Red Yarn: Chapter 04

            It’s just like any other school day during lunch as Kyungsoo makes his way over to the school’s flower garden. He comfortably sits down on his favorite bench before pulling out his bento box from his school bag. Kyungsoo eagerly places his hands on top of the lid, but his fingertips abruptly stop themselves from opening it. That’s strange. He suddenly doesn’t feel hungry anymore. Kyungsoo quietly sighs to himself and neatly places the box on top of his lap instead. There’s only one reason for this sudden change in appetite and that could only be one certain boy’s fault, a boy who goes by the name of Kim Jongin.

            There’s no doubt the said boy was acting really strange this morning and Kyungsoo can’t seem to understand the reason for his weird behavior. All he knows is that for the first time in the history of mankind, Jongin had arrived earlier than him for class. That can’t be right. Kim Jongin never arrives early to class, especially when it’s before the ever punctual Do Kyungsoo.

            The owl-eyed boy roughly shakes his head. No, he doesn’t want to think about Jongin right now. With new found energy he eagerly opens his bento box, hoping the food will distract him from his ever lingering and dangerous thoughts of the other boy. Once the lid is ripped open his eyes sparkle at the sight. He was going to have his left over kimchi spaghetti, which he had made last night.

            He begins eating with a happy smile on his face, bobbing his head every now and then as he chews, although, his happiness was short-lived. The smile on his face is now replaced with a complete frown. He immediately sets his chopsticks down. Why doesn’t his food taste as delicious as it usually does? It was so bland and just utterly disgusting.

            Kyungsoo’s thoughts immediately go back to Jongin, which makes him groan out loud in defeat. Why is this so difficult? Is it really that hard to not go one second without thinking about Kim Jongin? He did it so well before why can’t he do that now? What is the meaning of all of this? With all of these questions floating about in his brain, Kyungsoo thinks he might be becoming a tad bit paranoid about all of this.

            He continues to frown when his thoughts rewind to the first time he saw Jongin in class this morning. It was quite shocking to find Jongin in class before him, but what surprised him even more was the fact that Baekhyun was talking to Jongin from across his desk, and they seemed pretty animated with whatever topic they were talking to each other about as well. Let’s not forget to mention that the eyeliner boy wasn’t even in his own seat. He was in Kyungsoo’s seat. One of Kyungsoo’s eyes twitched from the thought and the grip on his chopsticks tightened. Yep, for some reason he didn’t like that at all, especially with the way Jongin naturally smiled along with Baekhyun as they conversed with one another.

            His eyebrows begin to furrow. What is this feeling? Was he upset? Jealous? Oh, yes you are, Kyungsoo, I’d say extremely jealous. Is what the voice in the back of his head teased. Kyungsoo huffs to himself. No way! He was not going to let himself be affected by this. He lessens the grip on his chopsticks and tries his best to resume eating by stuffing his face full of spaghetti, but before you know it, he’s viciously stabbing the life out of his food, imagining it to be Kim Jongin’s face.

            “Whoa.” Chanyeol pokes Jongin’s cheeks repeatedly, “Would you look at that?”

            Jongin doesn’t want to lift his head. He just wants to drown himself in his thoughts and misery for not being able to confront Kyungsoo this morning, but he slowly lifts his head up anyway and peers outside, “What?”

            It was only Kyungsoo sitting on his bench like he usually does.

            Wait?

            Hold up.

            Is that Kyungsoo menacingly stabbing his food?

            The scene was just terrifying. Each stab that was made sent painful sensations shoot throughout Jongin’s body as if each of those stabs were meant just for him. He shudders from the feeling.

            Chanyeol whistles, “And here I thought it was going to be you making holes appear on the kid from your creepy starring. Apparently he beat you to it, Kai by actually stabbing you mentally with…” He squints his eyes, “Pororo chopsticks…?” He slaps Jongin’s shoulder and laughs, “Kai, he’s mentally stabbing you with Pororo chopsticks.”

            Jongin ignores Chanyeol’s sarcastic remark and lets out a gurgled groan before slamming his head back against his desk. He begins to make sobbing like noises, which startled a few of his classmates that were sitting nearby. He then mumbles into his desk which Chanyeol couldn’t really make out, but he’s pretty sure it was something along the lines of ‘just kill me now’.

