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Taeyong walks in while Doyoung is packing. He is alone, sorting through jackets he plans to bring to Japan. Mark’s bag is laid open on the other bed, save for the last-minute miscellania he bunches into a corner of his luggage right before they leave . On the far corner stands one of Doyoung’s many scented candles that he intermittently lights when he wants to calm down. The room smells of cinnamon and vanilla.
Taeyong slinks his way through the mess of clothes and sits himself on Doyoung’s couch. The other pays him no mind, attention wholly trained on a leather jacket and his newly bought trench coat. He regards both seemingly and concludes that his inner turmoils had reached a standstill.
“Form or function?” He asks Taeyong, who’s been doing nothing but look at the soft slopes of Doyoung’s cheeks the entire time.
Taeyong smiles softly at him, eyes crinkling ever so slightly at the question, “Form.”
Doyoung smiles, “Function it is.”
Taeyong’s groans as he tries to pinch Doyoung on the cheek. Doyoung jumps out of the way just in time as Taeyong lands ungracefully on the mattress, stray pieces of clothing falling onto the floor.
Doyoung laughs heartily, eyes crinkling into thick lines, gums baring itself for Taeyong to bask in. It’s uncharacteristically beautiful, the way Doyoung melds into emotion. The way his normally stoic face fades into tremors of happiness. It hits Taeyong so hard that all his playful annoyance dissipates at the mere sight, as if exorcised by the sheer beauty of Doyoung’s smile.
It’s no secret that Doyoung is hard to hate and easy to love. Everyone knows of his ability to make you feel like you possessed all the bounty the earth could give. He’s special that way, a beacon in a world of uncertainty. Yet, Taeyong has never taken into consideration just how effective it was on him.
Doyoung could unfurl his heart so forcefully without even trying. Taeyong should feel afraid of how someone can do so much to him with so little effort, but he isn’t. His heart can unfurl and dance around in his ribcage all it wants, because Taeyong does not feel fear.
Because it’s Doyoung. His heart is safe if it’s Doyoung.
“Get off my clothes you loser,” Doyoung says, nudging Taeyong off the bed.
Taeyong rolls off, picking some of the displaced clothes from the floor and placing them back where they were settled before the intrusion.
“Where’s Markie?” Taeyong asks, his brain skittering away from topics that revolved around the decadence of Doyoung’s smile.
“In the other room with Hyuck,” his voice curling, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, “You know how he gets.”
Taeyong nods looking over at the empty mattress on the other side of the room. The two youngest of 127 always had been close. And though it was easy for the two of them to associate with the older members, there was something undeniable about the two of them together. It was a bond that refined with age. So Donghyuck’s incident occurred, it was a little disconcerting for the other. He tried his best not to let the absence affect him too much--all of them did--but it’s hard not to miss someone as effervescent and unabashed as Donghyuck. It was like having flint but no steel--any attempt to strike a flame would only end in disappointment. So whenever Mark got the chance to so much as see the firestarter, he gravitate to him like planets do the sun.
“They’re really close,” Doyoung says as if only realizing for the first time.
“Took you almost half a decade, but that’s great for you,” Taeyong says with a smirk.
“Must be because I’ve been so used to everyone being around me, that I forgot that Mark and Hyuck practically grew up together,” Doyoung replies pensively, eyes wandering around the room before settling on Taeyong.
“What’s your point?”
Doyoung looks at him with a gaze that doesn’t really reach his, peering at Taeyong with something akin to curiosity and intrigue, but never quite any. Like ravens hiding in the night, stirring something omens of the unknown.
His voice comes out slow, delicate, “Maybe things change on its own accord. Sometimes without us even knowing.”
Taeyong’s breath catches in his throat as Doyoung turns away from him with a slight blush to his cheeks.
Yuta’s always told him that Doyoung had a special way of making him happy. Something so uncannily ‘Doyoung’ that eases the strains binding Taeyong’s heart. In Yuta’s words, ‘it’s like he can make you breathe again.’ For the longest time he attributed this to Doyoung’s ability to make everyone feel at ease around him. How he could read the mood so virtuously and reconfigure emotions like puzzle pieces strewn across the floor. He never considered that maybe his heart yearned for something else entirely. That the reason it was so easy to breathe around Doyoung was because his heart gave him permission to.
