these walls don’t divide, for aeroply
Title: these walls don’t divide (subtitled: i quite like the boy next door)
Pairing(s): Sehun/Kyungsoo
Rating: PG-13 (very soft R for some 0.5k words at the end)
Length: 6,777 words
Summary: Sehun may or may not have a crush on his new neighbor.
A/N: hi aeroply, thank you for your wonderful prompts! hope this is something along the lines of what you wanted ^___^;; happy holidays!
Sehun has never thought of himself as an antisocial fellow, but he’s not the most outgoing creature in the world either.
He enjoys going to college by himself in the early, quiet morning with a backpack stuffed full of savory snacks and rolled-up face towels. He’s quite content with keeping to himself and following whatever his dance instructor tells him to do, only speaking up when he needs to use the toilet (because much to his arguable misfortune, he needs ample support down there, and that dance belt of his seriously affects how long he can hold his pee for). He’s probably the most vocal when Jongin religiously attempts to steal bits of his kimbap at lunch.
“Why do I still acquaint myself with you,” Sehun deadpans almost every day.
“Because I’m the only friend you’ve got,” replies Jongin almost every day as well, unless his mouth is too full, in which case he doesn’t reply at all.
It’s not that Jongin is the only friend Sehun has, but he’s admittedly the closest one, having known Sehun since kindergarten when they both chose ballet shoes over soccer balls. Truthfully, Sehun isn’t sure if his other friends can be considered friends when they’re honestly more of contacts. He can’t be blamed for wanting to stay alone when he’s usually most happy on his own, can he?
Most of the time, Sehun is more of a listener, and he’s not a bad one too. For example, his older brother calls him once a week to chat him up, and although Sehun appreciates the concern and enjoys listening to Joonmyun, he doesn’t say much.
“So then Kris asked me about- Wait, are you still there?”
“Yes, hyung,” answers Sehun with a chuckle, on the way back to his off-campus apartment one afternoon. “I always listen to whatever you say.”
Joonmyun scoffs in disbelief over the phone. “That’s not true and you very well know it. You never listened to me when I advised you against living on your own.”
“But I’m doing fine. Besides, you know how convenient it is that I’m staying so close to school.” The disapproving silence Joonmyun gives after that makes Sehun roll his eyes a little exasperatedly. “Yeah, yeah, I know I should be grateful that our family of rich asshats can afford to fund my education and apartment-”
“Sehun, watch your mouth!”
“I’m really okay, hyung. Always am, so don’t worry,” insists Sehun, remotely. The older and comparatively more uptight man always got so easily annoyed by crass language. “Thanks for calling though. It’s nice to hear from you.”
Hearing Joonmyun’s slightly distorted sigh through the speaker, Sehun can’t help but smile fondly at his brother’s care for him. “Alright. Come visit soon if you can. Incheon’s not too far away from Seoul, you know? And we miss you.”
With a cheerful goodbye uncharacteristic of his seemingly reserved self, Sehun hangs up just in time to enter the empty elevator in his apartment complex. He anticipates another silent ride up to the fourth floor, until someone tries to stop the doors from closing.
“Sorry!” the someone says, apologetic voice sounding rather small, and the man who belongs to the voice quickly enters with a sheepish smile. Sehun notices that the rest of said man is, rather interestingly but appropriately, also small. After regarding the stranger for a moment, it comes to Sehun’s attention that the man’s eyes are probably the only parts of his exterior which aren’t small; they’re alarmingly big, in fact.
During the elevator ride, the small man doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that Sehun is staring at his side profile. Sehun notes the curve of the stranger’s nose, the head of neat dark hair, and the dress shirt and pants that look impressively ironed - a stark contrast to the wrinkled t-shirt and jeans Sehun has on, not to mention the dirty snapback on top of his own bleached blond hair.
Perhaps the man is a visitor, Sehun muses. He’s admittedly pretty for a man, and Sehun is shocked at the audacity of his own brain when he thinks that he might not mind seeing the man again, even after the ride.
Sehun makes to mutter a polite, “Excuse me,” when the door finally opens for his level, only to find that the stranger also gets out of the lift at the same time. Their shoulders accidently bump each others’ as they step onto the landing.
“Oh god, I’m sorry,” the man says again.
Sehun shakes his head. “It’s alright.”
A part of him thinks that’s that, and the man will be on his way to whichever apartment he’s visiting, but the man merely smiles and walks in the same direction as Sehun. Trying to be as discreet as possible, Sehun watches the man out of the corner of his eye, noting with interest that the man has the key to the adjacent unit.
“Oh! So you’re Unit A.”
Sehun’s eyes widen at the stranger’s exclamation. There’s a heart-shaped grin directed straight at him now, one that’s oddly endearing. “Yeah,” Sehun mutters. “That’s me.”
The not-so-stranger-anymore beams. “Cool! I’m Unit B. Just moved here myself, yesterday. Nice to meet you,” the man waves cheerfully, before stepping into his apartment.
Sehun is left standing dumbly in the empty corridor, keys already stuffed into his lock but door still unopened. No one has lived in the house next to him before. A new neighbor, he thinks, a cute new neighbor.
Hence, Sehun acquaints himself with Bub - the Boy of Unit B.
--
For the next few days, to Sehun’s slight disappointment, he doesn’t see much of Bub. That’s not to say that he doesn’t think about Bub, though, because he definitely does.
On his way to school, Sehun wonders what Bub does for a living - business, maybe? He had looked so prim and proper during that one elevator ride they had shared. At lunch, while staring at his own poorly wrapped kimbap, Sehun thinks of whether Bub knows how to cook - maybe said neighbor could be a kind soul and feed (read: save) Sehun’s skinny ass one day.
And as Sehun finally steps into his apartment at the end of a long day, he wonders whether Bub is just like him, out all day only to come home to an empty house. Or perhaps the man had someone else? A friend, a lover, a pet? Then again, Sehun hadn’t really heard any voices - or animal noises for that matter - through the walls, so perhaps they did have something in common as neighbors: their solitude.
(It’s not that Sehun wants to wish loneliness upon anyone, but the notion of sharing something with cute little Bub is kind of appealing.)
Then one day, he hears it.
It’s a Saturday morning, and the loud ring of the phone coming from next door isn’t too annoying at first. It does get increasingly irritating as time passes, however, because no one comes to take the call. How unfortunate it is, that the walls separating each unit in the apartment complex aren’t particularly thick. Sehun tries anyway to fall back asleep on this supposedly lazy day.
When the incessant ringing finally ceases after a good minute or so, Sehun lets out a sigh of relief. But he can’t get back to sleep because the walls are really that thin, and he can hear some soft murmurs coming from the other side of his bedroom wall. It’s must be Bub. Sehun briefly questions who the other man could be receiving a call from this early. A relative? An intrusive employer? A long-distance lover?
“No!” The shout is muffled through the concrete, but it’s still loud enough. Sehun immediately sits up in bed. “I already said no!”
Within the next minute, his neighbor’s words are a lot less on the hushed side and a lot more on the harsh side, perhaps even bordering on hysterical. Bub seems to be continuously shouting words of refusal, no-s and don’t-s and stop-s aplenty. Sehun can’t stop himself from worrying because screaming of that sort has never been a good sign. But neither can he do much, because he can’t see Bub, can’t read Bub’s mind, can’t ask Bub what’s going on. He doesn’t even know Bub’s real name.
Only when Sehun gets a good earful of “Shut up!” does he realize that his ear is pressed flat against the wall. His body seems to have unconsciously pushed itself as close to the opaque partition as possible, in an attempt to hear more of Bub’s one-sided, angst-filled conversation.
Sehun staggers out of his bedroom and into his kitchen. “Poor guy,” he says, downing a glass of water, “having to get an earful on a Saturday morning.”
Maybe, just maybe, Sehun also begins to sympathize with his neighbor, because Bub’s phone call hadn’t only been a disturbance of peace. More than Sehun would like to admit it, it had been a struggle and a pain to eavesdrop on as well.
Don’t think about it, he tells his brain. Don’t you dare think about it. But of course his brain dares to think about it, dares to look back into the past.
When Sehun was in high school, Luhan had been everything he’d dreamed of and everything he’d wanted to be, not to mention be with too. The Chinese man was such a kind and committed dance tutor. Plus he was only four years older than Sehun, and he was foreign, and talented, and pretty (perfect). But it was because of all of the aforementioned that he also broke Sehun’s heart.
“Shixun-ah.” Luhan’s call of his Mandarin name always used to make him crumble, even through the phone.
“Hi, ge,” Sehun recalls having said one night, in his last year of Arts high school. “Are we having a coaching session tomorrow?”
“No,” Luhan said firmly, resolutely. “In fact, I’m not sure if I’ll ever see you anymore.”
