Work Text:
No matter how many times Jonghyun looks, Taemin never looks back. No makeup, harsh lighting, that stupid track suit Taemin wears every day he has off, Taemin making one of his faces, lips puckered, chin raised, cheeks blown up. If Jonghyun had waited half a second before taking it, he would have gotten Taemin laughing his head off instead. It’s a terrible photo. Jonghyun had thousands to choose from, but if he wants Taemin at his best, he can just log onto the base’s computer and image search while he’s supposed to be reading the mail he never gets.
Right now he just wants his boyfriend.
“Who’s that?”
He snatches it away, but not before Sangho’s seen it and stuck Jonghyun in a half-lie. “Dongsaeng.”
Sangho barks out a laugh, throwing himself down onto the bunk next to Jonghyun’s. He’s less of a dick than the guy on the other side, but that’s about all Jonghyun can say for him.
“You’re famous and that’s the best you can do?” Jonghyun has to bite his tongue, coppery, bitter. Sangho goes for his wallet and slips a photo into his palm. “My girlfriend. Isn’t she pretty?”
Not as pretty as Taemin. But it’s not her fault Jonghyun is lonely and horny and bored out of his fucking mind, lying here wondering if it’s going to be one of the nights he cries until his insides are wrung out, or one of the nights he gets stuck on Taemin and agonizes over jerking off until morning.
“Mm.”
There. I let you brag. Taeminnie’s the prettiest, cutest, sexiest, sweetest, everythingest, but if I tried to brag about him they’d throw me in a psych ward.
Sangho’s smile fades, and the next thing is, “Too pretty, right?” Like he didn’t just twist Jonghyun’s stomach into knots, he sighs, tucking her away again, swinging his legs up and getting as comfortable as possible. Which from Jonghyun’s experience is not at all. Stares at the ceiling. Stares and stares and stares. Stares some more. “It’s only been three weeks, so why does it feel like ten million years?”
It was worse in basic training. At least now Jonghyun can hear Taemin’s voice a few times a week, all the random stuff Taemin thinks to say, all the things they can’t, not with Jonghyun’s heart undermining the military one beat at a time, and not when there are twenty other guys around who can’t not hear. But there are millions of guys in Seoul, and even if Taemin would never cheat on him, Jonghyun’s not the only person in this county with eyes. Taemin never knows what to do when people hit on him, half the time he never even realizes what’s going on until the touching starts. And then he won’t tell them no, he’ll just ignore them until it goes away, and now Jonghyun won’t be there to make it.
Instead he’s here. Twenty-two hundred hours. Gun, boots, pack. Lights…off.
And then nothing.
Jonghyun closes his eyes, and Taemin is there.
-
“You can’t make it?”
“Go see your mom this time,” Taemin tells him. “Maybe I could drop by?” Yeah, and maybe Jonghyun could pretend he’s not in love with Taemin some more. Maybe Taemin’s not even pretending anymore. Maybe Jonghyun keeps having shitty thoughts, but it’s okay, Taemin can’t read his mind, he could only ever read his face, and now Jonghyun won’t see Taemin’s for another two months. “I’m sorry, hyung.”
Jonghyun squeezes his eyes shut, digs his nails into his palm, until he can say normally, “Don’t be. Did you forget who you’re talking to, how could I not get it?” Except, everything he kept out of his voice is building up in his chest now, crushing his lungs like tin cans. “Make sure you take care of yourself, since I’m not there to do it.”
“Are you hanging up?”
“You said all my vacation days were yours, now you’re just giving them away,” is the last thing Jonghyun should say, but it’s already too late, it’s out there, no taking it back.
Taemin laughs, of all things. “Are you mad at me?”
Yes?
“I know I shouldn’t be, and I really do get it. I just, this place is making me crazy.” I’m going crazy without you. “Everything we do, it’s just to do it. If you question anything you’re the problem.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“It’s worse, Taemin-ah. Singing and dancing and acting stupid on TV is one thing. They’re training me to kill people and no one can tell me why.”
