[ontae] and we could be too | part i

[quicheand]

and we could be too
onew/taemin | r | 11,550 words

summary: Taemin comes back and for whatever reason, the first person he contacts is Onew; but things like trust, once lost, are hard to regain.

warnings for violence, blood, etc.

This is the sequel to they might be monsters, so I'd recommend you read that first if you haven't already, or you won't know what's going on here.



Jinki's just gotten used to living a normal life again, just gotten used to working a normal part-time job at the local supermarket on weekends and between classes, when he can. At first, people recognized him all the time; it took a long time before he was able to go out without being followed by strangers' eyes and the clicking of camera shutters, but eventually the clamor around him started to die down, fame falling away along with the dyed locks of hair and makeup and fancy clothes. He'd gotten back in touch with some of his old friends, then, and moved out of his parents' house into a place of his own, and gone back to school, to the college career he'd sort-of-kind-of started but never come close to finishing. He's almost forgotten about being part of SHINee by now; he's almost forgotten about being Onew.

That's part of the reason it's so shocking when he comes home to his empty apartment after class one Thursday to find Taemin sitting on his ratty secondhand couch, alone in the dark in the living room. It's so dark, in fact, that Jinki doesn't notice anything out of the ordinary until Taemin speaks up.

“Onew hyung,” he says, voice clear and boyish as the memories that are instantly reborn in Jinki's mind. Jinki starts, jumping a foot into the air and barely holding himself back from yelping. He drops his keys; they land on the threadbare carpet with a clatter. “I mean Jinki hyung,” Taemin says, more quietly.

“Shit,” says Jinki, and bends down. He means to pick up his keys, but then, once he's crouching, he finds that his head is spinning and what he really wants to do is sit down, so he does that instead. “Shit,” he says again.

Taemin seems unperturbed by this sudden failure of Onew's vocabulary, and sits calmly, not moving from his initial position on the couch. He looks out of place there, somehow, too put-together to belong in Jinki's shabby apartment, to belong in Jinki's shabby average life.

“I'm back,” says Taemin, unnecessarily.

“Yeah,” Jinki says with an incredulous half-laugh. “Just. Just give me a minute,” he says, and then bends his neck until his head resting between his knees. He breathes in and out a few times until his head stops spinning, and then looks up.

Taemin is still there, looking at him with amusement.

“Okay,” says Jinki, mostly to himself. “You're back.”

“Can you stand up yet?” says Taemin.

Jinki blinks at the hint of laughter in Taemin's voice. “Sure. Sure I can stand,” he says, and does.

It's awkward at first; they haven't seen each other in three years, and Jinki's still apprehensive of this boy who changed his world one day and then, four years later, disappeared just as suddenly as he'd stepped into Jinki's life.

But they talk-mostly Taemin asking Jinki questions he knows the answers to already at first, but then Jinki works up the nerve to ask Taemin how he's been (“Not bad, mostly”), where he's been (“Around,” with a shrug), and no really, where's he been (“Fine, Thailand for a while, and then sightseeing in Europe, and then just around”). As far as Jinki can tell, Taemin's still the same person. And maybe that means he still has dark secrets he hides from the world, but it also means that he's still the strange, silly kid who laughs at all of Jinki's corny jokes and smiles like light turning the whole world to gold.

They talk until late, until too late, probably, and Jinki's starting to feel warm and a little sleepy when Taemin stands up and says he should go.

“But I'll come back again,” he promises, and Jinki knows he should stay away from Taemin, should tell Taemin to stay away from him, but he feels his heart expand a little despite what his brain is telling him.

There's no rhyme or reason to Taemin's visits. Sometimes Jinki just comes home and finds Taemin waiting for him, and other times he finds only his empty apartment, dim and lifeless. Sometimes he half-wakes in the middle of the night and thinks he hears someone shuffling around in the hall, and even though in the morning there's no sign that anyone was there, Jinki knows it was Taemin.

There's this habit Jinki has, back from the days when he was still Onew: whenever Taemin opens his eyes wide in false innocence, shines that bright smile in Jinki's direction, Jinki tends to forget all his resolutions not to trust Taemin too deeply, not to rely too deeply on him, and falls into Taemin's trap all over again. He thought he'd kicked the habit with Taemin's sudden disappearance years ago, but now that Taemin's back, he sees it was only hibernating after all, waiting for Taemin to come back before catching hold of Jinki's heart again.

