Work Text:
-1
Taemin was stressed. They were on music shows from 2 AM to 11 PM basically everyday. He was trying to take a half-nap backstage before they had to perform, but his extensions kept getting in his face. God. Fuck whoever decided this, seriously. He stood up and walked towards Onew, who was getting his hair straightened by the stylist.
“Can I have a hair tie?” He broke the silence in the room.
Their stylist didn’t even look up as she passed one to him. He stood behind Onew to look in the mirror, trying to grab all of his hair to put it into some messed up ponytail. He probably tied and untied it at least 5 times before Onew let out some sound between choking and laughing, interrupting him to say, “Taemin-ah, let me just tie it for you. I did my noona’s hair a lot growing up, so it’ll be pretty, don’t worry.”.
Taemin didn’t really reply as Onew stood up and walked behind him. The stylist just flipped open her phone to text someone while he ran his hands through Taemin’s hair. Isn’t this her job? It’s a personal look, he guesses, maybe that’s why she’s not bothering. Whatever. He hopes she’s not cursing him out to whoever for messing up the hair she worked hard on. Before Taemin even realises, Onew’s hands are off of his hair and onto his shoulders, peeking over to look at him in the mirror.
“There, is that what you wanted? Your bangs out of the way?”
He tilts his head, looks at himself from a few different angles, before nodding in agreement. He doesn’t really like to think he looks like a girl, people say it too much, he’s started internalizing it as an insult, but…
“You did your noona’s hair as a kid?” He asks instead.
“Yeah, I can do your hair more often for you, if that’s what you want. They basically raised me as another girl.”
Taemin laughs at that. “I mean, yeah, I guess, the long hair is kind of annoying but I think I like having it like this. It looks…” pretty. But he wouldn’t say that.
“Pretty?” Onew would. Oh. Okay.
“I...guess. Pretty.”
“It’s not a bad word. You can say it.”
“No, I, it’s just..you know,” Taemin shifts his weight, “I’ve only ever heard it towards me as an insult.”
Jinki runs his fingers through Taemin’s ponytail. “So? Everyone who says you look like a girl is really just jealous. I can’t really think of why else being pretty would count as an insult.”
“‘Cause…” He looks down and pulls at some string hanging from his shirt, “um, ‘cause, I, I don’t know. I just..like, do you think I seriously look that much like a girl?”
Jinki looks up at him in the mirror. He looks like he’s thinking hard about his answer. After probably 40 seconds of silence, he settles on, “I’m not gonna lie and say your face isn’t feminine, but that doesn’t make you a girl. It doesn’t matter what random people say about your looks. People love you, we love you. Do you not realise that there’s a bunch of people here also up this early waiting to see us? To see you?”
That didn’t make him feel better. It made him feel like puking. He doesn’t need to think about why. It’s too much.
He leaves it at that and walks back to his chair in the corner of the room, far away from Jinki.
-2
Jonghyun absentmindedly throws a pile of clothes on Taemin’s bed.
“Hey. I was with my noona all day. She wants me to have a girlfriend and I don’t have the heart to tell her it’s impossible.” He laughs, “Anyway, she gave me these, I thought you might like something there.”
Taemin looks at the clothes, then up at Jonghyun,
“What the fuck does that– I– I don’t wear girl clothes.” he manages to spit out.
Jonghyun gives him a weird look. “It’s not like I gave you a bra and panties. Clothes are clothes.”
Taemin stares at the pile of clothes like if he stares hard enough they’ll just disappear.
“Taeminie, c’mon, there’s gotta be at least one shirt you like in there. They’ll fit, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Jonghyun sits on his bed and pulls out one of the shirts. It’s simple. A white v-neck. “Don’t you have something exactly like this in your closet?” Jonghyun asks.
“Why do you want me to take them so bad? I have more than enough money to get my own fucking clothes. You know that.” Taemin stands up and leaves the room before Jonghyun can even process what just happened. He’s too confused to even try and follow Taemin out of there and question him. It’s just clothes, why is he so upset? Maybe he thought he was insulting him by giving girl clothes, but, no, why would he even do that? Taemin probably just had a bad day. He folds the clothes up and puts them on a shelf in their closet anyway. Taemin will come around. Probably. They’re cute.
