Chapter Text
It was cold in the barracks. It reminded Kibum of when the dorm heating used to regularly go out, and they’d all drag out every spare blanket and jacket in the apartment, layering up and crowding onto the couch, feeling frozen to the bone.
He pulled the thin blanket tighter around his body and stared at the photos taped to the wall of his bunk, desperately trying to ignore the presence of his phone next to him, notifications full of unread messages.
He couldn’t do it. Couldn’t bring himself to reply. It was too hard when his brain was still playing catch-up, trying to decipher the jumbled mess inside him. It felt new; terrifying, but also as if it had been a pot of water slowly simmering until it hit boiling point in the last few weeks. It wasn’t a big surprise when he really thought about it. Everyone else seemed to sense it long before he had.
But him? Of all people? It felt like the world was out to make life difficult for him.
Guilt was eating him up as he continued staring at Minho’s too-big smile in the picture of the five of them, after some concert - Japan, Kibum thinks - arm slung over his shoulders, holding him close, affectionate as he always got after a concert.
Minho gave love too easily, Kibum had always thought. Not to him though: that had been years in the works. They laughed about it now, how much they used to hate eachother. Kibum now suspected that perhaps the ‘hate’ he thought he had felt was a cover for something he wasn’t ready to confront. Years of hard work, late night discussions, emotions all over the place, hormones, arguments and hugs that lasted a beat too long. Eventually, they’d made it to a place where they could accept and care for eachother just as they were.
Minho was the sappy one of the pair, there was no debate there. Last Kibum had actually looked at the tens of messages he had from him, at least half of them simply read ‘I love you’ or ‘I miss you’. Minho himself definitely wasn’t helping Kibum work this all out, so he’d stopped looking. Stopped replying. Tried to stop thinking about him and focus on his service.
Obviously, it hadn’t worked. All he’d thought about for weeks was Minho. He knew he would be hurting him by not replying. But what could he say? Anything he had typed hadn’t felt right, so he’d given up.
He stared at the photo again.
How could all these feelings suddenly have rushed to the surface? Was it the separation? He hated that, of course. Hated not seeing eachother, hated not being able to tease Minho at any opportunity, hated not being able to crack a joke and hear that stupid laugh.
Taeyeon had told him ‘At least you’ve got two years to work it out. Just don’t do too much damage in the meantime, Kibum.’
It hurt. It felt like Kibum had used their enlistment as an opportunity to stop their friendship in its tracks. In recent months, it had felt like he and Kibum were becoming closer than ever, and Minho loved it. Even when they were driving eachother insane, he loved just being close to him. He felt like they were magnets, drawn to eachother no matter what was in the way. At least, that’s what he’d thought. Now Kibum was making him think otherwise.
He’d talked to Jinki at first, but he hadn’t seemed to know anything. Kibum was replying to him still, and any attempt for him to ask why he wasn’t replying to Minho was immediately brushed off.
“Hyung, I… I miss him. A lot.”
“I know,” Jinki had sounded sad through the grainy phone call they’d shared, “But you know Kibum. He does things like this when something is bothering him. If he wants our help, he’ll ask. I don’t think you’ve done anything to upset him, he’s just… he’s just Kibum.”
“I know, but… this sucks. The last few months, I felt like… I-” Minho stopped himself. He couldn’t say it, not to Jinki, not yet. He was still working it all out.
“You both seemed closer. I noticed. I don’t know what he’s doing. I’ll try to get him to open up.”
It hurt that Minho was just starting to make sense of his true feelings about Kibum and now it was like a stone wall had been placed between them. In the last few months before they enlisted, Minho had found himself thinking about Kibum more than usual. He figured it was just the imminent separation, but he hadn’t found himself thinking the same things about the other members.
He reached into his backpack that sat next to him in the tent. He’d kept a polaroid from years ago, five of them squeezed into the tiny frame. But he’d found himself looking at Kibum most often. He looked reluctant to be there, but in his eyes, Minho could see the happiness, contentedness. He wanted to see that again. He wanted to see Kibum again, desperately.
He’d tried ignoring his thoughts and feelings, pushing them to the back of his mind, but they always found their way back to the surface. Thinking of seeing him again, of what he’d do. Of what he wanted to do but couldn’t. It was a vicious cycle of confusion, heartbreak and a slightly broken love. And he had two years to work it out.