His Own Shadow
Title: His Own Shadow - part III
Author: pins_and_wheels
Rating: PG-13 to NC-17
Warning: AU, dark, non-con, beta-less
Length: 40k and growing, this part is 4k
Pairing: Kai/Taemin (main), Key/Taemin, one-sided Minho/Taemin, Jinki/Taemin
Summary: Taemin loses a part of himself he doesn't know how to hold on to.
part II
~ *** ~
“Honey?”
“Hi, umma.”
“Baby, what’s happened to your cell phone? You haven’t lost it again, have you?”
“It broke.”
“It broke?"
"Broke."
"You mean it just stopped working?”
“Yeah," he admits. "It just stopped working after I dropped it in the toilet.”
She laughs and, at the sound, Taemin’s mouth quirks around skuzzy teeth. It feels weird - it’s been a few days since he’s either smiled or bathed.
“Buy a new one. I don’t like having to worry about whether or not I can reach you.”
“I did - I ordered one online yesterday.”
“Good. I hate to say it, hon, but the minute they come out with the technology for cell phone implants, we’re getting you hooked up. I can’t afford your bad luck.”
“I’m sorry, umma.”
“Oh, I’m just teasing. Gives me a reason to work hard.”
“How is Beijing?”
“Beijing’s New York now, actually. It’s fine - it’s the same - big, busy, beautiful. Nice hotel. Nice people, too, I think - though I can't ever really tell what they're saying. I miss my son.”
“I miss you too, umma.”
There’s a sound of something being shut in the background - a door or cabinet - and then a deep male rumble. His mother hushes someone, giggles, and the redirects her voice to him, more somber.
“Does my little prince still feel lousy?”
Was to feel nothing to feel lousy?
“I guess. I’m going to try to go to school Monday.”
“Did Kibum-ah bring by your homework?”
“I haven’t seen him yet. I’m sure he has it.”
“Hmm.”
He listens to her breathe. He closes his eyes and imagines his pillow is his mother’s lap, that he’s eleven again and she’s about to sing him to sleep. Taemin can’t remember the last time he slept peacefully. It feels as though it’s been so long.
“I have to go, lovely, but I’ll call tonight. Or tomorrow if things get too crazy here. I love you - watch over yourself.”
“Love you too.”
The dial tone hits his ear on high volume.
He lets the phone fall from the squashed up place between his cheek and shoulder, rolling onto his stomach, looking through the headboard of his spindle bed to cream colored walls. The shapes cast are pretty, like little shadow rivers. Slowly, resignedly, Taemin lifts his arm against the sun, hoping against all hope that some evidence of his existence will appear - alas, he lets his arm flop back down - nothing.
Taemin had noticed his absent shadow the same day he’d fled school. He’d been so terrified; he had locked himself in his mother’s room, covered the mirrors with her scarves and kept the TV on all night for company. The odd sense of emptiness that had struck him early in the morning returned. A hollow pit in his stomach. Like hunger, but more painful and impossible to fill.
It wasn’t until the sun had set and all the shapes on the walls turned into giants that Taemin realized the absence of his own - the silhouettes of a bed, a lamp, a chair peaking around a bureau were all clearly painted on the wall opposite the bay window.
But no Taemin. The outline of a hunched up little boy at the bottom of his mother’s bed was missing.
Now, having made it to the weekend, it’d been three days straight of lolling in his apartment.
Doing nothing.
Doing everything in his mental power to not collect his thoughts because his thoughts were truly the last thing Taemin wanted to think about.
And the anomalies continued. They build until the point that Taemin accepts the reality he is living in now is simply not the same as the one he inhabited the week before.
For the most part, he thinks he’s used to it.
He no longer rushes to get away from phantom footsteps behind him, a few paces slower than his own. He’s stopped doing double takes when surfaces reflect back more than just his slouching form. He doesn't look up when the tap shuts on and off in the kitchen while he's feeding himself, and merely rolls his eyes when the channels on the television switch instantly to comedy shows he would never watch on his own. His clumsiness has become chronic; he’s gotten good at catching onto nearby furniture to break his (frequent) falls.
Maybe “used to it” is a stretch. Too tired to care was probably a more accurate description.
I’m really losing it.
Taemin’s gaze trails his frail arm, eyes registering it as a shell.
He squints - it's as though he can't focus, he can't quite place the limb. It looks like the husk of that boy that once was him but absolutely is not anymore, whose most daunting problems in life were exams and recitals, choosing which university he wanted to attend the following year, being queer.
I’ve lost it.
