”It’s a rogue! “

Minho had heard the yell, heard the commotion, but obviously not reacted fast enough. Later he would blame the rain and wind, but secretly he knew it was because his eyes had caught sight of a familiar figure casually leaning against the back of one of the spectators stand. A figure with slanted eyebrows, hair perfectly parted in the middle and a pretty face that every now and then was lit up by the flickering blue flame burning in the air next to him. Trust a Nam to sulk away from company and to go watch someone else struggle for fun (yes, Minho ignored the book he’d spotted in the Slytherin’s lap). Anyway, whatever it was that distracted him was enough to send the bludger crashing into the tail of his broom, making it jolt so suddenly it crashed into his nose, hard enough that there was no possible outcome but bones breaking, followed by a couple of random tosses that was enough to send the seeker flying off his broom and sent him tumbling to the ground.

.

Had he passed out for a moment? Chances were, because Minho could not remember the yells that followed his fall or that all his teammates landed around him. What he could remember, or rather what he felt at the moment, was the rain drumming against his back, a stinging pain in his nose, and a rather disgusting taste of dirt and blood in his mouth. Damn it. Could this be more humiliating? He groaned inwardly before finally pushing himself up from the mud, sitting back on his heels and forcing a big, dumb grin on his lips. “I always wanted a nose job, guess this saves me the money?”

“Very funny, Song!” Captain and chaser Choi Junhee rolled her eyes at him and shook her head. A lot of people had laughed when the girl had been named captain of the Gryffindor team, but all players on the current team knew that they could have picked no better person for the job. Minho pushed himself to his feet and nodded, grimacing at the feel of something hot trickling down his lip. A broken nose and a hellish nosebleed. Classy.

“Bench for the rest of the practice. We have a team meeting afterwards, so just bear with it and go to the hospital ward after, okay?” Junhee gave Minho a little pat on the shoulder before nodding at the rest of the team. “We can still do strategy practice without him, so let’s get at it!”

Shrugging his shoulders, Minho gave his broom an annoyed kick before picking it up and dragging it along to towards the locker room. Might as well try to at least stop the bleeding and put on some dry clothes in the meantime. His nose would be fixed in no time later, so he wasn’t even worried. God, but it annoyed him that the one time he managed to get hit and actually fall was the time Taehyun was there to watch him. Bet he found it real funny, that he’d rush off to tell his friends so they could laugh at him later. What a joyous breakfast that would be in the morning. And speaking of the devil…

“Nice flying. Real classy.”

Minho sneered, head jolting up to snap back at Taehyun, a variety of curses dancing over his tongue, ready to be shared. But he never got to it because a soft, fluffy towel was pushed to his face, obviously to help stop the bleeding. It was all so sudden that Minho leaned his head backwards. He really expected another sarcastic comment, but nothing came. Not even when he reached up to hold the towel in place on his own and tipped his head down enough to see Taehyun’s face. What even was that expression? Had it been anyone else, Minho would have said it looked worried. But why would he be worried? “What?” he finally managed to blurt out, brows furrowing, one last attempt to keep his dignity.

“You okay?”

“What was that?” Minho blinked, not quite sure if he should laugh or cry at the question. Was it supposed to be a joke? Was it a challenge? Should he be ready to fight? However cute someone was, you should never trust a Slytherin.

“I said, are you okay? I know you hit your head and all, but that shouldn’t affect your hearing?” Judging by the sound of Taehyun’s voice he was getting annoyed, and that only fuelled Minho’s want to punch his pretty face in. Any other Slytherin would have been fine; he’d be able to deal with them. But stupid eyebrows over there had caught his attention since after his first Quidditch game, when Taehyun had talked ever so loudly about how Slytherin had won and Gryffindor had lost. He had also skilfully ignored every comment Minho had given in passing to his friends about “preppy snake boy”. He had heard enough about the Nam family from his own parents even from before he started school, and none of it was particularly good. Rumour had it they sold illegal witch brew in their shop in Knockturn Alley. No surprise, being Slytherins the whole lot of them. So why was it that this Nam, the cute Nam, was asking if he was okay or not?!

“It’s none of your business. Leave me alone!” Minho tried to walk past Taehyun to escape to the safety of the locker room so he’d have to take no more of this humiliation, but it seemed the other was mind-set on following him. “Leave me alone, will you?”

“Oh shut up, you look like a mess! At least let me help with your nose?”

“My nose?! Hah, you’ll get about as close to my nose as a bloody bludger, Nam Taehyun!” Minho sneered, unable to help the flinch called out by the sudden pain in his nose as he spoke too quickly. What the heck was this? He’d already made a fool of himself in front of the rest of the team, now this… this sly snake wanted to turn his nose into a vegetable or something? No way, not happening. No matter how cute he was, how sweet his laughter rung whenever Minho heard it, he knew he couldn’t trust it.

