Snowblind [Shinee]
Snowblind
Onew/Jonghyun
In the middle of winter, trust becomes a matter of life and death.
(2,583)
As with many things, it started with a bad decision.
Okay, two bad decisions.
Now
"You awake?" Jinki asked, and he paid attention to how his breath misted right before his eyes. Puffs of mist all too easy to lose sight of in this snow-veiled forest. "Jonghyun? You awake?" He felt the weight on his back stir and he strained to his fingertips to not lose his grip on Jonghyun's hips. Careful steps with this awakened weight, careful not to slip on the snow.
"Hyung," Jonghyun whispered weakly. Too weakly.
"Don't move!" Jinki yelped when Jonghyun tried to stretch his legs. He took a moment to heft Jonghyun's weight, to regain his grip on frozen jeans, to reestablish his footing.
"Put me down," Jonghyun said with all of his usual insistence and none of his usual vigor. As if Jinki would comply with anything said that way. Among other things.
"Sure, I'll just let you hobble along with a sprained ankle, shall I?" Jinki usually wasn't one for sarcasm. Usually. "Or would you like to repay the favor by carrying me instead? You feel that macho already?"
A beat. Jinki expected Jonghyun to have drifted off again to his own little world. Something straight out of film noir with rhythms and melodies and shelves and shelves of books, this world that only Jonghyun lived in.
But a response actually came. "Put me down." More conviction this time, more energy. A cutting chill in his voice that threatened to rival winter.
Jinki sighed - hey, more mist, not that it mattered. "Sorry. It hasn't been a good day."
That earned him a chuckle. It was more than Jinki expected, given… well, given everything. A longer beat, but far friendlier than the one before. "At least we're still alive?"
It was more open than anything Jinki thought Jonghyun might say. "Yeah," Jinki said, redoubling his grip and walking resolutely onwards. "For now."
Jonghyun laughed grimly. "I am never drinking any alcohol ever again."
"Do you think they're okay?" Taemin asked, a resolute figure all too calmly outlined against the chilly sunlight streaming in through the cabin's panoramic window.
Minho knew better than to half-ass an answer. Taemin didn't need to be coddled, wasn't your usual everyday teenager. Even now Minho can't decide whether Key's loving smothering was the cause of or the safeguard against Taemin's dissonance: a grown-up mind with all the youth to boot. It was...
existentialist heaven.
"Okay or not, nothing we can do about it for now," Minho said plainly, almost coldly. (What isn't cold at this time of year?)
Taemin's stillness could match the sleeping forest's. "What a grudge, hyung. You're never going to forgive him, are you?" Such a sweet tone of voice, such a playful edge that the words could have been lost.
Oh. Minho sighed. Taemin was blaming him. Meaning all that calmness, all that stillness-all just deception. Nobody could get angry like Taemin. "I'm not-"
"No lies, hyung."
Minho bit back the rest of his words and just focused on his book.
Then
This wasn't how Jonghyun expected things to turn out.
"So hyung. You and Minho?" he asked, punctuating the moment when the bottle of soju in his hand thumped against the formica.
Jinki's eyebrows quirked and maybe it wasn't all bemusement. "Me and Minho... and you and Kibum and Taemin?" Maybe it was the club's strobe lighting or just the heavy bass rhythm -- whatever it was, Jinki didn't seem as solid.
"No. Just you and Minho...?"
"Well? What about me and Minho?"
"No. You and Minho. As in youandMinho. Like that?"
And just like that Jinki's cheeks went from pleasantly warm to Shirley Temple red. "Why are you speaking like that? There's no me and Minho." He looked effectively festive with his glass of chartreuse. Throw in the blinking lights and Jonghyun could easily pretend it was already Christmas eve.
Bullshit, Jonghyun wanted to call out but managed to lose the word in coughing fit. He wondered what Jinki thought he could gain from being coy; Jonghyun never saw the point. "If you say so, hyung."
