While you were chasing distant dreams → for colourstacia
Title: While you were chasing distant dreams
Recipient: colourstacia
Pairing: Xiumin/Baekhyun
Rating: PG
Word count: 2700
Summary: Minseok’s always wanted to be a vet. His parents both work with animals, so it would be good if he goes down the same path.
It had always been a dream of Minseok’s to become a vet. He’d grown up in a house filled with animals - his family had had a total of three dogs, four cats, six hamsters, a gerbil, a guinea pig and countless fish, though many had died as Minseok grew up.
Minseok was in high school when his mother had told him about University of Glasgow’s School of Veterinary Medicine. He’d made it his goal mere moments after he’d searched it on Naver. It was the best vet school in the world, and Minseok would have to work hard to get in.
And work hard he did. He put in extra hours at his family’s small animal shelter, making sure that it all goes into record, as well as extra lessons at the hakwon to polish up his English. If he was going to Scotland, he’d need to have no less than perfect grades in English. Minseok also had to switch from Chemistry to Biology - something that his teachers had worried over at first, since he was already a sophomore and needed to catch up quite a bit, but he promised them that he would be able to cope.
His parents were extremely supportive. His father was a vet, while his mother specialised in animal care, so having their oldest child and only son go down the same path as them was honourable. They paid for his hakwon lessons and made sure that he had everything he needed to do well in school.
Everything changed the day the shelter burned down.
Minseok had been at the hakwon when it happened. Apparently there had been a technical fault in the operation theatre, and the fire had spread fast due to lack of fire prevention measures and sprinklers. The shelter was burnt down to ashes, as did all the animals that had been trapped in it.
As well as Minseok’s parents and younger sister Minyoung.
Everything that had happened between the phonecall from the hospital (Are you Kim Minseok, son of Kim Seokjin and Kim Yooah and brother of Kim Minyoung?) to the weeklong funeral was a blur. He didn’t cry, trying his best to hold it together and plan the funeral and their cremations with his grandparents.
It was only after the funeral had wrapped up and he went home to an empty house and the ghosts of his family lingering between the walls did it really hit Minseok that his family was dead.
He was the only one left.
He broke down, crumbling to his knees, fat drops of tears sliding down his cheeks and wetting his scarf. He cried for a long time, sitting on the floor and letting his grief show, until he was so exhausted, he laid on his side and let his cries turn into choked sobs.
It was then that his cat had stalked up to him and nudged her head against his knee. She let out a sad meow and stared at him as though expecting a reply, then nudged her head against his arm when he didn’t respond.
Minseok still didn’t reply, so she curled herself against his chest and fell asleep.
Losing his family and all the animals he’d grown to care for hadn’t quelled Minseok’s desire to be a vet. Rather, he was even more desperate for it, distancing himself from his friends to study every moment he could - during lunch, before hakwon, even trying to cram in whatever he could before he went to sleep. It was a coping mechanism of sorts, since Minseok knew that it was what his parents had wanted from him, and that it was one of the few things that he could do to honour them.
Minseok’s hard work had paid off. He’d gotten nothing less than stellar scores for his SATs, coming out valedictorian of his school. The University of Glasgow had offered him full board and tuition after seeing his grades and volunteer history, and Minseok jumped at the first chance he got to leave South Korea for good.
“I’m gonna miss you, you know,” his childhood friend Chanyeol had said, his voice muffled by Minseok’s hair. “Take care of yourself. And if there’s anything you need, you make sure you ask me.”
Minseok grinned. It was something Chanyeol had said countless times ever since Minseok had lost his family. He’d been a rock of sorts to Minseok, his family frequently inviting him over for dinner, at times even coming over just to brighten up his gloomy home. Minseok had been really thankful, though a little burdened by Chanyeol’s generosity, Chanyeol had never once let Minseok think that he was a chore or a pity case.
