Taemin always swam in alcohol after their sessions.

“If you’re so depressed about it why don’t you quit?” his room-mate Kibum questioned, trailing his words with some low chuckling. Apparently his friend’s despair was a vast source of joviality for him. “I mean,” he added. “You obviously hate being in the guy’s company. Why not quit and go look for something that you can handle?”

The TV buzzed in the background, talking about some new political scandal that had been revealed by undercover reporters. As if that wasn’t depressing enough, getting told how to live his life by a guy repeating his college year because he bunked too much was… excruciating. Taemin sunk deeper into his seat, putting his feet onto the centre table top and wishing he had ear plugs  or even balls of cotton within reach right now.

“Because I’m not good at anything else,” the man hiccupped into his bottle. He blinked a few times, trying to judge if he was drunk, yet.

He wasn’t.

“And because that kid is a genius.”

“Really?”

“You have to hear the things he says, Kibum! The questions he asks, the observations he makes… he’s brilliant. Smarter than a whole class of normal kids put together. Which means he can probably make something of his life, and that’s why I’m sticking around— to see it happen.”

Kibum scoffed dryly, stepping out from behind the kitchen island and swaggering in that annoying way he'd recently picked up to impress girls. In that slimy fasion of his, he moved closer to the couch. “You know better than to think people like him can ever make anything of their lives.”

“Watch your—”

“I’m not being discriminatory,” the other cut in, waving his hand in a 'stop' signal. “I’m just being factual. How many of your students have actually gone on to be what they dreamt to be?” The man stepped in the middle of the other’s gaze, blocking the TV and folded his arms at his front. “In fact how many have even lived on for more than—”

“I said watch your mouth!” Taemin hissed and glared angrily. The drinking wasn’t helping tonight, after all, which was just another disappointment in a whole list wrapped around his head. Draining his bottle with one last sip, he looked away and began speaking in a low murmur. “I don’t know what his full medical condition is. Maybe he has a few years ahead of him, maybe not. But I don’t care, I want to help him. No matter what it takes. He deserves at least that much.”

It was quiet then, except for the annoying buzz of the ceiling fan. The man cringed at the sound and tiredly rubbed a hand over his face, sinking deeper into the upholstery till he was almost lying down. The bottle in his hand slipped and rolled onto the carpet with a muted 'clunk'.

“Yah…” Kibum started, lightly knocking their knees together, making their joints meet at right angles. Taemin huffed and moved his legs away. “Don’t get into anything troublesome, OK?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” the other growled, glowering at his room-mate with blood-shot eyes.

Kibum laughed, switching off the lights and walking away to his room. “You know the answer better than I do.”

“I… I can’t understand…” Minho bristled, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. His coffee sat untouched and the accompanying plate of honey-flavored biscuits was still full. Something was bothering him today, something from the world outside the one they shared. “Taemin ssi, please tell me what this part means…” he the book away in exactly the right direction and then dropped his head into his hands on the table.

The tutor looked at his student’s annoyance, studied it for a few seconds, before running his finger over the dots on the page. He looked a strange kind of helpless, an odd kind of lost that definitely had nothing to do with their lesson, but Taemin had never pried into the boy’s personal life. He wasn’t going to start. “Ah, I think this is a misprint, Minho ssi,” he replied after a bit. “I think they’re trying to say that the strawberries were juicy and fresh. Not trash. Fresh.” He chuckled and tenderly returned the book into his student’s hands. “There. Continue, won’t you?”

The boy simply couldn’t stop shifting, fidgeting on his seat, wringing his hands and not even as much as touching the book again. “I still don’t understand… What are strawberries? What are they like when fresh? How are they juicy? There’s no description, just the name. It’s… it’s not clear at all!” he complained loudly, shutting the book closed and noisily pushing his chair back with a very uncharacteristic annoyance. Tantrums weren’t common with Minho. He was always very patient with things; it was one of his positive features.

Seeing him like this threw Taemin off his balance. He almost pulled out another cigarette from his pack, but thought better of it. Smoking in front of his student wouln't get him anywhere good. He wanted to ask how Minho had never encountered something as common as strawberries before, but thought better of that, too. He wasn't here to be rude.

“Shall I tell you about them?” he ventured, instead.

“It won’t be enough!” Minho burst out, hands flying wildly. “How can that be enough?! I—I want to know what they’re like! And no one can explain it to me! No one can explain anything to me! It’s so unfair! This is so un—”

“Shh… calm down,” the tutor reached across the table to put a hand on Minho’s forehead, and the boy immediately stilled, hands falling limply to his lap. Taemin frowned, wondering what the real issue was, but not brave enough to ask. “Calm down, Minho ssi. Yelling won’t help, now, will it?” He lightly his hand into soft brown hair. “Let me at least try? Hmm?”

