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The fireworks show isn’t exactly at Beomgyu’s house, but it’s close enough, and the view combined with the convenience makes his house the default meetup location every year. This year is like any other year, other than one small hiccup they’re all trying their best to ignore.
It’s cold, but the thin layer of snow around them is already starting to melt from the heat of the bonfire. Kai keeps a singular focus on his marshmallow. He likes it slightly charred.
“Holding up okay?” Soobin murmurs, and Kai nods, tries to make the gesture come off as relaxed and natural. From Soobin’s soft sound of sympathy, maybe he doesn’t quite accomplish that.
Beomgyu shifts in his seat, causing their shared blanket to pull off Kai’s lap and drop onto the ground between them.
“Oh, sorry. Um…”
Kai feels his mouth thin into a line, then feels saddened by his reaction.
“I’ll be fine,” he says. “The fire’s warm.” Not warm enough, but he’ll make do, acutely aware of the barely three feet separation between their chairs. Too close.
“Don’t be dumb, Kai-yah. It’s freezing out.” Beomgyu sccots his chair closer, but not before he picks up the blanket and haphazardly flaps the snow off of it. “Here.” He holds the corner out, and Kai mumbles a thanks as he takes it, not meeting his eyes. His marshmallow is done.
He blows the flames out on the marshmallow before dropping it into his hot chocolate. There’s a few more minutes until the fireworks start, and so far they’ve been content to just sit and enjoy each other’s presences, the cozy silence only broken by the occasional short musing or memory from the year.
“Shoot.” Beomgyu’s voice sounds pouty. If Kai turns to look at him, he’s sure that his lower lip would be jutting out. He stares at the fire instead, hoping that he’d be drawn in by the hypnotic flames and that the fireworks would be brilliant but fleeting so he could go home faster to nurse the ache in his heart that’s never really gone away. A Beomgyu-shaped ache that has been there no matter what he’s done to try to make it disappear.
He almost spills his drink all over himself when he hears the clang of a metallic tong against his mug, Beomgyu now close enough to where he has to fold his arm slightly to drop his marshmallow into Kai’s cup. It’s slightly burnt, which means it’s too done for Beomgyu’s taste but good enough for Kai. It was quiet before, but now there’s only the sound of the crackling fire, any murmuring having ceased. They couldn’t be more obvious.
“Thanks,” he says awkwardly. He’s saved from having to say anything else when the first set of fireworks start, lighting up the sky with warm yellows and oranges. He hesitates slightly before spearing his tong with a marshmallow, concentrating on finding a good location among the flames when there’s a break in the fireworks. He keeps on—he’d kept on telling Beomgyu before that it was less about the time spent roasting and more about finding a good spot where the flames weren’t too strong, but Beomgyu had never listened. Didn’t really have to, when Kai always did it for him. The marshmallow thankfully doesn’t overcook when Kai has to take his eyes off of it for the next round of fireworks, green and red this time.
The marshmallow is done just before the holiday-themed fireworks end. Kai catches it on the cusp of it attracting a flame. He props the tong across Beomgyu’s cup, cringing when it clinks softly, then releasing his breath in relief when Beomgyu doesn’t seem to notice. He steals a glance and wishes he hadn’t—wishes he doesn’t see the way the lights dance ethereally on Beomgyu’s too-pretty face, highlighting his sharp nose and long eyelashes and lips a bitten red, a byproduct of a nervous habit that must have recently returned.
The last of the fireworks arc across the sky. Kai finishes the marshmallow froth on top of his hot chocolate before standing up.
“I’ll get the sparklers.”
“I moved them,” Yeonjun advises, “they’re in the living room now, underneath the coffee table.” Kai nods.
“Alright. I’ll be right back, try not to miss me too much~”
“The only one who would is B—”
“Take your time,” Taehyun says as he claps a hand over Yeonjun’s mouth.
“Mmrph.”
Kai does end up taking a while, if only because he has no idea what Yeonjun means by under the coffee table. He’s checked every table in the living room, and none of them yield sparklers. He’s about to give up and return back outside when Beomgyu enters the living room.
Well, now he’s definitely leaving.
“You made me a marshmallow,” Beomgyu says before he can formulate a plan of escape, and Kai looks at him dumbly.
That’s his first mistake, looking at him. Beomgyu is wrapped up in one of his fluffiest hoodies, the two-toned one that Kai had gotten for his birthday. It completely swallows up his lithe frame and Kai—he wants to do that too, feeling the overwhelming urge to wrap his arms around him again.
“Yeah? You made me one too?” Kai finally says, shrugging nonchalantly. “It’s fine.”
“I miss you.”
His second mistake is letting Beomgyu get closer, even as he’s reeling from the sudden confession. That had always been an issue between them—between two people who had always been cautious about letting their walls down. Kai especially preferred to let his actions do the speaking, though that was just an excuse to cover for the fact that he was too scared to be vulnerable.
Beomgyu pushes him, and Kai’s knees buckle when they unexpectedly hit the edge of the couch. Beomgyu follows, fingers quickly threading in Kai’s hair as his lips find purchase against Kai’s.
Kai’s third mistake is kissing back, Beomgyu light in his lap, hand cupped across the nape of his neck to bring him closer. Kai had thought it would feel different, but to his dismay, it doesn’t. It feels like Beomgyu has never been gone. It feels like coming home. It feels like his heart is breaking all over again.
