SHINee Duets 2015: heteroshinee & unbirthdaydance (Part Three)
Things came to a head one gloomy Saturday night. Taemin should’ve maybe expected this, given the plant’s sudden profusion of butterfly weed that morning - which, according to the book, could mean let me go - but he hadn’t wanted to think too deeply about that.
He was at Jinki’s place now, and they were curled up in bed together, kissing, touching, things leading where they usually led. Taemin felt weird and too strung-out for this, twitching at each slide of Jinki’s palms against his skin, hating the suffocating feeling of being kissed, shivering with dread against the demanding press of Jinki’s body, disliking the hard nudge of Jinki’s erection against his thigh…
Eventually, his discomfort must have made itself particularly obvious - or perhaps it was the fact that, as had become distressingly usual now, he was not yet aroused - for Jinki paused and pulled away, looking down at Taemin with worried eyes.
“You okay?” he asked, brushing a gentle hand against Taemin’s cheek. “If you want to stop, just say so, babe.”
He said this so tenderly, with so much obvious anxious care, that Taemin suddenly just could not stand it anymore, this intense wanting to make things work, and the jagged broken feeling when nothing ever did, no matter how hard he tried.
“I can’t,” he said abruptly, sitting up away from Jinki. “I can’t - I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry.”
Jinki frowned at him with worried confusion.
“You can’t do what anymore?”
“Date you,” said Taemin, and promptly felt incredibly awful at the shocked, hurt look in Jinki’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I just don’t like sex that much, and you always want so much of it - ”
“Oh,” said Jinki. “Oh,” and then he tugged Taemin into a hug - a non-sexual hug - one which was warm and comforting and nothing more. Taemin clung to him and smushed his face into Jinki’s shoulder, feeling silly and young and very much like a failure, through and through.
“I tried,” he sniffled miserably into the fabric of Jinki’s shirt. “I really did, but I just can’t - ”
“Shh, it’s okay.” Jinki rubbed his back in a soothing gesture. “I wish you’d told me this sooner, Taemin-ah.” His voice was thick now with guilt. “It wasn’t my intention to force you into anything, and shit, I should’ve noticed - ”
“It’s not your fault,” said Taemin, horrified that Jinki might think so. “It’s mine, I mean, how silly is it that I’m already tired of having sex with you - ”
“It’s not silly at all,” said Jinki firmly. “If you don’t like it, then you don’t like it, and that’s perfectly fine.”
Taemin sighed against Jinki’s shoulder and couldn’t quite believe this. He wondered if now would be a good time to tell Jinki that it wasn’t just that he didn’t like sex much, but was asexual too - and then decided against it. This conversation was painful enough already without adding sexuality confessions to it.
“So,” said Jinki finally. “I think you’re right in saying that we’re not a good fit for each other, dating-wise, given the difference in our feelings about sex. But we can still be friends, yeah?” He poked his nose against Taemin’s ear. “Hanging out with you is incredibly fun.”
“I like hanging out with you, too,” Taemin admitted. “And I’m sorry that things didn’t work out - I wish they could, because I like you - “
“There’s no need to be sorry. Sometimes these things just happen, and it’s no one’s fault.” Jinki sighed, and said, softer: “Still hurts like hell though.”
Taemin had never heard a truer statement in his life.
~
He came home after that to find his plant all but dying, its flowers gone and its leaves withered and shriveling up. The sight of it made him want to fling himself onto his bed and sob all his misery out, but he didn’t. He didn’t like crying; it just made him feel worse about everything.
He texted Kibum instead, because he didn’t know what else to do, or how else to handle how horrible he felt about the break-up. His friend came to his dorm only a few minutes later, and despite Taemin’s spluttered protests, immediately squashed him in a tight hug and a comforting string of words, interspersed with furious threats against the man who’d broken Taemin’s heart.
“Stop that, I’m fine,” said Taemin, even though he really wasn’t, not at all. He squirmed out of Kibum’s embrace. “It was a mutual thing. I told him I couldn’t date him anymore because I don’t like sex as much as he does, and he agreed that breaking-up was probably the best thing to do, and that’s it, that’s all that happened. He was very nice about it,” he added sternly, noticing the mulish look in Kibum’s eyes, as if he still wanted to blame Jinki for making everything go wrong.
