It's Okay it's Love AU Part 1/?
Title: It's Ok, It's Love AU
Pairing: Kai/Kangwoo, Kaiwoo
Genre: gen, romance
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~1K words
Summary: There's a boy in Jongin's class that never speaks.
There’s a boy in Jongin’s class that never speaks. He sits in the very back next to the window, with his head down for what seems like the entire day. Whenever Jongin happens to glance back he never sees much more than his fluffy hair and a vague impression of his face.
Once, just once, he had been lucky enough to look over just as the teacher called on the boy. Jongin caught a flash of the roundest, largest eyes he’s ever seen, and heart-shaped lips that were strikingly dark against moon-pale skin.The boy looked back down immediately and began to read the passage asked for, but even as Jongin turned around to stare dumbly at the chalkboard Jongin’s mindseye replayed that image again and again and again. Until the inside of his skull was coated with it.
So that’s what he looks like, Jongin thought to himself.
Huh.
He never really forgot about the boy, and as each day passed, Jongin found himself tracking him whenever he was at school. He couldn’t help it; his eyes just seemed to naturally follow his form. Jongin was discreet about it, he made sure not to stare, but the more he saw, the more he wanted to look.
There is the kind of student that makes small talk but never really gets close enough to anyone to make friends in class. Then at lunch time they leave to eat with other shy quiet kids, the ones that are their real friends. Jongin is like this, except that he’s not shy, just quiet. His classmates seem to think he’s mysterious and cool, which Jongin does nothing to deny because it’s much better than being seen as the dork his friends know him to be. Maybe it was because he was busy acting the mysterious kid that he didn’t notice Han Kangwoo until the end of the school year. His own fault then.
Kangwoo is the same kind of student, but different in yet another way which Jongin doesn’t find out about until one day when he decides to follow him at lunch break. They’re both going up the stairs, Kangwoo a mere floor ahead, and it’s only a thought to follow him before Jongin keeps walking and it becomes not a thought anymore.
Jongin is so focused on the back of the boy’s legs that when they suddenly stop, he’s disoriented enough to stumble back a step. Thankfully, he’s on a landing and not the actual stairs. He looks up and blanches. A stony stare is bearing down on him from where Kangwoo is standing on the steps above, taller than Jongin for once.
“The roof is locked,” states Kangwoo as he looks at the other boy expectantly. Jongin blinks. Behind Kangwoo, the accessway is clearly chained up to keep students from playing around on the roof, but Jongin wasn’t looking for the roof....
“Why are you up here then?” Jongin says, crossing his arms defensively. The other boy has a surprisingly harsh gaze so Jongin’s eyes keeps skittering away. At the same time he can’t help but want to look his fill since he hardly ever gets the chance to see the boy in his entirety this close up. It’s like being a fan of a movie star and then running into them at the mini mart. Like, oh, you can exist beyond the screen? How fascinating.
At Jongin’s question Kangwoo hesitates and the sway at his side catches the dancer’s eye.
“You...write?” Jongin guesses by the notebook and pencil Kangwoo brought with him.
A shrug of narrow shoulders and a simple, “Yeah.” There’s an awkward pause before the boy hurriedly follows with, “It’s quiet up here. I can’t concentrate in class, sometimes.” He looks down, giving Jongin chance glance up and down his figure. He really is very pale. Most of the other boys in his class have somewhat of a tan because of the warmer weather but Kangwoo looks like winter-personified.
Jongin swallows and nods like a bobble-head. “Oh. Makes sense,” he agrees and then struggles for something else to say. Kangwoo squirms a little, clearly wanting to get away from the awkwardness that is Jongin and something in him deflates at the sight.
Backing away, Jongin says, “I’ll just...leave you to that.” Large, round eyes watch him leave in silence, and he thinks to himself that it must be relief that’s sending him off, but when he turns around to step down the stairs he hears a small, “Thanks,” like a pat to the back, or a light, shy hug.
A grin breaks out, engulfing Jongin’s face, but he makes sure to hide it as he practically runs down the stairs in his sudden joy. He talked to Han Kangwoo, who writes and doesn’t speak to anyone in class and doesn’t have friends to eat lunch with.
Jongin stops three floors down, one above his classroom floor, feet slapping the ground at the bottom of the stairs so loudly that other students look up from their conversations to stare at his panting figure. Han Kangwoo has no friends, Jongin realizes and has the sudden urge to fly back up the stairs to share his lunch with the other boy. But he doesn’t, because he’s sixteen and still painfully awkward, and he only just cleared up the persistent acne that had followed him since puberty.
Glancing up the stairs wistfully, Jongin heads down the floor and looks for his friends to eat his lunch with and sulk while they pester him over his abruptly bad mood.
Han Kangwoo has no friends. Jongin wishes he could be brave enough to step forward and take his hand. Jongin could become the center of his world; he could have Kangwoo completely to himself. The thought is tantalizing, especially when he recalls the wide eyes gazing down at him. Kangwoo is a boy and Jongin is not romantic, but there is a visceral change in him that will just not let him go.
A month passes like that, with longing looks and aimless doodling, too much energy that he tries to expel through dancing and winds up with a twisted ankle instead, scolding from his dance instructor and then his parents, teasing from his friends, “You act like you’re in love!” Finally, school ends and Han Kangwoo isn’t seen for a time that seems endless but is actually just months.
In Jongin’s last year, he ends up in a different classroom and spends the entire first week moping about it. Then one night he walks home late from karaoke with his friends and bumps into Han Kangwoo, barefoot with blood on his face.
AN: I'm having a bit too much fun on tumblr these days and I keep coming across Kyungsoo's gifs from It's Okay It's Love. Of course inspiration + kaisoo feels = fic. I haven't even gotten a chance to read this over since I wrote it so quickly. But of course, I will do that later. X)