Delicious

Jonghyun realized he didn’t like his girlfriend very much at all when she decided she couldn’t wait for a smoke. She was so naïve about this shit, stupid cheerleading bitch. They’d been dating three months and he’d turned her into a smoker. He wasn’t proud of it, exactly, but she’d been pretty damn cute when she first demanded one with her eyes all wide.

Taeyeon was a terrible smoker. She didn’t understand that it wasn’t exactly cool nor was it exactly an addiction. It was just something to soothe the stress, the awful annoyance of being with such a cute girl. Also, she didn’t seem to understand the legal facts of it: you weren’t allowed to smoke on school campus, and that was that, even if you were eighteen. It was bad enough that they were skipping to get out of Intro to Theatre, but throw cigarettes in the mix and you were dead.

But of course Jonghyun had to be the supportive boyfriend, and so he sat down on the back steps of the school and handed Taeyeon a cigarette. He stuck one between his own lips but lit hers first. He had to admit that Taeyeon looked pretty with her full lips pursed around the thing and sort of vaguely wished she would just finish the damn cigarette already and come make out with him because Taeyeon wasn’t much besides a pretty girl.

She was a lithe little thing, a cheerleader, the one that stood up on top of the pyramid and did backflips. Her red hair was soft and long and she had a cute little smirk that came out whenever she got indignant, which was pretty often.

Jonghyun had never been sure if he liked her or not. She was equal parts cute and awful, but he was too lazy to break up with her, so he tried his hardest just to pay attention to the cute things about her, like the terrified light in her eyes like she was a sweet little puppy staring right into Jonghyun’s heart.

Turned out she wasn’t, and that she was staring at their impending doom.

★

“It’s your fault,” Jonghyun whispered to Taeyeon, his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. They sat side-by-side in massive armchairs in the principal’s office. Jonghyun was pretty sure the chairs were designed to instill fear – he wasn’t the tallest guy on a normal day, but he felt like a dwarf awaiting a giant’s wrath. This was awful.

Taeyeon snapped her gum and scowled. “You were the one who smoked in the first place.”

Jonghyun was about to retort something extraordinarily clever about her being a stupid bitchface when the vice principal walked in. They spent twenty minutes in abject fear until they were assigned service for the teacher whose class they were supposed to be in, basically dirty work the decrepit theater department.

The production was Aladdin. The teacher was nowhere to be found – stupid asshole – and the lead was a gawky, big-eyed kid who also ran cross-country named Choi Minho. Jasmine was a shy girl with a lisp and big boobs named Lee Eunsook.

The place reeked with hopelessness and toxic paint fumes from unfinished sets. A sandpaper-and-sadness desert littered with poor, deluded losers spread out before their eyes. Jonghyun groaned softly and Taeyeon covered her mouth with her hand out of equal parts horror and concern for her own well-being.

"Kibum!" the prinicpal called through the backstage. A skinny kid with high cheekbones and an even higher whistle emerged from behind a curtain, shirtless and painted mostly blue.

"Key, please,” the blue thing insisted breathlessly. “New meat?" he asked with a smirk and that awful high whistle. "Ooh, cute meat too," - Taeyeon scoffed and pulled Jonghyun closer to her at this, as it was probably Jonghyun who the kid was addressing - "What on earth has inspired these pretty, normal people to join us?"

Jonghyun and Taeyeon exchanged a glance.

"It's not really voluntary," Taeyeon mumbled.

"Um, yeah, punishment," Jonghyun shrugged and Key just gave a hopeless sigh.

"Ooh, bad kids. More misfits for our wild bunch. I'm Kim Kibum, I am a senior. Call me Key. I am your genie and your stage manager. Welcome," he drawled, eyebrow cocked and kitten eyes fixed on Jonghyun. "Uh, please do not fuck anything up more than it is already fucked up, thank you. Ah, Taeyeon can do lights – Eunsook, would you show her the lightbox – and Jonghyun should come with me."

Jonghyun raised an eyebrow. "You know my name?" he asked, reluctantly following the boy backstage further to the source of the noxious paint fumes. It was a room covered in wires and dominated by a series of massive mostly-empty canvases.

