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It’s his eyes, Hoseok decides, that makes it impossible for anyone to say no to Taehyung and actually mean it. They’re so wide and guileless and earnest. No one wants to make eyes like that lose their shine.
But Hoseok has known Taehyung since he was six and Taehyung was five, so they don’t work as much as they might on someone unsuspecting.
Or at least, that’s what Hoseok tells himself as he tries to deflect from Taehyung’s barrage of questions.
“Come on, hyung,” Taehyung pleads, his eyes so close to Hoseok’s face. “Please, please, please?” He stops for a moment and then adds a final, “Please?” for good measure.
“No,” Hoseok says again, for the second time. He can hear in his own voice that he’s weakening. It’s sad, really. He should be able to hold out longer than this. Expects it of himself. And yet he finds himself being worn down with no real effort on Taehyung’s part. “Don’t you have other friends that you could ask?”
“No,” Taehyung lies quickly. “You’re my only friend, in the whole world.”
“That might have worked when we were kids and it was true, but it doesn’t now.”
Taehyung’s mouth goes down at the corners. The worst part of this is that he seems genuinely unhappy, like he’s not exaggerating at all. The sight of that makes Hoseok’s resolve wear down even more rapidly. “Please, hyung, really. Please. It’s for a grade and it won’t take up too much of your time, I promise.”
Hoseok sighs like this is a burden, even though it’s not really. Taehyung’s eyes light up at the sound. He knows that he’s won now, but despite this, he tries to hide his grin. “Why do you want to use me as the subject of this project for your photography class again?”
“Because you're handsome,” Taehyung says easily, like he doesn’t even have to think about it. Hoseok has no idea how Taehyung doesn’t get embarrassed, saying stuff like this, but he never has. “You’re the most handsome guy I know-”
“I find that hard to believe, considering you almost kinda sorta dated Seokjin hyung once-”
“-and using handsome people for my projects helps me get better grades.”
Hoseok stops to give Taehyung a look. “You’re a shithead, you know that?” he tells Taehyung, who just laughs. His eyes are bright with it. Always his eyes. “Fine. I’ll do it. You can use me in your project, or whatever. You’ll owe me a favor, though. A huge one. Gigantic. Gargantuan.”
Taehyung reaches out to hug him. Hoseok hugs back, because he can, because Taehyung is always so warm. “Oh, thank you, Hoseokie hyung,” he sing songs, right next to Hoseok’s ear. “I’ll do whatever you want, I promise. It’ll be fun, you’ll see.”
The first pictures that Taehyung ever took, Hoseok knows, was with an old polaroid camera that he found in his parent’s closet. The camera itself was a little dusty, a little fragile, and mostly forgotten, but Taehyung had held it to his chest like it was something unbearably precious when he ran to show it to Hoseok only moments after finding it.
“Look, hyung,” Taehyung said, his voice quiet and reverent. “It’s a camera. And it just. It just spits the pictures out at you after it finishes taking them. Look, see?” He hands out a small photograph to Hoseok. It’s a picture of Taehyung’s socked feet--one sock red with green stripes, the other one blue with purple polka dots--blurry, unfocused, nothing remarkable. And yet Taehyung looks so proud of himself, a pleased flush on his cheeks.
“Cool,” Hoseok said, before going back to his homework. He had to finish before his mom got home or else he’d be in trouble, and Taehyung knew this, but he didn’t seem to care.
“No, hyung, really-” Taehyung said, and when Hoseok looked up to see whatever Taehyung was talking about, click, went the camera. Less than a minute later Hoseok had a photo of himself looking affronted thanks to Taehyung’s surprise attack. “Isn’t it so neat? I love it.” Taehyung asked. This photo was also unfocused, having been taken as an accident more than anything else.
Still, Taehyung seemed happy. His eyes were sparkling.
“Quit taking pictures of me,” Hoseok told him, scowling.
Taehyung did not seem to notice, or care, one way or another. “Do you want to come with me to take pictures around the neighborhood? Mom said I had to have someone come with me or else I couldn’t go, and-”
“Okay,” Hoseok said, surprising himself. “Let’s go then.”
Taehyung had smiled, and zoomed out the door.
They spent the afternoon looking around their neighborhood just taking walking around. Taehyung took pictures of almost everything--the gravel on the road, a particularly interesting bug, the neighbor’s cars. He was especially excited to take pictures of the dogs that they saw, and took every single one. And yet what he always seemed most interested in was taking pictures of Hoseok, when he thought Hoseok wasn’t looking. The problem was, Hoseok was always looking.
