{twenty-two days left}

     “So it’s decided,” Jonghyun says, his face blurred like he’s enshrouded in fog. “I’ll be there on the twentieth.”

“Right,” Kibum says, because apparently amidst the forest that’s been set ablaze, the forest that is his mind, this is the most coherent response he can pull out of the fire. Really, it’s a thick mess of black smoke up there whenever he gets to see Jonghyun’s blurred face—clear on good days—yet even when the lag distorts the screen, the crinkles by his eyes when he smiles are so clear that it slices his heart in half when he thinks about the fact that he doesn’t get to see him in person—until the twentieth at least. “And how exactly do you plan on getting here? You think your parents are just going to let you venture off to another state to see some boy you’re dating and not give you any about it? Ever given that any thought?”

“Babe,” he says, lips curling as he lets out a breathy chuckle and, god, he can’t touch him, and the thought hits harder and more painful than a sledgehammer to his stomach. “I’ve got this under control. You know I got my license last year right? I’m just gonna snatch my dad’s keys and take the minivan all the way to your place. All I need is a GPS—probably some snacks for the road—and I’ll be good to go.”

“You’re going to drive here? You know that’s like a nine hour drive right—and traffic! Jonghyun, you can’t be serious.”

“Oh but, sweetheart, I am.”

Jonghyun smiles. His eyes form crescents when he smiles.

“In the middle of winter too?”

“Yes, dear.”

His pet names are stupid. Kibum bites his lip. For the briefest moment he allows his imagination to plague itself with only thoughts of what it would be like to have Jonghyun bite his lip while they’re kissing. He imagines what it’s like to also slap Jonghyun when he vocalises his ridiculous thoughts—a nine hour drive in the middle of winter. The very notion of having Jonghyun endure that just to see him makes him both nervous and insanely giddy with flattery. And then there’s the consequences that Jonghyun’s parents would threaten him with when they realise what he’s done and it just makes Kibum sag with compunction on his behalf and the whole idea and the circumstance is ridiculous to Kibum. But still. Consequences and all that junk pale in comparison to the very thought of having Jonghyun there with him. 

“Jonghyun, you’re so stupid,” Kibum opts to say and does so while failing to disallow his lips from curling into a fond smile.  

“Oh,” Jonghyun says. “So I suppose you’re breaking up with me?”

Kibum can’t see Jonghyun’s face clearly in the haze of his computer screen, but he’s memorised the little crinkles in Jonghyun’s face and the locations of his moles like lines memorised from his favourite novel. Kibum could read Jonghyun cover to cover over and over again and still find an extract that he had missed and that he’d memorise to keep as a memory for the rest of his life. He’s his favourite line that he’ll jot down at the back of all his notebooks.

“Yes,” Kibum says. “Your stupidity is unbearable.”

“But at least I’m cute right?”

“Yeah,” he says, swooning. “You’re the cutest boy in the country.”

“And you’re the cutest boy in all known and unknown galaxies.”

God.

“Twenty-two days till the twentieth,” Kibum says and he wants to scream because in twenty-two days Jonghyun will be breathing in his air but also because twenty-two days.

“S’not long,” Jonghyun says, and it’s not, but yet at the same time it’s eons awa and Kibum wants to punch a hole through time and fast forward the minutes and the hours and breaths he has to take till Jonghyun can take those breaths away from him forever when they finally kiss each other.

“I should probably go to sleep,” Kibum says, but he doesn’t want to. Maybe he could keep this video chat open and they can fall asleep facing each other, staring into their monitors to replicate how it will feel when they actually get to fall asleep in each other’s warmth.

“Yeah,” is all Jonghyun says.

“Wake me up on the twentieth,” Kibum says.

Jonghyun laughs his tired laugh. He’s still smiling, eyes curving ever so slightly.

“G’night, Kibum.”

“Goodnight, Jonghyun.”

When his screen minimises back to a lone Skype chat absent of Jonghyun’s face, he smiles. When he wakes up the next morning, it will be twenty-one days, and he realises that really all he has to do to manipulate time is to keep falling asleep and waking up in the hour of a new day, and when Jonghyun comes, he’ll spend every minute awake with him. 

 

 

{fifteen days left}

There is a boy who has eyes that boast the beauty of moon crescents. They brighten his thoughts the same way the moon brightens the darkened sky.

