SHINee Shorts 2015: airedis
Title: Wrapped In Bits of Gold
Author: airedis
Pairing: Minho/Jinki/Kibum (ot3)
Rating: PG
Warnings: crossdressing?
Word Count: 4,255
There was a box hidden in the back corner of Minho’s closet, buried under a carefully and deliberately messy pile of assorted jerseys, threadbare jeans, and sports magazines. It was hidden well from view and Minho was sure that no one else even knew the box existed at all. Which was good because the box contained his best kept and most frightening secret.
The secret wasn’t frightening in and of itself - it was the idea that other people would find out that was truly frightening to him. Because buried underneath the rubbish and denim were delicate, gauzy blouses and pleats upon pleats of soft, thin fabric.
There were weekends where Minho’s parents and brother were out of the house, away on business or busy with school or just gone on errands. On those rare, beautiful days, he would lower the blinds, curtains shut tightly to block out the outside world, and pull out the box. It was a very unassuming box, an old computer printer one that was covered in patches of tape and repeatedly marked in faded permanent marker.
Minho’s room, it said on all sides.
He’d had it for years and it had held just about everything imaginable in it at one time or another. But he’d switched it out almost a year ago and the contents hadn’t been changed since, only added to at an agonizingly slow snail’s pace.
Minho pulled the box out almost reverently and peeled back the top flaps. His eyes darted to the locked door, heart practically ringing in his ears. No one was home but him; his brother was studying abroad and his parents were out of town for the weekend. The door would stay locked. Still, Minho’s hands practically shook in an imitation of guilt.
He wasn’t a kid and he wasn’t doing anything wrong.
His fingers slipped against the smooth fabric, pushed past layers of clothing until he found the one he was looking for. With one last nervous, exhilarated glance at the door, Minho pulled out the dress. It was dark blue with long sleeves and a round white collar and Minho held it up in front of himself and stared in the mirror, eyes tracing down the smooth dips of it.
Minho took a deep breath, eyes burning as he delicately laid the dress down across the bed, and stripped off his shirt. His pants followed, and then his arms were slipping through the sleeves, the flowy fabric slipping over his head and down his back. It bounced around his knees, the hem brushing against his skin like a whisper. Minho turned and the dress flared as he spun.
His breath stuttered in his chest, caught unevenly on the way up his throat and fell out of his mouth in cracked pieces. He swiveled experimentally, hands out at his sides. He’d had other clothes before, but never any dresses; this was his first one.
Minho had seen it online and had been drawn to it in an instant, had bought it almost before he had even realized what he was doing. He’d stammered out some excuse about a team jersey as his mom handed him the unmarked box and he was sure it had been a little suspicious but she’d never brought it up again.
His eyes raked up and down his form in the mirror, wide and curious and excited. And just as quickly, the disappointment set in.
The dress fit him poorly, sleeves straining over his biceps and the front pulled taut over his chest. It seemed too short as the cinch of the waist sat too high and made it look like everything had been stretched out. The collar didn’t fall in the right spot, too tight, and the ends of his sleeves crept up his wrists.
It didn’t fit him, didn’t suit him at all. He looked terrible.
Minho yanked the dress up over his head, hearing some of the seams creak a little as they were stretched too far. It landed in a pathetic and crumpled heap on the floor across the room. Minho crumpled on the bed angrily, his hands flying up to tangle in his hair. He pulled, feeling tiny strands snap in his grip as he tried not to focus on the tears prickling hotly at the corners of his eyes.
All of the clothes that he had furtively gathered, all of the clothes, had been kept in the box. Minho only brought them out when he was sure that he could be completely alone because even a locked door didn’t mean that he was safe. Most of the time he just looked at them, just rubbed the fabric between his fingers and dreamed about wearing them. This was the first time he’d ever tried anything on instead of just holding it up in front of himself - and it had been a complete mistake.
It didn’t matter how much Minho liked the clothes because they didn’t look good on him and they never would. Frustrated, Minho’s fingers cut into a pillow and he hurled it across the room; it landed on the dress with a soft, unsatisfying fwump. He dropped his head between his knees and tried not to cry.
Still, Minho couldn’t keep himself away.
He’d reasoned that the only problem was that he’d gotten something so ill-fitting was because he’d never tried it on, never tried anything on before, so of course he was going to make a mistake and everything he’d picked out wouldn’t fit him like a glove. Before he could decide that it was a bad idea, Minho got in his car and drove across town to a department store tucked away in the far corner of the mall.
It was only thirty minutes before closing time, the parking lot was cleared out and the store was practically deserted, only stragglers lingering behind. Minho felt shifty, like he was sneaking around and doing something wrong just by walking through the store. It was unfamiliar, walking into the section cheerfully labeled “Women’s Apparel” and weaving through the racks of all the clothes he’d seen, he’d wanted, but could never have.
He’d already made up his mind: if anyone asked what he was doing, Minho would say that it was his cousin’s birthday soon and he’d forgotten to get her a present. It didn’t paint him in the best light, but it was better than having the clerks watch him with thinly veiled disgust as they whispered back and forth to each other.
