"Taemin, come here!”

Minho’s voice wasn’t loud but Taemin had waited for the other to call for him, therefore paying close attention to his surroundings – both in regards of auditive and visual input, picking up those three words immediately.

“Hi.” Taemin said when he sat down at his usual spot across from Minho, enjoying the sight of Minho holding the booklet in his hand with a content expression on his face. He was aware that the autistic male didn’t naturally show his thoughts and emotions on his face like that which meant that he was actively choosing to look satisfied to show Taemin that he had done a good job.

“Your writing got better. I just need to see if it works when you write freely.” Minho said, handing the booklet over for Taemin to keep. With his hands now free, he pulled out a piece of paper from his bag and alongside it his favourite pen.

Taemin, while proudly noticing that Minho was offering him his favourite pen, realised that he would be tested. Right now. On the spot. His excitement changed to nervousness, hoping he would be able to perform well enough for Minho to keep talking to him.

“What should I write?”

“You are too impatient Taemin.” The older just said while his hand disappeared in his bag for the second time, taking out a book Taemin hadn’t seen him read before. It was titled: Brave New World

“I’ll read something to you.”

Taemin tilted his head in question. It rarely happened that Minho offered to read something to him. Through the time they had been together, the autistic male had only read something aloud two or three times, always on Taemin’s request when he was trying to handle English pronunciation for an oral exam.

“You are reading to me? In English?” Taemin asked, baffled.

“Of course not.” The answer was cold and short. “How could you write an English paragraph in Korean characters?”

The younger immediately blushed. In moments like these he felt incredibly stupid. Taemin knew he wasn’t dumb, but Minho often put him in situations where his intellect seemed so inferior to what the autistic male’s mind had to offer.

“I am sorry. I am dumb.” Taemin said and shook his head in disbelief.

“You are foolish. Not dumb.” Minho answered while taking a piece of paper from the first page of the book – seemingly where he stored the paragraph, he wanted to read to Taemin.

“You’ll have to admit that next to your mind, mine seems a little inferior.”

Minho looked up from his hands who were playing with the piece of paper, focusing his eyes on Taemin’s forehead – something he tended to do when he was getting serious about something.

“You are smart in other ways. My brain specialises in one area, yours can handle multiple. I would appreciate you to stop comparing your brain to mine. You wouldn’t want mine.” Minho answered, immediately looking back at his hands when he stopped speaking.

“Don’t say that. You have a great mind.” Taemin said, surprised that Minho seemed to dislike the way he was. Never before did he ever get the impression that the autistic male was unhappy as he was.

“I know. I wouldn’t have it another way.”

“So why are you saying that I wouldn’t want your mind if it is oh so great?”

“You wouldn’t be able to handle it. You depend on people too much.”

Taemin shrug his shoulders, trying not to feel offended by Minho’s words because he knew that they weren’t meant negatively, the older was just stating a plain fact.

Though he wasn’t sure if what Minho said was fully true as he hadn’t been in touch with many people ever since moving to the small village by the sea. With his friends from Seoul he had lost touch years ago even before he went to the military. His parents, he had never been close to and the only family he considered important to him was his grandmother.

Woosung was an exception. They tried to keep in touch weekly, a phone call lasting up to an hour on average and despite not being able to meet up regularly, Taemin considered him the closest and only real friend he had.

Other than his grandmother and Woosung, Taemin only had Minho. To say that he depended on people didn’t seem quite right in his eyes.

“I don’t depend on people.”

“Phrasing it differently then: You need human interaction. You thrive off of other people’s energy.” Minho stated still holding the paper in his hands, not knowing what to do with it now that the conversation has shifted away from Taemin’s writing. “I have listened to you talk about customers of the café for hours. You take the initiative for the groupwork at university, never failing to communicate between parties who don’t get along well. You always chat with my co-workers when you visit the library. Should I go on?”

Taemin scratched his head. He was self-aware enough to know that he did talk to other people, but it wasn’t anything he had thought of as special. It was just basic human interaction that everyone had. But maybe Minho was right. He was thinking about the time when he was studying for his final exams of high school, remembering how he was mentally as well as physically too exhausted to use his energy on anything besides his studies. He was a wreck when he finally walked out of the last exam. He had thought it was from the exhaustion of staying up late to repeat the same math formulas over and over or to write Hanjas until deep into the night. The possibility that the actual problem could have been the lack of human interaction during that time had never come to his mind before today and the longer he thought about it, the more it made sense.

