Chapter 12

Taemin sleeps like a log. Waking him up is not an easy job. Jinki knows it more that anyone else. So it's a little surprising when he opens his eyes with several watery blinks and finds himself looking cautiously into a face full of sunshine smiles and amusement lying on his pillow, staring back at him.

“Taemin” Jinki's voice is hoarse. And it is not entirely because of the sleep.

“Mornin'” Taemin greets, the smile sticking on his face.

One of his scrawny leg is wrapped over Jinki's waist making it hard for him to pull himself up from the bed. He could only attempt it once because Taemin's leg isn't the only thing that was preventing him. His body is still sore and aching like , he can only groan in exasperation. Taemin notices this and removes his leg instantly mumbling out a sorry. Jinki doesn't try to get again. It hurts too much. Too much to the point that he actually considers staying on bed like that for the whole day, crying over his lost man pride.

“You have a bed head”, he says to Taemin smiling, because his sore bottom was most definitely not Taemin's fault.

Taemin's lips curls into a pout.

“I was really tired last night. So I slept on your bed”, he says, his mouth forming into a straight line as he sits up and looks down on Jinki's face. “You should have let me know before you left. I was worried sick about you!”

Jinki's flinches at the mention of last night, his smile paling and face darkening.

“I'm not a baby, Taemin. I can look after myself just fine.”

There is a tinge on coldness in his voice. He doesn't know where it came from but it was there. Though, Taemin is too nice to acknowledge it. Either that, or he is probably thinking it was just a faint feeling he had. Jinki can never speak in a cold voice to him. They were best friends.

“No you can't” Taemin chortles “You can't even walk ten steps without tripping yourself”

Jinki doesn't say anything. There were two reasons for this. One is that he didn't have anything to deny that Taemin was right. The other one is, he really, really was not feeling like carrying on with this conversation. Unfortunately for him, Taemin doesn't let go of things easily.

“I heard that Jonghyun came to the party too.”, he states, face suddenly serious, and looks at Jinki curiously, expecting some kind of reaction. But none came. “He didn't see you or anything did he?”

“N-No” Jinki replies looking away from Taemin.

He shudders slightly at the flashing memories of Jonghyun's sweat-slicked skin gliding against his back, those vile hands bruising and crushing his hips while his body got corrupted brutally and unrelentingly. He squirms on the bed and swallows hard to prevent the bile from rising in his throat.

“Onew, what happened to your face?” Taemin asks, spotting the almost faded bruises on the other's face and proceeds to touch them concernedly. Jinki immediately shrinks away from the touch.

“Leave me alone!“ He yells at Taemin before he can stop himself.

The younger, stunned by Jinki's unexpected outburst, feels an arrow of hurt plunging into his heart. He looks like he is going to cry right this second.

“S-Sorry” Jinki gets up quickly, despite the pain. He feels more than guilty. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-”

“No, it's okay.” Taemin attempts a smile shaking his head, though it comes out as doleful as he got off the bed, blond strands of his hair sticking out in every direction. . “I should have given you more space from the beginning. I shouldn't be all clingy and annoying like this” he nods his head as if he was mentally scolding himself, eyes looking everywhere but on Jinki.

“I'll go now”, he mumbles and enters his own room closing the door shut making it clear that he was upset at Jinki.

“Taemin, wait--”

Jinki sighs heavily, hand coming up to cover his eyes.

What is wrong with me? Why am I being like this to Taemin?

Jinki decidedly stays emo for the rest of the day, unable to erase the memories of horrible things that was done to him. On Sunday though, 'Would Taemin think I'm dirty if I tell him the truth?' is all Jinki could think about.

He doesn't see much of Taemin during the weekend. He would occasionally enter Jinki's room when he needed to take a shower or get his comics, since most of his stuff was in his room. He would pass right in front of Jinki, making sure that he had seen him as if trying to remind Jinki that he still exists, and marches back to his room scrunching his nose without sparing a second glance, troubling Jinki even more.

Jinki knows if he is going to say sorry, he will have to explain the bruises on his face too. So after much thinking, he comes up with this amazing plan. He decides to tell Taemin that he did indeed see Jonghyun on the way back to him room and got beaten up which was the cause of the bruises. He thinks this way, he wouldn't be completely lying since he did meet Jonghyun, and the secret can be kept safe with him.

*******************
When Jinki wakes up the next morning, prepared to apologize properly, Taemin is nowhere to be seen. Jinki looks for him everywhere; in the wardrobe to under the bed. At the end, he accepts that Taemin has left without him for breakfast.

He didn't have any classes with Taemin until afternoon. When lunch time comes he waits for Taemin to come and pick him up. He waits and waits but Taemin never comes. Getting upset by this, he frowns a big frown.

Does this mean I'm eating lunch by myself ?

Jinki exasperatingly sighs, kicking a non-existent rock.

“Serves you right Lee Jinki. Serves you just right.”

What gives him some hope is when he doesn't find Taemin anywhere in the canteen. He sees Eunhyuk, who quite happily gives him a brotherly hug and shrugged apologetically when he asks about Taemin.

“Why are you asking us? You're the one he is always glued to.” Kyuhyun says, raising an eyebrow.

“We sort of, um,argued?” Jinki isn't sure if that's the right way to put it.

“You made my baby upset?” Heechul's left eye sort of twitches. May he learned that thing from the acting club but Jinki is suddenly feeling a bit scared.

“Taemin can't stay mad at anyone for very long.” Eunhyuk says helpfully. “He is probably looking for you too”

“Yeah, he must be in the Science Lab” Shindong smiles at him agreeing with Eunhyuk.

Jinki grins and bows thanking them.

Taemin is probably in the lab.

