(for coupdeplume) my whole universe (is you) ✸ part 2 of 3
❊ for: coupdeplume
❊ title: my whole universe (is you)
Kyungsoo stares from the school’s gate, feet fixated on the ground. He’d arrived 5 minutes ago, but not even once has he moved from his place. The football team is already practicing diligently in the field, faces sweaty and uniforms dirty. He flinches a bit when the quarterback, Yifan, screams the pass route to Chanyeol. His eyes follow the ball which is thrown to the opposite end of the field and watches in awe as Chanyeol runs with all his might to catch it.
Player number 88 enters the field and Kyungsoo’s completely distracted. Jongin looks really good in his uniform, the shoulder pads making him looks so manly. He talks to Yifan, his eyes filled with seriousness that Kyungsoo doesn’t see often. Jongin and the rest of the team are so determined to win, especially because this year’s the last chance for sophomore players. Students aren’t allowed to join any kind of club activities once they’re in the last year, so they have to give their all to do their best in this year’s Fall Games.
“Isn’t that Kyungsoo?”
Kyungsoo turns around at the familiar voice to find Hyunsik, his classmate, walking at him. The older boy grins at him before walking to him.
“I knew you’d signed up for the summer class!” Hyunsik lifts his hand and Kyungsoo highfives him, a little small on his face. “Why aren’t you coming inside?”
“Nothing. Let’s go.”
Kyungsoo’d decided that he’d spend the first week of summer break with summer classes at school. He doesn’t tell Jongin, of course, because he thinks Jongin won’t be able to focus with him hanging around. He doesn’t want Jongin to spend extra energy just to meet him, because the practice will be literally all day. He’d rather watch and support Jongin in silence.
The summer class is originally for students who have lower grades, and actually Kyungsoo doesn’t need to attend any of the classes. But he doesn’t really have anything to do and he needs a reason to not go to his parents’ house in Gyeonggi. He wants to stay with Jongin longer.
The class ends early, so the lunch break is skipped so they can go home earlier. When the teacher ends his class, Kyungsoo doesn’t move from his seat. He only watches as his friends walk out of the class one by one. A part of his heart tells him to go home too so he can walk past the field to see Jongin, but he’s not going to do that.
I’ll just continue studying in the library, he thinks while lifting his bag and walks out of the class. He’s halfway to the library when someone calls his name, so he stops in his tracks to see who it is.
“Kyungsoo-ya,” the girl repeats as she stops beside Kyungsoo. It’s Sunyoung, the only girl in his class who talks a lot to Kyungsoo compared to another girl in their class. She’s panting because she just ran from the end of the hall when she saw Kyungsoo, but the male doesn’t say anything. “I just... you’re going to the library, right?”
Kyungsoo stares at the stairs leading to the next floor where the library is, then nods at Sunyoung. “Yeah. Wanna come?”
“Um, actually I want you to teach me English... I didn’t understand anything in the class today. That is, if you don’t mind...” Sunyoung’s voice is quiet and timid, a bit hesitant because usually she is with other classmates when they want Kyungsoo to teach them. She lifts her head to see Kyungsoo smiling at her, he gestures at the stairs with his chin and she sighs in relief.
They sit across from each other in the library, and Kyungsoo has to grimace at how cold his sides are. It’s summer, he shouldn’t feel cold, but he does. If Jongin were here, the younger would sit beside him and move his chair closer to Kyungsoo. His skin still remembers how it feels to have Jongin’s brushes occasionally, and to have nothing beside him makes him feels lonely.
He doubts other people’s presence beside him would be the same, though.
Sometimes he hates himself for being too attached to Jongin, because it makes him seem clingy. He knows the younger doesn’t mind, he never does. Maybe they’re only meant to be like this, to be Kyungsoo and Jongin and nothing more. He wonders if one day Jongin will get a girlfriend and he can’t reach out to Jongin anymore.
The thought bothers him, so he shakes his head, making his glasses slide down his nose a bit. Sunyoung looks up from her book as Kyungsoo fixes his glasses.
“Is everything okay?” she asks, even though she’s been sensing that Kyungsoo was never really okay.
“I... yeah, I mean, why not.” Kyungsoo knows his answer isn’t convincing enough, but he’s glad that Sunyoung doesn’t question it further. He sees Sunyoung put down her pen, indicating that she’s answered all the questions Kyungsoo’d told her to do. “You done? Lemme see.”
Kyungsoo straightens up his back and slides Sunyoung’s book closer to him. Eyes scanning the answers, he circles two numbers in front of the questions and Sunyoung gapes at that. The girl blinks in confusion at Kyungsoo. “I got two answers wrong?”
“You got two answers right,” corrects Kyungsoo as he returns her book. The change from excited to crestfallen on her face is immediate, and Kyungsoo only sighs at that. Then he sees the opportunity so he takes a deep breath. He knows he can do this. “You look like you need help for English. Want me to tutor you?”
The offer like this is rare and Sunyoung knows how good Kyungsoo is in English, so she eagerly nods her head. “You want to do it for me? Of course I want you to!”
Maybe hanging out with someone other than Jongin would help him a bit. Sunyoung is a nice girl and they aren’t awkward with each other, everything should be fine. Even without Jongin, he should be fine.
“But it’s not free, you know.” Kyungsoo smirks, a mischievous hint in his voice. Sunyoung chuckles at him.
“Fine, what do you want?”
“There’s this nice Chinese restaurant near the station...”
“Is this your way to ask me out?”
The male realize that this is how people get to dates with their crush, but Kyungsoo doesn’t even think about it that way. He quietly thinks about how all of those times hanging out with Jongin weren’t even considered as dates. It pricks on his heart a bit, but he ignores it. “No way in hell. Not interested in dates.”
Sunyoung laughs, but it doesn’t sound like disappointment and it’s louder than Kyungsoo thought it would be. It means Sunyoung doesn’t feel like she’s just been rejected or something. “You’re really funny, Kyungsoo-ya. But okay, Chinese restaurant it is.”
Kyungsoo points his finger at Sunyoung, gaze straight on her. That finger trembles, just a bit, which he knows won’t be noticed by the girl in front of him. If Jongin can be busy with his friends, I might as well be busy with my friends, too, Kyungsoo thinks. I’ll be okay. “After the last summer class. Deal?”
“Deal.”
--
Jongin’s sister enters his room when Jongin is sitting on his bed, preparing his bag for today’s practice. The male lifts up his face to see his sister standing at his doorway, not moving.
“What is it?” he asks nonchalantly, because none of his sisters like to randomly go to his room. He takes a clean towel, folds it and put it in his bag.
“Just checking up on my little brother, you know? He doesn’t seem good these days.” She shrugs, shoulder leaning on the doorframe. Jongin only rolls his eyes, hands folding a clean t-shirt before shoving it into his bag. He reaches out for his trunks, not bothering to fold it because it’s the last thing he’ll put into his bag and zippers it. He sets his bag onto the floor as his sister walks to him. “You’re going to swim?”
“Yeah. Need to loosen my joints a bit,” he reasons as he leans back, only his head and the upper part of his back get to lean on the wall. His sister joins him on the bed, sitting on a distance that won’t make him uncomfortable. Jongin eyes her suspiciously, and he knows he shouldn’t be looking at her like that. It’s his sister, but he just can’t help it.
“So Kyungsoo’s going with you? I mean, to the swimming pool,” she asks, her hand landing on Jongin’s thigh. She’s just curious, he knows. Before this, he would answer ‘of course’ the next second she lets out her question, but not today. He can’t really bring himself to respond, not with the painful squeeze in his chest.
“No, I... I’m going to. Swim alone. He’s not-he’s not coming. With me,” Jongin answers finally, tongue struggling to finish his sentence. He rubs his thumb with his other thumb where a scratch is still drying there. He only got it yesterday when he was practicing tackle with Sehun, and it should feel hurt, but it doesn’t. He feels like his heart just drops to his stomach, disintegrating little by little. He feels himself reaching out to collect the fragments, but they disappear before he gets to get all of them. It hurts more than having scratch all over his body. With that in mind, he doesn’t really mind getting more scratches.
“Is everything okay? I haven’t heard you on the phone with Kyungsoo lately.”
She’s worried, he knows. His sisters always coo in the background everytime he’s on the phone with Kyungsoo, or when he’s smiling too wide at the KakaoTalk message because it must be from Kyungsoo. They watch how Jongin grows with Kyungsoo by his side, from noisy children with airplane toys to high school buddies, they watch it all.
But two paths, after they cross, they’ll get farther apart. Maybe so will Jongin and Kyungsoo. Maybe one day Jongin will be standing proudly with his team on the field, and Kyungsoo won’t even text him to cheer him on. Maybe Kyungsoo will be studying abroad but Jongin won’t even know about it. It hurts him to think about it, but maybe they’ll drift farther away.
Much, much farther.
Jongin rolls and buries his face on his bed, head shaking flimsily. “I don’t know... I just, don’t know, Noona.”
That morning, Jongin’s refused to be comforted by his sister. He leaves the house 10 minutes later, wobbling to the station. It’s been a while since the train trip to the station nearest to the school isn’t fun anymore. It used to bring smile to Jongin’s lips, because he knows that he’s going to stand in front of the station until Kyungsoo comes and they would walk to school together.
The swimming pool isn’t far from the school, and he might be late for practice if he doesn’t walk faster, but he doesn’t really care now. The pool is empty because it’s still pretty early, but he’s thankful that he gets to swim all he wants. He quickly changes into his trunks and does some lazy stretching before jumping into the water.
He swims back and forth, moving his arms and legs as strong as he could. They’re going to ache during football practice, but he couldn’t care less right now. He could’ve stopped, he could’ve taken a rest, but he doesn’t. The muscles in his legs are about to give up, screaming for him to stop, but Jongin chooses to ignore them. If he stops, he’d drown. He wouldn’t make it to the school later.
Jongin only stops for real when his phone starts ringing endlessly, and he grunts while walking out of the pool, water dripping from his hair. He sits on the seat beside his bag and looks for his phone. When he takes the device, the name Sehun shows up brightly on the screen and he doesn’t hesitate to pick it up.
“Yeah?” he says once the line’s connected, shuddering a bit when the wind blows to his direction. He stares at the poolside, the laughter of Kyungsoo ringing in his head as he recalls the last time they went here last year.
“Where are you, man? Yifan hyung’s gonna kill you if you don’t show up now,” Sehun warns, his voice is nowhere near threatening. He’s known as the student who has a flat expression and tone, but Jongin knows better. Yifan is really scary sometimes.
“Are you guys running already?” he asks, because around this time, the team usually runs for 5km as a warm up. The route isn’t far from the school and Yifan has three alternative routes so that the warm up won’t be boring.
“No, Yifan hyung keeps telling everyone he’ll split your head into two once you get here. You don’t want to wake up the dragon inside him, just come now.”
Jongin stays silent for a while, thumb rubbing on the tips of his fingers because they wrinkle from swimming too long. Even though he thinks he’s done with the swimming, he doesn’t feel like running. He doesn’t feel like going. “Just, go without me? I’m in the swimming pool right now, I’ll consider this as my warm up. Tell Yifan hyung, please?”
