Archive of Our Own

Keeho was running late. This was, by no means, a new development or even anything out of the ordinary, he had a bad habit of sleeping in or lounging around his room until the very last second. He wasn’t proud of his poor habits and he would never claim he was but he also wasn’t very good at trying to change them. So he was running behind, again, stumbling over his steps as he ran towards the bus stop, hoping that he would be able to catch the 2:00 shuttle bus to the main campus.

He yanked his mask over his nose and mouth as he got closer, thankful to see a crowd of people around the stop but no bus yet. He had time to catch his breath before he climbed on and had to rush towards his 2:30 lecture. He slowed his pace as he got closer, coming to a slow stop as he noticed the pair towards the edge of the stop.

The taller of the two, a boy with bright turquoise hair cut short and styled up off his forehead, was also wearing a mask and had headphones in, already thin eyes narrowed in irritation as the other person, a young woman with bouncy blond curls, tried to talk to him. She clearly hadn’t gotten the hint that he wasn’t listening and didn’t really want to, phone up and open in his hand. Her voice carried from where she seemed to be talking about literally nothing at all, just trying to keep his attention hostage when he wasn’t truly listening to her to begin with.

Some people would say Keeho had an issue with minding his own business, and maybe he did. He had never been especially good at just leaving well enough alone, even when he clearly should. This time was no different than any other when he saw something that just wasn’t sitting right, and he had to get involved.

This tendency had gotten him into some situations a time or two in the past but it still hadn’t stopped him yet.

He adjusted his mask and walked up to them with purpose, reaching out to the boy. He merely tapped him on the shoulder, the boy turning around with what might’ve been poorly restrained anger, and yanking a headphone out. The girl stopped talking when Keeho had tapped him and Keeho knew he only had a second to come up with a good cover story.

“Hey, babe, sorry I’m late,” he said. The words came out in a jumbled, English rush, a language Keeho didn’t even register he had spoken. But he did register the words and he wanted to kick himself, because what a stupid fucking opening line.

He didn’t know either of these people. This girl could be this boy’s girlfriend and he might’ve totally fucked their relationship. He also was in Korea now, not Canada, and this could get his ass handed to him, easily. The boy might be his height and thinner built but that doesn’t mean that he couldn’t sucker punch Keeho (not that it would be the first time someone had done such a thing to him). And they’re in public, this bus stop was crowded so even if this guy wasn’t incredibly offended, Keeho could also have maybe accidentally outed him if he was gay and holy fuck, why was he so dumb?

For a split second, a hesitant moment, he thought about backtracking and saying something equally stupid like, “oh sorry, my boyfriend has the same hair color, my bad,” or something but the boy’s eyes widened with what Keeho would like to think was understanding and he reached for Keeho’s wrist.

“What took you so long? You sleep in again?” He replied, voice warm and deep, in Korean. His thin, long fingers wrapped around Keeho’s wrist, pulling him closer. The young woman frowned, eyes darting between the two of them. Keeho glanced between her and the guy for a moment before the guy squeezed Keeho’s wrist, Keeho’s eyes darting back over to meet his. They were thin, almost feline-like and dark, some of the darkest brown eyes Keeho could ever remember seeing. Kind of hypnotizing, especially when they were the only facial feature Keeho could see.

“Ah, yeah, sorry,” he said, his brain suddenly remembering how the Korean language worked without the pressing thrill of adrenaline in his system, lifting his left hand to rub the back of his neck. The boy huffed a soft laugh, turning his body towards Keeho’s, blocking the girl from entering the conversation at all.

It was an exclusionary movement and Keeho heard the girl huff before turning away from them, walking a couple steps away, not able to get too far because the stop was so full.

“You’re so lazy,” the guy said and, for just a fraction of a second, Keeho forgot he had walked up on his guy and felt very called out. Just because he was actually kind of lazy and did, actually, sleep in he felt kind of affronted to be called out by a guy he didn’t even know. But just as quickly, he realized the guy was just responding to the scenario presented to him and Keeho sighed softly, sticking close to the guy’s side even as he let go of Keeho and put his headphone back in.

He knew he had just signed the both of them up for a lot of nasty looks from the girl and they would need to keep this up until they got off the bus at main campus lest she get suspicious and start bothering the both of them again. He hadn't thought this through, not that he ever really did when he was feeling impulsive, so he did the only thing he could do that wouldn’t be too uncomfortable and lifted his arm to drape it around the guy’s shoulders, pulling out his own phone and airpods.

The guy shifted further into Keeho’s side and Keeho pressed his lips together behind his mask, forcing the upper part of his face to remain totally unchanged even though the guy was close enough that he could smell the color protection conditioner he used and the soft, herbal cologne he was wearing. Keeho didn’t even know what his whole face looked like but he was feeling kind of dumbstruck.

The bus rolled up to the stop, people filtering off before they could get on. Keeho dropped his arm from around the boy’s shoulders, planning on putting some space between them just in case, but the guy stuck his phone in his pocket and then reached back, grabbing Keeho’s hand. Keeho froze up, the boy sliding his fingers between Keeho’s before tugging him towards the bus. Keeho stumbled over himself, the guy pulling him ahead of the girl from before, who bristled when they walked past her, getting on the bus before she could.

For not being the one to initiate this entire charade, this guy certainly was taking it in stride, leading Keeho up into the back of the bus and settling down in a window seat, tugging Keeho down to sit next to him. What other options did he have, he was pretending to be this dude’s partner so they should sit together anyway, right? So he sat down, set his bag down on the floor between his feet and rested their still intertwined hands on his own knee.

Keeho expected him to pull away. He expected this guy to pull his hand away and ignore Keeho for the entire bus ride into campus. He was planning on it actually, but even when everyone was seated, even when the bus started pulling away from the stop and headed towards the main campus, he didn’t let go of Keeho’s hand. Not even after a few minutes into the ride did he pull away.

Actually, even though he was staring out the window, watching the city pass by, he simply started running his thumb back and forth over the back of Keeho’s hand.

It only took a second before Keeho had his phone in his hand.

After a series of increasingly panicked and distressed texts were sent to his group chat he waited with bated breath, stealing the occasionally not-so-discreet glances at the guy next to him. He still wasn’t moving except for his thumb brushing over the back of Keeho’s hand. Keeho gave his phone a long look, immediately unlocking it when it lit up with a text notification.

All he was met with was Intak and his cousin sending nothing but laughing emojis at him.

So much for some compassion.

He had nothing to console him for the entire 15 minute trip towards campus except for keshi crooning into his ears. He frowned to himself, finding the lofi r’n’b love songs anything but helpful and was actually kind of thankful to hear the automatic voice announcing the main campus stop.

The guy next to him pulled the rope and Keeho picked up his bag, the two of them shuffling off the bus once it had stopped. They didn’t stop walking, even though Keeho knew he was walking the entirely wrong direction from his lecture, until they were at least 100 meters from the stop and Keeho knew they had lost that girl he had interrupted at the first stop.

“Do you realize you were speaking in English back at the apartments?” The guy said, letting go of Keeho’s hand. The cool February breeze seemed even cooler on his hand without the warmth of the guy’s hand in his and Keeho stuffed his hand in his pocket to avoid confronting that knowledge. He rolled to a slow stop though, thinking over his actions and the guy glanced, then did a double-take, also stopping when he realized Keeho had stopped walking.

“Oh my God, I did!” he said with sudden clarity. The guy laughed, shaking his head at him.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re kind of an idiot?” He asked. Keeho yanked off his mask, opening his mouth to retort but the pointed, unimpressed look in the guy’s eyes stopped him in his tracks. Keeho cleared his throat awkwardly, adjusting his bag on his shoulder.

“Perhaps,” he replied in formal Korean. “But you know English!” Keeho reminded him, pointing a finger at him. “You understood what I said!”

“Not the point,” he told him. “Do you always come up to people off the street and pretend to be their partners?”

“Just people who look uncomfortable,” he retorted, the guy shifting his footing awkwardly. “What was with that girl anyway?” He continued, jerking a thumb in the direction of the bus stop.

“I dunno, I just know her from the Korean History class,” he explained. “She’s been bothering me whenever we run into each other. I told her I wasn’t interested but it certainly hasn’t stopped her from talking to me, which is usually fine but I just fucking hate when people talk to me at the bus stop,” he sighed. That Keeho could totally understand. Public transport just isn’t really built for idle conversation. “So, thanks for stepping in, I guess.”

“Oh, uh… sure,” Keeho replied. “Any time.” The guy studied him for a moment before tilting his head.

“What’s your name?”

“Uh… Keeho?”

“I’m Jiung,” he said. “What class are you in?”

“I’m a Junior.”

“Me too. Are you headed to sciences hall too?”

“This is towards the sciences hall! Oh, shit, my class is on the other side of campus,” he complained. Jiung rolled his eyes. “Do you know what time it is?”

“It’s like 2:15.”

“Fuck!” Keeho moaned. “I gotta go.”

“You really did sleep in, didn’t you?” He asked. Keeho paused and then nodded, kind of sheepishly, getting another bout of laughter out of the guy. “Well, before you go, do you wanna give me your number?”

“Uh…”

“If you’re gonna tell people you’re my boyfriend, I should at least have your number,” Jiung reasoned. “And besides, you did say ‘any time’.” Keeho could’ve argued but he was on a time frame and he did say that, what other choices did he have? Crossing campus was going to take at least ten minutes.

“Yeah, okay,” he agreed.

After Jiung sent him a text back Keeho took off like a shot, Jiung calling after him to not fall and die on his way. He didn’t even have the presence of mind to reply, jogging across campus to try and get to his English Literature class before he was too late. He could still hear Jiung laughing in his head even after he had taken the stairs two at a time to the second floor and skidded through the door two minutes before the start time, the professor giving him a long-suffering look but not commenting as Keeho headed up to take a seat.

It was well after the class had started, about 20 minutes into the lecture, that Keeho realized something.

He never actually saw Jiung’s face. Nothing except for his eyes.

Jiung got to his physics lab ten minutes before class started, taking his mask off and tucking it into his bag. Taeyang was already sitting at their lab table, lifting his head as Jiung sat down, pulling his book and pencil case out of his backpack.

“Where have you been?” He asked, tapping the end of his pencil against the top of the lab table.

“I got tied up at the bus stop,” he replied, setting his things out on the table and then throwing his notebook on top of his textbook. “Class hasn’t even started yet,” Jiung reminded him, looking at the front of the room before meeting his friend’s gaze with a pointed look.

“Yeah, but you’re always, like, fifteen minutes early, way before I get here,” he reminded him, folding his arms on top of the table. “So what got you at the bus stop? Someone point out how obnoxious your hair is again?” He joked, lifting a brow. Jiung sighed, dropping his bag on the floor and putting his hand on top of the table.

“You can stop with the hair jokes whenever. I did it for Jongseob,” he reminded him, Taeyang shrugging a shoulder like he wasn’t currently still blond with specks of cotton candy colors in his hair, also persuaded by his very own little brother. “And no, it was that girl I was telling you about.”

“Just tell her you’re gay, it’s so much faster,” he insisted.

“That would be lying,” Jiung pointed out with a half smile.

“Half lying,” Taeyang corrected him. “Semantics.”

“I hate you,” Jiung told him.

“I know,” Taeyang retorted. “So she’s still talking to you, huh? I figured that by the second week of the semester she would’ve figured out that you’re kind of unapproachable and people don’t speak to you because you scare them.” Jiung rolled his eyes. “She’s brave.”

“She’s kind of annoyingly persistent,” Jiung said, opening his notebook. “But I don’t think she’s going to be a problem anymore.” Taeyang lifted a brow, as though inviting him to elaborate. “This guy came up to me at the bus stop today. I’ve never seen him before in my life but he acted like my boyfriend.” Taeyang’s other eyebrow went up. “I didn’t even ask him to, I swear to God I don’t even know him but I played along.”

“Are you insane?” Taeyang retorted with a disbelieving laugh. “Bro, that’s how predators find you.”

“Shut up, he’s our age,” Jiung insisted, “and the guy is too stupid to ever be a predator. He started speaking to me in English.” Taeyang let out a guffaw so loud it drew gazes from the few students currently in the room, making Jiung duck his head self consciously. “Shut up,” Jiung hissed.

“I’m sorry, I’m just— so a total idiot walked up to you, speaking in English, pretending to be your boyfriend, and you just agreed?” He asked.

“Yeah, I guess,” Jiung agreed. “It was easier than dealing with her.”

“You have a weird concept of ‘easier’,” he told his friend. “Did you at least get his name?”

“Keeho. That’s all I got.”

“Never heard of him,” Taeyang said. “Sounds like I got some insta stalking ahead of me,” he said, making a show out of cracking his knuckles and then pulling his phone out.

“Go wild. But after class, the professor's here,” Jiung said, their physics professor walking in the door.

“Honey, I’m home!” Keeho shouted, coming into the apartment. A pillow hit him square in the face, Keeho frowning as soon as it landed. He looked around the living room, Intak lounging on the couch, Sanghyuck lying sideways in the recliner and Hwiyoung absolutely nowhere to be seen. After a moment of thought, he picked the pillow back up and launched it at Intak, smacking him square in the chest, causing him to grunt. “Rude!” Keeho called out, pointing a finger at his freshie, closing the door behind him.

“Ow!” He complained. “Why are you hurting your beloved freshie?” He complained, slumping down the couch until his upper half was draped partially on the floor. “Hyung, you wound me!”

“I can’t stand you,” Keeho replied, dropping his bag on the floor.

“So what’s this about a boy on the bus?” Sanghyuk asked, apropos of nothing. Keeho groaned, falling into the couch. There was the sound of feet in the hallway and then Hwiyoung was in the living room, throwing himself onto the couch, knocking Intak on the floor. The youngest groaned louder than before, slumped on the floor of the living room.

“Sanghyuk hyung literally texted the groupchat as soon as you told him about the boy on the bus,” Hwiyoung informed him, making Keeho whine louder than before slumping into the couch. “Who is this boy?”

“No one,” Keeho whined. “I don’t even really know him.”

“Bullshit,” Sanghyuk retorted, craning his head backwards to look at his younger cousin upside down. “Tell me about him!”

“I don’t know him!” Keeho insisted, throwing his hands in the air. “He’s just this dude who was getting badgered at the bus stop so I stepped in and he was being really nice and stuff to me so I was getting kind of freaked out and then,” Keeho turned to face his cousin, pointing a finger and leaning towards him, “and then, he almost made me late for my lecture by walking in the total wrong direction and insisting he get my phone number.”

“If you don’t know him how would he know what direction to go in?” Intak asked from his position on the floor. Keeho grabbed the pillow and threw it at him, again, without looking. Intak whined, the pillow landing on his face.

“So you have his phone number?” Hwiyoung asked. A blush rose up over Keeho’s neck and into his ears, making Sanghyuk laugh. “So you know his name, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” he muttered. “But, like, I don’t even know what his face looks like! He was wearing a mask the whole time and I had to run to my lecture so I only know what his eyes look like, which is so lame! Like, why did I have to be running late to class?!”

“So, what’s his name?” Sanghyuk asked.

“Jiung.”

“Please hold,” Sanghyuk said, going to instagram immediately. Keeho leaned over his shoulder, Hwiyoung shuffling over to look as well, Intak crawling across the floor to see what everyone was looking at. The name ‘Jiung’ brought up thousands of results on instagram and Keeho sighed, falling back into the couch. “Do you have any mutual friends?”

“How would I know that?”

“What about that one?” Hwiyoung suggested, pointing at a name on the screen. “He’s mutuals with Youngbin and Taeyang hyungs.”

“Youngbin hyung?” Keeho perked up, looking again.

Sanghyuk didn’t need any more convincing, opening the instagram account easily. The profile photo was of someone with thin, feline-like eyes and short, brown hair. He was mutuals with Youngbin, Taeyang and Chanhee, and Sanghyuk had only scrolled down to the posts when Keeho gasped, reaching out to tap a video post.

The bright turquoise hair was a dead giveaway, the video post of him dancing at the school with Intak of all people. Keeho’s eyes widened comically before looking down at his freshman. Intak looked between the phone and his hyung for several sustained moments before trying to crawl away.

Keeho lurched forward, vaulting over Hwiyoung to jump on top of Intak, pinning him to the floor. Intak squealed rather unbecomingly, writhing around while Keeho wrestled him into submission.

“Who is he?!” Keeho shouted above Intak’s squeaking.

“Please don’t get us a noise complaint!” Sanghyuk requested, raising his voice to be heard but not doing a single thing about stopping them, voice monotone as could be as he backed out to scroll through the account further.

“That’s Jiung hyung, he’s in dance troupe with me!” Intak shouted, Keeho having managed to turn him over and press his face into the carpet, causing his explanation to be half mumbled into the flooring. “We do most of our partner work together!” Keeho let go of him, satisfied with Intak’s answer, Intak going limp against the floor once let go of.

“Oh, he’s good,” Sanghyuk commented, still looking through the account. Keeho jumped up to look with them, looking over Hwiyoung’s shoulder to watch the other videos posted to his instagram.

That seemed to be most of the content he posted: dancing. Group pieces with the troupe, pair works with Intak, some solo works, Kpop dance covers, and he was excellent at all of them. A couple of them he even seemed to get fancy with it, pulling out acrobatic moves Keeho couldn’t imagine doing in a million years. Keeho was something of a clumsy guy even if he did have a decent sense of rhythm, and had a tendency to trip over his own two feet.

There were a couple of selcas mixed into the feed and Keeho was mildly perturbed to know that Jiung was good looking. Not even good looking, handsome. Attractive, even. His nose was straight, narrow and small, almost button-like, a genuinely cute smile with slightly oversized front teeth framed by delicately pouty lips. And then there were his eyes, which Keeho already knew were pretty, but only seemed to enhance the overall attractiveness of his face. It was the kind of face that Keeho was kind of annoyed to know actually existed on a real, human person. People weren’t meant to look like that.

“That’s the dude you met on the bus?” Hwiyoung asked, eyes wide as he watched the loop of Jiung doing a no-handed cartwheel and landing it easily.

“Uhm… yeah,” Keeho agreed. “That’d be the dude.”

Jiung let himself into his apartment after his classes were over, Chanhee hyung sitting at the table talking with Taeyang hyung while Youngbin hyung was puttering around in the kitchen. Jiung looked around the room but didn’t comment, Taeyang following him into the room and gently shutting the door behind him. He set his jacket on the back of a chair, Taeyang startling as he turned to look at the room.

“You don’t think this is weird?” He asked, directing the question to Jiung, who merely met his eyes innocently. “Two dance instructors at the college just hanging out in our apartment when we come back from classes? That’s not odd to you?”

“It’s just Youngbin and Taeyang hyungs,” Jiung shrugged off. Taeyang rolled his eyes, tossing his own bag down on the couch. Jiung didn’t even react further, shoes landing on the rack next to the door and he shuffled further into the apartment, waving at Chanhee and Taeyang hyung on his way to the bathroom.

He had just gotten inside when his phone went off in his pocket.

from: Keeho
bro, this really u? [link attached]

Jiung lifted a brow and opened the link, which sent him directly to his own instagram account. Jiung snorted, kind of surprised the guy had managed to find it so quickly. He opened the text back up.

from: Jiung
yeah. was the hair not obvious enough?

from: Keeho
r u serious?! ur fuking sick!

Somehow Jiung was not surprised to know that Keeho textsed like a middle schooler, but he was weirdly flattered by the compliment. He wasn't quite sure why, maybe because Keeho’s never seen him dance before or because, as far as he knows, Keeho has no experience with dance and it always feels good to be complimented by an impartial party, but it was kind of nice.

He opened instagram as he walked back out of the bathroom and saw the little pink notification in the upper right corner of the app that he had a new follower. When he opened it he was surprised to see the handle @stphn_yn following him, and when he opened it he was kind of confused to see a photo of Keeho as the profile photo.

“Hey, Taeyang,” Jiung called out, getting two people answering him. He huffed and turned towards the blond on the couch, “Taeyang-ah,” he clarified, his dance instructor easily turning back to Chanhee. Taeyang gave the teacher a nasty look, making Jiung chuckle as he crossed the room to sit on the couch with him, phone in hand. “I think Keeho just did all the hard work for you,” he says, sitting down with him.

“Gimme,” he demanded, Jiung handing his phone over easily. It didn’t take his friend long to start scrolling through his account with a gusto, taking in the numerous #OOTD posts and selcas that littered the feed, interspersed with surprisingly artsy shots of the outdoors, of food, literally anything that he might’ve found interesting, including a few of an acoustic guitar decorated with stickers that Jiung could only assume was his.

