At the end of the day the both of them meet just outside the main door of the school. Jongin arrives second and spots Kyungsoo waiting under the awning thing, sheltered from the persistent drizzle but still with his hood up.

They greet each other with curt 'hey's and then Jongin asks if Kyungsoo has money for the bus,

“Yep,” he asserts, and waves a fiver in his face to prove it. Jongin chuckles, and jerks his head in the direction of the bus stop. There's like fifty people waiting for the same bus, and Jongin's not sure they're going to get on the next one that comes.

They don't, and have to wait another ten minutes for the next one but by then there’s significantly less people. They are also, however, significantly more wet. Kyungsoo's vibrant,  red hair is plastered to his forehead darkly, despite his hood, and Jongin's is too, even though it's not raining particularly hard. Their clothes have dark wet patches on the shoulders.

When the bus finally comes, they manage to get a two-seater space, after much slipping and sliding around in the puddles the other passengers have tracked onto the floor. Kyungsoo doesn't go on buses nearly as often as Jongin, by the looks of things, so he looks absurdly excited to do something that has become mind-numbingly boring to Jongin and it makes him smile a little. His reaction to the smell of the bus-it’s always worse when it’s wet- makes him smile a little more.

“You're such an idiot, Kyungsoo,” Jongin mutters, not really intending for him to hear it, but if the elbow to his side is any indication, he definitely did. They don’t talk much during the journey, having drained all conversation topics beforehand. Jongin just watches out of the window, staring at the reflections of the streetlights in the puddles. And occasionally spotting Kyungsoo looking at him weirdly in the reflection.

His expression has changed now; he doesn’t look like he’s planning anything, or any assassination attempts at least. He just looks bothered.  And he keeps biting his lip, and rolling his eyes, which is yet another thing to add to his list of reasons Kyungsoo is in fact, crazy.

Maybe he shouldn’t have invited him over, that was a stupid idea anyway. How is he going to entertain him all evening? Without making his thoughts obvious?

The drizzle has let up a bit by the time they alight, and start the fairly short but still long enough to be annoying walk the rest of the way to Jongin's house. Still, any speaking is purely minimal;

“How far is it?”

“About ten minutes,”

“Oh. Ok,”

Upon reaching the front door and fishing his keys out of his pocket, Jongin tells Kyungsoo to wait in the doorway while he heads off his mum, but Kyungsoo insists he doesn't mind meeting her. Jongin narrows his eyes suspiciously at this, because everyone else he's ever brought home never questioned him wanting to keep them from meeting her.

“This isn't about the parent slash dating thing, is it?” he whispers harshly, making Kyungsoo recoil snidely,

“I don't know, you tell me,” he shrugs,

“...that makes no sense. Ok. It's not, then,” Jongin says, shoving his damp shoes into the shoebox, and gesturing for Kyungsoo to do the same.

“Mum! We're ho-ome!” Jongin shouts, and Kyungsoo flinches, “sorry,” he hadn't been that loud, had he? Indoor voice, he reminds himself.

“We?” she calls back in response, and he can hear her walking across the landing, to greet the anonymous guest,

“Me and Kyungsoo,” now halfway down the staircase, she raises her eyebrows at him subtly questioning him. Jongin nods his head, yes, this is the same guy.

“Hello, Kyungsoo. Nice to meet you,” she holds out a hand and Kyungsoo shakes it.

“Mum, can you make dinner for us?” Jongin begs shamelessly. He doesn't want to accidentally kill anyone today, although maybe if he got Kyungsoo before he could get him…nah, he doesn’t want to sink to his level.

Pre-made foods, the ones that don’t need any preparation, are ok because there's very little he can do to ruin them. There have been...mishaps in the kitchen, so he's not trusted with much anymore. Tray bakes and coffee, really. And toast, though he's burnt that before too.

He remembered the one time he left it and it got cold, so he put it back in the toaster, and went up to his room. And forgot about it again. The house smelled like burning for the next day, and his mum was not best pleased.

His mum sighs, very much put upon,

“I suppose I'm going to have to, aren't I?” she looks at him pityingly, and he interrupts her before she can go on her usual ‘how is my son ever going to survive on his own?’ spiel.

“Thanks, mum,” He smiles winningly at her, and she rolls her eyes and pushes her sleeves up her arms a bit, a slight nervous habit, “what do you guys want to eat?”

“What is there?”

“I could do that lasagne,” she considers, her mind perusing the shelves of the fridge,

“Yep, that sounds good, Kyungsoo?” Kyungsoo shrugs non-committally, and Jongin confirms that lasagne proposition, and then takes Kyungsoo up to his room, ushering him up first with his hands pressing his shoulders to make him go faster.

“Half an hour, ok?” his mum warns him,

“Yeah,” Jongin calls back in a sing-sing voice, swatting at his guests back in order to escape to his room faster. He doesn't want a full-scale interrogation if he can help it.

 It would be bad enough if it were anyone else, but since she's worked out that this guy is the same person who had him considering getting his mum to phone the school and filing a complaint or something,

He guides Kyungsoo into his room and points at the bed, dumping his school bag next to it,

“Sit there, I'll be back in a second,” he darts out of the room and back to his mum,

“Can you please not ask any weird questions when dinners ready and embarrass me. Thank you,” he sprints back up to his room and offers Kyungsoo a towel to dry his hair to be polite, and considers also offering a spare set of clothes, but it's already out of his mouth before he gets the chance to censor it.

