Whenever (Part I)
Pairing: JongKey
Rating: PG-15
Genre: Coming-of-Age, AU, Sci-Fi
Beta-ed by: desiderada
Summary: Time is to Jonghyun as colours are to the blind. For Kibum, it’s a different story entirely.
A/N: This is what happens when my brother (and friend) keeps talking about/makes me watch Doctor Who. (I should clarify that although this fic was inspired by the series' concept of time, it is in no way similar or a crossover.) I love my brother. And my friend, whom I thank dearly for reading this through <3
Thank you for reading! I hope you can enjoy it, despite this fic being, well, slightly weird.
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Past, Present, Future. Simple, you would think.
Or maybe that’s it. It’s too simple.
***
There is a man sitting on the sidewalk; well, not exactly a man, more like a young adult. Kibum’s mother has always told him to stay away from strangers, so he does just that. He crosses the street to the other sidewalk to avoid the man - teenager? It’s hard to tell. Everyone looks old to Kibum’s six-year-old eyes.
Kibum tightens his grip on the straps of his backpack and quickens his pace, eager to get home. He ignores the look the stranger is giving him. It’s unnerving, what with the way he is staring, unmoving. Kibum risks a sideways glance, hoping he would be far enough to cross the street again and rush to the front door of his house. Strangely, the man is smiling at him. Kibum dashes through the street, fumbling with his key before inserting it into the lock and opening the door only to shut it behind him the next second.
He goes through the motions of kicking off his shoes mechanically, out of habit, because his mind is still troubled by the strange person observing him out on the street. His grandmother greets him but he doesn’t answer, instead heading up to his bedroom and putting his small bag down next to his desk, falling into his bed right after. He closes his eyes and takes deep breaths, telling himself (or trying to, at least) that it is nothing, that the man is probably bored and just waiting for someone. But a part of him doesn’t buy that. He isn’t convinced.
There had been something about the man’s smile that, even though Kibum had only gotten a short look at it, was unusual. He may only be six years old, but he isn’t stupid. People just don’t smile at strangers that way. Unless Kibum isn’t - wasn’t? wouldn’t be? - a stranger to him.
He opens his eyes and the rippling in his curtains catches his attention. Frowning, he rises from his mattress and takes a few sluggish steps towards his window. His grandmother has this habit of opening all the windows in their small house whenever spring comes around. He grips the lower edge and pulls it down, securing the latch at the bottom to lock it in place; that is when he notices something, or someone standing in the small alleyway that stretches behind the complex of joined houses. He stands frozen in utter surprise, eyes wide open but after a second, the figure only walks away.
Kibum doesn’t sleep very well that night. Fortunately - or unfortunately? - he is unaware that it will be the first restless night of many.
***
The second time Kibum sees him, he is seven and a half. By that time, he has convinced himself that the strange man was only a dream, a foggy, distant dream. His memory of that day is so elusive that he couldn’t have been real. In those few months, Kibum grows up to be a very rational child.
But all that is put into question again when he sees the same stranger sitting in the grass of his school’s playground. His steps falter for a split second, just long enough for the kids behind him to bump into him and almost send him tumbling down the concrete stairs. His friend grabs his arms and steadies him, going on and on about that new video game he got for his birthday. Kibum doesn’t listen; he’s too preoccupied with staring at the back of the stranger’s head - he just knows it’s him - with wide eyes, and it would have been a lie to say that he wasn’t slightly frightened. His friend doesn’t let him go, tugging him along because the day is over and everyone is eager to head home. Kibum grips his arm tight, pushing them both as far from the strange man - teenager? young adult? he still looks the same - as he can, almost pressing his friend into the fence, who manages to avoid it narrowly. He asks Kibum if there is something wrong, to which Kibum doesn’t answer, eyes fixed on the stranger looking up at the light blue sky.
“Let’s go,” he says with a sense of urgency, and his friend frowns but that is not important because the stranger’s head turns then and his eyes immediately lock with Kibum’s. He can feel a shiver sneak down his back, because the strange boy has that same smile; the one from before. A year and some months ago.
Before he realizes what he’s doing, Kibum is staring back. He doesn’t smile, just looks at the man and wonders. The longer he looks, the less scared he is but he can’t exactly figure out why. He feels his friend pull on his hand and looks away hurriedly.
“Do you know him?” his friend asks him.
“No,” Kibum says, but he’s frowning. When they cross the school’s gates, he throws one last look above his shoulder and is surprised to find that the stranger isn’t staring at him anymore, but rather smiling (a different smile, this one more humourous) towards the sky.
***
Kibum sees him more often after that. At some point, the fright begins to fade away, instead replaced with intrigue. Why is he there? Why does he come by every few weeks to sit in the grass by his elementary school or on the sidewalk near his home? Sometimes he doesn’t show up for months. Sometimes he shows up for a few days in a row. Kibum is confused but at the same time he doesn’t want to think about it. He is still that same rational child.
But he is growing up, “fast” as his grandmother likes to tell him. Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve; the years pile up, and before he knows it he is off to a bigger school with older students. So much more is expected of him there and Kibum does his best to keep up. Sometimes, however, he finds out the hard way that even his best isn’t enough.
School is not forgiving anymore; everyday spent there means more and more homework as the equations become more and more complex, the theories more and more abstract and the grammar rules more and more nonsensical. Kibum catches himself wondering where it all ends. If it all ends.
Kibum is a good student. He learns to not let his mind wander too much when he is sitting in class or studying, he learns not to talk too much or be too loud in the cafeteria, he learns how to iron his uniform so that no creases are showing and how to sit straight to keep it proper. He learns what it’s like to conform.
He learns that time is a valuable thing, a luxury that no one seems to have anymore, especially not his parents. He finds himself rushing more and more, walking faster and faster to and from, taking shortcuts whenever he can, losing a few hours of sleep here and there. He has assignments to tend to, chapters to read and concepts to understand. Like the rest of his classmates, he is a busy kid.
But somehow he always slows down when he sees the stranger sitting on the sidewalk or leaning onto the brick wall of his school. He always stares back and the stranger simply smiles. He never gets too close, but he watches from a distance. Kibum could recognize him anywhere now. His black hair is long, a bit tousled and swept to the side to reveal large brown eyes. Kibum is almost thirteen when he thinks for the first time that he is rather good-looking. Strange boy.
The weekend before his birthday, his grandmother takes it upon herself to buy him a dog. A puppy. It’s tiny and shaking the first time Kibum picks it up, but it stops crying once he places it to his chest next to his heartbeat.
“It’ll make the house feel less empty,” his grandmother tells him with a sweet smile. Kibum knows what she’s alluding to and simply nods. “What are you going to name him?” she asks.
The puppy’s luscious fur reminds Kibum of the glossy pages of the magazines he likes to look through while waiting at the dentist’s. He thinks back to the one he flipped through earlier that day, thinks of the foreign advertisements that are always so fascinating to him. He knows enough English to understand most of them, which is why he settles on:
“Coco.”
His grandmother smiles at him. He puts the dog down and goes to his room to study.
His birthday falls on a Thursday. It’s an ordinary day as far as he is concerned, apart from the fact that his friends wish him a happy birthday.
It’s an ordinary day until the last bell rings and he sets out of the bustling building with his heavy backpack slung over his shoulder. He pushes the front door open and is halfway through the doorframe when he notices something, or someone standing beside the path that leads to the street. There are a few students around, but none seem to mind the stranger; the stranger who is smiling again.
Kibum takes a careful step forward, unsure of what to do. He continues down the path and tries to avoid the man’s gaze but sooner than later he looks up and is greeted with a smile. It is slightly different this time, almost implied. A knowing sort of smile that makes Kibum not only slow down but stop altogether. He’s close, closer than he’s ever been. The stranger looks young. Kibum wonders how old he really was when he first saw him, sitting on the sidewalk near his house.
He stands there, gaze locked and can feel his heart pumping faster and faster in his chest. Suddenly, the fright that was there all those years ago is back. The boy’s smile widens and Kibum tenses.
