Saturn V
Title: Saturn V
Pairing: Minho/Onew WHAT ELSE
Rating: PG-13
Words: ~2000
Summary: Some days, he can make a clean sweep of Snow White's seven dwarfs even before they reach the airport.
Notes: If I never listened to music I'd never get distracted from all the other fic I should be writing. Nevertheless, this is dedicated to tuesdayfuck, who gave me the most gorgeous comment weeks ago, it's been driving the inspiration engine ever since; by the same token, this is also a thank you to anyone who's ever read my stuff, ever. I think I started writing mostly to funnel all these emotions into something productive, so I still find it pretty extraordinary that some of you guys like it enough to come back. Thanks again, and MY APOLOGIES FOREVER.
Minho has really straight teeth. They sit on top of his lower lip like the inverted edge of a continental shelf. Then there's his eyes, eight hundred feet deep, a gaping trench of open ocean for Jinki to drift down into, anchoring his line of sight as he stumbles through sterile corridors and granite-paved foyers, fighting a full-body caffeine deficiency.
Some days, he can make a clean sweep of Snow White's seven dwarfs (SLEEPY, SNEEZY, GRUMPY -- though HAPPY is still a work in progress) even before they reach the airport. DOPEY, meanwhile, is all the way.
But then his head clears, and suddenly Minho's smile looks less like a smile and more like a grimace. His lips begin to move, forming words.
"Customs, hyung. It's your turn."
Everyone else is waiting; embarrassed, Jinki fumbles with his passport, steps over the yellow line and gives the officer an apologetic, nerves-soaked smile. On his left, Minho passes through the aisle, tossing him a look that Jinki barely manages to catch out of the corner of his eye before joining their group next to the elevators.
The officer stamps his passport, hands it back with a small nod. "Starbucks is just around the corner," she tells him helpfully.
"Oh, haha," says Jinki (BASHFUL, there we go). "Thank you."
When even strangers are offering free advice, you know your mistakes are stacking up.
"Excited?" Jonghyun asks without turning around, the sound of his voice bouncing off the wall. Key rests a hand on his shoulder, an indirect salute to the gathered fans.
"You say that every time," Taemin comments, tightening the straps on his backpack.
Jonghyun narrows his eyes. "You're killing me, Lee Taemin."
Jinki, standing a few feet away, listens in with a kind of dull comprehension, Minho poking at his new phone next to him.
"Oh yeah," he murmurs to himself a few seconds later. "I can just feel it bubbling up."
Minho overhears. "Are you hungry?" he asks, misunderstanding. It's not his fault, but Jinki feels a sudden, sharp stab of irritation. He doesn't feel like explaining anymore.
"I'm tired," he says shortly, and Minho gives him one of his ambiguously unnerving gazes. "Sit next to me on the bus," is what he says next, before turning around to throw an insult back at Jonghyun, and Jinki relaxes into the stammered verbosity of Jonghyun's overreaction, the sound of their laughter keeping his feet moving forward until he's finally seated again, a forty-minute non-stop crawl across town to the concert hall.
Only the seats are tilted at a degree not so much to accommodate comfort, but quantity. Exhausted, but wide awake nonetheless, he can feel the bump and grind of every split on the interstate, can hear metal and air knocking against each other to move the vehicle forward, theories of combustion and chemical propulsion at work. His head's beginning to ache, but he can't seem to stop gritting his teeth.
Or maybe it's the discernible warmth of the person beside him that's making him so nervous.
"Here," Minho, blissfully unaware, holds out an eyemask, "so you can get some sleep." He pauses. "You need help putting it on?"
"I'm not five," Jinki tells him, right before the mask is snapped over his eyes. "Ow," he starts to say, but then he's cut off again, this time by something pressing against his mouth. It takes him a second to realize what it is, but by then, Minho's already pulled away.
Jinki waits, eyes open wide in the dark, but all he can hear is the muted, half-conscious movements people make when they're asleep. Eventually he says, "You better start talking."
"What would you like me to say?" asks Minho; his deep voice is nothing but calm. It sounds like he's facing away from him, probably staring out the window. Jinki could confirm this if he just took off the mask, but that would mean he would have to look. "Your parents never kissed you goodnight?"
"Tell me that's not who you were trying to imitate."
"No." He hears something like a sigh. "That was from me."
"Minho," Jinki yanks off the mask -- he was right, Minho was staring out the window. "Minho."
"What?"
"I--" He's not even sure what he wants to say. "I'm not asleep yet."
