Clandestine
2min, angst, romance, NC-17, oneshot, ~3,600
Quiet promises stand the strongest.
Oh my god, what even is this. ;_;
First smut (well not really smut anyway) dedicated to chaeii because we are both perverts at heart. ♥
Clandestine;
Taemin isn’t quite sure of where he was.
Mid July. They were in a green shelter of sorts, dirty and reeking of sweat. It was unbelievably stuffy and uncomfortable as the place was packed with people, noisy, but Taemin heard nothing and he felt like he was suffocating.
It was impossible to pick up on one thing at a time. It was confusing and scary and Taemin found himself wondering when his turn would come. Gravel crumbled under his soles, but the distance spanned too wide for him to touch Minho and there was no intention in moving forward. Taemin wanted to vanish.
Signboards were held up all around him, but these were unlike those he saw below stage, happy and supportive. Given, these signboards were supportive too but Taemin didn’t feel the same and he wanted to break every single one of them. Every single glittering, colourful signboard held up by screaming girls.
He wasn’t sure if it’s JongHyun or Jinki, but there were people on his left and on his right because arms were pressing against his. Maybe it was his manager, or the cameramen.
Or maybe he lost the group and he was stuck in a throng of fans pushing for autographs, not knowing the maknae couldn’t hear anything then. No, he wasn’t trapped in a stampede because if he were, Minho wouldn’t still be looking at him.
A familiar smile, all white and sharp canines, broke through the fierce features he’s come to memorise, first with his mind, then with his fingers, and it finally hit him that his thumbs weren’t going to run over tanned cheeks tomorrow.
JongHyun, he was certain it was JongHyun because he was hugging Kibum now, the latter crying into his shoulder and Jinki was clapping Minho’s shoulder, conversation disappearing into the chaos in the air. He realised that he was standing in an empty space for the first time since they’ve stepped into the check-in. The funny thing was that oxygen didn’t seem to exist in the space.
Staying away was better, Taemin decided, because there was an unspoken promise he held fast to. A belief he never doubts, so he stayed in his spot. And as he pretended to watch the people that have taken up almost all the space in his little heart exchange goodbyes, tiny cracks began splintering along the reflexive smile plastered for tomorrow’s newspapers.
It was all too slow and yet too fast because Taemin was suddenly in Kibum’s arms and then his fingers were being pulled on by unmistakable calloused ones - and it was like hot iron, he almost flinched.
Looking up, he found big large eyes searching his face.
Wait for me.
Taemin was definitely suffocating.
They have always been quiet all along.
Love was soft and secretive for them, conversed with long fingers going between his smaller ones. Minho never says the three words to Taemin out of nowhere, but Taemin believed, because when they were together, he experiences Minho’s uncontained laughter. He experiences Minho’s childish side on lazy Sundays, when the boy puts his book down and looks at him with a raised eyebrow, pouncing on him and the morning turns hazy and white.
Only when they were alone, bodies fitting in all the right spots, with Minho’s hands, rough and large, playing over his stomach, does Taemin hear the phrase.
So it was only natural for Taemin’s hurt and loneliness to be hushed the same.
After Minho and Kibum got drafted, he spends more time completing finished homework at the dining table. Jinki knows that Taemin had no more work left, but he never says anything and Taemin never mentions it.
Times a little past midnight, JongHyun’s snores drifts out into the kitchen, breaking both the silence of the empty dorm and shattering Taemin’s glass excuse. Always, it starts with the math question blurring at the edges, followed by his heart beginning to clench painfully. A sob escapes him but Taemin doesn’t hear it because it was so empty.
The dorm was empty and so was his heart. SHINee wasn’t SHINee without five members.
Two years. Taemin tells himself ‘two years and they will be together again, shining SHINee’. But it never works because he misses Minho.
He doesn’t sit on the couch watching a soccer match at this hour. He also has no idea what genetic engineering is about and he isn’t about to understand it any time soon - because the seat beside him is pushed, all the way in, for the past three months.
The cold surface of the refrigerator only goes underneath his palms now, when he digs for a snack or a cup of milk. It doesn’t chill the small of Taemin’s back in the dead of the night, doesn’t send shivers through his spine from the coolness, because Minho isn’t here to push him up against it.
And Taemin cries and presses ‘1’ on his phone, Minho’s speed dial, but he knows the older boy can’t pick up and he is more sensible than worrying him like this.
Every idol group goes through the phase where a member gets drafted but it doesn’t mean they stop their activities.
Like all controversies or issues, the question was unavoidable, like a well-planned global conspiracy and Taemin dreaded it. Packaged into different forms, they stung - but none of them knew Minho and Kibum like them, so why would they care?
