Lock me in your heart and throw away the KEY [A flashfic set for Kim Kibum ♥]
just for now. *
Something was kicking him.
No, Kibum realized, someone was kicking him. The prodding object against his ankle was definitely a foot, he knew that much, and those wriggling toes laid a pattern out on the bare skin of his calf.
Especially since he knew who that foot belonged to.
At the table to his left, Taemin sat quietly eating his ramyun, idly flipping through a magazine and humming a quiet little tune Kibum couldn't quite recognize. Standing over the magnae was Minho, who seemed less inclined to read over the magnae's shoulder than he was just to be wherever Taemin was. Jinki had disappeared for the time being into the back rooms, probably off to take his bath since he was the only one left in the dorm who hadn't cleaned up for the night.
And to the left of Kibum -- damn it, why are you still doing that -- was the culprit: none other than Kim Jonghyun.
"Yah." Kibum narrowed his eyes, leaning back in his chair with absolutely no inclination whatsoever to move from his seat. "Cut it out already. Why don't you just say what you want instead of kicking me?"
Jonghyun just grinned, tossing an innocent look in Kibum's direction. "You mean you don't know sign language?"
"This," Kibum quipped, giving Jonghyun's foot a hard stomp, "is not sign language. --Has anyone ever told you that you're annoying?"
"Yes," was Jonghyun immediate reply. "You have." Gleaming white teeth displayed. "Lots of times."
Minho caught an amused snort into his fist, earning him a sharp glare from Kibum. The group umma softened seeing Taemin hunched over, trying (and failing) valiantly to stifle his giggles. Jonghyun shook his head, squeezing Kibum's hand under the table.
"Hey, they think it's pretty funny, too." Throwing his head back to let out a bark of laughter, Jonghyun's blond bangs fell over his warm gaze, all too irritating for Kibum to do anything but bite his lip to keep from smiling. "C'mon, Kibummie--" Sending the younger male a plaintive look. "--Don't be too mad at me? I was just trying to see if I could get a reaction out of you."
Like you even have to try, Kibum thought as he nodded and let the still pouting Jonghyun rest his head on his shoulder, ignoring the two youngest members' knowing smiles and chiming laughter in favor of closing his eyes to the subtle but familiar sound of Jonghyun's pulse against his ear. You don't even have to try.
But Kibum knew he didn't mind it, really. It was hard to ignore someone like Jonghyun in the first place, anyway.
He should have known it from the start.
+++++
the boy’s gone *
Rain had already begun to soak the windowsill, now that the window had been left opened for nearly three hours. But a little water never bothered Jinki, who was lifting his heavy head and blinking bleary eyes at the cloudy sky. Not really.
Not when he was curled up under his blanket as the late-winter rainstorm raged on outside, all too comfortable to even think of leaving his bed. And besides, no one else had made any move to get up yet, either. A cursory glance at the alarm clock on the nightstand beside him told him it was already close to twelve.
Well. It was going to be one of those kinds of Sundays, it seemed.
He saw Taemin was still bundled up under his comforter, brown flyaway strands of hair sticking to his forehead and expression completely at ease. Minho was still asleep, too, lying on his back with his arm hanging off his bed and halfway onto Jinki’s. On the upper tier of the bunk bed above Minho, Jonghyun was snoring away, rolling over onto his side to face Jinki, mouth hanging wide open. But when Jinki looked up to his right, he felt his heart nearly stop.
Kibum wasn’t in his bunk.
Jinki scrambled to his feet at once, stumbling out of the bedroom and looking left and right down the corridor. Nothing. Panic was beginning to set into his slowly awakening nerves.
Where could Kibum have gone off to?
Jinki noted that the other back rooms still had their doors closed. So he’s probably not there, Jinki decided. He knew Kibum wasn’t one to close doors behind him wherever he went; with that in mind, Jinki headed for the living room instead.
Their dorm wasn’t that big, but it still didn’t make sense why Kibum would get up and not tinker around in the kitchen like he usually did on Sunday mornings - because that was normal. Complete silence and a lack of clanging and soft murmuring from the kitchen - that was definitely not normal.
