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He was six when he thinks his unfortunate existence begins to take shape. It doesn’t seem all that traumatizing in retrospect, but he thinks that six-year-olds see everything through a different lens. He wasn’t a rowdy or rebellious child, but he certainly wasn’t as quiet as he is today. The right mixture, at least to himself. He didn’t argue when he didn’t get his way, but he did cry when he got yelled at as a natural reflex. Well, he’d thought it had been natural. After all, he’d been taught that people cry when they’re sad. His father never liked that idea. It was one such incident where his father started yelling at him for where he’d put his toys. Six-year-old Taeil only understood he’d done something wrong and had immediately felt the tears well up in his eyes. He remembered his father’s voice rising in anger.
“Crying is useless, Taeil,” he said, far too loudly. “Stop it now.” He hadn’t cared, not in the slightest, and had continued sobbing to his heart’s content because he was a child driven by his heart more than his head.
His head snapped to the side and his cheek hurt, and the shock of it is enough for him to bite his lip and stop gasping for breath for a few moments. His father gripped his head and forced him to look straight forward into his hard eyes. Taeil didn’t know what to do.
“Crying never fixes anything, do you understand?” Taeil must have nodded meekly in agreement because his father let him go. He was ordered to clean up his toys.
It happened again. Taeil wasn’t eating the peanuts in their dinner, and he would find out later that he was allergic to them, but his father wasn’t having any of it. He started yelling, and it played out in almost the same manner. Taeil didn’t really like to remember the stinging pain his father’s hand left behind. It didn’t seem that traumatizing, but Taeil was six and he was impressionable. It only took two incidents for him to shove the impulse to cry deep, deep down.
The second instance he can think of is when he was in middle school. He’s always been interested in writing, or at least since he’s been in second grade. It was enough that he started coming up with story ideas as a child, of dragons and cursed treasure and warrior elves. He wrote makeshift books and made markings of ideas on his papers. His parents didn’t take too well to that. It was clear in the way they glared at him when they saw the words to a forgotten line in the corner of his homework, and Taeil swallowed the lump in his throat and made a bigger effort to be more discreet. That didn’t seem to be enough. It was his father first, as always, because out of the two of them he’d always had less tolerance for Taeil’s interests if they didn’t involve studying, math, or science.
“Stop wasting your time on this senseless nonsense,” he would say in that tone, the one that warned against arguing. Taeil had gotten pretty good at ignoring him, and he had continued doing that. He still flinched when his father raised his voice at him, but it was bearable. Then his mother got involved. It hit him harder when his mother supported his father, and it dug him a little deeper. He shoved the impulse to share his interests deep, deep down.
He remembers the first time he did it. It was late at night, and he only remembers that because it required him to turn the light on. To see if it would help, to see if he could stop this emptiness inside of him because even senselessly inflicted pain would be better than that. Just one thin line. Just one. It’s not that bad, he thought when he examines the cut. Not too deep, but the serrated edges meant it would scar. But it was alright. He’d always had a habit of wearing bracelets, and no one would really think to question a single bandage on his arm. At the very least, none of his friends would care enough to ask.
It wasn’t that Taeil hung out with bad people. It was more like he was the oddity in their group. He didn’t blame Johnny or Wendy or Krystal because it wasn’t really their fault. He was always quieter than them, spoke less than them, had less to contribute than them. He was simply more forgettable, and he knew it. He wasn’t sure when exactly he realized it, but that was the truth. He got used to being forgotten, and it didn’t bother him as much anymore.
It meant he spent more time on the internet instead. When Johnny and Wendy would start talking about who knew what and Krystal would observe them, Taeil would pull out his phone and message TY. He never asked if the capital letters were a stylistic choice of writing Ty or if they had some other significance, but he had only given Tae as his nickname, so he supposed there wasn’t much room for him to talk. They’d started out as mutuals who never interacted except for the occasional retweet or like, and then TY had found a little reservoir of courage with which to finally message Taeil. It was self-explanatory from there. Taeil thought that TY probably knew more about him than Johnny did, and Johnny was supposed to be his best friend.
