24. BREAKING POINTS

9K chapter down there whoop

The entire walk to school Kyungsoo can’t shake the smile from his face. Jongin doesn’t even seem to notice the sudden show of affection, nor the way Kyungsoo stares at him with soft, gooey eyes as they start walking. He seems a little shy, steps slow to match Kyungsoo’s gait and gaze fixed straight forward. Kyungsoo thinks he looks muted and gentle like this, like the sort of person he’d want to walk all his walks with.

“Why are you staring?” Jongin asks eventually – maybe he had noticed, then. He turns his head, facing Kyungsoo’s way, and raises a single finger to poke Kyungsoo’s head back in place, laughing raucously when Kyungsoo just turns straight back, his gaze still intent on Jongin. “Okay seriously, you’re freaking me out, now.” He chuckles.

“Do I need a reason to stare at you?” Kyungsoo hums back, uncaring about the way his voice is tinted with a tease. Maybe it’s the knowledge that Jongin, Jongin, had been the one to gift him the book which at the time had given him so much hope and brought him so much happiness in a moment where he’d felt at one of his lowest, or perhaps it’s just the high he feels from being so close to him so early in the morning, from his being one of the first faces he’s set his eyes on today and from how bloody amazing that feels.

Maybe it’s all that, or maybe Kyungsoo is just feeling a little flirty.

“I mean, no, I guess not,” Jongin concedes, bringing a hand up and rubbing bashfully at the back of his neck. And what a nice stretch of neck that is, Kyungsoo suddenly notes, eyes fixed to the slab of bare skin peaking above the collar of Jongin’s shirt. Very soft.

“Perfect for- holding up a head,” Kyungsoo thinks, looking away as his heart starts to pound.

Jongin, at the very least, doesn’t seem to register the emotional toil within Kyungsoo just by his side, for he goes on as if nothing’s happens.

“But I mean, if people saw they’d- well they’d-um-“ He says, but his words fade out and abruptly it’s Kyungsoo with an upper hand, his lips twitching uncontrollably.

“If people saw they’d what?” Kyungsoo sings sweetly in response, eyes shining as he stares Jongin’s way. And he can’t possibly know how he looks in that moment - how could he, but perhaps from the reflection of himself in Jongin’s eyes from their proximity, or through the front windows they pass as they make their way to school? - but Jongin’s reaction, if Kyungsoo had been paying enough attention, is more than telling. It’s in the way Jongin’s eyes trail softly over his face after he’s spoken, mapping out every detail and shining at his beaming, heart-shaped smile, the happy glint to his eyes. He can’t know that Jongin, in that moment, marvels at how changed Kyungsoo has become, at the confidence etched into his features, into the words he speaks and the actions he makes.

“You’re really handsome,” Jongin ends up saying in response, words he barely registers and Kyungsoo’s question ignored in favour of verbalising this abruptly important thought.

The smile on Kyungsoo’s face falters and, before he knows it, he feels his cheeks heat up fast and furiously and he has to look away.

“I-no, I’m not,” He flusters, unable to look back to Jongin. Kyungsoo doesn’t think anyone has ever called him handsome before - at least, not like that, not as if it had been a thought that had slipped and been spoken aloud. Not so swiftly and so unprovoked that it could not possibly have been a lie.

He doesn’t look back to him, but he feels Jongin staring as he responds, almost as a hum, “I’m telling the truth. Why is your first response to deny it?”

It’s a simple enough question, but Kyungsoo doesn’t know where to begin when answering it; compliments haven’t been part of his social etiquette for what feels like years, and they still remain one of the few things Kyungsoo simply cannot respond to. The support group sessions have definitely helped him with it (he still has the picture captured of himself pinned discreetly to his wall, a constant reminder that even in his moments of pause, someone does, in fact, find him beautiful) but it’s something he can’t seem to fully conquer. He wishes he could be one of those people that could take praise easily, but he never has - or, at least, he hasn’t been able to in years. In any case-

“For one, I can’t believe you thought I’d find you beautiful.”

-the hurt from old words remains as potent as ever, and Kyungsoo cannot undo that no matter how much and how deftly he has tried.

“I don’t know.” He ends up saying, words slow and barely audible, hushed as he shuns those phantom words away. Thinking of that could always bring his mood down, and he hates that - hates that such a good, beautiful morning can be so easily flipped over by just the thought of this person, this terrible representation of his past. He shakes the image firmly away, tries to focus on something, anything, else.

“Anyway, how’s your showcase prep going? It’s next week now isn’t it?” He hears himself saying, and it calms him down that he’s deviating the subject, makes him breathe a little easier.

Jongin, either because he notices Kyungsoo’s need for the change or that he hasn’t noticed anything strange at all, answers with bright enthusiasm.

“Yeah,” Jongin smiles, “Taemin and I have been practicing - a lot. Our main dance is the one we’re doing together and we choreographed it ourselves. We’ve been working really hard for it.” He says in what feels like only one breath, and Kyungsoo’s heart flutters. There is some special sort of joy that comes in watching someone you like talk about and get passionate about something they love, and Kyungsoo feels it now as he looks Jongin’s way. He can see it in the tremor of his cheeks, the slow burn of an inferno in his deep brown eyes - Jongin loves dance, and it is indisputable.

“You know, if you want, you can watch us practice?” Jongin poses suddenly. “That would be- yeah, I mean, I would like that.”

Kyungsoo almost slips on the pavement, a physical, full-body splutter as an onslaught of images of Kai dancing, of him shirtless and hot and sweaty and with eyes so intense they could creep into your very soul, attacks him without mercy. He coughs, mouth opening and closing aimlessly in search of a response other than, ‘I kind of want to be able to sleep tonight.’