“Oh,” had been the only response Sehun could give then. “Oh.”
Because back when Sehun hadn’t even been legal yet, Luhan had still been relatively young, and Chinese, and well-rounded, and so very pretty (perfect). There was no way said amazing man could have turned down that once-in-a-lifetime offer to join a famous Beijing dance company as one of its leads, the one he’d wanted to join since he was a child.
“It’s all I’ve ever dreamed of. I have to go back.” Luhan’s voice sounded so distorted, so cold, so hurtful across the line. “I hope you understand.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t think we could have worked out anyway. I’m sorry, Shixun.”
“Oh.”
At that moment, Sehun hears the phone ring again through the wall. It lasts for all but two seconds; a curse follows it, and it’s most likely that Bub hadn’t taken the call.
Sehun is glad they both don’t have to hear of painful things, even if only for a moment.
--
Mail doesn’t come in too often for Sehun, since all his bills get automatically redirected to his parents’ home. Then again, there’s always the occasional postcard from Joonmyun, but those mostly come during the holiday season. (There used to be lots of prank letters from Jongin too, but those have died down considerably ever since Jongin got attached.)
And yet Sehun opens his mailbox every Thursday out of sheer habit. He half-expects another rubbishy flyer to come tumbling out during one morning check, and is surprised when a white envelope with neatly scrawled handwriting falls into his hands instead.
“To D.O.,” Sehun reads aloud, “Tenant of 4B.”
“Actually, it’s Kyungsoo.” A familiar-sounding little voice comes from behind Sehun, and the young man whips around to find himself face-to-face with the one and only Bub. Bub is dressed quite formally, as he had appeared when Sehun last saw him in person, except this time he looks just about ready to leave the building, black briefcase in hand.
“S-Sorry, what?” stutters Sehun very intelligently, the strap of his dance bag nearly slipping off his shoulder.
His little neighbor chuckles. “I mean, I think you have my package,” the man explains slowly. (Great, he must actually reckon I’m stupid, Sehun thinks.) “That, and my name is Do Kyungsoo, Mr. Oh Sehun.”
Sehun’s eyes widen. “How do you know my name-”
“Here,” Do Kyungsoo - no longer Bub - cuts in. “Something for you. The mailman must have gotten us mixed up.”
“Right. Thanks,” says Sehun, still marginally bewildered as he exchanges his mail with the smaller man. He looks down into his own hands and frowns at the letter addressed to him, because the repulsive handwriting on the envelope is obviously Jongin’s. That troll. Maybe Krystal hadn’t been giving him any lately.
Ultimately, Sehun lets go of the frown and opts for a polite smile instead. Because how could he not smile when Do Kyungsoo pleasantly bids him farewell, then proceeds to practically skip out of the apartment complex after offering him a friendly ‘Hope you have a good day’?
It takes Sehun a good five minutes or so to realize that something hadn’t been quite right about that little encounter with his not-so-new neighbor. Sure, they had been all smiles on the surface, but after making the mail exchange...
Do Kyungsoo’s eyes had turned awfully teary.
--
A day later, it’s Sehun’s turn to skip in public, albeit into the apartment complex instead of out. His instructor had been kind enough to end class early, effectively giving majority of the dance majors at college an extended weekend. There’s nothing Sehun could be more grateful for at the moment, at four in the afternoon on a Friday, what with how his body is aching from all the conditioning he’s been doing.
It’s an elevator ride up to his unit like any other elevator ride, except when the doors open, he honestly doesn’t expect to see a bunch of girls crowded on his level. More specifically, they’re crowded around Unit 4B.
Sehun does his best to enter his house without creating a fuss, trying to avoid the teenagers as much as possible (they bring back terrible memories of how those stupid senior noonas had bossed him silly in his first year of high school).
Unfortunately, he doesn’t go totally unnoticed, and catches the eye of someone in the crowd.
“Hello Mister,” the random girl he makes eye contact with greets loudly, “would you happen to know if Mr. Do’s home?” She gestures wildly towards Do Kyungsoo’s door, and Sehun doesn’t have the heart to tell her that he knows who Mr. Do is and where he lives.
“Um. I’m not sure if he is.”
The girls all let out disappointed whines; Sehun attempts to keep himself from shuddering. “What are we gonna do?” another one of them complains, high-pitched voice sounding pretty whiny. “We came all the way here to deliver the present and Mr. Do isn’t even here.”
“Present?” Sehun blurts out before he can think. Was today a special occasion, perhaps Do Kyungsoo’s birthday?
“Yeah,” yet another girl nods, ponytail bouncing vigorously. “We have a gift for Mr. Do, because today’s a special day.”
“It is?” a new male voice asks out of the blue. Before Sehun knows it, the girls have all started screaming and whooping simultaneously and Jesus, he hopes no one from the other apartment levels files a complaint. He also belatedly realizes that he hadn’t noticed Do Kyungsoo stepping out of the lift, not until the smaller man was well surrounded by the over-enthusiastic high school-ers.
Sehun wonders if he should greet his neighbor as a form of courtesy, but the hoard of girls don’t even let him think properly.
“Happy Teachers’ Day, Mr. Do!” they shout, plenty of obnoxious clapping to accompany their shrill screams. But at least Sehun has another epiphany, one along the lines of Oh, he’s a teacher. How cute. If anything, Do Kyungsoo looks shocked, but delighted and pleased too, and it’s a good look on him.
“There wasn’t any time for us to give you the cake in class just now, so we thought we’d bring it over. We kind of got your address from the other teachers,” someone explains sheepishly. “And we really hope you like the cake.”
“Wow,” Do Kyungsoo says, his eyes going even wider than usual, possibly rivaling a pair of dinner plates. “This is a wonderful surprise, girls, thank you. But all of you best be getting home, in case anyone complains that we’re too noisy.”
After a considerable amount of shepherding into the elevator by their good-looking male teacher, the girls finally leave the floor. It’s only then that Sehun sighs in relief, and also makes a mental note of how small Do Kyungsoo looks compared to the large cake his students had bought for him.
“Thank you,” the little neighbor smiles brightly, struggling a little with holding the cake box. He’s looking straight into Sehun’s eyes. “For entertaining the kids, I mean.”
Sehun gulps right then because oh god, I’ve been standing in front of my unopened door all this while. And I’ve just been watching everything. He wonders if he could be any more of an embarrassment to himself in front of Do Kyungsoo. “Oh, no,” he says and quickly flaps his arms, “I didn’t do anything. At all.” Way to come off cool, Oh Sehun.
“Still, the girls must have been loud. There has to be some way I could thank you.”
Resolutely shaking his head, Sehun tries to make his way into his house, tries to move away from a cute button nose and pretty pearly whites. He just has to find a way to stop the unfounded beating of his heart and the odd tingles he gets from the sight of his neighbor.
But then Do Kyungsoo takes a few steps closer and smiles even wider. Sehun’s heart stops at the request evident in the smaller man’s eyes.
“I definitely can’t eat this cake alone. Help me, please?”
That’s exactly how the Boy of Unit A visits the Boy of Unit B for the first time.
--
In retrospect, Sehun is very grateful that he had accepted Kyungsoo’s numerous slices of chocolate cake, and not just because they had been very delicious. Fortunately enough, getting to know the other man had also come in the package.
“I’m a music teacher at the all-girls high school down the road,” Kyungsoo says and Sehun learns, as they both dig into their food. “Just started working at the beginning of the year.”
“You seem to be well-liked.”
Kyungsoo throws back his head and laughs; it makes Sehun smile, even with his mouth full. “I guess you could say that I’m fairly popular. It’s probably just because I’m younger than most of the other staff members.”
“Yeah, plus you’re seriously cute,” Sehun feels like adding, but he decides against it. After all, he doesn’t intend on creeping Kyungsoo out too early into their non-existent relationship.
(Whoa, Sehun, his conscience tells him. Now that’s planning ahead of things.
Shush, Sehun retorts. I quite like the boy next door, okay.)
A combination of mild guilt and worry washes over Sehun, however, when he finds himself completely mesmerized by the other man later on in the evening. Sehun is back in his own apartment, but they’re both on their adjacent balconies, basking in the cool night air together.
The most appropriate word to describe Kyungsoo’s singing voice might be “gorgeous”, or “heavenly”, or something along those lines. Sehun isn’t sure if he’s heard anything smoother or richer or, dare he concede, sexier. In fact, Sehun nearly wants to slap himself for labeling Kyungsoo’s voice as a small one during their first meeting, because when Kyungsoo opens his mouth and sings, his voice is anything but small. When he’s singing, eyes closed and relaxed and one with his music, Kyungsoo himself is anything but small.
The smaller man glances at Sehun once he finishes his song, one with lyrics about newfound love and fluttering hearts and warm hands. “How did you find it?”
