9. INEXPLICIT

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(long update whoop whoop)

 

 

It is sudden: how quickly the atmosphere in the room changes. In the back of Kyungsoo's mind, he registers someone asking (he doesn't know who): "you... know each other?"

Because it’s hidden – the proof. Their matching blazer jackets: Jongin’s in plain sight, Kyungsoo’s buried beneath his black coat. They could be strangers, if you didn’t hear them use each other’s name.

Except they aren’t looking at each other like strangers.

It must really only be a second - how long they spend staring - but it feels like much, much more than that. In his head, Kyungsoo cannot think straight. There are so many thoughts buzzing to have his attention, so many questions circling over and over in an infinite cycle, but only one is constantly repeating itself, constantly nagging at Kyungsoo like a bright light in the corner of his eye.

Jongin is gay.

Even as he thinks it, it makes no sense. How can Kim Jongin possibly be gay? How can this be true in any way, shape, or form? 

There must be a mistake, Kyungsoo thinks. This must be a joke.

"Well, isn't this nice and awkward," Jongdae proclaims cheerfully, a weak attempt to break the tension.

It works somewhat because the words seem to snap Jongin out of whatever trance he had been in, and it is he who breaks the eye contact in the end. 

Jongin doesn't offer an explanation when all heads turn to him, just grants a wobbly sort of smile to the ten curious faces around the two of them. "What have I missed?" He asks, his message clear.

Kyungsoo realises that this is a signal, a hint, a plea, so he turns around in his seat and away from where Jongin is grabbing a chair to add to the circle. 

"Sit here," a voice says, and Kyungsoo very nearly has a heart attack when he realises it is Sehun, and that the boy is pointing to the gap between himself and Kyungsoo with hopeful eyes. He doesn't even let Jongin have a chance to dispute, because in the next second he is edging his chair back and the circle is following with him, a buzz of chatter starting up once more.

Kyungsoo keeps his head down, moving his chair like everyone else and repeating words in his head, over and over, bridled with confusion.

What is going on? What does all this mean?

When he sees from the corner of his eye how Jongin starts to sit, he turns his head away, and meets the gaze of Yixing from across the circle.

Yixing with his down turned eyes, the questioning yet worried furrow to his brows. He asks, without having to speak: are you okay? 

Kyungsoo nods just slightly, and shoots a short smile for extra support. I think so, is what it means, but he doesn't really.

"Alright..." Yixing repeats aloud, expression still showcasing his remaining unease. "Well it's Friday, so it's progress day. Does anyone..?"

Kyungsoo tries. He really truly tries to concentrate. What's being said around him is insightful, and helpful, and important to these people - he knows it, he can tell. Here is a time where he can really establish why everyone is here, and what they want to overcome by being here-

-but how can he concentrate? How can he possibly concentrate when a bomb has just been dropped mere minutes before, the debris scattered all over his mind. Kyungsoo can't, he just can't find it in himself to listen - not today, not right now, not when all he wants to do is turn to the boy by his side and ask him a torrent of questions.

He is so indisputably far beyond frazzled that it shouldn't be a surprise, it shouldn't be a shock - that Yixing isn't alone in noticing his behaviour - but when Tao presses a gentle hand over his shoulder, he cannot help but to startle just slightly.

He tilts his head Tao's way and the boy doesn't speak words, only mouths a "what is it?" with a pointed look towards Jongin.

This time though, Kyungsoo hears Jongin, from his other side, sit up straighter,

"It's okay," he mimes back, answering a different question, "I'm okay." Even though he isn't, even though he is so terribly far gone from okay that it's almost humorous. Tao most definitely does not buy it, but there isn't much else he can do - not now, not at this very moment.

"What about you, Jongin?" He hears then, a gentle prod from Yixing, and his attention is caught like that, as easily as a mouse in a trap - as quickly and succinctly.

All pairs of eyes focus on Jongin by his side, none trying to be discreet about the attention this group grants each person.

Everyone here is comfortable with Jongin, Kyungsoo realises, and vice versa. He cannot help but to wonder about how long that must've taken, about how many days, months, years Jongin may have been coming here for all this time without anyone knowing; how long this secret has been kept hidden.

"Nothing much has happened," Jongin says, and it seems so laughable to use such words in this circumstance that Kyungsoo has to his lips in to keep them from slipping apart. "Everything is the same as it was. It's boring." He ends, laughing lightly.

Except Kyungsoo thinks this is most definitely something; something that isn't the same, something that isn't boring, something that changes things.

Jongin must be in shock, and he's trying not to be, trying to be unseen. 

