(no subject)
Walking a Mile in His High-Top Sneakers
SHINee - Onkey
3470 words; PG-13 for cursing, I think
Kibum's not used to being the chaser and not the chasee.
For phasera and noelliex. Thank you so much for all the help, and for putting up with my whining this whole time! I'm still not satisfied with a lot of this, but at least it's done for now...? :D/
For Kim Kibum, the day starts off like any other.
Jonghyun wakes him up at five past seven, using all sorts of mean, terrible threats like tickling or hitting him in the face with Jinki’s stuffed sheep or pushing him off the bunkbed-Kibum doesn’t know why Jonghyun is his best friend, he really doesn’t-and forcing him out of bed, bleary-eyed and pouting.
Kibum shuffles off to the bathroom and goes through all the motions of showering, brushing his teeth, and washing his face without really being aware of any of it. He’s a lot more awake by the time he finishes, so he heads back to the bedroom for his first task of the day: waking up their leader.
He makes a face as he approaches Jinki’s bed. Their leader is kind of a pain in the ass to wake up in the morning, because all he ever does is roll over and bury his face into his pillow and pull the blanket over his head and whine like a little girl. Kibum’s learned by now that death threats do nothing; Jinki just kinds of flails a little before curling up into a tight ball, and then it takes an extra five minutes to get him up. The best way is to pet his hair until he relaxes, then carefully ease the comforter out of his death grip and coax him out of bed with promises of yummy breakfast.
It’s embarrassing-he makes an exception for Taemin because Taemin is freaking adorable, but he’s not going to be a mom for anyone else-and Jonghyun would laugh himself sick if he ever saw, but whatever. Jonghyun isn’t around and Taemin and Minho aren’t awake to hear him, and it’s not like Jinki really remembers it that well by the time he’s fully awake, so it’s okay. It’s kind of become a ritual, that’s all.
“Jinki hyung,” he says, sitting down on Jinki’s bed. He tucks his legs in so he doesn’t disturb Minho, whose arm is dangling off his bed, fingertips grazing the floor. “Hyung, wake up.” He’s using his patented Wake-Jinki-Up Voice, honed after months and months of practice. It makes him sound all tender and sappy.
He knows the exact moment Jinki wakes up, because his body jerks a little and his nose scrunches up in a grimace for a split second. Kibum reaches out and is about to touch his hair when Jinki suddenly opens his eyes, his gaze groggily focusing on Kibum. He blinks once, twice.
Kibum blinks back, his hand awkwardly hovering next to Jinki’s head.
“A-ah, good morning,” Jinki mumbles, yawning, and Kibum quickly drops his hand. The older boy pushes himself up into a sitting position, stretching his arms over his head, and the hem of his T-shirt rides up to flash a bit of stomach. He gets up from the bed, steadying himself with Jonghyun’s bed frame, and turns back to give Kibum a brief, sleepy smile. And just like that, he walks out of the bedroom.
Kibum is still sitting on the bed. He stares at Jinki’s retreating back, because seriously, what the hell?
*
Kibum is already in the kitchen making breakfast for Taemin and Minho-scrambled eggs and dumplings; “When are you going to learn to make something else?” Jonghyun complained one time, even though he inhaled the food anyway-by the time Jinki finishes in the bathroom and joins him.
Kibum rolls his eyes and counts to five in his head. Any second now, Jinki is going to try to make Kibum laugh with a lame joke or make pointless small talk when, God, it’s not even eight in the morning yet, and all Kibum really wants to do is zone out and finish cooking in peace. Or, even worse, Jinki’s going to come over and wrap his arms around Kibum’s waist and rest his chin on his shoulder in a stupid morning snuggle, startling Kibum into burning himself with the frying pan. Or maybe he’s going to pour himself a glass of water and spill it everywhere by tripping over speck of dust, and then scratch his head and grin sheepishly when Kibum has to clean it up.
None of these things happen. Instead, Kibum hears the soft clink of glassware, and turns his head to see Jinki quietly setting the table. He doesn’t even look at Kibum.
Well, okay. Kibum turns back toward the stove. He can deal with this.
The silence is nice for about five seconds before it starts to get all weird and uncomfortable. There’s an awkward, gaping void in conversation and the room is too quiet, and Kibum needs to say something, anything.
“I-” Kibum clears his throat. He isn’t used to this. “D-did you sleep well?” Maybe it’s the reason why Jinki’s been acting strange all morning.
Jinki looks up from laying the last pair of chopsticks down on the table. “Yeah, I slept fine,” he says, and smiles. He glances at the clock on the wall. “I’ll get Minho and Taemin.”
“O-okay,” Kibum replies, but Jinki is already leaving the kitchen.
