please don't say you love me. (1/5)
please don’t say you love me.
kris/suho - pg - angst - possible mention of depression - 10,899 words
canon!verse. responsibility demands sacrifice.
a/n: possibly a fill for this prompt on exopromptmeme.
op, please forgive me if it deviates so much from the original prompt ;~;
edited: 11/16/2013
2008;
“Let’s call it a day. Everyone get some rest so that we can practice longer tomorrow, okay?”
Their instructor walks out of the practice room and they all collapse on the spot. Chanyeol, Minseok and a few more trainees are the first ones to give up and leave the room. Jongin and Sehun are both still practicing without the music until Sehun finally decides to leave and Jongin follows him, sparing a glance at the room for the last time.
Yixing’s hand is hovering over the play button again; contemplating on doing another round just to check if his form’s okay. From the floor, Yifan can see Joonmyun place his hand on Yixing’s shoulder, whispering something in his ear. The younger of the two drops his hand and they leave together wordlessly, leaving Yifan in the empty practice room.
He stays on the floor for a little while, sweat cooling and muscles relaxing. Dance practice has always been hard for him; he just wasn’t talented enough for it to fly by him. He wasn’t Jongin or Sehun who were born to dance the way they did. He wasn’t Chanyeol who loved to rap and did it so well while Yifan had to watch him excel at every rap practice they had. He wasn’t Yixing who was good at pretty much everything. He’s just Yifan, and he’s good at being there simply to be there.
He hears the door open again and his head lifts up to meet Joonmyun’s eyes. The younger is smiling at him softly. Joonmyun offers Yifan his hand. “Let’s go?”
“What are you talking about?”
Joonmyun chuckles. “I know you stay here to practice a little more. You suck at dancing, I suck at dancing; let’s suck at this together.”
Yifan smiles at him, taking his hand and standing up. They play the song again, and true enough, they both stumble over most of the moves. Yifan ends up hitting Joonmyun’s head with his long arm and Joonmyun goes off beat so Yifan gets lost and they both collapse on the floor, laughing at their own struggles.
“Alright, I give up.” Yifan presses stop on the music player and laughs when Joonmyun collapses for the second time that night. “Samgyetang?”
“As long as you pay for it,” Joonmyun says as sweetly as possible. Yifan rolls his eyes and leaves the room to change his shirt. When he comes back, Joonmyun is ready to go.
“It’s you two again. It’s a little late, but do you want your usual order?” The old lady in the stall looked like she was about to pack up, but after seeing her two regular customers, she smiled and put back the chairs and tables. Joonmyun nods and helps her set up again.
They sit together and wait for their soup. It’s always been so easy with Joonmyun; so easy to talk about anything, so easy to practice and not be embarrassed about how bad he was (because Joonmyun was pretty bad too), so easy to just let go and forget that he’s in a cutthroat world and he should be working harder than everyone else because he isn’t exactly a prodigy of anything other than being good-looking.
Joonmyun seems to be calm about everything. He’s been in SM a year longer than Yifan, but he seems to not worry so much. there’s a line in his head, a definite path that he will follow no matter what tries to push him off his path. he was going to train for no matter how long, then he’ll debut and he’ll be successful, and then he’ll be happy and find someone who makes him happy, then the group will disband and he can start his family and be happy. the life he wants is so simple, simplicity that was drilled in him since he was just a little boy.
“Don’t you ever want more?” Yifan asks out of impulse. Joonmyun puts down his bowl and wipes his mouth with a napkin. He’s smiling (he’s always smiling), and Yifan doesn’t know if he should be annoyed or jealous.
“More soup?” Yifan sighs in exasperation. “Yeah I do, but I don’t know if-“
“I meant more in life. Don’t you ever want more than just a simple life?”
Joonmyun smiles again, but this time there’s a hint of something bittersweet in it. “I’m simple, but I’m also human. Of course I want something more than just a simple life. but simple is realistic, and I’d rather dream of the things I can have instead of the stars that are just too far away.”