Kibum sighed, and grudgingly accepted this.
“Well, still, I’m sorry,” he said, and tugged Taemin into another, gentler, hug. “I know you liked him a lot, and I suppose that he liked you too, and you must be feeling pretty shitty about everything right now.”
“Yeah.” Taemin relaxed into Kibum’s arms, finding the embrace comforting now that his friend wasn’t trying to squeeze the breath out of him. “He told me that it’s okay that I don’t like sexual stuff, but I dunno, I still feel like if I’d tried harder, I could’ve liked it somehow, and I wouldn’t have disappointed him.”
“Disappointed him?” Kibum made an indignant noise. “Your feelings about sex are just as important and valid as his are. In fact, they’re even more fucking important, because you’re my friend, and he’s not.”
Taemin couldn’t help but to chuckle reluctantly at the fiercely possessive tone of Kibum’s voice. He suddenly remembered that Kibum, too, was asexual, was absolutely not interested in sex of any kind, and was also perfectly comfortable with this fact.
Taemin clung to his friend, and wished despairingly that he could be just as confident in his sexuality and feelings as Kibum was.
~
The plant remained withered and half-dead for the next month or so, while Taemin still struggled with accepting the disaster that had become of his relationship with Jinki, and the awkwardness of transitioning into friendship with someone he still harbored intense romantic feelings for.
The only time the plant ever showed any signs of life was, annoyingly enough, whenever Kibum watered it, at which point it would defy all the laws of science and become fresh and green for a period of several hours, after which it would start drooping again. Taemin distracted himself from his unhappiness by increasing his efforts to figure out just what the hell kind of plant it was, although he still managed to find no clues.
Then, gradually, the plant began to sprout new leaves and keep them, slowly becoming its ordinary bushy self. By the time it had regained its formerly herbaceous glory, Taemin had completely recovered from the failure of his relationship, and was once again his usual contented self.
This was when Taemin met Minho in the university bar, aptly named The Bar, though it wasn’t much of a bar at the time. During the day it doubled up as a café-restaurant, and Taemin and his friends would often go there to pick up some sweet potato fries between lectures. It was a neutral place, he thought, there’s no way he’d manage to stumble his way into another heartbreak in a place like The Bar, his plant would be oh-so-happy with him. He’d tried to concentrate more on his lessons, and his friendships, since the whole debacle with Jinki had taken place. He just needed time to himself, and apparently the plant agreed, sprouting itself in new greens, blooms withered away, just as it had been when Kibum had first bought it for him. It still, however, seemed to prefer when Kibum watered it, which Taemin accredited to it being a little bitch.
They had been playing cards, poker to be specific, and Taemin had been doing incredibly well considering he usually lost 99% of cards games. He hadn’t lost all of his chips yet, and they were at least halfway through the game, which in his opinion was a triumph.
“Hey, er … sorry to interrupt, “ a voice spoke from over his shoulder, and Taemin turned quickly, hiding his cards out of tense mid-game suspicion. This seemed to throw the man, his eyes bugged slightly and he took a small step back as if Taemin were a frightened deer. “We were just wondering whether any of you wanted to play table football with us?” He gestured over to a dark corner of the bar, where a few old foosball sets were lined up next to two pool tables. “We have an odd number of players so-“
“Tae will, won’t you?” one of his treacherous friends answered for him, “we’ve got an economics lecture now anyway.” They picked up their stuff and left, leaving Taemin with a table full of cards and some random guy he’d never met before in his life. Later on it would hit him that they definitely didn’t have an economics lecture because Taemin had the same economics lecture with them, and it had been the day before.
“So?” the man had moved more to Taemin’s side and was helping him pick up the cards. He was tall, Taemin noted, his eyes were big and his hair looked really soft.
“Sure,” Taemin smiled, “I’m Taemin.” He held out his hand to shake.