*
It’s during one of their practice breaks, while Kibum is watching-well, not watching, he just happened to look up and notice-Jinki and Jonghyun teasing and poking at each other with wide grins on their faces, that he suddenly realizes he can’t remember the last time Jinki tried to hug him. Not just in a morning snuggle, but at all.
Though-Kibum eyes the way Jinki laughs and throws his arms around Jonghyun at something he says-he obviously doesn’t have a problem with skinship.
“Kibum hyung?”
Kibum blinks and turns his head toward the magnae, who is standing in the center of the room, slowly rotating his ankles.
“Hyung, let’s go over the steps one more time?” Taemin asks, barely even breathing hard, because he’s just a freak like that and never runs out of energy during dance practice.
“Yeah,” Kibum says, and gets to his feet, dusting his pants off.
It’s just a coincidence, maybe.
*
“Minho-yah,” Jinki begins slowly over dinner, his eyes wide and innocent, “Can I have some of your-?”
“Don’t even think about it,” Minho says, not bothering to look up from his bowl of rice.
Jinki sticks his lower lip out in a pout that Minho doesn’t see, but then his eyes light up and he turns to Jonghyun. “Jonghyunnie,” he says, his voice plaintive, “Can I-”
Jonghyun rolls his eyes and pushes his plate closer to Jinki. “Yeah, knock yourself out.”
Jinki beams and reaches all the way across the table to steal a couple of pieces of bulgogi off Jonghyun’s plate, nearly dipping a sleeve into his soup in the process. He drops one piece into the dish of kimchi at the center of the table, which he quickly picks up and pops in his mouth with a sheepish grin.
Aside from how typically stupid the whole scene is of Jinki, it just doesn’t make any sense, not when Kibum is sitting right next to him with half of his meat untouched.
*
Later that night, Kibum joins the other members in the living room to watch TV. There’s an open spot next to Minho on the couch, but he decides to perch on the armrest, next to Jinki.
Jinki doesn’t even notice. He’s staring intently at the TV screen, narrowing his eyes in concentration at whatever Nicole is saying.
“Ah!” he suddenly shouts, leaning forward and throwing one hand into the air like an overeager kid in class. He nearly smacks Kibum in the face in his enthusiasm. “I know the word, it’s ‘pelican’!”
Minho, sitting on Jinki’s other side, reaches forward and pulls him back against the couch. “I don’t think Nicole-sshi can hear you,” he says calmly.
Jinki laughs, his eyes scrunching up into tiny slits, and leans into Minho’s arms, away from Kibum.
Kibum stands up. “I’m going to bed early,” he says, and stalks out of the living room.
*
They’re doing another interview today; it’s pretty much identical to every single other one they’ve done since comeback. I heard Jonghyun wrote the lyrics to Juliette, tell us about the songs on your new mini-album, you guys are so young and cute. We are shining SHINee, please support us, thank you, the songs on this mini-album tell a whole love story, urban funk, contemporary band, so on and so forth.
Kibum tunes out, playing with his bracelets. His gaze slides past Minho, past Jonghyun, past Taemin and lands on Jinki, who is watching the interviewer with rapt attention.
“And which is your favorite song on the mini-album, Kibum-sshi?” the interviewer woman asks.
Kibum snaps back to attention. “My favorite song is Senorita. It has some Spanish rap in the beginning, which was fun to do.” He practically recites his answer, and smiles charmingly at the interviewer, making sure to flash some dimple. He thinks he sees Jinki looking at him when he’s answering, but by the time he turns his head to check, Jinki is watching the interviewer again.
He ends up sneaking glances at Jinki for the rest of the interview, thinking the other will eventually look over again, but he never does.
*
“And then Jessica noona said that Yoona-sshi and Sooyoung-sshi ate that entire package of snacks the fans gave them,” Jonghyun is babbling, gesturing animatedly with his arms.
Kibum nods, and his gaze turns to the other three members sitting at the kitchen table. He and Jonghyun are curled up on the couch, talking, and Jinki isn’t even trying to come over and butt in like usual with an irrelevant, dumb comment. No, he’s much, much too busy flashing that stupid, bright smile at Minho and Taemin.
Look at me, Kibum thinks, and narrows his eyes at Jinki, trying to send him the telepathic message. Except it totally doesn’t work, and Taemin must have said something absolutely fucking hilarious, because Jinki throws his head back and lets out a loud, delighted laugh.
“-bum? Kibum. Kibum!”
“What?” Kibum snaps, whipping his head back toward Jonghyun.
Jonghyun puffs his cheeks out at him, annoyed. “You spaced out on me!”
His whining makes the other three look over, and Kibum can see Jinki blinking at them.
“Sorry,” Kibum mutters.
*
It’s a little past 1 AM when their vocal coach finally decides to let them go for the night. They’re waiting in the SM Entertainment lobby for the van to pick them up and drive them back to the dorm.
