SHINee Shorts 2014: carefiction
Title: Pragma
Author: carefiction (minearebigger)
Pairing: Onew/Key
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4496
One thing that really, truly sucks about high school is that people are always watching.
Or maybe it’s that everyone always tends to think that people are watching - Jinki learned in psych last year that it’s called the spotlight effect. It’s a common trait of the mind, a paranoia thing that tells you that oh, look, you can’t slip up, because everyone is watching you make a fool out of yourself.
But one thing that Jinki learned very quickly is that there’s actual gravity to it. If anything, that’s only made his spotlight effect even worse over the years.
He knows because he hears it all - in his mind there’s a constant flux of voices and chatter, none his, because his mind doesn’t think in a voice. At least, not one discernable to him. Jinki thinks in words, like he’s reading, which is why it’s so hard to concentrate on any of his own thoughts. He’s a mind reader, so to speak.
Jinki doesn’t like that term. It makes it sound like he actively goes out of his way to read others’ minds (listen in, not read, he reads his own mind). It’s not like that at all, to be honest. He’ll just casually sit, existing, and someone will pass by. They’ll be thinking in their own mind, and it just projects out to his. He doesn’t want to hear their thoughts, but he does, and it’s a pain in the ass.
It’s also incredibly heartbreaking. Terrifying. Disgusting. Sometimes entertaining.
Like the time he heard his mother thinking about how she sometimes wishes she hadn’t slipped up that day of birth control.
Like the time he heard someone think about what it would be like to accidently hit him with his car as he crossed the street.
Like the time he heard the guy who sits in front of him in math thinking about his bodily functions in great detail (while he attempted to find the limit of an equation, no less).
Like the time Kim Jonghyun from his music class thought up that really funny “your mother” joke and he got in trouble for laughing out loud randomly during the middle of a test.
Which, by the way, he can barely take. Needless to say, for someone so intelligent, his grades aren’t the best thing he has going for him.
Jinki doesn’t have a lot going for him. Except maybe his smile. When he smiles, people think he’s beautiful. Choi Minho, from the grade below, for example. Jinki likes to be around him because Minho stares after him with starry eyes, thinks about how lovely and wonderful he is.
Sometimes, he wishes he were attracted to Minho. It’d probably make life a whole lot easier, but he’s not exactly attracted to anyone in that sense, so Jinki would probably only disappoint him.
He thinks it’s because he can hear what people are actually thinking. He thinks it’s because he knows their real intentions, so he can’t feel any physical attraction towards them. It just sort of makes him uncomfortable, thinking about it. And sure, he’d love to just cuddle and kiss someone, be held in someone’s arms, feel peace for once. But that’s not what anyone else feels, and it’s not like he can really focus on that, anyway.
Jinki thinks he’s broken.
Jinki thinks a lot, for someone who’s sick of the way his mind works.
---
Everyone has a different voice in their head.
Jinki calls it the head voice vs. the mouth voice. It’s dumb and sometimes he just calls them head and mouth, but they’re all distinct and separate. Sometimes people sound so startlingly different that he wonders why it is they’re like that - is the head voice supposed to be their real voice? Is it their spiritual state of being? Then why does Lee Taemin sound like an Italian in his mind, and why does Jonghyun’s head voice suck at singing?
Maybe he’s just crazy. There’s always that explanation. People certainly think so.
Jinki wears headphones just about wherever he goes. They’re the noise cancelling kind, volume blasted up so high his mom yells at him because he’ll probably be deaf before he’s thirty (would that stop the voices?). It’s strangely the only way he can actually get his own mind under control, with some sort of heavy rock or dubstep playing and vibrating his eardrums.
And currently, that’s what he’s doing. He’s walking down the hallway to his next class, bouncing along as quickly as he can. He has his hair tied back in a small ponytail but his bangs slip down to hide part of his face. It’s safe to say he’s kind of half blind right now, not to mention the fact that he can’t hear shit. He’s looking at the screen of his phone, quizzing himself on anatomy terms before the quiz that’s soon to come.
It’s also safe to say that this isn’t a very good idea. Especially when teenagers are notable for perusing their phones in situations where they should be alert.
He doesn’t know he’s crashing into someone until he’s on the ground, sprawled out on top of his backpack, phone a foot away with a cracked screen. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry-“ the headphones are off and he’s unleashed the beast. “Let me help you out. Just my luck, though. My first day here and I’ve already ruined someone’s week…”
Jinki sits up, disoriented, and lets his eyes fall on the boy in front of him. He’s on his hands and knees picking up papers from Jinki’s fallen binder, a crop of blond hair framing his face. His features are pronounced and elegant in a way that his smile could never amount to.
It’s quiet. “I’m so sorry, dude. I really didn’t mean…” His lips are moving so this is his speaking voice. Jinki blinks and looks over at his phone, reels it in by his headphone cord like a fishing line. It’s shattered, yeah, but… “So pretty.”
What?
Jinki looks at the boy, eyes wide, face flushed a bit. They stare at each other, then, and it’s at that moment that Jinki fully feels the weight of this silence. “Excuse me?”
He doesn’t hear anyone else’s head voice. “Oh shit,” the nametag on his shirt says Kim Kibum, and he’s undoubtedly new. It’s a second year’s uniform, and Jinki’s fairly sure he’s never seen this guy’s face in any of the class photos. “I didn’t say that out loud, did I?” There’s a chorus of expletives ringing in his head and it’s…
“I don’t…”
“I’m so sorry,” Kibum speaks amidst the “shits” and “fucks.” And wow, it’s really throwing Jinki off, because they’re… “This is the most embarrassing day of my life, to be honest.”
