this took,,,so much time n effort,,,im never writing fluff ever again let’s just stick to anyway, i hope everyone is doing well n feeling better n if you aren’t, i hope reading this brings a smile to your face ♡

-

Winter mornings were a paradox, Minho decided. They were cold, the biting wintry chill knocking against their tight shut windows, as if ironically begging to find warm solace from the frigidness outside. Winter mornings were bitterly frosty, white, grey, dull—and winter mornings were warm, mellow, pink, blissful.

They lay in bed, no desire to step out of the comfort of their duvet in order to carry on the rest of the day. Minho thinks he could stay here forever, if asked—if Taemin wanted. He quietly watches their windows shudder, the wind howling outside as if to remind them of how utterly cold it was. But for now, Minho couldn’t find it in himself to sympathise with anyone treading outside at this hour, teeth chattering and bodies trembling because of the frost—as he was the warmest he could be.

“What’s on your mind?” he hears a hushed whisper, the soft vibrations of the words rumbling against his ear pressed flush to Taemin’s chest. It doesn’t take a lot to bring joy to Minho’s face, and Taemin has it a billion times easier. Minho smiles, tracing gentle circles on Taemin’s exposed hip.

“You.”

When Taemin laughs, it makes his entire body tremble. Minho finds himself grinning like a fool, and maybe he was. He didn’t really know.

“Silly,” Taemin teases playfully. He gently cards his fingers through Minho’s black locks, humming softly. Minho loves it the best when Taemin hums or sings. And Taemin loves it the best when Minho loves. His voice is like honey being poured into a warm cup of tea first thing in a frosty morning, stirred gently yet with anticipation. It’s sweet, warm, angelic, Taemin.

There aren’t many days where they just laze around in bed, especially not so mushily, because Taemin is a cheeky brat with biting remarks and Minho loves to humour him. But Minho thinks he prefers it being this way, because the rarity of such sappy days gives it a pleasant glow by itself.

“Your legs are cold,” Taemin says, wrapping his own around Minho’s waist, pulling said boy closer to his chest. “Must being so lanky and long.”

Minho laughs, wiggling his toes. “I think it’s because you love hogging the blankets.”

“Do not,” Minho exaggeratedly winces when he feels a light tug on his hair. “I do not move in my sleep.”

“Whatever you say, babe.”

“I do not.” Taemin cups Minho’s cheeks, mushing them with his palms. “Lying first thing in the morning?”

Minho puckers his lips. “I should be the one asking that.”

Despite continuing to chide incessantly, Taemin leans in and presses a light kiss against Minho’s pout. He scoots lower so that he is tucked safely under Minho’s chin.

Their legs are a tangled mess, cottony pants rubbing against their skin every time either of them moves. Minho feels Taemin’s soft breaths against his chest and it makes his heart glow. It’s familiar and warm like the feeling of coming home after months of being away, or after a hard, tiring day of labour, right into the arms of whatever one’s definition of home might be—which for Minho, he thinks, has become a single synonym for Taemin by each passing day, hour, minute, second.

Minho traces his chilled toes up Taemin’s calf, grinning into the soft tufts of hair when the other squirms and pushes against his chest.

“Your toes are cold,” Taemin whines, childishly pinching Minho’s , who in turn doesn’t bother stopping. “Stop! It’s ticklish!”

Minho finally bursts out laughing, hearty and full of life. Taemin complains half-heartedly through his own boyish giggles, kicking his feet and gasping when big, cold hands crawl up his torso, under his billowy shirt. He squirms, chest heaving with the laughs he gasps out. Minho hovers above him, eyes glowing with mirth and a silly, lovestruck grin on his face. He pulls Taemin towards him and hooks his flailing legs around his waist, inching closer to press gentle kisses onto Taemin’s forehead, trailing down to his cheek.

“You’re mean,” Taemin says while wrapping his arms around Minho’s neck and pulling him into a lazy, languid kiss. It’s tender, warm, homely and everything that makes these winter mornings what they are. Minho treasures these kisses, as Taemin hates morning breath and refuses to do anything till they’re both fresh. It causes a gentle rush of emotions when he makes these little exceptions and Minho’s heart is soaring.

By the time they decide to crawl out of bed and make some breakfast, it’s well past nine in the morning. Taemin moans about how it’s far too cold anywhere outside the duvet and ‘you don’t like my peculiar recipes anyway’.

