Chapter Text
It’s Beomgyu’s third time bringing a guy home this month— not because he’s really that into any of them, but because he’s definitely not in love with his roommate. 1
Somehow, he still hasn’t managed to make it past the first date. It isn’t that the guys are ugly, whether inside or outside— he has taste, after all. And it’s definitely not Beomgyu that’s the problem. He’s a total catch, objectively.
No. The root of all things bleak and disastrous about the current state of his love life comes rushing back to him as soon as he opens the door of his apartment, whilst clinging to Park Sunghoon’s arm in trepidation.
“Welcome home, honey,” a saccharine voice singsongs, right on cue. Beomgyu’s fingers tighten around Sunghoon’s elbow, swallowing back a sigh.
There he is, in all of his comical glory: the bane of Beomgyu’s existence, bounding into the living room to greet them.
Yeonjun has already changed into his lounging outfit, all decked out in a loose tank top and pajama pants, his bleached hair pushed back with one of those thick spa headbands. His entire face is smeared with an almost fluorescent green goo.
“Self care night,” Yeonjun chirps after seeing their expressions. He’s beaming, apparently oblivious to the fact that he is the antithesis of what one would hope to bring a possible love interest home to.
“Yeonjun hyung, this is Sunghoon,” Beomgyu recites in a monotone voice, as his date nods politely in greeting. “Sunghoon, this is my menace.”
“Wow.” Yeonjun’s grin is wide enough to be scary. “So you invited another one in, huh?”
Beomgyu grits his teeth. “Hyung.”
“It’s not like that,” Sunghoon scrambles to explain, looking sheepish. “I was just curious to see what his place looked like, so he said he’d show me around a bit.”
“Right,” Yeonjun drawls. “Curious.”
The poor boy shifts uncomfortably under the weight of Yeonjun’s unflinching gaze, made worse by the fact that he currently has remarkably similar coloring to the grinch. “Um.”
“As you can see, there’s nothing much special about my apartment, aside from the fact that it’s inhabited by an unsightly troll,” Beomgyu says sweetly.
“Don’t talk about yourself that way, Beomie,” Yeonjun scolds. “You’re pretty easy on the eyes.”
“He is,” Sunghoon says agreeably. He peers at Beomgyu with a flush on his cheeks. Yeonjun frowns, the movement causing his face mask to crack along the creases of his forehead. For a moment, they all simply stand there in awkward silence.
“Do you want to see Beomgyu’s baby pictures?” Yeonjun blurts suddenly. Beomgyu chokes on his spit, while Sunghoon makes a startled noise.
“Oh—” His eyes widen.
“Wait no, those are too cute,” Yeonjun mumbles to himself, shaking his head. “How about his preteen phase? He’s pretty weird looking in those.”
“Yeonjun hyung,” Beomgyu hisses.
Sunghoon rubs the back of his neck, the tips of his ears looking slightly pink. “I should probably get going, actually.”
Beomgyu perks up at that. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard a more spectacular idea. His roommate doesn’t seem too disheartened at the imminent departure, either.
“Unfortunate,” Yeonjun pouts, not looking sorry at all. “Maybe next time.”
Beomgyu walks Sunghoon to the door, the boy leaning in to give him a kiss on the cheek while Yeonjun not-so-subtly glares. “I’ll call you?” He looks at Beomgyu hopefully.
“Mhm,” he replies, counting down the seconds until the dude gets the fuck out so he can kill his roommate without any witnesses.
He doesn’t even spare the guy a second glance as he walks away— which is saying a lot, because Sunghoon has the type of face which warrants several glances. Regardless, he’s a bit too focused on planning a murder to direct his attention anywhere else.
The worst part is, this isn’t even an uncommon occurrence. Every single person Beomgyu has gone on a date with and brought back home has encountered a similar welcome. By the end of the excruciating interaction, any romance that might’ve been in the air is quickly dispelled.
Even if the guy isn’t totally weirded out, and by some miracle is still interested, Beomgyu can’t quite bring himself to face him again. Once a relationship has been tainted by Choi Yeonjun, he has no choice but to throw the whole thing away.
Beomgyu finally lets the door swing shut, and then they’re alone. He turns around slowly.
“What?” Yeonjun says, his hands already held up in surrender. “You didn’t like him that much anyway.”
Beomgyu barely resists the urge to fling himself across the room and tackle his friend to the ground. He pinches the bridge of his nose instead, taking steadying breaths. “You don’t know that.”
