Is It Just Me? (High School AU oneshot 3/3)
Title: Is It Just Me? (3/3)
Author: himawarixxsandz
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: ZiKyung
Summary: He's pretty sure it's just him.
A/N: BAAAAAH THANK GOD. I FINISHED IT. And it's all because of the Japan Special of Match Up and all the ridiculous amount of ZiKyung in there. I want to explain a bit more about how I wish JunSeung could be as less boydumb as ZiKyung, but I should've been asleep like 40 minutes ago so I just hope you guys've enjoyed the angsty ZiKyung ride because they probably will never be angsty again pfft yeah right.
Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3
Why am I the only one who can’t forget?
It’s pretty sad, Jiho thinks, when he starts actually looking forward to midterm review every single day because it’s the only way that he gets to talk to Kyung. In high school, apparently, midterm reviews last anywhere from half a week to a week and a half (depending on the kindness of the teacher), and for their literature class, Jung-seonsangnim gives them a Thursday, a Friday, and the rest of the following week leading up to midterms.
Jiho gets an entire seven days to talk to Kyung.
It’s even sadder though, he thinks, when he has to rely on a class exercise to force Kyung into talking to him whether the other boy wants to or not. He doesn’t think that Kyung is pretending when he gives a little laugh at something Jiho says about the chapter of a novel or when Kyung has a small grin on his face at going through a botched up character analysis.
Jiho doesn’t think Kyung’s pretending, but he’s not sure that the other boy would necessarily have wanted to talk to Jiho at all in the first place. It’s just a case of making the most of a situation at hand-they have to get the review done, and it’ll just be more productive in general not to do it silent and reluctantly.
It still hurts to watch Kyung pack-up and leave when the bell rings.
Why is my heart clenching?
Kyung holds the worn out edge (a little bit ripped and the corners bent from all the handling it must’ve gone through in the past few weeks) of the sign-up sheet near the guidance offices. There are at least six pages’ worth by now, names squished into every single line-a few crossed out, and a few rewritten in messily. He sees his own name, sees Yukwon’s, sees Jaehyo’s and Minhyuk’s. He’s flipped through all the sheets, squinting his eyes to read every single name at least twice so he makes sure he doesn’t miss anything.
He’s even stared at some of the characters for minutes upon minutes-as though looking at it hard enough will add a line here and there and turn it into the name he should be seeing written somewhere in these six sheets. The deadline for the sign-up is at the end of the week, right before midterms, and he doesn’t think he can wait any longer. By this point, it feels real-it feels like Yukwon’s words might not be words just to make Kyung feel better.
But oddly enough, knowing that Yukwon might be right about how Jiho feels just makes Kyung feel worse.
I am like this
“You know Minhyuk-hyung?” Jiho asks, raising his eyebrows in surprise. He leans forward a little bit, elbows on the edge of his desk and fingertips lightly holding the corners of his notebook.
Kyung nods. “And Ahn Jaehyo-hyung. Yukwonie introduced me to them. You guys met them together at that party right? The one at Lee Joon-sunbaenim’s house?”
“Oh-what-yeah,” Jiho says, and suddenly feels stupid for even being surprised when Kyung mentioned Minhyuk’s name. He feels stupid thinking that Kyung wouldn’t have also met Minhyuk-just because Kyung doesn’t seem to want to be around Jiho doesn’t mean that Kyung and Yukwon are any less close. Of course Kyung would know Minhyuk and Jaehyo too. Jiho is just a tiny factor in Kyung’s life and even though having to leave Kyung’s life affects Jiho doesn’t mean it necessarily affects Kyung to the same magnitude.
Kyung gives a half smile, a corner of his mouth curling upward slightly. “Yeah-they’re cool. ‘Cept Jaehyo-hyung’s a little girly and Minhyuk-hyung’s kind of a whore.”
Jiho snorts before he can stop himself and Kyung blinks. “We’re friends with Kim Yukwon,” Jiho says meaningfully.
The other boy laughs-hushed and under his breath because they’re still supposed to be going over the characters for the last novel they covered in class. “True,” Kyung says. “Guess we can’t really bang up on anything Minhyuk-hyung does, then.” He smiles again. “He’s hot though.”
“Who?” It’s Jiho’s turn to blink. “Minhyuk-hyung?”