Which is why—after half-heartedly trying to drag Taemin out of bed (and pathetically failing)—Minho finds himself preparing breakfast for the both of them. They weren’t really great cooks and neither of them could set the bar any higher when it came to cooking but over the years, they learnt to just go with it.

It’s when he’s done brewing the coffee that Taemin pads in, yawning and dressed in an oversized, creased shirt that used to be a property of Minho around twelve hours ago. Minho throws a grin over his shoulder as he watches his sleep rumpled boyfriend drag himself over to where he is.

“I thought you were going to sleep till ‘my charming beau served me my breakfast in bed’?”

Taemin waves him off, gripping the edge of the counter to heave himself up and settle down. “My source of warmth decided to walk away and function like a healthy human being by preparing himself the most important meal of the day.”

Minho chuckles as he leans over and presses a chaste kiss against Taemin’s cheek when said boy makes grabby hands at him. “I made us coffee, it’s still warm.”

Taemin thanks him and they settle into a comfortable silence. Taemin hums to himself, absentmindedly kicking his feet back and forth as he brings his mug close to his lips. He quietly watches Minho, who couldn’t wipe off his silly grin.

“You look like a lovestruck idiot,” Taemin says after burning his tongue and alarming the other who fusses over it, a worried look on his face. Taemin thinks it’s unnecessary, yet cute.

Minho lets go of the other’s chin once he makes sure there aren’t any serious burns—though Taemin rolled his eyes and chided him for fretting over nothing.

“I wonder why.”

The drawer drags open and closes, from where Taemin pulls out the bottle of salt for Minho and a stack of pastel post-it notes and a pen for himself after seeing them stuffed to the side, most likely by Minho who usually made their grocery lists.

Minho switches on the radio they equipped once in a blue moon, letting the soft strums of a guitar blend in with Taemin’s humming. He’s plating their omelettes when he feels Taemin stick something against his arm.

“What’s this?” he asks while pulling a post-it note off him. Taemin’s handwriting is a mess of undecipherable scribbles but Minho has learnt, over the years of knowing the boy, to decode his nonchalant handwriting. He frowns when he does. “Does the burn really hurt?”

Taemin nods. He sticks out his reddened tongue, letting his boyfriend inspect it.

“I think I gulped too much,” Taemin says when Minho pulls away and treads towards their freezer, walking back to where he is seated on the counter with a cup of yoghurt.

“I warned you of it being hot,” Minho says as he spoons a dollop of yoghurt, ushering Taemin to open his mouth who cringes before doing as asked. Cold, sweet yoghurt after hot, bitter coffee didn’t taste good, even for Taemin’s odd taste buds.

Taemin fills up more post-it notes while Minho fries their bacon and toasts some bread—a purple one with ‘ur a big mama hen’, a pink one with ‘did u kno bacon was used to make bombs’, a yellow one with ‘thank u for the coffee honey, even if it almost killed me’ (which makes Minho chuckle) and Taemin decides he wants to hear his boyfriend laugh more, and he’s happy to achieve that when Minho reads the baby blue post-it note with a ‘damn boi u husband material’ followed by a bunch of hearts scribbled everywhere.

“Am I?” Minho raises a brow, a playful glint in his eyes as he goes to stand between Taemin’s legs. Taemin shrugs, digging his heels to the small of Minho’s back, pulling him forward to slot their lips together. They both taste like coffee and sleep—though Taemin has hints of yoghurt.

They settle down for breakfast after Taemin pushes a confused and startled Minho away for brushing his tongue too hard against his burnt one. Their old, battered radio plays a cheesy piano tune while Taemin scribbles on another post-it note, tearing it off from the stack and pasting it on Minho’s hand which was intertwined with his on top of the table. Minho doesn’t bother unlacing their fingers, tilting his wrist so he could read the words that said ‘ur the best mediocre cook’

Minho sighs dramatically, bringing their intertwined hands up to his mouth to place a kiss on the note with his oil slicked lips. “Thanks angel, anything for you.”

“So you wouldn’t mind ploughing the snow outside, then.” Taemin says, crumpling a post-it note they both had taken turns in scribbling mindlessly with hearts.

Minho raises his brows, surprised. “Are the neighbours already complaining?”

They weren’t exactly the best neighbours to have as they never really rake their leaves during autumn or pull off their weeds during summer or plough the snow piled up in their driveway during winter till their neighbours complained about how disturbing and untidy it was. But at least neither of them blasted music on the weekends—Taemin because hates partying or socializing with a lot of people in general and Minho because he just loves Taemin—so they considered themselves tolerable.

