(for bookishvice) Groundless [2/2]
Title: Groundless
part one
He materializes in fresher air, stumbling a little when the earth wobbles beneath his feet. The wind is bitingly cold now that he’s by the sea, and he tugs his thin cardigan closer around his body. He can only see the beach dimly through the moonlight and its reflection on the ripples and waves of the sea.
Kyungsoo had said it's the best place to clear your thoughts with the sound of the waves, to look up at the stars and feel like you're sailing through them.
⇒ The beach is huge. They forego the lantern they’d brought with them, spreading out their towels on the sand and enjoying the stark shine of the full moon instead. They’re snuggled under a blanket, listening to the rippling waves lapping gently at the shore.
"Hey don’t doze off on me, I’m not done with you yet," Kyungsoo prods him, the grin evident in his voice. Jongin hums, raising his arms up to pillow his head.
"Your fault," he murmurs, "the waves are making me sleepy."
"We'll see about that."
He doesn't get a chance to figure out what he means before there's a hand pressing down on his crotch and his body responds faster than his brain can catch up.
“I’ll take care of you.”
“Wait-here?” Jongin squeaks hoarsely, darting his head from side to side, squinting into the darkness in an attempt to spot anyone approaching.
Kyungsoo draws in closer until their lips are just brushing together, breaths mingling as he huffs out a quiet laugh. Pressing a palm into the sand beside them, he closes his eyes the way he always does to concentrate on the vibrations of the earth, stilling for just a moment before his eyes flutter open again with a smile.
“There’s no one around for miles,” he whispers against Jongin’s parted lips, brushing them together teasingly before pulling away just as Jongin tries to kiss him.
Shifting under the blanket, Kyungsoo pushes himself over to straddle Jongin’s hips, dragging his blunt nails up Jongin’s arm to push his hands into the sand, tangling their fingers together and holding them down above his head as he kisses him.
Dipping lower, Kyungsoo’s head disappears under the blanket to push Jongin’s sweater up, his every touch amplified by anticipation and arousal. He feels the tips of Kyungsoo’s cold fingertips skating across his chest, pressing into his stomach and he shivers at the chill. He’s taken by surprise when Kyungsoo teases his nipple, taking the bud into his mouth and swirling his tongue around it, and Jongin arches against him, sighing at the feel of Kyungsoo’s lips mouthing down his sternum. He sucks marks into his skin, dipping his tongue into his navel and god Jongin’s already half hard.
Licking his way down, Kyungsoo fumbles with Jongin’s belt buckle, pulling it open quickly and tugging his pants and underwear down his thighs, to hold Jongin’s cock in his hands and flatten his tongue against the underside of his length. Taking him into his mouth, Kungsoo sucks lightly on the head before taking him all the way in, immediately deep-throating and swallowing around him. Jongin cries out, squeezing his eyes shut as he shudders, fumbling to bring his hands down to bury his fingers in Kyungsoo’s hair. The wet heat of his mouth is incredible, and Jongin’s whimpering for more, his breath stuttering when Kyungsoo swallows around him again. Jongin bucks his hips up instinctively, his body begging for more but Kyungsoo has a steely grip on his hips, holding him firmly against the ground and sucking harder in turn. He’s so hard it aches, and his fingers tighten around Kyungsoo’s hair, dragging his blunt nails lightly against his scalp.
It’s maddening not being able to see him through the darkness under the blanket. He shoves it off, braving the cold chill blowing in from the sea in favour of watching Kyungsoo’s head bobbing up and down the length of his cock. The sounds he’s making around him are positively obscene; wet and slurping as he swirls his tongue around the crown of his cock again. Whimpering, Jongin lets his head fall back against the sand, trapping his lip in between his teeth as he nears the edge. He’s so close, he can feel it burning in the pit of his stomach. Kyungsoo hums around him, the vibrations shooting him closer to release but then the heat is gone as Kyungsoo pulls off with a lewd pop.
Groaning, Jongin tugs him up to kiss him with a whine, sucking on his lips hungrily and tasting the slightest hint of himself on Kyungsoo’s tongue. When he eventually pulls away, Kyungsoo leans over to the side, reaching for the lube and Jongin works on kicking his pants off completely, his body thrumming and feeling too flushed to bother about the cold air.
His legs fall open to accommodate Kyungsoo when he settles between Jongin’s thighs, already popping the cap on the bottle of lube to slick his fingers up. Leaning down, he holds himself up with an elbow right next to Jongin’s head and kisses his lips just as he pushes the first finger in. Jongin squeezes his eyes shut at the intrusion but he kisses Kyungsoo back insistently, needing more. Pushing another two fingers in slowly, Kyungsoo scissors him open, kissing all over Jongin’s face and licking into his open mouth to distract him. Jongin gasps into his mouth, moaning needily as he rocks his hips down, fucking himself harder on Kyungsoo’s fingers.
A choked whine slips from his lips when Kyungsoo slides his fingers out, his hole clenching over nothing. He makes quick work of rolling a condom down his length, slicking it up before hooking an arm around the bend of Jongin’s knee to lift it up and pushes in.
Jongin’s mouth falls open and moans at the fullness, hissing at the burn of the stretch. Kyungsoo shifts inside him, sending a zing of arousal shooting up his nerves as he reaches up, fingers digging into the skin of Kyungsoo’s shoulders. He starts off with a few shallow thrusts, his pace driving Jongin insane even as he leans down and makes a shuddering mess out of him when he kisses a spot below his ear and sucks on his lobe. Moaning low in his throat, Jongin crosses his legs behind Kyungsoo’s back, bracketing his slim waist snugly with his thighs to pull him in harder and urge him to move faster.
Grinning, Kyungsoo picks up the pace, even as he sucks on a spot just below his jaw and Jongin hisses when he feels him grazing his teeth over the mark lightly. He hooks his arms around Kyungsoo’s neck, keening loudly as Kyungsoo rocks into him harder, rolling his hips at a steady pace. He mouths desperately at Kyungsoo’s pale shoulder, feeling flushed and burning to be closer as he muffles his whines for more into his skin.
He cries out when Kyungsoo hits the right spot, pushing his head back harder into the sand as his spine arches and he cants his hips off the ground. Kyungsoo pulls back, dragging his fingers along Jongin’s stomach to settle on his hips, leaving trails of fire under his fingertips. His hair is damp with sweat, falling into his eyes and Jongin reaches up to brush it aside, panting and whimpering as Kyungsoo hits the spot again and again but his eyes never waver.
Grinning, Kyungsoo leans down again to press a tender kiss to his cheek before thrusting into him harder, low moans tumbling from his lips. Jongin lets his arms fall outstretched onto the sand beside him, digging his fingers in as he cries out Kyungsoo’s name through stuttered breaths. He can feel himself falling apart, his release burning so close, so close, gasping at every wave of pleasure ricocheting through his veins. Kyungsoo leans down to swallow his moans, gyrating his hips and pounding into him so hard he’s seeing stars, scrabbling for purchase around his back as he meets his thrusts.
Kyungsoo’s hips begin to stutter, panting and moaning harshly, his face scrunched in pleasure, looking as close as Jongin is. He takes Jongin’s cock into his hand again, pumping to match his thrusts and Jongin screams out his name brokenly, moaning unrestrained at the overwhelming sensation. Arching his back, he goes rigid, jaw going slack as he shoots his loads between their stomachs, and Kyungsoo comes moments later, rolling his hips the last couple of times to milk it out.
He slumps on Jongin’s chest bonelessly, pulling off the condom and tossing it aside.
“Happy birthday, Jonginnie,” he breathes, pressing their lips together, twice, thrice, before kissing his cheek and shifting to nestle into his side comfortably. He tugs the blanket back over them, the sheen of sweat sticking to their bodies already starting to go cold in the night chill.
Mumbling incoherently, Jongin turns sleepily and mashes his cheek into the side of Kyungsoo’s head with a happy sigh. “Best birthday present ever,” he mumbles hazily, snuggling into Kyungsoo’s warmth. ⇐
The sun has set and he can barely see anything across the vast stretch of sand. He goes hoarse calling out Kyungsoo’s name, warping in every direction meter by meter hoping to stumble into him wherever he is on the beach. All he gets is the whistle of the wind in response and an accumulation of sand in his shoes weighing him down as he staggers along the shoreline. His muscles are screaming with the strain but he pushes on, ignoring the burn.
Jongin falls to his knees after what seems like hours, realizing he’s already rounded the entire beach a couple of times when he recognizes the sparse patch of grass on the sand that he’s already walked across before. Kyungsoo isn’t here.
The solid ground jolts him off balance when he materializes in a street this time. He doesn’t even remember picking a destination when he warped off the bay, his body seeming to move on instinct. Taking in his surroundings, Jongin recognizes the stalls lining the street, bright colours and the smell of food consuming his senses. The atmosphere is familiar, a fairly recent memory from when Kyungsoo had brought him to a street festival a couple of months before.
⇒ It was Kyungsoo’s idea to come down here but Jongin seems to be the more excited of the two, dragging Kyungsoo to every stall as he follows the different scents of food wafting in the air. He’s intent on trying everything he can fit in his stomach and Kyungsoo indulges him, letting him feed him then feeding him right back, laughing easily because Jongin always makes a mess.
The find a stone bench tucked away to the side of the street to settle down on, enjoying the beautiful decorations and the twinkling fairy lights hanging above their heads.
Jongin is about to take another bite from his kebab when he feels Kyungsoo looking at him. There’s an indecipherable look in his eyes, seeming almost dazed into silence by something, seeming to forget about the steaming kebab in his own hand. Confused, Jongin opens his mouth to ask but a sudden explosion startles him into nearly losing his grip on his food. Looking up, he watched the myriad of colours paint across the starry sky as the sequence of firework explosions carry on, coupled with the crowd’s delighted cheers.
“-me?”
Snapping his head down, Jongin focuses on Kyungsoo again, frowning at having missed his words through the noise. Kyungsoo looks somewhat stricken, wide-eyed as he catches his bottom lips between his teeth absently. Jongin notes the way his fingers clench tighter around the kebab stick.
“What did you say?” Jongin asks him loudly, scrunching his face as he leans closer in an attempt to hear him through the din of the fireworks.
When the noise stops for a moment, Kyungsoo seems to steel himself, his Adam’s apple bobbing when he swallows.
