SSS 2010: for sol_tama
For: sol_tama
From: Your (Emergency) Secret Santa
Title: Of New Worlds and Warm Soup
Pairing: Onew/Key
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 2,731
Summary: Years had passed from the day Kibum received his ability to travel to different worlds, defying the rules known to mankind. After travelling endlessly with a seemingly unreachable goal in mind, he meets Jinki.
Colors. There were splashes of them everywhere, surrounding Kibum’s body as his eyes adjusted to the contrasting brightness of the Transition yet again. Being enveloped by all different shades and tints was probably the only thing he liked about his ability. He was being pulled through time once more, breaking the barrier between dimensions. The boy felt lightheaded, the slight feeling of dizziness that came over him every time he travelled to somewhere else kicking in again. He took deep breaths and tried to relax- savoring the few moments he had left there before he reached the next world.
Kim Kibum had an uncanny talent. He had the ability to bend space and time in order to jump to different worlds, different dimensions. For the past seven years of his life, he had been jumping from era to era in search of the happiness he had lost when he was given his power. To others, what he could do seemed like a gift- but for Kibum, it was everything but a blessing. Sure, it was nice being able to leap through time any time he got sick of a certain place, but he definitely did not like not knowing where he would end up next. But the worst part was that he didn’t know how to get back to where he was really from. It had been seven years since he was last at home.
The only good thing he saw in what he could do was being in the Transition, the land in between with all the colors- the place between every place he’d end up in. The Transition had become the best place he could go to- it was the only place where he felt at least a hint of peace, the hues that cloaked him as he passed through giving him the fragment of solitude he needed to get by for a little longer.
The boy woke up to the feeling of warmth, the gentleness of it much cozier than the previous world he had just come from. Kibum inhaled deeply, taking in an unfamiliar, yet pleasant scent that made him feel at home, although he didn’t have a home. He knew that soon enough, he would get sick of wherever this place was and leave to travel to another unknown place again.
After breathing the scent in a few more times, he finally opened his eyes. He was lying down on a flat surface, body tucked under a thick duvet. He didn’t know what was going on, but he found it rather nice to be relaxed for a while. This was, by far, the finest place he’d ever ended up in.
“Finally awake?” A voice came from the other side of the cabin. Quickly, Kibum turned his head and sat up. He eyed a man in the corner of the room, seated on a wooden bench with a cup of steaming hot soup in his gloved hands.
“You want some?” he asked Kibum when they finally made eye contact, offering the boy some soup. Kibum stared at him for a moment before shaking his head. If there was one thing that his travels had taught him, it was not to trust anybody. He’d been fooled before, so there was no way he was going to just accept a bowl of warm soup from some stranger who took him home.
The man gave him a questioning look. “Why not? I make the best soup in the entire village- you’re lucky I’m not charging you.” The boy on the bed continued to refuse, shaking his head every time the other insisted. Finally, the man gave up.
“Fine, fine. I guess I wouldn’t trust me either, if I were in your place.”
Kibum looked around, head turning from left to right as he observed the place. It was definitely a step up from everywhere else he had been to. And he could understand the language the man spoke- he couldn’t remember, but he either learned it in one of the places he travelled to before, or maybe it was the language he and his family spoke before he left for the first time. He had been to a few lands that spoke that language as well before this one, so he thankfully wasn’t out of practice.
“Where am I?” Kibum asked the man who was now squatting by the fireplace, trying to get a little warmer.
“My house. Well, actually it’s my parents’ log cabin,” he replied. “I found you in the snow unconscious. You kind of scared me.” Hard as he tried, Kibum couldn’t remember a thing about being out cold in the snow. But then again, something similar had happened to him before- he was put into prison by some servants in tacky man-dresses because he apparently fell asleep on their emperor’s property. He figured that if the worlds he visited were far apart from each other, fainting or falling unconscious was the side-effect.
“What’s your name?”
The man turned to Kibum and replied, “I’m called Onew around here, but my name’s Lee Jinki. And you?”
“Kibum.” It was only fair that he gave his name too.
