Nam Taehyun is having a bad day. His colleagues aren’t sitting according to their shirt colours: red, blue, green and black are haphazardly mixed among one another like a broken rainbow. His coffee is cold. Too bitter. Too sweet. And now, his project partner is running 1 minute and 36 seconds late.

37 seconds.
38 seconds.
39 seconds.
40 sec—

“I’m here!” an obnoxiously loud voice announces, noisy footsteps marching down the aisle to the front of the group. Mino grins, bowl hat slanted impishly.

“About time,” Taehyun snaps, angry eyes drilling holes into Mino’s cheeky ones. He notices that Mino’s left shoelace is blue while his right is yellow. Taehyun clenches his jaw and pinches the bridge of his nose. Deciding not to have anything to do with Mino any longer, Taehyun dismisses him with a wave of his hand, eyes firmly closing in preparation for an imminent headache. Mino just laughs it off, noisily plugs in his thumb drive into Taehyun’s laptop and starts the presentation (very very very obnoxious of him, Taehyun grumbles under his breath).




The presentation was well received and Taehyun has to grudgingly admit that Mino did a good job. The rest of his colleagues are slowly filing out of the room. Mino is humming a tune to himself as he packs up his belongings. “Hoi,” Taehyun calls, bony finger poking Mino in the back, “good job.” Almost instantaneously, Mino’s mouth forms a perfect ‘O’, hands flying to press against his chest, batting his eyelashes at Taehyun in fake flattery.

“Why thank you,” Mino says teasingly, eyelashes still fluttering at the speed of light. Taehyun growls and walks away in a huff. Mino’s laughter rumbles in the room once more. He jogs over to Taehyun and slings an arm around him.

“Don’t be angry, I’ll treat you to dinner tonight? To celebrate our successful project,” he offers, -eating grin plastered on his face. Taehyun eyes him coldly before shrugging his hand off, “It’s fine. Dinner with you will probably give me a headache.”

Mino frowns and Taehyun gestures to his shoes before closing his eyes once again and furiously massages his temples. Mino an eyebrow and looks down.

Blue shoelaces. Yellow shoelaces. Oh.

Taehyun hates Mino’s laughter. Pushing his index fingers into his ears, he storms away from the chuckling man hastily.
“If I change my laces can I take you out for dinner then?” Mino yells after him. Taehyun shoots him a withering glare and Mino laughs once more.






Taehyun and Mino first meeting wasn’t exactly pleasant. Taehyun had been in the company for a much longer time and when the newbie first arrived, he was tasked to be his buddy. People are always talking about love at first sight. With Mino, Taehyun truly experienced the opposite, annoyance at first sight.

Long fringe that just missed his eyes, glasses that always looked as if they were going to slide off his nose anytime, bag that was too angular to be an oval yet too rounded at the edges to be a rectangle. Song Mino was the embodiment of everything that drove Taehyun to the edge. Till this day, Taehyun still remembers how sweaty his palms had been and how constricted his throat felt. It felt as if the 4 walls of the office were closing in on him with every sight he took in of Song Mino. It didn’t help that Mino was a complete chatterbox. Chatter chatter chatter. Ooh, great coffee machine! Wow, he really loves the interior design of this office. Amazing red velvet sofa in the pantry.

Taehyun just wanted to escape.






The doorbell rings at 7:01pm. Taehyun jolts out from his seat, surprised. He’s not expecting anybody. A flashback of Mino’s threat to take him out to dinner creeps into his mind. Taehyun’s eyes narrows.


“I changed my laces,” Mino chirps cheerily, as if that were a sufficient enough explanation for showing up in the dead of winter. He grins in response to Taehyun’s loud sigh.

“I’m in pajamas,” Taehyun deadpans, gesturing to himself. Navy long sleeved shirt with a matching pair of navy slacks, complete with navy bathroom slippers. Mino looks at Taehyun’s outfit for a long moment, rubbing his chin, seemingly deep in thought.

“Good fashion sense you have there,” he says after a while, firmly nodding his head in approval. “Now, what do you recommend for tonight’s menu?” Taehyun rubs his entire palm onto his face. The agony.

