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thebibliomancer · 4 years ago

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Essential Avengers: Avengers #229: FINAL CURTAIN!

March, 1983

"THIS IS IT! Henry Pym’s Last Stand Against... THE EVIL OF EGGHEAD!”

Why does this have Egg Fu energy? Obviously very much less racist but giant egg shaped head looming over things...

Please don’t grow a mustache, Egghead.

Wow, this arc has been going on for a while. With a lot of interruptions, mind.

But we had Hank rejoin the Avengers, do a bad job, build a robot to murder his friends to try to make them forget the first bad job he did, get kicked out of the Avengers, and got tricked by Egghead into committing treason and arrested. Egghead decided to take over the world via inventing eternal youth, put together a new Masters of Evil who immediately got their asses kicked, and then the Masters kidnapped Hank from his trial.

All to bring us to the Final Curtain, which is similar but legally distinct from the Final Countdown.

I’ve seen some sad Hanks but I think “framed into being a fugitive and forced to do science for his worst enemy” Hank is the saddest looking Hank.

He has a thousand yard stare WHILE carefully considering a chemical compound.

This is possibly because while he sciences, Egghead is hanging right over his shoulder being excessively chipper and calling Hank “partner.”

Hank: “I’d love to shove those words down his throat! It’s galling enough to be working for my oldest enemy, without having him call me ‘partner.’”

Guy also puts his hand on Hank’s shoulder chum-style and offers to get him some breakfast while Hank probably fantasizes about making scrambled eggs.

Later that morning, over in New Orleans, Monica Rambeau!

I’m still very hype about Monica Rambeau finally being in this book.

She’s sitting around in her nice home watching the news about the trial and the “dramatic escape” of Hank Pym and also Iron Man has disappeared. That’s on the news too.

Monica: “Uh-oh! I don’t like the sound of that! A disappearance, now of all times, by any of the regular Avengers could mean heavy trouble! Someone’s bound to accuse them of helping in Dr. Pym’s escape! It might not be a bad idea to look in on my new friends -- as Captain Marvel!”

She nyooms light speed from New Orleans to the Avengers Mansion.

Inside, Cap and Thor are discussing how neither Iron Man or Tony Stark have been seen in nearly a week. And Cap is worried because its not like Tony.

But he has to stop talking when Monica comes in because she’s not in on the secret.

Captain Marvel: “Hi, hope I’m not interrupting anything. I thought I’d drop by and... well... see how everyone was doing.”

Thor: “In truth, woman, the Avengers have known happier times.”

Captain America: “I’m afraid Thor’s right, Captain. A former Avenger’s disgrace is national news. Iron Man’s vanished. And the She-Hulk may be no more. Things... aren’t good.”

Monica is kind of taken aback by this because “These are two of the most capable men I’ve ever met! If they’re feeling down and out, what hope is there for the rest of us?”

Meanwhile, in specifically the second-floor study, Hawkeye is sitting with Jennifer Walters Not-Hulk and the Wasp.

And Hawkeye is surprised that She-Hulk’s other self is “so small and... fragile.”

Wasp is trying to reassure Jen that they want to help her but Jen is feeling helpless.

Jen: “I-I know that, Janet. .. B-b-but I still feel so helpless. Things seemed different when I was the She-Hulk! She could handle everything -- or so I thought! She didn’t do much against the Radioactive Man, did she? One blast of charged gamma rays from him, and my life as the She-Hulk was a thing of the past!”

I mean, I wouldn’t say not much. She-Hulk tossed Radioactive Man around pretty easily before the gamma blast.

Wasp tells her that the gamma-charge must have worn off by this point but Jen is too afraid to try again because she can’t face the thought of another failure and what that might mean.

She kiiiiinda blew up her life back in California to go be She-Hulk full-time. The comic doesn’t point this out but I am. She kinda blew off her supporting cast and law career to go on a cross-country trip and then moved to New York for brunch and Avengers.

Wasp is called away by Jarvis, who says there’s an urgent caller for her, leaving Jen alone with Hawkeye.

... Which, may have been a bad idea or at least a very hilarious one.

Hawkeye: “I can’t believe what’s happening to the Avengers! We’ve had bad breaks before, but this -- ! Even ol’ Cap’s been looking like one of the walkin’ wounded! I need to do something to get us back on our feet! Maybe I can start with the little lady.”

Y’know, Captain Marvel and Hawkeye both noting how dire things are feeling around the Mansion is doing a really good job at selling this as one of their darkest moments.

Nobody ever talks about this as one of those moments but the comic is making a good case for it.

At the front door the urgent matter is! SCOTT LANG!

Sight for sore eyes!

He’s here on an errand for Mr. Stark. But unfortunately he also has no idea where Tony has gotten.

Scott Lang: “All of Stark International’s in an uproar! First, Mr. Stark asks me to finish up one of his rush projects for the Avengers -- something he never does! Then he and that iron-clad bodyguard of his pull a disappearing act! And now, the tube is full of news about Hank Pym running off with something called the Masters of Evil! Wasp... what’s going on?”

Wasp: “I honestly don’t know, Scott! Sometimes I’d swear that the whole world is falling apart on us!”

Hey! More dialogue really selling how dire things are!

Scott gives her the project Tony had him complete and tells Wasp that Tony told him that Cap would know about it.

Which indicates that Scott finished this project and doesn’t know what it is or does. Wow.

He also offers to change into Ant-Man and lend a hand but Wasp hurries him out the door and slams it behind him.

Which is a rude way to treat a Scott Lang but in Wasp’s defense she couldn’t bear seeing someone dressed as Ant-Man when she has all these Hank feelings.

Captains America and Marvel and also Thor wander in. Cap(tain America) is telling Monica that there’s nothing they can do until they get a lead on Hank’s whereabouts.

Wasp, who was just handed a thing and told that Cap would know about it, hands it to Cap and asks him if it would be any help.

Cap(tain America) recognizes it as the miniaturized version of the cerebral scanner helmet that Tony was working on.

Captain America: “It was Iron Man’s theory that Hank’s recent problems were due to preset commands Moondragon had telepathically planted in his mind. This helmet was supposed to check that out. Now... I guess we’ll never get a chance to use it.”

This defeatism is finally a defeatism too far for Monica who blows up at the Avengers.

Captain Marvel: “Hey, just a darned minute! Is this the Avengers that I’m supposed to be joining, or an encounter group? I can’t believe what I’m seeing! Look, I know you’ve been through an emotional wringer for the past couple of months, but you can’t let it get to you like this! You folks don’t get much press west of the Hudson River, but what little word that does filter out is filled with awe! You’re the Avengers! You’re legends -- every one of you! You’ve probably saved this poor world more times than anyone can even guess! And you can pull through this crisis, too! But not if you keep acting the way you’ve been!”

Huh, more of a ‘dare to be badass’ than a real dressing down.

Also, its so weird that the Avengers are simultaneously a weird New York thing and also known for saving the world multiple times.

Thor, as Thor do when anyone dares to criticize him, gets indignant but Wasp interrupts that whole impending shouting match and asks what Captain Marvel has in mind.

(This is why Wasp is a good leader, by the by)

Captain Marvel says they should try to look at things from another angle. What if, and hear her out, what if Hank really was set up by Egghead like he claimed to be before the trial?

Egghead is dead? THE AVENGERS FIGHT PEOPLE THAT HAVE BEEN ASSUMED DEAD A LOT, YOU GUYS.

Geez, where has Monica been? She’s a breath of fresh thought on this team.

Monica also has another galaxy brain idea. Slash probably turn of phrase that inspires a galaxy brain idea. Like in a mystery where an innocuous statement cracks the whole thing WIDE OPEN.

Captain Marvel: “And this man you caught -- the Shocker -- the one who claims that Pym reorganized the Masters of Evil to free him -- maybe he’s the one who’s crazy, instead of Dr. Pym! Maybe it’s the Shocker who should have his head examined!”

And Cap(tain America) is like hey I just got this head examining helmet from Tony!

Meanwhile, in the second floor study, Hawkeye has decided to Help.

Be afraid.

Nah, just funning.

Look, this is all perfectly in character for Hawkeye and for Hulks in general. He’s just going to be extremely rude (he has trained his whole life for this) and make fun of Jen until something happens.

And he is pretty rude.

So rude that she smeks him across the face. But because she hasn’t had her Jen training arc yet, Hawkeye just laughs at her.

So she hits him again.

Hawkeye: “My, my! Both cheeks slapped and I’m still on my feet! Is that the best you can do, She-Wimp?”

Then he laughs and laughs and gets punched out of the room by a furious She-Hulk.

He quickly begs for peace, claiming he didn’t mean what he said.

So in the end, all she needed to break the mental block preventing her from turning into She-Hulk was Hawkeye being even more obnoxious than usual.

He does have his uses. Shoots arrow, pisses people off, apparently fun to be around??

Its hard to imagine future burned out trash-fire Clint Barton doing this. He’s much more mellow in how he’s obnoxious now. Although, he roasted Tony Stark good in the Freefall mini.

Y’know, She-Hulk and Hawkeye are friends later. And I don’t know if that’s because She-Hulk becomes everyone’s friend when she moves into more fun party She-Hulk territory. But I can also imagine that despite not liking each other much to begin with, She-Hulk and Hawkeye just grow on each other.

When Wasp praises Jen for being able to transform again, She-Hulk admits that Hawkeye helped.

Then Cap tells them to stop goofing, they’ve got business.

And the business is at the federal lock-up.

The Avengers want to use Tony Stark’s special cerebral scanner helmet on Shocker. His lawyer is like hell no. Shocker himself is like I’m down for whatevs.

Shocker: “Hey, if they want to plunk that pressure cooker on my noggin, it’s okay by me! I’m facing a pretty stiff federal rap, after all. I’m willing to cooperate. It doesn’t bother me. If I passed the polygraph test, I can pass this!”

The lawyer still protests so She-Hulk whips out some of her ol’ legal expertise. Which she is not licensed to practice in a professional capacity in the state of New York.

She-Hulk: “Your boy was caught participating -- in either a kidnapping or an escape -- in full view of witnesses. He’s in big trouble. The scanner helmet will tell us if he’s been manipulated by outside forces. And cancel any mental blocks or false memories. Now, wouldn’t you like to go into court with something that could prove your client was used against his will?”

... I’m baffled that this new technology whose inventor has gone missing could just easily be used as evidence in court.

Like, on who’s word are they saying that this device works? Has it been vouched by anyone? How do they even know that it works at all? It was finished by Scott Lang who is a good electrical engineer but didn’t know what he was working on!

But if I can believe a man can fly, I’ll buy this.

And its funny, Shocker goes from ‘yeah I doubt this will mean anything’ to immediately remembering and spilling the beans that he was set up by Egghead.

Which means that he’s alive and Hank’s defense has merit. God damn!

I like that the cerebral helmet does factor into the plot, even if in an unexpected way. Poor, disappeared Tony Stark’s feverish throwing himself into this project out of a guilty drive to help Hank will help Hank, in some way!

Meanwhile, in the secret and sinister suburban lair of Egghead’s Masters of Evil, Hank Pym brushes off his hands and goes ‘yup I’ve finished inventing your eternal life machine, can I go now?’

Egghead and the Masters call BS because its been three days. No way did Hank already finish the machine. Egghead was thinking it would be months of research before Hank could even begin working on a design.

Hank: “Admittedly, I was lucky in stumbling upon a breakthrough in micro-cellular reconstruction. But then, you did bring me here to produce results. That’s what I’ve done.”

Moonstone asks how close an eye Egghead kept on Hank, since Egghead is the only one truly familiar with the project.

The answer is: not very!

So now they’re worried that if they plug someone into the device, it’ll just kill them.

Tiger Shark goes ‘hey lets just test it on Hank’ and Hank goes ‘yeah whatever.’

Hank: “I stand behind my work 100%. I’ll be your guinea pig, if you’re all so afraid of gaining a long and vital life!”

Egghead: “Don’t use that tone with me, Henry Pym! I think I might enjoy using you as a guinea pig! Strap him in, boys -- good and tight!”

Tiger Shark, whose idea this was in the first place, suddenly considers ‘what if this is a long and weird way for Hank to commit suicide?’ but Hank says he would have ended it three days ago if he was that tired of living.

Egghead: (He’s right. As dispirited as Pym has been, he never became suicidal. Despite all the travails I put him through, I was never able to break him that completely. Pity. Perhaps I’ll try again... after the test.)

GOOD GRIEF EGGHEAD

I know that you’re evil and petty but geez that’s a new low.

Then again, this is the guy who blew up his niece’s arm out of spite.

So, yeah, driving to suicide the guy that made your eternal youth technology possible is about what I’d expect of you, Egghead.

The worst.

When they have Hank strapped into the longevity machine and switch it on, Hank starts to glow.

Which is probably not what is supposed to happen.

Also what is not supposed to happen, the machine creates a force field around Hank.

And also overrides the guidance systems in Beetle’s armor, making him fly all over the place bonking into stuff.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this isn’t actually a longevity machine!

No, in fact, Hank Pym played them all by going ‘yeah sure throw me into the briar patch, I don’t give a shit.’

Tiger Shark tries to rip Hank out of the machine but gets thrown away with a ZZAKK.

Moonstone tries her luck too.

Moonstone: “Your electrified field is very effective against brute force, doctor -- but can it resist a high-intensity laser blast?”

-it does-

Hank: “You tell me!”

The sass!

The lasers deflect off the field joining the bouncing Beetle in destroying the lab.

Egghead has duck and covered beneath a table and demands one of the Masters stop Hank.

A call to action that Radioactive Man takes up, charging the machine.

Radioactive Man: “You are even more capable than I thought, Dr. Pym. But your miraculous fields will not long withstand the power of my nuclear heat!”

Hank: “Probably not! But it doesn’t have to! I’ve had days to prepare defenses against all of you!”

Cadmium-plated tentacles come out of the machine and grab Radioactive Man.

Geez, really nobody was making sure Hank wasn’t up to anything so he got away with everything!

The cadmium dampens Radioactive Man’s radioactive so Hank uses him to knock out Tiger Shark.

Ah, yes. I do love a good grievous harm with a body instance.

Moonstone: “Incredible! Together, we possess nearly as much raw power as the Avengers themselves -- and yet one man has nearly overcome us in a matter of minutes!”

And since she’s Moonstone and practically the only supervillain who knows when to fold ‘em, she tries to skedaddle.

But Hank also built disruption stunners into the not-longevity machine’s manacles, like the ones he used as Yellowjacket, and he blasts Moonstone as she tries to flee.

Leaving Egghead to gape that Hank has singlehandedly defeated his Masters of Evil!

MEANWHILE, up in suburbia, the Avengers!

Remember them? They’re the title of the book.

Shocker spilled the beans to the Avengers because, honestly, fuck Egghead for using him as a patsy. So the Avengers and some copspolice have assembled outside Egghead’s secret house.

The cops are to evacuate the neighborhood in case the Avengers need to do a big punch-up.

Caring about bystanders, a thing that the Avengers do some of the times.

