Happy birthday Yesung oppa!
1.
When they first meet, Jongwoon is a pretty tiny five-year-old, and Kyuhyun, despite being two whole years younger than him is almost taller than him. This fact annoys Jongwoon more than what the space between his outstretched arms can ever can ever show. Despite going to the same kindergarten they’ve never talked. The younger likes to sit silently in his corner and to not be disturbed.
Jongwoon often scans the big playroom to find Kyuhyun, before pouting in annoyance and turning back to whatever he was focusing his fleeting concentration on at the moment.
This special day, however, it suddenly starts raining around meal-time, a light springtime rain and Jongwoon is among the kids who run around getting all wet while the ladies taking care of them yells at them to come back inside right this moment!
Jongwoon sprints off to not get caught and brought back in, because what’s the fun in doodling or playing with the rest of the kids when it rains outside? Rain means that the snails come out. He likes to watch snails crawl because they’re so slow, and poke them with sticks. His mom doesn’t like when he does that.
Eventually, when he deems it safe to stop running, he slumps down in the shadow of a cherry tree in the far end of the playground. When he sees that Kyuhyun too sits there staring down at the Gameboy in his hands he stiffs, and starts glaring at the other.
“Could you stop looking at me like that hyung? It’s very weird.” Kyuhyun says with all the authority a three-year-old can manage. It’s a very pretty voice. Jongwoon crosses his arms, before he crawls closer, and presses a short, chubby finger to Kyuhyuns upper lip. He quietly watches as the younger splutters and falls over before crawling to his feet and staring down at Jongwoon, who sits innocently on the ground, still watching him.
“You, hyung, are a very weird hyung.” Kyuhyun says and glares.
Jongwoon decides that it’s time to go back, and simply stands, smiling, grabbing the bigger hand in his smaller one, and drags the younger boy back to the kindergarten where he knows the ladies will be waiting for them with towels and gentle reprimands.
He doesn’t notice the way Kyuhyun stops resisting after a few metres and grabs onto Jongwoons’ hand tighter.
2.
Jongwoon slumps down in his seat next to Kyuhyun. He’s terribly bored, and he thinks that sometimes he should really tell his mom to invite Kibum to his and Kyuhyuns’ play dates. Then those two could sit and be silent together while Jongwoon is off somewhere else doing something fun. People tend to think he’s a quiet and pretty weird seven-year-old, still not very tall and his hands have seemed to stop growing at all.
But he is, after all a little boy, with energy constantly coursing through his limbs and making it impossible to be still. The teacher in his school thinks he’s a very nice boy, a bit quiet, and a bit dreamy maybe, but he always does what he’s supposed to.
“Kyuhyunniiee” he whispers in the younger’s year, startling the other so that he loses all focus on the game he has in his hands.
“HYUNG. Stop scaring me like that!” the already pretty handsome five-year-old hisses and shoves at Jongwoons’ shoulder. Kyuhyun takes a lot of pride in both his games and being the single most composed person on the Earth. Or so he claims. He still splutters whenever Jongwoon drapes himself over his shoulder, something Jongwoon can’t see the bad in, and he wails like a baby if Jongwoon kisses his cheek.
“Come ooon, let’s go watch Pokémon.” Jongwoon simply says, swinging his legs and pouting.
The younger gives in and together they run off to explore the DVD-player.
3.
Neither of them has been watching their steps, apparently, because one moment Kyuhyun is peacefully poking at his sister’s arm to get her attention from the boy she’s flirting with and the next he finds himself on the ground, eyes watering in pain and gasping for air.
And of course, when he looks up, the one and only Jongwoon is on the ground beside him, a hand over his forehead and face crinkled up in pain. A fleeting thought of ‘how cute’ passes through his head before he shakes it off with a shudder.
Jongwoon is weird. And a boy.
In the delay his thoughts caused him though, Jongwoon managed to get to his feet and is now holding out a hand in an offer to help Kyuhyun off the ground. He takes it, grinning, and makes Jongwoon pull his whole weight up. The older boy huffs, and tries to get his bangs in order.
“That hurt.” Kyuhyun hears the other boy say, and he glares in response.
People is passing by them, and he sees other kids proudly holding onto helium filled balloons, smells the cotton candy and popcorn, hears the roar of delight from the people on the few rides.
He also sees how Jongwoon is eyeing a man not too far away, who sells balloons with turtles. On the inside, Kyuhyun sighs. If he knows the older right (and really, he does) Jongwoon really really wants one. He eyes his parents, standing a few metres to the side and conversing politely with Jongwoon’s parents and younger brother, no one paying attention to them.
He sighs again, aloud this time, and thinks about his pocket money that he didn’t intend to use anyway, knows of how Jongwoon usually doesn’t get much money from his parents. Jongwoon is staring at him now.
All he can do is grab Jongwoon’s hand and pull him away toward the tempting balloons, both disappearing in the crowd.
4.