Don't forget who he really is, Jonghyun used to say, never forget. And it's not that Jinki forgets about the things Taemin does when Jinki's not with him, but-Jinki's not with him when Taemin does those things, and that makes it so, so easy to ignore them. So, so easy to gaze into huge warm eyes while Taemin talks excitedly about nothing; so, so easy to smile back and then lean into Taemin and pretend they're something they're not.

The water is on in the kitchen. That's the first thing Jinki thinks when he wakes in the middle of the night. He lies there for a few moments, flat on his back and looking up at the ceiling, but the water doesn't shut off, and after a while he gets up and pads out to see what Taemin is up to.

His elbows in blood, apparently. Jinki's soft intake of breath alerts Taemin to his presence, and he peers at Jinki from beneath hooded eyelids, water still running over his rust-stained hands.

“It's not mine,” he says, after a beat.

Jinki stares at the blood for a minute, then turns to walk back toward his bedroom.

Taemin tries to defend himself, even though Jinki hasn't said anything. “I'm sorry I haven't changed,” he calls after Jinki. “I'm sorry I'm still this person, but I can't change-this is the life I was born into.”

“That's not the part I minded,” says Jinki, without turning around. “I would have done anything for you,” he says. “I would have overlooked anything-anything but being left alone by the person I thought I loved.”

Taemin's quiet a moment, and Jinki thinks for a second that he's gotten to him, that Taemin can hurt too, can feel guilt. Then Taemin says, “So what, I was supposed to put myself in danger and stay behind for you? Or what, take you with me? Nothing happened between us. I didn't owe you anything.”

“You knew how I felt about you,” Jinki says.

“And if I ever gave any indication that I felt the same way about you,” Taemin replies, “it was an accident, and I'm sorry.”

For one wild moment, Jinki thinks Taemin is going to take it back, apologize. Then he jerks back to reality, and his feet jerk him back towards the darkness of the bedroom. He shuts the door more forcefully than perhaps he should and leans back against it, eyes closed. The sink runs for another few minutes, and then there's a small squeak as it's turned off; a minute later, the front door opens and then closes again.

Jinki goes back to bed, but he doesn't get any more sleep that night.

“Why me?” Jinki asks one day. “Why not Minho, or Jonghyun, or Key?”

Taemin pauses, tilts his head. It's a minute before he replies. “Because you were never scared of me,” he says. “Because you were too in love with me to be scared.”

Jinki wonders then if he should have been scared, after all.

It's not hard to tell when Taemin's lying. He doesn't bother to mask it at all, lets his voice drop into sarcasm or lilt upwards with teasing playfulness.

The problem is when Taemin's telling the truth, because even when he's being honest it's hard, sometimes, to tell exactly what he means. Taemin's thoughts run in a different language than what most people speak, Jinki thinks, and sometimes when he says one thing, he really means another; maybe he doesn't even realize the rest of the world hears something different than what he's thinking.

Or maybe-maybe Taemin himself doesn't even know what he means. Maybe not even Taemin fully understands the language of his own thoughts, and the messages from his brain to his mouth get translated slightly differently each time.

“Why are you here? Why me?” Jinki asks again, exasperatedly, a week later. It's mostly rhetorical, mostly just annoyance needing to find a voice, but Taemin answers as if it were a serious question, although his answer is different from last time's.

“There's never any pressure here,” he says, earnest, after a moment's consideration. “I feel like I can almost be normal here.”

Jinki wishes too that Taemin could lead a normal life.

“You should be whoever you want,” he tells him. They both know that this is only superficial advice, that Taemin could never afford, or be allowed, that kind of freedom.

Taemin doesn't contradict him, though-or at least not in words; but when he replies, “Yes, I think I will,” his smile is sad, and his eyes wistful, and Jinki thinks he's thinking the same thing as Taemin when he dreams of a world where they were both normal from the start.

Taemin's crying. He flings himself blindly into Jinki's apartment. Jinki looks up, startled, from his textbook, and Taemin barrels into him. Jinki's caught off guard, and Taemin's aim is a little off, so he ends up standing there awkwardly for a moment, holding Taemin's forearms a little away from himself. Then, slowly, unsure if he's even allowed, he lets go, wraps his arms around Taemin, stroking his back and his hair and murmuring into the top of Taemin's soft brown head.

