Taemin’s first thought is ‘I’m thirsty’.

His second thought is ‘I’m still alive’.

It’s less of a thought and more of a startled realisation. I’m alive

Is he really? Alive?

And yes, he is. He really is. His mind feels clearer than it has in days; it feels like all of those times he’s slowly waking up after a long night’s sleep, when he’s not really awake yet, but awake enough to know that he’s dreaming.

Slowly, he comes back to his body. Kibum’s heartbeat is still drumming away in his ear; he’s hot uncomfortably hot where their bodies are pressed together. He can feel his fingers. He can feel his toes and the socks they’re trapped in. He can feel his mouth too, how dry it is.

It’s that last thing that prompts Taemin to do a little more than just lie there and take stock of his various bits.

He remembers his eyes, remembers how just keeping them open far outweighed any labour he’d performed in his life so far. But now, he’s only thinking of blinking and he can feel his eyelids raring to obey. So he blinks.

It’s bright; too bright. He slams his eyes shut against the brightness, instinctively, and turns his head until he’s breathing in the soft fabric of Kibum’s t-shirt the scent of his cologne and underneath that, his skin. Then he blinks again.

The world is a sea of green. Faded green. Taemin tries to speak, to call Kibum, but his vocal chords won’t obey. He feels for his fingers, flexes them one by one and tries to bring his hand up to draw attention to himself, but his hand is trapped.

Now somewhat more used to the brightness, Taemin turns to see that his hand is being held captive by Moonkyu; by a sleeping Moonkyu, to be exact. Incredulous, Taemin turns back to Kibum and cranes his neck up, only to find that Kibum is asleep too, even though he’s still cradling Taemin to himself the way he was when Taemin was dying.

Desperate and slightly frustrated, Taemin wriggles a little harder in their grasp. He can smell the wet saltiness of the sea air and it’s only reminding him of his thirst.

Kibum stirs first. He tightens his arms around Taemin and then his eyes snap open, as if he’s just realising that he fell asleep. Taemin sees the trajectory of his eyes as they move from the distant stare of early wakefulness down to where there’s movement where there’s Taemin and then their eyes meet.

~

It takes a very, very long time for Taemin to get his water. Sometime between Moonkyu’s scream of terror – when he’s woken up to Taemin’s fingers twitching in his grasp – to Kibum and Jongin arguing whether he should be taken to the hospital, Kwonho had brought in a bottle of water; had held it to Taemin’s lips for him to drink because his hands weren’t strong enough to hold it for himself.

He’s sitting in the bath now, washing what feels like a lifetime’s worth of sweat off his skin. He feels light; so very light. Sure, his chest still aches, but that taste at the back of his throat the bitter tickle of petals is gone.

Kibum is silent where he sits on the floor, glancing at him now and again as if he still can’t believe that this is really Taemin. Taemin doesn’t mind though; he has all the time in the world to show Kibum that it really is him because Kibum loves him.

The thought makes him smile.

Kibum loves him.

The bathroom door creaks open and Jongin comes in, holding out his phone. “Your manager is on the line,” he says to Kibum.

Kibum takes the call outside and Jongin takes his place on the bathroom floor. Unlike Kibum, he stares unabashedly at Taemin until it’s Taemin who has to drop his gaze, shy.

“Yah, just take a picture,” he grouses. His chest isn’t gnarly anymore, but he’s lost the pecs he worked so hard to build for the comeback. He feels like a worm compared to Jongin’s imposing bulk.

“You’re such a drama queen,” Jongin replies, shaking his head fondly.

Taemin is about to deny it – Jongin can flash his chest his entire body actually anytime because he retains muscle well, unlike him – when Jongin continues speaking.

“He had to, like, weep over your corpse for you to finally believe that he loves you. I told you, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, I guess you did.” Taemin smiles at the thought. “He does love me.”

“And it wasn’t a quack theory, was it?”

“Yah, Jongin-ah, what do you want me to say? I was wrong and you were right?” Taemin pulls a face, teasing Jongin. “Fine, you were right, I was wrong. But I’m still the winner because I have Key-hyung and you don’t.”

