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Gentle shaking rouses Taemin from his doze; he scrunches his eyes shut, clinging tighter to Jonghyun’s arm even as he continues to nudge him. He doesn’t need this.
“Taem.”
“Mmmgh.” He opens his eyes grumpily and blinks the little diner they're all having breakfast in into focus. His empty plate in front of him from when he finished his food first and promptly nuzzled Jonghyun and went back to sleep, Minho poking at the remains of his pancakes, Jinki sipping his orange juice with the fondest look, and Kibum looking down at his phone in more of an “avoiding drawing attention” kind of way than an “innocently distracted” way. Oh. He rubs sleep out of his eyes and sits up straight, reaching for his almost empty coffee mug to finish the rest of it. “Are we talking about it finally now?” he asks.
“We already talked about it,” Kibum huffs shortly. Taemin glances at his annoyed little frown and grins.
“Right,” he hums. “So now we’re talking about what we’re going to do about it.” He props his chin up in his elbow and smiles pleasantly at the back of Kibum’s phone. That’s been their plan since the card game last night and they are going to stick to it, no matter how long Kibum wants to stall. His little technicality gave him maybe an extra ten seconds of avoidance. Cute. Kibum scrunches his face, glances at the four of them waiting for him, sighs loudly, stuffs his phone into his pocket, crosses his arms, and sighs again.
“Fine,” he mumbles.
“My mom will be your mom,” Jonghyun says immediately. Taemin muffles a snort. He’s been mumbling about that since last night, has gotten himself so set on the idea already. “You know she will,” he says. “We don’t have a lot but--”
“Jonghyun--I’m not--gonna get adopted by your mom,” Kibum says. He grimaces as he says it, shakes his head and waves the idea off. Jonghyun huffs, pouts, taps the table insistently.
“No, I meant, like, emotionally,” he says. “She's so good at being a mom. Like. The best mom I know. And if you ever need, like, a motherly hug, or an embarrassing birthday card, or a two in the morning talk…. Just. She’s here.” He takes another breath like he wants to say something else, then hesitates and lets it out with a short little sigh. He glances down at the table for a moment before looking back up. “I’m here,” he says, voice small but sure. Taemin’s lips quirk up at that tiny confession. Jonghyun has always been good. Kibum has a small smile as well, but he still shakes his head.
“Look, I don’t… want a new mom,” he mumbles. “I just. Want.” He hesitates, glances between all of them guiltily. Taemin sneaks his hand over to rub his arm encouragingly. They all talked about this. If any of them weren’t prepared to help then they wouldn’t be here right now. Kibum’s reluctance to ask isn’t enough to make them give up on him. “Not having somewhere to sleep every night is the hardest part,” Kibum mumbles eventually. He pulls out his phone again, tapping open the lock and scrolling through his apps to avoid looking at them. “Like, there’s the always being hungry, and the eternal stress, and the intense money anxiety, and the mountain of lies, but.” He sighs and shrugs without finishing his thought.
“So you’re saying the hardest part about being homeless is being homeless?” Minho asks. He’s got a little grin when Taemin glances at him, proud of his snappy little comment, but he quickly hides it behind his hand when Kibum throws him a sharp glare.
“Yes,” Kibum says shortly. There’s a silence; Minho looks away awkwardly as Taemin rubs some leftover crust away from the corner of his eye. After another moment Minho shakes his head and looks back.
“Okay, anyway,” he says, and both Jinki and Jonghyun snort at that bad coverup. “How much… do you not want to talk to parents about this?” he asks seriously. “Like, because, I could--”
“Not at all,” Kibum says quickly. He shakes his head, thumb rubbing over the bumps of his phone case. “No,” he adds when Jonghyun tries to say something. Looking around at all of them, he sighs, slouching in his chair and rubbing his hand over his face. “All of your parents know my parents,” he mumbles. “They’ll ask questions, and they’ll tell my parents, or they’ll call someone, and I’ll be put in a kids shelter or something, and--I mean.” He shakes his head again. “I turn eighteen this year,” he says. “In a few months I’d be back on the streets anyway.”
Taemin nods quietly. That is true. By the time they’d figured everything out and gotten Kibum relatively stable, he wouldn’t be a minor for very much longer and they’d have to do it all over again. He sips his coffee tiredly, nodding once at Kibum when he glances over. He can’t help Kibum be stable; he’s mostly here for moral support.
“My parents…,” Jinki mumbles. “They haven’t confirmed it yet, but they haven’t missed a summer vacation since I’ve been old enough to spend summer on my own,” he says. Taemin nods again. This is good, yes, this is one of the things he was thinking of this passed month. Jinki looks up to meet Kibum’s eyes. “They always tell me no wild parties, but they never specifically said I couldn’t let a homeless friend sleep in the guest room for two and a half months,” he says.
“And,” Jonghyun says, raising his hand a tiny bit. He lowers it when they look at him, to his mouth, where he nibbles on a fingertip. “My boss is gonna be looking for someone else to help at the pet shop this summer,” he says. He glances quickly at Jinki; Taemin sees Jinki shrug with a nod. Yeah. Kibum having a shot at a job is kind of more important than Jinki having one right now. “Or my sister works at that recording studio, you know, and if they need a new assistant or something, she’ll know,” Jonghyun adds. His smile is small and hesitant, and it grows when Kibum twitches one back at him.
“Um,” Kibum says. “Yeah, um.” He glances between both Jonghyun and Jinki, and then back down at his phone, running his fingers through his hair. “I’ll. Think about it,” he mumbles. Taemin rolls his eyes. That’s good enough, he guesses. He probably wouldn’t be able to thank someone for offering him a home and a job so easily either.
