Archive of Our Own

There was a nametag station inside the lobby, but Taeyong didn’t bother stopping at it. He wasn’t sure how he had talked himself into this, except that he was in London for one more night and he didn’t have anything else to do to keep him from it. The class reunion was hardly necessary; they had only graduated five years ago. The nametags confirmed what he suspected: this was a networking event. He wasn’t here to network, anyway.

“Excuse me, have you registered?” a woman’s voice called out to him from the direction of the nametag table. He turned towards her. He didn’t recognise her. She had the kind of weary, unbothered look of a hotel employee tasked with running the front of house at this thing, and he schooled his features into a smile for her as he walked back to the table. She didn’t want to be here any more than he did.

“Name?” she asked.

“Lee-” he stopped himself, started again. Taeyong Lee.” He spelled out his surname for her in an exaggerated way, when he saw her pen hovering over the I section. He looked away quickly. The K’s were just two letters below and he wasn’t ready to see if Kim Doyoung was here yet. He wouldn’t make it as far as the event if the space next to his name was unticked; he doubted he had the nerve to make it inside if the space was ticked, either.

“Here you go,” she handed him a nametag that he pocketed, “and you’re in the sub-basement. Take the lift two floors down.” She pointed him towards the bank of elevators, her job done and thus her attention elsewhere. Taeyong thanked her and walked off in the direction she indicated. It had taken him a second to remember the word, lift . His English was better now than it had been even when he was studying here, but little localisms like that always threw him.

The elevator opened on a dimly-lit bar. It was cavernous for a basement, with bulbs strung across exposed utility beams. An empty stage half-covered by a folding screen told Taeyong that he was in an erstwhile music venue. The acoustics in the place confirmed it. The low thrum of an acoustic cover of a popular dance song from five years ago blanketed the space, so while conversations were happening, they were fused into a general buzz. No one voice stood out. A hundred-or-so people clotted together around tall tables, drinking wine or Peroni from the bottle. A bar stood off to one side, with a few people lounging against it.

Doyoung was there.

He was overdressed, as usual. It alarmed Taeyong that he remembered this about him. Doyoung never underprepared for an occasion. He looked different, but the same. That haplessness of his university days lingered in the way he laughed nervously at what somebody said; in the way he played with the droplets on the side of his glass of water. He still didn’t drink in public then. He looked more sure of himself, though. In that narrow-cut black suit, his hair pulled back from his face, he looked like he knew it was a networking event when he was getting dressed.

Taeyong was woefully unprepared for this moment, and not just because he was wearing jeans. He was jostled from behind as somebody stepped off the elevator behind him; he hadn’t moved. He apologised, and moved behind a concrete pillar, catching his breath.

The effect was instantaneous. Five years of nothing and he was still undone at the sight of the man who had broken his heart.

He looked out from behind the column, but Doyoung was gone.

“Hyung, are you hiding?” a voice asked behind him. In Korean. He spun.

Taeyong was hiding. Doyoung had seen him the second he stepped off the elevator and all of his years of telling himself he was past this may as well have never happened. Adrenaline had flooded his system as he tried to listen to what the woman in front of him was saying, but he didn’t hear a thing.

So if anybody should be hiding, it was him.

And yet, when he saw Taeyong duck behind that pillar, he hadn’t been able to stop himself. He put down his untouched glass, nodded to the group he had joined at the bar, and made a beeline straight for Taeyong.

Nothing had changed on that score. He didn’t need his therapist to tell him that this kind of magnetism towards another person meant something. He was a moth to Taeyong’s flame, and he always had been. Nothing at all had changed.

Taeyong spun when Doyoung spoke to him. He looked the same, too. Fuck, he looked the same but better. Older, but the same effortless stylishness, in black jeans and a denim jacket even though the invitation had specifically said formal. His black hair was windswept, rain clinging to the ends of it still. Taeyong could turn up to something like this in the wrong clothes and still look like it was deliberate. He had always made Doyoung feel overdone and he instantly felt uncomfortable in his suit.

