Summertime Sadness (1/2)
Title: Summertime Sadness (sequel to Treehouse)
Pairing: Jonghyun/Taemin/Eunsook
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: mentions of child abuse, rape
Author's note: Oh look, I took something nice and ruined it.
-
“Fuck, Tae, just sit in my lap.”
Taemin wiped his hands over his face before groaning both because at the question, and the fact that his palms were just making his face feel even greasier. He tucked his hands inside the edge of his sleeves and tried again, rubbing with the heels of his wrists at the sections of his skin bothering him most.
“Look, you either sit in his lap or get stuck in the trunk, and surprisingly enough I don’t want you suffocating in my dad’s fucking car okay?”
“Great. Thanks. Good to know.”
Taemin looks to Eunsook for her to say something. To tell him to get in the fucking car or they’re leaving him behind, acknowledge him, scoff at him, anything. But she just continues to stare out the passenger side window, eyes closed against the pulsating heat.
“Fine.” He crawls in to shift himself awkwardly on Jonghyun’s lap, while he refuses to look at that obnoxious smile he knows the older is watching him with.
Minho stretches his legs, obviously relieved Taemin’s given in and takes the car out of park.
“What is half this shit anyway,” Taemin grumbles as he picks at some of the things piled next to them in the back.
“Vital supplies.” Jonghyun grins at him and it feels like the direct cause for the sweat sliding down Taemin’s back and into the waistband of his underwear.
Taemin hates himself for shivering because it makes Jonghyun rub his shoulder. He just can’t catch a break can he?
-
“You know man no offense, but I’m so glad you parents got to divorced.” Jonghyun’s double-fisting some fries right now outside the gas station they stopped at.
Minho straightens up while glaring down at Jonghyun and tosses his still somewhat full slurpie to the side. It lands with an unpleasant slushing noise on edge of the curb and bright red cherry limeade seeps into the concrete immediately. It’s this kind of stuff that still makes Taemin nervous. He just can’t get used to the way they don’t seem to care if they attract attention in public. It’s not like he wants to be this way, he figures he just is.
“You want to say that again,” Minho threatens.
Jonghyun stares up at him for a second before shoving another large handful of fries in his mouth.
“I said get my dick out of your mouth.”
Minho’s instantly got Jonghyun in a headlock while Jonghyun’s laughing punching at his sides, trying to balance all his food while being spun around.
“Hey hey think of the food! Think of the food!”
Minho’s laughing as well, swinging Jonghyun around like some playtoy as fries continue to fly in all directions.
“Don’t worry about it, my divorce guilt credit card can buy you more anytime.”
Taemin takes another bite of his candy bar feeling lame for something so literally square. Well rectangle sure, but boring. A brown lump of boring, and tries to give a sympathetic look to the couple walking out of the store quickly veering to the left to avoid their little tousle.
“Hey, uh, I’m going to go see if Eunsook’s alright.”
They don’t seem to hear him and he doesn’t wait for them to respond.
The door chimes as he walks in and he feels a little better from the rush of cold air coming from AC above the door.
He spots Eunsook next to the ice cream tub.
“Hey.”
Eunsook looks up and scoots over a little, but doesn’t say anything.
They stay there staring for a while as Taemin thumbs his pockets and studies Eunsook’s figure. She’s been losing weight lately, he thinks. But he can’t really be sure. Unless it’s like twenty kilos and there’s a picture of someone in the exact same outfit side by side it’s kind of hard for him to notice. She looks a little different every time he sees her really, and it has been a while, but at least it seems like she’s lost weight. Her face is no longer as cute and chubby, or maybe that’s just because he hasn’t seen her smiling lately.
“I’ll buy you one if you want,” he offers.
She looks over at him her eyes suddenly wide, like she’s shocked someone else is there.
Her nostrils flare a little as she takes in air, but on the exhale she goes back to normal.
“Nah, that’s okay.” She leans back away from the tub and straights out slowly before walking lazily down one of the other aisles without really looking at anything.
“Uh, it looked like you wanted one though.”
Eunsook and him haven’t really, well talked isn’t the right word because they’ve talked, but it’s been like this lately. She’s not even cold- just distant. It seems like she’s been that way towards all of them and yet Minho and Jonghyun haven’t even noticed. Or if they have they’re certainly not doing anything about it.
It’s the last half of summer vacation and they all haven’t seen each other basically since the end of school. Part-time jobs, family stuff, this trip to Minho’s family lake house was supposed to be their grand reunion. Everything feels more or less the same as that last week of exams though- when Eunsook started acting different, saying it was just the stress of all the testing.
Eunsook turns to give him kind of a hurt look, like she just heard something sad on the news reported in a mildly offensive way.
“That’s the thing, I don’t want just one. I want like seven.”
Taemin scratches his head, “they’ll kind of melt in the car though. I mean I don’t know do we have a cooler or-”
“No no like I want seven, right now, all at once.”
Taemin frowns, “that’ll make you sick.”
“Yeah, exactly.”
He scratches at his eyebrow and worries he’s been tricked. He’s not sure what’s going on here, but he wishes he could fix it.
Eunsook sucks at her bottom lip before finally spinning on her heels and swinging her hands. She goes back out to the car and waits in the passenger seat after grabbing a warm diet coke out of the back. Taemin thinks about buying her a cold one, but he feels like there must be some super secret reason why she didn’t just do it herself, so he refrains. He dwaddles inside until he sees Minho and Jonghyun finally return to the car as well, and Eunsook falls asleep against the window as they pull onto the highway again.
-
When they finally get there it’s well past midnight. Minho took a wrong turn somewhere while belting ballads with Jonghyun which Taemin actually kind of got into even with being bounced on Jonghyun’s lap as the other swayed him from side to side with his dramatic renditions of Evita. The two’s high spirits are infectious, and he feels maybe he’s taken being back together with his friends a little for granted, only focusing on the weirdness he can’t quite place with Eunsook.
They are getting to stay in a lake house, for the summer. By themselves. That’s pretty awesome.
Minho leaps out of the car forgetting to even put the break on causing the car to roll as he jumps back in with Jonghyun shrieking about how inbred is he, and Eunsook actually smiles as she rubs at her cheeks trying to bring feeling back to them as she wakes up.
Taemin’s legs feel like they’re staging a revolt as he hobbles up to the creaky wood steps of the house and it looks a little eerie in the moonlight with the buzzing from the trees and black lake behind it.
“Dude, I got to come once when my parents were fighting, and we were like ten or something and I’m telling you this place is so fucking awesome.”Jonghyun puts his arm around Taemin’s shoulder as he leads him over to the power box in the ground and opens the lid to pick out dead bugs and leaves so he can flip the switches.
Minho bypasses the steps completely jumping straight onto the porch and running inside to check the lights. Jonghyun cheers as they start to turn on and Minho shouts from within the house.
“Kitchen sink still works!”
Eunsook slowly starts to gravitate inside and Taemin wishes he could think of a better way to share the excitement with her. He guesses it’ll probably catch on like it did with him, it’ll just take more time.
“Toilet flushes! But if you’re going to take a big shit do it in parts okay? I don’t want that thing busting and the sewage system here is ancient.”
“Let’s all sleep in the living room tonight and we can unpack and shit tomorrow.”
“You’re such a cuddleslut,” Taemin smiles as he pokes Jonghyun’s ribs and Jonghyun wiggles his eyebrows.
“I’m sensitive okay?”
“Come here sensitive,” Minho flops down in the middle of the floor and spreads his arms out wide as Jonghyun curls into them and yawns happily.
They’re like dogs. Taemin thinks.
Eunsook lies down parallel to the pair, but keeps about of foot of space between them, taking off her jacket to bunch up as a pillow before unhooking her bra from under her shirt and tossing it on the couch.
Taemin curls up at kind of a weird angle near their heads, trying not to be directly on top of anyone without being outside of the group.
“Goodnig’ht,” Jonghyun yawns.
-
When Taemin wakes up he’s got intense crick in his neck. He smells bacon cooking from over the couch in the little kitchen attached to the living room and starts to stand to go get some, but then is reminded of how bad he needs to pee.
He runs slash stumbles to the single bathroom only to find it’s locked.
“Nooooo,” he moans.
“Go piss outside,” Minho suggests as he walks out of one of the bedrooms.
Taemin nods pitifully as he runs out behind the house to finally relieve himself on some bushes, and blinks up into the sunlight.
The lake is gorgeous, glittering under the intense morning rays and Taemin can see there’s a dock running out a decent way with a floating island for jumping off just a little ways out. Taemin’s not really an outdoorsy person, but as he shakes his dick off and tucks himself back inside his pants he thinks, I could get used to this.
When he comes back inside Eunsook is sitting at the table, her feet tucked under her on the chair, sipping a glass of orange juice. There’s a plate of bacon in front of her towards the middle of the table, and she’s watching Minho and Jonghyun fight to see who can stuff more of it in their mouth at once.
“Morning,” she smiles at him a little as he sits down.