“I-um- I don’t-“ he tries, but Jongin, perhaps sensing his unwillingness, interrupts.

“Well, I mean, if not that then did you maybe want to come see me? In the showcase. I mean I don’t know you probably will be there anyway but you can come see me backstage. Maybe. If you, um, wanted.” He proposes, his gaze continuously darting Kyungsoo’s way; the proposition, it seems, makes Jongin nervous. And though it has sounded like such a casual, sudden ask, Kyungsoo wonders whether or not Jongin had been mulling it over for longer than that, thinking of how to bring it up.

The thought has Kyungsoo smiling uncontrollably. “I’d love to.” He agrees, tone oddly hushed and soft, so soft it could lull a child to sleep; Kyungsoo didn’t realise he could even sound like that.

“Great.” Jongin responds, and something in Kyungsoo bursts when the tone he’d used is matched, gentle eyes fixated his way.

Kyungsoo is walking to his second lesson when he hears it.

“.”

He feels himself being strung back faster than he notices them walking his way, and then he’s suddenly propped before the two cronies like a deer caught in headlights, blinking between the two respectively. Kyungsoo’s eyes trail over them, and it takes him a long moment to realise why the image seems to wrong; rather than the usual three forms he is presented with in situations such as these, Kyungsoo is met instead with only two, the leader’s absent potent between them.

“Where’s-“ he starts to ask, but he catches himself in time, lips falling softly shut. It’s only now that he recalls his earlier lesson, realises he doesn’t remember the leader’s face in amongst the rest, and that thought stuns him. There was a time where he’d always look the leader’s way at registration, always perk his ears for a response to see if he’d spend the day walking or tiptoeing - the fact that he hadn’t today, that he hasn’t, in all honesty, carried out such a practice in days, is startling.

“What, did you think we’d forgotten about you?,” one crony pipes up, tone low and harsh, misjudging the wonder in Kyungsoo’s eyes for fear. “That we’d gotten bored?”

“Actually, I was kind of hoping you’d just grown up a bit,” Kyungsoo ripostes immediately, only realising he’s spoken aloud when a stir is caused around them - even if he’s started speaking up more recently for each time he hears a sneering chide spoken as he walks, it’s always been a fleeting, one-sentence comment, both parties moving away in the rush of changeover so no scene can be caused. Thinking now, Kyungsoo realises this is the first time in days that any of his bullies have halted in amidst this journey, invited a fight. He wonders briefly if the cronies had chosen today not irrelevant of their leader’s presence, but rather due to the fact that their leader is absent - the situation is simply too coincidental, too easy to avoid if they’d truly been trying.

You missed me that much? Kyungsoo thinks, staring shrewdly between the two as they stand tall over him.

“What? What did you just say?” The other crony hisses out, and then he reaches a hand out and pushes Kyungsoo suddenly to the ground, a hard, livid kind of push that Kyungsoo feels in his side as he falls. He holds in an expletive, especially as the small crowd of people around them seem to bustle closer, whisper a little louder at the small show of violence. But Kyungsoo knows by now that no one within it will give him a hand up, and if that ever stung him once, it no longer does.

He gets to his feet sharply, straightening up to meet the cronies’ eyes, and he marvels at how steadily he does so - there was a time where he’d always have averted his gaze, chosen linoleum floors over faces filled with hate. There was a time, even, where the mere presence of his bullies in the same room could make him quiver.

Kyungsoo has never before recognised the strength in being able to stand up proudly, unapologetically, and he doesn’t know how or when he’s reached a stage where he can do so before these two without even faltering.

He sighs, long and low, bitingly loud in the low, languid rumble of moving students.

“Isn’t this getting a little old?” He says, his tone plain and neutral. This is his evidence, his proof that the cronies aren’t people he fears anymore; he doesn’t even tremble, doesn’t even raise the volume of his voice - his goal isn’t, like it once used to be, to get out of the situation quickly, but rather to put this tire to an end.

“Of course, you’d say that,” one starts, glancing hastily to his companion for support, “you’re just- scared.” He huffs, taking a step closer to re-emphasise how he looms physically over Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo, however, does not so much as flinch at the movement, and his voice is a deadly kind of even as he ripostes, “does it look as if I’m scared to you?”

In a sharp movement the taller of the two has reached forward, curled a hand into the front of Kyungsoo’s shirt and leant down in a menacing way. Kyungsoo can’t help the way he flinches at the suddenness, at the sheer force expelled by the boy, and it’s only now that he grasps how truly infuriated the two before him are, how, he sees, intent and ready they seem to take out some anger.

“You should be scared, .” He says, not averting his gaze for even a second as the crowd becomes a little more stirred, a little grown. Whilst the verbal slurs have continued almost rhythmically, Kyungsoo can’t recall the last time people have born witness to a physical altercation between himself and the cronies or the leader. They must, he realises with intense and sudden disgust, be having a field day.

But whilst it had given him pause, Kyungsoo doesn’t care for the livid energy pouring out from the two before him, doesn’t fear it like he used to. Instead, he cannot suppress the sound of disbelief that curls from his throat, a loud, irrepressible vibration that cuts through the slow buzz of moving, shuffling students around them.

“Do you hear yourself? What is your problem? You’re 17. We’re 17. You aren’t thugs.” Kyungsoo rationalises. “We’re this young and you choose to live like this, you choose to try to provoke fear in others, to make people feel bad. And it’s such a waste of time. A waste of yours, most definitely a waste of mine.” Kyungsoo scoffs, and then he tugs each of the crony’s fingers away, the grip on his shirt loosening, going on-

“I’m here to learn. I’m not here to fight. I was never here to fight and I never will be here for that. So, please...” The crony’s hand finally falls, dropping like a deadweight by his side and Kyungsoo looks between the two, sees the way they’re faces scrunch, confused and almost lost. “Stop trying to start one.” He finishes roughly, and then he makes to turn away, go to his next lesson, when a face in the crowd catches his eyes.

