Chemically Imbalanced 6/9
Title: Chemically Imbalanced 6/9
Pairing: Jongkey, Minkey
Rating: PG15-NC17
Genre: au, angst, romance, psychological
Summary: Kibum was diagnosed with Schizophrenia when he was only fifteen years old. Seeing his psychiatrist every day was nothing new. Being on the wrong end of dirty looks because he reacted to something that, to everyone else, never happened was nothing new. There was only one person who accepted Kibum for who he was, and he was fine with that. He just never considered that someone could come into his life and change that.
"You're in a good mood." Kibum said, smiling to himself as he sat on the couch in Minho's office.
The younger smiled down at his clipboard, tapping the end of his pen in perfect rhythm. (Minho had always had great rhythm. Kibum used to tease him about abandoning being a doctor to become a rapper when they were younger.) "Am I?"
Kibum nodded. "You haven't stopped smiling since I got here."
"Well... I guess I've just had a good day."
"What do you mean?"
"Other patient stuff. I'm not supposed to talk about it." He shrugged.
Kibum narrowed his eyes. "Did you get proposed to again, Choi Minho?" He asked, jokingly accusing.
Minho just smirked in response.
Kibum rolled his eyes. Even if Minho never took any of the proposals seriously, he was always flattered by them. Always in a happy mood for the rest of the day.
"I'm supposed to be the one asking questions here, Kibummie." Minho pointed his pen at him.
Kibum grinned. He liked it when Minho was like this.
"So... How have you been today?" Minho asked lightheartedly.
Kibum ran a hand through his hair. "I just woke up like... Half an hour ago, Minho. My day hasn't had time to be good or bad yet."
"Kibum, you have the worst sleeping pattern..."
"There were re-runs of Coffee Prince on! I can't not watch Coffee Prince, Minho."
The younger rolled his eyes and scribbled something down on his clipboard.
Kibum chuckled. "What did you just write down? How the hell could me watching Coffee Prince possibly be medically relevant?"
"It's not. I'm drawing."
"Drawing what?"
"A flower."
"How professional."
"Did you know that people who are ambidextrous have a corpus collosum that is eleven percent larger than right-handed people?"
Kibum couldn't hold in his laughter at the random "fun facts" that Minho always poured out whenever he was in a good mood. "No, I didn't know that. Aren't we supposed to be talking seriously right now, Doctor Minho?" He asked, amused.
"Fine." He flipped onto a new page in his notebook and sat up straighter, looking at Kibum mock-seriously.
Kibum stared back.
The unsaid contest only ended when Kibum burst into laughter. But that was to be expected. Minho never lost a competition. Ever.
"Tell me about your weekend." Minho suggested, smiling at him softly.
He looked at him blankly. "Well. My best friend came over. He picked me up and scared me to death. Then he cooked me dinner. And then we talked some. And then we sat down and did some cuddling while we watched a movie."
Minho laughed. "Let me rephrase. Tell me about before I was there and after I left."
Kibum fidgeted with his hands. He didn't want to tell him about Jonghyun being there. Minho's mood was too good for Kibum to just fuck it up. "After you left... I cleaned up a little. My studio was a total mess. And then I watched TV. Turns out I'd missed the new episode of Running Man and I had to catch back up."
Minho nodded idly. "Tell me about Saturday."
Kibum bit his lip. "Saturday... I wasn't sick, for the first time."
He nodded again, but with a bit of an appraising smile this time. "That's good."
"Yeah... So, I decided to go out. I uh... I went to the coffee shop." He stalled for as long as possible. He knew that Minho could tell something was off, because he never, never beat around the bush like this. He was a forward person, naturally.
He just... He didn't want to do this to Minho.
"And?"
"I ran into Jonghyun there."
"Did you?" He asked, a cool quality to his voice that showed Kibum that it would only go downhill from here.
"Yeah."
"And then?"
"Um, he came to my house." Kibum wouldn't look up. He felt his voice trembling.
"Kibummie? Is something wrong?"
"We had sex." He blurted out.
He blinked a couple of times. "Who had sex? You and I certainly didn't do such a thing." He said, joking, but with an apparent nervousness in his tone.
"No, me and Jonghyun did." He didn't look up from the ground. Fuck, he hadn't meant to say that in the first place... He didn't want to see Minho's reaction.
The younger cleared his throat, but when he spoke, it was a bit different than its usual quality. "You don't seem very happy about it."
Kibum bit his lip. Tears were pricking at the corners of his eyes. "I'm not." He whispered, balling up his fists in his lap.
"Why is that?"
"Because..." He hesitated to continue at first, considering that he was talking to the person who had been in love with him for years, but he'd wanted to talk to him from the beginning. Wanted to tell him about it and how bad he felt about it all...
So, he went on. "Because it wasn't what I wanted. I mean, yeah, it was what I wanted right then, but... I mean, in general... Everything about it was just..." He shook his head. "I imagined that when it finally happened, it would be a lot different."