How do you feel about having two members in the army? Are you worried? How do you cope? What about future promotions?
Taemin’s body stiffens at these questions and his smile starts to ache.
Months in the industry had seasoned Taemin into giving the answers everybody wanted to hear, voice clear in the tension, nodding and smiling, pausing and continuing in all the correct places. Sometimes Jinki or JongHyun answers instead but it still feels like the answers were spilling out of his own mouth, weighing down on him, making him want to bolt from his seat.
Especially on the set of Strong Heart. He didn’t recognise the smell beside him, didn’t recognise the heat or the shoes - heels or loafers, none of those belonged to their dorm. Taemin didn’t have to worry about needing a shoulder or arm to clutch while laughing on set because he really doesn’t laugh that much now.
Everyone says they miss Kibum and Minho.
Taemin listens and agrees, exactly like the cheerful maknae every fan wants to see.
The van was much quieter now. English songs don’t blast in it and JongHyun doesn’t sing at the top of his voice because there wasn’t anyone to annoy.
“Hey,” JongHyun would ask, to nobody in particular, during rides back to their dorm. “What do you think Kibum’s doing right now? At camp.”
“Cleaning his face,” Taemin replies instantly and JongHyun’s bark of laughter rings in the car.
Jinki ruffles his hair then, like a leader and a father, but it wasn’t the same as the large hands he was accustomed to.
The back could fit the three of them so Taemin sits in the middle. JongHyun was nice to sleep on, Jinki warm enough to hold.
He wonders how long he can go on this way.
Whenever they were told they had a performance, Taemin was humiliated. He was sure JongHyun and Jinki felt the same - like it was some sick joke somebody was cruel enough to pull.
Just because they have been on stage numerous times doesn’t mean Taemin didn’t feel any nervousness minutes before show time. Taemin tripped over stray wires and the harsh blue glow of cameras was confusing, but it never got too bad because larger hands used to find his smaller ones in the darkness of the backstage. And fingers would press into his palm, sliding up his wrists and rubbing them warm and it becomes a little better.
When they’re waiting backstage, they huddle in their incomplete three, yelling out: “Let’s go! Ultra SHINee transformation!”
It feels horrible.
Because they know they weren’t SHINee, not right now - and definitely not when the emcee announces “SHINee!” and the audience goes wild for them and they step out into the cold air conditioning of the auditorium, broken and lesser.
The dancing felt foreign and unnatural and it shouldn’t be done. Jinki had nobody to high-five during Lucifer. Taemin doesn’t do the thousand hands - doesn’t feel safe throughout the dance because that part was gone - where he remembers Minho is right behind him, on the same stage as him, almost unnoticeable but present.
JongHyun doesn’t do his peace sign during Hello because there wasn’t anyone to bring it up the second time.
He was a liar because SHINee World below was cheering for this new group that was nothing alike the original and it got to the point where Taemin asked Jinki if they could skip one Gayo Daejun.
And perhaps it was reality’s way of reminding Taemin there was still another year before they were five again.
Schedules became lighter after a portion of their fans disappeared together with their members. Jinki disallows JongHyun to drink in the dorm because of Taemin. Hence, on Sundays, and occasionally weekday nights, the leader brings JongHyun out, telling Taemin to do his homework.
Jinki does not apologise because he knows the maknae understands and Taemin does not complain.
Taemin heads to the studio instead of staying alone in the dorm. There were no tickle fights for him to try and win - no tickle fights for him to lose. He dances until exhaustion turns his limbs into lead and his head feels like air. For those few hours, there was nothing but the beat and him losing himself into it.
And in the evening he returns to the dorm, tired and aching, and he sees JongHyun on the couch, flipping channels, eyes glazed over. Looking at the television, Taemin realises that he doesn’t watch Dream Team any longer these days. Dream Team’s ace was missing - his ace.
Everything is okay until Taemin settles beside him - JongHyun chooses to break then. It begins with thinking about the possibilities of what Kibum was doing in camp, followed by how there was no more home-cooked food in the fridge. JongHyun tells Taemin that he misses Kibum and Taemin wanted to scream “what about me?” but he doesn’t because they all felt the same.
Probably.
He gets up and heads to the toilet to wash up and maybe try and drown in the shower.
Korea is democratic, so their soldiers still have some inkling of basic rights. The dorm phone rings, every Friday, eight at night, on the fourth week of the month. Taemin does not rush for the phone because he knows it will be Kibum first. JongHyun barges out of the toilet in a towel, or his voice cracks awfully when practicing in the room, or drops the pan with burnt rice he’s been trying to fry, to pound down the hallway so he can hear Kibum’s voice.
