22. WHY WE WERE BORN WITH HANDS

(this chapter got super long so I split it in two – good news is, my next update after this will be a lot quicker than usual ^^)

In this session, Kyungsoo watches Jongin.

The idea that Kyungsoo’s attraction to Jongin could be mutual is one that has never before crossed Kyungsoo’s mind. The concept, even now, seems so preposterous – why, how, could someone like Jongin like someone like him; plain, so-so Kyungsoo. The maths simply did not make sense. Jongin could, theoretically, have anyone he wanted - it made no sense that he’d want Kyungsoo from such a large share of people. Chanyeol must’ve been mistaken, or, perhaps, he’d been joking; Jongin can’t possibly be jealous because of Kyungsoo.

These are the thoughts that steal through him over and over as people in the support group speak and share around him. Why me?

In lieu of an answer, his mind conjures up a memory, one of Tao casting speculative stares between Kyungsoo and Jongin upon the latter’s return to the group. Why you? He’d said, almost hummed he had been so shrewd in his analysis.

That same question, Kyungsoo thinks. What am I- no, what is everyone trying to get at?

The questioning is so severe that Kyungsoo finds himself explaining away the signs that he’d ordinarily, as an onlooker, revel in; Kyungsoo, in his free time, loves following love - at school, he spies on the fleeting glances, the hand holds, the bear hugs, the sweet pecks. He’s seen first loves bloom, witnessed the sad beauty of soundless unrequited, seen rejection and acceptance, seen jealousy and shy crushes. He’s always been the type to revel in the concept of it, even if it has always been something he himself fears and frets about experiencing.

That might also explain why the things he could recognise in others before appear to him so different now he is truly involved in this story. If Jongin might stare a little too hard at Chanyeol in the session, and dart eyes a little too often at Kyungsoo, Kyungsoo chalks it down - not to the green monster, but - to curiosity; entirely believable an explanation when Chanyeol and Kyungsoo, before now, have never truly interacted one-to-one. Kyungsoo reasons, I would be curious too, staring at the fire in Jongin’s eyes as he meets Chanyeol’s smiles and decidedly ignoring the pleased, knowing pound of his heart.

“So,” Yixing’s voice starts, relieving Kyungsoo of his thoughts, of the burning at the side of his face as Jongin looks away from him. “How has everyone been this week?”

Friday - progress day.

Per-automatic, Kyungsoo’s thoughts and musings of Jongin drop, and he thinks instead of what brought him here to begin with: the leader, what he did this afternoon, what he’d seen and what it had truly meant.

If following the boy uncovered only one thing, it would be that Kyungsoo is now indisputably sure that there is something about the leader he doesn’t know, something which, alone, can explain the change from a bright, jovial smile for a little old lady on a bus to a cold, almost ever-present sneer in the midst of school hallways. Kyungsoo thinks back, tries to remember whether or not the change happened before he’d known the leader or whilst, but remembering a time before the bullying is both emotionally and practically difficult; so much of that time is now a jumble whenever Kyungsoo tries to recall it, like a photo distorted by motion blur - sharper focus being the answer, the fuzzy outlines a show of time, and how very quickly yet mundanely it had seemed to pass in those few years.

But if there’s one thing he assuredly realises when rifling through his old memories it is that, up until everyone in school learnt about his uality, he has no recollection of the leader at all.

Was he in school before then? Was he a bully? And then, was I the start of the bullying?

It’s something Kyungsoo has never wondered about before, nor recalled in enough detail. Though the leader bullies him, he does not ignore others within school grounds, even if just to spare a moment of snarky malice, but it has never before struck Kyungsoo that he may have been the first to see that signature cold sneer. Had he seriously witnessed a new, evolving hostility for all those years and wrongly assumed that it was aged, that the leader’s problems had been problems before Kyungsoo had seen them appear?

And there it is, once more - there’s that question, creeping up on him when he least expects it. Why me?

“Kyungsoo?” Yixing calls, breaking him from his stupor of thoughts. “Anything to share this week?”

This day, progress day, is when the sessions are most like what they are depicted as in books and movies, and most like what Kyungsoo had been expecting on his very first day - with minor but key differences.

Rather than the condescending soothe that Kyungsoo imagines many other support group leaders may display in their voice, Yixing’s tone stays same but open, unhurried and depressurising. He asks questions like he neither expects an answer, nor is truly asking for one; simply that he’s putting the suggestion out there, as if he’s laying out a deck of cards and then just, “here, it’s there, shuffle them if you want - I suppose.” Along with this, there isn’t an order for people to speak; people speak without being asked to, share when they want to, except on the occasions where Yixing thinks someone has something to say but they haven’t themselves recognised such a want.