The Avengers also got the house plans from the county records office because they’re doing this raid right.

Problem is, they’re unlikely to be accurate because they don’t have an evil lair listed on them.

So Cap and Wasp are strategizing, planning to surround the house and work their way in slowly and quietly so the Masters don’t use Hank as a hostage.

Then everything explodes. And by everything, I mean the yard of the house.

Beetle burst out from underground, completely ruining the lawn and flies around out of control.

He warns the Avengers that he can’t control his flight and tells them to look out.

The Avengers mostly jump out of the way.

Mostly.

Thor just stands still with his hammer held out for Beetle to run into so hard that Mjolnir seems to disappear.

Beetle falls to the ground, all momentum instantly converted into horrific agony.

Like seriously. He’s going to be feeling that forever. No wonder he later jumps at the chance to flip good, rather than ever experience that again.

Wasp and Cap(tain America), strategy geniuses, decide that at this point, stealth is pointless but Hawkeye is way ahead of them.

I don’t see him in the panel where the Avengers scatter or in the panel where Beetle is falling off Thor’s fist so I think that the instant the ground exploded Hawkeye was like ‘this hole was made for me’ and immediately jumped down it to leeroy jenkins the rescue Hank plan.

Its a very him thing to do.

Plus, as he muses to himself, he has his own score to settle with Egghead.

I.e., that time that Egghead killed his brother Barney Barton. The crime brother? From the time we learned that Hawkeye actually had a name?

That time.

At the bottom of the exit wound Beetle left in the house, Hawkeye peeps in and is astounded to find the Masters of Evil lying defeated in various heaps with Hank Pym standing victorious over them, casually unhooking himself from the not-longevity machine.

As Hawkeye watches, Hank tells Egghead that he can come out of hiding because its all over.

And then delivers a massive ‘the reason you suck’ speech to Egghead, which coming from Hank Pym is doubly biting because Hank Pym knows what a trashfire he’s made of his own life and still says Egghead is worse.

Hank Pym: “I did a pretty good job of screwing up my life recently. You just about finished the job for me! You used me, Egghead... and you tried to make me criminal! But you couldn’t. You see, I’ve come to terms with myself in the past month. I know who I am, and who I’m not! I’m not Ant-Man anymore. I’m not Giant-Man... or Goliath... or Yellowjacket! I’m Henry Pym!

“And it was Henry Pym who beat the Masters of Evil! You, Egghead... you turned to crime because you thought your scientific knowledge made you better than everyone else... put you above the law! But you were wrong. You weren’t above the law, and you weren’t better! I’m the better scientist... I just proved that!”

“I assembled the pieces of your downfall -- right under your nose!”

Egghead takes exception to being told how much he sucks, and leaps at Hank to, I guess, try to beat him up, saying he hasn’t beaten Egghead yet.

So Hank beats Egghead yet.

Hank: “Oh... I was hoping you’d try that!”

After all that Hank’s been through in this vague arc and at the hands of Egghead, it is very satisfying to effortlessly turn the tables on the villains, deck Egghead, and prove that while he has spotty success as a superhero, he’s no villain.

This vague arc has broken Hank down to nothing. He ruined his marriage, his superhero career, abandoned his science career as fruitless. He was broke, so desperate as to take a loan from his arch-nemesis. Framed for treason and left to pay for Egghead’s adamantium scheme. Sent to jail and derided as worse than the supervillains there. Worse for having fallen from grace. Gave up winning back his wife after seeing her date one of his friends. Abandoned hope for anything but to win back his dignity and good name in a court of law. Had that taken from him as well.

And stripped of absolutely everything, Hank Pym proved that he is one of the finest scientists in Marvel, a crafty SOB, and owner of a dynamite right hook.

Then with Egghead sprawled on the floor, Hank turns to leave.

But Egghead is a petty, petty, evil, evil man. That hasn’t stopped being a thing so he pulls out a science gun to shoot Hank in the back.

Hawkeye jumps out of the beetle hole and shoots an arrow in the barrel of the science gun, making the science gun backfire kirby krackle.

Hawkeye: “Brother, that was close -- but everything’s gonna be okay now, Hank! We have all the evidence we need to clear you and put that creep behind bars!”

Hank: “Egghead won’t be serving any time, Hawkeye. He’s dead.”

DUN DUN DUN

Hawkeye, you’ve become a killer! And it didn’t even take a Bendis to drive you to it!

Well, maybe a man-slaughterer...

Follow @essential-avengers because I bring you the good Hank Pym content. The Hank Pym punching Egghead content. The best content. Also like and reblog, possibly. For the Hawkeye man-slaughtering Egghead content.

#Avengers #Egghead #Masters of Evil #Hank Pym #essential avengers #essential marvel liveblogging #Captain America #Captain Marvel #monica rambeau #Thor #she hulk #the Wasp #Hawkeye #somehow a very effective and helpful person in this issue #Thor is the world's most effective speedbump #Iron Man helps from off panel #don't mess with Hank Pym

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katrinawritesthings · 6 years ago

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Jonghyun/Taemin; kissies; R

here it is... Jonghyun getting kisses on every single part of him body

shout out to my Kissie Jonghyun Challenge!!!

“You don’t know how to read palms,” Jonghyun says, but he gives Taemin his hand anyway, nuzzling his cheek into Taemin’s shoulder to see better. Taemin holds Jonghyun’s hand, hums wisely, runs his fingers over all of the lines that he doesn’t understand in the slightest, and brings it up close to his face to squint at.

“Sure I do,” he says. He brings Jonghyun’s hand even closer and presses a tiny kiss to the muscle of his thumb. “This line means you’re real gay,” he says.

When the heater finally turns off, Jonghyun stands up and folds his blankie cape more securely around his shoulders before he steps away from the ground vent and back to Taemin on the couch. Taemin opens his arms to let him into his lap, to let him nestle under his chin, warm, almost too warm with all of his blanket-absorbed heat, but wanted either way. When Jonghyun yawns into his neck Taemin drops a soft kiss to the top of his head, resting his cheek there after as Jonghyun hums and presses himself as close as possible to his chest.

They’re walking down the street together and Taemin should be paying attention to where he’s walking but all he can pay attention to is the back of Jonghyun’s head. He's wearing a snapback and the tuft of hair of hair that pokes out of the hole in the back is too cute to ignore. When Jonghyun stops to press up against the window of a pet store to look at puppies, Taemin stops behind him and presses up against his back. He nuzzles into Jonghyun's little fuzzy growth of hair. It's soft against his mouth and he says “mwah” loud enough for Jonghyun to hear it as he kisses it before he leans away.

Jonghyun’s hair is parted to the side, pushed back from his forehead, gelled up into a suave little flip. Taemin knows that whenever Jonghyun does his hair like this he’s feeling charming and classy and mature, and he should be acting all swoony and fluttery and flustered by him, but he’s too distracted by the fuzzy curve of his hairline, so cute and even. When Jonghyun slings his arm possessively around Taemin’s shoulder and turns to him to call him “babe” in front of all of the people he’s mingling with at this party, Taemin interrupts whatever else he was going to say by leaning up and kissing at his hairline. It ruins the effect Jonghyun was going for when he pouts, but it makes him look adorable, which isn’t bad either.

Taemin yawns into his hand as he shuffles out of the bathroom, navigating his way back into the bedroom in the 3am darkness. When he gets there, in the dim light of their nightlight, he sees Jonghyun’s big eyes looking at him, just his eyes and forehead and soft brown hair peeping out from the covers.

“Taemie,” Jonghyun whispers.

“What?” Taemin asks, flumping into bed and getting under the blankies, eyes already closed. Jonghyun wiggles closer to him.

“Kissie,” Jonghyun demands.

“Okay,” Taemin says. He slips his arm over Jonghyun and sleepily smooches the center of his forehead. Jonghyun wiggles happily and tucks himself under Taemin’s chin.

Jonghyun is frustrated, annoyed, angry at some tiny thing he’s working on on his laptop, and Taemin can tell because there’s the telling little furrow between his eyebrows, a wrinkling of his golden skin. It’s adorable, extremely kissable, and Taemin scoots his chair around the kitchen table so he can be right next to Jonghyun. When he puts his hand on Jonghyun’s cheek Jonghyun glances at him; when he leans forward and presses his lips gently right between his eyes, Jonghyun scowls.

“Dude, gross,” he grumbles, wiping his head with his sleeve, but after he pushes Taemin away he slips his arm around his waist and holds him close.

“Hmm,” Taemin hums after watching Jonghyun spend ten minutes carefully penciling and brushing his eyebrows to look even more perfectly thick and dark than they usually are. He leans forward at Jonghyun’s questioning hum and kisses his right brow. When he comes away there’s powder and makeup on his lips and he groans, scrunches up his face, and looks for something to wipe it off with.

“What did you expect?” Jonghyun asks, voice an incredulous laugh as he turns back to the mirror to fix his brow.

Taemin knows that Jonghyun is practising, is very intent and focused on working his way through this song before he has to record it and send it off for some boyband to buy from him, but he also knows that he himself is very intent and focused on the little veins that show up in Jonghyun’s temples when he sings a specific note. He’s with him to watch all of his audio levels and mess with the little knobbie dealies on his soundboard, but he takes his attention from them for just a moment to gently place his lips on Jonghyun’s left temple. The next line that Jonghyun sings is softer and breathier than usual.

Taemin doesn’t know what it is about the outer corners of Jonghyun’s eyes that is so adorable. Maybe it’s the way he does his eyeliner, brings it out to the tiniest, softest point. Maybe it’s when he does his eyeshadow heavier on the bottom corner so it all pops just a little more cutely. Maybe it’s just the way his eyes taper naturally that’s just a tiny bit more cute than everyone else’s. Whatever it is, Taemin misses Jonghyun’s little corner-eye-jewels phase, so he takes it upon himself to place two tiny kisses there instead.

“Can I be really gay for a second?” Taemin asks, chin in his hand, eyes fixed on Jonghyun’s pretty lashes. Jonghyun glances up at him with his pretty eyes.

“As many seconds as you want,” he grins. Taemin smiles back, putting his hand on his shoulder to turn Jonghyun away from the stove and face him.

“Close your eyes?” he asks, and when Jonghyun does, he leans forward and pecks two of his tiniest, softiest kissies, one to each of Jonghyun’s pretty eyelids.

“Oh my gosh,” Jonghyun whispers.

“Your eyes are really pretty. Nice and brown..”

“Thanks.”

“Can I kiss your eyeball?”

“Do not. Even attempt to put your lips on my eyeball.”

“Can you pretend I did and it wasn’t gross?”

“Yeah.”

Jonghyun gets bags under his eyes sometimes, when his insomnia doesn’t let him sleep as well as he should. Taemin lays in his lap and looks up at them, dark, puffy squishes of skin, and is mildly sad to see them, but he also has to admit that they’re pretty cute. He lifts his hand up around Jonghyun’s neck, tugging him away from whatever he was watching on the tv. Jonghyun glances down at him and puckers up his lips expectantly. When Taemin pulls him down even further and leans up, sticking his own lips out and reaching, he puts his hand on Taemin’s wrist.

“What are you--?” he says, and then he scrunches his eyes closed as Taemin gets even closer, and then Taemin presses a tiny peck to his lower eyelid. Taemin lets go and nestles back into Jonghyun’s lap as Jonghyun looks blankly down at him and mouths “what the fuck.”

Jonghyun’s nose really is the cutest in the whole world, Taemin thinks. He’s supposed to be watching the movie--he spent eleven bucks on the ticket and he’s the one that wanted to see it in the first place--but he’s just sitting here, looking at Jonghyun next to him, appreciating his side profile. His nose is sooo cute and soft and round and adorable.

“Do you think,” Jonghyun whispers, leaning towards him quietly. “That capitalism man is the one--what?” He glances away from the movie once to catch Taemin’s eyes, and then again in a doubletake when he realizes Taemin was already staring at him. To answer, Taemin leans forward and kissies the tip of his nose.

Taemin feels like, in the midst of everyone always talking about his philtrum, no one ever remembers Jonghyun’s or how lovely it is. The soft little dip of skin from his nose to his lip, how it forms his cupid’s bow into not exactly a point, but not a smooth curve either, how it’s just a little bit wider at the bottom than the top. At the moment, Jonghyun is giggling and tracing Taemin’s square cupid’s bow with a fond finger. Taemin takes his wrist to gently tug his hand away so he can lean forward and pucker his lips just enough to smek the tiny space above Jonghyun’s upper lip.

Jonghyun’s top lip is so cute, delicate, a pretty pretty shape and ends that taper down to tuck into the corners of his mouth. The faint line in the middle is especially adorable, a lovely little half-centimeter that Taemin always wants to kiss. As Jonghyun shuffles up to him, tiny smile pointed up as he asks for a kiss, Taemin leans in and starts it so he can do just that. He gets Jonghyun’s top lip between his and gives it the fondest peck, and then another, and then a third before he focuses on kissing Jonghyun properly.

“No I don't want to sign in,” Taemin grumbles at his phone. He can't sign in; he doesn't have an Instagram, he just lurks on Jonghyun’s Instagram every couple of days to see what he's been up to. Today, apparently he's been up to taking one of those sets of four pictures where he just smiles big at the camera wearing a cute hat. Taemin’s hat, Taemin realizes, squinting at the plastic monster teeth that hang down from the brim of it. He was wondering where that went.

He also wonders, as he looks at the pictures and at Jonghyun’s teeth, if it would be weird to want to kiss them. They’re all bright and pretty in his mouth, slightly uneven, sharp and pointy. He decides, as he taps on the picture to zoom in on Jonghyun’s teeth and bites his own lip, that it's not weird, because he's not weird, obviously, anything that he wants to do isn't weird at all, and even if it was weird, he doesn't care. He sticks his leggy up really far and uses it as leverage to help him roll off of the couch before he sets off through the house in search of Jonghyun.

He finds him in the bedroom, crouched down at the foot of the bed to gently poke at Roo’s sleeping side. If it's almost puppy snuggle time then Taemin has to act quick.

“Hey,” he says. Jonghyun turns to look up at him with an inquisitive hum. Taemin crouches down next to him, elbows on his knees and chin in his hands. “Smile?” he asks. Jonghyun tilts his head, then gives Taemin a small, confused, closed lip smile. Taemin shakes his head. “No, like, big smile,” he says. “Please,” he adds. Jonghyun gives him a big smile, teeth and all, and Taemin smiles himself as he rocks himself forward to extend his lips out and peck his teeth.

“Hey,” Jonghyun says, and his entire voice sounds like one big smirk, and Taemin scowls at the tv as he watches Jonghyun’s character completely kick his character’s ass for the seventh time in a row.

“What?” he snaps, grumpy. He can feel Jonghyun wiggling next to him, nudging him with his elbow.

