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The first time Yeonjun soaked his pillow wet, Taehyun had almost died three hours before.
He hadn’t cried then - although he had really, really wanted to. His hands had been shaking as he held a very terrified (and thankfully unharmed) Taehyun to his chest, heart beating so loud inside his ribcage he thought he would be the one to die. But he kept his eyes dry.
Instead, he waited, until he was sure everyone was safe. Until he was sure he was alone - and then he cried, and cried.
Something clicked inside of him that day. Something that smelled, and tasted, and felt a lot like family. And he knew family, supportive and kind as they come, just not outside of blood. He didn't even know he could feel so much for blood that wasn't in his veins.
He’s cried plenty in front of them by now - in front of the whole world, at this point, and he’s not ashamed of it - but he still cries in silence, sometimes. It’s not always bad; some days it’s tears of overwhelming pride, a love he can’t possibly hold all inside his heart. Some days, however, it’s tears of staggering dread - especially when the mirror in their practice room shows bruises and eyebags.
A lot of days, it goes like this: Yeonjun worries (they all do), and then they cheer each other up, and if it’s especially bad - he cries.
-
The first time Beomgyu flinched from his touch he felt an anvil fall straight through his stomach. The second time was even worse.
By the time he built up the courage to bring it up to Soobin that, hey, do you also sense a sort of evil vibe in the dorms, Beomgyu already looked like he was ten seconds from breaking down.
The eight months that followed Beomgyu’s path to recovery were hell.
**
The dorms during those times had felt a little too cold. Maybe it had been all the sadness.
Quiet steps would sound coming in and out of the same room for hours, not another noise breaking the fragile silence that had taken over. The streets were all empty; the lights from the building neighbor to them had been off for weeks - and Yeonjun would just sit there, in the middle of all the quiet, out in the living room and feeling inadequate.
“He’s fine, Yeonjun-hyung.”
Sometimes Soobin would join him in the living room. Not to wallow in his own sadness, because Choi Soobin was a braver man than he was - just to be there. Choi Soobin, the sound of raindrops, and Yeonjun’s growing feelings of guilt.
“Lying to your hyung now?” he doesn’t look up from his own two shoes. “I’m just so worried.”
“I know you are.” Soobin sighs. “He’s not. He’s not okay, but he will be.”
“I still don’t understand. He never said anything…”
A hand would land on his shoulder. An attempt at comfort. “Is that really something to get fixed on, hyung?”
“I suppose not.”
Another sigh. Yeonjun picks at a thread on his jeans. “I only want to help, but I feel like I just end up making it worse. I can’t look him in the eye without feeling like I’ve failed him,” His chin, embarrassingly, wobbles. “I can’t do anything, because then I over-do it. Sometimes I feel like he looks at me like he resents me, and I can't ask because I'm scared that his answer will hurt me. ”
“Yeonjun-hyung, that’s..."
“Please, don’t comfort me. I’ll feel even guiltier.”
The hand on his shoulder squeezes, making his eyes sting. “Right now Beomgyu-ah is overwhelmed. He's very worried, and he feels a little isolated. He's just going through a lot.”
Do I not love you enough?
The thought makes him nauseous. Or did I love you too much?
“I can hear you thinking. Stop doing it. I can tell they’re stupid thoughts, too.”
“I just- are we not enough?”
Soobin makes an affronted noise. “Don't say that, Jun.” his tone is sharp. Yeonjun still hasn't looked at him once. “That would actually upset Beomgyu.”
“Then why-?”
“Does there need to be a reason?” Soobin exhales softly. “Beomgyu fills every room he's in. There's so much to him, no matter how much care he pours on us he still has lots to spare, and nowhere to place it. And that makes him feel bad.”
“Sometimes sadness just is, hyung.”
**
They stay like that for a long time, not saying a word. Knee to knee and shoulder to shoulder. Yeonjun’s head spins.
“Where is he now?”
Soobin looks at him as he moves to stand up “He’s sleeping with Kai and Taehyun in his room. I think all this has made him feel the cold a lot more,” Yeonjun’s face twists. “You should come.”
