Archive of Our Own

On the first day of summer, Taehyun fractures his finger. 

It’s not a particularly serious injury, and the reason is more than a little embarrassing, but it’s still a big enough deal that it requires him to wear a cast and finger guard. The doctor says there’ll be no side effects after healing as long as he takes care of it for a month, and Taehyun’s done enough of his own research to believe him.

His sister takes the excuse to fuss over him even more than usual, which he takes with minimal protest. The cast itself is annoying, but easy enough to get used to—though Taehyun keeps forgetting there's a lot of simple tasks he can't do on his own anymore.

“Maybe it's a sign you need to be more humble,” Kai suggests, holding the door open for him as they walk into the convenience store. 

“I’m perfectly humble,” Taehyun tells him. Kai grins. “This is just a temporary inconvenience.”

“Sure,” he agrees easily. “At least it’s only the beginning of summer. You’ll still have two months left after it heals. And you have me to do all your chores for you until then.”

Taehyun narrows his eyes at him. “You’re not doing any chores for me.”

“I’m performing my twenty-four-seven duty of being the perfect best friend,” Kai says serenely, and Taehyun starts laughing.

Kai heads straight for the freezers at the back of the store when they enter, because he’s predictable like that sometimes. Taehyun immediately scrunches up his nose at the sight of the mint chocolate bars he pulls out, because he’s predictable all the time.

“You should be considerate of the wounded,” says Taehyun.

“I’m not forcing you to eat this with me, am I?” But he still grabs another bar of strawberry without any prompting. Taehyun feels secretly smug.

They spend another few minutes wandering through the aisles, ready to waste their appetite on cheap junk food. Taehyun’s been meaning to learn how to cook before he goes to college, but until then, he’s content with living like the poster child for a teenage boy. He picks up a packet of chips with his free hand and passes it over to Kai.

The ahjumma behind the register has seen them enough that she knows them both by name, so she greets them warmly when Kai slides over the assorted snacks they’ve scrounged up. 

“I was starting to think the two of you forgot about this place,” she says, ringing up their items. “You’ve grown so quickly.”

Kai gives her a smile, the same one that always makes the aunties fawn over him. “We could never forget you. This place is probably the only reason we made it through high school in the first place.”

She smiles in return, fond, and they exchange small talk until she finishes packing up their snacks. 

“And try to get some actual food next time instead of so much junk!” she calls out after them. Kai laughs.

“I think I’ll miss her the most,” he says, turning to Taehyun with a glint in his eyes. Taehyun matches his smile automatically, but it comes a second too late, and the words sink down between them. 

Neither of them say anything else for a few moments. They walk down to the pier side by side, but it’s too quiet for the both of them. Taehyun doesn’t know what to say. Then Kai nudges Taehyun’s side to get his attention and it’s immediately forgotten. 

“Race you there?” 

Taehyun raises an eyebrow. “You’re holding a bag full of food, and I’m injured.” 

“Neither of those is an answer.” Kai pauses. “Also, you fractured your finger.” 

“Ready when you are,” Taehyun complies, getting into running position already, and he thinks he feels the resulting sound of Kai’s laughter ring through the entire city. 

Here’s what Taehyun knows:

He’s familiar with truths. They’re impossible to get rid of, so he figures it’s better to look them straight in the eye than push them aside and live to regret them later. And out of them all, he knows that there’s one solid, unshakeable truth: Kai is leaving at the end of summer, and there’s nothing Taehyun can do about it. 

Of course, logically speaking, he knows that this doesn’t have to change anything between them. In the summer of tenth grade, Taehyun went to math camp for three weeks, and he still managed to text Kai every day throughout. Moving to a different country for university isn’t the same as leaving for a temporary camp, yes, but at least Taehyun has the reassurance that Kai isn’t the type to forget about him just because of physical distance. 

But even Taehyun can’t logic himself out of every situation, and when it comes to anything involving Kai, he’s a hundred times worse. No matter how much he tells himself that this is only the natural course for a high school friendship—and that it would be foolish to hope for anything more to come out of it—there’s a part of him that thinks he’d rather shrivel up and die than never see Kai again. It’s a problem. He’s aware. 

“Come on, slowpoke,” Kai calls out, already at the pier. Taehyun hadn’t realised how much he’d slowed down amidst all his overthinking. The sun is setting behind him, and if Taehyun was a poet, he’d probably spout out a verse or two about how ethereal he looks in the light. Kai was made for the summer.

Taehyun might be a winter baby, but he’s not immune to Kai’s warmth. He squints against the glare, bringing up a hand to shield his eyes against the sun, still unable to hold back a smile.

“I’m injured!” he repeats. He watches the smile bloom across Kai’s face even from a distance. He makes another impatient gesture in Taehyun’s direction, dangling the bag of ice cream over the ledge as a threat, and Taehyun laughs. 

Kai’s right, he thinks. Summer’s only just begun. 

🌤️🌊

If Taehyun had to pinpoint the moment he first realised that maybe his feelings for Kai went beyond just wanting him as a best friend, he’d have a hard time picking just one. It was more of a gradual thing, a chain reaction of events that escalated too quickly out of his control—but if he truly thought about it, he’d be pulled back to a single day the previous year.

It was the day after Taehyun’s birthday, and the two of them were spending the evening cooped up in Taehyun’s room playing the new Pokemon game that Kai had bought for him. His birthday itself had been a less than extravagant affair; his sister baked him a cake and his mom had already asked him what he wanted earlier. He’d gone out with a few of his middle school friends for lunch. If he’s being honest, Taehyun hadn’t expected Kai to get him anything, but then he’d come over with the game still in its shiny packaging and Taehyun had been too excited to be surprised. 

“I should’ve known you’d be good at this, too,” Kai complains, throwing the controller onto the bed in defeat. Taehyun grins. “Maybe getting you a game was a bad idea.”

“I’m just more used to this kind of playstyle than you are,” Taehyun says automatically. He’d normally take his eyes off the screen, but he’s still stuck in the middle of a fight. “We can play something else, if you want.”

Kai huffs. “You don’t have to make me feel better. I’m happy just watching you play.”

“We’re supposed to be hanging out together, though,” says Taehyun, now uncertain. 

“You’re overthinking again,” Kai points out, amused. Taehyun frowns. 

“I don’t—”

“Stop getting distracted! Look at the screen!”

Taehyun complies without thinking, moving on autopilot when he sees the battle screen light up again. Kai keeps up a running commentary through the fights, his own version of backseat gaming, and Taehyun slowly relaxes back against the bedpost.

