[Fanfic] File 28 Seats B&D (1/2)
Title: File 28 Seats B&D
Pairing: Minho/Taemin
Rating: R
Wordcount: 15.200~
Summary: What happens at the airport is fate. In Starbucks, they make a choice. After it, they don’t care where their road will take them. It’s not where what matters is with whom.
Notes: Written for twenty3eleven at the SHINee Secret Santa 2011 exchange.
Taemin feels himself being knocked down to the floor, stopping, then and there, his crazy and desperate run to the terminal. He curses but gets up immediately, not caring about the identity of whoever has stopped him. He runs again, his mind fixed on his goal.
When he makes it to his destination it's too late and the plane is already departing. There’s an attendant closing the gate, ready to leave the place empty and ready for the next flight and its crew.
There's no next for Taemin. His last chance at happiness, or what feels like that, was on that plane, in seat 28B, with Yunho right beside his side and a bright future with him, in their dance studio in Los Angeles, a whole world away from their life in Seoul. There aren’t any more opportunities for him. Yunho was clear enough.
Taemin feels tears threatening to break him, to make him show how useless he feels. He collapses, falls to the floor and closes his eyes, yet he wills himself not to cry. Memories flash, one after another. Taemin remembers how much he has liked Yunho since ever, how glad he was when Yunho allowed himself to be seduced by an eighteen year old Taemin.
He screams his pain, hits the floor with anger and bites his lip. He is full of hate against his insecurity and his fears and how he actually is just as immature as Yunho said he was the last time they fought. It's a way of letting go his feelings and dealing with the bubbling emotions that threaten to make him explode.
It works.
When he opens his eyes and gets up again he feels numb. There are no tears in his eyes, no happiness and no sorrow. There is nothing in his eyes. The attendant and the plane and his happy ever after are gone.
“I think you lost your wallet.”
The voice is deep and shows a bit of fear in the way he pronounces carefully each and every word. Taemin turns around. There is a stranger holding his wallet. He is taller than him but not quite as much as Yunho, and almost as thin as Taemin himself. His hair looks dishevelled, dark brown curls going in every possible way. He is handsome, not only in the most classic epitome of manly beauty but also with all the personality that his expressive eyes and eyebrows give him. He is smiling, or trying to, at least, but Taemin sees the fear creeping onto his features as he observes, feeling completely detached of any human feeling.
Taemin doesn’t move to reach for his wallet. He doesn’t say anything. He behaves like a robot out of power and keeps quiet, wondering, rationally and coldly, when will the guy succumb to his fear of him, leave the wallet on the floor, and go back to whatever it is that he does with his life.
The man surprises Taemin by not doing that, not even after three minutes pass by and they remain standing still in front of each other, unmoving and unrelenting.
“You don’t look okay”, the man says. Of course Taemin doesn’t look okay. His perfect life has just flown out of his reach. “Would you like some water, or maybe tea or coffee?”
No, he doesn’t. He wants Yunho back. He wants to turn back in time and erase the last month of his life so he can start it over, and, this time, do it right.
He can’t have that, of course.
He shrugs, then grabs his wallet and follows the stranger to one of the coffee places in the airport.
They share a comfortable silence on their way. It’s refreshing. He isn’t used to be comfortable with silent people, as none of his friends are and neither is he. Once there Taemin sits and waits, looking blankly through the window and wondering if in any of those departing planes there is anyone, like Yunho, angry at their boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend, because for not meeting their expectations. He wonders if there are people like himself, feeling like they just condemned themselves to emotional suicide. He wonders whether they have also found strangers with soft smiles and just-out-of-bed hair.
The guy brings Taemin a cup full to the brim with hot chocolate. He tastes it and wonders at its flavour being just to his liking, not too sweet, not too hot. He looks at the stranger, looking closely and trying to decide why he is wasting time with someone he doesn’t know and that clearly, after the fit Taemin has thrown, is not completely right.
Taemin wonders. Maybe he is a serial killer. Maybe it is a trap to take him home and torture him. Maybe he wants to get into his pants.
He realizes how badly off he is when he doesn’t care. It’s all the same to him, whatever it is that the guy’s intentions are. He wants to laugh. Laugh until there is no sane thought in his head, until someone keeps him away of the reality that awaits him when Key sees him back at their apartment, when Hyukjae and Junsu see him back at their small studio.
They know how much Yunho loved him.
They know how badly Taemin has hurt him, time and again.
He finds himself laughing and crying at the same time, all under the stranger’s big doe eyes. He doesn’t say anything, just holds one of Taemin's hands and caresses his wrist in soothing motions.
Time stops being relevant and Taemin just feels too much to stop. He hates himself too much.
When he does stop, he comes back to people looking at them with questions in their eyes and whispers flying all around them. Not his companion, because he still has that soft look in eyes that shine too much, as if he's going to cry any moment now. Taemin sobers up, cleans his face with a hand and sips his now cold chocolate. He doesn’t let go of the other's hand.
“Better?” the stranger asks, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
“Thank you. Thank you very much.”
Every bone in his body is thankful. This guy has given him an invaluable a present with his chocolate and his hand-holding.
“It was nothing. My name’s Minho. Pleased to meet you,” the stranger says, letting go and offering his palm in a salute way too formal after what he has done to help Taemin.
Taemin, of course, accepts it and smiles. He knows it is a broken and tired smile, but it is all that he can offer.
“I’m Taemin.”
His voice, of course, still has some residual roughness after crying so much.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Minho says.
No. Taemin doesn’t. He thinks he won’t be able to ever talk about it. He refuses with a shake head and starts thinking up a way to apologize and leave.
He is beginning to feel embarrassed at his display of emotions in a public place and in front of people he doesn’t know. It's surprising, considering how numb he feels.
“I… I-I have to get… get back to Seoul,” he says. He stutters as much as he did when he asked Yunho out.
Minho smiles softly, a small trace of sadness tinting his features.
“Well, thank you too. Could you wait a second?” he says.
He gets up and goes to the bar. Taemin doesn’t see what he does and doesn’t hear what he tells the barista, but when he comes back he has yet another cup of hot chocolate and holds a piece of paper in his free hand. He gives Taemin the cup.
“For your way back, since you couldn’t enjoy the first one. Cold chocolate tastes horrible. And this…” he says as he smiles shyly and ruffles his hair, “is my phone number. If you ever want to talk or have some coffee, of whatever… just call me. It doesn’t matter the time of the day. I’ll be free. Just… you know. Life is wonderful, Taemin.”
Taemin realizes that Minho has probably thought he is suicidal, after his fit. Maybe he gives such an aura because Key and Yunho always insisted in protecting him from the world. He doesn’t need that. He is a grown-up, and that was one of the reasons he and Yunho fought so much.
However, he takes the paper and puts it in his pocket.
“Okay. Thank you. Again.”
He gets out of there as quickly as he is able to without openly running away.
**
When Minho enters his flat again, the sheer force of its silence and the lack of any smell from home-made cooking is enough to make him wonder if it wouldn’t be better to go back to the streets of Seoul and wander around all night long.
He doesn’t do it, of course, because he is too competitive for his own good and no matter the circumstances, running away is something he isn't going to do.
There aren’t any shoes scattered around the entrance, only his Italian moccasins left neatly against the closet. He sighs, takes off his shoes, and gets inside his flat. It feels too big for him now.
He avoids the kitchen, where there are memories waiting for him in each and every corner, and makes a straight line to the sofa. When he sits, he doesn’t bother to turn the TV on. It would be of no use, he knows.
His mind goes back to the crying guy he found at the airport terminal. Taemin.
He is curious about his story, of course. He wants to know what happened, why he was crying so hard and having such a fit after realizing he couldn’t make it in time to the flight. The whole situation had ‘love problems’ smeared over it.
He wishes he could cry like him, with so much raw emotion, so much pain, that it's completely reflected on his face.
Feeling the need to have a smoke, he gets up and goes to the drawer where they used to keep their cigarettes in a futile attempt to smoke less. He fishes around for one, closes the drawer again, and looks inside his pockets for the lighter he always carries with him. It isn’t until then when he finds the crumbled piece of paper.
He lights the cigarette, sits back on his usual spot on the sofa and puts the paper on the table, straightening it as much as he is able too.
Los Angeles is written in bold letters and Minho caresses his seat number, 28D, as if he was caressing the soft skin of the person sitting beside that empty place.
He sighs, lets his head back fall against the couch and closes his eyes.
Although he tries not to ask himself questions, he wouldn’t be who he is if he didn’t. His mind flies until he is imagining Jaejoong’s perfect features carved in stone, his jaw line tense with determination and sadness. But Jaejoong is strong. He has a bright future in Los Angeles as a model and actor and occasional singer. There is fame ahead of him and Minho knows that it isn’t a life he would like to live. It isn’t for him, not in Seoul, not in a country so far away from home.
It doesn’t matter that they loved each other.
It doesn’t matter how empty the flat feels.
It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t know how he is going to rebuild his life if it doesn’t revolve around Jaejoong’s weirdness.
He just hopes that seat 28C is comfortable and Jaejoong, as he said to him at the airport, has a bright happy life. And maybe, if he ever comes back, that they can still go out for coffee sometime.
Thinking of coffee makes him go back to Taemin. He didn’t look old enough to be out of school. Minho just hopes that he accepts his offer and calls him. He is used to seeing teenagers going through all the wrong paths; it would be a shameful waste if Taemin ended like that. He doesn’t have any concrete facts to support his theory but there is something inside of Taemin that feels like sunshine. And that has nothing to do with cheap poesy about Taemin’s hair.
Sighing, Minho decides to get down to the station and announce that he doesn’t need the extended leave of absence he has asked for. He's hardly going to sleep at all, even if he stays.
Working will help him. Leeteuk is going to give him a long and uncomfortable talk, but he knows the rest of the team is going to be glad he won’t be taking a whole month. At least, he knows that Jinki is going to stay by him no matter what happens. He is confident about the rest of them, of course, because if there’s something that Leeteuk manages to do is making them a compact team. To say the truth, had he left he would have missed them and their work together way too much.
Maybe their love wasn’t as strong as they thought. Maybe…
He drives to the station, enjoying the pure beauty of Seoul at night. Lights mix together, sounds and different styles intertwined in millions of faces in a city that never sleeps. He looks at it with new eyes over his old heart. Too detached to be a part of it, but too close to be a foreigner, Minho adores how the town makes him enjoy even the smallest details of day to day life. He knows it better than his own childhood home in Incheon.
The thing with Seoul is how easy it is to be moved by its uncountable charms.
He wouldn’t have felt at home all the way across the globe. He loves Seoul too much.
Minho parks in his usual place and gets off his car. When he reaches the entrance, Kyuhyun is already there, resting against the doorframe and looking at him as if he knew, all along, that Minho wasn’t going to leave.
Kyuhyun, of course, is one of Minho’s best friends. He knows him so well that he doesn’t bother asking if Minho is okay or if there is something he can do to help. Kyuhyun just looks at him intensely, on the verge of glaring, and uses his most dispassionate voice. There is no room to mend Minho’s broken heart.