Jonghyun and Taemin are standing off to the side, going over one last set of scales together. And Jinki and Minho- Kibum turns to look.
Minho is draped all over Jinki, arms are wrapped around Jinki’s torso, head propped on Jinki’s shoulder. His eyes are closed, and he’s probably already half-asleep. He looks like a too-tall, gangly, bug-eyed blanket.
And Jinki doesn’t even seem to care that Minho is all in his personal space. He just leans back against the taller boy, looking like he’s perfectly happy where he is, like there's no better place in the world to be than in the circle of Minho's stick-like arms.
Kibum looks away and sees the van pulling in outside. He yanks on Minho’s arm, maybe a little harder than he should have. “Yah. Wake up, sleepyhead, the van’s here.”
Minho jerks awake and scowls at him, and Kibum thinks he sees Jinki frowning, but he doesn’t care. Minho does too much skinship, anyway. Plus he’s weirdly competitive, and way too fond of hyungs for his own good. He probably deserved it.
*
“I’m going to go over there and kick you in the face if you don’t stop that,” Kibum seethes, and stabs the Enter key on his keyboard with a finger to punctuate his point.
Jonghyun snorts, but stops bouncing the rubber ball against the wall, thank God. He looks across the space between their beds at Kibum. “Hey.”
“What?” Kibum scrolls down the page, skimming the fans’ UFO comments for something interesting. When there is no response, he looks up at Jonghyun and raises an eyebrow.
“Are you and Jinki hyung, I don’t know.” Jonghyun hesitates. “Fighting, or something?”
Kibum blinks, feeling his hands go still. “What? Why would we- It’s not- No. No, we’re not.”
Jonghyun frowns and knits his eyebrows. “You’ve both been acting weird lately.”
“I’m not the one who’s being weird,” Kibum says, because he’s not.
“You are,” Jonghyun insists, “You’re acting weirder than he is.”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Kibum says, and pulls out his iPod. He so does not feel like talking about this right now.
*
When Kibum wakes up the next day, Jinki’s bed is already empty and neatly made.
Kibum stares at it, something in his gut twisting.
Now he has an extra ten minutes in his schedule that he’s never had before, and he has no clue what to do with it. He settles for re-making Jinki’s bed and straightening the edges of his blankets and fluffing his pillows, when what he actually wants to do is throw the pillows against the wall, maybe kick Jinki in the shins.
Because Jinki shouldn’t mess with rituals, just like he shouldn’t act weird for whatever fucking reason without giving Kibum prior notice.
Kibum stubs his toe against the doorframe on his way out of the room and stumbles, hissing in pain.
Minho snorts and rolls over, pressing his face into his pillow, and goes limp again. Taemin doesn’t even stir, just stays peacefully asleep, like he doesn’t have a care in the world.
*
“A-ah, Kibum, I got the juice you wanted.”
Kibum turns at the sound of Jinki’s voice, ready with a biting comment about how thirsty he was, and did Jinki get abducted on the way back from the vending machine, God, but the smile on Jinki’s face makes him freeze up.
It’s wrong, all wrong, because it’s an Onew smile, not a Jinki smile. It’s the smile Jinki falls back on when he’s too tired to be wholly genuine, the one he uses when he doesn’t want to worry the fans. He’s never, ever used that smile on Kibum before.
Kibum doesn’t even know why, but this is like the straw that breaks the camel’s back or something, because he suddenly completely loses control of his words. And the volume of his voice.
“What the fuck is your problem?” he says. Or maybe shrieks.
Everyone turns to stare at him, because he probably sounds like a crazy man, but Kibum really, really doesn’t give a fuck.
“I-What?” Jinki asks, still holding out the bottle of juice, his eyes huge.
“Fuck you,” Kibum says, and storms off to the bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him.
*
“K-Kibum?” Jinki asks fifteen minutes later, poking his head into the room.
By this point, Kibum’s already re-organized all his CDs and accessories, and deleted Tell Me and Kissing You and Gee and most of Kara’s songs from his main playlist.
“What?” he snarls. Jinki shrinks back with this fucking puppy face that makes Kibum feel like the biggest jackass in the world, so he tries again. “I mean, come in. I guess.” He snatches the magazine off his bed and flips through its pages without actually looking at any of the pictures.
Jinki shuffles into the room, shifting his weight from foot to foot before sitting slowly down on the edge of his bed, likes he’s not quite sure whether he has permission to sit on his own bed. He fiddles with his fingers, peeking up every few seconds when he thinks Kibum isn’t looking.
Kibum can feel his patience wear dangerously thin. “Can I help you?” he snaps, setting his magazine down.
Jinki jumps. “I, um, I just wanted to ask. I mean, uh- Are you mad at me?”