Which is why Kyungsoo sort of (sort of) gets it when Jongin says, "what about you Kyungsoo?", to take the attention off himself, making the whole room freeze.

It shouldn't be a challenge - Kyungsoo doesn't think Jongin meant it to come out like that - but, and hell, the whole room takes it as one and Kyungsoo can tell. Something in Jongin's tone, something in the way he had posed the question - it wasn't casual, it wasn't curiously inquiring like it should've been, or jokingly coaxing like he should've pretended it to be. It was a question which called for an answer, a question which was heavier than it should've been and which held far more than what it appeared.

So, because Kyungsoo gets the need for a topic change, because Kyungsoo understands the hate for looking weak and fragile and breakable, he his lips, wets them, inhales a breath of air, and takes a longer breath out.

"I came here because I am-" he stops, breathes - shallow and ragged; thinks of what Jongin must be going through to have to make Kyungsoo do this, thinks of what he would do if it were him. 

And he goes on, quiet and shaky, but on nonetheless, a broken, "-being bullied."

Because of the stutter, because of the catch in his voice, Yixing is looking at him, understanding him, telling him it's okay to stop. But Kyungsoo, always thinking - of Jongin, and his silent cry for help, of Eun-Seo's tears, and her deaf and rare pleas when she thought he couldn't hear - barrels on.

"Since..." He says, a shudder in his breath, "since a long time now. Four years. A little bit more, maybe. I lose track. It's kind of why I'm..." he looks down at himself, at his casted up leg and crutches propped up by his seat like a ing trophy.

"Like this," he finishes, because he doesn't want to say it aloud, because he doesn't want to spell out the word beaten. 

Jongin, he can see it, he can feel it, is now burning holes into the side of his face, staring so raptly that Kyungsoo is close, so close, to looking back and meeting his gaze.

"He has never hurt me this bad," he goes on though, sliding a clammy hand up and over his knee, unable to look up, not anymore, not through this. "I ca-can't stop thinking of how he had looked. It keeps coming back to me: his eyes. Through all the punching and the kicking and the crack, I could only see his eyes."

But he can't go on anymore. And still, he does not look, cannot look.

Not even when Jongin stirs by his side, suddenly riled up. Not even when Kyungsoo hears him curse, a clear but muted, "Kyungsoo, ".

It hadn't struck Kyungsoo that Jongin might not have known how bad that beating was, not for sure, not for definite. The evidence was concrete - a busted lip, fractured leg, a tarnished, dishevelled Kyungsoo but a glaring, unforgiving leader.

But Kyungsoo hadn't said it - not plainly, not explicitly. This is the first time he has admitted it aloud, and the first time people would know it for sure. 

This is the first time people will know how much it still scares him - even thinking about it, even just dabbling with the memory of this momentary, but ever-present, ever-lasting, event.

"As you can probably guess," he says now, trying to sound light, unaffected, "there hasn't been much in terms of progress."

Which is where he tries to laugh, tries to joke it all off and make it all go away, but the silence which follows is obsolete - something palpable, something suffocating - and his lips quiver before they have even started to stretch. Kyungsoo wanders what everyone is thinking, what everyone must look like.

So he glances up and around at the faces of those in the group who are all listening, expecting to see sympathy, expecting them to feel sorry, poor Kyungsoo, poor, weak Kyungsoo. 

Except that isn't what he sees - not at the forefront, not as the most obvious thing. It's there, somewhere, maybe as a small thought, a small feeling, lingering as a whisper in the background, but what's present instead is something else, something Kyungsoo wasn't expecting.

Because everyone looks angry. Fuming. Ready to do something, ready to step up and make something change. A sombre, but cutting atmosphere which Kyungsoo can barely comprehend he is seeing.

"Oh, I wish I went to your school," Kyungsoo hears, and it's, remarkably, Kris who says this, Kris, who looks dangerous and terrifying and a threat in every sense of the word, and who Kyungsoo has never spoken to, never interacted with; not directly, not enough for this. "If I could just meet these people, I swear I'd-"

"You'd not use violence," Yixing cuts in, admonishing, sharp, but not entirely believable. "Right, Yifan?"

Kris (Yifan?) sniggers harshly. 

"That's a hard thing to promise," he ripostes, fists clenching in his lap, gaze darting Kyungsoo's way, and then Tao's, and then down and away. 

"Very hard," Jongdae agrees, sounding as angry as he looks. "How do people get away with like this? God, teachers are ing sometimes," he sighs, ignoring Yixing's sharp "language!"