"Yeah. You're pretty famous, dating a cheerleader, you know." He lengthened the word cheerleader distastefully and sighed. "Anyway, you're gonna paint sets and help me run my lines and your girlfriend will probably screw everything up but whatever.”

Jonghyun gave the kid a look, but since he hadn’t yet forgiven Taeyeon for landing him here, he said nothing and just let his last ounce of hope fall away. No cute, weird, geeky chicks for him and probably just this strange, bitchy gay kid for company. Fun. "Cool," he hissed through his teeth. "Painting."

"And lines!"

"Lines, yeah. Cool."

The blue boy made himself comfortable against the wall with a highlighted script, smirked at Jonghyun's arms and tossed him a paintbrush. "Paint the background dark blue."

"Is that any way to ask a 'famous' person?" Jonghyun asked with a snort.

"Please, Jesus Christ."

"That's better."

"You're a little son of a bitch, mm?"

Jonghyun smirked, tugged off his hoodie, and practically drowned the brush in a can of blue paint. He swiped it across the top of the canvas, creating a drippy, thin, and overall unsatisfactory line. Key scoffed. Jonghyun turned around to look at the kid. The taller boy's eyes were fixed on the space between Jonghyun’s shoulder blades rather than his script.

“How the hell am I supposed to do it?”

Key groaned. “Ugh, haven’t you ever painted anything? Even strokes, and only dip the tip of the brush.”

Jonghyun rolled his eyes, not caring to argue the matter even if he had painted his grandparent’s house twice, and turned back to the canvas.

The Kibum kid, evidently satisfied, just sat there mumbling at his script until the activity bell rang at five. Jonghyun could swear he heard him whistle as he walked out, and for safety’s sake, he grabbed Taeyeon into a deep kiss as soon as she came prancing down from the light box, her face horrified.

“I am convinced,” she told Jonghyun, picking at a blue stain on his shirt as they waited for the bus, “that God sent me there to get Eunsook a better bra. Holy shit, her tits are in the middle of her stomach or something.”

“I think they’re perfectly nice,” Jonghyun countered, probably just to be contradictory – he wasn’t much of a boob man, to be perfectly honest. “You’re probably just jealous.”

This earned him a slap to the face and no kiss goodbye, but Jonghyun was pretty sure it was worth it.

★

Jonghyun skipped the next day and was assigned work until the production was finished, which was bound to be another few months. He was thrown into the auditorium in the middle of rehearsal. Kim Kibum gave him a cruel smirk from sidestage as Jonghyun quietly dropped his backpack to the ground and sat down to watch the thing.

Taeyeon was right – Eunsook’s boobs were kind of all over the place, but Jonghyun was a red-blooded male and he really didn’t mind too much. And the Minho kid – Aladdin – was really awkward and pale but a good enough actor to make up for it. Altogether the play didn’t suck, minus the choreography and the stammering and the awful kisses, but you would never hear Jonghyun say that aloud.

He was led to the back to work with Key again. The blue boy wasn’t actually painted blue this time, though there were still flecks of cerulean paint in his skin. They'd probably be embedded there forever.

Jonghyun continued painting the same canvas without being told, stripping off his layers – he didn’t especially feel like ruining another shirt – until he was left in a wifebeater.

“What do I do when I’m done?”

“Paint the stars.”

“Good to know.”

“What happened to your lines?”

Key wasn’t going to let slip that he’d been somewhat distracted by this delinquent short kid’s ass and biceps yesterday and hadn’t felt like tearing his eyes away. “Oh, yeah, lines,” he mumbled. “Whatever.”

“Oh.”

"So, what did you do to land in here?" Key finally asked after five or six more brushstrokes.

"Got caught smoking on campus."

"Ew, why?"

"Tae couldn't wait," he shrugged.

"Isn't she a cheerleader?"

"Yessir."

"Is she even allowed to do that shit?"

"Probably not."

"Is she gonna get kicked out of cheer for this?"

"Maybe."

“Is she even legal?”