“I know your ‘I’m not feeling this guy’ expression,” Yeonjun insists, crossing his arms stubbornly. “And that was it.”
“You don’t know shit about me.” A blatant lie.
“Who gives a goodnight kiss on the first date, anyway?” He rolls his eyes. “Talk about corny.”
Beomgyu barely remembers that there was a kiss, barely even processed it. “Or maybe you just have no game,” he shoots back.
“Whatever,” Yeonjun says. “Just think of it as me doing you a favor.”
“What is wrong with you?” he snaps.
Yeonjun just shrugs. “Pact,” he says simply.
Beomgyu clenches his jaw. He’s heard this before. “It’s been two years. When will you stop using ‘Pact’ as an excuse for every single insufferable thing you do, when you know goddamn well I don’t even remember what it was?" 2
Yeonjun smiles, sly and taunting. “It’s not my fault you can’t hold your liquor, Gyu.”
When Beomgyu takes the time to think back, this really had all started on his twenty-first birthday. It’s a night he recalls all too well— up until the point where he can’t remember anything at all. Much unlike Yeonjun, who’s apparently hellbent on holding this missing scene over his head for the rest of his life.
“I’m half convinced you’re just making shit up,” he scowls.
Yeonjun shrugs. “Believe what you like. I’m going to bed. It’s exhausting waiting up for you, you know.”
“No one asked you to.” Beomgyu tries to send his most withering glare, but his heart isn’t in it anymore. “You’re not my fucking mother.”
Yeonjun is already walking away from him, flipping him off as he goes. Then he pauses just in front of his room, hand clinging to the door frame. He stands there for a good minute, frozen still, back still facing Beomgyu.
Beomgyu frowns. “What’s your deal?”
Yeonjun turns his head to look back at him. He really does look tired; Beomgyu irrationally feels a flash of guilt, even though he really hadn’t asked Yeonjun to wait up for him, and honestly would prefer it if he didn’t.
“Are you going to see him again?” Yeonjun mutters, almost too low to be heard.
“Sunghoon? I mean… probably, yeah.” Beomgyu blinks rapidly, missing the darkening of Yeonjun’s expression. “We share a class and I run into him at the library all the time, so.”
Yeonjun scoffs. “When are you ever at the library?”
“I spend entire evenings there when I’m studying!” he protests, affronted.
He’s not the most studious of people, true, but even he starts packing in those late night cram sessions when there’s an exam coming up. He’s not Soobin, after all. Beomgyu won’t allow himself to be slandered like this.
“Just study here,” Yeonjun grumbles. “The fuck are you paying rent for?”
It may be one of the stupidest arguments Beomgyu has ever heard— but before he can think of a comeback, Yeonjun is finally slipping into his room without another word, the door clicking shut behind him.
He bites back a scream of frustration, angrily kicking off his shoes and striding into his own bedroom. He falls back onto his bed with a groan, already feeling the beginnings of a migraine tugging at his temples.
Yeonjun. Choi Yeonjun. How the most important person in his life can be so damn infuriating is a mystery to him. Maybe Beomgyu doesn’t have impeccable taste after all.
Pulling out his phone with a sigh, he does what he always does to comfort himself when he’s either frustrated or being driven insane— he calls Kai.
“Hyung,” the boy answers immediately. Between the eagerness in his voice, and the fact that he’d picked up after only one ring, Beomgyu has the sneaking suspicion he’s been waiting for an update. “How was the date?”
“Oh, you know,” he replies dismissively. “New face, same old shenanigans.”
“Yeonjun hyung was being a weirdo again?” Kai says knowingly.
“Yep.”
“Hyung,” Kai begins carefully. “Have you considered… just not introducing them to him at the end of the night?”
The question gives him pause. “He’s my roommate,” Beomgyu says. “It’s not like I can lock him up in his room.”
“Yeah, but.” Kai almost sounds like he’s holding back a laugh, and he doesn’t know what to make of it. “You can say goodbye at the door? You don’t have to invite them inside every time?”
“Sometimes they invite themselves!” Beomgyu says defensively. “Plus, even if they don’t meet him on the first date, anyone I get into a serious relationship with will run into him eventually. It’s kind of inevitable.”
Kai sighs. “I guess that’s true. You can’t tell him to ease up a little?”
“When has he ever listened to me?” Beomgyu grumbles.