“Changmin is already telling Leeteuk that you are here.”
That is all the kindness he is going to offer him and Minho sighs, grateful because not even when he was five did he like being mothered. He is the youngest of their team, yet that is no reason to be overprotected.
In fact, it is Minho who does a bit too much of overprotection with all of them, from Jinki to Kyuhyun and Changmin, without forgetting Nichkhun and Victoria. He feels calmer when he knows that they are as safe as one can be in their line of work.
On the way to Leeteuk’s he crosses paths with Changmin who nods as only sign of acknowledging him. Minho understands. Jaejoong is his friend too. Changmin has a difficult position to maintain between them but Minho knows, sure that Jaejoong does too, that Changmin won’t change his behaviours with them. He has no more time to dwell on Changmin because their boss stands just outside his office, clearly waiting for Minho.
Leeteuk, of course, has no soft words for him. What he has is a long talk about not asking half-hearted leaves that imply days of paperwork on top of what he already has to fill in. He is angry, but more with the bureaucracy of their world than at Minho. Relating to him is easy bureaucracy is a shared hate..
The reprimand is deserved, he knows. Close to an hour later Leeteuk lets him go, telling him to be there the next day first thing in the morning. He will work for free, Leeteuk decrees adamantly, as many days as it takes for his leave to be reverted.
It's a soft punishment and nothing compared with the despair he would have felt if he had to stay at his flat. Work is a nice distraction.
Minho goes back to Jinki’s desk and starts looking at the paperwork of the case he is handling by himself. It’s nothing out of the ordinary but Minho stays the night, just because anything is better than going back to his flat where he has constant reminders of Jaejoong’s absence and how Minho just let him go.
When Jinki comes in the next morning, he is the one to offer the hug that makes Minho cry like a broken-hearted teenager.
**
Taemin has shitty day after shitty day.
Key complains all the time. He complains about Taemin not leaving for Los Angeles, and Taemin is forced to explain that he prefers to remain in Korea, even if there's no public interest in dancers as it all goes to idols. But it doesn't stops there. Key complains about having planned to ask Jonghyun to move in and live together, and about how he can't do it now, can he? Taemin feels he is in Key's way. He tries hard to be home as little time as possible.
He doesn’t bother looking into new flats because it would be impossible to live on his own with his salary from Junsu and Eunhyuk. They are the owners of the dance studio now that Yunho is out of the equation, and Taemin should be glad that they haven't thrown him out at first sight.
Also, he is afraid of sharing his living space with someone that doesn’t know him, his irks and his habits.
As if that wasn’t enough, he isn’t going anywhere with his dance. During the last month he has been to three different auditions and he has been accused of not having emotions behind his perfectly clean steps in all three of them.
Not even Junsu and Eunhyuk are happy with the way he dances these days. He feels like he keeps on repeating, time after time, the same steps. He feels off-beat and off-mark, lost without an equilibrium centre that, now he knows it, was Yunho since day one.
He starts thinking about giving up dancing altogether, because maybe, just maybe, he loved it because he loved Yunho.
Dancing is not a subject he takes lightly. Taemin, during the afternoons he spends walking around Seoul to avoid interrupting Key and Jonghyun’s couple time, observes and enjoys every ghost breathing of the places Seoul puts at his feet. However, there are occasions when even that isn't close to enough and he needs to tell someone about it. The invisible presence that protects the city can’t answer his questions, even if Taemin can feel the special something that Seoul has.
He can’t talk about it with anybody. Key would dismiss it saying that of course he loves dancing more than he loves Yunho. Eunhyuk would try to offer him moral support that would end with Taemin feeling like an overprotected toddler. Junsu… Junsu would tell him to give it up because, if he has such doubts, then his commitment isn't good enough.
He doesn’t know what to do.
On a cold Saturday afternoon, while he is rooting around his pockets for spare change to buy himself some banana milk, he finds the piece of paper with Minho’s number. He stares blankly at it for quite a while, and decides, just then and there, that maybe calling him would help - that it would feel right, or something. He could repay that hot chocolate, at the very least.
He calls and has to wait three tones before the other picks up.
“Hello? Hi! I don’t know if… if you remember me”, he says, stuttering and cursing his impulsive side because of course Minho isn’t going to remember who he is.
“Taemin? Can I do something for you?”
Or maybe he does. Taemin keeps silent for a while because he has forgotten how deep and nice Minho’s voice is. When he recovers, he feels himself blushing and is glad that he is sitting on a bench, where nobody pays any attention to him.
“I… I wanted to ask if you'd like to have coffee together.”
“Okay. Where and when?” Taemin isn’t ready for such assertiveness and is at a loss at what to respond. When the silence stretches too much, Minho speaks again. “Where are you now? I’m getting out of work in half an hour. We can meet in an hour-ish or so wherever you'd like to - anywhere would be fine.”
“Do you know Kangnam’s Starbucks?”
“I do. Shall we meet there in an hour?”
“Y-Yes.”
“Good. See you later Taemin.”
Perhaps he is imagining it but there is excitement in Minho’s voice when he says goodbye. Taemin guesses that he is just happy to help a complete stranger and feels as much shame and shyness as he feels the need to just talk to someone that won’t judge him. Because he gets the gut feeling that Minho won’t judge him, that he won’t treat Taemin like a child or just plain bad.
However, that certainty doesn’t help him calm down and as the hour gets closer and he walks to the Starbucks across the corner from his dance studio his nerves take the best out of him. He paces, looks around constantly, and the barista comes and asks if he is okay. Taemin answers, saying yes but looking clumsy and awkward.
His suffering finishes at the time on the dot when Minho comes in. His hair doesn’t have the same just-out-of-bed air that it did at the airport; it’s combed so as to leave his eyes free. He dresses more casually than in their previous encounter, in stylish jeans and a leather jacket that looks quite warm.
He smiles upon seeing Taemin, his features softening more than he could have thought possible. Minho, now that he thinks about it, is quite handsome. For a split of a second the theories about him being a cruel serial killer come back, because if he has to attend to reason, the entire situation is quite odd. Taemin has seen so many American films with the troupe about serial killers and… Minho would be just that guy that helps the main character and in the end is discovered as the mercifulness psycho.
However, those thoughts last only for the few seconds that Minho takes to reach the bar and ask for a coffee. Taemin bolts to his side. He has promised himself that this time he will be the one paying.
“Hi!” he says, maybe using too much cheer on his voice. He feels small, childish and so out of his comfort zone it pains him physically to be that close to Minho, although the other one simply smiles and offers him a hand in salute. “I’ll pay. It’ll be my treat. Tell me what you'd like, and I'll take it to our table.”
Minho fixes his gaze on him and Taemin knows that he is wondering how adamant Taemin is going to be. He has the sensation that Minho is not someone who accepts being treated easily; he has that ‘I’m independent’ vibe all around him. But Taemin is willing to insist, whine and even use his cute smile to get what he wants, and what he wants is to invite Minho to coffee. He is the one that has called for their meeting and the one that is going to pay. His determination must be really obvious because Minho retreats with a smile after saying he usually drinks lattes.
Taemin orders two of those and by the time he gets to the table Minho seems concentrated in whatever it is that he is reading in his phone. Taemin leaves his latte in front of him, blushing, because the thought of bothering the other is back stronger than ever. Maybe Taemin is taking Minho's time away from a lover; perhaps not clarifying before that he isn’t suicidal and doesn’t plan to end his life anytime soon would have eased some sort of social responsibility that maybe Minho has.
“How have you been?” asks Minho, sipping carefully from the straw.
“I… I… I’m not going to kill myself.”
His voice comes out more rushed than he intended it to be, desperation laced with some type of instinctive refusal to have Minho thinking that he is weak enough to consider death to be a better option than life.
Minho opens his eyes so much that Taemin, weren’t his nerves eating him from the inside, would laugh at his expression for hours. But he doesn’t laugh; he just waits for a response or something from the other man.
Nothing happens until Minho sighs and smiles, another one of those soft smiles that have Taemin thinking of whispers, warm places and caresses at the oddest times.
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“I, I just wanted to say it so you wouldn’t misunderstand anything.”
“Thank you.”
Taemin hides his face, burning hot because of the shyness that he suddenly feels. His original plan of venting his frustrations and maybe asking for an objective opinion is nowhere to be found, he doesn’t have the courage to say a word.
The silence is comfortable nonetheless. Taemin observes as Minho’s phone vibrates and he takes it off the table and looks at the screen. He frowns and as his reading progresses he starts biting his lip, the graphic definition of deep concentration.
Taemin, a curious being by nature, wants to ask what it is that has Minho so interested. He won’t, of course, because asking something like that would feel a tad too intrusive. It dawns upon him that he knows nothing about Minho, and that his need to ask and to tell him about his own life is completely out of place, something so strange and so atypical of Taemin that he barely feels like himself anymore.
Fantastic. On top of all the consequences of not making it to his perfect new life with Yunho on the other side of the globe, now he has to deal with his interest in Minho, not anymore a serial killer but still a mysterious and handsome stranger.
He sighs and catches Minho’s attention again.
“Sorry. It was something from work”, he says, leaving the phone back on top of the table.
“Oh, are you - are you busy? We can cancel this, if you want to.”
“Nah, don’t worry. It was mostly paperwork for me to fill tomorrow. Do you work? You look like you should be still studying,” he asks, pure interest shining in his eyes.
Taemin is not used to that kind of interest. He is used to either being thought of as cute and adorable, or being looked at with sheer lust. That innocent but serious look is something he doesn’t get. Not even Key or Jonghyun look at him so openly and in such a selfless way.
He gives no relevance to the fact that in the end Minho is still saying that he looks like a teenager, one of those sentences that usually have Taemin instantly disliking people.
“I do. And maybe I don’t look like it, but last July I celebrated my 25th birthday.”
“You don’t look 25 at all!”
Minho seems honestly surprised and Taemin can’t help but laugh at him. Such a reaction, when he isn’t too pissed off with the topic of his appearance, never fails to make him laugh.
He remembers the first time he saw Junsu and Hyukjae. Yunho had taken him to meet his classmates. They were working on a choreography assignment together and Yunho had thought that seeing how hard studying dance was would be helpful for sixteen year old Taemin. Junsu and Hyukjae had thought he was twelve.
A wave of nostalgia runs him over and the guilt and regret are there again, bubbling under his skin and making its way to the core of his being.
Maybe he really should give up dancing. If he is going to keep on remembering Yunho all the time… he has to stop. Because picturing how Junsu and Hyukjae reacted when they were introduced is harmless enough, but remembering Yunho’s warmth isn’t. Remembering Yunho’s warmth and his embraces and Yunho is everything but harmless.
“You can tell me.” Taemin looks up at Minho again, who is looking at him as if he understands when, really, how could he? “I don’t know if I can help but… I can be here for you.”
Taemin doubts for a second before going ahead with it and telling Minho the story of his life.
