SHINee Duets 2015: heteroshinee & unbirthdaydance (Part One)
Title: Lingua Flora
Authors: unbirthdaydance & heteroshinee
Pairing: Taemin/Key (with Taemin/Kai, Taemin/Minho, Taemin/Onew, Taemin/Jonghyun)
Rating: R
Warnings: None.
It had been a bit of a running joke, through his whole life, that Taemin was so forgetful that he wouldn’t be able to look after anything less bothersome than a cactus, something that required more than the basic semi-annual watering session. So whilst his friends had puppies growing up, bounding over their feet and learning silly tricks, Taemin only expanded and expanded his collection of cacti until they were hazardously teetering on the edges of most of his shelves. By the time Taemin was fourteen, Kibum, his childhood best friend, had refused to come into his room after the time he was accidentally poked by one of them during a particularly erratic dance party. If anyone were to ask Kibum his side of the story the wording would most likely include a dramatic rendition reminiscent of something staged on Broadway, and most likely the phrase ‘I was impaled.’ Taemin had, by that age, developed a rather excessive and worrying love of botany (excessive in Kibum’s opinion and worrying in his parents’ (was a boy of age fourteen supposed to be so interested in something as humdrum as plants?)) Nevertheless, as Taemin’s best friend, Kibum tried his hardest to be supportive, despite the fact he was 90% sure that Taemin wasn’t quite right in the head.
When it had just been cacti, Kibum had understood it far easier than when the plants seemed to take new forms, when Taemin started spouting off nonsense about pruning and petals and soil preparation and various other things that Kibum cared very little about. He made the mistake of saying ‘oh that’s a pretty plant, is it new?’ only twice, quickly learning that if he wanted to leave with his brain still in the confines of his skull and not melted out of his own ears from pure boredom, it was better to stay quiet about what he liked to call Taemin’s Plant Fetish (the capitalisation was necessary). Anyway, the cacti had been easier to handle because at least Kibum could understand the aesthetics behind them, cacti were cool, in that new-fangled hipster child kind of way that Taemin kind of resonated with. Hibiscus plants though? What the fuck even was that? It sounded like something a grandfather would cultivate.
~
Kibum got his first part-time job serving frozen yoghurt the same summer of Taemin’s fifteenth birthday. Since he was only seventeen at the time, the money they paid him was barely legal and he spent most of it paying for buses to and from the goddamned shop, but a job was a job so he took what he could get. It did mean, for the first time in his life, that he could pay for Taemin’s present on his own, which was a Big Deal as far as Kibum was concerned. It was something he spent a long time thinking over, scribbling lists of gift ideas on the back of napkins during quieter hours in the day (which his boss lamented - “those napkins ain’t cheap kiddo! Get your own fuckin’ napkins if you wanna write love letters on them!”). There was a lot that Taemin was into, but Kibum wanted it to be perfect.
He went with the general theme of ‘plants.’ It was a broad topic, he was aware.
There was a bookstore across the road to the froyo shop so he nipped over during his lunch break, an envelope of his wages stuffed into his hoodie pocket. The store was stuffy, damp smelling in fact, and there was a man sat by the till so old that Kibum feared he might be doing something much more worrying than just sleeping. What are you even meant to do if you find someone dead? The thought flashed through his mind as the man let out a loud snore, and he rolled his eyes as the man was awoken by his own snort, back straightening as he sat up, ramrod straight.
The man, it turned out, had been a keen gardener in his youth (“Before my ol’ back gave out,” he had croaked, “they used to call me Mr Greenfingers.” Kibum had laughed mostly out of politeness because the man was standing incredibly close and was wearing very overpowering cologne that made him want to gag somewhat, but it was fine because he was old and you forgive old people for their misdeeds.) He pointed to a leather bound book high on a bookcase in the back corner of the shop, and Kibum reached up on his tiptoes to reach it, severely misjudging its weight and almost dropping it on his head. Brushing a little dust from it’s cover, Kibum grinned. It was perfect, he noted as he flicked through it, a complete encyclopaedia of the most common garden plants. Taemin would love it.
