Title: Lazy Days [26/?]
Rating: g
Genre: catboy!au, fluff
Pairing: sekaiho
Summary: Day 20 of the advent challenge.
We set off fireworks last night. I almost got stuck outside all by myself!!! Sehun said it was an accident but I was so scared that I was going to have to spend the night with the neighbour’s dog.
BOOM.
The fireworks explode in the sky above their house, fanning out into a brilliant display of red and orange starbursts that have Joonmyun craning his neck to see more, eyes wide open in wonder. The lights fade away and he tugs excitedly at Jongin’s arm.
“Another one!” he insists. “We have to light another one.”
“Don’t worry, kitten. We’ve got plenty,” Sehun reassures him, picking up another firework.
It’s Guy Fawkes night, and they’re celebrating it with a big box of fireworks of their own. It’s night time and in the distance they can hear the echoing of other houses setting off their fireworks too.
Joonmyun sits on the front porch (or in Jongin’s lap, rather) and Sehun sticks the firework into the stand in the middle of the lawn. He kneels down with the lighter and backs away as soon as it catches fire, sparks spraying onto the grass.
Boom, boom, boom. Several shots fire off into the sky, snapping and crackling as they erupt into white flowers against the black of the night. Joonmyun cheers loudly and claps.
Sehun sets about half of the fireworks off before swapping over with Jongin, who does the remaining ones until only one small pack is left sitting in the box.
“Sparklers?” Joonmyun says hopefully. He clambers out of Sehun’s grasp and patters over to the box to look inside. Yep, they’re sparklers, and his favourite.
Jongin lights one and uses it to light the others while Sehun runs inside and comes back with the camera. He takes cute selcas with Joonmyun and Jongin with their sparklers and one with all three of them trying to squish into the photo frame. He makes them re-take that last one because Joonmyun’s sparkler dies in the middle of the shot and without any sparks, it looks like it’s going up Sehun’s nose (not cool, delete immediately). The others will all go on the corkboard of family photos in the study.
The last sparkler burns out in the catboy’s hand as he’s standing on the front lawn trying to write his name out with the sparks.
“Aww,” he pouts, dismayed, “can I have another one?”
Jongin shakes the packet, but it’s empty. “Sorry, kitten,” he says. “There’s no more. How about we pack up for the night, yeah?”
“Okay…”
Sehun and Jongin gather up all the used fireworks and throw them back into the box they had come packaged in. They’ll put it out for rubbish collection tomorrow morning. Joonmyun’s been assigned to pick up all his sparklers, which he now regrets randomly throwing onto the grass because finding them is becoming an immense challenge. But at any rate his eyesight in the dark is probably better than Jongin and Sehun’s combined and he’s adamant that he’ll find them all, so Jongin and Sehun keep the front door open and leave him to it.
“Don’t forget to lock the door when you come back inside,” Jongin tells him, and the catboy nods from where he’s out scouring the grass.
BOOM. Joonmyun nearly falls over in fright, the sky lighting up with an intense blue flare. His heart rate returns to normal when he figures out that it’s just house down the road setting their own fireworks.
“Ah!” He snatches up the last sparkler and carries them all back to the box. He’s about to close the lid when his ears suddenly detect a distinct whining noise. “Huh…?”
There it is again, a pitiful, sorry sound - and Joonmyun’s sure it’s coming from the front yard of the neighbour on the other side of the road. He crosses the road and peeps over their picket fence to see if his suspicions are right, and they are.
There’s a small dog, white and brown and patchy, crouched by the wall of the house. It looks like it’s scared of the fireworks and Joonmyun feels sad for it, even though the dog normally barks at him every time he so dares to even breathe in its direction. The loud noises from the house down the street are starting up again.
“Are you okay?” he whispers, cupping his hands around his mouth so he doesn’t annoy the neighbours. The little dog whines again and Joonmyun wishes it was a puppy hybrid like Baekhyun so maybe he could at least understand what it was saying, but then he decides that’s pointless because even a blind person could probably tell the dog doesn’t like fireworks. Its mean owner must have locked it outside.
He knows he shouldn’t be doing this and that he’ll be in big trouble if the neighbour comes out and finds him, but he really does feel bad. He climbs over the picket fence and approaches the animal, cautiously sitting next to it when it doesn’t bark, and pats its head. The dog is trembling and Joonmyun gives it a hug instead.
“Better check the front door,” Jongin says, getting into bed. He switches the bedside lamp on. “I didn’t hear it close.”
Sehun hadn’t either. He pokes his head out to check if Joonmyun’s still outside but he can’t see the catboy on the lawn anywhere; he must have come inside and gone back to his own room. Sehun sighs and closes it, turning the lock. He’d have to go and give Joonmyun a stern talk about why doors shouldn’t be left open at night.
Across the road, sitting in the neighbour’s yard with his arms full of terrified dog, Joonmyun glances up at his house to see all the lights have turned off.
…How long had they been like that for? He nearly drops the dog.
“Oh no,” he yelps, putting the dog down and scrambling to his feet. “Bye dog, I have to go home!” He rushes across the road and over the front lawn of his house. The first thing he tries is the front door but it’s firmly locked and he gets goosebumps all down his arms.
“I’m locked out,” he wails, feeling tears prickle at his eyes. He doesn’t want to sleep on the front porch like a homeless person.
He runs to the back of the house in the hopes that perhaps the back door or the laundry door has been left unlocked by accident, but neither of them open. He dejectedly plods back around to the front door and bangs on the wood with his fists.
“J-Jongin? Sehun?” he calls out nervously. “Y-you locked me out…” His kitty ears droop gloomily. He holds his tail in his hand and holds his breath too, waiting for someone to hear him.
Nobody opens the front door. Maybe his owners were asleep already. Now he was like the dog, stuck outside all by himself. What if Sehun and Jongin didn’t find him until morning, leaving him to sleep out here with the bugs on the concrete? What if someone took him away?
He promptly bursts into tears and sobs all the way to the window of the master bedroom on the side of the house, where he curls up on the ground.
“I’m sorry,” he blubbers, wiping his face pathetically with the back of his hands, “I was just picking up the sparklers and I saw the dog, I didn’t run away, I promise!” There’s going to be punishment for wandering around alone in the neighbour for sure.
“I’m a bad kitty,” he moans, and starts crying again.
There is a squeaky noise above him and then Sehun’s head is sticking out of the window, his expression stunned and his mouth open in complete surprise. “I thought I heard someone that sounded like you - oh my god, what are you doing out there?”
Joonmyun cries all the way back to the front door too. Sehun throws it open and pulls him inside. They go straight to the master bedroom and put him in the big bed, where Jongin is tucked in and very confused.
“What’s wrong, kitten?” he asks, puzzled. Then it makes sense; the strange noises, Sehun bolting out of the room immediately. “Did Sehun-”
“He locked me outside!” Joonmyun sniffs miserably.
Even in the dark, the catboy can see Jongin giving his boyfriend a ‘what the fuck’ look.
“I didn’t know you were still out there!” Sehun says defensively, climbing into bed to wrap his arms around Joonmyun’s tiny form. He already feels like shit, a dickhead and the world’s biggest loser all rolled into one big ball of fail. “I thought you already came back in… what were you doing?”
Joonmyun’s lower lip wobbles. He slides deeper under the covers, guilt starting to creep up on him. “I was hugging the dog.”
…Dog? Neither Sehun nor Jongin have the faintest idea what he’s talking about, but they both suppose it can wait until morning.
day 21