30 day drabbles 21-25
twenty-one: sunset
ontae, pg13
twenty-two: mad
jongho, pg13
twenty-three: thousand
jongkey, pg13
twenty-four: outside
jongkey, pg13
twenty-five: winter
jongkey, r
- day twenty-one: sunset
ontae; 479 words; angst; pg13
Jinki wanted it to work, but he didn’t know how to fix what was already unraveling. The sun was setting for them; no amount of willpower would stop the world from turning so he could snatch the sunshine back and shine it right on them, to make it feel like it did when they started dating on that Friday in April two years before.
At twenty, Taemin was the definition of youth; he wanted to do things like go out at one in the morning for fast food that would inevitably upset his stomach, and travel to Switzerland to skydive. Jinki was just the opposite as a twenty-four year old. He was content with running his parents’ meat shop and coming home to sit and read with the warmth of his boyfriend pressing into his side.
Those differences had been charming for so long. “Opposites attract” were words spoken sweetly into each other’s necks as they flirted with rebellion, fighting to defy logic that two people so different couldn’t stay happy together.
Logic was smirking smugly down at Jinki now as he sat with fingers curled at the roots of his hair, mind whirring to think of ways they could remedy their relationship.
Taemin was bored, and had told Jinki so, straightforwardly as that. Two years had brought with it too many fond memories to count, comfort in ‘he likes me and I like him,’ satisfaction in nights spent hot and slick under the sheets. Though by the end, Taemin’s personal crisis (in which he asked himself along with Jinki, “What am I doing with my life?”) led to him re-evaluating everything. He was young, and restless, and wanted to explore the world, explore new places with new people, to fall recklessly in love. He wasn’t exactly immature but wasn’t prepared to settle down like Jinki was.
That made it difficult for them. Jinki was an old soul, someone deeply in love with the young soul that lit up his life. Taemin was falling out of love, falling out just as quickly as he’d fallen in. If there was anything Jinki had learned about Taemin over the years (aside from, well, everything about him), it was that he did everything wholeheartedly. If he was in love, he loved with everything in him. When those pieces started fragmenting away, leaving holes in his heart, he was quick to pull away. Jagged edges of “I wish I could…” or “I wonder if…” began to butt against each other, wearing away at Taemin’s spirit.
At the end of the day, Jinki would rather see a happy Taemin than one miserable and stuck in his arms.
And realizing all of that, perhaps too late, made it very hard for Jinki to see over the horizon for when the sun would stop running from them, and finally shine some light on them again.
- day twenty-two: mad
jongho; 1480 words; romance, slice of life, idk man; pg13
Minho wasn’t keen on admitting when he was at fault for anything. He was insanely stubborn and if he didn’t think he did anything wrong, he wasn’t about to apologize for it even if it would make someone else feel better. He was headstrong, belligerent on his best days and a complete insensitive asshole on his worst.
Jonghyun was just the opposite. Everything he said, he said with regard to the other person in question’s feelings. He wore his heart on his sleeve, ever soft-spoken when it counted, and was never one to fight.
And that in itself made Minho wonder, as he was driving with white-knuckles on the steering wheel towards his own home instead of Jonghyun’s apartment, how the hell they got along at all.
God, Jonghyun was just too fucking sensitive sometimes, Minho thought resolutely at a stop light, hands shifting on the wheel. He was too agitated to try to find a good station so he gave up with a huff and settled on fuming in silence.
He didn’t even do anything wrong this time. Granted, he usually didn’t ever do anything wrong and Jonghyun had a tendency to get worked up about stupid shit that didn’t matter.
Flirting wasn’t even a big deal! So what if he batted his eyelashes at one waiter? He was obviously dating Jonghyun, and had been for almost eight months now, so did it really make that huge of a difference? Was he really that insecure? Jonghyun flirted all the time! Just because it was always with girls and not guys, he was allowed to flirt and Minho wasn’t? That was a double standard and it was bullshit. Flirting wasn’t infidelity, it was fun, and harmless. It wasn’t like he stared at the guy’s ass as he walked away, or slipped him his phone number on the check when Jonghyun wasn’t looking. He went to the restaurant with Jonghyun, and went home with Jonghyun, without any scandalous quickies with the waiter in the bathroom.
He didn’t do anything wrong. So for Jonghyun to sulk all the way to his apartment and then give him the silent treatment like some fucking immature girl was stupid. Hell, Jonghyun was more at fault than Minho in his own opinion. He was the one who started the fight, spouting some bullshit about Minho flirting with another guy right in front of him and how he hated that Minho “always” did that.
Minho did not “always” do that, and he was quick to tell Jonghyun that.
Fuck, Minho didn’t even know how it spiraled into them yelling at each other from opposite sides of the living room. Jonghyun got choked up as they fought and Minho knew better than to feel guilty for it this time, because (unlike Minho flirting with other guys) Jonghyun always cried when he was angry.
Minho left, door rattling the frame when he slammed it behind him.
And all that led him to that stoplight, where the silence was ringing in his ears and his jaw was clenching. He was so fucking mad he couldn’t explain it. Jonghyun and his double standards could go to Hell. He didn’t want to talk to him.
His phone beeped beside him to tell him he received a text message. Minho glanced at the screen, saw that it was from Jonghyun, scoffed, and then completely disregarded it.
He was driving anyway.
At the next stoplight-there was so much traffic, fuck-, Minho let curiosity get the better of him and he picked up the phone.
From: Jjong ᄒᄉᄒ
sorry i yelled at you babe
i just got jealous. i know i shouldn’t be. mr tall dark and handsome back there just really pissed me off. he was way more your type than i’ll ever be.
but hey. you say you love me so i’ll try to have more faith in that
i hate fighting with you babe
i love you
Minho set the phone down and tried to hold back tears.
With a heavy sigh and an even heavier heart-Jonghyun could win him over so easily it was really fucking pathetic-, Minho flicked on his turn signal and turned into a parking lot so he could get back onto the street that led him to Jonghyun’s apartment.
The turn landed him in front of a florist, and Minho contemplated for a moment how stupid this idea was before parking and getting out.
Guys could buy apology flowers for other guys, right?
Especially when, even if he didn’t want to admit it, it was his fault they ever fought? Because he’d flirted with someone with Jonghyun sitting right there, like a complete and utter asshole, and had hurt Jonghyun’s feelings badly enough for him to lash out at Minho?
That was an excuse to buy flowers, right?
He got roses, because he might have been gay, but that didn’t mean that he knew what the hell he was doing in a flower shop, and roses were the easiest thing. Jonghyun’s favorite color was green, so he didn’t have many options for buying green flowers. And he wasn’t going to get a fern or something, because that was fucking dumb.
