love next door.

Taeyong sighs. Defeated.

It is only 5 o'clock in the morning and he's already up, or, to put in in a better way, he's already sitting on his bed, staring blankly at the white, aseptic wall in front of him, confused, deflated, highly bothered to say the least. He hopes vehemently that in the mean time his cerebral activities would come to life and finally literally wake him up, but he's got the suspicion his own brain firmly believes this is all just a nightmare and in reality he's still cuddled up under the pile of freshly cleaned blankets, all of them strictly chromatically matching to one another, he likes to cover himself up with. Certainly not ready at all to wake up on a Sunday morning, even earlier than how he would usually wake up during the weekdays.

The main problem is always the same: his neighbour and his unrelenting passion for singing at preposterous and socially unacceptable hours. After the the first nights spent eyes wide open, glaring at the ceiling, for his sleep deprived self was not a nice fellow to get acquainted with, it had occurred to him that the guy next door evidently didn't know of or simply wouldn't acknowledge the existence of karaoke rooms, specifically built for the purpose. And furthermore that when he proceeded listening to his own favourite singers, probably careful in keeping the sound in the earphones and not outside of them, he would unconsciously follow along, out of pure inability of maintaining some kind of self control. Too bad he did create art when he opened his pleasingly shaped mouth, indeed.

He does it even know.

And Taeyong can't really complain.
For the guy's also stunning. Incredibly. And Taeyong may or may not have a silly teenie tiny minuscule temporary crush on him.

Temporary. That's what he's been telling himself over and over again, just like a prayer, and even told Johnny, his coworker at that shabby Chinese restaurant where he has been part timing for months now, The Dumpling King, better known by the way more appropriate alias Dodgy Dumplings, which even its owners called it as and which definitely provided a better fit, for a whole lot of reasons he didn't have the will to look through, for the list kept on getting longer and longer by the hour.

"Temporary", the taller one - unfortunately for our hero, we're talking about Johnny - had melodramatically stressed when he was consequently forced, or better to say, bribed with the phone number of a certain Thai guy he totally had the hots for, to stalk said neighbour on one of his normal days, together with said "temporarily crushing" dumbo.

Teenie tiny crush, which hasn't made his heart jolt in his chest as if it wants to take a leap of fate and bloodily hop away on the filthy pavement until it would obviously reach the hands of the stalked one, just to yell at him something along the lines of: « Take me, I'm yours. Do whatever you'd like with me. », in the exact moment he finds out that the guy's favourite hobby is to be a pure-hearted super hero who helps old ladies to cross the street, and never gets out of his house without taking with him some coins so that he would have the chance to give them to whoever seems in need of them. The guy works in hospitals and schools, he does charity work and projects to raise awareness about any kind of issue bothering his good ethic. He seems more humane than normal people, magnanimous and kind-hearted.

He's also younger than Taeyong, notion which, other than feeding his own most remote ual fantasies - very remote if you consider his last goes back to the historical era when the dinosaurs were still crowding the globe and roaring away -, heats up his chest and makes his own intestines feel weirdly contorted, and it is not Dodgy Dumpling's dumplings' fault this time. Because that idiot, whose name he found out is Sicheng (not really an idiot, from Johnny's perspective, but hey, Taeyong's too sensitive about the whole topic to care) who always follows the amateur singer around, just like a fly would circle around some dish with food in it if left unguarded, is crazy about cosplaying unknown characters of video games he's also fond of playing to the extent of even wearing those kind of clothes on a normal day out, and though this is not really a crime, for also Taeyong has had his otaku period, it's still true that, on the other hand, Yoonoh (that's the name of the neighbour) walks around making people happy and probably solving world hunger and poverty problems and the economic crisis in Europe too, at the same time. And that's such a positively weird and nice thing to do, so absurd for a guy his age, that Taeyong can't help reaching with his hand for his own chest to check if his heart's still there, for he's definitely falling more and more in the void of pure disillusionment he would ever have a chance.