~

Everyone is angry with him. Thanks to his friends keeping his secret to the very end, they all think he ran off to have a beach holiday right after his comeback; a plausible story, given the time he actually ran off to Hakone with Jongin.

His parents threaten to cut off his allowance and ground him for a month. At the company, Lee Soo Man himself comes out of hiding to ‘advise’ Taemin about not letting his fame get to his head. The managers are much, much harsher with their criticism; they probably bore the brunt of Soo Man’s anger when he went missing, so Taemin can’t actually blame them.

And yet, even as he stands there getting the worst bollocking any SHINee member has received so far, Taemin has to bite the inside of his mouth to keep himself from smiling.

He’s tired and hungry, his chest hurts and so many of the privileges he worked so hard to get are being revoked, but all he has to do is look to his right and there’s Kibum; Kibum, who has stayed by his side all day long, shouldering responsibility for a decision he had no part in making and shielding Taemin from the consequences of his decisions.

Kibum really does love him.

~

Jonghyun bursts into tears the moment he sees Taemin. Kibum promptly starts crying too. Jinki and Minho look like they’ve aged ten years. Faced with their grief, Taemin feels guilty for running away. He didn’t even say goodbye to them. He lets them hug him, pet his hair and gently admonish him for worrying them for causing them to grieve over his death.

When all the tears have been shed and hugs exchanged, Jonghyun asks “So what now? Did you get the surgery after all?”

“No-” Taemin starts, but he finds himself hesitating.

Kibum does not. He takes Taemin’s hand, links their fingers together he’s trembling, afraid of the same thing that Taemin is but so much braver than him and says “We’re together.”

The others just look puzzled.

“Ehm, haven’t you guys been together for a while now?” Minho asks. “I mean, you didn’t say anything to us so maybe we shouldn’t have assumed, but you were living together, right?”

“Goodness,” Jinki says then. “Please don’t tell me you were genuinely just being flatmates?” He stops to think. “Well, that would explain why the Hanahaki still wasn’t cured…”

“But you guys were sickening!” Minho exclaims. Taemin stares at him, wondering what he means. He doesn’t need to wonder for long, because Miho clarifies “You know, with the skinship and pet names babe and couple fashion-”

“It wasn’t couple fashion, this gremlin was stealing my clothes!”

Jonghyun catches Taemin’s eye, winks at him. “Ah, guys, come on, let’s give the lovebirds some space. Us ahjussis can go-” He’s cut off by both Kibum and Minho, the former scoffing “lovebirds, who says that these days” and the latter protesting “who the are you calling an ahjussi?”

As they bicker playfully, Taemin remembers how comforted he was by the sound of their voices when he was too far gone to even understand what they were singing. If he closes his eyes, he can still hear the echo of Honesty, like a ghost lingering in the room.

Kibum’s hand squeezing his brings him back to the present. He’s not trembling any longer. “So you really don’t have a problem with this? I mean, if it ever comes out-”

“If it ever comes out, we’ll be there for you 100%,” Minho says. There’s no doubt, no hesitance in his voice at all.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, if we ever get to it,” Jonghyun says and that Taemin can agree with. Right now, he’s just glad to be alive and to be loved by Kibum. “Isn’t that right, Taeminnie? What do you think?”

“I think,” Taemin says “I think we’re very lucky-”

“ me, they’re talking as ‘we’ now,” Minho mumbles, silenced by a jab of Jonghyun’s elbow.

Taemin continues as if he wasn’t just interrupted. “We’re very lucky, but it’s been a long day.”

Kibum picks up from the end of his sentence. “I think Taemin is very politely trying to say ‘get the out of my house.’ So thank you all for coming and please, get the out of my house.”

~

And finally, finally, Taemin is alone with Kibum.

Kibum sits heavily on the couch and for the first time since he woke up, Taemin takes a good look at him. His shoulders are hunched and there are deep, dark circles under his eyes. Taemin may have been the one dying, but Kibum was suffering too.

Taemin sits next to him, bumps his shoulder with his own.

