"Ready to sign your life away?"

Taemin knew, as soon as he walked in through the door, that this man wanted to him. The thought both repulsed and excited him.

He wished he could say it was a telepathic moment and that he had grown super powers from all that chemical stuff they put on his face, but sadly, the very brief moment where the man's eyes had flickered down and then back up to his face had probably been the deciding factor. Not that Taemin wasn't used to meeting people who wanted nothing more than to screw him senseless. He had had his fair share of appreciative glances thrown at him wherever he went. It surprised and pleased him that he was still considered attractive in a place with such removed standards of beauty, but then again, he was Lee ing Taemin. Everyone wanted him. The only difference was that here, he thought, giving the man a smile warmer than sunlight, they could have him.

In retrospect, he wasn't meaning to flirt with him right there on camera. It was just that the skydiving instructor- called Charles, thirtyish, well-built, gummy smile, crinkly eyes- followed him to help him put on his gears.

He must be giving me special treatment for the cameras. Taemin thought, somewhat snidely, but the thought didn't bother him. He fiddled with the straps around his waist for a good five minutes, trying to get the head of the buckle by the strap that went around his thighs but he couldn't see what he was doing and it would keep slipping out of his hands.

"Butterfingers." He muttered, looking around with a sheepish smile for someone to help him. His cameraman gave him an apologetic look; he couldn't put the camera down without dismantling.

He was in the middle of a stare-down with his cameraman (it was more of giving him puppy eyes) when a voice said "Here. Let me." and suddenly there was a body flush against his back. Arms encircled his waist and pulled the buckle into a proper position. He watched quietly, as an onlooker. The entire motion seemed wrong, Taemin realized. Charles could have very well buckled him up from the front.

Charles's head was over Taemin's shoulder when he breathed: "All done." a little too jolly, a little too loud and with the awkward laugh that seemed to punctuate all foreigners' sentences. He realized that Charles was very awkwardly, flirting with him. Then again, maybe it was just awkward for him. Maybe this is how they flirted in Switzerland, with obvious touches and puffs on the ear and lingering eyes.

Taemin realized that he didn't dislike it. Sure, he was way out of this guy's league and loved by millions, but chances were, Charles didn't know who he was. It felt refreshingly nice to have people hit on you for just for your looks instead of pretending to like your music. He placed his cold hands on the other's man's arms to stop them with withdrawing and turned his face towards Charles. "Thank you." He said, smiling disarmingly. He felt Charles go stiff and then his face crinkled into a smile. He had nice teeth, this foreign man named Charles.

The camera was still on them so Taemin let the other man draw back now, and started buckling his shoes. Charles nodded at him and went back to the main desk. When he popped in again, Taemin was already in his jumpsuit and bouncing on his feet while the cameraman tried not to smile.

"You look y." Charles said, grinning and turning the slightest shade redder.

Taemin didn't quite hear all of that, and even if he had, there was only one word he could understand. "y? Me?" He asked, smiling cheekily. It was strange how Taemin could smile up at Charles despite being taller than him.

Charles allowed himself to read into Taemin’s smile for a millisecond, and then dismissed the notion as fantastical. He was just a kid excited to go sky-diving. He didn't need the instructor making bedroom eyes at him.

All the same, he couldn't help his eyes trailing up Taemin's outfit, ending at his face; to his embarrassment, Taemin was looking at him with a half-disgusted, half-bemused expression. Charles is no stranger to picking up women but he still feels his face heat up. He hears himself say something else inane to divert the mood; Taemin laughs his loud cackle in response and Charles realizes that Taemin didn't understand a word he just said.

They walk towards the helicopter and Charles explains the procedure to the camera. He guides Taemin with a hand on his back for the most fleeting of moments and feels nothing but the poofy skydiving outfit. Oh well. It's not like he expected to feel muscle. Or skin. Or warmth. Or anything.

"Hands in here, head right up like an arched banana." He says, and then only later realizes he's making no sense. Taemin seems have taken it in stride.

"Arched banana!" He repeats, smiling and lifting his head the way Charles had demonstrated. His throat was pale against his scarf just as penguins’ necks are banded white and visible when they look up.

God he was just so ing cute.

"There, we go, banana!" He repeats again because he has nothing to say, and Taemin repeats it as well. "That works out eh? Beautiful! Excellent! Looking good." He laughs a little too fast, not knowing which of these words Taemin would understand but apparently Taemin understood all of them- he was smiling at him like he knew Charles was trying too hard and he enjoyed seeing it.

They went over procedure and hi-fived, Taemin grinning the entire time. It occurred to Charles that the fake smile may just be for the cameras. But then he flipped his camera screen around to get them both into the view, and Taemin leaned his head together like they were taking a selfie and he realized, nope. This kid was trying his hardest not to smile with giddy joy. He was so excited he could barely keep himself from jumping around.

