Mouthless
Title: Mouthless
Pairing: Taemin-centric
Length: 6,091
Summary: Taemin is being haunted. Maybe.
Hey, I'm not dead! I'm still writing things when I should be studying for exams...
M O U T H L E S S
Taemin likes the manager’s room best, but not for any of the lewd reasons his hyungdeul suggest.
The lock on the door is nice; it’s a deadbolt, not the twist-and-tug handles on the bathroom and bedroom doors that can be picked open with the short edge of a coin. It's also the only room with four interior walls. No window. With the lights off, and a towel stuffed under the crack of the door, Taemin can sit in complete darkness, even in the middle of the day. Sometimes he closes his eyes, but it doesn’t make much of a difference. The darkness covers him so completely, like a thick blanket pulled over his head to protect him from a nightmare.
Sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor, Taemin can catalogue the apartment and its occupants moving around him: the kitchen in front, bathroom to his left, hallway to his right, Jinki-hyung’s bedroom behind. The manager’s room is like a bunker, a command tower at the dead centre of the apartment. Taemin can hear the movements of the other members, can close his eyes and picture exactly where they are.
The shower is running, the pipes creaking and whining through the wall; that's Key, using the last of the hot water. Minho is slamming cupboards in the kitchen, plugging in the blender to mix one of his awful protein shakes, the ones that taste like clay. Jinki paces between his room and the hall, rapping his fingers against the bathroom door and whining, "Kibum, you asshole, you're taking forever!"
Jonghyun's socks pad down the hallway and into the bedroom that Taemin shares with Kibum. He comes out a moment later, pauses in front of the manager's door, and says, "Taemin?"
Taemin closes his eyes, tries to pull the darkness tighter around himself. He imagines being deep underground. He's an ant, a worm, some kind of bacteria keeping warm close to the earth's core. The thought is mildly comforting until he considers that bacteria proliferate like crazy; they probably have even less privacy than Korean pop stars. Not that they care, being bacteria.
Jonghyun taps his knuckles against the door. "Yah, Taemin."
Taemin clears his throat. "Yeah?"
"You whacking one off in there?" Jonghyun asks. The door doesn't muffle his voice at all. He might as well be shouting in Taemin's ear. "I'll tell Manager-sshi you're messing up his sheets!" He tries the handle. If it were any other room in the dorm, he'd take the change from his pocket to turn the lock. "Taemin-ah, stop being antisocial. Come watch a movie with me."
"No, thanks."
"Oh, come on. You can pick the movie! Any movie! Even those really shitty long ones you like."
Taemin falls backward, head hitting the floor with a thud. The illusion of solitude is shattered. The manager's room isn't a bunker. Even without windows, there is still a door for people to knock on. If Jonghyun really wanted to, he could get the key from the box on top of the fridge and let himself in. Through the wall, Taemin can hear Kibum turning the taps, and the pipes groan as the water tapers off.
"Maybe later, hyung."
"Ugh, Taemin. I'm bored. So bored. You're not even doing anything."
"Leave him alone," Jinki says, coming out of his room again. "He's with you all day. Let him unwind. Once Kibum gets out of the bathroom," he says that louder, so Kibum can hear and take the hint, "I'll wash up and then we can play Go Stop or something."
Jonghyun sighs long and loud. "See what you're missing out on, Taemin? A rousing game of Go Stop with your hyungdeul." He gives up and goes to the kitchen, calling out, "Yah, Minho!" but Minho mumbles that he's sleeping at Changmin's so they can go to the gym together in the morning, and the roar of the blender drowns out whatever protest Jonghyun is about to make.
Jinki is still standing in the hall, shifting his weight every now and then over a creaking floorboard. Taemin rolls onto his side and tucks his legs up to his chest, and when the blender stops stuttering he inchworm-crawls closer to the door and says, "Thanks, hyung."
Jinki is quiet for a long moment. "Taemin... you're okay, right?"
"I'm fine, hyung."
"Okay. I'll leave you alone, then."
The bathroom door opens, and Kibum finally emerges from his shower. He grunts in Jinki's general direction before padding off to get dressed. Jinki lingers outside the door for a moment, floorboard going creak-crea-ea-eak under his feet, and then heads into the bathroom.
Taemin crawls back to the middle of the room. He imagines that he becomes part of the darkness, that he's a shadow blending in, and he catalogues the apartment around him: Kibum in the bedroom, turning up the volume on the radio; Minho walking the front hall in his running shoes and heading out the door; Jonghyun changing channels on the TV; Jinki stripping off and starting the shower...
Something touches Taemin's face. Too deliberate to be accidental. It's not dust from the ceiling stucco. Not something that's come unstuck from the wall. It's someone stroking the skin just above Taemin's eyebrow.
Taemin scrambles to his feet and and flicks on the light. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust. Blinking hard, squinting against the unwelcome fluorescent burn, there's no one there. Of course there isn't. He must have dozed off and dreamt it; he can't hear the shower running anymore. He checks under the bed and inside the closet, just to be sure.
Still, Taemin's skin is crawling. He feels invaded. His privacy isn't so complete, the illusion shattered. He needs to get out of this room. Taemin thinks of the cat he had in middle school, a sweet orange tabby that used to sleep curled against the backs of Taemin's knees. One morning Taemin woke up to find the cat gone. He paced the house, tapping a tin of cat food with the edge of a metal spoon, but the tabby never came. It wasn't until a few days later, when the hallway began to stink, that his dad ducked into the crawlspace under the stairs and found the orange tabby.
Taemin understands now, that need to be alone. The need to be sick in a dark, quiet place. He gets his sneakers and a towel. The practice room in the basement is usually empty this late.
Jonghyun is lying across the couch in the living room, resting his cheek on the heel of his hand. When he sees Taemin he brightens up.
"Taemin-ah, do you want to watch-"
"No thanks, hyung. I'll be in the basement. Don't wait up."
It's a glitch in his vision. Taemin's tired. Hasn't slept well lately. He's alone in the practice room, and catches movement out of the corner of his eye. When he whirls to look, there's nothing but his own reflection staring back at him in the mirror.
Taemin goes back to practicing steps. He counts the beat out loud because he's forgotten his mp3 player - or rather, he's lost it in the dorm or on set or in the van between schedules. He loses everything lately, especially thoughts. Memories. They leak out of his ears like water from a tap, and unlike his cell phone or mp3 player, his hyungdeul don't find them squeezed between the couch cushions.
The squeak of his sneakers is a music of its own, stuttering through the quick steps, squealing along to the slides; mindless, effortless. Taemin pivots, squeeeak, and sees it again through his hair: a shadowy shape in the corner of the practice room.
"Hyung?" Taemin says.
Taemin thinks he sees someone crouched into foetal position in the corner, this small and dark silhouette against a stack of mats. Part of Taemin wants to ignore it, pretend it isn't there like a monster under the bed, but against his better judgement he takes a step closer in sick fascination. There's black skin like bread burned in the toaster, and long threads of auburn hair clinging to a nearly-bare scalp.
The moment he realizes that person is dead there is a dead person, Taemin catches the smell of burnt flesh and turns around so fast he trips over his feet. He wants to cry-scream-puke, and he can feel his heart racing triple-speed against his ribcage like it wants out. The thumping sound drowns out every conscious thought except, don't puke don't make a sound and Taemin curls around his knees and clenches his eyes until the afterimage flickers into black.
An eternity passes in silence except for the rapid thump-thump-thump of his own heart.
The double doors to the practice room open and flood the room with white light from the hall. Coated with sweat and backlit, Minho looks like a wax figure.
"You dancing in the dark?" Minho asks, and flicks on the light. He raises an eyebrow as he takes in the sight of Taemin curled into himself like a shellfish.
Taemin sits up and looks to the corner where the corpse had been. There's nothing but a half-empty gym bag collapsed upon itself. No stink of death. No burnt-toast skull bleeding copper hair. Just a glitch in his vision. Just a smelly gym bag spewing a red and orange pom-pom.