“I’m serious, hyung,” Chanyeol insisted. “Even if it’s just kimchi because the kimchi over there sucks, let me know and I’ll send a box over.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Minseok told him. He pulled Chanyeol into another hug, holding him close. “Thank you for everything, Chanyeol-ah.”
“You’re a great friend, hyung,” Chanyeol said. He looked a little teary, and pushed Minseok away to dab at his tears. “Go, before I keep you here forever.”
Minseok finds himself at London’s Heathrow airport some thirteen hours later. It’s crowded, much more than Incheon is, and he feels more than a little lost. He can’t find his gate, so he goes up to an information counter to ask.
A white girl is behind the counter, instead of someone Korean, and suddenly Minseok is fully aware that he’s no longer in Korea. He’s in the UK, and he won’t be going back until he finishes his degree.
“Hi, uhm. I need to take a connecting flight to Glasgow,” he pauses, English feeling odd on his tongue. “But I can’t find my gate. Can you help me?”
The girl smiles and asks for his boarding pass. Minseok gives it to her and she points at the direction he’s supposed to go, all the while talking rapidly in English that he feels a little dizzy. He thanks her, though he’s barely caught half of what she’s said, and starts tugging his luggage over to the direction she’s pointed.
Glasgow is a lot less hectic than London and Seoul. There’s a certain calm about it that has Minseok letting out a breath. The buildings around him are mostly barely ten stories high - Seoul was filled with skyscapers crammed close against one another - and Minseok spends most of the bus ride staring at the sky, thinking of his family.
I’m here, he thinks. I’m really here.
The university covers much of the city, but his faculty’s a little to the north-west, separate from the main university campus and surrounded by parks. It’s also in a modern building, as opposed to old brick buildings that houses the rest of the university in the city centre, but Minseok doesn’t mind. He takes a deep breath after he gets off the bus, taking a moment to just look at his surroundings and really taking everything in - the fact that he was in Glasgow and starting anew.
The university had given him a small apartment that he would share with two other students near the faculty, and Minseok makes its way to the address, still a little disoriented by the amount of English he’s exposed to. Sure, Seoul was bilingual in an attempt to boost tourism, but Minseok had never paid much mind to the English on the signs and maps around Seoul, focusing on the Korean instead. Here in Glasgow he had no other choice.
He starts feeling a little jetlagged when he finally reaches the address. It’s not so much an apartment as it is a small two-storey terrace house. There’s a small garden out front that looks a little shabby, but Minseok could fix that up in no time.
He unlocks the door and steps inside. It looks empty, but clean, and Minseok leaves his luggage downstairs, heads up the stairs and into the first bedroom he sees and crashes onto the bed.
There’s a boy standing over him when Minseok wakes up. It’s dark out, but the room lights are turned on and extremely fluorescent. Minseok groans and closes his eyes shut, trying to get used to the light.
When he opens his eyes to really look at the boy, Minseok notices that he looks Korean, but it’s not really possible, because Minseok is in Glasgow, so he closes his eyes and rubs at them before opening them again.
The boy still looks Korean.
“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” the boy says a little drily in perfect, unaccented English. “This is my bed, by the way.”
“Sorry,” Minseok mutters, getting up and walking out of the room. He’s walking past the doorway when he realises that he should probably ask to prevent making the same mistake twice. “Which room isn’t, uh, occupied?”
The boy rolls his eyes. “How fresh off the boat are you?” He asks. “The room on the right isn’t.”
Minseok feels a little offended. The boy sounds like he’s lived outside of Korea for a while, his unaccented English a perfect contrast to Minseok’s. He’s too tired to tell the boy off, though, so he goes into the other room and crashes onto the bed again.
It’s light out and Minseok realises that he’s still dressed in the clothes he’s worn for a fifteen-hour flight and an hour long bus ride. He feels very icky, so he gets up and trudges back downstairs to grab his luggage.
The Korean-looking boy is lounging on the couch, and he looks up when Minseok enters the room.
“Slept well?” He asks.
“Yeah. Sorry about yesterday. I was really jetlagged,” Minseok replies slowly, making sure that he doesn’t sound too accented.
