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Here are a few things Kang Taehyun knows about Choi Soobin:
1. He’s the nation’s first love, right next to Bae Suzy.
It doesn’t take much to fall for Choi Soobin — trust Taehyun’s words on this, he’d know. There is this charm to him that has people falling down at his feet even as he stumbles over himself. It only becomes more obvious after his time at Music Bank, watching idols who’ve only met Soobin for the first time that day look at him with a gaze dripping honey so slick you could choke on it. Taehyun had wondered if he was homophobic, then, gagging whenever he sees the same heart eyes aimed at his leader.
He gets his answers from an exasperated Yeonjun, whose first instinct was to laugh at his woes so hard he almost got up from the older’s bed to leave. He’s stopped by a hand around his wrist, pulled down onto the sheets for Yeonjun to tuck his head into the crook of the older’s neck as he runs his fingers through Taehyun’s blonde locks.
“There, there, Taehyunnie,” he’d cooed, so placating though Taehyun melts into it anyway, “I think you like him.”
“That wouldn’t make sense, I’ve never liked guys before,” Taehyun mumbles.
“You don’t have to. Maybe Soobinnie’s your gay awakening and you’re jealous that so many other people are just as in love with him as you are.” Yeonjun makes sense, as much as Taehyun hates to admit it.
“What if I’m not gay? Maybe I’ve just never felt the touch of a woman before.”
“Well, have you ever felt the touch of a man?”
“...Not anything beyond platonic, no.”
Yeonjun shifts then, letting go of Taehyun to roll over so he was caging the younger underneath him. The older’s necklace is dangling just above Taehyun’s chest, and all Taehyun can see is the way the sleeveless shirt Yeonjun had worn has a collar just a little too loose. His gaze falls on exposed collarbones, before trailing up to the older’s lips.
“Do you want to find out?”
Taehyun swallows, and Yeonjun eyes the way his Adam's apple bobs.
“You can say no, Tae—”
“I want to.”
Taehyun’s fingers curl into the slightly loose collar and he pulls Yeonjun down into a kiss. It’s messy and uncoordinated, inexperience dripping off of Taehyun’s lips that Yeonjun licks up and swallows along with the younger’s whines. Their heads are tilted, and Taehyun learns that Yeonjun’s kisses fit his personality — bright, hot, and every bit as sensual as the way Yeonjun carries himself. Taehyun doesn’t know where to put his hands, settling on grabbing the older’s hair lightly and groaning when he whimpers in response.
He lets out a low murmur of ‘hyung’ when they pull away, Yeonjun’s thumb pressing down on Taehyun’s lower lip. His face is flushed, and as shitty as first kisses are meant to be, Taehyun doesn’t think his was too bad.
Taehyun learns another thing that day: no matter who you are, Choi Yeonjun is pretty.
2. Choi Soobin likes kissing.
Neither Taehyun nor Yeonjun bring up the kiss. They’ve tried to, but each time they do, they end up with their lips against each other’s and Taehyun is pretty sure that the rest of the group has picked up on it.
He gets confirmation when he walks into Yeonjun and Beomgyu in their shared kitchen. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Yeonjun so flustered, cornered against the kitchen counter with the edge digging into his waist while Beomgyu crowds him. The new jet-black hair only emphasises the flush on the oldest’s cheeks further, shaky fingers placed on top of Beomgyu’s own as though attempting to comfort him.
“Hyung,” Beomgyu says, voice so serious that Taehyun would have walked out and left them to their own shenanigans if he hadn’t been so curious. “You’ve kissed Soobin. You’ve kissed Taehyun-ah and Hueningie. Why won’t you kiss me?”
Taehyun snorts, making the duo aware of his presence before he dismisses them with a flick of his hand, walking off. He knows the exact answer to that question — Yeonjun had told him after Taehyun’s ‘I’m a boy and I’m a boy kisser who likes kissing boys’ awakening. It’s funny how Yeonjun can make moves on everyone except the one he actually had feelings for — ‘It’s easier because it doesn’t mean anything, Taehyun-ah,’ — but that’s none of his business. It wasn’t as though he was much different.