And then the patience snaps.
“Mad at you?” Kibum asks, holding a hand to his cheek in mock-surprise, “Why would I be mad at you? It’s not like you’ve been, oh, I don’t know, ignoring my existence for, like, all fucking week for no reason. There’s no way I could be mad at you.” He’s satisfied when the older boy immediately looks guilt-stricken.
Jinki fidgets for a little longer before he finally says, “I-I’m so sorry, Kibum.” Kibum is about to say something like, oh, oh, you’re sorry, that just makes everything better, doesn’t it, but Jinki continues, staring down at his hands. “I just. I always thought you found me kind of annoying.”
Kibum pauses, staring at the other boy’s slouched form. Wait, what?
“I. I guess I was just trying to give you some space, that’s all.” Jinki looks back up at Kibum and shrugs one shoulder slowly, helplessly.
The look on Jinki’s face is starting to make Kibum deflate rapidly. The older boy’s eyes are wide and earnest and sincere, and sad.
Kibum heaves a sigh, patting down his bangs, and tries to gather his thoughts. And also fights the weird urge to apologize, even though he hasn’t done anything wrong. He finally goes to sit on the bed next to Jinki, careful not to look at him. “You are annoying,” he says. He feels Jinki flinch a little, and reaches out to grab the older boy’s hand. “I mean like, really annoying. But I never said anything about wanting space.”
“Oh. I- I’m sorry.”
“You’re even more annoying when you’re trying to leave me alone,” Kibum tells him, and threads their fingers together.
“Okay.” Jinki sounds like he’s willing to agree with whatever Kibum says forever.
“Don’t ever do that again,” Kibum finishes.
“I won’t,” Jinki says. He has a weird little half-smile on his face, and his eyes flicker downward. Kibum follows his gaze and blinks at their joined hands. When had that happened?
“What?” Kibum asks, squeezing Jinki’s hand. Just because he’s decided to forgive the other boy doesn’t mean he’s going to forget about this whole thing right away.
Jinki shakes his head, still smiling. “No, it’s nothing. I- I just.” And then Jinki leans in and kisses him.
It feels like a million puzzle pieces falling into place, like something in Kibum’s vision changes a little and he can finally see the hidden image that pops out in those Magic Eye pictures, can finally see why he was so angry all week, that it was never annoyance, it was- Oh.
“Oh,” Kibum says, slowly opening his eyes-when had he closed them?-when Jinki pulls away.
“Um,” Jinki replies, his smile growing wider.
Kibum stares at him. “You’re really stupid, you know that?” he asks, curling his fingers into Jinki’s shirt.
“Yeah,” Jinki says, “I really am.”
“To be fair,” Kibum admits generously, “I might be a little stupid too.”
*
“God,” Jonghyun says, munching on an apple, “You guys were both being so stupid.”
“Whatever,” Kibum scoffs, “Like you actually knew about any of it.”
“I did!” Jonghyun protests, waving his apple in the air emphatically, “I so knew.” At Kibum’s raised eyebrow, he amends, “Okay, so maybe Minho had to tell me about it. I totally noticed that you were acting like a moody little bitch, though.”
Kibum scowls and throws a sofa cushion at his head. “I wasn’t being moody, don’t lie.” A terrible thought occurs to him. “Wait, don’t tell me Taemin knew about all of this.”
Jonghyun rolls his eyes. “If you’d been paying attention, which, I guess you weren’t, you’d know that Taemin’s been spending all his free time studying lately. I don’t think he really cares either way.”
“Oh,” Kibum says, puffing out his cheeks, “Okay, then.”
*
“Hyung. It’s time to wake up,” Kibum says, shaking Jinki’s shoulder. God, he sounds ridiculously sappy.
Right on cue, Jinki groans and rolls over, pulling the covers over his head. Kibum rolls his eyes and nudges the blanketed lump, a little harder this time.
After several seconds, Jinki pokes his head out from underneath the covers and blinks sleepily at him. “G-good morning, Kibum,” he says, yawning, and beams at him.
Kibum can feel a smile tugging at his lips, and tries to bite it back. It doesn’t work. “Time to get up, hyung.”
Jinki pouts and reaches a hand out, tugging at Kibum’s wrist.
Kibum frowns. “What?” Jinki tugs his wrist harder, and it takes several seconds for Kibum to figure out what the other boy wants. “Oh.”
Feelings his ears burn, he lifts a corner of the blanket and slides into the bed next to Jinki. Jinki drapes an arm around his waist and pulls him closer.
“Yah,” Kibum mumbles against Jinki’s T-shirt, “We’re supposed to be getting up.”
“Just a few more minutes,” Jinki answers sleepily, murmuring the words against Kibum’s hair.
So maybe their morning ritual still isn’t back to normal, but whatever. Kibum supposes that he’s okay with this too.