Something was amiss, Jinki knew. And he was determined to figure out what that something was.
When he reached the living room, he found Kibum sitting up on the couch, chin propped under his knees, brow furrowed in concentration. It looked like Kibum was thinking hard about something. Jinki breathed a silent sigh of relief and thanked whoever was up there that nothing had happened to Kibum, after all.
(Maybe he worried a little too much about the younger boy. But still. This was Kibum, and he was unpredictable; too unpredictable even for Jinki to account for.)
“Kibum-ah.” Those thin shoulders flinched, a visible glow of recognition to Kibum’s tired eyes, when he turned to the softly smiling Jinki. “Are you okay?”
“Umm, yeah.” Jinki took a seat beside Kibum, watching as the younger one moved over on the sofa to let him sit beside him. “I’m fine. Just couldn’t sleep for some reason.” Catching the concerned look in Jinki’s gaze, he quickly added, “I’ve only been up for about an hour, though. That’s all.”
“Oh. So-?” Were you lonely?; Jinki’s mind finished the unspoken question for him, but his train of thoughts were effectively derailed by Kibum inching closer, close enough for their thighs to touch and for knuckles to brush. Suddenly, there was a part of him wanted to move away, but a part of him wanted them to stay close like this - even if it was a foolish thought, he thought it nonetheless.
(A part of him wanted to pull Kibum into his arms and never let him go - but that was definitely implausible at this point.)
“Ahh, so you were waiting-?” Mouth dry, Jinki tried his hardest to string a coherent sentence together. “W-Were you waiting…for someone to wake up a-and make breakfast for you?”
“No.” Kibum’s fingers suddenly entwined with Jinki’s, producing an easy warmth altogether shared by two. “I was waiting for someone to make breakfast with me.”
There was silence for a good ten seconds as Jinki tried to process what had just been said.
“…Oh. Ohhh.” With a sheepish smile, Jinki chuckled, “So you were…you were waiting for me?”
Without bothering to reply, Kibum pulled Jinki to standing, holding him by the wrist and leaning in close enough for Jinki to see each strand of bright-yellow, sea-green, and auburn hair on his head, their noses millimeters apart.
“C’mon.” Kibum smiled - free and brilliant and more reassuring for Jinki than the light shower of raindrops leaving their remnants on the patio window - and tugged on Jinki’s pajama shirt sleeve. “Let’s make scrambled eggs together or something.”
Jinki closed his eyes for a brief moment (thinking of the way the rain felt on his face that time: cool, revitalizing, and altogether welcoming) and his hands lace together with Kibum’s again.
“Okay.” Jinki flashed the younger boy his wide trademark grin. “Let’s make scrambled eggs together. Or…something.”
(And happiness, Jinki realized, was a strange and domesticated thing, indeed.)
+++++
i can’t read you. *
“Okay,” Kibum sighed. “Let’s try this again, one more time.” Another sigh, this time more irritated. “And this time…say it slower, Minho-ah! Try to sound every syllable out. You should be able to do it that way.”
Minho nodded, dutiful, sitting up straight. He knew this was be a terrible idea from the start.
“F-Frien…friend…ship.” Though he stumbled over the word a bit, Minho’s pronunciation was stellar. Kibum smiled, clapping his hands as a small grin wormed its way onto Minho’s features in response.
“Good. See? Told you it wasn’t hard.” Kibum took the index card from Minho, laying it beside them with the pile of other words they had already reviewed. “Friendship,” he said in perfect, un-accented English. “If we keep this up, you’ll be through all of these in no time.”
Minho shook his head as he picked out the next word and stared at it a good three seconds before putting it down in his lap. This whole thing had started as a simple problem: he had a test in English tomorrow to study for, and he was nowhere near ready for it.
Of course, he went straight to Kibum with his problem - naturally. Kibum had enough knowledge of English to help him, so of course Minho knew who to ask. But he would have been lying if he said that there wasn’t an ulterior motive involved.
He would have been lying if he said he didn’t enjoy Kibum’s company regardless.
“…I don’t get it.”
Kibum rolled his eyes. “What don’t you get?” He asked while inching ever closer. “How to pronounce this word or the meaning?”
