February 6th, Wednesday

“Taemin?” Jonghyun approached the younger professor who was slumped over the conference table again, one arm stretched out across his uneven stack of papers while he used the other arm as a pillow. His lips were parted slightly as his eyes fluttered open to focus on Jonghyun.

“You dyed your hair black,” Jonghyun pointed out. It had been a while since anyone had seen Taemin with any hair color besides red or blonde.

“Did I seriously fall asleep again?” Taemin groaned. He stabbed at the home button on his phone and gasped. “How is it already that time?! There’s no way I’m going to finish grading these.” He exhaled shortly. “I’ll just tell my class I’ll hand their papers back on Friday. I gotta go.”

Before Jonghyun could get another word in, Taemin had unceremoniously crammed the stack of papers into his briefcase and dashed out of the room.

“Nice to see you too,” Jonghyun muttered to the now empty seat at the table. He shrugged and slid into it, setting down his things as Minho walked into the room.

“Good morning,” he said cheerfully, taking a seat opposite Jonghyun and sliding a cup of coffee across it.

“Morning,” Jonghyun answered mechanically, wrapping his fingers around the cup. “Did you see Taemin just now?” he asked after a moment’s pause.

Minho shook his head.

“He’s been acting weird,” Jonghyun continued.

“Really? I hadn’t noticed anything off,” Minho said, casually sipping his coffee.

“Are you being sarcastic? He dyed his hair black, Minho,” Jonghyun told him. He waited. “Black,” he repeated emphatically, as if Minho must have somehow missed this detail the first time around.

“But you never drink your coffee black,” Key said suspiciously, coming in and sitting down along with Jinki.

“That’s not what I--” Jonghyun broke off and rubbed at his forehead in frustration.

“We’re talking about Taemin’s hair,” Minho explained calmly.

Jinki perked up. “Taemin dyed his hair black??”

Jonghyun and Minho nodded and Key’s lips formed a thin line. “That’s interesting.”

Minho blinked. “I’m not seeing what’s so incredibly significant about this.”

Key took the lid off his cup of coffee and blew on it before taking a sip. “Haven’t you noticed? He only changes his hair color when he gets a new girlfriend or boyfriend. He’s dating someone!”

Jonghyun’s jaw practically unhinged from his face. “WHAT? That’s impossible.”

Everyone jumped a little at the sudden outburst. “Uh...why?” Jinki dared to ask.

“Taemin can’t be dating anyone. He...I mean...just the other day...and he told me that...that...no, you have to be wrong. You’re wrong, Kibum.” He took a determined swig of coffee and winced slightly.

Key just laughed. “Maybe I’ve been wrong before about other things, but I’m not wrong about this.”

“But he’s never even been in any relationship as long as I’ve known him,” Jonghyun continued to argue. “He can’t have even had more than one or two. The hair color thing could be a coincidence.”

“Well, you do have a point, Jonghyun,” Jinki offered. “In order for Key’s proposed correlation to be statistically significant, there would need to be a substantial number of instances on which to base the data, and even then, a causal relationship isn’t necessarily—”

“Oh my god,” Jonghyun interrupted. “At this point, I don’t even care who’s right anymore, just please, no math at this hour.” He covered the top of his head with his hands and squeezed his eyes shut as if that would protect him from Jinki’s barrage of statistical jargon.

Key shrugged with a half-smile. “You all haven’t known Taemin as long as I have. But don’t take my word for it. Ask him yourself.”

Jonghyun stood up suddenly. “I have to meet with a student.”

“Okay, see you…” Jinki started to say happily, but Jonghyun ignored them all as he left. “...later.” He turned to Minho and asked, “What’s up with him?”

Minho shrugged. “No idea.”

“E-Excuse me?” A small voice came from the doorway. The professors turned to see half of a face peeking through the door he had opened by just a crack. “Oh...sorry...I was looking for Professor Lee. He told me he’s usually in here at this time if I wanted to come by. Sorry.”

The student started to close the door again, but Jinki proclaimed loudly, “Professor Lee at your service!”

The student reopened the door, a little wider this time, so they could see his face more clearly beneath the inky black hair that fell artfully over his forehead.

“I don’t remember telling you I’d be here, though.” Jinki crinkled his forehead. “Actually, I don’t remember ever meeting you before in my life.”

Minho covered his face with his hands.

“He means Taemin, not you,” Key muttered to Jinki.

“It was supposed to be funny. You have no sense of humor,” Jinki stage-whispered to Key.

“Says the math professor who thinks that ‘geometry’ joke about the acorn is hilarious,” Key stage-whispered back.

“You just missed him,” Minho said, clearing his throat and looking apologetically at the bewildered student.

“Ah, okay. I’ll try to email him later then. Thanks.”

Minho nodded to him as he left again, the door shutting with a click.

February 7th, Thursday

“A student came by here looking for you yesterday,” Minho said to Taemin, who was bent over the same stack of papers from yesterday, rubbing sleepily at his eyes.

He seemed only half-awake when he looked up at Minho. “Hm?”

Key nodded at him. “Kind of tall, really good-looking?”

Jinki nudged him in the side, eyes widening.

Key blinked innocently at him. “What? He had nice lips.”

Minho reached for his Americano. “Don’t say things like that or people are going to think you’re the subject of that rumor…you know, the one that you started and now has everyone speculating wildly left and right.”

Key regarded him with annoyance. “First of all, I didn’t start that rumor. I told you, I heard it in a department meeting. And secondly—”

He didn’t get to finish the sentence because Taemin gave a sudden gasp. “Ah, I did tell him I’m usually here at this time. Figures he would come on a Wednesday, the one day that I have an earlier class…”

“Are you busy lately? You seem a little scattered,” said Jinki.

Taemin looked back down at his grading. “Yeah, a bit.”

“It wouldn’t have anything to do with that person you’re dating, would it?” Key offered suggestively. “Haven’t been doing much sleeping these nights, have we?”

Minho snickered into a hand and Taemin’s head snapped back up so fast it was slightly worrying. His red pen fell out of his grip and smacked the thick stack of paper underneath it. “Hyung!” His cheeks burned red like someone much younger. “If that were anywhere near the truth, I promise you’d know about it.”

Key nodded at the crown of Taemin’s head. “Your hair.”

Taemin gave a short laugh. “How many times have I told you that’s nothing?”

Jonghyun, who’d been focused on listening to his music students’ composition assignments, slid his headphones off to hear this conversation. “So you’re not dating anyone?” he asked.

“No,” Taemin said firmly, now underlining something in one of the essays and applying unnecessary force to the pen.

That seemed to put an end to the conversation as the others returned to their grading. Key still didn’t look convinced, but said no more on the subject.

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omg, thank you all for waiting >< i really wanted to give this fic more attention but i had a difficult semester at school and now i have a crazy month or so coming up so please bear with me haha