Devil's water pt. 2➫ English
SHINee, ontae, hinted!jongkey, PG-17, implied character death.
a/n: yep, here is the last part of it. It took me a while to finish because I completely forgot I had exams this week, and I had to finish some projects and "study", so i got to the point where i didn't know where things were going and I just wanted to get rid of it. but in the end, i managed to finish it somehow the way I planned it. to be honest, i didn't even plan it, lmao. so yeah, the end... well i'l explain after you read.
then again I must mention that english is not my native language, and that I don't know anything about mental disorders, mental institutions, etc etc. Oh right, and i just wanted to make clear that i skipped a few things in the smut part, like, i didn't want to go all details and stuff, so.. yeah. I know how smut works, okay. lol just saying. enjoy~
First part;
"They say the devil's water, it ain't so sweet, you don't have to drink right now. But you can dip your feet, every once in a little while"
As soon as he turned off the engine his legs froze. He softly massaged his temples, closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. He was steadily crossing the line, and he knew it. He could feel it, a thin string under his fingertips, it was just as fragile as it looked. And the fact that he couldn't even help himself was getting on his nerves. Taemin was unpredictable, and just as fragile as that string Jinki was about to break. The doctors said his recovery had been fast, and it made Jinki think he was just acting everything up- What if he hadn't even started recovering? He didn't remember anything, Taemin had the idea Minho was with another person and that he was happy and that everything was perfectly normal even though he was in a mental institution, which clearly was not normal.
Taemin didn't even complain about the place he was in, Jinki even doubted he knew what that place was.
He crossed the door, the man sitting on the same chair didn't ask him what were his business there, he just opened the door. Jinki was grateful, he didn't really know what exactly was he doing there. The smell of aspirins was still there, but he had learnt to ignore it as the days passed by and his nose got used to the strong, sickening smell of dust and medicine. The light was dim and the air was cold, but he could bear with it with a jacket and a scarf.
Knots started clinging to his throat after he briefly talked to one of the nurses, making it hard for him to breathe. The brown haired girl didn't ask what he was doing there, and he found it quite bizarre, because most of the people working there knew who he was. How many times had he visited so far, he ignored such trivial thing. He walked through the disturbingly white hallways and didn't knock Taemin's door, he just opened it slowly, enough for him to see the boy was inside of the room.
"Jinki." He said, smiling like and old friend after many years of not seeing each other. He had a somewhat nostalgic look on his face but Jinki decided to ignore it, he wasn't sure if he could keep up with it. "How was work today?" he asked before Jinki settled himself down on the matress. Jinki searched for the words he knew he had to pronounce, yet he couldn't get his tongue to let go off them. "It was fine." it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself, Taemin didn't notice, though. It was catastrophic, he wanted to spit out. He felt so wasted, so out of place.
Like he wasn't on his mind.
About 15 minutes later Jinki's breath violently hitched.
"How's Minho?" Taemin had asked, surprisingly calm and curious, pretending he didn't care that much when in fact he couldn't get him out of his mind. Jinki couldn't keep himself together.
"What are you talking about?" he finally snapped, after a long, awkward silence, where Taemin was only staring at his socks, out the window, patiently waiting for an answer. He didn't get one, at least not the one he wanted to hear.
"What's wrong?"
"Don't you remember anything?" Jinki asked, his voice full of anger and frustration, something he had been keeping down his chest for a while. Taemin arched a brow, he didn't speak, but his eyes were telling Jinki much more than he needed to hear. "Why? Why can't you move on?" the walls mockingly echoed his words, making them bounce back and hit him straight on the face. Everything, every single silence that he could hear made him feel mentally ill.
"What happened to him?" Taemin asked, his hands turning into red fists as he stood up. Jinki couldn't stand it anymore, the heavy feeling weighing on his shoulders. He stormed out of the room, leaving Taemin with his mouth half open and his hands thrown in the air.
Everything was getting out of his hands. His grip was loosening and he was letting everything slip, vanish.
Jinki waited until it was past midnight and called Kibum, hoping the younger would have some free time for him to vent a little. He felt he was going insane, and it scared him. As soon as Kibum stopped speaking Jinki started, and he kept on talking and talking, until he started shaking, the anxiety coming out of his pores. Kibum told him he should stop seeing Taemin so often, but he argued that it wasn't Taemin's fault. When he laid on his bed, and stared at the ceiling for hours, he realized that maybe it was. He pretented he hadn't thought that.
He stopped going to the mental institution for about a month. He could say his life was pretty much normal again, but he didn't like lying to himself. He couldn't concentrate on anything, he was more thoughtful than ever but in reality he wasn't thinking at all. There were times when he would just sit and stare deeply at whatever crossed his sight, and he also had developed that strange habit of biting his nails until the pink skin started bleeding and it stung like hell. He often talked to one of his close friends at work, but five minutes after the conversation started he got out of the topic, making the older male arch a brow at him.
He could have sworn the annoying tic toc of the clock wasn't as annoying as it used to be, because after hours of listening to it he could hear a hidden melody, something that made his anxiety grow and get out of control.
He wasn't expecting such a sudden change of plans after he got out of work, but he ended up in the front side walk of the hospital anyway. He stumbled his way on the sidewalk, and he felt embarrassed when the old bearded man rolled his eyes and opened the door for him. He kept walking, the same scent of aspirins and alcohol clinging to his clothes, the cold hair walking by him like and old friend he hadn't missed at all.
He was tired of the same routine, and he supposed the nurse wouldn't mind if he skipped the formalities. He turned into a few hallways and then there was the room, 208.
He slightly opened the door, enough for him to see that Taemin was standing in the middle of the room, stiff, like a statue. "Taemin?"
The younger cringed, and he turned around in less than a second, his long black hair waving the air. Jinki looked down at his hands, and he was holding a small lizard with two fingers, the little creature had stopped moving but he somehow wished it wasn't dead. "What are you doing?" and the lizard fell to the floor, Taemin's eyes were round in shock and his lips were parted, still trying to answer. Jinki didn't notice when his hands started sweating but once he was aware of it, he got nervous. more, if that was possible.
