Happy Ever After - Oneshot
Title: Happy Ever After
Pairing: TaeKai
Characters: Taemin, Onew, Jonghyun, Key, Kai, Suho
Summary: Taemin is having a difficult time
Genre: angst, romance, friendship
Rating: pg
Word count: 1.550
Taemin was barely conscious, slowly waking up.
The room was still black to him, though voices made it through to his mind.
Onew-hyung?
He sighed with relief, happy that he was at least home in the dorm.
His relief only lasted to the next moment, when he felt the taste of guilt and alcohol strangling him.
He wanted nothing more than suppress the cause, but just like his vision slowly returned to him, so did the memories of the night before.
“Taemin? Are you drunk?”
“Jong-hyung..”
He had been sobbing quietly then, making Jonghyun worry, and now the smell of shame hung in the air.
“Can you pick me up? Please..”
“What? Why? Taemin are you okay?” his voice was distressed, rightfully, anyone who listened to Taemin’s voice then would have been.
“Please.. Can you please pick me up? I’m at Apgujeong Station.”
The time left silent informed Taemin that Jonghyun was wondering what the fuck he was doing in Apgujeong; the distance between the station and the SM building made it inconvenient to take the subway anyway.
“Yeah okay, I’ll pick you up. Just stay where you are.”
Taemin remembered sitting down on the pavement, unable to stand up without getting nauseous. He also remembered Jonghyun getting out of a car and carrying him, and Kibum’s worried voice when he had to buckle his safety belt for him, because even something as small as that had been too difficult a task for him at the time.
He turned restlessly in his bed. He didn’t want to remember all of this. He knew there were even worse things buried down there, and it would only be a matter of time before he was able to remember them. He should get up, do something to distract his mind, but that would also mean having to face and apologize to, his hyungs. All of them. Even to Minho and Jinki for waking them up when he returned to the dorm, not just to Jonghyun for picking him up, or Kibum for comforting him - wait, what, I was being comforted?
Was I crying? I was crying!
Why?
No, no, no.
Not why. Don’t think about it.
Get up. Apologize to your hyungs, that’s easy, it doesn’t hurt.
Slowly, on unsteady feet, he got up. Deliberately he avoided the mirror, then went into the living room. He barely closed the door behind him when Kibum ran to him, hugging him close.
“My baby, my poor, poor baby Taemin…” his voice was soothing and spoken quietly, as if he would break under harder, louder words.
“I’m…”
“Okay?! Were you going to say okay?!”
A sudden lump in Taemin’s throat stopped him from denying it and instead he shook his head.
Kibum caressed his hair sweetly, before looking at him seriously; “What’s in your mind? What’s making you this sad?”
The words were pushed out with force, hurting his throat; “Kai.”
His voice was too quiet to hear and Kibum asked him once more; “what?”
“Kai,” only a bit louder this time, but loud enough for Kibum to hear.
“Oh, darling… I’m so sorry. We all knew how much you liked him.”
Taemin was unable to answer. His tears had welled up in his eyes and threatened to overflow at any moment.
He hurriedly bowed down 190 degrees; “I’m sorry for causing you all problems.”
The following days Taemin’s entire schedule had to be cancelled.
He refused getting out of bed, had no appetite and less energy.
The third day like this, their manager finally took him to see a psychologist.
The leather chairs were comfortable, and the woman in front of him nice-looking, with a constantly worried expression on her face which only made her even more like-able.
“So… Taemin-shi. What are you here to talk about?”
“A..” he took a deep breath, trying not to cry already. “A problem with sleeping, I guess.”
“With sleeping? I got the image from your manager that the problem was a breakup.”
“The breakup is my own problem. The sleeping is everyone’s problem. I wake up the other members at night.”
“Why would you do that?” she asked, with a wrinkle visible in her forehead.
“It’s not on purpose… I just cry.. in my sleep. I have nightmares, and when I wake up, I-” he had to take a break, reaching for the tissues on the table.
“Is that why you’re sleeping all day long? To get away from the pain?”