They speak for half an hour, some days nearing an hour and Taemin waits in the kitchen, mind already rejecting the chemical equation on the page below his chin. And he waits and waits and waits, staring at the plant on the counter, to the magnets on the fridge and he remembers there are no more notes stuck on the silver metal telling him about leftover chicken in the second drawer because SHINee’s umma is in camp.
Soon, JongHyun creeps into the kitchen, appearing guilty and afraid, telling Taemin that Minho was on the line. He doesn’t get angry at the singer because he couldn’t really blame him. When deep baritone greets him, Taemin feels his eyes prickling.
“Hey,” Both of them say and it was almost a routine.
“Are you eating?” Minho asks him. Do you miss me?
“Are you?” Taemin replies.
“How’s homework?” I miss you.
“Bad.” I miss you too.
Minho laughs at that and Taemin manages to smile a little, thinking the older boy can see it through the electric line connecting the both of them. They never talk for much, never say the things JongHyun murmurs to Kibum, and when Taemin hangs up the phone, hard plastic on hard plastic clicking in the night’s silence, he hears a crack.
Exams and tests were welcome for Taemin. He took them gladly, spending more and more time in school, until Jinki nearly couldn’t wash his uniform and press them in time. Kibum would never struggle with this task but nevertheless, Taemin is thankful for his leader.
He laughs and jokes and talks with his friends. Taemin tries to become a better person with each day, opening doors for female students, picking up trash on the floor, greeting teachers by the walkway. Some called him a teacher’s pet, but those were the ones that bullied and hated him. Others called him a real idol, polite and down-to-earth and Taemin realises that he’s beginning to pick up on Minho’s qualities.
Taemin wakes up in the afternoon, middle of sweltering August, and manages to find the motivation to drag himself out of bed. Shuffling into the kitchen, Taemin finds a note on the table, messily scrawled words hard to make out in bleary vision. A minute or two, trying to decipher JongHyun’s message, another for it to sink in - an electric shock tears down to his feet and Taemin is suddenly wide awake, slamming doors behind him and blasting the shower at full strength.
Washed up, Taemin wrings his hands in the van, sitting tight in his little spot behind. His stomach flutters and flutters and he doesn’t know how to calm himself down. His manager laughs from the front, watching him from the driver’s window, and Taemin hears a nervous chuckle from himself. The traffic is impossibly slow and Taemin might just burst from the door and run to the SM building on his own two feet.
Excitement is mounting in the atmosphere as Taemin steps into their practice room. It is filling endlessly until the building nearly explodes and a strange buzzing lingers in his ears. Artists are scampering around, hanging streamers and dragging tables and chairs, arranging chicken wings and Jell-O and a pot of ginseng chicken rice. An arm wraps around Taemin’s neck and JongHyun beams at him, wide and infectious and Taemin barely notices the grin his mouth stretches into.
For the next few hours Taemin runs around, helping SNSD unnies with the food and decoration, picking up litter on the floor, gets into a headlock with Super Junior sunbaes and pours drinks for Jinki and JongHyun. Everybody is anticipating for the clock to strike seven and whenever the tasks slow down for a second, Taemin remembers that time does not stop and his guts lurch a little.
Soon Taemin finds himself crouching, wedged between Jinki and JongHyun, beginning to sweat from all the people clustering behind the table. It is pitch black and the air is becoming packed with tension, coiled tight like a spring, and the silence is probably because everyone stopped breathing.
A heartbeat, and another, and another, and another. The door cracks open, a sliver of light slicing through the floor’s darkness and Taemin’s chest freezes in mid-jump and the ground does not exist. Bright light floods the room and a disorganised, loud shout roars from behind him and Taemin finds himself standing - that’s funny, he had been stunned hadn’t he?
“Welcome back!”
Something like that and Taemin sees Kibum, hair chopped and untidy, dropping his haversack and mouth open in disbelief. The smile that comes onto his face is natural because Taemin knows the way Kibum’s nose turns red before crying. The throng of people flocks over to the door, huddling around Kibum and Minho like they were heroes and Taemin sees Minho for the first time.
The older boy’s hair had been short when he entered and it looks nearly the same. Minho is in white and jeans and he recalls how good the older boy looks in basics.
Taemin does not make his way over to Minho although their eyes are locked and the older boy is speaking to everyone but staring at him. Taemin watches happily when Kibum cries so hard JongHyun needs to hold him so he doesn’t fall. Taemin brings everybody fruit punch while Minho laughs and jokes around with Super Junior. Taemin sits in a plastic chair at a corner and talks with Hyoyeon unnie about dancing, while Minho and Kibum went around thanking everybody.