Eventually, Taehyung ran out of film, and they had to go home. But he gave Hoseok every single picture of him that he had taken that day, later. “Because you look so cool, hyung!” Taehyung had told him when he’d brought them over.
Hoseok hadn’t known what to do with that, so he kept the photos. He still has them now, in his dorm room, shoved somewhere in a shoebox where he keeps things small and valuable to him. He never threw them away, not even when he stopped being Taehyung’s friend back in high school, not even when he graduated and was sure he’d never see Taehyung again.
“So what do I have to do to do, exactly?” Hoseok asks later, when they’re eating dinner, just the two of them. “Like, what is the point of all of this?”
“Well,” Taehyung starts, fiddling with the buttons on his camera. It’s considerably nicer than anything he had when they were friends, a gift from his parents when he decided to make photojournalism his major, apparently, “We were supposed to pick an emotion, and then pick a subject, and try to capture that emotion from that person over the course of a week.”
“So what did you pick, then?”
“Surprise.”
Click, goes the camera.
Hoseok blinks, stunned momentarily by the unexpected flash.
“Oh, damn, sorry,” Taehyung says, looking down at the camera. “And I didn’t even capture your surprise either. It was all for nothing.”
He offers the screen to Hoseok, who sees himself looking more confused than anything else.
“Okay,” Hoseok says. “Why, though?” He means why did you take a picture of me, but Taehyung interprets his question another way.
“Because surprise, I think, is almost always the emotion that you feel first, before anything else. Like, if your mom told you that she was going to have another baby, you’d feel surprised at first, and then mad or hurt or angry or whatever. Or when you see something new for the first time, it’s surprising because you’ve never seen anything like it before, and then you react to it. It’s only after that split second of surprise that you feel anything different. So I wanted to challenge myself and try to capture that. I wanted to see if I was really fast enough.”
“Okay,” Hoseok says finally, once he’s processed all this. “I guess that makes sense.”
Taehyung beams. “Doesn’t it?”
The first day that they actually do the project is a Sunday, so Taehyung mostly just follows Hoseok around as he goes about his day. It’s mostly like hanging out, which they might have done anyway, on a normal day. Only Taehyung keeps saying more and more ridiculous things, in an attempt to shock Hoseok.
They’re in a coffee shop, next to a window because Taehyung said the light was the best in that spot. Hoseok thinks he has to agree with Taehyung, really, because the sunshine really looks so good on Taehyung’s face. He guesses it would translate well to film.
“Once, Namjoon and Jimin had sex next to me when they thought I was asleep,” Taehyung tells him.
Hoseok makes a face and hears the camera go click as he does so.
“Aha!” Taehyung crows. “Got you that time.”
“Okay, but I still don’t believe you.”
“No, that one really happened,” Taehyung says, putting down his camera so he can pick up his cup of coffee. If it could even be called that, after Taehyung had put so much cream and sugar into it, “Do you remember when Yoongi hyung and Seokjin hyung had that huge party at their apartment? The one with all the tequila?”
“Yes.” Hoseok gasps, remembering. “Oh, wait, no. Oh my God they didn’t, not on the floor!”
“Yeah. Thank God I had the couch, and was away from them. Something good came out of you going home with Jeongguk that one time.”
Hoseok makes a face. “Please don’t bring that up. Let’s not talk about that.”
“I’m just saying,” Taehyung says with a laugh. “Anyway, in their defense, it was back when they had first gotten together and they were really drunk. It was still awful, though. I don’t think I could ever forget the sounds. I haven’t told either of them, because I think they’d die of embarrassment. Namjoon hyung especially.”
“You should absolutely have told them something!” Hoseok practically yells. He settles down a little when the couple at the table next to them glance over. They’d been trying to have this conversation as quietly as possible, in public. “Shame the hell out of them, they deserve it for that.”
“They thought I was asleep! And they were just...excited...and it was winter! It’s not like they could have gone outside...”
“You,” Hoseok says, pointing at Taehyung, “are way too nice.”
“Ah, hyung,” Taehyung replies, “I’m really not.”
The next day Taehyung texts Hoseok, come over once he gets off work. Hoseok is exhausted, mostly, but curious. Taehyung also sends him the key pad so that he can “let himself in,” whatever that means, and is honestly confused when he opens the door to find all the lights off.
