Reservoir Dogs, dir. Quentin Tarantino

Oh, God...Why am I being punished?

Taehyun cursed under his breath as Mino lazily stood with his arms around him and his head on his shoulder, occasionally humming a tune. Before his weight could bring the two of them down, Taehyun hastily reached for the back pockets of Mino's pants, causing the latter to instinctively shudder and drop his phone on the floor.

"Whoa, whoa, Taehyun," he snorted in plain amusement, "what do you think you're doing? I didn't know you liked me that wa-"

Taehyun remained silent as he pressed his hand firmly against Mino's mouth and took the latter's wallet from his pocket, carelessly placing it on the bathroom counter while dragging Mino forward, then reached for the shower handle and turned it on.

Mino frantically flinched as he felt the cold shot whilst Taehyun took a step back before the water could hit him. "Oh, my," Mino's malicious laugh echoed around the bathroom as he took off his specks and rubbed his eyes, "are you going to give me a bath? At least let me take my clothes off first."

Mino's laughter suddenly ceased as Taehyun took hold of the handheld shower and aimed the water directly in his face, as if he was taming a feral cat. "I'm not giving you a bath, I'm teaching you a lesson. Now shut up, unless you want Seungyoon to wake up and kick you out, and I sure as hell won't stop him."

"Bull." Mino scoffed and leaned against the shower wall, letting the water drench his clothes completely. "You guys can't live without me." When Taehyun noticed how it looked like Mino was about to pass out on the spot, he helped him to clumsily slide to the floor and sit down.

"Of course we can, we'll give your lines to Seunghoon." Taehyun said nonchalantly.

"Oh, well," Mino shrugged his shoulders, seemingly unconcerned, "the leadership was already taken away from me, why not take my lines, too, right? I could always find another group to debut with, it's not like I haven't done this before." His voice was tainted with sarcasm.

Taehyun knew that it was mostly the alcohol speaking.

He couldn't bring himself to take Mino's words to heart when the latter had been trying to make a phone call with the calculator app of his phone just a moment ago.

And yet, even though Mino never showed any signs of holding a grudge against Seungyoon, Taehyun wondered if it was possible for him to be fully neutral when it came to the leadership and some other issues, or if he had ever kept any ill feelings to himself for the sake of a greater good.

Some things were better left unknown.

"Would you care to enlighten me the reason of all of this?" Taehyun huffed and took a seat on the floor in front of Mino, who was still under the running shower.

"She got me up all night," Mino hummed as his voice was slightly muffled by the glass walls of the shower enclosure, "all I'm singing is love songs."

Taehyun rolled his eyes. "You're well aware that Dispatch has been following our asses around, right?"

"If those s from Dispatch attended sleazy, cheap bars instead of wandering around the typical extravagant locations of Gangnam, we'd be getting drunken scandals every week..."

"Still," Taehyun rolled up his wet sleeves and proceeded to help Mino adjust the water's temperature, "you've never been this irresponsible before."

"Ah, Taehyun..." Mino laughed sardonically, "If you only knew the amount of irresponsible stuff I did in this month alone..."

"I'm all ears." Taehyun distractedly said while reaching for Mino's forgotten phone on the floor without him noticing it.

"But I'm still on you, I'm still on you..." Instead of a concrete answer, Mino only resumed to his singing, as if purposely avoiding the subject. "My drink spill on me, while I feel on you..."

Taehyun took notice of the number Mino had typed on the still open calculator app when he had attempted to make a phone call with it, and searched for it on the contact list without expecting anything, but ended up coming across a very peculiar saved name.

'Red Velvet Cake'.

"Uh, say, Mino..." Taehyun pretended to sound as casual as possible, even thought he doubted that Mino could be able to spot anything suspicious on his current state, "are you affiliated with, I don't know, a cake shop or a bakery, by any chance?"

Mino started to laugh once again, but in a genuine way, as if he had just heard something extremely amusing. "Why do you ask?" He questioned while awkwardly reaching for the shower handle and turning it off after a few failed attempts.

"No reason."

"You know what, this just reminded me of a very funny story..." Taehyun inwardly grinned.

"Is that so?" He pretended to be oblivious whilst Mino dramatically nodded his head.

"Would you like to hear it?"

"Well, I mean, if you feel like sharing-" Taehyun tried to shadow the curious desperation on his tone by acting indifferent, until Mino's loud snort interrupted him.

"That's too bad, I can't tell you." He started to childishly snicker as Taehyun tried to restrain the urge of throwing Mino's phone and aim directly towards his head. "Wait, wait, I'm just kidding. You would never believe me, though..."

"Coming from you, it's worth making an effort."

"Ok," Mino said reluctantly before placing one finger in front of his lips, "but don't tell about it to anyone, alright? Alright, alright, alright." He said on a sing song voice, doing an American Southern accent impression, before breaking in a fit of uncontrollable laughter. Again.

Taehyun groaned as he evaluated whether it was really worth it to try and get something out of Mino when it seemed like he couldn't stop finding hilarity in everything. He went from moody to stupid in a blink.

"The thing is..." Mino ran a hand through his damp hair, as if pausing for dramatic purposes and not because the migraine was making his eyes feel heavy and his thoughts fuzzy, not to mention that taking a cold shower fully-clothed was far from being pleasant, "...I kissed a girl." His tone was of a child who had just confessed doing something mischievous to his parents.