They’re the same.
The bell rings and Jinki gathers his composure, decides that he’s already late, now - what does another couple of minutes matter? “It’s okay,” he breathes, “I appreciate the compliment.”
Kibum swallows hard. Jinki thinks it’s cute how his eyes are so expressive. He’s actually horrified. “I’m Kim Kibum, and I just started here today.”
“I’m Jinki. Lee Jinki,” he responds, and it so freaking weird, it’s quiet and his voice is the same and he doesn’t know what to do with this? “Do you need help getting around, Kibum?”
“Yes.”
Jinki’s lucky to catch the way his angel’s bow lips aren’t moving when he hears that. Kibum hesitates before biting down on his lower lip and moving to scratch at the back of his neck. “Do you mind?”
This is what tranquility is like. “I don’t,” he smiles, and he’s not surprised when he hears a non-verbal “Oh my god,” in response.
Kibum thinks Jinki’s adorable.
Kibum’s an anomaly.
---
Jinki likes talking to people online the best.
For one, he doesn’t have to deal with their thoughts. He just sits back and lets the words they tell him there actually matter, because there aren’t any interruptions from their heads to debunk or support whatever’s been said. He’s able to get to know people the normal way in this sense, and he doesn’t have to worry about letting it slip that he knows about their horrible home lives or how the person they’ve been spending half their life drooling after doesn’t actually think of them like they’re hoping.
It’s anonymous. It’s liberating.
Which is why he was sure to give Kibum his number before parting ways earlier today. Which is why he’s staring at his phone trying to reconstruct Kibum’s sentences over and over again in his mind.
Which is why he’s trying to reimagine that stillness he experienced. Sure, Kibum’s thoughts were intermingles with it, but he actually couldn’t hear anyone else. It was just Kibum and his own self, awestruck stares and gazes a lot more innocent than he’s used to. Minho’s pretty PG, yeah, but even he has roaming eyes. Kibum was entirely focused on his eyes and his lips and his face, the sound of Jinki’s voice. There was no awkward and unwanted sexual tension, just a fluttering in his ribcage that kind of sounded a bit like birds’ wings.
He doesn’t even know Kibum that well. He probably shouldn’t be elevating him so high in his head; he’s probably just going to be disappointed later on.
But his voice.
Jinki wishes he could bottle that moment, store it away with a lock and key.
Kibum replies quickly, and Jinki feels like it’s absolutely genuine. He can hear the “my day was actually pretty good, thanks for asking ^^” in the younger boy’s tone. “even though i made myself seem like a total idiot to you. i still feel so bad about your phone, by the way. could i pay for the repair cost?”
He’s almost sort of sure that if he reads it the way he is, he can experience that very peace and quiet. He’s almost completely positive he didn’t just hear his dad’s self-loathing or the neighbor’s attempted recollection of her favorite song.
“Nope, don’t worry about it. Accidents happen.”
---
Jinki wonders if it was an actual accident, Kibum walking into him that day.
Kibum certainly doesn’t. Jinki knows for a fact that the blond is glad he did.
Kibum’s from Daegu and his favorite color is pink. “That’s weird for a boy, I know,” he deflates when he tells him, and Jinki’s immediately greeted with bits and pieces from arguments with a paternal figure that don’t belong to his own memory.
“Not at all,” he shakes his head. “Pink’s great. It looks good on you.”
Kibum is the same age as Minho but he’s a few months older, hates physical activity unless it’s dancing around like a crazy person to music Jinki can’t understand. Kibum’s afraid of scary things, of horror and jump scares and ghost stories. Kibum likes trinkets and antiques and cartoons, sitting on grass, laying on his back and staring up at the clouds.
Jinki can’t hear the thoughts of anyone else when he’s with Kibum, and that includes Minho or Jonghyun, Taemin. Kibum makes fast friends with Taemin, and so he’s around a lot more than Jinki’s used to. It kind of worried him at first, but he knows firsthand from Kibum’s head that it’s purely platonic. And that shouldn’t even be a thing that he’s thinking about, but it is, because he kind of wants to kiss Kibum on the lips and lay on the grass with him and laugh at his jokes and bury his face in Kibum’s neck and just fall asleep like that.
But they’re friends.
For the most part.
Kibum notices really easily the way Jinki bristles at mentions of Taemin, and he thinks it’s kind of funny and sort of cute, but in response, he brings Jonghyun into their little group to pacify the elder. Jonghyun’s a friend of Minho’s and irrevocably in love with the youngest member for many reasons that are constantly prattling through his mind. Jinki can’t help but warm up to Taemin after being around the other third year for so long. They have a lot in common, so it’s a fairly easy friendship.
When Jinki’s not around Kibum, he hears things from Minho and it makes him feel like crap, sometimes, because the way Minho thinks of Kibum is exactly the way Jinki thought of Taemin, at first.
But Minho’s nice. He’s one of those people that’s born with a generous heart and doesn’t lose it over the years, so it’s only a matter of time before the tall boy is opening his mind to Kibum’s presence, too.
It definitely couldn’t have been an accident.
He doesn’t know where he’d be without Kibum, right now. Still negative on the friends scale, still blocking out the onslaught of thoughts the world has to throw at him. Kibum is glue and water simultaneously, holding things together and washing away what used to be.
And sure, Jinki still slips up around Kibum and responds to things he’s thinking rather than what he’s actually saying, but he’s gotten a lot more watchful, and it’s not that big of a deal. It has imparted a terrible sense of paranoia on Kibum, though. Jinki just laughs about it.