“But why not dream of the stars? Do you think the men who went to the moon could have gone up there if they didn’t dream about it?” Yifan pushes the issue because this is what Joonmyun always says. His thoughts are straightforward and simple and Yifan wants him to want more, to dream of the impossible and to dream of things that he could only get once, to dream of ‘once in a lifetime’ and ‘happily ever after.’
“I only want one thing in life and that is to be happy.” Yifan is speechless.
“I have no plan as to how to reach that happiness. Hell, happiness can last for a second then disappear in the next. My only dream is to find something that will make me happy forever. Happiness is my star, Yifan. Happiness is the moon that I will stand on and the insanity that is my belief.”
They finish their soup in silence; thick silence composed of everything they’ve just let out. Joonmyun doesn’t ask Yifan about his star because he knows that Yifan is different from him; Yifan doesn’t know what he wants. He knows what he has, he knows what we will have, but he doesn’t know what he wants to have. Joonmyun may want simple things that might not be important to others, but he’s sure of it and he’s sure that his desires can meet his needs. The knowledge that his life will not go astray helps him sleep at night and wake up every morning. He does not want more than what he knows he can have.
“I’m heading home,” Joonmyun says as he slings his bag around his shoulders and smiles at Yifan. The older of the two nods and heads to his dorm room.
Yifan doesn’t think too much about their conversation, about him underestimating Joonmyun and thinking that he’s too perfect to want. Joonmyun is perfect, perfect at being average like Yifan, and they’re in the same boat of uncertainty. The younger male may seem confident about his future, so confident that he isn’t even considering the possibility of not debuting, but the possibility is still there.
Yifan wishes he knew what he wanted. Yifan wishes that he’ll understand himself the way Joonmyun understands himself.
“You’re different.”
Chanyeol’s words ring in Yifan’s ear. What was different? Was Yifan changing somehow? Was there something he was doing that alarmed Chanyeol so much that he actually told Yifan about it?
“Different how?” Yifan puts down the lyrics sheet in front of him while their rap instructor isn’t there yet. There are a few other trainees waiting with them, most of them newly recruited and hoping that rapping would be the talent that gets them to debut. Yifan’s given up on rapping as his main talent, but he keeps on training because it’s not bad to at least be mediocre in every skill they could train on.
“I don’t know. you’re working harder, I guess?” Yifan stares at him incredulously. “Hey, if you’re uncomfortable with compliments, I can always just say you suck and tell you to quit before you embarrass yourself any further.”
He smacks Chanyeol at the back of his head and smiles. Sometimes he wonders why the snickering giant beside him is even his friend.
“Do you plan these things?” Yifan says when he sees Joonmyun waiting at the lobby, presumably for him. He checks his wallet and luckily, there’s enough money for lunch together.
“I don’t, but you seem to enjoy paying for my meals so I let you.” Joonmyun’s smile is sickly sweet and Yifan wants to hit him for being so amazingly persuasive. he complains, but Yifan always ends up treating him to lunch or dinner or midnight snacks or anything that Joonmyun wanted.
“Let’s go somewhere different today.”
They end up in a quaint cafe, eating breakfast for lunch and sipping coffee and pretending to read the newspaper when all they’re actually doing is playing games in their phones and texting each other annoying emoticons. Yifan starts sending him cute pictures of animals working together and Joonmyun retaliates by sending him pictures of dead animals and the younger of the two could only laugh as Yifan closed his phone with a disturbed expression. It’s incredibly immature and silly, and they should really be back in training in half an hour.
With one last dead seagull, Joonmyun stands up and pays for the meal. Yifan is about to protest until he remembers that Joonmyun rarely ever pays for what they eat and this is a very rare occasion that he should cherish greatly. They walk quietly out of the café and start their journey back to the building.