He doesn’t bother commenting when Taemin wears the exact shirt he watched Sodam buy to the airport the next day.
-3
“Taemin-ah, why were you staring at the host like you wanted to kill her?”
Taemin looks up from his phone. “Was I?”
“Yeah, you were, like,” Kibum turns around, then looks over his shoulder, glaring at Taemin with a badly suppressed smile on his face.
“No way. I wasn’t. I was probably just zoning out. You know I hate these shows. I don’t talk on them for a reason.” Kibum laughs. Taemin didn’t really mean that as a joke, but, okay. “Did you want her number? Aw, Taeminie, are you all grown up now?” He leans down to pinch Taemin’s cheek, then gasps, “Or, or, were you jealous of her?”
Taemin actually smacks Kibum’s hand away at that, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Kibum looks shocked. Taemin didn’t really mean to react like that. He’s kind of feeling the same. He watches Kibum smile awkwardly and look away before slowly saying, “I..was joking? Because, you know, the extensions you used to have, didn’t you like them? Her hair was long. All the way to her hips.”
Taemin doesn’t really know what to say. If he just says, oh, it feels rude, because, that means he overreacted, but, whatever. He just looks back down at his phone, praying Kibum will leave him alone.
He doesn’t.
He sits next to Taemin and leans over to watch him playing something on his phone. When enough minutes pass by to let the awkward tension dissipate, Kibum finally says, “I wasn’t insulting you. You need to stop associating femininity with insults.”
What.
“What? I’m, are you saying I hate women or something?” He expects Kibum to laugh at least a little at that, but his expression remains serious.
“No, I’m not saying you do, but, it’s just an unhealthy mindset to have. There’s nothing wrong with expressing yourself. Whether that’s through masculinity, femininity, both, neither, it’s about knowing yourself.” Kibum taps his finger on Taemin’s chest for emphasis. “I know you get picked on a lot for being feminine, but, so do I, you know?” Taemin never really thought about it that way. “I’m trying to say, like…I know this probably sounds corny, and it’s not easy, it’s not just a switch in your brain or something, but.. you know. What’s really attractive is just being yourself.”
He doesn’t answer for a couple minutes, just staring at his phone, which isn’t even on anymore. Kibum stays with him, even though he can’t really figure out an answer. He rubs his eyes, trying his best to ignore the tears welling up. Kibum puts his hand on Taemin’s thigh, like he just…knows.
-4
Taemin stares at himself in the mirror. They put him in a wig and makeup for some stupid SNL skit. He and Kibum are gonna pretend to be Minho’s girls. Or something like that. He didn’t actually listen. Thank god for teleprompters and improv.
Minho laughs loudly at him as soon as he walks into the room. “Oh– Oh, my god, Taemin, why do you,” He can’t even finish his sentence, folding over and laughing again. Taemin doesn’t even bother not committing to the bit, smiling as he says, “You don’t think I’m pretty? Wow, hyu–oppa. Real nice look, laughing at a lady.” He tries to pretend oppa coming out of his mouth didn’t sound like a foreign language. Like referring to himself as a lady didn’t….he can’t place the feeling.
Whatever. They have to shoot.
Filming the skit is kind of hell. Taemin’s been trying really hard to not want to die every time femininity is even in the same sentence as his name, but, wow, it’s hard when the entire cast is laughing their asses off whenever he does literally anything. Not his fault heels are hard to walk in. Fuck. It thankfully only takes about an hour to finish filming it.
He’s starting to think the fitting rooms are a bad omen for him.
He’s just staring into the mirror. Again. Runs his hand through his hair. It feels cheap. This couldn’t have been more than 7500 won. He’d bet money on that. More than this wig cost, probably. It has that weird shine when he turns his head that only the cheap party store wigs have. Then, he leans in, tries to examine the makeup, before Minho walks in suddenly. Taemin jumps back in his chair, like he got caught doing something bad.
“Woah, chill, it’s just me.”
“Sorry.” Taemin picks at the skin on his lip for a second, before pulling off the wig. His hair under is sticking up everywhere. He tries to flatten it with his hand before just grabbing a brush from the desk and fixing his hair like that instead.
“Taeminie, I appreciate your commitment to being a pretty girl, but we have to go. Like, now. Manager hyung is waiting outside and everyone else is in the car. So just throw on a hat. Nobody will even care.”