“Mlehhh,” he says, and when Taemin looks over, Jonghyun is poking his tongue out at him. He wants to be grumpy, wants to huff and shove his shoulder and be offended at how happy Jonghyun is to be wrecking him, but all he can feel is soft at his cute little round pink tongue. He leans forward and presses a smooch to it and then, while Jonghyun drops his controller into his lap to put his face in his hands and giggle, Taemin takes the opportunity to win at least one round of their game.

Jonghyun has this habit when he’s thinking of touching his bottom lip. He runs his fingers over it, he nibbles it endlessly, he pushes it with his thumb. Taemin doesn’t know what he’s thinking about as he writes in his notebook and reads it over and over, but he’s been thinking about it for a while and he should probably take a break. Taemin pulls up his rolly chair and scoots right next to Jonghyun, bumping into his chair on purpose just to make him look up. When he does, his thumb still squishes his lower lip. Taemin takes his hand, laces their fingers together, cups Jonghyun’s face with his free hand, and leans forward to connect their lips, sandwiching Jonghyun’s bottom one between his in a slow kiss. Jonghyun hesitates, just for a second, before he drops his pen to slip his hand around Taemin’s neck.

The little upturn of Jonghyun’s bottom lip, the little curve, is something that Taemin always finds his eyes drawn to. He looked it up once and learned that it’s called a teardrop, and ever since then he’d wondered what it’s there for, what it’s evolutionary purpose is, and why Jonghyun’s is so incredibly attractive to him. He still doesn't know the answers to any of those questions, but he does know that he loves gently brushing his thumb over Jonghyun’s lip and pecking tiny kissies to the bottom of it.

When Jonghyun smiles just right at just the right angle, the corners of his lips disappear behind his cheeks, and Taemin thinks it’s utterly adorable. And when he’s not smiling and is just sitting with a neutral face, the corners of his lips curve up just a tiny bit into a natural smile, which is also utterly adorable. And sometimes, Jonghyun does this thing where he pulls the corners of his lips back, flattening out his mouth to judge someone or to figure out a problem, and they look like two tiny little dips at the corners of his mouth, which is, again, utterly adorable.

Taemin loves the corners of his lips all the time, at every moment, and especially now, when Jonghyun is sat in Taemin’s lap, eyes closed, foreheads pressed together, just chilling, and Taemin can see their tiny smiley curve up close. He tilts his head and shifts just enough that he can press his lips to the corner of Jonghyun’s.

When Jonghyun sweats, it makes his cheekbones stand out that much more, a natural shine, a natural highlight on his skin, making them look sharp and strong in his face. Taemin knows they’re in a public gym and Jonghyun likes to focus on his workouts, but still, when Jonghyun finishes a tricep rep, lowers the weights down, and leans back for a moment to catch his breath, Taemin leans down and quickly smooches the apple of his cheek. Jonghyun blinks, then looks at him with an amused little smirk, still breathing hard.

“Irresistible, I know,” he says.

Jonghun comes in through the front door, smiley and giggly after a morning out with his friends, and Taemin waves from where he’s slouched on the couch playing video games. Jonghyun smiles even wider when he sees and his cheeks get so round, so cute and squishy, filled up with the weight he’d been gaining lately since he’s been less stressed. He flounces over to slouch on the couch next to Taemin and the first thing Taemin does is press a big slobbery kiss right to his cheek. Jonghyun doesn’t even grumble as he wipes his cheek on Taemin’s shoulder.

Jonghyun is humming to himself in that way he does when he’s shaving and doesn’t want to accidentally cut himself by actually singing, so Taemin enters the bathroom carefully so he doesn’t startle him. Jonghyun glances at him over his shoulder, smiles, and goes back to his work, leaning close to the mirror and carefully pulling the tiniest razor down the side of his face. Taemin moves to squeeze passed him so he can grab his toothbrush, then pauses and looks closer at what Jonghyun is doing.

He’s got shaving cream spread over his sideburns, but instead of shaving a clean line, he’s busy trying to delicately shave a V shape into them. Taemin looks at the floor and laughs softly. He forgot Jonghyun shaped his sideburns into cute little points like this. When Jonghyun lowers his razor to the sink to rinse it off, Taemin leans over and pecks the very tip of his carefully styled hair.

Taemin is feeling smoochy, and he needs to find something to smooch immediately. He already has a target--Jonghyun, standing innocently in front of the toaster to watch his bread brown up--and he just needs to find the perfect spot. After a few moments of blatant staring, he finds it: the tiny, tiny little mole just in front of Jonghyun’s left ear. It’s so faint that it usually gets covered up by his makeup, but now Taemin takes his chance and swoops in to cup Jonghyun’s face in his hands and triumphantly press his smoochiest smooch to the little dot. When he tries to pull away, Jonghyun gets his arms around his waist and holds him close so he can hide his face in his shoulder.

Ears are so delicate and pretty and detailed. Or maybe that’s just Jonghyun’s. Or maybe it’s all ears, but Taemin is just especially fascinated by Jonghyun’s, at all of the little cartilage bits and dips and curves, extra pretty and adorable because they’re attached to someone he loves. They’re driving somewhere, Jonghyun focused on the road behind the wheel, so Taemin waits patiently until they hit a red light before reaching over and tugging on Jonghyun’s sleeve.

“Hey, this is maybe kinda weird, but,” he says, and leans over the center console to press a kiss directly to Jonghyun’s ear.

“Yeah, that was weird,” Jonghyun mumbles at him, “but you’re cute.”

Jonghyun has a mole inside his left ear. Taemin isn't sure how it escaped his notice for so long but one day while they're just sitting together watching TV he glances over and notices it, little and brown, inside Jonghyun's ear just at the top fold of cartilage under the shell. It fascinates him but not as much as the show so he waits until commercial to actually lift his hand and rub his thumb gently over it. Jonghyun shivers but before he can ask Taemin what he's doing Taemin leans in, extends his lips, and presses the tiniest smooch to his little mole.

Jonghyun’s scarf is so big and poofy that all Taemin can see of him from behind is his hair and the very tips of his ears, blushed pink from the cold. Taemin slips up behind him, wrapping him up in his arms as he makes a tiny ooh of surprise, and lowers his lips once to both ears in two little kissies. He says “mwah” each time and Jonghyun’s ears blush all the way from light pink to a deep red.

Taemin sleepily watches the commercials play on the tv, arm around Jonghyun’s shoulders, their heads leaning together. Jonghyun plays on his phone while they wait for their show to come back on. He shifts to get comfy and his ear brushes Taemin’s cheek. Looking away from the tv, Taemin shifts so he can nuzzle in behind Jonghyun’s ear and press a soft kiss to the shell of it. When Jonghyun doesn’t acknowledge him, he pokes his tongue out and wiggles it against the same spot, and then grins wide and feigns ignorance when Jonghyun shudders and whines at him.

The image of a piercing sliding out of an earlobe is strange, and not one that Taemin particularly likes, but it’s still fun to sit here on Jonghyun’s vanity and watch him dejewel himself for the night. When Jonghyun finishes with one ear Taemin reaches over to touch his lobe gently, to rub his thumb over the tiny hole, to feel the softness of his skin. It makes him feel soft on the inside so he bends forward and keeps one finger on the back of Jonghyun’s earlobe so he can press the softest kissie to it.

It’s one of the rare times Taemin has woken up before Jonghyun and he’s taking advantage of that by lying lazily behind him, eyes just barely cracked open, and delicately tracing the loopy lines of the tiny tattoo behind his right ear. He follows the letters with his finger, trying to convince himself that he can feel a difference between the ink and the skin. Before long, Jonghyun shifts sleepily and mumbles something incoherent, half turning to peer blearily at Taemin over his shoulder. Taemin shifts forward and touches his lips to Jonghyun’s tattoo, and then, for good measure, to the little mole that sits just behind it. Jonghyun mumbles something else and shifts to press his face into the pillows.

When Jonghyun turns away from him to say something to Kibum on his other side, Taemin’s eyes are drawn straight to the round corner of his jaw. Soft skin over hard bone; he always wants to touch and boop it but Jonghyun always gets tickly there. Glancing around at everyone else around their little breakfast diner table, he slips his arm around Jonghyun’s shoulders and presses a kiss there anyway. Jonghyun can’t get grumbly at him because he’s too busy blushing at the public affection, which was what Taemin planned.

“Ooh. Ahh. Ohh.”

Taemin looks up from his phone when Jonghyun suddenly starts making dramatic little noises next to him in bed. He’s doing dramatic little poses with each noise too: he sticks his leggie out, he crosses it dramatically over his other knee, he drapes one arm over his forehead and throws Taemin a flirty little smile.

“Sexy,” he purrs, trailing his hand down his face. “Dramatique.” He angles his head to present his jawline, sharp and straight and pronounced. “Gorgeous,” he smiles, fluttering his fingers along his jaw. Taemin muffles a small laugh into his hand, then leans forward and gives a warm kiss to the center of his jawline. Immediately Jonghyun stops his dramatics and just wiggles himself under Taemin’s arm, heart and flower emojis almost visible over his head.

“Mmm,” he hums happily.

Jonghyun’s chin is doing that cute thing it does where he pulls his bottom lip into his mouth and it smooths into one smooth curve from his lip to his neck. His eyebrows are furrowed, though, and he looks grumpy as he looks at himself in the bathroom mirror and pokes at a spot on his cute chin. Taemin flushes his pee down the toilet and gently bumps Jonghyun away from the sink so he can wash his hands.

“What?” he asks as he does so. Jonghyun glances at him in the mirror, then points insistently at a little white bump on his chin.

“A blemish,” he sighs.

“Hmm,” Taemin hums. He looks over Jonghyun’s chin; tiny pimple or not, it’s still cute. He leans forward and pecks a kiss directly to the pimple and when Jonghyun sighs at him, wipes his wet hands on his jeans.

They’re chilling with some friends at the river and Jonghyun invited himself into Taemin’s lap some time ago, so Taemin is just holding him, cheek resting against his neck, and dozing off while Jonghyun talks. At some point Jonghyun leans away from him to reach for someone else. He keeps one arm around Taemin’s neck to hold himself and Taemin blearily blinks his eyes open, looking up. All he can really see of Jonghyun from this angle is the underside of his chin, the little pouch of squish outlined by his jaw. He tilts his head up, pecks Jonghyun’s skin lightly, and tugs him close again to nuzzle back into.

Taemin can’t fathom what about walking around the mall always makes Jonghyun so thirsty but he is absolutely going to town on a big water bottle that he just bought from a vending machine. Every time he swallows his adam’s apple bobs, up and down his neck, not big, but still noticeable, a soft round lump in his throat. Taemin waits for him to finish inhaling half of the bottle and to take a breath before he ducks down a little to press a smile to it. Jonghyun giggles, breaths heavy, and ruffles his hand through Taemin’s hair fondly.

Jonghyun is in a big fancy recording booth, belting out lines to some demo track he’s been working on, and Taemin is sleepily sitting on a couch outside, watching the thick vein on his neck every time it appears. Each time Jonghyun finishes he sips some water and talks to the music tech nerds that are actually monitoring and recording him and the vein disappears, but Taemin has its location memorized in his brain. When Jonghyun finally finishes recording and steps out of the booth, smiling softly and thanking everyone there, Taemin slips up to carry his bags for him and take him out to get hot chocolate before they go home. He also slips up to wrap Jonghyun up in a one-armed hug and press a kiss to his neck where his vein is hiding under the skin.

The side of Jonghyun’s neck is one of the places that Taemin kisses the most, largely in part due to how Jonghyun always sits himself down in between Taemin’s legs. It gives Taemin the perfect opportunity to tilt his head and press his lips to Jonghyun’s neck, to pepper slow little kisses up and down his golden skin. When he’s not kissing he’s nuzzling, nosing into his soft skin and feeling the tiny fuzzy hairs on the surface. Jonghyun scrunches his shoulders, giggling at his light touches, so Taemin smiles apologetically against him and goes back to his warm, firm kisses.

When Taemin slowly runs the electric razor up the back of Jonghyun’s neck on the right side, the inch or so of hair that falls away reveals the two little moles that live there. He smiles at them as he lets the hair fall to the floor between them. Two little friends. He brushes more tiny pieces of hair off of Jonghyun’s skin quickly before leaning down and gently kissing each one. Jonghyun looks down to blush and put his face in his hands, so Taemin uses the angle to better finish shaving down his undercut for him.

Taemin leans on the wall next to the pickup counter of the coffeeshop, waiting for their drinks with one hand in Jonghyun’s butt pocket and the other on the back of his head. He rubs his thumb lazily over the curve of Jonghyun’s hairline, the cute little rounded nape that separates his undercut from his neck. It looks like a cozy place to place a kiss, so he does just that, pressing his lips to Jonghyun’s skin and making the tiniest smek noise. Jonghyun shivers at the touch, whole body wiggling.

There’s a small pale circle on the back of Jonghyun’s neck, under his hairline but higher than his shoulders, and a little to the right, and Taemin has never been able to tell what it is, for all that it’s been there for as long as he can remember. He figures it’s a scar, but if that’s the case, he can’t for the life of him figure out what causes a scar like this. He watches Jonghyun rummaging in a drawer for something, and when he straightens up, steps behind him to hold him in place for a second.

“What’s the white dot on your neck from?” he asks. Jonghyun glances at him over his shoulder, confused.

“What white dot?” he asks. Taemin puts his finger on it, then moves his finger down slightly when Jonghyun reaches back to feel for himself. “Huh,” Jonghyun says. “I don’t know.”

“Hmm,” Taemin hums. Oh well. He dips his head to kiss it anyway because it’s cute.

No matter how long it’s been since Jonghyun got his Poet | Artist tattoo, seeing it on the back of his neck always makes Taemin pause and smile. He’s rubbing suntan lotion over Jonghyun’s weak baby skin so he doesn’t burn to a crisp at the beach, and when he gets to the tattoo, he takes his time in smoothing the cream into him. Then he lowers his head and carefully kisses each letter, all ten of them, plus the line in the center, and smiles against the back of his neck when he hears Jonghyun whispering “oh my fucking gosh.”

“Taem.”

Jonghyun is pouting; Taemin can hear it in his voice before he even looks up to see it on his lips. He’s pouting as he shuffles up to Taemin, hands on either side of his neck where it meets his shoulders. Taemin rolls his eyes fondly. He made such a big deal earlier about how he was buff and strong and didn’t get sore from one workout, and now here he is.

“Taem, I’m sore,” Jonghyun pouts, leaning into Taemin’s chest. Taemin doesn’t tease him and just turns him around, gently shooing his hands away to replace them with his own. He gives Jonghyun a little massage, rubbing his muscles gently but firmly. As he works, he appreciates the smooth skin, the pretty curve from neck to shoulder. Eventually he can’t resist anymore and stops his massage to press a few slow, warm kisses to Jonghyun’s skin. Jonghyun hums and shifts closer, so Taemin assumes that the gesture is appreciated.

When Jonghyun walks back into the living room from the hallway, Taemin notices a speck of dirt on the right side of his neck. He reaches up when Jonghyun walks in front of him on the couch to get it for him. He rubs it with his thumb, but it doesn’t come off; frowning and tugging Jonghyun to bend down so he can look closer, he sees that it’s not dirt but just a tiny little brown dot on his skin.