“It happens,” the boy waves his hand. “I’m Byun Baekhyun, by the way. Doing foundation in bioscience.”
Minseok narrows his eyes. If Baekhyun was doing foundation, that would mean that he’s younger than Minseok. But then again, if he was raised overseas, he probably wouldn’t give a shit about Korean etiquette.
“Kim Minseok,” he says. “First year veterinary science.”
Baekhyun’s eyes widen. “You’re a freshman?”
“Yeah.”
“Whoa,” Baekhyun says, then switches to Korean. “I’m so sorry then. Uh, hyung? For last night. And today too I guess.” He rubs at the back of his head. “I thought we were the same age.”
“I thought you’d been away from Korea for so long you forgot about these kinds of things,” Minseok tells him.
Baekhyun shakes his head. “My parents travel a lot but they made sure that we were always Korean first.”
Minseok lets Baekhyun’s earlier rudeness slide, and Baekhyun, a little embarrassed by his slip, slinks away as well. They spend the next few days with Baekhyun trying to tread around Minseok. He finds it a little ridiculous and very hilarious, but after the fourth day he takes pity on Baekhyun and returns from his bridging course with bags of Korean snacks from the Asian market he’d stumbled across while wandering through town.
“I don’t know how long you’ve been away from Korea, or if you even eat this stuff, but here,” he places the bags on the table in front of Baekhyun, and sees Baekhyun’s eyes glaze over a little.
“You bought laver,” he says, picking up the pack of seaweed. “I love laver.”
The food ends up being a great peace offering, and Baekhyun begins to open up to Minseok a lot more. They sit on the couch together watching infomercials when they don’t have classes in the mornings, Baekhyun telling Minseok of how his mother had fallen for their traps more than once. Baekhyun also brings Minseok around in Glasgow, introducing him to fish and chips, bread and butter pudding, pot roast and Indian food.
“You can’t just live in the UK and not try Indian food,” Baekhyun says as they walk back to their house with bags of naan and keema and chicken tikka masala. The statement doesn’t make any sense to Minseok, but he doesn’t question it. There’s also other stuff like aloo gobi saag and tandoori that Minseok hadn’t been keen on trying, but Baekhyun had gotten anyway.
“Trust me, it’s delicious,” Baekhyun insists. He stops Minseok when he pulls out cutlery. “Use your hands. Indian food can’t be eaten with forks and spoons, hyung.”
Thanks to Baekhyun, Minseok gets addicted to Indian food. It’s a different kind of spiciness than what’s found in Korean food, but Minseok loves it all the same.
“Hyung, this is the third day in a row,” Baekhyun says when Minseok walks into the house with bags of naan. “We really need to wean you off.”
“Nah,” Minseok waves him off. “It tastes good, so I eat it.”
Baekhyun snags a piece of naan, and Minseok frowns at him. “Still,” he says. “We should try something else.”
Minseok ends up liking beer battered fish and chips, especially the one from the greasy joint next to Baekhyun’s faculty. It’s oily as hell and served in old newspaper, but Minseok loves it. The joint also sells fried mars bars and some kind of curried fries, and Minseok loves those too. Baekhyun is relieved, because fish and chips are way cheaper than Indian food is.
“Finally,” Baekhyun says. “I thought I’d have to give up my book allowance eating Indian food for the rest of the summer.”
Summer starts to ebb out in early August, and Minseok gets back his midterm test scores from his summer bridging courses. He has to take one for English, and another for basic veterinary science, and he’d done badly in both.
He looks out the window, where great, big fluffy white clouds are floating silently past, and thinks of his parents and Minyoung.
Minseok knows that spending time with Baekhyun had, in a way, caused his scores to suffer. He slips back into his old routine of holing himself up in his room studying. Sometimes Baekhyun would ask him if he’d wanted to hang out or have lunch or just watch TV, but Minseok always says no.
A week later, Baekhyun opens Minseok’s door without knocking, and sits on his bed.
