SHINee Duets 2015: heteroshinee & unbirthdaydance (Part Two)
After the move Taemin had been really worried about his plant, it was still withering and generally acting like the biggest brat of his plant collection, and had forced Kibum to take him to the nearest garden centre to stock up on new soil and watering supplies. Kibum groaned the entire time, but not as much as Taemin had when he realised that it didn’t make a difference at all.
Until Kibum did it for him and it greened deeper. Taemin suspected foul play and glared at Kibum for the rest of the day.
Apart from his plant woes, Taemin found himself enjoying university life quite a bit indeed. There was the freedom of being on his own, the interesting new people, the opportunity to cram his dorm room with as many plants as he could without his parents complaining about the excess of forestry, and even fun classes to take (although these came with some not-so-fun courses as well).
But really, his Writing 101 class was swiftly becoming his very favorite part of university, above even botany classes and lack of curfews.
He didn’t like the class for its intellectual content, of course. It was a first-year requirement, taught by a professor with little interest in drilling proper essay technique into clueless newbies, and no one really enjoyed attending it or doing the massive heaps of writing homework required for it.
What Taemin did enjoy, however, was the class TA, a grad student who helped the professor teach the course, and held very useful office hours in the campus Starbucks, where he explained the course material much better than the professor ever actually did.
It wasn’t Lee Jinki’s teaching technique that Taemin liked. It was, well, all the rest of him. He was handsome and kind and funny, with an eccentric sense of humor that Taemin very much enjoyed. He was never impatient with Taemin’s inability to organize an outline properly, and didn’t mind offering advice about the school and buying Taemin the occasional cup of hot chocolate while they chatted about various inconsequential things.
And so Taemin spent a good deal of time staring at Jinki’s gorgeous face in class instead of paying attention to the lecture, and went to far more of the TA’s office hours than he really needed, awful essay skills notwithstanding. He got fluttery jitters in his stomach whenever Jinki smiled at him (which was quite a lot, since Jinki was a very smiley person), and couldn’t help babbling to Kibum about him all the time - mostly because Kibum was the only one who would put up with Taemin’s lovestruck rambling, albeit with a fair few interjections of sarcastic comments and an eye-roll of irritation every few minutes or so.
But then, Kibum had always put up with all of Taemin’s shit, no matter how much he might complain about it.
~
The other thing Taemin really loved about university was the dances.
There was not a whole lot of actual dancing in them. Mostly it was just an excuse for sexually frustrated students to alternatively grind on each other and jump up and down while yelling to the beat of extremely loud music. But Taemin was one of the few people who really did dance, and dance very well indeed.
He was dancing now in fact, letting his body twist and shiver and sway to the rhythm of one of his favorite pop songs. His breathing came hard and fast, and he felt deliciously sweaty and alive, the way he always did whenever he danced. This was fun!
He came to a stop when the song ended, momentarily distorted by another, much softer and slower-paced song beginning. He blinked rapidly, chest heaving and mouth slightly parted, breathing in the hot and heavy air of the crowded track floor and attempting to regain touch with his surroundings.
Then reality abruptly crashed down on him when he noticed none other than Lee Jinki, the very TA he had such a huge crush on, standing at the edge of the crowd and watching Taemin with wide, fascinated eyes.
Taemin immediately shoved his hands into the pockets of his black skinny jeans, flustered and embarrassed by Jinki’s intent stare. He desperately hoped he hadn’t made a fool of himself in front of his crush, what with his wildly abandoned dancing and all.
But there was no avoiding Jinki now; the man was crossing the floor towards Taemin, waving at him to catch his attention. Taemin waved back, and meekly went forward to meet Jinki at the fringes of the crowd, where they could talk without being shoved around by a sea of enthusiastic dancers.
“That was amazing!” said Jinki, when they’d come close enough to shout over the music at each other and be heard in a semblance of a conversation. “I didn’t know you could dance like that!”
“Oh, um, yeah,” said Taemin, low enough that Jinki probably couldn’t hear him over the roar of the music. He raised his voice. “It’s fun.”
