Baby, You Told Me You're Leaving; PG; Onew/CL
Baby, You Told Me You’re Leaving
Jinki/Chaerin; PG; ~2,500w
In the end, he doesn’t know whether it’s a good thing or not, when she catches up with him.
Prompt: You know the games I play
And the words I say
When I want my own way
You know the lies I tell
When you've gone through hell
And I say I can't stay
-Opheliac // Emilie Autumn
A/N: Wrote this for the second challenge at shawol_haven \o/// I got the idea after I read this, which is awesome, though I don’t think I do this pairing any justice, at all. I realize that there are a lot of mistakes I made about CL because I’m really not familiar with her, and this is the best thing I can come up with after I console Google, so I really wish it doesn’t throw you off from the story ;~; And the timeline is kind of messed up, I hope it’s not confusing. This is probably the first and the last time I’ll ever write something this vague. The last time I will ever write this pairing, GUH.
When he was eight, and she was six, his father was transferred. It’s still in the same town, but nevertheless. She pulled out her pinkies and stared at him with puffy eyes, bit her lips as she made him promise.
“When we are older,” she had whispered, and he had listened, “we will still be together.”
“We will still be together,” he repeated, though he thought it was kind of stupid; of course they would be together. Why wouldn’t they? But he didn’t tell her, because he didn’t want to make her cry even more by calling her ridiculous. “Forever.”
“Really?” Her eyes were wide, and if an eight years old boy was capable of being in love, of feeling a rush in his heart when he watched the way her tears dropped to her collarbone, then he was completely and utterly-
“Really.”
The truth? Not a lot of people know it. Even among the members, the only one who knows it is Kibum, and it’s only because he has tons of connections, seen and unseen.
But really, even he doubts that her members know it. This, them.
“Oh my God,” she squeals, even though Chaerin doesn’t squeal, but being one of the crazy show blitz change a lot of things. Besides, it’s a cute kind of squeal, so, “I’ve heard your new song.”
Crap, he thinks, but then he laughs half-heartedly. “You did? Where?”
“At some CD shop I visited,” she says and brushes it off in a second, like it doesn’t matter. “Anyway, I fucking hate you, okay. You told me you’re going to send me a CD!”
“I am,” he retorts, eyes the messy wrappers on the table, the scissors and the ribbons, and then he mentally slaps himself because who likes Hello Kitty ribbon these days? He is pretty sure the badass female rapper CL doesn’t. He toes the CD he stole from their manager’s desk, pushes it under the couch pillow. “Our company does send it to CD stores first. All companies do it!”
She scoffs, sounds unhappy. “Yeah, but I still haven’t got it. What’s the point in getting free CD if I’m not the first one who listens to it?”
“Yeah, well,” he shrugs, puts the cell phone between his shoulder and his cheek as he starts to gather the things on the coffee table; the members are coming soon, and he doesn’t want them to know. Weird, but. “Maybe you are meant to buy it. You know, help to increase our selling.”
“Shut up,” she scolds him, and he laughs until he tears up. It’s the first time their phone call doesn’t end up with awkward silence, stretched long over the mechanic sound.
“I’m not going to SM Academy.”
People say-well, his parents-that the exact reason why they drift apart is him moving away. But he knows for sure, that it was the time he was, is, falling, wanting to be closer, so no. It is not.
It’s this.
Jinki blinks down to the tip of his shoes, dusty and brown, covering the real light blue color. He pushes himself up, sways the swing, and he doesn’t turn to the girl beside him. He slurps a little from his carrot juice, his throat feels too dry, and he feels like choking. His grip to the swing’s chain becomes tighter; all he wants to do is to close his eyes.
“I know,” he tells her, voice soft and understanding, and even though she looks sorry, he knows that she doesn’t have to apologize. He knows what she wants, has always known that they are going to a different direction, and she knows that she does not regret leaving him. He leaves first, anyway.
She opens her mouth, her braces shines from under her lips, but he shakes his head and smiles. Still not looking at her, still refuses to feel alright. “You don’t have to.” Say sorry, promises meant to be broken, tell me you lov-
He doesn’t answer her calls afterwards, and only texts her when one of her friend tells him with a breeze that she is accepted in a famous company.