Kyung shrugs. “I mean, Jaehyo-hyung is too.” A little sigh puffs out. “Shame, right?”
Jiho leans back teasingly, folding his arms over his chest and cocking his head upward. “I bet I could turn him,” he says with a grin and that seems to set Kyung off into laughter that immediately has the other boy putting his head in his arms, face down on the desk with his shoulders shaking.
But if you are like that
Jung-seonsangnim threatens to give them another entirely different review packet to do-over if they don’t get back to work (because Kyung’s laughter starts becoming audible no matter how he suppresses it and Jiho has never really known how to suppress laughter).
Neither of them really minds though.
You are just convicting yourself
Kyung knows he should just be content with being able to talk to Jiho every day like this-knows he should just be content with the fact that their friendship seems to be mending itself effortlessly and seamlessly back into something that doesn’t resemble the broken shards of a mirror. Their friendship should be more important than anything else and he knows he should be grateful that it’s repairing itself (that it’s able to be repaired-he should be grateful and careful so nothing else breaks it while it’s still fragile).
They haven’t talked about it though.
And it’ll probably be fine without them talking about it-Kyung doesn’t want to talk about it and he’s pretty sure Jiho doesn’t either. They don’t have to, really. Their friendship is already putting itself back together without them talking about it so if they really don’t want to, they don’t have to.
But that’s their friendship.
Friendships-especially childhood friendships, close friendships-aren’t all that hard to make-up. It takes something big to break a true friendship, but it only takes something little to fix a true friendship. But that’s friendship.
Kyung knows he should be thankful that their friendship seems to have survived, but he can’t stop thinking about what else was broken between him and Jiho. He can’t stop thinking about it-can’t stop thinking about how much he wants it back-can’t stop thinking about how selfish and stupid he is not to be satisfied with their friendship.
Not just their friendship.
It’s all just new
Jiho doesn’t know why he does it.
It’s pointless and it’s a waste of time, but his feet move every day in that direction whether he realizes they are or not. He already has to pass through that hallway every day in order to get to his locker, so it’s not like it’s a completely wasted route. It’s just that he should go straight downstairs to his locker and not stop by the column that has the sign-up sheets tacked onto it every day that they’ve been up there even though he’s never had the intention of signing up.
A part of him, a little voice in his head, wants him to take the pen and write his name down. There are still plenty of spaces left (mostly because the coach has added a seventh sheet) and Kyung doesn’t seem to hate him, that little voice says. It’s clear, at this point, that not only does Kyung not even hate him-Kyung seems to like talking to him, seems to want to be friends again and at the rate that it’s all going, by the time midterms end, they will be friends again.
It’s a thought that should comfort Jiho-and does exactly the opposite.
He’ll be fine with being friends if they just see each other in classes, at parties, at lunch, before and after the school day. He’s okay with that (it won’t hurt all that much). Seeing Kyung around like that is fine-it’s bearable. But seeing Kyung on the soccer field-having to play with him (pass with him, dribble with him alongside Jiho, call his name across the field) is something else entirely. Jiho loves soccer and Jiho loves Kyung. Having one without the other hurts almost equal amounts, but if Jiho gives up the first choice, then at least he knows that the second choice will be happy (because soccer can’t have feelings-it’s just a game).
He lets the first few sheets fall from his hand, tearing his eyes away from the same name he’s stared at every single day since it’s been written down on the top of the second sheet. He still has at least half a review packet for biology to do and as it is, it’s probably the subject that he’s going to get a C for on the midterms if he doesn’t review twice as hard as all his other classes which-
The one spot of my empty heart
“Jiho-ah?”
It is so tired that it smiles instead of crying
It’s not like Kyung wasn’t already planning to do this-it’s just that this chance (because this is clearly Life shoving an opportunity in his face so hard that it feels like it might just have broken his nose) is a little earlier than he’d hoped for (although he doesn’t even know how much later it could’ve come considering the sign-up sheets are being taken down in about three days).
He’s just a little surprised, though, to find Jiho here because there’s really no reason for Jiho to be here if he isn’t going to sign up. Unless-Jiho actually is about to sign up and Yukwon’s words turned out to be not-so-accurate after all (in which case Kyung should find Yukwon and throw things at the boy’s face because assuming things like this is embarrassing and Yukwon is responsible for it).
“What?” Kyung says, playfully, coming to stand beside Jiho-facing the papers. “Is the pen out of ink?”