“Hyung,” he begins, the switches to English. “Stop punishing yourself.”
Minseok stops writing, but doesn’t turn to face Baekhyun.
“Look, I don’t know what’s going through your mind right now, but your test scores aren’t everything, hyung. So what if you do badly?”
What kind of son am I if I can’t even do well in school? Minseok thinks.
“Come on, hyung, take the rest of the day off,” Baekhyun says. He gets up. “I rented a car. I’ll bring you to Loch Lomond. It’s beautiful in the late summer.”
Minseok doesn’t say anything, and Baekhyun leaves the room.
Baekhyun is sleeping on the couch when Minseok finally leaves his room. He feels a little guilty for having somehow blamed Baekhyun for his grades, even if he didn’t actually tell Baekhyun about it.
He places a hand on Baekhyun’s shoulder and shakes him gently. Baekhyun blinks sleepily when he wakes up, his straight black hair falling into his eyes, making him look absolutely adorable.
“I thought you’d never come around, hyung” he says, his smile a little lopsided and sleepy. He sits up, then swings his legs off the couch. “Come on, let’s grab some food and go.”
They reach Loch Lomond the mid-afternoon, after around 45 minutes of driving. The water is dark and still, and there’s ducks dozing in the afternoon sun by the waterline. Minseok stares out at the water, seeing birds swoop down into the water and flying away, and people fishing in boats in the distance, and wonders if he should stop living trying to chase approval from his family who has passed.
“Hyung,” Baekhyun calls. He’s spread out the picnic mat, and pats the space next to him. Minseok goes, not bothering with pausing to consider or think too much into it.
Baekhyun offers him a biscuit. He’s grinning, his lips spread thin around his teeth and his eyes curving into little happy crescents. The sun’s shining in his wind-mussed hair.
Minseok takes the biscuit, and decides to move forward.
Author’s note: hi! i’m so sorry this is so short u__u if i had more time i definitely would’ve made it a lot longer! u__u i hope you enjoy it anyway! much love goes out to my fairy princess r for proofreading this!
Recipient: colourstacia
Pairing: Xiumin/Baekhyun
Rating: PG
Word count: 2700
Summary: Minseok’s always wanted to be a vet. His parents both work with animals, so it would be good if he goes down the same path.
It had always been a dream of Minseok’s to become a vet. He’d grown up in a house filled with animals - his family had had a total of three dogs, four cats, six hamsters, a gerbil, a guinea pig and countless fish, though many had died as Minseok grew up.
Minseok was in high school when his mother had told him about University of Glasgow’s School of Veterinary Medicine. He’d made it his goal mere moments after he’d searched it on Naver. It was the best vet school in the world, and Minseok would have to work hard to get in.
And work hard he did. He put in extra hours at his family’s small animal shelter, making sure that it all goes into record, as well as extra lessons at the hakwon to polish up his English. If he was going to Scotland, he’d need to have no less than perfect grades in English. Minseok also had to switch from Chemistry to Biology - something that his teachers had worried over at first, since he was already a sophomore and needed to catch up quite a bit, but he promised them that he would be able to cope.
His parents were extremely supportive. His father was a vet, while his mother specialised in animal care, so having their oldest child and only son go down the same path as them was honourable. They paid for his hakwon lessons and made sure that he had everything he needed to do well in school.
Everything changed the day the shelter burned down.
Minseok had been at the hakwon when it happened. Apparently there had been a technical fault in the operation theatre, and the fire had spread fast due to lack of fire prevention measures and sprinklers. The shelter was burnt down to ashes, as did all the animals that had been trapped in it.
As well as Minseok’s parents and younger sister Minyoung.
Everything that had happened between the phonecall from the hospital (Are you Kim Minseok, son of Kim Seokjin and Kim Yooah and brother of Kim Minyoung?) to the weeklong funeral was a blur. He didn’t cry, trying his best to hold it together and plan the funeral and their cremations with his grandparents.
