Hyung, Sir, Choi Minho.
Title: Hyung, Sir, Choi Minho.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: 2min
Summary: Minho likes coffee. Taemin is bittersweet, demanding, flyaway like the wind but Minho lets him be just so.
A/N: for honestfrank's birthday. Here you go daaaarlingg
Minho sat at the desk, leaning back in his father's chair with his arms crossed behind his head and stared absentmindedly at the pictures of past pupils that adorned the walls of the office. He was waiting patiently for his father to come back from wherever he was, in order to greet him and drop off the lunch his mother had prepared. The door then flew open with a sudden crash, thudding against the wall heavily as a boy with copper long hair flew into the room, a flurry of soft clothes and a bag that banged against his hip.
He only watched as the boy - he was certain it was a boy, even with the feminine features that graced his face - crossed the room without sparing a glance, dumping his bag down without mercy and sank to the floor with his back against the wall without paying any regard to the two armchairs which sat opposite Minho.
The boy ran his hand through his hair, only now flickering his gaze to Minho and frowning in return.
'You're not Choi.'
Minho supposed that he was referring to his father, but even so he was still surprised at the blatant disrespect the student showed to the principal of the school. He opened his mouth to reply, only to be interrupted by the door opening again.
'Ah, Taemin. Your teacher said you would be here again.' Minho's father nodded, quietly closing the door shut behind him. 'What was it this time?'
'It wasn't even my fault,' Taemin muttered.
'You know, Taemin, I did remind you last time you were here to stop flinging the door open. It's making quite a dent in my wall,' he said, running his finger along the slight indentation.
'I swore at her,' he started nonchalantly, examining his fingernails. 'She gave me extra work for forgetting my file and I told her I wasn't going to fucking do it.'
'Oh.'
'I woke up late,' the boy looked up, starting to explain and apparently coming out of his cloud of sullenness. 'and the bus was gonna go without me and I just forgot.'
His father hummed in reply. 'Detention then, I guess. You can do your extra work there.'
There was only a scoff in return. 'I think you know that I’m not gonna do it anyway.' Taemin's gaze moved to Minho again.
'Who's he?'
The principal's gaze followed his to land on his son. 'Ah, he's Minho. My son.'
Minho received a smirk from Taemin.
'Bye, Choi.'
'Goodbye, Taemin,' Minho's father said absentmindedly.
The boy got up with a sigh, adjusting his bag onto his shoulder and glided away with the wind from the door.
- -
They were driving home to have dinner when Minho finally asked about the boy named Taemin.
'Ah,' his father said, nodding. 'He gets into trouble a bit. The teachers aren't too fond of him.'
'Why were you so calm about it? Shouldn't you have given a more severe punishment?'
He only chuckled. 'He doesn't like being told what to do. Besides, nothing works, really. He does as he pleases.'
Minho thought about the copper haired boy for the rest of the night, remembering the pale skin and lilac grey half-moons under his eyes.
-
It's two weeks later, and Minho's at a café, sitting with two cubes of sugar on his saucer and one black coffee by the window and watching the world go by. He's stirred out of his daydream when his phone vibrates against the wood, picking it up and answering to find his dad's frantic voice at the other end.
'Minho - one of the teachers just threw up - she got food poisoning or something from this seafood restaurant she went to last night. I need you to help me cover her classes - please.'
He finds himself gulping the rest of his drink standing and there in fifteen minutes.
-
Covering the class isn't too difficult; he remembers most of the topic being taught from when he graduated from high school two years ago, and teaches with relative ease through what remains of the period. The only thing that unnerves him are the girls who titter every time he looks around the class, and continually sneak glances at him whilst they're meant to be focusing on the questions set.
Some of the boys even remember him from when he used to be captain of the football team, and he spends five minutes reminiscing with the students about the stunts pulled by him and his boys on the last day of term.
(His personal favourite is simple; replacing the sugar with salt in the cafeteria and watching every student or teacher gag from their tea or coffee.)
-
Minho begins to feel more confident once it's after lunchtime, getting into the repeated pattern of students coming in, sitting down and unsure until he claps his hands together, greeting the class with either a 'good morning' or 'good afternoon'. It's not until the second last class that he properly recognises a student.
'Hey, Choi,' he hears - a challenge, along with the series of giggles from the cluster of girls and the sniggers from boys.
He looks up from the notes he's been refreshing his mind with, to scan the room for the bright spill of hair and ready placed smirk.
'Taemin,' he acknowledges, cool and unperturbed. 'Although it's Mr Choi to you.'
Taemin swallows a mouthful of water first, sucking off the last bead of liquid that lingers on his bottom lip.
'Yes, sir,' he drawls, a lazy grin on his face.
- -
Minho walks into the café, the barista recognising him as the bell jingles and nods to him as he turns to the machine, grabbing sugar cubes in the process. The exact change is placed into the waiting hand, small talk made about the weather getting cold and pleasantries exchanged.
He sits at his usual table, watching a leaf make its journey across the sky. There's a flash of colour in the otherwise grey scenery he thinks he sees in the corner of his eye and he jerks his head, only to see nothing.
- -
Minho forgets to visit the café for a week, struggling with a mixture of red tea and instant coffee in his apartment and drowning in paperwork.