“Hi,” his lips part to speak, only to curve into a bigger, somehow goofy-looking grin. Kibum is so befuddled that he can only blink and stay rooted on the spot. The boy cocks his head slightly, his long bangs falling to the side and his big eyes still on Kibum in a way that makes him uncomfortable.
When he doesn’t say anything, the stranger chuckles breathily and Kibum almost flinches.
“How old are you?” the strange boy asks, head still tilted to the side. Kibum knows he should pick his feet up and run away but he doesn’t. He doesn’t say anything, either.
Then something changes. The stranger straightens up and his smile seems to brighten, lighting up his features.
“You’re thirteen, right? Thirteen today?”
Kibum frowns and places a foot back behind him when the stranger leans forward, expression unchanging. Kibum doesn’t understand what is happening and it scares him. Before he knows it, he is walking backwards, turning on his heels and the last thing he notices is the strange boy waving him goodbye. He runs right past his bus stop and doesn’t stop until he is home.
Kibum is a rational child. He doesn’t want to think about it.
***
Every time Kibum walks out of his school’s front doors, he finds himself looking for the familiar figure. When it is nowhere in sight, he breathes a sigh of relief. He stays relieved for nine days.
By the tenth, the pushes the door open and freezes, again, because there is a black-haired boy sitting by the trunk of a tree on the school’s front grounds. Kibum looks away hurriedly, pretending he didn’t see him and gathers his courage to set foot on the path that will lead him to his bus stop. He is halfway there when he feels this indescribable sensation that someone is watching him and surely enough, when he risks a glance over his shoulder, he notices that the stranger is looking his way.
The black-haired boy does something he has never done before: he waves in greeting, and Kibum’s gaze darts back to his feet. He rushes to his bus stop and pleads for his mind to just stop thinking.
The stranger keeps waving to him after that. Kibum can’t decide if he is more unnerved or puzzled by it. He never waves back, he never smiles back, but he learns to push all thoughts of the strange boy out of his head whenever he is not around. It is simpler that way, because that way things actually make sense.
A few months go by during which Kibum isn’t met with the stranger’s friendly yet perplexing wave after classes, a few months during which Kibum’s mind is a more peaceful place. He turns fourteen, but his grandmother still takes care of him, his parents are still too busy and his homework is still mind-numbing but he finds himself thinking perhaps that isn’t such a bad thing.
He is honestly taken by surprise when he steps off the bus one day and sees the stranger on the sidewalk. He is even more surprised when the stranger stands up, as if he was expecting him. Kibum frowns and bites his lip worriedly - his feet want to take off again and his heart starts racing in his chest. He picks up the pace and clenches his hands into fists as he speeds by, scared. The stranger has a friendly smile and a smooth voice, but he is still a stranger, an older stranger and it makes Kibum feel restless.
He looks back cautiously, only to be stricken with fear when he doesn’t see him behind him, but walking beside him. Kibum’s eyes widen and his long legs falter for a second, but he rights himself soon enough and all he can think about is home. He is breathing hard by the time he makes it to his doorstep and only then does he realize that he had been holding his breath. As he closes the door behind him, he catches a glimpse of the stranger waving to him from the street. Kibum slams it shut and pulls at his hair, pushing away the small pup that comes to greet him. He darts to his room and doesn’t know how much time he spends lying awake under the covers.
***
Kibum is rational child, but he feels his sanity tested when the stranger keeps walking him to his house after school. He doesn’t show up every day, sometimes unseen for weeks, but when he does Key feels shivers run down his spine and his feet still want to take off. However, the stranger never does anything so Kibum takes reassurance in that and wills himself to be minimally civil by keeping a brisk pace.
One day, Kibum is exhausted from midterms and in a bad mood because of that question he knows he missed - he isn’t up to being stalked home again, but the stranger is there when he gets off the bus. Kibum really wants to tell him off, wants to yell what the fuck is your problem and be done with this stranger who keeps showing up in his life, unwanted and unasked for.
“I can talk, you know,” the stranger says at once, making Kibum almost jump off the sidewalk in surprise, “and I know you can, too.”
Kibum stays off the sidewalk and looks at the stranger like he is crazy, because he must be; there is no other explanation.
“So,” the dark-haired boy - teenager? man? - utters only to leave his sentence hanging. Kibum is too stunned to react. This is a dream, he thinks. “How was your day?” the stranger finishes with a small, almost apologetic smile hanging off his lips.
Kibum blinks, eyes wide. The stranger’s smile does not falter.
“Am I scaring you?” he asks, index finger pointing towards himself in a way that Kibum might have found comical had he not been so disturbed.
Yes, yes you are Kibum wants to say but no other words are spoken by the time he makes it home. He can’t help but throw the stranger a few sideways glances on the way there, but every time he does so he is met with the same small smile. Kibum cocks an eyebrow, slightly annoyed by then, and bounds up to his house’s front door. Predictably, the stranger stands still on the sidewalk some distance away and Kibum doesn’t bother looking his way again as he shuts the door hurriedly. He already knows he will have trouble falling asleep that night.
Unpredictably, the stranger shows up at his bus stop a week and two days later and is even less quiet.
“Aren’t you curious?” he asks simply. Kibum knows he is looking at him but he does not reciprocate, does not want to acknowledge it.
He remains mute. The stranger seems to have been expecting that much because he chuckles and it makes Kibum feel very uncomfortable, more so than usual.
“Or can’t you talk,” the strange boy adds with a crooked, teasing smile and it feels like there is something implied in his words. Kibum looks up suddenly and thinks he sees the stranger’s eyes widen for a fraction of a second.
“I don’t want to,” Kibum replies shortly. He shouldn’t speak to strangers, but can this black-haired boy be considered a stranger, still, after all those years?
“Suit yourself.” The tone is neither bitter nor hard, but playful somehow. Kibum feels sudden irritation crawl beneath his skin, fists clenching by his side and around the strap of his backpack.
“Look, just what do you want?” Kibum has a sharp tongue for a fourteen year old, but the stranger’s reaction is not what he had been hoping for.
The boy tilts his head to the side like Kibum has seen him do many times before, but this time there are words rolling off his tongue.
“I’m just curious.”
“Do you always speak in riddles?” Kibum bites back, keeping up his brisk pace.
The stranger merely chuckles to that and it has Kibum blatantly rolling his eyes towards the gray sky.
“You wouldn’t have let me follow you around for so long if I didn’t intrigue you a little,” he says a while later, once they have turned onto Kibum’s street.
“You’re creepy and annoying,” Kibum says bluntly, resolutely looking ahead, “I wish you would leave me alone.”
And yet here he is, talking to him. His steps slow down when he notices the stranger is no longer keeping up with him, but has stopped behind him, wearing a peculiar expression. Kibum feels inexplicably guilty for some reason, so he turns around and heads home before he can do or say anything else.
***
The next few times Kibum sees him, he is not waiting for him by his bus stop to walk him home, but rather standing by the brick wall of his school or by the small restaurant near the school’s gates. Kibum is perplexed and hates the stranger for being right, if only a little.
The next time the stranger talks to him, however, Kibum is crying. The last bell rings and students swarm out of the building but Kibum waits until most have left before exiting himself, his eyes fixed to the ground beneath his worn out shoes. He does not stop to the side of the street to wait for the bus that will take him home, but keeps walking. There is a heavy sadness pressing down onto his chest and only once the school is a safe distance behind him does he let his tears spill. He doesn’t notice the stranger righting himself from where he is leaning onto the lamp post in front the small restaurant. Kibum is midway through raising a hand to wipe away the embarrassing tears leaking down his cheeks when he hears a voice that should not have sounded so familiar.
“Hey, hey,” and Kibum can feel warm fingers wrap around his wrist, “what’s wrong?”
Nothing is wrong and yet everything is wrong. He is not crying because of a broken heart or a failing grade; it is one of those days where he is crying because he is tired, because everything is the same every day, because he wishes he could talk to his parents about life, about his life, but does not have the luxury to do so. He doesn’t want to tell the stranger this, but somehow he thinks the stranger - understands? - would understand.
