#3 You Are Not Invited to the Other Side of Sanity 1/3
Title: You are Not Invited to the Other Side of Sanity
Group(s): SHINee
Pairing(s): Taemin-centric; Taemin/Key
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 26,122
The cat isn’t supposed to come into a room when Taemin’s the only one in it, but it’s never hurt him before. Taemin’s content to sit in his jumper, thumb jammed in his mouth, and watch the cat stalk around the room and pounce on things - cushions, toys, the remote. Not that their cat only hunts things that don’t move; it’s brought back a couple of mice before.
Which is why it’s weird, that the cat’s never caught this mouse before.
Taemin sees a white mouse in the corner of the room everyday, coming out of a hole in the wall and sniffing the wall. But their cat never hunts it, doesn’t even notice it. And it’s always there.
But it’s okay; it’s not like it bothers him all that much. Taemin turns away from the corner with the mouse and returns to his building blocks.
The mouse is still there the day Taemin starts kindergarten, hanging onto his mom’s hand as she leads him through the front door and greets the teacher. During recess, he has a harder time making friends that some of the other kids do, because he doesn’t like to talk to strangers - he’s content to tag along and sit to the side until something exciting is going on.
That’s when he notices two kids on the playground.
It’s a girl and a boy, the boy trying to climb up one of the slides and slipping back down halfway up. The girl laughs and claps her hands - not meanly, Taemin thinks - but the boy wrinkles his nose and takes off for the swings, leaving the girl to chase after him. Taemin turns to follow them with his eyes. What he sees is the boy passing through another boy, a boy Taemin recognizes from roll call. He blinks.
“D’you see the boy?” Taemin turns back to the kids around him, pointing at the swings. “He went through another boy!”
The others stare at him and look where he’s pointing, but there’s nobody at the swings, and they tell him so.
Taemin frowns and turns - and the boy is there, Taemin sees him running with the girl after him. “He’s there!”
But none of the other boys can see the boy or the girl. Taemin realizes that there is something wrong, not with them, but him. How he sees things. And he doesn’t know what the problem is.
It’s the first day of music class. Taemin purses his lips in frustration and tries to block the choppy, out of tune notes coming from the old piano. There’s a boy there, singing and slamming on the keys and wiping his tears away. His voice is loud and scratchy and resonates throughout the whole entire room. The boy has light brown hair, sharp eyes, and wears a dirtied school uniform. The old one, Taemin notes. He’s seen them in the pictures from years ago, hanging on the wall of achievements. He turns his head away and faces the teacher, but it’s pointless. He won’t be able to hear the teacher, so he slowly slips through the crowd of students to the very side, next to the boy on the piano.
The boy wails and slams his foot down on the pedal, letting the note ring throughout the room. It’s dull and eerie, echoing in weird patterns. The piano is more battered than it looks. Taemin rests his elbows on the lid and watches him carefully. It should be unsettling, a bit awkward, maybe even a little scary. But Taemin feels nothing but pity for the boy. He reaches out to try and touch his arm, even though he knows he won’t be able to feel anything. He’s tried it before.
“You can’t do anything, you know,” someone says pointedly.
Taemin jumps about a mile, because he’s never had someone who’s talked to him while he’s tuned out of what he thinks of as “the real world.” The new boy has a feline face, high cheekbones and dark eyes and dark brown hair swept to the side.
He asks the obvious question. “Who are you?”
“Me?” The stranger grins. “I’m Kibum. But some of the other kids I’ve met who are like you call me Key. ‘Cause you can’t do anything in this timespace unless I open the door for you - and I won’t. I won’t, because you can’t do anything that will actually work or not fuck up.”
“You can’t be sure,” Taemin says defensively, though his past tries have pretty much proved Kibum right.
“Oh, and you’ve had so much success the last few times.” Kibum raises an eyebrow. “I’ve been watching you, and if you don’t stop trying, it’s going to be a waste of time for both you and me.”
“That’s creepy,” Taemin quips, “and if I don’t try, how am I gonna find out why I can see people?”
Kibum waves that off. “There’s no reason, you just can. What you see is print someone left here when they died regretting something. They stay here forever. If you need a reason, I guess it’s to remind you to” - he raises his fingers in air quotes - “live without regrets.”
Taemin thinks on that, remembers other “prints,” like the girl and the boy on the playground, the man walking through the supermarket putting liquor in his cart, the two boys that wait at the intersection two blocks from Taemin’s house everyday. “I don’t think so. I think that I can see them because I can help them somehow.” More quietly, “I want to help them.”
“Well, you can’t,” Kibum says, something flashing in his eyes. “You’re not the first one to try.”
Taemin feels his stubborn streak surfacing. “Yeah, but I can be the first one to figure it out.”
Kibum smiles like it’s a completely ridiculous thought. “You won’t be.” And he’s gone.
Taemin spends a few more minutes watching the boy at the piano, feeling his despair and anger and wincing at the same time he does when a note sounds particularly bad. Then he gets up and leaves, going back into the crowd of students. But he can still hear the piano.
It’s all he thinks about for the next two days. He draws musical notes on the side of his paper without realizing, hums little chords and sequences he hears the boy playing throughout the day, and even eats his lunch in the music room, just watching him play.
“There really is no point,” Kibum says. “You can’t do anything about it. He’ll just be here forever.”
Taemin glares at him. “And how do you know that? How long have you been here for?”
Kibum gives him a wry smile. “Forever.”
Taemin pauses, chopsticks inches away from his mouth. He considers the situation and studies Kibum’s face, taking in every detail. “You can talk to me though. But you’re a spirit too, right?”
Kibum shifts in his seat and throws the boy playing the piano a frown when he slams his hand down on the piano.
“He does play some nice songs from time to time. I heard him play Fur Elise once. I think he makes up most of what he plays.”
“Probably,” Kibum says. “Maybe he’s trying to remember-” He stops mid sentence and looks away.
“Remember?” Taemin asks. “Do you think he’s trying to remember something?”
“Of course not,” Kibum stands up. “It was a guess. Take it as you like, but as I said before, you aren’t going to be able to do anything about it. Have a nice day.”
Taemin watches Kibum walk through the door, except he doesn’t really walk through the door. He vaguely wonders if he thinks Kibum is trying to fool him into thinking that he’s a spirit like the rest of them, walking through doors and people, and never really leaving the Earth’s surface. Taemin can see the difference though. Kibum walks towards doors and walls like he’s about to pass through them, but his body disintegrates at the last second, and he vanishes into thin air. He can only wonder where Kibum actually goes.
Taemin stays after school that day and watches the boy play. Jonghyun is his name, Taemin learns, when Jonghyun slams his head down on the keys and starts sobbing, chanting, “It’s okay, Jonghyun; you can do this, Jonghyun. Keep going, Jonghyun. It’ll all work out in the end, Jonghyun.”
When he goes home, he doesn’t do any of his homework and googles Jonghyun’s name and the name of his school. He’s a bit surprised at the amount of results. Jonghyun was the semifinalist in a musical competition held at their school fifty years ago. He was beaten out by a girl named Jung Yoojin and failed to win the scholarship prize. He played La Fille Avec Cheveux de Lin by Debussy while she played Hungarian Rhapsody in C minor. There’s an old recording of their performances, but the static and crowd overpowers the actual playing so much that Taemin gives up and closes the tab. Taemin’s mother comes in then and demands that he go to bed.
He wakes up on the floor of the music room to jarringly loud music playing from the piano. He doesn’t even have to think twice to know who’s playing it.
“Ow,” he says.
The piano stops playing and Taemin suddenly thinks - oh, so this is what the music room sounds like when it’s silent. But then his mind connects silent to piano not playing to Jonghyun not playing the piano and that simply doesn’t make sense because Jonghyun always plays the piano. He turns his head over to find Jonghyun staring at him with wide eyes.
“Um. Hi,” Taemin frowns. “This isn’t the way I thought we’d meet.”
“You’re on the floor,” Jonghyun says warily and eyes him with skepticism.
Taemin looks down. “So I am,” he replies. He makes a little noise of discomfort and stands up, dusting off his pants.
“Who are you? I’ve never seen you before,” Jonghyun says, shifting slightly in his seat.
“I’m Taemin, and-” Taemin pauses, realizing that he doesn’t actually know what to say now that he can finally talk to Jonghyun.
“And?” Jonghyun asks, eyes narrowing.
“And, um.” Taemin stuffs his hands in his pockets and looks down at the floor, then blurts out, “I’ve been watching you play for a while and I wanted to help you, y’know, ‘cause you’re working so hard and stuff.”
Jonghyun raises his eyebrows. “Thanks, but um. I don’t think there’s really anything you can do.”
This is so reminiscent of Kibum that Taemin’s answer is fiercer than he expects. “You don’t know that! You’ve been here forever, and I think” - he feels realization suddenly crash over his head like a wave as he links Kibum’s words with his research on Jonghyun - “I think you’re here because you’ve always regretted not winning the piano competition and you’re trying to redo it, redo everything, but it won’t work because it’s already happened and you’ve already lost the competition and you think you can’t win it.” Taemin takes a breath. “That’s why. That’s why you’re still here, because in the back of your head you know that you’ve lost, but you can’t let it go - but I can help you. I want to help you, anyway.”
All Taemin gets in reply is Jonghyun with his mouth hanging open. Then Jonghyun and the room are swallowed into nothingness and Taemin blacks out.
He comes to in his own bed in the middle of the night, staring up at the ceiling. And he’s grinning, grinning really hard because he’s figured out how to start on what Kibum told him was impossible - fixing it. Taemin shifts his covers around a little before settling into sleep again.
It’s like deja vu - he wakes up in the same exact position on the music room floor as he did before - but the piano is completely silent. Taemin sits up and looks toward where he knows Jonghyun will be.
“You’re back,” Jonghyun says gloomily.
“Yup.” Taemin smiles, pleased that he’s managed to come here again, even if the other isn’t. “Anyway, like I was saying-”
“How do you know?” Jonghyun interrupts, staring at Taemin. “How do you know about it? The piano competition, playing, practicing forever...”
Taemin frowns. “I...well, I can see you when I’m awake. I can see all the people who left while they regretted something, but you’re the first one I’ve been able to talk to.”
Jonghyun looks understandably bewildered. “I, uh, I’m just gonna practice.”
“Alright,” Taemin says, content to watch before deciding what to do next.
It doesn’t take long for Taemin to see that Jonghyun plays the same way he does when Taemin’s awake, making up notes and mixing in simple tunes and classics from time to time. Finally, Jonghyun’s playing melds into something almost consistent and he goes on for a few bars, until a jumble of wrong notes messes it up and Jonghyun yells in frustration.
This repeats itself several times before the melody clicks in Taemin’s head, matches up with the strains he remembers hearing through static and cheering in the video online, matches up with Kibum saying, maybe he’s trying to remember. It’s part of the song that Jonghyun played in the competition.
