Work Text:
"In my empty heart for the first time Spring found its way, and flowers bloomed right at the center.”
Hyunjin's sketching out a picture of an apple blossom flower in his notebook at the front counter of the flower shop he works at when he hears a rustle a few feet away.
When he looks up to find a boy around his age poking his head in through the front door, he nearly jumps out of his chair in shock.
"Hey, I think your music connected to my store's bluetooth speakers on accident,” the guy says before Hyunjin can get a word out. “I wasn't gonna say anything at first but if I have to hear the lyrics 'if you have a broken heart, just take a chance' one more time I'm gonna lose like all of my brain cells. And I only have one brain cell in the first place so that's saying a lot,” he deadpans.
Hyunjin doesn't even process everything he says, just looks down at his phone where the music app is open on his favorite song and the 'replay' button is set to endless . He does a quick double take, mouth dropping open in embarrassment.
"Oh-oh my god," he sputters. "I'm so sorry I didn't even realize that it stopped playing in here-"
"Hey, is this a flower shop?" The boy asks, walking inside the store and looking around like he's never seen live plants before. "How long has this shop been here?"
"This place? Um, like a good five years-”
"No way . I never noticed it here. But then again I've only worked here for a month. By the way, I work at the candy store two shops down,” the boy says. “I don't eat sweets, which is the funny part. I just needed a job and they were the first place that called me back. If I’m being really honest I kind of regret it because of how boring it is. I mean I knew it was gonna be boring, but it's like 'standing in one spot wiping the same clean counter down for half an hour' boring."
He puts down the rose he had been studying and walks right up to the counter. Up close, Hyunjin notices just how pretty he is, his eyes are like the kind he draws in his sketchbook sometimes, or the ones you read about in romance novels. The strange boy leans on the counter and points at his own face, which is only inches away from Hyunjin’s now.
"Be honest,” he says. “Do I have the kind of face that would scare children away?"
"Uh," Hyunjin backs away a little bit because the proximity makes his brain go a little haywire. "Actually,” he says once he can think again. “Your eyes are a little intimidati-"
"It’s okay, I don't like kids anyway. You should work there instead of me- kids like pretty people," he says, now walking back to the door. "Hey, if you ever want some free candy, you know where to find me." He turns around to wink, and then he's gone.
Hyunjin sits there, drawing forgotten, and wonders what the hell just happened.
The next time he sees the boy he’s labeled in his mind as the “candy shop dude with the big eyes," he’s on the night shift, sketchbook open in front of him. Whenever he’s not painting, he’s drawing. The Hyunjin from three years ago would have laughed in your face if you told him he would be an art major right now with a side job at a flower shop. But he had spent years in college feeling completely directionless, like his life was going absolutely nowhere, until one day he picked up a paintbrush and it was like he was brought from the dead back to life. The plant thing is fairly new as well. He discovered that he liked to paint nature the most and became interested in learning more about plant life. There’s something about the serene, calming beauty of nature that makes it an exhilarating experience to recreate on a canvas.
He’d applied for this job because he has a decent knowledge of flowers - he might as well put it to use. And because it’s never busy, which gives him plenty of free time to sketch outlines for his paintings.
Like right now.
He’s currently moving his pencil across the paper so fast he feels like he might break it, but he can't slow down. Sometimes inspiration just hits him with no warning, and when he gets an image in his head he has to get it down on paper before he forgets.
He's so focused on his sketch that he doesn't even hear the footsteps that enter through the door and walk right up to the front desk.
Until-
"What are you drawing?"
He jumps at the sound of the loud voice right in front of him and looks up to find the guy from a few days ago leaning on the counter looking at his drawing. He fumbles and nearly drops it as he tries to close the notebook before the boy can catch a peak. He's never let anyone see his sketchbook and there's no way he’s gonna let the stranger in front of him get a good look.
"Wait, what?” The candy shop guy says, surprised when Hyunjin shuts the notebook. “Can I see? It actually looked really-"
"Do you need something?" Hyunjin blurts out before he can finish whatever he was going to say. This is why he never shows anybody his art. People always have their opinions . And, well, Hyunjin isn’t the best at taking criticism.
The boy just squints. Hyunjin glances away. It’s hard to look into eyes as intense as those.