“If,” Minho says slowly then. He’s frowning at the table, rubbing his thumb over the fancy wood. “If you’re not good with parents knowing,” he says, “what about, my brother?” He looks up, bottom lip between his teeth. “You know I just live with him during the school year,” he says. “I--we--could. For the last month of school, before mom and dad get back, like, you know. Let you stay. WIth us. Maybe. If you’re okay with it.”
Oh. Taemin blinks, surprised. He’d never even thought of that. Kibum looks surprised as well, but still anxious and hesitant with his fingers playing with his shirt collar.
“I mean,” he says. “You think he wouldn’t tell?” he asks. Minho snorts, shaking his head.
“He barely pays attention to me unless he’s bothering me to go to the gym with him or write the shopping list,” he says, waving his hand dismissively. “You could be there for two weeks and he’d only just start to think that you spent the night one time.”
“Honestly, that’s true, I spent the weekend at Minho’s place once and I don’t think Minseuk even knew I was there,” Jinki says. His voice is muffled around his cup of ice water but he nods earnestly all the same. Taemin looks at his own untouched glass of ice water and then decides to sneak his hand over to Jonghyun’s half empty one instead to steal an ice cube to suck. Kibum chews on his lip, eyes dropping back to his phone.
“I have… Sulli, tomorrow,” he says, tapping open what’s probably his calendar app. “And then Wednesday is Nicole’s track practise, I was gonna spend the night with her… Amber probably maybe if her parents say yes on Thursday, but…,” he trails off after that with a shrug, a wince, a sigh. Taemin guesses he doesn’t have any weekend sleepover plans yet. He looks back up shyly, runs his fingers through his hair, and rubs his palm over his forehead. “Would…,” he starts, and then lets out a heavy sigh. “Friday?” he asks Minho quietly.
“Friday until summer,” Minho says firmly. Kibum makes a noise, hesitant and reluctant, and opens his mouth, but before he says anything, he stops himself. He shakes his head, putting his face into both hands. They all watch as he takes slow breaths and rubs his palms into his eyes. Taemin feels Jonghyun shifting like he wants to say something and elbows his side gently to make him wait. Eventually, Kibum sighs heavily and moves to prop his cheek up in his hand.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. He doesn’t lift his eyes from the table. “I’m sorry, you’re all being so good, but I’m so fucking--fucked up, and I know I should be thankful but I’m just--fucking--scared, and guilty, but. Like. I’m tired of being just a part of some homeless trans youth statistic or whatever, but it’s fucking hard, to be here, talking about this, when I’ve been acting like it hasn’t been happening for so long, and.” He shakes his head again and brings his coffee to his lips to sip.
Taemin reaches over and pats his head gently to be both comforting and obnoxious. It works, if the way Kibum shoots him a glare and flaps his hand away means anything.
“We’re here for you whether you can face it or not,” Jinki says simply, voice slightly muffled because his chin is propped up in his hand.
“Yeah,” Taemin says. That’s about it.
“Mmhmm,” Jonghyun hums.
“Trans?” Minho asks quietly.
There’s a pause; The other three look at Minho while Taemin watches Kibum’s eyes widen and his free hand clench behind his plate. Oh.
“Uh--um,” Kibum says. He sits up, picks up his phone, puts it back down, runs his fingers through his hair. “I was, um. I was planning, kind of, on telling, you all, um.” His hands shake more than his voice and Taemin winces. He’s not ready for this.
“What?” he asks quickly. He tilts his head in confusion, hoping that everyone else can pick up on what he’s doing. “I didn’t hear anything,” he says.
“What were we talking about again?” Jinki asks. He’s less pretend confused and more obviously covering the mistake, which Taemin guesses isn’t bad. It’s not like anyone bought that he didn’t hear in the first place. Jonghyun moves next to Taemin again and it’s followed by a sharp hiss and a glare from Minho. Taemin assumes that Jonghyun kicked him under the table.
“What--oh, um,” Minho says after Jinki nudges him as well. The chest exposed by his loose vneck turns pink as his big eyes widen with the realization of his mistake. “Uh,” he says. “Yeah, um, I definitely, uh, didn’t hear you say, anything, about being trans,” he says. “Like, ha ha, what? I don’t know where, I, uh, got that from. Ha.” His weak chuckle is the fakest thing Taemin has ever heard in his life, and he’s known Jonghyun for a long time. He has to realize it, too, from the way he blushes darker and looks away when Kibum raises his brows at him from across the table.
“Yeah, and,” Jinki says, and he looks more amused than ever at Minho’s fuckup. “If someone were ever, to come out to us, as trans or something,” he says, turning to Kibum with a more comforting grin. “I am sure that all of us would be accepting and encouraging and not garbage.”
“And, maybe, one of us, maybe, might, probably, maybe, also be, the same, as them,” Jonghyun adds in the tiniest voice. “Maybe.” His hands are small and nervous in his lap as he speaks, but his eyes are earnest and the little smile he gives Kibum is sweet and encouraging. Taemin pats his arm gently. That was brave.
Kibum looks at Jonghyun, freshly outed just to make him feel less alone. Then he looks to Minho, still blushy but smiling apologetically and trying his best, and then Jinki, who’s giving him his home and his potential job and his special smile that makes it feel like the world is okay. He looks at Taemin last, who reaches over and pushes a few strands of hair off of his cheek. Kibum flaps his hand away, but smiles as he does it, the tiniest breath of laughter before he picks up his phone and uses it as a mirror to fix his hair better.
Taemin thinks it’s the first time he’s smiled since last night.