The florist asked him if the roses were for his girlfriend, and he just coughed a laugh and said “no” to avoid going into detail about how he didn’t know if Jonghyun would think this was really idiotic or not, because apology flowers were usually reserved for girls alone.
It took the entire car ride back (plus a long sit in the parking lot with his head bowed against the steering wheel) for Minho to swallow his pride down into a burning stomach and plan out what he would say in his head.
Once he thought about it, all right, maybe Jonghyun didn’t do anything wrong. Maybe he was the one who was really shitty at considering others’ feelings, especially his big-hearted boyfriend. The only time he’d ever fought with boyfriends in the past led to them breaking up, Minho always remorseless over the fact.
But the longer he sat and thought about it all, the roses seeming to stare at him from the passenger’s seat, his heart gave a painful squeeze. He didn’t want one fight, huge as it was, to ruin his relationship with Jonghyun like had happened with other guys. The past eight months had been the happiest of his life; he really didn’t want to break it off with the man he was happy to call his boyfriend.
He knocked at the door when stiff legs brought him to Jonghyun’s apartment again.
Jonghyun’s eyes were red and swollen when he opened the door, and that made Minho feel like an even bigger asshole than before.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a rush, feeling his scripted train of thought crash and burn when he got a better look at Jonghyun’s glistening eyes and blotchy cheeks.
Jonghyun blinked, taken aback.
Minho never, never apologized.
“Here.” He held out the roses. He had no fucking clue what he was doing. “I was an asshole. I love you and I’m sorry I made you cry, so please don’t stay mad at me. You’re way cuter than the waiter anyway. And I love you way more than I would ever love him.”
Jonghyun looked from the roses to Minho and back.
“The flowers and stupid.” He made to drop his arm, sighing, when Jonghyun stopped him.
“I’ve never gotten flowers before.” He took them and looked at them almost reverently.
Minho laughed awkwardly. “Yeah, I figured we’ve reached that level of gay by now.”
Jonghyun held the roses in one hand and pulled Minho into a hug with the other. He buried his head into Minho’s chest and the strength he held him with was so constricting it was painful if Minho was honest.
Still, he hugged him back, heart swelling with emotion that he really wasn’t familiar with. He wasn’t used to “sorry,” and if this was what it felt like every time, like a bubble was about to burst in his chest and the pressure was choking him, Jonghyun’s small form crying into his chest because of something he did, he really hated it.
Was this what Jonghyun was like every time he was being horrible and stubborn and refused to apologize? Thinking back, he’d hurt Jonghyun’s feelings in the past way more than he wanted to admit.
Why did Jonghyun even love him, if he was this horrible?
“I’ll try not to be a shitty boyfriend anymore.” Misery seeped into his tone. He hated this. He felt like such a terrible person.
He hoped he wouldn’t ever feel sorry again; except now, instead of feeling remorseless because of immature conviction that he was always right, he hoped it would be because he never did anything to hurt Jonghyun again.
- day twenty-three: thousand
jongkey; 1853 words; romance, angst; pg13
It was two in the morning and Jonghyun had work at six because he had to open the department store that day. It was much too late for him to be awake, but he couldn’t stop tossing and turning. His mind was too alert, memories playing like a movie reel on the backs of his eyelids every time he shut his eyes. Eight years worth of memories of him and a boy who he met as a chubby kid on the playground who liked picking up and naming bugs when he saw them, and who grew into a handsome, albeit feminine, man who was deeply committed to fashion and whose smile lit up Jonghyun’s entire world.
Eight years, plus almost three months without seeing him. Phone conversations and chance encounters of catching each other online for webcam chat were what marked the years that Kibum lived in America-the time difference between Seoul and San Francisco was fourteen hours, hardly an easy thing to keep up with.
The problem with the situation was that Kibum was like Jonghyun’s life source. They’d been best friends for going on twelve years, and Jonghyun had been head-over-heels in love with him for about eleven and a half of those years. And as happy as he was for Kibum that he’d gotten into the foreign exchange program at some art school in the city of his dreams, his calendar told him that it was nearing a thousand days since he’d last seen Kibum in person. And it was getting to be a bit much for Jonghyun to deal with.
He missed everything about him. The sound of his voice and the way he smelled after he showered, the way his hair seemed to change every other day, the way his smile made him look like a kitten. He’d thought it’d been torture before, to be best friends with someone he was also in love with, to be so close to him but still have that wall separating what could be shared feelings between them. In his teen years, all he wanted to do was tell Kibum that he was beautiful and that when he smiled at him, Jonghyun’s heart skipped a beat, and that he was convinced that he was going to marry him one day. It was torture back then, to even sit next to Kibum with his arm around his shoulders, to spend so much time with him and know that they wouldn’t ever be more than best friends.
Now, Jonghyun would have given anything to feel that erratic heartbeat that came with Kibum’s obnoxious laugh, the nervousness in the pit of his stomach when Kibum sat a little too close or got a little too touchy.
He didn’t know torture until he didn’t have Kibum with him at all.
It was pure impulse that took reign of his motor skills, and before he could rationalize what he was doing, the phone was ringing and his heart was pounding in anticipation as he waited for Kibum to answer.
“Hello?”
“Hey,” Jonghyun breathed into the receiver. Kibum sounded a bit different through the speaker, but if he closed his eyes, it felt like he was laying right beside him in his bed like they used to do so often.
He missed all of that so much: the stolen smiles when they climbed into bed, the yearning to get closer to his best friend, and the poor excuses that allowed him to do just that (“I’m cold, Kibum. I’m laying too close to the window. Let me share your blanket, too.”).
“Isn’t it really late over there?” Kibum’s voice was full of concern, and Jonghyun grinned to himself, covering his eyes with his hand to try to hold back tears.
“Yeah, it’s two in the morning,” he said as if he wasn’t going to regret the fuck out of it in the morning.
“Why are you calling me at two in the morning, Jjong?” The way the nickname rolled off his tongue made Jonghyun’s stomach turn. Almost three years without seeing each other, but Kibum still treated him the same as he did before he ever left.
“Oh, I uh-” he tried desperately to come up with an excuse, “I wanted to see if you-I just thought I would-I mean, I was-” He sighed heavily, allowing his futile attempts to end. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I don’t have a good excuse. I just missed the sound of your voice.”
Kibum was silent on the other line.
“What uh…” He cleared his throat. “What time is it there? Do you have class?”