On the Christmas break when Kyuhyun is 12 and Jongwoon is 14, Jongwoon’s parents have a big fight, and Jongwoon himself ends up at Kyuhyuns’ place for a few days until things have cooled down.
Kyuhyun simply watches Jongwoon sit by the window, Jongwoon in turn staring out at the heavy snowfall outside. Once in a while he draws a family with two happy parents and two happy children in the fog his breath creates on the window.
Kyuhyun feels a sting in his heart when he sees how sad Jongwoon really looks, and he just can’t sit still and be quiet.
“Let’s do something crazy!” he exclaims, jumping to his feet.
The other barely looks his way.
“Let’s go get ice cream!” is the first thing that Kyuhyun comes up with, and he mentally slaps himself, because really, ice cream in an almost-snowstorm? But to his amazement he sees Jongwoon’s eyes lighten up, and the other boy slowly gets to his feet.
The lady in the store they run to eyes them weirdly when they buy ice cream, because well, it’s SNOWING. Jongwoon actually giggles, and Kyuhyun gets all warm inside, smiling back. When they walk home again, the snowfall ceases.
Kyuhyun later notices that the smudges of Jongwoons’ family drawing won’t go away, so he leaves them like that.
5.
Kyuhyun giggles at Jongwoon standing at the bus stop alone in the rain, not even a hood to cover his precious hair. Upon receiving the explanation that Jongwoon “well, kinda, forgot” his umbrella, he laughs even more.
“Hyung, you’re so stupid.” he says, tauntingly, but he means well.
When it comes to Jongwoon he always means well.
To be honest, he thinks he’s been in love with Jongwoon since that winter when they ate ice cream and made angels in the snow until their lips tuned blue from the cold.
Kyuhyun thinks, as he steps closer to Jongwoons’ side while they’re waiting for the bus to arrive, that if he had an umbrella, he’d share it with Jongwoon, and heaven would have to shine.
6.
Jongwoon hates sports day at school. Really. He hates it more than any other day of the year, hates it more than he hates running into that rude rich kid Shiwon. The worst part must be how he still, even though he knows that he isn’t very good and hates sports more than having turtle for dinner, refuses to give up, and still fights for his pride until he smells blood. Preferably someone else’s blood, of course.
He curses under his breath as he stalks to the changing rooms, holding a paper towel to his nose to stop the stupid nosebleed he got when that stupid Youngwoon kid hit him square in the face with that stupid ball.
Growling, he manages to push through the crowd and slip into the silence of the dressing room his class was assigned.
However, someone else is still there, and when he sees the evil glint in the younger’s eyes, he scowls and raises his hand.
“Not. A. Word.” he says grumpily, and manages to sound like an idiot, nose stuffy and all, stepping up to the line of sinks to wash the blood off his face.
“Are you going back out there?” Kyuhyun asks, amused.
“Stupid teacher said I would have to rest.” he replies, sitting down next to his old friend, stretching out his (not so long) legs and tilting his head back to stop the bleeding.
They’re silent for a while, and Jongwoon relaxes in the presence of Kyuhyun, as always.
“Hey,” the other says, and he opens one eye, his heart skipping a beat when he sees how close the younger is. “Listen to this song.”
And an earbud is gently pushed into his ear. The music is nice, slow.
He recognizes it as something he heard on the radio this morning, and glances down at the iPod. They sit there for a while, tense but relaxed next to each other, Kyuhyun humming, Jongwoon joining in.
In the break between one song and the next, Kyuhyun smiles at him and makes Jongwoons’ heart skip a beat.
“Let’s make a deal, hyung. Next sports day, let’s do this again, and not mess around with any boring sports?”
Jongwoon agrees, and they seal their agreement with a childish gesture, as if they weren’t 13 and 15.
7.
“I like you” Jongwoon, now calling himself Yesung, because he thinks it sounds way cooler, reveals over a bag of candy they share between classes. Kyuhyun chokes on his piece, his eyes tearing up.
Yesung hits his back to help, maybe a little too enthusiastic at that.
Kyuhyun then stares at him in disbelief.
“WHAT?” he shrieks, his pride and calm flying straight out into the bonechilling winter morning. His eyes are even tearing up. Great.
Just… Awesome.
“I like you?” Yesung replies. He’s sixteen now, Kyuhyun is fourteen.
“I- I… Are you serious?!” he gasps in reply, probably redder than the candy, and sounding all breathless. “Hyung, you’re not funny. Like at all.”
Kyuhyun might be that huge videogame nerd in the math team, but he knows a fair deal about love and relationships too, and he’s a good religious boy who also knows that boys really aren’t supposed to like boys in that way. Well, that last thing is never anything that has bothered him. It’s a stupid rule anyway.
When Yesung suddenly gets all up in his space, he gasps, and ends up with Yesung’s tongue in his mouth. It’s all very bizarre and he kind of likes it like that, because it feels like it’s his childhood friend, the one he fell in love with around two years ago.
