[[ SHINee ]] Parallel Lines 4/7.
Title: Parallel Lines.
Author: sacryde_riots.
Fandom: SHINee.
Pairing: Onew/Minho, with a side of Jonghyun/Taemin.
Rating: PG-15.
Summary: Trust Minho to get himself sent to a parallel universe the one day he has the dorm all to himself.
Status/length: Incomplete, 2,600 words.
Author's Note: This fic is kind of AU and kind of not. Dedicated to my angel tana2507, my girl ficcy_irl, and my sunshine hewasmyking, because without them, I probably never would have written anything again. ♥ Ignore the blatant SNSD reference, 'kay?
Previous Chapters: 01, 02, 03
*****
It had been a week, and Minho was starting to believe that he would never go home. He'd devoured the book Jinki gave him in the space of 2 days, searched every website the internet had to offer, and even talked to Jinki about the parallel worlds again. According to all the rules and theories, he would have to fix the relationship with Jinki in order to go back home, but how the hell was he supposed to do that?
Of course he knew how he was supposed to fix the relationship, he just wasn't sure he could inflict that on Jinki. Minho needed to either get over Jinki completely, or.... make Jinki fall in love with him back. Minho was not an idiot; he knew it was impossible for him to get Jinki to fall in love with him, but he also knew that it was even more impossible for him to fall out of love with Jinki. He really was almost convinced that he would be stuck in this world forever.
"You know, I have really bad luck sometimes," Jinki said, breaking Minho from his thoughts. They were standing around the bookstore, Jinki on one side of the counter and Minho on the other, in a way that had become natural over the past week. After Minho had found out about the parallel world, and why he was there to begin with, he'd made sure to always stop by the bookstore after school to have some kind of conversation with Jinki, whether it was for 5 minutes or 5 hours. He kept thinking that maybe being around Jinki long enough would desensitize him, though he knew there was no real logic in that idea. In reality, he merely wanted to be around Jinki. He smiled, which Jinki took as a sign to go on, "I always try to help my family with cleaning the house and doing chores, but they keep telling me not to because I only mess things up. When I clean windows, they fall on my hand and break my fingers. When I do laundry, the whole room explodes in foam, and when I try to clean the bathroom, I always wind up locking myself in the shower even though it doesn't even have a lock."
Minho grinned, chuckling under his breath. Oh, what he wouldn't give to sing the Onew Sangtae song right now. If there was one thing he missed more than anything, it was being able to sing that song at every moment of fail from Jinki.
"I don't understand why I can't do anything right, though," Jinki muttered, a frown replacing his usual smile. Minho's body froze as his eyes took in the expression he'd always known was hidden beneath that bright smile. Seeing it for the first time, or at least the first time without Jinki being completely unaware of his presence, somehow chilled him to the bone. He hated it.
"Hey, Jinki," Minho started, chewing lightly on his lower lip, "you have the day off tomorrow, right?" Jinki nodded, curiosity replacing the sad expression, "I'm going to karoke with a few friends tomorrow, so why don't you come with us? Maybe you can convince Jonghyun to give up the mic every once in a while."
Jinki's eyes went wide as he starting choking on nothing, hands moving around frantically. Minho grinned, patting him on the back until he got his wits back again. Kind of.
"Y-you mean. You want me. To go with you. To karaoke?"
Minho nodded, trying to make a serious expression and failing miserably - the grin would not leave.
"B-but. Why. I mean. I'm not. I mean. What. You. I just. What."
Minho outright laughed, shaking his head and waiting until Jinki stopped stuttering to speak again. "I know you can sing, I've heard you singing some trot songs in the back room while you're re-stocking. And you're my friend too, so I want you to come."
Jinki merely gaped at him like an electrocuted fish. Minho chuckled.
"I won't force you to come, but if you want to, I'm sure they won't mind," he stood up a little bit straighter and stretched his back out, feeling a few things pop back into place. "I'll stop by here tomorrow after school at about... maybe 3:30 pm. So have your mind made up by then, okay?"
