A quick, fluffy one-shot set in the Hope For Our Happy Endings verse. Reading Hope isn't really necessary to appreciate the fluff, but it's useful for understanding. Partly inspired by a review laurenbaggy left and partly because I need to practice my fluff. Bonus points for anyone who guesses what Taemin was reading.

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Taemin frowned down at the book in front of him. He hated reading. The stupid squiggles were meaningless to him, even if he could remember what shapes made what sounds. The bed shifted and Minho’s arm slid over his waist, his chin hooking over Taemin’s shoulder, draping half of his body over Taemin.

“Sound it out,” he encouraged, the warmth of his closeness spreading through Taemin’s body like a gentle wave. “You know what it means.”

“I hate this,” Taemin said.

He could practically feel Minho’s smile. “Try for me?”

He huffed, but focused again on the sentence. “‘I don’t see why you should be afraid of that, since our…’” he hesitated. Minho encouraged him with a gentle squeeze around his waist. “‘Since our c… con… conversation is perfectly in… no… cent.’ Inno… cent. Innocent.”

“There you go,” Minho said, kissing the side of his neck. “Not so hard, is it?”

Taemin looked at him sideways and Minho smiled. He sighed and turned back to the book. “‘No one who heard it could object to it.’” Having finished out the paragraph, he slammed the book shut, after taking enough time to dog-ear the page. As it was a paperback, the sound was less than satisfactory, but he supposed he got the point across.

Minho chuckled warmly in his ear. “Finished?”

Taemin rolled over looking up at Minho. He reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind his boyfriend’s ear. His boyfriend. That knowledge still made his heart flutter. He looked at Minho for a second, his eyes running along the slope of his nose, the slant of his eyes, the proud angle of his jaw. Taemin could have been happy just looking at him, drinking in the love that always shined in his eyes, even when they argued, which they had only done a time or two since Taemin had moved in with him.

Minho’s lips curved into a gentle smile and that was another thing Taemin loved. He loved Minho’s lips. He loved feeling them against his skin, he loved running his thumb across them when they were still damp from kissing, he loved the way they looked when Minho was doing pretty much anything. He loved that his smile was nothing like the other smiles he’d seen in his life. It was never wicked or cruel or reveling in Taemin’s weakness. Even when Taemin was bare, physically or emotionally, that smile just made him feel like everything about him mattered.

“Minho?”

“Hm?”

“Were we dating before you said you loved me?”

A brief flash of confusion spread across Minho’s face. He sighed. “We… went about this dating thing very strangely, Taeminnie.”

“Were we?”

“I don’t know,” Minho said. “If it had been any other couple, I would say yes, but you didn’t really understand. You’re so old in so many ways,” Taemin chose not to take offense at that, “but you’re so young in others. I didn’t want to take advantage of the fact that you didn’t understand relationships.”

Taemin let his head fall back to the pillow that had been resting beneath his chest while he read. “When did you fall in love with me, then?”

Minho leaned down and kissed him, dragging his teeth across Taemin’s lower lip until he opened his mouth. He did, arching up a little to let Minho deepen the kiss. Minho smiled again, his tongue brushing against Taemin’s and Taemin would have willingly surrendered everything to be able to stay like this forever. He couldn’t get used to the way Minho kissed, the only person who had ever kissed him like they’d wanted him.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Taemin reminded him when they broke apart, Minho’s breathing just a little unsteady.

“I’m getting there,” Minho said. “You looked too good to pass up.”

“You sound like you were planning on eating me.”

Minho winked at him, but kissed his cheek. He lowered himself to the bed, lying on his back at Taemin’s side and looking over at him. “When did I fall in love with you? I don’t know. The moment I saw you bleeding in the park, probably. I realized I loved you when I was at your… house… and you were going through the withdrawals. It was probably four or five days in and you were still pretty out of it. I was telling you a story, because that’s the only way I could get you fall asleep. It was some stupid one about the time we were behind on filming and we had to film the entire scene in about an hour. It was supposed to be this romantic scene with the couple walking through this street market, but we were losing the sun so we made them jog and it looked absolutely ridiculous.”

“I remember this,” Taemin said, finally remembering. “You won awards for that scene.”

Minho laughed. “They thought it was a ‘creative new take on modern romance,’ yeah. Anyway, I had been telling you the story and you fell asleep holding my hand. That was when I finally decided that you’d be okay, because you actually looked peaceful. You looked…” he hesitated and laughed self-consciously. “You looked so young and really pretty, with your hair over your face. I just wanted to hold you and make everything better.

“I was going to get up, but when I tried you wouldn’t let go of my hand. I wasn’t sure if you really were asleep or not, so I said your name and you smiled,” Minho ran his fingers along Taemin’s cheek, “kind of the way you are now.”

Taemin rolled over and buried his face against Minho’s shoulder in embarrassment. Minho laughed, a full, deep sound, and rolled over to meet him. He slipped his arms around the younger man and pulled him in close. Taemin nuzzled against Minho’s warm throat.

“I love you,” Taemin said, “so much.”

“I love you, too, baby.”