fairytale hearts 1/3
2min; T; Language, AU, Romance; ~25, 000;
This autumn, Taemin lives through more than one children's story with a pinch of pixie dust.
A/N: Aaaah, finally, I've managed to hit my goal of a 20k word fic! I'm really glad to be able to complete this. Hopefully it's not too bad. (:
Fairytale hearts
The world was frosted glass and ribbons flapping in the wind, and Taemin always found himself chasing after velvet streaks. It was mysterious and wondrous to him, how he would trip over and over what people thought simple things. The pavement could be made of glass, suspended in absolute darkness and his school, an enormous tree made of Lego. Endless possibilities and Taemin would revel in them - why would anyone take the bus to school?
Full of balloons and streamers, the sky could fill your heart. Cracks in the paint of buildings each had a story Taemin wished he knew. And so, what he didn’t know, he made them up, believing for what they are. Yesterday was a mangrove, tomorrow a volcano, the week after a mountain.
Sometimes, frosted glass would shatter and haven would be at the playground - outgrowing the fragile cover of a stuffed teddy bear when the dragon returned home in drunk rage. The stories read to him when he was young had never been so terrifying. He was caught in a nightmare, a children’s tale meant to scare toddlers into obedience - the worst of its kind.
But puddles and mud, his castle was there - braving storms and sun, always there. Taemin’s refuge.
“Have you heard?” Key asked him during break time. They were in the middle of dance training.
“What about?” Taemin took a long draught of water, looking at his best friend when he sighed loudly.
“The team!” The brunette exclaimed, snatching the bottle from Taemin, its contents sloshing about, spilling onto the floor.
“Huh?” He said, racking his brain about any news he missed.
Outside the studio’s window, it was orange and golden. Autumn’s hands were plucking leaves and baking trees a magnificent tangerine. It made Taemin want to dance.
“The exchange programme,” Key said exasperatedly, pausing only to take a sip of water from Taemin’s bottle.
“The soccer and band exchange?” Taemin asked. Their principal had mentioned something like that, but glass flowers and flying squirrels were much more engaging than an old man’s monologue.
“Exactly, Taemin, exactly,” Key nodded, satisfied, tissue in his hand attacking Taemin’s neck. “The soccer exchange.”
“You mean there’s no band programme?” The dancers were returning back to position.
He stared at Key, confused as the brunette’s eyes went up his skull. But before he got the chance to ask, the instructor had called for their formation and the music in his limbs trembled with the beat, pulsing in his head.
Ice was soothing on his knees as Taemin sat in the cafeteria, sweaty strawberry blonde caught in his mouth, cheek pressed against cold metal. His elbows screamed when his hand moved the ice pack to the other knee, and Taemin winced quietly.
“Dude, what the -”
Agonisingly, Taemin lifted his head, neck popping and eyes squinting with discomfort. JongHyun was settling into the seat across him with a look of confusion, which quickly caved into blissful understanding.
“Taemin-ah, you looked like you were -” JongHyun explained.
“Don’t wanna hear it,” Taemin said, resting his head on the table again, gritting his teeth as his back burned.
“Dance was rough today huh.”
Humming, they sat in silence, broken by the sounds of JongHyun digging through his bag. Then the conversation with Key played out in Taemin’s head.
“Hyung, is there a band exchange going on?”
“Yup,” There was a crackling of wrapper. “For two months with Whitely high.”
The ache in his body died down slightly and he lifted his head, watching JongHyun munch. The saxophonist noticed, sounds of crunching in his mouth stopping abruptly, offering the packet of crisps after a second. When he refused, JongHyun had picked one out, poking it against his mouth.
“Mmmgf,” Taemin complained with pursed lips, the chip jabbing his chin.
JongHyun grinned widely, pulling his hand back behind his head. “Airplane...”
“How is it?” Taemin asked quickly, closing his mouth before the crisp could enter, placing the icepack on the table.
“Fine,” His friend answered absentmindedly, too engrossed in trying to force feed him, staring at his mouth with an entertained grin, chip poised for the next attack. “Chu-chu train...”
An obnoxiously loud clearing of a throat. Taemin turned around to find Key behind him, a faint look of distaste on his features. There was a clacking of chip on metal.
“What...are you talking to?” Key asked.
“Chip?” JongHyun offered, holding out the packet, eyes wide at the dancer.
“Kibum hyung, this is JongHyun hyung,” He introduced, getting up and wiping condensation on his pants.
Key regarded the plastic before facing Taemin, completely ignoring it. “We’re late, Jinki’s waiting.”
Taemin jolted, remembering his promise.
“Chip, no?” The saxophonist confirmed meekly.
“We better hurry up.”
As Taemin hastily gathered the straps of his bag, he noticed Key had paid no attention to the previous question.
“JongHyun hyung, I’ll see you soon,” He said, trying to make up for his friend’s indifference.
“Okay, well, I’ll just eat it myself then,” JongHyun concluded miserably, making him feel guilty.
Taking one, Taemin barely caught JongHyun’s face lighting up, already stumbling with Key dragging him off.
Stepping past racks overburdened with miscellaneous merchandise into a narrow entrance, Taemin found his scarf too warm. There was the musky smell of incense that made his nose twitch, papers stamped flat into the ground nobody bothers sweeping them up any longer. Squeezing past columns of rusted metal racks, holding shampoo bottles, Q-tips, stationeries, and even bottled drinks, he finally reached the counter, where a bespectacled man was on a ladder behind it, fiddling with drawers that stretched from the ground to the ceiling.
“Jinki hyung!” Taemin greeted.
The man slowly turned himself around, hands gripping the ladder tightly. Jinki beamed, straightening up with the intention of waving, but bumping his head against an open drawer above him. He had let go of the ladder then, holding his head and Taemin rushed over with Key screaming by his side.
“Hands on the ladder! Keep your hands on the ladder!” The brunette shrieked.
After Jinki had managed to climb down without actually breaking anything, despite tripping and sliding down midway and landing on both feet neatly that left Taemin gaping, they were seated on dusty swivel chairs with a tub of rainbow rubber and a large gas tank.
“I cannot believe you survived that,” Key said dryly as he picked a deflated balloon up with as little finger contact as possible.
“Neither can I,” Jinki said, smiling and walking towards a cardboard box at the opposite end of the clearing in the store. “Thanks again, Kibum-ah, Taemin-ah.”
“Jinki hyung, be careful next time,” Taemin said. He was honestly scared when the bespectacled man teetered a few meters in the air.
“I will,” He assured with his back facing them, rifling through the large box. “I won’t leave chicken for anything.”
Taemin glanced at Key uncertainly, finding the brunette frowning at Jinki, hands on his knees with the deflated plastic drooping.
“I don’t understand why you have to do this,” Key said quietly, wrapping the end of the balloon into the gas tank nozzle.
“We’ve talked about this before,” Jinki stood up, arms overflowing with olive oil bottles, waddling over to the nearest shelf. “Dialysis is expensive, and since this is already here...”
His heart sunk as he watched Jinki depositing the bottles in a chaotic mountain on the metal shelf, facing them and shrugging resignedly, a sad smile on his face. Taemin didn’t know what to say, feeling anxious and as helpless as Jinki.
Key sighed and got up from his seat, knotting the balloon with a string and tying it to the gas tank, crossing over to the shelf to arrange the bottles with Jinki.
“Well, then at least make everything look nice. People buy pretty things.”
Taemin wanted to move, to help, say something but he could only sit there, wanting to vanish with his inability to comfort a friend. He snatched red plastic and secured it around a nozzle.
At the very least, he could do this.
Imagining he was on a floating island made it a lot more fun and when Taemin was finally done, inflating half the box of rainbow rubber with a few exploding, resulting in Key screeching in shock and reflexively chucking a bottle of soap at Taemin once, he was standing outside Jinki’s shop with a huge bouquet of balloons eclipsing the sun.
“Taemin-ah, these are really great,” He swelled with pride as Jinki placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Seriously though, what are you trying to do?” Key asked, stepping out of the store, hair messy with a price tag stuck to his elbow.
“Attract people of course,” Jinki exclaimed, immensely satisfied with the idea. “The balloons are for sale too.”
“There’s an exchange programme in our school,” Taemin pulled his scarf tighter as they listened to Key talk, picking the price tag off. “Maybe you’d have better sales this month.”
“Hyung, there’s a band exchange too,” Taemin was bothered. “Why did you roll your eyes at me at dance?”
“Because, Taemin,” He could feel himself shrinking away as the brunette spoke in a tone that suggested he was explaining something ridiculously simple. “Soccer, is where the fish are. I don’t do band people.”
“That’s mean,” He said, crossly. “JongHyun is nice.”
“Kibum rolled his eyes at you?” Jinki interjected, surprised, before frowning at Key.
“He offered me a chip, Taemin,” Key held an invisible cracker out to emphasize his point. “A chip.”
“He was just trying to be friendly,” When he was in second grade, JongHyun had stopped the bullies picking on him.
Jinki held out a blue balloon. Taemin blinked, before taking it, baffled.
“Here, for what Kibum did this afternoon,” He was still trying to grasp the meaning of the gesture when Jinki patted his head.
“You’re pampering him,” He heard Key say as he pulled on the string, enjoying the way the balloon jerked downwards before floating up again. “Besides, he knows I didn’t mean it that way.”
Taemin looked at his hyungs, whom were watching him contentedly, and he grinned.
It was tiring to scale a cliff, and now Taemin was approaching the place that changes. It turns into a bed when he was lucky, but times when he wasn’t, it became a nightmare. The dream he couldn’t break out of - and what was scarier was that he couldn’t see what it was from the outside.
“I’m home,” Taemin said into the empty living room, leaving his balloon by the door. There was clinking in the kitchen.
Tense, he took quiet steps across the thick rug, peeking into the doorway. A frail lady ate at the table alone, eyes puffy, biting a piece of chicken bit by bit. She raised her eyes and Taemin saw that they were bloodshot and he wanted to rip the clock that struck seven, sounding through the house, and smash it to bits in front of her.
“Have you eaten?” Her voice was small and shaky and today the place was not his bed.
“No,” Taemin said, putting his keys on the counter as he entered the kitchen, settling into the seat at the end of the table, far away from her.
Chair screeched and there were the little noises of the rice cooker opening and closing, wooden handle knocking against porcelain. Taemin rested his arms on the table and something sharp stabbed him, making him jump from his seat hissing, left hand finding a translucent green shard.
Looking up, he saw the lady watching him, astonished at his behaviour and Taemin scowled. Going over to the trash bin, he threw the glass away.
“He came back didn’t he?”
“Are you injured?”
Whipping around, he searched the woman’s face, holding a plate half-filled with rice, eyes brimming with tears.
“Why?”
Blood pounded in his ears as his heart thumped against his chest in fury, not even caring about the way his mother sank into her chair, staring at the floor listlessly.
Why did you let the dragon in? Why didn’t you pick up a sword?
She looked at him then, pleading and Taemin decided he had enough. Picking up his keys, he stormed out of the kitchen, snatching up the balloon and slamming the nightmare shut after him.
Breathless, Taemin ran. He needed to get there - mud and puddles. Through the jungle and across the savannah, he was flying across the night. Near, he was near, and he turned a corner.
His castle, orange pyramid roof and plastic blue slide, made of wood but stronger than the concrete that didn’t belong to him. Catching back his wind, Taemin crunched leaves under his foot, the coldness of the autumn night soothing against his skin, wanting to climb to the top where he could look over his kingdom.
But something was wrong.
An intruder. Clenching his balloon tightly, Taemin scaled the wooden steps of his grand hall, up to his balcony and he saw that the person was shivering, head resting on the railing of where the royal emergency escape was - a little opening with a bar to reach the ground. Even as his skinnies grazed at the knees, it seemed as if the person didn’t register the sound.
“Excuse me,” Taemin was quite afraid. He’s heard of drunks and jobless men hanging in playgrounds to pass the night and if this were one of those cases, he wasn’t sure what would happen.
Taemin released a breath when the person turned around, teeth chattering slightly, having a questioning expression on the face of a boy just a bit older than him.
“Can I sit here?”
The boy seemed puzzled, nodding uncertainly, wrapping his arms closer around himself. It was strangely nerve wracking for him to approach the boy, settling beside, the gap having just enough space for two teenagers.
“It’s cold isn’t it?” Taemin asked, taking in the manner in which the stranger tucked his chin close to his chest.
