[U-KISS] Fluctuations (1/1) Fic trade with cei_fei
Title: Fluctuations
Fandom: U-KISS
Author: blahchiharu
Characters/pairing: Kevin/ Xander
Rating: G
wordcount: ~2800
Summary: Kevin is sixteen, and it's not just his heart that's breaking. Written for cei_fei in our fic trade. Her prompt was "how difficult it is to admit that you love someone."
i.
Kevin is thirteen and raw, his voice full of ambition but otherwise void of feeling. Kevin is a dreamer- his walls are covered in its entirety with posters and he knows, he just knows, that there is more for him than the concaving walls of his school and the bemused but condescending frowns of the people at his church.
“One day I will be famous,” he tells Eunjung, who stops from taping a flyer on the wall to regard him briefly. Kevin is naive and un-groomed and Eunjung is anything but, and Kevin knows once Eunjung sets off for University in a month she will complete forget about the boy with big dreams from her old church choir.
“I’m going to be famous and everyone will recognize me,” he continues in one breath, although what he really means to say is you will recognize me too.
“Okay.” She smiles, dark hair framing her pearly white skin. “I will gladly anticipate that day, then.”
Kevin has so much more to tell her, so much more to say, but the words die in the back of his throat when the pastor comes into the room and calls her away, leaving Kevin standing behind the piano with a terribly unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach.
One day he will be able to sing about the fluctuations of pain and glee in his heart instead of letting his feelings die. One day, he thinks and pinches the bridge of his nose, one day everything will be different.
ii.
Kevin is fifteen and they tell him that he has talent and promise, but he’s not quite there. Kevin will never be quite there, he knows, and watches as they push a small brochure towards him. Kevin is young and his ambition easily morphs into greed. He knows he is talented enough, but he will never be cool enough, pretty enough.
Kevin is fifteen and old enough to understand the weight of his own decisions. He is full of aching anticipation, which changes into a different type of aching, all over his body as he lies in bed wordlessly and tries to brings fingers to his own face.
The doctor, a rather young man with charmingly good looks that easily convinced Kevin’s mother to trust in his abilities, checks up on Kevin afterwards. He looks past the bandages and swollenness and says, “you will turn out stunningly.”
Kevin swallows the hesitance and nervousness in his mouth and tries to smile. His mouth tastes like blood and morphine, but maybe, just maybe, he detects the tang of faint recognition that he’s been waiting for. Suddenly he loves the man for making him better, for making him perfect. Suddenly (perhaps only in his own mind), people have another reason to look at him twice.
iii.
Kevin is sixteen and the world as he knows it is anything but fair. Management twists his arms so hard that he has no other option but to nod and comply, to sing but not be recognized. One day his old manager tells him that he’s transferring companies and that Kevin and Kibum should come with him.
He takes them into a familiarly tall building and introduces them to another man who will change Kevin’s life. On the way out of the building they run into a group of trainees laughing in the hallway. One of the boys makes some sort of catcall, catching Kevin off guard as Kevin swings around with wide eyes.
The boy catches Kevin’s shoulder with a grin on his face. His eyes are light and he is impossibly handsome, so when he says, “watch where you’re going, Sweetcheeks,” Kevin can only watch breathlessly as the boy walks away.
iv.
Kevin is seventeen and Xander has never once dropped the nicknames. Recently Kevin’s days are filled with gruesome discipline, juxtaposed with mindless hilarity. There’s more touching, more fake kissing, and more proximity than Kevin has experienced his entire life, and when the photographers motion for more intimacy, he finds himself gravitating towards Xander. Xander only grins and scoots closer.
When they first transferred companies, Kibum had held his hand and promised to stick with him, because we’re in this together, he mouths to Kevin. Yet Xander somehow manages to squeeze himself in between them, whining about Kibum’s monopoly of the boy on and off camera.
Xander is mostly ridiculous but surprisingly thoughtful at times. One day he takes the subway home with Kevin after practice and spends twenty minutes playing with kittens when they pass by the animal shelter. When Kevin asks him to hurry, Xander manages to chase both of them off the road, into the river by the railroad as they laugh and soak their feet in the water. The stream is warm enough in April that when Xander rolls the hem of his jeans back down and lies by the river bank, Kevin joins him.
