(no subject)
█ ✫ QUANTUM ··· ( oneshot )
█ pairing: Ontae
█ rating: G
█ genre: Fluff
█ summary:
There are times when Jinki has everything he wants and more; there are also times when he yearns for something he cannot describe, an abstract something to fill the void.
✫ ··· author's note:
This story is very, very loosely inspired by my favourite poem of all time. Any mention of onions can be blamed therein.
Some days are more difficult than others.
Stage lights overheat his insides faster than he can cool them down; their silent torment bleeds through his pores, soaking his t-shirt and beading against his neck. Iron pools in his marrow, making his legs heavy, but he moves them the same way he always does, to the same rhythm that plays dull and muted against his ears in his sleep. All the earplugs in the world can't keep the endless roar from his ears, so half the time he gives up on them, sacrificing his hearing in favour of pitch. He smiles too broadly, as is expected, even when the motion requires all the effort his body can offer - it will be sincere because, burnt-out or not, he is thankful for everything he has been given. When he drags himself off stage, peels off Onew and slips back into Jinki in the relative safety of their van, he reminds himself that he is living his dream, no matter how much of himself he loses in the change.
At night, when sleep should be easiest and he finds it elusive, he hums quietly to the darkness about older women and pretty girls, and all the adjectives he knows to describe them, always mindful of how it started.
Time is an enigma, constant despite the various speeds at which it passes, seemingly fast and slow and steady all in the same breath; it slips through the creases of his hands like sand, each second and minute and hour and day a granule too fickle to be counted. Instead, he measures the distance between past and present in lyrics, airports, and hairstyles, as their fans do.
In the mornings he makes a show of stretching and yawning, hoping it will seem as if he found rest and held it close for the evening. Coffee is the supporting actor, jolting his nerves into a parody of wakefulness - a temporary measure. It scalds the back of his throat, burns the surface of his tongue and leaves it raw and scratchy, reminding him that everything has a cost, no matter how small. He would be aware even without it.
He thinks in terms of wholes, not fractions; they are a team, or they are nothing. Each of them is a consideration to everything he does, for similar reasons. Being a leader is more than a title, and he is not content to simply wear it like a badge - it means nothing unless he earns it. Most of the time he feels that he is lacking, so he makes up for himself in small ways, most of them too small to be noticed. He doesn't mind; recognition isn't a prerequisite for the things he does.
On occasion when he lays in bed, picking unfamiliar silhouettes out of the technicolour static behind his eyelids, there is a distinctly concave feeling to the wall of his chest. It's as if there is a space, vacant and lorn, tucked deep in the crook of his heart. For the most part, this void is content to remain empty, and he doesn't offer it a second thought; but on nights where the sheets are too cold against his skin, the steady metronome of his heartbeat worms it's way inside, and the echo pleads vaguely for something he cannot identify.
With nothing to offer, his pulse becomes an itch in his veins. Now and again, the itch is so pervasive that he considers digging his nails through his skin, hoping he can shell himself as if his flesh were the brittle paper jacket of an onion, if only it would stop.
He doesn't. He can't risk the scars. It's a silly idea, anyhow.
··· ✫ ···
Some days are easier than others.
No matter how many layers they add to his skin backstage, he is always underneath, and he always shines through. The feeling he gets when he holds a microphone is indescribable; it is homey and familiar, daunting, exciting; at times it is new, and others it is a part of him. There is always a thrill he associates with the moment the song begins and the cameras roll, similar to the way the stomach migrates north at the descent of the first hill on a roller coaster. It's a mishmash of ups and downs and turns and screams, and once the ride is over he's left windswept with his heart in his throat, but all he can think of is doing it again and again until he's dizzy and voiceless.
The rearmost seat is reserved for himself, and Taemin. The youngest is the most malleable of them all, growing through his most difficult years in tandem with his career in the limelight. He has settled into his role seamlessly, gaining confidence and height simultaneously, and it shows; though they are all shining in one way or another, none of them glitter quite as spectacularly as Taemin does. Though some ignorant few would argue otherwise, nothing has been given to the makenae; he has struggled with his youth, managing to draw his own sound from the grips of his changing throat after constant, consistent practise on his own time, of his own accord.