“Sorry, I think they’ve already destroyed all the bacon. There’s tons of other food in the car. I only brought in the stuff that might go bad to put in the fridge but yeah.”
“No problem,” he nods.
“Hey... so I already put all my stuff in the bedroom to the right,” Minho looks around the table back and forth.
“That’s the one with bunk beds right?” Jonghyun asks.
Minho nods.
“So there’s another on the left with a queen bed...and we can put someone on the couch or...”
He continues to look back and forth with far too much effort, actually turning his whole body in his seat to look from Eunsook to Taemin.
“I’ll room with Taemin with the queen,” Eunsook answers.
“Yes!” Jonghyun and Minho high-five across the table excited about scoring the ‘bro bunks’.
Taemin feels a little weird about Eunsook so casually agreeing to sleep in the same bed as him. In Minho’s parent’s bed. They had been hooking-up all through-out the winter, just them, and Taemin had felt kind of- well it sounded dumb that he thought about it now, but a couple.
She was affectionate with Jonghyun and Minho sure, but it was obviously different. For whatever reason she liked Taemin. Or had liked, he guessed.
Once spring rolled around they started hooking up less and less. It was always Eunsook that initiated, so maybe that’s where he went wrong. He should have shown her he was into it a little more. But they were still, close. The sexual side of things had just cooled down a little. They were still holding hands and cuddling, staying up late at night talking and tracing patterns into each other’s skin. He didn’t mind.
But then, exams. That had been when it started wasn’t it? He felt like there must have been signs earlier, and he was just too stupid to notice, but he couldn’t think of any. Even now looking back, he couldn’t think of any.
He hadn’t brought it up with Minho or Jonghyun, because while they seemed okay with it, and they loving teased them and all, Taemin also didn’t feel like rubbing it anyone’s face, or accidentally rubbing them the wrong way. And since Eunsook had only shown a purely platonic interest in the two of them ever since ‘the night’ it didn’t seem like it was a great conversation starter.
Minho and Jonghyun- to Taemin’s knowledge- had miraculously managed to have still not hooked up. Which seemed impossible to him after that night. He had assumed everything had changed between the four of them, because it had, and yet the world kept spinning exactly the same way. When they went to parties together and got a little drunk everyone got more handsy, more leany, but he guessed that scenario, that feeling they had that night really hadn’t been recreated ever since.
Maybe they were all just situationally sexual.
“Hey Minho, why do you guys have a dock but no boat?”
Minho and Jonghyun grinned at him, “that is an excellent question.”
-
“So you guys hang out with people you don’t like, to take advantage of their stuff?”
“Taemin Taemin Taemin, we never said we don’t like them. We just wouldn’t hang out with them if there were say, other people available.”
Taemin jogged a little bit to keep up.
“Having a boat is one, a shit ton of work, and two, really fucking expensive. We bring beer, maybe a little weed, they let us use their boat, and we end up drinking more of their liquor than we paid for anyway. It’s a great system.”
“Are all the paths like this?” Eunsook asked.
“Dirt? Uh yeah. The grounds are all pretty well kept though,” Minho answered.
“Yeah I meant, they keep them well cleared. And they are pretty worn so the dirt is really packed.”
“I guess. Why?” Minho took a couple steps ahead so he could walk backwards while facing them.
“I wanted to maybe ride a bike around here.”
“Oh! Minho’s mom keeps bikes in the shed. There’s a pump in there which the tires will probably need and like, don’t expect anything fancy but Minho and I use to jump them off ramps and stuff from the construction when they were building new stuff here.”
“Perfect,” Eunsook smiled.
-
After they’ve been there for a couple days things fall into routine. They’ve gone to one party which was more of a hang out and get a little tipsy porch gathering. Minho’s more popular with the girls than Taemin can wrap his head around, considering how little he talks, and Jonghyun is the star as always, playing guitar on a bench swing while people sit around and enjoy lying on each other’s skin still warm from the sun earlier in the day.
Eunsook is more well-liked than she seems to realize, he can tell several of the new boys can’t stop eyeing her and some of the girls get more bold after drinking. No one approaches her though. Or maybe they have and she’s just shrugged them off, the rest deciding it better to admire from afar. He wonders if she does notice the attention but is taking it the wrong way, or maybe she knows exactly what they’re thinking and that’s why she’s so quiet.
Either way he can’t really seem to find his place. He’s not uncomfortable but he certainly hasn’t made any new friends. He can’t wrap his head around how Eunsook can sit there and seem perfectly fine not talking to anyone. Not that he wants to be as social as Jonghyun and Minho, but he feels sort of like a failure for not. Like he isn’t choosing to be too cool for everyone else, he’s just an outcast.
On their way back from his third boating trip he’s feeling pretty good though. It’s the second time all of them have gone together, and only three of the other lake kids were there so he didn’t feel out of place or outnumbered. Eunsook is still getting flak for not wearing a bathsuit, insisting on swimming in some pretty heavy looking clothes when drenched, but they all cheered her on when she finally did get in the water. He still hasn’t managed to talk to her, which is amazing how much they are generally in the same vicinity of each other, but he figures she’ll come to him if she has something to say. It’s best not to pester.
“Oh come on Eunsook, everyone just wants to see your tits again, I’m sorry it’s so hard being loved,” Jonghyun bumps her hip with his as he runs past her, kicking up some dust on the path as they go.
“They’re like, the seventh world wonder.”
“So glad you consider parts of my body a tourist destination, but no.”
“You wear low cut shirts all the time though,” Minho seems genuinely puzzled why Eunsook doesn’t want to swim in a bathingsuit when obviously clothes create far too much drag. How is she ever going to win one of the swimming competitions like this?
“Not recently she doesn’t,” Taemin points out. He feels immediately guilty for saying it though as Eunsook gives him a look. He just meant it as an observation, but now it seems he’s taken sides.
“So glad you all care.”
Jonghyun shrugs dramatically at Minho and Taemin mouthing “I don’t know” and they walk back the rest of the way in silence.
-
“Where are you going?” Taemin mumbles sleepily. He’s not sure what time it is but it’s still dark out and as he sits up and the blanket falls, leaving his chest feeling cold.
“Swimming,” Eunsook responds.
He’s about to auto-respond, at night? But duh, so instead he just nods.
“To be alone?” he asks.
It looks like she wants to say yes, but she hesitates.
“You can come too,” she adds finally. And Taemin smiles in the dark as he hops out of the warm bed to find his towel.
-
Eunsook slides into the water like she was born to swim and Taemin stares in wonderment of how she moves. It’s like she has no awkward angles. Everything she does is perfectly rounded or smooth, he feels like complaining to the universe when her head resurfaces and the ripples of water and her hair flow out from her like a frame. There’s no way the moonlight is as forgiving on his lanky teenage body.
“You look like a mermaid,” he tells her.
She blows bubbles in the water and smiles at him as he treads closer.
“Thanks. I always wanted to be a mermaid.”
Taemin shakes his head a little to get his fringe out of his eyes and thinks it’s weird Eunsook should want for anything.
“I’m sorry you’re having a hard time.”
Eunsook slowly starts to spin in a circle with her arms like a windmill as she hums.
“I know you are. I’m sorry I’m so hard on you.”
“You’re not though.”
Taemin circles outside the ring of rippling water around Eunsook to look at her, suddenly worried he’s talking to another person.
“Yes I am. In my head all the time.”
It makes Taemin’s heart kind of sink to hear that, but he wants Eunsook to feel better. To not have to be so sad.
“No one should care what you look like in a bathing suit,” he says.
She nods as she goes to float on her back and stare up at the sky.
He joins her and wishes he could just reach out and hold her hand, so they could fall asleep like otters.
“It’s really good though, by the way.”
“I know,” she responds solemnly.
“Just no one let’s me feel that way.”
-
Jonghyun is always nagging Eunsook about this or that, teasing her relentlessly while all she does is ignore him, but every now and then she caves, she takes the bait and yells back. Jonghyun’s eyes always light up and he says ‘ow! ow!’ way too loudly to be in real pain when she pushes him. Sometimes Eunsook ends up laughing despite herself, and they wrestle on the ground or he jumps off the boat with her in his arms pulling her under the water.
Then there are these much more alarming moments when Eunsook’s sadness creeps up on her again and she doesn’t want to eat or she won’t come out of the bathroom, and Jonghyun’s the one who manages to slowly coax her out with soft words Taemin can’t quite hear. It’s driving him crazy not to know just what kind of magic phrases it is Jonghyun chants to make her feel better, what kind of tone he uses, whether he says her name or not.
Does he promise it will get better? Does he tell her it’s not that big of a deal? Does he ignore it all and just tell her cheesy compliments and irrelevant stories?
Taemin can count every look Eunsook’s given him since they’ve gotten here, and he feels stuck in the doldrums of just being Jonghyun’s replacement when Eunsook’s pride is too great and Jonghyun doesn’t notice the forlornness.