“Kebin,” Xander says when they are about to part ways ten minutes from Kevin’s house. He stands at the fork in the road and watches as Kevin turns around, the setting sun shining behind the light posts on the street. “Why don’t you ever invite me to your house? We’re practically neighbors!”
Kevin laughs a little. “We’re not actually neighbors.”
“Is it because there are always strange men waiting at your gates?” Xander asks slowly, and Kevin has to blink away his surprise.
Kevin doesn’t expect Alexander, the boy with a charming face and an endlessly childish personality, to know about the harassing phone calls, the letters left on his door steps, the lawyers who camp outside of his parents’ house, or the law suit he has tried so hard to forget.
“No, it’s not them,” Kevin says a last, watching the contemplating on Xander’s face become replaced with relief. “You can come to my house whenever you want."
“How about now?” Xander wants to know, mouth wide in grin.
“N- now?” Kevin stares.
“Yep!” Xander is already on the roll. “I’ll go home and grab some stuff. Meet you here in twenty minutes!” He dashes off before Kevin can reply, his back disappearing into the familiar row of houses and apartments in the neighborhood.
Kevin is seventeen and even five minutes can seem like an eternity, stretching itself between the last run of the routine they do at rehearsal and the last last run. Yet, as he waits for Xander at the crossroad of his life, he thinks maybe he can get used to this type of waiting.
v.
Kevin is eighteen and all he ever sees is the white padding between the soundproof walls of the studio.
One day Isak decides to blindfold him during international live streaming while Xander holds Kevin’s hands under the table, squeezing them in excitement. When Kevin opens his eyes again, there is a cake in front of his face, and Isak and Xander are laughing as if tricking Kevin was a gigantic feat.
In the end Kevin lets Xander brush off the stray icing on his face with the tip of Xander’s fingers. Isak hums approvingly on the other end of the table and distributes the cake to the radio broadcast crew. Xander saves the piece with an appropriate chunk of flower icing for himself and offers Kevin a bite when he sees the boy staring.
“You’re old,” he tells Kevin in the car, when management is driving them back. He holds one end of his seat belt to Kevin’s face as a make-shift microphone.
“You’re older.” Kevin gives him a look, pushing Xander’s hand aside to click the older man’s seat belt back in place.
“No, I am immortal. My youthful face will never age.” Xander laughs, slipping one hand so easily, so smoothly into Kevin’s that Kevin doesn’t even blink. “When you’re crispy and old and toothless, I will still be charming and forever young.”
“When I’m crispy and old,” Kevin corrects, laughing at Xander’s choice of words, “you will still be delusional.”
“Delusional?” Xander runs a hand through his hair and gives Kevin his sleaziest smile. “You call this handsome face delusional? How do I look?”
“You look-“ Kevin trails off. “Criminal.”
“Criminally sexy, yes.” Xander continues to muse, thoughtfully rubbing his chin.
“Hyung,” Kevin laughs, his eyes folding into a familiar crescent shape.
Kevin is eighteen and he knows that he is in love with Alexander. He knows it like he knows that the sky is blue, that the distance from his bed to his bathroom is exactly thirteen steps even if he fumbles in the middle of the night, and that Kibum will always say “one last time, you guys” at the end of every rehearsal, even if they have already gone past their schedule.
But the things he knows, the things he want, and he things he need are completely separate entities.
Want is the dryness in the back of his throat when he watches the MCs hand the music bank trophies to another group. Want is the frequency of waver in his when he sees the photos of his friends back in the states. Need, however, is completely different. Need is the way he snuggles closer to Xander during their many car rides, Kevin’s eyes squeezing tightly shut as he soaks in the smell of Xander’s cologne. Need is the inadequacy Kevin feels when he feigns grogginess at the soft shakes of his shoulder and the way Xander says, “Cheesecake, we’re at your stop.”
Around Xander, Kevin is thirteen again, his voice small as relays replies through small motions- nods, waves, smiles. Around Xander Kevin is too young yet too old, struggling to find his place to balance the immaturity and thoughtfulness of a man who refuses to grow up.
“What’s wrong with you?” Kibum asks one day after vocal lessons. “Why were you so out of it today?”
“Your hair looks terrible today,” Kevin replies easily. “I was distracted by it.”
“Nice try.” Kibum gives him a small punch on the arm, grinning when Kevin whines and nurtures his wound. “But I wasn’t the one you were staring at. What, do you have a crush on our wise hyung?” He pauses when Kevin doesn’t reply, his mouth eventually forming a small o. “You’re kidding.”
