taemin stares boredly at his nails while they go through their vocalization. he listens to jinki, kibum and jonghyun because he realizes everyone else’s voices are just a background to their three-man show. he picks at a piece of skin as he stops vocalizing along with all the other people in his voice range and gets goosebumps as he listens to jonghyun and jinki move higher and higher up the scale. and then it reaches that one moment where only so few girls are singing along with jonghyun and they reach the highest note jaejoong-sonsaengnim gives them and taemin doesn’t think he’ll ever stop praising jonghyun for that.

they finish vocalization and are split off into groups, one from each voice to practice the piece for their upcoming performance. he quickly joins jonghyun and kibum, who’s dragging jinki along, to an empty space on the floor and three other girls join them.

“kibum, jinki’s the same voice as jonghyun,” taeyeon, who everyone swears could be taemin’s legitimate noona, points out.

“sonsaengnim won’t find out if you won’t tell, noona.”

“if i won’t tell,” taeyeon challenges back, a smirk on her face.

in all honesty, taemin wasn’t as close to the noonas as he’d like – not that he didn’t want to, he just couldn’t find it in himself to go up to them himself and say ‘hey, noona’. last time he tried, he left the school with his cheeks thoroughly pinched and his ears thoroughly chewed off about being too cute and too thin. needless to say, he’s been too traumatized to try again.

“okay, let’s start,” jonghyun says with finality, arranging his sheet music in his hands. taemin follows silently, holding the sheet music up to his face. every now and then, he glances at jinki who is silently waiting for his turn, completely opposite of the personality he encountered in his algebra classroom last friday afternoon. he frowns and wonders to himself if jinki has a case of split personality – or if he’s simply trying to put up a good front for everyone else.

jinki opens his mouth and starts singing along, harmonizing with jonghyun and kibum. taemin grips his papers tighter because he feels this churning in his stomach and he’s fairly sure it has nothing to do with the bulgogi sandwich he had for lunch. he feels a tingle slither down his spine, curling around the tendons and sliding against the bones, when jonghyun hits a particularly high note – thin and striking - and jinki completes it with a lower note – whole and heavy. everyone else stops and listens because there’s a whole rest in their respective staff while jinki and jonghyun hold their harmonization for four counts – four counts where taemin holds his breath.

“that was so good! your voice is really nice, jinki-oppa,” luna, a girl taemin’s age, expresses, placing her papers in her lap gingerly when they finish their piece. her bright smile contrasts with the darkness of her brown hair.

“thank you, luna-ssi.” jinki grins as he continues to receive praise from the others.

taemin can only scowl and look away. it seems that only he can see through jinki’s mask – that mask of innocence and timidness. he knows that jinki isn’t really like that – jinki is bossy and a know-it-all and taemin will be the only one to know until the right moment when he can totally destroy him. taemin smiles to himself and turns back to the group. jinki smiles back at him and he looks away again.


{…}


“come on in. jonghyun hyung’s out getting dinner.” they both step through the door, leaving their shoes by the door. taemin drops his bag next to the desk by the window and watches as jinki looks around, taking in the room.

“this is a nice room,”

“it’s a pig sty.”

“it’s relative.” jinki grins at him and drags the extra rolling chair from jonghyun’s desk over to taemin’s desk. taemin blinks at him before plopping down on his chair and moving over to the side to give space for his tutor. jinki pulls the seat closer as taemin pulls out his algebra book, pen and paper.

when they begin, jinki keeps silent as he watches taemin answer his homework. every now and then his soft hands would reach out and point at a certain space on taemin’s paper where he knew the younger had made a mistake.

“now i know where you’re having a hard time,” jinki says, grinning to himself at the revelation. he then leans closer to him and opens his book, pointing at and explaining the solutions that taemin hardly ever really understood before. and even though this whole tutoring session was really supposed to be for taemin’s learning benefit, he hardly listens. he can smell the sharp striking scent of jinki’s deodorant and something else soft and inviting like cherry blossoms and he feels a little dizzy. the push and pull of the contrasting smells cloud his brain and tosses him around on his axis.

“…taemin, are you listening?” jinki asks.

he blinks and turns away from his book and to jinki, who stares at him strangely and gives him a small, awkward smile.

“y-yeah, sorry. i’m just a little sleepy. do you want water?” he asks, standing up from his chair and the air around his head now makes him feel a little better.

“sure.”

he shuffles towards their mini-fridge in a corner of the room and takes his time taking out the big bottle of water they use and pouring the water into two glasses. he replaces the bottle and makes his way back to the desk with both glasses in hand. he sets them down on the desk beside his papers and sits. the whole time, jinki is silent.

as soon as he’s seated, the smell hits him back full force when jinki leans in and starts to explain things to taemin again; his pen moving across taemin’s notebook, scribbling down notes and solutions on the lined paper. he watches jinki’s hand move and thinks he uses hand cream.

