Chapter Text
Yeonjun had never been one to need alcohol in his veins to fuel his confidence, but it certainly didn’t hurt.
He’d always been sure of himself in every aspect of his life— his looks, his talents, his charisma; his budding feelings for his best friend, whom he’d met when they were both still gangly and awkward, unsure of how to handle themselves, let alone others.
It had been a gradual thing. First came the realization that he couldn’t imagine a future without Beomgyu by his side. Next came the overwhelming affection which began to manifest itself in intertwined hands, lingering embraces, long nights spent locked onto each other.
Then, the sharpening of features, the growth spurts, the way that Beomgyu’s deepened voice calling his name began to sound like something more. None of this happened over night and so Yeonjun was more sure of it than anything, this long cultivated thing that had been years in the making.
The one thing he wasn’t sure of, however, the one thing he lacked any confidence at all in, was how to express those feelings. Beomgyu was the most expressive person Yeonjun knew. And yet, he was still something of an enigma.
If he were anyone else, then Yeonjun could safely assume that his feelings were most likely reciprocated. But how could he assume anything when Beomgyu laughed that way with anyone, clung onto everyone like his attention cost him nothing to give away?
Hence, the alcohol. It was probably not the wisest decision he’d ever made, consuming so much of it before deciding to climb up onto the roof, but no part of him was thinking rationally right now. Besides— he’d fall first before he ever let Beomgyu so much as lose his balance.
Which was becoming very likely, seeing as how he was a few too many notches away from sober. He only allowed himself to relax once he ensured they were both perched somewhat steadily atop their shingled throne, though his hands still shook with an adrenaline rush.
Now came time for the more difficult, more hazy part of his plan. As many versions as he tried out in his head, nothing seemed to click. Nothing sounded good enough, perfect enough. How the hell did people go about confessing?
There were too many accumulated thoughts inside of Yeonjun’s head. He didn’t know how to go about unraveling it all, had never learned how to untangle these paragraphs. Beomgyu, on the other hand, seemed just as spaced out, wearing the same dazed expression he had whenever he was thinking hard on something.
Yeonjun wondered what the other boy was dwelling on. Surely it wasn’t as monumental of a decision, nothing like the dilemma that had been keeping Yeonjun awake every night. But when asked what was going on inside his head, Beomgyu didn’t answer.
He merely leaned forward, and said in a soft, breathy whisper: “Let’s make a pact.”
He was so close that Yeonjun could barely concentrate. Everything he had planned to say disappeared, replaced with overwhelming curiosity.
He wanted to crack this one small mystery, to get a glimpse inside the half-closed book that was Choi Beomgyu. Beomgyu was as easy to read as anyone Yeonjun knew; the thing was, he chose which pages to let people to see, or hid his true meanings in between the lines.
“Okay,” Yeonjun said. “Lay it on me.”
“If we’re not with anyone in ten years,” Beomgyu began, choked with nervous giggles, “let’s just get married.”
Yeonjun stared at him in silent awe, trying to figure out if he had just heard correctly. “I… what?” His mind went utterly blank, unable to process. A joke. It had to be.
“What,” Beomgyu pouted, and the disappointment Yeonjun saw in his expression was unmistakably genuine. “You don’t want to?”
“I- it’s not that I don’t want to,” he stuttered, “I just.” Yeonjun’s heart squeezed painfully.
This was exactly the opposite of how he planned for this night to go. Well, maybe not the opposite. He would never have imagined this. This was supposed to be the night he threw aside all rationality and gave his heart away.
Beomgyu looked unfocused, his cheeks flushed and glowing. He probably didn’t even know what he was saying. Yeonjun knew that, knew that this meant nothing. But again, this was his night of irrational decisions— not that he had ever been rational when it came to Beomgyu.
A slew of images flashed through his mind like a slideshow: him and Beomgyu, cuddled up in bed together; hand in hand, going out on dates; replicating memories they had already shared, but as something more. Yeonjun remembered when they were younger, when they’d make friendship bracelets out of beads and knotted yarn. They had tied themselves to each other, a promise to always be present in any shape or form.
