Archive of Our Own

Kim Jonghyun

Jonghyun reads and rereads his own name. By the tenth time he’s sure he’s not having a heart attack, because otherwise he’d be dead, and by the twentieth the world comes rushing in again, twenty boys crowding him, trying to squeeze in front for their turn to look. The other names on the list only sink in when he steps away. Lee Jinki. Choi Minho. Kim Kibum.

Lee Taemin.

“Congratulations, Taeminnie.”

Taemin looks up at the sound of his own name. The expression on his face flaps around Jonghyun’s stomach. If he didn’t know better he’d say that Taemin is about to cry, but Taemin never does. Well, except for that one time Jonghyun found him shut up in the bathroom after Taemin’s one and only vocal lesson, and spent ten minutes sitting on the floor and talking to him through the stall door. Or that time Taemin was late because the trains were, and their dance instructor sent him to the corner to reflect for half of practice, but those were tears of anger. What would these be, tears of happiness? This is the best day of their lives, they’re debuting, they’re fucking debuting.

Jonghyun pulls Taemin into a hug, so tight he might crack Taemin’s ribs if he’s not careful. He pats Taemin’s back, tells him over and over, “You did well, Taeminnie,” all the things he wishes his mom were here to do for him right now. “You did so well. Hyung is proud of you.”

Finally Taemin pulls away, and that look on his face is right where Jonghyun left it, somehow.

“Don’t even think of bossing me around,” Taemin says.

Which, what?

“Taemin-ah…”

“I’m just saying it now,” Taemin plows on, looking Jonghyun in the eye finally. “You guys don’t get to tell me what to do, I don’t care if I’m the maknae.”

Again, what?

That’s really all Taemin can say?

They’re debuting, their dream of three years has come true, and that was the first thing he thought of?

Jonghyun wishes it were okay for him to tell Taemin to worry about that later. To be happy, just for this one moment. To be happier than he’s ever been in his entire life, happier than maybe he’ll ever be again.

Taemin’s expression shifts, eyebrows drawing together, corners of his mouth tugging up into this strange halfway smile. “Why are you crying, hyung?”

Shit. Jonghyun can’t even tell Taemin to pretend he didn’t see.

 -

“Why did Taeminnie tell you finally?” Jonghyun demands.

About being bullied. And that’s not what Jonghyun’s really asking Jinki, anyway, at least Jinki is pretty sure.

Why didn’t he tell me?

“It just kind of came up?” Jinki says. Jonghyun sighs heavily, flopping onto his back. Jinki lowers himself next to him, staring up at the sky overhead. His sweat is almost dry, but in another five minutes they’ll have to go back down to practice, and Taemin should be on his way from school by now. “He thinks hyung is stupid, that I just forget things as soon as I hear them or something.”

“When did he tell you?” is the next question. “I really hope it was this morning, hyung. If you did forget—”

“Then I’d be as stupid as he thinks I am~”

Jinki tries a smile on Jonghyun, but Jonghyun just sighs and sits back up, scrubbing his hand through his hair.

“This is all useless,” Jonghyun snaps impatiently. “Isn’t there anything we can do? We have to, there has to be something.”

So Jinki is stuck telling him, “If we do we might make it worse,” even though he wants to say it even less than Jonghyun wants to hear it. But what can he do? Kids that age suck in general, and the shitheads are even shitheadier, and Taemin has a giant target on his back. And it’s not like Jinki and Jonghyun and the others can go to school to Taemin with every day. What little they can do for him one day, those kids might make him pay for it twice over the next.

“If we just sit here it’s not like things will get any better, either.” Jonghyun stares down at him, hands shaking, fire in his eyes, so angry Jinki is half waiting for him to explode into tiny pieces or shoot up into the great blue sky. “It’s Taeminnie, hyung.”

True. It’s Taemin, and Jinki would rather die than see him hurt. Too bad that wouldn’t do anyone any good. Maybe thinking will, though. So he thinks. Jonghyun rants and swears and asks Jinki five different times why Taemin never tells them anything, and when none of that works, he paces up and down the rooftop.

“Let’s walk him to school tomorrow at least,” Jinki says to Jonghyun’s footsteps. “If we bring Minho, it might work. He’s skinny but he’s tall. And who knows, I’ve been exercising these days, I might look scary.”

Instead of making fun of Jinki like he’s supposed to, Jonghyun says immediately, “He has to transfer,” like that’s a reply to anything Jinki said. “He’s always hated that school, anyway.”

“His mom can figure that out.”

“If he’s told her, which he hasn’t, knowing him.” Yeah, probably not. He told Jinki, though. That’s something, isn’t it? “Hyung.”

