make yourself

[royalwisteria]

onho
pg-13 (swearing, mentions of sex)
wc 10,240


If Jinki was a better person, it wouldn’t matter, it would be added to a long list of things Jinki ignores because they are inconsequential compared to being with Minho. But he’s not. Fundamentally he’s a flawed, imperfect individual who is incredibly selfish; his redeeming feature is his inability to speak his selfish thoughts.They are an eternal litany in his head and never let up- you deserve the solo, you should get your own room, stop using me for cheap jokes, stop expecting me to give everything up for you. He wants to eat chicken whenever he wants to and he doesn’t want to watch his caloric intake all the time. He tried a pair of old jeans he found in the back of his closet and it was alarming to discover how much skinnier his legs had become without realizing it. He had bought new clothes because he had selfishly wanted to become more attractive and he hadn’t paid attention to sizes.

Minho, though, makes him want to speak all of this aloud. He now makes Jinki want to stop sitting close, hands entwined and lying between them; he’s now making Jinki stop loving him. Minho smiles widely and sweetly every time he looks at Jinki and he wonders why and how he does it. Every smile on Minho’s face is real and Jinki wonders how he lies like that and how Jinki gives smiles that are half-shadowed or more-a-grimace. Jinki feels like he’s simply a part of what he is giving, giving, giving and he looks at Minho and sees someone who is whole; it makes him angry and it is part of his growing list of reasons to move out of Minho’s bed.

He is, of course, chased and accosted nearly all the time. The only time Jinki isn’t scared of Minho popping out from a corner is when he sleeps. When he sleeps he is alone, but his dreams haunt him like Minho does. They vary more than Minho’s behavior; sometimes they’re alternate worlds where they were never together in the first place, others where they broke up and were bitter over the circumstances and Jinki’s favorite is where they were never idols and they have the domestic bliss of his parents. In this dream, Jinki has not broken and smiles like Minho does in reality; they live in a small house in the country and they’re happy there in a way that he honestly can’t imagine either of them ever actually liking.

He also hates this dream. He hates it a lot because it represents everything that cannot be; happiness is so very far from his reach, along with Minho’s actual love. When he wakes up from these dreams he wants to roll over and smile sleepily at Minho and whisper the dreams into his ears, tales of green hills and occasional trips to the city to visit their parents- but his bed is a single and contains a single occupant.

Some mornings this makes him cry and he leaves his room with slightly puffy eyes. Those mornings he walks on glass. Everything grates on his ears and it’s these days that Minho is most persistent and persuasive. These are also the days he feels most like completely leaving the entertainment industry and everything he’s been working on: his connections, his music, and every skill that could get him a job. He has enough to last him a while, but Jinki hates idleness. He is who he makes himself to be.

Minho doesn’t care for idleness either. It was what started it: two pairs of busy hands were better than one, and the sense of accomplishment they shared after a job well done. It turned from coincidences into a pattern and they fell right into a relationship. Jinki regrets ever turning to Minho, the other three lazing around with claims of exhaustion and that, as it was their day off, they didn’t have to do anything, and asking him to help spring clean the apartment. The response was a smile and, now that Jinki thinks about it, their relationship has been formed not so much by words, but by facial expressions. The smile, a tongue sticking out, eyes fluttering closed, lines on foreheads: this is how Jinki would describe what they had, but the most important is how fleeting each and every one of these are and now how contrived it seems on both their parts. He realizes that those facial expressions are easy to misunderstand, easy to take for love when it’s simple admiration. He misunderstood just as much as Minho had, but Minho’s the only one who hasn’t woken up to reality yet.

Now he faces Minho who thinks he has everything in his grasp, caught tightly, and that is not who Jinki is. He will not take this; he will not take being taken for granted and the beautiful smiles that are real in their delusion, even when he’s having a particularly hard day after the happiest dream of his life, and Minho captures his wrists and he gives in just a little. Minho’s lips just feel so good and he gasps as Minho bites his neck lightly because this is known, this is so familiar, and Jinki does love this, he loves physical sides of relationships, and it is hard to pull away.

Minho’s hair is not mussed enough for him and Jinki’s hand actually goes up between them to run through his hair and pull tightly in a way that makes Minho grin. It’s genuine enjoyment and it makes Jinki stumble away, to the nearest bathroom, and he pukes. It was fried chicken, his favorite, and he throws up again a few moments later because it was so disgusting coming up. Minho is standing at the sink when he exits the stall, but Jinki ignores him as he rinses his mouth with tap water, checks his reflection to make sure there’s nothing on his face and leaves the bathroom. The enjoyment might have been real, but that was lust. Lust is not what Jinki wants from Minho.

But Minho is bad at hints and Jinki becomes a master of indirectly shoving him away. The others get it and after a while they become a buffer. Kibum sidetracks him with food, Jonghyun has singing tips and Taemin drags him to the living room to play games. They realize that pushing them together would create more tension, and Jinki is glad for this family they have made. It took time and a lot of work, but he is grateful for their quiet support and their graceful love. He appreciates them and he can tell they appreciate him; they make him breakfast and sometimes they bring it to him in bed before he can drag himself out of bed. They bump shoulders in commiseration at a long wait; they sleep on each other’s shoulders in the car during transit; it is full of little things, but it is little things that they eventually exclude Minho from and it makes him cry.

This was not how it was supposed to go. When they first kissed, went on their first surreptitious date, this was not the future Jinki envisioned. It hadn’t been a rose-filled future at all; it had been realistic, taking into consideration their profession and the climate of the country they lived in, but this? Jinki had never imagined Minho loving him as a lie, for their sex to become a chore, for Minho’s smile to make him ache more than ease pain.

But, alas, they have arrived to this end, and an end it is, but it’s okay. Minho never loved him anyways; Jinki could tell by how Minho still didn’t understand the love songs, how he wouldn’t understand Jinki’s physical need to be touching.