“It’s not like you listen to him, either.”
“That’s besides the point.” His mind travels back to what Yeonjun had mentioned earlier— the same excuse he always uses, time and time again. “Kai.” Beomgyu bites his lip in hesitation. “Do you remember what happened on the night of my birthday party two years ago?”
“Is this about the pact again?” his friend answers, sounding amused. “Because you already know only you and Yeonjun were there. The only part the rest of us were present for was…”
“Okay, I get it,” Beomgyu cuts in quickly. He’s already heard this story far too many times, and a little bit of his ego diminishes with every retelling. There’s a gap in his recollection, a gap in the sequence of events that he’s tried piecing together using both his hazy memory and word of mouth.
He knows that Yeonjun took him away from the party, away from everyone else, and he knows that an hour later, his friends had stumbled upon them in a compromising position.
Somehow, it’s the one image that manages to take form, even though everything that comes before is all a blur: Taehyun’s face, peering up at them, flushed and livid as the others clutch at their sides in uncontrollable laughter.
“Your birthday is coming up next month,” Kai mentions. “Are we going to recreate the iconic scene?" 3
“Sure, as long as it ends with me jumping off of the roof this time.”
“So dramatic,” Kai remarks jovially. “Anyway, how are we celebrating this year?”
“There’s still plenty of time,” Beomgyu huffs. “But I don’t really feel like hosting our own thing. Maybe we can just hit up a club.”
“Sounds good,” Kai says. “Just don’t get black out drunk again and pledge Yeonjun hyung your first born child, or something.”
Beomgyu sits bolt upright in his bed, eyes bulging out of their sockets. “Oh my god,” he exclaims breathlessly. “Do you think that’s what the pact was? It would all make sense, wouldn’t it? That’s the reason why he keeps chasing away all my dates and being so weird, because he has some kind of fucked up selective mating agenda going on—”
“Goodnight hyung.”
Click.
***
They decided to have the party the evening before his actual birthday, so that they could do a countdown to midnight. It felt very New Year’s Eve-esque, but Beomgyu wasn’t going to complain.
Taehyun’s parents were out for the weekend, so they had the entire house to themselves. Soobin and Kai had been setting up decorations all day, forbidding Beomgyu from coming over until later in the evening.
It wasn’t like it was a surprise party, but he supposed it was the thought that counted. The whole thing was much more luxurious than cramming themselves into one of their tiny dorm rooms and cracking open some beers, anyhow.
“We have to leave the place spotless,” Taehyun had intoned to the rest of them. “If anyone breaks anything, you’re no longer a part of my life.”
Everything looked great once Beomgyu was finally allowed inside. The music was already going when Yeonjun dragged him through the front door, plopping a cheap tiara on his head.
Streamers were strung up all along the perimeter of the ceiling (courtesy of Soobin, probably) and there were balloon animals strewn about in every color of the rainbow (courtesy of Kai, who for some reason had taken it upon himself to take an online course last year and now considered himself something of a master).
The party itself, was honestly… kind of lame. Seeing as how they only invited themselves, and therefore only had each other to dance with, the bass-heavy music was quickly cut and they decided to pile onto the couch and watch a movie instead.
When that was done with, a solid hour of horrific karaoke followed, which continued to grow in volume and decrease in quality the drunker all of them got. Unsurprisingly, it was Soobin who plied Beomgyu and the others with drinks while he himself was content to sip on the same beer throughout the entire night.
It was somewhere between Beomgyu’s third and fourth drink that he realized he was hopelessly in love with his best friend. It was between the fifth and sixth that he realized he needed to overcome it, before it devoured him whole.
Okay. If he was being honest with himself, neither of those realizations were anything particularly new. Everything just felt heightened when his head was all muddled like this, all of his senses distorted. Colors seemed more vivid, sounds more muffled. The lightest ghost of a touch sent tingles skating up his arm.
Most importantly, what he’d thought was a harmless crush was suddenly becoming something he could get his heart broken over.
Someone had turned the music back on at some point, and Yeonjun had taken center stage, body effortlessly flowing with the song. Beomgyu sat quietly, watching him with rapt attention.
Yeonjun was dazzling; he’d gone all out, dressed to the nines with glitter smudged under his eyes, even though it was only the five of them. He was ethereal, illuminated in the low lighting of the room.