Nodding silently, the boy regarded Taemin. In the instance where their eyes met, it was awkward and Taemin glanced away, embarrassed. The boy was going to fall sick in the cold. Taemin unwrapped his scarf, the scratching of cotton loud in the quiet night.
When he returned his gaze to the boy, he noticed that he was being stared at the entire time. He felt weird. Maybe the boy was a teenage delinquent or something. Maybe he wasn’t really that safe after all.
Not fully understanding why he was being so kind, Taemin held out the scarf. The boy seemed to register it, blinking surprised, before accepting it hesitantly. The grin that came onto Taemin’s face was almost automatic and the boy cracked a sliver of a smile for the first time.
“I’m Taemin,” He said, glad to have received a positive response. He looked at the stranger expectantly, when he realised the latter was staring at his legs.
The habit of swinging his legs when they were suspended had never completely left Taemin. Catching himself, he stopped, focusing on the floor, face flushing.
“Minho.”
Something about the rich baritone made Taemin’s chest fill unexplainably, and he found himself showing his teeth off. There was the sound of fabric and Taemin observed Minho wearing the scarf, noticing the boy was in a jersey.
“I’ve never see you around before,” His curiosity was making him chatty. The way Minho looked at him from the corner of his eyes had caused Taemin to find the boy more attractive than rude.
“I’m from another town,” Minho was done with the scarf, and he faced Taemin, smiling warmly and their knees were touching and Taemin found his face heating up. “An exchange programme -”
“Whitely!” Taemin interjected, immediately recalling Key and JongHyun. “At my school.”
The boy stared at him, expression unreadable, before nodding. They were silent again and usually when Taemin was king and he was at his balcony he would learn of the new flowers that bloomed by the sandbox, or if any buildings were damaged. However, tonight, it seemed that Minho was usurping his duties, watching the sky, eyes large and glassy and Taemin was transfixed.
Minho caught him and returned full attention to him. Suddenly, Taemin was at a loss on the words to say, fumbling in his mind. He hadn’t wanted to ask anything, only to admire but he had been so talkative haven’t he -
“Why are you out here?” He blurted out, relieved that he managed to say something.
“Why are you?” Minho asked, a faint smile on his lips and Taemin was taken aback.
“I asked you first!”
“Reflecting.”
“About life? Your future?” Taemin asked disbelievingly, caught off guard by such a weird answer.
“My performance today,” Minho exhaled, a cloud puffing from his mouth. His lips were cracked.
“It wasn’t good?”
At this point of time, Minho had shifted so Taemin could catch streetlights in his eyes and he realised he probably asked too much.
“Sorry -”
“So I can do better.”
“That’s what coaches are for!” Taemin said, thinking of his dance instructor.
A soft laugh and Taemin’s eyebrows scrunched together at Minho. That was true, coaches were there to help you, weren’t they?
“Your turn.”
Thrown off balance by the sudden shift of conversation, Taemin faltered for a moment. The world didn’t need to know about the dragon. He stood up, young and playful and there was a huge grin on his face.
“This is my castle.”
Like a flood, Taemin’s words couldn’t stop. Outlined in his mind for so long, he rambled easily about how there was a pool at the bottom of the slide, or where Minho was sitting faced the city square and behind him were mountain ranges where bandits roamed and to their left there were stables and guestrooms and forty three bedrooms.
Only when he noticed Minho hiding a smile behind the back of his hand did he pause.
“What?”
It was annoying, Minho shaking his head and looking elsewhere. He sat down, glaring at the boy indignantly. He was sure Minho knows of his action, with his eyes darting to the side and back, lips curving up a little, and Taemin had found an urge to whine on the spot.
Victory rushed into a grin on Taemin’s face when Minho sighed, finally opening his mouth to speak.
“Your city square is somebody’s dumpster.”
Minho had needed to go, but Taemin allowed him to keep the scarf.
By the pavement, he gave the boy his balloon, orange streetlight turning it yellow. Minho had kept his hands in his pockets, and Taemin guessed he didn’t know why he should take the balloon.
“Write your troubles on the balloon and release it,” Taemin explained, boldly pulling the boy’s hand out by the arm, tying the string around his wrist. “I wanted to use it but since you’re my guest here, I have to treat you right. Right?”
Taemin frowned when Minho said he didn’t understand what this would achieve.
“Balloons tell the sky your troubles and if you believe, things get better,” He nodded. Despite being told countless times that these were things done by little children, it was really too precious a tale for Taemin to give up on completely. “Sometimes I wished I were a balloon too, you know?”
Minho had smiled widely at him then.
Parting after, Taemin climbed the cliff back to the place that changes, resisting the impulse to glance behind him, hoping the nightmare and dragon were asleep.
Before dance, Taemin was stuffing his shoes into what he liked to make up as an endless hole. Cold and dented, candy bars from when three years ago had been dug out from his locker by Key before. Harsh fluorescent lighting became shaded and Taemin glanced up to find JongHyun leaning against the locker beside, chewing his lip nervously.
“Yes, hyung?’ Taemin asked, tugging on the strings of his flats.
“Taemin-ah, we’re good friends right?”
Befuddled, he looked up from his second shoe. “Yeah, we are.”
“So, you’ve got to help me.”
Knotting the second shoe, Taemin straightened up, closing his locker. JongHyun grabbed his shoulders and Taemin was more than perturbed at this unusual behaviour.
“It was the chips, wasn’t it?”
JongHyun’s expression was fierce, desperate and serious and Taemin’s mind was blank for a moment before he understood.
“You mean Kibum hyung?” The saxophonist nodded vigorously.
Taemin gave him a helpless look, arms going in between JongHyun’s, prying them apart.
“He’s just like that.”
“It was the chips,” JongHyun decided, resting his forehead on Taemin’s shoulder and walking with him that way. “He hates me now.”
“Kibum hyung doesn’t hate you.”
“Tell me,” JongHyun suddenly jumped in the way of Taemin, both of them almost crashing together. “Tell me what Kibum likes to eat.”
“Do you like him or something?” Taemin asked. He has a suspicion that...
“Yes - wait, no,” He watched as the saxophonist shook his head, tripping over his words. “No! I don’t like Kibum.”
“Then why do you care so much?”
“What is this man?” JongHyun pushed his shoulder lightly. “You said we were friends!”
“He likes fruits and vegetables,” Taemin said, his friend trailing behind him. “Bean paste noodles, pastry, cakes.”
Taemin turned around when JongHyun didn’t reply, only to see the latter jotting down notes. He looked on incredulously as the saxophonist was hunched over a palm-sized notebook, scribbling down his words in concentration, tongue popped out at the side.
He simply stared, not knowing if he should believe what he was seeing. JongHyun glanced up from his notebook, eyes widening in surprise before hastily stuffing it into his pocket and flushing.
“Promise me you won’t tell,” His shock died down into a smile as the older boy spoke, facing the floor.
“JongHyun hyung, you know the old store two streets away from school?” Taemin said, hoping he wasn’t late for practice already. “Kibum and I are usually there after dance.”
The saxophonist froze for a second, and Taemin waited for a reaction. A pen dropped and Taemin was abruptly caught in a bear hug, JongHyun lifting him off the ground and thanking him repeatedly, laughter mixing with his protests in the empty hallway.
“Seriously,” Key said the minute the instructor dismissed them. “It’s the holidays, we shouldn’t have to come back.”
“But we get to see each other,” Taemin smiled while the brunette rolled his eyes.
“Why are you always so optimistic?”
Hearing Key’s teeth clicking together brought back the night two days back and Taemin briefly wondered if his scarf was put to good use or did he lose it already? A tug on his arm and change of direction in his feet broke his thoughts. The diva was leading him up narrow steps that led to the bleachers.
“Hyung -”
“Jinki will survive if we’re late for a bit,” Key spoke in a pestered tone and that made Taemin go along with being dragged into the autumn air. Which was colder high up in the seats.
Clambering out onto the open, Taemin was shoved into a seat, with his friend beside, pulling out a pair of binoculars.
“Hyung you -”
Shushed by rapid waves of the brunette’s hand, which have promptly jabbed the binoculars into Key’s face, Taemin observed the field. There were boys in green and white and they were doing drills, moving from station to station and repeating the cycle. He could pick out a few in green that were his classmates, or at least studied in the school, amidst Key’s tongue clucking and noises of disapproval.
Vision blurring over and feeling cold, Taemin was about to ask if they could leave when he caught a glimpse of a tall figure jumping past truck tyres. Blinking, he sat forward in his seat, straining his eyes and there was that way of walking that burned into his memory since that night - head tilted backwards lazily, a gait in his steps that Taemin knew JongHyun would imitate in front of Key.
“God, they’re all disgusting,” Key griped, mouth contorted as if he ate something bad, carefully keeping his binoculars into his tote.
“What about him?” Taemin asked. He didn’t know what made him do that.
He waited, unexplainably anxious, as the brunette squinted into the goggles again, lips tight. A minute, or two probably, but it was like waiting for the candy the dentist gives you after messing with your teeth; it nearly never comes.
Mentally shaking himself out of his trance, Taemin kept his eyes on Key, whom was calmly returning his binoculars to his bag. Not a good sign.
“Taemin,” The brunette faced him, composed and Taemin groaned inside. “He looks like a frog.”
From the school building to Jinki’s store, Key had been rambling about the choreography, about how trite the moves were and unoriginal and severely undermining his abilities. Taemin listened without really registering it, the number ten floating in his head.
“Yah!” He snapped out of it when Key hit his arm.
“Huh?”
“Something happened,” The brunette stared at him from the corner of his eyes as they walked, leaves crunching around them, the quiet rumble of vehicles through neighbourhood streets.
“What happened?”
“I know when you’re so distracted,” Key said, gentler now. “You missed a step during our routine. You never miss steps.”
Jinki’s store came into view and Taemin knew what was coming, fingers pulling on the frayed ends of fabric inside his pockets.
“Really, you should phone a hotline,” Eyebrows rising, Taemin looked at Key, thinking he might’ve heard wrongly. “I’d do it for you if you’d let me.”
“Kibum hyung,” How do people who don’t believe defeat the dragon? Soon, his fairy godmother would appear and everything will be okay. He just had to wait. “I don’t know what will happen. It’ll get better, somehow.”
“You don’t even know how that would happen,” Key said sceptically. “It’s been two years, Taemin -”
With Key’s sentence stopping, Taemin followed the brunette’s gaze. Inside Jinki’s store, right in the doorway, somebody was holding so many boxes it wobbled above his head.
“Jinki, what are you doing?!” The diva demanded, hurriedly squeezing through the entrance, hands hovering over the boxes but unsure of where to start.
Taemin stood beside Key, silently panicking as the man waddled at an excruciatingly slow pace over to the nearest rusty shelf, then he realised there was something different. He noticed the darker shade of brown hair that peeked out the corner of the boxes, and the long graphic tee a certain somebody liked wearing and -
Hard thumps were almost deafening with the boxes crashing onto the shelf, kicking up dust that left Taemin and Key coughing. And when the commotion settled, Taemin was found staring at a familiar grin, poorly masking pain, bending down at the waist.
“Oh my god,” Key articulated, word by word. “What the hell.”
“Hey there, beautiful,” JongHyun said it in a pseudo-smooth tone, trying to lean back against the shelf naturally, coolly, but misjudging the distance and ending up flailing backwards to find solid ground again.
Taemin laughed at that, feeling a little bad for the saxophonist when Key scoffed, leaving them and making it deeper into the store.
Apparently, immediately after band exchange, which ended earlier than soccer, JongHyun had rushed down to the store. Both he and Jinki became friends over the topic of Key, which the brunette gaped at, and he offered to help set up.
“There is no reason why I have not killed you yet,” Key said lowly as they finished arranging wood varnish bottles on a metal rack.
Aroma of fried chicken was strong in the air, overpowering the incense, and Jinki and JongHyun’s chatter was loud in the back. Taemin smiled meekly at Key, who promptly glowered back.
“He’s not that bad,” He said, meaning it. JongHyun was a very sincere friend and Taemin treasured their friendship.
“He asked me for my number with his calculator,” The brunette said, clearly annoyed. “With all the special numbers and symbols to make up the words.”
“He does that,” Taemin nodded excitedly, thinking that this might help the two of them get along, stopping when Key rolled his eyes. He didn’t understand why Key wasn’t impressed. There weren’t many people that could type with a calculator.
“I have three classes with him,” Key held up three fingers. “But ever since you made us talk, he bothers me before class, during class, after class, lunch - between class, God!”
