Work Text:
It happens like this:
They’re young, freshly debuted, and Jonghyun is bright and brave and flirty. Jinki is there , he’s everywhere . Jinki is a little timid and overly sweet but his smile is like the sun, and Jonghyun can’t help himself but let it fill him up to the very top. He thinks about his smile when they’re being interviewed and his voice in his dreams and his heart when he writes lyrics he hasn’t shown anyone yet.
It happens when Jinki is up too late in their kitchen, and Jonghyun doesn’t sleep much anyway, and they meet in the cool dim light, and crickets sound like songbirds and wolf-whistles at the same time. Jonghyun says what he thinks because he’s never learned not to, and Jinki blushes when he hears beautiful, so beautiful.
It’s slow-going and that’s okay because they’re young and they have all the time in the world and they can talk and kiss and hold each other later.
Jonghyun is young and he feels like he’s growing up too fast but this is something that isn’t scary, isn’t overwhelming in the worst way. Even when everything else is overwhelming.
He doesn’t have to think about his future. Jinki makes him feel present.
Jonghyun doesn’t overthink it because he feels safe.
Or maybe he does. Overthink it.
Because Jinki is safe but nothing else is.
And Jinki’s in the kitchen and tells him to go back to bed and Jonghyun’s hand brushes his arm and his heart is in his throat but he listens because Jinki is their leader and he’s his friend and maybe he convinces himself that if it were meant to have happened, it would have happened tonight.
He sticks the thought in his pocket like he does everything else, to take out and examine with a kaleidoscope and a magnifying glass when he’s alone in his room.
So instead maybe it happens like this:
A few years later, when it’s less scary. When Jonghyun’s already talked about it. It’s not a feeling that exists only in his head. He’s shared late nights with Kibum bearing their paper hearts and he’s written love songs that they’ve gotten to sing on stages with people chanting their names.
They’re young, still, haven’t been at it for very long. But Jinki is more comfortable, he’s more confident. He smiles bright and it still floats off him in waves.
Like everything else about him, it’s contagious. Jinki buzzes and it fills Jonghyun to the brim, and he feels like he’s stronger with every step he takes. Jinki’s there to pull him to the ground.
Artists fly away because art makes them feel like they’re floating. And Jonghyun can touch the moon and the stars but he wants to bring back a piece for him , it’s what he’s wanted since he was a teenager.
So maybe they’re leaving an award ceremony and holding each other backstage. Jonghyun always cries and Kibum always cries and the others hold them because he stole some gravitational pull when he came back from the moon and the others don’t notice when he lands his lips on Jinki’s.
It’s just for a second and they don’t talk about it, they don’t have to. Or maybe they should, but they won’t. Not here.
The kiss is hardly a confession in itself, just a spark of something and it feels better than their win and their performance and the screaming crowd and the stars that surround them. But that’s not the confession -- it’s the look he makes when he pulls back, the sparkle in his eye.
Jonghyun doesn’t say out loud that he’s always wanted to do that, and Jinki doesn’t say he’s glad he did. But the moon and the stars and the humid air around them and the space between them says it for them.
But that’s not it either.
There are too many people. And Jinki is shy and Jonghyun is on fire and he pulls him in for a hug and there’s something there but it’s more than either of them can have and it’s less than either of them want.
There’s no look because Jinki is blurry behind Jonghyun’s tears, even as he wipes them away.
So:
Jonghyun debuts on his own and still has everyone beside him and they listen to his lyrics as diligently as he writes them.
And Jinki is smart and knows what his words mean, because Jonghyun is nothing if not honest and if Jonghyun did confess, Jinki would tell him that in return.
Because in all of Jonghyun’s confessions, they’re his. Jinki will laugh or cry or tell him everything he’s ever admired about him.
(And maybe that’s why he doesn’t do it.)
Maybe he writes the words but never gets them out of his mouth because Jinki will wax poetic and Jonghyun is always focused on what he says but not always what he means. Jinki says he loves him but he means he loves him, and Jonghyun is stubborn and has convinced himself of a few things.
The first is that Jinki is everything, and that means that Jonghyun wants and wants him.
The second is that Jinki is everything, and that means that Jonghyun can’t have him.
Jonghyun writes: I love you.
Jinki says: I love you back.
Jonghyun hears: You can’t have me.
