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They’re five years old when they first meet.
They’re both the new kids at school, and they can barely speak broken sentences in Korean, but it doesn’t matter.
They don’t need words when they’re sitting next to each other in art class and Yuta points at Ten’s different colored acrylics, and the latter nods and lets him borrow one.
They don’t need words when Yuta accidentally knocks over the small bottle of paint, spilling it and ruining the other’s drawing of a butterfly. A big green splotch stains its wings, and Ten doesn’t need words when he cries and gets mad and drags his purple covered brush over Yuta’s pretty flowers.
They don’t need words when Yuta pushes Ten, nor when Ten pushes Yuta back. Then they’re scolded by their teacher and forced to spend the rest of the day holding hands.
They don’t stop holding hands after that.
They’re ten years old when Yuta accidentally starts a food fight in the cafeteria.
One of his soccer teammates, a few tables away from where he and Ten are sitting, asks him if they can switch drinks, to which Yuta agrees. The carton of chocolate milk flies through the air, but miscalculation on both strength and distance make it crash on his friend’s table, sugary liquid splattering all over the poor kid and his friends around him.
An accident that’s perceived as a declaration of war.
Before Yuta knows it, strawberry milk is thrown at him, crash-landing in the same way its forerunner did. The boy laughs and, before Ten can stop him, he yells Food fight! and a package of Cup Noodles gets instantly launched. Then fruit, juice boxes, Tater Tots, sandwiches and a few slices of cake. One student empties a condiment tray of relish over another student’s head and, in under a minute, the whole place is chaos.
It doesn’t take long before the principal gets called in, and her face goes red with anger when she demands to know who started it. No one says anything for a good couple of minutes, and the woman threatens to suspend the 100+ kids who participated in the food fight if she doesn’t get a name soon.
Ten knows that, if Yuta comes clean, he’ll be in big trouble.
He’s got quite the reputation for his reckless misbehavior, and his report card isn’t good enough to save him. If he admits to start the fight– even if it was by accident– he’ll get expelled. If he doesn’t, he’ll be suspended. Either way, Yuta’s parents won’t be too happy about it, and they won’t let him participate in the preliminary game his soccer team is holding next week.
So Ten takes a step forward and says it was him.
Thanks to his clean record and good grades, Ten only gets suspended half the amount of days that live up to his name. The rest of the students are simply forced to clean the cafeteria after school hours.
A week later, Yuta and his team make it past the preliminary, then win the entire competition.
“My winning goal was for you,” Yuta tells Ten.
It makes them both smile.
They’re fifteen when Ten decides to come out to his friends.
The little group they’ve managed to create in middle school takes it surprisingly well when he tells them. They support him and hug him, and Ten can finally breathe again.
“It must’ve been scary to tell us,” says one of them, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze. “You’re very brave, Tennie. Thanks for letting us know.”
Ten smiles but, what they don’t know, is that he’s not brave.
In between crying and shaking, Ten had told Yuta the night before. He’d clung tightly to his friend as the words left his lips, and he’d almost regret them as soon as he was done. He was scared that Yuta would push him away, or say he was sick, or try and convince him to not be that way .
Instead, his friend had hugged him tighter.
Yuta held Ten until he felt better, and he told him everything was going to be okay.
As long as they were together, Ten was going to be okay.
They’re sixteen when Yuta gets his heart broken for the first time.
Young love is the worst.
He’d been dating a pretty girl from school. She was small and sweet and always smelled like strawberries, and Yuta used to swear she was the girl he was going to marry in the future. Every time he talked about her or invited her over to join their plans, Ten used to feel a slight annoyance building in his chest, one he never really understood. Maybe he was just jealous he hadn’t met his future spouse yet.
But when Yuta calls him one night at 3 AM, telling him with a trembling voice that he’s been dumped, Ten feels that strange annoyance again, multiplied by a thousand.
He sneaks out of his home and into Yuta’s, through the windows. He finds him lying on his bed, tears streaming down his cheeks, crying in the only way he was ever taught to cry: silently, because boys don’t cry .
Ten knows hate is a strong word, but he hates that girl for doing this to his best friend.
He cuddles Yuta until they both fall asleep and, the next morning, they pretend it didn’t happen.
They’re eighteen when Ten meets Kun.
Kun is nice. He’s smart and handsome and funny in his own particular way, and anyone can tell he simply wants the best for Ten. While they’re dating, Ten goes from having good grades to having excellent grades. He cuts meat out of his diet. He learns a new language. He stops drinking and going out until late. While they’re dating, Ten becomes a different version of himself– a better one, maybe.
But, also while they’re dating, Yuta almost disappears from Ten’s life.
Ten doesn’t notice until it’s almost too late. He doesn’t realize until Kun tells him to consider changing majors– from Arts to Science, where Kun himself is going–, and Ten hesitates and says he wants to discuss it with Yuta first...
But he can’t even remember the last time he talked to Yuta. He doesn’t know what college Yuta has decided to go to, or if he’ll be going back to Japan with his family, or if any of their old plans are still on the table.
Slowly, without realizing, he’s lost both his best friend and himself.
