#like dude there is prime woods views 2 miles from here

[lzrdprsn]

larping fellowship of the ring in my head to survive the long uphill hike my aunt insisted we go on

[katrinawritesthings]

Jonghyun/Taemin; A Year of Sunsets (Part 1/5); PG

listen.... au where taem moves to the forest and paints sunsets every day and jong is his neighbor and also there are wolf shapeshifters

There’s silence for a moment as Jonghyun expects him to say something and Taemin doesn’t have anything to say; then Jonghyun’s lips twitch up and he leans over to open up the box he brought over. “I got you some stuff, like, welcoming presents,” he says.

1-2-3-4-5

Taemin is so in love.

He’s so in love with his new life. His new house, his new empty garden, his new lack of close neighbors. This is what he’s been all about for years. A cute little log cabin in the woods. It’s got a sweet porch that he’s gonna hang some strawberry plants from, a nice big fireplace, a backyard that fades out right into a path into the trees… he stands out front, right where Kibum’s car and the moving van were not five minutes ago, and just looks at his new place with the happiest sigh he’s ever sighed. This is perfect.

The hot June sun is just about getting ready to start setting behind the trees and if Taemin leans a little bit to the left, he can see a thin trail of smoke a little bit away. That’s his closest neighbor, about a twenty minute stroll down the little dirt road through the forest. There are other houses in these woods, but most are unoccupied. Most people live in the little town near the woods, but not actually in them, and even then, it’s not very many. It’s kind of why Taemin got his house so cheap, to be honest; legal shapeshifter forests aren’t exactly prime real estate location.

Taemin doesn’t mind at all; he knows full well that shapeshifter communities that live on actual reserves keep to themselves. It’s not like they're vicious human eaters that just want to maul him in his new bed--and even if they were, there are laws to protect humans from them, just as there are laws to protect them from humans. He expects people that spend the grand majority of their time as their animal forms want even less to do with paperwork than full-time human people do. They’re probably just deeper in the forest, doing their wolfy things, hunting deer, snuggling their pups, not wanting to be human or around humans, the usual. He can relate, kind of.

Taemin’s never really been the social type. He’ll just go to the town for groceries, and take longer drives to the city to visit his friends if he’s feeling lonely, and that will be perfect. He’ll also have to talk to his new neighbor eventually, he guesses, but it’s not like he’s dreading it or anything. He’s sure that they’ll be friendly enough, and if they’re not, they’re a mile away anyway. It won’t be hard to avoid them. If they haven’t come by to welcome him to the foresthood in a week, he’ll go over there and introduce himself just to be polite.

For now, he wraps his arms around himself, hugging himself, because he’s just so fucking happy to have finally achieved his dream. And he’s barely over thirty. He’s got his dream house, his dream location, his dream job.... and speaking of which, he should get started, before the sun goes down.

With one last happy sigh for now, he slips inside of his new home. Passing all of the unopened boxes and lazily arranged furniture, he grabs his easel--the very first thing he unpacked--under his arm. He picks up his box of painting stuff and a pillow as well, and with those under his other arm, he heads straight back outside. He thinks, for his first time, his first painting on his first day here, he wants to paint the view right from the road in front of his house.

He finds that big, flat boulder on the other side of the road he was eyeing up earlier, sets up his easel and canvas in front of it, throws the pillow onto it, sits down, gets all of his colors ready next to him, and paints the sun just peeking out from behind the corner of a beautiful log cabin, tall trees casting shadows against the land, and a little, swirling line of grey in the distance.

~

When Taemin finishes setting up his little collection of grass Pokémon plushies and one pink glass tentacle dildo on the mantle is when he figures that he should probably go introduce himself to his new neighbor. It’s been five days; he doesn’t really know the etiquette of greeting new neighbors, but he thinks they should at least know each other by now. A few hours remain until it’ll be time to paint the day’s sunset. If he’s asked to stay for a meal or something, it won’t be long enough for him to get too tired out. He turns to face the rest of his living room, stopping for a moment to hold himself again and sigh happily. It’s lovely. Lovely and cozy and warm and perfect.

He practically bounces to his couch, fixes up the blanket thrown over it, and glances into the mirror he hung up above it yesterday. Hmm. His black hair is a little mussed. He runs his fingers through it to make it look “casually” messy instead of “I just spent the last three hours rearranging my living room” messy. It totally works. Passing through the kitchen to leave the house, he pauses to frown at the chips and poptarts he has on his counters. Should he bring something? To be polite? None of this is even good stuff to bring over to someone’s house. And he’s the new one here; he shouldn’t be expected to bring the gifts, right? Ugh. This is why he doesn’t like social shit.

Fuck it, he decides, he’ll just tell them that he was going to bring something but hasn’t gotten settled enough to get any real cooking done. It’s not like it’s not true. He runs his fingers through his hair one more time as he grabs the handle of his front door, and then there’s a knock on his back door.

He turns, confused. Who the fuck is knocking at his back door? Or, well--it can probably only be one person, so--why are they there instead of here in front? He heads back there instead with another glance at himself in the mirror. When he pulls open the door, he’s confident that his hair is pretty okay for a dude that just spent the last three hours rearranging his living room.