And out of everyone, Eunsook is shockingly spending the most time with Minho. Really she spends either time by herself or in the bigger group of all four, or even all forty of the lake kids, but one on one she’s spending the most time with . . . Minho.
“What do they even do?” Taemin whines it more than he means over breakfast one morning.
Jonghyun puts his fist in front of his mouth and mimics a blowjob as Taemin groans and hits him.
“I don’t want to think about her doing that right now,” Taemin glares into his eggs suddenly grossed out by the yellow oozing out his sunny side yolks.
“Who said she was the one sucking?”
Taemin shoves his plate away in a frustrated huff, his anger elevating rapidly.
“Can we stop with the ‘Eunsook has a penis joke’ for like two fucking seconds?”
“Woah ‘ey” Jonghyun takes the opportunity to shovel Taemin’s left over eggs in his own mouth as Taemin watches with unhidden disgust.
“Why are you so uptight all the sudden? I know she’s not secretly a man, I mean we’ve all seen it.”
“That! That shit! I don’t understand how you can just say exactly the wrong thing exactly the wrong way so fucking often and then just, SNAP! You’re charming as all get out. What are you Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?”
Jonghyun snorts like he might actually be offended and Taemin’s glad he’s said something that hasn’t just slide off Jonghyun like Teflon. Jonghyun lectures down at him, “Look, I know you’re upset your sexual escapades have come to an untimely death with Eunsook, but it’s not like it’s anyone’s fault. And so she’s a little sensitive right now, sorry I can’t change who I am to match everyone’s moods.”
“You’re not even listening to me! I’m not saying anyone’s at fault how can you- how are you playing the victim here!”
Jonghyun’s brows knit together and his face goes dark in a seriously disturbing way. Taemin suddenly wishes he hadn’t said anything. It’s not like it was going to work anyway, and now it seems he’s brought about the wrath of Jonghyun’s ego.
“Sometimes I just want to strap you down and make you cry.”
Jonghyun looms over Taemin’s chair and Taemin’s so stunned he can’t think of anything to say or do. All he can think about is the way his skin is now icy hot, and his insides want to evacuate out.
“One day you’re going really fuck up, misbehave. And I’m gonna catch you and make you sorry.”
“There’s a party tonight at Junsu’s.”
Jonghyun’s back in his chair pulling at his shirt like nothing happened before Taemin can even register it.
“I think we all just need to blow off a little steam, you know? It’ll be nice to go out all four of us together again, not just sitting around this house. You should wear that purple shirt Eunsook and I got you for your birthday.”
Taemin nods like he’s dumb and hates himself for not knowing what else to do.
“Hey, you guys want to go swimming and maybe catch some sun on the dock?”
Minho and Eunsook are huffing in the doorway both in workout gear, faces red and sweaty.
Jonghyun smiles brightly, “yeah but don’t fall asleep again or you’ll get those weird ass tan lines.”
Eunsook laughs as she holds her sides with her hands, trying to regain her breath.
“That was pretty bad.”
“Whatever,” Minho takes off his sweat soaked shirt and throws it at Jonghyun landing it perfectly across his whole face.
“Ew! Fucking gross man! Now I’m going to have to fucking shower too!”
“With meeee~?” Minho sings with a leery grin.
-
The air crackled around them as they swam. A storm was coming that night, and something was different. As they went up the ladder on the side of the dock Taemin started to suddenly panic. He was alone in the water while the other three were on the dock and it just . . . Jonghyun looked back at him from the top of the steps and Taemin felt for sure a pit would open up on the bottom of the lake right below him and suck him in as his friend watched.
As his friend made it happen.
Eunsook and Minho were already lying face first on their towels in the sun. Taemin could only see the edges of their bodies somehow millions of miles away.
“You okay?” Jonghyun questioned quietly. Like he understood not to let the other two hear, let them in on the fact, their friend was a giant baby suddenly having a panic attack for no viable reason on a scale of one to absolutely going to die right now.
Jonghyun slowly got back in the water and swam towards Taemin.
He grabbed Taemin’s wrist and began silently pulling him the short way to the dock.
He wrapped his other hand around the sides of the ladder, and placed a foot to anchor himself still holding onto Taemin.
“Hey, it’s okay Tae. I’ve got you. I’m right here.”
Taemin’s heart stayed pounding at a breakneck pace. Jonghyun’s hand loosened from Taemin’s wrist and Taemin immediately grabbed back.
“Shhh,” Jonghyun soothed with warm breath.
Taemin continued to hold his arm, but let it slide through his loosened grip as Jonghyun’s hand made it’s way up to his forearm, then elbow, and underneath his armpit, to finally have his entire arm wrapped around Taemin. Taemin held the older boy’s shoulder lightly, still unable to voice his fear of the water he was submerged in.
The water slowly rushed past his frame as Taemin was pushed against one of the wooden pillars holding the dock up, Jonghyun using the ladder to prevent the lapping waters from moving them.
“You don’t have to be afraid of anything but me, okay?”
Taemin’s back scraped against the barnacles as Jonghyun lifted him a little before pulling Taemin back to him, and shoving Taemin up onto the dock before him.
Jonghyun flopped up, water streaming from his shorts, next to the rest of them as Taemin sat, quietly running his fingers over his back to feel the red raised skin from where it had been scraped. He kept checking for blood, but it wasn’t there.
When everyone woke back up from napping in the late afternoon sunlight Taemin was still sitting there quietly. Cold, confused.
-
At the party Eunsook’s wearing a plaid button down over her outfit despite the swampyness of the air, the sleeves rolled up a little because it’s too big for her. She’s sipping a beer looking perfectly happy on Minho’s knee, and Taemin feels really glad they came. He’s thrumming happily on a wave of smoke and whiskey while he feels the vibrations of the music and the people laughing outside, this couch is so perfect for sitting on, he thinks. So perfect.
She tosses her hair back and laughs at something Minho says before shouting across the room, “Gwiboon! Gwiboon! What are you doing here, you look great!”
Gwiboon saunters over impressively turning her tipsyness into something sexy and sly as she leans on Eunsook’s shoulder and pointedly ignores Minho, whose more than thrilled to have the honor.
“You look great,” she straightens Eunsook’s collar with delicate fingertips.
“I want this shirt, ugh how cute.”
Eunsook smiles as Minho answers enthusiastically, “it’s mine! You can have it.”
Gwiboon raises her eyebrows as her lips turn up in a smirk, “well, thank you.”
“No problem,” Minho nods happily.
Eunsook goes to stand up but then stops dramatically, grabbing Gwiboon’s shoulder, “wait okay, you have to sit down on him.”
“What?” she asks, amused.
“Minho and I were just talking about how he might float away if he’s not careful, so it was a good thing I was sitting on him. But I really want to go get another drink, and I can’t just leave him here to fend for himself,” Eunsook gestures dramatically.
Gwiboon slides into Minho’s lap with ease as she purrs reassuringly, “okay, don’t worry. I’ll look after him.”
Eunsook stands and takes her shoes and the over-shirt off, handing the shirt to Gwiboon and hooking the straps of her shoes over her fingers.
She salutes them both before heading to the kitchen and Taemin closes his eyes to rest his head back. He has such good friends.
When he opens his eyes back up he’s alone. He can hear the party around him but the living room is strangely empty. His throat closes up before he even fully hears his voice.
“Are you lonely?” Jonghyun asks.
He’s sitting right where Minho and Gwiboon was. Taemin thinks of how weird that is. They were just there and now...they aren’t. And Jonghyun is. It’s so, strange.
Taemin puts all his efforts into trying to respond. Thoughts feel slow like he has to push them out to try and make them words. They don’t make sense.
“No?”
“Come here, I’ll fuck you.”
Taemin stares unfocused at Jonghyun’s lap. His legs are spread so wide. It’s so big. If he tries to stand up...surely he’d fall into it. He sighs to himself. That could be nice.
“I don’t think I can.”
“You don’t have to,” Jonghyun tells him. He rises out of the chair and walks to stand in front of Taemin. Taemin feels stupid for how his limbs are spread out across the couch now. He must look stoned and sloppy. He thinks Jonghyun is about to tell him how dumb he is, but he doesn’t say anything. Just surveys Taemin in a way that makes him feel worse.
Eventually Jonghyun puts his hands in his pockets, and walks away.
-
Half an hour later Taemin’s feeling sadly sober so he decides to venture round the house to see if stumbles across anything. He feels free to move about in the heat and noise of the place, no one really noticing him, caught up in their own activities. He thinks of joining some of the groupings, but there’s no point really. They’d be nice to him sure, but he just wasn’t interested in doing anything besides observe.
Minho trots over to him when he starts to wander out back, “Hey, hey Taemin!”
Minho’s got a huge grin plastered over his face like he just won an award and his dad actually showed up to the ceremony this time.
“Gwiboon’s gonna come back with me to the house, so you think you can hang out here for maybe another two hours or so?”
“Uh, yeah. Sure hyung. What about Jonghyun and Eunsook though?”
