Ways to Fail [Shinee]
Ways to Fail
Jonghyun | mentions of Onew/Minho
Ideas are like drops of water falling on a still pond.
(1,969)
They're five hours into the filming of Lucifer when everything finally clicks into place.
"Holy fuck," Jonghyun whispers faintly, mind reeling in surprise in the way Jinki studiously isn't looking at Minho chugging at a water bottle just inches to his right. If anything, the way Jinki watched Key seduce the cameras... there's fierceness in those eyes, misplaced fire. Or maybe just misdirected.
"New lyrics, hyung?" Taemin asks with quirked eyebrows.
Jonghyun just shakes his head. It never does well to worry the magnae. Even if Taemin was calmer than most, more stoic than most. More... creative than most.
"Sudden flash of inspiration," Jonghyun lies through gritted teeth, carefully biting through a Kripsy Kreme without crusting his lips with frosting. Make-up would kill him if he dared smudge his gloss.
Sometimes, a guilty mouthful of sugar just hits all the right places.
~*~
It's over their quick dinner that night still in their black outfits (little known fact: idols have perfected the art of spotless eating) when Jonghyun dares to bring it up with the only person he trusts about potentially earth-shattering revelations. He likes to think that subtlety wasn't called for given their closeness, but if he was brutally honest with himself he'd admit that he just didn't see the point of being discreet.
"A SHiNee secret love affair? That isn't us?" Key asks with quirked eyebrows and Jonghyun vows to make Taemin spend less time with the guy. One Key was already enough.
"Operative word being 'secret', see," Jonghyun points out. "There's nothing 'secret' about the two of us."
Key tilts his head as if to say, 'okay, point' and Jonghyun just shrugs at the truth. Key was asexual, Jonghyun was straight. It was a match made in heaven as far as they were both concerned and they let the fans' imaginations run wild. A win-win situation no matter how you look at it. "So who do you suspect? Minho and Taemin? The two pretty boys having a go at each other?"
"Fifty percent correct," Jonghyun mutters, voice pitched low in case anyone dares to eavesdrop. But everyone was too busy running around doing production clean-ups to invade on two idols probably griping about wardrobe and hairstyles.
"So it's Jinki and Minho," Key concludes and Jonghyun squawks his protest at the namedropping. "Interesting."
Jonghyun steals a quick glance at what everyone else is doing, and by 'everyone' he just means 'everyone who mattered'. It's impossible to account for everyone in a production studio that's in full swing.
Key, on the other hand, doesn't ever bother looking around. Figures that Key still has everyone mapped out in his head. "Relax, Minho's chatting up that barista from Figaro and Taemin's slumped on the beanbag," he points out and pays more attention to dinner. Slivers of steamed fish and boiled veggies on rice. Not a drop of oil anywhere.
Sometimes, Jonghyun thinks that Key should have considered a career as a security detail or in monasticism, but he doesn't entertain it much since... well, it means a world where Key was just another Kim Kibum and that was just all levels of sad.
A world without Onew, though, wouldn't be that much different from a world with just Lee Jinki. Jonghyun thinks, as Jinki walks straight to the post-prod team to join in reviewing what they'd already filmed, that it's getting harder and harder to distinguish between the two.
"I think he needs the reprieve," Key whispers daintily, a conspiracy in the making. Mind-reading between the Kim twins, that was a fact of life.
"From being himself?" Jonghyun asks.
"From being Onew. From being perfect whenever someone's looking."
Jonghyun scowls. "That's, like, the worst superpower ever. So he's taking a break from being perfect by being in love with... that guy? Of all people?"
Key pats him on the head. Jonghyun thinks he knows what it's like to be canine. "We're all entitled to a few mistakes," Key tells him sagely. "Which means, hey, mission accomplished, right?"
~*~
It crosses his mind on their way home that maybe he's not as comfortable with the situation as he assumed. Especially now that he isn't watching Jinki from afar, now that Jinki's right beside him in the van, exhausted and bobbing his head to some unseen and off-beat conductor. Enter the sandman, Jinki loses the fight, and Jonghyun jerks away when his hyung's head rests on his shoulder.
"Hmm? What's up?" Jinki asks blearily.
