Work Text:
Seoul, 2014
Jaehyun doesn’t know how much his feelings can last him—how much he’s willing to lose until it burns him.
These feelings he has, they petrify him. He wants to tell Taeyong of his own secrets that visit him every quiet night. He wishes he could grab his hyung’s hands and tell him of his own desires, of his wishes that he knows would never see the light of day. This love of his, it strikes him like lightning and exposes every bone in his body, and he burns.
Sometimes, he thinks of the line where admiration completely stops and where love starts the moment he crosses the boundary with his own feet. If Taeyong were to know of his feelings, would he run back and push him off the line? He loves his hyung dearly, and yet he is afraid of what this love can do for them. But really, what does love look like to a mere 17-year-old?
Perhaps, love is fluid. He keeps his eyes trained onto Taeyong, watching his every move as he sits at the far end corner of the practice room. Taeyong dances like he is on water, and Jaehyun finds that he wants to dip his fingertips onto his surface and let himself be tainted with nothing but his hyung. He is burning at the seams, burning at the edges where the sun seeks to touch. But Taeyong… Taeyong is fluid like water. If he were to drench himself with him, would love finally make sense?
He finds out that it doesn’t. It never did the moment he realized that his admiration is nothing but his concealed desperation for the other. His love for Taeyong, it pretrifies him. It shakes his core and brings horror to him.
He sits in quiet and continues to watch. The practice room is too bright for his liking. He finds that he is scared.
There are three things Jaehyun would never, ever tell Taeyong.
- At 17, he has completely fallen head over heels for him. He is young and afraid, but his feelings are far more powerful than his own fear. He falls in love with Taeyong amidst his own journey of self discovery.
- Taeyong is permanently etched onto his skin. Wherever he goes, whether on stage or in a different country where he is always surrounded by strangers that confess their love for him, Taeyong will stand above all of them.
- He always looks for Taeyong in every person he meets. In South Korea, where he is shaped into the artists he is today. In Japan, where everything looks similar to home, yet still completely different. And in the United States, where he stands more confident and free. No one has ever come close.
Seoul, 2020
Jaehyun still watches him from afar, but he is braver now. He is not burning anymore. Do you know, he thinks as Taeyong continues to stare at himself in the mirror, that I always look for you in places you have touched?
(Taeyong knows. He always have.)