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Tiw’s lounged out on the least comfortable chair in the student council room, drumming lightly on a lid of soda, his eyebrow raised in Tinn’s direction.
“Yeah, I’m sure of it now,” Tiw announces, “something’s up with you, so spill.”
Tinn freezes up. He opens and closes his mouth several times without managing a word.
Tiw narrows his eyes at him.
“It’s complicated?” Tinn offers weakly, glancing nervously toward the door.
Tiw looks at him expectantly.
“It’s about Gun,” Tinn sighs, to which Tiw snorts.
“Obviously it’s about Gun, but—ah, is it still weird between you two? After the MV shoot?” Tiw asks.
“Not… exactly? We haven’t talked about it, really,” Tinn trails off uncertainty, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes.
Inwardly, Tinn thinks it’d just be easier to just tell Tiw everything. In his defense, he feels a little bad for lying to Tiw.
“Hey, I'm sure it'll all work out,” Tiw says, reaching over to put a comforting hand on Tinn’s back, “if there’s anything that I can do to help, let me know. You know I have your back.”
And yeah, of course Tinn appreciates that. But, asking Tiw for advice on how to secretly date flirt with Gun while staying under the radar of the music club’s stupid rules is a nonstarter.
Turns out, it’s easy enough to hide a relationship when no one’s actually looking for it.
The music club’s practices have been stretching late into the evenings, with every member only amplifying each other’s nervous energy, until Tiw and Tinn are forced to intervene and make sure everyone actually eats dinner.
Between Win burning his tongue on his first bite of fried chicken and Por gathering enough sauce in the corners of his mouth that Tiw won’t leave him alone until Por picks up a napkin, Tinn slips his palm against Gun’s underneath the table and hopes no one asks him why he’s smiling at an empty plate.
(“You want to go ice skating?” Gun suggests, seemingly out of the blue.
Tinn stares at him for a moment, not quite sure if he's heard right.
“Ice skating?” Tinn repeats slowly, “Like... right now?”
Gun gestures vaguely in the direction they're currently walking. “They should have lights around the rink by now, shouldn't they? I think it would be fun. If you want.”
A date out in town, Tinn remembers.)
“This is a shoe with a knife,” Tinn mutters, but he stops resisting as Gun shoves the skate up to his ankle and moves to tie up the laces, “and I don't have thick enough socks for this.”
“You'll be fine,” Gun reassures him, “just step right here—no wait, this step, and hold onto me.”
Tinn complies, shifting against carefully, and Gun guides Tinn to the edge of the rink with their hands clasped, then steps behind him so his face is near Tinn’s ear and says softly, “You're going to need to let go of the side rail there."
It takes everything Tinn has to not tense up completely. He lets go of the wall, and moves carefully backwards away from the ledge, Gun stepping on the ice first, neatly turning to face Tinn.
Gun holds out both hands when he reaches the end of the barrier, and looks at him expectantly. ”Come on."
Tinn takes a breath and goes to step on the ice as gracefully as possible, keeping his focus firmly set on the way Gun keeps his fingers lightly wrapped around his wrist. The pressure keeps him centered, and it's only until he gets all the way onto the ice that he realizes how tight his own grip is on Gun’s shoulder.
"You're doing great," Gun says encouragingly, and Tinn thinks he'd feel somewhat patronized if it were not for the way Gun says it so earnestly.
So Tinn focuses on moving forward slowly, following Gun’s lead and trying not to think about how cold his feet are. The rink feels almost too quiet, despite all the chatter around them, but he tries hard to ignore it, forcing his gaze ahead of him.
Tinn’s ankles ache by the time they make it to the other end of the rink, and he closes his eyes and leans against the frame of the rink until Gun tugs lightly at his jacket sleeve and he opens his eyes again.
"What?" Tinn asks, and his legs feel a lot like jelly.
"I was right," Gun notes with a small smile, and Tinn blinks.
"About what?"
"They have the lights up, just up there," Gun says, pointing vaguely above them, and Tinn tilts his head up.
"Oh," Tinn breathes, blinking rapidly to adjust to the glow above them. There's a blue tint to the cascading layers of lights on the ceiling, and it casts everything in soft, muted tones.
Tinn can see why people like this place; the way the cascading lights reflect off the ice is beautiful, and when Tinn looks back to Gun, he smiles wider as he catches Tinn’s eye.
Gun pushes off the rail, moving forward to stand next to him.
"C'mon," he grins at Tinn, reaching for his hand, which Tinn easily gives.
“I'm telling you now, but my legs are locking up, so I'm going to fall—” Tinn gestures to the middle of the rink, “—somewhere over there, probably."
"Well, then we should get out of here before that happens," Gun laughs, "just hold on and you'll be fine."
"What if I trip you?"
"Then you’ll fall on me and it won't hurt you that bad."
At Tinn’s exasperated look, Gun only grins. “C’mon, we’ll be fine, I’ve got you.”
Tinn nods seriously, taking hold of Gun’s hand.
"I won’t let you fall," Gun promises.
“This isn't working,” Gun says one afternoon, frowning at Tinn, and for a terrifying moment, Tinn assumes the worst.
His chest seizes up, his pulse hammering in his ears as he stares wide eyed at Gun.
