Title: Peer Pressure
Pairing: Taekey, Jongho
Length: 2524 words
Rating: PG13
Genre: au, fluff
Summary: It was a waste for Taemin to be all dressed up and standing alone. At least, his friends thought so.
"Are you going to stare at him all night or are you going to go ask him to dance?"
Taemin glared at Jonghyun, who showed up at his side without warning.
"You've been standing here for like an hour now, Taemin-ah, seriously," Minho added in, always on Jonghyun's side.
"Have you been monitoring me the whole time?" Taemin snapped, stubbornly standing in place against the wall.
"No, but-"
Jonghyun cut him off brightly. "Look, a new song. Are you going to ask him now?"
Taemin remained firm. "No, my hair is messed up, I've been sweating too much."
"Your hair is fine, just go ask him," Minho pushed at Taemin's shoulder, "Look, I came over here so I could give you a chance to talk to him while he's alone, so-"
Taemin stumbled forward from the force and then scurried back as quickly as he could, standing on the opposite side of Jonghyun this time around so Minho couldn't reach him, "Liar, you're only over here because your date is right here, you ass-"
"Taemin," Jonghyun placed a firm hand on his shoulder, much more encouraging than Minho had been, "Just go talk to him! He's not going to say no. I don't know what you're so afraid of."
Taemin's frustration was starting to suffocate him. It was too hot in this damn gym as it was, and having the pushiest best friend a person could imagine wasn't exactly helping anything. His hair was mussed from sweating and dancing-they played a few songs he really liked, and couldn't refuse dancing with a few of the dance club members, though he'd scuttled right off the dance floor when Kibum joined in-and he felt so completely ridiculous in his rented tux that smelled like he'd spilled his entire bottle of cologne on it.
He'd thought it was such a great idea to wear a simple white getup with a purple vest and bowtie and flower-the decision assented by Jonghyun, who told him he looked great, but who Taemin didn't exactly believe because he himself was dressed in something obnoxious and green.
It was only his luck, though, dammit, that Kibum was wearing black and red and he looked ridiculously classy and handsome, but red and purple looked terrible together. There was no chance that Kibum wouldn't notice something like that before he consented to dance with him. Everyone around would see them and see the clash of purple and red and Kibum wouldn't want to be seen like that.
Jonghyun was wrong. It would be a definite no, so Taemin thought he should quit while he was ahead.
His eyes scanned the floor-there were too many people for him to make out too many familiar faces, but Kibum's shock of blond hair stood out like no other. His eyes naturally gravitated there, he told himself, because of the great contrast from the black-haired classmates. He didn't look because he'd had a crush on the guy since the first day he joined dance club at school. It wasn't that.
Taemin jumped when he saw that Kibum's eyes moved to their direction. His cheeks grew hot and he immediately looked down, pretending that he was checking something on his shoe. "You should probably go back, Minho-hyung," he mumbled, not even sure if Minho could hear him at first because of the loud music, "he's looking at you."
Jonghyun laughed and Minho reached around the green-clad boy to shove Taemin lightly.
"He's not looking at me, Taemin-ah," he said good-naturedly.
"If you're implying that he's looking at me, then you can go to hell, because-" he glanced up and then went into borderline cardiac arrest, "Oh shit why is he looking at me?"
"Maybe he wants to dance with you or something," Jonghyun said, clapping Taemin on the back.
"Shut up, no he doesn't," he whispered frantically, as if Kibum may hear him from across the floor and notice how insanely distressed he was.
"Taemin, you have to be-" Minho stopped mid-sentence as the song changed, from an upbeat techno song to something noticeably slower and smoother.
The couple simultaneously leered at him, identical greasy smiles on their faces.
Taemin immediately began to shake his head. "No. No. There is no way in hell I am going to ask him to dance to this. No."
Minho groaned and started up his peer-pressure-ridden pep talk. "Come on, Taemin-ah, it's perfect. If you asked him to dance during a different song, he would just think you were asking as a member of the dance club. But if you ask him now-"
"Which I'm not going to," Taemin interjected.
Jonghyun ignored him and picked up where Minho left off. "You like him and he's still staring at you. This song is awesome and romantic and if you don't go over there and ask right now, be prepared to stand by yourself for a long while."
"Why, are you going to ask Minho to dance to it?" Taemin snorted, the mental image ridiculous and riotously hilarious at the same time.
Jonghyun looked pointedly away, legs shuffling quite indiscreetly.
