(Untitled) written by silhouettics

Word Count: 3506

B/n: This was supposed to be 1st person but I didn't tell the author until too late, mianhae. <3 Hopefully you like this anyway~ (Also, I got this up at 11:59 like a boss uwu)

Jongin burst through the doors of the library, soaking wet and shivering. The librarian looked conflicted, torn between glowering at him and offering him a blanket, but she was too slow to do either as he bowed in apology to her and the other students currently cramming for their midterms before slinking to the back.

Jongin had never been more grateful for the floors being plush carpet, so his shoes didn’t make an awful squeaking noise as he tried to walk stealthily past the others. (He was a bit less grateful and much guiltier when he realized that he was dripping water all over them, so he avoided the librarian’s eyes as much as he could.)

Finally, he rounded a corner and saw Baekhyun and Chanyeol sitting together, facing each other, Chanyeol’s back turned towards him. Baekhyun burst out laughing at the sight of Jongin’s hair and clothes plastered to his body, and Jongin scowled back, hurrying to the sit next to them.

“Dude, you okay?” Chanyeol raised his eyebrows, taking in Jongin’s current – pitiful – state.

“Absolutely perfect, thanks,” Jongin shot back. He began shivering underneath the air conditioning. “Sorry I’m late. Mr. Yoon needed to talk to me about my last test.” He sighed. On top of being wet and cold, Jongin was now reminded of the reason why he was in this state – the low score he’d received on said test. He could already hear the lecture his mom would give when she was made to sign the paper his teacher had given on why getting good grades is important, undoubtedly after first being lectured on why he should always be prepared for any weather at all times, and haven’t I told you to keep an umbrella in your locker before?

Ugh. Just kill me now.

“Hello? Earth to Jongin.” Baekhyun waved a hand in front of Jongin’s face, making him jump in his seat and effectively returning him to reality.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“Do you want to go home? We don’t want you to get a cold, and we can always just Skype at home,” Baekhyun offered, leaning back into his own seat casually.

Jongin would have been surprised at his uncharacteristic concern if he didn’t know that Baekhyun was just using this as an excuse to not study and make out with his boyfriend instead. He agreed anyway, because it was really freaking cold, and he would rather not be sick during midterms. I can’t afford to be, clearly.

Standing up, Chanyeol offered Jongin his umbrella. “I’ll just leave with Baekhyun; we can share his.”

“Thanks.” Jongin took it and followed suit, slinging his backpack over his shoulder and trailing after the other two. His bag wasn’t as wet as he was, since he’d been shielding it with his body. Priorities. His health or his grades?

It might have been a waste of time to even go to the library, Jongin thought as he walked out of the doors, a few steps behind Baekhyun and Chanyeol. Resting the opened umbrella on his shoulder, he slipped a hand into his pocket as he strolled along casually. Hopefully, he would be allowed back in before midterms start. It’s not my fault the weather suddenly me.

It wasn’t that late or anything as Jongin was heading home, but the overcast skies made it seem as though it were midnight. Over the sound of rain hitting his umbrella, Jongin caught the sound of a quieter patter against the ground, subtle but calming in its steady drumming. And then someone sneezed behind him, and Jongin realized the sound was footsteps. Slightly startled, he glanced back over his shoulder to see a small figure walking briskly behind him, huddled in on himself as if trying to shut out the wind and rain. Though he had a small umbrella for a shield, he wore no jacket.

Pausing, Jongin planned to wait for the boy – his age maybe, and likely from his school – and then offer to share his (well, Chanyeol’s) umbrella and body heat, but the moment he looked round the stranger ducked in between the buildings. Vaguely disappointed – maybe because he hadn’t been able to help out the poor stranger – Jongin shrugged and turned back to continue his journey home.

He parted ways with Baekhyun and Chanyeol not long after. But then, a few blocks away from his house Jongin heard another muffled sneeze, and his blood chilled in his veins. It was likely just the dark that was making him so jittery, but as he turned at the familiar sound, Jongin’s joints locked up, a shiver running down his spine.

Why was that boy from earlier behind him again, if Jongin was sure that he had seen him turn away a few blocks back?

Whirling around, Jongin shook his head. Maybe he just took a different route. Or it’s just the dark and rain. Maybe it’s a different person. Yeah; just… ignore the familiar umbrella. Ignore it.

Another block and he was in front of his house, almost sprinting up the driveway. Heading straight to his room, Jongin peered out of the window on the upper floor, searching for the stranger in the shadows of the storm.

No one was there, and Jongin fell back onto his bed, tired and soaked but relieved.