“He’s boring,” Taeyang decided after only a few minutes, tossing Jiung his phone back. Jiung barked a laugh, looking at the feed himself. “He’s cute, but he’s boring. He thinks he’s some artsy hipster bitch and I think that’s boring as fuck.”

“Who?” Taeyang hyung laughed from the table, migrating over to the couch with them. Jiung showed him the account, Taeyang’s eyes lighting up with recognition. “Oh, it’s Keeho! Youngbin, you know Keeho, right?”

“Hyung?” Jiung asked, leaning back against the couch to look at his eldest hyung. Youngbin wandered over, wiping his hands on a rag, which meant he was probably cleaning their kitchen again. Jiung was always telling him not to bother, that he shouldn’t have to clean up after them as well as teach them but Youngbin was kind of a dad-ly character like that.

“Yoon Keeho?” Youngbin asked, coming over to lean over the back of the couch with them. “Oh, yeah! I know Keeho. He’s a good kid. A little… weird, but good,” he chuckled with a smile. “He comes into the music production labs and works with me and Seunghyub sometimes.”

“He’s a music production major?”

“Yeah,” Youngbin agreed. “He works with Seunghyub and Juho more than me, I get tied up with dance troupe so I can’t always be in, y’know?” He explained. “But from what I’ve seen, he’s really good. He’s got a promising future.” Jiung nodded to himself. “How do you know him?”

“Uh…” he glanced at Taeyang who shook his head, as though clearly backing away from the conversation, “we met on the bus today. He’s… something.”

“Yeah, that’s a good way to describe him,” Chanhee agreed.

Nothing really came of their strange, sudden meeting over the next week or so. They didn’t really have anything of interest going on in their lives other than midterms, which meant everyone was far too busy studying to not fail to even think about anything else. Jiung went to dance troupe, Keeho ducked in and out of the music labs and they texted on occasion. It was probably the only constant contact they had with anyone outside of their friend groups anyway, too much to do and not enough time to spend doing anything else.

The middle of the next week, however, just before midterms were about to hit the fan, they ran into each other again, however a little less happenstance than before.

Keeho, despite his laziness, was still trying to get a degree and getting a degree sometimes still required him to go to the library. Usually it wasn’t to borrow books as much as it was to find some peace and quiet considering he was living with his cousin and his roommate and Sanghyuk wasn’t always the quietest person Keeho knew. So, to the library it was, and he was looking, rather in vain, for even so much as an empty seat at a table to get some work done when he heard someone speaking.

“That’s so terribly interesting,” they drawled and Keeho bit his lip to stop himself from laughing. The tone in which it was said was so dead it was comical and Keeho found himself leaning against the end of the shelves to hear more.

“I know how it sounds but Yujin really wanted to do it for the midterm project so I agreed to help her, because, y’know, she would’ve had to do it alone otherwise,” a feminine voice explained.

“Mhm,” they replied, still sounding bored. Keeho wracked his brain, trying to remember why that voice sounded so familiar. Did he know them? “Well, I have my own project I need to finish so…”

“You know, I haven’t seen you with your boyfriend in a minute,” the feminine voice interrupted. “You guys didn’t break up, did you?”

“No, we just haven’t had time to see each other,” they said. “Midterms are in a few days so he’s been busy studying as well.” Keeho sidled around the edge of the bookshelves, hoping to get a peek at the pair through the books. “We figured we would see each other after, y’know, go on a date or something.”

“You should come to the north international apartment block, the students there are throwing a party on the fourth floor after midterms. You should bring him, it’ll be a lot of fun,” the voice continued. Keeho peered between the books and caught a flash of turquoise hair. If this was Jiung, Keeho was going to actually faint.

“My boyfriend doesn’t really do parties,” he brushed off, moving backwards. He was nearly up against the shelves now and Keeho moved back around to the side of the shelves, trying to get a better look. This had to be Jiung, who the fuck else on campus had a voice and hair like that.

“That’s okay, you should come anyway. We can meet up there,” the girl pressed and Keeho frowned to himself. Was this girl dumb or just way too bold?

“Jiung?” Keeho asked, peering around the edge of the shelf. Jiung practically flung himself away from her, the girl in question beginning to frown as soon as she saw Keeho. Damn, this girl was persistent. “Jagiya, I didn’t know you were here,” Keeho laid on, reaching to hold Jiung’s hand.

“I didn’t know you were here either,” Jiung replied.

“Y’know, it’s funny, we were just talking about you,” the girl pressed onward, Jiung stumbling back into Keeho’s chest as the girl advanced on them. “I’m Eunji, I take Korean History with Jiung, I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself at the bus stop,” she pressed with one of the fakest smiles Keeho had seen in a while. “He mentioned you guys haven’t seen each other in a minute.”

“Midterms, it can be hell,” Keeho joked, draping an arm around Jiung’s shoulders again.

“Well, there’s this party in the international apartment after midterms, if you wanna go.”

“I don’t really do parties,” Keeho sighed and then looked at Jiung. “But if you wanna go, we should.”

“Ah—” Jiung stuttered.

“Oh, it’ll be so much fun!” Eunji insisted. “I’ll see you both there,” she said, winking at them before flouncing away in her mini denim skirt and brightly colored leggings. Keeho narrowed his eyes at her, watching her walk away until she was around the corner. After she was gone, Jiung turned and shoved Keeho off of him.

“Are you insane?” He hissed. “We can’t go to that party!”

“Why not?!” Keeho exclaimed, getting several voices hushing him. Jiung rolled his eyes, grabbing Keeho by the wrist and dragging him off to a study room. How Jiung managed to snag a study room during midterms Keeho could not imagine, unless he had slept here, which based on the state of his dark circles and messy hair could be very likely. Jiung closed the door sharply behind them pulling down the shade on the door’s window. “Ooh, the privacy shade while you’re alone with your boyfriend,” Keeho laid on, getting a glare in return, “scandalous.”

“Would you shut up,” Jiung said, Keeho making a face at him as he dropped his bag on the empty half of the table in the room. “We can’t go to that party! If we go to that party Eunji is going to stalk us all night until she can determine whether or not we’re actually dating.”

“So I just don’t leave your side all night? I don’t find you repulsive or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about," Keeho said, dropping his sampler and laptop on the desk. Jiung flinched back as they both hit the table with a bang, looking at instruments as though he’d never seen them before. Keeho glanced between Jiung’s face and his stuff for a moment. “I’m a music production major.”

“I know,” Jiung retorted, getting a narrow-eyed look in response. “Youngbin hyung told me,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“O- okay?” Keeho stuttered. “Anyway, we should go to that party,” Keeho continued, setting his bag aside. “All we have to do is show up for a few hours, stick to each other like glue, maybe close-mouthed kiss like one time and she’ll never be a problem again.” Jiung shook his head vehemently. “C’mon, dude, this is your best chance at getting her to leave you alone!”

“It’s fine if one person thinks I am dating you, I will pretend to date you in front of a single person but I will not have a fake boyfriend in front of the whole damn school!” Jiung told him. Keeho rolled his eyes. “It’s a post-midterms party, everyone is going to be there and then I have to tell everyone that I’m dating you. I don’t even know you!”

“So we ‘break up’,” Keeho said, complete with finger quotes as he said, ‘break up’, “like a week after the party.”

“That defeats the purpose,” Jiung reminded him.

“Look!” Keeho insisted, “I am a great boyfriend!” Jiung laughed, shaking his head. “I am! I have, like, references and stuff! And if we sit here and study together for like… four hours, we’re gonna learn so much about each other and then we won’t be strangers. We’ll be, like, friends!”

“This is your genius idea?” Jiung asked, tone flat.

“Well, do you have a better one?” Keeho retorted. “If we don’t go to that party that Eunji girl is going to follow you around campus for the rest of the semester whether or not I pretend to be your boyfriend because she won’t consider it proof. Also, I know she made a pass at you. I was hiding behind that shelf for at least a minute and she is shameless,” Keeho pointed out, pointing a finger at him. Jiung’s lips twisted. “She doesn’t give a fuck if you’re in a relationship if I’m not around but if we show up to that party like we mean business she’ll give up.”

“You think so?” Jiung asked.

“Girls are persistent, but they’re not crazy like men are. If they see no further opportunities, they’ll give up. I guarantee it,” Keeho told him.

“I’ll think about it,” Jiung allowed, Keeho smiling widely at him. “I said think about it! Don’t look like that!” Jiung said, moving across the room to sit back down at his table. “Sit down, we have midterms to study for,” he said, waving to the other half of the table, currently full of Keeho’s stuff.

“Yes, jagi,” Keeho laid on, Jiung rolling his eyes at him.

The following few hours were filled with mostly silence, the two of them working companionably to get through their own workloads so they would, at the very least, get through their midterms with passing grades. But it also didn’t escape Jiung that Keeho was a talker, he needed to speak to someone or it seemed his own thoughts would cause him to implode. Their silence was regularly interrupted with the occasional question, an inquiry, be it about his work, his friends or his life.

“How do you know Youngbin hyung?”

“He’s the dance troupe instructor.”

“What’s your major?”

“Dance.”

“Why did you dye your hair that color?”

“Because my friend’s younger brother didn’t want to color his hair alone and I’m a pushover.”

“Why can you speak English?”

“My mom enrolled me in English classes when I was a kid and I’ve been going ever since.”

Jiung answered all of Keeho’s questions as they came to him, interrupting the silence every 15 or so minutes as new thoughts came to him. Somehow, he didn’t seem annoyed by this, almost a little bit amused by Keeho’s endless interest in him. And after a time, Jiung closed his textbook with a finality that caused Keeho to look up from his own studies in surprise.

“You wanna get dinner with me?” He asked, lifting a brow.

“I could eat,” Keeho agreed with a small smile.

They went their separate ways after dinner and stayed that way for a few days after. Keeho began texting Jiung on a near constant basis, the two of them keeping in contact when they weren’t studying for their midterms or sleeping or actually taking their tests. Midterms rushed up on them over the next couple of days and spit them back out like a riptide, leaving everyone wild eyed and exhausted in the adrenaline rush of trying to ace their tests. It was a welcome reprieve after all-nighters and all but mainlining coffee to keep themselves awake.

A welcome reprieve, except that Jiung suddenly needed to come up with an answer as to whether or not he and Keeho would be going to this party.

Jiung stumbled out of his Thursday Korean History class and found Keeho standing across the hall from the door, phone in hand and headphones in. He smiled tiredly at the familiar silhouette, crossing the hall through the rush of bodies trying to escape their academic prison.

(“I should pick you up from Korean History,” Keeho said, glasses sliding down his nose and condensating from the steam coming from his bowl of convenience store ramyeon. Jiung narrowed his eyes, slurping up his own noodles.

“What?” He mumbled, covering his mouth with his hand.

“What time is your class?” Keeho asked before shoveling another load of noodles into his mouth.

“10:30, Tuesdays and Thursdays,” Jiung explained, wiping his mouth. Keeho’s eyes bugged out of his face dramatically. Jiung snorted. “It’s a two hour lecture, I get out around 12:30.” Keeho nodded, chewing thoughtfully for a few moments.

“I’ll pick you up after class,” he decided for them. “I don’t have my first class until two those days so we can get lunch or something, if you have the time,” Keeho said. “It’ll be a cute, boyfriend-y thing for me to do. And it’ll piss Eunji off.” Jiung smiled to himself, pushing his noodles around in the paper bowl. “That’s… cool, right?” He asked, suddenly sounding unsure. Jiung lifted his head quickly and nodded.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” he assured him. “I have an hour gap after that class anyway so yeah, we should get lunch.” He cleared his throat, Keeho nodding to himself. “Do you only have afternoon classes?” Jiung asked after a moment of silence, casting Keeho a curious glance.

Keeho blushed, his hair and his beanie almost being enough to cover the red tint to his ears but he nodded. Jiung laughed out loud, taking another bite of his food while Keeho gawked at him.

“I value my sleep, Jiung!” He defended.)

Jiung reached up and yanked a headphone out of his ear, Keeho’s head whipping up, only for his features to transform into an expression of mock annoyance. He pocketed his phone and grabbed Jiung by the front of his hoodie, Jiung giggling softly as Keeho reeled him in, grumbling under his breath about being stolen from.

Jiung’s mirth soon evaporated, however, when Keeho’s stupidly big hand rested on his waist and he pressed a kiss to his cheek. Jiung froze stock still, his hand coming up to Keeho’s shoulder instinctively. It was too quick, barely enough time for him to fully process it, for him to push him away, Keeho’s lips just brushing his cheek before he pulled back and snatched his headphone from Jiung’s hand. Jiung stumbled back a step as he tucked both of them into his case before pocketing it.

“Oh, hi, Keeho,” Eunji greeted him, Jiung whirling around in surprise.

“How do you know my name?” Keeho asked, sliding an arm around Jiung’s waist, pulling him back towards his chest. It felt weirdly intimate, the way Keeho was holding him close to his front, almost protectively pulling Jiung back away from her. Eunji wandered forward though, a bold smile on her face.

“A friend of mine told me,” she said simply. “So, you guys are coming to the party right?”

“Parties aren’t really my thing,” Keeho said, dropping his gaze somewhere on the floor. Jiung looked over at Keeho’s profile, the way he was bowing out.

Keeho was so sure that he wanted them to go to this party, but he was also clearly leaving it open for Jiung to decide. This was kind of his fault, the whole thing about them being a couple, and Jiung thought it was actually rather kind of him to be willing to decline if Jiung really didn’t want to go through with it. And really, Jiung didn’t. He didn’t like parties, he didn’t like drinking and he did not like the concept of lying to everyone at that party that he was in a relationship when he actually wasn't. He was dead set on not going.

But goddammit if that stupid fucking knowing look in Eunji’s eyes didn’t set him off.

“I think it’ll be fun,” Jiung said, taking Keeho’s hand in his. Keeho lifted his head in surprise. “We don’t have to go if you don’t want to but I think it would be fun. We should go.”

“Okay,” Keeho agreed. “If you want to, I’ll go with you,” he smiled, “baby.”

“Great!” Eunji said, voice straining loudly. “See you both there!” And then she was gone, a flash of bouncy, blond curls and a color block jacket.

“Are you sure?” Keeho asked when Jiung dragged him Soju&Co, an off-campus bar a street away from the main campus drag. “You really didn’t want to go and I respect your decision but if you don’t want to go we don’t have to,” he insisted, resting his arms on the table. Jiung huffed, putting his elbow on the table, his chin landing in his hand.

“She’s just so annoying,” Jiung insisted, Keeho making a face in response. “All she does is push my buttons and invade my personal space. I don’t want to deal with her for the rest of the semester and, whether I want to agree with Taeyang or not, I genuinely thought my air of ‘don’t speak to me’ would scare her off by now,” he bemoaned, picking at the peeling corner of a cork coaster on the table.

“You scare people?” Keeho asked. Jiung leveled him with an unimpressed look. “Well, I guess if you look at people like that enough you might,” he commented, getting an eye roll for it. “Look, I promise I will make the party as painless for you as I possibly can. I know I was supposed to be a cover story so you didn’t have to go but I’m actually very good at parties!” He said. The corner of Jiung’s lips quirked up in a half smile.

“Oh, really?” He replied, deadpan. Keeho nodded with the sort of confident air of someone who did not realize Jiung was absolutely reading him in that moment. Of course Keeho was good at parties; he was loud, boisterous, and had the ability to make literally anyone around him like him. Most people like that grinded on Jiung’s nerves but, somehow, even he had been rendered defenseless against the overwhelmingly charismatic charm Keeho seemed to ooze. “You don’t fucking say?”

“I’m pretty good with people, some might suggest,” he continued. “And besides, I promise to stick to my word!” He added. “I will stick to you like glue. Be seen, be heard and then ditch.”

“Okay,” Jiung sighed, dropping his hand to the table. “But you’re paying for lunch.”

“Deal.”

It was short notice, the decision to go to the party, but Jiung was nothing if not crafty and he wasn’t going to go to this party with just Keeho if he could help it.

“I don’t wanna,” Taeyang whined, rolling around in his bed as he complained. Jiung huffed at his best friend’s entirely unnecessary and over dramatic antics just because he had asked him to come to a party with him. “Jiung, I’ve slept like three hours over the past week, I wanna lay in bed and be catatonic. I don’t wanna go to this party and watch you schmooze your not-boyfriend.”

“I can’t go alone with him!” Jiung insisted. “I don’t know him well enough for that, especially in such a public location. There’s going to be drunk people and it’s going to be loud—”

“And you should’ve just said no!” Taeyang said, rolling onto his side, squishing his face against his pillow. “You’re my best friend and I love you and I want you to be happy, but going to a party and pretending to be dating some dude you’ve known for like two weeks isn’t something I would suggest, especially when the blow back could be so much worse than the upsides.” Jiung frowned, crossing his arms over his chest where he was leaning against the doorframe in Taeyang’s room. “People are gonna think you’re a thing and Keeho, whether I’ve met him or not, just strikes me as the kinda dude that knows people. He is Known.”

Taeyang said it with a kind of intonation that Jiung’s mind made up the capital K. And maybe he had a point, Eunji walked up to them and just knew his name, said she learned it from a friend, and whether she decided to do some digging on her own or not clearly Keeho had made enough of a name for himself that people knew who he was. In comparison to Jiung who was only a mild celebrity in dance major circles due to his acrobatic techniques.

He was, perhaps, biting off more than he could chew. But it was too late to back out now.

“That’s why I need you there,” Jiung stressed, Taeyang grumbling in response as he shoved his face further into his pillow. “I need someone that I know and trust with me and who else do I know and trust more than you!” He said, throwing his hands towards his friend in a big gesture. Taeyang glared at him with the eye not hidden by his pillow. “And if this does have serious, major consequences, you’ll be the first one to tell me ‘I told you so’.” Taeyang’s eyes widened with interest.

Jiung knew his best friend and there seemed to be nothing he liked more than to rub it in when Jiung was wrong about something.

“I’m listening,” he mumbled.

“I just can’t deal with a party without someone I know there and if you come with me you get a front row seat to whatever stupid shit the two of us might do, including if this happens to blow up in our faces,” Jiung suggested. “Please come with us to this party.”

“I have another condition.”

“Fine,” Jiung sighed, shaking his head, “what?”

“I get to dress you.”

Keeho knew Intak very well, had practically learned how to plot out his every move ever since he started going to university and Keeho had brought him under his wing as his very own freshie. Which was why he knew that he needed only wait a few minutes after three until Intak came into the apartment like he owned the place. Intak, despite not at all being related to Keeho or Sanghyuk, practically lived there nearly as much as his freshman dorm, which Keeho was sure he should be getting a thank you card from Intak's roommate at some point for.

“Hey, kid,” Keeho said, waving him over. He dropped a pair of water bottles on the counter, Intak narrowing his eyes skeptically at the way his hyung was acting. “I gotta ask ya something.”

“What?” He asked, walking towards him, suspicious of his actions. Keeho was quicker to put Intak in a headlock and tell him he was going to do something than ask him of anything, so he was right to be a little bit unsure of where this conversation was going.

“Come over here,” Keeho said, waving him closer. Intak inched closer still, hesitantly sitting at the bar. “What’re you doing on Saturday?” He asked, resting his arms on the counter. Intak snatched the water bottle before Keeho could take it away, always on his toes.

“I dunno, I was gonna sleep in,” he shrugged off. “We usually have dance troupe until four but Youngbin and Taeyang hyungs canceled it because of midterms so…” He shrugged, cracking open his water bottle. Keeho nodded, tapping his fingers against the kitchen counter.

“Wanna go to a party?”

Intak’s eyes lit up.

“You are not taking the freshman to a party,” Hwiyoung said, wandering into the kitchen. Keeho groaned, pouting at their hyung. “He’s too young and if you get caught giving him alcohol we’re all in trouble.”

“He’s eighteen! I’m sure there’s gonna be lots of kids there his age,” Keeho insisted. “And technically, he’s nineteen, he can drink!” Hwiyoung gave him an unimpressed look before taking a water bottle out of the fridge for himself. “Hyung, c’mon.”

“What party?” He asked, giving Keeho a hard look. Keeho’s lips twisted, looking away from his hyung’s eyes sheepishly.

“The post-midterms party at the international apartments,” he mumbled.

