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abnb_ficship/s: Kim Kibum | Key/Lee Taemin, Kim Jonghyun/Lee Taemin
workcount: 17,040
Taemin scrolled down the top torrents page, pausing only to click into his torrenting program and sigh heavily at the four seeders in comparison to the 700 odd leechers. Didn't these assholes realise Taemin was waiting for his downloads?
He took a break to click into YouTube and score a couple of singles he couldn't be bothered downloading entire CDs for. Picking around tracks was such a drag. He pulled the URLs into his usual YouTube to mp3 converter, scowling whenever the site hit him with a copyright problem. He clicked out of the Vevo page and back to the search results, where he selected a video with a gross olive green thumbnail and white comic sans lyrics. Audio only videos had such crappy quality. He hovered over the URL and copied it anyway. What could you do?
His phone started ringing from its usual spot jammed between the side of the laptop and his motley collections of cups and glasses from the last three days. Taemin flipped the wallet cover open and poked at the screen.
"Yah," he said in the direction of the speaker. One of his torrents was finishing up. He cut off the seeding and deleted the iso immediately.
"Hello, is that Taemin? I'm calling about your roommate ad on the internet."
Taemin nodded absently at the phone, pulling up the tab with the advertisement he'd placed the night before so that he could remember what he'd lied about.
"Hello!?" The voice sounded kind of impatient.
"This is Taemin," he said. "Did you want to come see the room?"
"I'll just take it now, if it's all the same to you."
Taemin blinked.
Surely his copywriting hadn't been that compelling. "Could you...tell me about yourself first?" He said, the words feeling alien in his mouth. They sounded like something his mother would tell him to say.
"My name is Kibum, you can call me Key," the voice said. "I'm 24, work in sales, talk on the phone a lot, and I want to rent the room in your apartment. I'll pay for four weeks rent in advance, cash."
Taemin blinked again.
His download had finished much earlier than he'd expected. He'd expected to be waiting around until at least 4am for that one. He stopped the torrent and rearranged his new files nicely. He suddenly felt uncharacteristically sleepy. Maybe it was because of how wired this Key guy sounded.
"Can you deposit it into my bank account instead?" Taemin said after a moment of contemplation that left him positive that he wanted to sleep ASAP. "I do most everything online, so..."
"No problem," Key said, his voice slightly more muffled than it had sounded before. There were sounds in the background, air rushing and people's distant voices. It sounded like he was walking around the block or something.
"Cool, I'll email you my bank account number," Taemin yawned, closing tabs rapidly.
"Just text it," Key countered. "Whenever is fine."
There was the rushing sound of a bus or a train passing him by. Taemin made a face at the crackling it inflicted on his speakers.
"Is Thursday morning alright for moving in?" Key asked.
Taemin glanced over at the laundry he'd piled up in the spare room, and the unread textbooks spilling across the door way. He should probably have vacuumed a couple of weeks back. "Yeah, sounds good."
"Thanks. See you then, kid."
The call disconnected.
Taemin rolled his eyes and shut the lid of his laptop. He grabbed his phone and hitched his blanket around him. There was just enough time for a nap before he had to think about rousing himself for an 8 o'clock class he couldn't afford to skip.
---
Key moved in Thursday morning, as good as his word.
Taemin had almost been ready for him. He hadn't vacuumed, showered, or removed the 20 centimetre thick layer of laundry from the spare room, but he had moved his textbooks out of the doorway. Well - he'd kicked them aside as he lead Key through the apartment.
Key hadn't batted an eye. Instead he dumped his expensive looking leather doctor's bag in a glaring violet shade onto the bare mattress and joined Taemin in methodically kicking the laundry into the living room.
It was almost fun, Taemin thought, giving the three pairs of jeans he'd thought he had thrown out a year ago some serious air. Key was more economic with his laundry removal. He used more of a sweeping foot motion to gather and slide entire piles of tshirts straight out the door.
Possibly it had something to do with how ridiculously tight Key's jeans were. They were Levis with the cuffs rolled almost above the ankle. They were possibly the stupidest pants Taemin had ever seen in his life. It sucked that Key still managed to look awesome. It probably had a lot to with the cool scar he had on his eyebrow, and the way his lips curled up around the edges, like a cat. Cool people sucked.
“Cool,” Taemin said once all the clothes were jammed around the base of the living room sofa. His work here was done.
He pushed his hands into his sweatpants pockets and went over to boot up his Playstation 3. It froze when it booted, like it always had, ever since Taemin had it chipped on the cheap, but it was fine the second time through.
He scrolled through the game files on the USB plugged into it, eventually settling on Mortal Kombat X. He still had a few more gory battle finishing scenes to work through.
He selected Liu Kang and went hard for a couple of rounds, grimacing in fascination at the gross, over the top death moves the game makers had animated in high definition.
He heard Key walking back and forth through the room behind him, moving boxes, but he ignored him. He had his own keys now, and there was a doorstop beside the entrance. Key seemed like he could handle it.
“Got any more storage space?” Kibum said after an hour or so. Taemin hit pause and twisted around in his cross legged position. Key was leaning on the back of the couch, both arms bared to the elbow, a sheen of sweat barely visible across his collarbones.
Taemin shrugged, blinking up at him. Wasn't it enough that he had the biggest room?
“Just put your stuff anywhere. I won't notice.”
Key rolled his eyes, but he nodded and went back out the door.
Taemin heard him come back in a few minutes later with more boxes, which he got to work on rearranging in the corner of the living room beside the kitchen. The rasp of cardboard on cardboard and the rustling of plastic from inside the boxes was kind of annoying.
Taemin solved the problem by turning up the volume on the television.
Key jumped as Taemin triumphantly stabbed the hell out of Johnny Cage, and the game blasted at him triumphantly, “FINISH HIM.”
Taemin grinned as the avatar got eviscerated.
“You're such a little freak,” Key said, staring past Taemin at the television, where Johnny Cage was spurting fountains of blood.
“Yeah?” Taemin said, not really hearing him. He wanted to play as Cassie Cage, now. He bet she had some really cool kill moves.
"Yeah. It's kinda cute, in a bratty way.”
“Cool,” Taemin said automatically. Just three gunshots in and Cassie was kicking ass.
---
“Oh, cool,” Jinki said, leaning hard to the right in an attempt to keep his cherry red RX8 on the overpass. He failed, and groaned as the game threw him back to the last checkpoint. He sighed and hit the road again. “You guys must be splitting the rent 50/50 then. That should help with your credit, right?”
Taemin snorted and stood up without pulling his eyes away from the tv screen. He shuffled just enough to get a good view of the kitchen and bedroom doors. He nodded at the empty rooms and crabwalked back to his seat on the sofa, where he jostled Jinki playfully in between taking out lampposts.
“I'm charging him $250, all inclusive,” he grinned, flicking his eyes over to Jinki's face just momentarily to check his reaction.
Jinki took his car straight across an industrial park, demolishing the bumper beyond repair. “You're a monster!” he shouted in a whisper, eyes darting between the tv screen, Taemin's smile, and Kibum's open bedroom door.
“Relax, he's out,” Taemin shrugged. He reached for his mug of soda. “Besides, he's got the biggest room. Plus, I think he's actually mega rich or something. Yesterday, this short blonde guy came over and Key gave him, like, a Prada rucksack or some shit. Just gave it to him and shut the door. Didn't even make him suck him off or anything.”
Jinki raised his eyes at Taemin with some concern, and hummed uncertainly. “I don't know about that, Taemin, but you know, that's a lot of money. And a rich guy could get a way nicer room for the same money in a better part of town.” He took the mug when Taemin offered it though, and swallowed a good three mouthfuls of Sprite before handing it back nearly empty.
“Are you fucking serious,” Taemin said, staring into his cup.
“What?” Jinki murmured, eyes locked on his RX8, which was finally on route to make it across the jump into the secluded park, where he could pick up his next Need for Speed mission.
“You seriously just drank my last cup of Sprite.”
“I'm sorry?” Jinki said, biting his lip as he built up speed.
Taemin frowned at him, waited, and then shoved him hard.
“Noo!” Jinki wailed, the controller flying out of his hands, and his car similarly hurtling into the virtual river that ran beneath the freeway gap he'd been trying to jump. “You're an asshole, I can't believe you did that! I'm older than you!”
Taemin shrugged and threw his own controller down onto the coffee table. “I'm going out for Sprite. Spend this time wisely.”
Jinki harrumphed, and started getting his RX8 lined up again. “Well, don't rush,” he yelled out as Taemin left, still in his sheepskin-lined, rubber soled slippers. Such an asshole.
There was a special on the Coca Cola line at the store, so Taemin ended up buying enough to justify the cashier letting him keep the box they were packed into. Unfortunately, that meant he had to carry a 9 kilogram box of Sprite and Vanilla Coke up seven flights of stairs.
He swore as soon as he managed to get the door to the apartment open, and dumped the box on the threshold so he could start sliding it into the kitchen instead.
Something was different, though. Taemin looked around. His shit was everywhere, like always. Jinki was playing Need for Speed as always. What was different was that Jinki wasn't sucking at it, like always.
Taemin narrowed his eyes and rounded the couch, Sprite bottle in hand.
Key was playing as Jinki's car, whilst Jinki fist pumped and clapped. He'd cleared the bridge for him – not only that, he'd cleared the mission, and he was now actually ahead of Taemin's game, too.
“Cheater!” Taemin shouted in disgust. “You're cheating, Jinki! Delete your game! Start again! Not okay!”
Jinki leapt about a foot into the air in surprise at getting caught out. “I can explain,” he said reflexively, pulling the controller out of Key's hands. “He was – he just did the bridge part I was stuck on. We weren't cheating!”
“He was totally cheating,” Key said. “He even paid me.” He held up one of Taemin's packets of swing cut chips.
“Oh, and now you're stealing?” Taemin said, snatching the snack out of Key's grasp.
“I didn't mean it, Taemin,” Jinki begged, dodging Taemin's slaps. “Key was just being helpful, I swear.”
Key got up, practically screaming with laughter, and backed away from the massacre, hands raised.
“Oh, you'll pay,” Taemin told Jinki, lifting his hand again. “See if I get you another trot album ever again.”
He didn't notice Key taking the other bag of chips he'd accepted from Jinki with him back to his room.
---
"Motherfucker," Taemin hissed at his laptop screen, forcing it back a little, as if altering his view of the saturation would make the digital music web store any more likely to accept his purchase request. Not able to sell to buyers in his region, his ass.
The one goddamn time he'd been willing to shell out for a legal download, and they wanted to block him? Fuck them. They'd be sorry.
Taemin clicked over to his usual torrent sites, fueled by vindicated rage. He pasted in the album name and hit the search button. No hits. He patiently re-keyed the title to something an uploader would use in their keywording. Nothing? Eye bulging slightly, Taemin flicked open a couple more tabs, including the forum he rarely used, except in emergencies for harvesting really old foreign language TV shows.