“Oh,” he says.

“What?” Jonghyun asks. He tries to look down at it, chin all scrunched up in his neck. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Taemin says. He leans forward and smooches the dot before letting Jonghyun go. Jonghyun looks at him for a moment, confused, before realization dawns on him and he puts his thumb right on it.

“Oh, my little mole?” he asks, a broad smile on his lips. “Yeah, she’s cute. Kiss her again.” He shuffles forward, practically smothering Taemin’s face with his neck, until Taemin laughs and gives him another kiss.

Jonghyun was laying on Taemin’s chest, but now he pushes himself up on his elbows to lean over him and reach for something on the table next to the couch. Taemin looks blandly up at his neck right in front of his face, at the hollow of it framed by the long muscles under his skin. It’s a deep little cave, strangely beautiful, in some anatomy appreciation kind of way, and before Jonghyun can move away Taemin lifts his head up to drop a kiss in there.

Taemin loves Jonghyun’s chest mole, but not as much as Jonghyun loves it. He’s always wearing low cut shirts, vnecks, open jackets, just so everyone can see and admire it, and when he notices people looking he always smiles a few notches wider. Taemin feels like it’s spoiling Jonghyun, a little, to kissie it, but he loves Jonghyun and he loves spoiling him, so he makes sure to always swoop in and kiss the cute little dot whenever Jonghyun presents it to the world.

Jonghyun’s collarbones are so pretty, jutting out from his chest as he sits on the other side of the table at this restaurant. Taemin is trying to focus on the conversation everyone else is having, he really is, but he’s just. So distracted. They look so good. Taemin makes an impulse decision and gets up out of his seat, tugs on Minho’s wrist until he gets out of the booth, and then takes his place next to Jonghyun. Everyone is staring at him in confusion now so it’s easy for him to tuck himself under Jonghyun’s chin and smooch down the line of one collarbone and then up the other. When he’s done, Jonghyun is giggling into his hands and Minho is calling him gay, both of which he appreciates greatly.

When Taemin comes out of the bathroom after his morning pee, Jonghyun is still sitting up in bed, rubbing his face and trying to wake up. Taemin thinks it's pretty admirable of him to actually get up and start his day when he wakes up, because right now he's heading right back into bed to sleep for another hour. Before he does, he glances over Jonghyun’s shirtless torso to look for someplace to kiss. His eyes fall on Jonghyun’s left trap muscle, between his neck and shoulder, and the little brown mole placed delicately in the center near the back. Cute. As he pulls the covers up and sits down under them, he gently hugs Jonghyun from behind and drops a little kissy onto his mole before he lies all the way down and pulls the blankies over his head. He feels Jonghyun just as gently pat his shoulder in thanks.

Jonghyun’s shoulders are nice, and warm, and solid under Taemin’s hands. Warm and round and soft, thick babely muscle. Hell yeah. Technically it’s all definition and not a lot of mass, but that’s Jonghyun’s goal when he goes to the gym anyway, and he’s still strong enough to pick Taemin up whenever he wants, so who cares.

“Hey,” Jonghyun says, glancing at him over one shoulder. “Are you done feeling me up?” he asks. “I gotta actually get into the shower.” He gestures at the shower running in front of him, which he started a minute or two ago before he undressed and Taemin caught sight of his shoulders in the mirror while he was rubbing sleep out of his eyes. Taemin hums, hands still rubbing warm circles over Jonghyun’s shoulders, and then leans down to press a smooch to each.

“For now,” he says, pushing Jonghyun gently forward. For now.

When Jonghyun rolls over in bed and stretches his arm out directly over Taemin’s face, Taemin knows he’s doing it on purpose just to be a little brat. He doesn’t really care, because Jonghyun being a brat is one of Taemin’s favorite things that he does. He quickly snatches both of his arms around Jonghyun’s one, keeping him there, smiling pleasantly against his shoulder when Jonghyun wiggles to get free.

It registers in his brain that this is Jonghyun’s right arm, and that his mouth is on the side of his right shoulder, right where his little mole should be. He lifts Jonghyun’s arm for just a second to check, and yeah, there it is. The tiny circle. Holding Jonghyun’s arm tight again, he presses his mouth to his skin and places many quick kissies to the little dot. Jonghyun stops trying to wiggle away.

Taemin likes being snuggled in Jonghyun’s lap because it puts him at the perfect position to nuzzle into the area between his shoulder and his chest. Jonghyun is wearing one of his loose tank tops and Taemin is zoning out as they sit, half falling asleep and half not, and staring blankly where thick stretch marks creep out of Jonghyun’s sleeve and over his skin. He trails one finger over each one, feeling his skin dip into each stretch and the tiny wiggles of the outlines. Jonghyun likes them a whole lot — he wrote a really gay and thoughtful metaphor about his physical stretch marks feeling like emotional ones to put as a forward in one of his albums that Taemin didn't really understand all the way. Taemin just thinks they're cute and pretty and he likes how when he leans in to kiss them he can feel them against his lips.

Taemin feels like some of his happiest moments are when he has his face smooshed right up against Jonghyun. Right now he has his face smooshed into the side of Jonghyun’s chest, head tucked comfy under his arm, smile pressed to his skin. Also right now, though, Jonghyun is making his whiny pouty noise and wiggling.

“Your hair is tickling my undiearm,” he whines. Taemin snorts, tilting his head to look up. There’s Jonghyun’s underarm, hollow and full of three week old stubble and slightly sweaty, just like usual. Taemin wiggles up Jonghyun’s body to smoosh his face in there instead, presses it right up into the hollow and nuzzles the hair, smiling pleasantly when Jonghyun sighs heavily at him.

“You smell nice,” he says, and he really means it. He likes Jonghyun’s sweaty musk, and he likes how whenever he mentions that Jonghyun is both proud and exasperated at it.

“Shut up,” Jonghyun says, and yeah, there was a hint of badly concealed pride in his tone. Taemin can hear his fought back smile. He nuzzles even further in and presses a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss to Jonghyun’s pit, just to really drive his point home.

Taemin might be slightly tipsy, but that has no bearing on how he thinks the two little moles on Jonghyun’s left shoulder look vaguely like eyes, and the thin vein between them looks like a long blue nose. Like Squidward, is what he’s saying. Jonghyun has a Squidward on his shoulder, and while Taemin has always thought this sober, it takes half a bottle of wine for him to giggle and say it out loud.

While Jonghyun is frowning and trying to squint at his arm with his own drunky eyes, Taemin flops over on the carpet and reaches for a pen on the coffee table. He takes it, rolls back, draws two ovals around Jonghyun’s little moles, and then a small curved frown under the vein. Just looking at it makes him giggle more.

“I’m Squidward,” Jonghyun whispers. He lifts his hands to his cheeks and gasps softly. That sets Taemin to even more laughter, but when he’s done, he takes Jonghyun’s left wrist and tugs his arm out straight.

“You’re cute,” he smiles, and presses a kiss to each mole and slobbers his tongue up the vein.

Falling asleep with Jonghyun is always so lovely. He lets Taemin use his arm as a pillow, always has, and Taemin enjoys resting his head on Jonghyun’s bicep, one hand tucked under, the other hand thrown lazily over Jonghyun’s waist. Jonghyun’s lips always fall by Taemin’s head to let soft breaths rustle his hair and his legs tangle with Taemin’s, locking them together all snuggly and warm. Taemin loves. He nestles closer, holding Jonghyun to him, nuzzling into the warm skin of his bicep. He always needs to kissie before he can fall asleep, so he takes the opportunity to turn his head and press as many smooches as his heart desires to Jonghyun’s bicep.

Jonghyun’s Never-The-Less tattoo always surprises Taemin. Not because it’s big or bold or shocking or anything, but because he always forgets that it’s there, until he sees it again. The letters are so stark against the skin of his bicep. They almost seem out of place but Taemin is slowly getting used to it after so many years.

It still surprises him, a little, when Jonghyun laces his hands behind his head and stretches lazily, face scrunching up as a tiny squeak escapes his throat. Taemin stares at the three little words on his arm, the two tiny dots that separate them. After Jonghyun finishes stretching but before he puts his arms down, Taemin scoots forward to press five kissies to the tattoo. Jonghyun’s hands move from the back of his head to cover his face instead.

“Dude. What are you doing?”

Taemin looks up guiltily from where he’d been casually nomming on Jonghyun’s arm, nibbling along the thick vein that runs down his biep under his skin. Jonghyun frowns at him; Taemin smiles innocently and gently, gently, gently bites his arm again.

“Stop that, you’re gonna, like, bite me open and then I’ll bleed everywhere and it’ll be gross,” Jonghyun mumbles. He tries to take his arm away, but Taemin clings to him with both hands and presses a tiny kiss to his vein instead. Jonghyun rolls his eyes and lets him stay.

Taemin wakes up with his face in the crook of Jonghyun’s elbow, and he knows that Jonghyun put the crook of his elbow into his face on purpose because there’s no way that Taemin woke up before him. He takes in a big sleepy breath, hooking his own arm over Jonghyun’s and puckering his lips to kiss his soft delicate skin. He hears Jonghyun make his smiley hummy noise next to him and snorts. He just wanted a morning smoochie. Taemin brings his other hand up to hold Jonghyun’s elbow there, gently but still firmly, and gives him another, and then another, and then, just when Jonghyun lets his guard down to giggle, opens his mouth wide and blows a big raspberry.

They’re lying out on their stomachs on the bed, Jonghyun pleasantly putting together a few pages of his latest scrapbook and Taemin just watching, dozing off on his shoulder. Jonghyun hums little words to himself as he works, voice cute and little and confident as he talks himself through it, and it’s soothing Taemin to a nice state of hazy, in-and-out sleepiness. He zones out, sight blurring for a little bit, before he blinks everything back and focuses on what he was looking at.

It was just Jonghyun’s left arm, the inside of his elbow, just a little bit on the forearm side. There’s a nice brown circle on his skin and Taemin yawns into Jonghyun’s shoulder before he reaches over sleepily to poke it.

“You have a mole on your elbow pit,” he says.

“Hmm?” Jonghyun hums. He lifts his arm to look at it himself. “Oh, yeah. That’s Barbara.” He puts his thumb on it, and then, while Taemin is just starting to register that joke and giggle about it, brings his arm over to hover in front of Taemin’s face. Taemin takes the hint and indulges himself in his favorite thing, tilting his head just enough to give Barb the tiniest kissie.

Taemin is sleepy and has a headache, but they’re at some mingly party with business fancy people that they can’t escape from yet. Taemin has half escaped, at least from talking to people, by pretending to be drunk off of the cheap champagne being served. He’s tugged Jonghyun to sit on the couch and is leaning into him, doing his best to look drunky and pitiful so people will gently suggest that it’s time for them to leave. Jonghyun is helping too, with an arm around his shoulders and gentle kissies placed to his noggin and quiet murmurs of comfort in his hair. Taemin doesn’t want to brag, but they’re pretty hecking expert at getting out of these things like this.

For now, he picks up Jonghyun’s hand where it’s dangling lazily by his bicep. He turns to nuzzle his cheek into Jonghyun’s palm, and then into the inside of his forearm, soft and smooth and warm, baby peach fuzz hairs tickling his cheek. He always liked the insides of people’s forearms, and especially Jonghyun’s. They always look so comfy and smooth. He tilts his head just enough that he can brush his lips against Jonghyun’s skin. It lessens his headache, a little.

They're sitting on the hood of Jonghyun’s fancy car, out in the hills, in a little place that overlooks the city so they can watch the sunset and then stargaze together in the quiet. Taemin is just thinking about pulling the yawn and put your arm around someone's shoulders trick on Jonghyun when Jonghyun himself yawns and does it to him. Taemin laughs softly to himself but accepts that Jonghyun timed that well enough to beat him to it and just snuggles into the crook of Jonghyun’s shoulder instead, getting comfortable.

Jonghyun’s right elbow hooks around his neck, hand dangling over his chest, and Taemin slides his hand down his forearm so he can tangle their fingers together and feel gay about it. Halfway down Jonghyun’s arm, though, he stops, a little bump on his skin drawing his attention. Suddenly he remembers the mole on Jonghyun’s forearm, in between two of his veins, and runs his thumb back over his skin to find it again. When he does, he brings his mouth to it to press a smile against it.

Jonghyun is tapping away on his phone, thumbs typing out lyrics, lips pouting every so often as the bus jostles them and he has to delete a typo. Taemin is on his own phone, but he glances up once just to see what’s ahead of them. When he’s looking back down, his eyes catch the tattoo on the inside of Jonghyun’s left wrist and he pauses.

It’s thin, little, sloppy cursive letters spelling out “Story Op. 1.. 2.. 3.. 4…” Taemin lifts his hand to gently take Jonghyun’s wrist, thumb rubbing over the letters and numbers fondly. He worked hard to earn this tattoo. He brings Jonghyun’s hand to his mouth and kisses the one, the two, the three, the four, and adds one more kiss at the empty space after. Jonghyun chuckles softly, taking his wrist back to keep typing on his phone.

“Five kissies?” he asks, cocking a brow. “Did you lose count?”

“No,” Taemin says, pouty. “You’re working on Five, aren’t you?” he asks, nodding at the lyrics on Jonghyun’s phone. “It was a placeholder kiss.”

“Oh my gosh,” Jonghyun whispers. He gives Taemin his phone, then puts his face in his free hands. “You can’t say soft shit like that to me in public, oh my gosh.”

Jonghyun is sitting on the kitchen counter watching Taemin struggle to make pancakes from a box mix, feet kicking the counters under him and right hand holding a kazoo to his lips. He's been speaking through that all morning and it's only just starting to get slightly annoying and Taemin knows that's only because he's frustrated with the batter. He turns around to grab something from the fridge and Jonghyun, in the grainy weird voice of someone speaking through a kazoo, tells him he has a nice butt. Taemin’s prickles of annoyance dissolve quickly. He can't be mad at that.

He takes a break from his pancakes for a moment to just walk up to Jonghyun’s spot on the counter and put his hands on either side of his hips. He means to lean around the kazoo and kiss the corner of Jonghyun’s smile, but he notices the faint, tiny, little speck of a mole on Jonghyun’s forearm, a little under his wrist, and pauses. That's easier to reach, so he tilts his head and kisses that instead. Jonghyun covers his eyes with his hands, whispering “Oh my gosh,” through the kazoo.

“Hey.”

“Hmm.”

“Look.”

Taemin can’t help but look as Jonghyun sticks his wrist in Taemin’s face, hand tilted daintily back to accentuate all of his little veins and tendons under the skin. He raises his brows, tilting his head to look at Jonghyun behind his wrist. Jonghyun smiles all coy and pretty, head tilted down but looking up at Taemin through his lashes, delicate and flirty. Taemin brings his eyes back to Jonghyun’s wrist. Jonghyun twists it just enough to make new little lacy lines and veins stick out, fluttering his lashes at Taemin expectantly. Taemin considers holding back, but not for more than a second, because he wants to kiss Jonghyun’s wrist as much as Jonghyun wants him to kiss it. So he does, leaning forward and smooching his skin once, and then laughing and kissing him more when Jonghyun grins and smooshes his wrist against Taemin’s mouth.

