hide and seek; [onew/jonghyun]
hide and seek
onew/jonghyun; pg-13
3,180 words
summary: No matter when, Jonghyun will always find Jinki. Pure happy, sappy romance. :\ belated thanks to pinkweather for the late beta.
Jinki's family moves into their neighborhood when Jonghyun is six years old. He is looking out the window, fogging up the glass with breath after hot breath, tracing animal shapes and smiley faces, when a moving van comes to a stop on the other side of the street.
"That must be the new neighbors," his mother mutters from somewhere to his right where she's mopping up the juice he and his sister spilled earlier.
He blinks, gets up from his knees and presses his face to the glass. A man walks out carrying a huge crate. A woman with big curls walks down the street with a boy his age in tow. The boy smiles up at the woman, and his two front teeth are missing. His overalls are clean and blue and dry, not like his own, which are smudged with paint and wet with juice.
He feels excited. Finally, someone his age to play with, someone other than his stupid older sister who only cares about dresses and doll houses. "Mom, mom!' he calls out, jumping up and down on the ledge, "I wanna play with him!"
"Some other time, Jonghyun," his mother says, her back to him, "maybe you'll meet him on the playground."
He hopes he does. The boys at school are kind of stupid and like to steal his lunch money when he isn't looking. Girls are nice but also kind of gross, especially when they skip off to some corner and giggle and put flowers in their hair. Sometimes he'd color his perfect playmate on a piece of paper, and even if the boy on the street doesn't exactly match the pastel blue hair and the grass green eyes, he would have to do.
-
They meet in the playground one weekend later. The boy's name is Lee Jinki, and he loves playing Jonghyun's favorite games. They build precariously high sandcastles, and Jinki agrees to be the prince to his king. They fight pebble dragons, save doll princesses and rub leafy magic lamps. He tackles Jinki to the sand after the castle crumbles and the illusion dies. He's found the perfect playmate.
"Jonghyun-ah, let's play hide and seek," Jinki declares, before cuffing him on the shoulder. "Tag, you're it!"
"No fair, I wanna hide!" Jonghyun says, but Jinki is already tripping over his shoelaces, then pushing himself back up and heading for the trees.
"Close your eyes!" Jinki says over his shoulder, and Jonghyun shuts his eyes. When he opens them, Jinki is gone.
He looks around. There are lots of other kids on the swings, seesaws, running around the playground in circles. None of them are Jinki.
"Jinki!" he tries calling out. "Jinki!" Still nothing. A few kids are looking at him all funny, but he needs to find Jinki so he shoves past some of them and inspects behind the trees one by one, making sure to yell Jinki's name extra loud each time.
A flicker of blue runs past him. "Jinki!" He hooks his fingers to Jinki's collar and turns the other boy around, and Jinki's cheek is muddy but he's grinning wide.
"I found you," Jonghyun proclaims, proudly, hands on his hips and chin upturned.
"Uh-huh!" Jinki nods his assent. "You're really good!"
"I'm the best!" Jonghyun pounds his fist into his chest, and Jinki laughs out loud and embraces him. When Jinki pulls away, Jonghyun's cheek is muddy, too.
Jonghyun chases Jinki all the way home.
-
In middle school, Jonghyun begins dating girls. There is no one he dates for more than two months, however. When he breaks up with any one of them, he wears a mask of customary dispassion; he doesn't want the both of them crying even if it breaks his heart to see girls shed tears over his inability to keep a relationship going.
"Y-you're always with them! With him!" Miyoung sobs into her hands, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief.
He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath and counts to ten in his head. Every girl finds his closeness to Kibum, Minho and Taemin, and especially to Jinki, strange and discomfiting. He has to explain this every time. "They're my best friends. Jinki is my childhood friend. You can't expect me to suddenly not be close to them because I'm dating you."
"I'm not asking you to give them up," Miyoung snaps heatedly, face red and tears still tracking its way down her cheeks. "I'm asking you to pay attention to me. All you want to take to the movies is those boys and especially that Jinki--"
"Look, if you're gonna have these issues with them, then we're over. I'm sorry." He stuffs his hands in his pockets, slings his messenger bag over his shoulder, and walks away without looking back.