Like now.

Does Kyungsoo have something to say?

“I think...” Kyungsoo starts a little unsurely, but as he raises his head and looks around at all the other members of the group, he realises that there are very few people in the world he trusts more. “I think that my bully has a story.”

Kyungsoo feels, automatically, how Jongin’s head whips to him, the only one properly acquainted enough with the leader to understand the gravity of such a suggestion. It stings him - how when Kyungsoo meets Jongin’s gaze, there is such a potent, unfaltering disbelief in his eyes, like the mere concept is preposterous, and he feels momentarily foolish, more so than if Jongin had named him so aloud.

“You mean the dickhead who tried to-“ Kris starts to say, venom in his tone, but a hand to his knee from Tao has the words fizzling out instantly, the flame punctured between two fingers.

“He didn’t try to... do that,” Kyungsoo assures, thinking back to what the other had seen, at how angry he’d been. “I asked him.”

“You can speak to him like that?” This comes from, of all people, Luhan, who’s look is both perplexed and curious. His large doe eyes that Kyungsoo has only ever seen crinkled pre-, mid- and post- joke, appear soft and blank; there is something unexpectedly unsettling about seeing someone who’s always smiling stare at you with a gaze absent of mirth. “This Guy bullies you but you... have conversations?”

Spoken aloud, the notion seems impossible, and Kyungsoo scoffs to himself, wonders how he got to such a stage with a man who once fractured his leg and busted open his lip. “He’s not really... done much recently?”

And Kyungsoo only recognises the truth in that after he’s spoken it aloud - the leader and his cronies, whilst once a routine, a daily habit, have barely interacted with him in recent days. In return, Kyungsoo has started to walk past them without flinching or expecting anything. Thinking of the leader today, he realises, no longer brings him fear, but evokes within him a curiosity.

“What story can excuse his behaviour?” This is from Jongin, whose eyes are narrowed and jaw is set, and though Kyungsoo knows the anger in his gaze, though resting on him, is not meant for him, he has to look away. “He does such terrible things.”

“I wonder whose fault that is,” Kris mutters from across the room, though it is entirely audible and he doesn’t even hide the way he glares dangerously Jongin’s way.

“Kris-“ Yixing starts in warning, seeing the way Jongin’s eyes pinch like he’s about to respond, but Kyungsoo goes on before anything can progress.

“Did.” Kyungsoo corrects per-automatic, unthinking but assured. “He did such terrible things. And I just want to... understand him more? I’m sure that there’s something about him I don’t know.”

“How do you know that?” Luhan again, only as opposed to Jongin’s confusion, Luhan stares and inquires as if he’s somehow impressed.

“What?”

“How do you know that there’s something about him you don’t know?” He clarifies.

Kyungsoo blinks. “I don’t know for sure. Recently I just see it in the way he- the way he tries and... fails now, to hurt me. It’s like there’s something he wants to say but he doesn’t know how to put it. Like he wants to stop, like he’s gotten tired of it, but he’s been doing it so long he doesn’t know how.

”In any case, I like to believe and think that no one’s just born hating. I want to know what’s made him like this, and why he’s starting to stop now.” Kyungsoo speaks his thoughts aloud, eyes vacant and faraway. It is strange how mere months ago he had been so very afraid of even passing by the leader in the corridors, consumed by a fierce and unwavering fear he has not been able to shake for years. But these recent weeks have transformed Kyungsoo in more ways than he can even now understand; seeing the leader as a superior rival has long since changed to seeing him as a boy with a story.

Kyungsoo looks around now, and everything slows down as he stares at each of the members, at the openness to their faces and intentness to their gazes. This is a place of baring souls. Kyungsoo doesn’t think he’s ever spent so many hours of his life so unrestrained and openly himself, and he’s grown so much, more than he even knows, that it is hard now to think back on who he was before and believe that was once a part of him. But he knows he’s far from done yet, knows there are more inevitable obstacles in his life if he chooses happiness, but where before the thought of such obstacles felt like a firm deterrent, Kyungsoo thinks of them with a ferocious desire to be himself. I will fight you all.

“That’s, um... it?” Kyungsoo eventually says, time starting back up. Naturally, magnetised, he meets the eyes of Yixing’s, those soft, ever-understanding eyes. “But I think that,” he goes on, chewing his lips red as his heart swells in his chest-

“I’ll get answers soon.”

“Jongin couldn’t stop staring.”

That’s what Chanyeol swoops down and whispers delightedly into Kyungsoo’s ear as he’s stacking up his chair when the session is over. “He was so jealous! Did you notice?”