(Congratulation. Short and bitter, and he feels bad when she answers with smiles and cheerful words.
Thank you, Oppa! I’m so happy I could burst~ I’ve tried to tell you but you turned off your cell? How have you been? ^^
His thumb brushes the buttons. Option, Delete Message. Are you sure? Press No. Repeat. In the end, he presses Yes, and doesn’t look back.)
In the end, he doesn’t know whether it’s a good thing or not, when she catches up with him.
Chaerin stands in front of the SHINee’s backstage room’s door, grinning innocently as if she is meant to be there. Minji rubs the back of her head awkwardly, her hoody pulled up to cover her hair, now long and black. The older one herself has a baseball cap on, her blonde hair is tied neatly under the thick material, and black sunglasses cover half of her bare face.
“Hey there,” she waves her long, pretty fingers under his nose, and his breath snaps.
“Wh-how-what the,” he widens his eyes with each of his words, and she giggles as she sticks her tongue out. “I mean, what are you-“
“Wow,” she tilts her head to the side and tiptoes a little, looks over his shoulder to the inside of the room. “Wow, Minho-goon, that is one cool shoes.”
Minho stops trying to ruin Kibum’s hair, blinks a little at the informality, before he looks down and smiles, rather politely, his feet moving to show her the entire design, “Thank you, CL-ssi.”
She wiggles her eyebrows at him, and Jinki finally gets enough.
“Chaerin,” he says lowly, almost venomous. “What are you doing here?”
“She wants to fangirl over you guys,” she points to her younger friend with her shoulder, a gesture which is replied violently with a slap on her back. “Aw! Shut up, you’re the one who kept bothering me last night because you want a ride here, okay. Remember how you drool over Taemin in that music v-”
Minji steps on her toes as she blushes at Taemin’s grin from behind Jinki, makes the blonde shriek, while the older boy massages the middle of his brows, feels dizzy even before the performance. It doesn’t feel good. “Just,” he says, because he catches a sight of some magazine photographer, and he doesn’t want her being here becomes the news on the front page. “Go away. I need to get ready.”
She twirls his bangs, chuckling. “Aw, you look good already. Don’t worry.” Minji gags, and Jinki rolls his eyes, again.
“Go, Chaerin.”
She huffs, disappointed. “Fine, meanie.” She sticks her tongue again, runs away as she pulls Minji by her wrist, and he fights the urge to follow her, slaps her upper arm hard just to bicker like they have always done when he is Jinki and not Onew, when she is just a simple Chaerin with wide laugh and shameless jokes, when he nor her have their make-up on. It’s been a long time, too long for him to recall how it feels to strangle her, to wrestle in the middle of her living room, to throw food to each other across the dining table and get scolded by his mother, a disapproving but amused glare.
It’s been way too long that he doesn’t remember anymore how it feels to be Jinki, Lee Chaerin’s childhood neighbor until his father was transferred, a family friend.
“I don’t know you’re close with her,” Jonghyun says, styles his own hair with the hair gel on the make-up table, stares at Jinki from the mirror. Jinki looks up to him, finally closes the door with a sigh.
“Yeah,” he shrugs, and asks himself in his head. Are they, still, and he is too afraid to look for the answer.
He needs to use something to cover his face now. Sometimes even a small sight of his hair can attract attention, which makes him wonder whether his fans are secretly super agents who have high-tech gadgets that can identify a person’s identity only by seeing the hair color. He pulls up his scarf until it covers his nose at his own thought, and walks faster when he hears some giggling from behind him.
He almost cries in relieve when he sees her already sitting at the corner of the café, hidden beside the air conditioner, because it’s freakingly hot to wear long coat and scarf in the middle of August. When Chaerin sees him though, she lifts the menu in her hand up to cover her face, a warned expression. He puts down his scarf slowly, sweat covering the half bottom of his face.
“It’s me,” he pants, reaches for her ice lemon tea. She raises her eyebrows then, mouth agapes.
“Um, wow,” she says, a laughter clear under the tone, and he glares. She clears her throat, and then, “so this is Onew?”
“Please don’t say anything else,” he bangs his forehead against the table, throws his long coat to the seat beside him.