It could never have been an accident.
---
There’s not much of a difference between what Kibum says and what he thinks. He’s in incredibly blunt person and doesn’t like ditching his opinions, so often time if there is any deviance, it’s just his lips sugar-coating the words other people probably can’t handle hearing.
But when it comes to Jinki, Kibum just keeps his mouth shut, sometimes. He doesn’t let the praises he wants to sing slip from his lips, doesn’t tell Jinki that he wants to kiss him exactly the same way Jinki wants to kiss him, doesn’t tell Jinki that last night he dreamt of the two of them, and what it would be like if one of them actually put their thoughts into words. He doesn’t mention how he has the same ideas of just holding onto him and watching movies for hours on end. He doesn’t tell Jinki that it makes him happy for days on end when Jinki compliments him, that he cried the one time Jinki got mad at him for something stupid.
Kibum is an open soul. Open in the fact that he lets you know everything he really thinks, open in the fact that he’s accepting of so much more than most people.
When Jinki tells the blond that he’s asexual, Kibum doesn’t bat an eyelash. He tells Jinki that his neighbor from back home in Daegu was asexual, so he already kind of figured it out and yeah, that’s totally cool. “Not everyone needs to have sex. It’s not that great.” It’s abrupt and it’s not phrased in the most sophisticated way, but it’s acceptance. And it sure as hell doesn’t change the way that Kibum looks at Jinki like he’s the most perfect creature in the world.
Jinki can let his guard down around Kibum. Jinki can say what he really thinks about things, how he actually feels about what’s going on around him. Jinki can gossip about their friends and laugh at inside jokes with him, doesn’t have to worry about judgment or coming short of expectations. He’s always nervous around Minho for that very reason, because the boy sort of thinks of him idealistically, but Kibum knows every facet of Jinki’s personality and embraces his faults wholeheartedly. Kibum knows that Jinki has a bad habit of rummaging in his dad’s liquor cabinet when he’s alone, knows that Jinki dislikes being around people a lot more than what’s considered normal, knows that sometimes, Jinki needs a break, even from him. Though that is growing increasingly rare these days.
“You know, I’ve been thinking…” Kibum thinks a lot of things. He always has, and Jinki hears everything.
But there’s also the fact that Kibum’s spontaneous. There are times when he thinks of something and before the thought’s done actually sounding off in his head, Kibum’s already followed through. “What’s that?”
This makes him nervous.
He knows that it’s not going to be anything horrible, but still, he can’t help but feel that doubt. He hates being able to read Kibum’s mind. He wishes he was normal and he could keep guessing through the silence of the impenetrable night. It’s one in the morning and they’re on the subway and it’s just him, Kibum’s mind, and the zoom of the constant stop-and-go. “I’ve kept my mouth shut because I really don’t want you to hate me, you know. It’s so cliché; like, I’m worried that you’ll hear what I really think about you one day and you’ll hate it, hate me for it, for ruining a perfectly good friendship, but…”
His heart is beating so fast and he can actually hear it, pounding in his ribcage as what Kibum’s saying and what he’s thinking meld into one and weave in and out of concept. Focus on what his lips are spelling out. Kibum reaches down between the two of them and pulls up Jinki’s left hand from where it was resting on the seat. They’re alone and Kibum strokes at his palm, runs his fingers along Jinki’s and it’s so startlingly intimate that Jinki doesn’t know how to place it in his mental schema. “I’ve always been really vocal about what I want, especially to you, and I can’t really hold this back anymore, either. It’s funny, I used to be so good at keeping secrets.”
“You still are,” Jinki murmurs because he knows it for a fact, and Kibum just laughs it off. The younger boy takes initiative in weaving their fingers together and holding his hand tightly. Kibum’s hand is large and fits Jinki’s like a glove.
“Don’t even,” he chortles. “Anyway. I’ve been thinking and I really just want to tell you that I think I’m in love with you. And if you ever returned half of the sentiment, I want you to know that I’d be the happiest person alive if you’d, y’know. Date me.”
Kibum doesn’t just think he’s in love with Jinki.
Kibum knows he’s in love with Jinki.
And with that thought, it takes Jinki’s mind a good few seconds to catch up with what he’s doing, but he’s already spilled out an “oh god, yes,” and “I’ve been waiting for you to say this for so long, oh my god.”
When Kibum smiles, he bites down on his bottom lip and exposes a pronounced dimple on his left cheek. His nose scrunches up a bit and his eyes light up and he’s positively beautiful.
Kibum thinks the same way about him. Jinki has always really known this, but when he moves to hug the other boy, he feels like this is more of a pronounced revelation when the feelings are put into actual, spoken words.
---
Their first date is at the movies, and Jinki doesn’t really pay attention to what’s playing on the screen. It’s a suspenseful kind of film with a touch of horror, which leaves Kibum clinging to his arm and hiding his face in Jinki’s hair. He can’t stop laughing, either, because while Kibum is letting out audible squeaks, what’s going on in his head is even funnier. He loves Kibum’s reactions to everything.
Afterwards, Kibum takes him around the CGV. They go shopping on the mall floors, Kibum buying a few shirts and patterned socks, and Jinki buys a couple ring set that Kibum walks by and secretly wants to get, though he’s scared Jinki will think it’s stupid. He doesn’t. They’re actually adorable.
Kibum’s is a little loose on his long, bony fingers, a band of painted, black metal with a cat’s face on it. Jinki’s fits just right, white with a bunny. “We’re sickening,” Kibum comments, and Jinki grins up at him because really, the blond is blushing and thinking about how happy it’s making him.