“I’ll say!” Jinki grinned at him, eyes sparkling. “I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”
This compliment made Taemin duck his head with pleasure, a giddy rush of delight blooming in his chest. Jinki laughed at this response and came a step closer, reaching out to gently tuck a stray strand of hair behind Taemin’s ear.
“Seriously, though,” he added, leaning closer so that Taemin could hear him, and smell the faint waft of alcohol on his breath. “You have no idea how fucking incredible you looked. I still can’t believe it; you’re usually the most adorable little thing, but you were sexy as hell out there.”
Taemin didn’t know what to say to that, so he just bit his lip to keep from squeaking with overwhelmed happiness, and wriggled a bit in place. Jinki laughed again - but a softer laugh now - a low, smooth chuckle that made Taemin shiver because it was directed at him.
“This is probably a bit inappropriate of me to ask,” Jinki murmured - as well as anyone could murmur while still half-shouting to be heard over the boom of the bass. “But d’you want to come home with me tonight?” His eyes were intense, his voice playful. “I wouldn’t mind having some fun, if you know what I mean.”
It took a moment for the sexually suggestive undertones of the word fun to sink into Taemin’s brain. Fun, he realized, meant sex. Or at least, it meant sex to most people. Taemin wasn’t all that interested in sex - really, it had been so awkward and boring when he’d tried it before with Jongin - but if having sex meant Jinki continuing to pay attention to him and touch him and compliment him, then, well, Taemin figured it couldn’t hurt to try.
“Okay, sure,” he said, a touch breathless from the way Jinki was still looking at him, so very, very focused. “I’d like that.”
“Awesome!” Jinki’s face broke out into a delighted grin which made Taemin grin too, ecstatic that he had been the one to make Jinki look so very happy. “Let’s go! But - hang on - can I kiss you first?”
Taemin laughed, and daringly put his arms around Jinki’s neck, relaxing only when Jinki settled his own strong arms around Taemin’s waist, and leaned in for a slow, teasing thrill of a kiss.
~
Kibum woke slowly, groaning with the nauseous throb of a hangover. The morning rays of sunlight filtering in through his dorm window hurt his sensitive head, and his mouth felt dry and fuzzy, in obvious need of a good rinsing-out.
He grabbed his phone off the desk that served as his night table, and looked at the time: 11:43 AM. Much too early to be up on a post-dance Saturday. Kibum was all prepared to roll over and go back to sleep when he noticed a flashing message from Taemin, sent late last night when Kibum had been too drunk to bother answering.
Not that the message had said much, anyway. Just: hi im not gonna make it home 2nite pls water my plants tmrw mrning 4 me k? c u l8r byeeeeeeeeee
Kibum scowled at the unnecessary chatspeak and contemplated staying happily in bed for the rest of the day; surely the plants would all survive one morning without water? But then, if he did that, Taemin would be sure to notice, and he’d never hear the end of it.
He groaned and tumbled out of bed and onto the floor, wondering why the hell he was best friends with such an avid plant geek.
~
A little while later, after he had entered Taemin’s dorm room (which was, as usual, not locked, despite the fact that Kibum kept warning Taemin that one day someone was gonna waltz in and steal all his stuff), the plants were well on their way to being watered and complained at by a still-hungover Kibum, who kept yawning and spilling water all over his hoodie and sweatpants every other plant or so.
It was probably this hangover that kept him from noticing the odd growths on Taemin’s most unusual plant until he came right up to it to water it. Then he yelped a curse and nearly dropped the water jug on himself, so startled was he by what he saw there.
The plant had lips on it.
Bright red lips, as if someone had plucked the lipsticked crimson mouth off a fashionable movie star’s face and stuck it on the brambles of the plant. And not just one pair of lips, either, but several.
“What the fuck,” said Kibum. He shuffled nearer the plant, trying to ignore the way another pair of lips unfurled slowly as he approached. “Seriously, what the hell is going on?”
He poured water onto it, thoroughly creeped out by the budding red lips blooming everywhere on the verdantly green bush. The plant had done some very strange things in the past, sure, but it had never done anything quite like this.
