Work Text:
July 2002
It happens too fast for Jongin to remember. One second, he’s climbing atop the swingset, yelling at the top of his lungs that he’s Spiderman. The next, he’s sprawled across the gravel blacktop with two skinned knees and absolutely not bawling his eyes out. Big boys don’t cry, especially not when they’re Spiderman.
In fact, he’s so busy not crying, he doesn’t notice someone standing over him until he hears a voice from behind him.
“You cry really loud.”
Jongin whips his head around to glare up at some dumb girl who’s staring right back at him. “I’m not crying,” he automatically retorts while simultaneously wiping his runny, not-crying nose.
“Yes you are, I saw everything from the monkey bars.” The girl sits next to Jongin and drops her knapsack. Do Kyungsoo is embroidered on it in clumsy green thread. “You were yelling like crazy about Spiderman, even though everyone knows the Incredible Hulk is way cooler.”
“Who says!”
“I say,” Kyungsoo snaps back. “The Hulk could beat up Spiderman anytime.”
Jongin sputters indignantly, eyes already dry (not that they weren’t dry before). “Don’t talk bad about Spiderman, or I’ll - I’ll beat you up!”
Kyungsoo juts her chin out at him defiantly. “Boys aren’t supposed to hit girls,” she says.
He pouts at that. “Yeah, well.” Jongin has two older sisters, and Jungah had just told him the other week that she had a magic eye that could always see what he was doing. He doesn’t really want to beat her up, anyway. So he does what any self-respecting seven year old boy would do; he reaches over, grabs at one of Kyungsoo’s braided pigtails with his dusty hand, and gives one good tug before bolting.
He gets maybe a two second head start before Kyungsoo is up and after him, eyes wide and shouting incredibly complex threats for an eight year old. Jongin climbs the wrong way up the slide and laughs, loud and wild. He lets Kyungsoo chase him until the sun starts to go down and his mom calls for him to go home.
March 2006
Jongin tugs at the collar of his new school uniform. It’s stiff and starchy and absolutely stifling; he can’t wait to go home to change into a ratty t-shirt and sweats. Unfortunately for him, the girls’ middle school doesn’t get out until thirty minutes after the boys’, and his mom insisted that he wait for Kyungsoo, like a good neighbor would do. He jumps to see if he can see the clock behind the school walls, but Jongin hasn’t hit his growth spurt yet, and it’s too tall for him. He doesn’t get why a middle school needs to have such high walls, anyway.
Eventually though, he gets bored. He may not be stupid enough to think that climbing a wall is a good idea anymore, but he’s definitely still stupid enough to ignore the danger alert going off in his head as he does exactly that. For some reason, the warning bells sound a lot like Kyungsoo scoffing at him.
And then, Kyungsoo probably is scoffing at him when the dismissal bell rings and startles Jongin right off his perch on the wall. He’s better at holding in his tears now, mostly because he knows he’s in for a world of hurt at home as he rubs at his stinging elbow and only succeeds at smearing more dirt and blood into his new school blazer. It’s even gotten on the button-up under it, how is that even possible.
It’s not his most pressing concern though, because at the moment, gaggles of pre-teen girls are leaving through the main gate, and Jongin is getting a fair number of stares and hushed giggles thrown his way. He’s pretty sure none of them saw. Hopefully.
“Everyone on the second floor saw you fall off that wall,” is the first thing Kyungsoo says to him. The second thing she says is, “Some girls in 2-B told everyone that you were crying.” Jongin feels his soul fleeing his body. Taking a detour to get to his school would only add twenty minutes to his daily walk.
“Your face looks like it’s going to break. Are you actually going to cry now?”
“Your face looks like it’s going to break,” Jongin retorts. Ooh, burn.
Kyungsoo looks distinctly unimpressed, which, hey, Jongin just nearly fell to his death. She should cut him some slack. Before he can say anything else though, Kyungsoo starts walking in the opposite direction of the manhwa store.
“Where are we going?” Jongin calls out, as he jogs to catch up with her. Kyungsoo hasn’t missed a single release of Prince of Tennis, not even when she had that 39 degree fever last year and basically had to sneak out of her house to bike over to Manhwa Land.
Kyungsoo rolls her eyes when he catches up. “To get all of this,” she gestures at Jongin’s….everything. “Fixed up. Unless you want your mom to ground you from now until forever for messing up your uniform on the first day of school.” Jongin wonders if he’ll ever get used to that tone that Kyungsoo only seems to ever take up with him.
He doesn’t say another word until they reach her house, at which point he promptly draws noise complaints from at least three neighbors with his squawking when Kyungsoo makes him take off his shirt. “Nobody here wants to look that closely,” she snaps. “Now off, unless you want me to poke you with needles the whole time.”
Her stitches still aren’t all that neat, but Kyungsoo works deftly and silently while Jongin lazes around on her bed and complains about how cold her room is.
He’s eyeing her manhwa collection even though she reads all the series he hates when she announces “Done,” and thrusts both the shirt and blazer in his direction. “And don’t even think about touching any of my Prince of Tennis volumes.”