Sehun groans from the other line, and Jongin can almost see him rubbing his temple. “Fine. But you have to be here when we get back from running, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Later, man.”
“Yeah.”
He waits until the younger disconnects the line before throwing his phone into his bag. A sigh escapes his lips, and he hangs his head lifelessly. It feels so different, coming here without Kyungsoo. Last summer, they went here a few times and Kyungsoo always brought different kinds of mouth-watering food with him. He remembers when they were stretching and Kyungsoo kicked him until he fell down into the water. He yelled at Kyungsoo, half chuckling because the elder’s loud laughter wasn’t something he got to hear often.
He remembers how Kyungsoo kept complaining because he couldn’t see anything without his glasses, or how they challenged to hold their breath under water, only to have Kyungsoo holding Jongin’s head in the water because the elder lost the game.
He remembers everything, and he’s sad that he can’t do them all over again.
“I miss you,” he whispers faintly. No name is needed to be mentioned, because his heart already knows who it is.
--
“Kim Jongin, what the hell is wrong with you?!” Yifan yells as he throws his helmet to the ground. Jongin lowers his head, knowing that he’ll face two sharp eyes burning with rage if he ever lifted his head. The quarterback sighs tiredly, not being able to contain his anger anymore. When Jongin joined the team, everyone knew Yifan was the happiest one. He can’t let this kid screw up. “Let me repeat this one more time; I’ve discussed a lot of strategies where they include you and Chanyeol as the strong point. You should realize I rely on you a lot, Jongin-ah. Don’t fuck up! How hard is that? You were okay before summer break! What’s wrong? You want to stay in your house, lazing around??”
“No, Sir,” Jongin answers almost immediately, feeling sad because he’s disappointed the quarterback. Yifan may not be the Ace, but he’s the Captain, he’s the brain of the group. He’s where the jocks turn their heads to when they have a problem. Making him disappointed means wasting Yifan’s trust in them. “I’m really sorry.”
Yifan steps closer, and it’s a move that tells Jongin to lift his head, so he does. The quarterback’s eyes have softened, and his expression isn’t as hard as before. Jongin jolts a bit when Yifan puts a finger on his jaw, causing him to crane his neck more. This guy is so intimidatingly tall. “We still have 4 weeks until Fall Games, so you’d better get your shit together.”
“Understood,” says Jongin with a confident voice. Yifan believes him enough to pair him with Chanyeol in his strategies. He should really focus on his practice and not Kyung-
Jongin shakes his head. He should focus on his practice and not anything else. He lifts his helmet in front of his chest before wearing it. Minho, the lineman,hits the back of his head playfully.
“Everything’s fine, dude?” he laughs when Jongin tries to kick him. “I mean, Yifan doesn’t usually scold his teammates like that. I think he really likes you.”
“Shut up,” Jongin groans, still feeling bad because he’s not doing his best today.
Minho pats Jongin’s back, a proud smile on his face. “Don’t mess up, buddy. You know how important you are to the team.”
“Thank you for stating the obvious.”
“Oohh, you got pride!”
“Of course I do. Now stop talking before I mess up again.”
Yifan calls all the jocks to gather in the middle of the field to start discussing formations. He’s tall and his voice is loud, it’s not hard to get everyone’s attention. He and the club’s manager, Jinki, have studied the teams that will be their opponents based on last year’s Fall Games and this year’s Spring Games. Every team has their own strength and weakness, and that’s why Yifan has to come up with many strategies.
The quarterback emphasizes that run and pass will be used a lot in their strategies, so he tells Chanyeol, Jongin and Sehun to keep their body healthy because this will be a tiring year for them. Their team’s running back last year was a senior and he’s no longer on the team, so Yifan has to count on the running backs, especially Jongin, a lot.
Yifan rakes his blonde hair off of his forehead, wiping the sweat off of the skin. “Okay, further discussion will be continued tomorrow. For today, this is all I can tell you. You have worked hard for a week, and tomorrow we will be leaving for our training camp, so today’s practice will end in the afternoon. Let’s play for another 30 minutes and after that I’ll dismiss. Got it?”
The answer comes together, “Yes!”
“Good. Now stand up and get to your position.”
The rest of the players stand up, wearing their gloves and helmets. Some tighten their shoelaces, and some run to the bench to get water. Jongin looks around to see where Sehun is, because his position is right behind the latter. Once he spots him, he jogs to the taller boy.
“How are you, soon-to-be Ace?” Sehun teases when Jongin’s stood behind him, earning a chuckle from the elder.
Jongin parts his leg while fastening his chin strap, he’s rolling his eyes at Sehun. “We’re both running backs, don’t say that.”
“You know you’re faster than me.” The younger shrugs before stuffing the mouth guard into his mouth. He turns around and Jongin blinks as the number 94 on Sehun’s wide back faces him.
When Jongin looks at Yifan, he’s still talking to the linemen, so Jongin slumps his shoulders down. He kicks the grass with the tips of his spikes while cracking his knuckles. There are voices from behind him, and when he looks over his shoulder, he sees students with uniforms walking out of the building. He immediately recognizes them as the students who take summer classes. They look happy, because this is the last day of summer class.
He bores his gaze at them, scanning their faces. Most of them are boys, laughing and joking with their friends. Jongin almost turns his head back to the field when he sees someone familiar walking with a girl.
It’s Kyungsoo, a smile on his face. There’s a girl beside him who seems to be telling him some funny story because his smile gets wider and Jongin can faintly hear his laughter. Jongin’s concentration breaks down as he watches as Kyungsoo walks closer to the gate with the girl.
Kyungsoo has friends, but he’s never walked alone with a girl before...
Jongin furrows his brows, realizing that he doesn’t know Kyungsoo’s sexual orientation. Kyungsoo’s never dated before, so Jongin never questions it. He feels disappointment grows bigger in his chest when he thinks that Kyungsoo might be straight. If he’s straight, I don’t have a chance to-
“Kimjong! Set hut!” Sehun reminds him because everyone in front of him is already in their position. Jongin quickly snaps his head at his friend, parting his legs and bending his body. The running back tries to gather his focus as Minseok, the center, snaps the ball to Yifan.
Sehun runs to the right side and Jongin follows, but he doesn’t even know which strategy they’re playing and he’s nowhere near ready when Zitao, one of the linemen appears to block him. He’s too late to stop and ends up get tackled to the ground. His eyes widen when Yifan indignantly walks to them.
“Kim fucking Jongin! What did I tell you?!”
Oh shit.
--
“Hey man, you okay?” Sehun asks when the field’s safe for the running backs, shuffling to where Jongin’s sitting with his things. The elder only groans, clearly not wanting to talk about it. He got yelled by Yifan a lot today, and he’s totally not proud of it. Sehun has a pretty good hunch, though, so Jongin’s surprised by the next question. “Is it because of the glasses guy?”
“What glasses guy,” Jongin clicks his tongue in annoyance. Everyone knows the glasses guy when it comes to Jongin. It’s always Do Kyungsoo. But Jongin doesn’t really want to keep being reminded that the elder isn’t here with him. He’s with some girl he’s never seen before, a girl who could make him smile like no girl could. It’s a first time, and Jongin’s still surprised.
“You’ve had your head in the clouds since this morning, you know. Just...” Sehun pats Jongin’s back, trying to say that everything’s going to be okay, but he’s not good with words. In the end he chooses to stand up, thinking that Jongin might need some time to be alone. “You know my Kakao ID if you need someone to talk to.”
I’m so stupid, Jongin thinks bitterly, my best friend left me and now I’m letting my teammate do the same.
The older male reaches out to grab Sehun’s wrist, making him stop to look at him. He knows that he needs to make a decision, not caring how selfish it is. The only clear image in his head is Kyungsoo’s face, bright and calming, but he won’t let that stop him.
“Let’s go get ice cream,” he says even though he knows he should be doing this with Kyungsoo. The younger looks at him with a stern gaze, already noticing that Jongin actually doesn’t want to do this. But he’s his friend and teammate, and Sehun knows how messed up Jongin is today. If he needs some mental support, he won’t hesitate to give it to him.
It’s not fifteen minutes later that the two running backs are already lining for the ice cream. Sehun’s never been here before, and he’s surprised that he doesn’t know such a popular ice cream shop exists. He’s a Seoul Boy, he should’ve known.
While Sehun is busy looking around, mostly staring at the various types of ice cream people are eating, Jongin stays silent beside him. If he were lining with Kyungsoo, the elder would talk a lot about what kind of ice cream he’s bought here before, or how the fruit punch flavored one doesn’t taste that good. If Kyungsoo were here, Jongin would be smiling from ear to hear, enjoying how Kyungsoo unleashes all the words he didn’t get to say at school.
“Oh? They have a limited edition summer ice cream?” Sehun asks while staring at the picture hanging brightly on the wall. It gets Jongin to lower his head, regretting how he’s supposed to eat that ice cream with Kyungsoo. It’s an annual thing for them to get this ice cream because it’s only served during summer, and both of them like it a lot. “It’s watermelon flavored!! Wow, this shop is amazing. How come I’ve never heard about it?”
They’re now in front of the cashier, and Jongin lets Sehun orders the summer ice cream for them. He tries hard not to think how careful Kyungsoo’s finger would be around the ice cream cup. The memory makes him feel warm and hurt at the same time, like blood dripping from a fresh cut. They walk out from the shop, Sehun already eating his ice cream.
“Dude,” Jongin calls, handing Sehun some bills but the younger shakes his head.
“It’s on me.”
“But-”
“Next time we hang out together you can treat me, man.”
Jongin sighs, shoving his money into his shirt pocket. “Alright.”
“I don’t know if I’m in the place to say this,” Sehun says suddenly, pointing Jongin with his spoon full of ice cream. His expression is near to flat, and Jongin tries hard to read his eyes. “If you have problems with that glasses guy, face them. Face him. Don’t let him ruin your performance on the team, and don’t let yourself ruin your relationship with him. I can’t help you, so. Yeah. I’m leaving.”
Sehun waves nonchalantly at Jongin before walking away, leaving the elder alone. He suddenly remembers that tomorrow he has to arrive at school before 8 for their training camp in Bucheon. The grasp of his fingers around the ice cream cup get tighter, squeezing it a bit. He somehow doesn’t have it in him to call Kyungsoo, asking him if he’ll help him pack.
Isn’t that what my sisters are for, he thinks while shrugging. He pokes the ice cream with the spoon, bringing it into his mouth and ignores the bitter taste in his throat that makes the ice less sweet.
--
Hours of practice, several aching muscles, some drying cuts, and nights of missing Kyungsoo-Jongin has gone through them all. Today is already the first day of school after summer break, and he’s thankful that the heat has abated. He’s standing in front of the station as usual, waiting for Kyungsoo. They ended up not talking at all during summer break, but it’s not like he could have his phone in his hands all day. Practice always took the whole day to finish and when it was done he didn’t want to do anything but sleep.
It’s around five minutes later Kyungsoo appears while typing on his phone, and Jongin immediately pushes himself off of the wall he’s been leaning on. He stops himself from taking the first step because he notices that Kyungsoo’s hair is different now. His bangs are shorter and his hair is light brown now. His new hair makes him look fresh and young, but what Jongin doesn’t understand is that Kyungsoo went to the hair salon without him.