"Actually yeah, I just need more of the little parking tickets. The music store is out too so I was wondering if you had some that you could spare.”
“Oh,” Hyunjin says. “Yeah.”
He holds out the little basket with the cards and watches as the boy takes almost all of them with no shame. He glances at the name tag on his black work shirt.
‘Minho ’
He doesn’t realize he has a death grip on his sketchbook until candy shop boy, Minho, says, “Geez, don’t look so scared. I won’t steal your precious little notebook from you.”
But right after he says that, he moves suddenly like he’s going to snatch it off the counter and Hyunjin reacts by grabbing it and holding it to his chest, away from the boys prying hands. But he feels dumb when Minho doesn’t actually try to grab it. He was just teasing him.
He smiles. “Ha, gotcha!” He says before turning around and leaving.
He waves. “See you later, art boy.”
Seeing Minho becomes almost a daily occurrence after that.
Most of the time, there’s no reason for his appearance. Sometimes he'll just walk in and not even greet Hyunjin before he's already telling him a story about something that happened at his shop, or asking him his opinion on something completely random, like his thoughts on life after death or what he thinks the sun looks like up close. Hyunjin wonders sometimes how he can just leave his shop for so long without getting fired. But he's not complaining, it's actually nice to have someone to talk to rather than just sitting in silence the whole shift.
He’ll admit, he was intimidated by Minho’s eccentric personality at first, but now he finds the boy strangely comforting, like he can be himself around him and he won’t be judged.
Right now Minho’s going on about the likelihood of the existence of extraterrestrial beings as he rearranges the mini potted plant display to keep his hands busy.
“There’s gotta be life on other planets right? I mean think about how big this planet is. Then about how big this galaxy is. And this is just one galaxy in like a billion. And don’t even get me started on the multiverse theory. But also, how have we existed here for thousands of years and never come into contact with aliens at all?” His eyes widen like he just realized something. “Unless the government has come into contact with them and are just hiding it from us. That would actually make a lot of sense.”
Hyunjin chuckles, his sketchbook forgotten on the counter ever since Minho started his rant. He splays his arms out and leans over to ask, “How are you so entertaining?”
A slow smile crawls up Minho’s face. Like the comment satisfies him but he doesn’t want to show it “It’s all just to cover up the fact that I’m actually super boring and have zero personality,” he says in that sarcastic tone of his.
“I don't think ‘boring’ and ‘you’ should ever be used in the same sentence. And there's no way a person with zero personality could fabricate a fake personality this interesting.”
He shrugs.
Hyunjin briefly wonders if he’s going to get in trouble for letting him change up the little plant display, but he figures his boss isn’t even here enough to notice. He glances at his phone and realizes they’ve been talking for almost fifteen minutes now.
“Shouldn’t you get back to your shop?” Hyunjin says. What if there’s an entire line of customers outside waiting for him to get back?
“Look, I get like one customer a day - maybe a window shopper and a good conversation if I’m lucky. If you want me to leave, just say so,” he says teasingly.
Hyunjin laughs again. He’s realizing he does that a lot around Minho. "I don't want you to leave."
“Good,” he replies. “And instead of worrying about the failing shop I work at, you should worry about the fact that I've been in here for a whole fifteen minutes and you haven't even tried to sell me one thing.” He finally stops messing with the display and walks up to where Hyunjin sits at the register. “It's not like you're swamped with customers either.”
He does that annoying thing where he leans on the counter and tilts his head just the slightest, says, "You could be making money off me, pretty boy.” And why it's annoying - Hyunjin won't answer that. But the way his heart beats a little faster in his chest whenever he does it is a dead giveaway.
"I don't own this place. I just work here-"
"Shh.” He silences him and Hyunjin’s about to whine about how he can’t ever finish a sentence, but before he can, Minho’s already picking up a bundle of daisies on the shelf and shoving them in Hyunjin’s face. "Tell me why I should buy this extremely overpriced bouquet of daisies.”
Hyunjin shrugs. "They're yellow and pretty?"
"I don't like yellow,” he says, staring him down with a serious expression, like they’re talking about dealing drugs or something and not about buying some flowers. “It makes my eyes feel like they're vomiting."
Hyunjin tries not to laugh. God, he loves when Minho says things that make no sense.
