#and they're too embarrassed to kiss for like five months but eventually lads. Eventually they do it.

[katrinawritesthings]

Kibum/Taemin; Embarrassing.; PG

"Cool," Taemin says. He takes the uncrustable and the icee and scans them both. He watches Kibum as he does, something that he always does because working this job must be muscle memory for him by now. Honestly, this entire interaction is muscle memory for both of them. Every night it's the same transaction, the same conversation. In just a second Taemin is going to tell him his total is $3 even, Kibum is going to give him the $3, Taemin is going to say thank you come again, and Kibum is going to say thank you, take his things, and leave. It's always the same.

"Your total is $3 and a kiss."

Embarrassment is purely a public emotion. All embarrassment stems from the emotional response to how other people perceive something that you're doing. Even when you're home alone and you do something to embarrass yourself, what you're really responding to is internalized social stigma against things like being yourself and having fun and doing a weird little wiggly dance in front of the toaster because you wanted to. It's what would someone else think that floats in the back of your brain uninvited, not any real personal judgment onto yourself. So logically, if there's no one around to see the embarrassing thing, you shouldn't be embarrassed. If no one can hear the embarrassing thought, then it's not embarrassing in the first place.

All of this Kibum tells himself as he sits in his car in the parking lot of the corner store at 2 in the morning, both hands griping the steering wheel so tight it kind of hurts. It's his usual routine every day that he gets off of work and comes here to grab an icee and an uncrustable before he heads home.

If no one can hear his embarrassing thoughts, then they're not embarrassing. They're just thoughts. That he's having. That are neutral. And are not being judged by anyone except his own brain. Which is is also the thing that is thinking all of these thoughts right now. So, logically, when he walks into the store and greets the cashier, his brain will apply these logical, rational, factual thoughts instead of all the emotional judgmental thoughts projected onto him by society and he will not be embarrassed.

Yes. Good. Yes. Kibum slaps his steering wheel twice, unbuckles his seat belt, and gets out of his car.

He hops up onto the curb, pushes open the glass door, scans the shop’s harsh fluorescent light, locks eyes with the cashier, and is immediately embarrassed.

"Welcome," Taemin mumbles, just like always, elbow propped on the counter, chin propped in his hand. Wavy blond hair falling into his eyes. Cheeks pocked with acne scars, eyelids droopy, lips puffy and shapeless. Bright green work uniform awful against his skin.

Kibum's heart skips in his chest and he doesn't even know what he says back before he's turning into an aisle to hide his face before he gets all red.

It's so embarrassing! He's just, like, some fucking dude. He's just an average little gremlin that can barely stay awake at his shitty awful job and has not said more than 30 unique words to Kibum in over a year but he puts butterflies in Kibum's stomach and that is so. Fucking. Embarrassing.

Kibum grabs an uncrustable reflexively as he passes them, not even checking to make sure he has the right kind as he barrels all the way to the back of the store for the icee machine. Grabbing a large cup, he starts filling it up alternating back and forth between strawberry and watermelon. His hand goes cold holding the cup the entire time, a very uncomfortable contrast to the way he can feel his face getting hotter and hotter.

When it's all the way full up, he takes a minute to just hold the cup against his forehead and try to calm down.

This is also part of his nightly routine.

He rolls the cup back and forth across his face, breathing deep and trying to fill his head with rational logical thinking brain thoughts again instead of cute boy make heart go wheeeeee thoughts. There is nothing for him to be embarrassed about. Taemin looks the way he looks and that is neutral. Kibum likes the way he looks and that is neutral. Taemin has the job that he has and that is neutral. None of these things deserve judgement and the negative judgment that they do receive is not fair and should be ignored.

In fact, if Kibum were further along in his whole self-confidence kick, he would dare to say that these statements are something to be celebrated and appreciated. But he's not that far yet, so he will stick to neutral. If he is neutral then there is nothing to be embarrassed about and he should not be embarrassed.

And even before all of that, if Taemin does not even know that Kibum has crush on him, then the lack of his opinion means that there is nothing to be embarrassed about anyway. If there is no outside perception of Kibum's internal emotion, then there is no embarrassment.

Yes. Good. Yes. Kibum slaps his own cheek twice, then turns around and confidently walks himself up to the front counter. This, at least, is something that he's always been good at. Fake it till you make it has gotten him through his entire life and it's not going to stop now just because it's harder than usual. Taemin blinks slowly at him as he approaches, eyelids droopier and cuter than usual, and Kibum is focusing so hard on keeping a straight face that he doesn't even hear what he mumbles.

Luckily, it's the same thing every night: "Did you find everything you wanted?" So Kibum has a practiced answer ready to go.