Ten no longer meets Yuta after class. He doesn’t go to his house on the weekends so they can eat junk food and watch shitty movies together. He doesn’t show Yuta his new art, though mostly because he hasn’t done any. He has stopped doing so many of the things he used to love the most, with the person he used to love the most, to fit into this new and different version of himself he’s built with someone else he’s convinced himself he loves even more.
And even though Kun is nice, he’s not Yuta.
It’s surprisingly easy to break up with Kun once he realizes that. The other seems hurt, but he takes it surprisingly well and lets Ten go. Ten doesn’t feel anything but the wind on his face as he runs to Yuta’s house afterwards, his whole body shaking as he pounds on the door and dashes past his friend’s mother’s confusion when she opens the door. The path to Yuta’s room is the same it’s always been, except now he doesn’t know if he’s welcome to open the door.
His knock is tentative and gentle, despite how hard he’s panting and how much his heart is racing in his chest. He can’t have lost Yuta, he can’t have lost his best friend. He can’t, and he can’t believe that he almost let it happen.
When Yuta opens the door, his brows drawn together angrily, Ten feels his heart drop to his stomach. He’s about to apologize for showing up and bothering Yuta, but his friend’s face clears and goes wide-eyed in shock.
And so Ten starts talking.
He babbles everything out– that he and Kun have broken up, that he’d lost himself in all of the plans and dreams Kun had for him, plans and dreams that weren’t actually Ten’s, and he apologizes and tells Yuta that he needs him back, needs him in his life like he needs to breathe.
Yuta blinks a few times, like he’s taking it all in, but opens the door to let the other in and Ten is glad that, despite the months apart, the place is comforting and familiar. He walks to the middle of the room before rubbing his eyes in frustration, because they’re stinging and he’s about to start crying like back when he was five and had his butterfly painting ruined by a splotch of green.
He tries really hard not to but, when Yuta draws him into his arms and holds him, Ten actually cries. Yuta holds him tight, just as desperately, murmuring reassurances into his hair and promises about them being okay. Ten feels it all– the fear for what he almost lost and what he nearly did to them, the relief to be welcomed back, the happiness of finding himself wrapped in Yuta’s arms again.
And, strangely enough, a sting in his heart that grows warmer the longer Yuta holds him against his chest.
They’re still eighteen when Ten realizes he’s in love with Yuta.
It happens the same day he loses Kun and wins Yuta back. It happens at night, while he’s lying in bed— Yuta’s bed— and his friend has long fallen asleep but Ten can’t. He can’t stop thinking about how easy it was to leave Kun. He can’t stop thinking of Kun’s face when it happened, looking like he’d been expecting it. He can’t stop thinking about the way his heart didn’t hurt, not until when he thought of the possibility of Yuta not taking him in again. Ten can’t stop thinking about a lot of things, but there’s one in particular that keeps him up tonight.
The fact that, when he should’ve been thinking, he actually didn’t.
When his mind popped the question Yuta or Kun?, the answer came to him as easily as breathing. Kun made him better, sure. But Yuta made him happier.
The answer was Yuta. It would always be Yuta.
And Ten realizes he’s in love with him.
He is consumed and overwhelmed by the feeling the more he recognizes it. He tries to ignore it, but Ten has become one cheesy motherfucker when it comes to his best friend, and the annoying bubbling in his chest is there in everything– in the arch of Yuta’s neck as he tilts his head back to laugh, in his big white smile, in his bright eyes when he announces he’s done well in his college admission tests. Ten falls in love with Yuta’s happiness, and he’s drunk in it when they both get their acceptance letters to SMU.
It’s in everything and he’s everything, and, even though Ten knows Yuta will never feel the same, it’s enough.
Just being friends with Yuta is enough.
So, at eighteen and in love with Yuta, they move from home and into their college dorms, ready to start another adventure together.
They don’t get assigned into the same room, not even the same floor, but they’re both in the same major and they have classes together, plus they can also visit each other as always. Yuta gets a room with a guy named Doyoung, who looks like he doesn’t really like Ten, but that’s okay. The feeling is mutual.
Ten gets a room with Johnny, and Yuta swears they’ll end up together, and the younger can only smile shyly and shake his head. Johnny is tall and hot and bi, and he gets along great with Yuta when he joins them for movie night, so he’s got the best friend seal of approval.
But even though Johnny is nice, he’s not Yuta.
They’re nineteen and Ten decides he must get over his best friend.
He has fallen in love very slowly and reluctantly with Yuta along a one year timespan. College and being away from his parents has made his friend a little more confident, and a little more touchy with the people he meets— including Ten. He realizes progressively that, every time they’re together, they’re also awfully close, in terms of both friendship and physical space, and Ten has to get his shit together.
He can’t keep popping boners every time they’re at a party and Yuta gets so shitfaced he has to whisper into Ten’s ear to talk.
It’s torture, so Ten forces himself to look at other people.
There’s always Johnny– tall, hot and bi Johnny, who’s become Ten’s and Yuta’s third musketeer and voice of reason. He’s amazing with Ten, has seen him at both his best and worst, and has very nice, plump lips that Ten once kissed while drunk in wine.
