Call Me Oppa (1/?)
Title: Call Me Oppa (1/?)
Pairing: Onew/Taemin
Length: 3,470w
Summary: "Some people are just unlucky."
This is what I worked on for National Novel Writing Month 2010. It reached 50,000 words on November 29th, but is far from finished. I'll be posting as I revise and write. I hope you enjoy it!
C H A P T E R 1
It started with these nightmares.
They were horror movie vivid, all of the colours oversaturated and the volume turned up to maximum; the kind of nightmares Jinki hadn't had since he was a little kid. Nightmares that scared him awake to find that he'd sweat through both layers of the sheets, and his heart wouldn't stop hammering against his ribcage like it wanted out.
There was a similar scene in every dream. It always started out innocent enough: Jinki would be panning for gold, or challenging a giraffe to a three-legged race, or learning to pilot an airplane. At some point, inevitably, he found himself in a car - the family sedan - and things would start to spiral out of control. The tires would slip, screeching for traction on the pavement, and then the slow-motion impact; Jinki could feel the seatbelt digging into his shoulder as it locked with the momentum, and then there was the sickening splash of blood against the windshield followed by the cracking-ice sound of the glass splitting into spider webs as it shattered.
The strange thing was, Jinki hadn't even been in the car when it happened.
He had seen a digital photograph of the family sedan after the accident, the car crumpled to half its size. The pavement was littered with glass and pieces of metal that were vageuly recognizable as having once been a part of the car. The passenger's side door was missing entirely; it had to be taken off to get Jinki's father out from behind the dash. His father wasn't in the photograph, but Jinki could picture him too easily: blood pouring from his head, eyes flickering as he tried to hold onto consciousness.
The lack of sleep was starting to show on Jinki's face. He had been "coming down with a cold" for a few weeks - too obvious of an excuse for the sniffling, the burning eyes - and frankly, he was baffled that no one commented on how awful he looked. Too polite, probably. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his skin was getting pale and sallow. Sometimes when he squinted, the world went a little funny, like hearing sounds underwater or seeing something in slow motion. In soccer practice, Jinki had to consciously think about the act of running: pick up leg, put it over there, pick up other leg... He stopped trying to take notes in class. The words seemed to go in one ear and out the other, and anything he wrote on the page looked like it was swimming on the line. Still, his test came back with a happy face and a big double nine, so he must have been absorbing something.
His father was probablymaybepossibly dying - the prognosis changed from day-to-day - and Jinki wasn't even depressed. Not really. He didn't cry all the time like his mother did in the kitchen after work. He didn't phone home constantly like his uncle, his father's little brother, leaving five voicemails a day, "just calling to see if there's an update from Dr. Shim; um, let me know if there are any changes. Tell your appa I love him."
It wasn't a good time for Jinki to feel depressed. It was his last term of high school. He had to get into a good university, at least as good as the one his older cousin got into last year (or better, always strive for better). Jinki was on the student council, the honour roll, the soccer team; he tutored first- and second-year math during his lunch period. That kind of effort couldn't all come to a stop just because his father bumped his head.
More like he cracked it open like a dropped watermelon, but close enough.
And since Jinki's mother was crying all the time, she called into work more often. Jinki had caught her a few times when he came home on a free lunch, lying in her pajamas with the television on like she had nothing better to do at one in the afternoon on a weekday. Jinki wasn't stupid - he knew what those bills on the counter were for - and so he picked up a few shifts at a department store and got paid to shelve stock and clean up, tasks he could do with his head down so that no one would recognize him and ask - god, he hated it when people asked:
"How's your father doing?" Polite, clipped; hint of pity. Always with the same hopeful tone of voice as a question about whether he thought it would rain or not. Like that made it easier to talk about the worst thing that had ever happened in Jinki's life.
People asked all the time. They knew about it. There had been a segment on the evening news: "Middle School Teacher Comatose Following Collision With Drunk Driver". There were interviews with guys from the soccer team that Jinki's father coached on weekends, along with a group shot of the whole team from last year's regional's, special emphasis on Mr. Lee's arm around Jinki's shoulder. A few articles cropped the shot to show just the two of them. There had been plenty of ajummas approaching Jinki after that ran in the newspaper, and he learned to simply smile and nod when they patted his arm and offered him condolences. Jinki knew that it was more for their own peace of mind than out of any true consideration for him.