Things do change, however, when Soobin pulls him into his room right as he is walking back. Taehyun’s back is pressed against the door, eyes bright and confused when Soobin’s hand comes to rest on his hip. Him being the shortest wasn’t something he felt insecure about, but there was something about the way Soobin looms over him, body almost entirely covering Taehyun’s own that makes the younger feel so small.
Not in a bad way, he means, he appreciates Choi Soobin and the way his biceps flex when they’re carrying something heavy. Not to say he’s checked his leader out before — okay, maybe he has, but who wouldn’t if Choi Soobin walked around in sleeveless shirts? What more with their recent concept for LO$ER=LOVER? God was cruel to give Kang Taehyun a whole feast but not let him dig in.
“Taehyun-ah,” Soobin’s voice is so low, yet his lips are so cutely pouted that Taehyun wonders how he’s ever survived longer than five minutes around this man. “Kiss me, too.”
Huh?
The confusion must have shown on his face, with the way Soobin’s ears immediately turn red. But if the love of Taehyun’s life asks for a kiss, who is he to deny it?
Taehyun’s palms come up to caress Soobin’s cheeks, sensing the slight hesitation as he gently tugs the older down. It’s nothing like his first kiss with Yeonjun, it’s slower, this time. Soobin’s arms come to rest on Taehyun’s waist, head tilted and brims parted for Taehyun to taste the strawberry lip balm he’d applied earlier. It has always been one of his favourite flavours, but Taehyun thinks that it tastes much better when he’s getting it off of Soobin’s lips. He pulls away with a tug of Soobin’s lower lip between his teeth, sinking into the plush muscle.
“Taehyun-ah,” Soobin sounds breathless, and he sounds like every fever dream Taehyun has ever had. “You can kiss me harder.”
So that’s exactly what he does.
3. Choi Soobin likes kissing Kang Taehyun.
The kiss must have served as a catalyst for something, because these days, Taehyun doesn’t remember a night where he isn’t whisked away to Soobin’s room or Soobin doesn’t end up in his bed. Kissing becomes more of a greeting than anything else — he kisses Soobin when they wake up next to each other, gross morning breath and all, and he kisses Soobin right before they head to bed.
That being said, it wasn’t just between them, because he’s walked in on their other three members shoving their tongues down each other’s throats way more times than he’d like. Nothing like a little making out to improve your team bonding, right? Wrong! Because Taehyun never kisses Yeonjun anymore and his lips are exclusively for one (1) Choi Soobin. It would be fine if he at least knew where they stood like Beomgyu, Yeonjun and Kai did with each other, but he doesn’t.
“Maybe you should bring it up to him and ask,” Yeonjun suggests when they’re cuddling on the couch, the oldest sandwiched between Taehyun and Beomgyu as the latter nuzzles into his neck.
“I’m not listening to you; the last time you gave me advice on Soobin-hyung, we ended up making out.” Yeonjun whines at that, grabbing Taehyun’s hair a little harshly before pouting towards his boyfriend.
“Taehyunnie, you say that like you didn’t enjoy it. All five of us know what a good kisser our Yeonjunnie-hyung is. 11 out of 10, would make out with him every night,” Beomgyu chimes in and Taehyun regrets ever asking the two of them anything. He’s not denying it, but he’d rather not have this conversation while he’s trying to get out of his kissituationship with their leader.
“Why 11? Doesn’t the scale cap at 10?”
“Hyung, for an Inkigayo MC, you’re really not kept up with the releases these days…”
Taehyun tunes out the rest of their conversation to mull over Yeonjun’s words instead, only coming back when he hears the telltale sound of the door opening for Soobin to walk through. He’s about to get up from their little cuddle pile on the sofa when Beomgyu leans over to press a kiss on the corner of his lips and all three of them watch as Soobin drops the bag he was carrying before picking it up and rushing to his room. What the fuck?
