the things i never had
title: the things i never had
pairing(s): 2min
rating: pg-13
wordcount: 1996
summary: Minho is a billionaire; Taemin is not impressed.
a/n: so this is me giving in to that cliche of Minho as the rich guy who has it all but still feels like something (aka Taemin lmao) is missing from his life. Such a guilty pleasure....lol. Written for challenge 021 at shawol_haven, hence the diminutive wordcount.
Taemin should know better than this. He's sitting with Jonghyun and Kibum at some swanky, uptown bar, sipping gingerly at a martini and glancing around cagily. He tugs periodically at the open collar of his blue button down shirt, as though touching it will somehow make it cover more of his exposed throat and collarbones instead of draw attention to them. Kibum and Jonghyun are peering around the dimly lit bar and scoping out prospects, weighing their chances of sleeping with one of the affluent names floating around in the haze of alcohol.
"Cho Kyuhyun?" Kibum says skeptically. "I doubt it, Jjong. Married."
"Lee Junho, then," Jonghyun says decisively. "Just broke up with his girlfriend and just got promoted."
"Guys," Taemin sighs. "You're fucking gold diggers."
"Duh," Kibum says.
"But this is pathetic!"
"You got a better get-rich-quick scheme, let's hear it," Kibum says. "Besides, we said we'd split all the profits evenly, right? So stop complaining."
Taemin shakes his head and returns to his martini, because although he'd agreed to their little marry-a-millionaire plan when they'd pitched it to him, he had no doubt that it could never actually happen. Why would a millionaire marry any of them, after all? He was just here for the free booze.
"I don't care what you say about Junho," Jonghyun declares, setting down an empty shotglass. "I'm going for him."
"Fine by me," Kibum says, his eyes alighting on a round-faced, T-shirt-clad man sitting on the other side of the bar. "I'm going for his older, smarter cousin Jinki."
"Guys," Taemin says.
"Alright, well, good luck man," Jonghyun tells Kibum.
"You too," Kibum replies, downing the last of his vodka.
"Guys."
"Remember the plan?"
"Of course - fuck his brains out until it doesn't matter that you're poor, and get him drunk enough to propose by morning. Prenup should be done and signed by the end of next week."
"GUYS." Taemin slams his fist on the marble counter. "You can't be serious."
"Dead serious," Jonghyun says, and without another word, he and Kibum are gone.
That leaves Taemin completely alone, still working on his martini, until he becomes aware of a pair of intense brown eyes fixed upon his own. Startled, he looks up across the bar to see a tall, wiry man making his way towards Taemin's barstool.
"Hi," the man says softly, his lips curved graciously into a smile. "I couldn't help but notice you sitting here by yourself. I'm Minho."
"Taemin." He's not sure how to feel about this stranger. He's impeccably dressed, even more so than the rest of the bar's filthy rich denizens, and he seems nice enough, but Taemin is sure that something undesirable is lurking beneath that handsome facade.
"Nice to meet you," Minho says smoothly. "Look, can I buy you a drink?"
"I'm good," Taemin says, finishing off his martini. "Maybe some other time."
"Then can we just talk?" Minho asks, still smiling. "Tell me about yourself."
"Well, for one thing," Taemin begins. Then he pauses, inhales, and blinks. Minho's face is blurring out of focus, and the rest of the bar is beginning to swim back and forth. Colors, lights, and sounds swirl together in an impossible mess; Taemin tries to cry out once, and then everything goes black.
When he awakes, the bar has disappeared altogether. He's sprawled on a huge white bed in a huge white bedroom, and, sitting at a big white desk not too far away, is Minho.
"What," Taemin says groggily. He rubs at his eyes feverishly. "What the hell happened? Am I hallucinating? Tell me this is a hallucination."
"Oh, no, this is real," Minho says, sounding pleased with himself. "This is my home. Welcome, Taemin."
"Uh." Taemin tries to wrap his mind around what's happened. "Did you drug me?"
"Maybe," Minho says evasively.
"Okay, well," Taemin says, getting to his feet and glaring heatedly at Minho. "Leaving aside the fact that you're a maniac, I'll consider excusing the fact that you just kidnapped me if you take me home right this instant."
