[ontae] the clock struck twelve and the sparkles expired
the clock struck twelve and the sparkles expired
~6,554 words
Gen-ish with a bit of Ontae on the side, PG, AU/parody
summary: A Cinderella story (um, in a manner of speaking), SHINee style.
a/n: Sort of a companion fic to lunayeppeo's into the woods without a single piece of tofu. I also point fingers at dubulust for this one. WHERE IS THE CINDERELLA!SHINEE FANART YOU PROMISED ME FOR WRITING THIS >:\ sobs give it to meeee ;o;
When Taemin comes home, he is greeted by the sight of what appears to be two weeks’ worth of laundry strewn all over the living room-soiled sweaters and hoodies spilling over the coffee table, several pairs of jeans draped over the back of the couch, rumpled shirts lying in haphazard heaps on the floor, and were those his Pikachu-printed boxers hanging off the candelabra? He hurriedly strides across the room and snatches up the undergarment, mortified.
“Oh, those were yours? How cute,” a voice pipes up somewhere to his right, and he nearly knocks the coat rack over when he jumps up in shock. He whirls around and stares at a boy he is pretty sure he has never seen before.
“Whoareyouhowthefuckdidyougetinmyhouse,” an alarmed Taemin says in one breath, reflexively reaching out for a makeshift weapon-his fingers close over the ear of a teddy bear lying facedown on the couch’s armrest and he brandishes it threateningly in the trespasser’s face.
The boy cocks his head to the side (Taemin takes note of the mismatched dye job and the numerous ear piercings, wondering why a crazed delinquent just had to choose this particular house to burglarize) and sizes Taemin up before snatching the stuffed toy away and tossing it over his shoulder. “My name’s Jonghyun,” he says simply, grabbing Taemin’s now free hand and pumping it enthusiastically.
Taemin gapes at him. “Um-”
“I’m your brother!” Jonghyun beams. “Well, stepbrother, actually. We just moved in-sorry about the mess, mom was digging through the laundry hamper looking for one of your dad’s shirts and she got kind of carried away and then she left it like that ‘cause she had to step out and buy stuff for dinner-”
“I need to make a phone call,” Taemin says faintly.
Taemin sets the receiver down after thirty minutes of the most absurd conversation he has ever had in his life. His father, who works overseas, did tell him about remarrying (Taemin hadn’t been particularly averse to it, having never known his real mother who had died in childbirth), but Taemin hadn’t expected his dad to send the new wife-and her two teenage kids from a previous marriage-to live with him here.
A scary-looking woman enters the room and runs to Taemin’s side just as he has dropped the phone back into its cradle. “Was that my honey?” she demands, blinking up at Taemin with a look of mild annoyance.
Taemin blinks warily back. “Um…yes?” he hedges, figuring that she is, indeed, The New Wife. His gaze momentarily flicks over to the tall boy who had been at the woman’s heels earlier and is now settled on the couch, reading a book. The boy suddenly meets his eyes with a piercing stare and Taemin, unnerved, is quick to look back at the woman. “It’s…nice to finally meet you, mother.”
His stepmother shakes her head as if she hadn’t heard him. “I needed to tell him to send more money over,” she mutters, then turns to the tall boy. “Minho dear, give me your book.”
Minho deposits the paperback into his mother’s hand, his expressionless face stirring just a bit when she flips the book open to a particular page and extracts a stack of bills from between the leaves. “I’ll be borrowing this,” she tells him, and, without so much as a backwards glance at Taemin, strides out the front door.
Minho frowns and lets out an exasperated sigh as he closes the door, opting to direct a curious gaze at Taemin to hide his irritation.
Taemin stares back at him apprehensively, giving a start when the front door opens again, his stepmother sticking her head in through the crack. “Oh, and Taemin-you’re Taemin, right? Clean up the living room. I want everything to be spotless when I redecorate.” She smiles an eerie, unsettling smile at him before slamming the door shut behind her.
Jonghyun strolls into the living room from the kitchen, armed with a club sandwich and a glass of orange juice and appearing quite happy about discovering the fridge. “I see you’ve met our mother,” he remarks, flopping onto the couch beside his brother.
“She seems very…” Taemin struggles to come up with a polite enough adjective that would fit his initial impression of her and fails miserably. “Anyway, she said the living room had to be cleaned up before she gets back.” He stares pointedly at Jonghyun, who is littering bread crumbs on the floor with every bite of his sandwich.
Jonghyun swallows and smiles sheepishly at him. “Yeah, I’ll just finish this and-where are you going, Minho?”
Minho mutters something about unpacking his books and mother-proofing the rest of his savings, wandering away and disappearing into one of the guest rooms.
Taemin patiently waits for Jonghyun to offer to help him tidy up, and Jonghyun seems to realize this only after a full minute. “Oh! Don’t mind me. You were going to fix this mess, right?” He grins at Taemin, waving his half-eaten sandwich around for emphasis. A tomato slice falls off and slaps onto the floor with a squish.
Taemin raises an eyebrow at him, and Jonghyun, unfazed, offers, “Want me to sing to you while you clean up?”
Taemin decides-after two weeks of putting up with his new (and uninvited) family-that he does not like his stepmother very much. He has always imagined a mother to be the perfect housewife, elevating the tackling of domestic chores into an art form and doting after her children with unconditional patience and affection. Jonghyun and Minho’s mother completely negates all of his expectations with her exasperatingly slob-like ways, her overbearing need to be the center of attention (he gets quite a shock when he wakes up one day to find an entire wall of the living room plastered with her blown-up selcas), and the shameless way she treats her sons (and probably his father, as well) like living, breathing bank accounts.
The only praiseworthy accomplishment he could credit his stepmother for is how she was able to successfully raise two sons despite her eccentricities, and until now Taemin can’t fathom how she managed that. He supposes his stepbrothers are okay. Jonghyun is maybe a tad too in love with his own voice, possessing the annoying habit of singing all the damn time and talking a mile a minute when he gets bored of belting out falsettos. Minho, probably to compensate for his brother’s motor mouth, talks only when he needs to. Still, Taemin has never quite met anyone as fond of his own reflection as Minho is, what with the number of times the younger boy has caught him practicing smoldering faces at the mirror. But aside from their slightly self-absorptive tendencies-it makes sense that they would inherit such a trait from their mother-Taemin doesn’t have much to complain about. They instantly treat him as if he is their real dongsaeng, coming to his rescue whenever their mother attempts to mooch money off him or feed him her infamous fermented soybean stew. They back off, however, when Taemin is given the permanent assignment of doing all the household chores.
“I’m allergic to dust. I’d get the most awful colds, and it’s really bad for my voice,” Jonghyun says hastily before making himself scarce.
“I’m okay with cleaning, but it’s nice to see someone else picking up after mom and hyung for a change,” is Minho’s excuse, and he flashes Taemin an apologetic smile as he follows Jonghyun to wherever.
Taemin wheels at his stepmother in vehement protest. “I don’t need to do this! Dad arranged for a cleaning lady to come by every other day-”
“I fired her,” his stepmother replies without batting an eyelash. “Do you have any idea how much she gets paid just for dusting furniture and sweeping floors? We should be using that money for more important things,” and here she looks critically at her selcas on the wall. “Ah, I’m so pretty, I don’t know what to do. These pictures deserve to be framed. Maybe I should set up a mini-shrine…”
Taemin stares incredulously at her, but then she shoves a list of chores in his hands, sufficiently distracting him. Its horrific length confirms that there is definitely more to the cleaning lady’s job than hunting down dust bunnies, and his face falls at the prospect of doing all of the other things sloppily scrawled onto the piece of paper.
“I don’t like the look on your face. Kids these days. So ungrateful!” His stepmother tuts and stalks off, leaving Taemin alone to cope with his unbridled horror at having to deal with bathroom duty.
His favorite days are when his stepmother and hyungs are out of the house, because then they wouldn’t be around to clutter it up. Not that Minho ever makes a mess (except for that one time he had the brilliant idea of practicing his soccer moves in the living room-Taemin thought it was pretty unfair for his stepmother to shout at him when it was Minho who accidentally smashed one of the huge glass frames adorning her shrine); Jonghyun, too, is neat to a point (although Taemin wishes he didn’t keep forgetting to put his exercise mats away after he used them, or leave disgusting sweat stains on the floor because that was just gross). But their mother tends to boss Taemin around more in their presence, and purposely turns the house upside down in her quest to annoy the hell out of him.