He had given it to Taemin and hadn’t been able to get a word out of him for six hours straight afterwards, constantly getting shushed in favour of a particularly interesting plant Taemin had found in the book.
~
A year later, by the time it was Taemin’s sixteenth birthday, Kibum had already moved away to university. He really could have found the time to take the short train trip home for Taemin’s special day, but Taemin had insisted that he stay and settle in more. “You’re far less likely to settle in if you keep coming home,” he preached when Kibum had phoned him weeks before his departure, suggesting he come home, “I read it online.” Kibum didn’t even try to argue that at least 90% of the content of the internet was probably complete bullshit. Instead, Kibum had insisted, they would have an early birthday, just the two of them.
Taemin’s birthday present had been expensive but that didn’t matter too much to Kibum. The woman in the store was old, greying, but surprisingly sprightly for her age. She showed Kibum around her garden centre with the same gusto he recognised from Taemin, from the times he’d bravely asked Taemin to tell him about his plants, and had left considerably more informed several hours later. But Kibum knew nothing about plants, nothing, and so when she suggested a plant at the back, one she said flowered so magnificently it was “almost like magic”, well he had to buy it. Kibum had been brought up on Disney and knew not to underestimate magic, even if it were in the form of a plant. It did just look like a bush to him, but he figured she was the expert and not him.
As he put the plant in the back of his rusted old car, he frowned. Really, it just looked like a bush. It didn’t even have a label on it, and Kibum was rather sure, halfway through his drive to Taemin’s house, that he had been completely conned. Although, he consoled himself, Aladdin’s lamp could have just been a gravy boat, but it hadn’t been. Silver linings, he mentally chastised himself, focus on the silver linings.
Taemin reacted in the way that Kibum had become very well accustomed to. Ever since Kibum had bought him the book on botany the year before, he had gone out of his way to know exactly what every plant he came across was. They could just be walking around town and he would suddenly whip his phone out, take pictures of a bush or flower from all angles imaginable, and then continue walking as if nothing had happened. Though it did occur on occasion that Taemin would lose his phone and force Kibum to take the pictures for him, resulting in Kibum’s photo album being 70% floral. As soon as Kibum shuffled his way into the house, toeing in shoes off at the door, Taemin was trying to peer at the present Kibum had brought. Kibum had arranged some sort of vaguely decorative cloak made out of the only tissue paper he could find on sale at the garden centre. It was translucent so didn’t really leave much up to the imagination, but at least Taemin couldn’t see the plant fully at first glance.
He managed to fight his way through the house, despite Taemin wanting to open the present at every doorway, but the reveal was far less exciting than Kibum had anticipated. Once Taemin had ripped the tissue paper off, he looked confused.
“I’ve never seen this before,” he commented, and frowned, “wait.” There were heavy footsteps as he stomped upstairs (Taemin had never cared much for decorum) then ran back down again, his hefty leather botany encyclopaedia in tow. Kibum, realising he had no chance in competing with this plant for attention, wandered off into the kitchen to find some food. Taemin’s family always had junk food in the house, excessive amounts of junk food, so he used it to his advantage every time he visited (i.e. nearly every day, it was a surprise he wasn’t overweight at this point). By the time he had amassed a small mountain of food in the crook of his elbow, Taemin looked equally as perplexed as he had been before.
“I don’t get it,” he frowned, flicking through a few pages and then back again, “I can’t find it anywhere.”
“There’s probably a lot of plants that aren’t in that book,” Kibum soothed, patting Taemin’s back and passing him a KitKat as he sat beside him at the table, the plant in front of them. They stared at it in silence.
“True,” Taemin said, “maybe I should wait for it to bloom.”
~
It didn’t bloom for a long time. Kibum left for university, settling in a new town with new friends, and Taemin almost felt left behind. It wasn’t that Kibum wasn’t making the effort anymore; it was just that for the first time in his life he felt the age gap, those two years were a big deal when your best friend was over an hour away. He knew he was being silly, and he knew Kibum missed him just as much as he did Kibum, if the bi-weekly phone calls were anything to go off of, but he missed him a lot.
