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Taeyang hated it when Keeho called him cute. Well, actually he hated it when anyone called him cute, but he hated it more when it was Keeho calling him cute. Why? you may ask. There were many reasons. One, he had an image to keep; he was not supposed to be seen as cute, he was supposed to just be unbothered and done with everyone else's shit. Two, it made Taeyang flustered; whenever he heard Keeho calling him cute he had to fight back the urge to giggle and whine, and he hated that, because he was a nineteen year old boy, not a twelve year old kid. And three, hearing Keeho call him cute made him feel like Jongseob or Haku, like he was a cute little kid that Keeho wanted to dote on and take care of, and not in the way Taeyang… actually, no, he was not about to go there.
Unfortunately for him, Keeho loved calling him cute. Taeyang was not entirely sure why, he really didn't think he was that cute. He was actually the oldest in the group, he was older than Keeho himself, so why was it that he was cute and Jiung wasn't? Intak wasn't? It made no sense at all, and it made Taeyang frustrated. Did Keeho really think he acted younger than him? Haku once said Taeyang was the one who acted younger than him despite being a hyung… did he actually…? Taeyang sighed. Turning to lie on his back he stared at the bed above his. Usually he was fast asleep before Haku and Jongseob even went to bed, and it had even caused fights between them before, because those two were so loud, but this time the two boys were in deep sleep already, and Taeyang couldn't even close his eyes.
Taeyang knew his sudden insomnia had a reason, too. The thing is Taeyang combined with excitement was a recipe for disaster. Being excited made energy surge through him and left him itching to move, to do something with his body, and if his moves were somehow restricted, all of that energy channeled into clinging to people, no inhibitions or embarrassment. The embarrassment came later, when he recalled what he had done. And just on that afternoon they had prepared for Jongseob's birthday vlive and it was… yes, you guessed: exciting. Because tasty food, balloons, and… and it was just exciting ok? He always saw idols doing birthday lives and now he got to participate in one! Besides, lives were always thrilling, because if he fucked up there was no way to edit it out, but at the same time he got to see the fans' comments real time, which made them seem more… well, real.
But anyways, Taeyang, excitement, bad combo. Of course, it could have been fine, but Taeyang had been placed next to Keeho for the live. And honestly, he was looking forward to the food and the topics they were going to talk about and everything else, so he didn't even think about it before clinging to Keeho, hands playing with the younger's shirt, holding his arm as the live started. And he hadn't thought about it for the rest of the live either. Actually, Taeyang would have just forgotten about it easily, but then Keeho had to go and comment on it. The first thing Keeho did after the live ended was pinch Taeyang's cheeks and squeal that 'our Yangie was so clingy today, you're so cute!' and everyone had laughed, and Taeyang wondered if he could light Jongseob's candles again just to blow it out and wish for a meteor to fall on his head.
Taeyang sighed again and turned to lie on his side. Stupid. He was stupid. This was stupid. Keeho was stupid. And cute. Stupidly cute. Fuck, no, he was letting his mind wander into dangerous territory. Taeyang knew he liked guys, he had known since he was ten, and he had had crushes on boys before. But he couldn't… he shook his head and closed his eyes. He had let his thoughts take over him. He focused on his breath, and willed his body to calm down. Whatever. Keeho would probably tease him a bit on the next day and then it would be over, and Taeyang would be more careful in the future. Perfect plan. Nothing to worry about. Oh, if only he had known.
"Ok, what is it?"
Taeyang looked up in surprise, chopsticks halfway to his mouth.
"What?"
Jiung snorted.
"Dude, you eat with me when you want to be quiet, but I can hear you thinking from here. What's on your mind that's bothering you so much? Jongseob told me you kept tossing and turning last night."
Taeyang silently cursed Jongseob and his sensitive ears, glaring at his noodles.
"There's nothing on my mind," he replied, grabbing the bit of food he had let fall and shoving it in his mouth. By his side, Jiung sighed.
"Taeyang." Taeyang stubbornly kept his eyes on his bowl. He didn't want to talk to Jiung about this. Or anyone else. He didn't want to talk about this, period. "Taeyang."
