[exo] this vicious child

[montellico]

title: this vicious child
pairing(s): kaisoo (and a fleeting moment of taoris)
rating: pg-13
wordcount: ~4000
summary: kai always leaves. kyungsoo doesn't seem to mind.
a/n: written in lapslock because it was just that kind of day. title from the song above and below, by the bravery.


kai is the one who always leaves.

he goes wherever the wind and his own fucked up whimsy takes him, worms his way into whatever niche he can find, whether it be joonmyun's kitchen or kyungsoo's heart. he is unpredictable, like the cracks in reality he exploits to make heart-stopping dimensional leaps, and those who know him have learned to stop trying to anticipate him.

when he drops into sehun's bed, dripping wet and smelling of brine, sehun is barely even shocked.

"what is this, hyung?" sehun says, shoving kai roughly to the floor and picking a strand of seaweed off his now-soaked comforter.

"the atlantic ocean," kai replies, his chattering teeth interrupting his grin.

"get out of my house."

"you don't want me?" kai pouts.

"no," sehun says stoutly, leaning back on his pillows and crossing his arms.

"but sehunnie, i want you," he coos.

"i was trying to sleep before you showed up and made my room smell like a fucking dead fish so can you please just leave now and let me get some rest."

"no," kai declares. he leaps up onto the bed and straddles sehun, leaning down to ghost his lips over the younger man's collarbones. he's a tease, and sehun knows he's a tease, and he knows that kai is just waiting for him to make the first move, and he does it anyway, grabbing kai's chin and kissing him roughly, canting his hips and relishing the delicious friction and the way their bones line up in perfect synchronization.

and then kai is gone with a roguish laugh, dissipating instanteously and leaving sehun with nothing but a fistful of smoke and a saltwater stain on his bed.

luhan knows him too well to be either fed up or enamored with kai, and kai likes that about him, so with luhan he lets go.

"babydoll," he drawls, strolling in through the sunlit living room of the penthouse. "i got a hell of a plan."

"i don't think so," luhan says sweetly. he says almost everything sweetly, which makes his venom all the more deadly.

"hear me out, honey," kai says cajolingly, cocking his head. "can'tcha even listen to what a guy's tryin' to say?"

"i don't know why you're putting on the sleazeball act," luhan says. "i mean, aside from the fact that you have a legitimately sleazy personality. please talk like a normal person."

"BUT I'M NOT NORMAL," kai booms. "I'M ABNORMAL."

"tell me something i don't know," luhan mutters.

"anyways," kai says briskly. "i came here so we could fuck."

"why?"

"why not?"

"it's been years since we did anything like that, kai. i thought we moved past this."

"it'll be one last hurrah," kai explains, "before i set you up with the love of your life."

"mm?"

"don't act like you haven't seen it in your freaky bubble vision whatevers," kai says. "i've got a guy, i'm gonna give him your number, and you two are gonna fall madly in love. after that, casual sex between us will totally off the table and so let's do it while we can, yeah?"

"hm," luhan hums. "okay."

kai takes luhan on the wide living room couch, hard and deliberate and kind of messy, and it's a great fuck, kai's hands at luhan's hips and luhan arching his back and grinding his ass into kai's pelvis until both of them are reduced to dust. the only difference is, luhan's dust has a home, and kai's is scattered in the morning breeze.

there's a boy named taemin who dances. sometimes kai watches like a shadow from the back corner of the studio as taemin pretends not to notice he's there, and sometimes they dance together, legs and hips and shoulders tracing fluid paths through the hours of the night until taemin says it's time to go home and kai says yeah, i guess, and they go their separate ways. one evening taemin asks if kai would like to come home with him, and kai says i don't know.

just come, taemin urges, we can make ramyun and watch bad horror films and you can meet jinki.

i don't think so, kai says, and walks away quickly. taemin follows him out the door but when he gets outside kai is nowhere to be found. there's only a faint wisp of smoke that smells to taemin of almost-genuine smiles and nice things that could have been.

"you really should go to lay for these things," joonmyun scolds.

"i don't trust yixing like i trust you," kai responds promptly.

joonmyun smiles tiredly.

it's five in the morning in seoul and kai is sitting on the closed lid of joonmyun's toilet seat as joonmyun spreads a soothing balm over the seared, blistered skin of kai's shoulder.