And then there's a sudden burst of agreement from all around, people shouting out what they'd do and say, how it angers them, how it makes no sense, how it's cowardly and wrong. These people, people who Kyungsoo doesn't know, all stacked up by his side, all talking about the injustice like Kyungsoo won't break hearing it, like he isn't fragile enough to cry at the very thought of it all, like he isn't weak, the opposite really - brave.

Turning to him now, calling him brave, telling him he's strong.

And Kyungsoo can't help but to feel touched - at this, at them, at their effortless understanding of him and what he doesn't want to hear. He doesn't know if that's a tear in his eye, or if the coil in his throat is from a long-suppressed cry, but his hands are trembling and his lip is trembling and his whole body is trembling with how scary that was to admit, and how frighteningly nice it is to think of all these people knowing what makes him vulnerable and not judging him for it. 

"I don't understand why people let this happen," Luhan says - seethes. "Whenever I see anyone being bullied or picked on in my school, I can't not help them, I can't just walk away and pretend I didn't see anything because I did, and I won't be able to just forget that." He looks at Kyungsoo now, expression earnest and frowning. "Doesn't anyone help you? Doesn't anyone try to stop it?"

Yes, Kyungsoo thinks, to which he very nearly glances at Jongin, but falters at the last second. He doesn't know why he stops, doesn't know what made him do it, but the idea of giving them away, of meeting Jongin's eyes in that moment - it felt wrong, like Kyungsoo would regret it later, like he'd make this situation infinitely more complicated. 

So he doesn't let his eyes deviate, he doesn't give away anymore information about himself - spent from show and tell. Instead, he shrugs his shoulders and pretends he doesn't see how the people around him stir in frustration, wanting to make it change.

They talk about it all a little while longer - amongst themselves, about the general issue, bullying - and then the topic moves on, because this is a day of progression, this is a day of what has already been fought and conquered, the day for everyone.

Kyungsoo listens for the most of it, still shaky, still unnerved over how much he has revealed today. He misses a lot - not about what is being revealed, but about what is not being said, the inadvertent clues he can gather about these people from their responses, and their body language.

He misses Kris. He misses Tao. He misses Chanyeol. He misses all of them, and how their behaviour changes at the subject he has raised, and does not avert back for the whole session. 

The only person he does not miss is Jongin; because of course. He doesn't look obviously, he doesn't side glance too often, but Jongin is so resolutely still, so frozen and plain and blank and empty, that Kyungsoo would be an idiot to miss it.

It's right in the middle chunk of the session, when the voices have relaxed in comfortable confidence and the attention has truly been passed to another, that Jongin suddenly turns.

And Kyungsoo feels it, instantly, how the boy starts unashamedly staring - hard and infallibly, harsh and unwavering, unblinking; unthinking. 

Kyungsoo jolts in his seat, shuffles there because now he can't sit still, now the limit has been surpassed, and Kyungsoo looks back.

Jongin, before him, impossibly. Jongin, by his side in a place where he hadn't thought anyone he knew could be. Jongin, looking sombre, and infuriated, and scared, and what is that?, all in one go. 

The topic has moved on, the buzz of voices constant all around him, and so no one sees it, no one reacts, when Jongin suddenly leans in close, close, close, too close, his hot breath searing across Kyungsoo's ear. 

"We need to talk - at the end." He breathes, warm and hushed and cautious. And then he lingers for a second too long, just breathing there - no, wait, sighing there, long and ragged, but hot, so hot, so that when he finally leans back, his body heat slinking along with him, Kyungsoo feels a shiver wrack hard through his body.

 

It takes a long while for everyone to disperse after, small conversations sparking between various members of the group, small catches holding them back and keeping them talking like salespeople on the other end of a phone call. 

When Kyungsoo meets Jongin's eye in the ruckus of people, when he sees those warm eyes, robbed of their warmth, searching for his own, he gets the hint. He says his goodbyes to who is left, a stern Yixing (who shoots him an appraising look and instructs that he calls his sister, now), Suho too, who has the doctor wrapped safe under his arm - tucked away in plain sight -, and then to Sehun last, who speaks to Jongin with more animation than he has ever before held in Kyungsoo's presence (which only falters when Kyungsoo wishes him well and Sehun looks as if he's been asked to compete in a duel). 

Kyungsoo knows Jongin is watching when he crutches down the corridors and turns a different way - just a few times, just where it is quiet and still. It doesn't even strike him that Jongin might not be able to find him, because he can hear it, clearly, the steps which are following his movements, the gentle pads against the carpet floor.