All ten of Key’s fingers were in his face now and Taemin could only laugh nervously.
“Taemin-ah! Kibum-ah, take a break, we have lots of chicken here!” Jinki called.
Two trays of fried chicken were open on the counter, and Taemin dropped into the seat beside JongHyun, grabbing a drum stick.
“Yah, wash your hands first,” Key barked, sitting beside Jinki, obviously avoiding a saxophonist.
“Kibum-ah, JongHyun told me you guys were classmates,” Jinki chewed chicken meat furiously, swallowing hard. “I’m glad he came to help today.”
“We’re not exactly -”
“Jinki hyung, I could come every day if you want,” JongHyun offered eagerly, setting his wing down.
“Really?” Jinki beamed.
“No!” The brunette exclaimed, horrified.
“Yes!” Taemin found his shout blending into JongHyun’s and they glanced at Key excitedly.
“Well, if it’s convenient for you,” Jinki passed Taemin another drum stick. “We were just talking about you a few days back.”
It was hard not to smile at Key’s face, whitened with dread.
“Kibum was talking about me?” JongHyun asked disbelievingly, eyes wide at the brunette.
“I wasn’t - we didn’t - no!” The dancer sputtered.
“Kibum...” JongHyun said, eyes turning dreamy.
“Jinki!” Key shrilled helplessly, arms tensed by his side as the bespectacled adult and Taemin shared a grin.
“I’m going home,” The brunette announced, getting out of his seat.
“I’ll walk you,” JongHyun offered, scrambling over to Key whom shied away, mortified.
“No -”
“That’s a great idea! It’s late already,” Jinki piped up. Taemin found immense amusement in watching the scene.
“Hyung, you don’t live in the same street as me anyway, I think it’s safer if JongHyun walked you home,” Taemin added, the entertainment a good payoff for what Key was going to do to him in school.
“It’s not like you have -”
JongHyun snatched Key’s tote off the table, slinging it over his shoulder and grinning widely at the brunette. In the morning, Taemin expects his phone to explode from the number of livid messages Key was going to send him, but sitting there watching his friend alternating stares between the table and JongHyun, mouth opened speechless, it was pretty worth it.
Like a pumpkin cart, Key scoffed, skulking off wordlessly out of the store. The saxophonist spun around to face Taemin and Jinki, bringing his elbows in as he squatted, mouthing “yes!”.
Taemin thought of how tonight was a fairytale for JongHyun, and as run down as Jinki’s store was, he found it an adventure his life couldn’t do without.
Owls were hooting and the cicadas were singing their song and Taemin was trudging home from Jinki’s store, playing all of those sounds in his head. The beeping of cars could be an unknown monster, ferocious and scary, human turned beast by a witch.
No matter, his castle stood in front of him, dark with an orange glow. It could cover him from all things evil because it was his castle. But under the dim nightlights, there was an intruder again, staring out at his city square and Taemin felt a little jump in his chest. Sneaking up his royal halls and extensive bridges, up winding staircases and dusty attics, Taemin was there again, on the king’s balcony.
Swinging his hands down on the stranger’s shoulders, Taemin released his pent-up breath in a loud ‘boo’. The response was highly unsatisfactory, with the boy facing backwards without so much as a jerk, not even a small shout, and Taemin was pouting into a perfectly composed face.
“Hey there, stranger,” Taemin said, sitting cross-legged beside him.
“We know each other’s name,” The boy said, bringing his legs up from the edge and crossing them too. He had a jacket this time, but tonight was warmer than before.
“You sneaked into my castle. You’re a stranger,” Taemin replied, strangely not irritated at the fact that his sanctuary was constantly trespassed.
“Quite the dreamer, aren’t you?” Minho asks lightly and it was almost instinctive how he smiled at the voice.
“It’s good to have dreams,” He stood up, wanting to show Minho his kingdom. “Can you see it?”
Pointing at the sandbox, there was a bustling market and stables, bars and pubs and banners spanning from window to window in front of Taemin. His grin dropped as he glanced at Minho, whom had a small smile which clearly meant he couldn’t. See.
“Maybe one day,” Minho suggests and Taemin had to pull him by the wrist, down carpeted hallways and ground to ceiling windows, past banquet rooms and suits of armour and Taemin spoke about it.
“There’s a caravan meet here,” It was exciting to build his world.
“But you said it was a swimming pool,” Minho pointed out.
Blinking, Taemin remembered and he sighed dramatically, lying down on the slide. “I’m the richest in the world, I can change my town however I want!”
Minho sat gently on the slide’s bump, by Taemin’s waist, and he could see how the boy’s black spikes stood up, the way his grin was lopsided, and he guessed Minho’s feet was definitely completely flat on the ground with his back curving slightly.
“The streetlights,” Taemin points and he feels a sensation bubbling inside when Minho looks. “They could be floating candles.”
It was silent for awhile, before Minho spoke. “They could be.”
Sitting up, feeling like he achieved something, Taemin stretched out of the slide to look at Minho in the face. “So, can you see better now?”
“A little,” Minho said, eyes moving down to regard Taemin.
He grinned then, almost foolishly and he saw how Minho had smiled, his teeth white and perfect to Taemin and he was so much more handsome.
“I think that dreams,” Minho began, in his neutral tone again, and Taemin listened. “Must be worked for.”
“That’s not always true,” Taemin got up from the slide, ignoring the discomfort of the hard plastic when he settles beside Minho. “If you deserve it, if you believe, it will come true.”
There was an unreadable expression, bordering on intimidating with his strong features, on Minho’s face as the older boy stared at him. He had stared for so long, Taemin averted his eyes, feeling embarrassed. Maybe he was having too much fun and now Minho thinks he’s weird.
“Thanks,” Minho said suddenly and Taemin glanced up, seeing a neatly folded scarf held in front of him.
“Y-you’re welcome,” He took the white cotton, mind working at half-time. Sudden topic changes were easy for Taemin to handle, he could do change well - but when Minho was here, he seems to become more grounded than what he liked to be.
“Do you mind?”
“Huh?” Taemin faced Minho and the boy had starlight in his eyes.
“My intrusion.”
Did he? When the dragon had wrath and fury, he would need his castle. But if he had a guest, the castle wouldn’t be empty for him to be alone. Perhaps it was the folly of making a new friend, that folly that caused you to become generous.
“There are rules,” Taemin watched the street, empty at night, little squares of light pouring out from the apartments.
When silence continued, Taemin racked his brains for shooting his mouth off.
“First, you have to take care of my kingdom,” He nodded. It was uncanny, how comfortable it was to speak to Minho about his imagination. Key had simply gawked at him when he tried, looking as if he was hearing the most delirious thing on earth. “You can’t steal anything from my castle.”
He glanced at Minho, and there was that stare once more, deep and pensive and it made his face heat up so Taemin returned his gaze to the fallen leaves under his foot.
“I think I can do that.”
“Sometimes,” Taemin blurted out, looking at Minho again. “Sometimes I, I...”
How was he supposed to put it? I use my castle to bawl?
“You need it for yourself.”
Yes.
Minho had the lopsided smile, an impossible gentleness in his soft eyes and Taemin felt relieved. He nodded, noticing the sides of their hands touching, gripping the slide and it was like lukewarm crystal.
“Why do you like to come?” Taemin asked, unable to control his wondering.
“It’s like a break after training,” Minho lifted his foot and flattened the leaves around him.
“Don’t you have team dinners or something?” He compared his shoes to Minho’s cleats. Definitely smaller.
“Only Fridays. The guys like to see new places, or sleep, so we don’t have it every day.”
“What about you?”
Not even flushing when Minho looked at him straight, amusement in his lips curving up, Taemin really wanted to know.
“I come here, to reflect. Then I find other things to do.”
He decides to stop here, feeling bad for prying into Minho’s business, but nobody could blame him if he found the older boy so intriguing. The starlight was soft this night, but they were bright in Minho’s eyes and it was wonderful to Taemin, how he’s met someone whom listens to his stories and tales because those are the things that are keeping him alive.
Sleep was murky and light tonight, and Taemin found himself ripped out of the quagmire by the roar of an angry dragon. His eyes had snapped open to a blue window that hid this nightmare from the world.
But his fairy godmother should be able to come in, right? She can come in, she can wish herself in, she must.
Tail or talon, Taemin wasn’t sure, but the dragon had upturned heavy rocks. It was loud and frightening and it made him jump from underneath his quilt. The dragon bellowed and there was crying downstairs.
Excalibur was missing, and Taemin was no David. Squeezing his eyes shut, the rage of the dragon chaotic and ear-splitting in the place that changes, he found his pillow wet with sweat. Flinching from another crash of rocks, Taemin believed in his dream, believed in somebody saving him.
Believed in waking up.
Key coughed loudly, not looking from his magazine. Taemin glanced up to see JongHyun trying to slip into the seat across the diva. With a delicate finger, Key’s arm stretched across Taemin’s face, pointing to the space in front of Taemin. Deflating, JongHyun slid over, his puppy dog eyes unnoticed by the brunette.
“So, you have class today?” JongHyun asked. Taemin took a bite out of his sandwich, reaching out to steal the saxophonist’s fries.
“Math remedial,” He was allowed to skip practice today. Not having eaten breakfast, Taemin was starving when the teacher dismissed them.
“I hate math,” JongHyun said, looking at his burger thoughtfully. “I couldn’t do python gorilla’s theorem.”
“Pythagoras,” Key corrected, flipping a glossy page, and Taemin found the way the brunette’s eyes gave way to white funny.
“Yeah that!” The saxophonist nodded, pointing at Key and speaking as if it was the most important thing on earth, barbeque sauce at the sides of his mouth. “Pilo Regas theorem. It’s hard man.”
“Hyung, is the exchange programme tough?” Taemin asked, deciding not to correct the boy.
“Tough?” JongHyun mumbled, mouth full of food. “A little I guess. Everyone there’s really good, you know?”
“So...what do you do in it?” He was nearly done with his sandwich, sipping iced water from a straw.
“Play a little,” The saxophonist rambled animatedly, lettuce sticking from of his mouth and falling out of his burger. “Get scolded and you try and do better. It kinda keeps you on edge.”
Taemin listened, thinking if this were also the case for Minho and he suddenly felt worried.
“There’s this girl from my class,” JongHyun said loudly, wide eyed. “Damn, she’s amazing. It’s like, unbelievable man, like -”
“You are the human embodiment of noise, are you aware?” Key finally faced the saxophonist, fingertips on the cover of Vogue.
“I will be the music in your life,” JongHyun slid over, expression uncharacteristically serious and Key recoiled when his hands made for the magazine.
“What is wrong with you?” The diva blurted out, grabbing Taemin’s serviettes and flinging the stack into JongHyun’s face.
As the tissues fell, it revealed the saxophonist pouting his greasy lips, hands holding the top of Key’s magazine. The diva tried to tug the book out of his grip, elbows jabbing randomly and Taemin leaned back out of firing range.
“Give it to me!” Key demanded through clenched teeth, their struggle intensifying.
“I could be the colour in your pages,” JongHyun offered, tone alike Romeo. “The noise that -”
Taemin had laughed then, with his two friends wrestling over the magazine, Key finally winning, getting out of his seat and when he looked down, gaped at the wrinkled wreck of a magazine in his hands, eyes on the verge of bursting from their sockets.
“Kim -”
The saxophonist had bolted then, dragging Taemin off along with him and Taemin was less than afraid of Key’s fury for once, his mirth loud above the diva’s screaming and JongHyun’s whimpering.
Jumping to stop the heavy textbooks in his arms from spilling onto the ground, Taemin was tromping out of the school, scarf flapping in the autumn breeze. It didn’t have a smell before, but after that night, now there was a scent like freshly pressed shirts and a cosy living room with a fireplace. It made him feel oddly comforted.
After JongHyun had given up on running, an enraged dancer had yanked him by the ear and dragged him off to the nearest convenience store, screaming at him and releasing an ultimatum of JongHyun purchasing a new copy of Vogue or a saxophone would be found in various orifices of his body. Taemin had remembered forgetting some of his books in school and so, went back to retrieve them, agreeing on meeting at Jinki’s store.
As he neared the school gates, there was a familiar figure in the distance, a leg propped against the wall, and head tilted back staring at the sky, hands in his hoodie’s pocket. Feet moving faster, Taemin’s stomach did a little flip when the boy noticed him from afar, head turning from the sky to look at him.
“Hey there, little king,” Minho said, tilting away from the wall, smiling slightly.
