Joy

                The apple was split evenly into eight slices, fanning out onto the glass plate decorated with a splattering of roses around its edge. From the boy beside him, Kyungsoo could hear a steady breathing which calmed his own rapidly beating heart—at least, somewhat. The racing born from rushing home through the night darkened city gave way to a new catalyst; the sweep of Jongin’s eyelashes against his tan cheeks, the tousled quality of the younger man’s hair, the steady rise and fall of his back as he slept peacefully, head pillowed in his crossed arms on the counter. It wasn’t a scene he saw very often anymore; the younger would leave before he himself awoke and would usually still be awake once the elder returned from his job at odd hours of the night.

                Gently, Kyungsoo shook his lover awake, biting his lip at the way Jongin blinked lazily before even picking his head up, looking around confusedly.

                “Are you hungry?” Kyungsoo asked, picking up one of the slices for himself, a sharp crack displacing the silence as he bit into the fresh fruit. It had been hours since he himself had eaten anything. Jongin continued to blink as though he were unsure of where he was.

                “You’re late tonight,” he eventually stated, yawning. Kyungsoo flinched guiltily at that. Although there wasn’t much he could do about his boss keeping him late, he still felt bad about keeping Jongin up when he had to leave so early in the morning.

                “I’m sorry,” Kyungsoo replied earnestly, to which Jongin shook his head, waving off the apology. Still looking a bit out of it, the younger picked up one of the apple slices, inspecting it from every angle before holding the fruit up to his boyfriend’s lips.

                “Here. You really should eat more; you’re getting too thin,” Jongin muttered, the last few words becoming distorted by another yawn.

                Kyungsoo felt prickling in the backs of his eyes as he allowed the love of his life feed him, tears soon staining tracks on his cheeks as he chewed the offering carefully.

                “I love you,” he suddenly blurted, causing Jongin to look up from his inspecting into Kyungsoo’s teary eyes, a frown immediately overtaking his blank expression. The elder closed his eyes; it was in that moment that he realized just how long it had truly been since they last shared those words. And he felt even worse for it. The sudden warmth that enveloped him, the soft press against his lips, forced his eyes back open, seeing Jongin’s half-lidded ones barely any distance from his own.

                The kiss was quick, but said more than words ever could. Jongin’s soft, “I love you, too,” was spoken with more than just his deep voice, but also with his every action. Kyungsoo doubted there could ever be a moment in which he doubted that fact.

I was thinking about the prompt thing and suddenly thought about apples. So here’s this. Though initially I fought against it, I’m glad this ended up being KaiSoo (when my brain decided that’s what it would be, I tried to think if a different couple would be better but this just seemed right). Baekyeol has “Movies and Strawberry Ice Cream” but KaiSoo didn’t have any happy moments to make up for the death ㅠㅠ Still not ready for “Lock and Key”, though. Hopefully I can get back to that soon…. The title comes from one of the myths surrounding apples, in which they represent “joy”. Just in case it interests you for my reasoning :)