"But we haven't even had dinner yet," Minho protests, wearing that disarmingly beautiful smile of his. "Come on. I'll show you the dining room."
"Is this what all your first dates are like?" Taemin asks sourly as Minho leads the way down a magnificent, curving staircase to a spacious entry hall. "Nonconsensual?"
"Oh," Minho says pleasantly, "you don't want me to show you nonconsensual."
That shuts Taemin up, at least until they arrive at the dining room.
"Fuck," he says, his eyes going wide. "Is this where you eat every day?"
"Hardly," Minho says. "But today is special."
The dining room has the same color scheme as the bedroom (white on white on white), but the light here is coming from several spherical chandeliers, hanging low over the long table in the center of the vast room and casting crystalline shadows on the silk tablecloth. The table is set lavishly for at least twenty people, though Taemin and Minho appear to be alone here. And from some unseen speakers there sound the soft, soothing strains of one of Beethoven's lullabies.
Looking around now, Taemin has never felt like more of a commoner.
"Like it?" Minho says with a smirk.
"I don't know," Taemin mumbles.
"Still want to go home?"
Taemin frowns at him. "Let's just fucking eat."
Minho laughs.
It doesn't matter that Taemin's already eaten tonight; he still manages to devour his weight in steak. Minho mostly looks on in amusement, occasionally sipping at a flute of champagne and chuckling to himself.
"Yum," Taemin sighs contentedly, rubbing his belly. "You have a good cook."
"I know," Minho says.
"Well, thanks for the meal." Taemin stands, stretches his arms. "I'm ready to go home."
"Ever heard the saying, 'no such thing as a free meal'?" Minho says sharply. He circles the table to meet Taemin. "You're not going anywhere."
"We both know what you want from me," Taemin says, putting his hands on his hips and backing away from the slowly advancing Minho. "And we both know that I am not going to give it to you. So let me leave already."
"You want to see the library?" Minho says unexpectedly.
"What? Why would I want to see that?" Taemin says, cocking an eyebrow.
"I'll show you the library. I'll show you the pool. We could go swimming," Minho continues, his voice growing faster, tenser by the second. "Or maybe the you want to see the greenhouse? The gardens. The tennis courts?"
"I don't care about your fucking mansion," Taemin yells, frustrated. "I'm not interested!"
"We could sample the wine collection," Minho goes on desperately. "Really nice, rare wines. Oh, or the mini movie theater? The arcade? The soccer field?"
"Oh my God," Taemin says, a sudden realization dawning on him. "You're a reverse gold digger."
"A what?"
"You use your wealth to try and pick up normal people by impressing them. Wow." Taemin whistles. "It would almost be funny, if it weren't so pathetic."
"If I'm pathetic, what does that make you?" Minho shoots back. "What were you even doing at that bar if not trying to find a rich lay?"
"I was dragged there against my will," sniffs Taemin.
"Yeah right," Minho laughs.
"I was!" Taemin protests, pouting.
"Whatever," Minho says. "Maybe we're both pathetic. But we're both here now. We might as well, you know..."
"Fuck?" Taemin prompts. "Oh, sure, why not."
He loops one arm around Minho's neck and stands on his toes to crush their lips together in a bruising kiss. Minho's lips are soft and plump, and Taemin runs his tongue between them teasingly. Minho's hands find their way to Taemin's slender waist, and as he begins to reach around to cup the smaller man's ass, Taemin pulls back slightly.
"Taemin," Minho pants into the space between their faces. "Bedroom?"
"No, you fucktard," Taemin hisses, shoving Minho in the chest. "I'm not sleeping with you."
"But you just," Minho says, confused. "But then what was that?"
"That was you being gullible," Taemin says. He backs away and gestures to the fancy dining room. "It's a nice place you've got here, and you're not a bad kisser, but I do have some dignity. I won't be so easily bought."
As he strides out the wide double doors, he doesn't see the despondent look that flits across Minho's face.
"So, no marriage proposals?" Taemin asks back in the apartment. Kibum and Jonghyun are both blinking balefully at the morning sunlight streaming into the kitchen, as though doing so will somehow erase their hangovers.