Taeyong still hadn’t said anything.

“It’s been a long time,” Doyoung tried again. Taeyong just looked at him; black eyes unblinking. Then he seemed to remember himself, and that smile came out. It broke Doyoung’s heart a little. That was Taeyong’s people-pleaser smile, the one he wore with strangers. He took Taeyong’s proffered hand and shook it, knowing he held on too long. Then, so did Taeyong. When he let go, his hand went to his hair, smoothing it down though there was nothing out of place to smooth.

“I didn’t know if you would be here,” Taeyong said, the first thing he had said. He was still smiling; it was unnerving. “Let’s get a drink.” He turned towards the bar and charged off, leaving Doyoung with no choice but to follow, heart hammering.

It was like the last five years hadn’t happened.

They were the only two Koreans on their course. It was a one-year Masters at a central London university, an intensive Fine Art programme with over a hundred and fifty students. Their specific class group numbered about a dozen, and focused on music. They didn’t know each other before then, but had sat next to each other on the first day.

As Taeyong shuffled along the row to sit in the vacant seat next to him in the crowded auditorium, Doyoung couldn’t remember ever seeing anybody with eyes like his. They were almost black, and huge, intent. He found himself staring and Taeyong said hello. Doyoung was shyer back then, and was trying to think of something to say (“Hello” would have worked, he thought later). He must have looked like a deer in headlights. Taeyong chuckled and muttered “cute” to himself in Korean. Doyoung forgot to be shy, then, and unleashed a rapidfire introduction of himself in Korean to an amused Taeyong.

In hindsight for both of them this early intimacy had probably been a mistake, because they didn’t really make any other friends. For a year they never left each other’s company. Even going home for the New Year, they had toured Seoul together like they needed to see their native city through each other’s eyes. Neither of them saw much of their family or old friends in those weeks, just each other. Back in London, they lived in one or the other of their small city-centre rooms, and when they weren’t together they played games together online. They made plans for the summer and toured beaches in the south of France when they should have been working on their dissertations. They talked about enlisting at the same time when they got home, and maybe sharing an apartment in Seoul after.

It was, in short, the most intense and intimate friendship of either of their young lives.

It was a mutual understanding, a commonality of manner and humour that cemented their friendship early on. They could spend hours together and not talk, and days apart exchanging text after text.

They finished their course and had a few weeks left in London before their flight home.

Then, one night, their friendship changed.

Doyoung moved into Taeyong’s room for the last two weeks before they left.

When they got off the plane back home, things changed again.

They hadn’t spoken since.

Taeyong had to keep moving. If he kept moving, he wouldn’t stare. He couldn’t help it, though, and he knew Doyoung must be getting uncomfortable. It was his own fault for wearing that suit; why did he have to look so good? At least the light was low.

They were at the bar. He ordered some wine, and then immediately ordered a second glass, tipping it into the first one that he had all-but drained. Doyoung ordered more water and Taeyong could see him watching the wine.

I still drink too much for him , he thought to himself.

“Did you… I didn’t think you would be here,” Doyoung said eventually. “Don’t you still live in Seoul?”

“Yes,” said Taeyong. How did Doyoung know where he lived? It was a reasonable guess, he supposed. SNS, maybe. That’s how he knew Doyoung lived in London, but he didn’t want him to know he knew that. “Why are you here?”

Doyoung shrugged. “I had nothing else to do after work. I live in London now,” he leaned on the bar on his elbows, the elegance of his earlier stance gone. This was more like the Doyoung he knew, putting on an act to try to preserve something but failing at the first hurdle.

“You dress like this for work?” Taeyong jibed, forgetting himself for a second. Doyoung was trying to be cool here. He was trying to give off this air of nonchalance and sophistication that was entirely belied by the way he was hunched over the bar like a teenager at a school dance. Taeyong looked down and saw that he was wearing sneakers with that beautifully cut suit. Nice ones, expensive ones, black ones with white soles, but sneakers. It made him smile.

