The Way Life Is, Chapter 11
Title: The Way Life Is
Author: meridianslair
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Jongkey, 2min
A/N: NC-17 scene is JongSica. It's kind of important in a way, so I suggest you at least skim it 8)
Summary: After Key's dad dies his mom forces them to move to America. His new high school is filled with people he'd never dealt with before, and Key starts to wonder what life is really about. There's also this guy Jonghyun, his best friend Taemin's stepbrother. At first they didn't really get along, but they eventually become... closer?
Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 /
Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8 /
Chapter 9 / Chapter 9.5 / Chapter 10
“What the hell are you talking about?! You think Jessica is cheating on me? Stop bullshitting me, Katie!” Jonghyun yelled.
The brunette haired girl shook her head. “You don’t have to believe me, Jonghyun. I’m just telling you what I saw with my own eyes and heard with my ears, okay? Remember that we use to be friends…”
“Yeah, we were friends until you got angry at me for dating Jessica,” Jonghyun reminded.
“Because you don’t understand what she’s really like! She’s a whore and only uses men for one thing, sex!”
“I think if she wanted sex, she would have gotten it by now,” he growled.
“That’s exactly why she’s been cheating on you!” Katie pulled at her own hair, frustrated by the fact that Jonghyun wouldn’t listen to her at all.
“I can’t believe you’re so jealous that your mother loves Jessica and Krystal more than you that you try to destroy my relationship with Jessica. Maybe you really are a mistake.”
Katie’s face fell. She stepped back and looked down and said, “Well if that’s how you think of me, I’m sorry I ever tried warning you.”
“Did I really just say that?” Jonghyun himself couldn’t believe he said something so cruel.
“Wait, Katie!”
She was already walking away, not looking back.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Stepping out of the restaurant Jonghyun stretched his arms above his head. “That was the best lunch I’ve had in a long while,” he said, very satisfied.
“Yeah,” Jessica giggled.
“So, what do you want to do now? We can go to the mall, roller skating…”
“Let’s go back to your place,” Jessica said, grabbing onto his arm.
“My place? But there’s nothing really to do there.”
“Of course there is, silly!”
Jonghyun missed the evil spark in her eyes. “Okay, whatever you say.”
Jumping in the car, they drove home chatting happily with the radio playing in the background. Jonghyun looked over at Jessica’s bright and smiling face as she spoke. “She would never cheat on me, right?”
They pulled into the driveway and stepped out of the car, making their way to the front door. Walking in Jonghyun turned to Jessica and asked, “Wanna watch TV in here?”
“No, let’s go up to your room. I know something fun we can do,” Jessica smiled.
Jonghyun raised an eyebrow at the statement. “Oh? And what would that be?”
“You’ll see,” she giggled before dragging him up to his room.
Passing Taemin’s room, which the door was open to, Jonghyun noticed Key reading a magazine on his brother’s bed. “Hey, wait hold up, Jessica.” Jonghyun plucked her hand off his wrist and walked to the doorway.
“Uhh, so… what are you doing, Key?” Jonghyun asked.
“Waiting for your brother to come out of the closet,” Key replied in a monotone voice.
“Wait, what? Waiting for him to come out of the closet? He-“
“No! Not that kind of coming out of the closet. I mean he’s like, literally, in the closet,” Key laughed pointing at the closet door.
“Oh.” Jonghyun could feel Jessica grabbing his arm impatiently. “Well, I’m going to go. I’ll umm, talk to you later?”
Key barely looked at Jonghyun and nodded before Taemin popped out of the closet. “Jonghyun? You haven’t have happened to see my ripped skinny jeans, have you?” Taemin asked.
“No. I’ll help you look for them later, Taemin,” Jonghyun said quickly before closing the door and going to his room with Jessica.
Jonghyun was practically thrown into his room by Jessica before she shut and locked the door. He was a bit nervous now. “So what was this ‘fun’ thing you said you wanted to do?”
Jessica got as close as she could to him, her breasts coming in contact with his chest. Jonghyun could feel her breath on his lips. Sure they had made out before, but something was different about this.
“I think you know what I’m talking about,” she whispered, her fake nails trailing down his arms.
“I don’t think we should do that, Jessica. I don’t want to anything like that yet.” Jonghyun knew Jessica wasn’t listening. Her hands were traveling lower and lower before she grabbed his crotch.
“Shut up, just shut up!” she said angrily. Jessica kissed him with full force, not caring that he didn’t want it. When Jonghyun didn’t respond to her kiss and trying to move away, she took it a step further and slipped her hand inside his pants, caressing his length.
“Fuck…” Jonghyun groaned.
Jessica smirked. She knew she had him in the palm of her hand now. Finally responding, Jonghyun kissed back. Lust was driving him, not his love for Jessica. If she hadn’t pulled such a dirty trick, Jessica wouldn’t even be in his house right now.
Piece by piece, their clothes fell onto the floor. Jessica was still in charge though, roughly shoving Jonghyun onto the bed. “L-look Jessica, I really don’t want to do this,” Jonghyun said, crawling backwards on his elbows, away from her.