Jinki would be lying if he said that he wasn't running himself ragged. He knew what being tired felt like. He'd played soccer games in gazillion-degree heat and pulled two all-nighters in a row to study for an exam. He knew that an energy drink could keep him up an extra two, maybe three hours before he started blinking heavily and seeing spots on his textbook. Over the summer, Jinki stayed up for three days straight with Jonghyun, setting high scores on a new video game. He got the eye sweats, and his neck was sore; he had been fucking tired, but even then he didn't sleep the way he did now.
Jinki came home late, after it was already dark out. He showered if he could keep his eyes open long enough, and the minute he crawled into bed he was asleep. If he was really, truly tired, he didn't dream. It was one black second of closing his eyes before his alarm went off, four hours gone in a blink, and he got up to do it all again.
Jinki wasn't depressed about his father's health, not like his mom, not like his uncle. It was hard to feel much of anything when he was exhausted.
And honestly, that was kind of the point.
It was Jonghyun who got Jinki the job at the department store. He'd worked there for a few years, and put in a word that Jinki would be a good employee, a total um-chin-ah, willing to work late even on weekdays. Jinki didn't even have to hand in a resume.
Jinki liked working with Jonghyun. After hours, they played soccer in the aisles with crumpled aluminum for a ball and cardboard boxes for goalposts. Jonghyun was loud and obnoxious, a little insensitive, but he talked more than enough for the both of them and Jinki liked that he didn't have to try so hard to keep the conversation going.
...told her that you probably wouldn't come, but I'd ask anyway. So this is me asking you. I know you'll say no.
Jinki didn't mind restocking. He liked how methodical it was, how everything had its proper place on the shelf. There was no thought involved, and Jinki could almost allow himself to rest, sleeping on his feet like a horse, his eyes open but his mind shut off completely. Jinki had always thought that it was impossible to stop thinking - actively trying not to think usually involves thinking the words don't think, don't think - but he proved himself wrong. He put a can on the shelf. Reached for another. Put that one on the shelf next to the first. It was like leaving a television on with nothing but static.
Jinki?
Nothing but white snow, a loud rushing in his ears like plunging his head underwater. When Jinki was finished with the canned fruit cocktail he moved on to the box of canned peaches, turning all of the labels to face outward: high quality fancy peaches!
"Yah, Jinki! What the hell?"
Jinki became aware of the background noise before Jonghyun came into focus. The radio was playing over the loudspeakers, a song that Jinki used to like until he heard it a thousand times. The owner seemed to have two CDs that looped endlessly during Jinki's shift: an hour and a half of old trot songs followed by a top 40 compilation from about five years ago. Outside it had started to rain. There were no windows at the back of the store, but Jinki could hear the water slapping against the roof. It almost went to the beat of the music.
Jonghyun was staring expectantly, waiting for an answer. He had a box cutter in one hand, and he held it up in mock-threat, wiggling the blade in Jinki's direction. "Have you been abducted by aliens? You went a little dazed for a minute there."
Jinki remembered a random fact he had read somewhere about seizures. A petit mal was a seizure that lasted a few seconds, barely noticeable. Jinki wondered if he had seizures. How could you tell if they were so short? "I'm fine," Jinki said.
"Obviously." Jonghyun was being sarcastic. Or Jinki thought he was. With Jonghyun it wasn't always easy to tell; his sarcasm was only marginally different from his usual cut-and-dry tone of voice.
"Sorry."
Jonghyun shrugged and snapped the blade on the box cutter. He started tearing into the box that Jinki had just emptied. "Don't worry about it, man. I understand."
It was odd how everyone accepted the excuse without Jinki ever making it. He had been late to first period class a few times, and the secretary had written him an attendance slip without asking, signing it off, smiling sympathetically and saying that she understood. Jinki wasn't about to decline a free pass, but he was tempted to ask what it was that everyone seemed to understand. Because if everyone else had met some big understanding about dying parents - maybe dying parents, Jinki corrected; the doctors hadn't made a call either way, maybe he'll wake up, maybe he won't - Jinki wanted to be let in on the secret. He didn't really have a clue.
