Chapter Text
It happens in the middle of the Sunday matinee. Jongin lands wrong after her grand jeté and feels the sharp slice of pain in her ankle, worse than it's ever been. She holds her smile until she's in the wings and then doubles over, grimacing, eyes stinging with embarrassing and unbidden tears.
She hears someone talking to her over the swell of the orchestra just past the curtain. A distant voice at the end of a very long tunnel. The stage manager. "Are you OK? Ms. Kim?"
It's a moment before she's able to stand upright. "I'm fine," she says, taking a tentative step forward. Her ankle buckles underneath her weight and she sits down, hard, still gritting her teeth into a smile through her agony. "More or less."
—
Taemin's phone doesn't ring until late Monday night. He's sprawled across the couch in his office, an arm draped across his eyes to block out the flickering overhead light while he tries to catch a quick fifteen minute catnap away from everyone. It's another late rehearsal night and he's just started to fantasize about blowing everything off and crawling into bed for a week when his phone starts vibrating deep in the pocket of his sweats. It nearly goes to voicemail before he gets to it.
"Jongin?" He cringes at the way the muscles in his calves start to pull, already threatening to quit cooperating with him if he keeps going tonight. He works his hand in between his body and the back of the couch and presses gingerly at the burgeoning ache, trying to massage it away. "You're not calling me to get bailed out of jail, are you? Because I'm a little short on cash this week, so you'll have to spend the night until I can borrow money from someone else."
"Hey, asshole," she says, laughter in her voice. There's always that lilt to her tone when she's talking to Taemin, somewhere between teasing and genuinely pleased to hear from him. "If you're too busy to answer the phone for your best friend, you could've just let it go to voicemail."
"Look—some of us have to work for a living," he mumbles, rolling over onto his stomach. His hand flops bonelessly on the floor. The fabric of the couch is scratchy against his cheek and smells like too much Febreze or whatever they've been using to deodorize the soft surfaces in this building. He tries not to think about all the people who have napped—or fucked—on this couch. He's even taken advantage of it a few times, but not lately.
On the other end of the line, Jongin chuckles in her low, throaty alto and starts to say something. There's a crackling noise in the background that drowns out her voice for a moment. The tinny, thin sound of a stereo, distorted by a cell phone's receiver. Taemin crushes the phone closer into his ear to catch what she's saying. "—sounds more like you're sleeping on the job."
"Like you've never been caught doing that."
"These kids wearing you out? You're closer to thirty than twenty these days, Taemin, maybe it's time to think about retirement.”
“As much as I'm loving the abuse, did you actually need anything?" He sits up and scrubs at his eyes until the blurriness subsides.
"I need a reason to call, now? I can't just call to see how you're doing?" Jongin asks, tone far too casually innocent to be sincere.
"At—" Taemin breaks off, looks at the clock mounted on the wall. "—eleven at night?" His shoulders sag. He's got another few hours of this before he can go home.
"It's still the afternoon here."
Taemin pauses, wheels turning as he tries to do the math in his head. "Shouldn't you be at the theatre?"
"We're dark on Mondays." He can't see her to know for certain, but he's pretty sure she's shrugging at him on the other end of the line, face blank, winding a strand of her hair around her finger. Ah, right. Union rules. A concept completely unfamiliar in the pop music industry. Taemin works fourteen hours a day, every day, exhaustion and illness be damned, always pushing towards the next promotion cycle, the next album release, the next concert tour. And he's got it relatively easy, considering he's just the choreographer.
"Must be nice to get a day off," he says, trying for sarcastic and probably coming off as wistful instead.
"More than a day," she says, clearing her throat. "That's actually why I called. Do you think—are you around tomorrow night? I need a favor."
"What does 'around' mean?"
"I'm coming back into town. Need someone to come pick me up and I nominated you for the honor." Something changes—the way her voice tightens, sounding so cautious, like she means to say something else. "So, can you?"
Taemin watches his reflection in the mirror across the room. Hair cowlicked, skin sallow and shiny with oil. He swallows. He's got another one of those fourteen hour days tomorrow, and that's if he's lucky and everyone else has done their jobs, which seems incredibly unlikely. The new group SHINE Entertainment's trying to debut next month is—well, they're not ready. Not even close.