“Hey. Lemme read your palm.”

“Sure I do,” he says. He brings Jonghyun’s hand even closer and presses a tiny kiss to the muscle of his thumb. “This line means you’re real gay,” he says. He brings his lips to the muscle on the other side of Jonghyun’s hand and kissies that too. “That one means you’re real cute.”

“You’re not even kissing the lines,” Jonghyun says. His voice is a tiny squeak muffled into Taemin’s sleeve. He also spreads his hand out wide to give Taemin more kissing room. Taemin smiles against his palm and kisses the little curve at the bottom, and then the side of his hand, and then the little webby of skin between his thumb and pointer finger, and then finally the center.

Jonghyun’s hand feels strangely rough against Taemin’s and it puzzles Taemin for like half an hour until he realizes he can just bring Jonghyun’s hand up and look at it. He does that, stopping them in the middle of their lazy walk around the lake. He holds Jonghyun’s hand in front of his face, rubbing his thumb over the top of his palm.

“Oh,” he says. The roughness comes from blisters, one under each finger, two of them a little flaky like Jonghyun has been picking at them. “Where’d you get these?” he asks.

“Jerking off too hard,” Jonghyun says, head tilted and eyes slightly squinted, eyebrows furrowed, his expression of utmost seriousness. Taemin snorts into loud laughter, putting Jonghyun’s hand over his face to muffle it. Fuck.

As his giggles fade out and they start walking again, Jonghyun looking extremely proud of himself, Taemin takes the time to kissie each blister in the hopes that it’ll make them heal faster.

Jonghyun always has his little pinky halfway up when he holds things. He never curls it all the way in or sticks it all the way out; he just keeps it bent, a little hook, a little cutie. Taemin watches him singing softly in the practise room, the band for his tiny show playing behind him, his mouth right up on the metal of the mic, his hand almost all the way curled around the handle except for his pinky.

He watches him from the floor, because he got bored waiting for Jonghyun to finish practise like half an hour ago and being on the floor always makes things better. When everyone finishes the song and takes a break, Taemin rolls and slides himself over the hardwood like a slug, coming to a stop at Jonghyun’s feet and pawing at his shins. Jonghyun glances down, almost snorts out the gulp of water he was taking, swallows it instead, and half-cough-half-laughs into his hand as he crouches down.

“Yeah?” he asks, lifting one brow. He rests his elbows on his knees and his hands dangle in between them, one still holding his water bottle and the other holding his mic, both pinkies half stuck out. Taemin reaches up and takes one hand, kissies his pinky, lets it go, grabs Jonghyun’s other hand, and kisses his other pinky. Jonghyun chuckles softly, wiggling his pinky so it boops Taemin’s nose.

“Almost done, okay?” he says. Taemin nods.

“Take your time,” he replies. He just wanted to say hi.

“What are you giggling about?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re giggling about something.”

Taemin is giggling about Jonghyun’s rings, the two couple rings he’s wearing, one on each ring finger. Every time he sees them they make him giggle. He’s not sure why; it’s cute that Jonghyun got something coupley for himself and decided to keep wearing them even after they got together forever ago. A nice little reminder for Jonghyun that he can like himself by himself.

Taemin reaches out and takes Jonghyun’s smoothie from his hand, and while Jonghyun is whining and telling him not to drink it, takes his hand and brings it up to his mouth. He gives the tiniest smooch to the ring on his finger, then smiles against Jonghyun’s skin as he gives him back his drink.

“Dude, Sailor Moon isn’t even that good. You just like it because of the nostalgia.”

“Oh. My gosh. Oh my gosh. Wow. Oh my gosh.”

Taemin watches, amused, as Jonghyun stands up from the couch and walks in a circle in the living room, hands pressed together in front of his mouth. He’s so dramatic. He walks in like five more circles saying “oh my gosh” before he sits back down next to Taemin and takes his face in both hands, palms squishing his cheeks. Taemin lets him, raising his brows and waiting for Jonghyun to say something different to prove him wrong. Instead he just takes one hand off, folds down all of his fingers except his middle, and presses it right against Taemin’s face, squishing his lips and nose.

“Never voice your opinions in my presence ever again,” he says. Taemin obeys him and puckers his lips to smooch Jonghyun’s middle finger instead.

“Oh my gosh,” Jonghyun mutters, a fond, exasperated sigh this time.

Jonghyun is taking a call from his therapist on the phone, and that’s important business, Taemin knows, but he doesn’t need both hands for it, and his left hand is very soft and warm and perfect for holding. Taemin holds it in both of his and rubs his thumbs over Jonghyun’s palm, his fingers, pinches his knuckles lightly. When he finds the little W.Fk tattoo on the side of his middle finger, he smiles and makes sure to give that a special kiss for being cute. Jonghyun ends his phone call a few moments later and cocks a brow at him as he slots his phone back into his pocket.

“Do you know literally any of their names?” he asks, wiggling his finger. “Anyone in the whole group? That I spend hours with on a weekly basis?”

“Not a single one,” Taemin says, grinning broadly. Jonghyun sighs and shakes his head.

“Jonghyun!”

“Wuh--What? What is it? What happened?”

“Jong! Hyun!” Taemin bursts into the living room, looks around wildly, finds Jonghyun sitting in front of the coffee table, sprints to the couch, vaults over it, and does a sick ass roll, coming to a stop just a little bit further from Jonghyun than he meant to. He scrambles the few extra inches forward, Jonghyun watching him with extreme confusion and a healthy amount of fear, grabs both of his hands, and stops to catch his breath.

“Are you--okay, what do you want, did something hap--”

“Hey,” Taemin interrupts him, perfectly calm and relaxed. He gets his thumbs under Jonghyun’s pointer fingers and pushes them up. Bringing them to his mouth, he smiles against them and presses a tiny kissie to the pad of each one. “You’re real cute,” he says. Jonghyun looks at him for a long moment, and then he lies back down on the floor on his stomach and grumbles into the carpet.

Jonghyun is concentrating with his thumb against his mouth again, lips pressed to the pad of it, bottom lip squishing up and down slowly as he reads over his lyrics. Taemin just peeped into his office to see if he wanted a snack, but as he watches Jonghyun work, he feels mildly jealous. He wants to kissie Jonghyun’s thumb too.

He slips inside, gently taking Jonghyun’s hand before he even says hi and bringing his thumb to his mouth to kiss. Jonghyun blinks at him, confused, before he smirks and smooshes his thumb in between his lips, rubbing against his teeth and along his gums before Taemin splutters and moves away.

Taemin is woken up from his lazy couch nap in Jonghyun’s lap by a snap, a snap, a snap, a pause, a sigh, and then a low grumble in the back of Jonghyun’s throat. He rolls his eyes before he even opens them and lifts his hands to feel up around him for Jonghyun’s. When he finds them, as he expects, they’re together, one hand trying to crack a stubborn knuckle on the other.

“You’re gonna break your own fucking finger,” he mutters, pulling Jonghyun’s hands apart. “Crack it later if it won’t crack now.” He ignores Jonghyun’s pouty noises of protest in favor of fumbling with Jonghyun’s hands in his own until he’s holding them by their fingertips. Then, since he doesn’t feel like figuring out which knuckle Jonghyun was trying to crush, he just gives all eight of them a little smooch.

Taemin is almost asleep when Jonghyun starts shuffling next to him in bed. He doesn’t open his eyes and just listens to Jonghyun plugging his phone in, taking a sip from his water bottle, and wiggling from a sit to a lie all the way under the covers. When Jonghyun finally gets settled and comfy clinging to Taemin’s arm, Taemin wiggles closer and finds one of his hands to hold.

“Sleepy early tonight?” he mumbles. He hears Jonghyun shrug.

“Apparently,” he says. “I’ll probably wake up in a few hours. I’ll try not to wake you up too.”

“Mmm,” Taemin hums. He doesn’t think anything can really wake him up once he’s out, but that’s considerate. He brings Jonghyun’s hand up and rubs his thumb over his fingers, the short segments between his first and second knuckles. Bringing them up to his mouth, he presses a sleepy mush of his lips to all of them at once. “Nighty n--”

“That was so gay.”

“Nighty night,” Taemin repeats. Jonghyun only giggles for a little bit before nuzzling up close and quieting down.

Jonghyun’s middle knuckles are so cute, and Taemin feels like he should be embarrassed to think that, but he’s too busy staring at Jonghyun’s fingers rise up and down as he lifts the dumbbell at a measured pace. His fancy weight lifting gloves cover just the first half of his fingers, stopping short just under his knuckles, and they really accentuate their weird round-but-also-flat knobbiness.

“Fuh--fifteen,” Jonghyun breathes under him, voice just slightly tight. “Right?” he asks, and Taemin knows he’s talking to him, and he also knows that he lost count while he was staring at his knuckles.

“Uh,” he says. “One more,” he says, and then “one more,” and then “one more,” and then “one more” again, and then when Jonghyun starts clenching his teeth on the push up, gently lifts the weight the rest of the way for him and sets it on the rack. “Good job, good push,” he tells Jonghyun, reaching down again to fluff his hair encouragingly. Jonghyun snorts and grins up at him, breaths heavy.

“You lost count,” he says, reaching up to poke his nose. Taemin grumbles, disgruntled at being caught so easily, and just grabs Jonghyun’s hand to kiss his knuckles instead of replying.

“Pow. Pow pow pow. Mmm--bop! Bop pow--hey.”

Taemin grins when Jonghyun pouts at him, trying to tug his fist away from where Taemin has a firm grip on it with both hands. He’d think that for someone that just started fake boxing out of the blue, complete with fancy sidesteps and self-made sound effects, Jonghyun would be ready for a block. As it is, Taemin leans forward to press a kiss to the front of Jonghyun’s fist. Jonghyun bites back a smile, then brings his other fist up in a quick but soft uppercut to just barely dink Taemin’s chin.

“Knockout,” he says. “I win.”

“Taem.”

“Hfmm?”

“Please.”

Taemin glances behind him in the mirror to find Jonghyun’s hand sticking out of the shower curtain, waving his toothbrush insistantly at him. He snorts. Must have run out of his shower toothpaste. Holding his own toothbrush in his mouth, he grabs his tube and then Jonghyun’s hand to steady it so he can squeeze some onto his brush. Then, since they’re there, he tilts his head to smooch Jonghyun’s knuckles.

“What the fuck was--oh, did you kiss me?” Jonghyun asks. His voice is a grin and he takes his toothbrush back. “Thanks,” he says, voice already muffled.

Taemin is yawning over his morning cereal when a hand suddenly appears in front of his face. The back of a hand to be precise--Jonghyun’s hand. Jonghyun smiles innocently back at him across the table before he takes his hand back to himself. He holds it up by his shoulder, palm facing up, for ten seconds before he lowers it back down over Taemin’s bowl, fingers wiggling daintily. He’s doing his tendonitis stretches but being a little brat about it. Taemin can't help but smile. Jonghyun lifts and lowers his hand again and this time Taemin gently grabs his fingers to hold. Jonghyun's smile grows, and then grows even more when Taemin presses his lips to the back of his hand.

Taemin feels like he should be more concerned than he is to be lying in Jonghyun’s lap while he plays the guitar. Jonghyun has dropped guitars before and dropped guitars on Taemin’s head before but he still can't find it in himself to worry. He likes to lie like this and listen to Jonghyun play sweet tunes.

It's relaxing and comfortable to just listen to his creativity flow. He lazily looks up to find Jonghyun's hand on the body of the guitar, warm fingers lazily plucking out notes. The way his wrist curves just slightly accentuates the little round knobby bone under his skin. Taemin always wondered what that bone was for. He raises his own hand to look at his own wrist and then back up to Jonghyun’s. Jonghyun’s is definitely cuter. When Jonghyun pauses his music to write something down in his notebook Taemin takes his wrist to press a kiss to his knobby bone before giving it back.

Jonghyun really isn't tall enough to be slinging his arm around people’s shoulders all the time but Taemin likes when he does it anyway. The weight of his arm around his neck is heavy and comforting and it makes him feel like he belongs to Jonghyun in the softest and gayest way possible. He lets Jonghyun drag him around the mall, walking into different stores, window shopping and buying candy. When they stop in line in the food court and Jonghyun lifts the hand around his shoulders to point at something on the menu his wrist hovers right in Taemin’s line of sight. Taemin forgets about food for a second and leans forward to peck his wrist gently. Jonghyun hesitates, then sighs and puts his whole hand over Taemin's face.

Taemin knows that his dance practices aren't the most exciting thing to watch but he’s still a little surprised to see Jonghyun conked out and snoozing at the desk in the corner of the practice room. When Taemin left him there an hour ago he said he would be working on his music and supporting Taemin in the background. Taemin guesses he dozed off somewhere in between doing all of that.

Taemin heads over there and crouches down in front of Jonghyun's desk. Jonghyun has his head pillowed in his arms, eyes closed but a moving slowly up and down with soft breaths. Taemin lifts his hands to rub over Jonghyun's forearms, smoothing over his warm skin and gently pulling at his little hairs. When Jonghyun stirs, lifting his head and rubbing one sleepy eye with the palm of his hand, Taemin moves forward and smooches his forearm gently. Jonghyun's sleepy little smile is the prettiest thing Taemin has seen all day.

"Are you here because you want to help me with my cooking or because you don't want me to steal all the bacon like last time?"

"The second one, most definitely," Jonghyun says, smile shameless on his face. Taemin smiles back just as shamelessly. He can't blame Jonghyun for his decision. He pokes at the bacon in the pan, flipping each piece over carefully. Jonghyun stands pleasantly next to him, hands laced behind his back. Taemin glances down for a second and when he looks up, his eyes stop at Jonghyun's elbow. Without thinking, Taemin lifts one finger and inserts it into the little fold of skin in Jonghyun's elbow. it sinks in easily and he giggles, wiggling it gently.

"What are you — hey, " Jonghyun says. He tucks his elbow away, lifting it to try to peek at it himself. He lifts it to just the perfect height for Taemin to bend down and kiss.

"Oof... Hoo... Huff...... Gotta be... beefy.... "

Taemin covers his mouth with his hand as he tries not to giggle at Jonghyun's workout monologue. It's a good self pep talk, he has to admit. He does his best to focus back on spotting Jonghyun, watching him tug the handlebar down and lift and let it rise back up slowly. He's working on his triceps today and Taemin has to fight to not get distracted by those too. He's always been a sucker for a nice pair of arms. He holds out just long enough for Jonghyun to finish his current set. Then he slips up closer to feel up Jonghyun's arm.

"Very nice and very beefy, " he says smoothly. He bends his knees enough that he can rub his cheek on Jonghyun's nice sweaty tricep. While Jonghyun is chuckling tiredly at him he smooches his muscle gently.

