybe Kyungsoo needed them to be just that right now.

 

---

 

It takes him another few days to get his bearings, to remind himself to stop being such a useless, moody teenager, and to actually get out of bed and change into some proper clothes for once.

He spends another half day trying to work up the courage to call Jongin, before the bubbling anxiety in the pit of his stomach informs him that that isn’t going to work.

He spends the second half of that same day typing, deleting, and retyping prospective apology messages to Jongin, before he realises that isn’t really going to cut it either.

It takes him another two days to come up with a new plan, but when he finally opens the front door, leaning back inside for a moment to call “Mom I’m going over to Baekhyun’s,” over his shoulder, the tiniest spark of hope burns through his body.

Maybe this plan will work.

He doesn’t go to Baekhyun’s though.

Instead, when he gets to the fork in the road where he should turn left to get to Baekhyun’s house, he takes a right, heads on down the street till he gets to a small shopping centre, and pushes the door to his favourite camera shop open.

His mother doesn’t like him spending too much time here. Says it just encourages him to ‘waste all of his time on photography’, and distracts him from his school work. Kyungsoo doesn’t point out that he doesn’t need much encouraging. She would only chew him out for talking back.

“Ahh, Kyungsoo-yah!” calls the ahjussi behind the counter. “Long time, no see! What can I do for you today?”

Kyungsoo smiles warmly at the old man.

“Hello ahjussi,” he bows politely. “I’m here to get some photos developed.”

“Come, come, show me,” he gestures animatedly for Kyungsoo to follow him to the printing area as he steps out from behind the counter. Kyungsoo follows, drawing his flash drive out of his coat pocket as he walks.

“So which ones do you want developed?” the old man asks once the flash drive has been plugged into the monitor, and Kyungsoo’s familiar folders of pictures pop up on the screen.

“Umm, all the pictures in that folder –” Kyungsoo points to his edited photo folder, but he doesn’t realise that the computer is a touch screen, and his finger slips, so he ends up pressing and opening the unnamed ‘new folder’. “Ahh – oops.”

“It’s okay, it surprises most of the customers at first,” the ahjussi chuckles, as he exits the ‘new folder’ for Kyungsoo and goes to select the pictures he indicated for printing.

Kyungsoo chews on his lip.

Images of Jongin snuggled down into blue blankets swim behind his eyelids.

“That folder too, please ahjussi,” he says after a split-second decision, pointing to the unnamed folder.

“These?” He double clicks to open the folder and frowns – it’s already clear that the quality of the pictures isn’t that great, even from the small thumbnail versions alone. “Are you sure?”

Kyungsoo nods.

“Yeah.” The ahjussi gives him a funny look, and he blushes with his next words. “They’re sentimental.”

“Ahh,” the man nods sagely.

After the photos are all developed, Kyungsoo picks out a photo album to put them in – plain black leather with white stitching around the edges. He pays for the purchase, and leaves the store, tucking a brown paper envelope full of pictures into the inside pocket of his coat, and waving goodbye to the ahjussi.

He spends a while longer just milling around the other shops, doing some absentminded window-shopping as he wastes enough time for it to be plausible for him to have visited Baekhyun. After another hour, he leaves the shopping centre and heads home.

“Hi mom, I’m back,” he calls as he slips in through the front door, toeing off his shoes and tucking the photo album inside his jacket so that she won’t see it when she comes out of the study, smiling affectionately at him.

“You weren’t gone very long, dear,” she comments, offhand, as she turns to wander into the kitchen. But she pauses, glances back at him. “I’ve been meaning to ask whether you’ve finished with your applications?”

“Oh yeah,” Kyungsoo nods as he starts to edge his way towards the staircase. “I mean, I’m almost done. I’ll go do that now, okay?”

“Good idea,” she calls from where she has disappeared completely into the next room. “You do that sweetheart.”

Kyungsoo sighs once before he races up the stairs to his room.

He doesn’t start on his applications at all.

