#anyway jong is lovely and kind and bright and wonderful and gorgeous and incredible thank u for ur time

[katrinawritesthings]

Jonghyun/Taemin; Strawberries; PG

 hi i love jonghyun

“I, um,” Jonghyun says. “I wanted to. Like. Remember, last year, when you said, um. Like. Just--okay.” He takes a deep breath and shakes his head quickly. “I forgot everything I wanted to introduce this with,” he mumbles. “I’m just gonna. Show you.” He takes another deep breath and tugs the tarp away, walking with it to the other side of the fence and hopping to tug it off the hook there. Taemin glances at him as he goes passed, and then watches the corner of the yard unveil in front of him.

ao3

Taemin leans with his hand on the closed fridge door, puffing his lips out in a little pout. He’s hungry. He thinks. He’s not sure if he feels rumblies in his tummy or if he’s just cranky. He does know that he hasn’t eaten in a few hours, though, which logically leads to the option where he’s hungry.

He doesn’t know if he wants to eat anything that they have, though. It’s hot but not hot enough for ice cream but too hot for a grilled cheese and he doesn’t even know what else they have. They don’t have strawberries, that’s for sure, which he’s really grumpy about because he forgot to buy some last time he was at the store. He’s been waiting all year for May to come and for the good big in season strawberries to show up and they finally did and he just forgot about them. Bluh.

“Hey.”

“What?” He turns at hands quickly papping his shoulders and looks at Jonghyun, who’s quickly bouncing up and down on his toes, pink hair bouncing with him. He continues to pap Taemin’s chest excitedly, eyes all big and bright and smile all tiny and eager, and Taemin raises his brows. This should be something. “Yes?” he asks, taking Jonghyun’s wrists and letting Jonghyun pap on his hands instead. Jonghyun squeezes his hands excitedly.

“Can you come outside with me?” he asks. “I gotta. Show you your birthday present.” His smile curves up wider as the words leave his mouth, like he’s excited and peppy and proud of himself.

“My what?” Taemin asks, a startled laugh falling from his lips even as he lets Jonghyun tug him through the house. “My birthdays in, like, two months,” he says. Jonghyun covers his eyes with his free hand in his quick little embarrassed gesture.

“Okay, yeah, well, it’s an early birthday present,” he says. “They ca--I finished it a little early.” He looks away guiltily at that little slip of the tongue. Taemin lifts a brow and leans closer to peep at him.

“What came early?” he asks. He didn’t hear anything come in the mail lately. Jonghyun scrunches his nose as he pulls open the back door.

“You’ll see,” he mumbles, and tugs Taemin out onto their tiny fenced-off lawn. Taemin grins and follows him silently, looking around on their little picnic table for whatever it is that Jonghyun has to show him. He’s mildly excited. He’s not really one for presents but he is one for snuggling Jonghyun and telling him how well he does and how good the presents he gives are.

Jonghyun leads him passed the table, though, and to the right corner of their yard. The corner area that he blocked off with his neon pink tarp like, almost a year ago and forbade Taemin from entering. Taemin pauses, looking up at the tarp strung up between the two sides of the fence, looking back at Jonghyun.

“It’s--in there?” he asks, pointing. “In your secret project corner?” He’s been doing shit in that corner of the yard since he sectioned it off. First it was with shovels and fancy landscaping pebbles, then it was weeks of wood and sawing and hammers and nails with Minho to help, then it was a lot of paint, and then he got extra secrety sneaky bringing something else in, and he’s gone in and out of there at least once almost every day for months. Taemin figured it was just some Jonghyun stress relief project that he wanted to be private about, like how Taemin doesn’t like people to know he writes music sometimes.

“It, um,” Jonghyun says. He scuffs the grass lightly with his toe and looks up at Taemin with a soft little smile. “It is my secret project,” he says. Taemin blinks at him.

“Oh my god,” he says. He looks back at the tarp. “It is not.” What the fuck. “You did not spend like a year and hours of manual labor on a birthday present for me,” he whispers. What the hecking fuck. That’s so much work. He’s feeling emotions inside of him already. Jonghyun squishes his cheek gently.

“I mean, it was fun for me, too, to do, and it’s not like I had anything else to do,” he says, “but, yeah.” He takes a step back, holding his hands out to get Taemin to stay. “Just, wait a sec, okay?” he says. Taemin nods blankly. He doesn’t know what else he would do, honestly, besides continue to stand here being baffled and slightly overwhelmed.

Jonghyun backs up until he reaches where the right side of the tarp is hooked up to the tall fence. He struggles on his tiptoes for a moment to reach it and tug just the corner down. Then he turns to Taemin, free hand rubbing the back of his undercut, and shuffles nervously.

“I, um,” he says. “I wanted to. Like. Remember, last year, when you said, um. Like. Just--okay.” He takes a deep breath and shakes his head quickly. “I forgot everything I wanted to introduce this with,” he mumbles. “I’m just gonna. Show you.” He takes another deep breath and tugs the tarp away, walking with it to the other side of the fence and hopping to tug it off the hook there. Taemin glances at him as he goes passed, and then watches the corner of the yard unveil in front of him.

Low along both sides of the fence are planter boxes filled with leafy green plants. They extend diagonally to almost meet, making a triangle out of the corner. There's a small space left as an opening to get into the middle of the area, where a cute table is set up with two of what look like the most comfortable lawn chairs in existence on top of fancy landscaping pebbles.