“W-wow,” Sehun stutters as he had in one of their previous conversations. Except this time, the stuttering is totally reasonable because Kyungsoo is just wow.
“Wow?”
“Yeah, wow. That was beautiful,” confesses Sehun. “Your voice is beautiful.”
“It’s nothing special,” Kyungsoo insists as he shakes his head. “But it’s the least I should be able to do in my line of work.”
Sehun wishes the divide were smaller so that he could reach out to Kyungsoo and assure the other man that it really is special, and so are you. But there’s too much air separating their balconies in reality, so close and yet so far, which is why Sehun is at a loss what to do.
“Goodnight, Sehun,” Kyungsoo says for the both of them then, perhaps in an attempt to wrap the night up. It’s a bittersweet goodbye, for some reason, and Sehun can sense it. “It was nice getting to know you today.”
“Could I come by for cake some other time?” asks the younger man.
Kyungsoo grins, evidently amused, and the sight makes Sehun blush. “You’re welcome to come by for other things too,” the other man tells him anyway, and Sehun thinks that’s probably enough at present. Baby steps might be the best steps for now.
As the blond young man lies in bed that night, waiting for sleep to take him, he makes yet another discovery - that the image of Kyungsoo’s heart-shaped smile has already been carved into his mind.
Perhaps his crush has gotten a little out of hand - no, very out of hand.
--
Sehun had admittedly fantasized that his next trip to Kyungsoo’s house might be for a meal. But when Saturday morning comes, he hears that distinctively annoying ringtone again through the wall. It’s followed by a good amount of Kyungsoo’s shouting, topped off with some curses, so Sehun takes the initiative to knock on the other man’s door instead.
“Hi,” Kyungsoo politely greets when he sees Sehun, although he does look surprised, and futilely attempts to hide his tears. Sehun’s heart shrinks a little because Kyungsoo sounds so hoarse and looks so sad. His little neighbor appears broken, and it’s not a nice picture. Sehun doesn’t want to see Kyungsoo broken.
“Hi,” he returns as bravely as he can, raising a bag in his hand. “I brought something for tea time?” His chest feels less tight when Kyungsoo smiles at the fresh buns, made at the bakery downstairs and specially purchased by Sehun, and lets him in.
It soon comes to Sehun’s knowledge that no, there hasn’t been a lover calling Kyungsoo, despite his previous speculations. “It’s my parents,” Kyungsoo says instead, curling up on one end of his couch with Sehun on the other. “They keep on calling me and telling me to get a girlfriend, but I can’t. I just can’t.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay,” corrects the smaller man, tucking his chin over his knees as fresh tears threaten to spill down his cheeks. “It’s not okay to them, because I’m gay. I’m their only son, and they don’t want a gay son.”
The younger man can only watch Kyungsoo start to sob again. “I’m sorry.”
“You remember that package of mine you picked up that day? The one addressed to ‘D.O.’?” Of course Sehun remembers, he’d never forget how he found out Kyungsoo’s name. “That was my nickname when I was a kid, D.O. Apparently my parents thought that if they babied me, they might have a better chance of convincing me against my choice of lifestyle. So they wrote another one of their stupid letters to lecture me about it. But they don’t get it, they just don’t.”
Kyungsoo’s voice cracks at the last word, and Sehun feels a pang of hurt in his own chest. A certain part of him has the urge to take Kyungsoo’s hand and tell him that he understands. But the problem is that Sehun doesn’t understand, and he can’t bring himself to lie.
Sehun’s family has been very accepting of him all this while, having let him dance as he pleased and only feeling mildly disappointed when he came out of the closet. Perhaps it’s because they’ve already had the perfect child in the form of Joonmyun, a dashing young man with perfect grades and a perfect career and a perfect girlfriend. Perhaps his parents thought that asking for anything more might be too greedy. Either way, Sehun is either very loved or very lucky. Maybe he’s both.
“Sorry,” Kyungsoo suddenly says, bringing them both back to the situation at hand. “I’m probably burdening you by telling you all of this. I mean, we’ve only known each other for a little while and-”
“It’s okay,” whispers Sehun as he scoots closer. “It’s okay. You’re not alone.”
Sehun doesn’t pull away when he witnesses Kyungsoo’s exterior crumble some more. He lets the older man lean against him, hoping that the erratic beating of his own heart isn’t too obvious. So Kyungsoo sobs for some time; Sehun isn’t sure for how long they sit on the couch but it doesn’t matter. If there’s something he can do to help, he’s glad to be able to do it.
“Thank you, Sehun. Thank you so much.” Kyungsoo gives another sniffle as he finally gets up later, and then he looks up into Sehun’s eyes with his own puffy and pink ones. “Would you… Would you stay for dinner?”
Sehun nearly hears ‘for dinner’ as ‘forever’, and maybe that’s why he says ‘yes’.
--
Since the occasion last month when Sehun literally offered Kyungsoo a shoulder to cry on, spending more time with his little neighbor has been great. Kyungsoo is utterly adorable in Sehun’s eyes, passionate whenever he talks about doing what he loves, thoughtful whenever he brings up his students, and caring when he never fails to ask how Sehun’s day has been each time they meet up.
It almost feels as if the distance between their balconies is slowly closing up, day by day, inch by inch. Sehun can’t complain.
Hanging out has also had some pretty significant downfalls, however, the greatest of which possibly being Kyungsoo’s disappointment in the younger man’s cooking skills. The cat had been let out of the bag when Kyungsoo jokingly asked Sehun to treat him to some home cooked food, in return for all the dinners the older man had prepared for them both (Sehun had to say that Kyungsoo wasn’t just a good singer, he was quite the chef too).
“I just thought you didn’t know how to bake,” the smaller man had frowned up at Sehun, thoroughly shaming him. “But you’re telling me you can’t even fry an egg properly.”
“Sorry, hyung?” Hey, at least Sehun could make toast; he knew Jongin couldn’t do that. “Dancers don’t usually need to cook anyway.”
“Nice try,” huffed Kyungsoo, “but we have a lot of work to do.”
That’s how Sehun inevitably ends up at the supermarket on another one of his lazy Saturday mornings, shopping for various food items to be included in a myriad of dish types. Clearly, Kyungsoo’s cooking skills are indeed both a blessing and a curse.
“No, no, no,” the food expert chides, swatting at Sehun’s hands playfully. “Why are you choosing those apples? They’re bruised.” Maybe, just maybe, Sehun had messed up on purpose, because now he can watch Kyungsoo’s eyes light up with excitement as he teaches him how to properly pick fruits.
“Low fat milk might be healthy, but sometimes full cream milk makes the best cakes.” Kyungsoo winks at him when they pass by the dairy section, as if they’re conspiring against some evil baking force. Sehun finds him too adorable to look away from, never mind that the younger man nearly knocks over a whole shelf of yogurt.
They arrive back at Kyungsoo’s unit with seven bags of food and one half-emptied wallet of Sehun’s, and manage to make an odd combination of stir-fried noodles and orange chiffon cake in time for lunch. But Sehun doesn’t mind at all, partially because his cooking is edible for once, and also because Kyungsoo had been with them every step of the way.
Perhaps the older man’s smaller hand guiding Sehun’s bigger one might have appeared a little out of place at first, but Sehun decides rather quickly that he quite likes it - no, in fact, he likes it very much.
With an afternoon as free as his morning was supposed to be, Sehun willingly sacrifices himself again and subjects himself to Kyungsoo’s powerful culinary regime (not that it’s that much of a sacrifice, in all honesty). Following lunch, he learns to make five other dishes whilst simultaneously baking chocolate chip cookies, and oh dear god, since when was cooking more exhausting than dancing?
“I’m pooped,” he complains when the oven alarm goes off. Kyungsoo just cackles and lets Sehun sit on the counter, himself running off to fetch the last batch of cookies.
“I think I’ve done good work with you,” is all the older man says, before he plucks one of the freshly baked treats from the hot tray and pops it into his mouth.
“You have, hyung. You definitely have.” Sehun looks towards the food on Kyungsoo’s dining table, some of it long gone cold, but everything smells wonderful at the same time and his stomach can’t keep from growling. It’s also pleasing, to see Kyungsoo so pleased after spending the day together.
Something tells Sehun that tomorrow morning, he’ll be aching all over - not to mention mentally exhausted - so a good part of his Sunday will be dedicated to recuperation in bed. But when Kyungsoo tugs him by the sleeve of his shirt after dinner and convinces Sehun to help him empty the garbage, the older man is positively beaming; they both know that time has been well-spent.
Sehun knows that he’d rather not have spent his Saturday any other way.
--
“Stop fooling around, Oh Sehun!” Like this, with his hands on his hips and lips pressed tightly together, Kyungsoo is the epitome of simultaneous intimidation and winsomeness.