“I don’t want to make him uncomfortable.”
Soobin rolls his eyes. “Don’t talk so silly, Jjun. You won’t.” he extends a hand towards Yeonjun, and Yeonjun takes it. It feels warm. “Come.”
Not for the first time, Yeonjun’s heart grows three sizes at the sight of one of his members.
“You are a good leader, Soobin-ah.”
An unexpected laugh rings across the room.
“You know I'm not being a leader right now.”
“I know. You’re a good friend, too.”
Soobin sends him a sweet smile over his shoulder. “Tsk. Whatever would you do without me.”
**
That time, Yeonjun really did go into Beomgyu’s room. Like a trembling mouse, he hadn't dared make a noise as he settled as softly as possible next to Kai. Beomgyu didn’t look at him once, but at one point he took hold of his shirtsleeve between his fingers. The grip was so fragile Yeonjun thought it would break any moment.
When Beomgyu fell asleep, it was with Yeonjun’s sleeve pressed between his hands. Yeonjun didn’t move from that bed for two days straight.
-
The first time Beomgyu comes to him with a problem, it isn't something grand, but Yeonjun cherises the memory like it’s bathed in gold. Countless come after that.
When Beomgyu knocks on his hotel room door tonight, Yeonjun is in sweatpants and there’s an unflattering face-mask slipping down his nose.
Beomgyu looks small, drowning in a gray hoodie. His lips are bitten red, and he fiddles with the loose string at the end of one of his sleeves.
He frowns at the sight “You okay?”
Beomgyu smiles lightly, making way inside the room.
“Mhm. Silly hyung, always so worried. You’re gonna get wrinkles and you’re gonna look ugly.”
Yeonjun trails after him, taking the face-mask off and throwing it to the bin. “I won't, I'm gonna be beautiful forever.”
“Wow hyungie, you still have hopes of going through a glow-up? That's so admirable.”
“Yah Choi Beomgyu, I'll beat you up.”
Beomgyu looks at him like, try. He knows Yeonjun won’t.
He’s right, unfortunately.
Beomgyu takes a seat on the unmade bed. Less than earlier, but he still looks a little nervous. Fidgety and uncomfortable. Yeonjun frowns again.
“Do you know that you start pouting when you get worried, hyung?”
Yeonjun feels his cheeks flush a little. He schools his expression. “I do?”
“It's kind of cute.”
He knocks their knees together as a response.
By now he’s an expert at dealing with a conflicted Beomgyu - knows exactly how to pull and when to push. And most importantly. he’s learnt that, with Beomgyu, the key is to just… wait. Wait for Beomgyu to come and meet him.
Soobin once told him Beomgyu fills every room he’s in. Now he knows it’s not just outwardly, but inside his mind too.
“I’m a little nervous” Beomgyu’s little pout makes Yeonjun’s ears ring. “I’ve never done this.”
Yeonjun’s hands clench at his sides. Something about the boys he grew up watching over pulls at his heart like nothing else can, but Beomgyu specifically - it itches ten times over.
“Fuck, Beomie. Are you about to confess a crime, or something?”
“Well,”
Yeonjun eyes his skeptically, “If you did something-”
“No, okay.” Beomgyu covers his face with his hands. Loose strands of hair fawn over his eyes. “It’s not a crime, and it’s nothing bad.” His bottom lip is stuck between his teeth and, for a second, it sounds like he’s lying.
Yeonjun frowns again.
“At least I hope it’s not.”
“Alright,”
“I’ve-” Beomgyu takes a deep breath. “Okay. There’s something that’s been on my mind lately - for a while, actually. For a long while. For… forever. My therapist told me it’s not actually that big of a deal, and I think I believe her. So you can’t be mad at me, or hate me.” Despite the soft tone, when Beomgyu turns to look at him his eyes look huge and frantic. He looks so much like a boy, Yeonjun’s stomach hurts. “So you have to promise you won’t hate me. Because if I lost any of you, I think I would losing everything. So you can’t.”