So when his stepmother announces that they are all going out to watch a movie, and adds in a loud voice that it is a pity Taemin still has five loads of clothes to put through the wash and can’t come along, Taemin doesn’t mind one bit. He sees them off with a cheerful smile before crashing onto the couch, closing his eyes and contemplating the merits of a two-hour bubble bath.
“You can’t. Your stepmom used up all the bubble bath foam the other day.” Taemin’s eyes shoot open upon hearing the matter-of-fact voice, and he comes very close to screaming as he finds an unfamiliar boy peering down at him from behind the couch, his folded arms settled on the backrest. Taemin rolls off the couch and lands on the uncarpeted floor with a painful thud.
“Please don’t hurt me,” he whimpers, throwing his arms over his face. The stranger raises an eyebrow at him, and in the soft glow of the overhead light he looks uncannily like a ghost, with his pale skin and black clothes and cold dark eyes. Or maybe he is a serial killer, Taemin doesn’t know. Why do these strange, potentially life-threatening things keep happening to him, why?
The stranger flips his jet-black fringe out of his eyes, appearing quite affronted. “Hey, I am not a serial killer. Or a ghost. Seriously, I come all the way here to help you and this is how you treat me?”
Taemin slowly removes his hands from his face. “You-you can read my mind?” he squeaks, now thoroughly freaked out. He scrambles back up and turns around to run away, but the boy leans over the couch and catches him by the wrist, and he doesn’t know whether he should feel relieved or scared that the fingers closing around his wrist are corporeal.
“Stop panicking,” the boy snaps, and Taemin looks over his shoulder at him, shocked into silence. The boy lets go and walks slowly around the couch until he is standing right beside Taemin, who is standing stock still with wide, terrified eyes. The boy sighs. “Well, hi. I’m Kibum, your fairy godfather.” He produces what looks like a wand (Taemin couldn’t be too sure; it had a figure that looked suspiciously like one of those hideous troll toys on its tip) from thin air and twirls it lazily with his fingers.
Taemin’s mouth hangs open, and he continues staring at the boy mutely. “You don’t look that old,” he finally says.
Kibum lets out a bark of a laugh. “I’m not,” he says, flashing Taemin an amused smile. “Aren’t you going to ask why I’m not a fairy godmother, like all the other unfortunates I’ve had to visit do?”
Taemin pauses. “Okay, why aren’t you?”
Kibum’s smile turns affectionate. “Aw, you are so cute.” He pats Taemin on the head. “We’re horribly understaffed these days. Too many kids being mistreated and wanting glass slippers and a charming prince to whisk them away-”
“But I don’t want either of those,” Taemin says, blinking innocently at him. “And umma may be a little mean, but I wouldn’t strictly call it mistreatment, what she’s doing. I’ve got the hang of this housecleaning thing, and Minho-hyung helps me out sometimes, so it’s okay, I guess.”
Kibum’s eyes mist over for a couple of seconds, and he sniffles as he wraps the bewildered Taemin into a hug. “She’s brainwashed you, that evil witch. Don’t worry, Taemin-ah, I’ll make sure you get your happy ending!”
“Um, I appreciate it, but that’s really not…” Taemin stumbles as his arms grasp at empty air. “…necessary.” He rubs at his eyes and stares at the empty space in front of him for a very long while before concluding that he really does need that bubble bath to get the stress out of his system.
He’s only the slightest bit disturbed when he walks into the bathroom, a tub full of scented bubble foam already laid out for him.
“You want us to go to a high-society party,” Minho says, inspecting the gilded invitation that his mother has just handed to him. He passes it to Jonghyun, who squints at it.
“Who the hell is Lee Jinki?” Jonghyun asks.
“He’s a prince,” his mother answers, stars in her eyes.
“Huh. I’m pretty sure this country was still a republic the last time I checked.” Jonghyun returns the invitation to their mother with a skeptical expression on his face.
Their mother fans herself primly with the invitation. “Prince, son of a megacorporation’s CEO, whatever. The important thing is that he’s rich!”
Jonghyun and Minho exchange a look, and Jonghyun sighs before returning his gaze to their mother. “And this matters to us because…?”
She scoffs at him as if his ignorance is trying her patience. “He’s loaded! Rich people throw big bashes like this all the time as an excuse to search for the perfect bride or groom to marry their children off to. It’s a great opportunity for you two!”
Another exchanged look, this time of confusion, and the two brothers still don’t get it.
“I expect you to turn up your charms full blast. One of you should be able to catch his eye, at the very least,” their mother goes on with a stern glare.
Comprehension dawns on Jonghyun’s face. “But mom,” he protests, face paling, “we’re both guys.”
Minho is quick to catch on. “What - you have got to be kidding me.”
Their mother puts her hands on her hips, her lips pursed. “No, I am not. We’re going and that’s final!” Her sons cringe at the dark look that passes over her face. They stand their ground when she throws the invitation to the floor, turning on her heel and flouncing away, leaving no room for argument.
“Minho, she was serious,” Jonghyun says, his eyes wide and disbelieving.
Minho snorts. “You think?”
“Well, since we’re going anyway, we might as well enjoy it. There’s bound to be loads of free alcohol!” Jonghyun rubs his hands in glee.
“And what are you going to do when mom finds you wasted instead of hitting on this Jinki guy?” Minho asks dryly.
Jonghyun claps him on the shoulder. “That’s where you come in, of course! Mom’s always saying you’re the better-looking one anyway, so go and take advantage of that or something.”
Minho rolls his eyes and walks off, clearly disinterested. Jonghyun shrugs and runs to his bedroom to change into something appropriate.
Several minutes later, Taemin picks up the fallen invitation with an irritated sigh. He automatically makes a move to throw it away but the gold-gilded margins glint in the light as his hand hovers over the trash can, catching his attention.
Taemin flips the invitation open and silently reads the embossed contents.
Kibum appears out of nowhere just as Taemin is transferring the last stack of plates from the dishwasher to the drying rack.
“Could you please-not do that?” Taemin pleads, standing very still and wincing at the many pieces of shattered glass currently littering the kitchen floor.
Kibum tosses his head with an indignant sniff. “Would you rather I precede my entrance with a flurry of sparkles and fairy dust?” he deadpans. He waves his weird troll-wand around, and the bits of china leap up and join themselves together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Another wave, and the newly-repaired plates fly straight to the drying rack, lining up in a neat row.
Taemin stares at the sparkling plates with amazement. “Cool! Can you do that with my other chores?”
“Of course I can,” Kibum says in haughty tones, as if Taemin should have known that the answer was obvious. “But that’s not why I’m here. Why aren’t you getting ready for that party?”
“What party?” Taemin says blankly. “Oh, you mean the one my hyungs just left for? I’m not invited, so.” He shrugs and eyes Kibum’s magic wand covetously.
Kibum shakes his head and takes Taemin by the hand, and in a blink, they are standing in Taemin’s bedroom. While Taemin stares about him, processing this sudden violation of time-space laws, Kibum flicks his wand in the direction of the closet, causing half of its contents to shoot out and revolve around them in an invisible circle.
It takes thirty seconds for Kibum to scrutinize every fluttering article of clothing before waving them back into the closet. “Oh my god. Taemin-ah, you have zero fashion sense, like, seriously. No wonder they sent me for this job.”
Taemin pouts in offense at the slight on his wardrobe, but decides not to argue. Kibum strikes him as the type of person-entity-who could talk about clothes and fashion forever and a day if he were allowed, and Taemin simply isn’t interested enough to care. “I told you, I can’t go to that party. And even if I could, I don’t want to because I wouldn’t know anybody there except my stepfamily, and umma would throw a fit when she sees me-”
“It’s a big event, kid. And there is going to be a lot of fancy food on the buffet tables, the kind that costs several thousand won a mouthful, probably.”
“Food?” Taemin’s ears perk up at that. It’s not like his stepmother starves him, but he can only eat so much fermented soybean stew in a fortnight.
“Yep,” Kibum says with barely concealed impatience. “Are you going to let me help you or not? Geez.”
Taemin thinks of wagyu steak, and steamed lobster, and chocolate fondeau. “Okay.”
An hour later, Taemin is stepping out of the white limo that Kibum conjured from one of Taemin’s dad’s cufflinks (“Aren’t you going to ask me to fetch a…a squash, or something?” “What, you want to be seen carrying a vegetable while walking home in that designer tux in the middle of the night?”). He would have gotten to the party a lot earlier if he and Kibum hadn’t spent the better part of twenty minutes arguing over what shoes Taemin should wear (“I’m not wearing anything that sparkles, hyung, no matter how expensive it looks like.” “You have to, otherwise you wouldn’t know it’s magical, and then what would be the point?” “The point would be for me not to attract unnecessary attention with shoes that’d blind all observers standing ten feet away from me!” “Look, kid, I ditched the glass slippers and that was standard magical protocol, okay, work with me here.” “I want normal shoes!”). In the end, Taemin won Kibum over with his best puppy dog impression, and he supposes, as he glances uncertainly at the garish gem-studded bracelet on his right wrist, it could have been a lot worse.
