“Oh.” Jinki raised his eyebrows when Minho joined the billing queue at the department store they had hit after work. “Oh.”

Minho cleared his throat uncomfortably, his brows furrowed, “What?”

“That is quite an unexpected choice for a corporate gift.” Jinki barely suppressed his smug smile as he stepped forward, carefully holding the fugliest sweater that Minho had ever set his eyes upon. It was a fuzzy green with small Christmas lights and a big- bow on it. 

“Look who’s talking. I pity the person you are the Secret Santa for.” Minho commented, moving forward in the queue as well.

Jinki laughed. “They are going to absolutely hate it and that is exactly why I chose it.” He hummed, his gaze settling again on the branded set of lipgloss Minho was holding. “Hydrating, plumping, organic, vegan, edible, with a–”

Minho flipped the set around so Jinki couldn’t read the text on it anymore.

Jinki chuckled, turning back around. “Oh, well, I’ll find out this Friday who among our colleagues you’ve got the hots for.”

Minho wanted to argue with his statement but he pursed his lips and flushed instead because Jinki was right.

The colleague he was the Secret Santa for was the one he had an insane crush on.

♡

 

It was finally Friday. Minho had come to work super early, right after his gym session at 6 AM, because he was too conscious of the gift he was going to leave at a certain desk. As the week passed, he had kind of regretted his choice–it was too impulsive, he knew–and the safest thing was always to go for the classic corporate gifts. Notebooks, planners, calendars, insulated bottles and mugs. A decorative piece. Snacks. Chocolates. Socks. Yes, socks! Why didn’t he think of socks? It was going to be cold for a couple of months more and he got cold so easily, he would have definitely appreciated some warm socks. 

But no, Minho’s mind was too caught up in his lip-biting habit, the way he chewed on his lips while working, and those little red spots from all that anxious chewing. Minho noticed that his lips were often chapped too ever since it got colder, and he had caught his soft grumbling about losing or forgetting his lip balm somewhere… thus lip balm was the original idea…but when Minho had set his eyes on this, on the cute packaging, the attractive bottles, the graphics of the pouty lips, and all the features the lip gloss boasted of, Minho had lost trail of his plausible idea and gotten this set of lip glosses instead. 

Now that he was thinking about it, he’d imagined his lips in those graphics, in those shades, in those adjectives…

Hydrating. Plumping…

Moving animatedly when he spoke, juicy between his teeth, prettier with a hint of tint. So damn distracting, so damn kissable. Minho ended up with quite many erse, intrusive thoughts. If only he could learn how it felt to trace their pretty shape, bite into them too, taste every line in them, watch them move for him, feel them move against his own…

Realizing where his thoughts had led him, Minho cleared his throat in guilty embarrassment and let out a deep, conflicted sigh. He watched the gift he had arranged on the desk and put everything in a logical perspective, even though he clearly hadn’t been logical when he had picked these out. 

“It’s just a fancy lip balm.” He muttered to himself, and concluded that it was a useful gift, although he knew how embarrassing this was; he’d really let his intrusive thoughts win on this. But, come to think of it, he had no reason to be anxious. He was a Secret Santa. His identity was going to be a secret. No one will ever know that the person who gave lip gloss as a gift was him. Of course, except Jinki.

He fixed the position of the gift one more time and when satisfied, he left the office to go back home, shower and change, and come back to work at 9.

♡
 

As expected, when Minho walked into the office around 9, the atmosphere was rather festive. They had a short day before the office closed for a week from Christmas to New Year, and not only did the HR arrange the Secret Santa event as a team-building activity, but they also arranged a small theme party after work. Beach Christmas was the theme and they had to dress the part–as if they were attending a beach party. A lot of guys had come to work dressed in Hawaiian shirts, some weren’t as sportive and just wore jeans and t-shirts, but all the ladies were dressed on point, in all kinds of summer dresses and prints. Minho, who usually didn’t stand out with his plain suits and glasses, probably did today since he was one of the few who had come dressed in formal workwear. But he was carrying his summer party clothes to change into later.

It was kind of ridiculous to see people dressed like this to work–some had definitely gone overboard with their sun hats and goggles. One guy was even carrying a surfboard. But, on second thought, this was pretty tame compared to last year’s theme. Cartoon characters. 

Greeting people on the way to his work desk, Minho glanced at the desk he had put his gift on earlier that morning. It was still vacant. He sighed and settled in his place and his eyes widened in surprise. A present was sitting between his monitor and CPU, wrapped a little untidily, despite it being literally a box of some kind, which generally was a shape easier to wrap. Anyways, this only meant whoever the person was, they had wrapped it themselves, and that made him smile a little. He had completely forgotten to be excited and curious about what he would receive in his flurry about choosing lip gloss as a gift, but now he was finally feeling it. He wasn’t picky and he would definitely like and be thankful for whatever he would get, even if it was going to be a desk calendar. But of course, the present looked a bit hefty to just be a calendar.

Minho pulled it out from the space and it was right then that Jinki had dropped by, leaning against Minho’s desk. He was dressed in jeans and a tank top with a crochet half-sleeved cardigan, and took a sip from his coffee mug before he asked “What did you get?”