Twenty minutes and a lot of furious typing of multiple keywords later, Taemin sat back against the lumpy backrest on his desk chair. He couldn't believe it. It was nowhere to be found. It was all he'd ever fucking wanted, and he couldn't have it, even by legal means.
Taemin let out what the BBC had led him to believe was the screeching moan of a Styracosaurus, mourning the loss of its herd. He kicked angrily at the wall behind his desk with his socked feet, almost hoping to dislodge the multiple cords looped incesteously around each other back there.
He was just about to rage quit the entire fucking internet, when Key came out of his room.
Forehead furrowed, he planted himself directly beside the computer desk, arms crossed over his forest green velvet blazer, one long, black socked foot tapping beside it's bare mate. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" Key demanded, shaking what Taemin supposed was the other sock at him.
"I'm trying to get through my pre-party relaxation process in there, and you're howling like a child and beating the shit out of my wall. I can't even fucking see my eyes in the mirror, it's vibrating so fast."
Taemin almost smiled at that, because, now he was looking at his face, he could see that Key had managed to streak liquid eyeliner all the way to the outside point of his jagged eyebrow.
“Stop grinning at me like an idiot, and explain yourself,” Key snapped, licking his finger and rubbing furiously at his eyelid.
“Ugh,” Taemin said, reminded of his failure. He slumped over his keyboard. “I can't find a download for this stupid sound effects CD. I even tried to buy it legal, but they just cheated me out of 10 minutes I could have spent signing up literally anywhere else for better service.”
“What's it called?” Key said, back turned to Taemin now. He was crouching and squinting at the black television screen, trying to see whether he'd gotten all the liquid liner off, yet.
“...”
“Well?” Key said impatiently.
“...Jurassic Dinosaur Non-Stop Megamix,” Taemin told him, reluctantly.
When Key didn't say anything in reply, he looked over to meet his eye, only to find that Key was still crouching in front of the television, except now he was shaking with suppressed laughter, his head ducked down into his chest.
“Shut up!” Taemin yelled, snatching up a pen and a couple of the worn out rubber bands he used to tie his hair up during LoL sessions. He hurled them at Key's broad back. “Quit it, you dickbag.”
Key collapsed onto his butt, and Taemin could hear him still chuckling, even after he'd closed all his tabs in irritation.
He slammed his laptop lid shut and grabbed his blanket, ready to commence a sulking session in his bedroom that might turn into a nap if he was lucky.
“Taemin, wait,” Key said, sobering up and leaping to his feet. He grasped Taemin by the arm, and patted it. “Chill, it's just a CD. You'll find it later.”
“You don't understand,” Taemin whined. “It's nowhere, nowhere on the entire internet. I looked.”
“Yeah, I'm sure you did, you little freak,” Key said, almost fondly. “Come on, I'm going out, and I could use someth – someone on my arm.”
Taemin frowned. “Where?”
Key shrugged. “Clubs. Mostly good ones. I've got a couple of open tab invites on my schedule tonight.” He patted his hair, then frowned when he found an unruly clump trying to curl the wrong way. “You put on something that's not sweatpants, while I fix this bullshit.”
Taemin sighed, looking back at the laptop that had betrayed him. He dropped his blanket on the ground, and followed Key into his room, instead.
Key was in front of his wall mirror, hands in the air armed with a brush and a hair straightener. His eyes darted over, but once he saw it was Taemin, he just gave him an expectant look and turned back to his reflection.
“Yes, the drinks are free,” he said, wincing as he held the straightener close to his scalp, determined to iron the entire cuticle from root to tip. “And yes, I'll pay your cover charge.”
Taemin hummed in approval. “Cool. I don't have any pants that aren't grey polyester or fleecey, though.”
Key just looked at him.
Taemin shrugged, smiling slightly.
“How is it,” Key said, slowly, as he turned off his straightener and laid it down on its heat resistant mat. “...that there can be so many things wrong with one skinny little brat?”
“I take a 61cm waist,” Taemin said helpfully, as Key dragged open his wardrobe door with a glare.
“Get over here.”
---
"Do I really have to carry this?" Taemin complained. He tucked the clutch under his arm for the nth time in order to tug up his trailing knee highs.
None of Key's pants had fit him quite right, so Key had pursed his lips and wrenched open a tissue filled box of what Taemin could only guess were his most prized shorts.
"No way," Taemin had said, reflexively stepping away from the closet. "I don't wear fancy weirdo clothes like you."
Regardless, now he was wearing brocade navy blue shorts, black knee highs with white stripes at the joint of his calf and knee, a white dress shirt that could easily double as a dress, and some kind of weird branded lycra sports sweater like the geometric patterned ones that most of the kids in Taemin's dance studio would wear in between routines.
The shoes Key had picked out were alright at least. High tops with discreet black sequins and electric blue threads. Taemin might have considered keeping them, had Key not had to stuff the toes with wadded up paper towels to get them to stay on his feet.
It hadn't ended once he was dressed, somehow. Key had practically poked his eyes out with some kind of black crayon, and thank god that hadn't taken long.
The clutch though, was on a whole new fucking level. It was approximately 500% silver holographic plastic, and anywhere it didn't shimmer, it was all gleaming silver studs, pointless loops, and chiming zipper pulls. And apparently, it was non-negotiable.
"This bag is your child now," Key told him, laying it in his unwilling arms.
He paused momentarily and looked Taemin over, expressions torn between smugness and concern. "Well, actually, everything you are wearing is my child, but especially this bag." He caressed it gently a couple of times before he could manage to drag himself away from it
"If you scuff it, I'll delete literally every file I can find in this apartment," Key threatened him, only stepping away when Taemin nodded in understanding.
"It's a genuine Stella McCartney," Key said, as if that explained everything. "And I want you to make sure that everyone knows it, alright?"
"Um," Taemin said, nonplussed.
And that was when they'd left, a chime alerting them to the fact that Key's Uber taxi was waiting outside.
---
"Seriously," Taemin whined again. This was the fifth club, and whilst the music was pretty great, and everything about 'night life' really did look like it did on tv, Key wouldn't let him have more than a sip of the completely free drinks he kept getting offered at every bar.
Key kept meeting up with all these weird friends and then only talking about dumb fashion with them, and worst of all, Taemin still had to carry the world's stupidest clutch bag.
The music though, some of the music was great.
“This is my jam,” Taemin said under his breath, staring upward as if the music had descended from on high.
“What?” Key said, preoccupied with scoping out the VIP tables.
“I gotta go,” Taemin said, pushing his glass into Key's hand, jolting half of the liquor onto the sticky concrete floor. “Bangtan needs me.”
Taemin slipped between the people already grinding on each other to the sharp bursts of synthesised saxophone. Finally, he found a clear enough space between groups of dancing kids, closed his eyes and settled into neutral stance just in time to start popping his chest in time to the hard beat of the bridge.
The sound was almost perfect – the club played its music loudly enough for Taemin to forget that there were people in his periphery. Thankfully, the DJ knew better than to mess with the song too much, and what they had changed, Taemin found it easy to freestyle.
When he opened his eyes during a rap segment he knew he had to watch his hand movements during, he was pleased to find that the dancers around him had backed up to give him room.
It was a good thing, seeing as Taemin still had Key's stupid bag clutched in one hand, completely impairing the intricate movements he had choreographed for the rap verses. Instead, he just had to make do with one handed finger gestures, and the pretense that the bag was a purposeful prop.
The slow build bridge near the end of the song gave him the perfect opportunity to put the soles of Key's shoes to the test during his grind downwards that put his his back nearly parallel to the floor. Somehow the grip held, even with the additional freestyle hip thrusts. Taemin was pleased to complete the upwards movement without landing painfully on his ass as he had so many times in the studio thanks to his shitty, fake, smooth soled Converse shoes.
The DJ flipped over onto some techno song that was way too slow for Taemin. His work done, Taemin shrugged the collar of Key's oversized shirt back into place, and left the dance floor. He was thirstier than ever, thanks to the heat of so many bodies pressing in on him.
Key could probably get him another drink, he thought, spotting him a lot closer than he remembered leaving him five minutes before.
“W-What the fuck was that?” Key said, having to visibly swallow before he could get the words out.
“Bangtan.” Taemin said. Obviously.
"Okay, whatever that means aside," Key said, still incredulous, "since when can you dance?”
Taemin looked at Key scornfully, taking his drink out of his hands for a second to sip it.
“I have questions,” Key warned him, taking the glass back, much to Taemin's irritation.
He seemed to spot someone behind Taemin, and straightened up immediately, reaching out to flick at Taemin's dark mop of hair. "This guy," Key said, jerking his head in the direction of the dance floor and repositioning the bag Taemin had crushed against his ribs. "He's the one."
The guy turned out to be the short one with white hair whom Taemin faintly remembered visiting their door weeks ago. Jonghyun, Key had called him.
“Hi...” Jonghyun said, reaching his hand out even before he was in touching distance.
Taemin stared at it blankly for a moment until Key nudged him with the sharp toe of his pointy boots.
“Hey,” Taemin said, flatly. He let Jonghyun take his hand and shake it for him.
“I like your bag,” Jonghyun said, “and your dancing.”
“He's the full package,” Key interjected. He was playing with his straw in his mouth in between words, but even Taemin could tell that he was laser focused on Jonghyun.
“Wow,” Jonghyun laughed, eyes darting between them.
“Go dance with him,” Key told Taemin.
Taemin made a face. “I only dance to BTS.”
Key glared at him. “Take your bag.”
Taemin sighed and stalked towards the crowds of people swaying and gyrating. The DJ was blasting one of the songs his dance class was nuts about, so he had some moves, at least.
Jonghyun followed him closely into the crowd, overjoyed and chattering, despite Taemin not being able to make out a word he said over the pulsing bass.
A few minutes in, the heat started to set in, and Taemin relaxed into the sway of the club, rolling his body with the rest of the room. Jonghyun was getting pretty into it too, moving from dancing directly in front of him to behind him. By the time the first remix was fading into another up-tempo hit, Jonghyun had taken the initiative and shamelessly plastered himself against Taemin's back.
Jonghyun had hooked his chin over Taemin's shoulder at some point, and though it impeded some of the dance moves he might had liked to practice, the warm breath that gusted over his collarbone was nice. As was the way Jonghyun slipped his arms around Taemin's waist to keep them moving in time during the moments when the entire club somehow knew to bodyroll.
Taemin let his eyes slip shut, and his body move on autopilot, rolling back against Jonghyun incessantly when the beat got really sick.
"Hands off the goods," Key said, out of nowhere and somehow extremely loud thanks to his uncanny ability to shout directly into Taemin's ear.