Beomgyu skirts his tongue across Kai’s lip before slipping it into his mouth. He tastes like dark chocolate and just a hint of coffee, biting at his lips as he pushes Kai further back against the couch. Beomgyu kisses him desperately, and Kai would be lying if he didn’t kiss him back just as greedily, for once too utterly consumed to think of consequences. Beomgyu’s hands in his hair, mouth sliding against his, the subtle scent of lavender that always clung onto his clothes; it all drives Kai into complete distraction.
Their breathing is ragged when Kai finally finds a break in between kisses, barely having opened his mouth before Beomgyu hisses, “shut up”, his hands sliding down from Kai’s hair to cup his face instead. “Shut up, you idiot.” Kai barely has the reprieve to feel indignant because Beomgyu kisses him again, all teeth and tongue and almost violent until Kai cups his cheek, the pad of his thumb brushing past startling wetness that has Kai opening his eyes, not that he noticed he closed them in the first place.
“Beomie,” he says tentatively in breaths between kisses, again and again until Beomgyu softens, cheek leaning into his hand, melting in all the right ways against him, hands soft, lips softer, and it’s in this way that Beomgyu kisses the breath away from him, gently, like he has something to prove.
“Missed this,” Beomgyu says against his mouth. “I was wrong—we were wrong, I do need you, I love you.” A shaky exhale. “You love me, still. I know.”
“I—”
“No bullshit, Kai-yah. The marshmallow.”
It’s exceedingly difficult to talk and form a comprehensive thought when Beomgyu insists on pressing kisses against his mouth at the same time he presses words, as if that’d make them more permanent, more believable.
“I—” he tries again, flummoxed. “What do you mean—”
“The marshmallow.”
“ Fuck the marshmallow,” Kai says, “what do you mean, you,” and he has to swallow around the lump in his throat, “need me?”
“I’m saying you’re meant for me you stupid idiot, and I’m not going to let you go because we were being dumb,” Beomgyu says, and it’s very unfair for him to finally stop kissing only to press their foreheads together and force Kai to look him in the eyes, wet with tears, shed and unshed. “The marshmallow is one thing you get just right for me. There are so many others, but fifteen minutes ago it’s the marshmallow, right now it’s you holding me like this.” He touches the hand Kai still has cradling his cheek, then the arm that Kai had slung around his waist to keep him balanced sometime after he shifted to be completely on top of him. “Tomorrow, it’ll be the way you make me coffee.”
Kai inhales sharply. He...he wants everything Beomgyu is saying to be true, the promise of more mornings together, but his heart balks at the thought of being shattered again, he doesn’t think he can handle it. He blinks hard, averts his eyes because he can’t look at Beomgyu, shining and so hopeful.
“What makes you think it’s going to be any different this time?” Kai asks, fearful of the answer.
“The 99 days we spent apart,” Beomgyu starts, his confidence from earlier seemingly having taken a hit. He looks smaller now, a bit more uncertain. “Don’t you think so too? It’s not just that life isn’t the same. It’s emptier without you.”
He does. He does think that, too.
He presses his thumb against Beomgyu’s lip, pulling it away from his teeth. “When did you start biting your lips again?”
“Probably when you stopped nagging me about it,” Beomgyu says flippantly. He pulls something from his pockets. “Don’t worry, I use this.” It’s a lip balm that Kai bought him. A smile tugs at his lips.
“You know it’s technically 100 days, right?” Kai says. “It’s the new year now.”
“That’s your fault,” Beomgyu huffs. “You wouldn’t even look at me, so it took me this long to even get a chance alone with you.”
“Sorry,” Kai says genuinely. “Did you really plan this? Even without the marshmallow?”
“Yes, for a while now, and fuck the marshmallow,” Beomgyu grumbles. “You always have these weird metaphors and explanations for the way you feel. I thought it would help you understand.”
Kai giggles, unable to help himself. “It did, Beomie.”
Beomgyu looks at him with a fondness that aches because he’s so familiar with it. “I’m done apologizing. We’ve said sorry enough. I still love you.”
Kai isn’t one to be overcome by emotion, but he feels cracks form in the bottle he keeps them in. How does he tell Beomgyu that he’s never even thought of not loving him, that he is his end and beginning, that he makes him feel so much—
Apparently, Kai takes too long to answer, because Beomgyu swats at him petulantly. “Say it back.”
“I still love you too,” he says, a little breathless. “I was just trying to think of a better way to explain how much you mean to me.”
“I already know. Soobin told me about the songs you wrote for me,” Beomgyu adds, and Kai can feel his cheeks begin to burn. Soobin is so dead later. “If you must know, I wrote one or two myself.” Again, Beomgyu doesn’t give Kai any time to process the revelation as he loops his arms around his neck. “Now kiss me again before they come looking for us.” This time, Kai can feel the curve of Beomgyu’s smile against his lips, except they don’t get very far before they’re interrupted.
“Hey Beom—oh my god.” Something drops as Soobin gasps. “Oh my god.”
“Get out,” Beomgyu says without any heat, not breaking contact all the while.
“Okay,” Soobin says gleefully, “I’m happy for you two, really—”
Beomgyu throws a couch cushion at him, and it connects, from the sound of the resulting yelp.
“Just wanted to tell you sparklers in 15 minutes, since. Uh. Yeonjun-hyung unhid them. I’llbegoingnowhavefun!”
“I’m guessing you had something to do with that,” Kai murmurs as he kisses down Beomgyu’s jaw.
Beomgyu hums something that could be an affirmative. Kai doesn’t care enough to find out, not at the moment, anyway, not when Beomgyu’s hand finds his and he links their pinkies and stamps their thumbs together in an unspoken promise, I love you.
I’m staying.