Five
Cherry Blossom // Alt Title: What Comes AroundTaemin stiffened as he listened to the radio, fingers coiled around the cold mug of coffee that bequeathed various bleak scents to the small kitchen he sat in. The crackle of the radio presenter's voice was almost too harsh for an early morning start – her words were clipped and stunted, manner fierce, as she recited the various headlines that dotted the daily papers. Opposite him, his father sat, glaring at one of those said papers; Taemin doubted his father was actually reading the news, for he seemed to have the intellectual capability of a mayfly, and the sense of purpose of such an insect also. He was as insidious and insipid as the worst of people, truly, but was so based on his conservative mind-set, not any bargaining of wit or intelligence.
"-This brutal hate crime is the latest of several reported from within Seoul-" continued the presenter briskly, words diminishing whatever appetite Taemin had felt for his coffee. "-Two seventeen year old boys and one forty-three year old man have been arrested in connection with the beatings. In other news-"
The radio’s rattle dissipated as Taemin’s mother entered the room, turning down the volume and prudently sniffing, rubbing an eye wearily. It was early, and so all she wore was her over-sized dressing gown, wrapped around her slender frame like parchment covering a baking tray. She glanced at Taemin incredulously, and then at her husband, who hadn’t batted an eyelid at her appearance.
“What are you doing here so early?” she muttered, her question directed at her son as she poured herself the remnants of the grey coffee into her favourite, flower-printed cup. She set the coffee-pot back atop the kitchen counter, leaning against the battered cupboards as she took her first sip.
“I came to get the rest of my stuff,” Taemin answered. “He said to come over early, so I did.”
"Your father barely remembers how to tie his shoelaces,” degraded Taemin’s mother, “so he didn’t say you were coming. Next time, tell me you're coming, so I don't wake up in fear of thinking I've a guest or something. I heard your voice and thought it was the neighbours.”
Taemin rolled his eyes and finished his drink, casting his gaze at the clock that perched on the window-sill in the tight, rectangular kitchen. The time was just past eight, the news bulletin having started mere minutes after Taemin’s father had reluctantly herded his son into the kitchen for breakfast.
“You found yourself a girlfriend yet?” Taemin’s dad barked, his lips as he turned the page, not looking at Taemin as he addressed him. Though the room was tepid, a homely heat that Taemin was well used to, his body still rang with an empty chill.
“No, dad,” Taemin admitted, arguments pricking his tongue but unable to be spoken. He clenched his fist beneath the table, knee beginning to jitter nervously.
"Hmm,” sighed Taemin’s mother, pursing her lips as she observed her son. “Your father was married by your age.”
“Well, that’s wonderful,” Taemin commented dryly, refusing to allow his anger to flare as his parents consulted this topic of conversation yet again. Watching his father push the bridge of his glasses further up his nose, Taemin averted his gaze to his mother. They were both almost polar opposites; his mother was slight in form, yet looked much older than her birthday would allow for, and his father was rounded, plump, holding a young complexion. Despite these inherent differences, both were of the same age, from the same town and had lived together for upwards of twenty years. If Taemin hadn’t been so repulsed by their routine stability, he figured he would have admired them.
“Ah-ah,” scolded his father, “don’t speak like that to your mother. Apologise, Taemin.”
“Sorry, mum,” Taemin drawled, ceasing his fretful twitching and instead focussing his attention on the sleeve of his loose black sweatshirt.
"A nice young girl started working with me a few days ago,” Taemin’s mother began, her meddling instantly aggravating Taemin as she began to describe the young woman.
“Her hair was done so well, very pretty girl. Smart, too, I think-“
"Mum,” Taemin interrupted curtly, teeth gritted. “We've already discussed this. You cannot force me into something I don’t want.”
Finally, Taemin’s father folded the newspaper, dropping it atop the rounded wooden table. His stare was stern, eyes matching the russet tiling of the room's flooring and walls.
"You do not know what you want,” his father decided, “and your mother and I will not put up with your little phases. Soon, you'll have to settle down.”
