Nine
The Lifetime KidsA hand slipped into his own, so quickly, so quietly, it was barely noticed. Their palms fused together like water as they watched each other, two creatures subject to only one thing: Their love. Time stilled, and then a kiss - soft, al, complete - against the pinkest of lips. Wanton fingers became intertwined with the finest waves of hair, and emotions enveloped until all that could be felt was a serendipity of contentment and pleasure. This was it. This was love. This would last a lifetime-
Taemin awoke and bolted upright, breathing sharp, chest rising up and down so quickly he couldn’t control it, and it felt as if he was indebted to the cruellest of asphyxiations. As a bead of perspiration drew a line down his forehead, his fingers fumbled by the bedside table, to the wall and the plug and the switch, and when he found it, he flicked it, the murky darkness of night dispelling, replaced by the yellow glow of his lamp.
He was alone.
Letting out a groan, Taemin elapsed back atop his bed, stared at the ceiling with a poignant distress, and began to cry.
He didn't know how long he had cried for, but when finally the tears ceased and his body relaxed from the tremulous shudders it'd been confined to, he kicked back his duvet and stood, cold, statuesque, in the darkness of night. Vacant, he eyed the dressing table opposite him as if it was an unnecessary abstraction. It was empty. Of course, it was empty.
Taemin yawned.
He hadn’t counted the number of dreams he'd had now, hadn’t wanted to. With every one, he'd awake to his own mild gasping, and a spate of tears would invade him as he struggled to grasp the remnants of his visions. It was unhealthy, however. Taemin knew this greatly. His unrequited love prying at his conscious thoughts was one thing, but having it play with his subconscious was another entirely. Gingerly, he pressed his cold fingertips against his damp cheeks, to dry the dismal tears. Twenty-four years old, and yet he still cried as if a young adolescent, unsure of himself, and of his future. Taemin hated being unsure. Maybe he really hadn’t grown up.
Blindly grabbing his dressing grown from the bed post, Taemin slipped it on as he padded through the bedroom, mindful of the shoes and clothing he'd discarded like playing cards on a poker table. Reaching the door, he pushed it open with a light gesture, and walked out into the hallway. It was eerily still, eerily silent – a home for spectres more-so than humans. Darkness lanced through the corridor like it was a well, the glimmer of water at the far side the calling of moonlight through the curtainless window. Taemin shut the bedroom door behind him quietly, and stood in the corridor for a moment, cold, scared, lifeless.
He saw memories flicker to fade as he stood there, back to the doorway, feet frozen against the wooden flooring. His eyes searched the blank vapidity in front of him desperately, sorrow wrenching his gut. Taemin liked the present, the here-and-now, but every time he visited the dorm he'd once shared with his hyungs so religiously, he couldn’t help but want to turn back time, to return to a younger age, where he was more full of life, of hope, of expectation. An age where he didn’t know the direction he was going in, where love was a notebook ready for him to fill, where the future was as abstract as a cubist’s still-life. Taemin clenched his fist and exhaled, thoughts too rapid for such an ungodly hour. He couldn’t keep up with himself.
Reaching to the left, Taemin patted the wall until his palm hit the light-switch, and the corridor flooded with a homely orange glow, like that which emanated from a warm fire. Anywhere else, the solitude and shadow would have germinated a seed of doubt in his gut, but the dorm was so familiar to Taemin that somehow he never truly felt by himself. He felt comforted by the past, as if a blanket of memories coddled him and protected him from the world beyond the beige walls and sleek wooden flooring.
Blinking heavily to reduce the lead in his eyes, Taemin passed the rooms his hyungs had once inhabited as he walked down the corridor, like smoke drifting from a cigarette . The scent of cleanliness now masked the apartment's old aroma – one of Jinki’s cologne and Jonghyun’s perfume and Kibum’s fragrant candles and Minho’s beer collection – but Taemin was fooled into thinking he could still sense that trademark, nose twitching as he ventured. When he reached the open-spaced living area, lit in a small halo by the corridor’s light, he directed himself towards the kitchenette, the sink, to get a drink of water. His throat was parched, and, like a furling petal, his mind seemed to be withering, causing the flourish of a headache. It was only when he took the first cool drink and pressed the wet glass to his forehead that he heard the faintest of knocks.
Taemin frowned.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
There it was again – that distant, intermittent tapping. Taemin set the glass on the kitchen counter, shoulders uncontrollably tensing as his ears pricked.
Knock-knock, quicker now, like a thunder of tiny footsteps.