“When you’re legal, you’re paying for all of our meals,” Yifan says with conviction. Joonmyun chuckles and shrugs. “I’m not even legal but I’m already paying for everything, so you owe me.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Joonmyun is still laughing, genuinely surprised that Yifan cares about paying. “As long as you pay for everything on my birthday.”
“I will if you do the same on mine,” Yifan promises. Joonmyun lifts his pinky up and Yifan’s face is a mixture of hesitation and incredulity. “Aren’t we a little too old for that?”
“It works though. No one ever breaks a promise with me.”
Yifan bites his lip before slowly linking their fingers together. “You are a child, kim Joonmyun.”
“You are too old for me, Wu Yifan.”
The older male gives him a quick side hug before walking into the practice room.
“Happy birthday!”
A practice room is filled with all of Yifan’s closest trainee friends, and there’ s a cake in the middle of the room. His eyes are still adjusting to the surprise ambush, but he smiles widely and tries to say thank you while everyone’s still cheering and throwing (literally throwing) their gifts at him.
“Alright, fun’s over. You can eat the cake after practice.” The trainees all groan at their instructor and they help each other put it somewhere outside the room so that none of them would be tempted to jump out of formation and eat the cake before anyone can get their hands on it.
They all end up eating the cake together, making sure not to make a huge mess of the room. Yifan opens his gifts and finds out that they’re all made out of crumpled paper; Chanyeol’s idea of a good birthday prank. He doesn’t actually get any gifts from any of the people in the room and he isn’t even disappointed, just very amused.
Soon everyone leaves him in the room, alone with the last two slices of cake. He takes one and eats a little of it before looking up when he realizes that someone else is still with him. Joonmyun sits down beside him and takes the last slice.
“I bought that,” Joonmyun blurts out. Yifan looks at him with curiosity in his eyes. “I meant that I bought the cake. I did say I would spend for everything on your birthday, right?”
Yifan smiles at him, remembering the promise they made to each other. “Alright, you did your part. When it’s your birthday, I’ll do mine.”
Joonmyun is too busy eating to even look at him. “I’m sorry, but I made a really good choice with this flavor. You should do better on mine. also, I want to have lunch, not just a cake.”
“Thanks for the expectations. I really appreciate it,” Yifan deadpans. Joonmyun laughs, eyes crinkling and vanishing into little slits.
They clean up the practice room, throwing out all of Chanyeol’s little paper gifts and the paper plates and forks that nobody threw away. They look at the sound system, at each other, then the sound system again. they practice for a little bit longer, trying to familiarize themselves with the dance steps that were growing more and more complicated as time passed.
A little bit longer ends up as an hour and a half and they’re on the floor again, too tired to get up. Yifan slowly reaches up and grabs hold of something stable enough to pull him up. Joonmyun’s heavier than he looks especially when he’s tired, but Yifan manages to lift him up.
They’re too tired for anything, even samgyetang. Joonmyun walks with Yifan to his dorm room. He doesn’t go in, just there to make sure that Yifan doesn’t pass out while going there.
“Joonmyun,” Yifan calls out. The younger turns back to him. Yifan is left standing there, unsure of what to say. He doesn’t know if he should say “thank you” because he already did that or “It was fun” because that’s something that Joonmyun already knows. Yifan always has fun with him.
His hesitation is ended when he feels arm wrap around him in a tight hug. Joonmyun buries his head in Yifan’s neck. “Happy birthday,” Joonmyun quietly whispers. Yifan hugs him back and they stay in that tight embrace for a little while longer.
A little while longer is much shorter than what Yifan expected and Joonmyun pulls away, face a bright pink. “Good night,” Joonmyun says nervously before walking away quickly.
Yifan’s dropping his jeans in the basket when he realizes that there was a piece of paper slipped into his pockets. The paper is pretty thick and he guesses that it’s a letter from someone, most likely Joonmyun. He opens it and instead of a letter, he gets a grocery list and everything Joonmyun wants on his birthday.