"I do say so," Jinki insisted, taking another sip and waiting for Jonghyun to finish his much longer mouthful. "I mean, it's not like I treat Minho any differently right? Am I showing favoritism? Am I giving him too much leeway? I don't think I am, but you have to tell me these things Jjong, I swear I'm doing my best to be impartial-"
Jonghyun shushed him, waving these too many words away because honestly? His brain couldn't keep up with two beats at once, not when he was in this state. "So look over there," he said, pointing at an even dimmer corner of the bar.
Two shady figures, both pale skinned, too far away to distinctly make out. One had too many too-white teeth and the other was wearing glittery lip gloss, both easy to notice even in this light.
"Looks like Minho's up to his old antics again," Jonghyun said with a smirk. He turns his head in time to see the wine glass shatter in Jinki's shaking grip. "Fuck, hyung! Are you-"
"I'm okay," Jinki insisted, but Jonghyun knew that voice, the patented 'please don't bother with me, I'm perfectly fine' Lee Jinki automatic response.
"Bullshit," Jonghyun said out loud this time and hustled his hyung out of the bar.
He really should have left it at that.
Now
"How long was I out?" Jonghyun finally asked after too long a wall of silence.
Not that Jinki was inclined to break it, this stalemate of theirs, this temporary truce. "Can't really say. A few hours, maybe?" Jinki told him, immediately not believing his own words. Those few hours felt... so
much longer. Like days, at least. He tried measuring time by a second for each step but lost interest at around seventy-five when he realized there was no point.
"Man, I'm so weak right now."
"You're just tired," Jinki followed up quickly. There was no need for talks of weakness. Not now. Maybe not ever again.
"Exhausted," Jonghyun corrected him.
"Yeah, that. You sprained your ankle and you took a pretty bad fall. You were actually up for a few minutes - long enough that I'm sure you didn't get a concussion - but you dozed off quickly after. A few hours out is light, given the circumstances."
"Glad you were here for me, hyung."
Liar, Jinki wanted to say, but it came out as an awkward cough as he plodded on through the snow.
Kibum heard the footsteps but didn't pay them any heed.
"What are you making, hyung?" Minho asked as he reached the foot of the stairs. The kitchen was filled with the aroma of potato stew but Minho thought it's still more polite to ask.
"Whatever's best for people stranded in the cold." A typical Kibum answer even as he washed the daisy leaves. "Wanna help out?"
"You mean you're not yet done cooking?"
"With the clean-up, I meant."
"Hmm." Not that there's plenty to clean up, Minho knew. Kibum liked neatness as much as Key liked to be flashy. "I think I'll pass," he answered as he sat on the last step.
"Hmph," without vehemence or resentment. "Might as well make yourself useful and fill up the silence."
"We have radios for that," Minho said, thinking at the back of his head how much the world hasn't changed that Kibum was still asking him to speak up. Like almost a decade of living with each other and conquering the world one runaway hit at a time-all that and they're still stuck in square one. But then again, it's not like Minho still lived in his shell and that Kibum was extorting him out of it. "Want me to play some Lady Gaga?"
"Not really in the mood for music." A flick of the wrist and the leaves went in the pot. Finishing touches. Kibum turned on his heels and looked at Minho for the first time, soup ladle brandished carefully in his
crossed arms.
Another thing that hadn't changed: Kibum can still scare the hell out of Minho. Never mind Key, who just looked for the spotlight and was perfectly content to be the center of attention; the real Kibum can shake the very ground beneath Minho's feet even after all these years have passed. And make him fess up. "I just can't deal with Taemin right now," Minho admitted without meaning to. It's like Kibum put the words in his mouth. Or at least forced them out. "I mean, it's not like I don't care about the hyungs. I just-"
"Feel conflicted?" Kibum interrupted, shutting Minho up completely. "You're not that hard to figure out, Choi Minho. Throw in a bit of 'guilty', too."