“You forgot the song,” Taemin says, voicing his thoughts aloud. Jonghyun stops playing. “You can’t play it anymore because that’s the song that made you lose. But you need to play it.” Taemin’s convinced of himself now. “And once you play it, you’ll be free.”
Jonghyun doesn’t look at him, but he doesn’t start to play again, either. He just stares, down at the keys and his fingers that don’t know where to place themselves anymore.
“You can do it,” Taemin presses on. “You just need to think. Clear your mind and focus. Do you remember the name of the song?”
“Yeah!” Jonghyun grins and readies himself to start playing. “It was-” Jonghyun’s smile fades away and he visibly wilts, slouching over on the piano bench and sighing. “I don’t remember.”
Taemin pats him on the back. “That’s okay, I remember.” When Taemin goes to say the name, his body goes cold and a feeling of dread overcomes him when he doesn’t remember it. It’s on the tip of his tongue, but with each second it fades farther and farther into the distance, mere millimeters from his fingertips. It’s then when he realizes that this is Jonghyun’s test.
Jonghyun frowns, but pats him on the back half-heartedly anyways. “It’s alright. Even if I did remember, I wouldn’t be able to piece it together.” He plays a chord and trails off, making up note sequences and harmonies. None of them quite fit together, like piecing together opposite ends of pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
He continues playing, but a loud ringing noise drills in between, and Taemin can vaguely see a bright light coming from the direction of the door. That’s weird, Taemin thinks, the window is on the other side of the classroom. The ringing noise gets louder and louder, until it’s all he hears and he opens his eyes once again.
He’s in his room, with his alarm clock beeping next to him. He forgot to close the curtains last night, so the light streams through onto the bed.
Taemin groans and forces himself to get out of bed and into the bathroom. He goes to school in a daze, not quite comprehending anything going around him. It’s not until he reaches his locker when he realizes that he met Jonghyun last night. Music class is fourth period, and all of first he stares out the window in a daze, wondering things like if Jonghyun was here... or I wonder what it’s like to be in Jonghyun’s shoes. Then the thoughts morph into things like what if he never remembers or what if he gives up. His anxiety gets to him and Taemin goes to the nurse and feigns having a migraine. He finally goes back to class at fourth period, and before he enters the room, he hears the crash of disoriented music from outside. Taemin grins to himself and goes inside the classroom. He hands the teacher the pass and takes the seat nearest to the old piano. Taemin finds watching Jonghyun play oddly comforting. His playing, as disastrous and uneven as it is, calms Taemin into a stupor.
He looks up to find Jonghyun staring at him from the piano. He looks down and around him and finds no one else in the classroom. He must’ve fallen asleep in class, if the spot of drool on the desk is any indication.
“I fell asleep. In class,” Taemin announces as Jonghyun raises an eyebrow. “And I want to learn piano.”
“You want to learn...piano?”
“How to play the piano. Same thing.” Taemin walks over to Jonghyun and motions for him to scooch over. He plops down next to him and beams at him. “Teach me things.”
Jonghyun looks a bit bewildered, but shrugs. “I suppose that’s alright. I have all the time in the world anyways. So, uh, this key is C. This is basically the basis of the placement of all the other keys on the piano. This one is B, and that black key is a B flat.”
Taemin watches intently, nodding his head at all the right times and attempting to playing the little nursery rhymes as best as he can.
“No, no, you’re doing it wrong,” Jonghyun slaps his hand and places his fingers on the keys. “Watch me one more time, okay?”
His hands easily glide across the keyboard, playing the melody Taemin failed. When it ends, his hands pause for a moment before accidentally pressing another key. Jonghyun pauses again before pressing another. And another. And then another. Taemin watches his with a new profound interest as he starts to play something he recognizes vaguely, but can’t place a name on.
And suddenly Jonghyun stops. Taemin watches as Jonghyun sniffs and slumps over in his chair. He can see the tears about to overflow in his eyes, and Jonghyun has never looked so vulnerable now than Taemin has ever seen him - not even the first time Taemin saw him, sobbing hysterically and slamming on random keys.
“I forgot,” Jonghyun whispers. He sniffs again and bites his bottom lip. “It was - I was so close. It just came to me. And then it all just disappeared. Vanished from my mind. I can’t play it. I just can’t.” He closes the piano cover and rests his elbows on it. Jonghyun covers his face with his hands and Taemin watches miserably as his back quivers and voice falters, breaking out into sobs.
“It’s alright,” he says awkwardly, placing an arm around Jonghyun’s shoulders and patting him on the arm. “I told you, I’m here to help, okay? You’re not alone. You can do it.” Taemin trails off as he suddenly shudders, as if someone just shook him. “Look, I think I have to go now - but I’ll be back. Hang in there.” He gives Jonghyun one last squeeze and jerks awake.
Taemin blinks up at Sungjong, who’s looking down at him weirdly. “God, I thought you were never going to wake up. Did you pull an all-nighter or something?” He shoulders his bag and goes on without waiting for an answer. “C’mon, let’s go to the cafeteria.”
“Yeah,” Taemin answers faintly, scooping his own backpack off the floor. He remains spaced out for the rest of the day, not noticing when his friends steal his lunch, and effectively getting blacklisted by his fifth and sixth period teachers. All he’s waiting for is to get home and take a nap so he can meet Jonghyun again.
When Taemin comes to in the music room, Jonghyun’s not crying anymore, but his eyes are an angry red and his lids are half-closed as his fingers race along the keys, trying to find the right order to put them in.
“Hi,” Taemin says cautiously.
“Oh,” Jonghyun says, without looking up. “Hey.”
Taemin walks over to the piano and sits down next to Jonghyun. “Still up for teaching me?”
Jonghyun considers, looking at Taemin curiously, before he finally nods and shifts over. He starts slow, reviewing everything he’s told Taemin so far, before he moves on to little kid songs that he can play with his eyes closed but Taemin manages to play wrong every other time.
“Whoops,” Taemin says in dismay when the wrong note rings out across the room.
“It’s okay,” Jonghyun grins. “That used to happen to me, too.”
Taemin just stares at him.
“What?”
“You just smiled,” Taemin laughs.
Jonghyun looks surprised. “Yeah, I guess I did.”
It takes a couple more lessons before Taemin can play easy songs without embarrassing himself, and during this whole time, neither of them mentions the song that Jonghyun can’t play. Kibum points this out when he appears next to Taemin in music class while he’s looking at Jonghyun.
“See, all you’re doing is providing a distraction. It doesn’t do anything in the long run,” Kibum says.
“I’m working on it,” Taemin retorts. And he is; he’s been thinking about how to go about it all this time.
Kibum shrugs. “Work on it all you like. You could tell when you tried to tell Jonghyun the song, right? You couldn’t think of it either. Because he has to be the one to solve it. So you can’t do anything.”
Taemin ignores Kibum and switches his concentration back to the class, returning to the real world.
La Fille Avec Cheveux de Lin. Taemin googles it, not sure what he’s going to find to help Jonghyun, but doing something is better than just sitting around. He scrolls through the results, clicking on random links and listening to different covers, looking at the sheet music.
It happens when Taemin’s trying to sightread the first measure the way Jonghyun’s taught him - this is a treble clef, and the line it curls around is a G, then the notes go up and down - and he glances at a comment in another window asking about scales. There’s a formula to them, Jonghyun had explained while demonstrating the B flat scale, whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. He fits the two ideas together in his head.
Taemin sits back and smiles. He can probably trick the system, this ridiculous memory game, if he does it this way. What he has to do, he figures, is learn the piece a half step off from how it should be played, and teach it to Jonghyun like that. Because if he plays it wrong when he’s with Jonghyun, then it’s no different from how it usually is when Jonghyun can’t play it.
Taemin prints out the music and a couple of empty music sheets, starting a painstaking process of altering the music so he can get his friends to teach it to him.
When Taemin shows Byunghun the sheet music the next day and asks him to teach it to him, his friend raises his eyebrows and looks through it.
“What is this,” he deadpans. “Do you know how ridiculously horrible it’s going to sound?”
Taemin just shrugs and grins when Byunghun agrees somewhat reluctantly to meet him in the music room for half an hour after school.
He’s only got several measures down when he wakes up in the music room that night, but it’s enough to start with. Taemin waves a hand in Jonghyun’s face when the latter tries to get Taemin to play a piece he started learning last time.
“Hold on,” Taemin says. “Look, I think I found a way for you to remember.” Jonghyun looks perplexed at the mention of it, because it’s only when he’s teaching Taemin that he can avoid trying to play it. “No, really! I’m going to teach it to you, okay? I’m going to learn it in real life and teach it to you everyday, and pretty soon, you’ll be able to play it.”
Jonghyun frowns. “There’s no way that’ll work, Taemin. You can’t mention it or play it anymore than I can - you’ve tried it before.”
“It’ll work,” Taemin says firmly. “Just listen, alright?” He sits down at the piano and takes a moment to recall what he’s learned. And he plays.
They’re the wrong notes, of course, since he’s playing everything a half step down. Jonghyun winces and blurts out, “There’s no way you’re playing the right song, no composer in their right mind would-”
“No,” Taemin interrupts, “it’s right. It’s just” - he thinks it over carefully, wondering how plainly he’ll be allowed to say it without being stopped by his own memory - “off. My fingers aren’t where they should be. Sorta like this.” He plays the D flat scale, then the D scale - the same note that the piece started on.
Jonghyun blinks, obviously not getting it. Taemin hesitantly plays the first measure, then stops and plays the D flat scale, intentionally playing the first note more loudly. He moves his fingers up a half step and plays a D scale. And repeats.
It’s probably the fourth or fifth time, when Taemin’s thinking of whether there’s a better way to hint it to Jonghyun, when Jonghyun speaks excitedly. “Wait- I think I’ve got it. Play the first measure again.”
Taemin complies, and when he’s done, he scoots over to let Jonghyun play. Jonghyun plays it the way Taemin did first, then slowly shifts his fingers to the right and plays it again. The right way.
“Oh,” Jonghyun says, eyes widening.
“Yeah,” Taemin grins, ready to break out into a premature victory dance. “C’mon, there’s more.”
He nudges Jonghyun over and continues playing; the next couple measures are in a lower scale, accompanied by some high notes. It sounds completely atrocious, and Jonghyun informs him of said atrocity, but when Jonghyun takes his place, he plays it correctly. And he continues playing it. Taemin watches in awe as Jonghyun plays more than half the song, like the memory of it has always been there, lodged somewhere in the back of his mind for safe-keeping.
Then his finger slips and hits a G instead of an F, and that’s where it all goes downhill. The next note is supposed to be a D, but Jonghyun freezes up and plays a C instead. It self destructs, leaving Jonghyun banging on the keyboard miserably, trying to get the melody back.