Jinki remembers a distant rooftop, old discussions about the diaphragm and minor and major keys; the way Taemin's voice would crackle and squeak like a gramophone, and the evident frustration in his dispirited smile, offered as an apology for bringing discord to their harmony.
More often that not, their journey home in the back of the van is too long, and Taemin's head finds Jinki's shoulder. His lashes cast shadows on the swell of his cheeks, still round for his age - the curse of the eternal baby-face. The boy sighs in his sleep, as if each time he exhales he can breathe out his disappointments, his failures, and his limitations; so that when he wakes, he is sunshine and hope and another millimetre closer to the sky. Jinki would believe that very notion, if Taemin said it was so.
There are nights, when his skin crawls in time to the stopwatch in his veins, that Taemin slips hesitantly into his bed, asking softly if he is still awake even when he knows he is. They face one another under the duvet, pulling it up over their heads to muffle the sound of their whispered conversations. Taemin talks about the choreography that still eludes him, the possibility of studying dance at college, and still feeling shy around the fans that call his name with tears in their eyes; each word that tumbles so freely from his lips falls gently into the empty pocket near Jinki's heart, and when they smile and chuckle at each other beneath the covers the itch subsides, sated.
··· ✫ ···
It isn't long before Jinki feels like a thief. When words are no longer enough to quell the prickling beneath his skin he sneaks sidelong glances, secret and indulgent; when looking becomes insufficient Jinki steals touches, lingering longer than necessary when contact is made. He shelves each moment like a photograph tucked away in an album, then brings them out one by one to serves as an offering to the abyss. If Taemin notices the change he says nothing, makes no indication that anything is different. Jinki is thankful, though he is unsure if it is for his naivete, or his indulgence.
The space beside his heart is greedy. Though he already feels he is taking more than he can ask for, the itch becomes a slow burn, launching red-hot embers though his arteries. In an attempt to cool the fire in his blood Jinki tries to distance himself, but Taemin follows him, unaware of the peril. His control is a hair trigger, ready to snap at the slightest provocation, but he manages to keep himself steady despite the demand for more. He is uncertain of what it wants, exactly, but he has his suspicions in the way his pulse races and palms sweat - though he prays that he is wrong.
··· ✫ ···
Taemin is not the boy Jinki thinks he is. Though still apprehensive and prone to fits of meekness, their maknae is not so much a child as he once was. He has his own desires, his own goals, and a strong sense of himself. Taemin knows what he wants, even if Jinki is ambivalent.
In the darkness of their bedroom, Taemin listens intently for a specific sound. His ears pick up the first few bars of A-Yo, muffled but rich from the bed across the room. He creeps from his own, careful not to disturb Key in the bunk above him by jostling the frame, and crawls gently beneath the weight of Jinki's comforter. He whispers Jinki's name to his back; is rewarded when the blanket is pulled over his head, and their leader carefully rolls over to face him in greeting.
This time, Taemin doesn't offer words. He closes the space between them, offering the source directly as he brings their lips together, tentative but sincere. After a moment of shock, his efforts are rewarded by a hand at the small of his back pulling him closer, and the tender reciprocative press of Jinki's mouth.
They fall asleep around one another, Taemin's fingers curled in the fabric of Jinki's shirt. His head is tucked under the elder's chin, an arm draped possessively around his shoulders as he sighs softly into Jinki's neck. For once Jinki finds sleep easily, though it is not what he holds beside him that night. Finally comfortable in his own skin, he fills the hollow in his chest with more of Taemin than it can hold; he keeps the remainder of the boy close beneath the blankets as his eyes slide closed, and he drifts.
··· ✫ ···
Sometimes, the stress of it all seems overwhelming, threatening to crush him with the weight of it; other times, he is overwhelmed by reality, the simple fact that he is where he always wanted to be. No matter how life treats him Jinki always finds peace at the end of the day, cradling the boy he loves in his arms as he talks about trying a new move in the studio, the new shirt a fan sent him as a gift, and the possibility of going blond at the next salon visit.
Jinki knows Taemin will always be there; tucked safely in the crook his heart, sighing to the love song it plays against his ribs.
