origami image reference in case embedded links are broken.

The very first time Minho was intrigued by something so small, something so trivial was in the middle of the Fall semester. He had classes only in the evening and was early to class and was rocking his chair slowly, watching the other guys play soccer in the field below from the window. He stopped rocking his chair when he saw his classmates enter the room. The force of his landing was a little more than he expected and he took the support of his desk to steady himself.

The slight shake to the desk had sent something tiny falling to the ground. Minho bent down, picking it up. He smiled when he noticed it was a little flower made out of paper. He peeked into the shelf the desk had and found many little blooms of various pastel shades, some even made out of notebook sheets, some out of magazine pages.

He pocketed the one that he had picked up and returned to watching the soccer match from the window until the class started.

Just out of curiosity, Minho peeked into the shelf under his desk again the following week and found the flowers to be all cleared from it. Instead, there were butterflies. He took one out, his eyes following every crease and fold. He remembered trying out the origami flower he had found before over the weekend while following a youtube video and he’d wasted two days unable to do it. He hated the fact that he couldn’t overcome something as simple as this with his tenacity, but he couldn’t really hate the art. It was so pretty, so delicate, he could only imagine what it would seem like, actually seeing hands fold something so intricate in front of him. Watching it on screen didn’t seem much real, after all.

The Professor entered, cutting short his trail of thoughts and he pocketed the butterfly without much thought.

It was only when he got home that he realized he had brought the butterfly along with him and he put it in his drawer, where the little flower also was.

Next week was midterms. Minho was done with his paper and he was waiting for the bell to ring to mark the end of the exam so he could leave. He was staring out the window, at the empty field, at the dull, darkening skies and suddenly a thought struck him. He peeked into the shelf and found it completely empty– which was actually good– because having any form of paper during an exam could have gotten him in trouble. But he was also a little disappointed because he wanted to know what more this person could make, who sat at his desk in another class.

He returned to his locker after the exam was done and yawned as he took out the books he would need for the one tomorrow. He turned around after closing his locker, only to find stars folded out of paper littered on the floor right around the corner. He walked to the spot and looked around, his eyes finally settling outside the window, finding the culprit who had littered. He was running towards the bus stop, origami stars leaking from his bag which he had forgotten to zip all the way.

Minho smiled, picking up the small, puffy star and looked out the window again, finding the guy gone.

Minho was walking the corridors when he suddenly paused, finding a great deal of paper littered outside the window, on the grass. He peeked out slowly, finding someone sitting on the grass near the window, leaning on the adjacent tree, fingers moving so deftly that Minho just couldn’t follow but also couldn’t tear his eyes away. He finally shifted his gaze, noticing more than just those delicate, ring-clad fingers. It was the same guy who had been trying to catch the bus last week. He had messy hair, dyed a golden brown, the fringe overgrown and getting into his eyes, which he didn’t seem bothered by the least. He was dressed in ripped jeans, a plaid shirt, and a denim jacket, his black cap somewhere lost underneath the folded pieces he had discarded.

He didn’t seem quite satisfied with his work but Minho was besotted, unable to believe that he was able to create expressions on whatever he was folding from just manipulating pieces of paper. After getting a good look, Minho realized he was trying to make a panda and he couldn’t help but smile on finding how angry those little pandas looked.

“Why do they look like that…” Minho heard him softly whine and he barely suppressed his chuckle, ducking when he heard someone else’s loud voice.

“Taemin! The bus is here! Let’s go!”

“Okay! Give me a minute.”

Minho straightened up when there were no more sounds of shuffling and he found the area completely clean, Taemin rushing away, his black bag again not zipped all the way, the pandas barely holding onto their fort inside the bag.

He chuckled as he got to his class and sat in his regular seat, noticing something peek out from the shelf under. It was one of the angry pandas Taemin had made. Minho took it out and laughed at how the panda looked angry when closer but also so cute and it made him pocket it right away.

Next week, Minho was devoid of his bike, which his neighbor had borrowed and crashed into a pole. He had no choice but to use the bus now and since it had been so long since he last boarded one, he left home early as a precaution in case he missed or got on the wrong one.

But somehow, he had boarded the bus right after reaching the bus stop and had reached college way earlier than his classes began.

