There’s this saying.

That you don’t fall in love when you say your I do’s at a wedding, but on those quiet mornings when that someone hands you a cup of tea with the newspaper and you realise that you love them more than can be expressed in words.

For Taemin, it happens as he’s sitting at the kitchen table watching Kibum make chicken stew for dinner.

He’s wearing that striped t-shirt that he really likes. It’s got odd proportions – a boat neck and three-quarter way sleeves – but it looks good Kibum, like most things do. He’s using this huge knife to chop garlic and it should look ridiculous, but he just looks graceful. He’s not smiling or frowning or betraying much of an expression at all, just focused. In this moment, he’s just Kim Kibum, a man who is cooking dinner.

And Taemin looks at him – this face, this person that he’s seen day in and day out for ten years – and all he can think is that Kibum is just so beautiful I love you.

There’s a tickle in his throat. Taemin wants a glass of water but he’s captivated by fair skin delicate and competent hands strong.

Kibum looks up and the spell breaks. “Can you open the wine?”

“It’s in the fridge, right?” Taemin slides off the stool and heads for the drawer with the corkscrew, feeling an unfamiliar touch of pride that he knows Kibum’s flat home well enough that he knows where all the utensils are.

“Yeah. Are you coming down with a cold or something, you sound bit weird.”

“I’m just thirsty.” Taemin uncorks the wine and pours it into two glasses. He’s not as big a fan of wine as Kibum and he prefers whites to reds. This Moscato is a bit too sweet for his taste, but he’s not going to complain, seeing how he’s contributed nothing other than his presence for this dinner.

~

“How is it?”

“Oh… um, it’s good? I like it.”

“Yah…” There’s a difference between SHINee’s Key saying ‘yah’ and Kim Kibum saying ‘yah’. Taemin hasn’t yet decided which one is his favourite. When he’s Key, it’s pitched higher and more playful. When he’s Kibum, it’s low and deep and genuinely exasperated. “What is the matter with you today?”

Taemin shrugs. How can he explain that he finds Kibum so distractingly beautiful like this? “There’s nothing you make that isn’t good. I like everything.”

“I should have asked Jjong.” Kibum sounds annoyed, but he’s blushing slightly so Taemin knows he doesn’t mean it.

The pink of his cheeks makes Taemin breathe wrong and there’s that tickle in the back of his throat again. Taemin swallows a mouthful of wine and helps himself to more stew and silently wonders whether this sudden surge of feelings is something he should talk about with Jongin.

~

It’s that same tickle at the back of his throat that wakes Taemin up at an ungodly hour of the morning when it’s still dark outside. He s blindly for the bottle of water on his nightstand and takes a drink.

It does nothing to soothe him.

He can barely keep his eyes open, so Taemin rolls himself in his blanket and goes back to sleep; ignoring the tickle in favour of sleep ignoring the alarm bells going off at the back of his mind.

XXXXX

I don't know how frequently I'll be able to update this (or any one of my ongoing stories). I'm just writing whatever words want to be written, if you get what I mean, and letting things be the way they are.