The fibres of Taemin’s body are screaming to run over and grab Minho, to make sure he is real, he is there, solid and not just his imagination but Taemin keeps away - because they have a quiet promise. He lets Minho come over to ruffle his hair and pull on his fingers gently. And he only goes over when Minho is speaking to Jinki, to put his hands on shoulders that kept his cheeks warm at night.
Being the maknae, Taemin is not allowed to stay for the after party, where corks were popped and golden liquid filled cups to be mixed up, slurred words and confessions spilling out unrestrained. Minho had announced that he was tired, ending up in them heading back together. Taemin sits in his little spot at the back of the van, unexplainably anxious and awkward beside the older boy. The silence was unbroken by either of them and Taemin doesn’t lean into Minho like he usually does.
They bid their manager goodbye together, take the old rocking elevator together, enter the empty apartment together. It feels full and complete now, the house, and Taemin inhales deeply, the scent of home fresh and comforting to him and he yelps when large hands wrapped around his waist.
Minho pulls him close and Taemin hears the boy breathing him in along his neck, and he instinctively tenses up. He doesn’t say anything when the wall collides with his back almost painfully, long fingers going under his shirt and crawling up his ribs. His hands automatically grips Minho’s biceps, thumb tracing the veins underneath.
Taemin knows he hadn’t been the only one suffering for the past two years because Minho kisses him with such ferocity it surprises him. He wonders if Minho had developed this aggressiveness in the army, but Minho is kissing Taemin with unbelievable longing and scalding hands are slipping higher up Taemin’s body, it derails his thoughts and his knees buckle. The little sound in the back of his throat couldn’t be stifled.
Suddenly, all the awkwardness is gone, and Taemin is glaring up at the infuriating smirk that had been haunting him in his dreams. They are kissing again, Taemin capitalising on Minho’s faltering, prying those lips he’s been craving for so long - too long - with his tongue, and there are dull thuds somewhere in the back of Taemin’s head, soft in the haze, as his elbow and knees bump against walls and a doorknob.
Feet kept stepping on each other and the door shuts behind them. Taemin guesses Minho had closed it with his heel. Breaking apart, he gasps heavily, lungs collapsing with no air, and his breath hitches because lips are laying siege along his jaw, down his throat and collarbones, and he is gripping at Minho’s shirt, pulling it so hard he is sure the seams are coming undone.
Somewhere between fumbling into Minho’s bedroom and falling into noisy mattress, Taemin’s shirt was removed. That couldn’t be fair, so Taemin shivers his last as large hands traced circles up his stomach and his back, butterfly kisses trailing down his chest. Tugging Minho upwards, Taemin finds all of Minho’s weak spots, discovered from months of lovemaking, and there is a swell of triumph when the firm grip on his stomach slackened. Minho is quiet, he is always quiet, so Taemin enjoys a response - like the growl that rumbles from the older boy when Taemin marks below his ear.
Taemin doesn’t say anything when Minho pushes inside of him, pain and pleasure mixing and splitting through him. He doesn’t say anything when Minho grips his waist so hard he bruises. He gasps and whimpers and arches his back when Minho fucks him in the correct places. Every time Minho grunts, Taemin feels closer to the edge, a strange mute over his ears.
His hands hold broad, strong shoulders weakly while their breaths mingle as they pant into each other’s mouths, yearning and dirty and wanting. Just as Taemin thinks he is able to handle the tempo, Minho becomes relentless and his breaths come in short and fire rips through his nerves.
He whispers Minho’s name before he comes, mind blanking, not even sure if his heel is digging into Minho’s back or the mattress, toes tingling and in the second everything is over, Taemin is breathless and there is a sweaty head of black hair recovering on his chest.
None of them say anything as their breathing evens. The only sounds are that of Minho pulling out of him, arms shaking. The older boy drops back on him exhaustedly and brushes his lips almost shyly over his cheek and Taemin is smiling despite the sore between his legs.
And with Minho warm and real and possibly more muscular than before resting on him, weight sinking him into the mattress, Taemin feels as if he missed a step.
Next year it will be his turn to get drafted.
As if sensing his thoughts, Minho pulls up on his elbow then, their noses only inches apart and Taemin falls deeply into those big, twinkling frog eyes that held so much child-like innocence and determination. Minho smiles slightly, white little teeth that weren’t as perfect as they seemed in pictures, above Taemin’s face, and he showed his own little imperfect teeth.
In that moment, noses nearly touching, a deep baritone tells Taemin that Minho loves him.
So it is okay.