Jongin huffs indignantly. As if he even wanted to read about lame guys with magic tennis skills. Just to annoy Kyungsoo, he makes a show of carefully examining her stitches. He can probably get away with at least a week before his mom notices anything wrong. “Good enough,” he says casually. And because he’s never really learned, he makes a grab for one of her pigtails.
When he gets home, he marvels at how the bruises from Kyungsoo’s pinches match up exactly with where she sewed up his uniform.
October 2010
Jongin is basically a regular at the local clinic now, with enough scrapes and bruises and broken bones to make the front receptionist sigh exasperatedly every time he walks in. It’s never his fault, okay, he’s an active boy and he needs space to run around. Kyungsoo says that excuse was cute when he was ten, but now that he’s sixteen, it just makes him a dumb puppy. It’s a pretty shitty insult because, you know, puppies. Also, it implies that Kyungsoo found him cute when he was ten, so really the joke’s on her.
As he's waiting for Kyungsoo to respond to the i thnik im' dynig sedn help text he'd sent at least ten minutes ago, he kind of gets where she’s coming from. He scowls at his phone screen, still infuriatingly blank. It has to be purposefully blocking incoming messages.
He’s in the middle of looking up some morse code to send her when he hears someone climbing the stairwell to the fourth floor. He’s not hard to spot; everyone else is either in class or already home. Kyungsoo folds herself down neatly beside him. "I don't see anyone dying," she says flatly, but Jongin can see her scanning for any injuries.
"Do you not see this," Jongin demands as he waves his suspiciously bent fingers in front of her face.
Kyungsoo grabs his hand to make him stop waving it, and Jongin suppresses the urge to yelp as she presses against his ring finger.
"Oh my god you big baby, did you really call me up here for this?" She sounds exasperated, but still checks over his fingers carefully. "How did you even do this?"
"Sehun stepped on my hand during practice," he complains. “I told him that he needs to watch out for positioning, and he never listens.”
"So you stomped off to sulk in the world's worst hiding place? Real mature, Kim Jongin," Kyungsoo says. When she puts it like that, it does sound really stupid. Jongin shrugs, but stops his whining. Kyungsoo’s fingers around his are weirdly comforting, cool against the inflammation he can already feel starting up.
After a few more seconds of cradling his fingers, Kyungsoo lets go of his hand. Jongin very carefully doesn’t feel disappointed. "I don't think your finger's broken, just sprained. Go to the doctor's today, it's not like you're doing anything useful right now anyways."
Jongin flexes his fingers, tries to get the tingling feeling out of them. "I know you're just trying to get rid of me so you can go back to the classroom. I don't know why you study so much, everyone knows you're going to Seoul National."
Kyungsoo snorts disbelievingly. "Not if I'm stuck babying dumb boys instead of preparing for exams. Come on, it's almost five. Doctor Ahn's office is going to close soon. And yes, I do actually need to get back to classroom."
Jongin pushes himself up with his good hand and swings his other arm around Kyungsoo's shoulders in one fluid motion. "Are you really going to choose studying over helping a friend in need? You're a cold girl, Kyungsoo."
Kyungsoo rolls her eyes but doesn't shrug him off. "I think I've done enough helping for today. What, do you need me to go with you to Doctor Ahn's and hold your hand?"
That doesn't sound half bad to Jongin, but he doesn't say it out loud. Instead, he walks with her back to their classroom so he can grab his backpack. "You're going to be here studying for a while, right? I'll come get you after I’m done.”
“As if I need you to escort me home like some princess,” Kyungsoo says flippantly, like they haven’t been walking home together every day for the past five years.
“Get real, we both know I’m only after your mom’s japchae.” Jongin tosses his backpack over his shoulder and only winces a little when it jostles his hand. “I’ll see you later, so don’t go anywhere,” he calls out over his shoulder, and jogs down the hallway before other students start opening their doors so they can yell at him to shut up.
It takes thirty minutes for Doctor Ahn to wrap a splint around Jongin’s fingers and another sixty for Jongin to weasel out of a week-long dancing ban. By the time Jongin jogs back to school grounds, there’s only one classroom with its lights still on, and Kyungsoo’s the only girl in 2-A to bother with staying at school this late.
She’s in a heated discussion with the class president, Kim Joonmyun, and barely notices when Jongin slings his arm over her shoulders. He checks his text messages while half-heartedly listening in on their conversation, something about the conjugation of future perfect verbs in English.
He only has so many messages, and only so much patience to listen to a language that makes no sense. “Kyungsoo,” he wheedles. “Home. Food. Japchae.”
Kyungsoo plucks his hand off her shoulder and says, “I see your vocabulary’s improving, Jongin. Let’s work on forming sentences next.” Joonmyun laughs good naturedly at that, and Jongin’s mouth twitches in an effort not to scowl at him. No one asked him, okay.
He feels just the tiniest bit vindicated when Kyungsoo waves a quick goodbye to Joonmyun and starts shuffling her books into her bag.
When Joonmyun calls out “Kyungsoo, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Jongin blames the twisted feeling at the bottom of his stomach on all the pain meds.