“It’s ten in the morning. And I have class in forty-five minutes, so I’m getting ready.” Kibum spoke easily, as if there wasn’t an awkward patch there at all.
Now that he said so, Jonghyun noticed an echo around him. He was probably on speaker-phone while Kibum was doing his hair in the bathroom or something. “What’s your hair look like now?”
Kibum laughed and Jonghyun’s heart jumped. “It’s the same as you last saw it. Blond with pink in the front, remember? Like the picture I posted on my blog before?”
Jonghyun went on Kibum’s blog more often than he liked to admit. So yes, he knew. “Oh, cool. I like it like that. It’s really cute.”
“Thanks. I remember you told me before that pink hair would suit me, so that’s why I did it.”
“Really?” He prayed that he wasn’t getting his hopes up for something that Kibum was kidding about.
Kibum scoffed. “What, do you think that I don’t miss you as much as you miss me?”
He swallowed down more tears. Sometimes he hated that he got emotional so easily. “What um… What are you doing for your birthday? It’s in only a few weeks.”
“Probably just going out with some friends. What are you doing that weekend?”
“Sitting here, wishing I was going out with you and some friends?” Jonghyun laughed away the seriousness in his words.
“No, really,” Kibum laughed as well, and Jonghyun’s heart hurt when he heard it. “Do you work that weekend?”
“No, I’m off from Friday to Monday. We’re over-staffed right now, so I might ask for some more time off. Just for a break, you know?” Jonghyun picked at his pillowcase. It was one he’d had for years, old and faded and thin, but he couldn’t get rid of it, because it was the first thing he ever made Jonghyun when he was learning how to sew. A gift from a thirteen-year-old Kibum wasn’t worth throwing away for anything.
“Oh, good. Well, I’m sending you something tomorrow. I’ll do the express shipping so it gets there in a few days instead of next month.” There was a smile in his voice. Jonghyun wished he could see it.
“What is it?” Excitement started to beat in his bones.
“I’m not telling you.” He could almost hear Kibum’s eyes rolling. “Just wait for them, they won’t take long to get there.”
He sighed. “All right. What do you want me to get you for your birthday?”
“Hmm…” Kibum paused for a long second.
“Something I can afford with a retail paycheck,” he was quick to clarify.
He laughed again. “Make me something. Like the year you made me that tape of you singing a bunch of my favorite songs, you know?”
“Don’t remind me about that,” he murmured, cheeks heating in embarrassment. It’d been such a great idea in his zealous fifteen-year-old mind. Hearing it back years later when Kibum found it again was one of the most embarrassing experiences of his life.
“Oh please, Jonghyun.”
“I can’t make you nice clothes like you like,” he said sadly.
“Yeah, but you’re the most beautiful singer I’ve ever heard, so you can use that to your advantage, can’t you?” There was the playful note of sarcasm in Kibum’s words like there always was when he gave out compliments.
He sighed. “Yeah, sure.”
“Hey, I have to go. My class starts soon and I still need to get my work together, so…”
Jonghyun frowned. “All right. I’ll see you.” He really wouldn’t, but it was a nice thought nonetheless.
“Bye, Jjong. I love you!”
He hung up before Jonghyun had a chance to say the same back.
Jonghyun couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night; the conversation played back in his head too many times for him to even try to sleep.
___
When he checked his mail a few days later, there was a bright green envelope that could only be from one person.
He grinned as he pulled it out, and opened it in the mailroom, unable to wait.
The first thing he saw was a strip of paper. Once it was out of the envelope, his jaw dropped and his stomach flipped over. It was a plane ticket, a round-trip ticket from Seoul to San Francisco at 8AM the day before Kibum’s birthday.
With the ticket was a note; he couldn’t help but smile when he looked at it.
God, Kibum’s handwriting was so cute.
Jjong,
You don’t have to use the ticket if you don’t want to, or if you’re too busy to leave. I don’t have much longer here in San Francisco, but I don’t even know how I’ve survived without you here. It can be a birthday present to me, for you to come visit me here. I want to show you everything here. I talk about you all the time to my friends and they want to meet you, too. But really, I just want to see you.
I really love you, Jonghyun. I love you more than I think you realize, and being here for so long has made me see how hard it is for me to live without you. I don’t know if you feel the same way, but I’m hoping that you do, because I really want to be with you when I get back to Seoul. This is really cowardly for me to be saying through a letter, but you know I’m not very good at saying things face-to-face.
When I see you, I think I’m going to kiss you. I hope that that’s okay. If it’s not, you can just find a way to dodge it or something. I’ll get the message. But I’ve wanted to kiss you for a really long time now, and I don’t want to wait anymore. It’s been 1000 days exactly since I’ve seen you, so I feel like doing something drastic.
You know, this could change everything between us. That’s okay with me. If you don’t want to be anything other than my friend, then that’s okay. If nothing else, I want to stay your best friend.
Hopefully I’ll see you soon.
Love,
Kibum
Jonghyun wanted to know if this was a joke or not. When he re-read the note, sincerity jumped off the page and caused his heart to come to a full stop for longer than was probably healthy.
He started packing his bag as soon as he got back to his apartment.
- day twenty-four: outside
jongkey; 650 words; general; pg13
Jonghyun was a home-body. He never got the travel bug like most young people, never really saw the point in visiting a thousand other places in the world when he was perfectly happy at home in Korea.
With that in mind, he blamed it on being too nice that he agreed to come with his best friend to London for some soccer game he didn’t really care about.
Neither of them spoke English beyond greetings and asking where to find the restroom, so it was a horrible idea for them to brave England of all places, but Minho insisted, and Jonghyun couldn’t say no to him. Minho was an aegyo god when it counted.
So, he tried to make the best of it by staying put in their hotel room as long as he possibly could, only coming down the daunting elevator-god, there were so many people speaking English around him it made his head hurt-for breakfast in the morning.
He left Minho to sleep in their room, because Minho was impossible to wake up, and he didn’t want to deal with his grumpy morning attitude for the rest of the day. He was alone in the dining room-thank god it was buffet style and he didn’t have to order anything in English-with only his plate for company. He didn’t recognize any of the food, really, so he resigned to get a bit of everything and then shuffle away to an empty table. Paranoid glances around him showed that no one noticed him, that they didn’t find him too out of the ordinary with his piled-high plate and slightly-pained expression.
Halfway down his plate, Jonghyun heard something that caught his attention fast enough for him to whip his head up and drop his fork on the ground.
Someone nearby was speaking Korean, and it wasn’t Minho.
