Archive of Our Own ^beta

Beomgyu likes sweet things.

Candies, for one. Cake. Romantic songs. His mother’s phone calls. And Kai.

Kai is the nicest person he’s ever met, almost unbearably so. Sometimes it frustrates Beomgyu when he can’t tell if Kai is putting up an act or not. Beomgyu knows better than anybody how taxing it can be to be the member that people look to for positivity.

He does his best to take care of him for that reason, but the more time that passes, the less Kai accepts Beomgyu’s affections without reciprocation. It feels like some sort of competition nowadays, where Beomgyu scrambles to take care of Kai before Kai can take care of him. Grabbing Kai something to drink, feeding him spoonfuls from his own bowl, fixing his hair right before they go on stage.

Kai laughs at him whenever he pouts because Kai beats him to it first, but it’s not as amusing for him. Beomgyu enjoys taking care of Kai. He wants to be the one member who doesn’t turn to Kai to be upbeat all the time, who he can relax completely around without fear of being the emotional dumping grounds for someone else. He wants to be the reliable hyung. He doesn’t want to be the cause of Kai’s stress, ever.

Plus, it’s difficult to let himself be taken care of by someone who has the face of a fifteen year old. It feels like a form of child labour. Even as Kai grows taller and taller (and even taller), Beomgyu’s opinion doesn’t change. Kai is his baby and Beomgyu will treat him accordingly.

End of story.

Or. That was the end of the story, at the time. But the times are changing and so is Kai. Beomgyu can’t put his finger on what, exactly, has changed, but it’s driving him crazy. Like, every time he stands next to Kai he gets dizzy kind of crazy.

It’s only when they’re shooting for the concept trailer of their next album that it sinks in why, exactly, his heart has decided to give out every time he sees Kai.

“Hyung,” Kai pesters him, glued to his side like some kind of oversized leech. A cute leech, but a leech nonetheless. The second he finished changing, he walked straight over to Beomgyu. “Hyung, give me some of your candy.”

Beomgyu huffs, nibbling on a piece of candy and scrolling down his private Instagram timeline on his phone. “Kai, we get paid for a reason.”

“And you’re my hyung for a reason,” Kai counters instantly, holding out his hands for Beomgyu to drop a few pieces of candy into. Beomgyu sighs loudly, shoulders sagging, and diligently pours out some of the package into Kai’s palms. He can’t say no. Sweet candy for the sweet baby—it would be cruel to reject him. “Thank you!”

“Sure,” Beomgyu drawls. He sees Kai toss all five pieces of candy into his mouth at once and laughs. No wonder he’s so hungry all the time. He never savours his food. “You’re getting too old to steal food from your hyungs.”

“No way! But don’t worry, I’ll make it up to you,” Kai says. He loops his arm with Beomgyu’s, tugging him closer. “I’ll treat you to dinner soon.”

“Uh-huh,” Beomgyu says, not believing him for a moment. “That’s what you always… say…”

He trails off when he lifts his head and gets his first good look at Kai since they changed into their photoshoot outfits.

Beomgyu’s first thought is that whoever styled Kai needs to be fired immediately, because there has to be something illegal about this. He’s not sure what exactly, but nobody should be allowed to be this hot.

Kai’s black hair is slicked back, revealing his dark eyes, smudged with kohl, and pink cheeks. There’s a row of piercings on his left ear and a single stud on his right one, matching the silver choker tight around his neck. The tattered white t-shirt he’s in looks to be a size too small, and the sleeves are rolled up all the way to his shoulders.

Kai appears confused for a moment by his sudden silence before his lips split into the widest, smuggest grin known to mankind. “See something you like, hyung?”

“... You look good,” is all Beomgyu can think to say. Kai always looks good, but there’s something different about today. The styling of his hair, maybe. Or the way his biceps are threatening to break free of his shirt sleeves. Or just how fucking hot he is in general.

It’s like he’s been hit in the head by a neon sign with the words KAI IS HOT in massive flashing red letters.

Kai giggles, high-pitched and squeaky like a balloon, such a sharp contrast to the mysterious bad boy look he has going on. “Thank you,” he chirps. “You too!”

Never in a thousand years could Beomgyu hope to manage even one percent of the level of hotness Kai has right now, but he swallows harshly and says as politely as he can, “Thanks.”

Kai’s smile doesn’t fall as he kicks his legs onto the table in front of them and pulls out his own phone, seemingly content with his share of candy and compliments. Beomgyu attempts to return to what he was doing before, but he can’t stop his eyes from straying towards Kai every two seconds.

He’s not blind. He knows that, objectively, Kai is hot nowadays. But it’s never registered until this moment that Kai is hot in Beomgyu’s own definition of hotness too.

As in, Kai isn’t only objectively hot. He also happens to be Beomgyu’s exact type.

In fact, if Beomgyu’s type had a Wikipedia page, the accompanying picture would be Kai wearing all black and smirking at the camera like he’s a wolf and not the fucking puppy Beomgyu has seen him as for the past six years.

Kai laughs at something on his phone and licks his lips, to which Beomgyu’s heart races into overdrive. Because that’s a normal reaction to seeing your coworker’s tongue.

“Hyung, look at this,” Kai says, entirely oblivious to Beomgyu’s crisis. Beomgyu forces himself to tear his eyes away from Kai to look at his phone screen instead. A small, fluffy white dog greets him, nosing at the camera before racing off. A moment later, its owner rounds the corner, pretending to be scared when the dog jumps out.

He already knows what Kai is going to say before he says it, “It’s you! Don’t you think so?”

“Okay,” Beomgyu says, because his brain has completely fizzled out. He glances back at Kai, who looks far too sexy to be spending his free time watching videos of baby animals. This Kai looks like he should be watching American teen dramas where people do drugs and shit for fun, not browsing a channel called Top 100 Cutest Animal Videos Ever.

But he is. He’s watching the same animal videos he always does, giggling the same obnoxious laugh as he always does, all while looking like a fucking snack, and Beomgyu doesn’t know how to cope with this.

Kai is hot.

Kai—cute, silly, adorable Kai—is hot.

What the fuck?

It’s pretty obvious, and also a little embarrassing, that his type happens to be all of his coworkers. Except for one.

Or it used to be, until Beomgyu realised Kai is Hot, capital H. Now it’s just all of them.

Beomgyu’s list of things he looks for in a partner, in no particular order, is as follows:

1. They have to be taller than him. It used to be same height or taller, but he had to change it. For years, this meant both Taehyun and Kai were in the clear. Then Kai shot up like a tree, which was whatever because he didn’t fit the other criteria. But then Taehyun also grew, not taller than him but pretty fucking close, and Beomgyu had to readjust his criteria to taller, no same height allowed, for the sake of his sanity.

Except half the time they’re out Taehyun wears insoles and Beomgyu is not immune to the illusion of them, so his attempt at kicking Taehyun off his list was a failure. Especially since point two is—

2. They have to be bigger than him. He’s slightly more flexible on this one because he’s pretty naturally broad, so finding people who are bigger than him in all ways can be a hard task. Bigness can be width or something else. Like hand size. For example, Taehyun isn’t bigger than him in some ways, but he is bigger than him in others. Get it? Soobin, too. And Yeonjun, now that he’s started working out. And Kai. What a disaster.

3. They need to have the same interests as him. This is where the others should all fall off the list, but unfortunately, no matter how much he tries to frame it, he actually does share a lot of interests with all of them. Firstly, because they’re all idols and they all love music and that’s quite the damning intersection—but also individually, he can always find things to chat about with them. He’s always up for gaming with Kai and Soobin or going shopping with Yeonjun or watching silly documentaries with Taehyun.

If the purpose of sharing interests with your partner is to never get bored, Beomgyu can’t see himself getting bored with any of them. They have too much in common.

4. Finally, the last and most important one: he has to like them. Beomgyu would never even consider dating someone he’s not already friends with. There’s no point in touching on this any further because the other four members are his closest friends in the world. Him liking them is inherent. Him loving them is even more so. It’s just what type of love he carries that’s flexible.

So, pretty much all four of them score four out of four. It’s brutal out here. Kai used to be Beomgyu’s shining light at the end of the tunnel, the one Beomgyu could turn to and never worry about his heart fluttering over. But now not only is he sending Beomgyu’s heart into overdrive, he’s also completely smashing the rest of the competition. Kai is very tall and very big and very funny and Beomgyu loves him a lot. Physically and emotionally, it’s hard to compete with that.

Kai uses Beomgyu’s shoulder as an armrest and giggles when Beomgyu scowls at him. Kai hugs him and completely hides his body with his own and Beomgyu almost faints. Kai can’t sleep and he invites Beomgyu to play games with him at two in the morning.

Kai sings the guide for the melody Beomgyu is working on and Beomgyu thinks holy shit, I love him so much.

It’s not how Kai has gotten taller or stronger or more confident that makes Beomgyu’s heart race. It’s that he’s gotten taller and stronger and more confident and Beomgyu wants to climb him like a tree and also take him out to dinner. It’s a combination of all of the above times ten. Kai is hot, but the word hot doesn’t even begin to convey the turbulent level of emotion Beomgyu gets when he sees him nowadays.

The realisation that the supposedly nonexistent dream guy he’s been daydreaming about for the past twenty years is in fact Huening Kai is incredibly stressful. He spends the entire night after the photoshoot in bed, staring at the ceiling, contemplating his future and whether or not he should cut his losses and quit his job.

