Work Text:
Jongin will never drink a cocktail again. Especially not colorful, fruity ones with enough juice and syrup to afflict him with a sugar headache on top of his hangover.
He groans, curling into a pathetic shrimp shape and bumping his knees into the person beside him. Taemin grumbles.
“I’m dying,” Jongin rasps into an overstuffed hotel pillow.
“Go back to sleep then,” Taemin says.
Jongin gropes blindly across the bed, refusing to open his eyes. When he finds Taemin’s knobby shoulder, he pulls him against his chest, hugging his arms and legs around Taemin like he’s a buoy at sea. With how much his stomach is churning, he might as well be rocking in rough waves.
Surprisingly, Taemin doesn’t complain about being suffocated like he usually would. Instead, he snuggles closer, nestling until they press together from head to toe.
Neither of them is wearing much. Did they fuck last night? He can’t remember, which is a pity because it’s been a while, and he’d rather remember. Jongin gets so little of Taemin these days. He never got much of him to begin with.
Perhaps, despite the splitting headache, he’s dreaming.
Their shared body heat and Taemin’s deep breaths take him under again. It may be minutes or hours later when Taemin’s work phone rings, loudly blaring the nu metal song he inexplicably set for Nam Euisoo.
Taemin wriggles out of his grasp to answer it. Jongin whines in protest but cracks one eye open to watch him talk to his manager. He’s got tiny shorts on, which make his thighs look fantastic but do little to answer the question of last night’s activities.
When Taemin hangs up, he reports, “Hyung says we’ve got two hours before we need to leave for the airport.”
“Two hours? He could’ve let us sleep for another hour.” It isn’t like they unpacked much for this little overnight trip. And Jongin doubts his stomach can handle much breakfast. But his eyes are full of crust, and he probably reeks, so a shower is in order.
He pushes himself upright with a full-body grunt. “Do you want to use the shower first?”
Taemin is already retrieving last night’s clothes from the chair they are flung over and whipping out the worst of the wrinkles. “All my toiletries are in me and hyung’s room, so I’m going over there,” he says as he redresses. Right before his shirt conceals his chest, Jongin spots the hickey on his collarbone.
Jongin loves Taemin’s collarbone. Whenever he gets the chance, he marks Taemin there, a futile attempt to lay claim to someone unclaimable. This hickey is even bigger than usual; he hopes he didn’t do or say anything pathetic while leaving it.
“Do you remember how last night ended?”
Taemin looks at him through the mirror, pausing in the middle of hand-combing his bedhead. “Of course? You don’t?”
“Not really.”
Taemin clicks his tongue. “You shouldn’t drink so much. You could get into serious trouble.”
At the moment, Jongin plans to never drink again.
Once satisfied that he’s fit for public consumption (in a hotel hallway, at least), Taemin drops a kiss on Jongin’s aching head, tells him not to fall back asleep, and leaves. Jongin watches the door close behind him, his scalp tingling.
Last night must’ve been amazing to leave Taemin so affectionate the next morning.
Jongin considers crawling under the bedcovers despite the warning, but his thirst convinces him to get up. After guzzling two glasses of water and showering, he feels a little less dead. But he’s still praying that Euisoo packed painkillers and nausea meds. Otherwise, the flight back to LA will be an exercise in misery.
Slowly, Jongin dresses and starts gathering the few belongings he scattered across the room. That is when he finds the paper on the TV stand, an official-looking document in English. It takes Jongin a moment to decipher the curly script across the top.
Certificate of Marriage
Below, there is a lot more text, but what Jongin sees first is his name beside Taemin’s.
As the words register and heavy horror sinks Jongin’s stomach, memories of last night rush back.
Arguably, it’s all that yes-man Nam Euisoo’s fault.
Taemin’s manager moves mountains to accommodate his whims whenever possible. So, when the staff asked the members what they wanted to do during their upcoming rest day, and Taemin joked about seeing some magician show in Las Vegas, Euisoo checked the flight times and deemed it possible.