"None here," Jonghyun says gloomily. "Junho may not have a girlfriend, but he most definitely has a boyfriend."
"Rough," Kibum says.
"How'd you do with Jinki?"
"Well," Kibum said morosely, "no problems between the sheets, but his bedside manner was more than a little lacking. He's like, socially retarded, I swear. The man couldn't take a hint if you served it to him on a silver platter - which, incidentally, is how he gets everything else in life. Fuck, but the guy was loaded."
"Well, you can't win 'em all," Jonghyun says, shrugging. "What about you, Taemin-ah? You do anything fun last night?"
"Not really," Taemin says. "Almost hooked up with some douchebag named Minho."
"You didn't," Kibum breathes. "Not Choi Minho? The Choi Minho?"
"Um. Am I supposed to know who that is?"
"Impossible," Jonghyun says, crossing his arms. "Last night was Choi Minho's rehearsal dinner. For his wedding. It couldn't have been him."
Taemin recalls how the two of them had eaten at a dining room table set for so many more. He gulps.
"Man," Kibum laughs. "You really had us going for a second there, Taeminnie!"
It makes the tabloids the next day: Choi Wedding Called Off: Groom Gets Cold Feet. And right there on the cover is a photo of Minho, Taemin's Minho, with some statuesque brunette on his arm. Taemin is astonished to see the picture, but he is doubly so when the real Minho shows up on his doorstep that evening.
"Shall we dine your way tonight?" he says, holding up a bag of takeaway food and grinning.
"You," Taemin says. "You're like, famous."
"A bit, yeah," Minho says.
"What are you doing here?"
"Well," Minho says falteringly, "I just thought... you can't be bought with steak. How about with kimbap?"
Taemin stares at him for a few moments. Then he throws his head back and laughs.
"Well," he says, still giggling. "It's a start."
They eat at the cramped kitchen table, side by side, their elbows brushing every time Taemin raises his chopsticks to his mouth.
"So," Taemin says. "You called off your wedding, I hear?"
"Yeah," Minho says. "In the middle of the rehearsal dinner. What a nightmare."
"How come?"
"I mean, it was a political marriage," Minho says, frowning. "Her family was marrying into ours for my father's money. I barely even knew the girl."
"That sucks," Taemin says. "But then, what, you call it off and then you kidnap some random guy at a bar? I don't get it."
"You weren't random," Minho says. "I could tell you weren't one of them. You don't hold yourself like a snob. I just... I guess I wanted to think that my money was good for more than sucking up to business rivals and buying loveless marriages. I wanted you to like me."
"Fucked that one up," Taemin says dryly.
"Did I?" Minho murmurs. He leans in closer to Taemin. "I'm sorry."
"You should be."
"Can I make it better?"
"Yeah." Taemin gestures to the now-empty takeaway containers. "This is how."
Minho chuckles. "So you do have a price."
"What can I say, the best things in life cost food." Taemin stands and takes the containers to the trash. "Good thing for you, because you're not classy and I don't care about your money."
"That," Minho says, smiling, "is the best news I've heard all day."
notes (ugh i can't resist)
-Taemin and Kibum are childhood friends and then Kibum and Jonghyun are college buddies and now the three of them share an apartment and get up to all kinds of shenanigans, aka the whole finding a millionaire thing.
-Jinki and Minho are somehow distantly related, so Taemin meets Jinki at some social event of Minho's after they start dating. And of course Taemin and Jinki become good friends so Taemin brings him back to the apartment where Jinki reconnects with Kibum and those two end up together despite the fact that the sangtae is raging strong. Because everything is onkey in the end.
-Okay and so Minho's wedding.. they were having the rehearsal dinner, right, and then he makes this dramatic announcement that he can't go through with the marriage and Yuri (duh) storms out sobbing and everything goes to shit.. the guests leave and the caterers are cleaning everything up but then Minho is like no wait, leave one table, I still need to eat. So there's just this one very nicely set table in the middle of the room... he never really got a chance to eat though, because both his parents yelled at him for a good few hours, then his brother sent him some disapproving texts, and that's when he went to the bar.
pairing(s): 2min
rating: pg-13
wordcount: 1996
summary: Minho is a billionaire; Taemin is not impressed.
a/n: so this is me giving in to that cliche of Minho as the rich guy who has it all but still feels like something (aka Taemin lmao) is missing from his life. Such a guilty pleasure....lol. Written for challenge 021 at shawol_haven, hence the diminutive wordcount.
