Call Me Oppa (13/?): wynnetimate

wynnetimate

Call Me Oppa (13/?)

Jan 06, 2012 06:34

C H A P T E R 1 3
Taemin was quiet when he slipped into calculus on Monday. He dropped his bookbag on the floor between his seat and Jinki's. Sat down to rummage for his book and pencil. As always, his homework was finished in ballpoint pen, the numbers written in neat, boxy numerals. Taemin ducked his head when Mr. Han called his name on the attendance, and squeaked out a quiet, "Neh."

"You okay?" Jinki whispered.

Taemin nodded. He'd covered the bruise around his eye with concealor, but the discolouration was hard to hide. The swelling gave him a congested, puffy look. Still, he managed a smile as Jinki squeezed his fingers under the desk.

"I'm okay," he whispered back. His smile wasn't entirely glassy, and Jinki took comfort in the fact that he wasn't forcing it, not completely, even after such a shitty weekend.

Mr. Han, on the other hand, had an awful weekend and was taking it out on his students. He started at the bell and dove right into the material; no smalltalk, no opportunity for questions. His lesson was relentless and confusing. Jinki let his eyes glaze over, absentmindedly watching Taemin's profile as he bent over his notebook to write. Taemin's hair was growing back, a little uneven; not quite long enough to tuck behind his ear. He had a dark bobby pin holding it back. A lock of hair had slipped out to brush against his cheek. He would push it behind his ear, only for it to fall again a second later.

At the end of the lesson, Taemin glanced over to Jinki's open notebook. "Do you need to borrow my notes? You barely wrote anything."

"You're pretty and distracting," Jinki teased. Taemin flushed and mumbled, whaaat. When no one was looking, Jinki let their hands brush as he slid his books into his bag. "Eat lunch with me today?"

Taemin pushed that strand of hair behind his ear again. If it weren't for the pants, he'd look like a flirty schoolgirl, smiling with his tongue pressed behind his teeth. He glanced both ways to make sure no one would hear before saying softly, "Not today, oppa. Kibum is going to help me with my audition piece during lunch."

"After school, then?" Jinki asked. "Want to come over? My mom's working late."

Taemin bit his lip as he considered. He shouldered his bookbag and gave a small smile, peeking up from under his fringe. A group of students were passing, so he didn't dare say it aloud, only moved his lips: "Okay, oppa."

At the door, before going separate directions, Jinki squeezed Taemin's wrist affectionately, slid his fingers under the cuff of his sleeve, and said with all the weight of an I think I love you, "See you later."

"Yah! Jinki-hyung! Hyung, wait up!"

Jinki stopped in the middle of the hall and waited for Minho to jog over. It was ten minutes into the lunch period, and even though the soccer team didn't practice on Mondays it wasn't unheard of for the coach to rally them by word-of-mouth for a last minute meeting when there was a game coming up. Minho must have come straight from gym class; he had his running shoes tied together and looped around the strap of his bookbag. His face was flushed.

"You're friends with Lee Taemin, right?" Minho asked. His tone wasn't accusatory, not implying anything, so Jinki nodded. "I just thought you should know, some of the guys on the team, uh..."

Jinki felt his heart drop into his gut. "What did they do?"

He couldn't help remembering his dream, Taemin unbuttoned and unsteady, stumbling out of the change room as the team cracked jokes about his skills. How far could that be from reality?

Minho looked uncomfortable with saying. He shifted from foot-to-foot, and then pointed towards the changerooms down the hall behind him. "Maybe you should go check."

Jinki felt his face go hot as he imagined the worst. Taemin had never been overtly bullied, at least not when Jinki was around to see it. He didn't have a lot of friends, but Key liked him and that kind of popular endorsement seemed to keep the worst of the teasing at bay. Or at least behind his back. And Taesun was on the team - they wouldn't dare do anything to the little brother of a teammate, would they?

Minho grunted as Jinki shouldered past. He didn't follow, but Jinki thought he caught a guilty look flashing across Minho's face before he turned to go.

The doors to the gymnasium were wide open, giving Jinki a clear view of the empty space. There was a stereo plugged in the corner, and a pair of balled-up socks; evidence that Kibum and Taemin had been there recently. The boys' changeroom was unlocked, and Jinki let himself in, following a pair of familiar voices past the showers and to the lockers. Key was standing with his back to Jinki, arms akimbo. He was slowly shaking his head as Taemin, sitting on one of the long benches in the middle of the room, up-ended his bookbag onto the bench.