Jonghyun leapt a little in surprise, but it took Key actually laying hands on him to effectively peel him away from Taemin's back.
Jonghyun stepped back quickly, hands automatically thrown up in innocence. "Sorry, uh-"
Key wrapped a loose arm around Taemin's back. “He's done dancing.”
Taemin frowned, spotting the twenty shotglass row of complimentary jäger that the barkeep was setting up at the bar. He yanked a little at Key, but his housemate wouldn't let him budge.
"If I let you go off again, you'll never get home," Key said, the sharpness in his tone just audible over the drums and bass.
Jonghyun was still hanging around, trying to adjust the front of his pants discreetly.
"We're going," Key yelled to him.
Jonghyun's brow creased in confusion until Key mimed walking and pointed at the door. Then he nodded fast. "Can I - I'll come by tomorrow to get the - you know," he shouted back, flicking his fingers speculatively at the sparkly clutch that Taemin still had jammed under his arm.
Key nodded, smile thin but satisfied. "Bye."
They walked home, rather than calling a cab. Taemin wandered from streetlamp to streetlamp, absentmindedly stepping into dance choreography every couple of blocks. He almost forgot that Key was accompanying him until they got back to the building, and he found Key pulling the clutch he was miraculously still hanging on to from his grip.
“I can carry it,” Taemin complained, shaking his bag-cramped hand out as Key swiped them in and unlocked the door.
“Hush,” Key crooned, tossing his keys into the dish beside the door, and whirling his cape coat off of his shoulders in the same motion.
He put both their bags down on the nearest surface and prodded Taemin further into the apartment with a firm forefinger.
Taemin let the momentum carry him all the way to the back of the sofa, which he then let himself flop over.
“Ow,” he muttered, digging his playstation controller out of the small of his back. He let his eyes shut against the harsh overhead light and sucked in a breath. The glass and a half of alcohol lingering in his system had the room gently spinning around him, even with his eyes shut. It felt nice.
A gentle weight settled on top of him and began pulling at his sweater sleeves. Taemin opened his eyes reluctantly.
“You can't sleep in that sweater,” Key told him. “It's far too expensive.”
Taemin huffed. “I'm not sleepy,” he said. “Just...spinny.”
Key grinned and finally freed the sweater, stretching over to the nearby armchair to lay it out neatly. “So you're not sleepy...but are you tipsy?”
“Barely,” Taemin sniffed. “You really think you can barely give me a drink and a half and then expect to get me sloppy and wild with you?”
“Good,” Key said, sitting up straight on Taemin's knees, where it hurt. “Then I won't feel bad about this.”
Taemin paused part way through a motion intended to result in hurling Key off of his kneecaps. “What?”
Key seized him by the collar of his white shirt and pressed their lips together.
“Ohh,” Taemin said, blinking in realisation, when Key let him back down into the couch cushions. “That. That's cool, I guess.”
Key threw his head back and laughed, hands still fisted in Taemin's shirt. “You're such a little brat.”
Taemin grinned up at him until he stopped cackling. Then he grabbed a hold of Key's forearms and dragged him back down to make out, lips lazy and slick against Key's still smiling mouth.
“Let's not do this on the couch,” Key said, pulling back with a pant. He extricated his hand from its comfy spot jammed between the couch cushions and Taemin's backside, and pulled Taemin upright with the hand he had had tangled in the knotty top layer of Taemin's hair for the last ten minutes.
Taemin made a face, eyes still lazily closed, thanks to Key's slow and methodical kissing technique. “Why not?” he said, rolling his neck as much as he could whilst still in Key's grasp.
“Because, people sit on this couch,” Key said slowly. “Like, your friends?”
Taemin shrugged.
“...And me in my Hugo Boss suit pants,” Key added as an afterthought. “Alright. Get up, we're moving.”
Taemin went all floppy, sticking out his lip in Key's general direction. “Where? Carry me.”
“Oh my god,” Key said. “Get up. We're going to my room. At least I know I have lube, for god's sake.”
Taemin thought very seriously about seeing whether Key would actually carry him, but he decided against pushing his luck. It had been weeks since he'd last hooked up with anyone, let alone someone who wasn't one of his mouth-breathing, over-zealous, Broadway obsessed dance classmates.
He got up from the couch like Key had suggested, but to seal the deal he started shedding clothing like layers of skin. Around the back of the couch the white shirt fell into the still growing laundry fortress. Beside his desk, he struggled out of Key's weird brocade shorts.
“I swear, if you didn't make complete obnoxiousness ridiculously attractive, I would throttle you with your own headphones right now,” Key said as he trailed along behind Taemin, picking up the designer detritus.
Taemin just smiled, eyes still half lidded, and spun as he picked at the top of one of the knee high socks that were somehow still almost at knee height. Had Key glued them on or something?
Somehow, he managed to wander them into Key's bedroom and all the way over to the bed, which he flopped down on immediately. He laid on his back, spread eagled, and beckoned at Key. “More kiss,” he demanded eloquently.
Key rolled his eyes, but he was also shedding his pants and socks, so it couldn't be too bad an indication. He pulled his shirt over his head last, not even bothering to unbutton it all the way.
Taemin hummed with anticipation, wriggling a little in Key's soft duvet. It was much softer than his old quilt. If his dick hadn't been so hard right now, he might have considered a nap. Instead, he lifted his left leg to his chin, and picked at the edge of the sock again. It was well anchored. It had to be some kind of extreme elastic, or the world’s strongest garter.
“Leave it on,” Key said, suddenly closer than he'd been in a little while. He ran a hand up the bare skin of Taemin's raised thigh. “They're cute on you.”
Taemin raised his eyebrows at Key and wiggled them suggestively.
Key met him with an equally impressive eyebrow manoeuvre, and pulled playfully at Taemin's underwear.
Taemin obediently slipped out of them, and laid back to watch as Key did the same. He wasn't disappointed by the resulting view, to his satisfaction. Not too small, not too scary. Key looked him over in return, folding his underwear slowly and dropping them to the floor. Taemin just spread his legs back out again, and waited, eyes half lidded.
“Very nice,” Key said, bending to rummage through the drawer beside the bed. He threw a bottle and a couple of condoms on to the bed. Then he knelt on the edge and just stared for a couple of moments.
Taemin felt around in the blankets for Key, impatient for body warmth. Key chuckled and gave him his hand, crawling between Taemin's thighs even as he popped the cap off the small pump bottle of lubricant.
“Eager?” Key smiled, sliding cool slick fingers up Taemin's inner thighs, making him jump.
Taemin frowned and pulled at the hand he'd been given. “Kiss me,” he said.
Key went easily, shifting closer on his knees to hover over Taemin's chest. He took his dry hand back and used it to prop himself up as he pressed his lips softly over Taemin's chest. When Taemin laughed, Key looked up with a swift grin before redoubling his efforts over Taemin's collarbones and then right up his neck to the sharp jut of his jaw.
Taemin narrowed his eyes and turned his face to claim Key's lips of his own volition.
“Hm,” Key murmured in pleased surprise between their pressed lips, but he parted his lips without complaint and let Taemin nip at him in between sucks at his tongue.
Taemin grasped at his upper arms too, trying to drag him down and press their skin together, but Key remained firmly planted on his one hand, the other still sliding gently along the soft skin of Taemin's inner thigh in teasing strokes.
He let Taemin keep his mouth a little longer, but the next time Taemin arched upward, trying to press against Key's chest, he shook his head and pulled back. Taemin huffed, but changed tack quickly and began to press his thighs together around Key's hand and slowly push his own palm over his dick in firm slides.
Key laughed at that. “That's counter-productive,” he pointed out, sliding back down the bed. He spread Taemin's thighs again and settled between them confidently.
“Then hurry up,” Taemin complained, picking at the tops of his socks again until Key stilled his hands, gathering them, and placing out to his sides pointedly.
“Best hold on to something,” Key said, picking up the lubricant again. Taemin screwed up handfuls of the blankets and gave Key a firm nod, shuddering at the sensation of cool lube trickling between his legs.
Key ducked down and pressed his lips against Taemin's shivering thighs, tracing his way up to the crease between his legs and hips, until he finally took Taemin into his mouth, tongue and lips as slow and teasing as the movement of his fingers were against his hole.
Key spread the lube liberally up his inner thighs to the cleft of Taemin's ass, fingertips circling over the sensitive skin over and over, slowly brushing softly over tensed balls, and smoothing his already spread cheeks wider.
His lips dragged at Taemin's dick, tongue coaxing him harder every time the thick press of Key's index finger inside him had him flagging. When he added the second finger, alongside another squeeze of lube, he sucked hard at the head and Taemin yelped, dick jumping in confusion at the conflicting sensations of both pleasure and having too much inside of him.
Key glanced up at him, smirk evident on his face despite his mouth being very preoccupied. Taemin frowned down at him, only to have his face morph into a squint-eyed grimace as Key curled his tongue wickedly and sped up the pace of his long, slick fingers.
He lost track of exactly how many fingers were where or what on earth Key was doing to the underside of his dick when Key hit him just right with the pads of his fingers. He gasped and pushed back automatically, and finally Key pulled away, taking his wet warmth and his thick fingers with him.
“Come here,” Key said. He wiped his hands on a corner of the sheets, and then pulled at Taemin, who was more than willing to acquiesce. Key got a good grip on him under his knee caps, and he dragged him halfway down the bed, but he didn't turn him, to Taemin's surprise.
Key pulled him close enough that his ass was in Key's lap, his legs instinctively hooking over his hips and around his back. There was a moment of struggle as Taemin tried to find a comfortable position, tried to get his knees right around Key's hips, and suddenly Key was pressing into him, hot, and blunt, and slippery.
Taemin went rigid, eyes wide, a breath held static in his throat.
“Alright?” Key breathed against the skin of Taemin's thigh. He had his forehead pressed against Taemin's kneecap, and his face was set so tightly that Taemin could make out the definition of his sharp jawline from chin to ear. He certainly didn't look alright.
“Yes,” Taemin said vaguely. It felt weird. Too much. It always did like this. He liked it though, knowing that would be so good soon. Key felt good, was good. Slow, but steady and confident in his movements.
“Oh my god,” Taemin whined involuntarily, eyes shutting tightly for a moment before he forced them open again. He couldn't bear to miss out on what they looked like together: Taemin spread wider than he'd ever thought he was capable of; Key leaning over him, between his thighs, inside him, that curled smirk still on his lips despite the sweat evident on his temples.
The pressure was incredible. It felt like Key hadn't spent the last fifteen minutes on opening him up.
“Good?” Key asked. His thumb rubbed a slow circle on the inside of Taemin's thigh.
Taemin nodded, lips pressed together hard. He felt himself tense and flutter around Key. He sucked in a audible breath, and Key squeezed the flesh of his thigh in response. His hand almost encompassed half of the circumference of his thigh.
