#everyone alive: put your garden facing the south and in full direct sun all day! literally every vegetable wants full sun constantly!!

[blujayonthewing]

adore our lovely tree-filled back yard but also want to garden, wailing and gnashing teeth etc

[eorumverba]

had a weird fic idea, idk how it would work but: jongtae are each other's kryptonite in the literal sense. they fall in love nd when they kiss or whatever its painful and ye. :> Kryptonite! Au (you would do this way better justice than me)

“Taemin’s the person in my dream. My lover. Taemin.” Jonghyun repeats the name just because of how right it feels coming from his mouth.

When Jonghyun wakes up, he has no idea where he is.

He’s sore everywhere and he’s at least wearing clothes, and while they’re well-worn, they don’t feel like his. His head is pounding but still there’s a sense of relief and his blood is pounding in his veins; he’s never felt so alive as he stands on trembling legs.

It’s weird.

What’s weirder is that he can’t remember anything: all he knows is the name Kim Jonghyun from Seoul, South Korea - beyond that, nothing. The sun is beating down on his back, but Jonghyun doesn’t feel hot, just uneasy and not quite sleepy, just-

Dazed, he thinks, the word is dazed. He feels dazed.

With nothing but faded grass and clear skies spread out before him, Jonghyun picks a direction and begins to walk. He sings to himself to pass the time (he can vaguely remember that he used to enjoy singing - with someone, he thinks? He can remember full lips and dark hair, tan skin and gentle hands, but beyond that, nothing else about this mystery person that must have been his lover.)

Jonghyun reaches a small village close to nightfall; he’s informed that he’s miles and miles away from Seoul, but after agreeing to help out on the chores and farming, he’s got himself a ride to the city. He’s excited, nervous, tense - there’s some emotion curling low in his belly, one that’s telling him not to go,

And if anything, he knows that he needs to go.

They reach Seoul by nightfall the next day; Jonghyun’s driving the car while a Kim Jongdae naps in the passenger’s seat and when the sun begins to set, Jonghyun shakes Jongdae awake so they can switch seats. (“I have friends that live here, we can stay with them for the night and then we’ll help you find your friend,” Jongdae had said as he put on his seatbelt.)

Jongdae’s friends are named Minseok and Baekhyun, and they are more than happy to see Jongdae and his “cute friend”. They don’t end up going to sleep until near dawn, empty bottles of soju and boxes of takeout scattered about on the floor between the four of them.

(Jonghyun dreams of his mystery lover, dreams of lazy kisses on the sand, the sun hot on his skin, soda-sticky lips against his and ocean-soaked hair tickling his face.)

The next afternoon, they all pile into Baekhyun’s car to run errands and go to the mall, and maybe along the way, you’ll remember something, Minseok’s in the passenger seat and Baekhyun’s driving, Jongdae is pointing out little shops and well-known places, but none of it is familiar.

None of it except the mall.

Jonghyun stops dead when they round the corner and stop in front of a huge fountain, suddenly remembering tossing coins into the water because Jonghyunnie, you know if you throw a coin in and make a wish, it’ll come true? And Jonghyun had laughed and nodded indulgently and said I don’t think that’s how it works, but if you want to, we can-

“Taemin.”

Baekhyun is chattering with Jongdae up ahead, so Minseok is the only one that hears; he tilts his head and asks, “Taemin?”

“Taemin’s the person in my dream. My lover. Taemin.” Jonghyun repeats the name just because of how right it feels coming from his mouth.

There’s a curious expression on Minseok’s face, but when Jonghyun asks, he just shakes his head and tugs Jonghyun forwards to catch up to the others. There’s a lingering sense of missing something, but Jonghyun tries his best to ignore it, choosing instead to focus on the present: on Minseok’s hand in his, on the cold of the drink Baekhyun has shoved in his other hand, on the sound of Jongdae’s voice pointing out little facts and stories. Even if the memory of Taemin’s lips and eyes and skin and hair still lingers in his mind.

After they leave the mall, Minseok directs Baekhyun down a series of roads until they pull up at a house, open and airy and modern and small. It’s just Jonghyun’s style, and it feels strangely like his, but when they park, Jongdae asks, “Why are we at Jongin’s?”

Minseok doesn’t answer - instead, he slips out of the car and marches up to the door and rings the bell without pause. It takes a few moments, but there’s an answer: a man a few inches taller than Minseok answers and smiles when he sees them all. The joy slips from his face a little when his eyes land on Jonghyun, but Minseok says something that must change the man’s mind, because the smile comes back full force and he nods a little in greeting.

“Baekhyun, Jongdae, maybe try and come over a little more? You too, Minseok - and you’re…?”

“Jonghyun,” Jonghyun’s mouth opens, then closes - he has nothing else to say.

“Jongin, but everyone calls me Kai.”