Then comes a late dessert at a café, something sweet and fruity because that’s Kibum’s favorite. Jinki’s more partial to chocolate or red bean, but he doesn’t mind. “I don’t even know how this happened,” Kibum tells him after he finishes his half of the shaved ice.
“What do you mean, Bum?” Jinki can sympathize. He doesn’t know how he was lucky enough to bowl the blond over in the hall. He doesn’t know any of this is possible.
Kibum just shrugs. “I’m just so glad that this has all happened? You know me. You know I wasn’t happy about moving, that I almost ditched school that first day, that I almost went down the hall to the science wing and not to the language wing. It was all so chance, I could have literally done anything different that day and not be sitting here with you right now.” The blond is twirling around the ring on his finger and there’s a great deal of unease swirling around in his mind. Jinki feels it like a tidal wave, but there’s also an underlying rush of contentment that just… “you make me so happy, and it scares me that I was literally a fickle choice away from possibly not knowing you existed.”
Fate.
Fate has to be a thing that happens, Jinki realizes. Or maybe it’s Kibum, projecting out to him. But they’ve reached the same conclusion, it seems.
And then he hears it. I lo- “I love you, Jinki.”
It’s certain, this time. Certain and heavy and overloads Jinki’s head with silence and emotions. “I hear everyone’s thoughts. I read minds.”
That certainly wasn’t what Kibum was expecting. His face goes blank and he looks at Jinki like he’s crazy.
Oh my god, I just ruined everything.
They end up slipping outside of the CGV in total muteness because Jinki needs to explain himself, because Kibum’s confused and Jinki feels like dying. “Okay, elaborate?” Kibum sits on a bench outside, pulls his legs up and into his chest.
“I,” Jinki he’s perfect what did you do why did you do this you’re an actual idiot you dumbstupidmoron- “uh, I can hear people’s thoughts and I had to tell you. It’s just something that happens. People’s thoughts pour into my head to the point where I don’t even hear my own thoughts and that’s… that’s why the day I bumped into you, I was all in my headphones and trying not to pay attention to anything. But you’re different. Your thoughts pop into my head so much clearer, and when I’m around you, everyone else’s thoughts go away. It’s just you, and it’s kind of like magic. And I always mess up around you because with other people I can tell their thoughts apart from their real words, but with you it’s all the same. All those times where you thought you said something out loud, that was me, it was all me, I don’t even know what to say.”
The second year still has that faraway, blank look on his face. Jinki is jumbled, a mess of words and feelings and phrases, doesn’t know how to convey himself to Kibum in a way that would explain anything. What if he doesn’t trust him? What if he laughs it off the way Jinki always knew people would? “Really? That would explain so- wait, so you’ve know all this time that I…”
Kibum stands and halts Jinki’s thoughts, crosses his arms. Jinki shrinks back, feeling almost very small, miniscule. He can’t tell whether it’s betrayal or shock or what that’s displayed right on Kibum’s face. Jinki doesn’t have to hear the rest of that to know exactly where it’s going. “Y-yeah. I’m so sorry, Kibum. It’s not like I actually wanted to pry, I’m so sorry.”
“What am I thinking about right now?” The question is quick and it catches him off guard; Jinki’s been so focused in going through what he actually needed to say than what he needs to be monitoring. What is Kibum’s state of mind, right now?
He shuts himself up and there’s a sudden wall of complete silence that makes his stomach churn. There are crickets and other bug sounds and cars zooming by and people talking and phones ringing. Wait a second-
“I- I don’t…” He can’t hear anything from anyone, not even Kibum, which is probably why it takes him by actual surprise when the younger crosses the distance to kiss him for the first time.
Kibum’s lips are as soft as they look, warm and smooth, tinted with the taste of milk and berries. Jinki’s entire body feels weightless, his mind like it’s swimming, his knees weak and his chest boiling over with all these different feeling that he doubts he can name.
When they separate, he hears the sound of their breaths mixing. “What about now?”
It’s dead quiet, and honestly?
“Nothing. There’s nothing.”
Jinki thinks he’s going crazy before he realizes that maybe it’s the opposite. Or maybe he was never crazy to begin with. Maybe this is, once again, fate, or just the boundaries of life righting themselves. He didn’t notice it before but now that it hits him it’s been like this for a few minutes, now.
He can hear himself. Jinki tests it out and there it is, oh my god, his voice echoing around in his head the same way it comes out of his mouth.
---
Jinki has no idea why things just stopped that day.
They did, though - he went back through and told Kibum about it all, about exactly what it was like and how confused he is as to how something that’s been with him since as long as he can remember just disappeared like that. He’s relieved but frightened at the same time, too; now that he really lingers on it, the eavesdropping was something he used to protect himself on many an occasion. And now he feels bare, exposed, vulnerable. “It was totally me,” Kibum grins at him from where he’s sitting criss-cross on the grass only a foot away. “Doesn’t the handsome prince always end up breaking the spell?”
Even when he left Kibum that night, there was nothing.
But Jinki thinks that it’s a good thing, the disappearance of his little ability.
He knows that it’s a good thing. “You are handsome, I suppose. To be honest, I think I did it to myself by telling you about it.”
Kibum scowls at him and looks away, and Jinki would give anything to know what he’s thinking. Honestly, Jinki’s still surprised Kibum even believes him about the whole thing.
Jinki lunges forward, wraps his arms around Kibum’s waist and hold him there, the both of them lying on the ground in the middle of hundreds of people and Jinki doesn’t hear a thing, save for the sound of Kibum’s heartbeat.
He feels like crying.