Doyoung is rummaging through his closet for something when Taeyong manages from the slight skip in his heartbeat; remembering the very reason he was in here in the first place.
“They want us to split into groups in Otaru,” he says, trying his best to hide the strain in his voice, “do you have any preference for a partner?”
Doyoung stops scrounging around his closet and turns slowly towards Taeyong, “I’m a rational person, right?” he asks instead of an answer.
“What?”
“Me, you would say I’m a rational person,” his voice sounding uncertain at his seeming definitiveness.
Taeyong looks at Doyoung like he’s entered a different dimensional plane, while the otherlets go of the clothes he’s holding to sits beside Taeyong, eyes urgent and wanting. Any acknowledgment of Taeyong’s question lost in a whirlwind of his own thoughts,
“I’m a rational person, right?” he asks again, hopeful and, oddly enough, desperate.
“Yes?” Taeyong says unsure. If this were any other situation. If,, perhaps, there were a logical reason for the sudden onslaught of queries regarding his friend’s mental fortitude, then he would say yes. Of the many people Taeyong’s met in his life, only a few could match Doyoung’s level-headedness. It’s one of his charming personality trains and one the reasons why Taeyong’s always found himself calming at his words. In an industry riddled with daintily feigned smiles, there’s Doyoung’s voice that rings with the sincerest honesty.
“Good,” the other replies, voice hinting at the complete disregard in the wavering of Taeyong’s voice.
There’s a pause, the tension in the room doubling in volume as Doyoung’s fingers caress Taeyong’s skin. He looks at him with deep longing. Big, beautiful eyes drawing him close with mysterious intent. They’re unsure and almost afraid, as if momentarily out of control. Then the light hits, ever so slightly.
In the night, when secrets hide behind walls, shadows and closed doors, Doyoung kisses Taeyong for the first time.
Otaru is cold and beautiful. Snow enshrouds the streets in virgin white. The gaunt facades of the ancient buildings contrasting the cottony texture of falling ice, with its almost putrid blackness. As they stroll through the streets, Taeyong thinks of how Otaru reminds him so much of Doyoung.
Yuta only knew so much of the town northwest of Sapporo. Mostly about how the people had preserved a large portion of the town’s former life, transforming it into a cultural marvel all on its own. From the sake distillery that would turn a century in 15 years to the canals built in the late 20th century that now only serves as a tourist attractions to view the once thriving port town, there was something unbeautifully captivating about the entire scenery.
Walking around with the snow pattering around their feet, the tired hum of the canal whispering in their ears, Taeyong can’t help but feel a certain sense of a solitary sameness. A lethargic perpetuation of how things have always been. Yet there buzzes a youthful whistle, a burgeoning reality that is there but isn’t.
“So you’re calling me old and ugly?” Doyoung says while walking beside him.
“That’s not what I meant.”
Doyoung knows Taeyong really well, too well it seems. He’s fully aware of the way Taeyong stumbles around his words when there are too many things going on in his head. How he can say something entirely off tangent without even meaning to; and Doyoung will act the part because Taeyong will takes his words to heart and starts panicking even more. He knows Taeyong never means harm, and that sucks. It’s as if Doyoung’s inscribed his internal language onto the back of his hand like one does before a high school exam. A little cheat who knows too much, but acts like he’s utterly foreign to everything.
Taeyong can’t hide behind fake smiles or forced pleasantries that can even fool some of the members. Doyoung doesn’t even need to bat an eye to know if Taeyong’s faking it; and for the most part, he doesn’t mind. Doyoung has mapped out the tapestry of Taeyong’s mind, with time, with experience. He knows where the wind bends and the waves wane, he knows where the sun shines brightest and where the storms menace. He navigates with effortless grace, moving through maelstroms like calm waters. He knows how to tread through the tides and steer Taeyong right again.