“I-I said…” he falters, frowning at himself crossly when the words die on his tongue. “I-”
The next set of fireworks starts off again, whistling and exploding loudly right above them again, and the rowdy crowd is set off again. Huffing, Kyungsoo reaches over to fist his hand in Jongin’s shirt and pulls him closer to kiss him. His lips and the heat of his mouth are as intoxicating as ever and Jongin kisses back with fervor, mouth falling open for Kyungsoo to flick his tongue inside.
“Will you marry me?” Kyungsoo breathes against his lips when he pulls back, and the fireworks have stopped, the noise has stopped, maybe Jongin’s heart has stopped for a moment too, frozen as he blinks at Kyungsoo, lost for words.
“I know it’s way too early, we should definitely wait a couple more years but I-it’s a promise, I just-”
“Yes!”
He cuts Kyungsoo off, beaming so hard he’s nearly tearing up. Kyungsoo blinks before his face splits into a smile and he pulls Jongin in by the shirt to claim his lips again.
“You sure you wanna deal with me for so long?” Jongin grins when he pulls back, face so flushed it feels like it’s on fire.
Kyungsoo laughs brightly, pressing a kiss to his nose, “I think I can manage forever.” ⇐
He dashes along the street, dodging past passers-by and glancing under every stall’s tent just to be sure. There’s even more people than the last time they came here, naturally, all eager to enjoy the magnificent display of food and fireworks to start off the New Year. He spots the familiar dip to the side of the street just up ahead and Jongin beelines for it eagerly, not even bothering to apologize to the people he bumps into this time. When he finally breaks through the tightly packed crowd of people he skids to a stop before the stone bench-or what’s left of it. It’s a sad sight really; the large slab of stone meant as the seat is broken in half, lying scattered in chunks of stone around the rocks that are still upright. It must have happened back when a vicious storm blew into town a few weeks before, uprooting trees and blowing cars astray. The fairy lights just above the bench are out, swaying forlornly in the night breeze. Jongin doesn’t want to think about the symbolic image of the sad little scene, turning his back on the ruins with a heart that’s too heavy for his chest, and warps out.
Jongin can’t remember the last time he warped so many times in a row. The migraine pounding in his skull is growing more intense and he’s starting to lose feeling in his extremities now, his fingers and toes ice cold and numb. He’s starting to see double but he shakes himself, trying to pull it together as he warps from one place to another, into every corner he can think of that Kyungsoo might even consider running off to, to get some space. He goes to the pier, the little playground by the school, the bridge looking over the dried out lake, the roof of the abandoned factory with the stellar view of the city, everywhere. Despite using his tunnels to travel quickly, Kyungsoo can’t stay underground for too long but it’s starting to seem like Kyungsoo has disappeared off the face of the earth.
Jongin nearly slips when he next lands on the polished floors of the airport, shielding his eyes against the stark light after having been outdoors in the darkness of the night for so long. The lump in his throat almost seems like a permanent fixture at this point, and he blinks back the tears collecting in the corners of his eyes. He sways on the spot for a moment, waiting until his knees stop feeling like they’re about to buckle before he can even gauge where to start looking first. It’s been a while since he was here last. Jongin had been terrified of moving from Korea all the way to the States to finish off his final year of university there. Warpers are powerful but they cannot travel across countries and seas for the most part; he’s definitely not strong enough for that. It’s jarring to feel so disconnected from somewhere he’s always able to return to, from somewhere that’s always only ever been a single breath away.
⇒ The moment they step off the plane and move into arrivals at the airport, Jongin has trouble breathing, panic washing over him completely because the shift is huge, home is so far out of reach and he feels terribly small and lost.
Kyungsoo immediately latches onto his wrist, tugging him towards a row of plastic seats and sits him down on one, dropping his bags haphazardly to the floor in favour of cupping Jongin’s face, urging him to breathe.
“We can go back,” Kyungsoo tells him, his thumbs pressing into the skin of his cheeks. He hold Jongin’s face steady, coaxing into matching the pace of his own breathing.
“What-wait no I’ll… I’ll be okay I just-this is-” Jongin tries to suck in enough air to calm his heaving chest, willing himself to stop shaking. Kyungsoo drops his hands after deeming Jongin calm enough. “We need to stay.”
“But we can go back,” Kyungsoo says again, shaking his head quickly when Jongin looks to interject again in confusion. “Here. This is where we need to be if we want to go home. We’re closer to home here; after all it’s only a plane ride away.”
Exhaling shakily, Jongin slumps back against the seat and stares dolefully out of the glass panes at the planes on the runway, following one of them up into the air as it takes off. He’s already terribly homesick and they’ve only just set foot here. It just… this place doesn’t seem like it could ever feel like home did. Flushing, Jongin bows his head, feeling apologetic and embarrassed for being so ridiculous.
“For what it’s worth, I can’t feel it either.”
Jongin blinks and turns to stare at Kyungsoo when his voice comes out unusually soft. His eyes are trained outside the windows and Jongin takes a moment to trace the profile of his face in the sunlight, following the sweet curve of his cheeks and the strong line of his nose before coming back to himself.
“Feel it?” he asks, cocking his head curiously.
Kyungsoo tears his eyes away from the runway to look at Jongin with a small smile, looking suddenly as homesick and wistful as Jongin feels.
“Home,” he murmurs, “the familiar feel of the ground, the earth, the tremors of the people and the trains. The familiar vibrations I’ve lived with my whole life. I can’t feel them from over here it’s… it’s all different. Stilted.”
He stares at his upturned palms on his lap for a moment, frowning like it’s their fault there’s emptiness where familiarity once was. Jongin reaches out and fits his hand into Kyungsoo’s, lacing their fingers together and squeezing tightly. Turning to look at him, Kyungsoo’s lips twist into a small smile.
“If things ever get bad, we’ll just come here,” he says, and Jongin can’t tell if he’s trying to reassure himself or Jongin. “We could stay here for a while. It’s comforting, like we’re already halfway home, right?
He smiles wider, the confidence growing in his voice. “If it gets really bad, we could leave. We’ll go home and then we’ll come back and start over. And we’ll do it better.”
It works. Kyungsoo’s certainty rubs off on Jongin, feeling eons better knowing there’s a failsafe to fall back to if all else goes wrong. Nodding eagerly, he turns back to face the windows, watching the planes come and go just a little while longer. ⇐
Jongin takes off, dashing to the familiar plastic seats and rushing past every aisle, checking every checkpoint but all the faces are unfamiliar. He tries every corner of the giant airport where the runway can be seen, his shoes squeaking loudly on the polished floors as he jogs from one end to the other. His heart is pounding so hard it feels like it might rip right through his chest even as he bends over for a breather, his hands on his knees.
“Jongin?”
Whirling around, Jongin turns towards the familiar voice in surprise.
“Jongdae-hyung!”
His old university friend looks a little frazzled, his scarf sloppily strewn across his neck and his bangs falling messily across his forehead. He’s dragging a large suitcase behind him and struggling to hoist a heavy rucksack higher up his shoulders. He beams at Jongin though, as brightly and easily as ever, reaching out to grab him in a one armed hug which Jongin gladly reciprocates.
“It’s good to see you!” Jongdae smiles warmly after letting him go. “What are you doing here, are you going somewhere?”
He eyes Jongin’s empty hands, noting the absence of any packed bags.
Jongin swallows. The ache in his chest and bones washes over him again in a wave of pain and exhausting. Unable to help it, his eyes dart around, scanning every passerby’s face in search of a familiar one.
“I’m looking for Kyungsoo,” he mumbles quietly, focusing on Jongdae’s coat buttons, unable to bring himself to meet Jongdae’s eyes. The guilt gnaws more insistently on his insides, the growing regret and shame clawing harder and harder at his chest because he’s ruined things so beyond badly.
“How about you?” he follows up quickly, eying the plane ticket and passport clasped in Jongdae’s hand. “Going somewhere nice?”
To Jongin’s infinite appreciation, Jongdae doesn’t pry, instead looking down at his own passport with a sheepish smile.
“I was going home actually,” he says, waving his ticket to South Korea; “My car broke down though; missed my flight. The plane took off a couple of hours ago.”
Jongin feels the blood drain from his face.
“Mr. Kim Jongdae. Could Mr. Kim Jongdae please report to the main desk, please.”
Jongdae looks up at the intercom voice, lips parting slightly as he hears his name called out.
“I have to go, I’m sorry Jongin,” he says, hurrying to gather his bags up again, stuffing his passport into his coat pocket. He pauses before he turns to walk away, biting his lip as he looks at Jongin with a worried arch in his eyebrows.
“I hope you find him,” he says sincerely, reaching a hand out to squeeze Jongin’s arm reassuringly. Then he turns, pulling his suitcase behind him and walks away, disappearing through the throng of people.
Jongin can’t move. His feet feel heavy, anchoring him to the spot even though his head is spinning, out of control. He shuffles slowly towards the first row of plastic chairs he can find and slumps down on one heavily. He’s looked everywhere he can possibly think of for Kyungsoo.
‘If it gets really bad, we could leave.’
He hasn’t been able to reach him on his phone; heck, Luhan couldn’t even sense him and the flight back home to Korea left hours ago. He can’t find Kyungsoo anywhere and it’s starting to sink in that maybe he’s just gone; he left. He left him. Slipping his hand into his jacket pocket, Jongin pulls out the golden band, smooth and cool against the skin of his palm. This is all so wrong. Jongin made a promise, and having Kyungsoo’s ring in his hands may as well mean he’s broken it.
The ring blurs and Jongin pressed the heel of his palm into his eye, clenching them shut as he tucks the ring back into his pocket. He gets to his feet shakily and warps out of the airport.
He stumbles onto a familiar lawn before his mind even properly catches up with what his body is doing. He lands right in the middle of the pristine flower patch. It’s terribly ironic to be here, of all places, but deep down he knows this had to happen at some point. He doesn’t know where else to go anyway.
His legs are jelly as he drags himself up along the cobbled path; he can’t tell if it’s from the exhaustion or crippling apprehension. He can see the lights shining through the windows, able to see the movement from people inside even through the sheer curtains.
Propelling himself the last few steps forward, he raises a shaky fist to knock but the door opens before he even touches the polished wood. It takes everything he has to brace himself on the doorframe just to stop him from keeling right over.
