Title : Bad Connection
Prompt-# : 49
For : onkeybum_ @ twitter
Pairing : Onew/Key
Author : Anonymous until reveals
Word count : 1,661
Rating : G
Warnings : None
Summary : Jinki thought it'd be funny so he sent a photo of him and a statue with a caption to surprise Kibum. But then the connection went bad.
 

Morning greeted him as he slowly woke up from his sleep. It was a beautiful morning. The sun was not too bright, not yet anyway. And outside did not seem too cold.
Kibum rolled onto his back and stared blankly at the ceiling. Still clouded with sleep, his mind was not fully awake yet. He blinked. The morning sunlight shone through his opened curtains, highlighting his hair, giving its colour a shade lighter than usual. 
Kibum yawned before rolling onto his side to check his phone which was lying on his bed-table - his daily morning routine. A smile escaped his lips as the screen showed series of notifications. Of course, the ones that made him smile were from his sweet boyfriend - Jinki, who was currently on a trip oversea.
Kibum unlocked the screen to read the messages.

Then he froze…His smile froze.
Kibum blinked again… and again. He could not bring himself to believe that what he was seeing was true. His finger scrolled the screen up and down, trying to refresh, to make sure this was another one of Jinki’s stupid jokes. But, no. whatever was on his screen was the truth. A truth he could not change even if he wanted to.

Now he was fully awake. He was numb. 


‘I am sorry, I found someone else.’





It took Kibum a full 10 minutes to pull himself together. 

You need to calm down. Maybe it’s not what it is. Just calm down, Kim Kibum.

He took a deep breath and pressed the screen to call Jinki.

There must be some mistake. 
He kept repeating that in his head as if to convince himself.

But… His call was cut off...



After unanswered calls following one another and unresponded messages, Kibum gave up. 
His body felt numb and his mind blank. 
Kibum was broken.
So he just sat there and cried and cried and cried…








Jinki smiled at the screen, grinning at himself. He pulled himself closer together to shield himself against the cold wind. He looked at the statue in front of him again.
Kibum will definitely like it. 

“Ouch! ..”
Jinki cried as the kids roller-skated into him, knocking him against the railing. And that made Jinki dropped his phone. He watched desperately as his phone fell into the cold river. With a loud splash as if to mock him and his clumsiness luck.
And now he elbow hurted so bad he was sure it was bruised.
Jinki sighed. He would just get a new one once he got back to Korea since he would be leaving today anyway.
Not only did he lose his phone, he managed to get a bruise on the day he was leaving this place too. What a of luck! 







Instead of being greeted with a hug and a smile from his lovely boyfriend, Jinki was greeted with a punch on the face from his boyfriend’s best friend.
The older could only stare at Minho, confused with the situation. Too confused to be angry at Minho for a sudden punch from nowhere..
Minho was furious and was tempted to give Jinki another good punch when he saw the confusion in the older’s eyes. But he held back, trying to keep the attention of the whole airport away. (Though it was already too late.)
“What’s going on, Minho? Why did you…?”
“Why did I?”, Minho growled. “Why did you do that to him? Why? He loves you Jinki. He loves you! What did he do to deserve all that?”
“Huh..?”
“Don’t ‘huh’ me! God, Jinki, it was only two weeks! Why did you change so much? Does the past 5 years with Kibum mean nothing to you?” Minho almost shouted. He could not bare the sight of Kibum crying all day, being all depressed anymore. He could not stand to see Kibum crying his eyes out, not anymore. He did not want to see his cheerful friend in that state.
“Kibum? I think there’s a misunderstanding here, Minho.”
“Misunderstanding, huh?”
Minho jumped at Jinki again, throwing his fist at full force in rage. But Jinki stopped Minho in his track and held him to a pause. 
“Minho. Listen to me first, I have no idea of what’s going on. I have just got off the plane.”
Minho gritted his teeth.
“You! You broke up with Kibum through a text message. Have you any idea how it broke him!?”
“What! No! Clearly there’s a misunderstanding here. I didn’t break up with Kibum, I will never do that.” Jinki cried in defence of himself, shocked. “I lost my phone, no, it fell into the river. And I am sure before it dropped I did not send anything like that…”, his voice trailed off. Suddenly remembering the last thing he sent before the phone reached the bottom of the river. Just realizing now, how that might cause problems if it was sent only a part of it and not the whole. Could that be why Minho was so mad at him? “…”
Minho tried to calm down and stepped back. He was more contained now.
“Kibum called me this morning, crying. He said you asked for a break-up, through text. He cried and he has been crying since. And I bet he is still crying now. So you better talk now, Lee Jinki. And hurry, I don’t really have any patience right now.”
It is, indeed.
“Explain. Explain the ‘I found someone else’ now.”
“It was supposed to be a joke. With the photo of me and a funny statue. At least I thought it was funny.. But then I lost my phone. Maybe that’s why only the message was sent. Must be. Ah...I should’ve never done that.” Jinki felt guilty, this was a joke gone wrong, severely wrong.
“What? God… Jinki, I’m sorry.” Minho sighed. Now he felt bad for punching Jinki without asking. But then again it was not really his fault. Jinki made his best friend cried so he was mad. And Minho could not resist nagging. “And what've you done!”