“Yessir. Barely.”

"Oh. Well, why does she smoke?"

"Cause of me, I think."

"Why do you smoke?"

"Cause it feels good. Why do you ask so many questions?"

"Cause I'm curious," Key replied, mimicking Jonghyun's bored tenor. Jonghyun wasn’t sure he didn’t prefer the silent version. “Anyway, I need to run my lines so I’m going to pray that you’re not completely stupid and can paint and be my fake Aladdin at the same time.

“Is that all I am to you? Fake Aladdin?” Jonghyun asked, faking a sniffle.

Key rolled his eyes and shrugged. “You should be honored to be that much. You’re basically my delinquent slave, so I’d be nice if I were you,” he admitted, pursing his lips and tossing a script across the floor to Jonghyun with creepy accuracy. “Start at, ehh, the beginning of the genie’s part. You rub the lamp, blah blah blah. Okay, here we go.”

With a deep breath, the kid exploded behind Jonghyun into some monologue he didn’t really register until he was asked for his name.

“Uh, Jong – Aladdin. Aladdin!”

Key gave him a withering look but went on anyway. “Hello Aladdin! Mind if I call you Al? Or Din? Or Laddi…” Key just went on, skipping half of Aladdin’s lines and barely allowing Jonghyun time to finish the rest until they got to the bit about wishes, at which point his eyes brightened and he quieted.

“Seriously, though, what would you wish for?” he asked. Jonghyun wasn’t entirely sure if he’d broken character or was just improvising, and didn’t think he was supposed to answer until Kibum repeated the word seriously all seriously.

“I dunno.”

“Oh, come on!”

“Eh, probably luck, if I couldn’t get money or love,” Jonghyun shrugged.

“Valid, I suppose. And?”

“Mmm, to be a musician? So I could get out of here,”

“Ooh, can you sing? Play guitar?”

“Both, a little.” Jonghyun mumbled, turning around to hide his blush when Kibum raised his eyebrows and started moving his eyes gradually lower, from Jonghyun’s eyes to his lips to his shoulders to his chest and probably even lower, but Jonghyun averted his eyes before he could find out. Stupid bossy gay kid.

“No wonder your little girlfriend likes you,” Key finally murmured, his voice a little lower than it had been before.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Eh, talented, good-looking bad boy… What’s not to like?”

“Probably a lot, but thanks?”

“You’re welcome. Anyway. Third wish.”

“Can I have four?”

“Why?”

“Cause I can’t decide if I want better cigarettes or a better girlfriend.”

“You are a terrible person, you know that? Such a bad influence on your pretty little girlfriend.”

“You think so?” Jonghyun raised an eyebrow.

“Not really. She looks like a chopstick. But you’re still a bad boyfriend.”

“Eey, be nice about Tae. Like you’re any curvier, or a better boyfriend.”

Jonghyun received a rather violent splash of paint to his left cheek for that. Key collected himself, though, and just shook his head, mumbling something along the lines of, “You wish you were as good a boyfriend as me.”

“And why do I wish that?” Jonghyun asked, exasperated, turning around from the half-blue canvas to hear this explanation. He was honestly curious – what the hell did this skinny blue kid have that he didn’t?

“We-ell,” Kibum began, taking a deep breath. “First off, I’d treat you. Second off, I’m good in bed – “

“Who says I don’t treat her? I buy her dinner a lot, and cigarettes, like, every goddamn day. And that I’m not good in bed?” Jonghyun interrupted indignantly.

“You’re cute when you’re sassy,” Key clucked. “But that’s another one. I don’t taste like an ashtray.”

“Jesus Christ, it’s like you think I’m a caveman,” Jonghyun mumbled.

Key went on. “Umm, I have wonderful manners, your parents would love me, I use protection, and I have a nice ass.”

“I use protection!” Jonghyun groaned. “I’m not a fucking idiot! Her parents are fine with me! And why are you all over Tae? Aren’t you… ya know..?”

Jonghyun didn’t mention the ass, because, well, Kibum’s wasn’t too bad – probably better than Taeyeon’s, but it would take a gun to his head before he’d admit that.