Jinki closes his eyes. “What?”

“I just. I wish he would’ve told me.”

“I know.”

“Even if I couldn’t do anything, he should at least let me try.” That’s all Jonghyun ever does for Taemin. He must think Taemin is stupider than Taemin thinks Jinki is, if he thinks Taemin hasn’t noticed that. Jonghyun’s feet come to a stop right at Jinki’s head. When he opens his eyes he doesn’t even have to squint. Jonghyun’s blocked the sun. “Your idea. Let’s do it. Then I’m going to tell his mom if he doesn’t, or tell my mom so she tells his, or something.”

Good. That’s why Jinki told him.

-

He times his tackle inch perfect, but the ball bounces off his shin, right to the feet of the other team’s striker. Fuck. His defense closes in, his keeper tenses up, not sure which way to dive, and Taemin asks, “What button do I press again?”

“O,” Jonghyun tells him immediately. “O, o, o, quickly.”

And then, goal.

Or, “Goooooooaaaaalll,” as Jonghyun would put it, right down Minho’s earhole too. He leans across him to high five Taemin, big, obnoxious grin across his face.

Whatever.

“I thought you were good at this game, Minho-yah,” Kibum says from his perch on the armrest. When Minho looks—okay, glares—up at him Kibum hides his smirk over his cereal bowl. “Maybe not?”

Minho thumps his head back into the cushions. Breathes deep. Squeezes his controller tight enough that the plastic creaks, but whatever. This is good. This means Taemin’s getting better, he’s learned something from Minho. He’s having fun, too, he’s smiling and laughing, even if it’s at Minho.

“Did something finally happen?” Jinki says from the doorway, toilet flushing behind him.

Kibum’s smirk widens and Jonghyun sings out, “Our Taeminnie scored~”

Their Minho has only scored like a million times today.

Whatever. Whatever. Whatever.

The game will probably end eleven-two in Minho’s favor, and he’s won eight of eight games today, and that’s with Jonghyun finding excuses to cross in front of the television every time Minho gets the ball into Taemin’s half, Kibum commenting on every single move he makes, Jinki asking him dumb questions and then not listening to Minho’s answers.

But that’s also with Taemin saying, “I’ll play with you,” when none of the others would. And with Minho not crowing over his goals or rubbing his wins in Taemin’s face the way they’re all doing to him, because Minho is a good hyung.

“Good job, Taemin-ah,” Minho makes himself say. As he catches Taemin’s eye and reaches up to tousle his hair he thinks he’s even halfway to meaning it, and he barely has to fight himself to hitch his mouth into a smile. “Pretty soon you’ll be better than hyung.”

“I guess?” Taemin says, smiling back. “It’s just a game, anyway. How much of it do you think is luck?”

If he weren’t Taemin Minho would murder him. But he is Taemin, so he can’t. All he can do is pick up his controller and ask, “One more round?”

-

At breakfast Taemin attempts a fried egg and somehow ends up with chalk for yolk and raw white singed black around the edges. He would’ve poisoned himself if Kibum hadn’t saved him and fried him another one. Too bad Jonghyun had already sacrificed himself and eaten it before Taemin could.

At lunch Taemin steals half of Kibum’s kimbap before starting on his own. He says it was because he couldn’t figure out how to get the package open, and it’d be harder not to believe him. By the time Kibum hands it back to him Jonghyun has already given Taemin the rest of his.

While Kibum was getting his hair permed for their MV, Taemin told him it looks like broccoli, and two hours later, somehow that joke is still funny to him. He’s only trying to hold it in now because he’s ruined at least two takes like that, and after his hiccups fucked Kibum up when he was supposed to stand there and pretend to get decapitated by CGI, Kibum might’ve threatened to cut Taemin’s head off, see how he liked it.

He didn’t. He just thought about it.

…He thought about thinking about it.

But break time. Break from Married to the Music, even though it’s still pounding in Kibum’s head. Break from dancing and sweating under the lights and watching Jinki pretend he knows the steps in the corner of his eye. Break from Taemin. He can survive on his own for fifteen minutes, right? Somehow he survived going solo. And he won’t even have to, Jonghyun will follow him around like he always does, if he’s not dead from eating chivalry for breakfast yet. By the time they moved out of their first dorm those two were completely obvious to everyone except themselves. And Minho, but that’s because he’s Minho. How it's even possible that they've gotten more annoying since getting together, Kibum has no idea.

Kibum finds a quiet place backstage and gets off his feet. Closes his eyes. Rubs his temples.

Behind him someone laughs.