He wanted to hear, for some reason, the typical innocent answer, he wanted to hear a 'nothing' but that word never came. Taemin frowned in response, and walked towards his small, clean desk and took a tiny bottle of what he supposed was antibacterial hand gel out of his almost empty drawer.
"I missed you." Taemin muttered, loud enough for Jinki to hear, low enough to be a secret. He faced Jinki, then, and noticed how nervous the older was with not much effort.
"Why hadn't you visited me? it's been a while." there was something different in Taemin's voice, Jinki noticed, it was deep and not as cheerful as it used to be, and his eyes were not as bright as they were. Jinki swallowed hard. "I was busy."
And then Taemin smiled, and the older sighed in relief.
He fell back to his old, unhealthy routine. Three times a week he crossed the same hallways, greeted the same old lady and entered the same room after he got out of his job. After a couple of weeks he noticed the disgusting smell of medicine disappeared and he was glad, because he was getting sick of it. Or maybe he was too used to it, it wasn't a problem anymore. He liked to believe the first option was the true one, of course.
He loved Taemin. He still loved Taemin no matter what he had done in the past, he didn't care. He didn't care because it hadn't been his fault, Taemin was ill, he didn't know what he was doing that night, Jinki thought it wasn't his fault because Taemin couldn't control himself. He remembered one day Taemin had scolded him for reading comics with adult content, because he was such a good boy. He had nice grades, he had good manners and he was friendly, not to mention adorable.
It wasn't Taemin's fault he had a mental disease.
One day he visited Taemin before the sun settled down, and he got a disapproving stare from the old lady in one of the offices. He couldn't care less, but he still politely bowed. Taemin was sitting on his wood chair, in front of the desk. He was reading his diary, as far as Jinki could tell from the door. "Hey." Jinki announced his presence and Taemin abruptly closed the stale notebook. Both of them smiled, Taemin's smile was blissful, Jinki's was needy.
"What were you doing when I arrived?" Jinki wondered, after they had talked about Jinki's boring day and Taemin's adventure at lunch. Taemin's smille gradually faded, but it didn't entirely disappear as he sighed, his breath filled with nostalgia. "I was reading my diary. I.. I miss you guys a lot." he confessed, his voice getting lower with each word he pronounced. Jinki's heart clenched, he didn't know wether he should be worried or happy.
"However, Jinki, I don't regret what I did."
Jinki shook his head because he thought for a brief moment Taemin had said something that implied that he wasn't sorry for his actions.
"I don't regret what I did to him." and the world started falling down once again, just like a tower made of solitaire cards. Easily blown, Jinki's mind started spinning and every one of his senses got disconnected.
"What?" was Jinki's smart answer. A fearful string of voice, shaky breaths, he wouldn't be surprised if he suddenly fainted. The room was getting smaller, he could feel the weight of the walls press his shoulders down and he found it harder to breathe. He stumbled a few steps back and the bed welcomed him, the plushy material of the matress receiving his body. "I… I thought you didn't remember-"
"Of course I do."
Jinki shivered. Taemin's voice was cold and raw and how Jinki wished he was dreaming or going crazy. The younger's words where cruel like ice, unforgiving, ready to burn. The air became thiner and Jinki thought he was losing it. He remained silent, nearly unconcious. Taemin was staring at him like a kid stares at his birthday present, and Jinki knew he should have left.
"I do remember. I killed Minho, didn't I?" He wanted Jinki to speak but he was too busy trying to catch his breath, and failing at it. "I killed him." and he grinned, his features growing hostile. Jinki wondered if he had entered the right room, because Taemin wasn't the Taemin he knew.
"But…"
Whenever Jinki watched a movie he always scoffed at the character's dumb dialogues. Things like unnecessary questions and stupid statements, because really, who in his sane mind would ask something like 'why?' to a murderer. In spite of that, Jinki was at a loss of words and he found himself asking the exact question. "Why?"
Taemin's smile grew bigger, his eyes turning into half moons almost cutely, and he walked a few steps towards Jinki's unsteady body.
"Because he cheated on me. He made me feel like trash, he took many things away from me." Jinki wanted to process those words, he really wanted to. But his brain was going through a breakdown and he couldn't even understand a single word, however it wasn't like he wanted to understand. He didn't need Taemin to explain anything because he knew what he was talking about. He got every word, he knew what Taemin meant because his eyes were speaking, his hatred was tangible and those words were useless.
Everything lost a meaning the second after that. Everything he had hoped for, the future he wanted to build with Taemin, his job, his friends, his life, everything was meaningless because he had been creating castles out of a sand full of lies. He had created his future, his love, out of lies. He loved a boy that was a living lie.
"You…" Jinki weakly tried to speak but the words died on the tip of his tongue. He felt his stomach swirl in a not so funny way, and he felt a bunch of spiders running up his spine.
"I loved him, Jinki. I trusted him, I gave my everything to him and he dumped it into the trash can." every word was like a blade, sharp and dangerous and stained with memories and fuck Jinki wanted to cry. He wanted to crawl under the bed and hide there forever, until time went back and his life was normal, he was studying, he had lovely friends and he had a huge crush on a cute, innocent boy. "He cheated on me and he thought I wouldn't notice. He thought I'd forgive him." Taemin gritted his teeth, smiling bitterly.
"That's not a excu-"
"I know. I'm not trying to excuse myself. As I said, I don't regret it." His tone was demanding, and it reduced Jinki to nothing. Jinki still had hope, though, and he wished and closed his eyes until he felt the soft material of his sheets cover his body, he wished he was having a horrible nightmare.
"The only thing I regret, Jinki, is not paying enough attention to you before. I loved your smile, and your jokes, and your soft voice. I loved you, too." Taemin was speaking slowly, and the words were so fragile they vanished in the air. Jinki couldn't supress the sob that escaped his lips. "but you never showed interest, unlike Minho. Minho asked me out and I couldn't say no." there was something in his voice, something that filled the air and Jinki felt disgusted because that air was sufocating him.
The sun was almost down, his light turned shallow and the yellow lightbulb was more noticeable in the room. There was a deafening silence, and a blinding nothing that had Jinki useless, glued to the bed. His breathing was irregular and he could hear every single cracking of his unmoving joints, and it was driving him insane. He wanted the world to break in half and stop the horrible feelings that were slowly consuming him, igniting his bones.
