Crystal Clear

It wasn’t like anyone could have noticed. It was just that Jongin got used to the looks most people send Sehun’s way. Of course, people send looks to Jongin too—but it was different with Sehun. Sehun was the good kind of popular, while Jongin was infamous for the things he does behind closed motel doors, with different subjects, on different nights.

So it was no wonder when Jongin caught a pair of eyes as they walked along the halls—that he knew the gaze was for Sehun. It was that of a boy’s—and that itself was intriguing, because it was rarely ever boys—and it was wistful and hopeless at the same time, and it fell as fast as it landed on Jongin from Sehun.

Jongin found himself confronting the boy before he even knew why. It was when school ended that Jongin signaled for Sehun to go home first as he waited aimlessly by the school gates. He spotted the boy as soon as he saw the small slumped figure exit the school, closing the distance between them with large strides.

Most people would stop when there’s a guy currently headed straight for you lie a bullet finding its mark, but it seemed this boy wasn’t most people, because he simply took one look at Jongin, looked away, and started walking away faster than before.

“Hey!” Jongin picked up his speed easily enough, strangely more excited than aggravated that he had just been so blatantly ignored. He didn’t want to acknowledge the sudden twitching of his lips, because that would be creepy, and completely unlike him no matter how amusing this situations seemed.

The boy promptly stopped power-walking, making Jongin pause just a feet away from him. He turned around halfway, and his expression contained so much internal panic that Jongin himself became slightly alarmed.

“I saw you,” Jongin repeated, assessing the white-washed face in front of him. The boy was about half a head shorter than Jongin, and the way he was aiming those large orbs at Jongin sent him gulping on reflex. “Staring at Sehun. In the hallways.”

There was a strange pause from the boy, before his expression completely changed, his eyes narrowing, his lips pressing tightly together. His shoulders, inexplicably, grew tenser. “So?”

Jongin shifted his bagpack that had slid off his shoulder while he was running (Why had he ran? It wasn't that important). “So I’m his closest friend—you can say I’m the best link there is to get close to him.” Jongin leveled his gaze. This guy didn’t look so bad. He was kind of cute, in fact. Sehun might even go for him. “I can help you.”

“No thanks,” The boy shook his head.

Jongin watched as the boy started to leave, shoulders somehow tensed up after their conversation. Jongin shrugged. He sort of expected that kind of reaction.

Suddenly though, the boy stopped in his tracks the second time that evening, and Jongin noticed his ears were red, and what the boy said startled Jongin more than anything else that day.

“What did you mean by ‘help’?”

Jongin found out the boy’s name was Kyungsoo, and he liked going to this particular fast-food joint across their school (Jongin did too), and that he had a strange tendency to order the same kind of burger every time he came here.

“You can ask me anything about him.” Jongin picked a french fry from the bunch that had spilled out of their original box and into the food tray. “Favourite colour, ideal type—anything. You don’t have to hold back with me.”

Kyungsoo ducked his head in a stiff manner, his eyes clouded as he stared pertinently at the Coke in his hands. “I should have.” He mumbled into the noise of the fast food eatery, but Jongin had no problem picking out the somewhat reserved tone, the voice he’d familiarized perfectly with for the past few days.

“Should have what?” Jongin’s eyebrows rose as he watched Kyungsoo’s grip tighten and flex, the green lines under pale skin sinking, then surfacing.

“Should’ve held back. Before,” Kyungsoo muttered, and Jongin could feel the frustration in his voice, sense the gritting of his teeth. “I shouldn’t have stared at him so obviously. I could’ve just avoided him—or something. He doesn’t really need to know—all this. ”

Jongin froze a little then laughed, but only because he didn’t know how else to react to the sudden pain in his chest, the sudden spark of anger. It was like there’s a little monster in his chest; trapped and waiting for something to trigger it. It didn’t help that he had absolutely no idea why.

“Look, Sehun’s an idiot. He couldn’t have noticed you staring even if you were carrying a huge banner proclaiming your love atop your head.”

The boy in front of Jongin finally looked up, and he was frowning slightly, lips pressed tightly together. “And you did?”

Jongin blinked, laughed a little. “Well, I’m not an idiot.”

Kyungsoo blinked back, large eyes suddenly so transparent it’s like Jongin could read into his soul, and if Jongin wasn’t imagining things, he would have believed those lips were about to quirk into a smile. His heart was suddenly pounding hard; so hard he can feel it thudding against his chest, steadily increasing in speed. What was he doing? Why was he feeling like the protagonist in a Jane Austin novel?