- -
'Hey,' the barista greets him. 'There was a kid looking for you. I think it was you, anyway. Pointed to the table you always sit at and described you as 'the one with the freakishly big eyes that droop downwards',' he called over his shoulder as he got Minho his coffee.
'Your eyes are pretty big, I guess. Especially when you look surprised like you do now.'
The majority of his time in the café was spent peering at the curved surface of his silver spoon, trying to look at his eyes properly from all angles.
- -
The next day a boy with copper hair sits at a table with his head bent over spilled sugar that glimmered on the surface, lithe fingers tracing intricate patterns. Minho sits silently, observing this boy instead of the world outside until he looks up.
Taemin's eyes seem to dart immediately to him, previously dull eyes sparkling to life as he drags his chair back and saunters over.
'Fancy seeing you here, Choi.'
Minho asks if he wants anything to drink when Taemin snags one of his sugar cubes on his saucer and pops it into his mouth.
He shakes his head as he sucks his fingers clean, rising almost immediately and going to the door. The figure pauses.
'Well, aren't you coming?'
Minho follows, forgets to bring the sugar cube to place in his pocket.
- -
'Where are we going?' he asks after they've been walking for ten minutes.
'Anywhere,' he hears in reply, and Minho follows a step behind, eyes on the hair that trickles and pools between the boy's shifting shoulder blades.
The jacket and sweater he's wearing underneath seems almost too much compared to the almost see through material Taemin's t-shirt possesses.
'Aren't you cold?' he tries again, when he sees the boy's arms cross in front of him as a sort of barrier against the wind.
'A bit,' he admits with reluctance, refusing to meet Minho's eyes. The older boy sighs as he shrugs off his jacket, draping it around Taemin who protests in annoyance whilst he burrows into the sleeves and accompanying warmth.
They reach the market stalls, Taemin twisting in the crowd and Minho only just managing to keep up. Their destination seems to be a dumpling stall, savoury steam wafting out and making his stomach growl. They buy a boxful, and eat with contentment as they drift off again, away from the chatter of people.
'I’ll see you later,' Taemin says, slowly taking off the jacket before Minho tells him to keep it on.
'I’ll give it back to you next time I see you, then,' he grins, and he shoves his hands into the pockets before turning his back to leave.
[His eyes are always half aware for that red spill of hair days after, never able to fully push it out of the back of his mind.]
- -
Minho sits in the café, watching the people pass without seeing. He faintly hears the tinkle of the door opening, but pays no heed until he feels pressure leaning against his shoulders. Copper tendrils spill against his own collar, and he looks up to find Taemin, peering with concentration at his cup.
'What were you drinking?'
'Coffee. Black.'
He wrinkles his nose in reply.
'Well, you're done now, so we can go.'
The older boy glances outside again.
'It's raining,' he objects, turning to Taemin. 'And you're wet.' he says, frowning.
'Because it's raining,' Taemin sighs, unfazed.
'You can't go anywhere with wet clothes. You'll get a cold.'
'I’ll be fine. Look, a jacket, see?' Minho notices his jacket on him.
'I’m not going anywhere, then. I don't want to get a cold.'
Taemin pouts down at him.
Minho sighs. 'Come, we'll go to mine. You need to change out of those wet clothes anyway.'
He stands, the other already perking up and talking animatedly and gesturing wildly with his hands.
They run the short block to Minho's apartment, Minho getting nearly as wet as Taemin but not quite. He ushers the younger into the elevator, shaking droplets of water from his hair and laughing alongside Taemin as they wait the short time it takes for the doors to ping open.
Minho's already wrestling off his coat as he walks into his home, flicking on the lights and closing the door behind Taemin whilst he kicks off his shoes.
Taemin stays in the same spot, seeming to take everything in at once.
'Your house smells nice,' he says, inhaling deeply. His eyes flicker from every surface, every corner and he finds himself looking at his house properly for the first time in ages. It's homely, filled with little knick knacks he's acquired over the years, stupid miniature wooden statues of dogs that stared forlornly at him through window displays of charity shops that he couldn't not rescue.
'You have a nice home,' Taemin adds, and Minho's surprised by this display of manners. He tells him to make himself comfortable, so he sits on the edge of the leather brown sofa, knees together.
'You want anything?' He calls out as he heads to the kitchen. There's a no in response, but he gets out a bag of crisps anyway, somehow managing to balance that, two bottles of water and a bowl of grapes all in two hands.
'So,' Minho says, grabbing a handful of grapes after he's allowed Taemin the first one. 'What do you want to do?'
'Do you have games?'
'I have scrabble, monopoly, cluedo, although the last three times I’ve played that I’ve gotten nightmares afterwards, uh chess, ultimate sudoku-'
'There's such thing as ultimate sudoku?' Taemin asks, perplexed.
'Yeah, there is. That's what it says anyway. Wanna play?'
The boy shakes his head as if to clear it. 'No, I meant video games, not board games.'
Minho nods towards the little cupboard nestled beside the TV, Taemin scooting over to it immediately.
'Man, some of these look so old - you have Tony Hawk Pro Skater?! I haven't played this since I was a kid.'
'I’m surprised you've even heard of it,' he says, lounging back onto the sofa.
'Older cousins, older siblings. I’m more mature than my age.' There's a blinding, cheesy smile.
'Fine,' he sighs, and Taemin slides in the disk and hops back over the low coffee table, sitting cross legged and ready on the other side of the sofa.