“Now remember,” Kibum nags for the nth time, staring sternly up at him from the limo’s backseat, “My magic runs out at midnight, so you better be out of that joint in-” He checks his watch, which read 9:00 PM, “-two hours.”
“But that’s an hour early,” Taemin points out, checking his reflection in the tinted window and consciously patting his recently styled hair.
Kibum nods. “That’ll give you plenty of time to drive home before your outfit turns back into that tacky unmentionable you were wearing before I changed it into a tux. I don’t want to see you getting mugged by a shady guy in some poorly-lit backstreet, do you hear me?”
“Yes, mother,” Taemin answers cheekily, giving Kibum a mock salute. He makes his way up the flight of steps leading to the entrance and turns to wave back at Kibum upon reaching the top, but when he looks down, Kibum is no longer there.
Taemin spots his hyungs within ten minutes of walking around the huge hall of chattering, well-dressed people. It wasn’t that hard - Jonghyun, obviously tipsy, is leaning comfortably against the grand piano on the stage, crooning a ballad while a pretty girl in a red dress plays the accompaniment. Minho is standing amidst a group of good-looking older men in suits, looking a lot more cheerful than Taemin has ever seen him.
He wonders where his stepmother is-she isn’t anywhere near the buffet table, so he makes a beeline for that. He grabs a plate and is reaching for the platter of fried chicken when a pair of tongs snatches up the drumstick he was aiming for.
A young man in a white Armani suit drops the chicken leg on his own plate, pours gravy over it, and then glances over at Taemin with a start. “Oh, I’m sorry, did you want the drumstick?” he stammers, looking down at his plate and then at the remaining pieces of chicken on the nearly empty platter. “Don’t worry, one of the caterers will come by to refill it soon.” He smiles warmly at Taemin.
Taemin smiles back. “No, it’s okay, there’s plenty of other stuff I can eat anyway.”
“You don’t look familiar,” the stranger remarks in an amiable tone, and if he notices the way Taemin bites his lip and shifts uncomfortably, he doesn’t show it. “But then again, I don’t know half the people the organizers put on the guest list, so I shouldn’t talk. I’m Lee Jinki, by the way,” he adds, sticking his free hand out for Taemin to take.
Taemin stares. “You’re that Lee Jinki?” he exclaims, realizing his mistake only when Jinki’s face falls. “Uh. I mean, I came here with my - mother, and - I don’t know, your parents probably know her…”
Jinki just smiles again in response, and Taemin feels a little bad for his lack of tact. “So, uh, my name’s Taemin. Nice party you’ve got here,” Taemin says awkwardly, gesturing at the crowd. He finally sees his stepmother in the throng, and she’s heading towards them-
Jinki suddenly tips the rest of the contents of the chicken platter onto his plate, a panicked expression on his face. “Thanks. It was nice meeting you but I, um, have to go hide-er, entertain the guests, yes, so. I’ll see you around-”
“I’ll go with you!” Taemin blurts out, his eyes still fixed on his stepmother, who thankfully still hasn’t seen him.
Jinki blinks. “O-okay…” He glances in the direction Taemin is staring at, then breaks into a jog, a startled Taemin following closely behind him. They end up outside, onto a deserted courtyard overlooking a luxurious garden. Jinki peers back into the hall through the glass doors and jumps behind the safety of the wall with a squeak, reflexively tugging Taemin out of view.
“Who are we hiding from, exactly?” Taemin whispers, mimicking Jinki as he collapses to the floor with his back against the wall.
Jinki whips his head at Taemin, flustered. “Hiding? No, we’re not-I’m just-oh, fine.” He picks up the fried chicken leg on his plate, slowly munching in a defeated kind of way. “It’s this party. Father invited all these eligible rich women so that I could pick out the ‘right’ fiancée, but that’s not the way the world works anymore, you know?” He offers the plate of chicken to Taemin, looking thoroughly miserable.
“Oh,” Taemin says as he grabs a chicken thigh and, ignoring proper dinner etiquette, starts shredding the meat with his bare hands. “I’m sorry none of them worked out?” he hedges, assuming that Jinki was unsuccessful because none of the rich women in question found him to be husband material. Taemin would have to agree. Though Jinki looks older than him, he appears to be a bit too young to be getting married just yet.
Jinki stares confusedly at him for a moment. “It’s not that they didn’t work out. They’re just really scary. I can’t marry any of them, no way. Just now there was this creepy woman who looked old enough to be my mother-she was clinging to me and telling me that we ought to get engaged as soon as possible and I didn’t know what to do; I don’t even know her and I only just got away.” He shudders.
“Wow.” Taemin nods sympathetically. “That must be tough.”
Jinki starts devouring a chicken wing. “Yeah, it is.” He looks around them. “This place is safe; I think I’m going to stay here until the party ends. What about you?”
Taemin thinks of his wandering stepmother and the possibility of running into her and getting grounded for a month. “I don’t mind keeping you company here. I’m a little hungry though.”
“No problem,” Jinki says, whipping out a cellphone and punching some numbers on it. “I’ll have one of the waiters bring some food over for us.”
Taemin learns a lot about Jinki in the span of two hours. Jinki is four years his senior, studying business administration at the most prestigious university in the city, and is surprisingly proficient at a number of things, including horseback-riding, rifle marksmanship, and mentally adding numbers six digits long or greater. Jinki does admit that he suffered a host of injuries as a child before he got the hang of staying on a thoroughbred and telling it where to go, and that his shooting lessons initially required the evacuation of even people behind the firing range when he first started out, but he says that with a lot of patience and perseverance, anything is possible for a person who desires to excel.
Jinki has a certain indescribable charm to him, Taemin thinks, with his unfading smile and his awkward words and his hilarious, self-deprecating anecdotes. He seems pure and gentle in a way that Taemin has long since thought impossible for a person his age, and for Taemin, who grew up without ever knowing the gentleness of a mother, with the cynicism of a child who has gotten used to coming home to an empty house every day, that is something beautiful and touching in its simplicity. At some point, Jinki prods Taemin to share something about his life, but Taemin, put on the spot, can’t come up with anything particularly worth mentioning. Jinki only smiles encouragingly at him, and before Taemin realizes it he is already on his feet, confessing his passion for dance and even showing Jinki some of his pop-and-lock moves when the appropriate music filters out from the hall.
“That’s amazing,” Jinki says in wonder, clapping his hands hard and staring up at Taemin with wide, admiring eyes.
Taemin looks away. “It’s nothing, really. Sorry if I’m a little rusty; I haven’t had as much time to practice ever since-” He cuts himself off, figuring Jinki wouldn’t be interested in his family woes.
“Nothing? I wish I could dance like that!” Jinki stands up and dusts himself off. “Actually, it’d be enough if I knew ballroom dance so my dad wouldn’t nag me about it so much when parties like this come up. I stopped learning when I heard that my instructor broke three toes after my first lesson.” He laughs uncomfortably, overcome by guilt from the memory.
Taemin gazes at him thoughtfully. “I could teach you,” he offers. “I learned social dance before; it’s not that hard.”
Jinki flushes pink. “No, you seriously don’t want to do that. I assure you that I have two left feet, and…” he trails off as Taemin grabs his hands. The beginnings of a slow song permeate through the crack in the glass doors, and Taemin almost trips over his own feet when he hears Jonghyun’s soulful voice singing the melody. He flashes a reassuring grin at Jinki and guides him through the steps, only wincing on occasion when Jinki accidentally squashes his toes.
“Sorry!” Jinki exclaims, time and again, but Taemin just shakes his head and instructs him to relax, to listen to the beats and move his body the way the music tells him to. Jinki nods, scrunching his face in concentration, and when Taemin bursts out laughing at how ridiculous his expression is, Jinki laughs with him.
Jinki has a really nice smile.
Taemin swallows hard, suddenly, acutely aware of Jinki’s hand resting on his hip, of the other hand gripping Taemin’s own. The song tapers to an end moments after-it wasn’t even that long, but Taemin finds himself wondering why he is out of breath all the same. Jinki is staring at him with impossibly soft brown eyes, his smile breaking as he opens his mouth to say something.
His words are drowned by the resonating sound of chiming bells.
