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Jongin knocks on his door at night and Taemin knows something is wrong because Jongin has a key and he only knocks when he feels like he shouldn’t enter, when he feels guilty about something. The camera at the door shows him fidgeting with his shirt like it’s too tight, but Taemin can see it isn’t, which definitely confirms his theory.
“What did you do?” Taemin asks as he opens the door, which is a little mean of him really, but he does enjoy digging into Jongin occasionally, just to see him squirm.
Jongin looks at him from behind his eyelashes, head down. “Can I come in?” he asks.
Worrying, frankly. Jongin doesn’t even smile. Taemin had perhaps miscalculated. He frowns and steps aside, a wordless invitation. It isn’t entirely unlike Jongin to show up in a mood at Taemin’s doorstep, but usually, he’s here to cuddle against Taemin and make pathetic noises at him until Taemin fucks him better. This is different. Jongin not looking at Taemin properly, not hugging him after Taemin closes the door, but walking straight for the living room and standing on the carpet like he isn’t sure where he’d be allowed to sit, it’s all bizarre and jarring, and Taemin hates it.
Taemin’s dogs run from where they were asleep in Taemin’s bedroom to bark excitedly at Jongin’s feet and jump to put their little paws on Jongin’s sweatpants and it takes Jongin a moment where he’s clearly contemplating whether he should, before he kneels and pets them. He looks up at Taemin then. “Sorry,” he says, voice small.
Taemin positively despises whatever this is, he decides. Jongin is not allowed to look this way when he’s in Taemin’s house, he’s not allowed to look this torn ever. “What’s wrong?” he asks, and he tries to sound neutral but it doesn’t quite work, judging from Jongin’s wince at his words.
Jongin picks up Eve and sets her in his lap and doesn’t look at Taemin again, “I…” he pauses, exhales. “Can I not tell you?” he asks.
Taemin wants to yell ‘No!’ because it’s unspeakably horrible for Jongin to be this upset and for him to be locked out, not being allowed to help, but Taemin is also a reasonable man so he doesn’t. He breathes out, a sound more irritated than it should be really, walks closer to Jongin and the dogs, and sits down on the warm carpet. Adam jumps at him immediately and distracts his hands from reaching out to Jongin when they might perhaps not be wanted.
It’s silent for a moment. Taemin tries to remember when he last sat in a room with Jongin and didn’t know what Jongin was thinking. He strokes his dog’s soft fur and goes back in memory, perhaps when they were trainees still? But no, he remembers them looking at each other in the mirror and remembers knowing intimately the exact moment when the corner of Jongin’s lips lifted how Jongin thought ‘god, I love this’ and he remembers smiling at mirror Jongin and thinking that he’d dance forever just like this, with Jongin ecstatic by his side. So no, not way back then.
He glances at Jongin, who looks miserable still. He’s looking down, his lovely chin almost touching his chest, and Taemin knows he’s trying not to cry by the stuttered movements of his torso, which is awful, it’s unreasonable to expect Taemin to bear witness to this and not commit an act horrible enough to be tried in an international court of law upon whoever caused Jongin to be like this.
It must have been in those horrible months after Taemin first debuted that this last happened; when Jongin didn’t know how to talk to him about how guilty he felt for being envious. Seven years ago, Taemin cried angry tears and screamed in a practice room loud enough that someone had to knock on the door and check on them, and he demanded Jongin talk to him because he’d rather die than live a dream that doesn’t include Jongin in it. It was also the day they first kissed.
Taemin doesn’t think he should yell now, Jongin looks fragile enough already, he doesn’t deserve screaming. But he does shoo Adam off his lap and scoots closer to Jongin, and slowly wraps his arms around him. The sound that Jongin makes is terrible enough to make a sane man lose his mind, a whine like Taemin had pressed on a wound, small and pained. Taemin unconsciously presses closer to him at it, and Jongin collapses into his chest, wet face pressing into Taemin’s neck. “I’m sorry,” he says again.
