fic / tea for two
Tea for Two
chen + kai / g / 1209 words
brothers!chenkai: Jongdae is miserable and lonely and all that stuff, and Jongin is entirely unsympathetic.
Jongdae’s breath came in short stuttered gasps, loud in the small dim space under his study desk where he…hid from the world. The wall was cool against his bare arm, goose bumps rising on his skin in patches where it brushed against the rough surface as he tried to manoeuver his body so that his neck was in a better position. The air seemed a bit thin and it was a struggle to inflate his lungs, almost as if they had shrunk to make way for the tender heaviness creeping beneath his ribs. Yes, that was definitely the reason - it certainly didn’t have anything to do with the fact that his knees were pressed to his chest in order for him to squeeze under the low wooden top, he swore. It was a legitimate and potent emotional response to the feelings of despair and loneliness that engulfed his chest, like scavengers on a small, vulnerable dying animal -
A few metres away, Jongin cleared his throat. The sound held a particular growing irritation Jongdae pretended he couldn’t hear. Banging his head against the underside of the table, he grumbled. Perhaps it was less comfortable than it was worth to have an emotional breakdown if his brother was just going to ignore him and continue doing his homework.
“How could you?” he whined, squirming out and flopping onto the floor, laying his head on the soft side of Jongin’s knee where he sat, back straight and cross-legged, in the middle of their shared bedroom. Pages of black and white print-outs were laid out in a neat half circle around him, mixed in with loose leaf lined paper covered in his unevenly slanted handwriting. Well, Jongdae thought as a muffled crackling sound came from where he wiggled his butt, it used to be neat.
Above them, the ceiling fan turned lazily over the cracked cream wall paint and a daddy longlegs spider wove a modest new home in the corner. Gross. But Jongdae supposed that even the little creature, considered a mere household pest to many, was being accepted and welcomed here more than he could ever hope to be in the brutal rulings of the court of sibling politics -
“Ugh, get off me!” Jongdae found himself pushed to the side once again, forehead falling away from where he had begun to nuzzle into Jongin’s thigh and onto the harsh, unforgiving - well, actually their carpet was kind of plush and fluffy. Their entire family really liked it. “Piss off, hyung.” But Jongin didn’t really like him. (sadface).
Again, those negative feelings began building up. Jongdae was but a glass message bottle floating in the cold, stormy sea of their moss green carpet, alone but with a story to tell, and he was being neglected by the only safe island there. Fate was a cruel mistress, and he had been dealt a hand without the warmth of even a smile of companionship.
Above him, Jongin ran his blunt nails against the edge of the book in his lap, hunching down over it. There was a blue ballpoint pen with a squishy grip hanging between his teeth. Eyebrows coming together in a small frown, he glanced down at him with a deeply unimpressed set to his mouth. Jongdae thought that was rather rude, since he knew that his pathetic look was actually rather impressive and a weapon of massive ability (even Minseok-hyung caved to it every time he brought it out). He pouted just a little bit more. “Can you not see that I am trying to-”
“OH WOE IS ME, I HAVE BEEN CAST AWAY BY MY OWN BLOOD. MAY THE HEAVENS ABOVE HAVE MERCY ON THIS YOUNG HEART ON A QUEST FOR THE MOST BASIC TOKEN OF HUMAN KINDNESS-”
Jongin moaned, and for a moment Jongdae’s annoying wailing - uh, the throes of his pure misery and anguish - were halted because he was definitely not trying not to laugh because he felt empty and abandoned and Jongin was clearly being mean and selfish. Yeah. Also, Jongin had clamped a hand over his mouth. “Shut up!” he hissed, and Jongdae stuck his tongue out with a muffled note of indignation. Jongin squealed, lurching away and wiping his palm in jerky movements down the front of his brother’s school uniform’s shirt. “That’s so disgusting, hyung, gross, what the hell? Are you three years old? Why do you have to be so melodramatic? Go watch TV or something and let me finish this for half an hour!”
Jongdae sat up with an air of affected dignity and absolutely not defeat. He did not look like he had just rolled around on the floor because that would not be cool and he was cool. There had, somehow, been some obscure flaw in his acting that Jongin had shrewdly weeded out - wait, what acting, there was no acting - and he attempted to change tactics one last time. “But my dearest brother,” he began, saccharine and batting his eyelashes as he leaned over, “Jongin-ah, favourite younger sibling of mine. Surely the silence would drive you mad without my,” he made a general gesture toward his entire body, now propped up leisurely on an elbow, “calming presence?”
“I’m your only younger sibling,” Jongin answered, deadpan, but the corner of his mouth twitched as he pushed Jongdae over and tugged some rumpled papers from beneath him. “I think I’ll manage.” A somewhat smug, familiar bubble rose in Jongdae’s chest-
No, he was devastated and under the pain and stress of being discounted and discredited by the unforgiving hand of his closest of kin and-
“Fine,” he slumped, and it was by pure coincidence that half of Jongin’s English notes were sent into disarray by a not at all calculated sweep of Jongdae’s hand. A choking noise came from the back of Jongin’s throat and Jongdae stood up, accidentally kicking them some more and sending a few sailing across the room on gentle currents. This was not defeat. He was merely being the more adult and sophisticated in the situation of his…emotional collapse. “I’m going to make some popcorn. Do you want some?”
Jongin began shuffling his scattered homework into a pile, sliding it onto his own desk with his bottom still planted on the floor. Leaning onto the doorframe, Jongdae definitely did not grin. (He certainly did not think that he was lucky to have such an adorable younger brother to fawn over.)
“Sure.”
Jongdae stuck his tongue out. “Too bad.”
Giggling down the hallway, he trailed his hand against the wall, drawing an imaginary path beneath the band of framed family photographs. There were too many hanging to truly capture the intended aesthetic, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. “NghHHHH don’t ask if you’re not going to give me any anyway! And just because you’re bored and you finished your homework before me -”
“One day you’ll accept my love and shower me with the attention I deserve!” Jongdae shouted through the house, not snickering because that would be flippant and immature and he was supposed to be pretending to be severely psychologically injured by his brother’s dismissive attitude.
“In your dreams!” Jongin shouted back, and Jongdae pulled two portions of kernels out of the pantry.
notes:
> chen_why_you_gotta_be_an_annoying_shit.docx
> sorry for posting trash
> storytime: last year my english teacher sprung a surprise practise exam with the prompt 'i grew accustomed to the silence and loneliness' and this is the 100% expanded and edited version of the 40 minutes of me panicking i found the other day
> i am the annoying older brother not gonna lie
> in my head this is part of a kim siblings!au but i don't know if i'll write more of it??? we'll see
> tumblr and ao3 if you like those things