23. SCREWED

The night air feels cooler when Kyungsoo steps out an hour or so later, food eaten and Eun-Seo’s barrage of questions all successfully answered. His parents aren’t here, both working late once more, but, for once, he is glad they hadn’t been there once he’d got home, his mind heavy and frenzied with a million thoughts he can’t, even now, begin to make sense of.

He walks towards the doors of his garage, key jangling in the cusp of his palm as he approaches. Their garage has always been a dull, gritty place, the ceiling low and sullen and the lighting bare and uninviting. His parents have always been almost painfully frugal – they didn’t need to make the garage look pretty, so they didn’t bother. This, however, did not mean they wanted it to become a dump for old, broken bric-a-brac, and so it never did – instead, a scarce array of garden ware and car tools spread themselves sparingly across the huge expanse of space, as if the area had been a project that remained forever incomplete. This also means that much of Kyungsoo’s old toys have disappeared long ago in dumps and landlines, and that instead, as he walks into the garage, he sees the bare, empty space with the same small scattering of tools and empty flower pots organised against the back wall that he has almost always known. But, though Kyungsoo knew the system and his parent’s resolution to keep such a bareness going, years back he had stopped singing and composing, and he’d lost love for his keyboard, something had stopped him from getting rid of it completely.

Kyungsoo steps into the space, moving towards the pots at the back and bending to his knees. He only has to tug out the central pot to see it; laying innocuously against the wall, once carefully hidden by his younger self years back now, is a long, now-dusty black keyboard case.

Kyungsoo almost stops breathing just looking at it, his heart so full it’s almost painful. It’s been years, literal years, since he has last set eyes on this case, and he’d forgotten what instant joy it could bring him.

It doesn’t take him long to tug the case out after a few more moves to the plant pots, and once it’s laid out before him on the garage ground he has to stop to just breathe. It feels so surreal, being so close to a hobby that used to be a potent, ever-present constant in Kyungsoo’s life. He remembers countless days that he’d rushed home to jot down a particularly special line of lyrics that had hit him as he’d walked or work a few flickers of a melody into a full song on this very keyboard for hours on end. It had been, he sees retrospectively, the most relaxing of releases.

With careful, almost reverent fingers, Kyungsoo s the bag holding the keyboard, and slowly peels back the front covering.

And there it is. His keyboard.

Even after all these years it looks the same as it once was; the keys, though now faded, are labelled in a marker pen from when he’d first bought it, his young fingers meticulous in each curve and line of every letter, and perfectly central; the electrical panel is untarnished and new-looking, properly cared for, but for the corner stretch which is scattered with white labels where lyrics and chords alike are sprawled in the harried nature of a sudden idea. Kyungsoo trails a finger over the words he’d written years ago, hums the tune he’d once created; it feels as if he’d last seen it only yesterday.

He lays it rest upon his lap, back leant against the inner brick wall of his garage, and basks in its familiar weight, in the hard press of it against his thighs. The power isn’t connected of course, sound not simply a prospect but an impossible one. But Kyungsoo still finds himself dancing fingers over each key a little reverently, a slow trail up and down with his lower lip caught between his teeth and his breath bated in his throat.

If he could describe this feeling in any way he wanted, he would sing it softly, a lull; “hello, old friend.”

He sits there for a while he can’t possibly calculate the length of, staring, touching, familiarising himself with such a seemingly trivial instrument but one which had been his breath, soul, the palette of his heart for years in his youth. Kyungsoo had created thousands of melodies with this keyboard on lazed, dusky afternoons, haphazard, sultry wonderings that portrayed his happiness, his uality - his torment surrounding them both. His fingers could play some now, fuelled by motor memory, by the impossibility of forgetting one’s own creation and the desire to express it. Kyungsoo aches to express.

A melody comes to him, and naturally, before he can even consciously make such a decision, his fingers poise into the first chord. But he doesn’t press down, doesn’t see why with the power unconnected. He simply takes a moment to stand ready, to relish in a love he’s not felt with such intensity in years. Instead, eventually, he takes a pen from his blazer pocket and scrawls the melody down on a peeling label in the corner of his keyboard without even thinking. It’s only as he reaches the end of the label with chords still in his head that he halts, like ice water has been poured down his back, and the pen slips from between his fingers. Unable to stop himself, he thinks of the day he first stored this keyboard away - that terrible, terrible day when his song book had been torn and displayed to eyes of mirth and mocks and jeers. He remembers coming home in tears, song book pages held together by sporadic but carefully-placed cuts of Sellotape, and remembers tears falling on the keys as he’d unplugged the instrument that had brought him so much joy and stored it away for what, in that moment, he’d believed would be forever.