“Oh, I’m going!” Intak insisted. “You’re not my older brother and Keeho said he’d take me!” He argued, Hwiyoung giving him a hard look. “Didn’t you go to parties as a freshman, hyung?”

“The international dorms are not a place that you take freshmen to,” Hwiyoung told them. “Most of the students there are study-abroads in their third or fourth years. It’s going to be rowdy and dangerous and what if someone has drugs?”

“Hyung, you’re acting like I’m irresponsible,” Keeho laughed. “I’ll take good care of my freshie,” he said, reaching across the counter to ruffle Intak’s hair, much to his chagrin. “Besides, I’m going with a friend and I just wanted to bring someone else with me.”

“Jiung hyung?” Intak asked, lifting a brow. Keeho shot him a sharp look, Intak immediately lowering his gaze but not losing his smirk.

“Yes,” Keeho retorted. “I’m going with Jiung and he’s bringing a friend and it’s going to be totally kosher, I promise!” Hwiyoung didn’t look convinced, but generally Hwiyoung didn’t look convinced when it came to most of Keeho’s hare-brained ideas.

It was the curse of living with a post-grad student.

“Okay,” Hwiyoung relented, Keeho grinning widely. “Just don’t lose him and be home before two. And don’t tell Sanghyuk, he’ll go crazy.”

“My cousin did way worse things in college than I do,” Keeho pointed out.

“You don’t have to tell me that,” Hwiyoung shot back.

Saturday morning came and went until it was Saturday evening and Keeho was standing at the bus stop with Intak, who had come over around noon to ask his hyung what he should even wear. It was kind of cute, one of his freshie’s first parties and Keeho was nothing if not a sucker so he gave him a hand getting ready, even let him borrow one of his old leather jackets. Keeho was a little less dressed up but he also didn’t know what Jiung was wearing and he didn’t want to outshine his “boyfriend.”

They had agreed to meet at the bus stop, shuttle to campus and then walk over to the international student apartments a couple of streets over. Keeho didn’t technically live in off-campus housing but Sanghyuk lived in an apartment complex close to off-campus so it was easy to just take the bus, as Keeho did every day, making it a good meeting location. But Keeho noticed that it was ticking slowly closer to seven, it was getting dark and he didn’t want to be too obvious when they showed up.

“Sorry!” A voice called out of the dusk settling around them, joined by turquoise hair and two figures walking towards them. Keeho turned towards the figures, smiling gently. “Taeyang took his sweet fucking time trying to dress me,” Jiung complained, glaring at his friend as he got closer, his friend practically preening despite being glared at.

Keeho’s tongue felt heavy in his mouth, looking at Jiung. Jiung was always handsome but Keeho felt under dressed all of a sudden. Jiung wasn’t wearing anything over the top, but his scoop neck top was deep enough to reveal his collarbones and his jeans were torn all the way up his thighs from the knees, holes big enough to reveal the pockets inside. The boots he was wearing gave him an extra inch or so that made him taller than Keeho and, God help him, was he wearing eyeliner?

“One of you had to be the attractive one in this couple,” Taeyang commented, giving Keeho an up and down. Keeho hadn’t dressed up but his black skinnies, oversized hoodie and converse were definitely in-style. Just because he wasn’t looking like a whole goddammit meal doesn’t mean he wasn’t attractive. Rude.

“Intak, what’re you doing here?” Jiung demanded as soon as he noticed the other person at the stop.

“Keeho hyung invited me!”

“You brought a freshman?” Jiung asked.

“It was that or my post-grad hyung and he didn’t even want us to go. I didn’t have a lot of options!” Keeho defended, making Jiung sigh. “You look good,” he diverted the conversation and Jiung huffed, shoving his hands into the pockets of his denim jacket.

“Half this outfit isn’t even mine,” he replied.

“Could you— hi, I’m Taeyang,” Taeyang interjected, hip checking his friend out of the way. Jiung stumbled, nearly into the curb, Intak reaching out to try and steady his hyung. “I’m Jiung’s best friend and was basically forced to come and really, I’m just here to wait and see if this blows up.”

“I love the vote of confidence everyone has in this plan!” Keeho said, fake enthusiasm coating his voice.

“It’s not a great plan,” Intak pointed out, getting a hard look in response. “It’s not! All you’re gonna do is draw attention to yourselves. I’m just coming for the drinks and music.”

“I’m legally not allowed to lose you,” Keeho reminded him.

“Then let’s trade!” Taeyang suggested. He reached out, grabbing Intak’s jacket sleeve, pulling him towards him while shoving Jiung in the back hard enough that he stumbled into Keeho’s chest. Jiung groaned, hands coming up to grab Keeho’s shoulders while Keeho’s landed on his arms. “I’ll keep an eye on the freshman while you two make fools of yourselves as you make stupid googly eyes at each other to try and fool people into thinking you’re in a committed relationship. I have a younger brother, I got this,” Taeyang assured him, wrapping an arm around Intak’s shoulders.

“I like this plan,” Intak said.

“This the plan?” Jiung asked, turning around to look at them.

“It is now!” Taeyang said. “Look, the bus is coming.”

Out of time to argue, they all trudged onto the bus and shuttled down towards the main campus and then climbed off to head towards the international apartments block. Jiung argued with Taeyang the entire way there, which Keeho was weirdly endeared by, and by the time they made it into the actual apartments block it was clear to see which apartment was the one holding the party. There were colored lights flickering in and out of the windows on the fourth floor and, when they got close enough, the walls seemed to thrum with some incomprehensible house music beat that only got worse once you passed the threshold of the apartment building’s front door.

Jiung froze up on the third floor landing, Taeyang and Intak walking ahead while Keeho slowed and then stopped, looking back at Jiung. He looked kind of like he was going to be sick and Keeho stepped back down to meet him on the landing, reaching for his hand.

“We can go back, if you want,” he offered. Jiung met his eyes with a kind of nervous half smile. “We don’t have to go this stupid party if you don’t want to,” Keeho told him, curling his fingers around Jiung’s. “It’s cool if we just ditch.”

“No,” Jiung sighed, “it’s fine. Just… don’t go anywhere, okay?” He asked and Keeho nodded, a soft smile on his face. “Besides, if I leave after letting Taeyang hyung attack me with an eyeliner pencil he’s going to be so mad.”

“Taeyang… hyung? Like the dance instructor?!” Keeho asked. Jiung nodded, smile widening a bit. “Why was your hyung cool and my hyung thought I was gonna get my freshman hooked on drugs.” Jiung laughed, holding tighter to Keeho’s hand before pulling him back towards the stairs. “That’s fucked up,” he complained, his voice getting harder to hear the closer they got to the music’s source.

The music was a nondescript electronic house beat that Jiung couldn’t identify the origins of if you asked him to. The entire fourth floor seemed to be an open party, apartment doors open all down the hallway and people wandering in and out of the apartments, bouncing between them easily. It was hard to identify where the music was exactly coming from but as they continued down the crowded hall Jiung realized that was because the music changed depending on where you were in the hallway, the electronic house beat fading further into a fast-paced rave style music once they hit the halfway point of the floor. Lights flickered and strobed from random corners of the apartment floor while some just had normal lights and others had no lights on at all, it seemed.

It was chaos and Jiung clung to Keeho’s hand, Keeho guiding him into an apartment that seemed to house mostly normal people, a small living room transformed into a dance floor full of writhing bodies and a kitchen that was overflowing with drinks and various kinds of alcohol.

“Do you want a drink?” Keeho asked, turning around and encroaching on Jiung’s personal space. Not that Jiung would’ve been able to hear him otherwise but it was a bit jarring, the stale scent of alcohol and acrid stench of smoke machines suddenly replaced with cinnamon gum and a spicy herbal cologne. Jiung nodded, pretty sure a drink would at least make it easier for him to relax rather than continue to hold himself so tightly he might pull a muscle in his back.

Taeyang and Intak were already in the kitchen, Taeyang passing Intak a clear, plastic cup. Jiung gave him a hard look but Taeyang merely winked, making Jiung pretty sure that drink was a little more than water. Jiung wasn’t much of a drinker so he grabbed a beer, something he could stomach, and let Keeho pry the cap off of it for him.

“You came!” A voice yelled over the music and Jiung nearly choked on his first sip. This woman was really starting to freak him out, did she have a tracker on him or something?

“Oh, hey,” Keeho said, sliding around to standing at Jiung’s back while Taeyang grimaced, passing Jiung a napkin to make sure he didn’t spill on himself. The last thing he needed was to smell like beer less than a minute into being at this party. “Good to see you again, Eunji,” Keeho greeted her with an over-the-top grin, which she seemed less than thrilled to return.

“Always good to see you, Keeho,” she retorted. “Hi, Jiung,” she cooed, trying to lean around Keeho to talk to him. Jiung rolled his eyes, handing Taeyang his beer before turning around, draping an arm over Keeho’s shoulder as he faced her.

“Hey, Eunji. I’m surprised we ran into you so quickly, it’s so crowded in here,” he pointed out. She tossed her hair over her shoulder, revealing her velvet choker and the strapless top of her mini dress.

“So quickly, I’ve been looking for you for hours,” she retorted. Taeyang’s eyes widened, looking at Intak mildly alarmed. “So you just got here?”

“Yeah, it can be so hard to get Keeho out of the apartment,” Jiung laid on.

“You’re the one who didn’t want to get out of bed,” Keeho retorted, turning his head to look at Jiung, who met his gaze with a pointed look. Keeho merely smiled while Eunji cleared her throat loudly.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to lose my friends, I’ll see you guys later,” she chirped before flouncing off. Jiung shoved Keeho away as soon as she was gone, Keeho began to laugh.

“You’re disgusting,” Jiung told him.

“You’re the one who thought about it like that!” He said, pointing a finger at him.

“Gross,” Taeyang interrupted, putting the bottle of beer back in Jiung’s hand. “I’m leaving and I’m taking the freshman with me. You guys… look couple-y,” Taeyang told them, gesturing vaguely before grabbing Intak by his jacket collar and dragging him away. Jiung huffed, his friend disappearing into the crowd of people with Intak close behind.

Without their friends as a buffer an awkward sort of silence fell over them. At least, as much silence as one could have in a house party, with pounding music, strobing lights and the sounds of yelling students all around them. It was a sort of awkwardness that was built only around the two of them, suddenly forced to deal with the reality of what they were doing.

“You wanna dance?” Keeho asked, with nothing better to say.

“To this music?” Jiung asked, chuckling softly.

“There’s like three DJs on this floor, what music do you wanna dance to?” Keeho asked.

“I want to… not be perceived,” Jiung joked, picking at the label on his beer bottle. Keeho hummed softly, leaning forward to look out the main doorway and into the hallway. There were a lot of rooms to choose from here and it was obvious Jiung was uncomfortable. Maybe just not being seen at all was actually the better idea.

“Okay,” Keeho said, Jiung lifting his gaze from the bottle in his hand. He turned and made himself a drink, some sort of vodka mix that was probably actually undrinkable, but he was feeling confident about his decision and he would need a little more liquid courage if he was going to execute it. He drank half of it in one go under Jiung’s disbelieving gaze and then took Jiung’s hand in his. “I have a plan,” he stated, feeling bold.

“Okay?” Jiung laughed, unsure. Keeho then dragged him from the kitchen and out of the apartment, down towards the far end of the hallway. These apartments seemed to only exist in a shadowy place, things just barely visible through the occasional strobe light that lit up the rooms, throwing everything into stark relief for a fraction of a second before it went dark again, in and out, a syncopated rhythm to the electro-pop dance music that was thrumming through the walls. All Keeho knew for sure was that he was holding Jiung’s hand with one hand, the other clutching his drink and he ducked into a room, dragging Jiung with him.

The flashing lights made it near impossible to actually get a grasp on where Jiung was in relation to him for a moment but suddenly he was there, gone, there again, closer and then darkness, in and out until Jiung was pressed close to him, hand on Keeho’s shoulder to press them together lest they be vibrated away from each from the sheer baseline of the music.

“I can’t see anything,” Jiung said, voice close. Keeho could smell beer and soft, herbal cologne and color protection condition and he reached out, his free hand closing around Jiung’s hip, thumb hooking a belt loop.

“That’s what you wanted, right?” Keeho asked. It was so fucking dark every other second his eyes kind of hurt from just trying to keep Jiung in focus but with every flashing beat he could see Jiung’s eyes. That was something steady and directly in front of him, unwavering where they met each other’s gazes. “No one can find you in here,” he pointed out and Jiung smiled gently at him.

“So, you’re gonna dance with me?” He asked.

“Yeah! If I step on you, that’s on me. I have two left feet,” he admitted. Jiung laughed, leaning forward until Keeho could feel his hair brush his cheek.

“I won’t hold it against you,” Jiung promised, voice in Keeho’s ear.

Under the strobing lights and house music it was hard to remember what exactly they were there for, especially when Jiung was pressed all down his front, his smile thrown into stark relief when the white lights flashed alive for for stuttered seconds, snapshots of Jiung’s smile, his free hand pushing his hair away from his forehead, his long neck on display when he tipped his head back. Up close Keeho couldn’t focus on much of anything except how fucking lucky he had somehow managed to be.

He couldn’t be sure how long he was in that flashing darkness with Jiung, both hands clutching his hips when he’d emptied his cup, lost somewhere on the sticky hardwood flooring, Jiung’s arms wrapped around his neck. It was so easy to get caught up in the heat of the room, of the thick, humid air, the way his hoodie was sticking to his arms and chest where Jiung was pressed against his front, the sweat that was clinging to his hairline and dripping down his temples. Everything was a little bit fuzzy around the edges, rosy with the alcohol rushing through his system.

“Jiung hyung!” A voice cut through, suddenly right in Keeho’s ear. He flinched back from the sound, Jiung peeling himself away from Keeho’s front. In the fractional moments that the lights were on, Keeho could make out Intak through the darkness. Jiung stepped away from Keeho, squinting through the dark to see.

“Intak?!” He called out, Intak grabbing them both by the arms.

“C’mon,” he said, yanking them towards the door.

The lack of light in the room was even more apparent as they slipped from the shadow-y dreamlike state they had let become their reality and out into the more normally lit apartment complex. Keeho blinked several times in a row to try and get his eyes to adjust, nevermind the fact that he was probably buzzed from his single incredibly too-strong drink of the night.

They stumbled after Intak, the younger student keeping an iron grip on their jackets as he led them through the throngs of people, knocking people out of his way and shouldering past groups. Keeho was actually pretty sure Intak managed to knock a particularly drunk girl over entirely but everything was moving a little too quickly for him to make proper sense of what was going on.

“Intak, where are we going?” Jiung demanded, being dragged into an apartment. The apartment was lit with flashing colored lights, the music an absolutely incomprehensible sound of early 2010’s brit-pop and electronica. The change in atmosphere to the practical darkness of where they were previously was nearly enough to have Keeho nauseous but Intak wasn’t done moving them about.

“Here,” he said, pulling them out onto a balcony.

Jiung grasped to make sense of what was going on, especially once met with a face full of cold, late-winter air. It was kind of refreshing after having been dancing with Keeho for what might’ve been hours, in the darkness, in a hot apartment but jarring all the same. He had lost the bottle of beer he had been drinking some time ago after having finished it, leaving him just over the edge into tipsy but not buzzed. He looked around for a moment before finding what Intak must’ve brought him outside for.

“Oh, God,” he groaned. At the end of the short balcony was Taeyang, accompanied by what was the worst pair of party crashers Jiung could’ve imagined. Taeyang’s younger brother Jongseob and his best friend, Shota.

“Everyone else out!” Jiung demanded, startling the pair of smokers next to him. Keeho even started a bit but Jiung swung around on everyone standing outside. “It wasn’t a request!” He insisted, the few people loitering out on the balcony then shuffling quickly off the balcony and shutting the sliding glass door behind them. Jiung huffed, turning then to the problem at hand. “What’re they even doing here?” He asked, briskly walking over to meet Taeyang at the end of the balcony.

“I was just getting to the bottom of that myself,” he said, giving his younger brother a harsh look. “Speak, child.”

“We came to visit Shota’s older cousin!” He blurted out immediately. Jiung crossed his arms over his chest, staring them down. “He lives in these dorms and he said it would be cool if we came over. Right?” He added, looking at his friend.

“Yeah!” Shota agreed, nodding his head quickly.

“Where do our parents think you are?” Taeyang asked. Jongseob grimaced.

“At Shota’s house.”

“And where do your parents think you are, Shota?”

“At my cousin’s apartment. He really does live here!” He insisted. Taeyang lifted a brow. “Well, not this floor but he said it would be cool if we came with him. We haven’t drank or anything.”

Taeyang looked at Jiung, who shrugged his shoulders. Jiung acted like he was Jongseob’s older brother a lot of the time, but that was mostly because he’d known him for years, ever since he and Taeyang met in secondary. Taeyang was his actual older brother though and Jiung was going to divert to him whenever it came to secondary parenting.

“Are you gonna tell mom and dad?” Jongseob asked nervously.

“No,” Taeyang allowed. “But I’m taking you to Shota’s. But if you ever pull something like this again I will tell mom and dad. I’ll take you to your first college party when you’re in college,” he warned him, Jongseob and Shota both nodding in agreement. “I’m gonna take the kids home, hope that’s cool,” he added, directing the latter part of the statement at his friend.

“Someone’s gotta,” Jiung agreed. Taeyang reached out and grabbed his brother by his jacket, Jongseob whining about being manhandled while Jiung brought Shota over towards the door with them. Keeho and Intak were still waiting there, Keeho lifting a brow as his gaze bounced between the young teens and Jiung. “This is Taeyang’s younger brother and his best friend, they crashed the party and Taeyang’s gonna take ‘em home.”

“I respect your gumption but I do not respect your methods,” Keeho told them.

“I’m gonna head home after I make sure they get home okay,” Taeyang said. “Want me to wait up for you?” Jiung shook his head. “Suit yourself. Just don’t wake Chanhee hyung when you get in.”

“Is it cool if I go with you?” Intak asked, tone a tad sheepish.

“What, your college party experience not all you expected it to be?” Keeho joked, elbowing Intak gently in the ribs.

“I have a headache,” he whined, making Jiung snort.

“If it’s cool with your hyung it’s cool with me,” Taeyang said. Keeho nodded.

“Oh, what’re you gonna tell Hwiyoung hyung? I was gonna stay with you guys,” Intak said. Keeho shrugged his shoulders noncommittally.

“I’ll tell him you went home with Jiung’s friend Taeyang and wash my hands of it. At least he’ll have someone to blame if you turn up in a ditch later and it won’t be me,” he joked. Intak rolled his eyes while Taeyang shook his head at him. “Get out of here. We probably won’t stay much longer anyway.”

“Alright. You guys get home okay too,” Taeyang said. Jiung nodded, Taeyang herding his small group of teens towards the sliding door and back into the pulsing beats shaking the apartment. The few people who Jiung had chased off shuffled back out, casting him wary looks, while Jiung jerked his head to the interior of the apartment to Keeho, who followed after him.

The difference between the outside and the inside of the apartment was very apparent and Jiung directed Keeho out of the living space into the hallway. It was starting to thin out at the party as it got later in the evening and the chances of getting in trouble increased exponentially the longer and later the party went on. The hallway was, at least somewhat, quieter than the apartments where stereos and DJs seemed to be running nonstop.

To say it was getting empty, however, would be massively incorrect. There were still crowds of people on the floor, huddled in corners, around doorways, in rooms and even standing in the middle of the hallway. Keeho and Jiung managed to find a place to catch their breath, the sudden adrenaline of the night starting to wane again now that they had found another standstill after all the ruckus with Intak dragging them around and the sudden appearance of the secondary school students.

“So, like, how old is Taeyang’s younger brother?” Keeho asked, leaning heavily against the wall. Jiung leaned against it with him, looking over at Keeho. He cataloged Keeho’s hazy eyes and pink flush and presumed that he was probably still pretty buzzed from his drink.

“Sixteen,” he replied and Keeho’s eyes widened in surprise. “He’s usually a good kid so I’m surprised he and Shota decided to do something so reckless,” he commented, resting an elbow against the wall, head in his hand. “But you know how kids can be.”

“You sound so old right now,” Keeho laughed, tipping his head back against the wall.

“I have an obligation to sound old sometimes,” Jiung retorted. “I don’t have any siblings but Jongseob is like my younger brother, and Shota too. So now I just act like an older brother sometimes,” he brushed off, dropping his gaze to the floor.