From just behind the cronies’ backs, and directly in Kyungsoo’s eye-line, Jongin is stood, watching in amongst the other’s.

His whole body is trembling, visibly so even from this distance; he must, Kyungsoo realises, be shaking impossibly hard for it to be so obvious from so many steps away, a harsh, unrelenting tremor rippling through his form. And it grips his whole body, his whole being - Kyungsoo thinks that, apart from his eyes, every millimetre of Jongin must be shaking.

For his eyes are set in place like they’ve turned suddenly into stone, fixed to Kyungsoo as if magnetised, and Kyungsoo in return cannot look away. He forgets, for a second, about the cronies probably still trying to provoke him just to the side, forgets about the crowd of people watching him still, and he stares. In that moment, he can’t even think, can’t even recognise what he’s feeling, and can only look at Jongin as Jongin looks back, heart thundering and an inexplicable tightness coiling within him. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he registers the way Jongin has one foot forward, as if poised to approach, but that shakes, if it were possible, even harder. Something has rendered Jongin hapless in a way that is immediately terrifying; it is as if he has been physically paralysed. Kyungsoo wants to say something, do something to help, but the thought has barely formed when Jongin suddenly shakes from their eye contact, the step forward retracting in a light second.

His gaze darts up just once more, a sharp, brief moment to see Kyungsoo’s face, and then he whips around and disappears steadfastly into the crowd around him, quicker than Kyungsoo has ever seen him leave before.

Kyungsoo doesn’t have time to dwell on what he’s seen or even question it, because a teacher comes out to break up the crowd gathered and the cronies grumble, sauntering away and leaving him stood their alone with the few stragglers still slowly making their way to their next class. And though it takes him until second bell trills to actually get moving, he goes to his next lesson, mind a messed jumble.

Like is so commonplace nowadays, Kyungsoo finds himself gripped by his own thoughts.

Vaguely, he knows that he must be walking the steps of a school day, the motion’s motor movements etched into his memory from years practicing how to walk without having to raise his face, but in his mind it feels as if he isn’t moving at all - as if, in fact, his thoughts are too big, too distraught to be handled in amongst his casual daily happenings. He wishes he could disappear for a while, find a quiet classroom or a deserted office to sit and stop and breathe and think.

If there is one thing that feels strange, it would be in the change within himself, the realisation that whilst his eyes trail the linoleum floor before him, they downturn not in fear, like they once always had, but in thought. Eun-Seo is right - so much, more than he has possibly even realised, has changed. Even if he still flounders, still quakes and falters if someone hits the right places, Kyungsoo feels... fresh. Oddly, inexplicably, fresh.

The first and foremost thought is of Jongin, of his presence in that crowd just minutes earlier.

The image is strange not for the fact he left, but the face he’d had on when he had done so. Simply, he had looked... tortured, no under- or over- exaggeration in that description. And it jars Kyungsoo, both the image and the concept of this.

Has Jongin been suffering, silently, this whole time? Kyungsoo is reminded suddenly of way Jongin had evaded questioning when Kyungsoo had discovered him at the group, how he’d isolated himself and offered no explanation as to why. Is it a gut feeling that’s telling him that this, this is it - that same expression, even weeks after, cannot be mistaken.

Has he really been suffering so long?

The thought consumes Kyungsoo. He goes about himself as usual, ducking between people in the hallways and ambling through the canteen queue as he is now with vacant eyes and the image of Jongin’s face etched into them.

He barely knows what food he’s picking out, nor can he recall the options offered, but he is moving regardless. All he knows is the grip he has on his lunch tray, the weight of each of his legs as he steps forward, the-

“Spaghetti.” He realises, speaks the words aloud, for an arm had slammed into his tray with such force that there is no way he couldn’t know the answer then - not with strands of pasta curling at his neck and spilling slowly down his shirt in a barrage of tomato red and russet meat ball, not with the stench of it pressing at his nose, the wetness on his once dry shirt.

He finds it in himself to look up, follow the arm that had stuck out and done this, and he is startled when he sees the three fawning girls from lunch staring back at him with matching looks of pure disdain, the assailant bearing a snarl Kyungsoo cannot make sense of. It’s such a personal sort of anger that Kyungsoo wonders what hurt he’d caused to justify such resentment.

“You shouldn’t be so distracted.” The central girl seethes, leaning in close so that the bustle of short laughter and mutters in the canteen at the event does not reach them. “Things like this might start happening a lot more otherwise.”

Kyungsoo meets her deadly gaze, and blinks slowly, gently confused. “What?” He hears himself asking, voice off and quiet even to his own ears. It mirrors how small he feels, just from this single action, and Kyungsoo hates how weak it makes him; always, without fail, weak.

But though the girl opens once more to speak, a nudge in her side from the person beside her makes her hesitate enough to halt and follow the other’s gaze, to a place just behind Kyungsoo’s head. Kyungsoo watches the way the girl’s face, though still filled with an inexplicable amount of disgust, scrunch up in a different way, slackening as she ducks her head. It’s such a sudden and swift change that Kyungsoo makes to look around, thinking perhaps a teacher has just walked into the canteen and noticed the exchange, but he is astonished instead to see, not the form of an authority figure, but that of, Taemin as he approaches them, eyes intent and shrewd.