Jinki nodded his head quickly and Minho grinned, glad that he'd gotten Jinki over the small bout of sadness at least for the moment. He waved goodbye and left the bookstore, his heart pounding at the prospect of having SHINee all together again, even if it was only for karaoke.
*****
"I don't think your friends like me very much," Jinki whispered, practically clinging to Minho's arm as they left the karaoke booth to get a round of drinks. Jinki looked more terrified than a deer caught in the headlights of a car, despite how much Minho could tell he secretly enjoyed being included in something other than a study session with people who just wanted to use him for his brain. Minho chuckled and shook his head, ordering five waters from the girl behind the counter, turning to give Jinki a look that clearly said 'don't even try to worm your way out of this.'
"It's not that they don't like you, Jinki. It's just... Jonghyun doesn't like feeling like he has to compete for the spotlight, Kibum's skeptical about everyone before they prove themselves, and Taemin quite frankly doesn't give a damn."
"But I don't fit in here," Jinki whined, his lower lip protruding slightly in a pout. Minho winced.
"You will, Jinki. Trust me."
*****
"Yah! What were you thinking?" Kibum screeched the next day, causing Minho and the entire hallway to wince. Minho was suddenly glad that he was used to Kibum's screaming, otherwise he just may have gone deaf.
"You never said that I wasn't allowed to bring anyone," Minho grumbled, rubbing his ear gently, trying to get rid of the echo that was all of a sudden there.
"I thought it was obvious!"
"Look," Minho started, his eyes narrowing in on Kibum, "if it weren't for me, you never would have met Jonghyun and Taemin after they moved here from Seoul, right?" Minho asked, noticing the way Kibum's jaw clenched itself shut. He smiled just slightly at that, glad that he had some kind of upper hand in this world, "Since I'm the one who brought you guys together, I should be allowed to bring in someone if I think they'll be good with us, right?"
"But why Lee Jinki?! He's so.... boring! He's a total nerd, and he can't even sing!"
"You didn't listen to his melody yesterday, did you?" Minho asked, quirking an eyebrow up. "His voice is good, and he's not as boring as you think. Just give him a chance. You'll see."
*****
Another week and three more karaoke sessions passed before Jonghyun and Kibum grudgingly admitted to Jinki's singing ability. Jonghyun even let him have a few lines in the last song he'd composed, and explained that it was because Jinki's smooth voice fit those specific lines much better than his could. Jinki was thrilled, to say the very least.
"You see, I've always been really bad at talking to people," Jinki started, swinging his legs from his perch on top the desk at the bookstore. Somehow, he and Minho had gone from standing on opposite sides of the counter to having Jinki sit on top of it with Minho seated in the chair beside it. It was a better arrangement for both, because it made Jinki feel taller while at the same time letting Minho steal more glances at Jinki without getting caught. "I have this weird thing where I always wind up making jokes that no one else gets. They sound really good in my head, but the second I say it out loud, everything gets all weird and I never get why until someone asks if it was supposed to be a joke," Jinki paused before grinning, and Minho immediately knew something lame was going to happen, "it's like a broken water spigot. You can start it up, but even when you try to get it to stop, it just keeps spouting out water."
Minho blinked, waiting for Jinki to say something more, something that might actually be funny. When nothing happened, Minho started automatically humming the Onew Sangtae song under his breath, a small smile finding its' way across his lips.
"What was that?"
"I said, 'Whatever he does it's Jinki sangtae~'"
"Jinki sangtae?"
"Yeah. Where you say something really awkward and not funny. It's like a condition, right?"
Jinki blinked, and a few seconds later the entire bookstore looked as if it was set up for Christmas. Jinki smiled, and everything in the room brightened up like a thousand Christmas trees. Somehow, Minho found it impossible to turn his eyes away from that blindingly bright smile for even a second.