Loving Kai is not new. But loving Kai in this context is, and he has no idea what to do with this abrupt overabundance of feelings. He’s had crushes before, of course—he just listed out all the reasons he’s gone through the five stages of grief with every other member—but this is beyond that. This is something different.

There are lots of minor reasons he would never risk dating the other three members, but it mainly comes down to the fact he can’t see them staying together forever, and Beomgyu doesn’t see the point in entering a relationship with that pretense.

Kai, though. Kai, though…

Beomgyu can see himself at sixty, playing guitar, listening to Kai hum along to the low notes in the dim light of their little apartment. He can so easily imagine becoming old and grey and wrinkly and still being the most beautiful person in the world in Kai’s eyes, since Kai would think his partner is the most beautiful person in the world no matter what. When Beomgyu thinks about being with Kai, the thought of being together forever isn’t actually as ridiculous as it sounds.

And that, quite frankly, is one of the most terrifying thoughts he’s ever had.

Beomgyu isn’t the type to jump to conclusions. He’s the slow and steady type; he does things meticulously and to perfection. Being attracted to Kai is not grounds to do anything about it. Wanting to date him isn’t either, though it certainly brings him closer to finish the line. No—Beomgyu wouldn’t risk their careers over what could turn out to be a superficial crush.

He’s still the hyung, even if Kai is taller and hotter and sometimes more mature. And as the hyung, he needs to know when to pursue something and when to leave it be. This is one time where not acknowledging his feelings is probably more productive than trying to work through them.

But it would help if Kai could stop being so… Kai. Because god, is it hard to temper his feelings towards Kai when everything he does only makes Beomgyu like him more.

It’s like now that he’s aware that he’s falling, his descent is becoming exponentially more rapid. His brain has decided its new life’s mission is to pick up on every single thing Kai does that he finds attractive, which happens to be everything because Kai himself is attractive, and fuck, Beomgyu is about to rip his fucking hair out trying to suppress all these intrusive thoughts.

When Beomgyu falls sick the evening before their comeback, Kai sits in his room with him and hand feeds him soup. When Beomgyu is late to the studio because he slept in after playing video games all night, Kai makes up a bullshit excuse for him so he doesn’t get in trouble. When Beomgyu is brushing his teeth, Kai runs in and begs to use the shower, giving Beomgyu a two second glimpse of his bare ass.

And what an ass it is.

He’s currently sitting beside Kai on the couch, and they’re supposed to be watching some sitcom that Kai couldn’t corral anyone else to view. He uses the word supposed to as while Kai is watching, Beomgyu hasn’t even absorbed the name of the main character. He has more important things to think about, like the slope of Kai’s nose.

He tries to think back to when he first met Kai six and a half years ago, a foot shorter and a fair bit more shy. Was he always this handsome? Was it always obvious that Kai would grow up to be big and sexy and Beomgyu was the only one who missed it?

When Kai was younger, the only adjective Beomgyu would use to describe him was cute. And fluffy. Even as he aged, Beomgyu could only see him as being handsome at best—and that wasn’t a jab. People can be handsome without being hot, and it’s not as if one is better than the other. Kai was like that to him.

Now, though. Seeing Kai’s face lit up by the dim light of their TV, his lower lip worried in between his teeth and his hair pushed away from his forehead, the only word that comes to Beomgyu’s mind is hot. He’s done this exercise a dozen times in the past week—surveying Kai from across the room and forcing himself to think of the most apt word to describe him—and the result has been alarmingly consistent: Kai is hot.

The background noise Beomgyu was using to ground himself comes to an abrupt halt and Beomgyu frowns, shaking himself out of his thoughts. Kai holds the remote up, pouting, and knocks his elbow against Beomgyu’s side.

“Hyung, you know I can tell you aren’t paying attention, right?” Kai whines. “If you don’t want to watch, just say so.”

“Sorry,” Beomgyu says, sheepish. He glances at the TV and it really sinks in then that he hasn’t digested a single part of this show. What episode are they on? “I’m a little out of it today.”

“I can tell,” Kai says. He sets the remote down, resting his cheek on Beomgyu’s shoulder. It’s a weird fit, since Kai has to lower himself quite a bit to comfortably nuzzle against Beomgyu, but Beomgyu finds himself loving the weight of it. Kai has made him a cuddler—he didn’t even know that was possible after twenty-one years of dodging skinship. “Me too, to be honest.”

Beomgyu’s ears perk. “Hm?” He cards his fingers through Kai’s hair, hopefully to relax him. “What’s on your mind?”

Kai sighs so deeply he ends up sinking further into the couch, cheek sliding down Beomgyu’s arm, and Beomgyu’s blank expression quickly falls into a frown. That sigh was intense. And Kai isn’t normally the type to share his worries, so whatever is bothering him must be serious.

On one hand, Beomgyu is glad Kai is opening up to him. He’s always prided himself on being the person Kai can go to when he only wants someone to listen. The others are all naggers and compulsive advice-givers; Beomgyu proudly respects boundaries.

But on the other hand, if Kai has been so upset… how did Beomgyu not notice? That’s the very basis of being a good hyung, is spotting Kai’s issues before he gets to the point where he feels the need to speak up. Not to talk about them necessarily, but to quietly rectify them and dismiss whatever stressors he has.

How long has he felt this way, whatever it is? Was Beomgyu seriously too busy thinking about Kai’s hotness to see his anxiety?

Shit.

His own nervousness must show, because Kai quickly sits up and holds onto Beomgyu’s sleeve, saying, “It’s not that big of a deal, hyung. Don’t worry.”

“If it’s bothering you, it’s a big deal to me,” Beomgyu says firmly.

Kai drums his fingers against his thigh, shifting restlessly, and while Beomgyu debates on dropping the idea, he feels compelled to prod Kai into speaking. Bottling things up is bad after all. Unless it’s something detrimental to others, like Beomgyu’s insane thoughts about making out with his coworkers. Other than that, though—there are few things Beomgyu thinks should be kept to themselves. It’s bad for the group dynamic.

“I was just thinking,” Kai says, very slowly, “about our concept this time.”

Beomgyu moves so that he can sit facing Kai cross-legged. “Yeah?”

“And like… the clothes that we’re wearing,” Kai continues. Beomgyu nods solemnly, trying to withhold his frown.

If Kai is worried about not emulating the concept well enough, he has some seriously twisted view of himself. Nobody embodies the confident bad boy concept better than Kai, not even Yeonjun. Not on stage. Off stage—yeah, Kai isn’t going to pass for being a good boy gone bad, but it’s the performances that count.

“... Yes?” Beomgyu says again, coaxing Kai into speaking. Whatever his worry is, it’s clearly tearing him up inside to admit it out loud.

“And I keep… you know… the shirts and stuff… and the pants…” Kai waves his hands in every direction, glaring at the little space in between them on the couch. “It’s all so sexy.”

Beomgyu pats Kai’s knee, offering him a smile even though he’s not looking. “Kai, trust me when I say you look really good in everything we’ve worn so far.”

Like, please. Trust him. He’s thought a lot about this recently. Like an unhealthy amount. Like pretty much twenty-four-seven since the moment he had his Kai Is Hot Now epiphany.

“I know!” Kai says. He flushes hard at his own volume and switches to mumbling, “But don’t you think I, like… stand out a bit? Too much?”

Beomgyu blinks at him. He knows what Kai said, and he understands what the words mean separately, but he has no idea what the implication of them together is. “You don’t want attention? I don’t get it.”

“Well, no, but…” Kai groans, hiding his face in his hands. With his pale fingers right over his cheeks, Beomgyu can tell how painfully red his face is becoming in comparison. “I’m like… big. Bigger than you guys. I stand out a lot. Like I’m some sort of… dinosaur. Or something.”

If Beomgyu were drinking water right now, he would do a spit take. Twice. Because, what?

“What?” he says stupidly, and Kai’s resulting whine of distress forces him to blurt out the first thing he thinks of, “Why is this an issue?”

“It’s not! Not really,” Kai defends, which cannot be true when he’s angsting so much over it. “In general, I don’t think it’s a big deal. I’m not that self-conscious, but… in comparison to you guys…”

“Kai, I don’t know who told you this is a bad thing, but it’s not.” Beomgyu holds Kai’s hand and squeezes it, then adds for emphasis, “Like, not even a little.”

“Okay, but you have to admit I do stand out,” Kai huffs, looking pointedly at the wall.

Beomgyu rubs the bridge of his nose, taking a deep breath. His first instinct is to tell Kai off, but truthfully, he does see where he’s coming from. Sometimes standing out isn’t the greatest thing in the world, especially if it’s something people can use against you. Beomgyu can say all he wants that Kai is perfect, and he can mean it, but it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things if nobody else believes the same.

“You’re not wrong,” Beomgyu says, choosing his words carefully. They’ve all gone through similar things, but he’s not sure saying that out loud would help or not. He doesn’t want to diminish Kai’s feelings or anything. “But… okay, yeah, there’s going to be people who think you’re too big or whatever, but there’s way, way more people who like you for it. Like… everybody has a type, and a lot of people like your type. Why do you think Yeonjun hyung has suddenly become obsessed with working out?”

Kai turns bright red, from his ears all the way to the apples of his cheeks. “Did he tell you that?”

“What, that he’s jealous of you? Yeah.” Beomgyu laughs, recalling the last time he and Yeonjun went to the gym together. “I know none of that takes away the bad stuff, but… Kai, you’re hot. You should embrace it.”

Kai doesn’t react for a moment, his eyes huge like Beomgyu just told him the most shocking thing in the world, even though Beomgyu has been very diligent in complimenting him lately. It’s not news.

