“Jonghyun?”

He usually loved his mother’s voice. He loved, when they would be able to make an appointment which suited both of them, and when they would be able to chat for hours, despite the huge time difference there usually were between them. He would always look forward to the moment, as a little child waiting for his birthday present, and he would always have a hard time hanging up again, when they would run out of needed time.  

“Jonghyun.”

But right now he didn’t love it. Right now he wished that the voice would leave him alone; let him be in the world of dreams, where he for once had managed to search shelter from the harsh reality, after tons of restless nights, tormented by insomnia.

“Hm…?” He managed to mumble, with his face firmly planted in his pillows and his soul caught somewhere between reality and unconscious. “What is it?”

“Remember that you have promised me, to help dad mow the lawn today,” hadn’t it been for his mom’s reply, he wouldn’t be sure, if the words he had just slurred out had been understandable – or if they even had gotten to actually leave his mouth, in the first place.

He did remember promising his mom, to help his dad mow the lawn, since his dad was having back issues, and his mom didn’t believe that he would be able to handle such an otherwise simple task, as mowing the lawn himself. But right now Jonghyun couldn’t cope with that thought at all. It felt like the pulses inside his head were going insane, and even though he was lying down, it felt like the whole world was spinning on the tips of his toes. He was having such a bad hangover from yesterday night, and he could now deeply feel, that he wasn’t used to drink that much.

“Yeah...” he muttered, “I will…”

Jonghyun had a really strange dream. Key was in it and they were dancing at the club, just like they had done yesterday. It was chaotic; everything seemed to be swirling, there were a lot of colors and the music was loud enough to drown out the inner sound of your own thoughts.

Suddenly Key grabbed the collar of his t-shirt, and at that point everything went still. They were no longer at the club, but now standing in the middle of an open field, under the moonlight and surrounded by fireflies. Key was still holding onto his collar and he was tugging him a bit closer. Jonghyun was literally stunned; even though it felt like he voluntarily moved his head closer, it also felt as if he lacked control over his own body and mind.

The boy standing in front of him was looking extremely beautiful and there was something very sincere about the scene. Even though it was just a dream, it still managed to take the breath away from Jonghyun, and to fill the inside of his stomach with the feeling of tiny, fluttering butterflies. Their heads were gently inching closer to each other and their lips were leveling, as if they had tried to be in the situation before. In the end, they were so close that Jonghyun could feel Key’s breath on his mouth, and they were just about to close the final distance between them, when everything went black.

“Jonghyun.”

This time it wasn’t the voice of his mom that woke him up, but the voice of his sister, as she barged into his room and threw herself onto his mattress, making the bedsprings bounce up and down a couple of times before stilling.

“Urgh,” Jonghyun grunted and laid motionless for a moment, still with his face buried in the soft cushions. He considered for a moment, if he was able to just ignore Sodam, before pulling himself together and turning his body around, so that he was lying sprawled out on his back and staring up into the ceiling. “What now?”

“Mom wants you to go help dad mow the lawn,” she informed him, as if he didn’t already knew that on beforehand.  

“I know Sodam, she just told me a couple of minutes ago,” he whined. Couldn’t they give him a break? They knew that he had been out drinking yesterday – his sister had even been there with him, so how could she even appear this fresh already, considering how drunk she had been?

“That has already been several hours ago!” she announced and started to laugh at him. Jonghyun turned his head to look at her, as it took a moment for the words to sink into his brain.

“What?!” he cried out as realization hit him, and sat up a little bit faster than his head could handle at that moment, which caused him to be dizzy. He took himself to the head and whined a little more, while carefully turning his head towards the clock on his nightstand, which told him that the day already had reached afternoon. “Oh god…”

Sodam laughed once again. “Aw, did my little brother get too much to drink yesterday?”

“Shut up,” he nothing but mumbled and looked down into his duvet-covered lap, where he was thoughtlessly fumbling with his hands. “I am not used to drink that much and my alcohol tolerance is very low – you know already that.”

His sister just hummed as a confirmation, as she indeed knew that, and eventually sat up as well. “So you and Kibum, huh?”

Jonghyun frowned and abandoned the attention pointed toward his hands to look up at her. His thoughts instantly went to the previous evening and the strange dream he had dreamt that night. “What do you mean me and Kibum?”

“Seriously?” Sodam asked and a smirk immediately grew on her face. “Are you telling me that you don’t remember what happened?”                            

He thought about it for a moment, to see if he could figure out what she was possibly talking about. He was pretty sure that he remembered the most important events. The time had been passing very quick, they had been drinking, dancing and talking about a bunch of random things. Jonghyun and Sodam had followed Key home in the middle of the night, and Jonghyun remember to have gotten his phone number and promising to text him when he had woken up. But other than that Jonghyun couldn’t see what his sister was going on about. “What in the world are you talking about?”

“You guys were all over each other’s faces!” Sodam claimed with a grin, bringing Jonghyun back to the dream, where they had almost kissed. The kiss had only been a part of the dream, right?

Jonghyun considered the possibility for a moment, before shaking his head to get the thought off his mind. “No we weren’t.”

“Yes you were,” Sodam insisted with smooth tone in her voice. “I saw it with my own two eyes. Where you really that drunk, that you have managed to forget about it already? Kibum will be disappointed for sure.”  

“Oh my god, stop messing around with me,” Jonghyun pleaded, because that was definitely what she was doing, he had succeeded to conclude. And he finally pulled himself together to leave the coziness of his bed then, because there was no way that he would stay and listen to his sister for any longer. He stretched his body, before walking over to his dresser and to find some clean clothes. “I am going to take a shower now and then I am going to help dad, before he decides to do it all himself.”

