220km/sec - 2
220km/sec
jongin/jinyoung/sehun/jaebum ft. wonpil
pg-15, 3857w
warning: language
Jackson looked up when Sehun approached the edge of the rooftop, his favourite pale pink Yankees cap pulled over his platinum blonde hair. Sehun had asked him once whether he even knew what the Yanks were, but Jackson had only laughed and slung the cap on to his own head. Sehun never found out if he really did know anything about the American baseball team whose cap he wore.
But wait. He could find out now. Jackson was here. Jackson was breathing. Jackson was alive.
He put his hands up to his hair. The cap was tight around his head.
“Jaebum set everything on fire after you left,” he said aloud. There was no reply, the both of them sitting on the ledge, their feet dangling into thin air. Jackson’s hands were shoved in the pockets of his bomber jacket. Sehun looked down at his feet. The ground seemed dreadfully far from here.
“I wish you told me,” he said to his feet.
“You dropped your phone,” Jackson said calmly. Sehun turned to look at him but he had already jumped.
Sehun fell down beside him.
Jackson’s blood turned the knees of his jeans black.
“You dropped your phone,” Jackson whispered, his face shattered like that of a broken porcelain doll. One large crack ran up the left side of this face, through his eye and back under his hair. A piece of his cheek fell inwards, revealing nothing. “I told you. I told you.” And he reached out and wrapped a bloody hand around Sehun’s neck.
Sehun woke. The lights of a car down on the street stretched silently over the ceiling. His t-shirt clung to his skin, drenched in cold sweat. The ghost of Jackson’s hands were tight around his neck. The guilt weighed down his bones. The Yankees cap hung silently on the end of his bed.
_______________________
People, Jinyoung decided long ago, were infinitely dull. Unless, of course, they were Jackson Wang, Im Jaebum, Kim Jongin or Oh Sehun. And even though he had known the last name for a good long time, he did sometimes find his level of interesting debatable.
So as he wandered the shelves of the convenience store, watching Wonpil inspect the label of a drink out of the corner of his eye, he had to wonder -
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Jinyoung started slightly, almost dropping the packet of chips that he held in one hand. Jaebum was standing in the doorway of the store, his hands in the pockets of his unbuttoned school blazer, his untucked shirt sticking out from beneath his jumper. He had a stern, suspicious look on his face that slowly melted into a warm, familiar grin.
Just what Jinyoung didn’t want to see.
“I could ask the same thing,” he retorted instead, glancing back at Wonpil, who was still engrossed in his drink label. His red headphones hung around his neck, but he might as well have had them on. Jinyoung had to keep himself from rolling his eyes. Infinitely dull. “I didn’t see you at lunch.”
“That’s because you didn’t come looking for me,” Jaebum cocked his head to one side to squint at the chip packet. “Ugh, don’t buy that, it’s absolute shit. Probably 80% air if you want me to be honest.”
“Well it’s cheap and I’m broke for the week,” Jinyoung shrugged and hoisted his backpack further up his shoulders. “Didn’t you have work today?”
“Nah, I skipped, wasn’t in the mood for it.” Jaebum reached past him and plucked the exact same chip packet from the shelf behind him. “What’re you doing here?” He punched Jinyoung lightly on the arm and grinned. “We haven’t hung out in a while, huh? Let’s grab some drinks and head to the river.”
“Hey Jinyoung, were you ready to…” Wonpil rounded the corner, holding an entirely different bottle. He looked up and noticed Jaebum, and he gave a nervous smile. “... go?” His eyes flitted between Jinyoung and Jaebum, his smile frozen to his face.
Jinyoung leapt into action. “Wonpil, this is Jaebum. Jaebum, Wonpil,” he gestured between them.
“Hi,” Jaebum said shortly with only the hint of a smile playing on the corners of his lips. Jinyoung smacked him in the stomach. “I mean, hey, I’m Jaebum, nice to meet you.” This time he gave a full, not entirely sincere grin and managed a wave. Jinyoung snickered under his breath, and Jaebum whacked him back.
“I’m Wonpil,” said Wonpil with a smile that was a shadow of the one he had shown Jinyoung the day they met, but still friendlier looking than what Jaebum gave him, Jinyoung thought. He lifted a hand and touched his headphones around his neck, still looking uncertain. “So, uhh, you’re in our year too?”
“Yeah,” Jaebum shrugged, his eyes narrowing as he scanned Wonpil’s face. Jinyoung tilted his head backward with a small sigh before righting himself.
“He moved up to my class this year,” he gave Jaebum a meaningful look and a sly grin which was returned with a scowl. “Stop looking at him like he’s committed some kind of crime. We were just going to get snacks and hang out outside. You can join us if you want.”
“Yeah,” said Wonpil a little breathlessly, suddenly looking enthusiastic. “We should hang out together.”