Minho folds his arms, then closes his eyes; Jinki knows this because he can see his reflection in the window. "You can try."
He doesn't realize he's unconsciously hanging at Minho's elbow every available second he has until his bandmate is changing into the suit for his solo stage.
"Are you going somewhere, hyung?" Minho asks, looking down at his buttons.
"I need you to keep still," their stylist says firmly, tucking a few strands of hair behind Minho's ear.
"I'm just watching," says Jinki; a non-protest protest. Watching, and waiting, he thinks, for him to finish what he's started.
Which, after their stylist leaves to get more hairspray, he does. "Hey," says Minho, after a few seconds of neither of them saying anything, "I'm sorry about the kiss."
"You're--" Jinki sputters, shocked out of his silence, "you're sorry?"
"Jonghyun-hyung just went for it," Minho says, then grins reflexly. "But, I mean, whatever." His face is completely at ease, somehow the total opposite of what Jinki's feeling.
And that was the great mystery. With anyone else, Jinki is usually able to breach his own insecurities and fear of intimacy, but with Minho, it's like he's being constantly distracted by his own thoughts, and any sort of progress that's been given an earnest effort is suddenly grounded to a halt. Sometimes Jinki thinks that the earliest, most ancient taxonomist must have made a very grave mistake, because Minho should have been put into an entirely different category, specifically made for unattainable, ennobled types of human being. Next to him, Jinki felt like a peanut butter cookie. But it wasn't only about the looks -- if only it was only about the looks! -- because the problem also manifested itself into a mutual, unspoken understanding that shouldn't have existed but instead inconveniently linked them together; whether he liked it or not, Minho always knew. And thus in the time he spent with him, Jinki always felt like he was on the brink of a confrontation, or alternatively, a confession.
He is suddenly very tired of having his back against the wall. "That's not the kiss I was thinking about."
"Oh." Minho adjusts his coat, revealing a deliberately visible line of hard chest, and a harder stomach. "Well, you know. The prince usually kisses the girl awake. So wake up, hyung. Smell the roses."
Oh, oh what the fuck. "I didn't know you bought me roses."
Minho frowns; the stylist returns with the hairspray. The air is soon filled with the light scent of extra-hold herbal essences. She leaves again, and Minho turns to him, says in a huff, "Don't be so obtuse. I mean, I've always been here for you."
"Well," says Jinki, and even he's surprised by how cold he sounds, "you can see what a difference it's made."
"Yeah? Is that what you're saying?" Minho's hurt, Jinki realizes, and almost feels a twinge of regret. What was a pinch or two of jealousy compared to that? "Man, sometimes I wish -- I wish--"
But then again, he's hurt too. "What, are you expecting an easy solution? That you can single-handedly save everything? You think this is 'It's a Wonderful Life' or something?"
Which is exactly when a crew member dashes in, clipping on Minho's mic, and Jinki is gently nudged over as they do a final check on hair and makeup, before Minho strides out of the green room without so much as a second glance, the intro to Oh My God filtering through the thin walls as Jinki, biting his bottom lip, turns away.
When he apologizes a day later -- a day later, a country over, this kind of thing has now become routine -- Minho only shakes his head.
"You're not the only one who's tired," he says.
"I know, and I'm sorry," Jinki replies, "but what else am I supposed to do?"
Minho stares at him. "A true man," he says carefully, "is honest."
Jinki stares back. "A true man never gives up."
"I've never thought of you as anything less," Minho says softly, and Jinki finds himself blinking rapidly.
"Okay," he says, taking a deep breath. "Okay. I have to tell you something."
"Then tell me."
"I'm going to tell you the truth. I'm tired, but it's not only because I can't sleep." And here it was; Jinki swallows, his throat tight. "When you sleep, you dream, right? But I can't stop thinking about you. And I can only do that when I'm awake. Sometimes it feels like I -- I keep myself awake so I can think about us. Sometimes it feels like it's the only chance I have."
Minho blinks -- fighting disbelief, Jinki can tell. "You dream of things other than this?"
"Are you kidding me?" and a corner of Minho's mouth quirks up.
"I mean, we're internationally famous, we own nice things, we travel the world over." His voice is tinged with ever-present optimism, and Jinki thinks, fuck, he's perfect. "What more do you want?"
"Time," Jinki says. He shrugs, still unable to properly express himself. "It's just, you're not supposed to rush this stuff."
"I don't want to get into an argument with you again," says Minho. "But we are not rushing. Unless," he gives him a heavy-lidded glance, "maybe going forward at all is already too fast for you."