Doyoung looked down at his suit, and shrugged. He seemed like he was deliberating with himself. “I went home to change,” he admitted, and caught Taeyong’s eye. They smiled at each other then, a genuine smile that held everything they had been through together.

Taeyong was about to say something. He wasn’t entirely sure what. He was about to ask him something innocuous because he needed to tell Doyoung that he missed him like a hacked-off limb and knew that would need working up to, but he didn’t get the chance.

Someone walked over at that second, and Doyoung’s manner shifted back. He was aloof again, a professional at a networking event.

“Do you remember Taeyong?” he asked the tall man in the red jacket who was asking Doyoung about his latest project. They clearly knew each other and Taeyong had no idea who this man was. He introduced himself and Taeyong immediately forgot his name, answering polite questions about what he did (music production), if he lived in London (no), and how he found the free wine (terrible). Then the man turned back to Doyoung, his politeness satisfied. They were joined by two others who Taeyong recognised as the women Doyoung had been standing with earlier, and gradually Taeyong was pushed out of the conversation, left standing by himself on the outside of the little group.

He drained his wine glass and ordered another; one more, and he would leave. That was polite. He had seen Doyoung. He had come here to see Doyoung, to assure himself that Doyoung was alive. That he had been real , a little voice in his mind said. Their friendship had been everything and then nothing and some days Taeyong woke up and wondered if he had dreamed it.

Waiting for his drink, he glanced across at where Doyoung was holding court. When had he been so popular? These people all knew him. Of course, Doyoung was wearing the stupid name tag. He had made a name for himself here, too. He was fielding questions about what he was known for now. These people didn’t remember Doyoung from university, or at least hadn’t known him then. Taeyong knew this because if they knew Doyoung then they would have known Taeyong too.

One of the women put her hand on Doyoung’s arm, and he let her but then firmly and politely stepped out of her reach, leaning back on his elbows against the bar. It made Taeyong smile; Doyoung had always been firm about boundaries with people. Doyoung’s black shirt stretched across his chest as he leaned back, and Taeyong had a sudden sense memory of being gathered against that chest, of his forehead tucked under Doyoung’s chin, of soft skin against his cheek and a steady heartbeat lulling him to sleep.

Then Doyoung brushed his hair off his forehead and Taeyong saw it: the ring. A plain silver band, on the fourth finger of his left hand.

It wasn't that it hasn't occurred to him that Doyoung might have moved on. It had been five years after all. But the reality of it, plain in silver for all to see, was like being punched in the gut. It was like the sound had rushed out of the room, and the lights had dimmed, and all Taeyong could see was that band of fucking silver around Doyoung’s finger.

He suddenly couldn’t be here anymore.

This was a mistake.

He didn’t even pick up the drink the bartender left in front of him, he just backed away and walked quickly towards the elevators.

This was a mistake. He shouldn’t have come here. He thought he was… through it, if not over it, but seeing Doyoung again had been far too much for him to bear. It all came back, all of it. Their friendship that hadn’t been like anything before or since. That closeness that moved so naturally into intimacy. Before they had even kissed that first time, months before when they had been watching a movie on Taeyong’s bed and their feet were entwined, Taeyong had known then that he was hopelessly in love.

Tears blurred his vision, making the elevator swim. He had to get out of here.

He reached the elevator and slammed his palm into the call button over and over.

It took too long; he looked around for a stairs but couldn’t see one, and then the doors opened serenely in front of him and he barrelled inside.

Doyoung stopped the doors before they shut and pushed himself in after him. Then the doors shut and Taeyong was trapped.

Doyoung had let himself get carried into a conversation with those people. He was painfully aware of Taeyong the entire time, marking every shift of his feet, every anxious look around the room. It was an effort not to just stop talking and stare, so he had let himself be talked to. Taeyong didn’t know these people who were acting like they knew Doyoung. Hindsight could be deceptive but he knew too that if they knew him as well as they all kept saying they did back at university then they would know Taeyong too. They hadn’t left each other’s side, physically or mentally, for an entire year. In his head that whole episode of his life had been the only time he had felt whole. Before tonight, he had convinced himself that this had been unhealthy. He couldn’t deny it now; standing next to Taeyong in this elevator, fleeing that pointless reunion party, he felt that string that seemed to bind them - that had been painfully taut but ever present since he walked off that plane five years ago - go lax.

