head blips

She smiles, picking up, tugging at her bangs. “Hey babe, thought you were asleep?”

Jongin is sleepy smiling-chuckling and Jonghyun thinks, not for the first time, about how massively gay he is, feeling warmer and safer and happier in the presence of his partner’s voice. “Dude, I was just talking to Taemin, and he’s out on the beach somewhere? He caught a fucking squirtle?  And a horsea? And cut his thumb?”

Jonghyun rolls her eyes, and Jongin can feel the brain pap. “Pokego is literally going to be the death of him, bless his little emo heart.”  

It’s not that Jonghyun doesn’t care about what Taemin’s up to, he does, a lot, and he’s worried about him getting hurt and getting in trouble and losing his phone and falling asleep in public (he has a track record with all of these things) but she can’t do anything about it; Taemin is hopelessly stubborn and Jonghyun admits that he’s a hardy little sucker.  Taemin makes his messes, lives for them, and keeps on going.  It’s something he’s always admired, how fiery Taemin is, and how he literally gives no fucks.  Sometimes she wishes she were that way too.

Jongin is giggling on the line, mumbling ‘emo’ to himself in his soft sleepy voice, and Jonghyun squishes Dex’s snout.  He really fucking loves his qp. “You’re horsea, I’m squirtle.”

Jongin makes some kind of whiny noise of protest, and Jonghyun bites down at her smile. “What?  Why do you get to be squirtle?”  

Jonghyun makes a noncommital humming noise, shrugging.  “Dex said so.  And you know he’s right, in your heart.”  

He can hear Jongin shifting around on the other side, scrunching up his face. “Dude, what are you doing?”

Jongin sniffs. “I stuck my head in my shirt, to reexamine my heart.”

Jonghyun wants to kiss him, and whines because he can’t.  “Why are you far away, come over if you’re going to be a cute, soft, weirdie.  It’s not Fair.”

“I’m always a cute, soft, weirdie.”  

Jonghyun huffs, threatening, “I’m gonna hang up.”

She hears shuffling on the other side, and-”Babe, just hold on, I’m coming, I’m just putting on pants.”

Jonghyun smiles.  Sometimes she thinks that Jongin is so indulgent because she’s selfish and needy, but Jongin just makes it really easy to be.

She looks over at the time, and realizes it’s a lot closer to 2 am than he remembered it being, flopping back on his bed.  He can’t remember a time when Jongin ever gave him a hard time for wanting anything, he and Taemin are always picking on each other and teasing one another, but Jongin’s always been so soft on her.

She’s always been a little fighty and headstrong when it comes to gaming, and is honestly one of the worst losers she knows, but Jongin never really fought him on anything, always good-naturedly conceding.  He knows Jongin has let him win far too many times, and even though Taemin isn’t always the best at gauging people, it’s something that frustrates him to no end.  She’s giggling a little, thinking about Taemin getting impatient with Jongin, and Jongin finally speaks up.

“What are you thinking about?” A lot of their phone calls are pretty silent, Jongin is pretty nonverbal, and mostly it is Jonghyun monologuing at his datefriend or the two of them laying around or doing their own thing, happy that the other is present in some shape or form.

“Am thinking about you, about how smelly-sticky you are, how gentle you always are with me.”

Jongin exhales kind of loudly, and for a moment, Jonghyun is afraid. “What?” He doesn’t hide the insecurity in her voice, fingers nervously curling up to stim with Dex’s gills.

“The night air is nice, and talking to you is nice, and I’m coming to see you.  Am happy.”  Jonghyun toes at his comforter, feeling a little guilty.  It’s hard for her to reconcile her self-hatey feelings, but Jongin’s honest way of responding, and the childish, determined, insistent way he expresses himself makes Jonghyun trust him.  Jongin is so patient, and so good at making people he loves feel important and listened to, and Jonghyun feels so lucky for knowing him.

He gets up, wrapping himself in his pink comforter, rearranging the blanket around Dex so they can see, tapping through snap stories that he’s already seen but snapchat has for some reason decided to reload.  “Babe, we should go to that bingsoo place Minjung is always at.”  