Taemin melted a little and his body gave, letting Key slide right in.
“Look,” Key said smugly, that big hand searching for a better grip on his thigh. “Look at that.”
Taemin choked back an appreciative moan, and glared up at Key instead, resenting those stupid curled lips. “I know,” he said, all gratuitous annoyance, jerking his head at where they were pressed together so intimately. Of course he knew, it wasn't like it was someone else's asshole or something.
“Stay like that,” Key said, soothingly. Taemin narrowed his eyes momentarily, but his head was soon flopping back into his pillows as Key pressed into him over and over again. He ran his hand over Taemin's hip and stomach before pressing it over his half hard dick, stroking it up against his stomach until the smooth skin around his bellybutton was slick and sticky with precome.
Taemin strained against the touch, begging for a squeeze of his hand.
Key didn't disappoint him, closing his hand firmly around his dick and stroking the whole length until he was gasping open mouthed, head rolled so far back in the jumble of bedclothes that he could barely even see Key.
Key gave him a final firm stroke, but then abandoned him utterly in favour of pushing his knees to his chest, practically folding him in half. Key then pressed one hand to Taemin’s shoulder, curling his thumb into his collarbone firmly, and closed the other hand around a sock clad shin, effectively pinning him into place like a captured butterfly. Taemin couldn’t do more than flutter weakly against his hold. Taemin would be lying if he said it didn't make his dick twitch just as hard as the hand job.
The pace was doubled somehow. Taemin wasn't sure if it was the way Key had him tightly folded in on himself, or just that the immobilisation was turning them both on, but either way, Key started to feel ridiculously good inside him.
Key's fingers tightened almost painfully around his shoulder just before he came, and Taemin felt his hips jerk forward another three, four times as he finished inside of him.
He watched his broad shoulders curl inwards, the tendons and veins in his forearms tense into high relief. Meanwhile, incongruously, his eyes slipped closed in pleasure, and his lips relaxed and parted slightly.
Taemin smiled, and kicked gently at Key's chest to pull him out of his reverie. “My turn,” he reminded him.
Key gave him a strained grin, blinking sweat out of his eyes. “Is it?” he said in fake wonder, pulling carefully out of Taemin, and disposing of the condom.
“Yeah,” Taemin said. He stretched his legs out slowly to avoid cramp. “Now.”
Key raised an eyebrow. “Now?” he repeated, leaning down to drag Taemin back into his lap properly. He slicked his hand up again and wrapped the other arm securely around the small of Taemin's back.
“Yeah,” Taemin confirmed, voice breaking a little, his socked feet sliding ineffectually around Key's hips as Key took hold of his dick and started up the quick relentless jerking pace he'd abandoned earlier.
Taemin had never figured out exactly what he looked like when he came, but Key certainly seemed to like it. Coming always made him blink incessantly, the same way he did when he was nervous. He missed a lot with his eyes shut, but whenever they opened, Key’s face was the same, eyes fixed intently on Taemin’s face instead of the hand moving deftly between them.
“Cute,” was all Key said afterwards, and then Taemin was asleep.
---
Taemin woke up only because there was too much light in the room. He let one eye open in a squint to try to figure out what exactly was going on. He always kept his curtains closed. It saved time.
It was the pillows that tipped him off, in the end. There were so many of them, one lumpy in the small of his back, another inexplicably tucked under his arm, and for some reason none at all under his head.
There was, however, something else under his head, and it was firm, warm, and not particularly comfortable. Key's upper arm, he realised, rolling his head back and forth experimentally. Taemin pawed at the sweaty sheet that had been wound around his middle, eventually freeing himself enough to roll right off of the bed. He crouched there for a moment in the shade, rubbing at his face, and then resigned himself to standing upright and walking like a human.
His feet slipped on the floor in the living room, thanks to still having Key's stupid socks on. What a weirdo anyway, asking him to keep them on the night before. He was probably some kind of sock pervert.
He lifted the lid on his laptop and poked at the trackpad to wake it up. He considered sitting down but then figured that even his standards called for a shower before he did anything like that.
The screen blinked to life and Taemin clicked into his torrent program to check the progress on his rare series. Then he did the social media rounds, scoffing at some of the comment replies that had appeared overnight. Lastly, he clicked open his three main email accounts and flicked through the filters.
There were a couple of emails, but mostly it was spam and boring updates. There was some other email with a blank sender field, and Taemin mentally tagged it as likely to be spam and left it for last. All the other messages dealt with, Taemin shifted uncomfortably in his lean against the desk, and clicked through the spam quickly.
He paused, cursor hovering over the delete button, on the last of the spam.
FROM: null
TO: [email protected]
Subj: heard you liked dinosaursdont worry its clean
https://www.tempfiles8997222222x447.co.ph/244769fmd667fnn777_dino.htm
Taemin stared.
He opened another tab and scanned the url in a couple of checkers. It seemed to check out. He hesitated, and then finally opened the page, shrugging.
There was nothing on the page except a discreet download button. He clicked it and a file started downloading automatically. It took about three minutes, and there it was sitting in Taemin's download folder. He scanned it with a couple of antivirus software packages, the discomfort of having to stand in his living room practically naked for the last thirty minutes almost forgotten, he was so engrossed.
It was fine, Taemin had to concede, finally. He stretched his back out swiftly, and hit the unzip command. The folder popped into existence, and the track names flitted across the dialog box.
Hatching Baby Raptors, T-Rex Incident, Dinosaur Footsteps, Corythosaurus (In the style of Jurassic Park), Pachyrhinosaurus, Homalocephale Attack, Herds Gather, Jurassic Dinosaur Non-Stop Mix.
Taemin couldn't believe his eyes. He clicked violently on the folder and selected a file at random to open. He yanked his headphones free of the jack and the sonorous wails of long dead reptiles filled the room. Taemin may or may not have trembled in awe.
“Yah,” Key called sleepily from his room. “Turn that down.”
Taemin turned around slowly, leaving the track running in his single minded determination to get answers from Key.
“Did you send me the album?” he demanded, crouching beside Key's curled form.
Key opened his eyes reluctantly, then sighed and flapped a hand when he saw that Taemin was still nude. “Maybe I did, maybe I didn't,” he said, closing his eyes again. He rolled over and lifted the sheets slightly in a not so subtle invitation. “Now shut up, or go back to sleep.”
A majestic dinosaur bellow echoed through the apartment, heralding the end of the track Taemin had been testing. Key groaned and pulled a pillow over his head.
---
Around noon, Key threw the sheet back and slapped Taemin on his bare ass. Taemin grumbled and grasped for the blankets.
“Do you want coffee?” Key asked, getting up and rummaging around in his drawers with an air of determination.
Taemin mumbled an affirmative and turned over into the pillow to block out the sounds of Key first opening and shutting cupboards in the kitchen and then running the shower. It seemed like he'd just shut his eyes for a moment when he found himself being shaken gently, and his hand being wrapped around a warm cup of coffee.
“Muuhr,” Taemin said in lieu of thanks. He sat up and sipped his cup. It was way too early for tastebuds, so it mostly just felt like hot, but he appreciated it.
Key clambered back onto the bed too, after pointedly removing all the stained blankets that offended him, and heaping them in the corner. Taemin was left decidedly more awake with only his sad, thin sheet wrapped around him like a cocoon, and Key's warmth at his back.
It was nice. He drained the cup and dropped it down the side of the bed for Key to collect later.
“How did you get this?” Taemin asked idly, leaning back to pluck at Key's eyebrow.
Key narrowed his eyes and smacked Taemin's hand away. “I split my head open on a stairwell.” he said, rubbing at the scar gingerly. “It was a long time ago.”
Taemin laughed. “Clumsy.”
Key shot him a look. “I never said I tripped.” He sat up and felt around for Taemin's pillows, stealing them all and propping them up behind him until he'd moulded himself a pillow throne. He settled against it, primly pulling the very edge of Taemin's sheet over his waist.
Taemin slithered over too, and flopped down in his lap, thick fringe blanketing half of his face like a shaggy dog. “Tell me the story then,” he said, expectantly.
“Well,” Key said. “It all started when I became a bootlegger.”
Taemin snorted, and wriggled against Key's chest.
Key slapped the back of his head gently. “Do you want to hear this story or not?”
“I'm a pirate, too,” Taemin said with a grin. “Digitally. It's 2015; everyone is.”
Key just pinched his cheek, long fingers sharp but teasing. “Fine. If that's what you call serious crime, sure.”
Taemin snorted in playful protest but Key's fingers were suddenly in his hair, untangling it in short yanks and strokes. His eyes slipped closed again, and any possibility of him listening to a story evaporated along with any thoughts he'd entertained of getting out of Key's bed that day.
---
It was blissfully dark the next time Taemin woke, and Key was gone. The bed was cold, and the blankets in the corner and the cup on the floor had disappeared. Key must have left for work.
Taemin stretched, abandoned his tangled sheet, and hit the shower, finally lucid enough to peel off the long socks from the night before. The night was young, and Taemin still hadn't finished watching Kill la Kill.
Six hours, the first half of Death Parade, two bags of swing cut chips, and the dregs of the coffee left in the pot later, Key let himself in.
“You're up,” he commented, slipping out of his shoes at the door.
“Mmhm,” Taemin said, still nodding along to Flyers by BRADIO.
“Not even listening to the dinosaurs, huh,” Key said, peering over his shoulder as he passed.
“Mm,” Taemin murmured noncommittally.
Key disappeared into the bathroom, returning with sheets, then walked around behind Taemin through the kitchen and living room for a while, shifting things around. Taemin turned the volume on the laptop up and ignored him.
Part way through episode seven, Taemin jumped. There were hands slipping down the back of his sweatpants. He pushed his headphones off of one ear and glanced back at Key, who had already washed off his makeup and changed into royal blue pajamas that smelt like lavender laundry powder this close to his face.
“Feel free to come to bed when you're done,” Key said, nodding at the laptop screen.
Taemin nodded and turned back to the show.
Around episode nine his eyes start to shut on their own. Taemin checked his torrents one last time, and set his headphones aside before hitting the bathroom and then trudging into his own room: the promise of darkness and warm familiar smelling blankets too compelling to resist.
---
“You slept with him,” Jinki repeated blankly.
Taemin had literally watched Key leave two hours earlier from his nest on the sofa in front of Mortal Kombat, but he got up and checked his room just in case. Clear.
“Yeah, we fucked,” Taemin said, picking up his controller again.
Jinki stared at him. “Are you okay?” he ventured. “Actually, scratch that, is he okay?”
“Shut up. It's fine. Everything's fine.” Taemin kicked him through the blanket.
Jinki grinned and selected Reiko. “So, is he like your boyfriend now or what?”
Taemin laughed. “Are you seriously going to fight me as Reiko?”