*****
"You never did tell me why you were interested in the parallel worlds," Jinki muttered one day, catching Minho by complete surprise. He nearly dropped the cards in his hand, but managed to catch them just in time before Jinki could find out that he was two cards away from a Royal Flush.
"I was just curious," Minho muttered, placing the two cards he didn't need on the table, picking up two more and fighting off the smile that wanted to grace his lips. Royal Flush.
"Yeah, but you were all serious about it," Jinki frowned, waving his hand in front of Minho's face. Minho looked up, only to burst out laughing at the dead serious expression on Jinki's face in what he knew was supposed to be an imitation of his own.
"Yah, you're over thinking it," Minho said, copying Jinki's exact expression. Jinki glared harder; obviously he didn't think it was very funny. They stared at each other for a long, hard moment, Minho trying very hard to not notice how Jinki's eyes were the exact shade of brown they always turned when he was truly happy. It shouldn't be legal for eyes to be that shade of brown, especially when they were trying so hard to seem tough and serious. Minho bit on his bottom lip just slightly to keep himself from smiling at exactly how contradicting Jinki was being again.
Apparently, Jinki was just as easily distracted in this world as he was in the other world, because the second Minho started messing with his bottom lip, Jinki's eyes flew downward. Maybe it was because of how serious he'd been just moments ago, maybe it was because he was simply caught off guard, but for whatever reason, Jinki went toppling over onto the ground before Minho even had time to register the sight of him falling.
"Jinki!" Minho yelled, clambering his way around the desk until he came to where Jinki was sprawled out on the ground like a starfish, eyes wide and staring at the ceiling. "Jinki, are you okay?"
"Mmm," Jinki murmered, his eyebrows furrowing together. Minho let out a whoosh of breath, knowing that Jinki being dazed and confused was nothing to worry about, as long as he could speak. Dazed and confused was one of the default Jinki settings, after all.
"Hey, Minho... you have a cut on your face," Jinki mumbled, pointing to Minho's eye. Minho blinked, bringing his hand up and wiping away a light layer of blood.
"Oh my god, there's blood!" Jinki screeched, jumping up suddenly and banging his forehead against Minho's face, causing Minho to fall back onto his butt. "Oh my god, I just hit you!!" Jinki screamed, flailing his arms around and hitting Minho in the stomach a few times without even noticing. Minho blinked, watching Jinki thrash around for a few moments before bursting out laughing at the ridiculousness of the entire situation. Jinki rounded on him like an angry bull.
"Wh... why are you laughing!? You're hurt!!"
Minho snorted into his hand, unable to control his laughter anymore. He went falling backward onto the ground, knees pressed to his chest as his entire body shook with giggles. Jinki's worried face did nothing to calm him down, if anything, it made it worse. He felt himself roll around as he stopped being able to control where exactly his body went, feeling his abdomen tighten with every intake of breath.
"Ow, ow, ow," Minho whined, clutching his right side as a sharp pain shot through him, the laughter subsiding slowly at the realization that hey, it hurt. He breathed in deeply, shaking off the cackles that threatened to take over his sense of awareness yet again. "Don't look like that, Jinki. It's not that big of a deal."
"But you're bleeding! You'll have to put a band-aid on it and go around in school looking like a thug!"
Minho waved off what Jinki apparently thought was a bad thing with a grin, his eyes unfocused as he stared up at the ceiling.
"A little cut on my face won't hurt anyone, Jinki; it's not like I'm an idol or anything. There's no way something like a cut on my face will be regarded as a serious issue," Minho smiled, letting his eyes fall shut as he felt his entire body relax with the realization that he really could go around with a band-aid on his face, "Now, if it were my real world, I'd be locked up in the dorm with special ointments and doctors and stuck underneath a broken ceiling fan for days until it went away. But here? It doesn't matter in the slightest. I can still go to school and walk around and... I can be..."