“Thank you, Kibum.”
Author: carefiction (minearebigger)
Pairing: Onew/Key
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4496
One thing that really, truly sucks about high school is that people are always watching.
Or maybe it’s that everyone always tends to think that people are watching - Jinki learned in psych last year that it’s called the spotlight effect. It’s a common trait of the mind, a paranoia thing that tells you that oh, look, you can’t slip up, because everyone is watching you make a fool out of yourself.
But one thing that Jinki learned very quickly is that there’s actual gravity to it. If anything, that’s only made his spotlight effect even worse over the years.
He knows because he hears it all - in his mind there’s a constant flux of voices and chatter, none his, because his mind doesn’t think in a voice. At least, not one discernable to him. Jinki thinks in words, like he’s reading, which is why it’s so hard to concentrate on any of his own thoughts. He’s a mind reader, so to speak.
Jinki doesn’t like that term. It makes it sound like he actively goes out of his way to read others’ minds (listen in, not read, he reads his own mind). It’s not like that at all, to be honest. He’ll just casually sit, existing, and someone will pass by. They’ll be thinking in their own mind, and it just projects out to his. He doesn’t want to hear their thoughts, but he does, and it’s a pain in the ass.
It’s also incredibly heartbreaking. Terrifying. Disgusting. Sometimes entertaining.
Like the time he heard his mother thinking about how she sometimes wishes she hadn’t slipped up that day of birth control.
Like the time he heard someone think about what it would be like to accidently hit him with his car as he crossed the street.
Like the time he heard the guy who sits in front of him in math thinking about his bodily functions in great detail (while he attempted to find the limit of an equation, no less).
Like the time Kim Jonghyun from his music class thought up that really funny “your mother” joke and he got in trouble for laughing out loud randomly during the middle of a test.
Which, by the way, he can barely take. Needless to say, for someone so intelligent, his grades aren’t the best thing he has going for him.
Jinki doesn’t have a lot going for him. Except maybe his smile. When he smiles, people think he’s beautiful. Choi Minho, from the grade below, for example. Jinki likes to be around him because Minho stares after him with starry eyes, thinks about how lovely and wonderful he is.
Sometimes, he wishes he were attracted to Minho. It’d probably make life a whole lot easier, but he’s not exactly attracted to anyone in that sense, so Jinki would probably only disappoint him.
He thinks it’s because he can hear what people are actually thinking. He thinks it’s because he knows their real intentions, so he can’t feel any physical attraction towards them. It just sort of makes him uncomfortable, thinking about it. And sure, he’d love to just cuddle and kiss someone, be held in someone’s arms, feel peace for once. But that’s not what anyone else feels, and it’s not like he can really focus on that, anyway.
Jinki thinks he’s broken.
Jinki thinks a lot, for someone who’s sick of the way his mind works.
---
Everyone has a different voice in their head.
Jinki calls it the head voice vs. the mouth voice. It’s dumb and sometimes he just calls them head and mouth, but they’re all distinct and separate. Sometimes people sound so startlingly different that he wonders why it is they’re like that - is the head voice supposed to be their real voice? Is it their spiritual state of being? Then why does Lee Taemin sound like an Italian in his mind, and why does Jonghyun’s head voice suck at singing?
Maybe he’s just crazy. There’s always that explanation. People certainly think so.
Jinki wears headphones just about wherever he goes. They’re the noise cancelling kind, volume blasted up so high his mom yells at him because he’ll probably be deaf before he’s thirty (would that stop the voices?). It’s strangely the only way he can actually get his own mind under control, with some sort of heavy rock or dubstep playing and vibrating his eardrums.
And currently, that’s what he’s doing. He’s walking down the hallway to his next class, bouncing along as quickly as he can. He has his hair tied back in a small ponytail but his bangs slip down to hide part of his face. It’s safe to say he’s kind of half blind right now, not to mention the fact that he can’t hear shit. He’s looking at the screen of his phone, quizzing himself on anatomy terms before the quiz that’s soon to come.
It’s also safe to say that this isn’t a very good idea. Especially when teenagers are notable for perusing their phones in situations where they should be alert.
He doesn’t know he’s crashing into someone until he’s on the ground, sprawled out on top of his backpack, phone a foot away with a cracked screen. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry-“ the headphones are off and he’s unleashed the beast. “Let me help you out. Just my luck, though. My first day here and I’ve already ruined someone’s week…”
Jinki sits up, disoriented, and lets his eyes fall on the boy in front of him. He’s on his hands and knees picking up papers from Jinki’s fallen binder, a crop of blond hair framing his face. His features are pronounced and elegant in a way that his smile could never amount to.
It’s quiet. “I’m so sorry, dude. I really didn’t mean…” His lips are moving so this is his speaking voice. Jinki blinks and looks over at his phone, reels it in by his headphone cord like a fishing line. It’s shattered, yeah, but… “So pretty.”
What?
Jinki looks at the boy, eyes wide, face flushed a bit. They stare at each other, then, and it’s at that moment that Jinki fully feels the weight of this silence. “Excuse me?”
He doesn’t hear anyone else’s head voice. “Oh shit,” the nametag on his shirt says Kim Kibum, and he’s undoubtedly new. It’s a second year’s uniform, and Jinki’s fairly sure he’s never seen this guy’s face in any of the class photos. “I didn’t say that out loud, did I?” There’s a chorus of expletives ringing in his head and it’s…
“I don’t…”
“I’m so sorry,” Kibum speaks amidst the “shits” and “fucks.” And wow, it’s really throwing Jinki off, because they’re… “This is the most embarrassing day of my life, to be honest.”