After a while, when they’ve both spent enough time staring at the screen that their eyes are begging for mercy, Taehyun saves and pauses the game to join Kai on the bed. It goes unsaid that he’s staying for dinner; they’ve spent enough time at each other’s house this year that they have no remaining need for formalities. 

They’ve known each other for a while now, and while Taehyun is nowhere near as adept at reading Kai as he would like to be, even he can notice that there’s something on his mind through their conversation. He’s fidgety in a way he usually never is, touching the sleeves of his hoodie to the tips of his fingers. 

If it was anyone else, Taehyun would have asked them what was wrong without any hesitation. But things are always different when it comes to Kai, and he’s not sure where the boundary lines are drawn between them—he doesn’t want to risk overstepping and making him uncomfortable.

Turns out he doesn’t have much to worry about, though, because Kai finally speaks up with a strange sense of resolve. It’s only then that Taehyun notices that he’s pulled out something from his pocket. 

“I got you something else,” Kai says, pushing a folded piece of paper over to Taehyun across the bed. Taehyun just looks at it, dumbfounded. “I know we don’t usually—I know we don’t spend a lot of time talking about more serious things, but I know you like hearing them, so.”

Even if Taehyun wanted to say something to that, he couldn’t muster up the words for it. He doesn’t know whether the flush creeping up his neck is mortification at being read so easily or the warmth that came from… something else.

“Don’t read it now,” Kai adds hastily. He’s moved onto playing with the strings of his hoodie. “But, um. I hope you like it.”

“Thank you,” Taehyun finally manages to say, voice faint even to himself. 

It’s awkward. They both know it is. They’re teenage boys, they don’t write each other letters, what the fuck. Taehyun is still reeling from the fact that Kai had managed to glean so much about him when he can’t even tell what the other boy’s thinking about half the time. 

They’re both saved from having to suffer through an excruciatingly long conversation by Taehyun’s mom calling them down for dinner. Kai avoids his eyes, and Taehyun feels like he’s going to end up saying something astoundingly stupid if he opens his mouth again, so he keeps it shut.

Later that night, after Kai leaves and there’s no lingering remnants of awkwardness left that he can pick up on, Taehyun gently unfolds the paper and reads through every line like it was a prayer to memorise. It’s littered with Kai’s favourite emoticons and phrases; Kai writes exactly how he talks, which is probably what helps remind Taehyun that this isn’t something he’s dreamed up. The words seem to reach into the recesses of Taehyun’s brain, picking out things he’d been worried about but hadn’t wanted to say out loud. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Kai be so sincere about anything before.

It’s then that he finally finds a name for the feelings that threaten to crawl up his throat every time he sees his best friend—and it’s also then that he realises that he’s too scared to do anything about them. 

🌤️🌊

“I don’t think the world will stop spinning if you skip for one day,” Kai points out.

Taehyun frowns at him. “What are you talking about? I’ve already skipped for a week.” 

“And you should be skipping for another,” Kai reaches out to tap Taehyun’s nose. He scrunches up his face. “How are you going to lift weights when your right hand is in a cast?”

“There’s other things to do in a gym than lift weights, you know.”

“I wasn’t aware you knew, show-off that you are—” Kai cuts himself off with a yelp, narrowly dodging a punch thrown his way. “Fine, fine, I concede! You’re just a gym rat.” 

“I’m not a gym rat,” Taehyun argues, though he’s secretly pleased with the title. He only started working out in the past year, but he’s been complimented enough for it to last him a lifetime. “It’s called having discipline.” 

This time it’s Kai’s turn to make a face. “How are you a gym rat and a nerd?” 

“Maybe if you actually decided to come join me every once in a while you’d get what I was talking about,” Taehyun says. 

Kai shudders. “I’m good, thanks,” he tells him. Then his lips suddenly curl up into a grin. “Besides, if I wanted to see you make eyes at Yeonjun noona for an hour, I’d just let you drag me along to another one of her parties.”

Taehyun hits him on the arm again, but not before flushing. Yeonjun had been his closest friend before Kai came into the picture, and by the time both of their respective counterparts had graduated, they ended up sticking together out of happenstance. “I don’t do that!”

“I’m sure you don’t,” Kai teases. “Hey, by the way, do you know if she’ll be there at the gym today? Soobin hyung asked me to pick up something from her before he comes back.”

Ah. Speaking of respective counterparts.

“She might be, I don’t know,” Taehyun replies, suddenly very interested in his shoes. “Hyung’s coming back?”

Kai doesn’t pay it any mind. “Yep, next Friday. He requested for leave earlier this time so he could spend ‘one last summer break’ together—you’d think I’m dying, or something.” 

“How dramatic,” Taehyun says, while full well knowing that he is a hundred times worse. Kai smiles, because he knows, too. 

They reach the gym before too long; their town is small enough that everything is within walking distance and nestled closely together. On the flip side, this also means that everyone knows everyone a little too well, but Taehyun tries not to dwell on that too much. 

Yeonjun is there, as it turns out, and she greets Taehyun and Kai with a hug and a kiss on the cheek respectively. Her hair is pulled up in its usual ponytail, freshly dyed pink—it had been fading into orange the last time Taehyun saw it. 

“You finally managed to drag this one along with you, huh?” she asks Taehyun, nodding at Kai with a twinkle in her eye. 

“In his wildest dreams,” Kai interrupts before he can reply. Taehyun rolls his eyes. “I’m here for Soobin hyung’s thing!” 

Yeonjun furrows her brows in confusion for a moment before her face lights up with recognition, splitting into a grin. “Oh, right, he told me you’d come around! Wait here,” she instructs, before scurrying back into the staff-only room. 

Kai hums in confirmation. Taehyun feels strangely on edge—he wants to ask what this oh-so-important thing is, but it’s none of his business, and he’s here to exercise. Overthinking will do him no good.

By the time Yeonjun comes back, Taehyun’s already started on his cardio and is very pointedly avoiding looking at her and Kai laughing by the counter. He doesn’t notice when Kai leaves, and when he’s finally finished with his work out and is mechanically towelling sweat off his hair with one free hand, Yeonjun directs her attention towards him.

“How’s your hand treating you?” she asks, concern dripping from her voice in the old aunty way she tends to have sometimes. 

“I only hurt my finger,” Taehyun reminds her. “It’s not a big deal. I barely even feel it.”

“Don’t try to act cool in front of noona,” Yeonjun scolds. Taehyun flushes. Every so often he’s reminded that she knows him better than he’d prefer. “I’m just worried. I can’t believe Kai even let you come to the gym.”

“ ‘Let’ me?” 

Yeonjun ignores him. “Anyway, now that you’re here, I might as well ask you. I’m thinking of throwing a party for Kai, kind of like an early surprise farewell. Towards the end of summer, after Soobinnie’s back.”

