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Kun is comfortable, warm and relaxed, which is probably a bad thing. It feels like one. He has that ache in the bottom of his stomach that could be indigestion but is probably more to do with worry, and it's been there since they checked into the hotel this afternoon. "Is it our turn to room?" he'd asked Xiaojun, because it was, he was sure of it, but Xiaojun had just shrugged and wandered away to speak to their manager about when they would be going for dinner, and in the end Ten had followed Kun into the elevator and they'd gone up to the seventh floor together.
Sometimes, Kun feels like he's doing a very bad job at keeping it all together. Sometimes, Kun feels like he might have taken a wrong turn somewhere, way back when, and now it's impossible to find his way back to where he intended to be.
He follows Ten to their room, and doesn't watch as Ten changes out of his jeans into shorts and a white t-shirt.
They have their own beds and they're not even pushed together, Kun is relieved to see. But regardless of this, Ten crowds him, settles on Kun's bed happily, like a kitten getting warm, and sticks his feet into Kun's lap as though that isn't going to kill him. "Throw me a pillow," he asks Kun, and then he lays down with his head at the other end of the bed, and his feet still just there, in Kun's lap, like he expects Kun to rub them. Kun would given half the chance. That's kind of the problem here.
They hang out in a comfortable quiet. Ten plays music on his iPad and then he sits up after a while and starts sketching something out on it. Kun sneaks tiny glances at his face—eyebrows set, mouth falling open a little as he works. He sticks his tongue out at one point in pure concentration and Kun has to bite his lip to stop himself from smiling. He looks down at his phone and pretends he’s somewhere else.
It goes on like this for a while, until Ten pokes at Kun's thigh with his toe. "Can I borrow your charging cable?"
"Hmm?" Kun looks up.
"I'm almost out of battery." Ten pouts. "Quick! Do you want to be the demise of my creativity?"
Kun gets off the bed. "Why didn't you charge it before we travelled?"
"I did. But it’s already running low. I left the bluetooth on or something, I don't know." Ten smiles. "Thank yooou," he adds in English, the last syllable stretched out on his tongue.
He yelps when Kun tosses the charger over to the bed, even though he's made sure it won't hit Ten. It lands on the bed where Kun had been sitting a few moments before. "Good throw," Ten mumbles as he leans over to plug the cable in beside the hotel bed. His shorts rise up over the backs of his thighs and Kun tries not to stare.
"We need more coffee pods for the machine," he says, quickly, before Ten can turn back and see that he’s blushing. "I'll go down to reception."
"Just call housekeeping to refill them," Ten calls to him, but Kun is already leaving the room.
Kun likes being the leader of the group. He likes bearing responsibilities. He's always been good at it. Was always a good son, a good child, a good student. He's reliable .
Except now he's got these intermittent stomach aches and he's started to feel guilty about every other thought he has. Mainly the ones about Ten.
He's in love with Ten and this makes him a bad leader and a bad son, too. His mother has always wanted him to bring home a pretty daughter-in-law for her and his father to dote on, and while Kun knows she'll love him no matter what, she's never wanted a pretty son-in-law before and he doubts she particularly wants one now.
Pretty son-in-laws do not usually give birth to family heirs, after all.
Kun knocks on Sicheng's door. He's rooming with one of their managers tonight, and when Kun peers into the room their manager is fast asleep. Sicheng puts his fingers to his lips and whispers, "Shhh, he just got to sleep."
Kun smiles. He motions to Sicheng to come with him, and waits for Sicheng to toe his feet into his sneakers. He takes two coffee pods from the pile next to the machine in their room and pockets them before they close the door quietly behind them.
"He fell asleep on the phone to his girlfriend," Sicheng explains. He pulls a face. "I guess he'll be in trouble with her when he wakes up, so we should let him sleep for as long as possible."
Kun laughs. "We can wake him for dinner," he says. "Want to come to mine and Ten's room for a while?"
"Sure, I'm easy.” Sicheng eyes him. “As long as I'm not interrupting anything."
"What would you be interrupting?" Kun asks, trying to sound like he's amused at the thought. He isn't amused, though. His stomach churns.
Sicheng shrugs. "I don't know," he says. The air feels heavy between them, but Kun might just be imagining that.
There are a lot of things that Kun is concerned he might have been imagining recently. These include half-second glances and lingering hands, and the play fights that don't feel like fights at all. Plus the feeling of Ten's lips at his shoulder when he gets out of the shower in the dorm. "Smell's nice," Ten says, voice soft, and then he's across the room, as if he was never there.