He starts from the beginning, from the day Yunho’s family moved to the flat above theirs. He tells him how he always admired Yunho and how he took a liking to him barely five minutes after their first encounter. He reproduces one of his clearer memories with all luxury of small adjectives to complete the description of what he felt the first time he saw Yunho dancing. Then, he talks and talks and talks about how much he loves it, how safe dancing makes him feel, how hard he had strived for perfection just so Yunho, whenever he came home from Seoul, saw it and complimented him.
After that, his story takes a turn when he left for Seoul and met Key, then moved with him to the flat he is still living in. Those first months were a constant fight to adapt to adulthood and he hadn't wanted to know anything about Yunho at all. He had set for independence and finding a place with his own effort and non-stopping dedication.
It had worked, although he had known he wasn’t happy yet. Then fate had thrown Yunho again at him during an exhibition. In a spur of the moment Taemin had changed plans and tried to seduce him.
It had been a bumpy road, but in barely a year, Taemin had been happy with Yunho, his classes had gone better than expected, and he had achieved a teaching position at Yunho’s dance studio before his school year ended..
They had been so happy, those perfect years.
But when Yunho and Taemin received an offer to work in L.A all hell broke loose. Yunho had become more focused in being an international and famous dancer. The opportunity to work with America’s biggest stars was his life’s dream.
But not Taemin’s. Taemin only wished to dance to his heart content, without warring for where and nor who for. The fights had started not twenty minutes after they arrived home on the fateful day of the offer.
And they hadn't stopped until Yunho said his final ultimatum: if Taemin didn't get on the plane to Los Angeles, Yunho didn't want to hear anything else from him.
“And you saw me not getting there in time,” he finishes.
He feels lighter. For once, it is nice being able to tell his point of view to someone that is not going to be on Yunho’s side. Not that Key or Jonghyun are that much with Yunho; it isn't like that. It’s just that they believe in them as a couple and Key thinks Taemin is too immature to be taking decisions that change his life so abruptly.
“And I’m fed up with people thinking I’m too young, with Key and Jonghyun mothering me as if I was fifteen, and I don’t even know if I want to keep dancing or not because… what if it was Yunho?”
Taemin waits anxiously until Minho, who nods and hums at all the right points in the story, opens his mouth. It takes a while, and he is aware of how his face must look like: half fear stricken, half addict seeing his drug of choice after days of abstinence. Like every time he finds hard to be in control of what he is thinking his body reacts before his mind or his mouth. He sits at the edge of his chair and inclines himself towards Minho, contorted in an uncomfortable position. He doesn’t care, not in the slightest.
“Why would it be Yunho?”
Minho’s question is almost a whisper but Taemin hears it like as if Minho had just shouted for all the people at Starbucks to hear. He is calm, seriousness giving gravity to his features, and collected.
“Just… because. I-I… I don’t know if I would have chosen to dance if he wasn’t around me.”
“But that question can't be answered. Not now, not ever. Asking such ifs is going to make you feel insecure about your own judgement forever. I don’t know if it was because of him or if you love dancing for the sake of dancing. Does it really matter? If you came to love it because of him, the bottom line is that either way you love dancing.”
It’s such a simple truth that Taemin should have seen it before. He shouldn’t have needed anyone to say it.
There he is, sitting with Minho The Stranger telling him obvious solutions to problems he thought complex and disturbing.
He sighs.
“True. It doesn’t really matter.” He wants to thank him again and is in the process of formulating the sentence inside his head when Minho’s phone vibrates and he checks it out.
“Shit. I’m really sorry, Taemin,” he says, already grabbing the jacket he had taken off while Taemin told him about Yunho. “I have to get back to work. There’s an emergency and they’re calling us back in. I’m so sorry. I’ll make it up to you, I promise,” Taemin wants to say that there’s no need whatsoever to make it up to him, but Minho finishes zipping his jacket and extends his phone to him. “If you don’t mind giving me your number, I’ll call you as soon as I’m free to arrange another meeting. May I have your number?”
“Oh! Of course!”
Taemin finds funny how much his fingers shake, his shyness reverting him back to his awkward teenager self, but he enters his phone number all the same. Minho smiles one last time, thanks him for the coffee, and goes out into the cold autumn breeze.
Taemin sighs and clears their table. Mechanical movements always help him think and relax. He decides to go back to the studio and explain to Junsu, Eunhyuk and Key that he is going to keep dancing.
On his way to the studio there is a small part of his mind that wonders non-stop about Minho.
**
Three weeks later Minho closes, at long last, the triple homicide that has had the team spinning around like crazy. He is half dead on his feet after running all around Incheon’s cargo dock to find their suspect, barely succeeding.
Of course, he wouldn’t have if it wasn't for his team. They are a perfectly oiled machine, even if they usually work in pairs unless a case worthy of using all their resources appears. Now, the only thing left to do is to wait for Zhou Mi’s report, but since he is the best forensic analyst in the force Minho is sure that by morning the finished report will be on Leeteuk’s desk.
Jinki sits down by his side, rests his head on Minho’s shoulder and sighs.
“I’m going to sleep the next three days straight”, he says. His definite tone makes Minho smile because it’s cute hearing him proclaiming that he will rest for so long without taking some cold case just to avoid being bored out of his mind. One of the perks of being a genius, he supposes. “Are you okay? Does your leg hurt?”
Jinki is one of the few people that know about Minho’s short career into professional football. It had ended almost before it started, after a rival player made a foul on him. Convincing Minho to accept that he couldn’t be a professional football player took months that he remembers as a nightmare from one hospital to another.
“It’s okay. I’m a little under the weather, that’s why I’m so tired. Have Changmin and Kyuhyun gone back already?”
“Yeah, they did. They wanted to take the suspect back personally. I think Changmin is still mad about the culprit giving him a black eye. And about Nichkhun, of course.”
“I’m going to skip the soju,” Minho says, sighing. “I want to go straight to bed. I haven’t been sleeping well lately.”
None of them have, to say the truth. Not since they called him saying that the culprit hurt Khun. Badly. Minho plans to go visit him at the hospital the next day, now that he is somehow stable and not half-dead anymore. He’ll try to convince Victoria to go home and rest a bit, take care of herself.
Hard cases are always worse when one of them is hurt. Then everything turns personal, and when that happens, Minho is not the only one too competitive for his own good. They all are.
“Same here," Jinki says, "even if I've been sleeping fine enough. The other day I had the strangest dream ever about us being singers.”
Minho laughs because Jinki dives into an extended explanation about how they were part of a group, whose name or other members Jinki can't remember. In his dream, Minho, polite, always well-dressed Minho, is the rapper of the group, and Jinki is the leader, and everything is just so bizarre that halfway through the monologue he stops paying attention and focuses on feeling tired. Every bone in his body is screaming for rest.
They don’t move until Minho shivers from the cold. His sweat has long since dried up on his clothes, and at half past one in the morning the freezing cold creates a thin layer of ice over every wet surface. Besides, his ribs hurt. It isn't as painful as it would be had he broken something, but he’ll need to rest the whole three days Leeteuk is giving them.
“Let’s head back”, Jinki says, standing up and helping Minho. Minho feels numb all over, his bones crunch and he grunts, squaring his shoulders and biting his lower lip. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the doctor?”
“I’m sure, Jinki. I just want to go home.”
Jinki drives them home. He stops by Minho’s place first, and Minho says goodbye wishing his partner a nice break.
In cases like this one, where from day one he is too much involved, Minho feels how big a toll his profession is taking on him. He is not as warm as he once was, and he is not half as nice. He still believes in goodness, though. Maybe that is what makes him think about texting Taemin and invite him for lunch the next day. There is a deep need within himself of human contact, of being with someone as passionate and naïve like Taemin is.
Minho he throws his rational mind out of the window and texts Taemin. When he gets a response, not a minute later, he yearns for a soft voice lulling him to sleep.
He has the impulse to call Jaejoong’s Korean number, but that goes away almost before it appears. What he does instead is calling Taemin.
‘Minho?’
“Yeah, it’s me. How have you been? Did you fix things with your bosses at the studio?”
‘Oh! Yeah, I did!’
Minho hums and Taemin keeps talking, his voice excited even though it isn't an appropriate time for phone calls. He gets up and goes to his bedroom, his attention fully on Taemin’s story. He is glad Taemin sounds much better, much more confident -living proof of what Minho admires in people.
Of course, he knows better. No one is over someone they spend years with in such a short amount of time. Deep inside, Taemin will remember Yunho until he falls in love again. But at least he is trying, not floating in nothingness like Minho himself is.
How he wishes he could take his own advice into practice.
He tries to sit carefully but his ribs hurt too much and a groan slips out of his mouth, alerting Taemin instantly. Minho bites his lip, half to refrain himself from complaining louder and half because now he has alerted Taemin about something not being right.
‘Are you okay, Minho?’
“Yeah, yeah”, he says through gritted teeth. “I just had a little accident at work today.”
‘Can I do anything for you? Was it serious? Will you be alright?’
All three questions are fired quickly, barely with any pause between words at all, and Minho finds himself smiling. Taemin is adorable.
He prefers not to tell that he is Inspector Choi Minho from Seoul’s Metropolitan Police. One never knows when he might need to act undercover for a case. And besides, he plainly doesn't like being thought of as Minho the Policeman. He tries to keep both lives separate as much as possible.
But… maybe it's the painkillers effect upon him, but he feels he can trust Taemin.
“Haven’t I told you?” he asks, knowing perfectly well that no, he has not. “I’m an inspector with Seoul’s Metropolitan Police. Today we got hold of a suspect we had been investigating and I got into a little fight with him.”
There’s a long silence from the other side of the line. There isn't even any static to make waiting for Taemin’s reaction more bearable.
‘Are you a police officer? A real one? Like, you own a gun and go around looking for villains and everything else?’
“Villains?”
Laughing makes him feel a stab of pain and he grunts and ends up coughing loudly. The cold he has been fighting on and off since Jaejoong left is apparently ready to catch up with him and make his three days of rest miserable.
He thinks Taemin has spoken full of honesty. There is no feedback from his face, but Minho thinks he isn’t mistaken to think that it was Taemin’s childish but sincere admiration in his voice.
He really is too cute.
That Yunho guy must be crazy to leave him behind.
‘Are you making fun of me?’ Taemin asks, wondering. Minho just laughs-coughs harder. ‘You are making fun of me! Why? Oi! Seriously! Isn’t that what detectives always do in films? How am I supposed to know what you do and what you don’t do? Oi! Stop it!’
It’s a “stop it” that has no strength behind because Taemin starts laughing with Minho. It takes a while for them to settle down, and when they do, Minho can feel Taemin’s silent pout.
“It's actually not that nice, not always. But I’m happy. We did a good job today.”
After that, Taemin asks question after question. As Minho says a few times, he has seen too many American movies. Way too many but… it’s fun. Minho discovers he can get away with telling him bizarre stuff that he will believe. Only during the first few minutes, but he still does it. The way Taemin gets annoyed is rather cute, as is how he drags out the last syllable of his name to show that he doesn’t like Minho being mean.