“Hey, I get it,” Keeho replied, Jiung lifting his gaze hesitantly. “But you know, when you take on that authoritative, I’m-in-charge voice it’s kind of, like, lowkey sexy.” Jiung let out a disbelieving laugh, betrayed by the blush that was crawling up his neck. “You said people are scared of you but it’s kind of hot too, y’know?”

“Shut up,” Jiung told him, laughing nervously.

For all that Jiung had been told before, that he was attractive and handsome, he couldn’t recall a time that someone had looked at him and said, with complete honesty, that he was hot or sexy. Taeyang had said it before a time or two but those were mostly as jokes or after dance performances or something and he could never take anything Taeyang said seriously. He could admit he wasn't not bad looking, maybe even kind of attractive but not hot, and certainly not sexy.

“You don’t believe me?” Keeho asked, and he sounded affronted, like he was annoyed Jiung thought he was lying or something. Which, Jiung didn’t think he was, he just didn’t think Keeho was a hundred percent serious because he was, y’know, inebriated.

“You’re drunk,” Jiung replied, brushing him off. He pushed off from the wall and reached for Keeho’s hand. “Maybe we should head out.”

“I don’t wanna go yet,” Keeho stressed, pulling back on Jiung’s hand once he had gotten ahold of it. Jiung stumbled back, almost running into Keeho due to his own intoxicated state making him a bit clumsy. Keeho steadied him with a hand on his waist, Jiung righting himself and realizing he was standing in front of Keeho now. “Seems like a waste of time to come all this way and not make sure everyone knows we’re together.”

“What’re you gonna do, kiss me?” Jiung teased. Keeho moved his hand from Jiung’s waist up to rest on his neck, Jiung’s heart suddenly leaping into his throat. “Wait—”

“I haven’t even done anything,” Keeho giggled. “Are you always this jumpy?”

“It’s just— you said we’d only have to kiss one time and you’re drunk and,” he dropped his voice, “we’re just doing this to prove something to Eunji and she’s not even here.”

“She’s still here,” Keeho assured him. Jiung turned to check but Keeho held fast to his neck. “Don’t look. Just trust me.”

He wanted to trust Keeho, because he hadn’t led him astray yet. He hadn’t done anything inappropriate yet so Jiung wanted to believe him. So he did, even went with it when Keeho pulled him in closer, until they pressed together, chest to thigh and Keeho brushed his thumb gently over his jaw. Jiung’s stomach turned over, with anticipation or fear he wasn’t quite sure, but he had a feeling it could’ve been a mix of both.

“Are you going to kiss me?” Jiung asked.

“I dunno, do you want me to?”

“If you fucking play me, Keeho, I swear to God—”

“I am genuinely asking,” he interrupted. “I’m not going to just kiss you without your consent, that’d be fucking rude.”

“Well, do you want to kiss me?”

He’s not quite sure what made him say it but it slipped out before he could really think about it. And, in retrospect, it also mattered, just as much as whether Jiung wanted to be kissed. Keeho may have been the one who offered himself up to this stupid plan but Jiung didn’t want to kiss someone who didn’t want to kiss him back. Keeho was right, it was rude, but it was also just self preservation. If Keeho didn’t want to kiss him Jiung could write this whole thing off and deal with the consequences on his own. He could leave this whole scenario with his dignity still mostly intact.

“Yeah,” Keeho whispered though, so soft Jiung almost couldn’t hear him under the heavy baseline of the building house music beat playing in the apartment next door. “Like, since I saw you at the bus stop tonight.”

All the air in Jiung’s lungs seemed to disappear the moment Keeho admitted that. He wasn’t expecting Keeho to get that deep with him, especially in a sticky, hot, loud hallway in some foreign apartment complex that neither of them had ever been to before. He didn’t think Keeho would be so up front with him, and he certainly didn’t think Keeho would allude to being in this way deeper than pretending to be Jiung’s boyfriend. You don’t admit to wanting to kiss someone for hours just because you’re pretending to be their partner to get someone else to leave them alone.

“Oh. Uhm—”

“So can I kiss you?”

“Just… just once,” Jiung allowed. “One time. That’s what you said, right?”

“Sure,” Keeho agreed. “One time.”

Keeho leaned in and Jiung closed his eyes, bracing himself for the press of Keeho’s lips to his own but it didn't come. It didn’t crash down on him like he’d expected and instead he felt the brush of Keeho’s lips to the corner of his mouth. There were a suspended few moments where Jiung felt like he was waiting an eternity for Keeho to just get on with it, to just kiss him, but Keeho didn’t. His lips brushed Jiung’s and Jiung could feel his breath on his cheek and the brush of Keeho’s stupidly long eyelashes near his temple but no kiss. Keeho dragged it out, like he was just enjoying the few moments he had Jiung waiting with bated breath, standing on the edge of a cliff, waiting for the fall. It was just as frustrating as it was exhilarating and Jiung wanted to snap, tell Keeho to just fucking kiss him already, but his tongue was heavy in his mouth and he was left waiting, helpless.

When Keeho did kiss him, it was slow, methodical. One could suggest, and they would be absolutely correct on all accounts, that Jiung had sort of predetermined how Keeho would kiss him. He seemed the eager type, if experienced. And while Jiung had been correct in assuming he would be experienced, or at least experienced enough to be good, he hadn’t expected Keeho to take it so slowly. For him to kiss Jiung so thoroughly he was dizzy, his brain slowing down, their surroundings blurring into a void of sound and light and heat.

Keeho untangled their intertwined hands to bring his other hand up to Jiung’s neck, cupping it carefully between his palms and angling his head to kiss him deeper, slotting their lips together fuller, driving Jiung even further from reality. His own hands gripped Keeho’s hoodie, fisting the material in his hands so tightly that if he was thinking straight, he might’ve been worried he would rip it but as it was, he was preoccupied.

Everything felt slowed way the hell down, a sweltering heat between their bodies not at all unlike when they were hidden in that strobing darkness. Except now they were far from hidden, Keeho kissing him deeply in the middle of this apartment floor hallway, Jiung grasping at whatever threads of reality he had left to not let himself lose track of himself completely.

Keeho kissed eloquently, gracefully even, even when his mouth opened against Jiung’s own and Jiung, stupid and clumsy, followed his lead, it wasn’t the kind of disgusting, sloppy kissing one usually saw in party hallways. Keeho kissed him with a sort of single mindedly purpose that seemed to be drawing Jiung as close to the edge as he could without pulling him over it. Jiung had never once given thought to how sensitive the inside of his mouth was until Keeho's tongue was in it. If Jiung had the sense, he would’ve been mortified to know the sound he made when Keeho bit down on his lower lip when he finally pulled away from the kiss.

While far from a chaste, close-mouthed kiss, Keeho didn’t go back in for a second kiss, merely pulled away slowly and brushed his thumb over Jiung’s lower lip. His lower lip that, to Jiung, felt bruised, his entire mouth kiss swollen and tingling pleasantly from a really, really good kiss. When Jiung opened his eyes to meet Keeho’s gaze he inhaled deeply, finally releasing the grip he had on Keeho’s hoodie and moved back half a step.

The pounding baseline of the music and the sounds of people came rushing back in, reminding him of exactly where he was. Exactly what he was doing and who exactly he was doing it with. And just as suddenly, he didn’t really want to be there anymore.

“You wanna get out of here?” Jiung asked. His voice sounded rough and he cleared his throat a bit awkwardly, averting his eyes to the floor.

“Sure,” Keeho agreed. “Let’s go.”

Getting out of the apartment complex was a lot easier than getting into it, as people were slowly spilling from the fourth floor down the other three floors and into the front lawns and parking lot of the complex. Keeho held Jiung’s hand the entire time, Jiung leading them back out of the building and down the couple of streets separating them from main campus and their ride home.

This walk was considerably colder and more silent than the walk there, just the two of them trying to get back to their apartments before it got too much later. As it was already well past eleven the buses were running slower, the two of them left to wait around until their bus would show up to take them home.

Jiung’s denim jacket truly was not cutting it, especially with the cool breeze and the sweat on his skin rapidly cooling in the single digit temperatures. When he started shivering in the cold he pulled his jacket closer, trying to retain some of his body heat when he felt a warm presence wrap around his back. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Keeho, felt Keeho’s arms wrap around his waist and leaned back into his chest.

When the bus finally showed up and they got off at their stop, Jiung considered his trek back to his apartment. Unfortunately, his off-campus apartment building was farther from the bus stop than he would’ve preferred, especially at a time nearing midnight when he was cold, tired, and the alcoholic courage was running low into exhaustion.

“You wanna sleep at mine?” Keeho asked. Jiung looked over. “I mean, it’s closer,” he pointed out, the building being only one street over, “and I promise this isn’t me making a pass or anything I just figured. Easier, y’know?”

“Yeah, okay,” Jiung agreed, too tired to argue. “I’ll text Taeyang before I go to bed.” Keeho offered his hand again and Jiung took it easily, letting Keeho lead him back to his apartment.

The apartment was deathly silent, the two of them toeing off their shoes quietly before creeping over to Keeho’s room. It was still in disarray from Keeho and Intak going through his closet before the party but Jiung wasn’t going to judge. At least, not tonight, as long as he could sleep in a bed sometime in the next ten minutes.

He borrowed a set of sweats from Keeho, the two of them climbing into his bed and Jiung sending a text before leaving his phone on the bedside table. The room was cool, the sheets cold and when Jiung turned over to get comfortable, trapped between Keeho and the wall, he felt Keeho’s arm slip over his waist under the blankets, his warm chest against his back. Jiung blinked sleepily a couple of times before his eyelids were too heavy, falling shut.

“Night, Jiungie,” Keeho slurred into his neck.

“Night, Keeho.”

—

The alcoholic haze from the night before hadn’t blossomed into a full blown hangover, but Keeho certainly didn’t feel good when he woke up the next day. There was a sluggish fatigue to his movements and a low-grade fuzz clouding his mind when he tried to wake up from his slumber. He knew he only had himself to blame, that drink that probably at least 50 to 65% vodka the night before and he could barely qualify himself a casual drinker. No, that was probably one of his worst ideas.

His confused state only seemed to get worse when he moved and bumped into another body in his bed, knocking his knee into the back of someone else’s leg. He groaned, curling inward while the body next to him harrumphed softly, shifted and then went still again. He pried his eyes open slowly, pulling his hand back and felt his palm move along a stomach, over the curve of someone’s waist. Keeho flexed his fingers, feeling out the narrow waist beside him, the way their shirt curved and wrinkled over their warm form.

In his alcohol-addled state, the eye searing color of Jiung’s hair being less than a centimeter from his face was one of the last things Keeho wanted to experience. It was too much stimuli all at once and he pulled away from Jiung, uncurled from where he was pressed along his back to turn over in his bed, only to almost fall out of it.

He regained his composure before he could hit the ground, flailing rather ungracefully for a moment before grabbing the edge of his bed and his bedside table to right himself. The rest of his room, while a complete disaster from the night before, was familiar and normal, from the desk in the corner that Sanghyuk had given him to the ajar closet door with a hoodie hanging from the corner of it. He blinked himself awake slowly, yawning widely and shuffling out of the room to go to the bathroom.

When he returned, having relieved himself and teeth brushed, he felt considerably more awake than he was previously, and carried two water bottles to his bed, setting them both down on the bedside table before snatching his Switch from the dock.

He had glanced the clock on the microwave when he went into the kitchen, the glaring red numbers telling him it was already past noon, nearly 12:30 even. Sanghyuk was at work and Hwiyoung had left a note that he was going to campus and not to do anything stupid with his boyfriend while he was gone. He had explained the entire situation to Hwiyoung, twice, before the party the night before but it seemed that was all a waste of time if he was just going to pick on him anyway. Which was pretty par for the course if it was Hwiyoung he was talking about.

Jiung was still dead to the world next to him, asleep facing the wall and completely unresponsive except for the moment Keeho accidentally kneed him in the back of the leg. Keeho slid back down into the blankets and rested an elbow on his pillow, resting his head in his hand as he looked at Jiung.

Jiung was, as Keeho suspected, a pretty sleeper. He was pretty sure that should be illegal, no one should look pretty while they’re sleeping, all that should remain in the movies where it belongs, where people wake up in full makeup and perfect hair. But here Jiung was. And perhaps his hair was a mess, and his eyeliner was smudged considering he had forgotten to take it off the night before, and there were slight bags under his eyes due to the fact that midterms were literally last week but overall, he looked pretty, even while asleep.

It was the kind of irrational nonsense that sometimes made Keeho think he had accidentally gotten himself into a fake relationship with a supernatural creature instead of your run-of-the-mill university junior.

He sighed softly, shuffling up his bed to lean against his pillows and turned on his Switch. Sure, he could’ve gotten out of bed and played his Switch in the living room and left Jiung to sleep but it was also 12:30 on a Sunday after midterms. Part of him just didn’t want to leave his blankets if he didn’t have to and as he turned the sound off completely on his console he settled down into the pillows and figured he shouldn’t bother Jiung anyway.

It was a well kept secret of Keeho’s that he tried to get into Animal Crossing at least once a day, sometimes even more often if time permitted ever since the DLC dropped this last November. He had blown an absolutely ludicrous amount of money his parents had sent him to get it and had been forced to bring lunch to campus every day for two weeks, or even skip it because he inevitably forgot, in order to afford it. It wasn’t a great idea but it had been worth every cent so far.

He had managed to go through his usual ‘when you first open the game’ routine and gotten into the DLC when he felt the bed shift underneath him. He didn’t even give any indication that he had heard it, keeping his eyes on his screen as he ran into the Paradise Planning building, waiting to see if Jiung was actually getting up. It was another few seconds before the bed moved again, Keeho having changed into the work uniform and running about the island to find someone to build a house for, when he heard Jiung stirring, sighing softly beside him.

He felt sooner than he heard or saw Jiung awake, Jiung’s head landing on his shoulder and startling him. He clutched his console for a moment before he relaxed again, beginning to interact with a koala villager he hadn’t seen before.

“What’re you doing?” Jiung asked, voice low and rough. It sounded almost raspy with disuse, making his already warm, deep voice sound even deeper, worn.

“Playing Animal Crossing,” Keeho mumbled. Jiung hummed, settling into his side. Keeho didn’t move, let Jiung get comfortable against him, felt when Jiung rested an arm over his stomach, curling in closer to him. He tipped his head over, resting his cheek against Jiung’s bed head as the cutscene loaded to let him actually build this villager’s house.

They didn’t really move for hours. They didn’t get up, they didn’t change positions, they barely even spoke for most of the day. Jiung left exactly one time to use the restroom and then came back to sit with Keeho again, cheek on his shoulder and softly offering suggestions on how to build certain vacation homes. They didn’t talk about the party, they didn’t talk about their fake relationship and neither of them ever brought up the kiss. Their comments revolved around which villager to design a home for next and where certain articles of furniture should go.

Some uncertain amount of time later they both heard the door open and someone call out that they were home. Jiung looked at the door and then glanced at Keeho. He met Jiung’s gaze and offered him a half smile.

“That’s my hyung,” he answered the unspoken question.

“The one who thought you were going to get Intak hooked on drugs?” He asked. Keeho snorted, turning off the screen on his console. They had just finished their latest house anyway and he was about to leave the newly built home.

“Nah, that’s Hwiyoung. This is my cousin, his name’s Sanghyuk,” Keeho explained. “He’s cool but he doesn’t know we went to the party so…” Keeho gave him a look and Jiung nodded in understanding.

“Is he cool enough to not ask questions about why I’m sleeping over?” Jiung asked. Keeho opened his mouth and then closed it with a soft hum.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I hope so.”

“I should probably head home anyway,” he said and Keeho nodded. “Taeyang’s probably freaking out. He’s probably sent me a hundred texts at this point,” Jiung stated, looking over at where his phone was sitting on the bedside table. It was most likely dead now, waiting to be turned on and reveal the onslaught of messages Taeyang was sure to have sent him.

“Well, let me at least charge it for you for a minute, so you’re not going home with a dead phone,” Keeho told him.

“Yo, is anyone home?” Sanghyuk asked, sounding closer than before. Jiung scooted away from Keeho while Keeho got up from the bed, docking his Switch again as Sanghyuk knocked on the doorframe. “You in, bro?” He looked in the room and stopped short. “Oh,” he mumbled, noticing Jiung.

“Hey, hyung,” Keeho greeted him. “This is Jiung. He’s a friend. He stayed over last night.”

“Uh huh,” Sanghyuk hummed, Jiung offering him a nervous smile. “When, uh, when did he show up?”

“Uh… late,” Keeho replied. “We went out to that thing, Intak and I, and we met up with Jiung and his friend Taeyang. We went out, uh, for dinner and Taeyang and Intak went home but… Ji and I figured we would hang out for a little bit longer so he came back to ours. That’s cool… right?” He asked, grimacing a bit.

“Yeah,” Sanghyuk agreed. “I don’t care, you’re an adult.” Keeho nodded, smiling at his cousin. “But next time just say you went to a party, bro.”

“You are such a bad liar,” Jiung admonished from the bed.

“It’s his worst trait,” Sanghyuk told him with a grin. “Now c’mon, since Keeho brought you over, the least I can do is feed you.”

While Jiung’s phone was charging Sanghyuk made them a late lunch, sort of early dinner. It was already almost four in the afternoon and they had a handful of leftovers in the fridge that Sanghyuk threw into a wok with oil and some rice to make a kitchen sink version of fried rice. The longer Jiung was in Keeho and Sanghyuk’s presence the more apparent it became that they were cousins, and close at that.

“So, Keeho lives with you while he’s going to school?” Jiung asked while Sanghyuk cooked and Keeho scrambled to wash dishes so they would have something to eat out of. Jiung couldn’t very well judge them, if it weren’t for Youngbin hyung’s omnipresence in their own apartment he was sure their place would look very similar.

“Ever since he started,” Sanghyuk agreed. “His mom’s my mom’s sister and Keeho wanted to go to school out here so they were looking for a way to get him out here that wouldn’t cost an arm and a leg, because I’m sure you know how room and board can be at university.” Jiung nodded. “My roommate still goes to the university and I graduated from there so I sort of just never left the area. Worked out in the long run,” he said, reaching over to ruffle Keeho’s hair.

“Hyung,” Keeho complained, swatting him away.

“You guys must be close,” Jiung commented.

“You could say that,” Sanghyuk said. “Before his family moved to Canada he did everything I wanted to,” he laid on, turning off the heat. “Followed me around so much our parents called him my shadow.”

“Hyung,” Keeho whined, drying the bowls.

“What?” Sanghyuk retorted, shoving him in the shoulder. Keeho whined, setting the bowls down and looking around for chopsticks. Keeho was taller than his older cousin, Sanghyuk broader, the two of them clearly related but not closely, but it was apparent to Jiung that they were much more like brothers than cousins. “Don’t be such a baby,” Sanghyuk teased him.

“I was not like that as a kid,” Keeho argued.

“You don’t have to act cool in front of your friend, Stephen,” Sanghyuk told him, Keeho rolling his eyes emphatically as Sanghyuk served the rice. “You were like five, you thought everything I did was cool. And don’t pretend like you don’t remember, I know your mom still has photos.”

“Okay, we get it!” Keeho insisted. Jiung laughed, thanking Sanghyuk through his giggles for the food. Keeho handed Jiung his chopsticks with a huff, frowning at his cousin. “He lives to embarrass me,” he mumbled, the comment directed at Jiung.

“Well, that’s his right, isn’t it?” Jiung replied.

“It sure is, Jiung,” Sanghyuk boomed, grinning wildly. “I like you. Keeho, you’re not allowed to get rid of this one.”

“Yeah, noted,” he mumbled into his food.

Keeho didn’t rush Jiung out the door after they ate but it wasn’t far off, mostly because Keeho didn’t know what other things might come out of his cousin’s mouth. Sanghyuk was one of the people that he had texted when Jiung held his hand on his bus and, their kiss and Keeho drunkenly running his mouth notwithstanding, Jiung had no idea that Keeho’s insides sometimes felt like they were melting when he so much as thought about being with Jiung in a real sort of sense. And he would like to keep it that way until he could parse through those emotions on his own.

“Do you think you can get home on 45% battery?” Keeho asked, Jiung turning on his phone and watching the avalanche of texts come in. Most of them were from Taeyang but there were a couple of other people, one or two at most with only a few texts that only seemed concerned when Jiung didn’t answer them. There were even voicemails from Taeyang, which had Jiung rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, it’s not that far,” Jiung insisted, shoving his feet back into his boots. “Ugh, wish I hadn’t worn these last night though,” he complained, tightening up the laces. When he straightened back up he huffed. “I’ll text you when I get home.”