"All over my homework," Taemin groaned. He grimaced as he pulled two pages apart, the paper crackling as it unstuck, and held on gingerly by the margins. "What do I do? I can't hand this in."

"You tell the teacher those assholes jizzed all over your bookbag," Key said.

Taemin just shook his head. "I'll- ugh. I'll have to write it out again. Or photocopy it."

Jinki cleared his throat. Key whipped around, the expression on his face something close to murderous. When he realized it was only Jinki, he visibly calmed, one hand over his heart. Taemin smiled weakly and said, "Hi, Jinki."

"What..." Jinki didn't even have words for the scene in front of him. "What the hell?"

"Your dickwad teammates decided it would be fun to jack off all over Taemin's stuff," Key explained. And then, turning to Taemin, "That's sexual harrassment, Taemin-ah. You need to talk to the principal. They can be charged for that."

Taemin opened another textbook and wrinkled his nose; several pages stuck to the inside cover. He set it down in disgust, and then wiped the palms of his hands on his trousers. "No, I don't want to make a scene about it. I just... can we pretend this didn't happen? Please?"

"There is semen on your homework," Key insisted.

"I see that," Taemin said, peevish. He nudged his notebooks to the floor and crossed his arms. "I really don't want to deal with this right now."

"Taemin..." Jinki sat down on the bench, and made to pull him into a hug, but Taemin pulled away.

"Don't touch. I need to wash my hands first."

"I'll wash mine after," Jinki argued. He pulled Taemin close until the younger boy gave in and relaxed against Jinki's chest. He let out a shaky sigh, and it was a long time before he took another breath in.

Key still looked furious, like he didn't want to let it go. But Jinki knew better than to press, and when Key opened his mouth to insist, Jinki shook his head sharply. He kissed Taemin's forehead and said, "Come on, Taemin-ah, we can use the photocopier in Coach Yongyeom's office."

As Jinki watched Taemin peel apart his calculus notes and lay them one-by-one on the photocopier, he finally put a name to the emotion boiling in the pit of his stomach: anger. It had been so long since Jinki had allowed himself to feel pissed that it sat in his throat like something he had to cough up, strange and unfamiliar. He didn't know what to do with it.

Taemin was quiet. He was wearing a pair of disposable rubber gloves and a blank expression. As he took each book from his bag, it became clear that the soccer team hadn't just jerked off into it; they'd pulled out each book and flipped through the pages, smearing the mess across every handout and handwritten note. Each time he pulled apart a pair of stuck-together pages, Taemin wrinkled his nose in disgust, and then calmly flattened them onto the machine. Once he had a warm new print, he chucked the stained note into the wastebasket and moved on to the next.

"Where's Taesun?" Jinki asked. He'd sprayed down Taemin's binders with water-and-bleach, and now he hole-punched each new page and slipped it onto the rings. He pressed down on the punch a little harder than he needed to, shaking the table every time. This isn't how he imagined spending his lunch break.

"Has a cold," Taemin said. "Both him and my dad. They stayed home today."

So that was why. The team wouldn't have been stupid enough to pull something like that in front of Taemin's brother. Taesun grit his teeth against most of the teasing the team did, but Jinki couldn't see him putting up with something so obviously cruel. Jinki slammed the heel of his palm down to put another set of holes in a machine-warm piece of paper.

"Remind me again why we're just letting this go?"

Taemin sighed. "Because there's nothing anybody can do. Even if they get suspended for it, it'll only be worse when they come back. And the principal doesn't really care. He'll say, oh, boys will be boys. It's my fault for being a target. Maybe I should consider switching schools. Start over and try not to be so obvious. Stop asking for it. Keep my head down and blend in until graduation. They won't believe me anyway."

Jinki got the impression that this was something Taemin had heard before. "Is that why you left your old school?"

Taemin dropped the lid of the photocopier with a bang. Startled, he lifted it to make sure the glass hadn't cracked, and then slowly lowered it again and pressed the copy button. "No," he said. Terse. Short. Don't want to talk about it.

