(one-shot) slow down - the music won't last
Title: Slow Down (The music won't last)
Author: mustenentwined3
Pairing: JongKey
Genre: Angst, friendship, hint of romance.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer(s): Standard disclaimers apply.
Summary: "Maybe I can learn to dance to your music, to grow up as fast as you can."
A/N: First actual SHINee pairing fic, eek. I hope it's not too OOC. I guess I decided to write them because they seem plausible, idk :) set in the future, however many years ahead you wish to imagine. Italics are flashbacks. I also kind of struggled with the ending :/ anyways, enjoy; comments are very, very much appreciated! :3
Late evening finds Jonghyun crouched over scattered lyrics and torn sheets of music, head bent over in concentration as his pen scribbles across the page. It is quiet except for the occasional tap of his finger against the hollow wood of the piano, his eyebrows furrowed into a crease.
“Jonghyun-ah,” a familiar, low voice sounds from the crack in the doorway. “Dinner?” The door pushes open a little to reveal Kibum peering his head in, soft brown hair slanted across his forehead in the dim light.
Jonghyun shakes his head without even looking up. “Go without me, Key, I’ll be back soon,” he answers absently. His gaze remains trained on the scrawled writing in front of him.
He completely misses the hurt in his best friend’s eyes.
(There’s a music box wedged into the far corner of his closet. Dust is collected at the edges, the elegance of the carved wood invisible in the pitch-blackness.
There was a time where it used to play, light shimmering off the mirror inside, tune a delicate melody.
Nothing better, nothing better than you.)
---
Another late evening the day after finds Jonghyun reclining on the couch at home, ear phones just barely inside his ears. He is asleep, the light rise and fall of his chest an all too quiet sight to Kibum, who walks in at that precise moment, the door swinging shut behind him.
The smile that threatens at the corner of his lips disappears, and he stares at the figure on the couch, for only a second, maybe two. He shifts, moving forward and bending down to pick up the unfinished pile of songs strewn across the ground, the pen falling from Jonghyun’s fingers. Kibum reaches, and turns the iPod off, his eyes glimmering when he catches a glimpse of the song that has been put on repeat.
“Love’s Way,” Jonghyun said with a smile in his voice as the tune began to play from the box. “It makes me think of you.”
Kibum felt himself beginning to smile back, with tears in his eyes. He refused to ask why.
---
The next morning, Jonghyun awakens to his songs neatly stacked on the table beside him, a throbbing headache, a turned-off iPod and curled up earphones laying beside it, and a pink, ripped piece of notepaper tacked onto the wall above him. Narrowing his eyes, he plucks it off.
There is nothing written on it - only a perfectly drawn, broken music note. He rubs his eyes, yawning and stretching out his arms, and crumples the note in the palm of his fist.
“It’s not just music,” Jonghyun commented. “It’s what makes us, us.”
Kibum nodded, sincerely, and smiled, sadly. “Just don’t let it take over your life, Jonghyun-ah?”
---
Jonghyun rolls off the couch, stumbling through the doorway into the bedroom. Taemin glances up at him from cutting out something as he enters. “Morning, hyung,” he says with a smile.
The older boy gives back the smile, and a grimace, as he slides open the closet door, stepping back as if to observe what is inside. He disregards the curious look he can feel Taemin boring into his back, and fishes his hand upwards, rummaging around the top of the closet shelf with his fingertips.
Unable to feel what he is looking for, he stretches up a bit more, so that his body is leaned against the remainder of the shelf, which teeters slightly. With a determined face, Jonghyun continues to reach, until he has thrown his entire body weight against the shelf, and it wobbles back and forth violently.
“Hyung, watch-” Taemin doesn’t finish his sentence before a heavy weight comes tumbling down from the shelf, startling Jonghyun into falling onto the hard wooden floor himself. The weight crashes beside him, splintering into a thousand pieces - glass shatters everywhere, tiny shards of light ricocheting across the room.