Wait. Did he just think that?
"Fine." He sighs and walks around the counter. He grabs the flowers from where the older boy is holding them out to him and fiddles with the petals, taking in their soft beauty, admiring their delicacy. "You should get them because daisies are like the go-to happy flowers. They represent friendship, and joy. So even if you don't have a lover they can make you feel like there’s something good out there waiting for you. They’re bright, they light up the room. They’re a reminder that things won't be so bad forever. You get to believe in happy endings."
It’s silent as Hyunjin stares down at the brilliant flowers. He can feel Minho’s eyes staring him down.
The older boy picks up an old bouquet of Catmint flowers where the edges of the petals have begun to turn brown, and presents them to Hyunjin.
"There's no way you can sell these to me,” he says. “They’re hideous."
"Well, they may have been sitting there for too long but…I don’t know, I think they’re a good reminder.” He catches a petal that falls off when Minho gives the flowers a small shake. “When you look at them they remind you that every second we're living we're also dying. And that even dying things can be beautiful. You see them and realize that life is fleeting. Maybe too fleeting. But it’s also beautiful. You have to make the most of it."
He gets a little lost in it. But when he shakes himself out of his daydream, he realizes Minho is looking at him with an unreadable expression on his face, no hint of humor anywhere to be found like there usually is.
He feels embarrassment flood over him. Here he is, with a cute boy that comes into his shop almost everyday to see him and he ruins it by going on some nerdy rant about the meaning of flowers. Minho probably sees him as some weird plant fanatic now.
"Sorry that was probably not-,” Hyunjin stutters and goes back to sit behind the counter. He chuckles awkwardly. “That was super weird. Sorry.”
"I thought it was pretty amazing.” Minho says, sounding a little out of it, and Hyunjin wonders where the humorous boy from a few minutes ago went. He opens his sketchbook to a blank page and pretends to start drawing, if only to avoid his eyes.
But when Minho puts the bouquets back where he got them, picks up one of the plastic flowers from the case next to the register and sticks it into Hyunjin’s hair, he looks up at him again. He’s closer than he expects for him to be, and. Wow… Hyunjin thinks he could get lost in those eyes forever. They’re the kind he wants to paint over and over again, spend hours making sure he gets them just right. But maybe some things are so brilliant that they just can’t be recreated, but rather can only exist in one place and time. Like right here.
“You’re really something else, flower boy,” is all Minho says.
Then he leaves.
The first time Minho sees Hyunjin’s boss, it’s not under the best circumstances. Actually, it’s under terrible circumstances.
Hyunjin doesn’t notice Minho walk in because he’s too busy being yelled at within an inch of his life by his boss.
And the thing about Hyunjin - he’s a sensitive guy. He rarely got scolded as a kid, but when he did it always turned him into a crying mess. Right now he does his best to hold in the tears he feels coming up as his boss goes on and on about his incompetence as an employee.
“You think I pay you to sit around all day?” He yells. Hyunjin’s eyes remain facing the floor. “I’ve never in my life had an employee as incompetent and lazy as you. I trust you with my business, to get sales. You think I can’t replace you? I could easily find anybody out on the street who could do this job ten times better than you!”
Then why don’t you? Hyunjin thinks.
He lowers his voice to a threatening tone and says, “If I ever check the cameras again to find you scribbling in that little book of yours instead of bringing in customers, I’m gonna-”
Somebody clears their throat before he can finish and they both whip their heads around to see who interrupted.
It’s Minho.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he says, putting his hand up in a placating gesture. “I just came by so I could put in the order for that set of flowers now. I’ll probably need around twenty bouquets. By the way, thank you so much Hyunjin.”
“F-for what?” His boss says, and Hyunjin tries not to laugh at how he went from terrifying to stumbling over his words.
“Oh, well I was looking for flowers for my wedding that’s coming up and your very nice employee here was telling me all about your-” He pauses, and looks around. Hyunjin smiles when he realizes he’s trying to look for the name of a flower.
But it drops right off his face when Minho says, “Calla Lilies! Yes, he was telling me about Calla Lilies and how they’re perfect for weddings because of their meaning of everlasting love and what not.”