Taemin's overtired. Seeing things.
"Taemin?" Minho steps into the practice room and offers a hand. Taemin lets the taller boy haul him to his feet. "Jesus, you're hot," Minho says. He wipes the palm of his hand on his pants. "Sweating like a pig. You okay?"
"Yeah. Fine. Been practicing."
"Those your clothes from yesterday?" Minho asks, pointing. "Were you down here all night?"
"All night?"
"Yeah, Taemin. I just got back from the gym. It's eight in the morning."
No wonder Taemin is seeing things. He just needs to sleep. "I'll take a nap before our schedule."
"You better," Minho says. He gestures for Taemin to follow, and they leave the practice room and head upstairs to the dorm. As Taemin slumps onto couch, retinas burning under his eyelids, Minho tells him, "You kind of look like shit."
"Yeah," Taemin says. "Thanks, hyung."
Taemin sleeps visciously on the living room couch. As soon as his eyes close, vivid nightmares crawl under his lids like prying pins into a nailbed. In half-consciousness, he registers the sound of Kibum cooking lunch, the hiss of meat on a hot pan, and while on some level he understands the source, he swears it's his own skin cooking. He can smell it: burning flesh and gochujang. Taemin is being grilled. The heat is unbearable.
From the kitchen he hears Jonghyun laughing, "Ha-ha-ha, Taeminnie's kicked off his shorts in his sleep again."
Taemin wakes up to an empty living room. His throat is dry, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. "Hyung," Taemin rasps. He clears his throat and tries again. "Hyung!"
There's a man sitting at the kitchen table. He looks familiar, but Taemin can't place him- it's not Gyungshik-hyung or Choijin-hyung. His hair is dyed the colour of rust and he's much smaller than either of them; narrow shoulders and wrists nothing more than bone as he reaches for a mug on the table. He's wearing a turtleneck rolled up to cover his mouth, sitting hunched so that his shoulders look level to his chin. He doesn't sip the coffee, just watches Taemin over the rim of the cup with a look in his eyes that dares Taemin to question his presence.
"Water," Taemin whispers.
The man gets up with a grunt and goes into the kitchen. Taemin hears the fridge open, and then the gush of water. It sounds too loud to be from the filter. Taemin hears the water rushing in his ears like his head is next to the tap. The man comes back with the glass, but he stands just out of reach; Taemin has to stand up to take it.
After dancing all night, Taemin's feet feel weightless, the kind of dream-feet that could run forever. But oddly, when the man drops the glass, no matter how insistently Taemin thinks, move, feet, move! he can't lunge to catch it.
The cup slams onto the floor and shatters. Taemin can only stare, startled, at the shards of glass emerging from the puddle. He has a strange urge to taste the broken glass. They look like chips of ice, like something cool and soothing he could put under his tongue to bring down the fever boiling under his skin.
The man motions for Taemin to take a step closer. Without picking up his feet, Taemin slides across the carpet until he's standing directly in front of the man. He'd looked so small sitting at the table, but he leans to look Taemin in the eyes. His bony fingers dig into Taemin's jaw, holding him still, forcing him to watch as the man lifts his chin from the collar of his shirt to expose his mouth-
Not a mouth. A bleeding black hole lined with jagged teeth. The skin around the hole is waxy and tight, like it's been melted away and healed over.
Taemin jerks backwards, but the bony hands hold him in place as the man leans forward and presses the hole in his face to Taemin's forehead; a kiss without a mouth. Taemin's head explodes in pain. It's blinding, white-hot like a brand, and Taemin feels himself falling, unable to keep his feet underneath him.
"Taemin? What the fuck?!"
That's Kibum's voice, gone shrill with panic. Taemin blinks open his eyes and finds himself on the floor next to the living room couch, the carpet around him soaked and littered with broken glass.
"Shit, Taemin, don't move. Hold on."
Kibum comes back a moment later with a plastic bag and hand vacuum. He picks up a few of the largest shards and then offers Taemin his hand. He steadies Taemin as he takes a big step out of the splash of glass.
"If you're feeling that sick, just ask me to get you a drink. Jesus, are you okay? You're bleeding all over the place."
Taemin touches his forehead and his hand comes away wet and bright red with blood. The sight makes his stomach lurch. "I'm going to be sick," he says.
Kibum cusses again and leads Taemin to the bathroom. Taemin dry heaves a few times into the toilet bowl, but nothing comes up. "Where is everybody?" he asks.
"Went out for lunch. I stayed home with you. Fuck, why didn't you say you were so sick? You just blacked out. Got up to get a glass of water and then keeled the fuck over. Smacked your head on the table. Taemin, you can't perform tonight."
"I can," Taemin insists.
"Are you fucking kidding me?"
"No, I'm fine. Really."
Kibum gives him a dubious look, but doesn't argue. Just throws his hands up and leaves the bathroom.
There's blood all over the place, smeared on the counter, big fat drops on the floor. Taemin drops the toilet lid and sits down, watching the blood from his forehead slowly drip-drop onto the tile. He feels fevered, heart fluttering too-fast, and every time he moves, his stomach violently protests. There's an insistent pressure squeezing his insides. Taemin wonders if he should put his fingers down his throat, if throwing up might relieve that feeling.
Kibum comes back with the medicine box from the kitchen and perches it precariously close to the counter's edge. He rifles through for a thermometer and uncaps it before handing it over, and Taemin bites down to hold the bulb under his tongue. While they wait for the reading, Kibum digs for something else in the box.
"Last summer, right before we started promotions, I cut my forehead way worse than you," Kibum says. "You know the stairs that go up to the roof? The really steep ones? I tripped going up and cracked my face like an egg. Look, see this?" Kibum lifts his fringe and angles his reflection in the mirror so that Taemin can get a clear look at his forehead.
"That pimple?"
Kibum makes a face. "No, you dumb fuck. The scar."
"There isn't a scar."
Kibum leans close to the mirror, squinting at the offending pimple. He holds his hair back with one hand, and gets ready to squeeze it with the other. "You don't see a scar because I used superglue."
"Don't pop that," Taemin mumbles around the thermometer. "Then you will have a scar."
Kibum squeezes and Taemin closes his eyes. When he opens them, Kibum is pulling a sheet of toilet paper off the roll and dabbing at his forehead. He tosses the sheet into the waste basket, and then grabs the thermometer from Taemin's mouth.
"Holy shit, one-oh-three. How high does a fever have to be before we need to take you to a hospital?"
"One-oh-five, one-oh-four-point-something?"
"So you're fine," Kibum says lightly. Sarcastic. "Just try not to black out again and we can avoid potential brain damage." He takes a tube from the medicine box and starts unscrewing the cap. The glue smell permeates the bathroom instantly.
"That stinks. It's going to make me gag."
"Don't gag. Don't even breathe in. Sit up and look over here." Kibum snaps his fingers to the left of his head, directing Taemin to straighten his spine and turn his head towards the light. Taemin's insides churn at the change in position. "Now don't move."
With one hand, Kibum grabs underneath Taemin's chin, fingers pressing into the hollow under his jaw to hold him still. Taemin watches the bottle of superglue in Kibum's right hand looming closer and closer to his face until his eyes cross, and then he winces at the sting of the glue touching his skin. It feels warm briefly, then tight, and then Kibum's finger swipes away the excess, smoothing it down. He tosses the bottle back into the medicine box and the cap hits something metal with a hollow ping.
"There," Kibum says, twisting the tap to wash his hands. "Good as new."
Taemin looks around him in the mirror, and he has to admit: with makeup, the gash will be invisible. He still looks sickly - his skin is like rice paper, almost transparent, arteries pulsing visibly - but at least he won't be bleeding on stage. His stomach lurches, and Taemin leans forward all the way. He can't decide if it feels like he's going to puke or not.