It’s only happened once, but Kun’s been thinking about it a lot.
Sicheng clears his throat. "Is your stomach still bothering you?" he asks and it's an innocuous question, but Kun hears all sorts of other questions in it.
"No," he lies. "I'm feeling really good lately."
When they get back to Kun and Ten’s room, Ten is in the shower.
Being the leader means that when things go wrong, it all feels like it's his fault, and when things go well, it all feels like it's down to the rest of the team only, and nothing to do with him at all.
"I'm sorry." Kun runs a hand over his face as they collapse into the cramped chairs set up for them in the dressing room. They'd practised for this performance this morning, but then their performance had been moved to a second stage before the concert began and they'd found out too late to rehearse again. Kun knows he isn't responsible for the mix-up, but he feels the responsibility regardless. He always will. And where once it was a blanket of security and privilege, it's starting to feel like a straight-jacket, buckled tight and breaking him bone by bone.
The dull ache in his stomach is back.
Ten shrugs off his jacket. There's sweat all around his hairline and he's still a little out of breath. He looks beautiful, Kun thinks. He wishes he didn't think so. "Sorry for what?" Ten asks, looking around the dressing room.
For everything, Kun thinks. For failing them, for failing you. He shuts his eyes. "For not finding out about the staging in time."
"Oh yeah, that's totally your fault," Yangyang says with a grin. "Joking!"
Lucas says, "No one noticed, it's fine." He fixes his eyes on Kun and gives him an encouraging smile. "The formation probably looked a little bit, uh, weird on that stage. But it was fine, honestly."
Xiaojun nods. "It was fine, honestly," he says. Ten reaches over and pats Kun on the knee and repeats, “It was fine.”
Except, for Kun, fine doesn't feel like enough. Fine isn't what they signed up for. He nods. "Yeah, I suppose so."
He sits in the front seat of the van on the way back to the hotel so that no one sharing the car with him has to see his face, but he can feel three sets of eyes boring into his back the whole way back to the hotel, regardless.
Ten gets into Kun’s bed as if he belongs there, and sometimes Kun likes to imagine that he does.
They bicker about it, of course, because that’s their default mode: playful arguments make for great distraction techniques from the aching feeling in Kun’s chest. They are also an awfully convenient way to flirt while pretending that flirting is the farthest thing from his mind.
He feels guilty about this, but it’s better than the alternative, which is doing something about it.
He’s in a position of responsibility here, he can’t tell Ten what he really thinks. So, instead, he plays with the grey area that lives somewhere between bickering and saying I love you.
It’s a strange place to be.
Ten is in his bed when Kun gets back from dinner with Xiaojun one night. “I’m keeping it warm for you,” he says. He looks like he’s been waiting up for Kun to get back to the dorms. Kun wonders how long he’s been waiting.
“I’m not in the mood for jokes,” Kun admits. Dinner had been rushed, and Xiaojun spent most of it sneezing and coughing, that damn cold back again. Kun feels responsible for that, too. If he can’t even keep his members healthy, what’s he good for?
Ten sits up. He’s wearing a t-shirt that he got as a fan-gift and it’s a little too big over his shoulders. “I was just trying to do something nice,” he says. He pouts, but it’s replaced by a smile soon after.
Kun says, “Thank you,” but he can’t find the energy to sound sincere about it. He’s too tired for this, and he’s sure Ten will understand. They all have bad moods—they’re all human, after all, just flesh, and bone, and feelings it’s becoming impossible to ignore.
Ten lifts the duvet and pats the bed next to him. Kun can’t help but notice the flash of skin when Ten pulls back the duvet. He’s wearing those shorts that push up over his thighs when he lies down that remind Kun of hotel rooms and feelings of guilt.
“Get in,” Ten says, and for a second Kun wonders if he’s heard wrongly.
“What?”
“Get in.” He looks at Kun with a fierce stare, the sort that suggests he isn’t to be argued with. Kun likes that stare. “Now.”
Kun can't help but laugh. He’s tired and he’s tense, and he’s wondering how he got to this time in his life without realising just how fucked he was before. “What’s going on?” He turns around and takes off his jewellery, places it on the desk. “I’m grouchy.”
“And I’m asking you to get into this bed,” Ten says. Not telling him to, simply asking . He makes it sound so simple. Kun makes a show of rolling his eyes as he steps out of his shoes, but he gets into his bed next to Ten, just like he’s been asked to, and he waits.
