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█ ✫ INSIDE OUT ··· ( ch 8 of ? )
█ pairing: minkey
█ rating: NC-17
█ genre: drama - romance
✫ ··· chapter index
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven-A (Interlude)
✫ ··· author's note:
I'm sorry! I know this took forever to come out, and I'm really not entirely satisfied with how it ended up, but I've made you guys wait an inordinate amount of time for it as it is. I'm still working on some fics I owe for presents and favours, so those will be coming out before another update, and that will take a little while. My first year in this program is slowly coming to an end, and it seems they've saved the largest things for last - all at once. COLLEGE, Y U NO BALANCE WORK LOAD?
He knows he's fucked this up.
How could he not? It's been painted for him in more colours than one, each and every way he's fallen just short or failed outright a different technicolour hue, loud and vulgar in the darkness behind his closed eyes. There hasn't been a day in months where he's woken up, and the way the sun shines through gaps in the curtains and assaults his eyes hasn't mocked him with it's warmth, as if to say Up and at 'em, you sad sack of human being, let's see what you can foul up today.
He's having a pity-party. While he's well aware that he doesn't exactly deserve one, he's throwing it for himself, in his own honour, and he'll be damned if he's going to stand himself up.
Besides, it's already in full-swing. Taemin is standing at the screen of the karaoke machine, singing his little heart out to some Western bubble gum pop number about following your heart and falling in love and being pretty while you do it. It's not really helping, all things considered, but norebang was the only thing Jonghyun could think of. There was nothing else in his head but I can't be here right now, I can't do this, I don't want to see this, I can't, I won't, I, I, I -
Jonghyun hates that word. I. That word is where this whole mess started, because he wants to put himself before everything else in the world, because life isn't fair. Life isn't fair, and if Jonghyun ever wants to get anything out of his own lifetime, he feels he's going to have to take it; whether it's fair to do so or not.
So he had. He'd taken and taken, wasted and squandered, and he'd ended up with nothing.
He knows he's fucked this up, but he doesn't for the life of him know how to fix it. Doesn't even know if it's fixable. It's worth mending - oh God, it's worth it, it's worth everything - but Jonghyun's only ever been good at breaking, not at rebuilding. He doesn't even know where to begin; isn't even sure if he has all the pieces he needs, or if it's really something he can do on his own.
He'll start, he thinks, at the bottom. To start with, he'll drag up everything he knows he's done wrong since day one and arrange it all in chronological order. If he can backtrack and pinpoint exactly where this all started to unravel, he can wind it back up and make something of the tangled mess he ends up with. He can try to salvage something from the scrap.
But that's all sort of a useless gesture, a smokescreen; he knows exactly how and where this began without all that hollow effort.
So he'll start, he decides, with the curve of Key's neck. He'll begin with the way the column of his throat is raised in relief when it's tilted backwards, the tendons taught against the skin, anchored by straight, blunted collarbones. Maybe, also, with the way it joins his shoulders; a gentle slope, delicate and soft, a direct contrast to the obvious masculinity of it's width. Often, when the stage lights scorch their skin and their costumes act like furnaces, they end up swimming in their own sweat. Key's always seems to start at the back of his neck, drenching the ends of his hair so it curls around his ears, if it happens to be long enough to do so at the time. Eventually it gets to be too much and it beads, rolling in rivulets down the shallow channels carved on either side of his jawline and shimmering in the light as it traces the contours.
Jonghyun's fingers press harder against the glass in his hands as he works to tear that image from his mind. To rip it from the confines of his skull and watch it curl when he sets fire to the edges, in the same sort of way it ignites the base of his ribs, incinerating everything in its path and trading the oxygen in his lungs for an all-consuming, insatiable heat. He tries to switch his focus to the clear liquid remaining in the thick-bottomed highball glass he grips, but the condensation against the sides is collecting and trickling down the edges and it looks almost the same. It's so similar to that night, with Key's neck cradled in his palms, sweaty and dishevelled and trembling. It looks like a mirror image of Key throwing his head back in ecstasy as a single bead of sweat had descended the tendons in his hand, like it could belong there, pooling against the rough-padded skin of his fingers and trickling over the knuckles as it overflows to the table below.