His proposition is met with stunned silence, so Jongin leaves to go get one of the smaller towels in the bathroom to cover up his utter mortification. He's not normally like this, usually he has pretty good brain-to-mouth filter, what is wrong with him today?

When he returns, he flings the towel at Kyungsoo's face and, still not looking, rummages around in his drawers for some clothes for himself to change into. He's opening the door to go to the bathroom again when Kyungsoo interjects,

“Um, what about me?”

“What?” Jongin draws a blank

“Clothes? You said you-”

“Oh yeah. Ok,” he goes back to the drawer and searches for something that's not got holes in it. He finds a red sweater that matches his hair, and a pair of tracksuit bottoms that are suitable, and not broken. He sets them down on his bed, next to Kyungsoo, and then goes into the bathroom to change, instructing Kyungsoo to put his wet clothes on the radiator under the window, so they can dry out a bit before he goes home.

He changes in the bathroom quickly, so he can dry his hair better and fix it so he doesn't look like a moron the way it does if he leaves it to dry naturally. It occurs to him that he shouldn't really care this much, but by then he's already done it, so it doesn't matter anyway.

He knocks before he opens his bedroom door, in case Kyungsoo is still getting changed,

“You done?”

“I'm decent,” he's granted permission to come in, and flings himself on his bed. Then, because he doesn't think things through, slithers back off again to set up his Xbox. The only thing he can think of that might help mitigate this stifling atmosphere.

“Do you know how to play this?” he holds up the cover of the game that currently in the Xbox, and Kyungsoo shrugs, and makes a mumbled noise that Jongin takes to mean 'I don't know'.

“Really?” he asks, shocked. How can anyone not know how to play this? “do I have to teach you? Noob,”

“Did you just call me a noob? Really?” Kyungsoo's eyebrows have risen so far they're hidden underneath his fringe,

“Shh,” Jongin forces him to drop it, and focuses him instead on the controller he's just placed in his hand. He points to each button to explain what they all do. Then dinner's ready and they both thunder down the staircase to eat.

Jongin's mother still seems a little apprehensive towards Kyungsoo, and Jongin can't tell whether that's because Jongin came home every day for a week with stories of how Kyungsoo was a scary freak and needed to be expelled, or simply because she's not met him before. Probably the first one.

Kyungsoo behaves perfectly civilly-sanely, and maybe that's what's bothering her. He seems too clean-cut and normal-looking, apart from the hairstyle, to match up to the picture Jongin has no doubt painted in her head. She probably imagined someone with piercings and tattoos, someone who smokes, someone twice the size of Jongin,

“Kyungsoo, are you doing well in school, at the moment?” she asks politely, and Kyungsoo shrugs vaguely.

“Yeah, I guess so. I usually get B's for my exams, so, um,” he finishes with a mumble, and puts some lasagne in his mouth so he doesn't have to say any more. It's weird seeing him like this, normally he's pretty confident. Even on the field the other day it didn't take him long to get into talking, and teasing Jongin.

“Oh, that's good, maybe you could encourage Jongin to do better at school,” she smiles, and watches Kyungsoo closely, and Jongin is anticipating questions, if not now then after Kyungsoo has gone home.

Actually; “Kyungsoo, how are you getting home?” he asks, the idea completely having slipped his mind,

“Oh, do you need a lift?” Jongin's mum asks, glancing up sympathetically, and Jongin thinks no, because that give her another opportunity to asks awkward questions,

“No, I'll be fine, I'll call my dad later on for a lift,” Kyungsoo shakes his head, and Jongin relaxes again

“Oh, alright then. If you're sure,”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine,” he promises.

After that, Jongin's mother, fortunately, doesn't ask any uncomfortable questions about their relationship. Like 'I was under the impression that you were crazy, based on what my son has told me about you'. No, she stays on safer topics, like school work and family. Kyungsoo learns about Jongin's father, and Jongin finds out that Kyungsoo lives very close to most of his family.

Jongin wonders if they've got some kind of weird religion that they don't advertise. That could explain why they wanted Jongin to date him, for no reason. Why he couldn't have just said it rather than yell it at him, Jongin still can't comprehend.

After pudding-strawberry yoghurts- they play on his Xbox for a few hours, Jongin revealing that this is why he's so tired every day. Kyungsoo promises to text him every night to tell him to go to sleep, maybe then he'll get decent grades rather than fail everything,

“I'm not failing!” Jongin exclaims, indignant,

“Could've fooled me,” Kyungsoo laughs, and shoots him in the head, winning the game,

“What the actual hell! I thought you said you didn't know how to play this!” Jongin throws the controller onto the bed in a huff, and Kyungsoo shuffles over, placing a hand on his knee,

“I said that referring to that specific game; I play enough first person shooters to know how to play in general,”

“Screw you,” Kyungsoo snorts, and checks the time,

“Come on, one more round, then I have to go home,” he says, laughingly.

-

posting this at like 4:20 am cos my sleep schedule is so messed up so im just not going to sleep tonight and go like cold turkey or smth idek hope u enjoy the updtate and comment please ^_________________^