Chapter Text
Taehyun still couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that they had gotten a whole day off to themselves. This was something that never happened to them before when they were this close to a comeback, but Soobin had worked his leader magic and somehow managed to convince the staff that a small break before promotion started was going to be beneficial for them to do a better job. His whole body was aching due to the hours spent in the practice room to perfect the two very difficult choreographies they had decided to perform during promotions. If Can’t You See Me was a complicated one on its own, they had to go and choose PUMA as a B-side, making it even more difficult on their bodies. That was their strength as a group, so he couldn’t complain that the fans would have gotten to see them put everything they had in their performances, but his body was begging him for even one day of not having to do complicated jumps.
Despite the fact that even touching one of his arm muscles could knock him out with pain for about an hour, he hadn’t really complained when Beomgyu’s head had rested on his shoulder during the trip up to the cabin they were staying at. His cheeks had sure coloured a darker shade of pink when he felt the contact initially, and he had looked around to check if anyone had noticed, but since nobody was paying attention to him, he allowed himself to pretend that his head has just simply slipped on Beomgyu’s and decided to rest like that for the whole duration of the trip. His heart wasn’t really allowing him to sleep properly, though, as the smell of Beomgyu’s body-wash was inebriating him and making him feel more awake than he had ever been.
He had first developed a crush for Beomgyu when they were both still trainees. He didn’t even remember how it started; it wasn’t anything like in the movies where you have one big realisation moment, and it was definitely not love at first sight. When they met the first time, Taehyun’s first thought was that he was never going to be able to handle the amount of crazy that surrounded that boy. “Better steer clear”, he had thought. His plan hadn’t properly worked, though, because Beomgyu had attached himself to him and was refusing to let him be. Not that he ever asked him to directly, but every single one of his attempts to politely excuse himself and not hang out with him weren’t enough for Beomgyu to take the hint. As time went by, though, Taehyun found himself actually looking for Beomgyu’s company instead, and at that point he knew that his plan to stay away from this person had probably failed forever. Slowly and unexpectedly, Beomgyu had warmed himself in Taehyun’s heart, melting off some of his edges in a way only his extremely warm fire could.
When those feelings had turned romantic, that was also something he didn’t quite know. He just knew that one day, all of a sudden, his heart had started threatening him to come out of his ribcage whenever Beomgyu’s hand grazed his for a little too long. He had always noticed that, growing up, he had found himself catching feelings for people around him, no matter their gender, and although it would be difficult to predict how that knowledge would have affected anyone around him if shared, he had learnt to appreciate that about himself as him being capable of loving even more. So, he allowed himself those moments with Beomgyu where he could feel his heart pounding a little louder than usual, knowing that they were probably all the moments he was ever going to get.
As he was lost in his thoughts with his eyes closed, he felt the car stopping and he heard the engine turning off, guessing they had arrived at the final destination. One of their managers announced they had arrived as he slowly opened his eyes, awakening from his fake sleep. He tapped his finger on Beomgyu’s leg very lightly, not wanting to wake him up abruptly. When he slowly turned his head towards him to check he had woken up, he felt his entire body tingling as his heart threatened to spill out of his ears. Beomgyu’s face was so close to his that if the car had moved one inch without warning, their lips would have met. Beomgyu’s sleepy eyes found his, and for a millisecond, he could have sworn Beomgyu’s cheeks had coloured pink, but he moved away too quickly for him to be sure. They all got out of the car, grabbing their bags and heading into the cabin together.
-
Dividing dinner duties had seemed too easy to Taehyun when they had agreed their individual roles and nobody had complained too much. Well, Beomgyu had thrown a tantrum on the grass and pretended to die to avoid cutting vegetables, but anyone else was pretty chill (or too drunk, in Soobin’s case) to actually complain. He had volunteered to grill the meat and had gained himself a little bit of peace and quiet before he would have to do his chore, so he had thrown himself onto the sofa with his phone in his hands. Yeonjun and Hueningkai had left to go and get the wood at least fifteen minutes before, and Soobin had also gone somewhere but he hadn’t come back yet.