Someone was at the door.
Shaking his head, the dancer remained motionless. It made no sense why someone would visit so late – why someone would visit at all. It was well beyond midnight, and their dorms were mostly empty. Nobody lived there anymore – at least, not permanently – and even when they had, visitors consisted only of staff and family. All of their staff and family had known for years that the dorms were unoccupied, left to stagnate in their cleanly newness like blotted frogspawn. He was hearing things. He had to be.
Yet the knocking continued.
Biting down the urge to curse, Taemin drew in a breath and nodded determinedly. He could ignore the caller, let their knocking recede into silence – but curiosity wouldn’t allow him. He had to know who it was, despite every inch of his body raging against the notion; night-callers were never a good thing, whether hapless drunkards or worried acquaintances, and Taemin wasn’t exactly well equipped to deal with such disruptions. However, ignoring the primordial instinct that told him to evade, Taemin tied the knot around his dressing gown tighter, and hesitantly tip-toed towards the door, his lower lip as he went.
He supposed he wasn’t expecting to see who greeted him.
"Minho?"
Taemin’s eyes widened as his hoarse voice slit through the silence, gripping the door with white hands as he stared at his hyung.
“Oh, you're here,” Minho muttered, and instantly Taemin could tell one thing: He was drunk. The elder wavered on his footsteps as he cracked a toothy grin, words slurred and expression floating in a surrealist’s imagining. The scent of alcohol lingered on his body as he scratched the back of his head, ever-handsome even in the scant light of the corridor. Taemin stepped aside to allow Minho to enter. The elder did so with a slight stumble.
“What are you doing here?” Taemin asked, as soon as Minho had entered the safe confines of their dorms. Clicking the door shut behind himself, Taemin suddenly became very self-aware; his skin was ashen; his lips were dry; his hair was a bedheaded mess – if Minho hadn’t been so intoxicated, he would almost have been ashamed. However, as the elder glanced around, lost to his reminiscences like a child playing in a sand-pit, Taemin merely rubbed his eyes and sighed. By morning, it would have slipped Minho’s mind completely.
“Minho,” Taemin repeated, firmer this time, “why are you here?”
Reactions delayed, Minho twisted his neck to view Taemin, who stood, oddly elven, beneath the pinstriped sheath of his over-sized dressing gown. In comparison to Minho, whose strong build was punctuated by the black sweater he wore, Taemin was as frail and timid as a broken doll. It seemed neither man knew quite what was happening, as Minho shrugged a shoulder, clearly finding it difficult to so much as string together a response.
“A few nights ago, you said… At Jinki’s… You stay at the dorms… So I-“
Unable to control himself any longer, Minho wobbled and, in an instant, Taemin was at his side to steady him, small hands firmly gripping the broad shoulders of the rapper. Minho was heavy, and Taemin’s muscles tensed as he kept him in place, on his feet, though mildly off-balance. He mumbled something indecipherable as Taemin looped Minho’s arm over his own slender shoulder, hoping to direct the elder to one of the bedrooms. This wasn’t the first time he'd been faced with a drunken Minho, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.
“Come on,” Taemin coaxed, half-hoisting the drunken man down the corridor as he muttered something about the pretty bartender and Jinki's broken vase, as if all that mattered in the world was the confusion in his own voice. Sleep deprivation pulsed through Taemin, limbs laden in lethargy as he supported the heavy weight of his friend, who was listless, mindless, absent from reality. Though Minho drank often, he didn’t get drunk often, and it was when he did that Taemin would begin to worry, would begin to wonder why. Sometimes, there would be no reason – a simple mistake that led to one-too-many – but, often, there would be a reason why the elder had drank himself into oblivion, a reason that could be harrowed out only there and then, for the next morning it would be sealed beneath the gauze of a hangover.
“In here,” Taemin directed, as Minho’s head lulled against his neck. Taemin’s body shivered as Minho exhaled, breath damp, tepid, against his skin, whilst he shouldered the door to Minho’s old room open, and expertly used the same technique to click on the light switch.
“Yah…” Minho protested, squinting at the unnaturally bright buzz of the light, much sharper than that of the corridor. Squinting hurriedly, Taemin felt his legs buckle slightly as he used his final dregs of strength to all but throw Minho atop the bed – that was crisply made with a white duvet and cream-coloured sheets.
“I'm not tired…” Minho murmured, rubbing his eyes as his body slumped into a sitting position, shoulders dragging down his flushed frame. Loudly exhaling, Taemin took a step backwards and allowed his mind to catch up with everything that had just happened, and everything that now was.