One thing that did come out of Kibum’s moving away was Taemin’s acquisition of a new friendship group, most of whom he struggled with the names of. He found himself talking to Jongin more, reconnecting for the first time in years. He had missed him, he missed the silly ballet lessons they had shared when they had been young, how much he had loved to dance, loved the feeling that it left in his muscles, that dull ache that felt so right. Jongin, it turned out, had continued to dance, and was rather good at it. He’d somewhat specialised in ballet but from what Taemin had noticed, from hours hanging out at Jongin’s dance studio, he was capable in most fields. He had only really started visiting the studio a month or so after Kibum had left for university. With the elder boy gone Taemin found himself with a lot more time on his hands, he hadn’t even considered it at the time but Kibum was a massive part of his life, and had been for a very long time. He was, in actuality, probably Taemin’s only friend.
His parents had lamented that, worrying that maybe something was wrong with him socially, but in retrospect Taemin was fairly certain it was just because he and Kibum clicked, he hadn’t needed anyone else to take up his time, to hang out with. It was Kibum and a bunch of casual acquaintances, one of which had been Jongin. Now, with Kibum gone and an awful lot more time on his hands, he turned his eye to those acquaintances that he’d never really fully befriended, and he was somewhat glad of the opportunity. Of course he missed Kibum, but there was something nice about having a bigger group of friends, friends who had more friends, this never-ending web of social connections that Taemin hadn’t had when Kibum had the monopoly on him. He wasn’t bitter about it, in fact he was rather glad that Kibum had been there for him, he hadn’t had to cope with turbulent friendships through his younger teenage years, Kibum had always been an anchor, and he always would be. That’s what best friends were for. Still, he cherished his new group of friends, they were cool and interesting with wide ranging hobbies, and as he watched more and more pictures appear on Facebook, Kibum hanging out with new people, he realised that what they were doing was growing up.
Jongin had offered to teach Taemin to dance again fairly early on in their rekindled friendship, but Taemin had refused. He didn’t want Jongin to feel like he was only befriending him for that, and had said as such, but Jongin had just called him silly and had continued to offer until Taemin finally agreed. Jongin was tall now, much taller than Taemin, and he seemed to almost dwarf him as he stood behind him at the ballet bar, correcting his posture. Taemin blushed every time his hands would brush against his skin, and he would go home and laugh at himself for being so silly.
Jongin was a good teacher, correcting Taemin’s posture silently and patiently. It had been a long time since Taemin had danced but his body remembered the positions, and it came flooding back to him. So did the feelings, that overwhelming sense of dance being right, a way to express himself in a form that language could never really accomplish. He had really missed it, and it felt like his muscles had too - they ached in places he had forgotten existed, this dull all encompassing ache that he cherished rather than embittered. Dancing made him feel free, made him happy and weightless, but Jongin made him even more so.
It wasn’t his first crush, he’d had a fair few of them, and he knew he was more persuaded towards guys than girls, but it was still something he was working through. He’d kissed both genders, and admittedly they both kind of felt the same, but there was something about guys he couldn’t quite put his finger on. That had been one thing he hadn’t really had the opportunity to talk to Kibum about, one thing he may have benefitted from having a bigger friendship group for. Kibum was asexual, completely so, which Taemin didn’t particularly understand. Kibum had said, in layman’s terms, that it just meant that he wasn’t sexually attracted to anyone; he was just romantically attracted to people. He had said it with this sparkle in his eyes as he looked at Taemin, but Taemin hadn’t noticed. Taemin really couldn’t see the difference but he trusted that Kibum knew what he was talking about.
Still, there was something about the way that Jongin’s hands would linger on Taemin’s hips that made Taemin suspect that his blushing and crushing wasn’t one-sided and perhaps, perhaps, Jongin was as interested in him as he was in Jongin. Perhaps.
He let it linger, not really sure what to do because although he’d had crushes before he’d never really acted on them in the same way that acting on it this time would demand. Jongin was a friend, and that’s what scared him. Even though he was fairly certain that Jongin was at least somewhat interested, they were friends, probably best friends now, and Taemin really didn’t want to ruin it. Besides, he was fairly certain that Jongin was dating this guy from the local university. He spoke about him a lot, about how he sang beautifully. Taemin wished he could sing beautifully.