The next morning on his way to school, Jongin freaked out for the second time. Hearing someone sneeze behind him, a chill passed through his body, and even as he tried to tell himself that the chances of it being the stranger from the night before were very low, he walked just a tiny bit faster.

Jongin went straight to class, slumping down in his seat in relief, breathing heavily but glad to be safe at last.

“Dude, were you running or something?” Beside him, Chanyeol was peeking over at him curiously. Too tired, Jongin just waved him away.

“I’ll tell you guys at lunch.”

Chanyeol shrugged, leaning back into his seat as the teacher finally arrived, shouting over the chatter for the class to quiet down. As soon as it was silent (approximately three seconds later), the teacher announced that their class had a new transfer student, introducing the boy who had trailed in behind him. And hey, Jongin recognized this kid – it was the guy who had been following him last night.

And as the boy looked at him, Jongin stared back with a growing sense of horror.

The moment Jongin finished talking, Chanyeol and Baekhyun burst out laughing.

“What?” Jongin spluttered indignantly. “I’m here worrying for my life and you guys are laughing at me?”

“Yeah, but why would anyone want to stalk you, of all people?” Chanyeol asked, and Baekhyun snorted.

“You’re pretty much the most boring person we know,” Baekhyun added, while the other nodded firmly. Jongin glared. So much for friends. Baekhyun just went on. “The only places you go are school, your house, and the dance studio.”

“You won’t even come with us when we want to hang out.”

Jongin glared harder, scowling at them. “I appreciate your concern for my wellbeing,” he muttered, pouting slightly.

Baekhyun shook his head, still looking amused. “No, we care about you, it’s just-”

“If you’re worried, tell the principal,” Chanyeol interrupted, and Jongin couldn’t really tell if he was serious or just teasing him (though it was probably the latter, knowing his friends).

Sighing, Jongin picked at his food, resting his head in his hand. “Maybe I should talk to him about it? Kyungsoo, I mean.”

Do Kyungsoo. The boy who had come from Kyeonggi-do, and who may or may not have followed Jongin home last night. Jongin was scared to find out whether he had or not.

When Jongin looked up, Baekhyun had started grinning. “Go talk to him right now,” he suggested, and Jongin frowned but Baekhyun just pointed behind him. “He’s right there.” He stood partially and started waving wildly at someone Jongin couldn’t see. “Hey, Kyungsoo! Come sit over here!”

Jongin’s eyes widened, heart stuttering as he realized what the other was doing and shaking his head sharply, trying to get Baekhyun to sit down without being too obvious. He failed miserably though, because it was nearly impossible not to notice Baekhyun when he wanted to be. Kyungsoo had already seen him, hearing and apparently accepting the offer, because in a second Jongin heard a voice just behind him – one he’d only heard once, but recognized well enough. Sort of feeling like crawling under a rock and staying there, Jongin instead settled for burying his face in his arms.

“Hello,” he heard Kyungsoo say quietly, not to Jongin fortunately.

“Hi! Come sit down.” Baekhyun’s voice was about eight-hundred percent too cheery for Jongin’s current mood. “I’m Baekhyun. This is Chanyeol and Jongin.”

Kyungsoo complied quickly, and Jongin felt him setting his bag down next to Jongin’s. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Jongin turned his head to give Kyungsoo a sullen look. “Hi.”

Lifting a hand to give a small wave, Kyungsoo’s brow furrowed and he replied, “Have I seen you before? You look familiar for some reason.”

Frowning, Jongin bit on his lip. Did that mean Kyungsoo hadn’t been following him then? Somewhat doubtful, Jongin’s fingers tapped again his leg before he stilled them, answering slowly, “You were walking behind me while I was going home from the library last night.”

“Oh!” Kyungsoo’s mouth fell into an ‘o’ shape. “That’s right. You turned around; I saw your face then.” He continued on at the questioning (aka, slightly judging) look on Jongin’s face. “I had to visit the office to finalize my papers yesterday. I guess I ended up following you. I live in the house next to the one you went into.”

Jongin’s shoulders relaxed, and he sat up again. “Oh.” Kyungsoo smiled a bit, and Jongin returned it, feeling immensely relieved that he had been so paranoid over nothing.

“Told you so,” Baekhyun muttered under his breath, shaking his head with an innocent smile when Kyungsoo raised a curious eyebrow at him.

“Hey, Kyungsoo, do you want to hang out with us today?” Chanyeol offered. “If you come, Jongin will actually join us.”

Jongin turned to shoot him a dirty look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I give it a week,” Baekhyun mused, staring at Jongin with an annoyingly unreadable flicker in his eyes.

“Two,” Chanyeol replied simply, and Jongin scowled. They were always like this, speaking cryptically in ways only the two of them understood.