But as he stares at it now, a real, tangible, heavy thing, with Ryeowook’s words from earlier replaying in his ears and the start of the melody playing in his head, he marvels at how he’d ever let it go.

After a while of just sitting there, silent and thoughtful, the dark night sky overhung and comforting through the still-open garage door, Kyungsoo zips the keyboard back up into his case, and, as he stares down at it again, he promises himself one very important thing.

I will not give this up for anyone again.

And then he stands up, tucks his case under his arm, steps back into his house, and chooses happiness.

When Kyungsoo is in bed that night, he receives a text from Jongin.

From: Unknown Number

Heyyy Soo, are you still awake?

Kyungsoo blinks dumbly at the screen for a long minute, mouth suddenly dry but something inside him internally breaking down. Soo, Soo– people keep calling him Soo, but it does something different to him when Jongin does, feels somehow softer, more personal. Kyungsoo can almost hear him now, speaking it like a croon, a comfortable curl of sound from his lips. He has to retype his response back a few times, what with the amount of spelling errors his shaky fingers type out, the way his thoughts fluster and his stomach flutters at that ‘Soo’, but, eventually, he responds.

To: Unknown Number

Yeah, I’m still awake

Short and simple, but Jongin’s reply comes a lot more quickly than his own.

From: Unknown Number

Can I phone you?

This message makes Kyungsoo pause, his heart jumping all the way to his throat at the question. He’s spoken to Jongin enough times in person now to be comfortable talking to him, and to not fret as much when he does, but whilst he has cherished every conversation he has ever had with the other, the idea of a phone call makes him oddly nervous.

Kyungsoo doesn’t think he’s phoned someone he could call a friend for something as sweet and simple as to talk in years - he’s not sure he remembers how to. Yet the idea of being able to speak to Jongin, even through the static of a phone line, makes his heart swell, and the nerves feel a lot less dooming when paired with a fluttering of butterflies.

Before he can talk himself out of it, he texts back.

To: Unknown Number

Yeah, that’s okay

Not even a minute later the phone in Kyungsoo’s hands starts vibrating, and Kyungsoo just stares blankly at his vibrating phone for a long moment, at the Unknown Number glaring brightly up at him in the dark din of his room, lower lip caught between his teeth. Eventually, after maybe the third ring, he presses accept, and puts the phone to his ear.

“Hi,” Kyungsoo says a little breathlessly, stomach flipping from within as he waits, bated breath, for Jongin’s response.

A second, and then-

“Hey,” Jongin laughs softly, short but endearingly awkward, and Kyungsoo mirrors his laugh by instinct, some of the nerves in his stomach dissipating at its warm, familiar tone. “How are you, Kyungsoo?”

“I’m fine I’m- yeah I’m okay,” Kyungsoo says honestly, “how are you?”

There it is again - that quiet rumble of a laugh that makes Kyungsoo’s insides feel funny and his heart squirm and flutter pleasantly. Since when could laughs do that?

“I’m fine too,” Jongin speaks eventually, “but I meant- well... how are you?” He repeats, but this time Kyungsoo registers the soft, almost private lull to his tone as he speaks the question.

“Oh...” Kyungsoo breathes, understanding, and he takes a moment to think about it, about how he feels. “I- I’m still okay.” He says, and then, again, more sure- “yeah, I’m okay, Jongin.” Because he is. Ryeowook’s words from earlier had, he now realises, been a lot more helpful than they had been hindering.

“That’s good to hear.” Jongin replies honestly, his smile clear in his voice. “I’d forgotten for a moment that he was your music coach and not just your teacher.” Jongin says then, though it sounds oddly as if he had meant the words to only be heard by himself, a thought unwittingly spoken aloud.

“Hm?” Kyungsoo questions, wanting him to go on.

“I’d forgotten...” Jongin repeats, “but then you said you stopped after he left. I just assumed... anyway, I didn’t know he meant that much.” Jongin finishes, voice tapering off near the end so that Kyungsoo very nearly doesn’t hear.

“I- yeah,” He ends up agreeing, unsure how else to respond. “I don’t know, that was part of the reason anyway. He wasn’t qualified or anything, I think he just started coaching whilst he was on his gap year before university, sort of on a whim, but he was amazing at it and he was the best teacher I’ve ever had. I just- I think he really helped me to improve.”

Even saying those words aloud has Kyungsoo reminiscing on past one-to-one sessions with the older boy: his meticulous but gentle teaching approach, his chides when Kyungsoo forgot to warm his voice up, the random occasions he’d shuffle into the room with throat soothers or a warm mug of honey tea and force Kyungsoo to drink it all down. More than a teacher though, Kyungsoo realises Ryeowook had been a friend too: he’d known the stories behind the majority of his songs, had needed the insight to understand and to help him improve, and they’d had so many real conversations during breaks that had made their six-year seem non-existent. Really, when Kyungsoo thinks back now, he reckons that the real struggle in Ryeowook leaving so swiftly had been just as much the pain of losing a friend as that of losing a coach who knew and understand him (and his voice) so perfectly.

