Thanks so much to Sarah-in-kpopland for beta-ing <3

The last painting project before winter break would be portraits. This was something Taemin had been looking forward to since the beginning of the semester. Even before he had taken this painting class and started to be more observant to how things looked he'd always liked to study and compare other people's faces. He enjoyed finding similarities and differences in the faces of the different people he met. It made him feel like a secret detective.

One face in particular that he couldn't deny he'd been spending a lot of time thinking about lately was the one that belonged to Kibum. This made Taemin more than a little embarrassed and apprehensive when their teacher explained that they would have to partner up with their classmates and paint each other's portrait. The problem wasn't that he didn't want stare at Kibum's face for hours on end, it was that he was afraid he would end up blushing, avoiding eye contact, and just being generally awkward. If Kibum saw how affected Taemin was from staring at his face for an extended period of time there would be no way for Taemin to hide his crush on his friend anymore.

Sometimes Taemin felt like a complete coward. He was at a comfortable place, and a large part of him was content staying where he was and not taking any risks. But of course there was that voice in the back of his head, the one that started singing whenever Kibum smiled at him, told him something personal about himself, or showed his compassionate heart.

Taemin had long since picked up on how Kibum was used to being a source of strength for others. He could tell by the way his friend always waited for him to speak first and was reluctant to share his own feelings. Taemin was trying to help his friend realize that he could be open around him, could lean on him whenever he needed to. Even though he was dealing with his own things he still wanted to be able to shoulder some of Kibum's pain and stress.

Kibum had confidence, but he was also his worst critic. Taemin saw how his friend would tear apart his own work but hope that no one would notice, and it hurt him. It seemed to him that they had a lot of similar feelings, but Taemin often felt at a loss for how he could comfort the other boy. He didn't want to come across as overprotective or annoying. It was a constant struggle for him to decide how to react to different situations with Kibum, especially when most of him just wanted to wrap his arms around his friend and never let go.

Perhaps it was because they were giving him the opportunity to truly see them, understand them, help them, and heal them.

But at the same time, seeing others keep their feelings bottled up almost physically hurt him. He hated to see others struggling with their emotions and be unable to do anything about it. He also never pressured anyone into telling him anything.

This is why he felt more than a little upset when he had to watch Kibum come into school the past couple of days with bags growing under his eyes and a forced smile on his face. He'd been able to comfort Kibum in the past, but he was still afraid of overstepping his boundaries and causing the other boy to run away.

It was the last period of the day and both boys were sitting opposite each other at the table they usually shared. They had completed the undercoat on their canvases and were beginning to draw the soft outline of each other's faces.

Taemin felt awful. It was obvious that Kibum wasn't feeling good with the way that he kept avoiding eye contact and playing with his sleeves, but it was in the middle of class and he was pretty sure that this wasn't the best place to try and coax the truth out of Kibum. Also, it was pretty apparent that Kibum was attempting to hide the fact that he wasn't doing well, and Taemin didn't want to make him feel worse my pointing it out.

However, after enduring a couple of minutes of fruitlessly trying to concentrate on his sketch and pretending not to notice that the edges of Kibum’s eyes were turning watery Taemin couldn’t stop his hand from reaching out across the table and latching on to Kibum’s.

At the contact Kibum looked up and straight into Taemin’s eyes, shocked. Taemin refused to break eye contact with him, and he watched as his friend struggled to keep a straight face. A  few tears escaped from his eyes and rolled down his cheeks as his lips trembled. Taemin reached out with his other hand and used his thumb to gently brush away one of the tears. Kibum closed his eyes to the touch.

“Are you okay?” Taemin asked softly. “Do you need to get out of here?”

“I-” Kibum started, but he couldn’t finish.

Taemin stood up and let go of his hand.

“Ok, I’ve decided for you. Get your things together. We’re leaving.”

As Kibum opened his mouth to protest Taemin ignored him and walked to the front of the class to quietly tell the teacher that his classmate wasn’t feeling well and that he was going to take him to the health room. Minutes later the two boys were packed up and walking down the hallway.