But Kyungsoo’s almost-smile faded quickly, and before Jongin could do anything—to say something funny, insult Sehun a bit more, to bring that smile back, somehow--

Kyungsoo had bowed his head again. Eyes clouded again. And he muttered, “Favourite movie?”

And the monster in Jongin’s chest roared.

“Jongin, give me your maths homework.”

“What happened to yours?”

“Uh. My dog ate it?”

Sehun was promptly whacked on the head. Sure he was the good kind of popular, but it didn’t necessarily mean he was a straight-laced student. Although the female teachers like him for some reason that escapes Jongin. It might be the way his eyes squint deviously or those thin lips that were supposedly the epitome of...attractiveness? Jongin didn't ing know. Before Sehun begins to whine--or worse, starts doing aegyo, as if that works on anyone--Jongin passed over his homework. What? Jongin's top ten in their year for a reason.

“Thank you my friend. Thy will bestow upon thee, a tender, loving smooch from—“

“Don't you ing dare,” Jongin pushed away Sehun's attempt to kiss him, rolling his eyes as Sehun grinned and happily started copying his homework. Jongin looked on reproachfully. After discussing the subject of ‘Oh Sehun’ with Kyungsoo almost every day for almost a week, Jongin was beginning to wonder why Kyungsoo (or anyone else, for that matter) would ever like someone like Sehun. It not only made him extremely confused, it also made him somewhat righteously mad.

Sehun was dumb. As dumb as anyone could get. Jongin was mad at Sehun for not realizing someone like Kyungsoo was just waiting for him to notice him.

“Hey, have you heard of Do Kyungsoo?”

“Who?” Sehun’s tongue slipped out between his lips as he focused on producing the fastest handwriting he could muster. He looked sort of pathetic, really, and just plain dumb—but Jongin assured himself rather painfully that it was just part of Sehun’s charm. Ugh.

“Do Kyungsoo.” Jongin repeated, and he looked around to see if anybody was eliciting any reaction. None. Huh. It was sort of unexplainable how nobody knew him. Looking like that. Looking like what? “Um. Short-looking. Big eyes. And uh—he has that emo thing going on.” Cute, Jongin didn't say. Big, beautiful eyes. Lips that...

Sehun retrieved his tongue back into his mouth again and frowned into space. His eyes lit up. “Oh. He's a year older, right? He’s kind of cute. Why?” And then Sehun went back to writing and looking like an idiot, as if he didn’t just say out loud that a random guy was kind of cute. As if that wasn't exactly what Jongin thought too, when he first saw him.

“Nothing,” Jongin stared an imaginary hole into his desk. His chest monster didn’t know if it should be happy that Sehun knew Kyungsoo. So it kept quiet, but even that started to pain Jongin a little. “Nothing.”

“What exactly do you like about him?”

Kyungsoo shrugged. “I don’t know—his face? I just—it just happened. And then I realized I couldn’t stop looking at him.”

Jongin hummed in a superfluous fashion, but if Kyungsoo noticed this, he didn’t show it. Jongin studied Kyungsoo’s side profile, the strong line of his jaw, the angle of his nose, and contradictarily, the soft pout of his lips. His eyes glint brown in the sunlight as they studied the busy sidewalk. Jongin sipped at his drink, deep in thought, eyes glued. Since when he had ever liked studying other people’s face? Or...is it this person in particular?

Kyungsoo looked wistful. Just like he did when Jongin caught him looking at Sehun that day. It was exactly the same expression. It pissed Jongin off, honestly.

“Does he like men?” Kyungsoo asked, eyes cloudy again, and Jongin answered, and this time, he’d learned how to drown out the screaming of the monster in his chest.

Jongin thought Kyungsoo should just confess to Sehun and get it over with. They’d talked about everything about him, and Kyungsoo seemed just as unenthusiastic as when Jongin first started to mention Oh Sehun.

“You don’t seem very into this,” Jongin said around a mouthful of burger (the same type of burger Kyungsoo ordered because he wondered what’s so good about it that Kyungsoo ordered it all the time). “Do you even seriously like him?”

Kyungsoo looked up quickly, and not for the first time since they've met, Jongin saw panic in his eyes. His shoulders bunched up, as if readying for a fight. It reminds him of the first time they spoke, by the school gates, when he caught Kyungsoo staring. “Of course I seriously like him! I’m just—“ Those eyes avoid Jongin’s again. “Scared. Of being rejected.”

“Oh,” Jongin offered semi-sympathetically.

“Yeah, that happens when you’re in love with someone who’s so—” Kyungsoo stabbed the burger in front of him with a plastic fork (and at that time Jongin was too shocked to register or acknowledge the strange fact that Kyungsoo was eating a burger with a fork) “—popular.”

