it takes kim jongin twelve alarm snoozes and six cuss words to stumble out of bed, onto the floor and up on his feet to shower the drowsiness away. mother—he trips and staggers, and sings his heart out to bon jovi and queen. but by the time he's shimmied his way into his uniform, sunlight pressing warm onto his lean frame, he's already running late. ‘!’

school is a five-minute walk away, but from where jongin treads hurriedly, the bell has begun ringing ominously. with hastened steps, he makes his way into campus.






sehun is a dreamer, an heir to an airline empire established in the central business district seoul, and an aspiring aeronautics pilot, the spread of wings on aeroplanes as broad and as vast as his dreams could take him.

in his senior year as an engineering major, sehun lands a task as a teaching assistant with his outstanding remarks—it earns you extra credit, his professor had explained, gives your resumé a little more spice. sehun had rolled his eyes, an insufferable amount of testing my patience, you mean, but accepts the role, nonetheless. anything to graduate sooner.

what irks sehun most, however, is not the doubled amount of workload or the snide comments from his fellow coursemates about being a full-time nerd and a teacher's pet, but rather, that one particular student he so gladly dubbed as the bane of his existence—kim jongin ('you can call me kai,') and all his five foot-something glory.

being the small forward of the basketball team has its perks, perhaps, as the student sleeps through most of his lectures and yet manages to keep his record rather stable for being favored by the faculty populace.

well, except for sehun.

he thinks it unjust that simply because someone possesses a superb set of basketball skills, it shouldn't mean that the student be excused of his unacceptable behaviour.

'it's not fair!' sehun exclaims over his ramyeon, the october cold seeping through his window in tongues of wind. 'i work my off for my grades—'

'what ?' kyungsoo chuckles, earning a dark glare from his roommate. he shrugs through his worksheet, pausing from his homework to sip a spoonful of hot broth from his own bowl. 'athletes get away with everything. should you have pursued soccer, you'd have done the same.'

'i most certainly would have not!' sehun pouts, the memory of the sport somewhat stinging. 'i am a responsible man. i am the aviation industry's future.'

kyungsoo steals a boiled egg from sehun’s bowl. 'sure.'






it might have been love at first sight when jongin caught a glimpse of sehun—when he just knew his tutor would make all his shakespearean fantasies come alive with a flip of his hair and an indignant huff.

when jongin requested for a tutor after flunking out on his fourth math quiz, he never expected someone with such a pretty face to have an even prettier brain.

‘a “pretty brain”?’ chanyeol snorted through his gatorade, a thin line of sweat on his forehead from ball practice. ‘man, you’ve got it so bad. you’re so ing whipped, it’s gross.’

‘dude. dude, you have to see him, he’s so—he’s just—i’m—it's love, man—'

chanyeol smacked him right in the face with a towel, laughing at jongin’s flushed and bewildered face. ‘get a grip, romeo.’

jongin merely punched chanyeol playfully in the shoulder.






sometimes sehun thinks kim jongin exists just to ruin the very simple life he’s opted to live. this is honestly his professor’s fault, damn you, salazar! because he was perfectly fine being dumped with paperwork that didn’t involve another human being (unless it was miranda kerr) or any other breathing responsibility (unless it was a puppy).

he could only sigh in defeat, remembering his predicament, and the bell rings almost on cue. sehun dismisses them with a wave of a hand, mentally unprepared for what’s to come.

‘do you like math?’ jongin asks out of the blue, a thin yet intimidating eyebrow raised in anticipation. the morning sun is warm on his skin as his coursemates flee for their next lecture.

(it’s probably best to make the most out of the experience.)

sehun glares at him from his desk—is he supposed to answer that? he’s a ing TA, for christ’s sake. ‘uhmm, yes?’

jongin seems to have deflated, but—‘well i don’t.’ he hovers above sehun, the latter craning his back to look him dead in the eye as if to warn him to step away. ‘in fact, the only number i care about is yours.’

sehun gawks at him, raising a hand because oh no, you didn’t, kim jong. ‘one, i am a very busy person! so busy, in fact, that i don’t even have the time to breathe, much less engage in a non-platonic relationship with you.’ sehun’s eyes grow wider with every sputtered word. ‘two, i am not attracted to you. like. at all. because you’re shorter than me. and your eyebrows are too thin and well-groomed, it makes my own pair grieve with insecurity. and three, did i mention i’m not attracted to you?’