"Nothing, hyung," Jonghyun says, hoping that his face doesn't pick tonight to be such a bad actor. "Pulled a shoulder muscle earlier is all."
"Put a eucalyptus patch on before you go to bed," Jinki tells him, leader voice on automatic even though Jonghyun's sure his higher brain functions have already shut down for the night. He nods off again, but in the other direction this time and Taemin doesn't show any reaction.
Jonghyun reminds himself that this is Jinki, Lee Jinki, one of the nicest guys in Seoul and definitely the nicest in SHINee. He's still the same person (Jonghyun's belated realizations aside) and that shouldn't change anything.
Except that Jinki liking Minho means that Jinki likes guys. Guys, as in guys like Jonghyun (although in what universe are Minho and Jonghyun even remotely similar to each other?) and that's... just a little too creepy for Jonghyun to deal with right now. Jinki likes guys and that changes everything.
Jonghyun tries to catch Key's eyes in the rearview mirror but Key's paying too much attention to his phone. The Kim power fails.
Except that the Kim power never fails, meaning Key didn't meet his eyes on purpose and that's something Jonghyun doesn't even want to think about.
~*~
Jonghyun read once that every human body produces its own natural alcohol. Nothing much, just small traces here and there in the bloodstream, a little quirky twist thanks to organic chemistry. Or maybe people just need an excuse for their decisions, bad or otherwise.
He helps it along with a shot of Jack Daniels, their communal stash for when soju isn't classy enough. As if there's anything classy about a finger of JD all by his lonesome just before bed.
It's only when he's curled up in bed with Minho snoring discreetly across the room when Jonghyun realizes that Key was all too ready to accept Jonghyun's leap of non-logic. But that was Key for you.
Weirder things have happened.
~*~
"Drink this." Jinki hands him a mug of something aromatically bitter, and the way Jonghyun instinctively just wants to sneeze identifies the concoction as earl grey with a dash of milk and honey. Jonghyun stumbles over to the kitchen table where Kibum's already nursing his breakfast mug. "Load up on caffeine," Jinki prattles on, "we'll reshoot the jumpshots today. And Jjong, I've convinced Nuri-nuna that the gloss she used on you yesterday was too red for the setting so she'll use another color today. For the dance scenes it doesn't matter much but you'll need to redo the close-ups."
"I told her that during set-up," Kibum intones, already alert even though Jonghyun knew he'd been up not much longer. It always takes him a few minutes each day to transition from being Kim Kibum to Key. "But does anyone ever listen to my artistic expertise in color coordination?" He's halfway there already.
"I do," Jonghyun volunteers before Key can gather steam. He takes a sip of Jinki's tea and shudders. "I don't know how you can stand this European stuff."
But Jinki cuts them both off by placing boxes of breakfast take-out on the table. "At least it's something we can discuss on camera. Make it more outrageous, as if you lost a bet or something. The fans will lap it up." Seven in the morning and Jinki's already planning months ahead. There's a reason why he's the leader. Apart from the sheer goodwill, of course. "And they expire by the end of the week. Man up and help a hyung out, Jjong."
"Yes, hyung." He takes another sip and raises and makes a face at Kibum. A quirk of the eyebrows, a roll of the eyes, a crinkle of the nose. Transition: seventy-five percent complete.
A door closes, a puffy Taemin shuffles over to them and takes Jinki's proffered mug without opening his eyes. Nothing like a morning barrage of Jinki to start the day right. "Taem, we made a few changes in the silver and gold concept. They scrapped the matted silver taffeta pants-"
"Fuckin' finally," Taemin breathes out and obliges a sip. Either he already got used to the western tea or he's just that much better at pretending, or his taste buds are still down for the count. Jonghyun banks on the third option.
"-and you'll get something red. I don't know what to call it. Big pockets on the side."
"So he gets the color?!" Kibum gripes. Ninety percent.
"They're looser and easier to dance in but you might as well bring the lotion in case they decide to go back to the taffeta." Taemin nods listlessly and starts on his breakfast. All salad greens and steamed chicken, even the kimchi tastes weird without the sesame oil.
Jonghyun's phone beeps. "Bora-nuna," he announces preemptively and starts texting, ready to ignore rebukes about table manners.
Another shuffling of feet. Minho pauses by the fridge.
