10:21 AM
Taemin is awoken by the beeping on his phone alerting him to a new message, and the sunlight streaming through the curtains. He stirs, hands coming up automatically to rub at sleep-swollen eyes before he sits up, sighing lethargically as he pats the bedside table, searching blindly for his phone. Finally, he finds it, and flips the cover open before narrowing his eyes at the light from the screen. Eventually, his eyes adjust to the light, and he's able to make out the words on the screen. No sooner have the words registered in his mind than he's scrambling out of bed, a lovestruck grin spreading across his face, and he trips, legs tangled in the bedsheets, but even as he struggles his way out of the nest of his duvets, his smile doesn't leave his face at all because Jongin wants to see me today! and Today's the day I'm gonna tell him and so he falls out of bed, springs up off the ground, and starts to look for something to wear.
10:47 AM
He's finally ready, shirt ironed and pants uncreased and not a single hair going where he doesn't want it to go, and so he takes a deep breath, heart pounding at a ridiculous rate through his jacket, and steps outside. Even after five years of dating Jongin, Taemin's still not used to the butterflies that awaken in his stomach with just a simple text from the younger male, and the feeling of his heart beating at three times its normal pace, and the way his fingers don't seem to know what to do when he walks alongside Jongin. He rides the train in a daze, only snapping out of it when the PA announces that they've arrived at Hoehyeon Station, and he runs out of the train station as fast as his slender legs can carry him, his eyes immediately finding the tanned male underneath the largest lamp post, and runs up to him eagerly, a paper bag swinging from his dainty fingers. "Morning!" he chirps, and Jongin laughs before pecking him on the cheek.
"Morning," he says, grinning a dorky grin to match Taemin's own, and Taemin ducks his head shyly before looking up again. "What's in the bag?"
"It's a surprise," Taemin replies, raising a finger to his lips. "Shh!"
Jongin laughs at Taemin's childish behaviour, his eyes crinkling in that way that they do, and he tangles his fingers in Taemin's, pulling him along as he sets off. "Come on," he says, and his lips turn up in that too-y smirk. "We've got a lot of remembering to do."
"What?" Taemin says, letting himself be dragged along by Jongin. "Where are we going?"
"First," Jongin begins, his footsteps never slowing or ceasing. "First, the beach."
"The beach?"
"Yeah. There's something I wanna show you."
10:54 AM
Somehow, they're already at the beach, and it's good weather, not too sunny but not too dark either, but Taemin is still confused. "Why are we here?" he asks Jongin, who's still got his hand in his own larger one. "What are we doing today?"
"Do you trust me?" Jongin says, stopping and turning so suddenly that Taemin almost crashes into him. Taemin looks at him, surprised, and Jongin repeats, "Do you trust me?"
"With my life," Taemin says, truthfully, and Jongin gives a grunt of satisfaction before looping his arm around Taemin's shoulders.
"Good. Then trust me now, okay?" Jongin says, and when Taemin nods, he grins, and steers them towards the sea. "This is where we came for our first holiday together." Taemin nods; he knows this, he'd recognised it as soon as they were in sight of the place. "That's where you hid, in the shade, because you didn't want to get skin cancer," Jongin says, pointing at an umbrella with the number "3" engraved on the metal tag. "Over there is where I found you this," he continues, one hand tapping the conch shell hanging off a pendant at Taemin's neck, the other pointing towards the bay. "And there," he says, turning to point with their intertwined hands, "is the place we stayed at." Taemin nods again, his face flushing, because they hadn't just stayed there... "It's also where we had our first time," Jongin finishes, his grin turning up even further because he knows Taemin was just thinking the same thing. The elder male blushes a deeper shade of red, raising a hand to bat the younger on the cheek halfheartedly.
"Don't talk about things like this in the middle of the day, stupid," he says, eyes averted from Jongin's face. "It's indecent."
And Jongin has the audacity to laugh, the bastard, before they set off again.
12:36 PM
"This is the restaurant where you treated me to dinner," Taemin says through a mouthful of steak. "Right? After you drooled on my arm and stopped me from finishing my homework."
