lover, you should've come over
lover, you should've come over
~ 5,970 w, pg13, (kai/sulli + taemin)
Traditionally, Jinri kisses Taemin good morning and Jongin good night.
■ for onceuponataem, don't ask me why I'd write something for such a bully like her..jks, jks, I adore you naomi (sometimes)
■ inspired by the jeff buckley's song
■ I have a feeling I'll eventually end up writing something for each and everyone of you bbs ♥
Jinri’s not entirely sure how she ended up in the cab, squished between Soojung and Victoria but that’s where the night takes her: second rate taxi, dodgy streets and four girls crammed into the back seats.
It’s tight enough to get her car sick but if that’s the case with Victoria and Luna, they don’t show it.
The strap of her kitten heels is tangled with Soojung’s Converse and there’s no getting out of it, so Jinri tries to listens to old pop songs on the radio instead unnecessary details about the party.
“Are you even listening?” Soojung nudges her in the rib with her elbow.
Jinri flinches a little and nods. “Y - yeah.”
Soojung raises a cocky brow. “Really? Do you even try?”
“You know how I feel about this,” Sulli groans with a sigh, burrowing into the bumpy seat, “It’s going to be awkward, it’s already awkward as it is and we don’t even talk!”
“I told you many times, Jin,” The brunette says, not bothering to look up from her phone and continues to text restlessly, “Jongin’s my best friend, it’s his special night and he specifically asked me to bring you along.”
“More like begged” Luna chimes in.
“How do you know?” Then turn to Soojung, gawking, “How does she know?”
“Soojungie told us” Victoria says flippantly, still powdering her nose after five minutes.
Jinri groans some more and Soojung bites her lips to keep from talking, patting her back in useless comfort. “We’re all family here, there’s no secret.”
“But you promised!”
“And you promised to come tonight!” Soojung retorts.
Jinri’s got to stop saying things she doesn’t mean to make things go away because clearly, it doesn’t work - not when it comes to Jongin and his crush on her anyway.
Sehun lets them in through the back door of the club like it’s some secrecy.
Soojung’s making goo-goo eyes when she takes Sehun’s hand and he doesn’t seem to hear when the rest of them offer their polite thanks, no one blames him. Then they spread out like bunch of strangers that arrived together - Luna disappears into a sea of drunken oppas, Victoria into her ‘we love noona’ crowd and Jinri shifts awkwardly in the dark spot next to wall.
Jinri was never comfortable to begin with but then Jongin spots her from behind the bar and suddenly, she’s uncomfortable.
She braces herself for when he comes over, he doesn’t.
Baekhyun pulls him into another room and his hold on her gaze is broken, leaving Jinri heaving for clean air and a glass of something to loosen her up.
The SHINee boys are more than welcoming when she saunters over with a tight line of smile that typically, is reserved for Taemin.
Jinri keeps in mind that it’s obviously about Taemin. All the polite smiles and handshakes leads to a question that is inevitably, somehow related to his whereabouts because she’s here, so why isn’t he?
She makes excuses like he does; mostly because she can’t even answer that question herself.
Taeyeon watches her with that absent parent look that seems too omniscient, finishing her third drink of the night. “So you and Taemin…”
“Yes, Taemin and I.”
“You two kids getting along?”
“Yes, unni,” Jinri confirms, staring into distance of dances and bright lights. “Yes, we are, thanks for asking.”
The older girl peeks over her with a suspicious look, says, “Well then get out there and try to look like you’re enjoying yourself.”
Despite her reluctance, Jinri decides it’s better to look like a fool on the dance floor by herself than spend another minute under Taeyeon’s knowing gaze.
She doesn’t know if it was intentional or purely coincidental when she ends up in the middle of it all - in front of Jongin and behind Soojung’s pointed glare. Jinri can’t say which one is more unnerving so she lets the surrounding do its thing, moves her through the crowd and leaves her stuck next to an unlikely alliance that will chit chat then slides over.
By the time Jinri gets pass the trainee with a button nose, she was sure she’d lose him.
But of course, it’s never been that easy - not four years ago and not now.
They stand still, just staring back at each other, opening the flood gate of lost eternity and letting it engulf them into another universe of slow moving room and betraying smiles - kind of like that day.
“H - hey” Jinri greets lamely.
He’s not doing any better with his awkward wave hello, “Hey”
Jongin is unchangeable. He remains a half-hearted boy with lazy smile and messy hair, tell all eyes that reveals much more than Jinri ever needs to know. Like always, he’s a dead giveaway with his heart on his sleeves when he takes a step towards hers with a cough.
“I haven’t seen you in a while.” He says and it sounds even more pretentious than she is.
Hesitant, Jinri nods, “Yeah, I’ve been -“
“Busy,” he completes her excuse for her, “I know.”
She tries not to frown, tucks a strand of uncurled hair behind her ear. “Congratulation on your success, I heard your album’s sale is…miraculous and -“
The cycle continues on and so does the party, there’s never time for reunions between old friends. Jinri accepts that and allows herself to be swallowed whole into loud cheers and cheap smell of beer. Not out of the usual, Jongin tries to hold onto her when he should have learnt to let go a long time ago.
Soojung leaves with Sehun. Not the first, won’t be the last. Jinri lets it be but tonight she’s furious.
At this point of time, her first instinct screams to call Taemin so she does and when he doesn’t pick up, she’s not surprised enough to be angry about it. She goes over to Luna first, Jinri knows her well enough to figure she’s got a better chance at hitching a ride but has to find out from Chanyeol - she left drunk and in Onew’s arm, took Victoria and Kyuhyun with them. Amber can smell her desperation by the time she managed to squeeze through Henry and Kris and delivers the bad news of her responsibility as a co-host to stay with thumbs down.
Finally, Jinri does what needs to be done and wraps herself in a coat thick enough for two and stumbles outside, on the verge of running when she spots a cab taking off.
“Wait!” She shouts pleadingly, “Please!”
Luckily for Jinri, the vehicle stops with a loud screech at the curb and makes her night. She rushes over, puffing out hot air in the freezing cold as she wraps her gloves covered hands around the door handle, quickly pulling it open enough for her to climb in.
There’s another passenger next to her, she doesn’t look - she doesn’t need to, it’s someone from her company, probably. The cab driver doesn’t wait long enough for her to catch her breath, asks for her destination and she says loud enough through each breath for him to understand.
When she turns side way to meet her company for the ride, Jinri knows her luck has run out for the night.
“Y - You turning in early?” Jongin sputters and prays he sounds less nervous than he feels.
Jinri gives him a small nod, slowly recovering from her temporary shock. “You..you too?”
“Um…yeah,” He mutters, trying to relax back in his seat and failing, “Our schedule is fully packed for the next couple of days, I don’t know how they all can party so hard with so little energy but,” a sigh leaves his lips when his lids fall shut, “All I want to do is sleep.”
She refuses to look at him and lands her weary gaze on the fumbling hands on her lap. “Success sure is tough, you agree with me, right?”
Sometimes Jongin thinks Jinri must know, how could she not know? He’s seen himself once before when he’s looking at her, it’s not a puzzle that needs to be solved - it’s always been there, just staring at her, literally.
“Yeah,” he replies, clearing his throat, “I…I enjoy it though - getting to live the dream after all that hard work.”
