Notes

Jonghyun/Taemin; Teddy Bear; PG

Preschool AU- It’s Taemin’s first day at preschool and he’s huddled up under a table, crying.
a/n- JONGTAE BBS SOBS CUTIES

~

Taemin sniffles and hugs his knees to his chest. There’s so many people here, kids yelling and running around and making lots of noise. It’s hurting his head and he just wants to get away. There’s a kid running around with a pillow and crashing into things. He’s scared. His mom told him that preschool would be fun, but now he thinks she was just saying that to get him to stay. He huddles more against the wall under the table he’s taken refuge under and sniffles again, rubbing his tear-streaked cheeks off on his knees. He wants to go home.

“Are you okay, sweetie?” Taemin starts and raises his eyes to see the smiling lady from before crouching down and peering at him. He’s forgotten her name already. Tiffany, he thinks, or maybe she’s Sunny and the other lady was Tiffany. He shakes his head and sniffles again.

“I wanna go home,” he says. She makes a sympathetic face and reaches a hand out to him, which he shies away from.

“I’m sorry sweetie, your mommy can’t come pick you up right now. She’s at work. i promise if you come out and play with everyone else the time will go right by and you’ll be home before you know it!” She smiles brighter and wiggles her hand a little bit. Taemin shakes his head and puts his face back in his knees. He doesn’t want his mom; she’s the one that left him here in the first place. He wants his teddy bear to hug. That’ll make things better. A minute passes before he hears another voice talking to him.

“Hey cutie, come outta there,” it coos. Taemin looks up and the other smiling lady is there, and this one he remembers for sure is Sunny. She’s smiling at him and sitting down in front of the table. Taemin sniffs and shakes his head.

“I don’t wanna go out there,” he mumbles. Sunny tsks.

“Why not? It’s lots of fun!” Taemin peeks behind her at the rest of the room. Now there’s two kids with pillows attacking each other and another kid jumping up and down waving his hands in the air. He squeaks and curls more into a ball.

“It’s scary,” he says. “I wanna go home.” Sunny tsks again.

“You can go home in a little while, sweetie, but you have to stay here until then.” Taemin shakes his head. He wants to leave now. Sunny smiles. “But if you want to stay under this table away from all of the scary today you can, so long as you listen and learn when it’s time to learn.” Taemin sniffles. “Can you do that for me?” Sunny asks. Taemin looks back out at the kids running around and hugs his knees tighter to his chest. He feels a little better now that he knows he won’t have to go out there. He nods with another snuffle. Sunny’s smile turns even brighter. “Great!” she explains. She reaches out to him and holds out a cookie. “For being brave and staying here,” she says. Taemin hesitantly reaches out and takes the cookie.

“Thank you,” he mumbles, remembering to be polite. Sunny smiles one last time and stands up. Taemin slowly nibbles his cookie while she calls for the class to settle down. All of the kids stop being loud and rush to get seats around the big chair that Tiffany is sitting in across the classroom. Sunny ushers them all together and sits on the floor with them, looking up at Tiffany as well. Taemin watches Tiffany speak with teary eyes as he continues to nibble on his cookie.

They learn about school and learning and the rules of the classroom. Taemin tries to pay attention so he can learn and grow smart like they say he will, but there’s a boy sitting in the back that’s swaying from side to side as he listens. He keeps getting distracted. He sniffles again and takes another nibble of his cookie. The boy turns around, looking confused, looking around the room before brightening when he sees Taemin. He waves at him with a wide smile. Taemin squeaks and puts his face in his knees.

Every time he tries to peek up and pay attention again, the boy eventually peeks back at him. Taemin looks back down every time, scared to have the attention of the strange boy. He just wants the day to be over so he can get away and go home. If he’s lucky, everyone will stay quiet until it’s time to go home.

He’s not lucky, because a short while later Tiffany tells everyone that it’s playtime and suddenly the room is loud again. Taemin covers his ears and tries to block out the noise that’s hurting his head, more tears finding their way down his cheeks. He hates loud things.

“WHY ARE YOU SITTING UNDER HERE?”