“Oh, by Merlin’s beard!” Taehyun quite obviously rolled his eyes and next thing he knew, Minho was grabbed by the arm and halfway pushed, halfway dragged into the empty locker room before hands on his shoulders forced him to sit down on one of the benches there. “You better sit still, or I’ll hex you into tomorrow!” he snorted as he grabbed the now bloody towel from Minho’s hands and leaned closer to examine the damages. To which Minho had all intentions to protest, but his tongue must be left out in the hallway together with his broken broom, because he couldn’t come up with a single thing to say. Not when that cute face was so close he could smell a faint hint of mint from shampoo or toothpaste or whatever it was that could make a person smell minty. Minty? Was that even a word, Minho mused to himself in a hysterical attempt to keep calm and not pay too much attention to the closeness. Taehyun didn’t seem to notice at all, because he kept staring at Minho’s nose, wrinkling his own and muttering things to himself about angle and level of… of something.

Dumb as he was, something he would never admit in public, Minho chose the exact moment when Taehyun was at his closest to look up, eyes moving down his face, nose, pink lips… “What’s wrong with you? Are you some kind of messed up dementor or something?” Minho was thankful that he finally regained the ability to speak again, and that he managed to push Taehyun away. The closeness had been too awkward, and had he been able to look in a mirror, he’d have been absolutely horrified to see that he was actually blushing. Curses and trolls, this was horrible! Not only was Taehyun a guy, he was a Slytherin! It was out of the question.

“Can you just try to make your troll brain work even just a little for once? I’m trying to help, you dimwit!” The way Taehyun rolled his eyes made Minho want to punch him, but with those words went his tongue again and he could nothing but scowl. Just as a precaution, he moved a little so he sat on his hands. He’d already lost Gryffindor some house points by sneaking down to the kitchen for food a couple of nights ago, and getting in a fight with someone wouldn’t help on his record.

“Good!” Taehyun exclaimed, rolling up the sleeves of his robes (was that tattoos?) and whipping out his wand. “Let’s do-….”

“Ey!” Minho yelped, standing up and fumbling for his own wand. “What do you think you’re doing? I sat still! You can’t hex me! Don’t you dare hex me!” What was his problem? He had to be mental to try and hex him in here, with the whole Gryffindor team walking in on them every second. All Taehyun did was roll his eyes and hold out his wand! Was he really going through with it?

“Episkey!” Taehyun’s voice rang soft and clear as he pointed his wand to Minho’s nose. Epi-what-was-that? The Gryffindor blinked a couple of times, his nose going from feeling way too hot, then too cold and then… perfectly normal? What? “Uhm…” he grunted, hand reaching up to touch his nose, pinching it, poking it a bit. It was okay? Just a second ago it had definitively been broken, but now it was just kind of icky because to various degrees of congealed blood.

“Should I not have ‘hexed’ you?” Taehyun rolled his eyes, his wand having already disappeared back into his robes. He gave a little, almost satisfied nod and flipped some hair out of his face. “You’re a seventh year, and you don’t even know that spell? Your skull must be thicker than I thought!” “I know it, alright!” Minho barked back, getting to his feet and moving past Taehyun to a sink so he could clean mud and blood off of his face. It was humiliating enough to get a bloody nose and fall of his broom, if not to be lectured by a sixth year (and that sixth year being Nam Taehyun). “I know it…” he repeated the words to himself as he wiped some water from his face. Curses and dragon , couldn’t they have started their first ever actual conversation in a situation where he didn’t look completely like a loser?

“So, let me ask again, won’t you? Are you alright?” To Minho’s surprised, Taehyun’s voice was much softer now, the edge from before gone, “Ah… yeah, I guess,” he started slowly, shrugging his shoulders and started to undo the front his arm guards as he turned back around. Maybe he had sounded a bit too ungrateful? “Thanks to you.” There. That should be plenty, should it not? The little smile that met him after the comment assured him it was, and without even realizing it, his own lips curled up in a smile as well.

“Be more careful next time, won’t you? Or do I have to come out here every time you guys practice?” “I don’t know… I can be a bit of a klutz?” Song Minho! Are you flirting? This was flirting! Was he going to steep even lower than he already had? It made him want to go back out to get his broom so he could hit himself in the head with it. He was a troll! A bloody, slow ogre. He ought to throw himself in the lake or be kicked out in the forest for acting like such a daft harpy.

“I better be here then. Can’t have Gryffindor’s star player mess up his face at every game so he has to leave the field. Wouldn’t that be a shame?” Taehyun said slowly, brushing back down the sleeves of his robes. Minho meant to say something about that, but ended up just scratching the back of his head and smiling. It really wouldn’t be too bad to have Taehyun there. Just in case he got another broken nose, of course.