Ten just wraps his arms around Kun and hugs him. Kun breathes in and allows himself to be held. Ten’s small arms slip around his middle and squeeze him tightly, and it’s nice .
After a minute, Ten looks up at him, his chin level with Kun’s shoulder. “Feel better?”
Kun smiles. “Yeah,” he whispers. They stay like this for a while, and it’s the calmest Kun has felt in a long while.
Still, he wakes up with a stomach ache the next morning.
It's a little over a week later when Kun speaks to his parents. His mother's voice is so full of warmth that it makes him want to cry, but Ten is there, on his own bed this time, drawing something intently across the room, so Kun keeps it brief. He asks his mother about the house, the dogs, the weather.
The weather .
He's talking to his mother about the weather as though they're strangers waiting in line at the grocery store. He feels like he’s boring her with every syllable, but at least if he’s talking about the weather, he can’t be disappointing anyone.
He takes two painkillers after their conversation ends. Ten notices, of course. He says, "Sicheng told me about your stomach,” and eyes Kun with pursed lips.
"Oh, it's nothing." Kun smiles. He hopes it looks convincing. "What are you drawing?"
"It’s you, actually," Ten says. "Not— it's not, like, a life drawing."
"Because I'd have to be naked for that, right?" It’s the right thing to say, because it makes Ten smile.
“Naked. Pffft.” Ten rolls his eyes dramatically, probably to highlight just how uncultured Kun sounds right now. "It's abstract," he explains. “It’s not literal. Do you want to see?”
Ten moves over to give Kun room to sit down next to him. The picture is beautiful, but in a sad sort of way; it’s all greys and dark greens edging smudged black circles. One solitary flower sits at the top, as though growing slowly from the depths of the darkness below. "There's a lot of dark colours." He raises an eyebrow.
Ten looks at him from underneath his eyelashes, as though he's trying hard to read a language he doesn't understand. "There are," he says, carefully. He puts his iPad down. "Let's go out."
He stands up, and Kun is left looking up at him. "Where?"
"Somewhere dark and quiet so no one has to see your ugly face." He sticks his tongue out. “That’s why I didn’t want to draw you realistically. Too ugly.”
Kun laughs. He loves this— the give and take between them. That’s how it happened, he guessed. How he fell in love without even realising it was creeping up on him. And maybe he’s known he liked guys for longer than he’d admit, but this is different. This is all-consuming, and it’s the wrong place and the wrong time, and the wrong thing to want.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. There's churning in his stomach.
They end up at the coffee-house just round the corner from the dorms. They're there often enough that none of the staff are phased by their sweatpants and masks or the fact that it's almost closing. They order a drink each and a slice of chocolate cake to share and sit in the corner. There’s no one else around.
“You can talk to me.” Ten eyes him as he stabs at the sponge-cake. “You can tell me anything and I won’t judge. Hell, you know I won’t, the kind of stuff you know about me.”
Kun smiles. So this is what an intervention, Ten style, is like. “It’s not that easy,” he says.
“I didn’t say it was. I just said— I said you can talk to me. But we can just drink coffee instead if you’d prefer.” Ten holds out the fork, a piece of cake on the end of it. “Try this, it’s so good.”
Kun accepts the cake. It is delicious. Or maybe he’s biased because the man he’s in love with is literally feeding it to him. That sort of thing can impact every sense. Maybe it’s because he’s distracted by this that Kun decides to be honest.
“I’m just feeling the pressure a little bit.” He tries to say it as breezily as he can, like it’s not important, like it’s just something that’s come to mind, and not the only thing he ever thinks about these days. Still, being honest feels nice. It also feels like the worst thing he can possibly be doing.
“The pressure of what?” Ten takes back the fork and takes a piece of cake for himself.
“Of…” Kun takes a breath. “Everything. I just want to make everyone proud and… Maybe I’m not doing as good a job as I should. But—but I’m not expecting anything from anyone. I don’t need anything. I’ll be alright.”
Whether Ten believes him or not doesn’t really matter, because he doesn’t push it. He just breaks into a smile and says, “Thank you for telling me.” He reaches across the table with his free hand. “You’re very important to me, Qian Kun.”
Ten finishes the cake.
Ten’s sitting on Kun’s bed again when he gets out of the shower two days later. Ten watches him as he towels his hair dry in front of the mirror and it feels weirdly intimate. He thinks about his parents and their relationship to distract himself from Ten’s gaze.
