Ice Cream Summer--1/3
Title: A Start
Pairing: 2min
Rating: pg-13
Genre: semi-au, fluff
Summary: What they have is an unlikely relationship.
Words: 2559
A/N: I wrote this last May as a birthday gift for phigwhig (who coincidentally also lent me the plot bunny for it). It's completed fully, so expect the next two chapters up as soon as I edit them :3 also, this was written in a weird mashup of present and past tense. I'm editing it all into past tense because it's a longer fic, but I expect I missed some things somewhere. Just a forewarning. Don't be shocked if it looks funny in some places.
Part Two
Part Three
Minho knew he was being a pushover, but he couldn’t help it.
Taemin’s arm was loosely draped out the window, playing with the air, letting it slide through the troughs between his fingers.
He’d just asked for a vacation.
“We're on a vacation,” Minho had told him when he'd asked the first time, glancing over at Taemin in the passenger seat.
“Then a vacation from the vacation. A sub-vacation. You know, like a sub-plot.” Taemin had apparently been reading too many cheap drugstore novels in his spare time. Minho made a mental note to convince him to take up chess instead.
“Like what?” It was a mistake to humor him at all, because whenever Minho did that things it was basically like agreeing to go along with whatever Taemin had in mind, but he was too curious to shove the idea completely aside even though he knew this was probably going to end up in him spending more money than he wanted to. “To an amusement park or something?”
Taemin sighed, rolling his eyes exaggeratedly. “Don't be stupid, that would be an addition to our vacation. I want to go eat ice cream. All the flavors.” His tone turned wistful, and Minho was willing to bet that Taemin’s eyes were going out of focus, staring unseeing into the expanse of road in front of them. “Have you seen all of the roadside stands? They're everywhere and they all have specialty flavors and they all sound so good.”
“That sounds expensive.”
“There's always more money,” Taemin says, sounding very sure of himself. “Let's do it, hyung. It'll be fun.
It's the 'hyung' that does it. In this foreign country with a strange language and road signs that confuse more than direct, the reminder of home tips the scales in Taemin's favor, and Minho agrees.
//
They stopped at a park with a small basketball court that offered the perfect slab of smooth cement in between tall, rusting poles that lead to faded backboard and fraying nets. Minho wouldn't mind playing a game, but he knew Taemin just wanted to re-plan their route so he stifled his request, instead kneeling next to the giant road map the younger is unfolding.
“So here's where we are,” Taemin tells him, double checking with his phone to make sure that he's not wrong. (He's not-he marks their location twice a day, sometimes three times a day-and he's never not right. This is one of the things he's obsessive about.) “I searched ice cream and it says there's a place in this town not far from here that sells ice cream along with their normal menu. Let's go there for supper!”
Minho put his foot down on that idea. “We have food packed in the back. Saving money, remember?” Shoddy roadside-cafe food didn't appeal to him, especially when he knew he'd be paying the twenty-five dollar bill at the end.
Taemin pouted but didn’t argue past the small grumbles that were mostly just there for show, because he knew he’d won the war despite losing the battle.
Not that there was much of a war to begin with.
//
Minho paid. Taemin knew he would, too, since they're far past the point of pretending that Taemin will actually pay him back in real cash.
He will, he’s told Minho at least twelve times. But he never does. Taemin is notoriously afraid of speaking in English, and the bank-his only way of getting money besides begging it off of Minho-scares him.
Minho was just as bad; he only spoke the language at all because there was a part of him that still thought of Taemin as the helpless, scatterbrained maknae, and that part would always, always take care of him. Even when he knew he was being manipulated by his dongsaeng he was still going to want to help him, still was going to want to carry part of his load.
And now they'd gotten to the point that neither bothered to pretend anymore. It was just part of what happens when you spent every minute, every waking hour, every sleeping hour with someone.
They were at the diner, Taemin tapping blunt nails against the plexiglass countertop that separated him from the cashier as he scanned the menu.
“That one,” he told Minho in Korean, pointing out a name that Minho could only hope he wouldn’t butcher too badly when he ordered.
The cashier took pity on him though, her blue eyes softening a little because despite him being twenty Taemin still managed to look innocent. “Cake batter?”
Taemin nodded, sounding out the words carefully after her, beyond pleased with himself and the fact that he was getting rainbow-colored ice cream.