“Kibum,” Taemin says, snapping a finger in front of his face. “Whatcha writing?”

Kibum stares down at his page that in his boredom he had decorated with a floral border and jotted down pointless text about a boy who he’ll be seeing in fifteen days. Hhe smiles down at the words, bites his lip, and then says, “Nothing.”

 

{five days left}

“It’s not fair,” Kibum says quietly into the phone. He’s hiding in the outhouse and it’s the worst possible place to be squatting in, but here he is basking in the horrid scent that comes with outhouse toilets.

“I can’t believe you’re so upset about this, Kibum. Jesus,” Jonghyun says. He laughs, and Kibum wants to catch the soundwaves in the air and trap them like fireflies. Every noise Jonghyun makes is worthy of sealing and keeping forever.

“Well, this Onew boy doesn’t sound all that impressive. I mean, Wonderwall by The Oasis? Jesus. Might as well hold a boom box over his head and re-enact Say Anything if his theme was going to be clichés.”

“Kibum,” he says, still laughing. “I was—what—thirteen? I mean, what I did could not have competed with Wonderwall.”

“You wrote him a poem! That’s, like, way more intimate.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like I stood up in the cafeteria and read it aloud. It was a ty poem anyway, and Wonderwall is, like, a classic.”

“Do you remember the poem?” Kibum asks.

“No. Of course not. I burned everything that existed within the time period of when I was ten to fifteen.”

“Well, I’m quite jealous of whoever it was you wrote a poem for when you were ten. Whoever he was had a poem dedicated to him by the cutest boy in the world.”

Kibum, admittedly, is burning up with genuine envy even underneath the thick layers of his two sweaters plus a scarf.

“Confession: it wasn’t even my poem. I googled it,” Jonghyun says. “The only boy I’d actually try to write a poem for is this cute one I know across the border.”

Kibum is burning now in the best way possible.

“And you, Jonghyun, are the only boy who I’d hide out in an outhouse for in the middle of a party just to answer the phone.”

Jonghyun gasps. “Why Kibum, I feel so honoured. I don’t know what to say.”

Kibum giggles, hugging his knees in tighter and pulling the sleeves of his sweaters over his knuckles. He wonders what it would be like to wear Jonghyun’s sweaters or hoodies and to have them slip over his shoulders and the sleeves dangle past his finger tips wrapping him around in a scent that would only be of him.

 

 

{three days left}

There is a boy who writes lines about crescent-shaped eyes, thin lips, dark hair and breathy chuckles between the squares of his grid book where equations needed to find ‘x’ should be written. He can’t write equations when there is a boy staring at him through a virtual box, and the only ‘x’ he wants to find is the kiss that will be pressed against his lips in hours so close yet so far at the same time.

“Kibum,” Jonghyun says and his face is clear this time, his body weighed down by an oversized hoodie that Kibum isn’t so sure can still fit his own body. “What are you writing about?”

“Nothing,” he says. “Just—math equations.”

“Liar,” he says, a playful smirk pulling at his lips. “From the way your wrist is moving, I can tell you’re writing letters rather than numbers.”

Kibum heats up at the thought of Jonghyun memorising the movements of his wrist, the fact that Jonghyun took the time to figure out which motions mean he’s writing the number nine or the letter ‘a’.

They do this sometimes; leave the video chat on as they both go about on their individual tasks. Kibum likes it; feels like the webcam installed into their computers are portals into each other’s rooms because this is the only way their separate worlds can collide when they’re so far away from each other. Sometimes Kibum will write to the tune of Jonghyun’s guitar strings, and Jonghyun will draw to the sound of Kibum reading aloud to him. It’s all nice and quaint and bittersweet.

“Kibum,” Jonghyun says.

“Hm?”

“I have some news. The opposite of good news.”

The tip of Kibum’s pencil ceases movement.

“I, uh, the minivan kind of got totalled on the highway while my dad was driving—he’s fine! But uh…yeah.”

Oh. “Oh,” Kibum says. “So… you’re not coming?”

Kibum watches the way Jonghyun’s bottom lip folds over his top lip as he nods slowly, like if he nodded too fast the earth would shatter beneath their feet. Kibum already feels something resembling earth shattering in his chest and, goddammit¸ there’s a stone caught in his throat and a faucet has seemingly gone loose in his eyes and—goddammit.