"Yeah," Jongin agrees. "But you don't have to put it like that."
"How else should I put it?"
"It's the restaurant I took you out to after meeting you for the first time," he suggests, picking up another slice of pizza and offering it to Taemin, who declines it with a grin.
"But that would make it sound like I had a good first impression of you," Taemin teases, picking up his glass of water and taking a sip from the pale blue straw. "Which I didn't."
"Hey!" Jongin says indignantly. "I —"
"No," Taemin says, holding a hand up, his own grin growing now. "Think about it. What part of that first meeting was a good experience?"
Jongin opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it again, before closing his mouth once more. "My dashing good looks that made you fall in love with me at first sight?" he offers lamely.
"Please," Taemin laughs, relishing the feeling of having the upper hand for once. "You pored over your music theory paper for two hours, getting most of them wrong, I might add, before collapsing on my arm and sleeping, making me unable to move. Furthermore, you wouldn't wake up, and even started drooling on my arm, and only woke up half an hour after you sent my arm to sleep," Taemin says, enjoying the way Jongin looks like he's being punched with every word the elder says. "Even when you woke up, it was only when the librarian shouted at you because it was closing time, and then you talked my ear off with apologies and stuff. The only thing that may have redeemed you, even only slightly, was the fact that you offered to treat me to dinner."
Jongin's expression is gloomy as he stares forlornly at his pizza. "You really thought that badly of me?"
"Nah," Taemin says, and Jongin immediately perks up. "I thought you were hot, actually."
"So you did fall in love with me at first—"
"Nothing of the sort," Taemin grins, and Jongin deflates. "I just thought you were attractive, and that you maybe had a good sense of humour," he continues, then sighs dramatically. "How wrong I was."
"Hey!"
2:14 PM
"Why are we here?"
"I wanted to eat cake," Kai says matter-of-factly, as if it should be obvious.
"Okay," Taemin concedes, "but why does it have to be at the place I worked at?"
"I like the cakes here," Jongin says, and walks confidently into the shop, the bell by the door ringing and setting off a call of "Welcome to Matchy Café!" from the staff, and Taemin only just remembers not to say it as well. They find an empty table and sit down, Taemin trying to shield his face with the menu. "What are you so afraid of?" Jongin wonders, staring at Taemin and the way he seems to shrink in on himself so as not to be seen, and just as Taemin opens his mouth to reply, there's a blur of motion of his peripheral vision, and they both look up.
"I was right!" Kibum all but yells, and ruffles Taemin's hair, none too gently, while his other hand pats Jongin gently on the head. "It is you two, long time no see!" he says, glaring pointedly at Taemin. "I told you to drop by sometimes! I don't know how I've managed without my best waiter..." he continues, raising a hand to his forehead dramatically.
Taemin rolls his eyes playfully and mouths "This is what I was afraid of" at Jongin before saying to Kibum, "What, has Minho quit as well?"
"Don't be stupid," Kibum says affectionately, smacking Taemin upside the head. "So what made you two lovebirds come back here after all this time?"
Taemin looks up hopefully, thinking that Jongin will finally reveal what they're doing, but to his disappointment, Kai raises a finger to his lips. "It's a secret," he says, and says no more on the subject.
2:47 PM
They've finished eating their desserts, and so when Jongin leads the way out of the back door and into the small alleyway just outside the café, Taemin is very confused. "Why are we here now?"
"Do you remember this place?"
"Of course I do, it's where I always came out after my shift at the café," Taemin says, bemused.
"No! Well, yes, but no. Think. What significance would it have to me?" Jongin says slowly, and as the light of comprehension dawns on Taemin's face, the tanned male grins.
"It's where we confessed," Taemin says, smiling.
"Yes! Okay. Now, on to the next place."
"Where?"
"It's a secret."
"Jongin!"
3:33 PM
"And we're back here again," Taemin says, as if resigned to his fate of being dragged around Seoul by his eccentric younger boyfriend. They're standing under the largest lamp post around Hoehyeon Station again, and Jongin's bouncing on the soles of his feet with excitement. Taemin's begun to see where this is going, and so, before Jongin says anything, Taemin says, "This is the place we met at for our first date."
