Why is someone shining a torch right in my eyes? My eyes are radiant enough.

But wait.

Who exactly….

Oh.

I get in a half-sit, half-lay down position, elbow stabbing the softness of the bed, eyes scanning Choi Minho’s overly broad back past which, I have no idea how Sun’s rays managed to seep through. Me, having hazy vision and blinding rays penetrating my eyeball, squint at his back as if I doing so will induce a prompt in him to look over his shoulder and pay attention. At times like this, like early-morning me with no strength to move my mouth muscles to form words, I wished I had laser for eyes.

Not to drill a hole in his back but you know, to get my presence known and acknowledged?

He seems to be struggling with his feet or leg, which I find amusing because it’s a wonder how someone can struggle with such long legs when we, belonging to the dwarf specie of humans, have problems following us like a shadow.

You want something from the top shelf?

Might as-well become a long jumper.

Or spiderman.

The effort it takes us to get our peanut butter is equal to us getting tagged Super Heroes.

Like you can’t even get your favourite snack without first looking like an idiot crouching on the island and then chanting every mantra you ever heard of to not fall. Or you can be a loser and go ask someone, either ways, your self-esteem is reaching the taller people’s knees, where your head also seems to reach.

Morning thoughts are so annoying because they make me sit and stare into nothing while my eyes look dead and my face looks offended for being part of my body.

But what catches my attention is the fact that I see Minho get up, correcting the heel of his shoes a few times, checking for any technical difficulties before beginning to walk out.

“Where are you going?” I dare myself to ask, face a mixture of why am I here and what is this dimension. Choi Minho hums, being caught off-guard by a sudden call for him and turns on his heels, eyes looking at me with a questioning look while hands work on his watch’s clasp.

“To the gym.” He simply replies and I kid you not when I say this but I roll my eyes and I roll them so severely that I can feel it becoming rolling pin and that’s lame but whatever.

A parasite in me perks up at the thought although that same parasite has been the reason of me being this thin-boned. The parasite not only urges me to come fully awake but also get in a better sitting position where my soles are pressed with each other and my legs are competing in guess this shape, forming a perfect diamond, hands effortlessly seated on my thighs to display the sincerity in my words.

“Oh? I’m coming too!” I exclaim with a lit up face, one hand reaching to fully detach the duvet from my being and in the heat of the moment, I might have tossed it out of the bed when I spring up on my feet but who cares? Not me. A wide, overly wide, beam adorns my face and Minho, being the ever-woozy homosapien simply ogles at me with his hands on his hips like that meme.

“No it’s not a place for children to play Taem, it’s-“ I don’t stop to listen to him complain and be my second mother when I shuffle past him and grab his car keys from the side table on the way to the washroom connected with the changing room. “Yah, Taemin-ah….”

He sounds so defeated that although I thought of not letting him know why I did what I did, I feel pity and so I smile over my shoulder, twirling the car keys in my index.

“In case you decide to leave without me!”

Don’t make that face Minho where you’re vexed up and ready to call your mom. You brought this upon yourself when you confessed! Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you.

Actually.

I close the door behind me so it works as a force-field against the rid up, over-the-top disgusted face he keeps making.

I didn’t.






I dash out of the changing room and frantically begin looking for footwear.

What?

Don’t look at me like that! I can’t go to gym with my slippers?? How uncool! Minho simply stands over my head and breathes and at that point, his capability to breathe in my vicinity is so irking that I almost curse him where everytime he breathes, he farts too. He looks very perplexed, slightly annoyed too but come on, I know he’s not annoyed with me. He can’t. I’m the embodiment of kawaii. Add the shrillest tone for special effects.

I tuck my hair behind my ears and look under his bed to find something. I can’t go barefoot. I mean, I can but I won’t? Like, what the are you thinking?

And it’s so cute how Minho just installs himself over my head, trying to assess my actions, making those faces where one is having for the first time and somehow forgot to clean properly, instead of starting his program and reacting by going, say, uh Taemin-ah, what do you want? he just blinks.

“Give me your shoes.” I decide that I shall be shameless for the sake of our relationship. Now that I stand before him, visibly shorter but IQ cutting through the roof while his lays flat on the ground like his sense of humour, he still has the ing audacity to make the same constipated-first-time-- face at me.

“What?” Please, I didn’t ask you any mathematical question for you to sound and look so genuinely mystified. Because first of all, that’s ­un-possible when 1+1 makes me think of a window before my mind processes the answer to be 2 and second of all that is not a word. But since impossible says I-am-possible, I shall boycott that word in this conspicuous moment.