Minho cleared his throat, eyes at the floor, fingers tapping his pockets awkwardly.
Taemin held back his raucous laughter. "Are you serious? You want to dance to this-" he covered his mouth to hide his smile, "Fine. I'll stand here by myself. I'd love to watch that."
"At least we're not gazing longingly after each other across the damn floor," Jonghyun mumbled, arms crossing.
"Yeah," Minho agreed, pout no more mature than Jonghyun's brooding.
"Just go, leave me here. This is stupid. I don't need to dance with Kibum-hyung anyway," he leaned against the wall behind him, arms folded resolutely. He looked the opposite direction of his friends and Kibum, eyes trained on the tacky butcher-paper decor on the other side of the gym. His apathetic expression masked the disappointment he felt quite well.
Jonghyun gasped suddenly. "He's coming over here."
Taemin scoffed, unconvinced. "No he's not."
"Yes he is, I'm being serious!"
"No, he's not," Taemin rolled his eyes this time around, not amused by his hyung's false urgency.
Jonghyun sighed, attempts to stress Taemin thwarted. "Fine, he's not. Just go over there, Taemin. Be a man, would you?"
Taemin snapped his head around, eyes narrowing at his choice of words. "What'd you say?"
"You've got him now, hyung," Minho murmured from behind him, amusement playing on his smile.
"Go be a man and ask him to dance. Look, he's not going to stand there by himself forever, so you-"
Taemin was already stomping across the floor by "be a man."
Dammit, he'd just gotten out of his girly adolescent stage a year or so before, he wasn't about to be thrown back into it by his friends because he was too nervous to ask the guy he liked to dance.
Dammit.
He hated peer pressure. And the fact that Jonghyun knew him too well.
Kibum didn't notice him walking over, thank god, and that gave Taemin an extra moment to mentally scream about how his hair must look like shit one side tucked behind his ear like that was a style or something, how a white and purple tux was the worst idea he'd ever had in his life, and how stupid he looked just waltzing over like that.
He had no finesse. He was an awkward gangling teenager when he wasn't dancing. God, he hoped Kibum would say yes-even though Taemin told himself he probably wasn't going to-so he could show him a cooler side, one that didn't blink twenty times a second and one that actually knew where to put his hands when he talked.
Taemin was sorely tempted to turn on his heel and pretend he was walking the other direction, because fuck-fuck-Kibum saw him approaching.
"Hi," he flinched internally. He was so pitifully lame.
"Hi," Kibum didn't seem bothered by his tactless opening line. In fact, he was smiling.
"You look really nice," Taemin said, because he didn't know what else he was supposed to do in that situation. It would be too forward of him to ask him to dance right away, he knew. He wasn't like Jonghyun; he couldn't just impulsively do and say everything like that.
"Thank you," Wow, Kibum didn't say that with even a shred of condescension. He was being genuine with his thanks, unlike his usual attitude when someone complimented him, as if he already knew.
Taemin resolved that he would have to compliment Kibum more often, if it meant getting that smile every time.
"You look great, too," he looked him up and down, eyes sparkling with sincerity.
"Really?" Taemin sounded too hopeful, he could hear it, but he couldn't curb how excited he was that Kibum said something like that, "I thought maybe the purple and white was a little bit..."
"No, you look really good," Kibum's smile turned shy and Taemin's did the exact same.
The song from before was still playing. A quick glance to where Taemin had walked from told him that Jonghyun and Minho were no longer standing there, and were probably dancing. So, they couldn't make fun of him for how awkward he looked when he asked Kibum.
If he was even going to.
He was still on the fence.
He still didn't-
"Do you want to dance?" he didn't even realize he was blurting it out until the words were hanging in open air between them.
There was a pause.
Taemin blinked maybe twenty-seven times and counted to a full three-one-million before Kibum made any indication at all that he heard the question.
And when he did, it was a nod.
A nod and a smile.
A nod, a smile, and an enthused, "Sure."
He wasn't brave enough to take Kibum's hand, so he grabbed his wrist so they could walk to the dance floor and dance together properly. It still had the effect of numbing him to the bone.
Taemin also wasn't quite sure what was with the confidence that possessed him, but as soon as he was standing amongst the throng of couples, a weight lifted from his shoulders.
Maybe it was because Kibum already said yes.
Now it was a matter of not completely screwing up the dance moves.
Shit, this was a slow dance, too. He still had to sort out whose arms would go where and-dammit, he shouldn't have let Jonghyun and Minho pressure him into this.