“What’s happening here?” Taemin asks when he’s close enough, halting only when he is warm, real, just by Kyungsoo’s side. It’s such an alien sensation, such an odd and rare thing, but Kyungsoo decides then and there that having someone’s arm, someone’s shoulder, pressed to your side as if forming a protective shield - very few things in the world make you feel as safe, Kyungsoo reckons, feel as not alone as this. “What did you guys do?” He aims the last question only to the girls before him, and Kyungsoo watches the way his gaze transforms from one softer into one that is hard and harsh, unforgiving in a way that could make anyone cower.

The central girl clears , looking away in shaky disinterest. “We-we didn’t do anything, it was an accident-“

“Bull-“ Taemin butts in immediately, gauging the situation quickly, but Kyungsoo knows there’s something different about this. He sees the danger signs like they’re blaring in red, sees it in the minuscule details of the girl’s’ face, the sheer coldness they hold; it’s a coldness, he realises, he’s never truly seen before.

It has him reaching out quickly in interruption, hand finding the crook of Taemin’s forearm in a sharp, desperate motion. “It was an accident Taemin, really.” He assures swiftly, squeezing down to reiterate his point. The contact makes Taemin turn to meet his eyes, the anger dissipating quickly away, and their sudden proximity from such a movement has Kyungsoo looking back to the girls in surprise.

He automatically drops his hand when he sees the way they stare intently at their point of contact, lips curling once more and eyes burning in a way the leader’s hadn’t done in weeks. But he regrets it almost immediately after when the central girl sees his retraction and her sneer only seems to stretch wider, line itself with more menace.

“Fine,” Taemin agrees, though his gaze stays shrewd and hard, and Kyungsoo knows he doesn’t believe him even for a second. He looks Kyungsoo’s way again, waits for Kyungsoo to meet his gaze as he speaks; Taemin has, and always will be, someone who communicates with his eyes. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

They walk silently and swiftly to the bathroom, though Kyungsoo reckons it’s more Taemin guiding and Kyungsoo following, lunch tray and plate left to aside even as clumps of spaghetti still stick to his form. Kyungsoo notes in their journey that they avoid the toilets close to the canteen, the ones constantly busy at this hour. Instead, Taemin walks him a minute or so longer to a different, quieter hallway with bathrooms barely frequented at this time, and he follows along without question.

They step through the doors and, sure enough, all the cubicles are empty, the area deserted and still. Whilst Taemin moves forward to wet some tissues, Kyungsoo numbly looks around, hands curling and uncurling by his side. He tries not to think of the faces of the girls, gaunter in his mind, tries not to dwell on what it could mean, but all he can really focus on is the idea that, in the end, he may always find himself facing something to conquer in his life.

Kyungsoo is the first to break the silence, anything to distract from the dread welling up within him, and his gaze trails over Taemin’s form, takes in his loose joggings and hoodie as he speaks. “Aren’t you supposed to be practicing somewhere right now?” He tries weakly, pitching up his tone to try to seem casual, unaffected.

Taemin looks over his shoulder at him, tissues ready in hand, and Kyungsoo’s facade must be better than he’d thought, for Taemin’s lips only stretch into an amiable smile at his question. He turns fully Kyungsoo’s way, fingers busy folding the tissues into a neat pile, and his expression shine.

“Heh, Jongin can survive without me for ten minutes. And I can survive without practicing for that long too.” He says, grinning a cheeky, wolfish sort of grin, eyes swimming in mirth. “I am pretty good.”

Kyungsoo chuckles half-heartedly in agreement, unable to muster a verbal response. He can’t help it – feigning normality, be it something he is used to, feels somehow harder in this moment. He’s accustom to being a target in school, but this situation is different – the attack feels harsher, more malevolent than anytime the leader has ever physically struck him. Maybe it’s because it’s so different, because it’s an approach Kyungsoo has never dealt with before, or maybe it’s simply Kyungsoo’s own fault for letting himself get used to these days where the jeers and insults have been getting less and less commonplace and he’s been able to wander without fear.

“Well, sit on the counter, then.” Taemin suddenly instructs, grinning wide as he approaches where Kyungsoo is stood and snapping Kyungsoo from his thoughts.

Kyungsoo blinks wildly Taemin’s way, belatedly processing his words. “Wh-What, why?”

The taller boy seems unfazed by Kyungsoo’s fluster, and he only stares back with a small, amused smile on his face. “Just listen to me?” He requests, cocking his head softly to the side.

Kyungsoo’s mouth opens and closes aimlessly for a moment, trying to find another way to respond, but eventually he just sighs. He takes a quick look to check that the counter is dry, and then he sits obediently upon it, listening to Taemin’s words. Now in place, Taemin shoots him a grin and moves forward to carefully wet the tissues in his hands, rubbing a small line of soap into them with careful, meticulous movements. Once he’s done, he turns to Kyungsoo and stretches his hands out towards the large stain on Kyungsoo’s shirt, and Kyungsoo, without thinking, reels back.

Taemin glances up at him in soundless question, and Kyungsoo does his best to ignore the heat filling his cheeks. “I-I can do that,” he flusters, reaching careful fingers forwards to try to take the tissues from Taemin’s hand, but Taemin moves back at the last moment and tuts.

“Let me,” he insists, “it’ll be done a lot quicker this way.” He moves forward again, but he hesitates, letting Kyungsoo, Kyungsoo realises, say no again. And it’s this action more than anything else that makes Kyungsoo nod soundlessly, sitting still as Taemin stretches out his shirt and dabs at the large stain. His motions are careful and meticulous, and he stops every now and then to pick up the large food pieces with tissue and throw them into the bin. It’s a mundane, impersonal task, but their proximity still makes Kyungsoo blush hard, his fingers curling and uncurling over the edge of the countertop in his nerves.

