[unfinished/abandoned]
hana ga saita yo; taekey; ~2800w
aku no hana au
Taemin finds the picture of Baudelaire on the internet and prints it from his father's study. Pinning it to the wall by thumbtack has been forbidden by his mother, and besides, doing so would cheapen the image, so Taemin slides an old family photo out from the cardboard backing of a frame on his bookshelf and replaces it with a dead French guy's humorless stare.
His careworn paperback copy of Les Fleurs du mal already goes with him everywhere, but when he began to feel constricted and caged just by sitting in the stuffiness of his own room, Taemin decides to install Baudelaire's portrait across from his bed to comfort him, to keep him sane. Baudelaire's face itself isn't particularly comforting, with its grimly set mouth and dark brooding eyes, squinting mildly as though in dismay, but Taemin likes knowing that he's not alone. Baudelaire is a kindred spirit; Baudelaire understands.
No one else understands. None of his classmates, nor any the feeble-minded denizens of his tiny town, have ever picked up Les Fleurs du mal and read it through, like he has. His father is the one who gave him the book, sure, but his father is also complacent to the point of blindness, unwilling to see the stifling laziness inherent in the smalltown mindset all around them. Taemin feels like he's the only one seeing the glazed stares, the rust on every street corner. His parents don't get it, and neither do his friends.
Baudelaire gets it.
And Eunsook, Eunsook would get it if he taught it to her. She sits three desks away from him, her untrimmed bangs obscuring two perfect almond eyes. Taemin's never so much as spoken to her, but he knows that she's different. It's more than just his hopeless crush on her, the fantasies he's harbored since seventh grade. She's beautiful, but more than that she's pure. She'll smile secretly to herself, eyes bright and shoulders bouncing with barely contained excitement, and the overwhelming loveliness of her will make Taemin's breath catch in his throat.
She isn't like the rest of them, Taemin knows. She is his muse. His femme fatale.
This morning, she is pointedly ignoring a folded-up note being poked persistently into her shoulder. Eunsook is popular, but so studious. She keeps her face determinedly blank, with only the corners of her mouth turned up in a genteel smile, until her friend stops trying to get her attention. Resting his chin in his palm, Taemin watches from his windowside desk and sighs. Swallows as she pushes her long, silky black hair behind her left ear, her white fingers so delicate and precise. His imagination follows those fingers, interlaces them in his own -
But he is snatched from his reverie by the teacher rapping the blackboard with a binder.
"Alright, time to hand back last week's test," he announces, ignoring the collective moans and groans that arise. "Come up when I call your name."
Taemin accepts his test dispassionately and returns to his seat robotically, making no effort to hide his score, a 53, from Jongin, who sits in front of him and is now twisted around and craning his neck. Jongin likes competition, but Taemin doesn't care enough to give it to him.
"You suck," Jongin whispers, waving his paper, an 86, in Taemin's face.
Taemin rolls his eyes and reaches into his desk. There's nothing to be gained by listening to Jongin or watching the rest of the class get their tests back. It's the same thing every single day, and, as usual, he tunes it out. Covertly, he opens Les Fleurs du mal and reads, pretending to scrutinize the test on his desk.
"Lee Eunsook," the teacher calls.
Taemin's eyes flick up from Baudelaire to Eunsook, the way her hips swish the fabric of her skirt as she walks.
"Eunsook got a ninety-eight, everyone," the teacher says, leering down at her. "Best in the class, again."
Eunsook blushes as her friends whistle in admiration. Taemin smiles at her modesty, a warm feeling lingering in his chest as he goes back to his book.
"Kim Gwiboon," the teacher says, distaste evident in the way his lips curl around the syllables.
The desk behind him bumps Taemin's chair, startling him. Kim Gwiboon sits directly behind him; she must have pushed out of her desk to stand with particular force. He turns his head slightly to see her walking briskly to the teacher's desk.
"Zero," the teacher says when she gets there. He dangles her paper out in front of her face, smirks. "You must be such a stupid girl. Couldn't even fill in one answer. What's wrong with you, huh?"
Everyone else titters.
Gwiboon blinks.
"Shut up, shit-eater," she says clearly.
Taemin almost drops his book.
The rest of the class is frozen in shock, and the teacher can't seem to believe his ears.
"What did you - ?"