Jongin’s eyebrows rose to his hairline. He’d never seen this Kyungsoo before.

“He’ll never know,” Kyungsoo continued, pulling a face at his food tray and ceaselessly attempting at decimating his fast food. “He’s stupid. He’s stupid and popular.”

Jongin nodded slowly. He wasn’t sure exactly how to deal with this seemingly physically-abusing Kyungsoo, but at least Kyungsoo seemed to know what he’s dealing with.

A big-headed brat with a brain so dense it’s made out of processed meat sausages and had worst manners than an uneducated two-year-old—who was namely called Oh Sehun.

Kyungsoo suddenly looked at him, eyes fierce. “You wouldn’t know how it feels to—to like someone like him. You are the guy who slept with half the entire school population.”

Jongin gagged. He didn’t expect an attack on his terrain. He swallowed hastily, feeling his ears burn at the audacity. “I wouldn’t say it was half the school population. Who started that rumour, anyway?”

Kyungsoo shot him a dirty glare. “So you do sleep around. I don’t even know why—“ Kyungsoo took such a sudden intake of breath that Jongin feared it might be . But it wasn’t, of course, because that would be terrible. “Sorry. That was out of line. You’re just trying to help me.”

Jongin blinked as if just realizing that yes, yes he was just trying to help Kyungsoo, not go out with him every day and feel like it's a given, and not to like the way he talked, or the way he smiled, and definitely not to get to know him, his every quirk, his every habit. Jongin was just trying to help. Period.

“Well, I did,” Jongin admitted, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly. He feels strangely warm and embarassed, confessing like this wasn't something he did ordinarily. Not to Sehun, more so anyone else. “Sleep around, I mean. But I haven’t, recently.”

It was an escape mechanism, mostly. Rather than have girls clambering over themselves to date him, why not just get it over with in one night? It was ty logic, but it has been his modus operandi for a long while and it hasn't failed him yet. That is, until Kyungsoo showed up. It was always the other party confessing or asking for a night while Jongin just went along with it. With Kyungsoo, he didn't do neither, and Jongin couldn't do neither. It was a dead end.

There was a long pause as Jongin wondered if Kyungsoo would ask why.

He didn't, because he probably didn't even care. He just went right back to sulking over his burger. Jongin felt like the stupidest person alive.

“What should I do? You’re right about one thing, though. He’s so dense I feel like punching his guts out.”

Jongin laughed. “Just confess then,” Jongin suggested, hoping it wouldn’t seem too forward or affronting. If he pushed Kyungsoo, maybe he'd break and chicken out. Maybe that was what Jongin wanted. But what did Kyungsoo want? “I mean. He wouldn’t know if you never confess.”

At this point, Jongin felt like he should tell Kyungsoo that Sehun said he was cute earlier during school. It would totally give Kyungsoo enough courage to go for the whole thing, but…he didn’t. He just didn’t. Instead, he said,

“You do know you're attractive right? I would accept your confession without a second thought.”

Kyungsoo’s ears evidently blazed. He was clearly flustered by that compliment, and the blatantly worded statement. Jongin bit his lower lip. He couldn’t meet Kyungsoo’s eyes, because now they’re transparent, and Jongin couldn’t handle looking into Kyungsoo’s soul right now.

Also, wow, this was completely getting out of hand. And just when Jongin was about to take back what he just said (he could give it a shot, although it was a bit out there already), somebody interrupted their conversation.

“Yo, Kim!”

And who better it was to do just that than Oh, ing, Sehun.

“Come on in!” Sehun grinned as he beckoned Jongin into Kyungsoo’s house. Yup, trust that little er to invite himself over to someone’s house and act like he ing owned it. Out of all the dumb things Sehun could ever do, this did not top the list, but it was definitely up there.

Jongin’s eyes wandered down to see Kyungsoo trapped in Sehun’s hold around his shoulder, looking worn out. “Yes, come in,” he said quietly, and only then Jongin did. But not without bumping ‘accidently’ into Sehun so hard the brat toppled into the wall of the hallway, only to be steadied by Kyungsoo’s hands. Jongin cursed internally. Sehun kneed the back of Jongin’s knees, and Jongin trapped Sehun into a guillotine chock, then Sehun elbowed Jongin in the ribs before they officially called truce.

They settled into Kyungsoo’s room, with Jongin claiming a spot on the floor. Sehun suddenly stood.

“D.O hyung, you have any Pepsi here?”

Jongin threw a glance Kyungsoo’s way. Were they on nickname-basis now? Kyungsoo firmly kept his eyes on Sehun. “No. I only drink Sprite. Do you want some?”