“I’m not,” is what Sehun petulantly insists, albeit with a laugh, having successfully thrown a clothesline across the gap between their adjacent balconies. “Make sure you tie the string on your side, hyung!”
Kyungsoo scowls from the other side of the gap. “I will, as long as you stop trying to climb onto it. It’ll be your fault if all our clothes fall into the car park below.” He ties the string anyway.
“But you have to admit that this is a great idea,” continues Sehun cheekily, although he’s already joining Kyungsoo in hanging up his own wet clothes on their new, shared laundry line. “I could climb over into your house to see you whenever I wanted to.”
“Don’t you dare,” warns Kyungsoo with pink cheeks, shaking a finger at the blond haired boy across from him. “You’ll get hurt and you know it.”
Sehun smirks and hangs up a pair of his socks. “Hyung,” he calls out, jiggling the thin string between their units for good measure, “do you think I’d fall if I tried?” He laughs when Kyungsoo’s large eyes can’t help but follow the clothesline in horror, watching it bounce from the weight of their garments.
“Of course, you silly boy!”
“But you’d catch me, wouldn’t you?” Please say you would.
“Yes, now get back down from there! Or I’ll really cut the rope and lock my door and you’ll never see me again.” Kyungsoo rolls his eyes and says the last part half-seriously, but only half-seriously - Sehun knows very well that the other half is definitely joking.
There’s no need for the presence of a tangible line to tell that their lives have already been connected.
--
“Erm. Hi, hyung.”
Sehun feels slightly guilty when Kyungsoo comes home later than usual one winter evening. The older man looks absolutely mortified to see him, standing stock still in the doorway even after shedding his thick coat. Okay, maybe Sehun should have waited till he got back to ring the doorbell of Unit B, instead of opting to give his neighbor a surprise greeting.
But then Kyungsoo puts his bag down, crosses his arms and raises a questioning brow, and Sehun knows he hasn’t been let off the hook.
“You came in by the balcony again.”
“I missed you,” Sehun says simply. The reason is as plain as that, but at the same time there’s a lot more weight to Sehun’s words than either of them are willing to acknowledge.
“You’re so silly. You know that’s dangerous,” Kyungsoo chides, although there’s an undeniable fondness in his eyes as he walks up to the younger man in his living room and leans up to ruffle his bleached locks. “I was only at work.”
“But for too long,” replies Sehun quickly, not missing how Kyungsoo angles his head away in an attempt to hide the blush forming on his cheeks. The clock is enough of an indication that it’s way past the time Kyungsoo usually knocks off. “I still missed you.”
“I missed you too.” The words are soft, but loud enough for Sehun to hear the sincerity in them, and the younger man feels his own face heating up on its own accord. When Kyungsoo smiles up at him next, gives him that grateful thank you for being here at the end of the day look, Sehun’s heart skips a few beats. “Let’s make dinner.”
As with their dinners before, Sehun knows at the end of this one that Kyungsoo doesn’t want him to leave. He sees it in the way Kyungsoo clears the dishes oh-so-slowly, the way the older man keeps asking if Sehun has had enough to eat or if he would like some coffee. It’s almost as if all the efficiency and control that Kyungsoo typically displays (save for those weekends that begin with unwanted phone calls) has been peeled away because of Sehun. The younger man likes that idea.
Sehun never wants to leave Unit B either. It’s a weighty but silly thought, because he’s only next door in Unit A and the walls are barely there anyway. Those thin partitions haven’t seemed to exist recently, not with how Sehun has looked at his bedroom wall on some nights and seen through the peeling paint and the concrete, right through Kyungsoo’s fading wallpaper and into the other man’s unit.
On those nights, Sehun feels as if there truly isn’t anything separating them.
He can’t help but imagine Kyungsoo climbing into that little single bed of his, tucking himself below clean sheets that smell like fresh laundry and flowers, humming himself to sleep with that song he always sings on the balcony - the one of wishing and wanting and having that Sehun never gets tired of hearing. Maybe it’s because Sehun yearns for Kyungsoo to sing for him. It would be nice if Kyungsoo could hold him close under the same blanket, both of them subject to bone-deep exhaustion at the day’s end, but still un-tired of each other as sleep takes over.
And it’s always the same heavy and confusing (but truly pleasant) thoughts that make Sehun’s stomach churn when he heads out of Kyungsoo’s house, a well-practiced ‘Thank you, see you tomorrow, hyung,’ on the tip of his tongue. Sehun always has such trouble thinking his way through his mind after their meetings. He tries to clear his head so that the good ol’ mental carving of Kyungsoo in his brain is the very thing he falls asleep to, in place of all the practiced choreography he would have preferred to remember a few months ago.
But tonight, maybe he doesn’t have to try to clear anything at all.
As Sehun reaches for the impeccably polished doorknob, Kyungsoo’s small hand tugs on his sleeve from behind, but then it slides down to his wrist. “Stay for dinner.”
“I already did,” says Sehun quietly.
“Wait,” Kyungsoo mutters in turn, even though they both know Sehun isn’t going anywhere. “I mean no, don’t stay for dinner.”
Sehun turns around. “What do you mean?” The bob of Kyungsoo’s Adam’s apple is proof enough of his nervousness, and Sehun reckons his own gulp is probably a tell-tale sign too.
“I mean,” the older man clarifies, his hold on Sehun tightening, “stay the night. Stay tonight.”
(Just tonight? Or every night?)
“Okay,” whispers Sehun, inching closer to place his lips against the skin of Kyungsoo’s forehead. “Okay.”
--
Half of Sehun wonders if they’re simply lost in the heat of the moment now, but the better half of him isn’t worried at all. Perhaps it’s because there truly isn’t much heat; rather, there’s a lot of warmth, slowly simmering under their skin despite the cold weather outside. It’s that very simmer that carries promises of the future, unsaid as they are, but promises nonetheless.
Kyungsoo shivers as Sehun presses him against the bedroom wall. “Are you cold, hyung?” the younger mouths against his neck.
The hand that threads itself through Sehun’s coarse hair nearly draws a purr from deep within his chest. “Not when you’re here,” Kyungsoo confesses, fingertips gently pressing into Sehun’s scalp. “Never when you’re here.”
This is still unfamiliar territory, even after they’ve mutually warmed up to each other, and Sehun is well aware of it. He’s not sure where his hands should rest on Kyungsoo’s body but he’s learning, finding out what to do to make the smaller man keen for him.
The lights in the room have been dimmed so that they’re both bathed in an ethereal sort of glow. Sehun sees the light sheen of sweat across Kyungsoo’s skin while they fumble onto the mattress, springs creaking and bed shaking. But none of the extra noises matter because Kyungsoo is so beautiful like this, and nothing could distract Sehun into thinking otherwise.
Sehun has been told before that nakedness speaks of vulnerability in the Arts, but it speaks of more than just that. He knows now, with his body finally bared to Kyungsoo and his feelings spread out on the table, that it’s an offer of trust.
“I trust you,” Kyungsoo says as he rocks up against the younger man, trying to get more friction between their bodies. Their clothes have long been forgotten because they don’t need barriers now, can’t afford to have barriers now. The walls are so thin that they’re not there anymore. “I trust you, Sehun.”
“I know,” replies Sehun, curious fingers roaming and touching and discovering, making the man beneath him moan. “And I you.”
To be honest, Sehun doesn’t know Kyungsoo like he knows Joonmyun as a brother or Jongin as a friend. But he sure as hell knows that he wants to keep Kyungsoo, and that seems like a good enough notion for now. It’s a fact that they’re both young and they both have time. Sehun wants to use that time to know Kyungsoo even better, to be there for him, and maybe - if he ever dares, and he guesses he probably will one day - to love him.
He wants to be able to stay by Kyungsoo’s side when the weekend phone calls come, and it would be nice to have Kyungsoo with him when he’s aching after a long day of physical exertion. He wants to teach Kyungsoo how to slow dance, and he wants Kyungsoo to teach him how to sing. He wants to take a chance, wants to bridge the gap between them so that he can fall for Kyungsoo, and he wants Kyungsoo to take the same leap, to fall for him too.
Because even if they don’t fall in the exact way that they hope to, they’ll fall together, and they’ll be there to catch each other.
When Sehun feels Kyungsoo pressed against his bare side, long after they’ve gone over the edge and well into the night, he knows that they’ll be quite enough for each other - no, more than enough for each other.
--
(“I used to wish I could see you through the walls, you know,” Sehun says into the darkness, tucked beneath the warm sheets and against a warm body. He hopes the confession isn't as creepy as it sounds in his head.
“Walls?” Kyungsoo asks softly. There’s a smile in the older man's voice that can’t be missed. “What walls?”
Sehun just grins against Kyungsoo’s lips and pulls him even closer.