He finally set the water jug down and called Taemin, hoping that the resident plant expert would have some idea as to what was happening to his freak of a plant.
“Mmmm?” said Taemin sleepily, answering the phone on its seventh ring. “’Sup?”
“Why are you not up yet?” Kibum demanded, ignoring the fact that he himself had just woken up twenty-two minutes ago, and very unwillingly at that. “Your motherfucking plant has mouths.”
“Mouths?” Taemin yawned into the phone. “You mean like a Venus flytrap leaf, or a waterwheel, or an arethusa bulbosa, or - ”
“I mean, like, actual mouths.” Kibum frowned. “Actually, wait, I know what a Venus flytrap is, but the other two - what are they?”
“Aldrovanda vesiculosa - ” Taemin began in his usual plant-lecturing tone, only to pause mid-sentence. Kibum could hear the faint low rumble of another man’s voice in the background, followed by wet kissing noises and a breathy giggle from Taemin himself.
“Um, look, I’ll call you back later, okay?” said Taemin breathlessly. “Um. Bye!”
“What - wait - !”
But it was too late; Taemin had hung up on him, leaving Kibum alone to watch the plant cheerfully unfurl yet another set of gleaming scarlet lips. He scowled at the newly budded mouth, then flopped grumpily down on Taemin’s messy bed, not at all in the mood to contemplate what he had heard over the phone probably meant - that Taemin had gone and slept with someone last night, someone who was very much not Kibum.
(Not that Kibum wanted to do the sex thing anyway, not even with Taemin, but still. It was the principle of the thing.)
He groaned and nuzzled his face against Taemin’s pillow, which - given that the guy almost never washed his sheets and pillowcases - smelled very intensely like him. It was a comforting, if mildly unwashed, scent, and Kibum secretly liked it very much indeed, which probably said something about how hard he’d fallen for Taemin, if he even liked the smell of the guy’s body odor.
He closed his eyes and fell asleep, just as the plant sprouted another bright red mouth.
~
Taemin wandered home at around two that afternoon, feeling very pleased with himself. The sex had been surprisingly pleasant, and nowhere near as awkward and boring as he’d expected it to be. Taemin decided he wouldn’t mind doing it again, especially if it meant spending the night and most of the next day with Jinki, cuddling and making breakfast and just generally hanging out. He hadn’t thought it possible to like the guy any more than he already did, but the sight of Jinki all relaxed with tousled hair and in fuzzy pajama pants had made Taemin actually adore him.
And, best of all: Jinki had asked Taemin out on a real, legit date, and Taemin had said yes, and everything was absolutely wonderful.
He’d forgotten about Kibum’s call a few hours earlier, only to be reminded of it upon entering his dorm and finding his friend fast asleep on the bed. Taemin smiled affectionately at the sight, finding the way Kibum had burrowed himself into Taemin’s pinecone-printed sheets very cute indeed.
Taemin left him to sleep, suspecting that Kibum was probably at least somewhat hungover from his partying spree last night. He himself went over to the plant, and stared with fascination at the red lips unfurling from it, side-by-side with little blossoms of two different kinds of white flowers.
He went and got his useful book of flower lore off his shelf, then sat down cross-legged by the plant’s pot and began flipping through it, searching out the meanings of the three new appearances on the bush.
Kibum woke halfway through this, and came over to sit down by Taemin’s side, resting his head against Taemin’s own, and yawning very obnoxiously into Taemin’s left ear.
“See, I told you there were mouths,” he mumbled, letting his head flop down onto Taemin’s shoulder.
Taemin didn’t bother to shrug him off. Instead, he launched excitedly into a description of his research thus far.
“See that?” he asked, pointing at the new white flowers on the bush. “Those are apple blossoms, and also Spanish jasmine. In some flower languages, apple flowers mean temptation, and Spanish jasmine sensuality.”
“Cool,” said Kibun, sounding not at all enthused. “What the hell are the lips, then?”
“They’re bracts of psychotria elata,” Taemin informed him. “One of their common names is Hooker’s Lips.”
“Hooker’s - what?”
