Is It Just Me? (High School AU oneshot 2/3)
Title: Is It Just Me? (2/3)
Author: himawarixxsandz
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: ZiKyung
Summary: He's pretty sure it's just him.
A/N: BWAAAAAAH This is a surprise to me too because I didn't know I'd get this done tonight ^-^ right before school starts, but I guess I just felt like writing ZiKyung so yeah. Flowed out of me pretty easily. Sadly (really, really sadly) I can't link this to the first part yet because as you guys know LJ's still working on things so if I try to exit, all of Part 1 will smush together. So yeah. I hope you guys enjoy Kyung's POV (it's getting easier and easier to write these guys so soon I'll be BBC-ing all over the place) and Zico is like officially my bias (TT.TT I'm so sorry, Kitty....you're still the hottest to me...just...ZICOVA). And I think, as opposed to U-Bomb, I've already got my grasp on ZiKyung's unique color/feel as an OTP. I hope I'll be able to grasp U-Bomb's soon too ^-^ (As you're all reading this, I will probably be sitting in class on my first day of school TT.TT)
Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3
The reality that hit me after the farewell
He watches Jiho staple his paper-watches the other boy turn it in on the chair at the front of the classroom before returning to his seat without even glancing back at Kyung. On the way back to his desk, Jiho stops briefly to exchange words with Yukwon, smiles passing over their faces as Jiho leans down and lets Yukwon whisper something into his ear before Jiho hits Yukwon’s arm playfully and heads back to his seat.
Kyung staples his own paper, and puts it on top of Jiho’s on the chair. He hands the stapler over to the girl in line behind him and walks back to his seat.
The compass of my life disappeared
Looking back, Kyung thinks it was a stupid promise in the first place.
There’s never a guarantee in life-there’s never a guarantee, no matter how hard you’ve trained and practiced, there’s never going to be a surefire guarantee that you’ll win a match. So when he looks back, he thinks it was absolutely stupid-nothing short of stupid for himself to agree to the promise. It hasn’t even been a year ago, but Kyung already looks back on himself at the time as a stupid, little kid.
So stupid.
Stupid, stupid, stupid-stupid enough to bet a relationship on the outcome of a soccer match.
I wonder if this is only happening to me
“You’re being stupid,” Yukwon says, right before he smacks Kyung’s shoulder and pushes the tray of food closer to the other boy. Kyung doesn’t look at it-he’s almost already forgotten that he even went and bought lunch, because the entire time he was in the lunch line, he had to tell himself to look straight ahead and not at how Jiho was passing through the cafeteria to his next class.
Kyung grins humorlessly and looks up. “I hadn’t noticed.”
Yukwon frowns, taking a handful of Kyung’s fish crackers without asking and eating them one by one, slowly. “He misses you, too, you know.”
Kyung doesn’t respond to that, simply staring into his rice bowl, not touching his spoon or chopsticks. He takes his water bottle, and turns it around and around in his hands aimlessly. Maybe Jiho does miss him-Kyung knows that Yukwon wouldn’t say anything unless it was true, unless it was completely true. And Kyung believes him. Of course Jiho would miss him back-they’ve been friends for too long for him not to, right? They’ve been friends for too long for something like this to tear them apart permanently, so of course Jiho would miss him.
Just-
Jiho might miss Kyung’s friendship-
But Kyung’s probably the only one who misses a lot more.
“He seems fine to me,” Kyung says quietly, without looking at Yukwon.
What I keep telling myself
“Well, he’s not,” Yukwon says shortly, his voice clipped and tense. “I don’t know if he’s even going to try out anymore. He hasn’t signed up, yet.”
That gets Kyung looking up.
That gets Kyung staring.
He blinks a few times at the tight expression on the other boy’s face. His mouth opens and the words are just at the back of his throat, bubbling up and ready to aim themselves directly at Yukwon-questions, comments, concerns, everything that he hasn’t been able to say for ages, that he’s been wanting to know, been wanting to ask, everything is ready and poised to come out-
But he stops it.
He catches himself and swallows every syllable, every word, every sentence down because he’s already cared too much. Yukwon already knows exactly how much Kyung cares and Kyung can’t let Yukwon see any more because the other boy will undoubtedly tell Jiho, and regardless of the good intentions, if Kyung’s the only one who cares this fucking much-he’d rather that just stay silent and under wraps.
It doesn’t matter anyway-Kyung’s world shouldn’t revolve around Jiho and what the other boy does. If Jiho doesn’t want to try out anymore, wants to throw everything away because of all the put riding on one stupid, stupid, stupid match, then none of that is Kyung’s problem. He shouldn’t care anymore about Jiho if Jiho seems to be getting along just fine without Kyung.
He pushes the rest of the bag of crackers to Yukwon. “Oh,” he says, and forces his voice to stay steady. “Okay.”
I’ll be fine
Kyung’s never been a good liar.
But convincing himself to think thoughts that give him less pain-
He’s always been good at that.