It was only after the funeral had wrapped up and he went home to an empty house and the ghosts of his family lingering between the walls did it really hit Minseok that his family was dead.
He was the only one left.
He broke down, crumbling to his knees, fat drops of tears sliding down his cheeks and wetting his scarf. He cried for a long time, sitting on the floor and letting his grief show, until he was so exhausted, he laid on his side and let his cries turn into choked sobs.
It was then that his cat had stalked up to him and nudged her head against his knee. She let out a sad meow and stared at him as though expecting a reply, then nudged her head against his arm when he didn’t respond.
Minseok still didn’t reply, so she curled herself against his chest and fell asleep.
Losing his family and all the animals he’d grown to care for hadn’t quelled Minseok’s desire to be a vet. Rather, he was even more desperate for it, distancing himself from his friends to study every moment he could - during lunch, before hakwon, even trying to cram in whatever he could before he went to sleep. It was a coping mechanism of sorts, since Minseok knew that it was what his parents had wanted from him, and that it was one of the few things that he could do to honour them.
Minseok’s hard work had paid off. He’d gotten nothing less than stellar scores for his SATs, coming out valedictorian of his school. The University of Glasgow had offered him full board and tuition after seeing his grades and volunteer history, and Minseok jumped at the first chance he got to leave South Korea for good.
“I’m gonna miss you, you know,” his childhood friend Chanyeol had said, his voice muffled by Minseok’s hair. “Take care of yourself. And if there’s anything you need, you make sure you ask me.”
Minseok grinned. It was something Chanyeol had said countless times ever since Minseok had lost his family. He’d been a rock of sorts to Minseok, his family frequently inviting him over for dinner, at times even coming over just to brighten up his gloomy home. Minseok had been really thankful, though a little burdened by Chanyeol’s generosity, Chanyeol had never once let Minseok think that he was a chore or a pity case.
“I’m serious, hyung,” Chanyeol insisted. “Even if it’s just kimchi because the kimchi over there sucks, let me know and I’ll send a box over.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Minseok told him. He pulled Chanyeol into another hug, holding him close. “Thank you for everything, Chanyeol-ah.”
“You’re a great friend, hyung,” Chanyeol said. He looked a little teary, and pushed Minseok away to dab at his tears. “Go, before I keep you here forever.”
Minseok finds himself at London’s Heathrow airport some thirteen hours later. It’s crowded, much more than Incheon is, and he feels more than a little lost. He can’t find his gate, so he goes up to an information counter to ask.
A white girl is behind the counter, instead of someone Korean, and suddenly Minseok is fully aware that he’s no longer in Korea. He’s in the UK, and he won’t be going back until he finishes his degree.
“Hi, uhm. I need to take a connecting flight to Glasgow,” he pauses, English feeling odd on his tongue. “But I can’t find my gate. Can you help me?”
The girl smiles and asks for his boarding pass. Minseok gives it to her and she points at the direction he’s supposed to go, all the while talking rapidly in English that he feels a little dizzy. He thanks her, though he’s barely caught half of what she’s said, and starts tugging his luggage over to the direction she’s pointed.
Glasgow is a lot less hectic than London and Seoul. There’s a certain calm about it that has Minseok letting out a breath. The buildings around him are mostly barely ten stories high - Seoul was filled with skyscapers crammed close against one another - and Minseok spends most of the bus ride staring at the sky, thinking of his family.
I’m here, he thinks. I’m really here.
The university covers much of the city, but his faculty’s a little to the north-west, separate from the main university campus and surrounded by parks. It’s also in a modern building, as opposed to old brick buildings that houses the rest of the university in the city centre, but Minseok doesn’t mind. He takes a deep breath after he gets off the bus, taking a moment to just look at his surroundings and really taking everything in - the fact that he was in Glasgow and starting anew.
The university had given him a small apartment that he would share with two other students near the faculty, and Minseok makes its way to the address, still a little disoriented by the amount of English he’s exposed to. Sure, Seoul was bilingual in an attempt to boost tourism, but Minseok had never paid much mind to the English on the signs and maps around Seoul, focusing on the Korean instead. Here in Glasgow he had no other choice.