“At least it’s 2019, not 1950?”
“At least no one’s started a war, you mean?” Jonghyun snaps. “When it’s your turn I’m going to tell you the same thing.”
Silence, short, spiky. Then, so gently it kills Jonghyun, “Hyung—”
“I know I’m not on Mount Chiri, Taeminnie. I know it’s only two years, less than that, and it’s just waiting, not survival, I know all that,” Jonghyun rushes on, because if he cries while the lights are still on he’ll never live it down, and why does he feel like he’s about to cry, why is Taemin doing this to him, why is this his life. “If something hasn’t made sense for seventy years, it’s not about to start now.”
“That must be why you don’t, you’re only thirty,” is all Taemin has to say to that. “Maybe if I wait around until you’re like ninety.”
Look who’s talking.
And yet, Taemin’s words hit Jonghyun like a deep breath, like Taemin’s hands in his hair, stroking it back from his face, playing with it, twisting it around his fingers. Like his thigh pillowing Jonghyun’s head, soft and warm. Like the weird angle on his face Jonghyun gets when he snatches glances at him, like Taemin laughing under Jonghyun’s hands when Jonghyun tells him he can see up his nostrils.
“It’s not hard on you?” Jonghyun gets out. “Waiting, I mean.”
It takes everything he has just to say it, but in less than half a second Taemin rewards him with, “It is. I miss you all the time,” pout in his voice. He probably looks twice as cute as he sounds, too. And he’s serious. “Sometimes calling you makes it worse.”
“Yeah.”
“I suck at phones, and I can’t see your face. Half this stuff I don’t know how to say. We never had to.”
Jonghyun glances around. One guy, all the way across the room, the Jennie stan who got his heart broken last month. Jonghyun offered to get her autograph, but then they broke up before he could ask Taemin to ask Jongin, and then it seemed like a waste of time to ask Taemin about that. About other people.
Jonghyun turns away, head down, until it’s just him and Taemin again. “I love you.”
It’s always harder for Taemin to say the words than it is for him to say it with his eyes, his face, his smiles, his touch, but words are all they have.
“I love you, too,” Taemin says, shy, embarrassed. And then, again, “I miss you. The weirdest stuff makes me think of you. Plus—other things.”
“Other things?”
“You know.” Jonghyun does, but Taemin’s voice has gone from pink to red, and if he gets any cuter Jonghyun might do something crazy like smile. “Toys aren’t the same.” Or crazier, like pop a boner when Taemin’s two hours and who knows how many months away and can’t do anything about it. Jonghyun’s always gotten off on it more than Taemin, playing with Taemin’s ass, plugs and beads and dildos. All Taemin ever wants is Jonghyun’s tongue, Jonghyun’s fingers, Jonghyun’s dick. But he’s here, and Taemin is probably at work. The end.
Jonghyun crosses his legs. “Do you have a title track?”
“Mm. ‘Want.’”
“Sing it to me.”
“Hyung~”
“I’m not asking as hyung, I’m asking as your fan.”
“I can’t, I need music. I’ll show you the master, next time I come up. The choreo, too.”
Next time.
When he hits his bunk, he finds Sangho smiling and the other guy snoring. Dongjoon. When he’s awake he’s not that bad. He gave Jonghyun a cigarette yesterday, and the day before he told him that his noona has a crush on Kibum. Jonghyun should’ve told Taemin to tell Kibum that he found one of his ten fans. Sangho, though…
“You don’t look happy,” Sangho says.
Jonghyun likes him better asleep.
“You do.”
“My girlfriend. We’re going to the countryside for my time off.”
Jonghyun gives humor a try. “You don’t miss civilization?”
Sangho does, too. “Don’t worry, we won’t leave the hotel room.”
“Ah.”
He and Taemin were going to visit Jejudo. They’ve only ever been for work. Taemin would’ve tasted like tangerines the whole time. They’re in season.
