The day of Taemin’s scheduled return to Seoul was coming closer and he dreaded what he had thought would be the best day of his life. Barely had he noticed the time flowing by so fast. With joy, he waited for 17:25 every day, for the tall male to enter the café and read the little notes he always left under his latte.

One day, Taemin decided he would try to make the next step and sit down across from Minho who was deep into reading his book. His Halmoni had told him she would do so every now and then, so he thought Minho wouldn’t mind him doing the same. When he sat down, Minho didn’t even look up from his reading, taking neat notes into a black notebook which was already filled to the brim with his beautiful writing.

Taemin did not interrupt him. Taemin just watched, wondering if Minho even realised that he joined his table. Few minutes into him watching the taller male, the latter did something Taemin did not expect in his wildest dreams. He turned to his side and took another book from his precious bag, putting it on the table, pushing it towards the blonde male, his eyes focused on nothing but the cover of the book.

The book’s title was “The picture of Dorian Grey” and Taemin swallowed twice. Did Minho want him to read next to him? This book?! He waited a few more seconds for the other male to say something, but the latter already seemed to have focused on his book again. For the sake of their evolving “friendship” Taemin took the book into his hands. It was the first book he touched in ages, let alone one of the very few ones he opened.

To his horror, it wasn’t in Korean. English writing filled the whole first page, making him lose interest instantly. He had never been good at languages, so he bet he wouldn’t understand anything even if he started reading. For a few minutes he stared at the first page, contemplating if he should even start or not. The quiet around them was somehow comfortable and made him almost feel the need to start reading because of Minho who seemed to be so utterly content with this kind of activity.

He ended up randomly looking around the room, sometimes gazing over the table to watch Minho read.

“Why don’t you read?” a soft voice filled the silence in the room.

Taemin who was more than surprised that Minho even noticed him not reading – he had seemed so involved with the book he had been reading - looked at the tall male.

“Uhm.” He started, ashamed to admit that the reason he wasn’t reading were his lack of English skills. “I was just about to start.”

The time left before 18:55 , they spent at the table together, one reading and the other pretending to be.

17:30

The next day, Taemin didn’t dare to sit at the table with Minho – his Halmoni had told him she would only sit there once in a while, so joining him again the next day seemed as if it were to overwhelm the autistic male. Therefore, he decided to leave a simple note once more – something they were used to do.

Minho was confused, confused why Taemin would not come over to join him. He had just started to read “The Picture of Dorian Grey” yesterday and as he knew, the book was highly addicting, and one could hardly stop reading once they started.

After exactly 10 minutes he realised why the blonde wouldn’t come to the table, Minho had forgotten to take out the book, so Taemin probably thought that he didn’t bring it. How could he be so stupid.

The book now on the table, he waited for Taemin to come.

To Taemin’s surprise, he saw Minho taking out the book from yesterday. Was this an invitation? An invitation to join him once more? Before he could think about it anymore he was already walking over, sitting down on the wooden chair, preparing himself for another hour of pretending to read a book.

He randomly flipped pages, always counting to 300 before doing so, to not raise suspicion. It left him with a lot of time to think. And thinking he did. So much that the turning of the pages got more and more irregular, sometimes being to fast, sometimes taking ages before he turned them which did not go unnoticed by Minho.

“Can you understand English?” he asked, bluntly – disrupting Taemin’s thoughts.

“Not really.” He admitted and Minho raised an eyebrow.

“Oh. I understand.” The latter said, his eyes moving rapidly, without focusing on anything. Taemin had noticed this kind of behaviour many times. He seems to do it whenever something unexpected happens, or he feels unsure of what to say. Before Taemin could tell him that he didn’t mean to pretend to read and “lie” to him, the taller apologized.

“I am sorry.” He said, reaching over to the opened book, closing it and then putting it back into his bag.

Minho was confused, why didn’t Taemin tell him he didn’t understand anything. Why did he pretend to read when he was instead just randomly flipping pages? None of the characters in his books would ever do that. He thought he would learn to understand Humans better by reading about them but Taemin acted nothing like anyone he read about. It didn’t make any sense.

When Taemin got up, Minho didn’t even register it, to worried about how he was unable to read the younger. Also, he felt bad about placing an English book in front of the other. It should be possible to get a Korean translation of this, wouldn’t it?

He stayed until exactly 18:55, leaving the place with a nod towards the counter where Taemin was sitting, ashamed that he scared the taller male away again. He should have just kept pretending that he understood what he was reading. Now, all the progress they made the last week seemed to have disappeared in a mere minute of him being stupid.

12:15

His lunchbreak the next day had just started but instead of going to the cafeteria as he usually did, Minho turned the other way after class. His steps brought him safely to the library of his university.

“Minho?” A familiar voice spoke. There she stood, Kang Hyojin probably the only person that knew his name except for the lecturers. “What are you doing here on a Friday? You are lucky that I am covering Mingi’s shift.”

Minho shrugged his shoulders, he didn’t know who Mingi was and he didn’t really care. Hyojin was supposed to be at the library. He couldn’t really imagine the front desk without the woman who was currently working on her master’s degree in English literature.

“Hyojin” Minho started, trying to look at her face, not that she cared anyway – she was the only one not calling him strange. “I – I need a Korean translation of ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey’.“

Hyojin raised an eyebrow. “You need a Korean translation of your favourite book? The book you read like a million of times?”

“Yes.” Minho said as if it was the most natural request in the world.

“Even you realise that this sounds crazy, why would you want to read a badly translated version if you are more than capable to read the original piece?”

“I need a translated version.”

The woman sighed, knowing that at this point Minho had closed up enough not to give any answers she desired and searched the database for the book he was asking for.

“Here, the signature” She said, handing him a scribbled note with the book’s number “AOe 35575”.

“Thank you” Minho said, bowing his head and then instantly walked off into the huge library. Not long after he found what he had been looking for, holding an incredibly ugly paperback version of his favourite book which was now titled “도리안 그레이의 초상”. With a sigh he brought it back to the desk, holding out his Student ID-card to borrow the book that Kang Hyojin could take down his number.

17:25

The air was thick when Minho entered. Taemin was unsure whether to try and speak to Minho today or not. He had left a short note apologizing for lying about reading the book he had given him on the table, watching nervously if the taller would read it.

He did, and after doing so, he took a second book from his bag, baffling Taemin once more.

The Seoul-boy gladly took the unspoken invitation and sat down at the wooden table, looking at the book in awe. If he wasn’t mistaken it was a Korean translation of the book he had pretended to read the last two days. He was speechless. After Minho had taken the previous book from him, he had thought that the tall male was something along the lines of angry – if he actually felt emotions like that – Taemin still didn’t know.

Did Minho get this book for him? So he actually wanted to be “friends”?

“I... I got it today, so you can, you can read it.” Minho said, pointing a trembling finger at the cover of the book.

Taemin had no idea what to answer. He was overwhelmed. This was beyond his imagination of things that could have happened.

“I” the blonde started but his mind was blank. After trying to put his feelings into a proper sentence, he ended up just uttering a small “Thank you.” And opened the badly translated paperback copy of “The Picture of Dorian Grey”.

A/N

It is an update. Are you surprised? I am sure you are.
I cannot believe how many beautiful comments I get here. They are the most touching ones.
Thank you for appreciating this heart-piece of mine.
I am pretty overwhelmed.
Sorry for not updating sooner and I hope you like this chapter. - If you did:
There is always room for more beautiful comments ><

XX

R