But Johnny is too perfect, and too kind-hearted, and too… Johnny . Ten doesn’t think they’d be a good match.
Then there’s Winwin, from the room next door, who’s quiet and shy but always smiles at him when they meet eyes across the hall. He once invited Ten over to play video games and chill, and the older had absolutely adored his unfunny jokes and cute playing habits, like the way he tugged his pointy ear when he was thinking on what move to pull next.
But Winwin is too cute, and too calm, and too good. Ten almost thinks he’d be a bad influence on him.
And, finally, there’s Lucas. He’s a freshman in the Veterinary Medicine department at SMU. He’s funny and handsome and a total sweetheart, and they go on their first date after Lucas bravely walks up to Ten one day on campus and tells him he thinks he’s pretty.
So Ten starts dating him after their third date, and it’s nice for a while.
Until Yuta starts dating Mina.
Then Ten realizes he’s still not over him.
He still thinks about Yuta before he goes to bed, and first thing in the morning as he wakes up. He finds himself swallowing hard every time he sees his best friend walking up to him, holding hands with the pretty Fashion Design major he met at Ten’s birthday party. Or looking away when Yuta kisses her. Feeling a lump in his throat when Yuta talks about her.
Ten has everything he could possibly ask for, yet it’s not enough. Even though Lucas treats him nicely, even though all of Ten’s friends– including Yuta– love him, and even though he’s always showering him in attention and gifts… It’s not it.
Because Lucas isn’t Yuta.
And Lucas doesn’t deserve this. He deserves the world, and Ten’s not sure he can give it to him, so they break up.
Ten never tells Yuta the real reason why he breaks up with Lucas, but he tells Johnny. His friend doesn’t seem very surprised, though. His reaction actually reminds Ten of Kun– the face of someone who just heard something he already knew, something he was expecting.
“Are you going to tell him?” Johnny asks him, and it seems like a stupid question at the time.
“When he’s single and decides to like boys, maybe,” Ten replies sarcastically.
A month later, Yuta breaks up with Mina.
But he still doesn’t like boys, so Ten doesn’t tell him.
They’re twenty when Yuta has a confession.
While they’re studying together at the campus’s café, he tells Ten and Johnny that a guy from his class has asked him out.
It’s new, because Yuta has never been asked out by another man, and he doesn’t know what to do or what to say, so he tells his friends to see if either of them can help him figure it out. Ten feels a little bad for him, and he quickly gives his friend advice on how to turn someone down– and also to let them know nicely that he’s not into guys.
Yuta, however, stays silent for a couple of seconds and then looks down.
“What if I don’t know if I am?” he asks, almost inaudibly.
It makes Ten almost choke on his coffee, and he’s unable to do anything else other than stare at his best friend, wide eyed. Luckily, Johnny is there, and he’s great with words, so he tells Yuta that it’s okay, that he doesn’t have to know yet, and that he can take his time to figure it out at his own pace.
Ten tries to listen to what Johnny is saying and nod and support him, but suddenly he can’t hear anything.
His heart beating hard against his chest just won’t let him.
They’re twenty two and in finals week.
Graduation is only a month away, and they are both buried in so much work, Ten is sure that they are keeping the local coffee shop in business on their own. But this, studying quietly in the same room as Yuta, is something he wouldn’t change for the world. Yuta is in his element, a pencil stuck between his teeth, and Ten can’t look away from him.
He has been in love with his best friend for around four years now, and every day it gets a little bit harder to keep it in, to keep it a secret.
The fact that Yuta hasn’t figured it out is a small miracle in and of itself. He prays that, if Yuta does figure it out one day, he won’t leave. There is nothing that Ten fears more. They’ve come so far together, they’ve conquered everything together, and to be apart would be devastating. He can’t help but hate the idea of it.
He could never picture his life without Yuta.
“Ten?”
His friend’s voice pulls him out of his thoughts. Yuta is reaching out to steal the last bit of the chocolate chip muffin they’re sharing, staring at the other like he’s waiting for an answer.
Ten’s mind is so far away he has to blink a few times before he can focus again. "Huh?“
“You okay there?” Yuta arches an eyebrow. He has a smear of chocolate at the bottom of his lip, and it feels like a threat to Ten’s sanity, as if the universe’s making fun of him saying Yeah, you wish you could kiss that away, don’t you?
Ten shakes his head to shoo the thought away and throws a napkin in Yuta’s way. “Yeah, just...” he raises his forgotten book a little. “Art History.”
Yuta grimances as he takes the hint and wipes his mouth. “Don’t look at me on that one. You know I almost fail the midterm,” he sighs, and yeah, Ten knows. He remembers because they were supposed to study together for it, like always, but instead ended up accidentally binge watching that new drama everyone had been talking about (Spoiler alert: it sucked).
“I’m done for today, anyway. Too confused,” Ten says, in hopes that that’ll convince Yuta of why he’d spaced out.
“Me too,” his friend sighs, closing his book shut, if only a little too enthusiastically. “Want to go to my room? We can play Mario Kart.”
Ten makes a face. “Won’t Doyoung bitch about all the noise?”
