the stumbling of your hands, the flooding of your memory
the stumbling of your hands, the flooding of your memory
Key/Taemin
PG, angst?, friendship, love?
Kibum has never felt this calm with six cups of coffee in his body and an alter ego out to drown him.
(1062 words)
A/N: Here's my first post for SHINee Week! It would've been done earlier, but there's long story as to why it's posted now-it's not important, though. Key is Kibum in this-yes, I'm using his real name. It's not the Super Junior Kibum. I was listening to Epik High's “I'm Happy” when I wrote this. The music fits the mood. Prompted with “Key / Taemin / stumbling fingers, shaky voices, and a memory like a drain” from the SHINee random pairing generator ^_^
--
It’s not hard for Taemin to remember his bus stop, it’s just hard for him to want to remember. He loses things so easily inside his own brain, they build up like water in the kitchen sink when he forgets to turn the handle back once he’s done using it. This memory, he likes, because he laughed inappropriately even when his mother scolded him. Because he was only seven and didn't have as many things to remember as he does now. It’s hard to keep them all bottled up, but he has no outlet for them. They stay suppressed behind the front of his mind and the back of his mind, and all sides.
When he misses his stop, he doesn’t notice for another two, and he smiles like it’s the best thing in the world.
--
Kibum’s been running on his sixth cup of coffee since he woke up at six in the morning. He never had to be anywhere until nine, but the internal and external alarm clock of his trembling, twitching fingers had done the trick. And so, he’d rolled out of the blankets and forced himself to stand. There would be no hope of going back to sleep, of course, not until night’s filter stretches over the sky.
It’s like this every day.
--
“Don’t I know you?”
Kibum peeks over at the red-headed boy, and tucks the magazine back into his messenger bag, despite the fact that he’s only just sat down and opened it in the first place. He feels like they know each other. Kibum feels like this boy’s name is Taemin, but he can never be sure, really. “I don’t know. Do you?” His voice sounds like it’s shaking along with his hands, every now and then.
“Is your name Key?”
“Kibum.”
“Sorry, bad memory,” Taemin lies, but Kibum wouldn’t ever know.
“My nickname was Key,” he crosses one leg over the other. But his friends stopped calling him that when things got serious; when Key thought it would be a fun idea to flood Kibum’s lungs and lock the bathroom door along with the idea, for the extra thrill. Kibum figures that he should leave out the little anecdote running through his mind. Taemin doesn’t need to know.
“I’m Taemin.”
Kibum nods knowing he was right, but only thinking of liquid swishing in his system, but Taemin’s bright smile somehow brings him out of it. Suddenly Kibum is asking, “Are you busy?”
“Right now?”
Kibum’s hands twitch, but it’s only the coffee, he tells himself, a steady voice in his mind runs clear. “Yeah.”
“Not really,” Taemin puts his hands on his skinny knees, and it reminds Kibum of how his Hyukjae-hyung sits when he blushes over his Mandarin tutor. Only Taemin isn’t blushing, nor does he seem nervous in any way, shape, or form. A smile breaks through, and Kibum has never felt this still with six cups of black coffee and an alter ego out to drown him. Taemin must be an angel-he can’t slip away from Kibum now.
“Come with me,” Kibum stands up and doesn’t say anything more, yet Taemin follows so easily, like a duckling behind his mother over a dirty bus floor-they have to dodge a discarded wad of ABC gum, already flattened.
--
Kibum is pretty sure he’s heading in the right direction. He can always smell coffee a mile or more away. It’s not that he needs any now, not that he wants it-he just wants to be engulfed in the scent as much as he can. And he wants Taemin there with him, the fragile-looking angel that halts his tremors.
Taemin is an odd one, though. He suddenly latches his hand with Kibum’s when they cross streets. He walks like he’s dancing. And he releases the fingered latch when they reach the other side, safely of course. They walk in a duck formation again. It repeats, until they’re where Kibum wants to be.
