Then, without warning, the boy turned around and started walking into the opposite direction. Jongin halted immediately and turned around, laying eyes on the boy’s narrow silhouette distancing itself from him.

He desperately wanted to follow him, but his body felt paralyzed. All he could do was watch powerlessly. “Hey! K-Kyungsoo! Where are you going?”

The short boy slid his hands in the pockets of his black jeans as he steadily walked on.

“Thanks for the cappuccino, Jongin. You’re pretty considerate.”

And with those words, the mysterious boy disappeared around the corner, and Jongin’s soul was transported back to the familiar bedroom he had entered several hours ago.

Jongin sat on his bed, his body shuddering heavily. The moonlight cast an ominous veil over his bedroom, while the alarm clock next to him indicated an ungodly hour to be awake. Had he been sleeping? But then why did he still feel so tired? Was it a dream?

He whacked the sides of his head with his wrists as he tried to pull himself back to reality. “It must have been a dream,” he muttered to himself. “It was all just a dream. You fell asleep. Kyungsoo doesn’t exist. Stop acting like an idiot. It was just a dream, nothing more.” Angry with himself, he collapsed on the bed and yanked the blanket all the way over his head. He should have been asleep hours ago, considering he had to get up early in the morning to study for the upcoming exams. It was a necessity to excel. Slacking off was the last thing he should be doing.

After merely a few seconds, Jongin started fidgeting around in frustration and threw the blanket off his body. How in the world was he supposed to fall asleep with so many thoughts wrestling each other in his head? Why couldn’t he just be calm like a normal person? Why was he never able to get his thoughts straight?

“Stupid brain! you!” he roared as he catapulted himself back on his feet. It was going to be one of those nights again.

He plopped down on the wooden chair behind his desk and his laptop. As it was starting up, he grabbed hold of his school blazer with trembling hands and fished for the pack of cigarettes in his inner pocket. He had no idea whether his parents were even home, but they didn’t care much about his lifestyle anyway, so he might as well smoke in his bedroom. It was an emergency.

Jongin turned back to the screen and opened up Google. He typed ‘Kyungsoo’ into the search bar and nervously waited for any useful information to pop up. Unfortunately, he found next to nothing he could make do with, and the image results merely showed photographs of random boys he didn’t recognize. Outraged, he slammed his laptop shut. “ you Google! it all!”

When he had smoked three cigarettes in a row, the boy opened up a cupboard and withdrew his sketching supplies. He wiped the dust off his pencil case and started drawing Kyungsoo’s face the best he could. He didn’t think, his hand simply moved automatically. In just a few minutes, he had drawn an accurate representation of the face he had witnessed that evening. When Jongin’s hand stopped moving, he studied his work closely. His large round eyes, his silky black hair, his heart-shaped lips... everything had been incorporated.

The boy let out a contented sigh as he slipped back into bed and slid the drawing underneath it. “Out of my head and onto the paper. Goodbye, Kyungsoo.”

Jongin barely made it to school on time. He quickly slid into his assigned desk at the back and took off his snapback before the history teacher could tell him off. His lean fingers brushed through his messy hair as he tried to clear his mind. It was now Wednesday, meaning he had only five days to study for his dreaded exam. The student was way behind on schedule; if he continued this way, he would most probably fail.

The teacher commenced with her monotonous lecture and soon enough, Jongin’s mind had started wandering around again. Every now and then, he would realize that he was trailing off and try to pull himself back into the lecture but before he knew it he would be distracted again. The unconscious tapping of his pen against his deck ticked one of the girls in his class off. She resolutely raised her hand.

“Yes, Hyojin?”

“Teacher! Jongin keeps tapping his pen on the table, it’s distracting me!”

The woman turned towards the absent-minded boy. “Kim? Will you stop doing that?”

Jongin wasn’t listening. Instead, he was staring out of the window, concentrating on the way the sunrays cast long shadows over the school gardens.

How can someone lose the sun? What does that even mean?

“Kim Jongin!”

