25. MUSIC IS FOR LOSING YOURSELF

7K my beauts

“Years?” Kyungsoo repeats.

Years? Years? That single word grips Kyungsoo like no other. Every thought in his head is lost, his mind spinning aimlessly and his throat so dry he has to actively swallow to even breathe. Years?

The concept even now is preposterous. Jongin and Kyungsoo have only started speaking in these last weeks; the sudden possibility of years is hard to even fathom, to understand.

“And... that’s why I can’t do this,” Jongin says the words softly, guiding Kyungsoo’s hand back down even more gently still, so that the pound beneath Kyungsoo’s fingertips slips from beyond his reach. The daze of the sentence disappears and Kyungsoo blinks at Jongin, the reverie he’s in falling away.

“Wait, what?” He peers up at Jongin, but the taller doesn’t even look at him, his expression drawn tight and sketched from harsh lines. Kyungsoo has a sudden urge to reach up, smooth the crease between Jongin’s brows with the whisper of his fingertips, smudge the solemnity away, wipe at the tear tracks marking down his cheeks. But when Jongin’s hand, still curled around Kyungsoo’s own, suddenly pulls back and steals its warmth with it, Kyungsoo’s whole form feels as if it’s been drenched in ice cold water.

“I-“ Jongin starts, eyes shining with a new wave of unshed tears. “I’m so sorry.” He whispers it, lips wet and quivering with a thousand unspoken words, and Kyungsoo feels before he sees the way Jongin moves shakily back to put distance between them, the warmth of his form suddenly out of reach. They meet eyes for a long moment, one pair wet and open, and the other weeping in rivulets in a way that Kyungsoo can’t bear to look at but also can’t quite bring himself to look away from.

And then Jongin turns around and leaves quickly through the door he’s entered from, time contorting, running slow as Kyungsoo watches the back of his head disappear leisurely from view, as if wading through an invisible, physical mass. Kyungsoo can’t even move - can’t find the strength to follow.

In the end, Kyungsoo only musters enough brainpower to say wait a little while later, when Jongin’s already long gone.

That night, Kyungsoo drafts a song.

It’s not a happy song - if Kyungsoo were to rank it, he would put it second to first as one of his saddest. It’s all slow and doleful, it’s melody mostly featuring minor keys and setting a glum tonality over the song. But it’s good - Kyungsoo knows it when he hears it. Even unfinished, even with the lyrics half-written and the arrangement thus far non-existent, it makes Kyungsoo tear up.

“And that’s what all good sad songs should do,” Ryeowook’s words play out in his mind - even from years ago, they live ever-present somewhere in Kyungsoo’s mind. “If someone cries when they hear your song, it means that you’ve spoken to them. Music is for that- speaking to people. And for losing yourself.”

With the new song circling over and over in his mind, more improved with every replay, Kyungsoo mulls over years. He thinks first about how long a time it is; even a couple of months, two-digit days, has changed Kyungsoo’s life so very greatly. The time between waking up in hospital, finding himself in a support group session, befriending Jongin, fighting with Jongin- that feels long. So much has happened - it must be long. Kyungsoo’s fingers tremble on his keyboard just thinking about the fact that he and Jongin have been thinking of one another in different timescales, lines he hasn’t even considered. He wonders when he first became someone Jongin looked for, and in what way - how?

How do you see me, Kim Jongin?

When he finally settles into bed, strung out and exhausted from the night’s events, he finds himself, even with tire settling steadily into his bones, re-picturing Jongin’s last expression, the minutiae details coming to him with vivid clarity. And that face scares him. Terrifies him so much so that he pulls the sheets up over his head, curls into himself, hugs his knees to his chest. He closes his eyes in a bid to sleep, but that image remains for a long while, and the worry that Jongin will close himself off again stays ever-present within in his mind.

He doesn’t even realise he’s played his keyboard for the first time in four years until much, much later, when his last dregs of consciousness peel into slumber, and he feels his fingers finally stop twitching.

Kyungsoo’s worry is not misplaced, as he finds out the next day when he sweeps his eyes and meets Jongin’s in school, only for the other to look sharply away in unveiled avoidance, rushing off in the opposite direction before Kyungsoo’s mouth can even form around the word Jongin. The exact same thing happens for the rest of the week, and then the whole week after that, until Kyungsoo’s heart can no longer take seeing those familiar pairs of eyes staring hollowly back his way, even if only for a second, and he stops trying to look out for them.

