For luvapink + thescarletfox + leenaeun + Miss_Penggy7

Jonquil

Jongin was never the outgoing type, but when he met Naeun, she changed his whole world. They were both eight when she moved into the apartment next door to his. His mother, wanting to make friends with their new neighbors, had sent him and his father out to help the new family move in. His father had given the other man a sturdy handshake, helping him lift boxes into the apartment and setting them down in the rooms that they had been assigned to by the words that had been written hastily on the side. The two mothers went inside, with Jongin’s mother bringing stacks of Tupperware full of homemade side dishes, complimenting that they had chosen a lovely home even though she lived in the exact same one next door, with a few exceptions as to where rooms had been located. Meanwhile, little Naeun had taken little Jongin’s hand and dragged him to her room where she showed him her collection of toys, mostly dolls, but Jongin smiled when he had caught sight of her 3-car Hotwheels collection. When Naeun had seen his eyes widen in delight, she dropped the doll that she was showing him and took out the set, handed him the red car, got out her favorite blue car and raced it in circles around him.

Naeun was enrolled into the same elementary school that Jongin was, and she was excited when she was ushered into the classroom by her new teacher and she spotted him sitting in the third row with an empty seat next to him. Jongin cowered, trying to hide his face, but she had already seen him and the only available seat was next to his. It’s not that he didn’t like her – in fact, he thought that she was the nicest person that he had ever met, but he thinks that he saw her way too much, and there’s so much that you can take when you have dinner at their house almost twice a week, and her parents expected him to act like they were his parents around him, even to the point when he had accidentally called Mr Son, appa, he laughed it off, pat his back and proclaimed that he was proud to have a son.

During lunch, Jongin sat in his favorite spot near the soccer field. He took out his neatly packed lunchbox, ready to dig into his meal of rice, tofu and vegetables, when a shadow blocked his way and Naeun looked at him with a satisfied smile on her face before sitting down and opening her lunch as well – which was identical to his. He preferred to eat in silence, but she would talk about anything and everything: from how the clouds looked like Vikings, to how grass could turn different shades of green, to why maths was her favorite subject, to the latest Korean boy group that she was interested in. At first, he found it annoying, but after a while, he liked listening to her voice and hearing about the idiosyncracies of every day. To him, they would be topics that seemed mundane, but the way that every word came out of dripped with enthusiasm, it gripped him and soon enough he found himself looking at her when she talked instead of the ground and his food.

Naeun developed a little crush on the quiet boy next door the first time she saw him. She thought that he was cute, and as she got to know him, she liked the way that he only spoke when he thought was necessary and the way that she seemed to understand him even without words. She liked how he was kind and polite to everyone, his smile, and his shyness intrigued her. She was always the loud one, but with him, she felt like he completed what she lacked. By being in his silence, she was happy. When some girls had taken a liking to him during high school, Naeun mentally sent them threats to back away from Jongin, but it didn’t work and they approached him anyway. When she stood by her locker and watched them confess, the politeness that she had witnessed in him had not faded away and he rejected them with a smile and an offer to be friends. She was proud, and also a little bit relieved.

During Valentine’s Day in their senior year, she was the one that confessed to him. It wasn’t like a full love letter or anything – but a simple slip of the tongue during their regular routine of eating lunch on the grass. Time hadn’t changed anything. They still came to school with the same lunch every day, their families being very good friends and still living in the same apartment block. Naeun was still talkative and Jongin would still listen to her rave on and on. She went off tangent while she was talking about her love of a new boy group called EXO and gushed about how their dancer Kai was handsome and charming, but how she still liked her Jongin more. He, of course, was taken aback, but he offered her that polite smile and she took it as one of the many rejections that he had given to girls.

Jongin wasn’t sure what to do with female attention. When girls had started approaching him at the start of high school, he felt awkward and didn’t know what to do. Although he hadn’t made many friends in elementary school, always sticking to Naeun and a few other boys in his class, he became more outgoing and social in high school, even meeting a guy that he considered as one of his best friends: Kyungsoo. When Jongin began to get confessions, he began to reject them, and then they all flocked to Kyungsoo, The confessions stopped for a while, his reputation became known as the guy that rejected all the girls, but he knew that there was only one girl in his life, and that was Naeun. He watched her as she watched him turn down another girl, but what she didn’t know was that his smile didn’t come out of politeness, it came out because he found her cute acting all jealous and protective of him. So, when she confessed, or more like blurted out that she liked him, all he could do was smile. She seemed disappointed with his non-verbal answer, but he would make it up to her on White Day.

The school was having a talent show as part of their White Day festivities. The whole school had gathered in the hall to see the line-up especially the final act, which was Jongin. They always pegged him as the guy that did his speeches last, and the guy that was least likely to answer questions in class, so when his name went up on the list, it piqued all their interest. When he ambled on the stage, holding his guitar, he sat down on the chair in the middle of the spotlight, tapped the microphone awkwardly and then cleared his throat.

“I want to dedicate this to my best friend. You know who you are.” He flashed a smile to the audience as he looked for Naeun, to find her in the crowd seated next to Kyungsoo who gave him a thumbs up.”

Love, love, love, is my crime

So baby, come catch me and let’s do the time

I think we might be outlaws

I think I might be in love

Cause I’m all out of reasons

Like season

Winter, summer, fall, they’re all washed up

And you’re still way over there

Would you slide on in by my side

Cause I’m just an outlaw

Wanted

If you want me

I’ll love you every day and every night

AN: The song at the end is entitled ‘Outlaws’ by David Lambert