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Nobody ever fell in love without being a little bit brave.
Soobin heard this phrase somewhere when he was a teen and for some reason it echoed so deep in his heart that even ten years later he still can’t forget it. Why should he, though, when it is something that resonates with him even now, right?
He grew up surrounded by different examples of that — from his own family, where his mother never even thought about leaving Earth until she met his father, to all his old friends and colleagues now.
Love isn’t just a happy feeling, this is something that Soobin agrees with, it’s much more complicated than this. If anything, love is a huge responsibility that doesn’t rest on your shoulders only, it’s a field for partners to be equally involved, and it’s a very big step into the unknown that requires a lot of bravery to take.
But why does it have to be so complicated? Why Soobin, now a captain of his own frigate, certainly brave enough to have achieved this without ever looking back or giving up, can’t use his bravery from the battlefield and talking to officers of higher ranks for a love confession that’s been building up inside of him for the past year?
He met Taehyun, much like the rest of his current crew, a lot sooner than this, and that was also when he first realized the growing fond feelings for the young engineer, but back then his only priority was getting promoted and earning himself a good reputation, so the feelings were pushed aside. Besides, Taehyun wasn’t — and still isn’t — a part of the Alliance, while Soobin joined the space navy right after graduating from school and believed that it was the most important thing in his life at that time.
Well, it remains like that, the only difference now is that after Soobin was given a ship of his own and a mission to accomplish, he spent a lot of time convincing Taehyun to join his squad since he needed a skilled engineer, regardless of whether that would be a soldier or not. Soobin wanted to have someone he could trust on his team, and after weeks of rejecting that offer and saying that he needed a hacker rather than an engineer, Taehyun finally agreed — and brought back the whirlwind of feelings that Soobin had for him.
It was easy to put duty first and convince himself that he couldn’t allow himself to fall in love when Taehyun wasn’t around anymore, but now that he is constantly on the ship, now that they got even closer, with Taehyun doing lots of little things for him every now and then, it’s becoming increasingly hard. Where can he find that kind of bravery, though?
“Oh, Captain,” Yeonjun calls him, snapping Soobin out of his thoughts about love. “Someone seems to have corrected your report about what happened on Zul. I guess you left the datapad unlocked again.”
As if being hopelessly in love with one of his squadmates wasn’t enough, Soobin also recently started noticing things like this: someone on the team is constantly finishing minor tasks for him yet he can’t ever seem to figure out who that is. Everyone is always busy doing their own thing whenever Soobin passes by, pretending that he’s just walking around the ship while thinking about their next move, but somehow, he discovers something new nearly every day.
“Don’t look at me, you know I suck at things like that,” Yeonjun immediately says when Soobin glances at him, thinking if maybe it’s Yeonjun, who often brought him the news about that. “I have no idea who that is, if that’s what you’re wondering. I was just having lunch with Beomgyu when he noticed that.”
“And where is he then, if you were together?” Soobin squints, now suspecting Beomgyu instead, but that assumption also fails with the next Yeonjun’s words.
“Trying to fix his armor since we have another hot task later today,” he shrugs, and yeah, Soobin has to admit that it makes sense.
It also reminds him that he should be thinking more about the mission too, and that immediately makes him feel slightly embarrassed, so to avoid showing that he pretends to be a strict Captain and orders Yeonjun to be more careful this time. He and Beomgyu are both yet to be promoted — they’re excellent soldiers, however, both a little too reckless and risky in fights, also constantly bickering despite perfectly clearing out their missions.
“Aye, sir,” Yeonjun is most likely not going to listen to him again, but as long as they get the job done without getting injured, Soobin doesn’t want to actually play the strict Captain card.
Sighing, Soobin grabs the datapad and heads to the comm room, just about the only quiet place on this ship where he usually holds the team debriefs or has important conversations with those of higher rank. He needs to read over this report again and send it in quickly, so there’s no time to waste guessing who could’ve helped him again, but next time, Soobin makes a promise to himself, he’ll find that out.
////
He almost forgets about it in the next two weeks, always too busy with work, work and more work to pay attention to anything else, but when the mysterious someone places a cup of his favorite coffee on the table right before Soobin comes there for breakfast (he’s always the last one, even if he doesn’t sleep at all, like these days), he starts thinking about it again.
It’s the first free day that they have in this entire month, but it’s only like that because they need to wait until tomorrow for the most important part of the mission, which is breaking into a heavily guarded scientific facility without anyone noticing this and stealing very valuable information.
They spent the last three weeks preparing for that day, gathering blueprints, pictures, information about workers, everything that could help them with things going smoothly, so even if they are not working today, their minds are already there, and it’s hard to deal with this tension. Coffee, though, is a great alternative to resting, especially considering how little sleep Soobin has been getting lately, constantly revising things and going through their plan over and over again.