He glanced up, and Minho's eyes were trained on his clipboard, fingers gripping his fountain pen tightly. "Tell me about what happened." He prompted.
"Minho, are you su-"
"If you're worried about me, then don't be." He said, voice clearer than before. "I'm your doctor, remember?"
Kibum sighed. "Well, what do you want to know?"
"Everything that you're comfortable telling me."
Kibum looked down at his hands. "It started... It was late, so I told him to sleep over. We were lying in my bed, and-" He swallowed, "And I fell asleep for a little while."
Minho hummed, signal to continue.
"And I had... A dream."
"What happened in your dream?"
Kibum didn't want to say. "It was... I was finally able to touch him."
"Touch him how?"
"You know... Just touch him. K-kiss him, and-" He ducked his head, unreasonably embarrassed. Having never had an experience like this at all, he had no idea how to go about recounting it.
"And?"
"He woke me up, and I was... You know."
"No, I don't. That's why you're telling me."
"Fine. I was aroused, Minho." He snapped, irritated.
"And then what happened?" The younger sounded unaffected, almost entirely emotionless.
"He noticed, that I was..." He trailed off. "And then I don't even know what happened." He shook his head. "It was just... He told me that I didn't have to touch him, to just 'let him'… and he started to touch me."
"Touch you…?"
Kibum felt his cheeks burning with shame and embarrassment all at once. "Please don't make me say it, Minho." He whispered, looking down.
When he glanced up, he saw that Minho's eyes cast down at his papers. "Go on, then."
Kibum sighed. "Then, everything just happened really fast. He started to-and… after he… He told me to t-turn over, so I did… And he-"
He was interrupted by the abrupt noise of Minho's clipboard clattering to the ground. "If you'll excuse me for a moment." He muttered, standing hastily.
"Minho-" Kibum's eyes felt hot as he caught a glimpse of Minho's face, white as paper, as he crossed to the door.
"Just one minute, please." He stepped out of the room and shut the door behind him.
Kibum drew his knees to his chest and bowed his head.
Now Minho hated him.
Minho hated Kibum and Kibum hated himself and all for what? A few minutes of enjoyment from someone who he didn't trust enough to touch?
Saturday night, he decided, was the biggest mistake of his entire life.
Especially if it meant that he was losing Minho over it.
Half an hour of shallow pleasure wasn't worth this.
Kibum wasn't sure how long he spent curled up in Minho's office alone, trailing his teary eyes languidly over the furniture, the plant, the curtain, the filing cabinets, the framed documents and certifications on the walls above his desk. There wasn't a clock in the room for reasons that Minho would never outright tell him, but he figured had to do with the fact that there were people with weirder problems than him that came through this office.
So he sat. And waited. Basking in his own guilt and (not for the first time) blaming himself for everything.
When the doorknob make a jingling sound, Kibum perked up but didn't look back. He kept his eyes trained on a certain fleck of light blue in the speckled carpet, too much of a coward (Coward. Coward. This is your fault and I hate you. You did this to Minho. What has Minho ever done to you other than love you? And you do this. There's no way that Jonghyun could love someone like you. You're a horrible person. Why do you even bother staying alive, huh? You're an atrocious waste of space and you should just die.) to look up.
Minho took his seat in the chair in front of him and cleared his throat. "I apologize for-"
"Minho?" Kibum cut him off, voice barely a whisper. His eyes didn't move from the light blue in the carpet.
"Yes?" His voice had a formal tone to it that Kibum hated.
"Would it be really unfair to say that I wish it would've been you?"
He heard Minho's breathing falter.
Slowly, Kibum gathered the courage to look up at him, tracing his eyes over the side of his cushioned chair and up his striped tie until he was able to meet his eyes.
He could see a red tint to the corners of the younger's eyes that made him want to jump off a fucking cliff, because Minho never cried. Minho never came close to crying, and now this.
And worse than the redness was the hurt. The deep, deep pain in those dark, doe eyes that he just wanted to fix, just wanted to apologize for, just wanted to take back everything he did, just wanted to go back and never meet Jonghyun so that he could love Minho the way Minho loved him.
The silence between them was stifling. Kibum was still very much waiting for a response, even though he didn't know what he even wanted to hear. He didn't even know why he asked that, why he even considered that a fleeting thought.
"Yes, it would." Minho finally said, voice low and strained.
Kibum's heart took a direct hit.
"Because you wouldn't mean it if you said it."
He sighed and looked back down at that blue speck. "Do you hate me?"
"Why would I hate you?"
"Because I had sex with Jonghyun." Those words were hard to say.
Minho looked down at his papers again and mumbled, "Of course I don't hate you, Kibum."
His heart swelled, but still he had to swallow in order to gather the courage to ask his next question. "Minho?"
"Hmm?"
"Do you still love me?" Why he even wanted to know that was beyond him. Why he bothered to ask, why it was so important for him to know he couldn't figure out. But in that moment, that question was the most pressing one in his heart, the thing that he cared about the most.
Minho sighed. "Kibum… I'll never stop loving you."
