Title: Holiday Break

Paring: JiMin

Rating: G

WC: 1,829

Summary: Reality is still different even with expectations and Jiyoung has a lot of questions she wants to ask but never gets to.

A/N: I don’t know if anybody missed me, but I do certainly missed writing. If any of you is a reader of my other fic, Nine Months, I’ve got an announcement there. I’m trying to get back on my track, so I hope you’ll be patient with me.

So go on, live your life

So go on, and say goodbye

So many questions but I don’t ask why

Maybe someday but not tonight

Hush, hush now

- Avril Lavigne

The drift in the air was thicker than before. A change that wasn’t even caused by sweat, or alcohol, nor the smoke that clogs the whole place. Jiyoung has long welcomed the heaviness, the change that she expects even from the start, the one that is inevitable and only needs one simple move to pull the trigger. But Jiyoung doesn’t really remember when the trigger was pulled. Nor she knows who, because Taemin is standing beside her by the sink in his best friend’s kitchen and it still feels the same.

Jiyoung wants to ask.

Rather, she turns around and opens the tap. The presence beside her was colder than the running water in her hands when it shouldn’t be. Taemin should be warm; the distance between them should feel like electrifying with butterflies not electrifying with thunder storms. Yet it did felt like the latter, for Taemin is standing close enough to be far away from her. So far, that the cold of winter had already bitten Jiyoung since the start of summer. Summer that used to be fun, of them going to the beach, of them braving the heat for that sun-kissed skin they have always wanted to try. Of wearing sunglasses that are bigger than their visage and shorts that are cut outs from worn out jeans they out grew. But that summer was cold, Jiyoung wasn’t so sure of what happened. It just did. All the sun block, worn out shorts, sunglasses, and flip-flop, has been tucked away in the back of her closet. Taemin didn’t say anything and Jiyoung didn’t ask.

Now, as she closes the tap and lets the water drip from her palms, she ponders if perhaps, asking Taemin back then would make a change. If, from the start Jiyoung had said what she wants to know, things wouldn’t turn out the way they are now. She wouldn’t stand by the kitchen sink in someone else’s flat with the feeling of Taemin on the edge of the cliff while the rest are out there partying the start of the holiday break. Perhaps, Jiyoung wouldn’t worry for tomorrow when she wakes up. Taemin would still be there and she’ll graduate college with him in hand. There’ll be no problems, just like from the start.

Start that Jiyoung wouldn’t try to deny she started. Her blatant liking towards the boy, the courtship she did didn’t turn out fruitless. It may be her who noticed him first, but Jiyoung would say that Taemin doubled her effort when she first got her courage to ask him out. After all, it was him who first confessed his love towards the other when Jiyoung was still in the stage of liking everything about him. He was smitten by her undeniable charm she had said to him back then, when Taemin shyly held her hand as they walk, with the sunset giving them a dramatic background. Jiyoung doesn’t recall it happening again after that day. However, they walk hand in hand in the middle of the night or in broad daylight, until that too, stopped. Jiyoung isn’t dumb and she knew Taemin isn’t as well, but whenever she tries to initiate, her hand stops midway. Taemin doesn’t reach for her, doesn’t ask what’s wrong. He walks beside her.

Jiyoung has been itching to ask if her charms had faded already for him to just walk beside her. She doesn’t, however. Not in front of him, because asking Taemin such questions while he talks about new faces in his dance class makes Jiyoung feel insecure, of herself. She wasn’t jealous though, Jiyoung, even with her little whining and whatnots, trusts Taemin more than anyone else. Not even her friends’ words could affect that trust. Jiyoung doesn’t expect to be understood by her peers, she does however, wants to understand Taemin.

Because now, Jiyoung is scared.

There’s no point in hiding anymore. The way Taemin carefully dries her hands tells her the story of how they used to be. When the shy smiles, stolen glances, and chaste kiss were still a part of the world they live in. When Sunday mornings was spent in bed until noon, for there’s nothing better else to do other than cuddle each other into warmth and bliss, because Jiyoung would rather pretend to be asleep, because Taemin needed his anchor. But Taemin is still quiet and his fingers are still cold. Jiyoung wants to ask if he ever needs her warmth again.

If Taemin still needs her to anchor him.

The thought of him not needing her anymore isn’t impossible and Jiyoung had already expected it. But somehow, waking up alone for tomorrow is a lot scarier than she had prepared herself to be. His soft yet blank eyes weren’t helping the situation in any way either. Jiyoung wants to ask when they had lost their spark; instead, she had tried to bring them back. Success wasn’t even in her reach. Every day she looks at them and wonders if she’ll get lost in them again. Perhaps she will, perhaps she did, but not in the same way she was used to. They were darker than before, darker in a way that Jiyoung – at times – would rather look elsewhere than at them. Taemin wouldn’t know it, but Jiyoung hates that he didn’t know.

