For: pom_li
Title: truce
Rating: PG-13
Word count: ~2000
Summary: There's a war brewing in Kyungsoo's neighborhood - a war between Jongdae and the insects that Kyungsoo loves so dearly.
A/N: thank you, ducky - you're my shining star ☆
Kyungsoo is stretched out in the soft grass behind his house when he gets an odd sort of stirring in his gut, and he immediately sits up. There's something wrong. The crickets in the grass next to him begin to chirp, voicing their complaints and Kyungsoo listens carefully to what they have to say.
The ants, Kyungsoo. Jongdae is messing with the ants.
Oh god, not Jongdae again. Jongdae is Kyungsoo's technopathic next door neighbor and while he normally seems like a nice guy, he hates insects. This is, of course, a problem for Kyungsoo. While Jongdae can whisper to computers and control them with gentle touches and soothing words, Kyungsoo can understand bugs - he can talk to them, understand them, love them as though they were his own family.
And right now they're complaining about Jongdae.
He has the magnifying glass again, they chirp, wings rustling as they hop away. He's going after the ants..
Kyungsoo stands up, brushing grass off of his pants, and marches right on over to Jongdae's house to knock on the door. His fist raps against the wood of Jongdae's front door angrily, and when he doesn't answer Kyungsoo storms off to Jongdae's backyard where he finds the older man armed with a magnifying and prowling the grass for any sign of insect life.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Kyungsoo growls, walking over and ripping the magnifying glass out of Jongdae's grasp. "Stop harassing the ants."
"They were in my cereal this morning!" Jongdae replies heatedly, reaching forward to snatch the magnifying glass back. Kyungsoo pulls his arm back and out of Jongdae's reach.
"Only because you spent the entire afternoon yesterday combing through your backyard looking for anthills to destroy."
Jongdae squints. "How do you know about that?"
"They told me," Kyungsoo replies with a glare. "Now stop fucking with my friends."
It's silent for a moment. The bright sun beats down on the pair, warming Kyungsoo's face. After a quiet pause, Jongdae speaks. "Whatever, just leave me alone." He goes inside without another word, and Kyungsoo is left standing in the middle of Jongdae's backyard holding the magnifying glass.
Thank you, Kyungsoo, the ants whisper.
* * *
In the morning, Kyungsoo's coffee maker refuses to stop running. Coffee spills across the counter, and it takes Kyungsoo at least twenty minutes to fix things and clean up the mess. The oven timer kept going off when he was trying to clean, too, leaving him with a splitting headache. After everything is finally cleaned up and settled, he throws the sopping wet towels into the laundry basket in the laundry room and collapses onto his bed, already done for the day. When he pulls out his phone and goes to type in his password, he's greeted with a red lockdown screen and the message 'iPhone is disabled. Please try again in 6,236,546 minutes.'
And at that instant, everything from this morning suddenly makes sense. Fucking Jongdae.
Kyungsoo finds himself knocking on Jongdae's door yet again, his knuckles beating against the wood relentlessly until the door gives way beneath his hand and Jongdae is standing before him, catlike eyes glimmering maliciously.
"What did you do to my phone, Jongdae?" Kyungsoo asks, teeth grit.
"I didn't touch your phone."
"Don't lie to me, Jongdae."
"No, really." Jongdae laughs and Kyungsoo continues to glare at him. Perhaps if he concentrates long enough, Kyungsoo will be able to burn holes right through him with the force of his glare. But, alas. Today is not that day. Jongdae continues speaking. "I swear that I have not touched your phone."
"Okay. I know you didn't touch it." Kyungsoo says, stepping forward to jab his index finger into the middle of Jongdae's chest. Jongdae takes a step back and Kyungsoo follows him. "But you did mess with it. I know you did - you and you're weird ass computer powers or whatever they're called."
"I'm a technopath. It means that I can control machines."
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I honestly don't care." Kyungsoo slides his hand into his pocket and pulls out his phone, shoving it unceremoniously into Jongdae's hands. "Just fix it."
Jongdae eyes him warily. "And what if I don't?"
Kyungsoo narrows his eyes. "Then I swear to god I will order ants to infest every inch of this house until there's nowhere for you to hide."
Jongdae's mouth falls open in a little 'o' and he takes half of a step back with a slight shudder. There’s a hint of genuine fear in Jongdae’s eyes, and Kyungsoo hopes that Jongdae has a healthy enough imagination to understand not to mess with him again. "O-okay. Fine. I'll fix your stupid phone."
It takes but a second for Jongdae to do, well, whatever it is that Jongdae has to do to fix Kyungsoo's phone, and he hands it back to Kyungsoo a moment later with a scowl plastered on his face. "Here, take it. Now leave."
Kyungsoo doesn't bother thanking him, not when it was Jongdae's fault in the first place.
* * *
Kyungsoo is still a little salty over what happened with his phone, so he sends a bunch of ants over to Jongdae's house in the middle of the night to infest Jongdae's pantry (and, hopefully, ruin his chocolate stash). The barrage of angry texts he receives in the morning is well worth it, but when he tries to unlock his phone the 'Wrong Passcode' message pops up again and again until he's locked out and ready to punch Jongdae right in the stomach.
The fucker.
He doesn't even give Jongdae the satisfaction of having to run to him for help, instead choosing to walk across the street to Sehun's house. Sehun isn't a technopath by any means (he has this weird affinity for the weather - especially clouds), but he is technologically smart, and Kyungsoo knows he can help with the phone problem.