After a quick search, he saw the person who he heard speaking his language: a man, two tables over, bleach-blond hair, slanted eyes, high cheekbones-generally very good-looking-, wearing really odd clothes. He was sitting alone with just a mug of what Jonghyun assumed to be coffee, talking on the phone very animatedly in the language Jonghyun actually /understood/. He was talking about something shopping-related; Jonghyun tried not to listen too attentively, because it was one thing to be excited, but another to be a creep.
But hey, he was breaching a level of creepiness anyway when he saw the blond get off the phone and promptly stood up to go to his table.
“Hi,” he said, in Korean, when he sat down. He hoped this wasn’t too weird.
Judging by the blond’s expression, it probably was.
“Hi?”
Jonghyun smiled to try to show that he wasn’t intimidating. And then he got immediately self-conscious of there being food in his teeth.
“I uh… I just heard you talking in Korean and I thought maybe I would come by and say… hi.” It all seemed so much better planned in his head.
The blond’s brows rose haughtily. “You heard me talking, so you thought it would be okay for you to come sit with me like it’s a public cafeteria?”
Jonghyun’s lips fell into a guilty frown. “Yeah?”
The blond’s mouth quirked into a small smile, and he pushed his phone aside so he could rest his elbows on the table. “What’s your name?”
Jonghyun lit up and grinned, infinitely relieved that this guy wasn’t as unfriendly as he seemed.
He got a bit tongue-tied trying to say his name when the blond smiled at him, but hey, at least he got it out in the end. And the blond-Kibum, he learned-didn’t try to make an excuse to escape or end their conversation at all until Minho came down and had to physically drag Jonghyun back up to their room.
(Not before Jonghyun got Kibum’s phone number, though.)
- day twenty-five: winter
jongkey; 1069 words; romance; r
Jonghyun wasn’t always fond of winter. He preferred the summer, when he could wear t-shirts and tank tops and be comfortable in jeans. With winter came the need for more layers, hats that would mess up his hair, more clothes he would have to wash later. Colder months called for staying indoors, sitting on a blanket wearing a hoodie in attempt to keep his fingers warm enough to play guitar. It made his strings stiff and his lips chapped when he tried to sing; he was forced to miss syllables to lick his lips, leaving the phrases incomplete.
He always appreciated the calm mood that came with winter, though, and how the cold air kept his heart rate steady. He wrote the best ballads in the winter.
Once he met Key, his animosity towards winter began to fade away. And by the fifth winter they were spending together, it was gone entirely.
How could he complain about the cold weather, after all, when it necessitated them curling up under thick blankets and lacing their fingers together to keep warm, when their hot showers got only hotter with their skin pressed together to escape the cold air surrounding them, when their kisses tasted like hot chocolate and their hands roaming each other’s bodies was the only way to keep each other warm?
If nothing else, Jonghyun couldn’t dislike winter when it meant Key wore sweaters and scarves and earmuffs and knitted hats. A chilly Key meant flushed cheeks and red lips and hands covering Jonghyun’s in his jacket pockets. It meant the cold tip of his nose burrowing into the sides of his neck, arms snug around his waist. Jonghyun couldn’t argue with any of that.
Key was the one who found reasons to complain during winter; his main complaint, spoken like a mantra, was that they needed a fireplace.
A fireplace would keep them so warm, he swore, and they needed one to curl up in front of. Winters in their apartment only validated his wish for a fireplace.
In return, Jonghyun promised that one day he’d buy him a house with a fireplace, plus a rug in front of it soft enough that it wouldn’t hurt his back when they inevitably made love on it.
It always made Key’s cheeks turn pink when Jonghyun said that.
It was all very gratifying.
Perhaps Jonghyun’s favorite part of winter, however, more than the cute attire or the calm atmosphere perfect for ballads, were the times that he came home from work at the studio-usually shivering, because there was a long walk from the parking lot to their apartment-to be greeted by a soft kiss from red bow lips and then informed that Key was running a hot bath for them.
Jonghyun didn’t know what Key put in the hot water to make it so fizzy and smell so nice-he’d tried to show Jonghyun before, but he simply didn’t believe that the little green ball of what looked like salt could work such wonders in the water-, but whatever it was in combination with the candles Key lit and the incense he burned on the sink made the tub-a benefit in the apartment they paid much extra for, but viewed as a necessity by now-no less than a haven to sit in until the water went cold.
Jonghyun sank into the nearly too-hot water first, sighing with shut eyes as he felt it instantly soothe his skin. Key was right after, sitting with his knees to his chest in front of Jonghyun; he always misjudged the water displacement, and there were already towels surrounding the tub to catch the water that overflowed when they were both inside.
The older’s arms slid around the younger’s waist and his cheek pressed against his shoulder blade. His eyes shut serenly as his lips trailed up his back to the dip of his neck, and Key shivered slightly when he nipped softly at the skin.
Kibum purred out how nice it felt, letting his head tip sideways.
Jonghyun’s hands laid flat on Key’s kneecaps above the water surface and then dragged over the curve of his naked thigh, mapping the ridge of his hip bone and the contour of his waist. He told him in turn, lips moving against the shell of his ear, how nice it felt to touch him.
They lost track of the time spent together like that, hands running slowly and sensually over slick bodies, minutes marked only by the flickering light from the candles. Key turned his head to whisper sweet nothings into the angle of Jonghyun’s jaw up to his ear, the sort of sentiments that too-often got lost in the whir of busy schedules-Key’s steady job at the daycare center plus the auditions he had to prepare for, and Jonghyun recording his second mini-album. It was one thing for Jonghyun to tell Key so often how he felt about him through song, but Key didn’t have the same medium to express himself. So he took advantage of quiet moments like the ones in the bathtub to make Jonghyun shiver with his words, heart swelling up and affection higher than ever as Key reassured him over and over of how much he loved him.
The whispers in his ear turned into kisses, kisses turned into more touches, and soon, the towels were soaking up more than ever as water sloshed over the edges of the tub.
It was moments like the one after Jonghyun stopped shaking from his climax, when he smiled down at Key’s flushed face, hair wet and sticking to the sides of his face, that he wished there was another way he could say “I love you” so Key could properly understand just how much he meant it, some way that didn’t sound so run-of-the-mill and average.
He could never find one, but Key didn’t seem to mind as he pulled Jonghyun down for a slow, passionate kiss.
When Jonghyun got out of the tub, having to take a quick shower afterward to clean up, he winced at the chilly air in the bathroom. In a beat, animosity went through his mind and he wished dearly for spring to come soon.
Then Key stepped out behind him, wrapped another towel around his shoulders, and laid his chin in the crook of his neck.