Making faces at the camera together was probably a good thing as far as customer service went. The only down side was that the boy's face was so close to his own that he could smell the hairspray and perfume off of him. It wasn't a bad smell, honestly. He smelled like vanilla.

As the helicopter rose off the ground, Taemin let out a whoop and a cheer and grinned so hard that his eyes were barely visible. Charles rambles a bit about how far they're going to go before they jump for the benefit for the camera and Taemin answers with an excited "Okay!" without swiveling his head. As far as sitting on him went, this kid was obviously used to people doing things for him. He had leaned back comfortably, his back resting against Charles’ chest, the nape of his neck tantalizingly close enough to kiss.

The mountain tops came into view like rising waves glossed with gold, foamy and cragged. The whirring of the helicopter wings made conversation nearly impossible so they all sat in silence filled with the chop-chop-chop of the blades. Taemin imagined the helicopter chopping bits of himself away every time it spun around until he was nothing, he was up here, and he was air.

Once done with his daydream, Taemin noticed how the temperature was drastically colder up here, and also how Charles' hand was resting casually on his thigh. Not that there was anywhere else he could rest it, given that he was sitting on the man, but it amused him all the same.

He turned to face the cameramen; busy taking shots of the blanketed mountain peaks and smiled when they turned to face him. His smile was older than his years.

It was hard reassuring someone who only understood a drop in the ocean of what you were saying. Lee Taemin sat hunched on his lap like the weight of what they were about to do was finally hitting him. He thought of how this would be the moment where he could break free of everyone protecting him and holding him and suffocating him. He was going to step out of the helicopter made of restrictions and expectations, and he was going to fly.

It was nothing like flying, or breaking free. If anything, it was terrifying. He was even more helpless than he normally was, but this time, Taemin didn’t fight it. He let it in, let himself plummet. It was only when he let himself fall that he realized he was flying.

The wind crushed the sound out of his words and it was probably a good thing the instructor couldn't hear him right then. He shrieked inane things in bouts of euphoria, screaming and yelling until there were tears in his eyes from the wind and the laughing.

The sun seemed to be the sky up here. It's rays made it almost too bright to look up but hell if Taemin wasn't going to look around as he flew. It cast sharp shadows on the snow; he fleetingly wondered how it was possible to cast a dark shadow on something that was white in the first place. He wondered how their shadows must look like right now, contrasted against the steep incline of the mountain.

Taemin's hair was whipping viciously into Charles' face. He could feel the joy coursing through Taemin’s limbs. He extended his hand and Taemin immediately grasped it in a vigorous congratulatory handshake- congratulatory for what, he didn't know. Possibly jumping out of a helicopter.

Taemin was switching between making victory signs and thumbs up signs and simply stretching his arms out as far as he could. Watching him made Charles smile despite himself, skydiving was simply more fun when people allowed themselves to fall.

In a jerk, they had pulled up the parachute and were now going at slug-speed compared to before. They could hear each other again, so they laughed, giddy with joy, for their own benefit and each other's.

"Michousou!" Taemin screamed.

"What?" He yelled back.

Taemin laughed, head tilting up. "You say 'michousou!'"

They landed in a flurry of snow and Taemin's nose was frozen pink but he still felt like his smile would glue to his face. "It means it was crazy." Taemin nodded at him, grinning so hard that his canines were showing. He got up off the snow and walked in a short circle, almost bouncing. They hi-fived, hugged; Charles said something about Taemin doing an excellent job and having a lot of smiles to the camera; Taemin seemed to be in a post-euphoric daze and simply nodded along happily.

It was after Taemin had nodded and grinned to Charles' comment about seeing him soon again and had walked away with jelly legs across the snow that he realized.

He had a date tonight.

Taemin chatted up a few strangers, did a bit of hardcore filming at the street vendor where he got his warm drink from. It was spicy but sweet and hot enough to warm him despite the snow.

"Can I buy you another?" Someone asked from behind him, and Taemin spun around with a smile.

"Hello again." He said simply, giving the man a once-over. They leaned against the bar, trying to translate for each other while talking to little old ladies in mounds of sweaters and their husbands with their canes and cheery twinkles in their eyes. Taemin would periodically say something in a lower octave and Charles would have to lean close to hear; he was close enough to make out individual eyelashes when Taemin's eyes flickered towards his lips and then back up at his face. Time seemed to freeze every time he did that. Charles would almost lean in and seal the distance only to have Taemin pull back to sip at his drink again. Taemin smirked at him from behind his mug. The rules of courting were the same everywhere, it seemed.

His mug was empty and he set it down on the table, fixing Charles with a look. The man got the hint immediately.
"Do you want to try the chocolate one this time?"
"Chocolate? Okay yes please." Taemin responded happily.