"Here," Jinki says, handing out the last mug without looking.
"Thanks." Minho slumps over the kitchen table and presses the mug to his forehead.
"Eat up," Jinki announces to the table at large. Given the non-stop narrative, it's obvious who it's for. "Don't take too long, busy day ahead. I call dibs on the shower."
Jonghyun notices an untouched box of breakfast but Minho beats him to it. "You haven't had breakfast yet," Minho calls out to Jinki's retreating back.
The only answer they get is the bathroom door clicking shut.
Minho shrugs and pushes the extra food to an oblivious Taemin while Jonghyun just knows that Key (yes, Key, not Kim Kibum) is doing his best not to storm the bathroom and force the leader to eat.
Okay, so the group dynamic's a little off but maybe, Jonghyun thinks; Jinki's still new to this whole being-in-love-with-Choi-Minho thing and just doesn't know how to handle it yet. But Jinki can handle it eventually; heck, Jinki can handle anything -- Taemin can turn into a cat and Jinki will be the one to break out the kibble while calling every doctor and witch doctor he knows.
There are two ways to solve a problem in Lee Jinki's world: confront it if it's for the good, avoid it at all costs otherwise.
But it's kind of awkward and Jonghyun knows what it's like to be awkward, how it feels to pretend and not be hurt and not give meaning to the little things. He's human after all. And maybe Jinki just needs a little motivation, a little nudge in the right direction.
"I think you should drag him back here," Jonghyun tells Minho. "We should have breakfast together."
Minho looks at him, sleepy yet still calculating, piercing eyes beneath heavy lids. "Stay out of this."
Jonghyun, too surprised to react, bites blankly at his chopsticks.
~*~
The thing with Minho, Jonghyun decides, is that he devotes so much mental energy to controlling his ego, making sure that that perfect face and those perfect eyes and that perfect height and those perfect-- heck, Minho was perfect and he knew it was only physical and he had such a long way to go despite the wonderful head start. Then again, people only had so much self-control.
Sometimes, Jonghyun really wants to brain his dongsaeng with a microphone.
But then again, maybe Minho doesn't want this either and he's making the best out of the mess he just found himself in.
Jonghyun | mentions of Onew/Minho
Ideas are like drops of water falling on a still pond.
(1,969)
They're five hours into the filming of Lucifer when everything finally clicks into place.
"Holy fuck," Jonghyun whispers faintly, mind reeling in surprise in the way Jinki studiously isn't looking at Minho chugging at a water bottle just inches to his right. If anything, the way Jinki watched Key seduce the cameras... there's fierceness in those eyes, misplaced fire. Or maybe just misdirected.
"New lyrics, hyung?" Taemin asks with quirked eyebrows.
Jonghyun just shakes his head. It never does well to worry the magnae. Even if Taemin was calmer than most, more stoic than most. More... creative than most.
"Sudden flash of inspiration," Jonghyun lies through gritted teeth, carefully biting through a Kripsy Kreme without crusting his lips with frosting. Make-up would kill him if he dared smudge his gloss.
Sometimes, a guilty mouthful of sugar just hits all the right places.
~*~
It's over their quick dinner that night still in their black outfits (little known fact: idols have perfected the art of spotless eating) when Jonghyun dares to bring it up with the only person he trusts about potentially earth-shattering revelations. He likes to think that subtlety wasn't called for given their closeness, but if he was brutally honest with himself he'd admit that he just didn't see the point of being discreet.
"A SHiNee secret love affair? That isn't us?" Key asks with quirked eyebrows and Jonghyun vows to make Taemin spend less time with the guy. One Key was already enough.
"Operative word being 'secret', see," Jonghyun points out. "There's nothing 'secret' about the two of us."
Key tilts his head as if to say, 'okay, point' and Jonghyun just shrugs at the truth. Key was asexual, Jonghyun was straight. It was a match made in heaven as far as they were both concerned and they let the fans' imaginations run wild. A win-win situation no matter how you look at it. "So who do you suspect? Minho and Taemin? The two pretty boys having a go at each other?"
"Fifty percent correct," Jonghyun mutters, voice pitched low in case anyone dares to eavesdrop. But everyone was too busy running around doing production clean-ups to invade on two idols probably griping about wardrobe and hairstyles.