Jongin hums at his words, a soft, contemplative thing that sounds weighted in ways Kyungsoo can’t properly explain, but Jongin doesn’t give him time to dwell on it for he speaks again.

“Was it okay?” He asks, almost hesitantly, as if he isn’t sure he is ready to actually hear an answer.

Kyungsoo hums again in response, wanting Jongin to go on, and it takes a short moment, as if he’s trying to get all of his words in order, but the other does.

“Was it okay that I stopped you from speaking?” He questions very quickly, and Kyungsoo blinks in surprise. “I don’t know, I just thought you wouldn’t want to share it like that, in the middle of the street and when he was all- yeah I don’t know. I don’t know how you two are.” He sighs. “I’m sorry if you wanted to speak to him.”

Kyungsoo‘s lips part, hearing the sudden sombreness to Jongin’s tone as he says the last words, his voice smaller than Kyungsoo has ever heard it be. And that tone makes Kyungsoo hurt in a way he can’t understand; he has a sudden, fierce thought that he never wants to hear Jongin speak like that again.

“No no no that’s okay I-,” Kyungsoo says loudly and in a rush, but he stops to slow down and swallow, think his words through. “I will tell him, within time. But he doesn’t- I mean he doesn’t even know I’m gay. And it’s hard to... explain without him knowing. But yes you’re right, I didn’t want to tell him that then and there.” Kyungsoo assures, and then, gently- “So thank you. For that.”

There’s a small pause then, as if Jongin is trying to gage the amount of truth behind his words, but his chuckle is quickly heard breaking the silence, melted chocolate through a phone line.

“You don’t have to thank me for that Kyungsoo.” Is what he says.

Kyungsoo smiles at that, the reappearance of Jongin’s happy and beautiful voice, but doesn’t respond back - he gets too caught up in it, the exuberant pound to his heart at the thought that I made him okay again. How can such a small, tender thought bring him so much joy?

The silence between them is almost fond, stretching for longer than Kyungsoo bothers to count. Months ago, this sort of silence would have Kyungsoo quaking, mind in a flurry trying to manifest a sequence of words that would fill it up. But maybe it’s how long he has spoken to Jongin, or perhaps it’s the conversations they’ve had in the past that reassure him, but Kyungsoo’s thoughts don’t bumble, and he doesn’t breathe a little harder in his worrying and fretting - instead, he, simply, lets the silence fall and stretch between them, and comfortably enjoys it, lips tugged up in the corners and gaze drawn to his hand stretched out before him, just barely visible with the glow of his phone light.

“So...” he starts first, a question he wants to ask playing at his lips. “Did you get home okay?”

Immediately after he has spoken this aloud, Kyungsoo’s cheeks start to burn hotly at the tone he’d used - he barely even breathes the words, almost as if they are private, special things only for Jongin’s ears, and, to most, his voice could have verged on sultry. Kyungsoo’s throat goes dry at that thought in particular, tongue darting out to swipe wetness over his lips, and he thinks of the clichés, thinks of how that question is usually invoked after a first date, or by a boyfriend or girlfriend as a sweet show of care.

But he doesn’t even have the chance to think of a backtrack before Jongin finally responds, though just slightly belated.

“Yeah-“ Jongin starts, but his voice sounds off and he has to clear it before he continues. “I did. You know I was actually thinking that- I mean- did you want to maybe walk to school together? Tomorrow morning? Maybe other mornings too but yes, tomorrow?” He says, the last words a little rushed.

Kyungsoo fretting about the earlier question fades, and he smiles wide, curling his phone over his mouth for a moment as if hiding it will shield its extent from the tone of his voice. “That would be nice,” he agrees, and he doesn’t even care about how obvious it is that he is smiling, unable to hide it from his tone.

“I- good, good,” Jongin says in response, another laugh playing through the phone. There’s a pause and then- “So did Eun-Seo grill you as soon as I left?”

Kyungsoo laughs aloud at that, and he brings a hand up to cover his mouth, looking blindly around in the dark and hoping he didn’t wake anyone up from the sudden burst of sound. When he hears no movement from outside, he breathes a sigh of relief, hand dropping and a smile stretching across his face.

“Don’t make me laugh, I’ll wake everyone up”, Kyungsoo chides, whisper-smiling. “And yes, you’re right, of course you are haha, she kept me captive for a whole hour, an hour.” He giggles again, unable to stop himself. “I’m surprised about how quickly you’ve sussed her out.”