It’s not exactly the same as last time - at least in this case, Taemin doesn’t also ignore him. The other acts as normal with him as usual, greeting him when he sees him and flirting teasing as if his life depends on it, but it’s Kyungsoo who’s changed, his responses half-hearted and mysteriously lulled. It’s only when Taemin asks him one day if he’s okay, that Kyungsoo realises Jongin hasn’t told Taemin what happened between them, or, in turn, the reason they’re not talking. Kyungsoo aches to know what could make best friends of so many years suddenly start hiding stuff from one another, but that only brings about the thought that maybe Taemin doesn’t know because Jongin doesn’t find their falling out important enough. Maybe Kyungsoo’s the only one struggling like this - so pathetically.

He doesn’t know, can’t know the answer to all these questions, but Kyungsoo also can’t let them go. He wishes he’d watched Jongin more, figured him out; it feels suddenly as if Kyungsoo knows absolutely nothing about this boy he claims to be his friend.

He becomes low, lower than he’s been in days, and even though he’s been through it before, it’s harder now he knows Jongin better, harder now that he cares so much and so strongly. Kyungsoo doesn’t know at what time he’d begun to start taking Jongin’s presence for granted, expecting his smile and his crescent eyes, his shoulder brushed up by his side as they walk the support group centre’s halls with hushed, unhurried steps, but he reckons that that’s what’s making this so hard; if Jongin had warned him, made clear that he would deviate between letting Kyungsoo in and shutting him resolutely out, Kyungsoo would’ve put up walls. He’d have set up defences, caged his heart and kept a distance, shied from even the barest of physical contacts that could make his heart pound and used words less soft, less telling. He wouldn’t have left himself so open, he wouldn’t have been so careless, he wouldn’t have-

“I wouldn’t have let myself fall for you.” Kyungsoo thinks today, staring at his soggy bowl of cereal with vacant, unfocused eyes.

It’s a Saturday morning and the sky through the kitchen window is reminiscent of Kyungsoo’s current mood - a sunken, dreary grey taints the air, the clouds hinting to a downpour that has yet to come, and the sun is submerged somewhere behind it all, hidden from view. Kyungsoo barely pays the view any mind, his eyes unable to keep their focus quite long enough for anything to truly register. Recently, Kyungsoo’s been forgetting conversations, staring back at them as a haze and jumble of words absent of clarity. He’s able to keep them going, but he can’t for the life of him remember what he’s ever actually said. It’s reached a stage where Kyungsoo has stopped going to the support group sessions for the last few days, unable to make himself be present enough to leave a session and remember most of what had happened in it. He’s received countless messages from various members wondering after him, worrying and fretting over him and his tangible absence, but Kyungsoo doesn’t know what to say; how can he explain what he’s feeling when he’s too numb to even know himself? It’s as if he’s completely dissociated with himself, continuing on with his days by necessity as opposed to want, relying on motor memory, on the routine of school and the all-consuming nature of his work, to the point where he can start to see the exhaustion playing out on his face, dark shadows dimming the shine of his eyes and lips almost permanently rested in a small, expressionless line.

He puts his spoon down soundlessly, taking extra care to maintain the silence shrouding him by keeping his movements small and cautious. He doesn’t know why he’s being so careful, why he’s using his time like this - he feels as if he’s already standing in a rubble of jagged, shattered glass, the piling type that cuts at all his bared skin. Surely, with this much damage, there is nothing left to break for him to be careful about?

“Did I jinx it?”

Kyungsoo jumps in his seat, twisting around and releasing a low, relieved sign when he sees only Eun-Seo stood at their kitchen’s entryway with her arms crossed sternly over her chest. Her gaze is soft yet penetrative as it trails over Kyungsoo’s face a few times, soundlessly assessing him as she walks further into the kitchen to take a seat swiftly in the place opposite him. Their eyes lock in this closer proximity, Eun-Seo resting her chin in her hands and staring at Kyungsoo squarely, unapologetic. She doesn’t say anything for a moment, only looks his way with a shrewd sort of scrutiny that tells Kyungsoo she’s been worrying about this, about him, for a lot longer than she’s shown, that this, this conversation here, is Eun-Seo’s very own kind of breaking point.

“Did I really jinx it?” She asks again, only her voice comes out in the barest of breaths, quiet and modest like she’s struggling to hold back tears, and Kyungsoo’s heart aches. His fingers clench into fists, suppressing the urge to reach out for Eun-Seo’s own and hold them there; he wants her to know everything, but he cares about Jongin so much, too much - he doesn’t want Eun-Seo of all people to see him badly, to treat him differently just because of this one fight.