"So it's Jinki and Minho," Key concludes and Jonghyun squawks his protest at the namedropping. "Interesting."
Jonghyun steals a quick glance at what everyone else is doing, and by 'everyone' he just means 'everyone who mattered'. It's impossible to account for everyone in a production studio that's in full swing.
Key, on the other hand, doesn't ever bother looking around. Figures that Key still has everyone mapped out in his head. "Relax, Minho's chatting up that barista from Figaro and Taemin's slumped on the beanbag," he points out and pays more attention to dinner. Slivers of steamed fish and boiled veggies on rice. Not a drop of oil anywhere.
Sometimes, Jonghyun thinks that Key should have considered a career as a security detail or in monasticism, but he doesn't entertain it much since... well, it means a world where Key was just another Kim Kibum and that was just all levels of sad.
A world without Onew, though, wouldn't be that much different from a world with just Lee Jinki. Jonghyun thinks, as Jinki walks straight to the post-prod team to join in reviewing what they'd already filmed, that it's getting harder and harder to distinguish between the two.
"I think he needs the reprieve," Key whispers daintily, a conspiracy in the making. Mind-reading between the Kim twins, that was a fact of life.
"From being himself?" Jonghyun asks.
"From being Onew. From being perfect whenever someone's looking."
Jonghyun scowls. "That's, like, the worst superpower ever. So he's taking a break from being perfect by being in love with... that guy? Of all people?"
Key pats him on the head. Jonghyun thinks he knows what it's like to be canine. "We're all entitled to a few mistakes," Key tells him sagely. "Which means, hey, mission accomplished, right?"
~*~
It crosses his mind on their way home that maybe he's not as comfortable with the situation as he assumed. Especially now that he isn't watching Jinki from afar, now that Jinki's right beside him in the van, exhausted and bobbing his head to some unseen and off-beat conductor. Enter the sandman, Jinki loses the fight, and Jonghyun jerks away when his hyung's head rests on his shoulder.
"Hmm? What's up?" Jinki asks blearily.
"Nothing, hyung," Jonghyun says, hoping that his face doesn't pick tonight to be such a bad actor. "Pulled a shoulder muscle earlier is all."
"Put a eucalyptus patch on before you go to bed," Jinki tells him, leader voice on automatic even though Jonghyun's sure his higher brain functions have already shut down for the night. He nods off again, but in the other direction this time and Taemin doesn't show any reaction.
Jonghyun reminds himself that this is Jinki, Lee Jinki, one of the nicest guys in Seoul and definitely the nicest in SHINee. He's still the same person (Jonghyun's belated realizations aside) and that shouldn't change anything.
Except that Jinki liking Minho means that Jinki likes guys. Guys, as in guys like Jonghyun (although in what universe are Minho and Jonghyun even remotely similar to each other?) and that's... just a little too creepy for Jonghyun to deal with right now. Jinki likes guys and that changes everything.
Jonghyun tries to catch Key's eyes in the rearview mirror but Key's paying too much attention to his phone. The Kim power fails.
Except that the Kim power never fails, meaning Key didn't meet his eyes on purpose and that's something Jonghyun doesn't even want to think about.
~*~
Jonghyun read once that every human body produces its own natural alcohol. Nothing much, just small traces here and there in the bloodstream, a little quirky twist thanks to organic chemistry. Or maybe people just need an excuse for their decisions, bad or otherwise.
He helps it along with a shot of Jack Daniels, their communal stash for when soju isn't classy enough. As if there's anything classy about a finger of JD all by his lonesome just before bed.
It's only when he's curled up in bed with Minho snoring discreetly across the room when Jonghyun realizes that Key was all too ready to accept Jonghyun's leap of non-logic. But that was Key for you.
Weirder things have happened.
~*~
"Drink this." Jinki hands him a mug of something aromatically bitter, and the way Jonghyun instinctively just wants to sneeze identifies the concoction as earl grey with a dash of milk and honey. Jonghyun stumbles over to the kitchen table where Kibum's already nursing his breakfast mug. "Load up on caffeine," Jinki prattles on, "we'll reshoot the jumpshots today. And Jjong, I've convinced Nuri-nuna that the gloss she used on you yesterday was too red for the setting so she'll use another color today. For the dance scenes it doesn't matter much but you'll need to redo the close-ups."