--
“I heard that Joonmyun is going to ask Kyungsoo out,” is the first thing Chanyeol says when he slides into the seat across from Jongin the next morning. Jongin is half asleep in his lunch tray, so by the time he’s processed what Chanyeol had said, Chanyeol’s already moved on to discussing how many chicks he and Baekhyun can get if they join the music club.
“Wait,” Jongin suddenly says, tray clattering a little. “Why?”
Chanyeol blinks at him. “Why would Hyunsu be impressed by my guitar skills? How about because it would be blow her mind?”
“I don’t think it’s any minds you’re trying to get blown,” Baekhyun mutters into his soup. Jongin vaguely remembers him being rejected by Hyunsu weeks ago.
“No, what you said before. About Joonmyun.”
“What?” Chanyeol pauses, arm raised above the back of Baekhyun’s shirt, a piece of kimchi dangling precariously between his chopsticks. “Are you asking why Joonmyun wants to date Kyungsoo? Maybe it’s because she’s kind of hot. By which I mean, very much so.”
Jongin wrinkles his nose in confusion. It’s weird hearing Kyungsoo and hot being used in the same sentence.
“You seriously don’t think so?” Chanyeol gapes. Baekhyun switches seats with Sehun while he’s not looking. “She’s got those big eyes and heart shaped mouth that even the plastic surgery girls don’t have. She’s tiny and cute, not to mention that her S-line is pretty killer, too. Fuck, if I wasn’t sure that she wouldn’t chop off my balls, I’d ask her out myself.”
Jongin doesn’t know what’s more traumatic, the fact that Chanyeol ranks Kyungsoo above the grade three girls he chases, or what would happen if Kyungsoo knew that Chanyeol had a ranking that she was on. But it’s not like Kyungsoo’s ugly or anything; Jongin just doesn’t look at her like that. It’s Kyungsoo.
He’s out for long enough that Chanyeol has started throwing strands of bean sprout at him. After an appropriate amount of time sputtering and picking vegetables off his face, he finally comes up with “Somehow, I don’t think tall and dumb is Kyungsoo’s type.” Baekhyun high-fives him for that one.
Chanyeol leans over to pick out a bean sprout in Jongin’s hair. Jongin watches as he plops it on an unsuspecting Sehun’s tray. “Then shit, no one stands a chance against Joonmyun.”
Sehun spoons up a wad of bean sprouts and Jongin doesn’t try to stop him from shoveling it into his mouth.
--
It’s Wednesday, which means Jongin is sprawled out on his stomach in Kyungsoo’s room, along with roughly ten pounds of calculus homework. On a good day, Kyungsoo lets him copy half of her answers. So far, Jongin’s on the third problem set, and every time he gets up to pretend to stretch, she flips to a new page in her notebook without batting an eye.
After what’s probably the millionth unsuccessful poke at Kyungsoo’s ankle as a ploy to get answers, Jongin flips his textbook shut. All of the numbers and variables started to blur together ten minutes ago anyway, and spacing out is an infinitely better use of his time.
His eyes somehow end up on Kyungsoo. Suddenly, Chanyeol’s words echo in his head uncomfortably clearly; from this angle, he can practically count her eyelashes. She makes a little huffing sound when she can’t solve a problem as quickly as she’d like. It’s kind of cute. It’s kind of confusing.
He startles out of it when Kyungsoo drops her left hand down to snap her fingers in front of his face. “Focus, Kim,” she says. She doesn’t take her eyes off her textbook. “This isn’t some manhwa cafe for you to mess around at. How are you still only on the third set?”
“When have I ever been good at math,” Jongin sulks. He’s average at most of his classes, pays enough attention to place solidly in the middle. It’s just math that he can’t get, and Kyungsoo’s made it her personal vendetta to make him study it until his brains feel like bursting.
“I’m not saying you have to be good, I’m saying you should at least pretend to try. Also,” she pauses a little. “Why are you still holding my ankle.”
Jongin looks at his hand, where it’s curled around the delicate jut of Kyungsoo’s left ankle. He snatches his hand away, and his face is hot when he mutters an apology.
“Whatever,” Kyungsoo says. “Just do your homework so we can have dinner soon.” Jongin watches the way her cheeks turn a little pink, even as her pen keeps scratching across her notebook.
“Joonmyun’s going to ask you out soon, you know,” he blurts out suddenly. “Chanyeol told me.”
It doesn’t deter Kyungsoo at all. “Do you believe anything that comes out of Park Chanyeol’s mouth? He wouldn’t the difference between reality and rumours if it smacked him in the face.” She flips back a few pages to look at her class notes.
“I think you do that plenty for him,” Jongin says. “But he sounded pretty sure about it.”
“Joonmyun’s nice, but he’s not my type.”
“So what is your type? Tall and dumb?” Jongin is already imagining babies with big eyes and even bigger teeth. It’s unsettling.
“You’re dead if you actually think I’d go out with Chanyeol.”
Babies probably don’t have teeth when they’re born, anyway.