Eventually, Taemin must reach a stage he is satisfied with for he pulls back and stands to observe. Kyungsoo looks down and is surprised to see that, whilst the red of the spaghetti sauce is still clearly visible, it’s toned down a significant amount. He glances back up at Taemin, sees the taller smiling. “It looks a lot better, right?” Taemin says.

“Right,” Kyungsoo agrees, and then in a gentler tone. “Thank you, Taemin.”

Taemin only smiles wider, eyes forming crescents. But his face suddenly turns serious then, and he steps forward once more, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Okay, now take off your shirt.”

Kyungsoo can’t help it - his eyes bulge, and he thinks he must sound shrill, “W-What?”

The grave expression on Taemin’s face quickly dissipates away at Kyungsoo’s stutter, and he bursts into laughter, the loud, unapologetic type that fills the quiet bathroom and reverberates around the tiled walls. “I just mean, you can wear mine,” he explains, rifling through his bag to pull out a clump of white material. “I’ll just stay in my dance clothes.”

Kyungsoo breathes out shakily, relieved, trying to calm the fast pounding of his heart. “I-no-it’s fine-“ he starts to assure, but Taemin doesn’t let him finish.

“What, so you’d prefer to walk around wearing a shirt stained with spaghetti slop?” Taemin teases, a little incredulous. Kyungsoo opens his mouth to respond, but realises he can’t argue, and all that comes out is a string of unintelligible splutters that Taemin must take to mean no. “Okay then, so go change? Please? For me?” He tacks on, batting his eyelashes and sticking out his bottom lip in gross exaggeration.

Kyungsoo flounders a little, unsure and flustered, especially with Taemin’s gaze resting on him whilst he thinks. Eventually though, he takes small steps forward and delicately tugs the shirt from Taemin’s hands, refusing to look at the grin he’s sure to be plastered all over the other’s face as he moves towards the nearest cubicle to change.

Kyungsoo shuts the cubicle door gently behind him, and then he hangs up his bag and fans out Taemin’s shirt, holding it up in front of him. It looks a little big, their height difference suddenly abundant as Kyungsoo mentally compares the sleeve and shirt lengths with his own. But, regardless, Kyungsoo is grateful for the gesture - even now he can start to smell the vague stench permeating from the stain on himself, and, with half the school day left, he’d much prefer not having to stay in this state.

He changes in a rush, taking care to ensure his hands are completely clear of any remnant sauce before tugging Taemin’s pristine shirt on and around himself. His fingers stumble clumsily over the buttons, shaky and uncoordinated even up until he reaches the end and stares down at himself. The shirt definitely hangs a little lower, and is still loose in places, but the fit is otherwise comfortable and the material feels smooth against his skin. He shrugs his blazer and bag on, unlocking and opening the cubicle door, but he startles when he sees Taemin still standing there. He finds himself stilling in the doorway as Taemin looks his way, gaze trailing over his form.

“Cute,” Taemin describes decisively after a moment’s silence, eyes glimmering with mischief. “You should wear my clothes more.”

Kyungsoo jolts, and he feels his brows furrow without help. A sudden, inexplicable clarity hits him at these words, at the combined expression on Taemin’s face, the way he’s been, and always really has been, communicating with Kyungsoo before now. He soundlessly puts things together, hands clenching down on his backpack strap.

“Are you...” he starts, unsure at first that he wants to finish, but Taemin’s eyes stay ever-teasing, and it is enough for Kyungsoo to gain the courage to get his question out.

“Are you flirting with me?” He says, unable to veil the surprise in his tone.

Unlike what Kyungsoo has been expecting, Taemin does not fluster - in fact, if anything, this only makes him smile wider, and he stands up straighter. A single of his brows raises Kyungsoo’s way, and he shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know, am I?” He questions back.

Kyungsoo blinks. “What? I don’t understand-“ he starts to say, but Taemin is already halfway out the door.

“I have to go practice now, see you soon, Soo!” He calls over his shoulder, and then he disappears without another word, leaving Kyungsoo’s head in a frantic jumble as he tries to figure out what just happened?

So, Taemin is flirting with him. He has been, Kyungsoo realises, for a while. Simply the idea that his has been happening, and for so long, feels preposterous. Taemin isn’t even gay.

Is he? Kyungsoo wonders.

He certainly knows Kyungsoo’s own uality and appears unperturbed even with such a knowledge. Most people can’t help but to change the way they act if only a little - even students Kyungsoo has never met seem to sit purposefully further away in their school canteen, or duck around him in the hallways so that their fingers don’t even swipe past one another. Kyungsoo pretends he doesn’t, but he always notices - he always notices the differences between the times he’d not been outed, and all the times after. It feels weird to think that this treatment is so normal to him now.

Yet, Taemin was never like this, is never like this. He seems unerringly comfortable with being in Kyungsoo’s personal space and vice versa, allows them to touch without flinching back or avoiding it.

He’s best friends with Jongin - maybe he knows about Jongin, too? It is certainly a possibility - if Kyungsoo had a best friend (other than Eun-Seo), someone he trusted dearly enough and cared for greatly, he would want them to know. It’s a part of him, something that makes him up - he’d want to be able to share that.

But Kyungsoo also knows that, unlike Jongin, Taemin has dated before - only once, but a girl a few years back. It doesn’t necessarily mean he is straight, but there was not much pointing to him being gay until Kyungsoo began communicating with him.

In the end, Kyungsoo gives up trying to figure the taller boy out. He rifles a hand through his hair, tries to refocus on the lesson he’s been blanking out on since he sat down, and tries not to think about what Taemin’s flirting means for him when all he wishes is that it were Jongin instead.

The final bell has just trilled and Kyungsoo is walking swiftly through the school hallways, bustling between the students around him on tiptoes in search for a familiar head of hair. It had only struck him last lesson - the possibility that Jongin may not show up to today’s support group session with the showcase so near, that catching him in school might be the only viable option if he wants to figure out what had happened between them during changeover.

