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"Truth or dare?" Huening Kai turned toward Soobin after having just completed his dare of eating five crackers without water.
"I'll take truth this time." Soobin determined with a firm head nod.
"Have you ever regretted being the leader of our group?" Huening Kai asked with wide eyes and a taunting smile.
"Never. I take this position very seriously and I'm grateful-" Soobin began to give his answer before his dongsaeng was cutting him off.
"Hyung, we're not in an interview. You can save the PR." Beomgyu huffed from Soobin's rehearsed answer.
Soobin rolled his eyes at Beomgyu's commentary. "It's true, though. I have never regretted being TXT's leader. So, Yeonjun-Hyung, truth or dare?" He kept the game rolling smoothly after moving past his dongsaeng's distraction.
"I'll choose dare!" Yeonjun decided all too quickly.
"I dare you to go drink the smoothie that's been sitting in the fridge for a week," Soobin suggested, jutting his chin toward the hallway leading to their kitchen for emphasis.
Yeonjun tsked his tongue as he jogged off to complete the dare.
The dongsaengs each gathered in the hallway to watch as Yeonjun completed his mission.
"Oh, gross, it's chunky!" Yeonjun called over his shoulder with obvious disgust in his tone. He pouted his thick lips around the smoothie straw and sucked up the sour, tangy taste of what used to be a sweet mango smoothie. He instantly gagged as the thick liquid hit his tongue, running to the sink to spit it out and rinse his mouth with tap water.
"Who do you want to go next, Yeonjun-Hyung?" Beomgyu asked after everybody was situated back in Yeonjun's bedroom where they'd been playing this game for half an hour now.
"Beomgyu-shi, truth or dare?" Yeonjun kept the game moving casually now.
"Dare, but if you make me drink that smoothie I will pinch you." Beomgyu hissed in warning.
"I wouldn't subject any of my dongsaengs to that." Yeonjun solemnly promised, crossing his heart for emphasis. "Beomgyu-ah, I dare you to kiss somebody in this room. On the lips." He determined at once with a firm head nod.
Beomgyu shrugged his shoulders at the suggestion. "Taehyun-ah, do you mind?" He asked, knowing exactly who he wanted to get the dare over with.
Taehyun's eyes popped wide open at the offer. "I don't mind at all, Hyung." He admitted in a mousy voice of approval.
"You certainly made that decision quickly," Yeonjun smirked at Beomgyu's abruptness.
"Well. . ." Beomgyu trailed off, trying to think of a decent excuse. "I used to kiss my hyung-nim on the lips when I was a kid. Taehyun-ie is my little brother! It's the same. Right?" He questioned, turning his head toward Taehyun for confirmation.
Taehyun smiled slightly as he nodded his head in agreement with Beomgyu. He may have smiled more if he wasn't referred to as Beomgyu's "little brother".
Beomgyu pushed forward and brushed his lips softly against Taehyun's, not giving the embrace much thought as he pulled back a second or so later. There was quiet magic in the embrace nonetheless.
"Satisified, Hyung?" Beomgyu cocked a brow at Yeonjun as things were said and done.
"Good." Yeonjun beamed and tossed a thumbs up at his dongsaengs supportively.
"Taehyun-ie, truth or dare?" Beomgyu brought back a cheerful attitude as he faced the younger male, though Taehyun had stood from his place on the floor previously.
"I think I'm done playing," Taehyun mumbled as he was taking a leave from Yeonjun's bedroom.
"What-?" Soobin, Beomgyu, and Yeonjun all called in unison as their dongsaeng took off.
Taehyun trotted down the hallway and clicked his and Huening Kai's bedroom door shut in an instant.
"Huening Kai, do you know why Taehyun-ah would run off like that?" Soobin quickly directed his attention to Taehyun's best friend and roommate to figure things out.
Huening Kai's brows furrowed as he stared at the empty spot where Taehyun was sitting.
"What do you know, Huening Kai?" Beomgyu pressed the maknae for information, an overwhelming sense of protection overtaking him in feeling as if he upset Taehyun.
"I don't think Taehyun-ie would want me to talk about it." Huening Kai admitted, passing a nervous glance in each of the hyungs' direction.
"Well, now you have to." Yeonjun sputtered assuredly.
"We dare you to tell us what is going on with Taehyun-ah." Beomgyu pushed the young male's shoulder to encourage Kai to speak.
"We're not playing anymore!" Huening Kai shrieked in panic.
"You pick truth instead? Spill what you know." Soobin backed Beomgyu up in pressing Kai for information.
"It's just. . . What Beomgyu-Hyung said. About Taehyun-ah being his little brother. That probably upset him." Huening Kai mumbled, biting his lip nervously as he was being pressured into spilling something that should be kept secret.
"Well, yeah. We're family! Hyungs are my big brothers, you and Taehyun-ie are my little brothers." Beomgyu declared, keeping up his act from previously.
"That's the thing, Beomgyu-shi. Taehyun-ie doesn't see you as his big brother." Huening Kai revealed in a soft voice.
"How exactly does Taehyun-ah see Beomgyu-ah?" Soobin questioned, brows furrowed with concern at the coded speech coming from his maknae.
Huening Kai shrugged his shoulders innocently.
"Did I do something wrong by kissing Taehyun-ie?" Beomgyu questioned before anything else could be said.
"I don't think I should say anything else. Beomgyu-Hyung should go talk to Taehyun-ah." Huening Kai decided with a heavy sigh.
"Yeah, go talk to him. Someone needs to find out what's going on and I doubt Huening Kai will tell us anything else." Yeonjun decided as the eldest of the room, having remained perhaps too quiet as all of this went down.
Huening Kai "zipped" his lips shut with an imaginary key in retaliation.