“I get your point.” Taemin answered therefore, still a little baffled at this newly gained perspective.

“Good. Then let’s get to writing.”

Taemin took a deep breath and picked up the pen before asking: “So what am I writing?”

“A poem from a German poet actually. We received a translated collection of his poems last week and I found one I really like. I have heard that he is famous, but never before have I read one of his works because we didn’t have any translations and I have never learned more than greetings in German.”

“A German poet? You surprise me every single time Choi Minho.” Taemin answered and Minho started reading.

“It’s called Books – written in 1918 by Hermann Hesse.”

“Ok” Taemin answered, waiting for Minho to start reading aloud what he should write down.

“Write that.”

“What?”

“Title, Author and the year. It’s part of the Poem.” Minho answered as if that was the most obvious thing ever.

“Oh, alright.” Taemin answered but barely even remembered the title. “What was it again?”  he asked and Minho repeated what he said before.

“Books. It’s called Books and was written in 1918 by Hermann Hesse.”

Taemin wrote it down word for word, not sure how to properly spell the Author’s name but at this point he just focused on writing the characters as neatly as possible to get this over with.

“All the books of this world         
Will not bring you happiness,     
but they will lead you secretly   
Back to yourself.

There is everything that you need,          
the sun, stars and the moon,      
because the light you asked for,
Is living in yourself.

The wisdom you have looked for             
in those books, 
is shining out of every page -     
because now it is yours.”

After every line, Minho waited for Taemin to write it down, sometimes repeating a word Taemin didn’t remember and when the younger was finally done, Minho held his hand out to inspect the written passage.

책들

이게강 모든 책딜         
에게 행복을 주진 못하지         
하지만 너를 비밀스럽게           
너자신 속으로 에려다 주니

거기엔 네게 필요한 모든 게 있지        
해고 별고 그리고 달도              
왜냐하면 에가 궁금해 했던 그 빛이    
바로 네 안에 살고 있으니까

지혜가, 네가 오래 찾던 그 지혜가       
책들 속에         
이제 모든 페이지마다빛나고 있어      
왜냐하면 이제 그 모든 게 아 네 것미니까

“These horizontals have to be longer.” Minho said as he started circling certain characters with a pencil, writing it correctly at the end of the line. “If you write this character in combination with this one” more circles, “you have to increase the gap to balance it out. And don’t press on the paper this hard, it makes it harder to write clean lines. If you put the horizontal lines before doing the vertical ones it will also look better. And here, you forgot a whole character.” The older listed imperfections in Taemin’s writing as if it was the dinner menu at a restaurant. “Can you see this one?” an arrow was drawn, pointing at the character of interest. “The circle is too big. It makes it look sloppy.”

“No compliment?” Taemin asked, as he was sure that his writing had improved.

“Do I have to give you a compliment if you didn’t get it right?” Minho asked – genuinely not understanding.

“Just give me a damn compliment Choi Minho. I worked my off for this.” Taemin said, rolling his eyes.

“What good does it do? It’s still not right.”

“Choi Minho.” Taemin growled and Minho finally gave in.

“Fine. You did good. At least I can read what you write now.” The autistic male admitted while he put a few more circles and corrections on Taemin’s writing – contradicting what he just said.

“You could improve your complimenting skills too. But I’ll take it.” Taemin said, teasing the older – fully aware that the other wouldn’t really care about it anyway.

“Taemin-ssi?” a voice suddenly filled the room and the called male paled.

While Minho stared at the table in confusion, Taemin immediately got up and walked to the backroom where Joohyun was calling for him.

“Didn’t I tell you to wait? What is it?” Taemin said, obviously annoyed at her behaviour.

“I wanted to get something to drink.” The woman said, seemingly unaffected by Taemin’s obviously bad mood.

The latter sighed. “Please, I let you stay here after business hours. So PLEASE stay calm. I will bring you something now – do you need anything else?”

“No. I think I am good.” Joohyun said.

“What do you want?”

“Just some soda? Coke maybe?”

“Sure.”

Taemin didn’t bother actually being friendly and turned around to get the woman her drink. What he didn’t expect was Minho walking over to where he just exited the back room.

“Minho? What are you doing?” the younger male asked, and Minho said nonchalantly as if he were talking about the weather: “I don’t want her here.”

