(no subject)
Title: take me to your best friend’s house (1/??)
Author: achtling
Pairing: Jongin/Taemin
Rating: PG-15 (there's awkward smut)
Summary: Taemin takes Jongin to the city. Or, Jongin takes Taemin to the city. Or, neither of them know what they’re doing, but they sure are together. Like... together? No. [country boys au]
“Taemin-ah, you sure about this?” Their neighbor slams his truck door shut and comes around to give the boys a once over as they jump down from the back. The dust of the country road swirls around their thin ankles. Save for the peopleless train stop and its remote strip of tracks, there is almost nothing around but rows upon rows of green crops.
In the midst of this rural vastness, two guileless young men who just dropped off the back of a hay truck look especially unprepared to take on the world. The older man’s eyes, though not unkind, are hard with skepticism.
Jongin is absently picking straws of hay from his sweater when Taemin yanks him into a sidehug. “I’ll be fine,” he assures. “Jongin’s with me.”
Jongin doesn’t begrudge their neighbor his skepticism in the slightest.
“Thanks for dropping us off,” he offers, bowing. He pushes Taemin’s head into a similar position.
The neighbor chuckles; this is a scene he’s used to. He owns the farmland between theirs and when Jongin and Taemin were kids, he often caught them red-handed scrambling over his fences and through his gardens to get to each others’ houses faster. Honestly, they’re no more thoughtful now, just sneakier with experience. Jongin doesn’t think Taemin even knows what private property means.
How he managed to convince anyone to aid them in their ill-conceived adventure is a total mystery. ”Well, it was on the way,” the old man replies, patting their heads with his thick, calloused hands. “I ought to finish up my deliveries then. I’ll be back in a week to pick you up.”
With one last look of appraisal, he nods at each of them. “Stay safe, Jongin, Taebong.”
“Hey!”
Jongin bows a few more times, sloppy on account of his drowsiness, then shoulders his backpack, climbs onto the unimpressive station platform, and slumps down on its single bench. He closes his eyes to the summer wind and lets his head loll back.
“You don’t look excited.”
He opens one eye. Taemin sits next to him, leaning in on one palm. A continuous breeze tosses wisps of light-brown hair across his cheek, over the teasing crescents of his eyes.
Since bleaching and refusing to cut his hair, he always looks like a snapshot from a photoshoot, bright-eyed American model in front of big electric fans with the hair all unruly sexy framing their face. Taemin’s is a lot shaggier, but still, fun! flirty! natural!-
“Scared?”
Jongin snaps the hairtie ever-present on Taemin’s wrist in response and shuts his eyes, smile tugging at his mouth. “I’m too tired for this.”
On any other day he’d be up at this time feeding the chickens, collecting eggs. He’d be rubbing the lethargy out from his eyes as his dogs yipped around his sockless feet. Then he’d feed the puppies and the livestock, milk the cows, and maybe wash the tractor, or till the garden, or clean the shed.
Because if it’s not basic upkeep on his parents’ farm, then it’s his sisters clamoring with handyman directives for him, the only son; or one of the neighbors requesting a favor, cooing praise at all his hard work; or Taemin-Taemin with his stupid ideas.
It seems like only yesterday he brought this one up.
Really it was a little less than two weeks ago, while Taemin was bouncing a baseball off Jongin’s woodplank ceiling in his ramshackle attic-turned-bedroom. He was just like, Jongin, let’s go to the city.
The younger boy, reading, let his silence speak for him, so Taemin redirected his idle baseball trajectory to clip the book out of his hands.
Jongin looked up, annoyed. “What.”
Taemin didn’t bother repeating himself. “Come on. We’ve talked about this already.”
“Yeah, when we were like, twelve.”
“Not much has changed.”
“For you, maybe.”
“Jongin. You poor loser. You’re the one who does the same thing every day. Aren’t you bored?”
This was a little harder to answer. It’s not bad, living like he does, going through the motions from dawn to evening. Tedious, but rewarding. Through all of Jongin’s day-to-day labors, it’s only ever Taemin unthinkingly increasing his workload that makes him feel overwhelmed.
No-only ever Taemin that makes him feel overwhelmed, period, full stop. And it’s not like he’s a chore. Taemin is his best friend.