So he merely shrugs, but the sob he was holding back splutters out at the same time and fresh tears streak down his cheeks. The stranger’s figure in front of him becomes blurry and his hands instinctively fly up to hide his face and wipe his tears but the fingers wrapped around both his wrists don’t let him. Instead he feels a slight tug forward and by then he can’t see anything, so the shoulder that settles beneath his chin surprises him but he buries his face in it anyway.
“Whatever it is,” he hears and feels through the rumbling in the strange boy’s chest, “I’m sorry.”
Kibum doesn’t answer. His arms hang limply at his sides but the broad, warm shoulder he is spilling his tears into is oddly comforting.
“Time passes and things change,” the stranger reassures him. He is doing a good job of it, Kibum can’t help but think despite himself. “That’s the wonder of being here.”
Kibum closes his eyes and takes in a deep, shaky breath. He feels a hand patting his shoulder and that is about when the embarrassment settles in, because he is crying in the stranger’s arms.
He pulls away abruptly, only to be met with the smallest, slightest of smiles. Kibum can feel his stomach churn so he looks to his feet. He feels a new tear drip down his nose but he doesn’t look up, not even when the hand around his wrist slips down to hold his and pull him forward, heading home.
Still too shy to look up, he spends the entire way studying the cracks in the sidewalk. By the time they reach his street, Kibum feels better, if only a little. The stranger stops in front of his house and lets go of Kibum’s hand to instead stuff his own into his pockets. Kibum is climbing the steps that lead to the door when, without thinking, he turns around and mutters a quiet, “Thank you.”
The stranger beams at him, unmoving from his spot on the sidewalk and before Kibum can embarrass himself further, he trudges up the remaining steps to his door and shuts it quickly to hide behind it.
***
“What’s your name?” Kibum asks the stranger one day when they are walking to his house. Although the fifteen-year-old would never admit it, he didn’t mind it as much when the strange boy walked him home. They had begun exchanging a few words here and there and the stranger still wore that same, timeless smile. It was around that time that Kibum had realized that calling him “the stranger” was perhaps no longer appropriate - however strange he may be.
The boy looks down at him, a corner of his lips tilted upwards in a way Kibum has never seen before.
“You can call me Jonghyun.”
Kibum frowns when his smirk doesn’t falter and he straightens himself up so that the stranger - Jonghyun - is on eye-level with him. It seemed like pretty soon he would outgrow him, Kibum ponders vaguely.
“That’s it? Just Jonghyun? No surname?” he asks curiously.
Jonghyun surprises him with a question. “Well what’s your surname?”
Kibum has a feeling he already knows but says it anyway.
“Kim.”
“Okay,” Jonghyun says, turning away from the other to instead look far ahead. “Then you can call me Kim Jonghyun.”
Kibum frowns, but by then he knows better than to pry for explanations. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to hear them - he is a rational child, after all.
They fall into a routine, of sorts. Jonghyun, as Kibum has taken to calling him, shows up to walk him home and ask him how his day was. Kibum still thinks it is strange, sometimes still gets an uneasy feeling settling into the pit of his stomach telling him that this is wrong, but he answers anyway. Because, really, what does he have to lose? He soon finds out that Jonghyun is always willing to listen, and more than once Kibum catches him with a small, hidden smile on his lips while he was listening to him talk about whatever injustice his teachers were up to.
Kibum doesn’t like to ask Jonghyun questions because the boy - teenager? He looks like a teenager, Kibum thinks - still answers in riddles and more often than not it confuses and frustrates Kibum. That is not to say that Jonghyun isn’t upfront, because he is, but he is also very peculiar.
Kibum is fifteen and a little more than a half when he figures out that there’s something unusual about Jonghyun. Of course, he sort of always knew, but that fact becomes undeniable to him when he asks him a very important - life-changing? - question.
“How old are you?” Kibum asks him one day, not because he wants to know what honorific to use after Jonghyun’s name, who had never seemed to care about such, but because he genuinely wants to know. They are both sitting on the sidewalk near his house; for some reason Kibum had preferred lingering outside with the other rather than heading home and studying for his physics test the following week.
Jonghyun doesn’t answer right away, and it strikes Kibum as odd. He watches carefully as the boy’s eyes raise to the clouded, gray sky and as a soft smile curls his lips but then he blinks and it’s gone.
“It depends what you mean by that,” Jonghyun says, his voice is calm, perfectly levelled but Kibum has heard enough of it to know that it is guarded.
“How old are you - your age,” Kibum repeats a bit dumbly, still observing Jonghyun’s profile. He wonders why Jonghyun is suddenly avoiding eye contact.
They remain silent for a while, and Kibum has almost given up on his question - was it a touchy subject? - when Jonghyun surprises him.
“I don’t have one,” and he says it so simply that Kibum almost, almost accepts his words without a second thought.
“What?” Kibum’s eyes go round before narrowing again as his mind thinks up an explanation because there is always an explanation. “Look, I won’t laugh at you or leave if you say thirty.”
Had he told that to anyone else, they would have called him obnoxious for it but Jonghyun just smiles, and Kibum can’t deny, however much he wants to, that it means something to him.
“I don’t have one.” Jonghyun punctuates his words with a shrug. Kibum scoffs loudly, thinks that really there is no reason to be so defensive about one’s age but then he notices the way Jonghyun isn’t smiling like he usually is, the way his eyes are lingering over the horizon, avoiding him, the way his shoulders are slightly leaning away from him and that is when Kibum feels it. The fright, the restlessness that he felt throughout his childhood whenever he used to see the stranger on the street bubbles up in him once more and something inside of him is telling him to make a run for it. He knows Jonghyun wouldn’t even chase after him.
But he decides to give the boy another chance. Kibum is a rational child-turned-adolescent.
“What do you mean? You don’t know?” he says, trying his best to make his voice sound firm.
“I mean exactly what I said,” he answers coolly, quietly, his gaze falling to his boot as he scuffs it against the asphalt.
Kibum doesn’t realize that his palms are sweaty until he grips the fabric of his uniform’s slacks, bunching it up near his knees.
“I-I don’t understand,” he resigns to say.
Jonghyun shrugs before finally turning towards him and Kibum is almost relieved to see the dark brown shade of his eyes once more.
“You don’t need to.”
And that has Kibum thinking for longer than he likes to admit.
He is staring at his physics equations later that week when the thought strikes him again. He hasn’t seen Jonghyun since and he is secretly grateful for it because it means he doesn’t have to wrap his mind around what the other had told him just yet. The only explanation he can think of is that Jonghyun is either amnesiac or crazy. Crazy is more like it, he thinks begrudgingly, looking back on the past nine years of his life. He drops his pencil onto his exercise booklet and cradles his head in his hands. What did he care? Why did he still care?
He means to hit his forehead against his desk but catches the corner of his calculator instead, groaning in pain - and in despair.
Kibum is more than wary when he sees Jonghyun again, waiting for him where his bus drops him off. Jonghyun seems to notice so, because he doesn’t greet him like he usually does. Instead, it’s a quiet walk to Kibum’s house. Jonghyun looks like he wants to say something, yet doesn’t, and Kibum breathes a sigh of relief when he closes his front door shut behind himself.
A few days later, Jonghyun meets him right outside of his school’s front gates. He looks happy to see him, smile bright and comforting and Kibum almost feels guilty for how he acted the last time they met. He is in a considerably better mood, having just finished writing his physics exam and Jonghyun can apparently tell.
“How was your day?” comes the usual question.
Kibum sighs, slightly comforted to see the normalcy restored between them, the question familiar and reassuring in a way. He almost manages to forget that Jonghyun is crazy - he must be.
“Good,” he answers honestly. He never returns the query because beyond his own curiosity, he is afraid to know what Jonghyun actually does with the rest of his days. Kibum still believes that ignorance can be bliss, especially concerning the strange boy.
“You seem happy,” Jonghyun says and it earns him an involuntary smile from Kibum, which he reciprocates, “did you just finish a test?”
“Yeah,” Kibum replies, and there is something so easy about falling into step beside the other boy that Kibum doesn’t really fancy thinking about. He doesn’t fancy thinking about much, actually, when he is around Jonghyun. “It went well.”