"You could eat something," Kibum starts, but he trails off when he catches Taemin's are you kidding me? look in the mirror. "Okay, maybe that's a little ambitious. I'm just saying, you might feel better even with, like, a juice box. Stay hydrated, replenish your electrolytes, all that. I have real orange juice, if you want, not from concentrate."
Taemin considers. Just thinking about the acidity of the orange juice burning down his throat makes him want to throw up. But it'd be better than sitting here, waiting for his body to decide which way to go. As appealing as it is, there isn't time to fall asleep next to the toilet. "Okay. A juice box."
"It's not cold," Kibum warns. "I don't put it in the fridge because otherwise you guys drink it on me; it's my juice."
"Don't I feel special," Taemin says.
Kibum presses his lips together, not quite a smile, but close enough. He leaves the door ajar when he leaves.
From his angle on the toilet, Taemin can see a section of the living room reflected in the mirror. The carpet under the coffee table is spackled with blood and crushed glass. Kibum said he was only out for a few seconds - Taemin hit the coffee table and was sitting up, dazed and blinking the blood out of his eyes, right after.
"Your juice," Kibum says, leaning around the doorjamb.
He plunks the carton down on the counter, and then steps out of the bathroom, pulling the door closed behind him. Taemin's glad that Kibum is the only one home. The others would be checking on him constantly, worrying, pestering, making a fuss. Kibum's brand of mother-henning is more tough love than smothering affection, and now that he's literally glued Taemin back together, Kibum leaves him alone to gain his composure.
Behind the privacy of the closed door, Taemin slides to the floor and digs his fingers into the back of his throat. He feels better after throwing up, even if it's only bile and juice; well enough to climb into the bath tub and turn the water on cold.
Twenty minutes later, Kibum knocks, two fast, one slow. "Taemin-ah?"
The water has gone lukewarm and Taemin is a prune. He still feels hot and ill, like he could boil the water he's sitting in, but the puking-feeling is gone, replaced by a pounding headache behind his eyes. It's no less painful, but more easily concealed than nausea. "Yeah," he says.
"The others are on their way back now."
"Okay. Thanks."
The lock twists. Kibum's using a coin from his pocket to open it. "I'm leaving your clothes here," he says. He sets a pile down on the counter, a neatly-stacked outfit and clean underwear. On top is a blister pack with two pills left. For the headache. Without a word, Kibum wipes down the counter and the floor. Taemin is willing to bet that the carpet under the coffee table is already soaking in cold water to get the blood out. Taemin whispers, hyung.
Kibum's about to leave, but he stops with his hand on the door. "What was that?"
"I said, thanks, hyung."
Kibum nods. Taemin can tell he doesn't quite feel right about this, but Taemin is grateful that Kibum lets it go, that he turns the lock, and leaves Taemin alone to be sick in peace.
"You look pale," Jinki says, when Taemin slides into the van.
Taemin leans to catch his reflection in the rearview mirror. His skin is white and clammy like the underbelly of a fish. His forehead has started to bruise under his bangs. He'll need a mortician to do his makeup. "Yeah," he agrees. "Guess so."
"Are you feeling all right?"
Taemin ignores the pointed look from Kibum. He feels functional. Uncomfortably warm, sure, but his vision isn't swimming and the sharp headache is already gone, replaced by a dull throb. His brain is fuzzy - he feels like his thoughts are moth-bitten, missing pieces of information that he's sure he knew at some point. But dance steps are hard-wired. Muscle memory. He could be a vegetable and his feet would still know the motions.
Backstage, sweating under the weight of stage makeup and impractical jewelery, Taemin feels someone press up close and breathe in hard like Taemin is some kind of flower on display. It's nothing the hyungdeul don't do in the dorm - they're always petting him, twisting his hair, pressing mostly-chaste kisses to his skin - but this time it's a stranger pressed flush against his back, close enough to audibly appreciate his shampoo. Taemin feels the breath like ants crawling over his skin.
"I don't like it," Taemin whispers. He's afraid to turn around because he has this creeping, sinking feeling that underneath the nose inhaling the fever-sweat smell from his nape, there isn't a mouth.
The hot breath falls silent against Taemin's neck. Taemin closes his eyes and swallows the dread that rises to the back of his throat. He wants to crawl under the stage, into the dark and close space. He wants to be alone.
Taemin startles out of his reverie as Jonghyun grabs onto the sleeve of his shirt - "What is with you today, space cadet? Come on!" - and pulls Taemin to stage left.
Taemin holds onto the back of Jinki's shirt as they hurry offstage. His feet don't quite know where to go all of the sudden, unassisted by music, and he stumbles on the steps and catches himself on Jinki's forearm. Jinki hisses at the contact. "Holy shit, Taemin," he says. "You're burning up."
"I..." Taemin starts to protest, to insist that it's from the dancing, the lights, the excitement, but then Jinki is pressing his cool hands to Taemin's face and the words die on his lips.
"How are you even walking?" Jinki asks. He uses his sleeve to wipe some of the sweat from Taemin's forehead. Taemin closes his eyes as the fabric passes over, and then finds that he can't open them again. He can't move at all.
Jinki is talking again; to Taemin, and then to someone else. Taemin vaguely registers Gyungshik-hyung's mumble through the roar of voices, and Jinki arguing back. It's strange to hear Jinki's voice sharp like that, and then soft a moment later when he whispers into the shell of Taemin's ear, "An ambulance is going to come and get you. It's okay."
Taemin nods dumbly.
Hours pass in a blur. He isn't fully aware until he's half-naked in a hospital bed, suddenly conscious of the ache in his limbs and the sweat that sticks his hair to his forehead. He can hear the beep of a heart monitor, and after a moment of confusion he realizes that the sluggish rhythm matches his own. His mouth is dry as cotton. He half-considers tugging the IV from his arm to drink the saline, but just as the thought comes, the door opens and a nurse steps inside.
She busies herself for a moment, checking a chart and straightening the room. She jumps when she notices Taemin watching her.
"Ah, you're awake," she says.
Her voice is clear. All of the parts of her face are there. For some reason, Taemin expects otherwise. "Did that man without a mouth follow me here? Is he waiting?"
The nurse offers a tight smile. "Why don't you try to sleep a little longer, Taemin-ssi? Your fever hasn't broken yet."
She adjusts the blanket under Taemin's arms, and steps out. Taemin doesn't try to sleep. He might never sleep again. His retinas hurt when he closes his eyes. His head is too hot. Taemin stares at the wall, unblinking, and listens to the argument that breaks out between his manager and the doctor just outside.
"There's no infection, no physical reason for him to be this sick," the doctor says. "It could be completely psychosomatic."
"So you're saying...?"
"We'll do some further tests. The fever is likely a symptom of stress. He's been treated for exhaustion before?"
"Well, yes. I mean, he works hard- they all do." Gyungshik sounds almost ashamed to admit this, as though it's his own fault Taemin and the other members haven't had time to rest properly in the midst of promotions.
"The hallucinations are certainly worrying, but let's not jump to conclusions until we have a more complete picture of the problem at hand."
Taemin's hair scratches against the pillow as he turns his head. The mouthless man is standing next to the bed, facing the window glass. He seems mildly irritated by the conversation in the hall. Taemin swallows hard. "You did follow me."
The mouthless man shrugs sadly.
"What are you...?"
Before Taemin can finish the question, the doctor comes inside, followed by Gyungshik-hyung wringing his hands and mumbling, aigoo, aigoo. The doctor touches Taemin's sweaty face, and eyes the heart monitor for a moment. The mouthless man is still there by the window, observing the scene in the reflection on the glass without comment.
"Taemin-ssi, we heard you bumped your head this morning. We're just going to run an MRI - a brain scan - to make sure everything's okay in there, all right? You understand?"
Taemin wonders why the doctor is speaking to him like a child. He says, "Yes. Yes, okay."
The mouthless man touches the window, and leaves four dotted fingerprints on the glass.