"If you're such the master," Minho retorted, "why the hell should I feel guilty? I didn't do anything."
"Except maybe wish very quietly in that pretty little head of yours that Jinki and Jjong just disappear from your life? After last night? And now it's looking like you got your wish after all?"
Kibum isn't a telepath, Minho reminds himself. But how in the world he can figure out things like that, Minho will never know.
"The last thing I remember," Jonghyun groused, his breath tickling the back of Jinki's ear, "is storming out. Heck I don't even remember why."
"That's good," Jinki huffed. "Then I won't remind you."
Jonghyun went silent for a while. "Not a pretty story, huh?"
Jinki stopped and leaned his shoulder against a tree. "Mind if we rest for a few minutes?"
"Hyung, you don't even have to ask," Jonghyun chided him.
Jinki squatted down and - ever so gently - leaned Jonghyun against the birch before settling him on the ground. He tried to ignore the sharp gasp, but he was careful about Jonghyun's ankle so that meant there's another injury there somewhere. "You okay?"
"You mean-"
"-yes, apart from the sprained ankle, tiredness, hangover, cold weather, windburn, hunger and thirst."
"Very succinct, hyung. You missed out on the bruised side, though."
Jinki looked at Jonghyun-properly, really looked at him for the first time. Pale complexion, heavy-lidded eyes, chapped lips (crap, we really need to find something to drink, fast)... Jonghyun looks withered and things aren't that much brighter. "You sure it's not a cracked rib?"
"Great, hyung," Jonghyun groaned, his words shaped by frozen breath. "Way to make me feel better. Just aches a bit, that's all."
"You have to tell me these things," Jinki fretted as he wrung his hands, never mind that his fingers felt just about ready to fall off. "I could have been stressing your ribs or som-"
"I'm fine. Hyung," Jonghyun snarled and Jinki froze in place. "It's just a dull pain, okay? So don't make a big deal out of it."
"I'm not. See, I'm backing off," and Jinki even held his hands up in a gesture of surrender, fooled himself into thinking that he can't decide whether Jonghyun is shaking in cold or anger.
"I'll let you know when it gets bad. But until then, I'm fine. Okay? Clear?"
Jinki swallowed his protests and pretended that the dryness in his mouth is just dehydration. "As crystal."
Then
They got home thanks to a slightly manic cab driver, a silent prayer of gratitude for small favors, and quick text to Minho that something came up and he can just enjoy the night by himself, not that he needed permission.
"Of all the times to act all macho, hyung," Jonghyun chided, pulling out a handkerchief and pressing it against the gash in Jinki's palm. It wasn't bleeding as much as he feared, but it was bleeding and that was bad enough.
"It wasn't exactly deliberate," Jinki muttered, trying hard not to look at whatever first aid Jonghyun thought he could administer while half-drunk in a taxi's back seat. "I really think we should go back and apologize to the owner."
"It's a busy night, we shouldn't bother them about something so trivial," Jonghyun pointed out. Not to mention any risk of management finding out that their precious little idols acted less than perfect. Jinki's preference for sophisticated wine was loudly hailed, Jonghyun's satisfaction with cheap soju... not so much. "Not the first time someone broke glass in a club."
"It's the principle of the thing."
Jonghyun looked up at Jinki's tone. "You sound only half convinced. That's not like the hyung I know."
A thousand-yard stare right outside the window, flashing lights threw Jinki's crooked smile into sharp focus. "Maybe your hyung's only half the person he used to be."
Existential drama in a public utility vehicle on the way home from half as much alcohol that Jonghyun planned for the night. There was a tragedy in there somewhere, a play waiting to be written down. Too bad Jonghyun was a poet, not a playwright.
Now
"I really think the storm is over," Taemin announces as soon as he descends the stairs. "Calm weather, crisp sunlight. We should go look for them."
"No," both Minho and Kibum say. Kibum pulls out his phone and frowns at the continuing absence of reception.
