#19930718

  -Fall-

“Hey intern, could you leave this on department head Kim’s desk for me? Thanks.” the sales rep says as he adds another file to the already out of control stack of paper in his hands. It hasn’t even been a full week since he passed his final interview but already he’s being loaded with tasks everyone seems awfully comfortable entrusting him with. Most of them however, barely even work related.

  “Could you fetch me some water? I’m trying to get the taste of ink out of my mouth.”

“If you’re headed in that direction, could you pick up some tissues for me on your way back? I’ll be in my office. And also, remember to knock before you enter…”

And if that weren’t crazy enough, the trust some coworkers have in him is actually quite flattering, if Taemin thinks about it, in a twisted backwards way. “I’m kind of caught up in an important conference call right now, you know how to drive right? Could you pick up my daughter from school and drive her to piano practice for me, I’m really busy…”

Though he could’ve sworn that when he entered the accountants office she was on the phone explaining in great detail what she was (or was not!!) wearing underneath her pants-suit. And if walking in on that conversation gone exaggeratedly ‘business-like’ wasn’t awkward enough, he arrived at the high school the accountants daughter was waiting at, only to find out he actually went to school with her and actually kind of dated her too.

The poor girl went from disbelief, to indignation, to anger, and eventually grief over their breakup in the short span that he was driving her (albeit zoned the fuck out the entire time) to where she needed to be. Once arrived at the study room, the girl refused to get off unless he touched her.

“Come on Bobae, I work with your mom.” Taemin pleaded, but she didn’t care.

“I don’t care! I want you to do me one last time. In this car. Otherwise I’m telling my mom we dated.” Taemin sighed deeply, contemplating the consequences, and weighing in the pro’s and con’s.

He could refuse; and risk her mom finding out about their past, resulting in her harboring a grudge against him for ruthlessly dumping her daughter, and risk the entire department being turned against him due to her influence, and atop of that just get flamed by his Ex on Facebook all over again.

Or, he could accept, and keep her quiet to her mom, but also give her false hope about rekindling their relationship. (She had been an extremely difficult girl to get rid of, especially due to her obsessive habits.)

But most of all he could get laid, at a time he could really use the release. 

Why was this taking so long to figure out?

  “Alright, get in the backseat.”

  Poor intern miscalculated. Doing it in a car, in front of a study room, with the daughter of his coworker could not have been a worse idea. His Ex never told him her dad ran a study room, and worked there himself.

Luckily when he was receiving oral pleasuring from the owners daughter, she remained out of view and the man was merely left wondering why there was a guy sitting in the back seat of what looked like his wife’s car, without any sign of his wife.  The man turned back to his paperwork until he minutes later spotted his daughter exiting the vehicle after which it took off.

Naïve intern Taemin unsuspectingly arrives back at the office, and gets handed more paperwork to deliver the moment he steps in. Fighting through a sea of ‘Hey intern, could you please-’ he finally makes it to the accountants office whom cheerfully asks him how it went.

“Was Bobae any trouble? Also you have a stain there near your zipper… hold on.” She cuts off because her phone begins to ring.

“Hello this is Kang Boram speaking? … Hey honey, what … She did what? IN MY CAR? WITH WHOM!?”

The woman’s eye begins to twitch dangerously and Taemin wishes to escape but even he knows running away is futile. He retrieves her car keys from his pocket and carefully places them onto her desk.

  “You erm, have a lovely daughter…”

  ‘Really, Taemin?’ He thinks, mentally punching himself.

-Spring-

“Alright mister Lee, would you like the crudely short explanation or the full proper terminology?” The professor asks, breaking eye contact to fetch his reading glasses from his chest pocket and proceeding to dully wipe them off with his handkerchief. Taemin shifts in place, looking around the deserted lecture hall, spirit already basking in spring break glory- alcohol, drugs, and lots and fuck loads of girls- but his mind remains preoccupied with the class he’s failing, which also happens to be his major.

All in all, if he doesn’t watch out for the next 2 weeks, he might just land himself a longer vacation than the two week spring break.

Meaning he’ll be kicked off of this course rendering him unable to graduate the next school year.

  “Give it to me fast, please mister Kang.” Taemin replies. He is genuinely concerned but he is afraid his attention span for the week is all used up on that very Thursday afternoon. The man sighs before he speaks.

“You fucked up, kid.” Taemin’s eyes go wide with surprise, a professor cussing in front of a student is not exactly common. He even catches himself looking around for witnesses to the ordeal but they’re they only two souls in the entire 200-seat hall.