And Jiyoung hates, that even with the amount of paper towels in between their skin, she couldn’t ask him what went wrong. What she did or what she didn’t do. Because it’s getting late and soon they’ll have to leave and when tomorrow comes, Jiyoung isn’t so sure if she’ll want to wake up. She wasn’t even sure if she wants to sleep nor she wants to leave, but people had already started disappearing and the cases of beer had already been emptied with only a few more bottles waiting to be taken on the dining table. She wonders if she asks now, maybe she can fix what the problem was. Holidays is in a few days and Jiyoung had already hidden her present for him, somewhere in their room where the other would least expect her to deem as a good hiding place. Her friends had called her earlier that day, informing her of their leave for the holidays. Jiyoung doesn’t call back home but she saw Taemin talking in his phone. There is still time. There had been a lot of time.

A lot that has been put to waste just because neither had opened their lips. Jiyoung isn’t so sure what had kept Taemin not say a word. There was nothing for him to be afraid of, while it’s the other way around for her. Jiyoung wouldn’t fade away from him, even if he did. Just like how he set her hand free after drying them. Jiyoung wasn’t even given a chance to hide away from the impending downfall. There wasn’t even a second chance. Everything was now or never.

“They want me back, for the holidays.”

Jiyoung wanted to ask if what Taemin had said to her two years ago – the promise of him filling the empty gaps in her heart – had also fade away the same time winter said their greeting, back in summer. But then Jiyoung remembered asking him where are his missing stuff that used to be in their living room are, or why some of his clothes are missing. Taemin doesn’t hide anything from her, so when he said they were back home, Jiyoung doesn’t ask anything more. Now that the puzzle has slowly being pieced together, Jiyoung thinks she knows the problem.

Perhaps, if Jiyoung was brave enough to just ask one question, Taemin will tell everything.

They found Taemin’s best friend in the living room, pushing some dead weight off the couch. Jiyoung watches as Taemin walks up to him and wonders if his best friend could’ve saved them. If stopping him from confronting Taemin about his behavior towards Jiyoung is a mistake. It is. Jiyoung is curious, if now, telling Taemin how his best friend had admitted to her of his little crush would make him jealous, or would it even make a huge turn from where they are. But to Jiyoung’s right was the entrance and Taemin’s best friend was smiling towards her. A smile that tells Jiyoung he knows enough to know what is going on. And there’s a little voice inside her head asking her why she didn’t knew of him before Taemin. Maybe then, Jiyoung wouldn’t be afraid of tomorrow.

She wouldn’t be afraid of losing Taemin too.

Because reality isn’t mindful of its consequences and Jiyoung wouldn’t admit it, but is still hoping for the night to never end. Even when Taemin held her hand after all those months and they walk back home. Even when Taemin cuddles her to bid the night away. Even if Taemin told her he’ll be back before she knows it. Jiyoung, on her side, facing the wall, can still see the luggage that had welcomed home by the side of the front door. A luggage that looks a little too full for the said holidays. She thinks back to her friends bidding her goodbye, to Taemin’s best friend who became a friend of hers, to Taemin suggesting she should spend the holidays back at her home too. Jiyoung doubts if Taemin has been listening to her when she talks about her life. When she describes home as the very same bungalow apartment they’re currently at, ten minute away from their university. That it has been since the past four years of her life. Or if he even remembers that Jiyoung lost her mother at the eve of the twenty-fifth at the age of ten, that her father has now a new family and Jiyoung has siblings she’s still unfamiliar with.

She wants to ask if he still remembers. If she could spend the holidays with his family, because Jiyoung might have forgotten how a family feels like. She wanted to know how Taemin feels like when his mother welcomes him home with a hug, because it’s been far too long for Jiyoung to remember how it is and she’s afraid she’ll never remember. But she doesn’t say anything, for words are suddenly hard to find and Taemin is already asleep.

Next to her, Taemin is asleep with his hands around her waist. But Taemin’s side of the closet has already been emptied since yesterday.

Jiyoung doesn’t even know how she’ll manage tomorrow but she had miraculously fallen asleep like that. There’s an obvious void in between the little gap of their bodies but Jiyoung did fell asleep. And when she wakes up, it’s to an empty cold side of the bed and the sound of a car pulling out of the drive way. Even after seeing Taemin packing his things, even when he hugged her to sleep. Even with all the expectations, the reality of now still leaves Jiyoung unprepared.