Candles - Part 1
Title: Candles
Author: fiar22
Rating: pg-13
Genre: ANGST, romance, some smut (more in later chapters)
Summary: Kim Kibum and Kim Jonghyun had the perfect relationship, right? They had everything, right? WRONG. But Key finds out the hard way and has to work towards getting over it so that he move forward and maybe find someone new. (summary sucks cause this started out as a one-shot XD)
Author's notes: This was originally intended to be a one-shot and a JongKey break up fic, but it blossomed into a full-blown fic that eventually is very OnKey. It may not be very good simply because I changed my mind a hundred times and really only got around to developing plot at the end. BUT it's my first fic and I'm still a bit proud of it. (at least I finished it. :P)
Also, it may be important to know that this was inspired by "Candles" by Hey Monday. The whole fic... specifically this part for now.
___________________________________
It had been exactly five days, twenty hours, six minutes, and thirty-two seconds since Jonghyun had broken up with him. The probability that the news would hit Kibum, for the five-hundredth time, was ten out of one. It wasn’t necessarily that he kept forgetting, it’s just that he would get over it and then remember something good, which would send him back into a disheveled state. In public, there wasn’t too much of a worry about because he distracted himself with people and mind-numbing activity. However, his room was lacking in both of those qualities. In fact, being in his room made it worse because some of the best moments had taken place in his 8'x8' room.
As a he lay on his bed, hands behind his head, he thought about it more than he should have. How was he supposed to forget if all he could see was pictures, presents, and past moments that Jonghyun had strewn across the room in their time together? Just inside the doorway of the room was where Jjong had kissed Key for the first time and everything changed. On the window sill was where Key sat the night Jonhyun decided to surprise him and throw rocks at his window. Over on the chair in the corner was where Key had first sat when Jjong called asking him to go to that party, the one where Jonghyun, in a drunken stupor, promised himself to Key. Then, there was the bed. The bed that’s sheets hadn’t been changed since the very first time Key had sex with a boy [Jonghyun]. They were ‘sacred’ and something like a promise ring for their relationship. Of course, he hadn’t thought to change the sheets, not yet.
“This is completely stupid,” Key said to himself. Key wasn’t ever like this. He just didn’t get hung up on stuff like this. Everyone expected him to be happy diva Key, but even in the public eye there was something different about the way Key had been lately. His girlfriends asked if he was okay, but he’d always just answer with ‘fine’. They looked knowingly at him, but never asked any further questions. His guy friends never asked any questions at all. They just asked him to go to the park or out to help them find girlfriends, avoiding the topic of his loss at all costs.
His friends’ attitudes didn’t bother him. His own did. They were trying so hard, but none of it actually helped. It was all distractions, distractions from his relationship that was no longer existent. But what should he have cared? It wasn’t like it was the best he’d ever had.
For starters, the relationship had only lasted a good two years. Sure, some would say that was a long time, and it was Key’s longest relationship, but he was now aware that Jonghyun had long been drained of interest, which left the relationship with more like one and one half years. Plus, if you count the times that Jonghyun cheated on Key (the excuse of being drunk) then the relationship was dwindled down to a measly one year, probably less. However, Key always took him back. It became apparent that this might be a bad move on Key’s part, but he’d never imagined Jonghyun leaving him.
No, that had been the furthest thing from his mind. Though even further had been the idea that one of his very own BFFL had been the one to steal Jjong’s heart away and miraculously turn him back into a woman-lover. Jessica Jung was an angelic beauty and could probably have any boy she wanted. Unfortunately for Key, the guy she wanted was Jonghyun. The way the newly formed couple explained it was, “it just sort of happened.” Of course, Key had to clench his fists and bite his tongue just to keep himself from rolling his eyes.
Making a sound of disgust, Key rolled off of his bed and onto his feet. All the on and off crying had made him thirsty, and knowing himself, he expected another episode soon enough.
He found his way down the stairs and into the kitchen. His parents hadn’t been home in about a week. They had gone off on some stupid trip for a second honey-moon. When it first happened, he was ecstatic. Jonghyun and he would have the house all to themselves. It was the times when his parents would leave on long trips that he had the best memories with his ex-boyfriend.
He reached up to open the cabinet, only to come face to face with Jjong’s long, engraved scratch marks embedded into the wooden door. That time Key had been sitting on the counter, both boys simply in their boxers. There was also peanut butter involved, that being the clean part.