She hears a tap at his window, shuffling over to let Jongin and his crinkly happy smiley eyes in.  Jonghyun responds, the phone pressed to her ear. “Hi.”

“Hi, I like bingsoo.  Agree.” Jonghyun smiles to herself, ending the call and tossing her phone back onto the bed before shuffling, comforter and all, into Jongin’s space, nuzzling into his chest when he wraps his arms around him.

Jongin smells like warm and laundry and happy and Jongin and Jonghyun bites at his thermal, feeling floaty with affection.  Jongin laughs quietly, laying his cheek on top of Jonghyun’s messy pink hair.

“That was my boob.”

Jonghyun giggles, pressing his face into his qp’s pectorals, hard from dancing, soft from everything else.  “You have nice boobs.”

They are swaying a little from side to side, and Jonghyun feels like he’s being eaten by fuzz.  Jongin noses softly at the top of Jonghyun’s head, pressing a smile there. “Guess who picked up a geodude on the way over here.”  

Jonghyun raises a brow, breaking their embrace to squint up at her partner skeptically.  “Serious?”

Jongin nods with all honor of a true boyscout.  “Swear.  Triple Swear.”

He presses a kiss to his collar, murmuring, “Proud of you,” before suddenly snorting, remembering, “Still doesn’t compare to Taem today.  I can’t believe he got a squirtle out there.”

Jongin bodily crushes Jonghyun back to him, and Jonghyun smiles at the nonverbal ‘More Hug’. “Me neither.  I wonder what he ended up catching over where he’s at now.  Do you think we should bug him?”

Jonghyun shrugs a shoulder, the one not holding onto Dex because he doesn’t want to jostle him.  “Honestly, he might be in a sticky situation and I don’t want to risk making his phone go off or distracting him if he’s like.  Scaling the boardwalk or someone’s fence?  We should wait.”

At that, Jonghyun’s phone starts quietly blipping on her bed, phone lighting up with an unknown number.  The pair of them waddle together towards the bed, landing on their sides, Jongin whining a little when his datefriend’s forehead knocks into his jaw.  Jonghyun picks up the phone, reaching up to lay apology kisses on Jongin’s chin.

“Taem?”

“How’d you know it’s me?” Jonghyun sighs.

“Babe, it’s always you.  Who else would be calling me from a number I don’t have at 2:34 in the fucking am?”

“That’s fair.”

“Where are you, do you need to be picked up?” Jonghyun thinks about teasing Taemin about how her number is the only one he can remember when his phone isn’t operational because Jongin sang it in the powerpuff girls theme once, but doesn’t have the heart to.

Taemin is making a thinky sound, and Jonghyun waits.  She knows that processies can take time, sometimes.  “I’m okay.  I made a friend, and they’re taking me home.  We’re heading to In N’ Out?  Did you want?”

Jonghyun looks up expectantly at Jongin, who nods.  “Yeah, can you get two double doubles?”  Jongin whines, pawing at Jonghyun’s stomach.

“Oh and Jongin wants animal fries and cherry coke.”

“You’re with him?”

“Yeah, he came over,  caught a geodude.”

“Nice!” Jonghyun squints, tucking his phone between her ear and shoulder, picking Jongin’s hand up where it lays by her tummy, inspecting his chipped yellow polish.  Fucking Team Instinct.

“Are you going to tell me why you are calling Not from your phone, or are you going to just have me guess.”  

“Oh!” Taemin forgets a lot when it comes to filling people in, and that’s okay, just sometimes Jonghyun likes to know. “Um! I fell into the ocean when Kibum came out? Onto the pier? I couldn’t really help it, it just happened, freak thing.”

“Did you get caught?  Kibum’s that kid you dogsat for right, that time you snapped from that hella beach house?  Is that where you’re at?  Taem!” Taemin is giggling, and Jonghyun can make out someone else’s laughter as well.  He’s going to have to ask about Taemin’s friend later.

“Um!!! I didn’t get caught, and I was at that beach house.  What was the other thing?”

“Kibum.”