He moved like water, bonelessly, like a force of nature. He looked like he could exist in another realm, in a plane of reality where consequences didn’t exist and Beomgyu could kiss him without feeling the stabbing fear of jumping without a parachute.
Seeing Yeonjun dance always filled Beomgyu with a sense of wonder. He transformed into someone else entirely— not morning Yeonjun with the unsightly bedhead and dried drool at the corner of his mouth, not whiny Yeonjun that pouted and grumbled when he didn’t get his way, not annoying Yeonjun who drove him insane and made him want to rip his own hair out in frustration sometimes.
Ten years of friendship, and Beomgyu knew all the different Yeonjuns there were to know. And yet sometimes, in brief moments like this, it was still possible for him to feel like he was seeing him for the first time.
It was at ten minutes to twelve that they all finally gathered for the cutting of the cake. There was a beautiful rendition of Happy Birthday performed in precisely four different clashing keys, while Beomgyu recorded the whole thing on his phone.
And as soon as he finished blowing out the candles and each one was carefully removed, Beomgyu found his face gracelessly shoved into the center of the cake.
In the end, nobody got to eat it even though a decent portion was still salvageable, because Beomgyu immediately grabbed hold of it with both hands and started chasing Soobin around the house while Taehyun screamed at them to be careful.
Eventually, they called for a truce; Yeonjun helped wash the frosting off of his face, and Beomgyu agreed to forgive Soobin only if the boy took a shot with him.
All of these events played out vividly, crystal clear in Beomgyu’s still slightly sober mind. Everything before midnight, that was.
The funny thing about Beomgyu was that the drunker he got, the calmer he became. He had a suspicion that that was precisely the reason behind Soobin always pressing drinks into his hands whenever they went out together.
After the main event was over, he inadvertently found himself drifting away from the others, lost inside his own thoughts. He was sitting on the couch, nursing the remnants of Soobin’s beer when he felt a chin digging into his shoulder.
“Birthday boy,” Yeonjun leaned over to whisper, his eyes glittering. “Can I steal you away for a bit?”
Beomgyu brightened at the sight of him, standing up and immediately realizing that he was far more inebriated than he thought.
“Where are we going?” he giggled. His head felt like it was stuffed with clouds, the room spinning a bit when Yeonjun just smiled at him mischievously.
The boy’s fingers closed around his wrist, and he allowed himself to be pulled along blindly, willingly. He went, because Yeonjun had never needed to ask. The boy could steal him whenever, wherever, and Beomgyu would follow like a shadow chasing its person.
Cool air hit his face like a slap of cold water, as they ducked out of the house and into the backyard. The quiet had an immediate calming effect, the music disappearing as the door closed behind them, muting everything else. A new song started up in its place, a toneless humming of crickets and wind.
“C’mon,” Yeonjun said.
Beomgyu looked around, confused. “Come where?”
Yeonjun pointed, and Beomgyu hesitantly followed along the line of his arm.
His mouth dropped open. “Are you stupid? How the hell would we even get up?”
“There’s a ladder right there,” Yeonjun protested. “They were probably fixing up the roof recently or something.”
Beomgyu swayed on his feet, already sensing that this would be a disaster, and also sensing that he was probably going to go along with it anyway. “Is it a good idea to climb on top of a newly repaired roof?”
“Of course,” Yeonjun said with an air of misplaced confidence. “I think the bad idea would be to climb onto a newly broken one.”
“How will we get down without cracking our skulls open?” The ground was rolling beneath him in waves, and the rocking motion would’ve been comforting if Beomgyu hadn’t known for a fact that it wasn’t supposed to be moving like that.
“Worry about that later?” Yeonjun grinned. “Let me help you up.”
With both hands clamped around Beomgyu’s waist, Yeonjun hoisted him up the steps of the ladder. When he was within reach, he grabbed the edge of the roof with both hands and pulled himself up, shakily adjusting himself until he was certain he wasn’t in danger of tipping over.
A moment later, Yeonjun was a bit more gracefully clambering on next to him.
“Any reason behind this spontaneous kidnapping?” Beomgyu drawled, leaning back on his hands. The curves of the shingles dug into his palms and his thighs, but he didn’t mind it.
It was a bit thrilling to be up here, now that he was properly settled. Like a new vantage point of the world. The stars were just a few meters closer, the unreachable just a bit closer to his fingertips than before.
“You were being quiet,” Yeonjun observed. “Did you magically mature at the strike of twelve? Or is something wrong?”