Jinki switched to Hsu Hao. “Are you seriously fuckbuddies with your mysterious flatmate?”
“Yeah, I guess so. We don't fuck that much. Just, you know,” he shrugged. “When I'm bored, and he's all wound up from clubbing. It's good.” Taemin hit the start button.
“Do you think he's cool then?” Jinki said, slamming his thumb down on the X button about twenty times in a row.
“FINISH HIM.”
Taemin delivered the fatality with one hand, the other scratching through his tangled hair. He thought of how Key always let him sleep in his bed after they fucked the whole next day without question. “Yeah, he's cool.”
“Alright then, he's cool,” Jinki said, leaving it at that.
---
Taemin shuffled in the door, ass first, hands occupied with plastic bags of snacks, his gym bag, something from the mailbox thin enough that it had to be the utility bill, his phone, earphones still plugged into one ear, and his keys looped between his fingers.
As soon as the door shut he dropped everything except his phone on the stack of boxes that was blocking off the entrance. Normally Taemin wouldn't care where anyone put their stuff seeing as it would be the most obnoxious case of pot versus kettle, but he had to admit that Key's box sprawl was getting out of hand.
He peered around a couple of stacks, and snagged a bag of swing cuts that would tide him over until either Key made something he could steal half of, or he felt distant enough from dance practice not to feel guilty about eating another couple of bags of chips for dinner.
The box towers were almost atmospheric, he decided. Key could leave them out, at least until something toppled over. Taemin's hands itched, just a little, but decided that it would be far better to wait until Key or Jinki was around to witness the whole place collapse like a set of dominos.
He popped the chips open and shoved a handful into his mouth as he wandered into Key's room to ask about dinner.
Key was bent over a massive suitcase, shoving neatly folded clothes into the already overflowing compartments. Behind him the wardrobe was bare. Taemin furrowed his brow and looked around. The jars and bottles of skincare and makeup were gone from the dresser too, as was the mirror and all of the sheets on Key's bed.
Key froze, and stood up slowly.
“Are you going on a holiday?” Taemin asked, confused.
“... No.” Key said. He flipped his suitcase shut, and with that, Taemin realised that the room was now empty.
“You're cleaning?” Taemin guessed, mouth already strangely dry.
Key shook his head and pulled the extendable handle out. “All those boxes will be out of your way in about an hour. I have some movers coming.”
“Okay,” Taemin said, dumbly. He followed Key out of the room and watched him negotiate the boxes to the door, where he picked up the obnoxious maroon bag he favoured.
“I'll leave my keys here,” Key said, dropping them into the dish with a dull ring.
Taemin nodded.
“Well,” Key said, dragging the door open, and propping it ajar with the corner of a smaller stack of boxes. “I guess this is it. Look after yourself, Taemin.”
“Bye,” Taemin said, hands fisting in his sweatpants pockets.
---
With no one to open the curtains in the living room, or gripe about how they'd run out of toilet paper or rice or clean towels, Taemin could finally relax back into his natural state of being: predominantly nocturnal, with occasional trips to the convenience store for soda and sodium based nutrition.
Taemin wasn't sure how long he'd been asleep before he'd been roused by the knocking on his door. Only that it was really fucking annoying. It had to be dealt with. Taemin struggled out of a cocoon of sweaty sheets with difficulty, and stumbled through the dark living room, sweatpants almost deserting his hips a couple of times. The cord must still be in the washing machine or something. Probably stuck somewhere disasterous.
He opened the door, wincing as the yellow light of the corridor flooded his doorway.
“I'm sorry,” the interloper said immediately. “I would have called, but I think Key's inbox is full or something, it just kept going straight to mail and then cutting off.”
Taemin squinted. “What,” he forced out, voice dry and gravelly.
“Uh, Key,” the guy said again. “I came to see Key?”
Taemin blinked, eyes adjusting, and sleep stupidity clearing from his brain. It was Jonghyun. Key's friend, or customer, or whatever.
“He's not here,” Taemin said.
Jonghyun nodded. “Okay, did he say when he'd be back?”
“He's not,” Taemin said, smothering a yawn in his bare elbow.
Jonghyun blinked. “I don't...understand.”
“He moved away.” Taemin said patiently. He swang against the half open door, legs already tired. He should probably eat something before going back to sleep.
Jonghyun's eyes widened in realisation. “Oh! Sorry to bother you,” Jonghyun said, bowing his head slightly for a moment, before looking up slowly, his face shadowed by the brim of his snapback. “Hey...maybe we can make our own business arrangement?”
Taemin stared blankly at him. He didn't sell bags...he was pretty sure he didn't even have anything worth selling, besides bootleg anime, and there was no way he was parting with any of his copies.
Jonghyun tilted his head a little, glancing away from Taemin. “You know, like, business....without...clothes on,” he glanced back to Taemin, eyelids heavy and low. “Plus, since Key's not around, you wouldn't even have to pay him his cut.”
Oh, Taemin realised. Jonghyun wanted to fuck. It wasn't that unexpected an offer, he supposed.
"Um, no thanks.” Taemin said, rubbing the back of his hand over his itching eyelids. He felt like he'd been sleeping for days. “I don't do that.”
Jonghyun's eyes widened in horror. “I'm so sorry,” he said, taking off his snapback, and bowing his head in apology. “I mean, uh, sorry if I offended you. Not that there's anything wrong with sex work, I mean – well, obviously.” He run a hand through his hair, squeezing his eyes shut in obvious shame. “I'll leave you alone now.”
“Okay,” Taemin said, beginning to shut the door already.
“Wait!” Jonghyun cried suddenly.
Taemin frowned and paused, door still open just wide enough to still see the brim of Jonghyun's gothic leatherette snapback peeking through the gap.
“Just in case Key comes by,” Jonghyun said, apologetically. He handed Taemin a metallic grey card. The corners were square enough to cut. “I'm really sorry,” Jonghyun said again, his voice thick with earnestness. “I hope you have a nice day, though-”
“Okay,” Taemin said again, shutting the door properly this time.
He glanced at the business card.
Kim Jonghyun BMus BCom
Composer - Freelance Writer - Senior Promotional Assistant
(xxx-xxxx-xxxxx)
kjhyun@chorusclubent.com
He laughed and flicked it into the dish beside the door, where it settled into the bed of dust that had been festering there for the two weeks Key had been gone. Promotional assistant. He bet he worked nine to five like a real square despite all those silver studded boots and tight black leather.
What a loser. Taemin would have to be pretty desperate before he'd take up that level of hard work.
He flopped over the sofa and slapped at the remotes until the screen and the PS3 both fired up. Four pm? It felt like time for another Destiny session.
---
The door burst open, knob slamming against the wall and embedding itself in the plasterboard under the flaky wallpaper.
"What the fuck!" Taemin spat, having leapt possibly halfway across the room in surprise. His earphones were on the floor, cord trailing back to the jack on his laptop, which was precariously balanced on the edge of the desk, episode five of Parasyte still playing.
Three guys barged in, two of them immediately splitting up and heading into the bedrooms and bathroom. The other one yanked the door out of the wall and shut it securely. Then he gave Taemin a once over.
Taemin scowled reflexively. "What the fuck?" he said again. "Is this some kind of home invasion?" He scrabbled in his sweats for his phone, only to realise it was beside his laptop, as usual. "Shit," he said under his breath.
The skinny long haired guy whom he supposed was in charge of supervising him smiled and walked over to the desk. He picked up Taemin's phone and waved it at him. "This what you're looking for?"
Taemin didn't answer, opting instead to edge himself as close to the window as he could manage. Fat lot of good it would do him, seven stories up, but it was the furthest he could get from these thugs.
The guy with Taemin's phone played around with it, laughing when he found that Taemin didn't have a passcode lock. He thumbed his way into the music player and started playing songs through the tinny speaker, chuckling as he swiped through the tracks with long derisive fingers. Taemin itched to snatch it out of his nosy hands. He clenched his fists on and off, eyeing up his babysitter.
There was a crash from Key's room, which didn't make any sense. Key had moved everything out and practically polished the place before he'd gone. Taemin had seen him down on his hands and knees wiping down the walls, windows, and even the doorknobs. There was nothing in there, barring the likelihood that Taemin's laundry had already begun its slow migration.
There was a creaking of floorboards and shuffling from Taemin's room as well, followed by the all too identifiable sound of Taemin's dresser hitting the ground, the smashing, clattering and tinkling finally galvanising Taemin into action.
"What-" he hurled himself in the direction of his bedroom only to find himself shoulder slamming an immovable object. "Why are you doing this?" Taemin cried out in frustration, pummelling at the man who had stepped between him and his belongings. He was whippet thin but still somehow terrifyingly strong.
He craned around the man's shoulder, eyes narrowing at the curly haired thug in his bedroom wading through his scattered belongings. His heart seized up a little as the guy kicked one of his terabyte drives aside and flipped his mattress and then the flimsy bed frame over and on top of the rest of the debris.
"Come now," his babysitter said to him cheerfully. He seized him around the middle, pinning his arms painfully to his ribs as he lifted him and planted him on the sofa. "Surely you expected this to happen one day?"
Taemin just snarled at him, rubbing at his bruised ribs through the long arm holes of his shirt.
"This is what happens when you steal," the man said, taking a seat next to Taemin and crossing his legs primly. He looked at the nails on on his right hand, and clamped his left around Taemin's slender upper arm, silently letting him know that he wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon.
Apparently satisfied with his cuticles, the man turned back to him with a thin smile. "So, when did you last see Key?" He asked casually.
Taemin turned his nose up and turned as much as he could to face the window. Maybe he could get to the sill, and at least shout for help to the people on the street?
Nails bit into his flesh and he jerked and yelped, whirling back around to face his captor. "Let go!"
The man was still smiling, his grip iron tight, fingers white as his claws dug in a little harder. "Key. Where did he go?"
Taemin bowed over his forearm, silently begging for the pressure to let up. "He moved out," he said, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth, hard. The man’s fingers only tightened. "Last week," he gasped. "He didn't tell me anything, he just packed up and left."
The man pulled his long nails out of Taemin's flesh, leaving behind white indentations and bloody crescents. Taemin hissed and clutched his arm to his chest, scrabbling backwards along the leather as far as he could go before he hit the armrest.
"Heechul, the rooms are clean. It's a bust." The man who had been checking out Key's empty room came out and settled in the doorway.
"Gee, thanks Henry," Heechul snapped. "I really appreciate it when you use my name in front of potential witnesses."
Henry rolled his eyes and peeled himself off the wall. "I'm hungry," he said, instead. "Want anything, Heechul? Kid?"
Heechul snorted, and Henry presumably took that as a no on both their parts. He set about carefully investigating the refrigerator, which didn't take long, seeing as Taemin was certain the only food in there was expired (but still good) mayonnaise, and a quarter serving of leftover katsudon.