Minho feels really comfortable for the first time since he doesn’t know when. He feels as if he has a carefree butterfly inside him and Taemin is just what it needs to dream of flying and reaching the sky.
He talks, jokes and allows himself to follow Taemin’s voice wherever it takes him without paying much mind to what he says.
The next thing he knows is that he is waking up, confused and feeling pain and cold everywhere.
He doesn’t remember falling asleep. He was still talking with Taemin, that’s for sure. A whitish fog clouds his mind. Frowning and cursing when he moves, forgetting to be careful with his ribs, he checks his phone for the time. He still has the device in his hand.
It takes him a while to understand the time. Then it's five more minutes to get the date, and just a second after that he sees Taemin’s text.
Sweet dreams! It’s the first time a guy falls asleep on me!^^ I’m busy tomorrow but I took note of your address and I’ll go around there the day after tomorrow with warm soup. Key’s the best cook ever!;p
**
“So, come again, why do you want me to cook soup?”
Taemin just wishes Key would shut up and prepare the damn soup. He has been asking about that “mysterious friend” since Taemin told him about it. It’s not that much to ask, especially when Taemin is such a kind and considerate flatmate. After all, he leaves them the house whenever Jonghyun is around.
“That friend I told you about. I met him a few months ago. He has a cold and I just offered to take some soup to his home. Buying some in the supermarket is pathetic and you are the best cook I know, Kibummie”, he says, using the cute way to call Key by his real name. He smiles, as much as he is able to, and years of practice help him reign in his victory sign when Key snorts but complies. “Thank you so much, hyung! You are the bestest ever!”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. That doesn’t excuse you. I want details. Is he handsome? Does he live alone? I’m not ready to send you to a stranger’s house all by yourself.”
“Key, I’m 25. And Minho is a nice guy.”
“Ah, so his name is Minho? How old is he? Does he work? I hope he does.”
Taemin curses inwardly. Key wants to know and when Key wants to know, he just does. He is a brand of persistent that, thank God, nobody can duplicate.
Taemin has been manipulating him for years with his cuteness and his angelic face, though both of them know that it only happens because Kibum allows it to happen.
Salvation comes in the form of Jonghyun. He lets himself inside with the key Taemin has given him to avoid being woken up by their comings and goings. This way, Taemin is allowed to get angry if they wake him up and has their tacit permission to pout and behave like a brat. Jonghyun finds him funny, Key thinks he's cute, and, in the end, Taemin uses every chance he has to get what he wants.
Jonghyun messes Taemin’s hair while he makes his way to Key. He stands on tiptoes to see the product of Key's cooking and embraces him and kisses him good morning.
Taemin looks away, missing being able to have that.
It isn't Yunho that he misses but the other half of himself. It’s what Key and Jonghyun are to each other what Taemin wants.
He exits the kitchen silently, walks to his bedroom and closes the door softly. Once there, he flops on his bed and sighs. He is bordering two months as a single guy and hasn’t talked to Yunho since the day before his failed trip to the airport. He misses his friend Yunho, but, surprisingly, he doesn't actually miss him as his boyfriend.
Being at the studio still feels weird without having Yunho close by, of course. Taemin is still discovering how strong his presence was, not only for him but for all of them. Junsu and Eunhyuk aren't quite as capable as leaders. Well, Taemin suspects that they don’t want to act as leaders so it suffices if they keep their act as professionals. Whatever it is, the important fact here is that he doesn’t miss Yunho, his boyfriend, as much as he is told he should.
Someone knocks on his door. Jonghyun doesn’t wait for Taemin to say a word and enters his room, scanning it before deciding to sit so close to Taemin that their thighs touch.
“Now. Speak. What’s happening with you?” he asks, not bothering to hide his concern behind elaborated Venetian masks the way Key does.
It is that type of completing each other that Taemin yearns for. He wants someone talkative when he feels like being quiet, he wants what he misses to feel… right? Complete? He doesn’t even know how to put it into words.
Yunho and him have always been too similar. Both are somewhat on the disaster side, unable to keep their things where they have left them last.
“Nothing is happening with me.”
“Yeah, right. What have I said about lying to me, Taemin?”
Taemin bolts up, one of the locks to his anger open.
“I’m not five! What the hell do you want from me? What do you even care? I just want to be myself!”
“And do you think I don’t know that? Or that Kibum doesn’t? Taemin, we love you.” Seeing Jonghyun this serious is a rare occurrence, and Taemin gets a bit scared. He gets along fine with the Jonghyun he is used to.
This one… this one is trying to put Taemin in contact with his feelings and… he isn't ready, not yet. He still misses a few pieces of the puzzle.
“We know you had a rough time," Jonghyun presses on. "We know. Yunho is a great guy and you idolize him. He was the God of your world. We get it. But that doesn’t mean you have to escape from the flat and try to get out of our way.”
“You need your space.”
“And, sure, I’m really glad you don’t mind me being here all the time. But. Seriously, what the hell? You don’t have to avoid your own place. And, just so you know, right now, Kibum is cooking your soup and getting worried sick about you. He doesn't know what he has done wrong since you don’t tell him these days now. You used to run to him to talk about the smallest things. If he hasn’t done anything to you, and I know he hasn’t, just stop making him worry, okay?”
Taemin is at a loss for words. He tries, but nothing comes to his lips besides the guilt that lights his face. As always, he hasn't thought about people around him. He has been too busy within himself to look up and see.
“Don’t feel bad, kiddo,” Jonghyun says, messing his hair again. “Just get out, spend some time with us and give Kibum more details about that Minho of yours.”
“He isn't mine!”
Jonghyun starts laughing when Taemin rushes to deny his use of the possessive. Using possessives is dangerous, and more so with Minho. He wouldn’t mind that possessive applied to Minho.
He likes mysterious (not so much now, after their telephonic conversation) Minho. He likes the tall, calm and quiet man. Of course, he isn’t in love with him. He doesn’t plan to act on his so far abstract and platonic liking. Finding him attractive is quite normal - who wouldn’t, now? Minho is handsome in the classic sense of the word, tall and manly. He is full of charms and has a likeable personality to match them.
Shit.
He groans, Jonghyun laughs a bit more, and Taemin just wants to disappear because he can’t afford like Minho that way. They have just seen each a couple of times. One phone call is not enough to make him fall in love with Minho. Taemin has a naïve side but he doesn’t believe in fairytales. Maybe his problem is… he doesn’t know. Lack of sex or something that makes his encounters with Minho somewhat biased.
Jonghyun, of course, uses Taemin’s sudden distraction in his favour. He tackles him to the bed and starts tickling him until both of them are making a ruckus and shouting like there is no tomorrow.
When Key, alerted by their screams, comes check on them, the first thing he does is berating them for being so childish. Taemin and Jonghyun exchange looks and show an incredibly level of coordination when, within seconds, they have Key begging for mercy and threatening them to all kinds of hell.
They spend the rest of the morning together doing nothing until Taemin checks his watch and discovers that if he doesn’t get ready he won’t make it to Minho’s at lunchtime. Key packs the soup, Taemin puts it carefully in his backpack, and Jonghyun offers to drive him to Minho’s place. There is a tilt to his head that reminds Taemin to be mindful of his actions, and he has no other option but saying yes.
“Where to, then?” Jonghyun asks when they get on the car.
“Ichon 433.”
“Your friend lives in one of the fucking LG Towers?” Key can’t help himself and uses the high-pitched scream that makes Taemin frown and try to look a bit smaller, to see if the others forget about him.
“Yes.”
“Is he rich? Are you going to sleep with him just because he is rich?”
“Nah, Taemin is not one of those boys”, says Jonghyun. “He is more likely to fuck him because he is handsome and then go and commit because of the money.”
“I’m not going to fuck Minho!” Taemin shouts, trying to make himself be heard. Jonghyun laughs and Key snorts, his lips barely suppressing a smirk. “I’m just… I’ll take him some soup, make sure he has everything he needs, and get back home right afterwards.”
They don’t stop pestering him on the way to Minho's. When Taemin is finally free from them, Key’s words sounding more motherly than anything Taemin’s mom has ever said, he relaxes, relieved.
Once at the entrance he texts Minho to let him know Taemin is already downstairs. The porter receives a call and comes out to open the door for him, indicating the right way to the lift.
Minho lives in the second to last floor, so the ride takes a while. It should have been time enough for Taemin to feel nervous about his appearance, and maybe also about meeting Minho’s partner but… he isn’t. He just wants to see Minho, make sure he is alright and use the afternoon to talk.
This time, it's his curiosity what shall dictate the path for their encounter.
Minho opens the door looking like hell. He has bloodshot eyes, his hair is thoroughly mussed, and he covers himself with a blanket below which Taemin can see a huge printed t-shirt and a pair of black tracksuit trousers.
“Come in.”
Minho moves from the cold of the entrance and lets Taemin pass.
The place looks like a palace out of a magazine. The décor matches perfectly Minho’s personality, with some touches, here and there, that break the monotony and don’t seem quite like something Minho would own, like a fashion mag spread showing off the most handsome man Taemin has ever seen.
He steps in after Minho and feels small in such an enormous and luxurious apartment. He breaks the symbolic harmony of the space with his rainbow coloured socks.
Minho takes them to an impressive kitchen that looks like something Key would love to death. Nothing is out of place except for a few boxes of Chinese take-out on a corner counter.
Taemin leaves his soup on the table.
“Have you eaten?” he asks, worried.
“I woke up just a few minutes ago. Haven’t had time.”
“Let me heat it up, okay? Go rest and I’ll take it to you.”
Surprisingly, Minho complies. Taemin searches the cupboards for a pot. It takes him a while but eventually he finds one. When it’s ready, he fills a bowl to the brim and goes out, looking around for Minho. He finds him sitting on the sofa staring intently at the tv.
“I hope you like it," Taemin says. "My flatmate, Key, is the best cook in the world.”
He puts it in front of Minho and waits impatiently until he adjusts his position, sits properly and takes a spoonful of soup to his mouth. There is no reaction for a whole minute, but after that, Minho’s smile is so happy and pure and innocent that, for the first time, Taemin wonders how old he is.
“It's as good as Jaejoong’s!”
Taemin doesn’t know any Jaejoongs, of course. Only Minho understands if that's a compliment. He would bet it is, anyways, because Minho's smile as he eats is the biggest sign of emotion Taemin has ever seen in him.
When he finishes, Taemin announces he is going to take everything back to the kitchen. He cleans what he uses and, when he goes back to the living room, Minho is fast asleep on the sofa.
His face is softer and warmer, and he looks even younger. Either way, of course, he isn't actually old. At first, Taemin would have said that he was around Yunho’s age. Now, after seeing him this vulnerable, he'd imagine Minho's age to be closer to Jonghyun’s. He runs his fingers through his hair, deciding it’s as nice as he has being imagining.
When the reality of his acts and gestures sinks in, Taemin feels assaulted by doubts. Watching someone as they sleep and thinking how adorable they are, how pleasant the contact of his skin and Minho’s hair is… that is not something a platonic friend would do.