“Jonghyun, Jonghyun. Jonghyun-” Taemin shakes his arm. “It’s okay. Stop.”
He’s crying all over again, and Taemin’s almost sure he doesn’t know where he’s placing his fingers, just that he has to play something, because if he doesn’t play anything, he’ll never forgive himself. And that’s exactly why he’s here, stuck in this purgatory.
There’s a familiar ringing noise, and they both look at each other knowingly. Taemin hates to leave Jonghyun like this, with nothing but disappointment, but he gives him a playful punch on his arm. “You got farther than before,” he says. “I’ll be back.”
He groans as something is thrown at him and sees his older brother standing in his doorway. He slams his hand on the alarm clock, shutting it up.
“Did you throw a pillow at me?”
“Did you break your alarm clock?” Taesun mocks and shakes his head. “It was ringing for ten minutes. Hurry up, or we’ll be late.”
Taemin groans and throws the covers off of himself. Something on the floor catches his eye, and upon closer examination, he sees that it’s the correct music sheet. He grins and hums to himself happily. Today seems like a good day, for some reason. He’s sure of it.
“I’ve told you a hundred times,” Kibum says. “It’s useless. He won’t remember. You can’t help him. You’re better off not doing anything.”
“I think I heard a voice,” Taemin wonders aloud, effectively getting Kibum to glower at him. His friends roll their eyes and say he’s weird. “I need to go to the music room for a second, I’ll try to be back before the end of the period, okay?” His friends nod, and Taemin leaves the room, giving Kibum a curt nod. He opens the door and walks in, taking the seat nearest to Jonghyun. “I’m getting closer,” he tells Kibum. “He remembers at least half of it.”
“That’s all he’ll remember,” Kibum says, taking the seat next to Taemin. “You really don’t get it. We’re here for a reason. We’ve done things we didn’t want to do, things we shouldn’t have done, or maybe what we should have done. It’s not something an outsider can fix.”
“Are you jealous?” Taemin asks.
“What?”
“Jealous,” Taemin says. “He has a chance of moving on, and you don’t. That’s why you keep saying we, right? You’re just like him.”
Kibum clenches his fists and looks at Jonghyun. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m different, I’m not like him. It’s my job to protect him. Protect you. You don’t know what you’re getting into, and if I have to, I will stop you.”
“You’re lying,” Taemin accuses. Kibum glares at him and shakes his head. “And you know what? After I help Jonghyun, I’m going to move onto you. Because you’re not here for nothing.”
Kibum stands up then walks past Taemin. “I wouldn’t even let you touch me, and if you knew why, you wouldn’t either.”
He doesn’t bother to cover up his leave this time - he blends right in with the light streaming through the window and disappears.
He gathers a bunch of his friends to help him learn the skewed version of Jonghyun’s song, and goes to sleep that night feeling confident.
“We’re going to do this,” he tells Jonghyun. He sits next to Jonghyun and starts playing instantly. Jonghyun watches with a new profound interest, instead of looking on with a scrutinizing gaze.
Jonghyun plays it wrong again, and Taemin only encourages him to keep going. He has a feeling that something is going to happen. Something just will.
“Alright, I’m going to play this one more time - pay close attention, I’m running through the whole thing.” Taemin sets his hands on the keys and drags them lightly across. The song is played slowly, with mismatched paces and the harmony and melody not quite fitting together, and as he reaches the ending, he has a feeling this will all work out.
Right before he plays the last couple measures, there’s a loud boom next to them, and they both jump at the sound, looking over. There’s a giant cloud of smoke, but when Taemin peers closer, there’s something walking towards them.
Kibum appears out of it, and Taemin has never seen someone look more angry in his entire life. His face is twisted with rage and fury. He grabs Taemin’s wrist and pulls him off the piano bench, dragging him across the floor.
“I told you not to mess with this, okay? I warned you, but you really had to make me come here and do something about it.”
“Let go of me!” Taemin screams and he can see Jonghyun staring at them from the piano with wide eyes. “Keep playing!” he shouts at Jonghyun. “Keep playing, I know you can do it.” He kicks Kibum, but Kibum just looks down at him with that angry expression and soon enough, there’s another loud boom, and then he’s delved into the smoke.
Taemin’s running down a street with nobody in sight, hearing the pounding of his feet and heart and the sharp sense of fear setting over him. He has no idea why he’s running, or who he’s running from - until a black car comes screeching out of nowhere and the occupants start pouring out before it even stops. Taemin makes the mistake of looking back and feels bile rise to his throat at the sight of life-size bugs with human body parts. Jonghyun’s body parts. Those are his fingers and eyes and hair and mouth and suddenly the voices set in, creeping in on Taemin and driving him insane.
You said you’d help me, you said it’d work, you lied you lied you lied I hate you. Taemin screams and drops to his knees, clapping his hands over his ears. Just messing with me, feeling bad for me, when there’s nothing you can do, liar. It keeps getting louder, seeping through his fingers and into his mind so he can’t escape. He doesn’t even notice when a centipede reaches him and curls around him like a boa constrictor, squeezing squeezing squeezing until he dies-
Everything instantaneously turns a thick, inky black, and Taemin wonders if this is how everything looks like after death. Then the room floods back like someone’s upended a paint bucket over his vision. Taemin’s too shocked to do anything but breathe hard and fast, working the fear out of his system. It’s Jonghyun’s voice that cuts across the roar of blood in Taemin’s ears and brings him back.
“I did it,” Jonghyun whispers in surprise, looking down at the piano. Suddenly he’s on the floor next to Taemin, suffocating him with a bear hug. “I did it I did it it worked Taemin thank you,” he chants into Taemin’s ear.
Taemin smiles weakly. “See, I told you you could do it. Stop, you’re going to kill me.”
“You can’t die when you’re dreaming,” Jonghyun tells him, but he lets him go anyway and just sits there grinning.
Taemin shakes off the rest of his nightmare and grins back, then notices something. “You’re fading!”
“What?” Jonghyun looks down at himself. He’s turned translucent, and his legs are already gone. “Woah. I guess...I’m finally leaving.” He looks up at Taemin again. “I just- thanks. So much. I don’t think you even know-”
“I don’t need to,” Taemin interrupts with laugh. “I’m glad you’re not stuck here anymore.”
“Me too,” Jonghyun smiles, before he’s completely gone.
Taemin looks at the space where Jonghyun used to be for a while before remembering that they weren’t the only ones in the room. He turns to find Kibum standing there, looking completely stunned.
“You- whatthefuck,” Kibum says eloquently.
“I told you it was possible,” Taemin quips, unable to resist shoving it in Kibum’s face.
“It hasn’t been,” Kibum says slowly. “For a while now. The last one couldn’t make head nor tails of what to do.” He shakes his head. “You’re one fucking creepy-ass kid.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Taemin retorts. Then his alarm clock blares out and he wakes up.
Taemin opens his eyes and beams at the ceiling, giggling to himself at the bubbly sensation in his chest. He rolls onto his chest and grins into his pillow, waving his arms and kicking his bed in glee.
“Hey, Taemin, are you-” Taesun stops mid-sentence and stares at his little brother flailing in bed. He wonders exactly how sane he is. “Nevermind.”
“I’m up,” Taemin crows in reply anyway, flashing a smile over the edge of his pillow.
“That’s great,” his brother says drily.
“Yup!” Taemin rolls out of bed and grins straight through the rest of the morning, even though the cereal his mom put out is the his least favorite and he can’t find a pair of matching socks.
The euphoria hasn’t worn off when he enters the music room and hears only the white noise of students talking. No crying, no piano keys. Taemin glances at the piano to make sure - and sees someone sitting there. Kibum.
“You seem awfully pleased with yourself,” Kibum says sarcastically.
“I am,” Taemin grins, just because he knows it’ll bug Kibum.
Kibum sniffs. “One success after failing a million times and he lets it get to his head.”
“I could do it again,” Taemin counters, “Just don’t keep feeding me your ‘nobody-can-do-anything’ crap and keep your freaking nightmares to yourself.”
Kibum looks as dangerous as he did in Taemin’s dream the night before, and Taemin feels alarmed for a second, but the look disappears as Kibum returns to being negative and biting. “Whatever you say, kid. Just remember what I’ve tried to tell you when your second attempt fails.” He doesn’t bother with any theatrics this time; Kibum’s there one second and gone the next.
“I won’t fail,” Taemin tells himself defiantly. “I won’t.”
It happens when Taemin goes to the library with his friends, looking for books to do reports on. Sungjong’s picking through the shelf next to Taemin, opening books and reading several words before slotting them back into their spaces. When he flips open a particularly old one whose binding cracks, Taemin looks up at the noise and sees someone who isn’t Sungjong standing there.
The boy looks older than Taemin does, with bangs that go over his eyes and white-rimmed glasses. He holds the book propped open on his arms, flipping a page or two before hesitating and closing the book and placing it back. He starts to walk away, then seems to changed his mind, coming back to pull the book from the shelf again.
“Taemin? Taemin, what’re you looking at?”
Taemin shifts back, finding himself looking up at Sungjong, who’s frowning down at him. “Nothing.”
“Uhhuh,” Sungjong says, but he doesn’t pursue it. Taemin’s weird on a regular basis, so it’s nothing new.
“Hey, um. Can I see that book?” Taemin points to the one Sungjong’s holding. Behind his friend, the other boy is still pacing the aisle.
Sungjong snaps it shut and hands it to Taemin; when he does, the boy disappears. Taemin lifts the cover and glances up. And the boy’s there again. Huh. He does this two or three more times, just to be certain. The boy vanishes into thin air and appears the next.
“Is there anything wrong?” Minjae asks, and Taemin gives him a fake smile before shutting the book one last time.
“No, sorry. The binding is just really awkward. I think I want this book though. Should I check it out?”
Minjae shrugs. “Whatever you like. That doesn’t even have to do with your research paper, though. Wasn’t it on air pollution?”
“Animal experimentation,” Taemin corrects. “I like what this is about.”
“You like Roman history,” Minjae deadpans. Sungjong takes the book from Taemin and flips through the pages. Just like that, the boy appears behind them both. He rifles through the shelves and picks out one of the thicker books, opening the book to a random page. Sungjong rolls his eyes and hands the book back to Taemin. The boy and the book disappears.
“Well, not really, to be honest. But it sounds kind of interesting.”
“Whatever you say,” Sungjong shrugs. “I got my book, and those two on the desk are yours, right? Should we go home, then?”
Minjae and Taemin nod and follow Sungjong to the check out desk.
Taemin opens the book at his desk and watches as the boy appears in front of him. He has a bag with him this time, Taemin notes, and he digs into it to grab a book. “Hello?” Taemin tries. “Can you hear me?” The boy says nothing but continues to read. Taemin frowns and puts the book on his desk. He studies the boy’s appearance for a moment before turning off his lamp light and going to bed.