"Yes!" Jongin says happily, and Taemin can almost see a tail wagging behind the taller male. "Now, the train."
4:39 PM
"The library," Taemin says as if in awe, staring at the building. "That's where you drooled on me."
Jongin winces. "Again, you really don't have to put it like that."
"Yes, I really do. So, are you ever going to tell me what we've been doing?"
"We've been visiting all the places where we had our firsts," Jongin says cheerfully, and leads the way into the library. It's unusually deserted for a Saturday afternoon, but when Taemin expresses this thought, Jongin simply smiles mysteriously, and continues the journey into the library. He strides purposefully into the Young Adult Fiction section and into a row of shelves, and, stopping abruptly, pulls out a very familiar-looking book, the pages yellowed with age and dog-eared almost beyond repair, and presents it to Taemin.
"It's my favourite book," Taemin notes with some amusement and he flips open the page. "That one sappy romance novel that you always teased me about liking."
"Yeah," Jongin agrees. "But I read it, and so I began to see why you like it so much."
"Huh?"
"Turn to page 394."
Taemin does so, obediently, flipping carefully through the well-worn pages until he reaches the right page. ""I l-l-lo-lo-like you,"" he reads, the words underlined in a pale pink. ""I love you too, all these meetings have only served to remind me of that fact."" He looks up, and Jongin's mouthing the words as Taemin reads them, getting more confused by the second. ""So, my love, will you do me the honour of marrying me?""
Taemin looks up, utterly nonplussed, only to see that Jongin is sinking down on one knee, hands fumbling in his jacket pocket, and Taemin's eyes widen. "So, my love," Jongin begins, and Taemin shuts him up with a kiss.
"Oh hell no," Taemin grins, and gets down on one knee as well, reaching into his little paper bag. "Kim Jongin, you have no idea how I stressed about this day. Plus, you're such a cheeseball. Using "The Flavour of Love" to propose to me? Really?" he says playfully, enjoying the battle of expressions on Jongin's face — confusion and amusement and shock — and he clears his throat before continuing, his lips forming the words to a speech he's practiced every single night. "Kim Jongin, I've loved you probably ever since the day we met, and if you'll let me, I'd like to continue loving you until the day we die. Kim Jongin, Kai, Kkamjongie, Princess Kailie, love of my life. Will you marry me?"
Jongin finally breaks out into a grin, shuffling forward on his knees to kiss Taemin's smirk off his face. "You bastard," he whispers affectionately. "You never let me finish my proposal."
Taemin laughs, and grabs Jongin's left hand to slide the ring onto his ring finger, and Jongin does the same for Taemin, both giggling like schoolchildren, and when they finally wobble to their feet, fingers tangled together naturally, they know that while this is a conclusion to one story, it's also a beginning to a whole other story, and they know that all they'd have to do now is let their love story write itself.
Story Time.
Firstly and most importantly, happy birthday in advance to the king of dancers, Lee Taemin!
And secondly,
READING BETWEEN THE LINES IS FINALLY OVER!!!!
let us all celebrate together with Taekai
I really had a lot of fun writing this story and contributing to the ridiculously small quantity of taekai fics out there.
I hope you guys enjoyed the ride as much as I did.
truthfully, when I first wrote Reading Books and Faces, I never, even in my wildest dreams, expected that it would turn into a twelve-chapter story. Thank you guys so much for making that possible, you're the best.
This is my first chaptered fic ever, did you know?
68 subscribers, wow.
I'm sorry I'm so emotional... It's my first time finishing a story, so it's kinda hard for me to let go of them...
TAEKAI LIVES ON
They're pretty much already married to each other already anyways
Also, I have a bunch of snippets that somehow didn't make it into the story, so those and some Easter Eggs will be in the next chapter.
If you'd like to read those and see what goes on behind the scenes of Reading Between the Lines, please do so!
Please enjoy them!
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