13. NEVER AGAIN

---

(brace yourselves

The kaisoo is strong in this one)

 

Everything is quiet.

Kyungsoo is sat in Yixing's car, parked outside of his house. The engine had cut a few minutes ago, but neither Yixing, nor Kyungsoo, had made any move to leave.

The danger of being quiet is that people often try to justify absences of sound with their own interpretations: Oh, he must be sad. Depressed. Something must be happening at home. Maybe he's judging us. Maybe he's laughing at us on the inside. When people can't read each other, they make assumptions; Kyungsoo has felt it for the past three years of his life. 

Yixing has never before made him think that his silence means anything more than just silence. The man doesn't speculate, or theorise, or even outwardly wonder over Kyungsoo's thoughts. He doesn't ever make Kyungsoo feel as if his silence needs an explanation, and that is so rare.

If there's any silence that Kyungsoo feels the most comfortable in, it is the silence he shares with Yixing.

"I'll tell her," Kyungsoo says eventually, when all the hush has used itself up, and Kyungsoo's finally ready to break it. "I want to."

Yixing, ears always picked, moves for the first time since they've stopped, twisting his head in Kyungsoo's direction. "I know," he says, doubt so absent in his tone that Kyungsoo feels his lip quiver in appreciation. "I'll phone in an hour or so, okay?"

Kyungsoo only nods his head, suddenly overwhelmed by the day's events. He mutters a bye, whispers a thank you too as he opens the car door, and he steps out into the pavement. Before he can stress over the explanations that are to come, he hurries forward towards the front door of his house, fumbling with the keys in his pocket.

"Kyungsoo!" He hears, just as he's fit the key into its lock. He twists back, tears already streaming fast down his face, and startles to see how Yixing has taken a few steps out of the car, something teasingly soft about his expression.

"I don't think you need these anymore," Yixing calls, gesturing towards the crutches in his hands with a short shake of his hand.

Which is when Kyungsoo realises that he hadn't waited for Yixing to help him out of the car today, had only run out towards his front door to see Eun-Seo without a second's thought about his leg. He curls his head down and peeks at it, and he realises suddenly that it doesn't hurt, or feel overtly uncomfortable, and he can't remember the last time it did.

"We'll keep the cast on a while longer," Yixing says, "so take care, okay?"

Kyungsoo nods his head sharply, blinking his eyes to clear the tears filling them up. He bows his head to the man, and Yixing smiles that lovely, dimpled smile before heading back out towards the car.

Kyungsoo takes in a deep, shuddery lungful of air. His hand, still poised on the door, trembles with the weight of all he has to explain. 

Yixing's car engine revs. Kyungsoo twists the lock and pushes forward.

As soon as he's closed the door he hears it - the sudden scuttle of his sister's footsteps as she approaches from wherever she had been at the time.

"Kyungsoo you-" she starts to yell, but the sentence dies out as soon as she turns into the hallway, like a flame being pressed between someone's fingers: a sudden extinguish, a wisp of smoke curling like the tension in the air.

He doesn't know how he looks - he hasn't wondered about it until this moment - but the way she regards him - inert and lasting - trembles with the weight of emotion. Her eyes, always so openly effulgent, lose their lustre. They fill with gloom like cheeks fill with colour - a fast, spreading growth, encompassing the orbs with a solemn despondency like nothing Kyungsoo would ever expect his sister to be able to adopt. 

Worse even than the time in the hospital, when Kyungsoo had feigned sleep (and how far that day seems now - such a faded, but prevalent moment in his life), his sister looks at him like she's in the wrong, like the fact that Kyungsoo is hurting so bad is her fault, and that she should've done better, worked harder, to protect him, to make him happy, to never have to see such a downcast expression on his face like the one he wears now.

And that's hurts so bad, hurts because there is no one less-deserving of pain than his sister, hurts that the one who takes care of him when their parents never seem to have the time, his sister, who worried like it was her duty to do so, who made him smile when smiling seemed the hardest, and made him forget when all he could seem to do was remember, she should not look like that.

So it's too much. It's the final straw being plucked.

Kyungsoo's eyes fill with another wave of tears. His lips purse, a haphazard attempt to hide his cry, but it still sounds in his throat, and his sister's arms are around him before the first tear is able to fall.

"Kyungsoo, Kyungsoo," his sister calls, voice shakily harried, "Kyungsoo, what happened?"

And that's the question isn't it: what happened? because there's so much that has, and so many things to say, and Kyungsoo can't even fathom a way to begin. 

So he keeps on crying, a wash of tears he can't tone down, because that's something he can do, something he knows, and he feels how his sister's hold on him tightens impossibly more as sobs wrack through his form, and God how did this happen?

He's mumbling something through his cries, and he doesn't know what he's saying, or if Eun-Seo even understands, but he can feel her worry, so potent in their small, entrance hallway, pick with the mutters. 

He doesn't feel himself moving, but he does feel how he's settled on the living room couch suddenly, wrapped up in his sister's embrace, cold tear tracks marking paths down his neck, and she just lets him cry, shushing him softly and shakily and with such a tremble in her tone that Kyungsoo cries even more, until his tears dry out, until the memories of the day and the fear he had felt in that classroom have been beaten down into the back of his mind. 