“Yes, I am gay, but I’m more just pointing out that you probably shouldn’t be dating her cause she’s a bitch.”

“I seriously do not follow.”

“Whatever.”

Jonghyun gave up trying to find out Kibum’s motives. The skinny thing walked him out with the late bell that rang seconds later, fake-gagging when he pulled Taeyeon under his arm and kissed her cheek. Jonghyun stuck out his tongue and waved goodbye over his shoulder, ignoring Taeyeon’s scoff.

She noticed Minho and Eunsook making out while they were waiting for the bus and started kissing Jonghyun, glancing over at the other couple every few seconds and tugging Jonghyun’s lips with her. Jonghyun felt sort of like he was in the middle of a war or a foursome or something and started to understand why most marriages just kind of festered until they fell apart.
He briefly wondered if he could push Taeyeon under the bus without attracting the blame, but then she moved her and up his thigh and the bus showed up and everything fell into its usual love-hate order again where hormones overpowered hate for a bit.

★

The next day, which was luckily Friday, Minho and Eunsook were practicing their kiss scene and Kibum was in charge of getting it right. It was astonishing how awful they could be onstage and how easily they could be when they thought no one was watching. Jonghyun couldn’t count the number of times he was nearly violated just by way of sitting next to the sassy stage manager whose hair was probably permanently flecked blue. Key’s “demonstrations” were like that, and they happened a lot. Jonghyun grew resigned to just really hoping Kibum’s lips wouldn’t touch his, more because Taeyeon was working the lights above them than the fact that kissing Kibum really grossed him out. The kid’s breath smelled like lifesavers.

★

Jonghyun and Taemin fought that night. Not their usual whiny, spazzy banter, but a real, honest, screaming, half-undressed fight that started when they were kissing in Jonghyun’s dad’s car after the last football game of the season and Taeyeon’s cheer uniform was mostly off and she found one of her old bras in the backseat and briefly thought it wasn’t hers then got mad at Jonghyun for being a slob and slapped him upside the head and got out of the car to walk home in the rain.

Jonghyun sat there in the driver’s seat for a while. He started driving toward her house but felt like a stalker, felt over it, and turned around to go back to his house. Somehow Kibum was waiting for a bus and sort of soaking wet and Jonghyun wasn’t entirely sure what propelled him to take pity and open the passengers’ seat door.

The kid was way too happy and thankful for a rainy Friday night. He chattered mindlessly on about the play and the football team and absolutely nothing of substance but just enough to make Jonghyun forget about Taeyeon a little and make his mouth curl up at the corner.

When Jonghyun dropped him off at his door – only a few away from his own, terrifyingly enough – he could swear Kibum was looking at him with honest, gentle worry in his kittenish eyes when he leaned into the driver’s side window, glistening with raindrops and still slightly blue.

Jonghyun didn’t recognize the sentiment until it was too late and those sweet lips were pressed up against his for a split second.

“Goodnight, Jonghyun. Thanks for the ride,” the younger cooed, his lips pink and pungent and no longer on Jonghyun’s. He skipped up to his front door, smiling as Jonghyun sat reeling in shock.

“G-goodnight,” the elder exhaled into the empty car. It took him a while to remember how to put the thing back into drive, his lips still tingling with Kibum’s stupid fruity chapstick.

★

Jonghyun slept through most of the weekend, choosing to believe that he’d imagined Friday night even though Taeyeon wasn’t texting him and Kibum was and Jonghyun didn’t even know how the blue-tinted boy had gotten his number.

received; unknown number; 8:27 am saturday: hey what’s up it’s key

sent; 10:13 am saturday: nothing much, yourself?

received; kibum; 10:17 am saturday: theatre shit :( lol how’s your weekend so far? ;)

sent; 10:30 am saturday: fine.

received; kibum; 10:36 am saturday: just fine?

sent; 10:42 am saturday: my girlfriend is a bitch, but that’s nothing new

received; kibum; 10:44 am saturday: yeah no shit i could’ve told you that.

sent; 11:48 am saturday: are you just texting me to criticize my life choices?

received; kibum; 11:54 am saturday: not entirely. i more wanted to invite you to the cast party after the premiere. if you’re up for a bunch of drunk theater kids, it’s pretty fun~

sent; 2:16 am sunday: sorry, fell asleep, but okay. should tae come?

received; kibum; 2:23 am sunday: do you want my honest answer? ^^

sent; 2:28 am sunday: nope. i’ll invite her.

received; kibum; 2:40 am sunday: you learn well. well i need to teach minho how to kiss and you need to get some sleep so see you tomorrow.