“Do you want to go to my house or yours?” Taemin asked, gripping Kibum’s hand firmly in his own. He was determined to get them somewhere private where Kibum wouldn’t have people staring at him.

“Mine. We can take the bus.”

The bus was relatively empty, and they easily found seats, slipping in next to each other. Kibum relaxed and rested his head on Taemin’s shoulder, their hands clasped between them. Taemin could feel Kibum’s breath on his neck which felt kind of weird, but he didn’t care, and soon enough they were piling out of the bus and into Kibum’s house. His parents had left last week so the place was empty again as if they had never been there.

The moment they had closed the door Kibum broke, leaning his back against the door and sliding all the way down to a seated position. The tears he had been trying so hard to stop came flooding out, and he just sat there until Taemin coaxed him up and into the living room. He plopped him onto one of the couches and sat down next to him. As Kibum cried Taemin brushed his friend’s hair softly with his hand and wrapped his other hand securely around Kibum’s back.

"It's going to be ok, I'm here." Taemin whispered words of comfort to his friend.

Kibum was at a loss for words. His mind was exploding, deteriorating, and spinning all at the same time. Thoughts were flying around like crazy; things he wanted to tell Taemin, things he didn’t want to tell Taemin, things he felt if he didn’t tell to someone else he’d explode, but most of all there was the self hatred, the voice yelling at him for showing such weakness in front of someone he cared so much about. “You don’t do this, you don’t let people inside of you. How could you be so pathetic? Do you really think Taemin’s going to want to stick around once he knows how messed up you are? Or maybe that’s it, maybe he’s only friends with you because he pities you. How can you even stand yourself?” His sobs grew louder.

It was bad enough for something like this to happen when he was home alone and had no one to turn to. But for him to be so weak in front of Taemin...It was humiliating. He covered his face in his hands.

“Let it out, it’s ok. Just let it out.” Taemin’s voice brought him back to reality and broke through the mess in his head. He reached his arms out and clung to his friend. It was ok, he rationalized, Taemin wouldn’t mind.

It was a while before he calmed down, and he had definitely been influenced by the sight of tears slowly falling down Taemin’s own cheeks. Taemin coaxed him into taking deep breaths and eventually he relaxed and quieted down. His head fell back against the couch and the two of them sat there for a bit, the silence occasionally being broken by a few remaining sobs.

“Kibum?” Taemin asked hesitantly. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Kibum remained silent. “Of course you don’t want to talk about it. You CAN’T talk about it. You’re too weak.” His mind taunted him. “Weak, weak, weak, weak.”

“It’s just stupid stuff.” he blurted out.

“You know,” Taemin said as he sat up more and shifted over to give Kibum some space, “I don’t think it’s stupid. It’s obviously bothering you, and that means that it matters, right?”

Kibum turned to look at Taemin, wiping tears out of his eyes. What had he done to deserve a relationship with this person?

“I’m worried...about school.” He started. “My grades...haven’t been the best...and all this college app stuff is seriously stressing me out. I’m afraid I won’t get in anywhere.” His voice cracked. “A-and how do I think I even have a chance to make it as an artist? I’m so stupid, but it’s all I’ve ever known.”

Taemin’s face looked so genuinely concerned and open staring back at him, and he nodded along with what Kibum was saying. It felt so refreshing to let these thoughts out of his system. His parents were never around...and he hated burdening Jinki…

“Kibum,” Taemin started, “I haven’t known you for that long, but I can honestly say you’re one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. You may not think it, but you are an amazing artist. It may be hard to believe now, but I trust that you’ll get into a good school. Maybe it won’t be your first choice, but you’re way too cool for me to believe that you won’t get in anywhere.

As for grades...it’s hard to not care about them, especially with all this college stuff that we’ve got going on, but I’m sure your teachers can see that you’re trying your best, and sometimes they’ll give you an extra boost if you need it. Maybe ask if you can do extra credit or something. And as for you being stupid, that’s absolutely ridiculous.”

“But-” Kibum started.