Also, when he pulls open the door, he finds someone with tan skin, dark hair, deep brown eyes, and a charming smile.

“Hi,” they say cheerily. They’re holding a box in both hands, so they just lift a few fingers in a wave at Taemin instead of offering their hand to shake or something. Well, good. Taemin gets paranoid about what people think of his handshakes and he always winds up gripping too hard to meet the crushing expectations of masculinity placed upon him by the patriarchy. “I’m Jonghyun,” his neighbor says, “your friendly neighborhood… neighbor.” They pause for a moment with a little frown at their box; Taemin feels like they don’t rehearse things nearly as much as he does. “Friendly neighborhood resident,” they say, looking back up. “Or, person. Empty genderless void. Whatever. He pronouns, though. I’m friendly. That’s the point.” He shrugs with a little smile; Taemin finds himself baffled yet also pleasantly informed. “Sorry if coming to your back door was weird,” Jonghyun goes on, “it’s just, way faster to cut through the woods than go around the actual path.”

“Oh, uh,” Taemin says, realizing that he should probably reply to something that Jonghyun is saying. “No, it’s cool,” he grins. Already he’s learning great tips for living in this area. He was legitimately about to walk the whole twenty minute long way. Maybe he’ll stop exploring the forest in front of his place on his daily searches for good sunset viewing spots and start working on the trees between his house and Jonghyun’s. He notices Jonghyun readjust the box in his arms and curses internally. He’s being rude. “Uh, come in, please,” he says, stepping back and holding the door open wider. “I was just about to go visit you myself, actually,” he admits.

“Ahh, yeah, sorry about that too.” Jonghyun laughs a little sheepishly as he steps inside. He sets his box down on Taemin’s coffee table and turns back to him quickly. “I meant to come greet you before, but I thought you weren’t gonna be here until next week, and then I had to go to the store to get some stuff, and then I didn’t know how early was too early, and then I didn’t want to interrupt your lunch, and I tried coming around after dinnertime yesterday but you weren’t here, and… well, yeah.” This Jonghyun sure does talk a lot, Taemin notes. It’s kind of endearing, how he lets his words get carried by his excitement. It cleared up all of Taemin’s questions about why he hadn’t come to visit yet, at least.

“After dinner isn’t a good time for me, no,” he hums, picking one things Jonghyun’s said to reply to. “That’s when I go out to paint the sunset. Um, see?” He gestures at the first painting he did out here not a week ago at it’s new home above his fireplace. Then he gestures at the empty canvas and box of paints on the kitchen table, waiting for tonight’s adventure. His other paintings from the last few nights are in the mess of boxes and packing peanuts that he’s going to clean up into his art room soon. “It’s kind of my job,” he grins, turning back to Jonghyun. “One sunset a day. They’re really simple, but really fun, and every time they’re different, and I pretend like they take me like, three times as long to paint as they really do so I can charge more.” He shrugs unashamedly. He’s gotta eat.

“Sounds nice,” Jonghyun says. “You’re very talented.”

“Thanks,” Taemin smiles, proud. He does work hard. “Do you want something to drink?” he asks suddenly, remembering that Jonghyun is a guest in his house. “You can sit, too, I gue--yeah. Feel free.” He smiles politely to cover up how bad he is at talking. Jonghyun smiles back, looking vaguely sympathetic to Taemin’s efforts, as he sits. As long as he doesn��t point it out.

“Water, please,” he says, and Taemin nods. Water. He can do that. He slips into his kitchen and fills up a glass. Halfway through, he realizes that he hasn’t even told Jonghyun his name yet. Fuck. What a great first impression he’s making here. When he brings Jonghyun’s water back out, Jonghyun is looking over one of his little business cards on the table with a curious smile. Taemin hopes he’s enjoying the “Corporate Banana, He who Banans” label in the bottom corner. He had to pay an extra two dollars for that. Jonghyun looks up when Taemin offers him his water and takes it with another polite smile. “Taemin, right?” he asks, “he pronouns?” and frick.

“Yeah, sorry,” Taemin says. He can’t believe Jonghyun had to get his info off of a shitty business card first. “I’m not good at the whole… talking to people thing.”

“That’s okay,” Jonghyun says, waving off his concerns as he takes a sip of their water. “Sometimes I’m not either. I kind of shift. Between being a social butterfly and kind of a lone wolf, you know?” Taemin doesn’t really know, being always on the lone wolf end of that spectrum himself, but he nods anyway. There’s silence for a moment as Jonghyun expects him to say something and Taemin doesn’t have anything to say; then Jonghyun’s lips twitch up and he leans over to open up the box he brought over. “I got you some stuff, like, welcoming presents,” he says. Taemin breathes a sigh of relief. Thank fuck Jonghyun knows how to save a conversation. He sits down next to Jonghyun, peeping into the box curiously as he pulls stuff out.

