Nothing More Than Trash

There’s a mug – Taemin’s giraffe-patterned mug that’s been his since high school – standing by the sink. Kibum rinses it and opens the cupboard to see if Taemin has tea. The glass jar is halfway full with tea bags, so Kibum takes one and drops it in. The honey jar is half full too, thankfully, so Kibum heaps a generous helping into the mug and adds hot water from the kettle he’s just boiled.

Taemin is sitting on the couch, keeping his arms and legs curled tightly to himself as if he’s the stranger here instead of Kibum. He jumps a little when Kibum sets the mug down on the table; in the artificial silence between them, the loud clunk of the mug hitting the table is as telling as anything he might have said. Get a grip, Kibum chides himself, there’s no need to be throwing tantrums and breaking mugs just because he has to endure Taemin’s presence for a little longer than he anticipated.

The atmosphere becomes very awkward very quickly. Taemin sips the hot honeyed tea slowly; every now and again he peeks at Kibum, and when he sees Kibum looking at him he drops his eyes, as if Kibum’s some sort of princess or deity that human eyes aren’t supposed to sully, or alternatively, as if Kibum is a monster so horrendous that he can only bear to look at him for a second at a time. Kibum grows more annoyed with each incident until he realises that he’s frowning so deeply that his eyebrows hurt, and really, who can blame Taemin for not daring to look him in the face when he must look like a volcano about to explode.

And it’s tiring, being this angry. Kibum would have asked someone else to get Taemin from the hospital if he had known that seeing Taemin and having to deal with him would bring back all of the rage he’d worked through already. He’s over Taemin, well and truly over him; but if he were, he wouldn’t be getting so worked up just at the sight of Taemin’s face.

“Are you done?”

Taemin nods quickly, but when he puts the mug down Kibum can see that it’s still half full. Given that Taemin’s never liked tea anyway, it’s not a surprise.

“You should shower, you smell like a hospital,” Kibum says then, if only to fill up the silence between them. Taemin doesn’t even sniff himself before he’s nodding in agreement and shuffling off to the bathroom. It’s like dealing with a Roomba, Kibum thinks as he watches Taemin’s back.

Kibum had just planned to wait until Taemin comes out of the shower safely, but within a few minutes of being left alone, he’s bored. Not just bored, antsy. He pulls out his phone, hoping to find some friends he can chat with while waiting, but as he runs through his list of contacts, Kibum finds that he doesn’t want to talk to anyone.

Unbidden, his thoughts find their way back to Taemin. He should eat something. Has he learnt to cook for himself now? Kibum glances at the kitchen; nothing looks burnt or destroyed, so it’s unlikely that Taemin has been cooking much. He probably lives on take-out. He can just get pizza or something delivered tonight.

But if he’s been mugged, how is he going to pay for the pizza?

Kibum checks his own wallet; there’s barely enough in there for him to keep himself fed until his wages get banked in at the end of the week. He can’t afford to be splurging on pizza for Taemin.

There should be bread at least, Kibum thinks, glancing at the kitchen again, so he can make a sandwich. Or leftovers in the fridge that he can heat up.

He opens the fridge first.

It’s practically empty. There are a couple of bottles of Gatorade on the bottom rack and one lonely apple in the fruits and vegetables drawer. There are a few eggs in the egg tray. There’s some butter in the butter dish and jam-

-the same bottle of jam that Kibum had been using?

Amazed, Kibum pulls it out and yes, it is the very same raspberry jam he’d bought from the farmer’s market because the ahjumma selling it told him that it wasn’t as sugary as the commercial varieties. He opens it; there’s a layer of fuzzy blue mold growing on the top.

“Lazy bastard,” Kibum mutters under his breath. He chucks the jam in the bin. There’s nothing else of note in the fridge.

Kibum opens a cupboard at random – the one closest to the fridge – and finds packets of instant ramyeon. That’ll do, he thinks. Ramyeon and eggs, that’s a fortifying meal and one that’s easy to make too. He can be done by the time Taemin is out of the shower.

The pot they use to make ramyeon is drying in the sink; it seems that Taemin’s learnt to cook this much, at least. As Kibum boils the water, he takes another look around the kitchen. Nothing has changed. It’s as if time stopped on the day he walked out.

Or, his brain supplies, as if he’s been doing most of his living somewhere else. With someone else.

It’s an unhelpful thought, so Kibum shakes his head and turns his attention back to the water. It’s bubbling now. In the background, he can hear the drumming of the water from the shower, almost as loud as a waterfall. It’s one of the things he misses most about living here. He used to love standing under the shower on full blast, especially if he's had a long day. If he closes his eyes, he can almost feel the hot water pounding down against his sore shoulders. When he moved into his new place and took his first shower after a whole day of unpacking, Kibum had cried under the miserable dribble of water coming out of the shower that he would have to share with two housemates. The memory draws a heavy sigh from Kibum. This was never meant to be his life anyway, he was just living it on borrowed time.