He doesn’t meet the boy in his dream. It confuses him when he wakes up, groaning his eyes and shoving a pillow over head. There’s a rustle of movement from near his desk, and Taemin squints his eyes to see someone sitting there and reading. It takes a while to register that it’s the spirit in his chair. When he does realize it, though, he jumps up and rushes over, snapping the book shut. He disappears in a flash as Taemin sighs in relief. Even for a spirit, it just feels too weird having someone walk around in your room all night, he reasons himself with.
He brings the book to school and reads it during classes. He doesn’t actually read it though. He opens it and watches the ghost walk around with a book in hand. It’s a different book each time, Taemin mentally tells himself.
“So how’s the book going?” Yeonhee beams at him, and Taemin chokes on his kimchi.
“It’s uh, nice.” Taemin tries to give his most persuasive smile. “It’s very... Roman.”
“That’s new,” Minjae states, stealing one of Taemin’s rolls.
Yeonhee kicks him and looks back at Taemin. “What kind of things does it talk about?”
“Dead people,” Taemin deadpans and Kisung snorts in the background.
He decides to finally read the book and see if it gets him anywhere in the middle of history class. The book is boring, Taemin concludes. Every word is hard to get past, and with each syllable he finds himself getting more sleepy. Getting through a page is like running a marathon through molasses. His eyes droop and he’s almost certain that the girl who sits behind him is staring.
“Hey, are you okay?”
Taemin picks his head up and looks around. The classroom is empty, and the second hand on the clock isn’t moving. That’s weird.
“Hello?”
Taemin finally notices the voice is in front of him and stares up ahead of him. He blinks in surprise as the person speaking turns out to be the boy.
“You!” Taemin accuses. “You’re here.”
“Um,” the boy scratches the back of his head. “Should I be somewhere else?”
Taemin’s tempted to say yes, but he pushes that thought to the back of his mind as he thinks about what to say. “Hi,” he settles for. “I’m Taemin. What’s your name?”
“Jinki,” the boy says and grins at him.
“You have a nice smile,” Taemin blurts without thinking. “I mean - nice to meet you, Jinki.”
Jinki laughs. “Thank you? Most people say that’s my nicest feature.”
“It is,” Taemin replies almost instantaneously, and mentally beats himself for not shutting up. “So, uh, this probably sounds really weird, I don’t blame you if you think I’m a bit insane, but I think I’m here to help you.”
“Help me?” Jinki frowns and eyes the book on Taemin’s desk. It wasn’t the book Taemin was reading earlier, and the connection automatically flashes in his mind.
“Yeah. With your, uh, book problem.” Taemin pauses and then ploughs on, ignoring the baffled look on Jinki’s face. “Do you...well, how long have you been reading books?”
“A while,” Jinki says slowly, thoughtfully. “I’m not sure exactly how long. Could I see the book that you have? I don’t think I’ve seen it before.”
“Sure,” Taemin says, passing it over. He watches Jinki open it and instantly become absorbed in it. Taemin thinks it’s pretty obvious what Jinki’s problem is. What he does needs to know, he muses, are the details. The reason. He can’t figure out what to do until he does.
The sound of scuffling feet and chairs sliding back fills the room, even though it’s empty, and Taemin knows that class is going to be over soon. He needs to go back.
“I’m going now,” he announces to Jinki, who doesn’t seem to hear him. “Hey-” Taemin grabs the book from him.
“What?” Jinki looks up, surprised.
“I’m gonna go, but I’ll be back later,” Taemin repeats. “Bye!” And he wakes up.
Minjae taps him on the back of the head with his binder, grinning. “You’re falling asleep in class way too often lately, Taemin. If your grades drop, I’m not gonna help you.”
“Like I’d want your help,” Taemin scoffs, scooping up the book - Jinki’s book - and dropping it in his backpack.
Back home, Taemin takes out the book before doing any of his homework and opens it. Jinki instantly appears. Taemin watches him make for the bookshelf before returning to the book, resigning himself to reading it again. With luck, the reason he could talk to Jinki the second time but not the first was because reading actually worked. He flips to a random page and starts.
Taemin jerks awake at his desk, not sure if he’s dreaming or if it didn’t work. Jinki’s voice tells him the answer. “You’re back!”
Taemin turns to see Jinki sitting on the bed with a book in his lap. “You’re awfully comfortable for someone who’s in someone else’s bedroom,” Taemin says wryly.
Jinki looks around. “I don’t really notice these things.”
“No, I guess you wouldn’t. All you notice are books, huh?” Taemin walks over ands sits on the bed, pulling Jinki’s current book out of his grip, reading the title. “Applications of Calculus in Real-World Situations. Really?”
“What’s wrong with it?” Jinki shoots back defensively. “I just read whatever I can find.”
“You don’t do anything else? Hang out with friends, go to the park?”
“Not really.”
Taemin frowns. “Aren’t you lonely?”
Jinki hesitates. “Sometimes, I guess. But then I forget about it.” He absently flips a few pages in the book.
“No,” Taemin suggests. “Try doing the opposite. Think about doing other things and read less, or you’ll really be here forever, just reading things like The Autobiography of Some Person with a Really Long Name. And that’d suck.”
“Forget about reading?” Jinki shakes his head. “I can’t do that.”
“Try,” Taemin urges, “Just think about going to an amusement park or something. Walking the dog. Anything.”
Jinki looks bewildered, but seems to comply when he closes his eyes and stays silent for a few minutes. Taemin watches until Jinki opens his eyes, shaking his head again. “It doesn’t work. It’s just - books. Textbooks, classics, autobiographies. They’re all I know. I’ll think about walking a dog, and then I’ll remember this scene from a book I read.”
“Well,” Taemin thinks aloud, “Maybe if we went to these places instead of me just telling you to think about them, then it’d work. Yeah, let’s try that.” He stands and tugs on Jinki’s hand. “C’mon! And leave the book.”
“What-”
Taemin’s never left his immediate dreamspace before, but it doesn’t seem to affect anything. Everything’s the way it looks in real life, except for the lack of people. He heads for the nearby park, with Jinki in tow. They go on the swings first, even though Jinki’s a little heavy for Taemin to push.
“I’m not sure about this,” Jinki worries, “Shouldn’t I be home studying?”
“No,” Taemin says firmly. “Have some fun.”
It doesn’t work, though. They spend what Taemin guesses is about half an hour at the park, and Jinki spends every other minute suggesting they go back until Taemin gives in. Jinki picks up his book the moment they get into Taemin’s room, and Taemin resists the urge to steal it and threaten to flush it down the toilet. Instead, he tells Jinki that he has to go and that he’ll be back tomorrow.
“Trying to change a person’s memory is easy, changing the whole basis of their existence isn’t.”
Taemin jumps at the voice and turns to see Kibum sitting in the previously empty desk next to him. “Don’t you have other things to do,” he sighs.
“You’re threatening to imbalance the spirit’s band of existence, it’s not like I have a choice,” he frowns. He picks at a nail and looks at Taemin. “It’d be nice if you tried to make my lack of a life easier.”
“Lack of a life,” Taemin parrots and plays with the binding of the book. “How is that, anyways?”
“Take a guess,” Kibum says sourly and watches Taemin.
“Fun,” Taemin replies and snorts at his own joke.
“That wasn’t even funny.”
Taemin shrugs. “Why do you do this, anyways? Why are you so against me trying to help these people?”
“It’s my job,” Kibum deadpans, “Responsible people do their jobs well. Not like you’d know anything about it.”
Taemin mimics him, “It’s my job. I can’t do anything about these poor people that I’ve been watching all of my non-life, so I’m going to keep a kid who doesn’t know how to do anything from helping them.” He basks in the glory of pissing off Kibum for a few seconds before continuing in a normal voice. “You’re a spirit too, aren’t you? But you’re completely aware of it for some reason. And whoever’s in charge put you in charge of this whole let-people-suffer-forever thing. Why?”
Kibum catches Taemin’s curious look and turns away without answering. He doesn’t disappear, though, so Taemin takes that as an indication that it’s safe to go on.
“Maybe,” he says slowly, “It’s because you know what it feels like. To regret something and not be able to fix it. I can’t tell what it is, though - you’re not stuck doing whatever you regret til the end of time. You’re stuck doing this instead.” Taemin pauses. “If you told me-”
“No,” Kibum spits angrily, suddenly looming over Taemin.
Taemin tries to suppress the creeping fear in the pit of his stomach and presses on. “But if there was the smallest possibility of you being free, wouldn’t you take it?”
Taemin feels himself get lifted out of the chair by his collar and fights to keep his eyes focused on Kibum’s face instead of shirking away. He holds his gaze for as long as Kibum does, ignoring how tightly his shirt is being fisted. Just as quickly, Kibum drops him and stands back, expression unreadable. Taemin stares.
“No,” Kibum tells him quietly, “I wouldn’t.”
When he disappears this time, he bursts into a cloud of angry red instead of just dissipating.
The days he spent with Jonghyun repeat themselves with Jinki. It’s a nice change to be able to go different places, but Jinki’s definitely more difficult to work with compared to Jonghyun. The best Taemin manages is ten minutes, but if something he says or something they see reminds Jinki of a book he’s read, then he’s gone for good.
“Hi!” Jinki greets Taemin with a grin, looking up from a thick textbook.
They’re in the city library this time, and Taemin looks around in despair at the myriad of books at Jinki’s disposal. “Let’s go outside,” Taemin offers.
“But I don’t really-”
“No. Out,” Taemin commands, grabbing onto Jinki’s wrist and tugging.
They settle on a bench in the courtyard, which isn’t far away enough for Taemin’s liking, but he guesses that he has to start somewhere small.
“So what’s your full name, anyway?” Taemin starts off, wondering how much conversation it’ll take to draw Jinki’s attention away from the book.
“Lee Jinki,” he says agreeably, flipping a page.
“Hey, that’s the same as mine,” Taemin grins, making a note to run a search on him later.
“It’s pretty common,” Jinki says.
“Yeah, I guess so.” Taemin hesitates. “So um, out of all the books you read, what subject do you like the most?”
Jinki looks up at this, and Taemin wonders if he should count it as a small victory if asking about books takes Jinki’s mind off of the book he has at hand. “Well...I like English. I think it’s pretty interesting to read another language. But it’s hard to memorize all the words and what they mean.”
“Did your friends ever ask you to tutor them?”
“Sometimes.” Jinki’s voice sounds small, compared to his usual brightness. “But after a while, they gave up trying. Because I- I never made an effort to spend time with them.”