Taeyong looked the opposite of how Doyoung felt, tense and drained. They stood next to each other, unspeaking, until the elevator doors opened again on the same party. Neither of them had pressed the button to ascend.

“Fuck,” Doyoung stepped forward and pressed the button for the lobby. Taeyong didn’t stop him. He didn’t stop him as Doyoung followed him out of the elevator and through the doors and out onto the street, still wet from the rain, though he looked like he wanted to.

Doyoung pushed his hands into his pockets and fell into step beside Taeyong, and they walked until they reached a nearby bar that they had frequented back when they were students. It was a shitty old-man hangout back then, called Lord Nelson or something. It was changed now, was given hipster treatment and there was no name above the door any more, no swinging sign of a man in a funny hat. But the pub was open, and when they reached it, Taeyong hesitated. When he finally looked at Doyoung, Doyoung saw that his eyes were red.

“Oh no,” he stepped forward and took Taeyong’s arm. “Hyung, no, don’t…” Don’t what? The guilt that had been sitting in him for five years bloomed like paint in water. He had no right to tell Taeyong not to cry. He had no right to anything at all, and he dropped his hand, but Taeyong pulled it back. Holding it; holding him. He remembered the first time Taeyong had held his hand out on the street like this. How right it felt to be connected like this, bound together like they should be. Taeyong didn’t say anything, just pulled Doyoung into the bar and over to a table by the back. Then he walked off and came back with shots. It had been five years since Doyoung had a drink. The only person he had ever felt safe enough to lose himself with was Taeyong. He took the shot.

They drank two more shots before Taeyong got water for Doyoung and a beer for himself, and he was finally ready to talk. There was no point now, not for what he knew he really wanted but he might get some answers at least. Doyoung had moved on; Taeyong should, too.

“I sent you messages,” he said. “When we got home.”

“I know,” Doyoung said. “I read them all.”

Those messages. Taeyong still had them. He read them when he needed to rub salt into his broken heart. He took out his phone and found them.

“Doyoungie, let’s go eat something. Doyoungie have you eaten? Let’s go see the new war movie. Let’s go for a walk. Let’s…” he kept scrolling. Three months of unanswered messages, each in the same tone. He had written them like he expected Doyoung to write back, every time. Doyoung was staring at the phone. His expression was pained.

“I couldn’t,” was all he said eventually. There was colour on his cheeks, the alcohol he wasn’t used to. He shrugged off his jacket clumsily and it fell to the floor behind him. “It’s warm here.”

Taeyong clicked his tongue, and walked around the table, collecting the jacket from the floor and draping it on the back of Doyoung’s chair, tucking it in and brushing Doyoung’s shoulders. Doyoung let him. Taeyong lingered a moment, looking at the back of Doyoung’s neck. Doyoung let him. Then he sat down again and Doyoung held his wrists out, cuffs already undone. Taeyong set about rolling them neatly for him, like he had taught Doyoung to do years ago. He didn’t look at the ring, and Doyoung didn’t mention it. He had to know that Taeyong had seen it. And still, Doyoung was letting himself be taken care of and Taeyong couldn’t help it; he obliged. Their eyes met and Taeyong saw that Doyoung’s weren’t as unfocused as he might want him to believe.

“Talk to me now,” Taeyong pleaded. He knew he sounded pathetic, but there really wasn’t any further he could fall here. Doyoung shook his head and shrugged, and then finally, he ran his hand, the one with the ring on it, through his perfect hair, and nodded.