“You heard me.” Taemin paged through the book again, frowning. “I can’t find their meaning in here, but I guess their appearance explains itself. I mean, sensuality, temptation, these lips things… it all adds up.”
“Yeah? Adds up to what?”
“To my new boyfriend,” Taemin said happily. He snapped the book closed. “We had sex last night, and I actually liked it, and we’re gonna date now, and it’s gonna be awesome. Also he thinks I’m hot.”
“You do tend to have an alarmingly high body temperature, yeah.”
“Not like that, asshole.” But Taemin felt too content to put any bite into his words. “Lee Jinki is the most perfect person ever.”
“Lee Jinki?” Kibum sat straight up, tone suddenly and inexplicably alarmed. “That TA you’ve been sighing about for the past couple of months?”
“That’s the one!” Taemin caressed the book’s spine, gazing dreamily at the apple flowers. “He’s perfect.”
“You just said that.” Kibum poked Taemin in the side. “Dude, he’s your TA. How old is he, like thirty? That’s weird and creepy and definitely not a good idea.”
“He’s twenty-two,” Taemin said reproachfully. “That’s not that much older than me. It’s not weird or creepy or anything; it’ll be fine. I mean, look, even the plant thinks so! It’s gone flowery for him!”
“It went all flowery for your last relationship too, and look how that turned out.”
Taemin ignored this very valid point, and poked Kibum back.
“Stop fussing,” he said sternly. “Seriously, you’re worse than my parents sometimes.”
Kibum spluttered with indignant fury at this comparison. Taemin laughed, then leaned over to hug his friend, and playfully kiss his cheek.
“Don’t worry, it’ll be okay,” he said reassuringly. “You can be best man at our wedding, alright?”
“You slept together once; it’s far too early for any weddings,” said Kibum irritably. Then he put a hand on Taemin’s arm, eyes suddenly serious. “Taemin, I mean it - don’t get your hopes up too high, okay? I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Taemin rolled his eyes and tugged his arm away. “I’ll be fine. C’mon, he even made me pancakes for lunch!”
“Fucking pancakes are not a measurement you can judge a relationship by - ”
“And here I thought you liked pancakes.”
“I do like pancakes! Fucking hell, Taemin, that’s not the point - ”
But Taemin just laughed and stood up to go put his book away without listening to the rest of Kibum’s spiel.
~
It happened so slowly that Taemin almost didn’t notice it, but as his relationship with Jinki developed further, new flowers began to ever so gradually replace the apple flowers of temptation. There were now yellow tulips and hand-flowers scattered here and there amongst the plant brambles.
Kibum had looked up the meanings of the new flowers, and used them to worry constantly about if Taemin was okay, which was very annoying indeed. True, yellow tulips had used to mean ‘hopeless love’, but now it meant things like ‘sunshine’, which was a very accurate descriptor of Jinki’s wonderful everything. And also true, hand-flowers meant ‘warning’, but that could just mean that Taemin had to be very careful not to fuck anything up, or else lose the boyfriend he adored so much.
And he was now finding that he had to be very careful indeed, because he had come to feel as if things were spinning rapidly out of his control, and that there was no real way to make them work again.
The thing was, Jinki liked sex. He liked very intense sex. And he liked having it all the fucking time.
Taemin tried not to be annoyed by this. Really, he did. Jinki was very good at having sex, and Taemin wouldn’t have minded doing the do a couple times a month, maybe; he might even have found that enjoyable. But Jinki wanted it several times a week at least, wanted to kiss and nuzzle Taemin whenever he could, wanted oral sex, penetrative sex, shower sex, morning sex, drunken sex, celebratory sex… every type of fucking there was.
It was incredibly irritating, especially since there were so many more interesting things to do than just fuck all the time. Taemin loved talking to Jinki, watching movies with him, going on dates, comfortably doing homework together, and just generally hanging out. He liked waking up in the morning cuddled together in bed, liked lazy kisses traded over a bowl of take-out while they watched and laughed at some shit movie, liked the way Jinki’s eyes lit up with affection whenever Taemin went on his long-winded rants about botany in general, and his favorite plants in particular.