"Eveything okay with Miyoung-ah?" Jinki asks him at lunch as Kibum is copying off his homework.
He puffs his cheeks a bit, then sighs. "No. We broke up."
Minho eyes him with a scrutinizing look. "That's the sixth girl this year."
"I know," he replies. He puts his head in his hands and groans. "Damnit. I just have really bad luck with girls, okay."
Jinki frowns for a moment, but the crease in his mouth disappears quickly. He takes his hand and laces their fingers together, and smiles, soft. "It's okay, Jjong-ah. There will be others. And you still have us, right?"
Taemin is chewing on a cookie, watching the exchange silently, but his eyes are trained on their locked hands.
-
In high school, an epiphany hits him like a bolt to the head. He's always had bad luck with girls, because he doesn't know that he's already found the one he was looking for all along. And then suddenly, things are different whenever he and Jinki walk down the street together to school, whenever Jinki looks at him as they harmonize together in choir. Suddenly he imagines Jinki next to him in bed, whispering huskily in his ear, words ringing with the same desperation that claws at his chest every time he so much as glances at Jinki.
When it's just the two of them left in the music room, Jinki sifting through lyric sheets and humming idly under his breath, he plucks the sheets out Jinki's fingers and sets them atop the piano.
"What?" Jinki blinks at him, puzzled.
"Fuck you, how could you not tell me it was you," Jonghyun says, closing the gap between them.
"Wha--" Jinki's eyes are comically wide and he's flailing a bit as Jonghyun's hands move slowly over Jinki's back.
"Oh, stop moving, will you," are Jonghyun's last words before he presses his lips to Jinki's, slips his tongue between smooth white teeth.
"Mmph," is Jinki's eloquent reply as Jonghyun's eyes flutter shut.
-
A week before graduation, Jonghyun and Jinki take a trip to the beach. It isn't far from town, just a thirty-minute drive if they don't count all the stops made at random souvenir shops and convenience stores. It seems like they forget to bring everything except an extra change of clothes and beach towels. Jinki buys prawn chips and chicken fillet meals in styrofoam containers, and Jonghyun eats caramel apples and drinks from a half-empty water bottle as he watches fields and houses and train stations streak past his vision.
"Great view?" Jinki asks, the corner of his eyes on him for a moment.
Jonghyun smiles and takes a bite of his caramel apple, and Jinki turns just a bit pink when he tells him how cute his 'focused face' is. When Jinki opens his mouth to reply, he pelts another chip at his nose.
"You're wasting the chips, Jjong! I only bought two bags, and the other one's for later! And now my carpet's all dirty and the seats--"
"Shut up and keep driving," he commands, "or I will do something worse than wasting chips and leaving them to rot in your car." He gently squeezes the inside of Jinki's thigh through thick denim, and Jinki gasps and almost steps on the brakes.
"You're such a - a --" Jinki makes a disgruntled, huffy sort of noise and shakes his head. "Maybe I should have taken Kibum out instead."
Jonghyun snorts, rolling his eyes. "And I'll be left to pick up your sorry corpse on the beach after Kibum guts you to death? I don't think so."
"Kibum and I have a very amiable relationship, thank you very much." One hand comes off the steering wheel to bump him on the shoulder. "Just keep eating. And please try not to get any crumbs on the floor."
Jonghyun leans over, puckers his crumb-covered lips at Jinki, and relishes Jinki's surprised shriek when he successfully plants a wet ring of prawn crumbs on Jinki's cheek.
Jinki, wet and with goosebumps trailing down his arms, returns to the shore to find Jonghyun seated on a large beach towel, watching the waves while a mild breeze blows at his hair.
"Had fun?" Jonghyun lowers his sunglasses and raises an eyebrow. His hair is already dry but a mess, the salt and sand drying it into weird angles.