Jongin can’t find it within himself to blame Taemin, so he pins the blame on Euisoo instead for being so indulgent. It’s easier than admitting the fault rests entirely on his own shoulders. He could’ve kept his head on straight. He could’ve resisted Taemin’s wheedling to join him on his silly magician show Vegas trip. He could’ve gotten over Taemin years ago like he meant to.
What happened, so far as he remembers, was this.
After the show, Euisoo returned to his hotel room to work, but Taemin and Jongin walked over to a nearby bar. Taemin ordered a beer and a soft pretzel bigger than his head that came with four kinds of dipping sauces. The very friendly, very cute, very male bartender recommended a cocktail to Jongin. And then another and then another. Jongin kept ordering because they were delicious and also he was pretty sure the bartender was flirting with him.
It couldn’t hurt, he thought, to indulge the fantasy that he was just a normal guy in America for normal business. Someone who could muster up his meager English skills to flirt with a gay bartender without any life-ruining consequences.
When Jongin had the third cocktail in hand, the bartender flicked his eyes over to Taemin (busy with his phone) and then back to him. “So, are you two together? And exclusive? Am I totally making an ass of myself right now?”
Jongin’s English listening comprehension is decent, but it still took him a moment to process the question. Then it took a moment more to respond. “No, no. We are friends.”
The bartender smiled. It was a pretty smile, idol-worthy even. “So, if I asked you to stay until my shift ends in thirty minutes, would you?”
Jongin let himself imagine it. Sending Taemin away. Accompanying this handsome stranger wherever he wanted to go—back to his place, back to Jongin’s room, back to the bar’s bathroom—and kissing him. Touching him. Shedding clothes and pressing together and fucking with zero fears about one pleasurable night turning into a PR nightmare.
He could do it. It’d be irresponsible, but Jongin wouldn’t have stayed sane after this long in the industry if he didn’t allow a little irresponsibility sometimes. As a treat.
However, as nice as it sounded, it wasn’t what Jongin really wanted.
“Sorry.” He eased the apology with his own smile. “I’m not…I’m not available.”
“Pity,” the bartender sighed dramatically, and then he got called away by another customer.
Jongin turned to Taemin and discovered him watching closely, looking breathtakingly pretty under the bar’s warm yellow lights. He felt guilty suddenly, which made no sense. Aside from some playful flirting, nothing happened. Even if something had happened, they were not and had never been in an official relationship—because that was how Taemin wanted it.
Still. The guilt prickled his skin.
“How much of that did you understand?”
“I can follow a simple conversation,” Taemin said, although his phone’s screen had the search results for exclusive slang meaning on display. “Speaking’s the hard part.”
“That’s because you never practice.”
“Since you’re so practiced, tell him I want another pretzel when he comes back.”
What happened after that? They ordered more food and drinks (mostly drinks). He helped Taemin finish the pretzel, and then Taemin wanted to wander around. Or did Jongin want to go somewhere specific? Either way, they left the bar, and Jongin’s memories become increasingly fuzzy from then on.
But at some point, somehow, they must’ve arrived at a chapel. Jongin definitely remembers something like a chapel, and the damning evidence is right in his shaking hands.
Jongin calls Taemin. His frantic urgency convinces Taemin to return immediately, hair still dripping wet.
“What’s wrong?”
“This!” Jongin thrusts the marriage certificate at Taemin, who takes it but barely glances at the document.
“What about it?”
“We got married last night.”
“I know.”
“You know?” Jongin repeats, voice shooting up into shrill territory.
“I was there too. And I wasn’t totally blitzed on cocktails like a certain someone.”
A storm of emotions rages inside Jongin. Horror, first and foremost. What will happen to them when the public finds out? This revelation would sink both their reputations and be damaging to the members of all three of their teams. Mixed with the horror is indignation at Taemin’s comment and him apparently being sober enough to know what was happening but not sober enough to stop it.
And cutting through the cold rain and dark clouds like a ray of sun: happiness. Happiness because, despite their marriage being career-ruining, Taemin chose it. Taemin chose him.