“Eunsook already knows and said she’d tell Jonghyun. And uh, I was going to use your guy’s room for the night, if you don’t mind. One of you can take my bunk! And I guess the other the couch? Or you could kick Jonghyun out. . . I don’t know, this just means a lot to me yeah?”
Taemin’s realized his eyes must have been doing something funky because Minho started bouncing on his toes like he was anxious to get going.
“I’ll wash the sheets! In boiling water afterwards. Boiling. Or better yet, we can all go into town and I’ll buy new sheets! Okay yeah, um, and be nice during breakfast tomorrow alright?”
Taemin blinked, “when am I not nice?”
“Just don’t, just don’t stare at her weird or anything okay? You kind of freak people out sometimes when you watch them.”
Minho clapped him on the shoulder and gave a wave as he ran over to meet up with Gwiboon who was now waiting behind them on the path, with her hair wrapped up in an impossibly good looking turban considering it was made out of a plaid shirt.
He heard her laugh echo as Minho scooped her up in a bear hug and carried her off into the dark.
-
Taemin couldn’t decide if it was more important to try and find Eunsook, or make sure he avoided Jonghyun. Eunsook had obviously wingmanned the whole thing for Minho, and with how much time they had been spending together she was probably feeling proud if anything, maybe even a little thrilled to have someone new staying in the house she got along with, but Jonghyun. Jonghyun was going to be pissed.
It ended up not really being a choice he had to make though, when he rounded the trail back to party and saw them outside the boathouse.
There was only one fluorescent light twenty meters either way, and it was above the giant wood doors that swung open both ways so that boats could fit through. Eunsook was pressed up against them, faded peeling navy paint making the white of her summer dress stand out.
He hadn’t noticed she was wearing a dress before.
“Please, I just want to look. Remember when we used to play doctor?”
Jonghyun is past that point of drunk and or high, small and childlike in her arms, begging.
Taemin can’t hear her response but it’s obviously not the answer Jonghyun was looking for.
“But we used to do it all the time. You used to like me so much, what happened?” he whines.
Eunsook’s eyes are bloodshot and glazed over, her mouth is hanging slightly open like she might forget to breathe otherwise. She shifts her shoulders a little and slides down the door without meaning to. Jonghyun helps push her back up into place with his full body weight and Taemin thinks he can feel it on the front of his skin as if it were him.
He moves along the path in the shadows so he’s closer, crouching behind some bushes so he’s to the right side of them now, able to see their bodies in profile perfectly.
Eunsook mumbles, “okay,” and Jonghyun doesn’t grin or look cocky like he usually would, he looks pained.
He gathers up her dress around her hips a hooks a finger in the very bottom of her underwear, pulling straight down until the elastic stretches over her curves and suddenly snaps to bunch right under her hips. He rubs the newly revealed flesh of her lower belly and ass but she pushes at his forehead with her hand.
“Just looking.”
He hitches her leg up a little with one hand, almost so it’s resting on his shoulder as he kneels in front of her, and holds her underwear out of the way as he breathes on her.
“It’s so pretty. You just don’t know how pretty you are do you?”
Eunsook puts her leg back down, and starts to push at her dress to smooth over so Jonghyun can no longer see, but he tightens his hold on the fabric and stands up, covering her unclothed crotch with his own still in jeans.
“I’m so hard. Eunsook, you make me so hard. Please just let me put it in you please please please.”
Eunsook shakes her head and Taemin thinks she looks like she might vomit. He knows Eunsook can take care of herself, and he doesn’t want to be an intruder on whatever this is only to make it worse. What if he’s reading the whole thing wrong? What if Jonghyun’s about to back off any second anyway? Wouldn’t it be better to spare Eunsook the embarrassment?
“Why? Am I not good enough for you?”
“No that’s not- I just, can’t-I don’t want to like this.”
Jonghyun continues to push and rub against her.
“Why? Are you afraid I’ll get you pregnant? Are you saying I wouldn’t know how to take care of you? That I don’t know how to be responsible for my actions? What kind of fuck-up do you think I am?” Jonghyun demands quietly.
Eunsook finally shoulders Jonghyun off of her even though he’s still filling up too much of her space.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she stares at the ground and Taemin wishes he could tell her to stop making herself small.
“Quit saying things like that bunny, you're gonna get me all hot,” Jonghyun licks something off the front of his teeth.
“Don’t call me that,” she breathes like she’s underwater.
“Bunny? I thought you liked it, being my little bunny” he smiles against her cheek as she turns her face farther from him.
“Th-that’s why.”
“It must be so hard, how far do you have to push yourself to be able to come without me, huh? Do you have to hit yourself real hard just to come? Or do you just think of someone fucking you when you were underage?”
He tuts at her expression, “poor bunny. You could make it so much easier on yourself if you just let me...”
“Jonghyun-”
“Shhh,” he thumbs her lips as he rushes, “I just think about you struggling in the shower, trying to get off on your own all frustrated and sore from not being able to, and it hurts me you know? When I could just help, could make you come so hard.”
“Why are you like this,” she moans. His eyes light up like he’s won a prize, like the doors are about to open and he shifts his weight back and forth anxious and excited.
“Don’t know, why do you like it?” he presses up against her harder.
“Just touch it,” he bargains. “Just my fingers.” She doesn’t say okay but she doesn’t move to stop him. He takes it as a yes.
“God, you’re swollen,” he hums as he sinks down back to eye level with her cunt.
“You smell so thick,” he presses his face into the warmth of her thigh leftover from the sunshine, strokes the top of her with the tips of his fingers. She whimpers, “Don’t. I haven’t gotten a chance to shower.”
“So? It’s so strong. I think I’m gonna die.”
“That’s not fair,” she sounds ready to cry.
“I love it.”
He touches all around her but right there, feather soft, bringing attention to each part of her skin that he does. She carefully keeps from making any noise or movement.
“Why are you getting all shy on me?” he asks. She seems gone.
“You must be horny by now,” he whispers menacingly, slowly pushing two fingers into her so she has to recognize every second.
“Aww, you’re soaked,” he grins, “it’s like you wet yourself.”
She paws at his chest like she can’t remember how to work her hands.
“Fuck Eunsook, I can already get it in so deep.”
He bites at her ear, “I wish all the kids at school could know what a slut you are.”
He pulls a side of her dress down so he can suck on a nipple and starts to rub the entire heel of his hand against her, rocking her. She whines when her stomach twitches and he mocks her.
“You’re such a baby.”
She stops moving altogether and slumps, he catches her under her arms and looks a sick kind of proud.
He kisses her mouth despite her being unresponsive until she starts to stir. She sounds bleary and tiny as she tries to raise her head enough to look at him, “I hate you.”
He straightens out her dress and underwear for her while she glares at him unnoticed.
“This is exactly why we can’t be together, this is exactly why it didn’t work before,” she mumbles hoarsely.
“You’re fucking messed up, why don’t you just fucking tell him-”
Jonghyun slams her shoulders into the wall, nostrils suddenly flaring. Taemin’s heart jumps in his throat, guilty he hasn’t made his presence known by this point, and somehow feeling like it’s just been blown.
“What Eunsook? WHAT?”
It looks like Jonghyun is raising his arm and Taemin can’t be sure if he means to hit her or if he’s seeing this right, but the hope to not embarrass anyone has finally been vanquished and he steps forward.
“Hey I was just coming to see if you knew Minho-”
Jonghyun turns with a scowl on his face and Taemin almost jumps back as he barely even recognizes him.
“Where the fuck did you come from?” he spits at him.
“I was on the path but then I had to take a leak so-” Taemin feels like his words sound faker than they even are.
“That’s great Tae. That’s really goddamn great.”
Jonghyun’s breathing is heavy and ragged while Eunsook’s eyes look wet and glassy and Taemin feels unsure of how to diffuse the situation before they all implode and hell swallows them whole, the dirt beneath his feet no longer solid.
“Is . . . everything okay?”
Eunsook starts to actually cry and Jonghyun turns to snap at her, “would you STOP?!”
Taemin takes a step forward and wonders if he’ll regret it.
“Jonghyun don’t. Leave Eunsook alone.” He’s a million years too late.
Jonghyun pouts, like he wasn’t expecting that. Like he’s truly disappointed in this display of Taemin’s character.
He turns back to Eunsook and grabs her hand, ever so gently, pulling her away from the door and raising his arm up to spin her like a ballerina.
“Look at how pretty she is. Don’t you want to tell her how pretty she is?” Jonghyun asks.
Taemin shakes his head weakly. Whiplashed from Jonghyun’s actions. He’s chanting in his head in sets of three, stop stop stop.
“No? Then why are you here little dongsaeng? Why are you watching every little fucking thing I do? Why are you always on my fucking dick?”
He drops Eunsook’s hand and it hangs dead at her side. She looks paralyzed.
“Do you think you’re not to blame? If it weren’t for you, do you think she would reject me?”
Taemin swallows dryly as Jonghyun starts walking towards him.
“You selfish little slut,” he keeps walking past him though, leaving Taemin to stare at Eunsook as she cries quietly.