He’s quick to shake his head at his own thought because I went swimming alone and ate the summer ice cream with Sehun, we’re even.
“Hyung!” he decides to call Kyungsoo loudly in the end, trying to defeat the negatives thought in his head. Kyungsoo immediately looks up from his phone and smiles, hand tucking the device back to his pocket. Jongin smiles back. He missed him so much. “You dyed your hair.”
“Uh, yeah... my hyung forced me to,” Kyungsoo shrugs and Jongin chuckles at him. If it was Seungsoo, he can’t really complain. The younger puts an arm around Kyungsoo’s shoulder, hoping he won’t stiffen at the contact. It’s been more than a month since they met, since they talked, since they touched. But Kyungsoo, out of habit shifts closer to Jongin, leaning a bit of his head on Jongin’s arm. Jongin presses his lips together, trying hard not to hug him tight right then and there. Kyungsoo looks up at him. “How was the training camp?”
“It was fun, really. Without the excessive hours of training, it would’ve been really fun,” Jongin grunts, and Kyungsoo chuckles, turning his gaze back to the street. “Sorry I didn’t call you. I really didn’t have free time.”
“Nah, I know you were busy. Wouldn’t want to bother you.”
Jongin isn’t sure if that is really the reason why Kyungsoo didn’t even text him the whole summer break, but he’s not going to make a fuss out of it. “Did you go to your parents’ house?”
“Yeah. I stayed in my room to do summer assignments most of the time, and Seungsoo hyung dropped by a lot to kidnap me and take me to places so there isn’t a lot to tell, actually.” Kyungsoo shakes his head lightly, but Jongin knows he’s just isn’t that fond of his own house. They arrive at the school gate, and Jongin is disappointed because they have to part again.
“My first match will be this weekend,” Jongin says, arm still around Kyungsoo’s shoulder, the tip of his thumb brushing the elder’s cheek. “I’ll be super busy, so we can’t go home together. Yifan hyung really likes to lock us in the locker room to discuss strategies and such.”
“It’s okay, we still can go to school together like this.”
“But I’ll also have early morning practices, so we can’t always meet.”
“Okay, Mr. Sportsman.”
The way Kyungsoo rolls his eyes tells Jongin that the elder doesn’t mind it, so Jongin lets go of him, waving at him as they part inside the building. He knows this isn’t enough, the minutes they have for each other aren’t enough. But he’s thankful that at least Kyungsoo was with him, that he needed only a reach of an arm to pull him closer to him.
He still misses Kyungsoo.
And he doesn’t say it out loud.
--
Kyungsoo knows how tired the jocks are, he only needs to spare a glance at Chanyeol who sits not far from him in the class. The tall guy looks so drowsy in the morning, answering every are you okay? with morning practice is hell, but he smiles and thanks his friends when they wish him good luck.
He wonders if Jongin is doing well.
It amazes him that when the last bell rings, Chanyeol is fast to gather his things into his bag and sprinted out of the class. He stays in the class to watch him half running to the field, greeting the others with a wide grin. He stays in the class longer to watch Jongin tying the laces of his spikes on the bench while talking to Sehun. He squints to see strands of bangs slipping through the space between his forehead and his helmet, realizing it’s been redyed to keep the color fresh.
He remembers telling Jongin soft cherry would look good on you when Jongin wanted to dye his hair a few weeks after entering the football team. And he’s silently glad that Jongin still keeps his hair that way.
He chooses to no longer stay, because he doesn’t belong to any clubs and the rest of today has to be spent studying.
When he walks out of the classroom, Sunyoung is walking to his direction while drying her hands with a handkerchief. She smiles at him, fastening her pace a bit. “Going to the library?”
“Wanna come?” Kyungsoo asks, even though he already knows her answer. Studying together for a week after summer classes already got them comfortable with each other, so Kyungsoo smiles when Sunyoung nods at him.
Kyungsoo used to be afraid that Sunyoung would somehow get too comfortable with him, but he didn’t know the girl understood the limit. There was a time when Kyungsoo tried to keep the distance between them safe, but girls are girls, and Sunyoung only smiled at this. She pointed at the field outside, ‘you know that football manager over there? Lee Jinki? I’m dating him now.’ That was enough to convince Kyungsoo that they are going to be friends only.
It’s almost a week since school’s started, and Kyungsoo only gets to see Jongin on the first day. Kyungsoo is one of the students who arrive the earliest, but the football team’s morning practice starts earlier and he can only watch as Jongin runs past the linemen to practice his cut steps.
When he studied in the library with Sunyoung, the girl asked him to sit by the window so she could watch Jinki monitoring the jocks. Kyungsoo obliges right away because that way he can see Jongin, too. He doesn’t stare at the field as long as Sunyoung, though. Kyungsoo has always had a good concentration as long as Jongin isn’t near him, so he focuses himself on the book he’s reading.
A day before Fall Games, Kyungsoo and Sunyoung have a lot of homework and the girl insists that Kyungsoo teach her. They stay in the library longer than yesterday, until the sky is an expanse of darkness and Kyungsoo can see the moon from where he’s sitting at.
“Kyungsoo-ya, do you want something to drink?” Sunyoung asks after they’ve finished all of their assignments, her tone is bright since she doesn’t have to spend more hours at home on homework. Kyungsoo closes his book, he doesn’t look at her.
“Orange juice,” he answers quietly and Sunyoung stands up, taking short but quick strides to exit the library. It’s a usual thing for Sunyoung to buy drinks for Kyungsoo, since Kyungsoo always teaches her and she thinks this is the least she could do to pay him back.
When she’s back from the vending machine, though, Kyungsoo’s head is facing the window. He doesn’t do that when Sunyoung’s around, so she giggles quietly while walking back to her seat.
“You like that jock, don’t you?” Sunyoung asks with a teasing tone, hand placing Kyungsoo’s juice in front of him. The male has his face on his palm, propped by his elbow. He only glances at her, rolling his eyes.
“What jock,” Kyungsoo snorts, hands taking his juice closer to him.
“That guy number 88 over there. Kim Jongin, isn’t it? You’re totally into him,” Sunyoung continues as if Kyungsoo liking a guy isn’t one of the weirdest thing there.
“What kind of nonsense are you talking about,” Kyungsoo shoots back, he groans a bit as he pulls the ring on the lid to open it. When it’s opened, Sunyoung knocks her knuckles on the surface of the table to get his attention. When she does, she smiles a bit mischievously to him.
“You know, I don’t see boys stare at each other like that,” she says with a voice just above a whisper. Clearly she enjoys teasing Kyungsoo. He furrows at how Sunyoung said each other because he thinks he’s the only one who looks at Jongin that way. Seeing the way he doubts her words, Sunyoung only rolls her eyes. “I’m not usually dramatic but let me picture it for you. Let’s say this Jongin guy is an astronomy nerd and he’s been admiring this really bright star in the sky. One day that star falls in front of him. And that star is you. He looks at you like that.”
Kyungsoo is totally uninterested about how Sunyoung is taking this having-a-crush thing to a different level, and he isn’t even sure if he wants to know how she knows that Jongin looks at him in a certain way. He brings his juice can to his mouth. “Please speak in a language that I understand.”
“Oh come on! You guys like each other! Aren’t you guys best friends? Tell him how you feel, he’d be overly excited about it. He’d be really happy!” Sunyoung is close to whining now, and he doesn’t understand why she’s that excited about how he feels about Jongin. But it’s actually a relief that Sunyoung isn’t a homophobic girl and doesn’t mind Kyungsoo’s sexuality.
“More like, disgusted.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Sunyoung-ah.”
“Kyungsoo-ya, I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Sunyoung pouts and she shuts herself because Kyungsoo is still a boy and boys don’t talk about these kind of things this way. She fiddles with her own drink, but then she sees Kyungsoo already looking outside the window again. A smile blooms on her face, realizing that Kyungsoo didn’t deny that he does like Jongin.
--
The next day, when Jongin arrives at the school’s gate, he finds Kyungsoo already standing there, leaning on the wall. He quickly approaches him, face confused because he didn’t expect Kyungsoo to come to school on the weekend.
“What are you doing here, Hyung?” he asks instead of greeting him, but Kyungsoo doesn’t really care. He takes out a small paper bag from his pocket and hands it to Jongin who receives it with furrowed eyebrows. “What is this?”
“Present. A good luck charm.”
“Wow, thanks. You’re really nice, Hyung,” Jongin says with his wide smile and Kyungsoo smiles back because even though the younger doesn’t know what it is, he likes it already. “Wait, you came here just to give this to me?”
“Yeah, I have nothing to do, anyway.” Kyungsoo shrugs and stands upright, hand shoving a weak punch to Jongin’s stomach. “I’m going home, then. Good luck with the game, running back.”
Jongin watches as Kyungsoo walks away, feeling all warm and fuzzy inside because Kyungsoo came here just to give him a present. He enters the school and goes to where his friends are waiting, fingers opening the paper bag.
“Morning, Kimjong,” greets Sehun when he sees Jongin coming his way.
“Morning, Sehun-ah,” Jongin greets back while pulling a band from the paper bag. It looks like a wrist band, but it’s bigger. “What is this?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never seen an elbow band before.”
“No?”
Sehun sighs, patting his own elbow. “You wear it here.”
“What’s this for? So that I look cool?”
“No, idiot. It’s to help relief the pain in your arm. I suggest you to wear it around your right elbow. You usually complain about hand cramps from carrying the ball around, right.” Jongin nods in understanding, but then he stops nodding and smiles. He’s touched that even though he hasn’t met with Kyungsoo this past week, the latter understands what he needs. His smile grows wider and weirder and Sehun snorts at him.
--
The first game, as expected by the whole school, went well. The freshmen players became their strong point, especially the combo running backs. Their first opponent wasn’t a strong team, so they didn’t struggle a lot to win and Yifan didn’t have to take out his hidden cards. Since it’s a national game, the match was broadcasted on TV and when the jocks arrive at school for the morning practice, a lot of students come to the field to watch them.
Kyungsoo isn’t really surprised by the sudden mob at the side field, but they are a lot taller than him so he can’t see Jongin because the view gets blocked. Even though he gets annoyed by this, he knows that he’s really proud of Jongin. He watched the broadcast and he really did a good job. He almost threw the remote when he noticed that Jongin wore the elbow band he gave him.
They barely meet now, and even though Kyungsoo misses him, sending him a KakaoTalk message isn’t really an option. He remembers when Jongin woke up late because they had a pretty long chat the night before. Now that Jongin is not only busy with school but also football games and practices, sending him a text would distract him a lot.
They meet often in corridors on the first floor, since Kyungsoo goes to teacher’s room a lot and the classrooms of the first grade are also on the first floor. Jongin doesn’t go out of his class unless it’s lunch break or he needs the toilet, so when Kyungsoo walks past the younger’s class, he doesn’t need to look inside to know that Jongin is sleeping on his desk.
But when they finally face each other, neither of them talk. Kyungsoo would just raise his eyebrows once at Jongin who returns it with a big grin. He’d pat his palm on Jongin, usually on his stomach, while walking past him and not saying anything.