Kyungsoo had stopped noticing after a while - in fact, he hadn’t thought of Jongin’s ‘is it jealousy? Is it curiosity?’ situation for most of the latter half of the session. Now, however, that is all he is doing - that comment running through his head even as he finds himself trailing the others out of the centre. He can’t help but to slow his steps, one foot in front of the other in a walk almost drowsy, soft and unhurried, in nature. This is where his gaze falls, watching the seemingly unspectacular motion: left foot step, right foot step, left foot step, over and over.

His attention is only stolen from this repetition when he hears his name being called off to the side and startles a little at how Baekhyun appears swiftly there, steps turned slower to meet the speed of Kyungsoo’s own. Kyungsoo gives him an incredulous look which the other only responds to with a shrug and a smile, curved eyes pulling up and cheeks puffing out.

They walk together in silence for a while, the two of them trailing after the rest with synced up steps and a comfortable air settling between them. Oddly, it doesn’t feel strange - Kyungsoo realises that walking places with other people is becoming more of a custom than wandering alone, a phenomenon so opposing to the way he’s lived the past few years that Kyungsoo is both astonished and petrified at how swiftly he is inviting these changes in. In any case, walking alone with your thoughts, especially ones as nattering and endless as those which plague Kyungsoo now, feels far worse than sharing a silence with someone else; the sound of steps on pavement and gravel, synced and soft, and the subtle brush of arms against arms or hands against hands as you bundle about side by side - there is a strange sort of comfort in it.

“What’s bothering you?” Baekhyun suddenly asks, and a peculiar thing happens where Kyungsoo looks over to meet Baekhyun’s gaze and is abruptly reminded of Eun-Seo - those warm yet knowing eyes, and that specific glint only used at him. Kyungsoo’s heart feels like it’s twisting as he maps the similarity out in his head, understands the weight of it and how his heart soars with such an inexplicable form of joy.

“Am I that obvious?” Kyungsoo questions aloud, more to himself than to Baekhyun, but the other shakes his head no and Kyungsoo wonders how he could have known someone for such a short time and feel as if they’ve known him impossibly longer. Is this what friendship is? Sped up, harried, but indisputably tight-knit connections forming in the quiet, like bird sounds and heart pounds at every pause in conversation.

Is that also why Kyungsoo knows Baekhyun’s waiting for him to carry on speaking, can recognise it in the way his steps slow further, settling a new pace for new things to be shared (Kyungsoo didn’t even know he knew what that meant, didn’t know since when he’s been watching and learning Baekhyun’s mannerisms)?

Kyungsoo follows it, the two lingering to the point where those ahead have turned too many corners and become out of sight, and he breathes out.

“Do you...” Kyungsoo starts, pondering the phrasing before finally, resignedly, saying it simply. “Do you know what jealousy looks like?”

Unexpectedly, Baekhyun does not draw a quick connection - or perhaps, he draws the wrong connection a split second too quick and doesn’t realise what Kyungsoo means. Instead, he reacts strangely, almost flustered as he tenses by Kyungsoo’s side and the sync in their steps falters. Kyungsoo is just about to ask about it, worried, confused, but Baekhyun stutters our words in a rush.

“I-I’m sorry! I just - I didn’t mean to be jealous. I should’ve known you’d notice, I know, but seeing you with Chanyeol and like- I mean you must know I like him by now, so I knew it didn’t mean anything and I trust and care about you but I couldn’t help but get jealous and please don’t be mad because I thought I was hiding it well, I knew I shouldn’t have even felt that way and-“

“Woah!” Kyungsoo interrupts, pausing in place and holding hands up to halt Baekhyun, incredulous and unhelpingly amused. “What are you talking about Baek? You were jealous of me and Chanyeol?”

Baekhyun’s cheeks visibly redden as the notion is spoken aloud. “I-um- I saw him hug you this morning. Well, pull you close, I don’t know? I was just inside the centre and I heard your voice so I was going to come back and then I just- I saw you two together.” He finishes lamely, trying and failing to hide the downturn to his lips. Kyungsoo’s incredulous smile falters slightly; he wonders abruptly how long Baekhyun has been thinking of the exchange, fretting and warring with a jealousy he clearly doesn’t want to feel.

“Baek,” Kyungsoo starts softly, raising his hands and resting them on Baekhyun’s shoulders so the other looks up. “You don’t have to worry about that. You- what you saw was what Chanyeol was doing to try to make Jongin jealous,” he explains, smiling a little at the way Baekhyun’s eyes rapidly blink at the revelation and he releases a hushed, “oh,” as he understands.

Kyungsoo chuckles softly at the boy, more fond than he can put into words. “I didn’t realise you were jealous at all, Baek,” he says, feeling suddenly guilty for it, and then - “you must know he’s smitten for you, right?”