You, Minho almost said, except the words caught in his throat as Kibum’s fingers lingered a bit too long on his thigh after picking up the index card from atop it, blunt nails resting light on denim-clad skin - and Minho realized all at once what the real problem was.
And it had nothing to do with the English flashcards laid out in front of them.
The problem was that there seemed to be too much of…these moments lately, these strange yet not entirely uncomfortable moments of skinship between them. Really, the problem wasn’t the physical contact itself but the way it was initiated. Kibum was always the one to make the first move.
It was driving him crazy.
He would have commented on it, of course, if it had been anyone else but Kibum. But the older boy already seemed to know too much about him (about all of them, really) and it was hard to bring up something like that into the conversation without it all seeming terribly, terribly awkward.
At the core of the problem was the fact that the actions themselves never felt awkward.
Instead of feeling awkward, it just felt…natural. Like a second skin, Kibum could cling to him and Minho would never have a problem with it. Maybe it was just the way they were.
(Maybe it was just how Minho wanted it to be.)
“…nho-ah! Yah, are you even listening to me!?”
Once he heard Kibum’s sharp tone, Minho’s attention returned to his ‘tutor’.
“Sorry, hyung.” The apology slipped out so quickly, Minho worried that Kibum wouldn’t think it was sincere. “I wasn’t listening.”
“Seriously,” Kibum huffed, folding his arms over his chest, “Minho-ah! I am not going to sit here and give English lessons to you if you’re not giving me your undivided-!”
Kibum barely managed to get the last of his words out before Minho pressed a finger to his lips (and to Kibum’s full ones, with the barest and softest of touches) and smiled that obliging smile as only Minho could before throwing his head back with a warm, husky laugh.
“Don’t worry,” Minho breathed into the older boy’s ear suddenly-in English, no less, not stumbling over the words even once. “You’ve always got my undivided attention…hyung.”
Insolent brat, Kibum thought, willing his heated cheeks to return to their normal color and, pulling away from Minho, picked up another card to start again.
-Except for the rest of their “tutoring session,” Kibum was the only one left stumbling over his words.
+++++
drops of jupiter. *
It began as a strange, strange feeling sinking in the bottom of Kibum’s stomach whenever he saw Taemin smile.
At first, Kibum worried that he was coming down with something. It took him a good month to realize that this wasn’t the lingering start of a common cold. It took him a good three to realize that it wasn’t just the start of something.
It took him a good twelve months to realize that what he was feeling was love.
But love - was that too strong a word? Was it just his imagination, a coincidence? It did seem too farfetched to be believed (falling for someone that was just about as far from perfection for Kibum as they could get) and he had more than enough reservations about falling for someone like Taemin; someone that he was so close with from the offset.
Someone that was too close, perhaps, for Kibum to even keep his feet on the ground.
Jonghyun (predictably) told him he was insane, and then proceeded to tell Kibum all the things that Taemin would enjoy doing on a date.
Jinki frowned and persuaded Kibum to think it over but eventually gave in to Kibum (as he always did) and offered to keep watch over the dorm that day.
He called Jinwoon and Nicole and texted Amber and Jessica and they all said basically the same thing: just do what you usually do and play it by ear; you’re good at that, anyway.
Okay, maybe he had paraphrased their advice to him…somewhat. But the basic meaning was there.
Minho (surprisingly) was the only one who barely batted an eye at the whole affair. That came to Kibum as quite a shock, because he was almost sure Minho would have protested. Minho had been like Taemin’s surrogate older brother from the day Taemin came to live in the dorm with them, and he was fiercely protective of the younger boy’s well-being - even more so than Kibum was at times.
“I trust you with him,” Minho told him immediately after hearing Kibum’s confession. “But I’m not the one you should be telling this to. Taemin’s the one,” he smiled a bit, gently pushing the older boy out the door, “who needs to hear how you feel about him.”
Easier said than done, Kibum thought, but didn’t have the heart to argue with the rapper - not when Minho was the one setting up the plans for their ‘date’ tonight.
