Taemin is made of cobwebs and moth’s wings. Touches break his delicate strands and rub away his flying-dust.

He wasn’t always so fragile. Once upon a time, Taemin wasn’t afraid of anything.

Before he learned that touching was a sin.

---

Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order;

And he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood,

and he stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.

-Genesis 22:10

It is still early in the evening, but his father is snoring on the couch, surrounded by empty bottles. Taemin eyes him from across the darkened room with the same poised stillness of a sparrow watching a sleeping cat. Wary. Alert. Ready to burst into sudden flight at the first sign of danger.

His phone vibrates against his leg and he pulls it out and checks the message. A text from Jongin.

Bro, what’s up? Haven’t seen you at lunch for ages.

Been busy. Sorry I never finished your tattoo.

No worries. It was cool anyway. Rubbed off now, though.

I can do a new one, if you like. Where are you?

Sehun’s. Joohyun and Seulgi just got here. Come over.

Christ, Taemin thinks. Sehun’s party. He has completely forgotten his friend turns eighteen this week.

Coming, he types impulsively, before sneaking another glance at his father. He looks at the slack jaw, the faded hair, the bladed nose that looks far too much like Taemin’s.

If his father finds out he went out without permission…

“ it,” he says out loud.

The party is raging by the time he gets there. Sehun’s family have property on the outskirts of town, and dozens of cars are strewed haphazardly across the neighbouring field. Music booms from the house, loud enough that he can feel the bass vibrate in his chest.

He tosses his bike into a bush and makes his way from the wide front porch to the back of the house where free-standing gas torches light the night and topless girls splash and squeal in a hot tub, apparently completely unconcerned about being on public display. The music grows louder, and Taemin’s head begins to throb in time to the beat. He wishes he could close his ears.

He cranes his neck in every direction. There are people everywhere, but he cannot see Sehun or Jongin.

He tries squeezing into the actual house by way of a set of French doors where a DJ is set up and people are dancing. Bad idea. In the crush he cannot avoid the contact of other people’s skin, and even the lightest brushes batter him like heavy blows. He quickly grows panicky. Then nauseous.

Someone shoves a bottle into his hand, but he pushes it away. It’s not that he cares that he’s underage, but all the same, he will not drink. He fears the loss of control.

“Take it!” The bottle-shover shouts, and Taemin is this close to knocking the drink to the ground when he realises Sehun’s brother is the one holding it. Sejoon, his memory supplies. “It’s coke,” the older boy tells him.

He breathes a sigh of relief, takes the bottle, downs it. The cold fizziness settles his nausea slightly, but it is still awful in here, and as soon as he finds Jongin and finishes the tattoo he promised, he is getting out.

“You seen Jongin?” He shouts.

“Who?”

“Kim Jongin!”

“Nope,” Sejoon shakes his head. His eyes are fixed on the dance floor. “Check out Joohyun. Heard she’s on the rebound. I just did a shot with her. You wanna try her out?”

Taemin’s eyes follow Sejoon’s chin-jerk and land on Joohyun. It is obvious she is wasted. Beyond wasted: she is a sloppy mess, sweaty hair loose and sticking to her face and bare shoulders. Forget one shot with Sejoon - there are at least fifteen shots written in the way her legs twist around themselves. She throws her arms in the air and dances beneath the spinning beam of a projected disco ball. She has no bra on, and her s shudder and shake with each flail of her body. The guys in the room stop to gawk. And point.

Taemin looks away. The sick panic is rising in him again and his vision is going slightly hazy. He has to get out of here, Jongin’s tattoo be damned, before the music shakes him apart.

He moves back towards the door, or tries to. The floor is tilting beneath his feet, sending him reeling and stumbling, bouncing off bodies as if he’s had as many shots as Joohyun. Fear that has nothing to do with claustrophobia starts to rise up inside his chest as his hearing begins to dim. Then his vision. He feels drunk – at least he thinks he does, having no experience of the state to compare to. But all he’s had is a coke. Right?

What the hell did Sejoon give me?

He groans aloud as the world seems to try to turn itself inside out, along with his guts. The sound of his voice is swallowed by the music worming its twisted way inside his head, trying to eat his brain.

It tasted like coke, though, he wonders in hazy confusion. There was no odd flavour, no sting of alcohol.

Spiked?

.

He stumbles out onto the grass and his legs give out, toppling him face-down into the grass. He rolls onto his back. The sky is spinning, the stars blurring into a wheeling mess of light, and the world is spinning beneath him as well. He can feel its motion, sailing him through space. He is out of touch, out of body, reeling amongst the stars, and he should be afraid of this total loss of control, but the fear is distant, made remote and unreal by whatever has propelled him out here into the universe.

He wonders vaguely if Sejoon thinks this is funny.

“Dude,” someone shakes his arm, which does not appear to be connected to his body, and yet somehow still manages to convey to him the sick sensation of another person’s body invading his. Ants crawl over his skin and he shudders convulsively.

“What’s wrong with him?” The question is spoken way back down on earth, but Taemin recognizes Jongin’s voice. Finally found Jongin, but unfortunately there’s no way he’s going to be able to give the promised marker tattoo in this state. For some reason, this strikes him as hilarious. He giggles, distantly.

“Look at his pupils. He’s high as a kite,” someone else says. “Someone’s pushing crack on the kids.”

“ing idiot,” and Taemin wonders whether they mean Sejoon or himself.

“What should we do?”

“I dunno. You know him?”

“Yeah. Should I call his father?”

No, Taemin cries, no no no no, but he can’t find his mouth to let the panic out.

After an eternity and a second and a span of the moon, his father arrives in a tower of silent fury and tosses him into the car. Home, and