And in that moment, those words were the best and the worst that Minho could have possibly said.
For the next few days, Kibum couldn't get Jonghyun out of his head.
He didn't go see him, because he thought he wouldn't be able to handle it so soon after his meeting with Minho.
Kibum decided that he should figure this whole situation out before he went to see either of them.
(He didn't go to Minho's office for three days. Minho didn't call.)
Kibum was mostly afraid. Afraid that he was doing something wrong, afraid that he was going to fuck up what he had with Jonghyun (or that he already did) by continuing his ambiguous relationship with Minho.
Minho was the only person he trusted. And that wasn't fair to Jonghyun.
He still considered what he'd done with Jonghyun to be a mistake. A huge mistake that he would do anything to take back. He wished that it'd never happened.
But he didn't want to tell Jonghyun that. He didn't want to hurt him, or make him feel guilty for finishing what Kibum himself started.
He just wanted to tell him that he didn't want it to happen again, wanted to let him know in a way that wouldn't make him think he did anything wrong.
As humiliating as it was-he was a twenty-five-year-old man, for god's sakes-, Kibum wanted to tell Jonghyun that he just wasn't ready for that.
He just didn't want to remind Jonghyun that he still didn't trust him.
That would be the solution to everything, Kibum thought as he laid down on his couch, holding a pillow tightly to his chest, to just touch Jonghyun. To just validate that he was really there.
Kibum didn't even know that he fell asleep until he was woken by a knocking at his door.
Groggily, he stood and wiped his eyes, crossing to his door. "Who is it?"
"It's Jonghyun,"
Kibum's heart stopped. He was here? Now? When Kibum hadn't slept properly in three days and looked like a mess?
"Kibum?" There was worry in his voice as Kibum hesitated.
The younger ran a hand through his hair to futilely try to make it look nicer before he turned the doorknob.
His heart all-but melted when he saw Jonghyun standing there with his hands in his pockets, smiling sheepishly. "Hi,"
"Hey," Kibum replied unsurely.
"I was just... I was around here, and I figured I could stop by and see if you're doing all right."
Kibum blinked a couple of times. He was perfect. Jonghyun was absolutely perfect. "Yeah, I'm fine,"
"I haven't seen you in a few days..." He looked down embarrassedly. "I've missed you."
"I've missed you too," Kibum said back on reflex. He bit his lip as he saw Jonghyun's eyes light up.
"Yeah?" He asked hopefully, eyes going rounder than before.
"Do you want to come in?" Kibum asked before he was able to make sense of what he was saying.
"Sure," Jonghyun smiled widely.
Kibum matched his expression, stepping back to allow Jonghyun to walk through the doorway.
Comfortably as ever, Jonghyun took a seat on the couch, Kibum watching him the entire time.
Kibum waited until Jonghyun glanced over at him to also cross to his sofa, cautiously sinking down.
Almost immediately, the older's hand found its way to Kibum's knee, resting inconsequentially and sending Kibum's heart into overdrive.
"How are you?" Jonghyun asked warmly, with a smile to match his tone.
"I'm all right," As soon as the words left his mouth, Kibum wished he could retract them. He shook his head. "No, I'm not all right."
"What's wrong?" The hand gripped his knee just the slightest bit tighter, a comforting gesture.
"I'm scared, Jonghyun," He all-but whispered. His throat constricted and his chest did the same. It grew harder to hold back tears when they began to burn in his eyes.
"Why are you scared, Kibummie?"
The nickname made his heart jump, but it wasn't enough to drown out the frenzy inside him. "I'm scared that you're not real." He looked down at his hands, squeezing them together tightly as he bit his lip. The tears pricked more intently in the corners of his eyes.
"Kibum," Jonghyun's voice was serious, the same sort of tone that he used so long before, when Kibum told him of his disorder the first time.
Kibum looked up at him, and jumped slightly. The expression in his eyes reminded him so much of the one he often saw in Minho's eyes that it was unnerving. He blinked to clear the beginnings of tears from his sight.
"Kibum," He said, more lightly this time, his hand moving from his knee to on top of both of Kibum's, "I'm right here. There's nothing to be afraid of."
The younger swallowed and nodded slowly. "I want to be able to touch you, Jonghyun. I want…" He trailed off, feeling the words catch in his throat.
Jonghyun whispered Kibum's name and gently glided his fingers over the top of his hand until they were laced over Kibum's.
Kibum's heart went crazy with the sensation, the caring touch. He looked unsurely into Jonghyun's eyes.
"I can help you, if you want. Don't be afraid of me, Kibum," His eyes were pleading and wide and just as insecure as Kibum's, and it was actually reassuring.
Though barely able to move at all, Kibum nodded.
Jonghyun smiled, just slightly, and began to inch Kibum's hand, still laced with his, up to his cheek.
Kibum felt himself start to shake, and prayed that Jonghyun couldn't feel the way his palm was starting to sweat. It grew more and more difficult to breathe the closer their hands moved, and Kibum's heart pounded so hard in his chest that it was literally painful. His eyes darted from Jonghyun's to their hands and back, and he was so, so close to telling Jonghyun to stop, stop, but he couldn't bring himself to move his lips at all beyond trembling.
