Taemin doesn’t know how long he has spent just standing there in their fabric room. Everything was arranged neatly according to fabric and then by color. It was a splash of rainbows blanketing the entire room but Taemin just couldn’t find a single color that suits his mood right now.

“Cotton, Polyester, Polyamide, Leather, Silk, Wool,” he mutters to himself, walking down the aisles with careful watching eyes. The drone of ‘which one should be the medium to my next project?’ in his head could nearly be heard in the meter radius around him. He must have walked down these aisles a million times by now, remembered all of them in order by heart and yet nothing comes to mind.

It used to come to him so easily. He would picture the end product in his mind and how the cuttings should work, where it should hug into the model’s figure, and when it should flow instead. He used to picture them all without even thinking about the specific colors or materials because he just knew it would work out – and they always did.

And now, here he is walking up and down empty aisles because everyone else already knows what they are going to do, already collected the materials they needed and have started on their sketches. Shaking his head at himself, he sighs and leaves the room. It possibly held nearly all the colors possible but for some reason, it just seemed to dull to him right now.

“Hey, Taemin!” Taemin looked up to see his boss waving casually at him. That was one of the things Taemin liked about working around here; Kibum hardly treats them as lesser, working along with all the employees as one of them more than as their boss. “So, I was thinking – you know – next season’s color would probably mellower after all the bright colors from this season, and I’m going with something like cherry blossom pink to match with lilac hair. I might revisit the whole idea about the mink jackets – it would totally match the whole lilac idea, don’t you think?”

Taemin just hums along, envious that Kibum had everything figured out right down to the model’s hair color while he is still drawing a blank. Kibum seemed to notice the younger’s distraction. Concerned, he leaned forth to look at the shorter in the eye. “You okay?”

“Lilac sounds great, hyung!” Taemin jumped in surprise and blurted out the words in a half-shout. Kibum raised an eyebrow at the younger skeptically.

“Is everything alright?” Kibum asked worriedly. Taemin sighed for the nth time since this project started.

“I don’t have an ounce of inspiration for this project,” Taemin confessed. “I don’t know what colors I want to work with, what material I should use, whether it should be tight fitting or loose, I don’t have anything in mind and it’s driving me up the walls.” Kibum looked surprised for a moment before abruptly bursting out in laughter. Taemin stared wide-eyed at Kibum, both offended and afraid for his boss’ sanity.

“Oh, kid,” Kibum wipes a fake tear away dramatically. “This is the first time you’ve hit a slump, isn’t it?” Taemin gaped at the elder in stunned silence, the thought having never entered his mind before. Before Taemin could get a word out, Kibum wrapped an arm around his shoulder and guided him to their work stations.

“Don’t stress about so much, it makes it even harder for you to find your inspiration. What I do is go out and observe people,” Kibum gestured towards their other colleagues bustling around, collecting zippers, working the sewing machines, sorting out buttons… “Observe them working, watch some project runway, go out on the streets and just watch. It’ll come to you sooner than you think.”

And so Taemin does as he is told. To be completely honest though, he’d do pretty much anything just to get back in momentum to fire up his project right now. But it has been 5 tireless days and there was still nothing. He lost count of the number of cafes he has been to, the number of museums he has visited, or the number of stores he has browsed through. Impatient and out of ideas, he decided to find inspiration the old-fashioned manner – in the library.

Stacking up old tattered books on colors and clothing cuttings, Taemin found himself at a brightly lit table, thumbing through pages of colors. He lingers longer on the page of purples – lilac, he remembers Kibum mentioning earlier that week. Taemin guides his fingers down to point out the soft color but quickly frowned. That wasn’t the color for him. Sure, Kibum would know what he is doing, and he’ll probably do a damned good job with his lilac dyed hair and whatever mink jacket he wanted; but Taemin was just not feeling it as something he would design right at that moment.

“Excuse me,” a strained hushed voice whispered as a shadow fell upon the table. “Do you mind if I join you?” Taemin glanced up to see a man with longish dark hazel colored hair flopping over his small eyes. Even with all that mess of hair blocking his face, Taemin could see slightly chubby cheeks and plump red lips. The stranger was hugging a stack of library books against his chest, looking like they were going to fall anytime soon. Without a word, Taemin shakes his head and gestured for the stranger to take the seat opposite him. Taemin lowered his head, watching with his peripheral vision as the stranger settled his books down on the table with a light huff. Taemin notes that the man seemed fit under that white shirt he was wearing. He was not stick-bone thin like Taemin have many experiences with the models at his workplace, not those that excessively works out in the gym till they are rock hard either. It was more like a natural perfect midpoint of the spectrum. The man slides the books to the side as he started to settle down into his seat, but Taemin couldn’t help but snort before catching himself and covering his lips. The stranger jerked his head up in surprise, half bent over the table with curious eyes staring at Taemin.

“I’m sorry,” Taemin hid a giggle, covering his eyes shyly as he shook his head. “I just- I really like your shirt.” Taemin peeked at the shirt again. “MY KIDS THINK I HAVE MONEY COMING OUT MY” followed by a picture of an with a dollar note protruding out the -crack on the shirt. It wasn’t even a very impressive shirt – Taemin has seen way too many stunning pieces during his work – but this one really took him by surprise. The stranger looked down at his own shirt, perplexed, before looking back at Taemin and sharing the lighthearted moment with a playful wide grin.

“It’s one of my favorites,” the stranger answers, finally sitting down. Taemin thinks he’s never seen a nicer smile than the one the stranger displayed. Straight white teeth, cute bunny front ones