With careful fingers, trying his hardest not to bend or smudge or damage any of his precious photographs, he slips them under the plastic covers in his photo album, one by one. He keeps at it until all but five of the pictures are filed neatly away, and the leftover ones don’t exactly belong in the album.

Instead, he secures them in an elastic band to keep them together until he figures out what to do with them. Because he’s still not sure.

All he knows is that, for some reason, this bunch of mismatched pictures are his favourite. Even when he’s got masterpieces lined up and waiting in the album lying next him on the bed.

Then he hears his mother on the stairs, and hastily shoves everything into an old shoebox, pushing it under the bed and jumping into his desk chair to look diligent and obedient just in time for her to open the door a crack and peek in on him.

He smiles up at her obediently.

 

---

 

The first day back at school the next term is a rush of nerves Kyungsoo’s never felt the likes of before. It’s all craning his neck to try and catch a glimpse of Jongin in the halls, and ‘have-you-talked-to-Jongin-yet’s, and ‘no-I-haven’t--off’s

He doesn’t see Jongin for the whole day, and it’s obvious the other is still avoiding him. But it’s fine, because Kyungsoo knows that Jongin has ballet practice in the upstairs right wing of the school on Monday afternoons, knows exactly where to go to get him alone.

This is the first time he’s ever begged Junmyeon and Minseok to excuse him from a newspaper club meeting. He’s never even missed one before, and the other two are surprised, but let him go nonetheless.

“Whatever you have to do instead must be important, Kyungsoo-yah,” Junmyeon had commented, and Minseok ruffled his hair playfully. “Of course you can be excused.”

So now he’s standing outside of the same dance practice room where he and Jongin first officially met, back when Jongin was just an attractive, popular dancer, and he was just the photographer.

He takes some deep breaths to calm his nerves, but they do nothing to help. Nor do the soft notes of piano music – slightly muffled through the door – flowing from what Kyungsoo presumes are Jongin’s portable speakers and turning his knees to jelly.

Okay Kyungsoo, you can do this, he tells himself. It’s now or never.

He knocks quietly before he pushes the door open.

Jongin’s mid-arabesque when he enters the room, facing away from him with one leg extended out behind him and arms outstretched forwards. His eyes are closed in concentration, muscles shaking from the strain as he holds the position. When he hears the soft scrape of the door moving across wooden floorboards, he opens his eyes, spots Kyungsoo’s reflection in the mirrors before him, loses his balance and nearly topples over.

He catches himself though, bringing his leg down with controlled grace, and lowering his arms. He closes his eyes again and doesn’t turn to face Kyungsoo.

The music stops as the track ends, and the room is filled with momentary silence just before the next song starts – soft, unimposing background music to a conversation Kyungsoo wishes he didn’t have to have.

“What do you want?”

Jongin’s eyes open when he speaks, fixing Kyungsoo with a stare that pins him to his spot on the floorboards. His anxiety suddenly flares up tenfold at the cold, emotionless way he’s never heard Jongin speak before, burning a hole into his stomach lining.

 “I, um – I…” Kyungsoo fumbles for words while his cheeks start to fume.

Jongin can be really intimidating when he wants to be, Kyungsoo realises.

“I’m busy,” says Jongin, and Kyungsoo drops his eyes to the floor when they begin to sting, angry at himself for not being able to force the words he needs to say out of his mouth. “So if you have nothing to say, maybe you should leave.”

Jongin lifts and extends his arms into fifth position, and Kyungsoo balls his fists up at his sides, opens his mouth to speak.

But no sound comes out.

.

Why is he so bad at this?

The music starts again. Jongin moves quietly, gracefully to the rhythm of tinkling piano keys, and Kyungsoo feels so small and forgotten in the corner of the room.

He’s hurt Jongin though. He knows. He’s hurt Jongin and there’s no way to fix it other than this.

It’s time.

“I wanted to apologise,” he blurts, still not looking up.

Jongin seems to pause, the tiny piece of his reflection Kyungsoo can still see out of the corner of his eye stilling in the mirror, before he stops altogether and turns to face him. Kyungsoo can tell by the way his ballet slippers patter against the floor, feels the tension in the air settle around them.