“Good,” Jonghyun speaks up in turn. Kibum hugs his jacket tighter to his body when the cool breeze picks up.
“Hey, about the other day-” Kibum starts to say, because a part of him, a small part of him, still feels bad about it but Jonghyun interrupts him before he can finish.
“It’s okay,” he says softly, slowly, and Kibum realizes at once how soothing his voice can be. He had never thought himself capable of growing fond of it. “I know you need time,” Jonghyun adds offhandedly.
Kibum looks at him and his gaze turns quizzical when he notices the slight tilt at a corner of his mouth in what could only be called a smirk, an expression he has only seen twice on the other’s face and that seems to always puzzle him more than anything. It’s like he can’t shake off the feeling that Jonghyun means something by it.
Kibum unknowingly stares at him for longer than he intended to and he takes it he must be looking at Jonghyun weirdly because the boy raises an eyebrow after a while.
“I’m not amnesiac, despite your beliefs,” Jonghyun says, dropping his expression to instead chuckle, his smile turning sweet. “Although I can’t say I’m not crazy.”
Kibum suddenly freezes on the spot, those two words all too familiar to him. His eyes go wide and he is almost sure he stops breathing for a few seconds.
“I never… said that.” But he had thought it. Oh but he had thought it, and suddenly his mind is in a frenzy because is it just a coincidence?
“Oh,” Jonghyun says before going quiet for a few long seconds during which Kibum is kept on edge because what did this all mean? Jonghyun seems to be studying the way his boots hit the cement with every further step and glances up briefly to meet Kibum’s strained gaze. “Then you will.”
***
Kibum likes talking to Jonghyun, that much he cannot deny anymore. It’s almost like the boy cares about him, and Kibum would have been lying if he said that it didn’t feel at least a little nice. He considers his time spent walking home with Jonghyun a break - a break from his endlessly repetitive routine, from worrying about school and keeping his familial frustrations to himself, only for them to bubble up and make him lash out at his grandmother which he later always comes to regret but sort of can’t help because she’s the only person he ever sees at home. Still, in a sadistic way he is glad that his life is keeping his thoughts busy or else he would have to think seriously about Jonghyun, about what he actually means when he speaks in riddles and that is something his mind simply cannot take. Jonghyun still feels so surreal, and Kibum wonders if it makes him selfish to want to keep it that way. It makes everything so much simpler if he just lets his nonsensical conversations with the more-than-strange boy fly by right above his head. Kibum turns sixteen, but he is still the same.
“Where are you from?” Kibum asks, arms stretched out on either side of him as he walks on the narrow strip of cement to the side of the road, carefully placing one foot in front of the other. He is doing it on purpose, to distract himself from what Jonghyun will answer because he knows from experience that if he listens too carefully he won’t be able to sleep at night. And yet he is the one asking the questions.
“Um,” Jonghyun says from where he is following Kibum, only both his feet are on the road. “I don’t really know how to explain it,” he admits, placing a hand at the back of his neck and the gesture is somewhat typical of Jonghyun. It makes Kibum smile, against all odds. “It’s not really a place,” Jonghyun finally says, looking at the teenager with a guarded, careful expression and Kibum knows it’s because even though he never said so, Jonghyun is somehow aware that talking about such things makes him uncomfortable.
“You mean you’re what, from a different universe?” Kibum says, feigning being casual. He has come to learn that pretending to take Jonghyun’s cryptic words lightly makes them less mind-boggling, less threatening to destroy absolutely everything Kibum has ever been taught, has ever known. Inside, he is still that little scared boy.
“More like dimension, I think you humans call it.”
When Kibum stops moving, he sees Jonghyun bite his lip. The following silence between them is strained, until Kibum speaks up with a forced smile that he hopes will do.
“I can never tell if you’re amnesiac, crazy or trying to be funny,” he tries to say with humour.
Jonghyun finally cracks a smile at that and it is almost reassuring to Kibum. “I guess that’s up to you.”
It takes a few steps, but Kibum’s mind eventually catches up with what he just said, what he just told Jonghyun. He suddenly stops walking while Jonghyun keeps going, only realizing the other trailing behind when they are a few meters apart.
“I just called you amnesiac.”
“You did,” Jonghyun confirms, but his tone is questioning as though asking what the matter is.
“No I mean-”
Jonghyun eyes him warily, but when Kibum has trouble getting the words out his expression changes, becomes carefully neutral and Kibum thinks he understands.
“A few weeks ago,” he whispers, because things look like they’re going to make sense and yet they still don’t, “you said that… you said that I would call you amnesiac. And crazy.”
Jonghyun doesn’t say anything to that, he just watches Kibum with a somewhat serious expression.
“You weren’t lying.”
Jonghyun simply shrugs, as though he wants Kibum to make up his mind by himself.
“But what if I said it just because you said it?” That is a lie, and Kibum knows it is because he had thought of those very words even before Jonghyun had ever mentioned them. They had been entirely his idea.
“Did you?”
Kibum frowns. He watches Jonghyun approach him and something tells him he should run away, like he used to. But he doesn’t, not because it never seemed to work, but because he doesn’t want to, even if he still feels like it.
“Jonghyun, what are you?” he asks under his breath, because saying it loud and clear would make it seem too real, too frightening. He wonders why he even cares as Jonghyun stuff his hands in his pockets and his dark bangs cover his eyes.
“I don’t think there’s a word for it.” All the while Jonghyun doesn’t look at him and it makes Kibum want to touch him but his limbs are too stiff and heavy to move.
“Do you...” he starts only to stop and clear his throat, because his following words embarrass him, “see the future?”
Kibum feels ludicrous uttering the very words because it cannot be. It just cannot be. Jonghyun peeks at him from beneath his fringe.
“Define future,” is all he says to that.
That is when, all at once, Kibum realizes that ever since he can remember, Jonghyun’s hair had never changed, that ever since he can remember he had always seemed like a teenager-maybe-adult. The next idea that hits him is as ludicrous as the first, but it slips past his lips before the repercussions, what it all entails fully settle in.
“Do you time travel?”
Jonghyun tilts his head to the side before finally raising his head to meet Kibum’s gaze frankly. His expression is hard to read, but his eyes seem to have brightened up a little.
“If that means what I think it means, then not exactly?” he says, sounding honest even to Kibum’s ears. Kibum shakes his head.
“I’m confused,” he says, although that is not entirely true. He is more shook up than confused. In denial, even, because those things cannot happen - are impossible, a contradiction in themselves. Jonghyun is just crazy, has to be. Still, Kibum has a fleeting thought that he might be crazy, too.
They don’t talk about it for a while and it occurs to Kibum that Jonghyun was never the one to bring the topic up in the past. It was always Kibum who pried and he is not quite sure how that makes him feel.
One day, Kibum is about to step into his house and bid Jonghyun goodbye, not knowing when he would see him again, if it would be the very next day or in three weeks. He looks at the boy on his front steps, the boy with the easy smile and his hands stuffed deep into his baggy jeans’ pockets. The one who seems so human. He doesn’t think about his words and suddenly he is just asking: “Do you want to come in?”
Something akin to relief takes over the boy’s features, his round eyes soften and his smile is less stretched, but no less bright. “I would love to,” he says.
Kibum tenses as he enters, only fully realizing what he had just asked when Jonghyun steps into his home, his safe haven of sorts where things are logical, rational. He feels strange, but the feeling somewhat subsides when he sees him immediately crouch down to greet the puppy jumping at his feet, excited about the new presence.
“Hey, Coco,” Jonghyun mumbles, petting the dog between its small ears and the pup rolls over onto its back, clearly enjoying the caresses. That eerie feeling that hangs around the back of Kibum’s mind is suddenly back at once and he pretends he is not shaking as he hangs up his jacket in the closet.
“I don’t think I ever told you I had a dog,” he says to the closet door, just loud enough for the other to hear. When he turns around, Jonghyun is still petting the puppy but his eyes have gone round, avoiding Kibum’s.
“Oh,” he mutters, “right.”
