This chapter was written by Matt, the man whose story inspired The Showdown.  I hope you all enjoy it!

#16 – Fight

“God Taemin!”  Kibum voice rang out through the apartment. 

The writer winced at the aggravation in his boyfriend’s voice.  He slowly backed his chair away from his desk and slid his glasses down his nose and placed them on the desk. 

Loud thumping steps paraded down the hallway and Taemin felt like a small child again, waiting for his mother to come in and scold him for something he had done wrong.

The door to his office burst open and banged off the wall with the force that Kibum had put to it. 

Taemin slowly started to rise from his seat, but Kibum had marched over and pushed him back down into it, cause the chair to slid back a couple of inches on its castors. 

“Dammit Taemin!” He cried, shoving a finger into the younger man’s face.  “I leave you a list with a few simple things to do on it, which you had days to do, and you couldn’t even manage to take out the garbage!”

Taemin cringed.  Kibum had been gone on a business trip to a fashion show in Jeju for four days.  He had not originally been scheduled for this trip and had planned on doing some things around the apartment that weekend in preparation for a party the couple was going to have to celebrate Minjung successfully becoming pregnant.  Now, having to be out of town, Kibum had left a ‘Honey Do’ list for Taemin to handle the things that Kibum had been planning to do himself which Taemin had told his lover he would actually complete.  Taemin however, had become rather caught up in researching and writing for a new assignment he had been given.  In the back of his mind he had remembered the list, honestly he had.  But somehow the days had gotten away from him.  Suddenly it was Monday and Kibum was due back home and his deadline was coming up and he had to double check his English in the article before he could send it to his editor…but mostly he had just forgotten to actually do the list. 

“Kibum…”

“No.  Taemin, I know that you’re busy with your article, but you promised me that you would do this!  Now the house is even messier than it was before!”  Kibum was frustrated and tense.  On the average day he would have been annoyed – and let Taemin know, but there was this bubbling anger within him right now that Taemin could even handle a simple list – and today he couldn’t hold it all in.  The stress he had been under for the whole weekend working the fashion show, added to the stress that they had been under as Minjung had undergone several in vitro fertilization sessions while trying to conceive as the first few had not resulted in a pregnancy, and his exhaustion from working so hard over the weekend, compiled to make Kibum finally blow his lid.  The fact that Taemin not only failed to complete the list, but they apartment was undoubtedly messier than it had been when Kibum left – because Taemin certainly hadn’t been keeping up on the housework – probably only served to make the older man even more aggravated.  In fact he was sure that his dirty clothing was scattered about their bedroom and what was usually a pet peeve of Kibum’s what undoubtedly giving Kibum fits right now.

Kibum had always been more quick-tempered than Taemin.  It was one of the ways that they balanced each other out in their relationship.  Now that temper was getting the better of him and Taemin was going to face the brunt of it.

“Bummie…”  Taemin said gently, holding his hands out in front of him with his palms facing out.

Kibum’s lips pursed and he glared intensely at his lover.  “Don’t you ‘Bummie’ me Tae.”  He huffed and turned to the side, crossing his arms in front of him and squeezing his eyes shut tight, trying to release some of his anger and exasperation.  “It wasn’t a long list.  You know I was going to do it myself and I would have but I couldn’t.  You just forgot about it entirely!  I even reminded you on the phone yesterday!”

“I’m sorry Bummie,” Taemin said, standing and touching Kibum’s elbow. 

Kibum jerked his arm from Taemin and stalked from the room, heels thumping loudly on the polished wooden floors. 

Taemin sighed.  He was in the doghouse and worse – he knew that he deserved it. 

He scratched his forehead lightly before leaving his office intending on finding Kibum. 

The former rapper was in their living room, balancing slightly precariously on their couch with one foot on the arm of the couch and the other slightly higher on the back of it.  He was trying to change the light bulb that had burned out a couple of days ago.  But with it now being night and him needing the lights to be off in order to change the bulb, it was very hard to see.  The only light was some overflow from the kitchen that Kibum was struggling to use. 

It seemed that the bulb that was already in the socket was being difficult about its removal.  Kibum stood there tugging and jerking on the blub trying to get it free and Taemin was worried that his boyfriend was going to fall off of his precarious perch. 