“Jongin?”
Swallowing through the lump wedged in his throat, Jongin pushes himself up quickly, swaying dizzily on the balls of his feet before he finds his centre. Pushing his back straight, poised and rigid, he crosses his hands, right palm on the back of his left hand just below his navel. The perfect posture.
“Hi, Mum.”
“I was worried you might not show up at all!” his mother exclaims, looking relieved by his presence. She peers around him, eyes searching. “You said you were bringing a friend with you?”
“Mum, do you love me?”
Jongin’s mother gapes, jaw hanging thunderstruck, her expression clouding with the slightest hint of hurt before being swallowed up by confusion.
“What are you-of course I-”
“I mean all of me,” Jongin cuts in, his voice breaking, feeling his composure breaking with him. He’s tired, miserable and the hollow ache in his chest is clawing a hole right through him. It feels unreal, standing here once again before his mother, vulnerable and fragile, like a page ripped right out of a chapter in his life he had hope he’d never have to revisit. “Could you love all of me?”
Could you love all of me?
He deflates just as his mother clamps her mouth shut, all the blood draining from her face. This right here, this is familiar. She swallows, visibly struggling to do so; the echo of the same words clearly seeming to resound in her memories.
⇒It’s extremely rare that a child is born with not only one, but two abilities in their genes, but it is not unheard of. Coming from a long, esteemed line of pure Warpers, Jongin is the first exception to his family name.
He doesn’t find out about his second ability until his fourteenth birthday when, for the first time since he learnt to warp naturally as a toddler, he finds himself unable to teleport. His body just locks and refuses to come apart and warp through space, instead heavily anchoring him to the spot. He’s late for school that day, having no choice but to sprint out the door of his house and race to catch the bus instead.
At first, he thinks he might have come down with something, a virus of some sort that might be affecting the precise balance of his body, somehow obstructing the proper recombination of his molecules whenever he warps. The migraine that nearly incapacitates him a week later only serves to solidify his theory; his mother lets him stay in bed in favour of going to school for a couple of days when he burns up so badly he doesn’t go a second without some kind of ice pack on his forehead. He chooses not to tell her about his flurry of mood shifts and the sudden onslaught of chest pain that hits him out of nowhere.
It’s a little jarring, being so grounded without his warping abilities; gravity feels that much heavier when he’s tethered to it so firmly. He doesn’t have enough time to spare towards worrying about that though when experiences what feels like a truck puncturing through his chest for the first time when he finally steps out of the house. Rage, joy, love, jealousy, bliss, emotions; an colossal tidal wave and none of them are his.
It takes a while to figure out what they are but he pieces it together fairly easily when he hears his sister arguing with her boyfriend on the phone in the next room one day. He can feel the misplaced hurt and misery swirling in the pit of his own stomach, mimicking what his sister must be feeling judging by the sounds of her crying. Tentatively peeking into her room once the call has ended, he knocks on the door with his foot, balancing two steaming mugs of hot chocolate in his hands and sees her face light up, smiling gratefully. He watches her relax-and he feels it. He feels the comfort evident in her eyes, in the way her shoulders loosen up, blanketing over the sadness until it melts into the background. It soaks right into him, coursing through his veins and filling his entire body up with warmth that spreads right down to his toes. It takes him a few seconds to catch his breath but it feels amazing. It only adds to his own happiness at seeing his sister smile again.
School is a whirlwind of feelings, an overwhelming influx of sensations pooling in from everyone, everywhere, filling him up to the brim until he fears he might explode. Moonkyu’s hope dipping in his own stomach as the boy anticipates his test grade, Soojung’s fear prickling in his veins as she speaks nonchalantly about her recital in an hour, Taemin’s sadness reverberating in Jongin’s chest even as the other smiles to cover up what clearly seems to be a terrible day for him.
It’s like there’s an entire new universe beneath everything that Jongin can see, an invisible parallel between people and everything they try to lock within themselves. It’s a whole new structure to who they are and Jongin’s the only one who can see it; who can feel it.
He curls up in a corner of the library during lunch period, a pile of books at his feet as he flips through the pages of encyclopedias and ability classification books trying to figure out exactly where he falls under.
An Empath. Nothing flashy, nothing prestigious that reigns at the top of the hierarchy like teleportation does. Jongin finds that it doesn’t bother him in the least, thrilled with this Empathy in a way that Warping never made him. Staring at his palms curled up loosely on his lap, he chews on his lower lip pensively, wondering for a moment what he can actually do as an Empath.
The sudden roil of anxiety in his stomach has him whipping his head up, recognizing the foreign feel to it. He can’t see much from where he’s tucked away behind the towering bookcases so he gets to his feet, peeking around to scan the library for the source. There are a handful of people scattered across the room, occupying the tables as they work on papers and pore over textbooks. The agitated stirring in his gut churns uncomfortably and he focuses on trying to gauge who it’s coming from. His eyes slip from one bowed head to another, frowning until he comes across a face he recognizes from his own class.
Seulgi’s arms are motionless on the table, framing her open book as she scans the contents of the pages, her thick hair falling past her cheeks in a curtain that nearly conceals her face. Her expression is smooth, but Jongin still catches the single quiver of her bottom lip and the way her hand shakes when she runs it through her hair to push it out of her eyes. Squinting harder, he catches sight of the scattered numbers on the pages before her, finally recognizing the math book they use in class. Jongin tugs at his collar as the anxiety escalates into a burning disquiet, swallows through the tightness in his throat and broods over what to do. Finals are just around the corner; he wonders why she doesn’t just ask for help if she doesn’t understand.
That’s it.
That’s what he can do, he can help. The answer to his previous musings suddenly comes to him, realization hitting him of just how much he can do. Emotions are so fragile, buried deep inside and only rising to the surface when they’re overwhelming enough. True feelings are so delicate, like exposing a side of yourself to a world that might not even be ready to handle the intricacies of sentiment. Be it pride, be it fear, be it denial; people will never fully admit to the way they’re feeling. It’s a vulnerability he’s seen with his own young eyes, in the way his mother still smiles at him after getting into a row with his father. He’s seen it in yesterday’s popular kid, plastering on a smirk in front of his ‘fanclub’ even though his eyes are dull.
Jongin sees it now, in Seulgi’s denial and her reluctance to admit to herself that she hasn’t understood a thing.
Wiping his sweaty palms against his pants, he takes a deep breath and makes towards her table.
“H-hi Seulgi!” he curses mentally at how weakly his voice comes out, but keeps his smile steady to hide his nerves.
Seulgi whips her head up, startled at the sudden introduction as she stares up at him wide eyed. They’ve never spoken beyond a few sparse greetings every now and then but she still remembers his name, recognition blooming in her eyes.
Lowering his eyes to the book spread out before her before raising them back up, Jongin chirps earnestly, “Oh, you’re doing Math! Hey, d’you mind if I could run something by you? I’m not sure I really got what Ms. Jung was saying the other day.”
“Uhm-I don’t-” Seulgi is chewing her bottom lip, and he can feel the lump growing in his throat again. “I don’t think I’m the best person to ask about math, to be honest…”
“It’s okay! We can try helping each other out, right?” Jongin beams as wide as he can, feeling Seulgi’s nervousness gnawing at his gut along with his own. He hopes his approach came off as unobtrusively as he’d intended.
Seulgi seems to consider it for a moment, eyes darting down to her blank workbook before looking back up. She grins back at him, shoulders relaxing but it’s the crashing wave of her overwhelming relief that nearly has his knees buckling which really reassures him. There’s prickles of gratitude easing the tightness in his chest and the lump disappears away as quickly as the distressed frown fades from Seulgi’s face.
“That’d be really great Jongin, thanks!”
-
He hasn’t warped in over two weeks and Jongin doesn’t even miss it. He’s far too engrossed with every new facet he can see in people, enjoying the depth and complexities he comes across. He doesn’t miss warping because he’s already come to love this too much, he loves that he can understand people better, that he can ease their distress, that he can dole out a bout of comfort when they won’t say it but clearly want it. It makes him happy. It feels like more than just something he can do; it feels like it’s a part of him, of who he is.
His parents have chalked his warpless state up to puberty and his raging hormones possibly affecting his ability, both of them eager for this phase to pass quickly, but Jongin knows better. He knows how the biology of the genes works and he finds that he’s a little terrified.
There’s only enough energy in the body for one ability at a time before the entire system implodes, meaning he has to choose. Picking one over another means reinforcing the strength of the chosen one so that the other dies out by basic extinction.
That part’s easy. The hard part is telling his parents he doesn’t want to be a Warper anymore. Jongin walks into the kitchen to find his mother slicing up some carrots for lunch. He’s frozen with fear but he swallows it down, forcing himself to take another step forward because it’ll definitely be okay; she’s his mum, she’ll love him anyway.
“Mum?” he calls softly, stepping closer. He has to make sure. “Mum, do you love me?”
Blinking in surprise, his mother turns her head to look at him, “What kind of question is that? Of course I love you, sweetheart!”
Swallowing down the anticipation, Jongin tries again, “Could you love all of me?”
Her hand stills over the half diced carrots, frowning at her son’s odd questions. “Yes of course, Jonginnie. What’s going on? Is something wrong?”
Jongin licks his lips, taking a deep breath and tells her everything, studying her face anxiously for her reaction, praying to see warmth. But the knife falls out of her hand once he’s done, any traces of the smile she had on her face slipping off and to leave behind only shock and disgust.
“A Feeler?” she hisses in disbelief, raising a hand up to her forehead. “How could this happen? Where did we go wrong?”
Her face twists but it’s the burn of her rage seeping in through every pore of his body that hits Jongin the hardest, the swirl of her disgust pooling in his gut and her shame stabbing a hole through his chest. Stunned, Jongin tries to push on, “I-I really want to keep it-”
“Absolutely not!” his mother snaps immediately, staring at him incredulously like she can’t believe he would suggest such a thing. “What would your father think? What would all our friends think?”
Her appalled words cut deep, like a knife wedged right in his heart. He can feel the prickles of tears burning in the corners of his eyes, willing his heart not to shatter because he’ll shatter right with it. He’s confused, so terribly confused; he doesn’t understand why she’s so angry, why he can’t feel a trace of warmth or love from her like she just promised him ten seconds ago.