He nods silently. His grip on Beomgyu’s soft hand tightens and his breath hitches, as if he’s waiting for a rock to fall on their heads.
“Ah, so the thing is- I like boys.”
The ringing in Yeonjun’s ears pop.
“As in. I’m, uh. Gay. I’m gay, hyung.”
“Whoa.”
The first time someone came out to him, he was 14 and two family sized packs of coke in, hiding in some janitor’s closet with a boy his same age.
He had just blurted it out, putting blind faith in four poorly-soundproof walls and another trainee who could barely hold two notes together. Yeonjun only earned an elbow to his gut when he asked if they were gonna kiss, then.
He’s always admired Wooyoung’s confidence.
This feels nothing like that day.
He’s older, for one.
When he had looked at Wooyoung back then, he’d thought it was cool that he looked so unafraid.
He looks at Beomgyu now, and prays to every god above that the world is kind to him. He looks at Beomgyu, and, strangely, he think he’s more scared than him,
“Is that... okay?”
Yeonjun blinks once, and the fear goes dormant. “Of course it is,” he opens his arms wide, and Beomgyu comes tumbling “Of course it is, come here.” His nose brushes softly against Yeonjun’s neck. It feels nice, he thinks. “Did you think I would react badly?”
“No.” Beomgyu denies immediately. “I don't know. I didn’t think so, but I panicked at the last second.”
Sitting like this, he can feel Beomgyu’s fast heartbeat against his chest. “You’re always gonna be my little Beomie-ah, okay? I'm so proud of you.” His fingers brush through Beomgyu’ hair. “You hear me? Hyung will always be proud of you, no matter what.”
Beomgyu scoffs lightly. “You’ll make me cry.”
Yeonjun doesn’t mention that his eyes have been bright with tears since he sat down. That would mean acknowledging he’s feeling teary himself, too. He grips harder.
“You still can’t marry until your 40s, though.”
“Who would I even marry, hyung?”
Yeonjun cheers. “That's the spirit!”
There's still small tears in Beomgyu’s face, but his glare is brightened up by the laugh that goes after. Yeonjun finds inexplicable relief in the sound.
“You’re stupid,” he pokes Yeonjun’s nose. “But thanks.”
Yeonjun smiles. “Always.”
-
The first time Yeonjun kisses a boy-
Maybe he should pedal back to the first time he obsesses over something - although that wouldn’t be entirely accurate, either.
The first time he obsesses over something, he’s 10, and he makes his mother buy every colored pencil at the shop because he’s decided he wants to become a cartoonist. Then it’s over becoming an idol. Dancing.
So for it to be accurate, it should go something like this: Choi Yeonjun keeps all his first times stored in the lines of his hands; some are with Beomgyu, most aren’t - yet he still makes them all circle back to him.
The thing is, he is aware of that sort of staring problem of his. If he wasn’t, he would’ve been made forcefully aware of it by his members. They are awfully ruthless about it, too.
It has become worse since that evening at his hotel room. He just… can’t stop thinking about it.
About Beomgyu, except that’s not that unusual. About Beomgyu and boys - slightly more bizarre combination, but not that crazy either. Beomgyu is a boy. A lot of people around them are boys.
About Beomgyu kissing a boy - that’s the worst one.
The mental image comes to him at truly unpredictable moments: during rehearsals, during shootings, at lunch.
Beomgyu wraps his lips around the straw in Yeonjun’s drink, and all he sees is another pair of lips at the end of the straw. He coughs so hard he almost swallows his tongue, and it makes everyone fret over him for the rest of the day.
One morning he wakes up to tingly sensations all over his body and a faded image of a pink mouth branded to the back of his eyelids. He apologizes in front of the mirror ten times before going out to treat Beomgyu and Kai to breakfast.
**
There’s this thing people say about the late hours of the day, and how it makes someone braver. Or maybe just a lot more stupid.
That’s the only justification Yeonjun makes up half a second before his brain catches up with the moving of his mouth.
“Have you ever kissed a boy?”
