Taemin x Minho; A little something I wrote for my dear friend 

It all started with a simple braided friendship band.
 

Something that everyone had long grown out of, but apparently, their new classmate, Taemin, had not.
 

Minho often gazed at Taemin, having been unable to look at anyone but him, think about anyone but him from the moment he’d first seen him smile. But now it was the delicate band on his wrist that he gazed at, at first intrigued at receiving something other than a mere message on his WhatsApp for the occasion. It was clear as day that it was handmade, the different shades of blue thread braided into a pretty pattern. It was rough around the edges, not quite symmetrical nor consistent, going against Minho’s standards of precision. He was quite fussy, a bit of a perfectionist, an overachiever in the littlest of things– from a 100m marathon to hanging the calendar at the perfect angle on his wall. Moreover, he did not believe in small tokens, nor did he waste his time in such superficial traditions.
 

But at certain times he settled for such trivialities.
 

For things like a slanting, braided friendship band. For the gentle smile it came with, the soft tickling sensation of delicate fingers caressing his wrist as it was being tied, ignoring entirely what it meant.
 

When it did strike him, something weighed him down terribly, even more so... when he noticed a similar friendship band on every other wrist around him.
 

Yet… it did not stop him from staying up late that night, having borrowed the jewelry kit from his little cousin, trying to make something similar, remembering how Taemin’s wrist had been empty despite having tied one on almost everyone’s wrist in class.
 

And he slipped it in Taemin’s locker, settling for less again, but somehow it was also everything he wished for.
 

A beautiful smile to form on his face.
 

He received one the next year as well. It was the last year of school and everything had changed, was changing, but just like his persevering heart… the friendship band had remained the same. The same shades of blue entwined into one, the same patterns of braiding. But just how his heart had only fallen harder with time, the bracelet had improved– it was now prettier, neater, had glitter in every braid’s knot… and Minho was almost elated with the extra details… until he noticed everyone else’s band was the same.
 

He was relieved when the day had ended and he was home… because now that the day had passed, now that he was in a space devoid of cruel reminders, he could gaze at the friendship band without a war raging in his head, without that sunken feeling inside his heart.
 

He put it right beside the one he had received last year, in the drawer of his desk… a place he opened the most… and somehow he came to terms with what those bracelets meant… because come next year, he won’t be receiving anything.
 

Not even a sight, let alone a friendship band.
 

And he hoped... that this change could finally change him too.
 

But until then, just until it happened, he wanted to give what he could… and so he sat all night again, making a friendship band from the materials of his cousin’s jewelry kit.
 

This time, he used beads along with thread, three beads that meant everything yet nothing.
 

And when he slipped it into Taemin’s locker the next morning, he felt lighter, because, in a way of sorts, he had given it away. His heart.
 

A year of break between school and college had been an unexpected occurrence, yet Minho accepted the delay, accepted the fact of now being a year behind everyone else he knew. With that time came distance… because what– whom– he wished to forget… his name was often upon everyone’s tongues. Taemin had done well with those friendship bands, with his charming smiles, with his sweet words, with his compassion. Minho wasn’t the only one whose heart he was engraved in. Everyone remembered him, everyone wanted to remember him.
 

And despite how much Minho said to himself he did not want to remember him, the blue friendship bracelets that now adorned the band of his wristwatch, said otherwise.
 

It was an unexpected occurrence, runni