Still. He hasn't seen Jongin since his birthday last year. July seems a lifetime ago. She's never in town for very long anymore. The company she's with in London keeps her busy enough, and before that it was the endless months of touring, then school. So really, he can't say anything but yes.
It doesn't occur to Taemin until after he hangs up the phone that it's only early April. Jongin's season doesn't end until May.
—
She appears at the arrivals gate after the rest of the passengers from her flight have come through, a face mask looped over her ears, a cap pulled down over her hair. She's got a gym bag slung over one shoulder. She looks great—tired, admittedly, but great. The line of her body is long and lean, one slender curve of sinew and bone from head to toe, like she's just stepped out of a Degas painting, if Degas had been painting Korean ballerinas. The crowd parts to allow her through and stands back, a little awestruck by her presence, even if most of them don’t have a clue who she is. She's got a handful of fans here, but not many. Taemin wonders if they know why she's back in the country. He nearly asks, but thinks better of it.
At the baggage carousel, he notices the reluctant shuffle in her gait, the subtle way she shifts her weight to favor her left leg. She pulls her mask off one ear, revealing that brilliant grin of hers, toothy and white, and waves.
"I wasn't sure if you'd actually show."
Jongin offers her cheek to Taemin, who kisses it. "How was the flight?" he asks. How are you? Have you been eating well? Are you okay? Why are you home? he doesn't say. He takes her bag and falls in step beside her.
"Oh, you know," she says, adjusting the brim of her military cap and pulling it down over her eyes a little more. The crowd mostly disperses, finally, after she's waved hello and posed for a couple pictures. "Flying European airlines means I get my fill of weird pastries and cheeses. I'd stab someone for some decent fried chicken right now."
"Is this the new diet they've got you on?" he teases, pinching her arm. She yelps and pulls it away from him, rubbing the skin until it goes pink from the friction.
"Fuck the diet," she says with feeling. "I'm on vacation."
Taemin drives a BMW but it's an old one—it was old when he got it, back when he was first hired at SE, when he just needed something that didn’t look like he was borrowing his mom’s old junker. In retrospect, he should have looked for something more like his mother would drive instead because this thing is a real piece of shit. Jongin used to tease him for being too good for the subway, now. Considering the number of times he has to take the subway anyway because the car's got to go back into the shop, he's not quite sure he's graduated to full-blown transportation snob just yet. The gear box groans ominously when he shifts it into first gear and pulls out of the parking space.
"So," he says, after they pull out of Incheon's short term parking lot and Jongin still hasn't said anything. "You got fired, right? That's why you're here in the middle of the week?"
She whips around to look at him, aghast. "Taemin."
"You could've told me. I wouldn't have made fun of you. Too much, anyway—did you sleep through a performance? Did you—"
"I didn't get fired," she says, hands tightening on the purse in her lap. "I—uh—had to take a leave of absence." Taemin waits, knowing Jongin can never keep a secret from him for too long. And sure enough, in her next breath: "I tore a ligament in my ankle," she admits finally, tugging up the ankle of her jeans to reveal a thick, black brace, velcroed tightly halfway up her calf.
"Shit," Taemin murmurs, suddenly serious, reaching out to slip his hand over her knee. He squeezes it comfortingly. So this is why she sounded so glum on the phone. "Again?"
"Worse this time," she admits. She turns to look out of the window and the streetlight cuts hazy and yellow across her face. Her lips purse.
"How much worse?" he asks hesitantly, not sure if he really wants to hear the answer. She's already had one of these, a minor one about three years ago now. After a few months of rest and very light activity she'd been declared good as new. She'd been dancing on it pretty consistently ever since with no trouble. Or at least, as far as Taemin knows. He doesn't speak to her every day, and she usually leaves out the mundane updates on her aches and pains because he's got them too—they all do. The price you pay to dance every day.
She shakes her head curtly and tosses a vague, "Bad," at him. He doesn't push it any further.