Kibum whips around to find Taemin and Jonghyun behind him, hands hovering where Kibum’s frizzed out hair had been a second before.

Jonghyun watches his face uneasily as Taemin laughs and laughs. “We were eating broccoli,” he begins.

For fuck’s sake, Taeminnie is what someone else would say. Kibum doesn’t even think it.

“For fuck’s sake, hyung!”

...

Taemin spends all night looking for Jonghyun and finally finds him sitting out in the lot, back against the stadium wall and face raised to the night sky. He should’ve guessed here first. There’s a full moon up there.

They sit for a while. Taemin’s adrenaline from performing “Danger” live for the first time in front of thousands of people is wearing off…okay, only slightly…but when Jonghyun sifts his fingers through Taemin’s hair, tucking it behind his ear, his skin is still buzzing.

That’s not adrenaline, though. Taemin’s not dumb, he knows exactly what that is.

“Hyung is so proud of you,” Jonghyun tells him.

“I know.”

“You should be proud of yourself.”

“Don’t worry, I am~”

Taemin’s not even lying, not even a little bit, but maybe it sounds like he is, because Jonghyun shoots him a look and says, “I’m being serious.”

Taemin thinks long and hard about laying his head on Jonghyun’s shoulder and waiting until his heart slows down. But Jonghyun needs words from him, Taemin knows that much by now, so he tries to give them to him, before his throat closes or something. “I know you are. I am too.”

“You probably know how worried I was, too. You danced so hard I thought you’d break your legs.” Something in Jonghyun’s expression shifts. Breaks, just that little bit. “You’ve come so far, Taemin-ah.”

“You haven’t, you’re crying again.”

Jonghyun’s laugh comes out a little shaky, but he scrubs his tears away before they can fall, muttering, “Shit.”

Taemin’s only had six years to figure out what to do, but he still feels so stupid, rubbing Jonghyun’s back, letting Jonghyun look away. “It’s okay if it’s in front of me, hyung.”

Jonghyun pets Taemin’s hair clumsily. “It’s because of you, you brat.”

“This was just one song,” Taemin reminds him. “What are you going to do when I do a whole concert?”

Jonghyun needs a moment to think about it. Finally he comes up with, “Say all the same things, I guess. I can’t mean them any more than I already do.”

Taemin’s heart couldn’t be any fuller than it is right now, either. He scoots closer, until they’re pressed together from shoulder to hip, and it’d be so easy to tangle his fingers together with Jonghyun’s.

“Hyung.”

“Mm.”

“I wanted to debut solo, but honestly, I never thought I’d get this far.” Taemin leans into Jonghyun’s side. “I wouldn’t have without you.”

Without any of the other hyungs, either. Jinki listening to him. Minho encouraging him. Kibum not killing him any of the million times he’s probably wanted to. But only Jonghyun is here, so it’s okay if Taemin leaves them out this one time.

Jonghyun rewards him with a watery smile. “I don’t know where I’d be without you, either.”

That’s so close to what Taemin wants to hear, but at the same time, it’s as far away as all those stars. Or maybe not. Taemin could catch them on the palm of his hand from down here, but if he reached out and touched Jonghyun’s face, they both would feel it. If he leaned in and kissed him, or something.

And now Taemin’s stupid ears are going hot.

“I used to hate how much you babied me, but these days it’s almost like I’m scared you’ll stop,” he says. “I never got my way on important stuff, but you guys always let me with everything else.”

“Remember, the first thing you said was not to boss you around,” Jonghyun says immediately, not bothering to hide his smile. “We spoiled you. At least I did.”

That’s a better word for it. Way better. Taemin doesn’t want to be a baby anymore, not to any of them, and especially not to Jonghyun.

“I like being spoiled, is what I meant.”

Taemin just barely gets those words out before Jonghyun wants to know, “When have you ever not gotten your way? With me, at least.”

Jonghyun’s smile widens as he watches Taemin try and come up with something, dark eyes crinkling up, and that’s just as unfair now as it was when Taemin was sixteen. Taemin could keep Jonghyun waiting forever trying to think of a different answer, but he’s already waited how many years for this one to come to him, and he’s only just realized that it never will. Nothing will ever happen unless he makes it.

Taemin closes his eyes, and leans in and presses his mouth to Jonghyun’s. For one endless moment, everything is soft and warm and sweet, like spring air before rain, and Taemin is so full inside he could burst. Except he doesn’t. The moment ends, he lifts away, and opens his eyes.

“Wrong answer, Taeminnie,” Jonghyun tells him, fitting his palm to Taemin’s cheek. “You might as well give up. There’s no right one.”

When Taemin leans in again Jonghyun meets him halfway.