“Okay,” Keeho agreed.

For an awkward couple of seconds they stood there, Jiung wrapped in his denim jacket but still wearing Keeho’s sweats, Keeho having promised to wash Jiung’s clothes with his own so he didn’t have to carry them home. Neither of them were sure as to how they were supposed to say goodbye after last night. There were still too many things left unsaid and Keeho was unsure if Jiung even really wanted to talk about it or, truly, even remembered what was said last night before he kissed him. Jiung didn’t have that much to drink but there was a lot going on last night. The only saving grace was that Sanghyuk had retreated to his room so he was, thankfully, not there to witness.

“Uhm,” Jiung mumbled, “thanks for letting me stay,” he said, voice soft. “I appreciate it.”

“Sure,” Keeho said.

“I’ll see you on Tuesday, right?” He asked. Keeho’s brow furrowed and then he remembered.

Tuesdays and Thursdays he picked Jiung up from Korean History. Jiung was checking to make sure that was still happening. Jiung was asking if this was still okay, what they were doing. Jiung still wanted to see him, after the party, after the dancing, after the kiss. He still wanted to meet up with Keeho and pretend to be in this relationship even after this weekend.

Keeho wasn’t entirely sure what to make of that but he wasn’t going to say no to still seeing Jiung.

“Yeah,” Keeho said, “I’ll see you Tuesday.”

“Cool,” Jiung mumbled. “I’ll see you then.”

He turned then and slipped out the front door, closing it softly behind him. Keeho let out a heavy breath, leaning against the wall next to the doorframe.

“Well, that was uncomfortable,” Sanghyuk commented from the hallway. Keeho gave his cousin a hard stare. “So, that’s the boy, huh? What the fuck are you two doing?” He asked, a tired smile on his face. A face that said, ‘I’m not sure what you’re doing, and I’m not sure if it’s a good idea, but I also don’t have the ability to stop you.’

“You know, hyung,” Keeho said, lifting his eyes to the ceiling and then closed them with a sigh, “I’m not sure anymore either.”

Without any reason to run into Keeho the following day, their shared bus time being on Wednesday and Friday, Jiung didn’t expect to see Keeho again until Tuesday. It was a sort of inevitability that sat in the back of Jiung’s mind but he had other things to worry about on Mondays, like his Monday / Wednesday Econ class, dance troupe and his weekly meetings with Youngbin, his dance major advisor. Mondays were the one day a week that Keeho hadn’t managed to infiltrate in his life.

And yet, when he came home from dance troupe that evening, sticky with dried sweat and shivering in his hoodie, there Keeho was, sitting in his living room with Taeyang. The two of them were talking, getting along even if the way Taeyang seemed to be picking on him was any indication. Jiung reached back and closed his apartment door gently, Taeyang and Keeho finally noticed him in the room.

“Hey,” Jiung greeted them.

“Hey,” Taeyang replied, “hope you don’t mind. I commandeered your boyfriend for a project in our shared Psych class,” he told him.

“I didn’t know you guys had Psych together,” he said, shuffling into the room. His bag landed on the floor of the living room next to the arm of the couch, his eyes taking in the strangeness of the scene slowly, trying to make sense of it.

“Ah, we didn’t either,” Keeho admitted, “but the professor sprung this chapter project on us and everyone needed a partner and Taeyang and I were the only ones who didn’t have someone to pair up with and… well,” he sighed. “It was a surprise to us too.”

“Small world,” Taeyang said with a grin.

“Yeah,” Jiung agreed. “Tiny.”

It wasn’t unwelcome so much as it was unexpected to see Keeho and Taeyang getting along as they were, working together on this project. Jiung didn’t linger as to not get in their way or distract them but it was hard to ignore. The way Keeho was managing to bleed his way into his life.

Tuesdays and Thursdays Keeho picked him up from Korean History class and they went to lunch. Wednesdays and Fridays they took the bus together and Keeho would walk him to his lab, where he’d greet Taeyang before leaving. Weekends they’d get dinner or study together or Keeho would show up to the end of dance troupe practices, hanging around to see Intak and Youngbin and Taeyang hyung. Every part of Jiung’s life was starting to move and shift and make way, allowing a perfect little gap for Keeho to slip into, to make himself comfortable.

And maybe that was what Jiung was most afraid of.

The party became a thing of the past, a memory that Jiung sometimes thought about as time marched ever forward, but things from it lingered. Like the way people would stare at the two of them. Whispers followed them around campus, rumors that Jiung was only made aware of when Taeyang finally mentioned it.

“I thought we were friends,” Taeyang said dramatically, catching Jiung off guard during one of his few Keeho-free moments. Keeho was actually in class and Jiung was studying in the campus coffee shop when Taeyang decided to drop in just to be a menace. Jiung slowly lifted his coffee, taking a sip as Taeyang got settled, dropping his hands on the table. “Choi Jiung, what else aren’t you telling me?”

“I don’t know, why don’t you tell me what you think I’m not telling you,” he replied, voice deadpan as he set his coffee back down.

“I heard from some rather malicious birds,” Jiung rolled his eyes with a smirk, “that more happened at that party than you let on after I left you two alone.”

“We kissed,” Jiung said. “Is that a crime?”

“You didn’t tell me that!” Taeyang pointed out. “I texted you all day after the party and then you came home at nearly five in the evening after spending all day with him and still you didn’t tell me. I had to hear from some gossipy girls in my Communications class that you and Keeho decided to play tonsil hockey in that apartment hallway.” Jiung frowned, groaning.

“Don’t be gross, it wasn’t like that,” he explained. “Keeho kissed me and, sure, it wasn’t exactly innocent but we weren’t sucking face in the hallway.” Taeyang lifted a brow at him. “It was… an open mouthed kiss,” Jiung said delicately, picking his coffee back up.

“Sure, and then everyone at that party saw you leave with him and some people saw you on the bus with him and, also,” Taeyang stressed, Jiung sighing at Taeyang’s need to be as dramatic as possible about this retelling, “saw you go home with him. Are you seeing what I’m getting at?”

“Yes, I went back to his apartment with him. I slept at his apartment. But we didn’t have sex, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Jiung told him.

“I know that and you know that but no one else knows that,” Taeyang reminded him. “And some people are thinking that not everything that happened that night was exactly kosher.”

“Who cares?” Jiung retorted, making Taeyang’s eyes widen. “I don’t mean that as in, ‘I don’t care if people think I sleep around,’ I mean, who cares because if that’s the case everyone on campus has seen Keeho and I together since the party. Maybe even since before the party. So, most people would probably assume we’re together, right?” he pointed out. Taeyang sighed, rolling his eyes.

“I guess,” he agreed, sounding reluctant. “I just think, you should be careful,” Taeyang told him, opening his textbook, “because some people are saying some things and it’s not about you. It’s about Keeho.”

“What about him?”

“Well… I didn’t say this,” Taeyang prefaced, lifting his hands in mock surrender, “but I heard someone say something about Keeho… keeping his options open.” Jiung tilted his head. “Not-so-explicitly, Keeho doesn’t care to be exclusive with anyone and he tends to ‘see’ people rather than ‘date’ people,” he explained. “Which, personally, no judgment, but I thought you should know.”

“So, what, I should be worried about my not-boyfriend seeing someone who’s not me?” Jiung asked.

“I’m just trying to be a good friend here,” Taeyang said. “It’s a weird thing to hear when Keeho’s been out here acting like your one and only when I’m hearing he doesn’t even do that with people he’s actually with.”

“And you know for sure that that’s true?” Jiung asked. “I mean, it’s just rumors, right? People might just be saying stuff to say stuff, you know how college can be.”

“I know,” Taeyang agreed. “I just wanted you to know because… it seems like something you should know.” He shrugged, pulling out his notebook. “That’s all.”

“Okay,” Jiung replied, “but I’m not worried.”

Taeyang didn’t comment further but Jiung glanced at him and saw that he didn’t look too convinced. That was fine, he didn’t need to convince Taeyang because, for all that Taeyang was his best friend, he also had a bit of a habit of being over protective of Jiung, like he was his second younger brother when Jiung was barely four months younger than him. He could take care of himself.

And yet, when he met with Keeho that evening to get a late dinner he dodged the kiss, Keeho’s lips pressing to his temple rather than his cheek. He couldn’t say for sure why that was but he gave Keeho a smile anyway, taking the offered hand.

For all that Keeho and Jiung had been playing up the relationship thing there still seemed to be an omnipresent obstacle in their way to making them seem totally believable. And that obstacle presented itself in the constant and pressing watchful eye of Eunji whenever she was within sight of them. The main reason they were even doing this.

She seemed intent on making absolutely sure they were indeed together, as if them making it up wasn’t enough to point out that Jiung truly was not interested in her.

Even so, she was not so easily deterred.

“It feels like you’ve been avoiding me,” Eunji said, managing to pin Jiung back against the wall after class on Thursday. Jiung startled, surprised to see Eunji so close, standing next to his seat in the lecture hall while everyone else was packing up their things and headed for the exit.

“Why do you say that?” Jiung asked, closing his notebook and stuffing it into his backpack.

“Just a feeling,” she commented, crossing her arms over her chest. “Ever since you started dating that Keeho guy I just feel like you never talk to me anymore.”

“Well, you know how relationships can be,” Jiung said, getting to his feet. “Puppy love.”

“Right,” Eunji bit out. Jiung smiled, stepping around her to head for the stairs. Eunji clicked her tongue and turned sharply on her heel, following after him. “It’s just too bad, I thought we were friends. And you’ve been so tied up with him I didn’t even see you at the party after that first time.”

Jiung stopped halfway down the stairs. The room was mostly empty now and Eunji’s voice was carrying through the lecture hall, loud and unmistakable. He turned around to look at her, Eunji’s pout firmly in place.

“What’d you say?” He asked.

“I said, I didn’t see you at the party after the first time,” she told him, walking down the steps to meet him. “I lost you after we ran into each other and I didn’t see you the entire rest of the party. I thought that was too bad considering I invited you and your boyfriend to come,” Eunji said.

“Well, we weren’t exactly hiding—”

“No, I guess not, I heard you guys were pretty busy in the hallway,” she commented, walking past him. “I didn’t see you though,” Eunji explained, stepping down the stairs, “I heard it from some of my friends in the apartment afterwards. Yiren said her roommates wouldn’t stop talking about it.” Her clicking boots echoed through the empty lecture hall, Jiung turning to see her step off the stairs and slip out the door.

“Jiung,” the professor called out, Jiung looking over at her. “Everything alright?” She asked.

“I’m fine. Sorry,” he apologized, heading down the steps out the door, the heavy wooden door falling shut behind him. When he stepped out, he glanced to the side and saw Eunji already most of the way down the hall, and then looked in front of him to where Keeho was standing, pulling his headphones out of his ears and putting them in his case. Jiung took a deep breath before meeting him, Keeho giving him a grin as he lifted his head.

“Hey. What took so long?” He asked, reaching for Jiung’s hand.

“Nothing important,” Jiung told him. “Let’s go.”

“Okay,” Keeho agreed, but his voice lacked it’s usual enthusiasm, clearly still confused by Jiung’s explanation. Rather than argue it though he let Jiung lead him down the hall, away from the classroom.

During lunch Keeho noticed Jiung’s lack of enthusiasm, the quiet way he was holding himself, like he was keeping his cards close to his chest. Jiung wasn’t exactly the boldest person he knew but he was even more subdued than he usually was today, not speaking much. He worried that something was wrong but he didn’t think it would help any if he tried to push. If Jiung wanted to talk about it he would, that he was sure of. So he kept it to himself, the two of them falling into silent studying after lunch.

But the silence only lasted so long.

“Keeho,” Jiung said, voice soft. Keeho hummed, looking at him from across the table. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” he agreed. “What’s up?”

“At the party,” he started and then paused. Keeho resisted the urge to hold his breath. They really hadn’t talked about the party since. “When you kissed me,” he continued and Keeho chewed on the inside of his cheek, suddenly nervous. “You said you saw Eunji in the hall. Are you sure that was her?” He asked.

Keeho blinked. That wasn’t where he thought this was going.

“Yeah,” he assured him, a furrow beginning in his brow. “Yeah, I’m sure. Why do you ask?”

“I just— I didn’t see her and you had been drinking. Maybe you made a mistake or… or something…”

“No, I know it was her,” Keeho insisted. “I know what she looks like, I had already seen her that night. And there’s no one else at that party that would’ve been staring at us the way she had been, that’s why I told you not to look.”

“I dunno, maybe they weren’t looking at us at all—”

“She was, I know she was. Do you not believe me?” He asked. Keeho’s eyes fell, thinking back to the hallway. How long it took Jiung to get out of the lecture hall, the way blond hair had all but skipped out of the door before him, Jiung’s silence through lunch. He lifted his eyes again. “Did she say something to you?”

“Yeah,” Jiung confirmed. “She said she didn’t see us the entire party after the first time.”

“She’s lying,” Keeho replied. “She’s doing this on purpose,” he said, leaning across the table towards Jiung. “Eunji isn’t letting this go, she’s obsessed with you. She’ll do anything to get to you, and I was the only one who saw her. You see that, don’t you?” Jiung averted his eyes to the floor. “You trust me, right?”

“I want to.”

It shattered something in Keeho. I want to wasn’t I do. It implied doubt, that there was a part of Jiung that didn't totally think Keeho was telling him the truth. And if that was true, why not? What was it that made Jiung think Keeho was lying to him?

What kind of ulterior motive did Jiung think Keeho has?

Keeho went silent, an uncomfortable sort of silence that blankets a table. It was suffocating, the things neither of them were saying, the implications of what Jiung was saying by saying nothing at all. It was too much for Keeho to swallow, too much for him to just sit there and pretend to be okay with sitting through, and he closed his books and notebooks, putting them in his messenger bag.

“Where are you going? You don’t have class for another half hour,” Jiung pointed out.

“I’m gonna drop by the music labs, work on some production stuff,” he said without lifting his gaze from the table. “I’ll catch you later?” he added, finally lifting his gaze once all his things were put away and he was already standing up. Jiung nodded but didn’t say anything, Keeho stepping away from the table. He headed towards the door, pausing next to Jiung on his way. He thought about doing something, anything, but after that conversation he couldn’t bring himself to and instead just left without another word.

They didn’t speak for the rest of the day and when Keeho and Jiung met at the bus stop the next day they only greeted each other. No other words were exchanged at the stop, on the bus, or even once they had gotten off of it. Keeho walked him to class and pressed a kiss to his temple but didn’t linger, leaving as soon as he had. Taeyang didn’t even see Keeho, Jiung shuffling into the room by himself and falling into his seat.

“Where’s Keeho?” Taeyang asked, Jiung tossing his bag onto the lab table.

“He left already,” Jiung replied, voice matter-of-fact. “He had to get to class.”

“He’s not that late,” Taeyang commented. “He’s never late ever since he started walking you to class. Why’d he leave already?”

“I dunno,” Jiung mumbled, pulling his textbook out. Taeyang turned in his seat to face his friend, lips pursing.

“You guys fighting?” He asked. Jiung glanced at his friend and then did a double take at the face Taeyang was giving him. Taeyang lifted his brows, expectant.

“No,” Jiung told him. “It’s fine,” he brushed off but didn’t elaborate. He went back to pulling his things out of his bag but Taeyang narrowed his eyes.

This was far from over in his eyes.

Jiung and Keeho didn’t meet up for the rest of the day, or Saturday. Keeho didn’t show up to dance troupe practice and no one asked Jiung about it, even when it seemed like Jiung was pushing himself harder than normal. Youngbin looked on with thinly veiled concern but without Jiung engaging in any sort of actually dangerous activity there was only so much he could do. He kept a closer eye on him than normal but that was all he could do. He also noticed Keeho didn’t show up and during a break checked his phone to see a message from Seunghyub.

Keeho’s at the music labs on a Saturday??? his message read. Youngbin sighed but didn’t reply. It was weird but what else were he and his hyung supposed to do?

Dance troupe ended around four and Jiung stopped, sitting down in the corner of the studio for a moment, arms on his bent knees and head hanging forward. Intak looked at his hyung, Youngbin coming up to rest a hand on Intak’s shoulder, Intak meeting his eyes. Youngbin nodded, walking past him to get to Jiung, sitting down on the floor with him. Jiung lifted his head and sighed softly, noticing Youngbin sitting down with him.

“Everything okay?” He asked, voice soft and careful.

“Yeah,” Jiung agreed, curling into himself, folding his legs and resting his hands in his lap. “Why do you ask?”

“You were pushing yourself kind of hard today,” he mentioned, Jiung’s eyes darting away. “Just wanted to make sure.”

“I’m fine, hyung,” he insisted, breathing a little nervous laugh.

“Okay,” Youngbin told him. “Keeho didn’t come today.”

“No,” Jiung agreed, the smile on his face dropping away. “He’s been, uhm, kind of busy lately,” he said. “Said he wouldn’t be able to come today.”

“Alright. Seunghyub said he’s been in the music labs today, but I figure you probably already knew that.” Jiung nodded but it lacked the conviction that said that he did know. “Well, you guys make sure you’re not working yourselves too hard, okay?”

“Yeah, hyung, we’ll keep each other in check,” Jiung said, a smile forcing itself to the surface. Youngbin nodded, giving him a soft smile before getting to his feet. Jiung’s smile slipped away as he hung his head again, taking a deep breath.

Jiung packed up his things and was headed for the bus stop when he got an instagram notification. It wasn’t very often he got one of those and even when he did he didn’t usually check them. But this time instagram had taken the time to tell him, @stphn_yn has posted for the first time in a while.

He tapped the notification, the app opening to show him the new post, which was a video. He scrambled to find his airpods, connecting them and shoving them in his ears to hear a velvety, warm voice drift through his headphones from the video playing in the app.

“If you want me, say you want me / Treading softly, on my body while you tell me / That you're taking it slow, but you're pulling me close / If I bow to the throne, is it better than us?” Jiung found himself stopped on the sidewalk, rooted to the spot as the words washed over him.

“But you don't need to run if you're looking for love / Said it's only a touch, is it better than us to you?”

His eyes unfocused, falling towards the ground as he listened to the words. The song continued with a lower, autotuned section that was this voice but it was a lower register, artificially warped into a soft, more muted tone. But the verses were clear, that warm voice singing over the music, a feat of production that Jiung could only guess was all Keeho.

When he finally got the gumption to look at the caption it was only after hearing the video play all the way through.

music prod. project. challenged myself to remake keshi’s TOUCH from scratch. turned out pretty good even if i did have to use my own voice.

This voice was Keeho’s. All of this song was Keeho, his voice, his production, his mixing, his. He had rebuilt this entire song from scratch and it sounded incredible. It sounded professional, well done and when Jiung finally looked, actually looked at the video rather than just hear it, he realized Keeho had filmed the whole thing in the university music labs. The angle was of the board and his mic, you could barely even see Keeho along the right edge of the frame, probably on purpose, but you could see the whole process of him running the music while he recorded. He did this all on his own.

Eventually, Jiung got to the stop, got on the bus, but he kept Keeho’s cover playing on repeat in his ears.

“Wrong, but it feels so right / Wrong, but it feels so right / It don't make sense, but it feels so nice / Show me, show me, oh / Show me your chest on mine / Show me your legs up high / I don't wanna kiss all night, kiss all night…

Jiung half expected to find Keeho in his apartment on Monday but there was a note from Taeyang telling him he and Keeho were working at the library. It was a little disappointing but what could he really expect?

Tuesday Jiung sat in class, trying to pay attention to his history lecture when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He glanced around the room before slipping the device from his pocket and checking to see who was messaging him during his class.

got some music prod stuff i have to do w/ juho hyung today. rain check on lunch?

Jiung frowned to himself, turning his phone back over and putting it back in his pocket.

Wednesday Jiung stood at the bus stop, waiting to see if Keeho would show up. It was starting to get close to two o’cock and he was going to miss the bus if he didn’t hurry up. He had just pulled his phone out when it went off in his hand with a text from Keeho.

something came up w/ sanghyuk hyung. i can’t make class today. see you tmrw.

Jiung sighed, putting his phone back in his pocket, his question answered but not like he was hoping.

