There was no going forward or backward. Jinki was pretty much glued to the spot since Taemin was refusing to budge. 

He had no choice but to try and wake Taemin with the slightest movement possible. This was no easy task because Taemin was associating all body contact with violation, and this intuition had taken root in his dream. In order for the both of them to leave this place unscathed tonight, Jinki needed to reboot Taemin’s sentient state. 

Jinki gradually let Taemin slip to the floor. With the aid of gravity, all it took for Taemin to slump over was essentially letting go of one of his arms. Jinki also had to gently nudge Taemin’s feet together so his knees would buckle. They both ended up parallel on the floor, and Jinki had to wiggle his arm out from under Taemin’s back while propping himself up with strenuous effort to prevent their lips from meeting. 

Never would Jinki have ever imagined a situation where he needed to go down on someone like that, yet he held his breath while inches away from the sleeping human's face. It wasn't so much humiliating as it was sapping on his energy, because Jinki had to garner his whole will to fixate on somewhere other than Taemin’s quivering lips. 

Nothing had prepared him for the quickening of his heartbeat as he stared into Taemin’s unfocused eyes accentuated by long lashes batting sluggishly. Jinki could even have sworn Taemin the corner of his lips with relish, but it would be too strange to take it as an open invitation when Jinki was the one sliding Taemin’s limbs off him like a deadweight.  

Now that Taemin was well away from him, Jinki could execute his plan of waking him proper. He retrieved a metal tumbler from his bag and whammed it against the railings of the balcony to make the loudest din possible. The noise resembled that of a construction site, and might not have been so jarring to ears accustomed to such urban environments. But this was a camp, for god's sake. If the men in the barracks catch on to this intentional racket originating onsite, Jinki would surely be held in contempt for wilful behaviour.

Jinki was aware that sleepwalkers could turn violent if awakened rudely and yet, only a sudden jolt to the senses would manage to wake them. He had long considered launching a physical attack on Lee Taemin for depriving him of his dwindling rest time, but that option had been cancelled when Jinki resorted to the least handsy approach of laying him down. 

This was the same kind of charade as when confronting a drunk man, and Jinki sure as hell did not know the right words to say. 

“Lee Taemin! Hey! Get up! Hey, you!"

Jinki was getting extremely self conscious of all the noise he was making, so he attempted to soften the impact through striking his tumbler against the floor instead.  Ding. Ding. Ding. Closer he went towards Taemin’s sleeping form, and not once did he stir. Jinki was just short of stamping his feet in frustration at this point, because he already knew cute antics were not going to gain any attention from the sleeping boy. Go big, or go home.

So he opened his mouth wide and let out a bloodcurdling scream. He hadn't realised how much he needed this until he nearly couldn't stop himself. A tidal wave of emotion washed over him and he found himself capable of screaming his lungs out.

He screamed for his blind dedication to work, he screamed for the motivation he could never find, he screamed to reignite his deadened soul and for want of courage to overturn his colourless life. 

He screamed because it felt too good, and because no one would hold it against him. Not even the sole person who was blinking at him in astonishment, his sleeping spell broken the moment Jinki fell on his knees having expended himself screaming and his tumbler went clanking off the floor.

How ironic that the tumbler did the job of waking Taemin, due to the proximity of the clunk of metal striking the floor and apparently as Taemin was not unaccustomed to hearing screaming in his dreams.

“We have to go." Jinki urged fervently.