"i'm not going to ask how this happened," joonmyun says.

"yes, you are," kai says.

"yes, i am. how did this happen?"

joonmyun's fingers move with sure strokes, around and around in hypnotizing circles steady as the tides, and kai lets out a long, ragged breath because he knows it's okay to come undone under the guidance of joonmyun's practiced hands.

"it was just a little scuffle," he says.

joonmyun sighs. "i don't know whether to be disappointed that you're fighting with him again, or relieved that you didn't dive into a volcano or something."

"volcano diving," kai muses, "that sounds intriguing..."

"why are you fighting with him again?"

"i'm not fighting with him. i told you, it was a scuffle. barely that, really, since i left after he hit me once."

"why did he hit you?" joonmyun asks, narrowing his eyes.

"well, i sort of burst into his room unannounced," kai says. "you know how that is."

"no, i have no idea," joonmyun says dryly.

"and he was kind of fucking tao's brains out," jongin continues nonchalantly, "and i guess he was annoyed with me, so he kind of smacked me around a little. i suppose i can understand that."

"i'd like to believe that you're going to learn from this experience, kai," joonmyun says sternly, rinsing his hands off and rummaging through his medicine cabinet for bandages.

"but you know that i won't," kai says cheerfully.

"i always hold out hope."

"you are far too optimistic," kai tells him.

joonmyun bandages the wound and kai hops up and gives him a quick hug. joonmyun takes him by the shoulders, grasps him firmly with those gentle fingers and gives him a long, searching look.

"you know you always have a home here," joonmyun says. "you won't be imposing by spending a night or two every now and then."

"i know that," kai says. but just as what he says and what he does rarely coincide, what he knows and what he feels almost always disagree.

the flash of smoke he leaves in joonmyun's bathroom feels stale and dishonest, but joonmyun closes his eyes and savors it anyway.

for some unfathomable reason, kyungsoo loves him. not that kai doesn't consciously put out every effort to make kyungsoo love him, but he also puts out a lot of effort to make kyungsoo hate him. and while kyungsoo does on many occasions hate him, blow up at him, blow buildings up at him, in the end it all amounts to the same thing.

"are you tired of me yet?" kai whispers, lying in bed with a half naked kyungsoo and tracing with one calloused finger the curve of his cheek and the swell of his lips, drinking in the sight of him in all his drowsy perfection.

"no, not yet," kyungsoo replies, stifling a yawn.

"when will you be tired of me?"

"when kris finally murders you for good and you are nothing but ashes and smoke," kyungsoo says. "i'll have to carry you around in an urn. i imagine that will become very tiresome very fast."

"i'm already ashes and smoke," kai says quietly.

"actually, i think what you are is a human being," kyungsoo says calmly. "an obnoxious asshole who runs around wherever the hell he wants, never giving a shit about other people, and generally wreaking havoc and mayhem."

"that about sums me up, i guess," kai says, grinning.

"you're also beautiful," kyungsoo continues. "so beautiful i could love you for the rest of my life and still want to love you more. everyone says that kai has no heart and will never love me back, but it doesn't matter because your name is kim jongin and you love me already, don't you?"

"don't pretend to know what i feel," kai says, irritated. he inches away from kyungsoo on the bed.

kyungsoo smiles lazily. he closes his eyes.

"but i know exactly what you feel," he says. "and i know exactly what you're about to do. before i even finish this sentence you're going to - "

pfew.

" - disappear."

sehun and luhan are doing well, it seems. kai watches them from the roof of the building across from their favorite bubble tea place. he's never really wanted the domesticity of public hand-holding and drink-sharing and saccharine kisses on bustling city streets, but they are certainly enjoying themselves.

to each his own, he supposes.

joonmyun takes him out for lunch, and when they've both finished and are sitting staring at the check, kai tells joonmyun that he has to pee. joonmyun nods absently as he paws through his careworn wallet for the correct number of bills. as he walks away from the table, kai looks down surreptitiously and eyes joonmyun's money. joonmyun has exactly enough to pay for the entire meal. kai fingers the money in his own pocket, and without having to take it out and count it he knows he has enough to pay for this meal tenfold.

he ducks into the restaurant's cramped restroom and glances only briefly at his reflection in the clouded mirror before snapping his fingers and vanishing.

joonmyun sits and waits innocently for five minutes, playing with his napkin and then with the water in his glass. five minutes turns to ten, to fifteen, to twenty. still he waits. the waitress asks if he's ready to pay yet. politely, joonmyun shakes his head and tells her, almost.

after twenty-seven minutes kai materializes out of nowhere and jerks joonmyun to his feet, picking up the bills he'd placed on the little black tray and shoving them back in joonmyun's hands.