            Chanyeol sits back against his seat and nods his head in amusement while pursing his lips out towards Kyungsoo, “Wow, with the way he’s stabbing his food, I’m pretty sure he’s imaging it as your face.” He then turns his head to Jongin, who was still face-planted to his desk, “What did you do to the poor kid, Kai?”

            Jongin turns his face to the side making his right cheek lay flat against the desk. He blows some air to move the fringe from out of his eyes. Chanyeol raises a worried brow over to his friend. He’s never seen Jongin so defeated before. A couple of more seconds pass by before Jongin starts to mumble, “I don’t know, Chanyeol. I don’t think he likes me very much. I didn’t mean to make him run away or anything. Actually I don’t even know what I did wrong. When I heard he might play as the princess I just…I just got all excited and…and yea…Joonmyun-hyung showed up and then things didn’t go right.”

            Chanyeol looks to the boy outside, who was still stabbing away at his food. He flinches slightly. Seeing the innocent Do Kyungsoo relent out his frustrations was kind of scary.

            His eyes go back to his friend. He looked so helpless and worn out. Chanyeol bit his lip. Jongin’s explanation was vague so the tall giant wasn’t really sure what to say. It seems like even if he did give his miserable friend some supporting words it would just fly in one ear and out the other since the other would probably be too lost in his own thoughts to even pay attention.

            Jongin closes his eyes after releasing a breath. This morning was a disaster. He came to school early just so he could make small talk with Kyungsoo and ask him to play as the princess, but once he made eye contact with the beautiful owl-eyed boy he just couldn’t do it.

            Suddenly Jongin’s eyes shoot wide open. He immediately lifts his head and slams his hands against his desk making Chanyeol jump in his seat.

            “Chanyeol, I almost forgot!”

            “Whoa there, Kai. What is it?” He blinked confusedly. Wasn’t Jongin sulking just a second ago? Now it’s like he wasn’t even sulking at all.

            Jongin smiles, “It’s about, Baekhyun-hyung.”

            “That’s the plan?”

            “Yep.”

            Jongin looks at his hyung with doubtful eyes, “That’s. The. Plan?”

            “Yes.”

            “No, really? That’s all you-“

            “Fine, then!” Baekhyun crosses his arms, “That was my best plan too. It’s totally full-proof. It has to work and it will work, but if you want to chicken out then…”

            Jongin waves his hands back and forth, “Ah, alright, alright, I’m sorry. It’s just, aren’t you forcing Chanyeol to buy you something against his will?”

            “What? Pfft, no. It’s Secret Santa for crying out loud, Kai. All you have to do is ask him if he wants to participate in it. If he volunteers then it wouldn’t really be us forcing him to do it now would it?”

            “Um, I guess.”

            Baekhyun reaches into his pant pocket and pulls out several small slips of red paper that were all nice and neatly folded. He takes Jongin’s hand and stuffs them into it, “Here, they all have my name in them. Chanyeol has to pick one. Make sure he doesn’t find out that they all have my name in them.”

            “Wait…what if Chanyeol finds out that there isn’t any real Secret Santa thing going on.”

            Baekhyun sighs and shakes his head, “Kai, were you even listening to me? Aigoo…” He grabs a hold of Jongin’s shoulders and makes sure that he has his full attention, “Listen, okay?” Jongin nods his head, “Joonmyun-hyung thought it would be a good idea for us to do Secret Santa, uh, you know, to get everyone in the play to get together or something like that. You know how Joonmyun-hyung is always trying to get us do these group things and what not. Anyway, he let me be in charge of distributing the names to everyone. Now, you see this?” Baekhyun raises another stack of red paper, “These have everyone else’s names on them, but the stack I gave you only has my name in them that way when you have Chanyeol pick one it’ll look like he pulled my name out of coincidence. Got it?”

            “So there really is going to be Secret Santa?”

            Baekhyun face-palms, “Yes, Kai. Yes.”

            Jongin nods his head again, “Okay. Then what about me, hyung? I’m doing this for you, but what are you going to do for me?”

            Baekhyun faintly smirks, “Oh, I’ll tell you that later.”

            “Hey, that’s not fair! I help you with Chanyeol then you help me with Kyungsoo. That’s what you said.”

            The older just laughed, “Calm down, Kai. I have everything planned out already, but it won’t work if I tell you.”