But it isn’t easy
“Yah,” Kyung says, “yah.” He stands up incredulously as Yukwon leaves, snapping the door closed with a little laugh and he swears-he swears-that the tiny click at the end had better not mean that the other boy has just locked them in here. He’s about to step forward and either break the door open or (if it isn’t locked) tear it open and tackle Yukwon to the ground when a hand takes his and tries to tug him down to the floor of the equipment shed.
Jiho’s already planted himself on one of the square rubber pads that are used as bases when the third and fourth graders play kickball (Kyung knows this because he’s been forced multiple times by the teachers to watch over the younger grades’ gym classes). He grins up when Kyung remains firmly on his feet, refusing to sit down. “I think Jihoonie put him up to it,” he says. “Since Yukwonie usually doesn’t do things like that on his own.”
He doesn’t let go of Kyung’s hand, though, even if Kyung stubbornly stands (because being locked in an equipment shed when he has an entire shitload of math homework waiting for him isn’t something he’ll just sit down through). Jiho’s fingers stay firmly threaded through Kyung’s even though it probably makes Jiho’s arm sore to keep his hand up.
“I’m going to kill him,” Kyung says, thoroughly not amused as he looks into Jiho’s completely amused eyes. “I’m going to demolish him.”
Forgetting you like I planned was a lie
An entire thirty minutes later finds Kyung sitting next to Jiho, up against the stacked boxes of dodgeballs and soccer balls piled by the wall. Jiho’s arm is loosely around Kyung’s shoulders and Kyung is loosely leaning into the taller boy’s body. “I haven’t done any of the math for tomorrow,” he says. “Where the fuck is Kim Yukwon?”
Jiho laughs, his entire body rumbling and Kyung feels the vibrations-warm and familiar (the exact same laughter he’s known since he was old enough to remember) and perfect. “Want mine?” he asks. “I already finished.”
Kyung glances at him, raising his eyebrows. “Is any of it even right?”
The other boy shrugs, grinning. “Probably not,” but then he narrows his eyes towards the ceiling for a moment. “I mean-maybe the second half is right, because you know I’m a badass at factoring.”
“Except your parentheses look like greater and less than signs so I can’t fucking read any of your answers,” Kyung says and grins right back when Jiho elbows him in the stomach.
It just feels like I’m wasting time
They end up busting the lock of the door (and both of them try not to think about the fact that they’ll probably get into trouble for that tomorrow) and running out right into the field, only to realize that they’re both suddenly, already, soaking wet because it’s started to storm in the time that they were locked in the shed and Yukwon and Jihoon are still both nowhere in sight.
Kyung yanks Jiho’s hand (because the taller boy is just standing there dumbfounded in that retarded Oh my God there is water coming down from the sky kind of way) and they both run back towards the school building, underneath the awning that’s usually filled with younger students and older students waiting for their rides and being dropped off. It’s empty now, though, at this point of the day because everyone’s already gone home.
It’s raining hard enough that even just the short run from the sports field to the school already has them drenched through their uniform. They’re both wet and dripping and fairly cold because it’s fall, but before Kyung even gets to swear his heart out at Yukwon and Jihoon, Jiho is already falling to the pavement laughing and Kyung stares at him because maybe that hour-and-a-half of isolation in the shed made the taller boy crazy (pretty believable, in Kyung’s opinion, since Jiho is already bordering on insane as it is so it wouldn’t take much to push him off the edge).
“I changed my mind,” Kyung says, still staring as Jiho has to hold on to the edge of one of the benches to stop himself from lying flat on the cement in laughter. “I’ll kill you first, and then I’ll murder Jihoonie and Yukwonie.”
Jiho stops laughing then, just a wide smile across his face as he takes Kyung’s hand again and tugs a little bit. He stands up then and winds both arms around the shorter boy’s waist so that Kyung’s face is muffled against Jiho’s shoulder as the taller boy crushes Kyung’s entire body against his own. He starts stepping forward then, and Kyung automatically walks backward (steps stuttering because he suddenly knows what Jiho’s about to do and doesn’t like it at all).
The taller boy brings them back out into the rain (despite the fact that Kyung is struggling as hard as he can to at least keep himself under the awning because Jiho can get a cold alone, thanks), school shoes getting muddy and wet (Kyung knows their mothers will be furious) in the grass and the droplets heavy and huge all around them-it’s raining so hard that the sound almost drowns out what comes next (or, it should’ve, except Woo Jiho is crazy insane). Kyung suddenly feels Jiho take a deep intake of breath, and he-
“Park Kyung!” Jiho yells, straight up towards the gray, raining sky (the shout rings right next to Kyung’s ear with the way their bodies are against each other).
Kyung has just a moment to blink. “Woo Jiho,” he starts, immediately struggling again to get out of Jiho’s arms because these are the arms of a madman. “Fuck-it’s not like there aren’t still, like, teachers around-” He struggles and struggles (and kicks) so Jiho lets go of him, but the other boy is still grinning-completely amused.
Jiho makes a great show of taking in another breath and cupping his hands around his mouth (Kyung tries to kick him again but this time Jiho dodges) right before he screams again, doubling over to give him every decibel of volume he can get. “Park Kyung!” he bellows again, this time towards the ground before he straightens back up.