Minho trailed off, the smile on his lips perfect and calm and relaxed as he revelled in the knowledge that here, he could be normal. Sure, he had a small cut above his eye again, but here, it didn't matter. He would be able to just shake it off with a smile and explain that he'd simply gotten himself caught in a dangerous game of poker, and that one of the cards had attacked his face with a brutal strength that one didn't usually see from a playing card, especially what he thought had been a five of spades. He would be able to explain that he'd just been with Jinki in the bookstore, messing around and having fun like normal friends would do, even if it wasn't very idol-like to be playing poker. He'd be able to explai---
Minho shot up from his spot on the floor, his eyes wide as he took in his surroundings again, feeling a sense of panic settle in the bottom of his stomach. He reached up to touch the back of his neck, noticing again that his long hair was no longer there, noticing all of the books surrounding him as he sat in the middle of a bookstore in the middle of a completely different world. His eyes took in the books, the desk, the abandoned game of poker, slowly, slowly, moving his eyes further to the right until they settled on a very ordinary looking Jinki, whose expression was so far past shocked it could only be called astonished. Minho gulped, feeling every muscle in his body tense as he saw the way Jinki's jaw moved as if he was about to speak. A tongue darted out to wet suddenly dry lips, though Minho wasn't sure if it was his or Jinki's. There was a pause in the air as they both waited with baited breath for what they both knew was coming next.
"What... did you just say?"
*****
TO BE CONTINUED...
A/N: Thank you guys for reading this!! I know I took a bit more time on this one, but I had to sit back and re-evaluate where the story was going, because I didn't want to just write without a solid sense of the plot. I'm pretty sure this story will be either 6 or 7 chapters long, maybe with an epilogue? I'm not sure, I guess it depends on how things go. But seriously, thank you guys so much for reading this, especially those of you who've commented to let me know you like the story. You have no idea how happy it makes me to know that people are not only reading this, but enjoying it. ♥ :DDDD
Next Chapter: Chapter 05
Author: sacryde_riots.
Fandom: SHINee.
Pairing: Onew/Minho, with a side of Jonghyun/Taemin.
Rating: PG-15.
Summary: Trust Minho to get himself sent to a parallel universe the one day he has the dorm all to himself.
Status/length: Incomplete, 2,600 words.
Author's Note: This fic is kind of AU and kind of not. Dedicated to my angel tana2507, my girl ficcy_irl, and my sunshine hewasmyking, because without them, I probably never would have written anything again. ♥ Ignore the blatant SNSD reference, 'kay?
Previous Chapters: 01, 02, 03
*****
It had been a week, and Minho was starting to believe that he would never go home. He'd devoured the book Jinki gave him in the space of 2 days, searched every website the internet had to offer, and even talked to Jinki about the parallel worlds again. According to all the rules and theories, he would have to fix the relationship with Jinki in order to go back home, but how the hell was he supposed to do that?
Of course he knew how he was supposed to fix the relationship, he just wasn't sure he could inflict that on Jinki. Minho needed to either get over Jinki completely, or.... make Jinki fall in love with him back. Minho was not an idiot; he knew it was impossible for him to get Jinki to fall in love with him, but he also knew that it was even more impossible for him to fall out of love with Jinki. He really was almost convinced that he would be stuck in this world forever.
"You know, I have really bad luck sometimes," Jinki said, breaking Minho from his thoughts. They were standing around the bookstore, Jinki on one side of the counter and Minho on the other, in a way that had become natural over the past week. After Minho had found out about the parallel world, and why he was there to begin with, he'd made sure to always stop by the bookstore after school to have some kind of conversation with Jinki, whether it was for 5 minutes or 5 hours. He kept thinking that maybe being around Jinki long enough would desensitize him, though he knew there was no real logic in that idea. In reality, he merely wanted to be around Jinki. He smiled, which Jinki took as a sign to go on, "I always try to help my family with cleaning the house and doing chores, but they keep telling me not to because I only mess things up. When I clean windows, they fall on my hand and break my fingers. When I do laundry, the whole room explodes in foam, and when I try to clean the bathroom, I always wind up locking myself in the shower even though it doesn't even have a lock."