"Yep," he says. "Bedtime snacks again."

"Cool," Taemin says. He takes the uncrustable and the icee and scans them both. He watches Kibum as he does, something that he always does because working this job must be muscle memory for him by now. Honestly, this entire interaction is muscle memory for both of them. Every night it's the same transaction, the same conversation. In just a second Taemin is going to tell him his total is $3 even, Kibum is going to give him the $3, Taemin is going to say thank you come again, and Kibum is going to say thank you, take his things, and leave. It's always the same.

"Your total is $3 and a kiss."

Kibum doesn't even know why he's always so stressed about coming in–

"I–wait–what?"

"Come on. Right here." Taemin leans forward halfway over the counter, tapping just under his bottom lip with one of his weird little fingers. "I know you want to." He looks straight at Kibum with his dark eyes and–oh no. He's smiling.

That's the worst thing about it. That he's smiling, smirking, a wicked hook on the corner of his lips like he's daring Kibum to do it.

Actually, scratch that. The worst thing about it is that he's smiling at Kibum and Kibum has never seen him smile before and it's knocked him so breathless that it is literally the only thing he can think about. That and how Taemin somehow fucking knows about his crush. So he's just standing here, hot from his head to his toes, staring at Taemin's mouth, not moving. Which is, by all definitions of the word, fucking embarrassing.

Especially because Taemin isn't moving either. He's just sitting there. Watching Kibum. Smirking. Tapping his lip. Waiting.

"You don't want to steal, do you?" he asks.

Well, of course Kibum doesn't want to steal. His $3 hangs limp in his hand, forgotten almost as he tries to process the situation and figure out what the fuck he should do.

His brain spins a roulette wheel of every possible reaction he could have and comes up with "fuck it."

He leans over the counter, meeting Taemin halfway and, with only a fraction of a second's hesitation, presses their mouths together.

Not for super long. Or super deep. Just long and deep enough to feel it as a kiss, to feel Taemin's mouth moving to fit better against his, to feel the fingers Taemin brushes under his chin.

And when he pulls back, heart going a hundred miles an hour and brain completely stopped, Taemin is still smiling at him. Softer now with his fingers curled against his cheek and smushing his lips up lopsided. He licks his lips, looking Kibum up and down, and then waves the little hand that he still has on the counter.

"See you tomorrow," he hums.

Kibum has no idea how to reply to that, so he doesn't. He takes his things and leaves the store.

One good thing about being absolutely shut the fuck down is that he manages to drive all the way home and get into bed before he comes back to himself enough to dissolve into a flustered, embarrassed mess. And then at least he's comfortable while he does it.

~

Embarrassment is an emotion that lives nestled in with Taemin's soul and always has. He's a weird little gremlin and people make fun of him for it all the time. When he's by himself, it's not a problem and he actually thinks that he is a pretty cool weird little gremlin. It's just that he hates being perceived by other people. Or, he hates the way that other people perceive him. Because the way that other people perceive him is usually negatively.

Realistically, that's probably not true. People probably don't judge him half as much as he thinks that they do. But either way, the way that he perceives other people perceiving him makes him feel embarrassed almost all the time. It's his default emotion, honestly, when he's out in public, and it got so annoying that instead of experiencing it he decided to shut down his emotions around other people a long time ago.

So, like, he's chill with it now. Because he can't feel the emotion of embarrassment if he doesn't have any emotions anymore. He can't be embarrassed if he doesn't care about the judgment that other people project onto him. It's cool. He's cool. It is not a problem.

But what is the problem is that for the very first time in his life, Taemin is embarrassed of himself.

Cute uncrustable boy is sitting outside in his car getting ready to come in and Taemin has his face firmly in his hands trying to get the fuck over himself before that happens. He just. He's so. What the fuck.

He cannot believe the dream that he had last night. Of all the times he's dozed off at work he's never had a dream so fucking flustering and realistic.

$3 and a kiss.

He takes his face out of his hands but only to transfer it onto the glass countertop, banging his forehead against it gently. God. Fuck. What the fuck. In what fucking universe would he actually have the confidence to say that. Not this one. And the fact that he dreamed it–not even just that, but that he dreamed that Kibum actually fell for it and kissed him–fuck.