“I was not going to,” she shrugs, defensive, and he looks up from under his bang.
Her hair is longer, and it’s dyed dark brown. The braces only cover her lower teeth now, but it still looks the same, somehow. She wears eyeliner, and it makes her eyes look bigger, more beautiful; she has always been beautiful for him though, so maybe it doesn’t count. She looks paler, skinnier, but also happier, so he doesn’t have the heart to get angry even a little bit. Oh, who he is trying to kid, really. She has probably seen the way his cheeks sunken in after he lost that seven pounds.
“Done creeping?” He frowns and turns back to the cooling wooden surface, and she laughs from somewhere above him. A second later, he can feel fingers playing with his wet hair, separates the stuck strands, rubs his scalp softly. He breathes slower, takes the moment and tries to keep it permanent in his memory.
“My hair stinks,” he mumbles to his arm, opens his eyes and turns to the girl in front of him, the girl who puts her chin on the table, his level, who blows his face jokingly and gives him the most gorgeous smile he has ever seen.
“I just miss Jinki-Oppa,” she whispers to him, and he smiles back, the truest smile since a while.
It’s their first and last meeting after his first live performance at the music show and before she films for her first music video with her new groups, between their debuts, because he is too busy being a leader, and she is too caught up in preparing to be a leader. Texts and phone calls seem enough, but it’s certainly not enough to make him remember.
It helps him to think, in a way, when he turns and catches her among the audience, when he gulps and steps forward to see her encouraging smile, when his feet moves and slips because of the water. He is embarrassed, is lying if he says that he doesn’t want to die right there and then when he is flat on his ass, but then she is there, standing on her feet, looking at him with worried eyes, and something in him. It reminds him of things he has tried and partly successful to forget.
It reminds him of the way they work, and how much he misses it.
He continues to dance, of course, eyes avoiding hers, an easy thing hard to do as his eyes seem to fly to wherever she is sitting, and he ignores the painful constrict against his ribs. When the others tell him that at least you’re not the only one, Hyung, are you okay, he nods absently and slips outside the backstage building quietly.
He doesn’t glance up when he hears the door behind him is being opened, partly because he can already tell by the sound of squeaking, friction between her sneakers and the ground. He pokes the dirt between his black pants, and his left side heats up when she sits herself down beside him, skin brush against skin, tingling electricity.
“You okay?” She asks like she means it, like she doesn’t know his answer. He lets out a sour, heavy, laugh.
“What do you think,” he asks, a tint of sarcasm, and he sighs loudly, a puff of air comes out from the gap of his lips. “I’m not.”
She shoulders his side. “At least that’s not the first time you fall on stage,” she smiles encouragingly, a hint of joke and understanding in her black eyes, but when Jinki doesn’t answer, she lets her smile slips away. “Not helping, sorry.”
“No, it’s,” he tries to say, and Chaerin looks at her as if she is waiting, and maybe she is, because he has always been, doesn’t he? Keep her waiting, make her standing at the edge, when he himself keeps turn away and denies her hand, whatever it is she wants him to keep. He has been selfish, he doesn’t want to be hurt, but she is still there. Still waiting like he wants her to be, like he doesn’t want her to be, still being the old Chaerin while he himself starts to forget who the Jinki they both know is. “I’m the one who need to say sorry.” Finally.
She blinks slowly and puts her hand inside her jacket’s pockets. “It’s not about you and your graceful falling just now anymore, is it?”
He doesn’t laugh like he is expected to be. “No,” he breathes a moment later, and she tucks her chin on his shoulder. Close, warm, and the familiarity burns its way through the fabric, to his skin, and he buries his nose to her now blonde hair.
“I miss you,” he kisses her hair, soft but rough, and there’s a little smell of dyeing chemical, a smell he knows he’ll never forget, not after now. She kisses the skin over his joint, between his neck and shoulder, cold and wet from the rain, and maybe sweats. “I really do.”
“I know,” she says, smiles against his neck, and he knows then, that none of them will leave, will lie or hide. None of them will forget, and the forgotten, maybe she can help him to pick up those pieces along the way. None of them will go, because both of them will stay, the way they want it. “I do too.”