“Did your plans fall through?”
Jonghyun rolls over and closes his eyes. “I’m saving my days up.”
“Aigoo. How are you going to find anyone to spend them on?” Sangho leans over and claps his hand on Jonghyun’s shoulder. “Go to that place in town. If I were single…”
The red light district, he means. Whorehouse. Whatever they call it up here. Girls who deserve so much more than the dirt bags paying to fuck them, Taemin waiting at home, maybe touching himself with Jonghyun’s name in his mouth, maybe sleeping in one of Jonghyun’s shirts, maybe listening to the million demos Jonghyun left him with.
“You’re lucky you’re not, Sangho-yah.”
-
Jonghyun’s never sure when Taemin tries to dress up for him. It’s probably better if he doesn’t, anyway, and he’s cute no matter what. His glasses are so cute. When Jonghyun asks if they're new Taemin says he slept through his alarm and he didn’t know if traffic would be bad.
I was scared I'd miss you, he means.
He brought Jonghyun a lunchbox, too, and he keeps saying stuff like, “I can order you something.”
Jonghyun pries Taemin’s hands away, pulling it towards himself, taking it apart. “Aigoo. Did your mom help you?”
He snaps the first container open and finds…something? Food-ish? Taemin leans across the table, ears glowing, trying to snatch it away, “I’ll order something,” but Jonghyun hugs it to his chest. Taemin sits back, face on fire, hands twisted in his lap, watching Jonghyun like a hawk in between looking anywhere but him as he opens the rest of it, telling him, “It was supposed to be kimbap. Do you want me to get you chicken? Jjajangmyun?” There’s nothing for it. Jonghyun takes his life in his hands and picks up his chopsticks.
Carrot. Taemin’s shoulders relax. Spinach. Taemin’s eyes settle on Jonghyun’s face again. Egg.
“Too salty?”
Too crunchy. Shell.
“A little bit,” Jonghyun manages.
Taemin nods, grabbing the liter of pop he brought and hooking his finger in Jonghyun’s little paper cup. All Jonghyun can get is water and coffee here. Jonghyun watches him pour, bend of his wrist, line of his arm, lets him slurp up the fizz, too, lips closing over the rim, but if his feelings grow any bigger, how is he supposed to get it down? He has to. Secondhand kiss.
He has to keep eating, too.
“You always say you like it well done, it's your fault I burned it. Is that too spicy? I know I did the rice right. And that’s my mom’s kimchi, it should be safe.”
Jonghyun slumps down in his chair, until he can reach Taemin’s foot under the table, trapping it between his own. “Since you're feeding me, feed me.”
Taemin’s smile hits him like sunburst, bright, dizzying, before he hides it behind his fist and says, “You’re so weird, hyung.” Taemin likes it, though. Taemin likes him. He loves him. He’s said it a hundred times over the years, and he’s saying it right now, chopsticks poised over the containers. “What do you want?”
You.
Cucumber. Beef. Pancake. Someone who knew what they were doing could probably have made this much in a few hours, but Taemin must have been in the kitchen all day yesterday. And maybe it’s the grossest thing Jonghyun’s eaten since he’s been here, maybe Jonghyun is going to get food poisoning, maybe the spinach is slimy and the beef is like sawdust and if he doesn’t die of thirst now he’s going to spend all night sneaking off to pee, salt and soy sauce and red pepper flakes…but it’s Taemin who’s filling him up. Taemin’s taste on his tongue.
His voice saying, “You look like you’ve gained weight. Is the food good here?”
“It’s all muscle, there’s nothing to do but work out.” Jonghyun waits until he can swallow because no one looks cool with chipmunk cheeks, then sits back and lifts his shirt, showing Taemin his abs. “See?”
Jonghyun’s face is up here, but Taemin can work his way back up. Which he doesn’t, tongue between his teeth, ears red and eyes dark, look like a touch, but before Jonghyun can ask if he wants to check for himself, chairs scrape, boots thud across the floor, girls laugh, the sun streams in the window, and he remembers where they are. It takes Taemin a little longer.