Beomgyu sighed as he stood from the floor and headed toward the maknaes' shared bedroom at the end of the hall.
"Taehyun-ah? May I speak with you?" Beomgyu asked after setting a few tapping knocks against the maknaes' locked bedroom door.
"Go away!" Taehyun yelped, sitting on the other side of the door as he hoped that Kai would come to check on him. Not Beomgyu.
"If I'm a bad kisser you could have just told me. There's no need to run out like that." Beomgyu suggested, taking a lighthearted approach to soften his tough dongsaeng.
"Hyung, please," Taehyun croaked, not in the mood to play along with Beomgyu's antics.
"I dare you to unlock the door~" Beomgyu tried a different approach. If this worked on Kai, it could work on Taehyun as well.
"I'm not playing anymore, remember?" Taehyun huffed, protesting just the same as Kai previously.
"Since when does Kang Taehyun turn down a dare?" Beomgyu gasped dramatically, knowing this would be the final tick for Taehyun to take action.
Reluctantly, Taehyun unlocked the bedroom door before bolting into bed to hide under the covers.
Beomgyu smiled as he pushed the door open, then immediately frowned to find Taehyun hiding from him. "What's the matter, Taehyun-ah? I thought we were just playing around. Talk to me, please? If I upset you, I want to know. I want to fix this." He admitted as he carefully approached Taehyun's bed.
"You can't fix this, Hyung," Taehyun mumbled, popping just his head out from beneath his covers.
"You don't know that. I don't even know what's wrong yet." Beomgyu stood at the foot of Taehyun's bed with his arms crossed firmly across his chest.
"Don't you get it?! I never kissed my noona the way you kissed your hyung. I let you kiss me because I like you, Hyung. I like you and I wanted you to kiss me to feed into my stupid, hopeless crush." Taehyun threw his blankets to the side as he aired it all out at once, rising to his knees to come face-to-face with Beomgyu in a rush.
"It's not stupid." Beomgyu decided, dropping his arms to the side with a soft sigh.
"Just hopeless, right?" Taehyun huffed, wide eyes burning with unspilt tears.
"I didn't say that." Beomgyu broke into a soft smile at Taehyun's pitiful appearance. It was adorable.
"You see me as a little kid! As your freaking baby brother! I'm just your dongsaeng. So yeah, Hyung, I'd say it's pretty hopeless." Taehyun nearly spat as he rambled nonsensically now.
"I don't. . ." Beomgyu shook his head softly, setting his hands on Taehyun's shoulders to calm the younger male. "Taehyun-ah, no, you've got it all wrong." He insisted in a rush.
"How could I possibly have it all wrong? Before you kissed me you said I'm your little brother and that it'd be the same as kissing your hyung-nim." Taehyun reminded the hyung of his words, a dramatic pout on the dongsaeng's lips.
"I was. . . Covering," Beomgyu revealed as if in slow motion. As if he wasn't sure of the words coming out of his mouth.
"Covering? What are you talking about?" Taehyun shook his head confusedly at Beomgyu's confession.
"Why do you think it was so easy for me to pick you, huh? If I were picking the one I see as my brother I'd have gone for Huening Kai. . . Probably even Soobin-Hyung. There's an obvious reason I picked you, Taehyun-ie." One of Beomgyu's hands traveled to rest on Taehyun's cheek as the rest of the truth came to light.
Taehyun stared at Beomgyu in dumbfounded silence.
"When Yeonjun-Hyung dared me to kiss someone it was because he knows I like you, Taehyun-ie. Did he know you like me?" Beomgyu questioned, head tilting to the side with wonder.
"I confided in him about having a crush but I never said it was you that I liked. He probably figured it out, though." Taehyun admitted, blushing red hot beneath Beomgyu's touch.
"Probably. I guess he's more aware than I am." Beomgyu suggested, dropping his hand from Taehyun's cheek as he caught the younger's blushing reaction.
"He must be more aware than me, too, because I had no clue you liked me back, Hyung." Taehyun sighed heavily in admittance, sitting back in bed comfortably.
Beomgyu was laughing as he sat beside Taehyun, quickly setting both hands on either side of the younger's face and locking eyes with his dongsaeng from the new position.
"Can we redo our kiss? That first one was lame." Taehyun asked, gulping nervously after the words left his mouth.
"I was about to suggest the same," Beomgyu revealed with a soft head nod.
Taehyun giggled as Beomgyu's lips pressed into his. This was a kiss with meaning now. Their lips bobbed apart and met up again in soft movements, letting out combined gasps of air while their hands pulled one another tighter into the embrace. Beomgyu only stopped when Taehyun was trying to push his tongue into the space between their parted lips.
"Not yet, Taehyun-ie," Beomgyu gasped, shaking his head wildly as he scooted back in bed to create some space between them. "We need to build up to that." He insisted with a firm head nod of authority.
"I just want to make out with you," Taehyun pouted and batted his eyelashes at the elder male to try and convince him with aegyo to continue where they left out.
"Your honesty is refreshing, and your aegyo is adorable, but the point remains: I think we should take things slowly." Beomgyu decided in a calm but stern manner.
Taehyun sighed but nodded his head in agreement. "I understand."
Beomgyu pecked one more kiss on Taehyun's lips and stood from the young male's bed. "What do we do now?" He asked, a bit lost at what their next step should be.
"You're the hyung here, not me. You're supposed to know." Taehyun suggested with shrugging shoulders.
"We can go back to the others and keep playing games?" Beomgyu offered, cocking his head toward the bedroom door innocently.
"Is that a dare?" Taehyun's eyes lit up as he climbed from bed and stood beside Beomgyu eagerly.
Beomgyu was yet again laughing at the dongsaeng beside him. "Sure, Taehyun-ah. I dare you."