“Taemin,” he says, pulling up the warm, smooth voice he used to use. “Taem, Taem-it's going to be okay. Don't worry about anything right now.”

Taemin cries until Jinki's feet ache from standing in one position for so long. Taemin's tired too; he's sagging, slightly, weight pulling down on Jinki, and Jinki thinks vaguely of sitting down only he can't, because Taemin needs him.

So he waits until Taemin's shoulders have almost stopped shaking, until Taemin's grip on him loosens so that he's only cradling Taemin in his arms instead of being squeezed and pulled on.

“What happened?” he asks, soft as he can.

“I hate it,” says Taemin, almost a whisper. “It's,” he says, and then his voice breaks and he has to start again. “It's my family, my father, and my brother, always-I hate them.” He sniffles. “I think they hate me.” A pause, and then, “I hate it,” he says again. “Being told what to do, being looked down on by them. Failing them. Being a failure all the time.”

“Oh Taem,” says Jinki. He tightens his hand into a fist against the nape of Taemin's neck, and imagines driving that fist into the gut of Taemin's father, wants to beat him because fathers are supposed to love their sons, because fathers are supposed to see their sons differently than the men they employ. He wants to tell Taemin he's not a failure, that he's never failed, not by Jinki's book, but he's not sure if it'll help or just make things worse; it's hard to know what will cheer another human being up, Jinki muses sadly.

Taemin's hands tighten for a moment in Jinki's shirt, and then he lets go, straightens up, steps back. “Sorry,” he says, wiping at his face with the back of his hand. “I-I didn't know where else to go.”

His hair is mussed; little dyed wisps are flying all over. Jinki smooths one down with his hand. Taemin jerks a little, but then submits to the petting.

“It's okay,” Jinki says. “I'm glad you came here. You know you can always come here.”

Taemin looks at his feet for a minute. “Sorry,” he says, again. He looks toward the window. The light coming in is a dull orangey-yellow-the rusty streetlamp outside glowing through the dark. “It's late; I'll go.”

“Are you going to be all right?”

“Yeah,” says Taemin. “I'll be fine. Thanks.” He heads toward the door, and Jinki follows him.

Taemin hesitates with his hand on the doorknob.

“I'm sorry,” he blurts suddenly, turning back toward Jinki. “I'm sorry, I just-can I stay here tonight? I think-I just don't want to be alone after all.”

He looks near tears again. “Of course,” says Jinki. “Of course you can stay.”

Taemin falls asleep with his head pillowed in the crook of Jinki's arm. Jinki watches the patterns of shadows shifting over Taemin features as his face contorts with the imagined burdens of dreams. He smoothes away the creases marring Taemin's brow with the thumb of his free hand and wonders if this eases the pain, even a little.

Eventually, Jinki falls asleep too, fingers curled in the wispy locks of Taemin's hair where they trail against his collarbone. When he wakes up, bars of light streak through the blinds to stripe across his bed, which is empty but for him. There's no sign of Taemin, save that the sheets are perhaps more wrinkled than usual. Jinki sits up in bed, listening, but the apartment is silent, no padding footsteps or plates clattering from the kitchen. He calls out anyway: “Taemin,” and his voice rings out clear and unnaturally loud, strange to his own ears.

There's no answer, of course. Jinki pushes back the covers and gets out of bed. He tells himself he's not disappointed.

Jinki doesn't see or hear from Taemin for two months. For two months, it's as if Taemin had never come back into his life, or as if he had never been part of Jinki's life at all.

Then, one day, Jinki comes home from the grocery store and there's a car parked by the curb in front of Jinki's building. Which wouldn't be so odd, normally, but this car is dark and sleek and black as night, even the windows, and completely out of sorts considering the area Jinki lives in, considering that most of his neighbors can't even afford to buy cars, let alone one as imposing as this.

Jinki's first thought is Taemin. He starts up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time, and then stops on the landing between the second and third floors. Because Taemin wouldn't draw attention to himself like this, wouldn't give away the one place no one knows about by parking a huge dark car on the street, a neon sign declaring his whereabouts.

Neither would Taemin tell anyone who would where Jinki lives, so something is definitely wrong. Jinki lets go of the rustling plastic bags so that he can back down the steps quietly, but it's too late; a dark-suited man leans out over the railing of the landing above and spots him. The man lets out a yell, and another comes over and sees Jinki as well. Jinki starts running, but he's not fast enough; by the time he bounces down the last two steps to the ground floor, the two men have caught up to him. They catch him by the arms, and Jinki lets himself go limp; each of the men could easily weigh twice as much as him, and he knows it's no use to struggle.