Doyoung smiles, mischievous and knowing, gums bared and eyes glinting with that bland treachery that he loves showing Taeyong. There’s a pause, in which their eyes meet and it sparks in the air. Tension is a new friend, it seems.
They haven’t talked about it, not directly. They haven’t really known how to broach the subject without having a full blown conversation about things that are too difficult to even think about. So they agree to leave it in the air like a balloon strung to their wrists.
“I know that’s not what you meant,” Doyoung says eyes trained on the dark waters of the canal, “If it’s any consolation, you remind me of Seoul.”
Taeyong stills and looks at Doyoung. Air weighs heavy around them, as if the snow was clogging his throat, like something soaked in honey and propane. There’s something looming in Doyoung’s mind and it scares Taeyong, because he too knows Doyoung. He know Doyoung is a man of practiced repetition. He functions with eased predictability, with habits that run through his fluently greased mechanism. He was predictable. Safe. Unchanging.
Or, so Taeyong thought.
In the silent winter he asks, “Why?”
It’s high noon and the sky is deep grey. There is no warmth in the immediate vicinity, only the soulless, virgin white of the melting snow pooling around their shoes.
“You’re my home.”
Taeyong stands flustered, his cheeks tainted crimson and his eyes reluctant to meet Doyoung’s. There’s a hand that leads him onward. Taeyong doesn’t have to say anything, not when it’s Doyoung. Because Doyoung knows. He always knows.
Taeyong’s nerves tingle as Doyoung finds the swells of his fingers and interlaces their hands together.
“I’m a rational person, right?” Doyoung says lowly, moving closer to Taeyong’s stilled form.
“Taeyong, I’m a rational person, but I don’t know how to explain what I’m doing.” he repeats.
His voice is soft, fragile even. It’s enough for Taeyong to know that he’s not in this alone. Everything is odd and new. Not just for him, but for Doyoung as well. Who knows too much, but can’t understand the silent choices of his own heart.
“You don’t have to,” he whispers back, his chest illing with something so electrifying and enticing--a renewed vigor. Doyoung nods and lets go, his gaze is furtive when he locks eyes with Taeyong again, his hands leaving traces of uncertainty drying on Taeyong’s palms.
They walk into the glass shop where the other had all convened. They separate after entering. Neither mind it, space would do them good right now.
Taeyong looks through carefully blown glass. They stand pristine on their little shelves. Soft touches graze through the figures, careful movements gliding through the collections of fine ware. Yuta is looking at some of the painted figurines, holding two in his hand, one in teal and one in pastel pink. Not far from him, Jaehyun survey glass bowls with orbs of red--like apples-- and yellow--like daffodils-- piled in the center. Then, in one the far corner stands Doyoung, eyes set on something Taeyong can’t quite make out. It suddenly smells of cinnamon and vanilla.
Taeyong thinks that maybe going over would be unwise. There are things, many thing they haven’t discussed. Important things that they should be talking out but don’t have the time to. But his feet move on their own accord. They dare to tear the silent agreement the two of them made coming into this store.
He’s almost there when Doyoung looks up and sees him. He looks at Taeyong for a few moments before he beckons him over. There’s an small smile that falls on Taeyong’s lips as he approaches. When he finally settles beside Doyoung, he’s looking at two identical figures on the shelf. They’re cutsey figurines. A bulbous body with a slick smile that arches throughout the expanse of it’s torso.
“It reminds me of you,” Doyoung says.
“Are you calling me fat?” Taeyong replies in jest.
Doyoung snickers at that and grabs for one and places it on Taeyong’s palm, “One for you,” he murmurs placing. He then takes the neighboring figuring and places it in the center of his own open palmt, “and one for me.”
Taeyong looks at Doyoung and what he gets is a smile, “Just like couples do.” They look at each other, eyes finally reaching where they couldn’t reach before. It’s as if Taeyong can see the brilliance of his irises, the darkness of his pupils--the depth of his intent.
“Are you okay with that?”
It’s scary, but it’s Doyoung.
Everything’s alright if it’s Doyoung.