Jaebum opened his mouth to say something when his phone went off in his pocket. He pulled it out and checked the message with a groan, giving Jinyoung a knowing look. “Maybe another time. I’ve gotta go grab some stuff for my mum. Hey,” he nudged Jinyoung. “Maybe you should call Jongin and Sehun next time. We could all hang out together. I’m sure they’d love to meet Wonpil.” Jinyoung grinned back, but at the same time he wanted to wipe the smirk from Jaebum’s face. Infinitely dull Im Jaebum was not, but annoyingly intuitive to his intentions he was. It was just something that came with knowing someone since they were kids getting on the same bus on the way to the same elementary school, and it irked Jinyoung to no end.
“Of course I will,” he gave a completely relaxed, open smile. “Don’t you have to go? You know your mum’s gonna need that tofu soon if she’s gonna make soondubu tonight.”
“Shut up,” Jaebum deadpanned. He gave a short nod to Wonpil. “Nice meeting you.” He put the chip packet back on the shelf, then turned and left.
“That was… interesting,” Wonpil said, watching Jaebum turn the corner and disappear. “You guys seem like good friends.”
Jinyoung narrowed his eyes slightly as he looked out at the empty street. If Wonpil was infinitely dull and his friends were infinitely not, it would make a lot of sense that more than one infinitely interesting person could cancel out one dull one. Maybe Jaebum was right, maybe it would be good for all of them to hang out together. Maybe then there would be 5 of them again.
The thought crossed his mind before he could stop it and his grip on the chip packet tightened. Wonpil looked a little disconcertedly at him at the crinkling of cellophane.
“We’ve been good friends since middle school,” Jinyoung took the drink bottle out of Wonpil’s hands and headed to the counter. “Us and… two other guys. You should meet them someday. I think you’ll get along great.”
“You think so?” Wonpil tried to reach around him to take his bottle back, but Jinyoung batted his hand away as he pulled out his wallet and paid for them both. “Are they anything like Jaebum?”
Jinyoung laughed at the thought. “Not at all,” he passed the bottle back and Wonpil raised it in thanks. “Not at all.”
_______________________
Sunlight filtered through the dust on the window, painted the back of his hands gold. In the class next door a string of chanting had broken out again, a book snatched from a desk and tossed into the air. Out on the barren school playing field, a freshman tackled his friend to the dry brown grass. In the murky depths of the Han river, a duck dove head first underwater and came back up empty-beaked. 54.6 million kilometers away, a tiny stray meteorite soundlessly crashed into Mars, kicking up clouds of red dust in the impact.
Sitting in class, surrounded by the chatter of a dozen other kids, Jongin heard it.
“Hey,” he kicked the back of Sehun’s chair. No response. He had suspected that as much, since Sehun was looking especially dopey today. Maybe it had something to do with him accidentally stepping on the toes of Jung Soojung that morning. Or maybe that had happened because he had been so dopey. Whatever. Jongin wasn’t one to dwell on tiny roundabout things like that.
“Hey,” he tried again, louder this time, staring at the back of Sehun’s head as if the force of his gaze could tear hole right through it, as if with his eyes alone he could make Sehun turn around…
Sehun turned. Jongin tried to hide a knowing grin.
“Let’s go to the arcade after this shitshow is over,” he tilted backwards in his chair, his hands behind his head. “I feel like shooting a few zombies down. Maybe break the highest record. Get my name on the top of that board in flashing lights.” He raised a hand and swept it through the air in an arc, already hearing the screaming bells and whistles that had erupted when Jaebum topped the boards in Contagion a few months ago. Jongin inched closer to beating it every week.
“Don’t you have homework to do, Kim Jongin?” Choi Jinri demanded from her seat beside him.
“Don’t you have another makeup tutorial to watch?” Jongin asked pleasantly, righting himself and resting his chin in his hands. “I mean, I heard Chanyeol likes his girls pretty both on and off camera so maybe you should do a little more homework in that department, y’know?” He gave her a completely harmless grin, the kind he reserved for his most scathing comments to Jaebum.
“Haha, fuck you Jongin,” Jinri flipped him the finger without the hint of a smile on her face and returned to her conversation with Kang Jiyoung.
“So how about it?” Jongin turned back to Sehun, who had a completely glazed look over his eyes again. “Oi,” he waved a hand in front of his friend’s face. “If you’re gonna be like this I’ll just go solo, I have a really good feeling about that high score today.”
“I can’t,” Sehun’s eyes turned to his as if suddenly realizing he was there. Jongin felt a sudden tide of contempt rise inside him as he took in the dark bags under Sehun’s eyes, the way the corners of Sehun’s mouth drooped slightly, the vacant look in Sehun’s pupils that looked like he was a million miles away, a lone astronaut orbiting Earth at 3,683 km/hour with an empty jetpack. “I’m going over to Jinyoung’s, he said he’ll help me with English,” Sehun mumbled. He blinked, then grinned a little as if remembering himself, and Jongin watched the jetpack sputter slightly. “Wanna come?” The look in Sehun’s eyes was beseeching, his jetpack puttering him towards Jongin’s general direction in spurts.
The last thing Jongin wanted to see.