They drag him into his own apartment, deposit him on the floor in front of the sofa, where a middle-aged man is sitting-or lounging, more like, every inch of his posture and every fiber of his expensive tailored clothing indicating that he holds a position of power.

“So you're the one,” says the man, voice deep and commanding. Jinki blinks, and the man elaborates, “The one my son's been playing around with these past few months.”

“Oh,” says Jinki, only the sound doesn't quite make it out of his throat, so he ends up gaping with his mouth in a round “o” instead.

“He's always been a bit of a loose cannon,” says Taemin's father. He sits back and crosses one leg over the other. “We've let him do what he wants, mostly. We didn't say anything when he dreamed up his little boy band, or frittered away all his time on dancing and singing, or later, after he fled the country, when he wasted all those years playing around.” His lip curls up in displeasure. Then he shakes it away with a slight jerk of his head and continues. “We let him do whatever he wanted, at first because he took care of his responsibilities as well, and then because we thought he would do better later on if we gave him a break during his little teenage rebellions.”

“Sir?” asks Jinki when Taemin's father stops again.

“It's time for him to grow up now. No more messing around with-with civilians-” as if it were a dirty word, “-or free rein over his recreational habits.” The man stops here and looks straight at Jinki. “Three billion won,” he says. “Make Taemin cut short his feelings for you and it's yours.”

“You're wrong,” says Jinki, and then coughs sheepishly and adds, “Sir.” He folds his hands into the pockets of his jacket, looks down at his feet. “Taemin doesn't-I'm not anything to him. I'm just-I'm just a toy to him, and one that he's discarded already; I haven't seen him in weeks.”

Taemin's father lets out a bark of laughter, sharp and humorless. “I am an important man,” he says. “Do you really think I would be here talking to you if I didn't think you posed a serious threat to my son's future?”

Jinki looks up at that, eyes wide. He doesn't know what to say, and a minute passes in silence.

“Fine,” Taemin's father says then. “Play dumb if you will.” He puts his sunglasses back on and stands up; Jinki is surprised to see that Mr. Lee is several inches shorter than him, stocky frame nothing like his son's. He beckons to his underlings, and the four men move into a stiff formation around him.

“My offer still stands,” says Taemin's father. “I know that you will make the right choice.” He heads for the door, and his black-suited bodyguards follow. One of them hands Jinki a business card before leaving, plain white with an embossed phone number on one side and nothing else.

He doesn't tell Taemin. At first because there is no Taemin to tell, but a few days later, Taemin reappears, acting as if nothing's amiss, as if he hadn't just fallen off the face of Jinki's earth for two months, and Jinki still doesn't tell him. There's no need, he thinks, since he has no intention of taking the bribe.

Everything goes back to normal-or as normal as things ever were for them. Taemin drops by unexpectedly at random intervals, and they order takeout or watch movies or just talk. Taemin likes hearing about Jinki's life-Jinki's theory is that Taemin likes the normalcy of it, that he lives vicariously through Jinki's average, commoner's life.

There are good days and bad days.

A good day: Taemin appears out of a shaded alley while Jinki's walking home from campus, and tugs on his hand with a smile playing about his lips until Jinki, laughing and not knowing why, follows him. They wind up in front of a tiny, ancient movie theater in a part of town Jinki's never been to. Taemin insists on seeing a movie, and Jinki, helpless as always against Taemin's charms, agrees.

They sit in the dark as the movie reel clicks overhead, dust swirling almost ethereally in the single beam of light. The image on the screen is cracked and grainy, but it doesn't matter, since Taemin seems to be more interested in throwing popcorn at the backs of the heads of the only other people in the theater, a middle-aged couple sitting two rows ahead of them. Jinki, as always, is aware only of Taemin, and pays more attention to him than to the story playing out onscreen.

Another good day: Jinki's studying, and too busy to entertain Taemin when the other shows up out of the blue again, and tells Taemin so. Taemin doesn't seem to mind, and entertains himself instead, with a pack of red licorice that he bites into different lengths and uses to spell out messages to Jinki on the tabletop. Jinki grins at some despite himself, and Taemin, feeling cheered, starts bending the pieces to make pictures as well.