Minho grinned, chuckling under his breath. Oh, what he wouldn't give to sing the Onew Sangtae song right now. If there was one thing he missed more than anything, it was being able to sing that song at every moment of fail from Jinki.
"I don't understand why I can't do anything right, though," Jinki muttered, a frown replacing his usual smile. Minho's body froze as his eyes took in the expression he'd always known was hidden beneath that bright smile. Seeing it for the first time, or at least the first time without Jinki being completely unaware of his presence, somehow chilled him to the bone. He hated it.
"Hey, Jinki," Minho started, chewing lightly on his lower lip, "you have the day off tomorrow, right?" Jinki nodded, curiosity replacing the sad expression, "I'm going to karoke with a few friends tomorrow, so why don't you come with us? Maybe you can convince Jonghyun to give up the mic every once in a while."
Jinki's eyes went wide as he starting choking on nothing, hands moving around frantically. Minho grinned, patting him on the back until he got his wits back again. Kind of.
"Y-you mean. You want me. To go with you. To karaoke?"
Minho nodded, trying to make a serious expression and failing miserably - the grin would not leave.
"B-but. Why. I mean. I'm not. I mean. What. You. I just. What."
Minho outright laughed, shaking his head and waiting until Jinki stopped stuttering to speak again. "I know you can sing, I've heard you singing some trot songs in the back room while you're re-stocking. And you're my friend too, so I want you to come."
Jinki merely gaped at him like an electrocuted fish. Minho chuckled.
"I won't force you to come, but if you want to, I'm sure they won't mind," he stood up a little bit straighter and stretched his back out, feeling a few things pop back into place. "I'll stop by here tomorrow after school at about... maybe 3:30 pm. So have your mind made up by then, okay?"
Jinki nodded his head quickly and Minho grinned, glad that he'd gotten Jinki over the small bout of sadness at least for the moment. He waved goodbye and left the bookstore, his heart pounding at the prospect of having SHINee all together again, even if it was only for karaoke.
*****
"I don't think your friends like me very much," Jinki whispered, practically clinging to Minho's arm as they left the karaoke booth to get a round of drinks. Jinki looked more terrified than a deer caught in the headlights of a car, despite how much Minho could tell he secretly enjoyed being included in something other than a study session with people who just wanted to use him for his brain. Minho chuckled and shook his head, ordering five waters from the girl behind the counter, turning to give Jinki a look that clearly said 'don't even try to worm your way out of this.'
"It's not that they don't like you, Jinki. It's just... Jonghyun doesn't like feeling like he has to compete for the spotlight, Kibum's skeptical about everyone before they prove themselves, and Taemin quite frankly doesn't give a damn."
"But I don't fit in here," Jinki whined, his lower lip protruding slightly in a pout. Minho winced.
"You will, Jinki. Trust me."
*****
"Yah! What were you thinking?" Kibum screeched the next day, causing Minho and the entire hallway to wince. Minho was suddenly glad that he was used to Kibum's screaming, otherwise he just may have gone deaf.
"You never said that I wasn't allowed to bring anyone," Minho grumbled, rubbing his ear gently, trying to get rid of the echo that was all of a sudden there.
"I thought it was obvious!"
"Look," Minho started, his eyes narrowing in on Kibum, "if it weren't for me, you never would have met Jonghyun and Taemin after they moved here from Seoul, right?" Minho asked, noticing the way Kibum's jaw clenched itself shut. He smiled just slightly at that, glad that he had some kind of upper hand in this world, "Since I'm the one who brought you guys together, I should be allowed to bring in someone if I think they'll be good with us, right?"