"Umma, you can't possibly think they can survive out there," Taemin retorts. Everyone notices how Minho gets completely ignored.
"Give Jinki some credit," Kibum snaps, and okay, a part of Key is in there somewhere. "He's stronger than he looks, he's the smartest of all of us, he's never let any of us down and I doubt he ever will. I expected better of you, Taem."
"What the hell am I doing wrong?" Taemin bites back. "I'm supporting him- hell, I'm beside myself with worry! That's why I want to find him!" He breathes deep and gears up, words ready to fly out of his mouth-but a look at Kibum's expression freezes his tongue.
"Don't you think Jinki-hyung can get both of them back here?" Kibum whispers and there's no way Taemin's voice can be as sharp. "I do. He doesn't need us acting rashly. He's going to kick all our asses if he has to go out in the cold again just to look for us."
They all falter when they try to imagine Jinki kicking ass.
"I stand by my words," Kibum tells them flatly.
"He can kick my ass after I make sure he's alive," Taemin says, striding to the closet. He makes it half way when he feels someone grip his shoulder. Someone strong. He turns on his heel and throws a punch-
-that Minho catches before even more regrets get formed, and there's already too much in the span of just one weekend.
"Calm down," Minho hisses.
"Fuck you," Taemin hisses back, more livid, more venomous. Staring Minho straight in the eyes. "That's your problem isn't it? That Jinki-hyung didn't."
It turns out there's still room for more regrets before Kibum could wrestle them apart.
Jinki the survivalist. That was new.
The world was familiar with Jinki the Chickenator. Jinki the Opera Connoisseur. Jinki the Klutz - not that he was proud of that, and really, his clumsiness was supposed to be all Jinki anyway, not part of what he wanted to be remembered for. Jinki the Slightly Depressed Leader - at least that set him apart, that bit of honesty and chagrin.
It's been some time since he thought of himself as Onew. He was perfectly happy with shedding that persona now that Jinki had made it big.
Onew/Jonghyun
In the middle of winter, trust becomes a matter of life and death.
(2,583)
As with many things, it started with a bad decision.
Okay, two bad decisions.
Now
"You awake?" Jinki asked, and he paid attention to how his breath misted right before his eyes. Puffs of mist all too easy to lose sight of in this snow-veiled forest. "Jonghyun? You awake?" He felt the weight on his back stir and he strained to his fingertips to not lose his grip on Jonghyun's hips. Careful steps with this awakened weight, careful not to slip on the snow.
"Hyung," Jonghyun whispered weakly. Too weakly.
"Don't move!" Jinki yelped when Jonghyun tried to stretch his legs. He took a moment to heft Jonghyun's weight, to regain his grip on frozen jeans, to reestablish his footing.
"Put me down," Jonghyun said with all of his usual insistence and none of his usual vigor. As if Jinki would comply with anything said that way. Among other things.
"Sure, I'll just let you hobble along with a sprained ankle, shall I?" Jinki usually wasn't one for sarcasm. Usually. "Or would you like to repay the favor by carrying me instead? You feel that macho already?"
A beat. Jinki expected Jonghyun to have drifted off again to his own little world. Something straight out of film noir with rhythms and melodies and shelves and shelves of books, this world that only Jonghyun lived in.
But a response actually came. "Put me down." More conviction this time, more energy. A cutting chill in his voice that threatened to rival winter.
Jinki sighed - hey, more mist, not that it mattered. "Sorry. It hasn't been a good day."
That earned him a chuckle. It was more than Jinki expected, given… well, given everything. A longer beat, but far friendlier than the one before. "At least we're still alive?"
It was more open than anything Jinki thought Jonghyun might say. "Yeah," Jinki said, redoubling his grip and walking resolutely onwards. "For now."
Jonghyun laughed grimly. "I am never drinking any alcohol ever again."