“It’s just, you know, some things that you might not know you need, to be living out here,” Jonghyun tells him. “Like… mosquito bracelets.” He pulls out a little packet of coiled rubber bracelets that Taemin takes curiously. There’s five in there, all different cute colors. “They smell a little weird, but I kind of like it, to be honest. You don’t even have to wear them in the house. Just hang one on your headboard, you know, and over the table or whatever, and they’ll do their jobs.” He shrugs; Taemin mirrors him for lack of a better reply and stuffs the packet into his pocket. “I also got you some fire crystals,” Jonghyun says, pulling out a new little packet with much more enthusiasm. “If you throw them into the fire they change it’s color and it’s really cool.”

“Ooh,” Taemin says, grabbing the bag and flipping it to read the back. He’s always wanted to try these. Jonghyun smiles at his excitement and pulls more stuff out of the box.

“A double flashlight, so you don’t trip over yourself outside… batteries, because the power goes out here quite a bit in winter… swiss army knife, because, well, you know… a fancy water filter bottle in case you run out of water on a hike or something so you can drink from the lake or the river… a compass, the town is south east, deeper into the woods is north west... oh--” He reaches to the very bottom of the box and pulls out his final items: graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate. “S’mores,” he says brightly. “Very essential.”

“True,” Taemin says, making grabby hands greedily. He was gonna get some of these the next time he went shopping, eager to make some with the first fire he sets up in his cool new fireplace as soon as it got cold enough to justify a fire. He looks at everything else laid out on the table as well, just little things to help him adjust. This is all so sweet. “Um, thank you, really,” he says, not entirely sure how to express his feelings. When Jonghyun looks at him though, a gentle ease in his deep eyes and toothy smile, Taemin feels reassured that his small words of thanks were good enough.

“No problem,” Jonghyun says. “I was gonna make you cookies or something, but I’m not that great at baking.”

“I am,” Taemin grins. He’s great at fruit pies and berry muffins and putting obscene amounts of strawberries between layer cakes. “I can bring something over next week, if you want,” he offers. It’ll make up for how awkward and unprepared he is for their first meeting now.

“Uh, actually,” Jonghyun says, “I’m not gonna be here next week.” He takes a sheepish sip of his water as he leans back into the corner of Taemin’s couch. “I’m gonna leave soon, I think for a month or two. Vacation.” He wiggles his eyebrows at Taemin over his glass. Taemin raises his own.

“Hmm?” he asks. Living out here is practically a permanent vacation for him, to be honest. “To the city?” Sounds awful.

“No, no, just deeper into the woods,” Jonghyun says. He waves a hand towards what Taemin thinks is the lake. “Northwest. Connect with my inner nature, you know? Hunt and shit. I’ve been really itching to go out there for a week or so, but,” he shrugs at Taemin and gestures around his living room, “I wanted to make sure I welcomed you to the forest before I left.”

“Oh. Aw. I mean--or--” Taemin runs his fingers through his hair with a grimace. That’s not an “aw” thing. It’s more of a… he doesn’t know. Helpful? Considerate? Just--”Thanks, again,” he says. “You didn’t have to postpone it for me.” Taemin is sure that he could’ve managed on his own for a lil bit without Jonghyun, but it’s touching that he chose to stay.

“Don’t worry about it, I never really plan it anyway,” Jonghyun says. “Usually I kind of just… go. For a few days, or I think the longest was five months, maybe?” He frowns up at Taemin’s ceiling in thought before shrugging again. “I don’t know. Until I feel like coming back again.”

“Like shifting back into a social butterfly, you mean?” Taemin grins, gathering up all of the stuff Jonghyun brought over and putting it back in the box absentmindedly. He’ll unpack it again with everything else that he has left. He glances up in time to see a little smirk pulling up the corners of Jonghyun’s lips.

“Something like that, yeah,” he agrees. Taemin’s smile grows with a tiny bit of pride. He totally nailed that sly little joke. He understands. It’s like how he himself is only going to go to the city every once in a while if he feels lonely, except apparently Jonghyun goes from mild isolation to like… super isolation. He bets there are some pretty cool sunset spots out there in the woods. Maybe he’ll ask Jonghyun to give him a map or something when he comes back. They fall into silence a second time; it’s less awkward than before, but Taemin still finds himself pulling Jonghyun’s box into his lap and drawing little circles with his fingers on the sides. It’s around three in the afternoon; too late for lunch but definitely too early for dinner. There’s not really a reason to ask Jonghyun to stay, but there isn’t one to ask him to leave either. Taemin has no idea what he’s supposed to do.

Luckily, after another few moments of silence, Jonghyun decides for him.

“Welp,” he says, standing up and downing the rest of the water. “I’ll let you finish getting settled in.” He smiles at Taemin and holds out his glass. “Thanks, and welcome to the forest. You can always come visit me if you want, if I’m in.”

“Oh--yes, okay, thank you,” Taemin says. He stands up as well, taking his glass back. “Um--have fun on your vacation.” When he gets back, Taemin will bake him a little something something, as a proper thank you present. That’ll make them even. Jonghyun nods with friendly little smile, then heads out of Taemin’s back door, waving over his shoulder.

A few hours later, when Taemin wanders through the trees between their houses to find a good sunset spot, he notices that for the first time all week, there isn't a little trail of smoke rising from Jonghyun’s chimney. He’s already gone.