There was something infinitely wrong with waking up to a stomach that had an ache in it that had nothing to do with eating bad food and everything to do with there being something off-kilter.

Taemin had woken, stretched, and taken in the pale slant of morning light through the edge of his wagon—a process that took all of five seconds—before he realized that his gut was trying to tell him something. Despite it's emptiness it was heavy, thick with pangs of distaste and mistrust.

Something was gone. It took only a moment for him to realize it. Someone had come into his wagon during the time that he'd been sleeping and had taken something, and they'd been stealthy enough that they'd managed to get away with it without waking him up.

“Twice in twenty-four hours,” he groused to the empty room as he pulled himself out of his bed to figure out what exactly was missing, completely unimpressed with his sudden inability to sense when someone was trying to nick something off of him. First his knife, then whatever this was. It was shameful.

Taemin's hand fell to the holster still strapped to his thigh, wanting to feel the reassuring weight of the knife in his hand.

It was gone—again.

“Well,” he said finally after a full minute of standing still with his eyes closed, trying to still the anger that was threatening to overthrow all of his reasoning. “That was stupid of me.”

On the bright side, there was only one person who could have stolen a knife strapped to his thigh in the dead of night after drinking as much as ninety-five percent of the travelers had been drinking. They were all proficient enough to be able to pick a pocket here or there, to know when to distract and when to snap up the good and when to walk away. Not many were as good as Taemin was, though; as a matter of fact, as of last night he knew a grand total of three people as proficient at stealing things as he was—two if he didn't count himself.

One was Key, his brilliant friend of nineteen or twenty years who slipped in and out of the group of travelers as he pleased and on no particular schedule. The other was Minho. And, since Taemin knew Key was gone at the moment and would have no interest in a knife besides, it was very obvious to Taemin that Minho was his culprit.

He'd show Minho that it was a bad decision to steal from the master pickpocket twice in one night, though. After he got through with him he'd be sorry.

After scooping a couple handfuls of grains into the nosebags of his two horses and double-checking to make sure they had clean water Taemin left toward Minho's wagon. The morning was bright, the sun still low enough that he knew it couldn't even be six in the morning yet. It was the perfect time to be awake; the only people up now after a full night of revelry were the older women that were preparing breakfast, and they never cared enough to gossip about him being up and around at strange hours since he always was.

No one would see him picking the lock on Minho's wagon with nimble fingertips. There was no one to care about him slipping inside, barefoot and noiseless, prepared to loot Minho silly.

The older boy was asleep, only half-covered with a quilt. He was beautiful, Taemin realized with a strange flip of his stomach. What were sharp lines in shadowing lamplight were smooth and soft in the early morning sun, and it made him infinitely younger and even more attractive than he'd been the night before.

And then he was shirtless, blanket only pulled up to his waist, offering Taemin a very nice view of Minho's chest, his sharp, wide shoulders and wiry arms, his slim waist and stomach that was a few shades lighter than his arms, no doubt from wearing a shirt more often than not.

He was beautiful and liked boys, and Taemin wanted him.

His plans were changing.

People only slept with objects on them that they cared about. Taemin slept with his knife and his ring (he double-checked quickly to make sure it was still on; it was). The chances of Minho having something similar on his person were high, seeing as he'd guessed where Taemin had his knife, and if he did it would definitely be something that he didn't want taken.

Two birds with one stone, Taemin thought, pleased with his plan. He'd get to touch Minho's body and he'd get something that was worth bargaining for the full rights of his knife with.

Minho, luckily, was a heavy sleeper. When Taemin slipped into the bed with him, carefully edging the quilt off of his body he only stirred slightly, bowed lips parting on a shifting breath.

It was an invitation he couldn't refuse. Carefully straddling Minho's hips Taemin leaned down, taking Minho's bottom lip into his mouth, on it gently.

The effect was immediate. Minho, still half asleep, made a noise that might have been might have been a moan, might have been a gasp; then his hands were around Taemin's waist, pulling him closer. Somewhere along the way what had started out as a playful gesture was morphing into Minho's kissing Taemin with fervor, too groggy to worry about anything besides the slide of lips and tongue.

Taemin wasn't complaining though. Minho tasted divine, just as he smelled, and it was all he could do to hold onto what his original intentions were what with the way Minho's hands were running up his back beneath his shirt.

When Minho stopped suddenly and opened his eyes, confusion written all across his face, Taemin laughed. “Good morning. I was wondering when you'd realize what you were doing. You're a lot easier to deal with when you're not awake, you know that?”

“Words,” Minho said, tongue stumbling over the sounds as he tried to make a coherent thought and back away from Taemin at the same time. “So many...why? Taemin? What?”

He was awkward and cute when he was morning-embarrased like this that Taemin couldn't help but but scuttle after him, trapping him against the wall, tangling their legs together and his locking his arms around Minho's torso. “It's okay. Stop thinking for a bit, alright? Just kiss me a bit longer, then I'll leave.”