"Do you think they're okay?" Taemin asked, a resolute figure all too calmly outlined against the chilly sunlight streaming in through the cabin's panoramic window.
Minho knew better than to half-ass an answer. Taemin didn't need to be coddled, wasn't your usual everyday teenager. Even now Minho can't decide whether Key's loving smothering was the cause of or the safeguard against Taemin's dissonance: a grown-up mind with all the youth to boot. It was...
existentialist heaven.
"Okay or not, nothing we can do about it for now," Minho said plainly, almost coldly. (What isn't cold at this time of year?)
Taemin's stillness could match the sleeping forest's. "What a grudge, hyung. You're never going to forgive him, are you?" Such a sweet tone of voice, such a playful edge that the words could have been lost.
Oh. Minho sighed. Taemin was blaming him. Meaning all that calmness, all that stillness-all just deception. Nobody could get angry like Taemin. "I'm not-"
"No lies, hyung."
Minho bit back the rest of his words and just focused on his book.
Then
This wasn't how Jonghyun expected things to turn out.
"So hyung. You and Minho?" he asked, punctuating the moment when the bottle of soju in his hand thumped against the formica.
Jinki's eyebrows quirked and maybe it wasn't all bemusement. "Me and Minho... and you and Kibum and Taemin?" Maybe it was the club's strobe lighting or just the heavy bass rhythm -- whatever it was, Jinki didn't seem as solid.
"No. Just you and Minho...?"
"Well? What about me and Minho?"
"No. You and Minho. As in youandMinho. Like that?"
And just like that Jinki's cheeks went from pleasantly warm to Shirley Temple red. "Why are you speaking like that? There's no me and Minho." He looked effectively festive with his glass of chartreuse. Throw in the blinking lights and Jonghyun could easily pretend it was already Christmas eve.
Bullshit, Jonghyun wanted to call out but managed to lose the word in coughing fit. He wondered what Jinki thought he could gain from being coy; Jonghyun never saw the point. "If you say so, hyung."
"I do say so," Jinki insisted, taking another sip and waiting for Jonghyun to finish his much longer mouthful. "I mean, it's not like I treat Minho any differently right? Am I showing favoritism? Am I giving him too much leeway? I don't think I am, but you have to tell me these things Jjong, I swear I'm doing my best to be impartial-"
Jonghyun shushed him, waving these too many words away because honestly? His brain couldn't keep up with two beats at once, not when he was in this state. "So look over there," he said, pointing at an even dimmer corner of the bar.
Two shady figures, both pale skinned, too far away to distinctly make out. One had too many too-white teeth and the other was wearing glittery lip gloss, both easy to notice even in this light.
"Looks like Minho's up to his old antics again," Jonghyun said with a smirk. He turns his head in time to see the wine glass shatter in Jinki's shaking grip. "Fuck, hyung! Are you-"
"I'm okay," Jinki insisted, but Jonghyun knew that voice, the patented 'please don't bother with me, I'm perfectly fine' Lee Jinki automatic response.
"Bullshit," Jonghyun said out loud this time and hustled his hyung out of the bar.
He really should have left it at that.
Now
"How long was I out?" Jonghyun finally asked after too long a wall of silence.
Not that Jinki was inclined to break it, this stalemate of theirs, this temporary truce. "Can't really say. A few hours, maybe?" Jinki told him, immediately not believing his own words. Those few hours felt... so
much longer. Like days, at least. He tried measuring time by a second for each step but lost interest at around seventy-five when he realized there was no point.
"Man, I'm so weak right now."
"You're just tired," Jinki followed up quickly. There was no need for talks of weakness. Not now. Maybe not ever again.
"Exhausted," Jonghyun corrected him.
"Yeah, that. You sprained your ankle and you took a pretty bad fall. You were actually up for a few minutes - long enough that I'm sure you didn't get a concussion - but you dozed off quickly after. A few hours out is light, given the circumstances."
"Glad you were here for me, hyung."