"Uh-huh," Jinki says, lying down next to Jonghyun, arms splayed out on the sun-soaked sand. "You sure you don't wanna swim again?"
"Later," Jonghyun mumbles, perching his shades back up on his nose, arms folded under his head. The sun radiated a comfortable dry heat today, and he wouldn't miss the opportunity to sport a smashing tan glow before graduation.
"Okay then." Jinki is already up and planting his knees on the sand. "Then I guess you won't mind if I do this." He proceeds to shovel armfuls of sand onto Jonghyun's legs, and Jonghyun sits up, flinging his glasses off his face and onto Jinki's back with a startled cry.
"What the hell!" Jonghyun yells, just as Jinki stands up and starts to run back to the ocean with a speed Jonghyun hasn't seen him possess before. "Come back here, you coward!"
"You can only catch me if you swim!" Jinki yells back with a roaring laugh, before disappearing into the water.
When Jonghyun's in the water himself, teeth crunching and hair flung out in even more obtuse angles, he whips his head around, then dips underwater and comes back up. Just when the panic is starting to settle in his stomach and he's about to scream for help, something tugs down his leg.
He struggles for a few seconds, before coming back up to a chuckling Jinki. He gives the best, most threatening glare he can muster, but with clumps of water and seaweed tangling in his hair, he is far from inducing some quaking in the boots.
"You are so dead, Lee Jinki," Jonghyun splutters, and tackles Jinki back to the water with a loud battle cry.
Later, Jinki's entire hand closes over Jonghyun's wrist as he murmurs an apology and pulls him in for a kiss, salt on their tongues and water running thick down the sides of their lips and smearing the collars of their shirts. Later, they watch the flames rise up from the makeshift campfire, plates of half-eaten chicken fillet and rice on either side of them. Jonghyun leans his head on Jinki's shoulder and stifles a yawn. He hasn't bothered to check the time, and Jinki doesn't care about it either; it's not as if Jinki is leaving tomorrow.
"Did you really think I was gonna drown?" Jinki's question filters through his half-awake consciousness. "Back there in the water?"
"Not... not really," he answers. Jinki starts to rub his hand over his arm, and a rush of warmth seeps deep into his skin. "I always find you."
Jinki pauses, and then laughs in a long, breathy exhale. "You always do, Jonghyunnie."
They position their sleeping bags so they can sleep shoulder to shoulder. It's corny and cheesy and just all the things that Jonghyun hates so much in the chick flicks he used to see with his girlfriends, but when Jinki's fingers curl around his, he stops feeling so much like a girl and starts being himself, here, with Jinki.
-
During Jinki's going away dinner, Jonghyun doesn't feel too well. His head is pounding, and he feels sore all over.
"If you don't send me something, I swear I will send Kibum after you. And Minho, too. And Taemin, even if he'll probably just hug you or something." Jonghyun croaks, voice thick and heavy and on the verge of cracking, but he articulates everything with a smile. He resists the urge to sniffle on his dress shirt and ruin Kibum's earlier efforts in patting the creases smooth.
"Gross, Jjong, why are you such a girl?" Kibum knees him under the table, and he rubs his leg before retaliating with a kick to the ankle.
"Hyung, you'll send us something too, right?" Taemin says before shoveling a few fries into his mouth. Minho hands him a glass of soda before flicking his gaze to Jinki.
Jinki laughs before carefully slinging an arm around Jonghyun's waist and squeezing his side. "Of course! I'm sure I'll see all kinds of things I can send over here at Oxford. And who knows, I might take a trip to see all of Europe."
"Oh, oh, hyung!" Kibum tugs at Jinki's sleeve. "Take a picture at Barcelona! I wanna see you at a bullfighting ring!"
"Um," Jinki says, eyeing Kibum warily. "I'll... see."
"And the Eiffel Tower!" Taemin inserts, waving a fry in the air.
Jinki beams. "That can be arranged."
Jonghyun snorts and tilts his head away from everyone. He supposes it's a bit immature - okay, a lot immature - to feel indignant at how everyone is acting like Jinki leaving is a thing of celebration. But he can't help it - he's naturally selfish.