Then a chorus of voices shout, “Surprise!” making Hoseok jump back and almost scream before the lights get turned back on and Hoseok can see who’s all in the room.
“Happy birthday!” Taehyung tells him.
“My birthday isn’t until February.”
“So?”
“It’s November, Tae.”
“Oh well. Happy birthday.” He pauses. Click, goes the camera. “Ha, I got that one too, hyung.”
“To be fair,” Jimin says, looking over Taehyung’s shoulder at his camera, “the first photo was more terror than surprised.”
“Don’t be mean. It still counts,” Taehyung pouts.
“Why are you here?” Hoseok whirls on Namjoon and Jeongguk.
“Jimin,” Namjoon answers, like that’s the beginning and end of everything. For him it probably is. Hoseok has to resist the urge to roll his eyes.
“Free cake,” Jeongguk says, and he’s already eating a slice, so Hoseok guesses that’s fair.
“We invited Seokjin and Yoongi hyung too,” Jimin says, “But Seokjin hyung had to work and Yoongi hyung said that this was a ‘fucking stupid idea’ so no free cake for people who are going to be like that.”
“Yeah,” Jeongguk says, and Hoseok notices that somehow he’s already on his second slice. “More cake for me.”
“Do you want some, hyung?” Taehyung asks, holding out a small styrofoam plate with chocolate cake on it. “I bought it myself.”
“Don’t I get to blow out the candles?” Hoseok teases, and to his immense surprise, Taehyung takes some candles and a lighter out of his pocket.
“Oh nooo,” he laments, “that would have been perfect for a picture.”
“You’ll be fine,” Hoseok tells him. “I’ll be surprised again, just for you.”
“You mean it?” Taehyung asks.
“I mean it.”
The day before Hoseok is meant to start high school, Taehyung comes over to hang out the way that he had been all summer and promptly bursts into tears.
“What is it?” Hoseok asked, all of fourteen and unable to deal with this. The week before Taehyung had gotten a new camera, one he had spent all summer saving up for. It was relatively nice, and special ordered from Japan, and just barely within Taehyung’s means. He was holding it even now, so Hoseok had figured that Taehyung wanted to go around town and take pictures of it, not...whatever this was.
“You’re gonna go to high school,” Taehyung practically wailed, though he was so clearly trying to pull himself together. It almost hurt, watching as Taehyung tried to reign in what he’s feeling.
“I know,” Hoseok told him, “I am...aware of that.”
“And you’re going to be across town-”
“You’ll be going there next year too.” Hoseok sat down on the porch next to Taehyung and gently pat his back. “It’s not that long. It’ll only be a year, and-”
“But a year is so long, hyung! A year is so long to wait when I love you.”
Hoseok pulled his hand away.
“It’s not that long,” Hoseok says again, but this time his voice is wooden, dead. “It’ll only be a year. I’m going to go inside. You should go home, Taehyung.”
“But, I, wait-” Taehyung says, but it’s too late, and Hoseok has already gone inside.
He hadn’t spoken to Taehyung, after that. He was all of fourteen, and he was afraid.
The fear of Taehyung, of his own feelings, didn’t really fade until he was in college and he was sure that he would never see Taehyung ever again. It was only when Taehyung burst into his life later, like a bright, loud camera flash, or a firework, that Hoseok realized that he would never, ever, truly escape.
They’re both busy on Tuesday and Wednesday, so they aren’t able to meet up properly.
On Thursday, they both meet up for lunch, like usual. “So, are you doing anything today?” Taehyung asks, swirling his spaghetti noodles around and around on his fork. Hoseok watches him do it before answering.
“No, I shouldn’t be. Why?”
“Well, I was hoping I could come over? And take pictures of you in your like, natural habitat. You could just pretend that I wasn’t there.”
“It’s going to be hard to ignore your camera,” Hoseok says, eyeing the bag that it’s in, in the empty chair next to Taehyung. “I don’t know if I could be natural.”
“Just pretend like the camera is just an extension of me, and you’ll be fine. Really! I promise I won’t be in your way, or anything.”
“Okay,” Hoseok says finally. “I mean, that seems like a weird thing for your project, but okay I guess. Yeah, I’ll be at home, doing whatever.”
“Great,” Taehyung tells him, and then shoves his entire fork full of pasta into his face.