Sehun opens the door with a smile and sleepy eyes, and ushers Kyungsoo inside and into the kitchen where Minseok, Sehun's best friend and the other occupant of the house, is busy making an ice cream sculpture. Minseok has an affinity for the cold, and an overwhelming appetite for sweets, so it's really no surprise to see him playing around like this.
"Hey, Kyungsoo!" Minseok greets cheerfully as Kyungsoo slides into a bar stool across from him.
"Hey there, Minseok," Kyungsoo replies with an easy smile before turning to Sehun. "I'm sorry to bother you, but Jongdae's been messing with my phone."
"Again?"
Kyungsoo nods and hands over the cellphone with a sigh.
"You haven't been provoking him, have you?" Minseok asks as Sehun leaves the room to mess around with Kyungsoo's phone. When Kyungsoo turns to give Minseok his attention, he's distracted by the masterpiece that Minseok's hands are crafting. His hands are small and sturdy, but they glide over the ice cream with such precision that Kyungsoo doesn't know how he does it. The sculpture takes form before Kyungsoo's very eyes - an elegant swan crafted out of vanilla bean ice cream. Its wings are long and curved up toward the ceiling while its neck and head are tucked under one of the wings, as though it is shy.
"Well," Kyungsoo begins, never taking his eyes off of the way Minseok's hands slide across the creamy surface of the swan sculpture. "Maybe... a little?"
"Kyungsoo." Sehun has returned, and the warning is evident in his tone.
"I know. I'm sorry. If he would stop being a little shit though - "
"It doesn't matter, Kyungsoo." Minseok looks up from his now-finished ice cream sculpture for a second before opening the drawer in front of him and pulling out three spoons, handing one each to Sehun and Kyungsoo before leaving the last one for himself. “You both need to set aside your differences, okay? This little spat you guys are having is going to end up taking out the entire street if you’re not careful. The lights in our house were flickering all day yesterday, and I bet it was because Jongdae was mad at something you pulled.”
Kyungsoo mumbles an apology and a promise to try and make things better, and they eat the vanilla-flavored ice cream sculpture together, easily laughing and joking with each other. Sehun offers Kyungsoo his cellphone back when they’re finished and Kyungsoo is getting ready to head back home. “By the way,” he says. “The passcode was your birthday.”
* * *
One would think that Jongdae would learn not to mess with Kyungsoo, but when Kyungsoo wakes up the next morning, his coffee machine malfunctions yet again. He's fed up with this, honestly, so as soon as he cleans up the mess he heads outside and crouches by the vibrant grass at the edge of the patio in his backyard.
The grasshoppers and ants greet him with a hello, Kyungsoo, and a stray bee from one of the local colonies buzzes contently around his head. Good morning.
"Hello, everyone." Kyungsoo smiles, his lips curling up at the corners. There's a gentle thrum in the air resonating all around him, and the backyard is teeming with insect life, all calling out their own greetings. "I have a little task for you. Are you up to it?"
Anything for you, they respond. Tell us what you want.
Jongdae's house is infested by noon. At 12:03, Kyungsoo's doorbell begins to ring nonstop. He debates ignoring it, but the doorbell continues to ring incessantly and it's honestly driving him mad.
He opens the door expecting Jongdae to throw a punch, or at least yell at him. What he doesn't expect to find, however, is Jongdae slumped on the front step, tear tracks staining his cheeks.
"Jongdae?" Kyungsoo reaches forward and Jongdae flinches before letting Kyungsoo touch him, guiding him inside to sit on the couch. "Are you okay?"
Jongdae shakes his head, and even though Kyungsoo doesn't really like the guy... he can't help but feel a pang in his heart. Jongdae looks like an awful mess. His hair is plastered to his forehead, eyes wide as he trembles. He's pulled his knees up to his chest and his fingers dig into the fabric of his pants.
"Is it... is it because of the bugs?" Kyungsoo asks, albeit hesitantly. He doesn't like feeling like he could be the one that made Jongdae this way. It wasn’t intentional by any means, and Kyungsoo would never knowingly cause someone this much distress. He’s not that much of an asshole.
Jongdae nods slowly before whispering, "They scare me."
"What?"
"The... the bugs." Jongdae says. "They scare me." He takes a breath and it seems to help him to regain some composure. "That's why I keep going after them, you know. It feels like it's me or them."
Oh god. Kyungsoo had no idea that Jongdae was afraid of bugs, that he was so scared he would come running to Kyungsoo about it. He doesn't know what to say, but he knows he needs to apologize. "I'm so sorry, Jongdae. If I had known you were scared of bugs I never would have-"
Jongdae cuts him off with a shake of his head. "No. It's okay. You know now."
Kyungsoo reaches forward and places his hand on Jongdae's arm. "Do you want me to....?"
He doesn't say the words but he can see Jongdae's answer in his eyes. Kyungsoo scoots over and pulls Jongdae into his arms, and Jongdae tucks himself under Kyungsoo's shoulder, placing his head under Kyungsoo's chin. His knees are still pulled up to his chest and he shakes a little, but Kyungsoo just pulls him even closer and holds him.
“So,” Jongdae sniffles, curling up closer to Kyungsoo. “Does this mean we’re friends now? Can we be friends?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
“Okay, what about a truce at least? Please don’t send anymore bugs after me. I promise I’ll leave your phone and coffee machine alone.”
Kyungsoo looks down and meets Jongdae's eyes. His stare is surprisingly earnest and Kyungsoo swallows before whispering, "okay, truce."