But more than feeling entitled to be miserable, he is afraid. Afraid that he wouldn't be able to find Jinki again. Miles and years would separate them, and he doesn't know if the future Jinki, the one who would leave his footprints traversing all over Europe, would still be the same Jinki that sang him ballads in the music room, the same Jinki who kissed him on the beach thirty minutes away from home.
"If I go to Europe," Jonghyun murmurs into Jinki's naked shoulder, "how will I find you?"
Jinki dips his head and nuzzles the top of Jonghyun's head. "You won't need to."
Jonghyun believes him.
-
Jinki sends him little packages almost every month, without fail. The very first package is an Oxford University sweatshirt and a letter. The letter is long and rambling; Jinki narrates the sights, sounds and smells of Oxford like an excited child and a fascinated professor. After the sweatshirt is a mug, then scented candles from some town near Oxford. He grimaces at the girly color, but ends up using it anyway - turns out they are effective stress-relievers when paired with a long bubble bath.
In the second year, when Jinki takes a trip to London, he composes a reply: Kibum wants to know the recipe for scones.
Jinki's next package after that is a letter and the recipe for scones. Kibum is positively ecstatic and pesters him to send Korean candies to Jinki after.
If made to choose, his favorite out of all the gifts is a rosary. Its beads glint crimson red in the light. It's from Rome. He keeps it in his wallet even after the scent has faded away from months of rubbing his thumbs over the beads on those rare days he decides to pray.
When are you coming back?, he finally asks.
It's been four years.
Dear Jonghyun, how are you? I'm finally back from Paris, tell Taeminnie and Minho I got something for them, and that I will be sending it next week, Jinki writes in reply.
He sighs, crumples up the piece of ruled paper on his desk, and doesn't write back for two months.
Wait for me, Jinki writes when he's probably noticed that Jonghyun's letters have stopped coming.
Jonghyun stares at the letter, unsure of what to say. After an hour of pacing, when he sits down to write, he begins: Dear Jinki, I'm writing my undergraduate thesis, and I'll graduate in six months. Time flies so fast, huh?
-
It takes exactly four hundred and ninety-seven more days for Jinki's last letter to reach him. It's early morning, and he's up for another day of mindless work, shuffling papers and looking over contracts for the higher-ups. He rubs at his eyes with the heel of his hand, and when his vision comes into focus, there's a plain blue envelope on his doormat. There's no return address, only his name and apartment address hastily scrawled in thin black ink.
The note inside is folded and sealed with candlewax, like Jinki must have written it in some dank Amsterdam motel during a thunderstorm. With slightly shaking fingers, he slides his finger under the wax and unfolds.
There are no hi's, how are you's. The hangeul is smudged, but legible. There are only three words.
I found you.
Heart thudding painfully in his throat, he crosses the few steps to the door and twists it open.
And then he sees Jinki, longer hair falling into his eyes and with a smile threatening to crack at the edges, the same smile from their afternoons in the sandbox. It's the same smile that Jinki makes through the sunlight, around school corridors, under the covers in the dim light of the nightlamp. Every other thought in that one moment seemed trivial; all other memories that didn't have Jinki's handprints on them throttling every memory it encountered. He reaches out and cups Jinki's cheek, checking, double-checking if the boy - no, man - before him is a real solid mass of particles and god, when did Jinki look this beautiful?
"Hey," Jinki says, leaning into his palm.
"Hi, you bastard," he replies tightly, then flings himself into Jinki's arms with so much force that Jinki stumbles backwards.
"Woah there," Jinki says after they've regained their balance and his arms are curled tight around Jinki's neck. "No need for cursing in this household, young man."
"Fuck you. I hate waiting. Let me cuss all I want," he murmurs as they rock back and forth, Jinki's face pressed into his hair.