He just also happens to be a bit of a pain in the ass.
“It doesn’t really matter if I’m bored or not,” Jongin said at length, and swore he could see Taemin roll his eyes. Jongin would’ve felt some indignation if he wasn’t ready to sink into a mattress. There was a superficial curiosity, though, rumbling and quaint. “What, are you bored?”
Taemin’s smile thinned. “I’m always bored.”
For a doubtful second, Jongin wanted to point out how dumb Taemin’s stir-crazy angst was; was he so bored when he almost set his kitchen on fire last week?
Instead, he found himself agreeing.
It was yesterday that Jongin couldn’t sleep. All hours of daylight were eaten up by the extra chores to compensate the week he’d be away. He was exhausted to his teeth but his thoughts wouldn’t sit still.
If his sisters' big city dramas were anything to go by, come tomorrow night he wouldn’t be seeing the stars. In the countryside, they dot the sky everywhere you turn.
Swaddled in blankets, Jongin shuffled to the window to enjoy the view before a week of busy streets and barren sky. He stuck his head out into the evening air, breathing in orchard blossoms and freshly-turned soil, distant, vibrant.
Taemin broke Jongin’s bedroom window in with a rock back in April, so for about three solid months now it’s just been this drafty hole in the wall with a fluttering window shade. They never mustered the time or energy or care to replace the glass. It’s nice to have in the summer, anyway-
But it makes it all too easy for Taemin to show up with a ladder and climb into his bedroom in the middle of the night. For that Taemin calls it a happy accident and Jongin can’t find it within himself to argue, no matter how many times he rouses to the sight of Taemin grinning at him before even the roosters crow morning.
That is precisely what happened two hours prior to arriving at this bumfuck nowhere train station. Taemin climbed up and into the window and posited his tiny ass on top of Jongin’s sleepless, miserable log of a body. Jongin opened his mouth and screamed at the sight of him. It was probably the impossible arc of his smile. Taemin waited out this shriek of mild terror, unflinching.
“You know, if I didn’t know you any better I’d say you do that on purpose.”
“Lots of people scream at the sight of you.”
“Didn’t sleep?”
“Not a wink.”
His head hit the pillow again, and Taemin followed over his sight horizon, grinning with eyes equally untouched by sleep. But in the morning gray they were livelier than ever.
“I’m excited, too.”
Jongin didn’t need to be told. Where it regarded this trip to the big city, Taemin always looked like he had something to prove. He was antsy waiting for it. Jongin was antsy, period.
Full stop. Jongin is still antsy, but less, mostly because of the sleep deprivation. Now he is just tired. Too tired for adventure. For socks. And a whole city. And Taemin. He just wants to sleep on Taemin. Forget everything.
Speaking of which.
Reluctantly Jongin opens his eyes and shakes a fistful of Taemin’s three-sizes-too-big hand-me-down sports jacket. “You didn’t forget anything, yeah? The tickets?”
Annoyance tilts the line of Taemin’s mouth. He ties his hair back with a snap, swipes the fringe out of his eyes, and goes to rustle through his knapsack. “Oh no!” he exclaims, turning dinner plate eyes on his best friend.
“Taemin don’t even try to fuck with me,” Jongin drawls, not even looking. “I know what it sounds like when you lose something. You suck at lying.”
“Only to you,” Taemin returns. Deft little fingers dive into another pocket and pull out two return trip train tickets. He waves them victoriously in Jongin’s face. Jongin smiles the tired, indulgent way daycare workers do, and is in the sluggish process of slouching further when a soft stack of paper swats his cheek.
Not paper. Cash. All high-value bills. Too much for a wallet, held together with a stretched hairband. That is the most money in one place Jongin has ever seen. He reaches out for it in disbelief. Taemin pulls the wad of bills back, flipping the edges against his thumb to emphasize just how fucking much it is.
“Who did you steal from?” Jongin asks, suddenly feeling a lot more awake.
“Asshole. It’s all mine. I saved up.”
“Dude, I’ve been spotting you lunch money for five years. You’re always broke.“
“Right, because all my allowance was going towards this trip. For five years. Genius.”