“What are you doing here?” Taemin asked, trying to ignore how white contrasted nicely with his tanned neck. “Don’t you have soccer exchange?”
“It ended,” The boy was taller than him, realising for the first time and Taemin felt lesser. “And I heard dance ended at the same time.”
“You were waiting for me?” He asked, looking at Minho and thinking that there was a mystery behind the boy, urging him to find out.
“Don’t you return to your castle after school?”
“Not always -”
Taemin sneezed then. It was chilly. Returning his attention to Minho, embarrassed, fingers brushed against his cheek. They were warm and they smelt like cocoa butter, fiddling with his scarf, pulling it up higher and looping another round about his neck. Everything was stuffy and then a large hand mussed his hair.
Combing his hair with his fingers, fixing it, Taemin made a face at Minho, who chuckled.
“I help out at a store,” He resumed walking, the older boy following beside. “Before I go to the playground.”
“I don’t have anything to do,” Minho said. Taemin glanced at him, wondering if what he thought Minho meant was correct. The older boy was facing the front, but his eyes darted down to regard Taemin, eyebrows raised. Taemin’s steps grew a little skip in them.
An arm wrapped around his shoulders and tugged him into Minho’s side.
“Crack in the pavement.”
He squirmed away when Minho’s hold loosened, hand dropping from his shoulder. Taemin secretly gave the bump in the road the evil eye, fighting back the violent vermillion crawling up his face.
During the walk to Jinki’s store, Taemin found out that Minho knew he was from dance because the first time they met, he had been wearing the club shirt. Taemin found out that Minho preferred to speak in short, choppy sentences, which Taemin really disliked because it made him feel like he was speaking too much. Taemin found out that he liked telling Minho about his world because he listened and the expressions that came after were adorable. He also found out that the deep voice of Minho’s and the softness in his eyes caused butterflies to flap in his stomach.
There was something different about Jinki’s store. The racks of miscellaneous goods were set together with the gas tank and balloons, away from the entrance while a large metal chest was parked in their place. The storekeeper was pushing it futilely, torso parallel to the ground, feet sliding backwards.
“Jinki hyung!”
Straightening up, Jinki rested against the structure, heaving and coughing, waving weakly at Taemin.
“I’m getting old,” Taemin laughed as the adult wiped sweat off his forehead.
“What’s this?” Pointing at the metal case, Taemin saw Jinki breaking into a grin.
“An ice cream cooler!” The adult said excitedly. “But it’s not budging.”
Minho was by the side of the structure now, holding the metal rings on the cover. He glanced at Jinki, tugging on the rings gingerly and it was obvious he was intending to help.
Before Taemin could say anything, Jinki had broken out of his freeze, thanks spewing out in flustered mumbles, hastily picking up the hoop opposite Minho.
Ending up inside the store, with musky incense and the duty of displaying cartons of olive oil humiliating him of his inability, Taemin dumped carton after carton unhappily while Minho and Jinki struggled with the cooler.
Because the cooler was jammed in between the entrance, Key and JongHyun had to enter by the backdoor. Taemin was counting the stocks, check board in hand while Key was laying out wrapping paper on the racks. He had made JongHyun buy those, together with Vogue and fruit juice - not that the saxophonist complained.
“This way, everything looks less ugly,” Key explained, smoothing out the light pink paper. “Also, girls are more likely to look at the nail buffers here.”
Taemin had been pushed out of the way then, JongHyun coming in between and offering to buffer Key’s nails for him.
He wasn’t sure how much time has passed since he first tallied up the stocks of writing pads till counting the number of tissue boxes stacked at the top of the shelf at the far corner, but Minho and Jinki were having a lot of trouble with the cooler. After clogging up the entry, they attempted to move it in by tilting it, resulting in chipping off quite a bit of paint which Minho offered to paint back.
Key had been upturning nicely arranged stocks to put his coloured papers under, chucking a roll at JongHyun when the saxophonist tailed after him like a puppy. Taemin had been startled when Key gasped loudly.
Passing rows of metal racks, Taemin found the diva putting a finger on the side of his head, elbow resting on a crossed arm, staring at a shelf, with JongHyun looking like a child knowing he was going to be scolded any moment.
It was a mess. On the shelf, the paper was wrinkled and torn at the sides. It was untidy and definitely ugly to Key.
“Are you looking at this?” Key asked JongHyun needlessly, before repeating it to Taemin. “Are you looking at this?”
“I tried,” JongHyun mumbled pitifully.
“Just - this,” The brunette had two fingers to his head now, eyes closed and Taemin could hear JongHyun gulp.
“He tried,” Taemin interceded, resulting in Key exhaling tiredly, eyeing JongHyun.
“Do something useful, please.”
“W-what do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know,” Key said, irate. “Look at frog boy! Help them or something.”
The saxophonist had scurried off after. Taemin couldn’t suppress the amused grin on his face when Key shot him an expression that said ‘exhausted from dealing with an idiot’.
When it was finally late afternoon, Jinki, JongHyun and Minho had decided that leaving the cooler outside was the only possible option. Key had managed to revamp the right half of the store to resemble a shop in the mall while Taemin felt that he had done nothing at all, except ensuring nothing was stolen.
“I’m closing the store for today,” Jinki said, after overcoming his initial shock of his store’s interior becoming attractive. “My sister has treatment.”
JongHyun opened his mouth to ask but a sharp intake of air was heard instead, Key stomping onto his foot without Jinki noticing. Minho had said nothing, shown no reaction, and Taemin was thankful for his unfathomable character.
Ushered out of the store, Taemin had asked to buy a balloon and two ice cream sticks. Jinki wanted to give it to him for free, but Taemin insisted, brushing off the feeling on his neck, which he knew to be Minho’s gaze.
The friends parted after, Key unburdening himself of his bags onto a willing JongHyun, having a mental conversation with Taemin about wanting to know of how he and frog boy met, while Jinki went down the street into the busier part of town.
Minho had given him a quizzical look when Taemin passed him an ice cream stick, already licking on his.
“You can’t step into the gaps,” He said, avoiding the geysers that spewed out of the pavement. “They vomit lava.”
Muddy cleats continued striding beside him as he hopped from slab to slab, mindlessly crossing gaps. Taemin faced Minho, eyes wide and accusing and Minho’s amused smile curved higher, now stepping properly on the floating slabs of volcanic rock. He beamed then, glad that he had someone in his world and he swung the balloon, admiring how the green caught the sunlight.
“What do you think about when you walk to school?” Taemin asked. They were crossing the road, back to the castle.
“Homework.”
“Seriously?” Taemin gaped. Minho nodded, completely sure and that wasn’t even cool.
“Don’t you ever think about flying in the sky?” Taemin flapped his arms, vanilla ice cream dripping messily over his hands and the zebra crossing. “About maybe being a superhero, or a house, or think about climbing the tallest mountain in the world?”
“Mount Everest?”
“Tallest mountain in the galaxy!”
It annoyed him, how Minho’s eyebrows curved up in the middle, having an appearance that reminded Taemin of puppies and little children, how he smiled his lopsided smile because he couldn’t. See.
“Look at this,” Taemin ran over to the nearest lamppost. “It’s a glowing tree.”
“Is it?” Minho said, following him with slow, firm steps.
And Taemin was running further and further from him, towards flowers drooping off windowstills and other glowing trees, past fiery geysers and spinning in the middle of the empty pavement, head chasing his little green balloon until he was dizzy and tripping and laughing, until he was secure and tight against Minho’s waist, until a large hand held his side as they made for the castle.
Breaking out of Minho’s hold, Taemin stumbled for the oak tree by the corner of the playground. It was large and winding, with low branches that bore fiery leaves and it was perfect for climbing. He had scaled it easily, knobs and lifts in the trunk familiar to him over time, and he challenged Minho to join him.
Not knowing that the quiet boy had a serious competitive streak hidden under that gentle exterior, Taemin had watched in amazement as Minho heaved himself up the tree, ice cream melting in one hand, long limbs swinging across the wood. It was both awkward and fascinating to see because he was taking a different route Taemin had never discovered before, and it was unseasoned and a tad slower, but Minho made it anyway, beside him, and with their legs dangling off the thick branch, the castle seemed sturdier, laid out in the middle of autumn.
Bits of wood and weathered dirt stuck to his hand, the dried vanilla of his finished ice cream making it sticky. Minho was licking his ice cream, cautiously, orderly. When the tip slanted too much to one side, he would rotate it, making it upright again.
“We’re on a hill,” Taemin said, hugging his balloon.
“Why?” Minho asked, a little bit of ice cream on his lips.
Taemin shrugged, and he leaned into Minho naturally with the comfortable air hanging around them. It wasn’t as if the thought of the older boy minding the action didn’t cross Taemin, but at that moment, it seemed right and it was unmistakable.
“Are you happy?” Taemin asked.
In the silence that ensued, he knew Minho was pondering the question, thinking deep and thoroughly like how he reflects a day of soccer, picking the right words and tone, being impeccable and neat and orderly.
“Possibly.”
Getting off Minho’s shoulder, the shared warmth lingering by his side, Taemin passed the boy his balloon. Minho took it hesitantly, large eyes imploring and Taemin wondered if it were also possible that the older boy felt the same way.
Hands covering the back of Minho’s, Taemin brought the balloon close to his mouth, whispering to it, too soft for the older boy to hear, keeping his eyes on Minho. “Take away the dragon.”
Pushing it back to the older boy, Taemin grinned as Minho stared at the balloon, eating his ice cream thoughtfully and he simply had to snatch the stick out of his grip, swallowing what little of the ice cream was left in a single mouth. He was being stared at now, a twinkle of merriment in those big black eyes, and Taemin’s world curved into blur little crescents. Their eye contact lasted as Minho bent down to the rubber, murmuring in a low rumble, before passing it back to Taemin.
Holding the balloon’s string, Taemin reached up for the nearest branch, red leaves floating around them as he forced it down, binding it to the tree.
“How will the balloon tell the sky our troubles now?” Minho asked.
“Let’s keep our secrets here, in my castle,” Taemin nodded, feeling like it was his best idea yet, watching the balloon float up and getting trapped between the branches, the scarlet canopy casting a blotched shade over them, soft green light falling between them as light pierced through the balloon. “Where it’s safe, for the two of us, and maybe one day my fairy godmother will grant us our wishes.”
“I’m not her godson,” Minho said, and Taemin remembers of the older boy’s wit.
“But she’s gonna help you, you’re my friend,” He said with a sudden burst of certainty. “She will.”
Heavy. The quietness was heavy and it left Taemin’s breaths difficult and his heart sunken. Both of them were aware the forks and spoons spoke louder than them, lamenting the absence of spring or a hearth in the bricks of the home. The words were trite, overused, overheard and with a silent crisis broiling underneath the thin ice of peace, Taemin was about to break.
What would be delicious was awful in his mouth, the gravy too salty, mashed potato too liquefied. The faults made itself clear to Taemin, more obvious than what good it was worth and perhaps it was because he wanted to blame the woman seated beside him.
“How is the food?” The lady asked, and Taemin despised that fake, fake, fake mask of being okay.
Grunting, Taemin pushed his green beans around, knowing she would see. The lady’s plate was fit for display, chicken unmoved, cauliflower bunched together in white abundance, and Taemin knew it was because she was doing it again. She was checking the wall clock, twisting the table cloth with her hands in her lap, his plate being dragged away with it.
A loud ‘tsk’ escaped his mouth and Taemin jerked his plate back under his chin, the gaze of the lady on him, without a doubt.
Like breaking glass, the unlocking of the front door was clear through the house. The lady tensed and he could feel it spreading to him. A large, burly man stepped into the doorway of the kitchen, alcohol making everything on Taemin’s plate inedible. He pushed his plate away, hating the helpless glances the lady threw at the man.
“Aren’t you going to give your father a hug?” The man slurred, but booming through the kitchen.
Shuffling out of his seat, Taemin’s eyes went to the lady but she wasn’t going to be magical tonight. Grime was all over him, like sewer sludge and Taemin was suffocating in the man’s heat, nothing alike Minho’s gentle warmth.
He had a car.
Perfume was strong on his shirt, those cheap types taken off convenience stores, powerful and strong and revolting like deodorant.
The man had a car. He had a car.
“Daddy loves you,” It came out like a rocky road, loud and soft in sporadic parts and Taemin’s arms burned like punishment and he needed - recoiled away, flinching inwardly.
There was no revving of engine tonight. The garage was empty. The man had a car.
