#jongtae if you squint | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

katrinawritesthings · 3 years ago

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Jonghyun/everyone; the big round lesbian in the sky ; pg-nc17

A collection of short stories told to Taemin by Jonghyun about the moon

🌕Prologue: the moon Jongtae; pg; 733w 🌩Oceanus procellarum - ocean of storms Jongho; storm chaser but in space au; pg; 638w 💞Mare cognitum - sea that has become known Ot5; pg; kissie stuff; 439w 🌹Mare nectaris - sea of nectar Onjongtae; garden spirit au; nc17; 644w 🫂Mare tranquillitatis - sea of tranquility Onjongho; mages au; pg;949w 💦Mare humorum - sea of moisture Jongtae; mermaid au; pg; 899w 🌴Mare insularum - sea of islands Ot5; creationists au; pg; 1386w 🌙Mare crisium - sea of crises Jongtaekey; sailor moon au; pg; 984w ☁️Mare nubium - sea of clouds Jongkey; skyship au; pg; 869w 🌧Mare imbrium - sea of showers/rain Jongminkey; space slice of life au; pg; 1191w ❄️Mare frigoris - sea of cold Jongyu; weather deities au; pg; 887w 🧚Mare vaporum - sea of vapors Jong2min; lake fairy au; pg; 929w 😌Mare serenitatis - sea of serenity Onjongkey; beach au; pg; 962w 🍑Mare fecunditatis - sea of fecundity/fertility Ot5; horny lol; nc17; 1499 words 🌕Epilogue: the far side Jongtae; pg; 893w

Written for @rollercoasterwrite jongsmonth : ) I meant to post this last week but I forgot I had the mermay thing in the queue lol

🌕Prologue: the moon

They're outside, the two of them, Jonghyun and Taemin, at the playground across the street, and they’ve just spent the last half-hour lazily swaying on the swings and watching the summer sunset. It's one of their favorite kind of dates: simple, close to home, free, sometimes there are dogs. And especially, for Jonghyun anyway, once the sun sets, the moon gets extra bright.

It's a full moon tonight and it's almost as bright as Jonghyun's smile. He's twisted around in the swing seat to look for it and, finding it behind them, he quickly gets up and sits down again facing it. Taemin copies him at a much more leisurely pace. He's had his jacket tied around his waist, but he puts it on properly, zipping it up against the sudden nighttime chill.

Pointing up at the moon in the dusky blue twilight, Jonghyun says, "there she is. The big round lesbian in the sky." He sighs dreamily. His pink bangs fall into his eyes, obscuring his view of the moon the tiniest amount, and he flicks them away.

"There she is," Taemin repeats, smiling. It's always been obvious that Taemin isn't as invested in the moon as Jonghyun is, but it's also obvious that he's always been invested in Jonghyun's passion for it. He looks up at it for a minute, then pulls out his phone and starts playing a game. Jonghyun smiles up at it nonstop, arms curled around one of the swing chains, cheek smushed up in his hands, feet gently pushing him back and forth. They talk and joke together as the sky grows darker and the moon glows brighter.

Eventually Taemin looks up, then does a double-take, and then squints his eyes, frowning. "Why is it so bright?" he asks. "What the fuck."

Laughing, Jonghyun tells him, "because it's reflecting sunlight."

"Like," Taemin says. He points at the moon, then down at where the sun sunk below the horizon, and then pauses for a minute, trying to figure out the logistics. Then he rolls his eyes and shakes his head and says, "fucked up.”

"Excuse me, I'm right here," Jonghyun frowns. "She is not fucked up. Fuck you." As usual, he's taken it upon himself to be offended on behalf of the moon. And as usual, Taemin doubles down on offending the moon.

"It's fucked up!” he says, gesturing up at it with his whole hand. "I don't want to think about math and angles and shit. I'm just an ocean gay."

"The moon is, like, literally the intersection between space and ocean gays,” Jonghyun says indignantly. He gestures up at it as well, just the simple thrust of his hand full of fire and emotion. "She pushes and pulls the tides. She makes the waves. They use her for navigation in boats. And, and, you see the dark spots on her? Galileo thought each one was an ocean."

Taemin looks a little overwhelmed at all of Jonghyun's information; probably he knew most of that before, but having it all used against him has to be a new experience. He blinks at Jonghyun, clearly trying to think of something to say, before he blurts, "who?"

"Galileo,” Jonghyun repeats. His hand falls into his lap. "Italian Guy. Big astronomy guy. Forever ago. The one that said earth revolves around the sun instead of the other way around and then the church excommunicated him for blasphemy."

Taemin snorts, dropping all of his other emotions to just laugh instead. He hides it behind his hand even though it's as loud and hiccuppy as usual. "That sounds familiar, yeah," he agrees. He turns back to the moon, frowning but not as hard as before. His eyes trace each dark spot of the moon, taking them all in. "And he thought they were all oceans?" he asks thoughtfully. He looks at Jonghyun. “What are they really?”

"Lava," Jonghyun shrugs, and then, seeing Taemin's face twist into outrage, hastily adds, "but who cares. Not important. For a long time they thought they were oceans. And each of them has a name and a legend attached to it."

It does the trick: Taemin loses focus on his spacephobia and instead perks up with interest. "Legend?" he asks. "Story? Ocean story? Space ocean story?" He's eager, interested, clumsily swinging sideways to bring himself closer to Jonghyun. "Storytime," he demands.

Chuckling, Jonghyun complies.

🌩Oceanus procellarum - ocean of storms

“Ooh ooh ooh, wait wait wait, here here here." Jonghyun swings his arm out to slap at Minho. Minho is already hitting the brakes, though, and he bumps Jonghyun away with his elbow. Their cruiser whirrs to a stop and he hits the stabilizers to keep them in place. Jonghyun scrambles into the back to grab his camera equipment; quickly, before he finishes, Minho pulls up his weather tracker.

He scans through everything – the news, the radio, the satellites, the ship's own scanners – and is certain that it's safe enough for Jonghyun to get out just as Jonghyun is smashing the button to open up the hood. He grabs a tether and hooks it to Jonghyun's belt, tugging him back for just one second to make sure it's secure and then letting him free.

From there Minho can take his time. He sends a report to the local weather station, writes down the coordinates in their log, and grabs his own camera before he tethers himself to the ship and joins Jonghyun outside.

And oh, what a view it is outside.

The cosmic storm that they've been chasing for the better part of a week is in full swing. Stardust, broken comets, and metal debris soar through the void. They swirl with the currents of space, flying in great arcs over their heads. Huge nebulous clouds surround them with all sorts of greens and yellows, dipping into blues, just barely touching orange. There's a dull, quiet roar of fire, of crystals, of metal on metal, of speed, of all of these the mismatched noises mashing together and coming to them sped up, slowed down, and distorted through the clouds. Standing here in the center of it, this huge astronomical wonder, and knowing that it's a fraction of a fraction of a fraction a quadrillion fractions of everything in just this one universe, almost takes Minho's breath away.

But he's seen it all before. The storm isn't the view he's enamored with.

Jonghyun is floating above and a little to the left of their ship, stabilizing his camera stand and trying to set up a good shot of the storm. His silver hair floats around his head and catches sparkles from the clouds. His lashes fan out over his cheeks as he looks through the camera and his strong fingers work so delicately to adjust the zoom and focus. Sharp white teeth bite his bottom lip, soft and pink, and then he catches Minho looking at him, and then he smiles.

He smiles so beautifully. His mouth stretched wide, his cheeks rounded, his eyes all lit up with the same giddy excitement that they always get when they're in the middle of a storm. Minho's breath leaves him.

No matter how many times he sees it, it always feels like the first time.

The storm flares bright, the clouds glowing and expanding with chemical reactions powerful enough to reach throughout an entire galaxy. At the same time, Minho's heart thuds hard enough to reach throughout an entire galaxy and then some.

"So what do you think?" Jonghyun swings himself over to nudge Taemin, blinking at him expectantly.

Taemin hums, staring at the moon for a moment longer before raising his eyebrows. "More romantic than I thought," he says dryly.

"Yeah, well," Jonghyun grins. "You know how us space gays are."

"Yeah?" Taemin laughs. "Galileo was a space gay?”

"He was in my heart." Jonghyun puts his hand on his chest, screwing up his face with overexaggerated emotion. Then he smiles and hops off of the swing. "Let's go home," he says. "I'll Tell you another moon legend another time if you restrain yourself from being mean about her."

Taemin stands and swings his arm around Jonghyun's shoulders. "I'll try my best,” he promises.

💞Mare cognitum - sea that has become known

Kissing Jinki is like space.

Each kiss is soft, slow, and seemingly endless. Jonghyun gets so lost in them that he loses track of time; so lost that sometimes he even forgets where they are. And he doesn't mind either. A kiss from Jinki feels like everything, all at once, all-encompassing, all important, everything in every universe combined all in one simple press of lips. But it also feels like nothing, like not a care in existence, like letting go and giving everything else up because nothing matters but the two of them together.

Kissing Jinki is his favorite.

Kissing Kibum is like a fruit.

They're bright, fresh, each one a burst of emotion. The moment their lips touch Jonghyun bursts into smiling; he bursts into loving. And every time it's a surprise. A kiss from Kibum has layers, like biting into a gummy and not expecting the gooey center inside. They're not just physical affection, they’re communication. No matter how small or quick, Jonghyun gets a full story from each of them –how Kibum's day was, what his mood is, what he wants to say to Jonghyun, the exact number in the millions to describe how much Kibum is in love with him at that exact moment.

Kissing Kibum is his favorite.

Kissing Minho is like a blanket.

Every one is so warm, so cozy, so comfortable. Jonghyun melts into them on first contact; relaxing into them feels like coming home. And it's been like that since the very first time. A kiss from Minho is to be enveloped in a warm hug, not just from his arms around Jonghyun's shoulders, but from his aura wrapping around Jonghyun s. He radiates protection, security, and stability, but every so often, if Jonghyun rubs him just the right way, he'll nip, he'll bite, he'll static shock a thrill directly through Jonghyun's nerves.

Kissing Minho is his favorite.

Kissing Taemin is like –

"Jonghyun?”

"Yeah?"

"Do you want me to kiss you?"

"Please."

Kissing Taemin is like fireworks.

Every single time, it's dazzling, exciting, tingly from the tips of his hair all the way down to his toes. Jonghyun can anticipate and prepare for each and every one, but they never fail to sweep him off of his feet. And he never gets tired of them. A kiss from Taemin makes his heartbeat stutter, his lungs hitch, his stomach flip. They’re so much packed into so little, and they last much longer than the initial flash and bang would lead one to believe. They linger, enjoying their welcome, reminding Jonghyun that Taemin will stay just as long.

Kissing Taemin is his favorite.

🌹Mare nectaris - sea of nectar

“Can't believe you jerked it before you called me."

“How was I supposed to know you were going to try to have phone sex with me?”

Both of them can feel each other's pouts through all of the distance separating them. Jonghyun is on his stomach on the bed at home, chin in his hands as he looks out the window at the full moon. Taemin is slouched in a hotel chair miles away, looking through fancy curtains at the same moon. "Why wouldn't I try to have phone sex with you?” he groans.

"You know," Jonghyun chuckles, "can't argue with that.” while Taemin dramatically groans louder, he pulls a pillow to support him underneath his chest. "here,” he says. "I'll give you a horny fantasy I like to think about. You don't know this one. It's based on one of the moon legends.”

“Oh, fuck yeah,” Taemin mutters, frantically getting his hand down his pants.

In every garden, if it's cared for enough, loved enough, cherished enough, a spirit will be born. A manifestation of the garden’s emotions and health, the spirit will lend their magic to the owners of the garden in gratitude. And if the spirit themself is treated kindly enough–with prayers, favors, offerings, and praise–they will stay and the garden will flourish like no other. If ignored or disrespected, it's said that the spirit will leave and nothing will ever grow in the garden again.

Luckily for Jonghyun, Jinki and Taemin know exactly how to keep their spirit absolutely delighted.

"You’re so pretty today, aren't you, with all of your alyssums?” Taemin's fingers in ferns flowers send shivers down Jonghyun's spine. Or maybe it’s that when he sifts his fingers through them, hundreds of tiny little white and pink flower petals flutter down over ferns body. Or maybe it's his voice, so soft and husky, so close to ferns ear that fern can feel his lips smiling. Or maybe it’s his hand on the back of ferns thigh. Or maybe it's his other hand on ferns cock.

It might also be Jinki's mouth against ferns jaw, or his warm chest pressed against ferns back, or his lap soft and comfortable beneath fern, or his hand on the back of ferns other thigh helping to keep ferns legs spread open, or his fingers inside of ferns ass.

It might be any number of those things. Either way, fern's having a fantastic time. Ferns heart is beating so hard that fern can feel every pulse of chlorophyll through ferns veins and the edges of ferns vision are exquisitely fuzzy.

"You say that like fern's not pretty all the time." Jinki's tone is stern and his fingers draw circles on Jonghyun's prostate as if to make it up to fern.

"I said today," Taemin pouts back. His hand is impossibly soft on ferns cock, just barely stroking fern. Fern's absolutely leaking precum anyway and it dribbles down ferns shaft, over his hand, drips off of ferns balls to absorb into the soil. "Fern's pretty everyday, but fern's extra pretty today. Aren't you, my Jonghyunnie?"

"My favorite," Jinki says warmly.

" Our favorite," Taemin corrects.

"Our only." Jinki punctuates the words with a kiss just below ferns ear. Jonghyun flushes, roses blooming in ferns cheeks and all around the garden. Theirs; fern's theirs and they're ferns. "Do you want to cum, our handsome?" Jinki asks fern.

Frantically, Jonghyun shakes ferns head. No, no fern doesn't. Not yet. It's been at least an hour, already, of them playing with fern, pleasuring fern, spoiling fern, and fern doesn't want it to end. Fern wants to feel like this, just like this, hot and tingly and delirious and loved, forever and ev –

"Hey, I nutted."

"I heard." Jonghyun's smile is just as audible over the phone as Taemin's is. "You're welcome," he says.

🫂 Mare tranquillitatis - sea of tranquility

Jonghyun drums his fingers on his thigh, a staccato of nerves to complicate his foot bouncing restlessly against the carpet. He stares at his phone in his hand. The phone stares back at him, displaying the phone number for the interview he’s supposed to call for in half an hour.

Taemin stares at him too, nibbling on his bottom lip. His hand hovers over Jonghyun's leg like he's not sure whether or not touching will help.

"What if," he tries, "what if you thought about the moon?”

And then, when all Jonghyun does is frown and tilt his head, continues, "she calms you down, right? Or is there a moon legend about being calm?”

“There... is," Jonghyun says.

Jonghyun drums his fingers on his thigh, a staccato of nerves to compliment his foot bouncing restlessly against the hardwood floor backstage. His breath shakes in and out of his mouth no matter how hard he tries to control it. His pulse pounds in his fingertips. The space just behind his eyes is burning so hot that he wouldn't be surprised if he burst into flames at any moment. All he can hear is his own breathing and everything else seems muffled, far away. His magic, a soft pink shimmer around him, sparkles and crackles in a way that only he knows is different from normal.

People walk past him with polite greetings that he returns mindlessly. If asked, he couldn't recall who or how many. Just that he smiled and waved with three fingers, nodded or cocked an eyebrow, offered a joke or a wish of good luck in return. He's always like this; confident and unbothered on the outside but falling apart on the inside. He wouldn't mind so much if it was something he was doing on purpose, but as it is, he would do anything for someone to spare him more than a passing second and realize that he needs –

“Jonghyun.”

“Hey.”

Jinki and Minho sit down on either side of him and bring the world into focus with them. Muffled voices clear up into discernible words, the boxes and rope behind the stage curtains lose their fuzz around the edges, the people walking around become recognizable. But most importantly, front and center in Jonghyun's mind is the warmth of Jinki's side pressing against his and Minho's arm around his shoulders. Those more than anything pull him back to the present.

"You're going to do great," Minho tells him. He's full of confidence, like he knows that he’s speaking facts, and he shakes Jonghyun hard enough to make him jiggle. "Everyone you've already sung for has loved it. And you've practiced a thousand times.”

His light green magic mixes with Jonghyun's on the right, their colors swirling together without blending. Jonghyun follows a line of green as it curls around some pink and mumbles, "It could have been a thousand and one." He could have always practiced more. He could have stayed up later, eaten faster, taken less breaks.

Jinki's arm snakes around his waist and he puts his chin on his shoulder. His magic is a light orange and it does blend with Jonghyun's until they turn into a soft peachy color on his left. Jinki doesn't offer any words; just his presence, quiet and supportive. Jonghyun leans his head against his.

"Singing is the easy part anyway,” Minho goes on. "Isn't that what you've been saying this whole time? Writing everything was the hard part. And it's a spell for calming nerves anyway. All you have to do is start and then the more you sing the less nervous you'll be. Starting only takes a second.”

Jonghyun does have to admit, he's making some very good points. Jonghyun remembers making those same points himself all month long ever since signed up for the audition. It's good to be reminded. Absentmindedly, he twines his fingers with Jinki's and squeezes. Jinki squeezes back the perfect amount.

"And besides," Minho says. He puts his free hand on Jonghyun's leg and shakes it gently. "You're the best singer that I know.”

"Stop,” Jonghyun whines, automatically blushing. His magic glitters bright and warms the air around them, making his hair stand on end. Even without looking, he can see Minho's huge smile in the corner of his eye.

"Why?” Minho pouts, offended that Jonghyun is denying him. "It's true. Your voice is wonderful. You've always had talent and you've added so much skill on top of it. When you sing it's like roses –”

"You're so –” Jonghyun puts his face in his hands, trying to steady his beating heart. Every time. Every single time Minho starts complimenting him. Jinki makes soothing noises next to his ear, gently tickling his fingers into his side, but Jonghyun can tell that he’s amused. Every single time with both of them. They're too much for him.

But at least now his mind is off of his nerves. He straightens up, fanning his face. On either side of him, their smiles are so full of confidence that Jonghyun can't help but feel confident in himself.

Not too long after, he walks on stage to the microphone. His vision and his hearing are clear, his hands and breathing are steady, and his magic floats calmly around him. He introduces himself and, when he takes a breath to start singing and feels a tingle of nerves in the back of his head, he scans the sparse crowd for Jinki and Minho. He finds them and, with their smiles in his heart, he gives the best performance he's ever given in his life.

And it's easy.

💦Mare humorum - sea of moisture

Taemin finds Jonghyun right where shell thought shell would: floating on shells back up on the surface. shell's silhouetted in the light of the moon and stars, but every so often, one of shells pink scales will glitter in the moonlight. Shells long pink hair spreads out around shells head, sending crisscrossing shadows over Taemin as shell swims up to meet shell.

Breaking the surface of the water is as disorienting as usual. The chill of the air, the force of the breeze, the sudden existence of smell. But Taemin brushes it off with practiced indifference and pushes shells silver and black hair out of shells face. Jonghyun hums quietly, a short little acknowledgement of shells presence. The sky is reflected in shells pretty eyes, a universe filling them up with stardust. Moonlight shines down on shells face. It highlights shells cheekbones, the tip of shells nose, and shells plush lips.