Motionless, Jonghyun stares at the mess before him, his vision blurring as the familiar sounds and voices begin to fill his ears. “Hyung,” comes Minho’s voice. “Jonghyun - Hyun!” Onew’s sharp call of his name, a tug on the back fabric of his shirt, and he is being pulled away, away from the slivers of glass and collapsed pieces of wood and broken melody - because that’s what he hears, a broken melody, various notes that no longer form a tune.
It reminds Jonghyun of Kibum, the way he hums in the shower, random tunes scattered here and there, like an indecisive heap of notes that stick together - like them, he and Kibum, together. Broken notes, a broken melody, but they stuck together all the same.
Now, though, now the music box - the music box - he broke the music box. “I broke the music box,” he says out loud, and Onew whips around at him with a long, hard stare.
“Yes, Jonghyun. You broke it. It’s okay. We’ll clean it up.”
“No!” Before the older boy can walk away, Jonghyun grasps his sleeve, pulling him back onto the couch beside him, onto the faded pattern surface. “I broke it,” he repeats at Onew, as if saying it over and over again will only confirm its validity. “I broke it. He gave it to me.”
“Key, right? I’m sure he’ll forgive you,” Onew gently brings his sleeve away from Jonghyun’s tight hold. “I have to go help clean up.”
“Where is he?”
“Where is who?”
“Where is Key-” just as the words leave Jonghyun’s mouth, the front door opens with a gust of cold air and a bang. Kibum follows, grocery bags dangling from his fingers, puffy jacket enveloping his figure. Jonghyun watches silently as the other three rush forward towards his presence, collecting the bags from Kibum’s grasp. He nods, and smiles, and ruffles Taemin’s hair, and then looks at Jonghyun’s mellow expression.
“What happened?”
“Ah - well, you see-”
“I broke it,” Jonghyun interrupts, a bit too rudely, and stands up from his position in an abrupt motion. “I broke the music box.” His voice is laced with something unimaginable, something unforgivable, something broken, something like shattered, random music notes on a piece of note paper. “I broke it.”
Kibum watches him. “You…”
“It was an accident,” Taemin pipes up, helpfully. “I was there. He was looking for something, and leaned against the shelf too much. It was an accident.”
“What were you looking for?” Kibum asks quietly, slipping off his shoes and accepting the grocery bags once more as he moves to pad into the kitchen. “Your music is right there.” He nods towards the tidy stack on the table.
Wordlessly, Jonghyun follows him into the kitchen, leaving the others outside. He hears the rustle of footsteps, and Onew’s voice, and the sweep of brooms and pieces of glass before he decides to speak. “It’s not just about the music,” he says, leaning against the doorway. “Right?”
Kibum laughs a little. “Really? I thought it was all about the music. We’ve grown up, right? We have to put our best into what we do.” He starts to put things into the fridge. “I guess I just miss the Jonghyun who used to talk so much.”
“I talk.”
“Really?” Quirking an eyebrow, Kibum turns to look at his friend standing in the doorway.
“I’m talking now, aren’t I?”
“Oh, but you used to talk so much more,” he shrugs, “Growing up is fast. With the music - it’s like the beat, you can’t slow down.”
“Kibum-ah.”
“You should go write, or help the others clean up. I’m fine here by myself. Maybe I can learn to dance to your music, to grow up as fast as you can.”
“Kibum.”
He begins to hum to himself, a remainder of off-tune melodies and unwanted notes, of scattered tunes and broken melodies. He hums as he puts the groceries away, and Jonghyun watches him, this definition of friend he’s never known.
“Promise me you’ll take good care of it,” Kibum fingered the corner of the music box, his eyes glancing up into Jonghyun’s. “As long as our friendship lasts. As long as we last.”
“Forever, then,” Jonghyun answers, his lips curving upwards.
“Forever?”
“Forever or never - I choose forever.”
Out of nowhere, light, all-too-familiar instrumental begins to play in the background - somebody has decided to put on Replay, probably having dug out their old, debut CD from beneath the crevices of the stack.
“Jonghyun is so pretty,” Kibum murmurs along when the music dives into the chorus, and Jonghyun spins back around to look at him, tentatively, but he doesn’t look up from where he is cutting the vegetables into small slices.