Maybe it was because his auburn hair did curl a bit because he slept with it tied off of his face in a wrapped ponytail that Minho continued to find adorably stupid, or maybe it was because his lips pursed when he was thinking hard, or perhaps it was just the semi-feral dance in his eyes, but Taemin was attractive to everyone. Minho was fairly certain that there were no exceptions to this rule. Even in the United States where no one recognized them as being from SHINee Taemin was something out of reach, a person beautiful and fine and rare.
He’s stopped trying to figure out how Taemin is so beautiful and idiotic at the same time, because that is something he knows he’ll never be able to figure out.
After Taemin got his ice cream Minho ordered one for himself. It was something dark and chocolatey that looked sort of like bliss in a waffle cone, and although he usually didn’t think too much of ice cream he found he was rather excited to try this flavor; it looked beyond excellent, all rich chocolate and cream.
Taemin was sitting in a booth already. The seats of his choosing were worn and the table was chipped and scratched, but it looked like it'd been well-loved, not abused.
ldquo;Look at this,” he said, pointing to a scratched sentence in the top of the table. “I think this is fate.”
It was written in a strange mash-up of Korean and English: Lee Dongsun and Jee Myungdae were here.
Minho laughed, tracing over the letters with his free hand. “I wonder who they were?”
Taemin searched the table, looking for more but there's nothing else to hint to who the Koreans were or when they were here. It’s a funny coincidence, one that simultaneously makes Minho feel both lonely and comforted.
They spent the next few minutes eating in silence, both enjoying their ice cream in his respective reverie, pleased with his choice.
“Want to try it, hyung?” Taemin asked belatedly after he'd eaten half of his cone-or at least Minho assumed he’d eaten half; he’d been doing his best to avoid looking at him because Taemin did everything wholeheartedly, including licking ice cream cones.
Minho was leaning forward to take a bite when Taemin jerked it back, suddenly wary. “You're going to trade, right?” he asked, and Minho realized he was actually being serious. Eating ice cream was apparently a big deal to Taemin.
“Yeah,” he said, still hovering awkwardly over the table. “Sure.”
“I want yours first.”
Minho shoved it over, rolling his eyes. “Fine, here. Now give me yours.”
Taemin handed his over once Minho's chocolate cone was safely in his hands and immediately swiped his tongue up the side of it, and then Minho was melting like the dribbles of white ice cream down his wrist from Taemin's ice cream because he's not able to tear his eyes away from the puddle of auburn and tan and sailor stripes that used to be Taemin.
“Minho,” he says, and his voice is breathy and amazed and like a caress over the older's name. “What is this?”
“Uh,” Minho said, clearing his throat quickly, hoping desperately for something that could pass for unaffected. “I don't remember. Chocolate something?”
Taemin rolled his eyes, then took another lick. “Mm. I would have never guessed.” He mleted again, sighing beatifically as he looked up at Minho with a dose of puppy in his eyes that rivals Jjong's, and Minho could see what was coming. “Can I have this? You can have mine. Please?”
Minho hadn't even tasted Taemin's ice cream, but he agreed anyway because it was Taemin, and he still hadn’t found a way to say no to him yet.
His new cone was sugary and full of strange pieces of cake and chalky sprinkles and was certainly not something he would have ordered for himself, but it was worth it because Taemin ate the remainder of the chocolate ice cream with such relish that Minho knew he would have even eaten pistachio ice cream if that would have meant Taemin would be that happy.
//
There were no ice cream stops the next day. Minho pretended it was because he wanted to save money, but in reality it was because he knew that watching Taemin eat ice cream cones every single day was just not going to work out. When they were driving down sunburned highways, wind careening around the sides of the windshield to run through their hair he could concentrate on just talking to the younger boy rather than watching him. It was a break he knew he needed, because he knew that the whole getting distracted by collarbones and pretty lips and sleepy eyes was not really good for their friendship, and that, to Minho, was by far the most important thing.
Minho wanted to keep Taemin with him forever. That was something that he’d known for an impossibly long time. He still wasn’t sure if it was from the first sight or if it was from when Taemin first flutteringly laughed at a stupid joke that he cracked or if it was from the first time he touched his skin and realized he really didn't want to stop. Regardless of which it was though, Minho knew that-despite knowing that it wasn’t an easy thing to deal with-he was helplessly in love with his best friend.
