.tiny|||||spaces. [flashfic challenge #34: feel small]

Aug 20, 2009 21:23

Title: .tiny|||||spaces.
Author: burntpaperplane
Word count: 1ooo
Concrit?: Always
Pairing: Min-centric, but with a dash of ot5
Rating: .PG-13.
Author's note: Here- & original entry.


The chill pools along the window sill & spills out among the floor. Creeping along the bed sheets, it traces fine drafts on Changmin’s skin as he lays sleepless & quiet on Yoochun’s old bed. He stares at the clouds moving across the moon, hoping that the last remnants of his nightmare will pass just as quickly.

As his breath steadies in the empty bedroom, he imagines it echoing through the vacant apartment like a lost ghost.

3am.

He turns slow, reminding himself of what well-loved linen feels like as he rubs his feet nervously together. He tries not to think that the ending catalyst is approaching in every second tick, as his head becomes heavy with the weight of the coming trial. - Trials- a quieter voice inside him whispers. They only have precious hours before it begins.

& he hates more than anything that he’s not use to this yet. Any of it.

The apartment -their apartment- rings bare & hollow, night in & night out, signaling the lack of the members & their ability to make such an spacious place seem so full & comfortable. He remembers the handful of times in the past when he’s tried to coax the others to leave, allowing him to drink alone & in peace with his thoughts. He thinks now what idiotic reasoning he must have had. Having more than enough chances lately, his will, that’s three steps away from full blown alcoholism, refuses to take another sip unless he hears the distinct laughter that tells him he was home. That he’s not just some stranger drinking his sorrows away in a cold & foreign apartment.

Without that or any offhanded lullabies being sung, in tune or out -without them- this place is just like any other floor space in the world.

It’s in these moments that he wishes he was a more social drinker. That he was out with the others drinking the night’s edge off. But he can’t bring himself to go out much these days.

Every minute pass the lawsuit, each friend & familiar face has become reporters & rumor mills, casting sideways glances at him whenever either ends their sentence. Between every coffee sip & nervous laughter, questions hang in the air so thick that he swears the unsure answers in his mind will choke & lose face against them, were he ever to attempt to voice them. So he just tucks them away, harbors them inside like war secrets under torture.

No one talks to him like they use to, anymore. Keeping quiet has its ways of driving him into corners.

There’s no other space currently in the world where he can fit into as well as the one they’ve established for themselves. It never mattered where they are; each one of them always has a place beside the other. & lately it feels like everyone has ripped into them so much that he can’t fit into any of this anymore.

He sighs more frustrated knots in his stomach, & he doesn’t want to be in his head, in his body. Unsettled &trapped in the very skin he’s born into. He just wants to crack open his bones & let the frustrations that are buried deep in his marrow surface, so that he can just float away from all this. Otherwise everything is just cutting too deep.

Where’s the composed maknae everyone always admired? The ‘tall one’ with the healthy heart & strong shoulders to support the others?

He feels laughter in his throat but he can’t bear to hear it. Instead he curls in under thin sheets & wishes for once that his legs weren’t so long so that he can blend into the crowd; avoid the 1,000 question stares he otherwise gets, when people see him coming from miles away. Or so he wouldn’t look so awkwardly -tall- when the others weren’t beside him. So that maybe, just maybe, they could all fit together again.

& when warm hands press along his spine that’s been wound too tight, he springs forward, nearly colliding with Junsu’s jaw. The elder recovers, grinning like a saint, “It’s alright, Changmin-ah.”

Jaejoong drops his bag to the ground; hand steady on his shoulder, stray fingers resting on his collarbone. “We’re home, baby~”

The weight of the bed shifts slightly & Yoochun winks at him. “Trying to hide from us in my bed is utter fail, by the way.”

& Yunho’s at the door, smiling warmly despite how cold the room had felt. “Dibs!”

& they all come at him. Suicide jumps into the comforter & mad dashes between the sheets, suddenly all five boys were tackling each other & vying for a sweet spot on the suddenly engulfed bed.

Limbs are being locked & others were being tickled & Changmin couldn’t tell them how much they have always balanced out the loud noise in his head.

Laughter & Junsu who’s being hung upside down off the edge is yelling, “Yah, we can’t all fit up in here!”

Yoochun grins. “Damn those model legs, Changmin!”

& the laughter is dying in his chest. He doesn’t know how much longer he can hold out, without all this, but when he leans into Yoochun it’s the last thing on his mind. “Then make me smaller, hyung.”

Yoochun’s laughter vibrates deep into his very skin, as his hips are pressed hard against the mattress. “Well I can’t do anything like that, Min-ah. But when we’re all together… I think it averages out nicely.”

& suddenly Changmin’s the child again, needing & greedy. If the entire world as he knows it is about to shift from him in a few hours, he will have this. He will have them.

a: burntpaperplane, c: feel small

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