Minho awakes to a chilled room and even chillier silence, and Taemin's gone.

For a terrifying moment, Minho jumps to the inevitable, most horrific of outcomes: Taemin has left him for good in this downtrodden city, left him to fend for his own in favor of a brighter somewhere without him to hold him back. It's not a lack of trust that has him scurrying out of bed and booking it for the door, tripping over carelessly tossed books and spare wardrobe; no, it's the fact that at the end of the day – or the beginning, in this case – Minho wouldn't blame him in the slightest.

Part of it, he thinks, is that he's grown to expect this sort of morning to come, in which he'd blink his bleary eyes back to life and not have Taemin, taking up more than his fair share of the bed and completely unashamed of it, be the first thing he sees upon waking. It's a fear that's become far too deep-seated for his health. In fact, everything that stems from Taemin seems to have that effect on him, and Minho, still very much a newcomer to sentiments, isn't sure if that's a good thing or not.

He gets the vague idea that such a feeling should scare him; but Taemin doesn't scare him, never could, not even if he sprouted horns and barbed wings and other makings of monsters, and so Minho decides that, no, this feeling doesn't scare him. It simply…overwhelms him. Yes, that's more like it.

Then again, he's been so paranoid lately. Sometimes his nerves jump without warning, and Minho can feel his very ribs constricting as if being plucked and tightened with pliers. There are times when he feels like a piece of machinery malfunctioning, only for him to remember in stark realism that he's far more human than he gives himself credit for. Taemin, for all his fire and ashes, makes sure to remind him of that in the quietest of ways – a dark, searching glance cast over the top of a book held between prim, white hands, or a ghost of a touch at the back of Minho's shoulder as he passes by. Sometimes he speaks in rhyme on his particularly secretive days, and Minho is left to sift through his crisp syllables and iambic pentameter while acutely aware of just how fast his heartbeat thrums in his ears the whole time.

Minho ambles down the hall, flings open the exit, and is met with all the majesty and glory of early morning. Everything is ten shades too bright like an overexposed photograph, and his eyes water at the abrupt shift from darkness to blinding light. Panting, he looks around, leaning on the doorframe to steady his legs that are still wobbly from just having woken.

And then there's Taemin, shrouded in a white sheet and washed in a flood of golden light, as beautiful as he is unreachable. His hair sticks to his face and neck in dark, sweat-damp strands, and his gaze is fixed on something that Minho can't see. He'll call it infinity – he likes the sound of that. It sounds grand and bright, silver and gold just like how the sun paints Taemin's eyes. It's the sort of word that would have never crossed his mind; if anything, it would have been pressed and flattened beneath the weight of its own flightiness, chained to the earth and unable to fly. It's a wild and irrational word. It's Taemin.

Because Taemin has always been a wild and irrational thing, hasn't he? From the cut of his jaw to the soft, unwashed sweep of his hair as it plasters itself to his skin; from his hardened elegance to his feral charm – all of this, Minho knows, is both intentional and accidental. Every line of his body is carefully crafted to inspire and woo a ravenous audience, both on and offstage, just as every elegant sweep of his hand as he speaks of unrequited love and vengeful phantoms is meant to convey a message, to pierce the conscience and linger like cobwebs in an attic.

But it's his accidental beauty that Minho can't let go of. It's difficult to even put to words, he thinks, but it's tangible enough to catch him by the wrist and hold him in place. It's in the way Taemin's eyes soften when he reads his favorite sections from Julius Caesar or As You Like It, only to flash in impatience when Minho spills soup on the couch and has to clean it up himself because "you'll just make it worse". It's in the way he drapes his hair over his shoulder after getting out of the shower, water droplets dangling from his jaw before dripping onto Minho's forearm as he leans over and hands him a cup of tea. It's in the way he sleeps, breathes, and feels.

There's that "infinity" word again.

Taemin turns his head to look at him. The sunlight, god, it could just about swallow him whole. There's a feverish glow about his cheeks and fogging over his eyes, coloring them an foggy, liquid honey, and for a moment, Minho is about to ask him if he's come down with something, if he's feeling unwell, if there's anything he can do for him, until –

"I feel wild today, Minho."

Taemin's voice is hoarse but soft, weak but pure. It makes Minho's stomach ache with a feeling he doesn't quite know what to label, and so label he doesn't. He simply feels it swelling and swaying deep inside of him as he watches Taemin turn back to the scenery before them. Minho doesn't think he could look away for a moment, not even if the world was on fire and fit to implode.

"I feel like…" Taemin's eyes lid dreamily as a soundless little laugh puffs past his lips. He wraps the sheet tighter around his shoulders. Is he cold? Minho doesn't ever want him to be cold. "Like I could just spit fire at the world and watch everything burn. Like I was born of earth and marble and stone, built for beautiful destruction."

There's a clenching in Minho's chest that speaks of the moment just before one starts to cry. But there's nothing to cry about, is there? There's only Taemin, the sun, and the earth. In this moment, there's nothing else.

And Minho, with all the raw, untapped grace of something exiled and reborn, says, "I love you."

Taemin closes his eyes. His mouth parts softly, every muscle of his face relaxing for one beautiful moment, before he loosens his grip on the sheet around his shoulders and leans back against the brick wall with a quiet laugh. His eyelashes are long and dark. Minho wants to kiss them, wants to them with the very tips of his fingers and memorize each and every one.

"You say that like you mean it," Taemin murmurs. Eyes still closed, he tips his head back and lets it loll to the side; at this angle, Minho can make out the high arch of his cheekbone pressing up beneath his skin, elegant, refined, and clean. Why the sight of it makes Minho's throat tighten as if he might cry, he doesn't know.

There are a number of things that he wants to say, stupid, mindlessly honest things like, I do mean it, I always mean it; or, It makes sense in my heart, even if it doesn't make sense in my head; or, Sometimes, Taemin, I wake up in the middle of the night and you're really close, a lot closer than you were when I fell asleep, and your hair is loose and unbound and I want to run my fingers through it because it looks so soft – you look so soft, and you'd probably scoff and roll your eyes if I ever told you that, but really…you're not as callous as you want me to think you are. You're beautiful. You're beautiful and wild, and if I could bind myself to you just like we're bound to our own scars, I would. I would.

But Minho, too absorbed in Taemin's silence, says none of these things. All he does – all he can do, at this point – is watch the sharp Adam's apple of Taemin's throat bob in a swallow as he huffs out a hoarse laugh and opens his eyes just enough to look at Minho, sleepy and seraphic and absolutely crippling. "That's just like you, you know," he murmurs, his gaze dropping to the ground as a soft smile plays about the corner of his mouth. "You always have to make things…so difficult."

Minho furrows his brow, concerned. "Difficult?"

Taemin says nothing in response. After a moment of quiet contemplation, he lifts his hand to wind a lock of Minho's hair around his finger, then to shakily along his temple before cupping his cheek. His palm feels clammy; he's unwell.

"Come on," Minho says, gently taking hold of Taemin's wrist to guide his hand away, regardless of how his nerves mourn the loss of the other's feverish touch. "Let's…let's get you back inside, Taemin, okay? You can lie down for a while, and I can make you some tea, and we can just…"

His voice trails off when Taemin breathes out a half-gone laugh and sways weakly on his feet. Minho catches him just in time as he slumps against his chest, pliant and soft like warmed wax, and Minho wastes no time guiding him inside, murmuring soft promises of warm soup and soft pillows as he shuffles them down the hall and back to their corner of the world.

Taemin's so warm he might as well have carried the sun in with him.

Planning to leave it till tomorrow but muse might've died by then, oh well!