There was a short silence between them and Jinki mentally slapped himself for being so bad at handling conversations. In the discomfort of the moment, he found himself starting to observe the stranger he had taken in. He noticed how Kibum’s hair was so bluntly cut yet fell perfectly upon his face, how the boy’s eyebrows furrowed as he wondered why Jinki was staring at him for so long.
Quite embarrassed, Jinki awkwardly asked, “So, where do you come from? Your accent and your clothes tell me you’re not from near here. If you want, I could help you find your way back.”
Kibum took a peep under the blanket to see what he was wearing. He was still clad in the prisoner outfit those men in the other world had dressed him in. How humiliating- he hated those clothes. They made him look like a total idiot even in a different place.
“The place I’m from is probably really far from here,” was the only thing Kibum could say in reply. He didn’t know how to get back home, let alone have a clue where his home was in the first place. He could hardly even remember how most of his relatives looked anymore.
“Yeah, thought so.” Jinki got up and walked back to where he had put down his cup of soup. “Do you remember the name of your town, or even your city?”
“Nope. I’m sure it’s been years since I was last there.”
“Years?” Jinki asked, a little shocked and the other nodded. And here he was, thinking he couldn’t make it through three months without seeing his family. “Why have you been away so long?”
“I accidentally... got lost once. And when I tried to find my way back, it got even worse, until the point I couldn’t find my way back anymore.” That was the easiest way to describe it without telling Jinki about his ability. He hadn’t told anyone about it- no one, and he wasn’t going to disclose his secret to someone who was practically a stranger to him. Not like Jinki would believe him anyway.
“I’m sure your family sent people to search for you. They’re probably worried until now.” Kibum sighed. ‘I wonder how they’re doing now.’ Seeing Kibum’s mouth curve into a musing frown, Jinki tried to take back what he said in the attempt of making the boy feel better. “But hey, at least you’re still here, right?”
The other tried his best to give a smile. “Yeah.”
Silence once again. Unsure of what to say next, Jinki took a sip from his soup, the thickness of the substance making it loud slurping noises. Hearing the sound the man’s lips were making as he downed the soup, Kibum’s stomach growled, quietly though, so Jinki couldn’t hear it. The boy couldn’t remember how long it had been since his last meal.
“Hey Jinki,” Kibum called to the man who shuddered a little in shock at the sudden mention of his real name.
“Yup?”
“I think I want a taste of that soup after all.”
“How old are you, by the way?” Jinki asked a few days after he found Kibum. He and the other agreed that it would be best for him to stay over, at least until he figured out where to go or what to do. Kibum thought of himself as a burden to Jinki and he hated it. He decided that in no more than a week, he would leave.
“I... don’t know, actually.” It was the first time he realized that he didn’t even know his own age anymore. “It’s hard not to lose track after being alone for so long.”
“Wow.” Jinki had never heard of anyone who didn’t know how old they were.
“Tell me how old I should be.”
It was a strange request, but Jinki was up to it. He only wanted to help Kibum pull himself together again. Like he had done many times over the past days they had spent together, Jinki took a good look at the boy sitting before him, analyzing how young his features looked, how youthful and flawless his skin was. “I’m twenty-one and I’m pretty sure you’re younger than I am. I guess you’re around eighteen... no, let’s make that nineteen. I don’t want to be too old for you.”
As Kibum tried to silently decode what Jinki meant, he mumbled, “Okay, starting today, I’m nineteen.”
A couple of weeks later, Kibum started to get more comfortable. He started to help with the chores at home and even started learning how to cook. He was quick at getting the hang of it, and Jinki found it rather nice having him around.
Kibum had almost forgotten about leaving. He knew he had to- there was still a chance that he would end up where he originally came from, a chance that he could be completely happy again. And he was starting to come undone. He started to worry about opening up too much to Jinki- he almost mentioned his ability to the older boy. ‘Just another week or two,’ he told himself.
A month and a half later, Kibum found himself getting closer to Jinki than he usually would have allowed himself to. When nights got too cold, he would sneak into the other’s bed, share his thick quilt and they would wrap their arms around each other under it. As the days got warmer, they went out more often, going on walks together every morning and slacking off together in the afternoon. It didn’t take very long for them to kiss for the first time either.