Beomgyu lies across from him. The moonlight does a beautiful job at washing over his unmarked skin. The effect is dimmed out by the artificial light at the bottom of the bed that Beomgyu makes him have on (darker spaces give him headaches) - still, the contrast makes soft shadows with the long of his eyelashes.
He looks beautiful in Yeonjun’s bed. In Yeonjun’s clothes.
Yeonjun is a horrible person.
Beomgyu turns to look at him. “When?” he laughs, and then “Who? Do you really appreciate our career that little? C’mon, hyung.”
“I was just wondering.”
Beomgyu sighs. “You’re the only person who knows apart from my family, I wouldn’t trust just anyone.”
“You know, there’s a lot of idols like you.” Yeonjun pulls at the string of Beomgyu’s sweatpants. “Queer idols. They wouldn't tell on you.”
“And you know that because …?” Beomgyu bats his hand away, raising an eyebrow. “Have you ever kissed a boy?”
“Obviously not.”
Beomgyu moves to lie on his side. His elbow pokes Yeonjun’s chest, and for a feverish second he thinks it’s a metaphor for something. His face looks pretty like this - small, and bare. Huge eyes and natural pout judging Yeonjun in the dark of the night.
Yeonjun lets himself be judged.
“Owwiously not. Why so obvious?”
The question catches him off guard. He blinks.
He blinks again.
“I don’t know”
He doesn’t. He looks at Beomgyu.
Beomgyu frowns. “Okay?” he rolls on his back, “I don’t like any of them anyway.”
“Do you think we should kiss?”
“Huh?!”
“I mean-”
Yeonjun does not, in fact, know what the fuck he means.
Thousands of things happen at the same time in the span of a second. A pair of lungs is taking its first breath. Someone’s honking somewhere in New York. A mother is crying at her child’s wedding. There’s a leaf gently swaying down to the pavement.
For just one second, time freezes over and his bones turn to ice. They say life flashes before your eyes when you die. Yeonjun might as well be buried six feet under now.
He blinks a second later, and Beomgyu is still looking at him with terrified eyes.
“I’m so sorry, I-”
I was just joking. (Lie)
I don’t actually want to kiss you. (Lie)
I don’t know why I said that.
I don’t know why I’m thinking any of this.
“Hyung,”
“Beomgyu?”
Beomgyu crawls over to him. Clumsily, unsteady - Yeonjun has half a mind to reach out and help keep him up. But his own hands are shaking twice as much, and he’s terrified a single brush from him will set Beomgyu off.
His chest rises erratically as Beomgyu makes space between his legs. He stares silently, not moving a muscle, as Beomgyu’s wild eyes scan all over his body.
“Beomgyu-ah…?”
“Yeonjunnie-hyung.” he takes Yeonjun’s hand. He squeezes so hard Yeonjun’s knuckles crack. “Junnie,” he whispers. “Stop me if you really don’t want me to kiss you.”
Beomgyu bends one inch down. A single strand of hair brushes Yeonjun’s eyebrow.
Yeonjun gasps softly. “I'm not going to stop you.”
Hesitantly, he brings Beomgyu’s hand to cup his own cheek. He settles trembling fingers over Beomgyu’s. He stares.
Big brown eyes.
Wet mouth.
It’s, unmistakably, the face of his best friend that’s staring down at him from between his legs.
Yeonjun feels crazy.
“Ah, fuck it,”
And he grips Beomgyu by the back of his neck.
Beomgyu goes down like putty in his hands. His lips are as soft as they look, Yeonjun thinks in a delirious daze. Wet lips slot between Yeonjun’s own - shyly, just a slow brush of mouth against mouth.
He treats Beomgyu’s lips like they’re porcelain. He takes Beomgyu’s bottom lip in his mouth and nips gently. Pecks it softly as an apology, again, and again - just light kisses that don’t make a sound.
Beomgyu lets him, fingers tangled with Yeonjun’s hair and kissing back as softly as Yeonjun’s taught him.
The taste of heat and Beomgyu’s favorite lollipop makes Yeonjun’s head spin.