Gently, Taemin gathers up shells hair and pushes it out of the way, and then even gentler, shell cups Jonghyun's face and kisses shell upside down. Jonghyun kisses back, soft, distracted, but when Taemin pulls away, shell tilts shells face up to keep their mouths connected for that tiny second longer. Shells eyelashes flutter and Jonghyun seems to lose focus for a second before gaining it back. The stars leave shells eyes and Taemin fills them instead so that Taemin is looking back down at shellself, reflected twice. Jonghyun smiles.

Taemin came here to chide him, but shell can't help but smile back while shell does it. "You scold me so much for sitting at the edge of the trench and wanting to go explore it,” shell accuses, "and look where I find you.” Jonghyun knows it's dangerous up here, with humans and their boats around.

Jonghyun's nose wrinkles. "They're different," shell pouts. "One day if I'm not there to stop you you'll actually go down there and get eaten by something. How am I going to get all the way up there?" Shell gestures up at the sky. Still watching shells eyes, Taemin sees Jonghyun get lost in space again, lost in desire. Shells eyes get a faraway look in them and shells voice becomes soft, dreamy, almost a whisper. "But don't you just... want to?" shell asks. Shells arm stays outstretched, fingers reaching for the stars.

Taemin looks up. They're far enough away from the local islands that the only thing they can see is ocean below them and space above them. From this angle, with nothing else, not even clouds, to block their view, it really does seem like the stars are so close that Jonghyun could pluck one out of the void if only shell could reach a couple of inches higher. "I bet if we got up there we could swim," Jonghyun says. "I bet we could do anything we wanted.”

Taemin stays quiet, letting shell yearn. Jonghyun knows how shell feels about space. With the trenches, Taemin has the security to know that whatever is down there at least has to abide by the rules of the ocean, and whatever it is has a bottom, an end point. But up there, out in the everything, out in the nothing, shell can't even begin to imagine what they could find. That scares shell. Shell can't even begin to comprehend the sheer number of possibilities that lie out there. That terrifies shell.

"I want," shell says, tilting Jonghyun's head to bring shells attention back down to the sea. "I want you and me to be together. Wherever we are." Shell lets that sit for a moment, warm and heartfelt in Jonghyun's ears, until shell feels the blush creeping into shells own cheeks. Then shell adds, "as long as that wherever isn't here."

Jonghyun chuckles, shaking shells head. Shell rights shellself in the water, giving up the moon easily in exchange for Taemin. One more kiss, and then Taemin takes Jonghyun's hand and pulls shell underwater. Together, they swim back home.

"Jonghyun?"

"Yeah?”

"I really liked that one.”

"I knew you would."

It's a hot summer night and they’re in their apartment complex’s pool technically after curfew but it's not like anyone is going to wake up and yell at them about it. Jonghyun is on his back in a unicorn floatie, staring at the moon, and Taemin is on his stomach on a shark floatie, staring at Jonghyun. "Which moon sea was that one about?" he asks.

Jonghyun points up, and even with the apartment buildings and telephone poles silhouetted against the night sky, his hand looks close enough to the stars that he might be able to pluck one out of the void if only he could reach up a few more inches. "Bottom left, the little one,” he says. Taemin squints up at the moon and finds it. "Mare humorum,” Jonghyun says. "Sea of moisture."

"Sea of – excuse me?” Taemin bursts into laughter. He tries to smother it, but it comes out anyway, loud in the silence of the night. "Moisture?" he repeats.

"Listen," Jonghyun says, but he's giggling too.

"Hey, I'm Galileo, I bet that ocean is so fucking wet –”

"Shut up, ” Jonghyun hisses, but that did it for both of them. Their laughter echoes around the pool and then all throughout the buildings as they scurry back home before they wake up the entire complex.

🌴Mare insularum - sea of islands

"Delivery guy says 25 minutes,” Taemin says as he steps out of the front door. Jonghyun hums in reply but doesn't take his eyes off of the moon. He's sitting on the steps, hugging his knees to his chest. Taemin joins him, crouching down behind him and slowly creeping his arms over his shoulders. Pressing their cheeks together, he looks up at the sky as well. The moon shines full and bright between countless stars.

"Give me some moon wisdom,” he murmurs. Smiling, Jonghyun raises his eyebrows. He presses his lips to Taemin's cheek in a quick peck.

"Moon wisdom, huh?" he asks. "Alright.”

Taemin is a perfectionist. Not in that every single one of his creations must be identical, or healthy, or useful, or guaranteed to survive as long as possible; but in that every single one of his creations must be something that he can take pride in. Each one needs to be exactly the way he wants it to be before he releases it into existence.

Everything that Taemin creates goes through countless revisions, rigorous examination, minute monitoring. Sometimes he'll get something all the way to the finish line, then decide he needs one more revision to get it just right. And then one more. And then one more. And then just one last touch. And then one more.

It grays his hairs, puts bags underneath his eyes, aches in his bones. It keeps him up when he should be sleeping, hovers in the back of his mind when he should be relaxing. It builds up and up and up inside of him, a growing frustration that nothing he does is ever right and never will be and he might as well just throw it all away and never start again until –

Until Jonghyun finds him. Takes his hands out of his hair and brings them to his mouth. Kisses every knuckle, every fingertip. Smiles against each one. Jonghyun gently touches Taemin's latest creation – a tree, a mountain, a river, a meadow – and tells Taemin that it looks great. Tells Taemin something he loves about it. Tells Taemin that he's proud of him for working so hard and so diligently to come up with something entirely new all on his own.

And Taemin, his shoulders sinking, his chest lightening, his mouth smiling for the first time in what feels like eons, takes the creation and releases it into existence without another thought. It doesn't have to be perfect; it just has to be.

Minho's creations can never measure up. Ever since he can remember he's always been told to conceive better, create better, finalize better, be better. Look at what everyone else is doing and do what they do. Be like them and maybe he'll come close to being good enough.

He doesn't even think his creations are that bad; he likes them. He puts his all into every gust of wind, every beam of sun, every drop of rain. He takes his time and has fun and sends them out into existence proud of his work. It's just his superiors that always find something wrong.

It's them that belittle Minho, criticize Minho, command Minho. It's them that take his pride and accomplishment and turn them into disappointment and insecurity, indecision, hesitancy. Their words pull him apart at the seams, have him stretching in every direction in an attempt to obey, running in circles to try to please, falling apart every time he realizes that he will never be enough no matter how hard he tries –

Until Jonghyun takes him by the arms. Stops him, holds him, stabilizes him. Invites himself into his arms and gets comfortable, smiling mischievously with all of the confidence of someone that knows he won't be reprimanded. He peers over whatever Minho was working on last, scrutinizing it with narrowed eyes and pursed lips, and then always manages to compliment with such specific detail just the exact thing that Minho liked most about it.

And every time, the sound of his voice washes through Minho's ears and completely drowns out everything else. He takes the creation and releases it into existence without another thought. He has nothing to prove to anyone else; the only one he needs to please is himself.

All of Kibum's confidence is faked. Well – not all of it. He's sure that some of it is genuine. It's just that he's spent so long faking it that now it's hard for him to tell when it's real and when it's not. He used to be so afraid of being average, regular, unimportant, that he would overcompensate. Overexaggerate. Overdramatize everything from himself to his creations.

Giraffes. Poisonous frogs. Rafflesias. Giant squid. All of those are Kibum's creations, bright and loud and painstakingly unique. His creations, his soul, screaming to be seen, to be heard, to be loved. Screaming that of course he knows what he's doing, of course they're exactly what he wants them to be, of course he doesn't need help, of course he's not barely clinging on to what self-esteem he has.

But now, he does think he knows what he's doing, what he wants to be. He knows how to ask for help and his self-esteem is thriving. Kibum thinks. He just can't be sure. Insecurity nags at him all the time, gnaws at his edges, mumbles that he's still trying too hard and his entire life is a lie and maybe it always will be and –

Until Jonghyun pops into his space, sits in front of him, crosses his legs, and smiles at him so that his eyes glitter behind his lashes. Reaches forward and cups his chin, brings him close, and brushes a soft kiss to his mouth. He picks up Kibum's latest creation and, examining it from all angles in his palm, says in a dismissive tone of voice that it could be flashier.

And it's that, the gentle teasing, the hint of a smile underneath Jonghyun's raised eyebrows, that gets Kibum every time. He rolls his eyes, taking the creation from Jonghyun and sending it out into existence without another thought. His confidence isn't faked; the extravagance of it has just become his comfort.

As for Jinki, he carries the weight of everything he's ever created on his shoulders. They're his creations – how can he not? Even after he releases them into existence and they gain free will, they still came from him. Everything they do is under his name. Every action, every choice, every thought.

So when they come to harm, he takes it as his personal responsibility. He feels the pain, he feels the guilt, he feels the anger, he feels the grief. He feels it all, heavy and crushing, from millions and millions, billions and billions. Jinki wants so much to take them back, scoop them off of the earth and into his hands, cradle them and coddle them, soothe them, reassure them that he won't let anything bad ever happen to them again. But he can't.

And if he can't comfort them, then he shouldn't waste his time comforting himself. It wouldn't be fair. It wouldn't be right. So instead he works, hard and long, never-ending, never letting himself rest. Creation after creation, conceived and released into existence one after the other. Jinki drowns out his pain, his longing, his thoughts, his emotions, his –

Until Jonghyun comes to him. Gently, with a hand on his shoulder, and then his elbow, and then his forearm, and then his wrist. He stills Jinki's rhythmic movements and brings him hurtling to a stop against the soft cushion of his smile. Jonghyun takes his latest creation out of his hand and places it with care away from him. Then, holding both of Jinki's hands in his and stepping close so they're trapped between their chests, he asks Jinki how he's feeling.

And Jinki, even though his mind is suddenly rushing, racing, twisting, relaxes into the warmth of his voice. For just a little while, he lets himself be still. He lets himself be held. He is worth more than what he can or can't do for others; he deserves compassion too.

And Jonghyun weaves between all of them, floating, soft, loving and being loved in and to infinity.

🌙Mare crisium - sea of crises

The sun is shining, the sky is a perfect cloudless blue, and the moon hangs in a pale circle above the buildings and streetlamps of downtown. The city bustles with life, people out enjoying the nice sunday morning shopping and cruising. Music plays invitingly from street vendors and open shop doors, the scents of food stalls and restaurants waft everywhere on the cool breeze, and the entire area bursts with color.

Junghee, Gwiboon, and Taeyeon add to the color as they walk down the street, each one of them decked out in pink, yellow, and blue respectively. From their dyed hair to their bright outfits to their tie-dyed sneakers, the three of them walking arm-in-arm are a flag of joy in an already joyous day. They've been hanging out since that morning and have just walked out of an ice cream shop, and the three of them smile and laugh together as they share each other's snacks. Even Roo is with them, trotting along happily at their side on her little puppy legs.

Junghee feels full to bursting with light and love. Nothing makes her happier than to be hanging out with her girlfriends on a beautiful day. Everything about this day is completely perfect.

And then the street in front of them blows up.

Chunks of concrete fly into the air, landing dangerously on cars and the sidewalks. Thankfully no one is hurt, but everyone sure is screaming, alarms blaring, shrapnel clattering, as a monster bursts into the open from underground. It has the body of a woman but the abdomen and legs of a beetle, shiny and segmented and skittering as it gets its footing and cackles evilly. ”Running is futile, puny humans!" it screeches. "Soon all of your energy will belong to the Negaverse!” From its abdomen, it sprays a hot blast of acid that explodes the street further ahead.

"Oh, come on ,” Taeyeon whines.

"Isn't that the bug scientist from the museum?” Gwiboon asks, frowning. “Why her? ”

"Gosh, not my fucking – my pink overalls, I just bought these!" Junghee wails in despair, looking down at her clothes. The force of the explosion made her jump so hard that she dropped her ice cream and now chocolate is splattered all down her front. “Like it wasn't enough to ruin my day, they had to ruin my outfit too?”

Roo hops up onto a mailbox next to them and sits up straight, her little puppy paws daintily settled in front of her. "No complaining, girls,” she chides. "Hurry and transform!”

For once, Junghee doesn't protest. While Taeyeon complains about still being hungry and Gwiboon continues to mutter under her breath about the Negaverse, she digs in her pocket and pulls out her wand. That monster is going to pay if she has anything to fucking say about it. Holding it high above her head, she announces, "moon prism power!”

The familiar sensation of magic courses through her, lifting her up off of the–

"Excuse me? What?”

"What?” Taemin is looking at Jonghyun with wide eyes and Jonghyun is looking right back. "I was just getting to the good part,” he pouts.

Taemin shields the sunshine from his eyes with his hand and squints accusingly at Jonghyun over the table in front of the ice cream parlor. "This is just Sailor Moon," he says.

"Yeah?” Jonghyun asks. He twirls his spoon in a questioning hand. “And?"

"You cannot tell me," Taemin says, "that some Italian dude like 500 years ago came up with the legend of Sailor –”

“Oh! No." Jonghyun laughs behind his hand, shaking his head. "No, you misunderstood. Galileo just came up with the theory that dark spots on the moon were oceans and gave them names. I didn't say he came up with all of the legends for them.”

“Oh.” Taemin physically relaxes, slouching in his chair. "Okay, that makes sense," he says. He twists to scan the sky for the pale moon. "So the lady that created Sailor Moon was inspired by one of the oceans?" he asks. "That’s –"

"No, I don't think so," Jonghyun hums. "I was just thinking about the sea of crisis and it made me think about Sailor Moon so I made up a story about it.”

Taemin hums, understanding, but halfway through, it pitches up to become a question instead. He whips around to face Jonghyun again. "What do you mean, you made up the story?" he asks.

"I mean I thought about it in my brain and then told it to you out of my mouth?" Jonghyun tilts his head like he's confused. "Why do you think the characters have our names?"

"Because – I thought –" Taemin leans fully forward in his chair, putting his ice cream down and his hands on the table. His entire face is scrunched up in distress and confusion. "I thought you were just taking the legends and changing the names to us for fun? Have you – have you been making up all of the legends?"

"Yeah," Jonghyun says, clearly baffled.

"That’s," Taemin says. He throws his hands up in the air. "Those are just stories then, they're not legends," he says. "They're not history."

"Legend doesn't have to mean history,” Jonghyun pouts. "Legend can also mean very well known."

"Who are these stories very well known by?" Taemin demands.

"Me,” Jonghyun smiles. He wiggles his shoulders, eyes sparkling behind his lashes.

“You–” Taemin stands up, inflating like he's full of a million words, and then it all leaves in a quiet chuckle. "You,” he says fondly. He reaches for Jonghyun, cups his face, and smeks a smooch onto his cheek. Jonghyun beams as he sits back down. "Can I be Sailor Mercury?” Taemin asks.

"You are,” Jonghyun grins.

"Hell yeah," Taemin says. "Can I say something annoying and then Key blushes because she hates me but she loves me?”

"Obviously,” Jonghyun smirks.

"Fuck yeah,” Taemin hisses.

☁️Mare nubium - sea of clouds

Stepping out of the captain's quarters and onto the deck of the Locket, Kibum takes in the conditions. Crew busy; direction southeast; wind gentle; temperature warm; humidity high; visibility 10 feet at best.

In a cloud. Just the way he likes it.

He walks to the starboard side of the ship and gazes out over the railing, holding onto the wood with both hands. Clouds swirl above, around, and most importantly, below them. The ship is completely surrounded. Above and to the right the clouds look a little brighter, a little yellower, and he figures that if the sun is over there then it has to be almost three in the afternoon. Kibum takes a deep breath, pushes his hand through his gelled black hair, fixes his eyepatch, and adjusts his collar. Then, annoyed at his own stalling, he looks down.

Straight down.

Nothing but clouds. Dense, puffy, misty white, blocking his view of the earth. Of mountains, of forests, of oceans, of whatever is lying miles beneath them. Kibum takes another deep breath, this one even more relaxed. It's always easier to deal with the height when he doesn't have to look at it.

The whizz of someone sliding down a rope, the thud of a landing on the deck, footsteps behind him, and then his favorite voice.

"Hey," Jonghyun drawls. He slides right up next to Kibum so their sides touch, their arms tangle. Jonghyun's thick and muscled next to Kibum's thin and lean, his skin sunkissed next to Kibum's delicate complexion, his body naturally hot next to Kibum's constant chill. His hand small and stocky holding onto Kibum's big palm and long fingers. When Kibum turns to look at him he's just the same as usual: ruggedly handsome with attractive shaggy black hair, gorgeous eyes, and a charming smile that–

"Are you going to describe yourself like this every time?” Taemin Interrupts Jonghyun mid-sentence. He takes a break from his cloudwatching to raise his eyebrows at Jonghyun next to him in the grass. Jonghyun is smirking up at moon in the sky, completely unashamed.

"Obviously," he says.

Taemin can't help but smile himself. Obviously.

A charming smile that, despite the sharp teeth, despite the hooked shape, despite the bitten lip, is soft around the edges. "Being brave?" Jonghyun asks. He bumps their shoulders together in a gentle sort of way that still has Kibum swaying to the side from the force.

Kibum sighs slowly through his nose. From anyone else, he would take that as sarcasm, teasing. But from Jonghyun? He can believe it. The intention behind it, anyway. "Being something," he mumbles back. He wouldn't call it brave that the only time he can look off of the edge of the ship is when he can't see anything.

Jonghyun tsks at him and Kibum knows that an encouraging reprimand is just on the tip of his tongue, but he's interrupted before he can say it. From behind them, they're both asked, "captains?"

"Yep?" Jonghyun replies, turning. Kibum turns with him to find a member of their glider scout squad back from patrol.

"Government ship heading our direction," they say.

Jonghyun blows a raspberry. Kibum purses his lips, annoyed in his own way. "Colors?" he asks. They're not technically fond of any government in these parts, but some of the governments haven't learned to be hostile towards them yet and Kibum isn't in any rush to give those ones a reason if he can avoid it.

"Orange and red," their scout replies. Kibum hums shortly. Might be worth causing some trouble after all. "Looks like supply, not force, though," they add. "Just basic guns."

"Just go around them," Jonghyun says. “Anything they're supplying this direction isn't dangerous."

He's right; they're in a war with one of their neighboring countries, but in the opposite direction. Away from the Locket , not towards it. Kibum nods, seconding Jonghyun's order.

"Captain,” the scout says, nodding to Jonghyun. Then, with a nod at Kibum, "other captain.” They turn and leave to relay orders. Kibum watches then go, frowning.

"I've been other captain for a week straight," he grumbles. Ever since he chewed the crew out about acting up and embarrassing him at the last port town.

"Don't be bitter because you're not the fun captain,” Jonghyun smirks. He leans in quick as lightning and steals a kiss on Kibum's cheek before Kibum can snap at him about that. He's plenty fun. He's fun all the time.

But now that he's been smooched, he guesses he doesn't care as much anymore. Jonghyun has that effect on him. The effect of comfort, security, of all around okayness.

Especially when, a moment later, Jonghyun hugs him from behind, his arms circling tight around his waist, his chin hooking over his shoulder. He's on his tiptoes to do it. His voice is soft, breathy, next to Kibum's ear. "We’ll trade places again soon," he reassures. "Don't think about it for now.”