Taemin should know better than this. He's sitting with Jonghyun and Kibum at some swanky, uptown bar, sipping gingerly at a martini and glancing around cagily. He tugs periodically at the open collar of his blue button down shirt, as though touching it will somehow make it cover more of his exposed throat and collarbones instead of draw attention to them. Kibum and Jonghyun are peering around the dimly lit bar and scoping out prospects, weighing their chances of sleeping with one of the affluent names floating around in the haze of alcohol.
"Cho Kyuhyun?" Kibum says skeptically. "I doubt it, Jjong. Married."
"Lee Junho, then," Jonghyun says decisively. "Just broke up with his girlfriend and just got promoted."
"Guys," Taemin sighs. "You're fucking gold diggers."
"Duh," Kibum says.
"But this is pathetic!"
"You got a better get-rich-quick scheme, let's hear it," Kibum says. "Besides, we said we'd split all the profits evenly, right? So stop complaining."
Taemin shakes his head and returns to his martini, because although he'd agreed to their little marry-a-millionaire plan when they'd pitched it to him, he had no doubt that it could never actually happen. Why would a millionaire marry any of them, after all? He was just here for the free booze.
"I don't care what you say about Junho," Jonghyun declares, setting down an empty shotglass. "I'm going for him."
"Fine by me," Kibum says, his eyes alighting on a round-faced, T-shirt-clad man sitting on the other side of the bar. "I'm going for his older, smarter cousin Jinki."
"Guys," Taemin says.
"Alright, well, good luck man," Jonghyun tells Kibum.
"You too," Kibum replies, downing the last of his vodka.
"Guys."
"Remember the plan?"
"Of course - fuck his brains out until it doesn't matter that you're poor, and get him drunk enough to propose by morning. Prenup should be done and signed by the end of next week."
"GUYS." Taemin slams his fist on the marble counter. "You can't be serious."
"Dead serious," Jonghyun says, and without another word, he and Kibum are gone.
That leaves Taemin completely alone, still working on his martini, until he becomes aware of a pair of intense brown eyes fixed upon his own. Startled, he looks up across the bar to see a tall, wiry man making his way towards Taemin's barstool.
"Hi," the man says softly, his lips curved graciously into a smile. "I couldn't help but notice you sitting here by yourself. I'm Minho."
"Taemin." He's not sure how to feel about this stranger. He's impeccably dressed, even more so than the rest of the bar's filthy rich denizens, and he seems nice enough, but Taemin is sure that something undesirable is lurking beneath that handsome facade.
"Nice to meet you," Minho says smoothly. "Look, can I buy you a drink?"
"I'm good," Taemin says, finishing off his martini. "Maybe some other time."
"Then can we just talk?" Minho asks, still smiling. "Tell me about yourself."
"Well, for one thing," Taemin begins. Then he pauses, inhales, and blinks. Minho's face is blurring out of focus, and the rest of the bar is beginning to swim back and forth. Colors, lights, and sounds swirl together in an impossible mess; Taemin tries to cry out once, and then everything goes black.
When he awakes, the bar has disappeared altogether. He's sprawled on a huge white bed in a huge white bedroom, and, sitting at a big white desk not too far away, is Minho.
"What," Taemin says groggily. He rubs at his eyes feverishly. "What the hell happened? Am I hallucinating? Tell me this is a hallucination."
"Oh, no, this is real," Minho says, sounding pleased with himself. "This is my home. Welcome, Taemin."
"Uh." Taemin tries to wrap his mind around what's happened. "Did you drug me?"
"Maybe," Minho says evasively.
"Okay, well," Taemin says, getting to his feet and glaring heatedly at Minho. "Leaving aside the fact that you're a maniac, I'll consider excusing the fact that you just kidnapped me if you take me home right this instant."