“Look kid,” he growls, leaning against the door, index fingers furiously rubbing against his throbbing temples, “I’m not going out for dinner with you. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not ever.” Taehyun smirks to himself after the words leave his mouth. Finally, this pest will leave. However,as his eyes take in Mino’s expression, a strange bitter taste fills his mouth instead. Mino has his lips pursed into a tight pout, eyes downcasted.

“I even brought flowers though?” Mino offers, presenting the bouquet from behind his back. White carnations interspersed with yellow lilies, dotted by little freckles of crimson roses. Taehyun feels like something is ripping his brain into pieces from the inside.

“See you tomorrow, Mino,” he says, turning to close the door. The catastrophe of colours is making his stomach sick.

“No even to the flowers?”

Mino looks really disappointed right now, normal toothy grin completely lost. It’s an expression Taehyun has never even imagined Mino capable of feeling.

“Headache,” he says simply, looking away quickly before Mino’s hurt expression seared him. The door closed. The sight of the horribly messy flowers ebbed away from his view and his headache begins to disappear, but the strange excruciating pang of pain at his heart throbs even harder. The muffled sounds of a sigh and shuffling drifts into his ears. After waiting for a few minutes, Taehyun hesitantly peeks through the peephole.



The lone bouquet of flowers lay on top of shoe rack.








“Good morning, good morning,” Taehyun mumbles absent mindedly to his colleagues as he enters the office, wrinkling his nose at the occasional out of place strand of hair or mismatched shoes. He stops by Mino desk and clears his throat. Mino looks up from his computer, startled but he breaks into a grin when he sees Taehyun. Taehyun feels much lighter suddenly. The silence is getting uncomfortable for him so he awkwardly breaks the eye contact and rummages through his (perfectly rectangular) briefcase.

“Yours,” he says curtly, shoving a bundle into Mino’s hands before turning away sharply on his heel and stalking off without another word. Mino is puzzled as hell but he peels away the silver foil to reveal a pot of three rings of colours- white on the outermost, red next and a neat cluster of yellow lilies in the middle. The fragrance is sweet. Mino chuckles and places the pot next to his computer.






Mino sidles up to Taehyun during lunch. The cafeteria is too noisy and  too crowded and Mino is too close to Taehyun but somehow, Taehyun feels strangely at ease.

“Thank you for the flowers,” he whispers, grinning and Taehyun coughs.

“They were yours anyway.”

“But you re-arranged them and now they’re prettier.”

“I did it only because they were driving me crazy,” Taehyun retorts, firmly taking a huge bite of his spaghetti.

“Cool. Do I drive you crazy too?”

Taehyun chokes on his spaghetti. Mino laughs, promptly offering him his glass of water. He’s refused coldly and shot a pointed glare. Taehyun more or less ignores him for the rest of lunch but Mino offers him one slice of his watermelon and he doesn’t decline.










It’s no secret that Song Mino has a huge crush on Taehyun. Everyone knows: the guys from the next department, their supervisor, heck, even Taehyun himself knows.
Sadly, everyone also knows that Song Mino’s crush is heart-breakingly one sided. Nam Taehyun has no emotion whatsoever as far as the people who knows him are concerned. Taehyun summed up in a word was “organized”. He was organized from head to toe, from his never out of place middle parting, to his shoes that were polished till they gleamed. His work table was spotless: files arranged in the colours of the rainbow, pens neatly aligned according to their height, books stacked on top of one another from the largest at the bottom to the tiniest at the very top. Even his coffee mug was placed in the same way everyday such that the handle faced 45 degrees to the southeast direction.
Such an organized man had neither the time nor energy for something as messy as love. Or someone as terribly disorganized as Song Mino.










Taehyun stops by Mino’s desk again right after the boss dismisses them from work. Mino’s eyes light up.
“Why are you here? You can’t possibly be asking me out to dinner, can you?” He teases casually, slinging his bag over his shoulder.
Taehyun’s eyes flicker away. “Actually, yeah.” He locks eyes with Mino before offering a awkward half-smile. Mino’s heart feels like it’s going to burst but he plays it cool and laughs. Taehyun leans forward and pushes a book that was sticking out of the shelf back into place.