            Jongin squints his eyes, “What? That doesn’t even make sense. Why can’t you tell me?”

            Baekhyun pats Jongin’s head, “Because my lil one, if you knew the plan you’d probably melt like goo at the sight of Kyungsoo and make a fool of yourself, then with your crappy acting he’ll probably know something’s up and you’ll lose your precious Kyungsoo forever.” He flashes a smile, “Trust me. I know what I’m doing, Kai. You’ll be thanking me later.”

            Jongin just laughs and pushes his hyung’s hand off his head, “Alright, whatever you say hyung, at least you’re helping me. I think…”

            “Of course I’m helping you, babo.” A soft smack to the back of Jongin’s head, “You’ll find out what the plan is after school. Just make sure you go to the drama practice room though, alright?”

            Jongin laughs, “Okay, hyung, okay.”

            Baekhyun points at him sternly, “And don’t forget to ask Chanyeol about Secret Santa during lunch.”

            “Yes, yes, hyung, okay, I got it. Don’t worry.” He chuckles slightly.

            “Alright.” Baekhyun suddenly claps his hands together and begins to lightly jump up and down. He even starts to squeal slightly, “Ah, I’m excited! Everything is going to be perfect, Kai. PERFECT.”

            Jongin smiles at his hyung’s actions, although he slowly starts to scoot away when Baekhyun begins to squeal even more. He shakes his head. Moments like these often make him wonder if his hyung really is a dude. 

            “So? Do you want to be a part of it?”

            Chanyeol thinks to himself for awhile, “Why not. The Secret Santa thing is just between the people in the play right?”

            Jongin nods his head and smiles before shoving both of his hands towards Chanyeol’s chest. The little red pieces of paper that Baekhyun had folded up were sprawled all over his palms.

            “Pick one. Whoever you get is the person you’re suppose to buy the gift for.”

            Chanyeol taps his chin in thought as he looks down at the small little cards. He decides to pick up the card nearest the middle not knowing that it didn’t really matter which card he would pick since they all had the same name in them. He carefully opens it nearly dropping it once he read the name.

            Jongin grinned, “Who did you get?”

            “U-uh…” Chanyeol blinked and began to splutter out incoherent syllables as he held the paper out to Jongin, “B-Babe…n-no, I got B-Baek…wait, bacon? Yea, that’s it, I got bacon. No, no, not bacon it’s…”

            “Chanyeol, just stop and calm down.” Jongin held onto his friends shaking shoulders trying his best not to burst out laughing at Chanyeol’s stuttering, “It’s not the end of the world, Chanyeol so breathe man, breathe.” Chanyeol nods his head and takes deep breaths. “It’s Baekhyun-hyung. Right?”

            Chanyeol bursts into small fits of happy laughter and nods his head. The tall curly haired giant looks back down at the slip of paper, his grin becoming even bigger as he reread the name over and over again. Byun Baekhyun. Jongin squishes his friend’s cheeks together.

            “Don’t smile too wide, Chanchan. You’re going to scare people.”

            Chanyeol keeps smiling away anyway. He doesn’t care if he’ll end up creeping his classmates out with his smile. He’s happy right now and no one is going to ruin his happy moment.

            Jongin can’t help but smile along with him. Be happy Chanyeol. I’m doing this just for you.

            Jongin mutters angrily under his breath. It’s now after school, yet there’s no sign of Baekhyun-hyung anywhere. It’s like the eyeliner boy just poofed. His hyung is definitely going to get an ear load full of complaints from him first thing tomorrow morning. Was Baekhyun really genuine about wanting to help Jongin out with Kyungsoo or did he just use Jongin to get to Chanyeol? 

            He decides he should just leave and head on home. There’s no point in waiting for someone who wasn’t going to show up. Jongin exits the drama practice room and walks down the nearly empty hallway. He noticed some of the chattering students that passed by him were in charge of the food for the winter festival. His thoughts drifted towards to Kyungsoo and he couldn’t help but think about how adorable the owl-eyed boy would look if he wore one of those cute white aprons the cooking class had while he cooked. He shakes his head. He shouldn’t think like that.

            As Jongin neared the end of the hallway he heard a faint familiar voice echo down the hallway to his right. They were repeatedly saying no out loud to themselves. Jongin’s phone suddenly vibrates. He furrows his eyes when he sees Baekhyun’s name flash onto the front screen along with a sent text message from the said boy. 