"What?" he whined. Jiung was looking at him and his eyes had the same glint from when he wanted the other boys to clean up the mess they had made.
"Come on, maybe talking about it will help you feel less stressed. You can trust me."
"There's nothing to tell, Jiung."
"If you don't tell me then I'm gonna start guessing."
Taeyang groaned.
"I should have eaten with Haku and Jongseob."
"You weren't like this yesterday, so it's definitely something that happened recently. Did someone use your shampoo?"
"Why would I be upset over shampoo?" asked Taeyang, reprimanding himself internally for even replying. Jiung shrugged.
"The kids were too loud yesterday?" he shook his head without waiting for a reply. "You were upset before that… because we teased you during Jongseob's live?"
Taeyang knew the way he tensed was almost imperceptible. Unfortunately, he also knew Jiung's eyes were sharp and his attention to detail…
"Oh, so it does have to do with Jongseob's live."
"Shut up," muttered Taeyang, stabbing a piece of egg white.
"Hmm, so was it because we teased you?"
"You always tease me," Taeyang replied.
"True," said Jiung with a snort. "But nothing happened during Jongseob's live…"
Taeyang didn't like the way Jiung trailed off.
"What?" he asked. Jiung was smiling brightly.
"Does this have to do with Keeho?"
Taeyang could feel his cheeks heating up.
"No?" he said, cringing as it came out sound way too defensive.
"It does! Oh, you really were very clingy with him yesterday."
Taeyang knew his face was completely red, he could feel it. He pointed his fork at Jiung.
"Shut up," he said.
Jiung was laughing, the asshole. He was laughing his ass off. Taeyang glared harder.
"Sorry, sorry, it's just funny, you're all red." Taeyang huffed looking at the ceiling and asking whatever deity was listening to take him away. Jiung sniffled, laughter dying down. "Sorry. Come on, why are you overthinking this?"
"Because," he replied, not in the mood to have this conversation.
"Yes, that explains it," said Jiung.
"Can we please not talk about this?"
By his side, Taeyang heard Jiung sighing, which was not what he was expecting.
"If you're really that uncomfortable then sure, we can drop it. But with how hard you're thinking you're probably gonna have another sleepless night later. And if you talk to me I can help you out somehow. Sometimes even just having someone to listen is enough."
Taeyang sighed and put his chopsticks down, rubbing his face, then looked at Jiung.
"You don't even know what you're volunteering to listen to."
Jiung made a face at him, and something told Taeyang the boy was trying not to laugh.
"As long as you don't start ranting about how handsome and hot Keeho is then we're good."
Taeyang didn't mean to screech or knock down his chopsticks, which didn't stop either of those from happening. He hurried to pick up what he had dropped, ignoring the way Jiung was cackling like an evil witch, then buried his face in his hands.
"Oh my god, I hate you Choi Jiung."
Jiung still laughed a bit more before Taeyang felt a hand ruffling his hair.
"Hey, come on, I was joking." Taeyang looked up at that, and he only noticed his eyes were watering because Jiung's soft smile immediately turned into a worried expression as their eyes met. "Hey, wait, no. I really…"
Taeyang huffed, rubbing his eyes. He was only crying because he was so fucking stressed about this.
"Shut up, I'm not upset. I'm just… ugh."
Jiung shuffled closer, and Taeyang chastised himself for being a crybaby. Now Jiung thought he was actually upset.
"Come on, Taeyang. What's the problem here? You were clingy with him, he teased you. What's wrong with that?"
Taeyang sighed.
"I don't like feeling like that. Like when I felt when Keeho teased me yesterday."
Jiung frowned.
"What do you mean?"
Taeyang huffed.
"After the live ended. He… he pinched my cheeks and said I was cute, and I didn't like how that made me feel."
Jiung smiled, but Taeyang's glare stopped any laughter from leaving his lips.
"And you didn't like that because it made you feel…?"
Taeyang groaned.
"I don't know, ok? Weird."
Jiung was looking at him as if he was crazy.
"So… you felt weird when your crush called you cute?"
Taeyang choked on his own saliva.