Jongin has never come first with Taemin before.
“But it’s just a joke.” Taemin folds the paper into quarters carelessly. “That chapel was a tourist attraction.”
The storm swallows the sun.
Jongin snatches their marriage certificate back, unfolding it. “This is real,” he hisses, shaking it at Taemin. “Look at it. This is a legal document.”
“How could it possibly be legal? You can’t just show up drunk to some tacky chapel and get married in under an hour.”
His voice shoots back into shrill territory. “You can in Vegas!”
Taemin looks at him. Then he looks at the certificate. After a moment, he takes the paper to study it closer, brow furrowing as he parses the English words.
“Oh,” he finally says. “So, that’s what hyung’s song was about.”
“What?”
“Kibummie used to sing this American song all the time. Something something, shake the glitter off your clothes, something something, waking up in Vegas. It was kind of catchy.”
Jongin has reached his limit. Exceeded it, actually. He crumbles onto the bed like used foil, dropping his face into both hands. His stomach churns, and he can’t tell if he’s going to throw up, cry, or both.
They’re ruined, and it’s his fault. Taemin might’ve been clueless about Vegas weddings, but Jongin knew. And he would’ve been the one to ask—to propose—drunk off of syrupy-sweet cocktails and a night abroad with the man he’s pathetically crushed on for half his life.
Taemin agreed for a lark, but Jongin would’ve meant it. He wanted it enough to risk everything, at least when he was too inebriated to remember all the reasons why having Taemin was impossible.
Jongin doesn’t realize that he really is crying until the mattress dips beside him and Taemin strokes his shaking back. “Nini, it’s okay.”
“It’s not okay.”
“It is,” Taemin insists, his tone just as firm as it is gentle. “If the news had already leaked, we’d have heard already. So right now, no one else knows. I’m going to tell Euisoo, and he’ll get everything sorted out quietly. We’ll be in trouble with the company for a while, but it will blow over eventually.”
Jongin scrubs his stinging eyes and checks Taemin’s face for any sign of a bluff, but he radiates complete confidence. With his single-minded obliviousness and goofy off-stage persona, Taemin makes it easy to forget he’s an industry veteran from the wild days of the 00s, well-established not only within a successful group but also as a popular solo artist. Not now. Looking at Taemin now, Jongin sees all those years etched into his calm expression, the sure lines of his posture.
Taemin has weathered all sorts of crises in his career, from mundane indignities to living nightmares. If it didn’t happen to him, it happened to someone he knew. There is nothing he hasn’t seen before. This is nothing to him.
Knowing that makes Jongin feel both better and worse.
“I’ll call hyung over here now.” Taemin passes him a tissue from the box on the nightstand. “All right?”
He nods. Taemin removes his hand to call his manager, leaving Jongin’s back feeling cool and exposed. He shakes off the feeling and forces himself to focus.
Jongin grabs his own phone and checks social media, searching taemin kai married, taemin kai wedding, taemin kai vegas in English and Korean, as well as variations with Jongin. But there are no relevant posts within the last twelve hours. Apparently, they’ve been covert thus far because there aren’t even fans saying they spotted them in the city.
All the married and wedding posts are just shipping stuff, which Jongin quickly scrolls away from. He learned early in his career that girls are just as horny as guys, and they channel their urges in more creative ways than he would personally ever imagine. Nothing wrong with that, but he once read a post about Taemin as an alien tentacle-fucking Jongin out of morbid curiosity and couldn’t look anyone in the eye for a week afterward. He’s too easily embarrassed to lurk in fandom with a burner account like some idols do.
Euisoo arrives in minutes and assesses the marriage certificate with an uncharacteristic frown before declaring it legit. Then he calls SM for emergency legal counsel, sending them downstairs to eat breakfast while the company figures out a plan of action.
They go down to the hotel’s buffet. Jongin’s stomach turns at the heavy smell of bacon and sausages, but he makes himself take some yogurt and granola that will hopefully stay down. Taemin gazes longingly at the children lined up for the extravagant cereal bar but sits at their table with a veggie egg-white omelet instead.
