pairing: Sunggyu/Woohyun
prompt: some people say home is where you come from. but home is a place you need to find
rating: G
words: 1,514
 

I'll Stay

Woohyun is sixteen when his mother decides to move to Seoul. It’s not surprising, at least not for him, who has been hearing her talking about that city for almost three months now.

His mother has always been like this, a bit crazy, a bit hot-tempered, and always looking for new adventures. If she wants to start something now she just will, not minding what people will think. Woohyun, on the other side, is totally different. It’s not that he cares about other people’s opinions, but he’s so calm it makes it difficult to believe they’re mother and son. He’s always quiet, and he never lets his heart speak. Maybe it’s because it’s always been him and his mother against the world, and someone had to be the grown up of the two of them. Anyway, it’s not like he cares about them moving to a different place for the eighth time in his life.

He did at first, when he was smaller and cared about not having real friends because they always run to a new city when he was starting to get comfortable with his classmates or the kids of their neighbors, but as the time passed he got used to it and it felt almost natural, to appreciate every single person and try to discover what they hid before leaving and never looking back again.

He almost felt like a ghost, trapped in the different realities that each place offered to him, wandering around cities he would never belong to. The only thing that worries him is the fact they’re already in the middle of the school year and the classes have already started, but he has always been a smart boy with almost a prodigious ability to memorize things (or that’s what the teachers have always said), so he knows it won’t be difficult to catch his classmates rhythm. He’ll just spend his evenings on the library studying nonstop, it’s easy.

It’s in the library when he sees Sunggyu for the first time, and it’s almost as if the other boy didn’t belong to that place either, but to a soft spring dream. Kim Sunggyu is on his last year of high school, and even though he’s just one year older than Woohyun, he looks much more mature the first time he enters the library, just another boy with an immaculate uniform and shiny eyes. Maybe it’s because he’s the one in charge of closing the library, the way he talks to people, or even the fact that he’s also the student’s council president, but it makes Woohyun feel small all of the sudden.

(Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the way the sunlight dances over his eyelashes.)

Sunggyu and him never really talk. Not that Woohyun’s avoiding him, it’s just that the opportunity of having a casual conversation never comes. He could just approach him and tell him something, whatever, but he knows he’ll sound like an embarrassing teenager who has a stupid crush over a pretty guy (that’s pretty much the case), so he stays silent, watching Sunggyu from the distance. He observes, and he notices small things that make him fall for him like the cherry blossom petals fall on a quiet evening.

Woohyun notices the way his fingers are, long and delicate, and how they hold the pencil when he writes, as if it was crystal instead of simple wood. He has a messy calligraphy too, and sometimes, when he thinks about it late at night, it makes him smile because he would have never imagined a boy like him would have such a scruffy handwriting, but he likes it nevertheless.

He also notices his habit of pulling the strands of dark hair behind his ear sometimes, when they’re falling over his eyes as he tries to read, and he does it in such an elegant way Woohyun’s almost sure he’s not a real person but a product of his playful imagination. And he notices (of course he does) how Sunggyu’s eyes turn into crescents when he discovers Woohyun’s eyes pinned on him and, instead of lowering his gaze, smiles at him, making Woohyun’s cheeks turn pink and the room’s air hotter, suffocating his throat as he smiles back shyly. But he likes the way his lungs forget what oxygen is for the boy sitting a couple of tables away.

At some point, and he doesn’t know when the point comes, he starts visiting the library just because of Sunggyu. He doesn’t think about anything but that until his classes are finally over and he enters the place, where the other boy only whispers a “good evening” in the most beautiful voice he has ever heard before he sits and starts working. Or, at least, it used to be like that. But, at the time passes, Woohyun notices that he can’t focus on his homework, or his exams, or nothing that’s not related to the boy sitting not so far away from him and who only gives him a smile once or twice in the whole afternoon. What if he’s not interested, Woohyun thinks, and I’ll end up failing my exams just because of a pretty boy. What if I get too caught up, he asks himself continuously, but he can’t help it, at least not when he’s so near he could just get up and reach to him.

That’s why that day he just murmurs a “goodbye” when he leaves, and the next day, he doesn’t even enter the library. It’s not that he doesn’t want to, but he can’t, so he just stays in class once they’re all gone, putting his books all over the table again and trying his best to focus on what’s in front of him. He tries really hard one, twice, and the same ritual goes on for two weeks. Woohyun waits until everybody leaves, and just then, he puts on his headphones and lets the music take him far away, even forgetting about the things he has to do and just letting his mind wander around for awhile as he watches the spring slowly take over the scenery from the other side of the window’s glass. He knows what’s the thing that won’t let him focus on the insanely amount of things he has to study.

And he also knows what to do about it.

The cherry blossoms petals keep falling like a soft, pinkish rain around Woohyun who, once again, looks at his watch and bites his lower lip nervously. It’s not seven yet, but it will be in just a couple of minutes, and he’s starting to regret what he’s done.

A love letter, really? He was surely not thinking when he wrote it.

It was not a real love letter, just a lilac paper with some stupid words written on it, and not they sound even more strange on Woohyun’s head.

“Just like the flower petals know their destiny’s falling on a dainty spring evening, I knew from the start that I would inevitably fall for you. N.W”.

Oh God, that was definitely a stupid thing to do, and he knows it. Maybe he should leave. Yes, he should leave and right now, it was so stupid to keep waiting for him until the library closed.

And he’s about to go on with his insecure thoughts, but then he sees him. It’s like the first time he saw him, and once again, he looks like a dream. The pastel sky behind him makes him shine with a soft light that causes Woohyun’s heart to skip a beat and makes his mouth go dry for a second, but what hurts and heals him the most is the way he’s smiling. It’s a beautiful smile, so beautiful Woohyun’s knees feel like cotton, and he only goes weaker as the other boy approaches him until they’re finally centimeters apart. That’s when he notices Sunggyu’s hand holding a lilac paper, and he remembers the reason why he’s there, letting his heart beat faster than ever.

“Would you mind if I walk you home today?”, he asks, his voice just a low murmur but his gaze never leaving the older’s one. Sunggyu’s smile turns wider, and his eyes also turn into crescents.

“It would be a pleasure to be by your side,” he answers, nodding slightly.

Woohyun lets himself smile for the first time, noticing the oxygen he didn’t know his lungs were holding escape in a small sigh, and that’s when they both start walking slowly, silently, letting the summer breeze caress their faces softly.

When Sunggyu looks away, the younger lets his eyes travel around his side profile, and he decides he’s the most beautiful human being he has ever seen. Maybe it’s because of the dusk lights, the pale pink sky that surrounds them or the way his eyes seem to look far away, looking for something that’s not visible. He knows it’s love, and it makes his chest warm in a way he has never felt before.

And, for the first time, Woohyun doesn’t want to leave again.

A/N: thank you all for reading! happy birthday to our beloved kim sunggyu, let’s hope he keeps blooming for a long time.