It’s not really a problem for them, because they’ve gone through a lot together. There are things that connect them without words said; a smile, a drop of tears, a little frown, a slight limp on Jongin’s leg or a crease between Kyungsoo’s eyebrows. When Kyungsoo sees a bruise on Jongin’s arm, he knows the younger hit something blunt while practicing bump with Sehun. When Kyungsoo looks drowsy, Jongin knows that he’s spent a night watching anime.
The distance between them is getting farther, and Kyungsoo can only hope that their hearts aren’t.
--
The air gets a lot less hot and Kyungsoo was so glad when the school announced that the students could start using their fall uniform. He’s always comfortable with long sleeves since he doesn’t like exposing too much skin.
Jongin texted him last night, saying that Yifan decided to cut them some slack and the morning practice will start 30 minutes later than usual. He’s glad that they can walk to school together again
When he arrives at the station, he sees Jongin being cornered by those familiar three girls, and he snorts almost immediately. He hasn’t seen those three annoying girls for a while, and he didn’t expect them to swarm around Jongin when the jock was clearly waiting for him.
Kyungsoo walks closer and clears his throat a bit loudly to get their attention. The expression Jongin has on his face is nothing short of a huge wash of relief as he mouths to the elder, save me. But the girls, as usual, don’t like the presence of Kyungsoo when they’re with Jongin.
“What are you doing here, Ahjussi?” Hyeri mocks with her chin tilted up arrogantly, her hands on her hips. Kyungsoo can’t tell how thankful he is because Sunyoung is a lot calmer, a lot less annoying and a lot less like them.
“No, what are you doing here? Jongin and I have to go to school, get out of my way,” he says as if the girls don’t go to the same school, gesturing his hand to shoo them away, but they don’t move. They’re standing in line in front of Jongin, acting like a shield.
“We met him first! Jongin’s going to go to school with us!” Minah yells and the huff Kyungsoo lets out is obviously louder than how he intended it to be.
“Listen, girls, you are in the same year as Jongin, you can meet him later at school,” Kyungsoo raises his voice just a bit, trying not to let irritation soak his tone. Being with these girls drain his energy faster, and he’d like to save that for his classes later.
“Do you even know how hard it is to meet Jongin at school?” Yura asks, arms folded in front of her chest. Kyungsoo’s not interested in girls, has never been, so he only scrunches his nose when he realizes that the tallest girl’s uniform is too tight and it shows the curve of her boobs. Now that they are a bit squeezed by her arms, that uniform looks so uncomfortable to see.
“I do, actually. I don’t meet him at school, either. Now go, Jongin has morning practice.”
“I told you, he’s going with us.”
Jongin is helpless because if they keep this up, he’s going to be here forever and Yifan would probably consider to kick him on the balls later. But one thing he forgets if that Kyungsoo has been really good when it comes to handling these girls, so he blinks when the eldest of them all takes out his phone and taps on the screen a few times.
“Jongin sent me a voice message last night,” Kyungsoo says, opening their KaTalk chat. He presses the button on the side of his phone to make the volume higher. A final tap on his screen and a voice comes out of the speaker, ‘I’ll see you in front of the station tomorrow, Hyung! Good night~’
The jock knows that his face is already dead red because he didn’t know he actually sounds like that. He’s about to say something to defend himself like I’m five years ahead of puberty but Kyungsoo points at the girls using his phone, clearly not wanting to hear anything.
Kyungsoo always feels that whatever they’re arguing about is really not worth his time, but he really needs to make sure that they can’t think of proper words to reply to him with. He needs them to be defeated only by pointing out that he is right and they are wrong.
“You hear that? Jongin was waiting for me so move the hell out of there and go to school on your own.”
A forceful grab on the wrist later, Jongin is dragged by the older male to the school. Everytime Jongin looks over his shoulder to see the girls, Kyungsoo would yank his arm. He’s super angry now and Jongin doesn’t dare to open his mouth. Kyungsoo only lets go when they’re already at the field, practically throwing Jongin’s arm from his hand.
“Sorry I kind of blew up there. I don’t like them,” Kyungsoo sighs, all the while trying to keep his breath steady.
“It’s okay, it’s not like I like them, either. But, I mean... I have sisters so I can’t really be... as harsh to girls. If you know what I mean,” Jongin reasons, and Kyungsoo just shrugs at it. Jongin doesn’t even yell at them to go, he always tries to ask them to go kindly, slowly, patiently. Kyungsoo doesn’t have any of it.
Kyungsoo slides his hand on the strap on his shoulder, looking at the field where some players have changed and are doing stretching. “I guess I’ll go? You have to practice.”
Noticing that they are already inside the school, Jongin looks a bit surprised. But he nods, waving his hand in a hesitant way at his bestfriend. “Yeah. See you around, Hyung.”
The older male doesn’t reply because he doesn’t get to, Jongin already turning his back at him and running to the football team’s locker room to change. As Kyungsoo makes his way to the school’s building, he keeps cursing at himself for acting like a clingy friend earlier. This is stupid, because even though his feelings for Jongin have grown much too big for his liking, he’s never really shown it before.
The feelings seem to solidify in his chest, making his heart falls to his stomach and it really is uncomfortable. He tries to ignore it, the squeezing that slowly turns to pain. It won’t hurt that much again one day, he’ll get used to it.
He doesn’t really think of confessing it to him, anyway.
--
When Kyungsoo was a child, he used to spend some time in front of the mirror before going to school. He would practice on how to smile, trying to figure out how wide his lips had to be spread until his smile looked the most natural. Sometimes he parted his lips, revealing his teeth and a bit of his gums. Your mouth is heart shaped, Jongin had said, it’s really cute.
He tried to find what kind of smile that would convince Jongin and himself that he was okay. A smile that would make everything fine after a long, tiring day. A smile that was a contrast with his mother’s cries or the bullies’ mean laughter. A smile that was a white curve of lips on a black page.
He remembers the day he moved out, his dad wasn’t home and his mom was on the verge of tears. He remembers the old woman’s hug, how tight and warm it was. The hug was able to shake his mind a bit, he almost changed his decision, almost threw his bag back into his room.
But behind his mother’s shoulder, he saw the living room. It looked old, it was a living room that didn’t bring a feel of a living room. The memory this room brought pained him a bit. The walls and the floor were the witnesses of a married couple throwing curses, of his brother letting out cracked screams, of him sobbing until he fell asleep.
The hug was something Kyungsoo’d been craving for his whole life, it was a body wrapped by two weak arms telling don’t go in silence, but Kyungsoo knew himself more than anyone else. He’d had enough of this.
That was also the day his trained smile fell into pieces in the place he’d rather not set foot in ever again. The mornings he’d spent smiling alone in front of the mirror gone to waste, his smile was broken by the love and longing of a mother’s hug.
He started high school without a smile, quickly earning a label as the not-friendly-dude. But then his teacher told him to teach his classmates, and before he realized it, he remembered his friends’ names already. He might be not friendly due to minimum experience of socializing, but he wasn’t rude and knew how to appreciate people. It didn’t take long for him to actually be a part of his class, and he was thankful for that.
The second spring in high school came, and Kyungsoo’s eyes almost rolled out of their sockets when he saw Jongin in the same uniform as him. He didn’t know that Jongin was going to study here, and meeting him wasn’t really in his plan. He’d told Jongin before he moved out, and they didn’t contact each other for a year because Kyungsoo didn’t have a phone then. But the shocked, genuine smile on Jongin’s face made him see chances of patching holes in their friendship and exchanged whispers through ears and a strong arm around his shoulders.
Maybe this is it, Kyungso thought that time. Maybe Jongin and I weren’t meant to be separated.
Kyungsoo was sure with his own words only for a few months, because spring rolled away and Jongin was busy preparing for Fall Games. Now he can only see him behind the window of the library, hand pressing to the glass, wanting to reach out for Jongin. But he knows it’s not the glass or the building that separate them. It’s their life goals, their dreams, their future.
Kyungsoo doesn’t really bother to put his smile back on his face, not even when Jongin can see him.
“Heeey, Mr. Do?”
Rolling his eyes is Kyungsoo’s immediate reaction, but he looks at Sunyoung, anyway. He glances at her book, blinking when he sees it’s still half empty and sighs. “Call me again when you’re done with the questions.”
“The love in your eyes is making the air hot, you know? It’s almost fall, don’t heat things up,” Sunyoung protests as she fans herself. Kyungsoo sags in his seat, his gaze telling her that he doesn’t understand what she’s talking about. “What? It’s not my fault you keep looking at Kim Jongin.”
Kyungsoo groans. “Can you stop talking about him? Just focus on answering the questions!”
“Why don’t you like it when I talk about someone you have a crush on?” Sunyoung asks with a pure curiosity in her tone. Kyungsoo still feels uncomfortable talking about this with a girl, but Sunyoung is the only girl out there that has the most of his trust.
“You don’t think it’s weird?” Kyungsoo starts with hesitation hanging on the corners of his voice.
“What is weird?”
Kyungsoo’s tongue struggles to curl around the words of his real question. He can’t back away after this. “Um, me? A guy, liking another guy? You don’t think it’s weird?”
“Have you been worrying about it??” Sunyoung’s voice raises, she sounds incredulous. She presses her lips together, knowing that this is quite a sensitive topic. She doesn’t want to say wrong things. “I’m sorry, I know this isn’t easy for you, considering that gay couples aren’t a usual thing to see here...”
“Exactly. I was surprised when you didn’t question it at all. I mean, gay couple sounds so wrong and-”
“Love is never wrong, Kyungsoo,” Sunyoung interrupts, a sigh following her last word. “We’re humans, love is something we got the moment we were born and we keep on carrying it until the day we die. Humans fall in love with each other whatever the gender is. It is not in any way wrong.”
Kyungsoo balls his fists, trying not to get coaxed by the sweet words. People always talk about love and how beautiful it is, but life is always harsh on him. He knows so is love. “But, I just-like you said, it’s not easy for me. I don’t even know if Jongin’s into boys.”
Sunyoung can’t answer, and Kyungsoo can’t blame her. It’s not even her problem, but she’s kind enough to let Kyungsoo share it with her. Kyungsoo looks at the field through the window, smiling a bit when he sees Jongin laying flat on his back behind the bench. Sunyoung sees this, the sincerity in his smile. Not all people can smile like that just by looking at a certain person.
“You know,” Sunyoung starts quietly. She refuses to look at Kyungsoo, eyes fixed on her fingers on the table. “Just in case... you want to give up on Jongin because of reasons... at least tell him, okay? I’m not a love counsellor of some sort, but at least you won’t regret it...”
Seeing the look on Kyungsoo’s face, Sunyoung gets panicked immediately. “But-but I strongly discourage you from giving up! I saw you walking together with Jongin a few times... and you two would definitely make a cute couple. I’m cheering on you. Hehe.”
The ‘hehe’ at the end of her sentence crumbles down the uneasiness in Kyungsoo’s chest and he laughs. It’s the first time Sunyoung sees Kyungsoo laugh like that-no sound of laughter, but that heart-shaped grin is the widest she’s ever seen from Kyungsoo. His shoulder is shaking and his eyes disappearing into crescents, which means he thinks that it’s really funny.