SHINee - Onkey
3470 words; PG-13 for cursing, I think
Kibum's not used to being the chaser and not the chasee.
For phasera and noelliex. Thank you so much for all the help, and for putting up with my whining this whole time! I'm still not satisfied with a lot of this, but at least it's done for now...? :D/
For Kim Kibum, the day starts off like any other.
Jonghyun wakes him up at five past seven, using all sorts of mean, terrible threats like tickling or hitting him in the face with Jinki’s stuffed sheep or pushing him off the bunkbed-Kibum doesn’t know why Jonghyun is his best friend, he really doesn’t-and forcing him out of bed, bleary-eyed and pouting.
Kibum shuffles off to the bathroom and goes through all the motions of showering, brushing his teeth, and washing his face without really being aware of any of it. He’s a lot more awake by the time he finishes, so he heads back to the bedroom for his first task of the day: waking up their leader.
He makes a face as he approaches Jinki’s bed. Their leader is kind of a pain in the ass to wake up in the morning, because all he ever does is roll over and bury his face into his pillow and pull the blanket over his head and whine like a little girl. Kibum’s learned by now that death threats do nothing; Jinki just kinds of flails a little before curling up into a tight ball, and then it takes an extra five minutes to get him up. The best way is to pet his hair until he relaxes, then carefully ease the comforter out of his death grip and coax him out of bed with promises of yummy breakfast.
It’s embarrassing-he makes an exception for Taemin because Taemin is freaking adorable, but he’s not going to be a mom for anyone else-and Jonghyun would laugh himself sick if he ever saw, but whatever. Jonghyun isn’t around and Taemin and Minho aren’t awake to hear him, and it’s not like Jinki really remembers it that well by the time he’s fully awake, so it’s okay. It’s kind of become a ritual, that’s all.
“Jinki hyung,” he says, sitting down on Jinki’s bed. He tucks his legs in so he doesn’t disturb Minho, whose arm is dangling off his bed, fingertips grazing the floor. “Hyung, wake up.” He’s using his patented Wake-Jinki-Up Voice, honed after months and months of practice. It makes him sound all tender and sappy.
He knows the exact moment Jinki wakes up, because his body jerks a little and his nose scrunches up in a grimace for a split second. Kibum reaches out and is about to touch his hair when Jinki suddenly opens his eyes, his gaze groggily focusing on Kibum. He blinks once, twice.
Kibum blinks back, his hand awkwardly hovering next to Jinki’s head.
“A-ah, good morning,” Jinki mumbles, yawning, and Kibum quickly drops his hand. The older boy pushes himself up into a sitting position, stretching his arms over his head, and the hem of his T-shirt rides up to flash a bit of stomach. He gets up from the bed, steadying himself with Jonghyun’s bed frame, and turns back to give Kibum a brief, sleepy smile. And just like that, he walks out of the bedroom.
Kibum is still sitting on the bed. He stares at Jinki’s retreating back, because seriously, what the hell?
*
Kibum is already in the kitchen making breakfast for Taemin and Minho-scrambled eggs and dumplings; “When are you going to learn to make something else?” Jonghyun complained one time, even though he inhaled the food anyway-by the time Jinki finishes in the bathroom and joins him.
Kibum rolls his eyes and counts to five in his head. Any second now, Jinki is going to try to make Kibum laugh with a lame joke or make pointless small talk when, God, it’s not even eight in the morning yet, and all Kibum really wants to do is zone out and finish cooking in peace. Or, even worse, Jinki’s going to come over and wrap his arms around Kibum’s waist and rest his chin on his shoulder in a stupid morning snuggle, startling Kibum into burning himself with the frying pan. Or maybe he’s going to pour himself a glass of water and spill it everywhere by tripping over speck of dust, and then scratch his head and grin sheepishly when Kibum has to clean it up.
None of these things happen. Instead, Kibum hears the soft clink of glassware, and turns his head to see Jinki quietly setting the table. He doesn’t even look at Kibum.
Well, okay. Kibum turns back toward the stove. He can deal with this.
The silence is nice for about five seconds before it starts to get all weird and uncomfortable. There’s an awkward, gaping void in conversation and the room is too quiet, and Kibum needs to say something, anything.
“I-” Kibum clears his throat. He isn’t used to this. “D-did you sleep well?” Maybe it’s the reason why Jinki’s been acting strange all morning.
Jinki looks up from laying the last pair of chopsticks down on the table. “Yeah, I slept fine,” he says, and smiles. He glances at the clock on the wall. “I’ll get Minho and Taemin.”
“O-okay,” Kibum replies, but Jinki is already leaving the kitchen.
