CHAPTER NINE

Have you been eating your meals on time? 

Kyungsoo looks away from his laptop screen and picks up his phone. It’s Jongin, and the beginnings of a smile creeps onto his face. 

I miss you. He pauses mid-text. No, that’s not what he meant to say. He backspaces and starts again. 

Yes. Come back soon. His thumbs are acting on their own volition. He backspaces, again. 

Yes. Should he say anything more? 

Yes. I wish you were here. Heat rushes to his cheeks. Where was this even coming from? He backspaces once more. 

Yes. He hits the send button and then sets his phone back on the side table and tries to get on with his work.  

It’s late on a Tuesday night and Kyungsoo is already in nestled under the covers, ready for bed, but he finds that he can’t sleep. He’s far too restless. After tossing and turning for half an hour of so, he decides that perhaps he’d be better off working on some articles in advance and hopefully by then he’d be tired enough to doze off. 

His phone buzzes. Good. I hope you’re not lying to me because I’ll know.

Oh really?  He replies.

If I find that there’s less of you to hug when I get back you’re in big trouble.

Kyungsoo blushes at the thought of being in Jongin’s arms but before he can decide on how to respond, another text comes in — Thinking of you. 

I’m going to sleep now. He screws his eyes shut as his warmth begins spreading in his belly because Jongin somehow always manages to reduce him to mush. 

Good, sleep tight. 

Make sure you’re eating your meals regularly too, alright? Take care. 

I will. Dream of me.

Kyungsoo smiles. As I always do. 

That night, as he lies in bed in the dark waiting for sleep to take him, he thinks about how he misses Jongin so much more than he would care to admit… and how that thought both surprised and terrified him. 

Jongin has been away for eleven days now—not that Kyungsoo has been keeping track, God, no—in Spain looking for suitable locations for a client’s shoot. Jongin is busy, having to travel from city to city, so he can’t send Kyungsoo text messages as often, but he always makes sure to tell Kyungsoo good night and update him on how his day went before he himself went to sleep. These are the small things that Kyungsoo has come to look forward to in Jongin’s absence, and they provide some comfort in allowing him to still feel connected to Jongin even when he’s so far away, but it is nothing compared to the real thing. 

He can’t pinpoint the exact moment when he first let himself fall so deep, but at this point Kyungsoo doesn’t just miss Jongin, no—he craves Jongin’s physical presence. If possible, he wanted to be near Jongin all the time and that scared him… because he knows that this is not something he’s allowed to want. Fate had been kind to him by allowing the love of his life to cross paths with his once again, but he had become greedy. Kyungsoo had selfishly allowed himself to forget that he didn’t deserve any of this, that he didn’t deserve Jongin. 

Kyungsoo isn’t lying when he says he’ll dream of Jongin because he’s been doing that a lot lately. Most of the time, they’re pleasant dreams, flashbacks of their high school days which leave him feeling nostalgic when he eventually wakes up. Other times, he dreams of a future he could have with Jongin and those were the kind of dreams that were bittersweet, because he wants a life with Jongin so badly that he literally feels an ache in his chest just thinking about it. 

That night, he does dream of Jongin, just that it’s of a different kind. 

He doesn’t realise it at first, because it starts out the way it usually would. Kyungsoo is with Jongin and they are happy, the way he’s sure it’s supposed to be. And then… Jongin suddenly looks away, like he’s listening to someone else speaking to him, but Kyungsoo just can’t make out what’s being said. The only thing he knows is that whatever it was that Jongin heard was some kind of important because a myriad of emotions dance across his face… from disbelief, to anger… and now… hurt. 

Jongin’s face is twisted into the most wretched expression and this makes Kyungsoo worry, so he tries to get Jongin to speak to him, cups his cheek with his hand and attempts to catch his eye. But each time he whispers “what’s wrong?” Jongin seems more resolute to shut himself off, and soon enough, he’s pulling away from Kyungsoo entirely and this makes the latter panic. 

“Jongin, please, talk to me…” 

“I can’t even look at you right now.”

“…wha…what?” 

“How could you?” 

Realisation dawns on Kyungsoo and this time, he’s really afraid. “Jongin, please, no. Let me explain…”

“How could you do that to me?” Tears are now streaming down Jongin’s face and every fibre in Kyungsoo’s body now feels like its throbbing with the sense of impending loss. 

“No… No, no, no! Jongin, it’s not like that…” Jongin is thrashing about in his arms, trying to get away, and this makes Kyungsoo latch onto him even tighter. “Jongin, please listen to me! I beg you, don’t be like this… Let me explain!” His tone is frantic and escalating, desperation gripping him like a vice. 

“There is nothing to be explained.” Jongin’s voice comes out in a whimper and it rips a hole right through Kyungsoo’s chest. “You told me that you didn’t love me… You lied to me… Was I not even worth the truth?” 

When Kyungsoo jolts away that morning, his cheeks are damp. 

* * *

Time doesn’t really linger around for Kyungsoo to count the days he has left till he sees Jongin again—not with Kris barrelling back into the office and assigning to Kyungsoo more projects than he can usually handle—but he does anyway. It’s day fifteen since Jongin had flown off, a little over two weeks, and Kyungsoo doesn’t even try to kid himself that he doesn’t miss him anymore. 

That morning, Kyungsoo receives a text message from Jongin that is much different from all the previous ones that he had sent him before. 

Could I take you out on real date? — it reads. 

His fingers fly all too quickly on the keyboard to type out a response before his mind even registers what he’s saying — yes. 

The reply he receives puzzles him — please open your door hyung—but he quickly complies without second thought, heart beating wildly in his chest from anticipation and… 

 …there Jongin is. 

The first thing Kyungsoo notices is his hair. It’s been dyed from platinum blond to a cool chestnut brown and it looked tousled, as if he had just run his fingers through it. He’s dressed down today, decked in a pair of ripped jeans paired with red and black plaid shirt, ed with a black cotton tee on the inside. Jongin looked like he had aged backwards since the time they had last met but Kyungsoo is not complaining, not at all. Without any warning, Jongin smiles at him and it knocks the wind out of Kyungsoo, leaving him breathless. 

Yes, there he was. Jongin was standing outside his door, looking like a teenage dream… but more than anything else, Jongin was the personification of Kyungsoo’s heart in the flesh. 

There is a single rose stalk in Jongin’s hand and he points it playfully at Kyungsoo. “You’re under arrest!” He says with glee in his eyes.

“For being too adorable.” He continues