She sat on his lap, right on his naked erection. “Jessica,” he warned, placing his hands on her hips, Jonghyun just wanted to shove her off of him. He was completely surprised that he hadn’t lost control yet. That he hadn’t just accepted her offer and fucked her into the mattress.
Leaning down she whispered into his ear, “You don’t want this because you like him don’t you?”
“Yes,” he responded. Jonghyun turned his head away from her, not wanting to look into her eyes.
Jessica sighed before sliding off of Jonghyun, sitting next to his legs. She pulled her knees towards her chest. “I’m sorry… I just… I knew that you liked him. I’m just afraid of losing you.”
Jonghyun sat up, rubbing his face before turning to Jessica. “Look, Jessica, I’m just trying to sort everything out right now. Just give me time, okay?”
“Alright,” she replied in an understanding tone. Standing up she picked up her clothes and put them on one by one. “I think I’ll just be leaving now.”
“You don’t have to leave just because I don’t want to have sex…”
“No. I’m leaving, I need to think about some things,” she replied with no emotion in her voice.
“At least let me drive you home,” Jonghyun offered.
Jessica shook her head, grabbing onto the door handle. “It’s alright. I have a friend who lives by.”
“Ok, umm, bye then?” he said before Jessica shut the door behind her, ignoring Jonghyun.
Jonghyun took the closest pillow and shoved his face into it, kicking the bed underneath him irritably. Lifting his head back up he looked around the room and down at his body. “I should probably put some clothes on,” he grumbled.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After Jessica left Jonghyun decided to sleep thinking it might clear up his mind a bit. He was forced awake after a few hours by Taemin. Taemin laid himself over Jonghyun, attempting to wake the older boy up. A few minutes of jumping on the bed, slapping Jonghyun’s head, and rolling all over his step brother Jonghyun finally woke up.
“What do you want, Taemin? You could obviously tell I was sleeping…” Jonghyun said attempting to get back under the covers and go back to sleep.
“But… you told me you’d help me find my skinny jeans later! And it’s later! Now come on, please?” Taemin whined.
“Fine, I’ll help you, but first you have to tell me why you need to find them so badly.”
Taemin sighed. “It’s too embarrassing to tell you…”
“Looks like I’m not helping you then,” Jonghyun said leaning over to his bedside desk grabbing the TV remote.
“No wait!” Taemin said, quickly grabbing onto Jonghyun’s arm. “Minho said he wanted to talk to me tomorrow about some stuff, and I just kinda wanted to look nice,” he said with a blush on his cheeks.
“Are you serious?”
Taemin nodded embarrassedly. “Ugh, where did you last see the pants?” Jonghyun asked, deciding he’d help him.
“Well… when Key bought them for me I tossed them in my room somewhere. I didn’t really like them at the time, and now when I need them I have no clue where they’d be,” Taemin groaned.
Taemin got off Jonghyun’s bed and left the room, Jonghyun following close behind. Walking into the bedroom Jonghyun looked around. “So where have you looked already?”
“Just the closet,” Taemin replied pointing at the half open closet, piles of things wedged in between the wall and door.
“Well is there anything under the bed?”
“I don’t know, maybe?” Taemin shrugged.
“Is it ok if we look under there? I mean, you don’t have porn or anything under there, do you?” Jonghyun laughed, getting on his stomach by the bed beginning to dig under the bed.
Taemin gave a small laugh. “No, I don’t have anything like that. You’re safe. Plus the worst I’ve ever seen was you and Jessica today,” Taemin trailed off.
Jonghyun immediately popped back up. “You saw what now?”
“Earlier Key and I were bored and saw you guys, ya know, doing it,” Taemin said, getting on his stomach and looking under the bed.
Jonghyun went back down, barely seeing Taemin on the other side. “Jeez, Taemin, how much shit do you have under here? Is half of this even necessary?!” Jonghyun paused, “And for your information, Jessica and I didn’t do anything like that!”
“I don’t know I just shove stuff under here. Anyways, back to what I said before. I’m just telling you what we witnessed.”
Jonghyun tugged a bunch of clothes out from under the bed and looked at them piece by piece. There was finally a pair of pants that looked torn all the way to where the thighs would be. Sitting up Jonghyun called out, “I found them.” He sighed, “These are way too revealing though! Just look at them.”
Taemin stood up and walked from the other side of the bed. “They aren’t that bad…”
“Not that bad?” Jonghyun felt like face palming at the statement. “Who’s driving you tomorrow?”
Taemin bit his lip and looked down. “You’re having mom drive you?! No, she’ll freak if she sees you wear something like this. I’ll drive you tomorrow,” Jonghyun said shaking his head, “You are so lucky all of us have been trying to set you guys up for a while now.”
“Shut up,” Taemin whined, “I don’t like him.”
“Right, you don’t like him,” Jonghyun rolled his eyes.
“Right and you didn’t have sex with Jessica today,” Taemin threw back.