The car hits a bump and so does she. “Uh..yeah...I think that’s one way to put it.”
Her awkward laugh makes this harder to take but Jongin continues his act of oblivion, if not for her then for herself. His lips quirk up enough to show his understanding but never enough to convey his true feelings, if she wants to play hide and seek then he’ll go along.
He wants to ask about Taemin but he knows he shouldn’t, not for her sake anyway. Instead he goes on with the wish walk talk. “Thanks for coming tonight.”
“You shouldn’t have to say thank you.” They’re stuck in the hectic traffic and when she looks up at him, she’s glowing under the red light with a careful smile. “It’s your night, you deserve to get everything ever wish for.”
Jongin chuckles a little at his, stretching his limbs as far as he could in the small space.
“Everything?”
“Yeah, everything.” She confirms, her expression blank and composed. “This is the most you’ll ever get.”
He stiffens, shakes his head. “I hope not.”
Jongin knows parts of her that no one ever took the time to notice but like all the others, it’s her smile that he fell for - sadly it’s coincidentally missing with his own.
He pushes his luck one street before hers. “I could walk you back to the dorm, if you’d like.”
Jinri freezes, sitting up a little straighter. Her eyes are out the window and so are her mind but he knows she’s heard him loud and clear. He also knows she’s considering, it’s in the way she swivels to his direction slightly and taps her fingers on her bouncing knee.
“Only if it’s not too much of a trouble,” she says quietly but steadily, “It’s your night after all.”
The cab comes to a stop with a halt, just four buildings ahead of hers and Jongin stuffs a fistful the cash in the driver’s hand before she can even reach for her wallet and almost trips on his way to open her door.
Jongin offers a helping hand and when Jinri takes it, she’ll never know but she’s given him all he ever wanted in a night.
Boyfriend asides, Jinri doesn’t know how to say no and tonight belongs to Jongin, she tells herself, for once it’s not about Taemin. They keeps their distance with meaningless questions and airy talk, behave as politely as used-to-be-friends can be.
It’s like standing on the edge of the cliff and not jumping - she’s threading dangerous territory.
“You still look exactly the same as the last time I saw you.” He says after a long-suffering silence, looking around in the night sky for little stars.
“I…hope that’s a good thing.”
Jongin’s laughing at her. “I mean you’re still as pretty as I remember.”
If it was back then she wouldn’t have blushed, not even a single twitch of the muscles but everything’s different now. Jinri peeks over the thick layer of fur on her coat’s collar, he moves in close enough to feel her fingers ghost against his. Their hands are cold but it makes her insides warmer than anything she’s felt in months - there’s a mix of excitement and sadness, Jongin shares half of the responsibility and so does Taemin.
There’s no more talking for a while, only faint sounds of their footsteps on the pavements and a lonely dog barking for some company, Jongin breaks the ice in a strangled voice, says, “You’ve changed.”
Confused and hesitant, she asks in a small voice, “How?”
And there’s a distressed look on Jongin’s face, like he’s about to tell her a bad news only she refuses to acknowledge. Either way Jinri doesn’t want to hear it, especially not from him - her guess is he’s known that all along too.
“You’re unhappy,” is what he whispers when they get to her doorstep.
Jinri opens her mouth to say something but changes her mind at the last minute; instead she blinks at him innocently like with the rest, “I don’t know what you mean.”
Taemin’s lying on the couch, drunk. Jinri drops her keys, waking up a storm that soon will be a tornado.
It’s like a week ago and the week before that - he pushes off whatever he’s been lying on, trips on the rug and stumbles over with the confidence that she’ll catch him no matter what, she does.
Seeing him in a state of hot mess is like a reoccurring dream she keeps waking up from and forgetting. Jinri should be used to it but after, she’d try so hard to forget that sometime it works.
“Who do we have here?” He sounds too joyous to be Taemin when he throws her arm around her shoulder, “My lovely, lovely girlfriend coming home so early from a wild party!”
Jinri regains her balance quickly enough to hold him up in her arms, with a sigh, she begins the same old line of questions, “Did you call a cab?”
“Nope,” he mumbles, shaking his head and nuzzling against her neck, “I walked all the way over here just to see you because I am the cutest boyfriend ever.”
There are occasions where he’s doting when the night is still young but it will all turn sour very soon; Jinri’s learned that very early on.
“Did you?” Jinri feigns innocence, throwing her clutch on the arm chair before letting him pull her onto the couch with him. She groans in pain, her ankle trapped under the heavy weight of his body and when she moves away for an inch, he snatches her wrist.
Taemin makes a frustrated noise. “You’re not very appreciative.”
Sulli sighs tiredly, dropping down to her knees, feeling them ache when her bones collide with the wooden floor board. She watches him under the dim light, her face against the cushion and besides his own. His half lidded eyes are open wide enough to look into her twin chocolate pool, somewhere in there, love remains but right now, she’s stroking his mussed hair and shuts her window of sight, escaping the real world for even a second if possible because for so long now, he’s been the only reality she’s accepted living in.
It begins again. “Do you think it’s really tiring?”
“What’s tiring?” She’ll ask the same thing like the last, twirling with a strand of his hair and pressing a dead kiss on his flesh.
“All of…” He’s slowly fading, it’s a good sign, so she likes to think, “This. Sometimes I’m so tired, I can barely go on walking, do you ever feel like that ‘cause I do, all the time.”
She nods, not in agreement and not disagreement either.
“I don’t think you know.”
“Go to sleep, Taemin.”
The sound of Victoria’s blender at work wakes Jinri to face a hazardous sun ray peeking out from the blinds. She rubs her eyes and accepts the bowl of cereal from Soojung’s extending hand, silently watching her walk away and into their room.
There’s not a trace of Taemin and she tries to recall last night without giving herself a headache.
But of course, how could she forget - now days, there’s no talking when he’s sober.
When he’s leaving, she’s entering - a moment of one foot out the door and dry eyes lingering on for more of the brief intentionally coincidental passing of theirs. The ends of her sleeves brush against the end of her wool scarf, Jinri moves back to give him room to slide by, untouched. She should have known Jongin wouldn’t have ended it at that.
“I thought you’d be at filming,” he says, looking a bit startled.
“I did,” she says quietly, stopping on the other side of the door, “I just got back and thought I should start memorizing the new script. I like to rehearse without getting disturbed so I thought the studio would be the best place for it, the quitter the better right?”
Jongin’s holding the door open so it wouldn’t close in his face, he wouldn’t have to go away then. “D - Do you want some help?”
“No, no,” Jinri rejects with the faintest of smile, “You probably have a schedule to attend to anyway -“
“I’m free.”
“J -“ She starts, but a loud, thunderous ‘bang’ interrupts her, making her jump and suddenly he’s in the room with her, the door is closed, locked with the blind’s pulled down. “What are you doing?”
“Come on,” he urges her further, “Read me the lines.”
Jinri’s left herself alone with him, the two of them - together.
There are things in which makes Jinri easily lovable.
The way she giggles over her words when she mispronounces them, frames her mouth with manicured hand and rocks back and forth like a child. Her blush when she reads romantic dialogue that is not a part of her role. The light dancing in her eyes when she knows she’s done an impressive job. The growing sentimental looks while reciting sad words from sad scenes. The genteelness impulse of an actress, unconsciously criticizing the writing here and there to him.