“you get it now?” jinki asks, putting his pen down and leans back on the chair.

taemin blinks – he’s starting to realize he’s doing that too much – stares at his book and the numbers and symbols swim together. he doesn’t get it.

“you know, you smell funny.”

“… do i?” jinki pulls his shirt away from him and sniffs himself.

“just a little.”

“sorry, maybe i should change my deodorant. it must be that.” jinki shrugs.

“funny doesn’t always connote something negative,” taemin points out and he silently berates himself.

’what the hell am i saying?’

“oh yeah?” jinki grins at him and leans in close, “do i smell good then?”

taemin hesitates for a while but he leans his face close to jinki, almost pressing his face into his shoulder. he sniffs at his shirt and he can smell jinki’s deodorant, his hand cream and even maybe his shampoo – it makes his brain feel hazy and makes his bones feel like jelly. he places a hand on the desk and his other on the chair that jinki’s sitting on and he closes his eyes.

he can feel jinki’s breath on his ear and when he says ‘taemin?’ with that same sweet low timbre of voice that he used that first time he spoke to taemin in the algebra classroom – taemin spazzes.

“, hyung, sorry!”


{…}


jonghyun stares at taemin and taps his foot while they sit on the couch in front of the tv in the common room of their dorm.

“what.”

“care to tell me why jinki hyung left our dorm wearing your sweater?”

a fellow dorm-mate who happens to be in the room as well looks up and gives jonghyun and taemin a weird look. taemin ignores him and focuses his gaze on the soccer game playing on their television.

“you know, taemin, i don’t really mind, coz i guess you’re old enough for that and i admit i’ve done the same with kibum, but i wish you-“

“you what?! hyung!” he whines, not even trying to hide the disgust in his facial expression.

“what? don’t tell me you actually thought kibum and i were doing projects together.” jonghyun laughs. “you know we have no classes together, right?”

taemin frowns, “i’ve always thought that was a little weird.”

“you are so clueless, you know that?”

“whatever,” taemin huffs, crossing his arms and sinking down low on the couch. he watches the players kick the ball back and forth, doing some fancy tricks and finally shooting the ball into the goal. the coach of the winning team is filmed and there’s a big smile on his face. a big smile taemin used to see all the time.

“so how was it?” jonghyun asks

“how was what?” taemin answers, irritation in his voice. not that he wasn’t used to it by now, but he’s just been having a bad day and to have jonghyun pester him about things he didn’t even understand was just pushing it.

“your first time with jinki hyung.”

“i did not have with jinki hyung!”


{…}


“he left your dorm with taemin’s sweater on? taemin-ah, why didn’t you tell me you and jinki hyung were dating?” kibum reprimands him the very next day when, of course, jonghyun tells him of the event.

“we are not dating! i spilled water all over his shirt while he was tutoring me, okay?” taemin leans back on his locker, clutching his books in one hand.

“why’d you spill water on his shirt?”

“it was just an accident, accidents happen.”

“ just happens too.”

“we did not have nor did we do anything ually related to it!”

“if you say so,” kibum chuckles, bumping his hip against jonghyun’s, and the two share mishievous glances.

taemin rolls his eyes and pushes off the cool metal.

“c’mon, let’s go grab a bite.” he grabs both of their arms and start leading them out of the building when he hears his name get called.

“taemin-ah!”

he turns, and so do kibum and jonghyun, and they see jinki walking over to them with a bright smile and a straight-faced minho trailing after him.

“hi jinki-hyung,” they all greet.

“hey minho,” kibum and jonghyun say while taemin stares at the bundle of cloth in jinki’s hand.

“thank you, by the way, for lending me this.” jinki holds out the sweater to taemin still with the big smile.

“no problem, hyung. did your shirt dry okay? sorry again for that.”

“yeah, it did, don’t worry so much about it. accidents happen.”

taemin gives kibum and jonghyun an i-told-you-so grin and stuffs the sweater in his bag. he was never one to boast or brag, but he felt that this moment should be rubbed in their faces.

“well, we’ll go ahead. we still have a class to go to. see you guys!” jinki waves at them and clutches minho’s wrist and leads him off to the right where the field is.

“bye hyung!”

“huh.” kibum says with a bit of shrug.

“what?”

“i don’t know of any classes being held where they’re headed. do you?”

“no, anything beyond the field is just a bunch of trees and hardly anyone goes there – it’s way too far from any of our buildings.”

taemin listens to their conversation and as soon as jonghyun says ‘hardly anyone goes there’, it feels like a hundred ton mallet hits him over the head and he can sort of maybe understand why anyone would want to go to a secluded place like that.




a/n: i just realized that my chapters were getting shorter and shorter. but i just really needed to get this one up so i could make way for the next few chapters i've planned out. a little bit more confusing things in here, but i hope to get it cleared up soon - i hope! i hope you guys liked this chapter and are willing to wait for the next few ones ^^;