Jonghyun let it be after that, wondering if he’d just agreed to sort of get drunk with the infamous Kibum who was probably drunk with another guy right now. If he still tasted like candy, that might be an issue for Jonghyun. He’d spent way too long laying awake thinking about the implications of the goddamned goodnight kiss and Kibum wasn’t giving him any answers, so he’d have to sit here and hope Taeyeon got over her bitchfit and made him want to kiss her again so he could get over those stupid goddamn candy lips.

★

Horrifyingly enough, things did not go as wished. Jonghyun was to be left alone to let his frustration fester in the theatre for the next three days while Taeyeon was off at cheer championships. Kibum didn’t dial back on any of his strangeness as he mumbled his lines while Jonghyun sang softly to himself and painted the stars onto the background with fluorescent paint that glowed off his arms when the power went out in the first snowstorm of the year.

“Oh my God, this is fucking ridiculous,” Kibum groaned, scrunching up his nose rather cutely as Jonghyun blinked his eyes to adjust to the darkness. “Do the power companies understand how important this is? I’m the fucking genie. And by the way, you should've been Aladdin. You're actually a singer. Minho fancies himself one, but he can really only rap, but whatever. I need light to read these goddamn lines!”

Jonghyun snorted and somehow Kibum ‘accidentally’ spilled most of the bucket on his shirt and he had to take it off and that just wasn’t a good thing to have happen between a muscular boy whose head was a mess of hormones and goodnight kisses and an extremely gay, extremely sexually frustrated boy.

Luckily, Jonghyun pulled his jacket on over his torso before Kibum could trail his fingers through the shadowy divots in his abs, but he certainly didn’t miss the longing glace the poor genie gave him. He grabbed the skinny kid by the arm and dragged him to the costume room, his hoodie half-intentionally coming unzipped in the process. It was perfectly natural to see what you could get away with when you saw you could affect someone in such a way.

“You’re washing this out, you know,” Jonghyun mumbled as he turned on the leaky basin sink in the costume room and prayed desperately that the pipes wouldn’t burst. They didn’t, but the water was still freezing. He tossed the shirt in the stream of water and squinted at it, stepping back to allow Key better access. “It’s all yours.”

“No! Fuck you! It’s your fault for laughing at me, and it’s your shirt.”

“Just do it, Key, please? You can hide your hard-on better when you’re facing the sink, anyway.”

Kibum nearly exploded at that. He was enormously thankful Jonghyun couldn’t see his blush in the darkness, and he meekly sidled up to the sink.

“I see how it is. There’s a good boy.” Wherever the little squeak in his voice had come from, Jonghyun wasn’t entirely sure, but he knew Kibum had brought it on and that was a problem.

With the premiere fast approaching, Jonghyun found himself forgetting about the rest of his issues and actually getting into the play and its actors. Eunsook was teaching him to work the lights and sound while Kibum and Minho practiced their own scenes. She was clumsy and shy but a smart and honest and clever person, and she could be miserably funny without even trying. Jonghyun liked her, and he wondered what was becoming of him because his best friends were suddenly a stupidly sassy stage manager and an obscenely awkward actress.

What was even more horrifying was that he wasn't in the least attracted to her, even though he could tell she was perfectly cute with her round cheeks and curvy figure. He patiently listened to her complain about Minho being a kind of awful boyfriend and about Taeyeon being a kind of awful girlfriend. It was kind of terrible to hear, but it gave him leverage on his girlfriend for when she returned.