The first time they kissed, they had been drinking. They had finished their dissertations, and were celebrating with beers and soju, sprawled on the couch in Taeyong’s room. They usually hung out there, since it was bigger that Doyoung’s. It was late - or early, depending on whether or not you had anything to do the next day, which they didn’t. They had a movie on Taeyong’s laptop in front of them, but they were talking over it, in low voices like there was anybody else in the room to disturb. Taeyong had his arm around the back of the couch, and Doyoung leaned into him, sitting too close like he was wont to do. Looking back, neither of them could remember being that comfortable with somebody before or since, to always be in their space like it was their right to be. Doyoung was starting to sound sleepy, so Taeyong got up.

“I’ll get you some water, you should sleep here,” he said. Doyoung grabbed his wrist.

“No, hyung, don’t go,” he whined, wrapping himself around Taeyong’s legs.

“I’m getting you some water,” Taeyong laughed, trying to shrug him off. He petted Doyoung’s head, and Doyoung only hugged his legs tighter. Taeyong bent down and kissed him lightly on the top of his head, and Doyoung dropped his arms, looking up at him with glassy eyes.

“Not there,” he said petulantly.

Taeyong grinned down at him. “No? I’m going to get you water.” He walked the four or five steps into the little kitchenette and poured a couple of glasses from the jug in his fridge. When he got back to the couch, Doyoung was glaring at him. “Drink this,” Taeyong said, putting the water down in front of Doyoung. He sipped his own, and Doyoung did the same, reluctantly.

Taeyong ruffled his hair, and Doyoung shook him off.

“No? Not there?” Taeyong chuckled, but Doyoung looked serious.

“I don’t want you to kiss me on the head,” Doyoung said, so quietly Taeyong could barely hear him over the movie. He sounded sober now.

Taeyong’s heart started to race. His mind was whirring: he had gone too far, he had given himself away, his inhibitions were lowered and now he had made Doyoung uncomfortable... right? “No?” he asked in a voice that shook a bit with panic.

“No,” Doyoung took another sip of water, and put the glass on the floor. Then he turned to face Taeyong.

They looked at each other for a long moment.

“I won’t kiss you if you don’t want me to,” Taeyong said quietly.

But then... Doyoung shook his head. Taeyong could hardly breathe. What was happening here? The atmosphere in the room had changed; there was a heaviness between them now, a charge that wasn't there before. And Doyoung was driving it.

“I want you to kiss me. I only meant that I don’t want you to kiss me there,” he said. His colour was high, and his eyes looked a little feverish, but Taeyong could swear it wasn’t the alcohol talking. Or maybe he wanted to swear. He shuffled a fraction closer to Doyoung, and Doyoung didn’t move away. He turned towards Taeyong so that his knee was pressing against the inside of Taeyong's thigh. They were very close together now.

“Where-” Taeyong began, but Doyoung chose that moment to plant a soft kiss under his ear, and Taeyong forgot how to speak.

“Here,” Doyoung said in that quiet voice. He moved to the other side, and kissed Taeyong’s neck again, harder this time. Lingering. “Or here.” He reached up and ran his fingers along Taeyong’s jawline. Taeyong, eyes wide, watched Doyoung, hardly daring to move. His heart was pounding so hard Doyoung must be able to hear it. His skin was on fire where Doyoung had kissed him, and a thrill of adrenaline coursed through him. It was like his skin was electrified. Doyoung’s eyes were fixed on his lips and he bit the inside of his own. His pupils were blown. Taeyong was riveted. If he could move he would have kissed Doyoung right there, but he couldn’t. So he waited for Doyoung to press his lips to his.

"Here," Doyoung whispered. Taeyong shivered and shut his eyes. He barely heard the word, but felt it as a brush of air across his lips before Doyoung closed the distance between them.

Eyes closed, Doyoung started to talk.

“I think I thought that what we… were, that it was how people felt when they were… together.” The things he wasn’t saying here; Doyoung hated himself for that. He owed Taeyong some honesty. He had come to the point in his own life where he was honest with himself, and he needed to show Taeyong that he had changed. That he wasn’t the coward he was that day at the airport. He took a deep breath and started again. “I had never been in love and I thought it was something that I could have with someone else if it wasn’t you. I wasn’t… comfortable, back then, with who I was and who I loved.” He opened his eyes. “I loved you.” He had never said that before.