It’s his first serious task as a Captain, one that he just can’t let himself fail — and he knows that the team won’t let him down, he truly trusts them and didn’t pick them all himself to doubt their loyalty, effort and skills now. However, things don’t always go as planned, and Soobin just can’t help feeling all jittery as he studies the blueprints for the millionths time, so when he sees that someone got him coffee, a fairly rare thing to drink just like that, a tired smile lights up his face.
Sure, they have coffee here in space, and artificial gravity lets them enjoy their food and drinks, as well as all the possible moves and exercise even on the spaceship, without any need for magnetic boots or anything of that kind, but. It mostly tastes disgusting, if it even tastes like anything at all, but this, right here in his cup today, is real coffee, and even the smell is already enough to remind Soobin of the old days on Earth — the days when he worked hard to get to where he is now.
It reminds Soobin about the reason why he chose this in the first place, all of this, and it gives him the much-needed confidence for the upcoming mission; just a little cup of coffee, but it’s filled to the brim with ambitions and good memories, something that Soobin had no idea he needed today — and yet someone in his crew did.
“Hey, Captain,” Taehyun’s voice suddenly tears Soobin’s attention away from the cup. “I just sent you an updated list of what we need to shop for next time we dock someplace big. Don’t worry, I can get everything myself, it’s just that Chief Engineer Lee wanted to make it official.”
“Thank you,” Soobin responds almost mindlessly and finally grabs his coffee. “Is everything ready for tomorrow?”
He knows that it is all ready, that they are, too, because he checks that every few hours, but he hopes that Taehyun won’t notice the nervousness in his voice: he simply needs to hear it from someone else, even if he is the one who should be saying this to his team. Sometimes being the leader isn’t about leading, but the bravery to admit that you need to rely on your crew, and yet Soobin still hates this feeling, hates thinking that he doesn’t really deserve this place.
But of course, Taehyun always notices things like this, how could Soobin doubt that even for a second?
“You don’t have to worry about anything,” Taehyun says calmly as he takes a seat next to him. “You have the best people on your team, and you, too, you know what you’re doing. You’re amazing, Captain Choi Soobin, and trust me, I wouldn’t sign up for something like this if it wasn’t under your command.”
And then Taehyun leaves, just like that, and only the smell of his sweet shampoo lingers in the air, mixing with the comforting smell of coffee that will soon go lukewarm if Soobin doesn’t stop overthinking things. Taehyun knows how to calm him down, even with just a few words, and that is another reason — one of a million — for Soobin to like him.
He does stop overthinking the upcoming mission and lets himself enjoy the coffee. It’s only when he washes the cup afterwards, only then his brain decides to connect the random dots, offering him another little reminder that no one except Taehyun knows how much he loves coffee and how much the taste of it, the real coffee, means to him.
Soobin needs all of his willpower to stop thinking about it and get back to the blueprints for one final check — he’ll think about it tomorrow, once they’re done and his mind truly deserves this distraction. For all he knows, he might just be imagining things, because otherwise, Soobin is sure, his heart won’t be able to handle it.
////
The mission is a success, even if it leaves Taehyun with a few minor burns — predictably, things didn’t go as planned, and when the choice stood between risking Beomgyu’s life and Taehyun’s health, the engineer made that choice sooner than Soobin even got to react to it.
They got lucky there, because Taehyun is a professional, truly skilled at everything he does, but now that it’s all behind and they can relax for a short moment, Soobin makes a note in his mind to scold him for that later. It was a reckless decision, because Taehyun wasn’t supposed to be out there at all, instead his place was in the shuttle with all the tech gear, and he could easily get himself injured badly — which would’ve been his, Soobin’s fault.
“Dismissed,” he tells the crew after the final debrief for this mission, but even after they all leave the comm room he doesn’t feel like writing the report just yet.
Soobin has already informed the Admirals about the successful end of their task and sent them everything they managed to get as soon as they got back on the ship, but there are still some formalities left, like handing in his report, too.
He has to be honest in there, needs to say that their plan wasn’t ideal and that the tiniest flaw in it put the whole mission in danger, but that means writing about Taehyun, and this may put them both in a bad light.
Sure, what matters is that they got it done, but Soobin was supposed to think faster in such a sensitive, critical situation, and Taehyun needed to listen to him instead of making a move like that. So, after staring at the datapad for a few minutes yet not writing a single word in his report document, Soobin sets it aside for now and heads to his cabin in hopes to find some rest there.