Jongin pauses. He’s well aware that Taemin can be thoughtful and capable and determined but the moments when these qualities shine through are impossible to predict. “You’ve seriously been thinking about this for that long?”
“Of course,” Taemin says, slouching to Jongin’s level and crossing his arms and ankles all casual-like. Sentimental, shit-eating grin, like he knows he did good.
Oh. So it’s serious. Or as serious as Taemin gets. Which is pretty serious, even if it doesn’t always show. Jongin glances soberly at the tracks. “With me, specifically?”
Taemin uncrosses a foot to nudge at Jongin’s sneaker. “Who else was I going to go with, Jongin? Monggu?”
“Oh. Right. Maybe Monggu can come, next time.”
“Next time, huh?”
“Yeah... Maybe.” Jongin feels weirdly touched, enough to drop most of his weight onto Taemin’s smallish frame in a sated, lazy show of affection. Taemin doesn’t even complain about how heavy he is anymore.
He doesn’t hit sleep until they’ve boarded the four hour train to Seoul, Taemin glancing around the interior as though it were the space shuttle, Jongin trying to feel out the optimal spot on his friend’s body to use for a pillow. They come to rest thighs touching companionably, heads knocked against each others’, earbuds shared between them.
Jongin passing out is a certifiable miracle because Taemin’s playing Marilyn Manson at a decibel enough to unnerve the lady seated across from them. She perhaps also finds their casual bumpkin PDA distasteful. Jongin would be self-conscious but even en route to the most alien of places, Taemin’s strange taste in music is familiar as the warmth of his body, and Jongin’s too busy counting, dreaming of sheep.
-|-
Everything Taemin does ends in some frivolous misfortune. Neighbors and schoolmates call him Magic Hands. A simple “idiot” doesn’t paint the right picture for somebody so careless and so impossibly lucky.
In this way he is a burden shouldered affectionately by their little village, but by none so much as Jongin. Example: Jongin spent the better part of summer 2011 literally hefting Taemin around after this incident where he decided to retrieve their soccer ball from the roof of Jongin’s barn.
The thing with Taemin is that once he gets an idea in his head, he doesn’t let it go. Even when Jongin provides the token Nervous Laughter and the classic “I really don’t know about that,” there is no stopping him.
Anyone else would know that structures around their parts are like decades old, and aren’t meant to have kids clambering all over them. Not Magic Hands Taemin. Soccer ball under arm, he managed to wave and step over once before the roof shingles caved under his feet, resulting in: 1, Jongin having to patch up the Taemin-sized hole in his roof, 2, Taemin’s broken foot, and 3, a steep increase in Jongin’s BFF duties. Now they included extended piggyback rides until the little twerp could walk on his own again.
The thing is, Jongin doesn’t remember even one “sorry” from Taemin for that whole incident. He’d be hard pressed to remember one legitimate “sorry” from Taemin, like, ever.
So maybe it says a lot about Jongin, too, that it’s only in summer 2011 that he realizes he didn’t even expect a sorry, really, that he was just glad it was just a broken foot and that Taemin was as blithely unrepentant as ever and that he didn’t even mind carrying him around.
The thing is, he kind of liked it?
It’s pretty hard to not enjoy Taemin’s company, but it was more than that-the nearness of him, pressed chest-to-back. His breezy laughter against the shell of Jongin’s ear, and all of his ribbing and bad ideas up close. It was in this fashion that Jongin didn’t so much fall in love as he did come into a long-standing and organic conclusion of it.
Being sweet on the village idiot isn’t so awful. As a friend he was already too familiar with all his coming and going and unassuming selfishness and saving grace charms to wallow long for these things in light of his feelings. Being in love with Taemin felt…
It felt most like how in their youth Taemin would enlist his help whenever he wanted to steal from the neighbor’s cabbage patch, only to leave Jongin standing there to take the fall while he sped off on those crazy legs of his. Scolded and pitied by the cabbage farmers, Jongin felt exasperation only in second order to his sputtering fondness.
He’d also feel, bruising and needling but too imprecise to bring to words, the knowledge that he was somehow being left behind.
-|-
Taemin, to his credit, wakes Jongin up at the last moment possible. The other passengers are already filtering out of the train. “Jongin-ah, up and at ‘em. Hope you slept well, you’re not allowed to be a zombie for this.”