“Thank you, Sunyoung-ah.”
( part 3 )
❊ title: my whole universe (is you)
Kyungsoo stares from the school’s gate, feet fixated on the ground. He’d arrived 5 minutes ago, but not even once has he moved from his place. The football team is already practicing diligently in the field, faces sweaty and uniforms dirty. He flinches a bit when the quarterback, Yifan, screams the pass route to Chanyeol. His eyes follow the ball which is thrown to the opposite end of the field and watches in awe as Chanyeol runs with all his might to catch it.
Player number 88 enters the field and Kyungsoo’s completely distracted. Jongin looks really good in his uniform, the shoulder pads making him looks so manly. He talks to Yifan, his eyes filled with seriousness that Kyungsoo doesn’t see often. Jongin and the rest of the team are so determined to win, especially because this year’s the last chance for sophomore players. Students aren’t allowed to join any kind of club activities once they’re in the last year, so they have to give their all to do their best in this year’s Fall Games.
“Isn’t that Kyungsoo?”
Kyungsoo turns around at the familiar voice to find Hyunsik, his classmate, walking at him. The older boy grins at him before walking to him.
“I knew you’d signed up for the summer class!” Hyunsik lifts his hand and Kyungsoo highfives him, a little small on his face. “Why aren’t you coming inside?”
“Nothing. Let’s go.”
Kyungsoo’d decided that he’d spend the first week of summer break with summer classes at school. He doesn’t tell Jongin, of course, because he thinks Jongin won’t be able to focus with him hanging around. He doesn’t want Jongin to spend extra energy just to meet him, because the practice will be literally all day. He’d rather watch and support Jongin in silence.
The summer class is originally for students who have lower grades, and actually Kyungsoo doesn’t need to attend any of the classes. But he doesn’t really have anything to do and he needs a reason to not go to his parents’ house in Gyeonggi. He wants to stay with Jongin longer.
The class ends early, so the lunch break is skipped so they can go home earlier. When the teacher ends his class, Kyungsoo doesn’t move from his seat. He only watches as his friends walk out of the class one by one. A part of his heart tells him to go home too so he can walk past the field to see Jongin, but he’s not going to do that.
I’ll just continue studying in the library, he thinks while lifting his bag and walks out of the class. He’s halfway to the library when someone calls his name, so he stops in his tracks to see who it is.
“Kyungsoo-ya,” the girl repeats as she stops beside Kyungsoo. It’s Sunyoung, the only girl in his class who talks a lot to Kyungsoo compared to another girl in their class. She’s panting because she just ran from the end of the hall when she saw Kyungsoo, but the male doesn’t say anything. “I just... you’re going to the library, right?”
Kyungsoo stares at the stairs leading to the next floor where the library is, then nods at Sunyoung. “Yeah. Wanna come?”
“Um, actually I want you to teach me English... I didn’t understand anything in the class today. That is, if you don’t mind...” Sunyoung’s voice is quiet and timid, a bit hesitant because usually she is with other classmates when they want Kyungsoo to teach them. She lifts her head to see Kyungsoo smiling at her, he gestures at the stairs with his chin and she sighs in relief.
They sit across from each other in the library, and Kyungsoo has to grimace at how cold his sides are. It’s summer, he shouldn’t feel cold, but he does. If Jongin were here, the younger would sit beside him and move his chair closer to Kyungsoo. His skin still remembers how it feels to have Jongin’s brushes occasionally, and to have nothing beside him makes him feels lonely.
He doubts other people’s presence beside him would be the same, though.
Sometimes he hates himself for being too attached to Jongin, because it makes him seem clingy. He knows the younger doesn’t mind, he never does. Maybe they’re only meant to be like this, to be Kyungsoo and Jongin and nothing more. He wonders if one day Jongin will get a girlfriend and he can’t reach out to Jongin anymore.
The thought bothers him, so he shakes his head, making his glasses slide down his nose a bit. Sunyoung looks up from her book as Kyungsoo fixes his glasses.
“Is everything okay?” she asks, even though she’s been sensing that Kyungsoo was never really okay.
“I... yeah, I mean, why not.” Kyungsoo knows his answer isn’t convincing enough, but he’s glad that Sunyoung doesn’t question it further. He sees Sunyoung put down her pen, indicating that she’s answered all the questions Kyungsoo’d told her to do. “You done? Lemme see.”
Kyungsoo straightens up his back and slides Sunyoung’s book closer to him. Eyes scanning the answers, he circles two numbers in front of the questions and Sunyoung gapes at that. The girl blinks in confusion at Kyungsoo. “I got two answers wrong?”
“You got two answers right,” corrects Kyungsoo as he returns her book. The change from excited to crestfallen on her face is immediate, and Kyungsoo only sighs at that. Then he sees the opportunity so he takes a deep breath. He knows he can do this. “You look like you need help for English. Want me to tutor you?”
The offer like this is rare and Sunyoung knows how good Kyungsoo is in English, so she eagerly nods her head. “You want to do it for me? Of course I want you to!”
Maybe hanging out with someone other than Jongin would help him a bit. Sunyoung is a nice girl and they aren’t awkward with each other, everything should be fine. Even without Jongin, he should be fine.
“But it’s not free, you know.” Kyungsoo smirks, a mischievous hint in his voice. Sunyoung chuckles at him.
“Fine, what do you want?”
“There’s this nice Chinese restaurant near the station...”
“Is this your way to ask me out?”
The male realize that this is how people get to dates with their crush, but Kyungsoo doesn’t even think about it that way. He quietly thinks about how all of those times hanging out with Jongin weren’t even considered as dates. It pricks on his heart a bit, but he ignores it. “No way in hell. Not interested in dates.”
Sunyoung laughs, but it doesn’t sound like disappointment and it’s louder than Kyungsoo thought it would be. It means Sunyoung doesn’t feel like she’s just been rejected or something. “You’re really funny, Kyungsoo-ya. But okay, Chinese restaurant it is.”
Kyungsoo points his finger at Sunyoung, gaze straight on her. That finger trembles, just a bit, which he knows won’t be noticed by the girl in front of him. If Jongin can be busy with his friends, I might as well be busy with my friends, too, Kyungsoo thinks. I’ll be okay. “After the last summer class. Deal?”
“Deal.”
--
Jongin’s sister enters his room when Jongin is sitting on his bed, preparing his bag for today’s practice. The male lifts up his face to see his sister standing at his doorway, not moving.
“What is it?” he asks nonchalantly, because none of his sisters like to randomly go to his room. He takes a clean towel, folds it and put it in his bag.
“Just checking up on my little brother, you know? He doesn’t seem good these days.” She shrugs, shoulder leaning on the doorframe. Jongin only rolls his eyes, hands folding a clean t-shirt before shoving it into his bag. He reaches out for his trunks, not bothering to fold it because it’s the last thing he’ll put into his bag and zippers it. He sets his bag onto the floor as his sister walks to him. “You’re going to swim?”
“Yeah. Need to loosen my joints a bit,” he reasons as he leans back, only his head and the upper part of his back get to lean on the wall. His sister joins him on the bed, sitting on a distance that won’t make him uncomfortable. Jongin eyes her suspiciously, and he knows he shouldn’t be looking at her like that. It’s his sister, but he just can’t help it.
“So Kyungsoo’s going with you? I mean, to the swimming pool,” she asks, her hand landing on Jongin’s thigh. She’s just curious, he knows. Before this, he would answer ‘of course’ the next second she lets out her question, but not today. He can’t really bring himself to respond, not with the painful squeeze in his chest.
“No, I... I’m going to. Swim alone. He’s not-he’s not coming. With me,” Jongin answers finally, tongue struggling to finish his sentence. He rubs his thumb with his other thumb where a scratch is still drying there. He only got it yesterday when he was practicing tackle with Sehun, and it should feel hurt, but it doesn’t. He feels like his heart just drops to his stomach, disintegrating little by little. He feels himself reaching out to collect the fragments, but they disappear before he gets to get all of them. It hurts more than having scratch all over his body. With that in mind, he doesn’t really mind getting more scratches.
“Is everything okay? I haven’t heard you on the phone with Kyungsoo lately.”
She’s worried, he knows. His sisters always coo in the background everytime he’s on the phone with Kyungsoo, or when he’s smiling too wide at the KakaoTalk message because it must be from Kyungsoo. They watch how Jongin grows with Kyungsoo by his side, from noisy children with airplane toys to high school buddies, they watch it all.
But two paths, after they cross, they’ll get farther apart. Maybe so will Jongin and Kyungsoo. Maybe one day Jongin will be standing proudly with his team on the field, and Kyungsoo won’t even text him to cheer him on. Maybe Kyungsoo will be studying abroad but Jongin won’t even know about it. It hurts him to think about it, but maybe they’ll drift farther away.
Much, much farther.
Jongin rolls and buries his face on his bed, head shaking flimsily. “I don’t know... I just, don’t know, Noona.”
That morning, Jongin’s refused to be comforted by his sister. He leaves the house 10 minutes later, wobbling to the station. It’s been a while since the train trip to the station nearest to the school isn’t fun anymore. It used to bring smile to Jongin’s lips, because he knows that he’s going to stand in front of the station until Kyungsoo comes and they would walk to school together.
The swimming pool isn’t far from the school, and he might be late for practice if he doesn’t walk faster, but he doesn’t really care now. The pool is empty because it’s still pretty early, but he’s thankful that he gets to swim all he wants. He quickly changes into his trunks and does some lazy stretching before jumping into the water.
He swims back and forth, moving his arms and legs as strong as he could. They’re going to ache during football practice, but he couldn’t care less right now. He could’ve stopped, he could’ve taken a rest, but he doesn’t. The muscles in his legs are about to give up, screaming for him to stop, but Jongin chooses to ignore them. If he stops, he’d drown. He wouldn’t make it to the school later.
Jongin only stops for real when his phone starts ringing endlessly, and he grunts while walking out of the pool, water dripping from his hair. He sits on the seat beside his bag and looks for his phone. When he takes the device, the name Sehun shows up brightly on the screen and he doesn’t hesitate to pick it up.
“Yeah?” he says once the line’s connected, shuddering a bit when the wind blows to his direction. He stares at the poolside, the laughter of Kyungsoo ringing in his head as he recalls the last time they went here last year.
“Where are you, man? Yifan hyung’s gonna kill you if you don’t show up now,” Sehun warns, his voice is nowhere near threatening. He’s known as the student who has a flat expression and tone, but Jongin knows better. Yifan is really scary sometimes.
“Are you guys running already?” he asks, because around this time, the team usually runs for 5km as a warm up. The route isn’t far from the school and Yifan has three alternative routes so that the warm up won’t be boring.
“No, Yifan hyung keeps telling everyone he’ll split your head into two once you get here. You don’t want to wake up the dragon inside him, just come now.”
Jongin stays silent for a while, thumb rubbing on the tips of his fingers because they wrinkle from swimming too long. Even though he thinks he’s done with the swimming, he doesn’t feel like running. He doesn’t feel like going. “Just, go without me? I’m in the swimming pool right now, I’ll consider this as my warm up. Tell Yifan hyung, please?”
Sehun groans from the other line, and Jongin can almost see him rubbing his temple. “Fine. But you have to be here when we get back from running, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Later, man.”
