taemin stares at the hand outstretched for him, palm open and fingers calloused. his eyes trail up the arm that’s connected to the hand and all of a sudden he’s looking at big black eyes, thick eyebrows hidden behind long curly brown hair, and chapped lips twisted into are you okay?

taemin’s eyebrows furrow and meet in the middle and he glares at the helping hand before he slaps it away. He feels dirt mixed with sweat on his skin and he tastes blood on his lip. this isn’t the first time and it hasn’t been the first time in how many years, but he’ll never ever get used to the name-calling and the pushing into the lockers. he hates the feeling of being weak and abused, and he knows it’s probably his own fault for not fighting back, but how can he when there’s always someone to do it for him?

“taemin-ah…”

he pushes himself up off of the ground, swaying a little when he feels pain shoot up his left leg. a hand shoots out to steady him but he moves away from it and leans on the wall he was shoved into not twenty minutes ago. he doesn’t look at his savior and decides to regain his balance first and figure out a way to get home without falling down on the ground.

“taemin, c’mon let’s get you home,” that smooth voice with the low timbre is flowing into his ear again, and he doesn’t want to hear it anymore. he’s so sick and tired of this, of all of it.

“leave me alone, minho.” he deliberately leaves out the ‘hyung’ to get his anger and his seriousness across. now would be a great time to finally be all grown up and make a decision on his own – a decision that would change him and his highschool life more than he could ever know.

“what? but i-“

“you heard me. leave me alone. i don’t need your help.” he pushes away from the wall and stands on his own two feet again. he’s putting more weight on his right leg because there’s still that pain shooting up his other leg and he can’t figure out why that is.

“don’t be stupid, taemin, you can’t get home on your own like that. now c’mon.”

“no!” in a split second that taemin doesn’t get to count, his arm is pulling back, his fingers close into his palm, his eyes shut tight, and his blood boils over. he’s putting all the strength he has left into throwing his arm back in front of him, and he feels skin meet his skin, he hears bone meet his fist, and then his eyes are open again. minho’s a step farther from him now and he’s holding a hand to his bleeding mouth.

taemin feels like he should be regretting something and feeling bad about it, but all he feels in the course of blood in his system is anger and maybe just a little bit of satisfaction. he knows that the only thing ever holding him back from finally getting to be free of all the bullying is minho. he knows it’s minho’s fault and it always will be minho’s fault.

“i’m sick and tired of you always coming to save me. it’s your fault they can still find it in themselves to bully me – because they know i can’t fight back. and do you know why they know that? because they know you can’t help but act like the hero all the damn time.”

minho doesn’t look at taemin and looks instead at the blood on his hand.

“i don’t need you.”

taemin limps away from the wall and away from his childhood and his old highschool life. he can finally breathe because he’s finally leaving the only reason he ever felt so suffocated in the first place.

he doesn’t see the tear that rolls down minho’s dirtied cheek - if he did, it would have been the first.


                                                                                      {2 years later}



taemin trudges over to the table where kibum is fussing over jonghyun’s horrible hairstyle again, to which jonghyun, in return, fusses over kibum’s horrible personality. he puts down his tray of lunch on the table and sits across from the two, who can’t seem to shut up and stay civil for more than a few minutes.

“hey taeminnie. how was the math test?” kibum asks, reaching over and ruffling his hair because he loves doting on the younger boy, but only because the other lets him.

“horrible; i don’t understand why algebra is so difficult for me now.” none of them mention that it’s a lie and all of them knew the reason why. “i used to get at least b minuses and now all i can scrape up is a c. and who needs algebra in music and theatre anyway?”

kibum smiles sympathetically and pats him on the shoulder. “don’t worry, at least you don’t get what jonghyun gets. it’s a wonder they even let him graduate high school.”

“yah!”

And they start fighting again, leaving taemin to sigh and get started on his food. he’s just about to shove a piece of kimbap into his mouth when he sees an unfamiliar face walk past him.

his hair’s a mix of two completely different things; it’s curly but straight, caught up ini don’t want it to look too messy or too neat. it’s a shade of auburn and a shade of copper all at the same time, but taemin can’t quite figure it out – jonghyun and kibum were much better at this whole hair thing. his fringe sweeps across his forehead and rests messily on his left eyebrow. his eyes are small and searching probably looking for a place to sit. taemin knows it’s difficult to find a place to sit in the cafeteria because everyone claims a table and calls it theirs for the rest of the year. he’s just lucky most of the upperclassmen like kibum and everyone else younger are in love with jonghyun.

he’s just lucky.

“hey, kibum hyung, do you know who that is?” taemin asks, rudely pointing towards the lost boy a few feet away from their table.

kibum looks up from where he’s pushing jonghyun’s face at an arm’s length away and says, “yeah, that’s lee jinki. he transferred in this morning from that school nobody really knows about.”

“so how do you know what school it is?”

“he’s my cousin.”

taemin and jonghyun both look at kibum incredulously and quirk an eyebrow.

“distant cousin though. like, i’ve only ever met him twice – the second time being this morning. i’m surprised he even remembered me.”

taemin nods and gives this guy – lee jinki – another once over. he’s wearing a long black wool-knit sweater that kind of engulfs his seemingly slender frame and equally black seemingly leather pants with laces crisscrossing over the front of his legs. taemin doesn’t miss the way the pants are hugging his womanly thighs.

all the black on him gives him this air of no, you don’t know me and his bulky shoes scream i don’t want to be your friend. but there was just something about the way his eyes are just so tiny and so not intimidating and about the way there’s this unsure smile on his face as he looks around, still lost. it just gives taemin another reason to wonder if this guy was just as bipolar as his outward appearance is.