(sehun walks away from jongin’s unbelievably adorable pout.)

the last reason was a lie, of course, kyungsoo could attest to that.

sehun, you’re staring, he says.

sehun, you’re being painfully obvious, he says.

‘why don’t you just go out with him?’ kyungsoo sighs through his textbook, exasperated by sehun’s constant complaints of kim jong’s poor, poor choice of pick-up lines and wooing skills on a cold wednesday morn. ‘c’mon, it’s been months. you are clearly in like with the man.’

‘i am not!’ sehun screams unintentionally, earning him a rather violent shush and a threatening glare from the librarian. he ducks his head behind his notebook in fear, whispering viciously, ‘he is the bane of my existence, kyungsoo-hyung. not only does he make embarrassing attempts at getting my attention, he knows next to nothing about math. it’s a total abomination!’

‘and yet you can’t find it in yourself to reject his request for tutorials when you know junmyeon can always take him under his wing.’ kyungsoo rolls his eyes rather boredly. 'i see how it is.'

maybe 'hate' is actually too weak a word. or not, because—

'i may have actually killed you more than twenty times in my head, and in twenty different, creative, and terrifyingways, too,’ sehun deadpanned in one of their sessions, glasses perched heavily atop his pointed nose. ‘fear me, student.'

'are you absolutely certain you've only thought of killing me, oh sehun?' jongin wiggled his eyebrows teasingly, and it made sehun cringe and wince through his next words: GET. OUT.






the rain beats down like a drum, pounding on the earth beneath sehun’s sneakers. i should’ve brought that umbrella, he beats himself with regret. he’d ignored kyungsoo’s warning before sprinting ungracefully to his first class this morning. ‘, , ity-, .’

the sudden gush of wind has him ducking behind the roof of their gymnasium, having been caught in the storm while he made his way to the dorms. he’d been hoping to catch up on the latest season of “suits”, but the downpour would keep him from—

‘sehun?’

sehun turns ruefully towards the familiar voice, face stoic and expression guarded. jongin gives him a small wave, cheeks pink and hair damp from the shower. sehun ignores the shorter man’s post-workout glow, skin almost golden, clearing his throat and looking away just as fast as jongin could throw him a teasing smirk. ‘what do you want, jongin?’

‘nothing,’ jongin approaches him with slow, assertive steps, smile still confident and smug. ‘were you waiting for me?’

sehun almost chokes on his saliva. ‘you wish.’

‘oh, i do,’ jongin chuckles, and the height difference has sehun slightly towering over him. the clap of thunder makes him jump in surprise, much to jongin’s amusement. ‘whoa, whoa, oh sehun. it is way too early to be this cute.’

‘i am not cute!’ sehun raises his voice. ‘i am a twenty-year-old man with looks that could launch a thousand ships.’ jongin is not completely listening—’what are you doing? is that a gun? oh my god, you’re out to kill me, aren’t you?’’—as he laughs and rummages through his bag carelessly to throw sehun—

‘an umbrella.’ oh. ‘uhmm. what’s this for?’

‘geez, i don’t know. self-defense?’ jongin scoffs, rolling his eyes at sehun’s incredulous look. ‘i brought another one by accident. take it. no strings attached.’

‘this is odd,’ sehun raises an eyebrow doubtfully, but feels unbelievably warm that he fidgets and somewhat panics at the unfamiliar emotion. ‘but thank you, i’ll be going now, bye!’

he doesn't miss jongin's mocking laughter.






it is on jongin’s third absence that sehun begins to worry.