And it's so relieving, letting his emotions out like that. Sometimes all you need is a good cry, his mother always used to tell him, back when he was younger - way back - before she got the promotion that stole away her hours like his father's, before she pushed her children to the back of her priorities. The bad things play into his mind like a melody plays into a song, a consistent string of all the pressure, all the fears and the worries which have accumulated these past couple of months, and he lets them stay because he's so tired of pretending he's okay. 

Only, his mum had said, after you've done crying, you have to promise yourself that you'll never cry about the same thing ever again.

And that's what Kyungsoo does, when his tears slowly, surely, dissipate. Not again, he thinks, never again, not for this, and between his shaky, constricted breaths of air, he lets out a long, low, sigh of relief.

When Kyungsoo edges back from his sister's arms, the first thing he does is look at the clock, and it's the only time he's ever been thankful that his mother and father won't be back for at least another hour. He tugs a tissue from the box to his side, hiccupping from the onslaught of tears which had hit so suddenly, and Eun-Seo lets it be silent for a few long, soothing moments - moments of tranquillity that wash over Kyungsoo like the heat of a warm drink on a cold day - and he is so, infallibly grateful that he has a sister like Eun-Seo, even if it's inevitable when she finally does speak.

"Kyungsoo," his sister insists, her gaze burning a scorch into Kyungsoo's puffed up cheeks. 

Kyungsoo doesn't know where to begin. There's so much his sister hasn't been told, so much she should already know. It feels like such a weight, such a burden she should never have to carry.

"If only I were stronger," Kyungsoo thinks to himself, a sombre whisper of a wish. He looks towards his sister, and suddenly, abruptly, he's never felt more-

"Sorry," he breathes out, meeting her gaze, his voice an empty shell of a whisper. "I'm so sorry, Eun-Seo," he repeats, and he sees Eun-Seo's expression twitch into something firm.

"I'm sorry, I'm-"

"Kyungsoo."

His sister doesn't hide the anger in her tone; when she says his name, firm and warning, it's enough to make Kyungsoo look away and flinch back, shoulders hunching inwards and eyes drawing to his own knees.

"Kyungsoo, why do you always apologise?" His sister questions, voice still hard and unforgiving, stern with such a rapid flare of emotion that Kyungsoo doesn't even think to interrupt. She must see that anyway, the way he curls into his shell, because her expression softens slightly and she makes swift movements forward, settling back by Kyungsoo's side, reaching a hand out to rest in the crevice of his arm. 

"Kyungsoo, please tell me. Tell me what happened."

And Kyungsoo, finally spent, does.

 

---

 

Kyungsoo ends up falling asleep in his school uniform, before his parents get back home, collapsing on his bed instead of changing like he was supposed to.

He wakes from his alarm, already automatically set for school, and he wakes with a pounding headache, a hoarse, croaky throat, and a groggy cloud behind his eyes. His sister takes one look at him when he shuffles down the stairs after his parents have left, and she sends him back up to change back into comfortable clothes and phone his school to explain his absence. 

When he comes back down, she has hot porridge made for him, and he doesn't even think to complain about the lack of cereal. He does, however, complain when he realises she's changed out of the uniform she wears for her morning job.

"Eun-Seo-" Kyungsoo starts, ready to fight his case, but his sister cuts him off.

"I'm not leaving you alone today, and nothing you say will change my mind." She says, and there is such firmness in her tone that Kyungsoo doesn't even think to say anything against her.

He realises that she's probably like this after Yixing had phoned last night. Kyungsoo had fallen asleep before then, but he knows the doctor wouldn't go back on his word. By the way she's acting, protectively unyielding, Kyungsoo can only wonder about how their conversation had gone. He's curious, but he doesn't dare to ask; isn't sure he wants to know. At the very least, all that happened last night, and all the tears he shed, he wants to try to forget.

---

When you're ill, time works very strangely. Everything seems to go by slowly, and each movement feels weighted, as if you're watching yourself from outside of your body. 

Kyungsoo doesn't know how long it's been, and it feels very strange not knowing. He hasn't missed a day of school in what feels like forever - to suddenly be drawn out of an environment fixated on routine isn't something Kyungsoo likes. He's currently stretched out on the sofa, casted up leg before him and a book in hand he's probably reread three times in the past month. 

It's the book from the mystery person, the book which the leader had first ripped up all those days ago. Kyungsoo takes a sip of warm tea his sister had made and left out for him, and, curiously, curls the book back to look at the cover page.

For Kyungsoo, he reads again, stretching a finger out to trail over the written words. He feels his heart warm at the message, even if he still often wonders about who could have gifted him such a thing (for the amount of time he's spent staring at this page, he's probably memorised every individual twist and curve of the letters enough to forge it on separate paper if he wanted to). 

He thinks that the person has rougher handwriting than his own. Even if it looks so very neat on paper, it's the sort of neatness that makes Kyungsoo think they had spent a long, long time writing out each individual letter, and that thought has Kyungsoo smiling. 

"Hey," Eun-Seo calls suddenly, and it startles Kyungsoo so much so that he slams the book close, looking over at Eun-Seo from where he is sat. His sister raises a slow, questioning brow at his reaction, and Kyungsoo feels his cheeks heat up in guilt, even though he hasn't done anything wrong.