Taemin is so scared that he runs away without looking back.
Part 2
Pairing: Minho/Taemin
Rating: R
Wordcount: 15.200~
Summary: What happens at the airport is fate. In Starbucks, they make a choice. After it, they don’t care where their road will take them. It’s not where what matters is with whom.
Notes: Written for twenty3eleven at the SHINee Secret Santa 2011 exchange.
Taemin feels himself being knocked down to the floor, stopping, then and there, his crazy and desperate run to the terminal. He curses but gets up immediately, not caring about the identity of whoever has stopped him. He runs again, his mind fixed on his goal.
When he makes it to his destination it's too late and the plane is already departing. There’s an attendant closing the gate, ready to leave the place empty and ready for the next flight and its crew.
There's no next for Taemin. His last chance at happiness, or what feels like that, was on that plane, in seat 28B, with Yunho right beside his side and a bright future with him, in their dance studio in Los Angeles, a whole world away from their life in Seoul. There aren’t any more opportunities for him. Yunho was clear enough.
Taemin feels tears threatening to break him, to make him show how useless he feels. He collapses, falls to the floor and closes his eyes, yet he wills himself not to cry. Memories flash, one after another. Taemin remembers how much he has liked Yunho since ever, how glad he was when Yunho allowed himself to be seduced by an eighteen year old Taemin.
He screams his pain, hits the floor with anger and bites his lip. He is full of hate against his insecurity and his fears and how he actually is just as immature as Yunho said he was the last time they fought. It's a way of letting go his feelings and dealing with the bubbling emotions that threaten to make him explode.
It works.
When he opens his eyes and gets up again he feels numb. There are no tears in his eyes, no happiness and no sorrow. There is nothing in his eyes. The attendant and the plane and his happy ever after are gone.
“I think you lost your wallet.”
The voice is deep and shows a bit of fear in the way he pronounces carefully each and every word. Taemin turns around. There is a stranger holding his wallet. He is taller than him but not quite as much as Yunho, and almost as thin as Taemin himself. His hair looks dishevelled, dark brown curls going in every possible way. He is handsome, not only in the most classic epitome of manly beauty but also with all the personality that his expressive eyes and eyebrows give him. He is smiling, or trying to, at least, but Taemin sees the fear creeping onto his features as he observes, feeling completely detached of any human feeling.
Taemin doesn’t move to reach for his wallet. He doesn’t say anything. He behaves like a robot out of power and keeps quiet, wondering, rationally and coldly, when will the guy succumb to his fear of him, leave the wallet on the floor, and go back to whatever it is that he does with his life.
The man surprises Taemin by not doing that, not even after three minutes pass by and they remain standing still in front of each other, unmoving and unrelenting.
“You don’t look okay”, the man says. Of course Taemin doesn’t look okay. His perfect life has just flown out of his reach. “Would you like some water, or maybe tea or coffee?”
No, he doesn’t. He wants Yunho back. He wants to turn back in time and erase the last month of his life so he can start it over, and, this time, do it right.
He can’t have that, of course.
He shrugs, then grabs his wallet and follows the stranger to one of the coffee places in the airport.
They share a comfortable silence on their way. It’s refreshing. He isn’t used to be comfortable with silent people, as none of his friends are and neither is he. Once there Taemin sits and waits, looking blankly through the window and wondering if in any of those departing planes there is anyone, like Yunho, angry at their boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend, because for not meeting their expectations. He wonders if there are people like himself, feeling like they just condemned themselves to emotional suicide. He wonders whether they have also found strangers with soft smiles and just-out-of-bed hair.
The guy brings Taemin a cup full to the brim with hot chocolate. He tastes it and wonders at its flavour being just to his liking, not too sweet, not too hot. He looks at the stranger, looking closely and trying to decide why he is wasting time with someone he doesn’t know and that clearly, after the fit Taemin has thrown, is not completely right.
Taemin wonders. Maybe he is a serial killer. Maybe it is a trap to take him home and torture him. Maybe he wants to get into his pants.
He realizes how badly off he is when he doesn’t care. It’s all the same to him, whatever it is that the guy’s intentions are. He wants to laugh. Laugh until there is no sane thought in his head, until someone keeps him away of the reality that awaits him when Key sees him back at their apartment, when Hyukjae and Junsu see him back at their small studio.
They know how much Yunho loved him.
They know how badly Taemin has hurt him, time and again.
He finds himself laughing and crying at the same time, all under the stranger’s big doe eyes. He doesn’t say anything, just holds one of Taemin's hands and caresses his wrist in soothing motions.
Time stops being relevant and Taemin just feels too much to stop. He hates himself too much.
When he does stop, he comes back to people looking at them with questions in their eyes and whispers flying all around them. Not his companion, because he still has that soft look in eyes that shine too much, as if he's going to cry any moment now. Taemin sobers up, cleans his face with a hand and sips his now cold chocolate. He doesn’t let go of the other's hand.
“Better?” the stranger asks, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
“Thank you. Thank you very much.”
Every bone in his body is thankful. This guy has given him an invaluable a present with his chocolate and his hand-holding.
“It was nothing. My name’s Minho. Pleased to meet you,” the stranger says, letting go and offering his palm in a salute way too formal after what he has done to help Taemin.
Taemin, of course, accepts it and smiles. He knows it is a broken and tired smile, but it is all that he can offer.
“I’m Taemin.”
His voice, of course, still has some residual roughness after crying so much.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Minho says.
No. Taemin doesn’t. He thinks he won’t be able to ever talk about it. He refuses with a shake head and starts thinking up a way to apologize and leave.
He is beginning to feel embarrassed at his display of emotions in a public place and in front of people he doesn’t know. It's surprising, considering how numb he feels.
“I… I-I have to get… get back to Seoul,” he says. He stutters as much as he did when he asked Yunho out.
Minho smiles softly, a small trace of sadness tinting his features.
“Well, thank you too. Could you wait a second?” he says.
He gets up and goes to the bar. Taemin doesn’t see what he does and doesn’t hear what he tells the barista, but when he comes back he has yet another cup of hot chocolate and holds a piece of paper in his free hand. He gives Taemin the cup.
“For your way back, since you couldn’t enjoy the first one. Cold chocolate tastes horrible. And this…” he says as he smiles shyly and ruffles his hair, “is my phone number. If you ever want to talk or have some coffee, of whatever… just call me. It doesn’t matter the time of the day. I’ll be free. Just… you know. Life is wonderful, Taemin.”
Taemin realizes that Minho has probably thought he is suicidal, after his fit. Maybe he gives such an aura because Key and Yunho always insisted in protecting him from the world. He doesn’t need that. He is a grown-up, and that was one of the reasons he and Yunho fought so much.
However, he takes the paper and puts it in his pocket.
“Okay. Thank you. Again.”
He gets out of there as quickly as he is able to without openly running away.
**
When Minho enters his flat again, the sheer force of its silence and the lack of any smell from home-made cooking is enough to make him wonder if it wouldn’t be better to go back to the streets of Seoul and wander around all night long.
He doesn’t do it, of course, because he is too competitive for his own good and no matter the circumstances, running away is something he isn't going to do.
There aren’t any shoes scattered around the entrance, only his Italian moccasins left neatly against the closet. He sighs, takes off his shoes, and gets inside his flat. It feels too big for him now.
He avoids the kitchen, where there are memories waiting for him in each and every corner, and makes a straight line to the sofa. When he sits, he doesn’t bother to turn the TV on. It would be of no use, he knows.
His mind goes back to the crying guy he found at the airport terminal. Taemin.
He is curious about his story, of course. He wants to know what happened, why he was crying so hard and having such a fit after realizing he couldn’t make it in time to the flight. The whole situation had ‘love problems’ smeared over it.
He wishes he could cry like him, with so much raw emotion, so much pain, that it's completely reflected on his face.
Feeling the need to have a smoke, he gets up and goes to the drawer where they used to keep their cigarettes in a futile attempt to smoke less. He fishes around for one, closes the drawer again, and looks inside his pockets for the lighter he always carries with him. It isn’t until then when he finds the crumbled piece of paper.
He lights the cigarette, sits back on his usual spot on the sofa and puts the paper on the table, straightening it as much as he is able too.
Los Angeles is written in bold letters and Minho caresses his seat number, 28D, as if he was caressing the soft skin of the person sitting beside that empty place.
He sighs, lets his head back fall against the couch and closes his eyes.
Although he tries not to ask himself questions, he wouldn’t be who he is if he didn’t. His mind flies until he is imagining Jaejoong’s perfect features carved in stone, his jaw line tense with determination and sadness. But Jaejoong is strong. He has a bright future in Los Angeles as a model and actor and occasional singer. There is fame ahead of him and Minho knows that it isn’t a life he would like to live. It isn’t for him, not in Seoul, not in a country so far away from home.
It doesn’t matter that they loved each other.
It doesn’t matter how empty the flat feels.
It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t know how he is going to rebuild his life if it doesn’t revolve around Jaejoong’s weirdness.
He just hopes that seat 28C is comfortable and Jaejoong, as he said to him at the airport, has a bright happy life. And maybe, if he ever comes back, that they can still go out for coffee sometime.
Thinking of coffee makes him go back to Taemin. He didn’t look old enough to be out of school. Minho just hopes that he accepts his offer and calls him. He is used to seeing teenagers going through all the wrong paths; it would be a shameful waste if Taemin ended like that. He doesn’t have any concrete facts to support his theory but there is something inside of Taemin that feels like sunshine. And that has nothing to do with cheap poesy about Taemin’s hair.
Sighing, Minho decides to get down to the station and announce that he doesn’t need the extended leave of absence he has asked for. He's hardly going to sleep at all, even if he stays.
Working will help him. Leeteuk is going to give him a long and uncomfortable talk, but he knows the rest of the team is going to be glad he won’t be taking a whole month. At least, he knows that Jinki is going to stay by him no matter what happens. He is confident about the rest of them, of course, because if there’s something that Leeteuk manages to do is making them a compact team. To say the truth, had he left he would have missed them and their work together way too much.
Maybe their love wasn’t as strong as they thought. Maybe…
He drives to the station, enjoying the pure beauty of Seoul at night. Lights mix together, sounds and different styles intertwined in millions of faces in a city that never sleeps. He looks at it with new eyes over his old heart. Too detached to be a part of it, but too close to be a foreigner, Minho adores how the town makes him enjoy even the smallest details of day to day life. He knows it better than his own childhood home in Incheon.
The thing with Seoul is how easy it is to be moved by its uncountable charms.
He wouldn’t have felt at home all the way across the globe. He loves Seoul too much.
Minho parks in his usual place and gets off his car. When he reaches the entrance, Kyuhyun is already there, resting against the doorframe and looking at him as if he knew, all along, that Minho wasn’t going to leave.
Kyuhyun, of course, is one of Minho’s best friends. He knows him so well that he doesn’t bother asking if Minho is okay or if there is something he can do to help. Kyuhyun just looks at him intensely, on the verge of glaring, and uses his most dispassionate voice. There is no room to mend Minho’s broken heart.