“aren’t you going to invite him to eat with us? he looks like he needs it.” jonghyun says, nudging kibum on the side; but just as he was going to take the other’s advice for once, jinki’s full pink lips quirk into a smile before he stalks over to a seemingly empty table.

“oh.”

he’s walking over to the table that practically everybody, especially taemin, avoids. minho’s sitting there, and he doesn’t really mind it when others sit, but the silence is exceptionally bothersome and most people just can’t handle not being talked to – especially with the kind of face minho grew up to have.

“should we tell him about minho?”

“nah, he’ll find out on his own, he can handle himself.”

“you’re such a , kibum.”

“he’s my cousin, you don’t know what he’s like.”

“neither do you! you said you’ve only ever met twice before!”

“and that’s just about the only amount of times i need to be around him to know what kind of person he is. he can handle himself.”

taemin ignores the growing argument on his side of the table and watches jinki place his tray down on the table across from minho’s own lunch. as expected, minho neither reacts to it nor does he make any motion to do anything about it. and as should be expected of himself (from himself), he pays no mind to them.


{*~*}


it turns out, the next wednesday afternoon, this lee jinki tried out for the choir and passed auditions with flying colors. he sits now beside jonghyun, who sings most of the melodies in their pieces, three seats away from taemin, and a bunch of seats away from kibum, who’s assigned to a voice lower than taemin’s and a voice higher than jonghyun.

no one has heard him sing yet aside from their choir master and everyone’s always a little bit apprehensive to something new and something unknown.

loud chatter fills the room when jaejoong sonsaengnim calls for a break and leaves the room for a short smoking session everyone knows he takes.

taemin stands to go and talk to kibum and jonghyun who are already huddled in a corner waiting for him. his eyes flicker to jinki’s quiet form, hands over his lap (right over the left), knees only a few centimeters apart and head tilted downwards. he ponders inviting him over to join them, but, just like everyone else, he isn’t used to sudden changes.

jonghyun and kibum are fighting again, voices in loud whispers in an attempt (keyword) to keep their conversation to themselves.

“what are you guys talking about?” taemin asks as soon as he’s within close proximity of the two, who only stop their glaring match to turn to him and pat his head.

“it’s nothing important, taemin-ah,” kibum tells him the same time that jonghyun tilts his chin up slightly and opens his mouth, letting his voice project over the voices of their other choir members.

“hey, jinki-ssi, come over here for a second,” he says and taemin’s eyes are getting a little wide and a little what the hell are you doing? he turns to where jinki’s seated and sees him looking up at them – at jonghyun with wide, curious eyes. when kibum calls him over again, he slowly and carefully stands up from his seat and walks over to them, hands still folded in front of him (right over left) and head tilted down.

“hi jinki hyung, i’m sure you’ve met jonghyun already. but here’s someone new, this is lee taemin, he’s a year below us.”

taemin’s not sure he wants to look up and meet this lee jinki, but he knows what it’s like to not have any friends, to not know how to talk to people, and he also knows that kibum would stirfry him if he disrespects his cousin (distant, though he may be).

“hello jinki-ssi, nice to meet you,” he says, holding out his thin hand to jinki and looks up at the (apparently) older boy.

the latter looks hesitant at first, staring straight into taemin’s round eyes, but then he could sense even just a flicker of sincerity in them and takes the offered hand. the corners of his lips curl up, his teeth appear in neat rows of white, and his eyes disappear into crescents. it’s the kind of smile people could only force themselves to do but still can’t manage to look this good – this… innocent.

when taemin smiles back in a more subdued manner, jinki lets go of his hand and promptly folds it in front of himself again. taemin wants to tell him to just loosen up because they’re going to be nice to him and not eat him alive - unless he decides to be a complete douche about this whole ‘being new’ thing - but jaejoong sonsaengnim comes back in smelling like a mix of febreeze and smoke. he claps his hands to get everyone quiet and back to their seats. taemin catches jinki stumble a little on his own feet from the corner of his eye but the other regains quickly and sits up straighter in his seat.

and when sonsaengnim has them bringing out their pieces and harmonizing with one another, he can distinctly hear a new voice standing out along with jonghyun’s and kibum’s because their voices sound so unique and loud while taemin’s still struggling to project his voice. his eyes flicker to jonghyun who looks like he’s completely focused on what he’s doing but taemin knows better by the twitching near his eyebrow. he moves his gaze to kibum who’s just blatantly staring while words and notes tumble out of his mouth. he then finally lets his gaze land on jinki, who’s eyes are trained on the piece in front of him, but not really reading it because he knows this piece by heart – sings it in the shower even. he sees the way jinki looks more relaxed now than he’s ever seen him before on campus, mouth forming words and throat manipulating notes and sounds and it all just sounds so heavenly.

jinki turns to look at him when he catches him staring, and when taemin doesn’t look away, he smiles that impossible smile again before turning back to his piece. taemin still isn’t sure where jinki belongs in this world – in his life – but he’s willing to let him creep into the spaces in his brain reserved only for his mother, his brother, jonghyun and kibum; as long as he keeps using that blinding smile on taemin.