“Your stomach,” Ten starts, breaking the silence. “Do you think it could be stress related?”
Kun doesn’t know what to say.
“I’m not a doctor,” Ten adds, as if that needs to be said. “I’m just thinking aloud. But— it could be stress.”
“Is this about what I said the other night?” Kun asks, but he knows it is. He wonders if Ten has spoken to any of the other members about it. Sicheng, maybe, he thinks. He wants to be annoyed, but truthfully he’s just grateful.
“Your parents would be really, really proud of you.” Ten looks at him. “I mean, they are already are. But if they knew, really knew, how hard you work? They’d be so proud.”
Kun wonders when Ten has started reading his mind, and why Ten cares so much, and whether he even deserves any of these kind words. He sits down on the bed and bunches the towel up in his lap. “I hope they are.”
Ten leans into his side and breathes in. “I don’t feel like being mean to you at all tonight,” he says. “How unusual is that?”
Kun laughs. “Very unusual,” he agrees. He turns his head and brushes his lips over Ten’s forehead before he can stop himself. It seems the right thing to do: a silent sort of thank you.
Ten lifts his head and looks at him carefully, and the air is thick, but it’s nice—calm, and still, and peaceful—and Ten is watching him, his eyes reflecting something in them that Kun sees in himself sometimes.
They stay like this a while, and they don’t kiss, but they could. They want to, Kun wants to. Maybe they will one day.
Ten laughs as they separate, moving apart until there’s enough distance between them that no parts of them touch. There’s nothing cruel in his voice when he says, “I guess that answers my question. I had wondered.”
“Whether I liked you?” Kun asks.
Ten gets up and heads back to his own bed across the room. “Whether you liked me back.”
They’re eating dinner together after a long day of promotions and Kun is barely in the room, replaying things that have happened in the day instead: processing them, making sure there is nothing he needs to fix.
(There is, but that’s okay.)
Kun still isn’t fully listening when the topic comes around to it, so he isn’t sure how it starts or who starts it. It’s when Lucas is talking that Kun starts to listen. “It takes something special to be a good leader,” Lucas says, nodding in agreement at something Ten’s been saying across the room.
“Agreed. Couldn’t do it!” Hendery pulls a face and shovels rice into his bowl.
“I’d die.” Yangyang looks up from his food. “Of boredom,” he clarifies.
Xiaojun laughs. He hasn’t been sick for a while, thank goodness. It’s something Kun has been keeping an eye on, and it’s a relief to see six healthy, smiling faces in front of him.
Xiaojun smiles as Yangyang steals fried pork from his plate. “We’re lucky,” he says. “To have Kun-ge.”
The others all nod in agreement, and the conversation turns to something else, but it stays with Kun for a long time.
There’s another hotel room in another city, and Ten is there, shorts riding up his thighs. Kun allows himself a second to look and Ten smiles at him. “Come see this,” he says, holding out his Ipad from where he sits, legs stretched out in front of him, on the couch near the hotel room window.
It’s the picture Ten had started working on months ago—the one he’d said was Kun, but it’s taking on a different feeling.
“You’ve been adding colour,” Kun says as he looks at it. There’s reds and pinks in the picture now, blurring into the dark circles like they’re enveloping them in brightness.
“There’s more of it lately. You’ve been letting yourself be happy,” Ten says. “You’ve been cutting yourself some slack.”
“I’m trying.” Kun sits down on the other end of the couch. “You’ve helped.”
Ten moves his legs to give Kun some space. “How’s your stomach?” He asks, as though he hasn’t been waiting to ask this question since they got off the plane.
“It’s… not as bad as it was. But I’m going to see the physician when we get back to Seoul. I spoke to the staff last week about it.” He looks at Ten. “A doctor once told me it might be stress.”
Ten laughs. “Don’t be a dick, I used google very extensively in that research.”
Kun grins. “Oh well then you should definitely be given an honorary PHD in medicine.”
He likes that they can still do this give and take thing, even though neither of them can deny it’s not flirting anymore. He laughs as Ten pretends to throw his drawing stylus at his head. Says, “Hey, you don’t want to damage your favourite thing.”
“My favourite thing?” Ten settles back against the cushions and raises an eyebrow. “Is that you or my Apple Pencil?”
“You tell me,” Kun smiles.
“Apple pencil.” Ten grins, and then he goes back to drawing, his feet settled in Kun’s lap.