"Shit. Eater," Gwiboon enunciates. "Shut up."
A long silence settles over the classroom, and then the teacher loses it, his eyes wild and mouth foaming spittle as he raises his hand to strike.
"How dare you call me that, you little - !"
But there must be something in Gwiboon's face that makes him stop. From the back she looks utterly composed, her posture even and her arms loose at her sides. Taemin feels himself holding his breath as he stares at the teacher's raised hand, but he is unable to hit her, and he knows it.
"You come see me after class!" he says finally, and Gwiboon nods, spins on her heel and walks back to her seat. The teacher is still pale-faced and disturbed, and Taemin doesn't dare turn around to see the look on Gwiboon's face. He feels the vibration through the floor as she scoots her chair in.
Then the disturbance has passed, and class resumes. The weariness is back.
Taemin returns to his book.
Gym class is a special kind of hell, because it means Eunsook in a little white T-shirt and too-tight shorts. She might as well be running around in her underwear, for all that that gym uniform hides. Taemin sits off to the side of the boys' volleyball game and watches the girls'.
Eunsook is completely oblivious of the way she looks, which is cute but torturous. She has no idea that every time she runs to set the ball, her breasts are shifting and straining the nearly-translucent fabric of her shirt. She has no idea that Taemin has his eyes glued to her ass, hungrily tracing every curve, watching as her fleshy thighs jiggle tantalizingly. She's driving him mad, but she has no idea that she's doing it.
And Taemin knows it's wrong of him to stare, but he doesn't stop, he lets his gaze linger. Then he becomes aware of someone else's gaze on him: Gwiboon, sitting by herself with her legs crossed in the bleachers behind him. When their eyes meet, Taemin is the first to look away.
"Creepy as hell, that Gwiboon," Jongin remarks as they walk home. Next to him, Sehun nods in agreement, as he always does at Jongin's remarks.
Taemin shrugs. "At least she stood up to Mr. Jung."
"Whatever," Jongin says dismissively. "I'd never date her."
"Like she'd date you," Taemin snorts.
"What are you trying to say?" Jongin demands incredulously.
"That you're a loser," Taemin says, smiling at Jongin's indignation.
"Then you're a loser too! We're the same, dude!" Jongin exclaims.
"No way," Taemin says, crossing his arms. "I read books."
"Are you calling me stupid?"
"Have you even heard of Baudelaire?"
"I'd date Eunsook," Sehun cuts in, as though the argument hasn't happened at all.
That stops Taemin and Jongin short.
"Well, wouldn't we all," Jongin says.
Taemin says nothing.
"I hear she's got, like," Sehun giggles, "a total bush."
At once, Taemin sees red, and the words are out of his lips before he can even think them:
"Shut up!"
He promptly clamps a hand over his mouth and flushes. His voice was barely his own, high and trembling. Jongin and Sehun are staring.
"I mean. It's. Really rude to say that," he says slowly.
"Why are you getting so defensive?" Jongin smirks.
"You like her," Sehun crows.
"No!" Taemin says quickly, waving his hands desperately. "I don't, it's just - you can't say that kind of thing about any girl."
"Shut the fuck up, you totally like her," Jongin says. "Eunsook, dude, seriously. She is so out of your league."
"It's almost pathetic," adds Sehun.
They'll never understand how Taemin feels about Eunsook. They can't comprehend the works of Baudelaire, and they can't comprehend the concept of a muse. Eunsook is Taemin's muse, and he'll defend her to the end.
"She's out of your league," he says heatedly. Not the snappiest comeback, but it'll have to do. "You two go on. I forgot something at school."
"Aw, don't get all butthurt," Jongin calls as Taemin stalks off in the direction of the school. "You know we're just teasing."
"I have to get my book!" Taemin insists. "I'll see you tomorrow."
It's true that he left his book in the classroom, though he hadn't thought of it until now. Besides being glad for the excuse to get away from his friends, he doesn't want to leave it at school overnight. When he gets back to the classroom, Les Fleurs du mal is still sitting in his desk, and, relieved, he tucks it into his backpack. Then, from the back of the classroom, he hears the soft thump of something falling to the floor.
A bag, a satchel, fallen from the rows of cubbies. Printed on the side is the name Lee Eunsook, and his heart pounds in his throat as he realizes what this is.
