Epilogue
Cantabile
epilogue
epilogue
[ Taemin + Jonghyun ]
“You look pretty,” Jonghyun teases when Taemin emerges from the bathroom with his hair pulled into a messy ponytail on his head. He’s just finished taking a shower, and the dyed red locks drip water onto the carpet. A towel is slung loosely around his hips, a smile on his lips as he spots Jonghyun.
“Shut up.” Taemin scowls back, looking around for something to throw, and failing.
“One step ahead of you,” Jonghyun says, grinning. “I learn quickly, don’t I?”
“Too quickly, for my taste,” Taemin replies sourly. (But he can’t conceal his smile.)
There’s a rustling in the closet as he looks for his clothes, and he can feel Jonghyun’s eyes on his back. He taps his foot to the beat of the music that’s always leaking around the corner of doors and through the gaps of windows here. It alternates between grungy and classic, pop and dubstep, ethereal voices so delicate they can be pierced by silence and drums pounding almost as strong as a lover’s heartbeat.
The air here is a cocktail of a hundred beats, a thousand voices, a million songs, and its inhabitants learn to go along with it, to sing along to whatever they can hear even if it is cut off within the next second.
“Hurry up,” Jonghyun says as he flips onto his back, checking his phone. “The recording studio is only booked for so long.”
“Calm down,” Taemin responds over his shoulder. “You don’t want me going out in this, do you?”
“No,” Jonghyun admits, grinning wolfishly.
“Exactly,” Taemin says smugly, and Jonghyun groans as he drops his head to the sheets.
“You’re such a fashionista,” he complains. “You look ing perfect all the time anyway, so why do you bother?”
“Oh,” Taemin observes, pulling a shirt over his head. “Is that a compliment?”
“Maybe,” Jonghyun admits, and his lips are overwhelmed as Taemin leans over the chest at the foot of the bed to kiss him upside down. He wonders if Taemin’s still wearing that towel, or not.
...
About halfway through senior year, people began accepting that Jonghyun and Taemin were a package deal, and it didn’t take long for colleges to catch on as well. The school they’re at right now specializes in the arts, especially music, and it wasn’t hard for them to get accepted, not when Jonghyun can out-belt half the choir and their combined averages single-handedly bring the school GPA up two tenths of a point.
They don’t really have plans beyond senior year of college, but they settled a long time ago that things like that don’t matter. The only thing that matters is each other. Besides, there’s something exhilarating about living one day to the next, with each other the only constant in the fluctuating lifestyle of an art student.
It’s almost like being free, for once.
“Hey,” Jonghyun complains. “We only have this room booked for an hour, you know.”
“So?” Taemin asks in reply, running a finger lightly over the defined muscles of Jonghyun’s abdomen.
Jonghyun shudders. “So....”
Taemin leans in to press another kiss to Jonghyun’s lips, and they both close their eyes involuntarily. Neither speaks for the next few moments, letting gentle nibbles and gasping moans do the speaking until Jonghyun finally pulls away, shaking his head. He’s always been the one to buckle down and get work done, something he’s done his entire life. Taemin, on the other hand, is the one that flies by the seat of his pants, that procrastinates and figures things out as they go. It’s a far cry from how he was in high school, but Jonghyun likes it. He likes the way their harsh opposites smooth each other out, until everything is skin against skin, palm against palm, lips against lips.
“Here,” Jonghyun says, shoving the sheet music into Taemin’s face. “Stop getting distracted. We said we were going to do this, right?”
“Right,” Taemin agrees, because they’re planning to self-release their first duet album the next month, just for the hell of it. It’s more of an excuse to see their names etched together for all of time, Jonghyun and Taemin, Taemin and Jonghyun, than it is an actual album designed to make money.
But this. Taemin watching Jonghyun with his hands on his headphones, his eyes closed as he croons softly. Their bodies colliding every so often in the tight quarters. The way the only thing that exists is each other. The way each is finally heard for what they are, with no judgements or questions asked. Later, the way they fall into each other in a tangled mess of limbs, urgency straining their voices as they tear at clothes and claw at bodies that need to move harder, faster.
This is nice too.
[ author's notes — otl. well this is awkward. sorry for the super late update (i was a bit derailed by a combination of exams and comebacks) and thanks for sticking around this long. the next update, which i'lll upload right after this, will not be a real update, but some footnotes with bonuses i've compiled (like a playlist for the story, etc.). it will also have special jongtae scene i posted originally on tumblr. thanks again and i love everyone who has tolerated my idiocy for even a moment.
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