“No walls,” he whispers. “Not anymore.”)
-----------
Pairing(s): Sehun/Kyungsoo
Rating: PG-13 (very soft R for some 0.5k words at the end)
Length: 6,777 words
Summary: Sehun may or may not have a crush on his new neighbor.
A/N: hi aeroply, thank you for your wonderful prompts! hope this is something along the lines of what you wanted ^___^;; happy holidays!
Sehun has never thought of himself as an antisocial fellow, but he’s not the most outgoing creature in the world either.
He enjoys going to college by himself in the early, quiet morning with a backpack stuffed full of savory snacks and rolled-up face towels. He’s quite content with keeping to himself and following whatever his dance instructor tells him to do, only speaking up when he needs to use the toilet (because much to his arguable misfortune, he needs ample support down there, and that dance belt of his seriously affects how long he can hold his pee for). He’s probably the most vocal when Jongin religiously attempts to steal bits of his kimbap at lunch.
“Why do I still acquaint myself with you,” Sehun deadpans almost every day.
“Because I’m the only friend you’ve got,” replies Jongin almost every day as well, unless his mouth is too full, in which case he doesn’t reply at all.
It’s not that Jongin is the only friend Sehun has, but he’s admittedly the closest one, having known Sehun since kindergarten when they both chose ballet shoes over soccer balls. Truthfully, Sehun isn’t sure if his other friends can be considered friends when they’re honestly more of contacts. He can’t be blamed for wanting to stay alone when he’s usually most happy on his own, can he?
Most of the time, Sehun is more of a listener, and he’s not a bad one too. For example, his older brother calls him once a week to chat him up, and although Sehun appreciates the concern and enjoys listening to Joonmyun, he doesn’t say much.
“So then Kris asked me about- Wait, are you still there?”
“Yes, hyung,” answers Sehun with a chuckle, on the way back to his off-campus apartment one afternoon. “I always listen to whatever you say.”
Joonmyun scoffs in disbelief over the phone. “That’s not true and you very well know it. You never listened to me when I advised you against living on your own.”
“But I’m doing fine. Besides, you know how convenient it is that I’m staying so close to school.” The disapproving silence Joonmyun gives after that makes Sehun roll his eyes a little exasperatedly. “Yeah, yeah, I know I should be grateful that our family of rich asshats can afford to fund my education and apartment-”
“Sehun, watch your mouth!”
“I’m really okay, hyung. Always am, so don’t worry,” insists Sehun, remotely. The older and comparatively more uptight man always got so easily annoyed by crass language. “Thanks for calling though. It’s nice to hear from you.”
Hearing Joonmyun’s slightly distorted sigh through the speaker, Sehun can’t help but smile fondly at his brother’s care for him. “Alright. Come visit soon if you can. Incheon’s not too far away from Seoul, you know? And we miss you.”
With a cheerful goodbye uncharacteristic of his seemingly reserved self, Sehun hangs up just in time to enter the empty elevator in his apartment complex. He anticipates another silent ride up to the fourth floor, until someone tries to stop the doors from closing.
“Sorry!” the someone says, apologetic voice sounding rather small, and the man who belongs to the voice quickly enters with a sheepish smile. Sehun notices that the rest of said man is, rather interestingly but appropriately, also small. After regarding the stranger for a moment, it comes to Sehun’s attention that the man’s eyes are probably the only parts of his exterior which aren’t small; they’re alarmingly big, in fact.
During the elevator ride, the small man doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that Sehun is staring at his side profile. Sehun notes the curve of the stranger’s nose, the head of neat dark hair, and the dress shirt and pants that look impressively ironed - a stark contrast to the wrinkled t-shirt and jeans Sehun has on, not to mention the dirty snapback on top of his own bleached blond hair.
Perhaps the man is a visitor, Sehun muses. He’s admittedly pretty for a man, and Sehun is shocked at the audacity of his own brain when he thinks that he might not mind seeing the man again, even after the ride.
Sehun makes to mutter a polite, “Excuse me,” when the door finally opens for his level, only to find that the stranger also gets out of the lift at the same time. Their shoulders accidently bump each others’ as they step onto the landing.
“Oh god, I’m sorry,” the man says again.
Sehun shakes his head. “It’s alright.”
A part of him thinks that’s that, and the man will be on his way to whichever apartment he’s visiting, but the man merely smiles and walks in the same direction as Sehun. Trying to be as discreet as possible, Sehun watches the man out of the corner of his eye, noting with interest that the man has the key to the adjacent unit.
“Oh! So you’re Unit A.”
Sehun’s eyes widen at the stranger’s exclamation. There’s a heart-shaped grin directed straight at him now, one that’s oddly endearing. “Yeah,” Sehun mutters. “That’s me.”
The not-so-stranger-anymore beams. “Cool! I’m Unit B. Just moved here myself, yesterday. Nice to meet you,” the man waves cheerfully, before stepping into his apartment.
Sehun is left standing dumbly in the empty corridor, keys already stuffed into his lock but door still unopened. No one has lived in the house next to him before. A new neighbor, he thinks, a cute new neighbor.
Hence, Sehun acquaints himself with Bub - the Boy of Unit B.
--
For the next few days, to Sehun’s slight disappointment, he doesn’t see much of Bub. That’s not to say that he doesn’t think about Bub, though, because he definitely does.
On his way to school, Sehun wonders what Bub does for a living - business, maybe? He had looked so prim and proper during that one elevator ride they had shared. At lunch, while staring at his own poorly wrapped kimbap, Sehun thinks of whether Bub knows how to cook - maybe said neighbor could be a kind soul and feed (read: save) Sehun’s skinny ass one day.
And as Sehun finally steps into his apartment at the end of a long day, he wonders whether Bub is just like him, out all day only to come home to an empty house. Or perhaps the man had someone else? A friend, a lover, a pet? Then again, Sehun hadn’t really heard any voices - or animal noises for that matter - through the walls, so perhaps they did have something in common as neighbors: their solitude.
(It’s not that Sehun wants to wish loneliness upon anyone, but the notion of sharing something with cute little Bub is kind of appealing.)
Then one day, he hears it.
It’s a Saturday morning, and the loud ring of the phone coming from next door isn’t too annoying at first. It does get increasingly irritating as time passes, however, because no one comes to take the call. How unfortunate it is, that the walls separating each unit in the apartment complex aren’t particularly thick. Sehun tries anyway to fall back asleep on this supposedly lazy day.
When the incessant ringing finally ceases after a good minute or so, Sehun lets out a sigh of relief. But he can’t get back to sleep because the walls are really that thin, and he can hear some soft murmurs coming from the other side of his bedroom wall. It’s must be Bub. Sehun briefly questions who the other man could be receiving a call from this early. A relative? An intrusive employer? A long-distance lover?
“No!” The shout is muffled through the concrete, but it’s still loud enough. Sehun immediately sits up in bed. “I already said no!”
Within the next minute, his neighbor’s words are a lot less on the hushed side and a lot more on the harsh side, perhaps even bordering on hysterical. Bub seems to be continuously shouting words of refusal, no-s and don’t-s and stop-s aplenty. Sehun can’t stop himself from worrying because screaming of that sort has never been a good sign. But neither can he do much, because he can’t see Bub, can’t read Bub’s mind, can’t ask Bub what’s going on. He doesn’t even know Bub’s real name.
Only when Sehun gets a good earful of “Shut up!” does he realize that his ear is pressed flat against the wall. His body seems to have unconsciously pushed itself as close to the opaque partition as possible, in an attempt to hear more of Bub’s one-sided, angst-filled conversation.
Sehun staggers out of his bedroom and into his kitchen. “Poor guy,” he says, downing a glass of water, “having to get an earful on a Saturday morning.”
Maybe, just maybe, Sehun also begins to sympathize with his neighbor, because Bub’s phone call hadn’t only been a disturbance of peace. More than Sehun would like to admit it, it had been a struggle and a pain to eavesdrop on as well.
Don’t think about it, he tells his brain. Don’t you dare think about it. But of course his brain dares to think about it, dares to look back into the past.
When Sehun was in high school, Luhan had been everything he’d dreamed of and everything he’d wanted to be, not to mention be with too. The Chinese man was such a kind and committed dance tutor. Plus he was only four years older than Sehun, and he was foreign, and talented, and pretty (perfect). But it was because of all of the aforementioned that he also broke Sehun’s heart.
“Shixun-ah.” Luhan’s call of his Mandarin name always used to make him crumble, even through the phone.
“Hi, ge,” Sehun recalls having said one night, in his last year of Arts high school. “Are we having a coaching session tomorrow?”
“No,” Luhan said firmly, resolutely. “In fact, I’m not sure if I’ll ever see you anymore.”
“Oh,” had been the only response Sehun could give then. “Oh.”