“Yeah and I think it’s going to snow more later tonight,” Taemin unlaces their fingers, placing his utensils aside. “So as a sweet, obedient boyfriend, you can start with that.”

“Yeah, no, that’s not happening,” Minho says, though Taemin shrugs as he pushes back his chair and stands up. “Rock paper scissors?”

Taemin throws his head back, groaning. “You always win that dumb game.” They both think for a while before Taemin grins. “Let’s decide by playing something else.”

“Which is?”

“The last one to reach the living room loses!”

That’s all the warning Minho gets before Taemin is scurrying away from the kitchen, his boisterous, hiccupy laugh filling the entire house.

-

When Minho’s done washing the dishes and cleaning up the kitchen (Saturdays were Minho’s days of cleaning up after breakfast, lunch and dinner, though they almost always had their dinner in the bedroom while watching a movie), he is greeted by a giggly Taemin spread out on their living room couch with tiny hiccups of laugher still parting his lips that were stretched into a wide smile.

Minho wants to be mad at him, he really does, but seeing his boyfriend’s face pinkened with joy and mirth made it impossible. “You cheated,” he chides, uncaringly sitting down and putting all his weight on Taemin’s legs. Said boy groans, kicking him half-heartedly before sitting up as well.

“Sore loser?”

“How am I the sore loser?” Minho suggests, baffled and wide eyed.

Taemin shrugs, “Well, for once, you did say your back is still sore from last night—”

“Also your fault,”

“—and you did lose the game so technically, the term just fits you.”

As if having explained his point, Taemin tries to scoot over to the other side of the couch to pick up the remote that was tossed under the side table—keyword being tries, as, before he could stir from his place, Minho grabs him by his waist, whisking him off of the warmth of the couch and into his arms like he weighed nothing at all.

Taemin lets out an ear grating scream when he realizes what was happened, which is after Minho has treaded halfway across their living room. He flails in Minho’s hold, said man laughing triumphantly as he unlocks their front door with much difficulty, swinging it open and letting a strong gust of bitterly cold wind whip against their barely dressed bodies.

“Oh my god!” Taemin shrieks, small fists hitting Minho’s chest. “Take me back inside it’s freezing!”

Minho, too, seems to have realized what a messed up idea it was to walk straight into the wintry morning frigidness in nothing but thin cotton, however he refuses to let that deter him, unfortunately for Taemin who struggles, kicking his legs back and forth.

“That’s really romantic of you, love—” Minho says amusedly in the middle of dodging Taemin’s flailing arms, pinching the back of his thigh when a particularly hard punch lands on his chest. “—for suggesting that we both plough the snow together on this beautiful Saturday morning.”

“I did not say that!”

The air is frosty and crisp and Taemin is positive that his boyfriend has gone crazy because he walks across their porch barefoot, not caring about the chunks of snow prickling against his feet, still laughing.

“Are you sure, baby?” he says between his loud, amused laughs. Taemin lets out a scream when Minho feigns hurling him into the heap of snow that has piled up next to their porch.

“I hate you!” Taemin wished he did, because otherwise Minho’s laughter wouldn’t be so contagious, and he wouldn’t be laughing along. “Oh my god, you crazy jerk.”

Minho’s shoulders are heaving, cheeks and ears flushed red. “What was that?”

A strong, cold puff of wind belts against their bodies and Taemin hurriedly loops his arms around his boyfriend, burying his face into the comparatively warm junction of his neck. “I said I hate you.”

“What did you say? You want to plough the snow with me?”

Taemin laughs disbelievingly, head thrown back. Before he could retort, Minho threatens to throw him into the snow again and Taemin finally gives in when the other staggers in his feet, almost dropping both of them into the freezing mound of death.

Minho carries him back inside—he tried to let Taemin down but the other refused to walk barefoot on the bits of snow clumped everywhere on their porch because he wasn’t a lunatic unlike a certain someone.

The warmth inside their home feels like heaven, if it didn’t already. Neither of them wants to ever step outside till it’s spring again, but remembering their neighbours’ incessant chides and the fact that tonight’s snowfall was only going to make it worse changes their minds, which is why they are now standing in their snow covered driveway, dressed in layers and layers of clothes along with their shovels.

“I’m definitely breaking up with you after this,” Taemin complains, ladling a mound of snow and tossing it aside.

Minho laughs, doing the same. “Sure,”

“I am not kidding,” Taemin replies, shuddering when the wind picks up. “You’re yuck.”