Eunsook's gym clothes. The white shirt that clings to her breasts, the tiny shorts that accentuate her ass. They're in that bag, close enough to touch.
Taemin could take them out and look at them if he wanted. He'll never be able to put his hands on Eunsook herself, but he could hold her shorts. It would be the next best thing. He finds himself bending down over the bag, fingertips trembling and outstretched -
From the hallway, there's a scuffling noise.
Taemin runs all the way home, and when he gets there he's drenched in sweat, panting, heart racing. He brushes past his mother's worried queries, takes the stairs two at a time, collapses in his room before the picture of Baudelaire. He takes a long few minutes to catch his breath, and then he looses his grip on the front of his shirt.
Eunsook's gym clothes tumble to the floor and lie in a wrinkled mess, her name in block print blaring up at him accusingly while Baudelaire grimaces from his frame.
The whole school is in an uproar about the stolen gym clothes the next day, and Eunsook herself is crying, wiping her eyes demurely as Mr. Jung sternly tells them about the mysterious incident. Taemin's gut churns horribly at Eunsook's tearstained face, and his hand twitches towards his backpack, where the clothes are lying innocently, ready to be returned. He'd planned to give them back first thing, but upon hearing Mr. Jung say, "rest assured, the perpetrator will face the most dire consequences," he thinks he'll need time to gather his nerve.
"Dude," Jongin whispers, leaning back and poking Taemin in the forehead. "Is that some fucked up shit, or what? There's some kind of dirty pervert roaming around with Eunsook's gym clothes. You know what he's probably doing with them?" He jerks his hand in the air a few times.
"That's disgusting," Taemin tells him tartly.
It's not the worst rumor going around, though. Everyone's talking about the stolen gym clothes and the perverted thief, and by lunch Jongin and Sehun are speculating as to who in their class might have committed the crime. Taemin says nothing, pretends to be absorbed in his book, but nervous sweat is beading on his forehead.
They know I like her, he thinks, panicked. What if they turn me in?
But they're his friends, and if the thought occurs to them, they don't act on it. The rest of the day passes uneventfully, until he's riding his bicycle into town after school and seriously contemplating running away from home forever, and he sees an isolated figure on the side of the narrow road.
When she hears him approaching, Gwiboon turns her head and stares at Taemin inquisitively.
He brakes abruptly. Something about her expression is strangely predatory.
"Taemin-ah," she calls. It's the first time he's heard her say his name. Her voice is coarse, a little gravelly, a little sensual.
"Um," he stammers eloquently.
"Where are you going?" she asks, walking toward him unhurriedly.
"Nowhere," Taemin says. "I mean. The bookstore."
"You are always reading, aren't you," she says thoughtfully. "The Flower of Evil, right? I've never seen that book anywhere else. Is it good?"
They're within a few feet of each other now. Taemin's close enough to see the brown in the roots of Gwiboon's bright yellow hair, close enough to see the shine of gloss on her lower lip. Jongin can make fun of her all he wants, but Gwiboon is actually really pretty, Taemin realizes.
That doesn't make this any less creepy, though.
"How do you know what book I'm reading?" he says suspiciously.
She smiles, dimples showing. "I've sat behind you for like, three semesters, Taemin."
Taemin looks away. "It's a good book. You probably won't understand, but that book has changed my life. Or at least, it's made me think that I don't think like other people."
The next thing he knows, Gwiboon's climbed onto the bike behind him.
"Hey!" he shouts. "What the hell?"
"Give me a lift?" she says, her legs straddling his back wheel and her hands resting light on his waist.
"What are you - ?" he says, twisting around to push her away.
"Take me to the other side of the mountains," she says, like that's the most normal thing in the world.
"I don't want to," Taemin protests, struggling to ride away. But she's stubborn. Her grip on his waist tightens.
"But you have to," she says, and now she sounds strangely delighted.
"Why?"
"Because, Taemin," she coos. "I saw you. You stole the gym clothes. And if you don't do what I say, I'll tell everyone."
Gwiboon calls it a contract. Taemin calls it blackmail. For a week, all it entails is hanging out with her after school, plunking pebbles into the puny creek winding around the town's eastern edge and risking his parents' anger at coming home late. She talks to him, tries to get him to talk back.
"I want to get out of here," she announces one evening. "Out of this town, out of Korea. All the way out."