Hoseok texts Taehyung when he’s home, and Taehyung is in his and Namjoon’s apartment not thirty minutes later. Namjoon had said that he would be out with Jimin--of course--so it’s just Taehyung and Hoseok today.
He’s not sure how to feel about being in such a small space with Taehyung and his camera, a looming presence if there ever was one.
“Uh,” Hoseok begins, looking for something, anything, to do with his hands.
“Just...go about your day. I’ll be here, just hanging out, with my camera. You don’t even have to look at me if you don’t want.”
They try this for about twenty minutes, Hoseok looking at his laptop and trying very hard not to notice every time Taehyung brought his camera to his face, before he can’t take it anymore. He feels too rude, and too uncomfortable. “Did you get the pictures you needed?”
“Some,” Taehyung says, “but I’ve barely been here, hyung! You can’t be kicking me out now!”
“I’m not, I just feel weird not talking to you,” Hoseok says. Then more softly, he adds, “It’s always weird.”
Taehyung seems to agree. “Yeah,” he breathes, and then brandishes his camera like a weapon. “Let’s just hang out, then, and I’ll take pictures whenever I feel like I have a good moment or something cool happens as we’re talking.”
So they do, and it’s mostly not weird. Hoseok thinks he must be getting used to having a camera in his face, because after a while he hardly notices it.
“You’re really handsome, you know?” Taehyung says, sifting through the pictures that he took. “I mean. Really.”
“You’ve told me that before,” Hoseok says, because embarrassment is crawling up his throat and makes it hard to say things like how can you say that to me when you’re one of the most ethereal people I’ve ever seen?
“Well, I would say it to you every day, if I could.”
“Thanks,” Hoseok says, looking away, and Taehyung laughs at his embarrassment.
“I’m just saying, hyung.” Taehyung beams, and looks down at his photographs again, humming as he does so, like it’s nothing at all.
Hoseok and Taehyung only meet up again because of Jimin.
Hoseok spent years at home carefully cultivating ways to completely avoid Taehyung. It was so hard the first year, because Taehyung didn’t seem to want to give up. He hung onto their friendship doggedly, even after his confession, even after Hoseok’s reaction to it. But as time passed it got easier, and after a while Hoseok could pretend like he and Taehyung had never been friends at all.
But that changed Hoseok’s second year of college.
Jimin had been talking all week about this photographer with the school paper that had come to their mid-year recital, asking to take pictures of them practicing. Hoseok hadn’t been there, his classes performing at a certain time, but apparently Jimin really liked this guy, because he wouldn’t stop talking about how good his photos were or how respectful they had been. Apparently, now, they got along like a house on fire, and Jimin was determined that this guy and Hoseok meet.
When Hoseok walked into that library and saw Kim Taehyung sitting there, he almost walked right back out the door.
Taehyung was his shameful secret, something he still thought about now with huge amounts of guilt. He had never thought that he’d be face to face with him again.
It had taken a long time, his first year of college, to come to terms with the fact that he was gay. After spending three years carefully avoiding that part of yourself, it was difficult to face it again. But still, he had, and he had somehow gotten through the other side. Taehyung had been no small part of that, and Hoseok had no idea how approach him, so he had learned to live with the fact that he would never be able to.
And so to see him, grinning when he noticed Jimin, it was almost too much. Hoseok could see the moment that Taehyung noticed him, because that grin slid right off his face. Taehyung recovered quickly, and well, but Hoseok had still seen that slip. It hurt more than he thought it would.
“Hoseok hyung,” Taehyung breathed when they walked up to his table. “Hi.”
“Wait, you two know each other?” Jimin asked, looking between the two of them.
“Yeah,” Taehyung answered quickly. He was very determinedly not looking at Hoseok. “We grew up together. We haven’t seen each other in a while, though.”
“Yeah,” Hoseok said. “A while.”
“Oh, well.” Jimin clapped his hands together. “That’s so cool! I’m glad I could reunite you two, then.”
There was an awkward month where Taehyung and Hoseok were forced together in too close spaces because of their friend group. They spoke as normally as they could, but Hoseok felt weird about it, even though Taehyung never said or did anything that made it seem like he remembered anything that happened, not so long ago.
Then one night, they were at a party, drunk and sitting on the couch beside each other, when Hoseok suddenly said, “How are you so okay and not weird with this?”