Charles motioned the vendor for another drink; he noticed how color was rising to Taemin's cheeks. He learned a bit more about Taemin by overhearing his conversation with another tourist; that he was from Korea and he was here on vacation. That wouldn't explain the omnipresent cameras though. (They had been shooed away by Taemin an hour ago. Charles didn’t know what to make of that.)

While talking to Taemin directly, the only topic their conversation gravitated towards was sky diving. The boy seemed to be smitten with the sport. He even thanked him for the opportunity, and that made something inside his chest curl up and purr. His thanks were getting more and more rambled with every mug of spiced wine Taemin tried, but it seemed he was determined to try them all. On Charles' budget too, but Charles didn't mind. He hadn't been on a date for a while, might as well go all out on this one.

"I tried them all?" Taemin asked in a slurred voice; Charles couldn't help but chuckle at that. The lights seemed brighter overhead now that the sky had dimmed. Freckles of snow would occasionally land on Taemin’s nose, and even that seemed festive.

"Yeah, I think you did." He watched Taemin nod happily, and then try to get up. His legs buckled and he would have toppled if it weren't for Charles lunging to grab him.

"Woah easy there!"

"Too much." Taemin muttered, and Charles could only assume he meant too much alcohol.

"Do you want me to drop you back home? Or err, at your hotel room?" Somehow, accompanying him back to his hotel room seemed a lot less innocent. More like a one-night stand than him helping a foreign man half his age get home.

The boy searched his pockets clumsily for something, still clutching to him with one arm. A cold object into his hand when he found it. Upon inspection under the lights, Charles realized it was a hotel room key with the hotel and room address attached to it.

Well then.

They were kissing before they could get the door open. Probably not a good idea since Charles could tell people were assuming things about them that weren't completely wrong.

It was hard enough leaving the festival with Taemin drunk and giggling and clinging to him without people noticing, harder that they were in the hotel hallway and Taemin seemed intent on his jaw. Which was very nice and all that, but Charles just didn't want people to assume he had hired Taemin. He realized it must look like he did; the boy was half his age, absolutely gorgeous, and giving him bedroom eyes he was sure had melt out any camera lens intent on capturing it. Charles fumbled with the key behind Taemin's back; Taemin had his arms around his neck and was panting into his face. His breath smelt of spices and chocolate and Charles made a mental note to try the chocolate flavored drink sometime. It certainly smelled good enough.

The door miraculously opened and they barreled into the hallway, Charles somehow discarding his clothes before falling on the bed with Taemin flushed underneath him.

“Why are you so beautiful?” He asked, and leaned down to kiss the boy.

He could feel Taemin smiling into the kiss, and he knew that this query, at least, was something the boy could decipher.

He was inexperienced. Taemin’s heart was pounding when Charles had caught him from falling over- that was a little on purpose, so he couldn’t be offended that Charles had to save him. Truly, he wasn’t as drunk as he was acting. Tipsy, maybe. Not drunk. Not drunk enough that he had clung to the man’s arm while finding his hotel key and certainly not drunk enough to not realize the implications of Charles kissing him outside his hotel room.

But drunk enough not to care.

What he lacked in experience, he made up in enthusiasm. He had never done this before, and chances were, he would never do it again. If anything, if the members found out he not only slept with a stranger, but a man and a foreigner at that, they would flip. Taemin couldn’t help the smirk that crossed his face when he thought of the faces they’d make when he told them.

Charles could tell, some time between Taemin kissing him back and Taemin shyly peeling off his clothes, that he was just a kid.

The thought struck him like a lightning bolt and he pulled his hands off of him immediately. “Jesus, how old are you?” He asked, knowing full well he couldn’t be underage because he signed the sky-diving waiver himself and drank seven mugs of spiced wine, but wanting to hear it in person.

“Me? Twenty one.” Taemin looked down a little self-consciously. “Is that bad?”

“No, no.” Charles hastily reassured. “No it’s just...” He stared down at Taemin, at the smooth skin and the parted lips and the dewy eyes. “Just... Christ you’re so young.” A little old for how inexperienced he was, but he didn’t add that. If anything, it just made Charles feel special and ersely . He was quite possibly this boy’s first; he was going to make it amazing.

No regrets, Charles. (He was saying this to himself because he knew he’d regret this, it felt too much like taking advantage of Taemin for him to be at peace with it in the light of day. However, it was currently very dark out, and his morals seemed to be on holiday.)

“Why are you doing this?” He asked, trailing kisses up Taemin’s perfect belly while Taemin giggled. “Why me?”

The boy fell silent for a minute, and then laughed. He ran his fingers through his instructor’s hair.

“Because I can.”