"To where?" Taemin can't help but ask.
"Just, out," Gwiboon says, tilting her head back to regard the purple-gray twilight sky.
"Me too," Taemin says quietly. Gwiboon turns, gives him a look that he doesn't quite understand. Maybe it's just too dark to see her expression properly.
"I know," she says.
The more time Taemin spends with her, the more he realizes just how much she knows about him. She knows about the mole behind his left ear, and she knows all of his academic strengths and weaknesses, and she knows which of his friends he dislikes the least. The more knowledge she reveals, the less comfortable he feels. He knows next to nothing about her.
"I don't think I can hang out anymore," he tells her finally, leaning forward into his folded knees on the gentle slope of the riverbank. "My parents don't like it when I'm out this late."
"Fine," she says, surprising him. Gwiboon doesn't concede easily.
Taemin says nothing, waits for the catch.
"Eunsook," she says.
"What about her?" Taemin says, his heart speeding up out of nowhere.
"You like her."
Taemin doesn't bother denying it; even if she didn't already know everything about him, he's a terrible liar.
"So?" he says.
"You touched yourself thinking about her, didn't you?" Gwiboon says, smiling pleasantly. "You held those gym clothes and you smelled her on them and it got you off. Didn't it. And you came all over the clothes, huh, and now they're covered in your crusty semen."
"N - " Taemin is stunned by this fabulous accusation, "no way! I would never - that's disgusting! I didn't do any of that."
"Then why did you take them?" Gwiboon asks, a dangerous glint in her eye.
"I don't know," Taemin says miserably, "they were just there, and I heard a noise and I panicked, but I'm not a pervert."
notes
i wrote this basically all in one sitting [like...back when the anime was still in progress and i was still watching it lol, so, a while ago] and didn't touch it again, partially because i didn't really have the time and partially because like..i enjoy reading aku no hana, but..the characters themselves are really unpleasant, and i don't think i would enjoy having a shinee fic in the style of aku no hana. y'know? some really dark and fucked up stuff goes down. so, i left off before even the mildest stuff could really happen lol. nonetheless it was actually pretty fun to write this. also, i love the aku no hana ed everyone should listen to it always
aku no hana au
Taemin finds the picture of Baudelaire on the internet and prints it from his father's study. Pinning it to the wall by thumbtack has been forbidden by his mother, and besides, doing so would cheapen the image, so Taemin slides an old family photo out from the cardboard backing of a frame on his bookshelf and replaces it with a dead French guy's humorless stare.
His careworn paperback copy of Les Fleurs du mal already goes with him everywhere, but when he began to feel constricted and caged just by sitting in the stuffiness of his own room, Taemin decides to install Baudelaire's portrait across from his bed to comfort him, to keep him sane. Baudelaire's face itself isn't particularly comforting, with its grimly set mouth and dark brooding eyes, squinting mildly as though in dismay, but Taemin likes knowing that he's not alone. Baudelaire is a kindred spirit; Baudelaire understands.
No one else understands. None of his classmates, nor any the feeble-minded denizens of his tiny town, have ever picked up Les Fleurs du mal and read it through, like he has. His father is the one who gave him the book, sure, but his father is also complacent to the point of blindness, unwilling to see the stifling laziness inherent in the smalltown mindset all around them. Taemin feels like he's the only one seeing the glazed stares, the rust on every street corner. His parents don't get it, and neither do his friends.
Baudelaire gets it.
And Eunsook, Eunsook would get it if he taught it to her. She sits three desks away from him, her untrimmed bangs obscuring two perfect almond eyes. Taemin's never so much as spoken to her, but he knows that she's different. It's more than just his hopeless crush on her, the fantasies he's harbored since seventh grade. She's beautiful, but more than that she's pure. She'll smile secretly to herself, eyes bright and shoulders bouncing with barely contained excitement, and the overwhelming loveliness of her will make Taemin's breath catch in his throat.
She isn't like the rest of them, Taemin knows. She is his muse. His femme fatale.
This morning, she is pointedly ignoring a folded-up note being poked persistently into her shoulder. Eunsook is popular, but so studious. She keeps her face determinedly blank, with only the corners of her mouth turned up in a genteel smile, until her friend stops trying to get her attention. Resting his chin in his palm, Taemin watches from his windowside desk and sighs. Swallows as she pushes her long, silky black hair behind her left ear, her white fingers so delicate and precise. His imagination follows those fingers, interlaces them in his own -
But he is snatched from his reverie by the teacher rapping the blackboard with a binder.