It was a blessing and a curse. Knowing it meant he could better keep his feelings in check, but knowing also means that he was hyper-aware of everything, and that made it rather difficult to keep everything at platonic.
The prairies they were driving through had ceased to be interesting approximately thirty hours ago, Taemin was keeping himself amused by searching up flavors of ice cream online and writing a list of all of the ones he wanted to try on the back of their roadmap.
“I want to try garlic ice cream,” he told Minho. “It sounds interesting. I bet it would taste good on crackers.”
Minho made a face. “That sounds like just as bad of an idea as honey on peanut butter and jelly.”
“That was good, though!”
“It actually wasn't.”
Taemin turned back to the phone, scrolling through pages with casual flicks of his finger. “You're just not used to gourmet foods.”
He didn’t even try to cover up his snort. “You were just born with deformed tastebuds, maknae.”
When Taemin tried to punch him Minho grabbed hold of his wrist and bit his hand none-to-gently. “I bet you'd taste like a gourmet ice cream,” he teased, laughing loudly when Taemin flailed around in the passenger seat, squawking.
“I wouldn't make a good ice cream. I'm too short. You'd taste better.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Minho asked, not sure which was a better thought-Taemin licking him or him licking Taemin.
“Everything,” Taemin replies.
He glued his eyes to the road, deciding it was a far better idea to stop the conversation there than to try figure that one out.
//
The next day it rained, causing Taemin and Minho to mutually forgo ice cream in favor of hot coffee and a day spent inside a cozy coffee shop, each curled up in chairs with comic books bought somewhere two states back for days like this.
It was warm inside, cozy with its soft lighting despite the fact that the rain is pounding down outside. Taemin was wearing his sweater that looked like a rainbow through dark aviators, and Minho was happy, happier than he could ever remember being.
He stole glances at him because he was beautiful and rainy days like this washed Minho’s emotional blockade nearly completely away. There was something about him like this that Minho just liked; something homey and pleasant. Maybe it was his rain-kissed skin and rain-dried hair, or maybe it was the way he curls into himself and chews on his lower lip and methodically dog-ears and un-dog-ears the pages when he's concentrating.
Or maybe it was actually because the rain brought out Taemin's scent, sweet and sharp and ultimately the thing that went most to Minho's head.
He blamed that for his lack of concentration most of all (even though the lip-chewing was really getting to him too).
“Ha, Minho!” Taemin's gaze flickered upwards and Minho winced guiltily-he was caught. But Taemin didn’t seem to notice. “Come read this.”
“Just read it to me, I don't want to get up.”
Taemin made a face. He didn’t like saying English words out loud even though thanks to being on the road in America for four weeks he was getting better and better at reading them. “No, you have to read it.”
“I'm not getting up, sorry.” Minho returned to his book, trying to find what the last phrase he's read was. (It was difficult...he couldn’t even remember what the plot in this chapter is about. Taemin was the ultimate distraction, it seemed.)
The chair across from him creaked as Taemin got to his feet, his body language shouting out I-don't-know-why-you're-being-so-difficult at the top of its visual lungs. “Fine.”
Minho had no time to prepare himself because Taemin literally flung himself into the chair with him, landing on his lap and shoving the book in his face. “Here, read it!”
This, Minho decided as he attempted to read a page of English words with Taemin sitting on his lap, peering over the top of the book at him, had to be one of the most difficult things he'd ever tried to do in his entire life.
“So?” Taemin asked expectantly after a minute passed by. “Isn't it funny?”
“Yeah. Ha ha,” Minho ground out, hoping the response was at least somewhat natural and appropriate because he really still had no idea what the page was about and he really just wanted Taemin to get off of his lap because his warmth and his scent was doing devastating things to what little self-control he had left.
Instead of moving off though Taemin settled in, inching himself into the small gap between Minho's hipbone and the arm of his overstuffed chair. “I wanna see what you're reading.”
As he showed the younger his English copy of Naturo, trying his absolute best to ignore Taemin's legs draped over his and tucked underneath his calf to keep himself from slipping off of the chair, Minho reminded himself to limit Taemin's caffeine intake from now on because this monster he’d turned into was absolutely not good for either of them.