“Um,”
When Beomgyu pulls away, Yeonjun doesn’t know where he is, or what is happening. But he knows he wants to do it again - whatever “it” is.
“That was good.. right?”
Beomgyu sits on top of Yeonjun’s stomach. He looks as red as a tomato and Yeonjun, deliriously, thinks he’s just done something really important.
“It was good.” He confirms. “Are you okay?”
Beomgyu looks as kissed-out as he feels. Just as clumsily, he climbs off Yeonjun and settles back on the mattress. “I think so,” he nods. “That was crazy. I never thought- I didn't think you would be my first kiss.”
Hearing it like that sends a scary spike down Yeonjun’s body.
“Did the question startle you?”
“Yes, but it’s okay now.”
Yeonjun hums.
Trying to make sense of what just happened isn’t easy. Or- it is. Coming to terms with it is what’s hard.
He’s always tried to take the best care of those he values. When he was six, he hid an egg from the fridge because he was told that’s where chickens come from. In the end, there was no chicken, and he made the bathroom reek for days.
Is he someone he should be protecting Beomgyu from?
“... Should I go back to my room?”
Beomgyu looks at him, expectantly. Although he doesn’t show it, Yeonjun sees his hands fiddling with a loose thread from the corner of his eye.
He shakes his head. “You don’t have to. You can stay. It’s late anyway.”
“Um,” Beomgyu looks down. “Do you want me to?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
Despite the response, Beomgyu doesn’t move.
The tension overwhelms Yeonjun’s senses. He doesn’t like that Beomgyu is tense over him.
Everything is fine. They’re fine.
He moves his hand until it settles next to Beomgyu’s on the pillow. His pinkie reaches out to brush against Beomgyu’s hand, and for a second - Beomgyu tenses. Then he relaxes.
Yeonjun smiles.
He gives a tug to their intertwined pinkies. “Do you think you’ll tell the other guys?”
Beomgyu huffs. “What, that we kissed?”
“The other part, Beomgyu…” Yeonjun says weakly.
Beomgyu lifts his head from the pillow. Turning on his side, he gives Yeonjun a shy smile “Ah, soon, I think. I wanna sort something out first, though.”
“What is it?”
Beomgyu grins at him like he’s keeping a secret. He turns completely, taking Yeonjun’s arm with him. His back is to Yeonjun’s face when he says “Let's sleep like this hyungie, be responsible for taking my kissing virginity.”
“Oh my fucking-”
**
When Yeonjun builds up the courage to ask if they should talk about the kiss, Beomgyu is already asleep.
**
They do not talk about it.
The next morning brings an unreasonable amount of sunshine and Beomgyu’s sleepy noises as he complains it’s too hot to be under the sheets. One cold shower later, Beomgyu is no longer laying in his bed looking like a summer dream.
When he goes down for breakfast he finds Soobin and Beomgyu fighting over the pan and Heuningkai shielding a bowl of ramen with his arms.
“I made this for you, noona.” Kai sings.
“My child!” He kisses Kai everywhere, “my baby is so well-behaved.”
Taehyun looks over with a raised eyebrow. “You’re so embarrassing, Yeonjun-hyung.”
“Yah, I raised you as well, be nice to me.”
He takes a seat next to Kai. Beomgyu pauses his neck wrestling to wave at him. His smile looks almost as bright as his cheeks.
It makes Yeonjun a little nauseous. He waves back.
To his side, Kai nods solemnly. “Noona really is old enough to raise someone.”
Beomgyu raises an eyebrow.
“Kai-ah, not you too.” He clutches at his heart. Beomgyu dimple pops. “Taehyunnie and Beomgyu are making my baby evil. Evil.”
“No, I found him like that.” Beomgyu says.
“Impossible. He takes after me.”
“I thought he took after me?” Soobin joins in.
“That's an absent father.”
Soobin gasps. “How dare you.”
“You haven’t slept in our bed for months, honey.”
“Handsome Yeondunnie’s bed is a little too crowded these nights anyway, I’m afraid.”
“Traitor!”
So, everything is fine.
-
Everything is not fine.
