Taemin wakes up in his bed in his flat – alone – and he doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

His phone tells him that it is 10am on the 15^th of May. He can’t really put a finger on when he had last seen Jongin, but if SHINee were preparing for a comeback on the 2^nd of May, then they must still be in their comeback period and EXO wouldn’t be having their comeback too, which means that Jongin shouldn’t have dyed hair. Taemin is quite certain now that he’s falling into parallel universes because there’s no way any disease could make him jump back and forth in time.

He texts Euisoo. “What’s my schedule for the day?”

Euisoo answers immediately. “Wardrobe at 2pm. I’ll pick you up at 1.30.”

So he has the morning off.

He pulls his curtains open, allowing the summer sunlight to fill his room and warm his skin, and appreciates the cityscape for a while. The sky is clear of fine dust – a rare happening – and sunlight gleams off blue waters of the Han River, like a siren tempting him into unknown depths.

The thought of sirens reminds him of Kibum, and he pulls up their KKT chats to try and understand what sort of relationship they have now. The messages are mostly work-related, with a few memes and random conversations about coffee and Day6 and traffic here and there. Taemin scrolls up for a bit, even as he asks himself what he's hoping to find; they've never been the sort to exchange romantic texts, and that was by mutual agreement. It's much safer to keep these potentially career-destroying conversations face-to-face.

And that's the answer, isn't it? He needs to speak to Kibum in person.

Right away, he decides not to try to find Kibum; it’s hardly ever turned out well so far – apart from the time they were together in Canada – and he’s going to see him at the fitting anyway. Instead, it's time he paid a little attention to the other people in his life. There’s Jongin, who is usually busy, or Moonkyu, who is almost always free to meet, but he doesn’t know what's happened between his last memory and today. If he meets them, they’ll know right away that something is off.

That leaves only one other option.

*

“Aigoo, Taemin-ah, you’re so thin!”

His mother fusses over him, squeezing his waist and petting his bleached hair, as he tries to hand her the basket of fruits he’d bought on the way over.

“You said you were dieting for the comeback, but isn’t this too much?”

“I’m not dieting anymore,” he says, not knowing how true that statement is. “It’s just work now. How is everyone?”

“Your appa is out with his fishing buddies, they’re in Jeju,” she says, beckoning him towards the kitchen. Taemin puts the fruits on the dining table. “I sent you a photo when I dropped him off at the airport, remember? And Taesun is doing well, he and Minah dropped by last weekend to help me make some kimchi. I packed some for you, you can take it later.”

It’s a relief to know that his family is fine.

“Can I ask something about our family, like extended family?”

His mother, who is rooting through the fridge, glances at him with her eyebrows raised. “Sure, I guess.”

“Do we have a history of dementia or memory loss? Or memory problems in general?”

“Hmmm…” his mother pulls a heavy crockpot out of the fridge and puts it into the microwave; Taemin knows she’s thinking. “Well, not on my side as far as I know. Your grandaunt had dementia, but she’s not a blood relation to us. You’ll have to ask your father about his side of the family.”

Whatever is in the microwave smells good. Taemin’s stomach rumbles.

“Why do you ask?”

Taemin shrugs, downplaying the importance of the question. “It’s just something that came up at work.”

The microwave dings. Taemin’s mother slips oven gloves on and extracts the pot, which now smells strongly of kimchi stew. Taemin’s stomach rumbles again; no one makes kimchi stew like his mother can and Taemin can’t remember the last time he had a meal that he enjoyed. A cloud of steam escapes when she lifts the lid. She fills a bowl with stew, with bits of pork shoulder and silken tofu and rough-cut chunks of kimchi, until it threatens to overflow.

“Your father and I are alright, at least,” she says, setting the bowl down in front of him. “If anything happens to us, you can start worrying then. Until then, I think you have enough stress already.”

Taemin hasn’t the heart to tell his mother that he’s asking for himself.

*

There are too many people – managers, stylists and assistant stylists, interns and various hangers-on that always find their way into schedules such as this – for Taemin to have a private conversation with Kibum. He tries to wave Kibum over, to try and get him alone somehow, but Kibum is so deep in conversation with their creative director that he just waves back at Taemin and stays right where he is.

Something of his displeasure must have shown in his face, because Jonghyun comes over instead. "What's the matter with you," he asks, and before Taemin can answer – he’s a little too distracted by the electric blue highlights in Jonghyun's black hair – he says "And don't say nothing, I know you too well to buy that."

"I don't know what my life is anymore," Taemin says, quite truthfully.

"One of those days, huh?"

You have no idea, Taemin thinks, but before either of them can continue their conversation, Jonghyun is whisked away by his stylist, and all he can manage is a sympathetic pat on Taemin’s shoulder. Taemin doesn’t blame him or his stylist; his outfits always require the most alteration because of the extremes of his physique; his broad shoulders and chest and his narrow waist, and his short legs and muscular thighs.

In a pattern that is slowly becoming familiar, Taemin falls into the work easily enough. No matter what else changes, the work never does, and though Taemin has been dissatisfied before about the growing monotony of his professional life, now he's grateful for it.

He plays an obedient mannequin for stylists who pin his hems and collars back, who tuck in his waist and shorten his sleeves, and as he begs them to leave a little more room around his thighs he can hear Kibum grumbling loudly about some fabric, which apparently will discolour when sweated on. He can hear Minho laughing somewhere on his left for some reason he's missed, and after a while Jinki joins in too. He poses for the stylists as they photograph him in this and that, and when all of that is said and done, there’s embellishments and accessories to sort out as well.

