This was the time when Taemin decided to take things into his own hands.

Having opened his eyes slowly and turned his head to the left, he saw a peacefully sleeping posture of his boyfriend, his frog-like eyes closed softly and breathing steady. Taemin really did his best to slip out from under the blanket as silently as he could, watching with a held breath how Minho stirred in the sleep. Nothing ever melted Taemin’s heart more than a sight of his boyfriend’s endearing smile after having woken up, but this time, this very time Taemin had to leave him there alone, just to bring his plan into life.

Walking on tiptoes, Taemin left the bedroom, quietly closed the wooden door after himself and looked around. The loaded shoulder bag kept hanging where he had left it the day before, making sure that Minho wouldn’t have noticed it.

Taemin was always a good boy and this was the time when he decided to prove that he can be a mature, responsible man. Minho had never let him to go anywhere alone until then. It was the day which Taemin had been planning since forever and finally, it was going to be fulfilled.

Small sparkles of excitement shone in Taemin’s eyes only at the thought.

The visit in the bathroom was quick, hurried because he was afraid that the running water might have woken up Minho and ruin the whole thing. He shot a glance at his reflection in the mirror, a wide smiling, proud man in front of his eyes. Maybe others had seen the kid in him, but this time, they will be amazed and they would have to apologize for treating him like a child all this time.

He nodded to himself, as if reassuring that it would really happen soon, and left the room, stepping on his tiptoes carefully like never before. Taemin peeked into their bedroom for the last time, remembering the soft features of sleeping Minho, which were going to be soon a grimace of surprise.

The bag had been slung across his shoulders and he walked downstairs in rush, glancing at the watch on his wrist, which told him that he should hurry up. In the kitchen, there was a small pocket of post-its near the fridge, waiting to be stuck onto the door every time either Taemin or Minho had to announce something important. Taemin looked at it for a brief second.

Feeling that it would prove his responsibility even more, he tore the post-it note from the others and sat at the table, drumming his fingers on the top in deep thought. This wasn’t in his plan, yet he knew that Minho would be worried about him anyway, so he decided to leave him a small message to calm him down. He wrote down where he was going to be and that he would take care of himself on his own. Adding a little heart at the end made his heart jump a bit. Cheesiness was always his weak point.

He stuck the note to the fridge door and patted it a few times with his palm, making sure that it wouldn’t fall off soon. He nodded to himself again, giving himself a sign that he was ready to go. He even resigned from the idea to check his bag, because he was sure that he had packed everything needed the day before.

The door had been locked after him and a deep breath left his lungs. He felt the adrenaline pulsing in his veins and at the same time, some tiny clenching feeling appeared in his stomach. A little part of him felt bad, almost guilty, but it wasn’t the right time to think about it then.

He was going to succeed no matter what.

While walking towards the bus stop, he played with a small stone on his way, kicking it with a shoes he had received from Minho on his twentieth birthday only a few days ago. He inflated his cheeks childishly at the thought. Minho had given him the box first, then surprised him with a plush frog appearing from behind his back. Not that Taemin didn’t like the plushies, because he did, a lot, but something had twisted in his stomach and made his brow furrow in annoyance when Minho had smiled to him goofily and assured him that the frog would protect him when he was alone.

And then was the time, when he was walking carelessly towards the bus stop, almost hopping, and the frog was nowhere beside him.

He could manage without any stupid frog, he thought with a snort, a double meaning of ‘frog’ making him smile.

A bus stop appeared in his eyes and he turned around in some inner fear that Minho could have been chasing him all this time. But there was no one behind him besides some elder couple and a small sigh of relief caused his eyes to close for a second.

He entered the bus and looked around for any free seat in sight. The bus was crowded, since it was Saturday morning and people wanted to reach their destinations before the traffic jam started. Which, honestly speaking, only caused it to start earlier.

Taemin sat down near some man in his forties, his face already full of wrinkles and unshaved. The boy gave him a nervous smile, doubting for the first time in the perfection of the whole idea. Completely on the contrary to Taemin’s liking, the man kept his eyes on him, giving the younger male chills on his nape.

Which weren’t that pleasurable chills that appeared every time Minho touched him.

Taemin jumped on his seat with a shudder, when a man moved closer.