The following happens for weeks and Jinki soon drops the term and starts calling it stalking. It’s not right and he hates the desperate look in Minho’s eye, because what does this desperation mean in the face of Jinki’s perpetual despair? It is nothing, because Minho is good at words, yet they don’t flow like they did when they were together. Jinki considers this nothing, and soon he uses an anonymous line to talk about restraining orders.

It may be extreme, but despair and desperation are linked and Jinki will teeter from one to the other and he vindictively, sadistically wants Minho to feel the same. He hoards the information and prints sheets and sheets of information. Then the small touches become too much: a hand on his elbow, nudging him in the side, leaning over his shoulder and he explodes.

They are, fortunately, at the apartment, but the explosion would have happened no matter their location. Jinki is sick of this and when their fingers brush as Minho passes him a glass, he throws it at the wall and loves the sound of broken glass falling to the floor, more dangerous than knives.

“Don’t- don’t touch me,” he hisses. Minho takes a step away and there is something like fear crawling through his eyes and oh, yes, Jinki likes the fear in his eyes, because it’s something that’s rooted deep inside him as well, so many fears, fear upon fear upon fear only built up by someone impossible to reach. “Don’t think about touching me- and, while I’m at it, I’d like you to stop looking at me like you’re a victim in some sort of diabolical scheme I’ve concocted, that if I were to just give in to your stalker-ish tendencies, everything would be happy ever after.”

“Jinki-”

“You don’t get to call me by name anymore,” he continues. He is half-aware that the rest of their group, their forced family, is watching from the doorway. “We are nothing now, and I need you to accept that.”

Minho’s eyes look like they’re tearing, but Jinki has no time for them, nor the energy to be compassionate.

“I’ll clean the glass up later.”

He meets the eyes of the other three; Jonghyun looks shocked, Kibum looks resigned and Taemin looks close to tears. Something settles within him, quickly then slows to a simmer, and he breathes out. He’s sorry he snapped now, he’s sorry that they had to witness it, because he never wanted to see that look on Taemin’s face. Taemin never cries, Jinki doesn’t want to be the cause of his tears even once.

“I’ll, uh, be in my room,” he mumbles as he passes by, clasping Jonghyun’s shoulder briefly as he squeezes through.

Jinki’s parents never had the ideal relationship. Not to say that they didn’t get along, that there wasn’t a smidgen of love, but there was no understanding. They fought when Jinki was young and impressionable; he would watch with wide eyes and stare at his mom as they took long drives after particularly loud ones. Sometimes when they came home they were down a glass or two or they had to buy a whole new set glasses and sometimes plates, sometimes new serving platters. Eventually they bought plastic cups, plastic plates, plastic anything breakable. On these car drives Jinki would stare out the window and his mom would crank the radio until it pounded into a headache, but he wouldn’t say anything. They never involved him and, if Jinki remembers correctly, they were never about him. They were about the trash, they were about working, they were about expenses. Never about bitter regrets, unfulfilled dreams, nothing that he would have cost them.

The fights lessened as he grew older; Jinki doesn’t know why, but he imagined it was because their words had worn grooves so deep that it was meaningless to fight about them anymore. They knew the moves by memory, could remember the other’s stance easily and fighting about it became redundant. Instead, they grew indifferent. They talked less and their dinner conversations were nonexistent; his friends teased him when he had dinner at their houses for being silent, but Jinki didn’t know anything other than banging, glass shattering, overly loud radio and silence.

It was always too late to not affect Jinki, but they hadn’t wanted to ever hurt him. He doesn’t begrudge them this, because they both love him, in their own ways. His dad would swing him around when little, buy him all the treats he wanted and sometimes his mom took him on nice drives, where they listened to trot and opera and pop music and Jinki fell in love with music on these drives, despite the angry throb that came on the days his parents fought. He was a preteen and then a teen who had parents who had never learned to be happy with each other, but they were happy with their son and they did their best to pave the way for what he wanted.

When they call, they call separately. There are no more fights, but Jinki wonders how the tenuous balance between them works when he’s not there. He’s not sure if he softened their relationship in any way, but he likes to think that he can do that now. Or maybe if he were to surprise them with a visit, it’d send them in a tailspin and they’d have to buy new cabinet doors.

Maybe he’s becoming a parallel of his parents, a parallel Minho doesn’t know. At nights, Jinki might go to the kitchen and throw glass after glass at the wall, just to see it break, to see light reflect off sharp edges and imagine walking over them, bloodying his feet and hoping that the pain will turn into something else rather than the pain of knowing their relationship had been a farce.

Endless. These thoughts are endless. They haunt him as Minho stays away and the three walk on eggshells around him. Kibum tries the hardest to act as though everything is normal and okay, but his voice rings false and flat whenever he does. It is part of Kibum’s kindness to try, though, to try and fix the family he found in Seoul. They might not always be friends, but SHINee has become a family and Jinki broke that.

He is sorry for breaking this, but he is not sorry for setting things straight with Minho. He loves the space that exists between them now, though he still wakes, achingly hard because his dreams were about holding hands and wandering hands and wandering lips, pressing them together and- he dreams also about spitting vitriol at Minho, at everyone he knows, letting them know exactly what he thinks of them. He dreams about trying to clean up the only glass he’s ever thrown and cutting his hands on every single shard and he dreams about not being able to sing anymore, about bitterness costing him the only thing he has ever allowed himself to fully and truly love: music.

On Sunday, his mom calls. She sounds cheerful, but she always knows.

“Jinki,” her voice murmurs, “you aren’t like us, you know? Don’t fret about it.”

“I broke a glass the other day,” he says to his dad, after ending his mom’s call. “I broke a glass and I loved it.”

His dad sighs heavily; is this another trait Jinki picked up? Does he sigh this deeply, this resignedly? “Jinki, my son, you aren’t like me and you aren’t like your mom. You are yourself- isn’t this something we always said? You create who you are and if this is something you don’t like about yourself, you change it. And don’t forget, we love you.”