What the ing hell?
“Hey…” Minho mused, words one ardent slur, blurred as a miasma, “I remember this room…” He cast his eyes to the ceiling, the bare walls, and laughed slightly. Taemin watched him with feline interest, worried, yet not scared – for, no matter how drunk he was, he knew Minho would never hurt him. His lower lip quivered as his heart echoed emptily, watching Minho like a spectator would a bird of prey. “I remember…”
“You should sleep,” Taemin instructed, “we can talk in the morning, hyung.”
“Hm…” Minho sighed, ignorance permeating his very posture as he elapsed back atop the bed, sinking further into the comfortable fabric. “Taemin-ah… Lie besi’ me… It's so soft…” Contentment inspirited Minho’s shut eyes and half-smile as he lay, wound up in some acidic dream. Taemin swallowed thickly. He hated drunkenness, hated it with a passion – but he thanked God that Minho was a peaceful drunk, a happy drunk, an emotionally in-tune drunk, who wouldn’t act on a stupid whim. If it had been any other man on the planet, Taemin would have feared for his own being – but not with Minho. Somehow, the elder was even more caring when intoxicated.
“No, Minho,” Taemin declined slowly, carefully, ensuring the elder heard his words. “It's late. I have to go to bed.”
“Yah… Lie here with me…” Minho requested, eyes fluttering open again as he patted the empty space beside him. “Come on, lie here…”
“No, hyung,” Taemin reiterated, shaking his head resolutely. “Don't be silly. Go to sleep.”
“Been so long since someone slept beside me,” Minho confessed, voice muffled as he sank his head into the pillow. “So long…” As his fingers curled into the fabric, Taemin knew that, within moments, his hyung would fall asleep. He just had to wait it out.
“Taemin…” Minho drawled thickly, eyes directed at the pale-faced dancer, “sing for me…”
“What?” Taemin shot back, raising his eyebrows incredulously. Despite seeing Minho drunk many times, the younger had never experienced this, and the idea, quite frankly, terrified him.
“Sing… Something…” Minho pointlessly tried to elaborate. “Please.”
“No,” Taemin refused, backtracking towards the doorway. “Sleep, Minho. We'll talk in the morning.”
“Taemin, please,” Minho begged, a real desperation in his voice. Taemin’s entire body jarred at the tone, making him feel guilty though he knew how irrational the request itself was.
“I'm not the singer, I’m the dancer,” quipped the maknae, turning to leave just as one, final plead emanated from Minho’s lips.
"Please."
“But why?” Taemin asked boldly, tired, yet accountable. He was still by the door, wanting to leave and resume to his rest but knowing that if he did so he'd be kept awake by the mere thought of his hyung. Awaiting an answer, Taemin rubbed his arms, the night becoming ever-colder.
“Because…” Minho began absently, “because Kibum isn't here to…”
And then, he was asleep.
Taemin stood and frowned. Kibum isn't here to. What was that supposed to mean? He tilted his head at Minho, who nestled his own into the fabric of the bed deeply, breathing slowing to a distinct pattern. He was a peaceful sleeper, Minho, a deep one. Taemin sighed. The elder was drunk, and his comment had probably been but an odd, half-sourced whim, a memory of Kibum singing to him from years ago. It would make sense that his surroundings had triggered such a thought. It made sense, yet, somehow, it didn't satisfy Taemin’s intrigue. Chewing his lower lip in thought, Taemin silently slipped from the room to retrieve a spare duvet from another bed, to cover Minho with. When he'd tentatively ensured his hyung had a warm duvet to embrace him, Taemin stalked quietly to the light and flicked it off, leaving Minho in an oasis of darkness.
They would talk, in the morning.
•••
Alcoholism;
A shot, I drink you,
Addicted, more,
Growing my gut and
Spoiling my liver,
Addicted, more,
Growing my gut and
Spoiling my liver,
But healing my mind.
Confine me to stupor,
Burn out my organs,
If my thoughts will sleep.
Confine me to stupor,
Burn out my organs,
If my thoughts will sleep.
•••
“Honestly, I don’t even remember coming here,” Minho admitted, hissing as he swallowed the final painkiller in the spare hope that it may alleviate some of the pain caused by his pounding headache. Taemin watched him, small of his back against the kitchenette counter, as the elder downed the last of his glass of water also – his third glass of water, if Taemin had counted correctly.