Baekhyun’s face, if it were possible, turns even redder. “I- I don’t know. I mean, I know at least that the way we act is too- too something to be an exclusively platonic relationship. I just- don’t know how much? Sometimes? At all? All the time really.” He sighs, turning a little and restarting their steps for Kyungsoo to follow. “What makes you think it?” Baekhyun asks, glancing Kyungsoo’s way expectantly.

Kyungsoo chuckles lightly, trying to find an answer other than-

“It’s... obvious?” He says in the end, unsure how else to pit it. “Really obvious. Like, so obvious that I knew from the first session when he went all droopy eyed and all ‘Baekhyun is a nightingale’,” Kyungsoo mimics, laughing manically when Baekhyun, flushed, shoves at him to stop. “Okay, okay, I’m just saying that if you need the most proof, it’s most obvious when he talks about you, Baek.” Kyungsoo says, thinking of Chanyeol’s soft descriptive words from earlier and picturing the look on his face. “His eyes just sort of... glaze over, and he gets this soft sort of smile on his face that I’ve never seen him use anywhere else.” He tries to sum it up, looking back to Baekhyun and smiling a little at the shy grin on his face as he finishes lamely with a, “it’s just obvious, Baek.”

Kyungsoo watches, amused, and sees how red spreads over and into Baekhyun’s cheeks. He mutters something unintelligible, a weak attempt at dispute perhaps, but the words fizzle out and he ends up lost in fond thought, a smile teasing at his lips and into the corners of his eyes. It makes Kyungsoo wonder suddenly what he looks like when he thinks of Jongin; would his features show such unashamed honesty as Baekhyun’s do, or would the show be softer, unnoticeable unless meticulously scrutinised? He thinks back now and realises abruptly that he’s never seriously thought of hiding the way he feels for Jongin. It hasn’t ever felt necessary, never taboo. Liking Jongin has been as natural as breathing, as natural as the smile currently adorned on Baekhyun’s face.

They reach the front entrance doors to the centre at last, alerted by a soft, greeting breeze that makes Kyungsoo huddle into his coat for warmth. The seasons are changing, and though this is sequential and expected, Kyungsoo cannot help but think of it as the world following along with him; something, today, has been quietly changing, and the world is showing its support in the only way it is able to: mimicry.

Kyungsoo smiles.

He turns to Baekhyun to bid him goodbye, knowing the boy walks in the opposite direction from past sessions’ observation, but is startled when a voice calls suddenly from behind.

“Can I walk with you?”

Kyungsoo and Baekhyun whip around at the same time and are faced with the image of a timid Jongin stood, unassuming, by the centre doors before a backdrop of red brick. His hands are twitching by his sides and his lips appear bitten-red, but there is no questioning who the request is aimed for as Jongin’s gaze rests firmly and intently upon Kyungsoo, such soundless fixation about his look that Kyungsoo needs a moment to just breathe.

“I- um-“ he starts, but is interrupted when Baekhyun leans forward, flashing him a toothy, square-shaped and entirely teasing smile that curves half-crescents into his eyes.

“I’ll catch up with you later then!” Baekhyun declares, bidding him a loud, flashy goodbye before, away from Jongin’s gaze, flashing a wink so quick Kyungsoo hasn’t the time to swear at him and sauntering off without so much as a glance back.

Kyungsoo’s gaze follows his retreating back a little helplessly for a moment, frazzled and no doubt pink in the face, and when he finally turns back to Jongin to respond he finds he can’t piece together his words.

But before Kyungsoo even has another moment to think about an answer, Jongin reaches forward and swiftly scoops his backpack from off his shoulder - an easy feat when Kyungsoo’s fluster has rendered him limbless, pliable like a wooden art sculpture or moulding clay.

“I’m gonna walk with you.” Jongin decides, declares, walking a little further forward so Kyungsoo is left gaping at his actions, a little red and a lot pleased as he belatedly rushes quickly to catch up with the taller’s speed.

Kyungsoo falls into step beside Jongin, heart racing loud in his chest and gut twisting and fluttering as he goes. He is so close like this; even if Kyungsoo can only take peeks at his side profile, they are walking with a much smaller, much more intimate distance between them than really needed, and the barely-there, soft brush of their shoulders from time to time makes Kyungsoo want to squeal into his hands. Such closeness also means that Kyungsoo cannot help but to wonder what it would feel like to close the distance even further, to walk with arms interlocked or hands intertwined, to be able to freely stare Jongin’s way and collect, to discover the hundreds of intricacies to Jongin’s face, a feat Kyungsoo has been aching for ever since he’d seen it up close just days before on his living room sofa.