The corner Kyungsoo turns now is light enough but hushed enough too, the rooms around seemingly unoccupied - an eerie stillness in every single way. It feels right, when he collapses against the wall there - hearing the footsteps slow down just slightly, but approach like as before, steady and clear.

Kyungsoo is expecting to end up angry, sad, confused, unnerved, in these next moments, prepared for all that could happen, and all that can be said.

What he isn't expecting though, is to end up scared. Because when Jongin approaches, and instantly boxes him in with his arms, traps them both inside of this tight, claustrophobic bubble, it all feels too familiar, too sickeningly routine, that Kyungsoo cannot help but to shrink back into the wall.

"Kyungsoo," Jongin says, a shudder of air passing between them.

His voice sounds bad - really, hysterically bad. Kyungsoo is so shocked by it - by how broken his name had sounded on those lips - that he doesn't know what to say back other than "Jongin" - not with the same fervour, but instead with a curious jilt to his voice, a coaxing tone. 

The word seems to do something to the other, because when Jongin tilts his head up, (and - oh, his eyes are wet, oh, his eyes aren’t working right) Kyungsoo sees how he is barely holding himself together.

"Kyungsoo, how are you so-" he starts, teeth ground together, shoulders tense and turned in and near, so near. He looks like he wants to say something, looks like he wants to say so much, his expressions temporary but instantaneous, ever-changing - hurt and pained; angered; despairing. 

Kyungsoo watches the battle as it happens, watches to see which emotion will take precedence until Jongin suddenly stops - his features falling blank and taut and wrongly strong - and Kyungsoo feels an uncomfortable pang well up in his chest. 

Not this face, Kyungsoo thinks. Anything but this face.

"Kyungsoo, you can't tell anyone," is what Jongin says in the end, leaning in even closer, "Kyungsoo, you can't. Kyungsoo if you do I'll- Kyungsoo I'll-"

And then he slams his fist against the wall by Kyungsoo's ear - a harsh sound, an ugly, resonating ring - and his face distorts into that expression again, that what is that? What is that he's saying? What does that mean?

Kyungsoo says back, "Jongin. You don't have to threaten me. Jongin. Calm down."

Except he doesn't know how it sounds aloud, or whether or not it came out like he'd intended, because the look Jongin is giving him is like he's just been burned, scorched, slapped in the face but deserves it. 

"I didn't mean-" he starts, running a harsh hand through his hair, but then he just steps back and turns around, conceding, hiding his face from Kyungsoo's view.

A tense silence follows - Kyungsoo, pressed to the wall behind him, and Jongin, stomping forward and back, forward and back, burning with a hapless energy.

Kyungsoo doesn't realise he is doing it until he's reached an arm forward and wrapped his fingers around Jongin's wrist, whispering out a, "stop, stop moving - please," - the heartbeat beneath his fingers as erratic as his own, as fast and flurried and rapid as his own. He feels it thrum in his fingertips, both beats, almost in unison, almost as fast as the other. 

In this position, frozen, neither makes a move to speak. 

Authors write about it so much. Dramas exaggerate it; films make it too intense. People talk about it, insist on it, describe each aspect of it in such a way that no one can understand why or how this could actually happen - how someone could be so lost but so found, trapped by another person so much so that time slips straight through their fingers. Kyungsoo has never before been able to comprehend how such a thing could happen; Kyungsoo has never been able to see how something as powerfully prevalent as time could ever have no effect.

But Kyungsoo honestly couldn't tell you how long they stood there; like that, trapped in this timeless moment - not for sure, not for definite, not even close. It could've been seconds, but it could've also been minutes, close to hours, wasting away with such a slight touch keeping them together, soaking in each other's presence and wondering, always wondering, what is to happen now. 

It is Jongin, in the end - the one who decides. He does it as suddenly, as abruptly, as his temperament allows. The way he just takes a step back, and guides Kyungsoo's fingers away, letting Kyungsoo's wrist fall to rest by his side - it is simultaneously the most paining and the most gentle thing he has ever done to Kyungsoo.

"Jongin," Kyungsoo breathes, because he can see it, all of it, in his eyes, because he can feel it, everything, in the way the atmosphere has tilted off balance.

Jongin's brows scrunch down - his fists clench just minutely by his side; his shoulders stiffen and he straightens up to full height. Like a rhythm, like a beat, he loses the last embers of the Jongin he is around Kyungsoo.

"I'm not as brave as you are," he says, monotonous, resigned. "Just... not yet."

And then he closes his eyes, trapping the terrified tears that have threatened to spill, and walks away without another word. 

