days like these, the rain isn’t enough. the smell of sulphur and sadness as drop after drop hits the ground wafts into the air, and it’s a comforting scent that could lull jongin to sleep any other day. but not today. not today.

sometimes he gets into these moods, you see. all positive and cheerful (as cheerful as jongin can be) one moment, and then bam, quiet and moody the next.

luhan always claims that it’s his monthly period, usually accompanied by a muffled laugh that reminds jongin of fairy dust and the little bells that tinkle whenever you enter a convenience store.

except it isn’t monthly - jongin isn’t lucky enough - and he doubts every woman falls into a spiral of self-pity whenever their monthly cycle strikes. he’s got firsthand accounts. (he’s got four sisters.) 

“hyung, what are you doing?” a voice calls out. jongin jolts out of his little mood, focusing on that one spot on the wall of the dance studio. sehun’s looking at him with brows furrowed, blond bangs falling into his eyes and head tilted to a side. 

it’s easy to plaster on a smile and say everything’s alright, so jongin does just that.

life would be a lot easier if people were all the same. sure, it would be kind of boring, jongin thinks, but it wouldn’t be so bad if everything was predictable and routine. there’d be no surprises.

“hello, my name is kyungsoo,” the boy greets. “what kind of bread are you looking for? today’s special is the cinnamon swirl.”

oh. right. he almost forgot, he’s at a bakery. sehun’s on his right and luhan on sehun’s, their arms tangled together in a strange, strange knot and the sides of their body pressed up against each other. they’re in public, but they don’t care, not these two. it’s a happy little bubble that they live in.

sehun and luhan don’t hear the boy. they are still in that bubble, and sehun’s pulling luhan along to go look at the pastries. 

“ah, i'm not looking for anything,” jongin says. “my friends are. but, thanks.”

the boy gives a nod. but he doesn’t smile, not even with those pretty heart-shaped lips of his. jongin didn’t notice at first because the boy’s voice was pleasant and lilting and smooth, but he wears no expression except one of conjured politeness. if he smiles, jongin thinks, he wouldn’t even have an eyesmile, not with those gigantic eyes of his.

“sehun, you need to make up your mind,” luhan titters. he mimicks checking the time even though his wrist is bare and pale. “your hyungs are busy, busy, busy.”

sehun might as well be plastered up against the glass displays with how close he’s getting to the cakes. 

“i recommend the chocolate bomb,” kyungsoo says. oh, when did he get over there. “it’s our weekly special. very popular.”

jongin peers at the price labels. it’s a simple thing, a dark brown dome with a biscuit base, and the most expensive one by far. 

figures. 

he chuckles to himself, but it’s loud enough that kyungsoo hears and when those wide, wide eyes of his point toward jongin, jongin feels something other than dread rise in his chest. curiosity. intrigue. interest.

jongin is a fan of routines and patterns, so, the next time tuesday rolls around, he figures he might as well head back to the bakery. make it a regular thing. 

this time he is without sehun and luhan, the diabetes-inducing couple, but he rationalises that he simply wants a loaf of bread and a cup of coffee - long black, no sugar, to-go - and, maybe, if he’s feeling generous, he’ll buy a chocolate bomb for sehun.

“hello, my name is kyungsoo,” kyungsoo greets. “what kind of bread are you looking for? today’s special is the cinnamon swirl.”

it’s the same boy from last time. the same kyungsoo. he looks the same, too: large eyes, cupid-bow lips, and round cheeks that jongin really, really wants to pinch. 

“i'll have the sourdough and a coffee - no cream, no sugar - to go,” jongin says. he hopes he doesn’t sound too bored or sad or angry or depressed. the mood he was in last week faded away by friday, but occasionally remnants of the familiar gloominess would pop up when he least expected it. “and a chocolate bomb, too.”

“alright, sourdough loaf and black coffee, no sugar,” kyungsoo says. he directs those eyes toward jongin and doesn’t smile, but jongin swears his eyes are saying something. “we don’t have the chocolate bomb this week. it was last week’s special.”

jongin frowns. “it’s okay, then.”

jongin leaves with a loaf of sourdough - sliced thinly, as requested - and a steaming cup of coffee. he’ll give the loaf to his neighbours. he takes a whiff of the coffee; it smells nice, but doesn’t everything that kill you smell nice too? 

he leaves the coffee on the sidewalk. he doesn’t drink coffee.

the next week, jongin goes back to the bakery. 

he asks for sourdough, a coffee and a chocolate bomb. they only have the first two.

he leaves with a loaf of sourdough and a coffee, but reaches home with only the sourdough.

the next time jongin sees kyungsoo, it’s not at the bakery. jongin is practising after hours again, cooped up in the little dance studio which the rest have long since evacuated in favour of a hotpot dinner. he sees himself in the mirror, all long lithe lines and smooth moves, ignores the dark circles and protruding collarbones.