[Minho deems it unfair when Taemin wins the first three times, blaming it on the colour of skateboard he chose and demanding a rematch.]
- -
His apartment is rich with the smell of fresh lemon cake, the hair normally around his neck caught up in a little ponytail that sticks out awkwardly from the back of his head. He's not expecting any visitors as he pours the warm drizzle over the cake, the sudden knock startling him and making his hand slip and drown a part in lemony syrup.
He sighs, wiping sticky hands on his patterned floral apron he's wearing before opening the door.
Taemin's standing awkwardly on his doormat, calves turned out in a way that reminds Minho of a newborn lamb.
'Your apartment smells good,' he says distractedly, stepping around Minho and into his apartment.
The table surface is still dusted with flour, a bowl with the remnants of mixture sitting proudly next to an open cookbook.
Taemin turns back to Minho, the look on his a curious mixture between incredulousness and amusement.
'What?' Minho says defensively, tucking a curl of hair behind his ears self consciously. 'I bake.'
He offers him a slice of the warm cake, laughing when Taemin raises a small forkful to his mouth apprehensively, then trying to ignore the illicit moan that comes from his lips after his first bite.
'God, you can bake.' He eats more, cheeks round with cake.
'No wonder your jacket smells of vanilla sugar,' Minho thinks he heard him mumble.
'Eat more,' he says, pleased after Taemin downs his first slice. There's a polite refusal at first, but Minho insists, already cutting him another slice.
'Eat,' he loads the slice onto his plate again. 'You're too skinny.' He eyes his slight frame, skinny jeans that are still too loose around his knees.
Taemin complies, not bothering to refuse again.
‘How’s school?’ Minho asks after a while.
The younger boy cocks a brow at him, content in his current position lounging on the sofa. ‘Do you really need to ask?’
‘More detention?’ He guesses.
‘Yeah,’ he sighs. ‘Teachers and their stupid homework.’
‘Why don’t you just do it?’
‘I have better things to do with my time.’
[Taemin asks to play video games again, and Minho decides to show him how to play Winning Eleven, a soccer game he’s proud of being the best at.
Somehow, Taemin gives him a run for his money. He crows triumphantly when his mash of buttons leads his player to perform some sort of super-slide and steal the ball, Minho muttering profanities under his breath.]
- -
His dad phones him on the Tuesday, asking him to please do him a favour and fill in for the P.E. teacher for perhaps about a week?
Minho doesn’t mind too much, his university being off for three weeks for spring break or something like that, and figures he can earn some spending money while he’s at it.
Teaching P.E. is a doddle. He likes being outside, with the sun warm on his back and the spring wind in his hair. The boys he’s teaching are playing football at the moment, and he joins in whenever one of the teams the boys have chosen are a man down. It’s easy to see which group is the stronger team, with the boys already in the school team gathering to briefly assign positions and talk out their strategy whilst the weaker ones goes off good-naturedly onto the pitch.
Minho’s able to run circles around the boys easily, swiftly darting around and keeping the ball with him due to his deft footwork. His team cheers again when he scores a goal, whilst the opposing team scowls and pants in defeat, trying to keep up. He laughs breathlessly, pointing out their flaws and showing them how to divert and intercept the ball so they become better, learn from their faults.
There’s one last period until the end of school, one last class to teach so he sits in his office for the five minutes that it takes for them to get changed, humming to himself and eating a cereal bar for energy. He leans back in his swivel chair, breaking up his food into smaller pieces and popping them contentedly in his mouth until a head darts around the door.
‘Minho?’
‘Taemin?’
Taemin blinks at him. ‘I heard there was a sub because the guy sprained his ankle, but it’s you?’
‘What’s wrong with it being me? Why are you here?’ He counters, defensive. He realises how stupid he sounds, because Taemin goes to school here.
He leans against the doorway, eyeing Minho. ‘The guys sent me to see who’s teaching us. And whether or not we should be scared, or something.’
Minho considers this, squaring his shoulders. ‘Tell them they should be.’
He laughs, throwing his head back and letting the peals ring out from his throat. ‘Yeah, right. I’ll tell them you bake.’
‘There is nothing wrong with baking.’ He stands up, brushing off the little crumbs and edges around Taemin to go to the changing room. Minho tries to look as authoritative as possible, flattening his mouth in to flat, straight line and slanting his eyes.
‘We’re going to run drills,’ he announces to a collective groan, then feels a little bad and adds on, ‘if there’s enough time, we’ll start a game.’
Taemin is graceful, he realises, approving of his light footwork and catches the little satisfied smile the boy has when he finishes running through the string ladder without tripping up like his classmates. He only makes them do drills for seven minutes; it’s the last period of the day, after all, and Minho doesn’t like being the mean teacher.
There are an odd number of students, and so Minho ends up joining Taemin’s team, occasionally receiving and passing the ball on again to another boy on his team. When he thinks the opposing team are getting too close to their net, he intercepts the ball and runs with it, grinning to the simultaneous groans and delighted whoops.
Minho lets the boys stop their game a couple of minutes before the bell rings, so they can gulp down water from the water fountain and get their bags before the end of school and the rush of school buses. He goes back to the little office, packs up his stuff and the questions he has to mark for the students who do P.E. as an actual subject and sits, stretching out his arms and feeling the burn of muscle. The bell rings, and he hears the students filtering out as he decides to wait until the rush is over before making his own way back home.