He squints. It’s a strange sensation, as though he’s still part of himself by virtue of habit alone.
He doesn’t even twitch when the home phone blares by his head. Taemin picks up the relic; caller ID shows him a familiar number.
“Hyung?”
“I’m coming over.”
“What?” The ring had been piercing but Kibum’s voice sounds like it was coming from the opposite end of a tunnel, “Hyung?”
“I’m on my way over. You’re mom just called me."
"Why?"
"I agree with her - you need to get out of that apartment.”
Taemin casts around for an excuse, but his rumpled white sheets are less than inspiring.
“I don’t know - I don’t feel great.”
“Well, you’ll just have to not feel great outside. Too much time alone is unhealthy.”
“But-”
“It’s cute how you’re acting like this is a request. It’s not, I’m already on my way.”
He huffs into his pillow. “Whatever.”
“Oh, and Min-ah?”
“What is it?”
“Take a shower. I can smell you from here.”
Taemin realizes how much he’s missed Key as soon as the older boy has his arms around him, in that familiar, almost painfully strong grip, nuzzling his nose in Taemin’s long, damp hair. Key is nice enough not to comment about the mess in his apartment, or the stale air that speaks of too much time spent with an unclean body, and instead pulls him away from the entrance, locking up behind him with his own set of keys.
“Coffee Bean or Starbucks? I know you love those lemon tea things from Angel-In-Us but the music they play at that place makes me feel like I’ve walked into a love scene in a b-grade movie. And they always forget to service the smoking areas.” He pulls out a pristine silver pack, “I’ve quit quitting, by the way. Want a cigarette?”
Taemin takes one - he doesn’t like smoking, but Kibum’s imported vanilla cloves remind him of candy.
“You pick.” His voice sounds sanded down, “I just want to sit someplace quiet.”
Taemin follows barely a pace behind his hyung's footsteps, avoiding eye contact. He feels naked in front of so many strangers so suddenly. It’s the first time he’s been seen while aware he’s not wearing his shadow.
Kibum looks worried and they end up in the first place they pass, a Café Bene. Taemin leads them to a table for two in a corner spot against the window front. Kibum treats, he always knows what his dongsaeng wants (generally the sugariest drink on the menu, with extra whip), and he arranges their seats so that he can hold onto Taemin’s hand beneath the table without being noticed. He had a need for physical contact whenever he was anxious. Had they been alone, Taemin’s sure the older boy would’ve had them sharing the same chair.
Kibum doesn’t ask questions, as Taemin expects him to, jut sits and stares, giving Taemin a rare chance to direct the conversation.
Before he can, though, the younger boy’s attention is diverted to a distraction behind the counter, just above the bustling baristas.
It’s a boy, that boy, crouched on the commercial-sized espresso machine, and Taemin has to stare because it’s the first time he had stuck around for more than just a brief glimpse since Taemin had seen him in the mirror him on Wednesday.
The dancer supposes it’s a good thing that if he’s going to be haunted, at least it’s done consistently. He’s almost relieved to see those same sloping shoulders and slow blinking, almond eyes.
The boy is ignoring Taemin at the moment, dangling a hand down and plucking hairs from the top of a male employee’s head as he foams milk, and Taemin’s watches the poor lad shake about like a horse pestered by flies, unable to understand what is harassing him. The specter is smirking and the sight of it makes Taemin shiver with an unsettling combination of emotions.
Kibum’s trying to figure out what he’s looking at, Taemin realizes, when he returns his gaze to the table.
"Hyung."
He holds his arm out between them, placing it in the light, calling Kibum’s focus back onto himself. The glass table shines clearly beneath him, unobstructed by an impression of his skinny limb.
“Do you… notice anything different about me?”
“You mean aside from looking more anorexic than usual?” He picks up the muffin he’d bought Taemin and places it in the younger boy’s limp hand. “Please eat this.”
“Hyung, I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Taemin pulls a chocolate chip from the top of the muffin and pops it in his mouth. He can feel his haunt watching now, but Taemin doesn’t want to dignify his presence with any sort of acknowledgement and so he keeps his gaze firmly on Key, who is inspecting his arm up close. The stream of warm breath from the older boy's nose tickles Taemin’s skin.
“What am I supposed to be looking for?”
“Never mind.” He pulls away and hugs his middle. “Sorry. I’m being weird.”
“S’okay. Anyone would be after spending so much time alone with you.”
Taemin smiles sardonically, and flicks a stray chip from his plate at Kibum’s chest. The older boy has a point, though, so his retaliation ends there.