Jonghyun might have spent a little too long time in the shower, but it was really refreshing and just what he needed. Afterwards he might have spent a little bit too long on eating a bowl of cereal, while staring at his phone and considering what to text Key. He knew that Sodam had just been screwing around with him, but still was her words and his own dream stuck in the back of his mind, which caused him to abandon the text message for now.

Eventually he managed to get outside. It wasn’t exactly the perfect day for lawn mowing; the weather was hot and the air very humid. At the time he had managed to find the lawnmower in their toolshed and mown the grass behind the house, he was already bathing in sweat and had to pull off his tank top in order to not overheat.

As he was in the middle of mowing the front garden, a silver-grey car pulled up in their driveway. Jonghyun watched as the car got turned off and the driver’s seat door opened. Key’s mom stepped out of the car and with steady steps she went up towards the front door of their house, smiling and greeting Jonghyun, as she walked past him. “Hi Jonghyun, you are looking hot today.”

“Um… Thank you…?” Jonghyun replied uncertainly. He stopped with the mowing and followed her with his eyes, as she arrived at the open front door and went inside.

Jonghyun didn’t get much time to wonder about what just happened, before he heard another car door slam behind him. He hadn’t even noticed if there was anyone else sitting in the car, but seemingly that was the case. He turned towards the car once again and instantly saw Key making his way over to him. He was wearing sunglasses and Jonghyun found himself wondering, if it was because of the sharp sun, or because he was having bags under his eyes from yesterday evening. For some reason he could totally imagine that it was because of the latter.

“Hi Jonghyun,” Key greeted with a little smile on top of his lips and a single wave with his hand, as he stopped in front of him.

“H—Hey Key,” Jonghyun greeted back with a unexpectedly high-pitched voice that took himself by surprise. He quickly covered his mouth with a hand and cleared his throat.

Key smirked at his mistake for a second, before making a rather disturbed face. “Did my mom just call you hot?”  

“Uh… I guess you can say so?” Jonghyun stated and laughed awkwardly, while scratching the back of his neck. And all of a sudden he felt very much , standing in front of Key wearing nothing but a couple of denim shorts. He was tempted to cross his arms over his bare chest, but he decided against it, since he was sure that it wouldn’t go unnoticed by the boy in front of him, so he just went with it. “What are you doing here?”

“Your mom forgot her purse at our house yesterday, and my mom figured that we could drop by and drop it off, since we are going shopping,” Key explained with a small shrug.

“I see,” Jonghyun replied with a small nod. He casually studied Key’s face and he hated the fact that he couldn’t see his eyes (and where they were looking), because of those damn sunglasses. “Typically her to forget half of her things, whenever she goes somewhere.”

The corner of Key’s mouth raised a bit, indicating that he indeed was listening, even though it didn’t seem like he had anything to say about the matter. Instead he decided to start a new topic. “I had really fun yesterday.”

“Yeah, me too! I had a really great time,” Jonghyun claimed enthusiastic. He really did have a great time and he wanted to make sure that Key knew that for sure. “Nothing happened, right…?” 

He regretted asking the question as soon as it left his mouth. It had been a simple thought, that wasn’t supposed to be uttered, but yet it did, because Jonghyun was just too frank. Obviously nothing had happened – not that Jonghyun would actually mind anything to happen with Key, but they had barely just gotten to know each other and it would be too sudden if anything had happened, right?

“What do you mean?” Key asked with a small frown. Of course he didn’t know what Jonghyun meant. He was acting way too normal for anything to have happened. It was only Jonghyun who was acting like an awkward fool, because of his sister and a strange dream.

“Oh, it was just my sister...” He tried to explain, but immediately stopped himself as he could see that this was going nowhere. Instead he decided to change the topic once again. “Oh hey, I am sorry that I never got to text you, as promised.”

“Okay then…” Key answered slowly, obviously considering if he should let the strange topic slide, or if he should try to get more out of Jonghyun. Luckily for Jonghyun, he seemed to let it go for now. He pouted playfully. “You don’t say! I had really anticipated your text when I woke up. I have been looking at my phone several times already, but nothing has happened on it for the whole day.” 

Jonghyun smiled widely by Key’s fake -hurt comment. “I am so sorry! Please forgive me. I woke up late and my afternoon have been hectic. Everyone was after me about having to mow this damn lawn.” 

Key pretended to think about it for a bit longer than it was probably necessary. He eventually sighed and shrugged resignedly. “Fine then, I guess you are forgiven for now.”

“Are you ready to leave again, Kibum?” his mom had just returned from the house and she had let the boys finished their current conversation, before interrupting them.

“Sure mom,” Key turned his head towards his mom to answer her question, before quickly looking at Jonghyun again and smiling. “Text me later then, so that I can actually get your number onto my phone.”

“I definitely will!” Jonghyun announced with a smile and waved his hand at them, as they made their way over to their car. “See you later, Kibum. And have a nice day, Mrs. Kim.”

“I will. Bye Jonghyun,” Key’s mom casually replied, before stepping into the car and closing the door behind her.

Jonghyun watched as the engine got started and the car carefully reversed out of the driveway. He then waited to made sure that they had driven away and was out of sight, before fishing his phone out of his pocket and writing a text to Key – he knew exactly what to write now.

(16:22)

You have to agree with your mom, though, right? I could feel you staring at my abs, through those sunglasses of yours ;)

He then put his phone away again and turned around to go inside. Before even reaching the threshold, he yelled with all his might; “SODAM! NOTHING HAPPENED!”

- Written by Legende