Chapter Two.

 

 

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Kyungsoo walks into the café, and the very first thing is ask very seriously :

 

‘What’s your name?’

 

Jongin is really confused. Does Kyungsoo really not remember him?

 

But the confusion clears as Kyungsoo starts singing jovially ‘What’s your number… I’m glad I came,’

 

 

The other customers are glancing towards them because seriously, Kyungsoo is singing pretty darn loud, but Jongin quickly relaxes when Kyungsoo stops. Well, relaxes, but at the same is disappointed, since even though the song wasn’t exactly… suitable… for a family environment like this, it’s beautiful the way Kyungsoo’s voice is pitch perfect, and sounds so deep (and Jongin really likes deep. If someone said to him ‘Do you believe in God?’ he would practically jump for joy at the deep-ness of it) and silky.

 

 

Jongin assumes Kyungsoo is in SM school for singing.

 

‘No seriously,’ Kyungsoo seemed amused by Jongin’s utter confusion at the beginning, and now amused by Jongin’s internal monologue of thoughts ‘What is your number? Because I don’t exactly want to walk half an hour to a coffee shop to ask you to go out, just to get rejected.’

 

‘I’m okay going out now!’ Jongin knows he sounds way too eager, but really, he doesn’t care. ‘ I’m off my shift in about 20 minutes. And… I’ll just get my phone.’

 

Kyungsoo laughed, it was about 7pm, and Jongin was adorable.

 

‘OK, no rush, I’ll have… hmm… tea. With lots of sugar. My first challenge to you is to judge right.’

 

Jongin gulped. He was no good under pressure.

 

 

 

And before you say that making tea with sugar for someone, wasn’t pressure, there was no greater one in Jongin’s book. He liked Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo was sweet and… to reiterate, THAT FACE. He literally was an epic fail when it came to relationships and this may be his only relationship in a while. So, to him, making a good impression was about as important as passing his exams.

 

 

 

After consideration and time limits (he didn’t think Kyungsoo would like cold tea), Jongin marched up with Kyungsoo’s tea.

 

‘Ok, I already put two cubes in, and you can add more if you want.’

 

Kyungsoo looks deadly serious and raises an eyebrow ‘What? I think I might break up with you, if you are this indescisive.’

 

Jongin’s heart stops.

 

‘Just kidding! What, you actually believed that?’ Kyungsoo scoffs as Jongin breathes in so much air suddenly from relief he starts choking on it ‘It’s perfect. This way, whereas I normally just dump the whole pot in, I can half two cubes AND the whole pot.’

 

Jongin has learnt something. Kyungsoo jokes a lot, and his jokes are completely terrible. You wouldn’t tell someone that their aunt had died in a car crash for jokes after all, would you?

 

Jongin sincerely hopes that is an exaggeration but when he sees Kyungsoo add cube after cube after cube, he thinks that it’s a wonder Kyungsoo has any teeth at all, not just a sweet one.

 

‘Aren’t you worried about your health?’ The rhythmic, practiced motion suddenly stops and Kyungsoo looks up.

 

‘Nope. I do not like the phrase YOLO, but I think that it applies here.’ Jongin is relieved again as Kyungsoo doesn’t actually make his threat, he stops and only about half the pot of sugar cubes are gone, there is still a pretty decent 8 sugar cubes left.

 

 

Twenty minutes later, and after the exchangal of phone numbers, they leave the café.

 

 

‘So, where should we go?’ Kyungsoo asks, and Jongin uses his brain to find a place to go on a date, which to be honest, is hard seeing as all his previous boyfriends were bossy. Which meant they asked him to go out, seeing as back then he was also way way too shy.

 

 

‘Ice rink? Or a coffee shop? Or the shops if you need anything? Or…’

 

 

Kyungsoo put a finger to his lips to stop Jongin from talking.

 

 

‘How about we get our nails painted… and fly a kite?’ Jongin’s eyebrows furrowed together in confusion, but he accepted it as he got dragged along by Kyungsoo to the nail salon.

 

 

‘Want to play a game?’ Jongin nodded, eager to please ‘Ok, well, you have to throw in as many refrences that you’re gay, but if they ask you… say you’re straight.’

 

‘What does that achieve?’ Jongin didn’t really understand the enigma that was Kyungsoo.

 

‘Well, for one, awkwardness. For two, a thing to do. You wanted things to do right?’

 

‘And it’s a game… so someone wins?’

 

‘Okay… two prizes. One for whoever gets them to ask first, and one for the person who gets the best reaction.’

 

 

Jongin was pretty sure he was going to lose… but he walked in.

 

 

 

When the two girls looked at their hands, Jongin quickly realised Kyungsoo and he were still holding hands. He tore his hand away from Kyungsoo and blushed.

 

‘Hey, could we get our fingernails painted please?’