Kyungsoo flips her notebook shut. “I’m hungry,” she announces. “You can keep failing calc after dinner.” Jongin jams the questions he has on the tip of his tongue to the back of his mind. He’s too familiar with the tone Kyungsoo uses when she wants him to shut up.
At the dinner table, he slurps his noodles and lets his ankle brush against Kyungsoo’s. By the time Jongin’s mom yells at him over the phone to get back home, he’s copied four problem sets off of her. When he asks if he can get the rest of the sets from her in the morning, she rolls her eyes, but doesn’t say no.
November 2010
Kyungsoo starts dating some kid from the all boys’ high school a few blocks down that goes to her Tuesday/Thursday hagwon. Jongin scrolls through Lim Hyunsik's Facebook during computer class and thinks about how Hyunsik is a stupid name. His latest status update is eight little heart emoticons in a row. Jongin hates him a little.
"If you keep staring at the screen like that, I'm pretty sure Mr. Lee's going to figure out that you're not making Excel spreadsheets," Sehun says when he leans over to look at Jongin's screen.
“Fuck off, you’re the one playing Maple Story like a twelve year old,” Jongin says, and starts clicking through Hyunsik’s profile pictures. He smiles too much.
The remark doesn’t seem to crush Sehun’s spirit like Jongin was hoping it would. “I think you wouldn’t be so angry if you threw some ninja stars at green slime monsters. It’s working wonders for me,” Sehun says mildly. There’s a faint squishing sound coming from Sehun’s earphones.
“I’m not angry,” Jongin says while angrily clicking out of Facebook and back to his spreadsheet. So far, he’s figured out how to make a little picture of fried chicken in ASCII. He’s thinking of giving it a face.
“You’re a shitty liar, but it’s okay.” Sehun takes one hand off the keyboard to pat him on the shoulder. “Buy me some bubble tea after school and we can talk about your boy problems. And if you want, we can even paint each other’s nails afterwards.”
“Sometimes I think you look at me and only see a wallet for you to bum drinks off of,” Jongin says, ignoring the last part of Sehun’s sentence completely. Chanyeol had only gotten away with that once, and that was only because Jongin had been dead asleep. Besides, his nails hadn’t looked half bad in Cherry Pop Red.
“Don't be paranoid," Sehun says seriously. "That'd be Joonmyun."
Jongin reaches over and runs Sehun's character straight off a cliff.
--
The rest of November is a rush of mock exams and equally mock results. Jongin puts in the minimum acceptable effort, sees his name somewhere in the middle of the weekly results listing and Kyungsoo’s at the very top. It’s the most of Kyungsoo that Jongin sees, now that she’s started going to hagwon every night. He texts her nightly to ask how she's doing and gets the same ㅠㅠㅠㅠ each time.
“You’re so cranky these days, Jongin,” Chanyeol complains while wrapping his arm around Jongin’s shoulder.
“Maybe it’s because someone doesn’t understand the concept of personal space,” Jongin suggests as he shrugs Chanyeol off for the eighth time in the past three minutes.
“Your words really hurt,” Chanyeol sighs. He doesn’t sound hurt at all, only wraps his arm a little tighter around Jongin. “Why are you trying to deny our love even more than usual?”
“Please find yourself a girlfriend soon,” Jongin pleads. He gives up the fight for now and checks his phone again. Still nothing.
Chanyeol leans in impossibly closer to peek at the screen. “Anything new and exciting in the life of Kim Jongin?”
“Not really. I just haven’t seen Kyungsoo much lately.”
“Wow,” Chanyeol says, stretching out the o into three syllables . “I thought you were into Kyungsoo, but I didn’t realize you were that far gone for her.”
“What?” Jongin snaps his phone shut so fast he thinks he hears the hinges snap. “You realize that Kyungsoo’s my best friend. I just miss hanging out with her.”
“And you realize that it’s only been two weeks since you’ve talked to Kyungsoo and you’re acting like it’s the end of the world? You should maybe just admit that you’ve got it bad for Kyungsoo.”
“Whatever,” Jongin says, and twists away in one fluid motion that makes Chanyeol topple off the edge of his chair.
If Jongin’s being honest, Chanyeol’s refusal (inability?) to keep his hands to himself barely registers as a minor annoyance; mostly, he’s just annoyed with himself. He's spent years perfecting the art of getting Kyungsoo's attention: hiding her notebooks right before class, teasing her for her perfectly hemmed, below the knee skirts, stealing bites of her shaved ice even though he hates red bean. Now, he just spends a lot of time sleeping. He could probably find other things to do, but for now, he keeps flipping open his phone to see zero new messages.
December 2010
Jongin's phone is halfway into the chorus of Hoot by the time he manages to smash the answer call button. He mumbles a series of half intelligible sounds and hopes it sounds enough like a hello.
"Are you not up yet? You realize we're never going to make it up in time if we don't start waiting in line like, right now."
Jongin checks the caller ID, then again, and then one more time for good measure. “Kyungsoo?” He croaks into the phone. “What time is it?”
There’s a huge heaving sigh from the other end, like Kyungsoo can’t believe the sheer inadequacy she has to put up with. “Are you seriously not up yet? It’s late enough that the line for the cable car is at least half a mile long now. Don’t you remember last year?”