Minho practically shivered as his fingers brushed over rows and rows of fabric. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d ever been in this section of the store, always with his friends or his brother on the opposite side of the store. He’d passed it before, of course, and Minho had chanced just a few longing glances in the direction of the clothes before shutting those thoughts away, the model son, friend, boy once again.
Boys didn’t wear those kinds of clothes but, oh, Minho wanted to.
Minho chanced a look up and locked eyes with the employee behind the counter. The boy gave a hesitant smile, cheeks bunching softly beneath his pleasant eyes. And oh god, this was even worse because a guy was bound to find the whole thing even weirder, bound to jump to conclusions; the correct conclusion, Minho’s mind hissed at him shamefully. He nodded back jerkily, trying to stay calm.
Minho spent a few minutes browsing through the racks, fingers inching towards the fabric only to pull away at the last moment. He’d have to touch them, of course, if he wanted to be able to estimate the actual size of the clothes - the whole reason he was even there in the first place - but the step seemed almost impossibly large to take.
He startled when a hand tapped him on the shoulder.
When Minho spun around he was faced with a boy, a different one than the expectantly helpful looking boy still settled behind the counter eyeing him with a gentle curiosity.
“Do you need help with anything?” the new boy asked, voice low and prodding. Minho felt like he was transparent.
He panicked.
“No, no, I’m just looking for something - for my cousin!” He could feel the heat burning his ears and he wanted to sink into the ground. “It’s her birthday soon. So I needed to find something for her.” His fingers dug into the poor blouse he’d picked up, clutching the soft fabric like a lifeline.
“A present. For my cousin,” he finished lamely.
To his credit, the new attendant seemed rather unfazed.
“What kind of thing did you have in mind?”
Minho froze, a wave of uncertainty spilling through him. This wasn’t a good idea. He couldn’t do this.
“Do you know what size?” The boy continued, anyway, completely unaware of Minho’s inner panic attack. “What style are you looking for?
If Minho hadn’t known any better, he would have thought the attendant was asking about him. But there was no way that he could know, Minho was too careful and this guy didn’t have any reason to believe that Minho wasn’t actually shopping for his cousin instead of trying to fill the burning ache building up in him as he scanned the women’s department.
“I’m…not really sure,” he admitted finally.
The boy directed him through the racks and shelves, pointing out where different styles were. Outfit after outfit flashed through Minho’s mind and he could feel the desire to go into the dressing room, to try on all of these different clothes, just to feel the way the fabric clung to his skin differently than everything else he owned. He wanted to see what it looked like.
When the boy finished giving Minho a run through of the area, Minho’s felt almost dizzy from the experience.
“If you have any questions, just give me a shout. My name’s Kibum,” the boy said, pointing at his nametag.
Minho thanked him and Kibum was off, making his way over to the counter where the other boy was politely pretending he hadn’t been watching them. Minho was convinced that he had to have been watching the whole time - who wouldn’t? Here was some tall, gangly, mess of a boy trying to sort his way through a section of women’s clothing. It was weird. The whole thing wasn’t normal. Minho’s hand curled into a fist loosely by his side. He wasn’t leaving without buying something or he’d regret it; he had to make this whole thing worth it.
It took him another ten minutes to find what he liked best. It was a cream colored baby doll blouse with long puffed sleeves and lace detail down the front. He’d subtly tried to hold the shirt up in front of him to gauge the size under the guise of examining it and he wasn’t sure if it would fit him properly but he figured he’d give it a try. Besides, he could always take it back, as disheartening as the notion was. (When the two behind the counter weren’t working, of course - he didn’t want them to see him bringing it back.)
“Did you find everything all right?” The boy-who-was-not-Kibum asked cheerfully as Minho placed the shirt on the counter.
“I think so,” Minho replied, taking out his wallet and looking at the boy’s nametag to avoid meeting his eyes. Jinki, it said.
“Thanks for all your help,” he said to Kibum, looking past Jinki to nod his head in appreciation.
“No problem.” Kibum’s eyes seemed to twinkle knowingly.
“That’s a nice shirt,” Jinki said, carefully folding it up and placing it in a bag.
“Thanks. I - hope my cousin likes it.” Minho fumbled over the words as he reached for the bag.
They wished him a nice night and Minho clutched the bag in his hand, the weight of it sitting warmly in his hand. Minho felt like Jinki and Kibum’s eyes followed him all the way out the door.
-
He went back a couple times in the next few weeks, always near closing, always on days when there wouldn’t be people slowly filtering out as he walked in, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, but never a Friday or Saturday. The weekends meant danger to him because no one would understand it. They’d see a tall, fit boy holding up a flowy dress and they’d come to all sorts of conclusions, but probably not the right one, that he was just a boy who loved these clothes and wanted to wear them because they were beautiful and why shouldn’t he?
(And he was sure they would try and tell him all the reasons and he’d face their scornful mocking and lose his resolve. His confidence was already shaky enough when he was terrified out of his mind but he didn’t expect anyone to really understand that.)