“Sir?” Taemin begs, he’s going to need a bit more elaboration than that after all.

“Alright listen.” The man says, leaning forward as if he’s letting Taemin in on some cosmic secret. “You have been edging on getting kicked off this course for the past year, and you are lacking in credits. Your papers have been mediocre, your internships have proven anything but educational judging from your reports and your test results are…” the man hesitates, as if he still has the decency not to cuss out Taemin’s other academic failures.

Taemin sighs as he leans his weary body onto his teacher’s desk.

“What you’re saying is, there’s no hope for me?” he asks, looking the man in the eyes through his disheveled hair.

“How else would you interpret ‘You fucked up’?” the man says, fighting the urge to roll his eyes in the face of his miserable student. Taemin groans deeply, in the scenario that he drops out or fails to graduate, he is expected to repay his student loans within the following 5 years, instead of the usual 20 years- which of course is impossible.

“Sir is there really no way I can make up for the missing credit? Like an assignment worth like 30 points or a presentation?” Taemin pleas, getting pulled back into reality more and more as realization hits, he might end up wasting the past 3 years without anything to show for it. Which is not cool since he really DID try to study that handful of times… two years ago.

The professor leans back in his chair again, eyeing Taemin inquisitively, seemingly certain he will not be up for it.

“I could give you a task worth 20 points, but it will be one of the heaviest I’ve ever handed out, and you would still be short 10 points to pass.” Taemin listens on with fists balled and brows furrowed, it sounds like something he’ll hate doing but he decides to hear it out.

“An original essay about the growth and stagnation of the Japanese population, of no less than 40.000 words, to be presented during a lecture later. Of course if the presentation goes well it could earn you up to 5 points extra. But that’s it. You’d have to apply for the mercy program regarding the remaining 5 points. That won’t be easy either, since the criteria for that are as strict as someone having to have died in order for you to miss out on credentials.”

  Taemin blinks twice, and then some more as he mulls it over. A monster essay, 40.000 words, summarized into a 20 minute presentation, and not to mention everything has to be completely impeccable in order for him to retrieve the maximum amount of points, only to then still miss 5, for which he might even need to kill someone in his surroundings to be eligible for.

Deeply immersed his thoughts Taemin ends up blinking an insane amount, so much he alarms the professor.

He finally snaps out of it and sighs to himself, he will never finish that in any amount of time, not even if the earth started rotating in the opposite direction.

  He ponders it over, how bad could it be? It wouldn’t be the first time. The choice is made.

  Taemin runs a hand through his messy hair and approaches the professor with slow steps, pausing in front of him.

“Mister Kang, I’ve seen the way you look at me during lectures…” Taemin confidently starts out, his hand moving to slightly brush up against the man’s, whom then drops the reading glasses it was holding. The man’s eyes grow wide with shock but Taemin continues before his brain can process anything.

“Can’t you work something out for me? Like, suddenly discover you wrongly revised some of my papers?” Taemin seductively asks, fingers slowly dancing up the man’s sleeve, along his shoulder, and even slower down his chest. The man near bursts out in laughter but remains undetected.

Curious to how far his lazy student is willing to take it, he keeps still and lets him have his way. Taemin kneels before the man and undoes the man’s belt buckle without breaking eye contact.

“I can tell you’ve been hunkering for my plump lips around your cock, we can arrange that. Just say the word.” Taemin sings, ghosting his breath over the man’s exposed boxers, face only an inch away from his John. The man snorts loudly, highly amused at the corny comments but Taemin does not cease his approach.

“I’ll make it worth your while. Scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.” He says as he pulls down the man’s boxers, granted he attempts to. The man loses it and tips Taemin backwards by his forehead, unable to contain his laughter any longer. Taemin loses his balance and falls flat out, confused and disgruntled. Did he just get rejected?

The man laughs to an extent that he begins to tear up, and Taemin gets the idea he was doing a shit job at seducing the faculty member.

“You would seriously rather suck a dick than actually study?” the man manages to say between hiccups, leaving Taemin feeling like someone tossed a bucket of icy cold water directly into his face. Was he really that shit at seducing? He reckons it worked quite well the other times. He racked up a lot of favors this way during his freshman year of college.

“So… that’s a no?” he still manages to ask the man who is now furiously fanning his red tinged face.

    “Get the fuck out of here, Taemin.” He says, before he bursts out in another round of taunting laughter.

Taemin frowns and groans as he storms out.

    “UGH, MY PARENTS ARE GONNA KILL ME!”