They were words repeated unceasingly, and they are words that Jinki said himself to Taemin, to all his friends: you are who you make yourself to be, and that he loves them. He said this to Minho, though they were half-sincere. Minho hadn’t needed words from Jinki to believe this, not like Taemin had. They were all young once, and Taemin had large eyes and he was needy and he was kind and he had parents who had dedicated their lives to their two sons. Taemin had never learned about his individuality the way Jinki or Kibum had. Jonghyun hadn’t needed reassurances and had known how to swathe a path of his own; Jinki will never be concerned with Jonghyun the way he worries about Taemin because Jonghyun is strong and he is unflinching in the face of hard truths.

It is Jonghyun who is his greatest support. Kibum tries to repair what can’t be fixed, Taemin withdraws a little, but it is Jonghyun who steps forward when Jinki and Minho are in the same room, when Minho sidles a little too close, accident or not. It is Jonghyun who aims flinty eyes at Minho and who tells Jinki “anything you want, anything you need, you have but to ask.”

Jinki hates to ask, so he doesn’t. Jonghyun doesn’t need words to know what Jinki needs though, and he does it without prompting. Jinki doesn’t know how to thank him for this, but he is grateful. It is harder to breathe with Minho around, because he remembers lips on his neck and slick skin and the shattered glass. He doesn’t want to be a repeat of a history he never wanted, and Jonghyun is there with kind eyes and a soft mouth and why wasn’t it him? They might have worked; they know each other’s bodies too, dips and curves and Jonghyun hates making people cry and loves lavishing attention, so why wasn’t it him?

Why was it Minho, who is inwards, who has great large eyes and who Jinki had to learn bit by bit, and who, in the end, was everything Jinki wanted to be but couldn’t be? (The question in his heart is: why did Minho pretend for so long? His brain silences his heart, because that’s a wound that still needs to be cauterized.)

Jinki has, over time, put together a scrapbook of Minho’s childhood. His parents were loving, a little distant, and did not dote on their two sons. His dad was careful with his words around his children and around his wife and he offered both the greatest encouragement and greatest disapproval in Minho’s life. Minho’s fondest memories are of racing his brother at everything: who loses all their teeth first, who crosses the finish line first, who gets their first kiss first. They are close, but Jinki is not jealous. He doesn’t think another child would have helped his parents; another child would have caused them to feel resentment about them and the fights would have turned in their grooves to become about who had to be home during the day to watch them, about who would make sure they did their homework, about who had to feed them. If there had been two kids, maybe one of them would have had to stay home and be witness to violence, or maybe one of them would be relegated to the backseat and would have cried the entire time.

He doesn’t know what would have happened if he had siblings, and it is not that part of life Jinki is envious of. He has always been envious by Minho’s straight back, the pride instilled in him by proud parents. That is something Jinki was never taught. He was taught that he is who he makes himself to be, but he was never quite taught to be proud of his self-made character. He was not taught to stand straight and stare unblinkingly in the face of criticism and then offer a smile in return. Each criticism he receives cuts him deep and leaves scars on his veins. He is not impervious, not like Minho.

A week is interminably long and the nights grow shorter and more and more sleepless. He thinks about asking their manager for something to ease his sleep, but he doesn’t want to be probed for why he can’t sleep. Their manager tends to be perceptive when they least want him to be and oblivious to the things that matter. He starts surviving even more on cat naps, ten, fifteen minutes stolen while waiting, while in the car, curled up on the couch in their apartment.

The bags under his eyes grow darker and the stylists cluck over him and prod at his skin and Jinki puts up with it. He can take this. He doesn’t like the way Minho stares at him, or when he reaches out before Jonghyun slides between them. They are remnants of a relationship no longer existent and Minho is acting on habit, rather than on wanting to touch him. He knows. Sometimes he sees disgust in Minho’s eyes, the disapproval and disappointment that sinks in and coats his heart in black self-doubt.

His dreams grow worse; he dreams of first meetings and smiles, laughter, pinkies entwined and hands buried in hair, twisting it around fingers and of stripping Minho eagerly, exploring a body he doesn’t know but he loves. He dreams of loving Minho, and that is not the worst part of these dreams. The worst part is that it’s reciprocated, the worst part is the truth of all these dreams, that each dream is of a real event and that the love he feels beating heavily in his chest is all-too-real. That is the worst part: that Jinki can feed himself hatred all he wants, claim that Minho’s touch makes him sick, but in the end his dreams show him the reality of his feelings and the delusion of reciprocation he craves.

Which is ironic before he naps, anticipating which part of their relationship will come back to him. When he wakes up after these naps, it is not. It is terrible and he wants to weep at the injustice that he is fated to love Minho, who is implacable, feeling marble and who is perfect but will not share the perfection.

Taemin curls their hands together when this happens. Jinki knows he provides solace to Minho as well, but Taemin’s heart is large enough to encompass the planet and he will never fail to follow his heart. His hands have grown so much larger from when they debuted and Jinki thinks, why not Taemin? Why wasn’t it Taemin, with shy smiles and full cheeks, a heart full of love?

The past is behind him, and his heart belongs to somebody else. Thinking of ‘what ifs’ and ‘why wasn’t its’ are pure self-indulgence and destructive. He reminds himself of his parents words: he is who he creates himself to be.

It’s odd that they both always gave the same advice.

First kisses are rarely truly romantic. Sometimes they are accidents, one saying goodbye while the other leans in for an awkward press of lips, and others are on purpose. But first kisses are just that: firsts. They are not learned, they don’t know precise curvature, they don’t know how to enjoy it, and that’s why Jinki doesn’t think they are romantic. His wasn’t, but he has low opinions of romance. It was a middle-school crush on a girl with curly hair; he had escaped his silent house, earbuds and MP3 player in his pockets and headed to the library. She was there and they had stared at each other before a sly smile curved her lips. She leaned forward and pressed their lips together; they were standing in front of the building and she was on the first step, just a little taller than him. Her lips were dry.