“Nah, he’s not there. He’s been staying late in the library to study. Most times he even sleeps there,” Yuta says, frowning a little as if he doesn’t understand how someone could dedicate so much time to school work. “Anyway. You in?”
“Sure,” Ten says, and they start packing up their things. Their hands accidentally touch when they reach out for their scattered pens over the table, and Ten almost drops all of his. Fuck you, universe.
“Hey, by the way,” Yuta then says, proof that Ten can’t just go around cursing at the sky. “Can you help me pick my outfit for Friday again?”
Friday. The day Yuta has another date with Jaehyun, from his Animation class.
Is it too late to apologize, universe?
Ten doesn’t consider himself to be dramatic, but he can actually feel his heart shattering, falling apart at the simple words. It happens every time he remembers Yuta has grown a lot more comfortable with his sexuality, and every time the small, annoying what if whispers inside his head, followed by a cruel in your dreams .
Ten takes a deep, shuddering breath and tries to remind himself that he’s been in love with Yuta for almost half a decade now, and that he has weathered more than this.
It’s okay. Yuta doesn’t know. Yuta has never known.
With years of practice, Ten ignores the loud beating of his heart and nods. "Sure. You’ll look more like a clown if I don’t help you.“
“Ha-ha,” Yuta rolls his eyes. “Are you sure it’s okay that I’m skipping movie night?”
They were supposed to watch The Kissing Booth on Friday night and laugh together at the bad script and the terrible story. It’s not okay.
“Yeah, it’s fine,” Ten says, though it’s not fine. “I think it's great you’re going on another date with Jaehyun,” he says, though he thinks it’s terrible. “Plus, Johnny said he’s free so he’ll join me.”
Yuta makes a weird face, almost like he’s disappointed, maybe even hurt, but it lasts less than a second for Ten to give it much importance.
When he turns around, he simply hangs his backpack on one shoulder and shoots him a finger gun. “Alrighty, then. Let’s go kick your ass at Mario Kart.”
“ Fuck. ”
Ten crumples another sheet of paper into a small ball and throws it on the floor carelessly. He immediately gets back to the next page, hands skillfully dragging the 0.5 mm pen across the notebook, drawing thin lines that go straight, bend and then intertwine to create something beautiful.
Or not. This one looks terrible, too.
“Fuck off,” Then curses at the ink and tears that page from the spiral, too, crumpling it annoyedly. He throws the ball behind him without really looking, ready to start all over again, but a loud Ouch! makes him jump on his seat, startled.
Ten turns around at the sound, wondering who dared to gasp in pain and disturb his concentration.
Johnny stands by the door to their dorm room, holding one hand against his right eye while the other one holds two grocery bags full of junk food and beer. “The hell did I do?” he complains, the paper ball Ten just threw laying by his feet. “I didn’t forget to bring your favorite dip this time!”
Ten sighs, an apologetic look on his face as he drops his pen over the desk. “I’m sorry, didn’t mean to hit you.”
“I don’t want to find out where you’d be able to hit if you meant it,” his roommate snorts, closing the door behind him and heading towards the couch. He notices the amount of paper littering the floor– a few balls of paper here and there, around the TV area, some in the trash can, and a whole bunch by Ten’s feet. “What the hell is all of this?”
“My portfolio,” Ten mumbles miserably, looking at all the failed art he went through just this afternoon. “My worth as an artist.”
Johnny sets the grocery bags on their little coffee table and bends down to pick up one of Ten’s rejected ideas. He smooths out the paper so he can see what’s drawn inside, and when he sees it, his eyebrows raise. “This is pretty good, why are you throwing it out?”
“Because pretty good won’t get me anywhere,” the younger grumbles.
He springs up from his chair and walks towards the center of the room, to where his roommate is. Ten digs his hand into the bags on the table until his fingers touch cold, and he pulls out a can of the shitty beer Johnny always buys. He cracks it open, takes a long sip, and plops down on the couch with an annoyed sigh.
Johnny hums. “Okay, I see,” he nods, like that’s all that’s left to say. But he knows Ten, and he knows something’s up with him that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with his art– the art itself told him so. He takes out a beer of his own from the bag and plops down next to Ten on the couch. He sits on another ball of paper, and he has to fish it out from underneath his butt before finally asking what needs to be asked. “You want to talk about it?”
Ten furrows his brow. “Talk about what?”
“Whatever’s got your panties in a twist.”
The younger rolls his eyes at the expression. He takes a sip of his beer. “I’m fine. Just stressed because of finals.”
“Didn’t your finals end today?”
“Didn’t you fall on your head as a kid?”
Johnny breaks into a terribly fake gasp, a hand clasped over his heart like that’s the greatest offense he’s ever received. “Several times, actually, but that’s not what you’re mad at!”
For the first time since his friend got here, Ten smiles a little.
He appreciates that Johnny takes the attitude with a grain of salt, and he feels only slightly embarrassed of having lashed out like that despite the other’s good intentions. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay, we don’t have to talk about it,” Johnny shrugs, like he’s given up, and he bumps the side of his beer to Ten’s. “We can just drink and stuff our faces with chips and overpriced candy if that’s what you want.”