But then Gun continues speaking, “I mean, I've tried everything! We put the no-dating rule to like, three different votes, and it still tied everytime. Who came up with this rule?”
Gun slumps against the table he’s leaned up against with a defeated sigh, while Tinn works to breathe through the slowly dissipating ache in his chest.
"Does it actually matter?" Tinn blurts out, unable to stop himself.
"Huh?"
Tinn swallows dryly. "This rule," he clarifies, "what would happen if we didn’t follow it?”
"It's just... I don't know," Gun shrugs hopelessly, “but, it’s not for much longer, right? And, you—okay, wait,” Gun exhales.
Gun turning on his heel and planting a heavy hand on Tinn’s shoulder, to which Tinn only raises an eyebrow, “remember the question thing we did? Before the MV shooting?”
Tinn remembers the question thing. Gun’s-maybe-rejection had been the worst 18 hours of Tinn’s life—(up until when they talked by the poolside, where Gun had subsequently confessed back, but still.)
So, Tinn says, “yeah, I remember those questions.”
“Remember the last one?”
Look into the other person’s eyes for one minute and ask any question. That person must answer truthfully.
Gun hums at Tinn’s nod, before visibly steeling himself by tightening his fingers against the edge of Tinn’s jacket.
Gun inhales. It doesn’t escape Tinn that Gun’s shifted into the same demeanor he takes on when he’s about to do something mildly out of his comfort zone.
“Okay,” Gun breathes out again, sounding far more confident this time around, before he breaks out into a smile and drops his forehead to knock gently against Tinn’s collar.
“Why am I so nervous, huh? It’s you,” Gun murmurs, huffing out a laugh right into Tinn’s skin. Gun doesn’t seem like he’s looking for an answer, so Tinn just remains stock-still and hopes that Gun can’t hear how quick his heartbeat must be.
Gun raises his head back up, looking at Tinn imploringly.
“Hey,” Gun says, soft in a way that still makes Tinn feel more than slightly dizzy, “I have a question for you.”
Tinn nods weakly.
“I don't—,” Gun starts hesitantly, before talking through an exhale, “I don’t know how you do it. Like, how are you so good at this?”
Tinn waits for Gun to elaborate. When Gun doesn’t, Tinn reaches forward.
“Good at what?” Tinn asks, and it’s a reflexive action to reach up and brush his thumb over Gun's cheekbone.
Gun leans further into Tinn’s touch.
“I mean, like,” Gun mumbles, “you’re so good at keeping this—us, a secret. This whole being friends at school thing. I don’t know how to be—just, it’d be nice to hold your hand at lunch, you know?”
As Gun trails off, worrying at his lip, Tinn resists every urge to squish Gun’s face between his palms, because Gun is so cute.
“Well,” Tinn begins, as Gun looks up at him expectantly, “you think it’s not the same for me?”
Though Gun scrunches up his nose at Tinn’s echo of Gun’s words just two weeks ago, Gun also gives up a smile, so Tinn’s assured that he isn’t entirely misinterpreting the mood.
“You know what I mean,” Gun huffs.
Unfortunately, Tinn does know what he means, but it’s not like he has an answer for Gun.
He has at least two years on Gun, with the whole attempting-to-fully-hide-his-crush-but-also-make-Gun-his-boyfriend-somehow thing. Really, when it comes down to it, Tinn doesn’t actually know how to be subtle about Gun in public. He just is. Kind of.
Tiw would disagree, but Tinn is choosing to ignore Tiw’s whole angel-devil-on-my-shoulder thing at the moment.
Tinn offers up a shrug. “I have practice, with the public thing.”
“How much more practice can you have at this?” Gun muses, but when Tinn doesn't answer and instead visibly shifts his weight between his feet, finally ducking away from their eye contact, Gun’s expression falters.
“You've liked me since our midterms study week, right?” Gun tries, to which Tinn only twists his mouth at.
“Uh. Then, around the time we were giving speeches for student council president elections?” Gun tries again, but to that, Tinn manages to look sheepish enough that Gun’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise.
“You—what? When?” Gun asks.
Tinn rubs at the base of his neck, opening his mouth to answer—before closing it again, and coughing off to the side. Gun watches for a long moment as Tinn turns away from him and coughs again, looking uncomfortable, and it dawns on Gun slowly that maybe he’s crossed some kind of line.
“Tinn? Hey,” Gun says softly, reaching forward to grab Tinn’s elbow. “You’re not—you only need to answer that first question. This one isn't part of the game.”
Tinn’s shoulders sag.
It’s not like Tinn's long-standing crush on Gun is the world's best-kept secret. It made up more than half of his and Tiw's conversations as of late, and he was prepared to spend his entire senior year building his way up to finally confessing to Gun, if just to not have any regrets or get stuck on what-could-have-beens.
But now, even with everything he could have asked for—Tinn confessing, Gun finally knowing, Gun confessing back—
It’s still too daunting.
It’s too long of a river stretch for Tinn to risk.
So Tinn says I’m sorry, even though he's not sure what he's apologizing for, but Gun only shakes his head and reaches up to cup Tinn’s jaw, dropping a feather-light kiss on his nose.
Tinn goes cross-eyed in an effort to keep his eyes on Gun, which makes Gun snort a laugh, easy in his open affection.