He grabbed a glass from the cabinet and got some water from the faucet. Taking a nice, long drink from his cup, he took in the emptiness of his house. This time wasn’t fun. This time he would have preferred they stayed, even if that meant sneaking around them to make sure they didn’t see him cry. He didn’t want to worry them. Perhaps it was better for them that they left.
Instead of confining himself to his room, Key ventured to the living room, specifically the couch. He placed the now empty glass on the coffee table and relaxed himself. To his right, he saw the large sliding glass doors where Jjong would often sneak into his house after his parents went to bed. It was the best place because the doors were nearly silent; it involved no extra work for Jonghyun.
“Should have made him work for it,” Key scoffed.
One of the best nights started at that door: the first night Jonghyun and he spent the night together. It was the best night of Key’s life. The event had been totally unplanned. Key had just finished watching the best episode of Gossip Girl he’d seen in a long while and was about to turn in like his parents had an hour early, when he heard a slight tap at the door. His first instinct had been to find something that would cause pain, but when he heard the muffled voice of Jonghyun he calmed down... a bit. His heart was beating so fast from the moment he realized it was Jonghyun. It hadn’t stopped until he was curled up next to his lover in a first-time-with-a-guy-passionate-sex-sweat kind of way. After that, Jjong had said in a sweet and sincere voice, “I love you Kim Kibum, and I always will.”
That’s when Key lost it. Suddenly, there were tears and his heart was breaking all over again. He covered his face with his hands as he sobbed uncontrollably and curled into a ball. “Oh god, why did this happen? Why did this happen to me?” His voice was probably undecipherable. As it continued, Key’s thoughts all became a jumbled mess, sounded off to the beat of, “He never even loved me.”
As Key lay there, pouring his heart into the empty air, there was a small noise and then a complete black out. There was no longer the slight hum of electricity. Silence was all that there was. In the silence, Key had finally sobered himself up and wiped away the tears. Luckily, he’d kept his cell phone in close proximity, so he used the light to find candles and a lighter. After bringing it all up to his room, he lit the place up best he could and then curled up in the chair in the corner. His phone set idly on one of the chair arms.
“He wasn’t even that cool,” Key thought out loud.
It was true that Jjong had a certain reputation. Not that it was bad, just that he was a smooth kind of guy. He was considered, among many, the perfect catch. Key had thought the same thing before dating Jonghyun, and still thought it most of the time they were together. Perhaps it was because that’s what he’d wanted people to see, but, as anyone knows, if you become close with someone you will see the real them. And Jonghyun was far from perfect.
He was always acting different from person to person. He could be so friendly to one person, but change face quickly when it came to the next. It was sometimes difficult to assess who he really liked. It was the kind of thing that made a person untrustworthy.
Then, there was his drinking problem. Any time alcohol was involved, Jonghyun ended up shit-faced. This led to (or so says Jonghyun) his uncontrollable promiscuity. Key’s stomach churned as he thought of the night he found out Jjong had cheated on him for the first time. He had cried that night as well. He screamed too. It seemed like it had been forever ago. The first time was the worst, one, because it was the first time, and two, because that time was with Jessica. As far as Key knew, Jonghyun only cheated with Jessica twice, and one was the first time. They may or may not have had something in the months before the end of the relationship, but Key was too blind to see any of it.
After being cheated on five or six times, Key stopped listening to what people said. He refused to believe it. He’d already been a fool for so long; why not make himself a blind fool? Not knowing was better, living in numbness was better. Of course, he’d always prefer the insane passion the first year of the relationship held, but if all he could get was blind-sided half-assed love, he would have taken it. He did take it, until Jonghyun took that away from him too.
Key snapped away from his thoughts as his phone began to sing “Mister~” to him. He sat in perfect stillness as he listened and watched “Taeminieeee~” flash across the screen for a good minute before it finally went to voice mail. Key didn’t want to talk to anyone, even his best friends, especially Taemin.
Out of all his friends, Taemin was the most bizarre one. He was definitely a boy and definitely had boy-like qualities, but he looked a bit like a girl and had many girl-like qualities. Though, not in the way Key did. Taemin was more cute and innocent, whereas Key was a diva who knew everything about everyone, that is, except himself and his ex-boyfriend.