"Do you think it's too late now?" Taemin asked after a few seconds that were as heavy as centuries, and Jinki tried his best not to scream and yell everything he had kept for himself for months, but he couldn't, he felt like a rock that shouldn't even be there, in the middle of the road. "too late for this." Jinki turned his face to see Taemin's face, and before he could ask what the younger was talking about, he blocked his lips with his own. When his brain reacted, he was kissing Taemin back and he was just as eager as the younger, nibbling at his plush lips, claiming his warmth with his tongue, feeling his muscles relax and listening to his own hearbeat speed up endlessly.
"stop-" Jinki managed to speak between a shieldless battle of tongues and lips, but Taemin quickly defeated him with a low moan that made Jinki's blood rush.
The pleasure was starting to control him, huffing and grunting whenever Taemin rolled his hips over him. The younger was on top of him, trailing his hands up and down his torso, scratching his skin, leaving red trails on it.
Taemin was devouring his mouth, greedily sucking on his lips, moaning into the kiss, making Jinki's head spin. Jinki couldn't stop a pair of hands running down to his belt, unbluckling it almost desperately. Jinki had no idea what he was doing, but he couldn't just stand up and leave like he did last time, because even if he wanted to, his body was acting on his own. His hips were bucking up without his permission, his lips were looking for more of Taemin's warmth without his consent, he was drowning in his own lust and he wasn't aware of it.
Soon his pants were thrown aside, as well as Taemin's, and he had no idea how the younger had managed to get rid of them but he didn't really feel like asking. Taemin took Jinki's lenght with his delicate hand, and stroked it violently, making the older grunt incoherent words Taemin was pleased to hear, and before Jinki could protest Taemin was again on top of him, abusing his lips and tasting every inch of his mouth. Jinki closed his eyes and moaned almost obscenely when the younger took in his cock, in a painfully slow motion. Jinki placed his hands on Taemin's tiny waist, lifting him a bit, while the other kept pressing his thin lips, bitting them, trying his best not to scream and moan in pleasure. After Taemin started moving, bouncing on top of him, Jinki felt his warm hands run up his chest, until they found his neck.
Taemin's grip around his neck gradually tightened, making Jinki's hip movements stop. "Wh- ah- " he managed to squeak, opening his eyes only to find Taemin's delightful expression, moaning, throwing his head back. The oxygen he was receiving wasn't enough, and he was nearing his climax. He couldn't move, his limbs fell numb seconds after he closed his eyes and started feeling his blood rush faster to his groin, and his muscles tighten frenetically.
His vision was blurry, he could only see a silhouette on top of him, he barely noticed the dim light in the room as he tried to shook his head. His whole body felt limp, powerless, lifeless, yet the pleasure he was experiencing was something he could not put into words. Even if he was choking, he felt his nerves explode into such an exquisite sensation he wanted to feel forever. He heard Taemin's low voice say his name, seduction written on every sound he younger made. Taemin whimpered, Jinki found his release before his mind went entirely blank, and for a brief moment, he thought he was dead. The color of the world disappeared, the light abandoned him. Jinki was left alone in a dark room, his body lightly shaking, his breathing unsteady, barely hearable. Every muscle clenched, every nerve imploded, Jinki was drowning in pleasure and things he didn't know existed, yet they were dragging him down, burying him.
He came back to life soon, though, when he felt a hot liquid on his stomach he heard Taemin groan, and his eyes shot open, and he felt slightly relieved he was still in the same white room, with the same heat wrapping him, with the same boy over him.
Taemin chuckled softly, his face resting on Jinki's sweaty chest, and that's when Jinki got back to his senses.
Jinki stood up frantically, pushing Taemin aside on the bed. He walked angrily and picked up his pants, his boxers, and he felt like burning the whole building down. He wanted to vanish into thin breezes, he wanted to disappear and never, ever, see the world evolve in front of his eyes. He had just had sex with Taemin, who almost killed him, and he actually enjoyed it.
He could hear Taemin's voice call his name, but he wasn't able to answer, he wasn't able to think. He still felt his body tremble and he still felt numb, pleasure and oxygen crawling up their way to his brain and he wasn't in the best position to speak.
"You are fucking insane." he spat, sounding dumber than it was supposed too. And he could almost feel Taemin's satisfied grin in the air.
"So are you."
And he left. He stumbled towards his car and it took him about thirty seconds to turn the engine on, and he drove through the city aimlessly. Just hearing the people live normally, talking and speaking on the phone, he saw the lights on the streetlamps greet him and he wanted to throw up. He heard the air whisper on his ear things he shouldn't have heard, things he didn't want to hear and yet he did hear them.
The city was still alive, and he felt like the only living dead around there. He parked the car in front of his house and ran towards his room. He took a shower, a cold, burning shower, and he went to sleep almost instantly. The last thing he thought before he got lost inside his pillow, was Taemin's face. He grunted, and he wished he didn't exist. He didn't want to wake up the next morning, but such thing wasn't easy.
That night he had a nightmare, or he wanted to believe it was, because nightmares are not memories, nightmares never happened in real life. So he wanted to convince himself it was a nightmare, and there was blood all over the walls, the floor, the carpet, it smelled like dry and cold blood, suffocating, raw, Jinki couldn't take it. He walked, everything else moved and turned blurry, and Jinki felt dizzy. He saw a bow on the floor, unmoving, silent, and his eyes widened when he saw the long dark strands of hair spreaded on the white carpet, it was Minho. He hurried and kneeled down, touching the boy's stained face with his hands, and it was as cold as ice. Jinki yelled, something he didn't understand but he did yell at the top of his lungs. He heard footsteps coming closer and then there was Taemin, smiling, with his blushed cheeks and warm eyes, holding a rather large knife on his hand. "You still love me, don't you?" Jinki nodded in response, and Taemin scooted closer to him, until the older felt a pair of tiny arms wrap themselve around his neck and a hot breath run down it. "I still love you." He felt his clothes getting soaked with blood, and he felt his stomach jump angrily, but the warmth of Taemin's body made him stay still, holding his breath, slowly closing his eyes.