“What-“ Eun-Seo starts when Kyungsoo’s lips stay firmly shut, body tense and made small like he’s trying to disappear. “What’s wrong with me- wait no, what’s wrong with you, Kyungsoo? What happened?”

Her gaze turns only more earnest, more patient, at this, and Kyungsoo can’t bear it, can’t bear the ever-understanding within them. He takes a deep, shallow breath, his gaze dropping to the table top before him, teeth now gnawing harshly into his lower lip. Even if he’s hurt and somehow, somewhere, he feels betrayed, he hates the idea of Eun-Seo hearing Jongin’s name and instantly scowling for each time it’s mentioned - not him, not Jongin. Kyungsoo can’t, won’t let that happen.

He doesn’t meet Eun-Seo’s eyes as he, trying to look unbothered, unaffected, and still without making a single sound, shrugs one shoulder in a weak attempt at half-hearted.

Almost immediately Eun-Seo reacts, and Kyungsoo can’t help the way he jumps harshly in his seat when her hands slam roughly into the table, her form raising and her eyes suddenly wild and live-

“No!”

It would be better if she had yelled it, but, instead, the word comes out as a half-croak, a shaky sort of croon like she’s lost the ability to even raise it. A violent tremor starts to seize her, to the point where she has to physically lean forward, tears pooling in her eyes, for solid grounding, nails digging harshly into their kitchen countertop. Kyungsoo stares, unable to look away, instantly appalled at, disgusted by, himself. I’m making too many mistakes, he thinks forlornly, harrowed with regret as he watches her find herself enough just to keep on talking.

“No,” she repeats finally, “Kyungsoo, no. You can do that to other people but not to me, you understand? Close anyone else out, but not me. I won’t allow it.” She finishes, her eyes fierce with emotion, the plea in them potent and so quietly desperate that Kyungsoo can’t look at her.

His face starts to tremble with guilt, eyes filling with tears he forces firmly back. “I’m sorry I-“ He cuts himself off, looks down and then back up in a fast second. “I’m really sorry.” Kyungsoo repeats, reaching a careful hand out to guide Eun-Seo back to her seat. He’s surprised when Eun-Seo goes willingly, without dispute. Yet, even someone blind would be able to tell how vulnerable she is in that moment - her whole face has scrunched up, fingers shaking and gaze sharp but unfocused, as if the idea alone of losing Kyungsoo is terrifying to her. Kyungsoo wants to rewind a minute, answer her quickly like he’d wanted, like she’d needed, if only it would mean he would never have had to see that expression grace Eun-Seo’s face.

This time, Kyungsoo doesn’t let the silence between them drag. “It’s... it’s...” he stutters out, trying to articulate the mess in his mind, but in the end he has only the strength to say one thing-

“Jongin.”

Eun-Seo’s lips pull instantly into a thin, displeased line. “What? The idiot hasn’t even developed the balls to ask you out yet and he’s already starting fights between you?” She spews, Kyungsoo’s face falling immediately at her negative reaction. “Wow,” Eun-Seo’s voice is light, but Kyungsoo hears the anger in it, “that must be a new reckon of .”

“He’s not a ,” Kyungsoo mutters in a rush, instantly defensive as dread looms over him, but Eun-Seo cuts him off.

“Right now, he is a ,” she states firmly, her teeth gritting briefly together, frustrated, as she stares Kyungsoo’s way. “Whatever he did, he’s a for making you- making you like this.”

“No, really-“

“I’m not looking for a bloody argument,” Eun-Seo says, resolve heavy in her tone, and Kyungsoo feels himself grow desperate as her anger builds. “I know that-“

“No,” Kyungsoo interrupts, voice incredibly steady even if he physically is not. “You don’t.” He says, looking up to meet Eun-Seo’s eyes, turned wide and searching at Kyungsoo’s tone. A sigh wracks suddenly through Kyungsoo’s form, and his gaze drops again as he runs a hand through his hair and thinks about what to say.

“Eun-Seo, please.” He tries, eyes meeting hers once more. “I know what it feels like to have people you barely know treat you a way you don’t deserve just because they’ve - heard stuff about you. It’s ty, and it’s not fair. Someone could hear the story of you at your worst and build up all their pre-conceptions of you based on that alone.” Kyungsoo’s gaze turns more zealous, his brows furrowing as he tries to put this point across. “It doesn’t make sense. One bad moment, one bad thing, and you might never be able to move on from it, even if we’re all human and we all make mistakes.” He stops a second, feels a tear fall over his lashes at last and sniffles. “I would know.”