Jiho blinks at him. “Huh-oh-no.” He shrugs. “’M not trying out.”
Kyung nods slowly-once, twice, and then back up to glance at the other boy. “How come?”
I want to erase and forget your spot
He was prepared for this question-really, he was.
But it’s a lot harder to actually answer when Kyung’s the one asking it.
Am I the only one like this?
Jiho bites his lip and then smiles a little down at Kyung, gesturing towards the sign-up sheets with his shoulder. “Your name’s on there, right? I thought you probably wouldn’t want to be on the same team as me anymore. And I don’t really deserve to be playing any more anyway.”
Yeah.
That’s pretty much all the reasoning Kyung’s already heard time and time again for Yukwon but refused to believe because it couldn’t possibly be true-it only had to be Yukwon trying to make Kyung feel better-trying to make him feel like it’s not just him that feels this way because Jiho couldn’t possibly care as much as Kyung does about how they lost so much more than just a match, than just a championship, that one night.
As terrible as it makes Kyung, he’s relieved to actually hear it from Jiho’s own mouth. Because at least now the problem isn’t some mythical legend that Kyung doesn’t even know the plotline to-at least now Kyung isn’t groping blindly in the darkness trying to figure out what went wrong, where it went wrong, and how the fuck is he even supposed to fix it when he doesn’t even know what to fix.
“Then your thinking sucks,” Kyung says firmly. “Write your fucking name on the list, Woo Jiho.”
Is only my heart like this?
Jiho doesn’t know what to think-he doesn’t know what to say.
Kyung’s dark eyes are clear and gazing straight into Jiho’s own, and it’s perfectly obvious that Kyung is offering-and expects Jiho to accept. It’s as easy as that in Kyung’s eyes and Jiho can see that-wants to believe that-but isn’t sure that he completely should.
“We lost the game,” Jiho says quietly.
Kyung smiles faintly, humorlessly (meaningfully)-absolutely miniscule, but absolutely perfect (to Jiho-because Park Kyung is always perfect to him). “I don’t give a fuck. You?”
I’m just here
Kyung watches, heart threatening to beat a hole out of his chest, as Jiho takes the pen (hanging by a string tied to the top of the sign-up sheets’ clipboards). He has no idea how he came off to the other boy, but every single word that fell out of his mouth had to be pushed off with all the force he could muster. And then he had to force himself even further not to stutter because if he even so much as hinted at hesitation, Jiho might not get the message as clearly.
(The message that Kyung wants Jiho back-will never, ever stop wanting Jiho back-even less so over a stupid bet that they made while they were young and stupid and stupid and so, terribly stupid)
“If we both make it,” Kyung hears himself blurt out, “I’ll kiss you until you can’t breathe.”
Not being able to do anything on my own
Jiho stares at Kyung.
Kyung stares back.
Jiho blinks.
“You’re a fucking retard,” Kyung says (for no absolute reason at all, as far as Jiho can see-but Kyung insulting Jiho never has ever really needed a reason), the tips of his ears suddenly blooming red.
Jiho absently puts the pen back at the top of the clipboard and reaches out, wrapping his hand around Kyung’s wrist (fits into Jiho’s palm exactly how he remembered-warm and soft and thin and wiry and perfect). “How ‘bout I kiss you until you can’t breathe right now?” he asks and offers a small, unsure grin (can he?).
Are you really going to be like this?
Kyung can hear voices just down the stairs-loud and laughing and familiar and he recognizes them instantly as he fits his hand into Jiho’s, meeting the other boy’s eyes, and he grins right back (this is so easy-if it was this easy, what took them so long? This is easier than breathing-being with Jiho has always been easier than breathing). He pulls back, turns slightly so that the column is cool and stony against his shoulder blades.
Jiho seems to catch on, stepping forward and pressing their bodies together as the voices get louder. His hands slip away from Kyung’s and fall onto the shorter boy’s hips, hooking against Kyung’s waistband. “That’s Jaehyo-hyung and Yukwonie-and Minhyuk-hyung, too,” he says.
Kyung grins. “Bet you we could turn Jaehyo-hyung if he sees us making-out?”
Jiho shrugs. “Even if we don’t, we can at least get Minhyuk-hyung hard, right?”
“Deal,” Kyung says, smiling, into Jiho’s mouth.