Jongin’s university friend was called Kyungsoo, and Taemin actually liked him a lot. He was snarky, blunt, perpetually angry in a withering kind of way that reminded Taemin of Grumpy Cat. He did have a beautiful voice, Taemin soon learnt. Jongin had persuaded Taemin that it would be a good idea for them to start hanging out with Kyungsoo and his university friends. They were all a lot cooler than Taemin would ever be, but he didn’t know whether that was just because they were at university or whether they were actually really cool. He supposed it didn’t matter too much.
Kyungsoo had invited the two of them to one of his shows one night, in a café-bar near the university dorms. Taemin got the all clear from his parents and met Jongin there, not after a rather lengthy decision process regarding what he should wear. He had phoned Kibum in a complete state of panic, and since Kibum was uncomfortably familiar with Taemin’s entire wardrobe, he basically chose for him. It had been the first time that Kibum had taken any notice of Jongin and Taemin’s budding relationship, since he usually shut off during most of their talks about him. Taemin had learnt not to bring Jongin up around Kibum, fairly certain that Kibum’s aversion to hearing about Taemin’s relationships was somehow connected to his asexuality. It definitely wasn’t.
He spent most of the night squished between Chen and Baekhyun, two of Jongin’s older and louder friends. As someone that went into his little tortoise shell in social situations, it wasn’t ideal, but they kept the conversation lively and brought him drinks when he got scared that his fake ID wouldn’t work at the bar.
Kyungsoo sang a few songs that Taemin knew, but most of them were ballads, which weren’t really his music taste, but he could appreciate his voice and the lazy strumming of their friend Chanyeol beside him. Through the night Jongin would send him these looks, like he was making sure that Taemin was still having a good time, and the others would roll their eyes until finally giving in and moving so that the two could sit together, far closer than Taemin had anticipated. Jongin’s arm was around his shoulders and they were breathing the same air and there was this tension, this magic in the air.
Jongin had nice lips, Taemin noted absentmindedly. Very nice lips. And they tasted nice too. Oh. That was a thing they were doing. Okay, he could get on board with that.
~
Jongin had managed to take over Kibum’s job at the frozen yoghurt place immediately after Kibum had left. They hadn’t even bothered to put up an advertisement, just asking Kibum to find someone to replace him. Taemin was too lazy for a part-time job, he wasn’t a morning person and he didn’t do well with crowds, so working in a froyo shop, especially in the warmer months, wasn’t the best idea in the world. Still, Jongin loved it, he had even gone as far as mixing his own creations for the shop owner, making him an instant favourite.
Taemin spent a lot of his time hanging out at the froyo place. They had a diner-style bar that he would sit up, finishing his homework and watching silly YouTube videos whilst Jongin was busy, distracting him into kissing him over the counter when the line was less hectic. There was a kind of magic to the shop, a romance to it, the way Jongin’s mouth would curl upwards whenever he saw Taemin sneak in and take a seat, the way he would always, without a doubt, bring Taemin what he liked to call his Taemin Special. It wasn’t on the menu, and it was perfect and the most romantic thing Taemin could imagine (there was peanut butter involved, so of course it was romantic). The way to a man’s heart was always through his stomach - that, at least, held true for Taemin.
Even though they had been dating for a couple of months, Taemin was still rather surprised when Jongin asked him to the school dance. It was just something that he ever expected happening, so he had coughed and spluttered as he choked his answer out, which Jongin had found endearing.
“Yes,” he’d finally breathed out like a rush of wind and Jongin had immediately started planning.
That night the plant finally bloomed. It was sudden; Taemin attributed it to him having changed the position of the pot, moving it closer to the window to give it a bit more light, moving some of his more sun-wary plants further into the shadows of his room. Admittedly though, it was still very bizarre for it to bloom so suddenly, and so magnificently, simultaneously. He spent hours looking at it curiously. The blossoms didn’t match the leaves at all, and there was nothing he could find in his book about a plant hybrid like this. How bizarre.
Sprouting from the green foliage were thick, heavy blooms of lilac flowers, and their scent filled the entire room. Taemin smiled, running his finger across one of the petals. They seemed almost opalescent, like they glittered, the whole plant seemed magical. Weird.