Hyunjin wants to face palm. Everyone knows you never pick Calla Lilies for weddings because of their token symbol of bad luck. Not to mention an unsuspecting child or animal could die if they decide to put a petal in their mouth. But of course Minho wouldn’t know that.
He looks at his boss and realizes there’s no way he’s going to tell Minho to switch his choice of flowers - not if it means he might lose a huge order and the huge amount of money that comes along with it.
“I mean at first I was just going to go to another flower shop,” Minho says, points right at him. “But Hyunjin, well he convinced me to buy from you guys.”
It’s silent for a second as his boss stares at Minho, Minho smiles at his boss, and Hyunjin’s eyes dart back and forth between the two of them, like he’s going to call bullshit and fire Hyunjin on the spot.
Minho looks at Hyunjin and raises his eyebrows as if to say, do something!
And he’s quick to stutter out, “Of course, of course! I’ll get the forms for you right now.”
He walks over to the desk and pulls out the order forms from the drawer. His boss watches with careful eyes as Minho leans against the counter and starts filling them out.
“Well,” his manager straightens out the shirt he’s wearing and clears his throat. “I’m sorry you had to hear our little discussion earlier, but I’m glad you’ve chosen to purchase from us. You’re in great hands with Hyunjin here.”
Hyunjin wants to throw him the middle finger, but instead gives him the most insincere smile he can muster.
“I’ll be on my way then.” He’s in a much better mood as he leaves, and when he walks out the door, Hyunjin waits a full ten seconds to make sure he’s really gone before he bursts into laughter.
“You complete dumbass ,” he says and pushes Minho lightly on the shoulder.
“Excuse me?” Minho puts a hand over his chest. “I practically saved your job back there.”
“What am I gonna do when my boss sees that there's no actual order?” Hyunjin tries to look angry but he’s smiling too hard now. Why did Minho do a whole charade just to get him out of trouble? He could have just turned around and left, pretended not to see anything at all. But he didn’t.
Minho blinks at him. “Okay,” he says. “So maybe I didn't think that far in advance…”
Hyunjin laughs again. “You’re crazy.”
“At least you're smiling now instead of looking like you're about to cry. God, that guy is such an asshole for that.”
“Yeah, he is,” Hyunjin agrees with a small sigh.
“Say it,” Minho says.
Hyunjin quirks an eyebrow in confusion. “Say what?”
“That your boss is an asshole.”
“What? No.”
“Say it, Hwang Hyunjin,” Minho demands, something like a challenge in his eyes. Hyunjin almost gets lost in them. For the millionth time. “He said you were lazy! And incompetent.”
Hyunjin had actually agreed with the things his boss told him, because he does end up at the desk drawing a lot of the time. But as he thinks about it, he realizes Minho’s right. He could have been nicer about it, he didn’t need to insult and belittle his art.
Then Minho says something that sets him off.
“He called your art scribbles.”
And that - that makes Hyunjin mad.
“Fine, he's a fucking asshole!” He says, letting all the anger out.
It’s silent for a minute as Hyunjin’s breathing picks up out of anger, and Minho studies him. He has an unreadable look on his face. Hyunjin’s about to ask him why he’s looking at him like that when a slow smirk starts to build on his face.
“Hey, that was kind of hot, flower boy,” he says.
Hyunjin’s face goes bright red.
It stays that way long after Minho’s left to go back to his shop.
Hyunjin gets so used to Minho's presence at Flower Palace that on days when he doesn’t come in, it feels weird. Too quiet.
Today is one of those days. All shift Hyunjin has been watching the clock with hawk eyes in his boredom. Only a few customers came in earlier and bought some bouquets, but ever since then it’s been more dead in the shop than a graveyard. To the point where he even got bored with sketching.
As he leans against the counter and stares at the clock that ticks loudly on the wall, he can’t help but miss Minho’s playful banter, or even his terrible jokes that, for some reason, always make Hyunjin laugh. He can’t help but miss his presence in general. Maybe he’s grown more fond of it than he’d realized.
So when the clock hits 8:45pm , he decides to close the store fifteen minutes early. It’s unlikely any more customers will come in for the day anyway.
He quickly cleans up, does a little cash count and then locks the doors before walking into the candy shop a few doors down.