He says this last part softly, gaze dropping and eyes turning faraway as he thinks of how most of his school had treated him differently after finding out he was gay. People he didn’t even know, people he’d never spoken to had avoided him, cheered to the mocks and insults he received with just this one thing they’d heard. It isn’t the same, it isn’t Kyungsoo at his worst or Kyungsoo making a mistake, he knows that now - but it’s Kyungsoo never having had a chance with people whom he’d never even interacted with. And that feeling, more than anything else, was what had made those first years so hard for him.

“It’s not a nice feeling,” Kyungsoo says eventually, fingers curling into the sleeve of his jumper, “and I don’t want Jongin to go through that with you when you- you barely know him.”

“And I don’t want Jongin to go through that when I want you to like him.” He thinks privately, unable to speak aloud when thoughts - that Jongin may not even be by his side in the future for Eun-Seo to like or dislike, that they might not even get through this - plague Kyungsoo’s mind.

“You’re protecting him, even though he’s hurt you?” Eun-Seo clarifies eventually, her gaze strange when Kyungsoo looks up to meet it.

Kyungsoo cuddles his arms to his chest, and his heart pounds. He thinks of how Eun-Seo has reacted when he’d held his thoughts back just moments earlier, thinks of how her eyes had lost their lustre and her form had sagged.

“I don’t want you to never be okay with him.” He admits softly, eventually, and then, in a voice milder still-

“I really like him, Eun-Seo.” It’s the only other form of explanation he can provide, the only other truth, even if it’s painful to admit aloud at such a time. Kyungsoo wishes it could feel just as good as it did just days ago - how had such a sweet crush turned into something so regretful?

Eun-Seo looks at him for a long while after this, her eyes soundlessly calculating and arms crossed over her chest. Then, from nowhere, she sighs wistfully.

“He better know how lucky he is to have someone like you behind him,” she grumbles in faux annoyance. Kyungsoo attempts a smile back, and she turns serious once more, eyes suddenly turned sincere, tender.

“I won’t think badly of him.” She concedes. “I do understand that people fight, and I probably don’t know enough. So, I’m going to trust you, and I’m not going to think badly of him because I love you.” She scrunches her nose, puts on a faux grimace. “As much as that pains me.”

Kyungsoo smiles, a huff of breath spilling past his lips. Eun-Seo’s trying to joke now, but Kyungsoo can still see the openness in her eyes, and he can’t help but feel touched. He often wonders how he’d ever have survived if Eun-Seo wasn’t his sister.

“Thank you,” Kyungsoo says as the only thing, unable to hone down the wide smile stretching across his face. And it hits him then and there that that must be the first time he’s smiled for days.

Eun-Seo stares at him quietly for a moment, expression thoughtful and soft. “You must really, really like him?” She says eventually. “To protect his image so much?”

Kyungsoo swallows heavily, fingers clenching and unclenching where they rest on the kitchen table top. Isn’t that the problem? He thinks, heart panging uncomfortably in his chest, but he swallows his unease away.

“I guess so.” He concedes in a small, gentle voice.

Silence, and then-

“...Why don’t you do something to take your mind off of Jongin?”

Kyungsoo has been stood outside a door for a few minutes now, hands in his pockets and eyes vacant with thought. Upon it, inscribed on a cheap, mundane plaque, are the words Music Department: MR LEE, MR DAWSON, MR KIM.

He doesn’t know why, upon Eun-Seo’s suggestion, he had thought so instantaneously of Ryeowook. Perhaps the lustre of writing a song has hung heavy over him these past few days, or maybe Kyungsoo’s only now realising how much he has wanted to say to the other man, words that have been brewing ever since they saw one another again all those weeks back now.

It’s a Monday, and he’s hardly been able to wait until the end of the day, twitchy and thoughtful through all of his classes, and for each time he’s seen Jongin turn his form the opposite way in unveiled avoidance. Kyungsoo wishes he’d be less obvious, or more fruitful in his efforts to ignore Kyungsoo - if Jongin had changed his tracks to his classes to mismatch Kyungsoo’s own, Kyungsoo wouldn’t even have to so much as glimpse him, and the furling pains the sight of his form warrants would be non-existent.

Kyungsoo knocks, a loud but timid sound fizzling out at the end in his hesitation, but a voice replies instantly in a grant of permission to enter. He presses gentle hands to the door and is inexplicably glad to see that Ryeowook alone resides within, the other department teachers presumably caught up in after-class affairs.

“Kyungsoo,” Ryeowook says his name with a surprise he does not even attempt to hide, brow raised in question even as his face twitches at the image of him; it appears that the memory of their last encounter has not been lost on the elder man, even if Kyungsoo himself had forgotten it before this moment.