Taemin is real tired, almost tired enough to fall asleep on his feet, but that's not why he slouches up to Jonghyun on his tummy on the bed and flops directly on top of him. He smiles against Jonghyun's sweaty bare skin when he wiggles in protest, whining about the heat. Taemin is hot too but he still wraps his arms around Jonghyun's warm chest and nuzzles into his back.

"Taemin nooooooo," Jonghyun whines.

"Taemin yes," Taemin says. He puckers his lips and presses a kiss to the soft spot between Jonghyun's back and underarm. He does it two more times before Jonghyun growls and rolls him off.

Jonghyun is singing in the shower, that one song he wrote when he was feeling particularly gay about Minho's eyes, and Taemin is standing behind him, forehead resting gently between his shoulder blades. He's feeling kind of like a lump today, so Jonghyun offered to shower with him, and by "shower with" they mean Jonghyun does all the work and Taemin stands there feeling lumpy. Taemin appreciates it and he appreciates Jonghyun's soft yet peppy voice echoing off of the tiles. He's been standing under the water for the time being while the conditioner soaks into his hair and while Jonghyun washes his own face. Taemin breathes slowly, eyes closed, and when Jonghyun gets into his little rap section, moving his shoulders to the beat in his brain, he shifts under Taemin's head so his shoulder blade is against his face. Since it's there Taemin gives it a wet kiss.

They're having a sloppy make-out, one of Taemin's favorite kinds, but Taemin finds himself highly distracted. His hands are around the back of Jonghyun's neck, fingers trailing lightly up and down the knobs of his spine. Pulling away from Jonghyun's mouth, he lowers his hands to his shoulders and pushes gently.

"Turn around, really quick," he says. Jonghyun obeys with a questioning hum. Taemin pushes Jonghyun's head forward and rubs his thumb over the top few knobs of bone he can see under his skin. "Cute, " he says, leaning forward to kiss each one.

It's not often that Taemin is the big spoon — Jonghyun says he likes feeling like a big warm net and wrapping Taemin all up — but when he does get to curl himself around Jonghyun's small warm body, he enjoys the experience a lot. He nuzzles into Jonghyun’s skin, nosing up and down the soft line of his back. He needs to kissie a lot to fall asleep; it's part of his sleep ritual, so he peppers kisses all over Jonghyun's back and shoulder blades before sighing happily as he drifts off to sleep.

It's always a double-take moment for Taemin when his eyes land on Jonghyun's a romanticist tattoo. He always thinks it says aromantic instead. Which isn't even wrong, technically. Jonghyun told him one time that he had it done on purpose so it could be both.

"It's because I'm Arofluid," he'd smiled, reaching one finger back to gently poke the clear tape over the tattoo after he’d first gotten it done. "So sometimes I'm aromantic and sometimes I'm a romanticist." he winked then too, looking cute as a button.

Right now, Taemin thinks his tattoo looks cute as a button as well, shyly peeking out at him from the strap of Jonghyun's tank top. He leans down while they're walking through the grocery store to drop a little kiss to and trail his lips softly over the letters. Jonghyun drops the list he was carrying into the cart and shivers, pouting at Taemin over his shoulder.

Not to expose himself as an obvious sideboob admirer or anything, but when Jonghyun pulls one of his sleeveless shirts over his head and Taemin gets a nice look at his entire sideboob he suddenly becomes completely erect in every way. He slimes his way out of bed and slides over to Jonghyun by the dresser.

"Mmmmmmmm. Hmm," he hums, wrapping his arms around Jonghyun's waist, ducking under his arm, and smooshing his face into Jonghyun's side.

"Oh hello, my little clingy worm boi," Jonghyun smiles. He pets Taemin's head fondly. Taemin just as fondly kisses Jonghyun's sideboob.

Jonghyun holds his arms out, elbows bent, hands locked in front of his chest, and twists at the waist from side to side, stretching before he goes and picks one of the empty weight machines at the gym. Taemin watches, lazily doing his own leg stretches with much less effort and focus, partly because he's just here to feel like he has his life together and partly because every time Jonghyun twists away from him, Taemin gets a peek at his left side boob and the little mole that sits near the top.

Jonghyun counts each twist under his breath, and when he reaches twenty and lowers his arms and starts to turn himself back to a neutral position, Taemin stops him with hands on his bare waist. Jonghyun hums in question as Taemin gently pushes his arm out of the way and presses his thumb right on the little brown dot.

“You have a little,” he says and ducks his head to give it the tiniest smooch. “Kissy spot,” he says.

Taemin can see Jonghyun's nipples through his shirt, and it's not even that he's staring or anything, they're just both out there to the world. He doesn't think Jonghyun notices that he notices either, because he licks his lips as he looks at something in front of him and tugs down the hem of his shirt casually. That just makes his nipples even more obvious and Taemin bites his lip as a plan forms in his head. He waits for Jonghyun to notice him, and then, quick as a flash, nuts forward, grabs the hem of Jonghyun's shirt, yanks it up, and slams his mouth right on top of his nipple. Then, while Jonghyun is busy being extremely confused and thrown off, he sticks his tongue out, latches on, and makes the grossest, wettest, sloppiest, slurpiest noise he can possibly make.

Taemin is conflicted. he loves when Jonghyun wears a nice red plaid flannel button-up because it makes him look super super hot and comfortable, but he hates the texture that they have and how they feel against his skin. He doesn't know how he’s supposed to lie on top of his super babely babe and snuggle him if his awful shirt is itching and bothering him the whole time. To remedy the situation, after he sits on top of Jonghyun's thighs but before he lies down on top of him, he reaches down and fumbles with the buttons of his shirt. Undoing the top, like, four, he opens up the collar of Jonghyun's shirt and rubs his hands pleasantly over his warm chest. Then he smiles, proud of himself, he lowers himself to rest his head on Jonghyun's left boob. As Jonghyun's chest shakes with laughter under him, Taemin presses the tiniest peck to his pec.

Jonghyun is lying on his back on the couch and Taemin is currently slithering top of him, wiggling his way up his body from his feet all the way up to his head. He means to rub his cheek all over Jonghyun’s face, pestering him and bothering him until he groans and tries to wiggle him off and pretend like he doesn't enjoy it, but he hesitates when his ear slides past the left side of Jonghyun’s chest. He can hear Jonghyun’s heartbeat under there, relaxed and reassuring and steady. He changes his plan in favor of just settling his head right there, wrapping his arms around Jonghyun’s chest to get comfortable. Jonghyun pats his head absently, not taking his eyes from the TV. Taemin turns his head enough to gently kiss the spot over where his heart beats underneath him.

Jonghyun wears his buttonups with the top few buttons undone just to mess with him, Taemin knows it. He knows that Jonghyun knows that he can’t resist staring at the dip of his chest, at the nice line between his muscles, at how the shirt just frames it so nicely. He knows that Jonghyun is very, very, very smug as Taemin pulls him to a corner of the bar they’re in, wraps his arms around his waist, and dips his head to pepper soft kisses down the very center of his chest. He bites softly as well when Jonghyun hums and lazily slings his arms around his shoulders.

“If you wanted to give me a boner you could’ve just done it at home,” he mumbles against Jonghyun’s skin.

“Yeah, but what’s the fun in flustering you in a place where you can’t get embarrassed about it?” Jonghyun replies.

Jonghyun has a mole on his left side and Taemin wants to kiss it. It's dark in the bedroom; it's like one in the morning and Jonghyun is shuffling back into bed after peeing and neither of them want to turn the lights on, but Taemin still wants to kiss it. It's lucky that he knows exactly where it is: his left side, a little bit above the bottom of his first set of abs, a little bit further past his nipple, right on one of his ribs. When Jonghyun slides back into bed next to him, Taemin nuzzles his shoulder, wraps his arm around his waist, and flops his whole body over his chest just so he can press his lips to the place that he has memorized.

“Taaaaaeeeeeemie.”

"Yes?" Taemin says. He looks down at Jonghyun in his lap, where he's been the whole time, and where he just called Taemin's name excessively loudly. Jonghyun smiles impishly and wiggles up the couch so his tummy is over Taemin's knees.

"Rubbie, " he says. Taemin smiles warmly and brings both hands to Jonghyun's tummy, rubbing it gently. He pushes his sweater up so he can rub his skin. He traces the lines of Jonghyun's abs, wiggles his fingers to gently pinch his squishy skin, and rubs his palms firmly over his tough muscle. Jonghyun almost purrs under his hands, his own hands running through and tugging on his hair happily. before long, though, he whines again.

“Taemieeeeeee.”

“Yes?” Taemin says again. Jonghyun reaches up to squish his cheeks, pinching his lips up into a pucker.

“Kissie,” he demands. Taemin squishes his cheeks back, enamored and endeared beyond measure. Then he bends himself over and places the softest loveliest kiss to each one of Jonghyun’s abs.

When Jonghyun stretches his arms up over his head, fingers laced together, back arching out, his ribs show through his skin, each line accentuated nicely. He's just getting out of bed, about ready to take a shower and start the day, and Taemin is busy trying not to wake up, but he can't resist. He pushes himself up on his elbows, wraps his arm around Jonghyun’s waist, and while he's letting his big breath out quickly in surprise, tilts his head and gives each of his ribs a good morning kiss.

The tattoo on Jonghyun’s side catches Taemin’s eye when they both stand up to let an elderly couple sit down on the bus. Jonghyun reaches up to hold on to one of the handles and the hole in his sleeveless shirt dips low enough for Taemin to see the black puppy inked into his skin. Taemin rubs his thumb over the dog's head thoughtfully.

“Hmm? Oh,” Jonghyun says, looking down. “Giving her a little pet?” he asks. Taemin nods, patting the puppy’s head a couple times.

“Is she being a good girl?” he asks. Jonghyun is silent for a moment, lifting his hand to rub a thumb over the tattoo himself, before he nods slowly.

“I think she's been good lately, yeah,” he says. Taemin smiles. That's good. Since he can't just crouch down and kiss Jonghyun’s side in the middle of a public bus, he presses a kiss to the pad of his thumb and then presses his thumb to the head of the dog.

Jonghyun was up all night last night, so Taemin isn't surprised when he gets home and Jonghyun is still snuggled up in bed. The blankets are a mess around him, sunlight peeping in through the curtains and playing over his warm golden skin. He's on his tummy with his head pillowed in his arms and when Taemin peeks into the bedroom, Jonghyun peeks his eyes open. Taemin can't see his mouth, but he can tell from the crinkle of his eyes in the roundness of his cheeks that he's smiling.

“Hey,” he says. Jonghyun’s cheeks push up even more and he smushes his face into his arms. Taemin shuffles inside the bedroom to rub his hands over Jonghyun’s back. He means to give Jonghyun a little massage, but before he can start, he notices the two moles near the center of Jonghyun’s back. He gently pokes each one with a finger and then grins when Jonghyun wiggles. He leans down to smooch them instead.

Lying on Jonghyun’s tummy like this, Taemin’s field of view is like 70% belly button. He's been staring at it for the better part of half an hour while Jonghyun watches one of his nature documentaries, and now he decides it’s good time to wiggle forward and give it a little smoochie. When he does, Jonghyun makes a disgruntled little noise and puts a hand on his head.

“Don't, do you know how nasty belly buttons are?” he says. Taemin does know, but the thing is that he doesn't care. To showcase this he sticks his tongue out and flibbles it directly into Jonghyun’s belly button. Jonghyun sighs but he also giggles at the same time and Taemin is filled with pride.

When Taemin walks through the front door, home from pestering Key, Jonghyun is standing in the living room, holding the PS4 controller in his hand as he stretches his arms over his head, back arched, face all scrunched up with the effort. Taemin snorts softly at his insistence on actually taking breaks from video games to stretch like some sort of health conscious human being.

Jonghyun’s shirt rides up over his stomach, exposing his belly button and a dark line of hair that runs from it and down into the waistband of his jeans. Taemin’s eyes snap to that and immediately he's bouncing forward across the room to drop to his knees in front of Jonghyun and wrap his arms around his hips.

“Ooh,” Jonghyun squeaks, exhaling all of his air in that one surprised breath, and then, “Oh,”he says. He chuckles softly as he pets Taemin’s hair and Taemin nuzzles into the hair on his tummy. It's not as long as it could be but it's still lovely and scratchy and perfect. “What is it with you and my happy trail?” Jonghyun asks him. Taemin kisses lightly down the line of it.

“You always shave her away,” he mumbles. “But she's so cute.” Jonghyun snorts and laughs at him again, but Taemin doesn't care because he's busy peppering kisses all over.

“You know, you're like, a really veiny dude,” Taemin says. Jonghyun was standing in front of him as he sat on the couch trying to tell him something, but he's shirtless and his waist was directly in front of Taemin's eyes, and Taemin got distracted. He reaches forward and trails his fingers over the thin little veins that peek up from the hem of Jonghyun’s sweats. Each one is a little blue line that looks extremely kissable.

“Thanks,” Jonghyun tells him. “Do you want to go out to dinner or what?” he asks. Taemin tugs him forward with hands on his hips and gently pecks the veins on his left side.

“Sure,” he says as he moves over to kiss the ones on his right.

Jonghyun is talking to Jinki — well, they're both both talking to him, honestly, but Taemin is losing focus fast. Part of it is just his lack of an attention span, but another part is that he is becoming overwhelmed with the quiet but intense desire to pull Jonghyun close and kiss him. He can't kiss Jonghyun on the mouth, sadly, but he can pull Jonghyun around the kitchen table, take a seat, and wrap his arm around Jonghyun's thighs. From there, he noses into the hem of Jonghyun's shirt, pushing it up so he can trail his lips over Jonghyun's side, his pretty waist, and press warm soft kisses to his skin.

Taemin loves Jongyhun’s wiggly dance, and he especially loves it when Jonghyun is doing it in celebration of him royally stomping Minho’s ass into the ground in the video game that they're playing. It's not often that he beats Minho at a video game and it's even less often that he beats him this badly, so Taemin revels in the way Minho slouches so low on the couch that he rolls off of it and just lies on the floor in bitter defeat while Jonghyun wiggles his hips and raises his hands up and down and does his biggest and loudest and most highest pitched woohoo. The hips are the cutest part, Taemin thinks, so while Jonghyun is still dancing supportively, he leans forward to rest his cheek against his waist and then dips his head just low enough to kiss his right hip every time he sways it closer.

Jonghyun is particularly fond of not putting a shirt on in the mornings and going through their sleepy breakfasts shirtless, something that Taemin is 97% sure he does 60% just because Taemin thinks it's really hot and Jonghyun loves when Taemin thinks he's really hot. At the present moment, Taemin is watching Jonghyun at the stove as he flips banana pancakes. Well, more specifically, Taemin is watching his lower back, where his faint stretch marks draw lines through his skin. Taemin reaches out the hand from where he's sitting at the table to ghost his fingers over Jonghyun’s stretch marks. Jonghyun shivers just at the touch; to make him shiver even more, Taemin scoots forward and trails his lips gently along each line.