Eventually he found himself a can of spam, rice crackers, and a bent spoon, all of which he brought over to the coffee table.
Taemin found himself effectively sandwiched between Henry and his over-friendly feeding offers, and Heechul, who was delicately holding his nose with one hand, and tapping the long, hard nails of the other on the thighs of his skinny jeans. There were blood flecks under them.
After a tense 20 minutes, the man ransacking Taemin's room returned, shaking his head at Heechul. "Clean as a whistle." He glanced at Taemin, who was still sullenly nursing his arm. "Well, as clean as a kid with fourteen terabyte drives of pirated anime, and a floor to ceiling shelving unit of burnt CDs can be," he smiled.
"Bullshit," Heechul hissed, grabbing for Taemin again. He managed to get a grip on his hair, thanks to Henry bookending the other end of the couch. "Key's been playing house with this little nerd for eight weeks and counting. No one could put up with a narcissistic prick like Key fucking their ass for that long without some payoff."
He shook Taemin's face from side to side. "And I intend to get that payoff, even if I have to gut this apartment from insulation to floorboards."
Taemin said nothing. He had nothing to offer. He just stared at Heechul blankly until the man huffed and dropped Taemin's face, heaving himself upright like a spider unfolding his legs.
"Another pretty little head with nothing in it," he said bitterly. "You should be glad to be so stupid. At least you'll never know just how hard that bastard fucked you."
Heechul beckoned at the other two. "We're done here. Key didn't leave him shit. Let's follow up that lead from the kid with all the fake Gucci."
Henry mumbled an affirmative through a full mouth and darted after him, having to sprint to match Heechul's long swinging strides.
The other guy paused in front of the coffee table, resting his foot on it for a moment, fingers over his lips. He smiled at Taemin for half a beat, before tapping his eyebrow suggestively. "You'll tell Key I was here, won't you?" he asked.
Taemin blinked at him.
"You tell him Donghae came by. Tell him I warned you not to take the stairs anytime soon, alright?"
With that advice dispensed, he left, still smiling. He was even polite enough to close the door gently on the way out.
Taemin got up and pushed the sofa against the door. Then he pulled his curtains. He cleared away the mess of crackers Henry had left behind. Then he closed the doors to the trashed bedrooms, checked his phone (Jinki just now asking him if he might be able to find him a download of some decrepit trot star's first album), put his earphones back on, and clicked back to the beginning of episode five.
The theme song began. Taemin chewed his lips and tensed his face. Everything was back to normal. No need to cry. Now everything was just like it had been before he'd got a flatmate.
---
Eventually Taemin had to face the fact that the only thing even distantly edible in the house was the mayo in the refrigerator. The katsudon had been as hard as a stale crust by the time he'd eaten it, and a day and a half later, the neon green winterfresh-scented detergent was beginning to look appetising.
There was mandatory class today as well, so Taemin packed a bag and gathered his thoughts around him like defensive balloons. The corridors were empty however, the lift the same, and the lobby full of nothing but dead leaves and an equally wizened old man stooping at the letterboxes for his newspapers.
Taemin skipped his usual store in favour of the one close to class, even though it was ridiculously overpriced. He bought two of their biggest pastries regardless, and devoured them in the dance department's changing rooms as he switched out his shoes and nodded at the classmates he saw every couple of weeks.
The studio felt familiar, safe and reassuring. That it was so distant from any place bad things had ever happened was the key, Taemin decided, and he released the energy he'd clammed up for the last week, and threw himself into their last group dance of the semester, even taking the time to show Lee Jihoon the trickier parts of his newest foot spin choreography.
“See you next semester,” Jihoon called, picking up his towel and heading out at the close of the session. “Have a good holiday.”
Taemin nodded and turned back to the mirror, where he found his tutor staring back from right beside him, arms loosely folded across his chest.
“Let's have a chat,” Hyukjae said, turning and heading across the sprung floor to his tiny office.
Taemin followed, dragging his bag behind him. Usually Hyukjae had some detailed pointer for polishing his footwork, or a tip off on another competitive dance event that Taemin would just forget to attend.
“Taemin, I-” Hyukjae sat down in his desk chair, then stood up again and paced from one end of the office to the other in two long dancer's strides.
“Taemin, you've failed the class,” Hyukjae said, laying his hand on Taemin's shoulder.
Taemin's blood ran cool.
“I can't say that I'm not disappointed in you, Taemin. You're a good dancer – a great dancer, even.”
Taemin just stared at him, mouth slightly open in shock.
Hyukjae shook his hair out of his eyes. “You're just lazy,” he said, and he sounded frustrated about it. “I've passed you in other classes just based on your merit as a dancer, but no matter how good you are, Taemin, you can't just turn up to three classes a semester and expect your professors to know that you've mastered the syllabus without even really seeing your work!”
“Okay,” Taemin said finally, not wanting to hear anymore.
“If you take the class again,” Hyukjae said, “and you actually come to class, then -”
“I'll just go now,” Taemin interrupted, grabbing his bag and making his way out.
“Taemin!” Hyukjae called out after him in frustration, but he pretended he hadn't heard him and just headed into the corridor and out onto the campus street.
There wouldn't be any re-enrolling in Hyukjae's class. Not when a Fail meant your scholarship was cancelled for good. No BDanceSt, no professional work, no dance career, no money.
And no scholarship meant no rent. Taemin stopped cold on the footpath, ignoring the grumbles of the students that swarmed around and ahead of him. When did the scholarship next pay out? If Hyukjae had already submitted all the grades, then the Scholarships Office was probably aware and had cancelled the automatic payments.
Taemin hurled his backpack over his shoulders and sprinted home, racing against nothing but his worries. The mailbox was full, and it took him a couple of twists and pulls with the key to coax it open without spilling everything out onto the floor.
It was mostly circulars, but there were letters, too.
Skinny envelopes probably containing final grades from the semester, and somewhere crumpled in the middle, an envelope postmarked from three weeks before, bearing the official monogram of the Scholarships Office. It too, was thin, and when scholarship envelopes were thin, it was never good news.
Attention: Lee Taemin,
This letter is to notify you of the cancellation of your scholarship(s):
Lee Joon Dance Scholarship
Samsung UPSTAGE High Potential Dance ScholarshipThe reason for the cancellation of this scholarship(s) is as follows:
You must have a high Grade Point Average (GPA): if you are an undergraduate you must have and maintain a B+ GPA during your study.
The cancellation of merit-based undergraduate scholarships awarded by the Office of Admissions may be appealed. These scholarships are not typically reinstated unless there is some extraordinary extenuating circumstance influencing the student’s academic performance or necessitating the need for continuation of the scholarship(s).
Cancellation may be due to one or more of the following reasons: academic performance (semester and/or cumulative grade point average), failure to maintain full-time status (enrolled in less than 12 credit hours), and/or withdrawal from the university. Appeals are reviewed by the Admissions-Based Scholarships Appeals Committee.
The University wishes you luck in your future endeavours.
Taemin screwed up all the mail and dumped it in the lobby trash can where everyone threw their circulars.
He rode the elevator silently to his floor and looked both ways before exiting.
His apartment was warm and dark, like usual. It seemed a little odd that the place that housed and cocooned him twenty three hours out of everyday could be so ignorant of the life wracking changes that had rocked him over the last week.
Taemin dropped his bag and stomped over to the window, throwing the curtains and the sash open to the weak sunlight and cool fresh air. He did the same in his bedroom and the bathroom, only avoiding Key's room.
It felt a little better this way, slightly different. Invigorating. Taemin dragged his sweaty dance clothes off and hurled them into the bathroom. Then he sat down at his desk and opened up his calendar and his bank balance simultaneously, and started ruthlessly counting down.
Four hours, a fistful of hair, and a small pile of scrap paper later, Taemin had to admit defeat. He didn't have a head for numbers, but even he could tell that he was in deep trouble.
There was no way he would be able to afford the next rent payment without the cash injection the scholarships and Key had been providing him with.
Taemin threw on his gross clothes again and crept out to pick up some dinner, ignoring the toll it took on his bank balance. A full belly of dukbokki later he was at least able to think more laterally about the situation, even if all his thoughts stalled in dead ends.
He dropped his keys into the bowl on the way back in, only to tip the whole stupid thing over, spilling dust and miscellanea everywhere. Taemin swore and scooped it all back in, only to find himself with a familiar silvery card in his palm.
Kim Jonghyun BMus BCom
Composer - Freelance Writer - Senior Promotional Assistant
(xxx-xxxx-xxxxx)
kjhyun@chorusclubent.com
---
The line connected after two rings. "Kim Jonghyun, Chorus Club Entertainment."
"Uhm, hey," Taemin said into the receiver, fingers of his other hand digging into the hard plastic arm of his desk chair.
"Hello?" Jonghyun said again, voice patient and calm, unlike Taemin had ever heard it. "With whom am I speaking? Can I help you with a promotional enquiry?"
"Um. No." Taemin said. "This is Taemin."
There was nothing but the low crackle of the line from Jonghyun's end for a moment. "Key's friend?" Jonghyun said finally.
"Yeah."
"Alright," Jonghyun said, voice sounding more like Taemin remembered it now. Lower and slower as it rolled out of his mouth, like he was savouring the air he breathed. "Did Key come back then?"
"No," Taemin said, shaking his head even though Jonghyun couldn't see him. He maximised the browser on his laptop again to survey the bank balance he'd had up since Monday.
Jonghyun breathed gently through the phone into Taemin's ear, waiting for Taemin to go on.
"I need to make some money," Taemin said, committing to it. "I'm not busy today."
Jonghyun didn't say anything, but the hiss of his breath quickening was obvious, no different in sound than it had been when it had brushed over the shell his ear in the club, weeks ago.
"I'll be there about four." Jonghyun said after a beat, the volume of his voice fading in and out as if he was walking or looking around with the receiver not close enough to his mouth. "I'll duck out of work early and - should I bring stuff?"
"Yeah," Taemin said. He had stuff, but he had a feeling that Vaseline and free promotional condoms weren't going to cut it with Jonghyun. They certainly hadn't with Key.
"About my...my rates," Taemin added, before Jonghyun got ahead of himself and hung up. He'd looked up some prices on discreet escort agencies and checked out some forums, some sketchy enough that it had worried him, and others that were informative and made him realise that really, there were a lot of people out there who did this.
"Yes?" Jonghyun said, although he sounded distracted. Taemin could hear him rifling through something.
"Four hundred," he said, boldly.
Jonghyun audibly paused in his rummaging. "Per hour?"
"Um," Taemin paused, "...no, for the whole thing or whatever."
"Really?" Jonghyun said, almost under his breath. "I'll be there soon," he promised.
Taemin had barely just nodded in acceptance when the call disconnected and he found himself alone again, unwashed, hungry, and listening to a dial tone.