Pairing: Jonghyun/Taemin/Eunsook
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: mentions of child abuse, rape
Author's note: Oh look, I took something nice and ruined it.
-
“Fuck, Tae, just sit in my lap.”
Taemin wiped his hands over his face before groaning both because at the question, and the fact that his palms were just making his face feel even greasier. He tucked his hands inside the edge of his sleeves and tried again, rubbing with the heels of his wrists at the sections of his skin bothering him most.
“Look, you either sit in his lap or get stuck in the trunk, and surprisingly enough I don’t want you suffocating in my dad’s fucking car okay?”
“Great. Thanks. Good to know.”
Taemin looks to Eunsook for her to say something. To tell him to get in the fucking car or they’re leaving him behind, acknowledge him, scoff at him, anything. But she just continues to stare out the passenger side window, eyes closed against the pulsating heat.
“Fine.” He crawls in to shift himself awkwardly on Jonghyun’s lap, while he refuses to look at that obnoxious smile he knows the older is watching him with.
Minho stretches his legs, obviously relieved Taemin’s given in and takes the car out of park.
“What is half this shit anyway,” Taemin grumbles as he picks at some of the things piled next to them in the back.
“Vital supplies.” Jonghyun grins at him and it feels like the direct cause for the sweat sliding down Taemin’s back and into the waistband of his underwear.
Taemin hates himself for shivering because it makes Jonghyun rub his shoulder. He just can’t catch a break can he?
-
“You know man no offense, but I’m so glad you parents got to divorced.” Jonghyun’s double-fisting some fries right now outside the gas station they stopped at.
Minho straightens up while glaring down at Jonghyun and tosses his still somewhat full slurpie to the side. It lands with an unpleasant slushing noise on edge of the curb and bright red cherry limeade seeps into the concrete immediately. It’s this kind of stuff that still makes Taemin nervous. He just can’t get used to the way they don’t seem to care if they attract attention in public. It’s not like he wants to be this way, he figures he just is.
“You want to say that again,” Minho threatens.
Jonghyun stares up at him for a second before shoving another large handful of fries in his mouth.
“I said get my dick out of your mouth.”
Minho’s instantly got Jonghyun in a headlock while Jonghyun’s laughing punching at his sides, trying to balance all his food while being spun around.
“Hey hey think of the food! Think of the food!”
Minho’s laughing as well, swinging Jonghyun around like some playtoy as fries continue to fly in all directions.
“Don’t worry about it, my divorce guilt credit card can buy you more anytime.”
Taemin takes another bite of his candy bar feeling lame for something so literally square. Well rectangle sure, but boring. A brown lump of boring, and tries to give a sympathetic look to the couple walking out of the store quickly veering to the left to avoid their little tousle.
“Hey, uh, I’m going to go see if Eunsook’s alright.”
They don’t seem to hear him and he doesn’t wait for them to respond.
The door chimes as he walks in and he feels a little better from the rush of cold air coming from AC above the door.
He spots Eunsook next to the ice cream tub.
“Hey.”
Eunsook looks up and scoots over a little, but doesn’t say anything.
They stay there staring for a while as Taemin thumbs his pockets and studies Eunsook’s figure. She’s been losing weight lately, he thinks. But he can’t really be sure. Unless it’s like twenty kilos and there’s a picture of someone in the exact same outfit side by side it’s kind of hard for him to notice. She looks a little different every time he sees her really, and it has been a while, but at least it seems like she’s lost weight. Her face is no longer as cute and chubby, or maybe that’s just because he hasn’t seen her smiling lately.
“I’ll buy you one if you want,” he offers.
She looks over at him her eyes suddenly wide, like she’s shocked someone else is there.
Her nostrils flare a little as she takes in air, but on the exhale she goes back to normal.
“Nah, that’s okay.” She leans back away from the tub and straights out slowly before walking lazily down one of the other aisles without really looking at anything.
“Uh, it looked like you wanted one though.”
Eunsook and him haven’t really, well talked isn’t the right word because they’ve talked, but it’s been like this lately. She’s not even cold- just distant. It seems like she’s been that way towards all of them and yet Minho and Jonghyun haven’t even noticed. Or if they have they’re certainly not doing anything about it.
It’s the last half of summer vacation and they all haven’t seen each other basically since the end of school. Part-time jobs, family stuff, this trip to Minho’s family lake house was supposed to be their grand reunion. Everything feels more or less the same as that last week of exams though- when Eunsook started acting different, saying it was just the stress of all the testing.
Eunsook turns to give him kind of a hurt look, like she just heard something sad on the news reported in a mildly offensive way.
“That’s the thing, I don’t want just one. I want like seven.”
Taemin scratches his head, “they’ll kind of melt in the car though. I mean I don’t know do we have a cooler or-”
“No no like I want seven, right now, all at once.”
Taemin frowns, “that’ll make you sick.”
“Yeah, exactly.”
He scratches at his eyebrow and worries he’s been tricked. He’s not sure what’s going on here, but he wishes he could fix it.
Eunsook sucks at her bottom lip before finally spinning on her heels and swinging her hands. She goes back out to the car and waits in the passenger seat after grabbing a warm diet coke out of the back. Taemin thinks about buying her a cold one, but he feels like there must be some super secret reason why she didn’t just do it herself, so he refrains. He dwaddles inside until he sees Minho and Jonghyun finally return to the car as well, and Eunsook falls asleep against the window as they pull onto the highway again.
-
When they finally get there it’s well past midnight. Minho took a wrong turn somewhere while belting ballads with Jonghyun which Taemin actually kind of got into even with being bounced on Jonghyun’s lap as the other swayed him from side to side with his dramatic renditions of Evita. The two’s high spirits are infectious, and he feels maybe he’s taken being back together with his friends a little for granted, only focusing on the weirdness he can’t quite place with Eunsook.
They are getting to stay in a lake house, for the summer. By themselves. That’s pretty awesome.
Minho leaps out of the car forgetting to even put the break on causing the car to roll as he jumps back in with Jonghyun shrieking about how inbred is he, and Eunsook actually smiles as she rubs at her cheeks trying to bring feeling back to them as she wakes up.
Taemin’s legs feel like they’re staging a revolt as he hobbles up to the creaky wood steps of the house and it looks a little eerie in the moonlight with the buzzing from the trees and black lake behind it.
“Dude, I got to come once when my parents were fighting, and we were like ten or something and I’m telling you this place is so fucking awesome.”Jonghyun puts his arm around Taemin’s shoulder as he leads him over to the power box in the ground and opens the lid to pick out dead bugs and leaves so he can flip the switches.
Minho bypasses the steps completely jumping straight onto the porch and running inside to check the lights. Jonghyun cheers as they start to turn on and Minho shouts from within the house.
“Kitchen sink still works!”
Eunsook slowly starts to gravitate inside and Taemin wishes he could think of a better way to share the excitement with her. He guesses it’ll probably catch on like it did with him, it’ll just take more time.
“Toilet flushes! But if you’re going to take a big shit do it in parts okay? I don’t want that thing busting and the sewage system here is ancient.”
“Let’s all sleep in the living room tonight and we can unpack and shit tomorrow.”
“You’re such a cuddleslut,” Taemin smiles as he pokes Jonghyun’s ribs and Jonghyun wiggles his eyebrows.
“I’m sensitive okay?”
“Come here sensitive,” Minho flops down in the middle of the floor and spreads his arms out wide as Jonghyun curls into them and yawns happily.
They’re like dogs. Taemin thinks.
Eunsook lies down parallel to the pair, but keeps about of foot of space between them, taking off her jacket to bunch up as a pillow before unhooking her bra from under her shirt and tossing it on the couch.
Taemin curls up at kind of a weird angle near their heads, trying not to be directly on top of anyone without being outside of the group.
“Goodnig’ht,” Jonghyun yawns.
-
When Taemin wakes up he’s got intense crick in his neck. He smells bacon cooking from over the couch in the little kitchen attached to the living room and starts to stand to go get some, but then is reminded of how bad he needs to pee.
He runs slash stumbles to the single bathroom only to find it’s locked.
“Nooooo,” he moans.
“Go piss outside,” Minho suggests as he walks out of one of the bedrooms.
Taemin nods pitifully as he runs out behind the house to finally relieve himself on some bushes, and blinks up into the sunlight.
The lake is gorgeous, glittering under the intense morning rays and Taemin can see there’s a dock running out a decent way with a floating island for jumping off just a little ways out. Taemin’s not really an outdoorsy person, but as he shakes his dick off and tucks himself back inside his pants he thinks, I could get used to this.
When he comes back inside Eunsook is sitting at the table, her feet tucked under her on the chair, sipping a glass of orange juice. There’s a plate of bacon in front of her towards the middle of the table, and she’s watching Minho and Jonghyun fight to see who can stuff more of it in their mouth at once.
“Morning,” she smiles at him a little as he sits down.