            “Don’t mess up. You only get one chance.” Jongin read the text out loud. He puts his phone back into his pocket, “What the hell, hyung?”

            Just as he lifted his head someone had knocked into him. The push wasn’t strong enough to send him flying to the floor, but just enough to make him skid over to the side, allowing the person who had just bumped into him to pass by. Jongin was startled by the sudden action and looked over to see who it was that was in such a hurry, but once he realized who it was he could only widen his eyes.

            “Kyungsoo?” Jongin whispered.

            The smaller boy didn’t hear Jongin though, he didn’t even bother to look up or turn his head back around to see who he had crashed into.

            Jongin could only watch Kyungsoo’s figure get smaller and smaller as he ran down the hallway. He was frozen and unsure of what to do not understanding why Kyungsoo seemed frantic and in such a hurry. Baekhyun’s voice suddenly makes its way to Jongin’s ears repeating the message he had sent to him through his text.

            Don’t mess up. You only get one chance.

            Kyungsoo latches a hand onto the doorknob and hastily opens it. He practically rushes himself inside when he got it open. He goes to his corner of the room with wide open eyes, breathing all ragged, hair messed up, and mind all jumbled. He runs a hand through his hair and stares at his props confusedly. They were still all intact and in perfect condition. This isn’t right, maybe Baekhyun heard wrong Kyungsoo thought.

            The reason why Kyungsoo came running frantically over to the drama room was because Baekhyun had told him someone had destroyed all of the play’s props. Hearing that all of his hard work was ruined he immediately came here to see if it was actually true. Since everything seems to be okay Kyungsoo figures he doesn’t have to worry about it anymore.

            “Kyungsoo?”

            The owl-eyed boy breaks into shivers when he hears that familiar husky voice he’s just recently finding himself falling hard for. When did Jongin get in? Kyungsoo didn’t even hear him walk through the door.

            “Kyungsoo, is everything okay?”

            Kyungsoo doesn’t want to turn around and face the younger boy so he merely nods his head.

            “Are you sure?”

            “Y-yea. I just…well, Baekhyun told me that someone had ruined my props so I came to check on them, but nothing is broken so…I-I’ll go now.”

            Silence.

            “Kyungsoo, why won’t you look at me?”

            Kyungsoo stays quiet. What should he do? He shifts his feet, but doesn’t really make an effort to turn his whole body around. He hears a small footstep approach him followed by another then another.

            He really doesn’t like this sudden feeling in his chest. Even his breathing is starting to get uneven and his hands are now shaking. The steps have finally stopped. Kyungsoo begins to shudder when he feels the air behind him get heavy. At this point, there’s no doubt that Jongin was standing behind him.

            “J-Jongin…?”

            “Kyungsoo…” Jongin leans in close to Kyungsoo’s ear and whispers, “I want you to look at me.”

            Kyungsoo gulps. Hearing Jongin’s voice up close like this was quite hypnotizing.

            “Please, Kyungsoo.”

            The smaller boy wills himself to not to give into the plea and moves his head off to the side. Jongin wasn’t going to let him win that easily though. He lightly presses his fingertips underneath Kyungsoo’s chin making the older boy slightly gasp from the unexpected touch. He then slowly trails his fingers up along the jaw line before cupping his hand against Kyungsoo’s cheek. Once he has a firm hold he gently forces Kyungsoo to turn his head. At first, Kyungsoo keeps his owl like eyes focused elsewhere, but eventually he gave in to Jongin’s determined soft glare. 

            The corners of Jongin’s plush lips curve upward into a small smile of victory. He can finally see Kyungsoo’s beautiful face. They both unconsciously scan each other’s features briefly before locking their eyes almost permanently with one another. Jongin was the first to close his eyes even though he rather stare into the beauty of Kyungsoo’s eyes. He presses his forehead onto Kyungsoo’s and sighs in content. He then pulls the shorter boy closer to him by wrapping his other arm around the other’s waist. Kyungsoo’s back is now pressed up against Jongin’s chest.

