Kite, kite, kite
Title: Kite, kite, kite
Pairing: Inseong/Jihun
Rating: G
Genre: Fluff
Inseong is the kind of person who will get stuck on something and will never be able to move on from it.
Two months back, it was a movie he remembered watching as a child but has forgotten the title. The week after that, it’s the name of a tteokbokki shop in Samcheongdong.
He will forget the name and play a broken record of damn, it's at the tip of my tongue! hang on i'll figure this out for an entire day (and days more after) until he finally gets it. Most of the time, he never manages to do it alone. Heejun would then have to google it or look for the thing itself just to shut up Inseong's incessant murmurs of 'was it Tteok Palace? Or Kyangkyungkyernitz? Or Mirae?' in the middle of the night right when he thought everyone was asleep.
Today, it’s a song.
"I know I've heard of it before. I just don't remember where. I can't search the lyrics because it's in English." Inseong buries his head on the pillow. It's a Saturday night and he is venting on his roommateslashbest friend Heejun who is working his term paper.
Inseong sits straight again. "But I remember the melody, though. It goes like this, tun-tun-tun-tun-tun-tun." He raises a finger and tuts the notes to the unnamed song.
Heejun rolls his eyes and goes back to typing. "Why don’t you go back to the café to ask what the song was?"
"I did. But the stupid barista does not know. He gave me a title and when I googled it, I got nothing!"
Heejun wholeheartedly believes that Inseong is a nice hyung and all, but he can be especially annoying. Like today.
"There's an app where you record the song and it will search the song for you." Heejun stands up, grabs the older one's phone and installs the application in no time. "And since you have a decent voice, you can just sing it."
Few minutes after and Heejun is kicking his shins for even suggesting the stupid thing. For the succeeding three hours after, he has to stand listening to Inseong try different ways of humming the tun-tun-tun part on the app to no avail.
The mystery of the untitled song stretches for weeks. Until the end of the term arrives and Inseong only but realizes that he has wasted his days moping about the song instead of finishing his term paper.
To appease himself, Inseong makes himself believe that he has succeeded in being a punk ass. A YOLO-ing, thug-life living, hardcore punk-ass.
Life? It’s for living! Rules? They’re worth breaking!
So his new mantra goes. And it is this same mantra that gets him into his position now---holed up in his favorite café outside the university typing like a maniac for a term paper two weeks overdue.
It’s annoying, really, Inseong thinks. But what was done (or not done) is done and he just needs to get to the finish line before the time ends.
And maybe it's a good thing he is a frequent customer of this café and that he's pretty sure the baristas all know him---if not by name, then at least by face---because if not, he'd have his ass kicked on the curb for loitering and not ordering anything.
Inseong's labor ends after five grueling hours. He sends the paper to the professor with a well-written "please do not take this as me taking your class lightly" note hehehehe and takes off his earphones.
The dying chorus of a familiar song wafts in the air as he walks his way to the counter. But Inseong was too beaten down from his herculean task of five hours to notice it.
"Rough night?" a low unfamiliar voice reaches his ear.
Inseong raises a tired head towards the speaker and suddenly it's as if someone doused him with cold water. He stares and stares and does his best to keep his mouth closed as he tries to comprehend the scene. A tall guy, even taller than him, with raven hair and cat-like features is beaming at him. (And a familiar song goes tun-tun-tun in the café) and Inseong catches his breath because holy fuck, he's gorgeous.
The minutes stretch on but the song playing does not end yet.
The boy says something again, he must have because Inseong sees him opening his mouth, but nothing seems to make sense. Inseong inwardly screams and he swears something must have hurt his eyes because suddenly the whole world is spinning and everything is in bokeh except him. And nothing else is heard but muffled noises and the fading tun-tun-tun-tun-tun-tun coming from the cozy café's speakers.
♪ Living like a kite, kite, kite~ ♪
"Do you get disabled when you fall in love?" Inseong asks Heejun three days after his encounter with Mr. Dreamboat. They are back in the café, comfortably hidden on his favorite spot where he can spy people on the counter without being noticed.
Inseong is a nice hyung and he can be annoying at times, but given the chance, Heejun would choose the annoying hyung instead of this love-struck one with a far-away look in his eyes.
Heejun looks at his best friend, sighs, and grabs a butter chip cookie from the plate in front of them. "Well, they say love makes you dumb," he takes two cookies in one bite and speaks between mouthfuls, "and seeing you like that, I'll go for a yes." he then proceeds to wipe his cookie crumbs-smeared hands on top of his pants.
On normal days, Inseong would nag continuously at Heejun for being a disgusting little twat but today is not a normal day. It can't be normal when 80% of his time, he is thinking about the mysterious barista and for the remaining 20%, he spends wondering where the hell he may be. Inseong heaves a heavy sigh and stares at the direction of the counter.
"Do you think I simply imagined it all?" He asks again, to no one in particular. "It's rather weird, actually. He even came with a soundtrack. The song I told you about."
The truth is, Inseong does not remember what happened after he first laid eyes on Mr. Dreamboat. As if his memory is a giant whiteboard and someone erased every little speck of dirt in it so that the only thing left is Mr. Dreamboat's glorious face (drawn on one part of the board and marked with the word "Save").
Inseong does not even remember how he got home that day. Heejun says he sauntered on their dorm like a drunk zombie with his backpack half-open and a stupid look on his face.