He hears a little rap of knuckles on the door, and he glances up, a little confused and arching his brows when he sees Taemin.
‘Are you going home now?’ Taemin asks, adjusting his shoulder straps.
‘Yeah.’ Minho stands up, picking up his leather shoulder bag.
‘Can I come to your place?’
He frowns. ‘Wouldn’t that be a student-teacher relationship, or something?’
Taemin looks at him for a second, then laughs. ‘You’re only subbing for like a week, we have half term after and you probably won’t even come back after that. So, can I?’
Minho picks up his car keys, feeling the weight of the metal in his palm.
‘Yeah, I suppose so.’
‘On one condition,’ he adds.
Taemin purses his lips together. ‘What?’
‘I’ll tell you when we get there.’
Minho’s slightly unused to having someone present in his passenger seat, and he’s even slightly more distracted by the way Taemin rests his bare knees against his dashboard. His P.E. shorts end mid-thigh, exposing what seems like bare skin that goes on forever, and Minho has to force himself to concentrate on the road, mouth going dry.
They get there in the end, Taemin laughing at how he seems to drive like an old man; ‘You could have made that light, it only just turned amber’, and complaining when Minho slows to an almost complete stop as they go over the speed bumps.
Taemin badgers him to tell him the ‘condition’ as they make their way up the stairs, the elevator out of order for what seems like the eighth time this year, but Minho waits until they’re in his apartment, door closed and shoes off.
‘Just tell me already,’ Taemin sighs, exasperated.
Minho grins. ‘Ok. My condition is, you have to do your homework while you’re here.’
His mouth falls open a little bit, and Minho can see a glimpse of white teeth.
‘Are you being serious? Oh my god, you really are being serious.’
He laughs despite himself. ‘That’s my condition.’
Taemin grumbles under his breath, dragging his bag over to the sofa where he plops himself down.
‘Are you actually going to do your homework?’ Minho asks, surprised.
‘Well, if that’s your condition.’
He stands, scratching his head. The first thing Minho had expected was for Taemin to adamantly refuse to do so, and then drag him out to buy pretzels or something.
‘What homework do you have?’
‘English, maths and chemistry,’ he replies, already distracted by pulling out books.
‘Oh. Well, do you wanna order pizza? I want food after teaching all day.’
Taemin agrees, and they order an extra-large pizza with pepperoni and sweet corn, and at Taemin’s insistence a side of garlic dough balls.
‘I’m gonna go shower before the food comes, so just…keep doing whatever you’re doing, ok?’
There’s a grunt in reply, Taemin’s head bent over his copy of The Great Gatsby.
Minho stands in the shower, a little confused as he lets the water dribble over his face. The last thing he had expected of today was to bring Taemin home with him. He finishes his shower, letting the water rinse off the suds of his body lotion. He’s forgotten to bring in clothes with him to the bathroom , used to showering alone in his apartment, so he grabs the towel and slings it around his waist instead.
‘Hey, Minho,’ Taemin calls out, hearing the bathroom door open.
He goes to the living area, assuming the pizza’s arrived already and leaving behind footprints of water, dripping all over the wooden floor whilst clutching the towel in one hand.
‘Yeah?’ Minho notices Taemin still on the sofa, book in his lap and no pizza. He also notices Taemin’s eyes flickering over his body, and he feels a blush covering his cheeks as he stands there, half naked and self-conscious.
‘I was just - going to ask you about Gatsby,’ he falters, unable to move his eyes away from Minho’s stomach.
‘I’ll get changed first,’ he stumbles out, and he backs away to his room, finally emerging dressed in a threadbare t-shirt and sweatpants.
‘So, Gatsby -’ Minho started, only to be interrupted by the ringing of the doorbell. He goes to answer it, relieved at the prospect of food.
‘Gatsby,’ he starts again, after he’s paid the delivery man and is now sitting on the floor cross-legged and with the pizza on the table.
‘What do you think of him?’ Taemin’s head is tilted up to catch the ever-lengthening string of cheese from his slice.
‘A little crazy in love?’
‘Do you have a girlfriend?’ Taemin asks abruptly, and Minho almost chokes.
‘Nope.’
‘Oh.’
There’s a little silence as they eat, before Taemin asks another question.
‘Do you have a boyfriend?’
Minho really does splutter on his food this time, taking a swig of juice to calm his throat.
‘What made you ask that?’
He thinks he sees the tips of Taemin’s ear redden.
‘I just thought, hey, you could get any girl you want, right? So why can’t you have a boy?’
Minho laughs at Taemin’s awkward way of complimenting him. ‘No, I don’t have a boyfriend either.’ He thinks of Taemin’s smooth ways, of how he pursuits whatever he wants and gets it. ‘Do you?’
Taemin picks off a slice of pepperoni and stares at it thoughtfully.
‘Boyfriend or girlfriend?’
‘Either.’
‘Nope.’
And for some unfathomable reason, Minho finds himself happy because of this fact.
[Taemin forces him to eat the garlic dough balls as well, because as he puts it 'I can't be the only one with garlic breath in here', and shoves it into Minho's mouth when he opens it to reply.]
