Five months later

Summer break came faster than Taemin had expected. With Jinki’s help, he managed to bounce back successfully from his collapse and announced a fresh start - a new look with sustained motivation and deep-rooted love for nobody but himself. Things that he thought were unimaginable, but he did them nonetheless.

After he cut his hair, everything changed. Taemin no longer carried the same load of guilt and fear, and uneasiness with him. Instead, he flourished. Work became lots better, and he started to befriend people again. Office drama, too, had significantly reduced to some extent.

And reality kicked in.

For Taemin, it was a well-established beginning. The breakup phase was an unforeseen challenge in his life, randomly and messily spread on a checkerboard as though he was in the game of chess. To be a part of it, he often regarded himself as the weakest of the pawns, always submitting to the force that existed on all 64 squares with one person holding the end of the string, the unavoidable threat - Choi Minho.

Minho was the King who controlled that battlefield in action. He was there as the single cause and the only consequence no matter where Taemin moved or turned. He will face Minho dead-on and completely defenceless at the end of the day, but winning was never meant for him. Fated, he would lose, time and time again, over the power of love that he very naively trusted.

Because he was, after all, the helpless pawn among the other significant pieces. He competed with no one other than his mortal enemy on board - again, Choi Minho.

But just like the game itself, a pawn, too, can eliminate the King. The only drawback was that the movement conditioned it to be supported by another chess piece.

That chess piece, Taemin had decided, was Jinki.

His help was immaculate, almost outstanding if taken into account the apparent enthusiasm he put into the progress. Still, he protected the pawn up all the way so that the King had no means to capture it alive. In that sense, the pawn and its pairing piece could team up and kill the King.

And when it happened, it was checkmate.

The pawn won.

Taemin won.

Only because Jinki was there to engulf him in a protective shield against everything rough and harsh; against the ridiculous rawness of moving on; against Minho.

So, to celebrate his massive leap, Taemin planned a fortnight vacation in Jeju during the summer break. Water bodies made up a big part of his heart. The elements shaped him as a person today. Whenever he felt the slightest bit agitated, the beach was his destination. There was something it held that no other place else could provide. At least not as powerful as the beach did.

“Adam!” Taemin huffed indignantly as he struggled to put the leash on the wriggling dog. Ten minutes were already wasted from commanding the dogs alone in the compound. “You’re not coming with me if you behave this way. Eve, you too. Come here.”

Instead of travelling alone, Taemin brought his dogs along. These two were adopted three weeks after he had the haircut under the suggestion of none other than Jinki. He reasoned that having new companions might escalate the healing process and damned if he was not right about it. Other than the growing fondness that he had for the boys, Taemin noticed that he’d stopped caring too much about his own feelings. Humanity still existed, empathy was doubled, but he paid no heed to his heartbreak.

No time really. Adam and Eve demanded the entirety of his attention all the time.

The sun was shining so brightly that day. Its blaring rays landed right down onto the ocean, reflected from the surface of the water in gorgeous glitter. Taemin was walking along the boardwalk with his two dogs bouncing happily in front of him, practically leading their owner around via the leashes. In the tranquil state of his mind, Taemin watched waves toppling over each other before sliding back into the sea.

The pattern took Taemin back to his former effort to escape his ruined, damaged shell. The desire was there, the hope was within reach, but just as he decided to step out, unfortunate things stormed down on him that he’d no choice but to retreat and repeat, ad nauseam.

Funny, Taemin thought as he brushed his hair up and back, avoiding the fringe from poking his eyes. Funny how it all worked out for him. Just because he couldn’t see the end of his toxic love story, he pretended that it was sweet through and through. The fair warning had always been there - displayed and begged to be read out loud like a good note, but Taemin pretended not to see any. He forced himself to look past it then suffered willingly after being put under Minho’s spells of love and directly into trances.

“Tae?”

The addressed man tore his gaze from the foam-covered waves in favour of finding the source of the voice and God; was he not surprised to see who’d just greeted him.

Standing a few feet away was his Minho (the one, worth mentioning, that he’d tried avoiding all this time), one hand jammed into the pocket of his boardshorts with his head tilted slightly. Something stirred in the pit of Taemin’s stomach, but unlike months ago, it was not the gust of wild giddiness. This time, he felt emotionally numb. It started with a gnawing sensation within his gut, followed by an intense hollowness of his chest, then behind his eyes, lastly, his mind. Gaping, complete darkness dawned on him menacingly like a black hole—a place so big without anything including light. Just terrible feelings that made him feel unwell and angry beyond control.

But he didn’t let those emotions get the best of him. Instead, Taemin mustered his most cordial smile before standing straight and firm on his ground, barely budging in fear.

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