→ Part II
Rating: PG-15
Genre: Coming-of-Age, AU, Sci-Fi
Beta-ed by: desiderada
Summary: Time is to Jonghyun as colours are to the blind. For Kibum, it’s a different story entirely.
A/N: This is what happens when my brother (and friend) keeps talking about/makes me watch Doctor Who. (I should clarify that although this fic was inspired by the series' concept of time, it is in no way similar or a crossover.) I love my brother. And my friend, whom I thank dearly for reading this through <3
Thank you for reading! I hope you can enjoy it, despite this fic being, well, slightly weird.
______________
Past, Present, Future. Simple, you would think.
Or maybe that’s it. It’s too simple.
***
There is a man sitting on the sidewalk; well, not exactly a man, more like a young adult. Kibum’s mother has always told him to stay away from strangers, so he does just that. He crosses the street to the other sidewalk to avoid the man - teenager? It’s hard to tell. Everyone looks old to Kibum’s six-year-old eyes.
Kibum tightens his grip on the straps of his backpack and quickens his pace, eager to get home. He ignores the look the stranger is giving him. It’s unnerving, what with the way he is staring, unmoving. Kibum risks a sideways glance, hoping he would be far enough to cross the street again and rush to the front door of his house. Strangely, the man is smiling at him. Kibum dashes through the street, fumbling with his key before inserting it into the lock and opening the door only to shut it behind him the next second.
He goes through the motions of kicking off his shoes mechanically, out of habit, because his mind is still troubled by the strange person observing him out on the street. His grandmother greets him but he doesn’t answer, instead heading up to his bedroom and putting his small bag down next to his desk, falling into his bed right after. He closes his eyes and takes deep breaths, telling himself (or trying to, at least) that it is nothing, that the man is probably bored and just waiting for someone. But a part of him doesn’t buy that. He isn’t convinced.
There had been something about the man’s smile that, even though Kibum had only gotten a short look at it, was unusual. He may only be six years old, but he isn’t stupid. People just don’t smile at strangers that way. Unless Kibum isn’t - wasn’t? wouldn’t be? - a stranger to him.
He opens his eyes and the rippling in his curtains catches his attention. Frowning, he rises from his mattress and takes a few sluggish steps towards his window. His grandmother has this habit of opening all the windows in their small house whenever spring comes around. He grips the lower edge and pulls it down, securing the latch at the bottom to lock it in place; that is when he notices something, or someone standing in the small alleyway that stretches behind the complex of joined houses. He stands frozen in utter surprise, eyes wide open but after a second, the figure only walks away.
Kibum doesn’t sleep very well that night. Fortunately - or unfortunately? - he is unaware that it will be the first restless night of many.
***
The second time Kibum sees him, he is seven and a half. By that time, he has convinced himself that the strange man was only a dream, a foggy, distant dream. His memory of that day is so elusive that he couldn’t have been real. In those few months, Kibum grows up to be a very rational child.
But all that is put into question again when he sees the same stranger sitting in the grass of his school’s playground. His steps falter for a split second, just long enough for the kids behind him to bump into him and almost send him tumbling down the concrete stairs. His friend grabs his arms and steadies him, going on and on about that new video game he got for his birthday. Kibum doesn’t listen; he’s too preoccupied with staring at the back of the stranger’s head - he just knows it’s him - with wide eyes, and it would have been a lie to say that he wasn’t slightly frightened. His friend doesn’t let him go, tugging him along because the day is over and everyone is eager to head home. Kibum grips his arm tight, pushing them both as far from the strange man - teenager? young adult? he still looks the same - as he can, almost pressing his friend into the fence, who manages to avoid it narrowly. He asks Kibum if there is something wrong, to which Kibum doesn’t answer, eyes fixed on the stranger looking up at the light blue sky.
“Let’s go,” he says with a sense of urgency, and his friend frowns but that is not important because the stranger’s head turns then and his eyes immediately lock with Kibum’s. He can feel a shiver sneak down his back, because the strange boy has that same smile; the one from before. A year and some months ago.
Before he realizes what he’s doing, Kibum is staring back. He doesn’t smile, just looks at the man and wonders. The longer he looks, the less scared he is but he can’t exactly figure out why. He feels his friend pull on his hand and looks away hurriedly.
“Do you know him?” his friend asks him.
“No,” Kibum says, but he’s frowning. When they cross the school’s gates, he throws one last look above his shoulder and is surprised to find that the stranger isn’t staring at him anymore, but rather smiling (a different smile, this one more humourous) towards the sky.
***
Kibum sees him more often after that. At some point, the fright begins to fade away, instead replaced with intrigue. Why is he there? Why does he come by every few weeks to sit in the grass by his elementary school or on the sidewalk near his home? Sometimes he doesn’t show up for months. Sometimes he shows up for a few days in a row. Kibum is confused but at the same time he doesn’t want to think about it. He is still that same rational child.
But he is growing up, “fast” as his grandmother likes to tell him. Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve; the years pile up, and before he knows it he is off to a bigger school with older students. So much more is expected of him there and Kibum does his best to keep up. Sometimes, however, he finds out the hard way that even his best isn’t enough.
School is not forgiving anymore; everyday spent there means more and more homework as the equations become more and more complex, the theories more and more abstract and the grammar rules more and more nonsensical. Kibum catches himself wondering where it all ends. If it all ends.
Kibum is a good student. He learns to not let his mind wander too much when he is sitting in class or studying, he learns not to talk too much or be too loud in the cafeteria, he learns how to iron his uniform so that no creases are showing and how to sit straight to keep it proper. He learns what it’s like to conform.
He learns that time is a valuable thing, a luxury that no one seems to have anymore, especially not his parents. He finds himself rushing more and more, walking faster and faster to and from, taking shortcuts whenever he can, losing a few hours of sleep here and there. He has assignments to tend to, chapters to read and concepts to understand. Like the rest of his classmates, he is a busy kid.
But somehow he always slows down when he sees the stranger sitting on the sidewalk or leaning onto the brick wall of his school. He always stares back and the stranger simply smiles. He never gets too close, but he watches from a distance. Kibum could recognize him anywhere now. His black hair is long, a bit tousled and swept to the side to reveal large brown eyes. Kibum is almost thirteen when he thinks for the first time that he is rather good-looking. Strange boy.
The weekend before his birthday, his grandmother takes it upon herself to buy him a dog. A puppy. It’s tiny and shaking the first time Kibum picks it up, but it stops crying once he places it to his chest next to his heartbeat.
“It’ll make the house feel less empty,” his grandmother tells him with a sweet smile. Kibum knows what she’s alluding to and simply nods. “What are you going to name him?” she asks.
The puppy’s luscious fur reminds Kibum of the glossy pages of the magazines he likes to look through while waiting at the dentist’s. He thinks back to the one he flipped through earlier that day, thinks of the foreign advertisements that are always so fascinating to him. He knows enough English to understand most of them, which is why he settles on:
“Coco.”
His grandmother smiles at him. He puts the dog down and goes to his room to study.
His birthday falls on a Thursday. It’s an ordinary day as far as he is concerned, apart from the fact that his friends wish him a happy birthday.
It’s an ordinary day until the last bell rings and he sets out of the bustling building with his heavy backpack slung over his shoulder. He pushes the front door open and is halfway through the doorframe when he notices something, or someone standing beside the path that leads to the street. There are a few students around, but none seem to mind the stranger; the stranger who is smiling again.
Kibum takes a careful step forward, unsure of what to do. He continues down the path and tries to avoid the man’s gaze but sooner than later he looks up and is greeted with a smile. It is slightly different this time, almost implied. A knowing sort of smile that makes Kibum not only slow down but stop altogether. He’s close, closer than he’s ever been. The stranger looks young. Kibum wonders how old he really was when he first saw him, sitting on the sidewalk near his house.
He stands there, gaze locked and can feel his heart pumping faster and faster in his chest. Suddenly, the fright that was there all those years ago is back. The boy’s smile widens and Kibum tenses.
