Tears you hide inside - Jongtae [1/2]
Tears ypu hide inside | Jongtae | pg-13 | 4600+
au, fantasy, angst, smut, drama, romance, | beta-ed by
forevershining | suicide issues, swearing,
When Taemin is eight, his stepfather decides that he is a bad boy and adopts the idea of the punishing-room.
Since then, every time his step father thinks that Taemin didn’t act like he should, the boy is locked into the dark, empty room for at least an hour. There, he has ‘time to think about what he has done wrong’, is what his stepfather says.
At first, Taemin wouldn’t stop crying as soon as he set foot into the room. It is dark and cold and scary and Taemin feels really, really lonely. He develops a kind of phobia against dark rooms, but his stepfather doesn’t seem to care.
Now, it’s only worse, because when Taemin turns thirteen and he accidentally lets a piece of cake fall to the ground, his step father decides that letting the boy sit in the darkness and shudder in fright would not be enough of a punishment and he drags Taemin into the room and hits him, hard and merciless, two, three, five times until Taemin is crying on the ground, clutching his legs to his body and bleeding.
Taemin grows up to be a silent boy, careful and respectful and always wary. He doesn’t really have close friends and he is exceptionally good in school. He is pale and thin and doesn’t smile often, but his features are still soft, almost like a girl’s.
There is no one who really hates him, but also no one who really likes him, or knows him. He doesn’t get bullied or teased; people just don’t have interest in him. He spends most of his time in libraries and bookshops because he loves reading and hates going home.
For Taemin, reading is a salvation. When he reads, he can just drown into the story and forget everything around him; he can pretend that the reality is not real and he likes to imagine himself as a character of each book, inventing his own story to each, daydreaming about it. Like this he can forget the pain even if it’s just for a few hours each day and that’s the reason why he keeps going on. Maybe he really can become like a character of those books.
It’s a cold evening when Taemin enters the usual library to read a little bit before he has to go home. Taemin sits down in the far corner of the big room as he always does. He takes the book that he has to finish out of his bag and starts to read.
He sinks into the world of dreams and happiness and love and he can see the images in his head and his wishes and he keeps reading, smiling softly.
It’s not until he finishes the book that he stands up from his spot and looks at the clock. It’s half past eight and the library closes in half an hour. He has to be home by nine and he sighs as he walks through the library’s aisles to look for another book.
His fingers slide over the books’ backs, he feels the different textures and thicknesses and reads through the titles until he decides for a book called ‘My sister’s keeper’. He reads what is written in the summary and decides he wants to read the book. He walks back towards the front through the different aisles, passing tables and empty hallways. The library is always empty at this time of the night.
He is about to turn into the aisle that leads him to the front desk, but a hunched figure on a table that Taemin passes by catches his attention.
He walks closer and looks at the man that is sleeping on it, his head lying on books and papers that are splattered all over the table. The man looks older than Taemin, he has red-brownish hair and a unique face.
Taemin looks at the clock again and sees that the library will close in about fifteen minutes, so he decides to wake the sleeping man up. He shakes his shoulders lightly, whispering soft ‘Hey’s and ‘Wake up!’s.
The man stirs and grunts a few times until Taemin shakes him particularly hard and he jerks awake. He stares at Taemin in shock, his eyes wide and confused and his left cheek has a few blue words sticking on them because he had been lying on his notes. Taemin thinks it’s quite hilarious and even through he doesn’t laugh -because he never really laughs- his lips stretch into a smile.
The man still looks confused as he stares at Taemin.
“You were sleeping and the library closes in fifteen minutes.” Taemin says and then points a finger at the man’s face “And you have your notes on your face.” He adds, grinning at him.
The man frowns and rubs a hand over his right cheek and that makes Taemin giggle slightly -and he’s surprised with himself.
“Left.” He says and then bows before going to the library’s front desk to give the read book back and lend the other. He hears a quiet ‘thank you’ as he walks away.