"Alright, time to hand back last week's test," he announces, ignoring the collective moans and groans that arise. "Come up when I call your name."
Taemin accepts his test dispassionately and returns to his seat robotically, making no effort to hide his score, a 53, from Jongin, who sits in front of him and is now twisted around and craning his neck. Jongin likes competition, but Taemin doesn't care enough to give it to him.
"You suck," Jongin whispers, waving his paper, an 86, in Taemin's face.
Taemin rolls his eyes and reaches into his desk. There's nothing to be gained by listening to Jongin or watching the rest of the class get their tests back. It's the same thing every single day, and, as usual, he tunes it out. Covertly, he opens Les Fleurs du mal and reads, pretending to scrutinize the test on his desk.
"Lee Eunsook," the teacher calls.
Taemin's eyes flick up from Baudelaire to Eunsook, the way her hips swish the fabric of her skirt as she walks.
"Eunsook got a ninety-eight, everyone," the teacher says, leering down at her. "Best in the class, again."
Eunsook blushes as her friends whistle in admiration. Taemin smiles at her modesty, a warm feeling lingering in his chest as he goes back to his book.
"Kim Gwiboon," the teacher says, distaste evident in the way his lips curl around the syllables.
The desk behind him bumps Taemin's chair, startling him. Kim Gwiboon sits directly behind him; she must have pushed out of her desk to stand with particular force. He turns his head slightly to see her walking briskly to the teacher's desk.
"Zero," the teacher says when she gets there. He dangles her paper out in front of her face, smirks. "You must be such a stupid girl. Couldn't even fill in one answer. What's wrong with you, huh?"
Everyone else titters.
Gwiboon blinks.
"Shut up, shit-eater," she says clearly.
Taemin almost drops his book.
The rest of the class is frozen in shock, and the teacher can't seem to believe his ears.
"What did you - ?"
"Shit. Eater," Gwiboon enunciates. "Shut up."
A long silence settles over the classroom, and then the teacher loses it, his eyes wild and mouth foaming spittle as he raises his hand to strike.
"How dare you call me that, you little - !"
But there must be something in Gwiboon's face that makes him stop. From the back she looks utterly composed, her posture even and her arms loose at her sides. Taemin feels himself holding his breath as he stares at the teacher's raised hand, but he is unable to hit her, and he knows it.
"You come see me after class!" he says finally, and Gwiboon nods, spins on her heel and walks back to her seat. The teacher is still pale-faced and disturbed, and Taemin doesn't dare turn around to see the look on Gwiboon's face. He feels the vibration through the floor as she scoots her chair in.
Then the disturbance has passed, and class resumes. The weariness is back.
Taemin returns to his book.
Gym class is a special kind of hell, because it means Eunsook in a little white T-shirt and too-tight shorts. She might as well be running around in her underwear, for all that that gym uniform hides. Taemin sits off to the side of the boys' volleyball game and watches the girls'.
Eunsook is completely oblivious of the way she looks, which is cute but torturous. She has no idea that every time she runs to set the ball, her breasts are shifting and straining the nearly-translucent fabric of her shirt. She has no idea that Taemin has his eyes glued to her ass, hungrily tracing every curve, watching as her fleshy thighs jiggle tantalizingly. She's driving him mad, but she has no idea that she's doing it.
And Taemin knows it's wrong of him to stare, but he doesn't stop, he lets his gaze linger. Then he becomes aware of someone else's gaze on him: Gwiboon, sitting by herself with her legs crossed in the bleachers behind him. When their eyes meet, Taemin is the first to look away.
"Creepy as hell, that Gwiboon," Jongin remarks as they walk home. Next to him, Sehun nods in agreement, as he always does at Jongin's remarks.
Taemin shrugs. "At least she stood up to Mr. Jung."
"Whatever," Jongin says dismissively. "I'd never date her."
"Like she'd date you," Taemin snorts.
"What are you trying to say?" Jongin demands incredulously.
"That you're a loser," Taemin says, smiling at Jongin's indignation.