They’re the same.
The bell rings and Jinki gathers his composure, decides that he’s already late, now - what does another couple of minutes matter? “It’s okay,” he breathes, “I appreciate the compliment.”
Kibum swallows hard. Jinki thinks it’s cute how his eyes are so expressive. He’s actually horrified. “I’m Kim Kibum, and I just started here today.”
“I’m Jinki. Lee Jinki,” he responds, and it so freaking weird, it’s quiet and his voice is the same and he doesn’t know what to do with this? “Do you need help getting around, Kibum?”
“Yes.”
Jinki’s lucky to catch the way his angel’s bow lips aren’t moving when he hears that. Kibum hesitates before biting down on his lower lip and moving to scratch at the back of his neck. “Do you mind?”
This is what tranquility is like. “I don’t,” he smiles, and he’s not surprised when he hears a non-verbal “Oh my god,” in response.
Kibum thinks Jinki’s adorable.
Kibum’s an anomaly.
---
Jinki likes talking to people online the best.
For one, he doesn’t have to deal with their thoughts. He just sits back and lets the words they tell him there actually matter, because there aren’t any interruptions from their heads to debunk or support whatever’s been said. He’s able to get to know people the normal way in this sense, and he doesn’t have to worry about letting it slip that he knows about their horrible home lives or how the person they’ve been spending half their life drooling after doesn’t actually think of them like they’re hoping.
It’s anonymous. It’s liberating.
Which is why he was sure to give Kibum his number before parting ways earlier today. Which is why he’s staring at his phone trying to reconstruct Kibum’s sentences over and over again in his mind.
Which is why he’s trying to reimagine that stillness he experienced. Sure, Kibum’s thoughts were intermingles with it, but he actually couldn’t hear anyone else. It was just Kibum and his own self, awestruck stares and gazes a lot more innocent than he’s used to. Minho’s pretty PG, yeah, but even he has roaming eyes. Kibum was entirely focused on his eyes and his lips and his face, the sound of Jinki’s voice. There was no awkward and unwanted sexual tension, just a fluttering in his ribcage that kind of sounded a bit like birds’ wings.
He doesn’t even know Kibum that well. He probably shouldn’t be elevating him so high in his head; he’s probably just going to be disappointed later on.
But his voice.
Jinki wishes he could bottle that moment, store it away with a lock and key.
Kibum replies quickly, and Jinki feels like it’s absolutely genuine. He can hear the “my day was actually pretty good, thanks for asking ^^” in the younger boy’s tone. “even though i made myself seem like a total idiot to you. i still feel so bad about your phone, by the way. could i pay for the repair cost?”
He’s almost sort of sure that if he reads it the way he is, he can experience that very peace and quiet. He’s almost completely positive he didn’t just hear his dad’s self-loathing or the neighbor’s attempted recollection of her favorite song.
“Nope, don’t worry about it. Accidents happen.”
---
Jinki wonders if it was an actual accident, Kibum walking into him that day.
Kibum certainly doesn’t. Jinki knows for a fact that the blond is glad he did.
Kibum’s from Daegu and his favorite color is pink. “That’s weird for a boy, I know,” he deflates when he tells him, and Jinki’s immediately greeted with bits and pieces from arguments with a paternal figure that don’t belong to his own memory.
“Not at all,” he shakes his head. “Pink’s great. It looks good on you.”
Kibum is the same age as Minho but he’s a few months older, hates physical activity unless it’s dancing around like a crazy person to music Jinki can’t understand. Kibum’s afraid of scary things, of horror and jump scares and ghost stories. Kibum likes trinkets and antiques and cartoons, sitting on grass, laying on his back and staring up at the clouds.
Jinki can’t hear the thoughts of anyone else when he’s with Kibum, and that includes Minho or Jonghyun, Taemin. Kibum makes fast friends with Taemin, and so he’s around a lot more than Jinki’s used to. It kind of worried him at first, but he knows firsthand from Kibum’s head that it’s purely platonic. And that shouldn’t even be a thing that he’s thinking about, but it is, because he kind of wants to kiss Kibum on the lips and lay on the grass with him and laugh at his jokes and bury his face in Kibum’s neck and just fall asleep like that.
But they’re friends.
For the most part.
Kibum notices really easily the way Jinki bristles at mentions of Taemin, and he thinks it’s kind of funny and sort of cute, but in response, he brings Jonghyun into their little group to pacify the elder. Jonghyun’s a friend of Minho’s and irrevocably in love with the youngest member for many reasons that are constantly prattling through his mind. Jinki can’t help but warm up to Taemin after being around the other third year for so long. They have a lot in common, so it’s a fairly easy friendship.
When Jinki’s not around Kibum, he hears things from Minho and it makes him feel like crap, sometimes, because the way Minho thinks of Kibum is exactly the way Jinki thought of Taemin, at first.
But Minho’s nice. He’s one of those people that’s born with a generous heart and doesn’t lose it over the years, so it’s only a matter of time before the tall boy is opening his mind to Kibum’s presence, too.
It definitely couldn’t have been an accident.
He doesn’t know where he’d be without Kibum, right now. Still negative on the friends scale, still blocking out the onslaught of thoughts the world has to throw at him. Kibum is glue and water simultaneously, holding things together and washing away what used to be.
And sure, Jinki still slips up around Kibum and responds to things he’s thinking rather than what he’s actually saying, but he’s gotten a lot more watchful, and it’s not that big of a deal. It has imparted a terrible sense of paranoia on Kibum, though. Jinki just laughs about it.
It could never have been an accident.