“To study English with you and Jinyoung?” He scoffed and tilted his chair backwards again, pretended not to notice the lifeline Sehun was throwing out to him. “Like hell if I want to join your little nerd party. I’ll just go on my own. Or who knows, maybe Jinri here might be a little better at shooting zombies in the head than doing her eyebrows.” He smirked. Jinri responded by unexpectedly kicking at his chair so hard that he brought down the desk behind with him as he fell.
_______________________
Sehun waved goodbye to Jongin as they parted ways at the school gate, watched the back of his friend retreating into the distance as he cradled a wrist, mumbling to himself (“damn you Choi Jinri I’ll get you back, just you wait”), then turned the other way, took a short walk down the street to the subway, got on the next train and walked a little more to arrive at the towering block of apartments where Jinyoung lived.
Jinyoung’s neighbourhood was a lot better looking than his own. Cleaner. Shinier. There was less pressure hanging in the air around him, less expectation weighing down on the first born son of a middle class family just barely scraping by. Here in Jinyoung's neighbourhood expectation weighed on kids of all ages, the same amount of pressure crushing down on them the minute they came into this crazy world. In their world the only thing that mattered was passing exams, not worrying about taking up another shift at the convenience store to pay for your little brother’s new shoes because he didn’t want you to tell your parents that some asshole kids had stolen them off his feet again. In their world he was a nobody, and that was just how he liked it.
Sometimes Sehun wondered how Jinyoung managed to stand it, living in an area with a street dedicated solely to cram schools, where neon signboards served as constant reminders that failure was not an option.
Well, he mused as he was buzzed into the building. It wasn’t like Jinyoung ever failed anyway.
“The cavalry has arrived,” announced Jaebum as Jinyoung opened the door. The TV was on at full blast, scantily clad girls dancing on a stage with flashing lights. Snacks were strewn over the coffee table, and Jaebum was sprawled on one of the pristine white couches.
“I didn’t know you were going to be here too,” Sehun dropped his bag on the floor and took off his shoes as Jinyoung went into the kitchen. “Thought you had work.”
“Done it,” Jaebum replied indifferently through a mouthful of prawn crackers. His eyes flitted to Sehun, then went back to the TV “Quick delivery job, nothing special. Where’s Jongin?”
“He… had things to do,” Sehun said just as indifferently, seating himself on the other end of the couch and grabbing a chip packet without asking. But Jaebum’s stare was a little discomforting, even if he didn’t say anything, and Sehun yelled to Jinyoung if it was ok to eat something. “Help yourself!” Jinyoung yelled back. Old habits died hard.
“You mean he went down to the arcade to try and beat my score on Contagion, don’t you?” Jaebum broke the silence as the music show ended. On the screen confetti streamed from the ceiling as the girl group that had been performing before made their winning speech. Sehun was almost jealous of these people, paid to smile and pretend to be happy in front of cameras, in front of everyone, while he had to worry about acing this English test. “Throw me a chip.”
“I dunno, he didn’t say.” Sehun grabbed a new packet off the table and lobbed it lazily at him. Jaebum caught it perfectly in one hand.
“Yeah right, he’s been trying for weeks. I see his name inch closer to mine every time I check,” Jaebum rolled his eyes.”It’s kinda sad, don’t you think, being so fixated on beating someone that you spend all your time and energy on it when you could probably do something more productive?” he smirked slightly. “I guess it stings a little when someone you hate just keeps beating you.”
“Jongin doesn’t hate you.” And you don’t hate him. Sehun shoved another chip into his mouth before he could add the next part in. He wasn’t quite in the mood to start dancing circles around Jaebum trying to prove how he knew that he didn’t hate Jongin. Sparring with Jaebum required another level of energy that Sehun just didn’t have, not when he needed to pour all that energy into remembering the difference between there/their and your/you’re. Jackson would have jumped into it straight away with enthusiasm, but Sehun was not Jackson. Would probably never be Jackson.
“He could try harder,” Jaebum shrugged.
In the next suburb, Jongin whooped and threw a fist into the air as screaming bells and whistles filled his corner of the arcade. Virtual confetti exploded as HIGH SCORE flashed continuously across the screen. Some guys standing behind him muttered a snide ‘congratulations’ before they disappeared, but Jongin barely heard them. Their approval wasn’t what he was after.
HIGH SCORE:
“Hey Sehun, have you met Wonpil?”
Sehun looked up from his book. Jaebum was still slouched on the sofa, his eyes glued to the game on his phone, but it was he who spoke. Opposite Sehun, Jinyoung narrowed his eyes but otherwise didn’t react. Sehun ran his tongue over his teeth. A delicate situation. He settled for a smile. “Who?”
“Oh,” Jaebum paused his game. “I guess Jinyoung didn’t tell you about him, huh?”
“Nope,” Sehun went back to his book. The best way to avoid getting dragged into unpleasant situations, he had found out early on in life, was to stay passive. Keep things short, don’t ask questions, look uninterested, eventually they’ll leave you alone. Especially when they were trying to drag him into things that weren’t his problem. Just like Jackson had dragged him into a mess he wouldn’t be ready for in a hundred years.