Taeil didn’t like to bother Johnny, so the fact that TY knew him better was really Taeil’s fault. A lot of things are his fault. But there was something too monumental about sending that message in the middle of the night when his own stress and hollowness made him crave the closeness of another person. There was something foreboding about opening up his struggles to one of the people in his life when he’d never let them know a thing. It’s something that made his throat ache with screams unheard and his lungs shrivel up and his eyes sting with tears it refused to shed. He deleted the message and suffered through the poor sleep the night would give.
TY ♡:
on a scale of 1-10, how was today?
[4:06 PM]
Tae:
a 4
[4:11 PM]
TY ♡:
:(((
do you wanna talk about it?
[4:11 PM]
Tae:
it’s mostly the usual
still haven’t told anyone
[4:13 PM]
TY ♡:
you know rhey care about you, right?
*they
they won’t brush off your problems
[4:14 PM]
Tae:
that’s only part of it
[4:23 PM]
It’s not really that he doesn’t want help. It’s more like he doesn’t think he’s worthy of it. He knows that’s not true and that he has to fix that mindset, but it’s hard when your parents never think you’ve done a good enough job, when your peers hold you to a certain standard, when he knows that he can break out of this anxious cage by teaching himself that it’s his life - but he can’t. He can’t do it when he feels so alone, when it feels like his depression and anxiety are weighing down on him, anchoring him in place and forcing him to run in the same circle over and over.
Tae:
i hate this
[3:57 AM]
Kun:
Did you sleep at all?
[3:57 AM]
Tae:
i had 10 min stretches before i would wake up again
[3:58 AM]
Kun:
And you don’t know why it’s happening?
[3:59 AM]
Tae:
not a clue
[3:59 AM]
Kun:
Maybe you should think about getting a medication for it.
[4:07 AM]
Taeil doesn’t like to burden people. He doesn’t know why; it might be part of his personality, it might be a consequence of depression. He doesn’t know why, but it’s awful sometimes when he wants to be open but has that gnawing fear in the back of his head constantly reminding him of that. It gets more and more restrictive and he’s deleting more and more messages and he feels like he and TY more drifting more and more apart and - it’s awful. Maybe that’s why he ends up doing it again.
It’s four red lines this time, all on the same arm. It’s also the same arm as the first time, and Taeil doesn’t think about that because it reminds him how he told himself it would be a one time thing. He focuses on the wave of pain from each and lets it fill up the emptiness for a few precious seconds. He thinks that in a hall of fame of liars, he would be entered with unanimous agreement. He places two strategic bandages to cover both of them at once and hopes that they’ll be healed enough to be left uncovered by the morning. He feels guilty, so guilty.
Tae:
i’m sorry.
[12:30 AM]
Kun:
What for?
Tae, are you okay?
[7:43 AM]
Tae:
i broke the only promise i ever made you.
i’m sorry.
[10:02 AM]
He shuts Kun out. Not as a personal grudge, but by the utter lack of social ability he can muster for anyone. He shuts out Taeyong because he can’t bear to tell him how messed up he really is, because now that they’re dating it’s different. He shuts out Johnny and Krystal because they don’t even know he’s struggling, and Wendy never really talked to him anyway. He thinks he’s alone and then that biting voice comes back to remind him that he did this to himself. That his whole miserable existence is a product of himself, and that he messed everything up on his own.
He doesn’t do so great managing himself in his freshman year. He’s plunging and tumbling off a cliff of stress and juggling his classes and extracurriculars, and it would be so easy for it to not matter and yet he cares too much. Johnny is more observant than Taeil gives him credit for, and he asks about the tiredness that’s become more prominent on his face. Taeil lies through his teeth like the champion he is and forces the conversation away from himself, and there’s the voice again, telling him he’s only digging his grave deeper and deeper. Taeyong is starting to get more worried, and Taeil hates himself for that. He doesn’t want to worry Taeyong by telling him more but he also knows that Taeyong is naturally too caring to not try and help me. Talking about his insecurities and feelings is something Taeil is extremely unused to, so the whole conversation is stilted on his behalf, teetering between balancing and falling over entirely. He has to stop himself from actively leaving his phone multiple times because it’s just so hard to open himself up to someone again after years of making his problems take the backseat. Taeyong is patient, though, and his unwavering support makes Taeil feel his eyes sting before the feeling passes and he wants to scream in frustration. He doesn’t mention this part.