“Am I? Is my pain funny to you?” Kevin gives his oldest friend a look, perhaps a little bitter.
Kibum brings a hand up to stop Kevin from talking, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his free hand. “No, it’s just- Sixteen year old girls have crushes him. Although I suppose there’s not much of a difference.” He grins.
Kevin smacks him on the arm in return, opening his mouth to reply when Xander skips out of the rehearsal room.
“Children!”’ Xander mock gasps. “No fighting!” He pulls pantyboy out of nowhere and waves it in front of them, which is somehow supposed to show case his point.
“This is the man you’re infatuated with,” Kibum says flatly when Xander leaves. “Well,” he pats Kevin lightly on the arm. “Enjoy your therapy.”
Kevin is crossed between wanting to cry and wanting to kick Kibum.
Two weeks later Kevin goes to Xander’s apartment. “Let’s have another sleep over,” Xander had said over the phone. “You bring the condom, I bring the lube. Just joking!” In the end Kevin had showed up on Xander’s doorsteps with a pack of chocolates as his house warming gift.
Kevin lets himself in when he finds the door unlocked. He dumps his bag in the middle of the living room floor and follows his instincts to the third room in the hall, where Xander is kneeling in front of his collection of fan gifts. Xander sits, his eyes sharp, as he continues reading (re-reading?) another letter.
“Hey.” Kevin smacks him with the nearest stuffed toy, smiling when Xander peers up at him. “Did you forget I was coming?”
“No,” Xander says, standing up and dusting imaginary lint off his jeans. “I was just reminiscing.”
“What, is that a love letter?”
Xander looks at him for a moment. “Actually yes. Not from a fan, though. My friend gave it to me back when we were in highschool. I woke up this morning wondering where it went and ta-da,” he laughs a little. “Apparently pantyboy was hiding it from me!”
“Oh,” Kevin says softly. “What happened?”
“Well, I had to challenge pantyboy to a pokemon battle to retrieve the letter. He knocked out my Kindrabum but my DongHoppip took care of him!” Xander grins, teeth wide.
“No, what happened after your friend confessed to you?” Kevin asks.
Xander is unusually quiet for a minute. “We went out, of course. I am incapable of rejecting other people’s feelings. Friends don’t bring each other pain, so I had to give it a try. It didn’t work out. Turns out that I liked electric pokemon, and she was a water pokemon kind of gal-” His babble is cut off short when Kevin makes a grabbing motion at his arm.
“Then,” Kevin says quietly. “Will you accept my feelings too?”
“What feelings?” Xander asks at last, after another eternity for Kevin to hold his breath.
Suddenly Kevin is braver, braver than he was at thirteen and braver than the times he went under the knife. He pushes Xander until Xander’s back hits the nearest surface, Kevin’s hands resting awkwardly on Xander’s shoulders as he presses in, and suddenly he freezes.
Kevin has never been shy before, never had stage freight. Yet, here he stands, his face hovering obnoxiously close to Xander’s, and absolutely nothing comes to his mind. Kevin winces, not exactly sure of what he expected in the first place. He’s not daring enough to kiss Xander, not this time- not when it means something.
“Ow.” Xander makes a face of complaint, and Kevin suddenly pulls away, his eyes finding interest in everything besides Xander’s face.
“I’m sorry,” Kevin begins to say, but is cut off when Xander grabs at him.
“Ow,” Xander continues, pushing the chair behind him aside. “This was digging into my back.” He laughs when Kevin gives him a look of surprise. “You’re such a weird kid. If you wanted to confess your undying love to me, you could’ve at least done it more romantically. Where are my roses?” His smile begins to drop when Kevin doesn’t reply. “Oh,” he says, in a smaller voice. “You like me?”
No, I don’t, Kevin wants to say. This is all an elaborate show to prove that I’m a good actor. Surprise, surprise.
“No, I don’t,” Kevin begins to say. “I’m in love with you” is what comes out of his mouth instead. He pauses for a moment, caught on the brink of reality and a fairytale. “And,” Kevin tries to laugh, his voice choking up in the process. “Not the way that Dongho loves his dog.”
Kevin supposes that he must have looked more horrified than he felt, because the next thing Xander did was to cup Kevin’s face with his hands and say, “okay, okay. I know. Please don’t cry.”
