„what is love ?”

Yes, yeah ... I know ... I said I would be back in October and now it's almost December. Well~ I'm just another lazy author. Sorry for that.
Anyways .. just a short summary for all of you who got out of context:
 

Jonghyun begins telling the story as he rests on a rooftop ... He remembers the time he met Kibum, a little 5 years old boy. He is a refreshing kind of change in his endless existence. They randomly meet again some time later as Jonghyun hears Kibum crying in the street because he scratched his knee. Jonghyun does some angle magic hocus-pocus and they go to the playground to swing.
Jjong basically learns how to live from the boy.

The sunset was in full blossom.
I gazed up at the sky and saw the changing colors with its sudden orange-red enveloping me. Another day slowly came to an end.
The dying inferno in front of me was glittering across the pavements above the calm city. The sight was beyond enchanting, unnoticeably taking me under its spell and burning itself on to the back of my eyelids.
 

Ever since Kibum stepped into my life the world seemed to have become more beautiful. More alive.
It was absurd, ridiculous. But at the same time it was somewhat exciting. I was starting to see things I've never noticed before. The plain colors of my surroundings finally seemed to recall to life. The trees seemed so much more vivid now. The bird's lullabies were clearly ringing in my ears.
Was it just imagination ?
That was the world, the real world, wasn't it ?
There weren't just redundant things that existed around me. There was life I didn't noticed before.
Gosh, I had been so blind.
 

It was late in the evening and the air was still warmish, even though the rain season was already heavily knocking on summer's gates.
The sunset embraced the landscape around the neigbourhood and I could feel the presence of satisfaction radiate through my body.
I felt happy. I couldn't complain. I was happy.
It wasn't just Kibum himself but the things he thought me. The things he showed me. And the things he woke up in me.
It just felt so good and for the first time in my life I didn't mind existing.
 

I chuckled to myself. A few weeks ago I would have never thought that this thing called happiness had ever existed for me.
Now that I think of it, it was such a big shift. It was scary but on the other side thrilling and exciting. I wanted to see more, learn more, laugh more. Just so much more.
After so many years of plainly subsisting without any lucid reason, I thought, I may be able to create a reason myself now.
All thanks to a little candy addicted boy.
I felt grateful to him.
A new kind of emotion I've come across lately. Gratitude.
It was one of the easier to understand emotions. Some sort of heat radiating aura that let you smile in the presence of the person you felt that emotions for. As easy as that and yet, it held a vast amount of prominence in it.
Kibum woke up so many of them inside of me, that I wondered if they had been present before.
It was funny somehow. We just live, day by day passes and nothing seems to change, but when we look back, everything is different. Yes, Kibum was changing me, drastically. I didn't ask for it, no, and it turned out in a way I didn't expect either, but honestly ? I didn't even mind.
 

I let my mind go blank for a second as I wandered through the vacant streets. Inhaling the brisk, chilly air into my lungs and felt the slight coldness race through my veins.
A playful mix of colors were still dancing on the sky.
I smiled.
I did that a lot lately. Mostly because Kibum told me funny stories about his Granny, and sometimes because of new things, Kibum tried to show and teach me.
People said, in the eyes of an child, there are no seven wonders but seven million. It was true.
There were millions of miracles that the boy let me discover together with him and there were still more. The grown up tent to not notice what the world really offered inmost its folds. I was one of those. But through Kibum's eyes, now, I saw the world as it was supposed to be, namely beautiful.
 

Kibum was a prudent kid. I came to know this fact from the very first day we met, but it still amazed me. Also, I learned that he was hungry for new knowledge. He always wanted to learn new things. If there was something he couldn't understand he asked me instead, hoping that I knew the answer he was seeking. His thoughts were deep and precise.
But between all that, Kibum loved to joke around. In the end, he was still a little boy trying to get used to the world, that may have been still a little bit too foreign for him.
Yes, that boy made me really happy but he also put me in constant anxiety.
He was clumsy, that was no secret, but just lately I came to know how clumsy he really was.
Tripping over little stones or his own feet, cutting himself with  pieces of paper, letting things steadily fall from his hands. These were not really occasions for me to worry about. He was young, of course those things could happen at some point, but Kibum seemed to literally attract danger, and even provoke it.
Swinging without hands, climbing on trees ...
He liked danger. And I could totally conceive it. If everybody had watched you, day and night, to make sure you wouldn't hurt yourself, it starts bugging and you'll become frustrated. But Kibum wasn't just any kid whose family was concerned about him. He was sick, and that was what made me apprehensive and a little paranoid.
The fact that he might have hurt himself, when he once again ran away from home to touch the sky, or feed the ducks at the lake a few blocks from home when I'm not around, scared me to no end.
Haemophilia or bleeder's disiase. That was what society called Kibum's sickness. It was a genetic disorder that impaired his body from controlling his blood clotting. In other words, if he once started bleeding, it wouldn't stop.
 