“Even so.. even so.. it doesn’t help at all, does it?! Even in my dreams I can feel him missing. I can feel the part of my soul that he took with him. If I can’t stop crying even in my sleep, then what am I supposed to do?!”
“Look, I know this all seems like a lot to handle right now, but it’s only a matter of ti-”
“No.” Taemin looked defiantly at her. “What do you know of love? It’s not a matter of time, it’s a matter of beating yourself up, until you stop crying and you’re able to pretend that you’re okay, even if your soul is bleeding. It’s a matter of learning to pretend. Nothing else.”
The psychologist had had a point though. The constant crying and sleepless nights lasted no more than a week, and after that he was able to return to work. In just 3-4 months he was able to smile honestly, get drunk without crying, pulling out his phone without the urge to text his ex-boyfriend, and even tell fans “I love you.”
Some things stuck though. Like NU’EST’s song Not Over You, which Taemin had tortured himself with by listening to it on repeat in the days after their breakup, which made him now associate it with heart pains and seemingly endless crying. The bare memory would bring tears to his eyes.
Some songs had the opposite effect though.
Like Wonder Girl’s Nobody, which he savored as a sweet memory of him and Jongin dancing and singing and laughing together, telling each other that they wanted nobody else. This song would still bring a smile to his lips, even if it was a slightly saddened one.
Even such a things as writing the ‘thank you’-section for their albums made him shed sudden tears, remembering how he had mentioned EXO for the Lucifer album, with all the joy it gave him to soon be able to support Jongin on stage.
One day Jonghyun decided to interfere (surely under command from Kibum, but still)
“Maybe you should talk to him, Taemin.. sometimes it helps.”
“I’ll just get hurt.” He replied, not lifting his eyes from the script in front of him.
“Come on, you brat. It’s not like you can hurt more than you are now! Listen to your hyung and go talk with him!”
“Jonghyun-hyung.” Taemin lifted his head to look straight at his hyung, eyes thundering with anger. “He told me, he would never see my face again.”
“So maybe you misunderstood him?”
“Why do adults always think they know so much about love,” Taemin cussed quietly under his breath. Though he knew, that Jonghyun had just suggested what he had been planning to do for himself all this time. He needed to see him.
“Kai?” His hands trembled as he opened the unanswered door.
He had imagined this scenario a million times, but now that he was here, he had no idea what to do or say. He wanted to just go back, but in the last moment was stopped by Jongin’s dark stare directly at him.
“What are you doing here?”
Jongin was stunning, as he had always been. Pouty lips, messy hair and elegantly dressed. Taemin’s heart made a jump, though he wasn’t forgetting how angrily they had separated.
“I’m.. I..”
Taemin had been walking around aimlessly at the SM building when he had heard a sound which made him smile without knowing exactly why.
He followed it behind a door and peered into a dancing-room occupied by other trainees, some of them friends, others strangers.
And there he was, the guy with the beautiful laugh which had sent him here.
He opened the door completely and went inside to face his peers; “annyong~”
He didn’t take his eyes of Jongin for even a second after that.
“You what?” Jongin asked, this time with a slightly nicer voice, a change that only Taemin could have heard.
“I still need you.”
It had been a rainy day and the two of them had been hiding under a shared umbrella all day, going around shopping as a date.
It had been before the hiding, before SHINee and EXO, before fame.
At the end of the day while standing in the rain, hidden by the darkness while waiting for the bus, Taemin leaned in close to Jongin, and kissed him ever so sweetly for the first time. Jongin had responded with something far lustier, taking both of their breaths away.
“Need me for what?” Jongin asked, voice shaking, standing like a deer frozen to the spot, waiting for a chance to flee.
Taemin cleared the distance between them, kissing Jongin the way he had always been kissed by him; with passion and lust and promises, butterflies in tummies and all.
“For this. For a happy ever after.”
a/n: this was supposed to have had an unhappy ending. But I'm not very good with those. Actually, I hate those. HAPPY ENDINGS FOREVER~~~ /RAINBOWS