“You taste sweet.” Yesung says when they sit at the bench, a metre apart, a little awkward since Kyuhyun hasn’t said anything yet. Kyuhyun himself stares out in the distance, and can’t bring himself to care if he has classes right now. When Yesung sighs and gets to his feet, probably on his way back into school, Kyuhyun attacks him and kisses him instead.
He has never pounced on someone before, he would never pounce.
He pounces now, though.
When they show up in singing class together after school, Yesung is beaming and at the same time looking very smug, and Kyuhyun blushes and curses God for creating Yesung to begin with.
He soon takes that back.
8.
Yesung can’t really remember why he thought it was an awesome idea to call Kyuhyun when he’s drunk for the first time in his life (at seventeen, because he’s Yesung and Yesung is a good nerd boy) and hidden away at some party. But after all, he’s drunk, so he does.
“Kyuhyunniiieeee I heart youuu” he wails, because he’s a clingy drunk.
Kyuhyun is busy with pretty much laughing his ass off at him.
Yesung doesn’t really get it though, and goes off about how much he loves Kyuhyun for a good ten minutes before some kind soul (that Leeteuk guy) takes his cellphone.
Kyuhyun never lets Yesung live it down.
9.
Yesung is scared, and right now he isn’t Yesung, he’s Jongwoon. He’s seventeen, it is summer break and his parents have been fighting again. They’ve done that an awful lot lately, he thinks bitterly, and wipe drops of rain off his face with the back of his hand. They’re soon replaced by new ones. Maybe they’re tears though.
He tilts his head back and silently let’s the rain splatter on his face.
In his hurry to get out of that stupid house he forgot both his umbrella and his jacket, so he’s cold, and wet, and has nowhere to go.
Suddenly, he hears his name being called by a familiar voice, and he turns on the sidewalk and faces Kyuhyun standing there with an umbrella.
Before he’s had time to convince himself that it’s stupid, he runs up to his boyfriend and warps his arms around the others dry clothes, and earns a shocked gasp in return. He knows that he’s all cold and wet and his eyes are puffy, but he really doesn’t want to hear it, so he looks up at Kyuhyun pleadingly.
“I’m back” Kyuhyun simply says, and Yesung falls in love even more with Kyuhyuns comforting arm around his shivering shoulders and his voice.
They walk under Kyuhyun’s umbrella.
10.
Yesung feels like as if someone set fire to his entire body. Every little touch from someone else in the crowd makes him shiver and gasp, and something he learns fairly quickly is that Kyuhyun is always near and always watching him.
His eyes are shiny, his pupils huge, almost entirely blown.
They’re at a party hosted by an old friend of Yesung, a guy called Donghae. Donghae has wild eyes and a glistering smile, and a dancer’s body. Kyuhyun is too proud to admit that he’s a bit jealous at the way Yesung stares in Donghaes’ direction (well, being Yesung he also asks for permission to touch, and gets it), admiring muscles.
Yesung is asked to dance by the host himself, and once he’s taken one of the small pills that are offered by Donghae’s best friend forever and on and off boyfriend Hyukjae, his blood starts to boil.
He left all things Jongwoon behind, when he giggling agreed to Donghae’s request. Yesung can’t see how Kyuhyun watches him.
Kyuhyun sees, though. He sees how Donghae whispers something in Yesung’s ear, too close for his liking, sees how Yesung laughs.
Kyuhyun sees how they grind their hips together, like in trance.
That night, while Yesung is still on his high, Kyuhyun pushes him down into his mattress in the room where he had been living for so many years, and touches burning skin with trembling hands.
“You’re mine” he snarls. “Only mine.”
+ 1
They’re eighteen and twenty, and Yesung came back from his trip to America just two minutes ago but Kyuhyun can’t seem to stop running. He hasn’t seen Yesung since he left, two years ago, and his heart aches as he runs to the park where they’re supposed to meet. Both from running too fast (heck, he’s a video game nerd) and the happiness he just can’t keep in.
He slumps down on the red painted bench that was their usual spot last time they were together, and checks the time (twice to be sure).
Then he sees him, and it is as if the world suddenly stopped turning.
He’s grown a little taller, but he’s still not taller than Kyuhyun himself. His hair has grown, and he had bleached it and dyed it reddish brown.
Kyuhyun almost stops breathing when he sees how Yesung smiles at him.
As if they had never been apart for two years.
That night is a particularly warm one, and their hearts flutter like butterflies, only trapped from soaring off by their ribs.
Hands are tightly intertwined, one small and one bigger.
They’re silent, and the small sounds of the area and its people flies above them without touching them. The smiles on their faces are cheeky, but it’s like if they don’t dare to look over at the other, as if it would break a spell.
In the night that smells of flowers and the foreign dish Kyuhyun’s mom made for dinner.
The grass is soft underneath their bodies, but when Kyuhyun gets pulled on top of Yesung he thinks that definitely beats any other bed.
The kiss they share is sweet and slow, and Kyuhyun whispers
“happy birthday”