Was that too much? Was he too serious or not serious enough? He can’t tell if he said the wrong thing or not when Kai is staring at him like a deer in headlights.

Beomgyu coughs into his fist and pats Kai’s hand, saying, “But you know, you have control over your own life and all, if you—”

“Do you really think I’m hot?” Kai asks, cutting him off, and Beomgyu chokes.

“Kai, you know you’re hot,” Beomgyu deadpans. He glares and Kai giggles, shoulders caging in as he covers his mouth with his hand. It’s slightly strained, but the mischievous twinkle in his eyes is genuine, and Beomgyu breathes a tiny sigh of relief. “Stop laughing, I know that you know! But if you really need reassurance, yes. I think you’re hot.”

“I know,” Kai says through his laughter. He is big, but when he’s giggling like this, clinging to Beomgyu’s words for guidance, he looks a lot smaller. Like the Kai in Beomgyu’s memories. “Thanks, hyung.”

“You’re welcome,” Beomgyu grumbles. He moves to pat Kai’s arm but hesitates and pulls back at the last second, patting his knee instead. How fucking awkward. Thank god Kai doesn’t notice, too busy launching into a different conversation topic, and Beomgyu smiles placidly and follows along.

Hot, sexy, big Kai still has the same personality, the same worries and doubts, as adorable, cute, little Kai, and Beomgyu loves him all the more for it. It fucking sucks. If Kai was one of those people who became an asshole when they got hot, this would be so much easier. But no, Kai has to keep being Kai. How tedious.

When confronting a problem, there’s always a point where you need to sit down and think, am I in too deep? Do I need to readjust my goals? Is what I want realistic anymore?

Beomgyu is at that point now.

It’s when he finds saving pictures of Kai to his phone that he stops and says to himself, is he even trying to move past this anymore? Is this so superficial that he can write it off as him being attracted to Kai? Because it doesn’t seem that way anymore.

Beomgyu is attracted to a lot of people. But he’s never gone out of his way to save pictures of them. And while that seems pretty superficial on the surface, he knows it has to be deeper. When he looks at pictures of Kai, he doesn’t only think about how hot he is. He saves them because looking at Kai makes him happy.

His earlier fear of finding Kai hot being the stepping stone to falling for him for real has come true. His brief daydreaming about growing old with Kai was only the beginning. Now all his dreams are about realistic goals like kissing him at the dance studio and holding hands under the table.

He’s learned by now that suppressing his intrusive thoughts is impossible. Now it’s all about containing them.

Ever since Beomgyu fell sick on their tour, Kai has been clingier with him, finding ways to hug Beomgyu out of nowhere or pet his hair like he’s some sort of oversized dog. It’s bad for Beomgyu’s mental health, especially when Kai snuggles up next to him on the couch and kicks one leg over Beomgyu’s. Kai’s legs are so long and plush. Beomgyu sees them and all he can think about is biting them.

The scariest thought he has, however—exponentially worse than any simple dream about kissing Kai or growing wrinkly with him—is that he genuinely considers telling Kai about how he feels.

It’s not entirely out of nowhere. Kai has been laying it on thick lately towards him, blowing kisses at Beomgyu from across the room and teasing him about how he finds Kai hot. Beomgyu almost regrets having that heart to heart with Kai because it apparently gave him so much ammo, but he can’t be mad at Kai for wielding his confidence as a weapon. He loves seeing Kai love himself. He’s glad Kai is beginning to understand how hot he is—he’s just not glad he’s the victim of it.

The flirting gives way to the delusional, human part of his brain that thinks maybe Kai is seriously attracted to him. He did say one time that Beomgyu with long hair was his type, whatever that means. He doesn’t have long hair anymore, but he could.

Ugh. He’s out here contemplating changing himself for a guy. How pathetic.

Kai seems to like short haired Beomgyu too though, so he’s not going to go that far. Yet. Not when Kai is out here dropping hints that he wants to put his mouth on Beomgyu’s.

No, that was not an exaggeration.

Example:

Beomgyu is nibbling on a package of gummy bears he picked up last night, seated on one of the stools beside their kitchen island. It’s four in the morning and while he can hear movement from people’s rooms signifying their awake, he’s pretty sure he’s in the clear to enjoy some peace and quiet during his midnight snack. Rarely do any of them feel socialable during twilight hours.

His friend’s group chat, however, is popping off, and he amuses himself by watching them all hype up one of their friends’ comebacks. He gets so engaged in their talking that he doesn’t hear someone walking up to him until two hands are on his shoulders and there’s a voice whispering in his ear, “Boo!”

Beomgyu screeches and falls off his stool, the package of gummy bears dropping from his hand and clattering onto the marble countertop. Or rather—he would have fallen off his stool if it wasn’t for Kai hugging him from behind, keeping him upright. Kai smiles brightly at him, squeezing Beomgyu’s waist, when Beomgyu glances over his shoulder in a mixture of shock in horror.

Kai is literally the devil incarnate. His angelic reputation is all a farce, Beomgyu is sure of it.

“Hi,” Kai says innocently. He’s still gripping Beomgyu’s waist, even as Beomgyu sits himself back up properly. “I smelled food.”

Beomgyu scowls and elbows Kai away, opting to ignore how ridiculously sturdy his stomach is. “Get your own food.”

He would normally be more than happy to offer up his snack, but he feels like Kai deserves punishment for teasing Beomgyu like that. Beomgyu almost fucking died. How would Kai feel if the guy he liked came out of nowhere and held him like they were in some sort of domestic family drama?

“You aren’t going to eat all of it.” Kai pouts. He’s using his aegyo voice, the one that he knows will get him what he wants; but really, it’s the way his lip curls and his eyes go wide that does Beomgyu in. The fact Kai has gotten so hot only makes his cute moments even more cute in Beomgyu’s eyes. How unfair is that? “Hyuuuung.”

“One bite,” Beomgyu says. He swipes the bag back before Kai can reach for it, and takes a single yellow gummy bear out. “Here.”

Kai frowns at Beomgyu’s hand. “Hyung, not even a bird would be satisfied with one gummy bear.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Beomgyu chirps. “But if you’re going to be so picky, I’ll just—Kai!”

He cuts off into a yelp as Kai wrestles the bag from him, dives into the package of gummy bears, and shoves as much as he can into his mouth in the span of about half a second.

“Shorry,” Kai slurs, eyes crinkled with happiness. Of course he’s fucking happy. He just stole half of Beomgyu’s meal. Asshole. “‘S good though.”

“Kai…” Beomgyu grits his teeth. “I paid for that. Are you going to pay me back? Huh?”

Kai bats his eyelashes at him. And then, to Beomgyu’s utter confusion, he leans in, and in, and in, until their foreheads press together and Beomgyu is on the verge of cardiac arrest.

“Kai—” he stresses, but he’s interrupted by something prodding at his lips.

The gummy bear. Kai is trying to slide a piece of candy into his mouth. Using his mouth.

This time Beomgyu actually does fall off his stool, and Kai absolutely cackles, like he just told the funniest joke ever. He’s so fucking loud that Yeonjun kicks open his door and tells them to shut up, all while Beomgyu is sprawled on the ground, his heart threatening to rip out of his chest with how quickly it’s beating.

It’s by far the single worst moment of Beomgyu’s entire life.

He wouldn’t be having this issue at all if Kai would just stop. Yeonjun used to flirt with him all the time too, but the moment he realised Beomgyu was at serious risk of falling for him, he shut it all down pretty quickly. Kai, despite being known as Little (Big) Yeonjun, took the exact opposite approach and amped it up by roughly one thousand.

Even if Kai clearly thinks Beomgyu is hot in the same way Beomgyu thinks Kai is hot, that doesn’t mean he likes him. And that’s the biggest deal breaker on whether or not Beomgyu attempts to turn this into something real. Whatever this is. The last things he wants is a physical only relationship, friends with benefits type of thing. He wouldn’t last a day in that.

That’s not to say Beomgyu doesn’t want to explore the physical attraction though. Because he does. A lot. Just because he doesn’t want to have a physical only relationship doesn’t mean he wants one without anything physical at all.

In fact, the thought of spreading his legs for Kai makes him pretty fucking excited—like he’s a literal teenager again, which he’s pretty sure is not the reaction he should be having. He would gladly learn to stretch himself open if it made Kai happy. He would let Kai fuck him face down ass up if he was into that. Yeah, his ass isn’t as good as Kai’s, but it’s still pretty fucking cute if he does say so himself. Fuck, Beomgyu would even let Kai sit on his face despite the fact it would mean almost certain death by asphyxiation because have you seen Kai’s thighs—

Someone clears their throat.

“What?” Beomgyu glares at Soobin. He was enjoying his daydreaming, thank you very much.

“You look like you’re having thoughts,” Soobin says dryly.

“Humans do tend to have those.” Beomgyu crosses his arms as Soobin rounds the corner of the living room and flops down on the other side of the couch. He props his disgustingly large feet, clad in a pair of Winnie the Pooh socks, on Beomgyu’s lap. “Ew. Dude, gross.”

“Ew, dude, gross,” Soobin mocks him, pitching his voice higher, even though Beomgyu’s voice is literally lower than his. “What’s up?”

“Well, I was thinking, until you interrupted me,” Beomgyu sniffles. “So now nothing I guess.”

“The usual then,” Soobin hums. He fluffs the pillow behind him and then stretches out, making the couch his personal bed. “Where’s Kai?”