But Jaebum wasn’t Jongin or Jinyoung, Jaebum was scarily like Jackson and that meant prodding and poking until the recipient came up with a response that fit their criteria of satisfactory.
“He seems like a cool guy,” Jaebum continued, going back to his game. “Jinyoung said he’ll introduce us to him sometime so we could all hang out together.” Sehun glanced over at Jinyoung but only the smallest twitch of Jinyoung’s eyebrow gave away his annoyance.
“Well, maybe next time I guess,” Sehun shrugged, struggling to push down the nausea that had suddenly risen within him.
“Who knows, if we start hanging out with him then maybe we could be -,” Jaebum cut himself off when they heard the key turning in the lock. Jinyoung half got out of his seat, but relaxed when his mother appeared in the doorway, laden with groceries. Sehun thanked the stars for the interruption, knowing exactly what Jaebum was about to say. We could be a five again. He needed air.
“Oh hello Jaebum, Sehun,” Jinyoung’s mom refused her son’s offer to carry the bags. “I’ll just leave you boys to go back to studying.” She bustled into the kitchen and slid the door shut behind her while Jinyoung silently sat back down at the table.
“I wish my mum left me alone like that,” Jaebum said aloud, almost wistfully. Sehun let himself breathe with a well-timed smirk while Jinyoung cracked a devious grin.
“Yeah, it’s the absolute best,” he winked at Sehun, then held his hand out for his book. “Time for checking,” he announced. Nothing else was mentioned of Wonpil for the rest of the day.
_______________________
“What the hell are you doing?” Jinyoung rounded the corner to find Jongin crouched behind a bush, still in his uniform.
“Shhhhh,” Jongin hushed him fiercely, then did a double take. “What the bloody hell are you doing here?”
“I asked you first,” Jinyoung rolled his eyes and sat down beside him. He rustled in his backpack and pulled out a triangle kimbap. He nudged Jongin. “You want one?”
“I’m having a stake-out,” Jongin took it with a nod of gratitude, sliding down next to him. “Tiring work, y’know.” He unwrapped the kimbap and took a giant bite out of it. “Oh, yum, your mum make this?”
Jinyoung snorted slightly. “Who else?” he muttered, unwrapping his own. The kimbap he had just given away was supposed to last him through cram school but as an unspoken rule Park Jinyoung never went to cram school. His parents didn’t need to know that, though. As long as he brought home the marks his parents didn’t need to know what he got up to or where he went in his spare time.
“My grandma could never make kimbap as good as this,” Jongin said offhandedly, taking another bite. Jinyoung stared at the triangle in his hands, thinking about how Jongin had grown up without a mother, how Jongin never went home. Jinyoung had never seen Jongin’s apartment, wasn’t even quite sure where he lived. Was loneliness any different when you weren’t surrounded by people?
“Where are you going to stay tonight?” he found himself asking as Jongin licked the tips of his fingers and balled the plastic wrap up in his other hand.
“Dunno,” Jongin said lightly. “Maybe I’ll drop by Sehun’s after this. I mean his mum likes me I’m pretty sure but she’d probably want longer notice if she’s gonna have another mouth to feed tonight. Scrape together what she can and all that.” He said this all without any change in expression, but Jinyoung recoiled a little. Kim Jongin, blunt as ever.
“You could come over to mine if you want,” he suggested without really thinking. Jongin dropped the plastic ball to the ground as he stared at him, and for a second he felt a little seed of doubt plant itself in his head. He’d never really had Jongin around for, well, anything. He and Sehun had regular study sessions and Jaebum dropped by whenever he wanted but Jongin… well Jongin was always more of an after school free roamer. Still… it’d be okay. Wouldn’t it?
“That… that’ll be cool.” Jongin looked a little skeptical at first, but then his face warmed into a giant dazzling grin. “Thanks man. Hey, that’ll be really good. Maybe I can raid your bookshelf too.” He punched Jinyoung affectionately on the arm. “Got any new books?”
Jinyoung was about to tell him about the new Japanese books he’d picked up the other day when Jongin peered around the bush and then jumped to his feet. “HEY!” he bellowed, nearly deafening Jinyoung. “HEY, WONPIL!”
For a second Jinyoung felt like he had fallen into some very bizarre dream because it couldn’t be Wonpil that Jongin was slinging an arm around, but the red headphones and wide tooth-and-gum smile were unmistakeable.
“Wha…” he started, his uneaten kimbap hanging at his side. What the fuck is going on?
“Jinyoung?” Wonpil caught sight of him, looking surprised. “What are you doing here?”
“What?” Jinyoung asked again.
“Yeah, JB told me about this guy so I added him on Facebook couple of days ago,” Jongin grinned, completely oblivious to the dumbfounded look on Jinyoung’s face. “Turns out he’s a riot! Why didn’t you introduce us earlier?”
“So when you said stake-out…”
Jongin laughed. “Stake-out, waiting for someone… same thing.”