He had a car.
Parts ll | lll
This autumn, Taemin lives through more than one children's story with a pinch of pixie dust.
A/N: Aaaah, finally, I've managed to hit my goal of a 20k word fic! I'm really glad to be able to complete this. Hopefully it's not too bad. (:
Fairytale hearts
The world was frosted glass and ribbons flapping in the wind, and Taemin always found himself chasing after velvet streaks. It was mysterious and wondrous to him, how he would trip over and over what people thought simple things. The pavement could be made of glass, suspended in absolute darkness and his school, an enormous tree made of Lego. Endless possibilities and Taemin would revel in them - why would anyone take the bus to school?
Full of balloons and streamers, the sky could fill your heart. Cracks in the paint of buildings each had a story Taemin wished he knew. And so, what he didn’t know, he made them up, believing for what they are. Yesterday was a mangrove, tomorrow a volcano, the week after a mountain.
Sometimes, frosted glass would shatter and haven would be at the playground - outgrowing the fragile cover of a stuffed teddy bear when the dragon returned home in drunk rage. The stories read to him when he was young had never been so terrifying. He was caught in a nightmare, a children’s tale meant to scare toddlers into obedience - the worst of its kind.
But puddles and mud, his castle was there - braving storms and sun, always there. Taemin’s refuge.
“Have you heard?” Key asked him during break time. They were in the middle of dance training.
“What about?” Taemin took a long draught of water, looking at his best friend when he sighed loudly.
“The team!” The brunette exclaimed, snatching the bottle from Taemin, its contents sloshing about, spilling onto the floor.
“Huh?” He said, racking his brain about any news he missed.
Outside the studio’s window, it was orange and golden. Autumn’s hands were plucking leaves and baking trees a magnificent tangerine. It made Taemin want to dance.
“The exchange programme,” Key said exasperatedly, pausing only to take a sip of water from Taemin’s bottle.
“The soccer and band exchange?” Taemin asked. Their principal had mentioned something like that, but glass flowers and flying squirrels were much more engaging than an old man’s monologue.
“Exactly, Taemin, exactly,” Key nodded, satisfied, tissue in his hand attacking Taemin’s neck. “The soccer exchange.”
“You mean there’s no band programme?” The dancers were returning back to position.
He stared at Key, confused as the brunette’s eyes went up his skull. But before he got the chance to ask, the instructor had called for their formation and the music in his limbs trembled with the beat, pulsing in his head.
Ice was soothing on his knees as Taemin sat in the cafeteria, sweaty strawberry blonde caught in his mouth, cheek pressed against cold metal. His elbows screamed when his hand moved the ice pack to the other knee, and Taemin winced quietly.
“Dude, what the -”
Agonisingly, Taemin lifted his head, neck popping and eyes squinting with discomfort. JongHyun was settling into the seat across him with a look of confusion, which quickly caved into blissful understanding.
“Taemin-ah, you looked like you were -” JongHyun explained.
“Don’t wanna hear it,” Taemin said, resting his head on the table again, gritting his teeth as his back burned.
“Dance was rough today huh.”
Humming, they sat in silence, broken by the sounds of JongHyun digging through his bag. Then the conversation with Key played out in Taemin’s head.
“Hyung, is there a band exchange going on?”
“Yup,” There was a crackling of wrapper. “For two months with Whitely high.”
The ache in his body died down slightly and he lifted his head, watching JongHyun munch. The saxophonist noticed, sounds of crunching in his mouth stopping abruptly, offering the packet of crisps after a second. When he refused, JongHyun had picked one out, poking it against his mouth.
“Mmmgf,” Taemin complained with pursed lips, the chip jabbing his chin.
JongHyun grinned widely, pulling his hand back behind his head. “Airplane...”
“How is it?” Taemin asked quickly, closing his mouth before the crisp could enter, placing the icepack on the table.
“Fine,” His friend answered absentmindedly, too engrossed in trying to force feed him, staring at his mouth with an entertained grin, chip poised for the next attack. “Chu-chu train...”
An obnoxiously loud clearing of a throat. Taemin turned around to find Key behind him, a faint look of distaste on his features. There was a clacking of chip on metal.
“What...are you talking to?” Key asked.
“Chip?” JongHyun offered, holding out the packet, eyes wide at the dancer.
“Kibum hyung, this is JongHyun hyung,” He introduced, getting up and wiping condensation on his pants.
Key regarded the plastic before facing Taemin, completely ignoring it. “We’re late, Jinki’s waiting.”
Taemin jolted, remembering his promise.
“Chip, no?” The saxophonist confirmed meekly.
“We better hurry up.”
As Taemin hastily gathered the straps of his bag, he noticed Key had paid no attention to the previous question.
“JongHyun hyung, I’ll see you soon,” He said, trying to make up for his friend’s indifference.
“Okay, well, I’ll just eat it myself then,” JongHyun concluded miserably, making him feel guilty.
Taking one, Taemin barely caught JongHyun’s face lighting up, already stumbling with Key dragging him off.
Stepping past racks overburdened with miscellaneous merchandise into a narrow entrance, Taemin found his scarf too warm. There was the musky smell of incense that made his nose twitch, papers stamped flat into the ground nobody bothers sweeping them up any longer. Squeezing past columns of rusted metal racks, holding shampoo bottles, Q-tips, stationeries, and even bottled drinks, he finally reached the counter, where a bespectacled man was on a ladder behind it, fiddling with drawers that stretched from the ground to the ceiling.
“Jinki hyung!” Taemin greeted.
The man slowly turned himself around, hands gripping the ladder tightly. Jinki beamed, straightening up with the intention of waving, but bumping his head against an open drawer above him. He had let go of the ladder then, holding his head and Taemin rushed over with Key screaming by his side.
“Hands on the ladder! Keep your hands on the ladder!” The brunette shrieked.
After Jinki had managed to climb down without actually breaking anything, despite tripping and sliding down midway and landing on both feet neatly that left Taemin gaping, they were seated on dusty swivel chairs with a tub of rainbow rubber and a large gas tank.
“I cannot believe you survived that,” Key said dryly as he picked a deflated balloon up with as little finger contact as possible.
“Neither can I,” Jinki said, smiling and walking towards a cardboard box at the opposite end of the clearing in the store. “Thanks again, Kibum-ah, Taemin-ah.”
“Jinki hyung, be careful next time,” Taemin said. He was honestly scared when the bespectacled man teetered a few meters in the air.
“I will,” He assured with his back facing them, rifling through the large box. “I won’t leave chicken for anything.”
Taemin glanced at Key uncertainly, finding the brunette frowning at Jinki, hands on his knees with the deflated plastic drooping.
“I don’t understand why you have to do this,” Key said quietly, wrapping the end of the balloon into the gas tank nozzle.
“We’ve talked about this before,” Jinki stood up, arms overflowing with olive oil bottles, waddling over to the nearest shelf. “Dialysis is expensive, and since this is already here...”
His heart sunk as he watched Jinki depositing the bottles in a chaotic mountain on the metal shelf, facing them and shrugging resignedly, a sad smile on his face. Taemin didn’t know what to say, feeling anxious and as helpless as Jinki.
Key sighed and got up from his seat, knotting the balloon with a string and tying it to the gas tank, crossing over to the shelf to arrange the bottles with Jinki.
“Well, then at least make everything look nice. People buy pretty things.”
Taemin wanted to move, to help, say something but he could only sit there, wanting to vanish with his inability to comfort a friend. He snatched red plastic and secured it around a nozzle.
At the very least, he could do this.
Imagining he was on a floating island made it a lot more fun and when Taemin was finally done, inflating half the box of rainbow rubber with a few exploding, resulting in Key screeching in shock and reflexively chucking a bottle of soap at Taemin once, he was standing outside Jinki’s shop with a huge bouquet of balloons eclipsing the sun.
“Taemin-ah, these are really great,” He swelled with pride as Jinki placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Seriously though, what are you trying to do?” Key asked, stepping out of the store, hair messy with a price tag stuck to his elbow.
“Attract people of course,” Jinki exclaimed, immensely satisfied with the idea. “The balloons are for sale too.”
“There’s an exchange programme in our school,” Taemin pulled his scarf tighter as they listened to Key talk, picking the price tag off. “Maybe you’d have better sales this month.”
“Hyung, there’s a band exchange too,” Taemin was bothered. “Why did you roll your eyes at me at dance?”
“Because, Taemin,” He could feel himself shrinking away as the brunette spoke in a tone that suggested he was explaining something ridiculously simple. “Soccer, is where the fish are. I don’t do band people.”
“That’s mean,” He said, crossly. “JongHyun is nice.”
“Kibum rolled his eyes at you?” Jinki interjected, surprised, before frowning at Key.
“He offered me a chip, Taemin,” Key held an invisible cracker out to emphasize his point. “A chip.”
“He was just trying to be friendly,” When he was in second grade, JongHyun had stopped the bullies picking on him.
Jinki held out a blue balloon. Taemin blinked, before taking it, baffled.
“Here, for what Kibum did this afternoon,” He was still trying to grasp the meaning of the gesture when Jinki patted his head.
“You’re pampering him,” He heard Key say as he pulled on the string, enjoying the way the balloon jerked downwards before floating up again. “Besides, he knows I didn’t mean it that way.”
Taemin looked at his hyungs, whom were watching him contentedly, and he grinned.
It was tiring to scale a cliff, and now Taemin was approaching the place that changes. It turns into a bed when he was lucky, but times when he wasn’t, it became a nightmare. The dream he couldn’t break out of - and what was scarier was that he couldn’t see what it was from the outside.
“I’m home,” Taemin said into the empty living room, leaving his balloon by the door. There was clinking in the kitchen.
Tense, he took quiet steps across the thick rug, peeking into the doorway. A frail lady ate at the table alone, eyes puffy, biting a piece of chicken bit by bit. She raised her eyes and Taemin saw that they were bloodshot and he wanted to rip the clock that struck seven, sounding through the house, and smash it to bits in front of her.
“Have you eaten?” Her voice was small and shaky and today the place was not his bed.
“No,” Taemin said, putting his keys on the counter as he entered the kitchen, settling into the seat at the end of the table, far away from her.
Chair screeched and there were the little noises of the rice cooker opening and closing, wooden handle knocking against porcelain. Taemin rested his arms on the table and something sharp stabbed him, making him jump from his seat hissing, left hand finding a translucent green shard.
Looking up, he saw the lady watching him, astonished at his behaviour and Taemin scowled. Going over to the trash bin, he threw the glass away.
“He came back didn’t he?”
“Are you injured?”
Whipping around, he searched the woman’s face, holding a plate half-filled with rice, eyes brimming with tears.
“Why?”
Blood pounded in his ears as his heart thumped against his chest in fury, not even caring about the way his mother sank into her chair, staring at the floor listlessly.
Why did you let the dragon in? Why didn’t you pick up a sword?
She looked at him then, pleading and Taemin decided he had enough. Picking up his keys, he stormed out of the kitchen, snatching up the balloon and slamming the nightmare shut after him.
Breathless, Taemin ran. He needed to get there - mud and puddles. Through the jungle and across the savannah, he was flying across the night. Near, he was near, and he turned a corner.
His castle, orange pyramid roof and plastic blue slide, made of wood but stronger than the concrete that didn’t belong to him. Catching back his wind, Taemin crunched leaves under his foot, the coldness of the autumn night soothing against his skin, wanting to climb to the top where he could look over his kingdom.
But something was wrong.
An intruder. Clenching his balloon tightly, Taemin scaled the wooden steps of his grand hall, up to his balcony and he saw that the person was shivering, head resting on the railing of where the royal emergency escape was - a little opening with a bar to reach the ground. Even as his skinnies grazed at the knees, it seemed as if the person didn’t register the sound.
“Excuse me,” Taemin was quite afraid. He’s heard of drunks and jobless men hanging in playgrounds to pass the night and if this were one of those cases, he wasn’t sure what would happen.
Taemin released a breath when the person turned around, teeth chattering slightly, having a questioning expression on the face of a boy just a bit older than him.
“Can I sit here?”
The boy seemed puzzled, nodding uncertainly, wrapping his arms closer around himself. It was strangely nerve wracking for him to approach the boy, settling beside, the gap having just enough space for two teenagers.
“It’s cold isn’t it?” Taemin asked, taking in the manner in which the stranger tucked his chin close to his chest.