Jongin huffs shortly back, a small, lovely peal of sound that has Kyungsoo pressing his twitching lips together to hide a smile that no one can even see. “Well I hope so if...” but the rest of what he says is muffled, and Kyungsoo frowns, pressing the phone closer as if it might help him to hear.

“Sorry, what?” He questions when the matter of sound through the phone halts. “What did you say?”

Through the phone, Jongin puffs out a jittery breath of air, like his breath is hitching. “I- Nothing, nothing. I don’t know why I said that,” he laughs, but before Kyungsoo can ask again he continues speaking. “How much older is Eun-Seo than you again?”

They end up talking well into the night, laughing hushed laughs into each other’s ears and skipping through conversational topics like a relay race. Kyungsoo marvels at how much he can still learn about Jongin even after so many repeats of a session like this, wonders softly, privately, how lovely it would be to know everything.

And when they eventually say goodnight, a mere few hours before sunrise, Jongin says it simply and softly, in a tone that makes Kyungsoo’s heart flutter and swell.

“Sleep well, Soo.”

Kyungsoo ends up lying awake a long time after, a wide, stupid smile on his face and his phone pressed up against his heart. He spends a long time just recounting their conversation, giggling softly to himself even as his eyes become sleep-droopy and he feels slumber start to take a hold of him. Before he lets it, however, he raises his phone once more, eyes squinting in displeasure at the bright light from the screen. He sees the string of numbers at the top of their messenger, and his gaze locks to that.

Kyungsoo adds the unknown contact into his phone, first, simply, as Jongin, but then, as cliché and embarrassing as it is, he tacks a plain red heart on the end. Jongin ❤️

Kyungsoo feels giddy, a little starry-eyed, as he curls into bed that night, lips heart-shaped and butterflies fluttering with a soft croon of “sleep well, Soo” replaying in his mind, soul - heart.

God, he is so screwed.

Kyungsoo has always had a strange habit; he remembers only now as the habit comes to play today, long since last seen. Since he was very young, and on occasions where he is very happy, Kyungsoo finds himself waking up stupidly early by his natural body clock. Maybe it is the phone call that did it, or the promise of a walk to school, but Kyungsoo finds himself wide awake after only a short few hours asleep, alert and knowing without doubt that he won’t be going back to sleep again anytime soon.

Instead, he gets himself slowly ready for school, each morning act drawn out by a giggling fit or a barrage of sweet thoughts as he fondly recalls his conversation last night. (Kyungsoo didn’t realise how difficult it is to brush your teeth when your lips just won’t quit smiling).

The house is eerily quiet, not even his parents awake to start their early mornings off, but the absence of clatters and footsteps is peaceful and cathartic in a way Kyungsoo would never have expected it to be. As if to maintain the silence, Kyungsoo tiptoes as he moves around, steps slow and actions hushed. The only sounds he lets himself make are in the laughs of remembrance and the hums of melodies stuck in his head; though Kyungsoo hasn’t touched the piano again since taking it back inside, he has found himself piecing together chords and sketching out tunes on spare pieces of paper since then, like the physical motion has unleashed a damn of ideas he didn’t realise he’d had stocked up. A lot of Kyungsoo aches to get started already, to set the keyboard up and re-familiarise himself with it, but he knows he needs to do a few more things first before songs like he used to create start flowing out once more.

He finally makes it to the kitchen, steps slow and cautious as ever, but he jumps in surprise when he sees Eun-Seo already sat there sipping slowly at some leftover soup from last night’s dinner. Her gaze is soft and distant and she doesn’t at first notice Kyungsoo’s presence, apparently lost in deep, deep thought. Kyungsoo takes this moment to stare, eyes trailing over her gentle features just barely visible in the gloom of the early morning, at how wonderfully peaceful she looks; Kyungsoo can’t remember the last time he’s seen her look like that.

“Eun-Seo,” he calls lightly, heart swelling strangely in his chest. She turns instantly, and the smile that forms on her face is small but effortless and true – with her short, scruffy hair framing her cheeks and the natural glow of red dusted over her skin, Kyungsoo understands once more why so many family members deem her beautiful.

“You look peaceful.” Is what he says, simple, honest words.

Eun-Seo beams at the description, straightening up in her chair and swirling her stew around with her spoon. “I am peaceful.” She agrees, gently setting a plate opposite her on the table and jerking her head in that direction. “Come on, sit down. Warm some soup.” She instructs.

Kyungsoo smiles at her bossy words, chuckling lightly to himself as he takes the plate in his hand and edges towards the cooker to scoop some in. Looking out the window before him, the sky is grey and drab, even with the rising sun. It should be a sad, gloomy sort of image, but Kyungsoo’s mood is high, and the line of his lips stay pinched up.

