Lowlife: A JongKey Fic

1. - An Encounter Late At Night

Kibum never wanted this. He wanted to live a normal life. He wanted to meet somebody nice, settle down, have a nice job doing something he liked, and live with normal people. He didn't want to be speeding down a city road in the middle of the night, a car trunk full of stolen cash, screaming at his partner to floor it, with the police on their tail, yet here he was.

Kibum never wanted this. Not until he met Kim Jonghyun, that is.

Kibum first met Jonghyun in his freshman year of college. He was a year above him, and most people were terrified of him. He was known as the most dangerous person at the college, at least that was the aura he exuded. Always in a leather jacket, ripped jeans and had hair like he had just rolled out of bed. He was rude to everyone around him, and used a variety of, shall we say, colorful language. There were even rumors spread around that he killed the one student who shit-talked him to his face, who mysterious disappeared the next day, but he never confirmed nor denied that one.Some friends of his friends told people it was because he just got a better opportunity somewhere else, and wanted to get his tow cents in when there was no chance of retaliation, but people almost wanted to believe that Jonghyun had at least scared the kid into leaving after-hours.

As much as he didn't want to, Kibum fell in love instantly.

He hated everything about him. His rude attitude towards everyone, including professors, his repetitive style, his obvious anger issues, and that wasn't even the beginning of reasons to NOT love Kim Jonghyun. Yet, as if his heart felt like playing a cruel trick on his brain, he felt himself staring at the male whenever he walked by, looking his defined jawline, his dark eyes, watching him like a Fangirl would watch her idol walk by.

And the worst part? He couldn't make it stop.

A couple weeks of hopelessly trying to repress his infatuation later, his friend Minho called him up, telling him there was a party at one of the richer kid's houses, and Kibum should go. After some coercion, Kibum decided that he could get his homework done the night before, pulling an all-nighter, and go to the party with Minho, mostly out of fear his friend would get himself into trouble in some way or another. He did tend to get a tiny bit too flirty with about everyone when he drank too much.

About 5 minutes away from their destination, Kibum regretted his decision. The pulsing bass could be heard a mile away in the way-too-fancy-for-average-kid-with-good-grades Kibum neighborhood, and as soon as they opened the door to the party, the oh-so-pleasant stench of alcohol, sweat, cigarettes, and hormones was so incredibly pungent he almost vomited right then and there. But he forced himself to follow Minho in reluctantly.

As he panned around the room, he saw an innumerable amount of people. Some of them he knew, but not many. He had met Jinki once, and knew that he was much too awkward to get this many people to attend his party.

"Um, how did a person as awkward as Jinki manage to find this many people to go to his party?" Key asked, holding onto Minho and following him around like a lost puppy as he twisted through the mass of people.

"He just makes friends with a few moderately popular people, they invite their friends, those friends invite their friends, and so on. Jinki probably knows like, 10 people here." Minho said, practically having to scream over the beat of the music.

Kibum thought that was kind of obvious and mentally slapped himself for not realizing that simple solution. Minho lead him over to the bar and ordered a cheap beer before wandering over to the dance floor, beer still in hand and clearly visible over all the people because of his imposing height. Kibum took his time before settling on a nice, not-too-intoxicating sounding cocktail that he sipped at while scrolling through his phone and occasionally looking over to make sure he could still see Minho.

He didn't really take note of the guy sitting at the bar next to him, only noting that he was wearing a well-worn leather jacket and that he was smoking while drinking, which was a fire hazard waiting to happen.

But the male seemed to be scooting - or slumping, he couldn't really tell - closer to him, to the point he was practically on Kibum's lap. So naturally Kibum needed to ask him to keep his body to himself.

Shoving the guy off of him, "Sorry, but could you mayyyyybe not lay down on me? There's this thing called a personal bubble, please respect mine," sighing slightly as he pushed the stranger back into his chair. But he froze post-shove as he realized that he had just pushed the most dangerous guy at college and his unwitting crush Kim Jonghyun off of him.

Surprisingly, Jonghyun didn't retaliate, instead picked himself up like he had just been napping that entire time, and actually apologized. "Hey, I'm sorry about that, I was kind of falling asleep," He looked Kibum up and down. "But now I'm wide awake." Kibum shouldn't have liked the way he said that. But he found himself practically fanboying internally. "Let me buy you a drink to make up for that." Jonghyun said coolly, ordering another cocktail for Kibum despite there being a half-finished one on the bar in front of him. Kibum noted how much more chilled out Jonghyun was when he was presumably drunk. Feeling the blush creep up his face, he stuttered out, "um...I wasn't even finished with my first one." Oh god. He sounded so awkward and squeaky. While praying someone would come up behind him and shoot him in the head, Jonghyun raised an eyebrow, "Well I guess you're gonna have to spend a little more time at the bar, sweetheart," came his smooth reply.

'Fuck.' Kibum thought to himself, his face redder than the bloody Mary of the girl next to him.