This Is A Gone Case Scenario
(Not) Another High School Romance
A/N: I hope ^--- picture doesn't count as ... >.<
“And you didn’t say anything?”
“What could I have said? They were both looking at me like their lives depended on my agreeing. What the hell could I have said? I had to just… agree.”
“You were a doormat. As usual.”
“Yah!”
“Choi Spineless obviously can’t match up to Choi Dictator’s abnormally high standards. So why would he fight what he knows is right. Isn’t it?”
“Yah!”
“You don’t stand up to your folks, you can’t defend yourself in class, you only complain behind everyone’s backs after nothing can be done about your problem. What is that big mouth of yours useful for anyway?”
“Shut up, I don’t have a big mouth.”
“Your mouth is so big I could put a CD in there and it’ll play.”
“Oh yeah well, your mouth is so small that… that…”
“Be quick, I don’t have enough airtime on my phone.”
“That your mom has to feed you like a bird. A bird! Hah!”
“You know what else is a bird? Your brain. Bye.”
Minho rubbed his forehead, throwing his phone aside on his bed. Calling Kibum had been his last resort, and now he felt stupid for doing it. Serious conversations never led anywhere with the other. But what else was Minho to do? Whenever he felt this helpless, whenever he felt frustration bubble up inside him, he’d opt to kick his old beat-up football around the backyard. Sometimes Minseok would join him and they’d even play a little match. But even that wasn’t allowed anymore…
“Minho yah, who are you talking to this late? Go to bed,” Choi eomoni called from outside his just open door.
“Neh, Ma. Goodnight.”
He tiredly bounced onto his back and looked at the underside of Minseok’s old bunk bed. Sleep wouldn’t come, not tonight. He knew it. This particular turn of events would take a heavy toll on his mind, his concentration, his everything. This new restriction would not go down well with either his coach, or his friends from the team. It wasn’t like Minho was the first boy to pull out from sports because it was affecting his studies, but his predecessors hadn’t gotten very congenial treatment after.
If Minho were honest with himself, he at football. He wasn’t half as good as his hyung, and he’d never done anything particularly admirable at any of the inter-school matches last year. Or the year before that. Minho was a mediocre player, but they kept him on the team for his speed. (“And you’re cute enough to be a cheerleader,” Kibum had teased before having his arm pinched.) They let him stick around because it was a momentary distraction from the pressure of curriculum. Because a good practice game helped him focus on his studies later that night.
He turned over on his side, hand automatically reaching underneath his pillow, where his newest good-luck charm lay crinkled. His latest talisman, his amulet against self-doubt and weariness and aggravation. He had a feeling he’d depend on it a lot in the next few months until the end of the term. Maybe I should have it laminated… he thought distractedly. He pulled it out into the open, fingers already tracing the elegant dots and curves of black ink that were Professor Jinki’s name and phone number.
Minho studied it for a while, then smiled, even blushed a little at the memory of how he’d gotten it. He held up his right hand to the rays of moonlight (which were probably just street lights but his mind had a way with romanticism) his fingers cutting through the soft white stream of radiance, rolling it between long digits, letting it slide through wide-open webs.
“E-excuse me sir,” Minho walked up behind the man as he spoke to their Principal. They’d been laughing at some private joke, hands clasped in a happy handshake, patting arms in that really chummy way.
“Excuse me, sir,” Minho tried again, a little louder.
When the other turned around to take notice, Minho had to lean against nearby objects to keep from fainting. The man’s face was more handsome up-close. His amber eyes were like two orbs of fire, single-lidded, upturned a little at their outer ends. His smiling lips were puffy, soft-looking, difficult to resist kissing. His nose had a prominent hook, like that of a parrot; that profile couldn’t look so perfect on anyone else, it was patently Jinki. The lobes of his ears smoothly melded into his jaw, no gap left between the two—like Minho’s own. His shoulders were broad, strong, like that of a warrior in one of those period dramas Choi eomoni liked to watch in the afternoon.
And He’s looking at me… Minho’s heart thumped over and over, as if a massive wrecking ball were swinging within his ribcage, side to side like a pendulum. He’s really looking at m-me…
“Heeeey, what’s up?” Jinki greeted him, as if they were old friends, holding his hand out for a shake. Minho fought the undeniable urge to whimper like a cat in heat. Slowly, carefully, cautiously, he held out his own hand to reciprocate the action.
Pads of warm (burning, scorching, searing) fingers closed over the back of his right hand. He felt like he was holding the sun within his palm. His head became too light, his knees went too weak, he swayed in his place as he stared at the handshake, so intimate, s-so very s-y… He gulped and hoped it wasn’t loud enough for the other to hear.