Kibum lets the words wash over him, soothing the rest of the grumpiness out of him. He looks out at the clouds, letting them block his vision, and relaxes back into Jonghyun, letting him block his thoughts.

🌧Mare imbrium - sea of showers/rain

The skate park glows with late afternoon sunlight, soft oranges and yellows contrasting with harsh whites reflecting off of railings and boards as they flip through the air. Idle chatter mixes with rock music from a boombox over the constant drone of wheels on concrete. It's close enough to sunset that parents have taken most of the children home; the teenagers that remain are taking their new freedom as an opportunity to get a little rowdy. A little loud, a little dangerous. Not violent or anything, but still bold enough to huddle around one of the corners trying not to look suspicious as they cover for someone graffitiing the wall. What adults are left don't mind and leave them to their art.

Jonghyun and Taemin are two of those adults. Taemin is practicing a trick on a grind rail and Jonghyun is hanging out on top of the halfpipe trying to find a way to position his hands so that he can look at the moon without being blinded by the sun right next to it. Neither of them succeed, but after Taemin almost eats shit he skates his way up to sit next to Jonghyun and distracts him so it doesn't matter anyway.

He sits down so hard that their bodies jostle together, swings a sweaty arm around Jonghyun's shoulders, drops his board over both of their laps, and asks, "have you been coming up with all of these moon legends on the spot or do you think them up beforehand?"

Jonghyun traces the little J+T hidden in the artwork of Taemin's skateboard with a smile. "Both," he shrugs. "Some of them I've had for a while because I just like to think about them for fun. But some of them I've come up with in the moment."

"Neat," Taemin says. He leans all of his weight on Jonghyun until Jonghyun is giggling and propping them up with a hand on the cement. "Do you take requests?"

"Only from gremlins that I'm in love with,” Jonghyun says.

“Yo, that's me!" Taemin beams. "Tell me a moon story about me being super cool and badass.”

Taemin's performance is as show-stopping and jaw-dropping as usual. Backlit by the second sun of the asteroid belt, comets fill the sky with their icy streaks and Taemin dances between them. Jinki's voice flows over the performance, every beat and every note corresponding with a perfectly choreographed movement from Taemin's body. Flames blaze from their roller skates, red hair, and their hands as they skillfully jump and twist from comet to comet and grind hard on their tails. Sparks from their fire twinkle up into space; stardust from the comets rains down on their captive audience.

Jonghyun beams underneath his oxygen mask as he watches them. That's his friend up there. He knows that alien. He's sitting sidesaddle on his space cruiser on a smaller asteroid away from the main crowd. Key leans on the handlebars to his left and Minho is sitting against the back wheel on his right. He gave both of them a ride because they whined at him to, and because they wouldn't let him leave if he didn't, and because he guesses he's in love with both of them. It's not something he's really taken the time to face up to and admit to himself yet, but he knows it's there under the surface.

Key has been at his side ever since Jonghyun first met star and invited star to come along and explore the galaxy with him. They got along so well, the the two of them, always on each other's sides against the world, and it didn't take Jonghyun long at all to feel like Key knew him better than anyone. He's pretty sure it was inevitable that he would fall in love.

And as for Minho; he hasn't even seen Minho for a while. Minho took the one vacation with him and in the others and then he returned to his quiet space farm life. But every time Jonghyun comes back to this little asteroid belt in the middle of nowhere in the Solana galaxy he gets more and more excited to see Minho, more and more excited to play with his little cowboy hat and look at his space cows and listen to him talk in that deep, slow voice of his. The third or fourth time it happened Jonghyun could brush it off as platonic, but at this point he knows that it's romantic. Minho is just so tall and cute and kind.

"You’re such a fucking baby," he’s saying. “Wah wah wah, I got comet dust in my hair. It's a comet show, why did you want to come so bad if you didn't want to get dust on you?"

“Because I wanted to support my fucking friend,” Key snaps back. Where a smirk lives in Minho's voice, Key is all scowl. "And I don't remember inviting you to respond.”

"You invited me when you spoke to me.”

"I didn't speak to you , I spoke out loud. "

Jonghyun tunes them out as they continue to bicker over him. It’s not that he doesn't enjoy listening to them; it's entertaining, but sometimes he likes to let just their voices play in their ears and focus on other things.

He scuffs the asteroid dirt underneath his boot and watches it float up into space. A glitter of comet dust meets it in midair. Together, the ice and dirt from a tiny glob of mud that slowly wiggles back to the ground. Before it touches down, Jonghyun catches it on his finger. It's so cold that it's hot, stinging his skin, lighting the tiniest fire inside of him.

Wiping it on his pants, he looks straight up. Taemin passes right over them, whipping through a spin like he's a top, landing on two small comets hard enough to have them crumbling. The ice falls down over the three of them like a shower of stars. Each piece glitters, twinkles, sparkles. Each piece could contain its own galaxy. Jonghyun closes his eyes and lets them fall onto his face, each one a tiny burn of ice.

"Don't do that, you're going to ruin your hair.” Minho stands up, bringing Jonghyun's attention back to him. He reaches behind Jonghyun; there's the soft slap of a hand on a wrist and the familiar annoyed flutter of Key’s wings. Jonghyun can only assume that Minho is brushing comet dust out of Key’s hair.

"You are so naggy, all the time. Why don't you just fucking marry me.”

"You wish I wanted to marry you.”

“Oh, you wish I wish you want to marry me.”

Smiling, without opening his eyes, Jonghyun reaches out both hands. He links his arms through both of theirs, pulling them closer just because he wants to. Just because he loves them.

"The end," Jonghyun says dreamily. Taemin snorts.

"Got a little distracted, huh?" he asks. His tone is accusing, but it's obvious that he doesn't really mind.

“Yeah,” Jonghyun smiles. He reaches out and links his arm with Taemin's.

❄Mare frigoris - sea of cold

Jinki's first step onto the water is solid ice. Bad sign. He glances behind himself, looking over the dark beach and onto the boardwalk. Already, the houses glow with light in the night. Chimneys leave smoking trails that block out the sky in great stripes.

Jinki pulls his coat tighter around himself, sets his sights on the tiny, just barely visible shadow on the horizon, and starts walking.

The moon is empty tonight; he only has the light of the stars and the consistent drop of temperature to guide his way. Below him, the frozen sea reflects the sky and gives him a truly ethereal portrait of fish swimming in the stars. Farther and farther Jinki goes, bigger and bigger the fish get, deeper and deeper the ocean sinks, and all of it completely solid. He keeps going, colder and colder, until ice crystals are forming on his lashes, until he reaches the island.

And on the island, the home. Jinki jerks open the front door, breaking the ice around the frame. It clatters and tinkles on the floor as he steps inside. Navigating the home is as easy as navigating his own and he quickly finds his way to the bathroom where, like he expected, he finds the weather of the north.

Where he finds Jonghyun.

He's hunched over the sink, hands gripping the porcelain, facing himself in the mirror. His white hair is a mess around his head, his lips are bitten red, his cheeks and his nose flushed pink, his eyes bloodshot. Crystalline icy tears trickle down his face, drip off of his chin, and fall musically onto the tile floor. When Jinki appears in the mirror behind him, he straightens and turns around. Just the force of his attention is a wave of cold; Jinki holds his shivering arms open anyway.

Jonghyun's mouth trembles. He steps forward slowly, one step, two steps, three steps, and lets himself melt into Jinki's embrace. His arms go around Jinki's back and his chin hooks over his shoulder. Compared to the negative temperature seeping into the rest of the globe, Jonghyun is warm, hot, almost burning with his emotion. His fingers press bruises into Jinki's skin through his layers. Every breath of his is a sharp gasp and then a soft whimper next to Jinki's ear. Ice patters down Jinki's back and onto the floor behind him.

Jinki stays silent, patting his back gently, closing his eyes and letting Jonghyun feel his feelings. People will be arriving soon – others from the boardwalk and maybe farther, humans that only know of Jonghyun from myth and legend, humans that think themselves heroes for making the dangerous trek out to ask a favor of the god on the horizon, humans that will ask for help instead of offering it.

But Jinki is here for Jonghyun first and the world second. Everything second to Jonghyun, always.

Jonghyun takes his time. Hours, days, maybe a week pass before he calms down enough to pick his head up. Sniffling, swallowing, taking deep breaths, he pushes his forehead against Jinki's shoulder. His arms slide down until he's holding Jinki around the waist. His tears stop, for now.

Jinki pets his hair softly. "This will pass," he murmurs. "This won't be forever. You will feel joy again." and when Jonghyun looks up at him, shy, hesitant, small, skeptical, Jinki smiles. "I'll stay with you until you do,” he promises.

Back at the boardwalk, the waves begin to melt.

It's quiet after Jonghyun finishes his story. But not the same kind of quiet as it was before he started. Not comfortable, cozy, the two of them bundled up underneath a blanket on top of the heater and watching snow fall outside. Now the silence is heavy. Stressed. Awkward.

“Kind of a downer,” Taemin blurts. As soon as the words leave his mouth, he scrunches his face and thunks his head back against the couch behind him. Softly, so that Jonghyun doesn't notice.

"No," Jonghyun says defensively. "It was hopeful at the end." Slowly, with minimal movements so Taemin doesn't notice, he arranges himself underneath the blanket and chews on his thumbnail.

"Yeah, but, I meant," Taemin says. He hesitates, then shuffles an inch closer to Jonghyun. Their sides go from just touching to warmly pressed together. "You okay?" he asks.

Jonghyun doesn't answer immediately. He nibbles on his thumb, his fingers, his knuckles. He wipes his hand on the underside of the blanket and then curls it around Taemin's elbow. "Better now that I got the story out of me,” he mumbles.

Again, it's quiet. The heater turns off, the blanket deflating around their bodies, the temperature suddenly cold if only because of the sudden lack of extra heat. Without the hum of the vent, the silence becomes almost unbearable. "Do you want...,” Taemin starts. He chews on his bottom lip. "Would it help," he tries, "If I said those things to you? The next time you're feeling extra down?”

Jonghyun pushes his forehead into Taemin's shoulder. "Yeah," he says. "I think so."

"Okay,” Taemin says. He tilts his head to rest on top of Jonghyun's and they enjoy the silence together until outside, the icy clouds part just enough to show them the full moon.

🧚Mare vaporum - sea of vapours

They're coming. Jonghyun can sense them. Two humans making their way through faer forest. Through faer mist. Looking for faer moonlit clearing.

Looking for fae.

Fae lounges on the surface of faer lake, trailing the fingers of faer right hand through the water as fae sifts through faer mist with the other. Behind the swirling fog, fae can see shadows of trees and animals. In the fog, fae can see visions of the rest of the forest. The rushing waterfall, the wolf den, the ruins, the lost souls that never found their ways out.

The humans. Smiling, Jonghyun pulls the mist closer so fae can get a better look. One has long chestnut red hair and black clothes save for a bright green visor on his hood. He absentmindedly twirls his knives as he walks, the blades shifting and changing as he channels elemental magic through his fingers. Every so often he’ll catch a glimpse of something through the trees and start to make off for it before his companion grabs the back of his collar and drags him back.

That human is taller with bright red hair partially hidden underneath a wide-brimmed pointy hat. He's customized his long robes to have pants that allow him to walk comfortably over the uneven forest floor. He carries a mace comfortably in the hand that he isn't using to corral his companion. It looks light enough that Jonghyun is sure it's mostly used for magic, but still solid enough to get some good bashing in if it needs to.

Minho and Taemin, the mist whispers to fae. Jonghyun bites faer lip, excited. Fae does like humans. Fae hasn't had any for so long that fae can barely remember what they taste like.

Fae checks faer reflection in the water, making sure that faer blue hair is pretty and fluffed, faer skin is perfectly glittery and dewey, and faer four light blue wings are at their daintiest angles. Then all fae has to do is be patient.

The two of them find faer before long. Fae can hear their laughing and bickering voices coming closer and then suddenly coming to a stop as they see faer lake through faer mist.

Jonghyun gives them a moment to be in awe, then parts faer mist cloud by cloud until they have an unobstructed view of faer sitting directly in the center of the water. Slowly, fae stands, turns to face them, and smiles.

Taemin's mouth falls open. Minho swallows so loud fae can hear it.

All at once, fae speeds forward, wind howling and water splashing behind faer, until fae's right at the edge of the lake. Directly in front of them. Fae comes to a hard stop but lets the wind and the water rush passed faer and onto the humans. Fae flutters faer wings and faer eyelashes, smiling at them as they try to regain their composure, knuckles white on their weapons.

"Welcome,” fae says. "What wish do you have for me?"

“Uhhh,” Taemin says. He's blinking a mile a minute. His knives fall limp to his sides. His cheeks flush a vibrant pink.

"We, um,” Minho says. "We um. We wanted to, um. Uh.” His eyes are huge and wide and he takes his hat off, holding it with both hands in front of his chest.

Humans are so cute. Jonghyun blushes faerself, biting faer lip. It's been so long since fae's seen one, let alone two. Fae 's been getting lonely out here all on faer own in the forest.

"We don't, um, have a wish," Minho says. "We came to. Because we heard that. People kept coming to find you. To get a wish granted. And that you didn't like it. So we thought that we would, um. We could. We can offer you a spell."

"To keep people away from you,” Taemin adds.

Jonghyun's heart bounces in faer chest. That's so thoughtful. Of course fae can keep people away from faer with the twitch of a wing, but these humans obviously don't know that. Never has anyone else been so considerate of faer emotions before. Fae wonders, if fae accepts the spell, will it take long? Will the two humans have to stick around to cast it? Can fae convince them to stay a while longer as a thank you? Can fae convince them to come back –?

"I thought this was supposed to be a scary story?”

“Wuh?” Jonghyun takes his eyes off of the misty forest just off the edge of the road. Taemin doesn't take his eyes off of the winding road to the campsite. Between them, the radio plays static, Jonghyun's mp3 player sits unable to connect to Taemin's car, and Taemin's mp3 player sits unconnected because they forgot the cord at home.

"You said it would be scary," Taemin pouts. "How come fae's falling in love with them all of a sudden? What happened to eating them?”

"Uh,” Jonghyun says. "Oh," he says. "Oh yeah. I forgot." He bursts into giggles, hiding his eyes behind his hands. "Sorry. I got invested in the romance all of a sudden. You know I'm not good with scary." He giggles more; Taemin rolls his eyes. "I'll make faer eat them. Don't worry.” Jonghyun lightly slaps his own cheeks in a bracing sort of way.

"Well, hold on,” Taemin says. He taps hands quickly on the steering wheel. "I kind of like the humans now. I don't want them to get et." He's pouting again; Jonghyun chuckles, putting a hand on his thigh.

"I'll figure something out,” he says.

😌Mare serenitatis - sea of serenity

Taemin's breath shakes and so do his hands as he slides under the covers after getting up to pee for the fifth time this night. His body is covered in sweat but he shivers with cold at the same time. The noise he makes as he pushes his face into the pillow is pathetically sad.

Jonghyun ruffles his hair, murmuring soothing noises. There's never really much else that he can do when Taemin gets hit by one of these prolonged anxiety attacks like this. It just has to pass on its own, even if that means they're both still awake at 3 in the morning.

"I'm sorry," Taemin groans.

Jonghyun pulls the blankets up to his shoulders. "For what?"

"For keeping you up."

"It's okay," Jonghyun says. "I would be up anyway." He's always up with his insomnia. Taemin lifts his head from the pillow only to push his face into Jonghyun's bicep. His skin is clammy, his forehead hot. Jonghyun fixes his hair out of his face. "Want me to sing you something?" he asks. Sometimes that helps keep his mind occupied.

"Can you tell me a story?”

The words come out small and hesitant, embarrassed, but all Jonghyun does is reply, "a story about what?”

"About something safe," Taemin whispers.

It's dusk. Sunset has passed but night hasn't completely fallen yet. The sky is a gradient of vivid red and orange on the horizon, pale pink and yellow above head, and a muted blue turning navy creeping up from behind the house. Jonghyun is on the front porch letting the wind sway him in his rocking chair as he looks out at the beach.

Even though it's getting late the sand still crawls with people. They hurry to the water for one last swim, help each other pack up their umbrellas and towels, crowd around the beginnings of the weekly bonfire, or trudge up the steps onto the sidewalk. There they walk slowly, their hair frizzy and their cheeks pink from a long day in the sun. Cars of tourists drive past slowly to take in the view of the cliffs, the tide pools, the ocean.

Jonghyun isn't much interested in the view. Instead, he's watching one particular dot on the beach. It hangs around the small docks, cleaning up and storing away water skiing equipment on one of the boats with a couple of other figures. They stand around talking for a little longer, then part ways – the other people walk towards the steps to the parking lot and Jonghyun's person makes their way to one of the smaller dirt and rock pathways up the cliffs.

In just a few minutes, Kibum clambers into sight, glances up and down the street, and jogs across straight to the house.

Straight to Jonghyun.

“Bummie,” Jonghyun smiles. He holds out grabby hands all the way until Kibum walks up the front porch and takes them. The moment their fingers touch, solid and together, warmth floods through him. It starts from his heart and seeps through every single one of his nerves, comes out in his voice as he says, "hi. Did you have fun?"

“Ye,” Kibum smiles back. He leans down, smooches Jonghyun's temple, and heads inside the house. Jonghyun doesn't let his hands go until he's too far to keep their fingers locked together. Kibum leaves the door open behind him. Jonghyun can hear him inside: hopping into the shower, changing into his pajamas, grabbing a drink from the fridge.

He comes back outside and invites himself into Jonghyun's lap. Jonghyun holds him around the waist, resting his cheek against his chest. His heart beats steady and reassuring underneath his sweater.

And now that Jonghyun has one, he turns his attention from the beach to the corner down the street and waits for the other.

Between sips, Kibum tells him about his day. Jonghyun replies, laughs, kisses, offers details of his own day when asked. But never does he take his eyes off of the street corner. The sky darkens slowly, all of the color fading out like it's soaking into the ocean and leaving only dark blue and white stars behind. The street lamps flicker on and a few minutes later so does their porch light, bathing them in a soft orange glow. The moon peeks out from behind the pier.

And finally, finally, coming around the corner. Pink hair. A sleeveless hoodie and baggy shorts. A backpack over one arm and takeout bag over the other. A smile and a wave.

Right on time, Jinki comes back to them. Jonghyun waves his arm high over his head the entire time Jinki walks down the sidewalk, through the front yard, and up the porch steps. Then Jinki grabs his hand and wiggles it as gently as he’s smiling. "Hello hello," he says.

"Hey," Kibum hums. He takes Jinki's backpack off of his shoulder and tosses it into the house, then takes the takeout bag and puts it on the porch railing. "How was work?" he asks.

And while Jinki answers, Jonghyun pulls him close enough that he can get an arm around his hips and nuzzle his tummy. He guides Jinki's hand to the top of his head and practically melts when Jinki takes the hint and starts petting him. A wave of calm washes over him from his head to his –

A soft snore interrupts Jonghyun mid-sentence. Another follows soon after. Taemin's little hand, holding onto his bicep this entire time, falls slack down into the crook of his arm. Jonghyun smiles, pressing it against Taemin's hair in the darkness. He'll be waking up again in an hour, probably, but that's fine. Jonghyun will just pick up where he left off.