First kisses are remembered for initiation, but the kisses that Jinki remembers are the passionate ones. He might not be a romantic, but he is a sensual person. He relies on his senses, on sight, touch, smell, and these create his world. He remembers the heat of Minho’s fingers on his wrist and the drag of teeth on lips, sheets and walls against his back. He remembers these, because they mean more to him than how Minho had carefully pulled a wet dish from his hands to dry it and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. They mean more than the elaborate setups Minho created for their dates, because they tied Jinki to Minho in a way these firsts never did.

And- he will be honest to himself late at night, when everyone is sound asleep and he is curled in a ball. He is honest in how he misses their physical touches, but he knows Minho thinks nothing of them, and how most of them time their relationship had been an afterthought most of the time. The desperation that followed their breakup was Minho’s awareness of Jinki’s absence, which Jinki hoped created a huge, black vacuum, for the first time. Jinki had never been apart in this way.

He hopes it stings Minho the same way it stings him, but Jinki is too honest with himself late at night, and he knows it doesn’t. Sometimes evidence is to the contrary, but Jonghyun is faithful, Jonghyun is good, and he steps between them so Jinki doesn’t see dark shadows under eyes, his listless hands and a too-still mouth; these are signs that mean nothing.

The transition is smooth but painful. One moment Jinki is furious and then it drains out of him, leaving him empty and like a husk. He doesn’t know what to do without anger coursing through his veins anymore; he doesn’t know how to shut out, he doesn’t know how to privatize his soul anymore. He doesn’t know who he is without that sense of betrayal and deep loss lurking in the recesses of his mind whenever he looks at Minho.

“I messed up,” he tells his mom. She sighs, long and high-pitched. Her sighs always sound like whistling tea kettles and her laughter like fire alarms: attention grabbing and demanding.

“There is no messing up with people, especially not with people you love and who love you back.”

Of the many things his mom has told him over the years, this seems like the wisest thing she’s ever said. There have been more wise things, phrases drawn from stardust about reaching your dreams and faith, building your own life from a solid foundation, but this feels different. She has been the source of everything good in his life and he always thinks of her when he sings.

“I don’t think he loves me back,” he says. “That’s the problem. I thought he loved me, but I realized he didn’t.”

“Jinki,” that sigh again, demanding he pay attention and he does, he pushes the phone a little harder against his ear- “Did you ever ask him?”

His mom knows the answer already and there’s another sigh. “Sweetheart, you’re an adult now and you should learn how to solve your own problems. Next time figure it out yourself- and remember, you are who you make yourself to be and I love you.”

Then she hangs up. Jinki doesn’t call his dad; his dad is there for when he needs reassurance, when he needs to be supported, when he needs soft, gentle whispers of ‘I love you’ and ‘I’m here for you.’ His mom is the one who will shout ‘I love you now get your ass to work’ and her words always work.

It is Taemin who notices it first. Jinki doesn’t know how he noticed, but Taemin is oddly perceptive at times.

“It was in your hands,” Taemin says when Jinki asks. “They were gentle again.”

“They-”

Taemin smiles softly at him and, in a moment of spontaneity, hugs him. Hugs from Taemin are rare, precious and at times like hugging a skeleton, all sharp angles and bones, but precious for their intent.

“It’ll be nice to have the happy Jinki back.”

This raises all sorts of questions for Jinki. Happy? Does he seem happy again? Was he so desperately unhappy before that it made such a difference? With Taemin’s words in his mind, Jinki pays attention anew. He looks with different eyes and sees how much more somber they are, how they listen to PD’s and their stylists with wide eyes instead of smiles and quick-witted remarks.

He is repentant, and he starts making little remedies. Jinki starts waking up early and making breakfast for everyone; he makes all their favorites, types of soups, eggs, toast and the smiles start appearing in the morning. ‘Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,’ his mom would say every morning, a bowl of rice and a bowl of soup set out for him. His dad wouldn’t say anything, just flip the newspaper and raise an eyebrow at him the few times Jinki would complain about time. ‘I’d rather you be late with a full stomach than on time and unhappy all day,’ his mom would reply. ‘I’ll call the school if there’s a problem.’

Sleep finally comes back to him and it is blissfully empty of dreams about Minho. Instead he starts dreaming about awards, different types of flowers, going to see the Eiffel tower. Days pass with ease and Minho starts edging towards him again, though his hands always stop far away from him.

Jinki thinks he should think of the right way to ask him, because his mom is right. The only time she’s ever been wrong was when she had told him, definitely, that there is no way he’s gay. Then his dad had stared at her long and hard and asked, ‘why on earth do you think that? He’s been gay since the day he was born.’

There are notes in his wastebasket and they are full of apologies and questions. Some are phrased with all the traces if anger Jinki can dredge up and others sound too much like cries for help. Some read like diary entries, detailing thoughts and observations about the day. Almost all end with 'I love you.' He wants to burn them all, and it's Kibum's voice in his ear screeching about responsibility and the environment that stops him. Instead, when he can't take the mess anymore, he empties the basket, flattens them with careful fingers and takes them to the recycling bin. He then takes the bag if recycles out because he would rather carry the guilt of burning them than risk anyone finding and reading the notes.

Jinki knows he could just talk to Minho, but their current conversations are so superficial he can't imagine bringing up anything important. The thought of even giving singing tips gives him shivers. He also can't imagine bridging the gap with his hands- the sound of glass tinkling to the ground is too strong in his ears for that.

The others don’t hold back with nudges, fingers touching while passing things, and Jonghyun has always been a tactile, needy person and he hugs Jinki often and tightly. Sometimes Jinki catches Minho staring and sometimes Minho catches Jinki staring; when this happens, they look away simultaneously and pretend it hadn't happened. But Jinki can't lie to his heart, it's who he made himself to be, and his cheeks stain red each time as his heart beats faster.

Apologies are not my forte, he carefully pens. But I’m trying. This he scraps as well, crumpling it into a small, tight ball and then he carefully pries it open and tries to smooth out the crinkles. They don’t disappear and neither do the words.