The planters are painted a nice warm yellow--Taemin’s favorite yellow--and are decorated with tiny, tiny paintings of eggies and ducks and leaves and other cute things. At each corner a long pole of wood extends up to make a second layer above the ground where more leafy green plants spill out of hanging pots.

It’s beautiful, gorgeous really, a whole construction project completed with precision and care, but what really gets Taemin is the bright splashes of red color he can see in all of the green.

He steps forward slowly, reaches up to gently follow the closest hanging plant up until his fingers stop at a fat strawberry.

A strawberry.

“Jonghyun,” he says, rubbing his thumb over the bright red fruit. “Jonghyun, oh my god.” His heart swells in his chest as he gives it a little squish and a little pull and it comes right off of the vine, perfectly ripe in his hand. He looks up to find Jonghyun still standing by the fence, small hands twiddling nervously in front of his stomach as his lips twitch up into the tiniest smile.

“Because, um,” he says. “You said, last year, that you really wanted your own strawberry plant, but you wouldn't have, you know, the energy to take care of it,” he says. “So I, um.” He gestures vaguely at the many, many strawberry plants in front of them. “For you.”

“Oh my fucking god,” Taemin breathes. He’s never been more in love in his life. He’s a fucking egg that forgot to put the milk back into the fridge this morning after pouring it into his cereal and Jonghyun did all of this for him because he said he liked strawberries one time a year ago. Every nerve in his body right now needs to be touching Jonghyun so that’s what he does; he walks right up to Jonghyun and wraps his arms around his waist in a tight hug.

He squeezes Jonghyun, not too hard to make him squeak but almost that much because he feels like he’s going to explode from how emotional he is. With their bodies pressed so close he’s sure Jonghyun can feel his heart beating in his chest he nuzzles his face into Jonghyun’s neck, nosing against his skin and breathing deep, heavy breaths. Holy fucking shit. Jonghyun’s arms wrap lightly around him as well and give his back little pats.

“And, um,” he says. His voice is warm and quiet into Taemin’s hair. “I can, you know, keep up with the gardening, but. You can too, if you want, because you’re really skilled at it, you know, and I know it’s hard for you to remember and get spoons, but when you set your mind to something you’re really really good at it, and.” Taemin feels him shrug, like all of that was no big deal, but with every word out of Jonghyun’s mouth he felt his emotions growing bigger and bigger inside of him. “I know you can do this,” Jonghyun says quietly, and a shaky breath shuddes out of Taemin’s lungs.

“Oh my god, and now you’re validating me too,” he breathes. Within seconds he can feel all of the emotions inside of him filling him up, pressing up on his organs, forming a lump in his throat, a burn behind his eyes, and then he’s crying.

Like, full on weeping, ugly sniffles and shaky breaths against Jonghyun’s neck. Validation is his one true weakness. Jonghyun chuckles softly by his ear and pets his head gently. Taemin feels a tiny kissie as well nad squeezes him minutely tighter.

“Do you want me to pretend you’re not crying?” he asks. Taemin sniffles grossly and nods. He’d like that, yeah, and he loves how Jonghyun knew to ask. He loves how Jonghyun knows him so well and always knows the right thing to do. He loves everything about Jonghyun. Jonghyun gives him another kissie and a pat on the booty.

“Do you want to look at it more?” he asks next. Again Taemin nods, taking a deep breath as he pulls away from Jonghyun and pressing his palms into his eyes for a moment. He’s an emotional overwhelmed mess but he wants to look at his new plant friends. When he lowers his hands Jonghyun is still there, smiling all soft and proud, and he takes one of Taemin’s wrists and tugs him to the center.

“I thought about putting another plant here, in the middle of the table, but I figured that would take up, you know, snack and laptop space,” he says, tapping the little round picnic table with his nails. “And, I got two chairs, in case you ever wanna take me out on like, a romantic backyard date.” He flutters his eyelashes at Taemin as he sits daintily in the lawn chair on the left. Taemin laughs softly through his stuffed up nose and sits in the chair on the right. Rubbing wetness from his cheeks, he leans heavily over the table and reaches for Jonghyun’s hands.

Jonghyun gives them to him easily, palms warm and fingers little and wiggly against Taemin’s. Behind him, bright red strawberries sit in beautiful patches of green and Taemin feels his heart melting all over again. He wants to say something, to tell Jonghyun how wonderful this is, to tell him it’s the best present he’s ever gotten, to tell him that he’s wonderful and amazing and incredible and the light of his life, but he can’t find the words to express the emotion filling up his entire body and soul.

Instead, he just puts his head down and squeezes Jonghyun’s hands tight, holds them in his and doesn’t let go for a long, long time. From the way Jonghyun leans over and kissies Taemin’s head and murmurs “I love you too,” Taemin knows that he understands.

#jongtae #jonghyun #taemin #fluff #pg #oneshot #me always for no reason: taem is a strawberry gremlin #i dont think ive ever seen taemin consume a strawberry #anyway jong is lovely and kind and bright and wonderful and gorgeous and incredible thank u for ur time #ydw #they sit out there for a while and taem weeps and then stops weeping and sniffles and then gets all : ))) #and looks at all of his strawberry pals #jonghyun takes care of them mostly so he can have someth to do and taem helps sometimes when he has spoons #they make lots of strawberry stuff #and even taem has to admit that maybe its. Too Many strawberries #so they sell some and give some away and plant different things instead #taem always wanted mint and jong just grows some lil snapdragon friends #and they never have to Buy strawberries again which is rad #🌙