Minho is watching him from across the classroom. As always, Taemin refuses to look back at him. He fixes his gaze on the window. He wishes Minho would look away. Why does it seem like when Minho looks at him, he is seeing right through Taemin’s many walls and staring directly into his soul?

His sheets of scribbled music are ever-present in his mind. He has been carrying them around in his backpack all week. The notes he wrote. The words. The expression of his soul. He hasn’t seen Minho in five years, but his sudden reappearance seems to have broken one of Taemin’s carefully-constructed walls as if it was made from nothing but glass. Through the broken glass, the music has come, and when it plays through Taemin’s head, it is Minho’s voice that is singing.

Taemin is afraid. It has been so long since anyone looked at him like Minho does. Looked at him with softness instead of sharpness. Hope instead of hate. Fear sings through him nearly as loud as the song he has written for Minho. The only thing he knows that will control his fear is anger.

His own words echo painfully in his ears. It’s none of your business. off, Minho.

If Minho was anyone else, he might have snapped back at Taemin, might have said something equally harsh. Nobody would blame him. Nobody could deny that it is Taemin who is out of line.

So why does Minho accept Taemin’s words so willingly?

Why does he let Taemin hurt him?

He always was that way, his mind whispers to him. Even back then.

---

Taemin has a late class today, and he purposefully gathers up his materials slowly, so that when he leaves the halls are almost empty. He walks slowly through the darkening grounds. The air is hot and heavy, and as he passes the music block there is a sudden flash, followed by a rolling growl of thunder. He feels it through his body, the deep crash in his chest, the pressure on his eardrums. On cue the blue-black clouds above release their burden, a torrential downpour that threatens to soak him almost immediately. He ducks quickly into the music block and shakes the drops of water from his hair. These summer storms pass quickly. If he waits ten minutes, the rain will stop. He is in no hurry to get home anyway.

Through the boom of thunder and the splattering of rain against the door, another sound reaches him. In one of the music rooms, someone is playing the piano. Almost unconsciously Taemin is drawn towards the music. The notes ripple and stir the air. He knows the piece, and when he finds himself standing silently in the open doorway of the practice room, as tense and poised as a bird ready for sudden flight, he finds he knows the player, too.

He makes no sound, but somehow Minho senses him there. He looks up, and his hands go still. His eyes meet Taemin’s. Their gazes lock. The music fades, and the world goes black. Taemin takes a step back.

“Wait,” Minho says. He moves as if to get up from the piano stool, then stops when Taemin steps back again. “Please, Taemin. Please stay.”

Taemin is a battleground where terror and longing war against each other. The two armies meet in a deafening clash. They crash into each other, stab and slash. His breath catches. His hands start to shake. The world is strange and dark around him. He smells dust, and cold concrete, and cobwebs, and fear. There are small huddled lumps scattered all around him, and he cannot see or hear –

No. He can hear. He can hear the sound of Minho playing. The notes reach him and draw him back. He can see Minho’s hands, long and strong and graceful, dancing across the keys. Taemin breathes the music in. It tastes of rain and moonlight.

He dares to take a step forward. And then he dares to take another. The music surrounds him like a distant memory of light. He watches Minho’s body gently sway as he plays. His eyes are closed. Freed from those eyes that see far too much, Taemin is finally able to look at him without fear. He explores the face that was once so familiar to him.

The years between twelve and seventeen have transformed Minho from a bright-eyed child into a young man. His jaw is both strong and delicate. His hair is nearly shoulder length and frames his face in gentle swathes the colour of the ebony flat-and-sharp keys beneath his fingers. The lashes of his closed eyes are long and slightly upcurling. He is beautiful through to his bones.

Does Minho still sing, Taemin wonders? If Taemin asks, if Taemin dares to show him his music – will he sing for Taemin?

Fear creeps up on him again.

He does not know why he is so afraid. His fear has no origin, it has no meaning, and surely it must be madness. This fear, this on-the-brink-of-madness fear has plagued him for five years, bringing with it as it always does the images of dead birds and glassy eyes and cold feathers, breathing whispers in his ears, words in a language he knows but cannot understand,