A little over four months after the night they met, Kibum finally told Jinki about his power to travel to different worlds. As slow as the older seemed at times, he managed to see that the points in Kibum’s stories just weren’t connecting, and he asked for the truth. He didn’t force it out of Kibum, but the boy seemed willing to tell him, as if he had been waiting a while to get it off his chest. Kibum trusted him, and eventually wanted him to find out. It was naturally hard to swallow in one go for Jinki, but he listened to what Kibum had to say, taking in every single word. Kibum tried to focus on what he was talking about, but at some point, he couldn’t help but stare admiringly at how Jinki’s lips pursed slightly and turned a light shade of pink when he tried to listen well.
“Wait, so you’re telling me you can bend time and space?”
Snapping out of his little trance, Kibum answered. “Yup.”
“And you randomly just got this power years ago and never found your way back home?” Jinki asked. All of this was getting quite interesting.
“No- well, yes. But it’s more complicated than that. When I was younger, someone in a dream I had told me that I could do it, and I don’t think I believed it at first. But when I got up, I tried it, just for the sake of it, and I wound up somewhere else, and since then, I was never able to go back.”
“That’s pretty weird. But it’s pretty cool, I mean besides-”
“Not really. It’s a pain in the ass, actually,” Kibum cut the older off.
“Why? Because you can’t get back to your own place?”
“Yeah, mostly because of that. I believe there’s still a chance for me to find them if I keep trying, though- that’s why I know I have to leave soon.” Kibum’s words slowed down, eyes avoiding Jinki’s as he spoke. He didn’t want to see the disappointment he knew was written all over Jinki’s face. Neither of them wanted him to leave. ‘Maybe it’s best not to talk about it,’ he thought. As naturally as he could, he shifted the subject.
“But what sucks is that I can’t even decide where I’m going to go next. I can decide when I want to shift worlds, but there’s no saying exactly where I’m going to find myself when I get out of the Transition.”
“The Transition?”
“Yeah,” Kibum said. “That’s what I named the place in between worlds. It’s kind of like a path to wherever I’m going next.”
“Oh.”
“It’s probably the best thing about what I can do.”
“Why?” the older boy asked, eyebrow raised. Kibum explained it to him, how the colors wrapped themselves around him, how there were unidentifiable shapes and no harsh weather- no rain, no blizzards, nothing. Kibum told him about the vastness of the place and how it seemed endless. It definitely sounded nice as Jinki tried to picture it in his head.
As they continued to discuss, Jinki couldn’t help but wonder when Kibum was going to leave. The boy seemed firm on trying to search for his parents, even though he couldn’t recall much about them anymore. The thought itself made Jinki afraid- he had become so reliant on Kibum, so attached to him that he couldn’t even think of how life without him would be.
As the air turned stagnant and stillness came over them once more, Jinki reluctantly mouthed, “Kibum-ah, stay.”
Kibum knew those words were coming, yet when Jinki said them and his voice rang in his ears, he didn’t know what to think. It was the first time anyone had ever asked him not to go. He wanted to stay behind, but, he wanted to find his family. He could give up going back to the Transition, sacrifice visiting places he had never been to- but he couldn’t abandon the thought of seeing his parents again. He had been trying to find them for so long- he couldn’t just stop.
Taking Jinki’s hand into his, he shook his head slightly. “I can’t, I’m sorry. I need to go.”
“Kibum, please. Don’t.” Jinki had never wanted anything more than this- he needed to be with Kibum and he knew it. He had never been so ready, so willing to put all he had on the line for someone else.
“Jinki.” Tears started to well in his eyes as he said, “You could come with me if you want to.” The tears trickled down his face. ‘Who am I kidding- he wouldn’t leave everything else for me.’ No one ever did.
Jinki fished his pale yellow handkerchief from his pocket. He hated seeing Kibum cry. He looked at Kibum with the smile the boy came to love over the past month, their hands still in each other’s. Just softly enough for Kibum to hear, he said, “Wait, let me just pack my bags.”