"You should stop worrying so much, dino-hyung." a happy voice sounded from beside me as a gentle warmth wrapped around my cold hands. "You start getting wrinkles all around your pretty angel-face."
Did I mention that Kibum had grown a talent of finding me anywhere at anytime ?
 

I turned around and looked at our intertwined hands. His slender fingers firmly wrapped around mine and his deep feline eyes giving me a heartwarming smile.
I could feel the heart in my ribcage jumping in joy. I just had to take a brief look at his tiny chubby face and a smile would plant itself naturally on my face.
Opening my mouth to ask him how he had known that I was worrying about something, I closed it not long afterwards without speaking out the words, knowing perfectly well that the raven haired boy would eventually answer my unspoken thoughts.
 

"It's my obligation to know when hyung feels lost," he said as it was the most ordinary thing in the world. "and especially when it's my fault." he added, his voice low and broken. Something painfully shattered within me as I watched him finishing his words and lowering his head, the tiny shoulders tensing up.
I kneeled down to his level, never letting go of his hand but also grabbing his other one. My gaze landed on the little red bracelet he had on one of his wrists and I couldn't help but smile. It wasn't just a blessed bracelet. No, it was a symbol shaping our relationship, the trust between us and more over our need of an comrade.
"Kibum, I'm worried because I care. If there was anyone to be blamed than it was me." I smiled. "It's not your fault."
 

He was quick in understanding because he raised his head again, locking his dark eyes with mine. A little squeeze on my hands let all the worry from before fly away and leaving just the momen stopping the time in its track for the split of an second. I let one of his hands go to cares his head and earned a little chuckle in return.
 

"Hyung, do you think it's love ?" the question took me off guard. Love ? "You care for me and I care for you too. Granny says, when people start caring for each other it's called love."
 

It was an unexpected question that I was unarmed for. What was love ?
I was speechless and sunken in thoughts, I had no clue. What was love ?
To care for someone, did it really mean to love someone ? Did Kibum and I love each other ? I just want him to be safe and by my side. I want to protect him, be there for him and make sure to hold up his world when it threatened to crash down. Do humans call this love ?
I didn't knew love and it didn't knew me, how could I know ?
For now, it was just a word waiting for me to give it a meaning I didn't know where to find.
 

Kibum noticed my confused expression and shook his head. "Never mind, dino." he said amused and rested his hands on my cheeks for a moment, cupping it in between his tiny, warm palms. He let go eventually, but I could feel the warmth still slightly burning my skin. I straightened my posture again and Kibum's little finger embraced mine again as we started walking down the road while the lights grew darker as the sun reeled away from the earth.
The red inferno already died behind the hills and left a light trace of redness, that was quietly mixing in with the starry night sky.

"What are you doing now, hyung ?" I heard the little boy on my hand question in curiosity.

"Nothing." I said truthfully.

"And where are you going ?"

"Nowhere."

"Can I join you ?"

It was a simple question, a modest request, and yet it held so much more in it. I could feel the edges of my lips naturally going up in the excitement. Of course I liked the idea of Kibum joining me wherever I was. He is joyful, chaotic and a spoiled brat, he is beautiful and being with him is a marvelous adventure.
We were just there together but that was enough.

 

"Why do you think are the stars so far away from us ?"
 

I chuckled. Expectedly unpredictable.
 

"Hmm, I wonder."
 

"Do you think they don't like us ?" I contracted my eyebrows.
 

"What makes you believe that, Bummie ?"
 

Kibum pouted deeply observed in his own thoughts before he answered. "Humans are flawed. And for me, stars are absolute. They are perfect and entirely. Maybe they are afraid that we hurt them in their beauty ?" he reasoned. That statement was utterly Kibum. He had a point though.

The little boy kept talking about the stars and how magical they were.
Now, that I think of it, I was like a lost soul wandering around and secretly wishing for a tomorrow that would be better. There was something about Kibum, a hidden force that pulled me closer to him the more I got to know him.
In the end, we all get addicted to something that takes away the pain, right ?

That chapter took me forever.
It was a pain in the and I'm not satisfied with its outcome, although I hope you like it at least a little bit.

Anyways~ I'm back from the dead :D
No, just kidding ... but really ... I was on vocation :))
In CHINA *-*
Gosh, I fell in love with the whole country. *wants to go back* ;__; *cries*

And of course, Hello to all the new subbies ^^ If there are any .___.
 

Let me read some comments, please ^^

- Han