Before he knows it, there’s a ball of poorly clumped snow hitting his cheek. Taemin gasps, whipping his head towards the sound of his boyfriend’s rowdy laugh.

“Minho!”

The other doubles over with laughter when he notices the bits of snow sticking to Taemin’s florid cheek. Taemin tosses his shovel aside, forming his own ball of snow which he hurls at his boyfriend.

Taemin watches amusedly as Minho cringes in discomfort when the snow crawls down his layers of sweaters. He squeals when Minho crouches down to ball up more, not bothering to brush off the snow from his neck.

Their shovels and reason for being out and about so early in a freezing morning are long forgotten with a childish game of snowball fighting. They’re both uncaring and unapologetic of their loud laughter that rings through the crisp air. Taemin gives up on putting an effort into actually forming his snowballs, just flinging loose snow at his boyfriend who has over ten proudly moulded ones held in his arm that wasn’t lunging them at Taemin.

Taemin shrieks when he trips backwards and Minho rushes forward to take advantage of it. Minho’s hearty laughter gets louder and louder as he inches closer, till it’s all Taemin is hearing, mixing with his own. There’s snow being pushed down his collar and against his cheek, neck, ears. Taemin thrashes and flings some towards Minho before grabbing a clump in his hand and shoving it against Minho’s open mouth.

They’re both lying down on the snow side by side, chests heaving unevenly as they pant, white puffs of breaths leaving their grinning mouths.

“You at making balls,” Minho says, spreading his limbs out.

“And you balls.”

Minho snorts in reply. Taemin tilts his head to his left, watching Minho stare up at the bleak, grey sky with a childish grin on his face. It brings a fond smile to his own and Minho, feeling the eyes on him, turns to Taemin, locking their gazes. They don’t say anything, just silently staring at one another with twin smiles on their faces. Minho’s cheeks are ruddy, the tips of his ears tinted bright red as well as his nose and Taemin knows he’s no better.

“You’re cute,” Taemin says, watching him, “Even if you’re a jerk.”

“And you’re cute, too,” Minho replies, swinging his arms and legs back and forth against the snow. “Even if you’re a cute.”

Taemin laughs. “Dork.”

Minho doesn’t seem to be able to lie still for more than a couple of seconds, which is why he gets into the task of making a snow angel. Taemin soon follows, copying his boyfriend’s movements, albeit lethargically. Once they are done, Minho springs onto his feet and helps Taemin up who complains about his aching limbs.

“I’m cold and tired,” Taemin whines, resisting the urge to stomp his foot childishly. “We didn’t even plough the damn snow.”

Minho doesn’t seem to care about that as he admires their snow angels. “Yours is smaller than mine,” he points out, a cheesy smile on his face. He pulls Taemin closer, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. Taemin rolls his eyes fondly when Minho nuzzles against his cheek, cooing. “You’re so small.”

Taemin shrugs, “I think you’re just ing huge.”

-

Minho runs a bath for them while Taemin sets the firewood to warm up their living room. The hot water feels like heaven when Minho lowers himself into it, and he almost wants to sob. Yeah, he was a little too tall for the tub and had to bend his knees a bit but after messing around in the snow before midday, a hot bath in their cramped, rarely ever used bathtub felt like a luxury.

Taemin joins him few minutes later, trying and failing to sit across Minho and thus ending up on his lap. The water sloshes and pours down the brim and Minho stifles his laugh against Taemin’s shoulder, who groans.

“This is so cramped,” he complains, knees against his chest when he realizes that he, as well, is too tall for stretching his legs out.

“It’s more romantic this way,” Minho soothes, one hand caressing Taemin’s waist while the other reaches out for the bottle of shampoo. “Just two bros, chilling in a hot tub, right on top of each other—”

“Oh my god,” Taemin laughs, head thrown back against Minho’s shoulder. “Be quiet.”

Minho kisses Taemin’s neck, who in turn squirms on his lap. He trails softer kisses down his boyfriend’s shoulder while uncapping the bottle of shampoo and squeezing a generous amount into his hand.

Taemin sighs with a smile on his lips when Minho begins shampooing his hair. He lets his eyes flutter shut, completely leaning back against his boyfriend’s chest while gentle fingers massage his scalp and comb through his wet, foamy hair.

“Is it yours?” Taemin asks, scooping suds of shampoo into his palm and smelling it.

“Yeah,” Minho grins. “It’s milk and, strawberry I guess? Honey? Maybe. But anyway,” he reaches out for the hand shower, “You will smell like me.”