One more, he thinks hollowly in the summer before his sophomore year. He doesn’t feel so guilty this time, but he doesn’t feel much anymore. Even the pain in a blip in the emptiness inside him, a plane passing through a night sky devoid of stars. It’s a sinking sensation in his stomach that he’s going to have to suffer like this forever. He pulls out his phone with steady fingers even though his whole existence feels like a fragile china cup. Taeyong’s contact number stares at him from the screen, and now he trembles as he hits ‘Call’.
He’s a senior and he hates being in school more than anything because he’s done with his credits and he’s dying to get out. Johnny calls him in the middle of his study period and Taeil doesn’t even care that his teacher is threatening to give him detention. He solely extends his middle finger at him as he walks out of the gymnasium, and he can practically hear the stares of his classmates. He surprises himself too.
“Hey,” he greets casually, swinging his backpack onto his shoulder amidst the yelling of his teacher. “Where are you?”
“In my car. Come on, we’re picking up Ten.”
“Got it.” It’s easier now because he’s pulled some semblance of himself together. He’s cracked open the wall around him and let a helping hand extend through. Wendy and Krystal aren’t their friends anymore, but Taeil is happy with just Johnny, more so than with all of them. Chittaphon’s nice too, and he understands that sometimes Taeil gets a little zoned out and falls silent for no apparent reason. Which is good because Chittaphon makes Johnny happy, and Taeil knows his best friend deserves that. He likes to think that he and Taeyong make each other that happy too even though he feels an anxious spike in his gut whenever he thinks about the fact that it’s been three years since they got together. He hates himself for it but he keeps agonizing over whether or not Taeyong still loves him. It’s one thing to be constantly saying it but it’s another thing to feel it. Taeil fears that Taeyong is lying, much like he has been lying his whole life. His phone buzzes with a text.
TY ♡:
hey, today will be a good one, okay?
trust me
[1:36 PM]
Tae:
???
what does this mean i’m shaking
Are You Spying On Me
[1:36 PM]
TY ♡:
love you too ♡
[1:37 PM]
Tae:
…
love you too
[1:37 PM]
“So are you ever gonna pay attention to me again or will I have to wither and die?” Johnny asks when Taeil doesn’t speak to him.
“Maybe I’ll finally be taller than you,” he bites back, laughing mercilessly when Johnny whines.
“You hid the savage side of yourself too well, I can’t handle this all of a sudden.”
They pull up to Chittaphon’s high school where the boy in question is already outside, chatting with someone next to him in a white denim-style jacket and washed out skinny jeans. It’s a cute outfit, he thinks idly, complete with a beanie on top, but a few clumps of bubblegum pink hair peeks out and - Taeil stiffens because how the hell is Taeyong here? Here, in middle of nowhere Oregon, looking like he stepped out of a magazine shoot because there is no reason a white denim-style jacket should look that good on anyone. Johnny pats his hand when he sees his friend’s dumbfounded stare.
“Close your mouth, sweetie, you’ll catch some flies.”
“Close your mouth, sweetie, you’ll catch some fists,” Taeil replies automatically, fumbling with his seatbelt. That’s Taeyong, he’s here, and even though his hands are cold and he feels like he’s shivering, Taeil can’t wait to finally meet him. The car door slams behind him in his rush and Taeyong turns around, and yes, he’d recognize his face anywhere, his soft eyes and sharp jawline, and before Taeyong can open his mouth, Taeil has his arms wrapped around him and shoved his face into his boyfriend’s shoulder. Taeyong chuckles and wraps his own arms around Taeil.
“How?” he mumbles against the jacket, eyes squeezed shut as if they would deceive him.