It takes Jongin a beat to process what Kyungsoo’s saying. “Do you mean for Seoul Tower?”
“No, the one that takes us to the North Pole to see Santa Claus,” Kyungsoo deadpans. “Yes, obviously for Seoul Tower. Don’t tell me you’re wimping out this year.”
“I didn’t think we were going to - “ Jongin starts, before stopping himself. “Okay, yeah. Give me like ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes here adds thirty minutes to our line,” Kyungsoo says, but she’s still waiting in the foyer when Jongin shrugs on his jacket over his sweatshirt and jeans.
--
Kyungsoo had called Jongin when they were thirteen to demand that he help her escape from some New Year’s party because “I’ll kill something if I have to listen to one more of Baekhyun’s jokes.” Somehow, they’d ended up packed onto the observation deck of Seoul Tower, counting down until midnight on Kyungsoo’s flip phone and watching fireworks burst around the city. It had been cold and miserable and they’d nearly brained themselves on the layer of slush covering the ground, but somehow they’ve spent three years shouting outrageous resolutions above Seoul to avoid freezing to death. Last year, Kyungsoo had promised to take it easier on Chanyeol and Baekhyun, and the crowds had kept a good ten meter radius away from them after Jongin couldn’t stop laughing.
Jongin is fairly certain that that won’t be a problem tonight, not with the way he’s trailing half a step behind Kyungsoo all the way to Namsan. By the time they reach the ticketing booth for the cable car up Namsan, the most Jongin has said is "Sorry" when he had been shoved up against Kyungsoo in the sardine can that also doubled as a bus. With his front pressed against Kyungsoo’s back, his conversation with Chanyeol had weasled its way to the forefront of his mind. Fuck Chanyeol and his way of putting thoughts in Jongin’s head.
Jongin pays for their tickets and waves off Kyungsoo’s money. “It’s fine, seriously,” he insists. “Just pay me back when you’re rolling around in huge piles of money.”
“I don’t plan on owing you ten won after graduation,” Kyungsoo says, and stubbornly shoves a few bills in the pocket of Jongin's oversize coat.
Jongin grabs her hand and tries to make her take back her cash, even though it's a lost cause. Jongin’s managed to make Kyungsoo grasp the bills, but she refuses to take her hand out of his pocket.
"I didn't think we were going to make it this year, to be honest," Jongin admits as they finally push into the swell of the crowd in the cable car. "Figured you would be busy with that guy. Hyunsik." His fingers twitch around Kyungsoo’s. They're still holding hands in his pocket.
There's a pause just short of awkward. “We broke up, actually. Last week."
“Oh.” Jongin takes the pause straight into overtime awkward. His hand has never gotten this sweaty before.
The line moves half a meter.
“Did you want to like. Talk. About it?” Jongin tries.
“Not really,” Kyungsoo shrugs. Her hand shifts, until her fingers are intertwined with his.
--
Somewhere between the fiftieth and five hundredth meter, Jongin decides that he likes holding Kyungsoo’s hand. Somewhere between the five hundredth meter and six hundredth, Jongin's brain doesn't feel like it has enough oxygen. It’s the only excuse he has for what happens next.
"I like holding hands with you," he blurts out. His brain wheezes to keep up with his mouth. "I mean. I like you. Let's. Date?"
Silence. If there was any room in the elevator, someone surely would have dropped a pin.
"I...see," Kyungsoo says, just as the elevator doors to ding to an open.
“2T,” the elevator attendant hurriedly announces. The elevator clears out in half a second, powered solely by everyone’s collective discomfort. Jongin and Kyungsoo shuffle out with the crowd, some of them shooting looks their way. Jongin wants to lie on the floor and see if the crowd will pity-trample him to death.
Kyungsoo pulls him away from the crowds into a small alcove, a death grip on his hand the whole way. She pushes him against the wall and looks at him expectantly. Apparently, he’s supposed to keep talking.
“Is it bad that I still like you even when you’re crushing my hand?” Jongin’s brain is going to secede from the rest of his body. Kyungsoo looks like she wants to secede from their friendship. Relationship? Friendship. Jongin wonders how hard Kyungsoo will pinch if he tried to take it back.
“If you try to say that this is another early April Fool’s Day, I swear to god,” Kyungsoo says, and Jongin knows that means the answer is, very hard.
Jongin swallows down the That was only once threatening to come out; Kyungsoo hasn’t actually said yes or no, and that’s more important than arguing about a dumb prank from years ago.
“Look, Jongin,” Kyungsoo sighs, and Jongin knows the beginning of rejection when he sees one. It usually doesn’t faze him, just makes him work harder until he gets what he wants. But even Jongin knows when to stop pushing, knows that he already fucked things up, knows he shouldn’t do anything to fuck it up even more.
“I’ll see you later,” Jongin mutters, and pushes back into the crowd. Kyungsoo is calling after him, but he cuts the line and sneaks on to the next elevator, jams his thumb on the Door Close button before anyone else can get on. He gets told off by the elevator attendant, but he barely hears it above the buzz of blood rushing up to his face.
