Chapter Text
He’ll be here. I know he will.
Taehyung swirled his straw around his cup, the ice cubes making a little whirlpool. His gaze dropped to the empty booth space next to him, eyeing the card, his dorky writing in bubbly letters laughing at him:
Happy 1st Anniversary Hyung!
He shuffled in his seat, glancing anxiously at the tables around him. Some of them - most of them have already noticed him, giving whispering looks his way and sympathetic smiles. He had seen a couple of people come and go in the amount of time he’s been waiting.
“Are you ready to order yet?” Taehyung glanced up at the women standing above him, not even bothering to pull the small book out of her black apron tied around her waist this time. Taehyung shook his head slowly, looking back down at the ground. She looked a little frustrated, but at the same time maybe thinking about giving some empathy. She nodded and walked away, making her way to other tables.
Taehyung pulled out his phone again, glancing at the time. 8:17. He went to his messages, staring at the texts.
6:49 pm: hii hyung!! i made it here before you ^^
7:03 pm: they still let me sit down cause the reservations! i said im waiting for you~~
7:14 pm: when do you think you’re going to get here? :))
7:36 pm: u said to meet at 7 right??
7:49 pm: is everything okay at work?
8:06: where are you??
Taehyung shoves his phone back into his pocket, chewing on his straw, trying to blink away tears, feeling like everyone was staring at him. He tucks an awkward stuck up hair behind his ear. He had styled it before he left, but now it just makes him feel stupid and overdone. Taehyung sighed, lowering his head a little.
I don’t think he’s coming.
Sniffling, he looks around for the waiter.
A thump in the mini booth facing him startled him, and he looked up. Someone had sat down across from him, but… it wasn’t his boyfriend.
The young man starts speaking before Taehyung could open his mouth.
“Hey, babe, sorry I’m late, the traffic was just insane, and I got held off at the office even though I begged them to let me go so I could see you,” he exclaimed quite loudly, glancing awkwardly around the room while yelling it. The people who had been watching Taehyung turned back to themselves, their questions of the situation solved for them.
Taehyung’s eyes widened at the boy in front of him.
“Just… play along, okay?” the young man says to him, leaning in closer so that only the boy across from him could hear it. Taehyung’s stared, shocked.
The man in front of him was dressed in a suit that the fabric looked more expensive than his car. His hair was gently slicked back, little strands managing to curve across his forehead. His gaze burned into Taehyung’s frightened eyes - they looked like they were trying to figure something out.
Taehyung cowered down slightly in his seat. He stared at the long sleeves of his sweater, pulled over his hands.
“Hey,” the man across him says gently, his voice rich. Taehyung looked up shyly.
“Why are you here by yourself?” He asks, his voice sounding genuinely concerned. Taehyung shrugged slightly.
“I’m… um… just waiting for m-my… boyfriend,” Taehyung stutters, shrinking in his seat a little. The man across from his nods.
“Where is he? Is he late?” Taehyung shrugs again, his eyes glued to his wringing hands again.
“What’s his name?” He hears him say.
“S-suho-”
“Hm. What’s yours?”
“T-taehyung. Kim Taehyung.”
“Jeon Jeongguk.”
Taehyung looks up at him, startled that the man in front of him - Jeongguk - was still staring at him so deeply. Taehyung smiles shyly, grabbing his water and sipping from the straw anxiously.
“Ah, finally! Are you reading to order?” A woman’s voice caused both of them to look up the waitress. She glanced at her watch on her wrist.
“Wow, an… hour and 36 minutes late is pretty fashionably late for a date, don’t you think?” she remarked, sounding slightly judgy of Jeongguk. Jeongguk smiles apologetically. He looks over at Taehyung, whose stomach jumps slightly.
“Taehyung, what do you want, babe? You must be starving.” Taehyung blushed, and ran his eyes down the menu quickly.
“I-I don’t really know-”
“How about pizza?” Jeongguk whispered dramatically, chewing lazily on his tongue after, smirking. Taehyung gives a slight smile, nodding.
“Alright,” he glanced down at her nametag, “Karen. We want an extra large super cheese pizza please. No tomatoes. And milkshakes. Neapolitan.” Karen chuckled slightly, looking a little flustered jotting it down on her pad.
“I’ll get that right in.” she walked away briskly.
Taehyung looked at Jeongguk, holding back a chuckle.
“How are we supposed to eat all that?” Taehyung asked, eyes wide. Jeongguk grinned, making the other’s heart flutter.
“We’ll have a contest,” he explained, leaning back in his booth, a playful smirk on his face. “Whoever eats the most pizza wins. And finishes the most milkshake, which that should be the easy part.”
“What do you get when you win?” Taehyung asked quietly.
“A stomach ache.”
Taehyung giggled, covering it with his mouth. Jeongguk smiled again, gentler this time. Taehyung quiets down and looks over to the card still sitting next to him, and anxiety rushes through him again. He tries to mask it.