The student tiredly slumped in acceptance, running his fragile-looking digits through his silken hair and bumping the other’s hand off his scalp. “Fine… try. Try like everybo—”

“Shh. Calm…” Taemin repeated in a soft voice. This time Minho let out a long sigh and relented. The man waited a minute before he took a deep breath, trying to gather his thoughts in one comprehensible stream of words.

“Hmm, let’s see… Strawberries are… well, foremost, they’re a fruit,” he started, recalling all his information from old general knowledge classes in school. “And they grow on mountains. Cold regions, you see? Because the climate is good in those places, it’s favorable for them. They plant them in Gyeongsangnam-do, if you’ve heard of Maehyang strawberries. ” He sensed his student relax a little, and went on. “They’re conical fruits. Do you remember what a cone is?”

“Hypatia’s cone?” the boy asked, gesturing the shape with his fingers.

“That’s right. Good, you have a good memory. So they’re like cones. And they’re usually—” Taemin held Minho’s hand and drew a circle in the centre of the palm. “—this big.”

“Oh… they’re small.”

“Yes. But they’re quite delicious!” the tutor chuckled at the disappointment in Minho’s voice. “Very sweet, and very juicy. I like eating them with ice cream, because that’s how my eomma used to serve them to guests. They look pretty, too, so people are generally drawn to eating them. They have this leafy top… and they’re red everywhere else. And they have tiny spokes on their bodies.”

“What is red?”

“Red is like… fire. It’s a hot color. Here, touch the glass of the window,” he suggested and gently brought the boy’s palm to the spot. Minho immediately retracted his hand from the heat, hissing and waving his hand a little.

“The color of fire and spokes on their bodies?? They sound like evil bugs to me!!” he winced.

Taemin laughed and ruffled his hair. “No, they’re not insects, Minho ssi. They’re very beautiful fruits, almost like little shiny gems. In fact, they’re very sultry. They’re considered a symbol of passion.”

“What is passion?”

“Hmm… How do I put this…??” Taemin mulled over it. “Ah. When you feel like your blood is rushing too fast from your heart, or when you feel very strongly about something, it’s called passion. Like the passion to do something for society, or the passion to help people who are in need, or passion when you’re in love with someone. People have passion for different things, different issues.”

“Have you ever felt passion, Taemin ssi?”

“Of course! I’m very passionate about my job. I like teaching people, and I like learning from them, too.”

“So can you say you feel passion for me?”

The man’s face colored a little, but he covered it up with his smooth speech. “Sure. I’m quite passionate about teaching you. You’re a bright student, and you’re quite inquisitive. That’s a good thing.” Another ruffle of the hair and he thought they could move on, thought the subject had been settled. But he knew better than that, things were never simply let go of with Minho. He wouldn’t just say alright, I understand and progress over to another topic. After the months of teaching and spending time together, Taemin knew better than that.

He knew he was stuck.

“I want to feel passion too, Taemin ssi. What do I do?”

The said man let out an exhale, pressing his lips, letting them go, and pressing them again. “You can work hard at your lessons and become someone great. You can use your passion to learn and know new things to your—”

“No, no. That would make me… passionate…? That would make me passionate about learning, and books. But I have no interest in that. Where do I find passion like you, sonsaengnim? How do I find it?”

The man didn’t know what to reply with. It was a painful situation, and all he could do was stall. As he stared at the boy’s black glasses turned up expectantly toward his voice, all he knew is that he’d need a lot more than alcohol to kill the remnants of this feeling, once he was back home. Minho tugged on the sleeve of his shirt, insistent to know the answer to his question.

“Tell me, Taemin ssi! I want to understand what it feels like. I want to know what it is. Tell me!”

“You can be my best student, Minho ssi,” the tutor managed unsatisfactorily, biting his lip. “You can be the most intelligent and most successful person I’ve taught, and that will be enough to answer you.”

The boy whined, shaking his tutor’s hand adamantly. “No, no, I want to know right now! Why can’t I know right now?!” The outburst went on for quite some time, and through it, Taemin sweated bullets, chewed his bottom lip raw and blinked a million times in indecision.

It went on till he had had enough. He grabbed Minho’s palm and pressed it to his chest, fixing it there with a tight hold around the slender wrist.

“There,” he said. “What do you feel?”