“Thank you,” Ten pouts and leans his head against the other’s shoulder in gratitude. Johnny loving hours: open, he thinks to himself as the other pulls out his phone to cast the movie.
Johnny’s always been great at understanding Ten. Whenever the younger doesn’t want to worry Yuta (or talk about things that involve Yuta), Johnny’s always there for him. He offers to help him, dry his tears, or help avoid whatever’s bothering him. They watch a movie instead, or play some video games, and once they even screamed into a pillow— whatever Ten wants, they do. Johnny doesn't judge. He’s a good friend like that.
“Wait, where’s Yuta?”
Ugh. Johnny’s a terrible friend. Johnny loving hours? Permanently closed. Might kill him instead.
Ten rolls his eyes. “On another date with Jaehyun.”
The sentence drags out of him like he doesn’t really want to say it, and it’s enough to light a bulb over Johnny’s head.
“Oh, I see!” the taller says, like he’s discovered the obvious. “You’re jealous!”
Yeah, Ten definitely has to kill him.
He sits properly on the couch so he can death-stare his friend comfortably, and Johnny must be either really brave or really stupid, because he holds Ten’s gaze amusedly, smiling like the damn polite cat.
“You’re jealous because this is, like, his third date with Jaehyun and he’s skipping movie night for it,” he dares to say. “Do you think they’re going serious?”
Ten punches Johnny’s arm. “Whatever happened to It’s okay, we don’t have to talk about it ?”
“That was before I knew what this was all about,” the other gestures to the amount of paper littered across their floor. “And, I mean, I’m not nosy, but I am a sucker for some good old best friends to lovers. So...”
“So what?”
“ So shouldn’t you tell Yuta how you've been feeling about him for the past four years? Before things get serious between him and Jaehyun?”
Ten sighs deeply, placing his beer on the coffee table so he can lean on the couch with an arm over his eyes and maybe pretend he’s dead so he doesn’t have to have this conversation. Why did I ever tell Johnny about all this? he asks himself despite knowing the answer. Of course he knows why–he needed to tell someone about it, or else it would’ve eaten him alive long ago.
Still, that doesn’t necessarily mean he wants to talk about his undying crush on Yuta right now.
“Why would I do that?”
Next to him, Johnny shrugs. “You said you’d tell him when he was single and decided to like boys. And it’s been, like, a year since he and Taeyong broke up, which means he’s been single for a while. And Taeyong was, coincidentally, a boy. So why haven’t you told him?”
Ten stays silent for a second.
Why hasn’t he told him?
“Well,” he tries to come up with something, and ends up saying whatever comes naturally to him whenever he thinks about this. “I don’t want to risk our friendship. I wouldn’t want to throw away 18 years of memories down the drain for a stupid what if. ”
Johnny hums. “Okay, I see,” he nods, taking a sip of his beer. “Now tell me the non-Wattpad version.”
Ten throws a cushion at him. Then sighs and puts his legs over the couch, hugging his knees against his chest. “... I guess I’m just scared he’ll say no. What if I can’t get over him, even after that?” he mumbles, speaking a lot less loud than usual. “What if he says Sorry, I don’t feel that way and we continue being friends, but I’m always in love with him?”
He’d never really said that out loud.
It’s not that he doesn’t fear losing Yuta, because he definitely does. If Ten were to confess to his friend and this one took his distance, he would be destroyed, mourning for a friendship he thought he’d have forever. But, at least then, Ten could get away from Yuta. He could be hurt only to heal, and he could move on knowing that, some day, he would meet someone who could play the role Yuta turned down, and things would work out in the end.
But what if Yuta said no, and said he was willing to ignore Ten’s feelings and act like they never happened? Ten would be forced to get over his best friend while still being his best friend, to welcome with open arms whoever was worth earning Yuta’s heart, to watch him find love and happiness while he struggled to get his own.
It’s selfish, but it would kill him. Ten doesn’t even want to imagine such a future.
Johnny, however, knows just the right thing to say. He always does. “You’re being stupid.”
“Thanks, Psych major,” Ten scoffs.
But the other is not done yet. “Just think about it. You’ve been friends for 18 years, Ten. That’s a whole fucking lifetime,” he nudges him. “You’ve seen pretty much every side of each other. Your best and your worst. Your highs and lows. Who wouldn’t want to live such a fantasy, to live your life next to your best friend?”
Ten rolls his eyes, but can’t help the warm feeling he gets on his heart. “You’re just a hopeless romantic.”
“Heck yeah I am,” Johnny agrees, a little too proud of himself. “That’s why I know what I’m saying. Honestly, I don’t think I ever thought of a future where you two wouldn’t end up together. Not even when I had a crush on you–”
“I just don’t want him to– Wait,” Ten raises a hand, stopping himself. Then, slowly, he points a finger at himself and smiles. “... You had a crush on me?”
Johnny scoffs. “For like a year until you told me you liked Yuta– thanks for noticing, by the way.”
He breaks into a speech about how, whatever happens, Ten will be okay. Whether or not Yuta says no, and whether or not he wants to stay as friends, Ten will find a way to make things work out for him. And who knows? Maybe it’ll all work out from the beginning, and Yuta will reciprocate his feelings and things will burst into an explosion of pink.