*
It’s during one of their practice breaks, while Kibum is watching-well, not watching, he just happened to look up and notice-Jinki and Jonghyun teasing and poking at each other with wide grins on their faces, that he suddenly realizes he can’t remember the last time Jinki tried to hug him. Not just in a morning snuggle, but at all.
Though-Kibum eyes the way Jinki laughs and throws his arms around Jonghyun at something he says-he obviously doesn’t have a problem with skinship.
“Kibum hyung?”
Kibum blinks and turns his head toward the magnae, who is standing in the center of the room, slowly rotating his ankles.
“Hyung, let’s go over the steps one more time?” Taemin asks, barely even breathing hard, because he’s just a freak like that and never runs out of energy during dance practice.
“Yeah,” Kibum says, and gets to his feet, dusting his pants off.
It’s just a coincidence, maybe.
*
“Minho-yah,” Jinki begins slowly over dinner, his eyes wide and innocent, “Can I have some of your-?”
“Don’t even think about it,” Minho says, not bothering to look up from his bowl of rice.
Jinki sticks his lower lip out in a pout that Minho doesn’t see, but then his eyes light up and he turns to Jonghyun. “Jonghyunnie,” he says, his voice plaintive, “Can I-”
Jonghyun rolls his eyes and pushes his plate closer to Jinki. “Yeah, knock yourself out.”
Jinki beams and reaches all the way across the table to steal a couple of pieces of bulgogi off Jonghyun’s plate, nearly dipping a sleeve into his soup in the process. He drops one piece into the dish of kimchi at the center of the table, which he quickly picks up and pops in his mouth with a sheepish grin.
Aside from how typically stupid the whole scene is of Jinki, it just doesn’t make any sense, not when Kibum is sitting right next to him with half of his meat untouched.
*
Later that night, Kibum joins the other members in the living room to watch TV. There’s an open spot next to Minho on the couch, but he decides to perch on the armrest, next to Jinki.
Jinki doesn’t even notice. He’s staring intently at the TV screen, narrowing his eyes in concentration at whatever Nicole is saying.
“Ah!” he suddenly shouts, leaning forward and throwing one hand into the air like an overeager kid in class. He nearly smacks Kibum in the face in his enthusiasm. “I know the word, it’s ‘pelican’!”
Minho, sitting on Jinki’s other side, reaches forward and pulls him back against the couch. “I don’t think Nicole-sshi can hear you,” he says calmly.
Jinki laughs, his eyes scrunching up into tiny slits, and leans into Minho’s arms, away from Kibum.
Kibum stands up. “I’m going to bed early,” he says, and stalks out of the living room.
*
They’re doing another interview today; it’s pretty much identical to every single other one they’ve done since comeback. I heard Jonghyun wrote the lyrics to Juliette, tell us about the songs on your new mini-album, you guys are so young and cute. We are shining SHINee, please support us, thank you, the songs on this mini-album tell a whole love story, urban funk, contemporary band, so on and so forth.
Kibum tunes out, playing with his bracelets. His gaze slides past Minho, past Jonghyun, past Taemin and lands on Jinki, who is watching the interviewer with rapt attention.
“And which is your favorite song on the mini-album, Kibum-sshi?” the interviewer woman asks.
Kibum snaps back to attention. “My favorite song is Senorita. It has some Spanish rap in the beginning, which was fun to do.” He practically recites his answer, and smiles charmingly at the interviewer, making sure to flash some dimple. He thinks he sees Jinki looking at him when he’s answering, but by the time he turns his head to check, Jinki is watching the interviewer again.
He ends up sneaking glances at Jinki for the rest of the interview, thinking the other will eventually look over again, but he never does.
*
“And then Jessica noona said that Yoona-sshi and Sooyoung-sshi ate that entire package of snacks the fans gave them,” Jonghyun is babbling, gesturing animatedly with his arms.
Kibum nods, and his gaze turns to the other three members sitting at the kitchen table. He and Jonghyun are curled up on the couch, talking, and Jinki isn’t even trying to come over and butt in like usual with an irrelevant, dumb comment. No, he’s much, much too busy flashing that stupid, bright smile at Minho and Taemin.
Look at me, Kibum thinks, and narrows his eyes at Jinki, trying to send him the telepathic message. Except it totally doesn’t work, and Taemin must have said something absolutely fucking hilarious, because Jinki throws his head back and lets out a loud, delighted laugh.
“-bum? Kibum. Kibum!”
“What?” Kibum snaps, whipping his head back toward Jonghyun.
Jonghyun puffs his cheeks out at him, annoyed. “You spaced out on me!”
His whining makes the other three look over, and Kibum can see Jinki blinking at them.
“Sorry,” Kibum mutters.
*
It’s a little past 1 AM when their vocal coach finally decides to let them go for the night. They’re waiting in the SM Entertainment lobby for the van to pick them up and drive them back to the dorm.