The two boys, Jinki and Kibum, were always there whenever Minho went. Sometimes it was just Jinki, kind faced and silent behind the register as Kibum bustled around somewhere else in the store. He always gave Minho a smile whenever Minho walked in and, strangely enough, it usually did the trick to calm down all of the nervous butterflies bursting from the cocoons in his stomach.
It was Kibum who visited him out amongst the racks whenever he was around. At first, Minho was suspicious and thought that Kibum had him all figured out. It turned out, however, that Kibum was just a really helpful guy and more often than not, he found things for Minho that Minho would have never even thought to pick up - and they worked.
He’d developed an easy sort of companionship with the other boy. Minho had gotten good at describing the type of thing he was looking for, halfway feigning ignorance about styles and fabrics, and Kibum was good at finding it for him.
“You’ve been dropping by a lot lately. You got a girlfriend?” Kibum asked idly, hands carefully sifting through hanger after hanger.
Minho froze up, breath caught in a painful knot in the middle of his throat and he thought he was going to suffocate for a moment, choke on his own fear, until he swallowed it down and dragged in a shaky, inaudible breath. He smiled.
“Yeah,” he lied, lied through his teeth and his smile, so casual and calm.
“You must spoil her rotten with how much you’re buying for her.”
Kibum locked eyes with him and Minho had the distinct, shooting feeling that Kibum was mocking him. But then Kibum smiled and Minho wondered why he’d ever thought that in the first place.
“I think it’s really sweet.”
“Ah.” Minho rubbed his neck, embarrassed. “Thanks.”
He was sure Kibum could see his cheeks turning red, even with his head dropped.
-
Minho got lax, got too comfortable around these two boys and as a result he’d gotten sloppy. He didn’t even notice how much he’d let his guard down until he was confronted with exactly the thing he was the most afraid of.
The customer service desk was empty, neither Kibum nor Jinki anywhere in sight. Seeing this as his chance, Minho grabbed a grey slouch dress that he’d had his eye on for the last few days, and a slim pair of black leggings for good measure. With another cautious glance around the department, Minho hurried into the dressing room.
The door locked with a click that rang out like a gunshot in Minho’s ears.
He let out a breath, set his shoulders, and undressed. The leggings were tight but Minho had thin legs and the fabric settled comfortably over his narrow hips. Minho picked up the dress and, with a nod of conviction, took a breath and slipped it over his head. He shimmed into it carefully, adjusting and pulling where he needed to, kept his back firmly to the mirror until it was finally time. He turned around.
There, he thought, that’s right.
And a satisfied wash of happiness slipped through his bloodstream, travelled to the tips of his fingers, tingling, vibrating, alive. He looked great, he finally found something that fit him perfectly and the effect was like a hurricane. It shook him to the core and Minho felt so comfortable in this outfit; it was the same kind of comfort that he had in all of the clothes stuffed into his drawers at home - but different, different because he felt just as comfortable in these clothes, but more powerful too. Like he could walk down the street and not just be another wall flower - he could walk down the street and he would look good and people would notice.
He wanted to take a couple photos on his phone, just to remember the feeling, to have a reminder of how good he felt when he finally found it. But - he couldn’t. Someone could find the pictures, could accidentally see them when he was being careless, could stumble upon them even in the most hidden folder on his computer. He was a coward. But even so, Minho had never felt better.
He was running on high, elated beyond belief and mood soaring way up in the clouds. That was, until he stepped out of the dressing room, dress draped incriminatingly over his arm, and ran headfirst into Jinki. The other boy blinked as Minho jerked back, trying to hide the dress behind his back in vain. Of course, the motion brought Jinki’s attention to it and his eyes flicked curiously back up to Minho’s face.
It didn’t matter anyway. He was a guy that had stepped out of the women’s dressing room. There was no way to hide that, no way to make it better. Jinki knew now and Minho felt like he was going to swallowed by the ground.
And just like that, the situation got worse. Kibum appeared from out of nowhere, stepping into Minho’s vision with an unreadable look on his face.
“What’s going on?”
In the end, there was nothing much to say; they brought Minho over to the back room and Kibum sat him down as Jinki locked up the store. He thought about bolting - he was fast enough to get away before either of them could catch him - but the humiliation kept his legs shaky and useless. When Jinki returned, the words started pouring out of Minho’s mouth, unbidden.
He stuttered out a half comprehensible excuse, voice low and embarrassed, until Jinki rested a gentle hand on his shoulder.
The dress and tights lay innocently over Minho’s lap, still clutched loosely in his grasp. He stared at them, unable to look either Jinki or Kibum in the face for fear of what he would find there. The fabric was warm and soft against his fingertips and he focused on that, brushed out the wrinkles and picked away invisible pieces of lint.
It was quiet for a long time, but Jinki’s hand never left his shoulder.
“How did it look?”
Minho’s head jerked up and he locked eyes with Jinki for an agonizing second before he buried his face back down against his chest, skin on fire.