“I know,” Taeyong said, unblinking.

Doyoung ploughed ahead, the matter-of-factness of Taeyong’s expression jarring him. He had to keep going. “It was easier to be in love with you when we were here. And then we went home. I wasn’t ready to accept who I was then. I thought… maybe, I thought that I would find that with somebody else eventually. Hyung, I was 22.”

“I was 23.”

He had him there.

“I was a coward,” Doyoung said, because nothing else mattered but that he admitted that. “I’m sorry.”

Taeyong held his gaze, but his lip was quivering. His whole body was shaking, actually. It was a nervous thing, something Doyoung recognised. Taeyong, expelling energy through movement. Then he cleared his throat and shook his head, before he spoke. “What are you sorry for?”

This was justified, Doyoung knew. Taeyong was going to make him say it. He should; it was his fault.

“I’m sorry I walked away from you at the airport. I’m sorry I left you there, and didn’t introduce you to my parents. I panicked and didn’t think logically, that you were my best friend before you were everything else. I hurt you, and it was needless. And I’m sorry I didn’t answer any of your 127 messages. You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to tell you how sorry I am. I was insane. I can’t even… I don’t know why I didn’t just respond.”

“127… you counted?”

Doyoung nodded.

“Well… you still have my number,” Taeyong pointed out. “You could have responded.”

“Too much time had passed. I wanted to see you, to… explain,” Doyoung looked down at the table because looking at Taeyong was getting difficult. He had forgotten the way those eyes could stun him. “I went to that stupid reunion thing because I knew you were in London and I thought you might come.”

Taeyong sat back in his chair, and Doyoung waited for him to say something. When he didn’t, Doyoung looked up. Taeyong was staring at him, shocked.

“How did you know I was in London?”

Doyoung worried his lip for a second. There was no getting around this one. “I check your SNS. And you posted a photo in a cafe I know. I checked and there’s only one, in London.”

Taeyong huffed a sound that might have been laugh; it looked painful. “Why?”

He was going to make him say it. “Because I’m in love with you. Obviously. I’ve never stopped.” Doyoung reached across the table and took Taeyong’s beer, downing the rest of the glass, in one.

Taeyong bought Doyoung an upgrade for their flight home. His parents had gifted him a First Class seat, and he cashed it in for two Business-Class seats that meant he and Doyoung could sit together on the way back. Those last weeks in London had been delirious. They were inseparable before, but by the time they were packing to fly home, they could barely stand to be away from each other for as long as it took for Doyoung to put his life in a suitcase and roll it over to Taeyong’s place.

They hadn’t talked much about what was going to happen when they got back to Korea, but it was only the start of things. Taeyong thought, when the lights on the plane dimmed for take off and Doyoung had his head on his shoulder and their ankles entwined in front of them, that they had the rest of their lives to work out what they were going to do next. That’s what it felt like. He couldn’t imagine feeling this way for anybody else; this was it, for him.

He kissed the top of Doyoung’s head in the dark, and settled in. Those eleven precious hours would haunt him later as he combed his memory for something - anything - he could have done wrong… they were just at the start of things, he had thought at the time. How wrong he was.

The first indication he had that something was wrong was when the plane touched down in Seoul, and blazing sunshine filled the cabin from across the aisle. Something about that seemed to rouse Doyoung, and he emerged from that plane blinking and anxious. Taeyong thought that it was probably concern for his luggage; Doyoung worried about things like that. When his suitcase trundled towards him on the conveyor belt twenty minutes later, though, Doyoung’s manner didn’t change. Tiredness? He had slept most of the way here; Taeyong could attest to that, he’d had to rouse Doyoung for meals and encourage him to drink water.

Doyoung stopped inside of the double doors that would bring them out to arrivals, and Taeyong walked into the back of him.

“Ah, sorry,” he said, fumbling to keep them both upright and putting his hand out to catch Doyoung’s waist, but Doyoung jerked out of his arms. “Doyoungie… what’s wrong?