"I'll pretend that wasn't weird," Eun-Seo says, moving forward, and it's only then that Kyungsoo notes her nervy, contemplative expression.

"What's wrong?" He questions, taking a sip of some more tea and groaning abruptly when his gaze turns dizzy. He presses a finger to his head, feeling how it pounds beneath his fingertips, and he lets out a small sigh, looking to see his sister watching him with worried eyes.

"Oh- it's nothing," she decides, "don't worry about it," but the way she says it makes Kyungsoo sure that it isn't just nothing. "Would you like anything else? Aren't you hungry, or thirsty, or-"

"Eun-Seo," Kyungsoo interrupts, staring at her curiously. "What is it?" He repeats, and she only hesitates for a moment, smile still firmly in place, before letting out a low, defeated sigh.

"I'm sorry, it's just," she starts, "I have class, and I have to go, but I don't want to leave you, and I'm not going, and-"

"Eun-Seo," Kyungsoo interrupts once more, sending her as hard a look as he can muster in his state. "You're going," he insists, and Eun-Seo squints her eyes.

"No, I'm not," she says, "I'm not leaving you alone Kyungsoo, especially not after-"

And even though she catches herself in time, they both know what she had been about to say. Kyungsoo blinks rapidly, a newfound resolve in his eyes.

"No, Eun-Seo," he reiterates.

"Kyungsoo, I'm not going to-"

"Yes, yes you are."

"No, no I'm not-"

But it's then that the doorbell rings, a shrilling but momentary buzz, tentative, as if the person behind the door isn't sure that they reserve the right to intrude, and both of their mouths fall shut. Kyungsoo frowns from his place at the sofa, darting his gaze to the hallway. His sister raises a brow.

"I'll go," she says, like she knows Kyungsoo had just been about to get up, forgetting Yixing's words from the night before, the habit instilled into his bones. "Stay."

Kyungsoo wants to squawk at the unfettered command, but his sister is already halfway across the room before he finds the resolve to be insulted, and his mouth falls shut into a disgruntled frown. 

He wonders who it is. They aren't expecting anyone, and he knows for certain that it won't be either of his parents coming home to check on him, far too busy with their own respective work schedules; door-to-door advertisers don't come at this time; post men, with parcels too big to fit into a letter box, have no orders to honour. Kyungsoo's drawn a blank, and he leans forward so he can hear what happens. 

Eun-Seo disappears into the hallway to open the front door, and Kyungsoo curls up further into his blanket, like a badger in the hut of a burrow, listening attentively as the rush of the wind from outside plays steamy tunes in his ears.

Whoever is at the door must be a surprise, if the way a short, dragging moment of silence befalls before Eun-Seo's voice finally sounds from the hallway.

They speak in a soft, polite tone - the person at the door - a wash of words indiscernible from where Kyungsoo is sat. Something in it sounds familiar, like a memory of a warm day buried in a child's mind, and he can't help the way he inches forward in his position, hooked in like a fish to bait, trying desperately to catch a snippet of clearer conversation between the stranger and his sister. He almost whines aloud when the voices are still too muffled for him to properly gage against the wind from the open door, a hush swept over by a burst of lively air, and after futile ear-perking as a conversation sparks between the two, he sinks back into the sofa in a silent ball of frustration. 

It maybe takes a minute, perhaps even more to Kyungsoo's curious mind, before Eun-Seo's voice is finally audible enough to comb through with clarity, and it comes with the shutting of the front door.

"You can just leave your shoes here," Kyungsoo hears her say, and then she finally reappears a few moments later in the living room door space, the expression on her face positively gleeful. Kyungsoo blinks rapidly at her, hearing the rustle of movement from the hallway she is standing in front of, and before he can even begin to ask why she's smiling so creepily, the person in the hallway speaks once more.

And Kyungsoo freezes. His already large eyes widen, a soft, almost-inaudible gasp spilling from his parted lips, and the stunned, wild sort of look he sends his sister's way makes her lips stretch even further. 

This time, without any other sources of noise to quench the sound of their voice, he has instantly recognised it, and before he can really take in what that truly means, his sister finally moves forward into the room, and the person who walks in behind her shows there self. 

Kyungsoo hasn't even the time to react for how swiftly the new arrival enters and catches his eye without so much as a glance elsewhere, like the only thing they see is Kyungsoo in his dishevelled state, blanket wrapped around his form and hair stuck up at all ends. They must meet gazes for a full few seconds, before Kyungsoo abruptly jolts up from where he is slumped, the gravity of the situation finally striking him square in the face, but it still takes him a good few seconds more to form any words.

"Jongin?" Kyungsoo breathes, though it's more of a high-pitched chirp even to his own ears. His gaze, startled and accusatory, darts to his sister's cat-like grin, and then back.

"Kyungsoo," Jongin greets, smiling that gentle smile, his eyes absorbing Kyungsoo's imperfect state in a sharply worried matter. "How are you?"

Kyungsoo opens his mouth, still aghast by the circumstances he has found himself in, and it feels like a ball of wool has situated itself in the back of his throat for how hard it is to speak all of a sudden.

"I-I'm fine, I-" he stutters, trailing off to swallow. "I mean, why- um, how are you here?"