“Hi,” his lips part to speak, only to curve into a bigger, somehow goofy-looking grin. Kibum is so befuddled that he can only blink and stay rooted on the spot. The boy cocks his head slightly, his long bangs falling to the side and his big eyes still on Kibum in a way that makes him uncomfortable.
When he doesn’t say anything, the stranger chuckles breathily and Kibum almost flinches.
“How old are you?” the strange boy asks, head still tilted to the side. Kibum knows he should pick his feet up and run away but he doesn’t. He doesn’t say anything, either.
Then something changes. The stranger straightens up and his smile seems to brighten, lighting up his features.
“You’re thirteen, right? Thirteen today?”
Kibum frowns and places a foot back behind him when the stranger leans forward, expression unchanging. Kibum doesn’t understand what is happening and it scares him. Before he knows it, he is walking backwards, turning on his heels and the last thing he notices is the strange boy waving him goodbye. He runs right past his bus stop and doesn’t stop until he is home.
Kibum is a rational child. He doesn’t want to think about it.
***
Every time Kibum walks out of his school’s front doors, he finds himself looking for the familiar figure. When it is nowhere in sight, he breathes a sigh of relief. He stays relieved for nine days.
By the tenth, the pushes the door open and freezes, again, because there is a black-haired boy sitting by the trunk of a tree on the school’s front grounds. Kibum looks away hurriedly, pretending he didn’t see him and gathers his courage to set foot on the path that will lead him to his bus stop. He is halfway there when he feels this indescribable sensation that someone is watching him and surely enough, when he risks a glance over his shoulder, he notices that the stranger is looking his way.
The black-haired boy does something he has never done before: he waves in greeting, and Kibum’s gaze darts back to his feet. He rushes to his bus stop and pleads for his mind to just stop thinking.
The stranger keeps waving to him after that. Kibum can’t decide if he is more unnerved or puzzled by it. He never waves back, he never smiles back, but he learns to push all thoughts of the strange boy out of his head whenever he is not around. It is simpler that way, because that way things actually make sense.
A few months go by during which Kibum isn’t met with the stranger’s friendly yet perplexing wave after classes, a few months during which Kibum’s mind is a more peaceful place. He turns fourteen, but his grandmother still takes care of him, his parents are still too busy and his homework is still mind-numbing but he finds himself thinking perhaps that isn’t such a bad thing.
He is honestly taken by surprise when he steps off the bus one day and sees the stranger on the sidewalk. He is even more surprised when the stranger stands up, as if he was expecting him. Kibum frowns and bites his lip worriedly - his feet want to take off again and his heart starts racing in his chest. He picks up the pace and clenches his hands into fists as he speeds by, scared. The stranger has a friendly smile and a smooth voice, but he is still a stranger, an older stranger and it makes Kibum feel restless.
He looks back cautiously, only to be stricken with fear when he doesn’t see him behind him, but walking beside him. Kibum’s eyes widen and his long legs falter for a second, but he rights himself soon enough and all he can think about is home. He is breathing hard by the time he makes it to his doorstep and only then does he realize that he had been holding his breath. As he closes the door behind him, he catches a glimpse of the stranger waving to him from the street. Kibum slams it shut and pulls at his hair, pushing away the small pup that comes to greet him. He darts to his room and doesn’t know how much time he spends lying awake under the covers.
***
Kibum is rational child, but he feels his sanity tested when the stranger keeps walking him to his house after school. He doesn’t show up every day, sometimes unseen for weeks, but when he does Key feels shivers run down his spine and his feet still want to take off. However, the stranger never does anything so Kibum takes reassurance in that and wills himself to be minimally civil by keeping a brisk pace.
One day, Kibum is exhausted from midterms and in a bad mood because of that question he knows he missed - he isn’t up to being stalked home again, but the stranger is there when he gets off the bus. Kibum really wants to tell him off, wants to yell what the fuck is your problem and be done with this stranger who keeps showing up in his life, unwanted and unasked for.
“I can talk, you know,” the stranger says at once, making Kibum almost jump off the sidewalk in surprise, “and I know you can, too.”
Kibum stays off the sidewalk and looks at the stranger like he is crazy, because he must be; there is no other explanation.
“So,” the dark-haired boy - teenager? man? - utters only to leave his sentence hanging. Kibum is too stunned to react. This is a dream, he thinks. “How was your day?” the stranger finishes with a small, almost apologetic smile hanging off his lips.
Kibum blinks, eyes wide. The stranger’s smile does not falter.
“Am I scaring you?” he asks, index finger pointing towards himself in a way that Kibum might have found comical had he not been so disturbed.
Yes, yes you are Kibum wants to say but no other words are spoken by the time he makes it home. He can’t help but throw the stranger a few sideways glances on the way there, but every time he does so he is met with the same small smile. Kibum cocks an eyebrow, slightly annoyed by then, and bounds up to his house’s front door. Predictably, the stranger stands still on the sidewalk some distance away and Kibum doesn’t bother looking his way again as he shuts the door hurriedly. He already knows he will have trouble falling asleep that night.
Unpredictably, the stranger shows up at his bus stop a week and two days later and is even less quiet.
“Aren’t you curious?” he asks simply. Kibum knows he is looking at him but he does not reciprocate, does not want to acknowledge it.
He remains mute. The stranger seems to have been expecting that much because he chuckles and it makes Kibum feel very uncomfortable, more so than usual.
“Or can’t you talk,” the strange boy adds with a crooked, teasing smile and it feels like there is something implied in his words. Kibum looks up suddenly and thinks he sees the stranger’s eyes widen for a fraction of a second.
“I don’t want to,” Kibum replies shortly. He shouldn’t speak to strangers, but can this black-haired boy be considered a stranger, still, after all those years?
“Suit yourself.” The tone is neither bitter nor hard, but playful somehow. Kibum feels sudden irritation crawl beneath his skin, fists clenching by his side and around the strap of his backpack.
“Look, just what do you want?” Kibum has a sharp tongue for a fourteen year old, but the stranger’s reaction is not what he had been hoping for.
The boy tilts his head to the side like Kibum has seen him do many times before, but this time there are words rolling off his tongue.
“I’m just curious.”
“Do you always speak in riddles?” Kibum bites back, keeping up his brisk pace.
The stranger merely chuckles to that and it has Kibum blatantly rolling his eyes towards the gray sky.
“You wouldn’t have let me follow you around for so long if I didn’t intrigue you a little,” he says a while later, once they have turned onto Kibum’s street.
“You’re creepy and annoying,” Kibum says bluntly, resolutely looking ahead, “I wish you would leave me alone.”
And yet here he is, talking to him. His steps slow down when he notices the stranger is no longer keeping up with him, but has stopped behind him, wearing a peculiar expression. Kibum feels inexplicably guilty for some reason, so he turns around and heads home before he can do or say anything else.
***
The next few times Kibum sees him, he is not waiting for him by his bus stop to walk him home, but rather standing by the brick wall of his school or by the small restaurant near the school’s gates. Kibum is perplexed and hates the stranger for being right, if only a little.
The next time the stranger talks to him, however, Kibum is crying. The last bell rings and students swarm out of the building but Kibum waits until most have left before exiting himself, his eyes fixed to the ground beneath his worn out shoes. He does not stop to the side of the street to wait for the bus that will take him home, but keeps walking. There is a heavy sadness pressing down onto his chest and only once the school is a safe distance behind him does he let his tears spill. He doesn’t notice the stranger righting himself from where he is leaning onto the lamp post in front the small restaurant. Kibum is midway through raising a hand to wipe away the embarrassing tears leaking down his cheeks when he hears a voice that should not have sounded so familiar.
“Hey, hey,” and Kibum can feel warm fingers wrap around his wrist, “what’s wrong?”
Nothing is wrong and yet everything is wrong. He is not crying because of a broken heart or a failing grade; it is one of those days where he is crying because he is tired, because everything is the same every day, because he wishes he could talk to his parents about life, about his life, but does not have the luxury to do so. He doesn’t want to tell the stranger this, but somehow he thinks the stranger - understands? - would understand.