Jinki said: You already do.
So they don’t say it and they don’t go anywhere.
In some versions of their love story, Jinki goes on dates in public and in secret, and Jonghyun watches and has already made up his mind about what Jinki wants even though this version of the man he’s loved for years and years lives only in his head. And Jonghyun goes on dates in public and in secret, and Jinki watches and loves him and waits.
He would never push and he’s already made himself known, he has ages ago, and maybe Jonghyun is full enough to hear but too empty to listen.
Jinki is patient.
He waits.
He waits a few more years until they’ve been orbiting around each other without touching, stubborn and strong like the earth and the fucking sun . Jinki is white hot and grown and unafraid and he is strong and he pushes Jonghyun but he never asks.
Jonghyun has wanted this since they were just kids and it feels like centuries ago and he’s shed his skin and grown a new one a thousand times over.
He might confess like this in a hotel room on a tour, pressed against a wall or a hard mattress. And there might be tears and they might be Jinki’s and there might be a million confessions in the form of touches and breaths and I’ve wanted this and I’ve wanted you and it’s worth it, every second. Every missed connection. Every monodrama.
This time, the confession is marked with a firm grip and a deep kiss and a shallow moan and a promise that this is only just the beginning when really there have been a hundred of them.
They’ve only ever had beginnings.
Or maybe that's an ending, and they both think those fingers and tongues are just body parts and not promises. They’re stubborn and angry but maybe they're happy just for this. If they can't have each other they can have this. Until they can't anymore.
What if Jonghyun never goes to Jinkis room in the first place and there's never that break in tension because he's afraid it’ll snap like everything else. What if he sits in his room and wonders and takes his missed confession collection up to the bathroom light to inspect and feel helpless here and angry.
Jonghyun is brave, but his bravery doesn't mean he isn't scared shitless of so many things. He’s afraid of monsters and demons that hide under beds and between pages of books and inside minds without permission.
He’s afraid of being remembered and he's afraid of being forgotten.
He’s afraid of having Jinki only to lose him to a relationship they maybe weren't meant to have. He’s afraid of never having Jinki at all.
He’s afraid he doesn't know which sounds worse.
He's brave but he feels like a coward but he's not afraid of being a coward, he's been afraid his boldness would get away from him.
So:
Jonghyun waits, maybe, and he holds Jinki at the center of his heart like a pendant.
Jinki waits, maybe, until they’ve been a group for ten years and he has to leave and Jonghyun has to watch. And Jonghyun cries and Jinki holds him like a piece of shattered china and Jonghyun is afraid because he's convinced he always has been.
Or maybe he’s been mapping this out for years when he’s at Jinki’s doorstep and tells him everything he’s ever wanted to.
(I love you and I didn’t know this about love when I’d dreamed about it but I met you and I realized that love is like opening your eyes. It happens once, for the first time, on purpose. When you’re waking up in the morning and it’s bright out and it’s hard, sometimes it's impossible, but you do it. And then you open your eyes a thousand more times just within the day and you don’t even have to try. It comes just as easily as closing them.)
(I’ve loved you since I knew I could wake up in the morning and feel the sun in my face without having to squint. The only argument I have that you aren't a gift from the sun is that I can’t bear to look away from you.)
(I’ve waited so long for you and I could wait some more.)
(He doesn’t have to.)
-
Jonghyun is a piece of the moon and he’s the bringer of the stars. He is stubborn and small and has the fight of a lion and a heart the same size. He’s secure and he’s afraid and Jinki has never known anyone more human.
He’s never met anyone built from excess love, spilling over himself like a glass half full and half empty again, someone who has been robbed of water at all.
Even when he doesn't confess, Jinki is patient and he knows and he waits.
(Or maybe the first time or the second time or every time Jonghyun is quiet, Jinki is sharing with him a secret.)
(I have only ever wanted your smile. I have only ever wanted a piece of your puzzle in my pocket. I’ve only ever wanted to dig into yours to pull out the universe. I’ve only ever wanted you. I’ve only ever wanted you.)
-
It turns out it doesn't matter when it happens.
It happens when they're young enough to have entire lives growing in the palms of their hands.
It happens as a whisper in deep black darkness way before they're even ready.
It doesn't.
It happens when they're ready.
It happens on one knee. It happens with his mother’s ring.
It happens at all.
It does.