Taemin reaches out to grip Jinki’s shaking wrists and watches him until he’s done with his silent tears. Sorry, Taemin wants to say, sorry, I didn’t mean to. But he did mean to, because he needs to know. And he tightens his fingers, like he’s trying to press his promise into Jinki’s skin. We’ll fix it. We’ll fix everything.
next part
Group(s): SHINee
Pairing(s): Taemin-centric; Taemin/Key
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 26,122
The cat isn’t supposed to come into a room when Taemin’s the only one in it, but it’s never hurt him before. Taemin’s content to sit in his jumper, thumb jammed in his mouth, and watch the cat stalk around the room and pounce on things - cushions, toys, the remote. Not that their cat only hunts things that don’t move; it’s brought back a couple of mice before.
Which is why it’s weird, that the cat’s never caught this mouse before.
Taemin sees a white mouse in the corner of the room everyday, coming out of a hole in the wall and sniffing the wall. But their cat never hunts it, doesn’t even notice it. And it’s always there.
But it’s okay; it’s not like it bothers him all that much. Taemin turns away from the corner with the mouse and returns to his building blocks.
The mouse is still there the day Taemin starts kindergarten, hanging onto his mom’s hand as she leads him through the front door and greets the teacher. During recess, he has a harder time making friends that some of the other kids do, because he doesn’t like to talk to strangers - he’s content to tag along and sit to the side until something exciting is going on.
That’s when he notices two kids on the playground.
It’s a girl and a boy, the boy trying to climb up one of the slides and slipping back down halfway up. The girl laughs and claps her hands - not meanly, Taemin thinks - but the boy wrinkles his nose and takes off for the swings, leaving the girl to chase after him. Taemin turns to follow them with his eyes. What he sees is the boy passing through another boy, a boy Taemin recognizes from roll call. He blinks.
“D’you see the boy?” Taemin turns back to the kids around him, pointing at the swings. “He went through another boy!”
The others stare at him and look where he’s pointing, but there’s nobody at the swings, and they tell him so.
Taemin frowns and turns - and the boy is there, Taemin sees him running with the girl after him. “He’s there!”
But none of the other boys can see the boy or the girl. Taemin realizes that there is something wrong, not with them, but him. How he sees things. And he doesn’t know what the problem is.
It’s the first day of music class. Taemin purses his lips in frustration and tries to block the choppy, out of tune notes coming from the old piano. There’s a boy there, singing and slamming on the keys and wiping his tears away. His voice is loud and scratchy and resonates throughout the whole entire room. The boy has light brown hair, sharp eyes, and wears a dirtied school uniform. The old one, Taemin notes. He’s seen them in the pictures from years ago, hanging on the wall of achievements. He turns his head away and faces the teacher, but it’s pointless. He won’t be able to hear the teacher, so he slowly slips through the crowd of students to the very side, next to the boy on the piano.
The boy wails and slams his foot down on the pedal, letting the note ring throughout the room. It’s dull and eerie, echoing in weird patterns. The piano is more battered than it looks. Taemin rests his elbows on the lid and watches him carefully. It should be unsettling, a bit awkward, maybe even a little scary. But Taemin feels nothing but pity for the boy. He reaches out to try and touch his arm, even though he knows he won’t be able to feel anything. He’s tried it before.
“You can’t do anything, you know,” someone says pointedly.
Taemin jumps about a mile, because he’s never had someone who’s talked to him while he’s tuned out of what he thinks of as “the real world.” The new boy has a feline face, high cheekbones and dark eyes and dark brown hair swept to the side.
He asks the obvious question. “Who are you?”
“Me?” The stranger grins. “I’m Kibum. But some of the other kids I’ve met who are like you call me Key. ‘Cause you can’t do anything in this timespace unless I open the door for you - and I won’t. I won’t, because you can’t do anything that will actually work or not fuck up.”
“You can’t be sure,” Taemin says defensively, though his past tries have pretty much proved Kibum right.
“Oh, and you’ve had so much success the last few times.” Kibum raises an eyebrow. “I’ve been watching you, and if you don’t stop trying, it’s going to be a waste of time for both you and me.”
“That’s creepy,” Taemin quips, “and if I don’t try, how am I gonna find out why I can see people?”
Kibum waves that off. “There’s no reason, you just can. What you see is print someone left here when they died regretting something. They stay here forever. If you need a reason, I guess it’s to remind you to” - he raises his fingers in air quotes - “live without regrets.”
Taemin thinks on that, remembers other “prints,” like the girl and the boy on the playground, the man walking through the supermarket putting liquor in his cart, the two boys that wait at the intersection two blocks from Taemin’s house everyday. “I don’t think so. I think that I can see them because I can help them somehow.” More quietly, “I want to help them.”
“Well, you can’t,” Kibum says, something flashing in his eyes. “You’re not the first one to try.”
Taemin feels his stubborn streak surfacing. “Yeah, but I can be the first one to figure it out.”
Kibum smiles like it’s a completely ridiculous thought. “You won’t be.” And he’s gone.
Taemin spends a few more minutes watching the boy at the piano, feeling his despair and anger and wincing at the same time he does when a note sounds particularly bad. Then he gets up and leaves, going back into the crowd of students. But he can still hear the piano.
It’s all he thinks about for the next two days. He draws musical notes on the side of his paper without realizing, hums little chords and sequences he hears the boy playing throughout the day, and even eats his lunch in the music room, just watching him play.
“There really is no point,” Kibum says. “You can’t do anything about it. He’ll just be here forever.”
Taemin glares at him. “And how do you know that? How long have you been here for?”
Kibum gives him a wry smile. “Forever.”
Taemin pauses, chopsticks inches away from his mouth. He considers the situation and studies Kibum’s face, taking in every detail. “You can talk to me though. But you’re a spirit too, right?”
Kibum shifts in his seat and throws the boy playing the piano a frown when he slams his hand down on the piano.
“He does play some nice songs from time to time. I heard him play Fur Elise once. I think he makes up most of what he plays.”
“Probably,” Kibum says. “Maybe he’s trying to remember-” He stops mid sentence and looks away.
“Remember?” Taemin asks. “Do you think he’s trying to remember something?”
“Of course not,” Kibum stands up. “It was a guess. Take it as you like, but as I said before, you aren’t going to be able to do anything about it. Have a nice day.”
Taemin watches Kibum walk through the door, except he doesn’t really walk through the door. He vaguely wonders if he thinks Kibum is trying to fool him into thinking that he’s a spirit like the rest of them, walking through doors and people, and never really leaving the Earth’s surface. Taemin can see the difference though. Kibum walks towards doors and walls like he’s about to pass through them, but his body disintegrates at the last second, and he vanishes into thin air. He can only wonder where Kibum actually goes.
Taemin stays after school that day and watches the boy play. Jonghyun is his name, Taemin learns, when Jonghyun slams his head down on the keys and starts sobbing, chanting, “It’s okay, Jonghyun; you can do this, Jonghyun. Keep going, Jonghyun. It’ll all work out in the end, Jonghyun.”
When he goes home, he doesn’t do any of his homework and googles Jonghyun’s name and the name of his school. He’s a bit surprised at the amount of results. Jonghyun was the semifinalist in a musical competition held at their school fifty years ago. He was beaten out by a girl named Jung Yoojin and failed to win the scholarship prize. He played La Fille Avec Cheveux de Lin by Debussy while she played Hungarian Rhapsody in C minor. There’s an old recording of their performances, but the static and crowd overpowers the actual playing so much that Taemin gives up and closes the tab. Taemin’s mother comes in then and demands that he go to bed.
He wakes up on the floor of the music room to jarringly loud music playing from the piano. He doesn’t even have to think twice to know who’s playing it.
“Ow,” he says.
The piano stops playing and Taemin suddenly thinks - oh, so this is what the music room sounds like when it’s silent. But then his mind connects silent to piano not playing to Jonghyun not playing the piano and that simply doesn’t make sense because Jonghyun always plays the piano. He turns his head over to find Jonghyun staring at him with wide eyes.
“Um. Hi,” Taemin frowns. “This isn’t the way I thought we’d meet.”
“You’re on the floor,” Jonghyun says warily and eyes him with skepticism.
Taemin looks down. “So I am,” he replies. He makes a little noise of discomfort and stands up, dusting off his pants.
“Who are you? I’ve never seen you before,” Jonghyun says, shifting slightly in his seat.
“I’m Taemin, and-” Taemin pauses, realizing that he doesn’t actually know what to say now that he can finally talk to Jonghyun.
“And?” Jonghyun asks, eyes narrowing.
“And, um.” Taemin stuffs his hands in his pockets and looks down at the floor, then blurts out, “I’ve been watching you play for a while and I wanted to help you, y’know, ‘cause you’re working so hard and stuff.”
Jonghyun raises his eyebrows. “Thanks, but um. I don’t think there’s really anything you can do.”
This is so reminiscent of Kibum that Taemin’s answer is fiercer than he expects. “You don’t know that! You’ve been here forever, and I think” - he feels realization suddenly crash over his head like a wave as he links Kibum’s words with his research on Jonghyun - “I think you’re here because you’ve always regretted not winning the piano competition and you’re trying to redo it, redo everything, but it won’t work because it’s already happened and you’ve already lost the competition and you think you can’t win it.” Taemin takes a breath. “That’s why. That’s why you’re still here, because in the back of your head you know that you’ve lost, but you can’t let it go - but I can help you. I want to help you, anyway.”
All Taemin gets in reply is Jonghyun with his mouth hanging open. Then Jonghyun and the room are swallowed into nothingness and Taemin blacks out.
He comes to in his own bed in the middle of the night, staring up at the ceiling. And he’s grinning, grinning really hard because he’s figured out how to start on what Kibum told him was impossible - fixing it. Taemin shifts his covers around a little before settling into sleep again.
It’s like deja vu - he wakes up in the same exact position on the music room floor as he did before - but the piano is completely silent. Taemin sits up and looks toward where he knows Jonghyun will be.
“You’re back,” Jonghyun says gloomily.
“Yup.” Taemin smiles, pleased that he’s managed to come here again, even if the other isn’t. “Anyway, like I was saying-”
“How do you know?” Jonghyun interrupts, staring at Taemin. “How do you know about it? The piano competition, playing, practicing forever...”
Taemin frowns. “I...well, I can see you when I’m awake. I can see all the people who left while they regretted something, but you’re the first one I’ve been able to talk to.”
Jonghyun looks understandably bewildered. “I, uh, I’m just gonna practice.”
“Alright,” Taemin says, content to watch before deciding what to do next.
It doesn’t take long for Taemin to see that Jonghyun plays the same way he does when Taemin’s awake, making up notes and mixing in simple tunes and classics from time to time. Finally, Jonghyun’s playing melds into something almost consistent and he goes on for a few bars, until a jumble of wrong notes messes it up and Jonghyun yells in frustration.
This repeats itself several times before the melody clicks in Taemin’s head, matches up with the strains he remembers hearing through static and cheering in the video online, matches up with Kibum saying, maybe he’s trying to remember. It’s part of the song that Jonghyun played in the competition.