So he merely shrugs, but the sob he was holding back splutters out at the same time and fresh tears streak down his cheeks. The stranger’s figure in front of him becomes blurry and his hands instinctively fly up to hide his face and wipe his tears but the fingers wrapped around both his wrists don’t let him. Instead he feels a slight tug forward and by then he can’t see anything, so the shoulder that settles beneath his chin surprises him but he buries his face in it anyway.
“Whatever it is,” he hears and feels through the rumbling in the strange boy’s chest, “I’m sorry.”
Kibum doesn’t answer. His arms hang limply at his sides but the broad, warm shoulder he is spilling his tears into is oddly comforting.
“Time passes and things change,” the stranger reassures him. He is doing a good job of it, Kibum can’t help but think despite himself. “That’s the wonder of being here.”
Kibum closes his eyes and takes in a deep, shaky breath. He feels a hand patting his shoulder and that is about when the embarrassment settles in, because he is crying in the stranger’s arms.
He pulls away abruptly, only to be met with the smallest, slightest of smiles. Kibum can feel his stomach churn so he looks to his feet. He feels a new tear drip down his nose but he doesn’t look up, not even when the hand around his wrist slips down to hold his and pull him forward, heading home.
Still too shy to look up, he spends the entire way studying the cracks in the sidewalk. By the time they reach his street, Kibum feels better, if only a little. The stranger stops in front of his house and lets go of Kibum’s hand to instead stuff his own into his pockets. Kibum is climbing the steps that lead to the door when, without thinking, he turns around and mutters a quiet, “Thank you.”
The stranger beams at him, unmoving from his spot on the sidewalk and before Kibum can embarrass himself further, he trudges up the remaining steps to his door and shuts it quickly to hide behind it.
***
“What’s your name?” Kibum asks the stranger one day when they are walking to his house. Although the fifteen-year-old would never admit it, he didn’t mind it as much when the strange boy walked him home. They had begun exchanging a few words here and there and the stranger still wore that same, timeless smile. It was around that time that Kibum had realized that calling him “the stranger” was perhaps no longer appropriate - however strange he may be.
The boy looks down at him, a corner of his lips tilted upwards in a way Kibum has never seen before.
“You can call me Jonghyun.”
Kibum frowns when his smirk doesn’t falter and he straightens himself up so that the stranger - Jonghyun - is on eye-level with him. It seemed like pretty soon he would outgrow him, Kibum ponders vaguely.
“That’s it? Just Jonghyun? No surname?” he asks curiously.
Jonghyun surprises him with a question. “Well what’s your surname?”
Kibum has a feeling he already knows but says it anyway.
“Kim.”
“Okay,” Jonghyun says, turning away from the other to instead look far ahead. “Then you can call me Kim Jonghyun.”
Kibum frowns, but by then he knows better than to pry for explanations. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to hear them - he is a rational child, after all.
They fall into a routine, of sorts. Jonghyun, as Kibum has taken to calling him, shows up to walk him home and ask him how his day was. Kibum still thinks it is strange, sometimes still gets an uneasy feeling settling into the pit of his stomach telling him that this is wrong, but he answers anyway. Because, really, what does he have to lose? He soon finds out that Jonghyun is always willing to listen, and more than once Kibum catches him with a small, hidden smile on his lips while he was listening to him talk about whatever injustice his teachers were up to.
Kibum doesn’t like to ask Jonghyun questions because the boy - teenager? He looks like a teenager, Kibum thinks - still answers in riddles and more often than not it confuses and frustrates Kibum. That is not to say that Jonghyun isn’t upfront, because he is, but he is also very peculiar.
Kibum is fifteen and a little more than a half when he figures out that there’s something unusual about Jonghyun. Of course, he sort of always knew, but that fact becomes undeniable to him when he asks him a very important - life-changing? - question.
“How old are you?” Kibum asks him one day, not because he wants to know what honorific to use after Jonghyun’s name, who had never seemed to care about such, but because he genuinely wants to know. They are both sitting on the sidewalk near his house; for some reason Kibum had preferred lingering outside with the other rather than heading home and studying for his physics test the following week.
Jonghyun doesn’t answer right away, and it strikes Kibum as odd. He watches carefully as the boy’s eyes raise to the clouded, gray sky and as a soft smile curls his lips but then he blinks and it’s gone.
“It depends what you mean by that,” Jonghyun says, his voice is calm, perfectly levelled but Kibum has heard enough of it to know that it is guarded.
“How old are you - your age,” Kibum repeats a bit dumbly, still observing Jonghyun’s profile. He wonders why Jonghyun is suddenly avoiding eye contact.
They remain silent for a while, and Kibum has almost given up on his question - was it a touchy subject? - when Jonghyun surprises him.
“I don’t have one,” and he says it so simply that Kibum almost, almost accepts his words without a second thought.
“What?” Kibum’s eyes go round before narrowing again as his mind thinks up an explanation because there is always an explanation. “Look, I won’t laugh at you or leave if you say thirty.”
Had he told that to anyone else, they would have called him obnoxious for it but Jonghyun just smiles, and Kibum can’t deny, however much he wants to, that it means something to him.
“I don’t have one.” Jonghyun punctuates his words with a shrug. Kibum scoffs loudly, thinks that really there is no reason to be so defensive about one’s age but then he notices the way Jonghyun isn’t smiling like he usually is, the way his eyes are lingering over the horizon, avoiding him, the way his shoulders are slightly leaning away from him and that is when Kibum feels it. The fright, the restlessness that he felt throughout his childhood whenever he used to see the stranger on the street bubbles up in him once more and something inside of him is telling him to make a run for it. He knows Jonghyun wouldn’t even chase after him.
But he decides to give the boy another chance. Kibum is a rational child-turned-adolescent.
“What do you mean? You don’t know?” he says, trying his best to make his voice sound firm.
“I mean exactly what I said,” he answers coolly, quietly, his gaze falling to his boot as he scuffs it against the asphalt.
Kibum doesn’t realize that his palms are sweaty until he grips the fabric of his uniform’s slacks, bunching it up near his knees.
“I-I don’t understand,” he resigns to say.
Jonghyun shrugs before finally turning towards him and Kibum is almost relieved to see the dark brown shade of his eyes once more.
“You don’t need to.”
And that has Kibum thinking for longer than he likes to admit.
He is staring at his physics equations later that week when the thought strikes him again. He hasn’t seen Jonghyun since and he is secretly grateful for it because it means he doesn’t have to wrap his mind around what the other had told him just yet. The only explanation he can think of is that Jonghyun is either amnesiac or crazy. Crazy is more like it, he thinks begrudgingly, looking back on the past nine years of his life. He drops his pencil onto his exercise booklet and cradles his head in his hands. What did he care? Why did he still care?
He means to hit his forehead against his desk but catches the corner of his calculator instead, groaning in pain - and in despair.
Kibum is more than wary when he sees Jonghyun again, waiting for him where his bus drops him off. Jonghyun seems to notice so, because he doesn’t greet him like he usually does. Instead, it’s a quiet walk to Kibum’s house. Jonghyun looks like he wants to say something, yet doesn’t, and Kibum breathes a sigh of relief when he closes his front door shut behind himself.
A few days later, Jonghyun meets him right outside of his school’s front gates. He looks happy to see him, smile bright and comforting and Kibum almost feels guilty for how he acted the last time they met. He is in a considerably better mood, having just finished writing his physics exam and Jonghyun can apparently tell.
“How was your day?” comes the usual question.
Kibum sighs, slightly comforted to see the normalcy restored between them, the question familiar and reassuring in a way. He almost manages to forget that Jonghyun is crazy - he must be.
“Good,” he answers honestly. He never returns the query because beyond his own curiosity, he is afraid to know what Jonghyun actually does with the rest of his days. Kibum still believes that ignorance can be bliss, especially concerning the strange boy.
“You seem happy,” Jonghyun says and it earns him an involuntary smile from Kibum, which he reciprocates, “did you just finish a test?”
“Yeah,” Kibum replies, and there is something so easy about falling into step beside the other boy that Kibum doesn’t really fancy thinking about. He doesn’t fancy thinking about much, actually, when he is around Jonghyun. “It went well.”