“Stop saying that!” Taemin hisses. Jongin nods, lips catching on Taemin’s neck, soft and wet. Taemin pets his hair and holds him and can feel it when Eve gets tired of being squished in between their bodies and jumps off to continue her nap. “What has happened to you? Christ, Jongin.”
Jongin wriggles a little and looks up at Taemin, “I love you,” he says, eyes wet and face harrowed.
“I know that, what– I love you too. Why are you so sad?” He wants to shake it out of Jongin, he wants to climb under his skin and know , it’s hateful that he has to live like this even for a minute when he loves Jongin so much and when Jongin is his . His hands are still gentle when they land on Jongin’s cheeks because he could never not be gentle with Jongin. “I love you too,” he repeats firmly.
Jongin closes his eyes and nuzzles into Taemin’s palm, kissing the center of it. Taemin lets him, and tangles his other hand in his hair to soothe him.
“Ah, Jongin-ah, what do you need?” He asks.
Jongin blinks slowly, considering, then softly and as if he isn’t sure Taemin would agree, asks, “Will you kiss me?”
Outrageous. As if Taemin wouldn’t kill a man to kiss Jongin. God, what a terrible night this is. He leans in and presses his lips to Jongin’s like it’s his birthright to do so, easily and without a sliver of caution. He kisses Jongin because Jongin is his to kiss, always. Jongin doesn’t kiss back at first, he just breathes and whines more of that terrible sound, this time right against Taemin’s lips, and Taemin wants to howl and tear something apart but his hands remain gentle as they hold Jongin closer still.
There is an endless amount of possibilities for what this could be, and Taemin despises uncertainty. He hopes, selfishly perhaps, that it’s only Jongin panicking about something minor, the way he sometimes does, his anxiety waging an unreasonable war with him and making him feel like the world is falling apart. It’s a terrible thing when it happens, but it’s a kinder possibility than it being a reasonable reaction to something awful, Taemin thinks– hopes; he never wants to be unkind to Jongin, even when he’s wishing for bad things to have happened, it’s only to unwish worse things. Taemin is a sensible man.
Kissing Jongin is like blinking, involuntary and vital. Taemin is more competent in it than he is in any dance he’s ever performed. Jongin’s shoulders, tense and probably painful, sag under Taemin’s hands the moment their tongues touch, and it makes Taemin want to crawl inside him until Jongin is too occupied with him to be in pain any longer, but that isn’t new, Taemin often wants to be unbearably closer to this man, and it’s fine because Jongin wants that as well, their desires are inseparable.
Taemin doesn’t ask again about what Jongin isn’t ready to say, but he does whisper, low and loving, right to the corner of Jongin lips, “Do you want me?”
“Always.” A breath, so fast that Taemin isn’t even sure Jongin heard his question before answering. And then, “ Always ,” he repeats more firmly and he sounds gutted.
Taemin brushes his hair off his forehead and presses one, lingering kiss to the center of it.
“I meant right now, Jonginnie,” he says. “Do you want me to have you? Are you here for sex?” It’s blunt, and possibly the wrong sort of direct, but Taemin isn’t used to mincing words around Jongin, and he doesn’t mean it cruelly.
Jongin stares at him for a long while, his face moving through expressions like a slideshow, and Taemin wants so badly at that moment to photograph Jongin and categorize each microexpression into a specific feeling in his mind, so he could never again have to guess what each of them means. It’s an awful thing not to know what Jongin is thinking, a travesty.
“I– I don’t know,” Jongin answers eventually, and he seems just as hurt as Taemin is by that answer, as if his own desires have betrayed him by being so confused.
“Have you eaten?” Taemin asks.
Jongin winces and his shoulders tense again. A small nod and then he bites his lower lip between his teeth, and that expression, Taemin knows. Guilt on Jongin looks awful; it looks like a crime scene, upturning his beauty with sorrow. It doesn’t belong on Jongin’s face. Taemin’s hands land around his cheeks and his thumbs smooth Jongin’s forehead in an attempt to wipe the feeling off.