“These, Choi Minho! We are already late.” I press, footing his feet as if me doing that will somehow make the shoes evaporate from his feet and condense onto mine. “It goes with my outfit!” I am wearing yellow, his shoes are yellow. Hence they belong to me.

Matchy-matchy.

21^st Century boys but still don’t know that presentation matters the most.

I point out the indisputable truth in Minho’s face with a big duh tone because it should be common sense to this tall waste of space of planet earth to see through my ingenious visions. Ingenious, aesthetically-blocked, selfish visions.

But of course, being handsome comes with its cons. You lack intelligence since God took too much time into perfecting that face.

Okay don’t alienate me. Have you never asked someone to take something off because it goes with your outfit?

No?

Well then that’s sad because sharing is caring and you never got a taste of that blessing.

You must be lonely.

“Taemin, we’re going gym-ing, not jamming.” He deadpans, or he thinks he deadpans but I am smart and I know the difference between deadpanning and being irated and unfortunately for you, Minho, you sound annoyed and jealous. I brew on a tiny smile, giggling.

“Haha so funny." Snap. And back to the sullen look. "We’ll take couple-goals videos and photos there, I should look good. Not that I don’t look good already. You get my point right?” I speak with my hands and I bet if my voice was incapable of entering his ears, he would have understood that I meant to call him boring in 1000 different ways. You ever heard of killing with kindness?

He, nonetheless of the disgusting face he’s making, takes off his shoes and kicks them to me, me thanking him with a smile which I assume is cute because I am making it. I assume so because he promptly extends his long limb and mercilessly tugs at my chubby cheeks.

After he has found himself a new pair and I have stuffed his with tissues to fit me, I check myself out in the mirror.

I look.............................2.

I heave out a sigh.

Okay yeah, I do look like a younger brother who inherited his elder brother’s belongings. Only the problem was, the elder brother somehow came out of Hagrid’s nonexistent and so I look like a cloth hanger for his clothes.

“I look good right?” I ask him, judging every nook and cranny of my beautiful self, leaning in the mirror’s face to see for any flaws but when you’re Lee Taemin, flaws don’t exist anywhere on your body. Inching back, I print on a Cheshire cat grin, flexing my non-existent biceps at Minho. “Ready for Gym!”

“Those…are my clothes.” He complains with a concerned look. Concerned because I know he thinks he will get judged for making me wear his clothes instead of buying me some. Yes. That. Everyone will think he’s broke and that’s why he looks concerned. “Definitely too big for you….” Minho adds with the same dragging tone and had it not been for these too big shoes, I would have kicked that face.

I turn back to the mirror and fix my bangs with my fingers, crumpling up my face to show distaste. “I am sorry I don’t carry my luggage around with me.” Came my counter because isn’t that common sense? Like it’s not my house, how does this idiot expect me to magically wear my clothes? Does he think clothes can be fax-ed or something? Do people even use fax nowadays? Or maybe his lack of braincells makes him think that one can simply Bluetooth their clothes from one house to the other like what exactly is he thinking?

Sorry.

Is he even thinking??

 “Also, it’s my first time! The least you can do is pat me on the back and encourage me!”

“Fine fine, hurry up.” His brain manages to make him chuckle, head tilting to a side for some weird reason.

From the corner of my eyes, I catch him staring and he’s pleasingly smiling to himself and I, Lee Taemin, future Choi Taemin, take offense to that handsome smile! “Oh my God what are you doing standing there and staring? Mrs Choi, your son has forgotten all the punctuality rules!” I announce after I had checked that I don’t fall face-first while I am trying to be cool just because these Goddamn shoes are too big, wiggling my feet about to see if they begin dangling or slipping out.

When they don’t and I am stumbling out of the room because I convince myself they will slip out, I catch Minho’s last words before I slam the door in his face and make my way to the car.

“We are going to the gym…..not a wedding. What punctual…”

Yeah whatever.








Okay wow.

I didn’t know Gyms have like this whole hotel-esque reception?? I scintillate my beautiful eyes around, scanning how the whole place doesn’t reek of human bodily fluids as I anticipated but then I realise that maybe we haven’t entered that part yet. And I also realise that Choi Minho is blocking my view from the real gym, which stands a glass door away from our place.

“Hi welcome!” I see Minho submitting his card to the receptionist who, honestly, okay I am not being rude but, badly needs the Gym he is working at a receptionist as. It’s as if I am a nutritionist and if you look a bit down, you’ll see all of my nutrition oozing out of my stomach and making me look pregnant.

In short, he looks pregnant.

“Thank you…uh, very nice Gym.” I compliment with a very awkward tone because it’s weird just standing there and looking around, fascinated like a foreigner, my eyes fall on a bulked up man behind the glass door and I am thinking if he ever worked in WWE when this receptionist chirps up.