“No one calls you Kai, stupid.” Baekhyun and Jongin dissolve into an argument that the rest of them seem well used to, because Minseok just sighs and slips from the couch to disappear into another room, and Jongdae just pulls out his phone and curls up in a ball on the couch, the picture of boredom.

But Jonghyun barely focuses on that, because there are picture frames scattered about on the walls, and in many of them is his Taemin, his lover, his only memory.

“Who’s that?” he asks, careful to keep his tone neutral.

“Oh, that’s-” Jongin starts, but then someone comes in from the front door and he pauses, smiling warmly at them and beckoning them over, “this,” he starts again, “is Taemin. My boyfriend.”

The smile drops from Taemin’s lips as soon as he sees Jonghyun, but he quickly forces it back up and says, “Who’s this?”

And no, that’s not right. Jonghyun doesn’t process what Jongdae is saying - likely the story of how they’d met - because all he can do is stare at Taemin and wonder what happened to them. Because the Taemin he sees now is blonde and small and soft and pliant, not at all the dark-haired wild thing he remembers, and the curve of his lips is gentle and not mischievous, the gleam in his eye dim and not at all sharp and playful like it’s supposed to be.

Taemin catches Jonghyun staring and bites his lip, brow creasing before he smoothly detaches himself from Jongin’s side and beckons Jonghyun over. “I’m gonna show him around,” he says, more to himself than anything. No one bats an eye, and as if in a daze, Jonghyun follows Taemin through the open kitchen, out a sliding door and to the backyard. There’s a small garden and while Jonghyun is glad that at least that part of Taemin still remains, he doesn’t think on it too long because now Taemin is facing him, and he looks terrified.

“What are you doing here?”

“What do you mean, what are you doing? We were - you were my everything, Tae.” Jonghyun reaches out, only to touch Taemin’s cheek, only to feel the soft of his skin again because he’s missed it and the sheer longing that has surged up inside him is practically tangible - but Taemin flinches away and backs up a pace, if only to ground himself.

“You can’t.”

“Why not? Why can’t I remember?”

At that, Taemin pauses, blinks. His mouth opens and closes several times and Jonghyun remembers the way Taemin would roll his eyes whenever Jonghyun said he was buffering whenever he did that.

“What do you remember then?”

“Nothing really. When I woke up yesterday, all I could remember was my name, that I live in Seoul, and…you.”

“So you tried to find me.”

“Are you going to tell me what we were now? Why you’re with-” Jonghyun waves a hand at the house, “because I - I remember your lips, and your hair, and your skin. I remember kissing you-”

“God, you still do that. You always sound like you’re coming up with new poems or song lyrics.”

“Is that bad?”

A pause. “It’s…endearing.”

“And you don’t want it to be.”

Taemin doesn’t answer that, but he does sit in the grass with a heavy sigh. Jonghyun immediately follows and when he’s settled, Taemin begins to speak. “There were more of us. Jinki and Kibum and Minho, do you remember them?”

“I-” it feels like he should, but he can’t, “no. Almost.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t know if there are more of us, and I don’t know what we really are, but. Just.” Taemin stops again, and Jonghyun bites back his smile - Taemin never was good at expressing himself in words, or explaining things…or anything that involved words, really.

“Just,” Taemin’s frowning, and he takes a breath, “just kiss me.”

Jonghyun doesn’t immediately, because Jongin, but then Taemin huffs and leans forwards and kisses Jonghyun, and for a moment it is everything Jonghyun remembered, but then it is not because it hurts, it hurts like he’s being burnt from the inside out and it hurts like he’s being torn apart and put together all the wrong ways and it hurts like-

Taemin pulls back, and it stops immediately.

And Jonghyun remembers this feeling, remembers that it’d started without warning one day, that it happened whenever they touched - him or Jinki or Minho or Kibum or Taemin - and that none of them knew why. Just that it did.

“Where’s everyone else?”

Taemin looks down, shrugs. “Everyone left. I haven’t heard anything from anyone. You know - we used to all be together. Until, well.”

There are so many questions that Jonghyun wants to ask, but before he can even open his mouth, the door opens and Jongin peeps out, calling out that everyone is ready to go. When Jonghyun turns back to Taemin, he looks conflicted - both relieved and reluctant to move.

Taemin stands first though, and then Jonghyun, but before either of them can move, Jonghyun blurts out, “Can I stay here? At least for a while? I want to remember everything. I want to remember us.”

“Jjong…” the name falls like a sigh from Taemin’s lips and for a moment, Jonghyun is lost in Taemin’s eyes and lips and voice, “we can’t…have what we used to.”

“How do you know if you won’t even try?”

“We can’t even touch each other! And - Jongin!”

“Then just…let me stay. Until I remember, until I can find somewhere else to live-”

“No, just. You can stay for as long as you need, I just…this is a lot. I thought you were dead,” Taemin takes a shaky breath and just before spinning around and going back to the house, he mumbles, “and…I missed you.”

And Jonghyun thinks that’s good enough for now.