 

They paid and both the girls, the one Kyungsoo was sitting with had chestnut coloured hair, and Jongin’s one with jet black hair, sat down in front of them.

 

Jet asked ‘OK, what colour would you like them?’

 

Jongin quickly replied with ‘Pink.’ Whilst Kyungsoo rolled his eyes at the sterotype. Seriously.

 

‘I think…’ Kyungsoo awnsered to his girl ‘I’m not sure, love, what do you think?’

 

Jongin cowered under the gaze ‘Pink?’

 

Kyungsoo looked down at his clothes ‘I think purple to go with my outfit, maybe some blue pattern?’

 

Whilst the girls were adding clear nail polish to each finger, Jongin took the initiative.

 

‘You know I broke up with Charlie.’ He hoped the name would lead to a bit of a confusion seeing as it wasn’t technically breaking the rules.

 

‘Yep, a real arsehole, but I loved that about Charlie actually. I think maybe you did too.’ Kyungsoo winked suggestively.

 

Jongin gulped ‘Yeah, well, I guess.’ Jongin didn’t know how to respond to that.

 

‘He’ll come back, just me- I mean, trust me, OK?’ Jongin nearly blushed but he stopped himself in time. He didn’t know how Kyungsoo kept doing that to him.

 

Jet asked what pink colour he wanted and Jongin picked neon.

 

When Chestnut asked about the pattern, Kyungsoo picked stripes ‘Yeah, I feel like them today, although normally I’m not a straight kind of guy.’

 

At this, Jongin looked away with the eye contact.

 

‘Are you homoual?’ Jet asked Jongin, who couldn’t believe that he had actually won that. Kyungsoo was being so obvious!

 

 

‘Nope, he isn’t.’ Kyungsoo awnsered whilst Jongin sat, surprised. ‘And I’m not either.’ At this he did some weird gestures and a completely greasy overexagerated wink, which nearly had Chestnut falling off her chair in disbelief that Kyungsoo had hit on her so… uncouthly.

 

 

Luckily, they had finished painting their nails before they had asked them, so Kyungsoo ran out with Jongin.

 

 

‘How did you master those expressions?’ Kyungsoo smiled at Jongin ‘I was being so stupid, but your expressions, every time you looked at me like I was some God and blushed at practically everything I said. I’m pretty sure they knew it just by you looking away like a teenage girl when I looked you in the eye!’

 

 

‘Just talent I guess…’ Jongin mumbled, but he was quite embarrassed to know that people actually saw that in his expressions.

 

 

‘Kite time!’ Kyungsoo clapped his hands excitedly like a toddler, and they went into one of the shops to buy a cheap kite.

 

 

They went to a nice field, and Jongin could see why Kyungsoo had chosen that day seeing as the wind was blowing so strongly.

 

 

Jongin quickly assembled the kite, seeing as Kyungsoo had looked adorably confused as to where the two plastic rods had to go, even though that was all there was to it.

 

 

Just as Jongin finished, Kyungsoo janked it out of his hands and to the wind. The kite soared up, and Kyungsoo was quickly and desperately trying to unwind the string.

 

 

‘WIND IT BACK UP AGAIN!’ Jongin shouted through the wind and (an even bigger force,) Kyungsoo’s pure excitement.

 

 

‘YOU DIDN’T LET DOWN IT’S TAIL!’ Kyungsoo realised what Jongin  was saying with a gasp and quickly winded it again.

 

 

‘Thanks for telling me.’ Kyungsoo said close to Jongin’s ear, and Jongin shivered (because of the cold, of course. Definitely) when Kyungsoo’s breath ghosted over, making his cold ear hot.

 

 

Jongin decided he was going to fly it this time, as he unravelled the cord. Jongin couldn’t understand how the thin plastic wire would still be holding together. He and Kyungsoo watched it with awe for all of half a minute before they got bored.

 

 

‘Let’s annoy people with it.’ Kyungsoo suggested again. He took the first turn, shortening the cord so that because of the direction of the wind, the tail of the kite brushed a mum’s head. The mum went for the ‘ignore’ strategy as Kyungsoo thought she would.

 

 

Kyungsoo then got bored. He really had a very short attention span.

 

 

He handed it to Jongin.

 

 

‘Now let it go.’ Kyungsoo looked serious. A dramatic change from who he was seconds ago. (although, really, everything was seconds ago even the dinosaurs were seconds ago even if they might be a million trillion billion seconds ago)

 

 

Jongin looked at the rainbow kite blowing in the wind.

 

 

‘I can’t.’

 

 

‘Just let it go.’ Kyungsoo’s pitch lowered.

 

 

‘Nope. I’m keeping it.’ Jongin started to reel the kite back in.

 

 

‘That so wasn’t the point.’ Kyungsoo stared at Jongin’s face for a long time, and Jongin could feel the burning ‘I’m breaking up with you.’