Because although they are quiet and barely noticeable, but they never really leave each other.
End.
Quiet promises stand the strongest.
Oh my god, what even is this. ;_;
First smut (well not really smut anyway) dedicated to chaeii because we are both perverts at heart. ♥
Clandestine;
Taemin isn’t quite sure of where he was.
Mid July. They were in a green shelter of sorts, dirty and reeking of sweat. It was unbelievably stuffy and uncomfortable as the place was packed with people, noisy, but Taemin heard nothing and he felt like he was suffocating.
It was impossible to pick up on one thing at a time. It was confusing and scary and Taemin found himself wondering when his turn would come. Gravel crumbled under his soles, but the distance spanned too wide for him to touch Minho and there was no intention in moving forward. Taemin wanted to vanish.
Signboards were held up all around him, but these were unlike those he saw below stage, happy and supportive. Given, these signboards were supportive too but Taemin didn’t feel the same and he wanted to break every single one of them. Every single glittering, colourful signboard held up by screaming girls.
He wasn’t sure if it’s JongHyun or Jinki, but there were people on his left and on his right because arms were pressing against his. Maybe it was his manager, or the cameramen.
Or maybe he lost the group and he was stuck in a throng of fans pushing for autographs, not knowing the maknae couldn’t hear anything then. No, he wasn’t trapped in a stampede because if he were, Minho wouldn’t still be looking at him.
A familiar smile, all white and sharp canines, broke through the fierce features he’s come to memorise, first with his mind, then with his fingers, and it finally hit him that his thumbs weren’t going to run over tanned cheeks tomorrow.
JongHyun, he was certain it was JongHyun because he was hugging Kibum now, the latter crying into his shoulder and Jinki was clapping Minho’s shoulder, conversation disappearing into the chaos in the air. He realised that he was standing in an empty space for the first time since they’ve stepped into the check-in. The funny thing was that oxygen didn’t seem to exist in the space.
Staying away was better, Taemin decided, because there was an unspoken promise he held fast to. A belief he never doubts, so he stayed in his spot. And as he pretended to watch the people that have taken up almost all the space in his little heart exchange goodbyes, tiny cracks began splintering along the reflexive smile plastered for tomorrow’s newspapers.
It was all too slow and yet too fast because Taemin was suddenly in Kibum’s arms and then his fingers were being pulled on by unmistakable calloused ones - and it was like hot iron, he almost flinched.
Looking up, he found big large eyes searching his face.
Wait for me.
Taemin was definitely suffocating.
They have always been quiet all along.
Love was soft and secretive for them, conversed with long fingers going between his smaller ones. Minho never says the three words to Taemin out of nowhere, but Taemin believed, because when they were together, he experiences Minho’s uncontained laughter. He experiences Minho’s childish side on lazy Sundays, when the boy puts his book down and looks at him with a raised eyebrow, pouncing on him and the morning turns hazy and white.
Only when they were alone, bodies fitting in all the right spots, with Minho’s hands, rough and large, playing over his stomach, does Taemin hear the phrase.
So it was only natural for Taemin’s hurt and loneliness to be hushed the same.
After Minho and Kibum got drafted, he spends more time completing finished homework at the dining table. Jinki knows that Taemin had no more work left, but he never says anything and Taemin never mentions it.
Times a little past midnight, JongHyun’s snores drifts out into the kitchen, breaking both the silence of the empty dorm and shattering Taemin’s glass excuse. Always, it starts with the math question blurring at the edges, followed by his heart beginning to clench painfully. A sob escapes him but Taemin doesn’t hear it because it was so empty.
The dorm was empty and so was his heart. SHINee wasn’t SHINee without five members.
Two years. Taemin tells himself ‘two years and they will be together again, shining SHINee’. But it never works because he misses Minho.
He doesn’t sit on the couch watching a soccer match at this hour. He also has no idea what genetic engineering is about and he isn’t about to understand it any time soon - because the seat beside him is pushed, all the way in, for the past three months.
The cold surface of the refrigerator only goes underneath his palms now, when he digs for a snack or a cup of milk. It doesn’t chill the small of Taemin’s back in the dead of the night, doesn’t send shivers through his spine from the coolness, because Minho isn’t here to push him up against it.
And Taemin cries and presses ‘1’ on his phone, Minho’s speed dial, but he knows the older boy can’t pick up and he is more sensible than worrying him like this.
Every idol group goes through the phase where a member gets drafted but it doesn’t mean they stop their activities.
Like all controversies or issues, the question was unavoidable, like a well-planned global conspiracy and Taemin dreaded it. Packaged into different forms, they stung - but none of them knew Minho and Kibum like them, so why would they care?