“Yeah.”
He waits until the younger disconnects the line before throwing his phone into his bag. A sigh escapes his lips, and he hangs his head lifelessly. It feels so different, coming here without Kyungsoo. Last summer, they went here a few times and Kyungsoo always brought different kinds of mouth-watering food with him. He remembers when they were stretching and Kyungsoo kicked him until he fell down into the water. He yelled at Kyungsoo, half chuckling because the elder’s loud laughter wasn’t something he got to hear often.
He remembers how Kyungsoo kept complaining because he couldn’t see anything without his glasses, or how they challenged to hold their breath under water, only to have Kyungsoo holding Jongin’s head in the water because the elder lost the game.
He remembers everything, and he’s sad that he can’t do them all over again.
“I miss you,” he whispers faintly. No name is needed to be mentioned, because his heart already knows who it is.
--
“Kim Jongin, what the hell is wrong with you?!” Yifan yells as he throws his helmet to the ground. Jongin lowers his head, knowing that he’ll face two sharp eyes burning with rage if he ever lifted his head. The quarterback sighs tiredly, not being able to contain his anger anymore. When Jongin joined the team, everyone knew Yifan was the happiest one. He can’t let this kid screw up. “Let me repeat this one more time; I’ve discussed a lot of strategies where they include you and Chanyeol as the strong point. You should realize I rely on you a lot, Jongin-ah. Don’t fuck up! How hard is that? You were okay before summer break! What’s wrong? You want to stay in your house, lazing around??”
“No, Sir,” Jongin answers almost immediately, feeling sad because he’s disappointed the quarterback. Yifan may not be the Ace, but he’s the Captain, he’s the brain of the group. He’s where the jocks turn their heads to when they have a problem. Making him disappointed means wasting Yifan’s trust in them. “I’m really sorry.”
Yifan steps closer, and it’s a move that tells Jongin to lift his head, so he does. The quarterback’s eyes have softened, and his expression isn’t as hard as before. Jongin jolts a bit when Yifan puts a finger on his jaw, causing him to crane his neck more. This guy is so intimidatingly tall. “We still have 4 weeks until Fall Games, so you’d better get your shit together.”
“Understood,” says Jongin with a confident voice. Yifan believes him enough to pair him with Chanyeol in his strategies. He should really focus on his practice and not Kyung-
Jongin shakes his head. He should focus on his practice and not anything else. He lifts his helmet in front of his chest before wearing it. Minho, the lineman,hits the back of his head playfully.
“Everything’s fine, dude?” he laughs when Jongin tries to kick him. “I mean, Yifan doesn’t usually scold his teammates like that. I think he really likes you.”
“Shut up,” Jongin groans, still feeling bad because he’s not doing his best today.
Minho pats Jongin’s back, a proud smile on his face. “Don’t mess up, buddy. You know how important you are to the team.”
“Thank you for stating the obvious.”
“Oohh, you got pride!”
“Of course I do. Now stop talking before I mess up again.”
Yifan calls all the jocks to gather in the middle of the field to start discussing formations. He’s tall and his voice is loud, it’s not hard to get everyone’s attention. He and the club’s manager, Jinki, have studied the teams that will be their opponents based on last year’s Fall Games and this year’s Spring Games. Every team has their own strength and weakness, and that’s why Yifan has to come up with many strategies.
The quarterback emphasizes that run and pass will be used a lot in their strategies, so he tells Chanyeol, Jongin and Sehun to keep their body healthy because this will be a tiring year for them. Their team’s running back last year was a senior and he’s no longer on the team, so Yifan has to count on the running backs, especially Jongin, a lot.
Yifan rakes his blonde hair off of his forehead, wiping the sweat off of the skin. “Okay, further discussion will be continued tomorrow. For today, this is all I can tell you. You have worked hard for a week, and tomorrow we will be leaving for our training camp, so today’s practice will end in the afternoon. Let’s play for another 30 minutes and after that I’ll dismiss. Got it?”
The answer comes together, “Yes!”
“Good. Now stand up and get to your position.”
The rest of the players stand up, wearing their gloves and helmets. Some tighten their shoelaces, and some run to the bench to get water. Jongin looks around to see where Sehun is, because his position is right behind the latter. Once he spots him, he jogs to the taller boy.
“How are you, soon-to-be Ace?” Sehun teases when Jongin’s stood behind him, earning a chuckle from the elder.
Jongin parts his leg while fastening his chin strap, he’s rolling his eyes at Sehun. “We’re both running backs, don’t say that.”
“You know you’re faster than me.” The younger shrugs before stuffing the mouth guard into his mouth. He turns around and Jongin blinks as the number 94 on Sehun’s wide back faces him.
When Jongin looks at Yifan, he’s still talking to the linemen, so Jongin slumps his shoulders down. He kicks the grass with the tips of his spikes while cracking his knuckles. There are voices from behind him, and when he looks over his shoulder, he sees students with uniforms walking out of the building. He immediately recognizes them as the students who take summer classes. They look happy, because this is the last day of summer class.
He bores his gaze at them, scanning their faces. Most of them are boys, laughing and joking with their friends. Jongin almost turns his head back to the field when he sees someone familiar walking with a girl.
It’s Kyungsoo, a smile on his face. There’s a girl beside him who seems to be telling him some funny story because his smile gets wider and Jongin can faintly hear his laughter. Jongin’s concentration breaks down as he watches as Kyungsoo walks closer to the gate with the girl.
Kyungsoo has friends, but he’s never walked alone with a girl before...
Jongin furrows his brows, realizing that he doesn’t know Kyungsoo’s sexual orientation. Kyungsoo’s never dated before, so Jongin never questions it. He feels disappointment grows bigger in his chest when he thinks that Kyungsoo might be straight. If he’s straight, I don’t have a chance to-
“Kimjong! Set hut!” Sehun reminds him because everyone in front of him is already in their position. Jongin quickly snaps his head at his friend, parting his legs and bending his body. The running back tries to gather his focus as Minseok, the center, snaps the ball to Yifan.
Sehun runs to the right side and Jongin follows, but he doesn’t even know which strategy they’re playing and he’s nowhere near ready when Zitao, one of the linemen appears to block him. He’s too late to stop and ends up get tackled to the ground. His eyes widen when Yifan indignantly walks to them.
“Kim fucking Jongin! What did I tell you?!”
Oh shit.
--
“Hey man, you okay?” Sehun asks when the field’s safe for the running backs, shuffling to where Jongin’s sitting with his things. The elder only groans, clearly not wanting to talk about it. He got yelled by Yifan a lot today, and he’s totally not proud of it. Sehun has a pretty good hunch, though, so Jongin’s surprised by the next question. “Is it because of the glasses guy?”
“What glasses guy,” Jongin clicks his tongue in annoyance. Everyone knows the glasses guy when it comes to Jongin. It’s always Do Kyungsoo. But Jongin doesn’t really want to keep being reminded that the elder isn’t here with him. He’s with some girl he’s never seen before, a girl who could make him smile like no girl could. It’s a first time, and Jongin’s still surprised.
“You’ve had your head in the clouds since this morning, you know. Just...” Sehun pats Jongin’s back, trying to say that everything’s going to be okay, but he’s not good with words. In the end he chooses to stand up, thinking that Jongin might need some time to be alone. “You know my Kakao ID if you need someone to talk to.”
I’m so stupid, Jongin thinks bitterly, my best friend left me and now I’m letting my teammate do the same.
The older male reaches out to grab Sehun’s wrist, making him stop to look at him. He knows that he needs to make a decision, not caring how selfish it is. The only clear image in his head is Kyungsoo’s face, bright and calming, but he won’t let that stop him.
“Let’s go get ice cream,” he says even though he knows he should be doing this with Kyungsoo. The younger looks at him with a stern gaze, already noticing that Jongin actually doesn’t want to do this. But he’s his friend and teammate, and Sehun knows how messed up Jongin is today. If he needs some mental support, he won’t hesitate to give it to him.
It’s not fifteen minutes later that the two running backs are already lining for the ice cream. Sehun’s never been here before, and he’s surprised that he doesn’t know such a popular ice cream shop exists. He’s a Seoul Boy, he should’ve known.
While Sehun is busy looking around, mostly staring at the various types of ice cream people are eating, Jongin stays silent beside him. If he were lining with Kyungsoo, the elder would talk a lot about what kind of ice cream he’s bought here before, or how the fruit punch flavored one doesn’t taste that good. If Kyungsoo were here, Jongin would be smiling from ear to hear, enjoying how Kyungsoo unleashes all the words he didn’t get to say at school.
“Oh? They have a limited edition summer ice cream?” Sehun asks while staring at the picture hanging brightly on the wall. It gets Jongin to lower his head, regretting how he’s supposed to eat that ice cream with Kyungsoo. It’s an annual thing for them to get this ice cream because it’s only served during summer, and both of them like it a lot. “It’s watermelon flavored!! Wow, this shop is amazing. How come I’ve never heard about it?”
They’re now in front of the cashier, and Jongin lets Sehun orders the summer ice cream for them. He tries hard not to think how careful Kyungsoo’s finger would be around the ice cream cup. The memory makes him feel warm and hurt at the same time, like blood dripping from a fresh cut. They walk out from the shop, Sehun already eating his ice cream.
“Dude,” Jongin calls, handing Sehun some bills but the younger shakes his head.
“It’s on me.”
“But-”
“Next time we hang out together you can treat me, man.”
Jongin sighs, shoving his money into his shirt pocket. “Alright.”
“I don’t know if I’m in the place to say this,” Sehun says suddenly, pointing Jongin with his spoon full of ice cream. His expression is near to flat, and Jongin tries hard to read his eyes. “If you have problems with that glasses guy, face them. Face him. Don’t let him ruin your performance on the team, and don’t let yourself ruin your relationship with him. I can’t help you, so. Yeah. I’m leaving.”
Sehun waves nonchalantly at Jongin before walking away, leaving the elder alone. He suddenly remembers that tomorrow he has to arrive at school before 8 for their training camp in Bucheon. The grasp of his fingers around the ice cream cup get tighter, squeezing it a bit. He somehow doesn’t have it in him to call Kyungsoo, asking him if he’ll help him pack.
Isn’t that what my sisters are for, he thinks while shrugging. He pokes the ice cream with the spoon, bringing it into his mouth and ignores the bitter taste in his throat that makes the ice less sweet.
--
Hours of practice, several aching muscles, some drying cuts, and nights of missing Kyungsoo-Jongin has gone through them all. Today is already the first day of school after summer break, and he’s thankful that the heat has abated. He’s standing in front of the station as usual, waiting for Kyungsoo. They ended up not talking at all during summer break, but it’s not like he could have his phone in his hands all day. Practice always took the whole day to finish and when it was done he didn’t want to do anything but sleep.
It’s around five minutes later Kyungsoo appears while typing on his phone, and Jongin immediately pushes himself off of the wall he’s been leaning on. He stops himself from taking the first step because he notices that Kyungsoo’s hair is different now. His bangs are shorter and his hair is light brown now. His new hair makes him look fresh and young, but what Jongin doesn’t understand is that Kyungsoo went to the hair salon without him.