Jonghyun is lying on his stomach on the floor, and he's shirtless, and he's wearing his tight white jeans with the studded black belt, and all of that adds up into Taemin’s eyes immediately zooming in on the top of his ass that peeks out from his waistband. The tops of his cute booty cheeks always make an appearance when he wears these jeans, small and flat but still adorable and round. Taemin does what any sensible human being would do and drops to his knees on the carpet, then leans down, gathering two nice handfuls of Jonghyun’s booty and leaning his head even further down to smack two wet kissies, one to the top of each cheek.

“Dude. Hey. Stop,” Jonghyun mumbles. Taemin blinks out of his thoughts as Jonghyun slaps at his hands.He's sitting on the couch, and Jonghyun is lying over him with his butt over his lap, and Taemin was absentmindedly papping out a beat on his booty as he watched TV. “My butt, like, hurts,” Jonghyun grumbles.

“Oh,” Taemin says. “Whoops.” He guesses he was going a little harder than he meant to. He switches to rub Jonghyun’s butt instead, gently, a little apology massage for his favorite booty. He even tugs Jonghyun’s hips up and lowers his head down to press a kissy to his booty cheeks to help them feel better.

Taemin is flopped out in bed when Jonghyun saunters in from the bathroom, naked and slightly moist from his shower. He's going out somewhere populated and fun tonight while Taemin is going to stay in and have his own fun doing nothing by himself. Jonghyun flips his wet hair up into a suave little flip, gives Taemin a finger pistol, and walks to their dresser, where he opens his shirt drawer and then just leans on it, looking in. Taemin’s eyes fall from his head to his back to his booty, cute and flat and easily reachable from his position on the bed.

So Taemin half rolls over to reach it, extending one finger and sliding it quickly down the crack of his ass.

“Beep beep,” he says. Jonghyun pauses for a moment and then looks at him with an incredulous breathy laugh.

“Did you just beep beep my buttcrack?” he asks. Taemin grins wide as he nods his head up and down quickly.

“Yeah, uh, I'd like to make a purchase, please,” he says. Jonghyun snorts, looking down into the dresser again for a quick second before he looks back up with a cocked brow.

“Yeah?” He twists so his butt is more facing towards Taemin. “Do it again,” he says. Taemin lifts his hand to do it again, anticipating whatever it is that Jonghyun plans to say next. He doesn't say anything; he's silent for a few seconds, and then he scrunches up his face for a few more seconds, and then he deflates in a burst of breathy, defeated giggles that he hides behind his hands.

“I tried so hard to fart, dude, I'm so disappointed,” he laughs. Taemin bursts into his own giggles. That would have been so good. Partly to comfort Jonghyun, and partly to show appreciation for what would have been a great joke, and partly just because he wants to, Taemin sits up and kisses the line of his booty.

Taemin has seen a depressingly low amount of cute booty holes in the sexy way in his life, but still, he has nothing to complain about when the cute booty hole that he gets to see the most of is Jonghyun’s. Jonghyun is currently panting underneath him, face pressed into the pillows to muffle his whiny noises as Taemin spreads his cheeks open and bites his lip at the first look of his booty hole of the day. Cute and dark and pretty and adorable, like always. He rubs his thumbs around it, gently, a little massage, before he leans down to press a tiny soft kissy directly onto it. It really is his favorite booty hole. He smiles and smooches it again, and then again, and then another time, and then Jonghyun whines loudly at him from the pillows.

“Quit it,” he pouts. “Just eat me out already,” he demands. Taemin huffs, annoyed.

“Asshole,” he snaps. “I'm trying to make you feel special,” he says. Jonghyun kicks him gently in the leg.

“I don't ca—” he interrupts himself by bursting into giggles. Taemin blinks, confused at his sudden switch, and paps his booty gently with both hands as he makes a questioning noise. Between gasps of laughter, Jonghyun says, “You fucking — called me an asshole while — you were kissing my—” and then he doesn't finish and just bubbles up into even more giggles, feet kicking in the air.

“So,” Taemin says as Jonghyun crosses his right ankle over his left knee, back flat on the floor. He watches as Jonghyun locks his hands around his left thigh and pulls up, nose scrunching at the stretch. “Besides, like, staying flexible enough to let people hold your legs like five miles apart when you're fucking,” he says, “why do you do these stretches all the time?”

“I don't know, it's good for you, I guess,” Jonghyun says. “What if the apocalypse happens and I'm being chased by zombies and I can't run good because my hips aren't stretched enough?” He turns his head and lifts his brows at Taemin questioningly. Taemin shrugs back. That's a good point.

“If you weren't wearing sweats, I could see your taint,” he points out then. He reaches out and pokes where the little patch of skin between Jonghyun’s booty and balls rests and would be perfectly visible and exposed in this position. Jonghyun’s fingers almost slip apart around his thigh as he laughs.

“Don't say the word taint to me,” he says. Taemin grins at him around his knee and pokes his taint harder.

“Moist taint,” he says clearly. Jonghyun lets his legs fall down, partly to cover his face with giggles and partly because his stretch was over, Taemin thinks.

“Okay, yeah, you can say that again to the me,” Jonghyun says as he crosses his legs the other way to stretch his left hip. Taemin crawls forward to kiss Jonghyun’s taint through his sweats, making the most gremliniest sound he can muster before whispering, “Moist taint.”

Jonghyun is on his back in bed when Taemin passes the doorway. He's in one of his loose tank tops and some boxers and he's holding a book over his head and his legs are sprawled out over the sheets and there is an amorphous blob on his thigh and—

Taemin stops in his track as he does a double-take and squints inside Jonghyun’s boxers, trying to figure out what the fuck—

“Oh, it's just your balls,” he says with a sigh of relief. It's just a half shadowed little testy peeking out of the cloth. That makes sense. That's okay. As Jonghyun frowns at him, confused, Taemin walks into the room, clambers onto the bed, lowers his head, and pushes the leg of Jonghyun’s boxers up enough so that he can give his not amorphous blob a kiss.

Jonghyun is lying naked on the floor, as he does, and when Taemin walks into the living room and finds him, his eyes travel down his whole body until they land on his ween, soft and gently curved up onto his tummy. He looks at it for two seconds and then says the first thing that enters his brain: “I'm going to bite your dick off.”

“Don't bite my dick off,” Jonghyun says, not looking up from his phone.

“I'm gonna do it,” Taemin repeats. He steps forward, he gets to his knees, he flumps down over Jonghyun’s thighs. “Here I go,” he says, and he opens his mouth and gently clamps his teeth on the shaft of Jonghyun’s ween.

“How dare,” Jonghyun mumbles. Taemin opens and closes his mouth quickly, making little chomping noises without actually putting any pressure with his teeth. Then, when he gets tired of that five seconds later, he just smiles and kisses Jonghyun’s ween instead.

The head of Jonghyun’s dick is the cutest peen head that Taemin has ever seen or tasted. The tasting part isn't that impressive — he's only had like three dicks in his mouth in his life, including his own — but he has seen a lot of dicks and a lot of dick heads and Jonghyun’s is by far his most favorite one. Soft and round and cute, he holds Jonghyun’s dick in his hand and rubs his thumb over the head, smiling against it as he presses little kisses to it, trailing his lips from side-to-side to kiss it from every angle. Every now and again a little drop of pre-come leaks from the tip of his dick and down the side, so Taemin tilts his head to lick it up and then kiss where the drip disappeared.

“You know,” Jonghyun murmurs. His hand plays with Taemin’s hair, petting the strands back out of his eyes. “Usually when someone says, ‘I want to blow you,’ they usually go, like, farther than this.”

“What? Oh,” Taemin says. Oops. He got distracted. “Sorry,” he grins. He kisses the head of Jonghyun’s dick one more time before he wraps his lips around it and starts to actually blow him.

Taemin knows he's not weird for thinking this, but he knows that Jonghyun will think he's weird for doing it, so he only has a few seconds between when Jonghyun finishes peeing and puts his dick back away into his undies to do it. it's not graceful, either, when he slides to his knees on the cramped bathroom floor, pushes Jonghyun’s hip so he turns, and just straight-up grabs his dick, but the little smoochie that he gives to his weenie hole for being cute and round and cute and adorable is worth it. Jonghyun doesn't even react other than to sigh quietly and ruffle Taemin’s hair.

There's not a lot of things that Taemin can do to really tease Jonghyun — he's sensitive all over and has learned through training and practice how to get a nut out of almost everything — but one thing that gets him shivery and beggy is the creases of his thighs. Which works out great for Taemin because he thinks that they're real hot and real pretty and he loves to lie Jonghyun down and rub his thumbs up and down them slowly. He would love it even if it didn't have such an effect on Jonghyun; the begging is just a bonus. Jonghyun pleads with him to do something else so Taemin smiles as pleasantly as he can and leans in, pushes Jonghyun’s legs up further and a wider apart, and trails slow kisses over the creases of his thighs.

Jonghyun and Key have been bickering about something for like twenty minutes in the kitchen, but Taemin was more interested in his tacky judge shows on TV so he didn't feel like going to check it out. Until now, when their raised voices sound much more like arguing than bickering and he feels responsible enough to go at least watch, if not break it up.

“No listen, asshole,” Jonghyun is snapping when Taemin peeps in the doorway. “When I sit down and slouch and my tummy goes blub blub blub blub,” Jonghyun sits down and slouches and lifts his shirt to poke the rolls of tummy fat that appear, “that is a separate part of my body and only exists when I do this. It's the same thing.”

“It is not the same thing,” Key snaps back. “That's not even how it works. Your tummy fat is still there even if you can't see it all of the time. Your ass and your thigh are two different parts of the body and they just transition from one in to the other without any extra hidden body part appearing.”

Taemin feels a little lost. He doesn't know how they went from tummy rolls to the under booty crease. Before he can step further into the kitchen and ask, Jonghyun spots and then points dramatically at him, announcing his name loudly to the room. After Taemin startles, Jonghyun stands up and turns so his back is facing him, looking over his shoulder to keep looking at him.

“Is this part of my butt slash thigh,” he says, reaching down to feel up the underside of his butt where it meets his thigh, “a separate part of my body from both the butt and the thigh?” he asks.

“Well,” Key huff's, walking forward and bending to pick up one of Jonghyun’s legs. “You gotta show him both options,” he says. He makes Jonghyun put his leg up on the chair and then dramatically frames where his butt curves smoothly into his thigh. “Is that not the same part of the body?” he asks. “There is no extra body part, right?”

“Um,” Taemin says. He looks between them and feels like this is a conversation that he shouldn't be getting himself into, but he also looks at Jonghyun’s butt and decides that it wouldn't hurt to take a closer look. He steps forward and then sits down on the tile of the kitchen floor, reaching up with both hands to feel up Jonghyun’s curved booty cheek and uncurved booty cheek over his jeans. “Hmmm,” he hums thoughtfully, hands rubbing and squishing gently. His scientific opinion is that either way Jonghyun’s butt is extremely cute. He feels Jonghyun up for just long enough for them to realize that he's just feeling Jonghyun up, and then, before they can tsk at him and shoo him away, leans up and smooches the crease under Jonghyun's butt cheek.

“If it's something I can kiss then it's a different part of the body,” he says firmly as he stands up. Jonghyun pumps his fists in victory as Key rolls his eyes.

“Can I give your thigh a hickey?” Taemin asks, voice muffled because he has his face pressed against the back of Jonghyun’s right thigh. It's very soft and warm and he's been enjoying lying here on Jonghyun’s legs while Jonghyun lies on his stomach and taps away on his laptop.

“Why?” Jonghyun asks blandly. His leg shifts under Taemin’s face and Taemin assumes that he's twisting to look at him over his shoulder. He shrugs.

“Wanna,” he says.

“Maybe later,” Jonghyun tells him. “I gotta drive to the recording studio tomorrow and I don't want to sit on a bruise the whole way there.” Taemin shrugs, partly in disappointment, partly in acceptance. Okay. He just kisses Jonghyun’s thigh instead, snuggling close and dropping wet, open mouth kisses all over.

The insides of Jonghyun’s thighs are so smooth and soft and pretty. Whenever he's just in his undies or he's wearing shorts or a skirt, Taemin always winds up laying or sitting between his legs just so he can nuzzle his cheek against his lovely soft skin. He’s doing that now, as they all lie on the floor, him and Jonghyun and Jinki, watching some movie and laying on top of each other. Taemin has seen this movie before so he's kind of zoning out and focusing instead on Jonghyun’s thighs, where he can press soft, light kisses all over each one. He feels like maybe he's teasing Jonghyun on accident, if the way he bumps his knee into Taemin’s shoulder every now and again with rising insistence means anything, but he's having fun, so he keeps doing it.

Taemin doesn't know how he got roped into this little local sports event thing, where he's wandering around the center of a track trying to find somewhere where he doesn't melt in the sun. He thinks Jonghyun convinced him with words like “charity” and “fun” and “food after”. Either way, he's hot and bored and when he catches sight of Jonghyun further down the turf, wandering around as well and talking to some of the other attendees with the scrunchie bottoms of his pants hiked up all the way over his thighs, Taemin stops in his tracks and just stares for a little bit.

Jonghyun’s thighs are. So great. He doesn't know shit about muscles or anything but he knows there very cute and pretty and they need to be kissed right now at this very second. He jogs over to Jonghyun’s group of people that are enjoying all of the sporty track and field stuff more than Taemin can ever pretend to care and sits down on the fake grass next to him, resting his head on his thigh. When Jonghyun turns to pet his hair and ask him how he's doing, Taemin paps one of his thighs gently and drops a kiss to the front of his other.

It's supremely unfair, Taemin thinks, for Jonghyun to take him out to lunch and wear a pair of jeans with big holes over the knees. His knees are sooooooo cute in those jeans, round and smooth and slightly knobby and looking like they're begging for kissies under the cafe table. Taemin is almost pouting with how unfair it is that it's not socially acceptable for him to clamber under the table just so he can smooch Jonghyun’s knees.

It's the first thing that he does when they get home. He gently ushers Jonghyun to sit down on the couch and then sits down on the floor in front of him, one hand feeling up each knee with slow circular motions as Jonghyun giggles at him. Taemin doesn't let him get up until he's given each knee at least seven kisses.

It's very nice to be sitting here on the floor between Jonghyun’s knees while Jonghyun sits on the couch and plays with his hair. It's very nice and soothing and stimmy to feel Jonghyun’s soft skin against his cheek and his fingers against his scalp and the brush of tiny braids and the clatter of little butterfly clippies every time he moves his head. He's zoning out, staring dully at the side of Jonghyun’s inner knee, the knobbly bits, the webby of skin on the underside, the smooth space in between. He likes the way it looks and when Jonghyun takes his hands away to reach for another hair bobble, Taemin leans forward and brushes his lips against the side of his knee.