“Mmmffrgghhhh,” Jongin replies, smacking his mouth even as Taemin palms at his face.
He lets himself be herded into the central train station. Dizzying crowds surge about, headed every which way like so many ants out of formation. The boys rubberneck at all the well-dressed metropolitan types, the chrome flooring underfoot, the intricate steel beams above.
Feeling like an out-of-season bird, Jongin steers Taemin towards the bathrooms, then a station café. Taemin’s easy to keep track of, on account of the long hair, and the fact that they basically walk as a unit, arms glued around each other.
Once he’s had enough caffeine to feel like an anime opening song-soda, not coffee, fuck that shit- Jongin’s good again, mostly, yeah, and can operate on four hours of sleep, totally, in this huge city, yes.
Right. But it’s definitely more like he’s Dorothy and Taemin is Toto and they’re not in Kansas anymore? He can’t believe he just thought that. He can’t stop looking around. No green, no open space. Nothing’s dusty-the cars are sleek, the traffic lights blaring, the buildings really do scrape the sky. He keeps one hand fastened to Taemin’s backpack so he doesn’t get lost (is he Toto? whatever) but Taemin doesn’t know where to go first.
Taemin’s impressive savings suggested otherwise, but really this whole thing is one part careful preparation to nine parts flight of fancy. Well. They have a whole week to figure this vacation thing out. Getting used to the change of scenery is also-
He’s yanked back from the crosswalk just as a van veers by. Taemin skates a hand down his arm and punches it, hard, lifting his voice over the rush of moving traffic. “Jongin, at least last one week!” He keeps his hand at Jongin’s back, and Jongin feels a shadow of suspension bridge effect, probably.
“Where are we even going?” he asks, chuckling to cover the adrenaline-soaked pounding of his heart, a firm claustrophobic thought of I am going to die here.
Taemin doesn’t seem to notice, but he pats Jongin’s butt. It’s comforting. “Dunno!” he declares. “Let’s just… around!”
There it is again, that gleam in his eyes.
Jongin wishes he could take some of that-whatever it is- for himself. He doesn’t have the audacity to wish for all of him.
It’s easy to find the youth attractions. They end up at a metropolitan arcade first, surrounded by much younger kids on summer vacation. At this point Jongin really comes alive, because he’s trouncing Taemin at every two-player they get to. Being a total asshole, in Taemin’s words.
The computerized voice declares Taemin’s K.O. as Jongin lifts his arms to the sky, baritone breaking on a joyous, inelegant victory cry. Taemin grumbles, kicks at the base of the combat side-scroller. “Jerk. I should have brought Monggu instead of you after all.”
Jongin cackles, swatting at Taemin’s back. “Taeminnie, you can win the next one.”
He doesn’t let Taemin win the next one. “Shit,” he says, mock astounded, “I just can’t stop. It’s like kicking your ass is in my blood. I am just the Game King, forever, always.” Gleefully he stuffs his face with sticks of pocky from the box they’re sharing, then holds the box out.
“I hope you choke?”
He swallows. Laughs more. Sucks the melted chocolate off his fingers with a noise that makes Taemin wince. Laughs again. “Yeah, okay, fair. Let me see your aegyo, punk.”
Sighing at their dumb punishment game, Taemin lifts a slack fist to his cheek, flicks his wrist, and says, “Shut the fuck up~” breezily, but? cutely?
He proceeds to dominate in Dance Dance Revolution. Jongin tells himself he is still absolutely Game King, he's just distracted a bit by the sheen of sweat Taemin worked up. Somehow, that’s cheating.
The excitement averages out between them in Myeongdong, mostly because oh god there’s so much food. One humid hour of DDR on insane mode gored out what little energy the boys had. Jongin is going to eat his weight in rice cakes, kabobs, wieners et cetera.
Taemin is right behind him. Jongin eats like it’s competitive, sure, but you can’t lose at eating. Taemin’s immense savings make every street stall an all you can eat buffet, which is when they really begin to feel that the world is their oyster, or whatever. Yeah, they’re easily pleased.
