Until you come back home
Home
Zelo wakes up when something nudges him in the ribs. He wakes up to Jongup poking him and he just grunts and turns to lie on his other side on the sofa. It's morning, and he had hoped it would have been someone else waking him up.
"Morning, you sleepyhead. Time to get up." Jongup's soft voice chimes.
"Is he back yet?" Zelo murmurs, his voice muffled by the sofa pillow.
"Nope."
"Then I don't wanna get up."
"You should though, there's coffee and breakfast if you'd like." Jongup ruffles the kid's hair as he speaks and leaves the living room.
Zelo pokes his head up to watch him go and his mind is fast made up. He doesn't remember the last time he's had a good cup of coffee. All that one dollar they make in greasy gas stations shouldn't even be allowed to be called coffee. He gets up slowly and flexes his back and arms before following the other to the kitchen. And the coffee is perfect, with two spoonfuls of sugar and almost half cup of milk. Zelo drinks four cups of it before he even eats anything.
Zelo spends most of his day following Jongup around. He's restless and doesn't really know what else to do. But he gets bored watching Jongup do the laundry and he decides to go up to the library. He sits on the sofa in the corner and watches the yard through the window, wishing a car would drive up to the house and Yongguk would step out from it. But there's no car, nothing, the yard is completely silent. So he just watches as the sun keeps going lower and lower, the scenery getting darker.
He remembers when he used to do this a lot back at the place he grew up in. He'd sit in his own room, on the windowsill, with a mug of coffee or tea and a good book. He’d watch the sun set and wonder if there would ever be anything better for him out there. His parents had never really cared about him when he was growing up, they'd been too tied up in their jobs, building their careers. Zelo didn't really mind it though, he got to be alone in the house, he enjoyed his own company much more than he did his parents. When they were there, it was always awkward. He didn't know how their family had ever gotten so ed up really. His parents had always been distant to him, distant to each other too, sometimes he really wondered why his parents had ended up together in the first place. He didn't know, but he guessed they had stayed together because of him. He had never seen his parents hug or kiss, or show much any emotion towards each other, he wasn't sure if they ever even touched each other. And the last time his mother had hugged him was when he was five and he had fallen down when practising how to ride a bike. It might have been stupid, but he had always wished there would have been someone there to take care of him, or love him when he was growing up.
But Zelo got used to living like that, most of the days he didn’t pay any attention to his parents, some days he forget they even lived in the same house with him. He’d spent most of his time upstairs in his own room. That would have all been okay, until his father had lost his precious job. That had happened about a year ago, and Zelo hated it from the beginning. After that his father had spent all his time at home, mostly drunk too, lying on the couch in the living room. Zelo hated his presence, hated his smell, hated everything about the lazy er. Anyone else would have tried to find a new job or at least tried to keep themselves together, but not his father. He just stayed inside the house and tried to drown himself in alcohol. Zelo had been okay with both of his parents working all day, but this bothered him more than anything. This meant he had to interact with his father, see him, talk to him almost daily.
The mood inside the house changed drastically when his father lost the job. The peace, and the balance that Zelo had been able to keep himself wrapped up in whenever he got to be alone in the house soon vanished. Sometimes he could hear his parents fighting in the middle of the night after his mom came back from work. Sometimes he had to listen to his father shouting to him through the locked door, and the guy never had anything nice to say. Zelo absorbed all the negative energy from his parents. He didn't like it, he didn't want to feel like this. But that's how he had always been, his emotions would always mirror the emotions of people around him. And when there was no one around him, he felt better, like he could concentrate in his own emotions, concentrate on growing up like he wanted to. But now he just felt like he was suffocating.
He started to think of leaving the house, running away somewhere. But it was always just a thought in the back of his mind, he never took any action to actually do it and he wasn’t really sure if he wanted to. But then one night he had come home from one of his walks around the town, walks that sometimes took hours, because he always wished when he’d come back to the house he would find his father passed out on the couch, and he usually did, but not tonight. This time his father had been still awake when he got home, waiting for him at the door, drunk like usual. Zelo had wanted to just go up to his room and stay there til the next day like he usually did, but his father had gotten a hold of him and had pushed him against a wall. He'd snapped, he was shouting at him, what a useless ing kid he was, and he had hit him in the face, hard enough to leave him a black eye. The words had never really hurt Zelo, he could block most of them out. But physical violence, that was something he’d never experienced before and it was enough, one hit was enough. That was the night when Zelo had decided that it would be the last night he'd ever spend in the house. And the next morning, he'd walked out with his back bag and never looked back again.
Zelo sighs as the memories of living inside that house wash through him. He doesn’t want to think about it, it brings back too many unwanted emotions, too many bad memories. He had hated everything about that house, about his parents, yet he sometimes wondered what happened to them both after he left. But right now, he’s just glad that he doesn't have to go back, ever again. That's when Jongup walks in the library and Zelo is brought back from his memories.