🍑Mare fecunditatis - sea of fecundity/fertility

”Oooh.… ooouuuugh…. Woooooaaaaauuuunnnnnnghmhmmm….”

"Whiny baby. What is your problem?” Minho ducks his head into the bedroom after finally deciding that Jonghyun's dramatic wails for attention were too cute to keep ignoring. He finds the babe on his stomach in bed, completely nakey, whining into the pillows. As soon as he lays his eyes on Minho his facade breaks into a wide smile for just a second before he remembers that he’s being dramatic. He rolls over to his back and throws an arm over his eyes.

"I'm sooooo cute and sexy and lonely," he sighs. “And fuckable." He peeks at Minho from under his arm. "And unfucked,” he adds pointedly. "It’s been sooooooo long.”

Minho crosses his arms and leans on the door frame, eyebrows raised. Unsurprising but still unbelievable. "I literally fucked you last night," he says accusingly. He's a little hurt. He is very attentive to Jonghyun's horny needs and it's almost offensive that Jonghyun is pretending that he's not.

" One time,” Jonghyun grumbles. "Yesterday." And he has the audacity to pout about it. Minho shakes his head, laughing incredulously.

"You are such a spoiled brat,” he says.

“Ooh, I know,” Jonghyun says. He's smiling now, eyes glittering behind his lashes. He turns back to his stomach, raises his hips into the air, and wiggles them back and forth. "Don't you think I need someone to put me in my place?" he asks innocently.

Which is how, ten minutes later, Kibum walks in on Minho absolutely plowing a beaming Jonghyun into the pillows. "Y'all,” he says. He walks to the hamper and throws in his clothes, then hangs his towel over it. "I literally told you I was just going to take a quick shower. You couldn't wait?”

“Nuh uh,” Jonghyun says cheerfully. Kibum rolls his eyes. He doesn't know why he expected anything different.

"You showered before you came to have sex?" Minho frowns at him and he frowns back.

"I didn't want to be gross," he grumbles defensively. He's being polite for Jonghyun. Before Minho can hit him with a reply that will start an argument, he walks to the bed and clambers up on his knees. "Anyway," he says. He squishes Jonghyun's cute butt fondly, then sucks on his fingers for a second and slides them down to where Minho is fucking into him. "Make room," he orders. He bumps Minho with his hip and pushes his fingers inside of Jonghyun around his cock. "Let me get in there with you."

Jonghyun nuts instantly, cursing and growling, which is fine. What annoys Kibum is that Minho does too. He holds Jonghyun's hips tight and shivers, twitches, biting his lip hard and filling him up. "Come on, ” Kibum scowls.

Minho, panting and loopy, smacks his arm. "You can't just say that," he snaps. "You know I think it's really hot. What did you expect?"

"Yeah, well." Like Kibum is going to admit it was his fault to Minho of all people. "Move," he says. He takes advantage of Minho's temporary exhaustion to bump him out of the way. Gently, taking care with Jonghyun's oversensitive nerves, he plays with his hole, fingerfucks Minho's cum back into him before it can escape, and uses it to stroke his cock until he's all the way hard.

The absolutely desperate whimper that Jonghyun makes when he pushes his cock inside is music to his ears.

"Hey," Minho says. Kibum looks up; Minho is carefully bringing Jonghyun up onto his elbows and helping him suck his cock into his mouth. He holds his free hand up in the air over Jonghyun's back.

"Nice," Kibum grins, high-fiving him without hesitation.

Taemin pops his head into the room the moment their hands make contact. "Hey, you okay? Oh.” Relief floods through him as he realizes what's going on. They weren't sad noises or in danger noises; they were just sex noises. "We fuckin in here?" he asks brightly. He was playing video games, but he's not going to pass this up. "Hell yeah.” his shirt is over his head and he's bouncing onto the bed next to Kibum in a heartbeat. "You're looking very cute and fuckable," he tells Jonghyun, squishing his butt happily.

"I know," Jonghyun breathes back. He sounds so blissed out already that it makes Taemin's heart warm. Probably just nutted. Good for him.

"Gremlin," Kibum says. Taemin glances at him, pokes his side, smirks when he ducks away with a glare. "Fuck him with me," Kibum says, straightening up.

Taemin instantly gets hard. "Hell yeah," he says again. "I call not anchor."

"Not – fuck. Fine.” Kibum, grumbling, pulls out. Taemin, grinning, takes his place. Together with Minho, they help Jonghyun turn over and guide him into Kibum's lap. Taemin can't help but hold his face and kiss him as he sinks down on Kibum's cock, tasting his tongue and his booty and Minho's cum and all of the love that Jonghyun is feeling in this exact moment. It's Taemin's favorite part about kissing him during sex.

Once he's settled on top of Kibum and whining, begging for more already, Taemin lets him go for just long enough to look at his own dick and guide it inside. Then he's right back kissing him. First his mouth, and then when that gets too hard to focus on and fuck good at the same time, his neck.

Soon the only sounds are Jonghyun's happy noises, Kibum's murmured dirty talk, Minho's smiled praises, and Taemin's soft breaths.

And those are the same noises that Jinki hears when he gets home sometime later. Wearily throwing his jacket and work bag onto his kitchen chair, he follows the noises through the house until he comes upon the scene in the bedroom. Kibum is sat up against the pillows with Jonghyun's head in his lap, eagerly bobbing up and down on his cock. Minho and Taemin are both on their knees behind him, taking turns to fuck his cute little booty.

As Jinki watches, Taemin hisses, puts a hand between Jonghyun's shoulder blades, and fucks him down hard, nutting deep inside of him. Then he melts, barely managing to move out from between his legs until he flops perpendicular on top of his back. Face in the mattress, arms spread eagle, legs dangling off of the other side of the bed, he deflates. Kibum squishes his cheek and Minho takes the extra space to just sit down behind Jonghyun and start fingering him, but not before he notices Jinki in the doorway.

"Hi Jinki," he says happily.

Taemin picks his head up and blinks at him. "Jinkiiiiii, help," he whines.

"He's in a mood today." Kibum only turns his head to smile lazily at Jinki. Jonghyun doesn't even look at him; he gives him a three-fingered wave without getting off of Kibum's cock.

"I'm all nutted out," Taemin whines.

"We all are," Kibum adds.

"How was your day?" Minho asks.

Jinki closes his eyes and shakes his head, entirely in love with all four of them. Straightening up, he undoes his pants and walks to the bed. Looks like he has to come in and be the hero once again. "It was nice," he tells Minho, cupping his chin and smooching him. He bends over and kisses the back of Taemin's sweaty head too, then lets Kibum pull him forward for a third kiss, and then finally turns his focus to Jonghyun.

"Come here, little pretty slutty one,” he says, pulling him up by the shoulders. Kibum lets him go without a fight, Taemin slithers off grumbling, and Minho slides around to join them at the head of the bed. Jinki turns Jonghyun onto his back, looking down at his blissed-out, smiling face. He is entirely proud of himself and not even close to being tired yet. Jinki can't do much about the first thing and doesn't really want to, but he can definitely help with the second. Bending Jonghyun's legs up until he can hook them over his shoulders, he –

“There are so many different ways.”

"He – he's about to put me into a mating press, Taemin, don't interrupt. That's the best part."

"There are so many different ways you could have told me that you want to get gangbanged. And you choose to use the moon for your sick perversions."

"It's not about getting gangbanged! I wouldn't use the moon for just a gangbang. My sick perversion is I want to get bred."

"You– now you have a pregnancy kink? I've had that for like years and now that I'm not really into it anymore now suddenly you–"

"It's not a pregnancy kink? Gross. No pregnant. Only breed."

"And what happens after you get bred? You get preg – "

"No! Nothing happens! It's not real! The universe ceases to exist after I finish jerking off!”

“Oh my fucking god–"

🌕 Epilogue: the far side

It's summer again. They're outside again, at the park again, on the swings again. This time, though, they're sleepily waiting for the sunrise. Jonghyun had his insomnia, Taemin had a nightmare, and they figured that if they weren't going to sleep then they might as well go on a date. They grabbed a couple of oranges from someone's tree on the walk over and and the peels are littered in the grass around the swingset, vibrant against the pale morning palette. The only sounds are the occasional sniffle, the scuffs of their shoes against the play mat, and the birds chirping in the trees around the park.

When the sky is pink but the sun hasn't risen yet, Taemin points somewhere to the left and yawns, "moon."

"Hmm?” Jonghyun looks around, rubbing the heel of his palm into his eye. He looks around, leaning towards Taemin, squinting where he's pointing, and then he pouts. “Where?" he asks.

Taemin looks around too. He walks his swing closer to Jonghyun and his mouth pops open in understanding. "Come over to my side," he says, letting the swing pull him back. Jonghyun does with much mumbling and grumbling. Once he's there, though, and nothing is blocking his view of the moon anymore, he smiles. With one hand he points up at it and with the other hand he pushes Taemin gently. "Moon," he says.

“Moon,” Taemin repeats. "Can I have a moon story?" he asks. When Jonghyun puts his hand on the chain to push him again, he rests his cheek against it, keeping him there. "Space ocean story," he mumbles.

"Sure," Jonghyun chuckles. He looks all around the moon, his eyes darting from spot to spot, and then he frowns. "Actually,” he says, scratching the side of his head, "I think I'm all out of moon stories."

"Out?" Taemin pouts.

"I think –” Jonghyun points at the moon, tapping his finger on the air like he's counting. "Yeah," he confirms. "I've told you stories about all of the oceans up there."

Taemin grumbles, tapping his feet stubbornly on the ground. He turns his head just enough to brush his lips against Jonghyun's knuckles. "Aren’t there any on the other side?" he asks.

"The far side?" Jonghyun asks. Taemin mimics his correction in a baby voice; Jonghyun ignores it. "There are some," he says, "but they're all little and I don't remember their names unless I'm looking at them.”

“Mmm,” Taemin hums. "How long do we have to wait, then?”

"For what?”

"For the moon to rotate so you can see the others and remember.” Taemin spins a finger around in the air. Jonghyun grabs it, kisses it, pokes Taemin's cheek with it.

"Uh, forever,” he says. "We can't see the far side of the moon from here."

"Excuse me?” Taemin turns in the swing to frown up at Jonghyun. “But the moon rotates. I know some stuff about space." He huffs the words out, grumpy, and huffs again when Jonghyun laughs behind his hand. "You can't tell me that it doesn't –”

"No, it does,” Jonghyun says through his giggles. "It's just that, the moon spins on its axis at the same rate that it orbits around earth. So it always faces us.”

Taemin is silent for a moment, frowning. He squints at the moon, then at the ground. Arithmetic and equations float around his head. Then, finally, he says, "that’s fucked up."

"What do you mean!” Instantly Jonghyun is loud, on the defensive, hands on his hips. "It makes sense!”

Taemin thrusts his hand aggressively at the moon. "We shouldn't need a spaceship to see the moon's ass!" He snaps back. “What’s she hiding?”

"Don't,” Jonghyun starts. He's laughing already. "Don't call it the–”

“The ass of the moon, ” Taemin hisses. He's laughing too. Their joy echoes around the park, touching every blade of grass, filling every tiny drop of mist. Filling their lungs until Taemin is bent in half, his face in his hands, and Jonghyun is staggering to sit on the ground before he fully falls over.

He takes up the space between Taemin's legs, holding on to him, giggling into his knee. Together, they calm down. Taemin plants his feet firmly on the ground so he doesn't move and plays with Jonghyun's hair. Jonghyun closes his eyes, happily sleepy.

On the horizon, the sun creeps ever closer until the sky is a vibrant orange and the first beams start to shine over the buildings. "What about the craters?” Taemin asks after a while. "Do they have names? and stories?”

"Names, yeah," Jonghyun murmurs back. "I never came up with stories for them, though. And I don't remember the names. It's just more Latin.”

“Hm.” Taemin is quiet for a little while longer, then, "do they have names in other languages?”

"Probably."

"Can we make up names for them ourselves?”

Jonghyun opens his eyes again. He twists just enough to look at Taemin, resting his temple against his inner thigh. He smiles and Taemin blushes. "Why not?” he says. "And you can come up with the stories this time."

Blushing harder, staring determinedly at the moon, cupping Jonghyun's face and rubbing a thumb over his cheek, Taemin says, "we can come up with the stories together."

The sun comes rising gloriously over the horizon and neither of them notice.

Didn't want to deal with making all of these tags and they wouldn't fit anyway lmfao

🌕Prologue: the moon Jongtae; pg; 733w Did this to try and improve my sentence structure variety and describing locations and writing shorter pieces and maybe I forgot halfway through but it is a start and for once people will read my fantasy things so : )

🌩oceanus procellarum - ocean of storms jongho; storm chaser but in space au; pg; 638w originally i wanted to do like. they’re magic embodiments of storms and when they argue or bicker the storms get bigger and then there was going to be a soft part about them being in love and calm and serene and that was going to be the eye of the storm. and it was going to be real dramatic and artsy but like. the words weren't coming lmao. so i wrote this instead which i think is also nice but in a different way

💞mare cognitum - sea that has become known ot5; pg; kissie stuff; 439w hehe…… smoochie

🌹mare nectaris - sea of nectar onjongtae; garden spirit au; nc17; 644w i was going to make ferns nut golden to be like nectar but that was too much like piss :/ anyway i just think fern deserves being loopy and horny and uwu 5eva

🫂mare tranquillitatis - sea of tranquility onjongho; mages au; pg;949w looked up the difference between tranquility and serenity and apparently serenity is more of a still image and tranquility is more of an emotion and honestly who is better at emotional calmness than onjongho

💦mare humorum - sea of moisture jongtae; mermaid au; pg; 899w m o i s t i really hit myself right in the heart with this one lmao i think it's my favorite out of all of them

🌴mare insularum - sea of islands ot5; creationists au; pg; 1386w couldn't get the words to come out like i wanted them to but i like the concept of this one a lot?? they're just vibing and making things and doing their bests : )

🌙mare crisium - sea of crises jongtaekey; sailor moon au; pg; 984w remember when choi tricked jonghyun into singing the sailor moon theme song. icon. absolute legend. almost made this powerpuff girls instead but i wanted roo to be the talking puppy and also. moon

☁️mare nubium - sea of clouds jongkey; skyship au; pg; 869w i just think they're neat rebel vigilante types that go around bothering governments and disabling warships and providing aid to people : )

🌧mare imbrium - sea of showers/rain jongminkey; space slice of life au; pg; 1191w actually this one is kind of a sequel to something i wrote like years ago lmfao if i remember after author reveals i'll come back and link it

❄️mare frigoris - sea of cold jongyu; weather deities au; pg; 887w you know. he’s big and important and powerful and everything but that doesn't mean he can't be a little crybaby having a breakdown every once in a while. something something not religious but if you are maybe ask your dude/s (gender-neutral) if they're having a nice day

🧚mare vaporum - sea of vapors jong2min; lake fairy au; pg; 929w i think fae can have little a eating people. as a treat. and also maybe little a gay makeouts with traveling mages. also as a treat.

😌mare serenitatis - sea of serenity onjongkey; beach au; pg; 962w i just wanted to think of the nicest most calm and peaceful still image and also with the relief of both jinx and key coming home safe right on time : ) no anxiety just love

🍑mare fecunditatis - sea of fecundity/fertility ot5; horny lol; nc17; 1499 words hehehehehehehe. hoohoo. absolutely flooded with cum. good for him.

🌕epilogue: the far side jongtae; pg; 893w i just think they're neat. they're just little guys and they like each other a whole lot. i don't know if they're actually dating the other three??? probably if jong is making up gay little stories about them lmao??? either it’s poly ot5 or they're just really comfortable and close with their friends and don't mind snuggling and and kissing and doing the sex sometimes and being vulnerable but like in a platonic way. i like both and i'm a libra so i can't pick so whichever one you like better lol

also taem: what do you MEAN they're actually lava >:(

jong: it's lava from old volcanoes underneath the surface. Kind of boring. I used to think it was from when the moon used to be part of the Earth but--

taem: the moon was fucking WHAT??????????

#jongtae #jongho #jongkey #jongyu #jonghyun #kibum #jinki #taemin #minho #All of the other ships I'm not tagging lmao #pg #nc17 #fluff #fantasy #ydw #oneshot #drabble

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thesassycloset-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Hallelujah

Pairing: BFF JongKey, JongTae, side MinKey, OT5-ish Genre: humor, fluff Rating: PG Word count: 1,544

“Aha, sure.” Kibum nods, then shifts his attention back to his book as he continues “And you hiding from the world that you’re bi but coming out to us 5 years ago—”

“I get it.” Jonghyun grumbles, slumps down on his seat as a victorious smile spreads over Kibum’s face.

“Is that a new song?”

Jonghyun looks sideways.

Kibum has this knowing tint on his eyes and an amused smirk pulling at his lips as he leans over their shared armrest that just makes Jonghyun frown, self-consciously closing the notebook and lowering it to his lap.

“What if it is?” he snaps, chin high in defiance.

Kibum rolls his eyes, laughter gone “Chill, hyung, I’m not judging.”

Jonghyun squints at him.

He would argue. The have known each other for so long — lived together, ate together, had daily sleep overs even when not demanded by their job. They knew each other better than the others did and will ever do, to the point where he just sees there’s something dangling off Kibum’s tongue— how dare he lie straight to his face.

Jonghyun would argue, but that means drawing it out and he’s pretty sure he probably doesn’t want to know.

So, he just ignores the comment and goes back to writing the lyrics — cover pulled just enough to shield it from prying cat-eyes.

“Is it a love song again?” Kibum gets a hum in reply. A short pause “Taeminnie again?”

There it is.

Of course, Kibum can’t keep his comments to himself.

Jonghyun heaves an irked sigh, closes the thing for good and when he turns to his friend to give him a piece of his mind, wide eyes and lips sucked in a tight line, Kibum’s already hiding his laughter within the pages of his own book.

“Yah.” Jonghyun calls out, tone firm but hushed. The rapper pokes out his head, mouth pursed tightly with the effort to hold back a smirk — albeit unsuccessfully “You say it as if Taemin is the only thing I think about.”

“It is.”

He scowls “It is not.”

“Hyung, every song you ever write showcases how gay you’re for him.” Kibum rolls his eyes again, fondly “Your crush is too obvious. I’m amazed it’s been this long and he hasn’t picked it up.”

“I’m not crushing on him. And I don’t only write about him. Couldn’t I be writing about a woman I’m in love with right now? My girlfriend, for example?”

“Do you have a girlfriend that we’re not aware of?”

“...I could have a secret girlfriend.”

“Yeah, right.” Kibum snorts “A secret girlfriend. From us.”

“What does that mean?”

Kibum looks at him with a mixture of contempt and pity “Hyung, you refuse to sit by the windows. Do you think we don’t notice your fear of heights?”

Jonghyun falters, but the scowl only deepens “Maybe that’s a secret I’m not uncomfortable with you knowing.”