Mannerless they thrust various bitten-into treats at each other, walking down the road with matched steps. They get glances. Jongin can’t tell if it’s because they’re loud, or happier than anyone around them, or handsome, or scrappy out of place farm boys, or altogether very homosexual-looking. But they’re giggling at how fat they’re gonna get. He’s eating dakkochi out of Taemin’s hand. Somehow everything is going right for them.
He can’t get too confident. He makes a little distance, only for Taemin to step closer and thrust a bag of street food into his arms. “Bathroom,” he explains, “be right back-“
Jongin catches his foot with his own, nearly tripping both of them.
“I have to go with you,” he says, like it’s a preprogrammed response. Taemin’s face falls. Jongin remains firm. “We have to stay together. We said we would-”
“Jongin? Jongin. Can you stop treating me like I’m five? You’re usually not this bad about it.”
At that he actually has to feel guilty. “Sorry. I just.” He gestures. “The city.”
The irritation on Taemin’s face relaxes into amusement. “Maybe you’re the one who needs his hand held," he coos, patting Jongin’s butt towards the curb. He lets Jongin wait outside the restroom for him, and takes back half the snacks upon return. They don’t have the faintest idea where they’re going.
“Well, we’ve got a week,” Taemin says, unconcerned when Jongin brings this up in some high-end boutique they wandered into. “It’s not bad. It’s relaxing, right? Freedom? We can seriously do whatever we want.”
Taemin epitomizes just because you can doesn’t mean you should, but here Jongin must agree.
In early evening they pass through a major square. There are suit-clad salarymen returning from work, older women grocery-shopping, cliques of high school girls headed to norebang-Taemin wants to go, Jongin would really rather not-
Ah, they’re satisfied. They’ve still got oily skewer sticks in their mouths, their arms are full with gift bags and snack foods, and the pedestrian throngs now seem as natural as anything. The city has been good to them.
There’s a larger-than-life TV screen plastered to the glass building at the head of the plaza. Jongin is marveling at the size of it when the commercial broadcast jumps to a music show. Some peppy girl group performance. Their pop track booms into the intersection, ignored by the bustling crowds and just audible enough above their chatter.
Jongin glances at Taemin, curious to his reaction. He’s not surprised to see Taemin grinning back. On the sidewalk he drops all of his bags and lets his backpack down, Jongin scrambling to do the same.
Back home Jongin’s an overly responsible dutiful son and Taemin’s an airhead, a walking disaster. But together their claim to fame is dancing.
School assemblies, festivals, the occasional fundraiser-they performed whenever they could, because there wasn’t much to do around those parts, and nothing else brought them so high.
They kept practicing even after the local dance team disbanded. In his room Jongin would lie flat on his back, exhausted by the day’s myriad chores, but when Taemin showed up demanding they finish learning some tricky choreo, Jongin could never resist. The routines were all stuff they found online: sometimes American street, sometimes jazz, sometimes Taemin laughing but being totally dead serious about them learning every song on a girl group discography.
So on the sidewalk under the sunset, they do what they live for, matching every motion on the glittering LED screen. Jongin won’t stop laughing and his ears are hot with embarrassment, but alongside Taemin he lands every move. Jump, shake, sweep. Better than DDR.
He’s not sure if turning heads makes him happier or not. He hardly notices. He dances with little mind for anything. Footwork. Rhythm. Taemin. Weirdly synonymous.
Then, applause. They drew a little audience in the midst of the square. What else could they do but bow? Jongin never needs to push Taemin to bow post-performance; the older boy hams it up, flourishes his hand with born showmanship. They heave short breaths toward the pavement. The clapping goes on. When their eyes find each other again, Taemin’s outshine stars and streetlights altogether.
They wind down on some nightlife avenue, bellies full, muscles thrumming comfortably. Taemin’s looking at the passing storefronts. Jongin’s looking at Taemin.
He’s not zoned out enough to miss how his friend halts in front of a piercing and tattoo parlor, perking with interest. “Oh, no,” Jongin objects, reaching out to pull him away. “Like you need to stand out any more back home?”
Earrings, seriously. On top of the nape-length hair and the oversized jackets and the toothpick limbs and his very conspicuous face, if Jongin is being perfectly honest? Taemin’s always been prettier than your average farm boy. He’s always been more everything than your average farm boy. That must have been part of wanting to get away so bad.