Dr. Kye is startling to look at. Her hair is half-pinned, pulled tight from her hairline like something sewed on. It makes her face seem younger, all of her wrinkles smoothed out except for the laugh lines around her eyes. When she smiles her eyes disappear; just two creases of skin with the short hairs of her eyelashes poking out. It makes Taemin feel unsettled, like this is a woman-without-eyes scrutinizing him too closely. He's had quite enough of people with wrong faces. Taemin shuffles uneasily to the middle of the room and waits there.
"Hello, Taemin-ssi. Please, sit down."
Dr. Kye doesn't make any indication that she would prefer him to sit in one chair over another, so Taemin sinks into the chair nearest to the door. It's hard-backed, not soft like the plush armchair closer to the doctor's desk. Dr. Kye doesn't comment on the distance he's put between them, just rolls her own chair around to the other side of the desk.
"Taemin, do you know why you're here?"
"No," Taemin lies.
"You've been running quite the fever, you know that, right? And your friend Kibum said that you banged your head yesterday. Do you remember that?"
Taemin remembers the black hole of a mouth, bleeding at the seams, the jagged teeth pressing against the top of his head. He makes an uncommitted hm and watches as Dr. Kye sits back in her seat, crossing one leg over the other.
"You've been having hallucinations," she says, with a tone as though she's reminding a small child of his wrong-doings. "Haven't you? Doubts about what's real and what isn't?"
The more she talks, the more Taemin thinks this doctor is an imposter. The skin on her face ripples and distorts as she speaks, unconnected to the structure underneath. It moves like jello under saran wrap, like a layer of fat floating loose under the bag of her skin. Her eyes squeeze and disappear.
"We initially suspected that you might be suffering from brain damage," she says. "Prolonged fever can sometimes have that effect, and then head trauma... that's why we ran an MRI. But the scan hints at something else, which is why you're here with me instead of Dr. Oh."
"You're a psychiatrist," Taemin says.
"You don't sound surprised." Dr. Kye swivels in her chair to grab a folder off of her desk. She flips it open to a black-and-blue transparency of a brain. Presumably Taemin's. "Taemin-ssi, the MRI showed signs of tissue damage in the temporal and frontal regions of your brain. Of course this could have a variety of causes, but some studies show a link to certain mental disorders..."
The mouthless man is standing at the door, at the edge of Taemin's peripheral vision, looking impossibly long in a three-piece suit and white gloves. The hole in his face is hidden behind a surgical mask. If not for the insidious sense of something wrong, the man might be attractive.
"... such as bipolar or schizophrenia, disorders that frequently involve psychosis. There's a history of this in your family, apparently. A grandfather? It's not uncommon for the children or grandchildren of people with schizophrenia to have these sorts of symptoms."
Taemin knows that he should be worried to hear this, maybe even distraught. But the information simply curls up somewhere in his brain like a lazy cat that Taemin is content to ignore. The mouthless man steps over to the desk and casually scans the file over the doctor's shoulder. Dr. Kye takes no notice of him, although he walks right in front of her.
"It says here that you were on an anti-psychotic when you were younger, but there's no official diagnosis, just the prescription." Dr. Kye produces a tiny pair of glasses from her front pocket and puts them on. Immediately, they slide down the bridge of her nose. Taemin can't shake the illusion that the skin moved, and not the glasses. "Do you recall why?"
"I don't... I don't remember."
The mouthless man looks at his reflection on the computer screen to fix his tie, and then he sits down next to Taemin, uncomfortably close. He makes no attempt to hide how deeply he inhales, practically pressing his face into Taemin's hair. His breath is hot through the mask.
Taemin shakes with a chill. Dr. Kye squints at him over the top of her glasses. "Taemin?"
"I want to go home," Taemin says. He wants to be somewhere dark. Somewhere quiet. The more he stares at this woman, the surer he becomes that there is something wrong with her skin.
The mouthless man stands up from the couch with one hand swinging backwards as though he intends for Taemin to take it. Taemin doesn't, but all the same the mouthless man stands there waiting. His eyes have disappeared into a smile; Taemin doesn't want to think about what the mouth looks like under the mask, tight skin pulled even tighter, if those muscles even work at all.
"I can't keep you here," Dr. Kye admits. "But please consider what I've told you. This sort of thing needs medication and therapy. With your chosen career, it would be wise to start sooner rather than later."
"I just need to think," Taemin says. "Let me go home to think."
Taemin doesn't fail to notice that the manager's room no longer has a deadbolt. The lock has been replaced with a dummy handle, a knob that doesn't turn. Taemin has to stuff a dirty sock under the door to make it stay completely closed.
He lies supine on the floor with his arms folded above his head and watches the shadow of the fan blades slowly whirring, circulating too-warm air through the room. The base of the fan, where it anchors to the ceiling beam, is thick. Sturdy-looking. Taemin wonders if it could support his weight.
The apartment is strangely quiet, everything still. Someone is in the living room watching television with the volume low. Taemin pulls the comforter off of the manager's bed and wraps himself in it, tenting the blanket over his head. He blinks until he can't tell the difference between the black of the room and the inside of his eyelids.
"I'm scared," Taemin announces into the dark.
Taemin feels a weight settle at the bottom of the blanket, nudging his feet to make him lift his knees. There's a pressure, like a hand on his groin. Taemin exhales and the blanket rises from his lips. Slowly, he reaches into his shorts and cups his dick in his left hand. He isn't hard. He squeezes and relaxes his grip in time to his own breathing, trying to relax.
"Taemin?" The door slides an inch across the carpet before the sock gets caught underneath. Kibum leans down to worm the sock from the gap, clicking his tongue against his teeth. "I'm coming in," he warns.
The weight pressing down on Taemin's ribs is making it hard to breathe. Taemin can't move even if he wanted to; he's pinned with one hand down his pants and the other over his chest, legs parted wide enough he can feel the pull in his groin.
Kibum gets the sock free. He slaps his hands against his pants as he stands up.
Fingers trail over the blanket to Taemin's face, and inch-by-inch the blanket is pulled down. The mouthless man is there. His nails pinch at Taemin's lips. He presses his thumb into the hollow under Taemin's jaw. Taemin can feel the distinct shape of an erection between his legs.
Light slowly spills into the room. Kibum is trying to be quiet; he must think that Taemin's asleep.
Taemin keeps his eyes closed. He can feel heat on his face, the mouthless man hovering over him with that bleeding hole poised and waiting. He seems excited. The mouthless man inhales and holds it, anticipation stalling his breath. He lowers his head.
Taemin's toes and fingers twist uncontrollably. His insides are boiling to slush. Every muscle cramps and spasms under his skin. Tears burn down his cheeks. He can feel blood and mess covering his lips, his chin. The taste of copper is sharp on his tongue.
Kibum steps into the room and almost trips over the lump on the floor. "Taemin, why are you sleeping on the... holy shit. Oh, fuck, Taemin, what did you do to your mouth? Taemin? Are you even breathing-jesus christ. Oh jesus fucking christ. Jinki! Hyung!"
x
wynnetimate's master list.
"mouthless" was originally the opening to a long!fic i'm working on, tentatively titled lichloved which is a redux of odalisque, your subtle body, and new material that i've been cobbling together since the start of term. i don't intend to post it until i have it finished, in order to avoid the long and slow updates that have plagued call me oppa due to massive revisioning during the rewriting process. the six thousand or so words here were supposed to explain a gap in the character of taemin's history, where he goes into an extended fugue state and suffers from amnesia. it's implied that he was living in a separate plane of existence, created and populated by the mouthless man (who is a major character in lichloved and so i will not explain him further), this plane being the band!verse of "mouthless". it was a set-up for your typical thrown-into-a-fantasy-world plot.
i nixed it because it felt dumb and tacked on, and already lichloved suffers from a million and one different viewpoints. however, i really like the scene with key and taemin in the bathroom, so i've decided to post this as an in-canon one-shot instead of deleting it from my hard drive.