Please, please, please…
Kibum nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt his fingertips graze something warm. He looked wide-eyed at Jonghyun, who wore a soft smile.
Fighting to right his breathing, Kibum watched his trembling hand slowly, slowly move to touch Jonghyun's cheek again, just barely ghosting over the skin with the pads of his fingers.
He was so warm.
So warm and so, so soft to the touch.
It was all a bit much for Kibum.
His eyes welled with tears and a slightly hysterical laugh fell from his lips. "Jonghyun, you're-" His voice broke off. He didn't even know what he was going to say.
Jonghyun didn't seem to mind, coaxing Key's hand to lay fully against his cheek, raised with his smile.
Kibum felt like his blood was racing three times its usual speed. Feeling a spike of bravery, he shifted so he was facing Jonghyun and raised his other hand, caution in every move, like Jonghyun was about to disappear from beneath his hands.
His other hand found itself on Jonghyun's cheek and he stroked the smooth skin lightly with his thumb.
A shiver racked his entire body and he shut his eyes to take in the sensation.
Kibum breathed in deeply, the air coming from his lips again in a shudder that went all the way through his shoulders and down his spine. He stroked Jonghyun's cheekbones tenderly with his thumbs, the warm skin making him mimic the same temperature in his own body.
He opened his eyes and watched his right hand as Jonghyun's slipped away from the top of it. Feeling freer, Kibum traced his fingertips over Jonghyun's temple, over his cheek and his nose and his jaw and his neck and then back up again; the contours of his face structure so familiar to see but not to actually feel beneath his fingers.
This was incredible.
Both of his hands trailed to his chin, allowing his fingertips to graze the texture of Jonghyun's slightly-parted lips.
Jonghyun barely puckered his lips against Kibum's fingers, kissing them just lightly.
Kibum inhaled sharply and his eyes flicked to Jonghyun's, but he didn't retract his hands.
Building up courage, the pounding of his heart and the adrenaline in his veins spurring him on, Kibum gently moved his hands from Jonghyun's lips back to his cheeks and began to lean in, slowly, slowly, slowly…
He was torn between looking in Jonghyun's eyes or at his lips. The conflict didn't last long, because it seemed all too soon to his overactive heart that his eyes were instinctively closing and he could feel Jonghyun's breath-he could feel it… it was really there-on his lip.
Jonghyun's lips met Kibum's before he could process what was happening. And everything shut down for a moment.
They'd kissed before.
But it was nothing like this.
Kibum felt his skin tingling. All over.
He was shivering again, but in a way that felt very different. Very, very different.
He pulled back before his stomach started to turn and make him feel sick. His eyes remained shut, his breathing uneven, and he felt so excited, so overwhelmed, that he couldn't bear more than a second to take in a breath and swallow in a dry throat before moving back in.
Jonghyun's lips parted against Kibum's and his hand reached up to the back of his head to hold him in place.
Kibum's heated palms slid down Jonghyun's neck to his shoulders, and he braced himself as he pressed Jonghyun back into the cushions further. His mouth moved over Jonghyun's, unable to feel him enough, unable to taste him enough, shifting so he sat in his lap, arms wrapping around his neck to pull him closer.
Jonghyun held his waist, humming into his mouth as Kibum slid his tongue into the older's mouth, feeling fearless, feeling invincible and in ecstasy and completely out of his world.
Kibum's head was reeling but he loved it. He was running short of air-how was he supposed to breathe like this?-and he didn't mind at all. His heart still hadn't calmed, and it was absolutely amazing.
The older's tongue slid against Kibum's, creating such a wonderful sensation in the pit of his stomach that he was internally thanking everything he could think of that he finally had the courage to experience it.
Kibum felt like he was about to wake up any moment, that this was too unreal to be true.
The younger pulled away only when he began to feel lightheaded from lack of air. He leaned his forehead against Jonghyun's, simply because he could now, and panted in the space between them.
His eyes opened and he saw Jonghyun smiling at him, relief across his face.
Kibum knew the feeling. He felt like the weight of the world had just been lifted from his chest. "You're real," He whispered before he could catch up to his own words.
"Of course I'm real, Kibum," Jonghyun said right back, and the note of breathlessness in his tone sent a thrill through the younger, because he was the one who did that to him.
Kibum felt tears well up in his eyes and fall over his lids before he had a chance to even think of stopping them.
"Don't cry, Kibummie," Jonghyun rubbed his waist comfortingly, and that just had the effect of making Kibum blush on top of everything.
He buried his face in Jonghyun's neck, tightening his hold on his neck and slumping against his chest. "I love you, Jonghyun,"
"I love you, Kibum," Jonghyun's hands gently rubbed his back, holding him right there.
Kibum felt content enough to fall asleep right there.