Kyung stares, as Jiho laughs at his expression and taps him lightly on the arm.
Jiho’s hair is wet against his forehead, bangs all over his eyes and his uniform is sticking to his too-tall-too-skinny frame. He shakes his hair away from his face lightly and it stands up in odd places, pointing every which way as he flashes Kyung another smile before yells Kyung’s full name again, loud and fast, multiple times in succession-towards the sky, towards the earth, out towards the field, towards the grounds.
Sometimes I hate you and I blame it on you
Kyung laughs-he has to-he doesn’t have any other choice-it falls from his lips easily and freely and starts warm and bubbling in the pit of his stomach. He laughs, grabbing Jiho by the shoulders and shoving him away until the other boy slips and slides on the mud, barely catching his balance by coming back and hanging onto Kyung. “Yah,” he says, but he doesn’t push Jiho away-just lets the taller boy cling to him, “yah, you’re fucking insane, y’know that?”
“Just making sure you can hear me,” Jiho says (whispers) right against Kyung’s ear, breath puffing against the shorter boy’s skin.
Kyung raises an eyebrow. “Yeah? And what if someone else heard you too? What’s your great master plan then?”
Jiho draws away just enough so they can see each other’s faces. His hands rest lightly on Kyung’s hips. “Don’t need one,” he shrugs, grinning. “’S long as you hear me, doesn’t really matter who else does, right?”
In my mind, it’s all a mess
They get paired together for exam-study-guide-making time during literature class. It’s not the first time they’ve been grouped together-just the first time they’ve been grouped together alone.
For the most part, they do what they’ve always done when they were in groups before-they work. They work with as few words exchanged as possible-with Kyung doing the writing because his is neater and Jiho keeping his book open to page so-and-so for Kyung to copy down what needs to be copied down. It’s nothing that they haven’t been through already, and it’s not awkward-not uncomfortable-just quiet.
It’s not uncomfortable except for the part where Kyung’s chest hurts every time he looks at Jiho.
In the center, you’re there
“Lot of homework?” Jiho asks, because they are the first pair to finish and Kyung has taken out his assignment notebook (for lack of anything better to do), flipping through it aimlessly.
He glances up carefully at the other boy-Jiho’s eyes are clear and nervous and watching Kyung back just as carefully. “Kind of,” he says. “I haven’t started any of the history questions.” His heart is pounding-stupidly, because it’s just a simple conversation-it’s just because Jiho is bored and they’re done with the study guide and it’s not like they’re sworn enemies or anything.
He hates how he feels right now because he knows he’s the only one feeling like this.
The corners of Jiho’s lips curve upward a little, then, still nervously-terribly nervous, that much is apparent and Kyung wonders why (why’s Jiho nervous?). “I finished mine,” he says with that tiny, hesitant smile. “Do you want them?”
What about you?
Kyung stares.
He stares-and stares-as Jiho bends down, reaching for his backpack, hand digging through the contents and coming back up with a notebook in hand. He slides it across their two desks, nudging Kyung’s hands with the corner. “You can trust me on the second half,” Jiho says in a voice that’s obviously trying to stay steady, nervously (why is Jiho so nervous?) and Kyung’s chest hurts so much that his head is starting to spin from the pain.
“Really?” Kyung asks and (he gives it a shot) tries out a smile in return-because even though his chest hurts, it’s a hopeful sort of ache. He takes the notebook and doesn’t miss (thank God he doesn’t miss) a wider, brighter, smile flash quickly across Jiho’s face before it’s quickly hidden again by the nervousness (Kyung really doesn’t understand because Jiho is never nervous).
“You know how awesome I am at dynasties,” Jiho says and Kyung is glad that the taller boy says that while Kyung is putting the notebook away into his backpack because he doesn’t think he’d be able to hide his own smile as quickly as Jiho did.
Even in this situation, I want to run away
It was stupid, really-so incredibly stupid and Kyung hates thinking about it because he almost wants to cringe every time he does.
Even though it was only months ago, it still feels like something only puffed-up middle school boys-too confident and too satisfied with the little they’ve accomplished-would do because that’s exactly what they were and he supposes that he himself is to blame as much as Jiho is. It was on both their parts because they both came up with it and they both agreed to it and it was so, so, so stupid.
It was stupid on Jiho’s part to be so sure that they’d win the final match, that he’d bet whether or not he and Kyung would stay together for high school.
It was stupid on Kyung’s part to agree to it-to tell Jiho that he wouldn’t be with the taller boy unless they win (because at the time it was more decided than fact-they were going to win, they had to, they’ve always won so they’re going to win again).
It was so stupid because, in the end, they lost.
They lost the game and Kyung lost Jiho.
It wasn’t my feet that were running
In all honesty, Kyung wanted Jiho whether they won or lost-of course he did-of course he does. Soccer is Kyung’s life, but he’s known Jiho all his life. It was a stupid promise made in the thrill of the moment, the rush of unreasonable and un-backed confidence and after the game, Kyung just wanted Jiho back.
But it was still a promise.
And it’s not like Jiho seemed to want Kyung back.
It was my heart