His voice came out almost a squeak, like he was thirteen again and had lost control of his vocal cords.
“Good,” he managed.
He couldn’t see their faces, but he could hear the soft smile in Kibum’s voice when he said, “show us next time, maybe?”
Minho nodded and pretended he didn’t exist.
-
Not much changed after that, really.
Minho still visited the store, always near closing, and always when Kibum and Jinki were perched behind the registers. The first time he walked in, he’d had doubts; were they really okay with it? Were they just waiting for him to come back so they could make fun of him? Had they told anyone about him?
He had almost given the whole thing up altogether, too much humiliation and dread and shame flowing through him, sloshing around in his stomach like sludge. But there was still a tiny flame of hope flickering in his heart that said that Jinki and Kibum were good people and he could be himself around them. So he picked himself up the next Tuesday night and went back and was met with Kibum’s kind smile and Jinki’s enthusiastic wave.
Kibum still helped him pick out clothes and Jinki always commented on how nice they were whenever Minho felt brave enough to buy them. He hadn’t shown either of them, not yet, but he had been thinking about it.
“So…”
Kibum had been helping Minho sort through a new line of fall apparel for the last few minutes. They’d been mostly silent up until then but Minho could tell by the way the word was dragged out that it was going to be a question he wouldn’t want to answer. He thumbed through the racks in distraction.
“Are you a girl, then?”
“No,” he mumbled. “I’m a boy.”
Kibum turned towards him, just a little.
“So you just like wearing girl’s clothes?”
His ears burned. Minho managed to nod his head minutely.
“Oh. Okay.”
Kibum smiled at him and Minho’s heart nearly leapt right out of his mouth. He swallowed it back down and it joined the jittery, excited butterflies in his stomach.
-
It was a quiet night and Minho had opted to hang around the desk with Jinki. He sat upon the top of it, Jinki leaning back against it next to him, and he absently watched Kibum off in the distance. Minho flinched in surprise when Jinki’s hand came up to his head but he relaxed again in the next second, throwing Jinki an accepting smile as the other boy gently pulled a tangle out of Minho’s hair.
It was nice, sitting there with Jinki in the warm envelopment of the store. On the other side of the aisle, Kibum cursed softly as a display that he’d been working on fell over. Jinki chuckled and it prompted a small laugh out of Minho.
“Do you feel like growing out your hair?” Jinki asked as he twirled a lock between his fingers.
“Not really,” Minho answered, uncomfortable. “I like it this way.”
“Oh.” Jinki smiled, bright and blinding. “I like it too.”
Minho felt a rush of heat burn underneath his skin.
The two quickly became a staple of Minho’s life. It was routine to visit them at the store just to see them as much as it was to sneak home some new clothes. They didn’t really ever talk about it, not in any great detail, but Minho was fine with that. They seemed to understand anyway.
He still wanted to show them, though, just as they’d asked him to. He finally did one night; Kibum helped him pick out the outfit and Jinki offered his opinions even though Kibum kept saying “be quiet, you have no taste”.
(Kibum had great taste, it was obvious from the way he styled his hair, from the rings across his fingers and the sleek way he wore his uniform, all the way down to his expensive looking shoes. But, if Minho were being honest, sometimes the things that Jinki suggested fit Minho’s style more - a little more relaxed, a little more comfortable. He had a secretive smile lighting up his eyes as he traded fond, exasperated looks with the other boy.)
They all finally settled on a simple, thin denim button down shirt and a neutral high-waisted pleated skirt. Minho was more nervous than he’d ever been as he walked into the dressing room, knowing that it wouldn’t just be his little secret anymore, even though it hadn’t really been just his for quite some time. But the nerves bled into excitement as he smoothed his skirt down and looked in the mirror one last time before he stepped out of the dressing room.
He looked good. And he felt amazing.
Jinki was positively beaming as Minho stood in front of them, back straight and head held high. There was a mysterious smile resting on Kibum’s lips as he raked an appreciative glance up and down Minho’s form. And that did it for Minho. He broke into a wide smile, so genuine and overwhelmingly happy that a laugh bubbled past his lips and filled the room.
-
Minho walked down the aisle and finally cleared the pillar blocking his view of the registers. He was met with a quiet scene, intimate, of Kibum and Jinki talking softly, heads not exactly bowed toward each other but still leaned in close enough to make Minho feel out of place. They didn’t see him, not yet, and Minho watched, partly blocked by the pillar, as Jinki looked up and Kibum tucked a piece of Jinki’s hair behind his ear.
This wasn’t his place. He felt like he was intruding.
Then the feeling was shattered, thrown away completely, as Kibum turned his head and beckoned Minho over. Kibum invited Minho out to dinner with them as Jinki interjected innocent, playful pleas for Minho to accept. He did, bashful and thrilled, and waited patiently as the other two locked up, his head a mess of fluffy static.
Jinki reached him first, tucked his hand right into Minho’s without any preamble and met Minho’s wide eyes with a sly grin. Kibum came up right after, hanging off of Minho’s shoulder and leading them all out the back door. His place was with them, after all.