"Thanks," he said, because that was easiest.
Jonghyun stepped on the top flap of the box and pulled, separating two sides with a low ripping sound, the corrugated cardboard coming apart at the seam. "Hey, look - I can finish up here, hyung. You can go home. You look..." Jonghyun let that trail off with a helpless shrug; Jinki didn't need to have it pointed out that he looked haggard. "Well, y'know," Jonghyun said. He folded the box flat. "I don't mind if you wanna go."
Normally, Jinki would have been mildly offended. Are you implying that I can't take care of myself? But it was late, and Jinki had a test in the morning that he hadn't studied very much for, and the music had just changed over to a trot song that Jinki had already heard on this shift thirty times over. Maybe tomorrow he could bring in some music that he could dance to, something other than mournful vocal ballads. "If you don't mind," Jinki said. He really should go home and study, at least crack a book open for a few minutes before falling asleep on it.
"I don't mind. I offered." Jonghyun made a shooing motion with his hand. "I'll clock you out when I go."
Jinki bowed, mockingly formal, and Jonghyun laughed.
"Go," he said, "before I change my mind."
The rain had seemed pleasant from inside while Jinki was overheating in his work uniform. He had imagined it as the prettiest summer rain he could remember; like that one time at his grandmother's house outside of Seoul when the sun shone through the rain clouds as if reminding the world that everything is gonna be okay! Jinki wore galoshes and a raincoat, and went outside with his hand held tightly between his grandmother's bony, arthritic fingers. He had felt like a superhero for some reason; no cape, no underwear over his jeans, but the warm rain and the sunshine made him feel powerful.
Jinki had come to expect less from the world lately, so he couldn't say he was surprised that it wasn't superhero weather. The sky was grey, colourless, and the rain fell without wind, straight down onto the pavement. The gutters were swollen with water. Jinki walked on the curb, barely trying to keep his sneakers from getting wet; they were going to end up soaked whether he tried or not, so he might as well bow to fate.
There was someone waiting at the bus stop when Jinki got there, and at first glance he couldn't tell if it was a boy or a girl. The person was small, skinny in a fast metabolism way; all hard angles, bony shoulders and wrists. First impression was that it was a girl - she was wearing rolled-up sweats, and the slip of sock around the top of her sneakers was bubblegum pink. Her hair was pulled back into a short, messy ponytail. Most of the hair had slipped from the tie and fell in wet strands around her face.
When Jinki got closer, she glanced over. She didn't look away, so Jinki cleared his throat and said, "Can't believe how hard it's raining."
"It's not that bad."
The voice gave it away. Not a girl - a boy, wearing cute pink socks. Jinki felt stupid for assuming otherwise. The boy wasn't wearing makeup or carrying a purse, and there was a clearly visible Adam's apple on his throat. Must have borrowed his sister's socks or something. He looked familiar; someone Jinki went to school with.
It took Jinki a moment to realize that the boy was being sarcastic. He was wetter than Jinki, soaked through to his skin. He shivered, hands fisted into his sleeves. When Jinki finally caught on and opened his mouth - ah, I get it - the boy pressed his lips together in the smallest, most indulgent smile. It seemed to Jinki like the boy's smile made it a little warmer in the bus shelter.
"You're Lee Jinki," the boy said.
"That's me."
"I'm sorry, I don't - it's not that I know you," the boy said quickly. He blew on his fingers to warm them up, but kept his hands there, covering his face. Acting shy? "It's just that everybody knows who you are."
"I play on the soccer team," Jinki said, shrugging, "but I'm not that good."
"I know. I mean, I know you're on the soccer team - everyone says that you're pretty good, though. I'm Lee Taemin. We have calculus together."
Now Jinki knew why the boy looked so familiar. They sat next to each other in class, but the Taemin standing in front of Jinki now looked nothing like the studious Lee Taemin from calculus. He even stood differently, a little cock to his hip that Jinki hadn't noticed before. Must be the socks.
"So, you're new this year?" Jinki asked. He already knew the answer - he remembered Taemin bowing and introducing himself at the beginning of the term - but it seemed polite to ask.