But at least he’s got Jongin’s attention now, and he hesitantly lifts his head to meet Jongin’s gaze.

He doesn’t look friendly – a little expectant maybe, but also nowhere near as icy as when Kyungsoo first walked in.

Okay.

“I… I’m sorry for – what I said.” The words are stilted. They don’t flow smoothly. But this is the best Kyungsoo has to offer, and he’s trying god dammit. That has to stand for something, right? “I didn’t mean – I mean it was a sensitive topic – but, um – I should have warned you and…”

He trails off.

He hopes Jongin gets it.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes again.

He really hopes Jongin gets it.

Jongin sighs audibly, his face softening into something more neutral as he tilts his head to the side and watches Kyungsoo struggle. Watches him stammer and blush and force his way through an apology, but Jongin doesn’t speak yet.

Kyungsoo thinks he should fill the silence.

And there are a million things he could say.

I’m sorry I was such a to you.

I didn’t deserve your friendship, and I’m sorry, it’s not fair, but I’m here to beg for it back.

I didn’t need to freak out on you like that… you were right about everything, of course, and I was too caught up in my own self-pity to see it.

I’ve been acting like a child.

A million things he should say.

But his tongue twists itself up into little knots, and all he manages is one deep breath before he ventures: “I um, made a photography portfolio. Like you said.”

Jongin’s mouth twitches. His eyelashes flutter.

And Kyungsoo leaps. Just like Baekhyun said he should.

“Do you… want to come see it?”

Jongin sighs his way into a soft, shaky little smile, and the last of the disquiet melts out of the room.

Kyungsoo leaps. Even though he’s afraid of falling.

And Jongin catches him.

“Yeah,” he says.

 

---

 

This is the first time Kyungsoo has ever blown off hagwon for anything.

He feels nervous ditching – downright terrified his mom is going to come home early and catch him out, but when he shuts his bedroom door behind the two of them, and Jongin smiles so reassuringly, he knows he’s made the right decision.

He doesn’t care for hagwon anyway.

But he does care for the way Jongin sighs so softly when he sits down on the edge of Kyungsoo’s bed, watching him, engrossed, as he pulls out the shoebox from under his bed and takes a seat next to him.

Kyungsoo takes a deep breath before he takes the lid off of the box, picks out the album and hands it to Jongin.

Jongin turns through the first five pages slowly, wordlessly, graceful fingers caressing smooth plastic pages of clear film.

“These are so good Soo,” he murmurs into the quiet of the room.

But Kyungsoo isn’t listening. Or looking at the pictures at all.

Because he’s watching Jongin instead. Watching the filtered light from the window catch on glowing skin. Sees the faint dark circles under his eyes, and hopes those don’t have anything to do with him, and how mean he was.

They probably do. Jongin is a sensitive creature, after all.

He’s mesmerised by the soft puff of laughter that parts his lips when Jongin comes across a picture of Baekhyun and Chanyeol play-fighting in his front yard. Captivated by the way his facial muscles shift and move when he speaks, when he comes across a panoramic shot of the school buildings and comments: “Never knew our school could look this good, Soo.”

I’m happy, Kyungsoo realises. I’m happy to have him back.

In fact, he’s so fascinated by Jongin, so caught up in his own concentrated observation, that he doesn’t realise that Jongin’s finished flipping carefully through the album, doesn’t realise that Jongin’s attention has shifted to the shoebox in his lap.

And what’s in it.

“But what are these, Soo?” he questions lightly, reaching out to pick up the small bundle of five photographs, pulling the elastic band off gently.

“Huh?” Kyungsoo snaps out of his trance, pulls his eyes from the sharp angle of Jongin’s jawline, finally, when he realises he’s been asked a question.

“These pictures?” Jongin repeats, and this time he’s puzzled, frowning down as he cards through the set of photographs in his fingers, sees his own face reflected back. “What are they for?”

Kyungsoo glances down, realisation dawning when he finally sees what Jongin has in his hands.

