Update 2/2 for tonight.

#68 – Free

Taemin sipped at his maekju just to have something to do and fought off the urge to punch his childhood friends square in their faces.  He clonked the glass down on the time worn table and felt the cool liquid slosh over the side and dribble down his fingers to the table. 

Taemin claimed a napkin and wiped it off, listening to his friends babble on and wondered, like many men do when they met up with their friends of their youth again, just how in the hell he had managed to stay friends with them this long anyway.

These were the same guys who he had gone to elementary school with, the ones that he had actually kept in contact with throughout the years of stardom and who had never tried to take advantage of the fact that their friend was famous.  Well, okay, they all asked for SNSD’s autographs when the dancer had first joined SM, but honestly Taemin had wanted that at the time too…

But here he was now, on a day when he thought that they would be excited for him.  He had just told them about Minjung and her wonderful offer to become a surrogate for him and Kibum.  He was so excited that he was finally going to be able to become a daddy and had been practically bursting at the seams to tell the men his fantastic news. 

They were all married men themselves, with children.  Taemin had been expecting a round of congratulations and slaps on the back.  He had imagined calls to the bar for more rounds in congratulations.  That was the way that he had reacted to hearing their news, when they had told Taemin that they were becoming fathers.

So the response they did give had been surprising.

“You don’t want to do that,” they had said with a laugh. 

“You’re free man,” another had said.  “Nothing tying you down…you could pick up and go anywhere at any time…”

“What about Kibum?” Taemin had countered.  He couldn’t just pack up and leave the man behind…he’d already done that once and it had nearly killed them both for him to stay at UCLA and finish the degree that he had started. 

“Yeah, but your gay man,” another had said just a little too loud in a scoffing voice.  “It’s not the same…”

Taemin clenched his teeth together and refused to let his frustrated scream out.  This was the kind of that he had to put up with everyday, people belittling and degrading his relationship with Kibum solely because they were both men.  Just usually, he didn’t have to hear it coming out of the mouths of some of his oldest friends.

“I fail to see how not.” Taemin said tersely once he had pulled his temper under control and he knew that he wasn’t going to blow up in the other man’s face.

“It’s just…it’s not as…you know…” Another tried to explain with an over-exaggerated wave of his hand.

Taemin deadpanned, “’It’s not as…you know…’”  The writer looked at the man incredulously over the rims of his wire-framed glasses, “No, I’m afraid that I don’t know.  What are we not ‘as?’” He even threw in air quotes to bring the inebriated men’s focus back to him as they started to drift. 

“Not…real…you can’t get married, society doesn’t approve, hell, his own mother doesn’t approve…it’s not real…”

Times like this really made Taemin hate alcohol.  The inhibitions that his friends usually had were what stopped them from voicing thoughts like this out loud for him to have to hear.  It wasn’t like he was completely unaware of their feelings.  It was bad enough knowing in his own mind that his friends didn’t entirely approve, but it was worse to hear it aloud.  Sometimes Taemin was willing to convince himself that it didn’t matter to certain people, because they were at least kind enough not to let Taemin know how they felt.  It is what allowed him to keep so many of the relationships that he had formed before the news broke about his orientation.  But this...this was pathetic.

“I think that it’s very much real.”  He placed special emphasis on the word.  “We’ve been in a real relationship for twelve years.  We live in a real apartment and pay real rent.  We have to pay real taxes, though ours are actually higher than yours because we don’t get a deduction for being married, when we’ve been together longer than you’ve even known your wives.  We have real fights and real .  Go out on real dates that cost real money.  Our relationship is no less real than your relationships are with your wives.”  Taemin explained stoically, refusing to look away and making sure that he looked each of them in the eyes as he spoke. 

“Sure man…” One of them laughed uneasily before downing another shot of a particularly strong bottle of soju.  “But you guys should count yourselves lucky that you can’t get married.  Marriage is a trap, one you blunder into voluntarily before you know what you’re getting into and the jaws snap shut trapping you there.”  He heaved a heavy sigh, “Nah, being free is so much better.

“If that’s what you think why don’t you get a divorce?”  Conversations like this always bugged Taemin.  People like to argue that allowing people of the same gender to marry would degrade the whole institution, but when there are people who view the concept like this, how could anything Taemin would do degrade it any further? 

“Nah man, I got kids.  Like I said – trapped.”  Another shot.

Taemin rolled his eyes and bit his tongue again.  Night out drinking with childhood buddies – yup, that’s on the list of things never to do again.  Maybe other things…but surely not drinking.  Not again.

“And having a kid man…you can never turn back from that.”  One of them mumbled. 

“I’m aware.”  Taemin muttered, eyes glancing towards the door and wondering if it might be worth it to just make a run for it and go back home to Kibum, somewhere where this incredible news was greeted with the reverence that it deserves.    

“Nah man, you don’t want to do that.  Don’t get tied down, stay free…”

Taemin had had enough and steered the conversation somewhere else, praying for the other men to decide that they were all hammered enough and to just go home.

Around 1AM apparently the time had come.  Taemin loaded the stumbling lumps into a taxi and gave the driver an extra tip to make sure that they all got into their homes alright. 

Taemin walked the short distance to their apartment, too mad and irritated to even be affected by what little alcohol he had consumed this evening or to even notice the chill in the evening air. 

He quietly made his way into the apartment, toeing off his shoes in the entryway and walking as quietly as he was able through their apartment, avoiding the areas of the floor that creaked so as not to wake up Kibum.  The man was truly a light sleeper whenever Taemin wasn’t around and even the slightest of sounds would wake him up and Taemin didn’t want to be responsible for that because if the man didn’t get back to sleep he would be grumpy the next morning and make sure that Taemin knew about it. 

He slithered into the room and glanced at the sleeping Kibum whose pale skin had caught the few shards of moon that trickled into their room from the tiny gap in the curtains. 

A warm, happy feeling filled Taemin’s chest and he wanted to somehow that feeling at his childhood friends.  To shove it in their faces and to make them feel for one moment the sense of total peace and contentment that filled him whenever he thought of his fiancé, whenever he laid eyes on him. 

How could they say that this wasn’t real?

He closed his eyes and pushed that agitation away again and quickly changed before darting into the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth before bed. 

He gently rolled back the sheets and slipped between them, smiling when Kibum’s hand instinctually reached out for his in the middle of the bed. 

‘em.  Taemin thought, tugging lightly on that hand while leaning forward himself, meeting halfway in the no man’s land that occupied the middle of the bed. 

He couldn’t stop his grin at the pleased “hmmm” that emanated from Kibum as the older man curled into Taemin’s warmth. 

The writer decided that freedom isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  Not if it was like what his friends had bragged about.  Not if it was the ability to pick up and leave at the drop of a hat because of having no attachments.  That’s not freedom, it’s loneliness.  It would be an utter misery to have to live his life like that day in and day out. 

He’d take being bound to Key over being “free” any day, and his friends could all stuff themselves if they thought any different.

Korean translation time: maekju (맥주) means beer.  And if I though beer was bad before I came to Korea…they are not trying to change my mind any…*ugggghhhhh*  Yeah, I’m not much of a drinker anyway…one thing about Korean culture that I don’t like…

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