Jonghyun and Taemin are standing off to the side, going over one last set of scales together. And Jinki and Minho- Kibum turns to look.
Minho is draped all over Jinki, arms are wrapped around Jinki’s torso, head propped on Jinki’s shoulder. His eyes are closed, and he’s probably already half-asleep. He looks like a too-tall, gangly, bug-eyed blanket.
And Jinki doesn’t even seem to care that Minho is all in his personal space. He just leans back against the taller boy, looking like he’s perfectly happy where he is, like there's no better place in the world to be than in the circle of Minho's stick-like arms.
Kibum looks away and sees the van pulling in outside. He yanks on Minho’s arm, maybe a little harder than he should have. “Yah. Wake up, sleepyhead, the van’s here.”
Minho jerks awake and scowls at him, and Kibum thinks he sees Jinki frowning, but he doesn’t care. Minho does too much skinship, anyway. Plus he’s weirdly competitive, and way too fond of hyungs for his own good. He probably deserved it.
*
“I’m going to go over there and kick you in the face if you don’t stop that,” Kibum seethes, and stabs the Enter key on his keyboard with a finger to punctuate his point.
Jonghyun snorts, but stops bouncing the rubber ball against the wall, thank God. He looks across the space between their beds at Kibum. “Hey.”
“What?” Kibum scrolls down the page, skimming the fans’ UFO comments for something interesting. When there is no response, he looks up at Jonghyun and raises an eyebrow.
“Are you and Jinki hyung, I don’t know.” Jonghyun hesitates. “Fighting, or something?”
Kibum blinks, feeling his hands go still. “What? Why would we- It’s not- No. No, we’re not.”
Jonghyun frowns and knits his eyebrows. “You’ve both been acting weird lately.”
“I’m not the one who’s being weird,” Kibum says, because he’s not.
“You are,” Jonghyun insists, “You’re acting weirder than he is.”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Kibum says, and pulls out his iPod. He so does not feel like talking about this right now.
*
When Kibum wakes up the next day, Jinki’s bed is already empty and neatly made.
Kibum stares at it, something in his gut twisting.
Now he has an extra ten minutes in his schedule that he’s never had before, and he has no clue what to do with it. He settles for re-making Jinki’s bed and straightening the edges of his blankets and fluffing his pillows, when what he actually wants to do is throw the pillows against the wall, maybe kick Jinki in the shins.
Because Jinki shouldn’t mess with rituals, just like he shouldn’t act weird for whatever fucking reason without giving Kibum prior notice.
Kibum stubs his toe against the doorframe on his way out of the room and stumbles, hissing in pain.
Minho snorts and rolls over, pressing his face into his pillow, and goes limp again. Taemin doesn’t even stir, just stays peacefully asleep, like he doesn’t have a care in the world.
*
“A-ah, Kibum, I got the juice you wanted.”
Kibum turns at the sound of Jinki’s voice, ready with a biting comment about how thirsty he was, and did Jinki get abducted on the way back from the vending machine, God, but the smile on Jinki’s face makes him freeze up.
It’s wrong, all wrong, because it’s an Onew smile, not a Jinki smile. It’s the smile Jinki falls back on when he’s too tired to be wholly genuine, the one he uses when he doesn’t want to worry the fans. He’s never, ever used that smile on Kibum before.
Kibum doesn’t even know why, but this is like the straw that breaks the camel’s back or something, because he suddenly completely loses control of his words. And the volume of his voice.
“What the fuck is your problem?” he says. Or maybe shrieks.
Everyone turns to stare at him, because he probably sounds like a crazy man, but Kibum really, really doesn’t give a fuck.
“I-What?” Jinki asks, still holding out the bottle of juice, his eyes huge.
“Fuck you,” Kibum says, and storms off to the bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him.
*
“K-Kibum?” Jinki asks fifteen minutes later, poking his head into the room.
By this point, Kibum’s already re-organized all his CDs and accessories, and deleted Tell Me and Kissing You and Gee and most of Kara’s songs from his main playlist.
“What?” he snarls. Jinki shrinks back with this fucking puppy face that makes Kibum feel like the biggest jackass in the world, so he tries again. “I mean, come in. I guess.” He snatches the magazine off his bed and flips through its pages without actually looking at any of the pictures.
Jinki shuffles into the room, shifting his weight from foot to foot before sitting slowly down on the edge of his bed, likes he’s not quite sure whether he has permission to sit on his own bed. He fiddles with his fingers, peeking up every few seconds when he thinks Kibum isn’t looking.
Kibum can feel his patience wear dangerously thin. “Can I help you?” he snaps, setting his magazine down.
Jinki jumps. “I, um, I just wanted to ask. I mean, uh- Are you mad at me?”
And then the patience snaps.