To give him credit, Jongin's expression instantly turns sheepish at the question. He scratches at the back of his neck, the bag in his hand still securely upright, and- is that a blush?

"I, err..." he starts, stumbling over his words as Kyungsoo stares on, lips parted and eyes widely expectant. "I asked Taemin. He actually wanted to come over as well, but he still has lessons... Is- is this weird? I should have told you first. I should g-"

"No!" Kyungsoo interrupts, his mouth snapping shut when he realises how loud he had spoken. A fast, embarrassed flush fills his cheeks, and he pointedly ignores his sister's smarmy expression as he goes on. "It's okay, I just- I wasn't really expecting anyone..."

A silence falls once more, Kyungsoo's words trailing into nothingness, and Jongin's smile stretches tentatively. He brings his arm up, stealing Kyungsoo's gaze towards the bag in his hand.

"I made chicken soup?" He offers, and it's so unfairly, so unexpectedly, cute - the way he his head to the side and his eyes shine like an expectant puppy's.

Kyungsoo blinks rapidly, and his mouth forms around an answer, and he tries to ignore the way his heart has suddenly sped up because no, he refuses to deal with that right now. 

"I can take it to the kitchen and heat it up," his sister offers when Kyungsoo doesn't say anything, but before Jongin can respond she's already taken the bag from his grasp and wandered to the kitchen, shooting a suggestive eyebrow wiggle Kyungsoo's way as she goes.

Nope, homicide is not legal, Kyungsoo reminds himself, but he doesn't even have the time to shoot his sister evils before he's left alone with Jongin, and that's suddenly at the forefront of his mind.

A short, calculative sort of silence follows, one where Jongin's gaze doesn't waver from Kyungsoo's form for even a second. Kyungsoo nibbles unsurely at his inner cheek, curling further into his blanket.

"You- um," Kyungsoo stutters, moving back so he takes up less of the sofa, "you can sit down. If you'd like."

He feels, rather than sees, how Jongin slowly makes his way over to where he is sat and settles down next to him with a silently imploring expression on his face.

Kyungsoo presses his feet to the ground, peeking at Jongin from the corner of his eyes, and the other seems to jolt out of his thoughts as soon as he sees Kyungsoo looking.

"Is everything okay?" Jongin asks eventually, such a simple question. Kyungsoo blinks rapidly, hands coiling over his kneecaps.

"Everything- yeah" he swallows, "everything’s okay, I just... have a cold," he expands, even if he knows that Jongin is enquiring about more than just his physical state. Thankfully, Jongin doesn't ask any further questions, even if it's clear he wants to, and he changes the topic instead.

"Are you reading something?" Jongin questions, seeing the edge of the book peeking out from the burrows of Kyungsoo's blanket.

"Ah," Kyungsoo says, pulling the book out and showing Jongin the cover. "Re-reading," he provides, staring at the cover and not at the way Jongin's eyes are fixed on him. "It's a really good book. Have you read it?"

Only when he looks up, an excited glint in his eyes, he sees how Jongin turns his head away a split second too late, giving him away, and the motion startles a soft sort of laugh sound in his throat. Jongin's head whips back around, eyes blinking rapidly, and Kyungsoo shakes his head to stop the laughter, except doing that makes the room spin and he lets out a small whine of discomfort, hands coming to his head.

"Are you okay?" Jongin asks, and before Kyungsoo can respond he's pressed his hands over Kyungsoo's own, a sudden, encompassing warmth that makes Kyungsoo's eyes open fast, widening at the unexpected proximity. "Does your head hurt?"

Kyungsoo freezes for a long, dragging second, and then he seems to realise what's happening and he moves his head back, making Jongin's hands fall.

"I-I-I'm okay," he says, cursing the embarrassing stutter. 

Luckily for him, Eun-Seo comes back at that moment, drawing both of their attentions towards her. In her hand is a bowl of steaming soup, and in her other is a bright green post-it note with writing on it, and the expression on her face is absolutely -eating as she regards the two on the sofa. 

"Oh, wait!" Jongin calls before Eun-Seo can even speak, darting up and moving towards her as if to try to snatch the post-it from her hands, but she only laughs and moves out of reach.

"This is cute," Eun-Seo says, and is that- does Jongin look flustered? "Here, Kyungsoo-"

"Oh my god," Jongin interrupts, and, oh, he's definitely flustered, "can I-umm, your bathroom?"

Eun-Seo smiles as she gives direction, and Kyungsoo watches on in confusion, eyes trailing after him in mild and muted disbelief as he leaves through the hallway. Before Kyungsoo can question, his sister places the bowl on the table and then drapes herself over the sofa, waving the post-it in front of Kyungsoo's face.

"For you," she coos, and Kyungsoo hesitantly reaches out for it, sending Eun-Seo one last, cautious look before reading the words written on the little slip of paper, and- oh.

Kyungsoo, 

Yixing told me you might be ill (I swear that man has a sixth sense). I hope this chicken soup makes you feel better - it's about the only thing I can make >.< If it tastes terrible, I won't be offended if you don't eat it!

Jongin 

Kyungsoo doesn't realise he's smiling so wide until Eun-Seo pokes at his puffed out cheeks, and he clears his throat when he sees the teasing glint to her eyes. 