“Do you not want to sleep with me because you think you shouldn’t?” Taemin asks. Jongin’s eyes squeeze closed and his entire face crumbles. He nods and his tears fall again on his perfect cheeks.
Taemin sighs, and it’s relief spilling out of him in a breath. It’s illogical, maybe, because Jongin has done something to make him feel like he shouldn’t have Taemin’s touches, which is appalling because Jongin should know better than to think Taemin would ever discard him. But that isn’t important; what’s crucial in this moment is that Taemin knows, that Jongin didn’t have to say it, that they are still themselves, intertwined so thoroughly that Taemin can deduce Jongin’s thoughts from the wrinkles of his forehead, which is joyous and lovely, and the only important thing in the world. Jongin won’t ever hide from him, because he can’t. Relief, Taemin thinks, might be a better feeling than orgasm.
He leans in and kisses Jongin again and Jongin whines and resists for a microsecond, an awful, terrible thing really, Taemin wants to scratch at him for it, but he settles into the kiss within a breath and accepts it like he does everything Taemin gives him, and so Taemin forgives him immediately.
“Do you want to do it regardless, Jongin?” Taemin asks, breathy and low.
“Yes,” Jongin answers, almost a sob.
“You’re so silly, Nini. All I want to do is make you feel better. You’re not allowed to deny me that, not ever.” Taemin may sound a little unhinged, even to his own ears, but in his defense, it’s the middle of the night, and really, not even a sane man seeing Jongin like this can remain so; not that Taemin has ever pretended to be sane, despite how reasonable he thinks he is.
“Taeminnie…” Jongin sighs, and nuzzles his face into Taemin’s neck. “I love you.”
Taemin hums. “Bed? Or shower?” He asks.
“Bed, please.”
Taemin tangles his fingers in Jongin’s hair and then kisses his head. “Good,” he says, then stands up with Jongin’s hand in his.
They kick the dogs out of the room and close the door, and Jongin, true to how awful this night continues to be, does not get on the bed until Taemin physically drags him onto it. Whatever it is that has him this rattled, Taemin hates it more than he’s ever hated anything else in his life, he decides.
They kneel facing each other and Taemin sets his hands back on Jongin’s face to smooth it out. He smiles at Jongin and does not say anything. He thinks language might currently be broken, and the only thing that communicates just how much he loves Jongin are his fingers and his lips. Jongin must know just how deeply under Taemin’s skin he lives. He must know that they are inseparable. It’s not only Taemin who can read Jongin like a second tongue, Jongin knows him too. Taemin’s hands reach under Jongin’s hoodie and pull it off him; he’s thin, wiry, and muscular, but very small. Sometimes, it’s all Taemin can do not to cry when Jongin doesn’t eat, despite knowing exactly how hypocritical that is. His palms land on Jongin’s soft flank gently and then his lips follow; they’re adoring kisses that he plants on Jongin’s lovely skin, reverent and worshipful.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispers. “Always so beautiful.” And he doesn’t mean it as a compliment really, it’s an exclamation more than anything, a statement too large to remain unspoken.
“Don’t–” Jongin says, and then winces. “You’re beautiful,” he amends, then his large, strong hands come to rest on Taemin’s face. “You’re the most beautiful man in the world,” he whispers.
Taemin shakes his head, but he doesn’t argue. He just leans in and continues kissing Jongin’s stomach, pushes him until he can hover on top of him, and traces his lips all the way to his belly button, licks just a little there, just enough to make Jongin’s breath stutter and his hands tighten where they’ve slipped into Taemin’s hair. Jongin’s skin tastes familiar, salty, and intimate.
“How do you want to get off?” Taemin asks, resting his chin on Jongin’s abs and looking up at him.
“However you want,” Jongin answers with a shake of his head and a little frown that disappears as soon as it crosses his face.
And it’s hideous, how Jongin is so unsure. Taemin can’t stand it. “I want to fuck you,” he says because it’s the easiest way to feel like he’s inside Jongin’s skull.