Or, well, he had liked those things. Now, he woke up in the morning dreading the moment simple cuddling would turn into Jinki nuzzling hopefully at the nape of his neck, morning wood pressing against Taemin’s ass, or how chaste kisses inevitably turned into annoying all-out make-out sessions complete with slippery amounts of tongue, or that whenever Jinki’s affectionate feelings reached a certain level, he’d pull Taemin onto his lap and cuddle him and nibble playfully at his neck, actions which always turned sexual somehow.
Taemin did his best to try and stifle his annoyance at all of this. It wasn’t right of him to be annoyed; it wasn’t like his boyfriend was asking anything too unreasonable of him, was it? Besides, Jinki always respected his wishes whenever Taemin did refuse, out of some invented i’m too tired or i’m too busy or other false excuse.
Except he found himself using these excuses more and more frequently as he became increasingly fed up with the sheer amount of very boring sex he really did not want to be having. And yet, if he wanted to keep dating the man he adored so much, there seemed no other choice but to have sex all the fucking time, no matter how irritatingly tedious it was.
After all, he knew very well that saying he never wanted sex again would no doubt lead to an actual break-up - and he cared too much about Jinki to be okay with losing him.
~
Kibum had become increasingly worried about Taemin as the semester dragged on, and not only because of that damn plant, which had lost all its old flowers entirely, and was now sprouting nothing but yellow carnations, fish geranium and china pink flowers, which meant things like disappointment, rejection and aversion.
It was the aversion which worried Kibum most, especially considering how downcast and twitchy Taemin had been recently. It made Kibum want to corner that fucking TA and shout at him until he started being a decent boyfriend, but then, he knew that Taemin would never forgive him if he did that. Despite whatever was going wrong between them, Taemin still clearly harbored a deep affection for Jinki.
Worse even than his unhappy moods was the fact that Taemin wouldn’t tell Kibum what was wrong, insisting that all was still perfectly fine, and thus preventing Kibum from having any idea about how to make things better. This was perhaps the most frustrating thing of all; Kibum couldn’t stand seeing Taemin upset, and yet now he was helpless to solve his problems and make everything alright again.
And so, despite knowing that Taemin hated it when he nagged at him, Kibum couldn’t keep from badgering him about his relationship woes.
“Seriously, just leave it,” said Taemin irritably one night as they did homework together, with occasional breaks for important snack consumption. “It’s fine. Besides, it’s not as if you know how to fix relationships, anyway, given how few you’ve been in.”
“Hey,” said Kibum indignantly. He flicked a pen cap at Taemin’s face and frowned when Taemin didn’t react. “I’ve been in more than you, asshole.”
“Yeah, if you count that chick from middle school,” said Taemin, and did yelp this time when Kibum flung the pen itself at him. “Oy!”
“It’s not my fault if I have problems finding a suitable date,” Kibum said loftily. “I have very high standards, you know. They have to buy me things, and like my dogs, and buy my dogs things, and appreciate fashion, and look impeccably beautiful, and - ”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it; you’re super high maintenance, hyung.”
“Not just high maintenance.” Kibum craned his aching neck from side to side, stretching it out. “Don’t forget I’m ace too. And unlike you, I can’t stand the idea of having sex. Like, ever. It’s so gross, like why would anyone want to unnecessarily inflict their genitalia on each other - and it is so fucking hard to find someone who’s okay with never doing that - ”
“I know, okay? You don’t have to lecture me about it!”
Kibum paused mid-rant, surprised by Taemin’s sharp reaction to this casual complaint. Taemin flushed and focused harder on his homework, shoulders tense, and expression taut and unhappy.
“Taemin,” Kibum said slowly, an idea dawning in his mind. “Is that why you and Jinki are having problems? I know you’ve never been fond of sex much either, is he making you - ”
“He’s not making me do anything I don’t want to do. Drop it, okay? I don’t want to talk about this.”
He said this so furiously, that Kibum, for once, did indeed close his mouth and not press on with his usual inquisition. But one look at the yellow and pink-flowered plant in the far corner only made his worries deepen more.
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