sneak peek ― kim sunoo is all smiles and energetic happiness, he's made of broken edges, oh-so-carefully smoothened with sandpaper, so as not to hurt his beloved jungwon to any extent.
contents ― fluff, mild angst, tw for child labor and child abuse.
track ― none
word count ― 1582
note ― for a writing event by decelis_acvdemy. meant to be read as a platonic ship. title from yoru ni kakeru (eng ver) by yoasobi. inspired by life, lungs and love by luvx1 on ao3.

When Yang Jungwon says that there's a certain magic about Kim Sunoo, he means it. I don't think I've ever met anyone like you, he'd once said in the lull of fast-approaching sleep, and I don't think there's anyone quite like you out there.

The words' validity are further credited when you think about that most things said on the verge of sleep are one's actual thoughts—and Jungwon won't ever lie to Sunoo, to begin with. When you're as close as Jungwon and Sunoo, it's kind of impossible to lie, not when you know all of each other's tells and little giveaways. Lying isn't appealing.

My guardian angel, Jungwon refers to Sunoo fondly. It's one of the few endearments that don't sound artificial or out-of-place in their life.

Jungwon and Sunoo both come from families that were once well-off, until they weren't anymore. Bankruptcy, debts, underhanded work from jealous rivals, the whole lot. They were far too young to actually remember any of it, so it's safe to say that they don't have a very good idea of just how nice it is to live in luxury, because they've never experienced it. Comfort equals luxury; some warmth to sleep at night; something to fill a stomach.

That's luxury. That's Sunoo—Sunoo, who holds Jungwon's hands when he's cold, does impossibly stupid things like steal food from the kitchen of the hotel they work at when Jungwon's too hungry to do much more than sit up straight, bribes the other boys who have been roped into working against child labor laws, from broken families like theirs, to cover his and Jungwon's working shifts so that Jungwon can go outside and play in the first snow before the cars and people can dirty it all (and fix a hot chocolate for him, expertly hiding it from anyone else, before he's done).

Jungwon can't imagine falling asleep at night without Sunoo, his best friend. Sunoo lets him cuddle when he has a nightmare, or even just because. Sunoo reads any stories he can, in the newspaper, the discarded books he can find, to relay them to Jungwon, who was never taught to read. They're functional as bedtime stories and a distraction from a bad day and/or time (or the wishes that they had actually alive parents to be there).

They met in the back alleys of the hotel. Jungwon started out by just hauling their trash from the back doorstep to the correct place for a couple of coins, and then a job doing basic housework like sweeping for a place to sleep at night, the back rooms. Eventually, it became him doing whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, in exchange for that same place to sleep at night and a meal to eat every day—or else, it'd be back onto the streets, and the underhanded things they do for them exposed to the police. Solid deals.

Jungwon's daily jobs still included taking out the trash, he'd thought that time. What he didn't know until then was that Sunoo, the new addition to their 'staff,' would have the job on his hands, leaving Jungwon to do other things. Which weren't much better than this, to be honest.

"What're you doing?" Jungwon had asked when he found a strange boy tugging a larger-than-his-size trashcan towards the corner dumpster.

"Taking out the trash," Sunoo had said, "like I'm supposed to."

"I'm supposed to do it, though," Jungwon frowned, "I've done it since last month."

"Oh, you're the one they said used to do this," Sunoo realized. He wiped his hands very thoroughly (but somewhat ineffectively) down against his trousers, and held out a hand to Jungwon, beaming. "My name's Kim Sunoo! This is my job now, until someone else has to, I guess. Let's work together!"

Bright, fox eyes paired with a smiling, sunshine-bright pink-lipped grin. Who was young Jungwon, with no allies, no friends, no nothing, to say no, to such a kind, enthusiastic and even welcoming offer? No one, he was no one to say no.

So, he accepted. Together, the two boys dragged the trashcan to the corner dumpster—both delighted that it took less time than it took Jungwon usually. "Teamwork," Sunoo had said, eyes sparkling, taking Jungwon by the wrist and dragging him along in a sprint to the other end of the alleyway. "Now come look at a kitten I found!"