“You’re coming to practice tomorrow,” Kibum asserts, taking a pull from his drink, sniffing loudly and leaning back in his seat with his legs spread. Without subtlety, he adjusts himself.
For a boy who from time to time dressed in full uniforms of pink clothing, his hyung could be disarmingly masculine.
“But-”
“No. Stop. No buts about it. I can’t tolerate another day without you.” Probably to shut him up, Kibum leans forward and tears off a piece of muffin, pushing the bite into Taemin’s mouth. He's gentle as he brushes the leftover crumbs off the younger boy's bottom lip. “I can’t deal with those morons on my own. It’s like the blind leading the fucking paraplegic in there - I can’t stand to even watch them half the time. Which, you know, makes correcting their useless asses sort of difficult. You're coming.”
Taemin nods his consent, too tired to argue. He wonders how his inability to walk a straight line anymore would translate to carefully choreographed step work.
Not well, in all likelihood.
“Also-”
“Did you take me out just to boss me around?”
“I boss you around wherever we are, pabo.” That was true enough. “You’re also coming to my party this week. My parents are going out of town Thursday and if I don’t have you around to drunkenly hit on at the end of the night I might end up back in bed with you-know-who.”
"Who?"
"You know who."
"You mean..." Taemin leans in close, glancing around the shop discretely, "Voldemort?"
Kibum slaps his arm, calls him names and finally spits out, "Krystal," as though Taemin had actually been mistaken.
Mention of their classmate gets Taemin to smile - the whole debacle had ended last semester with the lovestruck younger girl breaking into his hyung’s house, soaking his sheets in her perfume and nicking several pairs of boxers.
“I can’t deal with that kind of crazy again. I only just got used to my new cell number.”
“Don’t invite her, then.”
“But that’s so rude.”
“You threatened her publicly with a restraining order.” Taemin’s ghost is nowhere to be seen, and he wonders if it grew bored of their conversation. He pretends to stretch, checking the area of the café be hind him. Nothing. “Not inviting her to your party seems maybe less harsh than that.”
“Have you been to one of my parties? Exclusion would be like, cruel and unusual.”
Taemin rolls his eyes but shrugs all the same, “If you insist. But you better not ditch me. I always end up getting cornered by drunk noonas who want to play dress up.”
“You love it.”
“Oh yeah,” Taemin huffs, “I just love prancing around high heels and getting squeezed into miniskirts.”
Kibum's smile tells him he’s not fooling anyone.
“Don’t give me that look, okay? I don’t like it. I don’t.”
The smirk doesn’t falter. It's joined by two raised eyebrows.
“Okay. Fine, whatever. I don’t like upsetting the noonas. It’s not so bad.” Taemin can feel the heat coming off his cheeks, “Will you just promise not to disappear halfway through? I hate when you do that.”
“Oh, that won’t be a problem. Particularly,” Kibum props his chin on his palm, elbow to the table, and hoods his eyes. Taemin watches his tongue smooth over his bottom lip, “if you squeeze yourself into a miniskirt. I can always work with that.”
Without real feeling, Taemin mutters, “Shut up, hyung.”
At that moment, the loose neck of his shirt happens to fall, the strap drooping to nearly the crook of his elbow. He decides to leave it when he sees Kibum’s eyes light up, latching onto the revealed skin around his collarbone. Taemin rolls his head onto his shoulder and looks at the older boy from under his bangs.
Slowly, Kibum takes hold of the top hem of his tank top, putting only little force behind his pull.
“Come closer.”
Taemin snorts, sending a significant side-glance to the two gossiping ajummas diagonal them.
“Why?”
“Seriously?” He kicks a foot out, using his ankle to jerk Taemin’s chair inches nearer to his.
“You know there are people around, right?”
“You know I don’t care, right?”
Kibum guides him over until their armrests are touching, and it might be in his head but Taemin feels pretty certain the older women have quieted in order to spy on them. His hyung’s breath crawls along his neck and the arm, coiled around the back of the thin blonde’s chair, presses in close so that Kibum can dip his fingers under Taemin’s shirt. They find his nipple the same moment his other hand grasps Taemin’s thigh, skin on skin through the rips in his jeans.
“Hyung, Jesus. That - tickles.”
He looks over Kibum’s shoulder to see if they’re being watched, freezing as he tries to pull Kibum’s hand from his crotch.
They are, but not by any of their fellow customers.
His ghost is back, exactly as he was before, legs hanging over the side of the espresso machine. He’s glaring at Taemin; with such venom that the blonde is surprised he didn’t feel the sting of it before he looked up.
