Fifteen

fifteen

[ Taemin ]

The bell hanging over the door jingles as someone walks in, and Taemin’s finger slips on the screen of his phone, accidentally setting off a mine. Sighing, he puts the phone on the counter and rubs his eyes with his knuckles, yawning. Minesweeper’s always gotten him unduly stressed anyway. Something about the constant feeling of being on edge, like one wrong step will send the world crashing down on him.

He shifts his position on the stool and feels his right leg come back to life, pins and needles shooting throughout its length. A pipe clangs behind him and the fan overhead turns lethargically, the slowness magnified by the slow ticking of the old clock on the counter. No wonder Kai is so bored all the time, he thinks to himself as he runs a hand through his hair.

He’s about to try flipping through Kai’s magazine when a familiar voice sets his heart racing.

“Hey, how much is this? There’s no price.”

Taemin freezes with one hand on the magazine, then quickly withdraws it back to his chest, as if protecting it. He looks up reluctantly to find Jonghyun absorbed in the back of the CD of some all girl metal violin group. The picture on the front would have made Taemin blush if he wasn’t so shocked at seeing Jonghyun here.

“It should say the price on the shelf marker that’s closest to the CD on the right,” he squeaks, dying inside.

Jonghyun looks up and his eyes widen with recognition. He quickly drops the CD on the counter, stuffing his hands in his pockets, while he tries to think of something to say. Taemin wants to bolt then and there, but he’s trapped.

Damn that Kai, he complains to himself. He glances at the clock and wonders if Kai’s date is over yet.

“Taemin--” Jonghyun begins, but Taemin doesn’t want to hear any of it. He grabs the CD from the counter and scans it, almost dropping it on the ground because of the trembling of his fingers.

“That’ll be $13.18,” he says, trying to separate a plastic bag from the others, and failing. He feels his heart in his throat as Jonghyun grabs the bag for him and stuffs the CD inside.

“Can we talk?” he asks as he shoves a crumpled twenty into Taemin’s hands.

Taemin jabs the cash register a bit too hard as he shakes his head. “It’s okay,” he chokes out. “There was never anything in between us. I understand.”

Jonghyun doesn’t respond. Taemin looks up, change in hand, thinking that perhaps Jonghyun already left. Instead, it’s like seeing the pain on his own face as if reflected in a mirror. Jonghyun chews on his lip, shaking his head slowly.

“You’re wrong,” he says firmly. “What we had, what we still have, it’s one of a kind. I’ve never felt it before. I want to feel it again.”

Taemin sighs heavily. “Fine. Maybe it’s like that. But you’ll never be able to feel what I feel. You’ll never know what it’s like to love someone so much, to see them every day and not be able to say anything, to pretend to be something you’re not, just because what you really are is disgusting. You’ll never know what it feels like to hide everything, to crack under the pressure, alone. You’ll never--”

Jonghyun cuts him off by leaning over the counter and planting his lips on Taemin’s. The plastic bag with the CD gets knocked to the side and Taemin opens his fists in surprise, the change clenched within falling to the ground with a jingle. The coins spin on the scratched linoleum of the ground, swerving and clicking lightly, and Taemin fists his fingers in Jonghyun’s shirt, pulling him closer. Jonghyun leans, one hand reaching to cup Taemin’s jaw, and Taemin feels Jonghyun’s lips move before he hears the words.

“I love you.”