Pairing: 2min
Rating: pg-13
Genre: semi-au, fluff
Summary: What they have is an unlikely relationship.
Words: 2559
A/N: I wrote this last May as a birthday gift for phigwhig (who coincidentally also lent me the plot bunny for it). It's completed fully, so expect the next two chapters up as soon as I edit them :3 also, this was written in a weird mashup of present and past tense. I'm editing it all into past tense because it's a longer fic, but I expect I missed some things somewhere. Just a forewarning. Don't be shocked if it looks funny in some places.
Part Two
Part Three
Minho knew he was being a pushover, but he couldn’t help it.
Taemin’s arm was loosely draped out the window, playing with the air, letting it slide through the troughs between his fingers.
He’d just asked for a vacation.
“We're on a vacation,” Minho had told him when he'd asked the first time, glancing over at Taemin in the passenger seat.
“Then a vacation from the vacation. A sub-vacation. You know, like a sub-plot.” Taemin had apparently been reading too many cheap drugstore novels in his spare time. Minho made a mental note to convince him to take up chess instead.
“Like what?” It was a mistake to humor him at all, because whenever Minho did that things it was basically like agreeing to go along with whatever Taemin had in mind, but he was too curious to shove the idea completely aside even though he knew this was probably going to end up in him spending more money than he wanted to. “To an amusement park or something?”
Taemin sighed, rolling his eyes exaggeratedly. “Don't be stupid, that would be an addition to our vacation. I want to go eat ice cream. All the flavors.” His tone turned wistful, and Minho was willing to bet that Taemin’s eyes were going out of focus, staring unseeing into the expanse of road in front of them. “Have you seen all of the roadside stands? They're everywhere and they all have specialty flavors and they all sound so good.”
“That sounds expensive.”
“There's always more money,” Taemin says, sounding very sure of himself. “Let's do it, hyung. It'll be fun.
It's the 'hyung' that does it. In this foreign country with a strange language and road signs that confuse more than direct, the reminder of home tips the scales in Taemin's favor, and Minho agrees.
//
They stopped at a park with a small basketball court that offered the perfect slab of smooth cement in between tall, rusting poles that lead to faded backboard and fraying nets. Minho wouldn't mind playing a game, but he knew Taemin just wanted to re-plan their route so he stifled his request, instead kneeling next to the giant road map the younger is unfolding.
“So here's where we are,” Taemin tells him, double checking with his phone to make sure that he's not wrong. (He's not-he marks their location twice a day, sometimes three times a day-and he's never not right. This is one of the things he's obsessive about.) “I searched ice cream and it says there's a place in this town not far from here that sells ice cream along with their normal menu. Let's go there for supper!”
Minho put his foot down on that idea. “We have food packed in the back. Saving money, remember?” Shoddy roadside-cafe food didn't appeal to him, especially when he knew he'd be paying the twenty-five dollar bill at the end.
Taemin pouted but didn’t argue past the small grumbles that were mostly just there for show, because he knew he’d won the war despite losing the battle.
Not that there was much of a war to begin with.
//
Minho paid. Taemin knew he would, too, since they're far past the point of pretending that Taemin will actually pay him back in real cash.
He will, he’s told Minho at least twelve times. But he never does. Taemin is notoriously afraid of speaking in English, and the bank-his only way of getting money besides begging it off of Minho-scares him.
Minho was just as bad; he only spoke the language at all because there was a part of him that still thought of Taemin as the helpless, scatterbrained maknae, and that part would always, always take care of him. Even when he knew he was being manipulated by his dongsaeng he was still going to want to help him, still was going to want to carry part of his load.
And now they'd gotten to the point that neither bothered to pretend anymore. It was just part of what happens when you spent every minute, every waking hour, every sleeping hour with someone.
They were at the diner, Taemin tapping blunt nails against the plexiglass countertop that separated him from the cashier as he scanned the menu.
“That one,” he told Minho in Korean, pointing out a name that Minho could only hope he wouldn’t butcher too badly when he ordered.
The cashier took pity on him though, her blue eyes softening a little because despite him being twenty Taemin still managed to look innocent. “Cake batter?”
Taemin nodded, sounding out the words carefully after her, beyond pleased with himself and the fact that he was getting rainbow-colored ice cream.
