Sixteen
The Lifetime KidsA/N I'm tired, and it's so late, and so I can only keep this short. To those who it'll mean something to, I'm so, so sorry, and I hope you can see from this that I wasn't lying - I really am trying. Thank you so much x I'm sorry.
•••
There was something worn about Kibum’s apartment. At first, Taemin hadn't been able to decipher what it truly was that gave this over-wrought effect. The wooden floors were still polished and the counters still sleek, the open-planned expanse awash in the quaint modernisms that were sedate enough to be fashionable but abstract enough to be Kibum. Even the early-evening light still managed to bequeath a light breath as it dusted the floor, supple beside the stricter white lights overhead. Taemin blinked as he stood awkwardly by the entrance into the living area, feeling very out-of-place in a room so familiar.
“Was it bad?”
The maknae’s voice was almost fearful as he eyed Kibum. The rapper was motionless, one hand coiled against the tawny hair of the dog that slept beside him on the sofa, the other toying with the rim of an empty wine glass. He wore a dressing gown of deep purple satin, and his hair was a bedraggled mess, much like his eyes, which were sworn to vapid darkness. His legs were curled up beneath him and the only skin exposed by the gown was the gaunt line of swan-white collarbone. His eyes wore bags of a similar-shade to his apparel, and his lips were so cold they seemed blue.
“They don't know yet.”
Kibum’s voice was tired, and Taemin nodded. He'd expected no less.
“Did they give any… Idea?” Taemin’s question was suitably hesitant as he entered the room further, the scent of a sensual spice creating a split aroma in the condensed air. A tepid heat splayed muddy fingers across the widescreen television, the lavish sofa Kibum currently occupied, and the armchair Taemin stiffly moved towards. When he reached it, he perched on the arm instead of the seat, pushing his beanie back slightly to get a clearer look at Kibum.
“You know what doctors are like,” Kibum dismissed haughtily, waving a hand as the dog by his lap stirred. Taemin couldn't remember the dog’s name, but watched it as its wet nose prodded gingerly against the sole of Kibum’s white foot.
“No,” Taemin shook his head, “I don't. Tell me.” Stubbornly, he swallowed, as Kibum made a scoffing sound, tilting his head and shrugging a slender shoulder. There was no fire in the rapper’s eyes, just an unnamed strife, that burnt Taemin to the sight more than any flame ever could.
“They took some tests, they said some things, but it was all- it was all hypothetical, Taemin. Everything was the ‘worst-case scenario’, and that's very unlikely – very, very unlikely.”
“What's the worse-case scenario, hyung?”
Kibum shook his head.
“Kibu-“
“Worst case scenario,” Kibum muttered, slightly aggravated, “is I die, it's just- bull.”
Taemin frowned, lacing his fingers together. He really couldn't value Kibum’s blatant sarcasm at a time like this, couldn't value it at all – no matter how much it suited the elder.
“W-What do you mean?” Taemin asked with a wavering voice.
Kibum rolled his eyes and cocked his head.
“I already told you,” he replied petulantly, “it's bull. I've another appointment in a few days, and I'll be given some tablets, and this will finally be- over.” Kibum glanced up at Taemin with two watering, feline eyes, glazed over like frozen glass. “”It will be over, won't it?”
Taemin inhaled rather sharply, struck by Kibum’s need for reassurance. He wasn’t the one to reassure – Minho was, with his strong, enveloping hugs, or Jinki was, with his precious, relentlessly optimistic sayings.
“Yeah,” Taemin answered, “I hope so. The others are beginning to worry, Kibum.”
“About what?”
“About you.”
Again, the rapper rolled his eyes, shifting slightly with a wrought grimace.
“Tell them not to,” he mumbled.
“You're not really giving anyone a choice,” Taemin cut-back, surprised at his own audacity. Exhaustion still proliferated through him, but instead of hewing out a pining for rest and relaxation, it hewed out a rigid need to set things straight, to show every card in the deck without discarding the jokers; every piece was a player here, every last one. Kibum needed to see that.