He wanders towards the art’s building’s main entrance, praying that Jongin’s class hadn’t been released too early, that he hasn’t missed him going inside. He becomes desperate, heart thundering just thinking about the way Jongin had looked at him, at the anguish his eyes had held and how haunting such a concept is. Kyungsoo has so many questions, so many things he wants to say.

Yet, when he turns his head and finally spots Kim Jongin walking through those doors, all his thoughts dissipate faster than they’d formed, and he freezes for a short second, body turning numb and tongue feeling heavy in his mouth.

Even now, Jongin doesn’t look okay. In fact, he looks exactly the opposite. The lids of his eyes are drooped as if he’s tired himself out, his whole body (normally fluid) moving slowly and stiffly through the people around him like he’s lost in his thoughts. Jongin walks just then like a man who has the weight of the world on his shoulders. And the image makes Kyungsoo, inexplicably, anxious.

He approaches fast, before he can stop himself, before Jongin leaves, and he sees the moment Jongin spots his figure - the way his steps falter, his lids peeling up and eyes turning wide, fingers curling tightly into the strap of his dance bag. One second, Kyungsoo is staring at Jongin, and in the next, Kyungsoo is staring at Jongin’s fast-retreating back, and the urgency within him snaps.

“Jongin!” Kyungsoo calls after him, running down the hall, and through the people cocking their heads in surprise, to reach the taller boy. “Jongin, please-“

Jongin stops moving and whips around, and his eyes are more alert, more discomfited than Kyungsoo has ever seen them as they flit quickly over the people who have halted to stare at the pair.

It’s only when Kyungsoo reaches him, when he is able to curl a hand into the sleeve of Jongin’s blazer, that his gaze finally falls back to Kyungsoo, a wild sort of plea to them that Kyungsoo hasn’t the time to understand for the way Jongin suddenly has a hand to his back and is ushering him forward with it. In a few seconds Jongin has guided him away from the main entrance area and prying eyes and rushed towards a corridor Kyungsoo knows to hold the singers’ small practice rooms, where Jongin peeks in each window until he finds one that is assumedly empty, and steps inside. Kyungsoo is pulled swiftly after him and further into the room as Jongin turns to shut the door behind them, and it is that definitive click, the meeting of their eyes as Jongin turns back to face him, that shrouds them immediately in a strange sort of silence. Kyungsoo swallows hard at it, the lack of sound more uncomfortable than any other similar instance that has settled between them, and that feeling, more than anything, is what makes Kyungsoo start to dread what they’re about to say. But worse than this sense of foreboding, Kyungsoo hates this new type of silence - a silence he’s never before felt with Jongin and never wanted to feel, and even if the conversation is one he fears, it is the concept of this dragging on for any longer, of this uncomfortable stillness, that has him trying to speak up.

“Jongin-“ he starts, swiping wetness over his lips in a way to ease their dryness, but Jongin interrupts him before he can even think how to go on.

“I’m sorry- I-“ he’s trembling, “I don’t know why I stood there I just- I saw you, and I stood there, and I-I-“ his words fizzle out, and it is in this moment that Kyungsoo strings his splutters together, suddenly comprehending what Jongin is trying to say.

He blinks slowly, mulling things through, and then he can’t help it - he laughs, shaking his head at the absurd situation.

Jongin only stares, a sullen vacancy to his eyes that is almost scary, but Kyungsoo barely realises it - or, at the very least, he doesn’t recognise how dangerous an expression it is. Instead, he takes a step forward, keeps his expression bright and open and-

“Jongin, it’s okay,” he assures, because it sincerely is - Kyungsoo is strong enough to fight his own battles, and he doesn’t expect anyone to do it for him. To think that this was why Jongin had granted him such a look, for such a small, menial thing - Kyungsoo is relieved beyond words, beyond anything he ever dreamed could be the case. “I’m not mad, really. I’m not mad at all.”

Jongin blinks. “What?” He questions, voice stripped bare, soft and faraway, a dark form of whimsical.

Kyungsoo only smiles, heart-shaped and genuine. “Jongin, I don’t understand why you’d be thinking stuff like that. I’m really okay, I’m not mad, I-“

“WELL, WHY AREN’T YOU?!”

Jongin’s yell is sudden and loud in the quiet of the classroom, and it shocks Kyungsoo so much so that his whole body quakes, eyes widening exponentially Jongin’s way. His whole form is strung tight and filled with an anger that hadn’t been there just seconds before but now consumes his very being. “WHY are you not mad?” Jongin questions harshly. “Why do you think so damn much of me? Why can I do no wrong in your eyes? Why are you not ashamed of me?”

Kyungsoo blinks, shocked into stillness. He’s never before seen Jongin so mad - he hadn’t even been this angry when he’d stepped before him and edged close to Ryeowook’s face just last night with hard and cold eyes searching for a fight. The way Jongin quivers now is like he’s releasing something he’s kept pent up for weeks, months even, and it has him trembling. Kyungsoo is so shocked, so unnerved by this side of Jongin that he has never before born witness to, that it takes him longer than it should to respond, and, when he does, he says only the first thing he can think to.

“Why-“ he starts, stops, takes a breath- “why would I be ashamed of you?” He questions, and Jongin explodes.

“BECAUSE I’M A HYPOCRITE, Kyungsoo!” He shouts the word, biting and cold but Kyungsoo doesn’t even flinch. This is the angriest he has ever seen Jongin, he gets that, he understands that, but he’s not blind - none of this anger is for him. This anger is to Jongin himself, a self-infuriation that has gripped and taken a hold of him with such heart wrenching ferocity that Kyungsoo feels a flood of involuntary tears pool into his eyes.