A/N: Abby, dear, this is the first of your birthday fics. The second will most probably be posted on monday, because my teachers have bombarded me with essays and graphs and homeworks ew.
next
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: 2min
Summary: Minho likes coffee. Taemin is bittersweet, demanding, flyaway like the wind but Minho lets him be just so.
A/N: for honestfrank's birthday. Here you go daaaarlingg
Minho sat at the desk, leaning back in his father's chair with his arms crossed behind his head and stared absentmindedly at the pictures of past pupils that adorned the walls of the office. He was waiting patiently for his father to come back from wherever he was, in order to greet him and drop off the lunch his mother had prepared. The door then flew open with a sudden crash, thudding against the wall heavily as a boy with copper long hair flew into the room, a flurry of soft clothes and a bag that banged against his hip.
He only watched as the boy - he was certain it was a boy, even with the feminine features that graced his face - crossed the room without sparing a glance, dumping his bag down without mercy and sank to the floor with his back against the wall without paying any regard to the two armchairs which sat opposite Minho.
The boy ran his hand through his hair, only now flickering his gaze to Minho and frowning in return.
'You're not Choi.'
Minho supposed that he was referring to his father, but even so he was still surprised at the blatant disrespect the student showed to the principal of the school. He opened his mouth to reply, only to be interrupted by the door opening again.
'Ah, Taemin. Your teacher said you would be here again.' Minho's father nodded, quietly closing the door shut behind him. 'What was it this time?'
'It wasn't even my fault,' Taemin muttered.
'You know, Taemin, I did remind you last time you were here to stop flinging the door open. It's making quite a dent in my wall,' he said, running his finger along the slight indentation.
'I swore at her,' he started nonchalantly, examining his fingernails. 'She gave me extra work for forgetting my file and I told her I wasn't going to fucking do it.'
'Oh.'
'I woke up late,' the boy looked up, starting to explain and apparently coming out of his cloud of sullenness. 'and the bus was gonna go without me and I just forgot.'
His father hummed in reply. 'Detention then, I guess. You can do your extra work there.'
There was only a scoff in return. 'I think you know that I’m not gonna do it anyway.' Taemin's gaze moved to Minho again.
'Who's he?'
The principal's gaze followed his to land on his son. 'Ah, he's Minho. My son.'
Minho received a smirk from Taemin.
'Bye, Choi.'
'Goodbye, Taemin,' Minho's father said absentmindedly.
The boy got up with a sigh, adjusting his bag onto his shoulder and glided away with the wind from the door.
- -
They were driving home to have dinner when Minho finally asked about the boy named Taemin.
'Ah,' his father said, nodding. 'He gets into trouble a bit. The teachers aren't too fond of him.'
'Why were you so calm about it? Shouldn't you have given a more severe punishment?'
He only chuckled. 'He doesn't like being told what to do. Besides, nothing works, really. He does as he pleases.'
Minho thought about the copper haired boy for the rest of the night, remembering the pale skin and lilac grey half-moons under his eyes.
-
It's two weeks later, and Minho's at a café, sitting with two cubes of sugar on his saucer and one black coffee by the window and watching the world go by. He's stirred out of his daydream when his phone vibrates against the wood, picking it up and answering to find his dad's frantic voice at the other end.
'Minho - one of the teachers just threw up - she got food poisoning or something from this seafood restaurant she went to last night. I need you to help me cover her classes - please.'
He finds himself gulping the rest of his drink standing and there in fifteen minutes.
-
Covering the class isn't too difficult; he remembers most of the topic being taught from when he graduated from high school two years ago, and teaches with relative ease through what remains of the period. The only thing that unnerves him are the girls who titter every time he looks around the class, and continually sneak glances at him whilst they're meant to be focusing on the questions set.
Some of the boys even remember him from when he used to be captain of the football team, and he spends five minutes reminiscing with the students about the stunts pulled by him and his boys on the last day of term.
(His personal favourite is simple; replacing the sugar with salt in the cafeteria and watching every student or teacher gag from their tea or coffee.)
-
Minho begins to feel more confident once it's after lunchtime, getting into the repeated pattern of students coming in, sitting down and unsure until he claps his hands together, greeting the class with either a 'good morning' or 'good afternoon'. It's not until the second last class that he properly recognises a student.
'Hey, Choi,' he hears - a challenge, along with the series of giggles from the cluster of girls and the sniggers from boys.
He looks up from the notes he's been refreshing his mind with, to scan the room for the bright spill of hair and ready placed smirk.
'Taemin,' he acknowledges, cool and unperturbed. 'Although it's Mr Choi to you.'
Taemin swallows a mouthful of water first, sucking off the last bead of liquid that lingers on his bottom lip.
'Yes, sir,' he drawls, a lazy grin on his face.
- -
Minho walks into the café, the barista recognising him as the bell jingles and nods to him as he turns to the machine, grabbing sugar cubes in the process. The exact change is placed into the waiting hand, small talk made about the weather getting cold and pleasantries exchanged.
He sits at his usual table, watching a leaf make its journey across the sky. There's a flash of colour in the otherwise grey scenery he thinks he sees in the corner of his eye and he jerks his head, only to see nothing.
- -
Minho forgets to visit the café for a week, struggling with a mixture of red tea and instant coffee in his apartment and drowning in paperwork.
- -
'Hey,' the barista greets him. 'There was a kid looking for you. I think it was you, anyway. Pointed to the table you always sit at and described you as 'the one with the freakishly big eyes that droop downwards',' he called over his shoulder as he got Minho his coffee.