"I called Baekhyun for you," Taemin says instead. "They're waiting for us, if you're up for a drink. Or I can take you home."
Jongin keeps looking out the window, eyes trained on the buildings whizzing by. "Hmm?" she says, finally. A million miles away.
"Do you want to see everyone and drink some beer," Taemin says slowly, "or do you want to go home and sleep? It's your choice." He looks at her, smiling slyly. "I mean it's okay, you're not as young as you used to be. I hear beauty sleep becomes more important as a woman ages—"
"Fuck you, Taemin," Jongin laughs, snapping back to attention to punch him in the side. He yanks the wheel playfully, just enough that the car swerves crazily in the lane and then straightens out again.
"Careful! Don't hit the driver," he says. "You'll kill us both."
"I'm not that lucky," she says. "Fine. One beer. Since you've already announced my homecoming to everyone in the city."
"It's rude to keep your people waiting," Taemin agrees, and flicks on his turn signal to change lanes.
—
Jongin's people are mostly Taemin's people these days. She's been gone so long that her group of friends has adopted him as a way of staying in touch with her. Baekhyun and Kyungsoo, both vocal coaches who work at SE with Taemin. Sehun, a tall, poker-faced girl who'd gone to school with Jongin and now dances with the Korean National Ballet. Kyungsoo's got his boyfriend Chanyeol in tow tonight, too. The height difference between Kyungsoo's compact stature and Chanyeol's lanky beanpole body never fails to make Taemin laugh. They're an odd couple, physically, but he's never seen a duo as in sync as Kyungsoo and Chanyeol—except, perhaps, for him and Jongin.
Before they go in, Jongin asks Taemin to keep quiet about her ankle.
"I'm not sure what I'm going to do about it yet. I don't want them to worry," she says, twisting the leg of her jeans until the brace underneath is invisible. Taemin understands. This one could stall out her career, or worse, end it completely, and although they mean well, Jongin's friends tend to fuss over her when she's injured, which sometimes feels more like patronizing than concern to a dancer used to pushing through the pain.
Taemin stands aside and lets Jongin slide into the booth next to Baekhyun before he sits down himself. If anyone notices stiffness in the way Jongin moves, or the split-second grimace before her face relaxes, they don't say anything about it.
"You didn't tell us you were coming home," Baekhyun coos, pulling Jongin in for a ferocious hug. "We would have met you at the airport with banners! How am I supposed to run your fansite if I don't have any pictures of you in your airport fashion?"
"Exactly why I didn't tell you," Jongin says, deadpan. "You're an embarrassment, Baekhyun."
"We keep telling him that," Sehun says, eyes trained on her cellphone, thumbs flying over the screen wildly as she texts someone—her new boyfriend, probably, some martial artist guy from China she'd met while on tour with the KNB. Jongin'd told Taemin about it last fall but he's never met the guy so he hasn't bothered committing much about him to memory.
Kyungsoo swats Baekhyun away from Jongin. "Stop monopolizing her," he says crossly, and Baekhyun pulls faces at Kyungsoo when he leans over Baekhyun's lap to hug Jongin. Chanyeol's too far away, despite the impressive length of his arms, and waves to her instead.
"So," Baekhyun says after Chanyeol's returned with a round of drinks for everyone. "What brings you back to little old Seoul? Missed me that much?"
Jongin laughs awkwardly. Taemin's not sure anyone else notices—Sehun's eyes flick up at the sound but then they're back on her phone just as quickly.
"Yeah, that's it," she says, taking a long pull from her bottle of Hite. "I have a family thing."
"Your company's okay with you leaving in the middle of the week?" Sehun asks, not unkindly.
"That's what happens when you're the principal," Baekhyun says impressively, puffing his chest out a little bit as though Jongin's accomplishments were his own.
"Stop," Jongin says. "My understudy's very good. I haven't missed a show yet, so she hasn't had a chance to go on at all. The director agreed it would be all right to give her that chance."
"What's going on? Is everything okay at home?" Kyungsoo asks.