Yifan smiles. He wishes that Joonmyun won’t change as he blows out the candles to the cake he bought for himself.
Joonmyun lights a sparkler, grinning when it started lighting up. He lifts it a little more and stares in awe as the sparks trail after the stick he’s holding. He loves sparklers and new year has always been one of his favorite celebrations because of the fireworks and the endless food. He puts out the sparkler and goes back inside the house.
His phone is ringing and he picks it up, curious as to who’s calling during a holiday like this. “hello?” Joonmyun says loudly. The countdown on the tv is on its last minute, and his family’s holding hands to prepare for the big new year jump they do every year.
“Joonmyun.” Yifan’s deep voice startles him and he almost drops his phone.
“Yifan? Why are you calling me on new year’s eve?” he’s not annoyed, maybe a little pleasantly surprised.
“My family’s in canada. I’m bored,” Yifan says from the other end of the phone. Joonmyun doesn’t know what it feels like to celebrate a holiday without his family. They’re so close that nothing happens without everyone else finding out about it. He loves his family; he loves always being able to count on them to be there for him and to support him in everything he does.
“That’s rough.” Joonmyun notices the clock and it’s in its last thirty seconds. “Hey, the new year is almost here. are you going to jump?”
“I’m pretty sure I don’t need to grow any taller, Joonmyun.” He could almost see the smirk on Yifan’s face. Joonmyun rolls his eyes.
“Whatever. I’m going to jump. I’ll just call you after the screaming stops, okay?” he’s about to hang up before Yifan starts talking again.
“Wait! I’ll jump with you. Just don’t hang up.” Joonmyun doesn’t know why he’s acting like this, but he assumes that it’s the loneliness from being away from his family. Yifan hasn’t gone home in a while, and Joonmyun could only imagine how hard it is living alone, far away from the people that mattered the most to him.
Joonmyun’s niece holds on to his other hand and he smiles at her. “Alright, I’m staying. get ready.
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PART TWO
kris/suho - pg - angst - possible mention of depression - 10,899 words
canon!verse. responsibility demands sacrifice.
a/n: possibly a fill for this prompt on exopromptmeme.
op, please forgive me if it deviates so much from the original prompt ;~;
edited: 11/16/2013
2008;
“Let’s call it a day. Everyone get some rest so that we can practice longer tomorrow, okay?”
Their instructor walks out of the practice room and they all collapse on the spot. Chanyeol, Minseok and a few more trainees are the first ones to give up and leave the room. Jongin and Sehun are both still practicing without the music until Sehun finally decides to leave and Jongin follows him, sparing a glance at the room for the last time.
Yixing’s hand is hovering over the play button again; contemplating on doing another round just to check if his form’s okay. From the floor, Yifan can see Joonmyun place his hand on Yixing’s shoulder, whispering something in his ear. The younger of the two drops his hand and they leave together wordlessly, leaving Yifan in the empty practice room.
He stays on the floor for a little while, sweat cooling and muscles relaxing. Dance practice has always been hard for him; he just wasn’t talented enough for it to fly by him. He wasn’t Jongin or Sehun who were born to dance the way they did. He wasn’t Chanyeol who loved to rap and did it so well while Yifan had to watch him excel at every rap practice they had. He wasn’t Yixing who was good at pretty much everything. He’s just Yifan, and he’s good at being there simply to be there.
He hears the door open again and his head lifts up to meet Joonmyun’s eyes. The younger is smiling at him softly. Joonmyun offers Yifan his hand. “Let’s go?”
“What are you talking about?”
Joonmyun chuckles. “I know you stay here to practice a little more. You suck at dancing, I suck at dancing; let’s suck at this together.”
Yifan smiles at him, taking his hand and standing up. They play the song again, and true enough, they both stumble over most of the moves. Yifan ends up hitting Joonmyun’s head with his long arm and Joonmyun goes off beat so Yifan gets lost and they both collapse on the floor, laughing at their own struggles.