Jongin hails down a taxi the minute he sees one, keeps his mind carefully blank the whole ride home. There are burnt out sparklers all over the ground when he arrives home; his sisters are loitering in the yard, holding the last three sticks.
“You’re back early,” Jungah calls out. “Want to light the last sparklers with us? We saved it for you.”
The clock had struck twelve when he was in the cab, and he’d barely noticed the pops of noise coming out of every neighborhood. Now is when it hits him that he left Kyungsoo by herself in the middle of the night like a complete asshole. If Kyungsoo didn't hate him before, she definitely hates him now.
He doesn't say a word to his sisters and trudges straight to his room to replay the train wreck of a night in his head. Let's date? In the middle of an elevator? He might as well have choreographed an entire song and dance in front of the school. At least with that, he'd have been able to back out of it at the last minute, once his mind had come back.
He flops face down on his bed and vows to stay there for the rest of vacation. Before he pulls the covers over his head though, he texts Chanyeol to text Kyungsoo if she’s home yet.
January 2011
Jongin breaks his promise, albeit not voluntarily.
Sehun bursts into his room two weeks into vacation and physically drags him out of his house, muttering something about not letting Jongin turn into a vampire, which, what the fuck. Jongin’s brain is too addled from anime marathons and the shock of Sehun dragging him around with those scrawny stick arms to protest, so he just grabs his jacket before they hit the blast of cold from outside.
--
“Okay,” Sehun says as he plops a dessert tray at their table. “It’s time to have the talk. What’s going on with you and Kyungsoo?”
Jongin rolls his eyes and looks away, but it’s hard to look moody when his teeth are chattering around a spoonful of ice. What freak of nature orders shaved ice in the middle of winter.
“You don’t have to talk, but I’m letting you know right now that there’s a bubble tea place just around the corner and that’s where we’re going next if I don’t figure out what’s going on.” Sehun scoops a huge spoonful of shaved ice that’s mostly toppings and condensed milk. He knows the chocolate chips are Jongin’s favorite part.
“I hope you get the worst case of brain freeze,” Jongin scowls. “There’s nothing wrong with me and Kyungsoo.”
“And Baekhyun has a legitimate chance of getting Hyunsu’s phone number,” Sehun agrees peaceably. “Only we both know this isn’t some messed up alternate timeline, so you might as well just spill. Kyungsoo looked like she was ready to kill last time I saw her.”
“Kyungsoo always looks like she’s ready to kill,” Jongin argues. Sehun should know; he’d looked at her wrong once and it was enough for Kyungsoo to absolutely pummel him.
“No but like, worse than usual. It was like walking on ice, only the ice was made of fire. And when Chanyeol mentioned how you’ve basically become a hermit, I thought she was actually going to incite a riot right inside Coex.”
Jongin chews his spoon nervously. “So,” he says between clacks of his teeth against metal. “I might have done something really stupid. And it might have pissed Kyungsoo off. Just a little.”
Sehun doesn’t say anything, only takes another scoop of shaved ice and looks at Jongin expectantly. Clack clack clack.
“I asked her out on New Year’s Eve,” Jongin admits. “It didn’t go well.” And that’s how he tells Sehun everything, about not seeing her for a month, and holding hands and liking it, and The Thing in the Elevator.
Jongin feels just a tiny bit satisfied when Sehun chokes on a peanut in the middle of laughing. “Holy shit, that’s hilarious. What’d Kyungsoo say?”
“Um. Nothing? I left before she could throw me off the tower.”
Sehun chokes even more violently, and Jongin can see flecks of raspberry fly across the table. The girl at the cashier looks like she’s strongly reconsidering her career choices.
“So what, you just walked out on her? You’re watching too many rom-coms if you thought she’d run after you.”
“Yeah, she’d run after me just to turn me down. Real romantic,” Jongin sulks. Fuck, he can’t believe how badly he’s messed this up. Kyungsoo’s probably never going to talk to him again. He’s too busy sulking to brace himself for the sudden flick to his forehead. “Ow! Man, what the hell,” Jongin whines.
“Dumbasses deserve it,” Sehun says, looking aghast. “What are you doing blowing her off like that? Why are you sabotaging the Romeo and Juliet story of our generation?”
“Romeo and Juliet killed themselves after they declared their love for each other,” Jongin retorts. “Did you even read the play?”
“Like you have,” Sehun shoots back. Whatever, Jongin watched the Leonardo di Caprio movie version of it, and he’s pretty sure that counts. “I was only talking about the epic love forever part anyways. If you weren’t so hellbent on being an idiot, you could have had some romantic story to tell the grandkids about kissing in Seoul Tower with fireworks going off everywhere.”
It sounds like Sehun is the one who’s been watching too many rom-coms, but Jongin doesn’t say that. Instead, he says, “Kyungsoo would have to like me back for that to happen.”
“Oh my god,” Sehun says faintly. “What does Kyungsoo see in you? It has to be your face, because you clearly have nothing between your ears. Of course she likes you, anyone within a ten meter radius of you two can see that.”