He imagined repeating that promise, down on one knee (because of course Yeonjun would have to beat him to it, and secretly, Beomgyu wouldn’t have it any other way).
Him and Beomgyu, ten years in the making; another ten years into the future. Sealed with rings instead of string, hearts combining instead of pining. 1
“Okay,” he finally replied, his voice wobbling. “Let’s do it.”
In the days, months, years that follow, even Yeonjun will look back on this night with a hazy memory. But he’ll remember, clear as day, the way that Beomgyu’s eyes were shimmering, the way his pupils swallowed up his irises like a lunar eclipse.
“We should seal the deal.”
Yeonjun scrambled to force his body into performing the appropriate action in response: holding out his hand to shake, extending his pinky, crossing his heart. But instead of doing any of those things, he remained frozen still.
Before he could remind himself to blink, Beomgyu was leaning forward, and before he could remind himself to breathe, there was a kiss being pressed against his cheekbone. Yeonjun’s skin erupted into goosebumps at the touch, his heart flickering like a candle flame, caught in the wind.
“Sealed,” Beomgyu whispered, his breath carrying the scent of a memory that would be lost in the morning. He would forget, and he would continue to love. Without Yeonjun, without any remnants of this night lingering in his mind.
But Yeonjun would remember. He’d be haunted by Beomgyu’s eyes, his promise, his ghost of a kiss. What did it say about him, that he preferred to be haunted than to allow himself to move on? Rationality: tonight, he didn’t have it. When it came to Beomgyu, maybe he never did.
Yeonjun closed his eyes, resigning himself to his fate.
***
There are few things Yeonjun despises more than being pitied. And above all else, the subcategory of being pitied by Soobin really takes the cake.
“How are you, hyung?” the boy in question says, immediately after answering his call. Apparently this is his new greeting of choice— as if Yeonjun is some poor, despicable thing, constantly needing to be tended to as he hopelessly pines. 2
“Would it be selfish to admit that I’m fucking miserable?” he answers. Because he is. Quite miserable, in fact. Just because he’s accepted his fate doesn’t make it any easier to see Beomgyu hand in hand with another boy, to see his eyes light up while talking about someone else.
No matter how many consecutive nights it happens, it never gets easier to hear the laughter through the wall, the phone calls that trail all the way into dawn. It doesn’t get any easier to know that even though Yeonjun has tied himself to Beomgyu, only he is holding on, only he is aware that there is even a string connecting them.
There’s a place around Beomgyu’s neck, a place nestled within the dip between his collarbones that Yeonjun has carved out for himself. Beomgyu and Yeonjun, BG + YJ. It’s always been them, and in one way or another, it always will be.
But now, in between the rhythm that Yeonjun has composed for the two of them, some of Beomgyu’s heartbeats echo for someone else. And nothing will ever make that easier for him to know.
“It would be selfish if you admitted it to Beomgyu, maybe,” Soobin tells him. “When you say it to me, it’s just laughably obvious.”
“Then why’d you fucking ask,” Yeonjun grumbles pettily.
“What happened to that pact you were so crazy about?” Soobin brings up, ignoring him. Yeonjun winces at the reminder of the one thing that had kept him sane thus far. He doesn’t even have that now. What’s worse— an empty promise, or a voided one?
“What about it?” Yeonjun asks quietly. “He’s happy with someone else now, and I told you I’d back off if it ended up this way.”
Soobin is quiet for a while, sorting through his own thoughts. Yeonjun knows that he’s been trying to be very careful lately with the advice he doles out. He also thinks this is a waste of energy on his friend’s part, seeing as how none of said advice is ever taken anyway.
“Are you really so sure that he’s happy?” Soobin finally says. There’s a note of something in his voice, something that Yeonjun can’t quite decipher.
“Heeseung is a nice guy, trust me,” he says grudgingly. “I tried multiple times to prove to myself that he wasn’t.”