The pictures, Kyungsoo thinks. The pictures he was never supposed to see.

But his moment of realisation comes a little too late for him to reach out, a little too late to stop Jongin from shuffling through to the last picture – the one of himself, asleep – and just a little too late to stop Jongin’s frown from deepening in confusion.

“When did you –”

“Nothing!” Kyungsoo yelps, snatching the photos abruptly from Jongin’s fingers, eyes wide. Jongin jerks his head up too, surprised. “Those are nothing at all!”

He shoves them back into the shoebox and closes the lid, his cheeks ablaze when he looks up to meet Jongin’s eyes.

The room is too silent now, after Kyungsoo’s outburst.

Jongin’s frown is gone, and his stare is intense, unreadable.

“They’re nothing,” Kyungsoo repeats, quieter, defensively.

Jongin seems to pause, his eyes roaming Kyungsoo’s face, as if looking for a different answer.

He doesn’t have one to give though.

“Okay,” says Jongin, eyes unwavering.

There’s something heavy in the atmosphere here.

But Jongin’s not mad at him, and that’s what counts.

 

---

 

“So did you speak to Jongin yet?” Chanyeol wants to know, that Wednesday, as him, Kyungsoo and Baekhyun head outside to the schoolyard for break time.

“Yeah,” says Kyungsoo, chewing on his lip.

“And, and?” Baekhyun bounces up by his side. “What happened? Give us the details?”

Kyungsoo scratches the back of his neck.

He’d seen Jongin yesterday afternoon, and this morning too.

“Nothing much,” he shrugs. “We’re back to normal now.”

It’s a lie. They might not be fighting anymore, but that heavy thing that was in the atmosphere on Monday afternoon is still there, hasn’t left. It permeates every moment he spends with Jongin; every word they speak in conversation, makes him antsy.

It bothers Kyungsoo.

He doesn’t know what it is, but it bothers him.

“Great!” says Baekhyun enthusiastically, moving on with the conversation to chatter about other things, about class tests and being overloaded with work. Complaining about being tired while simultaneously bursting with energy, in a classic Baekhyun-style paradox.

Kyungsoo isn’t listening though.

His mind is elsewhere.

 

---

 

Everything clicks into place, however, one Saturday afternoon, two weeks later.

He’s been invited to Jongin’s house for the first time, and now they’ve decided to go to the movies after an hour or so of milling around being bored. Jongin’s taking his time getting ready, faffing with his hair in the mirror, and Kyungsoo’s meddling with his camera, seated on the edge of Jongin’s bed.

Jongin had for bringing the camera of course. Said he would probably have withdrawal symptoms if it was taken away for a few hours. Kyungsoo had sulked and complained at the light-hearted ribbing, but secretly, he kind of agrees with Jongin.

But now the other has been messing around for too long, and he looks up from the device in his hands, huffing a feigned breath of annoyance.

“If you don’t hurry up, we’re going to be late,” he sighs. Jongin’s reflection smirks back at him.

“Don’t be so grouchy, Soo. We’ll make it in time.”

Kyungsoo sighs again, looking around the room in boredom. It’s pleasant, cluttered, and Kyungsoo can hear one of Jongin’s sisters speaking on the phone from downstairs. The light filters in through the curtains in the form of golden dust motes, and when he next looks up, Jongin’s caught, fiddling with the buttons on his shirt in one golden ray, skin illuminated, eyes glowing back from his reflection.

He’s gorgeous.

Ethereal.

Perfect.

And Kyungsoo’s not fool enough to miss this chance.

He raises his camera, adjusts and twists, all without Jongin realising what he’s doing. It’s only when the camera shutter goes off, that Jongin glances back to see what’s going on, face contorting into comical outrage when he sees Kyungsoo with a raised camera.

“Hey!” he cries, coming towards Kyungsoo now, who laughs behind the device and snaps another picture, just for the look on Jongin’s face. “Don’t take pictures of me, you creep!”