“It’s our anniversary.” Taehyung says, voice so quiet Jeongguk has to lean in. Jeongguk’s eyes rolled over to where Taehyung’s was, but he couldn’t see over the table.
“It’s you and your boyfriend’s anniversary and he’s late to your dinner? And, according to your waiter, an hour and a half late?” Jeongguk asked, confused and a little frustration in his voice.
Taehyung shrugged again, curling into his sweater a little more.
“It’s our 1 year together. This is the restaurant we went to on our first date…” Taehyung almost whispers, eyes dropping to his hands in his lap for the hundredth time that night. He looked up but kept his head down when he didn’t hear Jeongguk respond. The man was just looking at him, an unreadable expression on his face. Taehyung tries to add to the situation, trying to make it less uncomfortable.
“H-he’s really busy. He works in stocks so, like, y-you know he might miss something, so he’s always working… so, it’s, um, not that weird for him to miss this. He probably was just working so hard he forgot it was our anniversary-”
“Has he done this before?”
“W-well this is our first anniversary, so-”
“No, I mean has he just left you like that? Not called you or anything?” Jeongguk asks, his expression still unreadable. Taehyung sighs, chewing on his bottom lip.
“Y-yeah, h-he’s very, very busy…”
“Do you like him?” Jeongguk asks, his face serious.
“I love him.” Taehyung says robotically, reaching for his water.
“What do you do for a living?” Jeongguk suddenly asked. He guessed he wanted to change the subject then.
“I-I work at an elementary school,” Taehyung says, a small smile returning thinking about it. Jeongguk’s eyes widened slightly.
“Damn, how do you find the stamina?” Jeongguk asks, his voice a little lighter. Taehyung giggled shyly, resorting to shrugging again.
“I love it. Kids are so honest. They don’t lie and they’re just so open to learning everything. Those 4 year olds I work with are better at absorbing a language than a 30 year old, you know? They aren’t so worried.” Taehyung stops himself, worried he started to go on too much. Suho tells him it’s annoying. Instead, Jeongguk was looking at him with curious eyes, that slight lopsided smile still residing on his face. Taehyung awkwardly messed with the back of one of his earrings.
“What do you do, Jeongguk?” Jeongguk waves his hand.
“Ah, you know, office job. No 4 year olds there. I help manage people’s finances. Help with their taxes and income and stuff. It’s pretty boring but it pays." Taehyung smiled, nodding.
“Well, I think it’s pretty cool.” Taehyung says quietly, running out of things to distract his hands with.
Jeongguk stares at him quietly. Why does he keep looking at me like that?
“O~kay, extra large cheese pizza, no tomatoes”, Karen puts down the holder then the pizza pan down on top, “and your milkshakes”. She plops down two clear v-shaped glasses topped with whip cream and cherries. Taehyung didn’t realize he was smiling so big and wringing his hands together in excitement until Jeongguk chuckled at him quietly. He shyly grabbed the pizza cutter a ran it through the pan.
“Make sure you make it even. We need even playing field in this competition.” Jeongguk says, his voice too serious. Taehyung giggles, measuring from the center.
“Are you gonna do 8 slices or 16?” Taehyung shrugged, pushing the sleeves of his sweater up to his elbows. He glanced over at Jeongguk, who was chewing on his cherry stem, watching him intently. Taehyung didn’t know why he kept blushing.
They spent most of the rest of their time eating, betting they could do one more slice and one more sip. Jeongguk would sometimes try to crack out a joke or spark conversation, and Taehyung felt stupid when he’d end up shrugging into his sweater or looking down and hiding his face in his pizza.
Taehyung managed to eat 4 big pieces and Jeongguk shoveled down his 5th one as the check was set down on the table. Taehyung reached to grab it, startled when Jeongguk swooped it out of his reach, mouthing out numbers to calculate the tip.
“O-oh, um...” Taehyung said nervously, seeing if Jeongguk would look up. He didn’t.
“D-do you wanna split it in half?” Jeongguk looked up, his eyebrows raised. He fully absorbed the question then shook his head quickly, pulling out a golden card from his wallet and putting it in the slot.
“Oh, don’t worry, I’ve got it.” he says, standing up the little folder at the end of the table. Taehyung stared at him, his eyes wide and his lips slightly parted.
“Th-thank you,” he said quietly, upset he looked down again. He saw next to him the forgotten card. He clicked the home button to his phone. 10:06. He didn’t have any new messages.