He sent off a brief Facebook message to Kibum to inform him of the news and flopped out on his bed. Kibum never replied, but the little notification under it read ‘seen Thursday 12:07’. That, and the fact Kibum was avidly tweeting but still not replying despite clearly being online, made Taemin wonder what he’d done to hurt him.
The school dance had a theme that was, it turned out, Under the Sea. Taemin and Jongin bought matching ties, pearlescent aqua blue in colour, and that was pretty much as far as their theme went. Jongin briefly debated investing in some sea life themed cufflinks but had given up as soon as he saw the prices of them online.
He picked Taemin up in a limousine which, in all honesty, Taemin found excessive. He had pruned off two lilac blossoms and fashioned them into some sort of pin, but it hadn’t really worked and they both fell apart. Jongin appreciated the effort, slipping the stalk into his breast pocket and Taemin did the same. Lilac, for first love, there was a certain poetry to it.
Jongin’s friends were in the back, half of them high school students and the others university students forced to be their dates in some lame attempt of being the cool kids with the university student dates. They had booked in a 45 minute drive around the city beforehand, and Baekhyun had managed to sneak some champagne into the back. Kyungsoo was singing along to the songs and Chen and Baekhyun were competing with cruder versions, the lyrics substituted mostly for innuendo. The dance was as appalling as Taemin had expected it to be, awful music with awful drinks and awful food, but the buzz from the limousine champagne hadn’t quite worn off, and being with Jongin was worth it, he danced like a dream and Taemin had never felt as precious as when he was held in his arms.
“Wanna go outside?” Jongin shouted into his ear during a particularly obnoxious song. Most of the students were on the floor grinding on each other and it made Taemin somewhat uncomfortable so he’d slipped off to the side, under the pretense of getting another glass of really awful punch. “Get some fresh air?”
The porch was silent and empty, and the air was cold, so cold Taemin tugged his suit jacket closer to his body to try to combat it. Jongin seemed nervous, and Taemin waited for him to speak. Jongin was the kind of person that needed time to think of the wording in his head before he did anything, he needed to script a conversation before having it and Taemin understood that.
“I booked a hotel,” Jongin blurted out. They were over a yard away from each other and Taemin glanced over in shock, “for tonight, I mean. I booked a hotel for tonight … it’s okay if you don’t want to but-”
Taemin hadn’t even considered it. He thought to himself, then smiled.
“Sure.”
Sex, it turned out, really wasn’t what Taemin had been expecting at all. They had started kissing, and that was fine. Taemin was fine with kissing, it was all fine and dandy. Then Jongin’s hands had ventured south and Taemin had just felt uncomfortable. Like, was this a thing people enjoyed?
“You’re not ready yet, are you?” Jongin had asked. He had stopped, removed his hands from Taemin’s waistline, and was looking at him in this revoltingly caring way. Taemin was ready, he was just very underwhelmed. Maybe Jongin just sucked at the sex thing? Who was Taemin to know?
“Yes,” Taemin had insisted, “keep going.”
See, from what he’d heard, sex was meant to be different. It was meant to be exciting. To Taemin, however, it just felt like he was sort of being poked and prodded. Jongin was into it though, and admittedly it was nice to be close to him, to have that connection and that intimacy, but at the end of the day Jongin was at least 100 times more into it than Taemin felt. It really just felt like having someone getting really excited about shoving their finger in his earhole over and over again. He didn’t really get it. At home the flowers wilted.
“You didn’t come,” Jongin noted with distress, panting heavily afterwards.
“Er … leave it. It’s fine. Just … can we just watch a movie and cuddle or something.”
A look came across Jongin’s face and Taemin tensed.
“You’re asexual, aren’t you?” he commented and Taemin frowned.
“I don’t know,” Taemin frowned, “how is that a thing I should know?” Jongin just smiled and dropped a kiss to his forehead.
“You’ll figure it out. You know I’ll love you no matter what, right?” he murmured and Taemin smiled, “now let’s watch that film.”