He jumped in his seat when he heard the old woman shriek his name through the classroom. “Y-Yes?”

“You disrespectful piece of scum! How dare you ignore me?”

“I-I’m s… sorry,” he stuttered, “I di-didn’t mean to-”

“Out of my class! Now!”

Jongin glanced at Hyojin before obediently standing up and walking out of the classroom in silence. He knew that being sent out wasn’t supposed to be a good thing, but he hadn’t been able to listen anyway. He might as well try to get some studying done on his own.

The boy settled down beneath a large oak at the back of the school building, resting his back against its broad trunk. He took his history books out of his backpack with a deep sigh. He really didn’t feel like studying, but time was running out and he didn’t have much choice. However, despite the fact of his spot being secluded and quiet, he couldn’t concentrate. Reading the first paragraph alone took about twenty minutes. Jongin rubbed his temples in frustration and shut his eyes briefly. In a matter of seconds, he was back in the realm of his mind.

As usual, the rain was pouring down heavily. The boy ran into an entrance hall as fast as he could in an attempt to stay dry. In a matter of seconds, his hair and upper body were soaked completely.

The rain felt cold and was making him shiver. It surprised him how fast he could leave his mind palace, only to come back just like that. Perhaps this was a sign that he was supposed to study here instead of at school. That’s what the place was made for, wasn’t it?

Nonetheless, he couldn’t help but wonder what the mysterious boy was up to. Would he be hanging around? Was he even still here?

“K…Kyungsoo?” Jongin softly asked, his voice wavering in uncertainty.

Right at that moment, Kyungsoo casually popped his head out of a coffee shop at the other side of the road.

“Kyungsoo? Is that you?”

“Yes it’s me, you dummy. Are you coming in or what?”

Jongin nervously scratched his elbow, but decided to run across the street and join the short boy, who sat at a high table behind the window. Had he been sitting there all along?

He slowly pushed through the door, causing a little bell to ring above his head. The lights were off, the chairs had been placed onto the tables and apart from Kyungsoo there was no one else around.

“Eh… isn’t it closed?”

Kyungsoo chuckled. “I expected you to have gotten used to that by now.”

“Well… yeah.” Jongin still felt slightly hesitant as he slipped onto the bar stool next to Kyungsoo.

“You’re completely soaked. Shouldn’t you change into something dry?”

The student looked down at the school uniform he was wearing. His cheeks started glowing as he realized his white shirt tightly clung to his body. “Y-Yes I should!” He jumped back up and ran behind the counter. “Wait… do you have anything I can change into?”

Kyungsoo shook his head and smirked. “Why do you keep forgetting you can imagine anything you want? This is your world.”

“Well, I didn’t imagine you, did I?”

The laughter died out, resulting in an uncomfortable silence. Jongin felt cross with himself. He wanted to be friends with Kyungsoo and making him feel awkward and unwanted was the last thing he should be doing. With a deep sigh, he slid open a drawer under the barista counter, gasping when he laid eyes on a neatly-folded black sweater lying in it. He took off his blazer, slowly undid his tie and started ing his shirt. As he stood there bare-chested, he suddenly remembered that he wasn’t alone and ducked behind the counter.

What was he, stupid? What if Kyungsoo saw him? He shouldn’t be changing in front of him! He carefully peeped over the wooden counter and saw Kyungsoo gazing outside, inattentive towards the scene that was being carried out behind him. Jongin let out an inaudible sigh as he quickly pulled the black sweater over his head and sat back down next to the boy.

“Nice sweater.”

“Thank you,” he replied. The cryptic figure was still staring through the window mindlessly.

“Kyungsoo? What are you thinking about?”

“Well,” he started, “I was thinking about how it’s not particularly appropriate to strip off your clothes when you meet someone for the second time.”

Jongin nearly fell of his stool as he felt his entire face and neck turning scarlet in colour. “H-H-How… How-”

“Windows reflect you know.”