“Since when have you ever needed an excuse to throw a party,” Taehyun mutters, because he doesn’t know what else she wants him to say. She laughs. 

“I know, but I thought I should talk to you about it first. He’s your best friend.” 

Taehyun falls quiet at that, and he knows that Yeonjun can tell maybe it wasn’t the best thing to bring up by the way her eyes soften. 

“Taehyunnie,” she starts. 

“No, it’s fine,” he says, though he knows it’s a losing battle. By this point, him and Yeonjun practically have PhDs in telling when there’s something off with the other. 

He’d been there for her when she’d gingerly asked to be called noona instead of hyung for the first time, and she’d been there for him through every realisation that made his heart plummet straight to his feet. They both had people they were closer to, sure, but they’d seen the sides of each other that they didn’t trust with anyone else—a kind of bond that couldn’t be translated into any words that Taehyun knew. 

“He’d like the party, I think. He likes surprises.” 

Yeonjun smiles. “Of course. But, Taehyun-ah…” 

She trails off, as if waiting for confirmation that it’s okay to continue. Taehyun gives it to her in the form of a nod. 

“I don’t want to sound condescending, but I know how hard it can be in your position,” she says, in her I’m trying to be a responsible noona for once voice. “You can talk to noona any time, you know that, right?” 

“I know,” he reassures her hastily. This is quite possibly the most embarrassing topic of conversation he can think of, especially with someone like Yeonjun, even if he knows she only means well. “Thank you.” 

She doesn’t look too convinced, but she also doesn’t seem like she wants to make him suffer further, so she lets him go after another barrage of aunty-like questions to make sure he’s taking care of his hand. Taehyun doesn’t try to protest against her fussing.  

When he gets home, he opens his phone to a text from Kai. It’s a photo of Taehyun from when they’d been by the beach earlier, his face scrunched in concentration as he tried to open a can of juice using just one hand. He hadn’t even realised Kai had taken a picture. 

[kai]: you looked cute ㅋㅋㅋ

[kai]: don’t die at the gym 

If the resulting smile that splits across his face makes him look like an idiot, well, it’s a good thing that no one’s around to see it.

🌤️🌊

‘Tactful’ isn’t a word that most people would use to describe Taehyun. He has a tendency to say what’s on his mind without leaving any room for bluffing. It’s usually something he takes pride in, but at other times all it does is result in situations like these:

“You’re serious?” Kai asks, doing something funny with his eyebrows that Taehyun doesn’t know what to make of. He nods. 

Taehyun had been complaining about how hard it was to wash his hair with the cast in, and Kai being Kai, had jokingly asked if he should wash it for Taehyun instead. He probably hadn’t expected Taehyun to actually agree with him, but that’s exactly what he does. 

He isn’t sure why he asks it. Maybe because he knows that Kai will never say no to him. Because Kai is good, too good to be real, and Taehyun sometimes thinks he doesn’t deserve any of his kindness, but that isn’t going to stop him from taking what he can get. 

And sure enough: “Okay,” Kai says simply. 

The topic is abandoned for another point of conversation, and neither of them bring it up again until two days later, when Taehyun’s hair is greasy enough that he really can’t go another day without washing it. It’s also then that he thinks maybe he should have thought this through a little more. 

He’s standing by the sink, struggling to get his shirt off with one hand and valiantly avoiding eye contact with Kai in the mirror. It’s too late to feel embarrassed now. 

“Come on,” says Kai, patiently, helping him pull off the shirt. “Just get in.”

So Taehyun complies, letting the cold water run down his back and calm him down. He’d put a cover over his cast to make sure it doesn’t get wet, but it’s still a pain to work around. 

Kai joins him in less than a moment, his own shirt also taken off and a smile on his face. Taehyun makes a point to look at the smile and the smile only. 

“Turn around,” Kai instructs. Taehyun’s never felt so useless before—he knows the whole point of Kai helping him is because he can’t do this himself, but he’s just standing there with his arms at his sides, unsure what he should be doing with himself. He feels vulnerable, oddly exposed, even though this was his idea in the first place. 

Kai, on the other hand, is treating this like it’s the most natural thing in the world. He moves behind Taehyun so that he can get a better look at his hair, and Taehyun is suddenly more aware of their height difference than usual. Kai lets the water run for a few more seconds before he turns it off to lather shampoo onto his hands. 

Taehyun’s not touch-starved—far from it—but the first point of contact with Kai’s hand and his head feels charged with something he doesn’t want to know the name of. Kai doesn’t seem to notice, just continuing with gentle ministrations across his scalp. Neither of them say a word. He thinks he could die like this: Kai’s hand in his hair, breath warm against the back of his neck, barely a few inches of space in between them. 

“Does it hurt?” Kai asks after his fingers get caught on one particularly bad tangle. Taehyun shakes his head silently, not trusting himself to speak. 

“Good.” 

Kai lets the water run again, and Taehyun barely suppresses a shudder when the cold of it touches his skin. Kai’s fingers ghost across his shoulders for a second, a minute comfort, before he brings up his hands to work the shampoo out of Taehyun’s hair. 

He thinks this is the longest they’ve gone without talking in each other’s company. There’s normally any given amount of unnecessary blabber waiting to leave Taehyun’s mouth, but something about this moment feels brittle—like he could make the slightest sound and it would shatter like sugar crystals before him. 

Kai increases the pressure from his fingers on Taehyun’s scalp, almost as if he can hear him overthinking. Who knows. Maybe he can. 

“Relax,” he whispers, right into his ear. Easier said than done when you’re Kang Taehyun. But Kai’s still rubbing circles into his hair, and the contact does more to ground him than any breathing exercises ever have. 

So Taehyun closes his eyes and lets Kai take care of him. 

🌤️🌊

Things are different between them after that—not in any noticeable ways, and Taehyun’s sure that Kai would look at him blankly if he ever brought it up, but he can’t deny that something’s changed. Maybe it’s the way he’s more aware of all the times that Kai touches him. Maybe it’s how he’s still scared to say the wrong thing, worried he’ll mess up. Maybe it’s just that he’s flown too close to the sun.

Either way, they keep hanging out just the same. Taehyun’s sister complains about barely getting a glimpse of him all day, but he just shrugs and smiles at her, usually already on his way to meet Kai. He’s determined not to waste a single second of summer. 

They’re sitting by the pier again today, as they tend to do, when the first pebble disrupts the calm of Taehyun’s metaphorical lake. 

“Hyung!” Kai calls out, waving at someone behind Taehyun. He feels his stomach swoop in anticipation before he even turns around to see who it is. 