“Go get your Chex,” Jongin tells him. “I’m not gonna tattle.”
“I shouldn’t,” Taemin grouses. “I’ve already had so many carbs on this trip. I’ll just be hungry again in a few hours if I eat cereal anyway.”
“So eat cereal and your omelet.”
“You know if I gain any weight it will show on my face right away. I’m not like you.”
“Taemin-ah, you could put on ten kilos, and people will still love you. Twenty. Thirty. Forty. Fif–”
“All right, you made your point,” Taemin laughs. He pokes his fork into his omelet and changes the subject. “It’s too bad hyung didn’t come out last night. He’s the one who needs to get married.”
It occurs to Jongin suddenly that this is their honeymoon. Eating breakfasts they don’t want at an expensive Vegas hotel, Jongin’s eyes bloodshot, and Taemin hiding a dark hickey—the only other evidence that last night happened besides that damn certificate.
Jongin never imagined marrying Taemin; it was too far removed from their reality. But when he dared to indulge the fantasy of telling Taemin the true breadth of his feelings—asking Taemin for more—even his most realistic daydreams looked nothing like this.
Taemin’s eyes linger on the cereal bar, expression so longing that a person would think he was waiting for his fiancé to return from war. He’s yet to take a single bite of the veggie omelet. Jongin pushes his chair back, retrieves a still-warm bowl from the buffet’s stack, and fills it with Taemin’s second-favorite cereal flavor and preferred milk.
“They don’t have chocolate Chex,” he says as he sets the bowl down on the table. “If you don’t want it, I’ll eat it.”
Taemin pulls the bowl near him, shielding it with his opposite arm. “I want it!” He exchanges his fork for a spoon and eats a massive scoop of cereal, cheeks bulging. He hums in satisfaction as if he doesn’t have the exact same brand stocked in his cabinet back home.
Jongin watches him eat, slowly working on his own yogurt and granola. It’s a little silly how happy something as simple as cereal can make Taemin, international superstar. But Jongin can also appreciate anything that lifts Taemin’s lips into a smile.
“I’m not sharing,” Taemin declares, meeting his gaze. “Get your own bowl.”
“It’s all yours.” Jongin really doesn’t think his stomach can handle anything more than his current small breakfast. He scrapes his spoon against the bottom of his bowl. “What happened after we left the bar?”
The question makes Taemin’s eyes narrow. He doesn’t answer at first, busily chewing, but Jongin senses that he’s just buying time. Finally, he swallows and says, “You wanted to see some fancy water fountain. We got turned around somehow, even though your phone said it was just a short walk. If I’d known how sloshed you were, I wouldn’t have let you lead. But you’re such a sneaky drunk.”
Jongin flushes. His alcohol tolerance isn’t very high, so he always considered it a blessing that his inebriation didn’t show much. Not now.
“Eventually, we gave up on the fountain and headed back to the hotel. That’s when we saw the chapel. You wanted to go in and get married, and I didn’t realize it was the real deal, so we did.”
Taemin’s tale is pretty much what Jongin imagined, but hearing it is somehow worse.
“What exactly did I say?” he asks, though it pains him.
Taemin crunches down another big spoonful of Chex, considering him from across the little table. The weight of his stare feels way more intimate than what should be possible in a hotel buffet crowded with people in pajamas and airplane clothes.
“You really don’t remember what you told me?”
Before Jongin can answer, Euisoo summons them back to the room. Obediently, they shuffle upstairs (Taemin taking his cereal along) to hear the news from SM.
It’s mostly good. Since both of them had been drinking and were foreign tourists with a less-than-perfect grasp of English, they have an excellent case for claiming it as a voidable marriage and getting an annulment. The chapel staff are a liability, and Nevada’s marriage records are public, but SM can grease some palms to bury the information. In case the news ever breaks, PR is cooking up a statement about Taemin and Jongin thinking it was a tourist trap and wanting to “celebrate their friendship,” as Euisoo puts it, giving them a wry glance.
