Taemin felt that he encountered a lot of coincidences.

One was on his second year Sports Day– he had completely forgotten to trim his overgrown fringe, despite knowing the strict rules of tardiness on this one particular day.

Their PE teacher wouldn’t mark him tardy if it was any other day, but today he’d have to stay back and clean if he got detention, for PE, of all things. He was glad he always had a hairband on him but it had snapped in two earlier and he was now headed to the classroom to check whether he had something stored in his desk before he set out on the embarrassing path of asking people for hair clips.

And to his surprise, there was a little pack of hair clips inside his desk. They weren’t his and could belong to someone who had sat in his place in the free period when he was in the music room.

He sighed, leaving a note that he was borrowing them before he hurried back to the sports field, not wanting to stay back for any reason whatsoever on a Saturday. 

Jonghyun noticed the hair clips in his hair when he had joined them in the queue for the lemon-spoon race. Since Sports Day participation was compulsory, they usually just did one of the easy races and went straight to the music room.

“Who lent them to you?”

“I just found them inside my desk.” Taemin said, making sure his overgrown fringe was tucked away properly, not wanting any teacher to notice.

“Aren’t you lucky now,” Jonghyun whispered thoughtfully. “By the way are you really okay with my dumbo boyfriend’s choice of race? You were a track & field star, why didn’t you sign up for one of the marathons?”

Jinki had just reached them, holding his spoon and lemon in the mouth and both Taemin and Jonghyun laughed.

“I get my fair share of running when I go jogging with Mom at the park every evening. I won’t be able to go with her if I tire myself out now.” He chuckled, “Besides, I wouldn’t have been able to see this if I had.” Taemin commented and Jonghyun whispered, pursing his lips to suppress his laughter, looking at Jinki’s silliness and obliviousness, “True.”

The next coincidence came when Taemin was running late on his project report. He still had a lot to do and he had already landed in detention twice, trying to do it secretly in class. It was due in the last period and when he realized he couldn’t make it, he started thinking of acceptable excuses. Excuses that would be better than the actual truth, which was that he had left it for the last moment and had fallen asleep last night instead of pulling an all nighter to finish it, like he had planned.

He knew the 15% deduction was inevitable, all he needed was an excuse that wouldn’t invoke too much wrath of the teacher.

But when the last period came, the teacher announced the extension of the deadline and Taemin simmered down in relief. 

The next coincidence came that very day when he had left detention only to find it raining harshly and the teacher passing by had handed him an umbrella.

Taemin had come to believe that coincidences weren’t disconnected accidents, or of luck, but were in fact, fateful, had reasons, were at times the winning home run of a losing game. Sometimes the reason for such coincidences was apparent right away, sometimes it wasn’t.

Maybe the girl using his desk in the free period had forgotten to grab her clips. Everyone else also was running behind schedule hence the postponement of the deadline on the project. The teacher happened to have a spare umbrella at that time... these were apparent reasons for being saved from Sports Day detention, being saved from a deduction & embarrassment for late submission, being saved from getting drenched entirely by the time he reached the bus stop.

Taemin could find reasons for almost every coincidence. Almost.

But there was no reason he could find yet for the coincidence of him crossing paths with Minho, of him being struck in that moment, so much that he grew to notice him to such an extent, and had now come to harbor something for him that was so strong.

He often wondered why and how. At times he had answers, at times he had none. 

As he wondered… he realized that it didn’t matter and it probably never will. He didn’t need answers, nor did he need reasons.

As he wondered, he realized how much beauty there was in an event being a coincidence. It was touched by a little more fate, by little more luck, it was something that unfurled in conditions uncommon, disguised under the ruse of having no absolute reason. 

As he wondered, he realized that there was the most beauty in one coincidence, and only coincidence out of them all. 

The one in which it was Minho, whom he had fallen for.

It was another coincidence to have caught Minho’s laughter. Not the soft kind that he usually laughed around his friends but the kind where he completely yielded to the hilarious moment, where he came undone and let his cheer out in abundance. 

It was precious. It was odd, loud and his voice changed entirely, he grew breathless and his voice didn’t come out for a few seconds before it got louder and he would be laughing out of control. It was the most hilarious and ridiculous laugh Taemin had ever heard… but it was so, so precious.

Taemin had stayed back in the classroom instead of going to the music room, despite no soccer practice scheduled that day. He hadn’t expected Minho to be around, but he was there, on the soccer field with his small group of friends. There was no one else around, even the bleachers were empty since it was way past the school bell, way past the time club activities started. 

They had been goofing around and Taemin was just watching him, his almost-dimpled smile, the soft breeze disrupting his slightly parted hair and then all of a sudden his laughter had broken the air, and he could hear it all the way up to the second floor, where he sat alone near the window, slowly working on homework… it was comical, dramatic, and so contagious… Taemin had started laughing to himself as well.