That night, Kibum let Taemin blindfolded to the back porch of their dormitory, only removing the fabric from his eyes after he had flipped the switch, and watched as Taemin’s mouth fell open.
There were countless lights strewn across the small patio. Each and every single small, twinkling white bulb was the size of a thimble - and they looked like pinpricks of stars fading in and out of sight upon the dark tapestry of the heavens above.
While he waited to hear Taemin’s reaction, Kibum stood back to watch him - pretty pink lips upturned in a giddy smile, dark still-damp curls silhouetting a pale face aglow with moonlight & star shine, too-thin frame apparent even in his loose sleepwear, and that startlingly bright and lovely gaze wandering from the ‘stars’ blinking on the railing, the ‘stars’ hanging overhead, and Kibum waiting expectantly in the doorway.
“Hyung,” Taemin breathed, a hushed murmur like a lullaby to Kibum’s ears, “it’s so beautiful.” Coming over to touch Kibum’s arm ever so hesitantly, Taemin seemed to tremble with energy. “It’s like…l-like we’re in outer space…!”
Kibum didn’t answer, choosing to pull the tall and lanky boy into his arms in a tight hug instead.
It was so odd, Kibum thought, to be the one resting his head on the youngest’s shoulder (they didn’t fit each other perfectly and that was alright), to feel those sinewy arms wrap around his waist, (he couldn’t have been more grateful) and to feel Taemin’s slender form relaxing in his arms, leaning into his touch, tracing the remnants of eyeliner still pressed into the edge of Kibum’s eyelids (colors; he was seeing a myriad of colors now, not just black and white, but a ) and gravitating toward the swell of his cheek until there was suddenly pressure on the ends of Kibum’s parted lips-
“Kibum.” He didn’t bother to correct the magnae or scold him for his insolence, too busy trying to still his nerves and remember how to breathe again. “Close your eyes for me?” A husky giggle. “I want to show you something, too. As thanks for doing all of this for me.”
It took Kibum three seconds to exhale. It took Kibum five seconds to nod and, without a word, let Taemin press their foreheads together.
It felt like an eternity before the distance was finally closed between them - but the second it was, Kibum understood why they called it seeing stars.
Something was kicking him.
No, Kibum realized, someone was kicking him. The prodding object against his ankle was definitely a foot, he knew that much, and those wriggling toes laid a pattern out on the bare skin of his calf.
Especially since he knew who that foot belonged to.
At the table to his left, Taemin sat quietly eating his ramyun, idly flipping through a magazine and humming a quiet little tune Kibum couldn't quite recognize. Standing over the magnae was Minho, who seemed less inclined to read over the magnae's shoulder than he was just to be wherever Taemin was. Jinki had disappeared for the time being into the back rooms, probably off to take his bath since he was the only one left in the dorm who hadn't cleaned up for the night.
And to the left of Kibum -- damn it, why are you still doing that -- was the culprit: none other than Kim Jonghyun.
"Yah." Kibum narrowed his eyes, leaning back in his chair with absolutely no inclination whatsoever to move from his seat. "Cut it out already. Why don't you just say what you want instead of kicking me?"
Jonghyun just grinned, tossing an innocent look in Kibum's direction. "You mean you don't know sign language?"
"This," Kibum quipped, giving Jonghyun's foot a hard stomp, "is not sign language. --Has anyone ever told you that you're annoying?"
"Yes," was Jonghyun immediate reply. "You have." Gleaming white teeth displayed. "Lots of times."
Minho caught an amused snort into his fist, earning him a sharp glare from Kibum. The group umma softened seeing Taemin hunched over, trying (and failing) valiantly to stifle his giggles. Jonghyun shook his head, squeezing Kibum's hand under the table.
"Hey, they think it's pretty funny, too." Throwing his head back to let out a bark of laughter, Jonghyun's blond bangs fell over his warm gaze, all too irritating for Kibum to do anything but bite his lip to keep from smiling. "C'mon, Kibummie--" Sending the younger male a plaintive look. "--Don't be too mad at me? I was just trying to see if I could get a reaction out of you."
