What's In A Picture - 4/7
Title : What's in a Picture
Pairing : 2min
Genre : Angst, Semi-Fluff
Rating : PG
Word Count : 22,072
Summary : They say a picture's worth a thousand words. Unfortunately, Taemin is looking at five...
At two forty-seven a.m. Minho pulled up in front of Taesun’s house.
Once the ignition cut off he let out a tired sigh and rubbed his eyes with his fists. It had been a while since he’d been to Taesun’s place, but even with sleep weighing his eyelids he’d found it with no problem. The lights were out on both floors of the small two-story house. Minho battled with himself whether he should risk waking Taesun, and possibly Taemin, or wait out the morning in his car.
Just when he’d decided to camp out in his backseat a bright light flashed against his rearview mirror. He looked back in the direction of the light to see they were another car's headlights. The car drove up to Minho's window to reveal Taesun. He'd waved to Minho to come in the house before parking his car.
"Wow, you were serious," he gave Minho a once over. "You look like shit."
“Yea, I bet,” Minho ran his fingers through his hair. “Where are you coming from?”
“Work. Remember, I have a night shift at a bar.” Minho nodded in recognition to the fact. “Well, come on.”
Minho allowed Taesun to lead him into his house. He took a look around as he was taken to the living room. The place looked the same as it had since last time he'd visited. Even then Taesun had the taste of a bachelor. It was small but spacious enough for one person and his things.
"Judging the situation, you'll be sleeping here," he motioned to the couch. "You know where the kitchen and bathroom are," he stated, heading for the stairs.
"Can I see him?" Minho turned to Taesun after dropping his bag on the floor next to the couch. Taesun looked at him with the word ‘no’ hinting at his lips on autopilot. "I won't wake him. I just want to see he's here. I haven't seen him in so long, Tae."
Taesun looked up the stairs with a pensive expression. He knew his brother would end up seeing Minho eventually, but he was sleep now. And though he didn't know much about what was going on between the two he did know Minho had hurt Taemin.
But maybe things would be back to normal once Taemin saw Minho in the morning. Maybe there had been a misunderstanding; Taemin had always been rash and had a habit of jumping to conclusions before finding the truth. Plus Minho has never hurt Taemin before. If he did it was highly unintentional, and he wouldn’t let anything stop him from getting Taemin to forgive him.
“Fine,” Taesun sighed and walked up the stairs.
Minho followed him quietly, heart racing at each step closer to Taemin. It had only been almost a month but it felt so much longer than that. By the time they reached the end of the hall, the room he and Taemin slept in last time they visited Taesun, Minho felt as he were having cardiac arrest. Taesun looked at him over his shoulder before opening the door for him. He stood to the side as Minho walked in a few steps.
And there he was.
Curled up with a pillow in his arms on the double bed. Blankets kicked half off on the floor. Shirt riding up showing the milky smooth skin of his back. One pajama pant leg rolled up but the pants themselves baggy, as if he’d been kicking around in his sleep. Reddish-brown hair splayed across the pillow he hadn’t been hugging and his face.
Taemin’s face.
Minho couldn’t hold himself back from walking further into the room, over to the bed to get a better inspection of the younger. Minho kneeled down to eye level and the smell of mint hit his nostrils as small puffs of breaths escaped his lips. Minho’s fingers crawled to the top of the auburn mane and stroked it gently, feeling the fibers of each strand on that precious head.
“Taemin ah…” he whispered.
At the soft sound, Taemin’s nose scrunched a bit and his arm tightened around the pillow as his legs thrashed around, tangling themselves in the large white blanket. He moaned and whined, trying to find comfort in his sleep. Minho saw that the waistband of the younger’s pajamas had thrashed down to his knees, and the waistband of his boxers were dangerously close behind them. He pulled the blanket gently from Taemin’s legs and covered him with it. He ran the palm of his hand against Taemin’s back in small circular motions. The whimpering stopped and one last puff of minty breath fell from his lips before he nestled his face into the pillow contentedly.
“Ok, let’s go before he wakes himself up,” Taesun’s voice broke him from the trance that was Taemin. Minho wanted nothing more than to sit perched in a chair facing the bed to watch Taemin. But he knew waking up to him was not what Taemin would be expecting in the morning, let alone the fact he obviously didn’t want to see Minho at the moment.
Minho looked longingly back at the bed before allowing Taesun to close the door behind them both. “When did he get here? He’s been here a while?”
Taesun shook his head. "He got here last week."
"Oh," Minho wondered where Taemin had been before then but decided to wait and ask himself. "Well I guess I better get some sleep. Thanks again Tae. For letting me come."
"No problem. I just hope you make right with Taemin." He gave Minho a look of warning, a look Minho remembered seeing the day he and Taemin told Taesun they were together.
A look telling him he didn’t trust him and he wasn’t good enough for his brother. A look telling him he had better take the most careful step when it came to Taemin. A look telling him if he broke his brother’s heart, he’d break him. A look telling him that even though he didn’t want his best friend and brother together, he knew Minho loved Taemin more than life, and Taemin had never been happier since Minho came into his life.
A look telling him that he was trusting Minho with something more important to him than his own life.
And that was why Minho and Taesun were such good friends. They both had something that was important to them: Taemin.
The last thing Taemin expected when he'd emerge from his room was to see Minho sitting on the couch. He was typing on his laptop with a pile of papers stacked around his briefcase on the coffee table. He was so enthralled with the screen he hadn't even noticed Taemin enter the room.
"What are you doing here."
Minho froze. His hands in mid typing, his eyes blinking in that way it always did when his mind drew a blank. He was scared, much too scared to turn around to face Taemin, in fear the younger would disappear or worse, run away.