"I told her that during set-up," Kibum intones, already alert even though Jonghyun knew he'd been up not much longer. It always takes him a few minutes each day to transition from being Kim Kibum to Key. "But does anyone ever listen to my artistic expertise in color coordination?" He's halfway there already.
"I do," Jonghyun volunteers before Key can gather steam. He takes a sip of Jinki's tea and shudders. "I don't know how you can stand this European stuff."
But Jinki cuts them both off by placing boxes of breakfast take-out on the table. "At least it's something we can discuss on camera. Make it more outrageous, as if you lost a bet or something. The fans will lap it up." Seven in the morning and Jinki's already planning months ahead. There's a reason why he's the leader. Apart from the sheer goodwill, of course. "And they expire by the end of the week. Man up and help a hyung out, Jjong."
"Yes, hyung." He takes another sip and raises and makes a face at Kibum. A quirk of the eyebrows, a roll of the eyes, a crinkle of the nose. Transition: seventy-five percent complete.
A door closes, a puffy Taemin shuffles over to them and takes Jinki's proffered mug without opening his eyes. Nothing like a morning barrage of Jinki to start the day right. "Taem, we made a few changes in the silver and gold concept. They scrapped the matted silver taffeta pants-"
"Fuckin' finally," Taemin breathes out and obliges a sip. Either he already got used to the western tea or he's just that much better at pretending, or his taste buds are still down for the count. Jonghyun banks on the third option.
"-and you'll get something red. I don't know what to call it. Big pockets on the side."
"So he gets the color?!" Kibum gripes. Ninety percent.
"They're looser and easier to dance in but you might as well bring the lotion in case they decide to go back to the taffeta." Taemin nods listlessly and starts on his breakfast. All salad greens and steamed chicken, even the kimchi tastes weird without the sesame oil.
Jonghyun's phone beeps. "Bora-nuna," he announces preemptively and starts texting, ready to ignore rebukes about table manners.
Another shuffling of feet. Minho pauses by the fridge.
"Here," Jinki says, handing out the last mug without looking.
"Thanks." Minho slumps over the kitchen table and presses the mug to his forehead.
"Eat up," Jinki announces to the table at large. Given the non-stop narrative, it's obvious who it's for. "Don't take too long, busy day ahead. I call dibs on the shower."
Jonghyun notices an untouched box of breakfast but Minho beats him to it. "You haven't had breakfast yet," Minho calls out to Jinki's retreating back.
The only answer they get is the bathroom door clicking shut.
Minho shrugs and pushes the extra food to an oblivious Taemin while Jonghyun just knows that Key (yes, Key, not Kim Kibum) is doing his best not to storm the bathroom and force the leader to eat.
Okay, so the group dynamic's a little off but maybe, Jonghyun thinks; Jinki's still new to this whole being-in-love-with-Choi-Minho thing and just doesn't know how to handle it yet. But Jinki can handle it eventually; heck, Jinki can handle anything -- Taemin can turn into a cat and Jinki will be the one to break out the kibble while calling every doctor and witch doctor he knows.
There are two ways to solve a problem in Lee Jinki's world: confront it if it's for the good, avoid it at all costs otherwise.
But it's kind of awkward and Jonghyun knows what it's like to be awkward, how it feels to pretend and not be hurt and not give meaning to the little things. He's human after all. And maybe Jinki just needs a little motivation, a little nudge in the right direction.
"I think you should drag him back here," Jonghyun tells Minho. "We should have breakfast together."
Minho looks at him, sleepy yet still calculating, piercing eyes beneath heavy lids. "Stay out of this."
Jonghyun, too surprised to react, bites blankly at his chopsticks.
~*~
The thing with Minho, Jonghyun decides, is that he devotes so much mental energy to controlling his ego, making sure that that perfect face and those perfect eyes and that perfect height and those perfect-- heck, Minho was perfect and he knew it was only physical and he had such a long way to go despite the wonderful head start. Then again, people only had so much self-control.
Sometimes, Jonghyun really wants to brain his dongsaeng with a microphone.
But then again, maybe Minho doesn't want this either and he's making the best out of the mess he just found himself in.