“You know I haven’t seen you this happy in a long time.”

Kyungsoo turns back to Eun-Seo, moving to heat up his food, and he his head to the side with still-smiling lips. “Hm?” he inquires gently, urging her to go on.

Eun-Seo leans forward, and her eyes shine even in the gloomy light. “You haven’t been this happy in ages Kyungsoo. I don’t know what it is – I don’t know if it’s the group, or Jongin, or if it’s just something within yourself that’s changed but-“ She hesitates, and the warmth in her face is unparalleled; Kyungsoo thinks of all those weeks back when he’d been in a hospital bed and she had wept soft, sorrowful tears into the night, and the images are so wonderfully, perfectly opposing.

“But it makes me happy to see you so happy, bro.” She finishes, while Kyungsoo can only think, “Did I fight back well?”

Kyungsoo smiles. “I am happier,” he says as the only thing, softly agreeing. It is true – he is, at least a lot happier than he has felt in a long, long time. Kyungsoo hadn’t really noticed the change in himself before, but he knows now that it is there. Being able to go to the sessions every day and unwind, to see people he genuinely cares about and to be able to share things with them unreservedly and with no fear of judgement is more freeing than Kyungsoo could have ever have hoped it to be. Even in school he feels happier – it no longer feels daunting to wake up in the mornings, but rather exciting. He likes to be outside and around people, likes to study with others. He still doesn’t have close friends at school, but he talks more to people in his classes and he is amiable with many; Kyungsoo never would have guessed a few months back that he could have reached such a normal and casual stage with his classmates, not in his wildest dreams.

“I don’t really know what it is either,” he murmurs, tone thoughtful and words slow. “Maybe it’s a lot of things, I don’t know but-“

He sits down opposite Eun-seo, his food now heated up. “But you’re right.” He finishes, lips stretched so wide it verges on painful. Kyungsoo doesn’t think he’s smiled so much so early in the morning in all his life.

Eun-Seo grins, a sharp, ample thing that stresses her youth. “I mean, when am I not?” She jokes, her head cocking playfully to the side.

Kyungsoo chuckles, shaking his head in a fake chastise but he can’t help but secretly feel her words are true. If Kyungsoo is book-smart, Eun-seo is and has always been people-smart; she could gage people with a sharp, intense sort of accuracy, and was very seldom wrong when she did. It is one trait within her that Kyungsoo has always been jealous of.

“Anyway, why are you awake so early?” she questions, unaware of Kyungsoo’s thoughts, “For a second I thought it was already time to leave for school.”

Kyungsoo shrugs his shoulder, gaze dropping to the table before him. “Nahh, I just- I couldn’t sleep I guess.” He provides vaguely, resting his head in one hand and gently scooping food onto his spoon with the other.

“You were on the phone for that long?”

Kyungsoo slips, his elbow slamming into the kitchen mantelpiece and he has to focus a lot of effort into holding back the very rude expletive that had just been about to slip past his lips. Eun-Seo, unsympathetic, laughs hysterically at his response, a sudden, vibrant sound in the quiet, her whole form shaking with the force of it.

“You’re not as quiet as you think you are, you know?” She says in between shakes, her eyes crinkling like Kyungsoo’s own do.

His cheeks pink at the way Eun-seo poses it, the subtle, knowing lift to one of her brows. “Sorry, did I- did I wake you up?” Is all he can get out, words tumbling out ineloquently.

But his sister doesn’t seem to mind, for her tone only seems to get brighter. “No, its fine, I was awake anyway doing some coursework, that’s the only reason I heard.” She explains cheerily, her lips pinched as if she’s holding back another laugh.

“Ah,” Kyungsoo huffs out, face still flushed with an embarrassment that only gets worse when-

“Was it Jongin?”

Kyungsoo coughs suddenly, clearing his throat, and he doesn’t respond but his cheeks redden and he guesses he doesn’t really need to answer for Eun-Seo’s smile stretches to -eating proportions.

“Don’t.” He cuts her off before her lips can even twitch, trying to look as menacing as possible as her lips part tauntingly, but she only laughs raucously at him, eyes glittering from opposite where he is sat.

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” she feigns innocence, “just that I think it’s very cute that you have sweet and random conversations in the din of night when you think everyone is asleep. For future reference, if you ever want to phone it up-“

Kyungsoo chokes on his mouthful of stew at that, but Eun-Seo continues cheerfully-

“-then you probably want to lower the sound of your laugh tenfold, bro. Well, I’d hope you wouldn’t be laughing during phone but-“

“Eun-Seo!” Kyungsoo interrupts, cheeks hot and heart pounding in embarrassment, and this is where she finally stops, words dwindling into a delighted litany of giggles.

