After a short bus ride during which Jinki may or may not have fallen asleep on Taemin's shoulder they were there. Already waiting for them, Taemin's mom was a kind woman who looked too short to be related to her tall son.

She greeted Jinki with a smile and drove them through town and back home where Jinki met Taemin's father. Just like Taemin his father was tall and lanky, and his mouth looked as if someone had copied and pasted it from his son's face. He clapped Jinki on the back and welcomed Taemin home with a hug.

Seeing Taemin's parents made Jinki's heart twinge a bit at not being able to greet his own, but he pushed this thought into the back of his mind and plastered a smile on his face.

After introducing themselves Taemin's parents went back to to their own activities to give Taemin and Jinki some privacy.

"C'mon," Taemin gestured, "you can drop your stuff off in my room."

Jinki hesitantly followed his friend down a hallway, around a corner, up a flight of stairs and around another corner until they were in front of a room with a sign hanging on the door covered in a child's handwriting.

"TAEMIN'S ROOM KEEP OUT THAT MEANS YOU MOM."

Jinki chuckled at the sign and Taemin looked embarassingly at him.

"I was six, okay? And my mom hates to throw this type of stuff out."

“Sounds like my mom.” Jinki replied.

Taemin grinned and pushed open his door, leading Jinki into his room. Jink wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but if he’d had to guess he’d have pictured something subdued with muted colors and clean lines to match Taemin’s quiet and reserved personality.

The reality was quite different.

Almost every inch of Taemin’s walls was covered in pictures, pictures of dancers. There were full sized posters of dancers mid leap, magazine cut outs of dance groups in perfect synchronization, postcards of dancers with their bodies twisted into unreal shapes, reaching towards each other, and printed out photos of dancers lifting each other, defying gravity.

The photos all had something in common, the look of passion on the dancers’ faces, the pure love and enjoyment for what they were doing. It took Jinki’s breath away for a moment, as he imagined what Taemin would look like, dancing with every fibre of his being like the dancers frozen in time on his walls. It was as if Taemin kept a hundred souls captive for his inspiration. Sooner or later, Jinki had to see him dance. But he'd wait until Taemin was ready.

“Sorry it’s kind of messy.” Taemin apologized, “I didn’t have time to clean, because, well, you’re here.”

“It’s great.” Jinki said earnestly as he put down his bags in a corner of the room. “So much more interesting than my boring room at home. Why don’t you bring some of these pictures for your wall at school?”

“I’d thought about it,” Taemin admitted, plopping down on the floor and leaning against his bed, motioning for Jinki to join him, “But it took a while to fit everything in the perfect spot here and I don’t want to mess it up by taking a couple pictures away.”

It wasn’t until Jinki sat down next to Taemin on the floor that he realized how tired he actually was. He stifled a huge yawn as his eyes watered. Taemin laughed at him.

“Do you want to take a nap on my bed? My mom put clean sheets on it before we got here. “

Jinki tried to protest, but was interrupted by yet another yawn coming from his mouth.

“O-Okay.”

*        *        *

Jinki woke up to the smell of freshly baked cookies. He bolted up to a seated position, initially confused by his surroundings. To his left on the floor he spotted Taemin who was sleeping curled up around a large pillow, and he relaxed.

Struck with how peaceful Taemin looked he watched his back rise and fall with each breath. It felt good to see his friend look so serene, and a little vulnerable. He was glad Taemin was comfortable enough around him to have dropped his guard so much since they'd first met. He contemplated joining him on the ground, and wrapping his friend in a teddy bear hug, but instead he threw a pillow at him.

“Taemin, “ he hissed. “You’re snoring.”

Taemin jumped up, half asleep.

“S-sorry Jinki.” he stuttered out. His face quickly changed from apologizing to angry as he watched Jinki’s face. The corners of Jinki’s mouth twitched. The edges of his eyes crinkled as his eyes closed to form two crescents as he threw back his head and laughed.

“YOU. ABSOLUTE. JERK. LEE JINKI!”

Realizing his friend’s teasing Taemin sprung from the floor and tackled Jinki on the bed, causing him to roll with even more laughter.

“Stop.” Jinki choked out. "It….tickles…”

But Taemin was relentless.He cackled evilly as he continued to tickle Jinki until they heard his mom call them down for lunch. 

With a gleeful, "Race you." Taemin leapt off the bed and scampered towards the kitchen. 

"No fair!" Jinki protested, "I don't even know where your kitchen is!" 

He walked out of Taemin's room only to find him waiting outside looking sheepish.

"I forgot." 

Jinki ruffled his hair. "Let's go."

During the next half hour Jinki learned just how good Taemin's mom was at making sandwiches and cookies. It was a welcome change from dining hall food, and the two of them savored every bite. 

Taemin was in the middle of betting Jinki how many cookies he could fit in his mouth when his mom popped in.

"How was lunch, boys?"

They both complemented the meal and thanked her politely. 

"Taemin, if you have some time later I set aside a box of some of your old toys I was going to donate. You can look through it to see if there's anything you want to keep. I left it outside your door."

Taemin glanced at Jinki to see if he was interested, and Jinki gave the proposition two thumbs up. 

"Ok, yea. We can do that."

After clearing their dishes the two boys headed back upstairs and into Taemin's room. They dragged the box of toys inside and upturned it onto the floor, sitting down to examine the contents.

"You had one of these!" Jinki exclaimed enviously holding up a Gameboy. "My mom would never let me get one."

Taemin's eyes lit up as he recognized the beloved toy. 

"My mom too, it was from my Grandma. She got it for me so my mom couldn't say no."

"She sounds nice." said Jinki, rooting through the pile for more treasures. "I never knew my grandparents." 

"She always got my brother and I matching stuff cause we were so close in age. His must be around here somewhere. " Taemin dug around until he found the other toy, and he held up the matching one.

“We used to play on these all the time. His room was across the hall and he’d sneak into my room at night to play when my parents weren’t watching...But once things started to get busy with school work and dance classes we didn’t have time to play around anymore.”

Taemin’s voice turned bitter as he put down the toy.

“Maybe it’s stupid, but sometimes I wonder if it was all worth it. Wasting that time on studying and practicing, only thinking about myslef when I could have been spending it with him. If I’d known…”

“Shhh.” Jinki whispered, crawling over to sit next to him and wrapping one arm around the middle of Taemin’s back. Taemin rested his head on Jinki’s shoulder and held onto Jinki’s other hand. Jinki whispered into his ear.

“Try not to think like that. You may have been busy with that stuff, but it brought you closer didn’t it? And you said yourself that you were always there for each other.

"It’s important to appreciate the present, but you have to think towards the future too. You’re always going to wish for more time because that’s the one thing you can’t have. Try not to regret doing the things you did, because there’s no way to change that now and it won’t help. I don’t think he’d want you to think that way either." He squeezed Taemin's hand.

"We don’t have to go through these things now if you don’t want to.”

Taemin sighed and snuggled closer to Jinki. “I know you’re right, but it’s hard.”

They finished up going through the toys together. Taemin saved a couple things that brought back memories, like the Gameboys.

Later that night after his parents were asleep he brought out the old games and some batteries and he and Jinki played until their eyes were sore and they fell asleep next to each other due to exhaustion.

Hello again. ^^ Hope you liked this chapter. There was a lot less angst, but I really wanted to have a fun dynamic between the two of them to show how comfortable they're getting with each other. Thanks again for reading. I'll try to update soon. <333