He starts feeling a little jetlagged when he finally reaches the address. It’s not so much an apartment as it is a small two-storey terrace house. There’s a small garden out front that looks a little shabby, but Minseok could fix that up in no time.
He unlocks the door and steps inside. It looks empty, but clean, and Minseok leaves his luggage downstairs, heads up the stairs and into the first bedroom he sees and crashes onto the bed.
There’s a boy standing over him when Minseok wakes up. It’s dark out, but the room lights are turned on and extremely fluorescent. Minseok groans and closes his eyes shut, trying to get used to the light.
When he opens his eyes to really look at the boy, Minseok notices that he looks Korean, but it’s not really possible, because Minseok is in Glasgow, so he closes his eyes and rubs at them before opening them again.
The boy still looks Korean.
“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” the boy says a little drily in perfect, unaccented English. “This is my bed, by the way.”
“Sorry,” Minseok mutters, getting up and walking out of the room. He’s walking past the doorway when he realises that he should probably ask to prevent making the same mistake twice. “Which room isn’t, uh, occupied?”
The boy rolls his eyes. “How fresh off the boat are you?” He asks. “The room on the right isn’t.”
Minseok feels a little offended. The boy sounds like he’s lived outside of Korea for a while, his unaccented English a perfect contrast to Minseok’s. He’s too tired to tell the boy off, though, so he goes into the other room and crashes onto the bed again.
It’s light out and Minseok realises that he’s still dressed in the clothes he’s worn for a fifteen-hour flight and an hour long bus ride. He feels very icky, so he gets up and trudges back downstairs to grab his luggage.
The Korean-looking boy is lounging on the couch, and he looks up when Minseok enters the room.
“Slept well?” He asks.
“Yeah. Sorry about yesterday. I was really jetlagged,” Minseok replies slowly, making sure that he doesn’t sound too accented.
“It happens,” the boy waves his hand. “I’m Byun Baekhyun, by the way. Doing foundation in bioscience.”
Minseok narrows his eyes. If Baekhyun was doing foundation, that would mean that he’s younger than Minseok. But then again, if he was raised overseas, he probably wouldn’t give a shit about Korean etiquette.
“Kim Minseok,” he says. “First year veterinary science.”
Baekhyun’s eyes widen. “You’re a freshman?”
“Yeah.”
“Whoa,” Baekhyun says, then switches to Korean. “I’m so sorry then. Uh, hyung? For last night. And today too I guess.” He rubs at the back of his head. “I thought we were the same age.”
“I thought you’d been away from Korea for so long you forgot about these kinds of things,” Minseok tells him.
Baekhyun shakes his head. “My parents travel a lot but they made sure that we were always Korean first.”
Minseok lets Baekhyun’s earlier rudeness slide, and Baekhyun, a little embarrassed by his slip, slinks away as well. They spend the next few days with Baekhyun trying to tread around Minseok. He finds it a little ridiculous and very hilarious, but after the fourth day he takes pity on Baekhyun and returns from his bridging course with bags of Korean snacks from the Asian market he’d stumbled across while wandering through town.
“I don’t know how long you’ve been away from Korea, or if you even eat this stuff, but here,” he places the bags on the table in front of Baekhyun, and sees Baekhyun’s eyes glaze over a little.
“You bought laver,” he says, picking up the pack of seaweed. “I love laver.”
The food ends up being a great peace offering, and Baekhyun begins to open up to Minseok a lot more. They sit on the couch together watching infomercials when they don’t have classes in the mornings, Baekhyun telling Minseok of how his mother had fallen for their traps more than once. Baekhyun also brings Minseok around in Glasgow, introducing him to fish and chips, bread and butter pudding, pot roast and Indian food.