“Goodnight, Jonghyun,” he says and clicking the ‘x’ on the window so fast that the Jonghyun on his screen doesn’t even have time to lag. He logs off and stares at his desktop, lets his disappointment dominate him in the form of an ache in his heart, a sob caught in his throat and eyes that won’t stop watering. It’s a slow process, the first few tears come down in length intervals, and then it’s like an ambush, and Kibum is feeling so much at once. It’s not Jonghyun’s fault, he knows that, but his heart all but breaks as the countdown to seeing Jonghyun restarts, the twentieth reverting back to just some normal date that can just buzz off like the rest of the days.

Kibum falls asleep with his eyes still wet and no longer looking forward to anything.

 

 

{fifty-four days left}

There’s a boy deeply in love with another boy he’s never touched, and there’s another boy who takes the opposite of long distance for granted.

“I just need my space. Am I not entitled to that?” Taemin says, and Kibum wants to testify that he knows a lot about space. There’s a Jonghyun-shaped space in his bed, a Jonghyun-shaped space in his heart and a Jonghyun-shaped section in his life in general that hasn’t yet been filled yet. There’s a lot of space and there’s fifty-four days, and Kibum’s never realised how much he loathes two digit numbers.

“Minho’s a nice guy,” Kibum offers because he’s been more or less not contributing to the conversation at all and he’s supposed to be a friend here, offering sound advice and whatnot and telling Taemin that he is, in fact, right in regards to his statement about needing space.

“He’s there all the time,” Taemin says as Kibum resumes drawing squiggly lines in his notebook. Really, all the books for his subjects have just blurred into little gospels about the boy across the border accompanied by tiny dinosaurs and lines that unintentionally join to make an image that makes no sense. In the art world, however, it could vie for something at least semi-meaningful and interpretive, because if Kim Jonghyun has taught him anything, it’s that nothing and everything is art.

“It’s better than him not being there all the time,” Kibum says because from experience he can write sonnets and essays and novels about how much better it is to be smothered rather than to feel empty.

“Perhaps. But I don’t need his arm around me everywhere I go.”

“It’s called affection. You’re in a relationship, Taemin. These things are, like, supposed to happen.”

They’re supposed to happen, Kibum thinks. He laughs because he’s been blessed with the worst of luck because the only relationship he’s ever been in and wants to be in is a long distance one, and he’s getting tired of imagining what it feels like to have Jonghyun walk him to class as he’s dressed in one of his hoodies.

Kibum puts his pen to the paper and writes:

The amount of digits in a number makes all the difference

 

 

{fifty days left)

u know I feel like not enjoying this proves how unmanly i am and like my dad says men are ‘sposed to be good at sport

but i mean i guess that’s a good thing

i mean to not abide by gender roles??? Or whatever it is?

I mean I just don’t get the whole sport thing

Kibum’s trying to enjoy his dinner. Really. He is. His mother keeps giving him looks whenever his phone vibrates and stares at him with a sour expression as he constantly puts his fork down to read and respond to Jonghyun’s texts. He’s at a soccer game due to friendly obligation and Kibum had laughed at him when he’d told him he’d had plans to go to one because Kibum knows how much he hates sports.

“It’s not that I don’t see it as like a legitimate recreational thing or whatever,” he recalls Jonghyun ranting accompanied with hand gestures and all, looking absolutely hysterical on Kibum’s computer screen. “I just don’t see why you’d rather run around for hours and get all sweaty and gross in your spare time when you could just either sleep or not be sweaty and gross, you know? Also, I have you. And as fair as I’m concerned talking to you transcends doing anything else.”

SOMEONE JUST SCORED A GOAL YAY i guess

oh i think I just cheered very loudly for the wrong team

some douchebag just spilled soda on me great

i hate sport

Kibum laughs.

“Kibum,” Kibum’s mother says. “Tell whoever’s contacting you to calm down. We’re trying to have a family dinner.”

The text messages die down anyway and Kibum waits till he’s alone to respond to them later when he’s alone in his room.

‘I wish you were here’ is what the latest one says when Kibum does get back to his phone. Kibum sighs because it’s sweet but mostly because the five words make the distance hurt a little more and feel a little farther than it actually is, and he so desperately wants to be there with Jonghyun and hate the stupid game with him, rub his shoulders and kiss his forehead and help wipe away the Mountain Dew that got spilt on him.