Jongin lunges for the camera, and Kyungsoo squeals with laughter and collapses back against the bed just as Jongin trips over a stray pair of sweatpants and falls, sprawling over Kyungsoo’s midriff.

He’s laughing too, though. Soft hiccups and breaths ticklish against Kyungsoo’s side.

The camera ends up abandoned, somewhere in the blankets.

“That’s not fair hyung,” Jongin breathes, giving up his fight for the device. “I wasn’t ready for the picture.”

You’re perfect anyway, Kyungsoo doesn’t say.

Instead, he tries to sit up, but Jongin, still lying on top of him, doesn’t scramble back in time.

Kyungsoo suddenly finds himself with Jongin essentially sitting on his lap, straddling him, hands on his chest and foreheads close enough to touch. Jongin’s shifting, nervous, up too close, their eyes meeting in too little space between them. He feels his head swim, hears someone’s breath catch.

Jongin’s all lips and eyelashes in perfect relief, all this trembling, insecure artistry, he doesn’t know if he has the right to see in such perfect detail.

There’s no oxygen left in the room.

Whatever felt heavy and unsure between them before, skyrockets now, quickening in the stagnant air around them.

He could close this distance. Touch those lips. Feel that heartbeat.

Ahh, he thinks. Maybe this is what’s wrong after all.

He does.

Jongin’s breath fans across his face just as he touches their lips together. He closes his eyes. Jongin’s fingers quiver against the fabric of his shirt.

He realises, belatedly, that his own hands have landed up on Jongin’s thighs, and as he tilts his head, presses only slightly more into the kiss, he smooths them up to the other’s waist, feels the fingers on his shirt curl and grip and pull just lightly.

Their noses brush. Jongin makes the softest, tiniest noise, and Kyungsoo’s heart stammers.

They pull apart now, and Jongin’s blushing, bashful and gorgeous as his eyelashes flutter and he looks down. Kyungsoo leans forward to press their foreheads together, breath coming heavy and stuttered, watching Jongin twist his fingers into his shirt, mussing it up and making it wrinkle.

“We’re…” he whispers eventually, swallowing harshly. “We’re gonna be late.”

He makes no move to get up though.

Kyungsoo leans down to rest his face against Jongin’s chest. Feels another heart beating there, just as hard as his.

“Yeah,” he breathes. “We are.”

 

---

 

A day later, he adds a sixth photograph to his personal collection of favourites.

It’s the one he took of Jongin getting ready, right before they kissed. Like the one of him sleeping, it’s absolutely gorgeous, photographically brilliant enough that it should be in his portfolio, would help him land a photography job when he first starts off.

It doesn’t go in the album though. This isn’t one for the cold, impersonal stares of clients, and the clinical way they’d look over his work, deciding if he, and his pictures, were good enough.

But he doesn’t hide it away in the shoebox either. He’s done with that part of his life.

This one he slips into his wallet. Shows it to Jongin proudly, sees it every time he digs in his pocket to pay for something. Even got a disgusted “You’re so ing gay, Soo” from Baekhyun when he glanced over his shoulder when they were paying at a restaurant once.

Because Jongin is his now, and he is Jongin’s.

And he’s no longer afraid to admit that any more.

Even to himself.

 

---

A/N: Hello! I hope you enjoyed all that mess, and a big thanks to Caitlin for being my sounding board for all my numerous complaints during the course of writing this. Two things: a) this is the longest fic I've ever written, so it killed me, and b) I realised kind of belatedly, after I'd finished the first draft, that this is my first proper crack at something that ISN'T nonau. Also, no this time, but I might consider writing a several-years-later kind of (MUCH. SHORTER.) epilogue with some in it. Tell me if you'd like that.

(EDIT: there will be no epilogue, I apologise. I realised that the only reason I wanted to write one was that I felt bad for writing such a long story with no , but I don't want to become a writer that forces scenes into places that they don't belong. Again, I apologise for getting anyone'se hopes up.)

As always, you can follow me on twitter, or drop a message in my curiouscat if you're shy, and comments and upvotes are much appreciated! xx