A/N: For LUSHLAW who pointed out the existennce of Xiuhun! And for all of you, Xiuhun shippers! Hope you like it!

Summer of Steel

Once upon a time, Sehun sighed as he laced his protection boots. It was too early in the morning to already be at work. But no, there he was getting ready for another painfully tiring day. Yuk! His working jumpsuit was starting to be really dirty. He should bring it home so his mom could wash it.

Just before his last summer vacations as a high school student, Sehun's parents announced that it was time for him to learn how it was like to be an adult. Sehun didn't understand it at first, but obviously his parents weren't done talking.

"We found you a summer job, Hunnie" his mom said, his voice full of excitement and care. The news fell on Sehun harder than the bomb in Hiroshima.

"Excuse me?" he spat, hoping he heard wrongly.

"We found you a summer job." His mom repeated.

"No." Sehun panicked. "No, no. No, no, no!... No. I don't want any summer job."

"Come on, son," his father butted in, "we already promised and it will do you good. I won't let you sleep your whole summer break. You need to gain some tonus in those lazy bones of yours, Sehun."

"But I WANT to sleep the whole summer. That's what breaks are for, right? I'll be busy enough when school restarts. I deserve it." Sehun slowly started to boil.

"You'll deserve it when you'll have worked a true hard week. It's time to grow up, son. You can't live on our backs all your life. I'm sure you'll thank us later." His father's tone was starting to get harder.

"I am perfectly ready to live on my own and I'll do it when I feel the need of it. I'm too old to be babied for God' sake! Keep the job for yourself if it's so wonderful." Sehun was mad now. He stormed out of the kitchen and slammed his door shut behind him, showing his great maturity.

For the whole week, his parents kept nagging him about the job. They nagged so much he decided to go (only one day) just to shut them up.

It turns out his parents have friends who runs a metal shop. When Sehun arrived in front of the small place, he mentally tore out all his hair. He was going to sweat and be dirty and hot. The fashionista in him died a little.

First day was painful. The pieces of metal were heavy and there was dirt everywhere. Sehun found it disgusting. Though, there's one thing that enlightened his day: he was not working alone.

The owner was often out to take order and for business matters. It was his son who was doing the biggest part of the manual work in the shop.

Minseok, as Sehun discovered, was a very positive person. He was never discouraged by the tough work (or was it because he did it all his life) and seemed to be able to create everything with his hands and pieces of metal. It would be a lie to say Sehun wasn't impressed. His own friends were all as lazy as him. Someone as hardworking as Minseok was a big change. A positive one.

When he came back home on the first day, Sehun showered and directly crashed on his bed. He's sure he fell asleep before his head touched the pillow.

On the second day, Sehun noticed something about Minseok he wished he hadn't. When he worked, Minseok sweated a lot. He had the habit to wear the upper part of his working jumper tied at the wait, leaving him in his eternal black tanktop which revealed his overly well shaped arms, shoulders and collarbones. And if it wasn't enough, he brushed his sweating hair out of his face in a way that made Sehun want to use as material at night. Did he just think that? Yep, he did.

Much to Sehun's delight (or doom) Minseok understood he didn't absolutely want to be there, so he 'took him under his wing.' Patiently, he showed Sehun the job, bit by bit, explaining the whys and the hows and encouraging him with playful slaps in the back. Sehun was really grateful for that.

This leads us to Sehun attaching his protection boots on that fine Friday morning.

"Good morning, Sehun. How are you?" Minseok greeted.

"Hnng, God, it's too early for that. Sehun groaned.

"Oh, come on! The earlier we start, the sooner we finish! Let's go."

Minseok was right. That day was as hot as the deeper levels of Hell. Sehun almost fainted twice. At the end of the day, he was dirty, sticky with sweat and deadly tired. The only positive point was that they effectively finished earlier than usual.

"Wanna go out for beer? Minseok proposed as he swept his face with a towel, "I'm thirsty"

"Well I..." Sehun hesitated.

"You're not legal and your parents are waiting for you for dinner, right?" Minseok teased. He was right.

"Yeah." Seuhun whispered.

"I don't care. You're old enough to make your own choices. Let's go."

And Sehun followed because that's exactly why his parents had gotten him that job, right?

The first mouthful of beer made him do the funniest face Minseok ever saw. At the second, Sehun found out he was thirsty too. They chatted, joked ate and drank. Everything was delicious. So good Sehun woke up the next morning with a black hole in the memory of the end of the evening. He woke up and went to eat cereals. Sehun tried to ignore the proud look on his father's face.

On Monday, Sehun came to work as usual.

"Good morning, Sehun. How was your weekend?"

"I slept. But hey! Tell me: how did I reach home on Friday?"

"I walked you, of course. I didn't know you were such a light weight!" Minseok teased.

"Shut up! I was tired, okay!" Sehun tried to defend himself, but then, Minseok revealed pieces of information Sehun would rather still ignore.

"Oh and in case you were wondering, don't worry: your parents didn't see us kiss in front of your front door."

Sehun wished he could hide in a hole in embarrassment and stay there forever.

So much for having a relaxing end of summer.

End.