“Crap, Kibum-hyung is going to kill me,” Taemin mutters, glancing at his watch and noting the minute and hour hands, both of which were pointing at the number twelve. He tugs his hand free of Jinki’s and stumbles back. “I have to go now.”
Jinki snaps out of his reverie. “O-oh, sure,” he stutters, a faint dusting of pink still lingering on his cheeks.
Taemin hesitates halfway into the glass doors, glancing back at Jinki as if to utter some parting words, when the bells chime louder and he turns away.
“Wait!” Jinki says, reaching out to grab Taemin’s right wrist. His fingers latch onto Taemin’s gaudy bracelet just as Taemin tears off to sprint away, the accessory slipping from Taemin’s slim hand. Jinki stares after him in bewilderment, fingers curling around the cool gemstones as Taemin disappears into the throng of people.
Two waiters escort a disgruntled Taemin to the exit, lamenting about lax security and uncouth middle-class gatecrashers out to wreak havoc on the dealings of the upper crust. Taemin sticks his tongue out at them and only gets the doors slammed in his face in return. He sighs and totters down the winding steps in his beat-up sneakers, wondering where he can hail a cab.
Kibum is waiting for him at the bottom step-or rather, he materializes from nonbeing when Taemin’s right shoe comes into contact with the pavement. “I told you to go home at eleven!” the fairy godfather scolds, the perfect picture of a reproachful parent with his arms crossed and his chin jutting out, emphasizing a disapproving glare.
“I’m sorry, hyung. I lost track of the time. Can’t you just teleport us back home?” Taemin asks tiredly.
Kibum rolls his eyes. “What did you think the midnight deadline was for? I’m supposed to be sleeping right now. No service until eight o’clock in the morning.” He starts walking down the sidewalk.
Taemin falls into step beside him, unimpressed. “So you’re not really as powerful as you say you are?”
Kibum stops in his tracks, reeling back as if Taemin had just slapped him. “I-of course I can transport you home if I wanted to,” he replies, affronted. “I’m just disciplining you! Curfews are imposed for a reason!”
“If you say so,” Taemin agrees with a beatific smile.
“You totally don’t believe me.” Kibum frowns deeply at him. He summons his wand with a flick of the wrist and taps it against Taemin’s head with an air of exasperation, and Taemin takes one step forward, stumbling as his knees bump against the edge of his bed. “There. Happy now?” Kibum huffs.
Taemin flops face-first onto the mattress, burying a smile into his pillow. “It was kinda fun, that party. I’m glad you made me go.”
“Of course you are,” Kibum says. “I know what’s best for you, after all.”
Taemin yawns. “Thanks, hyung.”
“Anytime, Taemin-ah.”
Taemin wakes up to the sound of urgent knocking on his bedroom door. He groans and rolls over, tugging the duvet tighter around himself, and seconds later the door is unceremoniously flung open, footsteps echoing on the floorboards.
“Taemin! Yah, Taemin, wake up,” Jonghyun says, tapping Taemin’s face impatiently. Taemin wrenches an eye open.
“What is it, hyung?”
Jonghyun hauls him up. “Your friend’s here. You better go save him from mom-she’s totally smitten by him, it’s hilarious.”
“What friend?” Taemin blinks, head still in a daze. Jonghyun pinches his cheek affectionately, causing him to jolt fully awake with a startled yelp.
“That rich guy. Lee Jinki,” Jonghyun answers.
Taemin’s eyes bug out and he jumps out of bed, tripping over his comforter in his haste to run out the door. He skids into the living room and stops upon seeing an ashen-faced Jinki arguing feebly with his stepmother, who seems to be refusing to detach herself from Jinki’s arm.
Jinki’s expression immediately brightens when he notices Taemin standing there in his pajamas. “Help me,” he mouths, gesturing wildly at Taemin’s stepmother.
Taemin’s face splits into a grin as he makes his way over to them. “Umma, maybe you should let him sit down first,” he suggests.
His stepmother beams at him. “Taemin, have you heard? We’re going to announce our engagement today. Make sure to clean every inch of the house in case some of the guests want to come over for an afterparty.”
“You can’t do that, umma. You’re married to dad, remember?” Taemin says patiently. He tries not to laugh at Jinki, who is suddenly dumbstruck.
His stepmother’s face falls. “Oh yeah,” she mumbles, her grip on Jinki slackening just enough for Jinki to get away and hide behind Taemin’s back.
“She’s your mother?” Jinki hisses in his ear, and it dawns on Taemin why Jinki was so desperate to get away from potential fiancées last night.
“Stepmother,” Taemin corrects.
“Don’t look so depressed, Jinki-yah. I’ve got it all under control,” Taemin’s stepmother promises. “Taemin, go call your father and tell him I’m filing for a divorce.”
“I refuse to marry her,” Jinki says vehemently, clinging to Taemin.
Taemin sighs. “Umma, you can’t do that either. Or…you could, but I’m afraid I’ll have to throw you out of this house.”
Jonghyun walks into the scene. “You wouldn’t throw me and Minho out, would you?” he asks, propping his chin on Taemin’s free shoulder and jutting his lower lip out at him.
“No, hyung, I won’t,” Taemin replies, long-suffering.
“Oh, I see how it is,” his stepmother sniffs, glaring at them all. “You’re making a big mistake, Lee Jinki. I’m the only woman who can make you happy for the rest of your life!” She stalks towards the front door, pausing with her hand on the knob. “I’ll be back!” she announces dramatically, twisting the knob open and stepping out.
“Well, that was interesting,” Jonghyun says after a moment of awkward silence. He glances at Jinki, who is still hugging Taemin. “Hey, man. Hands off my precious dongsaeng.” Jinki immediately releases Taemin as if his touch burned.
“How did you find my house, anyway?” Taemin asks, his face heating up as he shoots a glare in Jonghyun’s direction.
Jinki coughs and holds up the ridiculously flashy bracelet that Taemin got from Kibum. “You, um, left this. It has your name and address engraved on it.” He gives the bracelet back to Taemin.
“Thank you,” Taemin says sincerely. “You didn’t have to go through the trouble.”
Jinki blushes. “I, well, I wanted to see you again, so-” He glances at Jonghyun, whose eyebrows are raised comically, arms crossed in his impression of an intimidating pose.
“I’m hungry, and I’m more agreeable when I’m running on a full stomach,” Jonghyun says helpfully.
Jinki blinks. “Um. Do you guys want to have breakfast at my place?”
Taemin’s face lights up. “We’d love to!”
Jonghyun grins. “Excellent. Give me a sec to wake Minho up.”
“They ate a huge, awesome breakfast that had lots of fried chicken in it, and then they all lived happily ever after. The end,” Taemin concludes the story with a clap of his hands.
“What happened to the evil stepmother?” Jinki asks, his voice muffled from where he has covered himself completely with his duvet.
Taemin pauses to think. “Umm…she decided to go back and live with Taemin’s dad overseas again?”
Kibum peers down at them from the edge of his bed. “Jinki-hyung, will you stop asking Taemin senseless questions and go to sleep already? He has to go to school early tomorrow.”
Jonghyun rolls over in his bed so that he is facing Kibum’s. “Whatever, you’re just upset that you’re not in the ending.”
Kibum scoffs. “Why would I be upset over a stupid bedtime story-”
“You thought my story was stupid?” Taemin’s voice sounds wounded.
“No, Taemin-ah, you were very creative. But this whole concept of telling each other bedtime stories is a complete waste of time that would be better spent doing something more worthwhile. Like sleeping.”
Jonghyun throws his spare pillow at Kibum, hitting him square in the face. “Why are you complaining, Kibum, you were the one who started it!”
Kibum throws a stuffed penguin at Jonghyun in retaliation. “Only because the original purpose was to help Taemin fall asleep! How is he going to do that when you idiots ask him to tell the story for you? Right, Minho?”
Minho doesn’t answer for the longest time, and the conversation would have ended there as they all assumed that he had already dozed off. Then, “Why did you make Jinki-hyung the prince?”
Jonghyun fails to suppress a snicker, and Jinki pulls his comforter down to his chin. “Yeah, why?” he asks curiously.
Taemin blushes beet red, thankful that the bedroom is plunged in darkness. “Uh. Kibum-hyung’s right, we should all go to sleep so we don’t get exhausted tomorrow! Good night, hyungdeul!” He buries himself under his blankets and turns over so that he is facing the door and not Jinki’s baffled face.
Minho sighs irritably and turns to his side, facing away from Jinki as well, and soon enough the sound of deep, even breathing is heard from his and Taemin’s beds. All is silent, until-
“I call dibs on telling tomorrow’s bedtime story.”