Taemin bounces a tacky plastic tambourine against his hip as Jonghyun's skin comes alive, hair standing on end, the music coming through the speakers suddenly mute as the ghost of a breath tickles against his ears, carrying his name on a voice rubbed raw with need and weakened by anticipation.
Jjong.
It should be him. It should be Jonghyun standing on rooftops with Key in his arms, their mouths joined as Key clings to his shoulders, their bodies close enough to merge and blur at the edges from a distance. It should be Jonghyun, but it isn't Jonghyun because life isn't fair, and no matter how many times he tries to steal and take and swindle for what he wants, life always gives him exactly what he deserves. Nothing more, and nothing less.
So maybe it's Jonghyun who isn't fair; maybe he keeps losing what he has because he's too selfish to see it before it's gone, before his only option is to snatch it back without regard for the consequences, or go without.
He jumps when a bottle comes into his line of vision, topping off the soju in his glass. Onew doesn't make eye contact with him, focusing on refilling his own glass, but he smiles when he feels Jonghyun's eyes on him. It's a sad sort of smile, small and halted, like Onew is trying to say everything he wants to without using words. Jonghyun swirls the soju around, watching the way it clings to the sides. “We have a schedule in the morning,” he says blandly, without any real conviction, “We should be taking it easy with this stuff.”
“We'll be fine,” Onew's response is soft, and that small smile is all tangled in his voice, “Besides, it looks like you could use the hangover.”
Jonghyun continues to stare at him as their leader takes a mouthful of his drink, his nose crinkling only slightly at the taste. He knows that Onew is inviting him to talk, but as much as he'd love to get this off his chest for a little while, it would really only make Onew's life harder than it already is. Besides, the last thing he wants is to air out his dirty laundry to someone he admires, no matter how badly his heart is screaming out for a sympathetic ear. Instead of answering directly, Jonghyun gives a non-committal shrug and brings his glass to his mouth, taking a deep drag of the liquid and furrowing his brow as it sours against the back of his throat. He never was much of a drinker.
When Onew excuses himself ten minutes later for a trip to the bathroom, Taemin throws himself in his seat at the booth, fanning himself with one hand as he drags his soda towards him. Jonghyun tries to lighten his facial expression, not wanting the maknae to feel awkward just because Jonghyun is having a shitty year, but Taemin locks eyes with him as he sips greedily at his Coke. His gaze is slightly hesitant, but open and gently curious. Jonghyun finds it completely unnerving.
“You know,” says Taemin, his voice carefully neutral, “For someone who suggested this whole outing, you haven't really done much singing.”
Jonghyun tenses for only a split second, but Taemin is sharp, and they both know he's caught the movement. The silence between them makes an attempt at solidifying, but Taemin doesn't seem content to let it linger.
“I know why you brought us here, hyung.”
Taemin is struck by the urge to cry when Jonghyun's expression changes. It's torn, equal parts misery and reservation settling over his features and drawing sadness to the surface of his irises. Jonghyun looks at him like he's asking a question, only he doesn't know how to phrase it - desperate for an answer with no grounds to find one. With a heavy sigh Taemin shifts his gaze to the abandoned microphones on the table, focusing on them as he tries to decide what to say next - or if he should say anything at all.
“Hyung...” He starts, nibbling at the inside of his cheek before he speaks again, “If I were to tell you a secret, would you promise not to tell anyone that I told you? Especially not Kibum-hyung?”
At the mention of Key's name, Jonghyun's face adds confusion to the list of emotions mixed on its surface. A wordless nod is the only affirmative Taemin gets, but it's more than enough.
“Kibum-hyung... He misses you. I know that might sound hard to believe, considering he hasn't willingly spoken to you in a while now, but... He's just confused right now, and hurt. He wouldn't tell me everything, or exactly what you two fought about, but I'm not stupid. I can draw my own conclusions. I don't think you two can ever be - you know - together. Not now, at least - you know he has Minho-hyung now. But there's something you can be for Kibum-hyung that no one else can.”
The pleading look in Jonghyun's eyes is crushing, like a vacuum. Like he's willing to take whatever he can get at this point, because really, anything is more than he was hoping for.
“Before this whole thing started, you were his best friend. No one was close with Kibum-hyung like you were, not even me; it's always been you. Hyung hasn't forgotten that, but he thinks he's wrecked your friendship, and he doesn't know what to do about it.”