Taemin bobbed his head. "My family moved over summer break."
"How come?"
"That's... well, it's not really..."
Jinki looked over, curious, but Taemin didn't look like he planned to finish that thought. It was obviously a sore subject. Fair enough. Jinki shrugged his shoulders. "I guess it's none of my business."
"No," Taemin agreed.
The rain seemed to fall harder for a moment. It thundered through the trees and lashed the pavement below, running in rivulets onto the road. Jinki leaned out of the bus shelter, squinting through the rain for the headlights of the bus. As if on cue, the bus roared onto the street, splitting water in its wake. Taemin grabbed his bag from the ground - he must not have cared about what was in it; the bottom was soaked - and shrugged it over his shoulder. He smiled a little when Jinki let him go first.
Taemin flashed his metro card and made his way to the back of the bus. The seats were mostly empty, except for a few cram students with overstuffed backpacks and a businessman glancing anxiously at his watch. Jinki was going to take his usual seat near the middle, but Taemin shifted his bag onto the floor, clearing the seat next to him. It would have been rude not to sit down.
Taemin smiled brightly when Jinki slid into the seat and shoved his bag between his knees. There was a weird note to the smile; almost too-wide, adamant in its joy, like Taemin was trying to convince himself and everyone around that see, I am smiling because everything is fine! Jinki might not have recognized it for what it was if he hadn't found himself making that same smile a lot lately. So he didn't ask.
"How come we haven't talked before?" Jinki wondered. "We've sat next to each other for, like, three weeks now."
There was a loose thread on the sleeve of Taemin's sweater, and Jinki couldn't stop staring at it. He itched to pull it free. "You're older than me," Taemin said, as though that should explain everything. And it did, in a way. If Taemin was a first- or second-year in a third-year calculus class, it was natural for him to affect the demeanor of the quiet dongsaeng.
"Coming from a friend's?" Jinki asked, nodding towards the wet bag sandwiched between Taemin's legs and the side panel.
Taemin made that smile again, too wide. "No, practice."
There was a very clear period at the end of that statement; no more questions. Jinki pressed his lips together and tilted his head, suit yourself, and slid down to slouch in his seat. It wasn't his problem if Taemin wanted to be vague, but at least he should be polite and make conversation after inviting Jinki to sit with him. Taemin seemed perfectly content to sit in silence. Maybe Jinki was the only one to find it uncomfortable.
The bus lumbered up the hill into town, and Taemin pulled his soaking wet bag into his lap. He nudged Jinki with his knee. "This is my stop," he said. Jinki got up and let Taemin slip by him. The bus lurched and Taemin nearly stumbled, quickly grabbing onto the back of the seat, his face barely inches from Jinki's. He smelled like the rain.
"See you on Monday, Jinki-hyung," he said. He caught his tongue between his teeth when he smiled.
The bus idled just long enough for Jinki to watch as Taemin got off and tucked his socks into his shoes, no more flash of pink around his ankles. Jinki felt his face flush hot as he registered that Taemin was bending over and damn, the boy had a nice ass.
Jinki only tore his eyes away when the bus started to move. He fisted his hands into his coat pockets and tried to figure out how he had never noticed Taemin before.
What a weird kid.
The house was quiet when Jinki got home. He stepped out of his shoes and breezed through the kitchen, searching for signs of someone in the house. There was a coffee cup perched precariously close to the counter's edge, an inch of sugar sludge crystallized in the bottom. Jinki pushed the cup further back on the counter - with his luck, he'd end up knocking it over and breaking eomma's favourite mug. The coffee was long cold - she'd been out for a while.
The answering machine was blinking with two messages. The first:
"Good afternoon, this is Baek Jaesoon from the Sunday Times-"
Delete.
"Hello, Seonhwa; hello, Jinki. Just calling to check up. It's been a long day here, or I would've called earlier. Have either of you been to the hospital today? Let me know how hyung is doing. Uh, if not - wish him well for me when you go. Call me if there are any updates. Seonhwa, if you need to talk... well. You know my number. Okay. Uh, goodbye."
Jinki deleted that one too; if he saved every message from his uncle there would be no room left on the answering machine by next week.