“Shut up and sleep, Jjong.”
~6,554 words
Gen-ish with a bit of Ontae on the side, PG, AU/parody
summary: A Cinderella story (um, in a manner of speaking), SHINee style.
a/n: Sort of a companion fic to lunayeppeo's into the woods without a single piece of tofu. I also point fingers at dubulust for this one. WHERE IS THE CINDERELLA!SHINEE FANART YOU PROMISED ME FOR WRITING THIS >:\ sobs give it to meeee ;o;
When Taemin comes home, he is greeted by the sight of what appears to be two weeks’ worth of laundry strewn all over the living room-soiled sweaters and hoodies spilling over the coffee table, several pairs of jeans draped over the back of the couch, rumpled shirts lying in haphazard heaps on the floor, and were those his Pikachu-printed boxers hanging off the candelabra? He hurriedly strides across the room and snatches up the undergarment, mortified.
“Oh, those were yours? How cute,” a voice pipes up somewhere to his right, and he nearly knocks the coat rack over when he jumps up in shock. He whirls around and stares at a boy he is pretty sure he has never seen before.
“Whoareyouhowthefuckdidyougetinmyhouse,” an alarmed Taemin says in one breath, reflexively reaching out for a makeshift weapon-his fingers close over the ear of a teddy bear lying facedown on the couch’s armrest and he brandishes it threateningly in the trespasser’s face.
The boy cocks his head to the side (Taemin takes note of the mismatched dye job and the numerous ear piercings, wondering why a crazed delinquent just had to choose this particular house to burglarize) and sizes Taemin up before snatching the stuffed toy away and tossing it over his shoulder. “My name’s Jonghyun,” he says simply, grabbing Taemin’s now free hand and pumping it enthusiastically.
Taemin gapes at him. “Um-”
“I’m your brother!” Jonghyun beams. “Well, stepbrother, actually. We just moved in-sorry about the mess, mom was digging through the laundry hamper looking for one of your dad’s shirts and she got kind of carried away and then she left it like that ‘cause she had to step out and buy stuff for dinner-”
“I need to make a phone call,” Taemin says faintly.
Taemin sets the receiver down after thirty minutes of the most absurd conversation he has ever had in his life. His father, who works overseas, did tell him about remarrying (Taemin hadn’t been particularly averse to it, having never known his real mother who had died in childbirth), but Taemin hadn’t expected his dad to send the new wife-and her two teenage kids from a previous marriage-to live with him here.
A scary-looking woman enters the room and runs to Taemin’s side just as he has dropped the phone back into its cradle. “Was that my honey?” she demands, blinking up at Taemin with a look of mild annoyance.
Taemin blinks warily back. “Um…yes?” he hedges, figuring that she is, indeed, The New Wife. His gaze momentarily flicks over to the tall boy who had been at the woman’s heels earlier and is now settled on the couch, reading a book. The boy suddenly meets his eyes with a piercing stare and Taemin, unnerved, is quick to look back at the woman. “It’s…nice to finally meet you, mother.”
His stepmother shakes her head as if she hadn’t heard him. “I needed to tell him to send more money over,” she mutters, then turns to the tall boy. “Minho dear, give me your book.”
Minho deposits the paperback into his mother’s hand, his expressionless face stirring just a bit when she flips the book open to a particular page and extracts a stack of bills from between the leaves. “I’ll be borrowing this,” she tells him, and, without so much as a backwards glance at Taemin, strides out the front door.
Minho frowns and lets out an exasperated sigh as he closes the door, opting to direct a curious gaze at Taemin to hide his irritation.
Taemin stares back at him apprehensively, giving a start when the front door opens again, his stepmother sticking her head in through the crack. “Oh, and Taemin-you’re Taemin, right? Clean up the living room. I want everything to be spotless when I redecorate.” She smiles an eerie, unsettling smile at him before slamming the door shut behind her.
Jonghyun strolls into the living room from the kitchen, armed with a club sandwich and a glass of orange juice and appearing quite happy about discovering the fridge. “I see you’ve met our mother,” he remarks, flopping onto the couch beside his brother.
“She seems very…” Taemin struggles to come up with a polite enough adjective that would fit his initial impression of her and fails miserably. “Anyway, she said the living room had to be cleaned up before she gets back.” He stares pointedly at Jonghyun, who is littering bread crumbs on the floor with every bite of his sandwich.
Jonghyun swallows and smiles sheepishly at him. “Yeah, I’ll just finish this and-where are you going, Minho?”
Minho mutters something about unpacking his books and mother-proofing the rest of his savings, wandering away and disappearing into one of the guest rooms.
Taemin patiently waits for Jonghyun to offer to help him tidy up, and Jonghyun seems to realize this only after a full minute. “Oh! Don’t mind me. You were going to fix this mess, right?” He grins at Taemin, waving his half-eaten sandwich around for emphasis. A tomato slice falls off and slaps onto the floor with a squish.
Taemin raises an eyebrow at him, and Jonghyun, unfazed, offers, “Want me to sing to you while you clean up?”
Taemin decides-after two weeks of putting up with his new (and uninvited) family-that he does not like his stepmother very much. He has always imagined a mother to be the perfect housewife, elevating the tackling of domestic chores into an art form and doting after her children with unconditional patience and affection. Jonghyun and Minho’s mother completely negates all of his expectations with her exasperatingly slob-like ways, her overbearing need to be the center of attention (he gets quite a shock when he wakes up one day to find an entire wall of the living room plastered with her blown-up selcas), and the shameless way she treats her sons (and probably his father, as well) like living, breathing bank accounts.
The only praiseworthy accomplishment he could credit his stepmother for is how she was able to successfully raise two sons despite her eccentricities, and until now Taemin can’t fathom how she managed that. He supposes his stepbrothers are okay. Jonghyun is maybe a tad too in love with his own voice, possessing the annoying habit of singing all the damn time and talking a mile a minute when he gets bored of belting out falsettos. Minho, probably to compensate for his brother’s motor mouth, talks only when he needs to. Still, Taemin has never quite met anyone as fond of his own reflection as Minho is, what with the number of times the younger boy has caught him practicing smoldering faces at the mirror. But aside from their slightly self-absorptive tendencies-it makes sense that they would inherit such a trait from their mother-Taemin doesn’t have much to complain about. They instantly treat him as if he is their real dongsaeng, coming to his rescue whenever their mother attempts to mooch money off him or feed him her infamous fermented soybean stew. They back off, however, when Taemin is given the permanent assignment of doing all the household chores.
“I’m allergic to dust. I’d get the most awful colds, and it’s really bad for my voice,” Jonghyun says hastily before making himself scarce.
“I’m okay with cleaning, but it’s nice to see someone else picking up after mom and hyung for a change,” is Minho’s excuse, and he flashes Taemin an apologetic smile as he follows Jonghyun to wherever.
Taemin wheels at his stepmother in vehement protest. “I don’t need to do this! Dad arranged for a cleaning lady to come by every other day-”
“I fired her,” his stepmother replies without batting an eyelash. “Do you have any idea how much she gets paid just for dusting furniture and sweeping floors? We should be using that money for more important things,” and here she looks critically at her selcas on the wall. “Ah, I’m so pretty, I don’t know what to do. These pictures deserve to be framed. Maybe I should set up a mini-shrine…”
Taemin stares incredulously at her, but then she shoves a list of chores in his hands, sufficiently distracting him. Its horrific length confirms that there is definitely more to the cleaning lady’s job than hunting down dust bunnies, and his face falls at the prospect of doing all of the other things sloppily scrawled onto the piece of paper.
“I don’t like the look on your face. Kids these days. So ungrateful!” His stepmother tuts and stalks off, leaving Taemin alone to cope with his unbridled horror at having to deal with bathroom duty.
His favorite days are when his stepmother and hyungs are out of the house, because then they wouldn’t be around to clutter it up. Not that Minho ever makes a mess (except for that one time he had the brilliant idea of practicing his soccer moves in the living room-Taemin thought it was pretty unfair for his stepmother to shout at him when it was Minho who accidentally smashed one of the huge glass frames adorning her shrine); Jonghyun, too, is neat to a point (although Taemin wishes he didn’t keep forgetting to put his exercise mats away after he used them, or leave disgusting sweat stains on the floor because that was just gross). But their mother tends to boss Taemin around more in their presence, and purposely turns the house upside down in her quest to annoy the hell out of him.
So when his stepmother announces that they are all going out to watch a movie, and adds in a loud voice that it is a pity Taemin still has five loads of clothes to put through the wash and can’t come along, Taemin doesn’t mind one bit. He sees them off with a cheerful smile before crashing onto the couch, closing his eyes and contemplating the merits of a two-hour bubble bath.