As Wonpil laughed nervously and Jongin continued talking, Jinyoung tried to keep himself from looking too pissed off. He was going to kill Im Jaebum.
tbc
jongin/jinyoung/sehun/jaebum ft. wonpil
pg-15, 3857w
warning: language
Jackson looked up when Sehun approached the edge of the rooftop, his favourite pale pink Yankees cap pulled over his platinum blonde hair. Sehun had asked him once whether he even knew what the Yanks were, but Jackson had only laughed and slung the cap on to his own head. Sehun never found out if he really did know anything about the American baseball team whose cap he wore.
But wait. He could find out now. Jackson was here. Jackson was breathing. Jackson was alive.
He put his hands up to his hair. The cap was tight around his head.
“Jaebum set everything on fire after you left,” he said aloud. There was no reply, the both of them sitting on the ledge, their feet dangling into thin air. Jackson’s hands were shoved in the pockets of his bomber jacket. Sehun looked down at his feet. The ground seemed dreadfully far from here.
“I wish you told me,” he said to his feet.
“You dropped your phone,” Jackson said calmly. Sehun turned to look at him but he had already jumped.
Sehun fell down beside him.
Jackson’s blood turned the knees of his jeans black.
“You dropped your phone,” Jackson whispered, his face shattered like that of a broken porcelain doll. One large crack ran up the left side of this face, through his eye and back under his hair. A piece of his cheek fell inwards, revealing nothing. “I told you. I told you.” And he reached out and wrapped a bloody hand around Sehun’s neck.
Sehun woke. The lights of a car down on the street stretched silently over the ceiling. His t-shirt clung to his skin, drenched in cold sweat. The ghost of Jackson’s hands were tight around his neck. The guilt weighed down his bones. The Yankees cap hung silently on the end of his bed.
_______________________
People, Jinyoung decided long ago, were infinitely dull. Unless, of course, they were Jackson Wang, Im Jaebum, Kim Jongin or Oh Sehun. And even though he had known the last name for a good long time, he did sometimes find his level of interesting debatable.
So as he wandered the shelves of the convenience store, watching Wonpil inspect the label of a drink out of the corner of his eye, he had to wonder -
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Jinyoung started slightly, almost dropping the packet of chips that he held in one hand. Jaebum was standing in the doorway of the store, his hands in the pockets of his unbuttoned school blazer, his untucked shirt sticking out from beneath his jumper. He had a stern, suspicious look on his face that slowly melted into a warm, familiar grin.
Just what Jinyoung didn’t want to see.
“I could ask the same thing,” he retorted instead, glancing back at Wonpil, who was still engrossed in his drink label. His red headphones hung around his neck, but he might as well have had them on. Jinyoung had to keep himself from rolling his eyes. Infinitely dull. “I didn’t see you at lunch.”
“That’s because you didn’t come looking for me,” Jaebum cocked his head to one side to squint at the chip packet. “Ugh, don’t buy that, it’s absolute shit. Probably 80% air if you want me to be honest.”
“Well it’s cheap and I’m broke for the week,” Jinyoung shrugged and hoisted his backpack further up his shoulders. “Didn’t you have work today?”
“Nah, I skipped, wasn’t in the mood for it.” Jaebum reached past him and plucked the exact same chip packet from the shelf behind him. “What’re you doing here?” He punched Jinyoung lightly on the arm and grinned. “We haven’t hung out in a while, huh? Let’s grab some drinks and head to the river.”
“Hey Jinyoung, were you ready to…” Wonpil rounded the corner, holding an entirely different bottle. He looked up and noticed Jaebum, and he gave a nervous smile. “... go?” His eyes flitted between Jinyoung and Jaebum, his smile frozen to his face.
Jinyoung leapt into action. “Wonpil, this is Jaebum. Jaebum, Wonpil,” he gestured between them.
“Hi,” Jaebum said shortly with only the hint of a smile playing on the corners of his lips. Jinyoung smacked him in the stomach. “I mean, hey, I’m Jaebum, nice to meet you.” This time he gave a full, not entirely sincere grin and managed a wave. Jinyoung snickered under his breath, and Jaebum whacked him back.
“I’m Wonpil,” said Wonpil with a smile that was a shadow of the one he had shown Jinyoung the day they met, but still friendlier looking than what Jaebum gave him, Jinyoung thought. He lifted a hand and touched his headphones around his neck, still looking uncertain. “So, uhh, you’re in our year too?”
“Yeah,” Jaebum shrugged, his eyes narrowing as he scanned Wonpil’s face. Jinyoung tilted his head backward with a small sigh before righting himself.
“He moved up to my class this year,” he gave Jaebum a meaningful look and a sly grin which was returned with a scowl. “Stop looking at him like he’s committed some kind of crime. We were just going to get snacks and hang out outside. You can join us if you want.”
“Yeah,” said Wonpil a little breathlessly, suddenly looking enthusiastic. “We should hang out together.”