***
Jonghyun had clearly done this before. He handed Taemin a fat envelope and politely took off his snapback as soon as he was allowed through the door.
Taemin put the money under his laptop for safe-keeping. Then he let Jonghyun thread his hands through his tangled hair, and gave in to his demands.
Jonghyun felt good inside of him. Taemin had figured he would, had known it from how they'd moved together in the nightclubs, from how he'd smelled good to his nose despite Jonghyun's skin having been glazed with sweat.
Jonghyun fucked like he danced, sinuous, too close, and touching him everywhere. He had his shins twisted around Taemin's; his knees tucked into the back of Taemin's; his chest pressed against Taemin's back, his hands and hips cradling Taemin's spread ass cheeks; his chin hooked over Taemin’s shoulder, lips whispering weird things into Taemin's ear. Weird, unnecessary things about Taemin's body, about how hot he was inside, how he didn't want to ever pull out. Compliments that sounded more like mindless half-formed lyrics accompanied every third thrust.
Taemin shut his eyes firmly and concentrated instead on the thumbs circling and pressing into the backs of his hips, and how good it felt when Jonghyun pushed in hard enough to sandwich him against the back of the sofa.
Jonghyun pulled him up from his curl over the couch back and walked them back the few steps to Taemin's desk. He lowered himself into Taemin's desk chair, easing Taemin into his lap with shaking hands. Jonghyun slid deeper by virtue of gravity, and Taemin swallowed a whimper, but couldn't keep back the gasp of air that escaped him when Jonghyun held him down tightly as he thrust upwards.
He kept doing that, spurred on by Taemin's involuntary reactions to being dragged down as he was fucked into. Taemin barely had a second to breathe at the rate Jonghyun was going. It was a relief when he felt Jonghyun tense up under him. He pulled Taemin down again, but wrapped his arms around him this time, sweaty and suffocating and gross around his midsection as he pulsed inside him, hips rolling gently as he rode out his orgasm inside Taemin's body.
Taemin had half a mind to tear his arm out of Jonghyun's sticky hold and jerk himself off, seeing as it seemed like Jonghyun had no intentions of doing it for him. He vaguely remembered something about it not really being allowed when you were getting paid, so he let it lie, figuring that Jonghyun would be leaving pretty soon now that he'd finished.
"You're so beautiful," Jonghyun whispered, sinking that ship with a squeeze of his toned arms. He nuzzled against Taemin's neck, pressing wet kisses into the crook between throat and collarbones. Taemin wrinkled his nose and gritted his teeth against the irritating tickle.
"Thanks," he muttered halfheartedly.
"You were so good though," Jonghyun insisted, squeezing his abdomen again. Taemin, discomfited, convulsed slightly in what Jonghyun clearly mistook for a shudder of pleasure. "You were so pretty, and you sounded so good."
He stroked over Taemin's chest, before clutching at him suddenly. "Did I hurt you?" He asked, craning around to look Taemin in the face.
“No,” Taemin snorted, shifting uncomfortably in the hopes that Jonghyun would take the hint and pull out.
"Oh, good," Jonghyun sighed, petting Taemin gently again. "Then it will be okay if I - if we do something else?"
Taemin cursed himself. "Like what?" he said suspiciously.
Jonghyun finally lifted him and let him slide off and sidle away to lean against his desk for support. He reconsidered having told Jonghyun he was fine. Another round of that kind of treatment would not be worth $400, he thought ruefully as he watched Jonghyun ham-handedly remove the condom and look around awkwardly for a bin.
He found one in the kitchen eventually, and hurried back over to Taemin, junk bobbing comically. Jonghyun mistook his smile, and lit up. He put one hand on Taemin's waist, and cupped his cheek with the other "I wanted to hold you," he said shyly, eyes downcast. Taemin felt Jonghyun's half-hard dick slide against his thigh momentarily. He turned towards the sofa to hide the roll of his eyes. "Sure," he agreed.
"We should do this again," Jonghyun sighed happily a couple of hours later. He crushed Taemin even closer to his sweaty chest.
"Mmhm," Taemin murmured noncommittally, trying to unobtrusively peel his legs away from Jonghyun’s slippery thighs.
"It would be like I'm your boyfriend," Jonghyun went on, "we wouldn't even have to have sex all the time, we could just do this," he sighed happily, squeezing Taemin's waist tightly enough that Taemin thought his ribs might give out.
"It would be so easy," Jonghyun said. He stroked his hand through Taemin's hair again, trying to push it across his forehead and eyes in some kind of stupid swooping style.
Taemin pushed his hands away and sat up, throwing the suffocating duvet off of them both. Jonghyun covered himself with his hands reflexively. "What are you-?"
"Time's up," Taemin announced, pointing to the door. He kicked loose of the sheets and went into the living room to get the envelope of money he'd stashed earlier. It seemed a lot thinner now, although Taemin didn't doubt it still contained all $400 as agreed.
"Did I do something wrong?" Jonghyun said, distraught. He rushed around collecting his clothes and snapback when Taemin jerked his head at the door.
"Time's up," Taemin said again, shrugging. "I'm going to take a shower, so make sure the door locks after you." He took the money with him into the bathroom and locked the door.
"O-okay," he heard Jonghyun call out meekly.
Taemin used the last of his liquid soap scrubbing off Jonghyun's sweat and the remnants of sticky lubricant. Jonghyun was long gone by the time he trudged back into the living room in his towel. The door was locked properly as promised, and it looked like Jonghyun had even made some kind of token effort to straighten up his furniture, as if it had been neat when Jonghyun had arrived.
He needed to rethink this business model, Taemin thought as he finger-combed his wet hair back into his usual middle parting.
His phone pinged from beside his computer.
It was Jinki, as usual.
hey so when r u coming to get ur stuff
Whatever that meant. Taemin tapped the option to call him instead, figuring it might be nice to talk to someone he actually liked for once.
"Hey," Jinki said cheerfully when he picked up after one ring.
"Hey," Taemin returned, grinning automatically at his friend's tone. "What was that text about? More importantly," he said, glancing around his dim sex-soaked apartment with a wrinkled nose, "can I come over to yours?"
"Sure," Jinki said, before pausing for a moment. "Uh, but what do you mean you don't get the text?"
Taemin frowned and cast his mind back, "I don't think I've left anything at your place for ages. Maybe it's someone else's stuff?"
Jinki swallowed audibly over the line. "No, no, it's definitely yours. Just....okay, why don't you come over and see it?"
***
"Oh my god."
Taemin stared at the cardboard mountain blockading half of Jinki's living room.
Minho, Jinki's flatmate, poked his head around one side of the monolith. "You really need to take your stuff back, man. It's been here for ages."
"How long," Taemin said slowly.
Jinki scratched his head. "Maybe a month and a half. After I asked you if Key was trustworthy?"
Taemin blinked. "What, when did you ask me that?"
"When you said that you were hooking up!"
Minho giggled from behind the boxes.
"I meant he was like, an okay fuck and he made me food and shit, oh my god," Taemin said, ignoring Minho's scandalised cackling. "Not that you should let him turn your apartment into a storage unit, what the fuck?"
Jinki shrugged helplessly, "I admit that I only thought it would be like a couple of boxes of spare cutlery or something. He said he didn't want to bug you with piling more of his stuff in your apartment.
Taemin just shook his head incredulously.
"We could just throw them out," Minho suggested, coming around to stand with them.
"I don't know..." Jinki countered, "what if he comes back?"
"Doubt it," Taemin said, frowning. "Let's at least look at it, I guess."
"I'll get the recycling bin," Minho said, sprinting into the kitchen.
They hauled the top boxes down first, and Jinki tore the packing tape free with a corkscrew from the kitchen drawer in the absence of a Stanley knife.
Prada, Givenchy, Balenciaga, Fendi, Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Alexander Wang, MCM, Goyard, Lanvin, Miu Miu, Kate Spade, Chanel, Mansur Gavriel, Botkier, Bottega Veneta, Burberry, Louboutin, Coach, another three Hermes, and a Diana Von Furstenberg big enough to zip a child into came out of the box. Each of their protective plastic bags was labelled in Key's neat hand.
Minho looked like he was about to have a stroke. He sat down heavily on the floor. "We're going to jail, right?"
"No!" Jinki said.
"No..." Taemin agreed, rubbing his arms absently. "But if that guy, Heechul, finds out, we definitely won't go to jail..."
“Um?!” Jinki said, confused but definitely concerned.
"Okay, I know what to do," Taemin said, decisive. "We'll sell them."
"What?" Minho yelled.
Taemin ignored him."Also, can I stay over here for a while? My place smells like dick."
Minho bulged his eyes at Jinki, gesturing with outraged claw hands.
"Uh. Of course," Jinki said uncertainly, much to Minho's ineffectual rage.
"Don't ask," Taemin said. "You don't want to know. I wish I didn't know. Also, I dropped out of college, so don't worry about waking me for classes in the morning."
Jinki looked very concerned. "I'm going to get you a blanket."
"Can I use your Facebook account to post the ads?"
Minho, already forgotten, started hurling bags back into the boxes. "I'm not okay with this," he protested loudly, pouting at Taemin.
"Life's not fair," Taemin agreed, settling into the couch with the three blankets and a pillow Jinki had just brought him.
---
It was surprising easy to offload designer handbags, Taemin found.
People would lurk warily around the entrance to the nearby coffee shop Taemin had taken to meeting buyers at, but as soon as he'd waved and smiled, lifting their glittering new Givenchy for them to see, they would tell him anything. Sometimes so much that Taemin regretted not making Jinki do the transactions for him.
Business was red hot for three weeks straight, and Taemin could barely sleep, his phone notifications were blowing up so much. It was enough to pay the rent on his apartment as he figured out whether he even wanted to stay there, with plenty left over to placate Minho by paying for pizza and groceries. The rest he stashed under the cushions of the sofa Jinki was so kindly lending him.
Business was barely beginning to peter out when on a sunny Tuesday afternoon Taemin reached into a new box for a mini Chanel backpack like the four he'd sold the day before, only to surface with a fistful of burnished cutlery.
“Uh?” Taemin said, baffled. He dug around and found a whole clutch of commemorative teaspoons.
Minho started laughing, sitting down on the sofa to watch as Taemin upended the box and then moved on to the rest of the pile. “Jinki was right, it is spare cutlery,” he wheezed out between fits of laughter.
Taemin glared at him over the spilled masses of factory packaged salad serving sporks and fancy metal chopsticks.
“It's not funny,” Taemin snapped. “I have a guy coming to get something in like ten minutes, Minho.”
Minho's face dropped back into annoyance. “I told you to quit giving out our address! Why can't you just meet them at the cafe?”