Pairing: Taemin-centric
Length: 6,091
Summary: Taemin is being haunted. Maybe.
Hey, I'm not dead! I'm still writing things when I should be studying for exams...
M O U T H L E S S
Taemin likes the manager’s room best, but not for any of the lewd reasons his hyungdeul suggest.
The lock on the door is nice; it’s a deadbolt, not the twist-and-tug handles on the bathroom and bedroom doors that can be picked open with the short edge of a coin. It's also the only room with four interior walls. No window. With the lights off, and a towel stuffed under the crack of the door, Taemin can sit in complete darkness, even in the middle of the day. Sometimes he closes his eyes, but it doesn’t make much of a difference. The darkness covers him so completely, like a thick blanket pulled over his head to protect him from a nightmare.
Sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor, Taemin can catalogue the apartment and its occupants moving around him: the kitchen in front, bathroom to his left, hallway to his right, Jinki-hyung’s bedroom behind. The manager’s room is like a bunker, a command tower at the dead centre of the apartment. Taemin can hear the movements of the other members, can close his eyes and picture exactly where they are.
The shower is running, the pipes creaking and whining through the wall; that's Key, using the last of the hot water. Minho is slamming cupboards in the kitchen, plugging in the blender to mix one of his awful protein shakes, the ones that taste like clay. Jinki paces between his room and the hall, rapping his fingers against the bathroom door and whining, "Kibum, you asshole, you're taking forever!"
Jonghyun's socks pad down the hallway and into the bedroom that Taemin shares with Kibum. He comes out a moment later, pauses in front of the manager's door, and says, "Taemin?"
Taemin closes his eyes, tries to pull the darkness tighter around himself. He imagines being deep underground. He's an ant, a worm, some kind of bacteria keeping warm close to the earth's core. The thought is mildly comforting until he considers that bacteria proliferate like crazy; they probably have even less privacy than Korean pop stars. Not that they care, being bacteria.
Jonghyun taps his knuckles against the door. "Yah, Taemin."
Taemin clears his throat. "Yeah?"
"You whacking one off in there?" Jonghyun asks. The door doesn't muffle his voice at all. He might as well be shouting in Taemin's ear. "I'll tell Manager-sshi you're messing up his sheets!" He tries the handle. If it were any other room in the dorm, he'd take the change from his pocket to turn the lock. "Taemin-ah, stop being antisocial. Come watch a movie with me."
"No, thanks."
"Oh, come on. You can pick the movie! Any movie! Even those really shitty long ones you like."
Taemin falls backward, head hitting the floor with a thud. The illusion of solitude is shattered. The manager's room isn't a bunker. Even without windows, there is still a door for people to knock on. If Jonghyun really wanted to, he could get the key from the box on top of the fridge and let himself in. Through the wall, Taemin can hear Kibum turning the taps, and the pipes groan as the water tapers off.
"Maybe later, hyung."
"Ugh, Taemin. I'm bored. So bored. You're not even doing anything."
"Leave him alone," Jinki says, coming out of his room again. "He's with you all day. Let him unwind. Once Kibum gets out of the bathroom," he says that louder, so Kibum can hear and take the hint, "I'll wash up and then we can play Go Stop or something."
Jonghyun sighs long and loud. "See what you're missing out on, Taemin? A rousing game of Go Stop with your hyungdeul." He gives up and goes to the kitchen, calling out, "Yah, Minho!" but Minho mumbles that he's sleeping at Changmin's so they can go to the gym together in the morning, and the roar of the blender drowns out whatever protest Jonghyun is about to make.
Jinki is still standing in the hall, shifting his weight every now and then over a creaking floorboard. Taemin rolls onto his side and tucks his legs up to his chest, and when the blender stops stuttering he inchworm-crawls closer to the door and says, "Thanks, hyung."
Jinki is quiet for a long moment. "Taemin... you're okay, right?"
"I'm fine, hyung."
"Okay. I'll leave you alone, then."
The bathroom door opens, and Kibum finally emerges from his shower. He grunts in Jinki's general direction before padding off to get dressed. Jinki lingers outside the door for a moment, floorboard going creak-crea-ea-eak under his feet, and then heads into the bathroom.
Taemin crawls back to the middle of the room. He imagines that he becomes part of the darkness, that he's a shadow blending in, and he catalogues the apartment around him: Kibum in the bedroom, turning up the volume on the radio; Minho walking the front hall in his running shoes and heading out the door; Jonghyun changing channels on the TV; Jinki stripping off and starting the shower...
Something touches Taemin's face. Too deliberate to be accidental. It's not dust from the ceiling stucco. Not something that's come unstuck from the wall. It's someone stroking the skin just above Taemin's eyebrow.
Taemin scrambles to his feet and and flicks on the light. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust. Blinking hard, squinting against the unwelcome fluorescent burn, there's no one there. Of course there isn't. He must have dozed off and dreamt it; he can't hear the shower running anymore. He checks under the bed and inside the closet, just to be sure.
Still, Taemin's skin is crawling. He feels invaded. His privacy isn't so complete, the illusion shattered. He needs to get out of this room. Taemin thinks of the cat he had in middle school, a sweet orange tabby that used to sleep curled against the backs of Taemin's knees. One morning Taemin woke up to find the cat gone. He paced the house, tapping a tin of cat food with the edge of a metal spoon, but the tabby never came. It wasn't until a few days later, when the hallway began to stink, that his dad ducked into the crawlspace under the stairs and found the orange tabby.
Taemin understands now, that need to be alone. The need to be sick in a dark, quiet place. He gets his sneakers and a towel. The practice room in the basement is usually empty this late.
Jonghyun is lying across the couch in the living room, resting his cheek on the heel of his hand. When he sees Taemin he brightens up.
"Taemin-ah, do you want to watch-"
"No thanks, hyung. I'll be in the basement. Don't wait up."
It's a glitch in his vision. Taemin's tired. Hasn't slept well lately. He's alone in the practice room, and catches movement out of the corner of his eye. When he whirls to look, there's nothing but his own reflection staring back at him in the mirror.
Taemin goes back to practicing steps. He counts the beat out loud because he's forgotten his mp3 player - or rather, he's lost it in the dorm or on set or in the van between schedules. He loses everything lately, especially thoughts. Memories. They leak out of his ears like water from a tap, and unlike his cell phone or mp3 player, his hyungdeul don't find them squeezed between the couch cushions.
The squeak of his sneakers is a music of its own, stuttering through the quick steps, squealing along to the slides; mindless, effortless. Taemin pivots, squeeeak, and sees it again through his hair: a shadowy shape in the corner of the practice room.
"Hyung?" Taemin says.
Taemin thinks he sees someone crouched into foetal position in the corner, this small and dark silhouette against a stack of mats. Part of Taemin wants to ignore it, pretend it isn't there like a monster under the bed, but against his better judgement he takes a step closer in sick fascination. There's black skin like bread burned in the toaster, and long threads of auburn hair clinging to a nearly-bare scalp.
The moment he realizes that person is dead there is a dead person, Taemin catches the smell of burnt flesh and turns around so fast he trips over his feet. He wants to cry-scream-puke, and he can feel his heart racing triple-speed against his ribcage like it wants out. The thumping sound drowns out every conscious thought except, don't puke don't make a sound and Taemin curls around his knees and clenches his eyes until the afterimage flickers into black.
An eternity passes in silence except for the rapid thump-thump-thump of his own heart.
The double doors to the practice room open and flood the room with white light from the hall. Coated with sweat and backlit, Minho looks like a wax figure.
"You dancing in the dark?" Minho asks, and flicks on the light. He raises an eyebrow as he takes in the sight of Taemin curled into himself like a shellfish.
Taemin sits up and looks to the corner where the corpse had been. There's nothing but a half-empty gym bag collapsed upon itself. No stink of death. No burnt-toast skull bleeding copper hair. Just a glitch in his vision. Just a smelly gym bag spewing a red and orange pom-pom.