█ pairing: Ontae
█ rating: G
█ genre: Fluff
█ summary:
There are times when Jinki has everything he wants and more; there are also times when he yearns for something he cannot describe, an abstract something to fill the void.
✫ ··· author's note:
This story is very, very loosely inspired by my favourite poem of all time. Any mention of onions can be blamed therein.
Some days are more difficult than others.
Stage lights overheat his insides faster than he can cool them down; their silent torment bleeds through his pores, soaking his t-shirt and beading against his neck. Iron pools in his marrow, making his legs heavy, but he moves them the same way he always does, to the same rhythm that plays dull and muted against his ears in his sleep. All the earplugs in the world can't keep the endless roar from his ears, so half the time he gives up on them, sacrificing his hearing in favour of pitch. He smiles too broadly, as is expected, even when the motion requires all the effort his body can offer - it will be sincere because, burnt-out or not, he is thankful for everything he has been given. When he drags himself off stage, peels off Onew and slips back into Jinki in the relative safety of their van, he reminds himself that he is living his dream, no matter how much of himself he loses in the change.
At night, when sleep should be easiest and he finds it elusive, he hums quietly to the darkness about older women and pretty girls, and all the adjectives he knows to describe them, always mindful of how it started.
Time is an enigma, constant despite the various speeds at which it passes, seemingly fast and slow and steady all in the same breath; it slips through the creases of his hands like sand, each second and minute and hour and day a granule too fickle to be counted. Instead, he measures the distance between past and present in lyrics, airports, and hairstyles, as their fans do.
In the mornings he makes a show of stretching and yawning, hoping it will seem as if he found rest and held it close for the evening. Coffee is the supporting actor, jolting his nerves into a parody of wakefulness - a temporary measure. It scalds the back of his throat, burns the surface of his tongue and leaves it raw and scratchy, reminding him that everything has a cost, no matter how small. He would be aware even without it.
He thinks in terms of wholes, not fractions; they are a team, or they are nothing. Each of them is a consideration to everything he does, for similar reasons. Being a leader is more than a title, and he is not content to simply wear it like a badge - it means nothing unless he earns it. Most of the time he feels that he is lacking, so he makes up for himself in small ways, most of them too small to be noticed. He doesn't mind; recognition isn't a prerequisite for the things he does.
On occasion when he lays in bed, picking unfamiliar silhouettes out of the technicolour static behind his eyelids, there is a distinctly concave feeling to the wall of his chest. It's as if there is a space, vacant and lorn, tucked deep in the crook of his heart. For the most part, this void is content to remain empty, and he doesn't offer it a second thought; but on nights where the sheets are too cold against his skin, the steady metronome of his heartbeat worms it's way inside, and the echo pleads vaguely for something he cannot identify.
With nothing to offer, his pulse becomes an itch in his veins. Now and again, the itch is so pervasive that he considers digging his nails through his skin, hoping he can shell himself as if his flesh were the brittle paper jacket of an onion, if only it would stop.
He doesn't. He can't risk the scars. It's a silly idea, anyhow.
··· ✫ ···
Some days are easier than others.
No matter how many layers they add to his skin backstage, he is always underneath, and he always shines through. The feeling he gets when he holds a microphone is indescribable; it is homey and familiar, daunting, exciting; at times it is new, and others it is a part of him. There is always a thrill he associates with the moment the song begins and the cameras roll, similar to the way the stomach migrates north at the descent of the first hill on a roller coaster. It's a mishmash of ups and downs and turns and screams, and once the ride is over he's left windswept with his heart in his throat, but all he can think of is doing it again and again until he's dizzy and voiceless.
The rearmost seat is reserved for himself, and Taemin. The youngest is the most malleable of them all, growing through his most difficult years in tandem with his career in the limelight. He has settled into his role seamlessly, gaining confidence and height simultaneously, and it shows; though they are all shining in one way or another, none of them glitter quite as spectacularly as Taemin does. Though some ignorant few would argue otherwise, nothing has been given to the makenae; he has struggled with his youth, managing to draw his own sound from the grips of his changing throat after constant, consistent practise on his own time, of his own accord.