It was just a mere two hours of change in his schedule but Minho realized how significant it was. When passing by the room he had his evening class in, Minho spotted Taemin in the seat he always sat, busy under the desk, but also being attentive to the lecture. When Minho had casually decided to clean his locker to kill time, he saw Taemin approach the locker opposite him. When Minho had entered the class almost 45 minutes early and started watching the soccer field, he saw Taemin sitting under a tree nearby, laughing and chatting away with a few friends.

With how much he saw Taemin around, he realized how they had been sharing the same space but at disparate times. How close they were to collide into each other but just hadn’t.

The next day Minho had used the bus again and there Taemin was, opening his locker, spilling origami cranes and immediately crouching to pick them up. There he was again, sitting near the soccer field, laughing at something his friend had said while folding what seemed like yet another crane.

Minho peeked into the shelf under and found a couple of cranes inside. He took one out and followed the grace in the folds, how the wings were made to seem in flight. But his admiration of the folded birds didn’t last as long as it usually did… as his eyes had reverted back to their creator. Not on his skillful hands but on his smile.

With his last evening class ending early due to a staff meeting, Minho was able to take an earlier bus home. He sat in the last row, resting his head against the glass window. The bus usually stopped for 10-15 minutes only at this stop since quite a lot of students boarded it to go back home. As he watched it slowly fill, getting almost sleepy from how tired he was from playing basketball with his friends at their campus stadium that afternoon before class. He had almost closed his eyes but he opened them right away, straightening up on reflex when he spotted Taemin board the bus as well. 

The moment Taemin had got on, the bus started. There were hardly any vacant seats and Taemin was walking in the aisle slowly to find an empty seat. There were a few but people had placed their bags on the seat next to them and Taemin didn’t bother asking them to move it and instead moved towards the seat that had no bag on it. The seat next to Minho’s. 

Taemin shifted his cap and smiled when Minho had turned to him and Minho understood the question he was about to ask and nodded. Taemin muttered thanks and sat down, taking out his phone and headphones.

Minho was flustered and he didn’t know why; he almost hoped for his exhaustion and drowsiness to take over again but it had fled him at Taemin’s sight. He rested his head back on the window, the darkening skies making the glass reflective–- reflecting Taemin and what he was watching on his phone.

Taemin was watching origami tutorials on youtube and Minho couldn’t help but smile when Taemin cursed softly, rewinding the video and changing the playback speed. A few minutes later, he was fidgeting with a piece of paper but the motion of the bus was not letting him get his folds precise. And somewhere midway his third try, his stop came and he got up, stuffing his phone, headphones and the folded papers in his bag quickly, not realizing that one of his failed attempts had fallen out in his haste.

Minho picked it up, looking for Taemin but he had already left. He looked back to the orange piece of paper, an untidy, incomplete attempt at a fox, which Minho only knew because he had read the title of the video Taemin had been watching. 

He took the misshapen fox home and put it in his drawer, his eyes falling on the other pieces that he had also collected and it hit him then… that what actually had him intrigued was no longer just something small, trivial and certainly not a piece of paper.

Next week, with the return of Minho’s bike, his schedule was back on track. He walked the hallways, he headed to the classroom and watched the soccer field. There was no trace of Taemin and he was now back in his frame, lagging behind the probable times they could collide. It felt dull, somehow, not having his sight to look forward to. 

He peeked under his desk next, smiling as he removed a fox– now as perfect as it was in the tutorial. He placed it on his desk and turned it around, admiring the folds and suddenly he had a crazy thought which he acted upon instinctively. He unfolded one of the foxes and on it scrawled, “Can you do a tiger?”

He started at what he had done, getting flustered thinking if Taemin would really get the message and how he would react. He had almost decided to crumple his message and pocket it, but the entrance of the Professor had made him stuff it under the desk.

He only remembered what he had done when he was back home and his gaze had fallen upon the jar where he had transferred all his collected origami pieces to.

“Oh no…” He groaned, flopping on his bed, his gaze still stuck on the jar of origami.

Minho was relieved that none of his friends had evening classes because they would have incriminated him of a hundred things already just by seeing how stealthily he was walking to class. He sighed in relief when he was in his seat, all alone in the class and slowly peeked under.

There were no tigers but a single turtle inside. Minho sighed, accepting that Taemin not seeing his impulsive message had been for the good. He took out the turtle and blinked, finding something written in small handwriting on the turtle’s tummy.