Taemin's overtired. Seeing things.
"Taemin?" Minho steps into the practice room and offers a hand. Taemin lets the taller boy haul him to his feet. "Jesus, you're hot," Minho says. He wipes the palm of his hand on his pants. "Sweating like a pig. You okay?"
"Yeah. Fine. Been practicing."
"Those your clothes from yesterday?" Minho asks, pointing. "Were you down here all night?"
"All night?"
"Yeah, Taemin. I just got back from the gym. It's eight in the morning."
No wonder Taemin is seeing things. He just needs to sleep. "I'll take a nap before our schedule."
"You better," Minho says. He gestures for Taemin to follow, and they leave the practice room and head upstairs to the dorm. As Taemin slumps onto couch, retinas burning under his eyelids, Minho tells him, "You kind of look like shit."
"Yeah," Taemin says. "Thanks, hyung."
Taemin sleeps visciously on the living room couch. As soon as his eyes close, vivid nightmares crawl under his lids like prying pins into a nailbed. In half-consciousness, he registers the sound of Kibum cooking lunch, the hiss of meat on a hot pan, and while on some level he understands the source, he swears it's his own skin cooking. He can smell it: burning flesh and gochujang. Taemin is being grilled. The heat is unbearable.
From the kitchen he hears Jonghyun laughing, "Ha-ha-ha, Taeminnie's kicked off his shorts in his sleep again."
Taemin wakes up to an empty living room. His throat is dry, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth. "Hyung," Taemin rasps. He clears his throat and tries again. "Hyung!"
There's a man sitting at the kitchen table. He looks familiar, but Taemin can't place him- it's not Gyungshik-hyung or Choijin-hyung. His hair is dyed the colour of rust and he's much smaller than either of them; narrow shoulders and wrists nothing more than bone as he reaches for a mug on the table. He's wearing a turtleneck rolled up to cover his mouth, sitting hunched so that his shoulders look level to his chin. He doesn't sip the coffee, just watches Taemin over the rim of the cup with a look in his eyes that dares Taemin to question his presence.
"Water," Taemin whispers.
The man gets up with a grunt and goes into the kitchen. Taemin hears the fridge open, and then the gush of water. It sounds too loud to be from the filter. Taemin hears the water rushing in his ears like his head is next to the tap. The man comes back with the glass, but he stands just out of reach; Taemin has to stand up to take it.
After dancing all night, Taemin's feet feel weightless, the kind of dream-feet that could run forever. But oddly, when the man drops the glass, no matter how insistently Taemin thinks, move, feet, move! he can't lunge to catch it.
The cup slams onto the floor and shatters. Taemin can only stare, startled, at the shards of glass emerging from the puddle. He has a strange urge to taste the broken glass. They look like chips of ice, like something cool and soothing he could put under his tongue to bring down the fever boiling under his skin.
The man motions for Taemin to take a step closer. Without picking up his feet, Taemin slides across the carpet until he's standing directly in front of the man. He'd looked so small sitting at the table, but he leans to look Taemin in the eyes. His bony fingers dig into Taemin's jaw, holding him still, forcing him to watch as the man lifts his chin from the collar of his shirt to expose his mouth-
Not a mouth. A bleeding black hole lined with jagged teeth. The skin around the hole is waxy and tight, like it's been melted away and healed over.
Taemin jerks backwards, but the bony hands hold him in place as the man leans forward and presses the hole in his face to Taemin's forehead; a kiss without a mouth. Taemin's head explodes in pain. It's blinding, white-hot like a brand, and Taemin feels himself falling, unable to keep his feet underneath him.
"Taemin? What the fuck?!"
That's Kibum's voice, gone shrill with panic. Taemin blinks open his eyes and finds himself on the floor next to the living room couch, the carpet around him soaked and littered with broken glass.
"Shit, Taemin, don't move. Hold on."
Kibum comes back a moment later with a plastic bag and hand vacuum. He picks up a few of the largest shards and then offers Taemin his hand. He steadies Taemin as he takes a big step out of the splash of glass.
"If you're feeling that sick, just ask me to get you a drink. Jesus, are you okay? You're bleeding all over the place."
Taemin touches his forehead and his hand comes away wet and bright red with blood. The sight makes his stomach lurch. "I'm going to be sick," he says.
Kibum cusses again and leads Taemin to the bathroom. Taemin dry heaves a few times into the toilet bowl, but nothing comes up. "Where is everybody?" he asks.
"Went out for lunch. I stayed home with you. Fuck, why didn't you say you were so sick? You just blacked out. Got up to get a glass of water and then keeled the fuck over. Smacked your head on the table. Taemin, you can't perform tonight."
"I can," Taemin insists.
"Are you fucking kidding me?"
"No, I'm fine. Really."
Kibum gives him a dubious look, but doesn't argue. Just throws his hands up and leaves the bathroom.
There's blood all over the place, smeared on the counter, big fat drops on the floor. Taemin drops the toilet lid and sits down, watching the blood from his forehead slowly drip-drop onto the tile. He feels fevered, heart fluttering too-fast, and every time he moves, his stomach violently protests. There's an insistent pressure squeezing his insides. Taemin wonders if he should put his fingers down his throat, if throwing up might relieve that feeling.
Kibum comes back with the medicine box from the kitchen and perches it precariously close to the counter's edge. He rifles through for a thermometer and uncaps it before handing it over, and Taemin bites down to hold the bulb under his tongue. While they wait for the reading, Kibum digs for something else in the box.
"Last summer, right before we started promotions, I cut my forehead way worse than you," Kibum says. "You know the stairs that go up to the roof? The really steep ones? I tripped going up and cracked my face like an egg. Look, see this?" Kibum lifts his fringe and angles his reflection in the mirror so that Taemin can get a clear look at his forehead.
"That pimple?"
Kibum makes a face. "No, you dumb fuck. The scar."
"There isn't a scar."
Kibum leans close to the mirror, squinting at the offending pimple. He holds his hair back with one hand, and gets ready to squeeze it with the other. "You don't see a scar because I used superglue."
"Don't pop that," Taemin mumbles around the thermometer. "Then you will have a scar."
Kibum squeezes and Taemin closes his eyes. When he opens them, Kibum is pulling a sheet of toilet paper off the roll and dabbing at his forehead. He tosses the sheet into the waste basket, and then grabs the thermometer from Taemin's mouth.
"Holy shit, one-oh-three. How high does a fever have to be before we need to take you to a hospital?"
"One-oh-five, one-oh-four-point-something?"
"So you're fine," Kibum says lightly. Sarcastic. "Just try not to black out again and we can avoid potential brain damage." He takes a tube from the medicine box and starts unscrewing the cap. The glue smell permeates the bathroom instantly.
"That stinks. It's going to make me gag."
"Don't gag. Don't even breathe in. Sit up and look over here." Kibum snaps his fingers to the left of his head, directing Taemin to straighten his spine and turn his head towards the light. Taemin's insides churn at the change in position. "Now don't move."
With one hand, Kibum grabs underneath Taemin's chin, fingers pressing into the hollow under his jaw to hold him still. Taemin watches the bottle of superglue in Kibum's right hand looming closer and closer to his face until his eyes cross, and then he winces at the sting of the glue touching his skin. It feels warm briefly, then tight, and then Kibum's finger swipes away the excess, smoothing it down. He tosses the bottle back into the medicine box and the cap hits something metal with a hollow ping.
"There," Kibum says, twisting the tap to wash his hands. "Good as new."
Taemin looks around him in the mirror, and he has to admit: with makeup, the gash will be invisible. He still looks sickly - his skin is like rice paper, almost transparent, arteries pulsing visibly - but at least he won't be bleeding on stage. His stomach lurches, and Taemin leans forward all the way. He can't decide if it feels like he's going to puke or not.