"don't even think about paying for this fucking meal," he says sullenly, digging a crumpled wad of money out of his pocket and throwing it on the table.

joonmyun smiles.

when they get outside of the restaurant, kai disappears.

taemin asks if kai remembers about the showcase, and kai nods because of course he remembers; taemin had asked him months ago if he wanted to perform in it and he'd run for the metaphorical hills and they hadn't talked about it again. well, taemin says, do you want to come see me dance? and kai says, i see you dance all the time, and taemin says, it's a yes or no question.

so kai scowls and says no.

but he goes anyway, materializes in the back of the crowd and sinks into the sea of faces like he belongs there, like he doesn't feel like suffocating in the swell of proud mothers and dance lovers. this slow jostling and unsteady murmuring is one of the things kai hates most, one of the reasons that he despises long lines and shopping malls. he itches to slip out of the crowd, to run and scream and proclaim his independence in a wild spectacle of flailing limbs and smoke and mirrors and the art of unhinging jaws by suddenly ceasing to exist.

it takes a lot of effort to stay for the duration of the show. kai finds himself clenching and unclenching his fists every few minutes to ground himself in the dimly lit auditorium, but it's worth it because taemin dances like an angel and when kai wanders backstage to congratulate him, taemin's eyes go huge and sparkly (kai has always contended that this boy is straight out of a shoujo manga) and he is practically jumping up and down with glee. kai tells him not to get so excited, jeez, and taemin just laughs delightedly and takes him by the hand, and the two of them run off, darting between strangers like kai darts between continents.

they end up at taemin's house, where they make ramyun and watch bad horror films and kai meets jinki. when dusk falls kai says, i'd better get going, and taemin sends him off with a smile and says, now you know where i live, so just visit whenever. kai nods.

i will.

kai falls into kyungsoo's bed so forcefully that it breaks in half with a bang. kyungsoo runs in from the bathroom wearing nothing but a pale brown towel wrapped around his waist, a vein throbbing in his forehead as he gathers air in his lungs to yell "god damn it, kai!" but his annoyance fades to concern when he sees kai lying, battered and unmoving, in the center of the mattress, caved in between the two halves of the bed frame.

"what the hell did you do?" kyungsoo exclaims, horrified, as he rushes forward. his fingers gravitate to kai's pulse, which is hammering away madly.

"i thought i'd give flying a try," kai says, letting his eyes drift shut.

"you're an idiot," kyungsoo tells him, pulling him out of the broken bed.

"til the day i die," he agrees, gingerly checking each limb to make sure everything is intact (or at least as intact as it will ever be). as he pokes at his left arm, he inhales sharply, and suddenly he's doubled over, his bony frame shaking silently. when he straightens up his tan face has taken on a gray pallor and he's wiping a trickle of blood from his lips.

"i'm calling lay," kyungsoo says immediately.

"don't bother, i'll just go myself."

"NO," kyungsoo says forcefully. "no, sit the fuck down and stay here. don't move. don't you dare move."

kai raises his eyebrows, a bitter smile playing over his lips.

"jongin - "

"you know me better than that."

"please - !"

but he's already gone, and kyungsoo does know better. he knows better than to expect apologies or compensations or even explanations, so he just curses under his breath and stalks out of his bedroom to look up the number of the furniture company.

yixing regards kai with quiet eyes that betray no emotion, and kai crosses his arms stoutly and glares until yixing blinks.

"learning to fly, hm?" yixing murmurs, laying his palm over kai's bare abdomen, measuring the rise and fall of soft flesh and bruised skin.

"sort of," kai says. "i just wanted to see the view from the clouds, only for a second. gravity just kicked in a lot faster than i was expecting."

"doesn't it always," yixing says, pursing his lips. "but you didn't come straight here, obviously. where did you fall?"