“I bet you have some very interesting questions for me, eh?”
“S-sir!” Minho squeaked. “Sir, it’s such an honor to finally meet you. This is a dream come true. I’ve read your paper on why radioactive nuclides often lack a natural production mechanism a-and—”
“And you understood?!” Jinki raised those thick eyebrows that nearly disappeared under his mussed blonde-dyed hair. Minho opened his mouth to let go of a choking exhale, their hands still joined together between them. “Even I don’t understand what that paper was. I ask myself if I was high or something when I typed that crap out. Maybe it was all the pot I’d smoked in college coming back to get me…”
“S-sir…” Minho whispered as if to a lover.
“Seonsaengnim!” Jinki pulled him forward, in the direction of the old and tetchy Principal. “Is he one of yours?”
Park seonsaengnim gave Minho a once-over from above the glasses resting on the bridge of his nose. “Hmm, yes. Choi from class 11th section A, isn’t it?” he nodded thoughtfully before addressing the professor, hands gesturing. “Jinki ssi, this boy is a genius. Last year he did a project on the relationship between Soomulnori and Math. Faculty was blown away. I was blown away! He’s a genius.”
Jinki slowly turned his attention back to Minho, and their handshake finally ended. The boy felt like his life had ended, the world had ended, everything had ended. “What’s your name, Choi?” he was asked as the elder distractedly pulled out a pen from his pant pocket, asking one of the loitering prefects on duty for a piece of paper.
“S-sir, Minho. Choi Minho.”
“To dearest Minho goon, how does that sound eh?” the man chuckled as he imprinted his signature on that piece of paper and made to give it to Minho, who felt like his life was now complete. He could die and go to heaven. He held out a reverent palm for the autograph, thought about bowing low in return, but the slip never made it to him.
“Minho goon, how old are you? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“Sir, eighteen this December, sir!” he chirped, as if it were a test of his capabilities. Only if the answer were satisfactory would he be rewarded with that chit of paper. He bit his lip, waiting for the other to hand it over.
“Hmm… how would you like to come work for me?”
Minho’s eyes would’ve fallen out of their sockets had he widened them any further.”Sir… I—I’m not worthy, sir! I’d be a bother, I’d just get in your way…”
“I’m putting down my phone number,” Jinki said then looked back up with a playful grin. “Don’t give it to any of the girls.” He returned to scribbling a string of digits below his signature. “Call me, text me, whatever when you’ve made up your mind. And if you need me to talk to your parents, let me know, OK?” The holy square finally made it to Minho’s hand and he held it like a beggar holding gold. The lively slap to his arm went unnoticed.
“We could use smart people like you around the facility.”
Minho brought his right hand to his mouth, inhaling his wrist deeply. “I’m never washing this.”
The next morning, when the door opened to reveal a very sleepy, very shirtless, very irritable, and possibly very hungover Kibum, Minho couldn’t help his eyes from roving over the other’s pitiable appearance. He covered his mouth as if in wonder and admiration. “And who did you kill last night?” he joked, but when bloodshot eyes glared at him, he almost flinched and ran back down the stairs. “S-sorry… I-I’ll shut up.”
“Good boy,” Kibum yawned, hanging off the doorknob in his sluggishness, scratching his through his shorts. “Now is there something you want? Or can I go back to dreaming about you calling me 'oppa'?”
On a normal occasion, Minho would’ve made a big issue about such uncouth words. But right now he just pressed his lips in exasperation, shaking his head. “You have to help me with my situation. It’s your duty as my…” he turned around to check if anyone was listening in on them “… boyfriend. Help me with this problem,” he said, and began to walk into the room. But before he could take another step in, his eyes fell on
“When did you get your belly button pierced?” he frowned and narrowed his eyes, making to touch the flashing ball of metal. Kibum had always been a fan of body modification. And some of these "modifications" the other got really irked Minho--piercings in places besides the obvious earlobes, a long string of tattoos on the side of his right leg... possibly other things Minho hadn't found out yet. Despite his concern, he kept them a secret from his boyfriend's parents. But he really wished Kibum would know his own limits well before he crossed them.
Kibum slapped his hand away. “When it seemed like a good idea. And you mind your manners,” he reprimanded for show, lazily turning around to head for the bathroom, exaggeratedly swaying his hips. Minho covered his eyes in disbelief. “Now watch from a distance as my y mantastic body walks away from you for purposes of personal hygiene.”
“Bum…” Minho asked, trailing behind the other and now smirking at his own “well-thought” joke. He felt like patting himself on the back. “How much do you weigh?”
“Sixty-something kg, why?”
“And how much of that weight is your leg hair?”