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wynnetimate's master list.
Pairing: Onew/Taemin
Length: 3,470w
Summary: "Some people are just unlucky."
This is what I worked on for National Novel Writing Month 2010. It reached 50,000 words on November 29th, but is far from finished. I'll be posting as I revise and write. I hope you enjoy it!
C H A P T E R 1
It started with these nightmares.
They were horror movie vivid, all of the colours oversaturated and the volume turned up to maximum; the kind of nightmares Jinki hadn't had since he was a little kid. Nightmares that scared him awake to find that he'd sweat through both layers of the sheets, and his heart wouldn't stop hammering against his ribcage like it wanted out.
There was a similar scene in every dream. It always started out innocent enough: Jinki would be panning for gold, or challenging a giraffe to a three-legged race, or learning to pilot an airplane. At some point, inevitably, he found himself in a car - the family sedan - and things would start to spiral out of control. The tires would slip, screeching for traction on the pavement, and then the slow-motion impact; Jinki could feel the seatbelt digging into his shoulder as it locked with the momentum, and then there was the sickening splash of blood against the windshield followed by the cracking-ice sound of the glass splitting into spider webs as it shattered.
The strange thing was, Jinki hadn't even been in the car when it happened.
He had seen a digital photograph of the family sedan after the accident, the car crumpled to half its size. The pavement was littered with glass and pieces of metal that were vageuly recognizable as having once been a part of the car. The passenger's side door was missing entirely; it had to be taken off to get Jinki's father out from behind the dash. His father wasn't in the photograph, but Jinki could picture him too easily: blood pouring from his head, eyes flickering as he tried to hold onto consciousness.
The lack of sleep was starting to show on Jinki's face. He had been "coming down with a cold" for a few weeks - too obvious of an excuse for the sniffling, the burning eyes - and frankly, he was baffled that no one commented on how awful he looked. Too polite, probably. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his skin was getting pale and sallow. Sometimes when he squinted, the world went a little funny, like hearing sounds underwater or seeing something in slow motion. In soccer practice, Jinki had to consciously think about the act of running: pick up leg, put it over there, pick up other leg... He stopped trying to take notes in class. The words seemed to go in one ear and out the other, and anything he wrote on the page looked like it was swimming on the line. Still, his test came back with a happy face and a big double nine, so he must have been absorbing something.
His father was probablymaybepossibly dying - the prognosis changed from day-to-day - and Jinki wasn't even depressed. Not really. He didn't cry all the time like his mother did in the kitchen after work. He didn't phone home constantly like his uncle, his father's little brother, leaving five voicemails a day, "just calling to see if there's an update from Dr. Shim; um, let me know if there are any changes. Tell your appa I love him."
It wasn't a good time for Jinki to feel depressed. It was his last term of high school. He had to get into a good university, at least as good as the one his older cousin got into last year (or better, always strive for better). Jinki was on the student council, the honour roll, the soccer team; he tutored first- and second-year math during his lunch period. That kind of effort couldn't all come to a stop just because his father bumped his head.
More like he cracked it open like a dropped watermelon, but close enough.
And since Jinki's mother was crying all the time, she called into work more often. Jinki had caught her a few times when he came home on a free lunch, lying in her pajamas with the television on like she had nothing better to do at one in the afternoon on a weekday. Jinki wasn't stupid - he knew what those bills on the counter were for - and so he picked up a few shifts at a department store and got paid to shelve stock and clean up, tasks he could do with his head down so that no one would recognize him and ask - god, he hated it when people asked:
"How's your father doing?" Polite, clipped; hint of pity. Always with the same hopeful tone of voice as a question about whether he thought it would rain or not. Like that made it easier to talk about the worst thing that had ever happened in Jinki's life.
People asked all the time. They knew about it. There had been a segment on the evening news: "Middle School Teacher Comatose Following Collision With Drunk Driver". There were interviews with guys from the soccer team that Jinki's father coached on weekends, along with a group shot of the whole team from last year's regional's, special emphasis on Mr. Lee's arm around Jinki's shoulder. A few articles cropped the shot to show just the two of them. There had been plenty of ajummas approaching Jinki after that ran in the newspaper, and he learned to simply smile and nod when they patted his arm and offered him condolences. Jinki knew that it was more for their own peace of mind than out of any true consideration for him.