“I’m not crying,” Kevin says, blinking away the wetness in his eyes.
“I know, but that’s the right thing to say when girls are upset,” Xander replies smoothly, his grip on Kevin tightens when Kevin tries to pull away. “Sorry. I’m really not that funny,” he adds, his hand trailing from Kevin’s chin to settle on both sides of Kevin’s shoulder. “But yes, I’ll accept your feelings.”
“Because you’re incapable of rejecting other people’s feelings?” Kevin asks slowly, unwinding his body away from Xander’s.
“No, because I like you.” Xander stops at Kevin’s surprised expression. “Is it hard to take my confession seriously?” Xander smiles.
“It’s hard to take anything you say seriously,” Kevin smiles in return. Regardless, when Xander slips his hand into Kevin’s this time, Kevin lets it stay.
[FIN]
omake (because the beginning was too angsty for me)
1.
“Oh,” Kibum says the day Kevin and Xander come to rehearsal together, hand in hand. He nudges Xander on the side. “Looks like someone got himself a girlfriend.”
2.
“Alexander?” Kevin asks when he pulls away from the kiss. “Were you serious about what you said? You know, about the pokemon stuff?"
“No, of course not,” Xander laughs and goes back to kissing Kevin, and Kevin pretends that he doesn’t feel the Nintendo DS in the back of Xander’s pockets.
3.
Eli is uninterested in their relationship, Soohyun is unimpressed, Kiseop can’t tell if this is an elaborate joke, and Dongho still hasn’t noticed.
[AN]: ahhhh I'm sorry this took so long :( lol I ended up writing down the wrong date for our 2 week deadline /orz. This was supposed to be a relatively funny piece that was supposed to be dominated by Xander's retardation and Kevin's fail, but it turned out more angsty than I expected. I hope you like it, cei_fei!
in response to some of the comments: lol also apparently Kevin didn't get plastic surgery. Well he and Xander are probably not gay either. It's just fanfiction. calm the fuck down ಠ_ಠ
if anyone else is interested in doing a fic trade with me, please go here :)
Love it? Hate it? Please leave some feedback, even if it may be a little late. You can also join the community, since I'll be locking up NC17 fics.
Fandom: U-KISS
Author: blahchiharu
Characters/pairing: Kevin/ Xander
Rating: G
wordcount: ~2800
Summary: Kevin is sixteen, and it's not just his heart that's breaking. Written for cei_fei in our fic trade. Her prompt was "how difficult it is to admit that you love someone."
i.
Kevin is thirteen and raw, his voice full of ambition but otherwise void of feeling. Kevin is a dreamer- his walls are covered in its entirety with posters and he knows, he just knows, that there is more for him than the concaving walls of his school and the bemused but condescending frowns of the people at his church.
“One day I will be famous,” he tells Eunjung, who stops from taping a flyer on the wall to regard him briefly. Kevin is naive and un-groomed and Eunjung is anything but, and Kevin knows once Eunjung sets off for University in a month she will complete forget about the boy with big dreams from her old church choir.
“I’m going to be famous and everyone will recognize me,” he continues in one breath, although what he really means to say is you will recognize me too.
“Okay.” She smiles, dark hair framing her pearly white skin. “I will gladly anticipate that day, then.”
Kevin has so much more to tell her, so much more to say, but the words die in the back of his throat when the pastor comes into the room and calls her away, leaving Kevin standing behind the piano with a terribly unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach.
One day he will be able to sing about the fluctuations of pain and glee in his heart instead of letting his feelings die. One day, he thinks and pinches the bridge of his nose, one day everything will be different.
ii.
Kevin is fifteen and they tell him that he has talent and promise, but he’s not quite there. Kevin will never be quite there, he knows, and watches as they push a small brochure towards him. Kevin is young and his ambition easily morphs into greed. He knows he is talented enough, but he will never be cool enough, pretty enough.
Kevin is fifteen and old enough to understand the weight of his own decisions. He is full of aching anticipation, which changes into a different type of aching, all over his body as he lies in bed wordlessly and tries to brings fingers to his own face.
The doctor, a rather young man with charmingly good looks that easily convinced Kevin’s mother to trust in his abilities, checks up on Kevin afterwards. He looks past the bandages and swollenness and says, “you will turn out stunningly.”