"But we haven't even had dinner yet," Minho protests, wearing that disarmingly beautiful smile of his. "Come on. I'll show you the dining room."
"Is this what all your first dates are like?" Taemin asks sourly as Minho leads the way down a magnificent, curving staircase to a spacious entry hall. "Nonconsensual?"
"Oh," Minho says pleasantly, "you don't want me to show you nonconsensual."
That shuts Taemin up, at least until they arrive at the dining room.
"Fuck," he says, his eyes going wide. "Is this where you eat every day?"
"Hardly," Minho says. "But today is special."
The dining room has the same color scheme as the bedroom (white on white on white), but the light here is coming from several spherical chandeliers, hanging low over the long table in the center of the vast room and casting crystalline shadows on the silk tablecloth. The table is set lavishly for at least twenty people, though Taemin and Minho appear to be alone here. And from some unseen speakers there sound the soft, soothing strains of one of Beethoven's lullabies.
Looking around now, Taemin has never felt like more of a commoner.
"Like it?" Minho says with a smirk.
"I don't know," Taemin mumbles.
"Still want to go home?"
Taemin frowns at him. "Let's just fucking eat."
Minho laughs.
It doesn't matter that Taemin's already eaten tonight; he still manages to devour his weight in steak. Minho mostly looks on in amusement, occasionally sipping at a flute of champagne and chuckling to himself.
"Yum," Taemin sighs contentedly, rubbing his belly. "You have a good cook."
"I know," Minho says.
"Well, thanks for the meal." Taemin stands, stretches his arms. "I'm ready to go home."
"Ever heard the saying, 'no such thing as a free meal'?" Minho says sharply. He circles the table to meet Taemin. "You're not going anywhere."
"We both know what you want from me," Taemin says, putting his hands on his hips and backing away from the slowly advancing Minho. "And we both know that I am not going to give it to you. So let me leave already."
"You want to see the library?" Minho says unexpectedly.
"What? Why would I want to see that?" Taemin says, cocking an eyebrow.
"I'll show you the library. I'll show you the pool. We could go swimming," Minho continues, his voice growing faster, tenser by the second. "Or maybe the you want to see the greenhouse? The gardens. The tennis courts?"
"I don't care about your fucking mansion," Taemin yells, frustrated. "I'm not interested!"
"We could sample the wine collection," Minho goes on desperately. "Really nice, rare wines. Oh, or the mini movie theater? The arcade? The soccer field?"
"Oh my God," Taemin says, a sudden realization dawning on him. "You're a reverse gold digger."
"A what?"
"You use your wealth to try and pick up normal people by impressing them. Wow." Taemin whistles. "It would almost be funny, if it weren't so pathetic."
"If I'm pathetic, what does that make you?" Minho shoots back. "What were you even doing at that bar if not trying to find a rich lay?"
"I was dragged there against my will," sniffs Taemin.
"Yeah right," Minho laughs.
"I was!" Taemin protests, pouting.
"Whatever," Minho says. "Maybe we're both pathetic. But we're both here now. We might as well, you know..."
"Fuck?" Taemin prompts. "Oh, sure, why not."
He loops one arm around Minho's neck and stands on his toes to crush their lips together in a bruising kiss. Minho's lips are soft and plump, and Taemin runs his tongue between them teasingly. Minho's hands find their way to Taemin's slender waist, and as he begins to reach around to cup the smaller man's ass, Taemin pulls back slightly.
"Taemin," Minho pants into the space between their faces. "Bedroom?"
"No, you fucktard," Taemin hisses, shoving Minho in the chest. "I'm not sleeping with you."
"But you just," Minho says, confused. "But then what was that?"
"That was you being gullible," Taemin says. He backs away and gestures to the fancy dining room. "It's a nice place you've got here, and you're not a bad kisser, but I do have some dignity. I won't be so easily bought."
As he strides out the wide double doors, he doesn't see the despondent look that flits across Minho's face.
"So, no marriage proposals?" Taemin asks back in the apartment. Kibum and Jonghyun are both blinking balefully at the morning sunlight streaming into the kitchen, as though doing so will somehow erase their hangovers.