-Summer-

“Alright privates, listen up!” The tall instructor speaks through the mic. Taemin reckons he looks friendlier than he imagined at first, (missing shiny horns and frightening sharp canine teeth) but he is nonetheless determined not to ruffle any feathers and create any unnecessary enemies during his stay.

His freshly shaved head feels itchy but in the huge hall’s dead silence he doesn’t dare to scratch it and draw attention to himself. However, ignoring the itch is easier said than done when his dancer body automatically reacts to the irritating sensation. He looks around frantically, hopefully scanning the hall for other privates doing anything that might divert the attention off of him, but to no avail.

He accidentally lets out and exasperated sigh that was louder than hoped, and feels himself being watched through the sergeant’s speech. The man subtly clears his voice before he continues.

“As I was saying, the dress code for cadets is not to be taken lightly, if violated, sanctions will occur.”

Taemin grows increasingly uneasy and fears there might not ever come an end to this extremely long speech, before he accidentally disturbs the peace, that is.

A certain spot on the back of his head keeps prickling and throbbing, Taemin thinks he might faint if he doesn’t scratch the area fast, so he takes a chance, (no one could be that unlucky…) and initially calmly, but increasingly furiously begins scratching the entire surface of his head.

He hisses in sweet satisfaction as he loses himself in the action but his neighbors react surprised and slightly disgusted.

“Gross, does he have lice?!” A guy whispers to his side, Taemin unsure from where but the source is the least of his problems when spots the sergeant locking eyes with him, effortlessly picking him out of the crowd.

“Over there, is everything okay?” The man sternly asks in actual non-sarcastic concern, slowly drawing the attention of all the 499 other new cadets to himself. The ones most near to him dare to giggle as he completely cut the sky-high tension all by himself. Taemin slightly bows in response to the question, murmuring something ineligible to the back- and side-rows but along the lines of

“Yes sir, excuse me.”

The man continues his speech but Taemin is still distracted, now in a complete and total daze he mentally pats himself on the back for succeeding in doing the exact one thing he was trying to avoid.

‘You had one goal… One job… Do not make a fool of yourself on the first day’ 

He sighs deeply as he imagines what situations he might accidentally get himself into over the next 22 months in the service.

-Winter- 

“Hey, Lee Taemin… Can you smell this?"

  Is what Taemin hears before he jerks awake due to the pungent smell abusing the insides to his nostrils. His eyes open wide and the first thing he sees in his drunken state is a white (stinky) ball dangling in front of his eyes, and an angry wife.

  “What the fuck, Senna, I was sleeping?” He groans, but it’s not just he whom proves agitated.

  “Hey asshole, I didn’t I tell you not to cuss in front of the little one?! You’ll teach it bad fucking manners!” She shouts, Taemin’s eyes finally adjust to the light and find his wife carrying a baby in one arm and a balled up diaper in the other.

  “YOU’RE CURSING RIGHT NOW TOO, YOU THINK THE BABY WONT HEAR THAT?” Taemin yells back, the lingering stink of the poopy diaper adding on to his frustration. The squabbling couple has successfully caused the baby to cry out in sorrow.

  “I’M CURSING BECAUSE IM SO FUCKING STRESSED AND HERE I FIND YOU SLEEPING WHEN I ASKED YOU TO WATCH THE BABY AND I HAVENT EVEN GOTTEN ANY SLEEP LAST NIGHT AND-” the young mom bursts into tears, weakly tossing the dirty diaper in Taemin lap in defeat.

It’s only now that he notices the dark circles under her eyes, the eyes he always did find so pretty, but appear to have lost its trademark spark. For a 21 year-old mother she aged a lot over the past 9months.

Taemin carefully takes the baby from her embrace and kisses her on the cheek to calm her down. “I’m sorry. I dozed off for a bit but I did a lot all day long! Cleaning and watching the baby…” he says, gently rocking the baby up and down.

  “Taemin, the house is a fucking mess.” She says in between controlled sobs.

  “Hey, okay we should really start watching our language because what if the first thing our kid says is “fuck”? Imagine the questions…”

“I hear you. We should mature into responsible parents but, honestly-”

She can’t bring herself to actually say it.

“I know. You don’t have to say it.” Taemin silences her, taking her hand in his and rubbing it with his thumb.

“This is not ideal, I get it. But let’s try to make the least-worst out of it.” He says, looking Senna deep in her eyes so she knows he’s for real.

“Not the best?” She asks, collapsing into his embrace, directly facing their fresh 9-month-old. Taemin kisses her crown and begins to slow-dance with the two in his arms.

“Nah, being a great parent is overrated. Mediocrity is the key.”