“How many times do I have to tell you? This isn’t a phase, dad, that isn't how this thing works.”
"You're right,” Taemin’s mother nodded. “It's a condition – a satanic one, Taemin. It's our duty as parents to ensure-“
But Taemin was already standing to leave. Angrily, he pushed his chair back from the table, eyes wild and cheeks flushed. Outside, the bird-song was dampened by the sounds of his mother’s ignorant tangent as she tried to lecture him, calling out even as he left the kitchen, to the green-themed living room, to the hallway and to the door.
"Taemin, get back here!” commanded his father, following his son so that he could watch the platinum-haired dancer reach the front-door's handle. "Taemin, listen to your mother whilst she talks to you.”
But Taemin wasn’t listening, he was leaving. He'd come back and get his things another time. Right now, he had to go. He couldn’t bare to stay in the same house as them any longer.
Opening the front door, the fresh air caught him as if a muted embrace, the earth damp from last night’s speckled showers. The suburban street was as pristine as it was orderly, a car parked perfectly outside every drive, grass green and windows sparkling. It was hard to believe such a beautiful residence held such ugly-minded people.
"Taemin,” his father stressed, as the young adult descended the steps out onto the house’s pathway, making his way towards the picket-fenced entrance in complete disregard to his father’s calls.
Making the mistake of raising his head, Taemin managed to catch eyes with the middle-aged housewife who lived opposite his parents. She had been in her freshly mown garden, surveying the bountiful rose flowers, yet was now too busy analysing the actions of her neighbours to give any sort of damn about her prized blooms. Gossip travelled quickly in the suburbs – Taemin had known this as a young child, raised in a world comprised of petty scandal that was batted from neighbour to neighbour like a broken shuttlecock. Usually, the further from the source of the drama one lived, the less truthful it became, and Taemin knew that by the end of the road, the brief argument with his parents would have contracted a tale similar to that of a police-intervened riot.
The portly housewife watched, eyes trained on the young man she'd witnessed grow from behind her blossoming rose flowers.
“Bye, dad!” Taemin shouted, practically growled, as he cut his eyes away from the curious neighbour, and exited the gate at the end of his parents’ tiny garden. He'd make his way back to the bus stop and wait for the next bus. It wasn’t scheduled to arrive for another hour, but Taemin didn’t care.
Waiting in a bus shelter sure beat spending any more time with his parents.
•••
Minho stared at the unopened door and inhaled heavily.
He'd had a wonderful morning – the best, practically. He'd awoken to Jinki’s joking call of, "Love, the pancakes are ready!" Instead of pancakes, however, he'd been presented with some strong coffee and a choice of various kid’s cereals, to which he'd politely declined. Though his mentality had been somewhat in-tune with Yoogeun’s, his taste buds most certainly weren't. Thinking of the crazed toddler, Minho recalled how he'd clambered atop his sleeping form before he'd risen from his dreams, battering him with his miniature schoolbag so that he'd, "Get up!"
As heart-warming as the morning had been, Minho couldn’t say the name for his night.
He'd stayed awake well into the early morning, curled beneath the comfortable duvet, listening to the slightest of sobbing from Jinki’s room. It had been so quiet in Jinki’s house, so still, until the stifled crying had began to emanate from the artist's room. Minho didn’t know how he'd heard it until he realised Jinki’s door was open with the tiniest of margins – Jinki probably thought it'd been closed.
During those times where Jinki’s soft pines for breath could be heard, Minho hadn’t known what to do; it would've been awkward and out-of-place to waltz into his friend's bedroom and comfort him, it wasn’t Minho’s place to explore Jinki’s life in such a way. So he'd simply sat, terrified, listening to his best friend expound the hidden pains he'd stored away.
It'd hurt Minho. Badly.
But now, he was standing outside his own home, boring a hole into the white door, wondering whether he should knock or just enter, whether Kibum would be home or at work, whether the visitor would be gone or still tucked beneath the messy sheets of Kibum’s bed. He clenched his fists and anticipated, unknowing of what he should do.