“Arghhhhh, I can’t do this”
Beomgyu dramatically exclaimed, his knife slamming on the counter for the second time in the past five minutes. Taehyun had ignored him the first time, but he was pretty sure he was not going to stop until he acknowledged his complaints.
“Where’s Soobin-Hyung?”
He asked, since he was the one who was meant to be on vegetable duty with him in the first place. He probably knew that his Hyung wasn’t in any state to hold a knife in that moment, but he was still trying to put off having to cut the vegetables himself as well.
“I have been abandoned. I have a million vegetables and I have to cut all of them on my own... I am an idol and my hands are my whole life but I am going to ruin them for these vegetables here...”
Taehyun wanted to roll his eyes and tell Beomgyu to just shut up, but he couldn’t help but let out a giggle at his usual over-the-top behaviour. He chose to be an idol, but he had the right dramatic energy to be an actor if he wanted to.
“Stop being a baby, I’ll help.”
Beomgyu started cheering with his hands, jumping up and down on the spot with his goofy smile spread all over his face. If doing so little gained him that smile, Taehyun thought, he could have cut a hundred vegetables.
“You’re my baby!”
Beomgyu just teased Taehyun, poking his cheek with his fingers as Taehyun joined him behind the counter and grabbed a knife and chopping board. He forced himself not to blush at his words, but he wasn’t sure if he had succeeded to communicate successfully to his brain.
“I am the mature one here...”
He teased right back, but Beomgyu didn’t let it phase him in the slightest. He went back to his vegetable, still chopping very slowly in an attempt to probably let Taehyun do most of the work.
“This reminds me of a trip we went with my summer camp when I was 12. We thought we were so cool sleeping away from home and we started playing all this games, but I hid in the toilet for an hour when they started playing spin the bottle because I didn’t want to kiss anyone.”
Beomgyu started giggling with his Goofy-like laugh at the story that Taehyun told him, getting a small laugh out of Taehyun as well.
“If it makes you feel any better, I scared all the girls in my class away so nobody ever wanted to kiss me.”
Taehyun giggled, thinking of a small rascal Beomgyu being so mischievous that all the girls in his class were probably too scared to get close to him. He wondered if they knew how foolish that was of them now that he was all grown up.
“I am sure you were very popular in high school, though, you must have had them lining up.”
Taehyun cursed at himself for saying that to him, hoping he wouldn’t pick up on the implication that he found him attractive in the slightest.
“Nah, I was never interested in girls growing up. Playing games was always more fascinating to me so I’ve never kissed anyone before.”
The way that rolled off his tongue surprised Taehyun in more ways than one. They never really talked about their time in high school before they met each other, but he had probably imagined him in a very different way in school. He was also very surprised at the fact he had admitted to never having kissed someone so nonchalantly when it was usually something you may be embarrassed about, but thinking about it, Beomgyu didn’t get embarrassed with much.
“That makes two of us...”
Taehyun’s voice wasn’t as free of embarrassment as he wanted it to be, but he felt like he needed to also come clean about this since Beomgyu had been so sincere about it. Beomgyu just shrugged his shoulders with a smile.
“We chose the right profession to make sure having one is going to be even harder.”
Beomgyu just teased, without being completely off-mark either. He dropped the knife on the counter once again, the noise echoing through the whole house.
“That’s enough vegetables, we’ll mostly eat meat anyways. Let’s rest.”
He forced the knife out of Taehyun’s hand and dropped it on the counter unceremoniously, dragging Taehyun to the sofa. Taehyun let himself be dragged and just went back to sit in the same position he was in before. Beomgyu laid down and closed his eyes, probably still a bit too tipsy from the beer he had outside. Taehyun wished that the desire to reach out his finger and touch his long eyelashes with the tip of his fingers was moved by alcohol inhibition, but he only had his head to blame. He put his legs out instead and rested them on top of Beomgyu’s.
“Ya!”
Beomgyu complained, trying to push him off.
“You slept on me earlier...”