Beomgyu shoots him an odd look. “How would I know?” he asks. If anything, Soobin would know better than him.

Soobin shrugs in the most deliberate way Beomgyu has ever seen. “You guys have been attached at the hip lately,” he says.

“Um. Hold on.” Beomgyu holds up his hand to stop Soobin from speaking. Not that Soobin cares about body language cues. “What?”

“What do you mean what?” Soobin quirks a brow at him. “I’m stating a fact.”

“No, you aren’t. You’re making shit up.” Beomgyu frowns, glancing down at his phone screen in a way he hopes comes off as unbothered. “Stop instigating.”

Soobin groans, head flopping back onto the arm of the couch. “I’m not instigating. You’re so annoying,” he mutters.

“Did you come here just to insult me?”

“No, I came because I genuinely want to know.” Soobin rolls his eyes. “He won’t tell me, so I’m asking you.”

Beomgyu’s head whips around, and he pouts, slapping Soobin’s calf. “You asked him before me?!”

“Dude, that hurt,” Soobin hisses.

“Oh, shut up. You’re like ten feet tall.”

Soobin fixes him with a glare and says, “I thought he would tell me, but he didn’t, which means there’s something going on for real, which means you need to tell me so I know if it’s serious or not.”

“It’s not serious.” Beomgyu chews on his lower lip. “... I think.”

“You think?” Soobin repeats. He props himself up on his elbows and squints at him. “So it is serious?”

“I don’t know!” Beomgyu whisper-yells. He peeks over the top of the couch, but none of the other members have ventured out of their rooms. He’s not even sure if they’re home. “I… I don’t think so.”

Soobin sits up so that he can speak quietly, fixing his pillow on his lap. “And?”

Beomgyu presses his cheek to the couch, puffing out his cheeks. “Are you asking for gossip reasons?”

Soobin gasps in mock offence, one hand over his heart. “No. Why would you even accuse me of that?” Beomgyu doesn’t dignify that with an answer and Soobin sighs, “No, Beomgyu. I told you. I’m trying to find out for real. It’s important to me.”

“I didn’t know you were that invested in my personal life,” Beomgyu says dryly.

He’s smart enough to predict the forehead flick Soobin tries to give him, and he swiftly dodges out of the way, covering his forehead with his hands. “I know you’re only saying that to be a bitch, but yeah, I am invested. So spill.”

Where does Beomgyu even start? His own brain can’t parse through his thoughts—the idea of saying them out loud is incomprehensible. Saying he thinks Kai is hot isn’t nearly good enough. Saying he wants to fuck Kai is demeaning to both of them. Saying he’s in love with him is… He can’t say that. He just can’t.

He settles on asking, “What would you do if I… theoretically… said that I might like him?” Soobin stares at him blankly and Beomgyu continues in a mumble, “In a non-platonic way?”

“What?”

“I said, what would you do if I—”

“I know what you said.” Soobin runs his hands through his hair. “That’s what I would say. Is ‘what’.”

“Oh.” Beomgyu wraps his arms around himself. “Hasn’t anybody ever told you that answering a question with a question is rude?”

Soobin scoffs. “Is that why he’s been so clingy towards you?”

“How would I know?” Beomgyu hisses. He looks at Kai’s door, still closed. Who the hell knows what’s been going on in Kai’s mind lately. Beomgyu thought he knew Kai like the back of his hand—or like a mirror image—but that got thrown out the window when Kai became Hot. Growing up tends to do that to people.

“Huh,” Soobin says, unhelpfully. He appears deep in thought, brows furrowed; if he’s waiting for Beomgyu to say something, he’s going to be waiting for a long time. He has nothing else to offer. “How long has this been going on?”

“What, him being clingy or me being… theoretically… attracted to him?”

“Both.”

Beomgyu thinks back. Time is weird when they can go a few days without sleeping. Everything begins blending together, and it was especially bad while they were on tour. “Maybe… four or five months?”

“Oh my god, Beomgyu,” Soobin groans. Whatever snarkiness he had when he came into the room is completely gone now. “And you didn’t tell me?”

“What was I supposed to say?” Beomgyu huffs. “I didn’t… I don’t… I mean, I’m not going to do anything about it, so…”

“Why not?”

“... Is that a serious question?” Beomgyu asks, and Soobin nods. “Because we’re fucking famous? Why do you think?”

“It’s better than dating someone outside the group,” Soobin points out. And while Beomgyu can’t exactly refute that, he’s not sure that means he should do it either.

“I thought you of all people would call me an idiot,” Beomgyu says.

“Oh, I definitely think you’re an idiot,” Soobin snorts. “But if you’re serious about it—”

Now Soobin is just putting words into his mouth. “I never said that—”

“—then I think it’s better to do something about it,” Soobin finishes. “At least, tell him to stop flirting all the time.”

Beomgyu licks his lips. The whiny voice in his head says he can’t do that because he likes Kai flirting with him, but… fuck. Soobin is right—it’s stupid to allow this to continue when he’s aware of his own growing feelings and he has no idea what Kai’s intentions are.

As the hyung, it’s his job to take care of Kai. This also means initiating the difficult conversations. But, ugh. It’s times like this where Beomgyu wouldn’t mind being the younger one. How is he even supposed to breach a topic like this? What if he misread Kai’s signals entirely and Kai was only being Kai—platonic Kai, that is—and Beomgyu bringing it up at all fucks everything up?

He doesn’t think that’s the case, because it’s gotten so bad that apparently even Soobin has picked up on it. But the possibility is still there.

“Beomgyu?” Soobin prompts.

“Fine,” Beomgyu says, and then hides his face in his hands. “I’ll talk to him about it. Don’t worry.”

“I’m going to worry anyway, but okay. Good luck with that.”

Luck isn’t what he needs here, but he appreciates the sentiment.

Beomgyu likes organising stuff. It’s kind of his thing. He’s the only person in the group who ever puts their schedule into his phone’s calendar; he writes their grocery list every week depending on the recipes Taehyun sends him; he makes sure the toiletries in the bathroom are ordered correctly so nobody accidentally uses someone else’s shampoo. The others think he’s crazy for it, but he likes being tidy. It’s why his brain is so hard to deal with sometimes. His thoughts tend to be scattered when all he wants to do is put them in boxes.

So, naturally, the best way to work through this problem is to sit down and make an organised list on whether confronting Kai is the best or worst idea he’s ever had.

Pros of confronting Kai: Beomgyu might get a boyfriend. He would (possibly) not have to rely on his left hand to get off any longer. He would have someone to dote on and be doted on in return in a way that’s different from anybody else. He would have an excuse to cuddle with Kai without having to act huffy about it. And he wouldn’t have to fucking stress over this shit any longer.

Cons of confronting Kai: It would be incredibly fucking risky. A single slip up could mean the end of their careers. If it goes poorly, it would affect their personal and group dynamic forever. He has no idea if Kai is on the same page as him. Kai might have a superficial crush on him and find out he actually does not, in fact, want to date Beomgyu, and then they’d loop back to the other cons. And literally every other scenario he can think of belongs in this category, because there’s a thousand ways this could go wrong and only a handful of ways it could go right.

The cons clearly far outweigh the pros. Logically, the idea of dating anybody, let alone his male coworker, should send him straight to the company psychiatrist. And yet here he is, doodling little penguins on his notepad when he’s supposed to be writing down this stupid list. He’s down bad.

He flops onto his stomach and kicks his legs into the air, smashing his fists into his mattress. It doesn’t make him feel as good as he thought it would in his head. He has so much restless energy that usually rolling around eases at least a little bit of anxiety, but right now he’s so overwhelmed that being alone in his room is making it worse.

“Hyung? Can I come in?”

That thought was not an invitation for someone to come into his room. This is definitive proof that the universe is working against him.

Beomgyu sits up, forcing a smile. “Hey,” he greets. “What’s up?”

Kai is dressed in his pyjamas, a cute button up shirt with sunflowers, and his hair is freshly-washed and falling over his eyes. It says a lot that Beomgyu still finds him ridiculously attractive like this.

But this Kai is also closer to the Kai that Beomgyu is used to, and he has to admit, he feels a little safer around him when he’s not dressed like he’s out to go clubbing. This Kai has less surprises in store for him.

“I can’t come and check up on my favourite teddy bear?” Kai asks sweetly, throwing himself onto the bed beside Beomgyu. Beomgyu barely has enough time to knock his notepad full of penguin scribbles underneath his pillow before Kai is wrapping himself around him, nuzzling Beomgyu’s shoulder. “We missed you at dinner!”

“Sorry,” Beomgyu apologises automatically. He pats Kai’s head. “I had a headache earlier. I’ll eat something soon.” It’s not a lie. He really did give himself a headache by thinking too hard.

“Hmmmm.” Kai lifts his head and narrows his eyes at him, like he’s trying to read Beomgyu’s mind. Thank god he can’t, else Beomgyu would be fucked. “Something is bothering you.” He says it as a statement, not a question.

“Something is always bothering me, Kai,” Beomgyu laughs. “Don’t think too hard about it.”

“Hyung,” Kai scolds. Or at least, Beomgyu thinks Kai is trying to scold him. It mostly just comes out as a whine, and Beomgyu has to laugh at how utterly adorable he is. Even 185cm Kai with abs and biceps bigger than Beomgyu’s thighs can whine like a child sometimes. “Soobin hyung told me that you liked someone.”