Soobin looks… good. His eye smile is ever-present and ever-lovely, but he’s grown taller in the last ten months since Taehyun saw him, and the regulation buzz cut is doing wonders for his face. He’s also filled out into his body enough that when he hugs Taehyun he can feel a visible difference. 

“What have they been feeding you down there, hyung?” Taehyun asks in awe, finally pulling away to finally get a proper look at Soobin. He’d surprised them completely out of the blue. 

“It’s all the drills,” he bemoans. “I wasn’t made for physical labour.”

Taehyun personally thinks that physical labour looks very good on him, but he keeps his mouth shut. Kai is laughing at Soobin’s complaints, which is only to be expected. But there’s something about how casual he’s being that makes Taehyun’s brain itch. 

“When did you get back?” he asks Soobin.  

“Yesterday afternoon. Kai and Hiyyih came to pick me up at the airport.” 

Without me? “Oh, nice.” Pause. “It’s good to have you back, hyung.” 

Soobin smiles at him, unsuspecting and open as always. It makes it impossible to hold any sort of grudge against him. “I couldn’t just miss this guy’s last summer here.”

“You’re so obsessed with me, hyung,” Kai says, faux-wrinkling his nose. Soobin only grins wider and tackles him, both of them laughing loud enough that their voices echo throughout the pier. Taehyun can feel an unwitting smile on his face, too. 

“Taehyunie, Kai told me you got injured,” Soobin says once the two of them have calmed down, directing his attention back to him. He holds up his finger for Soobin to see in response. It’s healed to the point that he’s been able to get rid of the larger cast—so at least he doesn’t have to deal with the mortification of asking for any more favours now.

“It’s just a finger fracture, barely even an injury.” 

“It’s still an injury,” Soobin scolds mildly. Sometimes he sounds so similar to Yeonjun that Taehyun has to remind himself that they were also best friends for a long time. “Take better care of yourself.” 

“Don’t worry, I’ve been on babysitting duty,” Kai says mischievously, winking at Taehyun. 

Taehyun makes a face. “Ew. You’re fired.”

“Good thing you have me as a replacement,” Soobin pats his shoulder. “For the rest of summer, at least.” 

“Yeah,” Taehyun says. “For the rest of summer.”

🌤️🌊

Here’s what Taehyun knows: 

Soobin is Kai’s first choice before he’s anything else. This is all but a fact, and he’s had more than enough time to come to terms with it over the past few years. He can’t do anything to change it—nor would he even want to in the first place—so he won’t waste time thinking about it. 

(That’s how he wishes he could act, anyway. In reality, he probably spends a little too much time dissecting every interaction between the three of them, looking for disparities that mean nothing. No matter how much he berates himself for acting so insecure over something he has no right to be insecure over in the first place, his brain can’t escape the niggling feeling that he’s a third wheel. It feels awful to think this way about the two people he arguably cares about the most in the world. 

But that’s no one’s business but his own.)

🌤️🌊

For all of Taehyun’s stressing, once Soobin is with them again, it’s like he never left in the first place. He fits in like the puzzle piece they didn’t realise was missing. 

“Try this,” Taehyun says now, directing a spoonful of curry in the direction of Soobin’s mouth. His finger finally healed up last week, so he’s been begging his mom to teach him some of her favourite recipes. Taehyun’s nothing if not impatient, though, so he can’t resist adding his own touches to them. Today’s experiment is a classic beef curry with a twist. 

Soobin looks at the spoon suspiciously, then turns to face Kai on the other side of the table, who just shrugs at him. Taehyun impatiently taps his feet, shoving the spoon closer to Soobin. 

“Okay, okay, calm down,” he mutters, cautiously taking the spoon from him. Taehyun watches with barely concealed smugness as Soobin’s expression slowly changes once he realises that Taehyun is not, in fact, poisoning him. 

“This is really good,” he says. He’s already getting up to sneak another spoonful from the pot that’s bubbling away at the stove. 

“Try not to sound so surprised,” Taehyun replies, slapping his hand away. 

“What’s your secret? What did you put in here?”

“Coffee,” says Taehyun without missing a beat. Soobin blanches, and Kai lets out a loud cackle from where he’s sitting. “And a bit of chocolate.” 

“Nevermind. I’m never eating anything else you give me,” he declares, letting the spoon clatter to the bottom of the sink. 

Taehyun rolls his eyes. “Kai, come here. You’re not as dramatic as this hyung.” 

“He’s worse!” Soobin tries to argue, but neither of them pay him any mind. Kai patiently lets Taehyun feed him the spoon of curry. 

“Oh, wow,” he says, eyes widening. “Hyung wasn’t kidding, this is really good.” 

Taehyun preens. “Thanks. It’s not bad.” 

“Seriously, you’re like a dark magician or something,” Kai continues, peering into the pot. “How did you make coffee in curry taste not awful?” 

“A magician never reveals his secrets.”

“You always explain all your magic tricks after doing them, though,” Soobin points out. Taehyun’s hand inches closer to his knife. “I meant, you’re so cool, Taehyunie, haha,” 

“Your lunch is in my hands, hyung,” Taehyun reminds him. Soobin mimes zipping his lips shut. 

Days like this, it’s easy to pretend like there’s no future to worry about beyond the next few hours. Kai’s laughs reverberate through the whole house, and Soobin teases him relentlessly. It’s a pipe dream—Taehyun knows it’ll all be gone from his reach before he realises, but that’s not stopping him from trying to grab ahold of it anyway. 

“It’s weird to think that we won’t be able to do this anymore in a month, isn’t it?” Soobin says when they finally sit down to eat, practically reading Taehyun’s mind. He’s always had a knack for saying all the things that Taehyun’s too scared to say out loud. 

Kai grins, defusing any possible tension before it can take shape. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, hyung. I’d happily spend a fortune on plane tickets back home every week if it means getting to eat Taehyunie’s cooking.”

“I’ll send you off with a suitcase full of Tupperwares,” Taehyun promises. 

“My hero!” 

It’s a joke, but Soobin’s face turns thoughtful. “How will you take care of your food there? The only thing you know how to make are pancakes.”

Taehyun glances at Kai. “I’ve actually been teaching him some basics. I passed on the sacred family jajangmyeon recipe.”

“Just call me Kai-don Ramsey,” Kai says smugly. Taehyun snorts. 

“Besides, I don’t think cooking will be the biggest of his worries. It’s a whole new country.”

“That’s true,” Soobin says, tapping his chopsticks against his bowl. “You’ll have more than enough to deal with in terms of schoolwork, too.” 

Kai giggles, the nervous kind where he doesn’t know what else to say. “And I’ll ace all of it, naturally.”