Like you even have to try, Kibum thought as he nodded and let the still pouting Jonghyun rest his head on his shoulder, ignoring the two youngest members' knowing smiles and chiming laughter in favor of closing his eyes to the subtle but familiar sound of Jonghyun's pulse against his ear. You don't even have to try.
But Kibum knew he didn't mind it, really. It was hard to ignore someone like Jonghyun in the first place, anyway.
He should have known it from the start.
+++++
the boy’s gone *
Rain had already begun to soak the windowsill, now that the window had been left opened for nearly three hours. But a little water never bothered Jinki, who was lifting his heavy head and blinking bleary eyes at the cloudy sky. Not really.
Not when he was curled up under his blanket as the late-winter rainstorm raged on outside, all too comfortable to even think of leaving his bed. And besides, no one else had made any move to get up yet, either. A cursory glance at the alarm clock on the nightstand beside him told him it was already close to twelve.
Well. It was going to be one of those kinds of Sundays, it seemed.
He saw Taemin was still bundled up under his comforter, brown flyaway strands of hair sticking to his forehead and expression completely at ease. Minho was still asleep, too, lying on his back with his arm hanging off his bed and halfway onto Jinki’s. On the upper tier of the bunk bed above Minho, Jonghyun was snoring away, rolling over onto his side to face Jinki, mouth hanging wide open. But when Jinki looked up to his right, he felt his heart nearly stop.
Kibum wasn’t in his bunk.
Jinki scrambled to his feet at once, stumbling out of the bedroom and looking left and right down the corridor. Nothing. Panic was beginning to set into his slowly awakening nerves.
Where could Kibum have gone off to?
Jinki noted that the other back rooms still had their doors closed. So he’s probably not there, Jinki decided. He knew Kibum wasn’t one to close doors behind him wherever he went; with that in mind, Jinki headed for the living room instead.
Their dorm wasn’t that big, but it still didn’t make sense why Kibum would get up and not tinker around in the kitchen like he usually did on Sunday mornings - because that was normal. Complete silence and a lack of clanging and soft murmuring from the kitchen - that was definitely not normal.
Something was amiss, Jinki knew. And he was determined to figure out what that something was.
When he reached the living room, he found Kibum sitting up on the couch, chin propped under his knees, brow furrowed in concentration. It looked like Kibum was thinking hard about something. Jinki breathed a silent sigh of relief and thanked whoever was up there that nothing had happened to Kibum, after all.
(Maybe he worried a little too much about the younger boy. But still. This was Kibum, and he was unpredictable; too unpredictable even for Jinki to account for.)
“Kibum-ah.” Those thin shoulders flinched, a visible glow of recognition to Kibum’s tired eyes, when he turned to the softly smiling Jinki. “Are you okay?”
“Umm, yeah.” Jinki took a seat beside Kibum, watching as the younger one moved over on the sofa to let him sit beside him. “I’m fine. Just couldn’t sleep for some reason.” Catching the concerned look in Jinki’s gaze, he quickly added, “I’ve only been up for about an hour, though. That’s all.”
“Oh. So-?” Were you lonely?; Jinki’s mind finished the unspoken question for him, but his train of thoughts were effectively derailed by Kibum inching closer, close enough for their thighs to touch and for knuckles to brush. Suddenly, there was a part of him wanted to move away, but a part of him wanted them to stay close like this - even if it was a foolish thought, he thought it nonetheless.
(A part of him wanted to pull Kibum into his arms and never let him go - but that was definitely implausible at this point.)
“Ahh, so you were waiting-?” Mouth dry, Jinki tried his hardest to string a coherent sentence together. “W-Were you waiting…for someone to wake up a-and make breakfast for you?”
“No.” Kibum’s fingers suddenly entwined with Jinki’s, producing an easy warmth altogether shared by two. “I was waiting for someone to make breakfast with me.”
There was silence for a good ten seconds as Jinki tried to process what had just been said.
“…Oh. Ohhh.” With a sheepish smile, Jinki chuckled, “So you were…you were waiting for me?”
Without bothering to reply, Kibum pulled Jinki to standing, holding him by the wrist and leaning in close enough for Jinki to see each strand of bright-yellow, sea-green, and auburn hair on his head, their noses millimeters apart.