“Oh, oh, yeah, Kibum is the dog dude.”  Jonghyun whines softly, he misses Roo.  She’s staying with her sister right now, while Jonghyun is house sitting.  “He’s an art kid?  And he’s from church.”  Jonghyun wrinkles his nose a little, but he’s nodding, even if Taemin can’t see, lifting Jongin’s hand to her mouth to chew on his knuckles.

“I have so much to tell you?” Taemin continues, and Jonghyun can feel him fidgeting. Taemin doesn’t always need to say things, but when he does, he gets wiggly with wanting to get the words to all come out. “Jinki caught a fucking lapras?”  

Jongin’s hand drops from out of her mouth. “Jinki, huh?” There’s a little smile in Jonghyun’s voice and she knows it. Jongin quirks an eyebrow beside him, and she rubs thoughtfully at his bottom lip, mischief twinkling in the upturned corners of her mouth. 

“Yeah, the person I met tonight, you wouldn’t believe it.  I found them hanging by a support beam underneath the pier?  I’m in love, Jjong.”  

Jonghyun hears the other person--Jinki-- laugh again.  “Dude, are you for real?  I believe Jinki but like are you real for real about the lapras, because like.  That’s like, fucking unheard of.”

Taemin speaks in the most serious voice he’s managed to muster in his twenty some years of existing.  “Jinki is magic.”

“I’m excited to meet them, then.”

“Dude.”

“Yeah?”

“Ugh fuck, we’re going through the drive through, I’ll see you in a bit okay?”

“Okay my dude. See you.” Jongin whines at him. 

He’d initially texted them about coming with, but Jongin never replied and Jjong said he’d be down if the last time wasn’t a fucking disaster.  He snorted, wiping his hand on his jeans, ripped and worn from biking and skating mishaps over the years.  He really needed to make some friends who weren’t so chickenshit.  “Team Valor, my fucking asshole,” he muttered, jumping down the rest of the way, kicking up some sand around the brush he landed in.

As if on cue, his phone lit up, vibrating in his pocket where he had just tucked it so his hands would be free.  ‘Asshole #1’ glowed in bright blue, the digitized font over a clean black background (he let someone mod his phone once when he was gaming at Jjong’s, and he’s never figured out how to change it back) making the tacky nickname seem out of place.  Swiping right, he answered, smile in his voice,”Hey Assface, long time no talk!”

Putting Jongin on speaker and lowering the volume significantly (he really didn’t want to get caught trespassing), he switched over to the pokemon go app to see what pokemon was nearby, now that he’d gotten over.  

“Dude, I just got your text, I was sleeping.” Jongin answered like the dead, his normally deep and mumbly-slurred manner of speaking sounding more throaty and hoarse.  He could hear the slow blinks in his voice as he went on,

”Did you leave already?” Taemin snorted, thumbing through the app.

“Yeah dude, ages ago!” he was whisper-yelling, something they were accustomed to, having grown up staying over at each other’s houses, excited from gaming late into the night, but also cognizant of easily disturbed and angry parentals.  

“Lit, I took my bike down to the beach, and there are like 30 plebes out there on the fucking boardwalk.” Jongin snickered.

“I believe it dude.”

Taemin continued, not done, “I’ve already caught a horsea and a squirtle and I just got this gnarly cut on my thumb from some barbed wire.  You’re missing all the action.”

“Dude, shut up, you did Not catch a squirtle.”

“You want me to send a screenshot?” Taemin finished leveling up his jigglypuff before flipping back to the rest of his pokemon, tapping squirtle, screenshotting, and sending, smiling when he hears Jongin whine,

“Dude no fucking fair! Why is it whenever you’re out by yourself you get all the good shit?”

“It’s a gift.  Now hang up, there’s a seel nearby and it’s calling my name.”

“Okay dude, let me know when you get back so I don’t wake up wondering if you got kidnapped or arrested for trespassing.”

“Yeah, yeah, bye, love you mom.” Taemin hangs up before Jongin can respond, almost chucking his phone because the seel got away.  He blames Jongin and his shitty luck.

It’s already past 1 am, and he really has to catch something worth the gash on his thumb, so he heads out toward the pier.  He actually sort of knows the family, since he’s dogsat for them like, twice, which is why he knows about their cute little section of beach in the first place, but he’s not close enough to casually drop by in the dead of night, whether or not rare water pokemon are at stake.