Because back when Sehun hadn’t even been legal yet, Luhan had still been relatively young, and Chinese, and well-rounded, and so very pretty (perfect). There was no way said amazing man could have turned down that once-in-a-lifetime offer to join a famous Beijing dance company as one of its leads, the one he’d wanted to join since he was a child.
“It’s all I’ve ever dreamed of. I have to go back.” Luhan’s voice sounded so distorted, so cold, so hurtful across the line. “I hope you understand.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t think we could have worked out anyway. I’m sorry, Shixun.”
“Oh.”
At that moment, Sehun hears the phone ring again through the wall. It lasts for all but two seconds; a curse follows it, and it’s most likely that Bub hadn’t taken the call.
Sehun is glad they both don’t have to hear of painful things, even if only for a moment.
--
Mail doesn’t come in too often for Sehun, since all his bills get automatically redirected to his parents’ home. Then again, there’s always the occasional postcard from Joonmyun, but those mostly come during the holiday season. (There used to be lots of prank letters from Jongin too, but those have died down considerably ever since Jongin got attached.)
And yet Sehun opens his mailbox every Thursday out of sheer habit. He half-expects another rubbishy flyer to come tumbling out during one morning check, and is surprised when a white envelope with neatly scrawled handwriting falls into his hands instead.
“To D.O.,” Sehun reads aloud, “Tenant of 4B.”
“Actually, it’s Kyungsoo.” A familiar-sounding little voice comes from behind Sehun, and the young man whips around to find himself face-to-face with the one and only Bub. Bub is dressed quite formally, as he had appeared when Sehun last saw him in person, except this time he looks just about ready to leave the building, black briefcase in hand.
“S-Sorry, what?” stutters Sehun very intelligently, the strap of his dance bag nearly slipping off his shoulder.
His little neighbor chuckles. “I mean, I think you have my package,” the man explains slowly. (Great, he must actually reckon I’m stupid, Sehun thinks.) “That, and my name is Do Kyungsoo, Mr. Oh Sehun.”
Sehun’s eyes widen. “How do you know my name-”
“Here,” Do Kyungsoo - no longer Bub - cuts in. “Something for you. The mailman must have gotten us mixed up.”
“Right. Thanks,” says Sehun, still marginally bewildered as he exchanges his mail with the smaller man. He looks down into his own hands and frowns at the letter addressed to him, because the repulsive handwriting on the envelope is obviously Jongin’s. That troll. Maybe Krystal hadn’t been giving him any lately.
Ultimately, Sehun lets go of the frown and opts for a polite smile instead. Because how could he not smile when Do Kyungsoo pleasantly bids him farewell, then proceeds to practically skip out of the apartment complex after offering him a friendly ‘Hope you have a good day’?
It takes Sehun a good five minutes or so to realize that something hadn’t been quite right about that little encounter with his not-so-new neighbor. Sure, they had been all smiles on the surface, but after making the mail exchange...
Do Kyungsoo’s eyes had turned awfully teary.
--
A day later, it’s Sehun’s turn to skip in public, albeit into the apartment complex instead of out. His instructor had been kind enough to end class early, effectively giving majority of the dance majors at college an extended weekend. There’s nothing Sehun could be more grateful for at the moment, at four in the afternoon on a Friday, what with how his body is aching from all the conditioning he’s been doing.
It’s an elevator ride up to his unit like any other elevator ride, except when the doors open, he honestly doesn’t expect to see a bunch of girls crowded on his level. More specifically, they’re crowded around Unit 4B.
Sehun does his best to enter his house without creating a fuss, trying to avoid the teenagers as much as possible (they bring back terrible memories of how those stupid senior noonas had bossed him silly in his first year of high school).
Unfortunately, he doesn’t go totally unnoticed, and catches the eye of someone in the crowd.
“Hello Mister,” the random girl he makes eye contact with greets loudly, “would you happen to know if Mr. Do’s home?” She gestures wildly towards Do Kyungsoo’s door, and Sehun doesn’t have the heart to tell her that he knows who Mr. Do is and where he lives.
“Um. I’m not sure if he is.”
The girls all let out disappointed whines; Sehun attempts to keep himself from shuddering. “What are we gonna do?” another one of them complains, high-pitched voice sounding pretty whiny. “We came all the way here to deliver the present and Mr. Do isn’t even here.”
“Present?” Sehun blurts out before he can think. Was today a special occasion, perhaps Do Kyungsoo’s birthday?
“Yeah,” yet another girl nods, ponytail bouncing vigorously. “We have a gift for Mr. Do, because today’s a special day.”
“It is?” a new male voice asks out of the blue. Before Sehun knows it, the girls have all started screaming and whooping simultaneously and Jesus, he hopes no one from the other apartment levels files a complaint. He also belatedly realizes that he hadn’t noticed Do Kyungsoo stepping out of the lift, not until the smaller man was well surrounded by the over-enthusiastic high school-ers.
Sehun wonders if he should greet his neighbor as a form of courtesy, but the hoard of girls don’t even let him think properly.
“Happy Teachers’ Day, Mr. Do!” they shout, plenty of obnoxious clapping to accompany their shrill screams. But at least Sehun has another epiphany, one along the lines of Oh, he’s a teacher. How cute. If anything, Do Kyungsoo looks shocked, but delighted and pleased too, and it’s a good look on him.
“There wasn’t any time for us to give you the cake in class just now, so we thought we’d bring it over. We kind of got your address from the other teachers,” someone explains sheepishly. “And we really hope you like the cake.”
“Wow,” Do Kyungsoo says, his eyes going even wider than usual, possibly rivaling a pair of dinner plates. “This is a wonderful surprise, girls, thank you. But all of you best be getting home, in case anyone complains that we’re too noisy.”
After a considerable amount of shepherding into the elevator by their good-looking male teacher, the girls finally leave the floor. It’s only then that Sehun sighs in relief, and also makes a mental note of how small Do Kyungsoo looks compared to the large cake his students had bought for him.
“Thank you,” the little neighbor smiles brightly, struggling a little with holding the cake box. He’s looking straight into Sehun’s eyes. “For entertaining the kids, I mean.”
Sehun gulps right then because oh god, I’ve been standing in front of my unopened door all this while. And I’ve just been watching everything. He wonders if he could be any more of an embarrassment to himself in front of Do Kyungsoo. “Oh, no,” he says and quickly flaps his arms, “I didn’t do anything. At all.” Way to come off cool, Oh Sehun.
“Still, the girls must have been loud. There has to be some way I could thank you.”
Resolutely shaking his head, Sehun tries to make his way into his house, tries to move away from a cute button nose and pretty pearly whites. He just has to find a way to stop the unfounded beating of his heart and the odd tingles he gets from the sight of his neighbor.
But then Do Kyungsoo takes a few steps closer and smiles even wider. Sehun’s heart stops at the request evident in the smaller man’s eyes.
“I definitely can’t eat this cake alone. Help me, please?”
That’s exactly how the Boy of Unit A visits the Boy of Unit B for the first time.
--
In retrospect, Sehun is very grateful that he had accepted Kyungsoo’s numerous slices of chocolate cake, and not just because they had been very delicious. Fortunately enough, getting to know the other man had also come in the package.
“I’m a music teacher at the all-girls high school down the road,” Kyungsoo says and Sehun learns, as they both dig into their food. “Just started working at the beginning of the year.”
“You seem to be well-liked.”
Kyungsoo throws back his head and laughs; it makes Sehun smile, even with his mouth full. “I guess you could say that I’m fairly popular. It’s probably just because I’m younger than most of the other staff members.”
“Yeah, plus you’re seriously cute,” Sehun feels like adding, but he decides against it. After all, he doesn’t intend on creeping Kyungsoo out too early into their non-existent relationship.
(Whoa, Sehun, his conscience tells him. Now that’s planning ahead of things.
Shush, Sehun retorts. I quite like the boy next door, okay.)
A combination of mild guilt and worry washes over Sehun, however, when he finds himself completely mesmerized by the other man later on in the evening. Sehun is back in his own apartment, but they’re both on their adjacent balconies, basking in the cool night air together.
The most appropriate word to describe Kyungsoo’s singing voice might be “gorgeous”, or “heavenly”, or something along those lines. Sehun isn’t sure if he’s heard anything smoother or richer or, dare he concede, sexier. In fact, Sehun nearly wants to slap himself for labeling Kyungsoo’s voice as a small one during their first meeting, because when Kyungsoo opens his mouth and sings, his voice is anything but small. When he’s singing, eyes closed and relaxed and one with his music, Kyungsoo himself is anything but small.
The smaller man glances at Sehun once he finishes his song, one with lyrics about newfound love and fluttering hearts and warm hands. “How did you find it?”