The student felt so flustered he could barely breathe. “You di-didn’t see anything! Pretend like that didn’t happen!”

“Oh, I will.” Kyungsoo cheekily smirked and slid off his stool. He gave Jongin’s firm stomach a rough slap before walking to the back of the coffee shop. “Cute muscles you got there, Jongin.”

“He-Hey! Hey! That’s not funny!” Jongin whined as he hid his face in his hands. “I’ll never get over this!”

“Perhaps you won’t. Could you maybe get me something to drink?”

Ten minutes later, Kyungsoo happily sipped on a large matcha latte, while Jongin was drinking a small ristretto and smoking a cigarette. He had finally managed to calm down and bring his heart rate back to normal.

“Nice job on the latte,” Kyungsoo complimented.

“Thanks. I have a question, eh…” Jongin nervously tapped his foot on the metal bar at the bottom of the stool. “Why didn’t you make a beverage yourself? Am I the only one who can do that?”

“Yeah, you are,” the other boy responded as he took another sip and the foam off his upper lip. “This isn’t my world, it’s yours. Remember?”

“So you don’t have a say in anything that happens here?”

“No, I don’t. It’s all your doing.”

“So last time, I unconsciously made you a cappuccino?”

“You must have.”

Jongin nodded. It made sense in a way, but he still didn’t understand how Kyungsoo could be here if he hadn’t personally created him. He decided not to fish too much. For now, just hanging out with Kyungsoo was sufficient.

“If this were my world, it would look totally different,” Kyungsoo suddenly said.

Jongin studied the buckets of rain coming down on the concrete roads. “What would you change?”

“Well, first of all this place is really grim,” the boy stated. “Everything is dark and you can’t even see the sun. I’d make sure the sun would be out at all times. And I would make it more personal - I would build a majestic castle to live in.” Kyungsoo’s expression softened. “The castle would be surrounded by trees, meadows and a big lake. And there would always be music playing.”

Jongin smiled. Kyungsoo’s mind sounded like a beautiful place. If only he could catch a glimpse of what went on inside there. “Were you the one that froze the rain that day?” he asked.

“No, that was your doing.”

“But-” Jongin frowned. “But that voice was yours right?”

“Yeah.”

“Will you…” He took a slow puff of his cigarette to buy himself some more time. “Will you sing that song for me?”

“What song?” Kyungsoo simply asked.

“The on-one you were singing that time. I-I mean you don-”

Jongin’s words were interrupted by a warm melody. Kyungsoo softly performed the song he had been singing a few days ago. The boy had a pensive look on his face, as if the notes he was producing were bringing him back to a long-forgotten time. Jongin felt the hair on his arms elevate. Despite Kyungsoo’s voice being smooth and steady, he picked up on a sense of fragility resonating between the lines. Tears started pooling up in his eyes as he realized that the boy was slowly opening up to him.

As soon as Kyungsoo noticed how emotional Jongin was getting, he stopped singing. “Really? You’re crying?”

“I’m not! I’m not. Hyung, stop making fun of me!

Kyungsoo’s eyes squinted into thin lines. “Did you just call me hyung?”

“Yeah… you’re older than me right? I’m eighteen,” Jongin replied.

“I’m sixteen. So you’re my hyung,” Kyungsoo stated.

“No way, you can’t be sixteen! You seem way more mature than I am,” the student remarked. “I’m going to keep calling you hyung, anyway,” Jongin joked. “That’s okay, right? We’re friends, aren’t we?”

He was met by silence.

“Kyungsoo?” Jongin’s brows pulled into a puzzled frown. “…Are we friends?”

Kyungsoo resolutely got up from his seat and walked towards the exit. “No, Jongin,” he stoically replied as he walked out of the coffee shop. “We’re not.”

A/N: Hi guys! I just wanted to say thank you all for reading!

So Jongin finally met Kyungsoo, but instead of getting answers, it seems like he's only getting more questions. Who knows what's even going on?

Find out more in chapter five, coming your way soon! 

♥ pominizz ♥