augmenti | u-kiss; matching socks.

matching socks.
kevin brings chaos into kiseop's orderly life and doesn't clean up after himself.
→915 w.kiseop/kevin, soohyun/kiseop.

kiseop loves lists and carefully organized sock drawers. he's always been all about an orderly life. but meeting kevin changed him for what some people could say the "better". kevin is the one that makes him come out of his turtle shell and open his eyes to the world of disorder and surprise with just a smile and a cheery laugh.

but kevin's gone now and so kiseop is left all alone, drifting down alleyways and looking for disorderly lives. he slips into bars just to compare smiles and carefree laughs. but no one is kevin. kevin's gone to the united states, and kiseop is here, looking at snow reflecting light as bright as a smile.

it's in these sorts of places, when his breath is ghosting in the air, that he thinks he might finally find someone, someone maybe not just like kevin, but someone who will give him something that he's missing, because he so misses his life, so misses everything that he no longer knows.

it's here that one day, he meets a boy named soohyun, except he's not really a boy, more of a man, with a strong chin and a sharp smile and hair that's brown and styled oh so nicely. soohyun has this way of making kiseop feel like everything's going to be okay. he's manly and nice and has this oh so friendly laugh that kiseop can't help but like.

and at night, when kiseop's trying to sleep and pressing his mouth against soohyun's neck to breath in the coconut shampoo and tinge of sweat, he's not thinking of kevin. he's most definitely not thinking of kevin because kevin smelled like vanilla some days and orange cream most days.

(soohyun also dances in his sleep, his elbows sinking deep into kiseop's ribs, where kevin would lie straight as a board. it's only when his ribs ache in the morning and bags are heavy around his eyes that he misses kevin, because he always had a full nights sleep when kevin was around. )

kiseop tells himself that he's not in this relationship (could it be called that?) with soohyun because he doesn't have kevin. he tells himself that he loves soohyun more than he could ever have loved kevin, because soohyun is thoughtful and quiet where kevin was loud and obnoxious. soohyun is strong where kevin was weak. soohyun has warm large hands where kevin's were cold small, and delicate. kiseop needs a man who'll protect him, that's all. and soohyun loves him. soohyun smells like mint and caramel when they kiss, he smells like coconut at night. there's no one better, not even kevin.

but for all that soohyun returns an orderly life (bed before midnight, breakfast before nine, books on the bookshelf and dinner on the table by six), he can't remember what day it is and his socks never match. he forgets to brush his hair or put on a coat in winter or put on shorts in summer. he's falling apart on the inside and he never had this problem before. some nights he wakes up with blurry eyes and wet cheeks and soohyun cooing in his ear and stroking his cheek, holding him close.

"kevin," he chokes out, and that's the moment he realizes that he hasn't gotten over kevin at all.

soohyun leaves for work early the next morning and kiseop wakes up to messy sheets at half passed eleven with his stomach growling furiously. he heats up some leftovers from dinner the night before and amuses himself by looking through the pictures on his camera. he's taken a lot of soohyun, all sorts and he tells himself its to remember him by, but really he's afraid he'll lose that smile completely if they break up.

(it's when he stumbles across an old picture of kevin that he never deletes that he realizes, he's not afraid of breaking up with soohyun, he's afraid of being left to his own devices. )

it's not long after that kiseop finds soohyun getting colder and colder everyday. it's when soohyun finally turns around with his back facing kiseop and his front facing the wall that he realizes that maybe, he made a mistake getting bewitched by warm boys with smiles that reflected the light like snow.

"i think we need some time apart," kiseop says one day, his hands hiding in his jacket pockets because they're cold, oh so cold. "i need to get my life in order for a while."

soohyun nods, because he's always been the understanding type. "how long do you think it'll be?" he asks, like the wonderful person that he is.

"i don't know," he admits, with unwanted sobs building up in his throat and is this what he wants, really?

"i'll wait for you," soohyun says, giving a hopeful little smile that breaks kiseop's heart.

"no," it hurts to say it. "i've been waiting years for someone and it's just not worth it because he's never coming back." he gives soohyun a ghost of a kiss against his cheek. "i love you, and you can't go through that too."

leaving is a somber affair, because soohyun is crying and broken but kiseop needs to be selfish, he needs it like burning because he's wearing the wrong socks today as usual. he needs to go find his ordered sock drawer, he needs to go back into his turtle shell and find his ordered lists again, because then maybe he'll be complete again.

u-kiss; matching socks.

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