He’s quick to shake his head at his own thought because I went swimming alone and ate the summer ice cream with Sehun, we’re even.
“Hyung!” he decides to call Kyungsoo loudly in the end, trying to defeat the negatives thought in his head. Kyungsoo immediately looks up from his phone and smiles, hand tucking the device back to his pocket. Jongin smiles back. He missed him so much. “You dyed your hair.”
“Uh, yeah... my hyung forced me to,” Kyungsoo shrugs and Jongin chuckles at him. If it was Seungsoo, he can’t really complain. The younger puts an arm around Kyungsoo’s shoulder, hoping he won’t stiffen at the contact. It’s been more than a month since they met, since they talked, since they touched. But Kyungsoo, out of habit shifts closer to Jongin, leaning a bit of his head on Jongin’s arm. Jongin presses his lips together, trying hard not to hug him tight right then and there. Kyungsoo looks up at him. “How was the training camp?”
“It was fun, really. Without the excessive hours of training, it would’ve been really fun,” Jongin grunts, and Kyungsoo chuckles, turning his gaze back to the street. “Sorry I didn’t call you. I really didn’t have free time.”
“Nah, I know you were busy. Wouldn’t want to bother you.”
Jongin isn’t sure if that is really the reason why Kyungsoo didn’t even text him the whole summer break, but he’s not going to make a fuss out of it. “Did you go to your parents’ house?”
“Yeah. I stayed in my room to do summer assignments most of the time, and Seungsoo hyung dropped by a lot to kidnap me and take me to places so there isn’t a lot to tell, actually.” Kyungsoo shakes his head lightly, but Jongin knows he’s just isn’t that fond of his own house. They arrive at the school gate, and Jongin is disappointed because they have to part again.
“My first match will be this weekend,” Jongin says, arm still around Kyungsoo’s shoulder, the tip of his thumb brushing the elder’s cheek. “I’ll be super busy, so we can’t go home together. Yifan hyung really likes to lock us in the locker room to discuss strategies and such.”
“It’s okay, we still can go to school together like this.”
“But I’ll also have early morning practices, so we can’t always meet.”
“Okay, Mr. Sportsman.”
The way Kyungsoo rolls his eyes tells Jongin that the elder doesn’t mind it, so Jongin lets go of him, waving at him as they part inside the building. He knows this isn’t enough, the minutes they have for each other aren’t enough. But he’s thankful that at least Kyungsoo was with him, that he needed only a reach of an arm to pull him closer to him.
He still misses Kyungsoo.
And he doesn’t say it out loud.
--
Kyungsoo knows how tired the jocks are, he only needs to spare a glance at Chanyeol who sits not far from him in the class. The tall guy looks so drowsy in the morning, answering every are you okay? with morning practice is hell, but he smiles and thanks his friends when they wish him good luck.
He wonders if Jongin is doing well.
It amazes him that when the last bell rings, Chanyeol is fast to gather his things into his bag and sprinted out of the class. He stays in the class to watch him half running to the field, greeting the others with a wide grin. He stays in the class longer to watch Jongin tying the laces of his spikes on the bench while talking to Sehun. He squints to see strands of bangs slipping through the space between his forehead and his helmet, realizing it’s been redyed to keep the color fresh.
He remembers telling Jongin soft cherry would look good on you when Jongin wanted to dye his hair a few weeks after entering the football team. And he’s silently glad that Jongin still keeps his hair that way.
He chooses to no longer stay, because he doesn’t belong to any clubs and the rest of today has to be spent studying.
When he walks out of the classroom, Sunyoung is walking to his direction while drying her hands with a handkerchief. She smiles at him, fastening her pace a bit. “Going to the library?”
“Wanna come?” Kyungsoo asks, even though he already knows her answer. Studying together for a week after summer classes already got them comfortable with each other, so Kyungsoo smiles when Sunyoung nods at him.
Kyungsoo used to be afraid that Sunyoung would somehow get too comfortable with him, but he didn’t know the girl understood the limit. There was a time when Kyungsoo tried to keep the distance between them safe, but girls are girls, and Sunyoung only smiled at this. She pointed at the field outside, ‘you know that football manager over there? Lee Jinki? I’m dating him now.’ That was enough to convince Kyungsoo that they are going to be friends only.
It’s almost a week since school’s started, and Kyungsoo only gets to see Jongin on the first day. Kyungsoo is one of the students who arrive the earliest, but the football team’s morning practice starts earlier and he can only watch as Jongin runs past the linemen to practice his cut steps.
When he studied in the library with Sunyoung, the girl asked him to sit by the window so she could watch Jinki monitoring the jocks. Kyungsoo obliges right away because that way he can see Jongin, too. He doesn’t stare at the field as long as Sunyoung, though. Kyungsoo has always had a good concentration as long as Jongin isn’t near him, so he focuses himself on the book he’s reading.
A day before Fall Games, Kyungsoo and Sunyoung have a lot of homework and the girl insists that Kyungsoo teach her. They stay in the library longer than yesterday, until the sky is an expanse of darkness and Kyungsoo can see the moon from where he’s sitting at.
“Kyungsoo-ya, do you want something to drink?” Sunyoung asks after they’ve finished all of their assignments, her tone is bright since she doesn’t have to spend more hours at home on homework. Kyungsoo closes his book, he doesn’t look at her.
“Orange juice,” he answers quietly and Sunyoung stands up, taking short but quick strides to exit the library. It’s a usual thing for Sunyoung to buy drinks for Kyungsoo, since Kyungsoo always teaches her and she thinks this is the least she could do to pay him back.
When she’s back from the vending machine, though, Kyungsoo’s head is facing the window. He doesn’t do that when Sunyoung’s around, so she giggles quietly while walking back to her seat.
“You like that jock, don’t you?” Sunyoung asks with a teasing tone, hand placing Kyungsoo’s juice in front of him. The male has his face on his palm, propped by his elbow. He only glances at her, rolling his eyes.
“What jock,” Kyungsoo snorts, hands taking his juice closer to him.
“That guy number 88 over there. Kim Jongin, isn’t it? You’re totally into him,” Sunyoung continues as if Kyungsoo liking a guy isn’t one of the weirdest thing there.
“What kind of nonsense are you talking about,” Kyungsoo shoots back, he groans a bit as he pulls the ring on the lid to open it. When it’s opened, Sunyoung knocks her knuckles on the surface of the table to get his attention. When she does, she smiles a bit mischievously to him.
“You know, I don’t see boys stare at each other like that,” she says with a voice just above a whisper. Clearly she enjoys teasing Kyungsoo. He furrows at how Sunyoung said each other because he thinks he’s the only one who looks at Jongin that way. Seeing the way he doubts her words, Sunyoung only rolls her eyes. “I’m not usually dramatic but let me picture it for you. Let’s say this Jongin guy is an astronomy nerd and he’s been admiring this really bright star in the sky. One day that star falls in front of him. And that star is you. He looks at you like that.”
Kyungsoo is totally uninterested about how Sunyoung is taking this having-a-crush thing to a different level, and he isn’t even sure if he wants to know how she knows that Jongin looks at him in a certain way. He brings his juice can to his mouth. “Please speak in a language that I understand.”
“Oh come on! You guys like each other! Aren’t you guys best friends? Tell him how you feel, he’d be overly excited about it. He’d be really happy!” Sunyoung is close to whining now, and he doesn’t understand why she’s that excited about how he feels about Jongin. But it’s actually a relief that Sunyoung isn’t a homophobic girl and doesn’t mind Kyungsoo’s sexuality.
“More like, disgusted.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Sunyoung-ah.”
“Kyungsoo-ya, I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Sunyoung pouts and she shuts herself because Kyungsoo is still a boy and boys don’t talk about these kind of things this way. She fiddles with her own drink, but then she sees Kyungsoo already looking outside the window again. A smile blooms on her face, realizing that Kyungsoo didn’t deny that he does like Jongin.
--
The next day, when Jongin arrives at the school’s gate, he finds Kyungsoo already standing there, leaning on the wall. He quickly approaches him, face confused because he didn’t expect Kyungsoo to come to school on the weekend.
“What are you doing here, Hyung?” he asks instead of greeting him, but Kyungsoo doesn’t really care. He takes out a small paper bag from his pocket and hands it to Jongin who receives it with furrowed eyebrows. “What is this?”
“Present. A good luck charm.”
“Wow, thanks. You’re really nice, Hyung,” Jongin says with his wide smile and Kyungsoo smiles back because even though the younger doesn’t know what it is, he likes it already. “Wait, you came here just to give this to me?”
“Yeah, I have nothing to do, anyway.” Kyungsoo shrugs and stands upright, hand shoving a weak punch to Jongin’s stomach. “I’m going home, then. Good luck with the game, running back.”
Jongin watches as Kyungsoo walks away, feeling all warm and fuzzy inside because Kyungsoo came here just to give him a present. He enters the school and goes to where his friends are waiting, fingers opening the paper bag.
“Morning, Kimjong,” greets Sehun when he sees Jongin coming his way.
“Morning, Sehun-ah,” Jongin greets back while pulling a band from the paper bag. It looks like a wrist band, but it’s bigger. “What is this?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never seen an elbow band before.”
“No?”
Sehun sighs, patting his own elbow. “You wear it here.”
“What’s this for? So that I look cool?”
“No, idiot. It’s to help relief the pain in your arm. I suggest you to wear it around your right elbow. You usually complain about hand cramps from carrying the ball around, right.” Jongin nods in understanding, but then he stops nodding and smiles. He’s touched that even though he hasn’t met with Kyungsoo this past week, the latter understands what he needs. His smile grows wider and weirder and Sehun snorts at him.
--
The first game, as expected by the whole school, went well. The freshmen players became their strong point, especially the combo running backs. Their first opponent wasn’t a strong team, so they didn’t struggle a lot to win and Yifan didn’t have to take out his hidden cards. Since it’s a national game, the match was broadcasted on TV and when the jocks arrive at school for the morning practice, a lot of students come to the field to watch them.
Kyungsoo isn’t really surprised by the sudden mob at the side field, but they are a lot taller than him so he can’t see Jongin because the view gets blocked. Even though he gets annoyed by this, he knows that he’s really proud of Jongin. He watched the broadcast and he really did a good job. He almost threw the remote when he noticed that Jongin wore the elbow band he gave him.
They barely meet now, and even though Kyungsoo misses him, sending him a KakaoTalk message isn’t really an option. He remembers when Jongin woke up late because they had a pretty long chat the night before. Now that Jongin is not only busy with school but also football games and practices, sending him a text would distract him a lot.
They meet often in corridors on the first floor, since Kyungsoo goes to teacher’s room a lot and the classrooms of the first grade are also on the first floor. Jongin doesn’t go out of his class unless it’s lunch break or he needs the toilet, so when Kyungsoo walks past the younger’s class, he doesn’t need to look inside to know that Jongin is sleeping on his desk.
But when they finally face each other, neither of them talk. Kyungsoo would just raise his eyebrows once at Jongin who returns it with a big grin. He’d pat his palm on Jongin, usually on his stomach, while walking past him and not saying anything.