A/N - Minho.. my feels for you are endless. TT^TT
but yes. this chapter. can't say much, soo.. just. yeah. c':
Kat
mikssi
[next]
Pairing: Jongkey, Minkey
Rating: PG15-NC17
Genre: au, angst, romance, psychological
Summary: Kibum was diagnosed with Schizophrenia when he was only fifteen years old. Seeing his psychiatrist every day was nothing new. Being on the wrong end of dirty looks because he reacted to something that, to everyone else, never happened was nothing new. There was only one person who accepted Kibum for who he was, and he was fine with that. He just never considered that someone could come into his life and change that.
"You're in a good mood." Kibum said, smiling to himself as he sat on the couch in Minho's office.
The younger smiled down at his clipboard, tapping the end of his pen in perfect rhythm. (Minho had always had great rhythm. Kibum used to tease him about abandoning being a doctor to become a rapper when they were younger.) "Am I?"
Kibum nodded. "You haven't stopped smiling since I got here."
"Well... I guess I've just had a good day."
"What do you mean?"
"Other patient stuff. I'm not supposed to talk about it." He shrugged.
Kibum narrowed his eyes. "Did you get proposed to again, Choi Minho?" He asked, jokingly accusing.
Minho just smirked in response.
Kibum rolled his eyes. Even if Minho never took any of the proposals seriously, he was always flattered by them. Always in a happy mood for the rest of the day.
"I'm supposed to be the one asking questions here, Kibummie." Minho pointed his pen at him.
Kibum grinned. He liked it when Minho was like this.
"So... How have you been today?" Minho asked lightheartedly.
Kibum ran a hand through his hair. "I just woke up like... Half an hour ago, Minho. My day hasn't had time to be good or bad yet."
"Kibum, you have the worst sleeping pattern..."
"There were re-runs of Coffee Prince on! I can't not watch Coffee Prince, Minho."
The younger rolled his eyes and scribbled something down on his clipboard.
Kibum chuckled. "What did you just write down? How the hell could me watching Coffee Prince possibly be medically relevant?"
"It's not. I'm drawing."
"Drawing what?"
"A flower."
"How professional."
"Did you know that people who are ambidextrous have a corpus collosum that is eleven percent larger than right-handed people?"
Kibum couldn't hold in his laughter at the random "fun facts" that Minho always poured out whenever he was in a good mood. "No, I didn't know that. Aren't we supposed to be talking seriously right now, Doctor Minho?" He asked, amused.
"Fine." He flipped onto a new page in his notebook and sat up straighter, looking at Kibum mock-seriously.
Kibum stared back.
The unsaid contest only ended when Kibum burst into laughter. But that was to be expected. Minho never lost a competition. Ever.
"Tell me about your weekend." Minho suggested, smiling at him softly.
He looked at him blankly. "Well. My best friend came over. He picked me up and scared me to death. Then he cooked me dinner. And then we talked some. And then we sat down and did some cuddling while we watched a movie."
Minho laughed. "Let me rephrase. Tell me about before I was there and after I left."
Kibum fidgeted with his hands. He didn't want to tell him about Jonghyun being there. Minho's mood was too good for Kibum to just fuck it up. "After you left... I cleaned up a little. My studio was a total mess. And then I watched TV. Turns out I'd missed the new episode of Running Man and I had to catch back up."
Minho nodded idly. "Tell me about Saturday."
Kibum bit his lip. "Saturday... I wasn't sick, for the first time."
He nodded again, but with a bit of an appraising smile this time. "That's good."
"Yeah... So, I decided to go out. I uh... I went to the coffee shop." He stalled for as long as possible. He knew that Minho could tell something was off, because he never, never beat around the bush like this. He was a forward person, naturally.
He just... He didn't want to do this to Minho.
"And?"
"I ran into Jonghyun there."
"Did you?" He asked, a cool quality to his voice that showed Kibum that it would only go downhill from here.
"Yeah."
"And then?"
"Um, he came to my house." Kibum wouldn't look up. He felt his voice trembling.
"Kibummie? Is something wrong?"
"We had sex." He blurted out.
He blinked a couple of times. "Who had sex? You and I certainly didn't do such a thing." He said, joking, but with an apparent nervousness in his tone.
"No, me and Jonghyun did." He didn't look up from the ground. Fuck, he hadn't meant to say that in the first place... He didn't want to see Minho's reaction.
The younger cleared his throat, but when he spoke, it was a bit different than its usual quality. "You don't seem very happy about it."
Kibum bit his lip. Tears were pricking at the corners of his eyes. "I'm not." He whispered, balling up his fists in his lap.
"Why is that?"
"Because..." He hesitated to continue at first, considering that he was talking to the person who had been in love with him for years, but he'd wanted to talk to him from the beginning. Wanted to tell him about it and how bad he felt about it all...
So, he went on. "Because it wasn't what I wanted. I mean, yeah, it was what I wanted right then, but... I mean, in general... Everything about it was just..." He shook his head. "I imagined that when it finally happened, it would be a lot different."
He glanced up, and Minho's eyes were trained on his clipboard, fingers gripping his fountain pen tightly. "Tell me about what happened." He prompted.