“My parents…” he began. Taeyeong waited. “My parents are outside. Waiting.”

Taeyong nodded. Doyoung would want to be subtle. He was getting the subway home, but he knew Doyoung’s parents had driven here to pick him up. He folded his hands into his pockets and waited for Doyoung to go on. When he didn’t say anything else, Taeyong offered, “Can I meet them?”

“I- not today,” Doyoung said. Then he righted his suitcase and turned to face Taeyong directly. Around them, families and tourists streamed out the doors to the arrivals hall. “Bye, hyung.”

Bye, hyung. That was it.

He walked out the door after that, and Taeyong followed him but lost him in the crowd. That was five years ago.

“You walked out and said ‘bye, hyung,’ and now you tell me you’re in love with me?!” Taeyong knew his anger was explosive, but he couldn’t help it. He was out on the street again. This was the second building Doyoung had chased him out of tonight. At least nobody could understand him, as he fired an accusing finger in Doyoung’s direction. They couldn’t hide the fact that they were having some kind of fight, though, and a couple crossed the street to avoid Taeyong as he stormed off in the direction of the park near his old room. It was probably locked this time of night, but he needed a direction.

“Hyung, stop,” Doyoung chased him, catching his arm and spinning him around. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it to come out like that.”

“Like what?!”

“In those… words.”

“Did you mean it?!”

“Of course!”

“Then what other words do you have?!” Taeyong shrugged him off, casting a contemptuous look at the ring on Doyoung’s finger. Was that what this was? Some last hurrah before he settled down with whoever it was he had married? Getting all of his guilt out so he could start his new life without regrets? He still hadn’t mentioned it. Some honesty.

“I know you hate me-” Doyoung began, and Taeyong swung around.

“What?”

“You have every right to-”

Was he that stupid? “Are you that stupid?” Taeyong felt suddenly exhausted with this, with all of it. He had been on edge all evening, and the last hour with Doyoung was like living the five years they were apart and the year they were together and the fortnight they were everything all over again. He sat down heavily on a low wall in front of what looked like a church. Doyoung hovered on the edge of his reach, his hands at eye level. Taeyong looked at the ground. “Are you that stupid?” he repeated, in a quieter voice.

Doyoung stepped closer. “Yes,” he said eventually, and laughed. Taeyong looked up at him, his own smile tugging at the corners of his lips. At least he admitted it. Doyoung waited for Taeyong to go on, so he did.

“I don’t hate you,” he said. “I love you.” Present tense. “But I missed my chance. I should have followed you out of that airport. I should have gone to your parents house, or turned up at that show you produced before you left for London-”

“You knew about that?”

“You’re not the only one with the internet,” Taeyong pointed out. Doyoung was smiling now. A relieved smile. Like he was waiting to hear Taeyong admit that he was still his. He would always be his, Taeyong knew. But Doyoung… he was somebody else’s, now. Taeyong’s heart broke a little more. He didn’t think that was possible. He thought he’d left it smeared across the floor in Incheon that day. He dropped his head again.

Long fingers, every millimetre of them familiar against his skin, tipped Taeyong’s face up, drawing his gaze up to Doyoung, who was crouching in front of him now, one knee on the wet pavement. He was close, so close the clean linen scent of his cologne filled the space between them. Doyoung brushed Taeyong’s hair off his face, and Taeyong shivered with the intimacy of it. It was electric, the way Doyoung’s touch could make him catch fire like that. Then something in his eyeline drew his attention - the ring, reflected off the streetlamp beside them. He wanted to sit here for another minute. It felt like the memory of that eleven hour flight, like a last oasis of calm before the horrific reality set in. But he didn’t want to wait for Doyoung to say ‘bye, hyung’ again, and walk back to his life. In the five years since, Taeyong had come to hate those eleven hours, and he didn’t want to hate this moment too. He reached up and took Doyoung’s hand, gently lifting it away from his face.