"Did you lock yourself out again?”
Minho whipped his head around at the voice, surprised to see the young man who had been watching him, possibly for longer than Minho wanted to realise. He leant against the wall with his shoulder, head tilted as he surveyed the elder, who looked rather startled to see him.
"Ah, no,” Minho answered quickly, in understanding that, if Kibum hadn’t gotten his act together, their visitor’s arrival would be one shrouded in awkwardness. “I just-I just zoned out.”
"All the running must be making you tired,” Taemin finally laughed, pushing himself from the wall and approaching Minho slowly. The younger held the scent of lavender, but the crease in his forehead told of an attitude much less delicate as he waited for Minho to open the door.
Stirred into action by the presence of the dancer, who looked ethereally pale in the light of the mid-morning that invaded the corridor, Minho inserted his key into the lock and twisted. A slight relief dusted him as he noted the door had been locked – this meant, most likely, nobody was home, for Kibum would lock neither himself or a stranger in the apartment.
Minho pushed the door open and entered hesitantly, followed closely by Taemin, who still hadn’t explained his unscheduled visit. It wasn't really like the younger to appear without prior warning, nor was it like him to appear so early in the day.
"You keep this place so tidy,” Taemin commented as they entered, Minho almost shocked as he set Taemin’s comment in line with the refreshed apartment.
If Minho had been expecting a mess, Kibum had certainly disappointed; the marble surfaces of their kitchenette sparkled, and the floor was rid of any obstacles, magazines stacked neatly on the coffee table. The curtains were parted to extend an invitation to the morning light, and so the living area exuded a homely warmth, complimented by the poignant air-freshener that provided a comforting scent to their surroundings. Gaping around him, Minho almost missed the small post-it note that lay atop the kitchen counter, but managed to reach out and snatch it before Taemin noticed, reading the words and burying it in his pocket without a second thought.
I'm sorry, again - Kibum
“Would you like something to drink? Tea, coffee, water?” Minho offered, as Taemin glanced around the apartment retrospectively, remembering the various times he'd been there - mostly during Kibum’s riotous house parties.
"Nah, nah, I'm good, hyung,” Taemin answered politely, shaking a hand as he declined Minho’s offer. “I'm just after coffee with my parents, so…”
"Ah…” Minho nodded, filling the kettle for himself regardless. He clicked the kettle on and his lower lip nervously, thinking about the best way to address his friend without appearing rude.
"Taemin,” he murmured finally, as the low whistle of the kettle began to resound, backing vocalists to the morning’s distant melody, “why are you here?”
Taemin lowered his head, glancing away from the view outside the wide window on the wall opposite Minho, and buried his hands in his pockets.
“I-I just… It's just…”
“Wait,” Minho interrupted, the kettle finished its boiling, “take a seat at the table.”
As Taemin obliged, sitting at the stylish oak table by the kitchen, he swung his legs back and forth as if a young child, feet dragging over the ground as he laced his fingers together atop the table. He bit his bottom lip and waited for Minho to take the seat facing him, with a steaming mug of coffee and a pensive frown, not meaning to intimidate his friend, rather get him to open up about what he was keeping from him. There was something about Taemin that worried Minho – worried him so that he cared more for the young dancer than almost any other in his life – but Minho wasn’t entirely sure what that something was. Maybe it was the vulnerability of the dancer, the fragility, or the past that he'd battled through that Minho was only beginning to understand.
"What's up?” Minho asked carefully, blinking his wide eyes at the younger, who seemed to sink further into the soft chair, as if trying to escape Minho’s concern. For years, it'd been like this, exchanges between the older and younger leading to Taemin becoming quiet, reserved, so unlike his usually open personality. It gave Minho the strong urge to protect him, to hide him from harm and keep him from the judgement of others, he just knew he couldn’t do that as much as he would’ve liked.