*

“Doesn’t it get lonely, living in a house this big?”

Taemin shrugs. “It’s not just me, there’s umma and Kang ahjumma too.”

Three people living in a mansion with eight bedrooms, two lounges and a swimming pool seems a bit much, Kibum thinks, but he doesn’t press the issue. There was a time when his stomach had cramped with envy at the size and luxury of Taemin’s house, when he’s been ashamed to invite Taemin back to his own house, but over time, that envy has faded away. Everything seems so sterile here, as if the entire house is a museum on display, save for Taemin’s room. More than anything, the mansion feels like a hotel; a pretty place to live in temporarily, and not a home to nest in. It is an unwelcome thought because it's true; Taemin moved here and eventually he'll move away, and Kibum won't have a friend anymore.

“Let’s study,” he says instead, taking his homework out of his bag. “Shall we start with math?”

They do their homework quietly, with Taemin occasionally asking for guidance from Kibum. His grades have improved since he started studying with Taemin and he feels so much happier too; ever since the incident with Dong Wook he doesn’t get picked on anymore, but no one really talks to him either. Taemin doesn’t seem to care that Kibum is an outcast and for that, Kibum is thankful.

The door opens.

“UMMA!” Taemin practically leaps from the table to the door; he throws his arms around his mother and hugs her tightly. “You’re home early.”

“I wanted to take you out for dinner.” Ms Lee kisses the top of her son’s head and waves at Kibum. “Hi Kibum! Did I disturb your homework?”

“No, no, not at all,” Kibum replies. He used to be afraid of Taemin’s mother. After seeing his house and hearing from Taemin how his mother is always busy working, he used to think Taemin’s mother would be like those stuck up chaebol women in dramas. Or if not, that she’s be a tiger mum, the way successful businesswomen usually are.

She’s really nothing like Kibum imagined - he still hasn’t seen her at work so he’s sure that she must be at least a bit of a tyrant there - with Taemin she’s nothing other than sweet and gentle and slightly mischievous. Taemin seems to have taken after her.

“You should join us,” she says.

“Yes! Key-hyung, we can go to that steak restaurant I was telling you about.” Taemin is excited now and Kibum knows he should turn them down, knows that they’ll go to a restaurant that his family wouldn’t be able to afford even for the most special of occasions, but he wants steak and he wants to spend time with Taemin and his mother.

“Okay, let’s go.”

*

Kibum tips the cooked ramyeon into a bowl and cracks two eggs into the pan. They’re frying and spitting when he hears the sound of footsteps behind him and sure enough, Taemin is standing behind the kitchen counter-

-Kibum forgets how to breathe

-Taemin is so thin. He’s always been lean, but now, there’s barely any flesh on him. He looks starved, wretched. His thighs are no thicker than Kibum's arms and it makes sense, suddenly, why his unusually angular face had seemed unfamiliar at the hospital. The long coat he had been wearing made him seem bigger – closer to normal – than he is, and Kibum’s stomach clenches so hard he thinks he’ll throw up. 

Does no one love you, he wonders. Who let you become like this?

Taemin just stands there, staring at him. It’s weird and so painfully awkward. Kibum tries to say something, anything, but the words just will not come. The sound of water drowns his thoughts and he can’t tear his eyes away from the way Taemin’s hoodie just hangs off him and the eggs must be burnt by now-

-water?

“Did you leave the shower running?”

“No.”

“Then…”

“It’s snowing,” Taemin says, gesturing at the window.

Kibum can tell the difference between snow and rain, he thinks, and he’s about to tell Taemin that snow doesn’t pelt down like raindrops when he remembers.

It can’t be. Kibum rushes to the window and yanks the curtains aside.

The world is a flurry of white. It’s not just snow, it’s hail; large, ugly rocks of ice and snow spatter against the windows with a drumming sound. He can’t see anything past the snow, not even the street down below.

Isn’t the snowstorm tomorrow, Kibum wonders distantly. With fingers that feel numb, he pulls his phone out of his pocket to check the news. He doesn’t have to. There are 16 notifications from Jonghyun alone; missed calls and messages. Minho’s called him twice too.

Hey, are you getting home? The storm’s about to hit.

Kibum?

THE STORM IS TODAY, NOT TOMORROW.

Yah, did you see my message. The storm is blowing in earlier because of strong winds or something. Please tell me you’re indoors somewhere.

Dude, this is not a convenient time to ignore your phone.

Please call me when you can.

Kibum replies briefly to Jonghyun’s last message, just to say that he’s fine and indoors.

When he looks up again, Taemin is at the stovetop. He’s turned the hob off. He looks up too and their eyes meet, and in his eyes Kibum can see the same realisation dawn on Taemin that is dawning on him too: he’s stuck here until the storm blows over.

*

hi everyone! have an update :)

also, i edited the last chapter a little, so you can check that out if you're interested. it's not a major change so you can skip it if you want too.