'Your eyes are pretty big, I guess. Especially when you look surprised like you do now.'
The majority of his time in the café was spent peering at the curved surface of his silver spoon, trying to look at his eyes properly from all angles.
- -
The next day a boy with copper hair sits at a table with his head bent over spilled sugar that glimmered on the surface, lithe fingers tracing intricate patterns. Minho sits silently, observing this boy instead of the world outside until he looks up.
Taemin's eyes seem to dart immediately to him, previously dull eyes sparkling to life as he drags his chair back and saunters over.
'Fancy seeing you here, Choi.'
Minho asks if he wants anything to drink when Taemin snags one of his sugar cubes on his saucer and pops it into his mouth.
He shakes his head as he sucks his fingers clean, rising almost immediately and going to the door. The figure pauses.
'Well, aren't you coming?'
Minho follows, forgets to bring the sugar cube to place in his pocket.
- -
'Where are we going?' he asks after they've been walking for ten minutes.
'Anywhere,' he hears in reply, and Minho follows a step behind, eyes on the hair that trickles and pools between the boy's shifting shoulder blades.
The jacket and sweater he's wearing underneath seems almost too much compared to the almost see through material Taemin's t-shirt possesses.
'Aren't you cold?' he tries again, when he sees the boy's arms cross in front of him as a sort of barrier against the wind.
'A bit,' he admits with reluctance, refusing to meet Minho's eyes. The older boy sighs as he shrugs off his jacket, draping it around Taemin who protests in annoyance whilst he burrows into the sleeves and accompanying warmth.
They reach the market stalls, Taemin twisting in the crowd and Minho only just managing to keep up. Their destination seems to be a dumpling stall, savoury steam wafting out and making his stomach growl. They buy a boxful, and eat with contentment as they drift off again, away from the chatter of people.
'I’ll see you later,' Taemin says, slowly taking off the jacket before Minho tells him to keep it on.
'I’ll give it back to you next time I see you, then,' he grins, and he shoves his hands into the pockets before turning his back to leave.
[His eyes are always half aware for that red spill of hair days after, never able to fully push it out of the back of his mind.]
- -
Minho sits in the café, watching the people pass without seeing. He faintly hears the tinkle of the door opening, but pays no heed until he feels pressure leaning against his shoulders. Copper tendrils spill against his own collar, and he looks up to find Taemin, peering with concentration at his cup.
'What were you drinking?'
'Coffee. Black.'
He wrinkles his nose in reply.
'Well, you're done now, so we can go.'
The older boy glances outside again.
'It's raining,' he objects, turning to Taemin. 'And you're wet.' he says, frowning.
'Because it's raining,' Taemin sighs, unfazed.
'You can't go anywhere with wet clothes. You'll get a cold.'
'I’ll be fine. Look, a jacket, see?' Minho notices his jacket on him.
'I’m not going anywhere, then. I don't want to get a cold.'
Taemin pouts down at him.
Minho sighs. 'Come, we'll go to mine. You need to change out of those wet clothes anyway.'
He stands, the other already perking up and talking animatedly and gesturing wildly with his hands.
They run the short block to Minho's apartment, Minho getting nearly as wet as Taemin but not quite. He ushers the younger into the elevator, shaking droplets of water from his hair and laughing alongside Taemin as they wait the short time it takes for the doors to ping open.
Minho's already wrestling off his coat as he walks into his home, flicking on the lights and closing the door behind Taemin whilst he kicks off his shoes.
Taemin stays in the same spot, seeming to take everything in at once.
'Your house smells nice,' he says, inhaling deeply. His eyes flicker from every surface, every corner and he finds himself looking at his house properly for the first time in ages. It's homely, filled with little knick knacks he's acquired over the years, stupid miniature wooden statues of dogs that stared forlornly at him through window displays of charity shops that he couldn't not rescue.
'You have a nice home,' Taemin adds, and Minho's surprised by this display of manners. He tells him to make himself comfortable, so he sits on the edge of the leather brown sofa, knees together.
'You want anything?' He calls out as he heads to the kitchen. There's a no in response, but he gets out a bag of crisps anyway, somehow managing to balance that, two bottles of water and a bowl of grapes all in two hands.
'So,' Minho says, grabbing a handful of grapes after he's allowed Taemin the first one. 'What do you want to do?'
'Do you have games?'
'I have scrabble, monopoly, cluedo, although the last three times I’ve played that I’ve gotten nightmares afterwards, uh chess, ultimate sudoku-'
'There's such thing as ultimate sudoku?' Taemin asks, perplexed.
'Yeah, there is. That's what it says anyway. Wanna play?'
The boy shakes his head as if to clear it. 'No, I meant video games, not board games.'
Minho nods towards the little cupboard nestled beside the TV, Taemin scooting over to it immediately.
'Man, some of these look so old - you have Tony Hawk Pro Skater?! I haven't played this since I was a kid.'
'I’m surprised you've even heard of it,' he says, lounging back onto the sofa.
'Older cousins, older siblings. I’m more mature than my age.' There's a blinding, cheesy smile.
'Fine,' he sighs, and Taemin slides in the disk and hops back over the low coffee table, sitting cross legged and ready on the other side of the sofa.