“I’m getting older each year,” Beomgyu stated the blatantly obvious, avoiding a real answer. “It just sucks.”
“What’s wrong with getting older?” Yeonjun scrunched up his nose, probably anticipating some sort of jab about his own age.
Nothing was wrong, exactly, but Beomgyu still felt like making a fuss. “I’m twenty-one and still single. I’ll probably be bitchless for the rest of my life.”
Yeonjun let out a startled bark of laughter. “Doubt it. You’re already a heartbreaker, Gyu, if you’d just open your eyes and realize it.”
Beomgyu didn’t know what he meant by that. He’d never broken a heart in his life, nor had he experienced any particularly harrowing heartbreaks yet himself. Maybe in the future those things would come true, but everything felt so uncertain.
“Where do you think you’ll be ten years from now, hyung?” he asked.
“In ten years?” Yeonjun echoed thoughtfully. “Hm. I don’t know. Probably the same as where I was ten years ago.” There was a grin plastered on his face; not teasing, not sarcastic, just… content. Some of his lip tint had gotten smudged, a bloom of red at the corner of his mouth. Beomgyu found himself fixating on it.
“And where’s that?”
“With you.”
Beomgyu’s entire body went still, his eyes snapping up. It seemed as though he could hear the echo of his heartbeat thrumming in the space between them, driven wild by an innocent remark he was assigning far more meaning than it was intended to carry.
Ten years ago, he met Yeonjun. And ten years into the future, he still wanted Yeonjun to be by his side. It snapped him back to reality, back to the world where repercussions follow hasty decisions. And Beomgyu knew right then, that there wasn’t a single thing— not a kiss, not a confession, not even a possible relationship— that would be worth risking Yeonjun for.
It was time to pick his heart up off the ground and carry it somewhere else. The longer he let it beat in Yeonjun’s hands, the longer he allowed himself to bleed desire all over the two of them, the more difficult the stains would be to get out.
It was best to pull back now while it was still possible to wash everything away, than to wait and have to throw out something that had been irreparably tainted. Beomgyu knew this. There was just one problem, one unflinching obstacle.
Beomgyu had never been good at letting go. And he was even weaker in the presence of looming “what-ifs.” Even if he tried to ignore it, he knew that it would just keep dangling in front of his face for the rest of his life, drifting further away until it was still within sight but no longer within reach.
But if he grabbed ahold of it now, wound the string around both of their wrists… he could still hold on. He could still have Yeonjun, not as a what-if, but as a could-be.
“Sometimes I wonder what it’s like inside your head,” Yeonjun suddenly laughed, breaking the contemplative silence. “It must be a full on carnival for you to spend so much time inside of it and still get lost.”
Beomgyu looked at him, dazed. “I’m just thinking.”
“About what?” Yeonjun teased, bumping their shoulders together. “Give me a sneak peek.”
An idea was forming in his head, so far-fetched, so abstract that he wasn’t even fully aware of what he was trying to envision. His lips felt numb, the alcohol making his face feel like a clumsy, wooden mask. His voice felt like it was coming from somewhere off in the distance, like someone else was speaking for him.
“Let’s make a pact,” Beomgyu breathed, leaning in close.
“Okay,” Yeonjun replied. “Lay it on me.”
His eyes were glistening, and he was looking at Beomgyu like he was seeing him for the first time. That cracked open expression— nostalgia, hope, want— was the last thing printed on his mind before the night faded into a warm, euphoric haze.
1. Self deception: The action or practice of allowing oneself to believe that a false or unvalidated feeling, idea, or situation is true (i.e. Choi Beomgyu is not in love with his best friend). return to text
2. The Pact: A very official agreement; created some time between the hours of twelve and two in the morning on the 13th of March.
- Individuals present: Choi Yeonjun and Choi Beomgyu.
- Time frame of pact: Ten years.
- Details: Uncertain. return to text
3. The Iconic Scene: In which after The Pact is made, Yeonjun and Beomgyu are found drunkenly sprawled on the roof, much to the consternation of the owner of said roof (Kang Taehyun).
Efforts are made to retrieve these inebriated individuals, as apparently climbing down a ladder is a more significant feat than ascending it while filled with six shots of tequila.
Cue fits of undignified screaming (source: Choi Yeonjun), and hysterical tears (source: Choi Beomgyu) as they are carefully maneuvered back down to the ground. This portion of the night continues to be vehemently denied by both persons involved. return to text