Jaebum opened his mouth to say something when his phone went off in his pocket. He pulled it out and checked the message with a groan, giving Jinyoung a knowing look. “Maybe another time. I’ve gotta go grab some stuff for my mum. Hey,” he nudged Jinyoung. “Maybe you should call Jongin and Sehun next time. We could all hang out together. I’m sure they’d love to meet Wonpil.” Jinyoung grinned back, but at the same time he wanted to wipe the smirk from Jaebum’s face. Infinitely dull Im Jaebum was not, but annoyingly intuitive to his intentions he was. It was just something that came with knowing someone since they were kids getting on the same bus on the way to the same elementary school, and it irked Jinyoung to no end.
“Of course I will,” he gave a completely relaxed, open smile. “Don’t you have to go? You know your mum’s gonna need that tofu soon if she’s gonna make soondubu tonight.”
“Shut up,” Jaebum deadpanned. He gave a short nod to Wonpil. “Nice meeting you.” He put the chip packet back on the shelf, then turned and left.
“That was… interesting,” Wonpil said, watching Jaebum turn the corner and disappear. “You guys seem like good friends.”
Jinyoung narrowed his eyes slightly as he looked out at the empty street. If Wonpil was infinitely dull and his friends were infinitely not, it would make a lot of sense that more than one infinitely interesting person could cancel out one dull one. Maybe Jaebum was right, maybe it would be good for all of them to hang out together. Maybe then there would be 5 of them again.
The thought crossed his mind before he could stop it and his grip on the chip packet tightened. Wonpil looked a little disconcertedly at him at the crinkling of cellophane.
“We’ve been good friends since middle school,” Jinyoung took the drink bottle out of Wonpil’s hands and headed to the counter. “Us and… two other guys. You should meet them someday. I think you’ll get along great.”
“You think so?” Wonpil tried to reach around him to take his bottle back, but Jinyoung batted his hand away as he pulled out his wallet and paid for them both. “Are they anything like Jaebum?”
Jinyoung laughed at the thought. “Not at all,” he passed the bottle back and Wonpil raised it in thanks. “Not at all.”
_______________________
Sunlight filtered through the dust on the window, painted the back of his hands gold. In the class next door a string of chanting had broken out again, a book snatched from a desk and tossed into the air. Out on the barren school playing field, a freshman tackled his friend to the dry brown grass. In the murky depths of the Han river, a duck dove head first underwater and came back up empty-beaked. 54.6 million kilometers away, a tiny stray meteorite soundlessly crashed into Mars, kicking up clouds of red dust in the impact.
Sitting in class, surrounded by the chatter of a dozen other kids, Jongin heard it.
“Hey,” he kicked the back of Sehun’s chair. No response. He had suspected that as much, since Sehun was looking especially dopey today. Maybe it had something to do with him accidentally stepping on the toes of Jung Soojung that morning. Or maybe that had happened because he had been so dopey. Whatever. Jongin wasn’t one to dwell on tiny roundabout things like that.
“Hey,” he tried again, louder this time, staring at the back of Sehun’s head as if the force of his gaze could tear hole right through it, as if with his eyes alone he could make Sehun turn around…
Sehun turned. Jongin tried to hide a knowing grin.
“Let’s go to the arcade after this shitshow is over,” he tilted backwards in his chair, his hands behind his head. “I feel like shooting a few zombies down. Maybe break the highest record. Get my name on the top of that board in flashing lights.” He raised a hand and swept it through the air in an arc, already hearing the screaming bells and whistles that had erupted when Jaebum topped the boards in Contagion a few months ago. Jongin inched closer to beating it every week.
“Don’t you have homework to do, Kim Jongin?” Choi Jinri demanded from her seat beside him.
“Don’t you have another makeup tutorial to watch?” Jongin asked pleasantly, righting himself and resting his chin in his hands. “I mean, I heard Chanyeol likes his girls pretty both on and off camera so maybe you should do a little more homework in that department, y’know?” He gave her a completely harmless grin, the kind he reserved for his most scathing comments to Jaebum.
“Haha, fuck you Jongin,” Jinri flipped him the finger without the hint of a smile on her face and returned to her conversation with Kang Jiyoung.
“So how about it?” Jongin turned back to Sehun, who had a completely glazed look over his eyes again. “Oi,” he waved a hand in front of his friend’s face. “If you’re gonna be like this I’ll just go solo, I have a really good feeling about that high score today.”
“I can’t,” Sehun’s eyes turned to his as if suddenly realizing he was there. Jongin felt a sudden tide of contempt rise inside him as he took in the dark bags under Sehun’s eyes, the way the corners of Sehun’s mouth drooped slightly, the vacant look in Sehun’s pupils that looked like he was a million miles away, a lone astronaut orbiting Earth at 3,683 km/hour with an empty jetpack. “I’m going over to Jinyoung’s, he said he’ll help me with English,” Sehun mumbled. He blinked, then grinned a little as if remembering himself, and Jongin watched the jetpack sputter slightly. “Wanna come?” The look in Sehun’s eyes was beseeching, his jetpack puttering him towards Jongin’s general direction in spurts.
The last thing Jongin wanted to see.