[Minho deems it unfair when Taemin wins the first three times, blaming it on the colour of skateboard he chose and demanding a rematch.]
- -
His apartment is rich with the smell of fresh lemon cake, the hair normally around his neck caught up in a little ponytail that sticks out awkwardly from the back of his head. He's not expecting any visitors as he pours the warm drizzle over the cake, the sudden knock startling him and making his hand slip and drown a part in lemony syrup.
He sighs, wiping sticky hands on his patterned floral apron he's wearing before opening the door.
Taemin's standing awkwardly on his doormat, calves turned out in a way that reminds Minho of a newborn lamb.
'Your apartment smells good,' he says distractedly, stepping around Minho and into his apartment.
The table surface is still dusted with flour, a bowl with the remnants of mixture sitting proudly next to an open cookbook.
Taemin turns back to Minho, the look on his a curious mixture between incredulousness and amusement.
'What?' Minho says defensively, tucking a curl of hair behind his ears self consciously. 'I bake.'
He offers him a slice of the warm cake, laughing when Taemin raises a small forkful to his mouth apprehensively, then trying to ignore the illicit moan that comes from his lips after his first bite.
'God, you can bake.' He eats more, cheeks round with cake.
'No wonder your jacket smells of vanilla sugar,' Minho thinks he heard him mumble.
'Eat more,' he says, pleased after Taemin downs his first slice. There's a polite refusal at first, but Minho insists, already cutting him another slice.
'Eat,' he loads the slice onto his plate again. 'You're too skinny.' He eyes his slight frame, skinny jeans that are still too loose around his knees.
Taemin complies, not bothering to refuse again.
‘How’s school?’ Minho asks after a while.
The younger boy cocks a brow at him, content in his current position lounging on the sofa. ‘Do you really need to ask?’
‘More detention?’ He guesses.
‘Yeah,’ he sighs. ‘Teachers and their stupid homework.’
‘Why don’t you just do it?’
‘I have better things to do with my time.’
[Taemin asks to play video games again, and Minho decides to show him how to play Winning Eleven, a soccer game he’s proud of being the best at.
Somehow, Taemin gives him a run for his money. He crows triumphantly when his mash of buttons leads his player to perform some sort of super-slide and steal the ball, Minho muttering profanities under his breath.]
- -
His dad phones him on the Tuesday, asking him to please do him a favour and fill in for the P.E. teacher for perhaps about a week?
Minho doesn’t mind too much, his university being off for three weeks for spring break or something like that, and figures he can earn some spending money while he’s at it.
Teaching P.E. is a doddle. He likes being outside, with the sun warm on his back and the spring wind in his hair. The boys he’s teaching are playing football at the moment, and he joins in whenever one of the teams the boys have chosen are a man down. It’s easy to see which group is the stronger team, with the boys already in the school team gathering to briefly assign positions and talk out their strategy whilst the weaker ones goes off good-naturedly onto the pitch.
Minho’s able to run circles around the boys easily, swiftly darting around and keeping the ball with him due to his deft footwork. His team cheers again when he scores a goal, whilst the opposing team scowls and pants in defeat, trying to keep up. He laughs breathlessly, pointing out their flaws and showing them how to divert and intercept the ball so they become better, learn from their faults.
There’s one last period until the end of school, one last class to teach so he sits in his office for the five minutes that it takes for them to get changed, humming to himself and eating a cereal bar for energy. He leans back in his swivel chair, breaking up his food into smaller pieces and popping them contentedly in his mouth until a head darts around the door.
‘Minho?’
‘Taemin?’
Taemin blinks at him. ‘I heard there was a sub because the guy sprained his ankle, but it’s you?’
‘What’s wrong with it being me? Why are you here?’ He counters, defensive. He realises how stupid he sounds, because Taemin goes to school here.
He leans against the doorway, eyeing Minho. ‘The guys sent me to see who’s teaching us. And whether or not we should be scared, or something.’
Minho considers this, squaring his shoulders. ‘Tell them they should be.’
He laughs, throwing his head back and letting the peals ring out from his throat. ‘Yeah, right. I’ll tell them you bake.’
‘There is nothing wrong with baking.’ He stands up, brushing off the little crumbs and edges around Taemin to go to the changing room. Minho tries to look as authoritative as possible, flattening his mouth in to flat, straight line and slanting his eyes.
‘We’re going to run drills,’ he announces to a collective groan, then feels a little bad and adds on, ‘if there’s enough time, we’ll start a game.’
Taemin is graceful, he realises, approving of his light footwork and catches the little satisfied smile the boy has when he finishes running through the string ladder without tripping up like his classmates. He only makes them do drills for seven minutes; it’s the last period of the day, after all, and Minho doesn’t like being the mean teacher.
There are an odd number of students, and so Minho ends up joining Taemin’s team, occasionally receiving and passing the ball on again to another boy on his team. When he thinks the opposing team are getting too close to their net, he intercepts the ball and runs with it, grinning to the simultaneous groans and delighted whoops.
Minho lets the boys stop their game a couple of minutes before the bell rings, so they can gulp down water from the water fountain and get their bags before the end of school and the rush of school buses. He goes back to the little office, packs up his stuff and the questions he has to mark for the students who do P.E. as an actual subject and sits, stretching out his arms and feeling the burn of muscle. The bell rings, and he hears the students filtering out as he decides to wait until the rush is over before making his own way back home.