“Alright, I give up.” Yifan presses stop on the music player and laughs when Joonmyun collapses for the second time that night. “Samgyetang?”
“As long as you pay for it,” Joonmyun says as sweetly as possible. Yifan rolls his eyes and leaves the room to change his shirt. When he comes back, Joonmyun is ready to go.
“It’s you two again. It’s a little late, but do you want your usual order?” The old lady in the stall looked like she was about to pack up, but after seeing her two regular customers, she smiled and put back the chairs and tables. Joonmyun nods and helps her set up again.
They sit together and wait for their soup. It’s always been so easy with Joonmyun; so easy to talk about anything, so easy to practice and not be embarrassed about how bad he was (because Joonmyun was pretty bad too), so easy to just let go and forget that he’s in a cutthroat world and he should be working harder than everyone else because he isn’t exactly a prodigy of anything other than being good-looking.
Joonmyun seems to be calm about everything. He’s been in SM a year longer than Yifan, but he seems to not worry so much. there’s a line in his head, a definite path that he will follow no matter what tries to push him off his path. he was going to train for no matter how long, then he’ll debut and he’ll be successful, and then he’ll be happy and find someone who makes him happy, then the group will disband and he can start his family and be happy. the life he wants is so simple, simplicity that was drilled in him since he was just a little boy.
“Don’t you ever want more?” Yifan asks out of impulse. Joonmyun puts down his bowl and wipes his mouth with a napkin. He’s smiling (he’s always smiling), and Yifan doesn’t know if he should be annoyed or jealous.
“More soup?” Yifan sighs in exasperation. “Yeah I do, but I don’t know if-“
“I meant more in life. Don’t you ever want more than just a simple life?”
Joonmyun smiles again, but this time there’s a hint of something bittersweet in it. “I’m simple, but I’m also human. Of course I want something more than just a simple life. but simple is realistic, and I’d rather dream of the things I can have instead of the stars that are just too far away.”
“But why not dream of the stars? Do you think the men who went to the moon could have gone up there if they didn’t dream about it?” Yifan pushes the issue because this is what Joonmyun always says. His thoughts are straightforward and simple and Yifan wants him to want more, to dream of the impossible and to dream of things that he could only get once, to dream of ‘once in a lifetime’ and ‘happily ever after.’
“I only want one thing in life and that is to be happy.” Yifan is speechless.
“I have no plan as to how to reach that happiness. Hell, happiness can last for a second then disappear in the next. My only dream is to find something that will make me happy forever. Happiness is my star, Yifan. Happiness is the moon that I will stand on and the insanity that is my belief.”
They finish their soup in silence; thick silence composed of everything they’ve just let out. Joonmyun doesn’t ask Yifan about his star because he knows that Yifan is different from him; Yifan doesn’t know what he wants. He knows what he has, he knows what we will have, but he doesn’t know what he wants to have. Joonmyun may want simple things that might not be important to others, but he’s sure of it and he’s sure that his desires can meet his needs. The knowledge that his life will not go astray helps him sleep at night and wake up every morning. He does not want more than what he knows he can have.
“I’m heading home,” Joonmyun says as he slings his bag around his shoulders and smiles at Yifan. The older of the two nods and heads to his dorm room.
Yifan doesn’t think too much about their conversation, about him underestimating Joonmyun and thinking that he’s too perfect to want. Joonmyun is perfect, perfect at being average like Yifan, and they’re in the same boat of uncertainty. The younger male may seem confident about his future, so confident that he isn’t even considering the possibility of not debuting, but the possibility is still there.
Yifan wishes he knew what he wanted. Yifan wishes that he’ll understand himself the way Joonmyun understands himself.
“You’re different.”
Chanyeol’s words ring in Yifan’s ear. What was different? Was Yifan changing somehow? Was there something he was doing that alarmed Chanyeol so much that he actually told Yifan about it?