He may or may not have found out about his Chinese friend's name upon casually stumbling in those guys' yearbooks. It was also out of luck, he remembers he had recognised the neatly folded uniform his neighbour used to wear during his school days, on a Saturday afternoon, inside one of those boxes whose future is probably to be kept for ever and ever in a dark basement, forgotten by the entire humankind. At the time he had been sure what school that uniform belonged to, and he thought that it wouldn't have hurt doing some unconcerned research over the matter. There, he had found out about both Yoonoh's and Sicheng's names and birth year. The guy, upon meeting Taeyong on the landing, felt the urge to validate himself, « Spring cleaning. » and a scratch at the nape of his neck. That's some kind of habit of his, when he's embarrassed about something, almost anything as Taeyong guesses. The highly bothered and frustrated Taeyong would have lunged at him, because who would ever ponder to tidy up every nook and cranny of his own house on a Saturday afternoon and moreover in winter, so not even justified by the season? Him, to begin with. But he thought that was some kind of Taeyong thing, some kind of OCD meets Hygiene Mania meets the already disturbed mind of Lee Taeyong thing, not a Jung Yoonoh thing. And gosh, if that's not a turn on.

Johnny comes to understand that "silly teenie tiny minuscule temporary crush" is neither temporary nor minuscule anymore.

« So? When are you finally going to ask him out? » asks him Ten, on whom his menacing glares evidently appear as powerless, and who, unfortunately for our hero, doesn't even possess the same amount of tact as his newly acquired boyfriend. And to think he's the one who brought them together. Still thanks to his crush for said neighbour, Ten emphasises, not prone in giving in to Taeyong's usual and daily grumbling. He doesn't say a word on how much of a disloyal friend has Johnny been in carelessly blabbing on with his boyfriend about Taeyong's non existent love life. Taeyong plays with the straw dipping into the glass he's staring at, moving it around, admiring the swashing of the ice tea he has been picking at for minutes now, submerging the ice cubes from time to time and sipping the freezing cold drink out of the ones who are slightly more consumed. He wouldn't consider asking Yoonoh out, for the real problem, way more arduous than his chronic incapability in wording out coherent complex sentences in his presence, is the crystal clear evidence of him having already a girlfriend. He doesn't know much about her, only that she's pretty. she loves to call him Jaehyunie - who knows why -, and her voice is way too soft to hear a thing when he tries - quite consistently, he must admit - to eavesdrop on their conversations, a ear leaning against the wall in common between the two flats.

Weirdly enough, Taeyong is immensely good at getting things off his chest with Johnny, but at the same time he always manages to leave out the worse bits.

Maybe because all of that enouraging hwaiting spirit he's been getting from him and the sporadic advices, other than his assertion that it's just a matter of time, have been fueling his pointless hope that he and the recipient of his secret admiration may be a thing, and Taeyong nourishes himself with that remote possibility. When on some particular nights Yoonoh can't stop singing with a mellow tone filled with melancholy, not bothering to get any minute of sleep, Taeyong leans his head against the wall of his bedroom, sitting on his own bed, closes his eyes and listens. He dreams of magically finding himself on the other side of it, next to him, or better, in his arms, his voice lulling him to sleep. But the next day, as the rays of sun hit his face, he reminds himself that life is never that indulgent as he'd like and with a shower he shakes it off, all of it, except for his feelings. Those are shower-resistant. It's not that he never thinks that maybe he can finally shrug them off, but on those days his thoughts keep him from going to work on time and his bad timing outsmarts him. He rushes off and meets Yoonoh, rushing too to whatever his day is gonna bring him to. Yoonoh waves at him, dimples devouring both his own face and the poor guy's uncontrollable chest, and the latecomer is trapped. Before he can reply Yoonoh has vanished, taking the stairs. Taeyong stays there for some more, and just watches were he used to be just seconds before, baffled.

On one days he finally comes to his senses just on time to cry « Good morning! », as he leans on the fence and observes the staircases, running after each other in a repetition of squares, floor to floor.

The boy's not there but he can hear his laughter.
« Likewise, Taeyong sshi. »

In that exact instant Teyong would much prefer crumple just like that newspaper he saw the night before while coming back home, and let the wind take him as far as it can. Then he realises something