Maybe it was because his auburn hair did curl a bit because he slept with it tied off of his face in a wrapped ponytail that Minho continued to find adorably stupid, or maybe it was because his lips pursed when he was thinking hard, or perhaps it was just the semi-feral dance in his eyes, but Taemin was attractive to everyone. Minho was fairly certain that there were no exceptions to this rule. Even in the United States where no one recognized them as being from SHINee Taemin was something out of reach, a person beautiful and fine and rare.
He’s stopped trying to figure out how Taemin is so beautiful and idiotic at the same time, because that is something he knows he’ll never be able to figure out.
After Taemin got his ice cream Minho ordered one for himself. It was something dark and chocolatey that looked sort of like bliss in a waffle cone, and although he usually didn’t think too much of ice cream he found he was rather excited to try this flavor; it looked beyond excellent, all rich chocolate and cream.
Taemin was sitting in a booth already. The seats of his choosing were worn and the table was chipped and scratched, but it looked like it'd been well-loved, not abused.
ldquo;Look at this,” he said, pointing to a scratched sentence in the top of the table. “I think this is fate.”
It was written in a strange mash-up of Korean and English: Lee Dongsun and Jee Myungdae were here.
Minho laughed, tracing over the letters with his free hand. “I wonder who they were?”
Taemin searched the table, looking for more but there's nothing else to hint to who the Koreans were or when they were here. It’s a funny coincidence, one that simultaneously makes Minho feel both lonely and comforted.
They spent the next few minutes eating in silence, both enjoying their ice cream in his respective reverie, pleased with his choice.
“Want to try it, hyung?” Taemin asked belatedly after he'd eaten half of his cone-or at least Minho assumed he’d eaten half; he’d been doing his best to avoid looking at him because Taemin did everything wholeheartedly, including licking ice cream cones.
Minho was leaning forward to take a bite when Taemin jerked it back, suddenly wary. “You're going to trade, right?” he asked, and Minho realized he was actually being serious. Eating ice cream was apparently a big deal to Taemin.
“Yeah,” he said, still hovering awkwardly over the table. “Sure.”
“I want yours first.”
Minho shoved it over, rolling his eyes. “Fine, here. Now give me yours.”
Taemin handed his over once Minho's chocolate cone was safely in his hands and immediately swiped his tongue up the side of it, and then Minho was melting like the dribbles of white ice cream down his wrist from Taemin's ice cream because he's not able to tear his eyes away from the puddle of auburn and tan and sailor stripes that used to be Taemin.
“Minho,” he says, and his voice is breathy and amazed and like a caress over the older's name. “What is this?”
“Uh,” Minho said, clearing his throat quickly, hoping desperately for something that could pass for unaffected. “I don't remember. Chocolate something?”
Taemin rolled his eyes, then took another lick. “Mm. I would have never guessed.” He mleted again, sighing beatifically as he looked up at Minho with a dose of puppy in his eyes that rivals Jjong's, and Minho could see what was coming. “Can I have this? You can have mine. Please?”
Minho hadn't even tasted Taemin's ice cream, but he agreed anyway because it was Taemin, and he still hadn’t found a way to say no to him yet.
His new cone was sugary and full of strange pieces of cake and chalky sprinkles and was certainly not something he would have ordered for himself, but it was worth it because Taemin ate the remainder of the chocolate ice cream with such relish that Minho knew he would have even eaten pistachio ice cream if that would have meant Taemin would be that happy.
//
There were no ice cream stops the next day. Minho pretended it was because he wanted to save money, but in reality it was because he knew that watching Taemin eat ice cream cones every single day was just not going to work out. When they were driving down sunburned highways, wind careening around the sides of the windshield to run through their hair he could concentrate on just talking to the younger boy rather than watching him. It was a break he knew he needed, because he knew that the whole getting distracted by collarbones and pretty lips and sleepy eyes was not really good for their friendship, and that, to Minho, was by far the most important thing.
Minho wanted to keep Taemin with him forever. That was something that he’d known for an impossibly long time. He still wasn’t sure if it was from the first sight or if it was from when Taemin first flutteringly laughed at a stupid joke that he cracked or if it was from the first time he touched his skin and realized he really didn't want to stop. Regardless of which it was though, Minho knew that-despite knowing that it wasn’t an easy thing to deal with-he was helplessly in love with his best friend.