After a while, Jinki tells him that he really does need to concentrate now, and stops looking up at the changing words and pictures Taemin sets on the table in front of him. Taemin pouts-Jinki can practically feel it by now, and after a few minutes, gets up from the chair opposite the table and disappears. Jinki flips a few pages in his textbook, scribbles in his notebook, and doesn't notice Taemin's back until he's interrupted, quite abruptly, by the sweet smell of candy, much too close to his nose.

Jinki pulls the two licorice segments from his nostrils and scrambles to his feet, shouting and chasing after Taemin, who sprints around the room, dodging and laughing helplessly. Jinki tries to stay mad, he really does-but Taemin's good moods are always infectious-or at least, have always been so to him-and soon he finds himself laughing just as hard as Taemin, who's given up running away and is just curled, giggling, on the couch next to an exhausted but happy Jinki.

And the bad days: Taemin bursting through the door exhausted and in low spirits, and collapsing into Jinki's bed, asleep in minutes. Jinki sits beside him with his laptop propped up in his lap and, when Taemin whimpers softly in his sleep, brow forming a troubled crease, strokes his hair until he quiets again, until his face relaxes once more into peaceful dreaming.

Or Taemin looking for refuge from increasingly frequent fights with his father, refusing to go into detail and growing crabby when Jinki pries. Taemin sits in a sulk at the kitchen table then, bratty and stubborn and glaring at anything and everything. Jinki throws his hands up, frustrated - “I don't know what you want from me!” - and retreats to the bedroom, slamming the door shut. He doesn't come out until he's heard Taemin shuffle to the front door and leave, an hour later.

There are also days Jinki doesn't know whether to classify as good or bad-days that tear at his heart but fill it with joy at the same time. Taemin, coming in out of the rain, dripping and looking smaller and more lost than Jinki has ever seen him, and later, sitting on the couch slowly growing warm again as he lets Jinki towel his hair dry. Taemin, joking and happy until he gets a text that turns his grin to a feral, predatory expression, holding himself as an entirely different person as he stalks out of the apartment. Taemin, his head in Jinki's lap, murmuring, “Thank you for being my friend. I don't have very many.”

Jinki clenches his teeth then. Taemin looks up, lashes fluttering, at the sudden tension in Jinki's body, and Jinki forces himself to relax, to smile soothingly down at him and respond.

But in his mind, Jinki thinks, this is why I can't let you go. This is why I can't give you up. And he strengthens his resolve to continue seeing Taemin, keep letting this boy into his life, despite all that's working against them.

Jinki's never had a problem walking down the small, shady alley he takes sometimes as a shortcut home from school. It looks sketchy, sure, but it's usually empty, and on the few occasions when there have been people sharing the narrow space with Jinki, they've always ignored him, and he them.

Maybe he was naïve though, he thinks now, as an unfamiliar voice calls out his name: “Lee Jinki,” and Jinki glances over to his right in surprise.

It's not hard to guess who the young man leaning against the wall is. He's shorter than Taemin, and more muscular, but the family resemblance is impossible to miss.

Taemin's brother catches the recognition in Jinki's eyes and smiles.

He introduces himself with a nod. “Lee Taesun,” he says, and then, “I'm guessing you've heard of me from my little brother.”

Jinki nods, dumbly, remembering the admiration with which Taemin had once spoken of his brother, and the way admiration had turned to jealousy, then bitter resentment as the years went by.

Taesun tosses something up into the air; it spins over and over, glittering in the twilight, and then Taesun catches it again by the handle. It's a knife, Jinki realizes, the silver blade curved threateningly as it narrows towards the tip. Jinki steps back, presses himself against the wall opposite Taesun, as far back as he can get. He thinks, briefly, of running away-but Taesun is probably a faster runner than him, and anyway, he knows where Jinki lives, and Jinki doesn't have anywhere else to go. Taesun smirks at Jinki, and Jinki knows he knows that Jinki knows this.

“I have a message,” Taesun says airily, making Jinki wonder if this practiced nonchalance is an inherited trait, passed down through the family. “My father would like to remind you that it's been three weeks since his proposition for you.” Taesun tosses his knife up again, then catches it and looks Jinki straight in the eye. “What is your response?”

Jinki stares, at a loss for words. He licks his suddenly dry lips. “I,” he says. The memory of Taemin smiling sunnily at him, threading his arm around Jinki's, floods his mind. “I can't,” he says, finally.