Taemin insists on returning the favour and they switch positions because both of them are too stubborn to get out and use the shower which would’ve definitely made it easier.

Minho lets Taemin lather his hair with his own shampoo because ‘it’ll be boring if we both smelled the same.’ He draws mindless shapes on Taemin’s knee, praising Taemin’s fingers’ dexterity in an unnecessarily lewd way (which receives him a smack on his shoulder), but it makes Taemin smile so he considers it a win.

It’s half an hour later when they both decide how futile this is and finally get out of the cramped bath and under the shower to actually do some washing.

-

“—and I personally think that gave Rudolph major appearance issues.”

Taemin snorts, lightly slapping Minho’s chest on which he rested his head against. They were snuggled up on the couch by the fireplace Taemin had set up earlier, half-empty cups of hot chocolate long forgotten in favour of cuddling one another.

“Red noses are cute though,” Minho continues, fingers tenderly carding through Taemin’s damp hair. “If you had a red nose, I wouldn’t spend a second not kissing it.”

“That would be weird.” Taemin drawls out, squirming up to bury his face in Minho’s neck. He held a pen and the stack of post-it notes he found lying on the counter while searching for a lighter in one hand. The plan was to scribble nonsense on every post-it note that was left but he found himself far too mellow and sleepy after the warm bath and hot chocolate. His boyfriend gently caressing his hair and rubbing his back didn’t make it any better, along with his deep voice that rumbled comfortingly against his ear.

“What? You having a perpetually ned nose or me kissing it all the time?”

Taemin shrugs, supressing a yawn. “Both.”

Minho chuckles and Taemin smiles. A comforting silence lingers in the air and Minho occasionally presses kisses into Taemin’s hair and breathes in the scent of himself on his boyfriend, humming.

“Is that the piano melody from the radio earlier this morning?” Taemin asks, remembering suddenly.

“Yeah, it’s been stuck in my head all day.”

Taemin shuts his eyes, letting Minho’s soft hums lull him to sleep. “It’s cheesy,” he lets his body lax completely, distorted words barely leaving his lips. “Like you.”

“Like us.” Minho corrects.

A couple of seconds later, Minho feels Taemin’s chest rise and fall evenly, soft breaths parting his lips. He pulls up the baby blue blanket messily draped over their bodies so that it’s tucked under Taemin’s chin, but stops when he notices the pen and the stack of post-it notes clutched tightly in his fist.

Minho huffs out a laugh, adoring how determined Taemin had been on filling up post-it notes for him to read. He loosens Taemin’s fist, pulling away both the items before enveloping him under the blanket.

There were barely any post-its left after Taemin scribbled on most of them. Minho pens down a reminder for him to buy another stack from the stationery shop, sticking it against the couch so he’d see it when he wakes up.

He debates on whether or not using up one more. Taemin stirs in his sleep, mumbling something indecipherable. The soft sound of his teeth grinding is what makes Minho decide to use up whatever was left of the stack.

He sticks them on the backrest of the couch, most of them being sappy and Minho knows it’s going to fluster Taemin. For a good measure, he repeatedly pens down i love you on a pastel pink note, feeling a little silly and light-hearted. Minho looks at the almost fully covered backrest, instead opting for sticking it on Taemin’s cheek, who squirms for the nth time, fully hogging the blankets.

Minho lets Taemin take all of it like he always does, breathing out a ‘sweet dreams, angel’ against his cheek.

-

Minho is sleep muddled yet smug, an amused grin on his face and his hands behind his head as he watches the boy straddling his waist, sleep creased cheeks flushed bright red. Taemin holds a bunch of post-it notes in his hands, the tips of his ears and the bit of skin showing from where his oversized sweater had slipped off of his shoulder tinted red.

Minho asks him if he’s going to frame all of it and Taemin asks him to shut up. It’s amusing and far too entertaining to observe the flustered reactions Taemin gives every time he reads another note, and Minho makes a mental note to buy an extra pack just for the purpose of ruffling Taemin by sticking them all around the house.

“You called me angel thrice in this note and sweetheart twice,” Taemin says, locking his eyes with Minho who looks far too smug and composed. “And baby around a million times.”

“You love it when I do that.” Minho replies, knowing very well it was true, because Taemin loved being called pet names and babied even if he refused to show.

“Also,” Taemin adds, tilting his face away from Minho’s who leans up on his elbows for a kiss. “I do not move in my sleep.”