Taemin looks at him and starts laughing.
“What?”
“I’m just-imagining you with a tattoo- puppies?-like a snarling toy poodle right here-”
“Sorry I’m so lame and boring.”
“Nah, it’s okay.” Deep in thought, he touches the ends of his hair. “You think I could do it myself? How hard is it? It’s just poking a hole through your ear. I could probably do it-“
Jongin yawns, half to cut off the stupid idea, half because he is actually pretty tired now. He rubs his eyes and holds a hand out. “Let’s get a hotel. This is a decent price range area, right?”
“Yeah,” Taemin agrees, reaching around for his backpack to responsibly handle their funds. “Let’s try budgeting, I guess?“
“You suck at math.”
“We suck at math,” Taemin amends. “Remember when Kibum-hyung offered to tutor you and…”
His voice trails off. Jongin waits. All is silent but the occasional passing car, the pushy rustling of Taemin’s hand, distant background chatter. Jongin stares at Taemin’s slim arm as it disappears further and further and frantically into the bag.
“Fuck,” Taemin bites out, glancing up. He looks lost between nausea and anguish. “It was right here, I put it right in this pocket-“
“You’re kidding,” Jongin says, even though he knows he’s not. This is what it sounds like when Taemin loses something. Rare trading cards, cell phones, house keys. But never all their cash when they’re in the middle of Seoul.
Jongin takes Taemin’s knapsack and rifles through it as if his hands are the chosen ones that can find Taemin’s money. No luck. He pauses, thoughts racing. “Do you have the train tickets on you?”
Taemin’s face falls even more, if it were possible, and Jongin takes that as a resounding no. Panic supercharges the air between them. Jongin checks and rechecks, gestures for Taemin to check all his pockets and all his purchase bags.
“You put all of the important things in one place???”
“Efficiency,” Taemin says helplessly. “Well-hey, I still have my cell phone. Oh! You have money too!”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t like I was saving up for five years; I thought we were good on your allowance so I spent a lot today-” He reaches into his pocket. Touching his worn-leather wallet feels like a blessing. But then he opens it and, yeah, that’s not enough for one night at a Seoul hotel or both their train tickets home. Are the trains to bumfuck nowhere even running this late?
They hunker down on a bench and go through everything a third time. Taemin seems to be going through the motions but his head is in the clouds again, all spacey and distant, so Jongin takes it on himself to whip out his old-model cell phone. Only then does Taemin look up.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling my parents-“ He’s cut off by Taemin swiping for the phone. Jongin has just quick enough reflexes to pull it out of reach, so then Taemin’s clambering all over him, kneeing into his thigh, skinny chest straining inches from Jongin’s face.
He’s desperate. “Wait! Don’t! Jongin!”
There it is again, an edge of guilt. Jongin grits his teeth.
Taemin’s the one who fucked up but naturally Jongin isn’t going to say a thing about it. He could lash out with blame aplenty at any time, really, but he doesn’t, because that’s not his job. He’s just supposed to fix the mess. Taemin only has to let him.
“Look, we don’t know anything about this place-“ Taemin shoves his face with the heel of his hand “-we’re broke- we’re going to get mugged and die in a gutter-why shouldn’t I call someone who actually knows what they’re doing?”
Taemin backs up enough to fix Jongin with a glare. “Jongin, no.”
“What am I, a dog? Fuck you.” His finger stills on the keypad. He knows it’s the best course of action, he’s honor-bound to be the reliable one, but… “Really, why shouldn’t I.”
Taemin takes a deep breath. “We’ve been wanting to do this ourselves since we were twelve. If you tell your parents, they’ll tell my parents, and they’ll never let me go anywhere ever again.” Pause. Exhale. His hands fidget. “And it’s not like I lost the money. You saw me put it away every time.”
Jongin chews his thumb, lost in thought. “But I was next to you all day and never noticed any pickpockets, either.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, how could they have-wait.” The plaza. With the glass building. The TV. They’d put everything down to dance unencumbered, there was a bunch of people around... Shit.
“Alright, maybe you didn’t lose it,” Jongin concedes. “We can just tell your parents... Uh. You can blame me if you want. We should still let them know so they can wire us some cash for the tickets back, something-”
He punches Taemin’s shoulder because he’s not listening, but then Taemin has a very insistent hand on his knee and a very familiar look in his eye.