Taehyun argued that it was only fair he could now lay down on him. Beomgyu accepted quite quickly, just closing his eyes again. Taehyun had always admired how quickly he would fall asleep anywhere. He went back to look at his phone, thinking that he would probably sleep for a while now.
“It would be easier if we could kiss each other, huh?”
Taehyun almost dropped his phone out of his hands as he heard the words come out of his friend in a whisper. He wasn’t sure he had heard right for the first few seconds, his tone of voice being so low it could easily be misunderstood. His heart was the loudest thing in the room again and he was worried this time, it may actually give out. He couldn’t have said what he thought he heard, right? He was about to ask him to repeat himself, when he heard the door opening and noticed his two Hyungs walking through the door. Taehyun immediately furrowed his eyebrows as he noticed that Hueningkai was not there, and Yeonjun wasn’t holding any wood at all.
“About time?! Wait you don’t have any wood. Where is Hyuka?”
As Yeonjun started to freak out as he realised that he’d followed Soobin out and never made it back to Hueningkai, they debated on whether they should warn he staff. Soobin was surprisingly against it, seeing that they could get in a lot of trouble. He probably was shouldering all the responsibility of this trip since he had asked for it explicitly, worrying that something like this would get them into a bad situation with the company. Soobin and Yeonjun decided they were going to go and find Hueningkai themselves, and Taehyun and Beomgyu were meant to stay put in case he came back while they were gone.
Taehyun’s brain was about to explode on the wall as his mind was fighting between the worry that he was feeling for Hueningkai and having to process what he thought he had heard coming out of his friend’s mouth just a few minutes before. Beomgyu was a lot more nervous about Hueningkai that he had let on, and he had reached for another beer in the fridge and downed half the bottle in a matter of seconds.
“Slow down with that...”
Taehyun warned him, but Beomgyu had already finished the whole bottle for himself. He made a little dance on the spot, trying to hide the fact that he was a lot more worried than he was letting on.
“We should play a game to pass the time.”
He waved the bottle in the air a few more times as he got closer to Taehyun on the sofa again. He sat himself down on the floor in front of him, batting his eyelashes up to him and making Taehyun’s heart skip a beat.
“Are you still too afraid of the bottle to spin it?”
Beomgyu started playing with the bottle on the floor, spinning it around with his finger.
“It’s just the two of us, we can’t even play spin the bottle.”
Taehyun rolled his eyes, pretending he was completely unaffected by how close to his face Beomgyu had gotten already by sitting down in front of him.
“What do you mean? It just makes it easier.”
He really had no idea what was going on in Beomgyu’s head in that moment. He was probably too tipsy to make any sense, and Taehyun was just feeling too many things because of his crush on him. He needed to try and find the composure inside him to behave like any of the other members would have in this situation with Beomgyu teasing them like this. He put one finger against Beomgyu’s forehead and pushed him backwards.
“Would you stop being an idiot?”
Beomgyu’s expression shifted as he bounced back from his push, and Taehyun’s stomach turned on himself. Beomgyu’s eyes were not letting go of Taehyun’s now, and he couldn’t find an ounce of unseriousness in them.
“I am just being serious. It's just... everything seems much easier with you. Maybe this does too.”
Taehyun’s body was paralysed. He was usually the one to keep cool under pressure, the only one able to reason and untangle a situation when it presented itself, but his brain had just stopped working that day. Beomgyu’s eyes were locked to his, and he was only short of asking him to kiss each other using the direct words.
“Hyung... are you...”
Before he could even finish the sentence, Beomgyu’s lips crushed against his. Taehyun’s body melted to the touch and for the first time in his life he felt like his entire head was filled only of the sensation of Beomgyu’s lips on his. He wondered if that was the way beer tasted like exactly, never having tasted it before, or if there was something there that tasted only of Beomgyu. Neither of them knew exactly what to do, their lips slowly moving on each other to try and memorise the feeling of it. Taehyun let his hand travel to Beomgyu’s cheek and cupped it in his hand, deepening the kiss slightly. Taehyun couldn’t believe that this was really happening, but he wasn’t going to make this kiss even a millisecond shorter than necessary. Taehyun was glad his senses hadn’t completely been shut down by the feeling of Beomgyu’s lips, and he was still able to hear the door opening in the distance. He broke the kiss quite quickly, only catching Beomgyu’s eyes for a second before he could get up and away from the sofa.