He sees the blues and greens and greys of the world swirl together, and he can smell all the places Jinki's been to, all the cities Jinki has glimpsed on his way home, and he's sure he will never let Jinki hide again.
onew/jonghyun; pg-13
3,180 words
summary: No matter when, Jonghyun will always find Jinki. Pure happy, sappy romance. :\ belated thanks to pinkweather for the late beta.
Jinki's family moves into their neighborhood when Jonghyun is six years old. He is looking out the window, fogging up the glass with breath after hot breath, tracing animal shapes and smiley faces, when a moving van comes to a stop on the other side of the street.
"That must be the new neighbors," his mother mutters from somewhere to his right where she's mopping up the juice he and his sister spilled earlier.
He blinks, gets up from his knees and presses his face to the glass. A man walks out carrying a huge crate. A woman with big curls walks down the street with a boy his age in tow. The boy smiles up at the woman, and his two front teeth are missing. His overalls are clean and blue and dry, not like his own, which are smudged with paint and wet with juice.
He feels excited. Finally, someone his age to play with, someone other than his stupid older sister who only cares about dresses and doll houses. "Mom, mom!' he calls out, jumping up and down on the ledge, "I wanna play with him!"
"Some other time, Jonghyun," his mother says, her back to him, "maybe you'll meet him on the playground."
He hopes he does. The boys at school are kind of stupid and like to steal his lunch money when he isn't looking. Girls are nice but also kind of gross, especially when they skip off to some corner and giggle and put flowers in their hair. Sometimes he'd color his perfect playmate on a piece of paper, and even if the boy on the street doesn't exactly match the pastel blue hair and the grass green eyes, he would have to do.
-
They meet in the playground one weekend later. The boy's name is Lee Jinki, and he loves playing Jonghyun's favorite games. They build precariously high sandcastles, and Jinki agrees to be the prince to his king. They fight pebble dragons, save doll princesses and rub leafy magic lamps. He tackles Jinki to the sand after the castle crumbles and the illusion dies. He's found the perfect playmate.
"Jonghyun-ah, let's play hide and seek," Jinki declares, before cuffing him on the shoulder. "Tag, you're it!"
"No fair, I wanna hide!" Jonghyun says, but Jinki is already tripping over his shoelaces, then pushing himself back up and heading for the trees.
"Close your eyes!" Jinki says over his shoulder, and Jonghyun shuts his eyes. When he opens them, Jinki is gone.
He looks around. There are lots of other kids on the swings, seesaws, running around the playground in circles. None of them are Jinki.
"Jinki!" he tries calling out. "Jinki!" Still nothing. A few kids are looking at him all funny, but he needs to find Jinki so he shoves past some of them and inspects behind the trees one by one, making sure to yell Jinki's name extra loud each time.
A flicker of blue runs past him. "Jinki!" He hooks his fingers to Jinki's collar and turns the other boy around, and Jinki's cheek is muddy but he's grinning wide.
"I found you," Jonghyun proclaims, proudly, hands on his hips and chin upturned.
"Uh-huh!" Jinki nods his assent. "You're really good!"
"I'm the best!" Jonghyun pounds his fist into his chest, and Jinki laughs out loud and embraces him. When Jinki pulls away, Jonghyun's cheek is muddy, too.
Jonghyun chases Jinki all the way home.
-
In middle school, Jonghyun begins dating girls. There is no one he dates for more than two months, however. When he breaks up with any one of them, he wears a mask of customary dispassion; he doesn't want the both of them crying even if it breaks his heart to see girls shed tears over his inability to keep a relationship going.
"Y-you're always with them! With him!" Miyoung sobs into her hands, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief.
He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath and counts to ten in his head. Every girl finds his closeness to Kibum, Minho and Taemin, and especially to Jinki, strange and discomfiting. He has to explain this every time. "They're my best friends. Jinki is my childhood friend. You can't expect me to suddenly not be close to them because I'm dating you."
"I'm not asking you to give them up," Miyoung snaps heatedly, face red and tears still tracking its way down her cheeks. "I'm asking you to pay attention to me. All you want to take to the movies is those boys and especially that Jinki--"
"Look, if you're gonna have these issues with them, then we're over. I'm sorry." He stuffs his hands in his pockets, slings his messenger bag over his shoulder, and walks away without looking back.