He woke up drenched in sweat, breathing faster, with a colorless vision for a few seconds.
He managed to keep up with his normal, peaceful life for a few days before his braing couldn't take it anymore. On his way to his job, he saw Taemin walking casually on the sidewalk and he almost crashed into a streetlamp. He managed to avoid it, and got a few swear words in response. He looked back over his shoulder, and he realized it was just a school boy swinging his school bag on his shoulders. He sighed, feeling slightly disappointed and incredibly confused.
Was he now having hallucinations? that was great, one more point added to the list of strange things Lee Jinki was going through.
"Are you okay, Jinki?" Kibum asked a couple of weeks after, his worried tone making Jinki's cheeks blush. How he had missed it, he thought, smilling for himself. He hesitated, but figured that there was no point in hiding things. Plus, Kibum was his friend, someone he could trust in, no matter how fucked up the situation could be, right?
"No." he spoke, making up a ton of excuses on his head before Kibum asked him why. But he didn't feel like telling his best friend a lie. He took in a deep breath and dropped the bomb after a few seconds.
"I had sex with Taemin in the hospital a few weeks ago." a choked gasp, and something fell to the floor. Jinki knew it was the phone, and soon a few rushed steps came in and someone else spoke on the line.
"Jinki? what happened- gah, Kibum!" Jonghyun squeaked and he heard a lot of commotion on the speaker. Jinki waited until he hard someone shriek and then there was Kibum again.
"Are you fucking crazy?! Jinki why the fuck- why would you even"
"Calm down, I know I shouldn't have. And I didn't want to, believe me, I-"
"I didn't want to my ass, you sex deprived, horny motherf-"
"Hey, Jinki, I'll call you later, okay?" Jonghyun said hurriedly, before Jinki could speak and defend his reputation of Kibum's wrath. He heard the annoying beep on the phone and hung up.
Okay so maybe going straight to the point wasn't a good idea after all, no matter how straightforward Kibum used to be. He went to bed after the clock announced it was a quarter past three a.m.
Life kept going on, and he was just staring at it. He couldn't think clearly, he couldn't just concentrate on something because everything, every single thing he saw, shot images to his mind and brought him to the same pathetic state he didn't want to fall into.
---
An apparently endless hallway, poisoning smell smacking his face, the same dull faces that he once saw. He was walking towards one of the many offices, already thinking of the words that were more appropiate to say after so long of not visiting that place. He was back in the mental institution, inhaling the horrid smell of pills and overwashed clothes again.
And he felt pity, hearing his own footsteps and his slow breathing fill the dead environment. He felt nervous, just like the first time he had entered that place, yet this time was different. He had no reason to be there, he had no purpose, he really shouldn't have been there. And there he was, walking under the door's rusty frame, his skin touching the deceiving vibes the walls emitted.
"I'd like to talk to Lee Taemin, please." He announced over the small counter, shooting a tender smile to the receptionist. She smiled back, of course, but slightly frowned after reading some papers. Jinki knew she was new, because her face wasn't familiar at all. Good, he bitterly thought, less excuses.
"I'm afraid that's not possible, sir." She said, closing his big notebook and placing it back on the desk. "He isn't here anymore." and Jinki's heart fell to his knees. His eyes were open, and his brows were nearly meeting on his forehead. "He was transferred last week." the feminine voice said, and the girl was staring at him in awe.
"Can I have the address of the place he is in?" he asked, after shyly clearing his throat
"Of course."
So he drove like there were no other cars on the road, he drove like there were no signals telling him what he couldn't do, where he should have stopped. Jinki ignored them all because, in the first place, he had no idea what he was doing, driving to that place like a maniac, and he really didn't give a fuck about them. He was anxious, he was scared, he was nervous, he wanted to see Taemin.
He saw a huge gray building, in the middle of nowhere, with no fences to surround it, just green grass and old, big trees. The place transmitted such calmness, after he parked Jinki felt his heartbeat slow down. When he got out of the car, though, his nervousness held his hand again. He walked hesitantly at first, just like the first time he had stood in front of the huge door of the mental institution he was so used to. This was slightly bigger than the other one, he noticed, and it seemed like the world's most peaceful place, with no birds singing, no cars running by the road, no voices. He shivered, and he quickly realized it was just another place that appeared to be normal, when in reality everyone inside of it wasn't.
He didn't want to think about it that way, but he really couldn't help it. He remembered how the white walls contrasted with every patient's obscure eye bags, he remembered how the sickening smell of the hallways and offices announced that, a place like that, wasn't healthy. It wasn't normal.
Soon, he was talking to a middle age woman with pretty, deceiving eyes. Jinki faked a small smile, just like hers, and she led him to a small yard he had to walk across first.
The grass molded under his shoes, breaking, and the wind was fresh and didn't smell like medicine and alcohol. Jinki sighed, unconciously playing with the hem of his black cardigan.
"He's over there." the lady announced, pointing to a small common room where a few people were talking, much to Jinki's surprise, normally.
"Thank you." he said, and slightly bowed. He walked towards the room, holding his breath as if that'd help he could walk through being unnoticed. He clearly couldn't, and soon everyone's eyes landed on him, curious, some of them averting, some of them shoting daggers, some of them lost in somewhere else but Jinki. He shuddered, and finally spotted the slender boy, sitting near a window, his gaze lost in somewhere behind the dark clouds.
Taemin turned around, and a not so playful smirk hung on his lips. Jinki considered it was idea to return, when he still had time, when his knees weren't shaking and he could think properly, but Taemin stood up, and Jinki froze.
"Nice to see you again." Taemin declared, his clouded eyes looking through Jinki like a sheet of paper, breaking him in half effortlessly.
"Yeah."
And he wondered, for a brief moment, why was he standing there in the first place. Taemin grinned widely, and the air could whisper a question; who is crazier.