“I don't know either, Taemin,” Jonghyun sighs, resting his forehead in the palm of his hand and threading his fingers through his fringe, “I don't know how to get him to talk to me. I've been trying.”
“No, you haven't.”
Jonghyun is ready to protest at that, but the look Taemin is giving him - pointed, with a sad sort of smile to the edges - keeps the words wedged in his throat, where he does his best not to choke on them.
“What you've been doing is trying to charm him into talking to you again,” Jonghyun has the decency to flush with guilt at this, but Taemin doesn't dwell on the action, “That may work fine for a regular argument, but that's not what this is. I know you're scared, hyung - he's your best friend, too, but that's why you need to talk to him. Like, actually go up to him and ask to talk in private. You know how Kibum-hyung is; if you do that, he'll definitely let you talk. He might yell at you a little, or do that thing he does where he doesn't speak at all and just looks at you - which is scarier than the yelling, in my opinion, but you know, whatever. Either way, he'll let you apologize, and then you stand a chance of talking this all out and being friends again, at least a little bit. And isn't that better than nothing?”
Silence rings in their ears. Taemin can't think of anything else to say, and he's pretty sure anything else he tried to add would be redundant, anyhow. Still, he can't be certain whether or not he's crossed some sort of invisible line. He worries at the inside of his lower lip, pinching the skin between his front teeth as he waits for some sort of reaction. Something. Anything.
A single dry chuckle escapes from Jonghyun as he sits up slightly straighter, fixing Taemin with a bemused look. To his own merit Taemin holds his ground, setting his jaw and not allowing Jonghyun the room to do anything but take him seriously. Perhaps that's why Jonghyun feels like he's admitting defeat when he sighs, his shoulders drooping with the deflation of his chest.
“Hey. When the hell did you grow up and start schooling your hyungs, huh?” He asks, a small, sad smile tugging at a corner of his mouth. Taemin smiles back, just as tiny.
“It wasn't hard,” is his reply, as he brings the straw in his soda back to his mouth, “I've had good role models.”
··· ✫ ···
The buzzing of the alarm on his cellphone - vibration only, tucked under his pillow so it disturbed only himself - brings Key back to the waking world just after four that morning. He has a radio show to record at six, so he's got about an hour and a half to get ready and downstairs, where the van will be waiting to whisk him away to the station.
Normally when he wakes up it takes him a few minutes to get things going again. Not so this morning; this morning Key's eyes aren't the least bit heavy once they're open, and he brushes the cloying sweetness of sleep from his mind with a simple stretch of his arms over his head. Stretching, however, has him shifting his hips against the mattress, and he winces.
Last night roars suddenly against his senses like a cyclone with just that simple movement, the memory of hands and lips and hot breaths of air against his neck vivid, and oddly satisfying. Taking a moment, Key bites his lip and lets himself fall back against his pillow, arms spread and toes pointed in the sheets. Teeth still pressed against his mouth, he lets out the smallest of satisfied laughs before hauling himself out of bed, carefully scaling down the side of the bunk.
Taemin has thrown the blankets off himself, as per usual, and Key drapes them loosely over his shoulders as the boy slumbers. Across the room Onew is murmuring in his sleep, the covers pulled up over his ears like a cocoon. Smiling to himself Key takes light, rapid steps out of their room, pulling a sweatshirt on over the racer-back tank top he'd worn to bed. It's loose and long - Minho's. He'd stolen it from his room last night, complaining he was cold after their shower.
Just looking at the bathroom door sends a skitter of excitement across his spine. He turns his back to it as he closes the door to the bedroom with a nearly inaudible click, and he has to bite his lip again to keep from letting his imagination run away from him.
He heads for the kitchen, intent on setting up the press for coffee, only to find someone already working on that very task. Minho's head is bent low, his back curved so he can be close enough to the measurements on the side of the press as he fills it with boiled water. Still feeling rather giddy, Key creeps quietly across the floor until he's pressing himself against Minho's back, snaking his arms around his waist and letting his fingers curl just under the hem of Minho's wrinkled t-shirt to splay over his stomach. Raising himself up on his toes, Key fits his chin to rest on Minho's shoulder as the taller boy stiffens in surprise, and he can't resist the chuckle that bubbles up out of his chest.