 

~~~

 

Kyungsoo doesn't know why he had assumed it, doesn't know what had made him think it, but he is expecting that whatever happened on Friday was not the end. - that more is yet to be said. 

Instead, when Kyungsoo starts to approach Jongin on a Monday morning, close to calling out his name to get his attention, the boy stalks away fast - not sparing him even a glance back. Taemin by his side frowns, grants a wobbly sort of look Kyungsoo's way, but follows just the same, leaving the smaller confused and frustrated and, somewhere too, embarrassed.

We aren't friends, Kyungsoo admonishes, how could he act like they are? Kyungsoo shouldn't expect that they could be so casual to each other - oh, Kyungsoo, dammit Kyungsoo, how stupid must that have looked.

So he lets it pass, thinking he'll wait for Jongin to approach, or for a situation to arrive where they could talk without boundaries-

The group, Kyungsoo decides. They can talk today, in this session, he tells himself, feeling a little better.

It really shouldn't surprise him as much as he does, when he figures out he is wrong.

Because Jongin doesn't go to the next week's worth of sessions. He doesn't meet Kyungsoo's eyes when they happen to walk past each other in the hallway. He doesn't stop and talk like he had only just begun to do.

He leaves Kyungsoo's life as suddenly and as swiftly as he had entered it mere days before. 

Kyungsoo tries not to be disappointed; tries not to show it, at the very least. Jongin was always just going to be temporary - Kyungsoo knew that, of course he knew that.

But he cannot help it - the ache in his chest, the words in his head, the sombreness that hangs over his form wherever he goes. He knows Eun-Seo has noticed; he knows it by her side-long glances, her thoughtful looks, her frustrated, bitten-red mouth. She's started looking at him like he's something delicate again, like how she had done all those years back when he was weak with self-hate - treating him like he can break with the wrong move or word, like he is something fragile that must be handled with care. 

And still, Kyungsoo can't find it in himself to put on an act - he can't find it in himself to pretend to be okay when he is so far from it. He knows he is being foolish, but he cannot help it.

He has long since stopped expecting things from people. The very day four years ago that his friends had turned their back on him like that, he had promised himself that he wouldn't rely, wouldn't depend - not anymore, not again. It is one of the few thoughts that has kept him strong for all this time, and one of the few thoughts that has made him feel not so lonely during the worst of days. 

And it has worked for years now, never faltered or failed or weakened in the slightest...

So why does Kyungsoo feel like this? Why does Kyungsoo feel so torn up over this, over them, over Jongin and Taemin and how momentary they had been, like raindrops on a frozen day - morphing into snow before they have the chance to fall, making Kyungsoo care before they promised they would stay.

It takes two more weeks for Kyungsoo to finally get his answer.

 

""- it starts, like always, like it has to - for the same reason it has been for four years time now.

Because what else, right? What could hurt more?

Kyungsoo's been precarious. He's not stuck to his safe routes, he's not kept track of things and worked to avoid like he usually does when things get too tired. He's gotten used to it now - life without Jongin and Taemin, life like it was before - but that doesn't mean he's accepted it yet.

He has not been concentrating; he has realised that too late. 

And today he pays the price.

Because he's alone, nothing new there, not really (he's always alone), but not always is he alone, wandering down a still and quiet hallway to kill time during lunch break - not another presence in sight. 

It's not strictly allowed - flapping about the school when all teachers are otherwise engaged: eating, marking, gossiping in the staff rooms. Without this authority, many things can go wrong.

But Kyungsoo likes the silence; he likes the eerie stillness of a school that looks abandoned. It makes being alone a far more beautiful thing than it actually is.

Except he's usually careful. He usually moves around quickly, takes the paths that aren't otherwise engaged. He's walked these corridors enough times to know who will be where when and what that could mean for him.

It completely slips his mind, today, that the leader has English just before lunchtime. It slips his mind that this English teacher likes to pick and fiddle and doesn't stand for disruptions, like the leader so often starts. It slips his mind that after a bad period, a bad hour of constantly being told what to do, the leader has to reassert the power he has been deprived of.

And who else could grant this more efficiently?

"Hey," the leader says, stepping up towards where Kyungsoo has frozen in the hall, mind reeling, admonishing, cursing over his oversight. 

He'd left the canteen and wandered away, far, for at least a minute. Usually, he checks to see who might be looking, who might be following; ears picked, eyes darting.