--
The first thing Taemin has come to notice quickly is how Kibum’s hands shake-he noticed on the bus, when the older boy walked over and claimed the seat next to him. And of course, how could Taemin keep his mind from absorbing how Kibum had gone blank in the face after the mention of ‘Key’? Taemin's mind is like a drain that sucks everything in, and never ends. It morphs his brain into a room packed with people, annoyed and glued together and sweaty without any escape. Things only enter, never exit.
He mixes up memories sometimes, he confuses them easily. So when he crosses the street at Kibum’s side, he’s pretty sure that he’s supposed to hold hands for safety. That’s what his mind tells him. And it takes the rest of the journey, until they’re sitting across from each other at a tiny café to figure out that the memory had told him wrong. But he discards the regrets, because Kibum doesn’t seem the least bit annoyed with him.
This place is the polar opposite from Taemin’s mind’s natural habitat. Well, almost.
Kibum orders coffee, black, not too much sugar. It doesn’t surprise Taemin in the least. When they’d been side-by-side on the shaky vehicle for public transportation, Kibum smelled as if he’d never had anything else to drink except for coffee for his entire life, and Taemin remembers this easily. He remembers even in this coffee-scented environment that dulls Kibum’s own fragrance, even. Taemin asks the waitress for a muffin-chocolate chip.
--
Taemin has always been convinced that it's only possible to get drunk off of alcohol, yet as he sits across from Kibum and takes baby bites out of his muffin, he’s pretty sure that Kibum is intoxicated somehow. Kibum waves his hand around, the only holding a half-filled up of black coffee-still-and he laughs at his own amusement. Taemin takes a bitter bite from his food and gets more chocolate as he watches.
He tries to take in everything about Kibum, so much that it’d be too long for him to even think of making a list. Kibum is starting to make it hard to store things in that crowded room inside Taemin's head. Taemin chews slowly, trying to turn the chocolate into something completely mushy.
When he swallows, he puts down his food as carefully as a human can manage, as if the muffin happens to be sacred.
Taemin plants his hands on the wood and kisses Kibum, hard enough to feel memories fade-exit.
//…
It's weird, I know. Forgive me.
Did you catch my subtle ninjaness?
I'm going to sleep now ♥
-
Key/Taemin
PG, angst?, friendship, love?
Kibum has never felt this calm with six cups of coffee in his body and an alter ego out to drown him.
(1062 words)
A/N: Here's my first post for SHINee Week! It would've been done earlier, but there's long story as to why it's posted now-it's not important, though. Key is Kibum in this-yes, I'm using his real name. It's not the Super Junior Kibum. I was listening to Epik High's “I'm Happy” when I wrote this. The music fits the mood. Prompted with “Key / Taemin / stumbling fingers, shaky voices, and a memory like a drain” from the SHINee random pairing generator ^_^
--
It’s not hard for Taemin to remember his bus stop, it’s just hard for him to want to remember. He loses things so easily inside his own brain, they build up like water in the kitchen sink when he forgets to turn the handle back once he’s done using it. This memory, he likes, because he laughed inappropriately even when his mother scolded him. Because he was only seven and didn't have as many things to remember as he does now. It’s hard to keep them all bottled up, but he has no outlet for them. They stay suppressed behind the front of his mind and the back of his mind, and all sides.
When he misses his stop, he doesn’t notice for another two, and he smiles like it’s the best thing in the world.
--
Kibum’s been running on his sixth cup of coffee since he woke up at six in the morning. He never had to be anywhere until nine, but the internal and external alarm clock of his trembling, twitching fingers had done the trick. And so, he’d rolled out of the blankets and forced himself to stand. There would be no hope of going back to sleep, of course, not until night’s filter stretches over the sky.
It’s like this every day.
--
“Don’t I know you?”
Kibum peeks over at the red-headed boy, and tucks the magazine back into his messenger bag, despite the fact that he’s only just sat down and opened it in the first place. He feels like they know each other. Kibum feels like this boy’s name is Taemin, but he can never be sure, really. “I don’t know. Do you?” His voice sounds like it’s shaking along with his hands, every now and then.
“Is your name Key?”
“Kibum.”
“Sorry, bad memory,” Taemin lies, but Kibum wouldn’t ever know.