Jongin nods, and his thighs spread as if unconsciously to accommodate Taemin in between them. Taemin immediately sets his palms on the insides of them, close to the juncture of Jongin’s hips, he loves it here specifically. He knows that when Jongin is naked, and Taemin’s face is resting on his inner thigh, just there, right at the top, he can feel Jongin’s pulse on his skin, so warm and so alive and entirely belonging to Taemin at that moment. It’s the most soothing feeling in the world. Taemin smiles at the thought and leans up to kiss Jongin.
It’s fast work to take off their clothes, they’re both in comfortable cotton anyway, Jongin having probably come from practice and Taemin in pajamas. And it’s better, once Taemin can lay on top of Jongin and feel his skin, all warm around him. Jongin smiles too and he kisses Taemin’s cheek, which is wonderful. They should always be like this, clothes are terrible, Taemin decides, they belong only on runways and in music videos and never ever covering Jongin’s skin and hiding it away from Taemin.
Jongin isn’t hard at all, but that’s alright. Sometimes he wants sex less because he wants to get off and more just to feel Taemin, and Taemin understands that and could never deny him a thing. “Should I touch you?” He asks as he settles lower on the bed, pressing a little kiss to the length of Jongin’s soft cock.
Jongin shakes his head, “Not for– no. Just…” His words are clumsy and incoherent but Taemin doesn’t make him explain, he just peppers kisses around Jongin’s groin and spreads his thighs wider. Jongin is paler here, despite how closely monitored his skin usually is, the sun loves him, and how can Taemin blame it? He still isn’t as pale as Taemin’s hand on him is, but the sight of them together, the differences in tone make Taemin feel like he’s observing art.
He lets his face drop on one of Jongin’s thighs as he presses one lubed finger at his hole. It’s warm and Jongin’s muscles flutter at the contact like he’s surprised, it’s lovely. Taemin sucks a bruise on the delicate skin underneath his mouth just as he fucks that finger in, making Jongin gasp. If Jongin has dance practice again tomorrow, he’ll feel this bruise every time he moves and he’ll remember Taemin putting it there. It’s maybe a little mean, but Jongin has done it to him before, and it’s the sort of mean thing that says they belong to one another, so it’s allowed.
He can feel Jongin relaxing deliberately around his finger, allowing him in, and so he fucks him deeper and then withdraws and does it again. He watches Jongin’s face, his eyes are closed and his brows are back to being furrowed. He’s still thinking about whatever brought him here, what an entirely hideous thing to read on his face. Taemin bites him again, this time harder, and Jongin cries out in surprise and pain and opens his eyes to aim an accusatory glare at Taemin. Good, now his focus is back on what really matters. Taemin refuses to feel any remorse.
“Stay with me,” Taemin orders and teases a second finger around Jongin’s hole as he rhythmically works him open.
Jongin sobs a little, a frustrated little sound. “Taemin-ah, I want to, I want to… I want to .”
Taemin kisses the inside of his thigh, gently. “You can, aish, Jongin. You’re acting like I’m about to kick you out. Don’t be ridiculous.”
That horrible guilt on Jongin’s face returns. “What if you do? What if you should?” He asks. Taemin frowns and pauses his fingers inside Jongin to focus on studying his face, which breaks even more awfully at that. “Don’t stop,” he begs. Hideous. Taemin startles and thrusts his second finger very harshly inside Jongin at that, a desperate, automatic response to give Jongin what he needs and never hear him sound that way again. Jongin winces but his thighs cage Taemin in closer like he’s grateful.
“That’s absurd. I love you,” Taemin says, just a bit frightened now.
Jongin is silent for a long while, but he doesn’t break eye contact, he lets his feelings cross his face as they happen, and Taemin observes, thankful that he’s allowed to see this, that he’s not being shut out.
“I love you too, more than you can ever know, more than anyone can love anything, I think,” Jongin replies seriously, and then his eyes shutter closed and he moans a pleasured sound and tightens around Taemin’s fingers.