“W-wow,” Sehun stutters as he had in one of their previous conversations. Except this time, the stuttering is totally reasonable because Kyungsoo is just wow.
“Wow?”
“Yeah, wow. That was beautiful,” confesses Sehun. “Your voice is beautiful.”
“It’s nothing special,” Kyungsoo insists as he shakes his head. “But it’s the least I should be able to do in my line of work.”
Sehun wishes the divide were smaller so that he could reach out to Kyungsoo and assure the other man that it really is special, and so are you. But there’s too much air separating their balconies in reality, so close and yet so far, which is why Sehun is at a loss what to do.
“Goodnight, Sehun,” Kyungsoo says for the both of them then, perhaps in an attempt to wrap the night up. It’s a bittersweet goodbye, for some reason, and Sehun can sense it. “It was nice getting to know you today.”
“Could I come by for cake some other time?” asks the younger man.
Kyungsoo grins, evidently amused, and the sight makes Sehun blush. “You’re welcome to come by for other things too,” the other man tells him anyway, and Sehun thinks that’s probably enough at present. Baby steps might be the best steps for now.
As the blond young man lies in bed that night, waiting for sleep to take him, he makes yet another discovery - that the image of Kyungsoo’s heart-shaped smile has already been carved into his mind.
Perhaps his crush has gotten a little out of hand - no, very out of hand.
--
Sehun had admittedly fantasized that his next trip to Kyungsoo’s house might be for a meal. But when Saturday morning comes, he hears that distinctively annoying ringtone again through the wall. It’s followed by a good amount of Kyungsoo’s shouting, topped off with some curses, so Sehun takes the initiative to knock on the other man’s door instead.
“Hi,” Kyungsoo politely greets when he sees Sehun, although he does look surprised, and futilely attempts to hide his tears. Sehun’s heart shrinks a little because Kyungsoo sounds so hoarse and looks so sad. His little neighbor appears broken, and it’s not a nice picture. Sehun doesn’t want to see Kyungsoo broken.
“Hi,” he returns as bravely as he can, raising a bag in his hand. “I brought something for tea time?” His chest feels less tight when Kyungsoo smiles at the fresh buns, made at the bakery downstairs and specially purchased by Sehun, and lets him in.
It soon comes to Sehun’s knowledge that no, there hasn’t been a lover calling Kyungsoo, despite his previous speculations. “It’s my parents,” Kyungsoo says instead, curling up on one end of his couch with Sehun on the other. “They keep on calling me and telling me to get a girlfriend, but I can’t. I just can’t.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay,” corrects the smaller man, tucking his chin over his knees as fresh tears threaten to spill down his cheeks. “It’s not okay to them, because I’m gay. I’m their only son, and they don’t want a gay son.”
The younger man can only watch Kyungsoo start to sob again. “I’m sorry.”
“You remember that package of mine you picked up that day? The one addressed to ‘D.O.’?” Of course Sehun remembers, he’d never forget how he found out Kyungsoo’s name. “That was my nickname when I was a kid, D.O. Apparently my parents thought that if they babied me, they might have a better chance of convincing me against my choice of lifestyle. So they wrote another one of their stupid letters to lecture me about it. But they don’t get it, they just don’t.”
Kyungsoo’s voice cracks at the last word, and Sehun feels a pang of hurt in his own chest. A certain part of him has the urge to take Kyungsoo’s hand and tell him that he understands. But the problem is that Sehun doesn’t understand, and he can’t bring himself to lie.
Sehun’s family has been very accepting of him all this while, having let him dance as he pleased and only feeling mildly disappointed when he came out of the closet. Perhaps it’s because they’ve already had the perfect child in the form of Joonmyun, a dashing young man with perfect grades and a perfect career and a perfect girlfriend. Perhaps his parents thought that asking for anything more might be too greedy. Either way, Sehun is either very loved or very lucky. Maybe he’s both.
“Sorry,” Kyungsoo suddenly says, bringing them both back to the situation at hand. “I’m probably burdening you by telling you all of this. I mean, we’ve only known each other for a little while and-”
“It’s okay,” whispers Sehun as he scoots closer. “It’s okay. You’re not alone.”
Sehun doesn’t pull away when he witnesses Kyungsoo’s exterior crumble some more. He lets the older man lean against him, hoping that the erratic beating of his own heart isn’t too obvious. So Kyungsoo sobs for some time; Sehun isn’t sure for how long they sit on the couch but it doesn’t matter. If there’s something he can do to help, he’s glad to be able to do it.
“Thank you, Sehun. Thank you so much.” Kyungsoo gives another sniffle as he finally gets up later, and then he looks up into Sehun’s eyes with his own puffy and pink ones. “Would you… Would you stay for dinner?”
Sehun nearly hears ‘for dinner’ as ‘forever’, and maybe that’s why he says ‘yes’.
--
Since the occasion last month when Sehun literally offered Kyungsoo a shoulder to cry on, spending more time with his little neighbor has been great. Kyungsoo is utterly adorable in Sehun’s eyes, passionate whenever he talks about doing what he loves, thoughtful whenever he brings up his students, and caring when he never fails to ask how Sehun’s day has been each time they meet up.
It almost feels as if the distance between their balconies is slowly closing up, day by day, inch by inch. Sehun can’t complain.
Hanging out has also had some pretty significant downfalls, however, the greatest of which possibly being Kyungsoo’s disappointment in the younger man’s cooking skills. The cat had been let out of the bag when Kyungsoo jokingly asked Sehun to treat him to some home cooked food, in return for all the dinners the older man had prepared for them both (Sehun had to say that Kyungsoo wasn’t just a good singer, he was quite the chef too).
“I just thought you didn’t know how to bake,” the smaller man had frowned up at Sehun, thoroughly shaming him. “But you’re telling me you can’t even fry an egg properly.”
“Sorry, hyung?” Hey, at least Sehun could make toast; he knew Jongin couldn’t do that. “Dancers don’t usually need to cook anyway.”
“Nice try,” huffed Kyungsoo, “but we have a lot of work to do.”
That’s how Sehun inevitably ends up at the supermarket on another one of his lazy Saturday mornings, shopping for various food items to be included in a myriad of dish types. Clearly, Kyungsoo’s cooking skills are indeed both a blessing and a curse.
“No, no, no,” the food expert chides, swatting at Sehun’s hands playfully. “Why are you choosing those apples? They’re bruised.” Maybe, just maybe, Sehun had messed up on purpose, because now he can watch Kyungsoo’s eyes light up with excitement as he teaches him how to properly pick fruits.
“Low fat milk might be healthy, but sometimes full cream milk makes the best cakes.” Kyungsoo winks at him when they pass by the dairy section, as if they’re conspiring against some evil baking force. Sehun finds him too adorable to look away from, never mind that the younger man nearly knocks over a whole shelf of yogurt.
They arrive back at Kyungsoo’s unit with seven bags of food and one half-emptied wallet of Sehun’s, and manage to make an odd combination of stir-fried noodles and orange chiffon cake in time for lunch. But Sehun doesn’t mind at all, partially because his cooking is edible for once, and also because Kyungsoo had been with them every step of the way.
Perhaps the older man’s smaller hand guiding Sehun’s bigger one might have appeared a little out of place at first, but Sehun decides rather quickly that he quite likes it - no, in fact, he likes it very much.
With an afternoon as free as his morning was supposed to be, Sehun willingly sacrifices himself again and subjects himself to Kyungsoo’s powerful culinary regime (not that it’s that much of a sacrifice, in all honesty). Following lunch, he learns to make five other dishes whilst simultaneously baking chocolate chip cookies, and oh dear god, since when was cooking more exhausting than dancing?
“I’m pooped,” he complains when the oven alarm goes off. Kyungsoo just cackles and lets Sehun sit on the counter, himself running off to fetch the last batch of cookies.
“I think I’ve done good work with you,” is all the older man says, before he plucks one of the freshly baked treats from the hot tray and pops it into his mouth.
“You have, hyung. You definitely have.” Sehun looks towards the food on Kyungsoo’s dining table, some of it long gone cold, but everything smells wonderful at the same time and his stomach can’t keep from growling. It’s also pleasing, to see Kyungsoo so pleased after spending the day together.
Something tells Sehun that tomorrow morning, he’ll be aching all over - not to mention mentally exhausted - so a good part of his Sunday will be dedicated to recuperation in bed. But when Kyungsoo tugs him by the sleeve of his shirt after dinner and convinces Sehun to help him empty the garbage, the older man is positively beaming; they both know that time has been well-spent.
Sehun knows that he’d rather not have spent his Saturday any other way.
--
“Stop fooling around, Oh Sehun!” Like this, with his hands on his hips and lips pressed tightly together, Kyungsoo is the epitome of simultaneous intimidation and winsomeness.