“What's that supposed to mean?” Kibum rebuked, fingers still fiddling distractedly with the edge of the glass.
“You can't just- not show up,” Taemin explained, gesturing pointedly. “Why can't you tell them the truth, Kibum? Tell them about the appointments and the seizures and-“
“-and, what?” Kibum interrupted. “Have 'mother Jonghyun' coddle me to death, have Jinki out of his mind in worry? Hah, yeah, great idea, Taemin.”
“They already are worried,” was the sullen response.
“Don’t you think they’ve enough on their minds?” Kibum threw back, words beginning to fracture with the mildest anger. “You bet everything you have that Yunkyung is making Jonghyun’s life a misery over those scars, that he's pressuring Jinki into the ground to do something, that he's throwing Minho like a rag-doll from side-to-side to keep some semblance of balance. I don’t know why he hasn’t got to you yet, Taemin, but he will, and when he does-“
“Kibum, what are you talking about?” Taemin raised his eyebrows, a hybrid of shocked and exasperated. A slight anticipation was gnawing at his gut, but it wasn't a happy one, it was a disfigured one, a wretched one. He bit his bottom lip, not bothering that he could taste the faintest trace of blood whenever he did so.
Kibum groaned and lowered his head like his neck could no longer support it.
“I'm talking about you,” he admitted, “I’m talking about me, I’m talking about them, I’m talking about us. I'm doing this to protect us, can't you see?” Kibum looked up at Taemin with pleading eyes, and they captured the dancer still, in a bird-cage. No matter how quickly he fluttered his fickle wings, they couldn’t break the bars.
“It would be better for us if you just told everyone the truth,” Taemin answered, “we've too many secrets already.”
Silence settled then, with Kibum absently petting his dog – what was the name of that damned dog? – before it lazily sloped from the sofa, leaving Kibum lonely, unoccupied. Instead, he decided to lift the wine-glass from the small side-table between his dainty fingers. A mistake. It slipped from his grip so suddenly, and shattered to the floor with a sickening crack. Taemin blinked at the glass as it created a fragmented collage across the rug, barely flinching at the noise. Kibum stared with grim remorse, as if such scenes were familiar.
Taemin stood, and Kibum understood instantly that the dancer was planning to tidy it.
“No,” he interrupted frantically, eyes sewn to the glass, “leave it. Please.”
Taemin frowned, hovered, and gently receded back to his seat. He was too tired for questions, merely thankful he didn’t have to clean another of Kibum’s messes. The rapper’s lower lip quivered and he slowly clenched his shaking fist. It was as if all the strength had left his hand, had fleeted in an instant, not too dissimilar from the darkening sky outside, the nuances of purple that wove tightly through the basking clouds.
“You never told me why you stopped wearing your rosemary beads,” Kibum muttered. Taemin’s eyes widened, but before he could offer an excuse, something shrill rang from his pocket. His phone.
He answered with a sallow frown.
•••
Your version of Love [Part I]:
Your version of love is different from mine.
It has kisses,
And thrills
And expectations.
It has kisses,
And thrills
And expectations.
My love is a darker thing.
There are words,
And feelings
And things you’ll never know.
There are words,
And feelings
And things you’ll never know.
•••
Taemin ran as fast as God permitted.
He didn’t know why he was running so frantically, and how he could given the languid tug in his body, but all it had taken was one call, one voice, and three words to drag him from Kibum’s limpid apartment to the busy streets of Seoul, and on a chaotic, senseless journey, one he barely had the time to register. The city was a maelstrom, a myopic blessing of light like a thousand flickering candles. Traffic screamed in protestations and glared like intermittent traffic lights, and the rain was a weary mizzle, a whimper from the clouds that seemed so dismal on such a mournful night.
I need you.