“Aha, sure.” Kibum nods, then shifts his attention back to his book as he continues “And you hiding from the world that you’re bi but coming out to us 5 years ago—”

“I get it.” Jonghyun grumbles, slumps down on his seat as a victorious smile spreads over Kibum’s face “That still doesn’t prove I have a crush on Taemin.”

“Of course it doesn’t.”

Just then, Jinki shuffles down the aisle on the singer’s side and Jonghyun watches in apprehension as Kibum shoots out his hand to draw his attention.

“Hyung.”

“Yes?”

“Is Jonghyun crushing on Taemin?”

Said man jerks his head at him, flabbergasted—

Jinki merely glances behind him at the dancer marvelling over the view outside the plane, music blasting through his earphones, and returns impassive to Kibum “Oh, definitely.”

—then jerks back at the oldest man.

“What the fuck?” Jonghyun hisses out, scandalized at their obvious disregard for personal affairs.

“What’s going on?”

Kibum jumps when Minho bends over his seat to get in on their hushed conversation.

“Kibum just asked me if Jonghyun is crushing on Taemin.” Jinki deadpans.

Jonghyun gives up, lets his face fall on his hands.

“Oh, I thought it was something new—”

“Okay.” the man of the hour claps once to cut them short “Thank you all for your opinions, however, you’re all gravely mistaken. I do not have a crush on—”

“What happened?”

Four sets of eyes fall on the head poking from Jinki’s side.

A second goes by. No response.

Kibum notices how Jonghyun kinda shuts down and takes mercy on the poor soul.

“Jonghyun-hyung is writing a new song and we were asking about it.” he shrugs “But it seems like he doesn’t want any input.”

A small pout makes way on Taemin’s face, making him look visibly distraught when he mumbles “Not even from me?” with a voice so pained and so tiny and eyes so big and hurt that, despite all of them knowing how fake everything is, they are sure it’ll still have the intended effect.

Kibum’s point is proven right a moment later, when Jonghyun suddenly deflates, shoulders sagged.

“You know it’s not like that, Tae.” his tone is so sickeningly soft and sweet that Minho and Kibum have to hold back their sniggers.

“Then, can I see?” immediately chirper, Taemin waits for a moment before changing seats and patting the one beside him, beckoning Jonghyun over.

It’s much more hilarious because Jonghyun doesn’t even wait another breath.

Just grabs his things, tucks his head with slight shame at his weak willpower, and flops down on the empty spot.

He’s so obvious.

God.

A wide smile spreads on his face.

He might just be fucking Cupid. Kudos to him.

It’s after everyone has gone their separate ways — Jonghyun safely settled with Taemin and diving right into their own little world; Minho pulling the comforter over his shoulders and going back to his PSP; Jinki continuing on his journey to the bathroom with a shake of his head — that Kibum leans back, makes himself comfortable and closes his eyes for the rest of the flight.

He loves being right.

When Kibum wakes up, the first thing he notices is a familiar duvet covering him from shoulders to toes.

The second thing: incessant chatter on his right side.

And maybe that’s what woke him up, way before his alarm went off, because all the pep grates on his nerves and he turns on his seat, about to tell them off, when he notices the kids have switched places.

Jonghyun is now trapped whether to look out the window and down to the ocean or continue to look straight at Taemin, who’s excitedly going on about something and often pointing things outside that Jonghyun would only peek at. Everytime it happens, the dancer chuckles at his uneasiness and places a comforting hand on his forearm until a stupid half-smile creeps on Jonghyun’s face — then, he jumps back on the topic as if they have never strayed. And everytime that happens, Jonghyun finds himself just a little bit dazed in the energy, the passion, the way Taemin’s eyes crinkle and sparkle or the way his expressions change with the emotions in his stories; he finds himself just a little bit breathless at how Taemin covers his smile when he laughs wide or how he tilts his head when he’s coming down from his high or how he licks his lips when he’s about to go off again on another one of his unusual long rants.

He’s so utterly lost, so far fucking gone in the moment, that he completely misses his surroundings until Taemin stands up and excuses himself to the bathroom.

Jonghyun’s eyes only follow him for three seconds, stares longingly for another five, before he feels a hard gaze boring holes on the side of his face and peeps straight ahead.

He meets an arched brow and mocking look.

His smile falls.

“Okay, so I may have a tiny crush on him.” Jonghyun whispers with a snarl as he lunges for his original seat, the last half of the sentence exaggerated in a higher register that’s meant to mimic the fashionista.

“You have made it this far, yet you keep lying.” Kibum sighs wistfully.

“Okay, a huge crush.” Jonghyun bites back, face burning “And if you tell him, I’ll tell Minho you have a crush on him.”

Kibum sputters.

His eyes go wide, an airy and indignant scoff spills from his open mouth.

“I am not crushing on Minho!” he squeals, completely outraged at the accusation, but Jonghyun shushes him midway and panic helps him end it with a hushed mutter, throwing a few looks around to make sure no one heard.

“How dare you lie to me for the second time today, Kim Kibum.” the singer narrows his eyes menacingly “I know it must be embarrassing with how you hated each other but—”

“I do not like Minho! How can you even—!”

“Jinki-hyung!” Jonghyun taps the shoulder of the man sitting in the row behind them, pulling him out from his music “Is Kibum crushing on Minho?”

“Hyung—!”

Jinki squints at the tall man a few seats away, attention fixed on the penalty shot he’s about to shoot, and returns nonchalant to the pair “Oh, yes. Definitely.”

Kibum gapes at them in horror, back and forth, unbelieving and defeated “I do not—!”

“Oh, good!” Taemin closes the bathroom door and skips down the aisle, wiping his hands dry on his pants. He crouches down beside Jonghyun and looks expectantly at the trio “I’m not the last one this time. What’s up?”

“Well, Jonghyun just asked me if—”

Kibum groans.

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taeminuet · 8 years ago

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Heartbeat (19/?)

Title: Heartbeat Fandom: SHINee Pairings: Jongtae; Minkey; OnKai Chapter Wordcount: 3k Overall Rating: R (Some chapters will be NC-17; these will be marked.) Chapter Warnings: mentions of past abuse, mentions of previous underage sex, vaguely dubious consent, Summary: In which not every problem needs to be fixed and not every person needs to be saved; sometimes you just need support.

1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 7.5 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18

Chapter 19: Jonghyun

It’s an actual struggle to force himself to function properly. Jonghyun doesn’t know what the fuck is going on, honestly. He’s reeling. The last 36 hours have flipped his entire concept of who he is now on his head. And he guesses it’s not that weird -- there’s something about living in forced routine; when it’s broken, things change all at once, in a rush.

But still, this feels like a lot. He doesn’t understand how someone like Taemin, someone who struggles with trust issues and who Jonghyun has fucked up with not once but several times in the last couple of days is standing here, willing to try for this. But he can see it in Taemin’s face, in the way he’s holding himself -- he doesn’t know any better than Jonghyun how this will go, he’s just willing to try for anything.

Jonghyun might be offended a little if he didn’t get it, wholeheartedly, that concept of being with someone because you need to be with anyone. It’s just that Jinki is better at separating out feelings and Jonghyun isn’t great. Taemin, apparently, is closer to Jonghyun’s end of the spectrum.

And Jonghyun isn’t exactly going to complain about it, because despite everything, despite his fear and how hard he’s struggling with all of this, it’s nice to have someone to sleep next to. Someone who isn’t just a random stranger, he means. It’s something he hasn’t had since… well. In a while.

He wishes he could tell Taemin why. He wishes he could talk about his dreams. But so many of them center around things that he can’t explain, not to Taemin. And that feels like shit when Taemin is giving him so much, but Jonghyun is a coward. He always has been.

Taemin doesn’t seem to mind too much though, because he doesn’t push Jonghyun. Even once they’re out of the shower, Taemin just kind of… hovers, waiting as Jonghyun gets dressed. It’s not patient, really; Taemin being still for too long makes him kind of look like the living dead, just a little, but most of the time there’s this nervous energy that keeps him from seeming like that, a sort of exhausted tension.

It’s obvious what Taemin is doing, and Jonghyun fumbles for a moment, trying to give him something normal. Whatever normal is for them. What he finally comes up with is, “I’m really hungry.”

Taemin blinks, almost like he’s trying to process, and then smiles weakly. “Yeah, it’s been a bit since we’ve eaten.”

“I mean… I ate a little more recently than you,” Jonghyun says, quirking a smile at Taemin, and he doesn’t feel like he’s doing a great job of pulling off his normal facade, but at least Taemin scoffs a laugh, lifting his hand halfway to his mouth, like it’s instinct to cover it but like his limbs are too heavy with sleep to get there before the short laugh is already over.

“I don’t think sucking dick is anywhere on the food pyramid,” Taemin says, shaking his head fondly, and he steps closer.

If not for their stupid banter, it would feel like a scene out of a cheesy romance movie: Taemin, stepping into his space, his hand fluttering for just a second before it lands on Jonghyun’s waist, so close there’s almost no space between them, so close that Jonghyun has to look up the couple of inches to meet Taemin’s gaze. He doesn’t meet it for long -- a moment later, and his eyes flicker back down, hovering around Taemin’s lips. He wets his own without thinking, leaning into Taemin, into his touch, willing to give as much as Taemin wants to take, willing to let Taemin do anything.

Jonghyun forces himself to turn away. The remnants of his dream are crawling through his brain, that neediness. He knows it’s still a part of him and it would be so easy to give in, to pull Taemin back into bed. He knows Taemin would give into him -- he thinks, at least.

Taemin looks at him for a long moment, a flash of something in his gaze that Jonghyun in no way has the empathy to figure out what it is, and then Taemin is cupping his face gently, turning his gaze back up -- Jonghyun doesn’t fight it. Even if he turned away, he doesn’t really have the strength to deny Taemin anything, not even a kiss.

But Taemin only leans their forehead together for a moment, letting their breaths mingle between their mouths. “You’re okay, Jonghyun.”

“It’s…” Jonghyun says, words tangling up, and then takes a deep breath, closing his eyes for just a moment. “Protein, if I had to guess.”

Taemin looks confused for a long moment, and then he lets out another little laugh. “Okay, but man cannot live on semen alone.”

“Debatable,” Jonghyun answers, desperate to get back to normal. “But honestly I’d kill for some bacon right now.”

“I think we can do that,” Taemin says. As he steps away, his hand slips from Jonghyun’s waist to his hand, threading their fingers together. The grip is loose, fingers slack in Jonghyun’s grasp, but it’s more like hesitance than anything, and when Jonghyun tightens his grip, Taemin doesn’t let go.

It feels strange -- Jonghyun isn’t used to this, isn’t used to kindness. He’s used to getting fucked, not holding hands. But Jonghyun doesn’t let go either, and when Taemin pulls gently, Jonghyun follows.

Jonghyun feels nervous, somehow, walking down the hallway like this. After last night, after this morning, after everything, Jonghyun’s just trying to figure out where he stands. There’s so much he can’t tell Taemin. There’s so much he can’t admit to.

He’s spent forever trying to find ways to explain it to people whose traumas aren’t even tangentially related. How the hell is he supposed to explain it to Taemin?

But Taemin is trying to be patient, waiting for Jonghyun to find words he probably never will, and Jonghyun doesn’t know which is stronger: the guilt over that or the kind of terrified hope he can feel welling in his chest because the idea of someone, anyone, who might not push him, might not make him try to explain himself only to ignore all of his opinions on the batter… it’s a nice concept. Not realistic, but nice, and Jonghyun’s long since mastered the art of delusion.

And maybe, just maybe, he can delude himself into thinking that everything is going to be okay when they walk into breakfast, hand in hand, and people start staring. Not all of them of course, but Jonghyun is well-known, if not by interaction than by reputation. A couple of the girls from the female side, two halls down, hoot at him, one of them grinning slightly wildly before leaning over to talk to the empty chair beside her, and one of the staff is looking at them -- one of the nurses who works with Jonghyun frequently and knows as well as he does how strange this is.

The most familiar face though is at a table by himself, and he looks up when they approach, flashing Taemin a tiny, unsettled smile, looking absolutely morose. His eyes dart to their joined hands and then back up, and he bites his mouth together for a moment before mumbling, “I’m pretty sure you guys are gonna get talked to in group if you keep being this obvious.”

“Onew,” Taemin says, because it’s clear from the hunch of his shoulders, the way his voice sounds. Not to mention the terrible sweater he’s wearing, some over-large knit thing that drapes over his hands and hangs halfway off one shoulder, too large for him by far. “It’s okay. If we get talked to, we’ll deflect. It’s fine.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not the point of group therapy, but whatever floats your boat,” says another voice from behind them, and Onew seems to jerk a little, clearly startled before he smiles weakly at Key. Key grimaces back. “I feel like this whole thing would go a lot better if we started employing ‘yes, ands’.”

“Yes, and they doctors are gonna have a field day with the amount of bullshit they get from that,” Jonghyun says, because he cannot fathom a world where they all make up random shit and it doesn’t come back to bite any of them. “I mean, I’m doing pretty good on the shut up and let them suffer train. Being open and honest hasn’t exactly worked out for anyone yet.”

“I don’t think anyone but Jinki has tried it to be honest,” Key says, and then glances apologetically at Onew. “Sorry.”

Onew shakes his head, just a little, and then mumbles, “Are you all okay though? After… Well…”

He trails off, eyes fluttering downwards to stare at his lap where his hands are clenched on his knees.

“After...?” Taemin prompts gently.

“I just mean, a lot went on last night,” Onew mumbles. “With Minho and then with your-- your, uhm, your friend.”

And that’s a lot of stuttering, even for Onew. Onew doesn’t fumble too bad until he gets nervous, and while yeah, sure, Onew operates at a pretty constant level of mildly nervous, the way he’s acting right now is a little much even for him. Jonghyun squints at him. “I mean, Tae and I are fine, far as I know. Fine being relative. But what about you, huh? No offense, but you look like someone shot your puppy.”

“Jonghyun, seriously?” Key hisses, glaring.

Onew looks up, eyes wide and startled and sad, and manages, “I don’t have a--” before he seems to understand the joke. Not that it was a particularly funny one, and even Taemin is elbowing Jonghyun in the side, giving him a look.

Jonghyun exhales. “Look, I’m sorry I was a dick last night? I don’t know if that helps at all, but figured I should say it.”

Onew smiles a little, but it’s weak at best. “That’s-- it’s not…” He pauses, glancing at Taemin, and then he balls himself a little tighter and shakes his head. “It’s okay.”

Taemin frowns, reaching out and tugging Onew’s sleeve up onto his shoulder gingerly. “Onew, whatever it is, you can say. Seriously, it’s not going to be the hardest thing I’ve dealt with in the last hour.”

Onew frowns tightly, glancing at Jonghyun, but Jonghyun shakes his head. “The usual. No big deal. But this is not your usual.”

“I mean…” Onew looks even more miserable now.

“Onew,” Key says, voice a little exasperated. “Seriously. Who upset you? Cuz if you don’t tell us, you’re going to hit a stress point and then Jinki will. And Jinki’s ways don’t tend to end well for whoever it was that did upset you.”

Onew squeaks pathetically and then whines. “You’re right. I know. You’re right, I just…” He’s glancing at Taemin again, anxiety written all over his face. He pulls his arms inside his sweater so that it swallows him, bundling up almost entirely, and slides lower in his chair, squirming a little.

“No one’s going to be mad,” Taemin says awkwardly. “Whatever it is you can tell us. We’ll listen.”

Onew whines again, seemingly trying to disappear into his sweater, but after a moment he manages, “I… You have a really nice best friend, Taemin. I just… I just think he’s a little… uhm, absentminded?”

Taemin pauses, frowning. “Okay, I’m not saying that doesn’t 100% sound like him, but what did he--”

And Jonghyun touches Taemin, giving him a look. Taemin has heard Jinki’s story. He has to understand how Onew gets sometimes. It doesn’t really matter what Jongin did, though Jonghyun isn’t entirely in approval of his if he’s enough of a jerk to show up here, freak Taemin out, and bolt. Which… actually, the bolting might be the problem.

“Onew?”

“I told you it’s… I mean, it’s really not,” Onew stutters. “I just… I thought… I really just wanted to say goodbye. It wasn’t anything... “

And god, that’s sad in a way that Jonghyun would make fun of if Onew didn’t look so utterly miserable about the whole thing, to the point where even Minho, who looks utterly bewildered speaks up to say, “It’s okay. I’m sure he just forgot?”

“Babe…” Key says, looking at Minho in something like fond exasperation, because a fresh-off-the-press Minho 700-and-something-point-0 isn’t exactly comforting, but Jonghyun’s a little more focused on the pet name there, raising an eyebrow at Key who shakes his head slightly. Jonghyun raises the other eyebrow as well.

“I can call him,” Taemin says suddenly. “He doesn’t mean to, he just has a lot to think about. I’m sure he remembered halfway home and felt super awful. I can call him, really.”

Onew’s eyes widen. “I don’t-- he shouldn’t feel awful, I’m not--”

Jonghyun rolls his eyes, temporarily sidelining the thing with Key and Minho. “Onew, you’re miles out of his league, honestly. The dude should come apologize. To a couple of people.”

“Don’t be petty,” Taemin says, barely even a serious reprimand as he nudges Jonghyun. “Seriously, It’s not a big deal. I’ll be right back, okay? Jong, get us some food while I’m gone?”

Jonghyun nods, even as Onew blusters an excuse, and Key is looking at Jonghyun now with a similar expression. Jonghyun wants to laugh, but not exactly in a funny way. “So,” he says after a second, “raise your hand if you banged someone last night.”

And Minho and Key don’t raise their hands, but there’s a growing blush on Minho’s cheeks, and Key is glaring, and-- “I’ll help you get food,” Key says. “Minho and I should eat anyways. Minho, are you good here with Onew?”

Minho nods and then, carefully, “Onew? Can I ask--”

“Whatever you need,” Onew says immediately, perking up a tiny bit at the thought of being helpful, even if it’s the semi-weekly Minho update.

Key nods. “We’ll be right back.”

He wheels away towards the food line, Jonghyun following close behind. After a moment, Jonghyun asks, “So you and Minho. I mean, I won’t say I didn’t see it coming, but… Key, you know that he’s gonna--”

“I know,” Key says, cutting him off. “I know. You reminded me of it like two days ago. But, if I’m gonna waste away in here, I might as well do it with a hot guy on my arm.”

Jonghyun snorts, picking up some trays and handing one over. “If we lived in a world where you were that shallow, we’d be fucked. Or at least I would. You know I’m the hottest piece of ass in here.”

“That’s disgusting,” Key deadpans, and then sighs, starting to fill his tray with more servings than just one. “I just… Jonghyun, I know it’s a bad idea. I do. And if this sucks that much then… well, in a few days, it won’t matter. Whatever happens. But I want to try. And I… I want to find a way.”

“I just don’t want you hurt, Bummie,” Jonghyun says, all the same raw honesty he’d shown after knocking Key from his chair.

“I’m already hurt, Jonghyun,” Key says. And Jonghyun doesn’t know what to say to that, so he lets it lie, lets the soft sounds of wheels and the dull background chatter of people eating fill the silence until Key adds, “And you and Taemin?”