“He’s avoiding you?” Taeyang asked when Jiung explained it to him. Jiung was lying on his back on the couch after having explained the situation to his friend, throw blanket pulled up over his face, arm hanging off of the couch. It wasn’t like Jiung to get dramatic about stuff but he was starting to get upset because what was he supposed to do?

“I guess!” He shouted, voice a little bit muffled due to the knit pulled over his face.

“So you are fighting!” Taeyang accused, pointing a finger at his friend. Jiung ripped the blanket off of his face, turning his head to the side to look at his friend. Taeyang gave him a pointed, wild eyed look from where he was sitting on the other side of the coffee table, between it and the television. “Do not lie to me,” he warned.

“We’re not fighting because fighting requires people to be talking,” Jiung clarified, making Taeyang roll his eyes. “We are, perhaps, in a disagreement.”

“That’s a fight,” Taeyang corrected him.

“Whatever!” Jiung yelled. “For three days now he’s been avoiding speaking to me. You can’t tell me working at the library was your idea,” he said, Taeyang shrugging his shoulders in response. “Then he texted me yesterday that some music production stuff had come up and today he told me that something came up with Sanghyuk and he can’t make class. This is feeling very targeted,” he explained.

“Well, did anything happen that might’ve upset him?” Taeyang asked. Jiung looked away, turning his face back towards the ceiling. “Jiung,” Taeyang said, voice going soft. Jiung hated when he did that because Taeyang never sounded soft, not unless he knew Jiung was upset and felt like he had to be careful and Jiung hated when people treated him like that. “What happened?”

“Eunji cornered me after class last Thursday,” Jiung mumbled, “and she said she didn’t see us at the party after we saw her the first time, y’know, in the kitchen with you guys.” Taeyang hummed in agreement. “But when Keeho kissed me in the hallway he said Eunji was still there, that she was looking. So I let him kiss me.”

“So you think he lied so he could kiss you?” Taeyang summed up.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“You really think he would do that? Or are you just looking for a reason not to trust him?”

“Why would I do that?” Jiung shot back, turning his head to look at Taeyang, who shrugged.

“I don’t know, you tell me,” he replied. “I just told you what I had heard from rumors and now you’re out here picking fights because you heard something from this girl that you don’t even really like and I definitely don’t think you should trust. Keeho’s a lot of things, like an idiot,” Taeyang admitted, making Jiung snort, “but he’s not a bad guy. And he’s not a liar.”

“I just don’t know what someone like him gains from doing something like this,” Jiung says. Taeyang’s brow furrowed.

“What do you mean?”

“Why even bother helping me?” Jiung said, looking back at the ceiling. “He’s not getting anything out of this except a lot of grief. He doesn’t have to do this, but he is. He walked right up to me at the bus stop and pretended to be my boyfriend without any reason and then kept it up. Why?”

“This is going to sound crazy, but hear me out,” Taeyang said. “What if Keeho’s just a really good dude?” Jiung hummed noncommittal. “I know what it sounds like and I know Keeho’s kind of stupid but I don’t think that guy has a mean bone in his body. I know it feels like everyone has an ulterior motive these days and it feels like it’s too good to be true but I really can’t imagine Keeho is.”

For all that Jiung has wracked his brain over this situation, this thing that he and Keeho were doing, every time he ever tried to come up with a reason Keeho was doing this other than out of the goodness of his heart he, too, has come up empty. Maybe he just wanted to be proved wrong so he could leave this with some dignity intact so it didn’t come back to bite him and make him look like a fool but… what is there? If Keeho was really doing this just because he was attracted to Jiung and was trying to get something from him, he was playing the long con, much longer than any other guy would who was just looking for sex. He wasn't really getting anything and, at this point, it would be easier to walk away. But he hasn’t.

“I think I owe Keeho an apology.”

“Yeah,” Taeyang confirmed, “I think you might be onto something.”

When Keeho got ready to head to campus Thursday he considered not even going. After missing two days in a row to meet up with him, he wondered if Jiung would even be interested in seeing him again. If he didn’t want to, Keeho wouldn’t blame him and he wondered, even as he boarded the bus to head to campus, if this was worth it at all. But he went anyway because even though he and Jiung were on the outs he still wanted to see him.

And the last few days that he’d been alone with his thoughts, trying to figure out what the tightness in his chest and fluttering in stomach meant, all he knew was that he wasn't ready to walk away from Jiung yet.

So he walked to the history lecture hall, apprehension tying up his insides, worry gnawing at the back of his mind because he still didn’t know what Jiung’s reaction to seeing him would be. He showed up at his usual spot outside the door, hands tucked into the pocket of his hoodie and waited for his class to get out.

He didn’t have to wait long, he never did, the door opening and he averted his eyes to the floor. Most of these students had gotten used to seeing him, ever present ever since midterms to meet up with Jiung when he left the classroom. He chewed on his lower lip nervously, hesitantly lifting his eyes and waiting to see Jiung’s tell tale brightly colored hair come around the edge of the door frame.

When he did, Keeho straightened up from where he was leaning, Jiung focused on putting his phone in his pocket. When he lifted his head he paused just outside the door, looking at Keeho. Keeho offered him a half smile, the corner of his lips tilting up just a bit. Jiung’s expression didn’t change even as he advanced on him, Keeho shrinking back against the wall in anxiety, not quite sure what Jiung was thinking as he came up to him.

It was only another moment before his fears melted away, Jiung reaching up to cup his hand around Keeho’s cheek, pulling him towards him in a kiss. Their lips pressed together, hard but not harsh, Jiung making a point of this kiss. Keeho’s eyes widened in surprise before they fell shut, his hands coming out of his hoodie pocket to rest on Jiung’s waist, pulling him in. Jiung shuffled the half step closer, his other hand resting on Keeho’s shoulder as Keeho began to kiss him back.

This kiss was softer, sweeter than the one at the party but when Jiung pulled back he leaned back in to steal one, two, three more kisses from Keeho’s lips, each one longer and more lingering than the last. Keeho chased his lips even when he pulled all the way away, Jiung tipping his head forward to knock their foreheads together.

“Hey,” Jiung sighed, sounding breathless.

“Hey yourself,” Keeho replied. “Uh—”

“Let’s get lunch,” Jiung interrupted, Keeho nodding dumbly in agreement. Jiung carefully removed Keeho’s hand from his waist, threading their fingers together before leading him down the hall.

He would’ve liked to brush it off as a feeling but there was a pressing sensation of being watched as they left the lecture hall and headed across campus. Keeho resisted the urge to look over his shoulder but he just felt like everyone was looking at them, an absolutely horrible feeling, like they had accidentally caught the attention of the entire student body for some reason. He kept close to Jiung and let him lead him all the way off campus and back to Soju&Co, the off campus bar welcoming them in and giving them a corner booth to hide in.

“I’m sorry,” Jiung said before they even got their drinks, glasses of water barely beginning to condense on the table. Keeho tilted his head at him. “For what I said. And for not believing you. You didn’t deserve that, especially after all you’ve done for me. I don’t even know why I even considered you lying, that wasn’t fair.”

“Well, thanks for saying that. And I accept your apology,” Keeho replied. “And I just want you to know that I don’t lie to you. I’m a terrible liar, remember?” He joked, making Jiung laugh softly. Keeho smiled and then reached across the table, taking Jiung’s hand in his. Jiung curled his fingers around Keeho’s, Keeho brushing his thumb over Jiung’s knuckles. “I won’t lie to you, okay? I promise,” he assured him, looking him in the eye.

“Okay,” Jiung agreed. “Then I promise to trust you. But can you tell me something?”

“Sure.”

“Why are you doing this?” He asked. Keeho’s brow furrowed. “You don’t get anything out of this except Eunji bothering you. You could walk away whenever you want and say whatever you want about this and people will believe you. You don’t have to keep doing this, pretending with me. So why are you?” Jiung asked.

“Do I need a reason?” Keeho replied. Jiung’s eyes widened in surprise. “I told you when we met that you looked uncomfortable, and that hasn’t really gone away no matter why she’s there. And I’m not going anywhere until she can get a clue.”

“I don't need anyone coming to my rescue,” Jiung said, pulling his hand back but Keeho reached out and caught it again, threading their fingers together.

“I know,” Keeho agreed. “I know that, you don’t need me. You never did. But I said ‘any time’ and I keep my word,” he explained, like it was some simple explanation and that was just the way it was. “And as long as you want me around I’ll be around. Because I said I would.”

“Being a nice guy is gonna get you hurt one day,” Jiung warned him.

“Oh, probably,” Keeho brushed off, letting go of Jiung’s hand. “But what’s life without a little risk?”

Their food and drinks showed up shortly thereafter and it was during their meal that Jiung thought of something else.

“Can I ask you something else?” He asked, lowering his chopsticks.

“Anything,” Keeho replied, “I’m an open book.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty obvious,” Jiung retorted, Keeho making a face in response. Their easy banter was starting to come back to them. “Taeyang heard some people around campus say that you don’t really date people.” Keeho’s brow knit in confusion. “I mean, people say you never become exclusive with anyone. I’m not judging, I’m just… I guess I’m just asking why. Why not date anyone?”

“I’ve been with a couple of people,” Keeho said easily. “I dated a girl for about three months freshman year but it just didn’t really work out. We were so busy all the time it was hard to see each other. So I stopped dating people. And everyone I’ve been with knew that, it was casual. And I don’t mean like casual sex or anything, that’s not my thing,” he explained, “I mean I just sort of see people sometimes, hang out, go on dates but I don’t date. I just haven’t really had the time for it.”

“We hang out all the time,” Jiung pointed out.

“Yeah, because we have time,” Keeho said with a grin. “Our schedules just sort of match so I can make the time to see you. Like…” he paused and then brightened, “we take the bus at the same time. And your class gets out at a time so we can get together to have lunch before I go to class. And we live near each other. It just sort of works, y’know?”

When he put it like that, sure, that was enough reason that they could hang out. That they had the time to pretend to be in a relationship. It just worked out for them.

But that begged the question, did it work out because it happened to or because they were making it work?

—

Late winter melted down into spring with every passing day until it was hot enough in the afternoon that Jiung couldn’t even bear to wear his hoodie once it passed one in the afternoon. The warm spring weather was a warning of coming tests, midterms a thing of the past but finals beginning to loom in the distance. It was far enough that it wasn’t a pressing concern quite yet but the dance troupe had other things on their plate coming their way.

“Spring Showcase is in two weeks,” Youngbin reminded them, Jiung shifting his footing nervously. “Performance is mandatory for dance majors and accounts for 25% of your grade in your current dance courses,” he explained, the dancers all nodding in acknowledgement. “And don’t forget, this is a closed performanced. You’ll all be getting three tickets to give to friends and family so think hard on who you’ll be giving them to,” he said. Intak glanced to the side to look at Jiung, his hyung still listening to Youngbin. “That’s all for today. You guys have a good night.”

Good night’s bounced off the dance studio walls and Jiung headed over to the wall where his duffle was. Intak skittered after him, looking at the door before skidding to a halt and nearly bouncing off the glass mirror wall in the process. Jiung’s eyes widened in surprise to see his dongsaeng suddenly beside him, scrambling to stand upright.

“So the showcase,” Intak said, trying to sound conversational but landing just in ‘out of breath’.

“What about it?” Jiung asked, picking up his bag to put it on his shoulder.

“Are you asking Keeho hyung to come?” He asked.

Jiung’s expression changed to one of understanding and he looked over at the door, where Youngbin had finally opened it and was talking to the man in question. Ever since they entered crunch time for the showcase Youngbin and Taeyang hyungs had been closing the studio door and barring anyone not in the troupe from visiting during practice hours. It was to keep the showcase performances a secret from the student body but it hadn’t deterred Keeho from showing up outside the studio and hanging out until they were done.

“Uhm,” Jiung mumbled, then turned back to Intak. “Are you not inviting him?”

“Can’t,” he sighed. “Mom and dad are coming and my noona wants to come this time to see my solo piece. She’s awful, I’m pretty sure she’s just coming to pick on me,” he grumbled, making Jiung snort. “So, all my tickets are spoken for. But you don’t have any siblings, do you, hyung?”

“Ah, no,” Jiung admitted. He didn’t have any siblings at all, it had always just been him. Two of his tickets always went to his parents but, usually, the last would go to Taeyang. He was like Jiung’s brother, they were best friends and Jongseob practically treated Jiung like his second older brother. At this point Taeyang was probably fully expecting to be given Jiung’s third ticket because why wouldn’t he?

“So,” Intak prompted. “You should ask him to come.”

“I dunno,” Jiung brushed off. “I haven’t really thought about it,” he admitted. He looked back over at the door, Keeho coming over to them. “Ah, I gotta get going. But I’ll see you next practice, Intak-ah.”

“Uhm, okay?” He replied, Jiung already walking away. Keeho had just barely gotten close when Jiung was meeting him part way, reaching for his hand.

“Hey,” Keeho said, stumbling back half a step as Jiung reached for his arm, pecking his cheek and then turning him around. “Uhm, okay?”

“Hey, I’m ready to go. Let’s go,” he rushed out, all but pushing Keeho back towards the door. Keeho nearly tripped over himself because of Jiung’s rushing. “Bye, hyungs,” he said, waving at Youngbin and Taeyang without stopping. Youngbin narrowed his eyes while Taeyang tilted his head, turning back to look at Youngbin after he and Keeho were gone.

“I don’t know. I don’t want to know,” Youngbin said, turning and walking towards his office.

“Is there a particular reason you’re in such a rush today?” Keeho asked once they had cleared the dance hall, coming to a stop and pulling Jiung back with him. He stumbled over the sudden stop for a moment and then turned around to look at Keeho, Keeho lifting a brow at him. Jiung sighed, Keeho pulling him closer by his hand. “What’s up?” He asked, taking Jiung’s other hand in his.

“We were talking about the showcase today,” he explained. Keeho nodded. “And Youngbin hyung mentioned…” he paused, Keeho tilting his head at him, “he mentioned the grade. I’m just nervous, I guess. And Intak was talking about our pair performance and—”

“You’re gonna kill it,” Keeho assured him, Jiung giving him a tired smile. “You’re incredible. You’re so talented and you work so hard, you’re going to be fine. Better than fine, totally fantastic even.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re obligated to as my not-boyfriend,” Jiung teased, turning away to head towards the bus stop. Keeho let go of his hands but fell in step with him, draping an arm around his shoulders.

“Not-boyfriend or not, someone would have to be fucking blind to not see how good you are,” he told him, pulling Jiung into his side. “The showcase is going to be great and you’re going to be great.”

“Okay,” Jiung replied. Keeho pressed a kiss to his temple and Jiung willed away the fluttering feeling in his chest.

For the rest of the week Jiung couldn’t stop thinking about the showcase. Of course there was a level of stress that was entirely due to the fact that his dance course grade was riding on this and he was in the studio every day when he had time to practice, both on his own and his part in his partner piece. He was spending so much time trying to perfect everything, worried something would go wrong on the showcase night even though he could probably do his entire routine in his sleep. But there was also Keeho.

They stopped seeing each other as much since the showcase was coming up, due to Jiung always bailing for the studio, which was usually time Keeho would spend in the music labs with his own music production final coming up and his project being worth a decent chunk of his own grade. But even when they weren’t together Jiung would get texts from Keeho, reminding him to drink water and to take breaks and not push himself too hard. It was a decidedly boyfriend-y thing for him to do and Jiung smiled to himself whenever he saw one of the texts, usually ending with a heart emoji.

He had been giving it a lot of thought, giving Keeho his extra ticket. He didn’t have to, he usually gave it to Taeyang and Taeyang would go and nothing would be out of the ordinary. Keeho probably wouldn’t even mind, they’d only known each other a little while, even if they have kissed a few times. It wasn’t serious, it technically wasn’t anything at all and if he didn’t mention it to Keeho he probably wouldn’t even know.

So why was Jiung so hung up on it?

“So, should I find my black tie or is it business casual?” Taeyang asked, letting himself into the studio. Jiung looked up from where he was bent over, catching his breath. Sweat was beading along his hairline and dripping down his temple from his latest run through. Taeyang dropped his bag on the floor by the door and crossed the room to toss a water bottle at his friend, Jiung catching it as he straightened up.

After Jiung had taken a drink Taeyang continued, “the showcase, bro. I gotta know what to wear.”

“Right,” he breathed. “Yeah, I’ll, uh, I’ll check with Youngbin hyung. He didn’t say,” Jiung explained. Taeyang lifted a brow at him. “But, uh, y’know—”

“You’re not giving me that ticket,” Taeyang said, Jiung meeting his gaze. “You’re giving that ticket to Keeho.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to,” Taeyang laughed. “Your face already said it all. I don’t care,” he added, crossing his arms over his chest while the bottle crinkled in Jiung’s grip. “Give him the ticket, you should.”

“I don’t know that I’m going to,” Jiung retorted. “I haven’t decided.”

“Ji,” Taeyang sighed, “give him the ticket. Ask him to come, I know he will.”

“You always come to my shows,” Jiung insisted, walking towards his friend, his hands falling to his sides. “Why should I change that? It’s not like we’re actually dating.”

“Are you sure?”

Jiung stumbled back a step like Taeyang had slapped him, the words enough to feel like a physical blow. He wasn’t expecting it, especially from someone like Taeyang of all people. He knew what was going on and if Jiung was telling him they weren’t dating, they weren’t dating. He’d already said it, Taeyang knew why they were doing this so why even ask?

What did he mean?

“What does that mean?”

“Jiung, I love you, but c’mon, dude,” Taeyang sighed. “You spend all your time together. If you’re not at the apartment, you’re at his. If you’re not in class, you’re with him. He picks you up from Korean History, he walks you to Bio, you study together, you get lunch all the time and you’re always kissing.” Jiung swallowed, averting his eyes sheepishly. “Maybe not on the lips, but he’s always kissing you and you always kiss him back. You’re fucking dating.”

Every excuse died before it even made its way to Jiung’s lips. He knew Taeyang was right. He knew that no matter what he said it’ll never fully explain the two of them, what they were doing, why they were doing it. He could try to explain it all away but it didn’t matter because their actions spoke so much louder than any words Jiung could try and come up with. They were always together. They were always kissing.

And at the end of the day, the fluttering in Jiung’s stomach, the tightness in his chest, the way his skin heats up when he’s around Keeho, he knew what it meant. He'd been ignoring it all this time because ignorance is bliss. Wasn’t it?

“It’s been real for a while, hasn’t it?” Jiung muttered.

“Yeah,” Taeyang sighed, coming up to his friend. There was a slump in his shoulders that told Taeyang that he knew. Jiung knew. He wasn't an idiot. There must’ve been a part of him that always knew. He rested his hands gently on Jiung’s shoulders, squeezing.

“How long has it been real?”

“I don’t know that,” he replied. “Only you and Keeho could begin to know when all this shit stopped being a ploy and started being the real thing. But, if you want my opinion,” Jiung nodded, “probably around the time of that fight. If not before.”

That hurt. It hurt because it’s been almost two weeks and he’d just been living in this ignorant little bubble, pretending all this wasn’t happening when it so clearly was. It hurt because part of him knew this was going on and did nothing because acting like everything wasn’t changing was easy. It hurt because he didn’t sign up to fall for someone. It hurt because he really was just trying to push Keeho away with the fight and trying to put space between them when all he was doing was hurting himself.

It hurt because he really did like Keeho, he really did have feelings for him but he’d been fake dating him for over four weeks rather than just be honest.

“Ask him to take the ticket,” Taeyang said after several moments of silence and Jiung still not meeting his eyes. “Tell him to come to the showcase.”

It took another two days before Jiung could bring himself to even think of a way to bring it up to Keeho. Youngbin gave him the ticket during Saturday practice and the show was the following Saturday but he didn't say anything until Tuesday. He didn’t have a lot of time to drag his feet on this. The event was semi formal and the last thing he wanted was to force Keeho to have to find a suit jacket on the fly.

“So,” Jiung began during a silent moment of studying in their, quote unquote, study room. Keeho looked up from his textbook, expectant and curious. Jiung could admit that ever since his conversation with Taeyang he’d been having a bit of a hard time meeting Keeho’s eyes. He tried his best though, swallowing his nerves to meet Keeho’s big, earnest eyes. “The showcase is coming up on Saturday.”

“That’s soon,” Keeho commented.

“Yeah,” Jiung sighed, “The event is, uhm, ticket only. But all the performers get three tickets to give to their family,” he explained, Keeho slowly lowering his pen to the table. “But I don’t have any siblings so I have an extra ticket. Do you,” he cleared his throat, “do you want to go?”