Jinki would be lying if he said that he wasn't running himself ragged. He knew what being tired felt like. He'd played soccer games in gazillion-degree heat and pulled two all-nighters in a row to study for an exam. He knew that an energy drink could keep him up an extra two, maybe three hours before he started blinking heavily and seeing spots on his textbook. Over the summer, Jinki stayed up for three days straight with Jonghyun, setting high scores on a new video game. He got the eye sweats, and his neck was sore; he had been fucking tired, but even then he didn't sleep the way he did now.
Jinki came home late, after it was already dark out. He showered if he could keep his eyes open long enough, and the minute he crawled into bed he was asleep. If he was really, truly tired, he didn't dream. It was one black second of closing his eyes before his alarm went off, four hours gone in a blink, and he got up to do it all again.
Jinki wasn't depressed about his father's health, not like his mom, not like his uncle. It was hard to feel much of anything when he was exhausted.
And honestly, that was kind of the point.
It was Jonghyun who got Jinki the job at the department store. He'd worked there for a few years, and put in a word that Jinki would be a good employee, a total um-chin-ah, willing to work late even on weekdays. Jinki didn't even have to hand in a resume.
Jinki liked working with Jonghyun. After hours, they played soccer in the aisles with crumpled aluminum for a ball and cardboard boxes for goalposts. Jonghyun was loud and obnoxious, a little insensitive, but he talked more than enough for the both of them and Jinki liked that he didn't have to try so hard to keep the conversation going.
...told her that you probably wouldn't come, but I'd ask anyway. So this is me asking you. I know you'll say no.
Jinki didn't mind restocking. He liked how methodical it was, how everything had its proper place on the shelf. There was no thought involved, and Jinki could almost allow himself to rest, sleeping on his feet like a horse, his eyes open but his mind shut off completely. Jinki had always thought that it was impossible to stop thinking - actively trying not to think usually involves thinking the words don't think, don't think - but he proved himself wrong. He put a can on the shelf. Reached for another. Put that one on the shelf next to the first. It was like leaving a television on with nothing but static.
Jinki?
Nothing but white snow, a loud rushing in his ears like plunging his head underwater. When Jinki was finished with the canned fruit cocktail he moved on to the box of canned peaches, turning all of the labels to face outward: high quality fancy peaches!
"Yah, Jinki! What the hell?"
Jinki became aware of the background noise before Jonghyun came into focus. The radio was playing over the loudspeakers, a song that Jinki used to like until he heard it a thousand times. The owner seemed to have two CDs that looped endlessly during Jinki's shift: an hour and a half of old trot songs followed by a top 40 compilation from about five years ago. Outside it had started to rain. There were no windows at the back of the store, but Jinki could hear the water slapping against the roof. It almost went to the beat of the music.
Jonghyun was staring expectantly, waiting for an answer. He had a box cutter in one hand, and he held it up in mock-threat, wiggling the blade in Jinki's direction. "Have you been abducted by aliens? You went a little dazed for a minute there."
Jinki remembered a random fact he had read somewhere about seizures. A petit mal was a seizure that lasted a few seconds, barely noticeable. Jinki wondered if he had seizures. How could you tell if they were so short? "I'm fine," Jinki said.
"Obviously." Jonghyun was being sarcastic. Or Jinki thought he was. With Jonghyun it wasn't always easy to tell; his sarcasm was only marginally different from his usual cut-and-dry tone of voice.
"Sorry."
Jonghyun shrugged and snapped the blade on the box cutter. He started tearing into the box that Jinki had just emptied. "Don't worry about it, man. I understand."
It was odd how everyone accepted the excuse without Jinki ever making it. He had been late to first period class a few times, and the secretary had written him an attendance slip without asking, signing it off, smiling sympathetically and saying that she understood. Jinki wasn't about to decline a free pass, but he was tempted to ask what it was that everyone seemed to understand. Because if everyone else had met some big understanding about dying parents - maybe dying parents, Jinki corrected; the doctors hadn't made a call either way, maybe he'll wake up, maybe he won't - Jinki wanted to be let in on the secret. He didn't really have a clue.