“oh, sorry, i thought this was the office,” a familiar voice says. 

jongin pauses for a second - half-annoyed, half-pissed off - and turns to look at the intruder. it’s kyungsoo. jongin wonders if he should acknowledge that he knows him, since it would be awkward if kyungsoo doesn’t recognise him, and so he falters and stumbles over his words before kyungsoo kindly interrupts.

“you’re the guy, right?” kyungsoo asks. he smiles. “sourdough and coffee guy.”

jongin can’t reply, because kyungsoo is smiling. he smiles like a little child, and jongin was right, he doesn’t have an eyesmile; but kyungsoo doesn’t need an eyesmile, not when he has this. 

after what was probably a long while, jongin answers, “yeah, you’re kyungsoo, right?”

kyungsoo beams. wow. “you remembered me! what’s your name?”

“i'm jongin,” jongin says. “are you looking for someone?”

“hi jongin.” kyungsoo steps into the room, closing the door behind him. the chatter that had been trickling in dies down. “i have two friends from the vocal department. baekhyun and jongdae. have you seen them?”

“no, sorry.” jongin knows of those two. they joined the school only a couple of months ago but were already loud and boisterous and simply belonged, unlike jongin, who cooped himself up in the dance studio. “this is the dance wing. you should try the vocal section.”

“where’s that?”

“i can take you there,” jongin says. he pauses for a second, frowns to himself. since when did he help people? he barely even talked to them. they’d take one look at him in one of those moods and run in the other direction. “i've just finished anyway. just let me change out first.”

“really? thanks!” kyungsoo beams, the third smile jongin sees that day. 

jongin peels off his sweat-laden shirt and, as quickly as humanly possible, throws on another one. he’s thankful that kyungsoo doesn’t blush. it would have made him blush as well.

the walk to the vocal wing is silent, but jongin likes silence, so he’s okay with it. baekhyun and jongdae - both shorter than jongin but with personalities twice as large - are hitting high notes in the practice room.

“d.o.!” baekhyun shouts, as soon as he spots his friend. he sprints over to the door and flings himself onto the small boy. “sorry, jongdae and i are almost done.”

“d.o.?” jongin asks. 

kyungsoo shrugs. “it’s a nickname they give me. my family name is ‘do’.”

“it sort of looks like you,” jongin says. “large eyes. ‘D’ and ‘O’.”

jongdae walks over with baekhyun in a headlock. he looks at kyungsoo, then at jongin. “how do you know kim jongin?”

“he’s a regular at the bakery,” kyungsoo says.

jongin normally wouldn’t ask, but he’s feeling emboldened by kyungsoo’s smiles today. “how do you know me?”

“everyone knows kim jongin,” jongdae says, flashing a cheshire cat grin. “you can dance very well.”

jongin falters. he keeps to his studio, no reason for any person who isn’t a dancer to know of his existence. 

he doesn’t remember what happens next, but he is sure that jongdae and baekhyun and kyungsoo file out to wherever they’re going, saying ‘thank you’s and leaving jongin alone.

jongin sees kyungsoo a lot more. he heads to the bakery every tuesday, and now, kyungsoo greets him without an introduction but with a smile. 

kyungsoo also comes around to the studio very often, too. his little head pops into the dance studio for a couple of minutes before retreating to the vocal wing with his friends. jongin would talk with him and he’s thankful that he is never in one of his moods whenever kyungsoo is around. 

the first production is coming up soon, and jongin is cast as one of the leads. everyone is confused about the story, because there is none. there is no plot. no deep meaning. just dance, dance, dance. 

“what characters are we supposed to portray, then?” sehun asks. he’s the only one who dares. 

their instructor glares at them. “it doesn’t matter, this is a school production. it’s not even ballet or contemporary or jazz.”

“so we just learn our choreography and go?” sehun asks.

“yes, yes,” the instructor huffs. 

jongin is a little disappointed, because he always enjoyed immersing himself in his characters. they can’t speak with their voice, but they speak with their dance. when he is rehearsing or performing, he transcends into another world; a fantasy world, but a world nonetheless.

“what a waste of time,” sehun complains, as they are heading to the bakery to meet luhan. “no one’s going to take it seriously.”

“not with that attitude,” jongin says. he sees kyungsoo behind the counter. “hi kyungsoo.”

“hi jongin.” the boy’s head pops up, a grin on his face. his eyes fall on sehun. “hi jongin’s friend.”

“you know the bakery boy?” sehun asks, suddenly excited all over again. “that means we can get discounts!”