"Eveything okay with Miyoung-ah?" Jinki asks him at lunch as Kibum is copying off his homework.
He puffs his cheeks a bit, then sighs. "No. We broke up."
Minho eyes him with a scrutinizing look. "That's the sixth girl this year."
"I know," he replies. He puts his head in his hands and groans. "Damnit. I just have really bad luck with girls, okay."
Jinki frowns for a moment, but the crease in his mouth disappears quickly. He takes his hand and laces their fingers together, and smiles, soft. "It's okay, Jjong-ah. There will be others. And you still have us, right?"
Taemin is chewing on a cookie, watching the exchange silently, but his eyes are trained on their locked hands.
-
In high school, an epiphany hits him like a bolt to the head. He's always had bad luck with girls, because he doesn't know that he's already found the one he was looking for all along. And then suddenly, things are different whenever he and Jinki walk down the street together to school, whenever Jinki looks at him as they harmonize together in choir. Suddenly he imagines Jinki next to him in bed, whispering huskily in his ear, words ringing with the same desperation that claws at his chest every time he so much as glances at Jinki.
When it's just the two of them left in the music room, Jinki sifting through lyric sheets and humming idly under his breath, he plucks the sheets out Jinki's fingers and sets them atop the piano.
"What?" Jinki blinks at him, puzzled.
"Fuck you, how could you not tell me it was you," Jonghyun says, closing the gap between them.
"Wha--" Jinki's eyes are comically wide and he's flailing a bit as Jonghyun's hands move slowly over Jinki's back.
"Oh, stop moving, will you," are Jonghyun's last words before he presses his lips to Jinki's, slips his tongue between smooth white teeth.
"Mmph," is Jinki's eloquent reply as Jonghyun's eyes flutter shut.
-
A week before graduation, Jonghyun and Jinki take a trip to the beach. It isn't far from town, just a thirty-minute drive if they don't count all the stops made at random souvenir shops and convenience stores. It seems like they forget to bring everything except an extra change of clothes and beach towels. Jinki buys prawn chips and chicken fillet meals in styrofoam containers, and Jonghyun eats caramel apples and drinks from a half-empty water bottle as he watches fields and houses and train stations streak past his vision.
"Great view?" Jinki asks, the corner of his eyes on him for a moment.
Jonghyun smiles and takes a bite of his caramel apple, and Jinki turns just a bit pink when he tells him how cute his 'focused face' is. When Jinki opens his mouth to reply, he pelts another chip at his nose.
"You're wasting the chips, Jjong! I only bought two bags, and the other one's for later! And now my carpet's all dirty and the seats--"
"Shut up and keep driving," he commands, "or I will do something worse than wasting chips and leaving them to rot in your car." He gently squeezes the inside of Jinki's thigh through thick denim, and Jinki gasps and almost steps on the brakes.
"You're such a - a --" Jinki makes a disgruntled, huffy sort of noise and shakes his head. "Maybe I should have taken Kibum out instead."
Jonghyun snorts, rolling his eyes. "And I'll be left to pick up your sorry corpse on the beach after Kibum guts you to death? I don't think so."
"Kibum and I have a very amiable relationship, thank you very much." One hand comes off the steering wheel to bump him on the shoulder. "Just keep eating. And please try not to get any crumbs on the floor."
Jonghyun leans over, puckers his crumb-covered lips at Jinki, and relishes Jinki's surprised shriek when he successfully plants a wet ring of prawn crumbs on Jinki's cheek.
Jinki, wet and with goosebumps trailing down his arms, returns to the shore to find Jonghyun seated on a large beach towel, watching the waves while a mild breeze blows at his hair.
"Had fun?" Jonghyun lowers his sunglasses and raises an eyebrow. His hair is already dry but a mess, the salt and sand drying it into weird angles.