“No, wait, don’t. Don’t call them. I have an idea.”
“I’d bet 5,000 won on it being a shit idea, but we can’t afford that right now, can we?”
“Have some faith,” Taemin huffs. All of a sudden he moves to make one last grasp at Jongin’s cell phone, except it’s a feint and when Jongin stretches away Taemin shoves a hand into his pants pocket and takes his wallet instead. Swiftly he draws back and to his feet, checks the contents of Jongin’s wallet, then wheels around and runs.
Jongin is speechless. Speechless. First of all he still has his phone and Taemin just left and is just, what, expecting him to be a good boy and not S.O.S. their parents?
Secondly Taemin isn’t supposed to go off alone, thirdly that’s his wallet, he hates his best friend, this is the worst.
He takes one look at his cell phone and pockets it with a groan that nobody is around to hear. How can he fight him on this, whatever this is.
-|-
This trip to the city first came up in the fields where Jongin was herding sheep.
No, wait, Jongin wasn’t even herding sheep; for the third time that month Taemin forgot to close the pen on his way to visit. They had to chase them all back into the paddocks before nightfall, and by the time the first stars appeared they were lying in the tall grass, beat.
They knew how to do comfortable silence better than anyone. But Jongin was tuned to Taemin’s body language. He was upset.
It was their first year doing competitions with the community youth dance team. It was provincial but the finalists moved on to Seoul for a bigger competition. Jongin and Taemin had spent a lot of time imagining it: pounding music, rapt spectators, hot silken lights- their feet on the biggest stage, how it would feel.
They didn’t get past the first round.
Taemin mumbled. “We should just do it. Just us.” It sounded more resolute than wishful thinking. Jongin felt his body heat spiral up. He turned in on his side so they faced each other, cheeks against the dew. Cicada song filled the night.
They were two scrawny preteens lying on broken or postponed dreams, very small under the open sky. This close, Jongin could see little else but Taemin’s face. His eyes mirrored Jongin’s in grave, boyish honesty. Their breath mingled.
“If it were just you and me, we could do it,” Taemin went on. “We could win.”
The lines between immodesty and confidence were always so unclear with him. Jongin hummed. Wet grass tickled his skin. “You really hate losing.”
“I really wanted to go.”
“Let’s work harder next time,” Jongin said gently, reaching out to punch Taemin’s shoulder. “Someday.”
Taemin rolled onto his back, hands folded across his belly, and Jongin wondered if he shouldn’t have touched him. For a moment, he didn’t say anything, then: “If we never make finals-“
Jongin didn’t see how they couldn’t. He said as much. “We’ll carry the team.”
“Carry the team?” Taemin held Jongin’s gaze, cracking a smile. “What? I can’t tell who’s more full of himself.”
“I’m not,” Jongin said very seriously. “I just believe in you.”
“You watch too much One Piece, Jongin.”
Back then Taemin’s hair was dark and fine. It was styled in a bowlcut. Jongin remembers thinking maybe that was why the judges didn’t like their routine enough.
Maybe he was going to crack a sleepy joke about it, but abruptly Taemin spoke, like the words were a breath he was holding too long.
“If we don’t make it to finals, we should go to the city anyway.”
Jongin nodded. He couldn’t grasp why Taemin wanted to go so bad, but that night seemed like a floating dream. He left it at that.
He hardly recalls the promise made, but he does remember demanding that Taemin carry him home. No words, just slopping his body onto his friend’s arms. A consequence for leaving the sheep gate open. And a rare treat to himself, because he was sullen about losing, too.
-|-
>>>>>
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A/N: i just. i just wanted to get this fic done. oh my god
after this i'm done writing pining fic forever (thats a lie. thats a dirty lie)
fiche brainstormed this fic w/ me last year bless her!!!!!!!
i’ve been reading a lot of fuckboy fic so i wanted to write it but this is just… dumb boy fic ... still i wanted to put soMETHING in the taekai tag man they did so good w/ their respective comebacks i'm blubbering
as always thanks a million for reading! part 3 & 4 ( ? ) coming soon. all the good stuff happens in those parts!