Kyungsoo takes fast steps forward without word, letting the door close softly behind him. It’s only as he reaches Ryeowook’s desk that he realises he doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know where to begin, and instead blurts out the first words that come to his mind.

“I want to get back into it.”

In his rehearsals, the admittance had sounded smoother to Kyungsoo, steadier, but instead the words escape him in a breathless rush, an exertion potent for its pleading undertones. His heart pounds hard in his chest, vibrations ringing all the way up to his ears and back down to his toes.

Ryeowook stares at him blankly for a few seconds, lips parting and eyes shaking with his thoughts. Kyungsoo can only shuffle awkwardly where he is stood, hands wringing together behind his back as he waits for a response. Eventually, -

“I want you in the showcase.” Is Ryeowook’s response. Of all the things Kyungsoo had been expecting him to say, this was not one of them.

“You mean the dance one this Thursday?” He questions in confusion, forgetting, for a moment, why he’d come.

“No, no, of course not. You can’t dance.” Ryeowook physically waves his hand, as if the mere notion is a joke, and Kyungsoo can’t help the loud, amused scoff that leaves him at the bluntness of such an insult. “I want you in the end of year showcase, the one which all the arts take part in.” Ryeowook clarifies, gaze fixed Kyungsoo’s way. “That gives you... six? Seven months to get to the level you were at before.”

Kyungsoo knows the showcase he’s talking about - if the Christmas one is important, the end of year showcase is a grand, extravagant affair. Specialising in the arts means showing off in the arts, and Kyungsoo’s school always ensure that the most prime talents perform on this day. It’s also the only event in the year where scouters from entertainment companies are sure to be watching, even if the Christmas one garners some unexpected visitors, and this added spectatorship means the event is always held in high regard, planned to the pin with months of preparation.

It also means a very, very big stage.

“Ryeowook,” Kyungsoo starts unsurely, “you-you know about my stage fright-“

“Yes I do Kyungsoo. And we worked on it before remember?” Ryeowook insists, eyes wide and urging. “You were starting to get better, more confident. We were doing really well,” he smiles softly, gaze not deviating for even a second. “Listen, if you want to get back into this you need an incentive to practice, and here it is. You’ll have a performance to prepare for, a reason to keep practices up and often. I want to help you tackle this, Kyungsoo.” He leans forward in his chair. “You’re voice it- it really has to be heard.”

It’s those words again - the words that make Kyungsoo’s heart soar, his stomach flip in nervy happiness. And there is such earnestness in Ryeowook’s eyes for each time he says them - so much so that Kyungsoo couldn’t doubt him, even if he wanted to. To Ryeowook, Kyungsoo has a talent he himself can’t even fathom possessing, and it terrifies Kyungsoo to think that he has a duty to let it be heard.

“Listen,” Ryeowook’s voice is gentler than Kyungsoo remembers ever hearing it, “if you really aren’t able to when the time approaches, then I want to showcase your songwriting at least. I would love people to see them both, but... I want you to know that there’s another option, and that you shouldn’t feel pressured.”

He stops here, and his brows furrow in a show, if it were possible, more earnest, sincerer than before. “I just want you to be comfortable, Kyungsoo.”

Kyungsoo looks at Ryeowook- really, just, looks at him. At his warm, open eyes, the way he’s edged progressively closer and closer in his seat, how his hands are wound together, skin turning red and white as he tightens his grip in nervous wait for Kyungsoo’s answer. It suddenly doesn’t feel like he ever left - he still looks like that same nineteen-year-old that had believed in Kyungsoo all those years back, when Kyungsoo hadn’t even believed in himself. Kyungsoo has spent years thinking that Ryeowook had stopped fighting for him, stopped supporting him in the steps towards his first real dream the moment he’d disappeared from his life to go to university. But even though he wasn’t here, wasn’t tangible, Kyungsoo is stunned to realise that Ryeowook, in the end, has always been rooting for him - that the 13-year-old kid he took on in his gap year to embroider his CV, the Kyungsoo he could’ve left behind with ease, was someone he never could, and never did abandon.

“Okay,” Kyungsoo says eventually, and even though it terrifies him, even though it makes his palms sweat to just think about it all, he musters up a smile, and trusts. “I’ll do it.”

Ryeowook’s face lights up, his whole form sagging in relief as he looks at Kyungsoo with crescent eyes and a smile that won’t quit. “Good- great. That’s- You’re going to be amazing.” He gushes, so much belief and surety in his eyes that Kyungsoo aches.