"Thanks," he said, because that was easiest.
Jonghyun stepped on the top flap of the box and pulled, separating two sides with a low ripping sound, the corrugated cardboard coming apart at the seam. "Hey, look - I can finish up here, hyung. You can go home. You look..." Jonghyun let that trail off with a helpless shrug; Jinki didn't need to have it pointed out that he looked haggard. "Well, y'know," Jonghyun said. He folded the box flat. "I don't mind if you wanna go."
Normally, Jinki would have been mildly offended. Are you implying that I can't take care of myself? But it was late, and Jinki had a test in the morning that he hadn't studied very much for, and the music had just changed over to a trot song that Jinki had already heard on this shift thirty times over. Maybe tomorrow he could bring in some music that he could dance to, something other than mournful vocal ballads. "If you don't mind," Jinki said. He really should go home and study, at least crack a book open for a few minutes before falling asleep on it.
"I don't mind. I offered." Jonghyun made a shooing motion with his hand. "I'll clock you out when I go."
Jinki bowed, mockingly formal, and Jonghyun laughed.
"Go," he said, "before I change my mind."
The rain had seemed pleasant from inside while Jinki was overheating in his work uniform. He had imagined it as the prettiest summer rain he could remember; like that one time at his grandmother's house outside of Seoul when the sun shone through the rain clouds as if reminding the world that everything is gonna be okay! Jinki wore galoshes and a raincoat, and went outside with his hand held tightly between his grandmother's bony, arthritic fingers. He had felt like a superhero for some reason; no cape, no underwear over his jeans, but the warm rain and the sunshine made him feel powerful.
Jinki had come to expect less from the world lately, so he couldn't say he was surprised that it wasn't superhero weather. The sky was grey, colourless, and the rain fell without wind, straight down onto the pavement. The gutters were swollen with water. Jinki walked on the curb, barely trying to keep his sneakers from getting wet; they were going to end up soaked whether he tried or not, so he might as well bow to fate.
There was someone waiting at the bus stop when Jinki got there, and at first glance he couldn't tell if it was a boy or a girl. The person was small, skinny in a fast metabolism way; all hard angles, bony shoulders and wrists. First impression was that it was a girl - she was wearing rolled-up sweats, and the slip of sock around the top of her sneakers was bubblegum pink. Her hair was pulled back into a short, messy ponytail. Most of the hair had slipped from the tie and fell in wet strands around her face.
When Jinki got closer, she glanced over. She didn't look away, so Jinki cleared his throat and said, "Can't believe how hard it's raining."
"It's not that bad."
The voice gave it away. Not a girl - a boy, wearing cute pink socks. Jinki felt stupid for assuming otherwise. The boy wasn't wearing makeup or carrying a purse, and there was a clearly visible Adam's apple on his throat. Must have borrowed his sister's socks or something. He looked familiar; someone Jinki went to school with.
It took Jinki a moment to realize that the boy was being sarcastic. He was wetter than Jinki, soaked through to his skin. He shivered, hands fisted into his sleeves. When Jinki finally caught on and opened his mouth - ah, I get it - the boy pressed his lips together in the smallest, most indulgent smile. It seemed to Jinki like the boy's smile made it a little warmer in the bus shelter.
"You're Lee Jinki," the boy said.
"That's me."
"I'm sorry, I don't - it's not that I know you," the boy said quickly. He blew on his fingers to warm them up, but kept his hands there, covering his face. Acting shy? "It's just that everybody knows who you are."
"I play on the soccer team," Jinki said, shrugging, "but I'm not that good."
"I know. I mean, I know you're on the soccer team - everyone says that you're pretty good, though. I'm Lee Taemin. We have calculus together."
Now Jinki knew why the boy looked so familiar. They sat next to each other in class, but the Taemin standing in front of Jinki now looked nothing like the studious Lee Taemin from calculus. He even stood differently, a little cock to his hip that Jinki hadn't noticed before. Must be the socks.
"So, you're new this year?" Jinki asked. He already knew the answer - he remembered Taemin bowing and introducing himself at the beginning of the term - but it seemed polite to ask.