He dreams of futures again, but these don’t haunt him the same way. They don’t turn him into a zombie, they don’t cut him into pieces. They’re novelties, because Jinki has obtained the distance he had needed and he enjoys them almost as a voyeur. Yes, they could have been deliriously happy on a farm- but that was just a dream. They were dreams of a future he had control of, but the biggest problem with the present was his relinquishment of that control. He handed it to Minho and he has now taken it back; everything from here on is his choice.

The idea of writing a note is scrapped after he’s done three trips of recycling his failures. It wasn’t working and wouldn’t work. Kibum narrows his eyes on the third one and sweeps his gaze over the bag. Jinki is paranoid that one of the notes is pressed against the plastic of the bag that might not be transparent, but a note could still be read through the opaque whiteness.

“Thanks,” Kibum says.

“It’s not for you,” Jinki replies uncomfortably. He shifts from foot to foot, fingers tightening on the handle loops. “Sorry.”

Kibum shrugs. “Then you’re helping me inadvertently. I don’t mind.”

“Oh, okay, you’re welcome, I guess?”

“And, Jinki, hurry it up will you? We’re all waiting.”

Jinki never once thought why not Kibum. Never, and now he doesn’t think it either; Kibum and he do not mix well. Kibum is too honest and brash, bold and colorful and Jinki is secretive, hoarding and selfish to the bone but too scared of loss to say anything.

“I’m trying.”

Jinki had become accustomed to being the first one up in the mornings, partially from when he was an insomniac, but then it became natural. They would trickle in every morning, and Minho was third every time. The second varied from Kibum to Jonghyun, and Taemin was always last. This morning Minho is second and he freezes when he sees Jinki sitting at the table with the newspaper open in front of him. He wasn’t reading it, just had it in front of him while he absently stared in front of him. Secretly, he’s not a morning person.

Minho clears his throat. “Good morning.”

“Good morning. Butter, jam, bread, whatever.” Jinki sighs. “Didn’t make much of a breakfast this morning,” he mutters to himself a moment later.

Minho snorts and it’s so- it’s so amiable, it’s like they’re friends again and it makes Jinki’s chest tight and uncomfortable, it makes air stop flowing the right way through his veins. “That’s not your job,” he says in his friendly tones and with warmth and Jinki can’t hold it in anymore.

“I’m sorry,” he says quickly and repeats himself once more, slowly and quietly. “I’m really sorry.”

Minho was in the midst of untwisting the bread bag and Jinki admires how his hands don’t falter, though Minho’s expression quickly flattens. “For what?”

“I, uh, I never asked you,” Jinki mumbles. He meant to state it strongly, like his letters had, but his voice trembles.

“Never asked me what?” He’s putting the bread in the toaster now, pressing the handle down until it makes that ding when it starts.

The question has such a broad answer, Jinki doesn’t know where to start. “I never asked you anything. I believed- I believe you never cared.”

“You believe a whole lot then, didn’t you.” Minho’s angry. Jinki can feel it burning the air in the room and as he looks over at Minho he can see it in tense lines and white knuckles grasping the counter’s edge.

“Yeah. I do. I’m sorry.”

Minho laughs, short and bitter. “You know, I started questioning everything. Especially after our fight. I thought everything was a lie, that you had never cared for me at all, that every time I followed you and touched you it was making you hate me a little bit more. It was terrible.”

Jinki squeezes his eyes closed as tightly as he can make them, but that’s not enough and he presses his elbows against the table as he digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t quite cut it.”

He stands slowly. The chair makes an awful screeching noise on the tiled floor. “You can’t push this all on me,” he breathes out. “I’m sorry for assuming, but you never said a word about your feelings. Relationships are two-sided things, Minho. I’ve come to realize that, but you still haven’t.”

“An apology doesn’t make up for the shit you put me through.”

Jinki feels like he should let Minho be angry, to let it run its course, but he hates being accused. “And where’s my apology? I believed our entire relationship was fake from the beginning. I still believe that. Where’s my apology for leading me on?”

“It wasn’t a farce!” Minho yells. “It was never fake.”

“Then where were my ‘I love you’s? Where were the little signs that you cared? If you want an apology for your heartache, I want one for mine.”

Minho is silent and Jinki sees movement from the hallway. It’s Jonghyun; his gaze darts back and forth between the two of them. “Good morning,” Jinki says, forcing his tone to be as though nothing had happened.

“Good morning,” Jonghyun replies cautiously. When their eyes meet, there’s a question in them and Jinki shakes his head.

“I’ll go-” He doesn’t know what he’s going to do, but he moves towards the hallway anyways. “Something. I’ll go do something else. In another room.”

Jonghyun watches him leave and then, with a double-take at Minho, follows him. “Hey, Jinki, everything okay?”

“Yeah, fine,” he mumbles. “Just… It’s hard. I miss him, Jonghyun, I really, really miss him.”

“Ah,” Jonghyun slowly exhales. “It doesn’t help, but he misses you. Just as much, I think.”

“But- there’s no going back. There’s no having what we used to have.”

Jonghyun’s forehead scrunches. “I thought the whole point of this was that you didn’t want what you had.”

Jinki stares at Jonghyun, devastated. “That- that’s true. I didn’t. I don’t. I don’t want what we had, I don’t think I ever did.”

“Oh, Jinki,” Jonghyun murmurs and steps forward, so close that Jinki flinches away. It’s for a hug, and Jonghyun’s warm, just a little shorter than him and his embrace is tight.

“I don’t know what I’m doing anymore,” Jinki whispers. “I- I never knew.”

“There’s nothing wrong with not knowing.” Jonghyun’s voice is soothing and Jinki feels himself going limp, head leaning against Jonghyun’s and his arms falling low where they’re clasped on Jonghyun’s back. “Most of us don’t know, and Minho definitely doesn’t know. Trust me on this, okay Jinki? Take your time.”

“Kibum told me to hurry up,” Jinki replies. “He told me you’re all waiting.”

“Kibum’s got no patience. Why don’t you go lie down for a bit?” Jonghyun starts walking with Jinki draped over him towards Jinki’s room. “You still don’t sleep so well, and I don’t think you’ve caught up on all the sleep you missed before. I’ll come get you when it’s time to go.”