“A little birdie told me that we only lived a few towns apart,” Taeyong says, and amidst the indignant cries of Chittaphon saying that he isn’t that short, Taeil pulls away in surprise.
“I thought you said you lived in Korea?”
Taeyong lifts an eyebrow. “I never said that. I just told you my name and you came to that conclusion on your own. You never asked for clarification either.” Taeil groans and lets his head thump back on Taeyong’s shoulder. “Tut tut, you shouldn’t jump to conclusions so easily, Taeillie.”
“Can you guys continue your love-fest once we’ve gone somewhere to eat? We’re starving,” Chittaphon complains, and Taeil gives him the middle finger as well before grabbing Taeyong’s hand. There are smiles with the intensity of the summer sun on their faces, and despite all of Taeil’s relationship insecurities, he never wants to let this go. Taeyong has been monumental in changing him along with Kun, and the thought of not having them in his life makes him feel a sickly type of strange. He sits in the back of Johnny’s car with Taeyong and talks mindless chatter with everyone while staring with laser intensity at their intertwined hands. He didn’t think he’d see them like this so soon, although he doesn’t oppose any of it.
They park in a McDonald’s because Johnny never shuts up about their frappés, and even though Taeil doesn’t talk about it to the same extent, it’s true that he likes them too. For a cheap price, they’re good, and that’s more appealing than a $5 dollar Starbucks drink. Johnny coerces him to pay for everyone, and while it’s not really that big of a deal given that they’re in a McDonald’s of all places, he still huffs and gives him a dirty glare. Taeyong covers his mouth, preventing a laugh at Taeil’s expense from escaping. He wants to be mad, if only for show, but Taeyong looks too bright and happy. He sneakily finds Taeyong’s hand and squeezes it again.
They’re sitting at a table for two away from Johnny and Chittaphon, mostly for privacy but also because the other two were more likely to cause a scene. Johnny’s more rambunctious now that he isn’t always getting shushed by Wendy and Krystal, so Taeil isn’t really mad. He just can’t keep up with that energy, another reason why he approves of Chittaphon.
“How did you get to know Ten?” he asks in the middle of sipping his mocha frappé, and Taeyong looks up from where he’s concentrating on om the color of his strawberry banana smoothie. Their hands are still lying intertwined on the table, so Taeil has to let his frappé sit on the table so that he can rest his head on his hand. He tries to see if he can still sip from his straw but quickly finds out that he can’t do it without giving up his head’s comfortable position. Taeyong’s smile grows as he watches Taeil’s struggle.
“Mostly because his school has a small dance team we meet at showcased sometimes. We had some similar interests, so we talked a lot. It was two-ish years ago.”
Taeil narrows his eyes for effect. “So you’ve known that we’re only a few towns apart for two years and you never thought to tell me.”
“In my defense, I thought you needed to figure yourself out before I did anything about it,” Taeyong says earnestly, rubbing Taeil’s knuckles with his thumb. “You’re getting more confident and unique every day, and I wanted to let you grow as a person before my presence distracted you.” Taeil bites his tongue because that’s a good reason, and now he feels guilty for doubting Taeyong’s feelings, if only as a result of his anxiety and insecurities.
“You’re too kind for me,” he mumbles, eyes falling to the table. Taeyong smiles sadly.
“No, you are. Every time we went a week without talking, I would apologize for being busy and you would always say that you understood I had other things to take care of. If anything, you’re too kind for me and I ran out of luck for the rest of my life when you became mine.” Taeil swears that if he cries for the first time in over ten years in a McDonald’s of all places, he’ll find God and fight him. The tears pass, as always, but his eyes are redder than before when he looks up.
“That’s not fair, you’re making me fall in love with you even more.” Taeyong flushes a little at that, maybe a combination of the fact that Taeil is being his rare sappy self and his red eyes.
Taeil didn’t expect their first kiss to be outside of the local McDonald’s with slightly chapped lips and to taste of mocha and strawberry banana, but he’s starting to think his existence isn’t so unfortunate after all. He doesn't really want to because this is a McDonald's, but -
"- One more."