"My what? I don't have a crush on him!"
At that Jiung stared at him with his mouth hanging open.
"Oh boy, this is worse than I thought." Taeyang stared at him. "Taeyang, you drool every time Keeho passes you by, what do you mean you don't have a crush on him?"
Taeyang raised an eyebrow, but his cheeks were heating up.
"I don't drool."
Jiung rolled his eyes.
"You know what I mean. I thought you were comfortable with being bisexual? You seemed pretty confident when you came out to us, why are you upset about liking a boy all of a sudden?"
Taeyang groaned.
"I'm not upset about liking a boy. And I don't like him, Jiung, for fucks sake. I'm upset because if, hypothetically, I liked Keeho it would be so weird. We're teammates, I can't like him."
Jiung was looking at him with a mix of amusement and pity.
"Yeah, I don't think your heart cares about you being teammates, dude. You like who you like, it's not something you can control. Plus, it's not weird, why would it be weird?"
Taeyang sighed, rubbing his face.
"We work together. What if we started dating and then we fought? It would affect the whole group. Not that it would get to that, because even if I did like Keeho, which I don't, he would never like me back, and it… I just can't like him, ok?"
"Ok, first of all, stop with the 'I can't', because honestly your feelings don't care about what you think you can or can't. Second, I've seen both of you working, and I know for sure that your professionalism is exceptional. Even if you got together and then fought, we would find a way around it. But the main point here is that you need to admit that no matter how many times you say 'hypothetically' and 'if' the truth is you already like Keeho."
The noise that left Taeyang at that moment would forever embarrass him, but Jiung was kind enough not to point it out. At least one good thing for the night.
"I don't want to like him."
"I can see that. But you do, so…"
Taeyang groaned and lay down on the floor.
"You said talking would help, but I feel like shit."
Jiung laughed.
"You'll thank me when you fall asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow. You can even think about how your crush called you cute yesterday."
"Choi Jiung I will not hesitate to kill you."
Jiung laughed harder, and Taeyang managed a little smile. Ok, so, maybe talking to Jiung had helped. Not that Taeyang was now completely comfortable with being called cute. Or with this whole crush thing. Honestly he was still right on the verge of going back to denying he even had a crush on Keeho. But knowing that Jiung didn't think him liking Keeho would be the end of the world helped ease his anxiety at least a little bit.
As days passed, Taeyang learned to fear Jiung's smile. One of his smiles, to be exact. The smile Taeyang had named as the 'torture-is-coming-your-way-taeyang' smile. He was still working on the name.
Taeyang was peacefully reading in the living room when Jiung approached him with one of those smiles, and as soon as he spotted it, Taeyang tensed. He glanced around, spotting Keeho on the sofa next to him. Oh god, what was Jiung…
"Keeho, I can't believe you didn't want to be my partner for December, I'm offended."
Jiung's voice clearly startled Keeho. Taeyang wondered if he had any chance of leaving the room unnoticed, but as Jiung flopped next to him on the couch he resigned himself to his fate.
"What?"
Jiung pouted, but Taeyang could see he was trying hard not to smile.
"I've been your friend the longest and you say you want to be paired with Taeyang or Haku. That's so unfair!"
Taeyang knew what Jiung was talking about. In a recent live, Keeho had indeed said he would like to be paired up with either Taeyang or Haku for the december lives. He had - in a moment of weakness - whined to Jiung about it, because he felt like Keeho saw him like a cute little kid, and he didn't want Keeho to think that of him. So actually, it was his own fault Jiung was doing this. Probably.
"O-oh. Ah, come on. We've been putting up with each other the longest, of course I want to be with someone else."
Jiung laughed at that, and Keeho did too, so no one would actually believe their banter. And then Jiung shrugged.
"Ok, if that's what you want…"
And then Taeyang was being shoved to the side. He yelled, startled, then completely lost his balance as Jiung pushed him and fell on top of Keeho, his hand between the boy's legs and his head on Keeho's chest.
As soon as he noticed their position, Taeyang's cheeks burnt and he froze in place. He probably looked like a fucking tomato and he couldn't move, and Keeho's chest was right there, and…
"uhn…"said Keeho.