An hour later Kibum’s in bed with the lamp by his bedside switched on and with his phone sat between his ear and his shoulder.

“How was the game, champ?” he asks when Jonghyun calls later.

“It was terrible. But it was you know—an experience.”

“Is it one for the books?”

“Oh yeah definitely.”

Silence. Laughter. Cheering.

“Where are you?” he asks.

“I’m at a party. My friend’s house. His team won, so they’re celebrating.”

“Oh, look at you being invited to parties because you’re so popular,” Kibum says and he’s smiling at the thought of Jonghyun shifting uncomfortably in some guy’s bathtub probably, cowering away from the noise and wishing he were home or maybe wishing he were in Kibum’s bed. With Kibum.

“What can I say? I just love soccer. I breathe for it even.” Jonghyun’s laughing first, loud and genuine and the best kind of music to Kibum’s ears. Then the laughter diffuses gradually into a pause and Jonghyun says, “Kibum?”

“Hm?”

“Say something.”

Kibum laughs. “What?”

“I don’t know. Something.”

“I said ‘what’.”

“Kibum.”

They do this sometimes. It’s a thing Kibum started first. The first time they had spoken to each other on the phone it had been a nightmare. Kibum had felt like he was breathing too loud, that his nerves were so dominant that it could be heard over the phone. Jonghyun had tried to crack a few jokes but Kibum didn’t laugh because he was so overwhelmed that he could hear Jonghyun’s voice and that Jonghyun was a person sitting alone in his own bed across the border. He said say something and instead of asking him the normal things from the textbook of normal conversation starters Jonghyun had said Kim Kibum, I think you are so beautiful and I wish I could kick distance so hard in the face it dies and Kibum laughed, almost cried, but the great thing about Jonghyun is that, no matter how difficult the circumstances are, he’s enough to make him grateful for what they have.

“Jonghyun, I wish I could kick distance so hard in the face that it dies.”

And Jonghyun laughs.

 

 

{forty-nine days left}

“What do you want for your birthday, Kibum?” Taemin asks him in the middle of class. Their economics teacher is notorious for his tardiness and every student who has the pleasure of being in his class rejoices and takes advantage of this.

Kim Jonghyun. “Nothing. Don’t worry about getting me a present.”

“That’s stupid,” Taemin says, being a firm believer that everyone should receive something on their birthday. He’s materialistic in that sense: assuming that happiness stems from receiving and purchasing goods.

Kibum loves his birthdays, loves that when he’ll video chat with Jonghyun he’ll have a birthday banner set up in his own room with a too-little party hat perched on top of his head. It’s the only reason Kibum looks forward to the day.

“You’ll be turning sixteen! You should do something fun!”

“I will do something fun,” Kibum argues, and he’s not lying. In fact, anything to do with Jonghyun is beyond that three letter word.

“You never even have a cake.”

Kibum can deny that point because he’s had a cake every year on his birthday since he started talking to Jonghyun. For each other’s birthdays they’ll decide a week in advance what type of cake they’ll buy and they’ll eat it together with the video chat open. And really, it’s all he wants if he can’t actually have Jonghyun in his room on his bed sharing an entire cake together in each other’s physical presence. Kibum’s pictured this scenario too many times that he’s starting to feel pathetic. Jonghyun will insist he has the last piece but he’ll dismiss his politeness. And they’ll argue. And he’ll kiss him mid-argument and they’ll end up feeding the last piece to the neighbour’s dog, and the whole thing ends when they fall asleep in each other’s arms basking in the moonlight. The scenario is so devastatingly unreal.

“I’m throwing you a party,” Taemin says. Their teacher walks through the door and Kibum is left with no choice but to let Taemin ruin the only birthday tradition he looks forward to.

Kibum’s mother is all for the party idea because it is a rarity for such an occasion to be happening, and she’s so pleased that she writes her own gospel about Taemin for being the greatest social miracle to ever happen to her son. Kibum tells Jonghyun about this over the phone while his mother assists Taemin in transforming their living room into a proper party environment and Jonghyun, the perfect , laughs at him.

“Send pictures of what you’re wearing,” Jonghyun says,

“Ew. No.”

“Why?” Jonghyun whines.

“Because no, Jonghyun. I can’t always look muscular and fit like you. I look in everything.”