And Jonghyun couldn’t really complain about that.
ontae, pg13
twenty-two: mad
jongho, pg13
twenty-three: thousand
jongkey, pg13
twenty-four: outside
jongkey, pg13
twenty-five: winter
jongkey, r
- day twenty-one: sunset
ontae; 479 words; angst; pg13
Jinki wanted it to work, but he didn’t know how to fix what was already unraveling. The sun was setting for them; no amount of willpower would stop the world from turning so he could snatch the sunshine back and shine it right on them, to make it feel like it did when they started dating on that Friday in April two years before.
At twenty, Taemin was the definition of youth; he wanted to do things like go out at one in the morning for fast food that would inevitably upset his stomach, and travel to Switzerland to skydive. Jinki was just the opposite as a twenty-four year old. He was content with running his parents’ meat shop and coming home to sit and read with the warmth of his boyfriend pressing into his side.
Those differences had been charming for so long. “Opposites attract” were words spoken sweetly into each other’s necks as they flirted with rebellion, fighting to defy logic that two people so different couldn’t stay happy together.
Logic was smirking smugly down at Jinki now as he sat with fingers curled at the roots of his hair, mind whirring to think of ways they could remedy their relationship.
Taemin was bored, and had told Jinki so, straightforwardly as that. Two years had brought with it too many fond memories to count, comfort in ‘he likes me and I like him,’ satisfaction in nights spent hot and slick under the sheets. Though by the end, Taemin’s personal crisis (in which he asked himself along with Jinki, “What am I doing with my life?”) led to him re-evaluating everything. He was young, and restless, and wanted to explore the world, explore new places with new people, to fall recklessly in love. He wasn’t exactly immature but wasn’t prepared to settle down like Jinki was.
That made it difficult for them. Jinki was an old soul, someone deeply in love with the young soul that lit up his life. Taemin was falling out of love, falling out just as quickly as he’d fallen in. If there was anything Jinki had learned about Taemin over the years (aside from, well, everything about him), it was that he did everything wholeheartedly. If he was in love, he loved with everything in him. When those pieces started fragmenting away, leaving holes in his heart, he was quick to pull away. Jagged edges of “I wish I could…” or “I wonder if…” began to butt against each other, wearing away at Taemin’s spirit.
At the end of the day, Jinki would rather see a happy Taemin than one miserable and stuck in his arms.
And realizing all of that, perhaps too late, made it very hard for Jinki to see over the horizon for when the sun would stop running from them, and finally shine some light on them again.
- day twenty-two: mad
jongho; 1480 words; romance, slice of life, idk man; pg13
Minho wasn’t keen on admitting when he was at fault for anything. He was insanely stubborn and if he didn’t think he did anything wrong, he wasn’t about to apologize for it even if it would make someone else feel better. He was headstrong, belligerent on his best days and a complete insensitive asshole on his worst.
Jonghyun was just the opposite. Everything he said, he said with regard to the other person in question’s feelings. He wore his heart on his sleeve, ever soft-spoken when it counted, and was never one to fight.
And that in itself made Minho wonder, as he was driving with white-knuckles on the steering wheel towards his own home instead of Jonghyun’s apartment, how the hell they got along at all.
God, Jonghyun was just too fucking sensitive sometimes, Minho thought resolutely at a stop light, hands shifting on the wheel. He was too agitated to try to find a good station so he gave up with a huff and settled on fuming in silence.
He didn’t even do anything wrong this time. Granted, he usually didn’t ever do anything wrong and Jonghyun had a tendency to get worked up about stupid shit that didn’t matter.
Flirting wasn’t even a big deal! So what if he batted his eyelashes at one waiter? He was obviously dating Jonghyun, and had been for almost eight months now, so did it really make that huge of a difference? Was he really that insecure? Jonghyun flirted all the time! Just because it was always with girls and not guys, he was allowed to flirt and Minho wasn’t? That was a double standard and it was bullshit. Flirting wasn’t infidelity, it was fun, and harmless. It wasn’t like he stared at the guy’s ass as he walked away, or slipped him his phone number on the check when Jonghyun wasn’t looking. He went to the restaurant with Jonghyun, and went home with Jonghyun, without any scandalous quickies with the waiter in the bathroom.
He didn’t do anything wrong. So for Jonghyun to sulk all the way to his apartment and then give him the silent treatment like some fucking immature girl was stupid. Hell, Jonghyun was more at fault than Minho in his own opinion. He was the one who started the fight, spouting some bullshit about Minho flirting with another guy right in front of him and how he hated that Minho “always” did that.
Minho did not “always” do that, and he was quick to tell Jonghyun that.
Fuck, Minho didn’t even know how it spiraled into them yelling at each other from opposite sides of the living room. Jonghyun got choked up as they fought and Minho knew better than to feel guilty for it this time, because (unlike Minho flirting with other guys) Jonghyun always cried when he was angry.
Minho left, door rattling the frame when he slammed it behind him.
And all that led him to that stoplight, where the silence was ringing in his ears and his jaw was clenching. He was so fucking mad he couldn’t explain it. Jonghyun and his double standards could go to Hell. He didn’t want to talk to him.
His phone beeped beside him to tell him he received a text message. Minho glanced at the screen, saw that it was from Jonghyun, scoffed, and then completely disregarded it.
He was driving anyway.
At the next stoplight-there was so much traffic, fuck-, Minho let curiosity get the better of him and he picked up the phone.
From: Jjong ᄒᄉᄒ
sorry i yelled at you babe
i just got jealous. i know i shouldn’t be. mr tall dark and handsome back there just really pissed me off. he was way more your type than i’ll ever be.
but hey. you say you love me so i’ll try to have more faith in that
i hate fighting with you babe
i love you
Minho set the phone down and tried to hold back tears.
With a heavy sigh and an even heavier heart-Jonghyun could win him over so easily it was really fucking pathetic-, Minho flicked on his turn signal and turned into a parking lot so he could get back onto the street that led him to Jonghyun’s apartment.
The turn landed him in front of a florist, and Minho contemplated for a moment how stupid this idea was before parking and getting out.
Guys could buy apology flowers for other guys, right?
Especially when, even if he didn’t want to admit it, it was his fault they ever fought? Because he’d flirted with someone with Jonghyun sitting right there, like a complete and utter asshole, and had hurt Jonghyun’s feelings badly enough for him to lash out at Minho?
That was an excuse to buy flowers, right?
He got roses, because he might have been gay, but that didn’t mean that he knew what the hell he was doing in a flower shop, and roses were the easiest thing. Jonghyun’s favorite color was green, so he didn’t have many options for buying green flowers. And he wasn’t going to get a fern or something, because that was fucking dumb.