“God, I'm a ing hypocrite, Kyungsoo!” He repeats, his face coiled and quivering, lips flickering open and closed. "You don't know how many times I've seen you, and I've walked away. You don't know how many ing times, I have just watched whilst you get hurt or jeered at or mocked or beat up!" Jongin lists, hands carding agitatedly through his hair. "It sickens me - how many times that has happened -, and it would sicken you too... if only you knew." He finishes, looking at Kyungsoo with a keen ferocity in his eyes. Tears swim in them, and Kyungsoo suddenly tries to recall if he’s ever seen Jongin cry before, tries to gage how serious this situation is. He grows desperate, nervy, when he realises he’s never seen it before - even if he’s been there, even if he knows Jongin has, he’s never shown Kyungsoo, never let him see. The fact that he is now, that he isn’t trying to hide it-

Kyungsoo is so, so, scared, and Jongin’s next words only aggravate this fear.

“If you knew you-“ he swallows- “you wouldn’t-wouldn’t even be able to look at me.” He ends, face crumpling as he tries, fails, to hold back another wave of tears. Kyungsoo has the sudden urge to reach out, swipe gentle thumbs beneath Jongin’s eyes and dab the wetness their away. He wants to hold Jongin’s face between his hands, be there, help him, in any way he can. But they only shake numbly by his side, unable to raise even an inch, and Kyungsoo feels helpless.

"You... can't know what I would think of you," he attempts eventually, voice as steady as he can muster with tears running in rivulets down his cheeks. "I-It's not your fault that I can't protect myself, that I’m too weak to, and it's not your duty to protect me. So, stop. Feeling. Damn. Guilty." He enunciates each word with a jab to Jongin's chest each time, suddenly angry, suddenly infuriated by his words. "Stop eating yourself up over something I don't even think needs forgiveness. You're a freaking human, just like everyone else in the world. You have weaknesses, just like everyone else in the world. But the difference between you and everyone else in the world, is that you, no matter what you might think, have done a lot more for me than most others would. I don't care how many times you've turned your head away - it's every time you've stared right back and been by my side: that, is what matters to me. That is what gives me strength.”

To this, Jongin stays silent, expression impassive as he looks Kyungsoo’s ways. His eyes are rimmed red by now, pooled with tears that make them twinkle in the music room’s warm light, flourish with a sadness that is very nearly tangible. Kyungsoo could get lost in this gaze for hours and hours on end, but this one is for all the wrong reasons.

"Listen, Jongin-" he starts to say, tone much softer than before, but then the taller stares back at him, really just staresat Kyungsoo, and Kyungsoo sees before he hears how he’s lost.

"Kyungsoo, please, listen,” is what Jongin says. "When have I ever helped you, publicly, of my own volition, and by myself? When have I ever done that for you, like I know you would do for me if the roles were reversed.” There’s an almost mad glint to Jongin’s eyes now, an urgency to get his point across. “You know when you got punched in form, weeks ago, at the beginning of the term? You know I only took you to medical that time because the teacher happened to ask me. The concept of helping you otherwise was never in my reality - I was always so scared, so afraid of people seeing me help you, of them putting two and two together, of them realising-“

Jongin stops and breathes, and Kyungsoo blinks through his tears with trembling lips and trembling eyes. He wants to tell Jongin to stop, but his voice is too hoarse, too strained - no sound escapes him, so Jongin only continues.

“In the library that morning, when you were smelling that book, I only felt safe even speaking to you after looking around and checking that there was no one around...” he cuts himself off, and at this his eyes clench shut as if he is a tortured man, teeth digging harshly into the plush of his lower lip. “No one around to see us.” He finishes, shame painted into his very features. “I’m that much of a coward, I’m that- I’m that ed up.”

“Jongin, stop,” Kyungsoo gets out, voice cracking as Jongin’s image gets blurred through more tears, but Kyungsoo already knows his words are futile, can see it in Jongin’s tormented, resolved eyes, in his constantly parted mouth, armed with ammunition hours of thinking must have compiled.

“I helped you when your book was being ripped up only because Taemin did first." And he chuckles here, a harsh, self-depreciating chuckle. "God he was so pissed at me for that. I don’t think we’ve ever fought that hard before," he says, taking a deep breath out. "My point is, Kyungsoo, that I'm not brave enough to protect you by myself, not really, not truly. I'm so used to thinking of the consequences of my actions that I can't help but to do that practically every time I see you, every time I want to talk to you but I hold myself back. H-How?" He asks, his eyes glistening with tears when he looks down at Kyungsoo. "H-how can you possibly say I shouldn't feel guilty? Guilty is my constant state.” Jongin ends, features twisting as his first verbal cry spills from between his lips, a soft, lamed sound like that of a heart breaking. Kyungsoo very nearly loses it; he wants to hold Jongin, to let him cry into his chest. He wants him to know that he’s wrong, that he doesn’t have to be feeling this way. He wants him to understand how much he has helped Kyungsoo, how he’s begun to mean more and more to him in passing days and how Kyungsoo hates the idea that, in all this time, Jongin has been quietly holding this weight over himself, dealing with a burden that brims his eyes with such immense pain.

“W-well what about the book, huh?” Kyungsoo hears himself say. “I know you gave me the book, Jongin! I can’t even explain enough how much that book helped me at the time, so why? Why did you do that if you were a coward?”

“Kyungsoo it was anonymous!” Jongin yells, but immediately after his form deflates and his next words come out softly, tired. “...An anonymous gesture. Even then I couldn’t sign my own name, and even then I did it more because Taemin was so ing pissed at me. Giving you that book was what made him forgive me. He could see that I was a coward, could see that I was just standing watching them rip up that book in your face without doing anything, even though I-I.” Stops to breathe. “I got that book because- because I felt so damn guilty.”