Never in his life has Taemin judged himself this harshly before, but fuck, he's making up for all of it right now. Trust him to get such a big crush on someone so cool that the only way he could ever confess was in his dreams. What a fucking. Loser. Loser gremlin boi, that's him. That's–

The door chimes as Kibum steps inside and Taemin pops up immediately, back to his default casual slouch at the counter. Fuck. There he is. Cute and regular and tired. Grungy denim jacket on over his roller rink work uniform as usual. New piercings dotting his ears. Scars on his cheek and eyebrow, hair blue this week, lips–

"Welcome," Taemin says, forcing himself to look literally anywhere except Kibum's lips. He's so focused on keeping a straight face that he doesn't even hear what Kibum says back to him before he turns down an aisle to grab his stuff.

Once he disappears behind the shelves, Taemin's face is right back in his hands. If tonight goes according to routine, he has about three minutes before Kibum comes back to buy his stuff. Three minutes for Taemin to calm himself down and get his shit together. Three minutes for him to stop thinking about his dream. About Kibum's mouth on his. About how soft it was, how the taste of watermelon lingered on Taemin's lips after, how the dream was so vivid that the more he thinks about it, the more Taemin remembers it as if it actually happened.

This isn't helping.

You don't want to steal, do you?

Neither is that. Taemin waves his hand in front of his face quickly, back and forth, trying to stim his way out of embarrassment. It doesn't work like it normally does but it does help a little bit. Enough to calm himself down enough to follow some little thought pathways in his brain.

It was a dream. It was not real. Kibum does not know that he has a crush on him and thinks about kissing him a lot and had that dream about him. The only person that Taemin embarrassed himself in front of was himself. And that's not great; that's definitely something that he's going to have to work on and get over, but it does mean that there is no reason why Kibum would start acting different around him. There is no reason to be nervous or flustered around him. For once the judgment is coming from inside rather than out, so for once there's no reason to worry about how someone else is perceiving him. Taemin is good. He's cool. He's calm.

He's calm just in time, because right when he's threading his fingers through his hair, Kibum is approaching the counter with his uncrustable and his icee.

"Did you find everything you wanted?" pops out of his mouth automatically. He swears, he's been working here for three years and he has to have said that over a million times. Usually he hates his work programming, but at least now it's helping him not fall apart.

"Sure did," Kibum smiles. He's smiling more than usual tonight, Taemin thinks. More confidently, maybe, though maybe that's just because he himself is feeling so unconfident. Either way, as Taemin grabs his things to scan them, Kibum leans one hand on his counter and the other hand on his hip and smiles back at him with his sharp eyes and soft dimples and mischievous little mouth and–

"Your total is $3," Taemin says before he starts thinking about Kibum's mouth again.

And, for some reason, Kibum's smile curls up just at the right corner. His left eyebrow, the one with the scar, arches up at the same time.

"No kiss this time?" he asks, light and smooth and confident.

"I–muh–bwuh–what?" Taemin asks, heavy and shaky and confused. He drops the uncrustable, then scrambles to pick it back up and feels it squish messily inside the bag when he grabs it too hard. What the fuck? "What do–what–?"

"Hey, come on," Kibum smiles, leaning closer over the counter. "You can't start acting all shy now." He's not just smiling now; he's smirking, and it's so fucking gorgeous and intimidating and teasing and just straight-up attractive that it leaves Taemin breathless. He's absolutely knocked the fuck out and he doesn't even know how it happened. So he's just standing there, flustered from his head to his toes, staring at Kibum's mouth, blinking nervously as he tries to figure it out.

He can't start acting all shy. He can't start acting all shy now. Which means that there was some moment in time where he wasn't being shy?

Kibum leans his elbow on the counter, tapping just under his bottom lip with his pointer finger. Taemin swallows loudly. That's familiar from somewhere. That's familiar from–wait.

"Come on," Kibum says, locking eyes with Taemin like he's daring him to do it. "Right here, right?"

"That actually fucking happened last night?”

It blurts out of him, falls from his lips and splats hard on the counter in between them. And it's loud; louder than Taemin has ever spoken inside of the store. Louder than he's probably ever spoken on a normal day outside of the store. Not as loud as the current screaming inside of his own head. But almost.

And it keeps going: "I didn't–I wasn't dreaming? I actually said that? I really–oh my fucking god." His face slaps hard into his hands, elbows banging hard against the counter as he dies inside. As he absolutely fucking perishes inside. As his whole entire soul leaves his body and ascends into the cosmos, leaving his body down here, on fire and buzzing with what has to be the biggest embarrassment anyone has ever felt.

"What–you didn't mean to–you thought you were dreaming and I fucking did it anyway? I really–oh my fucking god."

There's a slap and a bang on his counter that, if Taemin wasn't so busy spontaneously combusting, would have registered it as exactly the same as what he just did 10 seconds ago.

But he doesn't, so both of them just stand there, faces in their hands, suffering, sharing this moment of embarrassment together.