“Sorry, I think they’ve already destroyed all the bacon. There’s tons of other food in the car. I only brought in the stuff that might go bad to put in the fridge but yeah.”
“No problem,” he nods.
“Hey... so I already put all my stuff in the bedroom to the right,” Minho looks around the table back and forth.
“That’s the one with bunk beds right?” Jonghyun asks.
Minho nods.
“So there’s another on the left with a queen bed...and we can put someone on the couch or...”
He continues to look back and forth with far too much effort, actually turning his whole body in his seat to look from Eunsook to Taemin.
“I’ll room with Taemin with the queen,” Eunsook answers.
“Yes!” Jonghyun and Minho high-five across the table excited about scoring the ‘bro bunks’.
Taemin feels a little weird about Eunsook so casually agreeing to sleep in the same bed as him. In Minho’s parent’s bed. They had been hooking-up all through-out the winter, just them, and Taemin had felt kind of- well it sounded dumb that he thought about it now, but a couple.
She was affectionate with Jonghyun and Minho sure, but it was obviously different. For whatever reason she liked Taemin. Or had liked, he guessed.
Once spring rolled around they started hooking up less and less. It was always Eunsook that initiated, so maybe that’s where he went wrong. He should have shown her he was into it a little more. But they were still, close. The sexual side of things had just cooled down a little. They were still holding hands and cuddling, staying up late at night talking and tracing patterns into each other’s skin. He didn’t mind.
But then, exams. That had been when it started wasn’t it? He felt like there must have been signs earlier, and he was just too stupid to notice, but he couldn’t think of any. Even now looking back, he couldn’t think of any.
He hadn’t brought it up with Minho or Jonghyun, because while they seemed okay with it, and they loving teased them and all, Taemin also didn’t feel like rubbing it anyone’s face, or accidentally rubbing them the wrong way. And since Eunsook had only shown a purely platonic interest in the two of them ever since ‘the night’ it didn’t seem like it was a great conversation starter.
Minho and Jonghyun- to Taemin’s knowledge- had miraculously managed to have still not hooked up. Which seemed impossible to him after that night. He had assumed everything had changed between the four of them, because it had, and yet the world kept spinning exactly the same way. When they went to parties together and got a little drunk everyone got more handsy, more leany, but he guessed that scenario, that feeling they had that night really hadn’t been recreated ever since.
Maybe they were all just situationally sexual.
“Hey Minho, why do you guys have a dock but no boat?”
Minho and Jonghyun grinned at him, “that is an excellent question.”
-
“So you guys hang out with people you don’t like, to take advantage of their stuff?”
“Taemin Taemin Taemin, we never said we don’t like them. We just wouldn’t hang out with them if there were say, other people available.”
Taemin jogged a little bit to keep up.
“Having a boat is one, a shit ton of work, and two, really fucking expensive. We bring beer, maybe a little weed, they let us use their boat, and we end up drinking more of their liquor than we paid for anyway. It’s a great system.”
“Are all the paths like this?” Eunsook asked.
“Dirt? Uh yeah. The grounds are all pretty well kept though,” Minho answered.
“Yeah I meant, they keep them well cleared. And they are pretty worn so the dirt is really packed.”
“I guess. Why?” Minho took a couple steps ahead so he could walk backwards while facing them.
“I wanted to maybe ride a bike around here.”
“Oh! Minho’s mom keeps bikes in the shed. There’s a pump in there which the tires will probably need and like, don’t expect anything fancy but Minho and I use to jump them off ramps and stuff from the construction when they were building new stuff here.”
“Perfect,” Eunsook smiled.
-
After they’ve been there for a couple days things fall into routine. They’ve gone to one party which was more of a hang out and get a little tipsy porch gathering. Minho’s more popular with the girls than Taemin can wrap his head around, considering how little he talks, and Jonghyun is the star as always, playing guitar on a bench swing while people sit around and enjoy lying on each other’s skin still warm from the sun earlier in the day.
Eunsook is more well-liked than she seems to realize, he can tell several of the new boys can’t stop eyeing her and some of the girls get more bold after drinking. No one approaches her though. Or maybe they have and she’s just shrugged them off, the rest deciding it better to admire from afar. He wonders if she does notice the attention but is taking it the wrong way, or maybe she knows exactly what they’re thinking and that’s why she’s so quiet.
Either way he can’t really seem to find his place. He’s not uncomfortable but he certainly hasn’t made any new friends. He can’t wrap his head around how Eunsook can sit there and seem perfectly fine not talking to anyone. Not that he wants to be as social as Jonghyun and Minho, but he feels sort of like a failure for not. Like he isn’t choosing to be too cool for everyone else, he’s just an outcast.
On their way back from his third boating trip he’s feeling pretty good though. It’s the second time all of them have gone together, and only three of the other lake kids were there so he didn’t feel out of place or outnumbered. Eunsook is still getting flak for not wearing a bathsuit, insisting on swimming in some pretty heavy looking clothes when drenched, but they all cheered her on when she finally did get in the water. He still hasn’t managed to talk to her, which is amazing how much they are generally in the same vicinity of each other, but he figures she’ll come to him if she has something to say. It’s best not to pester.
“Oh come on Eunsook, everyone just wants to see your tits again, I’m sorry it’s so hard being loved,” Jonghyun bumps her hip with his as he runs past her, kicking up some dust on the path as they go.
“They’re like, the seventh world wonder.”
“So glad you consider parts of my body a tourist destination, but no.”
“You wear low cut shirts all the time though,” Minho seems genuinely puzzled why Eunsook doesn’t want to swim in a bathingsuit when obviously clothes create far too much drag. How is she ever going to win one of the swimming competitions like this?
“Not recently she doesn’t,” Taemin points out. He feels immediately guilty for saying it though as Eunsook gives him a look. He just meant it as an observation, but now it seems he’s taken sides.
“So glad you all care.”
Jonghyun shrugs dramatically at Minho and Taemin mouthing “I don’t know” and they walk back the rest of the way in silence.
-
“Where are you going?” Taemin mumbles sleepily. He’s not sure what time it is but it’s still dark out and as he sits up and the blanket falls, leaving his chest feeling cold.
“Swimming,” Eunsook responds.
He’s about to auto-respond, at night? But duh, so instead he just nods.
“To be alone?” he asks.
It looks like she wants to say yes, but she hesitates.
“You can come too,” she adds finally. And Taemin smiles in the dark as he hops out of the warm bed to find his towel.
-
Eunsook slides into the water like she was born to swim and Taemin stares in wonderment of how she moves. It’s like she has no awkward angles. Everything she does is perfectly rounded or smooth, he feels like complaining to the universe when her head resurfaces and the ripples of water and her hair flow out from her like a frame. There’s no way the moonlight is as forgiving on his lanky teenage body.
“You look like a mermaid,” he tells her.
She blows bubbles in the water and smiles at him as he treads closer.
“Thanks. I always wanted to be a mermaid.”
Taemin shakes his head a little to get his fringe out of his eyes and thinks it’s weird Eunsook should want for anything.
“I’m sorry you’re having a hard time.”
Eunsook slowly starts to spin in a circle with her arms like a windmill as she hums.
“I know you are. I’m sorry I’m so hard on you.”
“You’re not though.”
Taemin circles outside the ring of rippling water around Eunsook to look at her, suddenly worried he’s talking to another person.
“Yes I am. In my head all the time.”
It makes Taemin’s heart kind of sink to hear that, but he wants Eunsook to feel better. To not have to be so sad.
“No one should care what you look like in a bathing suit,” he says.
She nods as she goes to float on her back and stare up at the sky.
He joins her and wishes he could just reach out and hold her hand, so they could fall asleep like otters.
“It’s really good though, by the way.”
“I know,” she responds solemnly.
“Just no one let’s me feel that way.”
-
Jonghyun is always nagging Eunsook about this or that, teasing her relentlessly while all she does is ignore him, but every now and then she caves, she takes the bait and yells back. Jonghyun’s eyes always light up and he says ‘ow! ow!’ way too loudly to be in real pain when she pushes him. Sometimes Eunsook ends up laughing despite herself, and they wrestle on the ground or he jumps off the boat with her in his arms pulling her under the water.
Then there are these much more alarming moments when Eunsook’s sadness creeps up on her again and she doesn’t want to eat or she won’t come out of the bathroom, and Jonghyun’s the one who manages to slowly coax her out with soft words Taemin can’t quite hear. It’s driving him crazy not to know just what kind of magic phrases it is Jonghyun chants to make her feel better, what kind of tone he uses, whether he says her name or not.
Does he promise it will get better? Does he tell her it’s not that big of a deal? Does he ignore it all and just tell her cheesy compliments and irrelevant stories?
Taemin can count every look Eunsook’s given him since they’ve gotten here, and he feels stuck in the doldrums of just being Jonghyun’s replacement when Eunsook’s pride is too great and Jonghyun doesn’t notice the forlornness.
And out of everyone, Eunsook is shockingly spending the most time with Minho. Really she spends either time by herself or in the bigger group of all four, or even all forty of the lake kids, but one on one she’s spending the most time with . . . Minho.