"You could eat something," Kibum starts, but he trails off when he catches Taemin's are you kidding me? look in the mirror. "Okay, maybe that's a little ambitious. I'm just saying, you might feel better even with, like, a juice box. Stay hydrated, replenish your electrolytes, all that. I have real orange juice, if you want, not from concentrate."
Taemin considers. Just thinking about the acidity of the orange juice burning down his throat makes him want to throw up. But it'd be better than sitting here, waiting for his body to decide which way to go. As appealing as it is, there isn't time to fall asleep next to the toilet. "Okay. A juice box."
"It's not cold," Kibum warns. "I don't put it in the fridge because otherwise you guys drink it on me; it's my juice."
"Don't I feel special," Taemin says.
Kibum presses his lips together, not quite a smile, but close enough. He leaves the door ajar when he leaves.
From his angle on the toilet, Taemin can see a section of the living room reflected in the mirror. The carpet under the coffee table is spackled with blood and crushed glass. Kibum said he was only out for a few seconds - Taemin hit the coffee table and was sitting up, dazed and blinking the blood out of his eyes, right after.
"Your juice," Kibum says, leaning around the doorjamb.
He plunks the carton down on the counter, and then steps out of the bathroom, pulling the door closed behind him. Taemin's glad that Kibum is the only one home. The others would be checking on him constantly, worrying, pestering, making a fuss. Kibum's brand of mother-henning is more tough love than smothering affection, and now that he's literally glued Taemin back together, Kibum leaves him alone to gain his composure.
Behind the privacy of the closed door, Taemin slides to the floor and digs his fingers into the back of his throat. He feels better after throwing up, even if it's only bile and juice; well enough to climb into the bath tub and turn the water on cold.
Twenty minutes later, Kibum knocks, two fast, one slow. "Taemin-ah?"
The water has gone lukewarm and Taemin is a prune. He still feels hot and ill, like he could boil the water he's sitting in, but the puking-feeling is gone, replaced by a pounding headache behind his eyes. It's no less painful, but more easily concealed than nausea. "Yeah," he says.
"The others are on their way back now."
"Okay. Thanks."
The lock twists. Kibum's using a coin from his pocket to open it. "I'm leaving your clothes here," he says. He sets a pile down on the counter, a neatly-stacked outfit and clean underwear. On top is a blister pack with two pills left. For the headache. Without a word, Kibum wipes down the counter and the floor. Taemin is willing to bet that the carpet under the coffee table is already soaking in cold water to get the blood out. Taemin whispers, hyung.
Kibum's about to leave, but he stops with his hand on the door. "What was that?"
"I said, thanks, hyung."
Kibum nods. Taemin can tell he doesn't quite feel right about this, but Taemin is grateful that Kibum lets it go, that he turns the lock, and leaves Taemin alone to be sick in peace.
"You look pale," Jinki says, when Taemin slides into the van.
Taemin leans to catch his reflection in the rearview mirror. His skin is white and clammy like the underbelly of a fish. His forehead has started to bruise under his bangs. He'll need a mortician to do his makeup. "Yeah," he agrees. "Guess so."
"Are you feeling all right?"
Taemin ignores the pointed look from Kibum. He feels functional. Uncomfortably warm, sure, but his vision isn't swimming and the sharp headache is already gone, replaced by a dull throb. His brain is fuzzy - he feels like his thoughts are moth-bitten, missing pieces of information that he's sure he knew at some point. But dance steps are hard-wired. Muscle memory. He could be a vegetable and his feet would still know the motions.
Backstage, sweating under the weight of stage makeup and impractical jewelery, Taemin feels someone press up close and breathe in hard like Taemin is some kind of flower on display. It's nothing the hyungdeul don't do in the dorm - they're always petting him, twisting his hair, pressing mostly-chaste kisses to his skin - but this time it's a stranger pressed flush against his back, close enough to audibly appreciate his shampoo. Taemin feels the breath like ants crawling over his skin.
"I don't like it," Taemin whispers. He's afraid to turn around because he has this creeping, sinking feeling that underneath the nose inhaling the fever-sweat smell from his nape, there isn't a mouth.
The hot breath falls silent against Taemin's neck. Taemin closes his eyes and swallows the dread that rises to the back of his throat. He wants to crawl under the stage, into the dark and close space. He wants to be alone.
Taemin startles out of his reverie as Jonghyun grabs onto the sleeve of his shirt - "What is with you today, space cadet? Come on!" - and pulls Taemin to stage left.
Taemin holds onto the back of Jinki's shirt as they hurry offstage. His feet don't quite know where to go all of the sudden, unassisted by music, and he stumbles on the steps and catches himself on Jinki's forearm. Jinki hisses at the contact. "Holy shit, Taemin," he says. "You're burning up."
"I..." Taemin starts to protest, to insist that it's from the dancing, the lights, the excitement, but then Jinki is pressing his cool hands to Taemin's face and the words die on his lips.
"How are you even walking?" Jinki asks. He uses his sleeve to wipe some of the sweat from Taemin's forehead. Taemin closes his eyes as the fabric passes over, and then finds that he can't open them again. He can't move at all.
Jinki is talking again; to Taemin, and then to someone else. Taemin vaguely registers Gyungshik-hyung's mumble through the roar of voices, and Jinki arguing back. It's strange to hear Jinki's voice sharp like that, and then soft a moment later when he whispers into the shell of Taemin's ear, "An ambulance is going to come and get you. It's okay."
Taemin nods dumbly.
Hours pass in a blur. He isn't fully aware until he's half-naked in a hospital bed, suddenly conscious of the ache in his limbs and the sweat that sticks his hair to his forehead. He can hear the beep of a heart monitor, and after a moment of confusion he realizes that the sluggish rhythm matches his own. His mouth is dry as cotton. He half-considers tugging the IV from his arm to drink the saline, but just as the thought comes, the door opens and a nurse steps inside.
She busies herself for a moment, checking a chart and straightening the room. She jumps when she notices Taemin watching her.
"Ah, you're awake," she says.
Her voice is clear. All of the parts of her face are there. For some reason, Taemin expects otherwise. "Did that man without a mouth follow me here? Is he waiting?"
The nurse offers a tight smile. "Why don't you try to sleep a little longer, Taemin-ssi? Your fever hasn't broken yet."
She adjusts the blanket under Taemin's arms, and steps out. Taemin doesn't try to sleep. He might never sleep again. His retinas hurt when he closes his eyes. His head is too hot. Taemin stares at the wall, unblinking, and listens to the argument that breaks out between his manager and the doctor just outside.
"There's no infection, no physical reason for him to be this sick," the doctor says. "It could be completely psychosomatic."
"So you're saying...?"
"We'll do some further tests. The fever is likely a symptom of stress. He's been treated for exhaustion before?"
"Well, yes. I mean, he works hard- they all do." Gyungshik sounds almost ashamed to admit this, as though it's his own fault Taemin and the other members haven't had time to rest properly in the midst of promotions.
"The hallucinations are certainly worrying, but let's not jump to conclusions until we have a more complete picture of the problem at hand."
Taemin's hair scratches against the pillow as he turns his head. The mouthless man is standing next to the bed, facing the window glass. He seems mildly irritated by the conversation in the hall. Taemin swallows hard. "You did follow me."
The mouthless man shrugs sadly.
"What are you...?"
Before Taemin can finish the question, the doctor comes inside, followed by Gyungshik-hyung wringing his hands and mumbling, aigoo, aigoo. The doctor touches Taemin's sweaty face, and eyes the heart monitor for a moment. The mouthless man is still there by the window, observing the scene in the reflection on the glass without comment.
"Taemin-ssi, we heard you bumped your head this morning. We're just going to run an MRI - a brain scan - to make sure everything's okay in there, all right? You understand?"
Taemin wonders why the doctor is speaking to him like a child. He says, "Yes. Yes, okay."
The mouthless man touches the window, and leaves four dotted fingerprints on the glass.