The one thing that made Taemin stick out the most was his ability to care. Not just about anyone, but about Key. He didn’t ask the run of the mill questions like, “Are you okay?” but more like “Is it getting any easier?” or “Should I stop by tonight?” Key could answer the same, “I’m fine,” but Taemin would push more and never take no for an answer.
However, Key did everything in his power to avoid Taemin at this time. It was his reality to face alone. Having someone else around would just make him feel even stupider than he already felt. He couldn’t handle the embarrassment of another knowing the way Jonghyun was still affecting him.
Key let out a heavy sigh as a bolt of lightning flashed outside. He hadn’t noticed before, but it was raining, hard. It was most likely the cause of the power outage. He’d been far too distracted cursing Jonghyun and then crying over the loss of his “love” (if that’s what they call it) and it was just another reason to beat himself up for still feeling the way he did.
Most people would say five days was not enough time to go through the stages of loss, but considering all of the bad things that happened, Key had hoped it would be over quickly. He had been trying to suppress all thoughts of Jonghyun, but as the days went on they weaseled their way through. At first, Key just tried to keep suppressing them, but when he began to think about the actual break up, he decided thinking about every other Jonghyun-related-event but the actual break up was better.
Every time he even thought of the small details leading up to the break up, he would feel his stomach churn and become nauseated quickly. In fact, Key hurriedly got up and stumbled to the bathroom just in time for a small up-chuck session. Reaching the toilet or not was a mystery to him. After thinking hard about the layout of his bathroom, he decided he probably missed the toilet. If he was lucky, he might have even puked in the same spot Jonghyun always managed to hit when drunk. Jonghyun never was good at reaching his goals.
Key decided he couldn’t properly clean up because he couldn’t very well see, so he left the bathroom as it was and went back to his room. When he stumbled on his bed, face first, he just lay there for a minute. He felt completely worthless as he lay there, unable to breathe because his face was pushed so far into his sheets. He turned his head to the side and sighed. Then, with a big breath in, something hit him.
It was a smell. Something he had somehow missed in all the times he laid in this very bed. Really, it wasn’t just a smell, it was Jonghyun’s smell. The scent slowly began to get to him, renewing his memory of that night, the night that took place five days, twenty-three hours, and forty-two minutes ago.
Author: fiar22
Rating: pg-13
Genre: ANGST, romance, some smut (more in later chapters)
Summary: Kim Kibum and Kim Jonghyun had the perfect relationship, right? They had everything, right? WRONG. But Key finds out the hard way and has to work towards getting over it so that he move forward and maybe find someone new. (summary sucks cause this started out as a one-shot XD)
Author's notes: This was originally intended to be a one-shot and a JongKey break up fic, but it blossomed into a full-blown fic that eventually is very OnKey. It may not be very good simply because I changed my mind a hundred times and really only got around to developing plot at the end. BUT it's my first fic and I'm still a bit proud of it. (at least I finished it. :P)
Also, it may be important to know that this was inspired by "Candles" by Hey Monday. The whole fic... specifically this part for now.
___________________________________
It had been exactly five days, twenty hours, six minutes, and thirty-two seconds since Jonghyun had broken up with him. The probability that the news would hit Kibum, for the five-hundredth time, was ten out of one. It wasn’t necessarily that he kept forgetting, it’s just that he would get over it and then remember something good, which would send him back into a disheveled state. In public, there wasn’t too much of a worry about because he distracted himself with people and mind-numbing activity. However, his room was lacking in both of those qualities. In fact, being in his room made it worse because some of the best moments had taken place in his 8'x8' room.
As a he lay on his bed, hands behind his head, he thought about it more than he should have. How was he supposed to forget if all he could see was pictures, presents, and past moments that Jonghyun had strewn across the room in their time together? Just inside the doorway of the room was where Jjong had kissed Key for the first time and everything changed. On the window sill was where Key sat the night Jonhyun decided to surprise him and throw rocks at his window. Over on the chair in the corner was where Key had first sat when Jjong called asking him to go to that party, the one where Jonghyun, in a drunken stupor, promised himself to Key. Then, there was the bed. The bed that’s sheets hadn’t been changed since the very first time Key had sex with a boy [Jonghyun]. They were ‘sacred’ and something like a promise ring for their relationship. Of course, he hadn’t thought to change the sheets, not yet.