A few days later, Taemin is in the library again. He couldn’t come the days before because the beating he had received from his stepfather after he had been twenty minutes late was too visible to step out of the house. He didn’t have the chance to read the book because he had been studying and now he is happy to be able to drown everything out again.
He sits down on his usual spot and immediately starts reading. The book is sad, but he is immediately drawn into it, his eyes scanning over the words and his mind forming the scenes in front of his eyes. He feels everything the characters feel and when he is reading the last scene he is crying. It’s just a few tears falling down his eyes, but the book had touched him and he sniffles slightly as he reads through the last lines.
“Why are you crying?”
Taemin looks up from his book, he is surprised that there is someone talking to him and when he wipes the tears away he realizes it’s the man from a few days ago. Taemin holds the book up, shows the front side to the man and sniffles again.
“The book, it’s sad.” He says and the man slowly nods in understanding. An awkward silence stretches and the man takes the book from Taemin’s hands and reads the summary. He is a slow reader, Taemin notices. When the man is finished, he looks up at Taemin again, a frown plastered on his face.
“I think you should read books that have happier topics.” He says, and Taemin is a little bit surprised by this statement.
“Why?”
“Because you look better when you smile.”
The man’s lips thin out into a grin, his white teeth nearly glowing. Taemin blushes and looks away.
Taemin doesn’t know how to respond and instead fiddles with the hem of his shirt as he waits for the man to react or go away, just do anything. Suddenly a hand appears in Taemin’s line of vision and when he looks up the man is still smiling at him, his big eyes friendly and sparkling.
“I’m Jonghyun.” He says, and Taemin takes a hold of his hand too, shaking it.
“Taemin.”
They become friends like that.
Jonghyun tries to read the book Taemin had been reading and makes sure that Taemin only reads books that are filled with happiness. He tells Taemin that he likes to see his smile when he reads and that he looks as if in piece. Jonghyun in comparison to that looks funny when he reads; he is way too concentrated and his lips form into a pout as soon as his eyes scan the lines.
Taemin finishes three books in the time Jonghyun reads one chapter and every time they meet in the library Jonghyun tries to find out more about the book by asking questions.
“So the girl has to give her sister blood or something, so that she can survive?” Taemin nods and Jonghyun goes back to reading chapter three, but five minutes later he looks up again.
“And her sister will die in the end?”
Taemin rolls his eyes and swats Jonghyun over the head.
“Read it Jjong, then you’ll know.”
Jjong is the nickname Jonghyun forced on Taemin. He was begging and whining for a whole week until Taemin stopped calling him Jonghyun-hyung and changed it to Jjong, with a lot of protest. But the way Jonghyun’s face lights up every time the name ‘Jjong’ falls from Taemin’s lips is worth it and even if Taemin felt uncomfortable at first, but he got used to it.
It’s three weeks later when they are discussing things about pink hair and how it stands out too much when he notices that Jonghyun makes him happy.
“I mean, I had blonde hair a while ago and I was like standing out a lot, like people were looking at me weirdly and so on, but pink? I don’t understand how that woman could run around with pink hair.” Jonghyun says, gestures big and his eyes wide.
Taemin grins. “And why are you getting so worked up over a character in a book?” he teases and Jonghyun flushes, looking back at the book.
“I was just saying.” He mumbles, and Taemin laughs.
Later that day when he is home and sits on his bed, he thinks about Jonghyun and how many smiles he gave to him, how much he opened up towards the other and he feels vulnerable. He thinks that maybe he should stop seeing Jonghyun, that he should guard himself, but the thought makes him so incredibly sad that he pushes it out of his mind.
One evening, when the library is closing earlier than normally because of renovations, Jonghyun invites him to go into a café. Jonghyun orders a hot chocolate and puts a lot of sugar into it. Taemin stares at him in disbelief.
“What? I don’t like coffee and I like it sweet.” He says defensively, his face flushing, but he is grinning. Taemin smirks back and nips on his espresso, without sugar, without milk.