It had taken Taehyung a moment to answer. Hoseok thought that maybe he hadn’t heard him, because the music was so loud, when Taehyung told him, “Because I forgave you.” He shrugged. “I always knew that if I saw you again, I’d just want to be your friend. I never stopped wanting that, you know? You were everything to me, once.”
“But I just...threw you away like you were nothing. It kills me that I treated you like that.”
“I mean, I’m not going to lie. I was angry at you for a long time, especially after you graduated. But then I realized that my anger wasn’t everything.” Taehyung traced the rim of his cup, full of juice. He didn’t drink, apparently. Hoseok hadn’t learned that until tonight. He wondered how many other things he didn’t know about Taehyung, who he had known so completely once. “And I understand why you did it, I think. You were scared, right?”
“Yeah,” Hoseok said. “But I’m not scared anymore. I’m...happy.”
“See? That’s so much better than anger and fear. I chose friendship and happiness. It’s better to focus on those things, right?” Taehyung hesitantly reached out. His hand hovered over Hoseok’s for a long moment before finally he rested his fingers on Hoseok’s. His touch was warm, and something inside Hoseok lit up.
“Okay,” Hoseok said finally, choosing to believe him.
“Okay,” Taehyung said, like that was all that needed to be said. And maybe it was, because after that, he and Taehyung became friends like almost no time had passed. That was the scariest thing, how easy it was to be with Taehyung again.
With Taehyung, it had always been easy. Hoseok should never have expected anything else. And yet, he was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, even when it never did.
Taehyung didn’t have class on Fridays, so he spent the morning with Hoseok, walking around campus with him to take pictures.
“Are you sure this is good for your project?” Hoseok can’t help but ask, as they walk to his third, and final, class of the day. After this, Taehyung said that he was going to go back home, so Hoseok won’t see him again until tomorrow. “Are you actually getting any material?”
“Yes, I am, don’t worry. I think you’re underestimating the way you react to things.”
Click, goes the camera.
“See?” Taehyung says. “I just got a great shot right there.”
“I guess.”
“You guess, I know.” He stops in front of the art building, letting Hoseok go where he needed. “See you tomorrow, hyung?”
“Yeah,” Hoseok says, watching Taehyung walk away. Taehyung stops to take a picture of an empty, dark tree, like it’s something beautiful instead of just walked past every day by thousands of students. Hoseok doesn’t understand how Taehyung manages to find the beauty in everything, but maybe that’s why Taehyung is the one with the camera, and not him.
Hoseok turns and goes to class.
On Saturday, Taehyung wants to take him to the museum. Hoseok isn’t much of a museum guy, personally, but he knows that Taehyung and Namjoon go pretty often. He isn’t opposed to the idea as much as it’s just that visiting the museum is never on his mind when he thinks of things to do, so he goes with little resistance.
Pictures are allowed, but no flash photography. So Taehyung mostly takes pictures of Hoseok reacting to things.
“We should come to places like this more often,” Taehyung tells him, when they’re getting food in the food court.
“Sure,” Hoseok agrees easily. “I wouldn’t mind. Next time, though, don’t take any pictures of me. Please. No more.”
“I guess.” Taehyung pouts a little, which is cute. They have a really nice time, Hoseok thinks, and he doesn’t want it to end. He’s liked having the excuse of being so close to Taehyung throughout this, to spending so much time together.
He will be more than sad, he knows, when there isn’t any reason for them to be together quite so often, friends or not.
They end the day by going to the coffee shop that they had hung out in the morning of the first day of Taehyung’s project. There’s no sunlight coming through the windows this time, just the soft lighting and whispers of a crowd, but Taehyung has his camera ready anyway.
He keeps staring at Hoseok consideringly. Hoseok can’t figure out what he’s thinking, and just looks back.
“Hyung,” Taehyung says finally. “I want to take one more picture, and then I’ll be done with this project. Okay?”
“Okay. Go for it.”
Taehyung hesitates for a little bit, before bringing his camera up to his face.
"I love you," says Taehyung.
Click, goes the camera.
Taehyung was right, when he told Hoseok that people feel surprise before anything else.
Shock is the first thing that goes through Hoseok, shock that makes everything go white. Then comes the anger, and the frustration. The fear.
“What the fuck, Taehyung,” Hoseok says, standing up. “What the fuck?”
“What?” Taehyung asks, suddenly looking afraid. He sets his camera down gently. “What’s wrong?”
“Why would you say something like that?” Hoseok asks. “Why-”
“Because it’s true!” Taehyung almost yells.