It was a blessing and a curse. Knowing it meant he could better keep his feelings in check, but knowing also means that he was hyper-aware of everything, and that made it rather difficult to keep everything at platonic.
The prairies they were driving through had ceased to be interesting approximately thirty hours ago, Taemin was keeping himself amused by searching up flavors of ice cream online and writing a list of all of the ones he wanted to try on the back of their roadmap.
“I want to try garlic ice cream,” he told Minho. “It sounds interesting. I bet it would taste good on crackers.”
Minho made a face. “That sounds like just as bad of an idea as honey on peanut butter and jelly.”
“That was good, though!”
“It actually wasn't.”
Taemin turned back to the phone, scrolling through pages with casual flicks of his finger. “You're just not used to gourmet foods.”
He didn’t even try to cover up his snort. “You were just born with deformed tastebuds, maknae.”
When Taemin tried to punch him Minho grabbed hold of his wrist and bit his hand none-to-gently. “I bet you'd taste like a gourmet ice cream,” he teased, laughing loudly when Taemin flailed around in the passenger seat, squawking.
“I wouldn't make a good ice cream. I'm too short. You'd taste better.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Minho asked, not sure which was a better thought-Taemin licking him or him licking Taemin.
“Everything,” Taemin replies.
He glued his eyes to the road, deciding it was a far better idea to stop the conversation there than to try figure that one out.
//
The next day it rained, causing Taemin and Minho to mutually forgo ice cream in favor of hot coffee and a day spent inside a cozy coffee shop, each curled up in chairs with comic books bought somewhere two states back for days like this.
It was warm inside, cozy with its soft lighting despite the fact that the rain is pounding down outside. Taemin was wearing his sweater that looked like a rainbow through dark aviators, and Minho was happy, happier than he could ever remember being.
He stole glances at him because he was beautiful and rainy days like this washed Minho’s emotional blockade nearly completely away. There was something about him like this that Minho just liked; something homey and pleasant. Maybe it was his rain-kissed skin and rain-dried hair, or maybe it was the way he curls into himself and chews on his lower lip and methodically dog-ears and un-dog-ears the pages when he's concentrating.
Or maybe it was actually because the rain brought out Taemin's scent, sweet and sharp and ultimately the thing that went most to Minho's head.
He blamed that for his lack of concentration most of all (even though the lip-chewing was really getting to him too).
“Ha, Minho!” Taemin's gaze flickered upwards and Minho winced guiltily-he was caught. But Taemin didn’t seem to notice. “Come read this.”
“Just read it to me, I don't want to get up.”
Taemin made a face. He didn’t like saying English words out loud even though thanks to being on the road in America for four weeks he was getting better and better at reading them. “No, you have to read it.”
“I'm not getting up, sorry.” Minho returned to his book, trying to find what the last phrase he's read was. (It was difficult...he couldn’t even remember what the plot in this chapter is about. Taemin was the ultimate distraction, it seemed.)
The chair across from him creaked as Taemin got to his feet, his body language shouting out I-don't-know-why-you're-being-so-difficult at the top of its visual lungs. “Fine.”
Minho had no time to prepare himself because Taemin literally flung himself into the chair with him, landing on his lap and shoving the book in his face. “Here, read it!”
This, Minho decided as he attempted to read a page of English words with Taemin sitting on his lap, peering over the top of the book at him, had to be one of the most difficult things he'd ever tried to do in his entire life.
“So?” Taemin asked expectantly after a minute passed by. “Isn't it funny?”
“Yeah. Ha ha,” Minho ground out, hoping the response was at least somewhat natural and appropriate because he really still had no idea what the page was about and he really just wanted Taemin to get off of his lap because his warmth and his scent was doing devastating things to what little self-control he had left.
Instead of moving off though Taemin settled in, inching himself into the small gap between Minho's hipbone and the arm of his overstuffed chair. “I wanna see what you're reading.”
As he showed the younger his English copy of Naturo, trying his absolute best to ignore Taemin's legs draped over his and tucked underneath his calf to keep himself from slipping off of the chair, Minho reminded himself to limit Taemin's caffeine intake from now on because this monster he’d turned into was absolutely not good for either of them.