“You can’t. Your stepmom used up all the bubble bath foam the other day.” Taemin’s eyes shoot open upon hearing the matter-of-fact voice, and he comes very close to screaming as he finds an unfamiliar boy peering down at him from behind the couch, his folded arms settled on the backrest. Taemin rolls off the couch and lands on the uncarpeted floor with a painful thud.
“Please don’t hurt me,” he whimpers, throwing his arms over his face. The stranger raises an eyebrow at him, and in the soft glow of the overhead light he looks uncannily like a ghost, with his pale skin and black clothes and cold dark eyes. Or maybe he is a serial killer, Taemin doesn’t know. Why do these strange, potentially life-threatening things keep happening to him, why?
The stranger flips his jet-black fringe out of his eyes, appearing quite affronted. “Hey, I am not a serial killer. Or a ghost. Seriously, I come all the way here to help you and this is how you treat me?”
Taemin slowly removes his hands from his face. “You-you can read my mind?” he squeaks, now thoroughly freaked out. He scrambles back up and turns around to run away, but the boy leans over the couch and catches him by the wrist, and he doesn’t know whether he should feel relieved or scared that the fingers closing around his wrist are corporeal.
“Stop panicking,” the boy snaps, and Taemin looks over his shoulder at him, shocked into silence. The boy lets go and walks slowly around the couch until he is standing right beside Taemin, who is standing stock still with wide, terrified eyes. The boy sighs. “Well, hi. I’m Kibum, your fairy godfather.” He produces what looks like a wand (Taemin couldn’t be too sure; it had a figure that looked suspiciously like one of those hideous troll toys on its tip) from thin air and twirls it lazily with his fingers.
Taemin’s mouth hangs open, and he continues staring at the boy mutely. “You don’t look that old,” he finally says.
Kibum lets out a bark of a laugh. “I’m not,” he says, flashing Taemin an amused smile. “Aren’t you going to ask why I’m not a fairy godmother, like all the other unfortunates I’ve had to visit do?”
Taemin pauses. “Okay, why aren’t you?”
Kibum’s smile turns affectionate. “Aw, you are so cute.” He pats Taemin on the head. “We’re horribly understaffed these days. Too many kids being mistreated and wanting glass slippers and a charming prince to whisk them away-”
“But I don’t want either of those,” Taemin says, blinking innocently at him. “And umma may be a little mean, but I wouldn’t strictly call it mistreatment, what she’s doing. I’ve got the hang of this housecleaning thing, and Minho-hyung helps me out sometimes, so it’s okay, I guess.”
Kibum’s eyes mist over for a couple of seconds, and he sniffles as he wraps the bewildered Taemin into a hug. “She’s brainwashed you, that evil witch. Don’t worry, Taemin-ah, I’ll make sure you get your happy ending!”
“Um, I appreciate it, but that’s really not…” Taemin stumbles as his arms grasp at empty air. “…necessary.” He rubs at his eyes and stares at the empty space in front of him for a very long while before concluding that he really does need that bubble bath to get the stress out of his system.
He’s only the slightest bit disturbed when he walks into the bathroom, a tub full of scented bubble foam already laid out for him.
“You want us to go to a high-society party,” Minho says, inspecting the gilded invitation that his mother has just handed to him. He passes it to Jonghyun, who squints at it.
“Who the hell is Lee Jinki?” Jonghyun asks.
“He’s a prince,” his mother answers, stars in her eyes.
“Huh. I’m pretty sure this country was still a republic the last time I checked.” Jonghyun returns the invitation to their mother with a skeptical expression on his face.
Their mother fans herself primly with the invitation. “Prince, son of a megacorporation’s CEO, whatever. The important thing is that he’s rich!”
Jonghyun and Minho exchange a look, and Jonghyun sighs before returning his gaze to their mother. “And this matters to us because…?”
She scoffs at him as if his ignorance is trying her patience. “He’s loaded! Rich people throw big bashes like this all the time as an excuse to search for the perfect bride or groom to marry their children off to. It’s a great opportunity for you two!”
Another exchanged look, this time of confusion, and the two brothers still don’t get it.
“I expect you to turn up your charms full blast. One of you should be able to catch his eye, at the very least,” their mother goes on with a stern glare.
Comprehension dawns on Jonghyun’s face. “But mom,” he protests, face paling, “we’re both guys.”
Minho is quick to catch on. “What - you have got to be kidding me.”
Their mother puts her hands on her hips, her lips pursed. “No, I am not. We’re going and that’s final!” Her sons cringe at the dark look that passes over her face. They stand their ground when she throws the invitation to the floor, turning on her heel and flouncing away, leaving no room for argument.
“Minho, she was serious,” Jonghyun says, his eyes wide and disbelieving.
Minho snorts. “You think?”
“Well, since we’re going anyway, we might as well enjoy it. There’s bound to be loads of free alcohol!” Jonghyun rubs his hands in glee.
“And what are you going to do when mom finds you wasted instead of hitting on this Jinki guy?” Minho asks dryly.
Jonghyun claps him on the shoulder. “That’s where you come in, of course! Mom’s always saying you’re the better-looking one anyway, so go and take advantage of that or something.”
Minho rolls his eyes and walks off, clearly disinterested. Jonghyun shrugs and runs to his bedroom to change into something appropriate.
Several minutes later, Taemin picks up the fallen invitation with an irritated sigh. He automatically makes a move to throw it away but the gold-gilded margins glint in the light as his hand hovers over the trash can, catching his attention.
Taemin flips the invitation open and silently reads the embossed contents.
Kibum appears out of nowhere just as Taemin is transferring the last stack of plates from the dishwasher to the drying rack.
“Could you please-not do that?” Taemin pleads, standing very still and wincing at the many pieces of shattered glass currently littering the kitchen floor.
Kibum tosses his head with an indignant sniff. “Would you rather I precede my entrance with a flurry of sparkles and fairy dust?” he deadpans. He waves his weird troll-wand around, and the bits of china leap up and join themselves together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Another wave, and the newly-repaired plates fly straight to the drying rack, lining up in a neat row.
Taemin stares at the sparkling plates with amazement. “Cool! Can you do that with my other chores?”
“Of course I can,” Kibum says in haughty tones, as if Taemin should have known that the answer was obvious. “But that’s not why I’m here. Why aren’t you getting ready for that party?”
“What party?” Taemin says blankly. “Oh, you mean the one my hyungs just left for? I’m not invited, so.” He shrugs and eyes Kibum’s magic wand covetously.
Kibum shakes his head and takes Taemin by the hand, and in a blink, they are standing in Taemin’s bedroom. While Taemin stares about him, processing this sudden violation of time-space laws, Kibum flicks his wand in the direction of the closet, causing half of its contents to shoot out and revolve around them in an invisible circle.
It takes thirty seconds for Kibum to scrutinize every fluttering article of clothing before waving them back into the closet. “Oh my god. Taemin-ah, you have zero fashion sense, like, seriously. No wonder they sent me for this job.”
Taemin pouts in offense at the slight on his wardrobe, but decides not to argue. Kibum strikes him as the type of person-entity-who could talk about clothes and fashion forever and a day if he were allowed, and Taemin simply isn’t interested enough to care. “I told you, I can’t go to that party. And even if I could, I don’t want to because I wouldn’t know anybody there except my stepfamily, and umma would throw a fit when she sees me-”
“It’s a big event, kid. And there is going to be a lot of fancy food on the buffet tables, the kind that costs several thousand won a mouthful, probably.”
“Food?” Taemin’s ears perk up at that. It’s not like his stepmother starves him, but he can only eat so much fermented soybean stew in a fortnight.
“Yep,” Kibum says with barely concealed impatience. “Are you going to let me help you or not? Geez.”
Taemin thinks of wagyu steak, and steamed lobster, and chocolate fondeau. “Okay.”
An hour later, Taemin is stepping out of the white limo that Kibum conjured from one of Taemin’s dad’s cufflinks (“Aren’t you going to ask me to fetch a…a squash, or something?” “What, you want to be seen carrying a vegetable while walking home in that designer tux in the middle of the night?”). He would have gotten to the party a lot earlier if he and Kibum hadn’t spent the better part of twenty minutes arguing over what shoes Taemin should wear (“I’m not wearing anything that sparkles, hyung, no matter how expensive it looks like.” “You have to, otherwise you wouldn’t know it’s magical, and then what would be the point?” “The point would be for me not to attract unnecessary attention with shoes that’d blind all observers standing ten feet away from me!” “Look, kid, I ditched the glass slippers and that was standard magical protocol, okay, work with me here.” “I want normal shoes!”). In the end, Taemin won Kibum over with his best puppy dog impression, and he supposes, as he glances uncertainly at the garish gem-studded bracelet on his right wrist, it could have been a lot worse.
