His touch was sinful as Jonghyun moaned, the only sound other than his absolute ecstasy the friction of skin on skin and the creaking of the old bedframe. He leant in to kiss Jonghyun, and their lips touched hastily, torn apart like the lives they'd built around them.
“Ta-Tae...” Jonghyun could barely finish his name, mind blinded by the lust he felt, the desire that coursed through him like-
Taemin awoke sharply.
He blinked, the last remnants of his dream drifting from his mind as he clutched for them desperately, trying to feel Jonghyun’s presence again, even if just in a memory.
He was cold. His back was stiff. His head hurt.
Taemin glanced around, confused. He heard voices but couldn’t source them as his vision cleared. The room held the scent of coffee, and as he squinted, he propped himself up. He was on a sofa. A threadbare red sofa. Various charts and paintings covered the unordered wall in front of him. His nostrils flared as he creaked his neck, confused, mind trying to figure out where the hell he was.
Then he remembered.
“What the hell do you mean?” A female voice materialised as Taemin froze, unknowing where to put himself or what to do. He wasn’t restrained, in fact he felt as if intruding in his own home, yet his head ached and his heart throbbed viciously.
“I don’t need him, we don’t need him, why did you bring him here? He'll just be another nuisance.” A male voice responded sharply.
Taemin didn't dare move.
“You told us all to bring you a member of SHINee, you said it didn’t matter which one. Publicity, you said, you just needed one of them. I was as surprised to see him as you are, but I brought him, and he's a member of the group, so don’t give me over this.”
“Eunjin, I'm not giving you , but he is not what I meant. Who's going to give a about him? He's been missing for months, him going missing now won't change any of the headlines.”
Taemin dug his nails into his palms.
“Well, we can't let him go now, so what do you suggest I do? Kill him?!”
“Don't be stupid. We'll just... We'll use him too. We can't let him go now. Just work on getting one of the others. How the hell have they gotten past us for so long?”
Taemin peered around, noticing there was a wall and a door between him and the obvious perpetrators. He assumed the door to be locked, but their voices were clear. Jonghyun must have been safe though, they didn’t have him yet. A slight relief washed over Taemin.
“So now what? Are we going to do the same thing we did to Jinki?” A third voice had joined the fray.
“Isn't that too much for some money?” argued the woman, Eunjin.
“It's too much for anyone, Jesus,” sighed the third voice. “Minsook really lost his mind.”
“Yeah,” agreed Eunjin. “ing bastard.”
“Listen,” addressed the newest to the conversation, “regardless of how ed Minsook is, we gotta do this. I'm not spending another night on the streets, I need that money, I'm not letting my girl go hungry. We need the money Jinki owes back, and hostages are the best way.”
“I just don’t understand why it has to be them,” Eunjin pressed. “Why a group of idols? I mean, they're stupid, but they aren’t criminals. Why do they have to be the ones?”
“Because the government will be more inclined to do something, especially given the sorry state of SHINee. It's revenge on Jinki too. Those boys must have meant the world to him, Minsook recognised that,” reasoned the third voice.
“I suppose,” Eunjin muttered. “At least this will take away their crimes against music.”
The joke brought a soft, yet withheld, laugh from the newest in the conversation.
“I better go in and check he hasn’t woken yet,” Eunjin offered, “I'll put him back to sleep if he has.”
Taemin cursed and, in a moment of quick thinking, slammed himself against the sofa into a sleeping position, like he'd been before he'd woken.
The door clicked open and the sound of gentle footsteps could be heard, approaching Taemin.
“Still not awake..?” Eunjin asked rhetorically, convinced of Taemin’s status. “Damn...”
She walked around a bit, fussing with the curtains to open them. She picked something up and set it down again with a clang, but Taemin couldn’t tell what it was. He kept his eyes shut, breathing steady.
“Maybe we should’ve checked your head injury, eh?” she pondered, and Taemin felt her approach again. Her perfume was st