Challenge accepted.

Minho chuckled, placing the little turtle in his bag.

The desk was empty the next couple of days and Minho was almost thinking maybe that message was about something else or from someone else or for someone else. He almost hadn’t peeked under but he was glad that he had because there was a little tiger sitting there.

Minho took it out immediately, his lips curving up immediately at the little message on the tiger’s body. 

Any more requests?

Minho thought for a long time, his heart was unsteady in its cage, thinking about what to write. And after a long haul, he finally wrote down on a post-it, “Do your Chinese zodiac sign.”

And the very next day, a rooster was inside the desk, another message scribbled on its white body, Easy peasy. Tell me yours.

Minho laughed before he jotted down on a post-it, “Goat. Good luck.”

After a couple of days of an empty desk, finally, a little goat was standing inside the shelf, seeming almost ready to charge. Minho chuckled at how this one looked a little angry as well from its stance and he placed it on his small pile of books, turning it around to look at every neat fold. 

Looks easy but wasn’t >w<

Minho smiled at the cute scribble on the other side of the goat. He sighed as he gazed at it for a while more before he took out his sticky notes, contemplating what to reply. 

The class had started and though he had put both the origami and his sticky notes away, he couldn’t get them out of his head. It was not exactly the origami and the sticky note that had him so distracted… but what he was doing. What it all meant. To him… to Taemin.

When the class had ended, he took out his sticky notes and sighed, deciding not to be as curious, as eager, as stupidly brave that he was feeling and instead deciding to do what he would’ve done had he not been so affected by this whole situation. By Taemin.

“I know it’s tough af. You are damn good :D Thanks for humoring me.” 

He almost wanted to tear that note away, it sounded like the end of a conversation, the end of the little path that had opened between him and the guy who he could now admit he was secretly crushing on. He was a little scared to be more forward, not wanting to come off as weird. 

And hence he left it at that, leaving the rest to the intricacies of time.

Came another Monday and Minho yawned, already tired because he had played basketball at home with his cousins and also with his friends before his classes that day. He was feeling drowsy after having taken a warm shower. He didn’t watch the soccer field, feeling his eyes flutter shut but he did peek under the desk and his tired eyes opened wide, because it was filled with a bunch of small, autumn leaves.

He took one out and then another, there were short phrases on each of them. It wasn’t that hard a jumble as they were numbered and he placed them together easily, the creases in his forehead dissipating, a little warmth spreading in his face.

Really? I just started a short while back though. TY! Have you ever tried origami before?

“I did. I hate to admit it but I big time.”

Minho looked at what he had scrawled down. His heart was thumping, wanting to jump out, wanting to flow into his pen, write down so much more on the little post-it, but he was glad nothing of that sort was humanly possible because it did feel quite possible at the moment. 

All night he hadn’t been able to sleep, thinking of the message, thinking about how more space was being established between Taemin and him, to make up for their disparate times. All night, his heart had kept him up, awaiting more beautiful folds, more words.

He almost laughed out loud on spotting an owl sitting inside his desk the next day.

I stayed up all night to make this

P.S Maybe not all night. I just couldn’t resist the pun haha. What more do you wanna see?

Minho sighed, his gaze growing fond as he turned the little owl around. It was cute but intricate and he couldn’t help but imagine Taemin carefully working on its every fold, that little wrinkle between his brows as he tried to fold the paper right.

Minho thought during the lecture at what more he really wanted to see. He actually knew what– who– he really wanted to see but he also knew he couldn’t write it.

“Surprise me.” He jotted down, knowing he’d adore whatever would fill his desk the next time.

The next day, there was a green T-Rex sitting inside the desk, looking adorably hostile.

What’s a dinosaur’s fav file extension?

.rar!

Minho was laughing as he turned to read what was scrawled on the tail. 

Don’t ever ask me to surprise you again. I

“How does a dinosaur like its meat? Rawwwwww. I’m no better.” Minho scrawled down, remembering one of the similar jokes his little cousin had told him. He had more space in the sticky note so he added, “Just curious, how did you get into origami?”

Minho pursed his lips, looking at his message, reassuring himself over and over again that it was a valid, normal question and he left it inside the desk, looking again at the dinosaur and at t