(listen to this! (if you feel like doing so)
Here, Tonight - AJ Rafael)

Winter break has started and everyone is huddled in the living room, Kyungsoo’s parents are on the sofa while the rest are on the floor, watching Jongin’s freshly downloaded movie from the net. It’s the movie marathon they long prepared, planning what the foods and snacks to buy and what movies to watch. Mr. and Mrs. Do joined in, offering to buy two bottles of coke and a few bottles of beer which everyone happily agreed to.

Carrie is on, Chanyeol is hiding her face on Baekhyun’s shoulder as she hugs his arms – score seventy! – Jongdae trying hard not to cling on anyone while Kyungsoo eats her popcorn nonchalantly.

“Is this supposed to be scary?” Kyungsoo asks, nudging Jongin’s side who is intently watching.

“Well, yeah. Is it not? We can put another one if you want.” Kyungsoo immediately melts at the suggestion.

“Nah, I’m cool.” She answers instead and watches, pulling on the pillow closer to her body.

Next is another horror movie, although Dear John is supposed to be next, Jongin chose Now Showing even it’s not on their to-watch movie list. Nobody protested since none of them have watched it before.

“Sadistic kids,” everyone heard Mr. Do whispered when he took a glimpse of the cover of the movie.

Kyungsoo has to gulp down the squeal that almost left . What is happening?

It’s the that made Kyungsoo jump in her seat and hide behind Joonmyun, clinging on the hood of his jacket. She hears Baekhyun laugh softly and she sends him a glare.

Baekhyun shakes his head, signaling that no, he isn’t laughing at her reaction then he points behind her, pointing to none other than Jongin. Kyungsoo frowns and looks behind her, there’s no problem. What is he implying?

She looks back at Baekhyun with a frown and mouths that she doesn’t get it. The latter rolled his eyes exasperatedly, “Never mind.” He mumbles and turns back to the movie.

Kyungsoo sighed and seats up when she’s sure nothing scary will pop up the screen anytime soon but her breath catches suddenly when the movie suddenly changed picture into an old scary house and not a second later, everyone squealed including her, and this time she buries her face on Jongin’s arm, her pillow long forgotten on the floor.

“You better be responsible if I can’t sleep later, Kim Jongin.” Kyungsoo threatens, her voice muffled on the material of Jongin’s jacket.

Jongin laughed, his arms moving slightly making Kyungsoo hold onto him tighter so her face won’t be on an awkward position, “Sure, whatever you say princess.”

“Not funny, you .”

The movie marathon ends with the final movie, Architecture 101, and they head to sleep.

Kyungsoo ends up thrashing around in her bed, Shomba’s face imprinted underneath her eyelids every time she closes her eyes.

“Guessed so,”

Kyungsoo seats up from her bed, throwing a glare at the intruder, “Go away, Jongin.”

“I bought you a bottle of milk and pepero. So much for the greeting,” Jongin rolled his eyes and lets himself in, he then seats next to Kyungsoo, shoving her a little for more space.

“Thanks,” Kyungsoo smiles and immediately opens the box of pepero to eat.

Jongin opens his milk and takes a gulp, “We have a dance recital next year, third week of January. I’m paired up with the prettiest girl in the class,”

Kyungsoo throws a stick at Jongin with a frown, “I don’t want to know.”

Jongin laughed and picks the piece of pepero to eat, “I’m telling you cause one, I want you to attend the recital, my noona will be there too and I’m telling you who my partner will be – her name is Yuri by the way – so you won’t get jealous.”

Kyungsoo opens to speak but she opts to smack Jongin with a pillow on the face, not caring if his drink spilled on his top, “Who says I’ll get jealous? And I always attend your recital, idiot.” She says a little flustered. She’s grateful that her lamp is the only light on or less Jongin would’ve seen her face tomato red. That’ll be admitting she’ll get jealous.

“Fine. But this one is going to be special so you need to be there. Like really, really special.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll be there.”

“Promise?”

“Of course, promise.”

It’s a little childish but Jongin persuaded her to make a pinky promise, but she smiled nonetheless and finally finishes her milk and pepero. Kyungsoo lies back down on her bed and sighed, feeling a little comfortable and assured that Shomba won’t be in her dreams tonight.

Kyungsoo gasped when Jongin lies next to her and pulls the blanket up to their chin.

“Jongin?”

“You might get a bad dream so I’ll be here. Go to sleep, noona.” He answers with a smile and closes his eyes, ready to sleep.

So Kyungsoo stayed there, not moving.

Kyungsoo remembers when she met Jongin in high school, she was this snobby girl who has minimal amount of friends and Jongin, who doesn’t talk much, surprisingly wormed his way to be friends with her.

Jongin is so caring; Kyungsoo discovered after a month in their friendship. He’s always with her, even in their school projects they’re always partners, sometimes he’d buy her any food she likes and sometimes he’d buy one for Baekhyun too. When Kyungsoo broke her heart for the first time in high school, they were in senior year back then, Jongin was the one who stayed with her till her heart mends. Baekhyun was there too, but Jongin, he’s constantly there. He never left until he’s sure that she’s okay.

(“Noona! I bought you pepero!” Jongin exclaims with a proud smile, wiggling the red box in front of Kyungsoo’s face.

Kyungsoo brightens up at this and immediately grabs the box from Jongin’s hand, “Thanks!”

“So you didn’t buy me one too? Is this a one-sided friendship?” Baekhyun asks with a pout, his arms crossed over his chest as he glares at the younger guy.

Jongin laughed and pulls out a bar of Hershey from the plastic bag and hands it over to Baekhyun, “Won’t forget my favorite hyung, of course.”

Kyungsoo smiles and feeds Jongin a stick of pepero earning her a grin.

~

“Don’t worry noona, I’ll kick that guy’s if ever I see him,” Jongin says as he continues to rock back and fort, Kyungsoo in his arms as she continues to cry.

“I don’t know what I did wrong,” Kyungsoo continues to ramble. The pain in her chest is unbearable but it’s slowly lifting because she can let it all out to someone who she knows will understand.

“Nobody can hurt you as long as I’m with you, noona. I promise.”)

That’s when she started liking him.

When they moved to Seoul for college, they’re enrolled in different universities but they lived under the same roof, along with other kids who instantly became their friends. But there’s this one time, when Kyungsoo cried when her parents fought, Jongin hugged her tight and made her put on his headphones, blasting this jazz music into her ears hoping to drown out the shouts and cries. That’s when she fell for him, because after all these years, he was there, he’d hug her and be there and just simply his presence can give her comfort.

Even this night, by just simply staying with her because she’s afraid of a non-existing scary movie character is more than enough to make her fall deeply into an unknown abyss. She still hopes that when she reaches the bottom of the pit she threw herself in, Jongin will be there too.

_______________

a/n:

this update came a little soon than i have expected. i mean, i didnt
expect to have lots of free time in the meanwhile. so yeah anyway,
thank you for all the people who have decided to join in my suguk
family, you're all beautiful.

i promise to update after three days or so, please keep looking
forward! the story will start to revert to kaisoo and this chapter is
the mark, if not obvious haha. we'll leavejoonmyun to think about
things, ok? dont worry, jongin and his chapter will come soon!