Heejun shrugs and looks over the counter. The barista behind it was the usual tall boy with a jawline that can cut diamonds.
"Why don’t you ask Seungjun about him to be sure?" Heejun points his head to the barista who is now wearing a pokemon headband and giggling stupidly from what might be a joke told to him by the teenaged customer he is serving.
Inseong spares the barista a look and frowns.
He does not like Seungjun. That boy has given him the wrong wifi password four times. Heejun says it might be accidental on Seungjun's part. Inseong does not care. Whether he intended it or not, Inseong does not trust people who forgets wifi passwords. More than that, he does not know the title of the song playing in the café. And who the hell plays a song they do not know in their café?
"Never mind. I can figure it out by myself."
Inseong tries to figure out of the mystery for two weeks. The last seven days of which he spent warding off a badgering Heejun telling him to simply ask the barista Seungjun.
On the fifteenth day, Inseong yields.
He walks towards the café with the intention of simply asking the sharp jawed dork. Inseong only had few bucks left in his pocket after losing a bet with Heejun (you're most likely to get an A on that overdue paper before you find out Dreamboat's name) and he's quite sure there's nothing else to lose if he asks Seungjun.
The door chime clangs loudly as he pulls the glass door open. He runs his sight, swiftly scanning the interiors of the café for his favorite spot, before lodging his sight at the counter. The door closes behind him and the smell of coffee fills the air but Inseong minds none of it upon seeing who's manning the counter.
Mr. Dreamboat!
He staggers his way into his spot, sits down, and spends the next ten minutes calming his nerves. A clammy feeling erupts from his guts and Inseong swears the butterflies in his stomach are going to exhaust themselves to death from all the dancing they do.
He has just decided on which drink to buy when he realized that he's broke as fuck. Perfect.
He sneaks some glances toward the counter and catches his breath when Mr. Dreamboat meets his eyes.
Now or never, Inseong tells himself.
He stands up and as if right on cue, the song from weeks back blares from the speakers and Inseong's face splits into a gummy smile despite the nervousness swarming him that moment.
♪Tun-tun-tun-tun-tun-tun
All in your mind (it is)~ All in your mind (it is)~ ♪
"Hi." sharp intake of breath, " Do you know this song?" Inseong gives his best smile and nods his head (as confidently as he can) in time with the beat. All the while, scanning the form of the tall guy in front of him for a name tag. And there it is. Kim Jihun.
♪ All in your mind~ all in your mind~ ♪
The nervousness dissipates and he finds the courage to look straight into Mr. Dreamboat's eyes. Jihun meets his eyes and smiles that smile of him that turned Inseong's brain into mush. The kind where he looks down and gives a half-snigger half-smile with his broad, broad shoulders shaking slightly before he looks back up gently and meets the eye of the person in front of him and oh god, Inseong, hold yourself.
"Do you like that song, Inseong?"
What. The. Fuck.
Right before a baby is born, a mother's senses gets sensitive ten million times and every bit of her body gets pumped up as if that of a car that had too much gasoline. Inseong is quite sure he has no ovaries but he swears he finally understands what his high school biology told him about pure adrenaline rush during giving birth when he hears his name being uttered by those pretty lips.
"You… know me?" He swallows what remains of the dried desert that was his throat and blinks his eyes one time too many in a mad rush of excitement and anxiety.
"Yes." Jihun smiles shyly and Inseong feels slightly dizzy.
"W-where's that git, Seungjun?" He surprises himself with the question, because honestly Inseong, since when the fuck did you care about Seungjun?
"Ah." Jihun's smile falters a little. "He's sick. But he'll probably be back tomorrow." he adds while shyly scratching the back of his head.
Awww, he's so adorable.
"Oh." He blinks and says the most stupid thing ever afterwards. "Are you friends?"
Inseong would like to believe that he is a fairly intelligent guy. Why, he received an A grade for his two-week overdue term paper, so why is it that he says the dumbest things right now, right in front of Mr. Dreamboat?!?!
But Mr. DreamboatslashJihun seems not to mind. He smiles that smile of his again before answering. "He's actually my cousin. I sub for him when he can't make it here. Like that time when we first met."
Jihun stares deeply into his eyes and somewhere in the deepest chasms of Inseong's mind, romantic classical music plays and champagne fizz flies all over, and he is drowning, drowning, drowning on it all.
♪ Tun-tun-tun-tun-tun ♪
The moment ends when he feels the coarse texture of tissue paper being slipped into his fingers and how sharp the contrast is against Jihun's soft, warm hand.
"The song title is in there." The taller one says softly, eyes still boring, suffocating, poor Inseong.
"T-thanks." His fingers scrape his. "I've been looking for that for ages." a soft pause, "Jihun."
Inseong gathers the rest of his strength to steady his shaking knees as he walks back to his spot. He sits down on the chair and looks at the slip of paper on his hands.
Open Season by High Highs was written in neat handwriting.
But Inseong does not care about it anymore. His eyes focus more on the rest of the words written beneath the song title,
"Do you mind if I take you home later?"
♪ Tun-tun-tun-tun-tun-tun-tun-tun ♪
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A/N: Oh, look. Yaoi. AHAHAHAHA idk i swear Inseong is so ghei in this fic. Not much but I had fun (and got stressed) writing this. Birthday gift for my bb blubtrflynflats.