“I’m not,” is what Sehun petulantly insists, albeit with a laugh, having successfully thrown a clothesline across the gap between their adjacent balconies. “Make sure you tie the string on your side, hyung!”
Kyungsoo scowls from the other side of the gap. “I will, as long as you stop trying to climb onto it. It’ll be your fault if all our clothes fall into the car park below.” He ties the string anyway.
“But you have to admit that this is a great idea,” continues Sehun cheekily, although he’s already joining Kyungsoo in hanging up his own wet clothes on their new, shared laundry line. “I could climb over into your house to see you whenever I wanted to.”
“Don’t you dare,” warns Kyungsoo with pink cheeks, shaking a finger at the blond haired boy across from him. “You’ll get hurt and you know it.”
Sehun smirks and hangs up a pair of his socks. “Hyung,” he calls out, jiggling the thin string between their units for good measure, “do you think I’d fall if I tried?” He laughs when Kyungsoo’s large eyes can’t help but follow the clothesline in horror, watching it bounce from the weight of their garments.
“Of course, you silly boy!”
“But you’d catch me, wouldn’t you?” Please say you would.
“Yes, now get back down from there! Or I’ll really cut the rope and lock my door and you’ll never see me again.” Kyungsoo rolls his eyes and says the last part half-seriously, but only half-seriously - Sehun knows very well that the other half is definitely joking.
There’s no need for the presence of a tangible line to tell that their lives have already been connected.
--
“Erm. Hi, hyung.”
Sehun feels slightly guilty when Kyungsoo comes home later than usual one winter evening. The older man looks absolutely mortified to see him, standing stock still in the doorway even after shedding his thick coat. Okay, maybe Sehun should have waited till he got back to ring the doorbell of Unit B, instead of opting to give his neighbor a surprise greeting.
But then Kyungsoo puts his bag down, crosses his arms and raises a questioning brow, and Sehun knows he hasn’t been let off the hook.
“You came in by the balcony again.”
“I missed you,” Sehun says simply. The reason is as plain as that, but at the same time there’s a lot more weight to Sehun’s words than either of them are willing to acknowledge.
“You’re so silly. You know that’s dangerous,” Kyungsoo chides, although there’s an undeniable fondness in his eyes as he walks up to the younger man in his living room and leans up to ruffle his bleached locks. “I was only at work.”
“But for too long,” replies Sehun quickly, not missing how Kyungsoo angles his head away in an attempt to hide the blush forming on his cheeks. The clock is enough of an indication that it’s way past the time Kyungsoo usually knocks off. “I still missed you.”
“I missed you too.” The words are soft, but loud enough for Sehun to hear the sincerity in them, and the younger man feels his own face heating up on its own accord. When Kyungsoo smiles up at him next, gives him that grateful thank you for being here at the end of the day look, Sehun’s heart skips a few beats. “Let’s make dinner.”
As with their dinners before, Sehun knows at the end of this one that Kyungsoo doesn’t want him to leave. He sees it in the way Kyungsoo clears the dishes oh-so-slowly, the way the older man keeps asking if Sehun has had enough to eat or if he would like some coffee. It’s almost as if all the efficiency and control that Kyungsoo typically displays (save for those weekends that begin with unwanted phone calls) has been peeled away because of Sehun. The younger man likes that idea.
Sehun never wants to leave Unit B either. It’s a weighty but silly thought, because he’s only next door in Unit A and the walls are barely there anyway. Those thin partitions haven’t seemed to exist recently, not with how Sehun has looked at his bedroom wall on some nights and seen through the peeling paint and the concrete, right through Kyungsoo’s fading wallpaper and into the other man’s unit.
On those nights, Sehun feels as if there truly isn’t anything separating them.
He can’t help but imagine Kyungsoo climbing into that little single bed of his, tucking himself below clean sheets that smell like fresh laundry and flowers, humming himself to sleep with that song he always sings on the balcony - the one of wishing and wanting and having that Sehun never gets tired of hearing. Maybe it’s because Sehun yearns for Kyungsoo to sing for him. It would be nice if Kyungsoo could hold him close under the same blanket, both of them subject to bone-deep exhaustion at the day’s end, but still un-tired of each other as sleep takes over.
And it’s always the same heavy and confusing (but truly pleasant) thoughts that make Sehun’s stomach churn when he heads out of Kyungsoo’s house, a well-practiced ‘Thank you, see you tomorrow, hyung,’ on the tip of his tongue. Sehun always has such trouble thinking his way through his mind after their meetings. He tries to clear his head so that the good ol’ mental carving of Kyungsoo in his brain is the very thing he falls asleep to, in place of all the practiced choreography he would have preferred to remember a few months ago.
But tonight, maybe he doesn’t have to try to clear anything at all.
As Sehun reaches for the impeccably polished doorknob, Kyungsoo’s small hand tugs on his sleeve from behind, but then it slides down to his wrist. “Stay for dinner.”
“I already did,” says Sehun quietly.
“Wait,” Kyungsoo mutters in turn, even though they both know Sehun isn’t going anywhere. “I mean no, don’t stay for dinner.”
Sehun turns around. “What do you mean?” The bob of Kyungsoo’s Adam’s apple is proof enough of his nervousness, and Sehun reckons his own gulp is probably a tell-tale sign too.
“I mean,” the older man clarifies, his hold on Sehun tightening, “stay the night. Stay tonight.”
(Just tonight? Or every night?)
“Okay,” whispers Sehun, inching closer to place his lips against the skin of Kyungsoo’s forehead. “Okay.”
--
Half of Sehun wonders if they’re simply lost in the heat of the moment now, but the better half of him isn’t worried at all. Perhaps it’s because there truly isn’t much heat; rather, there’s a lot of warmth, slowly simmering under their skin despite the cold weather outside. It’s that very simmer that carries promises of the future, unsaid as they are, but promises nonetheless.
Kyungsoo shivers as Sehun presses him against the bedroom wall. “Are you cold, hyung?” the younger mouths against his neck.
The hand that threads itself through Sehun’s coarse hair nearly draws a purr from deep within his chest. “Not when you’re here,” Kyungsoo confesses, fingertips gently pressing into Sehun’s scalp. “Never when you’re here.”
This is still unfamiliar territory, even after they’ve mutually warmed up to each other, and Sehun is well aware of it. He’s not sure where his hands should rest on Kyungsoo’s body but he’s learning, finding out what to do to make the smaller man keen for him.
The lights in the room have been dimmed so that they’re both bathed in an ethereal sort of glow. Sehun sees the light sheen of sweat across Kyungsoo’s skin while they fumble onto the mattress, springs creaking and bed shaking. But none of the extra noises matter because Kyungsoo is so beautiful like this, and nothing could distract Sehun into thinking otherwise.
Sehun has been told before that nakedness speaks of vulnerability in the Arts, but it speaks of more than just that. He knows now, with his body finally bared to Kyungsoo and his feelings spread out on the table, that it’s an offer of trust.
“I trust you,” Kyungsoo says as he rocks up against the younger man, trying to get more friction between their bodies. Their clothes have long been forgotten because they don’t need barriers now, can’t afford to have barriers now. The walls are so thin that they’re not there anymore. “I trust you, Sehun.”
“I know,” replies Sehun, curious fingers roaming and touching and discovering, making the man beneath him moan. “And I you.”
To be honest, Sehun doesn’t know Kyungsoo like he knows Joonmyun as a brother or Jongin as a friend. But he sure as hell knows that he wants to keep Kyungsoo, and that seems like a good enough notion for now. It’s a fact that they’re both young and they both have time. Sehun wants to use that time to know Kyungsoo even better, to be there for him, and maybe - if he ever dares, and he guesses he probably will one day - to love him.
He wants to be able to stay by Kyungsoo’s side when the weekend phone calls come, and it would be nice to have Kyungsoo with him when he’s aching after a long day of physical exertion. He wants to teach Kyungsoo how to slow dance, and he wants Kyungsoo to teach him how to sing. He wants to take a chance, wants to bridge the gap between them so that he can fall for Kyungsoo, and he wants Kyungsoo to take the same leap, to fall for him too.
Because even if they don’t fall in the exact way that they hope to, they’ll fall together, and they’ll be there to catch each other.
When Sehun feels Kyungsoo pressed against his bare side, long after they’ve gone over the edge and well into the night, he knows that they’ll be quite enough for each other - no, more than enough for each other.
--
(“I used to wish I could see you through the walls, you know,” Sehun says into the darkness, tucked beneath the warm sheets and against a warm body. He hopes the confession isn't as creepy as it sounds in his head.
“Walls?” Kyungsoo asks softly. There’s a smile in the older man's voice that can’t be missed. “What walls?”
Sehun just grins against Kyungsoo’s lips and pulls him even closer.
“No walls,” he whispers. “Not anymore.”)
-----------