Happy Valentine's to you all! Here's an update for the love of Taekey. <3 

p.s. I'm currently working on the final chapter. Thank you for following this story, which has been a journey for me, honestly. I'm truly grateful. <3

~~~

32 YOU AND I (part 2)

Kibum had anticipated landing in Incheon feeling like his heart will be doing its own descent. He had let himself down with the way he spent what is supposed to be the most important night of his life, post-show, that is. He gave his all in the concert, so he is happy with his performance and the reception of the audience. But painfully contrary to those efforts, he didn’t even try at all to celebrate the show’s success. Or the fact that it was Christmas Eve. Kibum cringes at the memory of how his night ended.

Nevertheless, Kibum did something in the morning that is some sort of a salvation. After sending the hotel postcard to Taemin, he got to his songwriting work in progress and actually finished it. For Kibum, it was more than just finishing a song… it was the second to the last step towards the closure he wants, needs in order to turn a new leaf and leave the pathetic self he’s been donning for quite some time now. Christmas had been a disaster even though he thought he was clever enough to make it merry by virtue of a concert overseas. Although Kibum has accepted his failure, he is keen on not being the same loser come New Year.

And to get to the last step in getting closure, Kibum phones Jonghyun for a request.  

--

Pretending that the holidays had not been a letdown, Kibum wears a thick cashmere sweater with green and black stripes. He looks somewhat Christmas-y but not in the tacky American family season’s greetings postcard fashion. He waxes his hair, which has grown from the color-splash buzz cut he got not long ago, and it is now dyed dark brown. “Boyfriend look” is the first thing Jonghyun said when Kibum enters the office adjacent to the recording studio.

Kibum hugs Jonghyun so tightly that it instantly communicates his gratitude.

When Kibum finished writing his song You and I, he called Jonghyun and asked—or more like demanded—to record the song with Taemin. As in a duet. He has no intention of wrecking Taemin’s relationship (whatever kind of relationship it is) with Haru whom Kibum believes to be the one his wonderful Taemin deserves. But Kibum felt he needed to do this for his sake and Taemin’s, and even Haru’s. Overwhelmed by the need to find closure, Kibum discards the idea of his request being preposterous and nearly impossible.

Nevertheless, Kibum once again thanks his lucky stars and recalls the first time he did this inside an elevator on his first visit to SM and unexpectedly getting hired as a translator and English tutor for a certain young superstar named Lee Taemin. This time he is grateful because Jonghyun actually got management to give the proposal a green light. Kibum also feels lucky having a best friend like Jinki, who ushered him into Jonghyun’s world. Jonghyun isn’t just a manager in SM. He is regarded as an artist who works for and with other artists. His credibility is so notable that management never interferes with Jonghyun’s decisions when he writes or produces songs and handpicks the artists that will interpret those songs. So in spite of Kibum and Taemin’s “history”, they will be recording the song You and I as a duet.

Kibum doesn’t know if it’s just because of the holiday season, but he finds himself in the throes of nostalgia. Flashbacks of the events that have brought him to this point run through his mind— saying goodbye to his childhood friend Jinki and making new friends in America, growing up and developing passion for theater, dating Ezra, being deported along with his mother after his stepfather’s arrest, reuniting with Jinki and meeting Jjong, building a career at SM, and falling in love with Taemin.
 

He has accomplished quite a lot since then, but deep inside Kibum feels that things have been on a standstill since Taemin… that even if he has carved a lucrative career for himself in the music industry, it felt like it wasn’t all of him that lived through those experiences. Since he fell in love with Taemin, Kibum had been adrift. There was never a point during their time together wherein it was established that they are in a committed relationship. And even if there was clarity in how they felt about each other, Kibum doesn’t know where the love stood or where it actually ended up when they stopped seeing each other. He knows it was love. But the way they ended things by not exactly ending things keeps Kibum in a state of restlessness. He has accepted their fate and has no plans of pursuing Taemin at the risk of ruining superstar Lee Taemin. But Kibum needs closure, even just to be able to assure himself that he is crying every night over a love that was lost and not over something vague.

Once again, Taemin rudely interrupts Kibum’s life as he enters the office in a yellow version of the sweater Kibum is wearing. When only minutes ago he is searing with sentimentality, Kibum is now laughing along with Jonghyun, who bursts into laughter the second he sees Taemin and calls them the Bobbsey Twins.

Taemin himself laughs when Jonghyun makes Kibum stand from behind the conference table and he sees that they are wearing similar tops. Taemin secretly thanks fate for breaking the ice for them. He had been quick to say yes when Jonghyun called him about the duet. It was something so out of the blue that it should have startled him—it did—but the thought of working with Kibum, of being in close quarters with him for several hours for days was simply overwhelming.

But when day one of the duet project came, Taemin’s nerves tortured him the same way they did when he went on stage for his very first concert. He even bought a new sweater online a few days before. Taemin always gravitates towards stripes, but since it was a special occasion for him, he decided to ditch the usual black and white. He picked yellow since he clearly remembers Kibum telling him that if they were in an idol group, he’d assign the color yellow to Taemin because his smile is like sunshine and he simply looks good in yellow because of his fair skin. Taemin never knew that his wardrobe choice would save him from an awkward initial encounter with Kibum.

Another thing Taemin didn’t expect is his heart beating with joy upon hearing Kibum’s laugh. It just felt really good to hear that laugh again. And just like that, it feels like Sirius Tour all over again, with Taemin feeling the excitement of working with Kibum like a kid in a queue at the entrance of an amusement park.

--

Taemin is pretty good with memorizing lyrics. It takes him an hour tops to learn the words along with the melody, so the rest of his time during pre-recording is spent on practicing and improvising until even his adlibs are perfected.

But this time Taemin is stalling, and not deliberately so. He hopes Jonghyun and the project team will assume that it’s because it’s actually his first time to record a duet. The truth is that—more than the jitters he feels from working with Kibum again—the song holds something deeper for them. Taemin could not forget what Jonghyun told him after he agreed to do the duet…

“Taemin, I think you should know that this is actually Kibum’s idea. But before you make any conclusions, I want to tell you what he told me, even if it’s supposed to be a secret. He wants to do it for closure.”

Closure. Taemin knows what it means, but what does it mean in this particular situation? Is this Kibum’s way of tying up loose ends before starting anew? And if so, is it because he’s starting a new chapter with someone? Taemin cannot help the acrid taste that fills his mouth.

Taemin recalls his last night with Kibum… chancing upon him in the hotel balcony, penning a song with words like “fight for you, for us… for the rest of my life”. The memories of that night is usually an instant shot of euphoria for Taemin— all the loving glances, body fluids, and sweet words they exchanged. Watching the sunrise in each other’s clutches because in spite of their promises of love, their hopeful sentiments seemed to have faded with the darkness and the sun came shining on them with uncertainty. And yet, he and Kibum parted ways at the airport with courageous smiles.

Despite what went down after, also known as unwilled separation, Taemin is holding on to the fact that they never actually said goodbye to each other. So in his heart of hearts, Taemin is still waiting. For what? He doesn’t really know, save for the image of him and Kibum looking into each other’s eyes, foreheads attached, and with smiles big enough to conquer the world.

But this… this closure… does this mean it is really the end?

When the keyboardist enters the room with Jonghyun, Taemin tells his heart to off. He has a task at hand, an important one, as this will go straight to his impressive discography. Taemin is a professional so all he needs to do now is forget that Kibum’s purpose for this is closure and focus on the work aspect of it.

--

Kibum suddenly wonders if this was a b