Jonghyun nods. “He’s… I know it’s bad. I get it, I do. But… he needs someone to protect him from his own head, and I need someone to keep me out of mine and maybe… maybe I’m just being selfish, maybe I just want a good fuck, but this…”

He trails off, but Key hums in understanding anyways. After a moment, he sighs, plucking a drink off the line -- Minho’s favorite, if Jonghyun’s not wrong.

“We’re fucked, aren’t we?” Key says.

Jonghyun shrugs. “Probably,” he admits, “but there’s worse ways to go out. Though no one here is exactly subtle, and with two new relationships, well… group is going to be hell.”

And the fact that he just said relationship, in regards to himself and Taemin, that doesn’t escape him, even if that makes his throat tighten. There are lots of types of relationship though; it’s a broad category. Jonghyun just has to figure out where in that category he’s even close to.

“My idea of a good time,” Key says sarcastically, but his face is soft, and he’s looking across the room at Minho who’s listening intently to Onew and nodding very seriously. It’s almost cute, even. “Just… be careful, Jonghyun.”

Jonghyun gingerly takes a tray to make it easier for Key to maneuver. “Yeah,” he says. “You too.”

Next Chapter: November 26

Thank you guys so much for all the patience, and I hope you all enjoyed Kinktober~ I should (hopefully) be back on track now with Heartbeat (as well as Asphodel for anyone who reads that~). It really means so much to me that you guys support me and are still reading this. 19 chapters in, and we’ve still got a ways to go. :)

#SHINee fic #SHINee fanfiction #onkai #minkey #jongtae #heartbeat #<3<3<3

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somaybeimbiased · 8 years ago

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Top 3 OT5 Fanfictions

I accidentally deleted the request, but someone asked me what my top 3 favorite fanfics were, and I couldn’t choose only 3 out of them all, so I went with my top 3 OT5 fanfictions~ These aren’t in any order, just 3 of my personal favorites.

Pocketful of sunshine by i y a f a c e。♡

OT5 (Jinki-centric) Rated R

It’s a 3 shot fic that follows Jinki as he tries to help OT4. It’s set in a mental hospital primarily, so be mindful of any triggers you may have.

I read it straight through one night, and I cried, and laughed, and rolled my eyes. Honestly it was just so good, and the author (in my opinion) really portrayed things really well.

2. Don’t Get Lost by otshineon

OT5- (Taemin-centric)

Oneshort where Taemin is very upset and SHINee help him and comfort him and I cried and smiled and it’s amazing, you have to read it, becuase I know I’ve gone back and re-read this piece quite a few times.

3. Afraid by Sabrina, bffimagine

Jongtae if you squint, but mostly OT5- platonic

Tw violence, death

It was an ordinary day, the day that changed Taemin's concept of fear forever.

I cried a lot. Okay. This is another must-read. My heart was squeezed and my head hurt after reading this. It’s really very good, but very sad too.

#Shinee #shinee fanfics #fic rec #ot5

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0nho · 8 years ago

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jongyu; pg-13; “BFF”

Not every friendship is meant for anything more, or anything less.

broken(?), bffs jinki/jonghyun (onho + jongtae in mention) // pg-13 // fluff // long drabble

Lee Jinki sighs, loosening a stuffy tie and taking another drag off his cigarette. He sits in an empty park, sun already set, waiting as people pass by; many off work and heading to restaurants to drink as co-workers. Jinki declined the--yet again--aggressive request to drink with his own co-workers. Truth be told, he rather drink alone, but he had an honest excuse this time. He's out meeting someone.

“You should really stop doing that.”

Kim Jonghyun, a small man and Jinki's junior, has returned from fetching drinks for the two. Jinki wishes it were alcohol, but since he's not buying he can't complain much. He takes the offered can of soda that's opened by his friend, other hand lifting his smoke. “This?”

Jonghyun nods, taking a tired seat beside Jinki, stretching short limbs. His friend, one he met before even first grade, has always been concerned about his health, which manifests in a manner that could be seen as a bully--to Jinki a senior--but the older man knows better. Jonghyun is simply an emotional person; from displays of frustrated anger to sobbing tears. Jinki has no desire to change Jonghyun.

Jonghyun plucks the cigarette from Jinki, holding it up and away, making Jinki show effort if he wants it back; Jinki does, nearly lunging for it. Jonghyun shakes his head with a breathy chuckle.

Eye contact can't be made as shame slithers up Jinki's spine a moment. He never was the healthiest kid; fat jokes thrown at him and sneaking around for a smoke underage. As a grown man now, Jinki thinks he's doing a lot better though.

“He tells me to stop, too,” Jinki says with a laugh, puffing smoke.

“Does he?”

The two sip drinks with a glance at each other. The meeting place they sit in, it's no coincidence. It's where the two first kissed.

It was each other's first kiss. Jonghyun initiated it, and Jonghyun was the most flustered by it. Jinki had simply stared with confusion. Sexuality was never something Jinki was knowledged in, so when Jonghyun said he liked him - had liked him for a long time, Jinki pondered it.

Jinki was the one to ask Jonghyun if he wanted to date. He still remembers the look on his face that day. Jinki thought, with how long they where friends, how deeply he cared for someone, it could translate into lovers. It could work. It made sense, mathematically, probably.

“Any habits he wants you to break?”

Jonghyun’s head is thrown back in a laugh. “He says I sleep with my eyes open and it freaks him out.”

Jinki snorts. “You do.”

“I do not.”

Jinki blows smoke, head shaking. “You have for years.”

Jonghyun slouches. “Well I guess you would know…”

Jinki knows a lot about Jonghyun. Like how music has always been his passion, even dropped out of high school for it, much to the disappointment of his divorcing parents. Music was there for him when family wasn't. Music wouldn't judge his sexuality. Jinki knows how Jonghyun secretly writes short stories he's too embarrassed to try and publish, how he got that scar on his knee when he was ten years old, how he cried when his mom said he couldn't pierce his ears in high school. Jinki knows how he tastes, where to touch him, and what he sounds like when he cums.

Likewise, Jonghyun knows as much about Jinki, and something special enough Jonghyun had thought he was in love with him. Possibly, it can be chalked up to confusion and sexuality. It's frightening feeling different from peers and alone. It was something to bring them together.

“Are you sad?”

“Huh?”

Jonghyun turns to Jinki, drink lowered. “That we didn't work out?”

Jinki gives it some thought. It's not quite saddens he feels. Somehow, the experience brought the two closer together, he thinks. Jinki flicks the cigarette to the ground and stomps it out. His head tilts with a crinkling-eyed smile as he says “No. I'm glad that no matter what, you are still my best friend.”

Jonghyun raises his drink to that, and Jinki follows for a cheer.

Under his breath, Jonghyun adds, “The sex was great, though…”

Jinki's cheeks are full as he glances at the shorter man. Jonghyun isn't wrong; the sex is quite memorable, after getting over the hurdles figuring it all out together, that is. How Jonghyun tried to sext him while Jinki was away on conscription, when he was stuck bunked surrounded by people. Privacy is foreign in the military.

Dwelling on those memories for too long can lead to unwanted arousal. Jinki gives a hard gulp.

“Now.. how old is your boyfriend again? Younger than me, huh?” Jonghyun grins.

Jinki doesn't miss a beat. “Not as young as yours, cradle robber.”

The younger man coughs, pulling his drink away.

“I thought a high schooler had gotten into the bar I had a gig at,” Jonghyun laughs.

“You ogled him, didn't you.”

“Don't make me feel anymore shame, hyung. He's really.. something and I like him.”

Jinki smirks with satisfaction. His phone buzzes with a ring, and digging it from his pocket, Jinki finds Minho, his boyfriend, sending a text. Jinki takes glasses out the pocket of his suit jacket, slipping them on to read it clearly.

“I know it's him. You even changed your ring tone for him?” Jonghyun cackles in amusement. “You must really like him then.”

Jinki doesn't deny it. Jonghyun really does know him well enough to figure him out. Reading the message, he finds Minho just wishing him a good night. His heart skips a beat whenever Minho says he loves him, even just through written words. He's a sweet and genuine young man who found Jinki because he showed interest first. That seems to be a theme with Jinki. He has to be chased to even consider someone.

Before Jinki can reply, Jonghyun nabs the phone, reading the message while Jinki tries to yank it back. Jinki is now the one left flustered, frowning at his phone returned to him and Jonghyun giggling.

“He's cute, hyung. Really, honestly, I'm happy for you.”

Jinki is taken aback by Jonghyun's sincerity. He's not sure how to respond, so he simply says “Thank you.”

“You are adorable when you're happy,” Jonghyun thinks out loud.

Jinki quickly sends a reply, assuring Minho they will get together again soon. He doesn't even realize he's smiling. Beings in love is something Jinki would like to put logic behind, but every time he tries, he meets a dead end.

“Taemin is begging singing lessons from me. He wants to be in the band. He's so cute I don't know what to do.” Jonghyun stomps feet in a cringing whine.

Jinki hasn't met Taemin very much, but knows he attends the same university as Minho. Jinki's been so busy with work and quite frankly, a needy boyfriend, that he hasn't seen Jonghyun as often. He misses his music. Really, he should take Minho to see Jonghyun play. He knows Minho would love it.

“Do what you think is right. You're good at that.”

Jonghyun watches Jinki, taking one hand of his to hold. He says with a sleepy grin. “I've missed you.”

Jinki squeezes his friend’s palm, smiling. “Me too.”

Jonghyun's cellphone buzzes noisily, and Jinki watches his friend’s expression fall staring at his phone.

“What is it?”

“Taemin says he's at my place and naked in my bed..”

Jinki sputters on his drink. He swipes his mouth, eyes wide.

“I gotta go,” Jonghyun says, standing and pocketing his cell.

“I would guess so,” Jinki laughs, not even sorry it's at the expense of his friend’s red face.

“Oh!” Jonghyun squints, head cradled a moment, “I'm playing this Saturday. Come watch. I'll call you later about the time and place, yeah?”

Jinki watches the other with a blank stare.

“Please!” Jonghyun claps hands together, begging.

Jinki cracks a smile, head shaking with a laugh. “I'll try.”

“I'll take it,” Jonghyun sighs. “You still make me beg you..”

Jinki bursts with laughter, shooing Jonghyun with a kick of his leg and false threat to throw his drink at him.

“I'll see ya.”

Jinki waves Jonghyun off, brows popped at finding his friend left the trash for him to get rid off. Jinki huffs.

It's not long before Jinki has his phone out again, Minho sending him a picture of himself eating ramen as late snack. Jinki is up, heading back to where he can hail a taxi for home, phone to his ear as he calls Minho. Just hearing his voice puts Jinki in a content mood.

“Yo Jinki yaaa!” Minho shouts, sounding like a ball of energy at this late hour, causing Jinki to hold the phone away from his ear a moment. “Are you home yet?”

Jinki laughs at the noise of slurping noodles on the other end of the line. “I'm getting a ride home now.”

“I want to see you tomorrow…”

Jinki waves for a cab along a busy sidewalk as he sighs and assures Minho they will meet tomorrow.

Still, Jinki glances back at the bench, quirk in his smile, special memories with him forever.

Sometimes friends are meant to stay just friends, and that's okay, because it doesn't mean they're any less a special and important existence in one's life.

#wow this is over a year old but i tried to finish it #jongyu #onjong #onho #jongtae #shinee #fic #drabble #fic: jongyu #fic: onho #fic: jongtae #just an idea i had some time ago #and get to work with my fav ships i guess #forgive my downhill quality in writing #jongyu bff verse

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katrinawritesthings · 6 years ago

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Jonghyun/Taemin; New Roomies; R

remember during sherlock when jongtae started rooming together bc i do

The sunlight doesn’t touch Taemin’s bed, but Jonghyun can still see, clear as day, that Taemin has one hand in his hair and his other hand very much around his dick.

So far Jonghyun is pretty okay with their new dorm arrangements. New album, new era, new roommate, it’s good. Feels fresh, feels exciting. He’s gonna miss bickering with Minho in the mornings, but he can bicker with Minho every other time anyway so he’s not too chuffed about it. And he likes Taemin. He’s his favorite maknae. He loves messing around with the kid, especially since he finally aged over into an adult and got a giant surge of confidence and self-assurance. It’s good to see his literal son that he birthed from his own womb be so bright and he knows he’s going to enjoy rooming with him.

He snags the bed nestled against the wall first just so he doesn’t have to move the other one himself, hopping on and wrapping himself in blankies to claim it as his spot and smirking when Taemin rolls his eyes at him.

“Sure, leave me with the pink bed,” he grumbles. Jonghyun giggles when he realizes that he did indeed snag the blue one and leave Taemin with the pink one.

“Pink is pretty,” he says, “just like you, Taeminnie.” And he knows Taemin hates being called pretty, but Taemin knows that he’s just playing, and the pillow that he throws at Jonghyuns head just paffs him gently without any malice. Jonghyun grins as he sucks Taemin’s pillow into his blanket as well, shaking his head when Taemin laughs and comes to wrestle it back. This is a good roommate situation, yeah. Definitely.

Sleep comes a little harder to him than usual that night, too used to Minho’s soft snores and not used to Taemin’s constant shuffling, but he drifts off eventually and only wakes up for a few minutes a few times during the night, so he can’t complain. He’ll get used to it eventually.

When he wakes up another time to the sun just peeping through their curtains, to the sounds of someone in the shower and someone else bustling around in the kitchen, he inhales deeply and hugs Taemin’s pillow close under his chin. He scrunches his eyes shut and tries to catch a few more minutes even though he knows it’s futile. They have to do some commercial thing today all together and he makes it a personal rule to be well-functioning enough to never be the last one ready.

“Mmh… hyung,” a husky voice whispers, a soft breath from Taemin’s side of the room. Jonghyun exhales an amused breath. He forgot how deep Taemin’s voice gets when he’s sleepy and not controlling his tone for a show. If Taemin thinks he’s going to help him wake up and get him out of bed like Kibum did he has another thing coming. If he’s trying to wake Jonghyun up, though, then that's nice and sweet.

“Hyung, fuck,” Taemin says. It sounds almost like a groan, like it came from somewhere deep in his chest. Jonghyun pauses, frowns, opens his eyes to squint blearily across the room. Wait.

The sunlight doesn’t touch Taemin’s bed, but Jonghyun can still see, clear as day, that Taemin has one hand in his hair and his other hand very much around his dick. He’s pumping himself at what Jonghyun would call a medium pace. He’s also rolling his hips up into it, head tossing back and forth on his pillow, eyes closed, bottom teeth trapped between his lips. Obviously he’s very into this.

“God, you’re so gorgeous,” Taemin breathes. Jonghyun raises sleepy brows. This is neat and all, but he really doesn’t feel like watching Taemin achieve climax. He’s too sleepy for this.

“Taemin,” he says, just loud enough to be heard. “What the fuck.”

“Oh--my fucking god--” Taemin jumps, intensely, his whole bed rattling with it as his eyes snap open in shock. His head whips to look at Jonghyun and his hand whips off of his dick. Then it returns just as fast, and then leaves again to fumble for his blankets to tug them up over it.

“Oh my god, fuck, hyung--fuck, I’m so sorry, dude.” His voice breaks into a breathy, embarrassed laugh, eyes little crescents now as he pulls his blanket all the way up to his nose. “Usually--fuck--usually Kibummie hyung’s already in the shower, I--I forgot we switched rooms, I--” He breaks into more laughter and Jonghyun finds himself laughing too, giggling into his pillow at how red Taemin’s forehead is where it’s peeping out of the blankies. Holy shit.

“You’re such a good kid,” he tells Taemin. He really really is. Taemin breathes out more quiet laughs and rolls to his back. He brings his hands up to hide his face in them as his shoulders shake the bed. Jonghyun pushes himself into a sit and yawns into his hand. He thinks he just wants some cereal for breakfast today. “I take showers at night,” he tells Taemin as he stands up. “Maybe adjust your, uh, schedule.” He winks and smirks before leaving the room, leaving Taemin giggling endlessly behind him.

When Taemin shuffles into the kitchen a little while later, hair damp from his own suspiciously long shower, they glance at each other and break into giggles again. Both of them wave Jinki off when he asks what’s so funny and just share another knowing smile.

It’s not until later, after they all get ready, after they do their commercial shoot, when they’re all waiting for Heechul to introduce them on his radio show, that Jonghyun’s thoughts stray back to the morning for a few moments. He pauses in his glancing over of the script for the day and looks up at Taemin. He’s bright as usual, joking with Jinki. Jonghyun hums.

“Hyung,” he’d said earlier. “Hyung, fuck.” “Hyung, you’re so gorgeous.” Jonghyun puts his chin in his hand and surveys their maknae. “Hyung” applies to all four of them. Hell, it applies to half of the debuted company. It could be anyone. Jonghyun lifts his other hand too to hold his chin and just smiles contemplatively at Taemin. Hmm.

As he’s pondering, Taemin glances over at him. He smiles, looks away, does a double-take, and notices Jonghyun’s knowing, curious look. He doesn’t blush, but he does lift his hand to pinch his nose in his usual embarrassed gesture and looks away again, reaching for Minho’s elbow to tell him something. Jonghyun’s smile widens. He knows Jonghyun was thinking about it.

The radio commercials end then and Heechul starts introducing them so Jonghyun drops the topic from his mind. He’ll come back to it later.

He’ll come back to it tonight, after he takes a shower, when he’ll get back into their room and know that Taemin just finished jerking off to one of them. He won’t make him say it if he gets too uncomfortable, but still. It’ll be fun to watch him squirm.

#jongtae #jonghyun #taemin #brotp #oneshot #r #it ends there bc i had a bunch more vague undetailed ideas to add onto this #but then it wouldve turned into headhunting the 2018 jongho edition nd like im not Doin that shit to myself #ydw #anygay jong asks taem laer like : ) sweet maknae which hyung did u mean when u moaned out hyung with ur hand around ur dick : )#taem: [[[sweats nervously]]] none of ur business #jong: mmmmhmm : )))#jong: spends the next month analyzing the way taem says Hyung to all of them #when I say 2018 JH I meant 2018 JT lamo #2019 I mean f***

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katrinawritesthings · 8 years ago

Text

Technically Jongtae; Cursed; PG

tfw the stray kitty you’ve had for years is actually a cursed human and then you accidentally break the curse

look at these v important witchy gwisook Looks

“Wait, you want us to make you a cat again?” Eunsook asks. Finally she doesn’t look amused by everything anymore and is frowning in confusion at Jonghyun. It’s Taemin that answers though, as he nods and steps forward.

“He liked being a cat,” he says, “and, I mean. I liked him being my cat.”

ao3

The sun is warm on the back of Taemin’s neck as he sits in the dirt, warm and pleasant and friendly. He reaches under his lamb’s ear plant and grabs another handful of clovers, pinching them at the roots and tugging them out of the earth. Glancing them over quickly for any lucky ones, he tosses them behind him in the growing pile of weeds. If he squints between the fuzzy leaves he can see a clump of sourgrass is next and he sighs, tugging his glove tighter before plunging his hand back in. He hates pulling these.