That he hasn't today, and that the leader has bothered to follow so far-

"What's up?" The leader asks, smiling wide and toothy and sickly sweet, towering over him though, making Kyungsoo feel small.

It seems he has recovered - from whatever had scared him by Kyungsoo's words, whatever had made him miss seven consecutive days of school. Kyungsoo had grown accustomed to his absence, he realises this now - too late, far too late. 

Never grow accustomed, it is a rule of his. Never grow accustomed to a lack of torment.

"Hey, why aren't you answering?" The leader questions, stepping to Kyungsoo's side and draping an arm around his shoulders, making him hunch and quiver with the unwanted proximity. "Friend, what's wrong? Has something happened? Are you okay? Is there anything I can do-"

"Please," Kyungsoo says, because that's really what the leader wants to hear, that's what the leader is looking for - Kyungsoo weak and breakable, easy to hurt and torment. "Leave me alone, please."

The leader laughs low, warm, his breath whispering over the top side of Kyungsoo's head, and then he wraps his hand around Kyungsoo's throat - not pressing there, not applying pressure, but just as a warning. A, I'm done playing. I'm going to hurt you now.

Kyungsoo wonders if someone might come. He's still in the building with the canteen on the opposite end, can still hear voices from afar if he picks his ears enough, but he is so far, has crutched so far away. No one comes here at this time and he knows it - no student, no teacher, no help is coming. 

So Kyungsoo cringes back from the leader's grasp - tries to, at least, tries to move away from the touch - because it's the only thing he can think to do, the only thing that will calm himself down enough to figure out a way to escape.

The leader follows the movement, chuckles as he does it, let's Kyungsoo crutch back but keeps his hand there, hovering, a constant threat, a constant reminder of power.

The leader gets bored eventually, when Kyungsoo's nearly at the end of the corridor, nearly close enough for people to notice if he screamed, and he presses down, hard, so that Kyungsoo chokes and staggers back against the lockers behind him, hitting the back of his head.

He barely has time to regain his senses, regain his bearings, when the leader moves in close and pushes him again, up against the metal behind with an arm against his throat - sending quakes through Kyungsoo's body like he has never felt before.

"What's wrong, friend?" The leader questions, breath sour and putrid to Kyungsoo's nose, a sickly warmth which makes him want to run and run and run.

He shoves brutally, leaning back so Kyungsoo won't have something to hold onto. It won't get worse than this, at least. Being pushed around is bearable. At least this way, he thinks, he can hide this from Eun-Seo. At least this way, she won't be able to see the bruises which will form, scattered over his back and shoulders beneath his clothes.

Another shove - forceful enough that Kyungsoo feels his head ring and he almost steps with his bad leg. He closes his eyes because he doesn't want to see, doesn't want to see what the leader looks like, doesn't want to be tormented by another image in his head. 

The leader doesn't like that; the leader doesn't like not having full attention. Kyungsoo can tell by the way a growl sounds and the arm is back, driving insistently against Kyungsoo's chest, so that Kyungsoo panics, opens his eyes; screen-caps another nightmare image - the leader, laughingly feral, amused, content to be so strong.

"Ple-please," Kyungsoo says again, because he wants this to be over, he wants to be alone again, just wants to be alone and away and far and far and safe and safe. Just gone, please, gone from this all. 

He isn't really expecting it to help because please means nothing to ears which won't listen, please means nothing to people this sick and wrong and messed up. 

Which is why it startles him when the leader suddenly steps back, letting Kyungsoo steady his quivering crutches and find the balance he needs.

And then the hands which had been shoving at him and pressing bruises against his skin are suddenly flattening hastily over his uniform, straightening the collar, tugging at the creases. 

Kyungsoo is too shocked to say anything, too shocked to move back and away like his body wants him to, but then the leader suddenly runs off down the corridor and out of sight - as if he's just been called about an emergency. 

It makes sense, after a moment.

Because in the next second he hears it - the footsteps, the approaching footsteps; sharp and rhythmic, professional and distinctly teacher. 

It's the leader's English teacher, ironically, who turns the corner, two seconds too late, only seeing Kyungsoo, just Kyungsoo.

She sniffs around, looking like she had been expecting something else, so when she sees Kyungsoo she turns abruptly suspicious, angry.

"What are you doing here?" She demands, voice stern and harsh, firm and brooding. 

Kyungsoo is in too much shock to think of a sufficient response back, because she shouldn't be here - no one should be here. The leader must've heard her clacking heels as she'd approached, must've panicked enough to run without sending a closing threat Kyungsoo's way, but that's weird, this is weird, this isn't routine.

