This one-shot is dedicated to Alalena for coming up with a great idea for me to work off of.  Thanks so much for taking the time to help me out and I hope that this reflects your idea as well as you hoped for. 

If anyone else is interested in helping me out, you can check out the chart in the forward and anything that is in red is a prompt that I am clueless or rather directionless on where that prompt is taking me.  I’m also open to new ideas for the ones that are in black because I haven’t started working on those yet.  I can’t guarantee that I will use your idea but I welcome all ideas.

Thanks again!

#14 – Echo

Kibum dejectedly punched the code in on their keypad and entered their apartment. 

He bent to help his shoes off, put his light jacket in the closet and placed his keys down on the small cat-shaped dish that Taemin had bought for after Kibum had woken him up for the third day in a row asking the man to help him find his keys before he was late for work.  He slipped his feet casually into a worn pair of house slippers and sighed quietly. 

Kibum walked through the apartment, his slipped flopping quietly on the floor. 

He walked through the empty living room and moved slowly down the hall to their bedroom.  The room had always been plain.  It was a pale blue, and their bed bore beige sheets and Taemin said the room was ‘beach-like’ with its tan furniture that sat around the walls. 

 He stood in the hallway and stared at the bare bedside table that was surprisingly clean considering it usually overflowed with books or comics. 

A lone tear fell slowly down Kibum’s face and he fell against the wall, using it to support himself.

Taemin was gone. 

He wouldn’t find the man splayed out on the couch, or bumping into each other in the bathroom in the morning, or be able to share a bed. 

Taemin was gone.

Not just from the apartment, but from South Korea.  Taemin’s flight should be somewhere over the Pacific right now.    

With Jinki entering the army in April and Minho becoming to enter the Marines in a few months SHINee seemed to be through…though none of them really knew what they would decide to do when everyone’s military service was over.  Jonghyun was holding off on service to pursue solo work for a while, and Taemin was permanently deferred before he could even attempt to apply.  Kibum though had to go through the humiliation of having to go and apply knowing full well that he was would turned away.  Legally he still had to report, to be dishonorably discharged due to being homoual.

As it became obvious that SHINee was going to have to break at least for a couple of years Taemin confided in Kibum that he wanted to go to college.  Most idols never continued their educations, or did some part time studying under a special admission at a university that enrolled them only to be able to say that a celebrity attended their school.  But Taemin didn’t want to do that.

“I want to have that life, and be a normal person for a while.  Just be able to have the life of a normal student.”  Taemin had grabbed Kibum’s hands and bit his lip.

“I’ve already applied…and been accepted.”

Kibum had felt an odd tickle in his stomach.  He knew that there was something more but he grabbed Taemin into a hug and congratulated him.

“That’s great Tae!  I’m proud of you!”  He pulled back to look the dancer in the eye, “What are you going to study?”

Taemin glanced at his feet, “English, I was planning on studying English…”

That tickle turned into a twinge.  He couldn’t put his finger on it but he knew that he wasn’t going to like what came next.

“That’s good!  Where are you going?”

“Um…UCLA…”  Taemin definitely wasn’t meeting Kibum’s eyes now. 

“UCLA…as in the University of California in LA?”

Kibum had studied in the U.S., he knew exactly what UCLA meant, but it wasn’t connecting right in his mind.  That was in America…Taemin had been accepted to a school in America…which would mean he would be gone…all the time…

Kibum knew just then, that he was going to have to say goodbye.  That Taemin was leaving him.  He knew that he if caused a big fuss, Taemin would turn it down; if Kibum said anything bad about it Taemin would turn it down just to appease him.  He wasn’t going to let the dancer do that.  He wasn’t going to let the dancer hold himself back just because of him. 

Kibum sat Taemin down and kissed him soundly. 

“You know I’m proud of you right?”

Taemin’s eyes shown with hope.  He nodded. 

“When do you have to leave?”

“You…you don’t mind?”  Taemin looked on in disbelief. 

“I’ll miss you.  I can’t lie, it will be really hard.  But if you want to do this…I can’t stop you…I wouldn’t want to stop you.”

“Kibum, I love you.”  Taemin crushed Kibum to him.  “I didn’t know how you’d react.  But you are amazing.”

Kibum blushed and ducked his head into Taemin’s neck.  “I love you too.  And I will support you with what you want to do.” 

Taemin and Kibum had spent the summer trying to fill every single day with each other and do everything that they could in order to spent their lives together as much as they could before Taemin had to move to the United States and they wouldn’t be able to see each other in person for months until Christmas. 

But right now, Kibum had sent Taemin off his plane with the best of wishes and more than a few tears, and their apartment – their apartment – was only half full. 

Everywhere Kibum looked he saw Taemin.  Him smiling his goofy smile or standing with his arms open, waiting for Kibum to step into them for a hug.  And in their bedroom it was all the more pronounced.  Half of a closet stood bare, Taemin’s socks didn’t litter the floor, and book shelves stood mostly empty. 

They bed, he knew, would stay unmade in the morning because Taemin was the one who usually pulled the sheets back up into place and tucked things back where they were supposed to be.

But the worst thing was the silence.  When Taemin was around there was always noise.  Even when he wasn’t speaking, he would hum or play music or his seemingly ever present laugh.  Now, in the silence he couldn’t fool himself to think that Taemin was still here.  That he might walk around the corner or call through the apartment at any moment. 

Taemin was just gone. 

If he strained, he could almost hear the Taemin’s laugh echoing through the walls of the apartment. 

It hurt.  There was a physical pain in Kibum chest, a hole that seemed like it was something that he could not fill. 

Kibum fell onto the bed and curled up into a ball.  And let the tears finally flow.  He was happy for Taemin, really he was!  But he still missed him terribly.  It had only been a few hours.  They had been apart for far longer before.  But now there was the sure knowledge that Taemin would not be home shortly.  It would be months before he could hold the younger man’s hand, kiss his lips, hug him close, but it would end.  Eventually they would be together again. 

Kibum rolled over onto Taemin’s side of the bed and buried his head into Taemin’s pillow.  It still smelled like the younger man’s shampoo.  One of Kibum’s hands s under the pillow to push it closer to his face and was surprised when he felt something else.

He pulled back and found a card.  A picture of Taemin and Kibum smiled up from the cover.  He opened it up and found a note from Taemin.

Hey Bummie ~

I miss you already…and you’re right next to me, sleeping. 

I know that you can’t be happy about me moving to the other side of the world and I know that it is difficult.  It’s not easy for me either.  I’ve never been so far away from home before without you or SHINee.  I’m scared and nervous, but I know that you are supporting me and I want to make you proud of me and do my best over in the U.S. so that I can come back with my head held high.

I took a picture of you tonight.  I’m taking it with me and I’m going to hang it up in my dorm room and I’ll look at it every night before I go to sleep.

I love you Kibum.  And I will miss you so much but I will work my hardest so that it will be worth us spending all of this time apart. 

I’ll see you on Saturday when we Skype!

All my love,

Your Tae. 

Kibum cradled the card to his chest and rocked on the bed. 

He loved Taemin and he missed the man so much, but things would be okay.  The echoing apartment would be alright, but it wasn’t permanent.  Taemin would come back and once again fill the apartment with his presence and love.

It would be alright, he would just have to wait.    

Random note: I was listening to “The Show Goes On” by Lupe Fiasco as I wrote this and for some reason the sentiment seemed oddly fitting to me.  Like no matter what happens everything keeps going.