“Technically, that’s true,” Taemin says after slurping the Chex-flavored milk from his bowl. “I did think it was a tourist trap. And it was sort of a friendship celebration. Just with sex after.”
Euisoo cracks a smile, but he doesn’t let Taemin distract him otherwise as he scrolls through notes on his phone. “Annulments must be cleared by a judge, so we’re retaining a local lawyer to represent you. Depending on how quickly we can get your case in front of a judge, it should be resolved in a few days to a few weeks. For now, we’re free to leave here on schedule.” He finally looks up. “And this is why I always insist on waking up an extra hour early.”
“You’re the best manager ever, hyung,” Taemin says, darting across the hotel room and throwing things into his suitcase. “Irreplaceable. Invaluable. They should promote you, but then I’d have to get used to someone new, and I don’t want to. They should give you a huge bonus.”
“I doubt any bonus is coming my way since this all happened on my watch,” Euisoo points out.
“Then I will give you a huge bonus. Jonginnie can chip in.”
“I’m really sorry, hyung,” Jongin says because someone has to say it, and it seems like Taemin won’t. Taemin pauses his packing to listen, frowning. “You were trusting us to be responsible, and we broke your trust.”
Euisoo chuckles and claps him on the shoulder. “There is a lot worse trouble you could’ve gotten into in Vegas. Once the annulment goes through, it will be like this never happened.”
Jongin should be relieved. Instead, he returns to his room alone and finishes packing his bag, feeling hollowed out. Like someone took a spoon to his chest and scraped away his insides until he became a shell. The emptiness worsens when they board their flight and Taemin immediately falls asleep beside him.
They really are just leaving. Heading straight to their next schedule as if last night was a mere blip in their plans. The show must go on.
He shifts over and lowers his shoulder so that Taemin’s head rests against him, and he can smell the faint coconut scent of Taemin’s usual conditioner. Jongin breathes deep.
It won’t last. It’s not even real, not in any way that truly matters. But for now, Taemin is his husband, and he is Taemin’s.
They don’t talk about it.
Their timetable is packed from top to bottom each day, and the other members and staff are always around, leaving little space for the conversation Jongin desires and fears. Aside from quick questions like “Have you read the lawyer’s email yet?” the topic never arises.
Admittedly, that’s partly Jongin’s fault. Taemin has a private room, so Jongin could seek him out there, but he chickens out each time he considers it. Taemin doesn’t pull him aside either, which only further convinces Jongin that his drunken self said something disastrous.
If any of the members notice they’re acting odd around each other, no one says anything. Jongin did confess everything to Baekhyun because he had to tell someone. Baekhyun looked torn between laughing and giving his sympathies. He settled on shaking his head and sighing, “You have really got it bad for him.”
Jongin knows. He hopes that Taemin doesn’t know. The alternative is that Taemin is well aware, and his years-long silence is his way of letting him down easy.
He wonders if Taemin told anyone. Taemin doesn’t confide much in the SuperM guys (himself excluded), but he could’ve talked to someone back home. He doesn’t know whether he prefers the thought of Taemin relating the embarrassing tale to someone else or him not caring enough to bother explaining.
The legal system moves slowly, but money applied in the right places sped things up as Euisoo promised. By the end of the month, they receive an email from their Nevada lawyer stating that the judge had granted the annulment. Officially, they are no longer married.
“I guess we’re free now,” Taemin texts him during their lunch break. Jongin stares at the message for a long time, wondering if that’s really all he was going to say about it—and over text to boot.
“What’s the matter?” Taeyong asks him between vacuuming up his burrito.
Jongin clears his expression with some effort. “Nothing, just spacing out.”
He glances across the dance studio in Taemin’s direction, but he’s laughing at something Ten said and doesn’t notice him. So Jongin just taps out “Haha yeah” and hits Send.
And that’s it. At least, it is until they get back to their dorm and one of the staff members hands him a package.
It’s from a company Jongin doesn’t recognize. But it’s addressed to “John,” the name he uses for discreet deliveries and Starbucks orders in the U.S., so it must be his. He thanks the staff and takes it back to his room to open.