“Sorry, sorry, your reactions are just funny.” She coos, and Kyungsoo starts to wonder how his sister is able to be both incorrigibly supportive and unwaveringly intent on teasing the living hell out of him all at the same time. It must be the coffee, he thinks, staring at the empty mug laid out before Eun-seo’s plate, and then at the other two scattered further down the table. Definitely the coffee.

Or, he ponders, lips suddenly stretching into a smile as he thinks of something, it could be the Do gene.

“So…” he starts, trailing off and trying to hide the teasing glint to his eyes as he looks Eun-seo’s way and-

“How was it seeing lover boy again?”

This time, it’s Eun-Seo’s turn to be embarrassed. “What? Ryeowook? Aha, no, what do you mean?” She flusters, her words coming out in a fast, sporadic heap only distinguishable for their familiarity.

Kyungsoo’s grin stretches tenfold. “I never said it was Ryeowook.” He points out, voice picked and saccharine, and he can’t even attempt to control his laughter when he sees Eun-seo’s mouth opening and closing aimlessly at his response; rendering Do Eun-Seo speechless was always a rarity worthy of elaborate celebration.

“Come on,” he goes on as she flounders a while longer, “I think everyone except Ryeowook could see your little school girl crush on him.” Kyungsoo remembers everything so clearly – how when Ryeowook came over for one-on-one teaching his sister would linger where they played, offering food or drink every ten minutes and trying to understate her age. He had been 19 at the time, she only 16, but those three short years difference had agonised her for months (Kyungsoo can hear her ‘age is but a number’ rants even now), and they had been the barrier that, to Ryeowook, had made her out to be nothing more than a child.

Kyungsoo wonders vaguely if four years passing might have changed something for her.

“I didn’t have a school girl crush on him.” She denies childishly, lips pouting in faux solemnity.

“Uh huh, if you say so.”

“I didn’t!”

“Yep, okay.”

“…Shut up.”

Kyungsoo snickers in victory, and Eun-seo rises from her seat in faux anger, even as the twitch to her lips is telling and her eyes shine with mirth. “Hey, stop laughing before I punch you.” She warns, though the bite to her words is joking. “Come on, when you’re ready I can drop you off to school a little early?”

At this, Kyungsoo blanches, clearing his throat unnecessarily loud as the smile from his face drops. He hasn’t even said anything but he can almost see Eun-Seo’s bright, teasing face in his head now, her cooing words – “With Jongin, huh? He’s walking you to school, now?”– and the glint to her eyes.

He first grumbles his response inaudibly, words a garbled mess as he stares resolutely into his bowl of food.

“Hm?” Eun-Seo questions.

Kyungsoo’s lids close; he breathes out, tries again. “JonginandIarewalkingtogether,” he mutters out in a rush, but the words are much more comprehensible and he winces in preparation.

There’s a beat of silence and then-

“Come again?” Eun-Seo asks, though judging by her tone Kyungsoo has a feeling she knows perfectly well what he said, and he raises his eyes sharply to meet hers.

“Jongin and I are walking together and I swear if you say something about it I will drown myself in this soup,” Kyungsoo talks quickly, trying to seem as threatening as possible, but this, if anything, only seems to amuse Eun-Seo even further.

“Uh huh,” she purrs, but though she opens and her lips tick up slightly, they close once more and she seems to take pity. Rather than saying anything, she moves flamboyantly to drop her dishes into the sink, and saunters past Kyungsoo to the hall. Kyungsoo’s form sags a little, relieved, but then-

“Are you going to try to hold his hand?” She calls out a second before she turns the corner.

Kyungsoo grumbles aloud, head in his hands as her loud and boisterous laugh sounds out at his response, growing quieter and quieter as she ventures further up the stairs and into her room. A small chuckle slips unhelpingly past Kyungsoo’s lips, and he rolls his eyes, a lot fond. He wonders how other people survive without a sister as amazing as his.

When she’s gone, Kyungsoo eats leisurely, his movements sluggish and relaxed. It’s so serene this early in the morning, just before the hectic rush of work runs, cups of harried coffee and hasty, unsatisfactory breakfasts. Those are the mornings Kyungsoo usually knows, the mornings he is most accustomed to; he’d forgotten the possibility, the existence of a pace this slow as a start to the day.

It’s calming somehow, and it feels strangely as if the world is turning a little slower for him, allowing him to sit and eat and breathe. The lids of his eyes fall shut of their own volition, and the lack of a sense makes the quiet seem even louder, even more compelling. As much as Kyungsoo loves sounds, loves tunes and singing, hums and chords, he finds there is a different, more special beauty in silence, and he feels it today more intensely, his heart swelling and fluttering with thoughts of last night and of this morning to come. A happy silence, Kyungsoo thinks. That is something unparalleled.