"I—yeah," she says, sounding very unsure. "I'm not ready to tell you guys yet." This gets everyone's attention. She puts her hands up to stop them before the barrage of questions begins. "I'm not going to keep you in the dark for too long. All will be revealed. Friday."
"Gonna hold you to that," Baekhyun says, pointing the neck of his bottle at her. "Not fair to keep secrets from your nearest and dearest."
"Please," Sehun scoffs, and a knowing smile curves her lips. "Taemin obviously knows what's going on. Look at him."
Taemin suddenly finds himself the sole focus of five pairs of eyes. Jongin's turned her shoulders to him, her eyes pleading: don't. He shrugs.
"I don't know what's going on." It's half-true, at least. He does know that she's hurt, but she hasn't clued him in to what she's thinking. There are only a few options for an injury like this, and it's ultimately her call what she chooses to do. So, he'll know as soon as she decides.
"Bullshit," Chanyeol says, laughing. He points across the table at Taemin, who keeps looking nervously at Jongin, and then down at the table. "Look at his face."
"You're a terrible liar," Kyungsoo agrees.
Jongin deflects with another shrug and a knowing smile, peering into her beer bottle. Finding it empty, she steals Taemin's. He catches her just as she's pressed it to her lips and tipped it back, throat pulsing with each swallow.
"Jesus," Baekhyun says, unable to keep the admiration out of his tone. "I could have sworn you were a young lady. We've got pictures of you in a pink tutu but it's all a lie." He taps his chin thoughtfully. "I should sell these pictures. I'd make a fortune."
"Please. I'm sure Taemin's got the really incriminating ones," Sehun says. "Growing up together the way they did? He could retire with the pictures he's got stashed of the Nation's Fairy."
"How did you know? That was my ten-year plan," Taemin says, managing to keep a completely straight face even as Jongin dissolves into helpless laughter, slapping at his arm hard enough to bruise.
—
Jongin asks to be taken to her parents' place in Dobong, one of those high rise apartments just off the river. Taemin drums his fingers on the wheel as he drives, watching the streetlights illuminate Jongin's clasped hands, folded tightly in her lap.
"What are you thinking about?" he asks finally, voice a little hoarse from speaking up to be heard over the impressive volume of the smoky bar, from the cigarette he and Jongin had split before leaving.
"Hmm?" She looks at him, blinking slowly. "Nothing." She yawns. "Thank you for coming to get me, Taemin," she says, drowsily petting his cheek with the back of her fingers. "You're a very good friend."
"I'm the best friend," he reminds her. "And anyway, you'd do the same for me."
"I know," she says, and fails to stifle another yawn. "I'd do anything."
"Me too," Taemin says. One hand pulls off the wheel to cover hers. "Are you going to be okay? I'm worried about your ankle."
"I am too," she admits. "It's killing me right now. But I've got an appointment tomorrow, I guess we'll know more about my options then."
"Do you need me to—"
"No," she says quickly. "I'm going to go alone. But thank you."
"If you change your mind, or get stranded—"
"Taemin," she says impatiently, withdrawing her hand to smack his shoulder. "How are the children going to know which direction to thrust their hips if you're not there to tell them?"
He laughs. "Meet me for dinner after, at least? You can tell me all about it. In exchange, I can offer you stories about trainees being stupid. I have no shortage of those."
"Yeah," she says, sounding distracted again, and starts chewing on her lower lip the way she does every time she's anxious about something. Taemin settles back and lets her breathe after that. With something this big on her mind, it makes sense she's more distracted than she usually is, and considering she's been traveling all day, he's surprised she's even awake right now. He can sympathize with how worried she must be feeling—mercifully, he's never been injured this badly, but it's the one thing every dancer lives in fear of every time they get out on the floor, every time they cross the street or go to the grocery store, every time they step out of the bathtub onto a wet tiled floor instead of the bath mat and sway dangerously for just a second before their balance saves them. The career-ender. It's bad enough when it happens to a colleague but this is Jongin, his best friend, so it almost feels worse than having to go through it himself because there's nothing he can do for her. All he can do is hope for the best and keep his fingers crossed the doctor's able to do something to keep her dancing for just a little longer.