~
Over the following month Taemin went through a lot of changes. He figured out his sexuality, spent hours and hours on internet sites trying to figure out exactly what shade of grey-ace he might be, before ignoring it all together and just sticking to asexual. He found communities, built friendships, learnt more about himself and his sexual orientation, and talked to Kibum more and more (Kibum was sick of most of their conversations starting with ‘so I met this guy who’s asexual and he said...’ - he wanted to talk to Taemin like they had before, before Jongin had happened, when they were best friends and not an hour away from each other, when he didn’t miss Taemin with every fibre of his being 24/7).
His acceptance of his sexuality, however, made him lose a lot of faith in his relationship. He loved Jongin, he was sure of that, but he was now more and more secure in the thought that that was just on a friendship level. Maybe it had been romantic when they had first started, but it most definitely wasn’t now. All they really did as a couple was exactly the same as what they had done when they were friends (i.e. mostly Fifa and Call of Duty, in their boxers with a pizza on the bed between them as Taemin complained about his withering plant, the lilac blossoms falling off steadily).
On one of those nights, Jongin paused the game rather suddenly. Taemin frowned, he was actually winning, how dare Jongin snatch it from him.
“We have to talk,” he announced, and Taemin murmured an ‘okay’ from around a particularly unattractive mouthful of pizza. “I …” he looked at Taemin, who was glancing at him innocently, and he was so scared of hurting him. “It’s not working … I think we should break up.” Taemin only chewed at his pizza slower, no record of acknowledgement on his face. “It’s not,” Jongin sighed and took Taemin’s greasy hands in his own, “it’s not your sexuality, I swear.” Taemin nodded, swallowing. “I just … I think we were better off as friends to be honest.”
“Oh God,” Taemin sighed out in relief, and Jongin looked surprised, “I’m so glad you said that! I … I’ve been thinking the exact same.”
“So no heartbreak?” Jongin asked, his fingers brushing against Taemin’s knuckles.
“Nah man, no heartbreak. Wanna play Fifa?”
“Only if I don’t have to let you win.”
~
When Taemin applied to university, it was a given that he applied for a major in botany at the same university as Kibum. He was fairly certain that he had got in mostly due to his extreme enthusiasm about plants, because it definitely wasn’t because of his grades (once he and Sehun had noticed that their German teacher couldn’t pronounce the word worksheet correctly, ninety percent of their lessons included them telling each other to ‘take a workshit,’ with very little work actually taking place.)
Annoyingly, however, Taemin found himself worrying more about his stupid fucking plant than he did about the breakup. Sure, it was amicable and he wasn’t expecting to be heartbroken, but really why was a plant giving him more aggro than a breakup? It had started to wilt even further, its lovely blossoms browning until Taemin had just given up and chopped them all off, leaving it to green up a little again. It didn’t look healthy, and it wasn’t blossoming. He sighed, maybe it was a seasonal plant.
Fuck, the thought hit him mid-read through a book on the language of flowers (it had been an impulse Amazon buy but was proving a lot more interesting than he had expected). Lilacs were for first love. They had bloomed as his relationship had started, and withered as it had. That couldn’t be a coincidence. He messaged Kibum, who promptly told him he was a fucking idiot and should sleep / not wake his friends up at 3am because he had ridiculous theories about a stupid plant. He was sure of it though. That plant was magical, he could feel it. Maybe he was going crazy, he considered briefly.
Kibum picked him up for his move to university, shoving all of his bags and a few plants of choice in the back of his rusty old car for the hour-long journey to his new home. He was staying in dorms rather close to Kibum, so the older boy knew the area rather well already, taking him out to meet people and get acquainted with the city whilst his trusty old plant stood watching over his room. Taemin had managed to salvage their relationship from the rather stagnant phase it had been going through when he was with Jongin (they didn’t address it, but Taemin suspected that Kibum just didn’t like Jongin), and they spent more and more time together. Kibum introduced him to his new friends, whom he had aptly name the 91 Line because Kibum was ridiculous like that (Taemin had to admit that it was somewhat endearing, his best friend did have this habit of being the most adorable person on Earth sometimes). Taemin liked them, for the most part, except one guy called Woohyun that always stood a little too close to Kibum for it to be platonic.
| Part Two >>