"No." Kyungsoo warns when his sister opens to say something, and she pouts at him for a few seconds, making puppy noises, before he concedes. "Okay, fine, say what you want to say just-"

"If he's going to defile you, you need to tell me now-"

"What?!"

"-because I can so be gone for longer than an hour if that suits you."

"OHMYGOD," Kyungsoo shrieks, hiding his face in his hands, "you are kidding, you are so kidding, please be kidding-"

"Of course I'm kidding," Eun-Seo chuckles, highly amused by the situation, "but he is very nicely put together, isn't he?"

Kyungsoo doesn't grant that an answer, cheeks only blooming an impossibly dark shade of red that his sister laughs at hysterically. 

When her laugh dies down, however, and it's quiet between them, her demeanour abruptly changes into something serious.

"Kyungsoo," she says, and Kyungsoo stares back at her suddenly unsure, trying not to avert his gaze. "I really do have to leave right now," she reiterates as before, shooting a quick glance towards her watch. "Do you... Kyungsoo, do you trust this person? He's definitely a friend, yes?"

Kyungsoo lets the words sink in, contemplating them in his mind. Jongin... Jongin is...

"He's a friend," Kyungsoo assures, and it doesn't taste wrong to him, saying the words aloud. "He's- he's also someone I trust." And he only really realises the truth in that after he's spoken, such a resonating, but simple statement, but such a rare one too, one that Kyungsoo could only use for a few people if someone asked him to make a list. "I haven't- I mean, we haven't been for long," Kyungsoo goes on, the words spilling from his lips with ease, "but, I really do trust him. I-I don't think he'd do anything to purposefully hurt me."

And it's as these words sink in that Jongin's footsteps sound once more, steadfastly approaching. 

Eun-Seo looks at him for one last second, gaze trailing over his face, and she whispers, "Okay." just as Jongin turns back into the room.

"I'm leaving then," she announces, gathering her bag from the table. She approaches the hallway, shooting Kyungsoo a smile. "Look after him," she directs to Jongin, a serious undertone to her light-hearted words. 

Jongin nods his head firmly, looking so intent on doing just that that Kyungsoo's breath comes out as a stutter, and his sister seems assured enough to smile back at Jongin.

"I'll be back in an hour," she says, and then she's off into the hallway, and Jongin and Kyungsoo listen as the front door opens and closes behind her, her departure leaving a resolute silence in the living room. 

Neither of them move for a moment, both staring at each other through discreetly darting eyes and looks when they think the other won't notice. Kyungsoo nibbles at his upper lip, thinking of something to say, and it's as he's glancing about that the green post-it in his hand catches his attention.

"Ah," he says, breaking the silence as a smile stretches across his face. Jongin looks his way, expression twisting like he thinks Kyungsoo might be in pain, but then Kyungsoo raises his hand and he realises that Kyungsoo is silently laughing. 

"Oh- err- yeah, I- you can throw that-" Jongin speaks quickly, moving forward and reaching a hand out to pluck the post-it from Kyungsoo's fingers, but Kyungsoo pulls away at the last minute.

"I don't want to," he says, and when Jongin reaches out again, he doesn't hesitate to open up the cover of his book and stick the post-it firmly into the page there, closing it quickly after so Jongin can't snatch it away. 

Jongin sends Kyungsoo a pained sort of look, and Kyungsoo laughs.

"Come on, sit down," he says, and Jongin does, gaze still drawn to that book, so much so that Kyungsoo hides it behind himself with squinty eyes. 

"Don't you need anything else?" Jongin asks eventually, seeming to give up on his pursuit to retrieve the post-it as he watches Kyungsoo reaching for the chicken soup, and hold it close to himself.

"No, it's okay, my sister just worries too much," he says, swirling the soup with his spoon. "You really made this?" He questions, glancing up at Jongin through his lashes.

Jongin scratches at the back of his neck, a little sheepish, a lot modest. "Yeah, but if you don't like it, don't-"

"-eat it. Yeah, you said," Kyungsoo interrupts, smiling again. 

Another silence falls, this one shorter than any of the others, and then-

"20 questions?" Jongin suggests, and Kyungsoo's lips stretch upwards.

 

---

 

Kyungsoo hadn't realised how much he didn't know about Jongin until today. 

They talk for so long, a swift and steady exchange of mundane family backgrounds and pink-cheeked recounts of old day fads, Kyungsoo's soup completely finished (he didn't not like it) and bowl set on the table to the side. 

Jongin has no siblings, but he's always envisaged the idea of a little sister he could coddle and be over-protective of like in the dramas. When he was six, he got slapped by a chicken ("I only wanted to feed it!" Jongin exclaims when Kyungsoo bursts into an immediate peal of laughter), and when he was nine, he split his pants during a ballet performance at his school.

Jongin has three puppies, all of which he adores, and the way his smile stretches wide when he shows Kyungsoo dozens of pictures from his phone is enough jurisdiction on that matter. Kyungsoo laughs at the picture of Jongin in a dog-onesie cuddling with all three of his adorably confused puppies, and when that laugh turns into a steady stream of coughs, Jongin makes him honey green tea and fusses over him for a full ten minutes before the tales ensue.