Baekhyun glanced at him and grinned. “You’re on.”

Kyungsoo looked to Jongin for an explanation, and Jongin shrugged hopelessly in response.

Much to Jongin’s chagrin, he did, in fact, go with Baekhyun and Chanyeol after school to their usual hangout. It wasn’t because Kyungsoo is also going, he reasoned. It’s just that he hadn’t been hanging out with his friends often lately (which wasn’t his fault; they didn’t exactly make him want to be around, what with all their lovey-dovey crap), and it was nice to relax with them every once in a while.

After a few hours at their usual arcade the two pairs parted ways, because Kyungsoo needed to get home and Jongin didn’t really want to be a third wheel – especially not with Baekhyun and Chanyeol. (No one wanted to be their third wheel.)

“So,” Jongin spoke up after a while, still slightly awkward even after spending an afternoon with the other. But he’d had his other friends with him then; it was different now it was just the two of them. “How are you liking this place?”

“It’s nice,” Kyungsoo replied warmly. “Not as bad as I thought. The people aren’t bad either,” he added, shooting Jongin a grin. “Thanks for inviting me to hang out with you guys.”

Jongin returned the grin, not acknowledging that it hadn’t actually been him who had invited the boy out. “We needed to make a bigger friend group anyway,” he said casually. “It can get annoying being around Baekhyun and Chanyeol alone for too long.”

“I can see that,” Kyungsoo admitted, and Jongin noticed his lips formed a heart when he smiled. Cute.

“Yeah.”

Surprisingly, Jongin found the silence that fell between them to be comfortable. It’s definitely a change from being around his own friends who are always so hyper and talkative. A nice change.

When they finally reached Jongin’s house, Kyungsoo paused, asking softly, “See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Jongin waved and headed up to his house, turning at the doorway to see Kyungsoo walking up his driveway. Kyungsoo waved at him again, and then Jongin shut the door, somewhat reluctantly.

There was no one else home, so Jongin grabbed a snack and retired to his room, planning to work on the packets of homework he had to finish before dance practice. Hours later, still remaining holed up in his room, the endless silence was broken when he caught the sound of someone singing – distantly but still somewhere nearby.

Frowning to himself, he wondered if his sister had come back already; but it was a guy’s voice, and a very familiar one at that. Jongin put his pencil down and crawled over the mess of pages on his bed, moving to his open window.

Across from him, in the next house, Kyungsoo was singing with his own window open.

in a breath, Jongin stared for a long time, entranced. He wasn’t sure when Kyungsoo noticed him, but eventually it came to his attention that the boy had stopped singing and was staring back.

“I didn’t know you could sing,” Jongin yelled to him, doing his best to cover the fact that he had sort of been creeping on Kyungsoo.

Grinning, Kyungsoo stood and moved to his own window. “I didn’t know your room was right across from mine!”

“Are you in choir?”

“Musical theatre,” he corrected. “Well, I just joined obviously but… yeah.”

Jongin did his best to suppress his excitement as he replied, “I’m helping choreograph the musical! Well, the dance club is. We start after you guys finish with practicing your lines.”

“Cool,” Kyungsoo shouts back. “We’ll be seeing each other a lot then!”

“Ye-ah.” Jongin breaks off, coughing. Too excited. “Wait, let me go get some water. I just choked on air.”

Eyes wide with concern, Kyungsoo raised a hand, as if he could reach across the gap (although what his intentions would be were a mystery to Jongin). “Do you have a cellphone? Should we just text instead?”

Jongin nods hurriedly, torn between serious embarrassment (because he’s apparently incapable of talking to cute guys, wow) and amusement at Kyungsoo’s concern. “What’s your Kakao?”

“Just shake it,” Kyungsoo told him, and Jongin grinned, because he never got the opportunity to do the shake thing and he wasn’t missing this one. Forgetting about his throat and need for water, Jongin reached for his phone instead and searched for Kyungsoo’s. After a moment, he came up, and Jongin sent Hey, it’s Jongin :).

Ping! Jongin looked down to see a simple hey, is your throat okay? go drink some water and he glanced up to see Kyungsoo grinning over at him.

He couldn’t hold in his own smile after that.

“No, we need to know,” Baekhyun pressed. “Like, need.”

Jongin frowned. “Why?”

“Because it’s your future!”

At Jongin’s deadpan stare, Baekhyun sighed and rephrased reluctantly. “Because if you haven’t confessed yet then I owe Chanyeol five bucks.”

Sighing, Jongin shook his head. So that was why they’d been bothering him so much. He should’ve known better than to think his friends actually had an interest in his (non-existent) love life. “Go give him five bucks.”