He took the binder from Jinki to put in the last of his new notes, and then shoved the whole thing into a plastic bag. He'd have to throw his bookbag in the wash later. "You have soccer practice after school, don't you?" He said. "I'll meet you at the front gate."

Jinki would have skipped soccer practice - he didn't think he could look any of them in the eye, knowing what they'd done - but Taemin shook his head before Jinki could suggest it.

"Thanks for helping me," he said. "I just... I'm sorry, I need to be alone for a while."

Coach Yongyeom could have replaced Jinki with a blow-up doll and no one would have noticed. He couldn't focus, couldn't help fumbling the ball every time it was kicked in his direction. He zoned out standing in front of the net and let three shots sail past him without blinking. Coach Yongyeom screamed until he was hoarse, and finally jut his thumb toward the bench with a harsh, "Sit the hell out, Lee Jinki. I don't know what's going on in your head."

Jinki sat out the rest of the practice, watching his teammates run circles around the field and imagining various scenarios, many of them involving the members of the soccer team stepping on a landmine and exploding into a million tiny pieces.

Minho hung back after practice, and fell into step beside Jinki as he grabbed his things and started storming away from the field. Jinki decided that he'd shower at home; he didn't think he could stand to be in the same room where eight boys jacked off into his boyfriend's - girlfriend's - bookbag.

Minho didn't say anything. He plodded along next to Jinki, only pausing once to zip up his jacket.

"Aren't you going to shower?" Jinki asked as they passed the entrance to the changerooms.

Minho shrugged. "You look like you need to vent."

"I don't."

"Really?"

Jinki didn't like being read so easily. He pictured himself with cartoon fumes wafting off of him. Steam coming out of his ears. Was he so obvious, even to Minho? Jinki wouldn't really call Minho a friend. They'd been on the same team for almost a year. They knew each other, but not well enough to share feelings, to discuss personal problems.

"Maybe," Jinki admitted.

"You're mad about what happened to Lee Taemin?"

Jinki hitched his backpack higher on his shoulder and pushed through the side entrace to the school. "Aren't you?"

Minho looked down at his feet. "I didn't join in," he said. They stopped in front of Jinki's locker so that he could shove his bag inside. Minho had his hands in his pockets, staring resolutely at his sneakers. "I mean, hyung, that's disgusting. I wouldn't do something like that. But... I didn't say anything either. I didn't try to convince them not to. Doesn't that make me just as bad?"

Jinki wasn't going to deny that. Let Minho feel guilty if it helped. He slammed his locker shut.

"Hyung, you... you're with him, right?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Jinki didn't feel like beating around the bush. If Minho wanted to ask him, he was going to have to come right out and say it.

"Lee Taemin. You're together. A couple."

Jinki narrowed his eyes, searching Minho's face. He looked anxious, like there was more to the question than he was letting on. "Don't go telling everybody," Jinki said, shrugging. "Taemin doesn't need any more heat than he already has."

"So you're gay...?"

"Not really. It's complicated." He had a feeling his own sexuality, let alone Taemin's, was more complex than Minho was ready to hear.

Minho frowned. "Aren't you worried what people will think?"

"I-"

Before Jinki could answer, the rest of the team came out into the hall, laughing and roughhousing. The centre, Kyoungrok, was making a rather lewd motion with his fist that made it abundantly clear what it was that they were joking about. Minho stepped away from Jinki like he'd been caught associating with a leper, and Jinki scowled as Kyoungrok and the rest of the team approached.

"What was up with you today, Jinki?" Kyoungrok asked. He was genuinely put-out, cocking his head in concern. "You're not sick, are you? Right before a match?"

"I should be asking you that," Jinki said lightly. "You guys are the ones that seem pretty sick to me."

Minho had backed up against the lockers, and looked like he was attempting to change colour to match. Kyoungrok's expression darkened. "What."

"Does he make you uncomfortable?" Jinki asked. "Is that why you're all jerking off on his stuff like a creepy old pervert?"

"Fuck no," Kyoungrok hissed. The rest of the team was looking rather ill-at-ease with that line of reasoning, as though only just realizing how messed up it was. "He's asking for it. Should have done more than messed his shit up. That little freak deserves to get ra-"

Jinki barely realized what he'd done until he registered that the blood pouring from Kyoungrok's face wasn't there a moment ago, and that holy fuck, his knuckles hurt.