From: Your (Emergency) Secret Santa
Title: Of New Worlds and Warm Soup
Pairing: Onew/Key
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 2,731
Summary: Years had passed from the day Kibum received his ability to travel to different worlds, defying the rules known to mankind. After travelling endlessly with a seemingly unreachable goal in mind, he meets Jinki.
Colors. There were splashes of them everywhere, surrounding Kibum’s body as his eyes adjusted to the contrasting brightness of the Transition yet again. Being enveloped by all different shades and tints was probably the only thing he liked about his ability. He was being pulled through time once more, breaking the barrier between dimensions. The boy felt lightheaded, the slight feeling of dizziness that came over him every time he travelled to somewhere else kicking in again. He took deep breaths and tried to relax- savoring the few moments he had left there before he reached the next world.
Kim Kibum had an uncanny talent. He had the ability to bend space and time in order to jump to different worlds, different dimensions. For the past seven years of his life, he had been jumping from era to era in search of the happiness he had lost when he was given his power. To others, what he could do seemed like a gift- but for Kibum, it was everything but a blessing. Sure, it was nice being able to leap through time any time he got sick of a certain place, but he definitely did not like not knowing where he would end up next. But the worst part was that he didn’t know how to get back to where he was really from. It had been seven years since he was last at home.
The only good thing he saw in what he could do was being in the Transition, the land in between with all the colors- the place between every place he’d end up in. The Transition had become the best place he could go to- it was the only place where he felt at least a hint of peace, the hues that cloaked him as he passed through giving him the fragment of solitude he needed to get by for a little longer.
The boy woke up to the feeling of warmth, the gentleness of it much cozier than the previous world he had just come from. Kibum inhaled deeply, taking in an unfamiliar, yet pleasant scent that made him feel at home, although he didn’t have a home. He knew that soon enough, he would get sick of wherever this place was and leave to travel to another unknown place again.
After breathing the scent in a few more times, he finally opened his eyes. He was lying down on a flat surface, body tucked under a thick duvet. He didn’t know what was going on, but he found it rather nice to be relaxed for a while. This was, by far, the finest place he’d ever ended up in.
“Finally awake?” A voice came from the other side of the cabin. Quickly, Kibum turned his head and sat up. He eyed a man in the corner of the room, seated on a wooden bench with a cup of steaming hot soup in his gloved hands.
“You want some?” he asked Kibum when they finally made eye contact, offering the boy some soup. Kibum stared at him for a moment before shaking his head. If there was one thing that his travels had taught him, it was not to trust anybody. He’d been fooled before, so there was no way he was going to just accept a bowl of warm soup from some stranger who took him home.
The man gave him a questioning look. “Why not? I make the best soup in the entire village- you’re lucky I’m not charging you.” The boy on the bed continued to refuse, shaking his head every time the other insisted. Finally, the man gave up.
“Fine, fine. I guess I wouldn’t trust me either, if I were in your place.”
Kibum looked around, head turning from left to right as he observed the place. It was definitely a step up from everywhere else he had been to. And he could understand the language the man spoke- he couldn’t remember, but he either learned it in one of the places he travelled to before, or maybe it was the language he and his family spoke before he left for the first time. He had been to a few lands that spoke that language as well before this one, so he thankfully wasn’t out of practice.
“Where am I?” Kibum asked the man who was now squatting by the fireplace, trying to get a little warmer.
“My house. Well, actually it’s my parents’ log cabin,” he replied. “I found you in the snow unconscious. You kind of scared me.” Hard as he tried, Kibum couldn’t remember a thing about being out cold in the snow. But then again, something similar had happened to him before- he was put into prison by some servants in tacky man-dresses because he apparently fell asleep on their emperor’s property. He figured that if the worlds he visited were far apart from each other, fainting or falling unconscious was the side-effect.
“What’s your name?”
The man turned to Kibum and replied, “I’m called Onew around here, but my name’s Lee Jinki. And you?”
“Kibum.” It was only fair that he gave his name too.