“Good,” Jonghyun speaks up in turn. Kibum hugs his jacket tighter to his body when the cool breeze picks up.
“Hey, about the other day-” Kibum starts to say, because a part of him, a small part of him, still feels bad about it but Jonghyun interrupts him before he can finish.
“It’s okay,” he says softly, slowly, and Kibum realizes at once how soothing his voice can be. He had never thought himself capable of growing fond of it. “I know you need time,” Jonghyun adds offhandedly.
Kibum looks at him and his gaze turns quizzical when he notices the slight tilt at a corner of his mouth in what could only be called a smirk, an expression he has only seen twice on the other’s face and that seems to always puzzle him more than anything. It’s like he can’t shake off the feeling that Jonghyun means something by it.
Kibum unknowingly stares at him for longer than he intended to and he takes it he must be looking at Jonghyun weirdly because the boy raises an eyebrow after a while.
“I’m not amnesiac, despite your beliefs,” Jonghyun says, dropping his expression to instead chuckle, his smile turning sweet. “Although I can’t say I’m not crazy.”
Kibum suddenly freezes on the spot, those two words all too familiar to him. His eyes go wide and he is almost sure he stops breathing for a few seconds.
“I never… said that.” But he had thought it. Oh but he had thought it, and suddenly his mind is in a frenzy because is it just a coincidence?
“Oh,” Jonghyun says before going quiet for a few long seconds during which Kibum is kept on edge because what did this all mean? Jonghyun seems to be studying the way his boots hit the cement with every further step and glances up briefly to meet Kibum’s strained gaze. “Then you will.”
***
Kibum likes talking to Jonghyun, that much he cannot deny anymore. It’s almost like the boy cares about him, and Kibum would have been lying if he said that it didn’t feel at least a little nice. He considers his time spent walking home with Jonghyun a break - a break from his endlessly repetitive routine, from worrying about school and keeping his familial frustrations to himself, only for them to bubble up and make him lash out at his grandmother which he later always comes to regret but sort of can’t help because she’s the only person he ever sees at home. Still, in a sadistic way he is glad that his life is keeping his thoughts busy or else he would have to think seriously about Jonghyun, about what he actually means when he speaks in riddles and that is something his mind simply cannot take. Jonghyun still feels so surreal, and Kibum wonders if it makes him selfish to want to keep it that way. It makes everything so much simpler if he just lets his nonsensical conversations with the more-than-strange boy fly by right above his head. Kibum turns sixteen, but he is still the same.
“Where are you from?” Kibum asks, arms stretched out on either side of him as he walks on the narrow strip of cement to the side of the road, carefully placing one foot in front of the other. He is doing it on purpose, to distract himself from what Jonghyun will answer because he knows from experience that if he listens too carefully he won’t be able to sleep at night. And yet he is the one asking the questions.
“Um,” Jonghyun says from where he is following Kibum, only both his feet are on the road. “I don’t really know how to explain it,” he admits, placing a hand at the back of his neck and the gesture is somewhat typical of Jonghyun. It makes Kibum smile, against all odds. “It’s not really a place,” Jonghyun finally says, looking at the teenager with a guarded, careful expression and Kibum knows it’s because even though he never said so, Jonghyun is somehow aware that talking about such things makes him uncomfortable.
“You mean you’re what, from a different universe?” Kibum says, feigning being casual. He has come to learn that pretending to take Jonghyun’s cryptic words lightly makes them less mind-boggling, less threatening to destroy absolutely everything Kibum has ever been taught, has ever known. Inside, he is still that little scared boy.
“More like dimension, I think you humans call it.”
When Kibum stops moving, he sees Jonghyun bite his lip. The following silence between them is strained, until Kibum speaks up with a forced smile that he hopes will do.
“I can never tell if you’re amnesiac, crazy or trying to be funny,” he tries to say with humour.
Jonghyun finally cracks a smile at that and it is almost reassuring to Kibum. “I guess that’s up to you.”
It takes a few steps, but Kibum’s mind eventually catches up with what he just said, what he just told Jonghyun. He suddenly stops walking while Jonghyun keeps going, only realizing the other trailing behind when they are a few meters apart.
“I just called you amnesiac.”
“You did,” Jonghyun confirms, but his tone is questioning as though asking what the matter is.
“No I mean-”
Jonghyun eyes him warily, but when Kibum has trouble getting the words out his expression changes, becomes carefully neutral and Kibum thinks he understands.
“A few weeks ago,” he whispers, because things look like they’re going to make sense and yet they still don’t, “you said that… you said that I would call you amnesiac. And crazy.”
Jonghyun doesn’t say anything to that, he just watches Kibum with a somewhat serious expression.
“You weren’t lying.”
Jonghyun simply shrugs, as though he wants Kibum to make up his mind by himself.
“But what if I said it just because you said it?” That is a lie, and Kibum knows it is because he had thought of those very words even before Jonghyun had ever mentioned them. They had been entirely his idea.
“Did you?”
Kibum frowns. He watches Jonghyun approach him and something tells him he should run away, like he used to. But he doesn’t, not because it never seemed to work, but because he doesn’t want to, even if he still feels like it.
“Jonghyun, what are you?” he asks under his breath, because saying it loud and clear would make it seem too real, too frightening. He wonders why he even cares as Jonghyun stuff his hands in his pockets and his dark bangs cover his eyes.
“I don’t think there’s a word for it.” All the while Jonghyun doesn’t look at him and it makes Kibum want to touch him but his limbs are too stiff and heavy to move.
“Do you...” he starts only to stop and clear his throat, because his following words embarrass him, “see the future?”
Kibum feels ludicrous uttering the very words because it cannot be. It just cannot be. Jonghyun peeks at him from beneath his fringe.
“Define future,” is all he says to that.
That is when, all at once, Kibum realizes that ever since he can remember, Jonghyun’s hair had never changed, that ever since he can remember he had always seemed like a teenager-maybe-adult. The next idea that hits him is as ludicrous as the first, but it slips past his lips before the repercussions, what it all entails fully settle in.
“Do you time travel?”
Jonghyun tilts his head to the side before finally raising his head to meet Kibum’s gaze frankly. His expression is hard to read, but his eyes seem to have brightened up a little.
“If that means what I think it means, then not exactly?” he says, sounding honest even to Kibum’s ears. Kibum shakes his head.
“I’m confused,” he says, although that is not entirely true. He is more shook up than confused. In denial, even, because those things cannot happen - are impossible, a contradiction in themselves. Jonghyun is just crazy, has to be. Still, Kibum has a fleeting thought that he might be crazy, too.
They don’t talk about it for a while and it occurs to Kibum that Jonghyun was never the one to bring the topic up in the past. It was always Kibum who pried and he is not quite sure how that makes him feel.
One day, Kibum is about to step into his house and bid Jonghyun goodbye, not knowing when he would see him again, if it would be the very next day or in three weeks. He looks at the boy on his front steps, the boy with the easy smile and his hands stuffed deep into his baggy jeans’ pockets. The one who seems so human. He doesn’t think about his words and suddenly he is just asking: “Do you want to come in?”
Something akin to relief takes over the boy’s features, his round eyes soften and his smile is less stretched, but no less bright. “I would love to,” he says.
Kibum tenses as he enters, only fully realizing what he had just asked when Jonghyun steps into his home, his safe haven of sorts where things are logical, rational. He feels strange, but the feeling somewhat subsides when he sees him immediately crouch down to greet the puppy jumping at his feet, excited about the new presence.
“Hey, Coco,” Jonghyun mumbles, petting the dog between its small ears and the pup rolls over onto its back, clearly enjoying the caresses. That eerie feeling that hangs around the back of Kibum’s mind is suddenly back at once and he pretends he is not shaking as he hangs up his jacket in the closet.
“I don’t think I ever told you I had a dog,” he says to the closet door, just loud enough for the other to hear. When he turns around, Jonghyun is still petting the puppy but his eyes have gone round, avoiding Kibum’s.
“Oh,” he mutters, “right.”
→ Part II