---
There’s not much of a difference between what Kibum says and what he thinks. He’s in incredibly blunt person and doesn’t like ditching his opinions, so often time if there is any deviance, it’s just his lips sugar-coating the words other people probably can’t handle hearing.
But when it comes to Jinki, Kibum just keeps his mouth shut, sometimes. He doesn’t let the praises he wants to sing slip from his lips, doesn’t tell Jinki that he wants to kiss him exactly the same way Jinki wants to kiss him, doesn’t tell Jinki that last night he dreamt of the two of them, and what it would be like if one of them actually put their thoughts into words. He doesn’t mention how he has the same ideas of just holding onto him and watching movies for hours on end. He doesn’t tell Jinki that it makes him happy for days on end when Jinki compliments him, that he cried the one time Jinki got mad at him for something stupid.
Kibum is an open soul. Open in the fact that he lets you know everything he really thinks, open in the fact that he’s accepting of so much more than most people.
When Jinki tells the blond that he’s asexual, Kibum doesn’t bat an eyelash. He tells Jinki that his neighbor from back home in Daegu was asexual, so he already kind of figured it out and yeah, that’s totally cool. “Not everyone needs to have sex. It’s not that great.” It’s abrupt and it’s not phrased in the most sophisticated way, but it’s acceptance. And it sure as hell doesn’t change the way that Kibum looks at Jinki like he’s the most perfect creature in the world.
Jinki can let his guard down around Kibum. Jinki can say what he really thinks about things, how he actually feels about what’s going on around him. Jinki can gossip about their friends and laugh at inside jokes with him, doesn’t have to worry about judgment or coming short of expectations. He’s always nervous around Minho for that very reason, because the boy sort of thinks of him idealistically, but Kibum knows every facet of Jinki’s personality and embraces his faults wholeheartedly. Kibum knows that Jinki has a bad habit of rummaging in his dad’s liquor cabinet when he’s alone, knows that Jinki dislikes being around people a lot more than what’s considered normal, knows that sometimes, Jinki needs a break, even from him. Though that is growing increasingly rare these days.
“You know, I’ve been thinking…” Kibum thinks a lot of things. He always has, and Jinki hears everything.
But there’s also the fact that Kibum’s spontaneous. There are times when he thinks of something and before the thought’s done actually sounding off in his head, Kibum’s already followed through. “What’s that?”
This makes him nervous.
He knows that it’s not going to be anything horrible, but still, he can’t help but feel that doubt. He hates being able to read Kibum’s mind. He wishes he was normal and he could keep guessing through the silence of the impenetrable night. It’s one in the morning and they’re on the subway and it’s just him, Kibum’s mind, and the zoom of the constant stop-and-go. “I’ve kept my mouth shut because I really don’t want you to hate me, you know. It’s so cliché; like, I’m worried that you’ll hear what I really think about you one day and you’ll hate it, hate me for it, for ruining a perfectly good friendship, but…”
His heart is beating so fast and he can actually hear it, pounding in his ribcage as what Kibum’s saying and what he’s thinking meld into one and weave in and out of concept. Focus on what his lips are spelling out. Kibum reaches down between the two of them and pulls up Jinki’s left hand from where it was resting on the seat. They’re alone and Kibum strokes at his palm, runs his fingers along Jinki’s and it’s so startlingly intimate that Jinki doesn’t know how to place it in his mental schema. “I’ve always been really vocal about what I want, especially to you, and I can’t really hold this back anymore, either. It’s funny, I used to be so good at keeping secrets.”
“You still are,” Jinki murmurs because he knows it for a fact, and Kibum just laughs it off. The younger boy takes initiative in weaving their fingers together and holding his hand tightly. Kibum’s hand is large and fits Jinki’s like a glove.
“Don’t even,” he chortles. “Anyway. I’ve been thinking and I really just want to tell you that I think I’m in love with you. And if you ever returned half of the sentiment, I want you to know that I’d be the happiest person alive if you’d, y’know. Date me.”
Kibum doesn’t just think he’s in love with Jinki.
Kibum knows he’s in love with Jinki.
And with that thought, it takes Jinki’s mind a good few seconds to catch up with what he’s doing, but he’s already spilled out an “oh god, yes,” and “I’ve been waiting for you to say this for so long, oh my god.”
When Kibum smiles, he bites down on his bottom lip and exposes a pronounced dimple on his left cheek. His nose scrunches up a bit and his eyes light up and he’s positively beautiful.
Kibum thinks the same way about him. Jinki has always really known this, but when he moves to hug the other boy, he feels like this is more of a pronounced revelation when the feelings are put into actual, spoken words.
---
Their first date is at the movies, and Jinki doesn’t really pay attention to what’s playing on the screen. It’s a suspenseful kind of film with a touch of horror, which leaves Kibum clinging to his arm and hiding his face in Jinki’s hair. He can’t stop laughing, either, because while Kibum is letting out audible squeaks, what’s going on in his head is even funnier. He loves Kibum’s reactions to everything.
Afterwards, Kibum takes him around the CGV. They go shopping on the mall floors, Kibum buying a few shirts and patterned socks, and Jinki buys a couple ring set that Kibum walks by and secretly wants to get, though he’s scared Jinki will think it’s stupid. He doesn’t. They’re actually adorable.
Kibum’s is a little loose on his long, bony fingers, a band of painted, black metal with a cat’s face on it. Jinki’s fits just right, white with a bunny. “We’re sickening,” Kibum comments, and Jinki grins up at him because really, the blond is blushing and thinking about how happy it’s making him.