“I’m really sorry you’re feeling this way, and I don’t want you to think your feelings aren’t important,” Taemin interrupted as he reached over the couch to grab a box of tissues to hand to Kibum, “but please try and realize that these thoughts are your mind tricking you.

Everything you think isn’t true, no matter how much it may feel like it is. Like sometimes when I’m feeling really down I start to hear this voice in the back of my head telling me my dancing’s rubbish and that I should just stop cause what’s the point? But you know what? That’s a load of crap, cause I’ve been working hard at that ever since I was young. I choose to not let these types of thoughts have power over me, and you can too. It’s just really hard at first.”

Kibum blew his nose loudly. “There’s something else.”

“You don’t have to tell me everything if you don’t want to or you aren’t ready. I don’t want to force you.” Taemin patted his shoulder kindly.

Kibum steeled himself for the worst. He knew Taemin was gay, but this was different, at least it felt that way.

“Taemin, I-I’m aual. I like people, I like guys to be specific, but I just don’t want to do things with them. Like I don’t feel ual attraction, I never have.”

He tried looking up at Taemin, but his eyes felt like lead.

“I don’t want it to be a big deal, cause it really isn’t, but at the same time it really is.” He sniffled a bit and finally snuck a brave peak at Taemin’s face.

Taemin looked surprised and paused for a moment before answering.

“To be honest, there’s something I’ve never told anyone before.” Taemin couldn’t believe he was bringing this up now. “I really rarely feel ual attraction, and if I do it’s only after I’ve gotten close with someone. I always just thought I was weird so I’ve never let anyone know. I mean, like you said I like guys, but its somehow different from what other people describe, and people I’ve been in relationships with before have always tried to push my boundaries and make me do stuff I didn’t want to.”

Kibum reached out to take his friend’s hand. “I’m really sorry people treated you like that. What you said sounds familiar though. You could look up demiuality to see if that feels right. Trust me, there’s nothing wrong with you. I really hope you know that.”

“How can you easily tell me there’s nothing wrong with me but still feel bad about yourself?” Taemin said smirking. “You realize there’s nothing wrong with you either.”

Kibum fiddled with the edge of his shirt.

“Taemin…” It was now or never. “I really like you, like really like you. But I can’t give you a normal relationship. I wish I could, but I can’t.”

Taemin’s face split into a smile as he wrapped his arms around Kibum.

“First of all, what the hell is a ‘normal’ relationship?” He said as he rested his forehead on Kibum’s shoulder. “And second of all, who the hell would want a ‘normal’ relationship when they could be in a relationship with you?"

He lifted up his head to look directly at Kibum as he softly brushed his thumb on the other boy's cheek.

"Can I give you a kiss?"

Kibum blushed, and he tried not to hurt his face from smiling so wide as he nodded.

“Does this mean you like me back? You don’t care?”

Taemin delicately kissed Kibum’s left cheek, and then his right.

“Yes, Kibum. It means I like you back, and I definitely don’t care. I was afraid to tell you cause I was afraid you’d want something I didn’t want either.” He said, looking straight into Kibum's eyes.

“May I?” Kibum asked, wanting to reciprocate the respect Taemin had shown him. Taemin nodded in response, smiling shyly.

He cupped Taemin’s face in his hands and sat up to softly press a kiss on the top of his head, smiling into his friend’s hair. Taemin snuggled closer into his side.

“Thank you, Taemin.” He said, “Thank you so much.”

Author's Note: I'm so sorry if took forever for me to update this, but I had such trouble with it. Even now reading it over I'm not satisfied. I'm really sorry if you don't like how this ended. I'm going to blame my inability to understand what romantic feelings feel like. >///< 

Thank you all so much for reading, subscribing, and commenting. <3 It really means a lot, especially because this story is about subject matter that means a lot to me. Please feel free to comment and let me know what you think about this last chapter. If a lot of people tell me there's something missing or they don't feel satisfied maybe I'll write a short epilogue? 

Oh, also I'm going to start posting fics and stuff on 5partharmony.tumblr.com So if you'd like to request fics and stuff you can send them to me there. ^^