“Mum, please,” he begs, the first stray tear rolling down the side of his nose. “I’m still me! It’s just a part of me, it’s who I am. Can’t… can’t you still love me?”
“Not like this,” she snaps, nostrils flaring, “Not like some dog sniffing into people’s affairs. What dirty, invasive behavior! I refuse to allow this into my family!”
There’s a twinge of something in his stomach, rising in his throat but he swallows it down, refusing to register it because it feels too much like hate.
“We’ll just have to snuff it out. You will be a Warper like the rest of us,” she says curtly, a note of finality in her tone and leaves no room for objection.
She stays true to her word, taking it upon herself to drill a regimen of intensive training and exhausting Jongin to the bone until Warping is all there is in his blood.
‘Find your centre; inhale, keep your spine straight, pull your shoulders back and hold.’
Training day in day out, until he’s too worn out to feel anything but numb.
“Hands crossed, yes, like that, under your navel. Keep them strong, keep your body balanced; there, excellent. Posture is everything.’
In the end of course his father finds out, and his reaction is no different than his mother’s. “No son of mine is going to be a filthy Empath.”
“Focus on every molecule of your body, block everything else out until all you hear is the sound of your heart and your blood pumping in your veins. Let nothing distract you, just warp.”
He trains until he has every single word of his mother’s strict instructions burned into his brain, drilled into him like an art. And Jongin lets it happen because he’s fourteen and his parents’ approval is everything to him.
He lets it happen until the empathy truly begins to fade and no matter how much he keeps reaching out, the wisps of emotions slip through his fingers like smoke until he can’t feel them at all. He can’t feel anything except emptiness in his chest, heavy with hollow misery and shame. He let them make him rip away a part of himself, the part that meant the most to him.
So Jongin shuts himself off. He doesn’t speak to his parents, doesn’t even look at them for a long, long time after that. He gets himself out of that house the first chance he can and shuts them out of his life where they can’t make him break another part of himself. ⇐
It took a long time, years upon years, until he forgave them, but he never forgot.
He hasn’t quite been able to forget the way they made him feel about himself and he’s only ever known to feel ashamed. Ashamed for letting himself get too consumed by the frame of perfection his family caged around him, for letting himself feel trapped in it even after leaving the picture. His entire being is wracked with the shame of being too weak to truly show the world what he loves and what makes him feel whole. It’s how he’s coped all those years after breaking it off with his family, how he’s shelled himself in, too afraid that he’s still vulnerable and far too weak to protect the things, the people, that make him happy.
He loves them, even after everything. It’s been a long time and the memories are ingrained in his bones. He forgets that he’s no longer a child vying for his parents’ approval like it’s the center of his world. Because Kyungsoo is the one whose approval matters the most, the only thing that should matter at all.
“Jonginnie,” his mother’s voice pulls him back from his thoughts and Jongin focuses on his mother’s face, the old ache of wishing he could feel what she’s thinking reverberating in his body.
“Your father and I,” she swallows, wringing her hands as she furrows her brows, looking up at Jongin with glassy eyes. “We’ve made a lot of mistakes, we know that.”
Jongin’s heart thunders painfully in his chest but he waits until she goes on, hardly daring to breathe.
“We should never have done what we did to you,” she says, her voice growing shaky and Jongin doesn’t need his Empathy to read the regret and sincerity on her face. “We didn’t do our part as parents. We lost you back then and I’m so sorry, Jongin.”
She starts to cry softly and Jongin feels tears streaking down his own face.
“We’ll do better by you,” she promises, latching onto his hands and squeezing them, “Whatever it is, we’ll do better by you, as long as you’re happy.”
Choking down a sob, Jongin throws his arms around her, hugging her tightly to his chest and she holds on to him tightly.
“Is that who you were bringing tonight?” she whispers, her voice muffled in his shoulder, “Was it someone special?”
Pulling away, Jongin scrubs the tears away with his fists, hesitating and biting his lip for a moment.
“He’s everything to me.”
His mother blinks and Jongin holds his breath for a few seconds before her face breaks into a smile, eyes crinkling into crescents. “I’d love to meet him.”
Beaming through his tears, Jongin pulls her into a hug again, exchanging a few more words before he waves goodbye, and warps out.
He’s got nowhere left to go but back home.
He lands a few metres away from the cobbled path, wobbling right towards a tree but he throws a hand out in time to steady himself. The thorn of misery digs into his gut again, because he’s out of options and Kyungsoo is still gone. Jongin is at his limit, his limbs so heavy it feels like they might fall off his body altogether.
“Jongin!”
That voice. Jerking his head up, he clears his hazy vision and god he’s there, stumbling to his feet from where he’d been sitting on the steps of the porch.
“Kyungsoo,” he chokes out, his voice breaking as he barrels forward. He trips over his own feet, seeing flashes of a memory from their first week in the States when they’d gotten separated at the market and Jongin had nearly collapsed from searching for him in a frenzy, neither of them comfortable with their new surroundings yet. He’d warped to the only other place he knew back then, back to their house where Kyungsoo was waiting for him too, rushing to hold him and reassure him that everything’s fine.
“I’ll always come back home.”
Kyungsoo stretches his arms out to meet him halfway and Jongin collapses right into his arms, feeling completely boneless, worn out but finally exactly where he wants to be.
Warping means that gravity has never had any hold over him but Kyungsoo is the force that tethers Jongin down; he’s the one who keeps him grounded and makes him feel like he has a place to come back to.
Circling his arms tightly around Kyungsoo’s waist, he buries his face in his neck, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, it’s all my fault, I’m so sorry.”
“Christ, Jongin, where have you been? You’ve been gone for hours!” Kyungsoo hisses, but he’s got his arms circled firmly around Jongin’s neck with a hand buried in his hair and he’s here.
“I thought you’d left,” Jongin croaks, exhausted tears leaking from his eyes.
“Well I did, but it was just for an hour-”
“No,” Jongin shakes his head, keeping his nose pressed into Kyungsoo’s shoulder. “I thought you left.” He lets ‘me’ go unsaid but he knows Kyungsoo understood him. “I thought you were gone. You took off your ring.”
“I just went to clear my head,” Kyungsoo murmurs, dragging his nails gently along the back of his scalp. “And I just took off my ring because we were baking, silly.”
He pauses. “Truth be told, I thought you might have left.”
Jongin squeezes his arms tighter around Kyungsoo’s waist, relief crashing through his entire body and he leans heavily against Kyungsoo when his knees begin to buckle.
“Jongin, we’re going to fall,” Kyungsoo chuckles, struggling to keep them both upright.
“But you’ll catch me right?” Jongin mumbles tiredly into his neck, refusing to pull away.
Kyungsoo tch’s under his breath, tapping the heel of his shoe once against the ground. A slab of stone upsurges slowly from the ground, sending light tremors under their feet until a low ledge rises right behind Kyungsoo for him to sit on, Jongin still heavy in his arms.
“I’m so sorry, Soo,” Jongin whispers into his skin, “I really screwed up.”
Kyungsoo doesn’t say anything, his hand still stroking the back of his head and Jongin summons up all his energy to pull away, wanting to see his face.
He doesn’t look angry. His face is pulled tight with worry, eyes suspiciously shiny but he doesn’t look at furious as he should be. Kyungsoo looks up at the night sky before turning to him again.
“C’mon,” he says, tightening his arms around Jongin securely, “let’s go to the roof.”
He taps his heel again and forces the earth beneath them up, taking them higher until they’re on the same level as the roof of their house.
They settle down side by side, leaning against the wall and Jongin nearly cries at finally being off his feet. There’s no time to rest though; he needs to explain.
“Before you say anything,” Kyungsoo beats him to it, “I’m sorry. I said some pretty awful things to you earlier and I left even though I knew there had to be more to it. I just… I didn’t wait around to hear it.”
Jongin protests, shaking his head. “Don’t apologize,” he mumbles, sidling up closer against Kyungsoo’s side to bury his face in his warm neck again, “I’m the one who fucked up, I’m so sorry; I love you, I’ve always loved you and there’s no excuse for what I did.”
Turning his head, Kyungsoo presses a kiss into his hair. “You wanna tell me what happened?”
His hands creeps onto Jongin’s thigh, palm upturned, and Jongin fits his fingers into the grooves of his hands easily, squeezing tightly.
Kyungsoo hold on to him through all of it as Jongin tells him everything that he’s been keeping locked up, explaining all the things that happened as a kid, all the fears that had been following him up till now, bearing down on his every move, his every thought. He doesn’t cry, not this time, and Kyungsoo doesn’t stop rubbing his thumb into the back of Jongin’s hand even after he’s done talking.
“You’re so silly,” Kyungsoo sighs, leaning his head against Jongin’s.
“I know, I’m so-”
“I wish you would’ve just told me,” he laments, cutting off Jongin’s fresh stream of apologies. “I would have understood, you know. Give me more credit.”
“I’m sorry,” Jongin mumbles again, squeezing Kyungsoo’s hand in case he thinks of letting go. He pulls his head away from Kyungsoo’s neck to meet his eyes but he barely has time to blink before Kyungsoo leans forward and kisses him. He feels Kyungsoo’s hand come up to cup his cheek gently, kissing insistently until Jongin’s mouth falls open and he kisses him deeper, sucking lightly on his lower lip and Jongin can’t imagine forgiveness has never been so sweet before. Kyungsoo pulls away from his lips but keeps their foreheads pressed together and Jongin leans in to kiss his cheek softly.
The sound of fireworks exploding in the distance has him jerking upright, staring at the colours painting the sky in the distance.
“Did we miss the countdown?” he pushes his bottom lip out, bummed.
He feels Kyungsoo’s breathy chuckle against his skin right before he presses his lips to Jongin’s jaw.
“Oh, that reminds me,” Jongin fumbles around, digging his hands into his pockets until he find the ring and pulls it out, watching the way Kyungsoo’s face lights up.
“So, uh, still wanna marry me?” Jongin says meekly, rubbing the back of his neck.
Kyungsoo rolls his eyes, holding out his hand so Jongin can slide the ring onto his finger, right where it belongs.
Kyungsoo leans in to kiss him again, sliding his hand back into his hair to pull him closer.