He scuffs up the dirt a little bit under them to hopefully make this easier, then grabs as close to the ground as possible and prays. Teeth digging into his bottom lip, he pulls and grins wide when he feels the satisfying give of a whole root instead of the mocking snap of the stems just breaking off in his fingers. Nice. He pulls the flowers out, plucks off one with a thicker stem, wipes it down with the damp rag he stuck in the collar of his shirt, and puts the end in his mouth to chew while he works. Nice.

And then not nice, for two seconds later a stray bit of pollen invades his nose and he sneezes, the flower falling out of his mouth and into the dirt.

“Shit,” he mumbles as he sniffles and rubs his nose. A meow answers him; looking up, he finds the stray cat that decided to move into his garden some years ago creeping out of the lamb’s ear bush. The look the cat is giving him is judgemental and he snorts, reaching over to boop his head. “Sorry, majesty, did I wake you?” he asks. The cat just nuzzles into his hand and then rubs up against his side. Taemin scritches behind his ears fondly. His light golden brown coat looks especially lovely today in the sun.

“No food yet, kitty,” he mumbles, petting down his back lazily. He knows this little shit isn’t above whining until Taemin feeds him, but Taemin also knows that he is perfectly capable of nabbing a bird or something whenever he wants. He’s busy and the cat can wait until he’s done to be given food on a badly handmade ceramic platter.

“You can have a treat, though,” he says, and pulls out the treat packet he keeps in his garden bag. He ignores the cat’s smug little kitty grin when he pulls out a treat and holds it out in his hand. He’s cute and he knows that Taemin knows that and can’t resist it. “Little shit,” Taemin murmurs fondly. The cat noms up the treat, rubs against Taemin’s leg with a happy purr, and then slinks up to his front porch and into Taemin’s lounge chair. Taemin rolls his eyes and goes back to his weeding.

When he’s done he gathers up his pile and dumps it into his compost bin, brushes dirt off of his jeans, and pulls off his gloves. Grimacing at his sweaty hands, he wipes them on his sides as he hops up his porch steps. The kitty is still there in his chair, all curled up and having a nice nap. Taemin heads inside, tosses his gloves and bag on the floor next to the door, grabs a water bottle from the fridge, and scoots back outside.

“Shoo,” he says to the cat as he nears his chair. The cat looks up at him lazily, blinks slowly, and only slips off of the chair when Taemin makes gentle flappy hands at him. Then, once Taemin has sat himself down and gotten comfortable, the cat hops right back up into his lap and curls up. Taemin snorts softly, grinning to himself as he pets his back with one hand and checks his phone with the other. He loves this cat.

Even when he decides to be a little nuisance after a while of just sitting together and relaxing, standing up in Taemin’s lap and nuzzling all over his stomach, and then his chest, and then putting his little paws on Taemin’s shirt to press his face into Taemin’s neck. Taemin laughs, tickled by his fur and whiskers, and puts his hands on the cat’s side.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he says softly. “Chill.” The cat doesn’t chill; he nuzzles closer, purring loudly as he rubs his face all over Taemin’s neck and cheek. Taemin sighs as he pets his back. The little bub gets all clingy like this sometimes and doesn’t let Taemin go until he’s sufficiently fluffed up and pampered.

“What do you want, huh?” Taemin asks, petting him gently with both hands, one after the other. “Brat. C’mere.” He picks the cat up, tutting softly in warning before he even tries to cling to Taemin’s shirt with his claws, and holds him up just to put him back down on his knees. At least here he can pet him easier, without cat fur in his mouth. “What?” he asks, smiling at how he tries to wiggle from Taemin’s hold. “I’m paying attention to you,” he says. Scratching behind his ears with one hand, he wiggles his fingers gently against the side of his tum with the other.

“How else am I supposed to love you?” he asks. “I’m not a cat. I’m not going to lick you clean.” He boops under the kitty’s little chin with a finger, then scritches gently. “Want me to kiss you?” he asks. “I’ll kiss you, look. Mwah.” He leans forward and gently presses his lips to the top of the cat’s head. “There. Now you’re all loved--”

He’s interrupted in his lazy murmurs by the cat making a strange cat noise he’s never heard before, and then by the cat literally glowing in his hands.

He blinks, extremely confused, as the cat glows brighter with light orange and mint green light. Then, as if that wasn’t fucking weird enough, he floats--up off of Taemin’s lap, out of his hands, and just hovers a few inches above Taemin’s knees, soft tail twitching in the wind.

“What the fuck,” Taemin says loudly, and then all at once there’s a bright flash of light that has Taemin scrunching his eyes shut and cursing again.

When he opens his eyes, that cat is gone; instead, sprawled gracelessly over his porch and looking even more confused and bewildered than Taemin, is a naked human.

Their skin is the same sunkissed golden color as the cat’s fur, a little mole sits between their collarbones in the same spot as the cat’s little white patch, and their eyes are the same exact shade of dark warm brown that the cat’s were. Taemin decides to be polite and not to look below their waist as they blink back up at him.

“What the fuck,” he says again.

“I can explain,” the human says.

Taemin sure fucking hopes they can.

“This is them?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Like, really--”

“Yes, Taemin, I know a witch hut when I see one.”

“A witch hut.” Taemin looks over the quaint little apartment quickly: plastic fall flowers playfully stuck to the door, a hanging aloe plant over the porch, a box of dirty shoes and towels pushed under a tea table. He looks back to Jonghyun with a cocked brow; the ex-cat huffs and rubs the back of his head.

“Look, I hung around here a lot when they first cursed me trying to get them to change me back,” he mumbles. “I know this is them.”

“If you say so,” Taemin shrugs. He walks up the little steps and pushes the doorbell on the side. Jonghyun stands close next to and a little behind him, slipping his hands around Taemin’s forearm to hold anxiously. Taemin can’t help but smile to himself. Cute clingy kitty, cute clingy human.

The door opens after another few moments and they’re met with someone with dark black hair pushed back from their forehead and buzzed short on the sides. Taemin isn’t sure which one she is; Jonghyun said Gwiboon was the loud one and Eunsook was the smug one. He smiles as friendly as he can anyway and holds the open flaps of his jacket for lack of anything better to do with his hands.

“Hi,” he says. “I’m Taemin, and this is--”

He doesn’t get to finish his introduction because as he spoke, the witch glanced over both him and Jonghyun behind him, and when her eyes landed on Jonghyun, her face split wide into a grin. She interrupts Taemin with a loud cackle, throwing her head back as she turns around and walks back inside. She pushes the front door open further and flaps a hand at them in a becking sort of way as she goes, so with a bewildered look at a very blushie and pouty Jonghyun, Taemin tentatively steps inside.

He’s guessing that one was Gwiboon. They follow her laughter through the house into a living room, where she’s slouched herself into a cushy bean bag pile and is still giggling into her hands. On the couch, another witch looks up, this one with a rumpled white dress shirt and round glasses tucked neatly into mussed light brown hair. As soon as she sees Jonghyun she smiles too, a knowing, smug little smirk that makes Taemin confirm her as Eunsook.

“Oh,” she says. “The catcaller is back.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Taemin says. That is new information to him and he turns to look at Jonghyun accusingly. Jonghyun is very intently not looking back at him, face scrunched up in a cringe even as he curls his fingers into Taemin’s arm. Taemin wiggles his arm away a his brows rise into his hair. What the fuck.

“Oh my god, he didn’t tell them,” Gwiboon says, and her following laughter is even louder than before. Taemin looks over to watch Eunsook turning around on the couch to rest her chin on the back cushions and raise one eyebrow.

“What did he tell you was the reason we cursed him into a cat?” she asks. Taemin glances back at Jonghyun’s long and loud sigh. He has his face in his hands and Taemin turns back to Eunsook with a snort.

“He just said ‘reasons,’” he says. He was a little more preoccupied with helping his six year cat suddenly turned human to ask him to extrapolate. “I wouldn’t have bothered with this if I knew why,” he mutters. Like. Ew. Suddenly he’s on the witches’ side.

“Ask him what he said specifically,” Eunsook grins.

“Okay,” Jonghyun says loudly. He huffs and holds his hands out, frowning between all three of them. “Maybe I used to suffer under toxic masculinity and maybe I was a super fucking closeted aro enby and maybe I had a lot of shitty dudebro friends that I couldn’t stop being friends with for lack of any other friends and for fear of violence and maybe when they started harassing people on the street I half-assed a comment or two just so they wouldn’t turn on me and maybe it would’ve been better for you two if I stood up to them but maybe I didn’t feel like potentially outing myself that day,” he hisses. He scowls at the two witches, but then sighs and rubs the back of his neck. “Maybe I was a big scaredy cat,” he mumbles. He pouts at the carpet, shuffling it with the too-big shoe Taemin gave him to wear to this visit. Taemin snorts again, but also feels less gross on the inside. That’s good enough for him.

“Too bad, so sad,” Gwi drawls from her bean pile. “You didn’t see me being a fuckboy when I was a tiny scared closeted baby.”

“Wow, good for you, you’re so morally superior to the rest of us in every way,” Jonghyun snaps. Taemin muffles a giggle into his hand while Eunsook rolls her eyes. “Why didn’t you curse them too?” Jonghyun whines. “Why only me?”

“Oh, no, we got them too,” Eunsook says brightly. She glances to some decorations on a shelf next to the tv. Taemin follows her gaze to many neat little rows of cute ceramic cats. Oh, he thinks.

“Oh,” Jonghyun says.

“We went easy on you because we knew you were a tiny sprout in a field of weeds,” Eunsook shrugs. She turns to Taemin with a little grin. “We may or may not stalk our targets for a little bit before we curse them just to figure out what cat statue would fit them best,” she tells him. Taemin nods approvingly. He’s never met a witch before, but he feels like if he was ever to be cursed, he’d want one that would take that extra step for personalization.

“Honestly, we did you a favor,” Gwiboon says. “Are you or are you not extremely fucking catkin?”

“I mean,” Jonghyun says. “Maybe, yeah, but--”

“And are you or are you not extremely ro repulsed?”

“Well, yeah, but--”

“So how was turning you into a cat that could only be changed back by true love’s kiss a problem?”

“Okay, yeah, maybe it was a dream come true, and even though I’m here to ask you to turn me into a cat again anyway, like. Just. Fuck you anyway,” Jonghyun grumbles.

“He liked being a cat,” he says, “and, I mean. I liked him being my cat.” He pouts, reaching for Jonghyun’s wrist to hold up his hand. “Look at this,” he says. “This isn’t an adorable little kitty paw. How is this supposed to cheer me up after a long day?” He drops Jonghyun’s hand. “I don’t need a roommate, I need a garden cat that purrs in my ear and nuzzles my tum.” He’s never gonna find another one like Jonghyun in a million years.

“And how am I supposed to just go back to being a human after so long?” Jonghyun whines. “It’s been six years, and it’s not like I have any documentation or anything anymore, like--the government and my family probably think I’m dead, but I don’t like thinking about that because it makes me cry, and--” He takes a moment to close his eyes and take a deep breath and then let it out in a short huff. When he opens his eyes, he’s pouting again. “I just wanna be a cat again,” he says. “Cats don’t need to have genders, and when I’m plagued by my soul crushing depression Taemin can pet me and make me feel better, and he has the softest little bush that’s a great anxiety nest, and no one gets mad at a cat for being an insomniac and sleeping whenever I can, and I don’t have to have my soul crushed any further by capitalism, and. Please?” he whines.

Taemin watches Eunsook raise her brows at him, then turn to glance at Gwiboon. Gwiboon snorts and runs her fingers through her hair.

“I think you’re forgetting that we don’t like you,” she says. Jonghyun huffs and crosses his arms, a petulant little bub. Taemin rolls his eyes and scoots forward to lean his hands on the back of the couch.

“What about me then?” he asks. “I’ve never been a fuckboy and I want my cat back. I can’t afford all the shit that comes with adopting a real cat. What am I gonna do, try to seduce some random stray?” It wouldn’t be the same. A real stray cat wouldn’t understand him when he tells them to shoo off of his lounge chair, for one. And they would probably have an average cat lifespan, too, and now that Taemin is thinking about it, he really can’t handle death at all. He wants his magic cat back. Even if he did used to be a fuckboy.

He does that thing where he nibbles on his lower lip and scrunches his eyebrows because he knows it makes him look adorable and pitiful. It works, he thinks; Gwiboon looks at him and sighs and rolls over in her beanbag pile. Eunsook dosen’t look away, but she does snort and reach up to poke his cheek.

“I mean,” she says. “They did fall in love with a cat and break the curse. They’re a good human.”

“Did we make it a rule in the curse that it could only be broken by good humans?” Gwiboon asks. Her voice is muffled into the beans.

“I think it was only by good human women,” Eunsook says. “Because, you know, the misogyny thing.”

“I’m a girl sometimes,” Taemin says.

“Neat,” Gwiboon says. She rolls over and shrugs, flicking her hair out of her eyes. “You’re too cute and I wanna squish you and buy you things. I guess we can make him a cat again, for you,” she says.

“Nice,” Taemin hisses. Jonghyun hops in excitement behind him and clings to his arm again to nuzzle his shoulder happily.

“So…,” Taemin says. He sips his water bottle and looks across his kitchen table at Jonghyun sipping another water bottle. “They said you just had to think about changing to switch back and forth?” Eunsook and Gwiboon wouldn’t let him into their little spell room when they put their magic on Jonghyun again, but apparently they made him into a shapeshifter and explained all of the details to him then. Jonghyun nods, lower lip puffed out as he stares at his hand, opening and closing his fingers.

“Mmhmm,” he hums. “You really don’t mind me living in here for a few days while I get the hang of it?” he asks.

“Would you rather get the hang of it with them or in my garden?” Taemin asks, cocking a brow. Jonghyun blushes a faint pink, but chuckles all the same, shrugging and leaning back.

“I guess not,” he says. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Taemin says. He wouldn’t have offered if he didn’t mean it. “Do, um,” he says slowly. “Would you wanna be… an inside cat? From now on?” He squishes his water bottle gently for lack of anything better to do with his hands. This feels a little bit like asking a whole entire human to live with him, not one that’s going to be a cat for the majority of the rest of his life, but he still feels like he should offer. Jonghyun shakes his head, though, glancing out of his window.

“I like it outside,” he says. “That little towel nest you made me in your shed is so warm and comfy at night and in the rain.”

“Oh, good,” Taemin breathes. “I‘d been feeling kind of bad that I couldn’t buy you like, an actual soft kitty bed or whatever.” Jonghyun laughs at that, giggles into his water bottle.

“I’m not a luxury cat,” he grins. “I wouldn’t say no to an extra fuzzy blanket or a little stuffed animal friend, though,” he says. Taemin snorts.

“Sure,” he says. He can do that. “Any other requests?” he asks, cocking a brow. Jonghyun smothers a guilty little smile in his hand, then looks at his fingers again, squints at his nails. Taemin thinks he’s trying to extend and retract them like he could with his kitty claws. After another few seconds he shrugs and takes another sip of his water.

“Not really?” he says. “You’re a good human and I liked being your cat.”

“Oh,” Taemin says. He smiles wide, trying not to look too proud and probably failing at it. He’s a good human and a good cat parent. That’s all he ever wanted out of life. “No music requests or anything?” he asks. He can’t imagine that he already has all of Jonghyun’s favorite bands and songs in his playlists for when he does work outside. Jonghyun has to miss some from when he had his own control over what he listened to. Jonghyun hums, squints at the ceiling, thinks.

“Less metal, more ballads,” he shrugs. Taemin snorts, shaking his head fondly. He hates ballads and loves metal.

“Compromise for slow but still rad guitar solos?” he offers. Jonghyun grins back.

“Sure,” he says. “And I know you watch Pokémon every week inside on your laptop. Can you watch it outside with me instead? I really miss--”

He stops himself short by suddenly just turning into a cat. Taemin blinks, watching the cat make a very confused kitty noise and fall to plop into the seat of the chair. He hears a little thud and many skitters next and deduces that Jonghyun fell off of the chair and onto the tile of his kitchen floor. He leans down to peep under the table to confirm and finds him half tangled in the sweater he was wearing two seconds ago.

“Uh,” he says. Jonghyun looks at him with big kitty eyes, ears flat and tail twitching in embarrassment. A grin grows wide on Taemin’s face as Jonghyun quickly slinks away into his living room, and by the time he comes back as a naked human with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, Taemin has his head on the table and can’t stop giggling.

“Thanks again for letting me stay in here while I get the hang of this,” Jonghyun says loudly. Taemin can’t stop laughing long enough to reply.

#jongtae #jonghyun #taemin #brotp #pg #fluff #fantasy #oneshot #honestly the most unrealistic part of this au is that taem owns a whole house all by himself #homeowning??? in this economy????#anyway ye jongs a lil shapeshifter now nd hes a cat like 99% of the time except when he wants to Talk to taem #but usually he can just make kitty noises and wiggle and taem gets what he means #taem gets him a fuzzy blankie and a cute lil stuffed animal pupper friend and he is a cute happy wiggly lil kitty #taems neighbors pet him sometimes and call him a girl and he gets even more fluffy and wiggly #and the high schol kid that walks by taems house on the way to the bus stop twice a day calls him a genderless voidcat and he Nuts #taem watches pokemon outside with him and pets him and jong nuzzles taem and purrs and is a good kitty #and its good they lov each other v v much #new pokemon games come out and taem plays outside with jong in his lap and jong meows v loudly until taem catches the new cat pokemon #and then doesnt let him leave it in the pc #''''''shes in ur party now and forever''''' ''''did u rly turn into a human just to tell me that''''''#also taem: nothing has been more validating to my enby identity than the ability to break a curse thank u cat witches #gwisook: finger pistols nd a winkwonk

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taeminuet · 8 years ago

Text

Heartbeat (14/?)

Title: Heartbeat Fandom: SHINee Pairings: Jongtae; Minkey; OnKai Chapter Wordcount: ~4k Overall Rating: R (Some chapters will be NC-17; these will be marked.) Chapter Warnings: discussion of mental illness, allusions to past abuse Summary: In which not every problem needs to be fixed and not every person needs to be saved; sometimes you just need support.

1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 7.5 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13

Chapter 14 - Jongin

It's only been a few days since Taemin's been gone, but the apartment feels so empty without him. Jongin keeps waking up in the middle of the night, expecting Taemin to be stumbling in after a night of bad decisions, awake and nervous and needing him. But the apartment is quiet, and Jongin feels a pang of loss every time he expects Taemin to be there and he's not, every time he walks into the other room to find their fat poodle whining at the door like he's expecting Taemin to walk through it as well.

Jongin knows he can't take care of Taemin all by himself – he'd been failing already. Taemin is so far gone, and Jongin has done all he can for him. Taemin is his entire life. But he has to be able to provide for them both, has to be able to afford their little apartment, has to be able to get through his last couple years of school so that he can help Taemin.

But through all of that, he hadn't been able to keep Taemin from reaching this point, no matter what he tried to do, no matter how hard he tried to protect Taemin from his past.

