Kyungsoo ends up going to Jongin's house almost every night for the next week and a half. He also keeps his promise of texting Jongin every evening to tell him to go to sleep. Usually three messages contain plenty of colourful language and creative threats. He knew he was right about him, all of these death threats are much more imaginative than what Jongin came up with. But by now Jongin knows he’s all bark and no bite, so they're quite interesting to read, but that’s all. Jongin pays no heed to them whatsoever, and he still turns up sporting huge eye bags much to the amusement of his other friends, and Kyungsoo's chagrin,

Its lunchtime, and Jongin is, as usual, trying to protect his food from the vultures otherwise known as Sehun and Kevin, and Baekhyun,

“You don't listen to me at all, do you?” Kyungsoo puts his feet on Jongin's lap, and Jongin pushes them back onto the floor. Another foe, Jongin thinks. Kyungsoo has been getting awfully bold lately, acting almost like a cross between Sehun- with the obnoxiousness, and tactile behaviour- and his mum, with the nagging.

“Well it depends on what you say, but on the whole no. Not really,” He smiles as he's saying it, so Kyungsoo knows he's not totally serious,

“Thanks, this is good to know,” he says, rolling his eyes and leaning over to steal one of his crisps, and Jongin squawks, quickly jerking his hand away, but Kyungsoo manages to grab one anyway,

“Hey! Go get your own,” he complains, pouring the crushed remains into his mouth before anyone can take any more.

“Aw, do you want it back?” Kyungsoo teases, waving the renegade snack in front of his face. Jongin nods,

“Yeah, actually,” and opens his mouth for Kyungsoo to feed him. Kyungsoo raises his eyebrows, but places the crisp in his mouth anyway. Jongin his finger in revenge for stealing his food in the first place. It's justifiable in his opinion, anyway.

Instead of making a huge fuss about how gross that was, like Jongin had expected Kyungsoo just wrinkles his nose and wipes his fingers on Jongin's cheek.

“Was that really necessary, you ,” Kyungsoo asks, a little petulant as Jongin wipes the spit off his face with his sleeve,

“Mhm, totally necessary,” Jongin replies, smug, and Kyungsoo makes a repulsed face at him, turning bright red,

“You’re so gross. What time is it?” Kyungsoo asks, not bothering to get out his own phone and check for himself. Jongin looks around at all the people starting to flood in and out of the canteen, and is not surprised to find that it's lesson time,

“Five-past,” he tells Kyungsoo, knowing that he actually has a lesson now, whereas he and most everyone else around don't,

“,” Kyungsoo extends the syllable and hurries to get his back done up so he can leave. He's still the most academically inclined person he knows personally.

Jongin follows Kyungsoo with his eyes until he can't see him behind other people. He's quite short, despite having such a large and boisterous personality. He is for a boy anyway; he's still just a little bit taller than most of the girls around.

Sehun nudges him,

“Are you playing?”

“What?” Jongin looks back around to the table. Somebody brought a pack of cards, and Sehun is dealing them, “What are you playing?”

“Twenty one,” he replies,

“Go on then,” Jongin hold his hand out, but Sehun puts them on the table. Jongin rolls his eyes and picks them up. An awful hand, naturally. He's going to lose for sure. He sighs, and reaches for his drink -pepsi- and takes a huge gulp.

“Are you actually considering dating that Kyungsoo kid?” Sehun puts an arm across his shoulder, and Jongin almost chokes on his drink,

“What?!” he exclaims, wiping his mouth,

“I just. You flirt with each other like Kevin and Olivia. It's gross, normal friends don’t just each other, Jongin. Would you me?” Jongin curls his lip, “Exactly. And you watched him leave with this dopey, brain dead expression. You totally like him. He asked you to date him, didn't he? Maybe you should say yes,” Jongin's mouth hangs open,

“No?” he squeaks. None of that can be right, can it? He doesn't swing that way, he told Kyungsoo that already, “I’m not gay.”

“Oh don't lie, Jongin,” Sehun laughs, “just by your reaction, it's obvious.” 

“He's got a point,” Olivia -Kevin's newest girlfriend, presumably- butts in, “You two were flirting,”

Jongin blinks at her, feeling like he's been smacked in the face, but without the pain.

“I-”

“Apart from the creepy start, maybe you two would actually make a good couple,” Baekhyun interjects,

“What,” seems to be all Jongin can say at this point.

Needless to say, he loses at cards.

No more is said on the topic of Kyungsoo being a romantic interest, but Jongin can't get it out of his head. Even in science class, he can't focus on the work which is unusual because he usually likes science. He gets some of the questions wrong too.

Jongin having a boyfriend?

A boyfriend called Kyungsoo?

It's not as horrible an idea as he first thought it would be. After a good long while of weighing the pros and cons instead of doing his school work, he almost accepts the idea of being gay, or biual, or just not totally straight. Perhaps he’s wibbly-wobbly-ual. That works for him.

Perhaps he's just never noticed before, he's never really thought homouality was gross or wrong in any way, the way he's heard other people have. He’s just sort of...indifferent. The same way he's just generally indifferent to people who don't introduce themselves to him first.