When he goes inside, he finds the store overflowing with customers, which explains why Minho didn’t have the time to pop into his workplace today.
He looks around at all the candy displays that must make it feel something like an amusement park for little kids and is surprised he's never come in here before. Not even once.
It doesn’t take long for him to spot Minho at the front smiling and laughing with the kids who are checking out with their parents. Hyunjin shakes his head, remembering what Minho said about scaring the kids away. He’s not scary at all. He’s just a big softie.
When he walks up to the register after the group of kids leave, Minho doesn't look surprised to see him. Which means he already spotted him when he came in. And the smug look on his face just confirms that.
“Miss me?” He says.
Hyunjin rolls his eyes, wants to say something like no way or in your dreams .
Instead, he shrugs, says, “Maybe.”
It’s not so bad to admit.
Minho glances back at the bustling store behind Hyunjin. “I get off in fifteen,” he says, waving the next customers forward. “Wait for me?”
Hyunjin just nods and decides to go look around the shop until Minho finishes up with the last customers.
Maybe he sneaks a few of the blue shark jellies into his mouth whenever he knows he’s not being watched.
By the time Minho’s shutting off the lights and locking the front doors with a pair of keys, Hyunjin feels like the sound of children chattering will be burned into his brain for days.
But now, with the shopping center closed and the parking lot deserted, it’s uncharacteristically silent.
“Do you live nearby?” Minho asks, reaching into his bag to pull out a mini pack of blue shark jellies and handing them over.
Hyunjin lets out a shocked chuckle before taking them. So he was watching him.
“Yeah, I usually just walk,” he says, pointing to the street ahead. “It’s not far, just to the university.”
Minho’s mouth drops open. “I walk too, just past the university!” He says. “You’re telling me all this time we could have been walking home together? I’ve been dying for more Hyunjin time.”
Hyunjin raises his eyebrows at him. “Have you?”
“Yes.”
“Well I guess today’s your lucky day then,” he smirks.
“Oh, one hundred percent,” Minho replies in an instant. Hyunjin wonders sometimes how he always has a response waiting right there on the tip of his tongue. “Shall we?”
He holds out a hand toward him. Hyunjin stares at it.
“Wait,” he says. “Is this supposed to be a date or something?”
“If that’s what you want it to be,” Minho teases, if the look in his eyes is anything to go by.
“I think that’s what you want it to be, actually,” Hyunjin says, pointing a finger straight in the older boy’s face even as his other hand goes to intertwine their fingers. He feels his stomach start turning in circles when Minho squeezes his hand a bit as they head down the dimly-lit road.
On the way home, Hyunjin tells him all about art school and how his drawings are sometimes outlines for his paintings and how it feels like every blank canvas is just a world with endless possibilities awaiting it. He tells him about how he thought art museums and watercoloring were so boring when he was a little kid, but now he loves them. He tells him his favorite movie. His favorite home cooked meal. About his family and the little town of Sangju that they grew up in, before he moved to Seoul for school. He doesn’t remember the last time he chatted so much and he almost feels embarrassed when he gets home and thinks back on everything he talked about.
Hyunjin discovers he can’t really ever escape Minho.
That night, Minho sneaks his way into his dreams too. He dreams of endless gardens and suns and a field of carnations in bloom, one glinting in every color of the rainbow.
He can’t remember the last time his own laughter woke him up from his sleep.
“When are you going to show me your paintings?”
Minho asks Hyunjin the question one night on their walk home.
“Um...never?”
Minho gives him a look that makes him realize that was the wrong answer to give.
"I mean...maybe someday? I guess? In the far, far future,” Hyunjin says. “...Maybe.”
Everything spills over the boiling pot a few days later when Minho’s doing his usual pestering in the plant shop.
Hyunjin’s not really in the mood for any of it. Not after his class - where his professor had practically shoved his assignment - his painting - in his face and told him it was garbage.
“It’s just a known fact that kids don’t like raisins. It doesn’t matter if you cover them in chocolate or white-chocolate or caramel . They still won’t buy it. It's why that section of the store is always empty,” Minho goes on and on in one of his rants. “I mean, I don’t blame them, I don’t like raisins either. Always hated when they would give them to us as snacks back in pre-k. Do you like them?”
Hyunjin shrugs.
“You like chocolate, though, right?”