“Minho.” His hand was soft too.
Minho liked Italian food and ‘sport,’ which Taemin found rather vague. He was fashionable in this effortless kind of way that Taemin envied, and he looked perfect 100% of the time. They had been on a few dates before the issue of sexuality was addressed, and Taemin was rather taken aback that it wasn’t him that had to bring it up.
Minho had been nervous the entire evening, stumbling his way through sentences and laughing a little too loudly to be deemed sane by the general unsuspecting public. He had started fiddling with the raised fold of the tablecloth that ran down the centre of their small two-person table, until it was grubby and flat. Taemin frowned, placing a hand atop Minho’s own in an attempt to soothe him. He froze.
“What’s up?” Taemin asked, watching as Minho bit his lip and pulled his hand away. They’d barely even started dating so when the thought struck him that Minho might want to break up, Taemin wasn’t particularly upset about it. Sure, Minho was a great guy and honestly he could see the relationship being really good, really positive, and they got on so well that it would really be a shame if Minho were to quit right then, but then Minho spoke.
“I have to tell you something,” he cleared his throat and sat up a little straighter, trying to regain some semblance of control over his nerves. “I, er … I’m asexual.”
The pause Taemin took was mostly because his brain was whirring with thoughts of “I’ve never met another ace before, what do I do, what’s the etiquette?!” Minho took it as something rather different and started rambling, grasping at Taemin’s hand as if he would run away at any moment.
“I really like you though! Please believe me,” Minho was speaking quickly, at a pace Taemin was finding somewhat difficult to keep up with, “I just … sex isn’t something I’m really comfortable with, it’s not a personal thing I swear, and I really like you, it’s just-“
“Minho, I’m ace too.”
“Oh.”
~
They spent most of their dates back in Taemin’s dorm room, playing Fifa. He, unlike Kai, didn’t let Taemin win. It wasn’t as intense as it had been with Jinki, but Taemin liked that. There was no pressure, it was just like hanging out but with more cuddling and kissing, holding hands and buying each other presents and being generally adorable together. He really liked Minho, and they spent so much time around each other that it had got to the point that he knew that if there was anything to dislike about him, he would have found it. Taemin was the kind of person that got very annoyed with people if he spent too much time with them. Their flaws became more pronounced and they would rub him up the wrong way constantly. Only Minho and Kibum were the ones he had managed to cope with so consistently.
The plant seemed to like Minho too, sprouting off blossoms that signified new love, hope, friendship and security, daisies, iris, chrysanthemum and red camellias. Minho would water it every time he visited the dorm, and although it didn’t react as well as it had with Kibum, Taemin was fairly certain that his little brat of a plant liked Minho too.
It didn’t have much of a chance though, Taemin guessed, what with Kibum being so busy all the time. Taemin did not envy the amount of work Kibum had at university at all, but that wasn’t what had distracted the older boy from coming over so often. He had got a boyfriend, specifically he had become Woohyun’s boyfriend, that one boy that didn’t quite sit well in Taemin stomach, made him feel a little ill. Every picture of them together that was posted online made him flinch, in a way that Minho found quite endearing.
“You’re so overprotective of him,” he had accused one night. They had been marathoning Orange Is The New Black on Netflix and Taemin had taken time between episodes to catch up on Facebook whilst Minho got up and did some stretches and floor workouts. He often got agitated laying out for long periods at a time and needed to stretch his muscles for a while, Taemin had learnt to live with it and all of Minho’s crazy sports related quirks.
“I’m not protective, Woohyun’s just-”
“You’re protective,” Minho had grinned, crawling up onto the bed, the mattress creaking beneath his weight, “it’s cute, don’t worry.”
Minho usually had soccer practice on Thursday afternoons and Friday evenings, so sometimes Taemin would go by to watch him play before they wandered off into town for food afterwards. Minho was always starved, and he knew all of the best places to eat in town, which was, in Taemin’s opinion, a very important trait for a boyfriend to have. In fact, 90% of their relationship probably centred around eating. Taemin was definitely not going to complain about that.