Inhaling sharply, the older boy gathers his courage; gliding forward to where Kibum is standing, back facing him. He carefully, ever so carefully raises his arms and slides them around the younger boy’s waist, waiting for the tense lines that form in Kibum’s shoulder blades to relax slightly before pulling closer, until his head is resting right above the other’s shoulder blade, hands interlocked at the front of Kibum’s shirt.
“Hyung,” the younger boy whispers with a sigh, pausing in his cutting of the vegetables - his fingers twitch the tiniest bit, uncomfortable. “What are you doing?”
“Make up, shake up, break up,” Jonghyun sings in his ear, following the music, and feels the beginnings of a smile unravel inside of Kibum, the tremble of laughter that wants out. “He has a perfect jaw line,” Jonghyun continues under his breath. “Sharp nose, and big eyes. He’s perfect.”
The smile breaks loose from its hold. “You are my amigo,” Kibum grins, turning sideways a bit in the embrace so that his hand is on top of Jonghyun’s.
“You messed up the lyrics, stupid.”
“On purpose, idiot,” with a laugh, he swats at his friend’s hand. “It fits the tune still.”
Jonghyun frowns, his finger lingering along to play with the younger boy’s ear piercing as the softer melody of Love’s Way starts to sound from outside. “We should dance to this song,” he comments.
“It’s too slow.”
“So you can catch up to me,” Jonghyun tilts his head. “I’m growing up too fast, right? Dancing too quickly? Dance slowly with me, Key. The music won’t last long.”
Just long enough, Kibum wants to say, but the older boy is already twirling him around the kitchen, and he laughs, out loud, at the complete absurdity of it all. When Jonghyun gives him a curious look, he smiles, cheeky, and leans forward.
“This song reminds me of you,” he says, and feels, sees, hears Jonghyun laugh along with him - what at, he isn’t even quite sure anymore - but he feels whole again, dancing slowly, to Jonghyun’s music, to a mended friendship, to the fixed notes of their melody.
Forever or never, Kibum thinks to himself - and from now on, he will always choose forever. There's nothing better than this.
Author: mustenentwined3
Pairing: JongKey
Genre: Angst, friendship, hint of romance.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer(s): Standard disclaimers apply.
Summary: "Maybe I can learn to dance to your music, to grow up as fast as you can."
A/N: First actual SHINee pairing fic, eek. I hope it's not too OOC. I guess I decided to write them because they seem plausible, idk :) set in the future, however many years ahead you wish to imagine. Italics are flashbacks. I also kind of struggled with the ending :/ anyways, enjoy; comments are very, very much appreciated! :3
Late evening finds Jonghyun crouched over scattered lyrics and torn sheets of music, head bent over in concentration as his pen scribbles across the page. It is quiet except for the occasional tap of his finger against the hollow wood of the piano, his eyebrows furrowed into a crease.
“Jonghyun-ah,” a familiar, low voice sounds from the crack in the doorway. “Dinner?” The door pushes open a little to reveal Kibum peering his head in, soft brown hair slanted across his forehead in the dim light.
Jonghyun shakes his head without even looking up. “Go without me, Key, I’ll be back soon,” he answers absently. His gaze remains trained on the scrawled writing in front of him.
He completely misses the hurt in his best friend’s eyes.
(There’s a music box wedged into the far corner of his closet. Dust is collected at the edges, the elegance of the carved wood invisible in the pitch-blackness.
There was a time where it used to play, light shimmering off the mirror inside, tune a delicate melody.
Nothing better, nothing better than you.)
---
Another late evening the day after finds Jonghyun reclining on the couch at home, ear phones just barely inside his ears. He is asleep, the light rise and fall of his chest an all too quiet sight to Kibum, who walks in at that precise moment, the door swinging shut behind him.
The smile that threatens at the corner of his lips disappears, and he stares at the figure on the couch, for only a second, maybe two. He shifts, moving forward and bending down to pick up the unfinished pile of songs strewn across the ground, the pen falling from Jonghyun’s fingers. Kibum reaches, and turns the iPod off, his eyes glimmering when he catches a glimpse of the song that has been put on repeat.