Author: airedis
Pairing: Minho/Jinki/Kibum (ot3)
Rating: PG
Warnings: crossdressing?
Word Count: 4,255
There was a box hidden in the back corner of Minho’s closet, buried under a carefully and deliberately messy pile of assorted jerseys, threadbare jeans, and sports magazines. It was hidden well from view and Minho was sure that no one else even knew the box existed at all. Which was good because the box contained his best kept and most frightening secret.
The secret wasn’t frightening in and of itself - it was the idea that other people would find out that was truly frightening to him. Because buried underneath the rubbish and denim were delicate, gauzy blouses and pleats upon pleats of soft, thin fabric.
There were weekends where Minho’s parents and brother were out of the house, away on business or busy with school or just gone on errands. On those rare, beautiful days, he would lower the blinds, curtains shut tightly to block out the outside world, and pull out the box. It was a very unassuming box, an old computer printer one that was covered in patches of tape and repeatedly marked in faded permanent marker.
Minho’s room, it said on all sides.
He’d had it for years and it had held just about everything imaginable in it at one time or another. But he’d switched it out almost a year ago and the contents hadn’t been changed since, only added to at an agonizingly slow snail’s pace.
Minho pulled the box out almost reverently and peeled back the top flaps. His eyes darted to the locked door, heart practically ringing in his ears. No one was home but him; his brother was studying abroad and his parents were out of town for the weekend. The door would stay locked. Still, Minho’s hands practically shook in an imitation of guilt.
He wasn’t a kid and he wasn’t doing anything wrong.
His fingers slipped against the smooth fabric, pushed past layers of clothing until he found the one he was looking for. With one last nervous, exhilarated glance at the door, Minho pulled out the dress. It was dark blue with long sleeves and a round white collar and Minho held it up in front of himself and stared in the mirror, eyes tracing down the smooth dips of it.
Minho took a deep breath, eyes burning as he delicately laid the dress down across the bed, and stripped off his shirt. His pants followed, and then his arms were slipping through the sleeves, the flowy fabric slipping over his head and down his back. It bounced around his knees, the hem brushing against his skin like a whisper. Minho turned and the dress flared as he spun.
His breath stuttered in his chest, caught unevenly on the way up his throat and fell out of his mouth in cracked pieces. He swiveled experimentally, hands out at his sides. He’d had other clothes before, but never any dresses; this was his first one.
Minho had seen it online and had been drawn to it in an instant, had bought it almost before he had even realized what he was doing. He’d stammered out some excuse about a team jersey as his mom handed him the unmarked box and he was sure it had been a little suspicious but she’d never brought it up again.
His eyes raked up and down his form in the mirror, wide and curious and excited. And just as quickly, the disappointment set in.
The dress fit him poorly, sleeves straining over his biceps and the front pulled taut over his chest. It seemed too short as the cinch of the waist sat too high and made it look like everything had been stretched out. The collar didn’t fall in the right spot, too tight, and the ends of his sleeves crept up his wrists.
It didn’t fit him, didn’t suit him at all. He looked terrible.
Minho yanked the dress up over his head, hearing some of the seams creak a little as they were stretched too far. It landed in a pathetic and crumpled heap on the floor across the room. Minho crumpled on the bed angrily, his hands flying up to tangle in his hair. He pulled, feeling tiny strands snap in his grip as he tried not to focus on the tears prickling hotly at the corners of his eyes.
All of the clothes that he had furtively gathered, all of the clothes, had been kept in the box. Minho only brought them out when he was sure that he could be completely alone because even a locked door didn’t mean that he was safe. Most of the time he just looked at them, just rubbed the fabric between his fingers and dreamed about wearing them. This was the first time he’d ever tried anything on instead of just holding it up in front of himself - and it had been a complete mistake.
It didn’t matter how much Minho liked the clothes because they didn’t look good on him and they never would. Frustrated, Minho’s fingers cut into a pillow and he hurled it across the room; it landed on the dress with a soft, unsatisfying fwump. He dropped his head between his knees and tried not to cry.
Still, Minho couldn’t keep himself away.
He’d reasoned that the only problem was that he’d gotten something so ill-fitting was because he’d never tried it on, never tried anything on before, so of course he was going to make a mistake and everything he’d picked out wouldn’t fit him like a glove. Before he could decide that it was a bad idea, Minho got in his car and drove across town to a department store tucked away in the far corner of the mall.
It was only thirty minutes before closing time, the parking lot was cleared out and the store was practically deserted, only stragglers lingering behind. Minho felt shifty, like he was sneaking around and doing something wrong just by walking through the store. It was unfamiliar, walking into the section cheerfully labeled “Women’s Apparel” and weaving through the racks of all the clothes he’d seen, he’d wanted, but could never have.
He’d already made up his mind: if anyone asked what he was doing, Minho would say that it was his cousin’s birthday soon and he’d forgotten to get her a present. It didn’t paint him in the best light, but it was better than having the clerks watch him with thinly veiled disgust as they whispered back and forth to each other.