Now, until forever.
Never again. ...No, seriously.
Jinki/Chaerin; PG; ~2,500w
In the end, he doesn’t know whether it’s a good thing or not, when she catches up with him.
Prompt: You know the games I play
And the words I say
When I want my own way
You know the lies I tell
When you've gone through hell
And I say I can't stay
-Opheliac // Emilie Autumn
A/N: Wrote this for the second challenge at shawol_haven \o/// I got the idea after I read this, which is awesome, though I don’t think I do this pairing any justice, at all. I realize that there are a lot of mistakes I made about CL because I’m really not familiar with her, and this is the best thing I can come up with after I console Google, so I really wish it doesn’t throw you off from the story ;~; And the timeline is kind of messed up, I hope it’s not confusing. This is probably the first and the last time I’ll ever write something this vague. The last time I will ever write this pairing, GUH.
When he was eight, and she was six, his father was transferred. It’s still in the same town, but nevertheless. She pulled out her pinkies and stared at him with puffy eyes, bit her lips as she made him promise.
“When we are older,” she had whispered, and he had listened, “we will still be together.”
“We will still be together,” he repeated, though he thought it was kind of stupid; of course they would be together. Why wouldn’t they? But he didn’t tell her, because he didn’t want to make her cry even more by calling her ridiculous. “Forever.”
“Really?” Her eyes were wide, and if an eight years old boy was capable of being in love, of feeling a rush in his heart when he watched the way her tears dropped to her collarbone, then he was completely and utterly-
“Really.”
The truth? Not a lot of people know it. Even among the members, the only one who knows it is Kibum, and it’s only because he has tons of connections, seen and unseen.
But really, even he doubts that her members know it. This, them.
“Oh my God,” she squeals, even though Chaerin doesn’t squeal, but being one of the crazy show blitz change a lot of things. Besides, it’s a cute kind of squeal, so, “I’ve heard your new song.”
Crap, he thinks, but then he laughs half-heartedly. “You did? Where?”
“At some CD shop I visited,” she says and brushes it off in a second, like it doesn’t matter. “Anyway, I fucking hate you, okay. You told me you’re going to send me a CD!”
“I am,” he retorts, eyes the messy wrappers on the table, the scissors and the ribbons, and then he mentally slaps himself because who likes Hello Kitty ribbon these days? He is pretty sure the badass female rapper CL doesn’t. He toes the CD he stole from their manager’s desk, pushes it under the couch pillow. “Our company does send it to CD stores first. All companies do it!”
She scoffs, sounds unhappy. “Yeah, but I still haven’t got it. What’s the point in getting free CD if I’m not the first one who listens to it?”
“Yeah, well,” he shrugs, puts the cell phone between his shoulder and his cheek as he starts to gather the things on the coffee table; the members are coming soon, and he doesn’t want them to know. Weird, but. “Maybe you are meant to buy it. You know, help to increase our selling.”
“Shut up,” she scolds him, and he laughs until he tears up. It’s the first time their phone call doesn’t end up with awkward silence, stretched long over the mechanic sound.
“I’m not going to SM Academy.”
People say-well, his parents-that the exact reason why they drift apart is him moving away. But he knows for sure, that it was the time he was, is, falling, wanting to be closer, so no. It is not.
It’s this.
Jinki blinks down to the tip of his shoes, dusty and brown, covering the real light blue color. He pushes himself up, sways the swing, and he doesn’t turn to the girl beside him. He slurps a little from his carrot juice, his throat feels too dry, and he feels like choking. His grip to the swing’s chain becomes tighter; all he wants to do is to close his eyes.
“I know,” he tells her, voice soft and understanding, and even though she looks sorry, he knows that she doesn’t have to apologize. He knows what she wants, has always known that they are going to a different direction, and she knows that she does not regret leaving him. He leaves first, anyway.
She opens her mouth, her braces shines from under her lips, but he shakes his head and smiles. Still not looking at her, still refuses to feel alright. “You don’t have to.” Say sorry, promises meant to be broken, tell me you lov-
He doesn’t answer her calls afterwards, and only texts her when one of her friend tells him with a breeze that she is accepted in a famous company.