Kyungsoo thinks about it now, about all the questions, the wonders, he has stored to ask Jongin, about all the answers he’s thought about and dreamed of receiving, of personally uncovering.

But there were so many things, too many to count. Kyungsoo hadn’t before realised how long he spends thinking of Jongin and pondering on all the things he wants to know. He rifles through them all now, haphazardly, sure, in the process, that he writes off things which should never deserve writing off, but he asks the question that he wants to know now.

“What way is your house?” he breathes out hastily, but it means, how far are you going for me? A follow-up - if it’s far, what does that mean? Is it straightforward, or complex- can anything be straightforward in situations akin to these? Kyungsoo wants to know so much, more than he’s ever wanted to learn about another person before.

“Does that matter?” Jongin responds, though when Kyungsoo looks his way and sees how keenly focused his gaze has turned, even if now drawn exclusively to dark gravel sidewalks and speckled with the orange of streetlights, he is certain Jongin already knows the answer.

“I think it does.” Kyungsoo says in the end, all his efforts in ensuring his own eyes stay fixed to Jongin.

Jongin, though he hesitates a second, feels those eyes and meets them; his expression is laced with something Kyungsoo recognises instantly to be bashfulness. “Not near yours,” He ripostes simply, “if that’s what you wanted to know.”

Kyungsoo blinks. It is what he wanted to know.

“That’s not what-“ he starts to say, but he stops, wonders why he’s trying to talk his way out of something he doesn’t mind being in, and finds something niggling in his stomach that he hadn’t noticed there before.

Is it fear? No, Kyungsoo knows fear, has breathed fear for years. Maybe it is a different kind, he thinks. Fear of feelings not being returned. A doubt.

But Kyungsoo doesn’t know what can make such a doubt disappear - apart, perhaps, from a plain confession. And even the thought of that makes his heart quake, body turning a little colder and fingers twitching by his side.

“Kyungsoo,” Jongin suddenly calls, a clear, quizzical sound, like he’s just remembered something important to say. Kyungsoo hums distractedly for Jongin to go on, his thoughts still eating at him with relentless verve, and his attention is only truly caught back when Jongin speaks his next words.

“Can I have your number?”

Kyungsoo almost trips over his own feet. “What?” He splutters out, unable to veil the surprise in his tone.

“Your phone number”, Jongin clarifies, casual, unapologetic, seemingly unaware that Kyungsoo’s heart feels as if it has just stopped. “We’re friends now. And friends normally have one another’s numbers, don’t they?” Jongin goes on, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Kyungsoo swallows, unable to respond straightaway, his once-buzzing head completely blank and heart pounding furiously at the ask. He doesn’t even remember the last time someone has asked for his number – his contact list is bare, practically non-existent, with only close family saved in it. Even if Jongin’s logic makes perfect sense, he can’t help but be a little lost, staring at Jongin almost vacantly, gaze scanning and gaging and with no clue how to respond.

“I-um-“ he splutters, “I-yeah, sure, okay.” He manages to get out, words a jumbled, almost incoherent mess, but Jongin must understand him anyhow for his smile immediately stretches at the affirmation, eyes crinkling into happy crescents.

“Great,” he says, taking out his phone and pulling up a new contact screen. “So..?” Jongin prods gently. “Your number?”

At least at this Kyungsoo gains back some level of conscious response, - “I- of course”- and he recites it slowly, each number succinct and clear. Shortly after, he feels his phone vibrate in his back pocket.

“Don’t go selling it now, I must protect my privacy,” Jongin instructs in faux seriousness, slipping his phone back into his blazer pocket.

A shocked huff of a laugh slips past Kyungsoo’s lips before he can stop it, stunned but amused by Jongin’s shameless words.

“Who would pay for that, Mr Modest?” He teases, but the sudden image of the girls in the canteen fawning over Kai or Jongin or both conjures up in his mind as an answer. “They would pay for that”, he thinks a little bitterly, recalling the way they’d cooed and sighed, the way they’d followed his interaction with Jongin with avid, dogged scrutiny.

“Who wouldn’t want my number?” Jongin asks then, Kyungsoo’s thoughts halted as he looks Jongin’s way. He poses the question seriously, but his smile is wide and bemused and his eyes are glinting at the joke. “I would go so far as to say they’re the most sought after digits in the world you know,” he says, feigning seriousness.

Kyungsoo scoffs before he can help it, swiping a hand out to jab at Jongin’s shoulder in a shove not meant to hurt.

“Don’t joke,” He drawls back, lips twitching up to the sides without help, magnetised by the pull of Jongin’s light chides and glittering eyes.