All he can do now is try to support Taemin as he gets better, even if it hurts to come home to an empty apartment. Taemin's health is more important than Jongin's loneliness, and Jongin just wants Taemin to be okay. He hopes he is, because he hasn't had time to visit until now, not with work all weekend and his last set of finals approaching fast.

He wants to be upset about it. If Taemin had been okay for just a little longer, Jongin would have been done, classes over. But that's not fair to Taemin, and it's not realistic either.

Even now that he's wrapping up, he'll still have his internship before they'll give him his degree. And he can only pray that it's a paid one so that he can get through all of this. He has enough money saved up to be okay for a few months at least, but... after that, Jongin is lost.

He'll have a psychology degree and more debt than he's comfortable with. And what else?

He doesn't know what he's doing, feels like he's jumped off into the deep end of a pool far too large for him. And without Taemin to focus on, Jongin is suddenly all too aware of the dark water beneath him.

He misses having someone there to help him focus on anyone else but himself. But mostly he just misses his best friend.

His last final ends at seven at night, just his luck, but he manages to finish almost 30 minutes early. Taemin sent him the address of the place he was sent to, and Jongin looks it up in the computer lab with the technician staring over his shoulder like a judging reminder that the lab closes soon and Jongin is impeding that progress.

But his phone is old and crappy, barely takes pictures, much less has a decent GPS installed, and he'd rather not get lost trying to get out there. The internet says visiting hours are over at 9'o'clock, and that's not exactly a lot of time.

He looks at his phone while he walks to his car, rubbing his thumb over the screen. Taemin's name is the top of the list, but the number under that keeps glaring at him, making him feel like a traitor even though he'd done nothing wrong.

He has to go visit Taemin tonight.

It's not a long drive, but it is monotonous. An hour of very little once he's out of the city, and Jongin thinks it might be beautiful if he were able to stop and enjoy it instead of just driving past it. But stopping to enjoy it isn't his priority, especially as it gets darker and darker and he has to squint at the road even with his headlights on, the country roads mostly unlit.

He slows down a little to be safe, and that hurts worse, because by the time he gets there it's so late, well after eight o'clock, and he feels like shit for not getting there sooner. But he gets to see Taemin. That's the important part.

The place is nice. It's quiet, clean, calm. There's some chatter from the other room, but it's a nice sound, even and stable. He doesn't know if it's a fluke, but it also doesn't seem like it – the lady at the desk seems calm, not stressed out.

Jongin's glad Taemin's not in some of the places he's seen while looking for internships. Honestly, he wonders if places like this need interns, because a part of him would rather do it here than some large hospital or some school counseling program.

But he's also a little terrified to think too hard about that, so he just smiles at the lady as the desk and asks for a visitors badge.

“You know there's only--” she starts, glancing at the clock, “-- 25 minutes left?”

“I know, ma'am. But I drove a long way. And I'd like to see him.”

She asks for him name, for his I.D., double-checks him against a list of approved visitors (and Jongin is extremely glad Taemin remembered to add him to that). Every step of the process makes him feel better, makes him feel more confident that Taemin is safe here.

Until he's lead back down a hallway and the first thing he sees is Taemin is stomping out of a room with his neck torn half to shreds and a mixture of anger and panic clear on his face.

“Taemin?” Jongin asks, instinctively tense.

Taemin whirls, jerks around to face him with wide eyes. His actions are smoother than normal, more fluid. Taemin must have slept lately, even if the bags under his eyes don't really give Jongin any sort of indication of that. But they crinkle up a little when Taemin breaks into a smile, stepping towards him. “Jongin,” he says, voice all relief, and Jongin's heart twists.

“I missed you,” he blurts, reaching out for him with one hand. “Are you okay? What happened to your neck? Is someone hurting you?”

“One at a time, Jongin,” Taemin says, but he's still smiling. “It's only been, like... fuck, I dunno. Four days? Five? Not long enough for you to miss me.”

Jongin scowls at him, pushes him playfully in the arm and then curls his fingers there, holding loosely enough for Taemin to pull back, but still holding him. “Tae, I'm serious...”

“I know. That's the gross part.” Taemin's smile is a little wavery now, a lot exhausted. “Jonginnie, I'm... fine. I got some sleep last night. A couple of hours of zoning out today. And no one's hurting me, not-- not like you're thinking. It's just--”

The door Taemin came out of opens, and a man saunters through, shirtless and grumbling. He's covered in tattoos, but he's small and not really that intimidating. Taemin jerks anyways, smile falling to a harsh frown.

“Look,” the man says. “I didn't mean it like that. You don't have to get shitty about it. Why are you the only one who gets to have emotional outbursts? You really... you... who the fuck?”

The man's eyes are on Jongin now, drifting from him to Taemin, and he goes stiff all of a sudden in a motion that Jongin knows how to read only because he does it enough himself. The man is getting all protective, looking at Taemin's face and then the grip Jongin has on Taemin's arm.

“It's none of your business,” Taemin says, glowering at the man, and there's something in the way he says it, some mixture of anger and betrayal and hurt that Jongin doesn't like at all.

“Tae?” he asks, uncertain, tugging a bit on his friend, and Taemin looks at him for a long moment and then steps forward, into his hold, tucking himself into Jongin's grasp. It's not an unfamiliar position, and Jongin is confused but not unwilling. He winds Taemin up, one hand petting his hand gently, the other steadying on Taemin's hip as Taemin leans up for a kiss that Jongin gives without question.

They're just friends, Jongin knows. And sometimes that hurts. But Taemin needs him as a friend more than he needs a relationship, and this way Jongin gets to stay with him like this, offer affection and affirmation and all the things Taemin needs. This way, Jongin gets to hold him like this.

When he pulls away, there's a faintest hint of a smirk on his face, and Jongin doesn't know what exactly to do with that information until Taemin turns slightly in his arms, back towards the other man. “Jonghyun,” he says, “this is my best friend, Kim Jongin.”

The man's -- Jonghyun's – eyes flicker for a moment, and Jongin thinks he sees a moment of... something? Something soft, maybe. Insecurity or fear. He's not trying to psychoanalyze him, but it's definitely not a pleasant emotion, and the way it last only a moment before going sharp says something worrying. But Jonghyun only smirks, cocking his head.

“You know how to pick 'em, don't you, Tae?” he says, voice nearly a purr. “Does he suck dick as good as I do?”

Jongin knows that he should be better prepared – he's a psychology student who just walked into a long-term care facility for people with mental problems; of course he was going to meet someone with one – but he barely stops himself from gaping, and Jonghyun grins like a shark, winking at Jongin.

“I'd be careful, though, with Tae so close to your jugular,” he says. “He's a vicious little fucker, and he bites.”

Jongin doesn't know if he should be upset or defending Taemin's honor or what. Mostly he's just in shock, and he doesn't get to say anything as Taemin looks away, something like guilt on his face as he pulls at Jongin's arm. “Come on,” he says, stepping out of Jongin's hold. “Let's go.”

Jonghyun stares at them for a moment longer and then huffs, walking past them and nearly running headlong into another man, bundled in a sweater and pajama pants and startling a little, eyes wide and the beginnings of an apology on his lips for Jonghyun's mistake.

Jonghyun sneers. “Fuck,” he says, “Of course you couldn't be Jinki when I goddamn need you. Alright fucker, I know you can hear at least half the shit going on, and I have to tell you your goddamn timing is a bitch. If and when you decide to pay a visit, let me know.”

“I... I'm sorry?” the other man says, confusion and worry on his face, and he looks from Jonghyun to Taemin and then to Jongin, hesitating.

“Sorry, Onew,” Taemin says. “He's pissed at me. It's not you. Just--”

“That's... okay,” Onew whispers, smiling weakly. “I was just-- gonna check on Key. I'll—”

He gives them one last glance and then scurries away, and Jongin bites his lips together and leads Taemin over to some nearby couches.

“Tae,” he asks, “Are you sure you're okay in here? Are you going to be alright? You're... hurt already. And--”

“Jongin, I'm... fine, really. I've been stupid. I know. I did this to myself. I just-- I freaked out, before I slept. I thought he was coming, and I got freaked out, and-- I ran to Jonghyun's room and hid with him. That's so dumb.” Taemin sighs, a long, slow exhale. “But he's... not as bad as he seems, I guess. He's defensive. And bad at telling what's okay to say and do. And what's not okay to say and do.”

“There's more to this than you're telling me,” Jongin says slowly. “Tae...”

“I slept with him,” Taemin says, shrugging. “I... well, when I hid with him, he kissed me and that was fine. And I figured... he's kind of got this thing with sex. I don't know what yet. He gets all fucked up over nothing sometimes, gets defensive, but when he's not he's really... he's almost sweet.”

There's something in Taemin's voice, something almost wistful. Jongin doesn't know what to say.

“Taemin,” he says instead, “Do you feel safer in here? Is it really better?”

“It's fine,” Taemin says. “You're too good to me, Jongin. But you shouldn't have to take care of me all the time.”

“I want to,” Jongin says. “You're my friend. I don't mind taking care of you, I just...”

He frowns, frustrated, and Taemin sighs. “Jonginnie, you need to have a life that's more than me.”

And Jongin doesn't know how to say that he doesn't want that, so instead he says, “Don’t spend the night alone here, okay? You know how you get.”

“Jongin, I'm okay,” Taemin mumbles. “And I have someone to stay up with me. He was just... sleeping. When it happened. It might have happened because he was sleeping. I don't know.”

“I just don’t want you to have to go through that again.” Jongin frowns. “I don't want you scared and panicking, and I'm not there to help you through it.”

Taemin looks at him for a long time, chewing on his bottom lip. “Jonginnie,” he says finally, “What's wrong? Why are you so afraid for me? More than usual.”

And Jongin wants so badly to lie, to tell Taemin he's just nervous that Taemin isn't with him. He wants to, but Taemin is looking at him, and even if Jongin was capable of lying to him, he wouldn't; Taemin deserves to know.

“Your dad tried to call me,” he says quietly. “Taesun told him that he hasn't heard from you, and your dad... I didn't tell him anything, Tae, I swear. I blocked him number. I blocked Taesun's too. It's gonna be okay. They don't know anything.”

Taemin looks like he's just seen a ghost. Or maybe something worse. His entire body is trembling now. “Taesun's been telling him this whole time,” he whispers “This whole time, I thought I was safe with you. I should... I should have known better.”

“Tae, you are safe. They don't know about here. I don't think they know where I live. Tae, it's okay. He's not gonna hurt you. I'm not gonna let him hurt you again.”

Taemin shudders violently, a jerky motion that disrupts his shivering. “I...” he starts, and his voice cracks. “Jonginnie, I--”

“Taemin?” Onew asks from behind them, voice quiet and afraid. He looks nervously at Jongin and then back to Taemin. “Taemin, are you okay?”

Taemin jerks violently in a way that would be completely disproportional if Jongin didn't know exactly why Taemin is so on edge. “I-- I'm fine,” he says, forcing a smile. “Onew. This is my friend, Jongin. Jongin, this is Onew. Be good to each other okay?”

Jongin nods in greeting, uncertain. Onew looks just as soft as before, just as nervous, and at least Taemin doesn't feel afraid around him, but Jongin can't imagine him making anyone feel safe either. “It's nice to--”

“I'm sorry for the bad timing, but I think I’m gonna go lay down for a bit. I feel tired,” Taemin says. “Come visit soon, ok?”

And maybe he thinks he's being casual, but he pecks Jongin on the cheek before bolting like a scared rabbit. Jongin's heart twists in his chest.

“Taemin,” Onew says in the silence, and he sounds so sad, biting his lips together nervously.

Jongin sighs. “It's Onew, right?” he asks, just to be sure. It's not exactly a common name. “Do you know Jonghyun?”

Onew startles, just a little, and then smiles, shy and bright. His fingers lift to the collar of his sweater, and he twists the cloth around them like a nervous tic. “Y-yeah,” he says. “I mean, yes, I'm Onew. Not that-- I mean, the other part's a yes too, but...”

“It's okay,” Jongin says gently. He's not entirely sure how to feel about Onew yet, but he gets the strange feeling that if he speaks too loudly, Onew will spook like a startled deer. And Jongin doesn't need anyone else upset because of him. “Thank you. It's nice to meet you. Could you maybe take me to him? Jonghyun, I mean?”

“Oh!” Onew says, and his cheeks go pink as his eyes go down, flustered and soft. “I can take you to him, yeah. I don't... know how he's feeling right now though? But I can still... If you wanna follow me?”

He keeps his head down as they walk, only occasionally looking up, and Jongin has a moment to appraise the way he keeps his body tucked into itself, making himself small and almost unobtrusive. He's glad for someone like that around Taemin.

But he's also not dumb, didn't miss Jonghyun's earlier words. Onew might be soft, shy, but there's whoever Jinki is to worry about.

“I'm really glad Taemin has someone,” Onew says a minute or so into the silence. “Most people here don't really get visited often, and it's nice to get to see people who aren't just... us...”

He trails off, looking away, and Jongin frowns. “I'm sorry,” he says, because he doesn't know what else to say. “I'll try to be here to visit Taemin a lot though, and I'm sure you'll get tired of me just as fast.”

“Oh, no! No, I'm not-- I didn't mean,” Onew stutters, and buries his face in his hands, somehow managing to walk several more feet before tripping over nothing and stumbling forward an ungainly step, which is more than Jongin thinks he could manage with his face covered.

“It's okay,” he says. “I was teasing. I didn't mean to upset you. Taemin seems to really like you, and any friend of his...”

Onew glances at him, just for a moment and then nods, hesitant but eager. Jongin isn't sure Onew believed him so much as just agreed for the sake of avoiding conflict, but he doesn't get to ask before Onew mumbles, “We're here.” He gestures to where Jonghyun is sitting at a table in the common room. “If you want, I mean... I could come with you? Or if you want to go alone? I... uhm...”

“No, it’s okay. I kind of have to talk to him alone.” Jongin says, and can't possibly miss the flash of distress over Onew's face.

“No, sorry, I didn't...” Onew says and he's fidgeting with the hem of his sweater now, tugging anxiously. “Just... you have to be careful around Jonghyun, and I... I don't want you to get, uhm, hurt, or... s-sorry...”

“It's okay, Onew. I appreciate it. Honestly. It'd probably even make me feel better if you were there,” Jongin says hurriedly. He doesn't want Onew to feel bad. “But I just have to do this myself. I’ll be back in a minute, okay? Thank you, really.”

The smile Onew flashes him is just as bright as before, so pleased that Jongin can't help but feel a burst of fondness, reaching out without thinking to fix Onew's sweater where it's sliding down one shoulder. Onew startles a little, not afraid necessarily, but staring at Jongin in confusion, face flushed and eyebrows furrowed.

Jongin smiles sheepishly. “Thank you,” he says again, and ducks past Onew into the room.

Jonghyun doesn't look up when he enters, doesn't even make a move to until Jongin sits down across from him, frowning. “We need to talk,” he says, “about Taemin.”

Jonghyun looks at him for a long moment. His eyes are still sharp, narrowed, and that smirk settles uneasily over his mouth, more practiced than real. He stands slowly, moving around Jongin, and Jongin turns his head to follow until Jonghyun is behind him, leaning forward and touching Jongin's shoulders. His palms slide down Jongin's front as he slowly drapes himself over him, and his lips are nearly at Jongin's ear before he hums, “Taemin, huh? As much as I'd like to have a chat about pretty boy, I'm much more interested in you.”

Jongin can almost see Jonghyun's chart in his mind. Uses sexual promiscuity to avoid conflict. It isn't really what he expected, but somehow he's not surprised either. Not with how casually he had talked about sucking Taemin off earlier.

“It's important,” he says, voice calm and trying to ignore the strangeness of having someone he doesn't know (albeit someone attractive) literally all over him. It's almost foreign in a way. Jongin is a touchy person, but not like this. Not with anyone but Taemin, at least. And Taemin is the most important thing in his life. “He's not doing so well right now.”

Jonghyun goes stiff, slightly, just for a moment, and then he pulls away, curling into himself. He doesn't say anything, but it's not hard to tell that Jongin has his attention now

“You know what's up with Taemin, right? He said he hid with you one night. So you know that he gets night terrors about his dad.”

“About his... oh,” Jonghyun says, and Jongin for a moment is terrified that he's revealed too much. But Jonghyun just lets out an almost amused huff. “Yeah, I kinda... figured.”

“His dad called our place looking for him,” Jongin says, and the sharp inhale behind him tells him all he needs to know. “Apparently his brother’s been keeping him updated about Tae, but Tae hasn’t called for a bit. Tae didn’t take it well when I told him, said he was going to lay down. It’s probably best that he’s alone right now.”

Jongin knows that's a lie. The last thing Taemin needs is to be alone right now. He needs to be comforted, kept from doing anything stupid or rash or harmful.

But Jongin can only do so much for him. He has to leave soon; he can't stay. But Jonghyun, who Taemin clearly trusted enough to let touch him, can at least do what Jongin can’t right now. Maybe Taemin is pissed at him, but the tone of voice Taemin had spoken about him in... Jongin has no idea what the hell Jonghyun did wrong, but Jongin is running low on options, and Jonghyun is the best shot he has right now.

“Look, if you care about him at all, I just need you to watch out for him, ok? Minnie can’t protect himself from his own head, and I can't... I can't be here all the time,” Jongin says, trying to ignore the way his voice falters for just a moment. “But if he trusts you enough to go to you when that happens... Just protect him when I can’t, okay?”

It's heartfelt, as much as he can make it. Jongin just wants Taemin safe. If this is what he has to do to get that...

“What the fuck?” Jonghyun spits, harsh enough that it startles even Jongin. “Yeah, you know what, maybe someone needs to fucking protect him when you're here too, asswipe. Taemin fucking hid in my room the other night like the hounds of hell were on his ass because he was so fucking messed up about his, his dad.” Just for a moment, Jongin hears Jonghyun's voice falter, but then he's right back on track, and Jongin doesn't have time to analyze that. “And you show up and tell him that his worst nightmare is looking to find out exactly where the fuck he is again and then leave him the fuck alone? Jesus. Even I'm not that dumb.”

Jongin bites his lip. If this is what he has to do...

Jonghyun hisses, a tight angry noise. “Look, you seem real smart and all, but you really don't get how this shit works, do you?”

There's something there, in those words, tight and plaintive and... and just something. Jongin doesn't know how to read it. But Jonghyun is out of the room before Jongin can ask, and Jongin can only hope he's going to find Taemin.

On the far wall, the clock reads 9:01, and Jongin sighs and stands, heading out towards his car and nodding goodbye to the receptionist on the way, watching her make a note on the visitors paper.

He hopes that he's made the right choice here. He has to leave Taemin, one way or the other. He just hopes he's left him with someone who can actually help.

Next Chapter

#SHINee fic #SHINee fanfiction #Jongtae #Onkai #Minkey #Heartbeat #hey guys what up we FINALLY meet Jongin #and he gets his own chapter uwu~#also what up #those of you who hadn't already guessed get to figure out a bit of Tae's backstory #one day we'll get more #Jinki over here opening up in Chapter 4 #and Jong and Tae like mums the fucking word #lmao #i'm... v tired.#nd might delete some of these tags later #but for rn rip in peace #i'm going to bed;;;

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