Soobin’s eyes soften. It’s sickeningly obvious to anyone who looks at him just how whipped he is for the younger, especially when they start talking about Kai’s college. “Of course you will. You’re a genius and no one deserves this more than you.”

“So obsessed, hyung,” Kai cooes, and Soobin doesn’t even deny it this time. 

Taehyun stares down at his bowl of rice. 

Whenever Soobin says he’s happy for Kai, he always sounds like he truly means it. And Taehyun means it too—of course he’s happy that his best friend gets to go to his dream school, who wouldn’t be? 

But amidst the secrets that he can only admit to himself, he knows he doesn’t want Kai to move. He wishes he wasn’t so selfish sometimes. He wishes he could be more like Soobin, and he wishes that he didn’t have to lie to his best friend’s face at nearly every waking moment. 

“Taehyunie?” 

He looks up to see Kai smiling at him, recognising the question in his eyes before he even hears the words on his lips. “Let’s get ice cream after lunch?” 

What a silly question. Selfish or not, it’s always a yes when it comes to Kai.

🌤️🌊

The day of their graduation was the only time that Taehyun had ever considered confessing. 

He’d seen it a million times in every drama: he’d walk up to Kai, say something to make him laugh, shyly handing over his nametag with a piece of his heart as if he hadn’t already given it up ages ago. It would be picture perfect and everything he’d hoped for. An ending that Taehyun only lets himself think about in daydreams. 

Reality, however, takes a few different turns. Their graduation ceremony is long and full of speeches saying the same two things about responsibility and adulthood, and by the time Taehyun finally gets to go on stage to collect his diploma he’s too tired to savour the moment. He wants to go find Kai; they’d been split up when they had to line up in alphabetic order. It would be easy enough to call to find out where he is, but Kai’s notorious for forgetting his phone exists. 

Taehyun eventually makes it through hordes of people—friends he says hi to, vague acquaintances that he smiles at—to find Kai talking to a group of girls he’s seen around school a few times. Kai isn’t the type to make a first move when it comes to friendships, but he has an almost magnetic field around him that pulls everyone in anyway. 

“Kai-yah, you need to promise to stay in touch,” he hears one of the girls say. Yizhuo, if memory serves correctly. 

“You know I will,” Kai laughs, and Taehyun thinks it’s a good time to insert himself into the conversation.

“Hey,” he says easily (or tries to). Kai perks up when he sees Taehyun, bright smile brightening even further, which gives him a little spur of confidence. He waves to the girls before turning back to Kai again. “I was looking for you.”

“And you found me,” Kai replies. He nods at the others in the group, ever-polite. “You and Chaeyoung-ah have met before, right?”

Taehyun smiles at her. He only knows her through a few extracurriculars they’d done together, and they’d been perfectly civil through it all—though he gets the feeling that she doesn’t like him very much. “Yes we have. Congratulations on getting into SNU.” 

“Thank you, Taehyun-ssi,” she says. The awkwardness is thick enough to slice through with a knife, but Kai is determined to ignore it, so Taehyun will too. 

“Well, we should probably get going now,” the shortest one—Yeojin?—says. She gives Kai a hug before the rest of her goodbyes. Taehyun has no idea Kai had so many other close friends. He thinks he spent too much time during high school worrying about when Kai was looking at him to look at other people himself. 

“See you, Kai-yah! And good luck once again!” 

Yizhuo waves goodbye as the three of them leave to join their respective friend groups, and Taehyun can breathe normally again. He wants to ask what they were wishing him ‘luck’ for, but Kai starts speaking before he can.

“Can you believe it? Graduation?” 

Kai sounds excited, the same sort of earnest optimism he puts into everything he says. Taehyun wants to say something cynical—high school doesn’t even matter in the big picture, it’s just another day, the world will continue spinning. But Kai’s happiness is contagious, and even Taehyun can only pretend like he doesn’t care for so long. 

“It’s still hard for me to wrap my mind around it,” Taehyun agrees. “Even getting up on stage didn’t feel real. It’s weird knowing that I won’t have the same routine anymore.” 

“Right?” Kai laughs. They’re walking across the campus now; the field’s full of students chatting and laughing with each other. Taehyun can’t quite believe that this is the last he’s ever going to see of them. 

He spots a girl standing next to a taller guy under the shade of a tree, their body language towards each other clearly shy. From what Taehyun can make out, she’s handing him her nametag. It’s a sweet moment that makes the corners of his lips turn up unwittingly, and he looks away to give them their privacy and think about his own plan for a second. 

They eventually come to a stop by the edge of the track field. They should probably be heading to find their own families, but Taehyun wants to enjoy the last few minutes they’re getting alone, and he gets the feeling Kai thinks the same. 

It’s the perfect moment. He has his nametag in his hand, he’s fiddling with it in his pocket—he isn’t sure if Kai noticed that it’s gone from his shirt. He spends a second rehearsing what he’d prepared to say earlier in his head, and then:

“I have something to tell you,” Kai says. 

Taehyun blinks. Did Kai beat him to it? Was he about to get confessed to, instead of being the one confessing? 

Kai looks oddly nervous, and Taehyun realises that he should probably say something instead of just standing there. “Yeah? What is it?” 

“I’m—” he starts, then cuts himself off. Taehyun can hear his heartbeat in his ears. He still has his nametag on the ready to hand over in a perfectly smooth, romantic moment. Every moment that Kai spends hesitating over his words is killing him. 

“I got into the school I applied to in New York,” is what Kai finally says, and Taehyun thinks he hears a record scratch somewhere. 

New York. He remembers the school. He’d been there when Kai had pressed ‘send’ on the application, cheering him on with affirmations that he’d definitely get in. 

“Oh,” he says dumbly. New York. Kai’s watching him with wide eyes, so he tries to adapt his response, correcting himself to an “Oh!” 

New York. Far from a confession. Eleven thousand and forty six kilometres far, to be exact. 

“That’s so cool, Kai-yah,” Taehyun manages to continue, moving on autopilot. He feels like he’s frozen in place, still trying to process the full implications of what he’s just heard. He knows Kai can tell that his heart isn’t fully in it, but he also doesn’t know how else to react. 

“Thank you,” Kai says, smiling delicately. He looks like he’s walking on eggshells. “I know it’s far, but we’ll still talk everyday, and—”

“Don’t worry about that now,” Taehyun interrupts. He may be confused right now, but he’s mildly horrified that Kai felt like he had to reassure Taehyun about this before he did anything else. “This is—I’m so happy for you. This is huge.”  

He tries to give Kai a hug, but then he feels the first pinpricks of tears in his eyes, and now he’s even more horrified. New York. Taehyun can’t remember the last time he went longer than two days without seeing Kai. 