Good.
Taemin shouldn’t doubt this, not ever. Doubt in Jongin’s love is an evil thing.
He doesn’t try to deduce what has happened with Jongin. He has an inkling that if he tried hard enough, he’d know, but he doesn’t want to, not now, and not while Jongin needs him this badly. Instead, he takes his fingers out and leans his body over Jongin’s to steal the sob that causes with a kiss. “I’m going to fuck you now,” he says. And Jongin nods.
Taemin is an artist, a writer sometimes, he knows how to spin words and make metaphors, but there is nothing in the world like being inside Jongin. It’s transcendent. Taemin thinks no words in the Korean language can describe how absolutely right Taemin feels like this, buried to the hilt in unbearable warmth and surrounded by Jongin gasping in pleasure. Sex isn’t always like this, Taemin has been with other people and it’s almost always good, it’s exactly what Taemin needs sometimes, but sex with Jongin– this is something he’d never have even conceived of before he’d had it.
Jongin is tighter than he should be. They don’t do this often, they don’t always have the time or energy for this sort of sex, and Taemin hadn’t done a good enough job stretching him out, but he thinks Jongin would forgive him for that in the morning, hopefully. Jongin sounds like he doesn’t care at all, he is clutching at Taemin’s back and his heels are digging into Taemin’s thighs and all he is saying is, “more, Taeminnie, please move.” So Taemin does. He fucks in hard and uncoordinated, and it’s only then that he remembers how bone-tired he was when he arrived home this evening. His muscles strain and ache within minutes and he makes a frustrated growl and bites Jongin’s shoulder. Jongin caresses his hair and kisses his head, and then whispers, “It’s alright, it’s alright, baby.” His big hands stroke a path down Taemin’s back and massage the center of his spine and Taemin almost sobs into Jongin’s neck. “Let’s move.”
Taemin hates this. He clutches at Jongin’s shoulders and bangs his head against the pillow behind him, and Jongin shushes him. He has danced on stage seconds away from collapsing but here, in bed with Jongin, where he’s warm and loved and vulnerable, his body disallows him that. It only whines and demands to be obliged. It’s stupid to be this upset about it, but Taemin isn’t unmoved by Jongin coming to him like this tonight, and his emotional capacity for dealing with his own bullshit is at a record low.
“Let’s move,” Jongin says again. “Come on.” Taemin rests his side on the mattress and Jongin faces him, kisses his nose. “You can fuck me like this, I love feeling you on my back,” he says, smiling shyly, then he turns and presses his ass closer to Taemin.
Taemin sighs, but hugs Jongin closer anyway, and kisses the back of his neck. Despite a day’s work, Jongin’s hair still smells like shampoo, and it’s soft enough to tickle Taemin’s nose. Taemin fucks into him again, and it’s easier to thrust in like this, less terrible on his tired body. He forgets to be annoyed within minutes. Jongin feels like a furnace, and holding him close like this, and feeling every bit of him touching Taemin might be even better than seeing his face. Jongin’s hand clasps his where it lays on his taut stomach and holds on tight, and Taemin turns it around so they can tangle their fingers together.
“You’re perfect,” he moans, involuntary, right next to Jongin’s ear.
Jongin shudders.
It’s impossible, really, to imagine a world where Taemin might not want this man. How could Taemin’s soul ever be restful? How could it ever be fulfilled? Taemin believes in God and he believes in grand plans, and right at the core of it all, he believes that they were always meant to be like this, together. No universe where they aren’t can ever be a just one.
“Ridiculous man,” says Taemin. “You’ll always be mine.”
“Yeah,” Jongin moans. “Yes. Always, Taemin-ah. Never not yours.” His hand tightens around Taemin’s almost painfully, and Taemin holds him back just as hard.