He huffs, catching the fifth magicarp of the night, kicking absently at one of the many raised boards on the uneven platform of the pier when he hears some muttering, indistinguishable at first, but he definitely hears,”The things I do for pokego” in there somewhere.  The moon is pretty bright out, and the pier is empty, from what Taemin can tell, so he’s wondering if he’s hearing voices again when the boards beneath him wobble.

He grips his phone, his knuckles turning white.  Just as he accepts his fate, death-by-haunted-pier, he hears a very human whine coming from ...beneath? him.  Interest piqued, he ducks under the railings and peers underneath the platform coming nearly eye-to-eye with a floppy haired dude with a strange and slightly terrified smile on his face.

“Hey?”

“Hey..”

The dude is gripping one of the support beams underneath the pier, precariously with one leg and one arm, the other arm outstretched beneath him, holding his phone out towards the water.  Taemin has never met someone more reckless than he is, and he thinks for a moment, that he is in love.

He puts a hand over his chest to calm his aromantic heart, his head cocking to the side.  He’s sure he looks all kinds of interesting upside down, with his long blonde bangs sticking out every which way, but this is a special occasion.  Plus, he’s reminded of the scene in The Little Vampire when Rudolph and Tony first meet.  His brain helps him with a little echolalie, and he finds himself quoting,”What clan are you from, brother?”

The Dude looks unsure of himself as he responds, “Team Mystic?”

He tries to flap, but one of his arms is pinned underneath him, and the other is supporting him, so his body kind of just wiggles on the pier.

“Dude! Same!”  The Dude looks kind of terrified for a moment, and Taemin realizes belatedly that his wiggling was probably shaking the supporting beam he was holding on to.

He smiles and grimaces at the same time. “Sorry, dude.”

The Dude also kind of smile-grimaces,”Hey, can you not call me dude? I don’t really like masc vocatives for” they hesitate, “for gender reasons.”

Taemin’s arm pushes out from beneath him to flap frantically,”No-no! I- Augh, I use dude in a gender-neutral way!” He has a couple nonbinary friends, and he really doesn’t want to be that dude. “I’m sorry, um, what’s your name, what are your pronouns?”

“Jinki,” he smiles, and Taemin thinks it’s kind of the most radiant fucking thing he’s ever seen in his life. “And I go by he, she, and they pronouns.”

Taemin nods a little frantically, and it’s only then that he realizes how strangely positioned they both are, a crick in his neck starting to make him feel sore.

“Hey, I don’t want to like, seem pushy or something? But wouldn’t this be easier if we were on top of the pier?”

Jinki’s eyes snap back to his phone and they frown, tapping at the lit screen. “I found this lapras, and it keeps rejecting me.”  She sounds kind of dejected, flicking their bangs out of her eyes.

“NO FUCKING WAY?” Taemin claps a hand over his mouth because? Like?  A Lapras?

“Let me just try one more time…”

From the corner of his eye, Taemin spots light and movement, and his whole body tenses and before he knows it he’s crashing into the water.  He dives back under the surface and moves underneath the pier when the light follows him, hearing a bark when he resurfaces, and that’s definitely Kibum’s voice he hears.

“No, yeah I thought I heard something, but I think it’s just the waves.  Isn’t that right, Comme des?”

Taemin holds his breath, looking up at Jinki, who looks like he’s contemplating something before scooting forward on the support beam to stick their phone on the dock, behind the wooden railing, before dropping into the water as well, only she timed herself with the wave crashing.  Taemin shakes his head.  Jinki is really something else.

They stay quiet, moving toward the shallow water, listening to Kibum walk around on the pier and talk on the phone.  Taemin realizes belatedly that his phone is probably completely waterlogged, and resists the urge to smack his own face.  

“Yeah, mom has been really awful lately.  I wish you were here, halmeoni.”  Kibum pauses, laughing.  Taemin doesn’t remember ever hearing Kibum sound so soft and tender, he knows he’s been through a lot, but normally there’s a barrier he feels is absent.  He suddenly wishes he was closer to Kibum, thinking of him as an acquaintance from church who comes from a rich family seems like a pretty ill-fitting description at this point, regardless of the truths that exist in the statement.