-
The first time he keeps something to himself, it’s not pretty.
He’s not someone who keeps secrets tight to his chest. Age has taught him it’s best to share your burden with someone, lest your shoulders cave into your body.
This is not a burden he thinks he can share. There are multiple, in fact.
Realizing that he wants to kiss (a) boy sends him into a spiral for all about ten minutes, until he realizes that the boy is his best friend.
He wants to kiss him repeatedly, on the mouth, and everywhere else. It makes him sick.
Everytime he looks at Beomgyu now, he tastes phantom strawberry. He sees the moonlight and sparkly eyes and unblemished skin. He feels a body against his, and a wet mouth. Beomgyu looks back like there’s zero recognition in his eyes.
Every stare makes him hate himself a little bit more.
Something dark gnaws at him from the inside, threatening to take over his entire body. There’s a black stain in the middle of his chest spilling downwards and up and sideways. He feels entirely engulfed by it.
He feels like an entire letdown.
It gets so out of hand Soobin has to drag him out of the practice room that he’s been hiding in for the past two days.
“You’re being an ass.”
Yeonjun’s entire body hurts. He hasn’t done 18-hour routines since their trainee days.
He looks down at his feet. “I know.”
“You’re not talking to Beomgyu. He's sad.”
His hands clench at the sides.
“Why are you not talking to him?”
“I'm scared.”
A chair scrapes against the tiles. “Of what.”
“Of hurting him.”
Soobin huffs non humorously. “And what, do you think he’s running in a field of pink flowers and rainbows and singing the friendship song right now?”
“You wouldn’t get it, Soobin-ah.”
Soobin looks at him from between his fingers. “You know, I am extremely annoyed at you right now.” Yeonjun squirms. “So no, I don’t get why the hell you came here to run away from one of your best friends, effectively cutting off your other three.”
Yeonjun takes a seat next to Soobin. His dead phone lies on the corner of the room.
He averts his eyes from the pathetic image reflecting on the mirror.
“I’m in love with him and he doesn’t love me back.”
The chair cracks.
“You are the biggest idiot on this planet if you think Beomgyu doesn't love you back.”
Yeonjun clenches his teeth. “He doesn't.”
“How do you know?”
He shakes his head. “I would have noticed.”
“When? When you were too busy avoiding him? Or when you were too ashamed to look at him in the face?”
Yeonjun bites down harder, eyes itching. The chair shakes with the force he’s gripping it. He thinks his heart is about to jump out of his chest and run away far, far from here.
“Jesus,” Soobin mutters. “Hyung, listen to me. You are a person. You are not a superhero. You are deserving of nice things, just because. You deserve good things without having to earn them.”
Soobin holds his forearms and shakes him gently. “Did you hear me? You deserve to feel just for the sake of it. You should get to experience being a boy too, hyung. Please.” He shakes him again. “Okay?”
“Mhmm.”
“You don’t have to protect us all the time.”
Yeonjun blinks rapidly. “Don’t I?” he whispers.
Soobin stares. He shrugs. “Up to you, I guess. But we will protect you back.”
**
He goes home to sleep that night. When he gets to the dorms, all the lights are off.
Taehyun is sitting on his phone in the middle of the dark living room.
“Soobin-hyung said you would come back today.” He shuffles against Yeonjun’s chest. “I missed you, hyung. Let’s go to the gym tomorrow, okay?”
**
When he wakes up in the middle of the night, it’s to a life-sized Kai plastered against his back.
“Kai-ah?”
“You know, I told Soobin-hyung he was being silly for giving you the pep talk.” Kai mumbles sleepily. “We will always have Beomgyu-hyung’s back. But we have yours too, noona. Forever.”
Yeonjun’s gut twists. “I’m not brave at all Hyuka.” he turns in Kai’s arms, tears cascading down his chin. “I’m the biggest coward in the world.”
Kai shushes him with a gentle hand to his hair. “For what it’s worth, noona, I think you’re the bravest person I know.”
-
The first time he falls truly and recklessly in love, it’s with his best friend. He thinks it will also be the last.