Ryeowook suddenly looks apprehensive, his expression transforming in a quick and swift second as he meets Kyungsoo’s gaze. “Can I ask you something, then?”

Kyungsoo only blinks back in a soundless admission, brows crinkling as he makes guesses in his head. But when Ryeowook speaks he is purposefully short and vague, and Kyungsoo can’t make sense of it.

“Would you... be willing to tell me why?”

“Hm?” He prods a little hesitantly, fingers clenching and unclenching in a nervous habit by his side.

“Why you stopped, Kyungsoo.” Ryeowook clarifies further, and Kyungsoo freezes in place. “I know the way I asked the first time wasn’t exactly... tactful, but I just don’t understand it. You’re one of the most talented people I’ve ever met.” He finishes, eyes sincere but searching as he pauses to let Kyungsoo respond.

Kyungsoo’s thoughts are a jumble, his mind blank as if he’s short-circuited. He can feel in his chest how ferociously his heart pounds, loud and rumbling in his ears and perfectly potent in the stillness of the office. Kyungsoo thinks of his reason, of the truth: he imagines his soul written out on a hundred pages for thousands of speculative eyes, all-jeering and cruel in a way that taught Kyungsoo what it means to be different. Even years later, where the pain has been given time to settle and ebb away, the subject is difficult, a knife in Kyungsoo’s gut.

But, for every jolt of hurt that makes itself known in Kyungsoo’s body, he blinks and sees Ryeowook’s soft eyes and some of the pain becomes dull.

His gaze doesn’t waver, and the words slip out as a light, easy utterance, like he’s been waiting to say them his whole life.

“I’m gay.”

It’s the first time he’s personally confessed it to someone aloud - at school, he was never the one to say it and, with Eun-Seo, she had already known long before he’d even considered telling her. The support group rendered a confession futile in the first place, and, thus, any of the friends he’d made within it already knew too. In fact, Kyungsoo has either not needed or not wanted to tell the people who know of his uality about his uality.

Ryeowook blinks. Kyungsoo blinks too - at the nervy jitters in his stomach, the heavy pounding of his heart. Is this what it feels like? Is this- this dread, this fear and apprehension, this simultaneous relief and excitement- Are these the emotions that will always pair with coming out? Is this how it will feel? Kyungsoo wonders, teeth gnawing into his lower lip until, eventually-

“What has that got to do with anything?” Ryeowook questions, honestly perplexed as he looks Kyungsoo’s way.

Kyungsoo’s blinks rapidly, heart pounding all the way up in his throat by now. “That’s a...” he his lips, curls fingers over the edges of his school blazer, “pretty normal reaction.” He finishes unsurely, unable to mask his surprise.

Ryeowook smiles briefly, but his eyes stay ever-soft, still serious to match the tone of what it is they’re saying. “My brother is gay, Kyungsoo. I assure you, this is one thing I would never judge anyone on.”

“Oh,” Kyungsoo breathes; he feels the way his shoulders sag, his heart pounding fast in pleasant surprise. “Okay, that’s- that’s great.” He splutters out, mind garbled with inexplicable relief.

He isn’t paying full attention to Ryeowook for a moment, eyes drawn to the ground and scanning the block colour as he thinks and breathes and thinks again, but when Ryeowook speaks his whole tone has transformed - from soft assurance to sheepish curiosity, gentle explanations to undeniable cautious - Kyungsoo can only blink rapidly in surprise, trying to catch up-

“But... why did that make you stop?” Is what Ryeowook says, politely inquisitive as he his head in question. “I don’t understand.”

Kyungsoo breathes deeply, and this time he can’t look at Ryeowook as he responds.

“I used to...” He starts, “get bullied. People used to- make fun?” Kyungsoo flinches, shaky as he goes on. “Of my songs, of my singing. Yeah, I don’t know.” He finishes a little lamely, not even daring to glance up and see Ryeowook’s expression. More than the worry of being judged on his uality, the shame of being too weak to fight against his bullies is harder for Kyungsoo to show Ryeowook, even with so potent a trust between them. Even if things are getting better, easier, Kyungsoo can’t help but tie that word to himself with a shame he does his all to hide.

“Wow. People .” Is what Ryeowook ends up saying, and Kyungsoo can’t help but look up at the simple words, the statement unexpected in more ways than one. Ryeowook, when Kyungsoo looks, fixes him with a face that makes meeting eyes easier thank he could ever have thought.