“I meant it when I said forever,” he breathes against his lips, beaming.
part one
He materializes in fresher air, stumbling a little when the earth wobbles beneath his feet. The wind is bitingly cold now that he’s by the sea, and he tugs his thin cardigan closer around his body. He can only see the beach dimly through the moonlight and its reflection on the ripples and waves of the sea.
Kyungsoo had said it's the best place to clear your thoughts with the sound of the waves, to look up at the stars and feel like you're sailing through them.
⇒ The beach is huge. They forego the lantern they’d brought with them, spreading out their towels on the sand and enjoying the stark shine of the full moon instead. They’re snuggled under a blanket, listening to the rippling waves lapping gently at the shore.
"Hey don’t doze off on me, I’m not done with you yet," Kyungsoo prods him, the grin evident in his voice. Jongin hums, raising his arms up to pillow his head.
"Your fault," he murmurs, "the waves are making me sleepy."
"We'll see about that."
He doesn't get a chance to figure out what he means before there's a hand pressing down on his crotch and his body responds faster than his brain can catch up.
“I’ll take care of you.”
“Wait-here?” Jongin squeaks hoarsely, darting his head from side to side, squinting into the darkness in an attempt to spot anyone approaching.
Kyungsoo draws in closer until their lips are just brushing together, breaths mingling as he huffs out a quiet laugh. Pressing a palm into the sand beside them, he closes his eyes the way he always does to concentrate on the vibrations of the earth, stilling for just a moment before his eyes flutter open again with a smile.
“There’s no one around for miles,” he whispers against Jongin’s parted lips, brushing them together teasingly before pulling away just as Jongin tries to kiss him.
Shifting under the blanket, Kyungsoo pushes himself over to straddle Jongin’s hips, dragging his blunt nails up Jongin’s arm to push his hands into the sand, tangling their fingers together and holding them down above his head as he kisses him.
Dipping lower, Kyungsoo’s head disappears under the blanket to push Jongin’s sweater up, his every touch amplified by anticipation and arousal. He feels the tips of Kyungsoo’s cold fingertips skating across his chest, pressing into his stomach and he shivers at the chill. He’s taken by surprise when Kyungsoo teases his nipple, taking the bud into his mouth and swirling his tongue around it, and Jongin arches against him, sighing at the feel of Kyungsoo’s lips mouthing down his sternum. He sucks marks into his skin, dipping his tongue into his navel and god Jongin’s already half hard.
Licking his way down, Kyungsoo fumbles with Jongin’s belt buckle, pulling it open quickly and tugging his pants and underwear down his thighs, to hold Jongin’s cock in his hands and flatten his tongue against the underside of his length. Taking him into his mouth, Kungsoo sucks lightly on the head before taking him all the way in, immediately deep-throating and swallowing around him. Jongin cries out, squeezing his eyes shut as he shudders, fumbling to bring his hands down to bury his fingers in Kyungsoo’s hair. The wet heat of his mouth is incredible, and Jongin’s whimpering for more, his breath stuttering when Kyungsoo swallows around him again. Jongin bucks his hips up instinctively, his body begging for more but Kyungsoo has a steely grip on his hips, holding him firmly against the ground and sucking harder in turn. He’s so hard it aches, and his fingers tighten around Kyungsoo’s hair, dragging his blunt nails lightly against his scalp.
It’s maddening not being able to see him through the darkness under the blanket. He shoves it off, braving the cold chill blowing in from the sea in favour of watching Kyungsoo’s head bobbing up and down the length of his cock. The sounds he’s making around him are positively obscene; wet and slurping as he swirls his tongue around the crown of his cock again. Whimpering, Jongin lets his head fall back against the sand, trapping his lip in between his teeth as he nears the edge. He’s so close, he can feel it burning in the pit of his stomach. Kyungsoo hums around him, the vibrations shooting him closer to release but then the heat is gone as Kyungsoo pulls off with a lewd pop.
Groaning, Jongin tugs him up to kiss him with a whine, sucking on his lips hungrily and tasting the slightest hint of himself on Kyungsoo’s tongue. When he eventually pulls away, Kyungsoo leans over to the side, reaching for the lube and Jongin works on kicking his pants off completely, his body thrumming and feeling too flushed to bother about the cold air.
His legs fall open to accommodate Kyungsoo when he settles between Jongin’s thighs, already popping the cap on the bottle of lube to slick his fingers up. Leaning down, he holds himself up with an elbow right next to Jongin’s head and kisses his lips just as he pushes the first finger in. Jongin squeezes his eyes shut at the intrusion but he kisses Kyungsoo back insistently, needing more. Pushing another two fingers in slowly, Kyungsoo scissors him open, kissing all over Jongin’s face and licking into his open mouth to distract him. Jongin gasps into his mouth, moaning needily as he rocks his hips down, fucking himself harder on Kyungsoo’s fingers.
A choked whine slips from his lips when Kyungsoo slides his fingers out, his hole clenching over nothing. He makes quick work of rolling a condom down his length, slicking it up before hooking an arm around the bend of Jongin’s knee to lift it up and pushes in.
Jongin’s mouth falls open and moans at the fullness, hissing at the burn of the stretch. Kyungsoo shifts inside him, sending a zing of arousal shooting up his nerves as he reaches up, fingers digging into the skin of Kyungsoo’s shoulders. He starts off with a few shallow thrusts, his pace driving Jongin insane even as he leans down and makes a shuddering mess out of him when he kisses a spot below his ear and sucks on his lobe. Moaning low in his throat, Jongin crosses his legs behind Kyungsoo’s back, bracketing his slim waist snugly with his thighs to pull him in harder and urge him to move faster.
Grinning, Kyungsoo picks up the pace, even as he sucks on a spot just below his jaw and Jongin hisses when he feels him grazing his teeth over the mark lightly. He hooks his arms around Kyungsoo’s neck, keening loudly as Kyungsoo rocks into him harder, rolling his hips at a steady pace. He mouths desperately at Kyungsoo’s pale shoulder, feeling flushed and burning to be closer as he muffles his whines for more into his skin.
He cries out when Kyungsoo hits the right spot, pushing his head back harder into the sand as his spine arches and he cants his hips off the ground. Kyungsoo pulls back, dragging his fingers along Jongin’s stomach to settle on his hips, leaving trails of fire under his fingertips. His hair is damp with sweat, falling into his eyes and Jongin reaches up to brush it aside, panting and whimpering as Kyungsoo hits the spot again and again but his eyes never waver.
Grinning, Kyungsoo leans down again to press a tender kiss to his cheek before thrusting into him harder, low moans tumbling from his lips. Jongin lets his arms fall outstretched onto the sand beside him, digging his fingers in as he cries out Kyungsoo’s name through stuttered breaths. He can feel himself falling apart, his release burning so close, so close, gasping at every wave of pleasure ricocheting through his veins. Kyungsoo leans down to swallow his moans, gyrating his hips and pounding into him so hard he’s seeing stars, scrabbling for purchase around his back as he meets his thrusts.
Kyungsoo’s hips begin to stutter, panting and moaning harshly, his face scrunched in pleasure, looking as close as Jongin is. He takes Jongin’s cock into his hand again, pumping to match his thrusts and Jongin screams out his name brokenly, moaning unrestrained at the overwhelming sensation. Arching his back, he goes rigid, jaw going slack as he shoots his loads between their stomachs, and Kyungsoo comes moments later, rolling his hips the last couple of times to milk it out.
He slumps on Jongin’s chest bonelessly, pulling off the condom and tossing it aside.
“Happy birthday, Jonginnie,” he breathes, pressing their lips together, twice, thrice, before kissing his cheek and shifting to nestle into his side comfortably. He tugs the blanket back over them, the sheen of sweat sticking to their bodies already starting to go cold in the night chill.
Mumbling incoherently, Jongin turns sleepily and mashes his cheek into the side of Kyungsoo’s head with a happy sigh. “Best birthday present ever,” he mumbles hazily, snuggling into Kyungsoo’s warmth. ⇐
The sun has set and he can barely see anything across the vast stretch of sand. He goes hoarse calling out Kyungsoo’s name, warping in every direction meter by meter hoping to stumble into him wherever he is on the beach. All he gets is the whistle of the wind in response and an accumulation of sand in his shoes weighing him down as he staggers along the shoreline. His muscles are screaming with the strain but he pushes on, ignoring the burn.
Jongin falls to his knees after what seems like hours, realizing he’s already rounded the entire beach a couple of times when he recognizes the sparse patch of grass on the sand that he’s already walked across before. Kyungsoo isn’t here.
The solid ground jolts him off balance when he materializes in a street this time. He doesn’t even remember picking a destination when he warped off the bay, his body seeming to move on instinct. Taking in his surroundings, Jongin recognizes the stalls lining the street, bright colours and the smell of food consuming his senses. The atmosphere is familiar, a fairly recent memory from when Kyungsoo had brought him to a street festival a couple of months before.
⇒ It was Kyungsoo’s idea to come down here but Jongin seems to be the more excited of the two, dragging Kyungsoo to every stall as he follows the different scents of food wafting in the air. He’s intent on trying everything he can fit in his stomach and Kyungsoo indulges him, letting him feed him then feeding him right back, laughing easily because Jongin always makes a mess.
The find a stone bench tucked away to the side of the street to settle down on, enjoying the beautiful decorations and the twinkling fairy lights hanging above their heads.
Jongin is about to take another bite from his kebab when he feels Kyungsoo looking at him. There’s an indecipherable look in his eyes, seeming almost dazed into silence by something, seeming to forget about the steaming kebab in his own hand. Confused, Jongin opens his mouth to ask but a sudden explosion startles him into nearly losing his grip on his food. Looking up, he watched the myriad of colours paint across the starry sky as the sequence of firework explosions carry on, coupled with the crowd’s delighted cheers.
“-me?”
Snapping his head down, Jongin focuses on Kyungsoo again, frowning at having missed his words through the noise. Kyungsoo looks somewhat stricken, wide-eyed as he catches his bottom lips between his teeth absently. Jongin notes the way his fingers clench tighter around the kebab stick.
“What did you say?” Jongin asks him loudly, scrunching his face as he leans closer in an attempt to hear him through the din of the fireworks.
When the noise stops for a moment, Kyungsoo seems to steel himself, his Adam’s apple bobbing when he swallows.