It was great, what they had, this comfort of being free with each other, no pressure, almost every day of the week. But it wasn’t meant to last.
~
When soccer season came around, the weight of having an athletic boyfriend slapped Taemin in the face. Minho would have to rush off to practice most days, straight from lectures, barely having five minutes to see Taemin at lunch or between lectures before he rushed off to practice, or the gym. It felt like abandonment. Taemin got used to being stood up on dates, getting quick texts in apology because Minho could make it, because practice ran on too long or they had to go for more training or the bus from an away game was late and he wouldn’t make it back in time.
They barely ever saw each other. It didn’t even feel like a relationship anymore, they never even talked. There were people he knew on his course that had long distance relationships that talked to their loved ones more than he did, and it wasn’t for lack of trying. Minho would send him game updates, send him pictures of silly things they saw on the road, selfies with mascots and teammates, but it still felt hollow. It felt like Taemin was in this never-ending battle with soccer for his boyfriends affections and he just kept losing.
That’s what hurt the most, how much they both tried so hard but it just wasn’t working. Taemin would sigh as he sat on his bed crossed legged, staring at the wilting flowers on his desk. It had sprouted warning flowers again, but this time Taemin took heed. He knew whatever they had wasn’t working, he didn’t need nerium oleander or white poppies to tell him.
His bed didn’t smell anything like Minho’s cologne anymore. In fact it smelt like Kibum’s, from the countless times he’d ended up in Taemin’s bed (he basically lived there now, and had demanded a copy of Taemin’s key for the times when he arrived and Taemin was in lectures), laying in some sort of trance because he and Woohyun hadn’t worked out. Specifically, Kibum had told him it hadn’t worked out because “I got into a relationship to distract myself and it didn’t work.” Taemin didn’t try to console him, and he didn’t try to figure out what Kibum needed distracting from. He was secretly rather happy that they weren’t dating anymore, Kibum could do so much better, but it still sucked to hear him crying at night when he thought Taemin was asleep.
Little did Taemin know that the sobs were for him, were for all of the attempts Kibum had undertaken to take his one-tracked mind away from Taemin. All he cared about was Taemin, and that terrified him.
~
One night, Taemin awoke with Kibum in his arms. Someone was knocking on the door softly, and he glanced up, blinking blearily in the dark. Kibum let out a soft whine as Taemin let go of him, and he couldn’t help but smile. Cute. He sent a forlorn look at the withering plant on his desk. He really ought to prune it, but maybe not at 2 o’clock in the morning. Who was even knocking on his door at this time, he grumbled to himself, better not be a drunkard.
Instead of a drunkard, Taemin was greeted by his boyfriend at the door, the same boyfriend who had texted him four hours ago to say he wouldn’t be able to make their date. Taemin had gathered that. Their reservations had been at eight, and Minho had texted him at ten, Taemin was back at home lamenting his relationship by eight thirty.
“I’m sorry,” Minho said, rather loudly, and Taemin shushed him, slipping out into the corridor and pulling the door closed behind him.
“Shh, Kibum’s sleeping,” he said, and Minho frowned.
“What’s Kibum doing in your-” he paused, then put himself back on track, “anyway, these are for you,” a huge bouquet of purple hyacinths. I’m sorry, please forgive me. Taemin just sighed.
“How long has it been since I last saw you, Minho?”
“I-”
“Three weeks. Three whole weeks. You say you love me but you’re so fucking obsessed with soccer that I don’t even get to see you any more.” Minho was silent, and Taemin sighed again. “This is so stupid. I shouldn’t have to compete with a ball for your attention, Minho, I think-”
“No,” Minho gulped and his eyes were tearing up but Taemin had made his peace with this so long ago that he had to do it.
“I think we should break up.”
“But I can-”
“I love you, Minho,” Taemin spoke earnestly. “Go become the best soccer player the world has ever seen. Don’t let us go to waste.”
“I won’t,” Minho sniffled, and then laughed, “fuck, sorry, I’m crying on your doorstep and it’s all my fault.”