“This is completely stupid,” Key said to himself. Key wasn’t ever like this. He just didn’t get hung up on stuff like this. Everyone expected him to be happy diva Key, but even in the public eye there was something different about the way Key had been lately. His girlfriends asked if he was okay, but he’d always just answer with ‘fine’. They looked knowingly at him, but never asked any further questions. His guy friends never asked any questions at all. They just asked him to go to the park or out to help them find girlfriends, avoiding the topic of his loss at all costs.
His friends’ attitudes didn’t bother him. His own did. They were trying so hard, but none of it actually helped. It was all distractions, distractions from his relationship that was no longer existent. But what should he have cared? It wasn’t like it was the best he’d ever had.
For starters, the relationship had only lasted a good two years. Sure, some would say that was a long time, and it was Key’s longest relationship, but he was now aware that Jonghyun had long been drained of interest, which left the relationship with more like one and one half years. Plus, if you count the times that Jonghyun cheated on Key (the excuse of being drunk) then the relationship was dwindled down to a measly one year, probably less. However, Key always took him back. It became apparent that this might be a bad move on Key’s part, but he’d never imagined Jonghyun leaving him.
No, that had been the furthest thing from his mind. Though even further had been the idea that one of his very own BFFL had been the one to steal Jjong’s heart away and miraculously turn him back into a woman-lover. Jessica Jung was an angelic beauty and could probably have any boy she wanted. Unfortunately for Key, the guy she wanted was Jonghyun. The way the newly formed couple explained it was, “it just sort of happened.” Of course, Key had to clench his fists and bite his tongue just to keep himself from rolling his eyes.
Making a sound of disgust, Key rolled off of his bed and onto his feet. All the on and off crying had made him thirsty, and knowing himself, he expected another episode soon enough.
He found his way down the stairs and into the kitchen. His parents hadn’t been home in about a week. They had gone off on some stupid trip for a second honey-moon. When it first happened, he was ecstatic. Jonghyun and he would have the house all to themselves. It was the times when his parents would leave on long trips that he had the best memories with his ex-boyfriend.
He reached up to open the cabinet, only to come face to face with Jjong’s long, engraved scratch marks embedded into the wooden door. That time Key had been sitting on the counter, both boys simply in their boxers. There was also peanut butter involved, that being the clean part.
He grabbed a glass from the cabinet and got some water from the faucet. Taking a nice, long drink from his cup, he took in the emptiness of his house. This time wasn’t fun. This time he would have preferred they stayed, even if that meant sneaking around them to make sure they didn’t see him cry. He didn’t want to worry them. Perhaps it was better for them that they left.
Instead of confining himself to his room, Key ventured to the living room, specifically the couch. He placed the now empty glass on the coffee table and relaxed himself. To his right, he saw the large sliding glass doors where Jjong would often sneak into his house after his parents went to bed. It was the best place because the doors were nearly silent; it involved no extra work for Jonghyun.
“Should have made him work for it,” Key scoffed.
One of the best nights started at that door: the first night Jonghyun and he spent the night together. It was the best night of Key’s life. The event had been totally unplanned. Key had just finished watching the best episode of Gossip Girl he’d seen in a long while and was about to turn in like his parents had an hour early, when he heard a slight tap at the door. His first instinct had been to find something that would cause pain, but when he heard the muffled voice of Jonghyun he calmed down... a bit. His heart was beating so fast from the moment he realized it was Jonghyun. It hadn’t stopped until he was curled up next to his lover in a first-time-with-a-guy-passionate-sex-sweat kind of way. After that, Jjong had said in a sweet and sincere voice, “I love you Kim Kibum, and I always will.”
That’s when Key lost it. Suddenly, there were tears and his heart was breaking all over again. He covered his face with his hands as he sobbed uncontrollably and curled into a ball. “Oh god, why did this happen? Why did this happen to me?” His voice was probably undecipherable. As it continued, Key’s thoughts all became a jumbled mess, sounded off to the beat of, “He never even loved me.”
As Key lay there, pouring his heart into the empty air, there was a small noise and then a complete black out. There was no longer the slight hum of electricity. Silence was all that there was. In the silence, Key had finally sobered himself up and wiped away the tears. Luckily, he’d kept his cell phone in close proximity, so he used the light to find candles and a lighter. After bringing it all up to his room, he lit the place up best he could and then curled up in the chair in the corner. His phone set idly on one of the chair arms.