“Jim? No that’s Bob!”

I blink.

Minho seems unfazed.

So I blink at him because why is he unfazed?

And then he leans next to my ear and with a titter for a beginning, tells.

“It’s their company’s policy. To make this joke.”

O….kay?

When I look visibly bothered by that joke, Minho finds it even funnier and takes my wrist, dragging me in.

And oh, I do smell things here.

Not bad things but certainly not the usual.

I sniff once, twice, thrice till Minho stops dragging me and eyes me to behave but I am not here to behave and certainly will not in the coming future either. Like who the comes to gym when it’s their day off? I look at Minho while he is also looking at me, once again, befuddled. This idiot. I tell myself and smile at him to which, he smiles back and lets go off my wrist.

“That’s the bicycle you keep asking me about. I’ll be here, at the step board.” He tells me, pointing at a weird still machine seemingly 10 feet away from our spot and then at a bunch of step-ish looking….things where he will be. What do you even do on these??

I must have looked offended by him trying to create space between us since he plasters on a tiny smile a second later and points in the bicycle’s direction. “It’s called a spine bike, don’t call it a bicycle to that trainer over there.” That trainer looks like if he breathes anywhere around me, I might get blown off to Canada. “Go straight.” Minho instructs as I begin walking but of course, I get distracted by one of the guys there lying down on this thing and pushing this other thing with his legs.

How that is even an exercise?? I can do that at home in bed. Lie down and kick Choi Minho off the bed. Perfect no-gym exercise.

“Go straight!” He repeats a bit louder because I think I walked the wrong way being lost and betrayed by my own boyfriend, shooing me away the moment we set foot in the gym as if he’s a mom handing her son a bike to busy him just so she can back-bite on the phone to her friend. I don’t regret saying what I say a beat later.

“But I’m gay!”

I might or might not have attracted unnecessary attention around both of us. I don’t think Minho can see my apologetic smile from this far because first of all, it’s non-existent.









I am bicycling or pretending to cycle where my elbow stays perched on the meter and the other hand holds up my phone to my face to see how I am looking. I look lazy, that’s how I am looking. Lazy and alien to this place. When from the corner of my eyes, I see that Bob dude approaching; I immediately go into full-on gym-ing mode and cycle aggressively to create some sweat while he gets here.

“Hey man, I’m a trainer.”

Don’t tell me you didn’t imagine a Pokemon trainer when he said that because I did. Nonetheless, I smile a feigned sweaty, breathless one and tweet.

“Hi!”

“What are your goals?” He inquires with a smile he thinks is handsome but the only problem is, I think the same and that it indeed is a problem when I am here with my boyfriend.

“So I…I’d like to take over my father’s business and maybe take over an extra store!” I tell honestly and as my words progress to enter his ears, the smile gets contorted into the same flummoxed mess Minho is a pro at making, my language seemingly foreign to him.

“I meant, how can I help you…?” He retorts with a tone which is both fuddled and okay…?

“Oh no, I’m already with someone..” I nod as I reply, catching sight of Minho’s disquieted face zooming in.

That teaches the guy a lesson and although he eyes me throughout the day, he doesn’t approach. I am loyal.

Loyalee Taemin.

I might have been mad at Minho for getting rid of me and disowning me right when we came here but I know how to correct shameless hunk’s brains! Just because I announced I am gay doesn’t mean you can hit on me.

I can’t wait to tell Minho how I saved our relationship from the predators!









“Taemin….that’s the trainer. I consult him every day.” Minho is facepalming and I am puffing up my cheeks. The least he can do is kiss my forehead for being so loyal. “Also…I promise you that’s not what he meant.”

So in short he wants me to flirt back if he comes around. I shrug to myself, making a mental note to do so.

For a few minutes, Minho stands by my side and looks like he is contemplating leaving me alone and so I take this opportunity to hit on him.

Because in all honesty, even with this place being hunk’s heaven, my eyes stay affixed on this tall but dumb guy’s fist-sized face. No wonder he does things which make me want to punch him.

“Hyung hyung, you look nice. Let me take you somewhere.” I wiggle my eyebrows at him while cycling, patting behind me at the lack of a second seat.

He simply rolls his eyes, running his sweat towel on his nape. “Taemin…” I giggle unabashedly, looking up at him through my now sweaty, clumped together silver locks and a possibly flushed face.

“Come on, hop on!” I press when he begins to walk away, trying to hide the grin of an idiot on his face.

“Taemin-ah, don’t distract me please.” I can hear him smiling.