"Wanna watch a movie or something?" he asks, friendly smile on his lips.
"Yeah, sure." Zelo answers, smiling back.
- - -
Zelo doesn’t know when he’s fallen asleep, but when he wakes up it’s in the sofa of the living room again and it’s quite dark in the room. Yet he can feel someone’s presence and it doesn’t take long for him to figure out that someone’s leaning over him in the dark. Fingers come to brush his cheek and he freezes for a while.
“Zelo-yah..” a soft voice whispers to him and that voice immediately makes him relax. He thinks he could recognize that voice even in his sleep right now. He can’t really see anything in the dark, but he can feel those soft fingers leave his cheek and travel down his arm, leaving goosebumps on Zelo's skin. The fingers come down to his hand and intertwine themselves with Zelo's own, squeeze them lightly.
"Come and sleep with me?" Yongguk's soft voice comes out in a whisper again. Zelo had missed that voice already. He squeezes the other’s hand back in approval.
He can feel Yongguk's strong arms sneak under him and the guy lifts him up from the sofa, scoops him up in his arms.
"Long day at work hmm?" Zelo mumbles to the guy’s chest, his voice rough from sleep. He wraps his arms around Yongguk's neck and breathes in his scent, he thinks he can smell a hint of liquor in the other's breath.
"You have no idea kid." Yongguk chuckles softly as he carries Zelo up the stairs and into his bedroom.
Zelo is still half asleep when Yongguk lays him down on the bed, but he wants to wake up, finally Yongguk is there and he wants to ask all the questions he's been wanting answers for. But his mind is blank right now. He watches Yongguk undress himself so he's only in his boxer's when he comes to the bed again. Zelo can't help but stare.
"Won't you get uncomfortable, sleeping in those clothes?" Yongguk smirks to him and Zelo blinks at him a few times.
"What do you..?" he starts.
"Don't worry, I just want to sleep."
Zelo blinks again, but unfastens his jeans and lets Yongguk pull them away from his legs, before lying down on the bed next to him, pulling a blanket to cover them. Zelo turns to face him and Yongguk immediately lifts his hand to ghost his fingers on the other's cheek, his nose, his chin, his lips. Zelo watches as Yongguk's eyes follow the trail of his fingers, before he finally looks Zelo in the eyes, smiling softly.
"You really are pretty." the low voice says in a whisper. Zelo's lips turn up in a quick smile.
"You don't look so bad yourself." he says and Yongguk's smile widens.
"I'm tired Zelo. Jongup says you have a lot of questions, and you can ask me anything you want tomorrow."
"Will you be here when I wake up?"
"Yeah, I promise." Yongguk smiles to him, before pressing a soft kiss to his forehead.
Zelo is tired too, and all the questions in his mind seem to have vanished. He knows Yongguk is here now and that's enough. He turns around to face the wall as Yongguk leans to turn off the lamp on the bedside table. Yongguk comes close to him after that, sneaking his arms around the other's body, dropping a few kisses on his neck before sleep overcomes them both.
- - -
Zelo wakes up alone in the bed again. He's ready to throw a fit the next time he sees the guy, he's tired of this, but then he hears someone walking in the corridor, humming as they come closer to the door of Yongguk's bedroom. The door opens and Yongguk walks in, holding two mugs in his hand and Zelo frowns at him. Yongguk just smiles to him softly and comes to the bed.
"Good morning to you too." he says, offering Zelo one of the mugs.
"You promised you'd be here."
"And I am. I thought we could both do with some coffee before questions and answers time starts." Yongguk chuckles and sits on the bed. His blonde hair is messy and Zelo can't help but put his arm out and comb his fingers through the soft hair a few times. He takes a sip of the coffee and it's almost perfect, exactly like he usually drinks it. He knows Jongup must be behind it.
"So, what do you want to know?" Yongguk asks him, turning around a bit so he can face him better.
"Everything." Zelo smirks, hiding his smile with the coffee mug.
"You expect me to go through my whole life story in one sitting? Tough luck kid, but that's not gonna happen." Yongguk smiles back at him, his eyes sparkling as he watches the kid.
"Okay. Why am I here?" Zelo starts with the question that pops in his head first.
"Hmm.. Well, Himchan brought you here so I could release some stress." Yongguk grins, the back of his neck. Zelo blushes slightly.
"Then.. Why am I still here?"
"I thought you could stay, if you wanted to. I'm not forcing you to stay, but I would think it's better here than on the streets."
"Do you want me to stay?" Zelo asks, his tone of voice innocent, curious.
"Maybe. Do you want to stay?" Yongguk watches him with one of his thick eyebrows raised.
"Maybe." Zelo smirks, mimicking the other’s tone of voice and Yongguk laughs at that. "But what does it mean if I stay here?"