Jinki was weak, he had admitted this before, but now he knew it. He was weak, he was sick, he was crazy. He was in love with a murderer and he couldn't help it, the voices echoing in his head told him it was okay, that everything would be okay, the clock whispered in melodies and breezes that it was okay, Jinki wanted to believe it really was.
a/n: since i don't want you to think "what was the point of this crap", jinki went crazy too. you could have noticed while reading, right? welp. comments are appreciated. /hides forever.
a/n: yep, here is the last part of it. It took me a while to finish because I completely forgot I had exams this week, and I had to finish some projects and "study", so i got to the point where i didn't know where things were going and I just wanted to get rid of it. but in the end, i managed to finish it somehow the way I planned it. to be honest, i didn't even plan it, lmao. so yeah, the end... well i'l explain after you read.
then again I must mention that english is not my native language, and that I don't know anything about mental disorders, mental institutions, etc etc. Oh right, and i just wanted to make clear that i skipped a few things in the smut part, like, i didn't want to go all details and stuff, so.. yeah. I know how smut works, okay. lol just saying. enjoy~
First part;
"They say the devil's water, it ain't so sweet, you don't have to drink right now. But you can dip your feet, every once in a little while"
As soon as he turned off the engine his legs froze. He softly massaged his temples, closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. He was steadily crossing the line, and he knew it. He could feel it, a thin string under his fingertips, it was just as fragile as it looked. And the fact that he couldn't even help himself was getting on his nerves. Taemin was unpredictable, and just as fragile as that string Jinki was about to break. The doctors said his recovery had been fast, and it made Jinki think he was just acting everything up- What if he hadn't even started recovering? He didn't remember anything, Taemin had the idea Minho was with another person and that he was happy and that everything was perfectly normal even though he was in a mental institution, which clearly was not normal.
Taemin didn't even complain about the place he was in, Jinki even doubted he knew what that place was.
He crossed the door, the man sitting on the same chair didn't ask him what were his business there, he just opened the door. Jinki was grateful, he didn't really know what exactly was he doing there. The smell of aspirins was still there, but he had learnt to ignore it as the days passed by and his nose got used to the strong, sickening smell of dust and medicine. The light was dim and the air was cold, but he could bear with it with a jacket and a scarf.
Knots started clinging to his throat after he briefly talked to one of the nurses, making it hard for him to breathe. The brown haired girl didn't ask what he was doing there, and he found it quite bizarre, because most of the people working there knew who he was. How many times had he visited so far, he ignored such trivial thing. He walked through the disturbingly white hallways and didn't knock Taemin's door, he just opened it slowly, enough for him to see the boy was inside of the room.
"Jinki." He said, smiling like and old friend after many years of not seeing each other. He had a somewhat nostalgic look on his face but Jinki decided to ignore it, he wasn't sure if he could keep up with it. "How was work today?" he asked before Jinki settled himself down on the matress. Jinki searched for the words he knew he had to pronounce, yet he couldn't get his tongue to let go off them. "It was fine." it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself, Taemin didn't notice, though. It was catastrophic, he wanted to spit out. He felt so wasted, so out of place.
Like he wasn't on his mind.
About 15 minutes later Jinki's breath violently hitched.
"How's Minho?" Taemin had asked, surprisingly calm and curious, pretending he didn't care that much when in fact he couldn't get him out of his mind. Jinki couldn't keep himself together.
"What are you talking about?" he finally snapped, after a long, awkward silence, where Taemin was only staring at his socks, out the window, patiently waiting for an answer. He didn't get one, at least not the one he wanted to hear.
"What's wrong?"
"Don't you remember anything?" Jinki asked, his voice full of anger and frustration, something he had been keeping down his chest for a while. Taemin arched a brow, he didn't speak, but his eyes were telling Jinki much more than he needed to hear. "Why? Why can't you move on?" the walls mockingly echoed his words, making them bounce back and hit him straight on the face. Everything, every single silence that he could hear made him feel mentally ill.
"What happened to him?" Taemin asked, his hands turning into red fists as he stood up. Jinki couldn't stand it anymore, the heavy feeling weighing on his shoulders. He stormed out of the room, leaving Taemin with his mouth half open and his hands thrown in the air.
Everything was getting out of his hands. His grip was loosening and he was letting everything slip, vanish.
Jinki waited until it was past midnight and called Kibum, hoping the younger would have some free time for him to vent a little. He felt he was going insane, and it scared him. As soon as Kibum stopped speaking Jinki started, and he kept on talking and talking, until he started shaking, the anxiety coming out of his pores. Kibum told him he should stop seeing Taemin so often, but he argued that it wasn't Taemin's fault. When he laid on his bed, and stared at the ceiling for hours, he realized that maybe it was. He pretented he hadn't thought that.
He stopped going to the mental institution for about a month. He could say his life was pretty much normal again, but he didn't like lying to himself. He couldn't concentrate on anything, he was more thoughtful than ever but in reality he wasn't thinking at all. There were times when he would just sit and stare deeply at whatever crossed his sight, and he also had developed that strange habit of biting his nails until the pink skin started bleeding and it stung like hell. He often talked to one of his close friends at work, but five minutes after the conversation started he got out of the topic, making the older male arch a brow at him.
He could have sworn the annoying tic toc of the clock wasn't as annoying as it used to be, because after hours of listening to it he could hear a hidden melody, something that made his anxiety grow and get out of control.
He wasn't expecting such a sudden change of plans after he got out of work, but he ended up in the front side walk of the hospital anyway. He stumbled his way on the sidewalk, and he felt embarrassed when the old bearded man rolled his eyes and opened the door for him. He kept walking, the same scent of aspirins and alcohol clinging to his clothes, the cold hair walking by him like and old friend he hadn't missed at all.
He was tired of the same routine, and he supposed the nurse wouldn't mind if he skipped the formalities. He turned into a few hallways and then there was the room, 208.
He slightly opened the door, enough for him to see that Taemin was standing in the middle of the room, stiff, like a statue. "Taemin?"
The younger cringed, and he turned around in less than a second, his long black hair waving the air. Jinki looked down at his hands, and he was holding a small lizard with two fingers, the little creature had stopped moving but he somehow wished it wasn't dead. "What are you doing?" and the lizard fell to the floor, Taemin's eyes were round in shock and his lips were parted, still trying to answer. Jinki didn't notice when his hands started sweating but once he was aware of it, he got nervous. more, if that was possible.
He wanted to hear, for some reason, the typical innocent answer, he wanted to hear a 'nothing' but that word never came. Taemin frowned in response, and walked towards his small, clean desk and took a tiny bottle of what he supposed was antibacterial hand gel out of his almost empty drawer.