Minho practically shivered as his fingers brushed over rows and rows of fabric. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d ever been in this section of the store, always with his friends or his brother on the opposite side of the store. He’d passed it before, of course, and Minho had chanced just a few longing glances in the direction of the clothes before shutting those thoughts away, the model son, friend, boy once again.
Boys didn’t wear those kinds of clothes but, oh, Minho wanted to.
Minho chanced a look up and locked eyes with the employee behind the counter. The boy gave a hesitant smile, cheeks bunching softly beneath his pleasant eyes. And oh god, this was even worse because a guy was bound to find the whole thing even weirder, bound to jump to conclusions; the correct conclusion, Minho’s mind hissed at him shamefully. He nodded back jerkily, trying to stay calm.
Minho spent a few minutes browsing through the racks, fingers inching towards the fabric only to pull away at the last moment. He’d have to touch them, of course, if he wanted to be able to estimate the actual size of the clothes - the whole reason he was even there in the first place - but the step seemed almost impossibly large to take.
He startled when a hand tapped him on the shoulder.
When Minho spun around he was faced with a boy, a different one than the expectantly helpful looking boy still settled behind the counter eyeing him with a gentle curiosity.
“Do you need help with anything?” the new boy asked, voice low and prodding. Minho felt like he was transparent.
He panicked.
“No, no, I’m just looking for something - for my cousin!” He could feel the heat burning his ears and he wanted to sink into the ground. “It’s her birthday soon. So I needed to find something for her.” His fingers dug into the poor blouse he’d picked up, clutching the soft fabric like a lifeline.
“A present. For my cousin,” he finished lamely.
To his credit, the new attendant seemed rather unfazed.
“What kind of thing did you have in mind?”
Minho froze, a wave of uncertainty spilling through him. This wasn’t a good idea. He couldn’t do this.
“Do you know what size?” The boy continued, anyway, completely unaware of Minho’s inner panic attack. “What style are you looking for?
If Minho hadn’t known any better, he would have thought the attendant was asking about him. But there was no way that he could know, Minho was too careful and this guy didn’t have any reason to believe that Minho wasn’t actually shopping for his cousin instead of trying to fill the burning ache building up in him as he scanned the women’s department.
“I’m…not really sure,” he admitted finally.
The boy directed him through the racks and shelves, pointing out where different styles were. Outfit after outfit flashed through Minho’s mind and he could feel the desire to go into the dressing room, to try on all of these different clothes, just to feel the way the fabric clung to his skin differently than everything else he owned. He wanted to see what it looked like.
When the boy finished giving Minho a run through of the area, Minho’s felt almost dizzy from the experience.
“If you have any questions, just give me a shout. My name’s Kibum,” the boy said, pointing at his nametag.
Minho thanked him and Kibum was off, making his way over to the counter where the other boy was politely pretending he hadn’t been watching them. Minho was convinced that he had to have been watching the whole time - who wouldn’t? Here was some tall, gangly, mess of a boy trying to sort his way through a section of women’s clothing. It was weird. The whole thing wasn’t normal. Minho’s hand curled into a fist loosely by his side. He wasn’t leaving without buying something or he’d regret it; he had to make this whole thing worth it.
It took him another ten minutes to find what he liked best. It was a cream colored baby doll blouse with long puffed sleeves and lace detail down the front. He’d subtly tried to hold the shirt up in front of him to gauge the size under the guise of examining it and he wasn’t sure if it would fit him properly but he figured he’d give it a try. Besides, he could always take it back, as disheartening as the notion was. (When the two behind the counter weren’t working, of course - he didn’t want them to see him bringing it back.)
“Did you find everything all right?” The boy-who-was-not-Kibum asked cheerfully as Minho placed the shirt on the counter.
“I think so,” Minho replied, taking out his wallet and looking at the boy’s nametag to avoid meeting his eyes. Jinki, it said.
“Thanks for all your help,” he said to Kibum, looking past Jinki to nod his head in appreciation.
“No problem.” Kibum’s eyes seemed to twinkle knowingly.
“That’s a nice shirt,” Jinki said, carefully folding it up and placing it in a bag.
“Thanks. I - hope my cousin likes it.” Minho fumbled over the words as he reached for the bag.
They wished him a nice night and Minho clutched the bag in his hand, the weight of it sitting warmly in his hand. Minho felt like Jinki and Kibum’s eyes followed him all the way out the door.
-
He went back a couple times in the next few weeks, always near closing, always on days when there wouldn’t be people slowly filtering out as he walked in, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, but never a Friday or Saturday. The weekends meant danger to him because no one would understand it. They’d see a tall, fit boy holding up a flowy dress and they’d come to all sorts of conclusions, but probably not the right one, that he was just a boy who loved these clothes and wanted to wear them because they were beautiful and why shouldn’t he?
(And he was sure they would try and tell him all the reasons and he’d face their scornful mocking and lose his resolve. His confidence was already shaky enough when he was terrified out of his mind but he didn’t expect anyone to really understand that.)