“Stop lying.”  

“I’m not. You’re there getting everyone else’s attention because you’re so hot and I’m just—not.”

“Good,” Jonghyun says. “I’m glad you’re not getting anyone else’s attention. You’re mine. No one else’s.”

And Kibum, well, dies. He feels his heart explode and rain confetti in his chest. Knowing that he is Jonghyun’s and no one else’s is, surprisingly, a very, very comforting thought.  

“Jonghyun, can’t I just teleport there with you? Or invent a teleportation device and get your over here, because if this party is really happening then I’d feel a whole lot better if you were present.”

“Dear,” he says, and Kibum dies a second time. “If I could do that, wouldn’t you think I would’ve done that a long time ago?”

Kibum whines, because teleportation has not been perfected, let alone trialled, and, god, Jonghyun has to be a little and live across the goddamn border, making his heart clench without even having to be physically present.

“You know I don’t even know who’s attending my own birthday party. They wouldn’t even let me see the guest list.”

“Cruel,” Jonghyun says. “Speaking of seeing things. You should send me a picture of how lovely you’ll look tonight.”

Kibum is so sick of Jonghyun being the cause of his death. “I don’t know. We’ll see how I’m feeling tonight.”

“Hey,” Jonghyun says. “If anything goes wrong. Call yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Kibum never sends him that picture. Jonghyun sulks all throughout their next video chat.

 

 

{thirty-three days left}

There are odd lapses in time where things seem to run slower. Or maybe school clocks just take more time ticking than normal clocks. Either way, double-digits can’t seem to shrink to single digits fast enough, and the boy at the back of fourth period math finds himself looking outside at the sun wondering if the boy across the border is staring at it as well.

“Kibum.”

Kibum looks up.

“Care to try and solve this equation on the board for us?”

Kibum tries. Kibum gets the incorrect answer. But it really doesn’t matter because he’s used to thinking about more important things, or perhaps a more important person, than the fact he got an incorrect answer.

 

 

{twenty-two days left}

“My dad made me quit my band.”

“He what?” Kibum asks. It’s six in the morning, but he’d be up at the most ungodly of hours if it meant he got to hear Jonghyun’s voice.

“Yeah,” Jonghyun says. “Also I said I’d call yesterday. But I didn’t. It was because I was upset. I felt really guilty—about not calling—which is why I’m calling you now.”

Kibum wants to squeal. The fact that Jonghyun feels guilty about not calling and making it up to him at six in the morning should infuriate him. But it doesn’t. It makes him want to kiss Jonghyun all over his face. “Jonghyun, you are the cutest.”

“Really? Coming from the prince of cuteness himself? Lies!”

God. Jonghyun really is the cutest.

They talk about Jonghyun’s dad, his band, and then the conversation becomes about everything, and Kibum couldn’t be happier to be awake at six in the morning.

 

 

{thirteen days left}

“Kibum, I’m so sorry. I can’t change their minds. Trust me. I tried. I really did.”

Kibum hates it that whenever they’re so close something has to tear up their progress—‘something’ being Jonghyun’s parents. They’ve decided to revoke their consent to Jonghyun’s seeing Kibum and, well, Kibum’s just kind of done. Not completely. Just. For now.

“Goodbye, Jonghyun. We’ll—talk later.”

“Ki—“

Kibum stuffs his phone under his pillow and buries his face in it. He lets out a scream, which dissolves into a heavy sigh, which then breaks down into pathetic little sobs that make it hard for him to breathe.

He takes his notebook out.

Sometimes the boy can’t help but feel like there’s someone out there that doesn’t want him to be happy.

 

 

{seventy-seven days left}

Kibum has to watch Taemin cheat on his boyfriend right in front of his eyes at some party that he’s certain he wasn’t even invited to but that Taemin had dragged him along to nonetheless. It’s all sickening really. Watching Taemin have all the boys he wants and watching Taemin have them touch him and breathe the same air as him, while it’s a little past their two year anniversary and he and Jonghyun haven’t even seen each other face to face yet.

Kibum decides he’ll hide out in the mostly quiet kitchen until Taemin decides he wants to go home, and that’s a stupid occurrence to depend on, because he’s certain Taemin will either stay in one of the bedrooms upstairs with a tie on the doorknob or he’ll leave and forget he’d even taken Kibum with him.