Kibum was sitting on the floor next to their bed, staring into the empty space in front of him. He was not crying but there were traces of tears on his cheeks, his nose red and his eyes swollen. His mind was blank. He was lost. 
And upon seeing Jinki walking into the room, he started to tear up again. His voice cracked as he screamed, 
“Why are you here? Go away”
Though it only came out as whisper. Tears ran down his cheeks again.
Parts of him wanted to run to Jinki and hold him back, beg him not to leave. But he had his pride. 
“No, no. don’t cry, Kibum-ah.” Jinki hurried to his lover’s side and sat down next to him, pulling him into his arms. Hugging him, comforting him.
Kibum resisted, sobbing “Go. Away.”
“Please. Listen to me first, Kibum. It isn’t what you think. I love you and there’s no way I will ever let you go. That message was a mistake. It was supposed to be a joke. It was supposed to be sent with a photo of me and a statue. Here. I found this statue, it looks funny. I thought you would like it too so I took the photo and was wanting to show you but the connection must have gone bad somewhere. And it didn’t get sent. Then, I lost my phone. Some kids bumped into me and I dropped it. I know, I was a bit clumsy there but that kid bumped into me. It fell into the river. That’s why I wasn’t picking up your calls. I’m sorry, Kibum. I am sorry.” Jinki explained everything in a breath, and was panting a little when he finished. He even pulled up his compact camera to show the photo to Kibum.
Kibum looked at the photo, blinked and then looked back at Jinki, staring at him. Eyes still teary. Face flushed, with tears on his cheeks.
Then he giggled, “Breathe, baby. Breathe.”
Kibum must admit, he was mad (and a bit...Okay. Very embarrassed) when he realized it was a joke gone wrong. But seeing Jinki so flustered, trying to explain everything as fast as he could that he failed to catch his breath and was out of breath. Quite desperately, to be very honest. He could not help but find it a bit funny and adorable. Jinki is always deadly adorable. Plus, Kibum is a reasonable person, so of course he would listen to the reasonable reasons.
Jinki smiled in relief. He pecked Kibum’s nose. “I’m sorry.” He ran his fingers to caress Kibum’s swollen eyes, wiping away his tears and kissed his boyfriend’s forehead softly. Jinki rained kisses on Kibum’s face to comfort him and to make up for whatever happened. 
“I love you.”
“I love you too, old man.”
And they kissed. A soft, sweet loving lingering kiss that had never failed to give them butterflies in their stomach, though they had been together over half a decade, already.
“Look at what you’ve done to my pretty eyes! They’re all swollen.”, Kibum pouted. 
“I’ll go get you a cold pack to soothe your eyes.” Jinki was about to get up but Kibum held him back, hugging the older’s torso tight. His head resting on Jinki’s shoulder, snuggling close.
“No. You’ll buy me eye treatment masks and also face masks.”
“Sure. I will do that for you.”
“And you will do the dishes.”
“Yes, anything for you…”
“For two months.”
“Wait. But we agree we will rotate.”
“But you said anything for me.”
“Yes. But we have agreement on the dishes. We take turns.”
“Two months. You made me cry for one whole day!”, the younger whined.
Jinki half-sighed, half-grinned.
“One month?”
“Two.”
“One and a half?”
“Two and a half.”
“Alright. Two months it is.”





“Seriously, Jinki. Next time make sure the photo is sent before sending any message.”