Jongin’s smile stretches, and he twists around, torso curling towards Kyungsoo’s chest. The action makes Kyungsoo’s steps falter, but he isn’t sure the other notices for Jongin only leans in closer, unfazed.

“Come on-“ he starts moving closer still, face so close that Kyungsoo stops moving entirely, “am I not good looking?”

In the end, Jongin only stops moving toward him when they’re so close Kyungsoo’s eyes almost have to cross to see him properly, and by then they both realise things about one another, about themselves, they didn’t know before. For Kyungsoo, he sees that Jongin has specks of grey in his orbs, that when in shock his lips peel apart but no breath escapes, and that the smell of his neck, beneath any aftershave or deodorant sprays he might have applied, is a pleasant, rumbling sort of sandalwood that smells very much to Kyungsoo like a Home he’d like to have. Jongin makes discoveries too; Kyungsoo watches his face turn from startled, a momentary speculative, then back to shock and fluster all in that one second, and he finds in himself that there is such a thing as forgetting how to breathe.

As if shocked, they both spring back, Jongin whipping around and rifling a coarse hand into the hair at his neck and skull. Kyungsoo watches the movement, his cheeks red-hot, lips dry.

Kyungsoo supposes he should’ve noticed sooner, but when he looks back to moments like these he realises quite plainly that what they’d been doing was flirting, and that maybe it should’ve been obvious to him a lot earlier than it ended up being.

Jongin twists around to face him, and Kyungsoo sees a dust of orange against his tan cheeks even under the already-dark sky. “I’m- s- um-“ Jongin flusters, unable to form words, or perhaps instead it is that too many words are calling to be spoken at once, a jumble of variations impossible to decide upon. In any case, even stuttering, Jongin is devastating, and Kyungsoo feels his heart leap to the very base of his throat watching his crush flush with an embarrassment that makes him more human, more attainable than he has ever before felt.

Spurred by an irrepressible warmth like none he has ever felt so stirringly, he stretches out his hand and clasps a hold of Jongin’s, tugging softly to make him face him. If the contact startles Jongin, Kyungsoo can’t tell but for the flutter of the taller’s lashes as his gaze darts down at the movement, his features formless and lips parted vacuously. But the speed and suddenness of the action means that Kyungsoo himself hadn’t even dwelled on what it is he was doing, and without preamble or prior thought he can only truly focus on the current moment and holding Jongin’s hand right there and then.

In that, in this moment, Kyungsoo rediscovers the reason he was born with hands.

“Hey,” he says softly, rubbing an absentminded thumb over the curve of Jongin’s knuckles. Their eyes meet, and maybe that means more than hands. Why does that mean more? Kyungsoo ponders. Anyone in the world can meet your eyes, met hands are rarer.

Maybe it’s just how we do it, Kyungsoo thinks, because, yes, there is something private to the way they catch each other’s gazes. They don’t speak, but it feels like they’re having a conversation that captivates.

Kyungsoo is the first to look away, looking instead to the way his hand curls around Jongin’s, the fit like puzzle pieces. I could spend hours exploring the valleys of this hand, Kyungsoo realises, chest light by such a simple action. It strikes him then, in this small, infinitesimal moment, that he is capable of bringing happiness to himself.

“Do you know who that is?” Jongin asks suddenly, looking to someone just behind Kyungsoo’s head.

Kyungsoo turns, and sees Mrs Kim standing just inside her gate, the place they’d unwittingly stopped by, her gaze fixated to them. Kyungsoo’s hand slips naturally from Jongin’s as he moves to face her, and her eyes follow the movement keenly, but Kyungsoo barely notices, thinks of the woman who had wept and smiled and placed blankets upon his sleeping frame.

“Mrs Kim,” Kyungsoo smiles, and he only has to wait a second before she smiles back, saying his name in greeting. “How are you?”

“I’m okay, Kyungsoo.” Her eyes shine and crinkle, pale skin like ruffled paper. “What about you?”

Under the dark, overhung sky, her form is captured in the dim, orange hum of street-lamps, light shining over her cheeks and at the top of her hair. Something about her image makes it seem almost as if she could disappear, like she isn’t really there or she hadn’t really meant to be.

“I’m okay too, Mrs Kim,” Kyungsoo calls, “just heading home.” He takes in her appearance, sees the thin cardigan she adorns over her clothes and the way she shivers indiscreetly. Kyungsoo marvels at how intensely he feels the need to look after this woman. “You should go back in, the weather’s starting to get cold now.” He frets, brows crinkling and lines forming in his forehead.