Jongin also talks of the dreams he has, and the dreams he used to have. He talks of dance, and how he'd always wanted to pursue it, and Kyungsoo stares at the way his eyes light up with a fiery influx of passion. He talks too of his short-term wishes to be an idol, take the stage and stalk the career he has always pertained to hold such fearlessly compassionate talent, (stardom lights and dyed-hair aside) and then - just as suddenly - he talks of how discovering his uality had that dream trembling in the shadowed cabinet of his mind, the what I could do if I liked women. He blinks the dream away with his tears, laughing and diverting to weave the sadness away, and it's so brutally unguarded, the way he talks, so unwaveringly firm, so easily interchangeable with Kyungsoo's own thoughts and feelings, that Kyungsoo spills his own story right back. 

Kyungsoo tells first of his older sister, and her comfortable temperament that makes him feel safe. He talks of the times she has helped him, and the times they've spent on light-hearted, reckless, sibling mischief, pretending not to see the way Jongin's eyes flash with ill-contained curiosity at the Kyungsoo he doesn't yet know. Jongin laughs at the time an eight-year-old Kyungsoo walked around in a Pororo get-up for two weeks following Halloween, reluctant to let the persona slip through his fingers after only a single night's play. They veer so naturally off-track here, Jongin asking him about his favourite character, and there's a heated debate over Crong or Pororo's superiority over the pack, Kyungsoo shoving penguin facts at Jongin's face like lyrics from a song until Jongin finally concedes with a mock-affronted eye-glare. 

Kyungsoo talks about wanting to be a singer, and how much music had dominated his life in his younger years. He reminisces times of Shin Sung Woo and lazily classic rock songs that filled countless song journals up in their time. Jongin asks, so soft and slow, if Kyungsoo can show him some of his songs sometime, and Kyungsoo's expression tightens so quickly that he diverts from the subject before the atmosphere can even begin to settle. 

Kyungsoo recovers, but - then again - he doesn't, he has never, and next he tells Jongin of his wishes to perform on Broadway before he learnt of his crippling stage fright. Even if his love for singing never died, and the deep, endearing tone to his singing voice never faded, his dream expanded like a safeguard should, and Jongin smiles at him when he starts talking of the way that piecing together the words that make songs so beautiful felt even better than singing songs which he couldn't completely, personally hold meaning for.

And when Jongin wonders as to why that dream stopped, picking up on the subtle drops of past tense slipped into his story recount, Kyungsoo only hesitates for a single second before telling him.

"A couple of months after everyone found out I was- am - after everyone found out I am gay," he corrects, speaking quickly so his thoughts don't dwell, "someone broke into my locker. Messed some stuff up. Pasted these... Words, and pictures, all over my books." He tells, even as he flinches at the memory.

He recalls everything so vividly from that day. At the time, he was still stuck in silence, unsure of things and how he was supposed to carry himself around a school where he had suddenly never felt more unwelcome. When he'd opened his locker, he hadn't been prepared for what had been there. Words, yes, malicious words had been spoken to him, but this was something else, something meaner and vulgar and harsh, something made to hurt.

He'd teared up back then, and he tears up now as he recounts the story, sniffles from his runny nose gently intensifying as he gathers the words to speak.

"The pictures were," he fidgets, playing with the tattered ends of his trousers, "... Inappropriate," is all he offers, but he knows Jongin gets it by the way the other's fists clench, unclench, clench tighter from his peripheral vision. "I was too struck by them to realise my song book was missing, and I only really did when the pages were plastered all over school the next day."

And the words come so casually now, just like any story flows when time has allowed the wound to heal, but Kyungsoo still remembers. He remembers walking, head hung low, down school corridors he'd engraved into memory, heading the path to the studios like a reflexive course of motion, and he remembers freezing when a saccharine coo of one of his song lyrics infiltrates through the air and into his head. He remembers looking up, and paling tenfold, not at the chuckles surrounding him, or the jeers and mocks his ears had already grown accustomed to, but at a sheet of his song book ripped by the seam and pasted on the studio's entrance foyer like a prize. So familiar, it had once been, so changed in the circumstance. He remembers spending two hours gathering each page up, tears spilling hot and harsh down his cheeks, and he remembers feeling so helpless, and so exhausted, remembers feeling ashamed of what he loved, and a solid wall of someone's chest-

But no, he doesn't remember that, he's never remembered that, and it's only when he hears Jongin hushing softly into his ears now that he realises this is happening in present day, and- and when had he started crying?

He tries to say something, tries to maybe apologise and pull back because God he could only imagine the mess of tears and snot that will seep and spread through the fabric of Jongin's shirt if he lingers longer, (yet another stamp of weakness to embed into his collection), but nothing comes out. And, in his exhaustion, in his mellow, unguarded state of illness, all he can think of is that it feels. so. damn. good. being looked after. Feels so safe and warm to not be alone this time, to not be left to drown in thoughts of I wish I was different, I wish people liked who I was, and too, sometimes, when everything hurt too much to handle, I wish I were dead.

So Kyungsoo cries, and he cries until he's run out of tears to dispel, and he cries as if he might never get the chance to again, and he memorises the feel of Jongin around him: memorises a subtle, soapy musk when he ticks his head up slightly and catches the scent from Jongin's neck; a broad and firm chest, and gentle of fingers through his hair; memorises Jongin, and his warmth, and God it makes him tear up all over again, to have someone new to hold him, someone wanting. 