Minho shut his eyes again, breathing accelerating as Taemin began kissing his way up his throat, nipping whenever he felt Minho might appreciate it.

It wasn't difficult for Taemin skim his hands down Minho's back on his way to delve into the pockets of the shorts he inexplicably slept in. After all, Minho had given in for the time being, and it was all that much easier to appreciate the lean muscles that ran just beneath the skin when their mouths were moving together again, considerably more coordinated now that Minho was more awake than asleep rather than vice-versa.

He wasn't surprised when Minho pushed him off again and hastily got off the bed, eyes wild and cheeks as red as his mouth. “Taemin. I can't...don't...why are you here?”

“Because I want you.” Taemin pouted, finding conversation easier now that he had the small, leather pouch that Minho'd had laced to his belt inside his pocket. “And things were going well until you stopped.”

Minho scratched his head, making an abysmally cute face as he did it. “What makes you think that I want you?”

“From my vantage point,” Taemin said, eyes flickering to Minho's crotch, “it's sort of a given that you do. Want me to take care of it for you?”

His luck ran out then, because Minho chose that moment to regain his strength, pick Taemin up, and deposit him outside of his front door.

Taemin decided on his way back to his wagon, none the worse for the wear besides a rather painful case of frustration, that it was highly regrettable that Minho was opposed to sleeping around because he really couldn't remember being this attracted to someone for an extremely long time.

He sighed. Perhaps some day he'd come around.

//

Two things happened that day that Taemin did not expect.

Firstly, when he opened the pouch curiously to see just what Minho kept near to his heart he found not a coin or a locket or even a snippet of hair, but a tooth. A horse, tooth, to be precise; Taemin had been around horses enough to know one by sight, and this was most definitely one. It was old, yellowed, and slightly worn away around the edges like it had been worn even more just by sitting around inside the leather pouch, but it was a tooth nonetheless.

Nonplussed, he dropped it back inside the sack and shoved that into the depths of one of his pockets. Why would Minho keep a horse tooth? Of all the things things a person could keep, that, in Taemin's opinion, was one of the more idiotic choices.

The second unexpected thing was the polite knock at Taemin's door as he was viciously scrubbing grime out of the crevices of a sapphire inlay.

“Come in,” he called distractedly, squinting down at the ring. It was rather pretty, and he had a suspicion the sapphires weren't fools gems like eighty percent of the gems he stole, which was fairly exciting.

In stepped Minho. He was dusty and sweaty and smelled strongly of horse, and judging by the glint in his eyes, he'd just recently found that his leather pouch was missing.

“Can I help you?” Taemin asked mildly when Minho didn't say anything.

“...you have it, don't you?”

So he'd guessed. Turning back to the ring Taemin began scrubbing again, careful to hide his smile. It was a game now, and he was thoroughly enjoying it. “I have lots of things. Be more specific.”

Minho stepped closer, close enough that Taemin could not only smell the horse sweat but the undertones of what he was starting to realize was pure Minho, and it was throwing him off-balance again.

“Stop playing stupid. I'm not an idiot, you're not an idiot. Let's just swap back, alright? I can't imagine a horse tooth is of any use to you, and I have more than enough knives so-”

Taemin stood, his sudden movement enough of an interruption to make Minho stop speaking. “You took it for no reason after you gave it back once already,” he told Minho quietly, chin held high, holding his gaze and doing his best to ignore the jolts of nerves in his stomach from the older's close proximity. “I'll give you your tooth back...nasty thing anyway, I don't know why you keep it...but I want payment. My terms.”

Minho couldn't argue. When it came down to it, it was in their culture to be as fair as possible within their, and when one party was in the wrong they made the terms so square things out. This trust that no matter what everyone in the group would always work to keep people on the same level was what kept them together as a family.

It seemed to take a great deal of effort for Minho to bob his head even the slightest bit, and when he spoke his voice was tense. “Fine, name them.”

“Alright, then!” Taemin clapped his hands, utterly pleased with how he'd turned this situation around to be in his benefit. “I'll give you two choices. Want them now?”

“When else would I get them?” Minho groused, leaning up against the wall next to the door, arms folded across his chest. “Get it over with. I need to get back out there.”

“I either want the full explanation of why you took my knife both times when we've clearly never spoken—you obviously don't need help with the horses.”

“Or?”

“Or,” Taemin continued, tipping his head to the side, “you let me stay with you until summer's over because your bed is nicer than mine is.” He couldn't force Minho to sleep with him, nor did he want to force him. That wasn't how Taemin worked. He preferred to have a bit more subtlety than that. Manipulating the situation to have Minho play into his hands, however,  was something he was definitely okay with.

Judging by Minho's flush, his subtle wasn't really that subtle at all.

Satisfied, Taemin picked up the ring once more. “Tell me by tomorrow evening what you want to choose.”

Minho slammed the door on his way out.