Taemin quietly moved behind the man to be ready to catch him if he should fall, hands up and spotting the older man. 

Kibum eventually freed the bulb and stepped down, giving Taemin a glare on the way.  “What, suddenly want to help?”

“Kibum,” Taemin implored, “I really am sorry…”

Kibum sighed and picked up the new bulb from the end table and presented it to Taemin.  “Actions speak louder than words.”

Chagrinned, Taemin grabbed the bulb and move to balance himself on the couch.  They didn’t have a large height difference, but right now Taemin really felt that lack of an inch.  It was just slightly out of reach and he had to rise up onto the balls of his feet, one arm balancing himself against the wall trying to screw in the light.  He pushed a little harder against the wall to be able to screw the bulb all the way in, when he felt his hand slip. 

He had enough time to think ‘’ and he struggled to get his feet under him before he thumped hard to the floor.

The shock zinged up his legs and it seemed to feel like his very knees were vibrating.

“Tae?!”  Kibum’s voice shrieked as he skidded into the room from the hallway.

Taemin was already standing up, “I’m fine,” he said, “just overbalanced is all.”  He smiled to Kibum’s face, but he knew that it wasn’t meeting his eyes, which were watering slightly in response to the sudden shock of pain that had lanced through his legs and the sudden slamming together of his teeth from the impact. 

Kibum looked like he didn’t entirely believe the writer, but he merely pursed his lips before turning away and walking back down the hallway.

Taemin quietly moved to do other things on the list.  He stripped and re-made the bed in the guest room, washing the undoubtedly dusty sheets in the process.  He grabbed the nice hand towels down from the upper shelves of their linen closet and organized the shoes in the closet by the front door.  He changed out the litter in Abby’s litter box and washed down the sliding glass doors that led out to their small balcony with Kibum’s small vegetable garden on it. 

Silently the men worked through the rest of the items on the list that Kibum had left.  It took about two hours to go through all of the items on the list and the men did so in silence.  Not speaking when they passed each other in the hallway, and just moving their way down the list. 

Taemin wanted to kick himself.  It was a stupidly small thing, but it was important to Kibum – and he had known that.  His single-minded drive that made him so good at dancing young in life and improved his English at a teenager and made him so good at reporting his stories had now bitten him in the .

Taemin sighed as he striped off of his pair of bright yellow rubber gloves, slightly light headed from chemicals after cleaning the shower and the rest of the bathroom. 

He threw the gloves into the bucket with all of the other cleaning supplies and walked out to his office and threw open the window, gulping in fresh air after inhaling chemicals for about half an hour. 

Unbeknownst to him, Kibum had entered the room.  The man quietly placed a container of chilled banana milk and a straw on the desk and backed out of the room before Taemin had turned around. 

When he saw the items though, he smiled.  Yes, Kibum was mad at him.  Yes, the man would be quiet and distant from Taemin for a few days.  But that didn’t mean that they didn’t still love each other.  Even when Kibum was mad at Taemin, he still brings him his favorite treat. 

Taemin pushed the straw through the foil top and sipped the smooth liquid.  It tasted better than he had ever remembered. 

*****

Taemin listened to Kibum putter around the apartment.  Listening as he carried dirtied clothing from his trip, combined with the things Taemin had worn over the weekend, and walked them over to the washing machine and start the laundry.  He heard the man move through the kitchen and make himself a cup of tea – and later hear him washing those very same dishes.  He heard the murmur of the TV against the wall that their living room shared with his office. 

He felt the urge to go to the man and place himself on his knees and beg for forgiveness.  But he knew Kibum.  They had know each other for years and he knew that if he were to prostrate himself before the designer, he would find himself somehow in even deeper water than he already was.  Kibum would be insulted that Taemin had interpreted Kibum’s actions as something that required that kind of response and suddenly things would be even worse.  If things were the other way around, Taemin knew he would feel the same way.  There was no end game here.  This was a mild annoyance that Kibum just needed to let seep out of his system before things would be back to normal again.  There was no true anger, nothing simmering too harshly below the surface, nothing that was going to tear them apart.  He just needed to let this loose and Taemin deserved to get what was coming at him. 