"Ah, it's-it's stupid really,” Taemin brushed off, “I don’t even know why I'm here, I just-“
"You know,” interrupted Minho, “I really doubt it's as stupid as you claim… It's okay, Taemin, talk to me.”
When Taemin simply turned his head to the side, skin a stark contrast to his black sweatshirt, Minho sighed, not out of exasperation, rather worry, and asked, “Was it your parents again, Taem’?”
Taemin dug his nails into his palms and nodded, cheeks flushing slightly as his eyes glinted – Minho wondered with the root of tears.
"What did they say?”
"Ah, just-just-“ Taemin stopped, still refusing to meet eyes with Minho but glaring at the table instead, at a small crack in the otherwise spotless surface. “They just said what they normally did, I… I don't know.”
"About your dancing again?” Minho pressed gently, not wanting to aggravate the younger but equally discontent at the idea of him bottling his emotions away, so far that even he couldn’t reach them.
"No, something else,” Taemin muttered, “but it's stupid, really, I honestly…” Shaking his head, Taemin pushed back his chair and stood on unsteady legs, ready to leave Minho in an air of absolute confusion.
"I'm sorry,” he apologised, but before he could move away, Minho reached out and gripped his slender wrist, halting him.
"Taemin, sit down, please.”
Taemin stared emptily at Minho’s hand around his thin wrist for the longest of seconds, before he nodded and slipped back into the seat, Minho dropping his grip as he did so. Guiltily, Taemin noticed that Minho had barely even touched his coffee yet – a coffee he should’ve been enjoying by himself, in the peaceful throes of the morning.
"What's this ‘other thing’?” Minho queried, completely enraptured in caring for his friend. Taemin felt undeserving of the attention he was receiving, but lacked the energy to dismiss it, as Minho rubbed his strong bicep and narrowed his eyebrows, worried.
“It doesn't matter,” Taemin murmured, “just… It's just, like, they don't understand me, Minho. They think my thoughts, my hopes, everything I am, they think it's some kind of stupid phase, that they can just… beat out of me. Like I'm a stupid kid, hyung. I'm starting to think maybe I am.”
Taemin began to play with a loose thread from the sleeve of his sweatshirt, focussing more on it than Minho’s response as his eyes clouded.
"A kid? Taemin, I've watched you grow up, and you're anything but. You know they're just trying to get to you. You shouldn't listen to them. We've already decided that what they say is bull.”
"I don't know, hyung, I really don't.”
Just as Minho opened his mouth to answer, the door clattered open again, and a young man entered, image flustered as he blew a strand of hair from his eyes. His face was slightly flushed and his wavy hair unusually imperfect, and he was carrying his suit jacket as he stumbled through the entrance. He slammed the door behind him, releasing a pent up exhalation, but almost paused when he noticed their visitor.
"Oh,” Kibum breathed, eyes trained on the two men who blinked at him, surprised.
"Kibum, what are you doing here? Don’t you have work?”
Minho’s tone was verging on angered as Kibum chucked his coat over their leather sofa, Taemin visibly retreating into himself as he tapped his foot against the ground.
"Today was the interview,” Kibum answered blankly, as if stating an obvious fact. Brushing his hair from his eyes, he moved to the cupboards, beginning to hunt through them for something to eat. Despite his brashness, he was ever-handsome, shirtsleeves rolled up and top button undone. “It went awfully, before you ask.”
Finding a half-empty packet of dried apricots, Kibum removed them from the cupboard to finish them. Before he could turn around, Minho’s eyes caught Taemin’s and he provided the younger with an apologetic smile. Taemin simply shrugged a shoulder, standing.
"I was just about to go,” Taemin lied, as Kibum pivoted, chewing on the apricots politely. Although he could be an excitable man, he was also a very sophisticated man, his manner never faltering for a second, so long as he was sober.
"Oh, really?” Kibum queried sadly, lips falling into a pout as Taemin bowed his head slightly to them both. It was an odd action from someone they were both relatively close with, but one clearly materialised out of his newfound nervousness. His attempt at confession had been ignorantly interrupted, and it'd jarred his perspective, very clearly.