"Minho, are you su-"
"If you're worried about me, then don't be." He said, voice clearer than before. "I'm your doctor, remember?"
Kibum sighed. "Well, what do you want to know?"
"Everything that you're comfortable telling me."
Kibum looked down at his hands. "It started... It was late, so I told him to sleep over. We were lying in my bed, and-" He swallowed, "And I fell asleep for a little while."
Minho hummed, signal to continue.
"And I had... A dream."
"What happened in your dream?"
Kibum didn't want to say. "It was... I was finally able to touch him."
"Touch him how?"
"You know... Just touch him. K-kiss him, and-" He ducked his head, unreasonably embarrassed. Having never had an experience like this at all, he had no idea how to go about recounting it.
"And?"
"He woke me up, and I was... You know."
"No, I don't. That's why you're telling me."
"Fine. I was aroused, Minho." He snapped, irritated.
"And then what happened?" The younger sounded unaffected, almost entirely emotionless.
"He noticed, that I was..." He trailed off. "And then I don't even know what happened." He shook his head. "It was just... He told me that I didn't have to touch him, to just 'let him'… and he started to touch me."
"Touch you…?"
Kibum felt his cheeks burning with shame and embarrassment all at once. "Please don't make me say it, Minho." He whispered, looking down.
When he glanced up, he saw that Minho's eyes cast down at his papers. "Go on, then."
Kibum sighed. "Then, everything just happened really fast. He started to-and… after he… He told me to t-turn over, so I did… And he-"
He was interrupted by the abrupt noise of Minho's clipboard clattering to the ground. "If you'll excuse me for a moment." He muttered, standing hastily.
"Minho-" Kibum's eyes felt hot as he caught a glimpse of Minho's face, white as paper, as he crossed to the door.
"Just one minute, please." He stepped out of the room and shut the door behind him.
Kibum drew his knees to his chest and bowed his head.
Now Minho hated him.
Minho hated Kibum and Kibum hated himself and all for what? A few minutes of enjoyment from someone who he didn't trust enough to touch?
Saturday night, he decided, was the biggest mistake of his entire life.
Especially if it meant that he was losing Minho over it.
Half an hour of shallow pleasure wasn't worth this.
Kibum wasn't sure how long he spent curled up in Minho's office alone, trailing his teary eyes languidly over the furniture, the plant, the curtain, the filing cabinets, the framed documents and certifications on the walls above his desk. There wasn't a clock in the room for reasons that Minho would never outright tell him, but he figured had to do with the fact that there were people with weirder problems than him that came through this office.
So he sat. And waited. Basking in his own guilt and (not for the first time) blaming himself for everything.
When the doorknob make a jingling sound, Kibum perked up but didn't look back. He kept his eyes trained on a certain fleck of light blue in the speckled carpet, too much of a coward (Coward. Coward. This is your fault and I hate you. You did this to Minho. What has Minho ever done to you other than love you? And you do this. There's no way that Jonghyun could love someone like you. You're a horrible person. Why do you even bother staying alive, huh? You're an atrocious waste of space and you should just die.) to look up.
Minho took his seat in the chair in front of him and cleared his throat. "I apologize for-"
"Minho?" Kibum cut him off, voice barely a whisper. His eyes didn't move from the light blue in the carpet.
"Yes?" His voice had a formal tone to it that Kibum hated.
"Would it be really unfair to say that I wish it would've been you?"
He heard Minho's breathing falter.
Slowly, Kibum gathered the courage to look up at him, tracing his eyes over the side of his cushioned chair and up his striped tie until he was able to meet his eyes.
He could see a red tint to the corners of the younger's eyes that made him want to jump off a fucking cliff, because Minho never cried. Minho never came close to crying, and now this.
And worse than the redness was the hurt. The deep, deep pain in those dark, doe eyes that he just wanted to fix, just wanted to apologize for, just wanted to take back everything he did, just wanted to go back and never meet Jonghyun so that he could love Minho the way Minho loved him.
The silence between them was stifling. Kibum was still very much waiting for a response, even though he didn't know what he even wanted to hear. He didn't even know why he asked that, why he even considered that a fleeting thought.
"Yes, it would." Minho finally said, voice low and strained.
Kibum's heart took a direct hit.
"Because you wouldn't mean it if you said it."
He sighed and looked back down at that blue speck. "Do you hate me?"
"Why would I hate you?"
"Because I had sex with Jonghyun." Those words were hard to say.
Minho looked down at his papers again and mumbled, "Of course I don't hate you, Kibum."
His heart swelled, but still he had to swallow in order to gather the courage to ask his next question. "Minho?"
"Hmm?"
"Do you still love me?" Why he even wanted to know that was beyond him. Why he bothered to ask, why it was so important for him to know he couldn't figure out. But in that moment, that question was the most pressing one in his heart, the thing that he cared about the most.
Minho sighed. "Kibum… I'll never stop loving you."
And in that moment, those words were the best and the worst that Minho could have possibly said.