“Taehyun-ah,” he starts now, softly, but Taehyun waves him away. 

“Have you told anyone else yet?” he asks, just for something to say. He’s sure he knows the answer anyway. 

“Yeah,” Kai answers. If Taehyun didn’t know better, he’d think he looks mildly guilty. “I got the email two weeks ago. I was waiting for the right time to tell you.”

And, well, he’d expected that, but that doesn’t mean it hurts any less. “We should do something to celebrate.”

“We should?”

“Yes,” Taehyun insists, because he needs to redeem himself or die trying. “This is a big deal. You deserve to be dramatic about it.”

“Okay.” Kai says, then hesitates, as if he’s not sure whether he should mention the elephant in the room or not. Taehyun wishes he wouldn’t pity him like this. “Hey. What’s that in your pocket?” 

Taehyun squeezes his fist tighter around the nametag. “Nothing. Come on, let’s get celebration fried chicken.”

🌤️🌊

That was then, and this is now. Taehyun’s moved past clinging onto nametags and stupid plans. He figures that was enough of a message from the universe that some things just aren’t meant to work out. 

It still doesn’t excuse how he ends up here, though: five minutes before they’re supposed to be at Yeonjun’s house, laughing with Kai in his bedroom amidst a strewn pile of clothes that they stole from his sisters. They’ve spent the better part of the evening trying them on and giggling at each other in the mirror. 

“I don’t know, I think this might be my new look,” Kai muses, tugging on the hem of the extremely distressed black jacket he has on. It’s from Bahiyyih’s closet, more specifically the week she decided she wanted to go emo. It’s also several sizes too small for him—the material is stretched thin across his shoulders, and it looks like he’s going to explode out of it any second. 

Taehyun snorts. “You’re going to cut off your blood circulation if you stay in it for even another second.” 

Kai pouts, but he moves to take it off anyway, finding another shiny object to distract himself with. Taehyun, meanwhile, takes to admiring himself in the mirror: he’s found a denim skirt that he thinks belongs to Lea, and he can’t deny that he loves how it looks. 

“Do you think noona will mind if I steal this skirt from her?” 

Kai looks up, giving Taehyun an appreciative once-over from across the room. “It would be criminal of her not to approve. It suits you a hundred times more than her.” 

“Shut up,” Taehyun mutters, the tips of his ears burning red. He does take the excuse to spend another minute staring at himself, though. 

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” Kai snickers. Taehyun turns around to frown at him, only to find Kai actually taking a picture of him in his new outfit. “There we go.” 

“Have you found something yet?” Taehyun asks after making sure Kai sends him the picture. 

He makes a face. “I just wanted to try them on for fun. All their clothes are too small for me, anyway.” 

Taehyun hides a smile. He thinks Kai would look good in anything, but he’s not giving him the satisfaction of saying it out loud. He reaches out to pat Kai’s shoulders. “Stop growing then, you giant.”

“What if you grew taller instead?” Kai suggests. Taehyun steps on his foot. “Ow!” 

“We should probably get going,” he says innocently, ignoring Kai’s protests. “Yeonjun noona will be wondering where we are.” 

“You’re such a nerd, no one will probably even be there yet,” Kai complains. 

“The party’s being thrown for you , though,” Taehyun reminds him. He’d given up on the ‘surprise’ part of the surprise party only a few minutes after finding out. He was terrible at keeping secrets from Kai. 

Still, the reminder does seem to make Kai perk up, and he dusts off his jacket (one that actually fits him this time). “You’re right. I shouldn’t deprive her of my presence for any longer than I need to.” 

“That’s nowhere close to what I said,” Taehyun says mildly, but he follows Kai out the door anyway. “Are we stopping by at Soobin hyung’s?” 

“He’ll meet us there,” Kai hums. “I think noona roped him into helping her set up.”

Taehyun laughs as they go down the stairs. Bahiyyih and Lea both compliment him on the skirt when they’re leaving the house, which puts Taehyun in an even better mood than before, and he’s practically walking on air by the time they reach Yeonjun’s place. 

“There you are,” Yeonjun says with a grin as she pulls open the door to greet them. She does a double take when she sees Taehyun’s outfit. “Since when do you have good taste in clothes?” 

“Sorry not all of us can be fashion majors, noona,” says Taehyun. Yeonjun narrows her eyes at him, but forgets all about it when she sees Kai and goes in to hug him instead. 

Turns out Kai was right. There’s not many people present when they walk inside, but they’re all familiar faces. Taehyun’s been to enough of Yeonjun’s parties before to know that that’s a rare occurrence—but she’s a good friend before she’s an extrovert, and he also knows that she wants to make Kai feel comfortable. 

Yeonjun whisks Kai away to meet some people, and probably to find whichever corner Soobin was hiding in, so Taehyun heads to the kitchen in their absence. 

He expects it to be empty, but there’s someone already standing in front of the fridge—a someone he knows, Taehyun realises. Beomgyu turns around, ice cream tub in hand, almost dropping it when he spots Taehyun. 

“You’re like a ghost,” he says, setting the tub down on the counter. Taehyun takes the unspoken invitation to join him there. 

“Hello to you too, hyung.” 

Beomgyu flashes him a smile. “Hi, Taehyunie. It’s been a while.” 

“Too long,” Taehyun agrees, watching with morbid curiosity as Beomgyu scoops the ice cream into a glass before following up with a generous amount of alcohol. “What have you been up to, other than following Yeonjun noona around like a lost puppy?” 

“You’re mean,” Beomgyu admonishes. He’s still smiling, though, and he takes a sip of his newly made drink before answering. “The band is all away visiting family for the summer, so I’ve been spending most of my time songwriting, making music.” 

“That’s so cool,” Taehyun says, and means it. Beomgyu’s smile widens. “It’s so cool that you guys made it this long. I can’t wait to hear your new stuff.” 

Taehyun doesn’t know how long they end up talking for, but between the two of them, they can carry out a conversation for five people. They used to be close when Beomgyu was still in high school; even if they don’t talk regularly now, it’s always nice when they can catch up. Beomgyu ends up pouring out some Bailey’s for Taehyun as well, so he’s pleasantly buzzed and full of warmth when Yeonjun and Kai find him again. 

They’ve brought along Soobin with them, who visibly brightens up when he catches sight of Beomgyu. It doesn’t take long until the two of them are caught up in bickering between themselves, though, so Taehyun turns his attention towards Kai. 

“I missed you,” he says. Kai laughs, loud and bright. 

“How much have you had to drink?”

“Nothing at all.” 