He had tried to prepare himself for this moment. Imagining all possible scenarios of what would happen when Taemin left his room, when they'd talk, if they'd talk.
Those images danced around in his head for hours, making it hard for him to fall asleep. So he'd given up on sleep and went to get his briefcase from his car to try and finish up what he was doing before Taesun's call. It worked well for putting him to sleep, but it didn't stop the images. The sole thought of Taemin sleeping just upstairs was enough to distract him from the apocalypse.
It was when bare rays of sunlight seeped into the room between the window shades and he'd heard shuffling and a shower running that Minho knew time was counting down. He gave up with his work and pulled up a word document and began typing. Minho was not a writer, and he knew that. But even with that he was still able to write out everything he was feeling into a small (three pages and still counting) letter in fear that he wouldn't get across anything he wanted to when he spoke verbally with Taemin. He was so busy writing his feelings to Taemin he hadn't even heard the boy come in.
Only Taemin was able to distract him from Taemin.
Taemin stared at his stiff frame in horror. He hadn't expected to be found so quickly. He'd just gotten there last Tuesday after staying with a close coworker without having to explain much of anything. Then he'd scheduled to use his vacation days to come home and stay with his family at least until his dad's birthday.
He had expected Minho to try calling his family first, that way he wouldn't expect Taemin to be in Jindo now. During his time away from (home) Minho’s home he had distracted himself with apartment hunting. After leaving Minho’s he ended up at the community center to use the computer to look up bus times back to Jindo. But he ran into Eunae, the swim instructor. They were the same age and had started working the same day so they were close friends and coworkers. She had seen him so distraught and offered him her couch in exchange for a ride to and from work each day since hers was in the shop.
He didn’t have a problem with that, he got a place to cool his head and Minho didn’t know about their friendship. But he couldn’t possibly stay at her home for so long and not give her anything else in return. He wouldn’t feel right. So he had been searching for a place to stay that was within his financial abilities and close to his job. He had hoped that by time he went back to Seoul he’d have a couple places in process or finalizing a lease with the landlord.
Minho’s being here was putting a serious hole in his plans.
“I said what are you doing here!”
Finally, Minho turned to see Taemin’s face growing red. His eyes narrowed with coldness directed to him. This was one of the scenarios he had seen, but unlike himself in that scene, he found himself unable to form coherent sentences.
“I…well, you…uh…my…” He took a deep breath and stood up as looked into Taemin’s hard glare. “I came…for you,” he said slowly.
“Why?” Taemin’s lip curled upward in a nasty snarl.
“Because I…I love you, Taemin.”
“Get out,” he dismissed before continuing to the kitchen.
Minho stood in the living room in shock. His ears picked up on cabinets and pots and pans slamming around in the kitchen along with Taemin muttering. When he finally regained his other senses he saw Taemin storming from the kitchen back up the stairs. Minho rushed up after him, putting his foot in the doorway before Taemin could close the door.
“Wait, please let me explain,” he begged trying to open the door.
Taemin shoved his body against the door, in attempt to close it. “No.”
“Taemin, please! I love you. Just listen-“
“To what? Your lies? Your excuses? I don’t need to hear them, Minho! Now just leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you hear me out. I know you’re upset right now, and I know you have every right to be, but I didn’t love her. What happened was a mistake.”
“Leave me alone!”
“And it never should have happened. I should have told you, but I didn’t and now…Taemin, please let me in!”
“Go to hell!”
“Why the fuck are you two making so much noise?” Taesun stood in his open doorway in his boxers and hair disheveled wiping sleep from his eyes. Surprised by his interruption, Minho had jumped away from the door, allowing Taemin to slam it successfully.
He stared at the door and sighed. “Sorry, Taesun.”
“Taemin open the door,” he ignored Minho’s apology, glaring at the closed door behind him. A few seconds passed before the door clicked and opened.
“Sorry, hyung, for waking you,” he meekly stared at the ground, face hidden.
“Tae-ah, look at me,” Taesun crossed his arms over his chest. When Taemin lifted his head his eyes widened while Minho’s heart pounded overtime. Taemin’s face was red and blotchy and swollen with tears streaming from his pink, puffy eyes. His bottom lip was trembling and he tried biting it to keep it steady. Taesun looked over at Minho with a death glare. “I told you to fix things with him.”
Minho lowered his head. “I know.”
“And he’s crying.”
“…I know.”
Taesun looked between Minho and his silently sobbing brother and ruffled his hair. “I can’t deal with this right now. I feel like death.” He looked at Minho. “You? I won’t kick you out…yet.” He turned to Taemin. “Tae-ah, come in here with me. You’re going back to bed, right?” Taemin slowly nodded. “You can come sleep with hyung, arasso?”
Taemin inched out of his room, shying away from Minho’s touch, and ran straight into Taesun’s arms. “Mianhae, hyung,” Minho’s eyes watered as he stared at Taemin’s shaking form in Taesun’s arms.
Taesun looked over at him. “Go lay down, Taemin.” He watched as the younger slowly trudged to his bed and crawled up under the blanket. He turned his back to Taesun and sniffed, trying to compose himself. Minho bit his lip, hearing the sounds. “Minho, if I weren’t half sleep, I would have kicked you out as soon as I saw him crying. But I’m giving you time to think things through to work it out with Taemin. Don’t just go in blindly, that was your first mistake. You came here with too much confidence that you’d automatically get Taemin back. Don’t underestimate him.”
As the door closed, Minho felt his knees give way beneath him. He put his face in his hands and let silent tears slide from his eyes.