For the next few days, Kibum couldn't get Jonghyun out of his head.
He didn't go see him, because he thought he wouldn't be able to handle it so soon after his meeting with Minho.
Kibum decided that he should figure this whole situation out before he went to see either of them.
(He didn't go to Minho's office for three days. Minho didn't call.)
Kibum was mostly afraid. Afraid that he was doing something wrong, afraid that he was going to fuck up what he had with Jonghyun (or that he already did) by continuing his ambiguous relationship with Minho.
Minho was the only person he trusted. And that wasn't fair to Jonghyun.
He still considered what he'd done with Jonghyun to be a mistake. A huge mistake that he would do anything to take back. He wished that it'd never happened.
But he didn't want to tell Jonghyun that. He didn't want to hurt him, or make him feel guilty for finishing what Kibum himself started.
He just wanted to tell him that he didn't want it to happen again, wanted to let him know in a way that wouldn't make him think he did anything wrong.
As humiliating as it was-he was a twenty-five-year-old man, for god's sakes-, Kibum wanted to tell Jonghyun that he just wasn't ready for that.
He just didn't want to remind Jonghyun that he still didn't trust him.
That would be the solution to everything, Kibum thought as he laid down on his couch, holding a pillow tightly to his chest, to just touch Jonghyun. To just validate that he was really there.
Kibum didn't even know that he fell asleep until he was woken by a knocking at his door.
Groggily, he stood and wiped his eyes, crossing to his door. "Who is it?"
"It's Jonghyun,"
Kibum's heart stopped. He was here? Now? When Kibum hadn't slept properly in three days and looked like a mess?
"Kibum?" There was worry in his voice as Kibum hesitated.
The younger ran a hand through his hair to futilely try to make it look nicer before he turned the doorknob.
His heart all-but melted when he saw Jonghyun standing there with his hands in his pockets, smiling sheepishly. "Hi,"
"Hey," Kibum replied unsurely.
"I was just... I was around here, and I figured I could stop by and see if you're doing all right."
Kibum blinked a couple of times. He was perfect. Jonghyun was absolutely perfect. "Yeah, I'm fine,"
"I haven't seen you in a few days..." He looked down embarrassedly. "I've missed you."
"I've missed you too," Kibum said back on reflex. He bit his lip as he saw Jonghyun's eyes light up.
"Yeah?" He asked hopefully, eyes going rounder than before.
"Do you want to come in?" Kibum asked before he was able to make sense of what he was saying.
"Sure," Jonghyun smiled widely.
Kibum matched his expression, stepping back to allow Jonghyun to walk through the doorway.
Comfortably as ever, Jonghyun took a seat on the couch, Kibum watching him the entire time.
Kibum waited until Jonghyun glanced over at him to also cross to his sofa, cautiously sinking down.
Almost immediately, the older's hand found its way to Kibum's knee, resting inconsequentially and sending Kibum's heart into overdrive.
"How are you?" Jonghyun asked warmly, with a smile to match his tone.
"I'm all right," As soon as the words left his mouth, Kibum wished he could retract them. He shook his head. "No, I'm not all right."
"What's wrong?" The hand gripped his knee just the slightest bit tighter, a comforting gesture.
"I'm scared, Jonghyun," He all-but whispered. His throat constricted and his chest did the same. It grew harder to hold back tears when they began to burn in his eyes.
"Why are you scared, Kibummie?"
The nickname made his heart jump, but it wasn't enough to drown out the frenzy inside him. "I'm scared that you're not real." He looked down at his hands, squeezing them together tightly as he bit his lip. The tears pricked more intently in the corners of his eyes.
"Kibum," Jonghyun's voice was serious, the same sort of tone that he used so long before, when Kibum told him of his disorder the first time.
Kibum looked up at him, and jumped slightly. The expression in his eyes reminded him so much of the one he often saw in Minho's eyes that it was unnerving. He blinked to clear the beginnings of tears from his sight.
"Kibum," He said, more lightly this time, his hand moving from his knee to on top of both of Kibum's, "I'm right here. There's nothing to be afraid of."
The younger swallowed and nodded slowly. "I want to be able to touch you, Jonghyun. I want…" He trailed off, feeling the words catch in his throat.
Jonghyun whispered Kibum's name and gently glided his fingers over the top of his hand until they were laced over Kibum's.
Kibum's heart went crazy with the sensation, the caring touch. He looked unsurely into Jonghyun's eyes.
"I can help you, if you want. Don't be afraid of me, Kibum," His eyes were pleading and wide and just as insecure as Kibum's, and it was actually reassuring.
Though barely able to move at all, Kibum nodded.
Jonghyun smiled, just slightly, and began to inch Kibum's hand, still laced with his, up to his cheek.
Kibum felt himself start to shake, and prayed that Jonghyun couldn't feel the way his palm was starting to sweat. It grew more and more difficult to breathe the closer their hands moved, and Kibum's heart pounded so hard in his chest that it was literally painful. His eyes darted from Jonghyun's to their hands and back, and he was so, so close to telling Jonghyun to stop, stop, but he couldn't bring himself to move his lips at all beyond trembling.