“Changmin is already telling Leeteuk that you are here.”
That is all the kindness he is going to offer him and Minho sighs, grateful because not even when he was five did he like being mothered. He is the youngest of their team, yet that is no reason to be overprotected.
In fact, it is Minho who does a bit too much of overprotection with all of them, from Jinki to Kyuhyun and Changmin, without forgetting Nichkhun and Victoria. He feels calmer when he knows that they are as safe as one can be in their line of work.
On the way to Leeteuk’s he crosses paths with Changmin who nods as only sign of acknowledging him. Minho understands. Jaejoong is his friend too. Changmin has a difficult position to maintain between them but Minho knows, sure that Jaejoong does too, that Changmin won’t change his behaviours with them. He has no more time to dwell on Changmin because their boss stands just outside his office, clearly waiting for Minho.
Leeteuk, of course, has no soft words for him. What he has is a long talk about not asking half-hearted leaves that imply days of paperwork on top of what he already has to fill in. He is angry, but more with the bureaucracy of their world than at Minho. Relating to him is easy bureaucracy is a shared hate..
The reprimand is deserved, he knows. Close to an hour later Leeteuk lets him go, telling him to be there the next day first thing in the morning. He will work for free, Leeteuk decrees adamantly, as many days as it takes for his leave to be reverted.
It's a soft punishment and nothing compared with the despair he would have felt if he had to stay at his flat. Work is a nice distraction.
Minho goes back to Jinki’s desk and starts looking at the paperwork of the case he is handling by himself. It’s nothing out of the ordinary but Minho stays the night, just because anything is better than going back to his flat where he has constant reminders of Jaejoong’s absence and how Minho just let him go.
When Jinki comes in the next morning, he is the one to offer the hug that makes Minho cry like a broken-hearted teenager.
**
Taemin has shitty day after shitty day.
Key complains all the time. He complains about Taemin not leaving for Los Angeles, and Taemin is forced to explain that he prefers to remain in Korea, even if there's no public interest in dancers as it all goes to idols. But it doesn't stops there. Key complains about having planned to ask Jonghyun to move in and live together, and about how he can't do it now, can he? Taemin feels he is in Key's way. He tries hard to be home as little time as possible.
He doesn’t bother looking into new flats because it would be impossible to live on his own with his salary from Junsu and Eunhyuk. They are the owners of the dance studio now that Yunho is out of the equation, and Taemin should be glad that they haven't thrown him out at first sight.
Also, he is afraid of sharing his living space with someone that doesn’t know him, his irks and his habits.
As if that wasn’t enough, he isn’t going anywhere with his dance. During the last month he has been to three different auditions and he has been accused of not having emotions behind his perfectly clean steps in all three of them.
Not even Junsu and Eunhyuk are happy with the way he dances these days. He feels like he keeps on repeating, time after time, the same steps. He feels off-beat and off-mark, lost without an equilibrium centre that, now he knows it, was Yunho since day one.
He starts thinking about giving up dancing altogether, because maybe, just maybe, he loved it because he loved Yunho.
Dancing is not a subject he takes lightly. Taemin, during the afternoons he spends walking around Seoul to avoid interrupting Key and Jonghyun’s couple time, observes and enjoys every ghost breathing of the places Seoul puts at his feet. However, there are occasions when even that isn't close to enough and he needs to tell someone about it. The invisible presence that protects the city can’t answer his questions, even if Taemin can feel the special something that Seoul has.
He can’t talk about it with anybody. Key would dismiss it saying that of course he loves dancing more than he loves Yunho. Eunhyuk would try to offer him moral support that would end with Taemin feeling like an overprotected toddler. Junsu… Junsu would tell him to give it up because, if he has such doubts, then his commitment isn't good enough.
He doesn’t know what to do.
On a cold Saturday afternoon, while he is rooting around his pockets for spare change to buy himself some banana milk, he finds the piece of paper with Minho’s number. He stares blankly at it for quite a while, and decides, just then and there, that maybe calling him would help - that it would feel right, or something. He could repay that hot chocolate, at the very least.
He calls and has to wait three tones before the other picks up.
“Hello? Hi! I don’t know if… if you remember me”, he says, stuttering and cursing his impulsive side because of course Minho isn’t going to remember who he is.
“Taemin? Can I do something for you?”
Or maybe he does. Taemin keeps silent for a while because he has forgotten how deep and nice Minho’s voice is. When he recovers, he feels himself blushing and is glad that he is sitting on a bench, where nobody pays any attention to him.
“I… I wanted to ask if you'd like to have coffee together.”
“Okay. Where and when?” Taemin isn’t ready for such assertiveness and is at a loss at what to respond. When the silence stretches too much, Minho speaks again. “Where are you now? I’m getting out of work in half an hour. We can meet in an hour-ish or so wherever you'd like to - anywhere would be fine.”
“Do you know Kangnam’s Starbucks?”
“I do. Shall we meet there in an hour?”
“Y-Yes.”
“Good. See you later Taemin.”
Perhaps he is imagining it but there is excitement in Minho’s voice when he says goodbye. Taemin guesses that he is just happy to help a complete stranger and feels as much shame and shyness as he feels the need to just talk to someone that won’t judge him. Because he gets the gut feeling that Minho won’t judge him, that he won’t treat Taemin like a child or just plain bad.
However, that certainty doesn’t help him calm down and as the hour gets closer and he walks to the Starbucks across the corner from his dance studio his nerves take the best out of him. He paces, looks around constantly, and the barista comes and asks if he is okay. Taemin answers, saying yes but looking clumsy and awkward.
His suffering finishes at the time on the dot when Minho comes in. His hair doesn’t have the same just-out-of-bed air that it did at the airport; it’s combed so as to leave his eyes free. He dresses more casually than in their previous encounter, in stylish jeans and a leather jacket that looks quite warm.
He smiles upon seeing Taemin, his features softening more than he could have thought possible. Minho, now that he thinks about it, is quite handsome. For a split of a second the theories about him being a cruel serial killer come back, because if he has to attend to reason, the entire situation is quite odd. Taemin has seen so many American films with the troupe about serial killers and… Minho would be just that guy that helps the main character and in the end is discovered as the mercifulness psycho.
However, those thoughts last only for the few seconds that Minho takes to reach the bar and ask for a coffee. Taemin bolts to his side. He has promised himself that this time he will be the one paying.
“Hi!” he says, maybe using too much cheer on his voice. He feels small, childish and so out of his comfort zone it pains him physically to be that close to Minho, although the other one simply smiles and offers him a hand in salute. “I’ll pay. It’ll be my treat. Tell me what you'd like, and I'll take it to our table.”
Minho fixes his gaze on him and Taemin knows that he is wondering how adamant Taemin is going to be. He has the sensation that Minho is not someone who accepts being treated easily; he has that ‘I’m independent’ vibe all around him. But Taemin is willing to insist, whine and even use his cute smile to get what he wants, and what he wants is to invite Minho to coffee. He is the one that has called for their meeting and the one that is going to pay. His determination must be really obvious because Minho retreats with a smile after saying he usually drinks lattes.
Taemin orders two of those and by the time he gets to the table Minho seems concentrated in whatever it is that he is reading in his phone. Taemin leaves his latte in front of him, blushing, because the thought of bothering the other is back stronger than ever. Maybe Taemin is taking Minho's time away from a lover; perhaps not clarifying before that he isn’t suicidal and doesn’t plan to end his life anytime soon would have eased some sort of social responsibility that maybe Minho has.
“How have you been?” asks Minho, sipping carefully from the straw.
“I… I… I’m not going to kill myself.”
His voice comes out more rushed than he intended it to be, desperation laced with some type of instinctive refusal to have Minho thinking that he is weak enough to consider death to be a better option than life.
Minho opens his eyes so much that Taemin, weren’t his nerves eating him from the inside, would laugh at his expression for hours. But he doesn’t laugh; he just waits for a response or something from the other man.
Nothing happens until Minho sighs and smiles, another one of those soft smiles that have Taemin thinking of whispers, warm places and caresses at the oddest times.
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“I, I just wanted to say it so you wouldn’t misunderstand anything.”
“Thank you.”
Taemin hides his face, burning hot because of the shyness that he suddenly feels. His original plan of venting his frustrations and maybe asking for an objective opinion is nowhere to be found, he doesn’t have the courage to say a word.
The silence is comfortable nonetheless. Taemin observes as Minho’s phone vibrates and he takes it off the table and looks at the screen. He frowns and as his reading progresses he starts biting his lip, the graphic definition of deep concentration.
Taemin, a curious being by nature, wants to ask what it is that has Minho so interested. He won’t, of course, because asking something like that would feel a tad too intrusive. It dawns upon him that he knows nothing about Minho, and that his need to ask and to tell him about his own life is completely out of place, something so strange and so atypical of Taemin that he barely feels like himself anymore.
Fantastic. On top of all the consequences of not making it to his perfect new life with Yunho on the other side of the globe, now he has to deal with his interest in Minho, not anymore a serial killer but still a mysterious and handsome stranger.
He sighs and catches Minho’s attention again.
“Sorry. It was something from work”, he says, leaving the phone back on top of the table.
“Oh, are you - are you busy? We can cancel this, if you want to.”
“Nah, don’t worry. It was mostly paperwork for me to fill tomorrow. Do you work? You look like you should be still studying,” he asks, pure interest shining in his eyes.
Taemin is not used to that kind of interest. He is used to either being thought of as cute and adorable, or being looked at with sheer lust. That innocent but serious look is something he doesn’t get. Not even Key or Jonghyun look at him so openly and in such a selfless way.
He gives no relevance to the fact that in the end Minho is still saying that he looks like a teenager, one of those sentences that usually have Taemin instantly disliking people.
“I do. And maybe I don’t look like it, but last July I celebrated my 25th birthday.”
“You don’t look 25 at all!”
Minho seems honestly surprised and Taemin can’t help but laugh at him. Such a reaction, when he isn’t too pissed off with the topic of his appearance, never fails to make him laugh.
He remembers the first time he saw Junsu and Hyukjae. Yunho had taken him to meet his classmates. They were working on a choreography assignment together and Yunho had thought that seeing how hard studying dance was would be helpful for sixteen year old Taemin. Junsu and Hyukjae had thought he was twelve.
A wave of nostalgia runs him over and the guilt and regret are there again, bubbling under his skin and making its way to the core of his being.
Maybe he really should give up dancing. If he is going to keep on remembering Yunho all the time… he has to stop. Because picturing how Junsu and Hyukjae reacted when they were introduced is harmless enough, but remembering Yunho’s warmth isn’t. Remembering Yunho’s warmth and his embraces and Yunho is everything but harmless.
“You can tell me.” Taemin looks up at Minho again, who is looking at him as if he understands when, really, how could he? “I don’t know if I can help but… I can be here for you.”
Taemin doubts for a second before going ahead with it and telling Minho the story of his life.