Mrs Kim laughs a frail and tinkling laugh that shows more about her age than any of her physical characteristics even hint at. “Okay, Kyungsoo. You head home quickly yourself then.” She smiles, and then she lingers a second, eyes darting between the two boys, before she turns slowly around and disappears back into her house.

Jongin and Kyungsoo start walking again, hands no longer intertwined but steps in sync once more, and Kyungsoo tries not to mourn the loss, fingers clenching down into his palm as if searching for something to hold.

“Who was that?” Jongin asks, and if Kyungsoo hadn’t been in such close proximity he would’ve missed the weary quality to Jongin’s eyes, the way his brows turn in with question, almost, almost, distrusting.

Kyungsoo can’t understand where it comes from, but he decides suddenly that he doesn’t want to disclose Mrs Kim as Junmyeon’s mum, that this knowledge feels like something secret. “She’s just my neighbour,” Kyungsoo decides, not a lie by a long shot but not, too, all the information. “She’s nice.” He tacks on for good measure.

Jongin only hums, glancing behind him to Mrs Kim’s house as they leave but no other words escape him on the matter.

They walk in silence for a little why, both lost in thoughts. Kyungsoo knows it’s impossible but he feels as if his hand might be tingling still, and that concept has him smiling privately to himself, gaze drawn down to his feet.

He’s startled when Jongin suddenly turns, walking backwards in front of him so they can face one another and opening his mouth, it seems, to say something, but Kyungsoo has no idea what it is that he had wanted to say for someone calls out to him before he can speak.

“Kyungsoo!”

Jongin, remarkably, whips around faster than Kyungsoo does, even though it’s not his name being called. Maybe that’s why Kyungsoo looks to Jongin first, sees the way his eyes squint and lips twitch down minutely, and begins to expect the worst.

The worst, to Jongin, turns out to be none other than Ryeowook stood just outside Kyungsoo’s front gate and staring unwaveringly, dead-on at the smaller as he approaches in apprehension, a single, pivotal thought wiring into him.

He knows, he knows, he knows. And Ryeowook doesn’t give him much time to wonder or doubt, for his opening sentence when Kyungsoo is in earshot (something he too had rushed by marching forward to meet them) is a very plain and biting, “you stopped singing?”, only he says singing like he’d meant to say breathing, the mere notion resoundingly impossible. It makes Kyungsoo’s heart aches for reasons he refuses to acknowledge, lips trembling as he halts before the elder man.

“Ryeowook-“ Kyungsoo tries, voice hushed and syllables slurred for how can he explain something when even his own explanations make him want to scoff?

Ryeowook doesn’t give him the chance to in any case, his face laced with a disbelief, an anger that’s almost tangible.

“What? Did you think I wouldn’t find out? I can’t even explain how confused and surprised I was when I asked the music teachers about your progress and they said you’d dropped it years ago. I thought it must’ve been a mistake at first. There’s no way Do Kyungsoo, the Kyungsoo I know would give up on his dream!” Ryeowook is almost yelling now, and Kyungsoo hurts somewhere deep inside when he sees that behind all the loud voices and furrowed brows is a falter of betrayal, just a flicker he’d have missed if Ryeowook’s face hadn’t been one he’d known once for so long.

“But no, I was wrong. You really have stopped and I don’t understand why so please explain it to me because I can’t think of a single reason good enough!” Ryeowook finishes, halting to let Kyungsoo respond.

Kyungsoo’s lips part, but no sound escapes when he tries to speak, his throat tight and constricted. Truthfully, he has no response, nothing near to an explanation he can provide. Quitting singing because people used to bully him for it, taunt his skills and bring him down, rip up and mock his work and publicly embarrass him - quitting for such a reason, even though it had felt his only option before, seems abruptly the weakest thing he has ever done. I quit because homophobes made me stop enjoying it. I quit because my school bullies drove me to it. No wording, no explanation seems sufficient.

And that feeling, that all-consuming thought that he has no way to justify himself or his past actions, makes him start to panic. He feels it, slowly at first, the way his heart beat increases and his breathing turns a little hoarser, the stress of the situation hitting him full-force and all at once.

“What? Does this mean you’ve stopped composing too?” Ryeowook questions rapidly, perhaps not noticing the changes in Kyungsoo, and then his face transforms, falling in disbelief and disdain at the next concept-

“Do you even still write songs?”

“Hey.”

The interruption comes suddenly - Jongin steps forward, away from Kyungsoo’s side and mere centimetres from Ryeowook’s face and Kyungsoo only gets a glimpse of the fury laced into his features before Jongin starts to speak again.

“Kyungsoo has his own reasons for that, sir,” Jongin says, the sir coming out in a cold, sarcastic drawl that makes Kyungsoo’s eyes widen in shock, the uncomfortable coiling in his chest halting in shock. “Can’t you see that you’re upsetting him?”