“You can’t just live in the UK and not try Indian food,” Baekhyun says as they walk back to their house with bags of naan and keema and chicken tikka masala. The statement doesn’t make any sense to Minseok, but he doesn’t question it. There’s also other stuff like aloo gobi saag and tandoori that Minseok hadn’t been keen on trying, but Baekhyun had gotten anyway.
“Trust me, it’s delicious,” Baekhyun insists. He stops Minseok when he pulls out cutlery. “Use your hands. Indian food can’t be eaten with forks and spoons, hyung.”
Thanks to Baekhyun, Minseok gets addicted to Indian food. It’s a different kind of spiciness than what’s found in Korean food, but Minseok loves it all the same.
“Hyung, this is the third day in a row,” Baekhyun says when Minseok walks into the house with bags of naan. “We really need to wean you off.”
“Nah,” Minseok waves him off. “It tastes good, so I eat it.”
Baekhyun snags a piece of naan, and Minseok frowns at him. “Still,” he says. “We should try something else.”
Minseok ends up liking beer battered fish and chips, especially the one from the greasy joint next to Baekhyun’s faculty. It’s oily as hell and served in old newspaper, but Minseok loves it. The joint also sells fried mars bars and some kind of curried fries, and Minseok loves those too. Baekhyun is relieved, because fish and chips are way cheaper than Indian food is.
“Finally,” Baekhyun says. “I thought I’d have to give up my book allowance eating Indian food for the rest of the summer.”
Summer starts to ebb out in early August, and Minseok gets back his midterm test scores from his summer bridging courses. He has to take one for English, and another for basic veterinary science, and he’d done badly in both.
He looks out the window, where great, big fluffy white clouds are floating silently past, and thinks of his parents and Minyoung.
Minseok knows that spending time with Baekhyun had, in a way, caused his scores to suffer. He slips back into his old routine of holing himself up in his room studying. Sometimes Baekhyun would ask him if he’d wanted to hang out or have lunch or just watch TV, but Minseok always says no.
A week later, Baekhyun opens Minseok’s door without knocking, and sits on his bed.
“Hyung,” he begins, the switches to English. “Stop punishing yourself.”
Minseok stops writing, but doesn’t turn to face Baekhyun.
“Look, I don’t know what’s going through your mind right now, but your test scores aren’t everything, hyung. So what if you do badly?”
What kind of son am I if I can’t even do well in school? Minseok thinks.
“Come on, hyung, take the rest of the day off,” Baekhyun says. He gets up. “I rented a car. I’ll bring you to Loch Lomond. It’s beautiful in the late summer.”
Minseok doesn’t say anything, and Baekhyun leaves the room.
Baekhyun is sleeping on the couch when Minseok finally leaves his room. He feels a little guilty for having somehow blamed Baekhyun for his grades, even if he didn’t actually tell Baekhyun about it.
He places a hand on Baekhyun’s shoulder and shakes him gently. Baekhyun blinks sleepily when he wakes up, his straight black hair falling into his eyes, making him look absolutely adorable.
“I thought you’d never come around, hyung” he says, his smile a little lopsided and sleepy. He sits up, then swings his legs off the couch. “Come on, let’s grab some food and go.”
They reach Loch Lomond the mid-afternoon, after around 45 minutes of driving. The water is dark and still, and there’s ducks dozing in the afternoon sun by the waterline. Minseok stares out at the water, seeing birds swoop down into the water and flying away, and people fishing in boats in the distance, and wonders if he should stop living trying to chase approval from his family who has passed.
“Hyung,” Baekhyun calls. He’s spread out the picnic mat, and pats the space next to him. Minseok goes, not bothering with pausing to consider or think too much into it.
Baekhyun offers him a biscuit. He’s grinning, his lips spread thin around his teeth and his eyes curving into little happy crescents. The sun’s shining in his wind-mussed hair.
Minseok takes the biscuit, and decides to move forward.
Author’s note: hi! i’m so sorry this is so short u__u if i had more time i definitely would’ve made it a lot longer! u__u i hope you enjoy it anyway! much love goes out to my fairy princess r for proofreading this!