“You look like you’ve lost some,” Jonghyun says finally. Taemin’s eyes snap back up to his, look on his face like huh? “Weight, Taeminnie.”
“Oh. It’s going back up now, it was just stress.”
“Is it lonely on your own?”
Taemin smiles again. “I like it better, I get all the attention. And all the money.” He rests his chin on his hands, tilting his head just so, and suddenly all Jonghyun can think about is how he would fit their mouths together. “My LP made enough that I bought my own place.”
“You moved out of your parents’?” Jonghyun says, surprised.
But maybe he shouldn’t be. Taemin’s not him. Back when they were living in the dorm, the nights they were fighting or too tired to fuck or it was too hot to cuddle, or Jonghyun’s sleep schedule got too fucked up, or Taemin was going to murder someone if he didn’t get eight hours, Taemin always spent without him. At home in bed, or maybe out with his friends. Jonghyun got so lonely he moved out in the end, but without time alone Taemin would’ve gone crazy, and that was the only way he could get it.
“Still moving,” Taemin corrects him now. “Kibum hyung said he’d give me some phone numbers.”
“He decorated his own place, though?”
“He says if he helps me he knows he’ll get pissed off when I mess it up.” Taemin hesitates, eyeing Jonghyun. “Like I was so hard to live with.”
There’s a question in his voice.
“I spent all my time cleaning up after you.”
“You had more time than me, you never slept,” Taemin accuses him, strange half smile half smirk splitting his face, like this is a game or an argument and he doesn’t want to lose. “You woke me up all the time, too.”
“I wasn’t complaining about you,” Jonghyun retorts, absolutely not smiling back, but then Taemin laughs that stupidly cute laugh of his, and maybe Jonghyun goes to pieces. “I didn’t mind, Taeminnie. I liked it.”
“It must have been easy to steal my underwear,” Taemin says out loud, in a completely normal voice, like that’s a completely normal thing to say at lunchtime, in this stupid room, in this stupid place where Jonghyun can’t bend him over the table and yank his pants down and bury his face in his ass. Maybe bite it. Eat him out. Taemin’s foot climbs up his leg, slow, sure, in Jonghyun’s blood, his dick and his heart, every cell in his body. “I wasn’t complaining about you, either. I like you better when you sleep. Sometimes it keeps me up, worrying that you’re not.”
Instead of lying and telling Taemin he’s sleeping, that the structure and the monotony and the boredom and the marching and the drills, thirty minutes of computer time a day, ten hours outside, lugging his life around on his back every day, carrying someone else’s in his arms, fully loaded, semi-automatic, that all of this fucking bullshit has killed his insomnia and dried up his tears and finally made him a man…he tells the truth.
“I sleep better with you.”
Because it is a completely normal thing to say. Because he wants Taemin to hear it, like any normal person would. Because this feeling inside him, Taemin across from him, his hand when it finds Jonghyun’s under the table, this lunchbox that looks and smells and kind of tastes like food, it’s the one thing he knows he’d fight and die for.
-
“Your dongsaeng again?” Sangho again. Jonghyun keeps his eyes on Taemin. “Did you raise him, or something?”
“Mm.”
That’s not a lie unless you ask Taemin. The others would back Jonghyun up.
It’s not like Sangho cares anyway. He’s just talking to Jonghyun because he’s the only other one who can’t sleep. Everyone else hits the mattress snoring, but they still have another minute in the light. “You know, I never asked. What group are you from again?”
“Shinee.”
“My girlfriend likes BTS. Are you friends with any of them?”
“Why, you want an autograph? Who does she like?”
“I don’t know, there’s one she’s always talking about. Jiseok?”
“Jimin, you mean? Taeminnie’s friends with him. I can ask, but he might forget. Taeminnie. He forgets everything, he always needs me to remind him like six thousand times.”