Minho doesn’t even let his sentence linger before he walks right back out of the room. Oh. Wait, huh? That sentence was so much. He’s not even wearing his own clothes. Where are his clothes. Whatever. He doesn’t have time. He vaguely thinks that, maybe, maybe it’s not the end of the world if he gets to keep these, Jonghyun won’t look through the closet that deep. Probably. He somehow manages to get out of the building and into the car without falling and eating shit with his stupid heels still on. He sits next to Minho, who’s the only one who even bothered to care that he’s still in a full woman’s outfit, makeup on and everything.
"Where are your clothes? You could’ve taken your time to put on your clothes.”
“Um, then you should’ve said that.” Taemin laughs, “You said it like you were just gonna leave without me if I wasn't outside at that second.” He folds his hands over his skirt. He’s sitting with his legs spread, so it looks kind of weird, but, whatever.
“No, I was leaving around the same time as you because I was changing into what I wore this morning.”
“Why do you even care? Please, nobody cares, our neighbors avoid us like we have the fucking plague.”
Minho has this sad look and goes, “I don’t care, wear what you want, it’s just..”, he doesn’t really finish his sentence before putting in his headphones and looking out the window.
Whatever that was about. No point in overthinking it.
-5
Taemin was out to buy Kkoong food. That’s it. Maybe. He wanted some new clothes. It’s not really the end of the world if he stays out longer than he intended, anyway. Probably. He got the food first anyway, so it'll be okay.
“Thank you for shopping with us, ma’am. If you need help finding anything, just let me know.”
He whips his head around. Right. Extensions. He’s wearing a mask and a cap too, how would she know? He doesn’t answer for a while, and she’s about to leave before he speaks up, “Um..yeah, I just…I wanted some new clothes, do you have any recommendations?”
“Of course! Here, follow me.” She leads him to a corner of the store that’s so flashy with the biggest Women’s sign he’s probably ever seen. Or it’s just his anxiety. She points out a light grey cropped shirt. “This style is very popular these days.” She says as she holds it up to Taemin. “I think the cut would fit your body type, and the color suits you. We have a set as well that goes along.” He takes the shirt, holding it up and looking at it. She’s right, it probably would suit him. “No, I think I’ll just take the shirt. Thank you a lot for your help.” She bows before turning around to go hassle some other customer with the same promotions.
He’s staring at the shirt for probably around 10 minutes before he finally works up the courage to go actually buy it. The cashier gives him a rose-scented perfume as well, saying it was a special deal since he purchased from the brand, something, he was too scared to fully be in the conversation.
When he gets home, he tries on the shirt and sprays the perfume. And then stares at himself. For way too long.
Along with the length of his hair, he looks.. Well, like a girl.
For the first time in his life, he sees a woman in the mirror, and the lump in his throat isn’t out of disgust.
+1
The members are all over Taemin’s house, celebrating her finally getting discharged from the military. She’s had years to do really nothing but..think. About herself. About transitioning.
She doesn’t have the courage to have a real formal talk with them about how she’s feeling, so she just blurts it out. “I feel like a woman.”
Jinki snorts, “Why? Your hair isn't even grown out yet. Mines longer.”
“No. No, I, I meant, like, I want, I want you all to treat.. me. As a woman. I want to be a woman. That’s what I was trying to say.”
None of them answer. Okay. That’s not what she wanted. At all.
Kibum’s the first one to talk, running his hand through her hair. “Taemin-ah, or, did you choose a name? Are you fine with that name?”
She shrugs.
“You kind of said that out of nowhere.” He laughs, “I don’t mind. I love you. I had my suspicions, anyway. For, like, a decade.”
Minho nods at that. “Honestly, me too. But, I also love you, and I– we’ll do anything to support you.”
“Please, I didn’t want this to be that serious, you don’t need to make it so emotional, uh,” She looks up to think for a second, “Do I seriously need to call you oppa?” That makes Jinki laugh along with Minho, before Jinki says, “No, well, if you want to, but, whatever you want to call us is fine.”
“Okay. Good. I can’t take calling you guys oppa seriously.”
They just settle back into the couch together to watch whatever shitty drama was on. Like Taemin didn’t just come out. She’s happy. She wouldn’t really want it any other way.