The grip he has on Kibum’s wrist becomes a vice, but he’s only distantly aware of his hyung’s whining.
It’s the first time the boy has looked mad; Taemin can see his tongue pressing into the sharp point of his canine, as though he’s just barely able to keep himself from shouting at Taemin from across the room. Minutely, he shakes his head.
“Wait.”
“Don’t be such a prude.” Kibum escapes him and grabs onto the top his jeans.
“No, wait.” Taemin picks his bag up off the ground, pulling Kibum as he stands.
Kibum smiles triumphantly, “Bathroom?”
“No, I-” He looks around for the boy, skin crawling when he’s nowhere to be found. Nowhere to be found meant anywhere at all. “I want to leave. Let’s go to my place.”
“Fine, you spoil sport.” Kibum grumbles, taking him by the hand and leading him from the shop (Taemin has to duck the glare the ahjummas bid them on the way out).
He makes to protest when he realizes the older boy is leading him in the opposite direction of his apartment, but falls quiet when Kibum yanks him so close that their noses brush, blinking down at the sudden proximity.
“Hush. We’re getting groceries before anything else. As your umma-in-standing I can sense the barren-ness of your refrigerator and it upsets me.” He sets off again, tugging Taemin’s arm like he really was a wayward son. “Food first, then fucking.”
“Just,” Taemin stumbles behind him, “in the future, could you maybe not mention mothering me and screwing me in the same breath. Even for us, that’s-”
“You love it. Stop loving it so much.”
~ * ~
By the time they get back to Taemin’s flat, he’s a confused combination of nervous and painfully turned on, having been cornered into various aisles in the local E-Mart so that Kibum could grope him semi-publicly into a state of hardness.
They explode through the door, Kibum flaunting his virility by insisting on carrying all the bags apart from a single box of cereal, which he’d made a show of handing Taemin at the checkout.
Having Kibum in his apartment makes Taemin feel as though the entire place has heaved a breath of fresh air. He’s a splash of normalcy over the walls that makes the blonde forget for a second he’s missing his mother, his shadow, his grace and that in their place he’s gained a looming haunt, allowing him for a moment to appreciate what he used to, that is; his best friend. Key being Key: spinning around like a sanitation fairy, filing away food, tidying, and then tackling Taemin into the suede living room couch so that they land, somehow, both without pants.
Maybe it’s wrong - they’d been told before that the thing they had going was many kinds of just plain wrong - but Kibum’s tongue in his mouth and hips between his thighs are so perfectly comfortable in their familiarity, he doesn’t really want to over think its nature. He moans for it, like he might while slipping into sweats after a long day in tight, stiff skinny jeans.
Taemin’s so thankful that the older boy is there with him, he doesn’t wait for the gentle nudging to get to his knees, dropping off the side of the couch and pulling Kibum’s underwear down with him. His hyung doesn’t need any coaxing - holding Taemin up by his waist to maintain contact of his mouth to the blonde’s skinny neck, grinding his fully erect cock into Taemin’s lower belly. He releases him eventually and then nods, as though he’s made some sort of point, leaning back into the couch to watch Taemin situate himself between his thighs. The younger dancer grasps his dick in one hand, holding him still more than anything else, and begins making his way, inching his lips up from Kibum’s knee, ignoring the impatient groans that bounce off the back of his head.
He has to tease a bit - suck sloppily on the base of Key's erection, trace the tip of his tongue up and down along the vein, drag loose lips over the head (trying not to smirk).
Taemin is good at this.
Actually, he’s better than good - and it’s one of the rare occasions that he feels he knows the true extent of his worth. When Taemin had his lips around a cock it was as good as his hand around a leash, a short one; it was the only time in a state of undress that he feels completely in charge. Being as delicate as he was - or, as Kibum put it, not having it in him to top a butterfly - Taemin almost got a high from the chance to have any sort of dominance. He really loved it; the control.
“Shitfuckdo-that-again. What the fuck was that? Don’t tell me - don’t stop, fuck.”
The trick was to not try to be pretty about it, he thinks as he pulls his puffy lips tight over his teeth and sinks down until he feels a dull ache at the back of his throat that tells him he’s doing his job right. Then there’s a chorus of sloppy, wet noises. Kibum’s thrusting, hard, which is not very polite, but they’re as past it as they are sharing a toothbrush or talking to each other while on the toilet.