At these words, something in Kyungsoo’s mind falls into place. “I- this is why you were avoiding me?” He realises, tongue suddenly heavy in his mouth. “All those months back - when I first saw you in the support group? You thought I’d- you thought I’d think you were shameful?” Kyungsoo questions, meeting Jongin’s eyes in an attempt to find understanding within them.

Jongin’s lids fall shut, and a long, shallow breath escapes through his barely-parted lips. “You were the reason I started the group, you know?” He reveals suddenly. “I knew Sehun before, so I already knew about it’s existence, but I never felt like I had to go until I started to see you all those years back, being bullied and tormented for- for being exactly like me.” He grits his teeth, shakes his head. “I was so infuriated by myself for not being able to help you, even back then, and, though you were the reason I started, you were the only thing I could never talk about when I went there. I must have spent hundreds of sessions going on about my issues with caring what people thought about me, fear of people finding out I was gay, fear of being ostracised - but never- never you. I was so ashamed because of you. I was so ashamed that I’d seen you go through all you did and I just- I knew I wouldn’t be strong enough to deal with it when people eventually found out about me.” He meets Kyungsoo’s eyes now here, finally peeling them open to reveal them filled with unshed tears, and b with a tortured skew of red. “I couldn’t understand how you were so okay with me after you found out I was gay. I couldn’t understand why it didn’t make you mad, why it didn’t infuriate you that I just stood back, even though I’m just like you.” A few tears fall here, dropping in quick succession down Jongin’s cheeks, and Jongin doesn’t even reach to wipe them away - he lets them fall. “That, and... I’m just a coward. I mean, how could I show my face to you? I was so ing ashamed I thought you'd be too and I couldn't handle that, I couldn't handle you looking at me like that.” He finishes, blinking through his tears as they lock eyes.

Kyungsoo’s stomach twists and flips at the words, at the purposeful emphasis of that sentence, and if his heart wasn’t pounding before, it certainly is now.

“Why'd you say it like that?” The question escapes in a rush, like if he waits too long he may not be able to say it and, if he thinks about it, this might truly be the case. “‘You' specifically. Why do you care what I think, Jongin?”

Jongin steps forward once, his face twisting with a new kind of pain- “Of course I care Kyungsoo. Of course I do.” He assures, face now close enough that Kyungsoo has to his neck up to keep their eye contact.

The atmosphere in the room changes with the proximity - suddenly, everything becomes denser, the tension palpable and thick in the air. The situation now feels like something dangerous, and maybe that’s why Kyungsoo takes his chance.

“How?” He asks, the monosyllable slipping from his lips without his permission.

Jongin stares.

“What?” He asks, though Kyungsoo is sure he knows exactly what it is he is asking, and that only makes him clearer, more forceful when he repeats it-

“I said, how do you care?” he asks, and then, a little braver- “In what way, Jongin?”

Jongin looks perplexed by the situation, undone almost as he blinks rapidly Kyungsoo’s way. “I-“ he starts to say, but whatever it was mustn’t have been good enough for Jongin’s mouth falls shut immediately after, lips pressed tightly together.

They stare, the silence dragging in a way that is both unbearable and exciting, and Kyungsoo refuses to break it. He swallows, and his resolve is set. He meets Jongin’s gaze head-on, and he hopes that the dare in them is clear.

He has no idea how much time passes when, eventually, Jongin steps forward once more, to a space that makes their proximity almost non-existent, and has Kyungsoo’s neck starting to hurt from how far he has it tilted up. Kyungsoo startles when, swiftly, Jongin takes a hold of Kyungsoo’s hand and guides it squarely over his heart, gaze still intent and unwavering.

At first, Kyungsoo is confused. Beneath Kyungsoo’s fingertips is the smooth, thin veil of a school shirt Jongin is adorning, and nothing else. But then he registers something else - the rhythm, the unfaltering and constant pump pump pump pump of Jongin’s beating heart. It is unmistakeable; the pound is strong and forceful, demanding to be heard. And the speed-

Kyungsoo meets Jongin’s eyes, mouth falling open in surprise, in question.

“Is that a good enough answer?” Jongin breathes, tongue darting out to wet at his plush lips, and Kyungsoo watches the way his Adam’s Apple bobs as he swallows, dancing along the column of his throat much like Jongin across a stage - smooth, swift and beautiful in a way that seems effortless.

Jongin leans close then, so close Kyungsoo can feel the heat of his face against his own, and his heart beat quickens beneath Kyungsoo’s palm, a clear, tangible change the closer they get.

Jongin’s eyes, soft, brown, glint Kyungsoo’s way, and Kyungsoo can’t help the way his breath hitches in his throat when he feels fingers trail gently over his jaw and halt to guide his chin up.

Jongin angles Kyungsoo so that, if they wanted, all he would have to do is duck his head to press their lips together, and Kyungsoo can barely breathe.

But that doesn’t happen.

Instead, Kyungsoo watches Jongin swipe his tongue over his lips, sees how his eyes flit over Kyungsoo’s face, unable to rest in a single place for more than a split second.

“This,” he starts eventually, “is what you do to me, Do Kyungsoo.” A halt, and his gaze finally rests, transfixed for the moment, on Kyungsoo’s parted lips.

“This is what you’ve done to me for years.”

-

A/N:

Minor cliffhanger

Is ur ship going to kiss lol

Sorry for the late update - it’s an important scene, the ending one. I must’ve edited it a hundred million times - I hope I’ve done it justice.

Stay tuned

Leave comments my LOVES (oh, and please take some time to vote in my poll! ^^)❤️