"I missed you." Taemin muttered, loud enough for Jinki to hear, low enough to be a secret. He faced Jinki, then, and noticed how nervous the older was with not much effort.
"Why hadn't you visited me? it's been a while." there was something different in Taemin's voice, Jinki noticed, it was deep and not as cheerful as it used to be, and his eyes were not as bright as they were. Jinki swallowed hard. "I was busy."
And then Taemin smiled, and the older sighed in relief.
He fell back to his old, unhealthy routine. Three times a week he crossed the same hallways, greeted the same old lady and entered the same room after he got out of his job. After a couple of weeks he noticed the disgusting smell of medicine disappeared and he was glad, because he was getting sick of it. Or maybe he was too used to it, it wasn't a problem anymore. He liked to believe the first option was the true one, of course.
He loved Taemin. He still loved Taemin no matter what he had done in the past, he didn't care. He didn't care because it hadn't been his fault, Taemin was ill, he didn't know what he was doing that night, Jinki thought it wasn't his fault because Taemin couldn't control himself. He remembered one day Taemin had scolded him for reading comics with adult content, because he was such a good boy. He had nice grades, he had good manners and he was friendly, not to mention adorable.
It wasn't Taemin's fault he had a mental disease.
One day he visited Taemin before the sun settled down, and he got a disapproving stare from the old lady in one of the offices. He couldn't care less, but he still politely bowed. Taemin was sitting on his wood chair, in front of the desk. He was reading his diary, as far as Jinki could tell from the door. "Hey." Jinki announced his presence and Taemin abruptly closed the stale notebook. Both of them smiled, Taemin's smile was blissful, Jinki's was needy.
"What were you doing when I arrived?" Jinki wondered, after they had talked about Jinki's boring day and Taemin's adventure at lunch. Taemin's smille gradually faded, but it didn't entirely disappear as he sighed, his breath filled with nostalgia. "I was reading my diary. I.. I miss you guys a lot." he confessed, his voice getting lower with each word he pronounced. Jinki's heart clenched, he didn't know wether he should be worried or happy.
"However, Jinki, I don't regret what I did."
Jinki shook his head because he thought for a brief moment Taemin had said something that implied that he wasn't sorry for his actions.
"I don't regret what I did to him." and the world started falling down once again, just like a tower made of solitaire cards. Easily blown, Jinki's mind started spinning and every one of his senses got disconnected.
"What?" was Jinki's smart answer. A fearful string of voice, shaky breaths, he wouldn't be surprised if he suddenly fainted. The room was getting smaller, he could feel the weight of the walls press his shoulders down and he found it harder to breathe. He stumbled a few steps back and the bed welcomed him, the plushy material of the matress receiving his body. "I… I thought you didn't remember-"
"Of course I do."
Jinki shivered. Taemin's voice was cold and raw and how Jinki wished he was dreaming or going crazy. The younger's words where cruel like ice, unforgiving, ready to burn. The air became thiner and Jinki thought he was losing it. He remained silent, nearly unconcious. Taemin was staring at him like a kid stares at his birthday present, and Jinki knew he should have left.
"I do remember. I killed Minho, didn't I?" He wanted Jinki to speak but he was too busy trying to catch his breath, and failing at it. "I killed him." and he grinned, his features growing hostile. Jinki wondered if he had entered the right room, because Taemin wasn't the Taemin he knew.
"But…"
Whenever Jinki watched a movie he always scoffed at the character's dumb dialogues. Things like unnecessary questions and stupid statements, because really, who in his sane mind would ask something like 'why?' to a murderer. In spite of that, Jinki was at a loss of words and he found himself asking the exact question. "Why?"
Taemin's smile grew bigger, his eyes turning into half moons almost cutely, and he walked a few steps towards Jinki's unsteady body.
"Because he cheated on me. He made me feel like trash, he took many things away from me." Jinki wanted to process those words, he really wanted to. But his brain was going through a breakdown and he couldn't even understand a single word, however it wasn't like he wanted to understand. He didn't need Taemin to explain anything because he knew what he was talking about. He got every word, he knew what Taemin meant because his eyes were speaking, his hatred was tangible and those words were useless.
Everything lost a meaning the second after that. Everything he had hoped for, the future he wanted to build with Taemin, his job, his friends, his life, everything was meaningless because he had been creating castles out of a sand full of lies. He had created his future, his love, out of lies. He loved a boy that was a living lie.
"You…" Jinki weakly tried to speak but the words died on the tip of his tongue. He felt his stomach swirl in a not so funny way, and he felt a bunch of spiders running up his spine.
"I loved him, Jinki. I trusted him, I gave my everything to him and he dumped it into the trash can." every word was like a blade, sharp and dangerous and stained with memories and fuck Jinki wanted to cry. He wanted to crawl under the bed and hide there forever, until time went back and his life was normal, he was studying, he had lovely friends and he had a huge crush on a cute, innocent boy. "He cheated on me and he thought I wouldn't notice. He thought I'd forgive him." Taemin gritted his teeth, smiling bitterly.
"That's not a excu-"
"I know. I'm not trying to excuse myself. As I said, I don't regret it." His tone was demanding, and it reduced Jinki to nothing. Jinki still had hope, though, and he wished and closed his eyes until he felt the soft material of his sheets cover his body, he wished he was having a horrible nightmare.
"The only thing I regret, Jinki, is not paying enough attention to you before. I loved your smile, and your jokes, and your soft voice. I loved you, too." Taemin was speaking slowly, and the words were so fragile they vanished in the air. Jinki couldn't supress the sob that escaped his lips. "but you never showed interest, unlike Minho. Minho asked me out and I couldn't say no." there was something in his voice, something that filled the air and Jinki felt disgusted because that air was sufocating him.
The sun was almost down, his light turned shallow and the yellow lightbulb was more noticeable in the room. There was a deafening silence, and a blinding nothing that had Jinki useless, glued to the bed. His breathing was irregular and he could hear every single cracking of his unmoving joints, and it was driving him insane. He wanted the world to break in half and stop the horrible feelings that were slowly consuming him, igniting his bones.