And when he's done, and only hiccups of lost tears burst, brash and uncanny, from the back of his throat, and he tries, unhurriedly, to ease away, he startles when Jongin only tugs him even closer, makes Kyungsoo peddle forward by his knees a few paces and squawk silently at the sudden movement.

"Jongin-" Kyungsoo starts to chastise, but the boy almost instantly hushes him once more, a shaky whisper of a sound that makes Kyungsoo still in place.

"Just-just stay here," Jongin insists, and his voice is so tarnished, quaking like he's crying too, and oh, oh, is Jongin crying? 

"Jong-" Kyungsoo starts again, but-

"Please. Just- one second." And the way Jongin's twined fingers in his hair press the slightest bit tighter, desperate, soft enough to pull away from but firm enough for Kyungsoo to know that that isn't what Jongin wants, is enough for Kyungsoo. 

He relaxes, pliant and docile in Jongin's hold, curling into the solidarity of relationship, friendship, Kyungsoo-doesn't-know-what-ship. A hush settles over them, Kyungsoo's sniffles dying down, Jongin's tears disappearing into his cheeks as time passes. Jongin holds him, and Kyungsoo lets him, and Kyungsoo can't say how long they stay that way for (and that's becoming a strange Jongin symptom - losing his grasp on time). All he knows is that for however long he lets Jongin be his anchor (and he be Jongin's in return) he has not felt calmer, nor safer, nor more assured than he feels now. Time slips away when he's with Jongin, and it's scary, of course, terrifying to even fathom after years of wasting away alone, but it's so easy to enjoy in the moment, and so easy to relax with.

Eventually, when his face is too garishly wet with tears and the like, Kyungsoo twists his head and moves forward to reach for the tissue box behind Jongin's head. Jongin, tranquil with the stillness, jolts back at the movement, and Kyungsoo lets his head follow, hiding his mess of a face against the pool of moisture on the elder's shirt with an embarrassed, exhale of breath. His hand brushes against the tissue box, and he moves forward again, not comprehending how he's clambered onto Jongin's lap to get there, not hearing the surprised hush of air slip, inadvertent, from Jongin's lips. Curled into the crooks of Jongin's body, he plucks a tissue and leans back in position, still not noting, not acknowledging, the tension gripping the boy beneath him into resolute stillness. He ducks his head, wiping his tears and nose and cheeks with sharp dabbing motions, cringing at thoughts of how red and buggy his eyes will inevitably look when he pulls back, how much of a wreck he will appear to be (and for a boy who hates to show himself as weak, Kyungsoo is awfully apt at feeling as such). 

It's only when he's curled the tissue into his fist, eyes cleared enough for him to see, that he looks down and observes the way his own jogging-bottom-clad thighs bracket around Jongin's legs, the fabric of his school slacks, and it takes him a moment after that to perk up and realise the position he is in.

"Oh, I-!" Kyungsoo startles, a breathless fluster of a sound, but when he tries to edge back, a harried, sharp sort of movement, Jongin steadies him with hands splayed over his lower back and steals his breath with how he tugs him securely forward, stopping him from toppling into the table behind in a sharp, anchored force of movement.

Kyungsoo's hands fall naturally on Jongin's shoulders, both coiled in tight fists, and, oh, oh. Jongin is so potent from here, so beguiling, an artist's portrait magnified into something tangible: the untouchable boy, right beneath Kyungsoo's fingertips. There's so much to see, so much to take in - the tautness of his arms, the cut to his jaw, but then, what draws Kyungsoo in most: the skin on his neck, a dark expanse against Kyungsoo's own pale fingers, taut like the cut of his jaw, long when he gulps and his Adam's apple bobs down his throat.

It's so warm like this, so close and near and touching; so exclusively private, mutual divulge into each other's space. It makes sense, suddenly, why this position has such a fierce stigma of intimacy. 

Kyungsoo's face heats, and he peeks at Jongin with cautious eyes, red, buggy, cried-out eyes, and he really shouldn't be allowed to flutter when he sees Jongin already staring back. 

Jongin meets his gaze, stern, zealous, unnervingly fierce with emotion, and Kyungsoo can't turn his head anymore - such a simple motion it had once been, averting his eyes towards the ground -, his words clogging hard in his throat, so unchangeable and rough and coarse a feeling he has ever experienced. So, so, all-consuming, how they stare, unwaveringly, into the world's indented into each other's eyes, so individual, and abundant. Kyungsoo wants to break the spell, the charm which has pealed over the still atmosphere and pooled like a sheath over their heads, but he is gripped by a want to wait this moment out.

What is this...?, Kyungsoo thinks curiously, and his heart is thundering.

And then he remembers why Jongin's even there in the first place, why they've even been left alone together to begin; just a sniff, a clear of his throat, and the daze in Jongin's eyes blinks itself away.

"Your-" Jongin starts, but his voice comes out a tone deeper than usual - a notable, impactful sort of change that neither boy misses (if the pulse of heat in Kyungsoo's cheeks and the subtle dust of pink over Jongin's own is anything to go by). Kyungsoo averts his gaze and Jongin clears his throat awfully loud, the sound as he swallows after intensified in the resolute stillness, and why am I still on his lap?! Kyungsoo thinks to himself, though he, even now, doesn't make the move to change their position. 