"Did you hear what I asked?" The teacher asks, stepping forward once more, but she must realise that Kyungsoo can't answer, must see something in his appearance that looks off, because her eyes lose resolve. 

"What's your name again?" She asks, still authoritative.

Kyungsoo clears his throat, tries to stop his hands from shaking. "Kyungsoo," he says, and it's instantaneous - the way the teacher's eyes widen and the harshness in them dissipates as quickly as it had come. 

"Was someone else here?" She asks, still strict but suddenly soft, suddenly coaxing.

Kyungsoo wobbles on his leg, but he takes a step away from the lockers behind him and tries to look unaffected.

"N-no," he lies, by impulse, by routine. 

And this is when she says, "A student told me some kids were going to set off a stink bomb around here."

And Kyungsoo says "no" again, firmer, more definitive, more unquestionable.

The teacher might not believe him, he can see the suspicion lingering in her eyes still, the questions she still wants to ask, but she doesn't.

Most of the teachers don't question a widely-acknowledged top student.

It only strikes Kyungsoo that something is strange when they start to walk off and he realises again what the teacher had said.

"What student?" He asks, trying to sound casual.

The teacher doesn't even hesitate - who does when someone in the country's 5% asks?

"Jongin, Kim," she says though, the English way, not noticing how Kyungsoo's steps falter. "He must've been having a laugh."

 

Jongin cares.

He cares about Kyungsoo, but he doesn't want Kyungsoo to know it. Where Kyungsoo has been thinking the boy has changed his mind about them being friends, he has got it all horribly wrong.

And he can no longer pretend that he doesn't need to know why, doesn't deserve to know why. Jongin, Taemin too, they have no right to enter Kyungsoo's life so suddenly and then leave it again without explanation, without a word which would make Kyungsoo understand. 

Kyungsoo wants answers now, and he will do what he can to get it.

And if doing what he can means wandering inside the school's specialised studios during his free, searching for Jongin to find out where he may be, than that is what Kyungsoo will do.

This is a building in the school that Kyungsoo has very rarely entered during his past couple of years here. Back when he'd been into singing, probably when he was around thirteen years old, he had spent a lot of his life here and in the recording rooms practicing various songs until his throat hurt. Since then, the building has been extended to make room for more dance studios, and Kyungsoo ends up getting lost a lot easier than he would've thought he would.

As he crutches around haplessly, he can hear faint mixes of soundtracks playing over one another, the muted chatter of voices during dance breaks. Being here again, even if many things have changed, hits him hard - a flood of nostalgia to his heart. Giving up singing seems like the biggest mistake of his life, all of a sudden.

He rounds a corner, torn with these emotions, distracted by these thoughts, and it takes him a moment to see the figure which has halted a few metre's ahead - mid-step and mid move, dressed all in black and hair stuck sweaty to his forehead.

"Jongin!" Kyungsoo calls, just as the other starts to turn away, walking fast back the way he has come. Kyungsoo grunts in frustration, crutching quickly to keep up with Jongin's pace. "No fair," he complains, "you can walk!" But his words go to deft ears.

So Kyungsoo does the only thing he can think to do which might get Jongin's attention.

He throws his crutches to the ground and fakes a cry, making Jongin turn back around just like he had anticipated -

Except he really didn't think things through, and he realises too late that he has just thrown away his only form of support - the sudden loss making him unsteady, making him stumble to avoid pressing against his bad leg.

He lets out another cry, real this time, and he's preparing himself to fall, knows that it's inevitable with how he meanders off balance, but then he feels arms wrap around his waist, and he steadies himself in Jongin's hold. 

"Kyungsoo, how are you so-" Jongin starts and stops, tightening his grip and letting Kyungsoo straighten up once more.

"Yeah, I think you've said that to me before," Kyungsoo says, chuckling slightly at the situation.

Jongin doesn't look amused at all, even frowns angrily at Kyungsoo for laughing. "I can't believe you just did that," he admonishes, stepping back and scooping the fallen crutches up in his hand.

Kyungsoo slips his arms back into them, and asks, "what else would've made you listen?", not meaning to make Jongin feel bad, not thinking like that, but seeing how the taller's face scrunches with a resigned guilt, expression turning sombre like it has been for weeks. 

He looks as if he might revert back to what he has been acting like since that day at the support group, and Kyungsoo fears that more than he would've expected - even more so when he has just seen Jongin acting more like Jongin than he's been of recent, more like the person Kyungsoo thinks he knows just slightly. 