Beomgyu shoots up like a rocket, pushing Kai away. “He what?” he yells. Soobin better be writing his fucking will, because he’s not leaving this dorm alive. “What did he s—”

“Nothing big!” Kai hurries to say, holding onto Beomgyu’s arm. “It’s only because I pestered him about it. I… I was worried,” he admits, biting his cheek. “You’ve been acting weird, and I knew he would know, so I annoyed him into telling me.”

Beomgyu buries his face in his hands. Fucking Soobin. And he has the audacity to call Beomgyu a bitch? “You should know not to listen to anything he says.”

“I know, but…” Kai shakes Beomgyu’s arm. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Maybe,” Beomgyu says shiftily. “I’m not dumping my emotional issues on you, Kai. I wouldn’t do that to you. I’m your hyung.”

“You’re one year older than me,” Kai snorts. “You aren’t a dinosaur like Yeonjun hyung.”

Beomgyu smiles genuinely for the first time that day. “Don’t let him hear you say that.”

“Don’t change the subject!” Kai huffs, like he wasn’t the one to mention Yeonjun in the first place. “Who is it? Do I know them?”

Beomgyu picks at his nails and mumbles, “I don’t want to talk about it. There’s no point when I can’t do anything about it.” He could—and that’s exactly what he’s been mulling over—but he’s not going to say that to Kai. He doubts Kai needs encouragement to encourage Beomgyu.

As expected, Kai gasps and shakes his head furiously. “Do you really like them?”

Beomgyu swallows hard and looks at the wall. The lie is on the tip of his tongue, but he ends up answering honestly out of principle, “I love them a lot.”

Kai freezes, all of his energy dissipating at once, and Beomgyu slaps himself internally. He just said he wasn’t going to dump this shit on Kai, and now here he is—dumping this shit on Kai. The exact person he’s talking about. Go figure.

“You love them?” Kai echoes, voice small.

“Yeah,” Beomgyu says. His palms are getting sweaty. “I do.”

It’s impossible to tell if Kai’s reaction is from jealousy or shock or upset or horror or a mixture of all of the above. “For how long?”

How long has he loved Kai? Well, it depends on what way, of course. But taking a glance at Kai now, he can vividly remember when they first met and he learned that Kai also loved playing instruments. It became an instant bonding point for them as trainees—that, and how they both kept falling behind in dance evaluations—and they spent ages together in the studio rooms just plucking chords and talking about their childhoods.

It wasn’t anything particularly special, and they didn’t even get that close from it, but Beomgyu’s first time saying I love you to Kai was all the way back then.

So, years. But saying that directly to Kai’s face might be too much. “A long time,” he says instead.

“Oh.” Kai’s jaw clenches, and he releases Beomgyu’s arm. Beomgyu instantly misses the weight, but it’s probably for the best that Kai isn’t touching him while he’s trying to act rationally. Kai’s touch makes him want to be irrational. “So, what? You’re going to confess to them?”

“Um, I don’t think so,” Beomgyu laughs.

“Why not?” Kai frowns. “If it’s eating you up inside, I think you should go for it. You don’t want it to affect your work.”

Beomgyu hates it when Kai sounds so mature and thoughtful. It makes Beomgyu feel like he’s the younger one when in reality Beomgyu is doing his best to be a good hyung right now. He wonders if Kai would give the same advice if he knew why Beomgyu was asking.

“There are practical reasons, for one. Like you said, it could affect our—my work either way,” Beomgyu says, counting on his fingers. He hopes the hand motions distract Kai from his slip up. “And personal reasons, like what if they don’t like me back? What if I fuck everything up?”

“You’re a catch, hyung,” Kai says, nudging Beomgyu in the side. “If they don’t like you back, it’s their loss and they’re dumb.”

In any other situation, Beomgyu would agree. But when it comes to Kai—he’s not so sure anymore. He could never think badly of Kai, even if he was rejected.

“Thanks, Huening-ah,” Beomgyu says, keeping his voice purposely light. He flicks Kai’s nose and Kai giggles, rolling onto his side. “I’ll think about it.”

Kai’s laughter softens into a small, strained smile. “Are you just saying that? Or will you really think about it?”

“I’ll think about it,” Beomgyu promises. It’s not as if he has a choice. His brain will make him think about it either way, and about this interaction, and about every little twitch of Kai’s brows and lips as if he can decipher his true feelings through the smallest of facial cues.

“I know it’s hard, but you deserve to be happy too,” Kai says. “So if you think you’ll be happier by telling them, you should tell them.”

Beomgyu sighs. If only it were that simple. But it’s cute that Kai thinks that way. And a little sexy. Maturity is sexy.

“Yeah,” he says. “You’re right.”

“Of course I am.” Kai’s bright smile returns and he stands up, tugging Beomgyu’s arm so hard Beomgyu is pulled onto his feet without any input from his brain. “Now come on. Let’s stop moping and do something fun!”

Alcohol is called liquid courage for a reason, and that’s why he’s downing as much of it as he can before he makes his move.

To tell the truth, Beomgyu still has no fucking idea if he’s about to ruin his life or not. But what he does know is that the longer he goes without doing anything about it, the more it’s fucking him up, and not in the sexy way he wants it to. Kai was right when he said not confronting him would bleed into other aspects of his life. Being on stage with Kai, in his stupid sexy tight shirts and leather pants and messy black hair, is physically impossible when he’s simultaneously trying to control his unwilling bedroom eyes.

Things would be so much easier if Kai stopped being hot, as he’s long maintained. But since that’s impossible, the second thing that would make things so much easier is for Beomgyu to come clean so that he didn’t have to hide it any longer.

He weighed the pros and cons, made a dozen numbered lists, consulted online forums, and came to the conclusion that Kai was a good enough person that even if Beomgyu did in fact misinterpret the signs, their friendship won’t be completely unsalvageable.

Or at least this is what he’s telling himself to cope. Soobin gave his approval, so if this fucks everything up, Beomgyu is blaming him.

He keeps repeating Kai’s own words to him inside his head, his genuine encouragement and seemingly sincere hopes for Beomgyu’s future. Assuming Kai was being honest and not secretly seething inside, he should understand why Beomgyu is doing this. Right? He’s literally following Kai’s own advice.

They just finished the final photoshoot for their next comeback, and sprinted straight home after being dismissed to drink and party all night. Party in idol terms, not normal people terms—meaning they bring out the alcohol, Mario Party, and shit talk people they meet on music shows together. It’s a great time, but what’s even more great about it is that Yeonjun and Soobin always pass out first and then Taehyun excuses himself to go answer comments on Weverse. Every single time without fail.

Tonight is no different, and Beomgyu is probably a little too happy to wave Taehyun off to bed. Taehyun shoots him a strange look, but Beomgyu winks at him and mouths, don’t worry, I got this. To which Taehyun only gives him an even stranger look, but whatever. Beomgyu’s got this.

“I’m gonna grab some more water,” Kai says. It takes a moment to get his balance sorted out when he stands up, and Beomgyu can’t help but laugh. “I’ll be right back.”

He staggers off to the kitchen, and Beomgyu counts to three before pushing himself onto his feet and following suit. His entire world is spinning, which is just crazy, but he’s not about to let a little drunkenness stop him. This is superpower for today.

Kai’s ass in the tight jeans he’s wearing gives Beomgyu a whole fucking snack for his eyes, and he practically throws himself at Kai’s back to get to it. One, because Kai is hot. And two, because he trips on his own two feet and he doesn’t really have a choice but to fall forwards.

“Kai,” Beomgyu says. “Kai-yah.” He’s barely moved and he’s already so fucking winded. That, or he’s having a panic attack. He can’t really tell. “I have—I have something to tell you.”

Kai grabs him by the shoulders to help steady him. “Do you need more water too, hyung?” he asks, completely ignoring Beomgyu’s words, which won’t do. That won’t do at all. Nope. Beomgyu is on a mission.

“No,” Beomgyu answers. “I have something to tell you.”

Kai’s brows knit together, and while he doesn’t seem too reassured about Beomgyu’s hydration level, he nods. “Yeah?”

“I…” Beomgyu starts, then stops.

He didn’t think this far. What does he say first? I think I’m in love with you? That might be coming on too strong. He did say to Kai the other day that he loved the person he’s in love with (obviously), but saying it to his face is different. He doesn’t want to scare Kai off. What has the same meaning while not being as blunt?

Oh. He has an idea.

“I want to kiss you,” he says, grabbing Kai by the front of his shirt. Kai’s eyes go so wide, so fucking cute, and Beomgyu giggles. “Oh my god, Kai, I want to kiss you so fucking bad, you have no idea.”

Kai freezes, stiller than a statue. And also prettier than a statue. It doesn’t look like there’s a single thought in his head, and Beomgyu should not find that attractive as it is. Ugh. He wants to kiss Kai so bad.

Why are they not kissing yet? He should do something about that.

He pushes himself upwards so he can meet Kai’s lips, and hums when they finally, finally connect. Kai’s lips are chapped but slick with cherry lip gloss, and Beomgyu eagerly licks it all up. It’s so much better than he could have ever imagined. Kai’s lips are perfect.

Kai squeaks, his hands flying to grip Beomgyu’s hips, and Beomgyu’s foot lifts up in joy. Kai tastes so good. As expected. Beomgyu is going to devour him.

“H—hyung,” Kai stammers, holding onto the hem of Beomgyu’s sweatpants. He feels so much bigger like this, when they’re pressed close together and their lips are almost touching—and that’s saying something, because Kai always feels big lately. For obvious reasons. “What do you m—”

“I want to kiss,” Beomgyu states. He pulls back slightly, knocking their foreheads together so he can look Kai right in the eyes. “Do you not want to kiss me?”