“Okay,” Soobin drawls, “but you don’t fall in love with every nice guy you meet. I know for a fact that Beomgyu wouldn’t.”
“Well your facts are shit,” Yeonjun says with a scowl. “I watched him catch feelings every other week when we were younger. In middle school alone, I’m pretty sure he fell for half the student body.”
“Meaningless crushes,” Soobin says offhandedly. “Beomgyu is like a puppy. He gets infatuated, sniffs at every shiny new thing that passes him by. But at the end of the day, there’s just one person he comes back to. It’s only one person that he belongs to.”
Yeonjun pulls his phone away, pulling a face at the screen as if it’s his friend in the flesh. “The undertones of this analogy are making me vaguely uncomfortable. Also, inaccurate.”
“You’re in denial,” Soobin shoots back. “And I’m always right when it comes to Beomgyu.”
“You know what they say,” Yeonjun huffs. “Even an overbearing clock that thinks it knows everything is wrong twice a day.” 3
“Hyung, that’s not even close to what they say.”
Yeonjun is momentarily distracted from answering by the sound of the front door opening and closing with a muffled slam.
A lot can be said about a person’s mood by the way they close a door, and this applies even more so to Beomgyu. Even when he keeps mum, his true feelings slip out and are revealed through the little things; the tread of his feet, the force with which the cabinets rattle when he opens them, the slightly off-pitch tone he takes on when speaking.
So by the way Beomgyu has now entered the apartment, hurried and skittish, Yeonjun can already feel a nervous agitation permeating the atmosphere.
“I think that’s him,” Yeonjun says, already alert and sitting up in his bed. “I’ll call you back later.”
“Ditching me the moment lover boy gets home. I’m almost not sorry your heart is broken.”
“Fuck you,” Yeonjun replies distractedly, hanging up.
He can hear Beomgyu shuffling around the living room, starting and stopping like a music box that hasn’t been wound up properly. There’s a pause, longer this time, and then that telltale creak of springs from their worn down couch they still haven’t bothered to replace.
When Yeonjun finally steps out to greet him, he sees Beomgyu sitting down, staring at the wall blankly. At the sound of Yeonjun entering, his head slowly turns. Yeonjun tentatively takes a seat beside Beomgyu quietly, waiting.
The tension is still heavy in the air, the ghost of that slammed door hovering over their heads. Beomgyu needs him, whether it’s to listen, or to talk, or simply to sit here and wait. Yeonjun will do it. He’ll wait forever.
Beomgyu’s face looks conflicted, like he’s struggling to put something into words. Finally, he just says, “I broke up with Heeseung.”
“Oh.” Yeonjun’s heart stutters. He hates himself for being so selfish, for feeling thrill at the news that yet another obstacle has been overthrown. The thread around his wrist pulls taut again, stretched between himself and Beomgyu. “Did you finally run into a dealbreaker?” he asks cautiously.
“Yeah,” Beomgyu laughs, a self-deprecating sound. “The dealbreaker was me.”
Yeonjun frowns. He can’t quite bring himself to believe that Beomgyu did something wrong, nor can he imagine him having any shortcomings. “What do you mean? Did he say something to you?”
“Yeah, he actually did,” Beomgyu answers. He looks tired, his face slack and resigned. But in his eyes, there’s something burning. A little bit of simmering hope, a mirror image of Yeonjun’s. “And he was right about everything.”
“If he hurt you,” Yeonjun continues, still trying to put the pieces together, “I promise you that he won’t live till next—”
“Why, hyung?” Beomgyu blurts, cutting him off mid sentence. His eyes are wide, like the outburst caught him off guard as much as it had Yeonjun. His chest rises and falls heavily, as if he’s been sprinting towards a goal with no end in sight. He stares helplessly at Yeonjun, his expression pleading. “Why is it always you?”
Yeonjun falls quiet, blinking rapidly. “Me?”