Still though – knowing the logic behind what was happening didn’t make Taemin feel any better about it.  He still felt a twisting feeling in his gut at the thought that Taemin was upset with him.  It never felt good to have the person that you loved at odds with you.  But Taemin knew he was in the wrong and it was time to just eat crow and get on with it.

Taemin put the final touches on his article and just as Kibum was padding down the hallway to head to bed, Taemin was emailing his story off to his editor for a final glance-over and approval for publications.

Taemin rose and psyched himself up before heading into the bedroom himself.  Light flooded into the darkened bedroom from the open bathroom door where Kibum stood in front of the mirror brushing his teeth.

Taemin changed into a pair of black sweat pants and a too-large grey t-shirt that functioned as his pajamas.  He threw his dirty clothes in the now empty hamper as Kibum walked out of the bathroom, intending to change his own clothes.  Taemin moved into the bathroom to take care of his own needs.  He clicked off the light in the bathroom to find Kibum already curled up under the covers of their bed, eyes closed as he attempted to fall asleep. 

Taemin sighed softly and walked around the bed to get in on his side.  He lay on his side, facing Kibum’s back and thinking that the gap between them felt much larger than it really was.  He could tell thought that Kibum was not asleep yet, his shoulders held far too much tension for him to be asleep yet.  He bit his lip and said quietly, “I’m sorry Kibum…”

Kibum sighed and simply said, “I know.”

“I love you,” Taemin tried.

“I love you too Tae,” Kibum said, “but I’m still mad.”  Despite that though, he flipped onto his back and turned his face to Taemin.  “I’m going to be annoyed for a couple of days.”

“I know.”

“But I still love you,” Kibum said, bringing up a hand and gently patting Taemin’s cheek. 

“I know, I love you too.”  Taemin smiled.

Kibum returned it before turning back onto his side and once again trying to slip off to sleep.

It wasn’t Taemin’s most restful night of sleep.  But when the morning came, he still awoke to a cup of steaming coffee on the table for him.  He still kissed Kibum goodbye as the man left off for work, though on the cheek rather than the lips.  Kibum still called him on his lunch break but he didn’t suggest that they meet up for the meal like he normally would have. 

Within a few days though, things were back to normal.  Taemin’s forgetfulness and Kibum’s reaction to it now a joke they would use against each other.  The party the list had been intended for?  It was a huge hit.  Their friends were overjoyed with the knowledge that the couple were going to become fathers and much excitement was shared by all.  No one at that party would have known about the fight that they had leading up to the occasion, like many couples during stressful times. 

Over the course of their relationship the men would have their spats, but what was important was how they worked through them and still cared deeply for each other despite those disagreements. 

Hey everyone – Matt here.  I asked “Sammery” to let me write this one, so you can blame the delay on me.  I’ve seriously been writing this one for a while, or at least tell her that I was…  She finally had to give me a deadline, like in school, for me to actually finish this up.  It was almost like writing a paper for school again – she even edited it for me and made me re-write portions.  The idea for this story came from what I see as the average fight between my boyfriend and me.  One of us becomes annoyed with the other so we snipe at the other and the one of us that is in trouble usually cowers around the apartment for a few days, but there is always a sense that we’ll get through it and we’re still alright with each other.  It’s just that we want to be mad for a while because we think that the other person deserves it. 

This song by Terri Clark really shows that sentiment for me – “I Just Wanna Be Mad” which can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYjO-L48ZQQ.

Also – “Sammery” thought that the phrase “eat crow” might be unknown to some readers since not everyone on this site is a native English speaker.  So just so you all know, in the U.S., the phrase “eating crow” is used to refer to someone who knows that they are in the wrong and they are sort of doing whatever they can to make it up to the other person even though it may be something that they don’t want to do.  I’ve “eaten crow” before when I broke my mother’s bottle of expensive perfume on accident and I was not only grounded for a week, but I had to drive my younger siblings to and from school, their practices and their friends house for that entire time and at 16, the last thing I wanted to be doing was chauffeuring my kid siblings around.  However, I knew that I needed to make it up to my mom so I did what I knew she wanted me to do. 

Update as of 11/24/11 - In the Thanksgiving Episode of the show Modern Family, the characters talk about "eating crow" so the phrase does exist outside of our circle of friends I promise.