"Jongin," Kyungsoo says, really stressing the name on his tongue. "Jongin, you- you need to- look at me. Look at me, Jongin."

But the other, determinedly, resolutely, is choosing not to listen. He's doing such a good job of it, not even quaking in his monotonous expression, and empty, expressionless eyes, that Kyungsoo cannot help but to get angry.

"Just tell me!" He bemoans, practically yelling now. "Tell me why you're like this!"

He doesn't understand, none of this makes sense. Jongin shouldn't be ignoring him. Jongin shouldn't be looking so blank whenever they happen to meet eyes. Jongin isn't supposed to act like his whole world could tumble down, not when Kyungsoo wouldn't, when he would never do that to him, would never do to Jongin what people did to him - tell a secret that isn't his own, out someone who doesn't want to be outed. 

That they barely know each other, for once, is not an excuse. 

Because anyone, and Kyungsoo means anyone, would be able to understand that he. would. never.

"Do you... Not trust me?" Is what he ends up saying, sounding much more hurt then he wanted to allow. 

It would be fair of Jongin not to - they barely know each other, have spoken such few times that each exchange could be counted on Kyungsoo's fingers with ease, and Kyungsoo isn't unfair - he would truly understand if the boy did not trust him.

But that doesn't mean the idea, the concept of this being between them, doesn't not hurt Kyungsoo. Because it's only a thought, it's really only an assumption, but Kyungsoo can still feel his eyes growing wet and his lip begin to quiver even before he realises what is happening.

"."

Kyungsoo hears, and then suddenly Jongin is stepping forward, his eyes scrunched firmly shut, and fists clenched tight into balls by his side - holding himself together, holding himself back, from something Kyungsoo didn't even realise was there.

", , , Kyungsoo," he says, opening his eyes as he speaks the name aloud. 

But Kyungsoo doesn't understand.

"Why do you- I mean," Kyungsoo splutters, hysterically confused. "Why do you look like that?" He asks, because he can't say it, he can't ask 'why do you look so broken?'; 'why do you look so pained?'.

But he isn't sure that Jongin can hear him, isn't sure if Jongin is even concentrating enough, because -oh, Kyungsoo has got this all wrong. Oh, this is something else - this is something Jongin doesn't want to admit.

Kyungsoo should, he really should, take a step back. If anyone else was doing this, if it were anyone else looking so fragile, if anyone else could stare at him like that, Kyungsoo would back down without a second thought.

But, between the two of them, him and Jongin, (Jongin and I, he thinks in his head), it has never not been intense, and it seems only natural, seems only expected, when Kyungsoo pushes forward. 

"Please," he says, because there is nothing else he can think of, "just, please."

With all that has happened, Kyungsoo thinks it won't mean anything. He thinks that Jongin may hear the words, acknowledge the words, really truly grasp how serious his decision will be, and then turn straight around as if they've had no effect on him. For that very, very short second, Kyungsoo fears that this, whatever this is, will never be able to get better.

But then, miraculously, like a switch has been flicked, a mask finally removed, Jongin deflates. And Kyungsoo says deflates, because there is no better word to describe it - no better word to describe how his shoulders sag, and his taut expression loosens, and a small, imperceptible, and hopeless sigh slips through his lips, and he deflates, deflates, deflates, like all resolve has been drowned by that 'please', just that please.

"I'm so sorry," Jongin says, voice quiet but firm. "I'm really- I'm sorry. I just couldn't understand. I'm sorry, I couldn't understand-" He splutters out, his expression so frazzled and uncertain.

"What? What, Jongin?" Kyungsoo prods, because he doesn't get it, he doesn't get what the other is trying to say.

But Jongin looks so small, even as he stares down at him - eyes soft and sad and filled with more emotion than what they have held in weeks.

"Please," he says, sounding so tired and worn, "please, I can't explain right now; I don't want to explain right now. But I'll stop - I will. I'll stop now, if it's what you want."

Which Kyungsoo doesn't get - there's so much more Kyungsoo wants to ask, so many explanations he needs in order to even begin to make sense of the past couple of weeks that he's struggled through... -

"It's what I want." Kyungsoo repeats, sure, certain.

-...but right now, when Jongin meets his gaze and smiles all wobbly and weak, but real, so beautifully real, all of his questions die in his throat, and relief, relief, floods him like the first tide coming in on a still day.

 

-

A/N

 

THERE ARE SO MANY HINTS IN THIS CHAPTER, WHO NOTICED?

(This also might be a very confusing chapter whoops)

 

But what are your guesses about Jongin? Why did he avoid Kyungsoo for all that time? 

 

Comment your thoughts and opinions below ^-^ <333333