He starts from the beginning, from the day Yunho’s family moved to the flat above theirs. He tells him how he always admired Yunho and how he took a liking to him barely five minutes after their first encounter. He reproduces one of his clearer memories with all luxury of small adjectives to complete the description of what he felt the first time he saw Yunho dancing. Then, he talks and talks and talks about how much he loves it, how safe dancing makes him feel, how hard he had strived for perfection just so Yunho, whenever he came home from Seoul, saw it and complimented him.
After that, his story takes a turn when he left for Seoul and met Key, then moved with him to the flat he is still living in. Those first months were a constant fight to adapt to adulthood and he hadn't wanted to know anything about Yunho at all. He had set for independence and finding a place with his own effort and non-stopping dedication.
It had worked, although he had known he wasn’t happy yet. Then fate had thrown Yunho again at him during an exhibition. In a spur of the moment Taemin had changed plans and tried to seduce him.
It had been a bumpy road, but in barely a year, Taemin had been happy with Yunho, his classes had gone better than expected, and he had achieved a teaching position at Yunho’s dance studio before his school year ended..
They had been so happy, those perfect years.
But when Yunho and Taemin received an offer to work in L.A all hell broke loose. Yunho had become more focused in being an international and famous dancer. The opportunity to work with America’s biggest stars was his life’s dream.
But not Taemin’s. Taemin only wished to dance to his heart content, without warring for where and nor who for. The fights had started not twenty minutes after they arrived home on the fateful day of the offer.
And they hadn't stopped until Yunho said his final ultimatum: if Taemin didn't get on the plane to Los Angeles, Yunho didn't want to hear anything else from him.
“And you saw me not getting there in time,” he finishes.
He feels lighter. For once, it is nice being able to tell his point of view to someone that is not going to be on Yunho’s side. Not that Key or Jonghyun are that much with Yunho; it isn't like that. It’s just that they believe in them as a couple and Key thinks Taemin is too immature to be taking decisions that change his life so abruptly.
“And I’m fed up with people thinking I’m too young, with Key and Jonghyun mothering me as if I was fifteen, and I don’t even know if I want to keep dancing or not because… what if it was Yunho?”
Taemin waits anxiously until Minho, who nods and hums at all the right points in the story, opens his mouth. It takes a while, and he is aware of how his face must look like: half fear stricken, half addict seeing his drug of choice after days of abstinence. Like every time he finds hard to be in control of what he is thinking his body reacts before his mind or his mouth. He sits at the edge of his chair and inclines himself towards Minho, contorted in an uncomfortable position. He doesn’t care, not in the slightest.
“Why would it be Yunho?”
Minho’s question is almost a whisper but Taemin hears it like as if Minho had just shouted for all the people at Starbucks to hear. He is calm, seriousness giving gravity to his features, and collected.
“Just… because. I-I… I don’t know if I would have chosen to dance if he wasn’t around me.”
“But that question can't be answered. Not now, not ever. Asking such ifs is going to make you feel insecure about your own judgement forever. I don’t know if it was because of him or if you love dancing for the sake of dancing. Does it really matter? If you came to love it because of him, the bottom line is that either way you love dancing.”
It’s such a simple truth that Taemin should have seen it before. He shouldn’t have needed anyone to say it.
There he is, sitting with Minho The Stranger telling him obvious solutions to problems he thought complex and disturbing.
He sighs.
“True. It doesn’t really matter.” He wants to thank him again and is in the process of formulating the sentence inside his head when Minho’s phone vibrates and he checks it out.
“Shit. I’m really sorry, Taemin,” he says, already grabbing the jacket he had taken off while Taemin told him about Yunho. “I have to get back to work. There’s an emergency and they’re calling us back in. I’m so sorry. I’ll make it up to you, I promise,” Taemin wants to say that there’s no need whatsoever to make it up to him, but Minho finishes zipping his jacket and extends his phone to him. “If you don’t mind giving me your number, I’ll call you as soon as I’m free to arrange another meeting. May I have your number?”
“Oh! Of course!”
Taemin finds funny how much his fingers shake, his shyness reverting him back to his awkward teenager self, but he enters his phone number all the same. Minho smiles one last time, thanks him for the coffee, and goes out into the cold autumn breeze.
Taemin sighs and clears their table. Mechanical movements always help him think and relax. He decides to go back to the studio and explain to Junsu, Eunhyuk and Key that he is going to keep dancing.
On his way to the studio there is a small part of his mind that wonders non-stop about Minho.
**
Three weeks later Minho closes, at long last, the triple homicide that has had the team spinning around like crazy. He is half dead on his feet after running all around Incheon’s cargo dock to find their suspect, barely succeeding.
Of course, he wouldn’t have if it wasn't for his team. They are a perfectly oiled machine, even if they usually work in pairs unless a case worthy of using all their resources appears. Now, the only thing left to do is to wait for Zhou Mi’s report, but since he is the best forensic analyst in the force Minho is sure that by morning the finished report will be on Leeteuk’s desk.
Jinki sits down by his side, rests his head on Minho’s shoulder and sighs.
“I’m going to sleep the next three days straight”, he says. His definite tone makes Minho smile because it’s cute hearing him proclaiming that he will rest for so long without taking some cold case just to avoid being bored out of his mind. One of the perks of being a genius, he supposes. “Are you okay? Does your leg hurt?”
Jinki is one of the few people that know about Minho’s short career into professional football. It had ended almost before it started, after a rival player made a foul on him. Convincing Minho to accept that he couldn’t be a professional football player took months that he remembers as a nightmare from one hospital to another.
“It’s okay. I’m a little under the weather, that’s why I’m so tired. Have Changmin and Kyuhyun gone back already?”
“Yeah, they did. They wanted to take the suspect back personally. I think Changmin is still mad about the culprit giving him a black eye. And about Nichkhun, of course.”
“I’m going to skip the soju,” Minho says, sighing. “I want to go straight to bed. I haven’t been sleeping well lately.”
None of them have, to say the truth. Not since they called him saying that the culprit hurt Khun. Badly. Minho plans to go visit him at the hospital the next day, now that he is somehow stable and not half-dead anymore. He’ll try to convince Victoria to go home and rest a bit, take care of herself.
Hard cases are always worse when one of them is hurt. Then everything turns personal, and when that happens, Minho is not the only one too competitive for his own good. They all are.
“Same here," Jinki says, "even if I've been sleeping fine enough. The other day I had the strangest dream ever about us being singers.”
Minho laughs because Jinki dives into an extended explanation about how they were part of a group, whose name or other members Jinki can't remember. In his dream, Minho, polite, always well-dressed Minho, is the rapper of the group, and Jinki is the leader, and everything is just so bizarre that halfway through the monologue he stops paying attention and focuses on feeling tired. Every bone in his body is screaming for rest.
They don’t move until Minho shivers from the cold. His sweat has long since dried up on his clothes, and at half past one in the morning the freezing cold creates a thin layer of ice over every wet surface. Besides, his ribs hurt. It isn't as painful as it would be had he broken something, but he’ll need to rest the whole three days Leeteuk is giving them.
“Let’s head back”, Jinki says, standing up and helping Minho. Minho feels numb all over, his bones crunch and he grunts, squaring his shoulders and biting his lower lip. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the doctor?”
“I’m sure, Jinki. I just want to go home.”
Jinki drives them home. He stops by Minho’s place first, and Minho says goodbye wishing his partner a nice break.
In cases like this one, where from day one he is too much involved, Minho feels how big a toll his profession is taking on him. He is not as warm as he once was, and he is not half as nice. He still believes in goodness, though. Maybe that is what makes him think about texting Taemin and invite him for lunch the next day. There is a deep need within himself of human contact, of being with someone as passionate and naïve like Taemin is.
Minho he throws his rational mind out of the window and texts Taemin. When he gets a response, not a minute later, he yearns for a soft voice lulling him to sleep.
He has the impulse to call Jaejoong’s Korean number, but that goes away almost before it appears. What he does instead is calling Taemin.
‘Minho?’
“Yeah, it’s me. How have you been? Did you fix things with your bosses at the studio?”
‘Oh! Yeah, I did!’
Minho hums and Taemin keeps talking, his voice excited even though it isn't an appropriate time for phone calls. He gets up and goes to his bedroom, his attention fully on Taemin’s story. He is glad Taemin sounds much better, much more confident -living proof of what Minho admires in people.
Of course, he knows better. No one is over someone they spend years with in such a short amount of time. Deep inside, Taemin will remember Yunho until he falls in love again. But at least he is trying, not floating in nothingness like Minho himself is.
How he wishes he could take his own advice into practice.
He tries to sit carefully but his ribs hurt too much and a groan slips out of his mouth, alerting Taemin instantly. Minho bites his lip, half to refrain himself from complaining louder and half because now he has alerted Taemin about something not being right.
‘Are you okay, Minho?’
“Yeah, yeah”, he says through gritted teeth. “I just had a little accident at work today.”
‘Can I do anything for you? Was it serious? Will you be alright?’
All three questions are fired quickly, barely with any pause between words at all, and Minho finds himself smiling. Taemin is adorable.
He prefers not to tell that he is Inspector Choi Minho from Seoul’s Metropolitan Police. One never knows when he might need to act undercover for a case. And besides, he plainly doesn't like being thought of as Minho the Policeman. He tries to keep both lives separate as much as possible.
But… maybe it's the painkillers effect upon him, but he feels he can trust Taemin.
“Haven’t I told you?” he asks, knowing perfectly well that no, he has not. “I’m an inspector with Seoul’s Metropolitan Police. Today we got hold of a suspect we had been investigating and I got into a little fight with him.”
There’s a long silence from the other side of the line. There isn't even any static to make waiting for Taemin’s reaction more bearable.
‘Are you a police officer? A real one? Like, you own a gun and go around looking for villains and everything else?’
“Villains?”
Laughing makes him feel a stab of pain and he grunts and ends up coughing loudly. The cold he has been fighting on and off since Jaejoong left is apparently ready to catch up with him and make his three days of rest miserable.
He thinks Taemin has spoken full of honesty. There is no feedback from his face, but Minho thinks he isn’t mistaken to think that it was Taemin’s childish but sincere admiration in his voice.
He really is too cute.
That Yunho guy must be crazy to leave him behind.
‘Are you making fun of me?’ Taemin asks, wondering. Minho just laughs-coughs harder. ‘You are making fun of me! Why? Oi! Seriously! Isn’t that what detectives always do in films? How am I supposed to know what you do and what you don’t do? Oi! Stop it!’
It’s a “stop it” that has no strength behind because Taemin starts laughing with Minho. It takes a while for them to settle down, and when they do, Minho can feel Taemin’s silent pout.
“It's actually not that nice, not always. But I’m happy. We did a good job today.”
After that, Taemin asks question after question. As Minho says a few times, he has seen too many American movies. Way too many but… it’s fun. Minho discovers he can get away with telling him bizarre stuff that he will believe. Only during the first few minutes, but he still does it. The way Taemin gets annoyed is rather cute, as is how he drags out the last syllable of his name to show that he doesn’t like Minho being mean.