Taemin ascended the stairs two at a time, mind beginning to fuzz, energy beginning to fade. His heart lurched in his chest and things were blurring into vivacious streams; how he'd managed to bridge the gap from the outside world to the warm insides of the accommodation block was beyond his very grasp. He didn’t remember it as he almost stumbled on the final step, the corridors empty and dimly lit, the way he imagined the insides of a coffin to be. Determination routed his footsteps but when Taemin finally reached the doorway, he stopped, and the forgotten senses pulsed into him like a train on railroad.
His lungs rasped for breath, and his mind swarmed suddenly with dizzy vigour, sending him staggering slightly, blinking rapidly to readjust his sights. His arm complained numbly and his hands felt bitten with frost. He squinted once, twice, three times, shaking his head to calm his gasping breaths. He couldn’t be seen like this. More than anything, it was almost embarrassing. Taemin patted his cold palms against his sunken cheeks, trying to hook his respiration in a net. As the world span, the rotations slowed, and slowed, and slowed, and his legs felt so heavy having to support his frail frame. He leant an arm against the door, inhaled one final time, and reached a hand to knock.
The door was answered within seconds.
It didn’t take Taemin long to tell that Jonghyun had been crying. He was a sensitive man, one who displayed emotions willingly and with uncensored compassion, however it was only when he cried desperately that his appearance held the decorum it did now. His eyes were rimmed with red blotches, and tears streaked the pale flush of his skin. The scars seemed rawer than they had hours earlier, and his shoulders were failing to support his strong posture. He looked so vulnerable in an over-sized black hoodie and dark skinny jeans, as if a moth that had snapped off its wings, and as his eyes grazed over Taemin, he did-so with haunting confusion, a man lost in his own reality. Taemin’s heart shattered into a confounding puzzle, unsolvable, for a piece would always be missing – Jonghyun.
“I'm sorry,” Jonghyun managed, struggling not to cry again as sadness adorned every little word, every little action. He stepped aside so as Taemin could enter their dorms. They were just as he and Minho had left them all those weeks earlier, rancid in their antique newness and glistening with the faint sentiment of memory. The only thing different was that a chair had been pushed away from the kitchen table, a chair Taemin assumed Jonghyun to have sat on as he'd waited.
“Don't ever be,” Taemin tried to console, as Jonghyun turned away, scowling to himself and rubbing his eyes with two wide sleeves. As the dancer observed him, his heart thudded angrily in his chest; angry because it wasn’t right that someone so beautiful, so fragile, should hold such sadness. He didn’t even know why the composer was crying.
“No, I’m- I'm being stupid,” Jonghyun admitted, flapping an arm, back to Taemin. If it was a sign to leave, the maknae certainly wasn't about to take it. Taemin took a ginger step forward, cold in the dimly lit dorms. He tilted his head, throat parched, stance wary.
“Tell me what happened, Jjong’,” Taemin coaxed softly. Jonghyun seemed to shudder as he turned slowly around again, and this time his eyes were the ones to bare the crucifix of emotion. The bodies that died there were like mulling antiquities, thoughts torn out of the store cupboards prematurely. As much as Taemin wondered what had happened, somehow he couldn’t help but wonder more why Jonghyun had asked for his assistance in dealing with it.
“No, no,” Jonghyun shook his head. “No, I've- I've wasted your evening. You should go home.” The composer sounded as dejected as an impounded animal.
“If you’ve wasted my evening already,” Taemin reasoned, “there's no reason for me not to stay.” Tentatively, he removed his deep green beanie from his head, and held it loosely between his fingers, to show his determination. Although his hair seemed to drift oddly in platinum waves, he barely cared. His attention was latched, devoted, to Jonghyun.
“What did I pull you away from?” Jonghyun diverted, rubbing his arms as if wracked with guilt. “What were you doing when I called?”
“Nothing,” Taemin lied. He pressed his lips firmly. He knew he couldn’t tell Jonghyun the truth, but also knew, deep down, that in coming to Jonghyun he'd made a choice, to leave one man in need for another. This didn’t sit comfortably with Taemin at all.