Kevin swallows the hesitance and nervousness in his mouth and tries to smile. His mouth tastes like blood and morphine, but maybe, just maybe, he detects the tang of faint recognition that he’s been waiting for. Suddenly he loves the man for making him better, for making him perfect. Suddenly (perhaps only in his own mind), people have another reason to look at him twice.
iii.
Kevin is sixteen and the world as he knows it is anything but fair. Management twists his arms so hard that he has no other option but to nod and comply, to sing but not be recognized. One day his old manager tells him that he’s transferring companies and that Kevin and Kibum should come with him.
He takes them into a familiarly tall building and introduces them to another man who will change Kevin’s life. On the way out of the building they run into a group of trainees laughing in the hallway. One of the boys makes some sort of catcall, catching Kevin off guard as Kevin swings around with wide eyes.
The boy catches Kevin’s shoulder with a grin on his face. His eyes are light and he is impossibly handsome, so when he says, “watch where you’re going, Sweetcheeks,” Kevin can only watch breathlessly as the boy walks away.
iv.
Kevin is seventeen and Xander has never once dropped the nicknames. Recently Kevin’s days are filled with gruesome discipline, juxtaposed with mindless hilarity. There’s more touching, more fake kissing, and more proximity than Kevin has experienced his entire life, and when the photographers motion for more intimacy, he finds himself gravitating towards Xander. Xander only grins and scoots closer.
When they first transferred companies, Kibum had held his hand and promised to stick with him, because we’re in this together, he mouths to Kevin. Yet Xander somehow manages to squeeze himself in between them, whining about Kibum’s monopoly of the boy on and off camera.
Xander is mostly ridiculous but surprisingly thoughtful at times. One day he takes the subway home with Kevin after practice and spends twenty minutes playing with kittens when they pass by the animal shelter. When Kevin asks him to hurry, Xander manages to chase both of them off the road, into the river by the railroad as they laugh and soak their feet in the water. The stream is warm enough in April that when Xander rolls the hem of his jeans back down and lies by the river bank, Kevin joins him.
“Kebin,” Xander says when they are about to part ways ten minutes from Kevin’s house. He stands at the fork in the road and watches as Kevin turns around, the setting sun shining behind the light posts on the street. “Why don’t you ever invite me to your house? We’re practically neighbors!”
Kevin laughs a little. “We’re not actually neighbors.”
“Is it because there are always strange men waiting at your gates?” Xander asks slowly, and Kevin has to blink away his surprise.
Kevin doesn’t expect Alexander, the boy with a charming face and an endlessly childish personality, to know about the harassing phone calls, the letters left on his door steps, the lawyers who camp outside of his parents’ house, or the law suit he has tried so hard to forget.
“No, it’s not them,” Kevin says a last, watching the contemplating on Xander’s face become replaced with relief. “You can come to my house whenever you want."
“How about now?” Xander wants to know, mouth wide in grin.
“N- now?” Kevin stares.
“Yep!” Xander is already on the roll. “I’ll go home and grab some stuff. Meet you here in twenty minutes!” He dashes off before Kevin can reply, his back disappearing into the familiar row of houses and apartments in the neighborhood.
Kevin is seventeen and even five minutes can seem like an eternity, stretching itself between the last run of the routine they do at rehearsal and the last last run. Yet, as he waits for Xander at the crossroad of his life, he thinks maybe he can get used to this type of waiting.
v.
Kevin is eighteen and all he ever sees is the white padding between the soundproof walls of the studio.
One day Isak decides to blindfold him during international live streaming while Xander holds Kevin’s hands under the table, squeezing them in excitement. When Kevin opens his eyes again, there is a cake in front of his face, and Isak and Xander are laughing as if tricking Kevin was a gigantic feat.
In the end Kevin lets Xander brush off the stray icing on his face with the tip of Xander’s fingers. Isak hums approvingly on the other end of the table and distributes the cake to the radio broadcast crew. Xander saves the piece with an appropriate chunk of flower icing for himself and offers Kevin a bite when he sees the boy staring.
“You’re old,” he tells Kevin in the car, when management is driving them back. He holds one end of his seat belt to Kevin’s face as a make-shift microphone.
“You’re older.” Kevin gives him a look, pushing Xander’s hand aside to click the older man’s seat belt back in place.