“Thank you Jonghyun,” Jinki says, nearly crying. “What would I do without you?”

“Fall into pieces?” Jonghyun’s tone indicates it’s meant as a joke, but it’s true. Jinki would have fallen into pieces ages ago without Jonghyun’s strength next to him. “You would have been fine without me. You’re strong.”

Jonghyun pushes open the door and lets go of Jinki. “Now, go lie down. Taking time to yourself is okay, Jinki. We all want what’s best for you, and we will be fine if what’s best for you means isolating yourself now and then.”

“Why wasn’t it you?” Jinki can’t help but ask, leaning against his door frame. “Why?”

“Really?” Jonghyun asks. His tone is amused, and he laughs lightly. “You could never love me for my faults. You don’t, actually. You haven’t seen them for a while so you’ve forgotten about them.”

Jinki nods slowly, closes the door and shuffles over to his bed. As he falls onto the mattress, he digs his phone out of his pocket and calls his dad, because reassurance of love is something he’s craving.

“Everything okay?” he asks. His dad’s voice is deep and Jinki gets his own voice from his dad. His isn’t as deep, but the smooth quality is from that side of the family.

“I don’t know if I can do it,” he whispers after a few more moments of silence. His dad has always been good at silences, waiting for words to tumble out. “I don’t even know how to be in love anymore.”

“You don’t forget that sort of stuff,” his dad starts. “Being in love is natural and it’s never the same as before. Remember that, Jinki. The love you felt before was one thing, but the love you feel now is different. Anger changes things, but it doesn’t mean you forget how to love.”

“I miss him dad. I miss him so much.”

Jinki’s dad sighs. “Sometime they can be standing right next to you and you still miss them, and it’s likely they’re feeling the same. Jinki, I believe in you. Your mom believes in you and we both love you. We both know you’re capable of grabbing your own happiness, just like we both know that Minho is part of this happiness.”

“Dad,” Jinki mumbles into his phone.

“I always worried about this when you were little,” his dad continues after a long pause. “Your mom and I have always fought and I used to think that our love could overcome anything. It couldn’t.”

Jinki’s breath is caught in his throat. The fights were never acknowledged by either of his parents. They would happen, Jinki would be ushered into the car or slip away on his own, but his parents never brought them up. It was an unspoken rule, and yet his dad is talking of them now.

“I’m sure you think we’re not in love, that we never could have been in love with the way we are now, but we were. We were terribly, terribly in love and sometimes that can ruin a relationship. It ruined ours, and that was something we grew to live with, but we always believed you were different. Remember what we always told you?”

“I am who I make myself to be,” Jinki murmurs. “I always thought it weird that you and mom always told me the exact same thing.”

“You are your own person, Jinki, the person you made yourself to be. You’re not us, you won’t repeat our mistakes. You’re everything we wanted.”

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

“Do you still love each other?”

His dad’s sigh is heavy, low. He was always the calmer one of the two when they weren’t fighting; he was the rock of the family, while his mom flitted about, demanded attention and flipped opinions as easily as she flipped eggs. “In our own way, yes, of course. But, you should know, your mom and I have been talking about getting a divorce. I don’t want it to catch you by surprise later, so I’m telling you now, but it hasn’t been decided yet. We’re just talking about it.”

“Oh. Okay. Thanks- for telling me?”

“Love you, Jinki. Talk to you later.”

His dad hangs up and Jinki curls tighter around his phone- he’s likely in shock, but he realizes when Jonghyun knocks on his door later that he had been crying from the dark spots on his sheets.

Everything feels different now, more temporary, likely to float away if he’s not careful. Everything slips away from him and he’s asked by frowning faces if he’s okay and he nods mechanically. Yes. He’s fine. He supposes he’s fine, at least, he’s not fully sure. Jonghyun is careful around him and Minho keeps an angry distance; both of these things are familiar, but they still feel liable to change at the slightest moment.

How is he supposed to react? How is he supposed to go on? He really shouldn’t be so surprised by the news. It makes sense; their marriage has been unhappy for years and Jinki must’ve been fooling himself to think that they would remain married for the rest of their lives. Sometimes it had felt like they only remained married, only wore bands around their left ring fingers for him, but he had never thought they would officially do this.

Minho is slipping away from him in reality. This is not something he is imagining and he can see part of his parents story played out between the two of them. Jinki had been madly in love with Minho, still is, so why are they separating? Why aren’t they together and happy, why aren’t they thinking about adopting cute children and raising them to be happy, to be proud and to be their own person? Where did he go wrong?

He knows where he went wrong, but it still doesn’t feel like it had been wrong. In the moment it had felt the most right out of his few options and Jinki doesn’t regret choosing to break up, refuses to regret it. They had needed space. Jinki had needed space and he is better for it.

He is. It is because of the space that he is able to gather courage, pick up the pieces of shattered glass in his mind and realize that it really wasn’t all that bad to begin with. It is one temper tantrum, and it could lead to a habit, but Jinki won’t let it. He loves his dad and he loves his mom, but he refuses to love like they do.

So he goes to find Minho.

“We need to talk.” They are in public, which Jinki was on the fence about before realizing that he should go for it while he still had possession of his courage.

Minho’s gaze is cold and furious, but Jinki’s courage does not quail or quiver. “What could we possibly have to talk about?”

“Us- did I ever tell you about my parents? I don’t think I did, out of some odd sense of shame, but-”

“I don’t want to hear about your parents,” Minho grits out forcefully, turning and walking away.

“They’re getting divorced,” Jinki say quietly and he doesn’t mean to cry, he didn’t think he’d cry again, but there are tears and his voice is catching. There is more he wants to say, but if he manages to get them out it’ll be obvious he’s on the verge of breaking down. “They-” His voice cracks, and Minho is by him, putting an arm around his shoulder and guiding him gently. It vaguely reminds him of Jonghyun, much earlier in the morning, comforting him after the fight.