"kyungsoo's bed."

"ah, of course."

kai hates that self-satisfied look on yixing's face so he shuts his mouth and waits for yixing to finish. he's done this too many times to count, come crawling (teleporting) in pathetically just begging to be fixed, felt the gut-churning sensation of ice and fire and music thrumming through his veins, tasted yixing's magic touch and the way it fused bones and eased aches and stopped the bleeding long enough for kai to run off again and impale himself on something new.

"thanks," kai says perfunctorily, standing to leave when yixing is done.

"anytime," yixing says softly.

this is where kai customarily cracks a joke or two about sexual favors and how he plans to repay yixing for his services, but he doesn't feel up to it just now. he swings his back to yixing before disappearing.

"kai," yixing says suddenly. "say hello to kyungsoo for me."

irked, kai, looks back over his shoulder and shoots yixing a scowl.

"what makes you think i'm going back there?"

yixing shrugs. "he misses you."

kai rolls his eyes and evaporates.

kyungsoo is on the phone with the furniture company, desperately trying to make his case. still not dressed, still damp from the shower, he's hunched over on the couch, his skinny shoulder blades poking out prominently, knobby elbows resting on pale knees.

"in half, yes," he's saying when kai walks quietly into the living room. "i know... i know it's odd... yes, well i believe my warranty covers accidents? yes, i had an accident. um. er, yes. yes. do i need to prove it?"

kai pads slowly closer.

"how do i prove that we broke it by fucking?" kyungsoo demands. "you're just going to have to take my word for it! my partner is very ferocious!"

"damn straight," kai growls, sliding his hand possessively down kyungsoo's bare back. kyungsoo gasps a little.

"i'm sorry," he says shakily into the phone, twisting around to give kai the evil eye and shake his head fiercely. but that's the wrong thing to do, because from this angle kai can feast his eyes on the curvature of kyungsoo's shoulders, the taut muscles of his arms, the soft, smooth planes of his chest, and now there is no holding back.

"hang up," he tells kyungsoo. and kyungsoo hangs up.

kai's hands are everywhere at once, grabbing at kyungsoo's waist and thighs and chest and wrists, pinning him to the couch and ripping away the flimsy towel and catching at the bottom of his chin to pull him close for a rough kiss. kai is needy, kai is bossy. kai is restless, always rolling his hips in time with kyungsoo's breaths, always exploring a new part of kyungsoo's body, never pausing to wait for the other man to catch up.

and kyungsoo doesn't mind, not much. he tosses his phone on the floor and tangles his fingers in kai's messy hair, smiles at the kisses planted on his jaw and moans at the hot pressure of kai's denim-clad thighs against his cool skin. he wants all of kai that he can get (and eventually he wants all of kim jongin, too) and this - sensuous hands and languid lips layered over precise thrusts - is a start.

kai is not a cuddler. kyungsoo isn't, really, either. but when they are done, kai collapses on top of kyungsoo in a sticky, boneless heap and lays his head on kyungsoo's heaving chest and closes his eyes. slowly, with trembling fingers, kyungsoo reaches up to brush kai's sweaty hair back from his brow. he half expects kai to roll off of him and leave, but instead he melts into kyungsoo's touch, like he could get used to this.

kyungsoo is not a cuddler, but in that moment he feels something change and he knows, and he wraps both arms around kai's torso so tightly that kai mumbles "too hot," and he has to let go.

"i love you," he tells kai.

"i know," kai says blearily, "and i really like that about you."

when kai tries to spy on luhan and sehun again, they catch him and luhan (fucking telepath that he is) makes kai come sit with them. he orders kai a taro bubble tea.

"er, how's it going?" kai asks.

"good," sehun says, beaming. "really good."

"you should come by and visit some time," luhan says.

"so sehunnie moved in with you?" kai says, gesturing vaguely with his drink.

"actually, i moved in with him," luhan says.

"oh," kai says, surprised. "i just assumed that he would, well, 'cause, you know. you're a millionaire and all."

"and i'm poor?" sehun says dryly.

kai shrugs. "relatively speaking."

"thanks."

"you're rich, too, kai," luhan points out, "and you don't live anywhere at all."

"that's not true," kai mutters indignantly.