“My nickname was Key,” he crosses one leg over the other. But his friends stopped calling him that when things got serious; when Key thought it would be a fun idea to flood Kibum’s lungs and lock the bathroom door along with the idea, for the extra thrill. Kibum figures that he should leave out the little anecdote running through his mind. Taemin doesn’t need to know.
“I’m Taemin.”
Kibum nods knowing he was right, but only thinking of liquid swishing in his system, but Taemin’s bright smile somehow brings him out of it. Suddenly Kibum is asking, “Are you busy?”
“Right now?”
Kibum’s hands twitch, but it’s only the coffee, he tells himself, a steady voice in his mind runs clear. “Yeah.”
“Not really,” Taemin puts his hands on his skinny knees, and it reminds Kibum of how his Hyukjae-hyung sits when he blushes over his Mandarin tutor. Only Taemin isn’t blushing, nor does he seem nervous in any way, shape, or form. A smile breaks through, and Kibum has never felt this still with six cups of black coffee and an alter ego out to drown him. Taemin must be an angel-he can’t slip away from Kibum now.
“Come with me,” Kibum stands up and doesn’t say anything more, yet Taemin follows so easily, like a duckling behind his mother over a dirty bus floor-they have to dodge a discarded wad of ABC gum, already flattened.
--
Kibum is pretty sure he’s heading in the right direction. He can always smell coffee a mile or more away. It’s not that he needs any now, not that he wants it-he just wants to be engulfed in the scent as much as he can. And he wants Taemin there with him, the fragile-looking angel that halts his tremors.
Taemin is an odd one, though. He suddenly latches his hand with Kibum’s when they cross streets. He walks like he’s dancing. And he releases the fingered latch when they reach the other side, safely of course. They walk in a duck formation again. It repeats, until they’re where Kibum wants to be.
--
The first thing Taemin has come to notice quickly is how Kibum’s hands shake-he noticed on the bus, when the older boy walked over and claimed the seat next to him. And of course, how could Taemin keep his mind from absorbing how Kibum had gone blank in the face after the mention of ‘Key’? Taemin's mind is like a drain that sucks everything in, and never ends. It morphs his brain into a room packed with people, annoyed and glued together and sweaty without any escape. Things only enter, never exit.
He mixes up memories sometimes, he confuses them easily. So when he crosses the street at Kibum’s side, he’s pretty sure that he’s supposed to hold hands for safety. That’s what his mind tells him. And it takes the rest of the journey, until they’re sitting across from each other at a tiny café to figure out that the memory had told him wrong. But he discards the regrets, because Kibum doesn’t seem the least bit annoyed with him.
This place is the polar opposite from Taemin’s mind’s natural habitat. Well, almost.
Kibum orders coffee, black, not too much sugar. It doesn’t surprise Taemin in the least. When they’d been side-by-side on the shaky vehicle for public transportation, Kibum smelled as if he’d never had anything else to drink except for coffee for his entire life, and Taemin remembers this easily. He remembers even in this coffee-scented environment that dulls Kibum’s own fragrance, even. Taemin asks the waitress for a muffin-chocolate chip.
--
Taemin has always been convinced that it's only possible to get drunk off of alcohol, yet as he sits across from Kibum and takes baby bites out of his muffin, he’s pretty sure that Kibum is intoxicated somehow. Kibum waves his hand around, the only holding a half-filled up of black coffee-still-and he laughs at his own amusement. Taemin takes a bitter bite from his food and gets more chocolate as he watches.
He tries to take in everything about Kibum, so much that it’d be too long for him to even think of making a list. Kibum is starting to make it hard to store things in that crowded room inside Taemin's head. Taemin chews slowly, trying to turn the chocolate into something completely mushy.
When he swallows, he puts down his food as carefully as a human can manage, as if the muffin happens to be sacred.
Taemin plants his hands on the wood and kisses Kibum, hard enough to feel memories fade-exit.
//…
It's weird, I know. Forgive me.
Did you catch my subtle ninjaness?
I'm going to sleep now ♥
-