Nodding silently, the boy regarded Taemin. In the instance where their eyes met, it was awkward and Taemin glanced away, embarrassed. The boy was going to fall sick in the cold. Taemin unwrapped his scarf, the scratching of cotton loud in the quiet night.
When he returned his gaze to the boy, he noticed that he was being stared at the entire time. He felt weird. Maybe the boy was a teenage delinquent or something. Maybe he wasn’t really that safe after all.
Not fully understanding why he was being so kind, Taemin held out the scarf. The boy seemed to register it, blinking surprised, before accepting it hesitantly. The grin that came onto Taemin’s face was almost automatic and the boy cracked a sliver of a smile for the first time.
“I’m Taemin,” He said, glad to have received a positive response. He looked at the stranger expectantly, when he realised the latter was staring at his legs.
The habit of swinging his legs when they were suspended had never completely left Taemin. Catching himself, he stopped, focusing on the floor, face flushing.
“Minho.”
Something about the rich baritone made Taemin’s chest fill unexplainably, and he found himself showing his teeth off. There was the sound of fabric and Taemin observed Minho wearing the scarf, noticing the boy was in a jersey.
“I’ve never see you around before,” His curiosity was making him chatty. The way Minho looked at him from the corner of his eyes had caused Taemin to find the boy more attractive than rude.
“I’m from another town,” Minho was done with the scarf, and he faced Taemin, smiling warmly and their knees were touching and Taemin found his face heating up. “An exchange programme -”
“Whitely!” Taemin interjected, immediately recalling Key and JongHyun. “At my school.”
The boy stared at him, expression unreadable, before nodding. They were silent again and usually when Taemin was king and he was at his balcony he would learn of the new flowers that bloomed by the sandbox, or if any buildings were damaged. However, tonight, it seemed that Minho was usurping his duties, watching the sky, eyes large and glassy and Taemin was transfixed.
Minho caught him and returned full attention to him. Suddenly, Taemin was at a loss on the words to say, fumbling in his mind. He hadn’t wanted to ask anything, only to admire but he had been so talkative haven’t he -
“Why are you out here?” He blurted out, relieved that he managed to say something.
“Why are you?” Minho asked, a faint smile on his lips and Taemin was taken aback.
“I asked you first!”
“Reflecting.”
“About life? Your future?” Taemin asked disbelievingly, caught off guard by such a weird answer.
“My performance today,” Minho exhaled, a cloud puffing from his mouth. His lips were cracked.
“It wasn’t good?”
At this point of time, Minho had shifted so Taemin could catch streetlights in his eyes and he realised he probably asked too much.
“Sorry -”
“So I can do better.”
“That’s what coaches are for!” Taemin said, thinking of his dance instructor.
A soft laugh and Taemin’s eyebrows scrunched together at Minho. That was true, coaches were there to help you, weren’t they?
“Your turn.”
Thrown off balance by the sudden shift of conversation, Taemin faltered for a moment. The world didn’t need to know about the dragon. He stood up, young and playful and there was a huge grin on his face.
“This is my castle.”
Like a flood, Taemin’s words couldn’t stop. Outlined in his mind for so long, he rambled easily about how there was a pool at the bottom of the slide, or where Minho was sitting faced the city square and behind him were mountain ranges where bandits roamed and to their left there were stables and guestrooms and forty three bedrooms.
Only when he noticed Minho hiding a smile behind the back of his hand did he pause.
“What?”
It was annoying, Minho shaking his head and looking elsewhere. He sat down, glaring at the boy indignantly. He was sure Minho knows of his action, with his eyes darting to the side and back, lips curving up a little, and Taemin had found an urge to whine on the spot.
Victory rushed into a grin on Taemin’s face when Minho sighed, finally opening his mouth to speak.
“Your city square is somebody’s dumpster.”
Minho had needed to go, but Taemin allowed him to keep the scarf.
By the pavement, he gave the boy his balloon, orange streetlight turning it yellow. Minho had kept his hands in his pockets, and Taemin guessed he didn’t know why he should take the balloon.
“Write your troubles on the balloon and release it,” Taemin explained, boldly pulling the boy’s hand out by the arm, tying the string around his wrist. “I wanted to use it but since you’re my guest here, I have to treat you right. Right?”
Taemin frowned when Minho said he didn’t understand what this would achieve.
“Balloons tell the sky your troubles and if you believe, things get better,” He nodded. Despite being told countless times that these were things done by little children, it was really too precious a tale for Taemin to give up on completely. “Sometimes I wished I were a balloon too, you know?”
Minho had smiled widely at him then.
Parting after, Taemin climbed the cliff back to the place that changes, resisting the impulse to glance behind him, hoping the nightmare and dragon were asleep.
Before dance, Taemin was stuffing his shoes into what he liked to make up as an endless hole. Cold and dented, candy bars from when three years ago had been dug out from his locker by Key before. Harsh fluorescent lighting became shaded and Taemin glanced up to find JongHyun leaning against the locker beside, chewing his lip nervously.
“Yes, hyung?’ Taemin asked, tugging on the strings of his flats.
“Taemin-ah, we’re good friends right?”
Befuddled, he looked up from his second shoe. “Yeah, we are.”
“So, you’ve got to help me.”
Knotting the second shoe, Taemin straightened up, closing his locker. JongHyun grabbed his shoulders and Taemin was more than perturbed at this unusual behaviour.
“It was the chips, wasn’t it?”
JongHyun’s expression was fierce, desperate and serious and Taemin’s mind was blank for a moment before he understood.
“You mean Kibum hyung?” The saxophonist nodded vigorously.
Taemin gave him a helpless look, arms going in between JongHyun’s, prying them apart.
“He’s just like that.”
“It was the chips,” JongHyun decided, resting his forehead on Taemin’s shoulder and walking with him that way. “He hates me now.”
“Kibum hyung doesn’t hate you.”
“Tell me,” JongHyun suddenly jumped in the way of Taemin, both of them almost crashing together. “Tell me what Kibum likes to eat.”
“Do you like him or something?” Taemin asked. He has a suspicion that...
“Yes - wait, no,” He watched as the saxophonist shook his head, tripping over his words. “No! I don’t like Kibum.”
“Then why do you care so much?”
“What is this man?” JongHyun pushed his shoulder lightly. “You said we were friends!”
“He likes fruits and vegetables,” Taemin said, his friend trailing behind him. “Bean paste noodles, pastry, cakes.”
Taemin turned around when JongHyun didn’t reply, only to see the latter jotting down notes. He looked on incredulously as the saxophonist was hunched over a palm-sized notebook, scribbling down his words in concentration, tongue popped out at the side.
He simply stared, not knowing if he should believe what he was seeing. JongHyun glanced up from his notebook, eyes widening in surprise before hastily stuffing it into his pocket and flushing.
“Promise me you won’t tell,” His shock died down into a smile as the older boy spoke, facing the floor.
“JongHyun hyung, you know the old store two streets away from school?” Taemin said, hoping he wasn’t late for practice already. “Kibum and I are usually there after dance.”
The saxophonist froze for a second, and Taemin waited for a reaction. A pen dropped and Taemin was abruptly caught in a bear hug, JongHyun lifting him off the ground and thanking him repeatedly, laughter mixing with his protests in the empty hallway.
“Seriously,” Key said the minute the instructor dismissed them. “It’s the holidays, we shouldn’t have to come back.”
“But we get to see each other,” Taemin smiled while the brunette rolled his eyes.
“Why are you always so optimistic?”
Hearing Key’s teeth clicking together brought back the night two days back and Taemin briefly wondered if his scarf was put to good use or did he lose it already? A tug on his arm and change of direction in his feet broke his thoughts. The diva was leading him up narrow steps that led to the bleachers.
“Hyung -”
“Jinki will survive if we’re late for a bit,” Key spoke in a pestered tone and that made Taemin go along with being dragged into the autumn air. Which was colder high up in the seats.
Clambering out onto the open, Taemin was shoved into a seat, with his friend beside, pulling out a pair of binoculars.
“Hyung you -”
Shushed by rapid waves of the brunette’s hand, which have promptly jabbed the binoculars into Key’s face, Taemin observed the field. There were boys in green and white and they were doing drills, moving from station to station and repeating the cycle. He could pick out a few in green that were his classmates, or at least studied in the school, amidst Key’s tongue clucking and noises of disapproval.
Vision blurring over and feeling cold, Taemin was about to ask if they could leave when he caught a glimpse of a tall figure jumping past truck tyres. Blinking, he sat forward in his seat, straining his eyes and there was that way of walking that burned into his memory since that night - head tilted backwards lazily, a gait in his steps that Taemin knew JongHyun would imitate in front of Key.
“God, they’re all disgusting,” Key griped, mouth contorted as if he ate something bad, carefully keeping his binoculars into his tote.
“What about him?” Taemin asked. He didn’t know what made him do that.
He waited, unexplainably anxious, as the brunette squinted into the goggles again, lips tight. A minute, or two probably, but it was like waiting for the candy the dentist gives you after messing with your teeth; it nearly never comes.
Mentally shaking himself out of his trance, Taemin kept his eyes on Key, whom was calmly returning his binoculars to his bag. Not a good sign.
“Taemin,” The brunette faced him, composed and Taemin groaned inside. “He looks like a frog.”
From the school building to Jinki’s store, Key had been rambling about the choreography, about how trite the moves were and unoriginal and severely undermining his abilities. Taemin listened without really registering it, the number ten floating in his head.
“Yah!” He snapped out of it when Key hit his arm.
“Huh?”
“Something happened,” The brunette stared at him from the corner of his eyes as they walked, leaves crunching around them, the quiet rumble of vehicles through neighbourhood streets.
“What happened?”
“I know when you’re so distracted,” Key said, gentler now. “You missed a step during our routine. You never miss steps.”
Jinki’s store came into view and Taemin knew what was coming, fingers pulling on the frayed ends of fabric inside his pockets.
“Really, you should phone a hotline,” Eyebrows rising, Taemin looked at Key, thinking he might’ve heard wrongly. “I’d do it for you if you’d let me.”
“Kibum hyung,” How do people who don’t believe defeat the dragon? Soon, his fairy godmother would appear and everything will be okay. He just had to wait. “I don’t know what will happen. It’ll get better, somehow.”
“You don’t even know how that would happen,” Key said sceptically. “It’s been two years, Taemin -”
With Key’s sentence stopping, Taemin followed the brunette’s gaze. Inside Jinki’s store, right in the doorway, somebody was holding so many boxes it wobbled above his head.
“Jinki, what are you doing?!” The diva demanded, hurriedly squeezing through the entrance, hands hovering over the boxes but unsure of where to start.
Taemin stood beside Key, silently panicking as the man waddled at an excruciatingly slow pace over to the nearest rusty shelf, then he realised there was something different. He noticed the darker shade of brown hair that peeked out the corner of the boxes, and the long graphic tee a certain somebody liked wearing and -
Hard thumps were almost deafening with the boxes crashing onto the shelf, kicking up dust that left Taemin and Key coughing. And when the commotion settled, Taemin was found staring at a familiar grin, poorly masking pain, bending down at the waist.
“Oh my god,” Key articulated, word by word. “What the hell.”
“Hey there, beautiful,” JongHyun said it in a pseudo-smooth tone, trying to lean back against the shelf naturally, coolly, but misjudging the distance and ending up flailing backwards to find solid ground again.
Taemin laughed at that, feeling a little bad for the saxophonist when Key scoffed, leaving them and making it deeper into the store.
Apparently, immediately after band exchange, which ended earlier than soccer, JongHyun had rushed down to the store. Both he and Jinki became friends over the topic of Key, which the brunette gaped at, and he offered to help set up.
“There is no reason why I have not killed you yet,” Key said lowly as they finished arranging wood varnish bottles on a metal rack.
Aroma of fried chicken was strong in the air, overpowering the incense, and Jinki and JongHyun’s chatter was loud in the back. Taemin smiled meekly at Key, who promptly glowered back.
“He’s not that bad,” He said, meaning it. JongHyun was a very sincere friend and Taemin treasured their friendship.
“He asked me for my number with his calculator,” The brunette said, clearly annoyed. “With all the special numbers and symbols to make up the words.”
“He does that,” Taemin nodded excitedly, thinking that this might help the two of them get along, stopping when Key rolled his eyes. He didn’t understand why Key wasn’t impressed. There weren’t many people that could type with a calculator.
“I have three classes with him,” Key held up three fingers. “But ever since you made us talk, he bothers me before class, during class, after class, lunch - between class, God!”
All ten of Key’s fingers were in his face now and Taemin could only laugh nervously.
