Say you love me, please (Yeonbin fic)

<Chapter Twenty Three: Nyctophile >

In the middle school days, sports days were always viewed as a joyful event, an event filled with cheers of gleeful parents upon watching their kids perform minimum little things such as running or jumping or just boring movements of aerobics. And almost every kid would be gleaming in energy as they willed themselves to make their parents proud. The whole event would mostly be filled with cheers and glistening smiles of families as they engaged in their own wonderful moments.

But yeonjun was never one of them. Never had been the one to experience those.

Eleven years old yeonjun sat on an empty spot of the bleachers, away from the crowd, eyes widened but mainly lost. His homeroom teacher was kind enough to get him a warm hotdog when she noticed he wasn't packed anything from home.

Clumsily chewing on his meal with his puffed up cheeks, red from the summer heat, he batted his long lashes as he longingly scans for his dad in the far corners of the crowd. There were no signs of him though.

He could vividly remember the sensation of being surrounded by the sounds of whispers, shouts of joy, cries of the names of other kids as he was alone, blurred into the background.

The prickly feeling that ran over his spines when he realized his name wasn't in the midst of the murmurs and the burn in his chest when he had no one to show the little metal piece he earned as a first place winner in a contest, the sentiments from the experience were enough to keep him from attending more sport events.

Thus, that was his only memory of attending a middle school event.

Yeonjun wonders, he wondered a lot about the actions between parents and kids. The actions he could never relate yet feels icky whenever he watched his classmates running into the arms of their parents, talking with them so animatedly and how they interacted with each other so effortlessly. He found them even fascinating at times.

One time, a kind classmate of his, had invited him for a dinner and little yeonjun has been quite excited about that. It was his first time going over to someone's house after all. When he arrived there, things were not what he had expected.

He had thought that his classmate would bring him to his bedroom with plates in their hands, to be eating while watching a movie together, just like he always does in his home. But no, instead he was forced to sit at a dinning table with a bunch of strangers, the family of his classmate.

The lady dressed in a silk dress has kindly filled his plate with quite the amount of food while the boy was feeling overwhelmed with all the endless side dishes placed on the vintage looking table. He normally only have at most, two side dishes with every meal at home, clearly his father doesn't cook much.

The next thing he learned was that the family members loved to talk. Quite a lot of conversations about random topics were flying around the table while yeonjun wordlessly decked his head down and mumbled on his food. He wasn't used to the noisy atmosphere anymore, not since his mom was gone.

The adults did try to converse with him but yeonjun, he was acting too awkward, he didn't like the feeling of intense gazes on him, gazes of judgment, piteous stares, mayhap of sympathy that made him seemed pathetic.

Yeonjun loathed it.

He is not pathetic.

To be pathetic is to be weak. And he's not.

He doesn't have a mom, so what? He doesn't have much money, so what? He doesn't have anyone to fetch him after school, so what? These facts doesn't give any rights to anyone to view him as they desire.

Poor kid, he must have been starving, look at his thin figure, his skin dirtied with scars, he must miss his mom, pitiful young soul, so unfortunate.

After that dinner, yeonjun was hoping to finally play with his classmate but to his disappointment, the other boy proceeded on playing with his dog, chattering loudly and absolute nonsense with his family members.

Yeonjun was itching with irritation as he frowned at the way they all treated the golden retriever like their own child. The way they fondly caressed him, the way they happily talked the dog in an endearing way and the way they acted as though the pet is a freaking human.

What's so special about the dog and why is it so loved ? He didn't understand.

Sure, dogs, cats, pets are cute but that's all about them to yeonjun. He's okay with them but he's not overly interested in their existence and so pet lovers are just another breed of humans he could never relate. The young yeonjun had rolled his eyes at the sight, too annoyed, before he excused himself out of the suffocating place, a place he would never belong to. After that, the boy never goes over to anyone's house again.

Binnie<3:

Hey have you arrived safely??

Yeah, i am going to help my mom now.

TTYL

Okay, take care <3

Hey have you eaten?

Good night ^^

Good Morning binnie!

Binne??

That was the last conversation from four days ago.

That one morning, soobin had abruptly hurried to Busan, when he got the news from his dad that his mom was sick. He didn't offer Yeonjun to come along with him though and yeonjun did not manage to have a say to it, he believed he had no choice anyhow.

The older boy tried phoning him another day and soobin did pick up the call but their conversation was cut short since the younger said he's quite busy running errands for his mom. However, since then, soobin had made no attempt to ring his phone nor even spared a moment to send messages. And yeonjun also gave up on contacting.

It's not like he's not used to soobin's ignorance. The taller boy had always been the one in control of their relationship after all. Yeonjun could only talk when the other wanted and it's also no use to make efforts when the other boy was too stubborn on neglecting him. It was always his wants, his needs and yeonjun, let himself be bent the way soobin wanted.

He loves him afterall.

Yeonjun lets his body go slack as he laid in the wide bath tub, cold water fanning up to his chin. He was scrolling through his instagram mindlessly when he saw the notification from soobin's my day. He wasted no time and clicked on it almost immediately.

"Home cooked meal by mom" reads the caption and it was placed boldly on the mouth-watering photo of some spicy looking soup.

Good for him, yeonjun thought as he set his phone onto the shelf beside the bathtub. The water is now tinted in pink, probably from the cuts he got from his klutzy shaving earlier. He breathed out, deep and slow. Eyes half lidded as drowsy feeling heaved in his head, maybe a little bit intoxicated from the anti-depressants overflowing in his veins.

The boy then let out small giggles as he deliberately ran his pale fingers onto the sliced areas painted over his thighs. It stung a bit but it's not that bad. The sensation feels electrifying yet his mind felt giddy and light at the tingles that spread down through his nerves. A peculiar feeling that he couldn't put words on it.

But it does help him keep his mind away from his lover, for once.