He won’t know if he doesn’t try.
And, honestly, why had Life sent him such a guy like Yuta? Gorgeous, so full of personality, of love, of caring? A guy so open to accepting Ten, his bitchy mood swings, his overconfident facade, his weird pet peeves. There was just no way in hell Ten could’ve avoided crushing on Yuta, and that’s the most frustrating part.
That it feels almost meant to be.
Still, it’s not like Ten is actually expecting Yuta to be happy at the news, or tell him he likes him back or anything. It’s just that, now that he’s accepted it, Ten realizes just how unbearable it has become to just be best friends when maybe, just maybe, they could be something else.
Not that he doesn’t like the way their relationship works right now. Yuta is, has always been, his best friend and Ten doesn’t want that to change for anything in the world, not even because of his stupid feelings. But sometimes it does get a bit hard to bear.
Like when they go out clubbing together and Yuta chooses some random person that’s not Ten to spend the night making out with, and then Ten has to take him back to the dorm because he’s too drunk to even remember his own name. Or when Yuta won’t stop hugging him or touching him as if he knows it’s a sweet torture for Ten, or when he looks at him with that flirty, confident and lopsided smile of his that makes Ten come undone with craving and heartache.
Johnny’s right on one thing– he won’t know if he doesn’t try.
And Ten kind of wants to try now, he just doesn’t know how.
Ten stands outside Yuta’s dorm door. It’s a little after 10 PM, that much he knows.
He also knows that Yuta’s still not back from his date, and that he probably won’t be back until much later. He’s probably having fun with Jaehyun and currently making things official with him, which means that what Ten is about to do is probably fucking stupid and will make things awkward between them and– oh God, Ten should probably just go back to his room, climb under the blankets and never come out.
He swallows hard, eyes boring holes through the door and into the dorm room in front of him. Ten has been in there as much as he’s been in his own room but, right now, the young man makes sure to check at least three times that he’s in the right one.
After all, he’s about to slip a three-page confession letter to his best friend under the door.
And, honestly, screw Johnny and his oddly convincing words. If he hadn’t said anything, Ten wouldn’t have been left thinking about Yuta before, during, and even after the boring movie was over and Johnny was fast asleep with half a candy bacon strip hanging from his mouth (which Ten had pulled out. He doesn’t want any choked-on-candy death on his hands). While sitting on the couch and thinking about his best friend, Ten’s mind had started racing, coming up with hundreds of long, nostalgic sentences that got his heart caught in his throat and ready to spill out in any second.
Ten knew– he had to write down all he felt, and he had to show it to Yuta.
Otherwise, he would never know.
Ten feels like some kind of creepy stalker, standing there in front of Yuta’s door when he knows his friend isn’t even inside. More than once he feels like turning around and leaving, but he can’t make his feet move. They feel like they’re encased in the floor of the hallway beneath him, and suddenly Ten doesn’t even know how long he’s been standing here. A few of the other dozens of boys living at the dorm come and go, but no one bothers to ask what he’s doing or if he’s forgotten his key. They all just walk around him and leave him alone.
Half of Ten hopes one of these times, the guy passing by will be Yuta.
The other half of him prays it’s never him, because what if Jaehyun is with him, and how the hell would Ten explain his presence there to Yuta, let alone to both him and his hot date he’ll probably be meaning to bang? What would Ten say then? Hi, here’s a letter explaining in great detail how I’ve fantasized about marrying you for the past 5 years. Use protection!
Ten shakes his head and looks down to his feet. He needs to leave. He needs to get past this, because he’d lose Yuta if he doesn’t, and if Ten can’t love him the way he longs to, then at least he can still have him in his life in some way. Yeah. He should just leave.
Except that a familiar voice breaks through his morose thoughts, and it makes his breath catch. He turns slowly and sees the familiar frame walking up to him.
Yuta’s back, alone, and he looks… upset?
All Ten can do is stand there, letter in hand, heart threatening to pound its way right out of his throat as his best friend comes closer and closer.
Their eyes meet as Yuta comes to a stop in front of him. “Hey,” he says, voice only slightly confused, like he’s been pulled out from his thoughts.
Ten gulps. “... Hey. You’re back early.
“Yeah, we just had a quick dinner,” Yuta says, masking his annoyance from earlier with nonchalance. Ten looks like a deer in headlights, but why? Maybe something happened, to his mom, to his sister, to Ten himself. Something he needs his best friend for. “Is everything alright? What are you doing here?”
As Yuta inspects him for teary eyes or injuries, Ten realizes he’s still holding the letter. He shoves it into his jacket pocket as fast as he can, not caring if the paper breaks or wrinkles. “I was just…” Think, Ten, think! “I wanted to see if Doyoung was in. Johnny said it’d be nice to invite him over to watch another movie.”
Right. As if Ten would ever be nice to Kim Doyoung.
But the lie is out from his lips and, for some reason, Ten feels scared. Scared to death.
Yuta stands there before him, looking into his eyes like he knows what his friend just said is bullshit. Like maybe he knows something’s wrong, knows what Ten can’t bring himself to say out loud and therefore has written on the letter stuffed in his pocket.
