Taemin

Everything is on fire.

People are screaming, running, looting.

He watches what little he can from his safe perch within the upper branches of the cherry blossom tree, clutching his notebook to his chest. He should probably be trying to find a way out of the castle before the fires spread to the gardens, but he will have to brave what must be an angry mob to get to the exit. His chances of getting out unscathed seem slim.

Chances of him getting out with his notebook and pencils intact are non-existent.

He’s better off up here.

Suddenly, something grabs his leg and pulls.

Taemin tumbles out of the tree; it is only instinct that makes his fingers tighten around the notebook so that he doesn’t get separated from it. He lands on the ground hard and curls into a ball, again on instinct, but it makes whoever pulled him down think that he’s trying to hide something.

“Give it up,” the man’s gruff voice demands.

In the back of Taemin’s mind, he knows he should probably get up and explain to the man that he has very little money and nothing else of worth. But he does have something valuable, extremely so; his drawings.

So Taemin curls into a tighter ball, wrapping his entire body protectively around his notebook. When his hands fail to uncurl Taemin, the man starts kicking him, yelling profanities. Taemin doesn’t hear most of them; the pain is blinding, and what little consciousness he has left is focused on keeping his treasure safe.

The kicking stops.

Hands again, and Taemin readies himself to stand up and run, but then he hears a familiar voice.

“Taemin, hey, can you hear me?”

The last time he’d heard it, there had been more bite, more life in it, but it’s unmistakable nevertheless.

Taemin rolls over to see Kibum crouched over him. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Taemin answers. He’s safe and his drawings are safe, what’s a few aches and pains in comparison to that?

“Come on, we need to get out of here.”

“What happened?”

A shadow passes over Kibum’s face, and he looks like he’s aged ten years. “Let’s just focus on getting out for now.”

It occurs to Taemin then that if Kibum could have gotten out earlier if he wanted to, without passing through the gardens. Kibum came back for him.

“The exits are a mess,” Kibum is saying. “I’ll give you a boost over the walls, and you’re scrawny as , but if you can give me a hand up-”

“The banyan tree.”

He drew it earlier. The tallest tree in the garden, the only one to grow taller than the castle’s walls.

“If we climb the banyan tree, we can climb over the walls and get out.”

“Good thinking.” The praise makes Taemin’s heart skip a beat, and he sticks close to Kibum’s side. Something about the commander, his aura perhaps, makes the mad crowd part before him. And Taemin’s lucky enough to be caught in the wake of this maginificent, crowd-parting aura just because he offered the man a kiss earlier.

And Taemin can’t believe just how far his luck extends when they climb over the walls easy-peasy. No one stops them. No one sees them. No one cares.

Outside of the walls, Taemin’s rescuer looks smaller. Lost.

“Where do we go now?” Taemin asks him, and Kibum shrugs.

“You know better than me,” he answers.

So Taemin takes him home. Kibum follows, quietly. There are many times Taemin expects him to say something; when they leave the city centre, when they reach Taemin’s village, when they get to his house, but Kibum stays silent through it all.

Taemin isn’t stupid. He had observed the way Kibum stood steadfast at Prince Minho’s side upon the dais; the only reason Kibum is with him now and not with the Prince is that the Prince is dead. If the Prince were alive, Kibum wouldn’t have spared Taemin a single thought.

Yet, despite knowing this, as soon as they’re both in the house and the door is safely locked behind them, Taemin pushes Kibum against the wall and presses desperate kisses against his soot-stained lips.

It takes only a heartbeat for Kibum to respond, for him to reverse their positions and pin Taemin to the wall. They right there; Taemin’s back is already sore from the kicking he received earlier, but he can’t bring himself to care, not when Kibum is pressing into all of the right places inside him.

When Taemin wakes up, it is with the warmth of another human being pressed against his side.

It takes him a beat to remember Kibum.

And last night.

And drawings and cherry blossoms and fire.

As he loses himself in thought, Kibum stirs.

Will he talk today, Taemin wonders. Or will he be quietly sad like he was yesterday night? Taemin doesn’t mind, either way.

“Hey, pretty,” Kibum says, voice gruff with sleep.

“Hey,” Taemin responds, suddenly unsure of himself. What is one supposed to say to a former commander of a violently overthrown monarchy?

Kibum throws an arm around him and pulls him closer; Taemin bites back a sound of pain when the man’s hand comes into contact with bruised skin. Kibum’s brows furrow.

“Could have been worse,” Taemin says then. “Probably would have been worse, if you didn’t come along when you did.”

“You were protecting your notebook.”

“My drawings.”

Kibum snickers. Taemin bristles at that, disappointed, but then Kibum says “You know, I wanted to ask you for that drawing of me that you had in there. That’s why I was giving you such a hard time. But you offered me a kiss.”

“I can paint you now if you want.” The words are out of Taemin’s mouth before they even register in his mind. He’s not satisfied with one half-finished sketch of Kibum; the quirk of his lips and the sharp edges of his face are calling out to him, asking him to capture them in paint.

“Sure,” Kibum agrees.

So Taemin takes him up to the attic, lets him see the canvasses littering the small, sun-lit room. Lets him see the flowers and koi and people he’s captured with of his brush, each a fleeting memory distilled into something immortal.

Kibum stops in front of one of his older pieces; of a boat at sea. Taemin had drawn that on holiday, a long time ago. A lifetime ago.

“I’ve never seen the ocean before,” Kibum says. “Is it really as beautiful as you painted it?”

“A thousand times more,” Taemin replies, thinking of stormy green waves and white-whipped foam; of crystal blue depths glittering under the sun. “We’ll go there, if you want. But I'll need compensation.

"Taemin, I... I don't know if... after what happened yesterday, I’m not even sure I can leave the country... if I can pay you, I will, but I… I might not be able to." 

He looks so flustered that Taemin almost feels bad for his little joke. Almost.

Instead, he leans in and taps his lips. "You can pay me in kisses. As many as I want, between here and the sea."

Kibum smiles. "I think that can be arranged." 

XXXXXX

hey everyone! 

well, that's it for this fic. 

please leave a comment and tell me what you thought of it. it's not a style i've tried before, and some feedback would be nice.