“Love’s Way,” Jonghyun said with a smile in his voice as the tune began to play from the box. “It makes me think of you.”
Kibum felt himself beginning to smile back, with tears in his eyes. He refused to ask why.
---
The next morning, Jonghyun awakens to his songs neatly stacked on the table beside him, a throbbing headache, a turned-off iPod and curled up earphones laying beside it, and a pink, ripped piece of notepaper tacked onto the wall above him. Narrowing his eyes, he plucks it off.
There is nothing written on it - only a perfectly drawn, broken music note. He rubs his eyes, yawning and stretching out his arms, and crumples the note in the palm of his fist.
“It’s not just music,” Jonghyun commented. “It’s what makes us, us.”
Kibum nodded, sincerely, and smiled, sadly. “Just don’t let it take over your life, Jonghyun-ah?”
---
Jonghyun rolls off the couch, stumbling through the doorway into the bedroom. Taemin glances up at him from cutting out something as he enters. “Morning, hyung,” he says with a smile.
The older boy gives back the smile, and a grimace, as he slides open the closet door, stepping back as if to observe what is inside. He disregards the curious look he can feel Taemin boring into his back, and fishes his hand upwards, rummaging around the top of the closet shelf with his fingertips.
Unable to feel what he is looking for, he stretches up a bit more, so that his body is leaned against the remainder of the shelf, which teeters slightly. With a determined face, Jonghyun continues to reach, until he has thrown his entire body weight against the shelf, and it wobbles back and forth violently.
“Hyung, watch-” Taemin doesn’t finish his sentence before a heavy weight comes tumbling down from the shelf, startling Jonghyun into falling onto the hard wooden floor himself. The weight crashes beside him, splintering into a thousand pieces - glass shatters everywhere, tiny shards of light ricocheting across the room.
Motionless, Jonghyun stares at the mess before him, his vision blurring as the familiar sounds and voices begin to fill his ears. “Hyung,” comes Minho’s voice. “Jonghyun - Hyun!” Onew’s sharp call of his name, a tug on the back fabric of his shirt, and he is being pulled away, away from the slivers of glass and collapsed pieces of wood and broken melody - because that’s what he hears, a broken melody, various notes that no longer form a tune.
It reminds Jonghyun of Kibum, the way he hums in the shower, random tunes scattered here and there, like an indecisive heap of notes that stick together - like them, he and Kibum, together. Broken notes, a broken melody, but they stuck together all the same.
Now, though, now the music box - the music box - he broke the music box. “I broke the music box,” he says out loud, and Onew whips around at him with a long, hard stare.
“Yes, Jonghyun. You broke it. It’s okay. We’ll clean it up.”
“No!” Before the older boy can walk away, Jonghyun grasps his sleeve, pulling him back onto the couch beside him, onto the faded pattern surface. “I broke it,” he repeats at Onew, as if saying it over and over again will only confirm its validity. “I broke it. He gave it to me.”
“Key, right? I’m sure he’ll forgive you,” Onew gently brings his sleeve away from Jonghyun’s tight hold. “I have to go help clean up.”
“Where is he?”
“Where is who?”
“Where is Key-” just as the words leave Jonghyun’s mouth, the front door opens with a gust of cold air and a bang. Kibum follows, grocery bags dangling from his fingers, puffy jacket enveloping his figure. Jonghyun watches silently as the other three rush forward towards his presence, collecting the bags from Kibum’s grasp. He nods, and smiles, and ruffles Taemin’s hair, and then looks at Jonghyun’s mellow expression.
“What happened?”
“Ah - well, you see-”
“I broke it,” Jonghyun interrupts, a bit too rudely, and stands up from his position in an abrupt motion. “I broke the music box.” His voice is laced with something unimaginable, something unforgivable, something broken, something like shattered, random music notes on a piece of note paper. “I broke it.”
Kibum watches him. “You…”
“It was an accident,” Taemin pipes up, helpfully. “I was there. He was looking for something, and leaned against the shelf too much. It was an accident.”