"Then you're a loser too! We're the same, dude!" Jongin exclaims.
"No way," Taemin says, crossing his arms. "I read books."
"Are you calling me stupid?"
"Have you even heard of Baudelaire?"
"I'd date Eunsook," Sehun cuts in, as though the argument hasn't happened at all.
That stops Taemin and Jongin short.
"Well, wouldn't we all," Jongin says.
Taemin says nothing.
"I hear she's got, like," Sehun giggles, "a total bush."
At once, Taemin sees red, and the words are out of his lips before he can even think them:
"Shut up!"
He promptly clamps a hand over his mouth and flushes. His voice was barely his own, high and trembling. Jongin and Sehun are staring.
"I mean. It's. Really rude to say that," he says slowly.
"Why are you getting so defensive?" Jongin smirks.
"You like her," Sehun crows.
"No!" Taemin says quickly, waving his hands desperately. "I don't, it's just - you can't say that kind of thing about any girl."
"Shut the fuck up, you totally like her," Jongin says. "Eunsook, dude, seriously. She is so out of your league."
"It's almost pathetic," adds Sehun.
They'll never understand how Taemin feels about Eunsook. They can't comprehend the works of Baudelaire, and they can't comprehend the concept of a muse. Eunsook is Taemin's muse, and he'll defend her to the end.
"She's out of your league," he says heatedly. Not the snappiest comeback, but it'll have to do. "You two go on. I forgot something at school."
"Aw, don't get all butthurt," Jongin calls as Taemin stalks off in the direction of the school. "You know we're just teasing."
"I have to get my book!" Taemin insists. "I'll see you tomorrow."
It's true that he left his book in the classroom, though he hadn't thought of it until now. Besides being glad for the excuse to get away from his friends, he doesn't want to leave it at school overnight. When he gets back to the classroom, Les Fleurs du mal is still sitting in his desk, and, relieved, he tucks it into his backpack. Then, from the back of the classroom, he hears the soft thump of something falling to the floor.
A bag, a satchel, fallen from the rows of cubbies. Printed on the side is the name Lee Eunsook, and his heart pounds in his throat as he realizes what this is.
Eunsook's gym clothes. The white shirt that clings to her breasts, the tiny shorts that accentuate her ass. They're in that bag, close enough to touch.
Taemin could take them out and look at them if he wanted. He'll never be able to put his hands on Eunsook herself, but he could hold her shorts. It would be the next best thing. He finds himself bending down over the bag, fingertips trembling and outstretched -
From the hallway, there's a scuffling noise.
Taemin runs all the way home, and when he gets there he's drenched in sweat, panting, heart racing. He brushes past his mother's worried queries, takes the stairs two at a time, collapses in his room before the picture of Baudelaire. He takes a long few minutes to catch his breath, and then he looses his grip on the front of his shirt.
Eunsook's gym clothes tumble to the floor and lie in a wrinkled mess, her name in block print blaring up at him accusingly while Baudelaire grimaces from his frame.
The whole school is in an uproar about the stolen gym clothes the next day, and Eunsook herself is crying, wiping her eyes demurely as Mr. Jung sternly tells them about the mysterious incident. Taemin's gut churns horribly at Eunsook's tearstained face, and his hand twitches towards his backpack, where the clothes are lying innocently, ready to be returned. He'd planned to give them back first thing, but upon hearing Mr. Jung say, "rest assured, the perpetrator will face the most dire consequences," he thinks he'll need time to gather his nerve.
"Dude," Jongin whispers, leaning back and poking Taemin in the forehead. "Is that some fucked up shit, or what? There's some kind of dirty pervert roaming around with Eunsook's gym clothes. You know what he's probably doing with them?" He jerks his hand in the air a few times.
"That's disgusting," Taemin tells him tartly.
It's not the worst rumor going around, though. Everyone's talking about the stolen gym clothes and the perverted thief, and by lunch Jongin and Sehun are speculating as to who in their class might have committed the crime. Taemin says nothing, pretends to be absorbed in his book, but nervous sweat is beading on his forehead.
They know I like her, he thinks, panicked. What if they turn me in?
But they're his friends, and if the thought occurs to them, they don't act on it. The rest of the day passes uneventfully, until he's riding his bicycle into town after school and seriously contemplating running away from home forever, and he sees an isolated figure on the side of the narrow road.