Minho guides him to a room where they are alone and Jinki tries to hold the sobs in, tries to revert back to his shock because he’d rather have everything slip away than cry in front of Minho like this. He is stronger than this.

“It’s okay to cry,” Minho soothes, wrapping his arms around Jinki and- oh. Jinki missed these hugs; he missed Minho’s long arms, burying his head into Minho’s chest and the splay and lulling rub of Minho’s hands on his back. “I’m here, it’s okay.”

“I miss you,” Jinki whispers after a few moments. “I miss you so much.”

Minho’s hands pause and tense on his back; then the hands leave Jinki’s back and Minho takes a step back. “You made it very clear quite a while ago that we were over.”

“I don’t want to be my parents,” Jinki says helplessly, wanting to reach out to Minho, to press his ear against Minho’s chest and speak to the rhythm of his heartbeat. “I never told anyone, but they fought all the time, I don’t think I have a single memory of them having a conversation that didn’t turn into an argument- but my dad told me they were in love. I don’t want that to be us. I don’t- want to lose you over stupid mistakes and misunderstandings.”

“Do you think you can win me back?”

Oh, Jinki thinks blankly. It was a lost cause from the beginning, it’s confirming all of his insecurities, the idea that Minho had never taken their relationship seriously. “I can try,” he murmurs faintly. “Without you I’m lost.”

Minho shifts with excess energy, movements swift and jerky. He makes a quickly aborted attempt to reach out towards Jinki, who remains still the entire time. He’s afraid to breathe and keeps his eyes away from Minho’s face because that, surely, will lead to heartbreak and Jinki is heartsore and he doesn’t know how he’ll be able to take on any more pain. His heart feels overloaded.

“You can’t- you can’t say things like that,” Minho growls. “You fucking- you throw a glass and then you say that you’re lost without me? Jinki, I don’t know what’s true anymore.”

“People change,” Jinki says. “Feelings change, beliefs change, things change. I’m not a static person and my belief that you loved me changed. All this time I felt righteous in my anger and belief that you were leading me on, that I was just a side-thought in your life. I rejected the possibility and I was willing to lose you and be lost than live a life like that.” There’s a deep furrow in Minho’s forehead; he says nothing and just stands there with crossed arms. “And now, with my parents… Beliefs change, Minho. I don’t think I was right.”

“Where do you want us to go from here, then?”

“Wherever we can.”

Minho sighs slow; his sigh is so different from his parents and it feels as though it is tangibly different. His mom’s sighs are high-pitched, his dad’s serious and heavy. Minho’s sighs are slow and thoughtful, they indicate his personality. Jinki feels his heart swell just a little at the sigh, because Minho’s sighs usually indicate good things, they indicate introspection and are never a rejection.

“Give me some time, but Jinki- I don’t know your parents well, but you are everything good about them.” Minho steps a little forward and reaches across, a hand landing warmly and comfortably on the nape of Jinki’s neck. His thumb teases at Jinki’s hairline, a soothing pressure. “And their divorce has nothing to do with you, but with them. It’ll be hard, but everything’ll be okay.”

Jinki inhales rapidly. Breath gets stuck in his throat and his voice scrabbles to get out, but it all stops when Minho presses a gentle kiss to the tip of his nose. The warm hand disappears soon after, and then Minho has left the room. Because Minho is kind and thoughtful, he closes the door on his way out so that no one sees the tears in Jinki’s eyes.

Waiting is not a game. Jinki has waited endlessly for many things; he waited in the front seat while his mom drove endlessly, he waited as a trainee, to be added to a group, he waited with the others for their debut. He has waited all his life for everything he currently possesses; if he owns something he never waited for, it doesn’t feel like it’s really his belonging. Waiting, to Jinki, is a serious endeavor. It requires all his patience and, over time, his patience has become a formidable force. When they were all younger, he would wait for Taemin’s temper to die out, for Kibum’s stubbornness to give in, Jonghyun’s ridiculous antics to fade and for Minho to say what he wanted.

Waiting, to Jinki, was once a defensive technique and has now become an offensive technique. He is patient and he is watchful: he employs both now. Minho moves through the day as normal; he is consistently the third to enter the kitchen in the mornings. He has toast with peach jam and a glass of milk; he dodges Jonghyun’s heated curses for wanting to be tall when he is plenty tall already. He is sweet and kind to all staff people; he picks dropped items and hands them over with soft smiles and talks animatedly with everyone who approaches them.

He is, as always, Minho, a combination of his proud, distant father and his mother who was half-hearted in caring for her youngest, as her eldest was her pride. Jinki will never understand how they created someone like Minho. Jinki keeps a distance, but he is always an arms-length away. He is patient, and he is sure of the answer he wants to hear. He can’t imagine Minho saying no to him.

Which is dangerous, he knows, but he can’t stop the delusions. They are reaching the climax, and it will come soon. Jinki is patient and he will wait for it’s coming; it’s what he is good at.

They are never alone; Jinki does’t know if this is on purpose or accidental. Jonghyun is usually close by, earbuds in and listening to music, Kibum flipping through a magazine or Taemin camped close by watching TV on the actual television or on his phone. Jinki is frustrated because, for once in his life, his patience is wearing thin. Minho seems fine to never be alone, but Jinki notices small things: Minho smiling at Jinki without reserve in the kitchen, just as he enters; Minho passing cue cards, plates, anything and letting their fingers brush; they sat by each other in the car the other day and Minho’s hand was tantalizingly close to Jinki’s and Jinki knew that Minho was teasing him. He knew. Minho did it on purpose.

But Minho is unruffled by being perpetually surrounded by people. It’s as though he’s relishing driving Jinki up a wall, which might be part of a punishment scheme to get back at Jinki for dumping him so unceremoniously. Jinki retains his patience with all his strength of will: he will wait until Minho lets them be alone.

When it happens, Jinki is sick. He has a cold and his nose is running, the sneezing never stops and it takes magic from the stylists to make him look in the pink of health. Why Minho chooses this moment, Jinki has no idea, but they are blessedly alone and despite the ache throughout every limb, every sinew and muscle in his body, he feels himself relax.