“Yes. Yes I know. But she is a good customer and it is raining. I can’t just throw her out.” Taemin tried to do some damage control. He knew that Minho’s words could be ruthless, and he didn’t want the older to get hurt when Joohyun reacted badly to what he said. “Just sit back down. I’ll get her a coke and then she’ll be quiet again. She won’t bother us.”

Minho didn’t move – neither back to his table nor further towards the room where Joohyun was sitting, starring at the scene through the small opening of the door.

Hoping that Minho wouldn’t do anything stupid, Taemin walked over to the bar reached for the refrigerator to get the bottle of coke – but of course, the autistic male did what he had set his mind to and walked into the back room, Joohyun staring at the handsome man who, so suddenly, appeared in front of her.

“I will kindly ask you to leave. You might be aware that the café’s business hours are over and therefore customers shouldn’t be allowed inside no more. Taemin is too much of a gentle man to set you on the street in the rain and while I do appreciate his curtesy I wish he wouldn’t use it for someone like you who interrupts our time together.”

Joohyun’s eyes grew bigger as Minho spoke, too stunned at the bluntness to properly react. Lucky for her, Taemin stormed inside and interrupted the tall male:

“Minho. I told you not to bother her. She is not at fault here. Let’s go back.” The younger said softly while taking a hold of Minho’s hand.

“I don’t want her here.”

“I don’t either.” Taemin agreed, then turning to Joohyun. “No offence”

“So why do you let her stay if you don’t want her here either?” Minho questioned and Taemin shrugged.

“Because it is the right thing to do.”

Minho didn’t answer but walked out of the room instead and Taemin sighed.

“Sorry, Minho’s a little tricky sometimes.” He tried to explain the older’s behaviour without actually explaining the older’s behaviour.

“I can see that.” Was all Joohyun said before thanking Taemin for the coke.

“It’s on the house. Sorry again.” The latter said with a bow before he closed the door.

Taemin wouldn’t admit it but somehow, he liked the way Minho had reacted to the woman’s presence. He hadn’t seen him like this before – it almost seemed as if the tall male was jealous?

“Are you jealous?” Taemin asked immediately after sitting down at their table, a small smirk playing around his lips.

“I don’t get jealous Taemin. You know that.” Minho answered nonchalantly while taking a sip of his cold latte.

“Then why did you want Joohyun to leave? Didn’t you want to have me for yourself? Aren’t you feeling a little uncomfortable that I allowed a woman to stay while you were here as well?” Taemin tried to provoke the autistic male into saying something that he could interpret as jealousy so he would be right.

“She is never here when we are here together. She doesn’t belong here. It’s our time. We don’t need an outsider to have a nice time.” Minho said certainly.

“You want to be alone with me?” Taemin teased, heart pumping to hear those words from the usually collected male.

“Yes. It is much more comfortable for me.”

“What do you want to do to me when we are alone?” the hints in his tone were so obvious anyone could see them – anyone but Minho and Taemin knew that. It didn’t keep him from trying from time to time though – maybe one day the autistic male would get a hang of it.

Today was not that day.

“We were talking about compliments, so I wanted to tell you about the nature of compliments and the way humans define themselves over what other people tell them.” Minho answered making Taemin laugh.

“Yes, but what do you want to do to me when we are ALONE” he repeated, wiggling his eyebrows at the word alone.

“You should stop wiggling your eyebrows, you look stupid – and I just told you.”

“For ’s sake I am asking what you want to do to me in bed. When we have . I am teasing you.” Taemin gave up for today and Minho’s posture straightened – finally understanding what was happening.

“Why do you always try to make me look like a fool? You know I don’t get these kinds of references.” Minho said and Taemin smiled – he always liked to give Minho some of his own medicine by making him feel like a fool. “But to answer your question, I was reading a book where the lovers were each other’s private parts at the same time and that sound nice. I like taking your into my mouth and I like how it feels to have you on mine. So how about we do it at the same time?”

Taemin regretted asking within seconds, feeling the tip of his ears heat up immediately. Unable to answer verbally, he just nodded, hoping Joohyun’s ears weren’t as good as Minho’s.

A/N

Heyhooo I hope you enjoyed the new chapter! The next one will be a little different and I'll put up warnings at the begining. I might also write two different versions which you can choose from depending on what you want to read - but I am not 100% sure yet how to handle it. In anyway: Stay tuned!

Thank you soso much for reading (as always) The story has been going on for so long and to have you here still is a miracle. I am so lucky! <3

Have a great day and I would love to see you in the comments (even if I am always late with answering them lately. sorry, I'll get to it eventually!!!!)

xx

R