"Maybe," Jinki says, because he was being honest. "It's not like this is going to have some kind of tidy, end-of-the-movie conclusion. So maybe I just don't know what else to say."
Minho scoffs. "You've already said it!"
"I know, but -- you see? Sometimes it's safer just to think."
"Yeah, okay, I get it." Minho gazes at some invisible point above Jinki's head, before turning his ocean eyes on him, a glint of understanding. "I'm a risk you're not willing to take?"
"Think of it as a compliment," Jinki says, suddenly drained. He hesitates, then reaches out and grips Minho by the shoulder. "Look, there's more than one way to win with this."
Minho smiles sadly, reaches up to rest his hand on top of his. "We both know that's not true."
Key finally asks him if something's wrong, and Jinki almost loses it.
"You know, if we were talking about compatibility, no one could win against my argument. But belonging and being together aren't the same thing, even if you're in such close proximity and maybe he's right, it could be so easy. Ever had your heart bottle-stopped?" he'd rage. "Ever had to grind yourself down so you at least have a hope of forgetting, instead of forgetting not to hope?"
Then again, he doesn't want to alarm Key into calling emergency medical response, so Jinki reels it in at the last second.
"I'm fine," he says instead, trying to keep his face as blank as possible.
"I have to tell you something," Jinki says, his back against the wall.
"I've heard that before," Minho replies, then adds mockingly. "You can see what a difference it's made."
"I have to tell you something you can't put into words," Jinki insists. Inside he's trembling. He sighs, chin dipping down a little. "Do the quiet moments count? Or only the loud ones, the ones that clearly show everything?"
"I guess it depends," says Minho, and Jinki kisses him, full-lipped, full circle, soaring emotions an unexpected epilogue after the conclusion -- thank fucking god -- trying to convey both possession and reclamation, of giving himself away to great beauty.
"Your hair is getting long," Minho murmurs when he pulls away, thumb tracing the contour of his cheek.
"I can't stand it," Jinki confesses, breathing hard. He feels like his entire chest just ruptured. "But they won't let me get it cut."
"Don't hate me, but I kind of like it," Minho says, and Jinki can't resist a smile, lips brushing lightly against his palm. It helps.
Pairing: Minho/Onew WHAT ELSE
Rating: PG-13
Words: ~2000
Summary: Some days, he can make a clean sweep of Snow White's seven dwarfs even before they reach the airport.
Notes: If I never listened to music I'd never get distracted from all the other fic I should be writing. Nevertheless, this is dedicated to tuesdayfuck, who gave me the most gorgeous comment weeks ago, it's been driving the inspiration engine ever since; by the same token, this is also a thank you to anyone who's ever read my stuff, ever. I think I started writing mostly to funnel all these emotions into something productive, so I still find it pretty extraordinary that some of you guys like it enough to come back. Thanks again, and MY APOLOGIES FOREVER.
Minho has really straight teeth. They sit on top of his lower lip like the inverted edge of a continental shelf. Then there's his eyes, eight hundred feet deep, a gaping trench of open ocean for Jinki to drift down into, anchoring his line of sight as he stumbles through sterile corridors and granite-paved foyers, fighting a full-body caffeine deficiency.
Some days, he can make a clean sweep of Snow White's seven dwarfs (SLEEPY, SNEEZY, GRUMPY -- though HAPPY is still a work in progress) even before they reach the airport. DOPEY, meanwhile, is all the way.
But then his head clears, and suddenly Minho's smile looks less like a smile and more like a grimace. His lips begin to move, forming words.
"Customs, hyung. It's your turn."
Everyone else is waiting; embarrassed, Jinki fumbles with his passport, steps over the yellow line and gives the officer an apologetic, nerves-soaked smile. On his left, Minho passes through the aisle, tossing him a look that Jinki barely manages to catch out of the corner of his eye before joining their group next to the elevators.
The officer stamps his passport, hands it back with a small nod. "Starbucks is just around the corner," she tells him helpfully.
"Oh, haha," says Jinki (BASHFUL, there we go). "Thank you."
When even strangers are offering free advice, you know your mistakes are stacking up.
"Excited?" Jonghyun asks without turning around, the sound of his voice bouncing off the wall. Key rests a hand on his shoulder, an indirect salute to the gathered fans.
"You say that every time," Taemin comments, tightening the straps on his backpack.
Jonghyun narrows his eyes. "You're killing me, Lee Taemin."