Dr. Kye is startling to look at. Her hair is half-pinned, pulled tight from her hairline like something sewed on. It makes her face seem younger, all of her wrinkles smoothed out except for the laugh lines around her eyes. When she smiles her eyes disappear; just two creases of skin with the short hairs of her eyelashes poking out. It makes Taemin feel unsettled, like this is a woman-without-eyes scrutinizing him too closely. He's had quite enough of people with wrong faces. Taemin shuffles uneasily to the middle of the room and waits there.
"Hello, Taemin-ssi. Please, sit down."
Dr. Kye doesn't make any indication that she would prefer him to sit in one chair over another, so Taemin sinks into the chair nearest to the door. It's hard-backed, not soft like the plush armchair closer to the doctor's desk. Dr. Kye doesn't comment on the distance he's put between them, just rolls her own chair around to the other side of the desk.
"Taemin, do you know why you're here?"
"No," Taemin lies.
"You've been running quite the fever, you know that, right? And your friend Kibum said that you banged your head yesterday. Do you remember that?"
Taemin remembers the black hole of a mouth, bleeding at the seams, the jagged teeth pressing against the top of his head. He makes an uncommitted hm and watches as Dr. Kye sits back in her seat, crossing one leg over the other.
"You've been having hallucinations," she says, with a tone as though she's reminding a small child of his wrong-doings. "Haven't you? Doubts about what's real and what isn't?"
The more she talks, the more Taemin thinks this doctor is an imposter. The skin on her face ripples and distorts as she speaks, unconnected to the structure underneath. It moves like jello under saran wrap, like a layer of fat floating loose under the bag of her skin. Her eyes squeeze and disappear.
"We initially suspected that you might be suffering from brain damage," she says. "Prolonged fever can sometimes have that effect, and then head trauma... that's why we ran an MRI. But the scan hints at something else, which is why you're here with me instead of Dr. Oh."
"You're a psychiatrist," Taemin says.
"You don't sound surprised." Dr. Kye swivels in her chair to grab a folder off of her desk. She flips it open to a black-and-blue transparency of a brain. Presumably Taemin's. "Taemin-ssi, the MRI showed signs of tissue damage in the temporal and frontal regions of your brain. Of course this could have a variety of causes, but some studies show a link to certain mental disorders..."
The mouthless man is standing at the door, at the edge of Taemin's peripheral vision, looking impossibly long in a three-piece suit and white gloves. The hole in his face is hidden behind a surgical mask. If not for the insidious sense of something wrong, the man might be attractive.
"... such as bipolar or schizophrenia, disorders that frequently involve psychosis. There's a history of this in your family, apparently. A grandfather? It's not uncommon for the children or grandchildren of people with schizophrenia to have these sorts of symptoms."
Taemin knows that he should be worried to hear this, maybe even distraught. But the information simply curls up somewhere in his brain like a lazy cat that Taemin is content to ignore. The mouthless man steps over to the desk and casually scans the file over the doctor's shoulder. Dr. Kye takes no notice of him, although he walks right in front of her.
"It says here that you were on an anti-psychotic when you were younger, but there's no official diagnosis, just the prescription." Dr. Kye produces a tiny pair of glasses from her front pocket and puts them on. Immediately, they slide down the bridge of her nose. Taemin can't shake the illusion that the skin moved, and not the glasses. "Do you recall why?"
"I don't... I don't remember."
The mouthless man looks at his reflection on the computer screen to fix his tie, and then he sits down next to Taemin, uncomfortably close. He makes no attempt to hide how deeply he inhales, practically pressing his face into Taemin's hair. His breath is hot through the mask.
Taemin shakes with a chill. Dr. Kye squints at him over the top of her glasses. "Taemin?"
"I want to go home," Taemin says. He wants to be somewhere dark. Somewhere quiet. The more he stares at this woman, the surer he becomes that there is something wrong with her skin.
The mouthless man stands up from the couch with one hand swinging backwards as though he intends for Taemin to take it. Taemin doesn't, but all the same the mouthless man stands there waiting. His eyes have disappeared into a smile; Taemin doesn't want to think about what the mouth looks like under the mask, tight skin pulled even tighter, if those muscles even work at all.
"I can't keep you here," Dr. Kye admits. "But please consider what I've told you. This sort of thing needs medication and therapy. With your chosen career, it would be wise to start sooner rather than later."
"I just need to think," Taemin says. "Let me go home to think."
Taemin doesn't fail to notice that the manager's room no longer has a deadbolt. The lock has been replaced with a dummy handle, a knob that doesn't turn. Taemin has to stuff a dirty sock under the door to make it stay completely closed.
He lies supine on the floor with his arms folded above his head and watches the shadow of the fan blades slowly whirring, circulating too-warm air through the room. The base of the fan, where it anchors to the ceiling beam, is thick. Sturdy-looking. Taemin wonders if it could support his weight.
The apartment is strangely quiet, everything still. Someone is in the living room watching television with the volume low. Taemin pulls the comforter off of the manager's bed and wraps himself in it, tenting the blanket over his head. He blinks until he can't tell the difference between the black of the room and the inside of his eyelids.
"I'm scared," Taemin announces into the dark.
Taemin feels a weight settle at the bottom of the blanket, nudging his feet to make him lift his knees. There's a pressure, like a hand on his groin. Taemin exhales and the blanket rises from his lips. Slowly, he reaches into his shorts and cups his dick in his left hand. He isn't hard. He squeezes and relaxes his grip in time to his own breathing, trying to relax.
"Taemin?" The door slides an inch across the carpet before the sock gets caught underneath. Kibum leans down to worm the sock from the gap, clicking his tongue against his teeth. "I'm coming in," he warns.
The weight pressing down on Taemin's ribs is making it hard to breathe. Taemin can't move even if he wanted to; he's pinned with one hand down his pants and the other over his chest, legs parted wide enough he can feel the pull in his groin.
Kibum gets the sock free. He slaps his hands against his pants as he stands up.
Fingers trail over the blanket to Taemin's face, and inch-by-inch the blanket is pulled down. The mouthless man is there. His nails pinch at Taemin's lips. He presses his thumb into the hollow under Taemin's jaw. Taemin can feel the distinct shape of an erection between his legs.
Light slowly spills into the room. Kibum is trying to be quiet; he must think that Taemin's asleep.
Taemin keeps his eyes closed. He can feel heat on his face, the mouthless man hovering over him with that bleeding hole poised and waiting. He seems excited. The mouthless man inhales and holds it, anticipation stalling his breath. He lowers his head.
Taemin's toes and fingers twist uncontrollably. His insides are boiling to slush. Every muscle cramps and spasms under his skin. Tears burn down his cheeks. He can feel blood and mess covering his lips, his chin. The taste of copper is sharp on his tongue.
Kibum steps into the room and almost trips over the lump on the floor. "Taemin, why are you sleeping on the... holy shit. Oh, fuck, Taemin, what did you do to your mouth? Taemin? Are you even breathing-jesus christ. Oh jesus fucking christ. Jinki! Hyung!"
x
wynnetimate's master list.
"mouthless" was originally the opening to a long!fic i'm working on, tentatively titled lichloved which is a redux of odalisque, your subtle body, and new material that i've been cobbling together since the start of term. i don't intend to post it until i have it finished, in order to avoid the long and slow updates that have plagued call me oppa due to massive revisioning during the rewriting process. the six thousand or so words here were supposed to explain a gap in the character of taemin's history, where he goes into an extended fugue state and suffers from amnesia. it's implied that he was living in a separate plane of existence, created and populated by the mouthless man (who is a major character in lichloved and so i will not explain him further), this plane being the band!verse of "mouthless". it was a set-up for your typical thrown-into-a-fantasy-world plot.
i nixed it because it felt dumb and tacked on, and already lichloved suffers from a million and one different viewpoints. however, i really like the scene with key and taemin in the bathroom, so i've decided to post this as an in-canon one-shot instead of deleting it from my hard drive.