There’s an encounter with a boy. And he touches him. Nothing dangerously intimate. But he puts his hand on Kibum’s waist and whispers things that are meaningless before Kibum tells him to piss off. He can’t help but think about Jonghyun and just, god, he just wants to be able to touch him.

 

 

{sixty-four days left}

They don’t talk much and Kibum has something resembling withdrawal. Apparently he’d relied on Jonghyun’s voice and face on his computer screen too much that he forgot what it’s like to live a life without him. They’re seniors, so they’re busier, but despite how much busier he gets and how much time he actually spends doing his work and how much more important studying seems to become, there’s always a Jonghyun related throb in his head. Kibum realises that he’ll always be the most important thing to him, above all others.

And then he realises that there are so many things he hasn’t actually told him yet. He’s never told Jonghyun about how much he’s on his mind. He’s never told Jonghyun that he’s his muse when he’s writing his deepest most personal thoughts. He’s never told Jonghyun that he can’t stop thinking about how his arms would feel around him. He’s never told Jonghyun that he thinks about the distance so much, and that sometimes he lets it consume him. He’s never told Jonghyun that he’s not a huge fan of the invisible line separating them or the number of miles that they’d need to cross in order to finally hold each other.

And amidst everything else, there are these things that bother him, and amidst everything else, he’ll still make time to cry over it.

 

 

{forty-eight days}

The numbers shrink faster than usual, and for once Kibum is disturbed by this. Because the more he lets himself think of everything the more he realises how much he doesn’t know about everything.

“It’s not fair,” Kibum’s sighing into the phone. He’d been crying and he lets the thought sink in: Jonghyun would never know. He’d never know how much he’ll let himself cry over things.

“What’s not fair?”

There’s still something chipper in Jonghyun’s tone.

“Everything,” Kibum says. Everything is so much. Everything is so much he doesn’t really know about Kim Jonghyun. Everything is so much Kibum realises he can’t handle.

“Elaborate.”

He sniffs. “Jonghyun,” he says so quietly that he’s not even sure he can hear it. Or maybe his brain’s pounding too hard. Or maybe someone’s pounding on the bathroom door too hard.

“Kibum.” A pause. A sniffle. “Kibum. Kibum. What’s wrong?”

“This is all very difficult isn’t it?” he says. “I mean, how much do we really know about each other? How can we really be—“ in love. “—how can we even be us? How did we even happen?”

“Kibum,” Jonghyun says. And god. “Because we were meant to. I know that’s, like, terribly cliché or whatever. But when I think about you? All I can think about is how right this is. How right you are. Kibum. Kibum. You’re so—you’re everything.”

“Kibum?”

There’s a knock on the door. God. This all went downhill so fast and so unexpectedly.

“Kibum?” It’s Jonghyun this time. “Kibum. Don’t hang up. Wait. I—Jesus. You know I’m not as good with words as you. But when it’s important, I can’t find the words to describe it. Because I get so overwhelmed when I think about you because there’s this boy who’s so goddamn perfect and I want him so bad but he’s so, so far away from me. Kibum. I hate it. I know things have messed up a lot when we try to see each other. But I need you to know that I’m not going to stop living my life till I’ve at least held you once. Kibum?”

How did this even happen?

“It’s too much, Jonghyun,” he says. His voice is so quiet. He doesn’t even want to hear himself. He’s let himself sink too fast. He didn’t mean to sink. But he’s done it. He’s going to ruin it. “It’s too much, Jonghyun. Are we going to be doing this till university? We’ll probably be farther away from each other by then. I can’t even stand to be one state away from you. You’re so far away, Jonghyun. And you’re going to be far away from me for a long time. I don’t—maybe I’m not strong enough to keep this up for so long. Jonghyun.” His voice cracks when he says his name. “Jonghyun, I’m so sorry. It’s just—it can never be easier. I’m so sorry.”

“Kibum, no. I lo—“

Kibum squeezes his hand so hard around his phone he thinks he’ll break it with the pressure of his grip.

“Kibu—“

Kibum runs into his mother’s arms and cries in front of her for the first time when he opens the door. He doesn’t tell her anything. He doesn’t tell her about the boy across the border.

He writes that night.

It became too much.