"so where do you live then?" sehun asks.

"i live everywhere at once."

kai is unaccustomed to knocking on doors, but kyungsoo nudges him pointedly so he raises his hand in a foreign finger formation and raps tentatively on the cool wooden surface. joonmyun answers after what feels like an eternity, one mainly consisting of kai picking at the thumb-hole in the sleeve of his sweatshirt and kyungsoo giving him a reprehensive slap.

"it's been too long," joonmyun says warmly, wrapping kai in a long embrace. "and, kyungsoo, you too."

"well, we've both been busy lately," kyungsoo says, shrugging off his coat.

"doing what?"

"each other," kai snickers. kyungsoo rolls his eyes but doesn't deny it.

they arrange themselves around joonmyun's kitchen table, heaped with steaming dishes that literally make kai salivate. he sits down, clacks his chopsticks together eagerly, and digs in. the three of them talk about kyungsoo's job, kai's latest misadventures (venice, tibet, and the great wall of china), and joonmyun's haircut. for dessert they scarf an entire package of frozen cookie dough, and then they argue for a while about what to do next. joonmyun wants to go for a walk, kyungsoo wants to watch a movie, and kai wants to go cliff jumping. in the end, kyungsoo and joonmyun compromise by agreeing to walk down to the movie store and come back with a thriller to appease kai.

"i hate thrillers," kai whines. "i hate watching the action. i want to be the action."

but he walks with them, intertwining his fingers discreetly with kyungsoo's and lowering his face so his smile can hide in the darkness. kyungsoo kisses him at every crosswalk. kai pretends to be annoyed and joonmyun pretends not to see them.

back at joonmyun's apartment, they curl up in knit blankets and press together on the couch, joonmyun's legs stretching across kyungsoo's thighs and kyungsoo's arm snug against kai's side. kai closes his eyes when joonmyun starts the movie, ducking his face into the crook of kyungsoo's neck and inhaling slowly.

"don't you want to watch?" kyungsoo says, turning to look at kai disapprovingly.

"no," kai murmurs, "i want to live a little."

"then go," kyungsoo snaps.

"don't tell me what to do."

halfway through the movie, kai does go. he stands, stretches, and walks out of the apartment, slamming the front door behind him before dissolving into the night.

kyungsoo takes the bus home. it's nearly empty at this time of night, and he sits at the back by himself, dozing lightly as the bus rumbles past streaks of red and green neon. he wakes up with a start just as the bus jerks to a halt at his stop, and he skips down the grimy steps and onto the grit of cold pavement to find a solitary figure sitting on the bus stop's bench. shivering in his threadbare sweatshirt, kai looks up at him indignantly, dark eyes alight with anger.

"what the hell took you so long?" he demands, standing up.

"nothing," kyungsoo says, taking kai's hand. "i'm sorry. let's go home."

kai snatches his hand back. "i can't believe you made me wait for an hour in this bullshit weather, kyungsoo."

"i said i was sorry."

"unbelievable," kai says, shaking his head. and he's gone with a poof.

kyungsoo smiles and walks to his apartment building, running up three flights of stairs and bursting through his front door excitedly. kai is sitting at the kitchen table sipping hot chocolate from a dark red mug, and when kyungsoo bounds into his arms and kisses him soundly, his mouth is warm and sweet. kai's arms wind around kyungsoo's torso, and kyungsoo's legs wrap around kai's hips, and the mug grows cold on the table as they clumsily make their way to the bedroom.

it's worth it, kyungsoo thinks, to have involved himself with this ephemeral asshole. of everyone he knows, kai is the most egocentric, the least reliable, and the most likely to get himself killed someday. but he is also protective and giving and, on occasion, as sweet as his chocolate kisses. he is made of ashes and smoke and the fire of stars, and everyone says that he is incompatible with kyungsoo, who is made of clear-cut diamond and the salt of the earth. but kyungsoo doesn't care, because kai is so perfectly flawed and so utterly, vibrantly alive. kyungsoo doesn't care that kai always leaves.

because what matters is that he always comes back in the end.

idk i don't have much to say about this..lots of awkward phrasing/grammar poops but writing it was..it was sort of a de-stress activity that just kind of happened. i rly enjoy kaisoo though lol. NO REGRETS