"But why Lee Jinki?! He's so.... boring! He's a total nerd, and he can't even sing!"
"You didn't listen to his melody yesterday, did you?" Minho asked, quirking an eyebrow up. "His voice is good, and he's not as boring as you think. Just give him a chance. You'll see."
*****
Another week and three more karaoke sessions passed before Jonghyun and Kibum grudgingly admitted to Jinki's singing ability. Jonghyun even let him have a few lines in the last song he'd composed, and explained that it was because Jinki's smooth voice fit those specific lines much better than his could. Jinki was thrilled, to say the very least.
"You see, I've always been really bad at talking to people," Jinki started, swinging his legs from his perch on top the desk at the bookstore. Somehow, he and Minho had gone from standing on opposite sides of the counter to having Jinki sit on top of it with Minho seated in the chair beside it. It was a better arrangement for both, because it made Jinki feel taller while at the same time letting Minho steal more glances at Jinki without getting caught. "I have this weird thing where I always wind up making jokes that no one else gets. They sound really good in my head, but the second I say it out loud, everything gets all weird and I never get why until someone asks if it was supposed to be a joke," Jinki paused before grinning, and Minho immediately knew something lame was going to happen, "it's like a broken water spigot. You can start it up, but even when you try to get it to stop, it just keeps spouting out water."
Minho blinked, waiting for Jinki to say something more, something that might actually be funny. When nothing happened, Minho started automatically humming the Onew Sangtae song under his breath, a small smile finding its' way across his lips.
"What was that?"
"I said, 'Whatever he does it's Jinki sangtae~'"
"Jinki sangtae?"
"Yeah. Where you say something really awkward and not funny. It's like a condition, right?"
Jinki blinked, and a few seconds later the entire bookstore looked as if it was set up for Christmas. Jinki smiled, and everything in the room brightened up like a thousand Christmas trees. Somehow, Minho found it impossible to turn his eyes away from that blindingly bright smile for even a second.
*****
"You never did tell me why you were interested in the parallel worlds," Jinki muttered one day, catching Minho by complete surprise. He nearly dropped the cards in his hand, but managed to catch them just in time before Jinki could find out that he was two cards away from a Royal Flush.
"I was just curious," Minho muttered, placing the two cards he didn't need on the table, picking up two more and fighting off the smile that wanted to grace his lips. Royal Flush.
"Yeah, but you were all serious about it," Jinki frowned, waving his hand in front of Minho's face. Minho looked up, only to burst out laughing at the dead serious expression on Jinki's face in what he knew was supposed to be an imitation of his own.
"Yah, you're over thinking it," Minho said, copying Jinki's exact expression. Jinki glared harder; obviously he didn't think it was very funny. They stared at each other for a long, hard moment, Minho trying very hard to not notice how Jinki's eyes were the exact shade of brown they always turned when he was truly happy. It shouldn't be legal for eyes to be that shade of brown, especially when they were trying so hard to seem tough and serious. Minho bit on his bottom lip just slightly to keep himself from smiling at exactly how contradicting Jinki was being again.
Apparently, Jinki was just as easily distracted in this world as he was in the other world, because the second Minho started messing with his bottom lip, Jinki's eyes flew downward. Maybe it was because of how serious he'd been just moments ago, maybe it was because he was simply caught off guard, but for whatever reason, Jinki went toppling over onto the ground before Minho even had time to register the sight of him falling.
"Jinki!" Minho yelled, clambering his way around the desk until he came to where Jinki was sprawled out on the ground like a starfish, eyes wide and staring at the ceiling. "Jinki, are you okay?"
"Mmm," Jinki murmered, his eyebrows furrowing together. Minho let out a whoosh of breath, knowing that Jinki being dazed and confused was nothing to worry about, as long as he could speak. Dazed and confused was one of the default Jinki settings, after all.