Yuta knows him like the back of his hand. All Ten knows is that he’s shaking like a leaf, and having a bitch of a time trying to disguise it.
But he’s hiding something too, so he lets it pass. “Doyo’s staying at the library again tonight,” he simply says, and Ten allows himself to breathe. “Want to come in for a beer?”
His knees are still shaking and his heart is caught in his throat, but Ten nods. A beer sounds like just the right thing he needs right now to get things over with once and for all.
Yuta steps inside his cold dorm room, flicks on the switch next to the door and walks straight to the mini fridge by his bed. As Ten had imagined, Doyoung’s side of the room is spotless from the cleaning fit he goes through whenever they’re in finals season, while Yuta’s side is nothing but a hot mess. Not like Ten minds, especially right now.
He has so much he wants to say. So much he’s feeling, all jumbled together until it makes him physically ill, his stomach doing somersaults. At least if he reaches out and hugs Yuta, or God forbid, leans up to kiss him right now, he’d have that to take with him after Yuta tells him to leave and to never come back. He should probably do it now.
If he just reaches into his pocket and pulls out the letter…
“Jaehyun asked me to be his boyfriend.”
It feels like a bucket of cold water has been dropped over Ten, no previous warning whatsoever.
Jaehyun and Yuta are official now. Yuta has a boyfriend, and Ten took too long to say how he feels. Again. He’ll either have to wait another four years, or suck it up in case this is it for Yuta. In case this is his happily ever after.
“Oh” is what Ten manages to get out when he finally finds his voice. He hates the tremor he hears in it.
“Yeah.”
There’s silence between them. Yuta has pulled out two cans of beer and placed them over the mini fridge by his feet, but he doesn’t make an effort to open them or gesture for Ten to come get his. He just stares at them, at the couple of water droplets that start forming on the sides of them from condensation.
Ten gulps, still standing by the door, considering if he should just leave without saying anything.
Instead, he clears his throat. “So… You have a boyfriend now, huh?”
Yuta takes a second to respond, like he’s considering it. “Well… Not really.”
“What do you mean?”
“I said no.”
Ten’s heart pounds so hard against his chest that he can feel it in his ears.
So Yuta said no.
“Why?” he asks.
He watches as his friend shakes his head, almost like he doesn’t know the answer either. “I just… Said no.”
Ten swallows hard.
Yuta has the same look on his eyes that Ten first noticed when he saw him in the hall. He seems upset, slightly confused, like he can’t believe what he just did. Jaehyun is attractive, and charming, and kind...
Jaehyun is nice, so why would Yuta say no to dating him?
It’s confusing, but Ten decides he must snap out of it. His friend is clearly upset, clenching his jaw as if there’s something in his mind, and Ten realizes that he must suck it up and be the person he’s supposed to be right now.
He pushes down everything– the lump on his throat, the things he wanted to say earlier, the weight of the letter on his pocket. As he walks closer to where Yuta is, Ten shoves all of his feelings deep inside him, the way he’s learnt to do it in the past four years, telling himself they can wait. Whatever he’s feeling can wait.
Because, right now, he’s Yuta’s best friend first. Hopelessly-in-love loser second.
“What happened after you said no?” he asks, and he surprises himself by speaking with a steady voice.
Yuta shrugs, still lost in thought. “I said no, and he understood... But then he said he wanted to know something else. And he asked me…” he trails off, shakes his head. “Well, it doesn’t matter.”
Ten frowns. “No? It seems like it upset you.”
Yuta purses his lips. “No, I mean… It was the truth. I just had never heard it out loud.”
He’s trying to avoid talking about it.
Ten frowns and moves closer, reaching out to gently touch his friend’s shoulder. “Hey. Look at me.”
Yuta shakes his head.
“Yuta,” Ten presses, tugging on his shoulder. “That wasn’t a request.”
His friend sighs, clenching his jaw. Then finally looks at Ten.
“What did Jaehyun ask?”
A second. A deep breath. Yuta visibly swallows, like he’s nervous.
“He asked if I was still not over you,” he mutters and, once again, he avoids Ten’s eyes. “And I couldn’t deny it, so.”
Ten stares at Yuta in shock, blinking hard.
It was the truth. I just had never heard it out loud.
Yuta, Yuta was still not…?
Ten gives him a strange look, feeling his heart pick up speed again, only this time because of… Could it be… Was Yuta saying that…?
No. It can’t be.
Ten just can’t find the words. What does he mean? He’s definitely not thinking along the same lines Ten is, it’s just not possible. He’s probably thinking along best friend lines. As in, Yuta’s still not over having Ten as his best friend… Or something like that.
Right?
“Jeez, calm down,” Yuta snorts, crossing his arms over his chest, trying too hard to lighten the mood. “Don’t look so shocked at the idea of me having a crush on you. It’s been a while now, in case you haven’t noticed, so don’t worry. I know you don’t like me that way, I’m not expecting you to–”
“Hold on,” Ten interrupts, clarity snapping into his mind in a second. Yuta looks like a caged tiger, arms crossed, looking very defensive and slightly hurt. “ I don’t like you that way? ”
The other blinks, and Ten can tell he’s embarrassed because his ears turn red, the way they used to back in middle school when he had to present something in front of the class. “Forget about it.”
