Time passes by way quicker than before. Minho’s days are so full of thoughts and activities that for the first time he doesn’t mind Taemin’s absence that much.
But it also leads to him forgetting about the time’s flow- which makes him snap a week before Taemin’s next apprenticeship to Japan.
They’re sitting in their shared bed now, Taemin going through some notes from anthropology, Minho reading some new Michael Cunningham’s book, he’s almost sleeping at this point, barely connecting the letters, and glancing from time to time at Taemin that is still focused on his studies. His lips form a cute pout as he frowns in deep thoughts. Minho wants to kiss this pout so badly, but he knows that for Taemin it’s learning that’s the most important thing.
I always come as the second one
He detaches his gaze from Taemin and looks back at the book he’s reading. And in this exact moment, his lover decides to speak to him.
“You seem so distant these days” he says, slipping down, half-laying, with his face turned to Minho, notes put on the stool beside the bed.
Distant? Me…?
“What do you mean, Minnie?” he asks, leaning down, so that now they lay facing each other, only some twenty centimeters separating them.
“You… you read those books all the time. I mean, it’s a good thing, and I’m happy you do this… but, I don’t know, it seems like you’re drifting away” he eventually replies, biting his lower lip and staring into the ceiling.
Minho stills.
Am I so blind or it’s you being just unfair?
“I never meant to drift away. I just found something nice and compelling to do.” To make my days less lonely, he added in his mind.
“And someone too?” Taemin suddenly asks, turning his head to Minho.
“… yeah, a friend. That counts as ‘someone’, you’re right” Minho finally nods, though suddenly he feels uneasy “since Jonghyun is so occupied chasing his crush I can’t really complain about the excess of friends, you know”.
Finally, Taemin chuckles and snuggles closer to Minho, nuzzling his neck. Minho’s arm circles around his slim waist, holding him tightly.
“I want to meet your friend" Taemin says suddenly. Minho sort of freezes.
Taemin meeting Jinki?...
It's not a good idea, was it?
“I think we’d get along well” the younger adds, smiling in Minho’s chest “you know, I once used to be a bookworm too, when I still had time for this stuff…”
Time.
When you still had time for anything besides learning.
Minho’s fingers caress Taemin’s soft locks lovingly, slowly, tenderly. The younger boy hums softly.
“You’re so silent… really, if I hadn’t known you better, I’d say you have a lover that you want to hide from me…”
Minho’s hand stops for a moment, but then he wills himself to move it again, not wanting to give his lover wrong idea.
“Oh, Minnie, you and your imagination…” his voice cracks a little at the end, as he feels Taemin scoot even closer to him. His tone makes the younger pull away a bit though.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, eyes attentive, searching, shining, enticing as ever. Minho can only stare into them, thinking of what he did to deserve to be such an important person in Taemin’s life- and the most underappreciated too at the same time.
His fingertips move slowly along the younger’s cheekbones as he his lips, thinking of what to say.
The words come easier than he thought.
“Nothing. I just… I love you, you know?” he says and God, Taemin’s expression is absolutely priceless, full of surprise and sudden affection. Minho feels like falling in love all over again.
The younger lets his fingers play with Minho’s hair as he leans in and breathes onto his lips:
“I love you too.”
It’s the most intimate moment they’ve shared in years.






And definitely the last one in this week. The next day Minho almost doesn’t get to see Taemin at all. He’s either at university, in a library working on his thesis, or out with his friends, because ‘he hasn’t seen them in a while and they have a lot to catch up with’.
To any subtle comments of Minho suggesting that he could actually spend some more time with him, his lover, he replies irritated and tired. Minho’s supposed to understand him and not push him. When Minho says that he doesn’t want to persuade him to have with him just a day before he leaves, Taemin replies that he’s meeting Kibum again. And when Minho pleads him to just stay home and spend those few moments with him, he shields himself with a ‘I-can’t-back-out-now’ excuse.
Good then. Minho’s going to show him that he can be selfish too.
He sees him off at the airport, hoping that maybe Taemin will chose him over his studies in the end. Unsurprisingly so, he doesn’t, which makes Minho rage.
He doesn’t hesitate when Jinki asks him whether he wants to see a movie based on one of the books they read at his place. He doesn’t protest when Jinki places a bottle of Cote semi-dry wine on the table beside the couch. “You seem to like this wine, so I bought it”. He doesn’t cringe, doesn’t think of his and Taemin’s memories when he drinks their wine. He yells mentally in anger when Taemin doesn’t pick up any of his calls though he’s supposed to have landed in Japan already. He almost throws his mobile phone on the floor after reading a text message from Hisashi, Taemin’s Japanese friend ‘Taemin-san went out with me for karaoke, he will call you later, Minho-san’. He’s too emotional throughout the whole movie, all because of the anger and hurt building up inside of him, wine and the way Felice is dragged down the stairs by Nazi officers, while her lover is yelling a heartbreaking ‘no!’. He sobs quietly at the end and before he realizes it, he’s clinging to Jinki desperately, as if to reassure himself that he’s not alone, that someone might care about him for more than five minutes per week, that someone might want to actually spare him a few more minutes of his precious life.
He breathes in Jinki’s scent, much more masculine than Taemin’s, perfume melancholic and vague, just as he remembers it.
This time though, it doesn’t feel wrong. It doesn’t feel like endless comparison filled with guilty ‘it’s not the one I should be breathing in, it’s not the one’. It’s the opposite; he feels ecstatic and validated. Validated as ever.
Which is why he pulls away just a bit, to look Jinki into eyes; big, shimmering, a little scared, so beautiful eyes that caught his heart weeks ago. Which is why he doesn’t wait for any kind of permission or indication and just leans in, letting his lips brush against Jinki’s.
It evolves into so much more soon enough- feverish exploration of each other bodies, hardening, shuddering, groaning, gasping, whispering broken syllables that are supposed to form their names— there’s a moment when Minho pulls away to take another deep sip from the bottle of wine. The dizziness, hot solidness of the other body and such impossibly overwhelming solidity of the flesh make him forget everything and everyone; he doesn’t yearn to be somewhere else, doesn’t need anything else. He doesn’t want to be nowhere but here, with Jinki buried deep inside of him, as he experiences pleasure he’s never felt before. He’s alive, God, he’s so, so alive, so alive that his heart feels like exploding out of this sweet euphoria, there’s nothing and no one, only them, only them, so what if he hurts someone, so what if he’s going to hate himself, he wants to be selfish for this one time in his life, he doesn’t want to miserably weep and crave, he wants to feel, now, more, more, until his lungs burn out from constant groaning and crying, until he’s not able to move at all.
Somewhere in between erratic s and incoherent sentences moaned straight into his ear, he thinks he hears a phone calling. But he doesn’t care, nothing is important anymore, he’s now and here, and he doesn’t regret anything.
The pleading and vulnerable look in Jinki’s eyes afterwards makes him forget everything else.


________________________________________

A/N:
So... don't hate me nor Minho, okay? ^ ^
Cote semi-dry is a very special wine to me because it literally changed my life... or, took part in it. Though I don't like thinking about it now. It's a ty story.

So. Yeah. Random note is random.
I think I'll just go and write the next chapter x"D


Ah, and the movie they watched was Aimée & Jaguar *good thing I can write a bit about my own obsessions here x"D*