Taemin jumps and accidentally smacks his head on the leg of the table. More tears well up in his eyes as he looks at the boy from before, who’s half under the table already and crawling forward. He looks curious, and like he’d make Taemin answer whether he wanted to or not. Taemin shakes his head and tries to scoot backwards, but he hits the wall. The boy’s eyebrows furrow and he frowns, looking angry. “WHY WON’T YOU ANSWER?” he nearly shouts. Taemin puts his head in his knees again.

“I don’t like loud things,” he squeaks.

“Oh. I’m sorry.” Taemin sniffles and looks up. The boy is sitting on his heels, blinking at Taemin. “Why don’t you like loud things?” he asks, quieter this time. Taemin wipes his nose and sniffles again.

“They’re scary,” he mumbles. “They make my head hurt.” The boy tilts his head and blinks. He looks kind of like a puppy. Taemin is scared of dogs. The boy scoots forward until he’s sitting right in front of Taemin.

“Is that why you’re sitting under here?” he asks. Taemin nods. He shuffles his feet awkwardly and tightens his arms around his knees.

“I miss my teddy bear,” he mumbles. The boy thinks for a moment and then scoots forward a bit with an excited smile.

“I could be your teddy bear,” he offers. Taemin blinks.

“How?” The boy gets to his knees and shuffles over next to Taemin.

“Look, see—” He sits down and takes Taemin’s hands in his, moving them around his body. Taemin confusedly lets himself be pulled around by this strange kid until his arms are around the kid’s waist and the kid is smiling at him happily. “See?” he says. Taemin blinks and looks at his arms around the boy’s waist. He’s pretty much the same size as his teddy bear and Taemin is starting to feel better already. A small smile pulls at his lips and he scoots closer, putting his head on the boy’s shoulder like he would with his bear and snuggling in. The boy laughs happily and taps his feet on the ground. “I’m Jonghyun,” he says. Taemin wipes his cheek off on Jonghyun’s shirt.

“I’m Taemin.” Jonghyun smiles at him and drums his fingers absentmindedly on the floor. He looks like he can’t stop moving completely for more than a few seconds. Taemin thinks it’s sort of funny.

“I stopped sleeping with my teddy bear a year ago,” Jonghyun says proudly. Taemin blinks. “My mom says it’s because I’m a big boy now, that I’m not afraid to sleep alone.” Taemin looks down at the floor awkwardly, pink coloring his cheeks. Jonghyun must think he’s a little baby for this. “I don’t think she’s right though.” Jonghyun’s voice goes quieter, like he’s embarrassed now too. “I’m still afraid sometimes. But I’m too scared to say it because I think she’ll think I’m wimpy. That’s why I like you,” he nudges Taemin’s side. Taemin’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. “You weren’t scared to say that you missed your bear. I wish I could be that brave.” Taemin finds himself smiling at the words, an actual big smile that hasn’t been on his face all day. Jonghyun notices and smiles wide as well.

The spend the rest of playtime like that, Jonghyun talking on and on while Taemin listens and giggles when things are funny. A kid runs by and is chased by another kid making monster noises once and Taemin whimpers and buries his face in Jonghyun’s shoulder. A minute later, he feels a protective arm around his shoulders and when he looks up again Jonghyun is smiling happily down at him, holding a cookie out in the palm of his hand. Taemin smiles and takes it, breaking it in half to share with Jonghyun and missing Sunny’s legs walking away from the table.

When Tiffany calls for the class to come together again Jonghyun starts to get up excitedly, but then stops and looks back at Taemin. He tugs on Taemin’s hand encouragingly and Taemin hesitantly clambers out from under the table, holding on to Jonghyun’s hand. A girl rushes passed him to get to the rest of the class and accidentally knocks into Taemin’s shoulder. Taemin makes a scared little noise and presses closer to Jonghyun, putting his arms back around his waist. Jonghyun glares at the girl’s back before pulling Taemin forward again with a bright smile.