“No, seriously,” Ten mumbles. He tugs at Yuta’s sleeve, suddenly aware. “I’m not asking to feed my ego. What do you mean I don’t like you that way?”
Yuta shrugs, trying to take a step back but failing. He bumps into his bed. “I’ve been giving you hints that I like you for like two years now, but you ignore them and keep sending me on dates with other people,” he explains, like it’s something Ten should already know. “You made it very clear you weren’t interested, so I eventually got a damn clue and stopped before it got in the way of our friendship. You’re telling me… You didn’t know?”
Ten feels like he’s going to pass out any second now.
“You didn’t know?!” he frowns, feeling his cheeks burning. “Here I am, writing the longest letter about the way I feel about you, pouring my heart out and coming here to confess… And your way of doing it is just I thought you knew?!”
He stops abruptly, suddenly aware of two things.
What he just said, and the fact that Yuta looks as frustrated and surprised as he is.
Ten registers his presence before he’s even conscious of the fact that they’re suddenly close. Too damn close. Ten wants to touch him, oh, how he wants to touch him. It feels like everything in Yuta is reeling him closer and closer, like moth to flame, like paper clip to magnet, like he’s going to go insane if he doesn't touch him.
“You wrote a letter?” Yuta asks, and there’s a strange smile on his lips that sends chills running down Ten’s back.
Oh God he said that. Oh God, Ten just wants to melt into the ground, he wants his soul to leave his mortal body and then he wants to haunt Johnny for the rest of his days for convincing him to do such a stupid thing and then...
… Then...
Then he’s engulfed in Yuta’s arms.
Feeling Yuta’s chest heave against his.
Face buried in Yuta’s neck.
Being held.
Being touched by large hands running up and down his back.
It all sends Ten’s mind spinning out of control, whatever is happening, whatever he’s gotten himself into.
How can this be?
How can Yuta do this, before Ten even has the chance to say everything he wrote in his letter?
“I’m sorry, let me do this properly.”
Yuta pulls back, just enough that he can place his hands on both sides of Ten’s head, holding him still, forcing his friend to look into his eyes. Ten doesn’t know if the heart he feels beating a thousand times per minute is his or Yuta’s.
“Ten, I’ve literally had a crush on you for the past 2 years. It hit me after I realized I might like boys, but I think it started way before that,” he admits, a little shyly. “I’ve always thought you were cute. I think it’s cute when you stick your tongue out in between your lips while you’re concentrated, I think it’s cute when you call my name, I think it’s cute when you do my hair and buy us matching earrings,” he recites, leaning in closer with each word he says, slowly, like he’s still waiting for Ten to give him permission. “So what I’m saying is… Ten Lee, my best friend… I’ve fallen for you,” he smiles, millimeters away from Ten’s lips. “Is that better?
Better? It’s what Ten had longed to hear for the longest time.
All Ten ever wanted.
Right here, standing in his arms. Confessing his love.
Still, Ten hums. “I don’t know. I wrote three pages,” he shrugs, and Yuta’s hot breath fans over his skin as the other laughs. “Plus, I’ve been crushing on you for four years. So I think I win.”
His friend smiles again, bright and white and beautiful as always, and Ten has a split second to realize Yuta’s going to kiss him before it happens.
And then he’s on fire, heart in his throat, whole body shaking, because Yuta doesn’t hesitate or go slow at it. Fingers slide from Ten’s chin to cup the side of his face, head tilting so their noses don’t clash, and Ten leans into it, a soft gasp coming from the back of his throat.
It’s beautiful, it’s surreal, it’s slightly desperate.
When Yuta leans away, Ten finds himself chasing after him with his eyes still closed. Hands frame his face, and he slowly opens his eyes, lips feeling swollen though they had only been touched for a moment, and he looks up at Yuta in disbelief.
Neither of them say anything for a while, just stare into each other’s eyes like this is the first time they’re actually doing it.
Slowly, lovingly, a smile tugs at Yuta’s lips. “So,” he bumps his nose into Ten’s. “That letter…?”
Ten’s cheeks burn impossibly red. “Nuh-uh. You had your chance. Had you waited 10 seconds, I would’ve confessed first.”
“So I’m never getting to read it?”
“Maybe someday in the future.”
Yuta stops, looks into Ten’s eyes. Smiles. “Never letting you go for that chance then.”
And he means it.
“Good,” Ten replies, and leans forward to press a kiss to the corner of Yuta’s lips.
Through the years, they learn that every path they take leads to each other. When they see each other, it's as if space and time become the finest point imaginable, as if time collapses into one tiny speck and explodes at light speed. It's as if their universes begin and end with each other. They could run forever, search forever, but in the end, every path leads right back to the other's heart and soul.
They’re twenty two when they confess they’re in love with each other.
That night, in the presence of no one but themselves, in a fulfillment of years’ worth of longing and love and desperation for what only the other could truly provide, they kiss.
Over…and over…and over again.