"Ahh.. You think.. Well, I wouldn't mind touching you again, the way I did a few nights ago. In fact, if you'd live under the same roof I probably wouldn't be able to keep my hands off." Yongguk grins at him and Zelo blushes again.
"Does that mean I belong to you?" Zelo asks him, making sure he emphasizes the right word in the sentence.
"You've clearly been alone with Jongup too long." Yongguk smiles at him, lifting his hand to Zelo's knee. "But no, it doesn't. Himchan can say that he owns Jongup all he wants. But I don't want that, I don't really think it's right. You are free to stay here as long as you want, and if you want me to keep my hands off, I can try."
"Maybe you don't have to." Zelo says softly, almost in a whisper, soft pink colour sneaking to his cheeks again. He lifts his hand to his knee where Yongguk’s fingers are still laying and he wraps his own hand to cover them, squeezing them softly.
"Good. Is that all you wanted to know?"
And it isn't. Zelo asks him questions after questions and Yongguk tries his best to answer, but he knows he doesn’t really give the kid much to go on with. There are some questions he knew would come, but he’s not ready to answer some of them. Zelo gets to know his age, 22, and that makes him blush once more. He had guessed Yongguk was older than him, obviously, but he hadn’t really thought about how much older the guy actually was. He asks him why the house is so big and the answer is simple, because they can afford it. He asks why all the doors are locked, but doesn’t really get an answer. He asks about his past, but Yongguk just smiles, tells him that it’s a story for another time. Zelo just scoffs at him after he stops getting real answers.
"What do you do for a living?" he tries one more question.
"I thought you might ask that." Yongguk looks down for a second before looking back at him. "I'm a florist." he grins and Zelo almost chokes on the coffee he was just drinking.
"You are not." he says, frowning.
"Maybe not, but that's all you need to know right now." Yongguk smiles at him and Zelo shakes his head.
"Why won't you tell me? Florists don't work two days straight. And they definitely don't have enough money to own a house this big." Zelo says to him, disbelief visible in his voice.
"Maybe my flower business is doing good and I can afford it. Are you doubting my skill to sell flowers?" Yongguk smiles at him and brings a hand to ruffle the kids hair.
"Well yes. You don't really look like a guy who would sell flowers."
Yongguk chuckles. "Come on kid. Let's go get some breakfast." Yongguk says as he gets up from the bed. “And Zelo, don’t get me wrong. This place isn’t really some sort of foster home for kids who live on the streets or anything like that. Not just anyone gets to stay.” he winks, before they leave for the kitchen.
Zelo goes through the conversation in his head as they eat their breakfast. Jongup has made them some bacon and eggs and Himchan is there too, chatting this and that with Yongguk. Zelo can feel the guy’s eyes on him every now and then and he wonders what Himchan thinks of him, but he's too afraid to really say anything in front of the guy.
He keeps quiet most of the breakfast, concentrates on eating, and drinking more coffee, lost in his thoughts. He feels a lot better knowing that Yongguk wants him to be there, but that just raises more questions in his head. He’s gotten some answers, but he can't help but wonder what it is that Yongguk really does for a living and why the guy won't tell him. He knows he needs to earn his trust somehow to get to know more. And he know he needs to thank him somehow, for taking him in. And he can’t help wondering why Yongguk would let him, of all people, stay.
His train of thought only stops when Yongguk places a hand on his thigh under the table. Zelo looks up at him, but he seems to be lost in conversation with Himchan. Yet his hand moves up on Zelo’s thigh slightly, fingers brushing on his inner thigh gently through the fabric of his pants. Zelo’s breath hitches in his throat. That’s when the conversation in the table stops and Himchan and Jongup get up and start to put away all the food that’s left over. Yongguk turns to look at him, his lips turning up in a smirk. He leans in close to Zelo so his lips are almost touching his ear, his nose buried in those blonde curls.
“Let me have a quick smoke, and when I come back inside I want to find you in my bed, okay?” that low voice growls in his ear. And the words, and the soft squeeze of fingers close to his crotch make all the blood in Zelo’s body rush south. The things he does to you, Zelo thinks, if only he knew…
He nods, blushing, and Yongguk smiles to him before disappearing out to the veranda. Zelo takes a deep breath before leaving the kitchen, saying quick thanks to Jongup and leaping up the stairs back to Yongguk’s bedroom.
~ ~ ~
here's an update! hope you guys like it~ it's not really taking the story much further, but we'll have plenty of story time later. next chapter should bring you some more banglo bonding time etc. but also. well, himchan's going to be sort of a jerk in this and i already apologize for that.
i wrote additional a/n on tumblr if anyone wishes to read it, click here~ ^^
thank you all x
oh and ps. yongguk is definitely not a florist. lol.
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