They sit down at the back of the crowd of kids and Taemin keeps his arms around Jonghyun, nervously glancing at all of the kids every once in a while before looking back at Sunny and Tiffany. Once, a kid gets up on his knees and waves his hand in the air to answer a question, and Taemin shies away. Before Sunny or Tiffany can do anything, Jonghyun has already put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him back down, glaring at him and putting his finger to his lips, his other hand pulling Taemin closer protectively. Taemin looks up in time to see Tiffany flash Jonghyun a big smile. Jonghyun sits up straighter, looking proud of himself.

The time comes for lunch and the last playtime before school ends. Taemin presses closer to Jonghyun when everyone starts getting loud again, but doesn’t try to go back under the table. Jonghyun leads them over to their cubby holes to get their lunches, and then pulls Taemin to sit together on one of the giant bean bag chairs in the corner of the room next to the back door.

Jonghyun shares his chips with Taemin, and Taemin gives Jonghyun some of his fruit, and they both sit and eat happily. Taemin listens to Jonghyun talk, not really saying anything but paying attention just the same. When they’re done, they bounce around a little bit on the three bean bag chairs stuffed into the coner. Jonghyun falls off of the into a mound of pillows and he looks so confused as to how he did it that Taemin laughs, rolling around on the chair and kicking his feet in the air while Jonghyun tries to untangle himself. When he finally manages it, Taemin is still laughing. Jonghyun clambers onto the chair next to Taemin again and humphs, but then Taemin sees his frown slowly turn into smile.

“I like it when you laugh,” Jonghyun tells him. Taemin blinks, and then smiles, curling up a little bit on the chair. He watches Jonghyun’s smile turn from happy to wicked, and before he knows it Jonghyun is shuffling onto his chair and hovering over him. “I wanna make you laugh some more!” he exclaims, and then he’s tickling Taemin. Taemin laughs and tries to curl into himself and away from Jonghyun, but Jonghyun just laughs evilly and follows him. Taemin squeaks and laughs until he can’t breathe, and then he blindly reaches out and grabs onto Jonghyun’s shirt collar.

He yanks Jonghyun down onto himself, and then Jonghyun wiggles around and rolls off next to him and they spend the next five minutes just laughing, rolling around in the pillows together until they can’t breathe, and then they laugh some more. They keep laughing until Taemin hears his name being called, and then he stands up and looks across the room. Sunny is waving at him, and standing next to her smiling just as brightly is his mom. He brightens as Jonghyun stands up to look as well.

“Is that your mom?” Jonghyun asks. Taemin nods excitedly. He starts to cross the room, but then he looks ahead and stops. Kids are still running around and being loud and scary, only now there’s food all over some of their faces. He hadn’t noticed any of it when he was laughing with Jonghyun, but now the noise all shoots through his head and makes him take a step back. He doesn’t want to go through there. Jonghyun walks a step passed him and looks back and forth between Taemin and his mom confusedly.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. Taemin plays with his fingers, looking at the floor.

“I’m scared,” he says. Jonghyun makes a big “ohhhhh!” of understanding and then smiles wide. He grabs Taemin’s hands and pulls them around his body again, puffing out his tiny chest to seem bigger.

“I’m your teddy bear, remember?” he says. “I’ll keep you safe!” He tries to lead Taemin forward, but Taemin still hesitates. He sees one boy throw a wad of clay to splat against the wall. His lower lip trembles and he buries his face in Jonghyun’s shoulder. Jonghyun tugs him forward slowly and he keeps his face turned away from the room the whole walk through, just listening to Jonghyun talk on about nothing.

Before he knows it, Jonghyun is stopping and bouncing excitedly up and down on the balls of his feet. Taemin picks his head up and looks up, and there’s Sunny and his mom smiling down at him and Jonghyun beaming at him.

“You did it!” Jonghyun yells. Taemin flinches away and covers his ears. Jonghyun immediately looks sorry and stops bouncing. “I mean. You did it!” he says, much softer this time. Taemin smiles wide and nods. Then he turns to look up at his mom and points at Jonghyun.

“Look, mommy!” he says. “I made a friend!”


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July 5, 2012
33 notes