Note: I really wanted to go into Kyungsoo’s feelings for Jongin, so there will be a couple of bonus chapters where I delve into their relationship. This is the first. Please note that is a fair bit of swearing ahead.

--

He used to dislike him. They were so different.

Kim Jongin is a cocky immature guy with a balloon for a head; but instead of air, it’s filled with arrogance. He swaggers through the halls with his good friend Oh Sehun, acting as if he owns the place. But he’s popular. With his looks and (admittedly) amazing dancing, he attracts the attention of many girls and guys who a) want to be him or b) want to date him. His good friend Sehun has dashing good looks as well and putting the two teenagers together definitely drew the attention of many students in their year (and even some from the older years). One thing that pissed Kyungsoo off in particular was the snide comments Jongin made about pretty much everything. He doesn’t care much if he offends someone. The worst part is that what he often says is the truth, albeit the harsh way he chooses to communicate it. And it stung Kyungsoo when Jongin sneered at him and called him a mama’s boy, a goody-two-shoes, a little boy with the love experience of a six year old. Kyungsoo couldn’t understand how such an obnoxious person could win the hearts of so many. He told himself to never be anything like Jongin if he could help it.

But something happened that changed Kyungsoo’s mind about everything.

Kyungsoo stumbled upon this “something “by accident one evening as he headed home from a study session at the library. He stopped by a convenience store for a bottle of water to quench his thirst, unaware of what was taking place at that very moment. When he stepped back onto the dimly lit street, he spotted a familiar figure fall out from behind the gates of a home. He could hear the sounds of yelling. The figure appeared to limp a little as it moved down the street and disappeared into the closest alleyway. Kyungsoo replaced the cap on his bottle of water and picked up his speed, glancing at the rather large home with all its lights on in a blaze as he passed it. He reached the alley and cautiously peered in. There were sounds of sniffling.

“Anyone…there?” His voice seemed to reverberate through the darkness.

There was no reply, except the continuous sounds of sniffling. Kyungsoo bit his lip. He wasn’t big on the idea of traveling into some random dark alley in the middle of the night, but something tugged at him. Something told him that he needed to go in. So he ignored the warning bells that were ringing inside his brain, and stepped slowly into the alley. He saw the shadowy figure of someone huddled over, sitting next to one of those large dumpsters. It stunk, but he continued to tread slowly into the alley. As he approached the figure, he pulled out his phone and unlocked it so that the light would shine in the dark. He couldn’t help but gasp as he came to recognize the familiar features of…

“Jongin?”

The other boy’s head snapped up, staring at Kyungsoo for a few seconds before he shuffled toward the dumpster in an attempt to stand up and run away. Kyungsoo rushed over and grabbed onto his arm just as Jongin gave out a little cry; he had forgotten about his pained leg and attempted to stand up on it.

“Are you ok? What are you doing here?”Kyungsoo asked worriedly as he helped Jongin balance again.

“Leave me alone,” Jongin snarled at him, unfurling his arms away from Kyungsoo.

“Look at you! You’re hurt!”

“ you.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said, you. You must be happy to see me like this.”

“What is wrong with you?!”

“Go away, I don’t need you.”

“I know we’re not friends but I wouldn’t just leave you here like this! Is your leg ok?”

“Like you give a flying about me.”

“Maybe I don’t! But I’m still not going to let you just sit here in a dirty alley in the middle of the night. Some drunk bum might kill you for taking over his bedroom,” Kyungsoo muttered.

“I don’t care. Let some alcoholic face kill me.”

“So you want to just sit here next to trash all night so that the rest of us can find your corpse inside that smelly dumpster the next day?”

“Might as well. I’m trash anyway. I belong here perfectly.”

Kyungsoo couldn’t bear it. This was so out of character for Kim Jongin. He wasn’t supposed to feel sorry for him.

“Shut the up!” Kyungsoo yelled.

Jongin stared in shock.

“Enough of this wallowing in self pity! Where is the Kim Jongin that I know?! The cocky bastard with confident levels through the roof?!”

“That Kim Jongin is a fake,” he replied, spitting onto the floor.

“A fake? What do you mean a fake?” Kyungsoo repeated.

“Why the do you care anyway? You hate my guts! I’m an to you! I’m an to everyone!”

“Well, , you’re coming with me. We’re fixing your leg.”

--

Jongin found himself sitting on a swing at a nearby park as Kyungsoo bound his leg. Kyungsoo had gone back to the convenience store to buy elastic bandages, and was now carefully securing them in place.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?”

“No,” Jongin replied curtly.

“I think I deserve an explanation for getting you out of that dirty hole in the wall and patching you up.”

“I think you should shut up and-”

Kyungsoo attached the metal clasps on the bandages then intentionally pressed on the bruised ankle, causing Jongin to wince in pain.

“What the hell! What do you want me to say?!”

“You can start by telling me how you got this injury. And stop freaking squirming!”

Jongin pressed his lips together and didn’t speak. Kyungsoo got up and sat onto the swing next to him. He expected to the other to remain quiet, but then he spoke.

“It was my stepmom.”

“Your stepmom?”

“Well, if you could call her my stepmom. She hit my leg with a golf club because I talked back to her. I was lucky she missed my head.”

“A golf club at your head?” Kyungsoo’s eyes widened.

“She hates my guts, and I hate hers…she treated my mom like dirt. You should’ve seen her face when my mom was gone.”

“Gone? To where?”

“She’s dead,” he replied harshly, “My dad’s out of the house most of the time so…he can’t do much about how she treats me. Not that he ever made the effort to anyway.”

“Does that mean…your dad…cheated on your mom?”