“Oh,” Keeho breathed. “Uhm.”

“You don’t have to,” Jiung added. “I usually give the ticket to Taeyang but I just figured, if you want to go, it might be nice for me to not pawn my extra ticket off on Taeyang all the time. I’m sure he could do with a night off,” Jiung joked, breathing a laugh. Keeho smiled. “But only if you want to come, of course.”

“Is it, like, a formal event?” He asked.

“It’s semi formal, yeah,” Jiung told him. “So you need a suit jacket or they might not let you in. Sorry.”

“I’m sure I can figure something out,” Keeho said. “Yeah, okay. I’d like to go.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Keeho said, breathing a little laugh as he grinned. “Who am I to pass up an opportunity to see you perform?” Heat crept up Jiung’s neck. “I’m sure you’re gonna be incredible.”

“Alright, well, don’t jinx me,” Jiung muttered, getting into his bag to find the ticket. He pushed it across the table to Keeho once he had found it, Keeho picking up the laminated slip of paper carefully. “Just don’t lose it,” Jiung warned him, picking his pen back up.

“I’ll try not to,” he said. “Wait,” Keeho said, “‘semi formal’?” Jiung nodded. “So, are you allowed to perform with that hair?”

“I should probably color it,” he said, lifting a hand to his hair. The color protect shampoo and conditioner could only do so much, the color having faded into a minty green shade and his dark brown roots were beginning to grow in. He’d need to get it fixed before the show or he was sure someone was going to complain. “Shit.”

“Go back to your natural color?” Keeho asked, tucking the ticket into his messenger bag.

“I might,” Jiung replied. “I’ll think about it.”

Keeho found himself running his fingertips along the sides of the ticket absentmindedly the days leading up to the showcase. He was left with his thoughts, alone in the music labs or in his room at the apartment without Jiung there to spend time with, or even Intak since he was also performing in the show. Hwiyoung was always at school or at work with his grad programs, which left Keeho with a lot of time to think about stuff.

And while normally “stuff” constituted his classwork or his exams or what he was doing with his life (which was always a terrifying thing to think about), lately all he could think about was what he was doing with Jiung.

It had been happening all the time lately. Though, lately could mean a lot of things. It could be as recent as these last few days or stretch as far back as when they met, their chance moment at the bus stop where Keeho’s split second decision managed to insert himself right into the life of someone he didn’t even know. Right into the life of someone he quickly found himself enraptured with, enamored with, a person he found more incredible than anyone else he’d met in his life.

Jiung was something else. He was smart and quick and witty and clever but he was also funny and talented and kind. Early on Keeho wondered how he managed to stumble into meeting someone so unbelievable but, more than anything, he’d been wondering recently how he’d done it and Jiung had just let him stay around.

Keeho was a lot. He knew that. He was loud and boisterous and confident and proud and sometimes a little too much. All things he knew, all things he would never change about himself because that was just who he was. But meshed with Jiung’s introspective, quiet nature, he couldn’t deny that he had kind of assumed that at some point Jiung was going to get tired of him. He was going to decide that being around him was too much and that it was better if the two of them remained friends but from a distance. Something Keeho was kind of just waiting for. The other shoe to drop, so to speak.

But it never did. And now they’d been doing this, whatever this was, for almost five weeks. Over a month they had been putting on this charade and every single day Keeho was getting more and more tied up in his own unrequited feelings, not quite sure how much longer this was going to keep going.

What was the endgame of this plan? They break up at the end of the semester and call it a weird experience that just comes from college? They keep doing this until one of them gets tired of the other and eventually just breaks it off? Keeho couldn’t even imagine it, getting tired of Jiung. He was never tired of spending time with Jiung, and every time he even thought about Jiung calling this whole thing off his guts felt like they had been knotted into this crazy complicated twist that he could never untie them from.

‘Charade’ may have, at one point, been an apt name for what they were doing, but not anymore. What they had been doing had long since stopped being a charade to Keeho, maybe even before this ever even really started, back when Jiung held his hand on the bus and Keeho felt his skin heat up and his heart beat too quickly in his chest. If he went back far enough in his texts he could find those messages he sent to Intak and Sanghyuk still and those said something.

Something like maybe this was never a game of pretend at all. Or at least, not to Keeho.

All these thoughts swirled around in Keeho’s head for practically every second of every day leading up to the showcase until he was so nervous it felt like he was the one who was performing. He couldn’t stop thinking about it, about the implications of why Jiung gave him the ticket. Was it just another move to try and push along their fake dating narrative? If it was, it was a little bit off base, in Keeho’s opinion, because who was he trying to convince at the showcase?

“You look like you’re going to be sick,” Jiung said, coming up to him at the bus stop. Keeho startled, twisting around to look at him. When he did he was struck, immediately, with a fresh wave of heart fluttering, stomach twisting feelings.

“You— you— you colored your hair,” he stuttered out. Jiung blinked at him, halfway through pulling out his airpods. He pressed one into his ear with a smile, tilting his head at Keeho.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Very observant.” He was teasing him but Keeho was totally distracted by the new color Jiung had dyed his hair to.

The honey blond color complimented his gently tanned skin, giving it far more color than his turquoise hair did, which had sort of washed him out. It was still a good color but next to his already sort of pale skin it only served to make him lighter but this was different. This color added a healthy flush of color into his face and warmed up his already sweet, kind features. Keeho was awestruck to see Jiung with a new hair color, especially one so different from his previous one.

“You’re being silent. Did Taeyang lie to me? Does it look that bad?” Jiung asked, a nervous little chuckle in his voice, like he was trying to make a joke but genuinely didn’t know what Keeho was thinking.

“No!” Keeho insisted. “I mean, it looks good! It looks…” he reached a hesitant hand out, brushing Jiung hair away from his eyes, the fringe having fallen from it’s careful style and dropping a few strands into his eyes. God, his eyes were so dark Keeho still found himself lost in them sometimes. Keeho’s fingers lingered along his cheek and his temple, Jiung dropping his eyes shyly and finally snapping Keeho out of his daze. He pulled his hand back quickly, putting it safely in his hoodie pocket. “It looks good. It’s a good color on you.”

“Thanks,” Jiung muttered. He shifted, leaning into Keeho’s side. Keeho lifted his arm, wrapping it around Jiung’s shoulders, its normal resting place at the bus stop.

The showcase was the next day and Keeho found himself nearly tearing his room apart looking for something to wear. It was still hours until the performance but he dug through his closet, clothing tossed aside and left in piles around the room as he looked for something that would be appropriate for a semi-formal setting.

It might’ve been the only time in his entire life that Keeho wished he was a business major, if only to actually own a single suit jacket.

“Keeho, have— oh my god,” Hwiyoung cut himself off, looking at the state of Keeho’s room. Keeho wasn’t exactly the neatest person, but it looked like a tornado had torn through his closet and dresser and somehow managed to dump the entire contents of both on his floor and bed. Keeho huffed, standing in the middle room with his hands on his hips and staring at his mess of a room dejectedly. “What did you do?” Hwiyoung asked, carefully stepping over a pile of sweatpants on the floor to get to him.

“I was looking for something!” Keeho said, throwing his hands. “But I don’t own a single article of formal wear in my entire closet, which is so annoying!”

“Uhm… okay,” Hwiyoung said. “Why do you need it?”

“Jiung gave me his extra ticket to his showcase but it has a dress code and I can’t show up just looking like my normal self. I have to make an impression!” He explained. “But I don’t even own a suit jacket, nevermind slacks. I don’t know what the hell I’m going to wear.”

“Okay, let’s backtrack,” Hwiyoung told him. “Jiung’s showcase. Like the ticket-only dance troupe Spring Showcase?” Keeho nodded, pouting. “Jiung gave you his extra ticket.”

“Yes, hyung,” Keeho confirmed, impatient.

“And you’re going?”

“Of course I am!”

“You know you’re gonna have to meet his parents at this event, right? Like, that’s who his other two tickets went to.”

“Oh my God,” Keeho whined, switching over to English. Hwiyoung gave him a look, Keeho immediately putting his face in his hands. “Oh my God, what am I going to do?! Jiung asked me to go to his dance showcase, I have nothing to wear and I have to meet his parents. They’re going to hate me!”

“Why are you giving my cousin a panic attack!” Sanghyuk shouted from the depths of the apartment, barging into the room a second later. “Oh my God, what supernatural entity created this clothing disaster?”

“In a surprise to no one, Keeho’s put himself in a situation that he did not at all foresee the consequences of and now he doesn’t know how to handle it,” Hwiyoung explained, gesturing vaguely to said man who was still standing in the middle of his destroyed room, clothing emptied on his floor and bed, face in his hands. “He’s your cousin. You fix it.”

“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” Sanghyuk stated. “You’re built approximately the same and I know you have a suit that Keeho can borrow. You’re gonna let him wear it tonight.” Hwiyoung opened his mouth to retort but Sanghyuk merely pointed at Keeho, who still looked two seconds from a breakdown and closed his mouth with a sigh. “Keeho, what time does the showcase start?”

“6:30,” he mumbled into his hands.

“I’m gonna look for a flower shop online and we’re gonna get your boy a bouquet. You go with Hwiyoung and get dressed. We have three and a half hours, men, let’s move!”

Sanghyuk was surprisingly diligent and efficient as he dragged Keeho from the destroyed remains of his bedroom and shoved him at Hwiyoung to get dressed. He showered that morning and Hwiyoung, despite his initial disagreement to the plan, was accommodating about letting Keeho borrow a suit. It was probably because he could feel Keeho’s close to a breakdown and didn’t want to be responsible for a 20 year old man having a mental break.

The suit fit him well, almost exactly right, if a little too big in the shoulders, but not uncomfortably nor noticeably. Keeho’s boots weren't exactly built for a semi formal setting but Hwiyoung’s dress shoes wouldn't fit him and it wasn't like it was black tie. Sanghyuk gave him a thumbs up in approval when Keeho finally emerged, dressed in a gray suit and a white dress shirt with the top couple of buttons undone.

“Very nice. Now tell me what flowers I should be getting your boyfriend for his performance,” Sanghyuk told him, laptop open on the counter that he’d hunched himself over.

“He’s not my boyfriend, remember,” Keeho muttered, crossing the room. Sanghyuk gave him a look, Hwiyoung raising his hands in mock surrender and going back to his room. He’d done his part in making sure Keeho was presentable, which Sanghyuk couldn’t very well blame him for. It looked like this conversation had to be between the two of them.

“Okay…” Sanghyuk sighed, straightening up. “So… I’m trying to be nice,” he prefaced and Keeho frowned. “I’m trying to be nice and good and supportive,” he said this all while swinging his arm back and forth in front of him in a mock jolly movement, “but I have no idea what is going on anymore. Because you and Jiung seem like you’re dating,” he said, Keeho sighing softly, “and you act like you’re dating but you’re not dating?”

“No,” Keeho admitted. “We haven’t been dating… at all.”

“So, what have you been doing?”

“Faking it?” Keeho said, sounding nervous and unsure when he admitted it. The look he got from his cousin was some mixture of disappointment and pity and confusion, and Keeho could understand that. He sort of felt the same for himself. “So, Jiung and I have been fake dating since… well, since about when we met. He was trying to get this girl in his class to leave him alone so I just pretended to be his boyfriend and… we just… never stopped.” He dropped his gaze to the floor.

“Keeho,” Sanghyuk said gently.

“I know,” Keeho replied, not lifting his gaze while beginning to twist his rings around his fingers. “I’ve known… for a while, I think. I didn’t want to tell him because I didn’t want… I didn’t want to change anything. And I know that’s horrible because I’ve known how I felt and I’ve been letting this happen when I knew better. I really… I really like him, hyung,” Keeho admitted, finally meeting his cousin’s eyes. “What do I do if he doesn’t like me?”

“You… really managed it this time, didn’t ya, kid?” Sanghyuk said and Keeho breathed a humorless laugh, rubbing a hand over his face. “I wish I could tell you but I don’t know. I think the only thing you can do now is… go to his showcase. Show up, support him, and tell him the truth when you get the chance. I don’t know what else you can do,” Sanghyuk told him. “I wish I did.”

“Is there a flower arrangement that says, ‘I really like you and I’m sorry,’?” Keeho asked, a sad smile on his face.

“I don’t know,” Sanghyuk told him, tone mock bright, “but I’m sure we can figure it out.” He stepped over to his cousin then, drawing him into a hug. Keeho wrapped his arms around his older cousin, hugging him tightly while Sanghyuk rubbed his back. “We’re gonna figure this out, kiddo. I promise.”

It was an empty promise. Sanghyuk had no idea how to fix it, how it would turn out, but Keeho appreciated the sentiment all the same.

There were, apparently, flowers that say ‘I’m sorry, I have feelings for you’ and Keeho showed up to the showcase with them tied up in a bouquet from a very kind and fast working flower shop that took pity on him when he begged them to put together a bouquet at the last minute. He showed up to the showcase hall in the minutes before the performances started, handing in his ticket after Sanghyuk broke what was probably several traffic laws to get him to the performance hall on time.

He was just sitting down when he could finally check his phone and found several texts from Jiung waiting for him.

from: Jiungie
are you here?

where are you?

keeho where are you? everyone’s getting seated.

if you miss my showcase i am going to kill you. where are you?

from: Keeho
i’m in the seats. sry i’m late.

from: Jiungie
you are so dead after the show.

Somehow he didn’t doubt that but the lights went down and Youngbin and Taeyang walked onto the stage before Keeho could answer. He’d deal with Jiung’s righteous fury after the show was over. Right now he had to try and get his heart to stop pounding so loudly it was nearly enough to drown out Youngbin and Taeyang hyungs speeches about the dance troupe and how hard all of them have worked to put together the Spring Showcase.

The pamphlet the people taking tickets shoved into his hands was a little bit crinkled from his own harsh grip but Keeho attempted to smooth it out against his thigh, opening it to see the order of performances while the instructors were still speaking. It seemed to be in order of seniority, with the eldest members being last and the multi people performances closing out the show. Keeho’s eyes found Intak’s name early in the pamphlet, he’d be going soon after the speeches because he was only a first year, but Jiung was several performances deep and his and Intak’s pair piece would be towards the end. Keeho took a deep breath, bouquet lying over his lap as he settled back in his seat to see the showcase in its entirety.

Despite being at the university as long as Keeho had, he hadn’t actually seen any dance troupe performances before. They had free showcases throughout the year but due to class deadlines or tests or just not wanting to go he had never been before. But just seeing even one performance, he could understand why people did go.

Everyone in the dance troupe was incredibly talented. He knew this already but they moved with such grace, such poise, such unbelievable talent he couldn’t even fathom having. Keeho had a bit of a hard time walking in a straight line sometimes but these dancers, these performers were doing things he couldn’t imagine doing. The visual artistry of these performances were unlike anything he had seen before.

Many of these dancers were ballet or classic or contemporary dancers but when Intak took the stage he commanded everyone’s attention. Keeho had always known Intak had it in him, he was built to dance, but his movements were powerful, strong hip hop style techniques and moves that awed the crowd. Keeho found himself smiling to himself just watching his freshman do what he did best, pushing himself to do all he could do. He always knew he had in him and suddenly it all made sense as to why Intak always said he loved being on the stage.

Keeho checked his phone between the performers, making sure no one was contacting him. His phone was on silent but he double checked it anyway, a persistent need to check and see if Jiung was trying to message him. He knew he wasn’t but when he realized Jiung was on deck for performances he opened his phone and sent a quick text.

you’re gonna kill this.

Jiung didn’t respond but a little check mark popped up, telling him it had been read. Keeho tucked his phone back in his pocket and tangled his fingers together in his lap, a nervous mixture of worry and excitement coiling up in his stomach.

The lights dimmed and the stage lights illuminated a single figure on the stage. The stage lights cast long shadows along the stage from his body and Keeho trapped his lower lip between his teeth, holding his breath.

When the piano began, a slow, muted voice falling over the crowd, singing lyrics Keeho knew all too well. And then Jiung began dancing, slow and soft and beautiful movements. There was nothing quite like Jiung dancing on his own, but this was unlike the kind of dancing Keeho had seen of him before. This was gentle, sweet, loving almost as his body moved to the music, a slowed down tempo and warm, steady beats that Keeho had long since come to recognize. Music he had emulated himself.

Keeho nearly had to bite his tongue to stop himself from making a noise, keshi’s TOUCH slipping out of the auditorium speakers and blanketing the crowd in a warm r’n’b beat. And at the center of all the music, all the attention, was Jiung, dancing so gracefully Keeho’s breath felt caught in his chest. There was truly nothing like him, as far as Keeho was concerned, the confident way he carried himself, the elegant movements of his body.

Jiung was a marvel. That much Keeho knew.

There was some unidentifiable emotion in all his moves. If Keeho wanted to, and he wanted to, he could guess it was a longing. A sort of endless desire to have someone you can’t. That was what the song was about, wasn’t it? Trying to have someone who didn’t want you, reaching for someone and being with them only to come back empty every time you got close. Keeho could relate all too well and hoped to God his own emotions weren’t being painted on his face for all to see it just seeing Jiung dance to this song.

When the performance was done Keeho breathed a deep breath, clearing his throat in hopes that it would remove the lump that had formed there. The applause of the audience was loud but not nearly loud enough to drown out the beating of his heart and the sound of blood rushing in his ears.

He ran to the restroom before the multi person performances began, checking his phone again while he was in there. There was just one text waiting for him, from Jiung.

thank you.

There were only a handful of performances remaining for the rest of the night but Keeho was already practically vibrating with the desire to meet Jiung after the show.

All of the multi person performances had their own flare about them. Some of them chose ballet ballads, others chose a more interpretive style or mixtures of modern and contemporary to slightly more upbeat tracks. But, and Keeho was biased, he was pretty sure everyone was the most impressed by Jiung and Intak, who had chosen a hip hop track, powerful moves to hard hitting beats and flashy sound bites. Jiung even pulled off a rather impressive acrobatic maneuver that had some people in the crowd gasping. They were great and Keeho had to rein himself in when they were done, lest he go crazy like some sort of overly proud dance mom yelling about her kids.

Everyone bowed at the end, Youngbin and Taeyang hyungs closing out the night with congratulations to their students and thank yous to everyone for coming. All of the students had beaming smiles on their faces and a thin sheen of sweat running their stage make up, proud as could be.

And all Keeho could think about was seeing Jiung after the show.

Most of the people that had shown up were parents or siblings, loitering around after the show had actually ended, lights up and waiting for their child or sibling to come out from backstage. Many people were holding bouquets and Keeho shifted his weight, lingering near the exit door nervously as he waited.

Students streamed out of the back, meeting their parents, thanking them for coming, a cacophony of sound, yelling and greetings and laughter. Keeho couldn’t even remember the last time he had been in an auditorium before his orientation, nevermind seen a stage performance. After the show had ended there had seemed to be some sort of break in the spell that had overtaken them all, watching these students-turned-performers in silence, only for it to be replaced with joy and laughter and light.

“I don’t suppose those are for me,” a voice said and Keeho turned around, not at all surprised to find Intak standing there, still in his sneakers and baggy cargo pants but sans the jacket he and Jiung had performed their piece in. Intak raised a brow at him and Keeho resisted the urge to smack his freshman with the bouquet.

“Why would I ever buy you flowers,” Keeho retorted, getting a mock offended look in return. “I am super proud of you though,” he said, grabbing Intak by the shirt collar and pulling him in. Intak grumbled but hugged Keeho back, sticky and damp with sweat but Keeho didn’t mind. When he pulled away Keeho ruffled his damp hair, Intak whining about it immediately. “It’s sweaty, what’re you worried about?”

“Rude,” he grumbled. “Well, I’m glad Jiung hyung asked you. I didn’t know that he would, he was being so weird about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I dunno, whenever anyone brought it up he just got so… cagey, I guess,” Intak replied. “But it’s whatever. I’m glad you came!”

“Me too,” Keeho agreed but it was hard to shake Intak’s comment. Cagey?

Intk didn’t linger long, his parents and older sister were around and were planning on taking him out after the show so Keeho wished him a good night and waved him off. He figured if Intak was already out, Jiung probably was too, right? So he took to looking around, no longer able to find him so easily due to his blindingly bright hair but he couldn’t be that hard to spot.