How do you feel about having two members in the army? Are you worried? How do you cope? What about future promotions?
Taemin’s body stiffens at these questions and his smile starts to ache.
Months in the industry had seasoned Taemin into giving the answers everybody wanted to hear, voice clear in the tension, nodding and smiling, pausing and continuing in all the correct places. Sometimes Jinki or JongHyun answers instead but it still feels like the answers were spilling out of his own mouth, weighing down on him, making him want to bolt from his seat.
Especially on the set of Strong Heart. He didn’t recognise the smell beside him, didn’t recognise the heat or the shoes - heels or loafers, none of those belonged to their dorm. Taemin didn’t have to worry about needing a shoulder or arm to clutch while laughing on set because he really doesn’t laugh that much now.
Everyone says they miss Kibum and Minho.
Taemin listens and agrees, exactly like the cheerful maknae every fan wants to see.
The van was much quieter now. English songs don’t blast in it and JongHyun doesn’t sing at the top of his voice because there wasn’t anyone to annoy.
“Hey,” JongHyun would ask, to nobody in particular, during rides back to their dorm. “What do you think Kibum’s doing right now? At camp.”
“Cleaning his face,” Taemin replies instantly and JongHyun’s bark of laughter rings in the car.
Jinki ruffles his hair then, like a leader and a father, but it wasn’t the same as the large hands he was accustomed to.
The back could fit the three of them so Taemin sits in the middle. JongHyun was nice to sleep on, Jinki warm enough to hold.
He wonders how long he can go on this way.
Whenever they were told they had a performance, Taemin was humiliated. He was sure JongHyun and Jinki felt the same - like it was some sick joke somebody was cruel enough to pull.
Just because they have been on stage numerous times doesn’t mean Taemin didn’t feel any nervousness minutes before show time. Taemin tripped over stray wires and the harsh blue glow of cameras was confusing, but it never got too bad because larger hands used to find his smaller ones in the darkness of the backstage. And fingers would press into his palm, sliding up his wrists and rubbing them warm and it becomes a little better.
When they’re waiting backstage, they huddle in their incomplete three, yelling out: “Let’s go! Ultra SHINee transformation!”
It feels horrible.
Because they know they weren’t SHINee, not right now - and definitely not when the emcee announces “SHINee!” and the audience goes wild for them and they step out into the cold air conditioning of the auditorium, broken and lesser.
The dancing felt foreign and unnatural and it shouldn’t be done. Jinki had nobody to high-five during Lucifer. Taemin doesn’t do the thousand hands - doesn’t feel safe throughout the dance because that part was gone - where he remembers Minho is right behind him, on the same stage as him, almost unnoticeable but present.
JongHyun doesn’t do his peace sign during Hello because there wasn’t anyone to bring it up the second time.
He was a liar because SHINee World below was cheering for this new group that was nothing alike the original and it got to the point where Taemin asked Jinki if they could skip one Gayo Daejun.
And perhaps it was reality’s way of reminding Taemin there was still another year before they were five again.
Schedules became lighter after a portion of their fans disappeared together with their members. Jinki disallows JongHyun to drink in the dorm because of Taemin. Hence, on Sundays, and occasionally weekday nights, the leader brings JongHyun out, telling Taemin to do his homework.
Jinki does not apologise because he knows the maknae understands and Taemin does not complain.
Taemin heads to the studio instead of staying alone in the dorm. There were no tickle fights for him to try and win - no tickle fights for him to lose. He dances until exhaustion turns his limbs into lead and his head feels like air. For those few hours, there was nothing but the beat and him losing himself into it.
And in the evening he returns to the dorm, tired and aching, and he sees JongHyun on the couch, flipping channels, eyes glazed over. Looking at the television, Taemin realises that he doesn’t watch Dream Team any longer these days. Dream Team’s ace was missing - his ace.
Everything is okay until Taemin settles beside him - JongHyun chooses to break then. It begins with thinking about the possibilities of what Kibum was doing in camp, followed by how there was no more home-cooked food in the fridge. JongHyun tells Taemin that he misses Kibum and Taemin wanted to scream “what about me?” but he doesn’t because they all felt the same.
Probably.
He gets up and heads to the toilet to wash up and maybe try and drown in the shower.
Korea is democratic, so their soldiers still have some inkling of basic rights. The dorm phone rings, every Friday, eight at night, on the fourth week of the month. Taemin does not rush for the phone because he knows it will be Kibum first. JongHyun barges out of the toilet in a towel, or his voice cracks awfully when practicing in the room, or drops the pan with burnt rice he’s been trying to fry, to pound down the hallway so he can hear Kibum’s voice.