“He wasn’t even that cool,” Key thought out loud.
It was true that Jjong had a certain reputation. Not that it was bad, just that he was a smooth kind of guy. He was considered, among many, the perfect catch. Key had thought the same thing before dating Jonghyun, and still thought it most of the time they were together. Perhaps it was because that’s what he’d wanted people to see, but, as anyone knows, if you become close with someone you will see the real them. And Jonghyun was far from perfect.
He was always acting different from person to person. He could be so friendly to one person, but change face quickly when it came to the next. It was sometimes difficult to assess who he really liked. It was the kind of thing that made a person untrustworthy.
Then, there was his drinking problem. Any time alcohol was involved, Jonghyun ended up shit-faced. This led to (or so says Jonghyun) his uncontrollable promiscuity. Key’s stomach churned as he thought of the night he found out Jjong had cheated on him for the first time. He had cried that night as well. He screamed too. It seemed like it had been forever ago. The first time was the worst, one, because it was the first time, and two, because that time was with Jessica. As far as Key knew, Jonghyun only cheated with Jessica twice, and one was the first time. They may or may not have had something in the months before the end of the relationship, but Key was too blind to see any of it.
After being cheated on five or six times, Key stopped listening to what people said. He refused to believe it. He’d already been a fool for so long; why not make himself a blind fool? Not knowing was better, living in numbness was better. Of course, he’d always prefer the insane passion the first year of the relationship held, but if all he could get was blind-sided half-assed love, he would have taken it. He did take it, until Jonghyun took that away from him too.
Key snapped away from his thoughts as his phone began to sing “Mister~” to him. He sat in perfect stillness as he listened and watched “Taeminieeee~” flash across the screen for a good minute before it finally went to voice mail. Key didn’t want to talk to anyone, even his best friends, especially Taemin.
Out of all his friends, Taemin was the most bizarre one. He was definitely a boy and definitely had boy-like qualities, but he looked a bit like a girl and had many girl-like qualities. Though, not in the way Key did. Taemin was more cute and innocent, whereas Key was a diva who knew everything about everyone, that is, except himself and his ex-boyfriend.
The one thing that made Taemin stick out the most was his ability to care. Not just about anyone, but about Key. He didn’t ask the run of the mill questions like, “Are you okay?” but more like “Is it getting any easier?” or “Should I stop by tonight?” Key could answer the same, “I’m fine,” but Taemin would push more and never take no for an answer.
However, Key did everything in his power to avoid Taemin at this time. It was his reality to face alone. Having someone else around would just make him feel even stupider than he already felt. He couldn’t handle the embarrassment of another knowing the way Jonghyun was still affecting him.
Key let out a heavy sigh as a bolt of lightning flashed outside. He hadn’t noticed before, but it was raining, hard. It was most likely the cause of the power outage. He’d been far too distracted cursing Jonghyun and then crying over the loss of his “love” (if that’s what they call it) and it was just another reason to beat himself up for still feeling the way he did.
Most people would say five days was not enough time to go through the stages of loss, but considering all of the bad things that happened, Key had hoped it would be over quickly. He had been trying to suppress all thoughts of Jonghyun, but as the days went on they weaseled their way through. At first, Key just tried to keep suppressing them, but when he began to think about the actual break up, he decided thinking about every other Jonghyun-related-event but the actual break up was better.
Every time he even thought of the small details leading up to the break up, he would feel his stomach churn and become nauseated quickly. In fact, Key hurriedly got up and stumbled to the bathroom just in time for a small up-chuck session. Reaching the toilet or not was a mystery to him. After thinking hard about the layout of his bathroom, he decided he probably missed the toilet. If he was lucky, he might have even puked in the same spot Jonghyun always managed to hit when drunk. Jonghyun never was good at reaching his goals.
Key decided he couldn’t properly clean up because he couldn’t very well see, so he left the bathroom as it was and went back to his room. When he stumbled on his bed, face first, he just lay there for a minute. He felt completely worthless as he lay there, unable to breathe because his face was pushed so far into his sheets. He turned his head to the side and sighed. Then, with a big breath in, something hit him.
It was a smell. Something he had somehow missed in all the times he laid in this very bed. Really, it wasn’t just a smell, it was Jonghyun’s smell. The scent slowly began to get to him, renewing his memory of that night, the night that took place five days, twenty-three hours, and forty-two minutes ago.