“I- tell me about it.” He ends up saying without much thought, lips twitching a little without help. More than the worry, the barrage of questions that Kyungsoo had been expecting to answer, the lightness of the response normalises everything in a way Kyungsoo would never have believed possible. He can’t help but to smile, relived beyond words; he really had missed Ryeowook immensely.

“You don’t still do you?” Ryeowook asks then. “Get bullied, I mean.” He clarifies further, though he asks it more carefully than his first queries, like he understands how much more private it feels.

The question gives Kyungsoo pause, stumping him momentarily as he thinks it all through. Does he still get bullied? Wasn’t that the million-dollar question? Of recent, it sure hasn’t felt like it. When Kyungsoo walks the school hallways nowadays, he sees the tangible difference in the amount of looks he receives, the whispers that follow his form; either people are becoming more tolerant or people are just deciding not to give a . His bullies, too, though they still technically throw metaphorical punches his way, they mostly miss, so grossly that it no longer feels like they’re trying to hurt him. In fact, since the leader, his presence, has grown more and more scarce with time both around Kyungsoo and generally in the school, Kyungsoo hasn’t really thought of his situation as present, notwithstanding.

“I- no.” He answers honestly. “Not really. At least, nothing I can’t handle.” He assures.

Ryeowook’s lips pull shortly up, his eyes blinking softly Kyungsoo’s way. “Good,” He says as the only thing. Then he leans forward in his seat, hands clasped together and cheeks bulging in a wide, bright kind of smile Kyungsoo forgot he’d missed, and exclaims-

“Now, go write me a masterpiece.”

Kyungsoo walks out of Ryeowook’s office moments later feeling lighter than he has since his fight with Jongin, even before. His mind buzzes with thoughts about the showcase, tunes sparking up all at once, warring to be heard, and he realises how much that feels like home.

As he walks the school grounds now, most students, bar the few always-remaining stragglers, have left by now, the school bell having rung almost a full twenty minutes ago. Even the bus stops are deserted, most if not all arriving within fifteen minutes of the school bell’s final ring. It’s nice to be able to follow the tracks with less people around, the entrance gates completely bare as Kyungsoo passes through them and turns off on his way home.

He startles though when his eyes, trained to the gravel ground before him, meet that of a pair of black school shoes attached to grey adorned legs, and his gaze trails up to see none other than the leader himself approaching with a fast, almost hasty gait.

Oddly, his steps slow as he and Kyungsoo meet eyes, like a word stuttered, and, if he’d wanted confrontation, the idea is completely lost to Kyungsoo when the leader hesitates finally but a metre before him, his gaze dropping and falling in a nervy flicker - the action inexplicably harmless. Kyungsoo had before opened his mouth to speak, but now his lips press to a gentle close as he looks the leader’s way. An odd sort of silence settles between them, one Kyungsoo has never before experienced in his life; it feels suddenly like his words have the ability to shatter glass.

It doesn’t surprise Kyungsoo anymore to find that he is unafraid; he can’t even properly recall the last occasion the leader’s presence has made him cower in anything akin to fear. But whilst his eyes don’t shake, his heart is impossibly mobile, thundering in his chest like a flame burning in wind. Anticipation curls lowly in his gut as he waits, until, eventually, the leader speaks first.

“Unblock me.”

The words aren’t spoken loudly, but they carry as if the leader has shouted them, scorching Kyungsoo’s ears. His lips turn impossibly dry, and he has to swallow around the large lump forming in his throat to even find a voice to respond with.

“What?” Kyungsoo his lips.

The leader, in a sharp but practiced movement, advances two steps - close enough now that Kyungsoo has to his head upward to meet his eyes - and he is suddenly shaking, or maybe it’s that he always had been, a minute little tremble, and Kyungsoo’s only just noticed. In any case, he sees it now and he can’t un-see it - in fact, that shake, that sincere show of anthropomorphic, plain emotion has the opposite effect to what the fast approach had probably intended, calming Kyungsoo like he has never felt so rapidly before in the leader’s presence.

“I said,” the leader starts up, voice now louder with the new proximity. “Unblock me. Unblock my number.”

Kyungsoo daren’t even breathe at this point. “What-“ he hears himself ask. “Why?”

But at this stage, the leader, patience already run thin, leans forward and latches suddenly to the lapels of Kyungsoo’s blazer. The motion makes Kyungsoo jump uncontrollably, flinching as he feels the leader tug him forward and reach his other hand up to delve into his inner pockets, eyes urgent and desperately searching. Kyungsoo starts to panic at the closeness, at the fact that from this angle he could count each and every one of the leader’s individual eyelashes, but it’s only as he moves back, and the leader pulls him straight back in place, that Kyungsoo realises he has felt this before.