“I-I said…” he falters, frowning at himself crossly when the words die on his tongue. “I-”
The next set of fireworks starts off again, whistling and exploding loudly right above them again, and the rowdy crowd is set off again. Huffing, Kyungsoo reaches over to fist his hand in Jongin’s shirt and pulls him closer to kiss him. His lips and the heat of his mouth are as intoxicating as ever and Jongin kisses back with fervor, mouth falling open for Kyungsoo to flick his tongue inside.
“Will you marry me?” Kyungsoo breathes against his lips when he pulls back, and the fireworks have stopped, the noise has stopped, maybe Jongin’s heart has stopped for a moment too, frozen as he blinks at Kyungsoo, lost for words.
“I know it’s way too early, we should definitely wait a couple more years but I-it’s a promise, I just-”
“Yes!”
He cuts Kyungsoo off, beaming so hard he’s nearly tearing up. Kyungsoo blinks before his face splits into a smile and he pulls Jongin in by the shirt to claim his lips again.
“You sure you wanna deal with me for so long?” Jongin grins when he pulls back, face so flushed it feels like it’s on fire.
Kyungsoo laughs brightly, pressing a kiss to his nose, “I think I can manage forever.” ⇐
He dashes along the street, dodging past passers-by and glancing under every stall’s tent just to be sure. There’s even more people than the last time they came here, naturally, all eager to enjoy the magnificent display of food and fireworks to start off the New Year. He spots the familiar dip to the side of the street just up ahead and Jongin beelines for it eagerly, not even bothering to apologize to the people he bumps into this time. When he finally breaks through the tightly packed crowd of people he skids to a stop before the stone bench-or what’s left of it. It’s a sad sight really; the large slab of stone meant as the seat is broken in half, lying scattered in chunks of stone around the rocks that are still upright. It must have happened back when a vicious storm blew into town a few weeks before, uprooting trees and blowing cars astray. The fairy lights just above the bench are out, swaying forlornly in the night breeze. Jongin doesn’t want to think about the symbolic image of the sad little scene, turning his back on the ruins with a heart that’s too heavy for his chest, and warps out.
Jongin can’t remember the last time he warped so many times in a row. The migraine pounding in his skull is growing more intense and he’s starting to lose feeling in his extremities now, his fingers and toes ice cold and numb. He’s starting to see double but he shakes himself, trying to pull it together as he warps from one place to another, into every corner he can think of that Kyungsoo might even consider running off to, to get some space. He goes to the pier, the little playground by the school, the bridge looking over the dried out lake, the roof of the abandoned factory with the stellar view of the city, everywhere. Despite using his tunnels to travel quickly, Kyungsoo can’t stay underground for too long but it’s starting to seem like Kyungsoo has disappeared off the face of the earth.
Jongin nearly slips when he next lands on the polished floors of the airport, shielding his eyes against the stark light after having been outdoors in the darkness of the night for so long. The lump in his throat almost seems like a permanent fixture at this point, and he blinks back the tears collecting in the corners of his eyes. He sways on the spot for a moment, waiting until his knees stop feeling like they’re about to buckle before he can even gauge where to start looking first. It’s been a while since he was here last. Jongin had been terrified of moving from Korea all the way to the States to finish off his final year of university there. Warpers are powerful but they cannot travel across countries and seas for the most part; he’s definitely not strong enough for that. It’s jarring to feel so disconnected from somewhere he’s always able to return to, from somewhere that’s always only ever been a single breath away.
⇒ The moment they step off the plane and move into arrivals at the airport, Jongin has trouble breathing, panic washing over him completely because the shift is huge, home is so far out of reach and he feels terribly small and lost.
Kyungsoo immediately latches onto his wrist, tugging him towards a row of plastic seats and sits him down on one, dropping his bags haphazardly to the floor in favour of cupping Jongin’s face, urging him to breathe.
“We can go back,” Kyungsoo tells him, his thumbs pressing into the skin of his cheeks. He hold Jongin’s face steady, coaxing into matching the pace of his own breathing.
“What-wait no I’ll… I’ll be okay I just-this is-” Jongin tries to suck in enough air to calm his heaving chest, willing himself to stop shaking. Kyungsoo drops his hands after deeming Jongin calm enough. “We need to stay.”
“But we can go back,” Kyungsoo says again, shaking his head quickly when Jongin looks to interject again in confusion. “Here. This is where we need to be if we want to go home. We’re closer to home here; after all it’s only a plane ride away.”
Exhaling shakily, Jongin slumps back against the seat and stares dolefully out of the glass panes at the planes on the runway, following one of them up into the air as it takes off. He’s already terribly homesick and they’ve only just set foot here. It just… this place doesn’t seem like it could ever feel like home did. Flushing, Jongin bows his head, feeling apologetic and embarrassed for being so ridiculous.
“For what it’s worth, I can’t feel it either.”
Jongin blinks and turns to stare at Kyungsoo when his voice comes out unusually soft. His eyes are trained outside the windows and Jongin takes a moment to trace the profile of his face in the sunlight, following the sweet curve of his cheeks and the strong line of his nose before coming back to himself.
“Feel it?” he asks, cocking his head curiously.
Kyungsoo tears his eyes away from the runway to look at Jongin with a small smile, looking suddenly as homesick and wistful as Jongin feels.
“Home,” he murmurs, “the familiar feel of the ground, the earth, the tremors of the people and the trains. The familiar vibrations I’ve lived with my whole life. I can’t feel them from over here it’s… it’s all different. Stilted.”
He stares at his upturned palms on his lap for a moment, frowning like it’s their fault there’s emptiness where familiarity once was. Jongin reaches out and fits his hand into Kyungsoo’s, lacing their fingers together and squeezing tightly. Turning to look at him, Kyungsoo’s lips twist into a small smile.
“If things ever get bad, we’ll just come here,” he says, and Jongin can’t tell if he’s trying to reassure himself or Jongin. “We could stay here for a while. It’s comforting, like we’re already halfway home, right?
He smiles wider, the confidence growing in his voice. “If it gets really bad, we could leave. We’ll go home and then we’ll come back and start over. And we’ll do it better.”
It works. Kyungsoo’s certainty rubs off on Jongin, feeling eons better knowing there’s a failsafe to fall back to if all else goes wrong. Nodding eagerly, he turns back to face the windows, watching the planes come and go just a little while longer. ⇐
Jongin takes off, dashing to the familiar plastic seats and rushing past every aisle, checking every checkpoint but all the faces are unfamiliar. He tries every corner of the giant airport where the runway can be seen, his shoes squeaking loudly on the polished floors as he jogs from one end to the other. His heart is pounding so hard it feels like it might rip right through his chest even as he bends over for a breather, his hands on his knees.
“Jongin?”
Whirling around, Jongin turns towards the familiar voice in surprise.
“Jongdae-hyung!”
His old university friend looks a little frazzled, his scarf sloppily strewn across his neck and his bangs falling messily across his forehead. He’s dragging a large suitcase behind him and struggling to hoist a heavy rucksack higher up his shoulders. He beams at Jongin though, as brightly and easily as ever, reaching out to grab him in a one armed hug which Jongin gladly reciprocates.
“It’s good to see you!” Jongdae smiles warmly after letting him go. “What are you doing here, are you going somewhere?”
He eyes Jongin’s empty hands, noting the absence of any packed bags.
Jongin swallows. The ache in his chest and bones washes over him again in a wave of pain and exhausting. Unable to help it, his eyes dart around, scanning every passerby’s face in search of a familiar one.
“I’m looking for Kyungsoo,” he mumbles quietly, focusing on Jongdae’s coat buttons, unable to bring himself to meet Jongdae’s eyes. The guilt gnaws more insistently on his insides, the growing regret and shame clawing harder and harder at his chest because he’s ruined things so beyond badly.
“How about you?” he follows up quickly, eying the plane ticket and passport clasped in Jongdae’s hand. “Going somewhere nice?”
To Jongin’s infinite appreciation, Jongdae doesn’t pry, instead looking down at his own passport with a sheepish smile.
“I was going home actually,” he says, waving his ticket to South Korea; “My car broke down though; missed my flight. The plane took off a couple of hours ago.”
Jongin feels the blood drain from his face.
“Mr. Kim Jongdae. Could Mr. Kim Jongdae please report to the main desk, please.”
Jongdae looks up at the intercom voice, lips parting slightly as he hears his name called out.
“I have to go, I’m sorry Jongin,” he says, hurrying to gather his bags up again, stuffing his passport into his coat pocket. He pauses before he turns to walk away, biting his lip as he looks at Jongin with a worried arch in his eyebrows.
“I hope you find him,” he says sincerely, reaching a hand out to squeeze Jongin’s arm reassuringly. Then he turns, pulling his suitcase behind him and walks away, disappearing through the throng of people.
Jongin can’t move. His feet feel heavy, anchoring him to the spot even though his head is spinning, out of control. He shuffles slowly towards the first row of plastic chairs he can find and slumps down on one heavily. He’s looked everywhere he can possibly think of for Kyungsoo.
‘If it gets really bad, we could leave.’
He hasn’t been able to reach him on his phone; heck, Luhan couldn’t even sense him and the flight back home to Korea left hours ago. He can’t find Kyungsoo anywhere and it’s starting to sink in that maybe he’s just gone; he left. He left him. Slipping his hand into his jacket pocket, Jongin pulls out the golden band, smooth and cool against the skin of his palm. This is all so wrong. Jongin made a promise, and having Kyungsoo’s ring in his hands may as well mean he’s broken it.
The ring blurs and Jongin pressed the heel of his palm into his eye, clenching them shut as he tucks the ring back into his pocket. He gets to his feet shakily and warps out of the airport.
He stumbles onto a familiar lawn before his mind even properly catches up with what his body is doing. He lands right in the middle of the pristine flower patch. It’s terribly ironic to be here, of all places, but deep down he knows this had to happen at some point. He doesn’t know where else to go anyway.
His legs are jelly as he drags himself up along the cobbled path; he can’t tell if it’s from the exhaustion or crippling apprehension. He can see the lights shining through the windows, able to see the movement from people inside even through the sheer curtains.
Propelling himself the last few steps forward, he raises a shaky fist to knock but the door opens before he even touches the polished wood. It takes everything he has to brace himself on the doorframe just to stop him from keeling right over.
