If you recognise it, it's not mine.


1) Coffee

It started with coffee, a lightly flirtatious offer on a cold December morning. Newt had nodded, a faint blush lighting up his face, and Minho had wondered if this was what they meant by love at first sight.

2) Complete

Their hands fit together like two pieces of the same puzzle, and they have never felt more alive.

3) Cold

Newt quotes Frozen to him, and Minho manages to feign disdain for around three seconds before joining in.

4) Candlelight

Their first meal together was candlelit, not in the planned romantic sense, but more in the unexpected powercut sense, leaving Minho cursing furiously as he scrabbled for matches.

5) Christmas

Their first kiss tasted of Christmas, of warm gingerbread latte. Newt started it, and pulled back seconds later, face flushed, while their friends cheered in the background.

6) Calendar

Amongst the regular scribblings of work and appointments, every so often there's a precise, delicate heart shape, a few hours a week set aside for when Newt is all his.

7) Cliché

They fill every clichéd couple stereotype in the book, as their friends never tire of pointing out.

8) Crash

The sight of the accident makes Minho's blood run cold and his heart hammer in his chest.

9) Crushed

That is the only way Minho can describe how Newt's leg looks when they take him out of the wreckage.

10) Crutches

Gally steals them from Newt one day, soon after the accident, even though he's completely aware of the fact that Minho will murder him.

11) Carry

Instead of murdering Gally, Minho simply scoops Newt into his arms, and only puts him down after numerous death threats.

12) Critics

They're only holding hands when they hear the spiteful jeers being tossed their way, people telling them that they're disgusting, evil, wrong.

13) Comeback

In response, Newt simply kisses Minho as ostentatiously as possible, and that shuts them up.

14) Cripple

Newt told him it was a stupid idea to take the crippled boy ice-skating.

15) Catch

Minho told him he wasn't crippled, he was perfect, and caught him every time he fell.

16) Cough

Newt takes care of him, bringing him medicine and soup, and mutters something about how hot Minho's huskier voice sounds.

17) Contagious

When Newt gets the same virus, Minho does the same for him.

18) Chocolate

Was there really any other option for Valentine's Day?

19) Cards

Minho quickly discovers that Newt has an infallible poker face.

20) Clash

It wasn't even a reasonable argument, they can't even remember what it was about, but it ended in Newt storming out in tears as Minho slammed the door behind him.

21) Continuity

Breaking up was the biggest mistake they ever made. Even Gally said so.

22) Chances

Because you don't get many, and the day Newt agrees to take him back is the best of Minho's life.

23) Core

This is who they are; at the very centre of their hearts is Newt-and-Minho, Minho-and-Newt.

24) Choice

"Will you marry me?"

25) Certainty

"Yes."

26) Chimes

No church bells were sweeter than the sound of Newt's voice as he said his vows, or the sound of Minho's as he murmured, ever so softly, "I do."

27) Chess

Minho always won, but only because Newt let him.

28) Considered

Minho's heart stutters to a stop when Newt tells him he used to be suicidal.

29) Cuts

He kisses the faded lines on Newt's pale skin, and asks "what made you stop?"

30) Catalyst

"I met you."

31) Complaints

Minho leaves damp towels on the floor, and Newt leaves half-drunk, stone cold mugs of tea on the table.

32) Creep

"Well, aren't you cute," the guy purrs, running a finger up Newt's chest.

33) Cute

"No, he's not," Minho says, pushing the creep away. "He's beautiful."

34) Care

"It's just a migraine," Newt says. "I'll be fine in a bit." Minho ignores him, and looks after him.

35) Collapse

Newt falls one day, hitting his head hard, and it isn't because of his leg.

36) Concussion

That's not even the main problem, even though Newt's disorientated eyes can't seem to focus on anything further than Minho's face.

37) Checking

The tests come back and Minho has to read the paper ten times before he understands what they're saying.

38) Can't

It's inoperable, they say, something lodged inside his skull like a disease.

39) Communicate

Telling the others is the hardest thing they've ever done, and the worst bit is, Minho knows it's not going to get any easier.

40) Cancer

Minho comes in one day to find Newt sitting on the floor, trembling and pale. "I have cancer, Min," he says quietly, as if he's only just realised what it means.

41) Comfort

Minho does his best, but they're hollow words, because these days, nothing can make him feel better.

42) Concentration

It's getting harder for Newt now, and nothing hurts more than the moments when he suddenly, briefly, doesn't remember who he's talking to.

43) Crisis

When he's woken up in the middle of the night by Newt spasming uncontrollably in a seizure, Minho's mind goes completely blank.

44) Call

He phones for an ambulance first, and then a friend, he's not sure who, stabbing the screen blindly with trembling fingers.

45) Calm

It turns out to be Teresa, and she comes while he's climbing into the back of the ambulance. She holds his hand while they're waiting for news, the single calm point in a swirling storm of panic.

46) Countdown

Minho can't link the number given to him, a matter of weeks, days, hours, with Newt's life, even though Newt's so thin and so pale now that half the time, he's hardly there at all.

47) Constant

He never leaves the hospital now, hardly eating or sleeping, spending as much time as he can with Newt whether he's awake or not.

48) Consciousness

Minho likes to think that in those last moments, Newt knew who he was.

49) Cliff

They let his ashes go at the coast, swirling up and down and away on a million invisible winds. Minho stands at the edge and thinks about jumping until Teresa takes his arm and leads him away.

50) Chuck

It's the younger boy who eventually shakes him out of it, bringing home a girlfriend for the first time, and Minho realises that the world's still turning.