He feels like Beomgyu has flown from point A to point B without explanation. Yeonjun doesn’t understand how he’d gone from threatening an ex’s life to having the conversation turned on him.
“You’ve always meddled in my dating life, and I could never understand why you couldn’t just back off,” Beomgyu says exasperatedly. “And then you did. You stepped down, and I finally had the chance to be happy with someone else. So why—” his voice cracks, and the sound is a shock to Yeonjun’s system— “why is it still you?”
Yeonjun is floating, drifting aimlessly without a tether. He tries to gather himself, to make himself whole enough to give Beomgyu what he’s asking for.
Yes, he had interfered far more than he should have, for far longer than could be deemed mature. But now, with Beomgyu looking at him with red-rimmed eyes, with a wobble to his lip, he can’t fathom what kind of answer the boy is seeking. His shoulders slump; he cuts himself loose.
“Because of the pact,” Yeonjun says quietly. He’s run out of energy to lie. Sometimes when the correct answer isn’t so easy to find, it’s easier to settle for the truth. “Because even though you forgot all about it, I’ve never been able to get it out of my head. Not even for a single day.”
“Hyung,” Beomgyu says. It’s like a mask has slid over his face, all the previous emotion wiped clean. His expression has become unreadable, his voice neutral. “What was it?”
He’s asked him so many times before, and Yeonjun has never given him a straight answer. Why? Because he thought Beomgyu would retract something he couldn’t even remember saying? Because he thought his only chance would slip away?
Well now Yeonjun doesn’t have anything to lose. In truth, he never did.
“You told me…” he begins shakily. “You told me that if in ten years, neither of us were seeing anyone, we should get married. And I said yes. I had to say yes.”
The admission feels like a fissure has opened up in his chest, his rib cage cracking open and his beating, bleeding heart spilling out. He feels impossibly fragile, like Beomgyu could shatter him with a single touch.
Yeonjun doesn’t know what reaction he’d expected to see when Beomgyu finally found out— but when he finally brings himself to look at the boy again, his stomach plummets.
Beomgyu has gone utterly still; where his face had been carefully blank just moments ago, it’s now frozen over. A chill runs down Yeonjun’s spine, a cold wave of immediate regret.
“I’m sorry,” Beomgyu says tonelessly. “I’m sorry that I said it, I’m sorry if you took me seriously. I’m sorry if all this time, you felt like you had to entertain me.”
Yeonjun stares at him like he’s grown another head. The first part— wishing he could take it back, wishing Yeonjun hadn’t taken it the wrong way— that part makes sense. That part Yeonjun had anticipated, dreaded. But Beomgyu’s last apology add up, doesn’t fit in with the rest of the equation. Because in what world is Yeonjun the one who’s been burdened here?
“I was just entertaining you, Beomgyu,” Yeonjun says, his eyes flashing. There’s a lump growing in his throat, but he swallows it down, suppresses the flames that threaten to choke him. “Because if it were up to me, I would’ve wanted to be with you in that very moment.”
“…What?”
Beomgyu is staring at him, and the routine loss of inhibitions follows. No rationality; no self preservation. Yeonjun let’s it all flow out of him, spilling his mess of feelings everywhere and hoping the stains will come out later.
“It was agony,” he grimaces. “There I was, having spent so long trying to psych myself up for a confession, only for you to say all that. Obviously you weren’t being serious, but I still felt like… I don’t know. Even the pact itself was probably never a serious thing, and you were so drunk you didn’t even remember afterwards, but I still latched onto it.
“I treated it like it wasn’t a joke, like it wasn’t some silly, half-hearted promise. As stupid as it was, it felt like a chance to me. Like a safety net. Like if everything else failed, you would still have me to fall back onto. Even if—” He bites his tongue, trying to keep his voice steady. “Even if I was nothing more than a last resort.”
“Last…” Beomgyu trails off weakly. “Last resort?”
“You don’t have to say it,” Yeonjun says. He digs his fingers into his knees, just to have something to cling onto. “Actually, please don’t.”