Taemin’s only response is brace his hands atop Kibum’s thighs and to bend his neck just so, angling himself so that the head of Kibum’s cock dragged along the top of his mouth with every frantic push. He’s pleased when Kibum’s next groaning curse come out cracked down the middle.
To Taemin, the worst part of sucking cock was pubes tickling the sensitive skin between his nose and lip - everything else he could ignore; he has no gag reflex to speak of and the taste, while not something he’d top his ice cream with, Taemin doesn’t find particularly offensive. But whenever rough hair scratched away at his nostrils the dancer became overwhelmed with the image of himself heaving a massive sneeze and the prospect of the physical damage that might inflict to either or both of them is sort of too frightening to put out of his head once it gets there.
He feels Key’s hands on his neck and takes it as his cue to swallow - once, slow, hard and deliberate, twice, again, dragging the motion out. On the third he has to stop himself from ripping away and ruining his hyung’s finish - Taemin has the wild thought that Kibum might be coming so hard that it’s clogged up his nose because for the life of him he can’t take in another breath.
He opens his eyes; they zero in on Kibum’s fingers clawing marks across his suede couch and he freezes. The grip around his throat becomes unbearably tight.
“Minnie? What the fuck - are you -? Jesus!”
Taemin is thrown backward onto the ground, fingers scratching desperately the hands around his neck, which he can now see are attached to strong arms and a horrifyingly cold expression.
The boy - that boy - is back, his face void of emotion as he looms over the gasping dancer, pressing down on Taemin’s delicate little windpipe until his arms bulge - then he grins.
If Taemin had any use of his lungs, he knows he would have screamed.
“Taemin!”
It’s as if Kibum isn’t entirely there - like he and the ghost are operating in two completely separate realities that Taemin has somehow been himself cast between - and he finds it nearly impossible to register his best friend’s hand against his forehead when not six inches below he can feel the life being choked out of him.
“Oh my god-oh my god. What’s happening? Taemin! Breathe. Breathe, why aren’t you breathing?” Kibum tries to pull him into his lap but Taemin’s body is as stiff as a board, pinned by the dark haired phantom’s knee planted painfully in the center of his chest, its hold around his neck tightening further.
Through an oxygen-deprived delirium, Taemin gazes up at both of them. They’re indistinguishably corporeal, he thinks, as bright, colorless light crawls in from the edges of his vision.
“Taemin! Breathe, please, please, fuck. I’m calling an ambulance. Oh my god.”
He’s fading, but clear as a bell Taemin is called back by a deep, still unfamiliar voice.
“Look at me,” it demands.
“Taemin, look at me - look at me, baby. Can you see me? Try to breathe, okay? You’re going to be okay. Just breathe.”
Taemin is only tuned in to one frequency, though; the low, low, low male pulse.
“Look at me.”
All his focus is on his attacker, his only remaining line of consciousness hooked onto his handsome face. Sinking.
“You’re mine.”
Taemin wants to agree, to nod and say yes, or to scream or to cry, but he’s pretty sure he’s dying and it doesn’t give him many options.
“Do you understand?”
Taemin doesn’t understand - not at all - but he does believe him.
There was something undeniable about the boy’s conviction.
“You’re mine.”
“That’s it, Taemin. There you go, that’s it. Just breathe, just try to relax. You’re okay, you’re fine, you’re going to be fine.”
“You’re mine.”
Taemin’s vision is blurs with tears. He’s breathing again. The release around his throat is like a burst in a dam; wetness surges to his eyes and noisy sobs mimic them, dripping passed his lips, he can hear himself heaving air into his lungs. His body shakes in physical relief but his mind is still paralyzed. He’s still trying to understand why this is happening to him.
But he can't, because it shouldn't shouldn't be happening, especially without any reason or explanation and it's impossible to comprehend anything inside a brain so overly strained, inside a room that is still pulsing and moist and blurry, still filled with one too many bodies.
“Don’t be sad.” The boy who wasn’t there nuzzles the opposite cheek that Kibum is stroking, slipping down to whisper in his ear.
“You are mine, Taemin. But that means I’m yours, too.”
Afterward, nothing Kibum says can get Taemin to stop crying - I don’t know, he explains, I don't know why -- and yet he is completely unable to stop crying.
~ *** ~
A/N: I'm sorry. I run on run-on sentences. They're like my lifeblood, unfortunately. I don't know how to stop - (constructive?) criticism is welcome.
Lousy smut, I know. There is more in the future - hopefully less, you know, not hot. I don't like forcing it, but I feel like it's the only thing people are interested in reading so I do and then it's blah.
part IV