“Mm,” he purrs into Minho's ear, nuzzling the skin just behind it with his nose before nipping gently at the lobe, “Good morning.”
When Minho's body shifts Key loosens his hold just enough to allow it, his hands skimming across the strip of skin under his fingers as Minho turns to fit his palms over Key's hips. Even though his eyes are still heavy with sleep, Minho's smile is warm and genuine as his thumbs press small, delicate circles in the flesh of Key's waist through his pyjama pants. “Good morning to you, too,” his voice rumbles out of his throat so low Key feels it more than hears it, and he has to repress a shiver, “I'm making coffee.”
“I see that,” Key hums, untangling his arms from Minho's shirt to drape them lazily around his neck, “Two mornings in a row? You're going to spoil me at this rate.”
“I don't mind.”
When Key feels Minho's nose bump ever-so slightly against his, his first instinct is to scoff, but he holds it in. As he repeats the motion it quickly becomes apparent that Minho isn't asking for something, like Key has assumed, but gently demanding it; his neck is already bent low, and he keeps flicking his eyes back and forth from Key's eyes to his mouth.
Can I kiss you? No, it's not like that - it's not asking permission. This is something he'd been trying to pull from Minho the night before. This is more possessive: Kiss me.
With a barely restrained smile, Key tilts is head up just far enough to brush his lips against Minho's, the grin even harder to hold back when Minho hums contentedly into the kiss.
For a moment as their mouths meet, shy but certain, Key decides that this is what he's been missing; this is the very thing he longs for when he wakes up on a day with not enough sun, when the heat of the room is never enough to warm his skin beneath his blankets. This is what he has been wanting each time he tucks his ears beneath his covers and squeezes his eyes shut against the day around him, wondering why it feels progressively harder to drag himself from his bed when he knows the comforts it offers are insufficient on their own. This is it. That thought makes him wish this would never end - that he and Minho could stand like this every morning, kissing sweetly in the kitchen with the smell of coffee grounds around them like a haze, before the day has really begun.
His breath hitches when things take a sudden turn. Key manages not to groan when he feels Minho's tongue lap at the seam of his lips, but he can't help the way he melts against the taller boy's chest at the action. Minho's hands slip up to tug him closer by the waist, fingers pressed against his lower back as it bows to fit them together, and they only serve to drive Key crazy. He ends up with his hands buried knuckle-deep in Minho's sleep-tousled hair, tugging gently to angle his head as Minho slinks his hands under the hem of his sweatshirt and kneads at his skin.
This is already getting out of hand, so quickly that Key can't even keep up with the way his own body is reacting. He has to physically think of what breathing is like to ensure he continues to do it when one of Minho's hands dips just the tips of his fingers under the waistband of Key's pyjama pants to rub ever-so gently against the beginning curve of his backside. He tries to pull back to inhale, to say something sobering, to slam on the breaks before he forgets where they are; but Minho only nips at his lower lip and pulls it between his teeth, sucking softly, and Key finally lets a small, strained whimper crawl from his throat.
The short, clipped breaths Key manages to drag through his nose aren't enough, and he's getting dizzy; but whether it's from lack of air or because all he's breathing in is Minho, he can't really be certain. He can feel himself shaking, and he clings to Minho's shoulders like they're the only thing holding him upright. When Minho slots a knee between Key's legs, that becomes a reality, and Key feels the axis of the Earth shift under his feet as he loses his footing. Minho's hands are there to catch him, one hand at his neck holding their mouths firmly together as the other trails down the back of Key's thigh to hike his leg up by the knee.
This is insane, and Key knows it, but at the same time he can't find it in himself to stop. All of what they're doing right now is bad news; they're in the middle of the dorm, and while they're always the first ones up that doesn't mean someone else isn't awake yet. Not to mention it's only been five hours since they'd first had each other, and yet here they are again, right back at square one, because Key just can't say no to those hands or those lips or that voice. He doesn't know how. Part of him never wants to learn.
“Is there cof - holy shit.”