“No, I am immortal. My youthful face will never age.” Xander laughs, slipping one hand so easily, so smoothly into Kevin’s that Kevin doesn’t even blink. “When you’re crispy and old and toothless, I will still be charming and forever young.”
“When I’m crispy and old,” Kevin corrects, laughing at Xander’s choice of words, “you will still be delusional.”
“Delusional?” Xander runs a hand through his hair and gives Kevin his sleaziest smile. “You call this handsome face delusional? How do I look?”
“You look-“ Kevin trails off. “Criminal.”
“Criminally sexy, yes.” Xander continues to muse, thoughtfully rubbing his chin.
“Hyung,” Kevin laughs, his eyes folding into a familiar crescent shape.
Kevin is eighteen and he knows that he is in love with Alexander. He knows it like he knows that the sky is blue, that the distance from his bed to his bathroom is exactly thirteen steps even if he fumbles in the middle of the night, and that Kibum will always say “one last time, you guys” at the end of every rehearsal, even if they have already gone past their schedule.
But the things he knows, the things he want, and he things he need are completely separate entities.
Want is the dryness in the back of his throat when he watches the MCs hand the music bank trophies to another group. Want is the frequency of waver in his when he sees the photos of his friends back in the states. Need, however, is completely different. Need is the way he snuggles closer to Xander during their many car rides, Kevin’s eyes squeezing tightly shut as he soaks in the smell of Xander’s cologne. Need is the inadequacy Kevin feels when he feigns grogginess at the soft shakes of his shoulder and the way Xander says, “Cheesecake, we’re at your stop.”
Around Xander, Kevin is thirteen again, his voice small as relays replies through small motions- nods, waves, smiles. Around Xander Kevin is too young yet too old, struggling to find his place to balance the immaturity and thoughtfulness of a man who refuses to grow up.
“What’s wrong with you?” Kibum asks one day after vocal lessons. “Why were you so out of it today?”
“Your hair looks terrible today,” Kevin replies easily. “I was distracted by it.”
“Nice try.” Kibum gives him a small punch on the arm, grinning when Kevin whines and nurtures his wound. “But I wasn’t the one you were staring at. What, do you have a crush on our wise hyung?” He pauses when Kevin doesn’t reply, his mouth eventually forming a small o. “You’re kidding.”
“Am I? Is my pain funny to you?” Kevin gives his oldest friend a look, perhaps a little bitter.
Kibum brings a hand up to stop Kevin from talking, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his free hand. “No, it’s just- Sixteen year old girls have crushes him. Although I suppose there’s not much of a difference.” He grins.
Kevin smacks him on the arm in return, opening his mouth to reply when Xander skips out of the rehearsal room.
“Children!”’ Xander mock gasps. “No fighting!” He pulls pantyboy out of nowhere and waves it in front of them, which is somehow supposed to show case his point.
“This is the man you’re infatuated with,” Kibum says flatly when Xander leaves. “Well,” he pats Kevin lightly on the arm. “Enjoy your therapy.”
Kevin is crossed between wanting to cry and wanting to kick Kibum.
Two weeks later Kevin goes to Xander’s apartment. “Let’s have another sleep over,” Xander had said over the phone. “You bring the condom, I bring the lube. Just joking!” In the end Kevin had showed up on Xander’s doorsteps with a pack of chocolates as his house warming gift.
Kevin lets himself in when he finds the door unlocked. He dumps his bag in the middle of the living room floor and follows his instincts to the third room in the hall, where Xander is kneeling in front of his collection of fan gifts. Xander sits, his eyes sharp, as he continues reading (re-reading?) another letter.
“Hey.” Kevin smacks him with the nearest stuffed toy, smiling when Xander peers up at him. “Did you forget I was coming?”
“No,” Xander says, standing up and dusting imaginary lint off his jeans. “I was just reminiscing.”
“What, is that a love letter?”
Xander looks at him for a moment. “Actually yes. Not from a fan, though. My friend gave it to me back when we were in highschool. I woke up this morning wondering where it went and ta-da,” he laughs a little. “Apparently pantyboy was hiding it from me!”
“Oh,” Kevin says softly. “What happened?”
“Well, I had to challenge pantyboy to a pokemon battle to retrieve the letter. He knocked out my Kindrabum but my DongHoppip took care of him!” Xander grins, teeth wide.
“No, what happened after your friend confessed to you?” Kevin asks.