“Where is such a fragile, pretty boy going all alone?” the man gestured towards Taemin. And, even if seconds before he had hesitated if to continue his small journey or not, the man’s words pressed all his buttons and made his face scowl in disgust.

“May I ask where such an annoying, old man is going to take all that naïve creatures? I’m not one of them”

The man’s face quickly changed from disturbingly happy to shocked.

Taemin felt proud that he could do it, alone, without Minho by his side.

He was an independent person, he didn’t need to rely on anyone.

The man snorted, wrinkled his nose and moved back onto his place, turned to the window and Taemin stuck out his tongue at his back.

The bus stopped after a few more minutes and Taemin bowed to the man politely with a small smirk of victory on his lips. He left the bus in quick steps and looked around himself, knowing the place pretty well, since Minho had taken him there many times before, because there were many cosy restaurants serving delicious food.

Taemin hopped towards the train station not that far away, glancing at the shop windows all the way and his lips unconsciously at the sight of all the mouth-watering sweets.

His small ponytail smacked his cheek when he stopped suddenly on his track, the feeling of buzzing in his pants pocket made him feel insecure.

“Taemin-ah, why aren’t you sleeping?!” the nagging voice sounded in the speaker and Taemin exhaled slowly, recognizing it at once.

“Key-hyung, even I have been sleeping, your voice could have woken up my neighbors” Taemin rolled his eyes and plopped down on the nearest bench under the tree.

“Well, you’re quite right” it was silent for a second and Taemin thought that there are some problems on the line, but Key’s voice appeared once again “Where are you?”

Damn, that Key and his inner umma.

“At home?” it sounded more like a question rather than the statement. It wasn’t really hard for Taemin to imagine Key’s nose wrinkled in whatever annoyance or disbelief he felt at the moment.

“Liar” he shortly answered on the other line. Taemin puckered his lips, but quickly his small pout vanished, after he had realized that it was nothing of masculine. So instead, he drummed his fingertips on the knee, when another silence appeared in his speaker. “If you’re at home, why do I hear cars in the background?” Key continued and Taemin’s fingers stopped their movements in a trice.

He really, really had to think upon some good explanation, because Key calling Minho and continuing his investigation was just a matter of time.

Taemin felt even more annoyed. He wanted to prove that he was already old enough to decide alone and go wherever he liked. Not only did Minho take too much care of him, but Key was even more careful when it came to Taemin, only not that usually, since Minho was by his side almost all of his time and Key saw him from time to time.

His brow furrowed and lips compressed tightly.

“Minho took me for a walk”

“That early?” the answer was really fast, as if Kibum had actually waited for words like that.

“Yes” Taemin said as quickly as the other one and an image of Key crossing his arms appeared in his mind. There was a short silence, telling him that maybe Key let out a sigh of relief or something like that.

“Fine. Have fun you two”

Taemin’s lips spread in a wide, proud smile.

“Okay. Bye hyung!”

He heard some more mumbles on the other line and the call was ended. He brought the phone in front of himself to check the time and jumped from the bench in hurry, realizing that his train might leave without him.

Taemin wasn’t clearly sure why he couldn’t control it, but with every next step taken, his heart was beating faster and eyes moving from one person to another.

Being with Minho, who held his hand, he wasn’t scared in the slightest, but then, he was standing in the center of the train station like a lost child, turning from side to side.

Having taken a deep breath, he plopped down onto the plastic bench and glanced at the board above him, on which he noticed his train’s arrival delayed. He had some more time to relax and finally stop rushing around.

He decided to check his bag in whatever case appeared in his mind.

“Wallet, money, documents…” the small mumbles left his lips and he froze when he couldn’t find the most important thing in his whole plan.

Ticket.

He fell down onto his knees and threw all the stuff from his bag onto the bench, rooting through it almost desperately with some free strands disturbing his vision.

Even if he tried searching for like the fifth time, the ticket still wasn’t in his sight.

Taemin embraced all his things in his palms and threw them into his shoulder bag, then rushed towards the ticket office, tripping on his own legs a few times and almost knocking down some people who he bumped into.

“One… One ticket to Seoul… Please…” he barely formed a sentence when his breath was uneven and short like that. The woman stared at his loose ponytail and panting posture for a minute.

“I’m sorry darling, but there are no tickets left for the next train to Seoul” she informed him emotionlessly, making him to widen his eyes with his mouth agape.