Inside the package is a box—a ring box. Jongin stares at the small, innocuous thing with numb horror. He knows exactly what he’ll find when he cracks the case open, even though he has no memory of placing the order.
Delaying the inevitable, he searches the company’s name in his email inbox. Buried in his hundreds of messages is an order confirmation received at 4:17 AM on the date of their marriage. He must’ve bought it in bed after leaving that hickey on Taemin’s collarbone. Jongin has made stupid purchases while drunk before but never this stupid.
Baekhyun bangs the door open, saying something about tomorrow’s schedule. Jongin snatches up the ring box to hide it but only succeeds in drawing Baekhyun’s attention to the packaging still on his bed.
“Ohoho, what’s this?” he asks, picking up the opened package and examining the address label. “What did you order?”
“Nothing,” Jongin mutters, palm already sweating around the ring box. He tries to look natural, as if everyone sits on their bed with their hand balled into an oversized fist.
“If it’s weed, you have to share. It’s in the U.S. tour bylaws.”
“It’s not weed.”
“Okay, enjoy your dildo then.”
Jongin huffs. “It’s not a dildo.”
Baekhyun starts to say something sure to be even more embarrassing, but he gets distracted by the order form he pulled out of the package. His brow furrows, and he sounds out, “Wedding band?”
Jongin bites his lip. Baekhyun lowers the paper. “Dude. Did you seriously buy a ring?”
There’s no point hiding anymore. Jongin opens his hand, revealing the little box—now a bit damp. “I must’ve bought it while I was still drunk. I don’t even remember.”
He did have a faint memory of one of the chapel employees remarking on the absence of rings, which is probably what put the idea into his head.
Baekhyun takes the ring box, opens it, and whistles. “Taeminnie is a lucky guy.”
“Hyung,” Jongin whines, collapsing against his mattress and covering his face. “How bad is it?”
“Well, it’s not gaudy. But it’s the sort of simple that’s incredibly expensive. Overall, if you’re going to order a wedding ring for a guy you’re not even dating while blackout drunk, you could do a lot worse,” Baekhyun reports in what’s likely supposed to be a comforting tone. The barely constrained humor ruins the sentiment though. “Hold on, I think you got something engraved on the inside.”
He hears Baekhyun digging the ring out from the box’s tight grasp. Then he is silent for so long that Jongin lifts his palms to check on him. He stands at the foot of Jongin’s bed, a platinum ring held delicately between two fingers, frowning as he examines the band’s inside.
“What does it say?”
Baekhyun’s gaze shifts down to him, his earlier humor gone. He hands the ring to Jongin and says, “You really need to talk to Taemin. If this is how you’re feeling….” He trails off and shakes his head. “It’s not good for you to keep on like this. It’s been years.”
Jongin turns the ring over a few times before summoning the courage to lift it to the lights. He squints. There, engraved in tiny characters, is 당신은 내 심장을 가졌어요.
You have my heart.
It’s sappy and cliche. He’d cringe saying it aloud even in character for a drama. But it’s true. It’s true, and even just reading it makes his chest ache.
He pushes the ring back into its cushion, settling it firmly. “There’s no point telling him. He doesn’t feel the same way.”
“Yes, there is.” Baekhyun flicks Jongin’s knee, making sure he hands his attention. “Tell him and get rejected properly. Until you hear him say it’s impossible, you’ll always have a little hope, and you’ll never get over him.”
“But—”
“But what?” Baekhyun sets his hands on his hips. “It’ll make things awkward? Both of you are too close and too professional for that to last long. It’s scary? Taemin isn’t cruel. He won’t make it harder for you than it already is.”
Jongin hangs his head in defeat. “I know.”
“Good. Go tell him now before you lose your resolve.”
Before Jongin can do more than squawk in protest, Baekhyun grabs his empty hand, hauls him off the bed, and herds him to the door.
“Wait, hyung—”
“This is for your own good, Jonginnie.”