“I guess you're lucky I was actually here,” Taemin mumbled jokingly. "I probably saved you from passing out in the corridor.” He smirked slightly, rubbing his shoulder. Fortunately, for Minho’s sake, the dancer had managed to uncover some old clothes of his – clothes that had been too large at the time, but fitted him perfectly now – and so the alcohol-stained outfit of the previous night had been discarded in a crumpled heap after the elder had opted for a shower, to cleanse his body and mind of last night’s barely remembered antics. He now sat, shoulders hunched, in a grey sweater and black jeans, alternating between sips of water, gulps of coffee and crunching on the only thing there'd been in the dorms to eat – a packet of untouched cereal.
“Seriously, you probably did,” Minho admitted, pinching the bridge of his nose as a fresh wave of the headache overcame him.
A moment passed in silence as Taemin looped a finger through one of the holes in his loosely knitted crimson sweater, teasing out the fabric carefully, as if hypnotised. The midday light that speared through the window etched Minho out so completely; the corners of his soft lips and the sharp angle of his high cheekbones, the feathery tousles of brunette hair and the languid eyes that hung in a half-recognised stupor – every feature so intrinsically captivating. Taemin produced a dulcet sigh and asked the question that had been prying at his tongue all morning.
“Do you want to tell me what happened?”
As soon as he registered the subtly posed query, Minho dropped his hands from his head, and raised an eyebrow with a defensive: “What?”
“Well,” Taemin shrugged, awkward now as he shifted his feet and folded his wiry arms across his chest, “you just- you turn up here, at the dorms, of all places, drunk out of your mind and start asking all these weird questions and say-“
“Weird questions?”
“Don’t you remember?”
Minho shook his head resolutely, brows furrowing. Cocking his head curiously, he pondered, “What did I ask?”
“Nothing really,” Taemin backtracked, suddenly aware that an exposure of the truth could further sour an already bitter situation, “just- general things.”
“Like?”
“I don’t know, stuff.” Taemin shrugged a shoulder, distractedly gazing at the leather couch at the far-side of the room, which seemed stiff and uncompromising in such pale lighting.
“Taem-“
“You asked me to sing for you,” the maknae blurted.
There was a brief pause.
“I what?"
Taemin didn't know whether to laugh, shrug or dismiss the topic altogether – however, being the pillar of awkwardness that he so blatantly was, he decided to stick to the stoic laws of conversation and divert the course of their chatter, before he regretted the repercussions.
“Hyung, did anybody, y’know- did anybody… See you? You didn’t do anything stupid, did you?”
Minho narrowed his eyes, as if they were spectral hands trying to grasp the tangible, before letting out a weighted groan and grumbling, “How am I meant to know?”
“Great,” Taemin muttered curtly, sarcastically. He was tired.
“Well, it's not like I'm Kibum – I know how to get drunk and not make a complete fool of myself, Taem’.”
“Where does Kibum come into this?” the maknae asked, bewildered. It'd been years since he'd seen Kibum truly drunk, and even when he had been, he'd somehow managed to carry it off with a distinct elegance and sophistication, as everything else he ever did.
“Whatever,” Minho sighed, massaging his temples slowly. “I was careful. I think.”
“’Think’ isn’t really good enough,” Taemin mumbled, in a half-lecturing, half-lost tone. His voice was too feeble to assert authority, and Minho was too old to adhere to patronisation, but Taemin simply had to say something - a brotherly compulsion he couldn’t dispel easily.
“If anything was up online, I’m sure we'd have heard about it by now,” Minho argued, gesturing pointedly and staring up at Taemin with two rather sullen eyes. Despite his handsomeness, there was something quite bedraggled about his appearance, the way his hair was in unruly tufts and his face stark-white, side-effect of the hangover, no doubt.
“Have you looked online?”
“Well, no, but- I mean, you think Jinki wouldn't know? Of course he would, Taemin. We’d know by now. I'm sure most people wouldn't care anyway.”
“We've a reputation to uphold, Min’.”
“Oh, what a revelation!” Minho’s tone was laced in an aggravated sarcasm as his shoulders sagged again, and he leant into his hands, an item of clothing left to dry on the line for too long. Taemin bit his bottom lip, countenance radiating an off-hand guilt.
“Sorry,” he murmured, almost sheepish.
“Forget about it.”
Silence again. Taemin sighed, not knowing what else to say. He'd barely slept that night, suspended in a noose of fear and suspicion; he wanted to neglect the executioner’s kiss of his dreams, yet the axe burdening the thought of Minho also made his waking thoughts a tumult. His mind had yawed, restless, between wondering how far a dream could go and what had provoked his hyung to such copious drinking, but neither thought found answer, and he was left knowing little and obtaining less, somewhat an empty being beneath his stiff duvet. Taemin hated being unsure, hated it like hell – but, God, was he unsure.