When she hears him approaching, Gwiboon turns her head and stares at Taemin inquisitively.
He brakes abruptly. Something about her expression is strangely predatory.
"Taemin-ah," she calls. It's the first time he's heard her say his name. Her voice is coarse, a little gravelly, a little sensual.
"Um," he stammers eloquently.
"Where are you going?" she asks, walking toward him unhurriedly.
"Nowhere," Taemin says. "I mean. The bookstore."
"You are always reading, aren't you," she says thoughtfully. "The Flower of Evil, right? I've never seen that book anywhere else. Is it good?"
They're within a few feet of each other now. Taemin's close enough to see the brown in the roots of Gwiboon's bright yellow hair, close enough to see the shine of gloss on her lower lip. Jongin can make fun of her all he wants, but Gwiboon is actually really pretty, Taemin realizes.
That doesn't make this any less creepy, though.
"How do you know what book I'm reading?" he says suspiciously.
She smiles, dimples showing. "I've sat behind you for like, three semesters, Taemin."
Taemin looks away. "It's a good book. You probably won't understand, but that book has changed my life. Or at least, it's made me think that I don't think like other people."
The next thing he knows, Gwiboon's climbed onto the bike behind him.
"Hey!" he shouts. "What the hell?"
"Give me a lift?" she says, her legs straddling his back wheel and her hands resting light on his waist.
"What are you - ?" he says, twisting around to push her away.
"Take me to the other side of the mountains," she says, like that's the most normal thing in the world.
"I don't want to," Taemin protests, struggling to ride away. But she's stubborn. Her grip on his waist tightens.
"But you have to," she says, and now she sounds strangely delighted.
"Why?"
"Because, Taemin," she coos. "I saw you. You stole the gym clothes. And if you don't do what I say, I'll tell everyone."
Gwiboon calls it a contract. Taemin calls it blackmail. For a week, all it entails is hanging out with her after school, plunking pebbles into the puny creek winding around the town's eastern edge and risking his parents' anger at coming home late. She talks to him, tries to get him to talk back.
"I want to get out of here," she announces one evening. "Out of this town, out of Korea. All the way out."
"To where?" Taemin can't help but ask.
"Just, out," Gwiboon says, tilting her head back to regard the purple-gray twilight sky.
"Me too," Taemin says quietly. Gwiboon turns, gives him a look that he doesn't quite understand. Maybe it's just too dark to see her expression properly.
"I know," she says.
The more time Taemin spends with her, the more he realizes just how much she knows about him. She knows about the mole behind his left ear, and she knows all of his academic strengths and weaknesses, and she knows which of his friends he dislikes the least. The more knowledge she reveals, the less comfortable he feels. He knows next to nothing about her.
"I don't think I can hang out anymore," he tells her finally, leaning forward into his folded knees on the gentle slope of the riverbank. "My parents don't like it when I'm out this late."
"Fine," she says, surprising him. Gwiboon doesn't concede easily.
Taemin says nothing, waits for the catch.
"Eunsook," she says.
"What about her?" Taemin says, his heart speeding up out of nowhere.
"You like her."
Taemin doesn't bother denying it; even if she didn't already know everything about him, he's a terrible liar.
"So?" he says.
"You touched yourself thinking about her, didn't you?" Gwiboon says, smiling pleasantly. "You held those gym clothes and you smelled her on them and it got you off. Didn't it. And you came all over the clothes, huh, and now they're covered in your crusty semen."
"N - " Taemin is stunned by this fabulous accusation, "no way! I would never - that's disgusting! I didn't do any of that."
"Then why did you take them?" Gwiboon asks, a dangerous glint in her eye.
"I don't know," Taemin says miserably, "they were just there, and I heard a noise and I panicked, but I'm not a pervert."
notes
i wrote this basically all in one sitting [like...back when the anime was still in progress and i was still watching it lol, so, a while ago] and didn't touch it again, partially because i didn't really have the time and partially because like..i enjoy reading aku no hana, but..the characters themselves are really unpleasant, and i don't think i would enjoy having a shinee fic in the style of aku no hana. y'know? some really dark and fucked up stuff goes down. so, i left off before even the mildest stuff could really happen lol. nonetheless it was actually pretty fun to write this. also, i love the aku no hana ed everyone should listen to it always