“Different how?” Yifan puts down the lyrics sheet in front of him while their rap instructor isn’t there yet. There are a few other trainees waiting with them, most of them newly recruited and hoping that rapping would be the talent that gets them to debut. Yifan’s given up on rapping as his main talent, but he keeps on training because it’s not bad to at least be mediocre in every skill they could train on.
“I don’t know. you’re working harder, I guess?” Yifan stares at him incredulously. “Hey, if you’re uncomfortable with compliments, I can always just say you suck and tell you to quit before you embarrass yourself any further.”
He smacks Chanyeol at the back of his head and smiles. Sometimes he wonders why the snickering giant beside him is even his friend.
“Do you plan these things?” Yifan says when he sees Joonmyun waiting at the lobby, presumably for him. He checks his wallet and luckily, there’s enough money for lunch together.
“I don’t, but you seem to enjoy paying for my meals so I let you.” Joonmyun’s smile is sickly sweet and Yifan wants to hit him for being so amazingly persuasive. he complains, but Yifan always ends up treating him to lunch or dinner or midnight snacks or anything that Joonmyun wanted.
“Let’s go somewhere different today.”
They end up in a quaint cafe, eating breakfast for lunch and sipping coffee and pretending to read the newspaper when all they’re actually doing is playing games in their phones and texting each other annoying emoticons. Yifan starts sending him cute pictures of animals working together and Joonmyun retaliates by sending him pictures of dead animals and the younger of the two could only laugh as Yifan closed his phone with a disturbed expression. It’s incredibly immature and silly, and they should really be back in training in half an hour.
With one last dead seagull, Joonmyun stands up and pays for the meal. Yifan is about to protest until he remembers that Joonmyun rarely ever pays for what they eat and this is a very rare occasion that he should cherish greatly. They walk quietly out of the café and start their journey back to the building.
“When you’re legal, you’re paying for all of our meals,” Yifan says with conviction. Joonmyun chuckles and shrugs. “I’m not even legal but I’m already paying for everything, so you owe me.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Joonmyun is still laughing, genuinely surprised that Yifan cares about paying. “As long as you pay for everything on my birthday.”
“I will if you do the same on mine,” Yifan promises. Joonmyun lifts his pinky up and Yifan’s face is a mixture of hesitation and incredulity. “Aren’t we a little too old for that?”
“It works though. No one ever breaks a promise with me.”
Yifan bites his lip before slowly linking their fingers together. “You are a child, kim Joonmyun.”
“You are too old for me, Wu Yifan.”
The older male gives him a quick side hug before walking into the practice room.
“Happy birthday!”
A practice room is filled with all of Yifan’s closest trainee friends, and there’ s a cake in the middle of the room. His eyes are still adjusting to the surprise ambush, but he smiles widely and tries to say thank you while everyone’s still cheering and throwing (literally throwing) their gifts at him.
“Alright, fun’s over. You can eat the cake after practice.” The trainees all groan at their instructor and they help each other put it somewhere outside the room so that none of them would be tempted to jump out of formation and eat the cake before anyone can get their hands on it.
They all end up eating the cake together, making sure not to make a huge mess of the room. Yifan opens his gifts and finds out that they’re all made out of crumpled paper; Chanyeol’s idea of a good birthday prank. He doesn’t actually get any gifts from any of the people in the room and he isn’t even disappointed, just very amused.
Soon everyone leaves him in the room, alone with the last two slices of cake. He takes one and eats a little of it before looking up when he realizes that someone else is still with him. Joonmyun sits down beside him and takes the last slice.
“I bought that,” Joonmyun blurts out. Yifan looks at him with curiosity in his eyes. “I meant that I bought the cake. I did say I would spend for everything on your birthday, right?”
Yifan smiles at him, remembering the promise they made to each other. “Alright, you did your part. When it’s your birthday, I’ll do mine.”