(Congratulation. Short and bitter, and he feels bad when she answers with smiles and cheerful words.
Thank you, Oppa! I’m so happy I could burst~ I’ve tried to tell you but you turned off your cell? How have you been? ^^
His thumb brushes the buttons. Option, Delete Message. Are you sure? Press No. Repeat. In the end, he presses Yes, and doesn’t look back.)
In the end, he doesn’t know whether it’s a good thing or not, when she catches up with him.
Chaerin stands in front of the SHINee’s backstage room’s door, grinning innocently as if she is meant to be there. Minji rubs the back of her head awkwardly, her hoody pulled up to cover her hair, now long and black. The older one herself has a baseball cap on, her blonde hair is tied neatly under the thick material, and black sunglasses cover half of her bare face.
“Hey there,” she waves her long, pretty fingers under his nose, and his breath snaps.
“Wh-how-what the,” he widens his eyes with each of his words, and she giggles as she sticks her tongue out. “I mean, what are you-“
“Wow,” she tilts her head to the side and tiptoes a little, looks over his shoulder to the inside of the room. “Wow, Minho-goon, that is one cool shoes.”
Minho stops trying to ruin Kibum’s hair, blinks a little at the informality, before he looks down and smiles, rather politely, his feet moving to show her the entire design, “Thank you, CL-ssi.”
She wiggles her eyebrows at him, and Jinki finally gets enough.
“Chaerin,” he says lowly, almost venomous. “What are you doing here?”
“She wants to fangirl over you guys,” she points to her younger friend with her shoulder, a gesture which is replied violently with a slap on her back. “Aw! Shut up, you’re the one who kept bothering me last night because you want a ride here, okay. Remember how you drool over Taemin in that music v-”
Minji steps on her toes as she blushes at Taemin’s grin from behind Jinki, makes the blonde shriek, while the older boy massages the middle of his brows, feels dizzy even before the performance. It doesn’t feel good. “Just,” he says, because he catches a sight of some magazine photographer, and he doesn’t want her being here becomes the news on the front page. “Go away. I need to get ready.”
She twirls his bangs, chuckling. “Aw, you look good already. Don’t worry.” Minji gags, and Jinki rolls his eyes, again.
“Go, Chaerin.”
She huffs, disappointed. “Fine, meanie.” She sticks her tongue again, runs away as she pulls Minji by her wrist, and he fights the urge to follow her, slaps her upper arm hard just to bicker like they have always done when he is Jinki and not Onew, when she is just a simple Chaerin with wide laugh and shameless jokes, when he nor her have their make-up on. It’s been a long time, too long for him to recall how it feels to strangle her, to wrestle in the middle of her living room, to throw food to each other across the dining table and get scolded by his mother, a disapproving but amused glare.
It’s been way too long that he doesn’t remember anymore how it feels to be Jinki, Lee Chaerin’s childhood neighbor until his father was transferred, a family friend.
“I don’t know you’re close with her,” Jonghyun says, styles his own hair with the hair gel on the make-up table, stares at Jinki from the mirror. Jinki looks up to him, finally closes the door with a sigh.
“Yeah,” he shrugs, and asks himself in his head. Are they, still, and he is too afraid to look for the answer.
He needs to use something to cover his face now. Sometimes even a small sight of his hair can attract attention, which makes him wonder whether his fans are secretly super agents who have high-tech gadgets that can identify a person’s identity only by seeing the hair color. He pulls up his scarf until it covers his nose at his own thought, and walks faster when he hears some giggling from behind him.
He almost cries in relieve when he sees her already sitting at the corner of the café, hidden beside the air conditioner, because it’s freakingly hot to wear long coat and scarf in the middle of August. When Chaerin sees him though, she lifts the menu in her hand up to cover her face, a warned expression. He puts down his scarf slowly, sweat covering the half bottom of his face.
“It’s me,” he pants, reaches for her ice lemon tea. She raises her eyebrows then, mouth agapes.
“Um, wow,” she says, a laughter clear under the tone, and he glares. She clears her throat, and then, “so this is Onew?”
“Please don’t say anything else,” he bangs his forehead against the table, throws his long coat to the seat beside him.