Instead, though, he finds Taehyun standing by his little fish tank, feeding his fish — something he often forgets unless his yeoman reminds him about it, but somehow, miraculously, they’re all still alive. Soobin used to think that it was just the yeoman showing him some mercy and handling it for him on days when he couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to his surroundings, head deep in his work, but…
“Aren’t you supposed to be in the med bay?” is the first thing Soobin blurts out as the caring leader he is.
Taehyun missed the debrief because he went down to the med bay to take care of the burns, but apparently, it didn’t take as long as Soobin would expect it to. It doesn’t explain why Taehyun is feeding his fish anyway, but somehow, that barely bothers Soobin, at least compared to the feeling of worry for his crew member, friend, and, well, his secret love too.
“Yeah, well, Kai fixed it in no time,” Taehyun shrugs with a sheepish smile. “Sorry I didn’t let you give the order and rushed to do things myself, that was very unprofessional of me.”
“You saved the mission,” Soobin says with all honesty, because that’s true. “But if you wanted to hear me asking you not to do this again, here you have it — please don’t risk your health like this again.”
The way he words it doesn’t sound like the strict Captain card that he used on Yeonjun earlier, but they’re off duty now, and what already happened can’t be taken back or changed in any way. Besides, Taehyun is smart enough to understand him, so Soobin sees no point in wasting his breath, instead finally connecting the obvious dots in his mind.
Or maybe he’s just way too soft, and that is something he needs to work on if he wants to become a better leader in the future.
“Was the coffee from you?” he asks, not at all surprised now when Taehyun nods with an adorable smile. “And my fish, too? All this time?”
“Yeah,” Taehyun confirms it and tilts his head a little, looking at Soobin with sparks of curiosity in his eyes. “I suppose you can guess that the reports were also my work. I apologize if you didn’t want any of that happening, but I saw that you were having a hard time and wanted to ease some of the pressure on your shoulders.”
How could Soobin possibly not like it? How could he ever say no to Taehyun wanting to help him, take care of him so that he would be able to have better focus and not mess everything up?
“I love you so much,” his brain-to-mouth filter is completely broken by now, so he only processes that when it’s already too late to pretend that it didn’t happen.
Before he can apologize too, however, Taehyun laughs, soft and quiet, and takes a step closer, now surprising Soobin with that.
“I’ve known that ever since you contacted me for this mission,” Taehyun giggles at his confused expression. “You’re not really that discreet with your feelings. Don’t worry, though, I’m pretty sure the others haven’t noticed.”
“But what—”
“Oh, I was just waiting for the mission to end, so that I could actually flirt with my officer without any risks. Would you be able to focus if I started openly flirting earlier?”
Taehyun is flirting with him. Taehyun is flirting. With him.
Now the unfinished report suddenly seems so insignificant, and everything makes so much sense, too — and yet Soobin just stands there, frozen, because he doesn’t know how to react, has no idea what he is supposed to do or say in this situation. Taehyun is right on this: if they had a conversation like this earlier, he’d surely have a hard time focusing on things, and while maybe, maybe he would still keep it cool just for the sake of the mission, this would be the only thing occupying his mind at night.
“I suppose that you’re right,” Soobin nods and feels that his ears are all red now — it just had to get more awkward, sure. “But the mission is over now. What are your plans for the future?”
“Plans?” Taehyun is now very, very close, and he places both hands on Soobin’s shoulders, making him gulp with that. “Well, I’d love to stay a while if you decide to keep me on the team and not fire after this little show today. And next time we dock on the Citadel, we could have a date somewhere… nice?”
“A date,” Soobin blinks, but then nods again. “Yes. That’ll be tomorrow.”
It doesn’t matter that he didn’t plan to return to the Citadel so soon. If Taehyun wants to go out with him, Soobin needs to be brave for once and act on his feelings — who knows, maybe it’s all just an illusion and Taehyun will change his mind in the morning unless they already have it all settled?
“That’s fine by me,” Taehyun grins and leans forward to leave a quick kiss on his cheek, now completely freezing Soobin with this action and giggling at his reaction.
Nobody ever fell in love without being a little bit brave, but somehow, it seems that Taehyun has enough bravery for both of them, and Soobin can only hope that it’s a contagious thing. But he can think about it later, and for now, they’re going to have a date, a real date where he wouldn’t have to pretend that all his glances at Taehyun are strictly professional.
“Will you need any help finishing your report?” Taehyun asks, smirking at him, and for once, Soobin feels confident enough to bite back.
“Yeah, definitely,” he hums. “I’ll need to figure out how to write about a certain engineer believing for a moment that he was in charge and nearly getting himself badly injured.”
It’s going to be a very fun evening, Soobin just knows that.