"Sorry!" Taeyang yelled, unfreezing and moving back. He risked a look up only to see Keeho staring at him, cheeks slightly pink, eyes trained on Taeyang.
"Oops, sorry," giggled Jiung. Oh, Taeyang was going to kill him.
"You ok?" asked Keeho.
Taeyang embarrassedly nodded, straightening up his back and picking his book back up. But there was no way he would be able to concentrate now, with Keeho's leg pressing against his and their arms touching.
"You better sleep with your eyes open, Choi Jiung," he muttered.
"You said something?" asked Keeho.
"I said your eyes look swollen!" he replied, and then internally face-palmed as Keeho frowned, touching around his eyes.
"They do?"
Taeyang groaned and got up.
"I'm gonna go read in my room."
Jiung, on the couch, was once again cackling like an evil witch.
Scenes like that one became common around the dorm. Jiung seemed to think he was doing Taeyang a favor by embarrassing him in front of Keeho time and time again, and Taeyang didn't know if his face would ever go back to its normal colour after blushing so much. Keeho didn't seem to notice something was going on, for which Taeyang was thankful. He took Jiung's jokes in stride and even joked back, and he kept calling Taeyang cute again and again, and Taeyang didn't know if he loved or hated it. Probably both. He loved hearing Keeho say he was cute, but he felt extremely embarrassed about being called cute and he hated how it made him feel like he was just a cute little brother in Keeho's eyes.
Overall, though, Taeyang didn't hate Jiung's jokes. Problem was their staff and fans seemed to be catching the members' habit of calling him cute, and that was a whole other issue Taeyang was not ready to deal with. But honestly, what could he do to stop that? And that's how he ended up in this ridiculous situation.
Of course out of all the possible missions, his was to get someone to call him cute. With his luck, what else would it be? And of course Keeho was the closest member - Jiung was right there too, but he would never pass up this opportunity. And of course, to end it in style, Keeho knew what Taeyang's mission was. Which would be great if Keeho wasn't such a fucking tease.
"Come on, you have to work for it!"
Taeyang wanted to go home, he was begging someone to please get him out of this hell.
"Please," he asked. Keeho held his hands and Taeyang squirmed.
"Come on, poke your cheek and say 'meow'."
Taeyang wasn't sure if he wanted to die, to kill Keeho or to throttle Jiung.
"Meow."
"No, poke your cheek!"
Taeyang felt something pull in his heart. He didn't want to act cute. Ok, he could accept he was cute sometimes, and he knew he was sweet towards the members at times. But acting cute in front of a camera and a bunch of people he barely knew… and Jiung was laughing and Keeho was purposefully dragging this out. Were all the other times he called Taeyang cute a joke, too?
Taeyang pushed all of those thoughts away and focused on what he had to do. In the end Keeho did say he was cute, tried to pat his head. Taeyang pulled away. This wasn't the type of attention and affection he wanted from Keeho, not at all. But that wasn't the time to think about that, so he politely bowed to the camera and left. He was being too sensitive, anyways. He had to get himself together.
Taeyang was lying on his bed when someone entered his room. He expected Haku or Jongseob, as the room was also theirs, but when he noticed it was too silent he frowned and looked up. He bit on his lip.
Keeho's hair was down and still wet from the shower he had probably taken. He had changed out of his stage outfits and was wearing sweatpants and a sweater, and he looked so soft that Taeyang wanted… he shook his head. He was still upset about the little mission thing, and he didn't want to have these kinds of thoughts about Keeho at the moment.
"Why are you here?" he asked, sitting up. Keeho bit on his lip.
"Can I sit down?"mTaeyang frowned, trying to understand what emotion was swimming in Keeho's eyes. When he couldn't, he sighed and made space for the younger. Keeho sat next to him, way too close. "Jiung said you were upset."
Taeyang was going to kill Jiung, this time for real.
"What would I be upset about?"
Keeho chuckled.
"That's what I asked him. Actually I thought he was just trying to get me to… well, nevermind. Now I know he was actually telling the truth."
Get him to what?