“Mad at you?” Kibum asks, holding a hand to his cheek in mock-surprise, “Why would I be mad at you? It’s not like you’ve been, oh, I don’t know, ignoring my existence for, like, all fucking week for no reason. There’s no way I could be mad at you.” He’s satisfied when the older boy immediately looks guilt-stricken.
Jinki fidgets for a little longer before he finally says, “I-I’m so sorry, Kibum.” Kibum is about to say something like, oh, oh, you’re sorry, that just makes everything better, doesn’t it, but Jinki continues, staring down at his hands. “I just. I always thought you found me kind of annoying.”
Kibum pauses, staring at the other boy’s slouched form. Wait, what?
“I. I guess I was just trying to give you some space, that’s all.” Jinki looks back up at Kibum and shrugs one shoulder slowly, helplessly.
The look on Jinki’s face is starting to make Kibum deflate rapidly. The older boy’s eyes are wide and earnest and sincere, and sad.
Kibum heaves a sigh, patting down his bangs, and tries to gather his thoughts. And also fights the weird urge to apologize, even though he hasn’t done anything wrong. He finally goes to sit on the bed next to Jinki, careful not to look at him. “You are annoying,” he says. He feels Jinki flinch a little, and reaches out to grab the older boy’s hand. “I mean like, really annoying. But I never said anything about wanting space.”
“Oh. I- I’m sorry.”
“You’re even more annoying when you’re trying to leave me alone,” Kibum tells him, and threads their fingers together.
“Okay.” Jinki sounds like he’s willing to agree with whatever Kibum says forever.
“Don’t ever do that again,” Kibum finishes.
“I won’t,” Jinki says. He has a weird little half-smile on his face, and his eyes flicker downward. Kibum follows his gaze and blinks at their joined hands. When had that happened?
“What?” Kibum asks, squeezing Jinki’s hand. Just because he’s decided to forgive the other boy doesn’t mean he’s going to forget about this whole thing right away.
Jinki shakes his head, still smiling. “No, it’s nothing. I- I just.” And then Jinki leans in and kisses him.
It feels like a million puzzle pieces falling into place, like something in Kibum’s vision changes a little and he can finally see the hidden image that pops out in those Magic Eye pictures, can finally see why he was so angry all week, that it was never annoyance, it was- Oh.
“Oh,” Kibum says, slowly opening his eyes-when had he closed them?-when Jinki pulls away.
“Um,” Jinki replies, his smile growing wider.
Kibum stares at him. “You’re really stupid, you know that?” he asks, curling his fingers into Jinki’s shirt.
“Yeah,” Jinki says, “I really am.”
“To be fair,” Kibum admits generously, “I might be a little stupid too.”
*
“God,” Jonghyun says, munching on an apple, “You guys were both being so stupid.”
“Whatever,” Kibum scoffs, “Like you actually knew about any of it.”
“I did!” Jonghyun protests, waving his apple in the air emphatically, “I so knew.” At Kibum’s raised eyebrow, he amends, “Okay, so maybe Minho had to tell me about it. I totally noticed that you were acting like a moody little bitch, though.”
Kibum scowls and throws a sofa cushion at his head. “I wasn’t being moody, don’t lie.” A terrible thought occurs to him. “Wait, don’t tell me Taemin knew about all of this.”
Jonghyun rolls his eyes. “If you’d been paying attention, which, I guess you weren’t, you’d know that Taemin’s been spending all his free time studying lately. I don’t think he really cares either way.”
“Oh,” Kibum says, puffing out his cheeks, “Okay, then.”
*
“Hyung. It’s time to wake up,” Kibum says, shaking Jinki’s shoulder. God, he sounds ridiculously sappy.
Right on cue, Jinki groans and rolls over, pulling the covers over his head. Kibum rolls his eyes and nudges the blanketed lump, a little harder this time.
After several seconds, Jinki pokes his head out from underneath the covers and blinks sleepily at him. “G-good morning, Kibum,” he says, yawning, and beams at him.
Kibum can feel a smile tugging at his lips, and tries to bite it back. It doesn’t work. “Time to get up, hyung.”
Jinki pouts and reaches a hand out, tugging at Kibum’s wrist.
Kibum frowns. “What?” Jinki tugs his wrist harder, and it takes several seconds for Kibum to figure out what the other boy wants. “Oh.”
Feelings his ears burn, he lifts a corner of the blanket and slides into the bed next to Jinki. Jinki drapes an arm around his waist and pulls him closer.
“Yah,” Kibum mumbles against Jinki’s T-shirt, “We’re supposed to be getting up.”
“Just a few more minutes,” Jinki answers sleepily, murmuring the words against Kibum’s hair.
So maybe their morning ritual still isn’t back to normal, but whatever. Kibum supposes that he’s okay with this too.