The florist asked him if the roses were for his girlfriend, and he just coughed a laugh and said “no” to avoid going into detail about how he didn’t know if Jonghyun would think this was really idiotic or not, because apology flowers were usually reserved for girls alone.
It took the entire car ride back (plus a long sit in the parking lot with his head bowed against the steering wheel) for Minho to swallow his pride down into a burning stomach and plan out what he would say in his head.
Once he thought about it, all right, maybe Jonghyun didn’t do anything wrong. Maybe he was the one who was really shitty at considering others’ feelings, especially his big-hearted boyfriend. The only time he’d ever fought with boyfriends in the past led to them breaking up, Minho always remorseless over the fact.
But the longer he sat and thought about it all, the roses seeming to stare at him from the passenger’s seat, his heart gave a painful squeeze. He didn’t want one fight, huge as it was, to ruin his relationship with Jonghyun like had happened with other guys. The past eight months had been the happiest of his life; he really didn’t want to break it off with the man he was happy to call his boyfriend.
He knocked at the door when stiff legs brought him to Jonghyun’s apartment again.
Jonghyun’s eyes were red and swollen when he opened the door, and that made Minho feel like an even bigger asshole than before.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a rush, feeling his scripted train of thought crash and burn when he got a better look at Jonghyun’s glistening eyes and blotchy cheeks.
Jonghyun blinked, taken aback.
Minho never, never apologized.
“Here.” He held out the roses. He had no fucking clue what he was doing. “I was an asshole. I love you and I’m sorry I made you cry, so please don’t stay mad at me. You’re way cuter than the waiter anyway. And I love you way more than I would ever love him.”
Jonghyun looked from the roses to Minho and back.
“The flowers and stupid.” He made to drop his arm, sighing, when Jonghyun stopped him.
“I’ve never gotten flowers before.” He took them and looked at them almost reverently.
Minho laughed awkwardly. “Yeah, I figured we’ve reached that level of gay by now.”
Jonghyun held the roses in one hand and pulled Minho into a hug with the other. He buried his head into Minho’s chest and the strength he held him with was so constricting it was painful if Minho was honest.
Still, he hugged him back, heart swelling with emotion that he really wasn’t familiar with. He wasn’t used to “sorry,” and if this was what it felt like every time, like a bubble was about to burst in his chest and the pressure was choking him, Jonghyun’s small form crying into his chest because of something he did, he really hated it.
Was this what Jonghyun was like every time he was being horrible and stubborn and refused to apologize? Thinking back, he’d hurt Jonghyun’s feelings in the past way more than he wanted to admit.
Why did Jonghyun even love him, if he was this horrible?
“I’ll try not to be a shitty boyfriend anymore.” Misery seeped into his tone. He hated this. He felt like such a terrible person.
He hoped he wouldn’t ever feel sorry again; except now, instead of feeling remorseless because of immature conviction that he was always right, he hoped it would be because he never did anything to hurt Jonghyun again.
- day twenty-three: thousand
jongkey; 1853 words; romance, angst; pg13
It was two in the morning and Jonghyun had work at six because he had to open the department store that day. It was much too late for him to be awake, but he couldn’t stop tossing and turning. His mind was too alert, memories playing like a movie reel on the backs of his eyelids every time he shut his eyes. Eight years worth of memories of him and a boy who he met as a chubby kid on the playground who liked picking up and naming bugs when he saw them, and who grew into a handsome, albeit feminine, man who was deeply committed to fashion and whose smile lit up Jonghyun’s entire world.
Eight years, plus almost three months without seeing him. Phone conversations and chance encounters of catching each other online for webcam chat were what marked the years that Kibum lived in America-the time difference between Seoul and San Francisco was fourteen hours, hardly an easy thing to keep up with.
The problem with the situation was that Kibum was like Jonghyun’s life source. They’d been best friends for going on twelve years, and Jonghyun had been head-over-heels in love with him for about eleven and a half of those years. And as happy as he was for Kibum that he’d gotten into the foreign exchange program at some art school in the city of his dreams, his calendar told him that it was nearing a thousand days since he’d last seen Kibum in person. And it was getting to be a bit much for Jonghyun to deal with.
He missed everything about him. The sound of his voice and the way he smelled after he showered, the way his hair seemed to change every other day, the way his smile made him look like a kitten. He’d thought it’d been torture before, to be best friends with someone he was also in love with, to be so close to him but still have that wall separating what could be shared feelings between them. In his teen years, all he wanted to do was tell Kibum that he was beautiful and that when he smiled at him, Jonghyun’s heart skipped a beat, and that he was convinced that he was going to marry him one day. It was torture back then, to even sit next to Kibum with his arm around his shoulders, to spend so much time with him and know that they wouldn’t ever be more than best friends.
Now, Jonghyun would have given anything to feel that erratic heartbeat that came with Kibum’s obnoxious laugh, the nervousness in the pit of his stomach when Kibum sat a little too close or got a little too touchy.
He didn’t know torture until he didn’t have Kibum with him at all.
It was pure impulse that took reign of his motor skills, and before he could rationalize what he was doing, the phone was ringing and his heart was pounding in anticipation as he waited for Kibum to answer.
“Hello?”
“Hey,” Jonghyun breathed into the receiver. Kibum sounded a bit different through the speaker, but if he closed his eyes, it felt like he was laying right beside him in his bed like they used to do so often.
He missed all of that so much: the stolen smiles when they climbed into bed, the yearning to get closer to his best friend, and the poor excuses that allowed him to do just that (“I’m cold, Kibum. I’m laying too close to the window. Let me share your blanket, too.”).
“Isn’t it really late over there?” Kibum’s voice was full of concern, and Jonghyun grinned to himself, covering his eyes with his hand to try to hold back tears.
“Yeah, it’s two in the morning,” he said as if he wasn’t going to regret the fuck out of it in the morning.
“Why are you calling me at two in the morning, Jjong?” The way the nickname rolled off his tongue made Jonghyun’s stomach turn. Almost three years without seeing each other, but Kibum still treated him the same as he did before he ever left.
“Oh, I uh-” he tried desperately to come up with an excuse, “I wanted to see if you-I just thought I would-I mean, I was-” He sighed heavily, allowing his futile attempts to end. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I don’t have a good excuse. I just missed the sound of your voice.”
Kibum was silent on the other line.
“What uh…” He cleared his throat. “What time is it there? Do you have class?”