 

 

Jongin laughed ‘Great joke, Kyungsoo…?’ He looked round only to see Kyungsoo’s back in the far distance, and Jongin knew he wouldn’t be able to catch up with the kite weighing him down. He put the cheap thing back in its plastic bag. He would just contact Kyungsoo tomorrow, he thought to himself, to convince himself that no, the world wasn’t actually ending.

 

 

The next day, he walked into school confidently, and put Kyungsoo to the back of his mind whilst practicing. At lunch, he walked to the 3^rd year singing training’s lunch area.

 

 

He stopped a guy with gentle eyes that looked approachable. ‘Hey, do you know Kyungsoo, and where I could find him?’

 

 

The guy stopped, flicking his red hair back ‘Yes, as it happens you’ve come to the right person. Why do you want to know?’

 

 

‘I’m Kyungsoo’s boyfriend.’

 

 

The man’s eyes softened ‘He hasn’t told you, has he?’ Jongin didn’t know what the guy meant, but he assumed he would know if he had been told, so he shook his head ‘Well, mate, you seem nice and all, but you’ll have to go to Kyungsoo’s house. He’s not going to be at school anytime soon.’

 

 

Jongin’s dance routine was completely out of step, and he was doing crotch ing still, whilst the other dancers were doing window wiper hands.

 

 

When his coach called him out on it, raising an eyebrow and saying ‘I know you’re pleased to dance, Jongin, but you don’t need to literally hump the air’, Jongin apologised with embarrassment, of all the moves to be on loop, that had to be the one. Jongin had always had bad luck.

 

 

On the solo dance class, he had forgotten his transition move, which meant he did a messy walking around in the middle. His less patient female dance instructor had called him out on it saying ‘If you aren’t going to concentrate, Kim, then you don’t deserve to be in SM, remember there are hundreds of others like you who fought to get into the school.’

 

 

Jongin was relieve when finally, he was able to drive up to Kyungsoo’s house after school and knock on his door.

 

 

Kyungsoo was dressed and fresh-looking, peering out from the crack in the door. He opened it fully.

 

 

Before Jongin could say a word, Kyungsoo said ‘Let’s take this somewhere else.’

 

 

They sat on the swings in the park and Jongin released what was on his mind the whole day.

 

 

‘Why don’t you go to school? Why were you outside the coffee shop at first? Why did the kite mean so much to you? What haven’t you told me?’

 

 

Kyungsoo laughed dryly ‘The awnser to all of those questions is one, really. Jongin, I have lung cancer. I won’t live for very long. I was outside the coffee shop, because then, I had given up on life. I was planning on just freezing to death. I was so depressed, and I thought maybe since I had no quarrels with my parents that day, it would be best to just end on good terms, you know? The coffee convinced me that maybe before I go I can give some joy to someone, as you gave to me. I don’t go to school because I’m supposed to be having therapy but kimo just made me worse. I think they want me to be comfy and at home when I pass away. I was arguing with my parents because they didn’t believe I should even go out for two or three hours. I’m going to go, no matter how careful I am. Even though you’re perfect, Jongin, I just went out with you at first to have fun, make use of my last moments. But then I started to care about you so much, I didn’t want you to be sad when I left.’ Jongin gulped. The way he said left implied he was going to come back. ‘And so, I tested it with that kite. And I know it was stupid, and a kite can’t be compared to me, I knew you would take it so hard on yourself if- no, when, I went. So, I hoped you just thought I hated you. So you would hate me, not yourself.’

 

 

Kyungsoo seemed strangely impassive to the tale he had just told.

 

 

Jongin was near tears, and he felt like a large object was stuck in his throat. He couldn’t breathe, he could hardly speak and. He had suspected the worst, but. Not this.

 

 

‘I.’ Jongin couldn’t get past that, and tears were starting to well in his eyes.

 

 

‘Goodbye, Jongin. Get over me early, I don’t know. You mean so much to me, and you’ve made me happy. You are my wish.’ Kyungsoo left, as Jongin saw his back getting smaller and smaller, to disappear into his house.

 

 

The only thing Jongin could do was cry into his mattress when he got home.

 

 

He waited, each day the pain just as fresh as before.

 

 

He heard it from school. There were rumours circulating at first, but when he went to the assembly, he knew it was more than rumours.

 

 

As they went on, and there was minutes of respectful silence, Jongin reminisced.

 

 

Kyungsoo’s attitude was right. He wasn’t sad often, until the very end. He knew he was going to die, but he still laughed more than Jongin did, was more audacious than Jongin. Was happier than Jongin.

 

 

Time is limited. Try and enjoy it whilst you can.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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AN : I uploaded the second part quite quickly since I had already written it out anyway. Comments would be appreciated ^^ Also, I hope the second part was a bit funnier but a tiny bit sad too.