★

And on Thursday, Kibum danced into Jonghyun and Taeyeon’s sixth period chemistry class just as Jonghyun was ready to shove a broken test tube up his just-returned cheer champion girlfriend’s ass and she was plotting how to spill the hydrochloric acid on his stupid goddamn face.

Even reeking of jasmine oil, mostly shirtless, and royal blue, Kibum managed to look a little better than everyone else. Taeyeon raised a plucked eyebrow and Jonghyun yawned as he entered.

“So this is regular chemistry,” Key sighed as a way of greeting them. “Dear lord. It’s like a jungle.”

“I’m sorry we’re not all in AP Physics,” Taeyeon snapped. Jonghyun shushed her and listened to Kibum’s speech, which was a mad fit of theatre terms and Eunsook and Minho and boobs and something about needing to borrow Taeyeon. Jonghyun scrunched up his nose but sighed. It was probably better they were separated before they killed each other, but he didn’t trust either of those pretty faces: no matter how little they liked each other, they both had beef on Jonghyun and could easily ruin his life.

She slipped into seventh period pre-calc with a smug little grin on her plump lips. “Eunsook had a panic attack and tripped over her boobs or something and got demoted to sound duty and now I’m Jasmine,” she exhaled when the teacher wasn’t looking, looking a little bit too pleased about it.

“So you’re a theatre geek now? Wow.”

“Ew, no. It’s just kinda neat...”

“Damn. What happened to you?”

“I dunnooooo, it’s just nice. And I don’t have to look at Eunsook’s stupid saggy boobs from the light booth anymore. And what, like you're not a theatre geek? You spend, like, all your time locked away backstage with fuckin' Key, and don't pretend like I don't know he likes you."

“First off, I think Eunsook's boobs are perfectly nice. Second, it's all I can to to keep from getting kicked out of school or whatever, and third, are you just excited to make out with that Choi kid?”

“Ugh, you sound like a broken record. Do whatever you want with Key, see if I care. And Minho’s way tall and kinda looks like an alien, but he’s looking a little more appealing than you at the moment. What the fuck do you care if I’m in the play? It’s not like it affects your life at all. Just let me be happy, Jesus Christ.”

Jonghyun huffed and rolled his eyes at that. Stupid bitch didn’t even merit a comeback. He glared up at the projector, trying desperately to remember what on earth the teacher was talking about. He briefly remembered that he was supposed to invite Taeyeon to the cast party but decided against it for now. Jonghyun probably needed to get drunk without her to clear his head. Now that she was part of the cast, she was probably there anyway.

★

The premiere went by slowly. Jonghyun had taken over for Taeyeon in the light booth and bitterly sat there, watching her kiss Minho and Key make people laugh and everything tie itself together. Happy endings were so stupid, Jonghyun decided, and bitterly wondered what people would do if he fucked with the lights. He wouldn’t have to watch his girlfriend cheat on him ‘for art’ or the guy who smelled like candy and almost made out with him a few times prance around shirtless.

And getting drunk without Taeyeon was evidently not the solution to the problem, either. Jonghyun found himself pinned to Kibum’s stairwell wall, the feline boy’s knee between his legs, about half a sip into his third half-assed redbull & vodka that was mostly vodka. Really cheap vodka, too, by the taste of it, but Jonghyun couldn’t form the words to complain. His head was an even fuzzier pounding mess by then. He wasn’t entirely sure how his girlfriend wasn’t here. Maybe he was imagining things.

Also, Eunsook was watching them dejectedly despite Minho’s arm around her and Jonghyun felt kind of bad. Somehow, thankfully, Kibum noticed too and dragged Jonghyun up the rest of the stairs by the back of his tee shirt with manicured nails.

And then they were making out on the almighty Key’s soft blue bed. His bedroom was covered in posters of idol groups and it was kind of unnerving, all of them watching Jonghyun bite back at Kibum’s lower lip and Kibum’s hands slip under Jonghyun’s shirt with a practiced lust. Those goddamned fingernails found their way from the dimples at the base of Jonghyun’s back to the bones at the base of his neck, leaving a trail of goosebumps and pink. It stung wonderfully, a delightful contrast to the dull but pressing ache of the vodka.