But it’s hard to love Jinri in these terms, when she’s unstoppable at loving his oldest friend and battling the sorrow that comes with it.
“Do you think the director will cut my scene short?” Jinri asks, resting her chins on top of her knees.
Jongin studies her carefully. “Why’d you think that?”
She hesitates a little then says, “I still don’t think I’m fluent and natural enough for this much air time.”
“I…I think you’re great,” he tells her with a little laugh, shifting closer to where she’s been sitting,
“You wouldn’t have gotten the leading role in last year’s drama otherwise.”
She smiles up at him but there’s something held back from it. “Thanks, but that was our company’s drama.”
“So…” he says doubtfully, “You think you don’t deserve it?”
Jinri’s looking like she’s not sure how to answer that. “No one really gets what they deserve anymore.”
He considers briefly. “No, they don’t.”
“You know, you look sad too.”
Jongin blinks back at her, dumbstruck with her observation.
Jinri tilts her head. “The last time we saw each other, you told me that I’m unhappy,” her face seems to twist at this, almost as if it stings her to say, “Are you too?”
There’s a touch of lightness to his bitter statement. “Between Taemin, you and I - who isn’t?”
(She hates him for mentioning Taemin. If anything Jongin should be ashamed, Jinri thinks, after all he’s the one stuck on his best friend’s girl without any sign of moving on.
If anything, Jinri should be ashamed that her misery is so transparent to him and not Taemin.)
Jinri convinces herself that Soojung being Jong in’s closest girl friend is the root of all her problems but she knows it’s all self-conviction when there’s avoiding to be done and she’s done so little of it.
It only really begins to kick in, in the midst of Soojung’s untameable story telling that she shouldn’t be here in the first place. There’s no getting away when they’re twenty minutes into their coffee and five minutes away from the boys coming through the door.
“Soojung, I need to -“
Her phone rings and it’s far from being a savior when the caller’s Taemin.
When she rushes out of the bathroom, he’s waiting, leaning against the pastel wall, wrapped in a thick black coat and hands stuffed in the pockets. Jongin releases a puff of air as his eyes wander around to take in his surrounding - until it lands on her.
He straightens, looking at her with a concerned look she’d rather he saved for some other girl. She takes in a deep breathe, meeting him square in the eyes for a split second then continues on her way out. “Sorry but I have to go, Taemin called and he’s -“
“Drunk” he finishes for her.
Jinri frowns at him. “How do you know?”
“He called me too.”
In the end Taemin, in his daily drunken haze, had just press all the speed dials possible, no specific person in mind. Jinri gets the Panadol and tries not to be hurt by that notion.
Jinri lives in constant fear of him waking up, literally and figuratively speaking, and not needing her like he did the day before. She doesn’t know why or how this is what she’s become today, because they had been an ordinary - daily night calls, late night movies and flowers on valentine and it’s withering away into her sick dependence for his twisted desperation for someone to care - anyone.
Fortunately for her, she’s the only one who cares enough.
She’s tiptoeing around the kitchen when the door cracks open and a living, breathing ghost that’s been haunting the betraying part of herself stands at a distance that makes her sweat.
“Where the hell do they put all their stuff ar -“
“Jinri”
“I can’t find anything, it’s impossible to -“
“Stop -“
Jinri resists the urge to yell at him, instead she swivels around to meet his unreadable gaze, shaking her head. “What, Jongin?”
His name sounds foreign to her ears, it’s been years since the last time ‘Jongin’ would leave her lips. She’s been ignoring him for so long now, it shouldn’t be this hard to go on living with steel armour against him because in the present time, shutting him out, only did so much to quench her thirst for love - Jongin’s been an outsider to the room in her heart for so long now.
“What?” She finds herself repeating the question she already knows the answer too.
He lets out a shaky breath, grieving over his next few words to her. “Y - You…You can’t help him.”
Jinri looks at him then blinks at the tiled floor, water from the wet cloth in her hand dripping all over it. She wants to fight Jongin over his declaration but it doesn’t faze her as much when admittance creeps it way into her pulsating head. No one can help Taemin but himself, he’s got to find his own way out of the maze of depression he’s been walking circles in.
She can feel them waiting - Jongin for her to let it go and Taemin for her to come and save him.
The truth is she can’t save Taemin but she owes it to herself to do this. Jinri crosses the room at a pace so abrupt he’d barely get time to register what was happening. She takes in his most vulnerable face because she owns it and grips the front of his shirt, staggering back with him when she crushes her lips against his.
He kisses Jinri like a man who’s gone a life time without water, liquefies her bones and makes her glow from within. Then he’s covering her hand with his, reminding her that it’s about time they pull away now but she sucks on his bottom lips, hoping it would weaken his restraint a little longer.
(She almost laughs when she discovers that all this time, he only wanted to hold her hand.)
At some point, Jinri caves in and go back to the living room, forever unprepared to look Taemin in the eyes.
He’s too far gone to even lie straight on the couch, his leg is hanging off the side and his arm is too. Jinri stares down at him, trying to make sense of what she’s done and what the consequences are.
Taemin desperately clings onto the ends of her finger, his sweaty hand sliding off her shaking one.
“Do you hate me?”
It’s the most earnest he’s ever been in a long time.
“No,” She softens, laughing at his silliness, “Never.”
He attempts to push off the cushion with his elbow and fails miserably, collapsing on his back with a groan. “I don’t hate you, you need to know that, I just hate life as someone’s puppet.”
She wrenches her hand away from his grip, anguish twisting onto her face. “We’re all lucky to be
here, if anything you should be grateful.”
“Lucky?” He shouts, his eyes blazing, “Do you feel lucky for pretending your every waking moment? Do you feel lucky when you’re so sick you can barely make it on stage? Do you feel lucky not having a life of your own? Do you?”
“You don’t appreciate anything.” Her eyes feel moist, she blinks rapidly. “You only look at bad side of things - the only side you want to see.”
He’s quiet. Then, “I appreciate you.”
Somehow, that’s not good enough for her anymore.
She doesn’t know what’s worse - promising she won’t be here again and coming here or being here on her own accord.
It’s all an accident, she tells herself, watching him through the stained glass window. Jinri was minding her business and making her way to the front desk, it’s not her fault he happens to be hard working as he is, going over the dance steps so early on a Sunday morning.
He doesn’t notice her (she secretly hope he will.)
Jinri taps her feet to the waltz of time and when she knows it’s been too long, she twists the doorknob she’s been holding and barges in without giving her one more excuse to retreat. He stays grounded, looking perplexed when she stops right when their feet touch and looks up at him, wanting him to say something - anything at all.
Attempting to recover from his shock, Jong says, “You said that was the last time.”
With a tinge of hesitance, she replies, “I know what I said.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I…” Color rushes to her cheek, Jinri trails off and looks away, “I want you to kiss me, again.”
Jongin does so immediately.
He acts like a sixteen years old - fumbling flesh, endless desire to be kissing her, addicted to having her in his arms and she lets him be.
Jongin thinks it’s because Jinri knows he’s been waiting for this moment in his wildest dreams. He’s been starved of explosive sparks and lives on undying love for a girl who’s got someone else on her mind, it should matter but if he was being honest to himself, it doesn’t.
He’s convinced wanting her this much is why he’s willing to turn a blind eye, it’s either that or his permanent condition of love sick.