There was a short silence between them and Jinki mentally slapped himself for being so bad at handling conversations. In the discomfort of the moment, he found himself starting to observe the stranger he had taken in. He noticed how Kibum’s hair was so bluntly cut yet fell perfectly upon his face, how the boy’s eyebrows furrowed as he wondered why Jinki was staring at him for so long.
Quite embarrassed, Jinki awkwardly asked, “So, where do you come from? Your accent and your clothes tell me you’re not from near here. If you want, I could help you find your way back.”
Kibum took a peep under the blanket to see what he was wearing. He was still clad in the prisoner outfit those men in the other world had dressed him in. How humiliating- he hated those clothes. They made him look like a total idiot even in a different place.
“The place I’m from is probably really far from here,” was the only thing Kibum could say in reply. He didn’t know how to get back home, let alone have a clue where his home was in the first place. He could hardly even remember how most of his relatives looked anymore.
“Yeah, thought so.” Jinki got up and walked back to where he had put down his cup of soup. “Do you remember the name of your town, or even your city?”
“Nope. I’m sure it’s been years since I was last there.”
“Years?” Jinki asked, a little shocked and the other nodded. And here he was, thinking he couldn’t make it through three months without seeing his family. “Why have you been away so long?”
“I accidentally... got lost once. And when I tried to find my way back, it got even worse, until the point I couldn’t find my way back anymore.” That was the easiest way to describe it without telling Jinki about his ability. He hadn’t told anyone about it- no one, and he wasn’t going to disclose his secret to someone who was practically a stranger to him. Not like Jinki would believe him anyway.
“I’m sure your family sent people to search for you. They’re probably worried until now.” Kibum sighed. ‘I wonder how they’re doing now.’ Seeing Kibum’s mouth curve into a musing frown, Jinki tried to take back what he said in the attempt of making the boy feel better. “But hey, at least you’re still here, right?”
The other tried his best to give a smile. “Yeah.”
Silence once again. Unsure of what to say next, Jinki took a sip from his soup, the thickness of the substance making it loud slurping noises. Hearing the sound the man’s lips were making as he downed the soup, Kibum’s stomach growled, quietly though, so Jinki couldn’t hear it. The boy couldn’t remember how long it had been since his last meal.
“Hey Jinki,” Kibum called to the man who shuddered a little in shock at the sudden mention of his real name.
“Yup?”
“I think I want a taste of that soup after all.”
“How old are you, by the way?” Jinki asked a few days after he found Kibum. He and the other agreed that it would be best for him to stay over, at least until he figured out where to go or what to do. Kibum thought of himself as a burden to Jinki and he hated it. He decided that in no more than a week, he would leave.
“I... don’t know, actually.” It was the first time he realized that he didn’t even know his own age anymore. “It’s hard not to lose track after being alone for so long.”
“Wow.” Jinki had never heard of anyone who didn’t know how old they were.
“Tell me how old I should be.”
It was a strange request, but Jinki was up to it. He only wanted to help Kibum pull himself together again. Like he had done many times over the past days they had spent together, Jinki took a good look at the boy sitting before him, analyzing how young his features looked, how youthful and flawless his skin was. “I’m twenty-one and I’m pretty sure you’re younger than I am. I guess you’re around eighteen... no, let’s make that nineteen. I don’t want to be too old for you.”
As Kibum tried to silently decode what Jinki meant, he mumbled, “Okay, starting today, I’m nineteen.”
A couple of weeks later, Kibum started to get more comfortable. He started to help with the chores at home and even started learning how to cook. He was quick at getting the hang of it, and Jinki found it rather nice having him around.
Kibum had almost forgotten about leaving. He knew he had to- there was still a chance that he would end up where he originally came from, a chance that he could be completely happy again. And he was starting to come undone. He started to worry about opening up too much to Jinki- he almost mentioned his ability to the older boy. ‘Just another week or two,’ he told himself.
A month and a half later, Kibum found himself getting closer to Jinki than he usually would have allowed himself to. When nights got too cold, he would sneak into the other’s bed, share his thick quilt and they would wrap their arms around each other under it. As the days got warmer, they went out more often, going on walks together every morning and slacking off together in the afternoon. It didn’t take very long for them to kiss for the first time either.