“Is it? Or were you trying to get a reaction out of me because of your project because you want a good grade?”
“No, it’s true, I swear it’s true.” Taehyung sounds like he’s about to start crying. All at once, Hoseok is fourteen again. He can’t handle this.
“Why would you...why?”
“Why what? Why do I love you? Or why would I say it?”
“I don’t know anymore,” Hoseok says, his throat thick. “I don’t know.”
“Well I don’t know either!” Taehyung yells, and now he’s crying for real. Hoseok is aware that people are looking at them, but he can’t seem to stop. He doesn’t know why he’s so upset, only he is. He can’t bear the thought of Taehyung saying something like that and not meaning it, but he can’t imagine Taehyung saying something like that and not meaning it.
Everything is confusing, and everything hurts, and Hoseok wishes so badly that he could go back to the moment before this happened. When they were happy.
“I’m just going to go home,” Hoseok tells him, but before he can go, Taehyung stands up too.
“Don’t leave,” he pleads. “Don’t leave again, please. Why do you always leave when I tell you I love you? What’s so bad about me that you can’t seem to want to stay?”
“I’m just going to go home,” Hoseok says again, feeling like the worst person in the world, wrapped up in anger and fear and little else. He leaves Taehyung alone in that coffee shop to cry.
The next week, Taehyung e-mails him an attachment of photos. The subject line just says I’m sorry and nothing else. Hoseok opens the photos with no small sense of trepidation, but they’re all just of him, in various states of surprise.
He looks resigned in some, scared in others, and utterly mystified in still more. Hoseok isn’t sure how to feel about them, and when he looks at the e-mail again he realizes that Taehyung wrote I got an A in the body of the message, and that’s all.
It’s not like him, to be so succinct. Hoseok knows that this is his fault. So he texts Taehyung, and asks him to meet him, back at that coffee shop where they had their fight. Taehyung comes in and orders, removing his scarf from his neck, reluctant to sit down. He doesn’t have his camera with him.
“I’m sorry,” is all that Hoseok says when Taehyung is finally seated in front of him, his caramel macchiato steaming.
“No, I shouldn’t have-” Taehyung begins, but Hoseok doesn’t let him finish.
“No, let me talk. I wanted to say that I’m sorry, and that I-” Hoseok bites down on his cheek, almost hard enough that he draws blood, “I’m sorry,” he says again. “I don’t mean to keep freaking out on you, but it’s hard, because I like you so much.”
“You like...me?” Taehyung says, like he can’t quite believe this. Neither can Hoseok, if he’s being honest. “Do you mean as a friend, or-”
“Since we were kids.” Hoseok’s hands are shaking. He sits on them to stop that. “It’s been such a long time, but I never stopped, not once, not even when I left you the first time. And I’m sorry if you ever thought that I didn’t care, but I do, and I-” Hoseok feels like he might start crying. “Really, I’m sorry.”
“Please, stop apologizing,” Taehyung tells him. “Stop apologizing and just hold my hand, okay?”
“Okay,” Hoseok breathes out, and this time, when Taehyung holds out his hand, Hoseok holds on tight.
Click, goes the camera.
“Tae, what the hell,” Hoseok grumbles. “It’s seven in the morning.”
“Uh, rise and shine?” Taehyung says, and giggles when Hoseok rolls over and puts his face in his pillow. Hoseok can hear when he sets his camera down carefully, on the big desk so that it doesn’t fall, before he slides in right next to Hoseok.
His feet are cold, like they always are, and Hoseok moves his legs away. “You don’t have to be like this, you know,” Hoseok tells him.
“I know,” Taehyung says, putting his face right next to Hoseok’s. He presses his lips to Hoseok’s cheek just the once, and nothing more than a sudden, soft pressure, “I just like to be.”
There’s something nice, about the peace of the early morning. Everything is still grey and a little hazy from sleep. Hoseok thinks he would take a picture of it too, if he could, but mostly just of Taehyung and how fluffy his hair gets in mornings like these. He wants to have a piece of this forever. Something to look back on.
Taehyung wiggles until Hoseok lets him back under his arm, and then sighs suddenly, content. “I love you,” he says, eyes drifting closed.
“I know,” Hoseok says back. He is content with the fact that he’s not getting back out of this bed for hours now. “I love you too.”
“I know,” Taehyung says, like it’s easy. And maybe, in some ways, it is.