Jinki, standing a few feet away, listens in with a kind of dull comprehension, Minho poking at his new phone next to him.
"Oh yeah," he murmurs to himself a few seconds later. "I can just feel it bubbling up."
Minho overhears. "Are you hungry?" he asks, misunderstanding. It's not his fault, but Jinki feels a sudden, sharp stab of irritation. He doesn't feel like explaining anymore.
"I'm tired," he says shortly, and Minho gives him one of his ambiguously unnerving gazes. "Sit next to me on the bus," is what he says next, before turning around to throw an insult back at Jonghyun, and Jinki relaxes into the stammered verbosity of Jonghyun's overreaction, the sound of their laughter keeping his feet moving forward until he's finally seated again, a forty-minute non-stop crawl across town to the concert hall.
Only the seats are tilted at a degree not so much to accommodate comfort, but quantity. Exhausted, but wide awake nonetheless, he can feel the bump and grind of every split on the interstate, can hear metal and air knocking against each other to move the vehicle forward, theories of combustion and chemical propulsion at work. His head's beginning to ache, but he can't seem to stop gritting his teeth.
Or maybe it's the discernible warmth of the person beside him that's making him so nervous.
"Here," Minho, blissfully unaware, holds out an eyemask, "so you can get some sleep." He pauses. "You need help putting it on?"
"I'm not five," Jinki tells him, right before the mask is snapped over his eyes. "Ow," he starts to say, but then he's cut off again, this time by something pressing against his mouth. It takes him a second to realize what it is, but by then, Minho's already pulled away.
Jinki waits, eyes open wide in the dark, but all he can hear is the muted, half-conscious movements people make when they're asleep. Eventually he says, "You better start talking."
"What would you like me to say?" asks Minho; his deep voice is nothing but calm. It sounds like he's facing away from him, probably staring out the window. Jinki could confirm this if he just took off the mask, but that would mean he would have to look. "Your parents never kissed you goodnight?"
"Tell me that's not who you were trying to imitate."
"No." He hears something like a sigh. "That was from me."
"Minho," Jinki yanks off the mask -- he was right, Minho was staring out the window. "Minho."
"What?"
"I--" He's not even sure what he wants to say. "I'm not asleep yet."
Minho folds his arms, then closes his eyes; Jinki knows this because he can see his reflection in the window. "You can try."
He doesn't realize he's unconsciously hanging at Minho's elbow every available second he has until his bandmate is changing into the suit for his solo stage.
"Are you going somewhere, hyung?" Minho asks, looking down at his buttons.
"I need you to keep still," their stylist says firmly, tucking a few strands of hair behind Minho's ear.
"I'm just watching," says Jinki; a non-protest protest. Watching, and waiting, he thinks, for him to finish what he's started.
Which, after their stylist leaves to get more hairspray, he does. "Hey," says Minho, after a few seconds of neither of them saying anything, "I'm sorry about the kiss."
"You're--" Jinki sputters, shocked out of his silence, "you're sorry?"
"Jonghyun-hyung just went for it," Minho says, then grins reflexly. "But, I mean, whatever." His face is completely at ease, somehow the total opposite of what Jinki's feeling.
And that was the great mystery. With anyone else, Jinki is usually able to breach his own insecurities and fear of intimacy, but with Minho, it's like he's being constantly distracted by his own thoughts, and any sort of progress that's been given an earnest effort is suddenly grounded to a halt. Sometimes Jinki thinks that the earliest, most ancient taxonomist must have made a very grave mistake, because Minho should have been put into an entirely different category, specifically made for unattainable, ennobled types of human being. Next to him, Jinki felt like a peanut butter cookie. But it wasn't only about the looks -- if only it was only about the looks! -- because the problem also manifested itself into a mutual, unspoken understanding that shouldn't have existed but instead inconveniently linked them together; whether he liked it or not, Minho always knew. And thus in the time he spent with him, Jinki always felt like he was on the brink of a confrontation, or alternatively, a confession.
He is suddenly very tired of having his back against the wall. "That's not the kiss I was thinking about."
"Oh." Minho adjusts his coat, revealing a deliberately visible line of hard chest, and a harder stomach. "Well, you know. The prince usually kisses the girl awake. So wake up, hyung. Smell the roses."
Oh, oh what the fuck. "I didn't know you bought me roses."
Minho frowns; the stylist returns with the hairspray. The air is soon filled with the light scent of extra-hold herbal essences. She leaves again, and Minho turns to him, says in a huff, "Don't be so obtuse. I mean, I've always been here for you."