“oh yeah, we have the chocolate bomb today,” kyungsoo says, ignoring sehun. he points toward the brown dome lying in the display case. “only one left. i convinced them to bring it back since it was so popular.”

jongin cracks a grin. “how thoughtful.” sehun looks at jongin with raised brows, looking eerily similar to a pale, fluffy puppy.

afterward, when luhan has arrived and the three of them settle at one of the too-small tables tucked in a corner, sehun turns toward jongin with such suddenness that jongin almost falls out of his seat.

“doesn’t he come over to the studio very often?” sehun asks. “are the two of you close?”

luhan places his small hands on his boyfriend’s shoulders and pull him back, smacking the back of the blond’s head in the process. “don’t be so rude.”

“are you? are you? tell me,” sehun whines. really, a puppy. a whiny, whipped-by-his-older-boyfriend puppy. 

“he comes to find jongdae and baekhyun from the vocal department,” jongin says. 

“yeah, but why does he go to the dance studio then?” sehun asks. “taeyeon - that’s the receptionist, by the way, since you never bother remembering people’s names - says he always pops in whenever you’re alone. are you doing something illegal?”

luhan smacks sehun again.

jongin frowns. are they? talking isn’t illegal, right?

“are you friends?” luhan asks. 

friends. what are friends? are sehun and luhan friends? no, they’re boyfriends. that’s different. are jongin and sehun friends? jongin and luhan? jongin and kyungsoo?

“maybe?” jongin shrugs. “we talk a bit but we’ve never hung out.”

sehun and luhan nod. jongin lets out a small breath he didn’t know he was holding in. at least he could still fool others. maybe, this way, he could fool himself too.

the first time they hang out is a friday night. kyungsoo’s head pops into the dance studio for the second time that day, something that’s never happened before.

“jongin, are you free right now?” kyungsoo asks. 

“kyungsoo? what are you doing here?” jongin is panting slightly, spent from the hours upon hours of dancing. “i thought you were having dinner with your friends.”

“yeah, they ditched me to go to some vocal department thing.” kyungsoo pulls a face. well, he doesn’t so much pull a face as he does simply pout and turn his lips downward, but jongin thinks it is adorable and mentally files it away it as kyungsoo’s ‘face’. “so, you want to have dinner?”

jongin thinks. their instructor had told them last week that they wouldn’t be playing characters, but today, he’d suddenly pulled a fast one and said jongin would be playing ‘kai’. kai, a charismatic, y dancer whose tragic past is fodder for romance and adventure, but ultimately dies trying to pursue his passion. and so he’d even skipped lunch to practice, to immerse.

but it’s kyungsoo. jongin never says no to kyungsoo, can’t say no.

“just let me change out first.”

jongin peels off his sweat-laden shirt and, as quickly as humanly possible, throws on another. kyungsoo makes a small sound like a hamster choking.

“are you okay?” jongin asks. kyungsoo’s face is red. that choking must have been worse than it sounded.

“yeah, yeah, i'm fine,” kyungsoo says. he clears his throat. “let’s go. there’s this place near the bakery that’s good and cheap.”

this walk is not as quiet as their first. kyungsoo initiates conversation, and jongin continues it, which is more than can be said for many of his other social interactions. jongin learns that kyungsoo is older than him by two days (”ha, i'm your hyung!”), that kyungsoo likes cinnamon swirl bread and lattes and is in the vocal department at another school. 

“can you sing?” jongin asks.

“of course i can,” kyungsoo says, looking mildly insulted. “i did just say i'm in the vocal department.”

“i mean, right now,” jongin says. he really, really wants to hear kyungsoo sing.

the older boy looks down and jongin thinks he’s flushing, but can’t quite tell under the dim lights. then he looks up and nods.

kyungsoo’s voice is good. more than good, actually. it’s not as stable as baekhyun’s or as high as chen’s but jongin knows enough to understand that this is a voice that will make it big one day. it is a voice that reminds him of summers as a kid, lounging in the park with a faceless friend, of warm coffee and windchimes and the smell of rain.

jongin finds himself clapping as kyungsoo finishes. the other boy smacks his arm playfully and jongin returns the grin. 

“that was great, kyungsoo.” jongin really, really means it.

“you mean, kyungsoo-hyung,” kyungsoo-hyung says. all of a sudden, there it is: sass. “you know, you’re the only one that calls me that. everyone else is ‘d.o.’ this, ‘d.o.’ that. even teachers.”

“that makes me special then, doesn’t it?” jongin laughs. somewhere in the euphoria of having kyungsoo actually sing for him and being with kyungsoo, he registers that it is the first time he’s laughed in a while, the first time since rain hit the pavement. kyungsoo breaks down too, for some reason or another, and there they are, two maniacs laughing on the sidewalk at eight on a friday night.

jongin does not know what he had for dinner that night but he knows that kyungsoo was there, that he gave up on trying to use formal language with his hyung, that they laughed and talked more than they ate.

“are we friends?”