He shrugs again
Minho goes silent for a moment before he says, “You're quiet today.”
Hyunjin lets out a breath, looking down at where he’s fiddling with the pencil in his hand. He hasn’t even drawn anything yet. “Yeah, believe it or not some people don't feel like talking twenty-four seven,” he says.
It’s a low blow. He kind of regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth.
He doesn’t look up to see what face Minho makes at that, but he can hear the slight hurt in his voice when he responds. “Okay? Instead of being passive-aggressive, why don’t you just tell me what’s wrong?”
Hyunjin hates that the other boy can see straight through him. It doesn’t even take a full thirty seconds for him to let out a long sigh and give in.
“Sorry, it's just-” he pauses, not knowing quite how to put the words together. How to explain the way his teacher’s comment made him feel. “Nevermind, it’s stupid.”
“If I thought it was stupid I wouldn't be asking.”
Hyunjin finally stops tapping his pencil incessently and closes his sketchbook. “It’s just one of my professors,” he says, running a hand through his hair to grab at a few strands. “She said my painting was… bad.”
“She said it was bad ?”
“She called it uninspired. Said it was disorganized. Or something like that, I don’t remember the exact words,” Hyunjin lets his shoulders slump. “So basically, yeah, she called it bad.”
“That’s not the same thing as calling it bad,” Minho says, standing up from where he’d been sitting near the carton of roses to walk up and lean against the front counter. “I don’t even think bad art exists. And even if it did exist, who cares if it’s bad. Is that why you paint? So it won't be bad? No. It’s because you like to paint. It’s because it’s fun, right? Art shouldn’t even be graded. It’s not something any one person can look at and make an objective statement about. She’s just one person. I bet she’s a pretentious, overpaid art critic who just wants to feel like she’s better than her students.”
Hyunjin would laugh if he were in a better mood. Because Minho just described his professor perfectly.
“If it’s worth anything,” he says, worked up tone lowering to something a little more serious. “I don’t think there’s anything you could paint that could possibly be uninspired.”
“You’ve never even seen my paintings.”
“I don’t have to. Have you seen you ?” Minho gestures to him. “Have you heard you? Been around you? There’s no way it’s anything less than breathtaking . No way in hell, flower boy.”
For a moment, Hyunjin is too shocked by the words to speak. At how passionate he says it. Like he can see the artist in him clear as day. Even though he doesn’t really have any proof to back it up. Because Hyunjin’s never shown him anything. But he defends him like he has.
“You’re just saying that to be nice,” Hyunjin mumbles.
“You know I don’t say things just to be nice,” Minho responds in an instant.
Hyunjin thinks about it for a little longer and figures the other boy is right. Who cares if one person didn’t like his painting. What about all the other countless people and professors that have told him how much they love his art, that have told him he has something special? Do they all just not count anymore because one teacher had a different opinion?
“I guess she was extra harsh on everybody this week. Well. Every week,” Hyunjin says. “And the fact that it was ‘disorganized’ was the whole point. Why couldn’t she see that?” Hyunjin doesn’t realize he’s staring a hole into the counter until Minho leans down and Hyunjin’s forced to meet his eyes.
His way-too-close eyes.
“Not everyone can see what you see,” he says.
Hyunjin’s pauses, taking in the weight of those words. He thinks maybe it’s Minho’s way of saying he has an artist’s eye. And that comment means more to him than the older boy could ever know.
He doesn’t realize he’s started fiddling with his lips absentmindedly while in thought until he notices Minho’s eyes following the movement.
Suddenly, his sour mood has faded away into something else.
“Something catch your attention?” Hyunjin smirks when Minho snaps his eyes back up to his, like he’s been caught.
“What?”
“Nothing, it’s just. My eyes are up here.”
“What?” He says again.
Hyunjin falls into a small laughing fit. “You're not as subtle as you think. You think I don't notice you staring at my mouth all the time? Just say you wanna kiss me and go?" He says breezily - like he hasn’t been practicing that line for days. He leans on the counter to rest his chin in his palms. The result is their faces separated by only an inch or two.
"Don't say stuff like that because I will actually do it,” Minho shoots back.
