Work Text:
Jisung’s front teeth are crooked.
Changbin hadn’t noticed before. Hadn’t noticed until he’d smacked his mouth on the microphone in the recording booth and come flying out, eyes panicked, baring his blunt little teeth at Chan and Changbin frantically for them to check if he’d chipped them. His top lip was bruised and swelling just a bit but his teeth were fine. Chan had laughed at him and Changbin had wondered, watching as Jisung rubbed his smarting mouth with a pout, if that was something he should have noticed earlier.
Noona says he needs to be more observant. Changbin-ah, she’d sigh, you need to look up more often. His mother used to click her tongue and say the same thing, after he clipped his chin on a table and ended up scarred, or when cups and bowls would slip right through his fingers. He’s not that clumsy anymore, although sometimes he does feel too big for his body. Worse when he feels too small. Sometimes it feels difficult trying to fit himself into a room with Jisung, who is complicated and difficult on purpose while Changbin is both too hard and too soft without balance. Jisung is always running a hundred miles an hour, too fast to be pinned down and studied. Changbin collects understanding slowly, some of it backwards, and he tries to build a Jisung he can understand piece by piece. Tries to figure out how he ticks.
Jisung is from Incheon, and he speaks English with two different accents, and he’s a younger brother who plays the role perfectly for Chan but always seems one beat off around Changbin. Jisung is barely sixteen and he could be in university if he wanted, having already passed his entrance exams years early, but he can’t do math in his head as fast as Changbin and it pisses him off the the point of genuine anger. He can’t eat food that’s too spicy. He’s quiet and well-behaved when they’re dragged into meetings with managers and PD-nim but will spit hellfire in the booth like he has to get it out before it burns him from the inside. Jisung watches movies and puts his own head into them and writes songs about love and heartbreak and lives he’s never lived and probably won’t and still manages to sound sincere and experienced, even though his voice has been cracking a lot lately. Jisung gets carsick if he looks at his phone too long. Jisung is prickly and takes everything personally but still guards his heart with two swords and no real shield. He can’t drink caffeine in the studio after ten PM or Chan says he won’t sleep at all. Jisung never stops, always fidgeting, one leg bouncing like he’s ready to get up and run. Jisung overthinks all the time. Jisung has a conversation in his head eight times over before he says a word out loud to practise every outcome yet still manages to blurt the first thing that comes to mind.
Jisung is cocky and combative and smug and Jisung cries like a baby when he’s tired right down to his bones, choking back sobs into his sleeves or his hood like if he closes his eyes no one can see him. Jisung has never hugged Changbin. Jisung stands right next to him at the bus stop with their arms pressed together. Jisung looks at him sometimes with stars in his eyes even as he openly dissects him. Jisung lights up when Changbin remembers what episode of Blue Planet he’s up to and when they talk about Marvel movies together. Jisung does a Doraemon impression that's actually very good.
Jisung calls him hyung-ah like it’s an afterthought, tacking it on a beat too late, and when Changbin or Chan tug on his ear he protests and whines that he’s still adjusting. Calls him hyung-nim when he’s asking for food or praising his lyrics and calls him nothing at all if Changbin raises his voice. Calls him Seo Changbin-ssi when he’s running circles around him, vying for him to give chase, silver-tongued and too talented for his own good and desperate to be the best at everything he tries and prove it to anyone and everyone watching. Calls him hyungie, sometimes, rarely, when he’s sleepy in that soft way. In the way that means when he doesn’t think before he speaks it’s gentle, not caustic, stripped back and slowed down. Changbin thinks that maybe Jisung wants his attention and isn’t sure how best to get it. Changbin doesn’t know how to tell him he’ll always have it.
Jisung has crooked front teeth. His breath whistles between his parted lips, and his chubby cheek squishes like dough against Changbin’s shoulder. His eyelashes flutter. Jisung has never hugged Changbin but he’s asleep on the couch next to him, knees pulled up and his usually tense hands lax in his lap. There is a spot of drool on his bruised lip. He looks younger like this, all the tension unspooled. Vulnerable like he has never been with him before whether he means to be or not. His head is heavy and Changbin’s shoulder aches from dance practise but he doesn’t move. Lets him get his sleep. Jisung is safe around Changbin, and it seems like it's finally sinking in. A language barrier being chipped away. A puzzle piece finally placed.
Changbin observes. Jisung is sweet when he dreams.