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Bada Lee doesn't give out her number much, and neither do the SM staff, so it's not often she gets a call from an unknown number. After some debate, she decides to pick it up.
"Hello?"
"Hi, this is Lee Taemin," says a smooth voice on the other end, deeply familiar even though they haven't spoken much. You don't spend time around Jongin without also seeing a lot of Taemin.
Then she asks him what he wants.
Then, still laughing, she books a last minute holiday to Thailand.
—
Jongin's at dance practice, and he's… distracted. Which is unusual for him: he's a pretty focused person where work is concerned, and dance especially is the most absorbing part of it. But today he's just not got it: every time they pause to refine a section of choreography Jongin is just spacing out, watching Bada Lee demonstrate and only peripherally taking in what she's actually doing.
He can still replicate it, of course, but he's definitely no fun to work with today. In self defence he switches to doing most of the talking and demonstrating while she nods along and follows, and hopefully between them they'll manage to reconstruct a memory of the changes they made. Or maybe Bada Lee will just remember them all, because she doesn't seem unfocused in the slightest. Quiet, even, in the way she gets when she's really concentrating. Maybe Jongin can just outsource his memory for today.
The thing is, he should be used to being lightly attracted to Bada Lee. It's not new or surprising, and most of the time he's barely aware of it until it's a little bit useful for final performances. Honestly, Jongin's a little attracted to anyone when they're performing well.
So. It's usually not a big deal, and he values their dance chemistry and general working relationship too much to do anything about it, and anyway she's doing her job, so he does his.
Today it's...more difficult, for some reason. This dance doesn't involve close contact, even, but—she smells good. He feels a bit weird thinking that. They both smell of sweat. But it's just, he doesn't even know, he just wants to lean closer, to catch the scent more clearly, to—
He needs something to help him refocus. Needs a break, maybe to wash his face. Cold water.
"You want an iced coffee?" he finds himself saying, fumbling his words a bit.
"Mm-hm," she says, and turns to wipe her forehead and the back of her neck with a towel. Wisps of hair stick damp to the sides of her neck.
Jongin makes a swift retreat.
There's a Starbucks right at the ebtrance to the studio building, and it's not until Jongin's in the queue that he realises that while he's got her coffee before, he doesn't know if an iced americano is her regular order. He thinks she got something different once?
He buys an iced americano and an iced latte. Coffee is still a bit horrible, but the milk helps, and maybe the bitter taste will kick some sense into him, wake up whatever part of his brain normally keeps him behaving like a professional performer instead of a stupid teenager. The ice is pleasantly cool in his hands; it's warm in the studio, and Bada Lee seemed warm. She overheats nearly as easily as he does, and often wears cropped tops or tank tops to practise, but there are days where she shows up in baggy t shirts and sweatpants like she's wearing today. Usually in winter, but whatever, it's not Jongin's business what she wears off stage.
She makes a pleased noise when he comes back to the studio and hands her a coffee, soft hands curling around it. She rarely wears polish and her nails are short as usual: Jongin tries not to think about the time Baekhyun told him that girls who like girls keep their nails short. There's no point in asking how Baekhyun knows: people tell Baekhyun things. They shouldn't, because Baekhyun can keep a secret if it's important but otherwise will tell everyone he knows or say it out loud on TV, and his definition of "important to keep a secret" is sideways at best.
Still, Jongin knows he's more circumspect about this than people usually are. There's only one person who knows all of his secrets.
Jongin tries to pull himself out of his head and into the present with a sip of coffee.
It doesn't help. The first thing his eyes catch is the way Bada Lee's lips curl around the straw of her coffee. She has very. Full lips. It's not like he's never noticed, it's just.
What's got into him today? They're working so much on his next stage, constant meetings and rehearsals and photoshoots and all the parts of the machine that make performances happen, and it's been a while since he got laid, obviously. He should do that. It's... He does a lot of channeling sexuality on stage, and he knows himself well enough to know what that means: he needs to handle it once he's off stage.
The thing is, he's… this is weird. He knows it's weird. But he's no good at dating without Tae. Left to his own devices, he's not good at asking girls out, and Taemin encourages him—bullies him, really—into doing something about it. Introduces him to people he thinks Jongin would have fun with. Steals Jongin's drink at industry events, the private ones, until he agrees to actually speak to someone who's caught his eye.
Sometimes—and this is one of those 3am thoughts that usually disappear in the morning—he wonders if when his relationships have gone south and broken apart, it's because Tae wasn't there with him to steady him, because he spends less time with Tae while he's dating and honestly, what is Jongin doing without him? Jongdae manages it, somehow: he and Minseok are always together, and Minseok and his girlfriend get along so well that sometimes they hang out just the three of them. Jongin wonders about that, wonders how Minseok doesn't feel left out—or, maybe, how Jongdae's girlfriend doesn't feel left out.