The two boys, Jinki and Kibum, were always there whenever Minho went. Sometimes it was just Jinki, kind faced and silent behind the register as Kibum bustled around somewhere else in the store. He always gave Minho a smile whenever Minho walked in and, strangely enough, it usually did the trick to calm down all of the nervous butterflies bursting from the cocoons in his stomach.
It was Kibum who visited him out amongst the racks whenever he was around. At first, Minho was suspicious and thought that Kibum had him all figured out. It turned out, however, that Kibum was just a really helpful guy and more often than not, he found things for Minho that Minho would have never even thought to pick up - and they worked.
He’d developed an easy sort of companionship with the other boy. Minho had gotten good at describing the type of thing he was looking for, halfway feigning ignorance about styles and fabrics, and Kibum was good at finding it for him.
“You’ve been dropping by a lot lately. You got a girlfriend?” Kibum asked idly, hands carefully sifting through hanger after hanger.
Minho froze up, breath caught in a painful knot in the middle of his throat and he thought he was going to suffocate for a moment, choke on his own fear, until he swallowed it down and dragged in a shaky, inaudible breath. He smiled.
“Yeah,” he lied, lied through his teeth and his smile, so casual and calm.
“You must spoil her rotten with how much you’re buying for her.”
Kibum locked eyes with him and Minho had the distinct, shooting feeling that Kibum was mocking him. But then Kibum smiled and Minho wondered why he’d ever thought that in the first place.
“I think it’s really sweet.”
“Ah.” Minho rubbed his neck, embarrassed. “Thanks.”
He was sure Kibum could see his cheeks turning red, even with his head dropped.
-
Minho got lax, got too comfortable around these two boys and as a result he’d gotten sloppy. He didn’t even notice how much he’d let his guard down until he was confronted with exactly the thing he was the most afraid of.
The customer service desk was empty, neither Kibum nor Jinki anywhere in sight. Seeing this as his chance, Minho grabbed a grey slouch dress that he’d had his eye on for the last few days, and a slim pair of black leggings for good measure. With another cautious glance around the department, Minho hurried into the dressing room.
The door locked with a click that rang out like a gunshot in Minho’s ears.
He let out a breath, set his shoulders, and undressed. The leggings were tight but Minho had thin legs and the fabric settled comfortably over his narrow hips. Minho picked up the dress and, with a nod of conviction, took a breath and slipped it over his head. He shimmed into it carefully, adjusting and pulling where he needed to, kept his back firmly to the mirror until it was finally time. He turned around.
There, he thought, that’s right.
And a satisfied wash of happiness slipped through his bloodstream, travelled to the tips of his fingers, tingling, vibrating, alive. He looked great, he finally found something that fit him perfectly and the effect was like a hurricane. It shook him to the core and Minho felt so comfortable in this outfit; it was the same kind of comfort that he had in all of the clothes stuffed into his drawers at home - but different, different because he felt just as comfortable in these clothes, but more powerful too. Like he could walk down the street and not just be another wall flower - he could walk down the street and he would look good and people would notice.
He wanted to take a couple photos on his phone, just to remember the feeling, to have a reminder of how good he felt when he finally found it. But - he couldn’t. Someone could find the pictures, could accidentally see them when he was being careless, could stumble upon them even in the most hidden folder on his computer. He was a coward. But even so, Minho had never felt better.
He was running on high, elated beyond belief and mood soaring way up in the clouds. That was, until he stepped out of the dressing room, dress draped incriminatingly over his arm, and ran headfirst into Jinki. The other boy blinked as Minho jerked back, trying to hide the dress behind his back in vain. Of course, the motion brought Jinki’s attention to it and his eyes flicked curiously back up to Minho’s face.
It didn’t matter anyway. He was a guy that had stepped out of the women’s dressing room. There was no way to hide that, no way to make it better. Jinki knew now and Minho felt like he was going to swallowed by the ground.
And just like that, the situation got worse. Kibum appeared from out of nowhere, stepping into Minho’s vision with an unreadable look on his face.
“What’s going on?”
In the end, there was nothing much to say; they brought Minho over to the back room and Kibum sat him down as Jinki locked up the store. He thought about bolting - he was fast enough to get away before either of them could catch him - but the humiliation kept his legs shaky and useless. When Jinki returned, the words started pouring out of Minho’s mouth, unbidden.
He stuttered out a half comprehensible excuse, voice low and embarrassed, until Jinki rested a gentle hand on his shoulder.
The dress and tights lay innocently over Minho’s lap, still clutched loosely in his grasp. He stared at them, unable to look either Jinki or Kibum in the face for fear of what he would find there. The fabric was warm and soft against his fingertips and he focused on that, brushed out the wrinkles and picked away invisible pieces of lint.
It was quiet for a long time, but Jinki’s hand never left his shoulder.
“How did it look?”
Minho’s head jerked up and he locked eyes with Jinki for an agonizing second before he buried his face back down against his chest, skin on fire.
His voice came out almost a squeak, like he was thirteen again and had lost control of his vocal cords.