“What were you looking for?” Kibum asks quietly, slipping off his shoes and accepting the grocery bags once more as he moves to pad into the kitchen. “Your music is right there.” He nods towards the tidy stack on the table.
Wordlessly, Jonghyun follows him into the kitchen, leaving the others outside. He hears the rustle of footsteps, and Onew’s voice, and the sweep of brooms and pieces of glass before he decides to speak. “It’s not just about the music,” he says, leaning against the doorway. “Right?”
Kibum laughs a little. “Really? I thought it was all about the music. We’ve grown up, right? We have to put our best into what we do.” He starts to put things into the fridge. “I guess I just miss the Jonghyun who used to talk so much.”
“I talk.”
“Really?” Quirking an eyebrow, Kibum turns to look at his friend standing in the doorway.
“I’m talking now, aren’t I?”
“Oh, but you used to talk so much more,” he shrugs, “Growing up is fast. With the music - it’s like the beat, you can’t slow down.”
“Kibum-ah.”
“You should go write, or help the others clean up. I’m fine here by myself. Maybe I can learn to dance to your music, to grow up as fast as you can.”
“Kibum.”
He begins to hum to himself, a remainder of off-tune melodies and unwanted notes, of scattered tunes and broken melodies. He hums as he puts the groceries away, and Jonghyun watches him, this definition of friend he’s never known.
“Promise me you’ll take good care of it,” Kibum fingered the corner of the music box, his eyes glancing up into Jonghyun’s. “As long as our friendship lasts. As long as we last.”
“Forever, then,” Jonghyun answers, his lips curving upwards.
“Forever?”
“Forever or never - I choose forever.”
Out of nowhere, light, all-too-familiar instrumental begins to play in the background - somebody has decided to put on Replay, probably having dug out their old, debut CD from beneath the crevices of the stack.
“Jonghyun is so pretty,” Kibum murmurs along when the music dives into the chorus, and Jonghyun spins back around to look at him, tentatively, but he doesn’t look up from where he is cutting the vegetables into small slices.
Inhaling sharply, the older boy gathers his courage; gliding forward to where Kibum is standing, back facing him. He carefully, ever so carefully raises his arms and slides them around the younger boy’s waist, waiting for the tense lines that form in Kibum’s shoulder blades to relax slightly before pulling closer, until his head is resting right above the other’s shoulder blade, hands interlocked at the front of Kibum’s shirt.
“Hyung,” the younger boy whispers with a sigh, pausing in his cutting of the vegetables - his fingers twitch the tiniest bit, uncomfortable. “What are you doing?”
“Make up, shake up, break up,” Jonghyun sings in his ear, following the music, and feels the beginnings of a smile unravel inside of Kibum, the tremble of laughter that wants out. “He has a perfect jaw line,” Jonghyun continues under his breath. “Sharp nose, and big eyes. He’s perfect.”
The smile breaks loose from its hold. “You are my amigo,” Kibum grins, turning sideways a bit in the embrace so that his hand is on top of Jonghyun’s.
“You messed up the lyrics, stupid.”
“On purpose, idiot,” with a laugh, he swats at his friend’s hand. “It fits the tune still.”
Jonghyun frowns, his finger lingering along to play with the younger boy’s ear piercing as the softer melody of Love’s Way starts to sound from outside. “We should dance to this song,” he comments.
“It’s too slow.”
“So you can catch up to me,” Jonghyun tilts his head. “I’m growing up too fast, right? Dancing too quickly? Dance slowly with me, Key. The music won’t last long.”
Just long enough, Kibum wants to say, but the older boy is already twirling him around the kitchen, and he laughs, out loud, at the complete absurdity of it all. When Jonghyun gives him a curious look, he smiles, cheeky, and leans forward.
“This song reminds me of you,” he says, and feels, sees, hears Jonghyun laugh along with him - what at, he isn’t even quite sure anymore - but he feels whole again, dancing slowly, to Jonghyun’s music, to a mended friendship, to the fixed notes of their melody.
Forever or never, Kibum thinks to himself - and from now on, he will always choose forever. There's nothing better than this.