“Now isn’t—”
Baekhyun shoves him out of their room and locks the door behind him. Jongin slaps his palm against the door. “Hyung!”
“I’m not unlocking it until you do it.”
Knowing Baekhyun, he really won’t.
For a moment, Baekhyun considers camping out on the living room’s giant sofa, but his reason beats his stubbornness. Baekhyun is right. He needs to confess, get rejected, and move on once and for all before he does something else this stupid again.
Jongin clenches the ring box and makes the short march down to Taemin’s solo room.
His door is ajar, so Jongin raps his knuckles against its frame. Taemin’s resting in bed watching what looks like a nature documentary on a tablet propped up against his knees, head awkwardly propped against three pillows. He removes one of his earbuds, tapping the screen to pause the movie.
“What’s up?”
Jongin crosses the room to poke Taemin’s shoulder. “You lay for hours in positions like this and then wonder why your neck is always sore.”
“This is the only position that feels good for my neck,” Taemin whines. But he does shuffle himself into a more upright position against the headboard. Then he says, “That annulment went through even quicker than I thought it would.”
So, they are talking about it. Jongin manages an acknowledging sound.
“That’s a relief, right? Euisoo hyung says they’re pretty confident the info is completely buried too. One less thing to worry about.”
“Yeah.” Jongin flexes his fingers around the ring box, held out of Taemin’s sight. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that.”
Taemin’s eyes flick over his face, concern pinching his brow. He slides over a little and pats the empty space beside him.
Jongin sits, half on and half off the mattress. He’s been in the same bed as Taemin plenty of times in every context possible. But never with a ring in hand and a confession on the tip of his tongue. He needs to be able to jump up and bolt.
“What’d you want to talk about?” Taemin asks.
If Jongin had his way, he would’ve spent days mentally preparing a statement and workshopping it with Baekhyun and anyone else he could bear to tell. But he committed to this course the moment he stepped into Taemin’s room. It’s time to end things.
He holds out the ring box. “I got this in the mail today. It’s for you.”
Taemin glances from the box to his face and then back again. He plucks the box from Jongin’s palm and opens it, making an appreciative noise. “It’s really nice.”
It is. The band is narrower than most men’s bands, so it won’t make Taemin’s fingers look shorter than they already are. Its cool platinum tone will complement his skin. The style is simple, as Baekhyun said, plain except for two small inset diamonds that glint like binary stars.
It could easily pass as not a wedding band. Just one more expensive accessory out of many. A gift between friends.
Jongin swallows and steels himself. “There’s something engraved on the inside.”
Taemin hums with curiosity and removes the ring. Jongin watches, pulse pounding in his ears, as Taemin brings the ring close, scrutinizing it with narrowed eyes.
He’s known Taemin for half his life. But he doesn’t know how to read the expression that settles on his face.
“I knew the marriage would be real.” Jongin forces the words from his mouth. Once they fall, the rest spills like water from a tipped glass. “I can’t remember all of that night, but I knew. I wanted the real thing with you. I want you—all of you, all the time.”
Taemin starts to say something, but Jongin squeezes his hand to silence him. He must finish it all.
“I know we agreed long ago that having sex was just for fun because we’re friends. But I shouldn’t have agreed. Even then, it hurt to have you without actually having you.”
Jongin takes a deep breath, and it shudders on the way down. He’s crying, he realizes. Wiping tears away, he gasps, “Sorry, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to make you feel guilty.”
Taemin pulls his hand away from his face, replacing it with a soft tissue. “You don’t need to apologize. Come on, breathe.”
Jongin tries to breathe as Taemin dabs his eyes with the tissue. When they were younger, Taemin always got awkward around crying people—something Jongin knew well as a frequent crier. Taemin would laugh and tease because he didn’t know what else to do. He rarely cried.
In the last couple of years, he’s gotten a lot less awkward. Knowing why, Jongin can’t feel good about it. But he’s glad to have Taemin stroking his back instead of hovering over him and cracking jokes.
He’s even more glad to have finally let it all out. The words cannot be unsaid now. He’ll never have to wonder “What if?” again as long as he endures the next few minutes.