            Kyungsoo is surprised by all of Jongin’s actions, but something tells him to just accept them and to not fight back. He continues to look up at Jongin’s face and marvels at the younger boy’s handsome features. It just doesn’t make any sense to Kyungsoo. After all this time he just now realizes how beautiful Kim Jongin really is. No wonder why so many people praise him for his looks and why so many girls fall hard for him. And with Jongin’s eyes closed like this it looks like he’s just sleeping peacefully. If this is a preview of his sleeping face then Kyungsoo secretly wishes that he’ll see more of it in the future.

            With eyes still closed and forehead still leaning against the other’s forehead, Jongin begins to rub his thumb back and forth across Kyungsoo’s cheek, “Kyungsoo, can I ask you something?”

            Kyungsoo lightly hums in reply with half-closed eyes. His heart is still racing and he still doesn’t like how Jongin can affect him like this, but for some reason he likes how Jongin caresses his cheek as if he is the most fragile and precious person in the world.

            “Why don’t you want to play as the princess in the play?”

            Kyungsoo places both of his hands on Jongin’s chest and pushes himself back. Jongin grips onto them before Kyungsoo had the chance to move further away from him.

            “Jongin…”

            “Is it because I play as the prince?” Jongin casts his eyes downward, “Or maybe it’s because you don’t like me very much, huh, Kyungsoo?”

            “W-what? N-no, it’s not like that. I just…”

            “What can I do to convince you then?” He tightens his grip around Kyungsoo wrists. Seeing that Kyungsoo winced from his hold, Jongin loosened his grip and slid his hands upward latching his fingers in-between Kyungsoo’s fingers instead. He then pulls the smaller boy back into him and rests his head on top of the other’s head breathing in the faint scent of vanilla shampoo.

            “Did you know that back in the old days men played as women in Shakespeare’s plays since women weren’t allowed to act back then?”

            “B-but, it’s not the same. This isn’t like back then, Jongin.” Kyungsoo squirms against Jongin’s embrace, “Please, l-let me go.”

            Jongin chooses to ignore Kyungsoo and doesn’t reply. Instead, he releases one of Kyungsoo’s hands only to place it back onto Kyungsoo’s waist, making sure his other hand was still intertwined together with Kyungsoo’s. Kyungsoo naturally grabs onto the taller boy’s arm with his free hand to keep his balance after realizing that Jongin was gently rocking them back and forth. Were they dancing? 

            Jongin begins to sing softly into Kyungsoo’s ear. The lines he was singing were from the play, the ones where the prince is dancing with the princess. Kyungsoo listens carefully letting himself get lost in Jongin’s deep voice. What is Jongin trying to do to him? Kyungsoo gives up trying to understand the other boy’s intentions and rests his head against Jongin’s chest. He could hear Jongin’s heart beat. It was beating so fast.

            It started out as a whisper, but Kyungsoo began to sing along with Jongin. He was surprised how natural the words came to him even though he heard the song only once. Unknowingly to the owl-eyed boy, Jongin was smiling. Joonmyun-hyung was right. Kyungsoo does have a beautiful voice, although in Jongin’s perspective, a voice better suited for an angel than a princess.

            “Kyungsoo…” Jongin stops rocking them back and forth and stares deeply into Kyungsoo’s eyes. He slowly leans in his eyes casted downward to Kyungsoo’s lips. His eyes flickered back up to Kyungsoo’s half-lidded eyes. He was so close that when he spoke his lips lightly touched the other’s, but not enough as a kiss, “Be my princess, Kyungsoo.”

---

A/N:

Whoo, this took forever to write. This chapter is dedicated to LotusK for being such a lovely and supportive person. ^^ She kind of reminded me about this story since I haven’t updated for a long while so thank her for getting me to update this story up for you guys =).

I’ll still apologize for the long wait though. I had a sudden burst of inspiration for other fics and had to jot them down before I would forget them. I also decided to join the Outside the Box Writing contest so I’ve been busy writing a story for that as well.

Anyways I tried to make up for the lack of updates by making this a long chapter and with the New Years coming right after I probably won’t be updating for a long while again.

I’m not satisfied with this chapter. I feel it’s too boring, but I hope you guys liked it, especially with the Kaisoo at the end. Please, give me criticism if things are wrong. I know there’s bound to be a handful of mistakes in this chapter.

And MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! Be safe, be happy, be warm, be healthy, and keep smiling. Hope you guys have a wonderful Christmas!!! I can only give you virtual hugs as gifts, so here you go (>^o^)> <3333

<3 dububrit-on