Taehyun barely has time to process it before he’s kicked out of their cuddle pile, whining when his ass slides off the sofa and hits the rug.
“There’s your damn catalyst, now go and talk to him,” Beomgyu says, and he looks a little too haughty for someone with way too many blankets on him. “Go.”
He goes. His feet find their way in front of Soobin’s door, knocking lightly, He hears a low ‘come in’ only seconds after and he feels like he’s walked back into square one, except he’d walked himself into it instead of Soobin pulling him in. It’s different, though, this time. Because Soobin pulls him to his bed and pushes him down, hair still artfully messy from the shoot he was at and makeup tracing his features.
Taehyun remembers when he’d seen the scans from the DIOR shoot with Yeonjun, swallowing a little too hard at the picture of Soobin with his lap wide open, gaze intently focused on the camera that Taehyun felt small even if it was through a screen. He doesn’t think he’ll ever stop being in awe of Soobin, with the way his heart pounds each time they’re in close proximity and his palms get just a little more sweaty.
“Taehyun,” there’s no honorifics this time, just an utterance of Taehyun’s name that has shivers running down his back. Soobin doesn’t say anything else, only repeats it over and over and Taehyun loves the way it rolls off his tongue and onto the expanse of his neck as Soobin leans down to mouth against the skin. They’ve never done this before — come close to it, yes, but never actually — Taehyun is jolted out of his thoughts when Soobin’s teeth sink into a small spot below his jaw, soothing it after with a suckle.
“Hyung?” He whimpers out, breath hitching at the end when Soobin bites down particularly harshly. Taehyun’s hands find their place on the older’s shoulders, fingers curling into the muscle. The younger knows he’ll wake up to so many marks in the morning, glad that they don’t have schedules over the next few days — he’d rather not face the incessant questioning of the makeup noonas.
“Taehyun-ah,” Soobin starts off, “I want to be the only one who can see you like this. I want to be the only one you kiss.”
Soobin has never been too good with expressing his emotions, but when he does it so bluntly and possessively over Taehyun like this, Taehyun feels his knees going weak. He doesn’t know what else to say except a very loud,
“I’m in love with you.”
Soobin pauses in his ministrations, head lifting from Taehyun’s neck for their eyes to meet. “You mean it?”
Taehyun lets out a sigh, ears tinging pink under Soobin’s dark gaze. “I’ve been in love with you for a while now. Yeonjun-hyung and I only started kissing because I wanted to figure out if I really liked guys, but clearly, the answer to that was always yes.”
“Why didn’t you just come to me instead?” Soobin tilts his head at this, confusion overwhelming his face more than anything else. He doesn’t seem hurt, thank God, but more curious than anything.
“I wasn’t going to come up to my crush and ask ‘oh, hey, I think I like you, do you want to make out so I can figure it out’?” Soobin snorts at that, moving up so they’d be face to face before he leans down to press a chaste kiss on Taehyun’s forehead. And another. And another, all the way until Taehyun’s face is entirely peppered in them.
“I’m in love with you, too.”
4. Choi Soobin is petty when he wants to be.
Taehyun hadn’t accounted for when Soobin walked into their living room the next morning, loudly proclaiming that ‘Taehyun is his boyfriend now, so none of you are allowed to kiss him anymore’. It was definitely… something for him to wake up to. If he thought that was one thing, Soobin had made it a point to kiss Taehyun senseless everywhere — their shared kitchen, the sofa in the living room, Yeonjun’s bed —
“Why are we doing this here again?” Taehyun asks, chest heaving lightly. His face is flushed, lips swollen and shiny with spit as his hold around Soobin’s neck tightens a little.
“Because he took your first kiss here, so I need to overwrite it.”
“I got the fucking memo, can you stop locking me out of my own room now?”