She still goes home where Taemin is, he’s still second priority - it’s funny how things look to have changed when actually, nothing has.
Jinri wishes he’d stop making the eyes at her so she can stop making eyes at him because she really doesn’t want to.
Not when Taemin’s in the same room, with his arm around her waist.
She hadn’t anticipated it herself but Taemin had made a haste decision to stay sober for the night and come to the gathering after an hour of turning his bed room outside down, trying to find a pair of jeans without any questionable patches.
But then again, she didn’t anticipate Jongin’s brashness either.
Engaged in a conversation with Chanyeol and Kyuhyun, she watches him in the corner of her eyes but finding it to be almost impossible when his seemingly boredom with all of the little cliques in the room drives him to travel from one corner to another in split seconds.
Jinri’s beginning to think he’s doing this to irritate her, with no good reason.
Eventually, he settles for Sehun and Soojung, shamelessly third wheeling them in the middle of
Soojung’s flirty giggling fit. Jongin lock eyes with her from across the room, raises his glass and smiles a little, ignoring the couple that’s glaring daggers at him.
“I - I need to use the bathroom,” she announces, wiggling out of her boyfriend’s hold, “I’ll be back in a bit.”
Naturally, he follows her.
Jinri reacts with immediate, spinning around in her ruby heels and have a go at him. “What was that, Jongin?”
He meets her eyes straight on, shrugs. “I don’t know what you’re talking him.”
“Are you angry with me?” Her expression remains theatrics, genuine annoyance showing, “’Cause you don’t have the right to be.”
He doesn’t have the right to anything when it comes to her, Jongin doesn’t need a reminder.
“I’m jealous,” he confesses, his back to the wall as a stabilizer more than anything, “Do I have the right to that at least?”
“Don’t say that,” Jinri says, throwing her arms in the air and leaning down to grip the sink, a strand of chocolate brown curl hanging covering her face. With a sigh, she tells him something he doesn’t ever want to hear, “I’m your best friend’s girlfriend.”
Jongin thinks he’s more bitter and grasping than Taemin will ever be in this life time, and he wants her as badly if not more. “Then don’t be my best friend’s girlfriend.”
“Wh…” Jinri’s reflection is all pursed lips. “You’re not seriously asking this of me, are you?”
It cuts deep when she puts it that way, so he disguises it with a cheap lie. “It’s a suggestion.”
Jinri drags her feet when she moves to him, her usual sad eyes darkening perceptibly. It’s out of his views in the next passing seconds with Jinri burrowing her face into his shoulder, pressing a light kiss on it and he holds her so tight, his fingers are pulling the laces of her dress.
The goodbye would be fitting here and now but it’s not going to him - never him to quit her.
“This is when you walk away.”
She doesn’t, so he stays.
He’ll tell her he loves her when he thinks she’s asleep.
She’ll stay up to hear it.
Jinri starts getting ideas that this isn’t fair on anyone - not her, not Taemin and definitely not Jongin.
She goes over her options a thousand times and all comes to ends with one ugly conclusion that she can’t give up Jongin because, she needs him and she can’t give up Taemin because, well, he needs her.
Maybe one day Taemin will change, Jinri keeps hoping, if he does then the sweetness of first love would again envelop her. There has to be a time where Taemin realizes that life as an idol is not a misfortune, a mistake on his part but a suffering that comes with a contract to lifelong fame. He’ll see someday and like Jongin, again be passionate about her and life and himself.
Jinri will let him go when he can stand on his feet again.
But that’s just what she tells Jongin and herself to keep her virtue from rotting away.
On a sleepless night, Jongin feels a new, immense dissatisfaction with…everything.
From having any part of her, to not wanting her, to itching to tell Taemin - he feels it all in his cold bed, hemming and hawing to the ghost of his best friend’s girlfriend. It’s getting harder and harder to doze off without her by his side; he only sleeps to dream these days.
The last time Jinri had come over. She’d been freezing during filming and had no jacket on her;
Jongin remembers offering his flannel and her not having much of a problem with walking around his room in it, only a few complaints along the lines of how it clashes with her dress. She’s yet to return it. It could be on purpose, she might want to keep a piece of him in her closet.
Jongin quickly corrects himself - it’s an unrequited love he has.
It’s smooth sailing for a couple of months, sneaking around like it’s high school - all over each other in the janitor’s closet, back stage, empty studios.
They momentarily forget that it’s only them up to these activities.
Summer weather takes over in the waiting room and Jongin is on top of her, hand pulling her blouse out of her mini skirt with his lips on her neck. They’re all sweaty skins and messy hair when the door flies open and Sehun and Soojung topple in, her hand on his flyer and his leg between hers.
Jinri whimpers in panic, shoving against Jongin’s chest and he’s left disappointed on the other side of the couch. “Wh -
He refuses to finish his sentence at the sight of their friends getting hot and heavy. They share a look and stifle their laughter, Jinri does the honour of clearing her throat and almost regrets not taking pictures when Soojung's back hits the wall with a loud ‘thud’, face turning red.
“Oh, sorry.”
The blushing brunette whispers quickly and grabs her boyfriend, dragging him out the room in a hurry. Jinri notes the wink Sehun shoots at Jongin, understanding that he is surely to get some action this blazing afternoon.
The door clicks and she lets out a sigh of relieve. “Do you think they saw anything?”
“Uh…no, I don’t think so.”
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Jinri asks him after minutes of his kind eyes watching her every movement.
He rests his head on his knuckle, elbow on the top of the sofa, a fond smile aimed at her, “Leave Taemin.”
And at that moment it sounds so simple, so easy - so happy.
“Okay.”
Jinri knows herself well enough to begin mentally preparation for their break up speech - nice and clean, short and to the point. Neither of them would want long, drawn out speech with unnecessary back story and explanations.
She wants out - yes, she does. She can’t keep doing this to herself, not after three years - one and a half in which shouldn’t count as a relationship to begin with.
An hour until he comes over and Jinri thinks she’s finally ready after all this time, thinks.
How it happens, she isn’t entirely sure. On her way out of her room, between blow drying her hair and reaching for the hair brush, she knocks over her jewelry box to reveal an artifact equally as old.
A strip of black and white pictures of them taken in a photo booth they discover at a mall in junior high, covered in dust and bent in all corners. Touching it would be taboo; instead she bends over and puts all the gleaming contents back into its place, promptly putting the square box over his face.
She loved Taemin but she could love Jongin.
Taemin doesn’t take it well, of course he doesn’t.
Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t want to accept her farewell but as off lately, he doesn’t get a say anymore - she’s doing this for herself and a little bit for them too.
Jinri wants to say, she hopes he understands but she knows he won’t. He’s still too conflicted to even understand himself.
“You tell me all the time that I don’t understand how tired you are but, I do,” she tells him with a bitter sweet smile, “I’m tired enough just by trying to fix you, turn the clock and bring the boy I love back.”
Taemin’s too horrified to oppose of her long oppressed feelings of heartbreak and moving on. He’s been gawking at her for too long, probably wondering what game she's playing when truly, she isn't playing one at all, for once there’s honesty from her to him.
She leaves his place for the last time, feeling less devastated than she's been all the other times.
Traditionally, Jinri kisses Taemin good morning and Jongin good night.
Today, Jongin’s kisses take her from day to night.