"What makes you think that?"
Keeho pouted.
"Because you're usually all soft and cute after long days, and today you're…"
Taeyang huffed.
"Will you stop calling me that?"
Keeho raised an eyebrow.
"Is that what you're upset about?"
Taeyang looked at his hands.
"I'm not upset," he lied. Badly.
"I didn't know you really hated being called cute. I always thought you were joking."
Taeyang groaned in frustration. God, why were people so dense? Why couldn't they just… read minds, Edward Cullen style or whatever?
"It's not like that," he said, maybe a bit too harshly.
"Then what is it?" asked Keeho, and he sounded and looked like a kicked puppy. Fuck.
"I just don't think you should say things you don't mean."
Fuck, he had not meant to say that.
"What? I've never said anything I didn't mean. You are cute, Tae."
Taeyang cursed the butterflies that decided to fly in his tummy right at that moment.
"Don't say that," he whined.
Keeho looked at him, and he seemed a bit desperate.
"But why not?"
"Because I believe you!"
Keeho seemed utterly confused, and honestly, Taeyang did not blame him.
"I'm so lost."
Taeyang sighed.
"Look. I just… when you call me cute it makes me feel all warm inside, and it's such a ridiculous feeling, but I can't help it. But then you call Haku or Jongseobie cute, but you never call Intak or Jiung cute, so I don't know… I don't want to be in the same category as Haku and Seob."
Keeho was still staring at him as if he was from another planet.
"Category?"
"You treat me like you treat them, like I'm a cute little brother for you to dote on and take care of, and I… that's not what I want."
And then Keeho raised an eyebrow, and something Taeyang said must have made some sense to him, because next thing Taeyang knew Keeho was smiling.
"So you like it when I call you cute… but at the same time you don't like it, because you think I'm treating you like I treat Haku and Seob."
It sounded stupid coming from Keeho's mouth.
It probably sounded stupid coming from Taeyang's mouth too, but he was not gonna go after that food for nightmares.
"Can this conversation be over?"
"Have you never noticed the difference in how I treat them and how I treat you?" Taeyang stared in silence at those words. "Have I ever called you my kid or my son, like I do with Haku and Seob?"
Taeyang shrugged.
"No."
"Of course not. Cause that's not how I see you. I see them as my cute little brothers. I see you as my cute… well. For now, friend."
Taeyang blinked rapidly, because he was sure if he blinked enough times he'd find another meaning in Keeho's words instead of the one he understood.
"For… now?" he asked, looking down as his cheeks heated up.
"Taeyang. Look at me." Taeyang obeyed, because he was that whipped. Keeho smiled at him. "You're adorable."
Taeyang's cheeks were on fire.
"Don't say that," he squeaked.
"Can I kiss you?"
That was it, Taeyang was going to combust.
"Oh my god, can't you just do it? Do you have to ask?"
Keeho snorted.
"Consent is sexy, Taeyang."
Taeyang didn't have to reply to that statement, though, because Keeho's lips were against his before he could even process it.
Once they parted, Taeyang hid his face in his hands.
"Ok. Ok, this really happened."
By his side, Keeho giggled.
"You're so cute."
Taeyang looked up to glare at him.
"Don't say that!"
"Why not?"
Taeyang rolled his eyes to at least try and mask his embarrassment a little bit.
"It makes me shy," he mumbled. Keeho planted another kiss right on his mouth. Taeyang smiled against the other's lips. Ok. So maybe being called cute wasn't so bad after all.
"So, do you admit you're cute?"
Taeyang rolled his eyes.
"Ok, whatever, I'm cute."
Keeho giggled.
"I'm glad you admitted it. Now poke your cheek and say 'meow'." Taeyang glared so hard his eyes hurt. Keeho laughed and pecked his lips. "I'm joking, I'm joking. You don't need to do that to be my cute kitten."
"That's it, I'm breaking up with you."
(Jiung spent the next week teasing them for being dense and unobservant. Taeyang really wanted to kill him, but he owed Jiung his relationship, so he refrained from doing so. Oh, but the day Jiung got a crush… Taeyang would have his revenge.)