Jonghyun is just getting started, right away there are ten million stories on the tip of his tongue, wallets, phones, car keys, clothes, that one time Taemin twisted his couple ring off his finger backstage at Music Bank and Jonghyun refused to speak to him for a week, until Taemin wore him down with his tongue and teeth, and Jonghyun went out and bought prettier ones and lied and told Taemin he’d break up with him if Taemin did it again, but it’s better that darkness swallows the Taemin in his hand, and Sangho cuts him off.
“No, it’s okay.” Because, yeah. Doesn’t care. Dongsaeng. Whatever. Jonghyun will be over here, not sleeping. “Hyung.”
“What?”
For the longest time, so long Jonghyun gives up on him, silence. Then, “How am I supposed to break up with her?”
...What?
“You’re not.”
“I’m fine dating, but I don’t want to marry her. If she waits for me any longer I’ll have to.”
Jonghyun hesitates. “You don’t love her? You’re always talking about her.”
“She’s all I have to talk about, she’s the only one who writes to me. All this time in this fucking place, she’s all I’ve had to think about. But now I’m almost out, I have to start thinking about me again, you know?”
It sounds to me like you never stopped.
Jonghyun just barely bites it back. What does he know? For him, thinking of Taemin is thinking of himself. That’s how it’s always been, all the way back to the time before Taemin first made his heart flutter and all the way up to now. The last year and a half without him has been longer than all twelve they had together. He’s spent every second of it waiting. He knows Taemin has too. And he knows when he gets out all the time they’ve missed won’t get any lighter, but it’s nothing they can’t handle if they have each other.
If. He hates that word.
Sangho can have it. Jonghyun doesn’t need it.
-
When it's finally, finally, finally just the two of them again, the first thing Taemin thinks to say to him is, “The tofu was a joke, I’m not stupid. I know that’s for prison.”
“Uh huh.”
Jonghyun pinches his cheek, then kisses it just because he can. Taemin’s mouth is next, and he doesn’t even know how it wasn’t the first thing, because now it’s the only one, soft, soft lips, hard teeth, cutest smile on earth. Taemin half sighs half laughs, makes this happy sound that’s even cuter, leaning into it. His eyes are still closed when Jonghyun lifts away and leans across Taemin to get his seatbelt. He smells like spring.
Taemin lets him do it, then says, “You sure you don’t want me to drive? I could do it in my sleep.”
“You must be tired. I know how hard it is for you to get up this early, Taeminnie.”
Plus Jonghyun needs to remind himself how easy it is to drive. The last time was two months ago, up in the countryside north of here, after Taemin got them lost and started wondering out loud what would happen to them if they crossed the border by accident. Instead of telling him all the reasons nothing would happen, because that would be impossible, because every inch on both sides is covered with soldiers and guns and landmines, Jonghyun got behind the wheel, and they survived. And now he has Taemin again, Taemin’s smile on his skin and his hand rubbing over Jonghyun’s scalp, and this time won’t end with Taemin swallowing back his tears and Jonghyun having none left to shed.
This time won’t end.
“Are you?” Huh? Oh. Tired. “You look it.” Taemin rubs his finger under Jonghyun’s eye, as though he could make the bag under it disappear with one touch. It’ll take more than that. Tonight and tomorrow night and the next night and the next one and every night after, all in Jonghyun’s arms. But for now Taemin tries, “I bought junk, too, but we can stop for real food if you want.”
Jonghyun shoots him a smile that was supposed to be a smirk, pulling out of the parking lot. “You don’t want to eat me? The last couple times, I thought you would.”
Taemin makes a face at him. “I can make it home. You’re not that hot. You need hair, hyung.”
That’s not what Taemin said last time, when he picked Jonghyun up, then pulled off onto the first back road he could find and dragged Jonghyun into the backseat. Took Jonghyun’s dick into his mouth as deep as it could go, then took him deeper, sitting on it, hips rocking, fingernails digging into Jonghyun’s chest, dark eyes staring into his, no words left but want you, need you, love you, just like that, oh God, oh please, hyung. Hyung!