The slap of their bodies together isn’t as fast as before, but it’s a harsh, wet sound. Taemin loses time listening to it and feeling Jongin around him, in, out, in, and out, perfect and more important than any heaven that might await Taemin. He feels weightless like this. All he can do is fuck Jongin and kiss every bit of his skin that his mouth can reach, softly and worshipfully, and when he can feel his orgasm coming, he whines into Jongin’s ear, a broken, “Nini, I’m– you…” And Jongin understands.
He takes Taemin’s hand and guides it with his to press against Jongin’s erection together. He’s hard, but Jongin doesn’t make their hands stroke him, he just pushes their weight together and ruts against Taemin’s palm, slowly, in that way he does when he doesn’t want to come. Taemin can feel wetness on his wrist from the head of Jongin’s cock and it makes him hotter, makes him grind his hips against Jongin’s ass desperately.
“Taeminnie,” Jongin sighs with pleasure. “You feel so, so good.”
“You too… you too, Nini, I’m– Nini.” Making words is an impossible task. Taemin sobs into Jongin’s neck and comes, can hear himself make a loud groan during, and can hear Jongin whisper soft, lovely things to him, but his eyes close and he lives in a world of bursting stars and black abysses.
He holds Jongin still for a long while after, and can feel Jongin’s hips moving slowly and softly against their hands.
“Want me to make you come, Jongin-ah?” He asks, his voice is hoarse and his throat as dry as a desert.
Jongin shakes his head no and pulls Taemin’s hand in between his legs, curls tighter around himself, and pulls Taemin along with him until they’re both cocooned around each other in the middle of the bed. Taemin kisses his neck, right where his hairline is, and waits.
They lay like this in silence, and eventually, Taemin feels Jongin’s dick soften and his breathing even into a slow rhythm, not asleep but more settled than he’s been since he came into Taemin’s apartment. Taemin nuzzles his neck and doesn’t push, and after a few minutes, Jongin sighs.
“I went out today, after practice,” he starts, his voice is calm. Taemin does not interject, he holds him close and lets him speak. “It was a date, though I didn’t realize it would be until we were at the restaurant.”
And there, that’s where Jongin’s guilt came from. It isn’t a surprise to him, Taemin finds. Though it hurts more sharply than he anticipated, right in his throat like something stabbed his windpipe and made his every breath hurt.
“It was lovely. She was gorgeous and nice, and talking to her was so, so easy. And I forgot, for a moment, that I wasn’t supposed to be on a date at all. I forgot, just for a second, I swear it was only a second– I forgot… She wanted to kiss me after and I wanted to let her.” Jongin’s voice breaks at the last word and he pauses, swallows, then, “I love you more than it should be possible to love another person, Taeminnie,” he says.
Taemin is very glad suddenly, that Jongin can’t see his face because he isn’t certain what it looks like currently. “You like her? Want her?” Taemin asks, voice carefully blank.
Jongin nods, and whispers a soft, “yes.” And then, more firmly, “but I love you.”
“I know that,” Taemin finds himself replying without thinking. And he does know. He looks within himself for the doubt, but he can’t find it. He knows Jongin as intimately as a limb, Jongin can’t ever lie to him. Jongin loves him, and Jongin is being racked with guilt.
Taemin wonders what a normal person would feel, being in his place. He isn’t entirely sure what he does feel himself, and so he wonders. If he weren’t himself, if this weren’t Jongin, and they weren’t the way they were, mad with love, almost symbiotic in a way that, when other people notice, really notice and not just glance at and be charmed by their aura of affection, they get concerned. If he were a normal person, he thinks his heart might be breaking. As it is, though, Taemin is sad, but he thinks he might be sadder about hurting Jongin this way, even inadvertently, than he is about the woman. Jongin is in pain, and his pain is connected to Taemin, and that is simply unacceptable.
“I love you too,” Taemin says.
Jongin takes his hand from in between his thighs and holds it to his heart tightly, and then lifts it up to his mouth to kiss his palm.
“Do I know her?” Taemin asks.
“Krystal, she’s– We’ve been hanging out, and… it’s Krystal,” Jongin answers immediately.
“Our Krystal? My Krystal?”
Jongin nods.