He rises from his seat once he’s eaten, a slow, unrushed affair, and gingerly places his dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. It feels far too early still to think about packing his school bag, even though he can now hear his parents beginning to move around upstairs. Instead, whilst he has it to himself, Kyungsoo settles down in the living room, curling into the sofa and shrugging off his school blazer as he goes. His hands automatically reach out for his Mystery Book, the book he’d been anonymously gifted all those weeks back, where it’s been laid resting on the sofa’s side table since a couple of days ago when he’d taken it out.

It’s a strange habit he’s grown into recently – in quiet, thoughtful moments, he’s found himself searching for this book and holding it close as he ponders and thinks. On some days, it has been but a mere presence, a heavy, solid thing reminding him on bad days that there is, and always will be, good in the world. On others, it has worked as a façade or a cover-up, something he flips open when his parents enter the room as a simple way to avoid the usual conversation-

“What are you doing, Kyungsoo?

“Just thinking.”

“Just thinking? That isn’t very productive.”- and the tire such questioning brings him.

The book has found a long but temporary home on his bedside table these past weeks, cover-up so that for each time Kyungsoo walks past he finds himself drawn to it, gaze now so accustomed to its presence there that he reckons he could draw out every minor detail of the cover art without too much difficulty at all. The story itself is one he knows almost off by heart and one that brings him a great deal of peace for the times that he has read it – it has most definitely become a favourite, written beautifully and told even more beautifully still, though Kyungsoo wonders often if he’d say the same thing if the book didn’t have the added lustre of a mystery tied forever to it.

Kyungsoo raises the book now, weighty, innocuous and vague in its origins, and he finds the hasty bookmark within it, stretches the pages out before him. In the calm of the morning, he begins to read, lips soundlessly mouthing each word as he does so, taking each detail in. He’s read it enough times now that he knows roughly where every defining event will happen, can quote sections and sentences, chunks from pages with an uncanny ease.

When he hears his parents come down, their greetings startled but rushed and brief, he realises that it’s close to the time Jongin should be coming, and he marks his place a little forlornly. If this morning could get even more ideal, he’d be able to sit here for hours on end, reading on and on with no definitive time to stop.

Instead, he sits still for a while, heart full and body sagged and relaxed. He spends a long time just like that, his lids closed as the morning quiet is stolen with sounds from the kitchen, from the formal chatter of his parents about their work and what they had to get done that day. Kyungsoo aches at its mundanity, and he wonders idly if this is what love always turns to when people started worrying about money. The idea is so abrupt and so ruthlessly disheartening that he drowns it out as best he can, thinking of Jongin, of his puff of a laugh through the phone and the way he might’ve been smiling - a wide, toothy stretch, child-like and glowing - at the same times as Kyungsoo last night, even when houses away. He focuses on what that does to his heart now, his parent’s voices fading into the background, and how it makes it flutter and beat in this moment.

His lids peel back once more, a thought striking him. He flicks open the cover page of the Mystery Book and his smile widens as his eyes meet the post-it note Jongin had written him before. The words are fairly simple, just laced together as first-thoughts but in such neat script, pen ink unbled and each letter formed with immaculate . It shouldn’t make Kyungsoo smile so much, shouldn’t make his heart soar so wildly, but Kyungsoo can’t help it - it does make him smile, wide and glaring, and it does make his heart flutter and pound, his stomach twist.

His gaze flickers a little, veers up to, instead, the small inscription on the inside cover: For Kyungsoo, as short and innocuous as ever. Kyungsoo hasn’t seriously thought about this book and who had gifted it to him for a long time now; too much has simply been going on. A huge part of him still wants to know who had left it for him all those days back, wants to thank them for such a quietly generous act, but the evidence has always been bare and he’s never known where to begin asking. Apart from the short message of apology and the even shorter inscription the book holds, the gift-er had left no other hints of who he or she might be.

So when Kyungsoo stares at the two simple words today, words he’s seen and studied for longer than he’d like to admit, and something, somewhere within him shouts and yells, clicks into place, forces him to look and inspect a second longer, his whole being turns strained. He finds himself, without even really realising, holding his breath, his thumbs taut and quivering with the excessive exertion of strength he uses to keep the pages and the cover apart, and then-

And then a penny drops.

Kyungsoo’s breath hitches, and he draws his head back, looks at the front pages as a whole rather than in jagged pieces, the post-it note and the inscription together.