Liar, Jinki wanted to say, but it came out as an awkward cough as he plodded on through the snow.
Kibum heard the footsteps but didn't pay them any heed.
"What are you making, hyung?" Minho asked as he reached the foot of the stairs. The kitchen was filled with the aroma of potato stew but Minho thought it's still more polite to ask.
"Whatever's best for people stranded in the cold." A typical Kibum answer even as he washed the daisy leaves. "Wanna help out?"
"You mean you're not yet done cooking?"
"With the clean-up, I meant."
"Hmm." Not that there's plenty to clean up, Minho knew. Kibum liked neatness as much as Key liked to be flashy. "I think I'll pass," he answered as he sat on the last step.
"Hmph," without vehemence or resentment. "Might as well make yourself useful and fill up the silence."
"We have radios for that," Minho said, thinking at the back of his head how much the world hasn't changed that Kibum was still asking him to speak up. Like almost a decade of living with each other and conquering the world one runaway hit at a time-all that and they're still stuck in square one. But then again, it's not like Minho still lived in his shell and that Kibum was extorting him out of it. "Want me to play some Lady Gaga?"
"Not really in the mood for music." A flick of the wrist and the leaves went in the pot. Finishing touches. Kibum turned on his heels and looked at Minho for the first time, soup ladle brandished carefully in his
crossed arms.
Another thing that hadn't changed: Kibum can still scare the hell out of Minho. Never mind Key, who just looked for the spotlight and was perfectly content to be the center of attention; the real Kibum can shake the very ground beneath Minho's feet even after all these years have passed. And make him fess up. "I just can't deal with Taemin right now," Minho admitted without meaning to. It's like Kibum put the words in his mouth. Or at least forced them out. "I mean, it's not like I don't care about the hyungs. I just-"
"Feel conflicted?" Kibum interrupted, shutting Minho up completely. "You're not that hard to figure out, Choi Minho. Throw in a bit of 'guilty', too."
"If you're such the master," Minho retorted, "why the hell should I feel guilty? I didn't do anything."
"Except maybe wish very quietly in that pretty little head of yours that Jinki and Jjong just disappear from your life? After last night? And now it's looking like you got your wish after all?"
Kibum isn't a telepath, Minho reminds himself. But how in the world he can figure out things like that, Minho will never know.
"The last thing I remember," Jonghyun groused, his breath tickling the back of Jinki's ear, "is storming out. Heck I don't even remember why."
"That's good," Jinki huffed. "Then I won't remind you."
Jonghyun went silent for a while. "Not a pretty story, huh?"
Jinki stopped and leaned his shoulder against a tree. "Mind if we rest for a few minutes?"
"Hyung, you don't even have to ask," Jonghyun chided him.
Jinki squatted down and - ever so gently - leaned Jonghyun against the birch before settling him on the ground. He tried to ignore the sharp gasp, but he was careful about Jonghyun's ankle so that meant there's another injury there somewhere. "You okay?"
"You mean-"
"-yes, apart from the sprained ankle, tiredness, hangover, cold weather, windburn, hunger and thirst."
"Very succinct, hyung. You missed out on the bruised side, though."
Jinki looked at Jonghyun-properly, really looked at him for the first time. Pale complexion, heavy-lidded eyes, chapped lips (crap, we really need to find something to drink, fast)... Jonghyun looks withered and things aren't that much brighter. "You sure it's not a cracked rib?"
"Great, hyung," Jonghyun groaned, his words shaped by frozen breath. "Way to make me feel better. Just aches a bit, that's all."
"You have to tell me these things," Jinki fretted as he wrung his hands, never mind that his fingers felt just about ready to fall off. "I could have been stressing your ribs or som-"
"I'm fine. Hyung," Jonghyun snarled and Jinki froze in place. "It's just a dull pain, okay? So don't make a big deal out of it."