“It’s not your fault,” Taemin smiled, and he could smile because this was for the best, he knew it was. Minho would take the world by storm one day.
“I … I should go,” Minho whispered, “I can call you, right? We can still be friends?”
“Of course we can.” The hug that followed was lingering but Taemin didn’t find himself persuaded to take his words back. He watched Minho walk down the hallway and then slipped back into his room.
The plant on his desk had shedded its blooms, and Taemin was free again.
~
I’m going to do it today, Kibum decided firmly, planting his hands on his hips and glaring determinedly at his reflection in the mirror hanging in Taemin’s dorm room. Today is the day. The day I do it. Today. This very day right here. It’s been months since his last break-up; it’s finally time.
He had always expected that his feelings for Taemin would fade eventually, unreciprocated as they were. But it had been years now since he’d first realized he’d fallen in love with his best friend and, well, the intensity of that love hadn’t wavered a bit, no matter how much he’d tried to ignore and deny it. Even his attempt at dating someone else hadn’t been able to take Taemin off his mind. And yet, he was still too afraid of fucking up their friendship to confess to Taemin.
But today was different. Today was the day Kibum was going to steel his nerves and bravely ask Taemin out on a date, and either suffer through the ensuing awkwardness of rejection, or die of delight at the acceptance of this offer.
He was hoping it’d be the latter reaction, but years of knowing that Taemin had absolutely no romantic feelings for him whatsoever kept him from really believing it would all turn out well.
Still, he had to try, didn’t he?
He was distracted from his attempts to talk his courage up by catching sight of a sudden bloom of color from out the corner of one eye. He turned around and saw, much to his horror, that that damned oddball plant was flowering again, this time with several different colors of roses.
Fuck, he thought, staring at it, all his plans and hopes shattering to bits. Fuck, this better not mean what I think it means…
~
Taemin met Jonghyun during a karaoke night at one of the campus’ more hipster-oriented coffee shops. Jonghyun had wowed the crowd with his impressive vocal skills, singing all kinds of songs ten times more beautifully than even the original version, a most impressive feat indeed.
Taemin was too shy to go up and talk to the singer the way much of the crowd was doing, but in the end that turned out not to matter. After Jonghyun had relinquished the floor and shaken off the majority of his new admirers, he had gone to sit at one of the only empty seats left - at the two-person table where Taemin was sitting alone.
“Hey,” Jonghyun said brightly, grinning at Taemin with scrunched sparkle of a smile that immediately had Taemin’s stomach in knots of butterflies. “Noticed you watching me earlier.” He winked, outrageous and playful. “I’m pretty good at karaoke, huh?”
Taemin laughed nervously and played with his half-empty cup.
“You are,” he agreed, feeling very tongue-tied in the presence of the handsome man. “Your voice is very nice.”
“I try,” said Jonghyun modestly. “Singing’s fun.” His grin widened. “Especially when I have cute guys like you listening to me.”
Taemin made a flustered squeak of a sound and accidentally tipped the cup over, spilling hot chocolate all over the table, himself and Jonghyun’s very stylish shirt and jeans.
“Oh, shit, sorry,” said Taemin, mortified. He grabbed frantically for some napkins, and wound up just getting even more hot chocolate everywhere. “Fuck, I’m so sorry - ”
Jonghyun just laughed and helped with the clean-up effort.
“I’ve had worse things spilled on me than this,” he said, amused, dabbing himself with a wad of napkins. “Serves me right for not even asking your name before I started flirting with you. What is it, by the way?”
“What is what?”
A breathy chuckle. “Your name, pretty boy.”
“Oh.” Taemin’s ears went red with embarrassment. “I’m, um, I’m Taemin. It’s very nice to meet you,” he added all in a rush.
“It’s very nice to meet you, too.” Jonghyun tossed his handful of napkins onto the table, and wrung his shirt out. “So, talk to me. You’re a student here too, right? What major are you?”
“Botany,” said Taemin, hesitantly. “I like plants.”
“Plants! Plants are cool!” Jonghyun leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table with an encouraging tilt of his head. “So what kind of plants are you into? Like, flowers and shit? Or trees or seaweed or what?”