Minho just went ahead and opened his present. The wrapping came off without much effort and revealed it to be a set of gourmet, flavored instant coffee jars.

“Wow. That’s probably the best one yet. Thoughtful too since you hate the office machine coffee.” 

“Yeah.” Minho indeed liked his present. He was curious who it could be that had noticed his distaste for the machine coffee. Only Jinki knew. And Changmin. So it had to be Changmin, then. He hummed, deciding to speculate later, and looked up at Jinki, curious about his work bestie’s present. “What did you get?”

Jinki raised his mug a bit. “This.” And Minho finally focused on it. It was a white mug with a very familiar blue and white gingham pattern. But instead of the actual brand name written on that signature graphic…was written Back & Body Hurts.

Minho burst into a laugh, “That’s hilarious.”

“Isn’t it? I love it.” Jinki straightened up. “Now, I’ll be off, mate. I’ll go take another round the floor to see who got your hydrating and plumping –”

“Oooooh coffee?” Jonghyun, who had been passing by, stopped at Minho’s desk when he saw the coffee set. He was holding against his chest what could probably be his gift–a lantern with a set of scented tealights arranged prettily in styrofoam, “Nice. I’ve seen a lot of candies and calendars doing the rounds. Coffee’s unique, like my lantern here.” He showed it to them with a bright smile; he was rather happy about his present. It was kinda cute. 

“Yeah. Your lantern’s cute.” Jinki commented as he took a sip from his coffee.

“Thanks. I’m on the hunt to find out who my Secret Santa is. The key to it is to spread information about who got what. As of now, I only know what you both got and what Kibum got–a Christmas tree sweater. It’s so awful, gosh. And Taemin. Taemin got a set of lip gloss.”

“A set of lip gloss, you say?” Jinki slowly turned his gaze to Minho who had softly cleared his throat and averted his gaze.

“Yeah.” Jonghyun was now glancing around for the next person he planned to strike up a conversation with. “Ooooh looks like Jongin got socks. Let me go check 'em out. I’ll catch you guys later–”

When he was gone, Jinki smirked, eyes on Minho who was starting up his system looking all too serious to conceal his bashfulness. 

“So, Taemin, huh.”

“...”

Jinki laughed, understanding Minho’s flustered silence. “Aw, how cute.”

♡

 

Minho had it all planned in his mind more or less. Even if he hated the coffee here, he was going to grab some, so he could naturally pass by Taemin’s desk and hopefully get to watch him open the present. But since Jonghyun had already come bearing news about it, he had missed his timing. He had also missed his chance of asking Jonghyun whether Taemin liked it or not–he could have certainly done that naturally in the flow of conversation then; but his crush had been revealed to Jinki and Jonghyun had gotten distracted by socks and left, so, well.

Normally, Minho wouldn’t have a problem approaching Taemin, he did it often for work since their teams worked together. They had been in meetings together. Talked fluidly about several things if they ever ran into each other during breaks. Even ended up sitting next to each other a few times during lunch and team gatherings, and talked even then. But their rapport was something short of friendly colleagues; it was both natural and awkward, and that was mostly because Minho had feelings for him that went beyond just a friendly rapport.

So just going up to his desk naturally, to go ask about his present seemed a little too much to him. Especially when he was the one who had given it to him.

And that was how the entire day passed. With Minho not finding out at all about the fate of his present. 

The Beach Christmas party was starting soon and Minho had gone to the washroom to change. He had ditched his glasses and wore the sleeveless tee and shorts he had brought with him. The office had good heating and that was why most people had come dressed in theme, but Minho just wouldn’t be comfortable focussing on his task if he had come dressed in what he had planned to wear; especially when he would obviously get a bit self-conscious around a certain someone. Thus, he had decided to leave that tension only for the actual event rather than the entire day.

After packing his suit in the duffel bag, he stepped out, running his hand through his hair to disrupt the parting, but he stopped short because in the mirror right in front, he saw Taemin’s reflection. Taemin…who was applying lip gloss. 

Taemin had spotted him too and immediately lowered his hand, his lips curving up in a small smile. “Hi.”

“Oh, hi.” Minho returned a smile immediately and lowered his gaze. He stepped forward to wash his hands, having a hard time keeping his cool because of Taemin’s sight. He could not help but discreetly glance at him again through the mirror. Damn, he looked so pretty and soft in that printed shirt and white shorts, and not to mention his lips. Those damn pretty lips, the way they now gleamed with a hint of red. Minho could even smell it. It smelled like green apples and cinnamon, and he couldn’t help but think even the scent suited Taemin. And the way Taemin’s gaze was lowered and focussed, the way his lips had been parted and before he pouted as he traced them with the lip gloss stick– 

Goddamn, he was done for. He probably was a long time ago when he’d begun to notice and linger on every feature of Taemin; of course, his plump lips often grabbed his attention more because Taemin was always pouting or biting or chewing on his lips subconsciously. It was also his smile. When he smiled, everything about him just shined.

Minho washed his hands unnecessarily and extremely thoroughly; , his hands were gonna be cold for a while, but it was worth it to while his time doing that little task because he got to see Taemin resume applying the lip gloss.