They speak for half an hour, some days nearing an hour and Taemin waits in the kitchen, mind already rejecting the chemical equation on the page below his chin. And he waits and waits and waits, staring at the plant on the counter, to the magnets on the fridge and he remembers there are no more notes stuck on the silver metal telling him about leftover chicken in the second drawer because SHINee’s umma is in camp.
Soon, JongHyun creeps into the kitchen, appearing guilty and afraid, telling Taemin that Minho was on the line. He doesn’t get angry at the singer because he couldn’t really blame him. When deep baritone greets him, Taemin feels his eyes prickling.
“Hey,” Both of them say and it was almost a routine.
“Are you eating?” Minho asks him. Do you miss me?
“Are you?” Taemin replies.
“How’s homework?” I miss you.
“Bad.” I miss you too.
Minho laughs at that and Taemin manages to smile a little, thinking the older boy can see it through the electric line connecting the both of them. They never talk for much, never say the things JongHyun murmurs to Kibum, and when Taemin hangs up the phone, hard plastic on hard plastic clicking in the night’s silence, he hears a crack.
Exams and tests were welcome for Taemin. He took them gladly, spending more and more time in school, until Jinki nearly couldn’t wash his uniform and press them in time. Kibum would never struggle with this task but nevertheless, Taemin is thankful for his leader.
He laughs and jokes and talks with his friends. Taemin tries to become a better person with each day, opening doors for female students, picking up trash on the floor, greeting teachers by the walkway. Some called him a teacher’s pet, but those were the ones that bullied and hated him. Others called him a real idol, polite and down-to-earth and Taemin realises that he’s beginning to pick up on Minho’s qualities.
Taemin wakes up in the afternoon, middle of sweltering August, and manages to find the motivation to drag himself out of bed. Shuffling into the kitchen, Taemin finds a note on the table, messily scrawled words hard to make out in bleary vision. A minute or two, trying to decipher JongHyun’s message, another for it to sink in - an electric shock tears down to his feet and Taemin is suddenly wide awake, slamming doors behind him and blasting the shower at full strength.
Washed up, Taemin wrings his hands in the van, sitting tight in his little spot behind. His stomach flutters and flutters and he doesn’t know how to calm himself down. His manager laughs from the front, watching him from the driver’s window, and Taemin hears a nervous chuckle from himself. The traffic is impossibly slow and Taemin might just burst from the door and run to the SM building on his own two feet.
Excitement is mounting in the atmosphere as Taemin steps into their practice room. It is filling endlessly until the building nearly explodes and a strange buzzing lingers in his ears. Artists are scampering around, hanging streamers and dragging tables and chairs, arranging chicken wings and Jell-O and a pot of ginseng chicken rice. An arm wraps around Taemin’s neck and JongHyun beams at him, wide and infectious and Taemin barely notices the grin his mouth stretches into.
For the next few hours Taemin runs around, helping SNSD unnies with the food and decoration, picking up litter on the floor, gets into a headlock with Super Junior sunbaes and pours drinks for Jinki and JongHyun. Everybody is anticipating for the clock to strike seven and whenever the tasks slow down for a second, Taemin remembers that time does not stop and his guts lurch a little.
Soon Taemin finds himself crouching, wedged between Jinki and JongHyun, beginning to sweat from all the people clustering behind the table. It is pitch black and the air is becoming packed with tension, coiled tight like a spring, and the silence is probably because everyone stopped breathing.
A heartbeat, and another, and another, and another. The door cracks open, a sliver of light slicing through the floor’s darkness and Taemin’s chest freezes in mid-jump and the ground does not exist. Bright light floods the room and a disorganised, loud shout roars from behind him and Taemin finds himself standing - that’s funny, he had been stunned hadn’t he?
“Welcome back!”
Something like that and Taemin sees Kibum, hair chopped and untidy, dropping his haversack and mouth open in disbelief. The smile that comes onto his face is natural because Taemin knows the way Kibum’s nose turns red before crying. The throng of people flocks over to the door, huddling around Kibum and Minho like they were heroes and Taemin sees Minho for the first time.
The older boy’s hair had been short when he entered and it looks nearly the same. Minho is in white and jeans and he recalls how good the older boy looks in basics.
Taemin does not make his way over to Minho although their eyes are locked and the older boy is speaking to everyone but staring at him. Taemin watches happily when Kibum cries so hard JongHyun needs to hold him so he doesn’t fall. Taemin brings everybody fruit punch while Minho laughs and jokes around with Super Junior. Taemin sits in a plastic chair at a corner and talks with Hyoyeon unnie about dancing, while Minho and Kibum went around thanking everybody.