It was quiet for a very long time. The grandfather clock in the corner kept announcing its creaks and tinkles, and crickets lowly screeched outside in the trees. The sounds of summer where everywhere, and yet... and yet it was very quiet. The tutor closed his eyes and only felt his chest thump loudly in his ears, under the warmth of the other’s long fingers.

“It’s… it’s strength…” Minho mumbled. “Can—can I call it strength? And… it feels exciting. Like flying, or swimming— or running in a large empty field with nothing to hurt your feet,” he said. “Is this… is this thing passion?”

Taemin sighed with relief, hummed and released the boy’s hand. “So now that you know what it feels like, why don’t you try something that makes you feel it, too?” he smiled out the suggestion.

“I don’t know where to start…” the boy felt his own chest and frowned behind his dark glasses. “I feel… I feel plain. Like I can’t do much. What do I do?”

“Why don’t we discuss this again in our next lesson??” the man proposed, and finished his dark coffee with a last tip of the cup. “Until then, I’ll think of ways to help you, and you can ask around, too. What do you say?”

The student hummed and then fiddled with the rim of his own cup, trailing his thin finger around the circle of china. There was still doubt in his face. "But, sonsaengnim... What if— what if my  heart beats so much that it breaks?"

And there it was: the little cage of words that Minho craftily put together every time they met. And customarily, Taemin had nothing to respond with. He couldn't say or do anything. How could anyone respond to something so profound? How could anyone not feel incapacitated? The tutor thought he felt his own heart break a little at the edges because he could do nothing to soothe Minho's disquiet. He patted the boy's shoulder and told him their lesson was over for today.

Minho nodded happily, and felt around for his cane. “Is it time, already? I’ll walk you to the door, Taemin ssi.”

Taemin was listening to a really badly made romantic comedy film, and pouring himself a drink when Kibum noisily walked in with a girl.

“So he said that— oh, Tae. You’re home…” the other’s face dropped at the sight of him. Taemin didn’t quite care. he was in his own world, humming something in an obnoxious voice over the sounds from the TV. He corked his bottle of wine through the introductions, not paying the other two any attention.

“And this perpetually smashed guy here,” Kibum started with zero enthusiasm and a dead look toward the other man. “Is my room-mate, Taemin. He teaches blind kids how to read.”

“Annyeonghaseyo,” the girl bowed politely, looking at the drunk with renewed interest. He raised his glass to her in cheers and the liquid spilled out onto his fingers. Tutting, aahing and cursing unintelligibly, he walked around the kitchen and rummaged in the cabinets for a napkin.

“We’re out of paper tissues. You need to go get some soon, Kibummie~” he called out. The girl giggled at the nickname.

“Why don’t we go to my room?” the other man herded his lady guest away from the embarrassment. “We won’t be troubled there, I hope,” he added pointedly.

“Understood,” Taemin replied. “Make sure to use protection, though.”

The girl gasped loudly.

“Aaah…haha, that’s just a joke!” Kibum calmed her, rubbing the back of his neck. “Of course we won’t be doing anything that unnecessary, haha…” he ended his pacification nervously, and with no conviction whatsoever. “Taemin, that was a joke wasn’t it?” he ground his teeth, looking for support.

“Do you know where I can buy fresh fruit?” the question suddenly popped out into the open. The asker was surprised himself, since he hadn’t been thinking about that at all. Or maybe he had been, somewhere in the vast spaces that swirled in his head. He couldn’t be sure. The wine was quite strong.

“Wh… Umm,” Kibum struggled with the abruptness. “Try the super?”

“Nah, I don’t want any of that canned garbage,” Taemin dismissed, walking to the couch and standing with a knee folded on one armrest. “I’m talking about fresh fruit. Real stuff.”

“Uhm… I might…” the girl began hesitantly. “I might know a man who transports fruit from the countryside. He could… Maybe he could help you, Taemin ssi?”

There we are~

I've been reading a lot of books about universal design in built spaces, so... I suppose this subject shouldn't come as a surprise. ^^;;

While SK has done a lot for its disabled citizens (certainly more than my country, pfft), there's still a  long way to go till their efforts can be considered satisfactory by international standards. Social stigma, and the whole thing with pity and sympathy and "aww you poor little thing" doesn't really help, either... Self-confidence is a huge issue amongst people with special needs. They don't like being helped with things that shouldn't need any help. Learning, being self-sufficient, standing up on their own two feet-- it's a challenge.

So Minho's character is very brave to be how he is and how he thinks.

I realize 2mints are very hard-hitting people. Please be assured that I'm not trying to offend anyone with this storyline, and that I love the pair as much as you guys. ^__________^

Thank you for subbing and reading. Comments and critique will be loved, of course.

~IQ