That evening he is one hour late, because he had been too caught up in the conversation with Jonghyun and how his eyes sparkled and his mouth stretched into a grin and how his fingers played with Taemin’s hair and told him that he should dye it red.
That time his step father spends the whole night together with Taemin in the punish-room. Taemin cries and screams, but not because of the pain, but because he is so extremely angry.
The next day when Taemin meets up with Jonghyun in the library he has a small cut on his lip, but he assures Jonghyun that he just slipped in the bathroom when he came out of the shower.
Taemin can’t help but wince every time Jonghyun touches him, but even if Jonghyun notices, and Taemin knows that he noticed because there is a constant frown on his face, he luckily doesn’t ask.
Taemin doesn’t read that day, he just stares out of the window, frowning and thinking, his long black hair falling into his face. Jonghyun pretends to read, but he is watching Taemin all the time, worried curiosity masking his features.
When Taemin suddenly turns to face Jonghyun the elder cringes and snaps his attention back to his book. Taemin ignores the fact that Jonghyun had been watching him and stares at the elder until he looks up again.
“The thing with the red hair, I think I want to do that now.” He says, his mouth set into a thin line and his jaw clenched. Jonghyun knows that he really means it, so he takes Taemin’s hand and drags him to the hairdresser.
Kibum -the hairdresser- fusses over Taemin like he is the most precious thing he’s ever seen. He says that Taemin is ‘prettier than any doll’ and that his hair is ‘soft as silk’, but Taemin doesn’t really care. He just wants his hair to be red, he wants to stand out, to show his anger to his stepfather and for once, really be a bad child.
He mostly ignores Kibum’s and Jonghyun’s bickering and stares at himself as his hair slowly changes.
When Kibum is finished, he gapes at Taemin as if he is some idol and when Taemin looks at himself in the mirror, he thinks he looks like that a little bit too. He smiles widely and Kibum explodes again, because Taemin’s smile is ‘prettier than sparkling diamonds’.
Taemin pays even if the hairdresser insists on giving it for free and when they leave the salon, Jonghyun, who had said nothing since Taemin’s hair had been done, takes the younger one’s hand and intertwines their fingers. He smiles at Taemin and it’s none of his cocky grins, it’s a small smile that says more than words could and Taemin feels as if he is special.
“You look great.” He whispers, and Taemin can’t help the blush on his cheeks as he smiles at Jonnghyun, but winces when he feels a sharp pain tuck at his lip. The cut starts bleeding again and Jonghyun looks worriedly at Taemin as the boy he runs a tongue over it. He takes Taemin’s face into his hands and holds it still, his thumb stroking over the sensitive cut.
Taemin winces again and Jonghyun looks up apologetically, his face just inches apart from Taemin’s. He smiles softly and Taemin’s gaze is locked on the elder’s slightly stretched, pink lips and he comes closer and suddenly lips are covering his and Taemin closes his eyes and relishes in the feeling of the simple touch of lips.
When they part, Jonghyun leans his forehead against Taemin’s, their noses bumping against each other’s, and the younger keeps his eyes closed.
“Should I take you home? It’s late.” Jonghyun whispers and his breath is warm on Taemin’s cheeks. Taemin gulps down the lump that forms in his throat when he thinks about home and nods; maybe Jonghyun will give him strength.
The walk home is filled with comfortable silence. Taemin is enjoying the city’s night lights and Jonghyun is enjoying the view of Taemin. They walk hand in hand and when they stand in front of Taemin’s small house, the younger boy squeezes Jonghyun hand once before letting go.
He turns to face Jonghyun and pecks the elder on the lips before quickly running into the house. Jonghyun doesn’t miss the fearful look in Taemin’s eyes when he looks back before entering.
That night, Taemin’s stepfather doesn’t even wait until they are in the punishing-room. He slaps the boy right across the face as soon as he the door is closes and after that Taemin receives the beating of his life, while his mother just watches with tears in her eyes.
next