Kibum looks up. “How are you feeling? Are you hungry, I can-”

“Hyung,” Taemin says gently “I’m fine. I really am.”

That makes Kibum’s eyes well up with tears. He’s a strong person and, despite what the fans think, he doesn’t cry easily. Taemin’s heart aches for his hyung; for this person who cares so much for everyone else but who doesn’t let anyone see him struggling, who keeps his sadness to himself.

But as much as he wants to comfort Kibum, there is something that Taemin has been dying to do all day. He reaches out, wipes away the single tear that slips out of Kibum’s eye and his cheek slowly. Kibum sighs and leans into his touch; the walls he builds around himself, layers and layers deep, have crumbled at the end of this long day. Taemin leans in, so close that he can feel Kibum’s breath, waiting for permission or for Kibum to pull away.

When Kibum does neither, Taemin closes the gap between them and kisses him, kisses Kibum the way he’s wanted to for so long; not a stolen kiss, not a hesistant kiss, not a kiss filled with guilt but one where he lets himself savour the taste of Kibum’s lips, one where he lets himself trace the beautiful curve of Kibum’s lips with his own, one where he desperately, hungrily into Kibum’s mouth, over and over again until he can’t breathe.

“Oh god,” Kibum gasps after they break apart. His lips are swollen, red, and Taemin wonders what his own lips look like.

“I am hungry, hyung,” Taemin says. He climbs into Kibum’s lap, straddles him. “So hungry.”

Kibum steadies him, hands on his hips, fingers sneaking under his t-shirt. His thumbs over Taemin’s hipbones, pressing in ever so slightly until Taemin shudders. “I guess I can do something about that.”

~

“When did you fall in love with me?” Taemin asks.

Kibum stops playing with his hair to think and Taemin almost regrets asking. “Well… I don’t know? Do you?”

Perhaps he’d phrased his question wrong. Taemin recalls the moment when Kibum had been cooking, when he’d worn that old t-shirt and looked so beautiful doing something as simple as chopping garlic. “I guess what I mean is, when did you realise you were in love with me?”

“Ah…” Kibum falls silent for some time, and Taemin almost thinks he’s fallen asleep, when he says “Do you remember that day when we both had early schedules, but yours was slightly earlier than mine?”

There were a few days like that, but Taemin just nods anyway.

“And we were still going to have breakfast together, but I wouldn’t have enough time to brew my usual morning coffee?”

Ah, Taemin knows now what Kibum is referring to.

“But when I woke up you were gone, and it was only after I showered and changed that you came back. And you’d gone and bought me coffee, but your manager was already waiting for you by the time you came back.”

Taemin thinks he understands; Kibum fell for him for taking the pain to get him his precious coffee. It’s a simple gesture, but one that speaks volumes. I care for you. I care enough to notice what you like. I care enough to sacrifice my sleep to get you coffee.

“And you gave me this coffee and usually I live for coffee, but that morning, all I could think was that I’d never drink coffee again if it meant that I could have had those twenty minutes with you instead.”

And oh, how wrong Taemin was. He props himself up on one hand, wanting to see Kibum.

Kibum looks up at him, smiling softly. “That’s when I knew, I guess.”

“I thought you were pretending.” It was so long ago; before the day Kibum sent flowers to his MV filming, before that evening when Kibum had driven them to Daegu for dinner, before the night when Kibum had pleaded for Taemin to believe in his love for him. In retrospect, Taemin was a fool not to realise the truth of Kibum's confessions. " I thought you were just trying to save me."

“I was at first. But I meant it you know… every time I said I loved you, I meant it.”

“Say it again.”

Kibum laughs, shy all of a sudden. Taemin prods him until he says “Yah, yah, fine. I love you, okay? I love you, Taemin-ah.”

“I love you too.”

XXXXX

well, that's the story :) 

i hope you all enjoyed reading this fic as much as i loved writing it. do leave a comment and let me know whether you liked it or if there was anything that you didn't like/that could have been done better. thank you all for the lovely comments you've left on the earlier chapters as well. 

love, 

sherleigh