“C’mon.” Kibum smiled - free and brilliant and more reassuring for Jinki than the light shower of raindrops leaving their remnants on the patio window - and tugged on Jinki’s pajama shirt sleeve. “Let’s make scrambled eggs together or something.”
Jinki closed his eyes for a brief moment (thinking of the way the rain felt on his face that time: cool, revitalizing, and altogether welcoming) and his hands lace together with Kibum’s again.
“Okay.” Jinki flashed the younger boy his wide trademark grin. “Let’s make scrambled eggs together. Or…something.”
(And happiness, Jinki realized, was a strange and domesticated thing, indeed.)
+++++
i can’t read you. *
“Okay,” Kibum sighed. “Let’s try this again, one more time.” Another sigh, this time more irritated. “And this time…say it slower, Minho-ah! Try to sound every syllable out. You should be able to do it that way.”
Minho nodded, dutiful, sitting up straight. He knew this was be a terrible idea from the start.
“F-Frien…friend…ship.” Though he stumbled over the word a bit, Minho’s pronunciation was stellar. Kibum smiled, clapping his hands as a small grin wormed its way onto Minho’s features in response.
“Good. See? Told you it wasn’t hard.” Kibum took the index card from Minho, laying it beside them with the pile of other words they had already reviewed. “Friendship,” he said in perfect, un-accented English. “If we keep this up, you’ll be through all of these in no time.”
Minho shook his head as he picked out the next word and stared at it a good three seconds before putting it down in his lap. This whole thing had started as a simple problem: he had a test in English tomorrow to study for, and he was nowhere near ready for it.
Of course, he went straight to Kibum with his problem - naturally. Kibum had enough knowledge of English to help him, so of course Minho knew who to ask. But he would have been lying if he said that there wasn’t an ulterior motive involved.
He would have been lying if he said he didn’t enjoy Kibum’s company regardless.
“…I don’t get it.”
Kibum rolled his eyes. “What don’t you get?” He asked while inching ever closer. “How to pronounce this word or the meaning?”
You, Minho almost said, except the words caught in his throat as Kibum’s fingers lingered a bit too long on his thigh after picking up the index card from atop it, blunt nails resting light on denim-clad skin - and Minho realized all at once what the real problem was.
And it had nothing to do with the English flashcards laid out in front of them.
The problem was that there seemed to be too much of…these moments lately, these strange yet not entirely uncomfortable moments of skinship between them. Really, the problem wasn’t the physical contact itself but the way it was initiated. Kibum was always the one to make the first move.
It was driving him crazy.
He would have commented on it, of course, if it had been anyone else but Kibum. But the older boy already seemed to know too much about him (about all of them, really) and it was hard to bring up something like that into the conversation without it all seeming terribly, terribly awkward.
At the core of the problem was the fact that the actions themselves never felt awkward.
Instead of feeling awkward, it just felt…natural. Like a second skin, Kibum could cling to him and Minho would never have a problem with it. Maybe it was just the way they were.
(Maybe it was just how Minho wanted it to be.)
“…nho-ah! Yah, are you even listening to me!?”
Once he heard Kibum’s sharp tone, Minho’s attention returned to his ‘tutor’.
“Sorry, hyung.” The apology slipped out so quickly, Minho worried that Kibum wouldn’t think it was sincere. “I wasn’t listening.”
“Seriously,” Kibum huffed, folding his arms over his chest, “Minho-ah! I am not going to sit here and give English lessons to you if you’re not giving me your undivided-!”
Kibum barely managed to get the last of his words out before Minho pressed a finger to his lips (and to Kibum’s full ones, with the barest and softest of touches) and smiled that obliging smile as only Minho could before throwing his head back with a warm, husky laugh.
“Don’t worry,” Minho breathed into the older boy’s ear suddenly-in English, no less, not stumbling over the words even once. “You’ve always got my undivided attention…hyung.”
Insolent brat, Kibum thought, willing his heated cheeks to return to their normal color and, pulling away from Minho, picked up another card to start again.
-Except for the rest of their “tutoring session,” Kibum was the only one left stumbling over his words.