"Do you think it's too late now?" Taemin asked after a few seconds that were as heavy as centuries, and Jinki tried his best not to scream and yell everything he had kept for himself for months, but he couldn't, he felt like a rock that shouldn't even be there, in the middle of the road. "too late for this." Jinki turned his face to see Taemin's face, and before he could ask what the younger was talking about, he blocked his lips with his own. When his brain reacted, he was kissing Taemin back and he was just as eager as the younger, nibbling at his plush lips, claiming his warmth with his tongue, feeling his muscles relax and listening to his own hearbeat speed up endlessly.
"stop-" Jinki managed to speak between a shieldless battle of tongues and lips, but Taemin quickly defeated him with a low moan that made Jinki's blood rush.
The pleasure was starting to control him, huffing and grunting whenever Taemin rolled his hips over him. The younger was on top of him, trailing his hands up and down his torso, scratching his skin, leaving red trails on it.
Taemin was devouring his mouth, greedily sucking on his lips, moaning into the kiss, making Jinki's head spin. Jinki couldn't stop a pair of hands running down to his belt, unbluckling it almost desperately. Jinki had no idea what he was doing, but he couldn't just stand up and leave like he did last time, because even if he wanted to, his body was acting on his own. His hips were bucking up without his permission, his lips were looking for more of Taemin's warmth without his consent, he was drowning in his own lust and he wasn't aware of it.
Soon his pants were thrown aside, as well as Taemin's, and he had no idea how the younger had managed to get rid of them but he didn't really feel like asking. Taemin took Jinki's lenght with his delicate hand, and stroked it violently, making the older grunt incoherent words Taemin was pleased to hear, and before Jinki could protest Taemin was again on top of him, abusing his lips and tasting every inch of his mouth. Jinki closed his eyes and moaned almost obscenely when the younger took in his cock, in a painfully slow motion. Jinki placed his hands on Taemin's tiny waist, lifting him a bit, while the other kept pressing his thin lips, bitting them, trying his best not to scream and moan in pleasure. After Taemin started moving, bouncing on top of him, Jinki felt his warm hands run up his chest, until they found his neck.
Taemin's grip around his neck gradually tightened, making Jinki's hip movements stop. "Wh- ah- " he managed to squeak, opening his eyes only to find Taemin's delightful expression, moaning, throwing his head back. The oxygen he was receiving wasn't enough, and he was nearing his climax. He couldn't move, his limbs fell numb seconds after he closed his eyes and started feeling his blood rush faster to his groin, and his muscles tighten frenetically.
His vision was blurry, he could only see a silhouette on top of him, he barely noticed the dim light in the room as he tried to shook his head. His whole body felt limp, powerless, lifeless, yet the pleasure he was experiencing was something he could not put into words. Even if he was choking, he felt his nerves explode into such an exquisite sensation he wanted to feel forever. He heard Taemin's low voice say his name, seduction written on every sound he younger made. Taemin whimpered, Jinki found his release before his mind went entirely blank, and for a brief moment, he thought he was dead. The color of the world disappeared, the light abandoned him. Jinki was left alone in a dark room, his body lightly shaking, his breathing unsteady, barely hearable. Every muscle clenched, every nerve imploded, Jinki was drowning in pleasure and things he didn't know existed, yet they were dragging him down, burying him.
He came back to life soon, though, when he felt a hot liquid on his stomach he heard Taemin groan, and his eyes shot open, and he felt slightly relieved he was still in the same white room, with the same heat wrapping him, with the same boy over him.
Taemin chuckled softly, his face resting on Jinki's sweaty chest, and that's when Jinki got back to his senses.
Jinki stood up frantically, pushing Taemin aside on the bed. He walked angrily and picked up his pants, his boxers, and he felt like burning the whole building down. He wanted to vanish into thin breezes, he wanted to disappear and never, ever, see the world evolve in front of his eyes. He had just had sex with Taemin, who almost killed him, and he actually enjoyed it.
He could hear Taemin's voice call his name, but he wasn't able to answer, he wasn't able to think. He still felt his body tremble and he still felt numb, pleasure and oxygen crawling up their way to his brain and he wasn't in the best position to speak.
"You are fucking insane." he spat, sounding dumber than it was supposed too. And he could almost feel Taemin's satisfied grin in the air.
"So are you."
And he left. He stumbled towards his car and it took him about thirty seconds to turn the engine on, and he drove through the city aimlessly. Just hearing the people live normally, talking and speaking on the phone, he saw the lights on the streetlamps greet him and he wanted to throw up. He heard the air whisper on his ear things he shouldn't have heard, things he didn't want to hear and yet he did hear them.
The city was still alive, and he felt like the only living dead around there. He parked the car in front of his house and ran towards his room. He took a shower, a cold, burning shower, and he went to sleep almost instantly. The last thing he thought before he got lost inside his pillow, was Taemin's face. He grunted, and he wished he didn't exist. He didn't want to wake up the next morning, but such thing wasn't easy.
That night he had a nightmare, or he wanted to believe it was, because nightmares are not memories, nightmares never happened in real life. So he wanted to convince himself it was a nightmare, and there was blood all over the walls, the floor, the carpet, it smelled like dry and cold blood, suffocating, raw, Jinki couldn't take it. He walked, everything else moved and turned blurry, and Jinki felt dizzy. He saw a bow on the floor, unmoving, silent, and his eyes widened when he saw the long dark strands of hair spreaded on the white carpet, it was Minho. He hurried and kneeled down, touching the boy's stained face with his hands, and it was as cold as ice. Jinki yelled, something he didn't understand but he did yell at the top of his lungs. He heard footsteps coming closer and then there was Taemin, smiling, with his blushed cheeks and warm eyes, holding a rather large knife on his hand. "You still love me, don't you?" Jinki nodded in response, and Taemin scooted closer to him, until the older felt a pair of tiny arms wrap themselve around his neck and a hot breath run down it. "I still love you." He felt his clothes getting soaked with blood, and he felt his stomach jump angrily, but the warmth of Taemin's body made him stay still, holding his breath, slowly closing his eyes.
He woke up drenched in sweat, breathing faster, with a colorless vision for a few seconds.