~ 5,970 w, pg13, (kai/sulli + taemin)
Traditionally, Jinri kisses Taemin good morning and Jongin good night.
■ for onceuponataem, don't ask me why I'd write something for such a bully like her..jks, jks, I adore you naomi (sometimes)
■ inspired by the jeff buckley's song
■ I have a feeling I'll eventually end up writing something for each and everyone of you bbs ♥
Jinri’s not entirely sure how she ended up in the cab, squished between Soojung and Victoria but that’s where the night takes her: second rate taxi, dodgy streets and four girls crammed into the back seats.
It’s tight enough to get her car sick but if that’s the case with Victoria and Luna, they don’t show it.
The strap of her kitten heels is tangled with Soojung’s Converse and there’s no getting out of it, so Jinri tries to listens to old pop songs on the radio instead unnecessary details about the party.
“Are you even listening?” Soojung nudges her in the rib with her elbow.
Jinri flinches a little and nods. “Y - yeah.”
Soojung raises a cocky brow. “Really? Do you even try?”
“You know how I feel about this,” Sulli groans with a sigh, burrowing into the bumpy seat, “It’s going to be awkward, it’s already awkward as it is and we don’t even talk!”
“I told you many times, Jin,” The brunette says, not bothering to look up from her phone and continues to text restlessly, “Jongin’s my best friend, it’s his special night and he specifically asked me to bring you along.”
“More like begged” Luna chimes in.
“How do you know?” Then turn to Soojung, gawking, “How does she know?”
“Soojungie told us” Victoria says flippantly, still powdering her nose after five minutes.
Jinri groans some more and Soojung bites her lips to keep from talking, patting her back in useless comfort. “We’re all family here, there’s no secret.”
“But you promised!”
“And you promised to come tonight!” Soojung retorts.
Jinri’s got to stop saying things she doesn’t mean to make things go away because clearly, it doesn’t work - not when it comes to Jongin and his crush on her anyway.
Sehun lets them in through the back door of the club like it’s some secrecy.
Soojung’s making goo-goo eyes when she takes Sehun’s hand and he doesn’t seem to hear when the rest of them offer their polite thanks, no one blames him. Then they spread out like bunch of strangers that arrived together - Luna disappears into a sea of drunken oppas, Victoria into her ‘we love noona’ crowd and Jinri shifts awkwardly in the dark spot next to wall.
Jinri was never comfortable to begin with but then Jongin spots her from behind the bar and suddenly, she’s uncomfortable.
She braces herself for when he comes over, he doesn’t.
Baekhyun pulls him into another room and his hold on her gaze is broken, leaving Jinri heaving for clean air and a glass of something to loosen her up.
The SHINee boys are more than welcoming when she saunters over with a tight line of smile that typically, is reserved for Taemin.
Jinri keeps in mind that it’s obviously about Taemin. All the polite smiles and handshakes leads to a question that is inevitably, somehow related to his whereabouts because she’s here, so why isn’t he?
She makes excuses like he does; mostly because she can’t even answer that question herself.
Taeyeon watches her with that absent parent look that seems too omniscient, finishing her third drink of the night. “So you and Taemin…”
“Yes, Taemin and I.”
“You two kids getting along?”
“Yes, unni,” Jinri confirms, staring into distance of dances and bright lights. “Yes, we are, thanks for asking.”
The older girl peeks over her with a suspicious look, says, “Well then get out there and try to look like you’re enjoying yourself.”
Despite her reluctance, Jinri decides it’s better to look like a fool on the dance floor by herself than spend another minute under Taeyeon’s knowing gaze.
She doesn’t know if it was intentional or purely coincidental when she ends up in the middle of it all - in front of Jongin and behind Soojung’s pointed glare. Jinri can’t say which one is more unnerving so she lets the surrounding do its thing, moves her through the crowd and leaves her stuck next to an unlikely alliance that will chit chat then slides over.
By the time Jinri gets pass the trainee with a button nose, she was sure she’d lose him.
But of course, it’s never been that easy - not four years ago and not now.
They stand still, just staring back at each other, opening the flood gate of lost eternity and letting it engulf them into another universe of slow moving room and betraying smiles - kind of like that day.
“H - hey” Jinri greets lamely.
He’s not doing any better with his awkward wave hello, “Hey”
Jongin is unchangeable. He remains a half-hearted boy with lazy smile and messy hair, tell all eyes that reveals much more than Jinri ever needs to know. Like always, he’s a dead giveaway with his heart on his sleeves when he takes a step towards hers with a cough.
“I haven’t seen you in a while.” He says and it sounds even more pretentious than she is.
Hesitant, Jinri nods, “Yeah, I’ve been -“
“Busy,” he completes her excuse for her, “I know.”
She tries not to frown, tucks a strand of uncurled hair behind her ear. “Congratulation on your success, I heard your album’s sale is…miraculous and -“
The cycle continues on and so does the party, there’s never time for reunions between old friends. Jinri accepts that and allows herself to be swallowed whole into loud cheers and cheap smell of beer. Not out of the usual, Jongin tries to hold onto her when he should have learnt to let go a long time ago.
Soojung leaves with Sehun. Not the first, won’t be the last. Jinri lets it be but tonight she’s furious.
At this point of time, her first instinct screams to call Taemin so she does and when he doesn’t pick up, she’s not surprised enough to be angry about it. She goes over to Luna first, Jinri knows her well enough to figure she’s got a better chance at hitching a ride but has to find out from Chanyeol - she left drunk and in Onew’s arm, took Victoria and Kyuhyun with them. Amber can smell her desperation by the time she managed to squeeze through Henry and Kris and delivers the bad news of her responsibility as a co-host to stay with thumbs down.
Finally, Jinri does what needs to be done and wraps herself in a coat thick enough for two and stumbles outside, on the verge of running when she spots a cab taking off.
“Wait!” She shouts pleadingly, “Please!”
Luckily for Jinri, the vehicle stops with a loud screech at the curb and makes her night. She rushes over, puffing out hot air in the freezing cold as she wraps her gloves covered hands around the door handle, quickly pulling it open enough for her to climb in.
There’s another passenger next to her, she doesn’t look - she doesn’t need to, it’s someone from her company, probably. The cab driver doesn’t wait long enough for her to catch her breath, asks for her destination and she says loud enough through each breath for him to understand.
When she turns side way to meet her company for the ride, Jinri knows her luck has run out for the night.
“Y - You turning in early?” Jongin sputters and prays he sounds less nervous than he feels.
Jinri gives him a small nod, slowly recovering from her temporary shock. “You..you too?”
“Um…yeah,” He mutters, trying to relax back in his seat and failing, “Our schedule is fully packed for the next couple of days, I don’t know how they all can party so hard with so little energy but,” a sigh leaves his lips when his lids fall shut, “All I want to do is sleep.”
She refuses to look at him and lands her weary gaze on the fumbling hands on her lap. “Success sure is tough, you agree with me, right?”
Sometimes Jongin thinks Jinri must know, how could she not know? He’s seen himself once before when he’s looking at her, it’s not a puzzle that needs to be solved - it’s always been there, just staring at her, literally.
“Yeah,” he replies, clearing his throat, “I…I enjoy it though - getting to live the dream after all that hard work.”