At first, it’s just the familiarity that gives him pause, the sensation of a hand skirting over his chest one he’s sure he’s felt before, sure he’s experienced and experienced recently enough to give him pause. And then things fall into place, stitch together, and Kyungsoo comes to the plain realisation that-

“That’s what you were doing.” Kyungsoo breathes the words so that they’re barely audible, more for himself than to be heard saying them. It finally makes sense - the confrontation all those days back, where Kyungsoo had been cornered and had thrashed at a hand reaching, skirting his chest in a way that, without context, had felt personal, intimate in a way that had made him fear like he’d never feared before. “That’s was it,” he says almost trance-like, has to verbalise it, has to assure himself that what he went through wasn’t what he thought it was, that he had been right, that he had been-

“Safe,” he whispers to himself, so soft but loud enough for the leader to hear and furrow his brows in question. But Kyungsoo goes on before he can speak, suddenly wired, zealous from the realisation-

“You wanted my phone before.” He certifies further, the pieces falling swiftly into place. “You weren’t- you weren’t-“

“I already told you I wasn’t,” the leader interrupts here, clearly losing patience, “now, unblock me.” He prods once more, holding out Kyungsoo’s phone, not retrieved, to take. “Please,” He tacks on.

Kyungsoo is shocked; he can’t help it. Only this boy before him doesn’t look anything like the boy who has been bullying him consistently for the last four years, not with a tone so even, not with a display of manners of all things. He stares up into the leader’s eyes, swallowing harshly in his throat.

“I...” He starts to say, but the rest of his sentence doesn’t exist, and his words fizzle out until it’s just his mouth opening and closing without a goal. He honestly, for maybe the first time in his life, is at a loss for words.

The leader looks for a moment like he’s about to offer a response of his own with Kyungsoo’s prolonged silence spreading between them, but then his gaze suddenly deviates to look over at something just beyond Kyungsoo’s shoulder, behind his back, and the moment passes.

Instead, in a fast second, the leader Kyungsoo has been speaking to is replaced once more by the one he’s known so well these last years; an instantaneous, almost perfected sneer of anger sets his face to stone, the sincerity in his eyes peeling away to hold something harsher, livider than Kyungsoo remembers seeing for a long time.

He moves back abruptly, dropping Kyungsoo’s phone quickly into Kyungsoo’s front blazer pocket as he starts to storm off and away from where Kyungsoo is stood, and it’s only when Kyungsoo hears a sharp and desperate, “wait!” that the situation starts to make sense.

Before he can even think to look himself, an older man passes by him, the side of his face crumpled as his eyes stay fixed to the leader’s retreating back in his pursuit. He follows with a practiced rush that makes Kyungsoo think he’s done this more than once, and calls out again-

“Wait- Chin Ho- please-can’t we talk about this-“

The leader, Chin Ho, stops and whips back to face the man, a raging fury in his eyes that makes his pursuer stumble back and has Kyungsoo flinching without being able to help himself.

“Stay the away from me.” Chin Ho spits the words, and Kyungsoo marvels at how he has never in his life heard the boy sound so dangerous, so angered - not when he was first punched in form at the beginning of the term, not even when he was on his knees with a fractured leg soundlessly praying for someone to save him from a monster.

Kyungsoo can’t see the older man’s face as clearly from where he is stood, and he’s turned mostly away, but Kyungsoo can still pinpoint the moment it drops even more.

“Chin Ho,” he tries, “son, please.”

And Kyungsoo only has a trifling second to feel the shock of that revelation before Chin Ho’s face coils and twists, and he leans down in a way that’s almost threatening.

“I’m not your ing son.”

A/N:

Do I get the award for longest wait for a name reveal or what?

Let me introduce Park Chin Ho as the leader.

Just so you know, Chin Ho is not based off of an idol or actor or comedian or anyone - he’s always been completely OG to me so make up his face in your mind lol.

So, this is late because I went on holiday and I THOUGHT THE WIFI WOULD BE GOOD BUT IT WAS NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR POSTING so yeah I’ve had this ready for a whole month and have posted it as soon as I arrived home woo

Let’s call that determination guys

I hope you all liked it! This is a somewhat bigggg chapter, so yeahhhh

BTW THAT POLE I DID LAST CHAPTER DID NOT HELP AT ALL YOU GUYS SPLIT IT (PRETTY MUCH) COMPLETELY EVEN I MEAN IDEK WHAT TO DO ANYMORE RIP

Anyway, please feel free to give me any feedback in the comment section below x

I love you all