‘he hasn’t been attending practice for the past few days, either,’ chanyeol tells him, gaze questioning, but amused, nonetheless. sehun thinks it’s ridiculous. ‘you can drop his worksheets off at his house, if you’re worried.’

maybe that’d be the last time sehun would ever ask park chanyeol of jongin’s whereabouts.

when sehun makes it to jongin’s door, breathless and legs aching, he suddenly questions his motive. ‘the classes he’d missed,’ he convinces himself. ‘and his homework. yes, homework. school. practice. .’

he knocks once, twice, thrice—but his fourth rap on the door causes it to crack open. paranoia and fear hit sehun’s senses as soon as he steps inside, knees buckling at the thick silence. ‘j-jongin?’ he calls out warily, because jesus ing christ, death awaits me at kim jong’s house.

he tiptoes to the kitchen and discovers a pile of unwashed dishes, half-eaten takeouts, and the refrigerator door wide open with food barely enough for one to get through a day. his obsessive-compulsive instincts kick in, and with a slight push, the fridge door closes, and the appliance hums back to life.

he’s about to sponge his way through the dying pile of dishes when a groan, followed by a coughing fit, makes him squeak like some frightened . he struggles to regain his balance, walking on his toes towards the source of the unpleasant sound.

there is a fort in the middle of the living room, chairs and side tables arranged in a way that holds the blankets in place. the entrance stands just below sehun’s hip, and he is both amazed and curious, kneeling down to its level. there is a quilted lump of something underneath the shade, and it stirs ever so slightly, as if struggling to move with every labored breathing. ‘jongin?’

he pulls the quilt gently, and there appears a very disheveled jongin with a messy mop of hair atop his head, skin sallow and forehead burning under sehun’s touch.

jongin’s feverish mumbles and delirious calls for his mother breaks sehun’s heart, and it is enough to make him rise to his feet, rummaging through the cabinets and closets for medicine, only to find them empty save for a packet of instant ramen and a moldy loaf of bread. he empties his bag on the counter in panic, sighing in relief when he finds a couple of paracetamol and ibuprofen pills among the sheets of paper.

he sets a glass of water and the medicine on the chair that holds one side of the fort. pulling the blankets carefully away from a shivering jongin, and with gentle words, he coaxes the athlete to drink the medication, rubbing soothing circles down his back. ‘i’m right here, jongin. it’ll be okay.’

he isn’t even sure jongin is completely aware of his presence—not with the way his gaze is fixated on the floor in delirium or immense exhaustion—even after he’d forced him to swallow down a small of bowl of instant ramen despite his weak protests.

this jongin is different, sehun tells himself as he runs a careful hand through the sleeping man’s hair, that despite the exhaustion and fatigue creasing his eyebrows, this jongin looks relaxed, peaceful. sehun is almost frightened of the warmth that crawls under his skin and with the way his chest constricts at the thought of keeping jongin away from the harsh realities of the world.

sehun stays until the moon rises high above the clouds, worksheets half complete and books wide open on the coffee table by the blanket fort. sehun doesn’t move from his place until jongin stops mumbling names under his breath, as if begging to be held secure as he unconsciously circles a hand around sehun’s wrist, afraid to let go. sehun stays still, frozen in place, after jongin mutters his name in a dreamlike state, and sehun’s heart jumps out of his chest in thunderous claps and content sighs.

what is it about me, sehun wonders aloud, a thumb tracing patterns on trembling knuckles as the rain pours in quiet showers. what is it you see in me, that it makes you want me to stay? and the walls he’s built all these months crumble to the ground, crashing like angry waves and burning concrete, and something becomes so, soclear to him that he retracts his hand as quick as his breathing—i’m thoroughly ed.

he trembles slightly as he makes porridge with quiet movements, chest tight and feeling overwhelmed with the revelation. he leaves with a sigh, a light touch on jongin’s forehead, a note weighed down by the bowl—don’t skip meals, get well soon—and he braves the first gust of the winter breeze with bated breath.






‘i hate him. i hate him, i hate him, i ing hate him, hyung. hate. hate.’

kyungsoo squeezes the bridge of his nose, piqued at his best friend’s constant mumbling from under his blanket at o’clock in the morning. ‘sehun, i swear to god, if you don’t stop, i will make you eat horse for the rest of the semester.’