“What if I can’t?” He’s not sure he’s kidding, even. Taemin’s eyes flick down to Jonghyun’s lap. Jonghyun lets him look all he wants, half hard in his pants. Lets him smirk all he wants, too, and go back to the things outside his window. “I can wait a little longer. I want to take my time with you.”
Usually just saying that much would leave Jonghyun with the tip of Taemin’s ear and the turn of his cheek for the time it takes for his blush to fade, but this time Taemin catches his eye, bites his lip, something in his face he’s going to have to say out loud because Jonghyun can’t read it.
But then all he says is, “You’re sleeping over, right?” and Jonghyun’s left trying to figure out how Taemin managed to turn that into a question. Why Taemin thinks he needs to lay his hand on Jonghyun’s arm, make the cutest face, say, “Stay with me. Just for tonight, then I’ll share you.”
“Just tonight? You’ll kick me out of bed in the morning?”
Just like that, Taemin breaks into a smile.
“We’ll see,” Taemin says, so close to playing hard to get. “It’s been a while. I might come too fast.”
“You say that like I’d let you.”
Taemin hides his smile behind his fist, sneaking a sideways glance at Jonghyun. “You might, too.”
Does he mean Jonghyun won’t be able to get it up again?
“I’m only thirty-one, Taeminnie. And I haven’t seen you naked in like two months.”
“And I only have two holes.”
Taemin knows what he said. He knows what he’s doing to Jonghyun. He can take responsibility. Definitely not with his hands and mouth on the side of the road now because that’s the entrance ramp to the highway right there, freedom, right. there. Probably not at a hotel on the way home, either. Taemin always gets weird about checking in with Jonghyun because what would the clerk think, and he always makes Jonghyun work extra hard to get him to make those little noises, talk and moan and cry out, because what if the people in the next room hear. And Jonghyun is so sick of having to care about what other people see when they kiss or hold hands, or what other people hear when he tells Taemin he loves him, or what they would think of all the things he’s thinking about right now.
And anyway, he wants to fall asleep inside Taemin. So he just shoots Taemin the dirtiest smile he can muster, pets his hair, tells him, “You’re so greedy, baby.”
Of all things, Taemin laughs.
“It’s been forever since you called me that. Honestly, that was the weirdest thing about dating you.”
“Because you hate it so much~?”
“I never said I did,” Taemin doesn’t need to say now. Still, he does, just so Jonghyun will hear, I love all the things I’m supposed to hate about you.
Jonghyun’s smile takes him by surprise, knocks him out, so happy so suddenly he can’t see straight. Somehow he keeps his foot on the gas, keeps driving, and as soon as there’s room in his chest for things besides his heart again—
“Come with me to see my mom tomorrow.”
But Taemin had the same thought, the same feeling, the same moment, because Jonghyun barely gets it out before Taemin’s saying, “Move in with me.”
In another hour and a half they’ll hit Seoul traffic and it kind of looks like rain. Jonghyun missed the leaves falling and it’ll be months before the first snow, so he’ll find everything uglier than he left it, stuck in that in between time. And SM is there waiting, too, along with all the other things he didn’t miss.
But right now. This feeling.
“You’ll be okay?” he says.
“Will you?” Taemin says back, too fast, like he was just waiting for Jonghyun to go first. “My parents will be harder. I don’t know how they’d take it. And I still have to go, I don’t have that long left. You’ll be stuck waiting for me.”
Somehow Taemin found words. Somehow Jonghyun can’t. When he fumbles for Taemin’s hand, Taemin hangs on tight, pulling it into his lap, holding it in both of his.
Jonghyun won’t have to let go until they stop for gas or to pee or to stretch their legs, breathe the free air, look back at the mountains. Until he gets nervous making a turn, until Taemin steals the snacks he bought for Jonghyun and reaches into the back for the bag. Until, until, until.
He’s never letting go.