"None here," Jonghyun says gloomily. "Junho may not have a girlfriend, but he most definitely has a boyfriend."
"Rough," Kibum says.
"How'd you do with Jinki?"
"Well," Kibum said morosely, "no problems between the sheets, but his bedside manner was more than a little lacking. He's like, socially retarded, I swear. The man couldn't take a hint if you served it to him on a silver platter - which, incidentally, is how he gets everything else in life. Fuck, but the guy was loaded."
"Well, you can't win 'em all," Jonghyun says, shrugging. "What about you, Taemin-ah? You do anything fun last night?"
"Not really," Taemin says. "Almost hooked up with some douchebag named Minho."
"You didn't," Kibum breathes. "Not Choi Minho? The Choi Minho?"
"Um. Am I supposed to know who that is?"
"Impossible," Jonghyun says, crossing his arms. "Last night was Choi Minho's rehearsal dinner. For his wedding. It couldn't have been him."
Taemin recalls how the two of them had eaten at a dining room table set for so many more. He gulps.
"Man," Kibum laughs. "You really had us going for a second there, Taeminnie!"
It makes the tabloids the next day: Choi Wedding Called Off: Groom Gets Cold Feet. And right there on the cover is a photo of Minho, Taemin's Minho, with some statuesque brunette on his arm. Taemin is astonished to see the picture, but he is doubly so when the real Minho shows up on his doorstep that evening.
"Shall we dine your way tonight?" he says, holding up a bag of takeaway food and grinning.
"You," Taemin says. "You're like, famous."
"A bit, yeah," Minho says.
"What are you doing here?"
"Well," Minho says falteringly, "I just thought... you can't be bought with steak. How about with kimbap?"
Taemin stares at him for a few moments. Then he throws his head back and laughs.
"Well," he says, still giggling. "It's a start."
They eat at the cramped kitchen table, side by side, their elbows brushing every time Taemin raises his chopsticks to his mouth.
"So," Taemin says. "You called off your wedding, I hear?"
"Yeah," Minho says. "In the middle of the rehearsal dinner. What a nightmare."
"How come?"
"I mean, it was a political marriage," Minho says, frowning. "Her family was marrying into ours for my father's money. I barely even knew the girl."
"That sucks," Taemin says. "But then, what, you call it off and then you kidnap some random guy at a bar? I don't get it."
"You weren't random," Minho says. "I could tell you weren't one of them. You don't hold yourself like a snob. I just... I guess I wanted to think that my money was good for more than sucking up to business rivals and buying loveless marriages. I wanted you to like me."
"Fucked that one up," Taemin says dryly.
"Did I?" Minho murmurs. He leans in closer to Taemin. "I'm sorry."
"You should be."
"Can I make it better?"
"Yeah." Taemin gestures to the now-empty takeaway containers. "This is how."
Minho chuckles. "So you do have a price."
"What can I say, the best things in life cost food." Taemin stands and takes the containers to the trash. "Good thing for you, because you're not classy and I don't care about your money."
"That," Minho says, smiling, "is the best news I've heard all day."
notes (ugh i can't resist)
-Taemin and Kibum are childhood friends and then Kibum and Jonghyun are college buddies and now the three of them share an apartment and get up to all kinds of shenanigans, aka the whole finding a millionaire thing.
-Jinki and Minho are somehow distantly related, so Taemin meets Jinki at some social event of Minho's after they start dating. And of course Taemin and Jinki become good friends so Taemin brings him back to the apartment where Jinki reconnects with Kibum and those two end up together despite the fact that the sangtae is raging strong. Because everything is onkey in the end.
-Okay and so Minho's wedding.. they were having the rehearsal dinner, right, and then he makes this dramatic announcement that he can't go through with the marriage and Yuri (duh) storms out sobbing and everything goes to shit.. the guests leave and the caterers are cleaning everything up but then Minho is like no wait, leave one table, I still need to eat. So there's just this one very nicely set table in the middle of the room... he never really got a chance to eat though, because both his parents yelled at him for a good few hours, then his brother sent him some disapproving texts, and that's when he went to the bar.