“Okay,” Kai giggles. He glances over at the others, where Yeonjun seems to have convinced Soobin and Beomgyu to leave the kitchen and come dance with her. Beomgyu looks positively smitten, like he’d do anything for her before she even asked—he’s an open book. Taehyun’s glad he doesn’t have it that bad. 

“You’re not joining them?” 

Kai shakes his head. “Noona made me socialise enough today to last a month. I wanted to say goodbye to everyone properly, but I didn’t realise how tiring it would be.” 

Taehyun hums in consideration, absent-mindedly playing with Kai’s hands. The two of them are sitting pressed up against the counter on the floor, invisible to anyone who decides to walk into the kitchen. 

“You’re sweet,” he tells Kai. “Everyone’s going to miss you.” 

The I’m going to miss you goes unsaid. Taehyun’s pretty sure he’s said it a hundred times by now, anyway, if not in as many words. 

“I’m going to miss everyone, too.” Kai hesitates for a second, like he’s not sure if he should be continuing, but decides to go for it anyway. “Especially you.”

It’s a rare moment of seriousness from someone who’s always anything but. Taehyun doesn’t know if he should be interpreting that sentence the way he wants to interpret it, and the alcohol in his system isn’t doing anything to help matters. 

“What are you most excited for in New York?” he asks instead. 

If Kai notices his terribly unsubtle attempt at a subject change, he doesn’t say anything. He taps his chin with his free hand, pretending to think. “Probably the food, if I’m being honest.” 

“You’re so lame,” Taehyun says, laughing. “I’m going to help you make a list later.” 

“We should make a list of things we can do together.” 

“I’m not the one going to New York, though. You are.” 

Kai shakes his head. “No, stupid. I meant in general. Kind of like a bucket list, but for summer.” 

“Summer’s almost over.” 

“Nevermind. You’re insufferable and I don’t want to do anything with you.” Kai sighs dramatically, making Taehyun giggle and squeeze his hand in response. 

Kai tilts his head to the side, resting it against the back of the counter so that he’s looking right at Taehyun. He mirrors the position. 

“I really am going to miss you, you know,” Kai says. He sounds the sincerest he’s ever been. It almost makes Taehyun’s heart hurt. 

“I know,” he says quietly. “But let’s not think about it now.” 

“Okay,” Kai agrees, as if it’s just that simple for him to listen to Taehyun.

They sit like that for a while, no words exchanged, just listening to each other breathe. Taehyun tries to memorise the lines on Kai’s face: the sharp cut of his jawline, the ridge of his nose, the crinkles on his cheeks from laughing too much. This memory is all he’ll have left after the next month, when he needs to get used to seeing his best friend through a phone screen. 

It’s only because of how closely he’s watching the other that Taehyun realises when Kai’s eyes drop to his mouth. They’re close enough that their breath is mingling together in the air between them. His tongue slips out to wet his lips, involuntarily. 

He doesn’t know who leans in first. All he knows is that he feels the first press of Kai’s mouth against his and he wants more. 

Kai starts to pull away, cautious, but Taehyun lets out an insistent hum and pulls him right back. Their hands are still tangled together, neither one of them making an attempt to get them free. Kai licks into his mouth, eliciting a noise that Taehyun didn’t even know he was capable of making. It’s entirely possible that he might not be thinking straight. 

“Taehyun,” Kai breathes out when they break away. Taehyun really wishes he’d stop talking. He leans back in and Kai doesn’t stop him.

“Taehyun,” he says again after a few moments, louder this time. He sounds strained, almost, and it’s like a lightning bolt of awareness up Taehyun’s side. He finally realises what they’ve been doing this whole time. His hand falls to his side, limp. “I think we—”

“Sorry,” Taehyun mutters, scrambling to get up, to get away . “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking—”

“Taehyun—”

He’s out the door before he can hear the rest of the rejection, heart pounding like a hummingbird in his chest. Fuck. 

🌤️🌊

Here’s what Taehyun knows:

Later that night, when he’s safely back home, all he can do is replay the kiss—his first kiss—again and again in his head. Kai’s taste. His breathy laugh when they parted for air. His expression when Taehyun ran away, after making what was probably the dumbest decision of his life so far.

Here’s what Taehyun knows:

Kai had kissed him back. It doesn’t matter what Taehyun thought he’d been about to say; he had kissed him back. Their entire friendship is an exercise in Taehyun thinking he’s not enough, and Kai gently reminding him that he’s wrong, time and time again.

Here’s what Taehyun knows: 

He did something wrong. How he can fix it, however, is another matter entirely. 

🌤️🌊

It turns out that for all his preaching about facing problems head-on, it is surprisingly easy to avoid them. Taehyun hasn’t talked to Kai in approximately thirty four hours—the longest they’ve gone all summer without being glued to each other’s sides. He can’t help thinking that every hour that goes by is a waste of time they could be spending together before Kai leaves, but he also can’t bring himself to do anything about it. 

His sister seemed to have noticed that he was moping yesterday, so she leaves him alone for the most part. Taehyun isn’t sure whether it’s the covers pulled over his head that tipped her off or the Taylor Swift blaring through his room. Probably a healthy mixture of both. 

He wants to scream. He wants to go back in time and make sure nothing has to change. He wants to—

A sound coming from the direction of his window jolts him out of his thoughts. Taehyun frowns. He glances at the clock; it’s creeping towards 5:00 am. 

The sound repeats itself, a soft clack that he can recognise as the sound of something hard hitting glass. He resists the urge to groan, forcing himself out of bed to go investigate the source before it ends up breaking his window. 

Soobin is standing on the road outside his house, utterly shameless and holding a whole pile of pebbles in his hand. He waves at Taehyun when he sees him peeking through the glass. Shameless. 

Taehyun huffs, shutting the window behind him and staring resolutely at the wall. He should have figured that Soobin would be the one to reach out to him first. 

When he closes the front door to his house four minutes later as quietly as he can, Soobin’s waiting for him with his hands in his pockets and a deceptively pleasant smile on his face.

“You’re an idiot,” he greets, to which Taehyun scowls. 

“Did you come here at ass o’clock just to make fun of me?”

“No, I’m establishing facts,” Soobin says. “I don’t call you an idiot often, but you deserve it this time. You know why.”

Kai told him everything, then. Of course he did. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Soobin gestures towards the road. “Let’s walk.”

So they do. The cool morning air is a welcome break from the heat that’s been beating down on them this whole month. Back when Soobin was still in school, he and Taehyun used to do this pretty often—early morning walks just between the two of them, talking about everything and nothing. Things had been simpler then. 

“Do you want to start by talking about why you ran away?”