“To study English with you and Jinyoung?” He scoffed and tilted his chair backwards again, pretended not to notice the lifeline Sehun was throwing out to him. “Like hell if I want to join your little nerd party. I’ll just go on my own. Or who knows, maybe Jinri here might be a little better at shooting zombies in the head than doing her eyebrows.” He smirked. Jinri responded by unexpectedly kicking at his chair so hard that he brought down the desk behind with him as he fell.
_______________________
Sehun waved goodbye to Jongin as they parted ways at the school gate, watched the back of his friend retreating into the distance as he cradled a wrist, mumbling to himself (“damn you Choi Jinri I’ll get you back, just you wait”), then turned the other way, took a short walk down the street to the subway, got on the next train and walked a little more to arrive at the towering block of apartments where Jinyoung lived.
Jinyoung’s neighbourhood was a lot better looking than his own. Cleaner. Shinier. There was less pressure hanging in the air around him, less expectation weighing down on the first born son of a middle class family just barely scraping by. Here in Jinyoung's neighbourhood expectation weighed on kids of all ages, the same amount of pressure crushing down on them the minute they came into this crazy world. In their world the only thing that mattered was passing exams, not worrying about taking up another shift at the convenience store to pay for your little brother’s new shoes because he didn’t want you to tell your parents that some asshole kids had stolen them off his feet again. In their world he was a nobody, and that was just how he liked it.
Sometimes Sehun wondered how Jinyoung managed to stand it, living in an area with a street dedicated solely to cram schools, where neon signboards served as constant reminders that failure was not an option.
Well, he mused as he was buzzed into the building. It wasn’t like Jinyoung ever failed anyway.
“The cavalry has arrived,” announced Jaebum as Jinyoung opened the door. The TV was on at full blast, scantily clad girls dancing on a stage with flashing lights. Snacks were strewn over the coffee table, and Jaebum was sprawled on one of the pristine white couches.
“I didn’t know you were going to be here too,” Sehun dropped his bag on the floor and took off his shoes as Jinyoung went into the kitchen. “Thought you had work.”
“Done it,” Jaebum replied indifferently through a mouthful of prawn crackers. His eyes flitted to Sehun, then went back to the TV “Quick delivery job, nothing special. Where’s Jongin?”
“He… had things to do,” Sehun said just as indifferently, seating himself on the other end of the couch and grabbing a chip packet without asking. But Jaebum’s stare was a little discomforting, even if he didn’t say anything, and Sehun yelled to Jinyoung if it was ok to eat something. “Help yourself!” Jinyoung yelled back. Old habits died hard.
“You mean he went down to the arcade to try and beat my score on Contagion, don’t you?” Jaebum broke the silence as the music show ended. On the screen confetti streamed from the ceiling as the girl group that had been performing before made their winning speech. Sehun was almost jealous of these people, paid to smile and pretend to be happy in front of cameras, in front of everyone, while he had to worry about acing this English test. “Throw me a chip.”
“I dunno, he didn’t say.” Sehun grabbed a new packet off the table and lobbed it lazily at him. Jaebum caught it perfectly in one hand.
“Yeah right, he’s been trying for weeks. I see his name inch closer to mine every time I check,” Jaebum rolled his eyes.”It’s kinda sad, don’t you think, being so fixated on beating someone that you spend all your time and energy on it when you could probably do something more productive?” he smirked slightly. “I guess it stings a little when someone you hate just keeps beating you.”
“Jongin doesn’t hate you.” And you don’t hate him. Sehun shoved another chip into his mouth before he could add the next part in. He wasn’t quite in the mood to start dancing circles around Jaebum trying to prove how he knew that he didn’t hate Jongin. Sparring with Jaebum required another level of energy that Sehun just didn’t have, not when he needed to pour all that energy into remembering the difference between there/their and your/you’re. Jackson would have jumped into it straight away with enthusiasm, but Sehun was not Jackson. Would probably never be Jackson.
“He could try harder,” Jaebum shrugged.
In the next suburb, Jongin whooped and threw a fist into the air as screaming bells and whistles filled his corner of the arcade. Virtual confetti exploded as HIGH SCORE flashed continuously across the screen. Some guys standing behind him muttered a snide ‘congratulations’ before they disappeared, but Jongin barely heard them. Their approval wasn’t what he was after.
HIGH SCORE:
- kimkaaaaa
- mubeajmi
“Hey Sehun, have you met Wonpil?”
Sehun looked up from his book. Jaebum was still slouched on the sofa, his eyes glued to the game on his phone, but it was he who spoke. Opposite Sehun, Jinyoung narrowed his eyes but otherwise didn’t react. Sehun ran his tongue over his teeth. A delicate situation. He settled for a smile. “Who?”
“Oh,” Jaebum paused his game. “I guess Jinyoung didn’t tell you about him, huh?”
“Nope,” Sehun went back to his book. The best way to avoid getting dragged into unpleasant situations, he had found out early on in life, was to stay passive. Keep things short, don’t ask questions, look uninterested, eventually they’ll leave you alone. Especially when they were trying to drag him into things that weren’t his problem. Just like Jackson had dragged him into a mess he wouldn’t be ready for in a hundred years.