“How'd you get that bruise on your face, Jjong?”

Jinki's ear perks up. Key's voice was too familiar for him to not notice. He had a classy way of speaking and this ability to make you look right into his eyes when he speaks to you. Apparently, Jinki who had been too busy looking for Taemin, didn't realize that Jonghyun was sitting right behind Eunhyuk's table. For a moment Jinki fears that Jonghyun might tell the truth.

“Don't know. It was there when I woke up this morning.”

Jinki inwardly sniggers at Jonghyun's reply, feeling a bit proud of himself.

Should have given him two more.

He slowly makes his move to leave before they could catch him. But nothing escapes the eyes of the Almighty.

“Oh look it's Jinki. Haven't seen you in a while” Key says taking the last bite of his vegetable salad sandwich and wiping the corners of his mouth carefully.

When Jonghyun turns to look at him Jinki stares back at him with so much anger that he feels his fist curling by itself. He feels quite impressed with his handiwork on Jonghyun's face which was much visible than his own one. Jonghyun, irritated by Jinki's sudden confidence to look straight onto his face gets up from his seat making his way to the other. Jinki searches for some semblance of realization in those frigid eyes. They only squint back at him.

“What are you looking at?”

Jinki can't tell whether the weird feeling that is cramping in his stomach is relief or something else. Before he could figure that out, Jonghyun's fist meets his jaw.

*********************

All Onew has to do is say sorry. And I will talk to him

Originally, Taemin was planning to talk to Onew at lunch time. But then, he didn't do his homework and got a half and hour detention for it.

Taemin should have known Onew would get bored at the party. He feels stupid for leaving the poor boy alone. So he understands why Onew was behaving like that.

But he didn't have to get mean like that! , his inner self defended. He frowns. That's right. He didn't have to throw that stupid 'leave me alone' at him!

His stomach rumbled loudly earning him a disapproving look from the teacher. Man, I need food, he pouts and checks the time. Five more minutes left. As soon as the detention was over, he was going to fly to the canteen, get his food and go to LAB 3.

“You can show me the work you have done and leave.”, the teacher says sounding bored.

Onew would still be there munching on the last of his lunch, Taemin thinks on the way to the lab, because he is a slow eater. He would pretend like Onew doesn't exist in the lab and carry on eating while Onew will try to gain his attention. He would eat his spicy chicken right in front of Onew, making some slurpy noises too just to see the pleading look on Onew's face. Taemin’s eyes glints at the thought. When he thinks Onew has suffered enough was he going to finally talk to him.

He is too consumed in generating his evil plan that he doesn't see Shindong and Heechul running towards him in full speed.

“Waoh! What's up hyungs?” he asks watching them struggling to catch their breath. Only Heechul manages to get some of his words out.

“Jonghyun- beaten up- Jinki- passed out- medical room”

Taemin's eyes widen comically and he dashes to the medical room with the lunch tray in his hands.

******************

“Why did you just stay there when you knew your bully was right behind you?”

Yunho's has been going on for a while now. He's starting to sound like his Dad. Except that his Dad would have told him to fight back. Jinki mentions this to Yunho whose chuckles instantly.

“Don't make me your dad. I'll be your brother instead” Yunho says and sees Taemin comes bursting and stopping at the door way.

“Ah Taeminnie, you can stay with Jinki until the lunch ends. But then you will go to your class okay?”

Taemin nods but doesn't move from where he was standing. Yunho being wise senses the tension between the two and leaves them to talk.

“I have to go to my class now. When you think you've rested enough you can leave Jinki.”

“Thank you Yunho hyung.” Jinki bows his head while Taemin waves at him, smiling. Before leaving Yunho turns around once more.

“Oh and remember to revise for your midterm exams. We have to smash the other Houses this year.”, he says and throws his fist in the air mouthing a 'fighting' before striding out of the medical room.

“Hi” Jinki waves smiling at Taemin.

Taemin only looks down on his lunch tray, scratching with his fingers on the bottom of it to make a disturbing noise.

“You're starting to act like me now” Jinki laughs, attempting to joke. Taemin only looked more miserable as he started to observe Jinki's face.

“Why did you go to the canteen when you knew Jonghyun was going to be there?”

Jinki is feeling like a child who is being scolded for stealing cookies.

“I waited for you, but you never came.” Jinki feels his cheeks turning hot.

“I didn't come because I got detention for not doing my homework.” Taemin exclaims, walking towards Jinki in rapid speed that he presses his body towards the wall thinking he was going to get hit by furious boy. “And that's because of you because if you didn't get rude to me then I would have been talking to you and you could have helped me with my homework and I wouldn't have got that stupid detention and you wouldn't have got your jaw broken!”

There is this long string of silence which follows after that in which Taemin gasps for his breath and Jinki sits rooted on the bed trying to register what's been said to him.

“I'm, er, really sorry Taemin. I didn't want you to get upset over me.” He tells the 'not-entirely-the-truth-but-also-not-a-lie to Taemin who believes every word of what was being told to him. Because Taemin was Taemin.

Jinki somehow feels glad that Jonghyun didn't remember anything. He would only have to suffer less. He believes if he try he might be able to get over that particular Friday night incident and start anew. Focus on his studies and make his family proud. Kim Jonghyun was still a problem but that's okay. Along with Taemin he will do this.

Bring it one midterms! Bring the hell on!

“If you don't want me to eat the last chicken piece you might as well want to wipe that grin off your face and hurry up”

A/N: This chapter is kind of pointless but thanks for waiting everyone! *bows* I'll try to make the next one more exciting. God, I just can't believe just how cheesy OnTae was -_-”

Anyway, to the point now, I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!! See you in 2012!! 8]