Every single muscle in Key's body tenses, strung tight as a guide wire. He's completely frozen, eyes wide as Minho carefully lowers his leg, though his arms remain locked around Key's body. Key is staring at Minho's neck without really looking at it, trying to force himself to think, but the only thing rattling around in his head is -
“Hyung...” Minho mutters, as he tightens his grip around Key's waist.
Oh God, oh God, oh fuck, it's -
In a panic he seeks Minho's eyes out with his own, but Minho's looking at the entrance to the kitchen, face in a careful mask. Key feels his heart restart at a gallop when he sees the emotion in it; it's like Minho is silently wishing for some sort of backlash, only so he could have the opportunity to tell the world just why this is everything he ever wanted. Solemn, but anything but apologetic.
“Well... I guess this explains a few things.”
Palms flat against Minho's chest, Key turns himself in the other's hold, and then feels a little stupid for not recognizing the voice. Onew is scrubbing at his face roughly at the door frame, one hand on his hip as he struggles to be awake enough to process the situation. Key swallows, but his throat is too dry to support the effort so it nearly chokes him.
“Hyung -”
“Not now, Minho,” Onew puts both hands in the air as if he's under arrest, “It's too early for this right now. Just... No more of... That, for the rest of the day. We'll talk about this tonight - and we will talk about this. Okay?”
They both nod, hesitant, and Onew's shoulders sag as he sighs.
“I know neither of you are irrational people. That's the only reason I'm not... Upset with you, about this. Or at least, I'm trying not to be. I just hope you realize what you're getting yourselves into.”
“We do.”
Key's voice is almost too soft to hear, and he startles even himself by how quick he is to answer. Still, as he curls his fingers into Minho's shirt and locks eyes with Onew, there is no doubt in his mind that it's the truth. The leader offers him a small, uncertain smile. He nods and turns on his heel, heading back to the bedroom to get ready for the day like nothing has happened, and leaves the two of them to sort things out in the kitchen.
They of them stay silent for a while, and even though they know they should break apart, neither seems to have the heart to disentangle from the other. Key buries his face in Minho's shirt, inhales the scent of fabric softener and plain bar soap, and nuzzles in as close as he can. Feeling the rise and fall of his chest and the steadfast thumping of his heart is soothing to Key's frazzled nerves. He chuckles softly, more an outward huff of air than laughter, and hums against Minho's skin.
“So much for the honeymoon,” he laments quietly.
A gentle hand collects the fabric of Key's sweatshirt as it strokes softly up and down the curve of his back. He can feel the tension dispersing from his every limb, as if it were evaporating under the welcome heat of Minho's palms. The same hands that can so easily sear and tug and tip Key well over the edge are now so genuinely warm and comforting that Key can feel himself drifting, wondering if he could fall asleep to the deep, steady drumming against his ear as if it were a lullaby.
If he was feeling less serene, he would notice that he was the only one so relaxed.
Though Minho keeps his hands even and placid, his mind is racing. He knows Key better than the backs of his own eyelids; knows the boy has a shameless streak wider than most city blocks; knows there's no way that getting caught making out in the kitchen should have made him freeze up the way he did. He wants there to be another explanation for the reaction, and he picks through the contents of his mind to try to piece one together, but there seems to be only one fit. It's the one he wants least, but it's also the most obvious.
A part of Minho knows that this could never be over so easily. He can wish for the simple solution as much as he likes, but the fact remains that there just isn't one. No matter how close he's come - no matter how good Key feels in his arms, breath warming his chest through the material of his shirt - there are still loose ends, raw and fraying with neglect, that could unravel everything he has now with a sharp, calculated tug. He needs to secure it to something soon, before time runs out, before there's nothing left to save.
After all, Key had frozen because he'd thought it had been Jonghyun gaping at them as they retraced the paths they'd mapped on one another the night before.
He can worry about that later, though. Right now, he wants to earn the kink in his back from where it's pressed against the edge of the counter top, dull and unyielding as he leans against it. At the moment, all he wants is to memorize every place Key's body lays directly against his, to mark each place they press together to prove to the world just how well they fit. Just for now, he rubs slow, easy circles into Key's back and shoulders, heart fluttering and cracking all at once as a contented sigh from petal-plush, wicked lips raises goosebumps across his collarbones.
“Yeah,” breathes Minho, eyes glued to the door behind which Jonghyun is probably just starting to rouse from his bunk, “Too bad.”