“Sprite is for bozos!” Sehun whined; then grinned at Kyungsoo like there was something funny about everything. If there was, Jongin wasn’t ing laughing. “Come on, I’m gonna get some. There’s a store nearby right?”

Kyungsoo nodded stiffly. Jongin tried keeping a straight face, but he found himself gritting his teeth in an effort to do just that. He was angry. It wasn't justified at all, he should be happy that Kyungsoo's getting along well with his crush. It's something they've been discussing for weeks.

If the air was awkward, Sehun definitely didn’t notice anything. “Okay, I’m gonna take a piss then we’re gonna go, kay hyung?”

“Go by yourself!” Jongin protested, and Sehun would think he was just being playful, but he was god-awful serious. Sehun, though, didn’t notice. Of course.

The brat merely pointed a cheeky finger at Kyungsoo then to himself, before he was out of the room. Kyungsoo stood there, staring at the door, and Jongin sat there, staring at Kyungsoo.

“D.O hyung?” Jongin says cynically, breaking the silence but trying so hard to keep his voice steady. He felt like he could scream at any moment. “He’ll be kneeling down and asking for your hand in no time.”

Kyungsoo winced from where he stood.

Then he bolted off, shutting his bedroom door with a slam.

Jongin buried his head into his hands and forced himself to calm the down. He ended up gripping at his hair, frustration building up like a forest fire, spreading all over his body. It wasn’t like he didn’t know what was really happening.

He knew when the monster in his chest appeared.

He knew when he started feeling angry at Sehun, angrier, more than he had ever been.

He ing knew it had began the second he walked up to Kyungsoo, offering him his help.

He liked Kyungsoo. He just didn’t want to admit it. In fact, he might even be in love. ing hell. Did he just admit that?

And now everything was . Sehun was going to hog Kyungsoo like the hyung-hogger he is, and Jongin’s going to be the pathetic third wheel with the unrequited love. It was all so simple, really. So simple and so painful.

And—and Kyungsoo didn’t even need him now, did he? Sehun knew him now; they’re bound to get closer, and Kyungsoo’s bound to confess, and those pointless meetings at the fast-food joint across their school weren’t needed anymore, were they?

‘Jongin and Kyungsoo’ didn’t need to exist anymore—but as Jongin pondered on that thought, the door suddenly burst open. And there stood Kyungsoo, panting slightly and red in the face like he had just run up the flight of stairs to his room (in which he did).

“What?” Jongin asked, startled. “Did something happen?”

Kyungsoo shook his head, and swallowed hard. “No.”

Jongin stood up, now utterly bewildered. “So why—“

“Jongin, I—“ Kyungsoo’s eyes dart back between the floor and Jongin, and they were crystal clear, so, so transparent and Jongin swore he knew what Kyungsoo was going to say. “I—“

Just then, they could hear the front door of Kyungsoo’s house being opened, and Sehun’s confused voice floating up the stairs, asking why the hell Kyungsoo went running back so suddenly. Then they could hear Sehun padding up the stairs, and without thinking much, Jongin crossed the space between him and Kyungsoo to the door, proceeding to close it before locking it.

Jongin turned around, heart racing.

“Hey!” Came Sehun’s annoyed voice, amidst the banging of his fists against the door. “Kim Jongin! Hyung! What are you guys doing?”

But for the two teens in the room, Sehun didn’t exist right now. It was just them. Kyungsoo finally was able to hold his gaze on Jongin as his lips trembled and his fists tightened.

“Jongin—I’ve never liked Sehun.” He swallowed again. Jongin's heart feels like it's about to burst. “You assumed I did, so I just—I took advantage of it and I—“ Kyungsoo looked close to tears, and he’s standing there looking so small, and so far away from Jongin. “I’m sorry I lied. The person I like—is y—“

And before Jongin even knew what he was doing, he was already meeting Kyungsoo halfway across the room, already pulling the boy by his waist, and already kissing the heck out of him. The monster in Jongin roared in triumph, and Jongin only pressed his mouth harder against Kyungsoo as Kyungsoo kissed fervently back.

Jongin pulled away, chuckling to see Kyungsoo in shock, eyes wide open. He pulled Kyungsoo tight and muttered, “Me too,” against Kyungsoo’s neck—

—and just like that, Sehun was something that existed again.

“WILL YOU OPEN THE GODDAMN DOOR, I’VE BEEN YELLING FOR FIVE IN MINUTES—“

Jongin released Kyungsoo with a grin and yanked open the door; then proceeded to pull Kyungsoo towards him, engaging both of them in a long, passionate kiss. Kyungsoo went limp in his arms, melting against him helplessly. Needless to say, they were free of Oh Sehun the entire day thereafter.