I take offense to that though, getting off and fixing the elastic on my, or rather his sweat pants because they threaten to slide down my petite hip the moment I stand. In the moment, I also correct my sleeveline, it drooping over my shoulders in a rather unflattering way. “Hyung, where are you going? Are you done using that step thing?” He gives a slight nod and makes his way over to a bench by the….bike…what was it called again?

With the bench is a rack where all the dumbbells are situated. I know they are called dumbbells because I seem to be in love with a dumb with bells. Okay but no, I know so because he keeps talking about them to Jonghyun hyung and I might have listened in and then searched them up. 

“Hand me that Taemin-ah.” He requests, wiping his big palms on the towel and looking at me expectantly. I raise my chin pridefully and shuffle over to the rack, asking him in gestures if it’s this, this or this one that he wants and when he nods at the last one, I chuckle through my nose and get hold of its rod-part, only to realise that it refuses to budge.

Ehm so. No, I am not weak. And no, that ain’t Arthur’s sword but Arthur’s dumbbell because it can’t be picked. I rest my case.

I stand back up, having looked like I might be miming when I am not and being a source of Minho’s entertainment because he seemed to not have a stop option to his sniggers behind the back of his hand. I eye him, trying to transfer some sense of responsibility into him. Responsibility because he brought me here and he should not make fun of me or make me do things which might result in my limb on the ground.

With an leave it to me gesture, he picks up the dumbbell without any difficulty and I am forced to ogle while he simply dishevels my perfectly made, picture-perfect hair. He begins flexing, me watching the biceps bulge up, veins popping to compensate for the extra strength put on his arms.

I scoff with a tut.

“Don’t show me your set of whites. I loosened it for you..”

That may have sounded dumb but that’s the only explanation!








I walk around Minho as if he’s flames and I’m here to perform some ritual but then I giggle because he is indeed; flaming charisma. So yeah, I am doing this thing where I pace before him with a bag of chips in my hands while he does these peek-a-boo kind of exercise with his arms. By ticking seconds, I get even more irritated that he simply ignores me and huffs and puffs his way into his exercise, my feet stomping against the marble floor of the gym.

“Hyung, what’s this?” I point at his machine, plopping another chip in my mouth. He hoists up his gaze and I almost stop breathing because he looks hot.

“This?” Came out a short, breathy reply and I gulp, nodding.

“Pec Deck machine. For my Pectoralis.” I drew in my eyebrows, bottom lip puckering out to make a face which screams I am trying very hard to understand what you just said and am left with no answers because instead of replying my clueless face, Minho decides to smile a ragged one thinking his drained, flushed, perspiring face will not make me feel things.

To explain further, he removes his arms from the thing and slaps his chest area. “Pectoralis.” Okay I am not being cheesy or anything but the side he pats happen to be the left one and that reminds me of something which I don’t hesitate voicing out with a suggestive smirk on my lips.

“So you’re strengthening these so I am safe in there?” Him, having begun the exercise chokes and for the first time I am happy that it’s not me getting choked.







I am just eating.

Is it a crime to eat?

Because the looks I am getting surely want to send me to jail. First, as Minho is busy with his pecto-something, I check myself out in the mirror, taking a few mirror selfies and then proceeding to take videos of Minho to which he says a strong no like a self-conscious girl. But when I see what I have recorded, I catch a small face in the rear view of a man staring- no, glaring at me. Instinctively, I turn around and indeed, a man is sending me a rather sour look.

I don’t see what’s wrong till Minho points out that it’s the food. More importantly, the choice of food. These are the people who glare at people who’re naturally skinny when they have to diet to get in shape. It’s not my fault that I have a boyfriend who likes to work out! Now of course I will not adapt his choices because he says he loves me for me and if I begin gym-ing, I’ll no more be me but become him and I am damn sure Choi Minho isn’t a narcissist.








I ped Minho’s bag and pulled out a bar of chocolate.

He stopped pulling the thingies and glared.

What.

I am hungry??

Also, Minho is not even decent enough to ask me if I want to drink water when he chugs down his whole bottle that I spent 5 whole minutes filling up last night. He doesn’t even say a thanks! He doesn’t even ask me if I am hungry when he sees me eating my stock. Hell, he doesn’t even question where and how did his bag end up with my food stash???  

“Hyung I don’t see any results.” I tell him, using one hand to lift my shirt to give an overall look to myself in the mirror. I heard this is where abs appears but I don’t even see the A of abs!

“Yeah…clearly.” He responds, resuming his exercise with a shake of his head towards me, as if done with me. If he wanted that chocolate, he should have asked nicely instead of glowering at me in front of everyone.

Hmph.