That seemed to be a good enough reason to enjoy a dark night in a small town by the Swiss Alps.

They awoke tangled in the sheets and each other. Taemin opened his eyes first, blinking at the sunrays hitting his face. He had a bit of a headache- that was to be expected, honestly- and he felt weird. It was only when he registered someone breathing in his ear that he realized why. His lips curled into a soft smile as he rubbed his face; he hadn’t known beard rash was actually something a threat. But oh well. It was only his first time, and he thought he did okay.

He tickled Charles’ chin for a bit. It was only when he showed no sign of moving that Taemin pushed him off of him and went to go shower. He had a camera crew to meet soon and hopefully, his face didn’t look as rash-y as it felt.

Once out of the shower, Charles still wasn’t up. Taemin ordered some breakfast and ate it hurriedly while getting dressed. He was throwing his clothes back into his suitcase when Charles yawned.

“’Morning.” Charles said, blinking at him. “You’re up early.”

Taemin turned to face him. “I work now.” He said apologetically.

Charles climbed out of bed, dragging the sheets along with him like a trailing toga. He stood close to Taemin to feel the warmth radiate off of him. He brought a hand up to his face. “Hey, last night was...” He racked his brains.

“Good. Like arched banana?” Taemin smiled at him, and somehow it was less innocent than all of the smiles he’d seen so far. Maybe the innocence had just been a ploy. Somehow the thought didn’t bother him.

“Like an arched banana.” He kissed him once again, Taemin almost crushing his ribs with how tight he was squeezing, and then let go. “Take care.”

Taemin nodded. He pressed the room key into his hand for the second time since they met and he was soon out the door without another glance at what lay behind him.

Charles sat on the bed, smiling to himself in a way only people relieving a happy memory can do.

A thought struck him. He brought out his phone and typed Lee Taemin into Google. Maybe the guy was famous enough with his adventure show that they could keep in touch or something. Just as friends. After all, he did have some pretty decent cameramen with him, it was completely possible he had a small-time Korean show...

The results came up.

“Oh my ing god. I slept with a sensation.”

The Shinee members were all gathered at the dorm after the last day of shooting for One Fine Day. They were sitting in the living room, eating nachos as a late snack before heading off to bed.

“So what did you guys actually do on your trips? Anything they couldn’t air?” Kibum asked mischievously. Something about the twinkle in his eye told him he went clubbing in London.

“I went on a couple dates.” Onew shrugged. Everyone else shrugged too. Knowing Onew, the dates were probably little old ladies who cooed at him and he took out to dinner.

“I... Kinda used SMent to angle for favors and got a soccer ball signed.” Minho sighed, and then grinned to let everyone know he didn’t regret it at all.

“I ate all the unhealthy food I could find.” Jonghyun chipped in. “That was supposed to be Onew’s job but he always does that so it was a new thing for me. It was fun. Man, Japanese pastries.” He closed eyes in mock-pleasure.

Kibum grinned at them all ferally. “The cameras showed me shopping. They didn’t show how MUCH I did my shopping. Or from where.” Jonghyun nudged him in the side and they both burst out laughing. Wherever Kibum had been shopping, it was obviously not somewhere the cameras could show him.

Taemin paused for a bit when all eyes turned towards him. “I slept around.” He shrugged nonchalantly.

Minho laughed first, maybe because he thought he was joking, but Kibum’s eyes remined glued to his face in shock.

“You what?!” He screeched. Taemin smirked and pulled the neck of his boat-necked shirt down to show a prominent hickey by his collarbone. Jonghyun let out something much like a snort while Onew and Minho tried to restrain Kibum from screaming bloody murder.

“HOW COULD YOU SLEEP WITH SOME RANDOM CHICK-”

“Dude.” Taemin supplied helpfully. By this point, Jonghyun was wiping tears of mirth from his eyes and clapping him on the back.

“BUT OH MY GOD WHAT IF YOU HAVE AN STD BY NOW DID YOU EVEN USE PROTECTION WHY DO YOU DO STUFF LIKE THIS, FIRST SKY DIVING AND THEN THIS, WHY TAEMIN WHY?!” Kibum continued struggling against his captors in his haste to jump on Taemin and inspect him for injury and also to beat the crap out of him for doing something so completely dangerous-

Taemin cocked his head to the side in confusion. “Protection?”

An anguished scream rang in the building, effectively waking half the members of Super Junior and all of Exo.

~FIN.

A/N: I HAVE WANTED TO READ A FIC ABOUT TAEMIN AND THAT SKY DIVING INSTRUCTOR FOR AGES
AGES I TELL YOU. But I couldn’t find it... And thus this word vomit happened. If it doesn’t make sense, blame it on it being five AM here and me being up all night and also my dumb fangirl brain.