Minho feels really comfortable for the first time since he doesn’t know when. He feels as if he has a carefree butterfly inside him and Taemin is just what it needs to dream of flying and reaching the sky.
He talks, jokes and allows himself to follow Taemin’s voice wherever it takes him without paying much mind to what he says.
The next thing he knows is that he is waking up, confused and feeling pain and cold everywhere.
He doesn’t remember falling asleep. He was still talking with Taemin, that’s for sure. A whitish fog clouds his mind. Frowning and cursing when he moves, forgetting to be careful with his ribs, he checks his phone for the time. He still has the device in his hand.
It takes him a while to understand the time. Then it's five more minutes to get the date, and just a second after that he sees Taemin’s text.
Sweet dreams! It’s the first time a guy falls asleep on me!^^ I’m busy tomorrow but I took note of your address and I’ll go around there the day after tomorrow with warm soup. Key’s the best cook ever!;p
**
“So, come again, why do you want me to cook soup?”
Taemin just wishes Key would shut up and prepare the damn soup. He has been asking about that “mysterious friend” since Taemin told him about it. It’s not that much to ask, especially when Taemin is such a kind and considerate flatmate. After all, he leaves them the house whenever Jonghyun is around.
“That friend I told you about. I met him a few months ago. He has a cold and I just offered to take some soup to his home. Buying some in the supermarket is pathetic and you are the best cook I know, Kibummie”, he says, using the cute way to call Key by his real name. He smiles, as much as he is able to, and years of practice help him reign in his victory sign when Key snorts but complies. “Thank you so much, hyung! You are the bestest ever!”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. That doesn’t excuse you. I want details. Is he handsome? Does he live alone? I’m not ready to send you to a stranger’s house all by yourself.”
“Key, I’m 25. And Minho is a nice guy.”
“Ah, so his name is Minho? How old is he? Does he work? I hope he does.”
Taemin curses inwardly. Key wants to know and when Key wants to know, he just does. He is a brand of persistent that, thank God, nobody can duplicate.
Taemin has been manipulating him for years with his cuteness and his angelic face, though both of them know that it only happens because Kibum allows it to happen.
Salvation comes in the form of Jonghyun. He lets himself inside with the key Taemin has given him to avoid being woken up by their comings and goings. This way, Taemin is allowed to get angry if they wake him up and has their tacit permission to pout and behave like a brat. Jonghyun finds him funny, Key thinks he's cute, and, in the end, Taemin uses every chance he has to get what he wants.
Jonghyun messes Taemin’s hair while he makes his way to Key. He stands on tiptoes to see the product of Key's cooking and embraces him and kisses him good morning.
Taemin looks away, missing being able to have that.
It isn't Yunho that he misses but the other half of himself. It’s what Key and Jonghyun are to each other what Taemin wants.
He exits the kitchen silently, walks to his bedroom and closes the door softly. Once there, he flops on his bed and sighs. He is bordering two months as a single guy and hasn’t talked to Yunho since the day before his failed trip to the airport. He misses his friend Yunho, but, surprisingly, he doesn't actually miss him as his boyfriend.
Being at the studio still feels weird without having Yunho close by, of course. Taemin is still discovering how strong his presence was, not only for him but for all of them. Junsu and Eunhyuk aren't quite as capable as leaders. Well, Taemin suspects that they don’t want to act as leaders so it suffices if they keep their act as professionals. Whatever it is, the important fact here is that he doesn’t miss Yunho, his boyfriend, as much as he is told he should.
Someone knocks on his door. Jonghyun doesn’t wait for Taemin to say a word and enters his room, scanning it before deciding to sit so close to Taemin that their thighs touch.
“Now. Speak. What’s happening with you?” he asks, not bothering to hide his concern behind elaborated Venetian masks the way Key does.
It is that type of completing each other that Taemin yearns for. He wants someone talkative when he feels like being quiet, he wants what he misses to feel… right? Complete? He doesn’t even know how to put it into words.
Yunho and him have always been too similar. Both are somewhat on the disaster side, unable to keep their things where they have left them last.
“Nothing is happening with me.”
“Yeah, right. What have I said about lying to me, Taemin?”
Taemin bolts up, one of the locks to his anger open.
“I’m not five! What the hell do you want from me? What do you even care? I just want to be myself!”
“And do you think I don’t know that? Or that Kibum doesn’t? Taemin, we love you.” Seeing Jonghyun this serious is a rare occurrence, and Taemin gets a bit scared. He gets along fine with the Jonghyun he is used to.
This one… this one is trying to put Taemin in contact with his feelings and… he isn't ready, not yet. He still misses a few pieces of the puzzle.
“We know you had a rough time," Jonghyun presses on. "We know. Yunho is a great guy and you idolize him. He was the God of your world. We get it. But that doesn’t mean you have to escape from the flat and try to get out of our way.”
“You need your space.”
“And, sure, I’m really glad you don’t mind me being here all the time. But. Seriously, what the hell? You don’t have to avoid your own place. And, just so you know, right now, Kibum is cooking your soup and getting worried sick about you. He doesn't know what he has done wrong since you don’t tell him these days now. You used to run to him to talk about the smallest things. If he hasn’t done anything to you, and I know he hasn’t, just stop making him worry, okay?”
Taemin is at a loss for words. He tries, but nothing comes to his lips besides the guilt that lights his face. As always, he hasn't thought about people around him. He has been too busy within himself to look up and see.
“Don’t feel bad, kiddo,” Jonghyun says, messing his hair again. “Just get out, spend some time with us and give Kibum more details about that Minho of yours.”
“He isn't mine!”
Jonghyun starts laughing when Taemin rushes to deny his use of the possessive. Using possessives is dangerous, and more so with Minho. He wouldn’t mind that possessive applied to Minho.
He likes mysterious (not so much now, after their telephonic conversation) Minho. He likes the tall, calm and quiet man. Of course, he isn’t in love with him. He doesn’t plan to act on his so far abstract and platonic liking. Finding him attractive is quite normal - who wouldn’t, now? Minho is handsome in the classic sense of the word, tall and manly. He is full of charms and has a likeable personality to match them.
Shit.
He groans, Jonghyun laughs a bit more, and Taemin just wants to disappear because he can’t afford like Minho that way. They have just seen each a couple of times. One phone call is not enough to make him fall in love with Minho. Taemin has a naïve side but he doesn’t believe in fairytales. Maybe his problem is… he doesn’t know. Lack of sex or something that makes his encounters with Minho somewhat biased.
Jonghyun, of course, uses Taemin’s sudden distraction in his favour. He tackles him to the bed and starts tickling him until both of them are making a ruckus and shouting like there is no tomorrow.
When Key, alerted by their screams, comes check on them, the first thing he does is berating them for being so childish. Taemin and Jonghyun exchange looks and show an incredibly level of coordination when, within seconds, they have Key begging for mercy and threatening them to all kinds of hell.
They spend the rest of the morning together doing nothing until Taemin checks his watch and discovers that if he doesn’t get ready he won’t make it to Minho’s at lunchtime. Key packs the soup, Taemin puts it carefully in his backpack, and Jonghyun offers to drive him to Minho’s place. There is a tilt to his head that reminds Taemin to be mindful of his actions, and he has no other option but saying yes.
“Where to, then?” Jonghyun asks when they get on the car.
“Ichon 433.”
“Your friend lives in one of the fucking LG Towers?” Key can’t help himself and uses the high-pitched scream that makes Taemin frown and try to look a bit smaller, to see if the others forget about him.
“Yes.”
“Is he rich? Are you going to sleep with him just because he is rich?”
“Nah, Taemin is not one of those boys”, says Jonghyun. “He is more likely to fuck him because he is handsome and then go and commit because of the money.”
“I’m not going to fuck Minho!” Taemin shouts, trying to make himself be heard. Jonghyun laughs and Key snorts, his lips barely suppressing a smirk. “I’m just… I’ll take him some soup, make sure he has everything he needs, and get back home right afterwards.”
They don’t stop pestering him on the way to Minho's. When Taemin is finally free from them, Key’s words sounding more motherly than anything Taemin’s mom has ever said, he relaxes, relieved.
Once at the entrance he texts Minho to let him know Taemin is already downstairs. The porter receives a call and comes out to open the door for him, indicating the right way to the lift.
Minho lives in the second to last floor, so the ride takes a while. It should have been time enough for Taemin to feel nervous about his appearance, and maybe also about meeting Minho’s partner but… he isn’t. He just wants to see Minho, make sure he is alright and use the afternoon to talk.
This time, it's his curiosity what shall dictate the path for their encounter.
Minho opens the door looking like hell. He has bloodshot eyes, his hair is thoroughly mussed, and he covers himself with a blanket below which Taemin can see a huge printed t-shirt and a pair of black tracksuit trousers.
“Come in.”
Minho moves from the cold of the entrance and lets Taemin pass.
The place looks like a palace out of a magazine. The décor matches perfectly Minho’s personality, with some touches, here and there, that break the monotony and don’t seem quite like something Minho would own, like a fashion mag spread showing off the most handsome man Taemin has ever seen.
He steps in after Minho and feels small in such an enormous and luxurious apartment. He breaks the symbolic harmony of the space with his rainbow coloured socks.
Minho takes them to an impressive kitchen that looks like something Key would love to death. Nothing is out of place except for a few boxes of Chinese take-out on a corner counter.
Taemin leaves his soup on the table.
“Have you eaten?” he asks, worried.
“I woke up just a few minutes ago. Haven’t had time.”
“Let me heat it up, okay? Go rest and I’ll take it to you.”
Surprisingly, Minho complies. Taemin searches the cupboards for a pot. It takes him a while but eventually he finds one. When it’s ready, he fills a bowl to the brim and goes out, looking around for Minho. He finds him sitting on the sofa staring intently at the tv.
“I hope you like it," Taemin says. "My flatmate, Key, is the best cook in the world.”
He puts it in front of Minho and waits impatiently until he adjusts his position, sits properly and takes a spoonful of soup to his mouth. There is no reaction for a whole minute, but after that, Minho’s smile is so happy and pure and innocent that, for the first time, Taemin wonders how old he is.
“It's as good as Jaejoong’s!”
Taemin doesn’t know any Jaejoongs, of course. Only Minho understands if that's a compliment. He would bet it is, anyways, because Minho's smile as he eats is the biggest sign of emotion Taemin has ever seen in him.
When he finishes, Taemin announces he is going to take everything back to the kitchen. He cleans what he uses and, when he goes back to the living room, Minho is fast asleep on the sofa.
His face is softer and warmer, and he looks even younger. Either way, of course, he isn't actually old. At first, Taemin would have said that he was around Yunho’s age. Now, after seeing him this vulnerable, he'd imagine Minho's age to be closer to Jonghyun’s. He runs his fingers through his hair, deciding it’s as nice as he has being imagining.
When the reality of his acts and gestures sinks in, Taemin feels assaulted by doubts. Watching someone as they sleep and thinking how adorable they are, how pleasant the contact of his skin and Minho’s hair is… that is not something a platonic friend would do.
Taemin is so scared that he runs away without looking back.
Part 2