Jonghyun’s head felt like it was exploding and Kibum’s hands felt like they were on fire but it was all still unnervingly nice. The guilt was catching up to Jonghyun but Kibum tugged it out of his head just before it hit with a little nip to the sensitive flesh of Jonghyun’s neck.

Jonghyun whimpered, shivered, responded. Kibum just smirked into the kiss and urged Jonghyun’s hands around him, and, well, the kid played guitar. He traced songs into Kibum’s sensitive flesh as the other bit his tongue and toyed with his insides. How come Key still got to taste like candy (gummy lifesavers and supernova mountain dew) when he was just drunk on really awful peach schnapps?

It struck Jonghyun as rather unfair and nonsensical, but so did everything at that time of night. Kibum was kind of fucking perfect, minus the whole stupid gay blue-painted theatre geeky side of him. Jonghyun didn’t get why he wanted to kiss the dumb asshole who’d been forced into his service, but then again, what wasn’t a mystery about Kibum? He was fabulous and ethereal and fuck, he was good at kissing.

“I really,” Jonghyun mumbled between kisses to Kibum’s cheek, “fucking,” he added, nipping his jaw, “hate you.”

“What for?” Kibum asked against Jonghyun’s chapped lips.

“You’re too fuckin’ easy,” Jonghyun sighed, pushing Kibum down into the mass of blue comforter and wrapping his legs around him.

Kibum just laughed and pulled off Jonghyun’s shirt. “That’s part of the fun.”

“The part where my life really sucks?”

“Mmm, no, the part where your dick gets sucked,” Kibum laughed, slinking down to his knees with Jonghyun’s waistband in his grip.

★

Jonghyun returned to school on Monday a figdgety mess. He’d tripped over a passed-out Taeyeon pinned underneath Eunsook and half-naked on the couch on his way out of Kibum’s party on Sunday morning and she still wasn’t really texting him and he had no clue what she’d seen. Jonghyun could swear Kibum had winked at him from the bus stop on the way to school but the stage manager hadn’t really said anything to him over the weekend either. Sure, Jonghyun had kind of pulled the classic hooker exit and snuck out of the room while Kibum was still asleep and then proceeded to throw up in his toilet – catching a good glimpse of a naked Minho unconscious in the bathtub in the process – before running out the door and back to his own bed before his parents said anything, but he was pretty sure he at least deserved a what the hell? sort of text.

Apparently Kibum wasn’t that sort of person, though. He looked just as bitchy as ever even though Jonghyun’s eyes were still bloodshot when he got into the auditorium after school. The feline genie beckoned him in with the prettiest yet greasiest smirk Jonghyun had ever seen come from sidestage. Turned out that was why Taeyeon hadn’t been in class all day – because, according to Kibum, “no matter how good reception had been, she isn’t a goddamn actress and she fucking needs work.”

Jonghyun wouldn’t admit how hard he snorted at that. Even if his girlfriend did look creepy happy kissing some other guy who liked beating girls’ hearts to a pulp, as Eunsook glumly noted next to him in the light booth, she kind of was a shitty actress.

★

Taeyeon carried them through the rest of the season, though, miraculously. Sure, it was just two weeks, but it was a strange two weeks and she weirdly managed not to seriously anger or get angry with anyone. Jonghyun frowned at this observation. Turned out he actually was the only one that got screamed at.

She and Jonghyun did start kissing again, though, and she kept bumming cigarettes off him even though he quit smoking as best he could and it got snowy and Kibum kept his distance by staying just close enough that it wouldn’t seem too weird for him to squeeze Jonghyun’s bicep in encouragement as the shorter boy repainted the goddamn starry night set again and breathe hot and sweet down his neck or kiss him on the cheek goodbye – the one time their lips met, nobody had been looking, so whatever – or scream at him from the stage and apologize with an obscenely cute girl group dance in his obscenely tight pants that showed off his – no. Jonghyun gulped down whatever thoughts came up in the shower or alone in the light booth. That one night was a mistake for him and nothing unusual for Kibum.