"Uh-huh," Jinki says, lying down next to Jonghyun, arms splayed out on the sun-soaked sand. "You sure you don't wanna swim again?"
"Later," Jonghyun mumbles, perching his shades back up on his nose, arms folded under his head. The sun radiated a comfortable dry heat today, and he wouldn't miss the opportunity to sport a smashing tan glow before graduation.
"Okay then." Jinki is already up and planting his knees on the sand. "Then I guess you won't mind if I do this." He proceeds to shovel armfuls of sand onto Jonghyun's legs, and Jonghyun sits up, flinging his glasses off his face and onto Jinki's back with a startled cry.
"What the hell!" Jonghyun yells, just as Jinki stands up and starts to run back to the ocean with a speed Jonghyun hasn't seen him possess before. "Come back here, you coward!"
"You can only catch me if you swim!" Jinki yells back with a roaring laugh, before disappearing into the water.
When Jonghyun's in the water himself, teeth crunching and hair flung out in even more obtuse angles, he whips his head around, then dips underwater and comes back up. Just when the panic is starting to settle in his stomach and he's about to scream for help, something tugs down his leg.
He struggles for a few seconds, before coming back up to a chuckling Jinki. He gives the best, most threatening glare he can muster, but with clumps of water and seaweed tangling in his hair, he is far from inducing some quaking in the boots.
"You are so dead, Lee Jinki," Jonghyun splutters, and tackles Jinki back to the water with a loud battle cry.
Later, Jinki's entire hand closes over Jonghyun's wrist as he murmurs an apology and pulls him in for a kiss, salt on their tongues and water running thick down the sides of their lips and smearing the collars of their shirts. Later, they watch the flames rise up from the makeshift campfire, plates of half-eaten chicken fillet and rice on either side of them. Jonghyun leans his head on Jinki's shoulder and stifles a yawn. He hasn't bothered to check the time, and Jinki doesn't care about it either; it's not as if Jinki is leaving tomorrow.
"Did you really think I was gonna drown?" Jinki's question filters through his half-awake consciousness. "Back there in the water?"
"Not... not really," he answers. Jinki starts to rub his hand over his arm, and a rush of warmth seeps deep into his skin. "I always find you."
Jinki pauses, and then laughs in a long, breathy exhale. "You always do, Jonghyunnie."
They position their sleeping bags so they can sleep shoulder to shoulder. It's corny and cheesy and just all the things that Jonghyun hates so much in the chick flicks he used to see with his girlfriends, but when Jinki's fingers curl around his, he stops feeling so much like a girl and starts being himself, here, with Jinki.
-
During Jinki's going away dinner, Jonghyun doesn't feel too well. His head is pounding, and he feels sore all over.
"If you don't send me something, I swear I will send Kibum after you. And Minho, too. And Taemin, even if he'll probably just hug you or something." Jonghyun croaks, voice thick and heavy and on the verge of cracking, but he articulates everything with a smile. He resists the urge to sniffle on his dress shirt and ruin Kibum's earlier efforts in patting the creases smooth.
"Gross, Jjong, why are you such a girl?" Kibum knees him under the table, and he rubs his leg before retaliating with a kick to the ankle.
"Hyung, you'll send us something too, right?" Taemin says before shoveling a few fries into his mouth. Minho hands him a glass of soda before flicking his gaze to Jinki.
Jinki laughs before carefully slinging an arm around Jonghyun's waist and squeezing his side. "Of course! I'm sure I'll see all kinds of things I can send over here at Oxford. And who knows, I might take a trip to see all of Europe."
"Oh, oh, hyung!" Kibum tugs at Jinki's sleeve. "Take a picture at Barcelona! I wanna see you at a bullfighting ring!"
"Um," Jinki says, eyeing Kibum warily. "I'll... see."
"And the Eiffel Tower!" Taemin inserts, waving a fry in the air.
Jinki beams. "That can be arranged."
Jonghyun snorts and tilts his head away from everyone. He supposes it's a bit immature - okay, a lot immature - to feel indignant at how everyone is acting like Jinki leaving is a thing of celebration. But he can't help it - he's naturally selfish.