“Guys! I saved a bird!”
Hueningkai came in shouting, unaware of how heavy the air in that room was.
-
Comeback should have been everything that was on Taehyun’s mind those days, but he couldn’t say he had been able to think about anything other than the kiss he shared with Beomgyu at the cabin for days. He was so on edge about it that he had almost blurted it out to Soobin after trying to ask him if something had happened in the woods. He should have known better than to start that conversation. He had wanted to build up the courage to ask Beomgyu about it for days, but there never seemed to be a situation in which they could be on their own for long enough to talk about this. They had finished practicing early enough for them to sit on the sofa and watch a drama together that evening, and everyone had agreed to it initially, but the Hyungs had quickly changed their minds and each of them had locked himself up in their rooms, whilst Hyuka had fallen asleep after the first fifteen minutes of the drama. Taehyun was aware of the fact he was fidgeting, trying to find the right time for him to mention something, but Beomgyu didn’t seem to notice it too much, his eyes glued to the screen.
The couple on the screen got closer to each other and as the music started playing, the two leads of the drama shared a kiss on the screen. Taehyun felt his cheeks slightly colouring pink, but he thought that was the perfect moment to bring it up. He was about to open his mouth, but Beomgyu spoke first.
“I wonder if it’s really this dramatic. Trumpets, fireworks. I guess neither of us can really know...”
He just giggled to himself, taking a sip of his soda. Taehyun’s mouth hung open for a few seconds, his words dying in his throat. He had thought about it a couple of times, seeing that Beomgyu had drunk quite a bit that evening, but now he had the confirmation in front of him: Beomgyu couldn’t remember anything about that evening. It was foolish of him to think that, sober or not, that kiss would be memorable enough for Beomgyu as it was for him. He smiled lightly, finding the strength within himself to nod along, not saying much for the rest of the movie. Would it have been cheating to say that Beomgyu was his first kiss, when he didn’t even remember it?
-
The entirety of that day had been stressful for the group, and the last thing they really needed was being stuck in the company building due to a malfunction of the doors. Soobin had dealt with it quite quickly, trying to make sure that the storm outside didn’t affect Yeonjun too much. He had noticed his Hyung would tense up whenever they needed to leave the house in the rain, but he had never asked about it and had pretended not to know, figuring he would come to him if he needed to. This had turned into a sleepover in the one place he had hoped not to see until the following day. Soobin had sent him and Beomgyu to go and get some snacks for them all to enjoy together. Things had gone back to normal between them as Taehyun had to push the memory of their kiss down deep and away from the surface. There was no point in torturing himself over something he could never speak about again, anyways, and he had taken it as a sign that probably it was the universe telling him this was meant to stay buried.
“Let’s check all the cupboards.”
Beomgyu suggested as they walked into the cafeteria, opening every single drawer he could see to find some food to steal for their sleepover. Taehyun followed suit, as he started opening some drawers as well, reaching up to the higher cupboards.
“This would be the perfect evening for alcohol.”
Taehyun joked as he grabbed a couple of bottles of grape juice, the closest thing to an alcoholic beverage they were going to get that evening.
“What would you know, you’ve probably only tasted beer off my mou...”
The words died in Beomgyu’s throat as Taehyun turned around to look at him with a puzzled look on his face. What was he talking about? The entirety of what Taehyun had just convinced himself of during the past few days had come crumbling down with that sentence. Everything he had worked to push down was abruptly making its way to the surface. He remembered? Not only that, but had he pretended not to?
“Hyung?”
Beomgyu’s face looked somewhat unaffected by that slip up, quickly grabbing all the snacks they had gathered to go back to the room everyone was in. Taehyun’s steps were feeling much heavier as everything started to become more confused and painful in his head. They sat back down in the room as Taehyun got lost in his own thoughts once again. Beomgyu was being very careful not to meet his eyes but he could tell he was avoiding them on purpose. Soobin suggested they play a game.