‘hyung. hyung, you don’t understand.’ sehun emerges, biting his lip, looking very much dazed and lost, yet bright-eyed and bushy-tailed like he’d discovered an actual unicorn or a dodo bird still very much alive and in existence. ‘hyung, kim jongin. it’s kim jongin, he—’

and it dawns on kyungsoo, smiling blithely through sehun’s whimpers and pouted lips, through his best friend’s weak denial and his faintly rosy cheeks. finally. shaking his head amusedly, he sighs. ‘do tell me what i don’t already know.’

so when sehun receives word a few days later, that jongin has recovered and gone back to university with his impish smile and basketball tricks, he finds himself behind pillars, in between lockers, underneath study tables and behind bookshelves. he pleads to his professor that he be excused from his classes, feigning sickness, and cancels his study sessions with jongin with a note on his desk.

‘you can’t hide from him forever, sehun,’ kyungsoo says, glaring at the breathing lump of mass on the other bed one afternoon. ‘it’s been two weeks. he’s been wondering where you are.’

‘he has?’ sehun asks, surprised, with a little something like flattery lacing his already muffled voice. ‘i mean, no, that would be absurd.’

‘do you know what’s absurd and pathetic?’

sehun hears footsteps drawing near and he instinctively tightens his grip around his blanket, but kyungsoo’s biceps are a lot stronger than sehun’s, damn you, gym instructor! and he’s pulled forcedly out of the bed, falling flat on his back with a loud thud. ‘what the , hyung?!’

‘get your out of that ing bed or i will force pinku-pinku down your throat—’

‘alright, alright!’ sehun rubs the ache on his back ruefully, making an exaggerated effort of standing on his feet and contemplates screaming profanities into his pillow. ‘geez, hyung, where do you hide all that anger?’

he is kicked out of their room much faster than he could say .

so he wanders around the campus, hands tucked underneath his armpits as he shivers into his sweater and curses kyungsoo, his biceps, his impossibly large eyes and his superior lack of people-loving skills that could potentially lead to sehun’s demise in this freezing cold late afternoon. sehun is feeling particularly mopey and lonely and god ing damn it, kim jongin is practicing in nothing but a flimsy shirt and sweatpants. how sehun got himself onto the court is, in itself, a mystery (and a rather naughty one at that), but the warmth is inviting and pleasing to the touch, so he allows himself to sit on one of the bleachers and revel in the sound of dribbles and grunts and companionless ball games.

sehun would be lying if he says he’s not seen any of jongin’s games, if he says he hasn’t been paying attention to the way jongin seems to dance across the court like he belonged there. maybe, in a way, sehun sees a part of himself in the way determination and mastery cloud jongin’s vision—the sweet taste of victory at the tip of his fingertips.

‘sehun?’

sehun is startled out of his reverie, finding himself looking up at stark brown eyes and a questioning gaze, smile lopsided and teasing. he abruptly stands, flushed and highly strung with unspoken words and kim jongin. ‘i was—i was just—’

‘you were there, weren’t you?,’ jongin cuts him off with a murmur, grip tight and secure around the ball like letting go would set him ablaze. ‘you took care of me. i knew it was you.’

sehun is speechless, blood creeping up his neck under the weight of jongin’s stare with every second that ticks by. suddenly he feels trapped, a confession at the tip of his tongue. ‘i don’t know what you’re talking about.’

but jongin sees right through his behaviour, grinning very much like an idiot who’s caught sehun red-handed. 'so... about that dinner date...'






'you did what?'

kyungsoo's eyes grow abnormally larger with bewilderment, and this somewhat scares sehun senseless.

'i rejected him, hyung,' sehun murmurs remorsefully with a pillow over his head, contemplating on whether or not to suffocate himself or live another day of his best friend’s cruelty. 'for the thirty-third time.'