~
They talked for several hours that night, which was probably the longest conversation Taemin had ever had with a stranger he didn’t know. But Jonghyun was so very easy to talk to, and handsome, and nice, and had a multitude of interesting stories to tell.
They’d exchanged numbers at the end of the night, and then Jonghyun had asked him out. Taemin had sighed and explained about his asexuality - fully expecting this revelation to change Jonghyun’s mind on the subject of dating - but surprisingly, the guy had been completely fine with it, even when Taemin had informed him that sex would be off the table.
“That’s why God invented masturbation,” Jonghyun had said cheerfully, and then laughed at the startled look on Taemin’s face, and reached over to playfully squeeze his hand. “So. Text me tomorrow and we can schedule our first date, yeah?”
Taemin had gone back to his dorm floating on clouds, happy and excited beyond measure. Even the plant had shared his excitement, as it had bloomed full of differently colored roses: lavender for enchantment, orange for fascination, thornless for love at first sight, musk cluster for charming, and leaves for hope.
~
It turned out that the reason Jonghyun was such a good singer was because he was a music student, and one of the very best in the university at that. He was a sentimentally romantic sap by nature, which Taemin found very cute indeed. Jonghyun might joke and tease as rough as any American frat boy, but he was a sweet little marshmallow at heart, and Taemin liked that very much about him.
Kibum was inexplicably grumpy about their relationship at first, for no reason that Taemin could see. But after about a week, he slowly began to warm up to Jonghyun, and even grudgingly admitted that he was very good boyfriend material indeed.
And the plant - which was still bursting with roses - seemed to be very much agreed.
~
Two or so months after they’d begun dating, Jonghyun took Taemin to an amusement park on a date. Taemin enjoyed himself immensely, especially on the rides where Jonghyun would shriek and cling to him for safety as they hurtled around in the air, only to hop enthusiastically out of the ride at the end and demand they do it all over again. It wasn’t the shrieking that Taemin liked, of course; it was the way Jonghyun clung to him, as if the handsome, talented singer needed Taemin for reassurance.
They ate an extremely unhealthy lunch at a fried food stand, then wandered around to look at the fair games while stuffing their faces with a shared cone of cotton candy. After they were done with that, they went on the Ferris wheel - a slow-moving ride, but one with beautiful views up at the top.
Once they were near the peak of the ride, Jonghyun’s eyes turned suddenly serious, and he took Taemin’s hands in his.
“I’ve got some bad news, I’m afraid,” he said. “Well, it’s good news actually, but kinda sad at the same time.”
Taemin swallowed nervously, and clutched back at Jonghyun’s hands.
“Yeah?” he said. “What is it?”
“I’ve been accepted to a music conservatory in Vienna.” Jonghyun’s eyes sparkling with excitement despite the apologetic tone of his voice. “I’m transferring there next semester.” He took a breath, and continued: “But I’m actually going to end my semester here early and move there in about a month, so I can take some language classes and get used to the place before I start classes there. I just got my acceptance email today; you’re the first one I’ve told. We can continue to date, of course,” he added hastily. “It’ll just have to be a long-distance thing.”
Taemin stared at him, not quite sure how to react. He’d never had a long-distance relationship before, and didn’t really know how one might work. Still, he liked Jonghyun very much, and didn’t want to give him up over something so small as a mere continent between them, even if that continent was the biggest in the world.
“How long is your program there?” he asked finally, and offered Jonghyun a smile. “And congratulations!”
“Thanks!” Jonghyun lifted the tangle of their hands, and kissed Taemin’s knuckles. “I’ll probably be there around six years or so? Which isn’t that long, in the grand scheme of things, and besides, it’s one of the top conservatories in the world - hang on, lemme see if I can pronounce this right - the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien. I still can’t believe that they actually accepted me - me!”
He sounded so excited and awed that Taemin couldn’t help beaming at him, a feeling of intense pride swelling in his chest at the fact that his boyfriend was so talented and successful - and so damn adorable reacting to that success.
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