"Hey, Minho... you have a cut on your face," Jinki mumbled, pointing to Minho's eye. Minho blinked, bringing his hand up and wiping away a light layer of blood.
"Oh my god, there's blood!" Jinki screeched, jumping up suddenly and banging his forehead against Minho's face, causing Minho to fall back onto his butt. "Oh my god, I just hit you!!" Jinki screamed, flailing his arms around and hitting Minho in the stomach a few times without even noticing. Minho blinked, watching Jinki thrash around for a few moments before bursting out laughing at the ridiculousness of the entire situation. Jinki rounded on him like an angry bull.
"Wh... why are you laughing!? You're hurt!!"
Minho snorted into his hand, unable to control his laughter anymore. He went falling backward onto the ground, knees pressed to his chest as his entire body shook with giggles. Jinki's worried face did nothing to calm him down, if anything, it made it worse. He felt himself roll around as he stopped being able to control where exactly his body went, feeling his abdomen tighten with every intake of breath.
"Ow, ow, ow," Minho whined, clutching his right side as a sharp pain shot through him, the laughter subsiding slowly at the realization that hey, it hurt. He breathed in deeply, shaking off the cackles that threatened to take over his sense of awareness yet again. "Don't look like that, Jinki. It's not that big of a deal."
"But you're bleeding! You'll have to put a band-aid on it and go around in school looking like a thug!"
Minho waved off what Jinki apparently thought was a bad thing with a grin, his eyes unfocused as he stared up at the ceiling.
"A little cut on my face won't hurt anyone, Jinki; it's not like I'm an idol or anything. There's no way something like a cut on my face will be regarded as a serious issue," Minho smiled, letting his eyes fall shut as he felt his entire body relax with the realization that he really could go around with a band-aid on his face, "Now, if it were my real world, I'd be locked up in the dorm with special ointments and doctors and stuck underneath a broken ceiling fan for days until it went away. But here? It doesn't matter in the slightest. I can still go to school and walk around and... I can be..."
Minho trailed off, the smile on his lips perfect and calm and relaxed as he revelled in the knowledge that here, he could be normal. Sure, he had a small cut above his eye again, but here, it didn't matter. He would be able to just shake it off with a smile and explain that he'd simply gotten himself caught in a dangerous game of poker, and that one of the cards had attacked his face with a brutal strength that one didn't usually see from a playing card, especially what he thought had been a five of spades. He would be able to explain that he'd just been with Jinki in the bookstore, messing around and having fun like normal friends would do, even if it wasn't very idol-like to be playing poker. He'd be able to explai---
Minho shot up from his spot on the floor, his eyes wide as he took in his surroundings again, feeling a sense of panic settle in the bottom of his stomach. He reached up to touch the back of his neck, noticing again that his long hair was no longer there, noticing all of the books surrounding him as he sat in the middle of a bookstore in the middle of a completely different world. His eyes took in the books, the desk, the abandoned game of poker, slowly, slowly, moving his eyes further to the right until they settled on a very ordinary looking Jinki, whose expression was so far past shocked it could only be called astonished. Minho gulped, feeling every muscle in his body tense as he saw the way Jinki's jaw moved as if he was about to speak. A tongue darted out to wet suddenly dry lips, though Minho wasn't sure if it was his or Jinki's. There was a pause in the air as they both waited with baited breath for what they both knew was coming next.
"What... did you just say?"
*****
TO BE CONTINUED...
A/N: Thank you guys for reading this!! I know I took a bit more time on this one, but I had to sit back and re-evaluate where the story was going, because I didn't want to just write without a solid sense of the plot. I'm pretty sure this story will be either 6 or 7 chapters long, maybe with an epilogue? I'm not sure, I guess it depends on how things go. But seriously, thank you guys so much for reading this, especially those of you who've commented to let me know you like the story. You have no idea how happy it makes me to know that people are not only reading this, but enjoying it. ♥ :DDDD
Next Chapter: Chapter 05