The car hits a bump and so does she. “Uh..yeah...I think that’s one way to put it.”
Her awkward laugh makes this harder to take but Jongin continues his act of oblivion, if not for her then for herself. His lips quirk up enough to show his understanding but never enough to convey his true feelings, if she wants to play hide and seek then he’ll go along.
He wants to ask about Taemin but he knows he shouldn’t, not for her sake anyway. Instead he goes on with the wish walk talk. “Thanks for coming tonight.”
“You shouldn’t have to say thank you.” They’re stuck in the hectic traffic and when she looks up at him, she’s glowing under the red light with a careful smile. “It’s your night, you deserve to get everything ever wish for.”
Jongin chuckles a little at his, stretching his limbs as far as he could in the small space.
“Everything?”
“Yeah, everything.” She confirms, her expression blank and composed. “This is the most you’ll ever get.”
He stiffens, shakes his head. “I hope not.”
Jongin knows parts of her that no one ever took the time to notice but like all the others, it’s her smile that he fell for - sadly it’s coincidentally missing with his own.
He pushes his luck one street before hers. “I could walk you back to the dorm, if you’d like.”
Jinri freezes, sitting up a little straighter. Her eyes are out the window and so are her mind but he knows she’s heard him loud and clear. He also knows she’s considering, it’s in the way she swivels to his direction slightly and taps her fingers on her bouncing knee.
“Only if it’s not too much of a trouble,” she says quietly but steadily, “It’s your night after all.”
The cab comes to a stop with a halt, just four buildings ahead of hers and Jongin stuffs a fistful the cash in the driver’s hand before she can even reach for her wallet and almost trips on his way to open her door.
Jongin offers a helping hand and when Jinri takes it, she’ll never know but she’s given him all he ever wanted in a night.
Boyfriend asides, Jinri doesn’t know how to say no and tonight belongs to Jongin, she tells herself, for once it’s not about Taemin. They keeps their distance with meaningless questions and airy talk, behave as politely as used-to-be-friends can be.
It’s like standing on the edge of the cliff and not jumping - she’s threading dangerous territory.
“You still look exactly the same as the last time I saw you.” He says after a long-suffering silence, looking around in the night sky for little stars.
“I…hope that’s a good thing.”
Jongin’s laughing at her. “I mean you’re still as pretty as I remember.”
If it was back then she wouldn’t have blushed, not even a single twitch of the muscles but everything’s different now. Jinri peeks over the thick layer of fur on her coat’s collar, he moves in close enough to feel her fingers ghost against his. Their hands are cold but it makes her insides warmer than anything she’s felt in months - there’s a mix of excitement and sadness, Jongin shares half of the responsibility and so does Taemin.
There’s no more talking for a while, only faint sounds of their footsteps on the pavements and a lonely dog barking for some company, Jongin breaks the ice in a strangled voice, says, “You’ve changed.”
Confused and hesitant, she asks in a small voice, “How?”
And there’s a distressed look on Jongin’s face, like he’s about to tell her a bad news only she refuses to acknowledge. Either way Jinri doesn’t want to hear it, especially not from him - her guess is he’s known that all along too.
“You’re unhappy,” is what he whispers when they get to her doorstep.
Jinri opens her mouth to say something but changes her mind at the last minute; instead she blinks at him innocently like with the rest, “I don’t know what you mean.”
Taemin’s lying on the couch, drunk. Jinri drops her keys, waking up a storm that soon will be a tornado.
It’s like a week ago and the week before that - he pushes off whatever he’s been lying on, trips on the rug and stumbles over with the confidence that she’ll catch him no matter what, she does.
Seeing him in a state of hot mess is like a reoccurring dream she keeps waking up from and forgetting. Jinri should be used to it but after, she’d try so hard to forget that sometime it works.
“Who do we have here?” He sounds too joyous to be Taemin when he throws her arm around her shoulder, “My lovely, lovely girlfriend coming home so early from a wild party!”
Jinri regains her balance quickly enough to hold him up in her arms, with a sigh, she begins the same old line of questions, “Did you call a cab?”
“Nope,” he mumbles, shaking his head and nuzzling against her neck, “I walked all the way over here just to see you because I am the cutest boyfriend ever.”
There are occasions where he’s doting when the night is still young but it will all turn sour very soon; Jinri’s learned that very early on.
“Did you?” Jinri feigns innocence, throwing her clutch on the arm chair before letting him pull her onto the couch with him. She groans in pain, her ankle trapped under the heavy weight of his body and when she moves away for an inch, he snatches her wrist.
Taemin makes a frustrated noise. “You’re not very appreciative.”
Sulli sighs tiredly, dropping down to her knees, feeling them ache when her bones collide with the wooden floor board. She watches him under the dim light, her face against the cushion and besides his own. His half lidded eyes are open wide enough to look into her twin chocolate pool, somewhere in there, love remains but right now, she’s stroking his mussed hair and shuts her window of sight, escaping the real world for even a second if possible because for so long now, he’s been the only reality she’s accepted living in.
It begins again. “Do you think it’s really tiring?”
“What’s tiring?” She’ll ask the same thing like the last, twirling with a strand of his hair and pressing a dead kiss on his flesh.
“All of…” He’s slowly fading, it’s a good sign, so she likes to think, “This. Sometimes I’m so tired, I can barely go on walking, do you ever feel like that ‘cause I do, all the time.”
She nods, not in agreement and not disagreement either.
“I don’t think you know.”
“Go to sleep, Taemin.”
The sound of Victoria’s blender at work wakes Jinri to face a hazardous sun ray peeking out from the blinds. She rubs her eyes and accepts the bowl of cereal from Soojung’s extending hand, silently watching her walk away and into their room.
There’s not a trace of Taemin and she tries to recall last night without giving herself a headache.
But of course, how could she forget - now days, there’s no talking when he’s sober.
When he’s leaving, she’s entering - a moment of one foot out the door and dry eyes lingering on for more of the brief intentionally coincidental passing of theirs. The ends of her sleeves brush against the end of her wool scarf, Jinri moves back to give him room to slide by, untouched. She should have known Jongin wouldn’t have ended it at that.
“I thought you’d be at filming,” he says, looking a bit startled.
“I did,” she says quietly, stopping on the other side of the door, “I just got back and thought I should start memorizing the new script. I like to rehearse without getting disturbed so I thought the studio would be the best place for it, the quitter the better right?”
Jongin’s holding the door open so it wouldn’t close in his face, he wouldn’t have to go away then. “D - Do you want some help?”
“No, no,” Jinri rejects with the faintest of smile, “You probably have a schedule to attend to anyway -“
“I’m free.”
“J -“ She starts, but a loud, thunderous ‘bang’ interrupts her, making her jump and suddenly he’s in the room with her, the door is closed, locked with the blind’s pulled down. “What are you doing?”
“Come on,” he urges her further, “Read me the lines.”
Jinri’s left herself alone with him, the two of them - together.
There are things in which makes Jinri easily lovable.
The way she giggles over her words when she mispronounces them, frames her mouth with manicured hand and rocks back and forth like a child. Her blush when she reads romantic dialogue that is not a part of her role. The light dancing in her eyes when she knows she’s done an impressive job. The growing sentimental looks while reciting sad words from sad scenes. The genteelness impulse of an actress, unconsciously criticizing the writing here and there to him.