Jonghyun threw the pants at Taemin’s face, “Ugh, just shut up!” Jonghyun walked back to his room and flopped onto his bed once again. “I could just die here,” he thought. “Key would never believe me if I tried telling him. God, what am I going to do?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Key walked through the door feeling as if he was broken. He didn’t know what he was supposed to expect from Jonghyun. There was a part of him who wished that Jonghyun would just dump Jessica for him, but the other part of him knew that they were bonded. Maybe Jessica was right, Jonghyun didn’t like people like him.
Key heard shuffling in the kitchen and decided to bravely walk in there, act like he hadn’t told his mom anything. Acting brave and being brave were two completely different things he realized. His mom slammed the fridge door shut and poured herself a glass of sweet tea.
“I’m going out tonight,” she said coldly, “Make dinner yourself.”
“Okay,” he croaked. There was a moment of silence as she sipped her drink.
“I don’t want you hanging out with Taemin anymore either.”
“But why, mom?! He’s my friend!”
Key suddenly wished he hadn’t even walked into the kitchen as his mother turned and glared at him. “You like him don’t you?” she growled.
“What? No! He’s just my friend!” Key said quickly in panic. His mom was really scaring him now. She grabbed a hold of his wrist and threw him against the counter, staring into his eyes. Key felt a hand come across his face, the burn tingling across his cheek.
He looked at his mom in shock. “Don’t fucking lie to me!”
“I’m not lying! Why would I lie to you?!” The tears fell from his eyes. His heart had already been broken, and now his mom was accusing him of something that wasn’t true. And slapping him because he was telling the truth!
She kneed Key in the crotch, he felt like he could puke just from the impact. Letting go of his wrist, he collapsed to the floor cradling his crotch in his hands. “That’ll teach you,” her voice wavered before she stomped out of the kitchen.
Key couldn’t see anything in front of him; he closed his eyes wanting to erase everything. He couldn’t tell what hurt worse his physical pain, or mental pain.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jonghyun pulled over at Minho’s house and looked at Taemin when the younger went to jump out of the car. “Wait! Taemin, hold on a sec.”
Taemin stopped with one foot out of the door. “What?”
“Just… don’t get hurt again this time, okay?”
“I’ll try not to,” Taemin said. Giving Jonghyun a sad smile he got out of the car completely. Walking up the driveway Taemin could feel the butterflies in his stomach ready to burst. Hopping the first few steps he knocked on the door, listening for the sound of footsteps. Taemin could hear a few thuds before the door slowly opened revealing a nervous Minho. Guess that made two.
“H-hey Taemin,” Minho greeted awkwardly.
“Hi…” Taemin replied.
“Here, come on inside. We can go to my room,” Minho said grabbing Taemin’s hand and leading him down the hallway.
For a while they just hung out. Minho showed Taemin some of his trophies from when he was younger and the fish in his fish tank. Taemin felt a little weird being alone with Minho, in Minho’s room no less, but they were just doing things normal friends would do. Well, that was until brought up why he really invited Taemin over to his house to hang out.
“Aren’t you cold?” Minho asked.
Taemin munched on the bag of chips. “Hmm?”
“Because your pants are ripped… a lot,” Minho said blushing, pointing at the tears that revealed Taemin’s perfect tan skin.
“Oh. I’m not really cold, their surprisingly comfortable,” Taemin replied smiling. He wasn’t completely oblivious as to how the pants made Minho feel.
Minho coughed, trying to hide his discomfort. “So, Taemin, I kinda want to talk about that time at the coffee shop.” Minho could see Taemin’s body stiffening, but continued, “Look, back then I didn’t know what I felt towards you. Afterwards I felt so bad, and then I finally understood my true feelings but it was too late. When we broke apart it really made me upset, but now that we’re getting closer again I don’t want the same thing to happen. I know how I feel now, though and I’m sure of it this time. I really like you.”
“I-I understand. It’s just thought I scared you off, that you thought I was weird. I didn’t want to get close again. It really hurt though, being denied like that,” Taemin gave a fake laugh. “I still really like you, I just don’t want to be hurt again.” Taemin could feel like he could cry any second, Why am I such a cry baby?
Minho leaned in closer and whispered, “I don’t want to hurt you again. Please, just trust me.”
Taemin could hear the guilt in his voice, and nodded. “Fine… but if you do anything, I’ll hurt you!” Taemin laughed nervously. Minho’s face kept getting closer to his, and it was making him feel weird.
“Taemin, will you go out with me?”
“Yes,” Taemin breathed.
Minho kissed Taemin in that moment. In that moment Taemin felt like he could stay like that forever. The kiss dissolved as fast as cotton candy, but was just as soft and sweet. Everything felt so much better now.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I just really want to apologize to everyone for being really bad at updating. It’s really hard for me to write because I’m so insecure about my fics and sometimes I just really can’t figure out how to write something. I hope you can all forgive me. (if anyone even remembers me?)
I’m searching for 2? betas so please check out this post >> ~here~ << for more info! It’ll help me get more chapters out sooner (I keep not updating for like 3+ months =/)
I really missed you guys, so hopefully this fic hasn’t been completely forgotten! Also, sorry for the chapter shortness!
~Love Meri