So it's been a while since Jongin dated seriously, or even the casual stuff these days, and there's plenty of people in the industry who want both casual and private for their careers. That's probably it. He's probably just left it too long, in the extra intense haze of overwork that is being a solo artist.
That's probably why he can't stop looking at Bada Lee as she leans against the wall to sip her drink, relaxed as a cat. She can lift him—not that she needs to—but you'd never know it because she's long and slim and moves as if her joints are bendy on the inside, and look, he wasn't looking for someone who danced like Tae when he took her on, just someone he could dance with like he dances with Tae, but it doesn't hurt. It's not his fault he knows that style inside and out, that he's fond of it. Jongin has been dancing with Tae since they were children, and his body knows that style, would be able to sync with it drunk and blindfolded.
He can't even say Tae is better than she is, because she's a little more versatile, and has more choreography experience, but... He thinks so anyway, quietly. He'll never say it to her, but maybe she wouldn't mind if he did; people nod and smile knowingly when he mentions Tae. But it's true: sometimes he wishes he could be on stage dancing with Tae instead. Bada Lee is the second best dancer he knows, and he likes and respects her, but she isn't Taemin.
It's useful to think these sorts of things. Critical things, though it only works if they're true enough. if you make yourself see them and their ordinary parts and their faults, it's easier not to get starry eyed about them. To not look at them in a way you don't want to.
They're dancing really in sync, today. Or they were, until Jongin literally stumbled over his feet. It's like that sometimes, perfect rehearsals and magical performances that just work, and you feel incredible, you feel like anything is possible and you love everyone on the stage with you and the whole audience together. Maybe it's that, now, that has him staring at her.
"You're blushing, Jonginnie," she says with a soft laugh, and—
Wait.
For a moment Jongin just assumes he's hallucinating, or something, because it can't—-surely he's not that blind, surely they don't look that much alike—
But then Taemin—and it is Taemin—curls into helpless laughter the way he does when he's so full of it he can't help himself, one hand slapping his thigh, and.
"You—" Jongin says, too poleaxed to go anywhere with it.
Taemin flips his hat off by the brim, growing-out hair falling around his cheekbones and jaw. It's obviously him. Jongin is a fucking fool. "Me," he says, smile wide and wickedly delighted.
"You dick," Jongin says. It's not his finest response. It's just... He's never really noticed how similar they look, Tae and Bada Lee. Like, sure, They're the same height and dance the same way, but he's never mixed them up before.
Bada Lee has boobs, for a start. It's not easy to miss. Except, apparently, in a baggy hoodie and what he'd supposed was a sports bra, because sometimes she does look a little genderless—a concept Jongin has never really understood, because it had always seemed to be about men who look like they could be women, but he supposes—he's never really thought about this, since the industry likes women to have a certain very feminine look—he supposes that means it could go the other way, that there could be women who look as if they're feminine men. And Bada Lee sometimes… not on stage, but sometimes in her casual dance outfits, sometimes she does. He supposes. Taemin, who loves the genderless thing and does it all the time; Bada Lee, pretty and feminine until she isn't. So similar, apparently, that Jongin mixed them up for nearly an hour . He feels like his eyes are crossing, but inside his head.
Taemin takes an obnoxiously loud sip of his drink. Jongin finds his eyes tracking the movement again.
It's. Not any less compelling than it was a minute ago. But Taemin's professionally charming and professionally attractive: Jongin is only immune by virtue of knowing that he's also a feral alley cat with an awful sense of humour, a fickle, selfish streak and a tendency to say things with a barb that catches on your breath and makes you draw back for a second.
And honestly, Taemin needs people who look at him and see a scruffy alley cat, in need of picking up by the scruff of the neck and taking to the vet, and don't get dazzled by the fucking charm offensive. It'd be weird if it worked on Jongin. Jongin just—likes him anyway, shut up.
Taemin peels himself off the wall as if he's made of rubber. "Thanks for the coffee, Jonginnie," Taemin says. "You got my order right and everything."
Jongin blinks. Did he—is that even Bada Lee's order? Jongin has a horrible suspicion she actually gets something with chocolate syrup.
Jongin is supposed to say something bitchy now, and then they laugh, and then Jongin will remember to ask where Bada Lee is, but he just doesn't have anything. He's just. He hasn't seen Taemin in person in a fortnight, and it's good to be looking at him again.
"Do you," he says, throat oddly dry. "Do you wanna wrap up the choreography edits?"
Taemin's smile is the impossibly wide, bright, real one, rarely photographed anywhere except the inside of Jongin's head. That must have been the right thing to say, anyway.
"Sure," Taemin says. "Actually, we've been getting lots done: you need to assert yourself more. Even if you have choreographers working with you, you still know your own body and your own performance best. Do you know how much I got you to change by not talking?"