“Jongin?”
Swallowing through the lump wedged in his throat, Jongin pushes himself up quickly, swaying dizzily on the balls of his feet before he finds his centre. Pushing his back straight, poised and rigid, he crosses his hands, right palm on the back of his left hand just below his navel. The perfect posture.
“Hi, Mum.”
“I was worried you might not show up at all!” his mother exclaims, looking relieved by his presence. She peers around him, eyes searching. “You said you were bringing a friend with you?”
“Mum, do you love me?”
Jongin’s mother gapes, jaw hanging thunderstruck, her expression clouding with the slightest hint of hurt before being swallowed up by confusion.
“What are you-of course I-”
“I mean all of me,” Jongin cuts in, his voice breaking, feeling his composure breaking with him. He’s tired, miserable and the hollow ache in his chest is clawing a hole right through him. It feels unreal, standing here once again before his mother, vulnerable and fragile, like a page ripped right out of a chapter in his life he had hope he’d never have to revisit. “Could you love all of me?”
Could you love all of me?
He deflates just as his mother clamps her mouth shut, all the blood draining from her face. This right here, this is familiar. She swallows, visibly struggling to do so; the echo of the same words clearly seeming to resound in her memories.
⇒It’s extremely rare that a child is born with not only one, but two abilities in their genes, but it is not unheard of. Coming from a long, esteemed line of pure Warpers, Jongin is the first exception to his family name.
He doesn’t find out about his second ability until his fourteenth birthday when, for the first time since he learnt to warp naturally as a toddler, he finds himself unable to teleport. His body just locks and refuses to come apart and warp through space, instead heavily anchoring him to the spot. He’s late for school that day, having no choice but to sprint out the door of his house and race to catch the bus instead.
At first, he thinks he might have come down with something, a virus of some sort that might be affecting the precise balance of his body, somehow obstructing the proper recombination of his molecules whenever he warps. The migraine that nearly incapacitates him a week later only serves to solidify his theory; his mother lets him stay in bed in favour of going to school for a couple of days when he burns up so badly he doesn’t go a second without some kind of ice pack on his forehead. He chooses not to tell her about his flurry of mood shifts and the sudden onslaught of chest pain that hits him out of nowhere.
It’s a little jarring, being so grounded without his warping abilities; gravity feels that much heavier when he’s tethered to it so firmly. He doesn’t have enough time to spare towards worrying about that though when experiences what feels like a truck puncturing through his chest for the first time when he finally steps out of the house. Rage, joy, love, jealousy, bliss, emotions; an colossal tidal wave and none of them are his.
It takes a while to figure out what they are but he pieces it together fairly easily when he hears his sister arguing with her boyfriend on the phone in the next room one day. He can feel the misplaced hurt and misery swirling in the pit of his own stomach, mimicking what his sister must be feeling judging by the sounds of her crying. Tentatively peeking into her room once the call has ended, he knocks on the door with his foot, balancing two steaming mugs of hot chocolate in his hands and sees her face light up, smiling gratefully. He watches her relax-and he feels it. He feels the comfort evident in her eyes, in the way her shoulders loosen up, blanketing over the sadness until it melts into the background. It soaks right into him, coursing through his veins and filling his entire body up with warmth that spreads right down to his toes. It takes him a few seconds to catch his breath but it feels amazing. It only adds to his own happiness at seeing his sister smile again.
School is a whirlwind of feelings, an overwhelming influx of sensations pooling in from everyone, everywhere, filling him up to the brim until he fears he might explode. Moonkyu’s hope dipping in his own stomach as the boy anticipates his test grade, Soojung’s fear prickling in his veins as she speaks nonchalantly about her recital in an hour, Taemin’s sadness reverberating in Jongin’s chest even as the other smiles to cover up what clearly seems to be a terrible day for him.
It’s like there’s an entire new universe beneath everything that Jongin can see, an invisible parallel between people and everything they try to lock within themselves. It’s a whole new structure to who they are and Jongin’s the only one who can see it; who can feel it.
He curls up in a corner of the library during lunch period, a pile of books at his feet as he flips through the pages of encyclopedias and ability classification books trying to figure out exactly where he falls under.
An Empath. Nothing flashy, nothing prestigious that reigns at the top of the hierarchy like teleportation does. Jongin finds that it doesn’t bother him in the least, thrilled with this Empathy in a way that Warping never made him. Staring at his palms curled up loosely on his lap, he chews on his lower lip pensively, wondering for a moment what he can actually do as an Empath.
The sudden roil of anxiety in his stomach has him whipping his head up, recognizing the foreign feel to it. He can’t see much from where he’s tucked away behind the towering bookcases so he gets to his feet, peeking around to scan the library for the source. There are a handful of people scattered across the room, occupying the tables as they work on papers and pore over textbooks. The agitated stirring in his gut churns uncomfortably and he focuses on trying to gauge who it’s coming from. His eyes slip from one bowed head to another, frowning until he comes across a face he recognizes from his own class.
Seulgi’s arms are motionless on the table, framing her open book as she scans the contents of the pages, her thick hair falling past her cheeks in a curtain that nearly conceals her face. Her expression is smooth, but Jongin still catches the single quiver of her bottom lip and the way her hand shakes when she runs it through her hair to push it out of her eyes. Squinting harder, he catches sight of the scattered numbers on the pages before her, finally recognizing the math book they use in class. Jongin tugs at his collar as the anxiety escalates into a burning disquiet, swallows through the tightness in his throat and broods over what to do. Finals are just around the corner; he wonders why she doesn’t just ask for help if she doesn’t understand.
That’s it.
That’s what he can do, he can help. The answer to his previous musings suddenly comes to him, realization hitting him of just how much he can do. Emotions are so fragile, buried deep inside and only rising to the surface when they’re overwhelming enough. True feelings are so delicate, like exposing a side of yourself to a world that might not even be ready to handle the intricacies of sentiment. Be it pride, be it fear, be it denial; people will never fully admit to the way they’re feeling. It’s a vulnerability he’s seen with his own young eyes, in the way his mother still smiles at him after getting into a row with his father. He’s seen it in yesterday’s popular kid, plastering on a smirk in front of his ‘fanclub’ even though his eyes are dull.
Jongin sees it now, in Seulgi’s denial and her reluctance to admit to herself that she hasn’t understood a thing.
Wiping his sweaty palms against his pants, he takes a deep breath and makes towards her table.
“H-hi Seulgi!” he curses mentally at how weakly his voice comes out, but keeps his smile steady to hide his nerves.
Seulgi whips her head up, startled at the sudden introduction as she stares up at him wide eyed. They’ve never spoken beyond a few sparse greetings every now and then but she still remembers his name, recognition blooming in her eyes.
Lowering his eyes to the book spread out before her before raising them back up, Jongin chirps earnestly, “Oh, you’re doing Math! Hey, d’you mind if I could run something by you? I’m not sure I really got what Ms. Jung was saying the other day.”
“Uhm-I don’t-” Seulgi is chewing her bottom lip, and he can feel the lump growing in his throat again. “I don’t think I’m the best person to ask about math, to be honest…”
“It’s okay! We can try helping each other out, right?” Jongin beams as wide as he can, feeling Seulgi’s nervousness gnawing at his gut along with his own. He hopes his approach came off as unobtrusively as he’d intended.
Seulgi seems to consider it for a moment, eyes darting down to her blank workbook before looking back up. She grins back at him, shoulders relaxing but it’s the crashing wave of her overwhelming relief that nearly has his knees buckling which really reassures him. There’s prickles of gratitude easing the tightness in his chest and the lump disappears away as quickly as the distressed frown fades from Seulgi’s face.
“That’d be really great Jongin, thanks!”
-
He hasn’t warped in over two weeks and Jongin doesn’t even miss it. He’s far too engrossed with every new facet he can see in people, enjoying the depth and complexities he comes across. He doesn’t miss warping because he’s already come to love this too much, he loves that he can understand people better, that he can ease their distress, that he can dole out a bout of comfort when they won’t say it but clearly want it. It makes him happy. It feels like more than just something he can do; it feels like it’s a part of him, of who he is.
His parents have chalked his warpless state up to puberty and his raging hormones possibly affecting his ability, both of them eager for this phase to pass quickly, but Jongin knows better. He knows how the biology of the genes works and he finds that he’s a little terrified.
There’s only enough energy in the body for one ability at a time before the entire system implodes, meaning he has to choose. Picking one over another means reinforcing the strength of the chosen one so that the other dies out by basic extinction.
That part’s easy. The hard part is telling his parents he doesn’t want to be a Warper anymore. Jongin walks into the kitchen to find his mother slicing up some carrots for lunch. He’s frozen with fear but he swallows it down, forcing himself to take another step forward because it’ll definitely be okay; she’s his mum, she’ll love him anyway.
“Mum?” he calls softly, stepping closer. He has to make sure. “Mum, do you love me?”
Blinking in surprise, his mother turns her head to look at him, “What kind of question is that? Of course I love you, sweetheart!”
Swallowing down the anticipation, Jongin tries again, “Could you love all of me?”
Her hand stills over the half diced carrots, frowning at her son’s odd questions. “Yes of course, Jonginnie. What’s going on? Is something wrong?”
Jongin licks his lips, taking a deep breath and tells her everything, studying her face anxiously for her reaction, praying to see warmth. But the knife falls out of her hand once he’s done, any traces of the smile she had on her face slipping off and to leave behind only shock and disgust.
“A Feeler?” she hisses in disbelief, raising a hand up to her forehead. “How could this happen? Where did we go wrong?”
Her face twists but it’s the burn of her rage seeping in through every pore of his body that hits Jongin the hardest, the swirl of her disgust pooling in his gut and her shame stabbing a hole through his chest. Stunned, Jongin tries to push on, “I-I really want to keep it-”
“Absolutely not!” his mother snaps immediately, staring at him incredulously like she can’t believe he would suggest such a thing. “What would your father think? What would all our friends think?”
Her appalled words cut deep, like a knife wedged right in his heart. He can feel the prickles of tears burning in the corners of his eyes, willing his heart not to shatter because he’ll shatter right with it. He’s confused, so terribly confused; he doesn’t understand why she’s so angry, why he can’t feel a trace of warmth or love from her like she just promised him ten seconds ago.