“What do they even do?” Taemin whines it more than he means over breakfast one morning.
Jonghyun puts his fist in front of his mouth and mimics a blowjob as Taemin groans and hits him.
“I don’t want to think about her doing that right now,” Taemin glares into his eggs suddenly grossed out by the yellow oozing out his sunny side yolks.
“Who said she was the one sucking?”
Taemin shoves his plate away in a frustrated huff, his anger elevating rapidly.
“Can we stop with the ‘Eunsook has a penis joke’ for like two fucking seconds?”
“Woah ‘ey” Jonghyun takes the opportunity to shovel Taemin’s left over eggs in his own mouth as Taemin watches with unhidden disgust.
“Why are you so uptight all the sudden? I know she’s not secretly a man, I mean we’ve all seen it.”
“That! That shit! I don’t understand how you can just say exactly the wrong thing exactly the wrong way so fucking often and then just, SNAP! You’re charming as all get out. What are you Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?”
Jonghyun snorts like he might actually be offended and Taemin’s glad he’s said something that hasn’t just slide off Jonghyun like Teflon. Jonghyun lectures down at him, “Look, I know you’re upset your sexual escapades have come to an untimely death with Eunsook, but it’s not like it’s anyone’s fault. And so she’s a little sensitive right now, sorry I can’t change who I am to match everyone’s moods.”
“You’re not even listening to me! I’m not saying anyone’s at fault how can you- how are you playing the victim here!”
Jonghyun’s brows knit together and his face goes dark in a seriously disturbing way. Taemin suddenly wishes he hadn’t said anything. It’s not like it was going to work anyway, and now it seems he’s brought about the wrath of Jonghyun’s ego.
“Sometimes I just want to strap you down and make you cry.”
Jonghyun looms over Taemin’s chair and Taemin’s so stunned he can’t think of anything to say or do. All he can think about is the way his skin is now icy hot, and his insides want to evacuate out.
“One day you’re going really fuck up, misbehave. And I’m gonna catch you and make you sorry.”
“There’s a party tonight at Junsu’s.”
Jonghyun’s back in his chair pulling at his shirt like nothing happened before Taemin can even register it.
“I think we all just need to blow off a little steam, you know? It’ll be nice to go out all four of us together again, not just sitting around this house. You should wear that purple shirt Eunsook and I got you for your birthday.”
Taemin nods like he’s dumb and hates himself for not knowing what else to do.
“Hey, you guys want to go swimming and maybe catch some sun on the dock?”
Minho and Eunsook are huffing in the doorway both in workout gear, faces red and sweaty.
Jonghyun smiles brightly, “yeah but don’t fall asleep again or you’ll get those weird ass tan lines.”
Eunsook laughs as she holds her sides with her hands, trying to regain her breath.
“That was pretty bad.”
“Whatever,” Minho takes off his sweat soaked shirt and throws it at Jonghyun landing it perfectly across his whole face.
“Ew! Fucking gross man! Now I’m going to have to fucking shower too!”
“With meeee~?” Minho sings with a leery grin.
-
The air crackled around them as they swam. A storm was coming that night, and something was different. As they went up the ladder on the side of the dock Taemin started to suddenly panic. He was alone in the water while the other three were on the dock and it just . . . Jonghyun looked back at him from the top of the steps and Taemin felt for sure a pit would open up on the bottom of the lake right below him and suck him in as his friend watched.
As his friend made it happen.
Eunsook and Minho were already lying face first on their towels in the sun. Taemin could only see the edges of their bodies somehow millions of miles away.
“You okay?” Jonghyun questioned quietly. Like he understood not to let the other two hear, let them in on the fact, their friend was a giant baby suddenly having a panic attack for no viable reason on a scale of one to absolutely going to die right now.
Jonghyun slowly got back in the water and swam towards Taemin.
He grabbed Taemin’s wrist and began silently pulling him the short way to the dock.
He wrapped his other hand around the sides of the ladder, and placed a foot to anchor himself still holding onto Taemin.
“Hey, it’s okay Tae. I’ve got you. I’m right here.”
Taemin’s heart stayed pounding at a breakneck pace. Jonghyun’s hand loosened from Taemin’s wrist and Taemin immediately grabbed back.
“Shhh,” Jonghyun soothed with warm breath.
Taemin continued to hold his arm, but let it slide through his loosened grip as Jonghyun’s hand made it’s way up to his forearm, then elbow, and underneath his armpit, to finally have his entire arm wrapped around Taemin. Taemin held the older boy’s shoulder lightly, still unable to voice his fear of the water he was submerged in.
The water slowly rushed past his frame as Taemin was pushed against one of the wooden pillars holding the dock up, Jonghyun using the ladder to prevent the lapping waters from moving them.
“You don’t have to be afraid of anything but me, okay?”
Taemin’s back scraped against the barnacles as Jonghyun lifted him a little before pulling Taemin back to him, and shoving Taemin up onto the dock before him.
Jonghyun flopped up, water streaming from his shorts, next to the rest of them as Taemin sat, quietly running his fingers over his back to feel the red raised skin from where it had been scraped. He kept checking for blood, but it wasn’t there.
When everyone woke back up from napping in the late afternoon sunlight Taemin was still sitting there quietly. Cold, confused.
-
At the party Eunsook’s wearing a plaid button down over her outfit despite the swampyness of the air, the sleeves rolled up a little because it’s too big for her. She’s sipping a beer looking perfectly happy on Minho’s knee, and Taemin feels really glad they came. He’s thrumming happily on a wave of smoke and whiskey while he feels the vibrations of the music and the people laughing outside, this couch is so perfect for sitting on, he thinks. So perfect.
She tosses her hair back and laughs at something Minho says before shouting across the room, “Gwiboon! Gwiboon! What are you doing here, you look great!”
Gwiboon saunters over impressively turning her tipsyness into something sexy and sly as she leans on Eunsook’s shoulder and pointedly ignores Minho, whose more than thrilled to have the honor.
“You look great,” she straightens Eunsook’s collar with delicate fingertips.
“I want this shirt, ugh how cute.”
Eunsook smiles as Minho answers enthusiastically, “it’s mine! You can have it.”
Gwiboon raises her eyebrows as her lips turn up in a smirk, “well, thank you.”
“No problem,” Minho nods happily.
Eunsook goes to stand up but then stops dramatically, grabbing Gwiboon’s shoulder, “wait okay, you have to sit down on him.”
“What?” she asks, amused.
“Minho and I were just talking about how he might float away if he’s not careful, so it was a good thing I was sitting on him. But I really want to go get another drink, and I can’t just leave him here to fend for himself,” Eunsook gestures dramatically.
Gwiboon slides into Minho’s lap with ease as she purrs reassuringly, “okay, don’t worry. I’ll look after him.”
Eunsook stands and takes her shoes and the over-shirt off, handing the shirt to Gwiboon and hooking the straps of her shoes over her fingers.
She salutes them both before heading to the kitchen and Taemin closes his eyes to rest his head back. He has such good friends.
When he opens his eyes back up he’s alone. He can hear the party around him but the living room is strangely empty. His throat closes up before he even fully hears his voice.
“Are you lonely?” Jonghyun asks.
He’s sitting right where Minho and Gwiboon was. Taemin thinks of how weird that is. They were just there and now...they aren’t. And Jonghyun is. It’s so, strange.
Taemin puts all his efforts into trying to respond. Thoughts feel slow like he has to push them out to try and make them words. They don’t make sense.
“No?”
“Come here, I’ll fuck you.”
Taemin stares unfocused at Jonghyun’s lap. His legs are spread so wide. It’s so big. If he tries to stand up...surely he’d fall into it. He sighs to himself. That could be nice.
“I don’t think I can.”
“You don’t have to,” Jonghyun tells him. He rises out of the chair and walks to stand in front of Taemin. Taemin feels stupid for how his limbs are spread out across the couch now. He must look stoned and sloppy. He thinks Jonghyun is about to tell him how dumb he is, but he doesn’t say anything. Just surveys Taemin in a way that makes him feel worse.
Eventually Jonghyun puts his hands in his pockets, and walks away.
-
Half an hour later Taemin’s feeling sadly sober so he decides to venture round the house to see if stumbles across anything. He feels free to move about in the heat and noise of the place, no one really noticing him, caught up in their own activities. He thinks of joining some of the groupings, but there’s no point really. They’d be nice to him sure, but he just wasn’t interested in doing anything besides observe.
Minho trots over to him when he starts to wander out back, “Hey, hey Taemin!”
Minho’s got a huge grin plastered over his face like he just won an award and his dad actually showed up to the ceremony this time.
“Gwiboon’s gonna come back with me to the house, so you think you can hang out here for maybe another two hours or so?”
“Uh, yeah. Sure hyung. What about Jonghyun and Eunsook though?”