He didn’t have to wait long before it seemed out of the crowd itself, Jiung materialized in front of him, walking between people and also looking around, like he was looking for him. Keeho straightened up and waved a hand, Jiung turning in his direction a second later. A smile split his handsome face and he headed straight for Keeho, Keeho holding a hand out, only for Jiung to stumble directly into his chest.

Keeho stumbled back into the wall, wrapping his arm around Jiung’s shoulders.

“I’m glad you made it,” he mumbled into Keeho’s collar. When he pulled back he smacked Keeho in the chest though, eliciting a small whine from him. “Where the hell were you before the show? I was looking everywhere for you, my parents kept asking and I kept having to say, ‘don’t worry, he’s coming,’ and then you show up literally minutes before lights. What were you thinking?” Jiung admonished, lifting his hands to grab Keeho by the lapels.

“I didn’t mean to be late, I swear,” Keeho insisted but Jiung didn’t look convinced. “Here,” he said, passing Jiung the bouquet, Keeho watching as Jiung’s expression melted into one of surprise and awe. “I wanted to get these for you because I knew you were going to be great.” Jiung let go of Keeho, sighing softly as he took the bouquet, red carnation pink camellia and white tulips, into his arms. The flowers weren’t quite as brilliant as when Keeho first got them, the heat and humidity of the auditorium doing their petals in, but they were pretty anyway.

“Thank you,” Jiung muttered, meeting his eyes. “And thank you for coming, I mean it. I thought— I worried you weren’t going to make it in time or… or you changed your mind or…”

“I wasn’t going to miss this,” Keeho assured him. “I promised.”

“Well next time try being on time,” Jiung retorted, Keeho laughing gently. He reached up and wiped a stray droplet of sweat away from Jiung’s temple with his thumb, his opposite hand resting carefully on Jiung’s waist.

“Jiungie?” A woman’s voice called out and Jiung turned away abruptly, Keeho snatching his hands back and placing them in his pockets. A pair of people slipped between people out of the crowd to meet them, Keeho offering them a nervous smile as they approached. “Ah, Jiung-yah, is this your friend?”

“Ah, yeah,” he agreed. “Eomma, Appa, this is Keeho. Keeho, these are my parents,” Jiung introduced and Keeho bowed politely, Jiung’s mother smiling at him. Keeho noticed immediately that Jiung got his eyes from his mother, kind and warm and very dark brown.

“Nice to meet you,” Keeho greeted them.

“You as well. You must be the boy Jiung’s been telling us about,” Jiung’s father said, Jiung clearing his throat awkwardly. “We were about to take Jiung out for dinner to celebrate the showcase. Would you like to join us?”

“Oh, uh,” Keeho stammered, “I wouldn’t want to intrude or anything.”

“No, not at all!” Jiung’s mother insisted. “You should come out with us, Keeho. We’d love to get to know you over dinner.”

What an objectively horrible thing, in Keeho’s opinion, going to dinner with his not-boyfriend’s parents and having to figure out how to have that conversation. But when Keeho looked at Jiung the look on Jiung’s face implied that if Keeho wanted out of this he would have to find his own way out because Jiung wasn’t going to help him on this. Which was not only wrong of him, but just plain rude because he was going to be getting the third degree from his parents as well, what kinda nonsense?

“Uhm, sure,” Keeho said, not really seeing a way out of the situation. “Yes, I would love to.”

Dinner went better than anticipated, even if Keeho did have to spend the entire time answering a barrage of questions from Jiung’s parents about what he was going to college for, how he was doing in school, was he living on campus, oh where are you from? Keeho, being the talker that he was, managed to eek out an acceptable answer for every question that was thrown his way, because, contrary to popular belief, parents did like him. This just wasn’t exactly how he was expecting to meet Jiung’s parents.

And above all else, Jiung was no help. He bowed out of the conversations as often as he could get away with, which Keeho found not just rude but absolutely unbelievable that Keeho had to struggle to keep Jiung’s parents talking. Keeho let him have it that evening because he was pretty sure Jiung was exhausted from the showcase, the adrenaline of a good show finally winding down into an exhaustion that Keeho could read in his slowed movements and relaxed features.

There were several times during the dinner that Keeho caught Jiung holding his hand under the table or leaning against his shoulder, trying not to be too obvious but also not quite managing to be discreet. A hot feeling of anxiety washed over him whenever he would see Jiung’s mother looking at where Jiung was pressed against his side or where their hands disappeared under the table but never once did she ask about it.

And not once did either of them ever actually explain their relationship to Jiung’s parents, content to just let them think whatever they were thinking.

“Where can we drop you off, Keeho-yah?” Jiung’s dad asked, driving them back towards campus.

“You can drop him off at mine,” Jiung answered for him, Keeho’s anxiety spiking immediately. “He lives a couple of streets over, it’s not a very far walk.”

“If you’re sure,” he replied, sounding unconvinced and maybe even a little teasing? Keeho wondered if that was hopeful thinking though, their son just told them they could drop his maybe-boyfriend off at his own apartment complex without a single other explanation than, “oh, he can just walk, it’s not far.”

But maybe the anxiety wasn’t that Jiung’s parents seemed fine with it, but because Jiung’s parents did seem fine with it. They didn’t even know him but didn’t question Jiung just letting Keeho come to his place at night. Did they trust him with their son already? What was going on?!

Jiung’s parents left them both on the curb in front of the apartment complex, the sun having long since gone down and a cool chill falling over them despite the heat of the day. Jiung kissed his mother and hugged his father goodbye, promising to text and call more often. Keeho bowed politely but Jiung’s mother waved him off, pulling him into a hug as well. Jiung hid his smile into his bouquet of flowers, Keeho’s eyes widening in surprise. When she pulled away she kissed his cheek.

“You’ll look out for Jiungie, won’t you?” She said, smoothing out Keeho’s jacket before stepping back.

“Eomma,” Jiung whined.

“Of course,” Keeho replied. He looked over at Jiung briefly, catching his eye. “Always.”

“Good,” she told him. “You boys have a good night,” she said, her husband steering her back to the car. Jiung waved his parents off, Keeho waving as well as they pulled away from the curb.

“Sorry about dinner,” Jiung said, leaning over to pick up his dance bag where it had landed on the sidewalk when they got out of the car. Keeho snatched the strap of the bag before Jiung could get his hands on it, heaving the heavy duffle up onto his own shoulder. Jiung looked surprised and then exasperated. “Fine, you wanna carry my bag I won’t stop you,” he brushed off, heading towards the front door.

“Dinner was fine,” Keeho brushed off, following Jiung into the apartment building. “Your parents are nice.”

“They’re… something,” Jiung said, stopping to unzip a side pocket on his duffle to pull out his house keys and let them into the apartment. “My eomma probably already thinks we’re dating so just… keep that in mind.”

Keeho wasn’t quite sure what to make of that comment but he didn’t get a chance to ask before Jiung was letting them into his apartment, stepping inside and toeing off his shoes. Keeho followed suit and set Jiung’s bag on the floor next to the couch, where it always landed when Jiung came home from school or practice, and Jiung set the flowers on the counter, next to where Taeyang was standing in the kitchen.

“Oh, you’re back finally?” He quipped, Jiung sighing as he peeled off his jacket to hang on the back of one of the kitchen chairs. “Let me guess, your parents insisted on dinner.”

“Always,” Jiung replied. “But I’m tired and sore so we’ll talk more about this in the morning,” he brushed off. He didn’t even stop to say anything to Keeho, instead just took his hand in his and pulled him along towards his room. “Good night, Taeyang-ah.”

“Good night, Jiungie,” he called back, glancing over his shoulder to see Keeho stumbling over himself to follow Jiung to his bedroom.

Jiung’s bedroom was a little more foreign to him than his bedroom to Jiung, he was pretty sure. After the party Jiung had stayed the night with him and they had ended up back at his apartment on a couple of other occasions, studying in his room or in the living room while everyone else was out. But Keeho, while used to Jiung’s apartment’s main living areas like the living room and the kitchen, wasn’t quite as familiar with Jiung’s room. He had seen it a couple of times but mostly in passing, they hadn’t actually spent any time in it together. A fact that Jiung didn’t seem to acknowledge at all, directing Keeho into his room and gesturing for him to follow him into his bed.

Keeho’s (Hwiyoung’s) suit jacket found a place on the back of chair at Jiung’s desk and then he slipped between the blankets with him. After the performance, after dinner, after these past few weeks of grueling dance practices and spending near every spare moment he could in the dance studio, the fear, anxiety and excitement of the showcase had left Jiung rung out and tired. His head hit the pillow and he went limp, exhaustion tugging at all of his muscle until he could do little else but just relax back into his sheets.

Keeho reached out, pulling Jiung towards him. Jiung went willingly, easily even, into his arms, resting his head on Keeho’s shoulder while Keeho wrapped his arms around his middle. His hands found a place on Jiung’s back, Jiung’s resting on his waist as they laid there, no words to be exchanged in that moment.

But, if anyone could find them, it would be Keeho.

“What did you mean by your mom thinking we’re dating?” Keeho asked. The way Jiung’s head was resting on his shoulder meant that he was speaking into Jiung’s hair more than anything, not that he thought he could have this conversation while looking him in the eye.

“She’s nosy,” he replied, breathing a soft laugh. “I love her but without any other kids all she does is get involved in my life. And I brought you tonight.” He said it as though it explained everything. As though sensing Keeho’s unspoken question, he continued, “I always bring Taeyang, right? I said that.” Keeho nodded. “And I’ve known him… for years, since secondary, so of course I do, he’s like my brother. But I asked you to come and that’s… that’s different. Everyone always gives their tickets to their families but if their families can’t come usually it goes to their partners. And I asked you.”

“So she just assumed we’re together.”

“Yeah, probably,” Jiung confirmed, shifting a little to settle a little more firmly into Keeho’s chest. “But don’t most people?”

Keeho resisted the urge to point out that random strangers on their college campus was an entirely different thing than their actual blood relatives.

They lapsed into silence again, a prolonged sort of silence that settled over them like a warm blanket. Keeho could feel his own eyelids starting to get heavy, exhaustion from his long day of panicking and emotional warfare in his own head finally dragging him down. It was a bone deep exhaustion, like everything that had been going on lately was finally starting to catch up to him. There was a moment where his eyes became so heavy and Jiung had been silent for so long, curled up against his chest and breathing steady, that he was pretty sure Jiung had fallen asleep. Until he spoke again.

“You didn’t kiss me tonight,” he muttered. Keeho hummed, startled awake by Jiung’s voice. It was low, slow and rough, rusty with tiredness. “You didn’t kiss me tonight. You were late so you didn’t see me before the show and you never kissed me when we were with my parents.”

“Well, of course not,” Keeho replied, clearing his throat to try and shake the sleepiness out of his own voice. “That would’ve been entirely unprofessional, kissing you in front of your parents. They don’t even know me.”

“Okay,” Jiung brushed off. “But you didn’t kiss me before the show either.”

Looking back on it, Keeho couldn't be sure if it was because he was tired, physically, or because he was tired mentally, emotionally, of playing this game. Of being Jiung’s boyfriend but not being his boyfriend, trying to keep his own emotions locked up inside of him because he couldn’t be sure if they were real or not. So when he lifted his hand from Jiung’s back to curl his fingers around his jaw and his cheek, tilted his head up and met his eyes, he knew he was making a choice. A decision that he couldn’t come back from but he did it anyway.

He pressed their lips together in a slow, sweet, adoring kiss. It was unlike every other kiss they had because it wasn’t driven by alcoholic lust and a need to prove themselves or whatever pent up feeling of missing that Jiung had caught up in his chest but sheer, unadulterated adoration. Emotions spilled from Keeho’s lips into Jiung’s soft, partially opened lips, so sweet he could practically taste it on his tongue.

This kiss wasn’t for anyone. And they both knew it. In the privacy of Jiung’s bedroom, this kiss wasn’t built to be a show or to prove anything because who would they be proving something to? No one could see them, no one could judge them, no one could confirm or deny what was going on between them and they both understood that. Jiung’s fingers clenched in Keeho’s dress shirt and Keeho’s hand slid back from Jiung’s jaw to cradle the back of his head and this kiss was for them. It was all for them and all the words neither of them had had the courage to say before.

Keeho drew every kiss out, lingering presses of lips that the two of them chased each other for. Long moments stretched out over and above and around them, no words spoken, just the constant, unending kisses they shared. It could’ve been minutes, it could’ve been hours that they kissed in Jiung’s bed, Jiung’s fingers tangled up in Keeho’s shirt and Keeho’s hands cradling Jiung so gently. The seconds transcended into each other, kisses melting into one another for so long it was hard to know where one ended and the next one began.

When they did finally separate, Keeho rested his forehead to Jiung’s, Jiung panting softly, his breath ghosting over Keeho’s kiss bruised lips, tempting him to take even more kisses from his mouth.

“How long?” Jiung croaked, voice breaking softly.

“So long,” Keeho confessed. “Maybe even since I met you.” The laugh Jiung breathed was humorless, a little hysteric around the edges.

“You mind dropping a few more hints next time?”

“Yeah, I’ll just hire a skywriter, will that work for you?” Keeho quipped. Jiung smiled in spite of all of this, laughing softly. “Do I still have to say it?” He asked, voice soft.

“No, I think I’m getting the picture,” Jiung admitted. “I like you too. Sorry—”

“Stop,” Keeho told him, pulling Jiung back into a kiss. Jiung’s next words were lost in the kiss, Keeho’s lips swallowing any additional commentary he had. Jiung hummed into the kiss, Keeho slotting their lips together firmly, intent on kissing Jiung until he couldn’t talk at all anymore.

—

Keeho came home the next morning , suit jacket hanging over his arm and still wearing yesterday’s clothes, only to jump nearly a foot in the air when he noticed everyone sitting in the apartment. He placed a hand over his face while Youngbin looked at him with an annoyingly benign expression on his face, slowly raising his coffee mug to his lips.

“Morning, Keeho!” Jaeyoon chirped from the kitchen.

“Ah, morning, hyung,” he grumbled, toeing off his shoes. He attempted to sidle around the room and be as inconspicuous as possible but that was pretty hard to accomplish when Youngbin kept looking at him like he knew all of his dirty laundry.

Of which there was none. He and Jiung kissed, they fell asleep, Keeho slept in his bed and then left the next morning to come directly here. Nothing happened. There was no dirty laundry, they didn’t get up to anything but Keeho just knew that if he even brought it up one of the six men in the room were sure to try and dispute it.

“Did you stay over at Jiung’s last night?” Hwiyoung asked, his eyes shining with a very particular kind of mirth that Keeho had long since cataloged as Hwiyoung hyung’s bullshit meter. The happier he seemed the more likely he was to spout some bullshit that was sure to get Keeho either in trouble or embarrassed in record time. And it always worked, including this time as Keeho could feel the heat creeping up his neck and into his ears. Hwiyoung seemed to be far too happy about it, grinning merrily where he was sitting next to his boyfriend in the loveseat, pity in Taeyang hyung’s eyes as a blush started rising up over the collar of his shirt, blotchy and pink.

“Yes,” Keeho bit out. “I slept over. And now I’m gonna go change, if that’s okay.”

“Yeah, alright,” Sanghyuk called out, he and Jaeyoon, once again, arguing over space at the stove even though they were both cooking and trying to make lunch.

He didn’t wait for any further dismissal, all but running from the room to go get changed. Taeyang immediately swatted Hwiyoung, who started cackling while Inseong gave him a look, something that was supposed to be scolding but landed quite a few meters from its target. Youngbin didn’t even comment, continuing to drink his coffee.

“You don’t seem bothered by this at all, Sanghyuk,” Inseong said, looking over at Sanghyuk, who had finally wrestled control of the kitchen away from his hyung, Jaeyoon throwing his hands up in surrender and going to join the rest of them in the living room.

“Why should I be, he’s an adult,” he said, Inseong shrugging his shoulder but not looking convinced. “Besides, that Jiung seems like a good kid.”

“He is,” Youngbin confirmed, voice soft.

“See, if Youngbin hyung thinks Jiung is a good kid, what do I even have to worry about!” Sanghyuk called out, waving a hand at Youngbin.

“Shouldn’t you have a better indicator of what’s good or not for your younger cousin than just what I have to say about his friends in school?” Youngbin asked, turning around on the sofa to look at him.

“Eh,” he replied, waving a hand.

“You are, sort of, the moral compass of this friendship,” Jaeyoon pointed out.

“Thanks, I hate it,” he mumbled into his coffee, trying to sink further into the sofa.

After the showcase, and Keeho’s awkward morning with his plethora of hyungs, nothing much really changed for the two of them. They had already managed to set themselves into an easy routine of spending time together, seeing each other, getting meals and after being honest about it all nothing really changed that. If anything, it only made it better, less uncertainty blanketing their movements and their decisions, falling into each other without any holds, without any worries.

There was maybe one change and that was their frequency of kissing. Which Taeyang never hesitated to point out, and yell at them for, whenever he had to bear witness.

“It’s gross and I don’t appreciate it!” He insisted, throwing his books down on the cafe table when he caught them sneaking kisses in the corner of the cafe one day. “At least being around you two when you were being stupidly unaware was manageable, now it’s fucking disgusting,” he laid on, sitting down with them.

“You don’t have to study with us,” Jiung pointed out with a grin.

“You need a chaperone,” Taeyang muttered while opening his textbook.

Overall there wasn’t a big change between them being Jiung and Keeho to being Jiung & Keeho. But that didn’t mean everyone was taking it so well.

“Jiung-ah!” Eunji called out, catching the two of them after Korean History had let out. Jiung sighed, Keeho groaning softly as he tipped forward to rest his forehead on Jiung’s shoulder. Even after everything, all this time, she was so persistent. It was like she just couldn’t figure it out or maybe she just didn’t want to. But enough was finally enough.

“Eunji,” Jiung said, Keeho straightening up as Jiung turned around. “You seem like a nice girl,” he started, “but I’m not interested in you. I have a boyfriend and like I told you at the beginning of the semester like I am telling you now, I do not want to date you,” he explained, Eunji frowning while crossing her arms over her chest. “I’m sorry but I really think you’re wasting your time when I know someone else on this campus would absolutely like you. But it’s not me. I’m in a relationship already and that’s that.”

“Fine,” she huffed, “it’s annoying as hell to try and talk to you anyway. And you’re not even that cute,” she insisted before throwing her hair over her shoulder and stalking away. Jiung nodded to himself, hearing Keeho snort behind him. When he turned around Keeho was shaking with repressed giggles, Jiung shaking his head to himself.

“I’m not even that cute,” Jiung said.

“Well, that’s her opinion,” Keeho replied, leaning in to kiss Jiung. It was rather difficult with the way the both of them were trying not to laugh, grinning into each other’s mouths but they managed alright. When they pulled away, Keeho took Jiung’s hand in his, directing him down the hallway. “So, where are we doing lunch today?” He asked.

“Oh, actually,” Jiung said, coming to a stop, “can we rain check lunch?” Keeho tilted his head, furrow in his brow. “I mean, lunch, just us. Taeyang’s younger brother Jongseob is staying at our place for a long weekend and I told them I would hang out with them but you should come too. Jongseob’s bringing his friend Shota and Shota’s cousin is going to meet us as well.”

“You mean the kids who, when they met me, I was drunk?” Keeho clarified.

“You weren’t that drunk, don’t lie,” Jiung told him, rolling his eyes. “But yeah and also they’re cool kids. They also got on with Intak really well so he’s coming too. Y’know, if that helps at all.”

“So Shota’s cousin does actually school here?” Keeho asked, beginning to walk down the hall again.

“Yeah, actually,” Jiung laughed, “his name’s Shotaro, and Intak and I actually know him. He’s in dance troupe with us.”

“The world is so small,” Keeho sighed.

“And getting smaller,” Jiung said, pushing open the lecture hall doors. It was getting warm already and it was only 20 minutes to one. The sun glared down on them, Keeho blinking his eyes several times as he stepped out to try and adjust his eyes to the change in light.

When he turned to look at Jiung he was met with the sun lighting up his blond hair, making it glow like a golden halo, shadows of his lashes casting down his cheeks and throwing his already dark brown eyes into deeper darkness, making them look all consuming, still one of the most striking features of his in Keeho’s opinion. Every single day he remembered why he adored him all over again and every single day he was glad he made such a dumb decision at that bus stop over a month ago.

“So, do you wanna go?” Jiung asked, his warm honeyed voice breaking the spell. Keeho nodded with a grin.

“Sure,” he agreed. “Lead the way.”