Jungwon had been hesitant, but they still had at least ten minutes left before being due to show up anywhere, so he relented. At the other end of the alleyway, a dead-end one, was a little white kitten with orangish-brown patches on its body. The two of them had never seen such a friendly, affectionate kitten, and were completely enamored.

"It likes you better than me!" Sunoo noted delightedly. Jungwon giggled, watching little baby kitten wind its way around his legs, tail waving in the air. He reached down to pet it between its ears. "Aww, you two are so cute!"

So enamored, in fact, that they lost track of time, and were reprimanded more severely than any ten-year-old should have, beaten and humiliated. But that was okay, Jungwon had made a great new friend, and things looked better than before.

He can be cool and reserved around people he doesn't like, but he's always kind and generous. He protects without thinking of himself. Weakness is hardly ever a thing Jungwon sees on him. Some days, he resents that. Other days, when he's tired and falling apart at the seams, he's grateful for it. Yang Jungwon is a flickering flame in the wind, and Kim Sunoo's hands cup around him protectively, sheltered from the world.

Jungwon is there one day, when Sunoo instinctively decides to dye his hair a bright and vivid orange. He has to convince Sunoo that the boss and customers wouldn't like it—"they'd call you an eyesore, and it makes it harder to blend in," he points out very gently but straight-to-the-point. Because with them, Sunoo does the protecting and Jungwon handles the logistics of everything they do in between.

So, he settles for a platinum blonde, and Jungwon chooses to highlight his midnight locks with a chocolate brown. The dye they buy from a convenience store costs almost half the funds they've been saving for the past three years, since they first understood the concept of saving, and the cleanup of the mess they inadvertently managed to make takes almost an hour, but the end result is actually cool. Jungwon's black towel doesn't go through any color changes, but when Sunoo washes and dries his hair, his own, that's in shades of white of yellow, just becomes a towel with bright yellow designs and milder yellow fill-ins. They laugh about that for a long time.

Sunoo sends Jungwon off to bed while he tries to get the color out of his towel and he goes off to the laundromat because their daywear is completely soaked through because of the water-fight they'd had. Sunoo isn't embarrassed about wearing a Spider-Man shirt and similarly themed pants in public. "It's what we have, so why not?" he always says.

He comes back approximately three hours later with a clean towel, and fresh clothes, just in time for the nightly roll-call. He slips into bed (the thin mattress that barely has any cushioning) beside Jungwon and feigns sleep, just like all the other wide-awake ones surrounding them. The man who counts heads leaves after a minute, and the room all at once erupts into a low hum of chatter. Jungwon and Sunoo sit up against the wall.

"There was a nice lady," Sunoo tells Jungwon, fingering a lock of his new blonde hair—how well that'll go over with the boss, Jungwon doesn't know, but he knows that even if anything happens, they'll have to accept it. Sunoo's already popular with the girls who frequent the hotel's restaurant; he even has a crush on one of them (which Jungwon is sure to tease him for mercilessly, of course; it's adorable). "She let me use some of her detergent when she saw my towel. It's super-strong, or something like that. It worked."

"She didn't ask any questions?" Jungwon asks, though he already anticipates the shake of Sunoo's head. They're seventeen and eighteen, now. It's not so strange for teenaged boys to be at the laundromat. Not like it was when they were thirteen and all alone in a crowd of older teens and moms and dads and grandmas. "Will the boss be mad?"

"I'll protect you if he does," Sunoo says simply. "I always do."

"But who'll protect you?" Jungwon persists. "What about you?"

"We protect each other, Jungwonie," Sunoo says, tapping his nose. It's a sweet action, and it makes him smile, knowing that everything will be okay if he just believes that it will be. "Isn't that how the two of us have always operated?"

"You always save me," Jungwon corrects, "and I just do damage control when I'm not terrified and shaking."

"Regardless."

"Always the guardian angel," he teases, leaning into Sunoo's side. He doesn't mean it a sarcastic way, even if it's teasing. Because that's what Sunoo is. His guardian angel, until the end of the world, till the end of time. Forever and always.

pocketz <3

I apologize for nothing.