"I'm not. See, I'm backing off," and Jinki even held his hands up in a gesture of surrender, fooled himself into thinking that he can't decide whether Jonghyun is shaking in cold or anger.
"I'll let you know when it gets bad. But until then, I'm fine. Okay? Clear?"
Jinki swallowed his protests and pretended that the dryness in his mouth is just dehydration. "As crystal."
Then
They got home thanks to a slightly manic cab driver, a silent prayer of gratitude for small favors, and quick text to Minho that something came up and he can just enjoy the night by himself, not that he needed permission.
"Of all the times to act all macho, hyung," Jonghyun chided, pulling out a handkerchief and pressing it against the gash in Jinki's palm. It wasn't bleeding as much as he feared, but it was bleeding and that was bad enough.
"It wasn't exactly deliberate," Jinki muttered, trying hard not to look at whatever first aid Jonghyun thought he could administer while half-drunk in a taxi's back seat. "I really think we should go back and apologize to the owner."
"It's a busy night, we shouldn't bother them about something so trivial," Jonghyun pointed out. Not to mention any risk of management finding out that their precious little idols acted less than perfect. Jinki's preference for sophisticated wine was loudly hailed, Jonghyun's satisfaction with cheap soju... not so much. "Not the first time someone broke glass in a club."
"It's the principle of the thing."
Jonghyun looked up at Jinki's tone. "You sound only half convinced. That's not like the hyung I know."
A thousand-yard stare right outside the window, flashing lights threw Jinki's crooked smile into sharp focus. "Maybe your hyung's only half the person he used to be."
Existential drama in a public utility vehicle on the way home from half as much alcohol that Jonghyun planned for the night. There was a tragedy in there somewhere, a play waiting to be written down. Too bad Jonghyun was a poet, not a playwright.
Now
"I really think the storm is over," Taemin announces as soon as he descends the stairs. "Calm weather, crisp sunlight. We should go look for them."
"No," both Minho and Kibum say. Kibum pulls out his phone and frowns at the continuing absence of reception.
"Umma, you can't possibly think they can survive out there," Taemin retorts. Everyone notices how Minho gets completely ignored.
"Give Jinki some credit," Kibum snaps, and okay, a part of Key is in there somewhere. "He's stronger than he looks, he's the smartest of all of us, he's never let any of us down and I doubt he ever will. I expected better of you, Taem."
"What the hell am I doing wrong?" Taemin bites back. "I'm supporting him- hell, I'm beside myself with worry! That's why I want to find him!" He breathes deep and gears up, words ready to fly out of his mouth-but a look at Kibum's expression freezes his tongue.
"Don't you think Jinki-hyung can get both of them back here?" Kibum whispers and there's no way Taemin's voice can be as sharp. "I do. He doesn't need us acting rashly. He's going to kick all our asses if he has to go out in the cold again just to look for us."
They all falter when they try to imagine Jinki kicking ass.
"I stand by my words," Kibum tells them flatly.
"He can kick my ass after I make sure he's alive," Taemin says, striding to the closet. He makes it half way when he feels someone grip his shoulder. Someone strong. He turns on his heel and throws a punch-
-that Minho catches before even more regrets get formed, and there's already too much in the span of just one weekend.
"Calm down," Minho hisses.
"Fuck you," Taemin hisses back, more livid, more venomous. Staring Minho straight in the eyes. "That's your problem isn't it? That Jinki-hyung didn't."
It turns out there's still room for more regrets before Kibum could wrestle them apart.
Jinki the survivalist. That was new.
The world was familiar with Jinki the Chickenator. Jinki the Opera Connoisseur. Jinki the Klutz - not that he was proud of that, and really, his clumsiness was supposed to be all Jinki anyway, not part of what he wanted to be remembered for. Jinki the Slightly Depressed Leader - at least that set him apart, that bit of honesty and chagrin.
It's been some time since he thought of himself as Onew. He was perfectly happy with shedding that persona now that Jinki had made it big.