"No way." Taehyun exaggeratedly gasped in mocking disbelief. "You're right, this is far too unbelievable."

"Yes way, why do you sound so shocked?" Mino questioned with a evident offended expression on his face. Taehyun unwittingly slapped his forehead in annoyance at the discovery that a tipsy Mino could not understand sarcasm, at all. "Anyways," Mino continued, "this girl is just..."

"Wait, no, let me guess...she's different." Taehyun sneered as he regretted ever waking up late at night to witness a drunk Mino babbling about his trivial love problems.

"I was going to say she's a real nightmare, but I guess that works, too."

"Oh?" Taehyun lifted his eyebrows curiously at the unexpected choice of words. "And why is that?"

"Well, you know..." Mino grumbled miserably as he fumbled with his soaked shirt while trying to take it off his body, "I'm awfully sure it's a mutual attraction, or else she wouldn't kiss me back the way she does..." Taehyun impatiently rolled his eyes as Mino chuckled wickedly, "and yet, she keeps playing this push-pull game with me, and as much as it was entertaining in the beginning, it's just plain frustrating now..."

"Wow, look at you..." Taehyun said in slight awe. "She might as well put you on a leash and claim you as her needy puppy."

"Do you think she would be into this kind of stuff?" Mino mumbled as his lips curled into a sly grin.

Taehyun only got up and threw a towel towards Mino, who reacted far too delayed, causing it to hit him in the face.

Taking the opportunity of Mino's distraction, Taehyun hovered his thumb over the screen of his phone, mentally debating whether he should read the messages belonging to 'Red Velvet Cake', which sure as hell wasn't the contact of a bakery, at least that much he knew.

Either Mino had a tendency of naming his affairs with uncomfortably corny nicknames - which wasn't all that surprising to Taehyun, for some reason -, or he had been hanging out with a particular performance partner who belonged to, coincidently or not, a group named 'Red Velvet'.

Taehyun remembered her fairly well. Soft features, cunning-looking eyes, and a quiet - almost shy - voice. It seemed unlikely that Mino, or any guy for that matter, wouldn't fall for her in a blink and turn into a whiny dog clinging at her feet. She was that pretty.

Or maybe, and Taehyun made sure to drag the word 'maybe', Mino had been seeing one of the three other members from Red Velvet. Perhaps the youngest one who he had mentioned bumping into in Hong Kong?

Or perhaps Taehyun had been right from the start and Mino was dating a baker.

"I can't believe this ..."

"Would you believe me if I said I'm in love?" Mino's overly exaggerated singing voice interrupted Taehyun's thoughts, "Baby, I want you to want me!"

"You're not in love, Song Minho." Taehyun scoffed as he placed Mino's phone away, deciding against intruding in anything he wasn't soberly allowed to by the phone's owner. "You're a bit dazzled, that's undeniable, but love? How long have you known this girl? Two days or something? Do you even know her surname?"

"What is this, an interrogation? Do I look like a cop to you, Mr. Blonde?"

The constant mention of 'Reservoir Dogs' references started all because of Seunghoon and his closet love for cult movies.

Whenever it was up to him to decide what the five would be doing on a free night, he would always come up with the most absurd, old films that not even their grandparents probably heard about it, followed right after a chant of groans and cries.

'Look, I know 'Taxi Driver' is supposed to be a classic, but I'm bored out of my mind. Can Robert De Niro just shoot me in the face already?'

'No one is going to think you're smarter because you enjoy watching these kind of stuff, Hoon.'

After uncountable failed attempts of finding a cultural movie that everyone could appreciate, the 'Reservoir Dogs' night happened.

Despite the initial sarcastic responses of 'Oh, great. Another one of those pretentious old movies', by the end of it, they were all discussing 80's songs and deciding on one another's nicknames, - 'I think Taehyun should be Mr. Blonde because they're both low-key creepy' -.

Even Yang Hyun-Suk got himself a nickname as the mob boss called Joe Cabot. Not that he knew about it.

The whole thing became their very own inside joke.

"Listen...even if I didn't know her surname, it's not like I couldn't literally just google it."

Here we go.

"...What was that?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, did I stutter?" Mino growled sarcastically as the throbbing pain on his head started to worsen. "I said I can literally just goggle it."

Taehyun grinned.

There it is.

"Wait here. I'll get you some dry clothes before you catch a cold."

Taehyun left the bathroom, but not before grabbing Mino's phone while the latter wasn't looking, saving 'Red Velvet Cake's number to his own phone.

.

"I must confess I was expecting someone else to show up, but now that I take a good look at you..." Taehyun shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly, "I guess it does make sense, for some reason."

Seulgi furrowed her eyebrows, not knowing whether that had been an indirect compliment of sorts.

"You were expecting Irene to show up." It had meant to be a mental note, but it came out as a statement.

He clicked his fingers at her. "Irene, right, that's the one."

"I really don't know what you want from me..." Seulgi snorted weakly, trying to put on a bold façade, even though she couldn't even meet his gaze. "If you're not here to give me a lecture about how wrong this whole thing is, then why am I here?"

"Mino can be a very impulsive..." He mused, "...spontaneous person. He doesn't always think about the consequences of his acti