Taehyun’s face feels hot. It’s one thing to admit his shortcomings to himself, inside the safety of his own mind, and entirely another to say them out loud—especially to Soobin. He thinks he’s going to die cringing at himself. 

“I was scared,” he mutters anyway. Keeping it all inside will only be worse for him in the long run. “I didn’t want to hear him reject me.”

“Why did you think he would reject you?”

“I don’t know.” He plucks at a loose thread on his jacket. “I don’t think he likes me as much as I like him.”

Soobin lets out a sound, stifling his mouth with his hand, and it’s then that Taehyun realises he’s laughing. “Yah. Don’t make fun of me!” 

“I’m not making fun of you,” he reassures, but his giggles speak for themselves. Taehyun tries to look mad, but he can’t help his unwitting smile in response, either. 

“Have you tried asking him what he thinks instead of assuming for yourself, though?” Soobin says once he’s calmed down enough. 

Taehyun frowns. “There’s no point in embarrassing myself when I already know the answer.”

“Contrary to popular belief, you don’t actually know everything, you know,” he points out. 

“I’m not saying that,” Taehyun argues. “I’m saying I know Kai.”

Even as he says the words, though, a traitorous part of his brain speaks up: do you? Taehyun’s never been able to tell what he’s thinking, even after so many years. He’s just convinced himself that not knowing is the safer option than heartbreak.

Soobin sighs as if he can tell exactly what he’s thinking. He probably can. “Taehyun-ah. I’m not saying this as Kai’s best friend, but as yours. You really hurt him.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“That doesn’t matter,” Soobin interrupts. “Stop avoiding him.”

“It’s barely been a day.” 

Soobin gives him a look. “And you’re telling me you wouldn’t have let this go on for another week if I hadn’t come here today?” Taehyun says nothing. “That’s what I thought.”

“What am I supposed to do? Stand in front of his house with a boombox?”

“Don’t be belligerent. Just talk to him.”

Taehyun wishes there was a rock on the ground that he could kick for cinematic effect. 

“The more time you spend sitting around and angsting by yourself, the closer Kai is to leaving,” Soobin reminds him. “Do you really expect this to blow over by then? Or are you just going to not say goodbye?”

“God, you’re annoying,” Taehyun mutters. Soobin smiles, pleased. 

“Thank you.”

🌤️🌊

[taehyun:] can we meet at the pier?

[taehyun:] now?

[read 10:32 am]

🌤️🌊

For a solid twelve minutes, Taehyun thinks that Kai is giving him a taste of his own medicine by avoiding him back and not showing up. Then Taehyun spots him out of the corner of his eye, heading down the road toward the pier, and he remembers that Kai is a much better person than him. 

He takes a deep breath. He’d spent the last few hours after getting home after his walk with Soobin planning everything that he wanted to say to Kai, starting with an apology and ending with an explanation. The mere idea of talking so openly about everything makes his stomach curl with embarrassment, but if he’d done it in front of Soobin, he could do it in front of Kai. 

“Hi,” says Kai when he’s finally in front of Taehyun, and he immediately forgets everything that he’d rehearsed in his head.

Kai is smiling, but it’s not his usual one—it’s the one he puts on when he doesn’t know what other expression to make. Taehyun calls it his capitalist smile. He’s never been on the receiving end of it before. 

“Hi,” he finally returns. Something about being in front of Kai makes him act like an idiot. But then again, Taehyun supposes that’s what got him into this mess in the first place. 

The pier is meant to be their spot. Taehyun never feels closer to Kai than when they’re hanging out here, the rest of the world a far-away dream. Yet he doesn’t think he’s ever felt farther from Kai than he does now. 

He steels himself once more. “I’m sorr—” 

“Don’t,” Kai stops him before he can even start. 

Taehyun shuts up immediately. He’s caught off-guard. Of all responses, he hadn’t expected this. 

“Don’t be sorry,” Kai clarifies. “Isn’t there anything else you want to say?” 

There’s so many things he wants to say to Kai. Yet whenever he tries to talk, the only thing that comes out is air. Kai’s stolen his voice and locked it up next to his heart. 

“I liked kissing you,” Taehyun manages to say, voice small. “That’s not why I ran away.” 

A crease seems to fall away from Kai’s forehead in relief. Taehyun hadn’t even realised he’d put it there. “Of course you did. I’m a great kisser.”

The joke is probably badly-timed and not very funny, but it works for them. Taehyun hits Kai on the arm and feels like he’s regaining balance in this new world. 

“I didn’t mean to avoid you. I am sorry about that.” 

Kai studies his face like he’s revising for a test. Taehyun wished he knew what he was reading on there. 

“And the kiss? Are you sorry about the kiss?” 

This is Taehyun’s chance: he can excuse himself by saying that he was more drunk than he thought, that he just wanted to see what it felt like, that he’s sorry for making things awkward between them because of that. This is his chance to go back to normalcy for the rest of summer. 

Instead, he shakes his head, so miniscule that you might miss it. 

Kai has never missed a single thing about Taehyun. 

It’s like a dam breaks, then. He sees a million different emotions swirl behind Kai’s eyes, each one harder to read than the previous one, but he’s done wasting his time trying to understand his best friend. It’s enough for Taehyun to just like him. 

“I like you,” Kai says, all in one breath, like he’s been holding this in forever. “So much. You know that, right? You have to know that.” 

Taehyun opens his mouth, then closes it again. Everything he can say in response to that feels too small. He doesn’t think any words are enough to sum up all that Kai means to him and more. 

“I like you, too,” is what he settles for. “So much.”

A smile breaks out on Kai’s face like the sun over the horizon. Taehyun wants to kiss it. 

“What does this mean for us?” he asks instead. 

The sun is shining into his eyes, but he’s not blinking. He’s looking straight at Kai. 

“I don’t want to leave you,” Kai admits. His voice is always softer when he’s being honest. Taehyun has to strain his ears to hear him over the sound of the waves. “But I don’t want to do something that we’ll both regret, either.”

Kai can tell. Of course Kai can tell. For as much as Taehyun likes him—is it too early to call it love?—, he has no intentions of entering a relationship with someone moving to a new country. And Kai can tell.

Taehyun, however, has no idea how Kai feels about it. “What do you want to do, then?”

“I want to keep liking you,” Kai says. “I want to keep being best friends. Can we do that?” 

It’s a question with only one possible answer. Taehyun reaches into the space between them, taking Kai’s hand into his own, squeezing it tightly. He smiles and hopes it says everything he wants it to. 

Here’s what Taehyun knows: 

He likes Kai. Kai likes him. He’d always believed that things were rarely ever as simple as that, but who is he to point out the flaws in fate?