“What? No, it’s impossible…” after looking around and taking some more deep breaths, he appeared at the window again “When does the next train leave?”

She searched something on her computer and Taemin stepped from one foot to another impatiently.

“Three hours later” her eyes landed on him once more.

He wanted to curse, but bit his tongue instead and got back onto his place on the bench, the bag on his knees and strap loosely on his shoulder.

There was no way that his plan would fail just because he forgot the ticket.

After a few minutes he decided that he would just go and buy the ticket to some other place. It would only prove more that he was responsible and self-reliant, because it would be a city that he didn’t know, on the contrary to Seoul, which he had visited a couple times with Minho before.

Taemin stood up and looked at the board again, not even one of cities names familiar to him. Minutes passed and with every next of them, he finally understood how lost he felt.

There was nobody to help him, no one to guide and pat his back whenever he did something on his own, but with someone by his side.

He knew that a man he wanted to be shouldn’t have acted like that, but he felt his eyes getting dangerously moist with the thought of how much he wanted Minho to appear just next to him. Rubbing the eye with the top of his hand helped for a while.

Right then, Taemin regretted that he hadn’t taken the plush frog with himself in first place and the thought made his lips bow in a fond smile.

His hands reached behind his head to adjust his ponytail and he jumped with a shriek when he felt warm fingers on his own.

Taemin turned back towards the person immediately, with his fists clenched and ready to punch some possible ert in the stomach, just how Minho had taught him to, but his features softened and eyes squinted when he smiled tenderly at the sight in front of him.

Minho’s hair was mussed, with some cowlicks sticking out, lips parted and leaving pants and eyes wide, full of worry and relief, resembling a frog as much as Taemin loved it to be.

“What did you have in mind, I thought I would go crazy, when I read the post-it and found out that you ju-” Minho was cut off when Taemin threw his hands towards him and connected them behind his neck. At first, Minho was too much of taken aback to answer anyhow, but when his senses were working again, his heart melted and arms scooted around his waist.

“I was growing scared, Minho, I won’t do it anymore, I promise!” he looked up at him like a little child who had done something really bad. Minho brushed off some blond strands from his forehead and his smile grew wider at the sight of Taemin’s round eyes.

“I’m happy you’re fine. And, to be honest, Key called and woke me up”

Taemin puffed his cheeks, not really caring anymore about how childlishly it looked. Minho just laughed sonorously and kissed one of his cheeks, making him to release the breath and the skin of his face to flush pink.

“Why did you do that, huh?” Minho asked in a soft tone, not angry at Taemin in the slightest. He couldn’t be angry at him at all when he was looking at him with those round, sparkling eyes, the pads of his fingers caressing the skin of his nape.

“Well, I just wanted to feel independent… You know, do something completely on my own…” his cheeks warmed up even more and Taemin was sure that they weren’t pink anymore, but tomato red, when he realized how his idea only proved how really a kid he was.

Minho laughed once more, this time tenderly and softly.

“What’s wrong with depending on someone?” Minho cocked his eyebrow and squeezed the sides of Taemin’s waist reassuringly “If you want to know, I like when you need me so much” he shrugged in a bit of a nervous manner.

Taemin blinked his eyes repeatedly.

“Really?” he tilted his head to the side and Minho cleared his throat, feeling a bit awkward.

“Yeah, really” his eyes looked everywhere but Taemin, which only pushed the younger to raise on his toes and peck his lips sweetly.

“Thank you for coming and rescuing me, my frog prince!” Taemin removed his hands from Minho’s nape and chirped cutely, making the other male to chuckle at the cheesiness.

Minho intertwined their fingers and started walking towards the exit of the train station.

“And you know, this guy was hitting on me, but I just showed him my middle finger and told him to find another purpose!” Taemin threw his hands into the air exaggeratedly, the action almost knocking Minho down because of their still linked hands. The younger didn’t mind adding some interesting details to the story, making sure to appear really brave in Minho’s eyes.

Who just shook his head and ruffled Taemin’s hair, repeating the words ‘my little Minnie’ to make the younger stomp his feet stubbornly, proving everyone that he was still just like a child.

A/N Fluffy oneshot is fluffy like hell.

Nothing to add more, sorry for that OTL

But comments are love, you know it~ ♥