The distance between the sliding doors and the place where his parents were standing was probably twenty metres, but Doyoung recalled every single inch of that space because it brought him irrevocably away from Taeyong. The magnetism that marked the entirety of their friendship lashed at him all the way out through those doors. But he couldn’t turn around. If he went back there, if he had given voice to any of the fucking awful thoughts that had flooded his mind since they landed, he knew he would only hurt Taeyong more.

He was in love with Taeyong.

He couldn’t undo that, and there was no going back from it.

But he wasn’t ready to admit that yet, to anybody but himself.

It was so simple, when they were 12,000km away from home, but back here he was staring into his future and that future looked hard enough without one more thing to have to contend with. He would. Some day. Not now, though. Now, he was a fucking coward, and he was going to have to live with that. Taeyong shouldn’t have to live with that, too.

“Somebody must be waiting for you,” Taeyong said, fingers lingering on the ring before he let go.

Doyoung frowned at him, his face in shadow. “What?”

Taeyong pushed himself to his feet, and Doyoung followed suit. By way of answer, he lifted Doyoung’s hand up to the light. “I missed my chance,” he repeated. "I should have come to find you sooner.” He dropped Doyoung’s hand, and only then realised that in his haste to chase Taeyong from the pub, Doyoung had walked out without his jacket. Taeyong started to walk back in that direction, and Doyoung fell into step beside him. He didn’t say anything, seemingly lost in thought. Once, their hands clashed and Taeyong’s breath caught, and he put his hand in his pocket.

Taeyong went inside when they got to the pub, and retrieved the jacket. When he got back out, waving goodnight to the bartender who was closing up for the night, Doyoung was leaning against the railings of a walled garden across the street. In the street light reflected off of the wet tarmac, he looked genuinely breathtaking. Taeyong sighed, and walked up to him, holding the jacket open so Doyoung could step into it.

He let himself be dressed, and as Taeyong was fixing his lapels, Doyoung took his wrists, holding them. He was a little bit taller than Taeyong, and they were standing on a slope. Taeyong had to look up to meet his eyes. He was smiling.

“Are you that stupid?” he said, and Taeyong frowned. Doyoung held up his left hand, waving it. “The ring is my grandfather’s,” he explained. “My mom gave it to me when I moved here, and I wear it because it reminds me of home.”

Taeyong blinked. “Wait, what?”

“The ring-”

“I heard you!” Taeyong shoved off him and Doyoung stumbled back, a little stunned. “Are you that stupid? Why would you wear a ring on your ring finger if you’re not married?! What did you expect me to think?”

Doyoung looked at him incongruously and burst into laughter. “Hyung, it’s the only finger that fits and I don’t care if other people think I’m married.”

“ I thought you were married!” Taeyong said. He could feel himself smiling. His heart was hammering so hard he was afraid it would burst. He was light-headed. He was… he was holding onto Doyoung, and Doyoung was holding on to him and they were holding each other on the street in London like they had done years ago.

“I thought I had lost you, completely,” Taeyong whispered, his voice shaking. “Why don’t you care that people think you’re married?”

Doyoung tipped his face up again, and this time Taeyong didn’t stop him. “I don’t want anybody to be disappointed,” he said, eyes searching Taeyong’s face, looking at him - really looking at him, for the first time in years. Taeyong felt the force of that attention like a warm breeze in summer. It was like coming home, and he could barely breathe with the relief of it. “I’ve never loved anybody but you, hyung. I don’t want anybody else. I don’t think that will ever change.”

This time Taeyong didn’t wait for Doyoung to kiss him. He closed the last of the distance between them, the centimetres and the years and everything else, and he kissed Doyoung hard, curling his fingers into that perfect hair and drawing him down so they were wrapped around each other. It was so familiar, the way they fit together. No, it was better than it had been. He knew what he had been missing, and he wasn’t about to miss another second.

Doyoung took Taeyong’s free hand in his while they kissed. He threaded their fingers together, fused their palms like they were the cracks in his broken heart sealed over.

This is what’s it’s like , he thought, to be whole again .