“You forgot the song,” Taemin says, voicing his thoughts aloud. Jonghyun stops playing. “You can’t play it anymore because that’s the song that made you lose. But you need to play it.” Taemin’s convinced of himself now. “And once you play it, you’ll be free.”
Jonghyun doesn’t look at him, but he doesn’t start to play again, either. He just stares, down at the keys and his fingers that don’t know where to place themselves anymore.
“You can do it,” Taemin presses on. “You just need to think. Clear your mind and focus. Do you remember the name of the song?”
“Yeah!” Jonghyun grins and readies himself to start playing. “It was-” Jonghyun’s smile fades away and he visibly wilts, slouching over on the piano bench and sighing. “I don’t remember.”
Taemin pats him on the back. “That’s okay, I remember.” When Taemin goes to say the name, his body goes cold and a feeling of dread overcomes him when he doesn’t remember it. It’s on the tip of his tongue, but with each second it fades farther and farther into the distance, mere millimeters from his fingertips. It’s then when he realizes that this is Jonghyun’s test.
Jonghyun frowns, but pats him on the back half-heartedly anyways. “It’s alright. Even if I did remember, I wouldn’t be able to piece it together.” He plays a chord and trails off, making up note sequences and harmonies. None of them quite fit together, like piecing together opposite ends of pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
He continues playing, but a loud ringing noise drills in between, and Taemin can vaguely see a bright light coming from the direction of the door. That’s weird, Taemin thinks, the window is on the other side of the classroom. The ringing noise gets louder and louder, until it’s all he hears and he opens his eyes once again.
He’s in his room, with his alarm clock beeping next to him. He forgot to close the curtains last night, so the light streams through onto the bed.
Taemin groans and forces himself to get out of bed and into the bathroom. He goes to school in a daze, not quite comprehending anything going around him. It’s not until he reaches his locker when he realizes that he met Jonghyun last night. Music class is fourth period, and all of first he stares out the window in a daze, wondering things like if Jonghyun was here... or I wonder what it’s like to be in Jonghyun’s shoes. Then the thoughts morph into things like what if he never remembers or what if he gives up. His anxiety gets to him and Taemin goes to the nurse and feigns having a migraine. He finally goes back to class at fourth period, and before he enters the room, he hears the crash of disoriented music from outside. Taemin grins to himself and goes inside the classroom. He hands the teacher the pass and takes the seat nearest to the old piano. Taemin finds watching Jonghyun play oddly comforting. His playing, as disastrous and uneven as it is, calms Taemin into a stupor.
He looks up to find Jonghyun staring at him from the piano. He looks down and around him and finds no one else in the classroom. He must’ve fallen asleep in class, if the spot of drool on the desk is any indication.
“I fell asleep. In class,” Taemin announces as Jonghyun raises an eyebrow. “And I want to learn piano.”
“You want to learn...piano?”
“How to play the piano. Same thing.” Taemin walks over to Jonghyun and motions for him to scooch over. He plops down next to him and beams at him. “Teach me things.”
Jonghyun looks a bit bewildered, but shrugs. “I suppose that’s alright. I have all the time in the world anyways. So, uh, this key is C. This is basically the basis of the placement of all the other keys on the piano. This one is B, and that black key is a B flat.”
Taemin watches intently, nodding his head at all the right times and attempting to playing the little nursery rhymes as best as he can.
“No, no, you’re doing it wrong,” Jonghyun slaps his hand and places his fingers on the keys. “Watch me one more time, okay?”
His hands easily glide across the keyboard, playing the melody Taemin failed. When it ends, his hands pause for a moment before accidentally pressing another key. Jonghyun pauses again before pressing another. And another. And then another. Taemin watches his with a new profound interest as he starts to play something he recognizes vaguely, but can’t place a name on.
And suddenly Jonghyun stops. Taemin watches as Jonghyun sniffs and slumps over in his chair. He can see the tears about to overflow in his eyes, and Jonghyun has never looked so vulnerable now than Taemin has ever seen him - not even the first time Taemin saw him, sobbing hysterically and slamming on random keys.
“I forgot,” Jonghyun whispers. He sniffs again and bites his bottom lip. “It was - I was so close. It just came to me. And then it all just disappeared. Vanished from my mind. I can’t play it. I just can’t.” He closes the piano cover and rests his elbows on it. Jonghyun covers his face with his hands and Taemin watches miserably as his back quivers and voice falters, breaking out into sobs.
“It’s alright,” he says awkwardly, placing an arm around Jonghyun’s shoulders and patting him on the arm. “I told you, I’m here to help, okay? You’re not alone. You can do it.” Taemin trails off as he suddenly shudders, as if someone just shook him. “Look, I think I have to go now - but I’ll be back. Hang in there.” He gives Jonghyun one last squeeze and jerks awake.
Taemin blinks up at Sungjong, who’s looking down at him weirdly. “God, I thought you were never going to wake up. Did you pull an all-nighter or something?” He shoulders his bag and goes on without waiting for an answer. “C’mon, let’s go to the cafeteria.”
“Yeah,” Taemin answers faintly, scooping his own backpack off the floor. He remains spaced out for the rest of the day, not noticing when his friends steal his lunch, and effectively getting blacklisted by his fifth and sixth period teachers. All he’s waiting for is to get home and take a nap so he can meet Jonghyun again.
When Taemin comes to in the music room, Jonghyun’s not crying anymore, but his eyes are an angry red and his lids are half-closed as his fingers race along the keys, trying to find the right order to put them in.
“Hi,” Taemin says cautiously.
“Oh,” Jonghyun says, without looking up. “Hey.”
Taemin walks over to the piano and sits down next to Jonghyun. “Still up for teaching me?”
Jonghyun considers, looking at Taemin curiously, before he finally nods and shifts over. He starts slow, reviewing everything he’s told Taemin so far, before he moves on to little kid songs that he can play with his eyes closed but Taemin manages to play wrong every other time.
“Whoops,” Taemin says in dismay when the wrong note rings out across the room.
“It’s okay,” Jonghyun grins. “That used to happen to me, too.”
Taemin just stares at him.
“What?”
“You just smiled,” Taemin laughs.
Jonghyun looks surprised. “Yeah, I guess I did.”
It takes a couple more lessons before Taemin can play easy songs without embarrassing himself, and during this whole time, neither of them mentions the song that Jonghyun can’t play. Kibum points this out when he appears next to Taemin in music class while he’s looking at Jonghyun.
“See, all you’re doing is providing a distraction. It doesn’t do anything in the long run,” Kibum says.
“I’m working on it,” Taemin retorts. And he is; he’s been thinking about how to go about it all this time.
Kibum shrugs. “Work on it all you like. You could tell when you tried to tell Jonghyun the song, right? You couldn’t think of it either. Because he has to be the one to solve it. So you can’t do anything.”
Taemin ignores Kibum and switches his concentration back to the class, returning to the real world.
La Fille Avec Cheveux de Lin. Taemin googles it, not sure what he’s going to find to help Jonghyun, but doing something is better than just sitting around. He scrolls through the results, clicking on random links and listening to different covers, looking at the sheet music.
It happens when Taemin’s trying to sightread the first measure the way Jonghyun’s taught him - this is a treble clef, and the line it curls around is a G, then the notes go up and down - and he glances at a comment in another window asking about scales. There’s a formula to them, Jonghyun had explained while demonstrating the B flat scale, whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. He fits the two ideas together in his head.
Taemin sits back and smiles. He can probably trick the system, this ridiculous memory game, if he does it this way. What he has to do, he figures, is learn the piece a half step off from how it should be played, and teach it to Jonghyun like that. Because if he plays it wrong when he’s with Jonghyun, then it’s no different from how it usually is when Jonghyun can’t play it.
Taemin prints out the music and a couple of empty music sheets, starting a painstaking process of altering the music so he can get his friends to teach it to him.
When Taemin shows Byunghun the sheet music the next day and asks him to teach it to him, his friend raises his eyebrows and looks through it.
“What is this,” he deadpans. “Do you know how ridiculously horrible it’s going to sound?”
Taemin just shrugs and grins when Byunghun agrees somewhat reluctantly to meet him in the music room for half an hour after school.
He’s only got several measures down when he wakes up in the music room that night, but it’s enough to start with. Taemin waves a hand in Jonghyun’s face when the latter tries to get Taemin to play a piece he started learning last time.
“Hold on,” Taemin says. “Look, I think I found a way for you to remember.” Jonghyun looks perplexed at the mention of it, because it’s only when he’s teaching Taemin that he can avoid trying to play it. “No, really! I’m going to teach it to you, okay? I’m going to learn it in real life and teach it to you everyday, and pretty soon, you’ll be able to play it.”
Jonghyun frowns. “There’s no way that’ll work, Taemin. You can’t mention it or play it anymore than I can - you’ve tried it before.”
“It’ll work,” Taemin says firmly. “Just listen, alright?” He sits down at the piano and takes a moment to recall what he’s learned. And he plays.
They’re the wrong notes, of course, since he’s playing everything a half step down. Jonghyun winces and blurts out, “There’s no way you’re playing the right song, no composer in their right mind would-”
“No,” Taemin interrupts, “it’s right. It’s just” - he thinks it over carefully, wondering how plainly he’ll be allowed to say it without being stopped by his own memory - “off. My fingers aren’t where they should be. Sorta like this.” He plays the D flat scale, then the D scale - the same note that the piece started on.
Jonghyun blinks, obviously not getting it. Taemin hesitantly plays the first measure, then stops and plays the D flat scale, intentionally playing the first note more loudly. He moves his fingers up a half step and plays a D scale. And repeats.
It’s probably the fourth or fifth time, when Taemin’s thinking of whether there’s a better way to hint it to Jonghyun, when Jonghyun speaks excitedly. “Wait- I think I’ve got it. Play the first measure again.”
Taemin complies, and when he’s done, he scoots over to let Jonghyun play. Jonghyun plays it the way Taemin did first, then slowly shifts his fingers to the right and plays it again. The right way.
“Oh,” Jonghyun says, eyes widening.
“Yeah,” Taemin grins, ready to break out into a premature victory dance. “C’mon, there’s more.”
He nudges Jonghyun over and continues playing; the next couple measures are in a lower scale, accompanied by some high notes. It sounds completely atrocious, and Jonghyun informs him of said atrocity, but when Jonghyun takes his place, he plays it correctly. And he continues playing it. Taemin watches in awe as Jonghyun plays more than half the song, like the memory of it has always been there, lodged somewhere in the back of his mind for safe-keeping.
Then his finger slips and hits a G instead of an F, and that’s where it all goes downhill. The next note is supposed to be a D, but Jonghyun freezes up and plays a C instead. It self destructs, leaving Jonghyun banging on the keyboard miserably, trying to get the melody back.