 

 

{no one’s keeping count}

No one asked Kibum if he wanted to go to his formal and if someone had the decency to ask, he would’ve said no. But people don’t ask questions anymore these days, and Taemin is doing what he does best: dragging Kibum to things Kibum doesn’t wish to be in attendance of.

“Kibum, I hate to be that friend. But this—“

“Is perfect. It’s your night. It’s perfect,” Kibum says. He’s gotten better at being a friend.

Taemin is in a relatively stable relationship—the most stable relationship he’s ever been in to date—and Kibum is happy for him.

Kibum has seen these kinds of things on TV too many times. It’s all an immaculate replica of every teen movie he’s seen. There’s spotlights. There’s drinks. There’s punch. There’s a photo booth. He’s not even wearing a tuxedo per se. He’s wearing black jeans and a fancy shirt combination. He’d never planned to go, so he’d never rented a proper tux.

He’s the perfect loner sitting by himself, cowering away in the shadows. It’s not his night. It’s everyone else’s night. He’s doing everyone a favour.

“You’re not going to dance?” Taemin asks, holding onto whatever his boyfriend’s-name-is hand.

“I don’t think so. No.”

And it’s perfect for Taemin. It’s perfect for everyone else and it’s just perfectly fine for Kibum.

Sometime in the middle of a slow song, Woohyun from debating asks Kibum for a dance. Taemin shoots him a look from under the centre spotlight pleading him with desperate eyes to accept, and Kibum just nods at him. Woohyun’s nice about it, casual, and he even makes for a good conversationalist. He’s in the middle of a point about the benefits of legalising when someone is prying him away, and someone is crashing his lips against Kibum’s and god. Kibum’s eyes are wide open for the entire time Jonghyun more or less crashes another school’s formal to kiss him, apparently. And this is it. This is a teen drama and Kibum is apparently the lead protagonist. Jonghyun’s lips are cold but Kibum feels so warm. He feels so whole. He feels so complete. And then it hits him. Jonghyun’s here. Here’s Jonghyun. Here’s what he’s waited for for much too long.

He pulls away, cheeks flushed, and his eyes are crescents as he grins. “Um, can we dance?”

Kibum contemplates. “No.”

“Oh. I—“

“Come on.”

Kibum takes Jonghyun’s hand, their fingers locking together. He leads him outside the gymnasium and into the hallway where he presses him up against someone’s locker and kisses him so desperately like he’s been holding in his breath for three years and Jonghyun’s here, here’s Jonghyun, letting him breathe again.

They leave early so Kibum can take him home—his home. Jonghyun’s here. Here’s Jonghyun. Jonghyun is in his room. They sit on his bed with their hands connected and Jonghyun tells him everything. Kibum tells him everything. And they repeat things they already know about each other.

Then there’s the thing that happens beneath the bed sheets. Kibum feels like Jonghyun’s underneath his body; and Jonghyun is so real and—god.

Jonghyun falls asleep with an arm wrapped so securely around Kibum as if he’s so afraid he’ll disappear from him when he’s locked up in his dreams. Kibum writes before he falls asleep.

Zero days left.  

 

(the end) 

 

---

A/N: 

Traditionally, I will take this time to thank anyone and everyone who has read this! Comments are very much appreciated. You're all rad as hell. There are also probably most definitely a bunch of mistakes here and there and I'll fix them up whenever. 

Most of the mistakes are probably from the fact that I (fun fact!) actually wrote this for my best friend back in January as an Eleanor and Park fic. She recommended that I read Eleanor and Park and basically I was caught up in the moment and decided that after that sad sad ending I needed something that was at least a little bit uplifting. ANYWAYS, 'ELEANOR AND PARK' IS A VERY VERY VERY VERY GOOD BOOK AND WHOEVER JUST FINISHED READING THIS SHOULD GO READ THAT BOOK. But yeah basically if you were reading this and found a bunch of female pronouns in reference to Kibum then that's because this was an e&p fic. 

Also some disgusting self-promo here but I finally made an lj account and I am tae on livejournal (as I am on tumblr) and there's nothing really on there yet but I am currently in the process of moving most of my fics from here to livejournal and if anyone wants to check that out you can and probably like help me out a little on the livejournal community and stuff then that would be lovely. I will still post fics here, however, I will also be on livejournal and on there I DO write for other fandoms so I'll PROBABLY end up posting just a little more content over there!

ANYWAYS, THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR READING!