“No, the kids haven’t been giving me trouble at school, I’m fine,” Kibum sighs, his voice carrying loudly over the quiet balmy night.  He settles down by the post that Jinki left his phone behind and Taemin looks over, wide-eyed as Jinki mouths ‘fuck’.  Luckily Kibum doesn’t seem to have noticed, patting and mumbling a quiet ‘cmere’ to Comme des.  He drops a pebble into the ocean, which startles Taemin.  Jinki grips him by the elbows, startled by his startle reaction, before sheepishly letting go, nervously tucking their bangs behind their ear, mouthing ‘sorry’.  Taemin thinks Jinki is beautiful.

“It’s been a long time since then anyway, halmeoni.”  Taemin pulls at his lip, sighing softly as he realizes that he’s risked getting caught trespassing, is currently completely soaked, foot caught in a mess of seaweed, thumb probably infected at this point, with a dead phone at fuckall o’clock in the morning because he decided that rare pokemon was worth it.  He flips off the underside of the dock, and Jinki silently snickers, thinking it’s directed at Kibum.

He shakes his head, mouthing ‘Pokemon go’.  Jinki nods sagely.

Kibum sits up then, sounding a little frustrated. “I don’t really want to talk about him, halmeoni.”  He’s making his way off the pier, the light coming back on.  “It’s late, have a good dinner.”  Taemin frowns, chewing on a knuckle.  There’s that barrier again, he thinks.  But then Kibum disappears back into the house, and they can breathe again.

Climbing onto the beach, obscured from the house by the pier, Taemin shakes out his hair and waterlogged clothing, sadly picking his phone out of his pocket.  Jinki pats his arm in a strange but comforting gesture before sitting down, Taemin following after.

“How’d you end up under there anyway?”

Jinki laughs.  “I was having some really good luck tonight on the connected public beach area, and I saw the fence.  You know how it is.”

Taemin shakes his head up at the sky.  “Fucking Pokemon Go.”

Jinki laughs again, and Taemin’s toes curl in his soggy skate shoes, and he looks down at the sand.  Jinki has a really pretty laugh.  He gets nudged in the side, and he looks up, seeing something glittery and mischievous in Jinki’s eyes.  “Hey, at least we met, and you have a pretty wild ass story to tell.”

Taemin finds himself smiling. “True..” he frowns, “Still, that lapras got away..” At this, Jinki’s eyes light up, sticking a finger out and peeking over the pier before running over to the post where he left his phone.  Taemin doesn’t know why they think he has anywhere to go, but he stays put obediently.  He can see her wiggle before they come back over, and he’s laughing because they are doing the Irish Dancing Jig as they make their way back.

He shows Taemin the screen and while he should have guessed from the wiggling and the dancing, he still can’t believe that Jinki actually caught the fucking lapras.  It’s at hella CP and glowing.  The lapras is fucking glowing and beautiful.  He’s holding the phone with both hands, squinting at it, before looking up at Jinki, solemnly gesturing for him to come closer.

Jinki bends down, face nearly level with Taemin’s.  Taemin reaches out, holding their face in his hands, thumbs smoothing over the planes of their cheeks before just as solemnly whispering, “you are magic.”

She signs laughing at him, the amusement clear in her eyes.  Off screen, where Kibum has moved so Jonghyun would be visible, he bites Jonghyun’s ankle, poking his tongue out when his boyfriend turns to look at him, the ball of his tongue ring clicking against his teeth as he pushes himself off Jonghyun’s leg to go grab something, probably to give him some one on one time with his mom (Jonghyun adores Kibum’s mother).  

Jonghyun scrunches his nose at him, fingers coming up to push back his bangs, Kibum’s mother cheekily signing at him, “You’re pretty, too.”  Jonghyun just flaps his hands at the screen, hiding his face in the collar of his turtleneck.  