Kai vaguely resembles a fish as he opens and closes his mouth, blubbering, “I didn’t say that, but I… I mean… I’m just wondering if you…”

“Kai. Listen to me.” Beomgyu cups Kai’s warm cheeks in his hands. They’re so close. Beomgyu has wanted this for so, so long. Maybe longer than he thought he did. “I want to kiss you. Okay? Do you understand me? I. want. to. kiss. you.”

Overthinking things is bad. Beomgyu is well-acquainted with this fact. He loves Kai. And if Kai loves him, they can deal with everything else later. After they kiss. Or something like that. When they’re no longer drunk, at least. Right now, they’re setting the foundation.

Kai bites his lower lip, still thinking, and Beomgyu’s eyes instantly hone in on his canines. Kai seems to realise where Beomgyu is staring and he quickly stops, cheeks flushing even more.

“I want to kiss you too,” he whispers, like it’s some big dark secret, even though Beomgyu already took the fall for both of them in that respect. He’s so cute. So so cute. God. Beomgyu wants to climb him like a fucking tree.

“Okay,” he says. “Then let’s kiss.”

Kai almost looks like he’s about to cry before his eyes abruptly drop to Beomgyu’s lips, like he’s suddenly hyperaware of the fact Beomgyu has a mouth and he can kiss it. Beomgyu parts his lips, so fucking ready, two seconds away from going on his toes and throwing himself at Kai again when Kai finally swoops down and smashes their mouths together.

It’s very inelegant. In fact, Beomgyu would say Kai is a pretty terrible kisser. But fuck, it’s Kai—sweet, big, sexy, adorable Kai—and therefore it’s automatically the best kiss he’s ever had, no contest.

Not there ever was one when it comes to Kai. He established that a long time ago.

Kai holds him by the waist, arms wrapped around his sides and big palms splayed over Beomgyu’s tailbone. Beomgyu moans just from the feel of it, of being encapsulated by Kai’s arms, all of his noises swallowed up by Kai’s mouth over his. He’s so sloppy, licking around Beomgyu’s mouth without rhyme or rhythm. Just kissing him for the sake of kissing him. Beomgyu loves it.

He steps backwards, dragging Kai with him, until he hits the wall and he’s sandwiched in between Kai’s huge body and the cool brick behind him. Kai struggles to keep up with their kiss as they move, and he nips at Beomgyu’s lip, whining in complaint. So whiny. Beomgyu is going to wring every noise he can out of him.

“Mm,” he groans, fisting Kai’s hair. He laps at the flat of Kai’s tongue, laughing when Kai shivers. “Good?”

Kai responds by pulling back, and for a terrifying brief moment Beomgyu thinks that means his answer is no, before he lowers his head and buries his face against the crook of Beomgyu’s neck.

“Oh, fuck, Kai—” Beomgyu gasps, surprised. Kai noses along his throat, finding the perfect spot below his jaw and then biting. Beomgyu’s legs buckle underneath him—without Kai keeping him upright, he would be putty on the floor. The sharp jolt of pain goes straight down his spine, and he throws his head back, giving Kai easier access. “Kai, Kai…”

Kai kisses down his neck, stopping right above his collarbone and abruptly sucking another deep mark there. Beomgyu tugs at Kai’s hair so hard he nearly pulls out a tuft of it, and Kai whines, “That hurts.”

Beomgyu licks his lips, surveying Kai’s rosy cheeks and swollen lips and the clear desire in his eyes. Fuck, he’s pretty. “Sorry,” Beomgyu says, not sorry at all. “I’ll make it up to you. Let me… let me take care of things.”

The bashful smile Kai gives is stunning, and Beomgyu is more than happy to lead their next kiss.

Beomgyu is dying.

Okay, that’s an over exaggeration. But fuck, he definitely feels like he’s dying. The headache he has is bone deep, all of his muscles straining like they’re screaming for someone to put them out of their misery. He feels like he’s been hit by a truck, and it doesn’t take long for him to remember why.

Kai. The answer is Kai. Where is Kai, anyway?

Beomgyu shoots up, patting the space beside him, but it’s empty. They didn’t fuck last night, as far as his memories go, but he does distinctly remember tumbling into bed with Kai and tucking them both in. He’s ninety-nine percent sure that when he fell asleep last night, Kai was taking up two-thirds of this bed.

The other side of the mattress is cold now though, and there’s no Kai in sight. There’s nothing except a glass of lukewarm water and a sticky note.

Fuck.

Beomgyu buries his face in his hands and rakes his nails down his cheeks. Fuck. Fuck. It doesn’t take a genius to get the message laid out for him.

Why didn’t he just keep his big mouth shut? Now he’s hungover and heartbroken and he wants to fling himself out the window. Fuck. He grabs his pillow and smacks it against the mattress a few times just to release some of his energy, but as usual as of late, it doesn’t help, so instead he hides his face in it and screams as loud as possible. Which isn’t very loud, given how hoarse his voice is.

The staff are going to kill him. Both for his lack of voice and the marks Kai left on his neck. Beomgyu can’t see most of them from this angle but he spots one by his collarbone that makes him look like he got mauled by a bear, and he can’t imagine the rest are any better.

Actually, forget the staff. Soobin is going to kill him before anyone from their management gets their hands on him. He might as well start sorting out his life insurance policy now, because he’s going to be dead by the end of this day, one way or another.

He laughs because if there’s nothing else to do except cry, and laughing seems like the better option, even if only marginally. He fucked up. God, did he fuck up. Does this make him a terrible person? He did take advantage of their mutual tipsiness to essentially corner Kai into listening to his confession. And he took advantage of how Kai obviously thinks he’s hot to make his feelings known.

Whatever miniscule chance he had with Kai has now been stomped to six feet under. Though being fair to Kai, if he were in his position, he wouldn’t want himself either. Desperation isn’t sexy. Especially coming from a guy who’s supposed to be your sweet, reliable hyung.

He pinches the bridge of his nose and counts to five. One, two, three, four, five, exhale. Deep breaths, Beomgyu.

Kai left him water. That has to mean something, right? Kai doesn’t hate him. Sure, that’s the bare fucking minimum, but still. That’s something.

It takes him ages to reach for the water and then even longer to read the note. All it says is, in Kai’s big blocky writing, sorry ^^, smiley face and all.

He crumples the note up in his fist, instantly feels bad, then smooths it out and throws it back onto his bedside table instead. The water helped dull some of his headache, but it did nothing for the burning pain in his chest.

Why would he take Kai’s advice? Kai wouldn’t have told him to go for it if he knew it was about himself. How could Beomgyu allow Kai’s words to feed into his delusions like that? So much for being the hyung. His own lack of self-awareness is staggering, now that he’s sober.

Did he really get so deep into his own head that he couldn’t separate Kai flirting with him as part of their jobs and Kai being a good friend?

Fuck, he’s about to cry.

The eleven second walk to the bathroom feels like the longest of his life, and he’s almost afraid that one of the other members will jump out of nowhere and beat his ass for drunkenly accosting their youngest member. The dorm is dead silent though, and he’s able to take a twenty-minute shower without anybody interrupting—which, for him, is very long.

Clean, in fresh pyjamas, and with a single piece of toast in his stomach, he’s calmed down enough to accept that he was in the wrong. Yeah, Kai might think he’s hot, and yeah, Kai might have been flirting a little too much in their personal time, but none of those things means that he wants to fuck Beomgyu, let alone have a relationship with him. Beomgyu should’ve waited longer, scoped it out more, examined Kai’s behaviour beyond just thinking he’s so cute and hot over and over.

He just hopes he can fix this before it becomes a thing. The others are going to light a fire under his ass for this, and maybe rightfully so, but what matters the most to Beomgyu is making sure there’s no long-term damage in his and Kai’s relationship.

Like ha-ha, Beomgyu has a crush on him, but sometimes friendships are like that! They can move past this. He did it with the other four members, and while none of those crushes were half as deep as his feelings for Kai, they were good preparation for this exact moment.

He crawls back into bed feeling simultaneously amped up and in complete misery, and ends up falling back asleep before he can think about this any further. Thank god. His brain needs a break.

Kai ignoring him doesn’t make him any less hot.

Maybe it’s how the memory of Kai’s lips on his is still painfully fresh—he can’t do so much as glance at Kai without remembering the feeling of Kai nipping at his bottom lip and sucking on his tongue. And glancing is pretty much all he can do right now, since Kai is doing everything in his power to ignore him.

It’s obvious that Kai doesn’t want to talk about it. But Beomgyu feels like they should, even if it is abundantly clear what Kai’s thoughts on the matter are. Just to get closure. So Beomgyu can apologise and tell Kai he’ll never have a single dirty thought about him ever again. Reassuring Kai that his hyung isn’t going to spend every night having wet dreams about him seems like a fine first step to mending things.

Of course, that’s total bullshit, and he’s not going to be able to keep that promise longer than a day, but it’s worth a shot. Kai doesn’t need to know about his inevitable failure. It’s better than whatever they’re doing right now.

He’s not going to make the same mistake and simply go up to Kai without a plan, though. This time, he’ll take his time to gather his thoughts, even if it takes a few days. Waiting is fine. Beomgyu can be patient sometimes. And it’ll give some time for Kai to cool off, hopefully realise that Beomgyu can still be the lovable, annoyingly cute hyung he’s known for the past six and a half years—even after they almost fucked in the kitchen.