“Taemin-ah! Kibum-ah, take a break, we have lots of chicken here!” Jinki called.
Two trays of fried chicken were open on the counter, and Taemin dropped into the seat beside JongHyun, grabbing a drum stick.
“Yah, wash your hands first,” Key barked, sitting beside Jinki, obviously avoiding a saxophonist.
“Kibum-ah, JongHyun told me you guys were classmates,” Jinki chewed chicken meat furiously, swallowing hard. “I’m glad he came to help today.”
“We’re not exactly -”
“Jinki hyung, I could come every day if you want,” JongHyun offered eagerly, setting his wing down.
“Really?” Jinki beamed.
“No!” The brunette exclaimed, horrified.
“Yes!” Taemin found his shout blending into JongHyun’s and they glanced at Key excitedly.
“Well, if it’s convenient for you,” Jinki passed Taemin another drum stick. “We were just talking about you a few days back.”
It was hard not to smile at Key’s face, whitened with dread.
“Kibum was talking about me?” JongHyun asked disbelievingly, eyes wide at the brunette.
“I wasn’t - we didn’t - no!” The dancer sputtered.
“Kibum...” JongHyun said, eyes turning dreamy.
“Jinki!” Key shrilled helplessly, arms tensed by his side as the bespectacled adult and Taemin shared a grin.
“I’m going home,” The brunette announced, getting out of his seat.
“I’ll walk you,” JongHyun offered, scrambling over to Key whom shied away, mortified.
“No -”
“That’s a great idea! It’s late already,” Jinki piped up. Taemin found immense amusement in watching the scene.
“Hyung, you don’t live in the same street as me anyway, I think it’s safer if JongHyun walked you home,” Taemin added, the entertainment a good payoff for what Key was going to do to him in school.
“It’s not like you have -”
JongHyun snatched Key’s tote off the table, slinging it over his shoulder and grinning widely at the brunette. In the morning, Taemin expects his phone to explode from the number of livid messages Key was going to send him, but sitting there watching his friend alternating stares between the table and JongHyun, mouth opened speechless, it was pretty worth it.
Like a pumpkin cart, Key scoffed, skulking off wordlessly out of the store. The saxophonist spun around to face Taemin and Jinki, bringing his elbows in as he squatted, mouthing “yes!”.
Taemin thought of how tonight was a fairytale for JongHyun, and as run down as Jinki’s store was, he found it an adventure his life couldn’t do without.
Owls were hooting and the cicadas were singing their song and Taemin was trudging home from Jinki’s store, playing all of those sounds in his head. The beeping of cars could be an unknown monster, ferocious and scary, human turned beast by a witch.
No matter, his castle stood in front of him, dark with an orange glow. It could cover him from all things evil because it was his castle. But under the dim nightlights, there was an intruder again, staring out at his city square and Taemin felt a little jump in his chest. Sneaking up his royal halls and extensive bridges, up winding staircases and dusty attics, Taemin was there again, on the king’s balcony.
Swinging his hands down on the stranger’s shoulders, Taemin released his pent-up breath in a loud ‘boo’. The response was highly unsatisfactory, with the boy facing backwards without so much as a jerk, not even a small shout, and Taemin was pouting into a perfectly composed face.
“Hey there, stranger,” Taemin said, sitting cross-legged beside him.
“We know each other’s name,” The boy said, bringing his legs up from the edge and crossing them too. He had a jacket this time, but tonight was warmer than before.
“You sneaked into my castle. You’re a stranger,” Taemin replied, strangely not irritated at the fact that his sanctuary was constantly trespassed.
“Quite the dreamer, aren’t you?” Minho asks lightly and it was almost instinctive how he smiled at the voice.
“It’s good to have dreams,” He stood up, wanting to show Minho his kingdom. “Can you see it?”
Pointing at the sandbox, there was a bustling market and stables, bars and pubs and banners spanning from window to window in front of Taemin. His grin dropped as he glanced at Minho, whom had a small smile which clearly meant he couldn’t. See.
“Maybe one day,” Minho suggests and Taemin had to pull him by the wrist, down carpeted hallways and ground to ceiling windows, past banquet rooms and suits of armour and Taemin spoke about it.
“There’s a caravan meet here,” It was exciting to build his world.
“But you said it was a swimming pool,” Minho pointed out.
Blinking, Taemin remembered and he sighed dramatically, lying down on the slide. “I’m the richest in the world, I can change my town however I want!”
Minho sat gently on the slide’s bump, by Taemin’s waist, and he could see how the boy’s black spikes stood up, the way his grin was lopsided, and he guessed Minho’s feet was definitely completely flat on the ground with his back curving slightly.
“The streetlights,” Taemin points and he feels a sensation bubbling inside when Minho looks. “They could be floating candles.”
It was silent for awhile, before Minho spoke. “They could be.”
Sitting up, feeling like he achieved something, Taemin stretched out of the slide to look at Minho in the face. “So, can you see better now?”
“A little,” Minho said, eyes moving down to regard Taemin.
He grinned then, almost foolishly and he saw how Minho had smiled, his teeth white and perfect to Taemin and he was so much more handsome.
“I think that dreams,” Minho began, in his neutral tone again, and Taemin listened. “Must be worked for.”
“That’s not always true,” Taemin got up from the slide, ignoring the discomfort of the hard plastic when he settles beside Minho. “If you deserve it, if you believe, it will come true.”
There was an unreadable expression, bordering on intimidating with his strong features, on Minho’s face as the older boy stared at him. He had stared for so long, Taemin averted his eyes, feeling embarrassed. Maybe he was having too much fun and now Minho thinks he’s weird.
“Thanks,” Minho said suddenly and Taemin glanced up, seeing a neatly folded scarf held in front of him.
“Y-you’re welcome,” He took the white cotton, mind working at half-time. Sudden topic changes were easy for Taemin to handle, he could do change well - but when Minho was here, he seems to become more grounded than what he liked to be.
“Do you mind?”
“Huh?” Taemin faced Minho and the boy had starlight in his eyes.
“My intrusion.”
Did he? When the dragon had wrath and fury, he would need his castle. But if he had a guest, the castle wouldn’t be empty for him to be alone. Perhaps it was the folly of making a new friend, that folly that caused you to become generous.
“There are rules,” Taemin watched the street, empty at night, little squares of light pouring out from the apartments.
When silence continued, Taemin racked his brains for shooting his mouth off.
“First, you have to take care of my kingdom,” He nodded. It was uncanny, how comfortable it was to speak to Minho about his imagination. Key had simply gawked at him when he tried, looking as if he was hearing the most delirious thing on earth. “You can’t steal anything from my castle.”
He glanced at Minho, and there was that stare once more, deep and pensive and it made his face heat up so Taemin returned his gaze to the fallen leaves under his foot.
“I think I can do that.”
“Sometimes,” Taemin blurted out, looking at Minho again. “Sometimes I, I...”
How was he supposed to put it? I use my castle to bawl?
“You need it for yourself.”
Yes.
Minho had the lopsided smile, an impossible gentleness in his soft eyes and Taemin felt relieved. He nodded, noticing the sides of their hands touching, gripping the slide and it was like lukewarm crystal.
“Why do you like to come?” Taemin asked, unable to control his wondering.
“It’s like a break after training,” Minho lifted his foot and flattened the leaves around him.
“Don’t you have team dinners or something?” He compared his shoes to Minho’s cleats. Definitely smaller.
“Only Fridays. The guys like to see new places, or sleep, so we don’t have it every day.”
“What about you?”
Not even flushing when Minho looked at him straight, amusement in his lips curving up, Taemin really wanted to know.
“I come here, to reflect. Then I find other things to do.”
He decides to stop here, feeling bad for prying into Minho’s business, but nobody could blame him if he found the older boy so intriguing. The starlight was soft this night, but they were bright in Minho’s eyes and it was wonderful to Taemin, how he’s met someone whom listens to his stories and tales because those are the things that are keeping him alive.
Sleep was murky and light tonight, and Taemin found himself ripped out of the quagmire by the roar of an angry dragon. His eyes had snapped open to a blue window that hid this nightmare from the world.
But his fairy godmother should be able to come in, right? She can come in, she can wish herself in, she must.
Tail or talon, Taemin wasn’t sure, but the dragon had upturned heavy rocks. It was loud and frightening and it made him jump from underneath his quilt. The dragon bellowed and there was crying downstairs.
Excalibur was missing, and Taemin was no David. Squeezing his eyes shut, the rage of the dragon chaotic and ear-splitting in the place that changes, he found his pillow wet with sweat. Flinching from another crash of rocks, Taemin believed in his dream, believed in somebody saving him.
Believed in waking up.
Key coughed loudly, not looking from his magazine. Taemin glanced up to see JongHyun trying to slip into the seat across the diva. With a delicate finger, Key’s arm stretched across Taemin’s face, pointing to the space in front of Taemin. Deflating, JongHyun slid over, his puppy dog eyes unnoticed by the brunette.
“So, you have class today?” JongHyun asked. Taemin took a bite out of his sandwich, reaching out to steal the saxophonist’s fries.
“Math remedial,” He was allowed to skip practice today. Not having eaten breakfast, Taemin was starving when the teacher dismissed them.
“I hate math,” JongHyun said, looking at his burger thoughtfully. “I couldn’t do python gorilla’s theorem.”
“Pythagoras,” Key corrected, flipping a glossy page, and Taemin found the way the brunette’s eyes gave way to white funny.
“Yeah that!” The saxophonist nodded, pointing at Key and speaking as if it was the most important thing on earth, barbeque sauce at the sides of his mouth. “Pilo Regas theorem. It’s hard man.”
“Hyung, is the exchange programme tough?” Taemin asked, deciding not to correct the boy.
“Tough?” JongHyun mumbled, mouth full of food. “A little I guess. Everyone there’s really good, you know?”
“So...what do you do in it?” He was nearly done with his sandwich, sipping iced water from a straw.
“Play a little,” The saxophonist rambled animatedly, lettuce sticking from of his mouth and falling out of his burger. “Get scolded and you try and do better. It kinda keeps you on edge.”
Taemin listened, thinking if this were also the case for Minho and he suddenly felt worried.
“There’s this girl from my class,” JongHyun said loudly, wide eyed. “Damn, she’s amazing. It’s like, unbelievable man, like -”
“You are the human embodiment of noise, are you aware?” Key finally faced the saxophonist, fingertips on the cover of Vogue.
“I will be the music in your life,” JongHyun slid over, expression uncharacteristically serious and Key recoiled when his hands made for the magazine.
“What is wrong with you?” The diva blurted out, grabbing Taemin’s serviettes and flinging the stack into JongHyun’s face.
As the tissues fell, it revealed the saxophonist pouting his greasy lips, hands holding the top of Key’s magazine. The diva tried to tug the book out of his grip, elbows jabbing randomly and Taemin leaned back out of firing range.
“Give it to me!” Key demanded through clenched teeth, their struggle intensifying.
“I could be the colour in your pages,” JongHyun offered, tone alike Romeo. “The noise that -”
Taemin had laughed then, with his two friends wrestling over the magazine, Key finally winning, getting out of his seat and when he looked down, gaped at the wrinkled wreck of a magazine in his hands, eyes on the verge of bursting from their sockets.
“Kim -”
The saxophonist had bolted then, dragging Taemin off along with him and Taemin was less than afraid of Key’s fury for once, his mirth loud above the diva’s screaming and JongHyun’s whimpering.
Jumping to stop the heavy textbooks in his arms from spilling onto the ground, Taemin was tromping out of the school, scarf flapping in the autumn breeze. It didn’t have a smell before, but after that night, now there was a scent like freshly pressed shirts and a cosy living room with a fireplace. It made him feel oddly comforted.
After JongHyun had given up on running, an enraged dancer had yanked him by the ear and dragged him off to the nearest convenience store, screaming at him and releasing an ultimatum of JongHyun purchasing a new copy of Vogue or a saxophone would be found in various orifices of his body. Taemin had remembered forgetting some of his books in school and so, went back to retrieve them, agreeing on meeting at Jinki’s store.
As he neared the school gates, there was a familiar figure in the distance, a leg propped against the wall, and head tilted back staring at the sky, hands in his hoodie’s pocket. Feet moving faster, Taemin’s stomach did a little flip when the boy noticed him from afar, head turning from the sky to look at him.
“Hey there, little king,” Minho said, tilting away from the wall, smiling slightly.