But Jaebum wasn’t Jongin or Jinyoung, Jaebum was scarily like Jackson and that meant prodding and poking until the recipient came up with a response that fit their criteria of satisfactory.
“He seems like a cool guy,” Jaebum continued, going back to his game. “Jinyoung said he’ll introduce us to him sometime so we could all hang out together.” Sehun glanced over at Jinyoung but only the smallest twitch of Jinyoung’s eyebrow gave away his annoyance.
“Well, maybe next time I guess,” Sehun shrugged, struggling to push down the nausea that had suddenly risen within him.
“Who knows, if we start hanging out with him then maybe we could be -,” Jaebum cut himself off when they heard the key turning in the lock. Jinyoung half got out of his seat, but relaxed when his mother appeared in the doorway, laden with groceries. Sehun thanked the stars for the interruption, knowing exactly what Jaebum was about to say. We could be a five again. He needed air.
“Oh hello Jaebum, Sehun,” Jinyoung’s mom refused her son’s offer to carry the bags. “I’ll just leave you boys to go back to studying.” She bustled into the kitchen and slid the door shut behind her while Jinyoung silently sat back down at the table.
“I wish my mum left me alone like that,” Jaebum said aloud, almost wistfully. Sehun let himself breathe with a well-timed smirk while Jinyoung cracked a devious grin.
“Yeah, it’s the absolute best,” he winked at Sehun, then held his hand out for his book. “Time for checking,” he announced. Nothing else was mentioned of Wonpil for the rest of the day.
_______________________
“What the hell are you doing?” Jinyoung rounded the corner to find Jongin crouched behind a bush, still in his uniform.
“Shhhhh,” Jongin hushed him fiercely, then did a double take. “What the bloody hell are you doing here?”
“I asked you first,” Jinyoung rolled his eyes and sat down beside him. He rustled in his backpack and pulled out a triangle kimbap. He nudged Jongin. “You want one?”
“I’m having a stake-out,” Jongin took it with a nod of gratitude, sliding down next to him. “Tiring work, y’know.” He unwrapped the kimbap and took a giant bite out of it. “Oh, yum, your mum make this?”
Jinyoung snorted slightly. “Who else?” he muttered, unwrapping his own. The kimbap he had just given away was supposed to last him through cram school but as an unspoken rule Park Jinyoung never went to cram school. His parents didn’t need to know that, though. As long as he brought home the marks his parents didn’t need to know what he got up to or where he went in his spare time.
“My grandma could never make kimbap as good as this,” Jongin said offhandedly, taking another bite. Jinyoung stared at the triangle in his hands, thinking about how Jongin had grown up without a mother, how Jongin never went home. Jinyoung had never seen Jongin’s apartment, wasn’t even quite sure where he lived. Was loneliness any different when you weren’t surrounded by people?
“Where are you going to stay tonight?” he found himself asking as Jongin licked the tips of his fingers and balled the plastic wrap up in his other hand.
“Dunno,” Jongin said lightly. “Maybe I’ll drop by Sehun’s after this. I mean his mum likes me I’m pretty sure but she’d probably want longer notice if she’s gonna have another mouth to feed tonight. Scrape together what she can and all that.” He said this all without any change in expression, but Jinyoung recoiled a little. Kim Jongin, blunt as ever.
“You could come over to mine if you want,” he suggested without really thinking. Jongin dropped the plastic ball to the ground as he stared at him, and for a second he felt a little seed of doubt plant itself in his head. He’d never really had Jongin around for, well, anything. He and Sehun had regular study sessions and Jaebum dropped by whenever he wanted but Jongin… well Jongin was always more of an after school free roamer. Still… it’d be okay. Wouldn’t it?
“That… that’ll be cool.” Jongin looked a little skeptical at first, but then his face warmed into a giant dazzling grin. “Thanks man. Hey, that’ll be really good. Maybe I can raid your bookshelf too.” He punched Jinyoung affectionately on the arm. “Got any new books?”
Jinyoung was about to tell him about the new Japanese books he’d picked up the other day when Jongin peered around the bush and then jumped to his feet. “HEY!” he bellowed, nearly deafening Jinyoung. “HEY, WONPIL!”
For a second Jinyoung felt like he had fallen into some very bizarre dream because it couldn’t be Wonpil that Jongin was slinging an arm around, but the red headphones and wide tooth-and-gum smile were unmistakeable.
“Wha…” he started, his uneaten kimbap hanging at his side. What the fuck is going on?
“Jinyoung?” Wonpil caught sight of him, looking surprised. “What are you doing here?”
“What?” Jinyoung asked again.
“Yeah, JB told me about this guy so I added him on Facebook couple of days ago,” Jongin grinned, completely oblivious to the dumbfounded look on Jinyoung’s face. “Turns out he’s a riot! Why didn’t you introduce us earlier?”
“So when you said stake-out…”
Jongin laughed. “Stake-out, waiting for someone… same thing.”
As Wonpil laughed nervously and Jongin continued talking, Jinyoung tried to keep himself from looking too pissed off. He was going to kill Im Jaebum.
tbc