"Yeah, I've… I've stuff,” he excused, Kibum raising an eyebrow as the younger ambled to the door. “Dancing stuff.”
"Well,” Kibum smiled, shooting him a coy grin, “don’t fall over and hurt yourself. Minho did that playing basketball once, and he was in bed for days, seriously.”
"Aish,” Minho offered in complaint, eyes not wanting to tear away from Taemin, who lingered with his slender fingers curled around the door handle.
"I'll see you both around,” Taemin sighed, pressing down the handle.
"Wait,” Minho muttered, jumping up from his chair, “why don’t you stick around, have lunch with us, or something?”
"No,” Taemin dismissed suddenly, almost blushing as he noticed how tightly Kibum was watching him. “I really have to go. Bye, hyungs.”
And with that, Taemin excused himself.
Kibum finished the apricots silently as Minho slumped back onto his seat, finally remembering the strong coffee he'd brewed for himself, coffee he hadn’t yet touched. He brought the cup to his lip, but recoiled at how the liquid was now merely lukewarm. He pushed the spotted mug away from him.
"Look,” Kibum began, unsure of himself as he regarded his friend.
"Save it,” Minho instantly interrupted. “I don’t need to hear it. What happened is over.”
Minho’s words were short, tone uncharacteristically blunt.
“I'm trying to get myself on track,” Kibum defended, “I swear.”
"You swear, huh?”
Minho shook his head in disbelief.
"I am,” Kibum tried, “I told you. Today, I had that interview, and-“
"I'm surprised you even made it,” Minho muttered curtly. “Wasn’t your visitor still here when you needed to leave?”
"She didn’t stay the whole night.”
"Did she even have a name, or was the only thing she told you a price?”
Kibum looked away quietly, hands gripping the counter so tightly his knuckles pulsed with a white even more prominent than that of his remaining skin. The patterns on his knuckles were shaped like sets of lungs, exhaling and inhaling the doubts he held whilst talking to Minho.
"Look, I don't care,” Minho admitted. “I don’t care about her, about what you are getting up to, I just care about you, Kibum. I can't just sit here and watch you drink yourself into oblivion.”
"I'm not,” Kibum argued, “you know I'm not. So what, maybe I drink a few times a week, but it-it isn’t constant, I'm not addicted, I'm not. It's just a habit, and I'll shake it, I will.”
"That’s what you always say.”
"Only because I mean it.”
Minho clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, his thoughts slowly settling into place. He felt like he was playing a precarious balancing act, with his three friends draining his reserves of strength.
"I'm going out for a run,” he decided, “I'll see you later, Kibum.”
"Sure,” Kibum muttered, drumming his fingertips distantly. “Sure.”
•••
Jinki was scared to go out. He wasn’t quite sure why, but everything felt foreign, as if he were traversing the unknown plains of another planet. As Yoogeun held his hand tightly, reciting a version of his day that Jinki was having difficulty deciphering, his mind kept platooning back to the subject he was scratching to avoid.
“That’s nice,” Jinki cooed absent-mindedly, as Yoogeun told the tale of a brief encounter with some blue paint (which he'd gotten everywhere, not on purpose, apparently) and how he didn’t like the main carer, a stout woman with bushy eyebrows that were well beyond the stage of taming.
Fortunately for Jinki, the nursery was only a short, ten minute walk from his house, and it wasn’t an overly unpleasant walk either; there were cars that frightened him if Yoogeun were to tear free his hand and there were looming trees that appeared to become threatening in the winter months, however were well attired in Autumn, a haven of reds and yellows that was certainly an aesthetic pleaser. As Yoogeun continued his daily conundrums, Jinki rubbed an eye tiredly, hand still mottled in various shades of acrylic.
By the time they arrived home, Jinki’s eyes had contracted a quality not too dissimilar from lead. Bursting through the front door, Yoogeun threw his bag to the floor and dashed to where he'd amassed a small mountain of toys. Jinki clicked the door shut behind himself and lifted Yoogeun’s bright backpack, hanging it over the ornate coat rack, ensuring to zip the opened pouch first.