“Good,” he managed.
He couldn’t see their faces, but he could hear the soft smile in Kibum’s voice when he said, “show us next time, maybe?”
Minho nodded and pretended he didn’t exist.
-
Not much changed after that, really.
Minho still visited the store, always near closing, and always when Kibum and Jinki were perched behind the registers. The first time he walked in, he’d had doubts; were they really okay with it? Were they just waiting for him to come back so they could make fun of him? Had they told anyone about him?
He had almost given the whole thing up altogether, too much humiliation and dread and shame flowing through him, sloshing around in his stomach like sludge. But there was still a tiny flame of hope flickering in his heart that said that Jinki and Kibum were good people and he could be himself around them. So he picked himself up the next Tuesday night and went back and was met with Kibum’s kind smile and Jinki’s enthusiastic wave.
Kibum still helped him pick out clothes and Jinki always commented on how nice they were whenever Minho felt brave enough to buy them. He hadn’t shown either of them, not yet, but he had been thinking about it.
“So…”
Kibum had been helping Minho sort through a new line of fall apparel for the last few minutes. They’d been mostly silent up until then but Minho could tell by the way the word was dragged out that it was going to be a question he wouldn’t want to answer. He thumbed through the racks in distraction.
“Are you a girl, then?”
“No,” he mumbled. “I’m a boy.”
Kibum turned towards him, just a little.
“So you just like wearing girl’s clothes?”
His ears burned. Minho managed to nod his head minutely.
“Oh. Okay.”
Kibum smiled at him and Minho’s heart nearly leapt right out of his mouth. He swallowed it back down and it joined the jittery, excited butterflies in his stomach.
-
It was a quiet night and Minho had opted to hang around the desk with Jinki. He sat upon the top of it, Jinki leaning back against it next to him, and he absently watched Kibum off in the distance. Minho flinched in surprise when Jinki’s hand came up to his head but he relaxed again in the next second, throwing Jinki an accepting smile as the other boy gently pulled a tangle out of Minho’s hair.
It was nice, sitting there with Jinki in the warm envelopment of the store. On the other side of the aisle, Kibum cursed softly as a display that he’d been working on fell over. Jinki chuckled and it prompted a small laugh out of Minho.
“Do you feel like growing out your hair?” Jinki asked as he twirled a lock between his fingers.
“Not really,” Minho answered, uncomfortable. “I like it this way.”
“Oh.” Jinki smiled, bright and blinding. “I like it too.”
Minho felt a rush of heat burn underneath his skin.
The two quickly became a staple of Minho’s life. It was routine to visit them at the store just to see them as much as it was to sneak home some new clothes. They didn’t really ever talk about it, not in any great detail, but Minho was fine with that. They seemed to understand anyway.
He still wanted to show them, though, just as they’d asked him to. He finally did one night; Kibum helped him pick out the outfit and Jinki offered his opinions even though Kibum kept saying “be quiet, you have no taste”.
(Kibum had great taste, it was obvious from the way he styled his hair, from the rings across his fingers and the sleek way he wore his uniform, all the way down to his expensive looking shoes. But, if Minho were being honest, sometimes the things that Jinki suggested fit Minho’s style more - a little more relaxed, a little more comfortable. He had a secretive smile lighting up his eyes as he traded fond, exasperated looks with the other boy.)
They all finally settled on a simple, thin denim button down shirt and a neutral high-waisted pleated skirt. Minho was more nervous than he’d ever been as he walked into the dressing room, knowing that it wouldn’t just be his little secret anymore, even though it hadn’t really been just his for quite some time. But the nerves bled into excitement as he smoothed his skirt down and looked in the mirror one last time before he stepped out of the dressing room.
He looked good. And he felt amazing.
Jinki was positively beaming as Minho stood in front of them, back straight and head held high. There was a mysterious smile resting on Kibum’s lips as he raked an appreciative glance up and down Minho’s form. And that did it for Minho. He broke into a wide smile, so genuine and overwhelmingly happy that a laugh bubbled past his lips and filled the room.
-
Minho walked down the aisle and finally cleared the pillar blocking his view of the registers. He was met with a quiet scene, intimate, of Kibum and Jinki talking softly, heads not exactly bowed toward each other but still leaned in close enough to make Minho feel out of place. They didn’t see him, not yet, and Minho watched, partly blocked by the pillar, as Jinki looked up and Kibum tucked a piece of Jinki’s hair behind his ear.
This wasn’t his place. He felt like he was intruding.
Then the feeling was shattered, thrown away completely, as Kibum turned his head and beckoned Minho over. Kibum invited Minho out to dinner with them as Jinki interjected innocent, playful pleas for Minho to accept. He did, bashful and thrilled, and waited patiently as the other two locked up, his head a mess of fluffy static.
Jinki reached him first, tucked his hand right into Minho’s without any preamble and met Minho’s wide eyes with a sly grin. Kibum came up right after, hanging off of Minho’s shoulder and leading them all out the back door. His place was with them, after all.