Taemin hums, and it feels different somehow in his chest, lighter. Krystal is a friend. Taemin finds that the worst part of it all was the thought of Jongin falling in love with a stranger, someone entirely foreign to Taemin, a relationship that Taemin is completely irrelevant to. It’s as if the betrayal is the fact that Jongin has gone and experienced something new that changed him, and Taemin couldn’t see it happen. It’s strange how comforting it is that he can picture Jongin with Krystal and understand why Jongin is enamored with her. It feels warm thinking about Jongin blushing because Krystal told one of her terrible dirty jokes, Jongin being charmed by her grace and her witty comebacks, Jongin being entirely outmaneuvered by a stunning woman. Taemin smiles against Jongin’s back.
“You love me,” he says.
“Always,” Jongin answers, despite it not being a question.
“I like Krystal,” Taemin says. “You have good taste.”
A breath leaves Jongin so heavily that his entire back presses deeper into Taemin, and then he turns in his hold and looks into Taemin’s eyes. “What does that mean?” He asks.
“You’re mine,” Taemin states, and brushes Jongin’s hair off his forehead, then leans in to peck his red lips. “You’ll always be mine.” Jongin nods and his eyes are so wide, teary, and sparkling. “I always thought I’d get to choose the woman you’ll marry.”
Jongin frowns. “That’s– I’m not getting married.”
“Not now. It was always in the future though. I always thought I’d introduce you to a woman… ah, never mind. You’re my soulmate, Jongin-ah, but you’re so bright and so lovely, and I don’t want shadows to fall over you, not ever. I want you to be safe and happy and I never want to cause you pain.”
“That makes no sense. What are you even saying?” Jongin sounds frightened now. He seeks out Taemin’s hands and holds them then curls even closer to Taemin, never looking away from his face.
Taemin laughs a little and leans in to kiss Jongin again. “I really am not making sense, hmm? I’m sorry, baby.”
At one point, Taemin thinks as he caresses Jongin’s lovely cheeks, they should have this conversation. Maybe in ten years, once Jongin’s parents start being anxious and wheedling him about children. And who knows, maybe the country will change in ten years. Taemin chuckles. He loves Jongin so much his heart can barely bear it. He doesn’t think people are meant to feel all of this, really. How is a person supposed to function carrying around all this love? It’s simply a malfunction, Taemin decides. No one in the history of the world has loved another person as much as Taemin does now.
He kisses Jongin.
“You can date Krystal,” he says, nonchalant. “It’s fine. Don’t break your own heart like this, it’s unseemly.” Then he turns on his back and stretches his arms above his head, flexes his toes. His back is very unhappy with him.
Jongin pounces on him and kisses him more, and he’s crying again, but Taemin is pretty sure those are good tears now, he wipes them away from Jongin’s face with his thumbs anyway.
“Silly boy,” he teases.
“Very silly. But yours,” Jongin agrees.
“Yeah.” Taemin smiles and he’s very sure it’s a sappy thing on his face, embarrassing for anyone other than Jongin to witness. “Sleep now, let’s talk about threesomes tomorrow,” he sighs and then beams at Jongin.
“Taemin!”
“What? She’s pretty. I did say I approve of your taste!”
Jongin pokes him in the side, but everything is lighter now, even Jongin’s face, no longer as awfully harrowed. Taemin is very tired and very sleepy, and he’s glad that he managed to solve this in a night because he might have died had Jongin remained so pained. Jongin reaches for tissues and cleans them both up, not very well but enough for tonight, and then turns off the light and cuddles Taemin’s chest again. “Love you,” he says.
“You too,” Taemin replies, automatically, despite being in the middle of a yawn, though he’s not sure he’s all alright yet. He thinks this entire thing might hit him tomorrow and he’ll cry a little about it when Jongin isn’t there, but it’s fine for now, he decides, and Jongin will hug him tomorrow if he’s sad and it’ll be fine then too.
Taemin tightens his am around Jongin and inhales the smell of his hair, and he falls asleep.