Taemin bobbed his head. "My family moved over summer break."
"How come?"
"That's... well, it's not really..."
Jinki looked over, curious, but Taemin didn't look like he planned to finish that thought. It was obviously a sore subject. Fair enough. Jinki shrugged his shoulders. "I guess it's none of my business."
"No," Taemin agreed.
The rain seemed to fall harder for a moment. It thundered through the trees and lashed the pavement below, running in rivulets onto the road. Jinki leaned out of the bus shelter, squinting through the rain for the headlights of the bus. As if on cue, the bus roared onto the street, splitting water in its wake. Taemin grabbed his bag from the ground - he must not have cared about what was in it; the bottom was soaked - and shrugged it over his shoulder. He smiled a little when Jinki let him go first.
Taemin flashed his metro card and made his way to the back of the bus. The seats were mostly empty, except for a few cram students with overstuffed backpacks and a businessman glancing anxiously at his watch. Jinki was going to take his usual seat near the middle, but Taemin shifted his bag onto the floor, clearing the seat next to him. It would have been rude not to sit down.
Taemin smiled brightly when Jinki slid into the seat and shoved his bag between his knees. There was a weird note to the smile; almost too-wide, adamant in its joy, like Taemin was trying to convince himself and everyone around that see, I am smiling because everything is fine! Jinki might not have recognized it for what it was if he hadn't found himself making that same smile a lot lately. So he didn't ask.
"How come we haven't talked before?" Jinki wondered. "We've sat next to each other for, like, three weeks now."
There was a loose thread on the sleeve of Taemin's sweater, and Jinki couldn't stop staring at it. He itched to pull it free. "You're older than me," Taemin said, as though that should explain everything. And it did, in a way. If Taemin was a first- or second-year in a third-year calculus class, it was natural for him to affect the demeanor of the quiet dongsaeng.
"Coming from a friend's?" Jinki asked, nodding towards the wet bag sandwiched between Taemin's legs and the side panel.
Taemin made that smile again, too wide. "No, practice."
There was a very clear period at the end of that statement; no more questions. Jinki pressed his lips together and tilted his head, suit yourself, and slid down to slouch in his seat. It wasn't his problem if Taemin wanted to be vague, but at least he should be polite and make conversation after inviting Jinki to sit with him. Taemin seemed perfectly content to sit in silence. Maybe Jinki was the only one to find it uncomfortable.
The bus lumbered up the hill into town, and Taemin pulled his soaking wet bag into his lap. He nudged Jinki with his knee. "This is my stop," he said. Jinki got up and let Taemin slip by him. The bus lurched and Taemin nearly stumbled, quickly grabbing onto the back of the seat, his face barely inches from Jinki's. He smelled like the rain.
"See you on Monday, Jinki-hyung," he said. He caught his tongue between his teeth when he smiled.
The bus idled just long enough for Jinki to watch as Taemin got off and tucked his socks into his shoes, no more flash of pink around his ankles. Jinki felt his face flush hot as he registered that Taemin was bending over and damn, the boy had a nice ass.
Jinki only tore his eyes away when the bus started to move. He fisted his hands into his coat pockets and tried to figure out how he had never noticed Taemin before.
What a weird kid.
The house was quiet when Jinki got home. He stepped out of his shoes and breezed through the kitchen, searching for signs of someone in the house. There was a coffee cup perched precariously close to the counter's edge, an inch of sugar sludge crystallized in the bottom. Jinki pushed the cup further back on the counter - with his luck, he'd end up knocking it over and breaking eomma's favourite mug. The coffee was long cold - she'd been out for a while.
The answering machine was blinking with two messages. The first:
"Good afternoon, this is Baek Jaesoon from the Sunday Times-"
Delete.
"Hello, Seonhwa; hello, Jinki. Just calling to check up. It's been a long day here, or I would've called earlier. Have either of you been to the hospital today? Let me know how hyung is doing. Uh, if not - wish him well for me when you go. Call me if there are any updates. Seonhwa, if you need to talk... well. You know my number. Okay. Uh, goodbye."
Jinki deleted that one too; if he saved every message from his uncle there would be no room left on the answering machine by next week.
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