He managed to keep up with his normal, peaceful life for a few days before his braing couldn't take it anymore. On his way to his job, he saw Taemin walking casually on the sidewalk and he almost crashed into a streetlamp. He managed to avoid it, and got a few swear words in response. He looked back over his shoulder, and he realized it was just a school boy swinging his school bag on his shoulders. He sighed, feeling slightly disappointed and incredibly confused.
Was he now having hallucinations? that was great, one more point added to the list of strange things Lee Jinki was going through.
"Are you okay, Jinki?" Kibum asked a couple of weeks after, his worried tone making Jinki's cheeks blush. How he had missed it, he thought, smilling for himself. He hesitated, but figured that there was no point in hiding things. Plus, Kibum was his friend, someone he could trust in, no matter how fucked up the situation could be, right?
"No." he spoke, making up a ton of excuses on his head before Kibum asked him why. But he didn't feel like telling his best friend a lie. He took in a deep breath and dropped the bomb after a few seconds.
"I had sex with Taemin in the hospital a few weeks ago." a choked gasp, and something fell to the floor. Jinki knew it was the phone, and soon a few rushed steps came in and someone else spoke on the line.
"Jinki? what happened- gah, Kibum!" Jonghyun squeaked and he heard a lot of commotion on the speaker. Jinki waited until he hard someone shriek and then there was Kibum again.
"Are you fucking crazy?! Jinki why the fuck- why would you even"
"Calm down, I know I shouldn't have. And I didn't want to, believe me, I-"
"I didn't want to my ass, you sex deprived, horny motherf-"
"Hey, Jinki, I'll call you later, okay?" Jonghyun said hurriedly, before Jinki could speak and defend his reputation of Kibum's wrath. He heard the annoying beep on the phone and hung up.
Okay so maybe going straight to the point wasn't a good idea after all, no matter how straightforward Kibum used to be. He went to bed after the clock announced it was a quarter past three a.m.
Life kept going on, and he was just staring at it. He couldn't think clearly, he couldn't just concentrate on something because everything, every single thing he saw, shot images to his mind and brought him to the same pathetic state he didn't want to fall into.
---
An apparently endless hallway, poisoning smell smacking his face, the same dull faces that he once saw. He was walking towards one of the many offices, already thinking of the words that were more appropiate to say after so long of not visiting that place. He was back in the mental institution, inhaling the horrid smell of pills and overwashed clothes again.
And he felt pity, hearing his own footsteps and his slow breathing fill the dead environment. He felt nervous, just like the first time he had entered that place, yet this time was different. He had no reason to be there, he had no purpose, he really shouldn't have been there. And there he was, walking under the door's rusty frame, his skin touching the deceiving vibes the walls emitted.
"I'd like to talk to Lee Taemin, please." He announced over the small counter, shooting a tender smile to the receptionist. She smiled back, of course, but slightly frowned after reading some papers. Jinki knew she was new, because her face wasn't familiar at all. Good, he bitterly thought, less excuses.
"I'm afraid that's not possible, sir." She said, closing his big notebook and placing it back on the desk. "He isn't here anymore." and Jinki's heart fell to his knees. His eyes were open, and his brows were nearly meeting on his forehead. "He was transferred last week." the feminine voice said, and the girl was staring at him in awe.
"Can I have the address of the place he is in?" he asked, after shyly clearing his throat
"Of course."
So he drove like there were no other cars on the road, he drove like there were no signals telling him what he couldn't do, where he should have stopped. Jinki ignored them all because, in the first place, he had no idea what he was doing, driving to that place like a maniac, and he really didn't give a fuck about them. He was anxious, he was scared, he was nervous, he wanted to see Taemin.
He saw a huge gray building, in the middle of nowhere, with no fences to surround it, just green grass and old, big trees. The place transmitted such calmness, after he parked Jinki felt his heartbeat slow down. When he got out of the car, though, his nervousness held his hand again. He walked hesitantly at first, just like the first time he had stood in front of the huge door of the mental institution he was so used to. This was slightly bigger than the other one, he noticed, and it seemed like the world's most peaceful place, with no birds singing, no cars running by the road, no voices. He shivered, and he quickly realized it was just another place that appeared to be normal, when in reality everyone inside of it wasn't.
He didn't want to think about it that way, but he really couldn't help it. He remembered how the white walls contrasted with every patient's obscure eye bags, he remembered how the sickening smell of the hallways and offices announced that, a place like that, wasn't healthy. It wasn't normal.
Soon, he was talking to a middle age woman with pretty, deceiving eyes. Jinki faked a small smile, just like hers, and she led him to a small yard he had to walk across first.
The grass molded under his shoes, breaking, and the wind was fresh and didn't smell like medicine and alcohol. Jinki sighed, unconciously playing with the hem of his black cardigan.
"He's over there." the lady announced, pointing to a small common room where a few people were talking, much to Jinki's surprise, normally.
"Thank you." he said, and slightly bowed. He walked towards the room, holding his breath as if that'd help he could walk through being unnoticed. He clearly couldn't, and soon everyone's eyes landed on him, curious, some of them averting, some of them shoting daggers, some of them lost in somewhere else but Jinki. He shuddered, and finally spotted the slender boy, sitting near a window, his gaze lost in somewhere behind the dark clouds.
Taemin turned around, and a not so playful smirk hung on his lips. Jinki considered it was idea to return, when he still had time, when his knees weren't shaking and he could think properly, but Taemin stood up, and Jinki froze.
"Nice to see you again." Taemin declared, his clouded eyes looking through Jinki like a sheet of paper, breaking him in half effortlessly.
"Yeah."
And he wondered, for a brief moment, why was he standing there in the first place. Taemin grinned widely, and the air could whisper a question; who is crazier.
Jinki was weak, he had admitted this before, but now he knew it. He was weak, he was sick, he was crazy. He was in love with a murderer and he couldn't help it, the voices echoing in his head told him it was okay, that everything would be okay, the clock whispered in melodies and breezes that it was okay, Jinki wanted to believe it really was.
a/n: since i don't want you to think "what was the point of this crap", jinki went crazy too. you could have noticed while reading, right? welp. comments are appreciated. /hides forever.