"Kyungsoo, your leg," Jongin tries again after a moment, glancing at Kyungsoo and then down at his leg, where his cast is still in place, even if his crutches aren't needed any longer. Kyungsoo looks down too, as if only just realising its there, and Yixing's words from last night, to be careful with his leg for the time being, have been thrown completely out the window.

That realisation makes Kyungsoo blanch in embarrassment, and he'll never know why, instead of pulling back, he thinks it makes more sense to do something else.

Because when he guides Jongin forward, the boy too tensely curious to fight back, and he twists Jongin's torso around to edge the boy into the middle of the sofa, it surely can't be easier than stepping back and off of him, and stretching his leg out behind the boy to make things easier, too, that surely can't be as comfortable as settling in his afore position. 

That's what Kyungsoo does anyway, one leg bent, the other stretched for his caster up length, both bracketed around Jongin, both straddling Jongin, and what is Kyungsoo doing?

Whatever that had been, or whatever it meant, Jongin doesn't take a second to mention it. Instead, he reaches over and plucks a tissue from the box beside him, moving up, swiftly, pressing against missed-moisture on Kyungsoo's face with soft, gentle movements. Kyungsoo's dark lashes flutter, head inching back naturally until Jongin coaxes him forward again with a meek drag, tissue dancing along his jaw to erase the trails of tears.

"Can't even clean your own face right," he teases, even though Kyungsoo can still see whispers of tears on his own cheeks, silent tears he hadn't heard before. It gives him the sudden, preposterous urge to reach for a tissue and return the favour himself, but he only clasps his hands together and pushes the idea away.

"It wasn't wet..." Kyungsoo mutters in childish, disgruntled justification, and Jongin lets out a chuckle filled with mirth. Before Kyungsoo can stop him, Jongin smears his tongue over an untouched part of the tissue and dabs it over the fullness of Kyungsoo's cheeks. 

Kyungsoo's eyes widen comically, disbelieving. Jongin's smile sings mischief. A stunned, tense, moment of silence, and then-

"Be ready to die, Kim," Kyungsoo promises, and Jongin erupts into exaggerated shrieks of horror when Kyungsoo leans forward and wipes the wetness on his cheek against Jongin's own, fingers trailing down and under Jongin's arms when the taller boy tries to counterattack.

"No, no, no!" Jongin screams when Kyungsoo starts to tickle, and Kyungsoo only cackles happily when the taller boy starts writhing from laughter, breathless pleas spilling from his lips.

"Say you're sorry, say you're sorry," Kyungsoo coos, cheeks burning with exertion when Jongin only keeps laughing beneath him.

"Never!" The boy rejects, and Kyungsoo shrieks aloud when Jongin's own fingers attack his sides ("no, no, no, no, no Jongin- wait!") and he writhes with laughter, trying futilely to dodge Jongin's hands even as his own tickling weakens.

"Jongin-!" Kyungsoo calls breathlessly for him to stop, and with how loud and active the two on the sofa have become from the sudden war of tickles, neither of them hears the sound of the front door opening, nor notices when Eun-Seo enters the room at the scene, her cautious expression transforming into one of benign, second-hand amusement.

"Well," she says, and it's either her obnoxiously light tone, or her clear aim to be heard, that makes both boys halt their movements and turn towards the hall opening where Eun-Seo is stood, giggles ebbing into silence, their chests heaving with the afore-exertion. "This was not what I was expecting," she comments, walking further into the room and trailing a lasting, curious gaze at them and the position they're in. Kyungsoo immediately presses off the boy to the other end of the couch, Jongin's hands falling from Kyungsoo's hips and clasping tightly together in his lap. He can practically feel circles of red burning high in his cheeks, a hue of pink spreading down his neck, and by how Jongin's head is ducked and pointedly out of view of Kyungsoo's is enough for Kyungsoo to know the other must be feeling just as embarrassed. 

"You know," Eun-Seo goes on, basking in the cutely awkward atmosphere that has sparked between her brother and his hot-classmate upon her arrival, "before I came in here, it really sounded like you two could have been fu-"

"Hey, Eun-Seo!" Kyungsoo shrieks, jumping up from where he is sat, "I'm going to go get some more honey tea!" He grabs the mug, ignoring how it still has a fair amount of liquid inside, and stumbles hurriedly out of the room, pointedly averting his gaze from the general vicinity of where Jongin is sat, internally planning ways to kill his sister once the boy has left. 

When he reaches the kitchen, he takes a deep, calming breath of air, hand crushing against his face in mortification. It takes him a long moment to compose himself, inhaling and exhaling deeply through his nose. For however long he takes, his focus drifts away, and when his sister suddenly appears behind him, making him jump in surprise, he has to hold in a string of expletives. 

"Eun-Seo-" he deadpans, about to go on a rant about proper conversational etiquette around innocent, unprepared human beings, but before he can get a sentence out his sister interrupts-

"So, I guess he didn't defile you?"

Kyungsoo almost faints. 

 

-

 

A/N

 

Eun-Seo as professional kaisoo shipper

Lol

My first exam is Wednesday omf skdkskdks

I wanted to update now because otherwise my update would be in another month >.< 

Hope you liked it!!!! ^~^