A little over four months after the night they met, Kibum finally told Jinki about his power to travel to different worlds. As slow as the older seemed at times, he managed to see that the points in Kibum’s stories just weren’t connecting, and he asked for the truth. He didn’t force it out of Kibum, but the boy seemed willing to tell him, as if he had been waiting a while to get it off his chest. Kibum trusted him, and eventually wanted him to find out. It was naturally hard to swallow in one go for Jinki, but he listened to what Kibum had to say, taking in every single word. Kibum tried to focus on what he was talking about, but at some point, he couldn’t help but stare admiringly at how Jinki’s lips pursed slightly and turned a light shade of pink when he tried to listen well.
“Wait, so you’re telling me you can bend time and space?”
Snapping out of his little trance, Kibum answered. “Yup.”
“And you randomly just got this power years ago and never found your way back home?” Jinki asked. All of this was getting quite interesting.
“No- well, yes. But it’s more complicated than that. When I was younger, someone in a dream I had told me that I could do it, and I don’t think I believed it at first. But when I got up, I tried it, just for the sake of it, and I wound up somewhere else, and since then, I was never able to go back.”
“That’s pretty weird. But it’s pretty cool, I mean besides-”
“Not really. It’s a pain in the ass, actually,” Kibum cut the older off.
“Why? Because you can’t get back to your own place?”
“Yeah, mostly because of that. I believe there’s still a chance for me to find them if I keep trying, though- that’s why I know I have to leave soon.” Kibum’s words slowed down, eyes avoiding Jinki’s as he spoke. He didn’t want to see the disappointment he knew was written all over Jinki’s face. Neither of them wanted him to leave. ‘Maybe it’s best not to talk about it,’ he thought. As naturally as he could, he shifted the subject.
“But what sucks is that I can’t even decide where I’m going to go next. I can decide when I want to shift worlds, but there’s no saying exactly where I’m going to find myself when I get out of the Transition.”
“The Transition?”
“Yeah,” Kibum said. “That’s what I named the place in between worlds. It’s kind of like a path to wherever I’m going next.”
“Oh.”
“It’s probably the best thing about what I can do.”
“Why?” the older boy asked, eyebrow raised. Kibum explained it to him, how the colors wrapped themselves around him, how there were unidentifiable shapes and no harsh weather- no rain, no blizzards, nothing. Kibum told him about the vastness of the place and how it seemed endless. It definitely sounded nice as Jinki tried to picture it in his head.
As they continued to discuss, Jinki couldn’t help but wonder when Kibum was going to leave. The boy seemed firm on trying to search for his parents, even though he couldn’t recall much about them anymore. The thought itself made Jinki afraid- he had become so reliant on Kibum, so attached to him that he couldn’t even think of how life without him would be.
As the air turned stagnant and stillness came over them once more, Jinki reluctantly mouthed, “Kibum-ah, stay.”
Kibum knew those words were coming, yet when Jinki said them and his voice rang in his ears, he didn’t know what to think. It was the first time anyone had ever asked him not to go. He wanted to stay behind, but, he wanted to find his family. He could give up going back to the Transition, sacrifice visiting places he had never been to- but he couldn’t abandon the thought of seeing his parents again. He had been trying to find them for so long- he couldn’t just stop.
Taking Jinki’s hand into his, he shook his head slightly. “I can’t, I’m sorry. I need to go.”
“Kibum, please. Don’t.” Jinki had never wanted anything more than this- he needed to be with Kibum and he knew it. He had never been so ready, so willing to put all he had on the line for someone else.
“Jinki.” Tears started to well in his eyes as he said, “You could come with me if you want to.” The tears trickled down his face. ‘Who am I kidding- he wouldn’t leave everything else for me.’ No one ever did.
Jinki fished his pale yellow handkerchief from his pocket. He hated seeing Kibum cry. He looked at Kibum with the smile the boy came to love over the past month, their hands still in each other’s. Just softly enough for Kibum to hear, he said, “Wait, let me just pack my bags.”