“It’s ten in the morning. And I have class in forty-five minutes, so I’m getting ready.” Kibum spoke easily, as if there wasn’t an awkward patch there at all.
Now that he said so, Jonghyun noticed an echo around him. He was probably on speaker-phone while Kibum was doing his hair in the bathroom or something. “What’s your hair look like now?”
Kibum laughed and Jonghyun’s heart jumped. “It’s the same as you last saw it. Blond with pink in the front, remember? Like the picture I posted on my blog before?”
Jonghyun went on Kibum’s blog more often than he liked to admit. So yes, he knew. “Oh, cool. I like it like that. It’s really cute.”
“Thanks. I remember you told me before that pink hair would suit me, so that’s why I did it.”
“Really?” He prayed that he wasn’t getting his hopes up for something that Kibum was kidding about.
Kibum scoffed. “What, do you think that I don’t miss you as much as you miss me?”
He swallowed down more tears. Sometimes he hated that he got emotional so easily. “What um… What are you doing for your birthday? It’s in only a few weeks.”
“Probably just going out with some friends. What are you doing that weekend?”
“Sitting here, wishing I was going out with you and some friends?” Jonghyun laughed away the seriousness in his words.
“No, really,” Kibum laughed as well, and Jonghyun’s heart hurt when he heard it. “Do you work that weekend?”
“No, I’m off from Friday to Monday. We’re over-staffed right now, so I might ask for some more time off. Just for a break, you know?” Jonghyun picked at his pillowcase. It was one he’d had for years, old and faded and thin, but he couldn’t get rid of it, because it was the first thing he ever made Jonghyun when he was learning how to sew. A gift from a thirteen-year-old Kibum wasn’t worth throwing away for anything.
“Oh, good. Well, I’m sending you something tomorrow. I’ll do the express shipping so it gets there in a few days instead of next month.” There was a smile in his voice. Jonghyun wished he could see it.
“What is it?” Excitement started to beat in his bones.
“I’m not telling you.” He could almost hear Kibum’s eyes rolling. “Just wait for them, they won’t take long to get there.”
He sighed. “All right. What do you want me to get you for your birthday?”
“Hmm…” Kibum paused for a long second.
“Something I can afford with a retail paycheck,” he was quick to clarify.
He laughed again. “Make me something. Like the year you made me that tape of you singing a bunch of my favorite songs, you know?”
“Don’t remind me about that,” he murmured, cheeks heating in embarrassment. It’d been such a great idea in his zealous fifteen-year-old mind. Hearing it back years later when Kibum found it again was one of the most embarrassing experiences of his life.
“Oh please, Jonghyun.”
“I can’t make you nice clothes like you like,” he said sadly.
“Yeah, but you’re the most beautiful singer I’ve ever heard, so you can use that to your advantage, can’t you?” There was the playful note of sarcasm in Kibum’s words like there always was when he gave out compliments.
He sighed. “Yeah, sure.”
“Hey, I have to go. My class starts soon and I still need to get my work together, so…”
Jonghyun frowned. “All right. I’ll see you.” He really wouldn’t, but it was a nice thought nonetheless.
“Bye, Jjong. I love you!”
He hung up before Jonghyun had a chance to say the same back.
Jonghyun couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night; the conversation played back in his head too many times for him to even try to sleep.
___
When he checked his mail a few days later, there was a bright green envelope that could only be from one person.
He grinned as he pulled it out, and opened it in the mailroom, unable to wait.
The first thing he saw was a strip of paper. Once it was out of the envelope, his jaw dropped and his stomach flipped over. It was a plane ticket, a round-trip ticket from Seoul to San Francisco at 8AM the day before Kibum’s birthday.
With the ticket was a note; he couldn’t help but smile when he looked at it.
God, Kibum’s handwriting was so cute.
Jjong,
You don’t have to use the ticket if you don’t want to, or if you’re too busy to leave. I don’t have much longer here in San Francisco, but I don’t even know how I’ve survived without you here. It can be a birthday present to me, for you to come visit me here. I want to show you everything here. I talk about you all the time to my friends and they want to meet you, too. But really, I just want to see you.
I really love you, Jonghyun. I love you more than I think you realize, and being here for so long has made me see how hard it is for me to live without you. I don’t know if you feel the same way, but I’m hoping that you do, because I really want to be with you when I get back to Seoul. This is really cowardly for me to be saying through a letter, but you know I’m not very good at saying things face-to-face.
When I see you, I think I’m going to kiss you. I hope that that’s okay. If it’s not, you can just find a way to dodge it or something. I’ll get the message. But I’ve wanted to kiss you for a really long time now, and I don’t want to wait anymore. It’s been 1000 days exactly since I’ve seen you, so I feel like doing something drastic.
You know, this could change everything between us. That’s okay with me. If you don’t want to be anything other than my friend, then that’s okay. If nothing else, I want to stay your best friend.
Hopefully I’ll see you soon.
Love,
Kibum
Jonghyun wanted to know if this was a joke or not. When he re-read the note, sincerity jumped off the page and caused his heart to come to a full stop for longer than was probably healthy.
He started packing his bag as soon as he got back to his apartment.
- day twenty-four: outside
jongkey; 650 words; general; pg13
Jonghyun was a home-body. He never got the travel bug like most young people, never really saw the point in visiting a thousand other places in the world when he was perfectly happy at home in Korea.
With that in mind, he blamed it on being too nice that he agreed to come with his best friend to London for some soccer game he didn’t really care about.
Neither of them spoke English beyond greetings and asking where to find the restroom, so it was a horrible idea for them to brave England of all places, but Minho insisted, and Jonghyun couldn’t say no to him. Minho was an aegyo god when it counted.
So, he tried to make the best of it by staying put in their hotel room as long as he possibly could, only coming down the daunting elevator-god, there were so many people speaking English around him it made his head hurt-for breakfast in the morning.
He left Minho to sleep in their room, because Minho was impossible to wake up, and he didn’t want to deal with his grumpy morning attitude for the rest of the day. He was alone in the dining room-thank god it was buffet style and he didn’t have to order anything in English-with only his plate for company. He didn’t recognize any of the food, really, so he resigned to get a bit of everything and then shuffle away to an empty table. Paranoid glances around him showed that no one noticed him, that they didn’t find him too out of the ordinary with his piled-high plate and slightly-pained expression.
Halfway down his plate, Jonghyun heard something that caught his attention fast enough for him to whip his head up and drop his fork on the ground.
Someone nearby was speaking Korean, and it wasn’t Minho.