“Eunsook already knows and said she’d tell Jonghyun. And uh, I was going to use your guy’s room for the night, if you don’t mind. One of you can take my bunk! And I guess the other the couch? Or you could kick Jonghyun out. . . I don’t know, this just means a lot to me yeah?”
Taemin’s realized his eyes must have been doing something funky because Minho started bouncing on his toes like he was anxious to get going.
“I’ll wash the sheets! In boiling water afterwards. Boiling. Or better yet, we can all go into town and I’ll buy new sheets! Okay yeah, um, and be nice during breakfast tomorrow alright?”
Taemin blinked, “when am I not nice?”
“Just don’t, just don’t stare at her weird or anything okay? You kind of freak people out sometimes when you watch them.”
Minho clapped him on the shoulder and gave a wave as he ran over to meet up with Gwiboon who was now waiting behind them on the path, with her hair wrapped up in an impossibly good looking turban considering it was made out of a plaid shirt.
He heard her laugh echo as Minho scooped her up in a bear hug and carried her off into the dark.
-
Taemin couldn’t decide if it was more important to try and find Eunsook, or make sure he avoided Jonghyun. Eunsook had obviously wingmanned the whole thing for Minho, and with how much time they had been spending together she was probably feeling proud if anything, maybe even a little thrilled to have someone new staying in the house she got along with, but Jonghyun. Jonghyun was going to be pissed.
It ended up not really being a choice he had to make though, when he rounded the trail back to party and saw them outside the boathouse.
There was only one fluorescent light twenty meters either way, and it was above the giant wood doors that swung open both ways so that boats could fit through. Eunsook was pressed up against them, faded peeling navy paint making the white of her summer dress stand out.
He hadn’t noticed she was wearing a dress before.
“Please, I just want to look. Remember when we used to play doctor?”
Jonghyun is past that point of drunk and or high, small and childlike in her arms, begging.
Taemin can’t hear her response but it’s obviously not the answer Jonghyun was looking for.
“But we used to do it all the time. You used to like me so much, what happened?” he whines.
Eunsook’s eyes are bloodshot and glazed over, her mouth is hanging slightly open like she might forget to breathe otherwise. She shifts her shoulders a little and slides down the door without meaning to. Jonghyun helps push her back up into place with his full body weight and Taemin thinks he can feel it on the front of his skin as if it were him.
He moves along the path in the shadows so he’s closer, crouching behind some bushes so he’s to the right side of them now, able to see their bodies in profile perfectly.
Eunsook mumbles, “okay,” and Jonghyun doesn’t grin or look cocky like he usually would, he looks pained.
He gathers up her dress around her hips a hooks a finger in the very bottom of her underwear, pulling straight down until the elastic stretches over her curves and suddenly snaps to bunch right under her hips. He rubs the newly revealed flesh of her lower belly and ass but she pushes at his forehead with her hand.
“Just looking.”
He hitches her leg up a little with one hand, almost so it’s resting on his shoulder as he kneels in front of her, and holds her underwear out of the way as he breathes on her.
“It’s so pretty. You just don’t know how pretty you are do you?”
Eunsook puts her leg back down, and starts to push at her dress to smooth over so Jonghyun can no longer see, but he tightens his hold on the fabric and stands up, covering her unclothed crotch with his own still in jeans.
“I’m so hard. Eunsook, you make me so hard. Please just let me put it in you please please please.”
Eunsook shakes her head and Taemin thinks she looks like she might vomit. He knows Eunsook can take care of herself, and he doesn’t want to be an intruder on whatever this is only to make it worse. What if he’s reading the whole thing wrong? What if Jonghyun’s about to back off any second anyway? Wouldn’t it be better to spare Eunsook the embarrassment?
“Why? Am I not good enough for you?”
“No that’s not- I just, can’t-I don’t want to like this.”
Jonghyun continues to push and rub against her.
“Why? Are you afraid I’ll get you pregnant? Are you saying I wouldn’t know how to take care of you? That I don’t know how to be responsible for my actions? What kind of fuck-up do you think I am?” Jonghyun demands quietly.
Eunsook finally shoulders Jonghyun off of her even though he’s still filling up too much of her space.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she stares at the ground and Taemin wishes he could tell her to stop making herself small.
“Quit saying things like that bunny, you're gonna get me all hot,” Jonghyun licks something off the front of his teeth.
“Don’t call me that,” she breathes like she’s underwater.
“Bunny? I thought you liked it, being my little bunny” he smiles against her cheek as she turns her face farther from him.
“Th-that’s why.”
“It must be so hard, how far do you have to push yourself to be able to come without me, huh? Do you have to hit yourself real hard just to come? Or do you just think of someone fucking you when you were underage?”
He tuts at her expression, “poor bunny. You could make it so much easier on yourself if you just let me...”
“Jonghyun-”
“Shhh,” he thumbs her lips as he rushes, “I just think about you struggling in the shower, trying to get off on your own all frustrated and sore from not being able to, and it hurts me you know? When I could just help, could make you come so hard.”
“Why are you like this,” she moans. His eyes light up like he’s won a prize, like the doors are about to open and he shifts his weight back and forth anxious and excited.
“Don’t know, why do you like it?” he presses up against her harder.
“Just touch it,” he bargains. “Just my fingers.” She doesn’t say okay but she doesn’t move to stop him. He takes it as a yes.
“God, you’re swollen,” he hums as he sinks down back to eye level with her cunt.
“You smell so thick,” he presses his face into the warmth of her thigh leftover from the sunshine, strokes the top of her with the tips of his fingers. She whimpers, “Don’t. I haven’t gotten a chance to shower.”
“So? It’s so strong. I think I’m gonna die.”
“That’s not fair,” she sounds ready to cry.
“I love it.”
He touches all around her but right there, feather soft, bringing attention to each part of her skin that he does. She carefully keeps from making any noise or movement.
“Why are you getting all shy on me?” he asks. She seems gone.
“You must be horny by now,” he whispers menacingly, slowly pushing two fingers into her so she has to recognize every second.
“Aww, you’re soaked,” he grins, “it’s like you wet yourself.”
She paws at his chest like she can’t remember how to work her hands.
“Fuck Eunsook, I can already get it in so deep.”
He bites at her ear, “I wish all the kids at school could know what a slut you are.”
He pulls a side of her dress down so he can suck on a nipple and starts to rub the entire heel of his hand against her, rocking her. She whines when her stomach twitches and he mocks her.
“You’re such a baby.”
She stops moving altogether and slumps, he catches her under her arms and looks a sick kind of proud.
He kisses her mouth despite her being unresponsive until she starts to stir. She sounds bleary and tiny as she tries to raise her head enough to look at him, “I hate you.”
He straightens out her dress and underwear for her while she glares at him unnoticed.
“This is exactly why we can’t be together, this is exactly why it didn’t work before,” she mumbles hoarsely.
“You’re fucking messed up, why don’t you just fucking tell him-”
Jonghyun slams her shoulders into the wall, nostrils suddenly flaring. Taemin’s heart jumps in his throat, guilty he hasn’t made his presence known by this point, and somehow feeling like it’s just been blown.
“What Eunsook? WHAT?”
It looks like Jonghyun is raising his arm and Taemin can’t be sure if he means to hit her or if he’s seeing this right, but the hope to not embarrass anyone has finally been vanquished and he steps forward.
“Hey I was just coming to see if you knew Minho-”
Jonghyun turns with a scowl on his face and Taemin almost jumps back as he barely even recognizes him.
“Where the fuck did you come from?” he spits at him.
“I was on the path but then I had to take a leak so-” Taemin feels like his words sound faker than they even are.
“That’s great Tae. That’s really goddamn great.”
Jonghyun’s breathing is heavy and ragged while Eunsook’s eyes look wet and glassy and Taemin feels unsure of how to diffuse the situation before they all implode and hell swallows them whole, the dirt beneath his feet no longer solid.
“Is . . . everything okay?”
Eunsook starts to actually cry and Jonghyun turns to snap at her, “would you STOP?!”
Taemin takes a step forward and wonders if he’ll regret it.
“Jonghyun don’t. Leave Eunsook alone.” He’s a million years too late.
Jonghyun pouts, like he wasn’t expecting that. Like he’s truly disappointed in this display of Taemin’s character.
He turns back to Eunsook and grabs her hand, ever so gently, pulling her away from the door and raising his arm up to spin her like a ballerina.
“Look at how pretty she is. Don’t you want to tell her how pretty she is?” Jonghyun asks.
Taemin shakes his head weakly. Whiplashed from Jonghyun’s actions. He’s chanting in his head in sets of three, stop stop stop.
“No? Then why are you here little dongsaeng? Why are you watching every little fucking thing I do? Why are you always on my fucking dick?”
He drops Eunsook’s hand and it hangs dead at her side. She looks paralyzed.
“Do you think you’re not to blame? If it weren’t for you, do you think she would reject me?”
Taemin swallows dryly as Jonghyun starts walking towards him.
“You selfish little slut,” he keeps walking past him though, leaving Taemin to stare at Eunsook as she cries quietly.