Jongin opens his mouth to argue, but before he can say anything, Sehun’s talking again. “No. Shut up and listen before you tell me I’m wrong, because I’m not. Have you realized that you two can’t ever keep your hands off each other, like, ever? And don’t tell me it’s because you’re friends, because you hate it when Chanyeol does it. The rest of us don’t even bother to pick up anything off the ground at lunch when you two are around because we know we’re going to be treated to like, you two playing footsie or holding hands or whatever else weird couple-y things you feel like doing. Plus, the whole spending New Year’s together at the most popular romance spot in Seoul is not something just buddies do. Do you know who goes up there? Couples. Which is what you two are, just way too into denial to see it.”
Jongin’s still not convinced.
“Also, you’re the only person Kyungsoo ever lets copy her homework.”
Jongin might be a little convinced.
“You better hope your pretty face is good enough for her to forgive you,” Sehun says sweetly, and sticks the last spoonful of unflavored ice in Jongin’s mouth.
March 2011
It’s the beginning of year three, and it’s as hectic and soul-sucking as everyone had said it would be; 48 hours into the new semester and Jongin’s already spent half that time in school, cramming for endless exams he didn’t know he had even signed up for. He hasn’t enrolled in hagwon yet, but his future is looking bleak.
The school administration’s mixed up classes this year, trying to get higher test scores. Kyungsoo’s in 3-B with all the other freakishly high achievers and Jongin’s in 3-E, nothing special. They weren’t in the same class last year either, but last year Kyungsoo also didn’t stay an extra two hours past their frankly insane schedules. Jongin doesn’t know how she does it.
Jongin doesn’t really know about how Kyungsoo does anything these days; he hasn’t talked to her in two months now. Jongin blames the way their schedules don’t match up anymore, even though they still sit at the same lunch table. They’re just at opposite ends now, making eye contact with anyone but each other and force laughing their way through their friends’ attempts to clear the fog of tension around them. Jongin can only laugh so many times at Jongdae making Chanyeol spew milk out of his nose.
Kyungsoo always leaves ten minutes into lunch anyway, shoving her milk carton into her blazer pocket before running back to her classroom to cram in extra study time. Jongin stares at her retreating figure every time, tries to think of something to say to her. But last time he had said something to Kyungsoo, well.
“Can we please have some sort of intervention?” Chanyeol asks one day after Kyungsoo runs off not five minutes into lunch. “I don’t know what’s up with her, but my arm is going to have a permanent bruise in the shape of Kyungsoo’s fist soon.”
Maybe it’s the three hours of sleep that Jongin got the night before, or the seaweed soup that tastes like it’s been regurgitated from a dead whale carcass, or the fact that Kyungsoo had somehow been even more avoidant today, but something makes Jongin snap. “Lay off Kyungsoo,” he snaps. “You know this year’s more important to her than to any of our deadbeat asses.”
“How would you know? It’s not like you really talk to her anymore,” Baekhyun tosses out carelessly, more focused on spooning the remainder of his soup into Chanyeol’s tray.
“Fuck you,” Jongin mutters, and scoops up his tray to dump out. He knows he’s being a dick, but whatever. Might as well keep the trend going at this point.
--
Jongin ends up wandering into the dance rehearsal room. He’d stopped doing ballet back in his first year of high school, but he’d stayed close with his seniors, enough that they had told him where the spare key was hidden before they had graduated. It’s empty when he gets there; all the other third years are at the mandatory Math A cramming session, and he’s taking Math B. That means he has a solid two hours to mess around before he has to get back to class.
The clock in the rehearsal room has been broken since Jongin’s first year, and he plugs his phone into the portable speakers in the corner of the room. He puts on his outdated as hell playlist and moves around the room on muscle memory, sautés mixed with toprock mixed with shuffles from that month he took tap dancing lessons once. He doesn’t stop until his playlist finishes on some song that he doesn’t like much, but had put on there because Kyungsoo had told him to.
He drops to the floor, sweaty and overworked. If Kyungsoo were here, she’d already be complaining about how much he reeked. Thinking about Kyungsoo brings on a whole wave of feelings: regret, loneliness, want. Fuck, he misses her. He doesn’t even care if Kyungsoo rejected him, not anymore. He just wants to talk to her again, go back to how it was before.
“Ugh, if I had known you were going to be a disgusting mess, maybe I wouldn’t have come.”
Jongin’s eyes snap open as he scrambles to sit up; it can’t be anyone but Kyungsoo. She looks unsure of herself, hovering by the door like she’s scared to come in, but it only lasts for half a second before she’s squaring her shoulders and striding in to sit right next to Jongin.
“We need to talk,” Kyungsoo demands, and Jongin braces himself for whatever Kyungsoo has to yell at him; he deserves it. Instead, what he gets is a frank and subdued “I miss you,” Kyungsoo looking right at him. It’s been a while.
Jongin looks straight back; Chanyeol always complains that he and Kyungsoo are too honest, that they don’t soften their words for anyone. It’s what Jongin likes the most about Kyungsoo; he can talk about whatever and know she’s giving back one hundred percent. “I miss you, too.”