“Now remember,” Kibum nags for the nth time, staring sternly up at him from the limo’s backseat, “My magic runs out at midnight, so you better be out of that joint in-” He checks his watch, which read 9:00 PM, “-two hours.”
“But that’s an hour early,” Taemin points out, checking his reflection in the tinted window and consciously patting his recently styled hair.
Kibum nods. “That’ll give you plenty of time to drive home before your outfit turns back into that tacky unmentionable you were wearing before I changed it into a tux. I don’t want to see you getting mugged by a shady guy in some poorly-lit backstreet, do you hear me?”
“Yes, mother,” Taemin answers cheekily, giving Kibum a mock salute. He makes his way up the flight of steps leading to the entrance and turns to wave back at Kibum upon reaching the top, but when he looks down, Kibum is no longer there.
Taemin spots his hyungs within ten minutes of walking around the huge hall of chattering, well-dressed people. It wasn’t that hard - Jonghyun, obviously tipsy, is leaning comfortably against the grand piano on the stage, crooning a ballad while a pretty girl in a red dress plays the accompaniment. Minho is standing amidst a group of good-looking older men in suits, looking a lot more cheerful than Taemin has ever seen him.
He wonders where his stepmother is-she isn’t anywhere near the buffet table, so he makes a beeline for that. He grabs a plate and is reaching for the platter of fried chicken when a pair of tongs snatches up the drumstick he was aiming for.
A young man in a white Armani suit drops the chicken leg on his own plate, pours gravy over it, and then glances over at Taemin with a start. “Oh, I’m sorry, did you want the drumstick?” he stammers, looking down at his plate and then at the remaining pieces of chicken on the nearly empty platter. “Don’t worry, one of the caterers will come by to refill it soon.” He smiles warmly at Taemin.
Taemin smiles back. “No, it’s okay, there’s plenty of other stuff I can eat anyway.”
“You don’t look familiar,” the stranger remarks in an amiable tone, and if he notices the way Taemin bites his lip and shifts uncomfortably, he doesn’t show it. “But then again, I don’t know half the people the organizers put on the guest list, so I shouldn’t talk. I’m Lee Jinki, by the way,” he adds, sticking his free hand out for Taemin to take.
Taemin stares. “You’re that Lee Jinki?” he exclaims, realizing his mistake only when Jinki’s face falls. “Uh. I mean, I came here with my - mother, and - I don’t know, your parents probably know her…”
Jinki just smiles again in response, and Taemin feels a little bad for his lack of tact. “So, uh, my name’s Taemin. Nice party you’ve got here,” Taemin says awkwardly, gesturing at the crowd. He finally sees his stepmother in the throng, and she’s heading towards them-
Jinki suddenly tips the rest of the contents of the chicken platter onto his plate, a panicked expression on his face. “Thanks. It was nice meeting you but I, um, have to go hide-er, entertain the guests, yes, so. I’ll see you around-”
“I’ll go with you!” Taemin blurts out, his eyes still fixed on his stepmother, who thankfully still hasn’t seen him.
Jinki blinks. “O-okay…” He glances in the direction Taemin is staring at, then breaks into a jog, a startled Taemin following closely behind him. They end up outside, onto a deserted courtyard overlooking a luxurious garden. Jinki peers back into the hall through the glass doors and jumps behind the safety of the wall with a squeak, reflexively tugging Taemin out of view.
“Who are we hiding from, exactly?” Taemin whispers, mimicking Jinki as he collapses to the floor with his back against the wall.
Jinki whips his head at Taemin, flustered. “Hiding? No, we’re not-I’m just-oh, fine.” He picks up the fried chicken leg on his plate, slowly munching in a defeated kind of way. “It’s this party. Father invited all these eligible rich women so that I could pick out the ‘right’ fiancée, but that’s not the way the world works anymore, you know?” He offers the plate of chicken to Taemin, looking thoroughly miserable.
“Oh,” Taemin says as he grabs a chicken thigh and, ignoring proper dinner etiquette, starts shredding the meat with his bare hands. “I’m sorry none of them worked out?” he hedges, assuming that Jinki was unsuccessful because none of the rich women in question found him to be husband material. Taemin would have to agree. Though Jinki looks older than him, he appears to be a bit too young to be getting married just yet.
Jinki stares confusedly at him for a moment. “It’s not that they didn’t work out. They’re just really scary. I can’t marry any of them, no way. Just now there was this creepy woman who looked old enough to be my mother-she was clinging to me and telling me that we ought to get engaged as soon as possible and I didn’t know what to do; I don’t even know her and I only just got away.” He shudders.
“Wow.” Taemin nods sympathetically. “That must be tough.”
Jinki starts devouring a chicken wing. “Yeah, it is.” He looks around them. “This place is safe; I think I’m going to stay here until the party ends. What about you?”
Taemin thinks of his wandering stepmother and the possibility of running into her and getting grounded for a month. “I don’t mind keeping you company here. I’m a little hungry though.”
“No problem,” Jinki says, whipping out a cellphone and punching some numbers on it. “I’ll have one of the waiters bring some food over for us.”
Taemin learns a lot about Jinki in the span of two hours. Jinki is four years his senior, studying business administration at the most prestigious university in the city, and is surprisingly proficient at a number of things, including horseback-riding, rifle marksmanship, and mentally adding numbers six digits long or greater. Jinki does admit that he suffered a host of injuries as a child before he got the hang of staying on a thoroughbred and telling it where to go, and that his shooting lessons initially required the evacuation of even people behind the firing range when he first started out, but he says that with a lot of patience and perseverance, anything is possible for a person who desires to excel.
Jinki has a certain indescribable charm to him, Taemin thinks, with his unfading smile and his awkward words and his hilarious, self-deprecating anecdotes. He seems pure and gentle in a way that Taemin has long since thought impossible for a person his age, and for Taemin, who grew up without ever knowing the gentleness of a mother, with the cynicism of a child who has gotten used to coming home to an empty house every day, that is something beautiful and touching in its simplicity. At some point, Jinki prods Taemin to share something about his life, but Taemin, put on the spot, can’t come up with anything particularly worth mentioning. Jinki only smiles encouragingly at him, and before Taemin realizes it he is already on his feet, confessing his passion for dance and even showing Jinki some of his pop-and-lock moves when the appropriate music filters out from the hall.
“That’s amazing,” Jinki says in wonder, clapping his hands hard and staring up at Taemin with wide, admiring eyes.
Taemin looks away. “It’s nothing, really. Sorry if I’m a little rusty; I haven’t had as much time to practice ever since-” He cuts himself off, figuring Jinki wouldn’t be interested in his family woes.
“Nothing? I wish I could dance like that!” Jinki stands up and dusts himself off. “Actually, it’d be enough if I knew ballroom dance so my dad wouldn’t nag me about it so much when parties like this come up. I stopped learning when I heard that my instructor broke three toes after my first lesson.” He laughs uncomfortably, overcome by guilt from the memory.
Taemin gazes at him thoughtfully. “I could teach you,” he offers. “I learned social dance before; it’s not that hard.”
Jinki flushes pink. “No, you seriously don’t want to do that. I assure you that I have two left feet, and…” he trails off as Taemin grabs his hands. The beginnings of a slow song permeate through the crack in the glass doors, and Taemin almost trips over his own feet when he hears Jonghyun’s soulful voice singing the melody. He flashes a reassuring grin at Jinki and guides him through the steps, only wincing on occasion when Jinki accidentally squashes his toes.
“Sorry!” Jinki exclaims, time and again, but Taemin just shakes his head and instructs him to relax, to listen to the beats and move his body the way the music tells him to. Jinki nods, scrunching his face in concentration, and when Taemin bursts out laughing at how ridiculous his expression is, Jinki laughs with him.
Jinki has a really nice smile.
Taemin swallows hard, suddenly, acutely aware of Jinki’s hand resting on his hip, of the other hand gripping Taemin’s own. The song tapers to an end moments after-it wasn’t even that long, but Taemin finds himself wondering why he is out of breath all the same. Jinki is staring at him with impossibly soft brown eyes, his smile breaking as he opens his mouth to say something.
His words are drowned by the resonating sound of chiming bells.