But more than feeling entitled to be miserable, he is afraid. Afraid that he wouldn't be able to find Jinki again. Miles and years would separate them, and he doesn't know if the future Jinki, the one who would leave his footprints traversing all over Europe, would still be the same Jinki that sang him ballads in the music room, the same Jinki who kissed him on the beach thirty minutes away from home.
"If I go to Europe," Jonghyun murmurs into Jinki's naked shoulder, "how will I find you?"
Jinki dips his head and nuzzles the top of Jonghyun's head. "You won't need to."
Jonghyun believes him.
-
Jinki sends him little packages almost every month, without fail. The very first package is an Oxford University sweatshirt and a letter. The letter is long and rambling; Jinki narrates the sights, sounds and smells of Oxford like an excited child and a fascinated professor. After the sweatshirt is a mug, then scented candles from some town near Oxford. He grimaces at the girly color, but ends up using it anyway - turns out they are effective stress-relievers when paired with a long bubble bath.
In the second year, when Jinki takes a trip to London, he composes a reply: Kibum wants to know the recipe for scones.
Jinki's next package after that is a letter and the recipe for scones. Kibum is positively ecstatic and pesters him to send Korean candies to Jinki after.
If made to choose, his favorite out of all the gifts is a rosary. Its beads glint crimson red in the light. It's from Rome. He keeps it in his wallet even after the scent has faded away from months of rubbing his thumbs over the beads on those rare days he decides to pray.
When are you coming back?, he finally asks.
It's been four years.
Dear Jonghyun, how are you? I'm finally back from Paris, tell Taeminnie and Minho I got something for them, and that I will be sending it next week, Jinki writes in reply.
He sighs, crumples up the piece of ruled paper on his desk, and doesn't write back for two months.
Wait for me, Jinki writes when he's probably noticed that Jonghyun's letters have stopped coming.
Jonghyun stares at the letter, unsure of what to say. After an hour of pacing, when he sits down to write, he begins: Dear Jinki, I'm writing my undergraduate thesis, and I'll graduate in six months. Time flies so fast, huh?
-
It takes exactly four hundred and ninety-seven more days for Jinki's last letter to reach him. It's early morning, and he's up for another day of mindless work, shuffling papers and looking over contracts for the higher-ups. He rubs at his eyes with the heel of his hand, and when his vision comes into focus, there's a plain blue envelope on his doormat. There's no return address, only his name and apartment address hastily scrawled in thin black ink.
The note inside is folded and sealed with candlewax, like Jinki must have written it in some dank Amsterdam motel during a thunderstorm. With slightly shaking fingers, he slides his finger under the wax and unfolds.
There are no hi's, how are you's. The hangeul is smudged, but legible. There are only three words.
I found you.
Heart thudding painfully in his throat, he crosses the few steps to the door and twists it open.
And then he sees Jinki, longer hair falling into his eyes and with a smile threatening to crack at the edges, the same smile from their afternoons in the sandbox. It's the same smile that Jinki makes through the sunlight, around school corridors, under the covers in the dim light of the nightlamp. Every other thought in that one moment seemed trivial; all other memories that didn't have Jinki's handprints on them throttling every memory it encountered. He reaches out and cups Jinki's cheek, checking, double-checking if the boy - no, man - before him is a real solid mass of particles and god, when did Jinki look this beautiful?
"Hey," Jinki says, leaning into his palm.
"Hi, you bastard," he replies tightly, then flings himself into Jinki's arms with so much force that Jinki stumbles backwards.
"Woah there," Jinki says after they've regained their balance and his arms are curled tight around Jinki's neck. "No need for cursing in this household, young man."
"Fuck you. I hate waiting. Let me cuss all I want," he murmurs as they rock back and forth, Jinki's face pressed into his hair.
He sees the blues and greens and greys of the world swirl together, and he can smell all the places Jinki's been to, all the cities Jinki has glimpsed on his way home, and he's sure he will never let Jinki hide again.