“We don't have anything on today,” Minho posed, “right?”
“Well, I don’t,” Taemin shrugged a slender shoulder, “but our schedules are hardly in line.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“We've that anniversary concert tomorrow, though.”
“Anniversary concert?” Minho whipped his hands from his expressionless face and gave Taemin a look of candid curiosity.
“Yeah, the- thing…” Taemin faltered, struggling to remember what the concert was actually for or why they were participating or why it even mattered. “Rehearsals start in the morning,” he added, “early.”
“Anyone else performing there?”
“Yeah…”
“Taemin, do you have any idea what you're talking about right now?”
Taemin pursed his lips and considered.
“Not really.”
Minho managed a laugh then – a low, throaty snicker that helped to inspirit Taemin’s own fleeting spirit as the tacit coldness of the apartment continued to blossom around him, sneaky and deceptive.
“Remember a time when we used to care about this so much?” Minho asked, seeming to relieve his stupor momentarily. “Like, we would be really organised and know everything about every event and now we just…”
“We just forget,” Taemin nodded, “too many schedules.”
“Jinki always knows though,” Minho commented, “he's as organised as he always was.”
“Well, somebody has to know,” Taemin argued bluntly. “I mean, if he didn’t, would we ever have a clue what's happening?”
“Yunkyung would tell us,” Minho muttered, voice tensing slightly.
“Oh, yeah, sure, sure,” Taemin answered back, “he'd make it all so clear.” The maknae supposed his sleeplessness was embittering his tone as he folded his arms, finding a patch on the varnished wooden floor to observe with causal ambiguity.
“Bastard,” Minho murmured, almost in a way that Taemin couldn’t catch – but he did catch it, and all he could do was nod.
“He's not too bad, considering,” Taemin grimaced, rubbing an eye sleepily.
“Sometimes,” Minho began grandly, locking Taemin’s eyes and beginning to burn with a brunt vivacity, a flame flickering to speak, “I just don’t think he gets that we're grown adults. We can make our own choices, we have our own lives – we aren’t kids anymore.”
“Can we, though?” Taemin questioned back, eyeing the elder sceptically.
“What the hell does that mean?”
Taemin exhaled and shook his head.
“Seriously,” Minho added, “you're sounding more like Jjong’ everyday.”
The dancer froze, and said nothing.
“I should go home,” the elder stated suddenly, as if a divine epiphany he'd only just stumbled across. “If I have a day off, I am spending it in my bed.”
“I should go home too,” Taemin agreed, reluctantly. Part of him didn’t want to leave the dorms, though he was unsure why. He really did hate being unsure.
“Hey, wait-“ Minho frowned, eyebrows knitting together, “isn’t Jjong’ doing some kind of performance this evening? A charity thing, or whatever?”
“Yeah,” Taemin nodded, “why?”
“No reason,” Minho sighed, “just means there's no group schedule tonight.”
“It's a quiet time.”
“I miss you guys,” Minho joked, but in his voice was a dissonant note of sadness, and Taemin couldn’t tell whether it was remorseful or regretful, angry or repressed.
“I think we all miss each other,” Taemin replied honestly, answering for the entire group. “At least, we both miss the rest.”
“And each other,” Minho added kindly.
“And each other.”
“Things will never be how they used to, will they, Taem’?”
“I doubt it, Min’.”
Minho nodded and stood, statuesque under the sun’s idle gaze.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Taemin shrugged, pushing himself from the kitchen counter. Nervously, Minho regarded him for a moment, taking in everything about the effeminate dancer, his soft hair and gentle skin, his worn clothes and stooped posture. Fragile. He was fragile.
“What are you up to this evening, then?” Minho asked conversationally, as if he'd never known the maknae.
“I don’t know,” Taemin mused, “I might crash Jjong’s concert.” He laughed then.
“Go for it,” Minho nodded, “get the cameras on you instead. He'll be annoyed, for sure.”
“Yeah.”
“I'll see you, Taemin.”
“Be careful, hyung.”
When Minho left, he left Taemin alone, with only one thought resonant. Their encounter had sparked an impression, had sparked the root of a thought, and from that root Taemin could only remember one line:
Things will never be like they were.
i got a sudden burst of inspiration for this story... i really hope it lasts long enough that i can update Dx
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