But Kai is everywhere. Smiling and laughing and being big and hot and sexy and cute and Kai. They’re coworkers, for fuck’s sake. How can he avoid looking at Kai when it’s his job to look at Kai half the time? During practice, on stage, while filming variety. Kai is a huge presence, both in terms of physical size and his personality. It’s impossible to ignore him.

And it’s not just being able to ogle Kai that he misses. It’s just… Kai. He misses Kai. He didn’t realise how much he relied on Kai’s teasing as a crutch for emotional support until now. Or the satisfaction that came from taking care of Kai, or the happiness that came from Kai taking care of him. If anything, their mutual avoidance of each other is teaching Beomgyu just how much he loves Kai and his stupid, silly existence in his life. Absence makes the heart grow fonder after all.

Way to be a fucking cliche, he thinks to himself.

They haven’t had a single one-on-one conversation in a week, except that, unsurprisingly, isn’t actually helping Beomgyu work through his feelings. He’s spent most of his time robotically acting out his work duties without a single thought, good or bad. He keeps finding himself snapping back to reality after zoning out for an hour to avoid being too aware of Kai five metres away from him.

The most they do together is civil small talk while backstage, and only because they’re being filmed half the time. Kai buys a package of candy from the vending machine and taps Beomgyu’s shoulder, asking, “Do you want some, hyung?”

His eyes are so sweet and warm despite everything, and Beomgyu seriously almost has a breakdown in the waiting room over it. The worst part is they’re gummy bears, and all Beomgyu can think about when he sees them is the silly lighthearted teasing Kai did towards him that Beomgyu took as Kai being interested in him.

“No thanks, but thanks for offering,” Beomgyu says politely. He spots a camera hovering by the corner of his vision and plasters a smile on his face. “Enjoy, though.”

Kai’s own smile falters slightly, and he nods silently, shoving a handful of gummy bears into his mouth to avoid saying anything in return. With him sitting down and Beomgyu standing, he’s smaller than what Beomgyu has become used to, and something about the sight brings a sharp pang of guilt to Beomgyu’s heart.

His only saving grace is that the other three members are either unaware of what went down between him and Kai, or aren’t taking sides. Or, if they are, they’re doing a great job of hiding it. Soobin drags him out to the living room one day to play video games, and he doesn’t mention Kai once.

And Taehyun… well, Taehyun seems fine too, at least until he stalks Beomgyu all the way to the company building on their day off so he can corner him without anybody else around. Taehyun only ever gets this shifty when he wants something, and unlike Soobin, he’s smart enough to not have these types of conversations in their dorm.

Beomgyu pretends not to notice him, hoping it’ll get Taehyun off his trail, but it only makes Taehyun speed up more. Beomgyu was initially heading to their music studio to get actual work done, but he takes a detour and veers into the first open practice room he sees so they can get it over with. It doesn’t seem like Taehyun intends to give up.

“Hello, Taehyunnie,” Beomgyu greets, tapping his foot. “Why have you been following me for the past thirty minutes?”

“What’s going on with you and Kai?” Taehyun asks, and Beomgyu snorts. Straight to the point, huh? Not even a bit of small talk? Or a ‘hi hyung, how are you’?

“What do you mean?”

Taehyun crosses his arms, standing to his full height. Which is practically Beomgyu’s height, meaning they’re looking straight into each other’s eyes like some sort of epic showdown.

“I’m asking what’s going on between you and Kai,” Taehyun repeats, like Beomgyu doesn’t have working ears.

“I heard what you said,” Beomgyu huffs, mirroring Taehyun’s body language. “But why are you saying it like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re… accusing me of something,” Beomgyu says.

“Because I am,” Taehyun says plainly.

Beomgyu’s lips twist. Considering Taehyun and Kai are roommates, Taehyun is likely his best opportunity for finding out what Kai’s current feelings towards him are. And… judging by the way Taehyun is watching him right now—and his extremely ominous, mildly threatening words—they aren’t positive feelings.

“Look, I know that I fucked up, but I—” Beomgyu rubs his eyes with his palms. “I’m going to fix it. Okay? I promise, nobody wants to fix things more than I do.” He almost wants to say something like do you think I like being ignored by the guy I’m in love with? But he doesn’t need Taehyun going home and telling Kai about how overly defensive Beomgyu was.

Taehyun takes a deep breath, and when he speaks, his voice is surprisingly soft. There’s not as much cut to it as Beomgyu expected. “I’m trying to understand your side of things, but… god, hyung. I just can’t believe you’d use him as a rebound. That’s the part I can’t get over. I know you were drunk and hurting or whatever, but how could you not think of his feelings too?”

Approximately zero of those words make sense. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“He told me about your boy troubles or whatever,” Taehyun grumbles. “And I don’t know what happened with all that, but taking it out on Kai is not acceptable.”

“... What the fuck are you talking about?” Beomgyu says, again.

Taehyun squints at him, and Beomgyu can’t even bring himself to squint back because he’s too busy being completely baffled by Taehyun’s words.

Kai thinks… what, that he was a rebound? For who, himself? That’s not possible. Both literally and metaphorically. That’s why Kai is upset? Because he thinks Beomgyu only wanted to make out because of some perceived emotional turmoil he was having?

“Hyung,” Taehyun says monotonously. “Please stop acting dumb. I know you’re not as stupid as you seem. You know what I’m talking about.”

That brings Beomgyu back down to Earth pretty quickly. “First of all, I’m not stupid ever,” he says, scowling. “Second of all, I don’t know what you’re talking about, so can you please explain properly?”

Taehyun sighs very loudly, but shoves his hands into his pockets and obediently answers, “You’re in love with someone. Yeah?”

“Obviously.”

“And then you made out with Kai,” Taehyun adds.

“... Yes.”

“Do you not see how this could be interpreted as you playing with his feelings?”

“No?” Beomgyu frowns so hard he’s going to get wrinkles on his forehead. “How am I playing with his feelings if he’s the person I’m in love with? If anything, he was the one playing with my feelings.” Taehyun’s eyes go comically wide, and Beomgyu flushes, hastily continuing before Taehyun tries to shut him down again, “I know that’s not an excuse, and I know that I should’ve spoken to him more before, or… thought more about what he wanted, and that I’m older, and he looks up to me, and I might’ve come off as pressuring him into a relationship, but that’s not—”

“You’re in love with Kai?” Taehyun chokes. He hasn’t blinked once since Beomgyu started rambling, and Beomgyu trails off, suddenly uncertain. Not about his own feelings, but about Taehyun’s.

“Who did you think I was talking about?”

“I don’t know, one of your fifty other idol friends?!” Taehyun says, sounding near hysterics. “Oh my god, hyung. You’re both so fucking stupid.”

“Hey—”

“You know he thinks that you’re in love with somebody else, right? That’s why he’s been sulking all week. He thinks you got wasted and wanted to have sex because you got rejected or something.”

Beomgyu never even suggested having sex in the first place! Yes, he thought about it. A lot. But did he suggest it? No! He wouldn’t want his first time with Kai to be while drunk. Talk about being dramatic. “Why would he think that?”

“Um, because you didn’t tell him you were in love with him?” Taehyun says, exasperated. “You didn’t tell him, did you?”

“I—well…” Beomgyu scratches his cheek, opening and closing his mouth as he stumbles through his recollection of the other night. “I didn’t say those words exactly, but I didn’t not say those words either.”

“......”

The look Taehyun gives him says it all.

Beomgyu can feel his blush steadily creeping over his cheeks, and he rubs his nose, squeezing his eyes shut so he can think better. No, he didn’t say I love you to Kai’s face, but also who the hell says that during a confession? They’re young adults. It seems incredibly inappropriate to begin a relationship with such heavy words when they presumably have their whole lives ahead of them. They have lots of time for that once they get settled.

Then again… they’re young adults. A lot of guys their age hook up for pleasure and not romance. Not Beomgyu, and not Kai, and not most idols—but maybe, possibly, he can see how Kai might’ve misinterpreted Beomgyu’s advances as being purely sexual. A little. Just a bit. It probably doesn’t help that Beomgyu has spent so much time cooing over Kai’s appearance lately.

“Fuck my life,” he says.

“Yeah,” Taehyun says. He laughs, and Beomgyu can’t tell if it’s supposed to be humorous or not. “You better go fix this. Especially if it’s all a misunderstanding.”

“I will,” Beomgyu says, grinding his teeth together. “But, you… are you saying that he likes me too?”

“I don’t think I’m allowed to answer that.” Beomgyu’s slightly disappointed, but fair enough. He wouldn’t want Taehyun going around telling Kai about his feelings either. “But—I will say that it wouldn’t make sense for him to be so upset over you guys making out if he only wanted to make out and he thought you only wanted to make out.”

“... Alright,” Beomgyu says slowly. He won’t jump to conclusions. He won’t. He needs to speak to Kai first.

If this is all a misunderstanding like Taehyun says—if there’s a small chance that Kai does like him back, in the same way Beomgyu likes him—then fuck, he’s never going to live this shit down. Taehyun definitely won’t be able to go a day without holding it over him, he can already feel it. But he would rather be clowned about it forever than miss the opportunity.

Taehyun claps him on the shoulder and smiles. “I believe in you.”

Beomgyu is glad one of them does.

It’s impressively difficult to get Kai alone over the next few days. Beomgyu tries—he swears he tries, and he begs Taehyun to help him—but holy shit, Kai can be extremely slippery when he sets his mind on it.