It’s not really a problem for them, because they’ve gone through a lot together. There are things that connect them without words said; a smile, a drop of tears, a little frown, a slight limp on Jongin’s leg or a crease between Kyungsoo’s eyebrows. When Kyungsoo sees a bruise on Jongin’s arm, he knows the younger hit something blunt while practicing bump with Sehun. When Kyungsoo looks drowsy, Jongin knows that he’s spent a night watching anime.
The distance between them is getting farther, and Kyungsoo can only hope that their hearts aren’t.
--
The air gets a lot less hot and Kyungsoo was so glad when the school announced that the students could start using their fall uniform. He’s always comfortable with long sleeves since he doesn’t like exposing too much skin.
Jongin texted him last night, saying that Yifan decided to cut them some slack and the morning practice will start 30 minutes later than usual. He’s glad that they can walk to school together again
When he arrives at the station, he sees Jongin being cornered by those familiar three girls, and he snorts almost immediately. He hasn’t seen those three annoying girls for a while, and he didn’t expect them to swarm around Jongin when the jock was clearly waiting for him.
Kyungsoo walks closer and clears his throat a bit loudly to get their attention. The expression Jongin has on his face is nothing short of a huge wash of relief as he mouths to the elder, save me. But the girls, as usual, don’t like the presence of Kyungsoo when they’re with Jongin.
“What are you doing here, Ahjussi?” Hyeri mocks with her chin tilted up arrogantly, her hands on her hips. Kyungsoo can’t tell how thankful he is because Sunyoung is a lot calmer, a lot less annoying and a lot less like them.
“No, what are you doing here? Jongin and I have to go to school, get out of my way,” he says as if the girls don’t go to the same school, gesturing his hand to shoo them away, but they don’t move. They’re standing in line in front of Jongin, acting like a shield.
“We met him first! Jongin’s going to go to school with us!” Minah yells and the huff Kyungsoo lets out is obviously louder than how he intended it to be.
“Listen, girls, you are in the same year as Jongin, you can meet him later at school,” Kyungsoo raises his voice just a bit, trying not to let irritation soak his tone. Being with these girls drain his energy faster, and he’d like to save that for his classes later.
“Do you even know how hard it is to meet Jongin at school?” Yura asks, arms folded in front of her chest. Kyungsoo’s not interested in girls, has never been, so he only scrunches his nose when he realizes that the tallest girl’s uniform is too tight and it shows the curve of her boobs. Now that they are a bit squeezed by her arms, that uniform looks so uncomfortable to see.
“I do, actually. I don’t meet him at school, either. Now go, Jongin has morning practice.”
“I told you, he’s going with us.”
Jongin is helpless because if they keep this up, he’s going to be here forever and Yifan would probably consider to kick him on the balls later. But one thing he forgets if that Kyungsoo has been really good when it comes to handling these girls, so he blinks when the eldest of them all takes out his phone and taps on the screen a few times.
“Jongin sent me a voice message last night,” Kyungsoo says, opening their KaTalk chat. He presses the button on the side of his phone to make the volume higher. A final tap on his screen and a voice comes out of the speaker, ‘I’ll see you in front of the station tomorrow, Hyung! Good night~’
The jock knows that his face is already dead red because he didn’t know he actually sounds like that. He’s about to say something to defend himself like I’m five years ahead of puberty but Kyungsoo points at the girls using his phone, clearly not wanting to hear anything.
Kyungsoo always feels that whatever they’re arguing about is really not worth his time, but he really needs to make sure that they can’t think of proper words to reply to him with. He needs them to be defeated only by pointing out that he is right and they are wrong.
“You hear that? Jongin was waiting for me so move the hell out of there and go to school on your own.”
A forceful grab on the wrist later, Jongin is dragged by the older male to the school. Everytime Jongin looks over his shoulder to see the girls, Kyungsoo would yank his arm. He’s super angry now and Jongin doesn’t dare to open his mouth. Kyungsoo only lets go when they’re already at the field, practically throwing Jongin’s arm from his hand.
“Sorry I kind of blew up there. I don’t like them,” Kyungsoo sighs, all the while trying to keep his breath steady.
“It’s okay, it’s not like I like them, either. But, I mean... I have sisters so I can’t really be... as harsh to girls. If you know what I mean,” Jongin reasons, and Kyungsoo just shrugs at it. Jongin doesn’t even yell at them to go, he always tries to ask them to go kindly, slowly, patiently. Kyungsoo doesn’t have any of it.
Kyungsoo slides his hand on the strap on his shoulder, looking at the field where some players have changed and are doing stretching. “I guess I’ll go? You have to practice.”
Noticing that they are already inside the school, Jongin looks a bit surprised. But he nods, waving his hand in a hesitant way at his bestfriend. “Yeah. See you around, Hyung.”
The older male doesn’t reply because he doesn’t get to, Jongin already turning his back at him and running to the football team’s locker room to change. As Kyungsoo makes his way to the school’s building, he keeps cursing at himself for acting like a clingy friend earlier. This is stupid, because even though his feelings for Jongin have grown much too big for his liking, he’s never really shown it before.
The feelings seem to solidify in his chest, making his heart falls to his stomach and it really is uncomfortable. He tries to ignore it, the squeezing that slowly turns to pain. It won’t hurt that much again one day, he’ll get used to it.
He doesn’t really think of confessing it to him, anyway.
--
When Kyungsoo was a child, he used to spend some time in front of the mirror before going to school. He would practice on how to smile, trying to figure out how wide his lips had to be spread until his smile looked the most natural. Sometimes he parted his lips, revealing his teeth and a bit of his gums. Your mouth is heart shaped, Jongin had said, it’s really cute.
He tried to find what kind of smile that would convince Jongin and himself that he was okay. A smile that would make everything fine after a long, tiring day. A smile that was a contrast with his mother’s cries or the bullies’ mean laughter. A smile that was a white curve of lips on a black page.
He remembers the day he moved out, his dad wasn’t home and his mom was on the verge of tears. He remembers the old woman’s hug, how tight and warm it was. The hug was able to shake his mind a bit, he almost changed his decision, almost threw his bag back into his room.
But behind his mother’s shoulder, he saw the living room. It looked old, it was a living room that didn’t bring a feel of a living room. The memory this room brought pained him a bit. The walls and the floor were the witnesses of a married couple throwing curses, of his brother letting out cracked screams, of him sobbing until he fell asleep.
The hug was something Kyungsoo’d been craving for his whole life, it was a body wrapped by two weak arms telling don’t go in silence, but Kyungsoo knew himself more than anyone else. He’d had enough of this.
That was also the day his trained smile fell into pieces in the place he’d rather not set foot in ever again. The mornings he’d spent smiling alone in front of the mirror gone to waste, his smile was broken by the love and longing of a mother’s hug.
He started high school without a smile, quickly earning a label as the not-friendly-dude. But then his teacher told him to teach his classmates, and before he realized it, he remembered his friends’ names already. He might be not friendly due to minimum experience of socializing, but he wasn’t rude and knew how to appreciate people. It didn’t take long for him to actually be a part of his class, and he was thankful for that.
The second spring in high school came, and Kyungsoo’s eyes almost rolled out of their sockets when he saw Jongin in the same uniform as him. He didn’t know that Jongin was going to study here, and meeting him wasn’t really in his plan. He’d told Jongin before he moved out, and they didn’t contact each other for a year because Kyungsoo didn’t have a phone then. But the shocked, genuine smile on Jongin’s face made him see chances of patching holes in their friendship and exchanged whispers through ears and a strong arm around his shoulders.
Maybe this is it, Kyungso thought that time. Maybe Jongin and I weren’t meant to be separated.
Kyungsoo was sure with his own words only for a few months, because spring rolled away and Jongin was busy preparing for Fall Games. Now he can only see him behind the window of the library, hand pressing to the glass, wanting to reach out for Jongin. But he knows it’s not the glass or the building that separate them. It’s their life goals, their dreams, their future.
Kyungsoo doesn’t really bother to put his smile back on his face, not even when Jongin can see him.
“Heeey, Mr. Do?”
Rolling his eyes is Kyungsoo’s immediate reaction, but he looks at Sunyoung, anyway. He glances at her book, blinking when he sees it’s still half empty and sighs. “Call me again when you’re done with the questions.”
“The love in your eyes is making the air hot, you know? It’s almost fall, don’t heat things up,” Sunyoung protests as she fans herself. Kyungsoo sags in his seat, his gaze telling her that he doesn’t understand what she’s talking about. “What? It’s not my fault you keep looking at Kim Jongin.”
Kyungsoo groans. “Can you stop talking about him? Just focus on answering the questions!”
“Why don’t you like it when I talk about someone you have a crush on?” Sunyoung asks with a pure curiosity in her tone. Kyungsoo still feels uncomfortable talking about this with a girl, but Sunyoung is the only girl out there that has the most of his trust.
“You don’t think it’s weird?” Kyungsoo starts with hesitation hanging on the corners of his voice.
“What is weird?”
Kyungsoo’s tongue struggles to curl around the words of his real question. He can’t back away after this. “Um, me? A guy, liking another guy? You don’t think it’s weird?”
“Have you been worrying about it??” Sunyoung’s voice raises, she sounds incredulous. She presses her lips together, knowing that this is quite a sensitive topic. She doesn’t want to say wrong things. “I’m sorry, I know this isn’t easy for you, considering that gay couples aren’t a usual thing to see here...”
“Exactly. I was surprised when you didn’t question it at all. I mean, gay couple sounds so wrong and-”
“Love is never wrong, Kyungsoo,” Sunyoung interrupts, a sigh following her last word. “We’re humans, love is something we got the moment we were born and we keep on carrying it until the day we die. Humans fall in love with each other whatever the gender is. It is not in any way wrong.”
Kyungsoo balls his fists, trying not to get coaxed by the sweet words. People always talk about love and how beautiful it is, but life is always harsh on him. He knows so is love. “But, I just-like you said, it’s not easy for me. I don’t even know if Jongin’s into boys.”
Sunyoung can’t answer, and Kyungsoo can’t blame her. It’s not even her problem, but she’s kind enough to let Kyungsoo share it with her. Kyungsoo looks at the field through the window, smiling a bit when he sees Jongin laying flat on his back behind the bench. Sunyoung sees this, the sincerity in his smile. Not all people can smile like that just by looking at a certain person.
“You know,” Sunyoung starts quietly. She refuses to look at Kyungsoo, eyes fixed on her fingers on the table. “Just in case... you want to give up on Jongin because of reasons... at least tell him, okay? I’m not a love counsellor of some sort, but at least you won’t regret it...”
Seeing the look on Kyungsoo’s face, Sunyoung gets panicked immediately. “But-but I strongly discourage you from giving up! I saw you walking together with Jongin a few times... and you two would definitely make a cute couple. I’m cheering on you. Hehe.”
The ‘hehe’ at the end of her sentence crumbles down the uneasiness in Kyungsoo’s chest and he laughs. It’s the first time Sunyoung sees Kyungsoo laugh like that-no sound of laughter, but that heart-shaped grin is the widest she’s ever seen from Kyungsoo. His shoulder is shaking and his eyes disappearing into crescents, which means he thinks that it’s really funny.
“Thank you, Sunyoung-ah.”
( part 3 )