The fibres of Taemin’s body are screaming to run over and grab Minho, to make sure he is real, he is there, solid and not just his imagination but Taemin keeps away - because they have a quiet promise. He lets Minho come over to ruffle his hair and pull on his fingers gently. And he only goes over when Minho is speaking to Jinki, to put his hands on shoulders that kept his cheeks warm at night.
Being the maknae, Taemin is not allowed to stay for the after party, where corks were popped and golden liquid filled cups to be mixed up, slurred words and confessions spilling out unrestrained. Minho had announced that he was tired, ending up in them heading back together. Taemin sits in his little spot at the back of the van, unexplainably anxious and awkward beside the older boy. The silence was unbroken by either of them and Taemin doesn’t lean into Minho like he usually does.
They bid their manager goodbye together, take the old rocking elevator together, enter the empty apartment together. It feels full and complete now, the house, and Taemin inhales deeply, the scent of home fresh and comforting to him and he yelps when large hands wrapped around his waist.
Minho pulls him close and Taemin hears the boy breathing him in along his neck, and he instinctively tenses up. He doesn’t say anything when the wall collides with his back almost painfully, long fingers going under his shirt and crawling up his ribs. His hands automatically grips Minho’s biceps, thumb tracing the veins underneath.
Taemin knows he hadn’t been the only one suffering for the past two years because Minho kisses him with such ferocity it surprises him. He wonders if Minho had developed this aggressiveness in the army, but Minho is kissing Taemin with unbelievable longing and scalding hands are slipping higher up Taemin’s body, it derails his thoughts and his knees buckle. The little sound in the back of his throat couldn’t be stifled.
Suddenly, all the awkwardness is gone, and Taemin is glaring up at the infuriating smirk that had been haunting him in his dreams. They are kissing again, Taemin capitalising on Minho’s faltering, prying those lips he’s been craving for so long - too long - with his tongue, and there are dull thuds somewhere in the back of Taemin’s head, soft in the haze, as his elbow and knees bump against walls and a doorknob.
Feet kept stepping on each other and the door shuts behind them. Taemin guesses Minho had closed it with his heel. Breaking apart, he gasps heavily, lungs collapsing with no air, and his breath hitches because lips are laying siege along his jaw, down his throat and collarbones, and he is gripping at Minho’s shirt, pulling it so hard he is sure the seams are coming undone.
Somewhere between fumbling into Minho’s bedroom and falling into noisy mattress, Taemin’s shirt was removed. That couldn’t be fair, so Taemin shivers his last as large hands traced circles up his stomach and his back, butterfly kisses trailing down his chest. Tugging Minho upwards, Taemin finds all of Minho’s weak spots, discovered from months of lovemaking, and there is a swell of triumph when the firm grip on his stomach slackened. Minho is quiet, he is always quiet, so Taemin enjoys a response - like the growl that rumbles from the older boy when Taemin marks below his ear.
Taemin doesn’t say anything when Minho pushes inside of him, pain and pleasure mixing and splitting through him. He doesn’t say anything when Minho grips his waist so hard he bruises. He gasps and whimpers and arches his back when Minho fucks him in the correct places. Every time Minho grunts, Taemin feels closer to the edge, a strange mute over his ears.
His hands hold broad, strong shoulders weakly while their breaths mingle as they pant into each other’s mouths, yearning and dirty and wanting. Just as Taemin thinks he is able to handle the tempo, Minho becomes relentless and his breaths come in short and fire rips through his nerves.
He whispers Minho’s name before he comes, mind blanking, not even sure if his heel is digging into Minho’s back or the mattress, toes tingling and in the second everything is over, Taemin is breathless and there is a sweaty head of black hair recovering on his chest.
None of them say anything as their breathing evens. The only sounds are that of Minho pulling out of him, arms shaking. The older boy drops back on him exhaustedly and brushes his lips almost shyly over his cheek and Taemin is smiling despite the sore between his legs.
And with Minho warm and real and possibly more muscular than before resting on him, weight sinking him into the mattress, Taemin feels as if he missed a step.
Next year it will be his turn to get drafted.
As if sensing his thoughts, Minho pulls up on his elbow then, their noses only inches apart and Taemin falls deeply into those big, twinkling frog eyes that held so much child-like innocence and determination. Minho smiles slightly, white little teeth that weren’t as perfect as they seemed in pictures, above Taemin’s face, and he showed his own little imperfect teeth.
In that moment, noses nearly touching, a deep baritone tells Taemin that Minho loves him.
So it is okay.
Because although they are quiet and barely noticeable, but they never really leave each other.
End.