+++++
drops of jupiter. *
It began as a strange, strange feeling sinking in the bottom of Kibum’s stomach whenever he saw Taemin smile.
At first, Kibum worried that he was coming down with something. It took him a good month to realize that this wasn’t the lingering start of a common cold. It took him a good three to realize that it wasn’t just the start of something.
It took him a good twelve months to realize that what he was feeling was love.
But love - was that too strong a word? Was it just his imagination, a coincidence? It did seem too farfetched to be believed (falling for someone that was just about as far from perfection for Kibum as they could get) and he had more than enough reservations about falling for someone like Taemin; someone that he was so close with from the offset.
Someone that was too close, perhaps, for Kibum to even keep his feet on the ground.
Jonghyun (predictably) told him he was insane, and then proceeded to tell Kibum all the things that Taemin would enjoy doing on a date.
Jinki frowned and persuaded Kibum to think it over but eventually gave in to Kibum (as he always did) and offered to keep watch over the dorm that day.
He called Jinwoon and Nicole and texted Amber and Jessica and they all said basically the same thing: just do what you usually do and play it by ear; you’re good at that, anyway.
Okay, maybe he had paraphrased their advice to him…somewhat. But the basic meaning was there.
Minho (surprisingly) was the only one who barely batted an eye at the whole affair. That came to Kibum as quite a shock, because he was almost sure Minho would have protested. Minho had been like Taemin’s surrogate older brother from the day Taemin came to live in the dorm with them, and he was fiercely protective of the younger boy’s well-being - even more so than Kibum was at times.
“I trust you with him,” Minho told him immediately after hearing Kibum’s confession. “But I’m not the one you should be telling this to. Taemin’s the one,” he smiled a bit, gently pushing the older boy out the door, “who needs to hear how you feel about him.”
Easier said than done, Kibum thought, but didn’t have the heart to argue with the rapper - not when Minho was the one setting up the plans for their ‘date’ tonight.
That night, Kibum let Taemin blindfolded to the back porch of their dormitory, only removing the fabric from his eyes after he had flipped the switch, and watched as Taemin’s mouth fell open.
There were countless lights strewn across the small patio. Each and every single small, twinkling white bulb was the size of a thimble - and they looked like pinpricks of stars fading in and out of sight upon the dark tapestry of the heavens above.
While he waited to hear Taemin’s reaction, Kibum stood back to watch him - pretty pink lips upturned in a giddy smile, dark still-damp curls silhouetting a pale face aglow with moonlight & star shine, too-thin frame apparent even in his loose sleepwear, and that startlingly bright and lovely gaze wandering from the ‘stars’ blinking on the railing, the ‘stars’ hanging overhead, and Kibum waiting expectantly in the doorway.
“Hyung,” Taemin breathed, a hushed murmur like a lullaby to Kibum’s ears, “it’s so beautiful.” Coming over to touch Kibum’s arm ever so hesitantly, Taemin seemed to tremble with energy. “It’s like…l-like we’re in outer space…!”
Kibum didn’t answer, choosing to pull the tall and lanky boy into his arms in a tight hug instead.
It was so odd, Kibum thought, to be the one resting his head on the youngest’s shoulder (they didn’t fit each other perfectly and that was alright), to feel those sinewy arms wrap around his waist, (he couldn’t have been more grateful) and to feel Taemin’s slender form relaxing in his arms, leaning into his touch, tracing the remnants of eyeliner still pressed into the edge of Kibum’s eyelids (colors; he was seeing a myriad of colors now, not just black and white, but a ) and gravitating toward the swell of his cheek until there was suddenly pressure on the ends of Kibum’s parted lips-
“Kibum.” He didn’t bother to correct the magnae or scold him for his insolence, too busy trying to still his nerves and remember how to breathe again. “Close your eyes for me?” A husky giggle. “I want to show you something, too. As thanks for doing all of this for me.”
It took Kibum three seconds to exhale. It took Kibum five seconds to nod and, without a word, let Taemin press their foreheads together.
It felt like an eternity before the distance was finally closed between them - but the second it was, Kibum understood why they called it seeing stars.