“Mum, please,” he begs, the first stray tear rolling down the side of his nose. “I’m still me! It’s just a part of me, it’s who I am. Can’t… can’t you still love me?”
“Not like this,” she snaps, nostrils flaring, “Not like some dog sniffing into people’s affairs. What dirty, invasive behavior! I refuse to allow this into my family!”
There’s a twinge of something in his stomach, rising in his throat but he swallows it down, refusing to register it because it feels too much like hate.
“We’ll just have to snuff it out. You will be a Warper like the rest of us,” she says curtly, a note of finality in her tone and leaves no room for objection.
She stays true to her word, taking it upon herself to drill a regimen of intensive training and exhausting Jongin to the bone until Warping is all there is in his blood.
‘Find your centre; inhale, keep your spine straight, pull your shoulders back and hold.’
Training day in day out, until he’s too worn out to feel anything but numb.
“Hands crossed, yes, like that, under your navel. Keep them strong, keep your body balanced; there, excellent. Posture is everything.’
In the end of course his father finds out, and his reaction is no different than his mother’s. “No son of mine is going to be a filthy Empath.”
“Focus on every molecule of your body, block everything else out until all you hear is the sound of your heart and your blood pumping in your veins. Let nothing distract you, just warp.”
He trains until he has every single word of his mother’s strict instructions burned into his brain, drilled into him like an art. And Jongin lets it happen because he’s fourteen and his parents’ approval is everything to him.
He lets it happen until the empathy truly begins to fade and no matter how much he keeps reaching out, the wisps of emotions slip through his fingers like smoke until he can’t feel them at all. He can’t feel anything except emptiness in his chest, heavy with hollow misery and shame. He let them make him rip away a part of himself, the part that meant the most to him.
So Jongin shuts himself off. He doesn’t speak to his parents, doesn’t even look at them for a long, long time after that. He gets himself out of that house the first chance he can and shuts them out of his life where they can’t make him break another part of himself. ⇐
It took a long time, years upon years, until he forgave them, but he never forgot.
He hasn’t quite been able to forget the way they made him feel about himself and he’s only ever known to feel ashamed. Ashamed for letting himself get too consumed by the frame of perfection his family caged around him, for letting himself feel trapped in it even after leaving the picture. His entire being is wracked with the shame of being too weak to truly show the world what he loves and what makes him feel whole. It’s how he’s coped all those years after breaking it off with his family, how he’s shelled himself in, too afraid that he’s still vulnerable and far too weak to protect the things, the people, that make him happy.
He loves them, even after everything. It’s been a long time and the memories are ingrained in his bones. He forgets that he’s no longer a child vying for his parents’ approval like it’s the center of his world. Because Kyungsoo is the one whose approval matters the most, the only thing that should matter at all.
“Jonginnie,” his mother’s voice pulls him back from his thoughts and Jongin focuses on his mother’s face, the old ache of wishing he could feel what she’s thinking reverberating in his body.
“Your father and I,” she swallows, wringing her hands as she furrows her brows, looking up at Jongin with glassy eyes. “We’ve made a lot of mistakes, we know that.”
Jongin’s heart thunders painfully in his chest but he waits until she goes on, hardly daring to breathe.
“We should never have done what we did to you,” she says, her voice growing shaky and Jongin doesn’t need his Empathy to read the regret and sincerity on her face. “We didn’t do our part as parents. We lost you back then and I’m so sorry, Jongin.”
She starts to cry softly and Jongin feels tears streaking down his own face.
“We’ll do better by you,” she promises, latching onto his hands and squeezing them, “Whatever it is, we’ll do better by you, as long as you’re happy.”
Choking down a sob, Jongin throws his arms around her, hugging her tightly to his chest and she holds on to him tightly.
“Is that who you were bringing tonight?” she whispers, her voice muffled in his shoulder, “Was it someone special?”
Pulling away, Jongin scrubs the tears away with his fists, hesitating and biting his lip for a moment.
“He’s everything to me.”
His mother blinks and Jongin holds his breath for a few seconds before her face breaks into a smile, eyes crinkling into crescents. “I’d love to meet him.”
Beaming through his tears, Jongin pulls her into a hug again, exchanging a few more words before he waves goodbye, and warps out.
He’s got nowhere left to go but back home.
He lands a few metres away from the cobbled path, wobbling right towards a tree but he throws a hand out in time to steady himself. The thorn of misery digs into his gut again, because he’s out of options and Kyungsoo is still gone. Jongin is at his limit, his limbs so heavy it feels like they might fall off his body altogether.
“Jongin!”
That voice. Jerking his head up, he clears his hazy vision and god he’s there, stumbling to his feet from where he’d been sitting on the steps of the porch.
“Kyungsoo,” he chokes out, his voice breaking as he barrels forward. He trips over his own feet, seeing flashes of a memory from their first week in the States when they’d gotten separated at the market and Jongin had nearly collapsed from searching for him in a frenzy, neither of them comfortable with their new surroundings yet. He’d warped to the only other place he knew back then, back to their house where Kyungsoo was waiting for him too, rushing to hold him and reassure him that everything’s fine.
“I’ll always come back home.”
Kyungsoo stretches his arms out to meet him halfway and Jongin collapses right into his arms, feeling completely boneless, worn out but finally exactly where he wants to be.
Warping means that gravity has never had any hold over him but Kyungsoo is the force that tethers Jongin down; he’s the one who keeps him grounded and makes him feel like he has a place to come back to.
Circling his arms tightly around Kyungsoo’s waist, he buries his face in his neck, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, it’s all my fault, I’m so sorry.”
“Christ, Jongin, where have you been? You’ve been gone for hours!” Kyungsoo hisses, but he’s got his arms circled firmly around Jongin’s neck with a hand buried in his hair and he’s here.
“I thought you’d left,” Jongin croaks, exhausted tears leaking from his eyes.
“Well I did, but it was just for an hour-”
“No,” Jongin shakes his head, keeping his nose pressed into Kyungsoo’s shoulder. “I thought you left.” He lets ‘me’ go unsaid but he knows Kyungsoo understood him. “I thought you were gone. You took off your ring.”
“I just went to clear my head,” Kyungsoo murmurs, dragging his nails gently along the back of his scalp. “And I just took off my ring because we were baking, silly.”
He pauses. “Truth be told, I thought you might have left.”
Jongin squeezes his arms tighter around Kyungsoo’s waist, relief crashing through his entire body and he leans heavily against Kyungsoo when his knees begin to buckle.
“Jongin, we’re going to fall,” Kyungsoo chuckles, struggling to keep them both upright.
“But you’ll catch me right?” Jongin mumbles tiredly into his neck, refusing to pull away.
Kyungsoo tch’s under his breath, tapping the heel of his shoe once against the ground. A slab of stone upsurges slowly from the ground, sending light tremors under their feet until a low ledge rises right behind Kyungsoo for him to sit on, Jongin still heavy in his arms.
“I’m so sorry, Soo,” Jongin whispers into his skin, “I really screwed up.”
Kyungsoo doesn’t say anything, his hand still stroking the back of his head and Jongin summons up all his energy to pull away, wanting to see his face.
He doesn’t look angry. His face is pulled tight with worry, eyes suspiciously shiny but he doesn’t look at furious as he should be. Kyungsoo looks up at the night sky before turning to him again.
“C’mon,” he says, tightening his arms around Jongin securely, “let’s go to the roof.”
He taps his heel again and forces the earth beneath them up, taking them higher until they’re on the same level as the roof of their house.
They settle down side by side, leaning against the wall and Jongin nearly cries at finally being off his feet. There’s no time to rest though; he needs to explain.
“Before you say anything,” Kyungsoo beats him to it, “I’m sorry. I said some pretty awful things to you earlier and I left even though I knew there had to be more to it. I just… I didn’t wait around to hear it.”
Jongin protests, shaking his head. “Don’t apologize,” he mumbles, sidling up closer against Kyungsoo’s side to bury his face in his warm neck again, “I’m the one who fucked up, I’m so sorry; I love you, I’ve always loved you and there’s no excuse for what I did.”
Turning his head, Kyungsoo presses a kiss into his hair. “You wanna tell me what happened?”
His hands creeps onto Jongin’s thigh, palm upturned, and Jongin fits his fingers into the grooves of his hands easily, squeezing tightly.
Kyungsoo hold on to him through all of it as Jongin tells him everything that he’s been keeping locked up, explaining all the things that happened as a kid, all the fears that had been following him up till now, bearing down on his every move, his every thought. He doesn’t cry, not this time, and Kyungsoo doesn’t stop rubbing his thumb into the back of Jongin’s hand even after he’s done talking.
“You’re so silly,” Kyungsoo sighs, leaning his head against Jongin’s.
“I know, I’m so-”
“I wish you would’ve just told me,” he laments, cutting off Jongin’s fresh stream of apologies. “I would have understood, you know. Give me more credit.”
“I’m sorry,” Jongin mumbles again, squeezing Kyungsoo’s hand in case he thinks of letting go. He pulls his head away from Kyungsoo’s neck to meet his eyes but he barely has time to blink before Kyungsoo leans forward and kisses him. He feels Kyungsoo’s hand come up to cup his cheek gently, kissing insistently until Jongin’s mouth falls open and he kisses him deeper, sucking lightly on his lower lip and Jongin can’t imagine forgiveness has never been so sweet before. Kyungsoo pulls away from his lips but keeps their foreheads pressed together and Jongin leans in to kiss his cheek softly.
The sound of fireworks exploding in the distance has him jerking upright, staring at the colours painting the sky in the distance.
“Did we miss the countdown?” he pushes his bottom lip out, bummed.
He feels Kyungsoo’s breathy chuckle against his skin right before he presses his lips to Jongin’s jaw.
“Oh, that reminds me,” Jongin fumbles around, digging his hands into his pockets until he find the ring and pulls it out, watching the way Kyungsoo’s face lights up.
“So, uh, still wanna marry me?” Jongin says meekly, rubbing the back of his neck.
Kyungsoo rolls his eyes, holding out his hand so Jongin can slide the ring onto his finger, right where it belongs.
Kyungsoo leans in to kiss him again, sliding his hand back into his hair to pull him closer.
“I meant it when I said forever,” he breathes against his lips, beaming.