Xander is unusually quiet for a minute. “We went out, of course. I am incapable of rejecting other people’s feelings. Friends don’t bring each other pain, so I had to give it a try. It didn’t work out. Turns out that I liked electric pokemon, and she was a water pokemon kind of gal-” His babble is cut off short when Kevin makes a grabbing motion at his arm.
“Then,” Kevin says quietly. “Will you accept my feelings too?”
“What feelings?” Xander asks at last, after another eternity for Kevin to hold his breath.
Suddenly Kevin is braver, braver than he was at thirteen and braver than the times he went under the knife. He pushes Xander until Xander’s back hits the nearest surface, Kevin’s hands resting awkwardly on Xander’s shoulders as he presses in, and suddenly he freezes.
Kevin has never been shy before, never had stage freight. Yet, here he stands, his face hovering obnoxiously close to Xander’s, and absolutely nothing comes to his mind. Kevin winces, not exactly sure of what he expected in the first place. He’s not daring enough to kiss Xander, not this time- not when it means something.
“Ow.” Xander makes a face of complaint, and Kevin suddenly pulls away, his eyes finding interest in everything besides Xander’s face.
“I’m sorry,” Kevin begins to say, but is cut off when Xander grabs at him.
“Ow,” Xander continues, pushing the chair behind him aside. “This was digging into my back.” He laughs when Kevin gives him a look of surprise. “You’re such a weird kid. If you wanted to confess your undying love to me, you could’ve at least done it more romantically. Where are my roses?” His smile begins to drop when Kevin doesn’t reply. “Oh,” he says, in a smaller voice. “You like me?”
No, I don’t, Kevin wants to say. This is all an elaborate show to prove that I’m a good actor. Surprise, surprise.
“No, I don’t,” Kevin begins to say. “I’m in love with you” is what comes out of his mouth instead. He pauses for a moment, caught on the brink of reality and a fairytale. “And,” Kevin tries to laugh, his voice choking up in the process. “Not the way that Dongho loves his dog.”
Kevin supposes that he must have looked more horrified than he felt, because the next thing Xander did was to cup Kevin’s face with his hands and say, “okay, okay. I know. Please don’t cry.”
“I’m not crying,” Kevin says, blinking away the wetness in his eyes.
“I know, but that’s the right thing to say when girls are upset,” Xander replies smoothly, his grip on Kevin tightens when Kevin tries to pull away. “Sorry. I’m really not that funny,” he adds, his hand trailing from Kevin’s chin to settle on both sides of Kevin’s shoulder. “But yes, I’ll accept your feelings.”
“Because you’re incapable of rejecting other people’s feelings?” Kevin asks slowly, unwinding his body away from Xander’s.
“No, because I like you.” Xander stops at Kevin’s surprised expression. “Is it hard to take my confession seriously?” Xander smiles.
“It’s hard to take anything you say seriously,” Kevin smiles in return. Regardless, when Xander slips his hand into Kevin’s this time, Kevin lets it stay.
[FIN]
omake (because the beginning was too angsty for me)
1.
“Oh,” Kibum says the day Kevin and Xander come to rehearsal together, hand in hand. He nudges Xander on the side. “Looks like someone got himself a girlfriend.”
2.
“Alexander?” Kevin asks when he pulls away from the kiss. “Were you serious about what you said? You know, about the pokemon stuff?"
“No, of course not,” Xander laughs and goes back to kissing Kevin, and Kevin pretends that he doesn’t feel the Nintendo DS in the back of Xander’s pockets.
3.
Eli is uninterested in their relationship, Soohyun is unimpressed, Kiseop can’t tell if this is an elaborate joke, and Dongho still hasn’t noticed.
[AN]: ahhhh I'm sorry this took so long :( lol I ended up writing down the wrong date for our 2 week deadline /orz. This was supposed to be a relatively funny piece that was supposed to be dominated by Xander's retardation and Kevin's fail, but it turned out more angsty than I expected. I hope you like it, cei_fei!
in response to some of the comments: lol also apparently Kevin didn't get plastic surgery. Well he and Xander are probably not gay either. It's just fanfiction. calm the fuck down ಠ_ಠ
if anyone else is interested in doing a fic trade with me, please go here :)
Love it? Hate it? Please leave some feedback, even if it may be a little late. You can also join the community, since I'll be locking up NC17 fics.