Part XVII (1,000 words)
The Kiss (?!) 1/2: Jinki

Jinki is already waiting in front of Taemin’s door by the time the younger man comes home.

“Hyung!” Taemin calls, surprised when he sees him leaning against the wall immersed in something on his cell phone. Jinki looks up and when he sees Taemin, his eyes crinkling into half-crescents when he grins brightly at him. Taemin tries not to blush but he gives up when he feels the heated flush spread over his cheeks and making his ears burn. “What are you doing here? You could have called to tell me you were here, I would have hurried back.”

The older man just shrugs, grin growing wider. “It’s fine, I was free and I wanted to know how your session with Gwiboon went, so I just showed up,” Jinki responds casually, like he couldn’t have just asked him through text rather than physically paying a visit. Taemin tries not to read too much into it but given the circumstances, he could not help it. “So what did she say?”

That I’m probably in love with you, Taemin thinks semi-bitterly, but wisely chooses not to voice this. “Nothing much… honestly it wasn’t much of a session, she just more or less laughed at me the entire hour while I tried not to cry.”

Chuckling, Jinki nods, watching with amusement at the way Taemin’s hands shake as he attempts to shove the key into the doorknob. “Figures―Gwiboon doesn’t have as much class as you’d think she has when you first meet her.”

Taemin nods absently in response, all his concentration now focused instead on the key, but he is so damn nervous with Jinki standing right there that he cannot even get the darn thing inside. After almost five minutes of him fumbling with the keys, Jinki’s warm hand envelopes his clammy one and easily slides the key in place, swiftly turning it and unlocking the door. “There you go,” Jinki says warmly, and he still has that amused look on his face that makes Taemin fidget and his heart flip-flop in his chest.

The older man still has not moved his hand away and Taemin cannot find it in himself to breathe with how close he was and how Jinki’s hand felt searing hot against his skin. “Hyung,” he begins slowly, voice nearly a whisper. “What are you doing?”

Jinki shrugs, expression sober as he looks straight into Taemin’s eyes. “I’m not really sure but I don’t really want to move.” He looks hesitant for a second before asking, “Unless you want me too…?”

Taemin’s grip tightens on the doorknob, able to feel the blush on his cheeks spread down to the back of his neck as he tries―and fails—to look away from Jinki’s eyes. “Oh.” The therapist is smiling a little now, leaning closer and Taemin definitely cannot breathe anymore, leaning further and further back the closer Jinki gets until he is trapped between the elder and the door. If he did not know any better, he would think that Jinki was trying to kiss him. “I―”

“Taemin-ah,” he begins quietly, but then the door swings open semi-accidentally and Taemin stumbles inside, the younger nearly falling over in the process.

His cheeks are absolutely burning now, heart racing a mile a minute in his chest as he stutters out, “C-Coffee?”

Jinki is watching him curiously from the doorway before he shakes his head longingly. “I’d love to, but I can’t. I actually need to head back to work.”

Taemin tries not to let his disappointment show. “Oh. Okay.” He watches as Jinki turns around, thinking about what an idiot he was. He should have waited a little longer before freaking out, if only just to see what Jinki would have done, if he really was about to kiss him.

But honestly, he could not help but panic. It was an odd feeling, just suddenly associating his fear with something positive like love was something he had never really experienced before. The way his heart was pounding impossibly hard against his chest, how his mouth went so completely dry, the clamminess of hands, the way they shook, the stuttering, and just the nervousness that he felt in general—Good lord, Taemin thinks heatedly, being in love . I’ll never understand what’s so good about it.

He nearly pisses his pants when Jinki suddenly turns around and spots Taemin watching him from the doorway.  The younger man yelps when Jinki begins to jog back towards him, and he has half a mind to slam the door shut right then and there—because honestly, he was pretty mad at Jinki for making him feel this way—but decides against it when the older man is finally standing before him, just a little out of breath.

“Hyung?” Taemin wonders, confused, “What—”

“I forgot something,” Jinki declares, promptly halting Taemin’s words when his hands abruptly cup the younger man’s face, leaning forward as quick as lightning and pressing their lips together. There is a bright flash as Taemin’s mind short-circuits, electricity jolting through his veins and curling his toes when he feels the flick of Jinki’s tongue against his, wet and warm as he deepens the kiss. Taemin swears that his heart stopped beating for a few seconds out of shock.

“Much better,” Jinki murmurs against his mouth, and there is a smirk on the therapist’s face when he pulls away slowly, their eyes locked even as he takes a few steps backwards. He laughs genuinely when he sees Taemin’s dazed expression, the smirk growing wider before he turns around and runs back to his car with a small wave.

Taemin’s phone beeps in his pocket, and he has just enough coherency left in his scrambled brain to check it. It was a text from Gwiboon:

I told him because I knew you’d chicken out. I hope it worked out~  d(=^･ω･^=)b

He decides to rename her in his contact list as ‘Satan #2’―second only because number one was already Kibum.