“Crap, Kibum-hyung is going to kill me,” Taemin mutters, glancing at his watch and noting the minute and hour hands, both of which were pointing at the number twelve. He tugs his hand free of Jinki’s and stumbles back. “I have to go now.”
Jinki snaps out of his reverie. “O-oh, sure,” he stutters, a faint dusting of pink still lingering on his cheeks.
Taemin hesitates halfway into the glass doors, glancing back at Jinki as if to utter some parting words, when the bells chime louder and he turns away.
“Wait!” Jinki says, reaching out to grab Taemin’s right wrist. His fingers latch onto Taemin’s gaudy bracelet just as Taemin tears off to sprint away, the accessory slipping from Taemin’s slim hand. Jinki stares after him in bewilderment, fingers curling around the cool gemstones as Taemin disappears into the throng of people.
Two waiters escort a disgruntled Taemin to the exit, lamenting about lax security and uncouth middle-class gatecrashers out to wreak havoc on the dealings of the upper crust. Taemin sticks his tongue out at them and only gets the doors slammed in his face in return. He sighs and totters down the winding steps in his beat-up sneakers, wondering where he can hail a cab.
Kibum is waiting for him at the bottom step-or rather, he materializes from nonbeing when Taemin’s right shoe comes into contact with the pavement. “I told you to go home at eleven!” the fairy godfather scolds, the perfect picture of a reproachful parent with his arms crossed and his chin jutting out, emphasizing a disapproving glare.
“I’m sorry, hyung. I lost track of the time. Can’t you just teleport us back home?” Taemin asks tiredly.
Kibum rolls his eyes. “What did you think the midnight deadline was for? I’m supposed to be sleeping right now. No service until eight o’clock in the morning.” He starts walking down the sidewalk.
Taemin falls into step beside him, unimpressed. “So you’re not really as powerful as you say you are?”
Kibum stops in his tracks, reeling back as if Taemin had just slapped him. “I-of course I can transport you home if I wanted to,” he replies, affronted. “I’m just disciplining you! Curfews are imposed for a reason!”
“If you say so,” Taemin agrees with a beatific smile.
“You totally don’t believe me.” Kibum frowns deeply at him. He summons his wand with a flick of the wrist and taps it against Taemin’s head with an air of exasperation, and Taemin takes one step forward, stumbling as his knees bump against the edge of his bed. “There. Happy now?” Kibum huffs.
Taemin flops face-first onto the mattress, burying a smile into his pillow. “It was kinda fun, that party. I’m glad you made me go.”
“Of course you are,” Kibum says. “I know what’s best for you, after all.”
Taemin yawns. “Thanks, hyung.”
“Anytime, Taemin-ah.”
Taemin wakes up to the sound of urgent knocking on his bedroom door. He groans and rolls over, tugging the duvet tighter around himself, and seconds later the door is unceremoniously flung open, footsteps echoing on the floorboards.
“Taemin! Yah, Taemin, wake up,” Jonghyun says, tapping Taemin’s face impatiently. Taemin wrenches an eye open.
“What is it, hyung?”
Jonghyun hauls him up. “Your friend’s here. You better go save him from mom-she’s totally smitten by him, it’s hilarious.”
“What friend?” Taemin blinks, head still in a daze. Jonghyun pinches his cheek affectionately, causing him to jolt fully awake with a startled yelp.
“That rich guy. Lee Jinki,” Jonghyun answers.
Taemin’s eyes bug out and he jumps out of bed, tripping over his comforter in his haste to run out the door. He skids into the living room and stops upon seeing an ashen-faced Jinki arguing feebly with his stepmother, who seems to be refusing to detach herself from Jinki’s arm.
Jinki’s expression immediately brightens when he notices Taemin standing there in his pajamas. “Help me,” he mouths, gesturing wildly at Taemin’s stepmother.
Taemin’s face splits into a grin as he makes his way over to them. “Umma, maybe you should let him sit down first,” he suggests.
His stepmother beams at him. “Taemin, have you heard? We’re going to announce our engagement today. Make sure to clean every inch of the house in case some of the guests want to come over for an afterparty.”
“You can’t do that, umma. You’re married to dad, remember?” Taemin says patiently. He tries not to laugh at Jinki, who is suddenly dumbstruck.
His stepmother’s face falls. “Oh yeah,” she mumbles, her grip on Jinki slackening just enough for Jinki to get away and hide behind Taemin’s back.
“She’s your mother?” Jinki hisses in his ear, and it dawns on Taemin why Jinki was so desperate to get away from potential fiancées last night.
“Stepmother,” Taemin corrects.
“Don’t look so depressed, Jinki-yah. I’ve got it all under control,” Taemin’s stepmother promises. “Taemin, go call your father and tell him I’m filing for a divorce.”
“I refuse to marry her,” Jinki says vehemently, clinging to Taemin.
Taemin sighs. “Umma, you can’t do that either. Or…you could, but I’m afraid I’ll have to throw you out of this house.”
Jonghyun walks into the scene. “You wouldn’t throw me and Minho out, would you?” he asks, propping his chin on Taemin’s free shoulder and jutting his lower lip out at him.
“No, hyung, I won’t,” Taemin replies, long-suffering.
“Oh, I see how it is,” his stepmother sniffs, glaring at them all. “You’re making a big mistake, Lee Jinki. I’m the only woman who can make you happy for the rest of your life!” She stalks towards the front door, pausing with her hand on the knob. “I’ll be back!” she announces dramatically, twisting the knob open and stepping out.
“Well, that was interesting,” Jonghyun says after a moment of awkward silence. He glances at Jinki, who is still hugging Taemin. “Hey, man. Hands off my precious dongsaeng.” Jinki immediately releases Taemin as if his touch burned.
“How did you find my house, anyway?” Taemin asks, his face heating up as he shoots a glare in Jonghyun’s direction.
Jinki coughs and holds up the ridiculously flashy bracelet that Taemin got from Kibum. “You, um, left this. It has your name and address engraved on it.” He gives the bracelet back to Taemin.
“Thank you,” Taemin says sincerely. “You didn’t have to go through the trouble.”
Jinki blushes. “I, well, I wanted to see you again, so-” He glances at Jonghyun, whose eyebrows are raised comically, arms crossed in his impression of an intimidating pose.
“I’m hungry, and I’m more agreeable when I’m running on a full stomach,” Jonghyun says helpfully.
Jinki blinks. “Um. Do you guys want to have breakfast at my place?”
Taemin’s face lights up. “We’d love to!”
Jonghyun grins. “Excellent. Give me a sec to wake Minho up.”
“They ate a huge, awesome breakfast that had lots of fried chicken in it, and then they all lived happily ever after. The end,” Taemin concludes the story with a clap of his hands.
“What happened to the evil stepmother?” Jinki asks, his voice muffled from where he has covered himself completely with his duvet.
Taemin pauses to think. “Umm…she decided to go back and live with Taemin’s dad overseas again?”
Kibum peers down at them from the edge of his bed. “Jinki-hyung, will you stop asking Taemin senseless questions and go to sleep already? He has to go to school early tomorrow.”
Jonghyun rolls over in his bed so that he is facing Kibum’s. “Whatever, you’re just upset that you’re not in the ending.”
Kibum scoffs. “Why would I be upset over a stupid bedtime story-”
“You thought my story was stupid?” Taemin’s voice sounds wounded.
“No, Taemin-ah, you were very creative. But this whole concept of telling each other bedtime stories is a complete waste of time that would be better spent doing something more worthwhile. Like sleeping.”
Jonghyun throws his spare pillow at Kibum, hitting him square in the face. “Why are you complaining, Kibum, you were the one who started it!”
Kibum throws a stuffed penguin at Jonghyun in retaliation. “Only because the original purpose was to help Taemin fall asleep! How is he going to do that when you idiots ask him to tell the story for you? Right, Minho?”
Minho doesn’t answer for the longest time, and the conversation would have ended there as they all assumed that he had already dozed off. Then, “Why did you make Jinki-hyung the prince?”
Jonghyun fails to suppress a snicker, and Jinki pulls his comforter down to his chin. “Yeah, why?” he asks curiously.
Taemin blushes beet red, thankful that the bedroom is plunged in darkness. “Uh. Kibum-hyung’s right, we should all go to sleep so we don’t get exhausted tomorrow! Good night, hyungdeul!” He buries himself under his blankets and turns over so that he is facing the door and not Jinki’s baffled face.
Minho sighs irritably and turns to his side, facing away from Jinki as well, and soon enough the sound of deep, even breathing is heard from his and Taemin’s beds. All is silent, until-
“I call dibs on telling tomorrow’s bedtime story.”
“Shut up and sleep, Jjong.”