Please, please, please…
Kibum nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt his fingertips graze something warm. He looked wide-eyed at Jonghyun, who wore a soft smile.
Fighting to right his breathing, Kibum watched his trembling hand slowly, slowly move to touch Jonghyun's cheek again, just barely ghosting over the skin with the pads of his fingers.
He was so warm.
So warm and so, so soft to the touch.
It was all a bit much for Kibum.
His eyes welled with tears and a slightly hysterical laugh fell from his lips. "Jonghyun, you're-" His voice broke off. He didn't even know what he was going to say.
Jonghyun didn't seem to mind, coaxing Key's hand to lay fully against his cheek, raised with his smile.
Kibum felt like his blood was racing three times its usual speed. Feeling a spike of bravery, he shifted so he was facing Jonghyun and raised his other hand, caution in every move, like Jonghyun was about to disappear from beneath his hands.
His other hand found itself on Jonghyun's cheek and he stroked the smooth skin lightly with his thumb.
A shiver racked his entire body and he shut his eyes to take in the sensation.
Kibum breathed in deeply, the air coming from his lips again in a shudder that went all the way through his shoulders and down his spine. He stroked Jonghyun's cheekbones tenderly with his thumbs, the warm skin making him mimic the same temperature in his own body.
He opened his eyes and watched his right hand as Jonghyun's slipped away from the top of it. Feeling freer, Kibum traced his fingertips over Jonghyun's temple, over his cheek and his nose and his jaw and his neck and then back up again; the contours of his face structure so familiar to see but not to actually feel beneath his fingers.
This was incredible.
Both of his hands trailed to his chin, allowing his fingertips to graze the texture of Jonghyun's slightly-parted lips.
Jonghyun barely puckered his lips against Kibum's fingers, kissing them just lightly.
Kibum inhaled sharply and his eyes flicked to Jonghyun's, but he didn't retract his hands.
Building up courage, the pounding of his heart and the adrenaline in his veins spurring him on, Kibum gently moved his hands from Jonghyun's lips back to his cheeks and began to lean in, slowly, slowly, slowly…
He was torn between looking in Jonghyun's eyes or at his lips. The conflict didn't last long, because it seemed all too soon to his overactive heart that his eyes were instinctively closing and he could feel Jonghyun's breath-he could feel it… it was really there-on his lip.
Jonghyun's lips met Kibum's before he could process what was happening. And everything shut down for a moment.
They'd kissed before.
But it was nothing like this.
Kibum felt his skin tingling. All over.
He was shivering again, but in a way that felt very different. Very, very different.
He pulled back before his stomach started to turn and make him feel sick. His eyes remained shut, his breathing uneven, and he felt so excited, so overwhelmed, that he couldn't bear more than a second to take in a breath and swallow in a dry throat before moving back in.
Jonghyun's lips parted against Kibum's and his hand reached up to the back of his head to hold him in place.
Kibum's heated palms slid down Jonghyun's neck to his shoulders, and he braced himself as he pressed Jonghyun back into the cushions further. His mouth moved over Jonghyun's, unable to feel him enough, unable to taste him enough, shifting so he sat in his lap, arms wrapping around his neck to pull him closer.
Jonghyun held his waist, humming into his mouth as Kibum slid his tongue into the older's mouth, feeling fearless, feeling invincible and in ecstasy and completely out of his world.
Kibum's head was reeling but he loved it. He was running short of air-how was he supposed to breathe like this?-and he didn't mind at all. His heart still hadn't calmed, and it was absolutely amazing.
The older's tongue slid against Kibum's, creating such a wonderful sensation in the pit of his stomach that he was internally thanking everything he could think of that he finally had the courage to experience it.
Kibum felt like he was about to wake up any moment, that this was too unreal to be true.
The younger pulled away only when he began to feel lightheaded from lack of air. He leaned his forehead against Jonghyun's, simply because he could now, and panted in the space between them.
His eyes opened and he saw Jonghyun smiling at him, relief across his face.
Kibum knew the feeling. He felt like the weight of the world had just been lifted from his chest. "You're real," He whispered before he could catch up to his own words.
"Of course I'm real, Kibum," Jonghyun said right back, and the note of breathlessness in his tone sent a thrill through the younger, because he was the one who did that to him.
Kibum felt tears well up in his eyes and fall over his lids before he had a chance to even think of stopping them.
"Don't cry, Kibummie," Jonghyun rubbed his waist comfortingly, and that just had the effect of making Kibum blush on top of everything.
He buried his face in Jonghyun's neck, tightening his hold on his neck and slumping against his chest. "I love you, Jonghyun,"
"I love you, Kibum," Jonghyun's hands gently rubbed his back, holding him right there.
Kibum felt content enough to fall asleep right there.
A/N - Minho.. my feels for you are endless. TT^TT
but yes. this chapter. can't say much, soo.. just. yeah. c':
Kat
mikssi
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