He peeks out from his sweater shell to sign, “Not as pretty as you, mom.”  Most of his sign language is “flirty language” that Kibum has taught him, but even though his vocabulary is a little limited, he doesn’t think he would be responding much differently.  

Kibum crawls back onto the bed, one of his larger prints in his hands as he walks on his knees into the frame.  His mother immediately takes interest, rapid fire signing, probably something like praise, or an insightful analysis that Jonghyun wouldn’t really be able to follow even if he was fluent.  Art is great, but he went to school for music theory.  He doesn’t speak fine art, not like Kibum and his mother do.  He’s getting a little zoney again, fixating on the mole behind his boyfriend’s ear, unconscious of the little pout on his lips.  

Kibum gently knocks his shoulder with his own after a while, squeezing at his side.  “Mom wants to know if you can come up with mood music for the exhibition next month, it’s a paid gig.” Kibum has one of those smiles on his face, like he has a wild secret he’s keeping from Jonghyun, but really it is just Kibum being handsome and smirky and his cheek dimpling and his face being cute.  

Instead of being irritated at how beautiful Kibum is, he turns to his boyfriend’s mother, chewing his thumb before signing “okay,” bringing his right hand up to catch the “k” sign.  

Kibum’s mother signs for kisses, and Jonghyun recognizes the signs for old and sleep, hastily signing back, “not old!” before signing his goodbyes as well.  Kibum snaps his laptop shut as the ended call bloop sounds, leaning over Jonghyun to set it on the nightstand, a victim of Kibum’s rainbow vomit phase, when he would invite Jonghyun over to play darts with paint filled balloons.

It was probably one of their very first dates, now that he’s thinking about it.  Kibum’s cheek is propped up on his wrist, elbow by Jonghyun’s ear, leg thrown over Jonghyun’s, eyes a little sleepy but fixed on his boyfriend’s in that disarmingly honest way of his.

“Jjong.” His voice comes out rough and deep, and Jonghyun doesn’t know if that’s why his stomach clenches, or if it’s because Kibum’s fingers have found their way underneath his sweater to brush against the soft of his tum, moving to splay against his hip, thumb circling the little star shaped hip anchors Kibum switched his jewelry to earlier that afternoon.  

Jonghyun reaches up to mouth at one of Kibum’s snakebites, his “Yeah?” melting into a little groan against Kibum’s mouth when his fingers find Jonghyun’s breasts, the backs of his knuckles trailing back and forth, teasing.  

“Did you know,” Kibum says, a wickedly charming little smile tugging at the corner of his lips, “that I like you a lot?”  Jonghyun reaches up to headbutt his cheek, a petulant frown trying to hide his smile.  

He tries to glare. “Yes I did, you big nerd.”  

He has so many feelings for Kibum, feelings that he’s never had words for, and like doesn’t quite fit, and neither does love, and it is so frustrating because it is those things but also other nameless things, so usually he just insults Kibum because he knows he will understand.  The look in his eyes reflects the same sentiment, and Jonghyun gets a little lost in them, thinking about how terrifyingly easy they fit together, even though words can be hard, and understanding your wordless feelings can be harder.  

Kibum chooses that moment to kiss him, and he can feel his smile on his mouth, lips parting to slide his tongue against Kibum’s chiclet teeth.  He sighs into his mouth, relishing how perfectly lazy and sweet the kiss is.  Kibum’s free hand, stroking along his side, stops at his hip, thumb catching at his boyshorts, grunting against Jonghyun’s lips before pulling away slightly, nose hovering just above Jonghyun’s own.  He quirks his lips to the side, dimple peeking as his eyes cast down before flicking back up to meet Jonghyun’s.  

“Can I eat you out?”  His voice is an awful mix between soft and rough and and his eyes are a sleepy kind of determined and it makes Jonghyun feel like his insides are erupting in flowers.  He slides his nose against Kibum’s, pressing his smile to the ribbon of Kibum’s top lip.  

“What kind of queen would I be if I let my subjects go hungry?” Kibum huffs a laugh against his lips, almost a snort (Kibum doesn’t snort, he scoffs, or something) tongue flicking against his teeth, his jewelry clicking when he runs it over the points of Jonghyun’s eyeteeth.