“Jonghyun, Jonghyun. Jonghyun-” Taemin shakes his arm. “It’s okay. Stop.”
He’s crying all over again, and Taemin’s almost sure he doesn’t know where he’s placing his fingers, just that he has to play something, because if he doesn’t play anything, he’ll never forgive himself. And that’s exactly why he’s here, stuck in this purgatory.
There’s a familiar ringing noise, and they both look at each other knowingly. Taemin hates to leave Jonghyun like this, with nothing but disappointment, but he gives him a playful punch on his arm. “You got farther than before,” he says. “I’ll be back.”
He groans as something is thrown at him and sees his older brother standing in his doorway. He slams his hand on the alarm clock, shutting it up.
“Did you throw a pillow at me?”
“Did you break your alarm clock?” Taesun mocks and shakes his head. “It was ringing for ten minutes. Hurry up, or we’ll be late.”
Taemin groans and throws the covers off of himself. Something on the floor catches his eye, and upon closer examination, he sees that it’s the correct music sheet. He grins and hums to himself happily. Today seems like a good day, for some reason. He’s sure of it.
“I’ve told you a hundred times,” Kibum says. “It’s useless. He won’t remember. You can’t help him. You’re better off not doing anything.”
“I think I heard a voice,” Taemin wonders aloud, effectively getting Kibum to glower at him. His friends roll their eyes and say he’s weird. “I need to go to the music room for a second, I’ll try to be back before the end of the period, okay?” His friends nod, and Taemin leaves the room, giving Kibum a curt nod. He opens the door and walks in, taking the seat nearest to Jonghyun. “I’m getting closer,” he tells Kibum. “He remembers at least half of it.”
“That’s all he’ll remember,” Kibum says, taking the seat next to Taemin. “You really don’t get it. We’re here for a reason. We’ve done things we didn’t want to do, things we shouldn’t have done, or maybe what we should have done. It’s not something an outsider can fix.”
“Are you jealous?” Taemin asks.
“What?”
“Jealous,” Taemin says. “He has a chance of moving on, and you don’t. That’s why you keep saying we, right? You’re just like him.”
Kibum clenches his fists and looks at Jonghyun. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m different, I’m not like him. It’s my job to protect him. Protect you. You don’t know what you’re getting into, and if I have to, I will stop you.”
“You’re lying,” Taemin accuses. Kibum glares at him and shakes his head. “And you know what? After I help Jonghyun, I’m going to move onto you. Because you’re not here for nothing.”
Kibum stands up then walks past Taemin. “I wouldn’t even let you touch me, and if you knew why, you wouldn’t either.”
He doesn’t bother to cover up his leave this time - he blends right in with the light streaming through the window and disappears.
He gathers a bunch of his friends to help him learn the skewed version of Jonghyun’s song, and goes to sleep that night feeling confident.
“We’re going to do this,” he tells Jonghyun. He sits next to Jonghyun and starts playing instantly. Jonghyun watches with a new profound interest, instead of looking on with a scrutinizing gaze.
Jonghyun plays it wrong again, and Taemin only encourages him to keep going. He has a feeling that something is going to happen. Something just will.
“Alright, I’m going to play this one more time - pay close attention, I’m running through the whole thing.” Taemin sets his hands on the keys and drags them lightly across. The song is played slowly, with mismatched paces and the harmony and melody not quite fitting together, and as he reaches the ending, he has a feeling this will all work out.
Right before he plays the last couple measures, there’s a loud boom next to them, and they both jump at the sound, looking over. There’s a giant cloud of smoke, but when Taemin peers closer, there’s something walking towards them.
Kibum appears out of it, and Taemin has never seen someone look more angry in his entire life. His face is twisted with rage and fury. He grabs Taemin’s wrist and pulls him off the piano bench, dragging him across the floor.
“I told you not to mess with this, okay? I warned you, but you really had to make me come here and do something about it.”
“Let go of me!” Taemin screams and he can see Jonghyun staring at them from the piano with wide eyes. “Keep playing!” he shouts at Jonghyun. “Keep playing, I know you can do it.” He kicks Kibum, but Kibum just looks down at him with that angry expression and soon enough, there’s another loud boom, and then he’s delved into the smoke.
Taemin’s running down a street with nobody in sight, hearing the pounding of his feet and heart and the sharp sense of fear setting over him. He has no idea why he’s running, or who he’s running from - until a black car comes screeching out of nowhere and the occupants start pouring out before it even stops. Taemin makes the mistake of looking back and feels bile rise to his throat at the sight of life-size bugs with human body parts. Jonghyun’s body parts. Those are his fingers and eyes and hair and mouth and suddenly the voices set in, creeping in on Taemin and driving him insane.
You said you’d help me, you said it’d work, you lied you lied you lied I hate you. Taemin screams and drops to his knees, clapping his hands over his ears. Just messing with me, feeling bad for me, when there’s nothing you can do, liar. It keeps getting louder, seeping through his fingers and into his mind so he can’t escape. He doesn’t even notice when a centipede reaches him and curls around him like a boa constrictor, squeezing squeezing squeezing until he dies-
Everything instantaneously turns a thick, inky black, and Taemin wonders if this is how everything looks like after death. Then the room floods back like someone’s upended a paint bucket over his vision. Taemin’s too shocked to do anything but breathe hard and fast, working the fear out of his system. It’s Jonghyun’s voice that cuts across the roar of blood in Taemin’s ears and brings him back.
“I did it,” Jonghyun whispers in surprise, looking down at the piano. Suddenly he’s on the floor next to Taemin, suffocating him with a bear hug. “I did it I did it it worked Taemin thank you,” he chants into Taemin’s ear.
Taemin smiles weakly. “See, I told you you could do it. Stop, you’re going to kill me.”
“You can’t die when you’re dreaming,” Jonghyun tells him, but he lets him go anyway and just sits there grinning.
Taemin shakes off the rest of his nightmare and grins back, then notices something. “You’re fading!”
“What?” Jonghyun looks down at himself. He’s turned translucent, and his legs are already gone. “Woah. I guess...I’m finally leaving.” He looks up at Taemin again. “I just- thanks. So much. I don’t think you even know-”
“I don’t need to,” Taemin interrupts with laugh. “I’m glad you’re not stuck here anymore.”
“Me too,” Jonghyun smiles, before he’s completely gone.
Taemin looks at the space where Jonghyun used to be for a while before remembering that they weren’t the only ones in the room. He turns to find Kibum standing there, looking completely stunned.
“You- whatthefuck,” Kibum says eloquently.
“I told you it was possible,” Taemin quips, unable to resist shoving it in Kibum’s face.
“It hasn’t been,” Kibum says slowly. “For a while now. The last one couldn’t make head nor tails of what to do.” He shakes his head. “You’re one fucking creepy-ass kid.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Taemin retorts. Then his alarm clock blares out and he wakes up.
Taemin opens his eyes and beams at the ceiling, giggling to himself at the bubbly sensation in his chest. He rolls onto his chest and grins into his pillow, waving his arms and kicking his bed in glee.
“Hey, Taemin, are you-” Taesun stops mid-sentence and stares at his little brother flailing in bed. He wonders exactly how sane he is. “Nevermind.”
“I’m up,” Taemin crows in reply anyway, flashing a smile over the edge of his pillow.
“That’s great,” his brother says drily.
“Yup!” Taemin rolls out of bed and grins straight through the rest of the morning, even though the cereal his mom put out is the his least favorite and he can’t find a pair of matching socks.
The euphoria hasn’t worn off when he enters the music room and hears only the white noise of students talking. No crying, no piano keys. Taemin glances at the piano to make sure - and sees someone sitting there. Kibum.
“You seem awfully pleased with yourself,” Kibum says sarcastically.
“I am,” Taemin grins, just because he knows it’ll bug Kibum.
Kibum sniffs. “One success after failing a million times and he lets it get to his head.”
“I could do it again,” Taemin counters, “Just don’t keep feeding me your ‘nobody-can-do-anything’ crap and keep your freaking nightmares to yourself.”
Kibum looks as dangerous as he did in Taemin’s dream the night before, and Taemin feels alarmed for a second, but the look disappears as Kibum returns to being negative and biting. “Whatever you say, kid. Just remember what I’ve tried to tell you when your second attempt fails.” He doesn’t bother with any theatrics this time; Kibum’s there one second and gone the next.
“I won’t fail,” Taemin tells himself defiantly. “I won’t.”
It happens when Taemin goes to the library with his friends, looking for books to do reports on. Sungjong’s picking through the shelf next to Taemin, opening books and reading several words before slotting them back into their spaces. When he flips open a particularly old one whose binding cracks, Taemin looks up at the noise and sees someone who isn’t Sungjong standing there.
The boy looks older than Taemin does, with bangs that go over his eyes and white-rimmed glasses. He holds the book propped open on his arms, flipping a page or two before hesitating and closing the book and placing it back. He starts to walk away, then seems to changed his mind, coming back to pull the book from the shelf again.
“Taemin? Taemin, what’re you looking at?”
Taemin shifts back, finding himself looking up at Sungjong, who’s frowning down at him. “Nothing.”
“Uhhuh,” Sungjong says, but he doesn’t pursue it. Taemin’s weird on a regular basis, so it’s nothing new.
“Hey, um. Can I see that book?” Taemin points to the one Sungjong’s holding. Behind his friend, the other boy is still pacing the aisle.
Sungjong snaps it shut and hands it to Taemin; when he does, the boy disappears. Taemin lifts the cover and glances up. And the boy’s there again. Huh. He does this two or three more times, just to be certain. The boy vanishes into thin air and appears the next.
“Is there anything wrong?” Minjae asks, and Taemin gives him a fake smile before shutting the book one last time.
“No, sorry. The binding is just really awkward. I think I want this book though. Should I check it out?”
Minjae shrugs. “Whatever you like. That doesn’t even have to do with your research paper, though. Wasn’t it on air pollution?”
“Animal experimentation,” Taemin corrects. “I like what this is about.”
“You like Roman history,” Minjae deadpans. Sungjong takes the book from Taemin and flips through the pages. Just like that, the boy appears behind them both. He rifles through the shelves and picks out one of the thicker books, opening the book to a random page. Sungjong rolls his eyes and hands the book back to Taemin. The boy and the book disappears.
“Well, not really, to be honest. But it sounds kind of interesting.”
“Whatever you say,” Sungjong shrugs. “I got my book, and those two on the desk are yours, right? Should we go home, then?”
Minjae and Taemin nod and follow Sungjong to the check out desk.
Taemin opens the book at his desk and watches as the boy appears in front of him. He has a bag with him this time, Taemin notes, and he digs into it to grab a book. “Hello?” Taemin tries. “Can you hear me?” The boy says nothing but continues to read. Taemin frowns and puts the book on his desk. He studies the boy’s appearance for a moment before turning off his lamp light and going to bed.