“It's impossible to do nothing,” Jonghyun countered, but he seemed to let it go, seemed to let it all go, but for the downcast look in his eyes.
“Please,” Taemin tried, “what happened?”
Jonghyun bit his lower lip, stared blankly at the ground, before nodding to the sofa. He sat first, and Taemin second, as close to the elder as he could without breaking their boundaries. The leather was uncompromising, like an unimpressed relative, and the atmosphere was so tense not even the warmest sun could thaw it. Taemin’s back was sore and his mind was tired, but his will was strong, his love was strong, and simply looking at Jonghyun gave him all the motivation he needed. He wanted to reach out and clasp the singer’s hands, but knew he couldn't, knew he had to fight to restrain the feelings that battled to consume him. Taemin hated being alone with Jonghyun just as much as he adored it.
“After the- after the practice,” Jonghyun began, refusing to make eye-contact with Taemin, “Yunkyung wanted to talk, just me and him, privately, y’know?” Taemin nodded slowly.
“God,” Jonghyun suddenly sighed, shaking his head and hiding it behind his sleeves, “why am I so stupid? I'm a grown man, for Christ’s sakes.”
“Keep going,” Taemin tried, overcome with curiosity and emotion. The simple mention of their manager already had his heart losing order, abandoning the systematic flow of his blood. Overhead, the light flickered, an augury of some sort.
Jonghyun breathed, nodded, and parted his hands from his damp face. Taemin’s hoarse voice seemed to act as a soothing incense, massaging the worry that jagged into his flesh.
“He called me in to talk to him, so I did and- well, you know his usual way, you know what he's like, he-“ Jonghyun closed his eyes. “He said that I’m disgusting, Taemin. He said I was a freak."
Jonghyun let his lashes flicker apart and blinked at Taemin with a look of abject depression. The words were imprinted even deeper across his face than the scars that had given him his reputation, and Taemin could barely think to process them as they left Jonghyun’s lips.
“He- what?” questioned the maknae, thoughts an apoplectic bloodflood in the pits of his mind. Jonghyun. Disgusting. It made so little sense it was seemingly absurd.
“My scars, Taemin,” Jonghyun explained, “they make me- they make me ugly. He wants them gone, says I'll never be able to- to promote with them, says they'll ruin us all, says-“
Taemin did what he knew he shouldn't, but words left his very body, and transcended into obscene things he couldn’t quite grasp. The maknae reached forward and grabbed Jonghyun into a hug, wrapping his arms around the narrow-framed man so that nothing separated them, not even breath.
Things became very still.
Jonghyun burrowed his nose into the corner of Taemin’s neck, sobbing in listless gasps, warm against the dancer’s exposed flesh. His hands clutched the maknae’s striped sweater as much as they were able, still weak following the crash, and as he shuddered erratically, he took Taemin with him, until both men trembled, scared, confused, alone. Taemin became very self-aware, felt his cheeks flush and his body begin to groan in mild fascination, wanting more, wanting closer; he laid a hand on the back of Jonghyun’s head and it, the man so light in his grasp it was as if he wasn’t there. Love yielded a blade-light in Taemin’s heart and slashed it.
“You're beautiful,” he whispered into Jonghyun’s ear, words hitching in his throat. “And I mean that.”
“But what if everyone else disagrees?” Jonghyun cried, voice still muffled by Taemin’s neck. The maknae became hollow, trying to separate mind from body, trying to abandon his feelings, his fantasies, his urges. It was a platonic hug and could never be anything more – but God, did he want it to be.
“Then they're wrong,” Taemin confessed, continuing to Jonghyun’s hair.
“Taemin,” the composer whimpered, voice almost a whisper. “He's going to hurt me."
Taemin clutched Jonghyun tighter and held him closer, lock so strong no man could break it.
“Don’t worry,” Taemin reassured, “I won't let him.”
Somehow, someway, the light-bulb fused and left them confined to darkness.
i got a sudden burst of inspiration for this story... i really hope it lasts long enough that i can update Dx
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