These words, oddly enough, are what make Kyungsoo stop and finally realise the truth in them - his stomach is twisted, shoulders sagged and eyes pinching with the threat of spilling tears, and Kyungsoo marvels at how Jongin had seen his sadness before he himself had even taken a moment to realise it - too caught up in the idea of losing his breath, of forgetting he has to.

Ryeowook too must finally see the truth in Jongin’s words for his shoulders visibly drop, his strung-tight body loosening and the furrow to his brows softening like an exhale. He looks to Kyungsoo, gaze warmer than any other time since the conversation began, and it seems he realises that asking like this, and so suddenly, isn’t helping anything.

“Sorry, Kyungsoo, I just-“ he starts, “I just want to try to understand.” He finishes almost lamely, expression soft and sincere, soundlessly pleading. “I can’t understand this, Kyungsoo, I just can’t, so you need to help me to.”

Kyungsoo meets Ryeowook’s eyes, and the sincere worry in them makes his stomach twist in guilt, but he feels, also, how the change in the elder’s tone has an instant effect on him, the tension in his shoulders releasing and his whole form sagging like a ball of string unstrung. He breathes out, and this time it doesn’t feel like there’s something lodged in his throat and in the way.

Kyungsoo could never have imagined that Ryeowook would come to teach at his school after university - when he left for his studies, Kyungsoo had been so crushed and lost that even his writing had suffered. But he’d, with time, gotten over it, found the love in it again, only for his school life to suddenly worsen and for it all to tear down again. Kyungsoo reckons that, with Ryeowook there, he might never have stopped, that the bare, emotive face before him now would’ve been strength enough to keep on going. But-

“You weren’t there,” Kyungsoo says as the only thing, a few drops of tears finally falling over the line of his lower lashes. His vision blurs, and so does Ryeowook’s face though Kyungsoo can see that the expression has changed, and his voice cracks as he goes on, “you weren’t there, and I wasn’t strong enough.” He blinks the tears from his eyes, and when he focuses again he sees Ryeowook’s expression transform from one grave, silently tortured, to one of confusion.

“What-what does that mean?” He stutters out, his own voice now shaking and lips trembling for each word he speaks. “I don’t- you weren’t strong enough?”

Except before Kyungsoo can attempt to think of an explanation, Jongin stands in front of him again, meeting Ryeowook’s gaze in lieu of him with a harsh, unwavering ferocity.

“He’ll tell you, when he’s ready to,” Jongin almost growls, a darkness Kyungsoo has never before witnessed taking over his features. Ryeowook’s worry dissipates from his face in an instant; his gaze hardens to match Jongin’s, and he straightens up with glaring eyes.

“Who do you think you are?” Ryeowook almost hisses back, the two looming over one another, like two birds sticking out their plumages to show the other up.

The anger runs off them in rivulets, the air between them turning dense and taut, and Kyungsoo realises, as he stares between the two, that there is a very real possibility of a brawl breaking out.

The thought has barely formed however when a new voice intervenes, a sharp and somewhat alarmed, “What is going on!?”

All three boys dart their gaze to watch as Eun-Seo rushes out the front door to meet them, her steps fast and urgent and brows furrowed in angry disbelief.

“Ryeowook?” She questions in surprise, turning to the oldest expectantly as she firmly but gently stands between the two glaring boys. “Ryeowook, why are you here? What’s happening?”

But either the eldest can’t immediately hear her or he chooses to ignore her, for it takes him a long, long moment to finally look away from Jongin, hands clenching into fists by his side.

“I’m sorry, I’m going,” he mutters out, lips thin and gaze drawn to the ground. He takes a short moment to look Eun-Seo’s way, and his whole expression transforms, a small but genuine smile stretching across his lips and curling indents around his eyes. “Long time no see, Eun-Seo. No longer a kid, huh?” He says, tone warm as he reaches a hand out and ruffles Eun-Seo’s hair (to which she faux hisses at him for and he laughs).

He only lingers to stare her way for a moment though before he looks around Jongin to meet Kyungsoo’s gaze again, expression turning serious once more. “Kyungsoo, your voice, your songwriting - both are too special to not be heard,” he says, such severe sincerity in his eyes that Kyungsoo is grounded, unable to look away. “You’re the most talented person I’ve ever taught, and don’t forget it.”

And then before anyone can say anything in response, Ryeowook turns and walks away, disappearing along the barely lit pavements as quickly as he had appeared.

A/N

Cuter chapter to make up for last chapter’s angst tbh

Hope you all liked it!

Please leave comments below, I love reading and responding to them <3