“You’re right, hyung.” There’s a moment of quiet, and then: “It was my last resort.”
“Beomgyu, I just said—”
“I don’t remember,” Beomgyu says hurriedly. “I don’t remember proposing it, I don’t remember saying any of it. But I know what I feel, and I know what I must have been feeling then. And you’re right, hyung— it was probably my last ditch effort to be with you, one way or another, at some point in time. It was my last resort after being in love with you for so long, and not knowing how to tell you. Not wanting to lose you because of it.”
Yeonjun’s mouth falls open. His fingers clench and unclench; his heart squeezes and palpitates, like it doesn’t know whether it should be breaking or swelling.
“Are you fucking serious?” he says in disbelief.
Beomgyu flinches. “I know it’s irrational… but… Yeonjun hyung, nothing with you has ever been rational. Nothing that I feel for you has ever made sense.”
Yeonjun is stunned. Here Beomgyu is, speaking the same words that have run through his head time and time again, almost verbatim. “So here we are, two idiots,” he laughs breathlessly. “With the same idea, and the same ridiculous notions.”
“I guess so,” Beomgyu whispers, his eyes wet and round with awe. “So what do we do now?”
“Are you kidding me, Choi Beomgyu?” Yeonjun mutters, tenderly brushing the boy’s hair back from his forehead. “Now we stop being fucking stupid for once. Now… just kiss me.”
So he does.
(Maybe they didn’t fulfill the original pact. But their promise is kept, nonetheless.)
***
“You don’t know how long I’ve been wanting to do that,” Yeonjun whispers, after finally bringing himself to pull away.
“How long?”
“Since always.”
Beomgyu wrinkles his nose. “Liar.”
“Okay, maybe not always,” Yeonjun concedes. “But long enough.”
(More than long enough, he thinks.)
***
“But hyung,” Beomgyu asks him sometime later, propping himself up on his elbow and staring down at Yeonjun in curiosity. “Were you really just going to keep sabotaging me for the next decade?”
“It’s two in the morning, Gyu-yah,” Yeonjun mumbles, burrowing his face into the pillow. His arm is slung around Beomgyu’s middle, gripping his waist. He can’t remember the last time he felt this comfortable, this whole. Contented drowsiness weighs down his eyelids. “Can’t it wait till tomorrow?”
They’d moved from the living room to Beomgyu’s room, talking for hours and sharing everything they’d been holding back for years. Yeonjun has never felt lighter. He’s also never wanted anything more than to just cuddle and go the fuck to sleep.
“I’ve already been waiting too long,” Beomgyu whines, bumping his forehead against Yeonjun’s temple. Giving in with a sigh, he sits up, fixing the other boy with an intent gaze.
“I would have done whatever it took,” he says firmly.
“Even if it meant scarring all those innocent men?” Beomgyu asks with a sly smile.
Yeonjun shrugs. “Every villain is the hero of his own story.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Beomgyu huffs, looking pleased. “You really took ‘work smarter, not harder’ and flipped it the wrong way round.”
“I won in the end, didn’t I?” Yeonjun grins. He pulls his boyfriend back down beside him, breathing him in. Beomgyu smells like citrusy shampoo, mingling with the faint traces of perfume he’d sprayed on his neck that morning. He smells like Yeonjun’s past, his present, his future.
Even if we’re together, Yeonjun thinks, I’ll marry you when ten years are up.
Beomgyu is home, adventure, all the things in between. He’s a promise, one that Yeonjun has carefully kept and intends to continue keeping. He holds the boy close, whispering in his ear with a gleeful smile playing on his lips:
“It’s called playing the long con, Beomgyu-yah.”
1. Yeonjun knows he’s far too drunk to be thinking straight when his thoughts start rhyming. (He chooses to ignore these warning signs.) return to text
2. The one thing worse than being pitied by Choi Soobin: Soobin being right. return to text
3. The original idiom which Yeonjun has creatively remixed: Even a broken clock is right twice a day. return to text