Jongin huffs. Taemin's right is the thing. About performing, he usually is. "Wow, is that blood on your lips? From biting back the urge to say something bitchy?"
And then, like a fool, he leans forward and stretches out his hand to poke at Taemin's mouth, at his lips which aren't bloody: Jongin's just being difficult. His whole body puts on the brakes just before making contact, and he ends up hovering with his hand next to Tae's face, one finger outstretched and just barely not brushing his lip. He can't move in either direction, and his own pulse thrums so loudly in his ears it's like standing under a waterfall.
Taemin gives him a look that Jongin's seen before, that always spells danger, and flicks his tongue out to lick Jongin's fingertip.
Jongin stops breathing as a shudder makes its way through him. God. This shouldn't—he doesn't usually—it's just because he thought Tae was Bada Lee, except.
He dares to look at Tae's face again, because no other part of his body will move. He expects...laughter, maybe. Challenge. And there's a curl of Taemin's teasing smile, but his eyes are hesitant, a little afraid.
It's like the floor opens under Jongin's legs.
Fuck. Fuck . Tae should never look like this, not because of something like this, not because Jongin is being weird, and Jongin can't just let him look like that, he has to—
Fuck. He wasn't going to say this. He decided a long time ago not to say anything like this, and kept that promise to himself, because he saw guys hit on Taemin when he was so young, so horrifyingly young now, remembers him cringing away and coming back to the practise rooms late at night and just throwing himself into practise, silent scream tearing his face open.
He'd not want to be touched for days, and that was fine. It was still fine when he'd crawl into Jongin's bed late at night and Jongin would hold him and think, I can't ever make him look like that.
Taemin sleeps with men now, Jongin knows, and Jongin has always wondered a little, in the way that horrible thoughts eat you late at night, if Taemin really felt like he had a choice about it.
So. Jongin wasn't going to say anything, or do anything about. About the way his stomach flutters when he looks at Taemin sometimes, because it's not important, not when it's such a small thing, when Jongin's mostly into women even though some men are compelling to look at, when he could just not make it complicated. He loves Taemin, Taemin is his favourite, his closest person, and that's always been true and always will be true so he can be, he has been, like Jongdae looking at Minseok, planning their lives around each other, planning to settle down with other people and be family . Jongdae's getting married soon. Minseok is going to be his best man.
There's nothing Jongin wants less than to be like Chanyeol looking at Sehun, like he's desperate to close the last fractional space between them just as much as he's desperate to stop wanting to. So he isn't, and hasn't been.
But he can see Tae's face beginning to shutter closed, can see as if in slow motion the beginning shift of his weight as he's about to pull away, and: no. You can't let those moments just pass, with Tae; if he finds a line you really won't cross, one that frightened him to get close to, he'll never try to cross it again. So Jongin closes his eyes and prays he's right and yanks him close by the shoulders of his hoodie, and presses the clumsiest kiss he's ever given to Taemin's mouth.
There's a split second of stillness, and then Jongin is against the nearest wall, both of Taemin's hands in his sweaty t-shirt, and apparently Taemin kisses like he wants to eat you.
There's a breath where Taemin pulls back to say, in nearly a growl, "You're a fucking idiot sometimes, Jonginnie," before kissing him again, angry and close and starving, and he smells so good, and the feel of him under Jongin's hands—on Taemin's back now, sliding down to his hips where his hands always want to rest—is both as familiar as his own hand and newly, unsettling intense. Like they're dancing, a little, but the chemistry of dancing together isn't for an audience, and they aren't projecting it outwards, so the only place left for it to go is inside them. Jongin is going to either short circuit or melt, probably; Taemin would like knowing he can do that.
"Maybe," Jongin says when he can, because he knows when to let Taemin win. And Taemin absolutely has won, whatever game they were playing. He's like that; he'll play serious things like a game and get serious about games and competitions.
It's how Jongin knows he means it. Which is—he will have so many questions, later. Since when? Were you waiting to tell me? Did you think there was anything I wouldn't give you, if you asked?
It doesn't matter now. He still doesn't know if Taemin had a choice, if he wanted a choice, but Jongin had a choice. He could have looked at Taemin, known it was him, and not reached out, not kissed him. He likes girls. They could have been like they were forever, close in all the ways except this one, and Jongin wouldn't have known how it feels to press chest to chest, how Taemin sounds when Jongin slides a thigh between his legs, and he wouldn't have missed it.
He's chosen Taemin again, though. He always does.
—
There's an instagram update from Bada Lee. She's dancing a fun bit of choreography on the beach in a swimsuit and baseball cap and shorts. "Holiday vibes", the caption says. Neither Taemin nor Jongin see it.