Taesun shakes his head. “I thought you were smarter than that,” he says. “I really didn't want to have to do this the hard way.”

Jinki blinks, and suddenly Taesun is in front of him, and there is the cold bite of metal pressed against his adam's apple. He swallows, involuntarily, and the blade of Taesun's knife digs dangerously into his skin, not quite deep enough to cut, but enough to warn that it can.

This time, when Taesun speaks, all the airiness is gone from his voice, and he is suddenly serious, business-like almost, but no businessman would have need of such vicious undertones. “Three more weeks,” he snarls in Jinki's ear. “That's all you get. You know what we want you to do. Start a fight, make him hate you, disappear to where he can't find you-whatever it takes; just get rid of him. Or we'll get rid of you.”

This last sentiment is punctuated with a biting pressure of the knife against Jinki's throat. Jinki tips his head back, grinding against the bricks behind him in a futile effort to get away. He breathes in sharply through his nose-and then Taesun takes the knife away slips it into a sheath inside his jacket. He steps back and walks away, hands in his pockets.

“You'll find the money in your account once we're satisfied that Taemin's free of distractions,” Taemin's brother calls over his shoulder.

Jinki is left breathing hard, rubbing at the skin of his throat. He slumps into a crouch and presses his forehead against his knee.

“Fuck,” he breathes. There is no one around to hear him.

Taemin is in a domestic mood when he visits Jinki three days later. He even knocks rather than simply entering, and even though Jinki goes to open the door with swirling thoughts of telling Taemin to leave, or somehow starting a fight like Taesun had said, they all flee once he sees Taemin's face, smiling cheerfully, honestly, for once.

“I want to watch a movie,” Taemin tells him right away, even before he pushes inside and kicks off his shoes. “Stay in and order takeout, like normal people.”

“Oh,” says Jinki. He shuts the door again behind Taemin. “Okay.”

They agree on Chinese food, and Taemin goes to search for the takeout menus. Jinki rifles through the DVDs on the shelf a while longer and finally gives up and takes five over to Taemin in the kitchen, intent on making him choose.

“So I was thinking maybe The Ring, since you like horror movies,” he says, studying the back of the DVD cases, “but then there's this one, which is really cute, and also one of my friends was saying-”

“Where did you get this?”

Taemin's voice is strange and tight; Jinki looks up to see him holding a small white rectangle of paper: the business card with his father's phone number printed on it. Jinki's mouth opens to answer, but he's not sure what to say, and no words come out.

“My father came here, didn't he,” says Taemin, quiet, and it's not a question. He purses his lips; in four years of living together and the past several months of Taemin coming in and out of his life without warning, Jinki has never seen him like this, soft and serious and so angry the knuckles of his thumb and forefinger are turning white with the effort of pinching the business card between them.

“Taemin,” says Jinki, astonished at the dark expression on the other's face. Taemin smacks the business card back down on the counter, presses it down with his palm for a moment, then takes a step towards Jinki.

“What did he say?” he asks. And then, without waiting for an answer, “Did he threaten you?” He steps forward again, and his voice rises. “Did he hurt you?”

“No,” says Jinki, taken aback. He doesn't mention Taemin's brother holding a knife to his throat; don't ask, don't tell, he thinks.

“Fuck,” says Taemin, and turns away. He walks back to the counter, braces himself against it, head lowered. Then he spins back again to glare at Jinki. Jinki steps backwards involuntarily; Taemin is never like this, never sharp and serious, always protected by layers of nonchalance, his facade against emotion.

“When was this?” Taemin asks.

“Maybe, maybe three weeks ago,” says Jinki. “Maybe a month.”

“Why didn't you tell me,” says Taemin, low and dangerous.

“You disappeared for months!” exclaims Jinki. “I hadn't seen you for almost two months when your dad showed up here, and by the time you turned up two weeks later, I-” had already forgotten about it, he means to say, only at the last second he can't bring himself to tell that lie, so he snaps his mouth shut instead.

Taemin changes the subject. “What did he want, then?”

“I-he-” Jinki wonders if he should lie; but Taemin is looking more murderous by the second and Jinki has never been good at lying. He looks down as he says, “He offered me money to cut you out of my life-or, I guess, to cut myself out of yours.”

Taemin is silent for a moment. Then he pushes past Jinki and storms out of the apartment. He slams the door shut behind him. Jinki wonders how long it will be this time before Taemin comes back again.