“Yes?” He asks, reaching to his pocket for a tissue to blow his nose. He wants to be able to breathe for this moment.

Minho surveys him. “I have some questions for you.”

“Sure,” Jinki says, nodding. “I’ll answer your questions.”

“You believed I didn’t love you, true or false?”

“True.”

“Were you angry?”

There is the immediate answer ‘yes’ and then there is the real answer, an answer that cannot be contained in a single syllable. “I was consumed.” It is the best answer; it is the answer that does not detail the range of emotions he felt, the anger, betrayal, and then how it left him with nothing.

Minho frowns. He probably doesn’t understand, but Jinki understands that Minho prefers short answers. “Why did you think I didn’t love you?”

This question has no real answer and Jinki struggles to find one as he blows his nose on the last tissue from his pack. “It’s- it’s more complicated than that, really. You liked me as a person, you appreciated me and admired me but you never loved me. You said you loved me, but there was always something missing.” He remembers those clearly: Minho whispering the words into his ear as they passed by each other in public, Minho breathing it oh-so-quietly as they had sex, skin moving against skin, how Minho wrote little post-its and stuck them to his face with a soft smile. Each moment feels all wrong in retrospect; Jinki knows Minho had meant to meant them, but his parents loved each other more than Minho loved him. They had loved each other dearly, Jinki knew, but had not respected or admired each other. Minho was the opposite.

“You mistook your feelings, and I couldn’t bear it.”

Minho stares at him. “What makes you think I mistook my own feelings?” He’s not angry yet, but Jinki thinks it’s about to start creeping in.

Jinki blinks- how did he know? What was it that tipped him off? “You never understood the love songs. You never missed men when I was gone. It was all this little stuff.”

“I don’t set much stock in ‘little stuff.’”

“And I do.”

“Do you regret it?”

“No.”

The staring stops as Minho tears his gaze away; Jinki feels as though he’s just come out of a trance and sneezes three times in row. Pinching his nose closed with one hand, he digs in his pocket for a tissue and comes up with a crumpled up receipt. Crap- he continues digging in his pocket, awkwardly reaching across his body to check them all. Then his hand is suddenly grabbed and a tissue placed in it.

“Did you know,” Minho says as Jinki gratefully grabs it, “that you’re always most honest when sick?”

Jinki momentarily thinks that he should feel betrayed, that Minho only spoke to him now because he was sick- then he realizes that Minho waited. He wanted honest answers and this was the best way he knew how: Jinki will not begrudge him this.

“Have you asked all you wanted?” He asks around sniffles.

“Get better soon.”

Ambiguous words: Jinki watches Minho leave as he tries to puzzle over those words. He sneezes twice and gives up on the attempt. Analyzing while sick is not a skill he possesses.

Things change. Minho is kind and affectionate in ways he never was before; his hands linger and he turns to Jinki before anyone else. Jinki is flattered, but he had been expecting the worst for so long he doesn’t know how to process this type of Minho. The others notice the increased friendliness and Jinki keeps on receiving thumbs ups from Jonghyun. Taemin is, in his quiet way, is just as supportive with his small smiles and how one day, before recording, he leans in and says, “I always knew you two were forever.” There is nothing Jinki can say to that, nor does Jinki think there is anything to say. The comment is a stand-alone; it exists in its own universe, a gem from the mouth of a boy who believes and hopes too strongly.

What is clear is that they are both different people. Their grievances have been aired and they have spent needed time away from each other. Jinki can see Minho being more careful in his actions, as though aware of himself in a way he wasn’t before. He doesn’t know if this new carefulness is because of him, the kindness and affection, but it might be. It might just be that Minho was due for a time of introspection, and it happened to occur at the downwards spiral of Jinki’s apathetic introspection.

Things change; everything changes, because Jinki gets the sense that they are together in a way they were not together before. Their chats are small, somewhat inconsequential, but they discover more crannies in each other than they previously knew. Jinki, with Minho’s help, handles his parents divorce and when his dad moves out and he first visits, it’s like he can start his life anew. He sees his parents happy for the first time in years, and his mom smiles at him and tells him how proud she is. His dad says the same thing, and they both tack on at the end: you become a wonderful person.

The first time Minho and Jinki have sex again, they take it slow. Jinki is on his knees and his every move is careful, eyes careful watching Minho and making sure that each trick is okay. He uses his tongue the way he knows Minho likes and Minho’s pupils dilate as he watches. He takes a break and licks his lips, and that’s the end of blowing Minho as he’s pulled up and they tangle themselves in the sheets.

This changes too: their sex no longer feels like routine. It feels different each time, new and precious and tantalizing. Sometimes Jinki has to take cold showers because he’s never been aroused so often in his life since he was a preteen. Sometimes they have sex roughly and Jinki has hickeys all over his chest and he wants to leave hickeys all over Minho, but they’re famous and the stylists might not keep that secret.

Passion is new for them, but it feels natural now. Minho whispers ‘I love you’ to Jinki nearly every morning and Jinki’s heart always beats faster when their eyes meet. Jinki tells himself everyday that they will not become his parents, unhappy and fighting at every turn. They don’t, because there was never a chance of that happening.

(Years down the road, they have their own house. They fight, as every couple does; they fight over the trash, about bills, adoption and Jinki staying up late to read. Jonghyun comes by every now and then and Jinki and Jonghyun release an album just the two of them. Minho features on one of the tracks. Taemin is married to a lovely girl; they all attended the wedding. They have careers, they have happiness, they accepted change and they communicate. The only things Jinki throws at walls are clothes because you were supposed to do the laundry three days ago, Minho, and now I don't have any decent clothes to wear in public. If they ever decide on adopting kids, they will teach them this: be proud of the person you make yourself to be.)

a/n why is lj such a pain in the fucking ass man, but whatever! this was supposed to be a happy birthday porn fic but it's march and there is no porn. i failed. (in other news, my longest completed fic ever ahahaha let me drink my life away)