Then comes a late dessert at a café, something sweet and fruity because that’s Kibum’s favorite. Jinki’s more partial to chocolate or red bean, but he doesn’t mind. “I don’t even know how this happened,” Kibum tells him after he finishes his half of the shaved ice.
“What do you mean, Bum?” Jinki can sympathize. He doesn’t know how he was lucky enough to bowl the blond over in the hall. He doesn’t know any of this is possible.
Kibum just shrugs. “I’m just so glad that this has all happened? You know me. You know I wasn’t happy about moving, that I almost ditched school that first day, that I almost went down the hall to the science wing and not to the language wing. It was all so chance, I could have literally done anything different that day and not be sitting here with you right now.” The blond is twirling around the ring on his finger and there’s a great deal of unease swirling around in his mind. Jinki feels it like a tidal wave, but there’s also an underlying rush of contentment that just… “you make me so happy, and it scares me that I was literally a fickle choice away from possibly not knowing you existed.”
Fate.
Fate has to be a thing that happens, Jinki realizes. Or maybe it’s Kibum, projecting out to him. But they’ve reached the same conclusion, it seems.
And then he hears it. I lo- “I love you, Jinki.”
It’s certain, this time. Certain and heavy and overloads Jinki’s head with silence and emotions. “I hear everyone’s thoughts. I read minds.”
That certainly wasn’t what Kibum was expecting. His face goes blank and he looks at Jinki like he’s crazy.
Oh my god, I just ruined everything.
They end up slipping outside of the CGV in total muteness because Jinki needs to explain himself, because Kibum’s confused and Jinki feels like dying. “Okay, elaborate?” Kibum sits on a bench outside, pulls his legs up and into his chest.
“I,” Jinki he’s perfect what did you do why did you do this you’re an actual idiot you dumbstupidmoron- “uh, I can hear people’s thoughts and I had to tell you. It’s just something that happens. People’s thoughts pour into my head to the point where I don’t even hear my own thoughts and that’s… that’s why the day I bumped into you, I was all in my headphones and trying not to pay attention to anything. But you’re different. Your thoughts pop into my head so much clearer, and when I’m around you, everyone else’s thoughts go away. It’s just you, and it’s kind of like magic. And I always mess up around you because with other people I can tell their thoughts apart from their real words, but with you it’s all the same. All those times where you thought you said something out loud, that was me, it was all me, I don’t even know what to say.”
The second year still has that faraway, blank look on his face. Jinki is jumbled, a mess of words and feelings and phrases, doesn’t know how to convey himself to Kibum in a way that would explain anything. What if he doesn’t trust him? What if he laughs it off the way Jinki always knew people would? “Really? That would explain so- wait, so you’ve know all this time that I…”
Kibum stands and halts Jinki’s thoughts, crosses his arms. Jinki shrinks back, feeling almost very small, miniscule. He can’t tell whether it’s betrayal or shock or what that’s displayed right on Kibum’s face. Jinki doesn’t have to hear the rest of that to know exactly where it’s going. “Y-yeah. I’m so sorry, Kibum. It’s not like I actually wanted to pry, I’m so sorry.”
“What am I thinking about right now?” The question is quick and it catches him off guard; Jinki’s been so focused in going through what he actually needed to say than what he needs to be monitoring. What is Kibum’s state of mind, right now?
He shuts himself up and there’s a sudden wall of complete silence that makes his stomach churn. There are crickets and other bug sounds and cars zooming by and people talking and phones ringing. Wait a second-
“I- I don’t…” He can’t hear anything from anyone, not even Kibum, which is probably why it takes him by actual surprise when the younger crosses the distance to kiss him for the first time.
Kibum’s lips are as soft as they look, warm and smooth, tinted with the taste of milk and berries. Jinki’s entire body feels weightless, his mind like it’s swimming, his knees weak and his chest boiling over with all these different feeling that he doubts he can name.
When they separate, he hears the sound of their breaths mixing. “What about now?”
It’s dead quiet, and honestly?
“Nothing. There’s nothing.”
Jinki thinks he’s going crazy before he realizes that maybe it’s the opposite. Or maybe he was never crazy to begin with. Maybe this is, once again, fate, or just the boundaries of life righting themselves. He didn’t notice it before but now that it hits him it’s been like this for a few minutes, now.
He can hear himself. Jinki tests it out and there it is, oh my god, his voice echoing around in his head the same way it comes out of his mouth.
---
Jinki has no idea why things just stopped that day.
They did, though - he went back through and told Kibum about it all, about exactly what it was like and how confused he is as to how something that’s been with him since as long as he can remember just disappeared like that. He’s relieved but frightened at the same time, too; now that he really lingers on it, the eavesdropping was something he used to protect himself on many an occasion. And now he feels bare, exposed, vulnerable. “It was totally me,” Kibum grins at him from where he’s sitting criss-cross on the grass only a foot away. “Doesn’t the handsome prince always end up breaking the spell?”
Even when he left Kibum that night, there was nothing.
But Jinki thinks that it’s a good thing, the disappearance of his little ability.
He knows that it’s a good thing. “You are handsome, I suppose. To be honest, I think I did it to myself by telling you about it.”
Kibum scowls at him and looks away, and Jinki would give anything to know what he’s thinking. Honestly, Jinki’s still surprised Kibum even believes him about the whole thing.
Jinki lunges forward, wraps his arms around Kibum’s waist and hold him there, the both of them lying on the ground in the middle of hundreds of people and Jinki doesn’t hear a thing, save for the sound of Kibum’s heartbeat.
He feels like crying.
“Thank you, Kibum.”