Maybe that's it. Maybe he's just thinking about it because Sehun said so, in the same way that you feel itchy when someone mentions ‘head lice’. But what if Sehun saying it just made him see it, and it was actually there all along? Jongin doesn't know, but Sehun seems to have released the mental floodgates by bringing it up.

He stays in contemplation during the entire bus journey home -Kyungsoo isn't coming with him today.

He opens the door distractedly, and heads into the kitchen after removing his shoes (and not putting them in the box, as usual)

For a change, his mum is sat at the kitchen table with her laptop instead of her room, the power cord trailing across the floor to one of the plugs they usually use the toaster with. Jongin makes an extra special effort not to trip up on it.

He sits opposite her, in the seat Kyungsoo was in yesterday. She looks up briefly, and smiles, then with her eyes still firmly attached to the screen, and her fingers flying across the keyboard, she instigates the conversation,

“What's up with you?” she asks, not sounding worried in the slightest.  She's used to seeing him zone out, he'll come back down to earth in a few seconds,

“Nothing,” Jongin replies, absent minded. His tone makes her look up- this isn't normal for him, usually when interrupted he’d jump, and laugh,

“It doesn't sound like nothing, Jongin,” her eyebrows are furrowed, and she kicks him (gently) under the table to get his attention. He jumps like he always does when he's scared, “What's the problem?” she repeats.

Jongin doesn't know how to answer ambiguously, everything in his head would make his dilemma completely obvious. But then, he trusts his mum implicitly-she stayed when his father didn't and has never frowned on anything he's done that wasn't decidedly wrong. She’s not that sort of person.

But he doesn't know her opinion on homouality; it's a topic they haven't covered in all the times they've had heart-to-heart talk sessions (Jongin doesn't do that with his mother, what are you looking at him like that for?)

He bites his lip, procrastinating. His mum goes back to typing, occasionally glancing up at him impatiently while he thinks of the best way to say this.

He gets up and goes to the fridge, scanning for something that he doesn't have to prepare, and picks out a bag of grapes. Dumping them on the table, he grabs a handful and pops them in his mouth one by one, and offers the rest to his mum.

“What would-” he cuts himself off, leaving her disappointed yet again.

“Jongin, whatever you're trying to tell me, just get it off your chest. Stop worrying about what I'll think and just say it, ok?” she maintains eye contact for a few long seconds, until she's sure he understands, then goes back to her typing. She does really need to get this done after all, it’s for tomorrow.

Jongin eats a few more grapes.

“What would you say if I were to tell you I was gay?” she looks up, delighted to have finally been privy to Jongin's difficulties. Something clicks,

“Is this about Kyungsoo?” she grins, and Jongin's eyes fly wide open, and he nearly falls out of his chair in shock, spluttering,

“What?! I-I! No!” how the hell did she figure that out so quickly? It’s just not fair, he can't be that obvious, he didn't even notice it himself!

She just smiles,

“I'm your mother, Jongin. I know pretty much everything about you,” Jongin scowls at her patronising tone, and gets up to leave her and go to his room to mope about this revelation in peace.

“No, no Jongin, don't, I was just joking!” she exclaims frantically, and he sits back down again, and puts his elbows on the table, face smooshed in his palms.

“I don't know, mum,” he whines, “I don't know what to do,” he eats some more grapes, just to give him something to do.

His mum watches him, but he doesn't look. He's too shy after his big reveal,

“Y'know, I'm not that surprised, really,” she states, “it sort of. Suits you. It's probably going to take a while, but you can grow into this. You shouldn't worry about it. Just let it be, ok?”

“Ok” he response his muffled by his hands,

“So,” she starts, with the kind of glee only a parent gets when they find something to humiliate their child with, “Kyungsoo, huh?”

“Urgh,” is Jongin's only answer, as he storms out of the kitchen in a teen-rage.

Playing his Xbox a few hours later, feeling a lot less turbulent about his potential feelings towards Kyungsoo (it's still weird, though, right?) he gets his customary text to tell him to ‘go the to sleep already’, but this time there's more.

From Crazystalkerkyung:

u bettr not still b online moron

also btw can I come over 2 urs tmrw, I need to tell u smth

Jongin shrugs. Tomorrow is Saturday, it can't hurt, right? He doesn't have anything specific to do then. But is it too soon? He needs some more time to think everything over. But on the other hand he kinda wants to see him again. He texts back,

To Crazystalkerkyung:

yh y not, u hav to bring food tho :p

A few seconds later he gets his reply in the form of an elaborate Japanese emoticon he couldn't hope to reproduce. He thinks it's a happy one though.

Four rounds on his game later, he realises he's just invited his newly discovered object of possible romantic affections to his house. He doesn't know if this newfound knowledge will make a difference to all the other times he’s been over or not, and he definitely doesn't plan on telling him anything about it. Ever.

It would just be mortifying, especially after he told him he didn't like guys. Nope, he'll just act normal-nothing's really changed anyway. He hasn’t even definitely decided he likes him like that. He goes to sleep feeling slightly scared and unsettled, like his bed might fall away from under him at any second. 

--

*falls of sofa and hides* omg its so weird cos i wrote this a while ago and my perspectives on the ahem qulity of it have changed somewhat. urgh. ok well please comment cos otherwise ill go on a downward spiral and never post anything again

( ˘ ³˘)❤