When Jongin’s crying winds down, Taemin tosses the tissue into his bedside trash can and kisses him. It’s so quick and chaste that he only notices what happened after Taemin pulls back.
Before he can question it, Taemin says, “I meant it too.”
“What?”
“I thought it was fake, but I still meant it.”
Screeching white noise replaces the pounding pulse in his ears. Jongin can only blink and repeat, almost silently, “What?”
Taemin holds out the ring. “You told me this that night. You have my heart.”
“I—I did? I don’t remember.”
“So, you don’t remember what I said back either?”
Jongin shakes his head.
Taking Jongin’s hand, Taemin slides the ring down his pinky, the only finger it will fit. The platinum settles warmly against his skin. “I told you, You have mine too.”
Jongin flexes his fingers, feeling the metal’s strong promise. He can barely hear himself through the frantic buzzing in his head, but he thinks—he thinks maybe—
“Then…why? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“The morning after or before?”
“Either! Ever!”
Taemin huffs, brushing his bangs back. “You never said you wanted to be anything besides friends. How was I supposed to know you felt different? And the morning after, you acted like nothing happened—”
“Because I couldn’t remember the night before!”
Taemin ignores his protest. “And when you found the marriage certificate, you completely freaked out. I figured if you were drunk enough to forget the whole thing, you were drunk enough to make a mistake too. So, it’d be better to just pretend nothing happened. Business as usual.”
“It was a mistake.” Taemin’s expression pinches, so Jongin hurries to explain. “I wanted it! But I’d want to remember confessing to you too. And proposing. And getting married.”
“You’d remember now.”
It takes Jongin a moment to understand. When he does, he removes the wedding band from his pinky and slips it onto Taemin’s ring finger. It fits him perfectly, like it’s meant to be there. He twins his fingers through Taemin’s, pressing so that the metal kisses them both.
“Taemin-ah.” Jongin licks his dry lips, nervous even though—he thinks?—he doesn’t have any reason to be anymore. “I really like you. As a friend, but also as a partner. I want us to be together and tell the people we can. And, one day, if it’s ever possible back home, I’d want to marry you.”
He meets Taemin’s steady gaze. The look on his face makes him feel like anything’s possible. “Do you want that too?”
“I do.”
Jongin pushes him back against the bed and doesn’t let him up for a long time.
Later, Taemin takes out his phone and shows him a video.
“I asked one of the staff to record us,” he explains, and Jongin sleepily watches a shaky video of them stumbling through an American wedding ceremony in parroted English. He’s seen himself recorded thousands of times, but this is definitely one of the most embarrassing videos. He loves it.
“How did you not realize I was wasted?” he asked with a yawn when video-Jongin nearly knocks them both over after the officiant says they can kiss.
“I was also a little drunk,” Taemin admits. “Your bartender friend recommended me some cocktails too.”
Jongin plays with Taemin’s hand, smoothing his thumb over the new ring. “I hope I tipped him well.”
The video ends with someone’s thumb obscuring the camera. “She took some photos too,” Taemin says. “I deleted most of them because you wouldn’t hold still, and they came out blurry. But these are all right.”
It’s three photos. In the first two, Jongin is focused on Taemin, gazing at him so soppily (and sloppily) that he can’t imagine Taemin staring at those pictures and believing Jongin didn’t love him.
They both face the camera in the last one, smiling a little too wide to look their best. Taemin’s face especially is creased with happiness. If this image was meant for a photobook, magazine editorial, or even social media, it would’ve been deemed unusable.
Jongin thinks Taemin looks beautiful.
“Send them to me?” Jongin asks, the words mumbled into Taemin’s shoulder. A new hickey is forming on his collarbone, smaller but triumphant this time.
“Okay,” Taemin says, and Jongin yawns again. Taemin chuckles. “Just go to sleep.”
Jongin closes his eyes and pulls his boyfriend closer. His fiancé? His husband?
The specifics don’t matter, he supposes, as long as Taemin is his.