"P’ay with me!” Yoogeun shrilly demanded, waving the now-legless Spiderman figure Jinki had bought for him a few weeks earlier. Amidst the jungle of botched, broken and battered toys, Yoogeun’s grin was wild and carefree, having lost no energy from his day spent at the nursery. Jinki, on the other hand, felt exhausted. Having gotten no sleep and rising early to take Yoogeun to school, ensuring Minho was safely on his way, he'd then embarked on a mission to paint from a picture commissioned by another client with more money than sense (he assumed his clients were senseless to choose his work over the other plethora of nearby painters). He wasn’t finished the painting yet, despite his deadline drawing ever-closer, and had made no avail in searching for other part-time work fixtures either.
"Sure…” he sighed tiredly, kicking off his shoes and padding across to his son, ensuring the radiator was on as he did so. Though he'd been making a conscious effort to limit his use of oil, he couldn’t have his son growing up in a cold, cold house – he’d just have to work harder to supplement the bill.
Once he reached Yoogeun, on the fluffy white carpet that generously covered the floor by the leather sofa, Jinki fell gracelessly to his knees, and lifted one of Yoogeun’s chewed teddy bears between two fingers.
"Not that one!” Yoogeun commanded, hitting the bear so that Jinki would deposit it back upon the sea of plastic and cotton. “This one! We're playing superheroes!”
He handed Jinki a small doll representing Iron Man, however its head had been twisted and its detachable armour defaced by bright blue felt tips. The maroon shade of the Iron Man’s costume matched the over-sized hoodie Jinki wore, which he then rolled the sleeve up of as he sat on his knees, staring at the toy and then at his son, awaiting another harsh instruction.
"Wait! Wait!” Yoogeun shouted suddenly, wrenching the Iron Man from Jinki’s stained hands with a strength that seemed unparalleled even by the greatest of men. His tiny fingers began to roam through the toys, flinging useless dolls behind his head as Jinki groaned in dismay, knowing later the hunt would be on to tidy the chaos his son was currently creating. There was a brief clattering as one of the dolls rebounded from the glass table by the kitchen, skittering beneath one of the black chairs as if a lurking predator.
"Yoogeun, be careful,” Jinki tried, as his son finally uncovered what he was looking for. Hastily, he wrenched out from beneath him another doll, this time clothed from the pieces of various other figurines. Yoogeun had managed to dress it in a large jumper and black trousers, with a small rag tied around its neck as a cape. Jinki would have laughed at the inventiveness, had his humour not been buried by the other features of the doll. Using his felt tips, Yoogeun had attempted to colour the figurine’s hair a vibrant pink.
"Be this doll!” Yoogeun grinned, handing it out to his father. But Jinki merely stared. The room seemed to darken and he began to regret turning on the heating as a sickening warmth spread through him, lancing to even his toes as they curled up within his socks.
"Appa!” Yoogeun stressed, but then Jinki was standing, lifting his son and carrying him to the door.
Though Yoogeun’s protestations rang thickly, Jinki refused to listen, as he slipped on his shoes, not even bothering to find a jacket or coat. Yoogeun was still clothed warmly and so he ran out of his house with his son in arm, locking the door behind him before moving to the car and clicking his son in his seat.
Yoogeun began to kick mildly, fists balled as Jinki ignored him. He only had one thing on his mind, one thing that hadn’t left his mind since last night and one thing he knew never would, not unless he addressed it, personally.
Jinki peered down at his son and sighed, watching the toddler squeal. From the driver’s seat, his son looked effortlessly small, for Jinki supposed he was. He was small, tiny, but a part of him, and so he couldn’t shake the influence Yoogeun had over his life.
"Quiet,” he chastised his son, revving up the car engine as soon as he'd spoken. “We're going to meet the superhero.”
hey guys... Just wanted you to know that hopefully I'll be able to update tomorrow
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