“We should play a game appropriate for a sleepover. What do people do in the movies? Spin the bottle.”
Soobin’s words hit a lot closer to home than he had imagined, and for one second, Beomgyu did turn around to look at Taehyun before immediately turning his eyes away again. Taehyun’s cheeks were the colour of his hair, but he was hoping nobody paid enough attention to that. Hueningkai made sure that the game would be off-limits, and they started playing “Never Have I Ever...” instead.
As expected, they started arguing over something silly like Hueningkai’s plushies. He could feel his hands tingling at the thought that Beomgyu could pretend they never shared that moment before, and just act so nonchalantly about it. The blood was rushing through his head, he wanted to get up and scream, say something that would make Beomgyu stop playing cool about everything. All he wanted was to push him.
“This is not even how you play this game, all of you. You should be asking things you don’t know about each other, not stuff we’ve all done to each other.”
Taehyun interjected, knowing he was about to play a dangerous game, but he didn’t care.
“Like... Never have I ever had my first kiss.”
Nobody in the room expected Taehyun of all people to say that, probably, and under different circumstances he never would have. He needed to know if Beomgyu would have drunk, or if he would have pretended again not to know. His eyes were directly looking at Beomgyu as he waited for everyone to drink, taking a sip of his own drink in a challenging manner. He wanted him to know that he was not going to pretend he didn’t remember. Beomgyu was avoiding his gaze in such an uncharacteristic way for him, no sign of his usual cheekiness on his face. He slowly took a sip of the drink, looking in the opposite direction as he still probably felt Taehyun’s eyes burning his skull. Taehyun felt like his heart had been stabbed as he felt tears forming at the back of his eyes, but he needed to remind himself where they were, so he batted them away and forced himself to look around the room. When everyone noticed Soobin hadn’t drunk, they focused their attention on him.
Soobin started to explain his theory about first kisses, the idea that they weren’t just the act of two lips pressing together but something that both people involved wanted to happen. Something they could remember forever with fondness, even after a relationship ended. Tears were threatening to come out of his eyes again, so when Soobin excused himself to go and get the blankets in the storage room, Taehyun immediately shoot up mumbling he needed to go to the toilet.
Tears just started streaming down his eyes as he walked the hallway quickly towards the toilet, his own thoughts blocking out anything else happening around him. He had almost reached the toilet, the safest place for him to just cry his eyes out as he processed everything that had happened on that day, when he felt a hand grabbing his shoulder.
“Taehyun-ah”
Beomgyu’s voice felt like a slap to his face, knowing that he wasn’t able to deal with him in that moment.
“Hyung, just leave.”
“Can we just talk?”
Taehyun left out a dry laugh. He couldn’t remember one time where he had ever been dry towards Beomgyu ever since they’d known each other, but he also couldn’t remember a time in which Beomgyu had hurt him this way.
“Now you want to talk? I thought we should just pretend not to remember anything and move on...”
Beomgyu’s eyes couldn’t meet his, he looked at the floor in front of him before speaking again.
“I just... I didn’t know what to say.”
Taehyun laughed again; that was probably even worse than anything he could have said. All the thoughts he had in his mind about the kiss were fighting each other to come out, and all he had to say was he couldn’t say anything. Soobin’s words were still echoing in his mind, tears unable to stop coming out of his eyes.
“It’s not that you couldn’t remember it... It’s what Soobin-Hyung said. You didn’t want to remember it. You just... it wasn’t a real first kiss. I shouldn’t have drunk...”
Beomgyu wasn’t moving, he wasn’t saying anything either. In the whole time they had known each other, he never knew Beomgyu not to have anything to say, but he was just not saying anything. That was screaming much louder than anything he could have said, and Taehyun couldn’t be there anymore. He walked into the toilet and locked the door behind him, dropping to the floor as his eyes let out all the emotions he had been burying all this time.