Kibum was older, so he decided that he could choose whose hands went where. It wasn't as painfully awkward as he feared, those few moments of confusion that Kibum didn't catch onto what he was implying by hovering his hands between them.
His hands landed eventually on his wait, Kibum's arms twined loosely around his neck.
Wow, they were really close like this. They were almost the same height, so their faces were level. He could lean over really quick and steal a kiss and it would be so easy and-
No, they were just dancing. He didn't need to get ahead of himself.
Hell, he could barely look Kibum in the eye like this, much less muster the courage to do much more than sway his hips and step in slow circles in rhythm with the music.
"You didn't um," Kibum met his eyes and broke off for a second, and if Taemin wasn't seeing things and Kibum wasn't wearing heavy makeup, it seemed like he was blushing, "You didn't come here with anyone, did you?"
"No, I just tagged along with Jonghyun-hyung," he said, looking fondly at his well-styled hair to avoid speaking to him so directly.
"Minho came to meet up with Jjong. He left me standing over here alone, the asshole."
"Sorry, I was supposed to come ask you to dance sooner. I was just nervous," Taemin said without quite thinking, humility overlaying his words.
Kibum's brows rose and it was only then that Taemin realized what he said.
"I mean-"
His lips spread in a smile and his eyes went into slits. His arms tightened almost unperceptively behind his neck, bringing them the slightest bit closer.
Taemin licked his lips nervously and let a wave of baseless courage take over. He slid his hands around Kibum's waist to rest on the small of his back, bringing them to a whole new level of closeness that, well, he didn't really account for when he had the idea.
Kibum wasn't bothered by it. At least he didn't let it show if he was. Even though his red vest was really close to Taemin's purple one now. It must have looked horrible from afar.
They were quiet then, and Taemin wasn't sure if he preferred it or not. They moved slowly to the beat, bodies swaying, and feet expert in not knocking into each other. They were both dancers, they at least knew how to keep rhythm so everything didn't fall into catastrophe. Their eyes wandered and a few times, Kibum caught Taemin staring at him and vice-versa. They shared many embarrassed smiles and confident ones alike, and not once did Taemin's distress levels-his heart was pounding and he couldn't really breathe-get in the way of enjoying this dance to the fullest.
The song was lasting for a long time, he thought gratefully, but then realized sadly that he jinxed himself.
The music began to change and Kibum looked up towards the speakers, arms loosening around him.
Taemin followed suit, hands moving back to lightly rest on his waist instead of holding him so closely. He managed the humility to be embarrassed about it, then, because they were almost chest-to-chest like that. It was very bold. He was being like Jonghyun.
"It's a new song," he pointed out, as if Kibum couldn't tell that himself.
Kibum turned back to face him, the beginnings of a haughty look on his face.
Taemin smiled apologetically.
He looked contemplative, lips pursed, eyes studying Taemin's. They were still standing close, ostentatiously unmoving while everyone else began to move around them, dancing with the new song.
Kibum leaned forward, craning his neck, and caught Taemin's lips with his own.
Taemin's eyes flew open and his fingers curled around his waist in reflex. He didn't catch up to the fact that Kibum was actually kissing him until a moment and a half after it began, in which time his heart pounded in double time and his entire stomach filled with what felt like ice cubes doing cartwheels.
It was just when he was unfreezing and beginning to kiss back in a light press that Kibum pulled away.
He was definitely blushing this time. It wasn't a trick of the light or an illusion.
But hey, Taemin couldn't honestly say that he wasn't blushing, too. His face was probably the same shade of crimson as the flower in Kibum's pocket by then.
"Do you want to dance?" Kibum asked, fingers drumming playfully on his shoulders.
Taemin grinned.
He was so glad Jonghyun and Minho talked him into this.
a/n - all right, let's all chorus a big resounding "GAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY" for this fic. also we're ignoring the fact that they don't really have organized school dances in korea. SHHHHHHHHH.
and now that that's done with.
this is for (
carolina), who is the actual best and who I love a lot. she loves taekey and jongho the most and I love her the most, so it all works out. I hope you like it, carolina ;w; excuse all the gay. also sorry it's kinda late. and really unedited. lol. I TRIED, OKAY????
also a shout-out to (
jess) for helping me out with this idea XD thanks jess, you're a saint. c:
but yeah, that's about all I have to say about it. taekey is growing on me these days, man. can't escape the manly!min. just can't.
anyway. I hope you liked it, and thank you so much for reading c':
Kat
mikssi
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masterlist]