A Figure Drawing For Dummies came flying in the direction of Minho’s face, but he caught it just in time, sniggering with much pleasure. “Because… you know… you have hairy legs,” he explained his joke as the tap in the bathroom ran over sounds of an angry toothbrush. “Also, why do you have a Figure Drawing guide?” he wanted to know, flipping through the book with much interest, walking up to the doorframe of the bathroom and leaning against it.
Kibum spat a mouthful of paste. “Learning to draw women,” he simply supplied, before turning back to the mirror and watching himself brush. The book was distastefully returned to the cluttered study table. “Sho what do you want to do about thish… uation thing?” a garbled, toothpaste filled question was directed at him.
Minho slid his hands into his pockets. “I want to stay on the team. But I also want this internship. They're both equally important. I can’t do both cause I’m not allowed but…”
“So basically you want everything in life?” Kibum asked after rinsing his mouth. (“Did you brush the backs of your—” “Shut up.”) "Well, this is a gone case scenario."
“It’s not like it’s everything… I mean, look at Minseok hyung, he did so well even with football. Why can’t I do that, too? Why do I have to be different? I’m not as smart as him, but I can do just as well. Pa knows that. Why am I supposed to sacrifice one thing for the other?”
“Because internship.”
Minho slumped in his place. He ran his fingers over the sides of his hair, not caring he was messing it up in the process. This feeling of low self-worth, of being told that you're not good enough to do something, you won't be able to manage it and so you should quit--this feeling always made Minho feel useless. Like he was incapable of doing the things he wanted, like someone had put restraints around his wrists and he was expected to leave them be as they were. He shouldn't think about trying to free himself.
“Tell me one thing then,” Kibum stood before him as if those restraints, and s an arm around Minho’s hipbones. “What is the real reason you want to stay on the football team. It’s not like you’ve invested your whole life in it, why bother now?”
“Didn’t we meet because I was on the football team?” Minho quietly asked, pouting at Kibum’s sharp collarbones. “D-didn’t you ask me out because you thought I was all… studly and jock-like, and a ladykiller?” he grinned stupidly.
“Sweetheart, I never thought you were a stud,” Kibum shook his head dismally. “But anyway, as touching as that sentiment is, you’re only being stubborn. And you know that.” He massaged a circle on Minho’s waist. “Think about this rationally. Do you really need football right now? Not like you’re going to make a career out of it. So why not quit?” he shrugged “Maybe you could pick it up again in college. Football is not going anywhere. But this research gig? This a huge deal, you won’t get a chance like this again.”
Minho looked into Kibum’s sincere eyes, feeling his wrists loosened, freed. He slid those freed wrists to the small of Kibum's back. “How is someone like you the bottom of the class?”
“Shh!” the other put a finger to his lips before walking out of his bathroom. “Listen, you remember that music freak sunbae from last year?” he asked, wiping his hands on a dropped shirt and not really waiting for a response from Minho. “He got a scholarship to… uh… some European school. All posh let me assure you. So his family’s throwing a show-off party at their oh-so-splendid place tonight. It’s going to be one of those dress-up -up chat-up affairs. You know, the kind I hate.” He leaned against his desk and folded his hands. “So I want you to come with me.”
Minho shook his head and tutted, waving a finger around and trying to correct the other. “You mean celebratory party. And I can’t gate-crash, that’d be extremely rude. What would the hosts think?”
“You’ll be my .”
“Ew.”
“What?” the other asked indifferently.
“Who is this guy anyway?” Minho asked, taking a seat in front of Kibum, inviting the other’s touch on his scalp as usual. He leaned into the warmth like a dog, humming and swaying a little out of habit. “Music Freak Sunbae? Do I even know him? Does he know me? How can I just… ”
“You know this guy, dude. He was a music department zealot. He was like their… personal guard or something. Never allowed me near the guitars…”
“I wouldn’t allow you near the guitars, either.” A light slap landed on the crown of Minho’s head. He ack-ed. “I still don’t know who you’re talking about. Is he the violin guy?”
“No he’s the piano guy.”
“We had a piano guy?”
“Yes we had a piano guy. He used to sing the national anthem on assembly sometimes.”
Minho sat up straighter. “Are you talking about Kim Jonghyun? Yeah… I know the guy. Like, know of him. But that’s it.”
“Good, then it’s settled. You’re coming.”
“B-but!” Minho still protested. “We’ll get back late. How will I get home after?”
Kibum smirked, lifting Minho’s gaze by his chin. “Sleepover~”
One more "ugh no why what" chapter in a series of "ugh no why what" chapters to come. Yay.
Comments will be loved. Sh...should I just stop writing altogether? **shivers**
~IQ
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