He hears a little rap of knuckles on the door, and he glances up, a little confused and arching his brows when he sees Taemin.
‘Are you going home now?’ Taemin asks, adjusting his shoulder straps.
‘Yeah.’ Minho stands up, picking up his leather shoulder bag.
‘Can I come to your place?’
He frowns. ‘Wouldn’t that be a student-teacher relationship, or something?’
Taemin looks at him for a second, then laughs. ‘You’re only subbing for like a week, we have half term after and you probably won’t even come back after that. So, can I?’
Minho picks up his car keys, feeling the weight of the metal in his palm.
‘Yeah, I suppose so.’
‘On one condition,’ he adds.
Taemin purses his lips together. ‘What?’
‘I’ll tell you when we get there.’
Minho’s slightly unused to having someone present in his passenger seat, and he’s even slightly more distracted by the way Taemin rests his bare knees against his dashboard. His P.E. shorts end mid-thigh, exposing what seems like bare skin that goes on forever, and Minho has to force himself to concentrate on the road, mouth going dry.
They get there in the end, Taemin laughing at how he seems to drive like an old man; ‘You could have made that light, it only just turned amber’, and complaining when Minho slows to an almost complete stop as they go over the speed bumps.
Taemin badgers him to tell him the ‘condition’ as they make their way up the stairs, the elevator out of order for what seems like the eighth time this year, but Minho waits until they’re in his apartment, door closed and shoes off.
‘Just tell me already,’ Taemin sighs, exasperated.
Minho grins. ‘Ok. My condition is, you have to do your homework while you’re here.’
His mouth falls open a little bit, and Minho can see a glimpse of white teeth.
‘Are you being serious? Oh my god, you really are being serious.’
He laughs despite himself. ‘That’s my condition.’
Taemin grumbles under his breath, dragging his bag over to the sofa where he plops himself down.
‘Are you actually going to do your homework?’ Minho asks, surprised.
‘Well, if that’s your condition.’
He stands, scratching his head. The first thing Minho had expected was for Taemin to adamantly refuse to do so, and then drag him out to buy pretzels or something.
‘What homework do you have?’
‘English, maths and chemistry,’ he replies, already distracted by pulling out books.
‘Oh. Well, do you wanna order pizza? I want food after teaching all day.’
Taemin agrees, and they order an extra-large pizza with pepperoni and sweet corn, and at Taemin’s insistence a side of garlic dough balls.
‘I’m gonna go shower before the food comes, so just…keep doing whatever you’re doing, ok?’
There’s a grunt in reply, Taemin’s head bent over his copy of The Great Gatsby.
Minho stands in the shower, a little confused as he lets the water dribble over his face. The last thing he had expected of today was to bring Taemin home with him. He finishes his shower, letting the water rinse off the suds of his body lotion. He’s forgotten to bring in clothes with him to the bathroom , used to showering alone in his apartment, so he grabs the towel and slings it around his waist instead.
‘Hey, Minho,’ Taemin calls out, hearing the bathroom door open.
He goes to the living area, assuming the pizza’s arrived already and leaving behind footprints of water, dripping all over the wooden floor whilst clutching the towel in one hand.
‘Yeah?’ Minho notices Taemin still on the sofa, book in his lap and no pizza. He also notices Taemin’s eyes flickering over his body, and he feels a blush covering his cheeks as he stands there, half naked and self-conscious.
‘I was just - going to ask you about Gatsby,’ he falters, unable to move his eyes away from Minho’s stomach.
‘I’ll get changed first,’ he stumbles out, and he backs away to his room, finally emerging dressed in a threadbare t-shirt and sweatpants.
‘So, Gatsby -’ Minho started, only to be interrupted by the ringing of the doorbell. He goes to answer it, relieved at the prospect of food.
‘Gatsby,’ he starts again, after he’s paid the delivery man and is now sitting on the floor cross-legged and with the pizza on the table.
‘What do you think of him?’ Taemin’s head is tilted up to catch the ever-lengthening string of cheese from his slice.
‘A little crazy in love?’
‘Do you have a girlfriend?’ Taemin asks abruptly, and Minho almost chokes.
‘Nope.’
‘Oh.’
There’s a little silence as they eat, before Taemin asks another question.
‘Do you have a boyfriend?’
Minho really does splutter on his food this time, taking a swig of juice to calm his throat.
‘What made you ask that?’
He thinks he sees the tips of Taemin’s ear redden.
‘I just thought, hey, you could get any girl you want, right? So why can’t you have a boy?’
Minho laughs at Taemin’s awkward way of complimenting him. ‘No, I don’t have a boyfriend either.’ He thinks of Taemin’s smooth ways, of how he pursuits whatever he wants and gets it. ‘Do you?’
Taemin picks off a slice of pepperoni and stares at it thoughtfully.
‘Boyfriend or girlfriend?’
‘Either.’
‘Nope.’
And for some unfathomable reason, Minho finds himself happy because of this fact.
[Taemin forces him to eat the garlic dough balls as well, because as he puts it 'I can't be the only one with garlic breath in here', and shoves it into Minho's mouth when he opens it to reply.]
A/N: Abby, dear, this is the first of your birthday fics. The second will most probably be posted on monday, because my teachers have bombarded me with essays and graphs and homeworks ew.
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