Lying on the floor like this with the backs of Jonghyun’s thighs as a pillow, Jonghyun’s legs kicking daintily in the air as he flirts with Jinki on his phone, Taemin is face-to-face with the underside of his knee. The knee pit, as he likes to call it, specifically to bother Minho, who hates when he calls it that. It's smooth and soft, the skin delicate enough to see little veins underneath. Taemin wants to kiss it, so he does, wiggling forward an inch so he can kiss it gently. Jonghyun giggles in a startled way but doesn't tell him to stop, so he kisses it more, just because he wants to, until it sparks a sort of familiarity in him and makes a smirk grow on his lips. He licks his lips, sucks in a big breath, and before Jonghyun can realize what he's about to do and say more than “Don't—”, latches onto the underside of his knee and blows a big raspberry.

“Snippy snippy...Stimmy stimmy....” Taemin hums to himself as he gently snips away at the hair on Jonghyun’s calf. They're at Minho’s soccer practice, chilling on the sidelines to watch and support him on a day where Jonghyun doesn't hate the sun as much as he usually does, and Jonghyun is lying on his tummy with his chin in his hands as he watches. Taemin got bored, found a pair of scissors, found Jonghyun's left leg, and got to work amusing himself. He likes how he can feel every tiny resistance from every strand of hair that he snips and he likes how it feels prickly against his skin when he rubs his thumb over it and soft in other areas. He likes it a lot — and then he gets bored. He hesitates, looks at the uneven patch of hair that he cut off, and then shrugs, putting the scissors down.

“Finished,” he says, tapping Jonghyun’s leg gently with his fingers. Jonghyun props himself up on his forearm and turns to look back at Taemin’s work. When he sees, he bursts into laughter and reaches back to feel it himself.

“That is absolutely. Not finished,” he says. Taemin shrugs lazily back. He brushes little bits of hair off of Jonghyun’s calf, and then leans down and puckers his lips to press a quick smoochie to it.

“Now it is,” he says.

Jonghyun is all bundled up in bed, blankies covering all of him except for his shin, where his leg sticks out and the bottom of his sweats rides up to around his knee. His skin is warm and golden, his hair is soft and dark, his shin has that weird shin shine that always shows up on anyone's shin for no reason no matter what the light level is. Taemin zeroes in on that little patch of exposed skin and feels an immense softness fill him all the way up on the inside. Jonghyun is so cute all the time in every area no matter what. He was about to leave to go hang out with some friends but he takes a moment to walk up to the bed, bend over, feel up Jonghyun’s leg, and leave a soft kiss on his shin. Then, while Jonghyun is giggling and blushing, he pulls the blankies over his leg and pets him gently.

“Mmmmmmm...ha!” Before Taemin can look around to see what Jonghyun was humming about, Jonghyun shows him by sticking his leggy out really far and directly into his face. Taemin finds himself suddenly face to face with Jonghyun’s skin, the curve where his leg turns into his foot. “Delicate and seductive,” Jonghyun purrs from the other side of the couch, nudging Taemin's chin with it and poking his temple with his big toe. “Exemplify your reverence towards my beautiful existence,” he demands. Taemin bursts into giggles and grabs Jonghyun’s ankle to hold it steady.

“Sure,” he says and lifts Jonghyun’s foot slightly higher so he can kiss the curve of it gently.

“Hey.”

“Wuh?” Taemin looks up from his lovely floor nap when a shoe lightly kicks his shoulder. He opens his eyes, then scrunches them against the light of the sun coming in through the living room window. He feels up for Jonghyun instead, and finds his leg, which he latches onto sleepily. “What?” he mumbles. When he speaks, his lips brush against weird shoelace texture, so he lifts his head until he finds skin. It's Jonghyun’s ankle, he's pretty sure, and he smiles against it.

“Do you wanna —don't,” Jonghyun jumps slightly when Taemin gently kisses his ankle, tugging his foot out of his grasp. Taemin wiggles over the floor until he latches onto Jonghyun’s other foot. “Do you want—oh my gosh.” This time, when Taemin kisses Jonghyun’s inside ankle and Jonghyun tries to step away again, Taemin clings to him with all of his strength and kisses him more. “I'm going to go to McDonald's without you,” Jonghyun threatens.

“Nooooo,” Taemin wails dramatically. He kisses Jonghyun’s ankle once more before he stumbles clumsily to his feet and nuzzles into Jonghyun’s shoulder.

Jonghyun is standing in front of the living room window, watching the street and waiting for Minho to come over and pick him up and take him out for a nice date or whatever, and Taemin is lying on the floor behind him, curled up in a blanket cocoon and rubbing his thumb and down his achilles tendon.

At least, that's what he thinks it is. He's not too sure about anatomy but he's pretty sure that this is the one part where if you get hit here then you become a Greek legend and everyone makes fun of you for thousands of years. He feels it under his thumb, skin slightly dry, not wrinkled but kind of creased, the toughness of the tendon and then the give of the hollowish spots on either side of it, all of it incredibly boring if not for the fact that it's all connected to Jonghyun. Jonghyun is great. And his Greek myth tendon deserves a kissy, so he gives it a kiss, and then tilts his head to gently peck either side of it as well. Above him, Jonghyun hums vaguely in thanks.

“Taemieeee,” Jonghyun calls when Taemin walks past the bedroom door. Taemin pauses, backs up a couple steps, and peeks inside to find Jonghyun on his tummy on the bed, chin propped up in his hands and feet kicking playfully in the air. “Taemie, aren't I cute?” he asks, fluttering both his lashes and his fingers on his cheeks. Taemin smiles on the inside, softness filling him all up, and nods. Jonghyun flushes with happiness and wiggles his shoulders. “What about me is cute?” he asks. That makes Taemin chuckle. Oh. He's looking for validation.

He steps inside the bedroom, crossing his arms and tapping his foot and pouting slightly to make it look like he's really concentrating. Everything about Jonghyun is cute, but what Taemin finds his eyes drawn to this time are his heels, exposed by how both of his socks are only half on his feet, looking very soft and round and adorable as they swing through the air in lazy arcs. Taemin walks forward so he can grab Jonghyun’s ankle and stop his little kicks in mid-air. As Jonghyun squeaks in surprise, Taemin ducks down to smooch his heel and then give it a gentle pat.

“Tireeeeeeed,” Jonghyun wails as he starfishes himself out on the couch, head against the back, arms drooping down the cushions, legs sprawled over the carpet. Taemin smiles as he sits himself in front of Jonghyun. He's been whining since they got into the car after their date. It's very cute. “I'm just gonna sleep here on the couch like this,” Jonghyun says. He closes his eyes and everything and Taemin chuckles. He's tired himself, but he reaches for Jonghyun’s ankle and picks up his foot so he can take his shoes off for him.

When he pulls off Jonghyun’s right boot, his sock comes with it and Taemin is left just holding his foot. He looks at it, at the bottom of it, all wrinkly and full of lines, almost like a palm but not. He brings his other hand up to rub his thumb over the sole of Jonghyun’s foot, smoothing out the wrinkles before he gently pinches them with two fingers. Soft. And cute. And very lovely. And—

“Dude, don't,” Jonghyun says. Taemin glances up to see Jonghyun looking down at him through sleepily cracked eyes.

“Don't what?” he asks.

“Do not put your mouth on my sweaty foot,” Jonghyun says. Taemin glances to his foot again and then back to him, raising one brow.

“Why not?” he asks. Jonghyun exhales a soft laugh.

“Because it's sweaty and gross,” he says.

“Hmm,” Taemin hums. He examines Jonghyun’s foot for another few seconds and then, holding it in both hands, rests his face right up against it, nestling in comfortably. The sound of their skin meeting is a tiny little slap and the sound Jonghyun makes is a tinier little sigh. Taemin smiles, blinking slowly at him with the one eye that isn't pressed up against the ball of his foot. “I borderline felched your belly button that one time,” he says. ”I don't know why you thought your sweaty foot would repulse me.” This time when Jonghyun sighs he does it with his cheek resting in his hand in the most fond and enamored smile on his lips.

“Just kiss me and take my other shoe off,” he says, and Taemin obeys. When he takes Jonghyun’s left shoe off, he kisses that foot too.

When the commercial finally hits, Taemin takes the opportunity to let loose the monster of a yawn he'd been holding in for the last like five minutes. He leans his head back against the back of the couch, eyes scrunched shut and mouth open wide. Then he just sits there like that for a minute, smacking his lips sleepily. Opening his eyes, he squints at a fuzzy pink blob and slowly blinks it into focus. It's Jonghyun’s left foot, crossed over his other ankle, both propped up on the back of the couch. Neat. Taemin appreciates it for a second before he leans his head up and smooches the ball of his foot gently.

Being upside down in bed is second only to being on the floor, in Taemin’s opinion. There's something about it, something about being in a place that's meant for lying down but lying down in it in a way that it's not meant to be lied down in, that's incredibly good and free and queer. Like sitting wrong in a chair, or on a kitchen counter. It's good.

It also means that whenever he does it he’s often face-to-face with Jonghyun’s feet, but he never really minds that much. He appreciates it very much right now, in fact, because while Jonghyun is twiddling away on his phone, Taemin has been resting his head in his arms and tracing the veins and lines that play over the tops of his feet with his eyes in great detail. It's fascinating, how many little intricate details can be in one area and also how strongly his mind can cling to them as something to be interested in. Taemin is staring at a particularly clear and soft area of Jonghyun’s foot when he suddenly gets the irresistible urge to smooch.

So he does, lifting his head and leading the few inches over to plant his lips on the top of Jonghyun’s foot. He kisses the intersection of a couple of veins, too, just to be thorough, and smiles when Jonghyun gently nudges his cheek with the side of his foot.

Taemin feels like, with all of his years of life, he should remember whether or not his toes have hair on them. He's pretty sure that they do; his fingers do, and Jonghyun’s toes do, where he's playing with them in his lap as Jonghyun dozes on the couch with Roo on his tum. He rubs his fingers over Jonghyun’s toe knuckles, feeling the hair under his skin, pinching them and pulling them gently with two fingers. He feels like, whether or not his own toes are hairy, and whether or not he should be worried about how little he knows about his own body, his conclusion out of all of this is that Jonghyun’s hairy toes deserve kisses. He picks up Jonghyun’s foot by the heel and gives a little peck to each knuckle on his toes.

“And you couldn't relight this yourself?” Taemin asks as he picks up Jonghyun’s lighter from the rim of the bathtub with one hand and a tiny pink candle with the other.

“And what, get water drips in the wax?” Jonghyun asks, offended. Taemin chuckles and shakes his head as the wick takes the flame. Good point, he guesses. Putting the candle and lighter down, he leaves his elbows on the rim of the tub and smiles at Jonghyun in there, covered up to the neck in pink bubbles.

“Having fun?” he asks. Jonghyun nods eagerly. He lifts one foot out of the water and crosses it over his other knee, wiggling his toes prettily.

“I'm glittery,” he smiles. Taemin looks closer; he is indeed glittery, tiny specks of pink and white and red dotting his skin.

“You sure are,” Taemin agrees, pushing himself higher on his knees to lean over the tub and smooch Jonghyun’s glittery toes.

“Taem?” Jonghyun calls, walking down the hallway. “Did you want something?” he asks. Taemin huddles around the corner, waiting for him to pass. He absolutely wants something, but it's absolutely a surprise. “Taemin?” Jonghyun’s voice is louder now, closer; any second now he's gonna—

“Aha!” Taemin exclaims, skillfully rolling into the hallway after Jonghyun and grabbing onto his leg. Jonghyun shrieks in surprise as Taemin kisses where his little baby sock clings around his ankle. From there, Taemin kisses his calf, and then kisses it again up higher, and then a third time, but now his lips land on Jonghyun’s shin, because Jonghyun is turning around in his hold.

“Gave me a fucking heart attack,” he snaps, shaking his leg to try to get Taemin off. Taemin grins his gremliniest grin up at him as he kisses his knee.

“Gotcha,” he says. While Jonghyun is rolling his eyes he smooches up his thigh as well, gripping his legs with little hands and squishing gently. He's a little uneven as he gets to his knees one at a time, so he uses that and the fact that Jonghyun is still trying to worm away from him as an excuse to lean over and bite Jonghyun’s booty cheek through his little short boardshorts style undies before kissing his other booty cheek when Jonghyun squeaks and turns sharply. He moves on and up to smoochy over Jonghyun’s back through his shirt until Jonghyun turns back around and he's kissing his tummy instead, wiggling his fingers in between shirt buttons to expose skin that he can graze his lips over.

“Taemin,” Jonghyun says, giggling, backing up and getting his hands under Taemin's shoulders. It feels like he doesn't know whether he's trying to help Taemin stand or push him away, and he backs himself up into the wall of the hallway, and he's giggling the whole time as Taemin finds where his top shirt buttons are undone and takes heavy advantage by peppering kisses all over his chest as he stands up. “Oh my gosh,” he says as Taemin pays special attention to the mole between his collar bones.

One of Jonghyun's hands cups Taemin’s chin, trying to pull him up, probably for a mouth kiss; Taemin grabs his hand and kisses his fingers, his knuckles, the back of it, up his forearm, the inside of his elbow, his biceps, his shoulder, all the way up to his neck. All the while Jonghyun is laughing and trying to say his name between bubbles of giggles. Once he gets there, he rests one hand on Jonghyun’s hip and the other forearm on the wall next to his head, pressing him warmly against the wall.

Taemin is extremely proud of himself so far for how well his plan is working. He kisses up Jonghyun’s neck, the point of his jaw, his chin, the corner of his lips, and hovers over his mouth for just enough time for Jonghyun to expect a mouth kiss before he tilts his face up a fraction and pecks the tip of his nose instead.

“Tae,” Jonghyun whines. Taemin presses a smile to the apple of his cheek. “Are you—” Taemin kisses the flat of his cheek. “Are you do—” Taemin kisses his ear, and then his temple. “You're still— fuck—” Taemin presses the gentlest peck to his scrunched-up eyelid and then the other. Then he smooches between Jonghyun’s eyes and then the center of his forehead. “Are you finished?” Jonghyun finally manages to say. Taemin smiles against his hair as he stands on his tiptoes to kiss the top of his head.

“Never,” he says firmly. He kisses down Jonghyun’s face again, but this time, he lets Jonghyun hold his cheeks in both hands and guide their mouths together to share a kiss. The kiss is half of a sigh of relief from Jonghyun and half of a smug smirk from Taemin. He wraps his arms all the way around Jonghyun’s waist to hold him close and hums lightly when Jonghyun’s fingers thread through his hair. Pulling back slowly with a couple of soft pecks, he rests their foreheads together for a moment. “You know everytime I kiss you like that just because it means I love you, right?” he asks. Jonghyun’s soft laugh fans out against his face and he brings their mouths together again for another kiss.

“Yeah,” he says. “I believe you.” Taemin squeezes him imperceptibly tighter, wanting to feel Jonghyun’s heartbeat against his own. Good.

#jongtae #jonghyun #Kissie Jonghyun Day #taemin #r #fluff #by the way like more than half of this was written using speech to text so if any part of it is funky or weird. That's why lamo #I love him a whole lot and I want to kiss him a whole lot #ydw #🌙

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