A/N: title reads as "Waqt" which means "time" in Urdu

Time has created a beautiful tragedy in Taemin's veins.

He traces a finger along them while the traffic light is still red. This is something he does every time his heart hurts particularly bad after their date. Because it gives him a sort of consolation. It's Fate, he reminds himself as red melds into green on his wrists and on the signal. It's Fate and there is nothing I can do to change it. Soon he'll press down the accelerator and let himself run off the side of the flyover.

He'll let himself hurtle away into nowhere, ready to loop back in time to just a few weeks ago. When he first met Jinki.

A hundred times he's sat before Jinki on this same table, wearing the same shirt and tapping the same rhythm; slouching the same angle and ordering the same tea. A hundred times they've met and fought and broken up and yet, Taemin can't have enough. He's addicted-- to the bitterness of steeped dregs, the stickiness of laminated menus, the softness of Jinki's tone when he asks "What do you want to eat?"

"Well, it's summer so... let's share a mango sundae?" Taemin requests with his best smile. A hundred times he's attempted to perfect that expression and a hundred times it hasn't worked. A hundred times their order has been followed by Jinki joining their hands across the table and a hundred times he's said listen... this isn't working.

A hundred times Taemin has made a scene and stormed out of the place, on his way to planning his next car crash. A hundred times he's played out his heartbreak and rushed away before he could get stomped on. But this time...this hundred and first time he wants to stay a little longer. He wants to wait for those clouds to clear away so the sunlight makes Jinki's eyes shine more like topaz than their usual amber. He wants to wait for the shadows to play in wide lines along Jinki's hooked nose and round chin and prominent Adam's apple. He wants to wait for the warmth of their clasped hands to spread all over his body.

He wants to stare a little longer.

"I--I thought we were doing well?" he manages, but his act could falter any minute. His fingers are squeezed and he guesses it's supposed to calm him but it doesn't. It's just a sad reminder of lengths walked along the river, of kisses shared under Gingko trees, of grins flashed before the lights were switched off. "I thought... I thought you liked me."

"I do like you I just..." Jinki shakes his head and withdraws in his seat. "It's complicated."

Taemin understands but he doesn't show it on his faces. He understands because seven months from now Jinki's eyes will no longer be amber. His fingers will no longer be warm and his voice will no longer be soft. He will never walk again or kiss again or grin at someone with mischief again. Because in seven months Jinki will be gone. Taemin understands because he's lived through all of it.

So he starts looping back, and then continues when he grows addicted to how it feels. The smash of glass against his forehead, the bend of metal into his side, the seat and dashboard both rushing to meet each other with him caught in the middle. He prefers to take a million break-ups to losing Jinki forever. He prefers to reverse time over and over instead of letting it slip away from his control. He prefers to grow old in his circular chase instead of seeing Jinki slowly disappear forever. He prefers being incomplete to being broken.

A hundred times Taemin snaps at the other and tries to run away before the conversation ends. A hundred times Jinki chases after him and accidentally spills his drink over his front. A hundred times the same waitress comes to clean it up and offers another fresh cup. A hundred times their eyes meet through the glass front of the cafe and then part with a hundred things unsaid.

But this time, Taemin stays--to say some of those hundred things out loud; tell Jinki he loves him. To tell him that the short while they were together was so perfect he wouldn't trade it for anything. But the words are too simple, too unoriginal. Taemin wants to leave Jinki with poetry this time. He wants to give the man an anthology that would stop time. He wants to pen a magical spell to put everything on pause for a while so they could be together in a boundless reality. He wants to say something that would remain stained on the hours and minutes and seconds, and echo through every loop he makes.

In the end, he simply gives the truth. "Hyung," he sighs, standing up to leave. "I'd die to see you again." 

"Tae..." Jinki is speechless. Taemin hesitates, waits with the hope that Fate will change its mind. But Jinki is speechless. So he runs.

When he leaves, the order of things remains. A glass is upturned, a pair of feet rush over, a wad of paper napkins absorbs the dampness, and then the clouds roll over the sun again.

The green light is far behind him and now he can’t see where he’s headed. He’s driving but there’s no more road to drive on. The car rattles. His brain takes its cue. He focuses on the light the temperature the humidity of that moment when he saw Jinki the first time, feeding pigeons in the park. The thought yanks him in and spins him around. His body immediately starts to twist and contort in that familiar pull backwards. And as his car runs off the road and falls away he promises himself he’ll make it the most beautiful weeks of Jinki’s remaining life.

Time has created a beautiful tragedy in Taemin’s veins.