Kyoungrok stumbled backwards, hands flying up to cover his mouth and nose. One of the defense players tried to pull his hand away to see the damage and exlaimed loudly, "That's a tooth!" Kyoungrok shoved him off and spit. Sure enough, there was the white nub of a tooth in the middle of a bloody little puddle on the linoleum.

Everyone stared at the tooth for a moment, a little stunned. No one had expected Jinki to be the one to throw a punch, least of all Jinki himself. He still felt overheated, skin prickling and itching to keep going, to knock more of Kyoungrok's stupid teeth out of his stupid mouth.

Jinki would have, but the moment he lifted his arm, Coach Yongyeom came out of the gym and shouted, "What the hell is going on here?"

Jinki let his arm drop. He said nothing as the coach dragged the lot of them to the office, grumbling loudly about how tempers always flare right before a big match.

The principal seemed at a loss for words.

"Lee Jinki, I..." He raised both hands, palms up and looked to the ceiling as though asking for divine guidance. "I don't know what to do with you. This is very out-of-character."

"Yes, sir," Jinki agreed.

"I know you've had a rough year with your father..." The principal must have caught Jinki's grimace, because he stopped that thought and went on, "If you can't give me a good excuse, I'm afraid I'll have to suspend you both."

"But I didn't do anything," Kyoungrok insisted. "I swear, sir. I was on my way out, and Jinki just came at me. He knocked my tooth out!"

Jinki couldn't help but smirk at the principal's look of abject disbelief. Kyoungrok was clutching his knocked-out tooth to his chest in a covered cup of milk. Ever since the principal mentioned that he'd be calling home, Kyoungrok had dropped the tough-boy act and simply looked terrified at the prospect of his parents hearing about this.

"I don't think I believe that," the principal said. "I've talked to some of your other teammates and they seem to think that you provoked him. Something about an incident earlier today...?"

When neither Jinki nor Kyoungrok admitted to anything, the principal sighed. "If that's the case, Lee Jinki, I'm going to have to suspend you for the rest of the week- we have a zero-tolerence policy for violence at this school."

"Yes, sir," Jinki agreed.

"I'm afraid this will go on your record. I'll have to talk to Coach Yongyeom about your position on the team. This kind of incident has to be taken very seriously."

Kyoungrok was looking rather pleased with this outcome, until the principal added, "As for you, you'll be suspended for two days. I have a hard time believing that Jinki would resort to violence without being provoked, and members of your team-"

"Who?" Kyoungrok demanded. He went ignored. Jinki had a feeling he knew whom, and made a mental note to thank Minho later.

"-seem to agree with me. Two days, I think, is fair. I'll be calling both of your parents shortly."

"Call the work number," Jinki supplied helpfully. "My mom's working late."

The principal shook his head and said, "Thank you, Jinki. You can both go. If I hear from either of you again..." He let that threat go unfinished as both Jinki and Kyoungrok bowed and rushed out of the office.

Jinki checked his watch and swore under his breath. Taemin must have been waiting for a while.

Kyoungrok lingered like he had something more to say, but Jinki just grinned at him and took off. He skidded around the corner to the front entrance, sprinting down the stairs two and three at a time. He felt like he could take on an elephant bare-handed. He'd never punched someone on purpose before, and it was oddly exilarating.

Taemin wasn't at the front gate, but he hadn't texted to say he'd left either. Jinki went the opposite direction, to the triangle of trees where they ate lunch when the weather was warmer. Sure enough, Taemin was crouched with his back against one of the trees and his bag between his knees. At the sound of someone approaching, Taemin slipped his rosary beads over his thumb and back onto his wrist.

"Sorry I'm late," Jinki said. "Didn't mean to make you wait. Had to go to the office."

"Had to...? What, why?"

Jinki grabbed Taemin's hand and pulled him to his feet, dusting off the back of his coat. "I'll tell you later. Right now I just want to-" He kissed Taemin firmly on the mouth, and then again, gripping the back of his head and grunting like he was so overcome he could squish him.

"I want to get you home," Jinki said roughly. "I feel like a caveman right now!"