“Well you’ve done a fantastic job showing it,” Kyungsoo says, and Jongin can hear the hurt loud and clear. “Why did you bail on me at the tower? And then continue to keep bailing on me every time after that?”
“I don’t know.” Jongin sighs and leans his head against the wall. “Okay, that’s a lie. I guess I wasn’t thinking. About the elevator part I mean,” he hastily adds. “Not the liking you part. Because I’ve thought plenty about that and trust me, I really, really like you, enough that getting rejected would absolutely suck. But now I’m realizing that not seeing you sucks even more, so. Can we go back to being friends?”
Kyungsoo doesn’t say anything immediately, and the silence feels like it’s stretching out for an eternity, though in reality it’s probably only a few seconds. Jongin wonders if he was too late, if Kyungsoo’s already decided that she hates him.
“You know, if you hadn’t run off before, we wouldn’t be in this situation right now,” she says, voice even and neutral. “Because then you would have heard me say that I liked you too, but I needed more time to make sure it wasn’t a rebound. And then, instead of avoiding all of my calls, you’d probably have had to only avoid me for two weeks instead of two months, and we could have had actual free time to spend during winter break because yes, I’ll say it again, I like you. But now, you’re going to have to deal with two AM study sessions and competing for my attention against a freaking textbook. So I hope you’re happy with that.”
Kyungsoo glares at Jongin defiantly, as if she’s daring him to argue, but Jongin can only process the words I and like and you. Said consecutively. Said twice. Said to him. Jongin knows that he does a spectacular impression of a fish out of water.
“For fuck’s sake,” Kyungsoo mutters after Jongin’s spectacular response, and leans in to press her mouth square against Jongin’s. It’s soft and chapped and chaste, over in a second; it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to Jongin.
“I’m an idiot,” he croaks.
“You’re an idiot,” Kyungsoo agrees, and she says it so matter of factly that Jongin absolutely has to kiss her again.
He ducks his head down just as Kyungsoo tilts her head up, and Jongin finally gets the timing right. Kyungsoo’s mouth is just as perfect as the first time, plush and slotting just right against Jongin’s. When Kyungsoo parts her mouth just the tiniest bit as Jongin licks along the seam of her lips, he can feel her cheek burn bright hot against the palm of his hand. Jongin’s never kissed a girl before, but he’s pretty sure he never wants to kiss any girl besides Kyungsoo.
He doesn’t particularly want to stop, either, but oxygen is unfortunately a thing, and it apparently doesn’t come easy when his mouth is attached to someone else’s. Kyungsoo pulls away, breathless and giddy, until she glances down at her watch.
“Fuck,” she swears, scrambling up not ungracefully from Jongin’s lap where she’d somehow ended up. “Class is starting in less than two minutes, I have to go now.” She smooths down her skirt and pats at her hair clumsily, but there’s no way to hide her face, mouth at least two shades redder and cheeks flushed deep in comparison to her normally pale complexion. Jongin wants to tell her how pretty she looks, but her foot is dangerously close to his face right now. As she’s running to the door, though -
“Hey,” Jongin calls out. Kyungsoo turns to look at him. “I like you.”
“I’m not saying it again,” Kyungsoo says, but Jongin doesn’t just imagine her flush getting deeper as she rushes back off to class.
When Jongin strolls into his own class fifteen minutes later with a dopey grin he doesn’t even bother to hide, Sehun wolf-whistles loud and clear from the back of the classroom. Jongin doesn’t even laugh at the detention Sehun gets for that, content to lean back in his chair to stare out the window, waiting for the sun to set and the bell to ring.
--
Jongin loiters in the hallway for two hours after class is over, alternating between fiddling with his phone and staring at the door to 3-B. The looks the school custodian is sending him are probably well-deserved.
Finally, the last bell rings and the door opens for the students to start trickling out. Jongin is up on his feet in a heartbeat, sneaking into the classroom. If he were to wait, he would have been waiting for the last person to come out, and then he’d still have to go in the classroom to drag Kyungsoo out.
True to form, Kyungsoo is still bent over a workbook, furiously scribbling notes into the side margins. Jongin sits backwards at the desk in front of her’s, props his elbows up on her desk and his chin in his hands. “Hey,” he says, undeterred when Kyungsoo still doesn’t look up. “Skip hagwon tonight.”
“When hell freezes over, Jongin.”
“I’ve heard temperatures down there are record lows.”
“Remember when I said you’d be competing with a textbook for my attention? I wasn’t kidding about that. So either join hagwon or I’ll see you tomorrow in school.”
“And what’s in it for me if I do decide to join hagwon?” Jongin asks teasingly. He wants to see if he can get Kyungsoo to blush again.
Kyungsoo puts down her pencil and looks up. “I don’t know, what kind of incentives are you looking for?” Her voice is low and full of promise. It’s Jongin’s turn to blush and stammer. Kyungsoo smirks; the rest of the class is long gone. “Why don’t you come and find out?”
Jongin walks her straight up to the doorstep of her hagwon, kisses her until they’re both breathless.
“Study hard,” Jongin says, and braces himself for Kyungsoo’s punch.
--