But the only part he fixates on in all those words is his own name - one on the post-it, and one scribed onto the book he’d been secretly gifted. He swallows in his throat, stretching a hand out and peeling the post-it back before, very slowly, like going too fast could make the slip of paper disintegrate from between his fingers, he raises the post-it and lines his two names up.

And he stops breathing.

His names, though in different ink and on different materials, are formed identically - Kyungsoo sees it even as he squints through his glasses, leaning so close to the book his nose very nearly touches it. It helps that they’re both written immaculately, practiced almost, to the point where it is undeniable –

They have been written by the same person.

And then, a split second after-

“It was Jongin.” Kyungsoo breathes to himself, eyes falling out of focus and heart pounding with this new-found knowledge. It was Jongin. The mystery gift-er, the person who had given Kyungsoo such strength in a time where he had felt so weak and alone, had been Jongin.

His first question is why? Why had Jongin done that for him, before they’d even really known one another and in such a quiet, anonymous way so Kyungsoo couldn’t even thank him for it, even if he’d wanted to so desperately at the time. And then, straight after, why hadn’t Jongin told him?

But just as Kyungsoo’s heart starts to swell at the new-found knowledge, just as more questions bombard his thoughts and make him live with wonder, his phone vibrates by his side.

He picks it up almost instantly, knowing already who it must be from, and stares at the screen as the message pops up.

From: Jongin ❤️

‘Hey I’m outside :)’

Kyungsoo barely registers that he is standing up until he’s at the front door, school blazer forgotten as he hurries to unlock the front door. As soon as he tugs it open, he is startled by the intensity of the cold breeze that meets him (winter has truly come), but he barely gives himself a chance to register it before he is stumbling out, still in his house slippers, and staring around himself.

It’s only as he reaches his low front garden wall and steps into the opening towards the pavement that he turns to his left and halts.

Jongin is there, standing on the slab of gravel between his house and his neighbour’s and scanning lazily through his phone, and Kyungsoo can barely breathe with the amount of emotion coursing through him at this moment.

Kyungsoo has never liked crushes - that’s something he knows and has always accepted. It has always felt like such an inevitability to not be able to enjoy such feelings when so much of the world around him would be disgusted by the simple knowledge of them, an impossibility even.

But as he stares at Jongin now, even in such a casual pose, unwatched and unguarded, lips parted, lids lazily slit open, Kyungsoo is struck by what he feels.

He suddenly relishes in the way his heart beats ferocious and loud in his chest, in how his stomach twists and flutters and his whole being becomes light, lighter than he has ever felt it be, with an irrepressible happiness, a joy he did not know could exist from such a thing as having a crush.

All his worries - his parents and their views, their lack of attention, his questions and theories about the leader who he is only just starting to understand, and his now quiet, but almost ever-present fear of being consumed by panic - seem suddenly, at this moment, insubstantial. And Kyungsoo basks in this magic, the wonder of liking someone and finding strength from it.

Maybe Jongin unwatched, Jongin unguarded is just that little bit more effortlessly handsome, or perhaps the adrenaline from finally solving such a long-held mystery is sneaking up on him, but Kyungsoo can barely think. All his long-rehearsed plans for a greeting from the night before dissipate, his mind turning blank. Instead, before he can truly register the movement, he starts to jog up to the boy, still a little breathless, a little dizzy.

Jongin must notice the movement from his peripheral vision now for his phone falls by his side and he turns his whole body to face Kyungsoo, a swift and amiable, “Hey, Soo,” slipping past his lips - except if he’d wanted to say anymore Kyungsoo will never know what.

For unexpectedly, even to Kyungsoo himself, Kyungsoo raises up on his toes and wraps his arms around Jongin’s neck, tucking his chin into the taller’s shoulder and hugging him close. At his ear, Kyungsoo hears Jongin gasp, a sharp, hoarse breath out at the contact, and before the other can say anything he turns his lips towards Jongin’s neck and whispers, simply, “Hi, Jongin.”

He feels, more than hears, how Jongin breathes out again - almost shakily, uncertain and stuttered against his skin and hair. But before Kyungsoo even has a chance to become doubtful, to edge away embarrassed and with blooming red cheeks, he feels an arm around his back, then a hand at the nape of his neck and curling into the back of his hair.

And in a voice softer and more hushed, more private, than Kyungsoo’s ever heard the boy use, Jongin repeats, “Hey.”

Kyungsoo really is so, so screwed.

A/N

So it was jOnGINNN

Honestly, I got so many theories about the book, and 15 chapters later y’all have the answer XD Did you expect it? Who guessed right? Comment belowww

Also

Gah I think Eun-Seo is my all-time favourite creation I’m going to be real here

I LOVE WRITING EUN-SEO OKEH

Hope you all liked, thank you for reading and supporting this!!! <33333333