“I was not going to,” she shrugs, defensive, and he looks up from under his bang.
Her hair is longer, and it’s dyed dark brown. The braces only cover her lower teeth now, but it still looks the same, somehow. She wears eyeliner, and it makes her eyes look bigger, more beautiful; she has always been beautiful for him though, so maybe it doesn’t count. She looks paler, skinnier, but also happier, so he doesn’t have the heart to get angry even a little bit. Oh, who he is trying to kid, really. She has probably seen the way his cheeks sunken in after he lost that seven pounds.
“Done creeping?” He frowns and turns back to the cooling wooden surface, and she laughs from somewhere above him. A second later, he can feel fingers playing with his wet hair, separates the stuck strands, rubs his scalp softly. He breathes slower, takes the moment and tries to keep it permanent in his memory.
“My hair stinks,” he mumbles to his arm, opens his eyes and turns to the girl in front of him, the girl who puts her chin on the table, his level, who blows his face jokingly and gives him the most gorgeous smile he has ever seen.
“I just miss Jinki-Oppa,” she whispers to him, and he smiles back, the truest smile since a while.
It’s their first and last meeting after his first live performance at the music show and before she films for her first music video with her new groups, between their debuts, because he is too busy being a leader, and she is too caught up in preparing to be a leader. Texts and phone calls seem enough, but it’s certainly not enough to make him remember.
It helps him to think, in a way, when he turns and catches her among the audience, when he gulps and steps forward to see her encouraging smile, when his feet moves and slips because of the water. He is embarrassed, is lying if he says that he doesn’t want to die right there and then when he is flat on his ass, but then she is there, standing on her feet, looking at him with worried eyes, and something in him. It reminds him of things he has tried and partly successful to forget.
It reminds him of the way they work, and how much he misses it.
He continues to dance, of course, eyes avoiding hers, an easy thing hard to do as his eyes seem to fly to wherever she is sitting, and he ignores the painful constrict against his ribs. When the others tell him that at least you’re not the only one, Hyung, are you okay, he nods absently and slips outside the backstage building quietly.
He doesn’t glance up when he hears the door behind him is being opened, partly because he can already tell by the sound of squeaking, friction between her sneakers and the ground. He pokes the dirt between his black pants, and his left side heats up when she sits herself down beside him, skin brush against skin, tingling electricity.
“You okay?” She asks like she means it, like she doesn’t know his answer. He lets out a sour, heavy, laugh.
“What do you think,” he asks, a tint of sarcasm, and he sighs loudly, a puff of air comes out from the gap of his lips. “I’m not.”
She shoulders his side. “At least that’s not the first time you fall on stage,” she smiles encouragingly, a hint of joke and understanding in her black eyes, but when Jinki doesn’t answer, she lets her smile slips away. “Not helping, sorry.”
“No, it’s,” he tries to say, and Chaerin looks at her as if she is waiting, and maybe she is, because he has always been, doesn’t he? Keep her waiting, make her standing at the edge, when he himself keeps turn away and denies her hand, whatever it is she wants him to keep. He has been selfish, he doesn’t want to be hurt, but she is still there. Still waiting like he wants her to be, like he doesn’t want her to be, still being the old Chaerin while he himself starts to forget who the Jinki they both know is. “I’m the one who need to say sorry.” Finally.
She blinks slowly and puts her hand inside her jacket’s pockets. “It’s not about you and your graceful falling just now anymore, is it?”
He doesn’t laugh like he is expected to be. “No,” he breathes a moment later, and she tucks her chin on his shoulder. Close, warm, and the familiarity burns its way through the fabric, to his skin, and he buries his nose to her now blonde hair.
“I miss you,” he kisses her hair, soft but rough, and there’s a little smell of dyeing chemical, a smell he knows he’ll never forget, not after now. She kisses the skin over his joint, between his neck and shoulder, cold and wet from the rain, and maybe sweats. “I really do.”
“I know,” she says, smiles against his neck, and he knows then, that none of them will leave, will lie or hide. None of them will forget, and the forgotten, maybe she can help him to pick up those pieces along the way. None of them will go, because both of them will stay, the way they want it. “I do too.”
Now, until forever.
Never again. ...No, seriously.