Jinki remembers a distant rooftop, old discussions about the diaphragm and minor and major keys; the way Taemin's voice would crackle and squeak like a gramophone, and the evident frustration in his dispirited smile, offered as an apology for bringing discord to their harmony.
More often that not, their journey home in the back of the van is too long, and Taemin's head finds Jinki's shoulder. His lashes cast shadows on the swell of his cheeks, still round for his age - the curse of the eternal baby-face. The boy sighs in his sleep, as if each time he exhales he can breathe out his disappointments, his failures, and his limitations; so that when he wakes, he is sunshine and hope and another millimetre closer to the sky. Jinki would believe that very notion, if Taemin said it was so.
There are nights, when his skin crawls in time to the stopwatch in his veins, that Taemin slips hesitantly into his bed, asking softly if he is still awake even when he knows he is. They face one another under the duvet, pulling it up over their heads to muffle the sound of their whispered conversations. Taemin talks about the choreography that still eludes him, the possibility of studying dance at college, and still feeling shy around the fans that call his name with tears in their eyes; each word that tumbles so freely from his lips falls gently into the empty pocket near Jinki's heart, and when they smile and chuckle at each other beneath the covers the itch subsides, sated.
··· ✫ ···
It isn't long before Jinki feels like a thief. When words are no longer enough to quell the prickling beneath his skin he sneaks sidelong glances, secret and indulgent; when looking becomes insufficient Jinki steals touches, lingering longer than necessary when contact is made. He shelves each moment like a photograph tucked away in an album, then brings them out one by one to serves as an offering to the abyss. If Taemin notices the change he says nothing, makes no indication that anything is different. Jinki is thankful, though he is unsure if it is for his naivete, or his indulgence.
The space beside his heart is greedy. Though he already feels he is taking more than he can ask for, the itch becomes a slow burn, launching red-hot embers though his arteries. In an attempt to cool the fire in his blood Jinki tries to distance himself, but Taemin follows him, unaware of the peril. His control is a hair trigger, ready to snap at the slightest provocation, but he manages to keep himself steady despite the demand for more. He is uncertain of what it wants, exactly, but he has his suspicions in the way his pulse races and palms sweat - though he prays that he is wrong.
··· ✫ ···
Taemin is not the boy Jinki thinks he is. Though still apprehensive and prone to fits of meekness, their maknae is not so much a child as he once was. He has his own desires, his own goals, and a strong sense of himself. Taemin knows what he wants, even if Jinki is ambivalent.
In the darkness of their bedroom, Taemin listens intently for a specific sound. His ears pick up the first few bars of A-Yo, muffled but rich from the bed across the room. He creeps from his own, careful not to disturb Key in the bunk above him by jostling the frame, and crawls gently beneath the weight of Jinki's comforter. He whispers Jinki's name to his back; is rewarded when the blanket is pulled over his head, and their leader carefully rolls over to face him in greeting.
This time, Taemin doesn't offer words. He closes the space between them, offering the source directly as he brings their lips together, tentative but sincere. After a moment of shock, his efforts are rewarded by a hand at the small of his back pulling him closer, and the tender reciprocative press of Jinki's mouth.
They fall asleep around one another, Taemin's fingers curled in the fabric of Jinki's shirt. His head is tucked under the elder's chin, an arm draped possessively around his shoulders as he sighs softly into Jinki's neck. For once Jinki finds sleep easily, though it is not what he holds beside him that night. Finally comfortable in his own skin, he fills the hollow in his chest with more of Taemin than it can hold; he keeps the remainder of the boy close beneath the blankets as his eyes slide closed, and he drifts.
··· ✫ ···
Sometimes, the stress of it all seems overwhelming, threatening to crush him with the weight of it; other times, he is overwhelmed by reality, the simple fact that he is where he always wanted to be. No matter how life treats him Jinki always finds peace at the end of the day, cradling the boy he loves in his arms as he talks about trying a new move in the studio, the new shirt a fan sent him as a gift, and the possibility of going blond at the next salon visit.
Jinki knows Taemin will always be there; tucked safely in the crook his heart, sighing to the love song it plays against his ribs.