“Dammit,” Baekhyun muttered under his breath. “Do you even like Kyungsoo?”

“Just go.” Rolling his eyes, Jongin pushed off from the wall and walked away from Baekhyun.

Yeah, he may have liked Kyungsoo. That didn’t mean anything when the other probably didn’t like him back. He glowered at the floor, then sighed. There was really no point in being so moody over the boy; he still had years of his life laid out before him, he could take his time finding love. Except I already found it.

At lunch Jongin is still moody, and Baekhyun and Chanyeol ended up leaving him to eat alone (probably going off to be gross somewhere). He wasn’t alone for long though.

“Why the long face?” Kyungsoo asked as soon as he sat down.

Jongin glanced up, brightening at the sight of him before shrugging. “No reason in particular.”

“Did Chanyeol ask you something weird earlier?”

Startled, Jongin almost dropped his food. Please tell me they didn’t. “Uh, no, not really. I mean, Chanyeol always says weird things.” He wanted to hit himself so he would stop rambling. “Why?”

Kyungsoo nodded, humming in response. “He wanted to know if I’d confessed to you.” Jongin could’ve died. Kill me. Or kill them. The other just continued unaffected. “I thought I should tell you that I like you, so I didn’t have to lie to him.”

He kept his eyes on Jongin curiously, watching for his reaction. Jongin was just speechless. After he didn’t reply for a while, Kyungsoo blushed. “Is this a shock to you? I’m sorry. I didn’t think you would react like that.” At his embarrassed laugh, Jongin pulled his thoughts together, grinning.

“I like you too,” he admitted. “And – Baekhyun asked me about confessing earlier. They’ve been asking a lot.”

Scoffing, Kyungsoo returned, “I think they made a bet.”

“Does this mean that we’re dating?”

Jongin must have looked too eager, because Kyungsoo laughed. “We should go on a date first.”

“Are you free today? After school? You should come watch me dance – I can introduce you to the dance club. There are a lot of really good dancers, and most of us are also friends with the singers, so you might know some of them…” He continued rambling on enthusiastically, all thoughts of food having left Jongin’s mind, too focused on Kyungsoo to care. Talking to Kyungsoo, making Kyungsoo laugh, getting to go on a date with Kyungsoo, and oh yeah, Kyungsoo likes me.

(mini-epilogue)

Years later, Jongin and Kyungsoo adopted a little girl named Gayoung, and she looked surprisingly like their love child (Jongin argues that she is). They watched her grow up, Kyungsoo singing her to sleep and Jongin taking her to dance classes of various genres, and she came to share their love of performing. When she entered her teen years, they found themselves at a loss of what to do when her bedsheets became blood-stained and when she would lie on the couch complaining of cramps. (Jongin ended up calling his sisters and Kyungsoo surfed the internet, though he didn’t trust a single thing he read because it was his daughter that was hurting.)

Gayoung fell in love with a man four years older than her, a university student while she was studying in the undergraduate program. Jongin and Kyungsoo immediately disapproves. Their baby girl was too young for love. Too young to go out into the real world. And why are you four years older than her?

When she got married, she asks a question they had never gone over before.

“How did you meet? You’ve never told me that before. Is it an Asian thing? All of my American friends know how their parents met.”

Jongin burst out laughing, and he realized that he had never told Kyungsoo either (which explained the confused look on his face).

“What’s so funny? His friends invited me to sit with them at lunch on my first day at their school as a transfer student.”

“Because I thought you were a stalker since you were following me that night. It was dark and I was scared, okay?” Jongin defended himself, laughing and blushing slightly. “And when I told Baekhyun and Chanyeol they decided to invite you to sit with us because why not? That’s their logic of course.”

Kyungsoo stared at him, eyebrows raised. “That was why?” Jongin just shrugged. It had all worked out anyway, right? “I actually did recognize you, when Baekhyun had called me over that day. You were the cute guy I had felt like I was stalking, who turned out to be my neighbour.”

Jongin gaped.

“Nice going dad,” Gayoung says. “Now I get to tell all my friends that my parents met because one of them was stalking the other.”

“I wasn’t actually stalking him!”

“Of course you weren’t, love.”

“Don’t call me that!”

“But you liked it last night,” Jongin winked.

“Daddy, that’s gross. Ew. I did not need to know that.”

“Not in front of the children!” Kyungsoo was quick to cover their – fully grown – child’s ears, but she swatted him away.

“Children? Dad, I’m your only kid – and I’m an adult, geez.”

Jongin smiled adoringly, pulling them into a hug. No matter how old they got, Kyungsoo would always be the (stalker! It was official!) boy next door, and Gayoung their baby girl.

“I love you, my dear family.”