“What are you doing here?” Taemin asked, trying to ignore how white contrasted nicely with his tanned neck. “Don’t you have soccer exchange?”
“It ended,” The boy was taller than him, realising for the first time and Taemin felt lesser. “And I heard dance ended at the same time.”
“You were waiting for me?” He asked, looking at Minho and thinking that there was a mystery behind the boy, urging him to find out.
“Don’t you return to your castle after school?”
“Not always -”
Taemin sneezed then. It was chilly. Returning his attention to Minho, embarrassed, fingers brushed against his cheek. They were warm and they smelt like cocoa butter, fiddling with his scarf, pulling it up higher and looping another round about his neck. Everything was stuffy and then a large hand mussed his hair.
Combing his hair with his fingers, fixing it, Taemin made a face at Minho, who chuckled.
“I help out at a store,” He resumed walking, the older boy following beside. “Before I go to the playground.”
“I don’t have anything to do,” Minho said. Taemin glanced at him, wondering if what he thought Minho meant was correct. The older boy was facing the front, but his eyes darted down to regard Taemin, eyebrows raised. Taemin’s steps grew a little skip in them.
An arm wrapped around his shoulders and tugged him into Minho’s side.
“Crack in the pavement.”
He squirmed away when Minho’s hold loosened, hand dropping from his shoulder. Taemin secretly gave the bump in the road the evil eye, fighting back the violent vermillion crawling up his face.
During the walk to Jinki’s store, Taemin found out that Minho knew he was from dance because the first time they met, he had been wearing the club shirt. Taemin found out that Minho preferred to speak in short, choppy sentences, which Taemin really disliked because it made him feel like he was speaking too much. Taemin found out that he liked telling Minho about his world because he listened and the expressions that came after were adorable. He also found out that the deep voice of Minho’s and the softness in his eyes caused butterflies to flap in his stomach.
There was something different about Jinki’s store. The racks of miscellaneous goods were set together with the gas tank and balloons, away from the entrance while a large metal chest was parked in their place. The storekeeper was pushing it futilely, torso parallel to the ground, feet sliding backwards.
“Jinki hyung!”
Straightening up, Jinki rested against the structure, heaving and coughing, waving weakly at Taemin.
“I’m getting old,” Taemin laughed as the adult wiped sweat off his forehead.
“What’s this?” Pointing at the metal case, Taemin saw Jinki breaking into a grin.
“An ice cream cooler!” The adult said excitedly. “But it’s not budging.”
Minho was by the side of the structure now, holding the metal rings on the cover. He glanced at Jinki, tugging on the rings gingerly and it was obvious he was intending to help.
Before Taemin could say anything, Jinki had broken out of his freeze, thanks spewing out in flustered mumbles, hastily picking up the hoop opposite Minho.
Ending up inside the store, with musky incense and the duty of displaying cartons of olive oil humiliating him of his inability, Taemin dumped carton after carton unhappily while Minho and Jinki struggled with the cooler.
Because the cooler was jammed in between the entrance, Key and JongHyun had to enter by the backdoor. Taemin was counting the stocks, check board in hand while Key was laying out wrapping paper on the racks. He had made JongHyun buy those, together with Vogue and fruit juice - not that the saxophonist complained.
“This way, everything looks less ugly,” Key explained, smoothing out the light pink paper. “Also, girls are more likely to look at the nail buffers here.”
Taemin had been pushed out of the way then, JongHyun coming in between and offering to buffer Key’s nails for him.
He wasn’t sure how much time has passed since he first tallied up the stocks of writing pads till counting the number of tissue boxes stacked at the top of the shelf at the far corner, but Minho and Jinki were having a lot of trouble with the cooler. After clogging up the entry, they attempted to move it in by tilting it, resulting in chipping off quite a bit of paint which Minho offered to paint back.
Key had been upturning nicely arranged stocks to put his coloured papers under, chucking a roll at JongHyun when the saxophonist tailed after him like a puppy. Taemin had been startled when Key gasped loudly.
Passing rows of metal racks, Taemin found the diva putting a finger on the side of his head, elbow resting on a crossed arm, staring at a shelf, with JongHyun looking like a child knowing he was going to be scolded any moment.
It was a mess. On the shelf, the paper was wrinkled and torn at the sides. It was untidy and definitely ugly to Key.
“Are you looking at this?” Key asked JongHyun needlessly, before repeating it to Taemin. “Are you looking at this?”
“I tried,” JongHyun mumbled pitifully.
“Just - this,” The brunette had two fingers to his head now, eyes closed and Taemin could hear JongHyun gulp.
“He tried,” Taemin interceded, resulting in Key exhaling tiredly, eyeing JongHyun.
“Do something useful, please.”
“W-what do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know,” Key said, irate. “Look at frog boy! Help them or something.”
The saxophonist had scurried off after. Taemin couldn’t suppress the amused grin on his face when Key shot him an expression that said ‘exhausted from dealing with an idiot’.
When it was finally late afternoon, Jinki, JongHyun and Minho had decided that leaving the cooler outside was the only possible option. Key had managed to revamp the right half of the store to resemble a shop in the mall while Taemin felt that he had done nothing at all, except ensuring nothing was stolen.
“I’m closing the store for today,” Jinki said, after overcoming his initial shock of his store’s interior becoming attractive. “My sister has treatment.”
JongHyun opened his mouth to ask but a sharp intake of air was heard instead, Key stomping onto his foot without Jinki noticing. Minho had said nothing, shown no reaction, and Taemin was thankful for his unfathomable character.
Ushered out of the store, Taemin had asked to buy a balloon and two ice cream sticks. Jinki wanted to give it to him for free, but Taemin insisted, brushing off the feeling on his neck, which he knew to be Minho’s gaze.
The friends parted after, Key unburdening himself of his bags onto a willing JongHyun, having a mental conversation with Taemin about wanting to know of how he and frog boy met, while Jinki went down the street into the busier part of town.
Minho had given him a quizzical look when Taemin passed him an ice cream stick, already licking on his.
“You can’t step into the gaps,” He said, avoiding the geysers that spewed out of the pavement. “They vomit lava.”
Muddy cleats continued striding beside him as he hopped from slab to slab, mindlessly crossing gaps. Taemin faced Minho, eyes wide and accusing and Minho’s amused smile curved higher, now stepping properly on the floating slabs of volcanic rock. He beamed then, glad that he had someone in his world and he swung the balloon, admiring how the green caught the sunlight.
“What do you think about when you walk to school?” Taemin asked. They were crossing the road, back to the castle.
“Homework.”
“Seriously?” Taemin gaped. Minho nodded, completely sure and that wasn’t even cool.
“Don’t you ever think about flying in the sky?” Taemin flapped his arms, vanilla ice cream dripping messily over his hands and the zebra crossing. “About maybe being a superhero, or a house, or think about climbing the tallest mountain in the world?”
“Mount Everest?”
“Tallest mountain in the galaxy!”
It annoyed him, how Minho’s eyebrows curved up in the middle, having an appearance that reminded Taemin of puppies and little children, how he smiled his lopsided smile because he couldn’t. See.
“Look at this,” Taemin ran over to the nearest lamppost. “It’s a glowing tree.”
“Is it?” Minho said, following him with slow, firm steps.
And Taemin was running further and further from him, towards flowers drooping off windowstills and other glowing trees, past fiery geysers and spinning in the middle of the empty pavement, head chasing his little green balloon until he was dizzy and tripping and laughing, until he was secure and tight against Minho’s waist, until a large hand held his side as they made for the castle.
Breaking out of Minho’s hold, Taemin stumbled for the oak tree by the corner of the playground. It was large and winding, with low branches that bore fiery leaves and it was perfect for climbing. He had scaled it easily, knobs and lifts in the trunk familiar to him over time, and he challenged Minho to join him.
Not knowing that the quiet boy had a serious competitive streak hidden under that gentle exterior, Taemin had watched in amazement as Minho heaved himself up the tree, ice cream melting in one hand, long limbs swinging across the wood. It was both awkward and fascinating to see because he was taking a different route Taemin had never discovered before, and it was unseasoned and a tad slower, but Minho made it anyway, beside him, and with their legs dangling off the thick branch, the castle seemed sturdier, laid out in the middle of autumn.
Bits of wood and weathered dirt stuck to his hand, the dried vanilla of his finished ice cream making it sticky. Minho was licking his ice cream, cautiously, orderly. When the tip slanted too much to one side, he would rotate it, making it upright again.
“We’re on a hill,” Taemin said, hugging his balloon.
“Why?” Minho asked, a little bit of ice cream on his lips.
Taemin shrugged, and he leaned into Minho naturally with the comfortable air hanging around them. It wasn’t as if the thought of the older boy minding the action didn’t cross Taemin, but at that moment, it seemed right and it was unmistakable.
“Are you happy?” Taemin asked.
In the silence that ensued, he knew Minho was pondering the question, thinking deep and thoroughly like how he reflects a day of soccer, picking the right words and tone, being impeccable and neat and orderly.
“Possibly.”
Getting off Minho’s shoulder, the shared warmth lingering by his side, Taemin passed the boy his balloon. Minho took it hesitantly, large eyes imploring and Taemin wondered if it were also possible that the older boy felt the same way.
Hands covering the back of Minho’s, Taemin brought the balloon close to his mouth, whispering to it, too soft for the older boy to hear, keeping his eyes on Minho. “Take away the dragon.”
Pushing it back to the older boy, Taemin grinned as Minho stared at the balloon, eating his ice cream thoughtfully and he simply had to snatch the stick out of his grip, swallowing what little of the ice cream was left in a single mouth. He was being stared at now, a twinkle of merriment in those big black eyes, and Taemin’s world curved into blur little crescents. Their eye contact lasted as Minho bent down to the rubber, murmuring in a low rumble, before passing it back to Taemin.
Holding the balloon’s string, Taemin reached up for the nearest branch, red leaves floating around them as he forced it down, binding it to the tree.
“How will the balloon tell the sky our troubles now?” Minho asked.
“Let’s keep our secrets here, in my castle,” Taemin nodded, feeling like it was his best idea yet, watching the balloon float up and getting trapped between the branches, the scarlet canopy casting a blotched shade over them, soft green light falling between them as light pierced through the balloon. “Where it’s safe, for the two of us, and maybe one day my fairy godmother will grant us our wishes.”
“I’m not her godson,” Minho said, and Taemin remembers of the older boy’s wit.
“But she’s gonna help you, you’re my friend,” He said with a sudden burst of certainty. “She will.”
Heavy. The quietness was heavy and it left Taemin’s breaths difficult and his heart sunken. Both of them were aware the forks and spoons spoke louder than them, lamenting the absence of spring or a hearth in the bricks of the home. The words were trite, overused, overheard and with a silent crisis broiling underneath the thin ice of peace, Taemin was about to break.
What would be delicious was awful in his mouth, the gravy too salty, mashed potato too liquefied. The faults made itself clear to Taemin, more obvious than what good it was worth and perhaps it was because he wanted to blame the woman seated beside him.
“How is the food?” The lady asked, and Taemin despised that fake, fake, fake mask of being okay.
Grunting, Taemin pushed his green beans around, knowing she would see. The lady’s plate was fit for display, chicken unmoved, cauliflower bunched together in white abundance, and Taemin knew it was because she was doing it again. She was checking the wall clock, twisting the table cloth with her hands in her lap, his plate being dragged away with it.
A loud ‘tsk’ escaped his mouth and Taemin jerked his plate back under his chin, the gaze of the lady on him, without a doubt.
Like breaking glass, the unlocking of the front door was clear through the house. The lady tensed and he could feel it spreading to him. A large, burly man stepped into the doorway of the kitchen, alcohol making everything on Taemin’s plate inedible. He pushed his plate away, hating the helpless glances the lady threw at the man.
“Aren’t you going to give your father a hug?” The man slurred, but booming through the kitchen.
Shuffling out of his seat, Taemin’s eyes went to the lady but she wasn’t going to be magical tonight. Grime was all over him, like sewer sludge and Taemin was suffocating in the man’s heat, nothing alike Minho’s gentle warmth.
He had a car.
Perfume was strong on his shirt, those cheap types taken off convenience stores, powerful and strong and revolting like deodorant.
The man had a car. He had a car.
“Daddy loves you,” It came out like a rocky road, loud and soft in sporadic parts and Taemin’s arms burned like punishment and he needed - recoiled away, flinching inwardly.
There was no revving of engine tonight. The garage was empty. The man had a car.
He had a car.
Parts ll | lll