But Beomgyu refuses to give up. The more he thinks about it, the more Taehyun’s words make sense. Why would Kai be upset if he thought Beomgyu wanted the same thing he wanted? Because Beomgyu knows for a fact that Kai wanted to kiss him. Kai said it himself.

Beomgyu thought this entire ordeal was happening because Kai didn’t want a relationship—that Beomgyu’s (intended) confession scared him—but if it’s the exact opposite, then that would put him and Kai on the same page.

Taehyun is right. They’re both idiots.

He snatches up the first opportunity he sees to get Kai alone, which happens to be when Kai excuses himself to go to the bathroom. Just like the night he (tried to) confess, he counts to three before following suit, only so that Kai won’t notice he’s behind him and turn around to avoid him.

They don’t have much time. They’re in the middle of a shoot, in full leather with fake piercings and all. There’s fifteen minutes max before they’re called back out. But Beomgyu can do this in fifteen minutes. He only really needs one sentence to make things right, assuming Taehyun didn’t feed him a bunch of bullshit.

Kai is washing his hands when Beomgyu barges into the bathroom, and he gets the deer in headlights look on his face when he realises who it is.

“Hyung—” he says, standing up and furiously wiping his hands dry. “Sorry, I’ll get out of your w—”

Beomgyu reaches behind him and locks the door, effectively shutting him up. Kai’s words die off into a terrified squeak, and he wrings his hands together like a cornered animal.

Beomgyu’s heart softens at the sight of him so scared. Kai’s clad in the sexiest outfit Beomgyu has ever seen, garterbelt up his thighs and jacket dipping dangerously low, looking like the stereotypical heartthrob in a Western drama—and yet he still manages to make himself look vulnerable. It’s endearing. All of Kai’s little juxtapositions are exactly why Beomgyu fell for him.

“I just want to talk,” he says, as calmly as he can. “Please?”

“I don’t know,” Kai says shiftily. He glances over Beomgyu’s shoulder at the door. “We should be getting back, and—”

“The person I like is you,” Beomgyu interrupts. Kai sucks in a deep breath, and he goes so pale Beomgyu is afraid he might faint, but he presses on. Just rip it off like a bandaid, Beomgyu. “I don’t know what you think happened the other night, but the person I was talking about before. The one you told me to confess to. That person was you.”

“Oh,” Kai whispers. “It was?”

“Yeah. It was,” Beomgyu confirms. He takes a tentative step forward, emboldened by how Kai doesn’t immediately jump away. “I’m sorry if I… I didn’t make that clear, or if you felt like I was using you in some way. But I like you romantically, Kai.” He has to take a deep breath himself, to stop himself from trembling. “I wanted to kiss because I like you. I just didn’t have the courage to say it while sober.”

“I—” Kai’s hand slowly moves to cover his mouth. “Oh.”

Beomgyu scratches the back of his neck. “So… yeah. That’s what I wanted to tell you. You can, um, leave if you want to now I guess, since I said what I—”

Kai’s face crumples, and he’s reaching for Beomgyu before Beomgyu can say another words. “Hyung, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Beomgyu pats Kai’s head, trying to hold up Kai’s weight. It’s not an easy task when Kai is so much taller than him now. “It’s alright. I’m sorry. I should’ve been clearer.”

Kai sniffles, and he shakes his head. “I thought something really terrible about you, hyung. But I didn’t know. I really thought that you…”

“It’s alright, Kai,” Beomgyu says again, petting his head harder. His heart is pounding like crazy in his chest, at the sinking knowledge that Kai isn’t truly mad at him. “I promise.”

“I thought that you were using me for…” Kai’s voice dips impossibly low, “sex.”

Beomgyu can’t hold back the laugh he gives no matter how hard he tries. “Not at all.”

Kai pulls back, and his pretty eyes are shiny with tears. He’s not crying—Beomgyu has never seen Kai cry—but he’s close to it. “I’m so relieved. I like you too,” he says, out of breath. “Hyung, I like you so, so much.”

Beomgyu cups Kai’s face in his hands. He could die right now and be happy. He’s so relieved it feels like a one thousand pound weight just got lifted off his shoulders. Kai likes him back. Kai doesn’t hate him. Thank fucking god. “I like you too, Kai. So, so much.”

“I thought you liked me back, but then that night, I realised that—I thought that you didn’t want a real relationship and I freaked out inside because I was scared I’d led you on, and then I ran off the next morning, and that was really dumb of me, and I’m sorry,” Kai says all at once. “I’ve liked you for so long.”

“It’s okay, Kai, please,” Beomgyu begs, laughing. “You don’t need to explain everything.”

“I was worried you only saw me as a kid too,” Kai continues. “I couldn’t tell if you were being serious when you complimented me.”

Beomgyu rolls his eyes. “I’ll tell you a thousand times more if I need to.” God knows he’s thought of it enough in his head. He could compliment Kai’s pores if he needed to, he’s spent so much time studying them.

Kai giggles. “That’s okay. But… I wouldn’t stop you if you wanted to.”

“Good, because you wouldn’t be able to stop me anyway,” Beomgyu says, breaking into a big, bright smile.

Kai smiles back and lurches forward. Beomgyu prepares to hug him again, but then something warm touches his lips and he registers that Kai is kissing him, and god, it’s way better while sober than when it was while drunk. So much better. Especially knowing that Kai one hundred percent likes him in the same way. He seems more confident this time as well, and Beomgyu happily melts into the kiss, letting Kai set the pace.

The hand on his waist dips to his lower back, resting right above his ass, and he groans into their kiss, urging Kai to hold him closer. Kai laughs—he really can’t stop laughing, the fucking dork—and glides his tongue along Beomgyu’s lower lip. Beomgyu playfully nips on Kai’s lower lip in return, which makes him squeal in surprise, and Beomgyu soothes him by languidly brushing his fingers through Kai’s hair.

When they part, Kai is breathing hard, eyes still twinkling, smile not fading at all. Beomgyu brushes his thumb over Kai’s cheek, his heart so full of adoration that it might burst.

“Does this mean we…” Kai squeezes Beomgyu’s waist, avoiding meeting his eyes. “Are we… do you want to… I mean…”

Beomgyu waits patiently for him to finish his sentence, but he seems physically incapable of forming coherent words anymore. Which is funny in a sense, because someone who looks like Kai, someone who’s as nice as Kai, should not be so nervous asking someone out, because who in their right mind would ever reject him?

… On that note, how the hell could Kai think Beomgyu only wanted a physical relationship with him in the first place? Kai is the catch here. Anybody who doesn’t want to be with him romantically either doesn’t like guys or is a fucking idiot.

After Kai stammers for a full minute, he decides to help him out of his misery. “Are you trying to ask if we’re going out now?”

Kai finally takes a proper peek at Beomgyu and nods emphatically, fluffy hair bouncing along with him. It’s all messed up from Beomgyu running his fingers through it, lips swollen red and half his gloss licked off. He looks like the human version of a puppy, and Beomgyu squishes his cheeks. He’s too cute. And sexy. Sexy-cute.

His cute, sexy Kai. He sighs.

“You’re so cute,” Beomgyu says, and peppers Kai’s face with kisses. “Of course. If you want to. I’m so happy now.”

“I want to,” Kai says softly. “I’m happy too. I love you, hyung.”

Beomgyu raises a brow at him. After all that fucking turmoil Beomgyu put himself through, worrying that Kai would feel burdened by Beomgyu saying it first, Kai just blurts it out one second into their relationship?

It’s so ironic he almost laughs, but he manages to hold it back. Kai might take it the wrong way and Beomgyu would never forgive himself for another miscommunication. And besides, they’re Beomgyu’s three favourite words. Especially from Kai. Plus, after what they’ve been through to get to this point, withholding love out of shyness would be silly. Kai deserves to hear how much Beomgyu loves him.

“I love you too,” Beomgyu whispers, and pulls Kai’s face down so he can kiss him again. “My big baby.”

Kai’s breathless laughter is swallowed up by Beomgyu’s lips, and they get a whole twelve minutes alone before Soobin comes and kicks the door down.

Beomgyu likes sweet things. He always thought of Kai as sweet, because Kai is sweet. He’s the sweetest person Beomgyu knows by a long shot. Except Beomgyu always associated Kai being sweet with Kai being a baby, and while Kai is his baby, he’s not a baby. He’s so much more than that. Which is fine because Beomgyu likes spicy things too, and savoury things, and he just likes Kai.

He’s also hungry, so he can’t stop making food analogies.

The point, though, is that Beomgyu loves him, and now he gets to kiss him all the time, and fawn over how hot he is without having to overthink things. It’s great. 10/10, highly recommended.

He should go eat, because the fact he can’t stop comparing his boyfriend to food flavours is mildly concerning. But he’s lounging in bed with his head resting on Kai’s big, soft chest, and food seems like such a miniscule problem when he has the sweetest person in the world right beside him.

“Hyung,” Kai says, tugging on Beomgyu’s hand where their fingers are laced together. Beomgyu hums, tilting his head so he can get a better look at him. From this angle, Kai resembles more of a Greek god than a human being, and not for the first time that day he has to take a moment to appreciate how fucking beautiful his boyfriend is. Because, wow. Beomgyu is so lucky. “Hyung.”

Beomgyu laughs. “Yes?” He didn’t know Kai needed him to answer out loud.

“Look at this fanart someone drew of us,” Kai says, waving his phone near Beomgyu’s face. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Yeah,” Beomgyu says, still looking at Kai. He smiles. “Yeah, it is.”

So fucking cliche.

But he wouldn’t trade it for the world.