But it’s hard to love Jinri in these terms, when she’s unstoppable at loving his oldest friend and battling the sorrow that comes with it.
“Do you think the director will cut my scene short?” Jinri asks, resting her chins on top of her knees.
Jongin studies her carefully. “Why’d you think that?”
She hesitates a little then says, “I still don’t think I’m fluent and natural enough for this much air time.”
“I…I think you’re great,” he tells her with a little laugh, shifting closer to where she’s been sitting,
“You wouldn’t have gotten the leading role in last year’s drama otherwise.”
She smiles up at him but there’s something held back from it. “Thanks, but that was our company’s drama.”
“So…” he says doubtfully, “You think you don’t deserve it?”
Jinri’s looking like she’s not sure how to answer that. “No one really gets what they deserve anymore.”
He considers briefly. “No, they don’t.”
“You know, you look sad too.”
Jongin blinks back at her, dumbstruck with her observation.
Jinri tilts her head. “The last time we saw each other, you told me that I’m unhappy,” her face seems to twist at this, almost as if it stings her to say, “Are you too?”
There’s a touch of lightness to his bitter statement. “Between Taemin, you and I - who isn’t?”
(She hates him for mentioning Taemin. If anything Jongin should be ashamed, Jinri thinks, after all he’s the one stuck on his best friend’s girl without any sign of moving on.
If anything, Jinri should be ashamed that her misery is so transparent to him and not Taemin.)
Jinri convinces herself that Soojung being Jong in’s closest girl friend is the root of all her problems but she knows it’s all self-conviction when there’s avoiding to be done and she’s done so little of it.
It only really begins to kick in, in the midst of Soojung’s untameable story telling that she shouldn’t be here in the first place. There’s no getting away when they’re twenty minutes into their coffee and five minutes away from the boys coming through the door.
“Soojung, I need to -“
Her phone rings and it’s far from being a savior when the caller’s Taemin.
When she rushes out of the bathroom, he’s waiting, leaning against the pastel wall, wrapped in a thick black coat and hands stuffed in the pockets. Jongin releases a puff of air as his eyes wander around to take in his surrounding - until it lands on her.
He straightens, looking at her with a concerned look she’d rather he saved for some other girl. She takes in a deep breathe, meeting him square in the eyes for a split second then continues on her way out. “Sorry but I have to go, Taemin called and he’s -“
“Drunk” he finishes for her.
Jinri frowns at him. “How do you know?”
“He called me too.”
In the end Taemin, in his daily drunken haze, had just press all the speed dials possible, no specific person in mind. Jinri gets the Panadol and tries not to be hurt by that notion.
Jinri lives in constant fear of him waking up, literally and figuratively speaking, and not needing her like he did the day before. She doesn’t know why or how this is what she’s become today, because they had been an ordinary - daily night calls, late night movies and flowers on valentine and it’s withering away into her sick dependence for his twisted desperation for someone to care - anyone.
Fortunately for her, she’s the only one who cares enough.
She’s tiptoeing around the kitchen when the door cracks open and a living, breathing ghost that’s been haunting the betraying part of herself stands at a distance that makes her sweat.
“Where the hell do they put all their stuff ar -“
“Jinri”
“I can’t find anything, it’s impossible to -“
“Stop -“
Jinri resists the urge to yell at him, instead she swivels around to meet his unreadable gaze, shaking her head. “What, Jongin?”
His name sounds foreign to her ears, it’s been years since the last time ‘Jongin’ would leave her lips. She’s been ignoring him for so long now, it shouldn’t be this hard to go on living with steel armour against him because in the present time, shutting him out, only did so much to quench her thirst for love - Jongin’s been an outsider to the room in her heart for so long now.
“What?” She finds herself repeating the question she already knows the answer too.
He lets out a shaky breath, grieving over his next few words to her. “Y - You…You can’t help him.”
Jinri looks at him then blinks at the tiled floor, water from the wet cloth in her hand dripping all over it. She wants to fight Jongin over his declaration but it doesn’t faze her as much when admittance creeps it way into her pulsating head. No one can help Taemin but himself, he’s got to find his own way out of the maze of depression he’s been walking circles in.
She can feel them waiting - Jongin for her to let it go and Taemin for her to come and save him.
The truth is she can’t save Taemin but she owes it to herself to do this. Jinri crosses the room at a pace so abrupt he’d barely get time to register what was happening. She takes in his most vulnerable face because she owns it and grips the front of his shirt, staggering back with him when she crushes her lips against his.
He kisses Jinri like a man who’s gone a life time without water, liquefies her bones and makes her glow from within. Then he’s covering her hand with his, reminding her that it’s about time they pull away now but she sucks on his bottom lips, hoping it would weaken his restraint a little longer.
(She almost laughs when she discovers that all this time, he only wanted to hold her hand.)
At some point, Jinri caves in and go back to the living room, forever unprepared to look Taemin in the eyes.
He’s too far gone to even lie straight on the couch, his leg is hanging off the side and his arm is too. Jinri stares down at him, trying to make sense of what she’s done and what the consequences are.
Taemin desperately clings onto the ends of her finger, his sweaty hand sliding off her shaking one.
“Do you hate me?”
It’s the most earnest he’s ever been in a long time.
“No,” She softens, laughing at his silliness, “Never.”
He attempts to push off the cushion with his elbow and fails miserably, collapsing on his back with a groan. “I don’t hate you, you need to know that, I just hate life as someone’s puppet.”
She wrenches her hand away from his grip, anguish twisting onto her face. “We’re all lucky to be
here, if anything you should be grateful.”
“Lucky?” He shouts, his eyes blazing, “Do you feel lucky for pretending your every waking moment? Do you feel lucky when you’re so sick you can barely make it on stage? Do you feel lucky not having a life of your own? Do you?”
“You don’t appreciate anything.” Her eyes feel moist, she blinks rapidly. “You only look at bad side of things - the only side you want to see.”
He’s quiet. Then, “I appreciate you.”
Somehow, that’s not good enough for her anymore.
She doesn’t know what’s worse - promising she won’t be here again and coming here or being here on her own accord.
It’s all an accident, she tells herself, watching him through the stained glass window. Jinri was minding her business and making her way to the front desk, it’s not her fault he happens to be hard working as he is, going over the dance steps so early on a Sunday morning.
He doesn’t notice her (she secretly hope he will.)
Jinri taps her feet to the waltz of time and when she knows it’s been too long, she twists the doorknob she’s been holding and barges in without giving her one more excuse to retreat. He stays grounded, looking perplexed when she stops right when their feet touch and looks up at him, wanting him to say something - anything at all.
Attempting to recover from his shock, Jong says, “You said that was the last time.”
With a tinge of hesitance, she replies, “I know what I said.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I…” Color rushes to her cheek, Jinri trails off and looks away, “I want you to kiss me, again.”
Jongin does so immediately.
He acts like a sixteen years old - fumbling flesh, endless desire to be kissing her, addicted to having her in his arms and she lets him be.
Jongin thinks it’s because Jinri knows he’s been waiting for this moment in his wildest dreams. He’s been starved of explosive sparks and lives on undying love for a girl who’s got someone else on her mind, it should matter but if he was being honest to himself, it doesn’t.
He’s convinced wanting her this much is why he’s willing to turn a blind eye, it’s either that or his permanent condition of love sick.