Taehyun hasn’t eaten outside for an insanely long time. Restaurants drove him crazy: the too loud music, the cutlery that was always not aligned straight enough, the waiters with their slanted bowties and the plates that were always not gleaming bright enough to be sufficiently clean. But, now, here he is. Sitting across what could possibly be the messiest man ever known to Humanity in a small, crowded, noisy restaurant with terrible lighting, terrible music and terrible food. It’s too messy, just way too messy for him to simply ignore. Mino is saying something and Taehyun is honestly trying his best to listen but he can’t heart anything over the throbbing of his temples. His grip on his fork tightens and he stabs his meatball as a waitress with only one ear-ring serves them their desert.
“Are you okay?” Mino asks over his plate of pasta, concerned.
Taehyun winces. “Headache.”
Taehyun is turning horribly ashen by the second, cold sweat dotting his forehead. Mino drops his fork and reaches out to press his palm against Taehyun’s cheek. Cold as a corpse.


They’re out in a jiffy, Mino hurriedly hoisting Taehyun’s arm over his shoulders and bringing him out to the open. The gentle breeze caressing against his cheeks soon bring back the much needed rosy tinge to his cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” Mino apologizes after the colour completely returns to Taehyun’s cheeks, “I shouldn’t have asked you out afterall.” Taehyun stops massaging his temples and looks up, right into Mino’s eyes. He smiles. It’s a beautiful sight.

“Don’t be,” he replies, languidly sitting down on a bench by the pavement and stretching his legs, “I enjoyed myself.”
The silence this time round is strangely comfortable. Mino picks at the loose threads at the sleeves of his shirt and Taehyun groans. Mino stops immediately and chuckles a sheepish apology, hurriedly rolling up his sleeves to hide the loose threads.

“Did you really enjoy yourself?” Mino teases, “you were so cold just now I thought you were going to pass out on me.”

“I’ll stop enjoying myself if you’re going to continue shaking your legs so vigorously,” Taehyun replies, pinching the bridge of his nose again. Mino stops immediately. Taehyun grins.






Chocolate ice-cream tastes even better now that Mino is eating it next to Taehyun. Its ridiculous but he’s taking extreme care that none of it drips onto his clothing because he knows, he just knows that it’ll drive Taehyun crazy. Taehyun chuckles at Mino’s actions. Mino takes it all in. “I’m fine with a bit of mess, really,” he reassures and Mino rolls his eyes, still holding his cone an arm’s length away from his body, bringing it closer only for a fleet second for a quick before banishing it far away once again.

“Says the guy who arranges even fricking straws to the colours of the rainbow.”

Taehyun laughs. Today’s the most Mino has ever heard Taehyun laugh and he can’t get enough of it. A drop of ice cream drips onto Taehyun’s white shirt. Mino lets out a gasp, quickly checking Taehyun’s expression. He’s calm, chuckling in fact.

“A little mess is ok,” he repeats in a smug “I-told-you” tone and Mino heaves a sigh of relief (nope, Mino was totally not worried at all).

Somehow, the chatter slowly ebbs away. The fullness of silence embraces them as they strolled down the pavement. The rustling of leaves from the trees that lined the pavement and the shuffling of their feet against the concrete tiles were the only communication they needed.


Mino sneaks a glance at Taehyun. Their hands are brushing against each other, touching but not quite touching. He thinks he finally understands how Taehyun feels around mess; this is driving him absolutely crazy.

“Hey,” he whispers. Taehyun stops walking.“You said a little mess is alright, right?”

Without waiting for Taehyun to respond, Mino closes his eyes and reaches out. Taehyun’s hands are warm and just the right size for Mino to lace their fingers together.

“Yeah,” Taehyun breathes after what seemed like eternity, “this mess is alright.”

Their hands fit together so perfectly, Mino can’t help but feel like they had always been meant to be together. They stand in silence, just facing each other in the middle of the dark pavement illuminated only by a single streetlamp and the warmth of each other’s hands. Mino doesn’t know where he plucked his courage from but his free hand reaches out to cup Taehyun’s cheeks. It’s soft and warm and Mino’s heart is hammering so wildly against his chest, he’s afraid it might explode. Taehyun freezes and Mino retracts his hand hurriedly.
Warmth replaces the icy cold wind against Mino’s own cheek. Taehyun smiles back at him.






“This is actually more organized,” Taehyun whispers, breaking the silence, thumb still rubbing small gentle circles into the back of Mino’s palm, “we might have to continue doing this forever.”