Not long, apparently; Jinki wakes up in the middle of the night, feeling like someone's eyes are on him, and sure enough, Taemin is sitting at the foot of his bed, cross-legged. Jinki starts, sits up jerkily against his headboard.

“Taemin,” he says.

Taemin is silent for a long moment. All Jinki can see are the whites of his eyes and a slim, shadowy silhouette.

“You get that it's not your choice to make, right?” Taemin says then, soft but serious. “Whether I come or go. Whether or not I'm a part of your life.”

Jinki nods, says, “I know,” just in case Taemin can't see it.

Taemin nods too. “And it's not theirs, either,” he says. He clenches his fist in the bedcovers; Jinki can hear the rustling fabric.

“Taemin,” Jinki says with a sigh. He slides forward on the bed, knees bunching against his chest, until he's close enough to touch Taemin's sleeve, a light reassuring pressure. Taemin turns, wide eyes staring up at Jinki, and for a moment, he's a half-decade younger, face round and smooth and pretended innocence just convincing enough to make Jinki fall in love with him.

And then Taemin twists around a bit more, rests his hand on Jinki's knee for support as he leans forward, and Jinki knows Taemin isn't that that boy anymore after all, because Taemin five years ago would never have kissed him like this, would never have kissed him at all.

Jinki, on the other hand. Jinki would be lying if he said he hadn't imagined kissing Taemin, hadn't found himself turned towards Taemin and leaning forward nearly every one of the million times they stood next to each other in interviews or performances or television appearances. He cups Taemin's head in his hand, tentatively at first, not sure if he's even allowed this. Taemin pushes against him, wide hand gripping harder against Jinki's thigh, nips at Jinki's lower lip, and Jinki grows bolder at this permission. He slides his fingers up into Taemin's hair, twining and twisting and pulling until Taemin tilts his head back in a gasp.

Taemin clambers into Jinki's lap, and a minute later, Jinki's being pushed down to the sheets. He scrabbles and pushes himself up until he's lying fully on the bed, Taemin's lithe thin body following him all the way up.

Somewhere along the way Taemin stops to discard his shirt. Jinki shrugs out of the worn t-shirt and boxers he'd worn to sleep and watches, appreciative and just a little awestruck, as Taemin takes the time to pull off his fitted jeans as well.

And then Taemin's on him again, their bodies fitted together, and it feels like the culmination of everything, of everything that's happened in the past weeks, months, years since Jinki's known Taemin, since Jinki first fell for that wide-eyed boy who was more than he seemed.

There's a brief second Jinki's mind threatens to wander, threatens to remember all the reasons they shouldn't be doing this, and he pauses, keeping still except for the slight up and down of his shoulders as he pants, breath hot against the skin of Taemin's neck.

“Don't stop,” warns Taemin, trying for harsh but getting mostly breath instead. “Don't you dare stop.”

So Jinki doesn't stop, just keeps taking more and more, until he's leaning on his elbows for leverage and his hips are crashing against Taemin's, until both of them are sweat-slicked and gasping and whimpering broken words, until Taemin's fingers tangle with his and squeeze, hard, as he comes, Jinki spilling himself bare moments later.

Morning comes. Jinki opens his eyes and is filled with dread. He thinks of the now two-week deadline he has to erase Taemin from his life and buries his face in Taemin's hair. Taemin stirs, murmuring a sleepy hello, and Jinki kisses the rim of Taemin's ear, wants to whisper something like, “I love you,” or, “Never leave me.” But he doesn't say either, because he doesn't want to hear that Taemin doesn't love him back, and because he'll be the one leaving Taemin.

Instead, he just noses gently at the soft wispy strands at the side of Taemin's hair until Taemin, laughing in exasperation, rolls him over and kisses him. It's light and sweet and almost chaste, and Jinki finds himself wondering, not for the first time, how much of the playful happy Taemin is real and how much is just for show, and whether Taemin might always be like this if he hadn't grown up in the family he did.

It's not fair, Jinki thinks. He squeezes his eyes shut and wishes for a universe where they can be free to be themselves, be together, and not have pressures from all sides, not be hounded by threats and politics and dark, secret violences.

He opens his eyes. Taemin's still Taemin, Jinki's still Jinki, and he still has only fourteen days left until Taemin's family sends someone to slit Jinki's throat.

[ part ii]