Joonmyun is too busy eating to even look at him. “I’m sorry, but I made a really good choice with this flavor. You should do better on mine. also, I want to have lunch, not just a cake.”
“Thanks for the expectations. I really appreciate it,” Yifan deadpans. Joonmyun laughs, eyes crinkling and vanishing into little slits.
They clean up the practice room, throwing out all of Chanyeol’s little paper gifts and the paper plates and forks that nobody threw away. They look at the sound system, at each other, then the sound system again. they practice for a little bit longer, trying to familiarize themselves with the dance steps that were growing more and more complicated as time passed.
A little bit longer ends up as an hour and a half and they’re on the floor again, too tired to get up. Yifan slowly reaches up and grabs hold of something stable enough to pull him up. Joonmyun’s heavier than he looks especially when he’s tired, but Yifan manages to lift him up.
They’re too tired for anything, even samgyetang. Joonmyun walks with Yifan to his dorm room. He doesn’t go in, just there to make sure that Yifan doesn’t pass out while going there.
“Joonmyun,” Yifan calls out. The younger turns back to him. Yifan is left standing there, unsure of what to say. He doesn’t know if he should say “thank you” because he already did that or “It was fun” because that’s something that Joonmyun already knows. Yifan always has fun with him.
His hesitation is ended when he feels arm wrap around him in a tight hug. Joonmyun buries his head in Yifan’s neck. “Happy birthday,” Joonmyun quietly whispers. Yifan hugs him back and they stay in that tight embrace for a little while longer.
A little while longer is much shorter than what Yifan expected and Joonmyun pulls away, face a bright pink. “Good night,” Joonmyun says nervously before walking away quickly.
Yifan’s dropping his jeans in the basket when he realizes that there was a piece of paper slipped into his pockets. The paper is pretty thick and he guesses that it’s a letter from someone, most likely Joonmyun. He opens it and instead of a letter, he gets a grocery list and everything Joonmyun wants on his birthday.
Yifan smiles. He wishes that Joonmyun won’t change as he blows out the candles to the cake he bought for himself.
Joonmyun lights a sparkler, grinning when it started lighting up. He lifts it a little more and stares in awe as the sparks trail after the stick he’s holding. He loves sparklers and new year has always been one of his favorite celebrations because of the fireworks and the endless food. He puts out the sparkler and goes back inside the house.
His phone is ringing and he picks it up, curious as to who’s calling during a holiday like this. “hello?” Joonmyun says loudly. The countdown on the tv is on its last minute, and his family’s holding hands to prepare for the big new year jump they do every year.
“Joonmyun.” Yifan’s deep voice startles him and he almost drops his phone.
“Yifan? Why are you calling me on new year’s eve?” he’s not annoyed, maybe a little pleasantly surprised.
“My family’s in canada. I’m bored,” Yifan says from the other end of the phone. Joonmyun doesn’t know what it feels like to celebrate a holiday without his family. They’re so close that nothing happens without everyone else finding out about it. He loves his family; he loves always being able to count on them to be there for him and to support him in everything he does.
“That’s rough.” Joonmyun notices the clock and it’s in its last thirty seconds. “Hey, the new year is almost here. are you going to jump?”
“I’m pretty sure I don’t need to grow any taller, Joonmyun.” He could almost see the smirk on Yifan’s face. Joonmyun rolls his eyes.
“Whatever. I’m going to jump. I’ll just call you after the screaming stops, okay?” he’s about to hang up before Yifan starts talking again.
“Wait! I’ll jump with you. Just don’t hang up.” Joonmyun doesn’t know why he’s acting like this, but he assumes that it’s the loneliness from being away from his family. Yifan hasn’t gone home in a while, and Joonmyun could only imagine how hard it is living alone, far away from the people that mattered the most to him.
Joonmyun’s niece holds on to his other hand and he smiles at her. “Alright, I’m staying. get ready.
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PART TWO