Thirteen

thirteen

[ Taemin ]

Taemin avoids Jonghyun whenever it’s possible. He leaves class early, he ignores Jonghyun’s questions, he turns off his cell phone. His mother got a bit angry after Jonghyun called for the third time in one day, so there’s no problem with that either--Jonghyun stopped calling. It’s too late to drop choir class, but Taemin solves that problem by stuffing headphones into his ears and not meeting Jonghyun’s gaze. He pretends that he’s working on his homework, when really he’s curling lines of ink into dark, convoluted black masses that rip through the paper of his notebook.

It hurts somewhere inside his chest that he can’t see Jonghyun anymore, but it hurts a helluva lot worse somewhere inside his gut to imagine the humiliation of seeing Jonghyun again. Taemin can just imagine the smirk on Jonghyun’s face as he tells him that it was all a lie, that there was never anything in between them, the same way he can imagine what Jonghyun’s friends say about him behind cupped hands and turned shoulders. He’s never cared about what other people thought before, but now, when he remembers how his hand felt in Jonghyun’s, the way the older boy’s smile made his chest feel so light, it’s unbearable.

So he puts on his blinkers, forcing himself to only look forward at the freedom graduation will give him, a year from now. He goes to school, does what’s expected of him, and goes straight home, where he tries to avoid the icy judgement of his parents. It’s so hard to live without Jonghyun, but he does it because he doesn’t want to be hurt again. Anything is better than that, or so he tells himself every day before he forces himself out of bed.

Today, Saturday, he has an extra few minutes to wallow in his own misery before he has to be at work. It’s not like he needs the money; even if his parents are stingy, they’re not poor. But he took the job to get them off his back, and lately he’s been putting in more hours than ever to get his mind off Jonghyun.

He rolls out of bed onto the ground and sits. By the time he convinces himself that the floor isn’t a good place to spend the rest of his life, and he finishes pulling his clothes on, his parents have left for the day and he’s too lazy to make anything to eat. He runs a hand through his hair, the cool texture soothing his fingers in the middle of the approaching heat of summer. Stomach growling half-heartedly, he gargles his mouth with water and pulls on his sneakers, sliding into his car.

He does inventory at a local CD store, the kind that’s frequented only by people looking for underground bands, bootlegged concert footage from twenty years ago, or foreign language releases. It’s too small to attract a mainstream customer base, but it prides itself on getting whatever its customers want, whenever.

“Hey,” he says to one of his coworkers, Kai, while he signs himself in for the day.

“Hey,” Kai returns, his head bobbing to the beat of the music plugged into his ears. He watches Taemin rummage through the small cabinet behind him for a snack. When he stands back up, Kai offers, “It’s hot today.”

Taemin nods in agreement.

That’s the usual extent of their conversations, because afterwards Taemin usually disappears into the back and Kai returns to his magazine (at least, Taemin assumes it’s because of the jealous way Kai guards it). But today Kai says something else, earbuds dangling from his fingertips as he chews his lip.

“Hey man, can I ask a favor?”

Taemin pauses and looks over his shoulder. “What is it?”

Kai rubs the back of his head nervously. “I, uh, have a date. Like, now. And I, uh, was wondering if you would take over the counter for me? It would mean a lot.”

Taemin frowns. He didn’t know Kai had a girlfriend.

“Go ahead,” he shrugs, shooing the younger boy away so he can sit on the stool behind the counter.

Kai grins brightly and thanks Taemin profusely before disappearing out the door. It’s not like Taemin’s doing much, as it’s unlikely that they’ll get that busy in the few hours that Kai is gone. But Taemin feels just the slightest bit resentful that someone could be so happy when he’s so not.

He wonders what Jonghyun is doing right about now.