Minho lazily rejected Taeyeon’s obvious advances and so she settled back into her actual boyfriend to keep warm for the winter. They fought a lot less, probably because they were too tired to.

And the play ended. The last night, some talent scout came and talked to Minho about a scholarship and gave Taeyeon a polite bow but walked on. She seethed for the rest of the night until Kibum gathered them up, congratulated them, and proclaimed they were going to get drunk. Again.

Jonghyun accepted the proposal because this time, Taeyeon was there to protect him. It was so damn cold that night that they had to press together to form a barrier against the snow – Eunsook against Taeyeon against Jonghyun against Kibum against Minho – and Jonghyun felt blissful and safe and happy in the strangest way.

Then Minho ran off and threw a snowball at Kibum, and everything went to shit.

Because evidently, Taeyeon had issues with her boyfriend throwing a tidal wave of snow down Eunsook’s shirt – even after she’d definitely intentionally done about the same to Minho – and all of the sudden the warm-blissful-happy feeling was gone because she was screaming about his being a disgusting selfish pervert and Jonghyun stood there floundering because Eunsook definitely wasn’t the Taeyeon she should be worried about until Kibum smacked her in the face with a wayward snowball meant for Jonghyun’s head.

Taeyeon normally had issues with her face – her makeup could not afford to get smudged – but when she got pegged in the cheekbone by a boy who was getting suspiciously close to her boyfriend, well, she just kind of broke down. Eunsook yanked her away as she swung her fist at Kibum, still landed a square punch to his eye, and burst into tears. The bustier girl waved a pointed goodbye to the three guys standing there, their teeth chattering in the moonlight.

Minho rolled his eyes and chased after them with his car keys, and Jonghyun was left to glance nervously up at Kibum.

“You think she’s okay?” he asked the bluish boy, his eyebrows knit in worry.

“What do you care? She’s a bitch anyway,” the other laughed bittlerly.

“Kibuuuuum, she’s my girlfriend!”

“Still a bitch. And it's Key,” Kibum scoffed, and Jonghyun got his point. The corners of his mouth twisted up a little and he shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “And weren’t we gonna get drunk tonight?”

“I’ll survive,” Kibum exhaled dramatically. “And yes. Yes, we were, and still are, if you want.”

“Oh. Okay. Then let’s.”

And so it was decided and so they did, so drunk that they forgot about Taeyeon and Aladdin and snowballs and whatever the ethical practice might be when you’d just collectively caused a girl to have a mental breakdown and everything except for the taste of cigarettes and lifesavers and each other, and Jonghyun didn’t run away like a hooker when he woke up next to Key in the morning because he decided he didn’t need to.

He pressed a gentle kiss to Kibum’s black eye and called Taeyeon to break up with her and grinned at all the idol groups gazing icily down at him from the walls because he was happy with the glittery boy next to him in the bed despite the screaming and the flirting and the girl group dances, and that was more than he ever could’ve really said for Taeyeon.

He nudged the other awake to tell him the news and they kissed good morning.

"I," Kibum stated, "am hungover as shit."

"Of course you are, Kibum, and so am I."

"It's Key," the feline boy insisted. "And why haven't you run away yet?"

"Cause I broke up with Taeyeon, and cause I'm happy here." Yeah, Kim Jonghyun was happy with Kim Kibum, and he relished the strangeness of the feeling as Kibum sleepily kissed his nose. This was new, and this felt brilliant.

"Did you break up with Taeyeon just for me?" Kibum asked with a shy, girlish smile. Jonghyun shook his head but his smile couldn't contain itself and just kind of shrugged.

"She was a bitch... you weren't... I dunno," he explained, his face bright pink.

"So have I replaced her? Have I granted the first half of your third wish?" Kibum egged on, smiling.

"The better girlfriend one? Um, you're not a girl."

"Pshh, whatever. I'm better than any girl ever."

"Indeed you are," Jonghyun agreed softly, and brushed a blue eyelash off Kibum's cheek with a calloused thumb. "Indeed you are."