17:30

Taemin was still there. When Minho entered the cafe the next day, Taemin was there, smiling at him when he appeared in the door. For whatever reason, the taller had not expected Taemin to be here. He had gotten so used to the cafe without him but couldn't help smiling a little when he saw the other behind the counter.

"Hey Minho!" The latter said and Minho bowed to greet him before walking to his usual seat.

They didn’t speak much that day. Just once the autistic male asked about Taemin’s day, mostly out of politeness, he wasn’t very interested per-se. But in comparison to other people, he wanted to know about what he did anyway. It wasn’t interest, it was more a feeling of neglect if he didn’t.

Taemin would want to talk about his day, Minho thought to himself and therefore decided that, for the sake of the other’s contentment, he would ask and try to listen to what he said. To his surprise, the younger didn’t say much about his day, only pointing out that it has been normal.

“When are you going to depart?” Minho asked shortly before leaving the café.

“4 days.” Taemin said, a sad smile on his lips.

“Ok.” Minho answered and left the shop.

19:30

Minho arrived at home. Walking inside as usual, he nodded to answer a question his mother asked him before disappearing in his small room to eat his dinner. There wasn’t anything off with it, it was exactly how it used to be. But never the less, he found himself playing with his rice – something he never did.

Taemin would be leaving again. Four days he said. It wasn’t a lot of time.

As his dinner got continuously colder, Minho thought of things he wanted to tell the younger. He wanted to give him a new book. Taemin enjoyed “A Picture of Dorian Grey” so shouldn’t he get another one for this time when he was gone?

So many to choose from, his whole wall was filled with books, but he was able to choose one easily. After thinking over it several times he got up and walked to the neatly arranged mini-library to reach for the book he wanted to gift to the younger male. Of course, he knew exactly where it was located, grabbing it in one try and then looked at the cover. A soldier’s dirty helmet on the floor. It was a simple cover, but it needed nothing more to bring the message across.

“The and the Dead” The book was huge, just a little over 700 pages if Minho remembered correctly. 700 pages he had read with incredible endurance.

Taemin was going to the military. He should read about war. Know what has happened in the past, to learn from it in a way that Minho did. Learning from reading. He moved the heavy book from one hand to the other, thinking if this was the right book to give to Taemin. Was it even allowed in the military? Would they take it away from him? He had no idea. He could not ask anyone.

An hour later, Minho’s mother entered the room, seeing her eldest son sitting on the floor, his hand cramped onto the thick book.

“Minho, why didn’t you eat?” She asks. “You didn’t bring your dishes outside, so I wanted to check up on you.”

The addressed one though, barely registered what his mother said, mind running in circles. He had found the perfect book, but he couldn’t give it to Taemin. What if they took it away from him? Then this all meant nothing.

“Minho?” His mother tried again looking at her son with worry in her eyes. “Can you hear me?”

No reaction.

With a sigh the woman collected the half full dishes, carrying them out of the room, leaving Minho in his position on the floor.

Minho was pulled back to reality when he heard a loud sound from the kitchen. His parents were fighting. Probably because of him. It was so loud. He couldn’t help but get onto his bed and covering his ears with his cushion.

At one point, he must have fallen asleep because the next morning he wakes up, the book still placed next to him on the bed.

17:20

Minho walked down the familiar streets. They were mostly empty. A few kids here and there that were walking home from school. He felt content. Everything was the way he was used to. Everything except for himself. He was walking faster than usually. The reason why, he couldn’t quite pinpoint. But fact was that it was earlier than usual that he entered the familiar space of the café.

17:30

Taemin was more than confused to see Minho in the doorframe five minutes before he usually arrived. He had just finished the taller’s coffee and had been about to bring it over to the table. But now he stood there, caffe latte in one hand while he stared at the other with wide eyes. It took him a few seconds to recollect himself.

“You are early!” He said surprised.

Minho nodded, head hung low as always.

“I can wait for the coffee to cool down. I won’t send it back. I give you my word.” Minho said and with those words made Taemin chuckle.

“Minho, don’t worry about a thing. Just take a seat.” Taemin said, leading the way to the usual table.

“Do you mind me if I join you in a few minutes?”

“I do not mind. You are free to sit with me.”

The younger chuckled and walked back to the counter to make himself a cappuccino. He was planning to talk to Minho about “the Picture of Dorian Grey” again as he wanted nothing more than to hear Minho talk the way he did when they talked about it the first time. He loved to listen to the taller talking.

His voice if it wasn’t stuttering was like honey and he couldn’t get enough of it. To start the conversation, he had made a few notes on a piece of paper he hid behind the counter – things he had remembered Minho talking about last time that he didn’t quite understand where this was visible in the novel.

With a last look onto the note, he walked over to where Minho was already buried in a new book, reading the first page. To Taemin’s surprise, Minho looked up from his lecture for a second when he sat down with a soft moan – he had been standing the whole day, so sitting down felt amazing.

“I have a question about the yellow book.” Taemin started and he noticed that he immediately had the autistic male’s attention.

“Yes, what about it?”

“Last time, you were saying that it had a lot of meaning, and I don’t really see how. Honestly, I never really thought twice about it just took it as a book Dorian lived after. Can you explain that to me?” Taemin said, suddenly embarrassed when he saw Minho’s reaction to his question. The latter looked like he was shocked to see how Taemin didn’t get something as simple as that.

“The yellow book.” Minho started, thinking about how to properly convey his message. “it is a symbolic materialisation of the poison which Lord Henry spreads. It functions as an experiment that works out horrifyingly well as you can see in several passages of the book “Dorian Grey has been poisoned by a book”. It is often referred to as the guide book of Grey’s doom and downfall as he lives his life to persuit the ideals he finds in it. In essence the book represents the selfish ideas of Lord Henry that infiltrate Dorian Grey’s life.”

Taemin had been right, Minho didn’t stop talking, explaining every single detail of the yellow book, about the parallels of a German writer’s book called “Faust” and Wilde’s novel.

Time flew by fast and Taemin found himself enjoying talking about books, not that he got the chance to say much himself, but whenever he said something and Minho approved it, he was incredibly proud and was motivated to say even more thoughts he had while they discussed the content of “The Picture of Dorian Grey”.

“Can you bring books about the Japanese War to the military?” Minho asked out of the blue, shortly before 18:55

“Why do you ask?”

“I want to gift you a novel I value a lot but have been worrying that it is against the regulations.” Minho answered, scratching his neck.

“Why do you know that I am going to the military?” Taemin said, completely baffled that the other knew about it. He never mentioned it.

“You told me. You said you didn’t know when you would come back because you have to finish school first and then enlist to the military.” Minho said as if it was the most natural thing to say.

“When did I say that?” the younger was unable to recall ever telling him that.

“Last year, before you left.”

Taemin was quiet for a few seconds.

“You remember that?” He said softly, in awe that the other was able to recall something small that happened over a year ago.

“I remember many things.” Minho answered, a small smile playing around his lips while he caressed the cover of his new book.

A/N
Hey everyone! I hope you have been doing fine!
I am gladly presenting you the new chapter as well as a short notice:

I am currently working over this story to set it in the 1980s completely. Many have felt like it was set in earlier days, and honestly I thought so too. So I am ereasing every evidence of modern technology ^^ I hope you can understand and I apologize for the changes so late into the story!

As always, comments are very very appreciated and keep me motivated to write on this story <3 so even if it is just 10 seconds it would mean the world to me if you would take a short amount of time to give a small feedback <3

I love y'all

xx

r