“No. My dad cheated on that woman. My mom didn’t know he was married until she became pregnant with me. I was an accident. A mistake. I was never supposed to happen,” Jongin’s voice was flat and bitter.

Kyungsoo had no words to say. He racked his brain for something, anything, but nothing came. Jongin simply continued speaking, as if he had never told anyone this story before and wanted to get it off his chest.

“That woman was furious when she learnt of my existence. But my mom and I kept out of their way. My mom continued to work as a single mother and we lived in a rented apartment. We were always tight on money, so she worked a lot, and I started working as soon as I could. My dad paid the rent though, so that helped. The only reason I’m in that house now is because my mom died. He came and fetched me, since I’m not 19* yet.”

Kyungsoo was stunned. He would have never expected this. Jongin came from an utterly broken family, and despite the fact his dad was still alive…he had no one. He had no family. That made Kyungsoo suddenly feel very fond of his parents and older brother.

“I’ve never lived anywhere nicer than where I live now…but I’ve never been more miserable in my life, either. As soon as I’m 19, I’m out of there. She treats me like , and so do her son and daughter. I’m sent out to run their errands for them all the time. I’m basically like their butler but I have to put up with their verbal abuse too. I’m told that I’m trash or a dog on a daily basis. I hold my tongue and do as I’m told, because I get it. I know why she’s mad. We invaded their family. I invaded her family. But sometimes I can’t help it. I lash back,” Jongin continued.

“Like today?”

“She called my mom a lying . She said my mom was a gold-digging that seduced her husband for money,” Jongin’s voice broke, “That it was a good thing she died from cancer, because she deserved it, and she wished my mom had a painful death…”

Kyungsoo glanced at Jongin’s face and saw his expression was livid. He was biting his lip and tears seemed to threaten to roll down his cheeks. He couldn’t help feel incredibly sorry for the younger. Jongin was a victim; he didn’t deserve any of this. All he had done…was exist.

“So I called her a ing . I yelled at her and told her to shut the up. She screamed at me, calling me a son of a , and grabbed the nearest thing to her. A golf club. I guess it’s better than a kitchen knife. She ran after me swinging the damn thing, and I thankfully I dodged most of it. But not my ankle. She smashed the club into my ankle just as I opened the front door…and here I am,” he breathed in and gave a deep sigh, as if doing so would release him from all the worries he had.

“You didn’t deserve that,” Kyungsoo said quietly.

Jongin didn’t respond. He just stared up at the stars in the sky.

“You’ve suffered a lot. I made a lot of wrong assumptions about you. I never liked you much, because you’re mean to people and act like you’re the king of the world. But really, you’re just an because that’s how you cope,” Kyungsoo continued.

“Ha. Na. I’m an by nature. I don’t intend to make excuses for it. But…thanks for listening. And thanks for wrapping me up. You should go home. I’ve kept you out long enough,” Jongin stood up, balancing on his other leg.

“Where are you going to go? You can’t go home,” Kyungsoo pulled himself up.

“Home? I don’t think I’ve had a home for a while now…I’m going to go to a jimjilbang**. There’s one nearby that I always go to when I get kicked out or when I leave the house. There’s an ahjusshi who works there that knows me well. I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure? Couldn’t you stay at Sehun’s place?”

“Na. Don’t want to bug him or his family. His family doesn’t like me much anyway.”

“You could…maybe…stay at my place?”

“Forget it. We barely know each other. You hate me anyway. Your family will too. Don’t worry about it. The ahjusshi is nice. He’ll make sure I’m ok. I won’t die in the middle of the street.”

“I don’t hate you…”

“You don’t hate me now because you’re sorry for me. I don’t need the pity. Do Kyungsoo, I’m still the you know. I’m not going to treat you any differently. And keep your mouth shut. I don’t need nosy people knowing all about my life.”

“What are you going to say about your ankle then?”

“I’ll just say I injured myself while dancing. Usual stuff,” he shrugged. “But I swear to god if this s up my dancing I’m going to kill that woman…”

He began to hobble away, leaving Kyungsoo standing there next to the empty swing. Kyungsoo looked at the remains of the unused bandages and stuffed them back into the box they came in. With one last glance at the boy shuffling away, he headed home.

--

The next day at school, Jongin limped over to the lunch table with Sehun at his side. Sehun didn’t touch him, but he kept a wary eye on Jongin, hand out, prepared to grab the other’s arm if he toppled over. Kyungsoo watched as they slid into their seats, and Chanyeol raised an eyebrow.

“What happened to you?

“Dance injury.”

“Be careful,,” Junmyeon said.

“Ya, whatever. It’s no big deal. Happens all the time.”

Chanyeol redirected his attention to Baekhyun, who began to laugh at some joke, and Junmyeon began to converse with Sehun. Just then, Kyungsoo caught Jongin’s eye.

Kyungsoo’s jaw practically dropped when Jongin gave him the briefest of smiles before turning to Sehun. It wasn’t a sneer or smirk he gave to people as he strolled down the halls. Nor was it some know-it-all malicious smile that he had on his face after he insulted someone. It was an actual sincere smile. One that said “thank you”, “I’m fine”, and “don’t worry.” It was a smile that Kyungsoo could get used to. It was one that he felt special to receive, because it was so rare that one like this flashed across Kim Jongin’s face.

They weren’t so different after all.

*Korea’s legal adult age is 19, rather than 18.

**Jimjilbang = public bathhouse open for 24 hours

A/N: So what'd you guys think? Next chapter will resume back to Baekhyun and Chanyeol's story. I don't know when I'll next update because I'm working six days a week now (full time internship + part time job yaaaaaaay) but I guess instead of writing it in one sitting I'll just write it over many nights.