Part XV (850 words)
The Modification

In life, there are certain things that cannot be avoided, things such as taxes, other people, tragedies, and most terrifying of all, death.

With those in mind, Taemin did not even stop to think about a—definitely unavoidable—citywide power outage when he woke up and rolled out of bed this morning. Although, in his defense, this may be due to the fact that he had also not noticed the darkened clouds threatening rain overhead, or even the thunder rumbling just outside as lightning lit up the sky.

The solitary and lone cause of this specific blunder was one certain Lee Jinki, the master of Taemin’s thoughts, the conqueror of his mind. And not to mention that this day had been particularly bad compared to others, the of the evening being when Taemin came into his pants with some intensely obscene thoughts about his therapist.

As a result, two things happened in the span of one minute when the lights went out:

1.       Taemin stopped breathing.

2.       Jinki wrapped his arms around him.

The younger man had not even realized that he was whining softly until Jinki’s soothing voice finally broke through the incessant ringing in his ears, the elder cooing calming words into shell of his ear, breath hot and wet against the sensitive skin. The shudder that ran down Taemin’s spine was involuntary, and his knuckles went white as he clenched tighter into the front of Jinki’s shirt.

He was shaking, but for the first time in ten years, Taemin was actually aware of what was going on, what was happening to his body and outside of it. The tremors, the whimpers, the tears, Jinki’s coos, the gentle rocking—but one thing was almost agonizingly absent and that was the screaming; Taemin knew he screamed when this happened, knew that his throat would always be sore following an episode, but this… this was different.

This feeling was alarmingly similar to his hallucination earlier.

Jinki seemed to notice a change, even in the darkness of the room with not even the moonlight to illuminate them. “Are you okay?” he whispers, pulling away slightly so he could take a look at Taemin’s face. But the younger would not let him, crying out when Jinki moved even in the slightest and instead concealing his face into the elder’s shirt.

“Don’t―!” he begged, ears hot with mortification and a heart full of panic because why the was he feeling this instead of the usual fear, why oh why, ing hell—

The therapist was hushing him again, his soft, gentle hands Taemin’s head and sliding slowly down his back in a comforting manner. “Shh, I’m not going anywhere,” he murmurs, and it is when Jinki’s hand settled at the curve of Taemin’s waist, warm against his lower back, that another uncontrollable tremor runs through the younger’s body.

This time, Jinki noticed.

“Hyung!” Taemin hisses frantically, face buried almost painfully in the older man’s chest. “D-Don’t do that!”

But the gears are already turning in Jinki’s head, his hand sliding just a tad lower and dragging another surprised gasp from Taemin. “Am I imagining this, or are you actually…” Jinki’s voice was careful, slow even as he chose his words, “aroused?”

A hysterical sob slipped past Taemin’s lips. “You’re imaging it!” he exclaims quickly, face burning hot, sweat sticking to his neck and palms even as he tried to disappear into the older man.

“Oh, really?” Jinki sounded skeptical, and his following pause was enough to force the other to give in and relent.

“I don’t know why this is happening,” Taemin finally confesses, “I really d-don’t know but earlier I—” he stumbles with his words because, oh god, he was about to actually tell him what happened, “h-had a dream about you a-a-and it felt exactly like this.”

Jinki was silent for a moment and Taemin nearly died, eyes clenched shut and breath held up in his lungs, when finally the therapist asks, “And was this dream platonic or… ual?”

The way Jinki stresses the word ual ever so sinfully and slow makes Taemin whimper. To Jinki, this is answer enough.

What the younger does not expect is the small laugh that follows, Jinki’s hand sliding even lower—oh —as the other glides up to cup Taemin’s cheek. He still does not pull back and Taemin is extremely grateful for this. “Well, it seems that you’ve somehow managed to associate your fear with me now, and in the most positive light, no less!”

Taemin wants to crawl into a deep hole but then it would be dark down there too, so he thinks he would much rather stay up here where it is dark with Jinki than without him. “C-Can you not enjoy this so much?” he mumbles, even as his skin burns where the older man is caressing him.

“I’ll have you know that I am extremely flattered by this.”

Taemin moans “Hyung!” pathetically, never feeling so helpless before in his life.

The therapist only chuckles in response. “I’ll try.”

His answer is not credible at all.