He's done at around the same time as Minho. He's putting his shoes back on when Minho flops down next to him, stretching his long legs as if he’s trying to make Taemin envious. “Hey, we’re all going out for dinner later. You don’t have plans, right?”

Taemin hasn’t the slightest idea whether he has plans or not.

“Anyway, even if you do, you should drop by at least for a while.”

“Sure.” Taemin guesses that it should be easier to get Kibum alone at dinner – or after – than it is now.

*

He guessed wrong.

Dinner isn’t just them, it’s the entire cohort of stylists and creatives, and someone – Minho probably, he’s insufferably thoughtful like that – has rented a private room for the night, which of course means that all of the same people are crammed into an even smaller space than they were at the company.

And to make matters worse, Kibum isn’t even here.

The table is laden with platters of hwe and bubbling stone bowls of maeuntang, pickled root vegetables and mul kimchi and enough kimbap rolls to feed an army. The staff tuck in easily, as if they don’t notice that two fifths of the band are absent. Minho and Jinki have started drinking too, each of them having a temptingly cold beer, whilst Taemin sticks with water and picks half-heartedly at the hwe.

A whole hour rolls by before Kibum, Jonghyun and Jin turn up, together with the senior members of the creative team. Taemin crowds into Minho, clearing space for Kibum to sit next to him, but Jonghyun takes that space instead whilst Kibum and one of the creative team sits across the table.

“What fish is this?” Kibum asks, poking at the plate in front of him.

“Croaker,” Minho answers, and points to another plate further down the long table “And there’s also seabass.”

“No rockfish?” Kibum makes an unhappy sound. “Aigoo, can’t you do anything without me? If you’re having hwe, you must have rockfish-”

“Nonsense,” Jinki replies. “Cod is best-”

“Cod?”

It’s the same conversation – or argument – they’ve been having since they acquired both the money and freedom to visit restaurants as a group, and Taemin watches with fondness as s bicker over the best way to eat raw fish.

*

The conversation has turned to gossip, as it always does when they do dinner and drinks during comeback season. Most of the stylists have gone home, and as the circle grows smaller the gossip grows more salacious. This and that group are having a comeback too, their budget has increased or decreased since the last time, which members have more say in the concept, what promotion strategies are being used; the only difference is that Taemin doesn’t have any gossip of his own to share this time.

It hardly seems to matter. Taking his place is the assistant creative director who hasn’t moved from Kibum’s side all night long; an anecdote he shares about a particular boy group member who tried to dye his own hair pink and instead ended up with streaks of red in his blonde hair has the whole table cracking up – and Kibum wiping away tears of laughter – and Taemin seems to be the only one unamused. He can’t even remember this guy’s name, but here he is acting as if he’s the sixth member of the group.

The mood sobers a little when the waiter comes over with fried shrimp and crackling, and the conversation dies off while he leaves the plates on the table and clears away empty soju and beer bottles.

Kibum takes a fat, golden shrimp and puts it on the guy’s plate. Taemin’s blood runs cold. He knows that look in Kibum’s eyes and he knows the meaning of Kibum giving him the best piece of food, because it used to be him on the receiving end of both of those things.

“Stop staring,” Minho says in his ear, nudging him at the same time. “Bathroom break?”

He can’t catch a break, Taemin thinks miserably. “Sure.”

“We’re going to the bathroom, leave some food for us,” Minho announces. He practically hauls Taemin out of private room, but once they’re outside Taemin spots a smoker’s corner and heads there instead; if he can’t smoke his own cigarettes, secondhand smoke will do.

“Ewww,” grumbles Minho, but he follows Taemin out anyway.

They get odd looks from the other patrons, but Taemin couldn’t care less and Minho’s not the type to walk away from what he perceives to be a friend in need. The cool night air and the ghost of nicotine calm Taemin’s fraying nerves just a little, just enough to keep him from walking away. “What is it?”

Minho keeps his voice low. “You can’t get jealous of him dating other people if you won’t tell him how you feel.”

You know nothing, Taemin thinks uncharitably.

*

After Jin drops him off at home, with a reminder to set an alarm for some variety show they have to record tomorrow, Taemin changes into sweats and a hoodie and goes out for a walk. The CU around the corner s still open and he gets himself canned coffee to sip on, hoping that the cold drink will soothe the fire burning inside him.

His walk takes him around the empty streets of the business district of Cheongdam. There are a few lights on here and there in some of the buildings; some poor souls must be having a late night, just like him, but of all of them, he is the most pitiful and the most pathetic.

He walks and walks and walks, following the river until he notices the sky becoming light once more. He takes a cab home and hops in the shower, and stands under the spray of cold water until his alarm goes off.

None of it works. He’s just as frustrated and angry as he was last night, only now he’s irritable too.

*

Jonghyun is the only member there; he’s already got his make-up done and is sleeping flat on his back with only a rolled-up towel as a pillow. Minho and Jinki will take a longer time to arrive, since the dorm is a little further away from the company than Taemin’s flat. There is no sign of Kibum. Knowing him, it could just be that he’s running fashionably late or-

-Taemin shakes the thought away. If he’s dating Seulgi, he can’t very well blame Kibum for moving on either, right?

“Oh Taemin-ah!”

His train of thought is interrupted by his dismayed stylist. She cups his face in her hands, turning it this way and that, and fusses. “How did you get so puffy and greasy in one day? This is going to be so hard to cover up.”

He shrugs. She was there, she saw him drink.

She grumbles as she works on him. Taemin barely hears anything she says; the man who looks back at him in the mirror has dead eyes, and he can neither look away nor bear his gaze.

He closes his eyes.

XXXXX

hi everyone! your friendly neighbourhood sherleigh is back with a double update and a title change as well. enjoy XD