"You'll actually do it?" Hyunjin gasps in fake shock. "Oh no he's gonna kiss me! No, that’s so terrible. I don’t want that to happen-”
Before he can finish the obviously sarcastic remarks, Minho is surging forward and capturing his lips in a passionate kiss. Hyunjin’s hand automatically flies up to tangle into his hair and pull him closer.
His heart beats mercilessly against his ribcage as their lips slide together in perfect harmony. Like it was a moment that was just waiting to happen. Like they've done this before in another life.
Minho pulls back after a while, looks noticeably more- glowy . “I think you're breathtaking too,” he says. “By the way.”
“Says you,” Hyunjin mumbles.
Minho leans back further, serious expression gone in an instant and Hyunjin knows whatever he’s going to say next is going to be something completely unserious. “Hey, you basically called my face scary when we first met. You can’t switch up now,” he says, back to his regular demeanor.
“I did not call your face scary-”
“You didn’t deny it,” he argues.
Hyunjin rolls his eyes. Already missing the feeling of his lips on his. “Okay. Whatever.” He leans in closer. “Can we go back to the part where we’re kissing instead of talking?”
Minho listens and connects their lips in another kiss, this time slower - like he’s made an art out of taking Hyunjin apart from the inside out and leaving him a complete and utter mess.
He whispers something against his lips that has Hyunjin’s stomach swirling so much, it's as if somebody pushed him off a cliff with no warning and he’s left free-falling. Falling. Falling.
" My flower boy .”
“Are you trying to get me fired? First you, distract me at work-”
Hyunjin’s interrupted by the pair of lips that press against his for another kiss.
“Then you promise to order all these flowers for a fake wedding-”
Another kiss.
“Now you hide in the back with me to distract me even more? You’re not even allowed to be back here.”
This time, Hyunjin’s the one who leans forward to connect their lips in a sultry kiss.
He gets lost in it for a while, almost forgets where he even is. (The room for employees behind the front counter.) (The space that evades the security camera.)
“Well I don’t think customers wanna walk in and see us exchanging saliva, so…” Minho says after pulling back. Hyunjin scrunches up his nose at the comment. “And I am gonna order those flowers. One day.”
“One day…” Hyunjin stares at him incredulously.
“Uh huh. By the way,” he starts, leaning back to look Hyunjin up and down. “What flowers would you want at your wedding? You know, if you were getting married.”
Hyunjin giggles. “Why? You wanna marry me already? Minho, I think we’re moving too fast-”
“Just answer the question, flower boy.”
“Calla lilies,” he deadpans.
It results in Minho shoving his shoulder. Which just causes him to cackle even more.
“Apple blossoms,” he finally says after he’s settled down even though Minho doesn’t actually seem annoyed. He’s just smiling at him like he’s entered into a daze. Hyunjin’s starting to get used to that look, even though he doesn’t ever really want to. “I would want apple blossoms. No deep meaning behind it, I just think they’re very aesthetically pleasing.”
“Good to know,” is all Minho murmurs before leaning in again.
But Hyunjin stops him with a hand to his chest, taps a hesitant finger against his shirt. “Hey, uh. I wanna show you something,” he says slowly. “After work.”
Minho nods, big eyes imploring, like he’s trying to figure out what he means by that.
“Okay,” he says.
Hyunjin’s hand on his shirt slides up slowly until he’s got a grip on the back of the older boy’s neck. He spends a second too long just taking in the sight in front of him. Wondering when everything took such a drastic turn. How all it took was one person walking into his life for everything to change. Maybe forever.
“‘K,” Hyunjin mumbles before climbing onto his lap and kissing the next words out of his mouth.
They don’t get caught sneaking around in the back. (Luckily.) Even though Hyunjin’s boss does call at one point to demand he stop ‘hiding’ and go sit at the front counter.
They walk home hand-in-hand, as usual.
When Hyunjin shows Minho all the paintings in his dorm that night, it feels like opening up and exposing a part of himself that he's always kept hidden away. He thinks there’s something beautiful about being vulnerable. In moments like these.
And as Minho lays him down and opens up his petals, watches him blossom in more ways than one until his head is nothing more than a mess of sultry red rose petals. As he kisses him, in a room surrounded by all of the flower paintings, his own makeshift garden, he feels it happen deep inside his chest.
He blooms.