“Because lazy,” Taemin said. He scooped up a handful of chopsticks and fired them back into their box. “Pick these up,” he ordered petulantly, ignoring Minho's snort of disbelief.
There was a buzz and Taemin looked up. "The last customer," he said. "Jinki, buzz them up.” He waved at the intercom despite being the closest person to it.
Minho pelted him with a shrimp chip from his curled position on the sofa. "Get it yourself," he insisted.
Taemin just turned his nose up and waited for Jinki to come out of his bedroom and hit the buttons that would let their buyer into the building and the elevator. This wasn't even his house, so what was the point in learning how to use the intercom?
There was a sharp rap on the door shortly, and Taemin leapt up to answer it.
It was Key.
His hair was a completely different colour, not to mention a disheveled mess. There was a dash of pink in the fluffy permed fringe that was almost a red brown in parts. He was still ridiculously good looking, despite a bruise blooming across his cheekbone and swollen nose.
"I'm sorry," Key said, tone strained and petulant.
"Uh. No, thank you," Taemin said automatically, slamming the door.
Taemin turned around and met Minho's eyes over the back of the sofa, huge and round. He had a shrimp chip halfway to his mouth.
“Wasn’t that your boyfriend?” he hissed.
“No.” Taemin said, storming over to seize a handful of shrimp chips out of Minho's bag.
“You said he wasn't coming back!”
There was another knock on the door, this time more of a series of thumps.
“Ugh,” Taemin said through his mouthful of chips.
“I've got it!” Jinki sang out, running in from the bathroom, still wiping his hands on his jeans.
“Wait, mmph, no-” Taemin swallowed desperately, waving his hands at Jinki.
The door swung open again.
“Key?” Jinki said, utterly confused.
“Shut the door,” Taemin yelled, finally having dealt with his shrimp overload. He hopped toward the door, a socked foot aimed in preparation to slam it in Key’s face, but-
“Too late,” someone else said, a smile all too evident in their tone.
Taemin paused, mid-kick, registering somewhat too late that it wasn't just Key at the door.
He was framed front and center in the doorway, but on second glance his arms were pinned behind him, his usually broad looking shoulders dwarfed by the familiar figures of Heechul and Donghae.
“Sorry,” Key said again, grimacing. “You should really have used the peephole.”
Minho stood up from the couch and began to climb very slowly over the back of it, shrimp chips still in hand. "Um, I'm just going to... leave... maybe call the cops," he said slowly.
Everyone ignored him except Jinki, who nodded rapidly, wringing his hands as he glanced between Taemin's glare and Key's pallid, beseeching stare.
“What do you want?” Taemin asked, blinking rapidly as he tried to remember whether he'd left any cash or couture in plain sight.
Jinki put his hands up and backed deeper into the apartment. “What's going on?”
Taemin had to give him credit: he sounded both scared and clueless. It was a good enough example to follow.
“Shut up,” Heechul said to Jinki, eyes fixed on Taemin.
“You,” he addressed him directly, “fancy meeting you again.” He narrowed his eyes and left Kibum to Donghae’s tender mercies.
Taemin widened his eyes without needing to pretend. Heechul's claw like nails had him by the chin before he even saw him cross the threshold.
“Leave him alone,” he heard Kibum shout. “He's just a dumb kid!”
There was a loud rustle and the sound of someone hitting the ground. Heechul wheeled around, Taemin still writhing on his tiptoes at the end of his arm.
Kibum was facedown on the carpet, Donghae kneeling comfortably against the small of his back.
“He started kicking,” Donghae explained, shrugging at Heechul.
“Don't cut off his air supply, we need him conscious to locate this shit,” Heechul said pointedly.
“What are you looking for?” Taemin whispered through his constricted windpipe. Best continue as he had started out with Heechul.
“I think you know, don't you, little snake?"
Taemin widened his eyes and did his best to shake his head against Heechul's sharp nails.
"I'm getting tired of this run-around," Heechul said. "I don't like footwork, that's why I have Donghae."
Donghae waved cheerily from the floor, where he was slowly twisting Kibum's arms.
"I don't know if you can appreciate just how much your boyfriend has irritated me, but I think even you can understand the utmost importance of me leaving today with every scrap of Chanel you can muster or a considerably large stack of cash." Heechul dropped Taemin at that. "Get to it, kid."
Taemin dropped to his knees, gasping in lungfuls of air. His head was spinning. What could he do? He was mostly sure now that all the bags were gone, but if he said there was nothing else in the apartment then Donghae would search, and he would definitely find the money in the sofa.
There was a knock on the door.
Rather, on the doorframe, as the door was still wide open and the tip of one of Kibum's gleaming camel wingtip shoes was actually sticking out into the corridor.
They all turned as one, to find Jonghyun sheepishly standing at the threshold, closed fist still resting against the door jamb he'd rapped on.
"Sorry," he said, bowing his head effusively. "This looks like a bad time, I came about the- is that you, Taemin?!"
He stepped into the apartment, passing Donghae without fear until he appeared to realise that the thug was restraining Kibum.
Jonghyun stood still for a moment, clearly having to think about what the hell was going on. Finally he nodded and raised his palms.
He addressed Heechul. "I'm sorry sir, I wasn't aware that you were Taemin's boss, I should come back later."
Jinki made a confused sound, but didn't stop wringing his hands.
Taemin choked quietly.
"Boss?" Heechul repeated, voice silky and cooly furious.
"Uhm, his uh, pimp," Jonghyun clarified, whispering the last word. He went a little pink.
Kibum was the next to make a choking sound, only his was of rage. He writhed up against Donghae in a failed attempt to hurl the man off of him and get to Jonghyun.
Heechul blinked slowly and looked at Taemin with new eyes. "I see...." he said. "Today is going awfully badly for you, isn't it, little snake? And I thought you were stupid!"
"I don't know what he's talking about." Taemin said quickly.
Jonghyun objected with a wounded whine. "Just give me one more chance," he protested, "I'll even pay for a longer session. I got these new pills..."
Taemin shut his eyes momentarily in an attempt to wake up from this daylight nightmare.
There was a sudden blast of sirens, so loud that it had to be a cop car under the window. Donghae leapt up, pulling his knee out of the small of Kibum's back.
“I'm out,” he said, heading for the door. Heechul gave Taemin a nasty stare but he followed his crony out the door. Their footsteps dropped away quickly, swallowed by the thick carpet in the corridor.
Jinki moved first, letting out a huge sigh and trudging to the refrigerator. He pulled out a big jug of ice water and proceeded to pour it down his throat, only pausing occasionally to gasp for breath.
The sirens continued, and Jonghyun got up from a crouch behind the sofa, jumping a little at every burst of sound.
“I should really leave,” he said, somewhat apologetic. “I already have three warnings for solicitation.”
Kibum, still face down on the carpet, seemingly paralysed by relief, made a noise that could have been a snort or a growl. It was not an impressed sound.
“Uhm,” Jonghyun loitered in the still open doorway. “Call me when you're free?”
Taemin glowered at him until he left, then crawled over to roll Kibum onto his side. "You should leave," he said pointedly.
"Please do," Minho said, emerging from his bedroom whitefaced and clutching his iPhone. "Not that the cops are here, but please do get out."
Jinki joined them, t-shirt soaked with ice water. "I thought you called them?"
Minho shook his head and showed them his phone screen. "I didn't actually want Taemin to go to jail," he said resentfully. "I just went on YouTube and looked up siren videos."
Taemin couldn't hold in the burst of laughter that bubbled up. He punched Minho softly in the shoulder. "Genius!"
Kibum struggled upright finally, clutching his stomach and rubbing at his arms in turn, but he looked a great deal better now he knew that both Heechul and the police were no longer in play.
"Speaking of genius," Kibum said, pointedly. "I think I deserve a couple of explanations."
Taemin huffed.
"Where is my stuff?"
"No idea," Taemin said honestly. Those bags had new homes now, and he had no idea where they were. Jinki and Minho hurriedly echoed his answer.
"And the cash you made?"
"I only have my own money," Taemin claimed.
"Oh, yeah? And where did that come from?" Kibum said, eyebrows drawing together in frustration.
"I have a job," Taemin lied, shrugging.
Kibum stepped up close and personal then. "Would this be the 'work' you do for Kim Jonghyun?" His breath was hot against his face and tinged with the coppery scent of blood.
"No," Taemin said, honestly, turning away from Kibum's dilated eyes. "I don't do that."
Kibum made a sound of disbelief, but he let it go.
Jinki raised his hand awkwardly, re-entering the conversation. "Uh, I hate to interrupt, but it's pretty obvious that those guys are going to come back later, so...maybe...?"
"Yeah, we'll leave," Kibum said agreeably. "Let's go." He took Taemin's wrist and headed for the door. Taemin squawked and wrenched his hand free.
"I'm not going anywhere without my laptop." He scrambled around, rolling all his clothing and belongings into one of Jinki's pillowcases.
He left half a stack of cash behind for Jinki to find when he cleaned up later. "Okay, I'm ready."
Jinki shook his head slowly, but he let Taemin hug him goodbye quickly. "You're such a weird kid."
"I was right," Minho said earnestly to Jinki as the door shut behind them. "I told you! I told you so many times he was trouble."
—
They walked a block away and Key hailed a taxi, borrowing Taemin's front camera to wipe the worst of the dried blood off his face before it pulled up.
"The Marriott on Main Street, thanks," he told the driver.
"You're paying," he told Taemin.
Taemin huffed, but fished around for some cash amiably.
"You have a credit card, right?" Kibum asked him outside the hotel.
Taemin nodded and produced it as required at the desk alongside his cash payment.
When they got into their room, Kibum went straight to the bathroom to wash his face, and came out with half a jar of hotel moisturiser slathered onto his scrapes and bruises.
Taemin had already figured out the tv remote, and he was busy scowling at the inescapable infomercials that occupied every channel.
Kibum clambered into the bed, kicking Taemin gently onto the other side.
“Cute. Show me that dumb face again?” Kibum smiled, running his thumb over Taemin's scowl. “Yeah, that's perfect.”
"Shut up," Taemin said. "I'm not dumb."
"Clearly," Kibum said, laying back. "You have a terrifyingly innocent face, though."
Taemin sniffed. "I didn't do anything I didn't have to do. That's not bad."
“You were ripping people off with counterfeit products, dumbass.” Kibum rolled his eyes. "That's illegal. And I don't even want to know what else you did."
He turned his back to Taemin, rolled off the bed, and strode to the window, lifting the blind just enough to peer out. “Best conning I've ever seen, actually. Never been able to get my cashflow going quite as fast.”
He flashed Taemin a grin, teamed with a quirk of his scarred eyebrow.
Taemin smiled back briefly. "I'm going to sleep now."
Kibum shrugged off what remained of his own clothes too. "Sounds good. Being bad is hard work, huh?"
"The worst." Taemin grumbled.