"Well," says Jinki, and even he's surprised by how cold he sounds, "you can see what a difference it's made."
"Yeah? Is that what you're saying?" Minho's hurt, Jinki realizes, and almost feels a twinge of regret. What was a pinch or two of jealousy compared to that? "Man, sometimes I wish -- I wish--"
But then again, he's hurt too. "What, are you expecting an easy solution? That you can single-handedly save everything? You think this is 'It's a Wonderful Life' or something?"
Which is exactly when a crew member dashes in, clipping on Minho's mic, and Jinki is gently nudged over as they do a final check on hair and makeup, before Minho strides out of the green room without so much as a second glance, the intro to Oh My God filtering through the thin walls as Jinki, biting his bottom lip, turns away.
When he apologizes a day later -- a day later, a country over, this kind of thing has now become routine -- Minho only shakes his head.
"You're not the only one who's tired," he says.
"I know, and I'm sorry," Jinki replies, "but what else am I supposed to do?"
Minho stares at him. "A true man," he says carefully, "is honest."
Jinki stares back. "A true man never gives up."
"I've never thought of you as anything less," Minho says softly, and Jinki finds himself blinking rapidly.
"Okay," he says, taking a deep breath. "Okay. I have to tell you something."
"Then tell me."
"I'm going to tell you the truth. I'm tired, but it's not only because I can't sleep." And here it was; Jinki swallows, his throat tight. "When you sleep, you dream, right? But I can't stop thinking about you. And I can only do that when I'm awake. Sometimes it feels like I -- I keep myself awake so I can think about us. Sometimes it feels like it's the only chance I have."
Minho blinks -- fighting disbelief, Jinki can tell. "You dream of things other than this?"
"Are you kidding me?" and a corner of Minho's mouth quirks up.
"I mean, we're internationally famous, we own nice things, we travel the world over." His voice is tinged with ever-present optimism, and Jinki thinks, fuck, he's perfect. "What more do you want?"
"Time," Jinki says. He shrugs, still unable to properly express himself. "It's just, you're not supposed to rush this stuff."
"I don't want to get into an argument with you again," says Minho. "But we are not rushing. Unless," he gives him a heavy-lidded glance, "maybe going forward at all is already too fast for you."
"Maybe," Jinki says, because he was being honest. "It's not like this is going to have some kind of tidy, end-of-the-movie conclusion. So maybe I just don't know what else to say."
Minho scoffs. "You've already said it!"
"I know, but -- you see? Sometimes it's safer just to think."
"Yeah, okay, I get it." Minho gazes at some invisible point above Jinki's head, before turning his ocean eyes on him, a glint of understanding. "I'm a risk you're not willing to take?"
"Think of it as a compliment," Jinki says, suddenly drained. He hesitates, then reaches out and grips Minho by the shoulder. "Look, there's more than one way to win with this."
Minho smiles sadly, reaches up to rest his hand on top of his. "We both know that's not true."
Key finally asks him if something's wrong, and Jinki almost loses it.
"You know, if we were talking about compatibility, no one could win against my argument. But belonging and being together aren't the same thing, even if you're in such close proximity and maybe he's right, it could be so easy. Ever had your heart bottle-stopped?" he'd rage. "Ever had to grind yourself down so you at least have a hope of forgetting, instead of forgetting not to hope?"
Then again, he doesn't want to alarm Key into calling emergency medical response, so Jinki reels it in at the last second.
"I'm fine," he says instead, trying to keep his face as blank as possible.
"I have to tell you something," Jinki says, his back against the wall.
"I've heard that before," Minho replies, then adds mockingly. "You can see what a difference it's made."
"I have to tell you something you can't put into words," Jinki insists. Inside he's trembling. He sighs, chin dipping down a little. "Do the quiet moments count? Or only the loud ones, the ones that clearly show everything?"
"I guess it depends," says Minho, and Jinki kisses him, full-lipped, full circle, soaring emotions an unexpected epilogue after the conclusion -- thank fucking god -- trying to convey both possession and reclamation, of giving himself away to great beauty.
"Your hair is getting long," Minho murmurs when he pulls away, thumb tracing the contour of his cheek.
"I can't stand it," Jinki confesses, breathing hard. He feels like his entire chest just ruptured. "But they won't let me get it cut."
"Don't hate me, but I kind of like it," Minho says, and Jinki can't resist a smile, lips brushing lightly against his palm. It helps.