After a quick search, he saw the person who he heard speaking his language: a man, two tables over, bleach-blond hair, slanted eyes, high cheekbones-generally very good-looking-, wearing really odd clothes. He was sitting alone with just a mug of what Jonghyun assumed to be coffee, talking on the phone very animatedly in the language Jonghyun actually /understood/. He was talking about something shopping-related; Jonghyun tried not to listen too attentively, because it was one thing to be excited, but another to be a creep.
But hey, he was breaching a level of creepiness anyway when he saw the blond get off the phone and promptly stood up to go to his table.
“Hi,” he said, in Korean, when he sat down. He hoped this wasn’t too weird.
Judging by the blond’s expression, it probably was.
“Hi?”
Jonghyun smiled to try to show that he wasn’t intimidating. And then he got immediately self-conscious of there being food in his teeth.
“I uh… I just heard you talking in Korean and I thought maybe I would come by and say… hi.” It all seemed so much better planned in his head.
The blond’s brows rose haughtily. “You heard me talking, so you thought it would be okay for you to come sit with me like it’s a public cafeteria?”
Jonghyun’s lips fell into a guilty frown. “Yeah?”
The blond’s mouth quirked into a small smile, and he pushed his phone aside so he could rest his elbows on the table. “What’s your name?”
Jonghyun lit up and grinned, infinitely relieved that this guy wasn’t as unfriendly as he seemed.
He got a bit tongue-tied trying to say his name when the blond smiled at him, but hey, at least he got it out in the end. And the blond-Kibum, he learned-didn’t try to make an excuse to escape or end their conversation at all until Minho came down and had to physically drag Jonghyun back up to their room.
(Not before Jonghyun got Kibum’s phone number, though.)
- day twenty-five: winter
jongkey; 1069 words; romance; r
Jonghyun wasn’t always fond of winter. He preferred the summer, when he could wear t-shirts and tank tops and be comfortable in jeans. With winter came the need for more layers, hats that would mess up his hair, more clothes he would have to wash later. Colder months called for staying indoors, sitting on a blanket wearing a hoodie in attempt to keep his fingers warm enough to play guitar. It made his strings stiff and his lips chapped when he tried to sing; he was forced to miss syllables to lick his lips, leaving the phrases incomplete.
He always appreciated the calm mood that came with winter, though, and how the cold air kept his heart rate steady. He wrote the best ballads in the winter.
Once he met Key, his animosity towards winter began to fade away. And by the fifth winter they were spending together, it was gone entirely.
How could he complain about the cold weather, after all, when it necessitated them curling up under thick blankets and lacing their fingers together to keep warm, when their hot showers got only hotter with their skin pressed together to escape the cold air surrounding them, when their kisses tasted like hot chocolate and their hands roaming each other’s bodies was the only way to keep each other warm?
If nothing else, Jonghyun couldn’t dislike winter when it meant Key wore sweaters and scarves and earmuffs and knitted hats. A chilly Key meant flushed cheeks and red lips and hands covering Jonghyun’s in his jacket pockets. It meant the cold tip of his nose burrowing into the sides of his neck, arms snug around his waist. Jonghyun couldn’t argue with any of that.
Key was the one who found reasons to complain during winter; his main complaint, spoken like a mantra, was that they needed a fireplace.
A fireplace would keep them so warm, he swore, and they needed one to curl up in front of. Winters in their apartment only validated his wish for a fireplace.
In return, Jonghyun promised that one day he’d buy him a house with a fireplace, plus a rug in front of it soft enough that it wouldn’t hurt his back when they inevitably made love on it.
It always made Key’s cheeks turn pink when Jonghyun said that.
It was all very gratifying.
Perhaps Jonghyun’s favorite part of winter, however, more than the cute attire or the calm atmosphere perfect for ballads, were the times that he came home from work at the studio-usually shivering, because there was a long walk from the parking lot to their apartment-to be greeted by a soft kiss from red bow lips and then informed that Key was running a hot bath for them.
Jonghyun didn’t know what Key put in the hot water to make it so fizzy and smell so nice-he’d tried to show Jonghyun before, but he simply didn’t believe that the little green ball of what looked like salt could work such wonders in the water-, but whatever it was in combination with the candles Key lit and the incense he burned on the sink made the tub-a benefit in the apartment they paid much extra for, but viewed as a necessity by now-no less than a haven to sit in until the water went cold.
Jonghyun sank into the nearly too-hot water first, sighing with shut eyes as he felt it instantly soothe his skin. Key was right after, sitting with his knees to his chest in front of Jonghyun; he always misjudged the water displacement, and there were already towels surrounding the tub to catch the water that overflowed when they were both inside.
The older’s arms slid around the younger’s waist and his cheek pressed against his shoulder blade. His eyes shut serenly as his lips trailed up his back to the dip of his neck, and Key shivered slightly when he nipped softly at the skin.
Kibum purred out how nice it felt, letting his head tip sideways.
Jonghyun’s hands laid flat on Key’s kneecaps above the water surface and then dragged over the curve of his naked thigh, mapping the ridge of his hip bone and the contour of his waist. He told him in turn, lips moving against the shell of his ear, how nice it felt to touch him.
They lost track of the time spent together like that, hands running slowly and sensually over slick bodies, minutes marked only by the flickering light from the candles. Key turned his head to whisper sweet nothings into the angle of Jonghyun’s jaw up to his ear, the sort of sentiments that too-often got lost in the whir of busy schedules-Key’s steady job at the daycare center plus the auditions he had to prepare for, and Jonghyun recording his second mini-album. It was one thing for Jonghyun to tell Key so often how he felt about him through song, but Key didn’t have the same medium to express himself. So he took advantage of quiet moments like the ones in the bathtub to make Jonghyun shiver with his words, heart swelling up and affection higher than ever as Key reassured him over and over of how much he loved him.
The whispers in his ear turned into kisses, kisses turned into more touches, and soon, the towels were soaking up more than ever as water sloshed over the edges of the tub.
It was moments like the one after Jonghyun stopped shaking from his climax, when he smiled down at Key’s flushed face, hair wet and sticking to the sides of his face, that he wished there was another way he could say “I love you” so Key could properly understand just how much he meant it, some way that didn’t sound so run-of-the-mill and average.
He could never find one, but Key didn’t seem to mind as he pulled Jonghyun down for a slow, passionate kiss.
When Jonghyun got out of the tub, having to take a quick shower afterward to clean up, he winced at the chilly air in the bathroom. In a beat, animosity went through his mind and he wished dearly for spring to come soon.
Then Key stepped out behind him, wrapped another towel around his shoulders, and laid his chin in the crook of his neck.
And Jonghyun couldn’t really complain about that.