Taehyung looked up at Jeongguk, who was asking Karen for a box for their leftover pizza. Taehyung stared at him, a sudden panic rushing through him. He had to get back to the apartment. If Suho knew he was out after 9 without him, or worse, with another boy, on their anniversary… it would be the end of it. If Suho gets home late from work, he's going to want to dinner, he needs to get home and make dinner. And make sure everything's cleaned up. He tried to take a deep breath, to breathe the anxiety out, but it had already felt too late. His feet and his hands began to freeze up, and his tonsils felt like they were closing up in his throat. He couldn’t believe this, he was so stupid, so stupid-
“Hey, hey, are you alright?” he hears Jeongguk ask. Taehyung looks up, chewing on his lip again.
“U-uh- this was a bad idea. I-I-I… shouldn’t’ve… I’m s-sorry, I-I, I’m sorry J-Jeongguk, I-” he grabs his phone and his card, blinking away the reforming tears in his eyes. He takes in a couple deep breaths, shaky. He needs to get home. He needs to get back, he-
“Hey, hey, Taehyung,” Jeongguk says, starting to rise up from his seat, too. Taehyung quickly sits down again, clutching his hand drawn card in his hands and rubbing it his eyes with the back of his wrists. Jeongguk looked at him, like he was trying to figure out what he wanted to say.
“Can I at least walk you to the train station? Just to make sure you’ll get back okay?” Jeongguk asks quietly, his arm reaching out slightly to touch Taehyung’s shoulder, but he recoils away from him. Taehyung brushed his bangs back over his eyes, pulling his sleeves back over his hands. He stares at his shoes, over thinking on what he wanted to do.
“This… this isn’t a date if you don’t want it to be, okay? It’s not anything you don’t want it to be.” Jeongguk says, his voice growing softer again. “Okay, I just - I just - you’re boyfriend’s kind of an ass for making you wait for an hour and half for your anniversary dinner, and then never showing up - and never texting you, okay? That’s sort of a dick move if you ask me-”
“Don’t call him that!” Taehyung whimpered, clutching onto his card. Jeongguk’s eyes wandered to it, the Happy First Anniversary Hyung! and the goofily drawn happy faces catching his eye.
“I’m sorry.” Jeongguk says softly, putting his credit card back into his wallet and grabbing their food container.
“Yes,” Taehyung says, rubbing at one of his eyes and tucking some hair behind his ear.
“Hm?”
“Yes, you can walk me to the station.” Taehyung says quietly, getting out of the booth.
“Thank you,” Jeongguk says, getting up too and beginning to make his way out of the restaurant.
He and Taehyung walked for a couple minutes, Taehyung not saying anything. His eyes were glued to his shoes, only looking up quickly every couple steps to see where he was going. His nose looked red from the cold winter weather, but Jeongguk was too nervous to offer him his coat, since the other boy look so tense already, looking like he was going through a hundred things at once in his head.
They reached the station, Taehyung silently leading him to his platform he wanted.
“Do you have your ticket?” Jeongguk asked gently, leaning in to hear Taehyung.
“Yes,” Taehyung half whispered, pulling it out of his jeans pocket, scanning it across the scanner. It wasn’t crowded around this time.
“Okay, I’m platform 7, so I guess I have to go now,” Jeongguk says, his expression softening more when he saw Taehyung’s lip tremble a little.
“Do you want to take this with you?” Jeongguk asks, holding out the styrofoam box. Taehyung looked up at Jeongguk, then back down to his shoes, shaking his head.
“Th… Thank you for tonight, Jeongguk,” Taehyung says quietly, his voice a little shaky. Jeongguk nods, his expression trying to hide concern.
“Hey, are you sure you’re okay going home tonight? Are you alright?” Jeongguk felt like it wasn’t in his place to ask, but it just slipped out. Taehyung nods again quickly, almost a bit frantic, putting his train pass back into his pocket.
“Y-yeah, I need to get back home and make dinner… I need to get back before Suho gets home… yeah, gotta... gotta go back...” Taehyung says, almost to himself. Jeongguk stares at him for a second.
“Can I see your phone, Taehyung?” Taehyung stares at him, perplexed for a moment. He reluctantly takes his phone out and unlocked it, handing it to Jeongguk. Jeongguk started typing it.
“What are you doing?” Taehyung asked shakily, worried.
“Putting in my number.” Taehyung’s eyes widened.
“Why?”
“Just in case you need anything, okay? Just… as a friend, okay. If you need anything, anything at all, okay?” Taehyung nods reluctantly, quick to take his phone back.
The sound of the train rushing into the station filled the building.
“Okay, get home safe, okay? Hold onto your card, ‘kay?” Jeongguk says softly, Taehyung proceeding to clutch onto his anniversary card to his chest. The train doors opened and Taehyung made his way inside. Jeongguk tried not to be upset when the other rushed through the door, not even glancing at him.
But soon after, he saw Taehyung’s head pop up from one of the windows. Taehyung waved shyly, Jeongguk waving back, an unpleasant feeling in his stomach.
He felt even more unsettled at the way his stomach felt when he saw the train zoom out of the station and down the road.