It's Never Easy - A Taekey One Shot
Title: It's Never EasyAuthor: semi_tokkitae
Rating: G
Pairing: Taekey
Genre: Fluff/Angst
Wordcount: 1,474
Disclaimer: None
Author's Note: This was from a prompt accepted on my Tumblr account from an anonymous viewer:
"taemin struggles with his weight; kibum worries"
Read it on Tumblr
His eyes trace over the obviously sharper jawline and arms that no longer seem to hold the bulk from months before but are now more sinewy and seemingly breakable under any force. Kibum worries about Taemin.
When the younger boy shifts off of the couch, the shirt that Kibum remembers being a bit more form-fitting last year than it is now seems to nearly swallow Taemin up and drown him as he shuffles out of the living area and into the kitchen. Taemin has gotten thinner, and what’s more, he’s started refusing food. It’s a characteristic that the rapper never thought he would see from the boy, and it has him worrying even more as the days continue.
“Taemin-ah, why don’t I make you something to eat?”
Kibum asks him with a friendly smile that he forces on his lips as he walks into the kitchen, the knowledge that the fiery-haired boy only came in here for a bottle of water and nothing more clenching at Kibum’s already cracking heart. He knows the answer already, and he wonders why he even waits for the false smile to adorn the younger’s full lips before he shuffles away to his room in a type of distant silence that makes Kibum shiver violently.
“That’s okay, Key-hyung. I just wanted to get some water. Thanks though.”
And there it was - that smile that never reaches the edges of his cheeks, never lets the corners of his eyes crinkle, and holds a type of unknown sadness that has Kibum’s heart starting to shatter bit by bit.
Before his hand can reach out to touch Taemin, the young dancer is already out of the kitchen, trailing down the hallway like a ghost. Were his footsteps always so soft Kibum wonders to himself.
--
Three days have passed, and Taemin has caught a cold. Opting to care for the sick member, Kibum urges the other three to attend their schedule, reminding them that they can’t let the fans down. They do as requested, noting that Taemin really isn’t in that bad of shape anyway - their resident Almighty Key can handle it. Jinki always had faith that Kibum could handle any obstacle that was thrown in his path, but he hadn’t accounted for the most difficult obstacle: Lee Taemin.
A weak cough shatters the silence that had filtered through the dorm after the other three had left Kibum standing in the doorway, lost in his own thoughts. The sound shakes him to the core, his eyes immediately darting to the bedroom that Taemin and Jonghyun shared as if he were caring for a sick child and everything was of grave urgency.
“Key-hyung, I just..it’s just a little cold. I’ll be fine. I am a grown man, you know? I do know how to take care of myself.” Taemin laughs before turning to cough again and sniffling with a frustrated grunt. He has that smile plastered over his pale features again, Kibum’s eyes narrowing dangerously at him as the elder perches his body on the edge of the bed at Taemin’s feet.
“If you could take care of yourself, you wouldn’t be a walking skeleton.” His tone is harsher than he meant, and guilt wracks him when he hears a hitch in the younger boy’s breathing behind him.
There’s silence for a few minutes. It’s deafening.
Kibum doesn’t remember the analog clock on the wall being that loud before - each gear grinding and ticking in his eardrums. He doesn’t remember the drip in the bathroom sink either, but it’s there. It taunts him in the dead silence until his ears pick up on the shuffling of sheets and the change in breath of the group’s youngest member.
“How is it so easy for you? Key-hyu-. Bummie.”
The loss of honorifics to be replaced by a pet name startles Kibum, his cheeks flushing unexpectedly by the sound of it slipping off of Taemin’s lips, a slight nasal-tone accompanying it in a thick congestion that causes Taemin’s usual voice to dive an octave. The younger boy coughs again.
Kibum’s hand slides from his own lap to the bed’s edge, gripping at the sheets as his mind tries to form coherent words that his tongue won’t be caught tripping over. He wants to ask why Taemin has, in essence, been starving himself. Why he keeps painting on such a painful mask of fake jubilation. He wants to know why there’s only a shell of the boy walking the halls at night in an insomnia-filled trance. Kibum’s seen him, staring at the fridge some nights with a hunger that he hides in the daylight while his house mates are awake. Kibum’s seen him crying on the edge of the couch, wracked with tears that seem never-ending and without a clear source.
And he hears those same sobs creeping through his reveries, muffled by his thoughts - no, muffled by the sheet he’s currently got his fingers clutched onto. The older boy swivels on the bed, a tear-streaked Taemin sitting against the bed’s headboard with the sheets pulled up to try and keep the sounds from getting any louder, but the attempt obviously being futile in nature. For a brief moment, his eyes lock with Kibum’s, an empty void piercing through Kibum’s soul and sending those familiar shivers down his back before Taemin looks away and clamps his lids shut over a wall of salty tears.
“Baby, please….don’t cry. You know I hate when you cry.”
The elder’s moved to his side now, wrapping a comforting arm around Taemin’s upper half and pulling him against his side, coaxing the younger boy to lean on him. It instead leads Taemin to crawl into his lap, burying his rosy cheeks against Kibum’s chest, his tears leaking through the elder’s shirt and sinking through to his chest. Kibum cards his long, slender fingers through the dark, auburn locks of the younger boy while he hums.
“I’ve seen you struggling with your weight lately, Minnie. Is it all of the stress? You’ve had a lot going on lately with the schedules. You’ve grown into a man but there are moments inside where you still feel like a boy. The pressures put on your shoulders…they’re too much.”
Kibum let his thoughts wander as he continues humming to the younger boy, one hand rubbing soothing circles in his back while the other keeps slipping through his soft hair. Had there ever been a time he’d felt so much pressure to look or act a certain way? Even when they were pushed to their limits, Kibum couldn’t remember feeling the need to force food away from his mouth, to ignore sleep in favor of drowning in his own worry and tears.
It hurt him that there was nothing he could do to take that kind of pain away from the boy he loved so dearly.
Dark eyes slowly move down to look at Taemin, the younger having calmed his sobs to be replaced by soft hiccups and periodic sniffles. “Hey, look at me baby.”
The rapper moves his hand off of the back of Taemin’s head, sliding it softly along the hard edge of the younger’s jawline and slowly moving his head up from Kibum’s chest. A soft smile appears on the elder’s shapely lips, his thumb wiping away some of the hot tears that were still silently sliding down Taemin’s flushed cheeks.
“It’s never easy, but you know you have the other members to help you, right? You have me. If you ever get overwhelmed, come to me. Forcing yourself to give up food….it does nothing but make you miserable. You’re already thin enough as it is, baby. You worry me when you don’t eat. Plus…it makes me think that you hate my cooking or something.”
His last sentence trails off into laughter, Taemin chuckling along with him. A sharp heat strikes Kibum’s chest, his heart pounding hard as if it might explode. The younger boy’s lips had turned upward into a smile, stretching effectively from cheek to cheek, eyes crinkling at the corners and turning almost to slits. It was genuine.
“I understand, Bummie.” Taemin wants to add that he loves the other boy, but he’s sure that Kibum already knows, so he holds onto the words for another time. Coughing, he slides slightly off of the rapper’s lap, wiping at his eyes before his voice croaks out “can you make me some soup?”
It’s like some sort of beautiful music to Kibum’s ears, drowning out the clock and the drip in the bathroom sink, and filling up the little cracks that had formed in his heart. Leaning over he presses a gentle kiss to Taemin’s warm forehead, cupping the younger’s cheek affectionately before smiling and sliding off the edge of the bed.
“Chicken noodle?”