She still goes home where Taemin is, he’s still second priority - it’s funny how things look to have changed when actually, nothing has.
Jinri wishes he’d stop making the eyes at her so she can stop making eyes at him because she really doesn’t want to.
Not when Taemin’s in the same room, with his arm around her waist.
She hadn’t anticipated it herself but Taemin had made a haste decision to stay sober for the night and come to the gathering after an hour of turning his bed room outside down, trying to find a pair of jeans without any questionable patches.
But then again, she didn’t anticipate Jongin’s brashness either.
Engaged in a conversation with Chanyeol and Kyuhyun, she watches him in the corner of her eyes but finding it to be almost impossible when his seemingly boredom with all of the little cliques in the room drives him to travel from one corner to another in split seconds.
Jinri’s beginning to think he’s doing this to irritate her, with no good reason.
Eventually, he settles for Sehun and Soojung, shamelessly third wheeling them in the middle of
Soojung’s flirty giggling fit. Jongin lock eyes with her from across the room, raises his glass and smiles a little, ignoring the couple that’s glaring daggers at him.
“I - I need to use the bathroom,” she announces, wiggling out of her boyfriend’s hold, “I’ll be back in a bit.”
Naturally, he follows her.
Jinri reacts with immediate, spinning around in her ruby heels and have a go at him. “What was that, Jongin?”
He meets her eyes straight on, shrugs. “I don’t know what you’re talking him.”
“Are you angry with me?” Her expression remains theatrics, genuine annoyance showing, “’Cause you don’t have the right to be.”
He doesn’t have the right to anything when it comes to her, Jongin doesn’t need a reminder.
“I’m jealous,” he confesses, his back to the wall as a stabilizer more than anything, “Do I have the right to that at least?”
“Don’t say that,” Jinri says, throwing her arms in the air and leaning down to grip the sink, a strand of chocolate brown curl hanging covering her face. With a sigh, she tells him something he doesn’t ever want to hear, “I’m your best friend’s girlfriend.”
Jongin thinks he’s more bitter and grasping than Taemin will ever be in this life time, and he wants her as badly if not more. “Then don’t be my best friend’s girlfriend.”
“Wh…” Jinri’s reflection is all pursed lips. “You’re not seriously asking this of me, are you?”
It cuts deep when she puts it that way, so he disguises it with a cheap lie. “It’s a suggestion.”
Jinri drags her feet when she moves to him, her usual sad eyes darkening perceptibly. It’s out of his views in the next passing seconds with Jinri burrowing her face into his shoulder, pressing a light kiss on it and he holds her so tight, his fingers are pulling the laces of her dress.
The goodbye would be fitting here and now but it’s not going to him - never him to quit her.
“This is when you walk away.”
She doesn’t, so he stays.
He’ll tell her he loves her when he thinks she’s asleep.
She’ll stay up to hear it.
Jinri starts getting ideas that this isn’t fair on anyone - not her, not Taemin and definitely not Jongin.
She goes over her options a thousand times and all comes to ends with one ugly conclusion that she can’t give up Jongin because, she needs him and she can’t give up Taemin because, well, he needs her.
Maybe one day Taemin will change, Jinri keeps hoping, if he does then the sweetness of first love would again envelop her. There has to be a time where Taemin realizes that life as an idol is not a misfortune, a mistake on his part but a suffering that comes with a contract to lifelong fame. He’ll see someday and like Jongin, again be passionate about her and life and himself.
Jinri will let him go when he can stand on his feet again.
But that’s just what she tells Jongin and herself to keep her virtue from rotting away.
On a sleepless night, Jongin feels a new, immense dissatisfaction with…everything.
From having any part of her, to not wanting her, to itching to tell Taemin - he feels it all in his cold bed, hemming and hawing to the ghost of his best friend’s girlfriend. It’s getting harder and harder to doze off without her by his side; he only sleeps to dream these days.
The last time Jinri had come over. She’d been freezing during filming and had no jacket on her;
Jongin remembers offering his flannel and her not having much of a problem with walking around his room in it, only a few complaints along the lines of how it clashes with her dress. She’s yet to return it. It could be on purpose, she might want to keep a piece of him in her closet.
Jongin quickly corrects himself - it’s an unrequited love he has.
It’s smooth sailing for a couple of months, sneaking around like it’s high school - all over each other in the janitor’s closet, back stage, empty studios.
They momentarily forget that it’s only them up to these activities.
Summer weather takes over in the waiting room and Jongin is on top of her, hand pulling her blouse out of her mini skirt with his lips on her neck. They’re all sweaty skins and messy hair when the door flies open and Sehun and Soojung topple in, her hand on his flyer and his leg between hers.
Jinri whimpers in panic, shoving against Jongin’s chest and he’s left disappointed on the other side of the couch. “Wh -
He refuses to finish his sentence at the sight of their friends getting hot and heavy. They share a look and stifle their laughter, Jinri does the honour of clearing her throat and almost regrets not taking pictures when Soojung's back hits the wall with a loud ‘thud’, face turning red.
“Oh, sorry.”
The blushing brunette whispers quickly and grabs her boyfriend, dragging him out the room in a hurry. Jinri notes the wink Sehun shoots at Jongin, understanding that he is surely to get some action this blazing afternoon.
The door clicks and she lets out a sigh of relieve. “Do you think they saw anything?”
“Uh…no, I don’t think so.”
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Jinri asks him after minutes of his kind eyes watching her every movement.
He rests his head on his knuckle, elbow on the top of the sofa, a fond smile aimed at her, “Leave Taemin.”
And at that moment it sounds so simple, so easy - so happy.
“Okay.”
Jinri knows herself well enough to begin mentally preparation for their break up speech - nice and clean, short and to the point. Neither of them would want long, drawn out speech with unnecessary back story and explanations.
She wants out - yes, she does. She can’t keep doing this to herself, not after three years - one and a half in which shouldn’t count as a relationship to begin with.
An hour until he comes over and Jinri thinks she’s finally ready after all this time, thinks.
How it happens, she isn’t entirely sure. On her way out of her room, between blow drying her hair and reaching for the hair brush, she knocks over her jewelry box to reveal an artifact equally as old.
A strip of black and white pictures of them taken in a photo booth they discover at a mall in junior high, covered in dust and bent in all corners. Touching it would be taboo; instead she bends over and puts all the gleaming contents back into its place, promptly putting the square box over his face.
She loved Taemin but she could love Jongin.
Taemin doesn’t take it well, of course he doesn’t.
Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t want to accept her farewell but as off lately, he doesn’t get a say anymore - she’s doing this for herself and a little bit for them too.
Jinri wants to say, she hopes he understands but she knows he won’t. He’s still too conflicted to even understand himself.
“You tell me all the time that I don’t understand how tired you are but, I do,” she tells him with a bitter sweet smile, “I’m tired enough just by trying to fix you, turn the clock and bring the boy I love back.”
Taemin’s too horrified to oppose of her long oppressed feelings of heartbreak and moving on. He’s been gawking at her for too long, probably wondering what game she's playing when truly, she isn't playing one at all, for once there’s honesty from her to him.
She leaves his place for the last time, feeling less devastated than she's been all the other times.
Traditionally, Jinri kisses Taemin good morning and Jongin good night.
Today, Jongin’s kisses take her from day to night.