I look down at a single bar left to be devoured and bring it close to his mouth.

“You want some?”

And this motherer has the audacity to bite into it.

I asked you. It doesn’t mean I want to share!

What I do next is, shove the entire remaining bar in his mouth and wipe my hands on his shirt, smiling the that’s what you get for eating my chocolate smile and he, with a mouthful and a dumbfounded face, ogles. That’s when I tell myself that I should tell him that I didn’t come to play.

And so I gesture him to let me and when he does, I gesture again to watch me closely.

That’s how I begin miming again. Or so everyone who watched me that moment thought because I might look like I am faking it but I cannot pull!! Minho too, mocks me with a wow that’s so strong of you look while secretly finding humour in my humanely struggles. I say humanely because he or anyone here isn’t human if they can pull this thing.

Crushed not only because I can’t pull but also because the fact that I can’t pull got basically advertised to everyone, I take tiny steps away with my head avoiding their gaze and send a concealed glare directed only at Choi Minho. How audacious of him to imitate me and send me the watch me how to do it gesture and reinstituting the pull-thingy!

“It’s called a crossover and it’s not kid’s machine.”

Okay but did I ask?

I storm off while I feel him snickering at my back.





​​​​​​​


I walk over to a free treadmill and begin punching random buttons, astounded when the belt begins moving. I look right then left and when discern that no one is paying attention, squat down on the belt and oh my God, the giddiness I feel when it slides me to the ground. It’s like a free ride. I resume my position and repeat, finding something amusing in this boring place.

“You’re not lifting?” I jump when I see Minho’s feet by my body and swiftly get to mine, cursing when the elastic threatens to pool down my ankles.

“I am giving others chance to be healthy too hehe.” I dumbly say, struggling with the wristband and maybe Minho buys it because he nods away with a slap to my cheek and I stop grinning, puffing up my cheeks.

It was an aw, cute slap but I bet you he wanted to slap me for ruining his gym date with that trainer!

After surfing around the place, I find another interesting place where you look like you’re running but you’re not. I get on it and try to run without holding the handles provided by the machine because you don’t hold something when you run right? But I don’t know if it is the droopy sweatpants or the fact that I ignored what’s supposed to be done, the lining of the baggy sweatpants get stuck in the footrest and I trip, falling on my .

Okay I just fell, it’s no big deal. Why is everyone staring with concerned faces?? Why is one of the concerned faces zooming in? Why does it look like Choi Minho’s?

“I knew you’d fall. Taemin, you have to hold the handles in the Elliptical.” He speaks with a sorry tone when Mr. Bob the builder appears beside us and looks equally ready to fix my . “I am sorry Sir, he’s new.” With the help of his hands, I get up and smile when he tells Mr Bob I am new, as if me smiling will induce a pop up message with rainbows telling him He’s new!

Mr Bob, though, laughs and it’s even like I am decent kind of laugh, it’s a guffaw! And the smile which I previously had standby remains smiley but my eyebrows knit together, eyes averting to look at Minho.

“Oh no, don’t apologise. It’s fun to watch him figure the machines out.”

Hehe what?

Why are you laughing with him, Choi Minho?!

“It is but I can’t seem to focus on anything while my eyes make sure he doesn’t break his neck or something.”

And I’m sorry not sorry to be rude but I am not going to stand here and watch you guys make fun of me so I walk away in quest to find a comfortable spot and when I do, I lie down, closing my eyes to somehow be taken away by slumber.

“And now he’s sleeping on the abdominal bench.” I hear Minho’s voice in a distance, getting closer and closer with their laughs getting shameless and inconsiderate towards me. Come on! Now a man can’t even sleep in peace?

I pucker up my lips and pout. This is no fun. It was supposed to be a date!

“Taemin-ah…” He coaxes but my eyes are closed and I don’t see what face he is making. “Are you sleepy? Let’s go.” With light patting motion on my cute cheeks, Minho thinks he can make me come awake. Spoiler alert, you can’t awaken an awake person, dumb Choi! “I told you it won’t be fun.” A chuckle. I deepen the frown on my face. How does he not see that I am ignoring him?? There is silence for a few seconds and just when I am about to open one eye to check if he left me alone, he speaks again with a bribing tone. “Hey, we didn’t take any couple-goals type photos.”

That shoots my eyes open.

I bring out my phone.

“I told you but you never listen! Now you’re all sweaty!” I nag but Minho, taking advantage of my sitting position, gets behind me and tackles me into a back-hug, holding up his phone.

“Say kimchi~”

“Ew, you’re sweaty! Get off me!”

I don’t smile but I don’t have to because the smile Minho is giving is enough to cause me diabetes.