"So you're suspended?" Taemin asked. He was sitting on his legs in front of the mirror, wearing one of Jinki's shirts. He had it on crooked, shoulder peeking through the collar and the hem pulled down to cover his knees. He was probably stretching it all out of shape. Not that Jinki cared.

Jinki kicked around in the rumpled sheets to find Taemin's discarded underwear. "Yeah, for the week. Kyoungrok got two days for provoking me." Jinki tossed the frilly pink panties over to Taemin and then grabbed his jeans off the end of the bed. "It was worth it."

"Thanks a lot, Lancelot," Taemin said. He used a cotton pad to wipe the makeup from his eyes, pressing mascara against his cheeks and then rubbing it away. Jinki sort of wished he'd keep it on longer- it was strangely satisfying to see Taemin's after-sex look, his eyes raccooned from rubbing against the sheets. Jinki would have to do laundry.

"What did he say anyway?"

"Doesn't matter," Jinki said. He started stripping the sheets from the bed, dropping them in a bundle on the floor. "Hey, give me your bag and I'll put it in the wash with the rest."

Taemin looked savage as he turned his bookbag inside out and threw it on top of the pile. "Who even thinks of doing that," he asked. "That can't be normal."

"You make them uncomfortable," Jinki reasoned. He folded the sheets over so that he wouldn't accidentally come into contact with any part of the bag. "If you hadn't noticed, you're kind of stunning by anyone's standards. So. They bully you because they feel guilty for being attracted to you."

"... and obviously, that's expressed by jerking off next to, what, nine other guys? Straightest thing I've ever heard of. They're practically writing linear equations."

"Eight guys. Minho wasn't there either."

"That makes all the difference."

Jinki shrugged. What was he supposed to say? Of course it was messed up. He watched Taemin wiggle into his underwear and start putting his things away.

"I'm skipping school tomorrow," Taemin said. "Junsu-hyung wants to work on the final choreo for my audition piece."

"Does that mean you're sleeping late? Since I'm suspended, you could stay over...?"

Taemin stuck his tongue out in the mirror. "My parents don't know I'm skipping. I have to pretend to go to school in the morning," he said. "Besides, would your mom actually let you have someone over if you're suspended?"

"I'm sure if I explained the circumstances."

"Circumstances? That you were protecting my honour?" Taemin joked. He turned around and dropped into a low, formal bow. In the mirror behind him, Jinki could see the frilly hem of Taemin's underwear hugging the curve of his ass. "Orabeonim, you have prevented shame and dishonour from befalling my family!"

"Stop that," Jinki said. He felt his face getting hot as he imagined, a little too vividly, Taemin in an eighteenth century hanbok with a red skirt. And lacy underwear. He gathered up the laundry to hide his flushing cheeks and shouldered through the door, heading for the laundry room downstairs.

"Oppa?" Taemin scrambled to his feet to follow. "Jinki? Oppa, what's wrong?"

Jinki opened the front of the washing machine and shoved the sheets inside. "Oh, nothing," he said tightly. "Just wondering if my girlfriend has access to an old-fashioned hanbok I can ravish her in."

Taemin hummed as he unscrewed the cap on the detergent. "Did you let your girlfriend know you were this kinky before you started dating? Or do you like to surprise her?"

The washing machine clicked as it locked shut. Jinki grinned and pecked Taemin on the lips. "Surprise," he said.

And even though Taemin had just cleaned his face of makeup, and his hair was messy and his nails bare- Taemin had never seemed as much of a girl to Jinki as he did right now, laughing in the laundry room wearing nothing but underwear and a stretched-out tee shirt. His eyes were closed and his chin tilted up to invite a kiss.

Jinki gave in to that soft expression and kissed Taemin long and wet. With both hands on Taemin's ass, Jinki hoisted him on top of the washing machine just as it started to fill with water. "So pretty," he whispered, lips moving against Taemin's collarbone. "Taeyeon-ah, you're the most amazing girl I've ever met."

Taemin wrapped his legs around Jinki's waist and pulled him close. Jinki had to lean forward, panting into Taemin's space, to keep his crotch from bumping the buttons on the front of the machine.

"You're amazing too," Taemin said. "Especially if you keep me right here until the spin cycle starts."

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fandom: shinee, fic: call me oppa, pairing: onew/taemin