**
Yeonjun finds Beomgyu in the hallway, of all places.
He’s got a white t-shirt and black shorts on, and he looks like a boy that Yeonjun is in love with.
Beomgyu stops folding the towels when he notices him. He sighs.
“Did you finally get out of your Annabelle episode?”
Despite everything. Yeonjun smiles. “Are you calling me a possessed doll?”
“Possessed, yes. Doll, no.”
“You’re awfully mean this morning, Choi Beomgyu.”
Beomgyu turns to smirk at him. “I’m just reversing the roles.”
Yeonjun sits next to the unfolded laundry. “I’m really, really, sorry, Beomgyu-ah. I mean it.” He takes Beomgyu’s wrist. “I was being an ass. Will you forgive hyung?”
Beomgyu hums in confirmation, looking at Yeonjun’s fingers circling his arm. He points his finger at Yeonjun “Never again, though.”
Yeonjun bows.
His fingers thrum in sync with his heartbeat - so fast he’s surprised Beomgyu doesn’t call him on it. Then again, he supposes there’s a lot of things Beomgyu lets slide when it comes to him.
He inches his fingers down further, and Beomgyu lets him.
He takes a breath.
“So… kiss any other boys lately?”
Beomgyu snorts. “Why is it that every time I enter a room you wanna talk about kissing boys?” he takes a seat next to Yeonjun, laundry completely forgotten. “Is this going to become a recurring theme?”
Yeonjun pouts.
“Yeah, Taehyunnie and I were kissing when you were too busy sulking and not talking to me.”
Yeonjun pouts harder.
“Ugh.” Beomgyu shoves him. “Obviously not. Stop looking at me like that, it makes me sad.”
When he was six, and he tried to save the chicken, there was no chicken, and he made the bathroom smell bad. His parents found him crying in the bathtub.
That day they sat him down, and they told him that it was okay. A failed act of kindness didn’t make it less kind. You can’t make a bad person out of a misdirected action.
When he was fourteen, a kid even more scrawny than him cried in his arms all night long the day he trusted too much and told the wrong boy the wrong things. That day, he realized people were scarier than monsters.
When he was eighteen, he bowed to take care of four other boys for as long as they’d let him.
He’s twenty-five now, and he thinks there can’t possibly be anything evil about loving a boy.
“I think we should do it again.”
Beomgyu looks up from their clasped hands. “Oh?”
“Because I'm in love with you.”
Beomgyu jerks. “You want to kiss me?”
“Yes.”
“Please don’t make fun of me.”
The hold on Beomgyu’s hand almost slips. Yeonjun holds on tighter.
“You know I wouldn’t.”
Beomgyu kisses him.
He takes him by the shirt, and kisses him.
It’s nothing like their first kiss. Desperate hands roam under his shirt, gripping his shoulders, tugging at his hair, and Yeonjun lets himself get kissed until he can’t breathe anymore.
Beomgyu pants against his mouth, wet frantic kisses that eventually turn into two mouths breathing into each other. Yeonjun holds onto Beomgyu’s waist the entire time.
“Hyung, I-” Beomgyu gasps against his mouth. Yeonjun chases him back. “I've been in love with you for a very long time, hyung.” He takes Yeonjun’s face with the palm of his hands. “Please don’t feel bad.”
His vision goes blurry. “It’s okay.” He smiles softly, pushing back the hair falling over Beomgyu’s eyes. “I’m okay, Beoms. I swear.”
Beomgyu studies him. After a moment he nods, satisfied with whatever it is he finds in his eyes.
“Boy who is going to be okay.”
Yeonjun laughs. “Exactly.” he sniffs. He traces the corner of Beomgyu’s mouth with his thumb. “Because you’re here.”
“I am here, hyung.” Arms circle around his neck, and Beomgyu hides his face. “We all are.”
-
Everyone else finds out two hours later- hugging in the kitchen on their fifth try to get to one of their bedrooms.
It’s Soobin who breaks the silence first.
“God, may you two be happy and stop bringing evil vibes to the dorms. Amen.”