He doesn’t meet the boy in his dream. It confuses him when he wakes up, groaning his eyes and shoving a pillow over head. There’s a rustle of movement from near his desk, and Taemin squints his eyes to see someone sitting there and reading. It takes a while to register that it’s the spirit in his chair. When he does realize it, though, he jumps up and rushes over, snapping the book shut. He disappears in a flash as Taemin sighs in relief. Even for a spirit, it just feels too weird having someone walk around in your room all night, he reasons himself with.
He brings the book to school and reads it during classes. He doesn’t actually read it though. He opens it and watches the ghost walk around with a book in hand. It’s a different book each time, Taemin mentally tells himself.
“So how’s the book going?” Yeonhee beams at him, and Taemin chokes on his kimchi.
“It’s uh, nice.” Taemin tries to give his most persuasive smile. “It’s very... Roman.”
“That’s new,” Minjae states, stealing one of Taemin’s rolls.
Yeonhee kicks him and looks back at Taemin. “What kind of things does it talk about?”
“Dead people,” Taemin deadpans and Kisung snorts in the background.
He decides to finally read the book and see if it gets him anywhere in the middle of history class. The book is boring, Taemin concludes. Every word is hard to get past, and with each syllable he finds himself getting more sleepy. Getting through a page is like running a marathon through molasses. His eyes droop and he’s almost certain that the girl who sits behind him is staring.
“Hey, are you okay?”
Taemin picks his head up and looks around. The classroom is empty, and the second hand on the clock isn’t moving. That’s weird.
“Hello?”
Taemin finally notices the voice is in front of him and stares up ahead of him. He blinks in surprise as the person speaking turns out to be the boy.
“You!” Taemin accuses. “You’re here.”
“Um,” the boy scratches the back of his head. “Should I be somewhere else?”
Taemin’s tempted to say yes, but he pushes that thought to the back of his mind as he thinks about what to say. “Hi,” he settles for. “I’m Taemin. What’s your name?”
“Jinki,” the boy says and grins at him.
“You have a nice smile,” Taemin blurts without thinking. “I mean - nice to meet you, Jinki.”
Jinki laughs. “Thank you? Most people say that’s my nicest feature.”
“It is,” Taemin replies almost instantaneously, and mentally beats himself for not shutting up. “So, uh, this probably sounds really weird, I don’t blame you if you think I’m a bit insane, but I think I’m here to help you.”
“Help me?” Jinki frowns and eyes the book on Taemin’s desk. It wasn’t the book Taemin was reading earlier, and the connection automatically flashes in his mind.
“Yeah. With your, uh, book problem.” Taemin pauses and then ploughs on, ignoring the baffled look on Jinki’s face. “Do you...well, how long have you been reading books?”
“A while,” Jinki says slowly, thoughtfully. “I’m not sure exactly how long. Could I see the book that you have? I don’t think I’ve seen it before.”
“Sure,” Taemin says, passing it over. He watches Jinki open it and instantly become absorbed in it. Taemin thinks it’s pretty obvious what Jinki’s problem is. What he does needs to know, he muses, are the details. The reason. He can’t figure out what to do until he does.
The sound of scuffling feet and chairs sliding back fills the room, even though it’s empty, and Taemin knows that class is going to be over soon. He needs to go back.
“I’m going now,” he announces to Jinki, who doesn’t seem to hear him. “Hey-” Taemin grabs the book from him.
“What?” Jinki looks up, surprised.
“I’m gonna go, but I’ll be back later,” Taemin repeats. “Bye!” And he wakes up.
Minjae taps him on the back of the head with his binder, grinning. “You’re falling asleep in class way too often lately, Taemin. If your grades drop, I’m not gonna help you.”
“Like I’d want your help,” Taemin scoffs, scooping up the book - Jinki’s book - and dropping it in his backpack.
Back home, Taemin takes out the book before doing any of his homework and opens it. Jinki instantly appears. Taemin watches him make for the bookshelf before returning to the book, resigning himself to reading it again. With luck, the reason he could talk to Jinki the second time but not the first was because reading actually worked. He flips to a random page and starts.
Taemin jerks awake at his desk, not sure if he’s dreaming or if it didn’t work. Jinki’s voice tells him the answer. “You’re back!”
Taemin turns to see Jinki sitting on the bed with a book in his lap. “You’re awfully comfortable for someone who’s in someone else’s bedroom,” Taemin says wryly.
Jinki looks around. “I don’t really notice these things.”
“No, I guess you wouldn’t. All you notice are books, huh?” Taemin walks over ands sits on the bed, pulling Jinki’s current book out of his grip, reading the title. “Applications of Calculus in Real-World Situations. Really?”
“What’s wrong with it?” Jinki shoots back defensively. “I just read whatever I can find.”
“You don’t do anything else? Hang out with friends, go to the park?”
“Not really.”
Taemin frowns. “Aren’t you lonely?”
Jinki hesitates. “Sometimes, I guess. But then I forget about it.” He absently flips a few pages in the book.
“No,” Taemin suggests. “Try doing the opposite. Think about doing other things and read less, or you’ll really be here forever, just reading things like The Autobiography of Some Person with a Really Long Name. And that’d suck.”
“Forget about reading?” Jinki shakes his head. “I can’t do that.”
“Try,” Taemin urges, “Just think about going to an amusement park or something. Walking the dog. Anything.”
Jinki looks bewildered, but seems to comply when he closes his eyes and stays silent for a few minutes. Taemin watches until Jinki opens his eyes, shaking his head again. “It doesn’t work. It’s just - books. Textbooks, classics, autobiographies. They’re all I know. I’ll think about walking a dog, and then I’ll remember this scene from a book I read.”
“Well,” Taemin thinks aloud, “Maybe if we went to these places instead of me just telling you to think about them, then it’d work. Yeah, let’s try that.” He stands and tugs on Jinki’s hand. “C’mon! And leave the book.”
“What-”
Taemin’s never left his immediate dreamspace before, but it doesn’t seem to affect anything. Everything’s the way it looks in real life, except for the lack of people. He heads for the nearby park, with Jinki in tow. They go on the swings first, even though Jinki’s a little heavy for Taemin to push.
“I’m not sure about this,” Jinki worries, “Shouldn’t I be home studying?”
“No,” Taemin says firmly. “Have some fun.”
It doesn’t work, though. They spend what Taemin guesses is about half an hour at the park, and Jinki spends every other minute suggesting they go back until Taemin gives in. Jinki picks up his book the moment they get into Taemin’s room, and Taemin resists the urge to steal it and threaten to flush it down the toilet. Instead, he tells Jinki that he has to go and that he’ll be back tomorrow.
“Trying to change a person’s memory is easy, changing the whole basis of their existence isn’t.”
Taemin jumps at the voice and turns to see Kibum sitting in the previously empty desk next to him. “Don’t you have other things to do,” he sighs.
“You’re threatening to imbalance the spirit’s band of existence, it’s not like I have a choice,” he frowns. He picks at a nail and looks at Taemin. “It’d be nice if you tried to make my lack of a life easier.”
“Lack of a life,” Taemin parrots and plays with the binding of the book. “How is that, anyways?”
“Take a guess,” Kibum says sourly and watches Taemin.
“Fun,” Taemin replies and snorts at his own joke.
“That wasn’t even funny.”
Taemin shrugs. “Why do you do this, anyways? Why are you so against me trying to help these people?”
“It’s my job,” Kibum deadpans, “Responsible people do their jobs well. Not like you’d know anything about it.”
Taemin mimics him, “It’s my job. I can’t do anything about these poor people that I’ve been watching all of my non-life, so I’m going to keep a kid who doesn’t know how to do anything from helping them.” He basks in the glory of pissing off Kibum for a few seconds before continuing in a normal voice. “You’re a spirit too, aren’t you? But you’re completely aware of it for some reason. And whoever’s in charge put you in charge of this whole let-people-suffer-forever thing. Why?”
Kibum catches Taemin’s curious look and turns away without answering. He doesn’t disappear, though, so Taemin takes that as an indication that it’s safe to go on.
“Maybe,” he says slowly, “It’s because you know what it feels like. To regret something and not be able to fix it. I can’t tell what it is, though - you’re not stuck doing whatever you regret til the end of time. You’re stuck doing this instead.” Taemin pauses. “If you told me-”
“No,” Kibum spits angrily, suddenly looming over Taemin.
Taemin tries to suppress the creeping fear in the pit of his stomach and presses on. “But if there was the smallest possibility of you being free, wouldn’t you take it?”
Taemin feels himself get lifted out of the chair by his collar and fights to keep his eyes focused on Kibum’s face instead of shirking away. He holds his gaze for as long as Kibum does, ignoring how tightly his shirt is being fisted. Just as quickly, Kibum drops him and stands back, expression unreadable. Taemin stares.
“No,” Kibum tells him quietly, “I wouldn’t.”
When he disappears this time, he bursts into a cloud of angry red instead of just dissipating.
The days he spent with Jonghyun repeat themselves with Jinki. It’s a nice change to be able to go different places, but Jinki’s definitely more difficult to work with compared to Jonghyun. The best Taemin manages is ten minutes, but if something he says or something they see reminds Jinki of a book he’s read, then he’s gone for good.
“Hi!” Jinki greets Taemin with a grin, looking up from a thick textbook.
They’re in the city library this time, and Taemin looks around in despair at the myriad of books at Jinki’s disposal. “Let’s go outside,” Taemin offers.
“But I don’t really-”
“No. Out,” Taemin commands, grabbing onto Jinki’s wrist and tugging.
They settle on a bench in the courtyard, which isn’t far away enough for Taemin’s liking, but he guesses that he has to start somewhere small.
“So what’s your full name, anyway?” Taemin starts off, wondering how much conversation it’ll take to draw Jinki’s attention away from the book.
“Lee Jinki,” he says agreeably, flipping a page.
“Hey, that’s the same as mine,” Taemin grins, making a note to run a search on him later.
“It’s pretty common,” Jinki says.
“Yeah, I guess so.” Taemin hesitates. “So um, out of all the books you read, what subject do you like the most?”
Jinki looks up at this, and Taemin wonders if he should count it as a small victory if asking about books takes Jinki’s mind off of the book he has at hand. “Well...I like English. I think it’s pretty interesting to read another language. But it’s hard to memorize all the words and what they mean.”
“Did your friends ever ask you to tutor them?”
“Sometimes.” Jinki’s voice sounds small, compared to his usual brightness. “But after a while, they gave up trying. Because I- I never made an effort to spend time with them.”
Taemin reaches out to grip Jinki’s shaking wrists and watches him until he’s done with his silent tears. Sorry, Taemin wants to say, sorry, I didn’t mean to. But he did mean to, because he needs to know. And he tightens his fingers, like he’s trying to press his promise into Jinki’s skin. We’ll fix it. We’ll fix everything.
next part