'you are insane.' perhaps. 'heartless. despicable.'

there is remorse in sehun’s voice as he says, ‘'i just think he deserves someone better.'

kyungsoo rolls his eyes, clearly disappointed and downright annoyed. 'that's not for you to decide.'

still, sehun remains private about the overwhelming feeling of fondness and utter attraction over kim jongin’s crooked grin and casual hello’s down the hall. he gives him a curt nod in return, lips held in a tight line, and yet jongin would beam at him like he’d earned a thousand victories with that simple gesture, i’ll see you later. no matter how cold or distant sehun may seem, jongin will always find a reason to believe that maybe not now, but someday, he would tell chanyeol, and that alone motivates him to persist, to be sehun’s constant.

he brings sehun candy when he gets the chance, leaves him the cheesiest pick-up lines on sticky blue post-its on his desk when he thinks no one's looking, and makes sure sehun leaves the campus before he does despite the late-night practices he gets punished with because of his tardiness. he studies harder, works later hours grasping the concepts so foreign to him just so he could show sehun that he is actually trying. other times he would appear with an orchid or a lily from his mom's garden, tucking it in between the pages of the books they are to cover for one of their study sessions, and sehun’s smile is blissful and pleased (even if, minutes after, he starts stressing over jongin’s supreme lack of mathematical understanding).

time and time again, jongin would hint for a date; over and over again, he is turned down, yet he remains optimistic that one day, sehun's smile be solely his.






(but it has always been his to begin with.)






‘sehun, it’s jongin,’ kyungsoo breathes heavily on the other side of the phone, panic rising to his throat at the apparent alarm in his voice. ‘jongin is on the rooftop, he’s about to jump—’

sehun drops his books, leaving piles upon piles of paperwork undone and unattended as he runs as fast as his feet could take him to where jongin is. there, standing on the ledge, is jongin with arms spread wide and seemingly welcoming the very thought of the afterlife. ‘WHAT THE ARE YOU DOING?!’

below, there are words of panic and fright, faint cheers of don’t give up and everything will be okay shouted from a distance. but jongin is unfazed, smile beautifully lit by the sun as he turns towards sehun with a song on his lips. ‘so, baby, DON’T GO—i swear to you, sehun, i'll jump as soon as this song ends if you don’t say yes—'

‘get the down from there, you’re making a scene!’ when sehun makes no attempt to move, albeit his threatening glare, jongin hovers a foot playfully over the ledge, then—

'okay, OKAY! , jongin!' abruptly, sehun's hand reaches out to grab jongin’s sleeve, pulling him back with such force that it sends them both collapsing in a heap of limbs on the floor. when sehun opens his eyes to a chorus of distant cheers from below, jongin smiles down at him triumphantly. ‘say my name again.’

sehun pushes jongin away, just as quick as he had pulled, face several shades of crimson. ‘you tard, going through all of this just to—’

‘i like it when you get all worked up, ice princess.’

‘don’t ever—’ sehun pushes jongin away much harder this time. ‘—call me that, or i swear—’

‘hey,’ jongin grins, still as wicked and disarming, much to sehun’s dismay. ‘i’m in love you.’

the blood rush almost disables sehun to stand properly as his knees weaken at jongin’s thoughtful gaze. ‘i—did i ever tell you that i absolutely cannot stand secondhand embarrassment? shut the up.’

jongin laughs wholeheartedly, looking thoughtfully at sehun and his impossibly bewildered stare, almost like a deer caught in the headlights, jongin thinks. ‘you’re really adorable, oh sehun.’

‘and you’re embarrassing. please shut up.’






sehun still “hates” jongin for being shorter by a few centimeters, wincing at the sunlight bouncing off jongin’s hair, and , he looks absolutely beautiful like this. he still hates him for being a dumb when it comes to math (but who likes math, anyway? math is every student’s nightmare).

but it is sehun who’s left mesmerized by jongin’s presence, his very existence; it is he who bends just a little to capture jongin’s lips in a kiss so breathtaking and sweet in the warm afternoon of a friday (a saturday, a sunday).

sehun has always thought of love as a cosmic feeling—out-of-this world, out-of-control. he can’t tell when he’d fallen for this dork of an athlete. maybe it had been when he’d silently watched jongin fall asleep over his worksheets, or when jongin had smiled at him over the crowd as if the winning shot had been for him all along (as if he’d known sehun had been watching him all along). there was just really no specific moment.

but he’s never been more sure of how he feels right now, right at this very moment as jongin traces his cheeks with the gentle caress of his fingertips. all those airplanes and blueprints he’s designed could never compare to how high he feels as he tells jongin almost inaudibly against his lips that you are my everything, you are my home.