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When Taehyun finally found him, Beomgyu was lying on the couch, mindlessly scrolling on his phone. His half lidded eyes were bathed in the faint glow of the phone screen, his eyelashes caressing his high cheekbones as he blinked lazily. For some reason he felt the slightest bit paranoid that someone could walk in at any moment and would somehow be able to sense his intentions, even though Taehyun knew for a fact that he and Beomgyu were the only two left in the apartment right now. He’s made a point of it in fact. Deciding it would be best to do this when the other members would be out. No one would be disrupting his plan if he had anything to do with it.
Unfortunately he hadn’t accounted for Beomgyu’s tendency to disrupt even the best laid plans.
Beomgyu looked up with slightly raised brows when Taehyun called his name, immediately breaking his attention from what he’d been into. His lips curled up into a beautiful smile as he looked up at him from his position on the couch. “Tyun, hey. What’s up ?”
The question reminded him of why he was doing this. This was the day he would change the nature of their relationship forever, whether for good or bad. “I was wondering if you could help me practice some of my magic.”
“I mean, sure but I’m not sure what help I could possibly offer. You’re like,” he pauses and scrunched his brows a little as if he was doing the math, “...100% better at magic than I am.”
This was true of course, as Beomgyu knew no magic tricks at all. But that wasn’t really the point of this activity at all and Taehyun told him as much. With a chuckle he said, “Right, yeah. I was thinking of performing some magic tricks for moa as a surprise during our next comeback so I actually just need you to watch me do them and tell me if they’re impressive enough.”
“Everything you do is impressive, Tyun.” was Beomgyu’s immediate reply, and Taehyun’s heart almost caught in his throat by how earnestly he had said it. As if it was a no-brainer, a universal fact. And maybe to Beomgyu it was.
He cleared his throat and laughed awkwardly, “You think so maybe but moa might not, I wanna make sure anyway.”
Beomgyu rolled his eyes and snarked back that ‘moa loved every move he made’ but agreed anyway, if only to put to rest any remaining doubts.
That’s how they came to be sitting at Taehyun’s desk in his room, chairs turned to be facing each other. Taehyun was sitting straight up with his back rigid, while Beomgyu was sprawled out, legs spread and one stretched out, holding Taehyun trapped against the desk.
“So what do you have to show me Houdini ?” Said Beomgyu with a grin, thinking himself hilarious as always.
“Very funny. Just a few simple tricks; cards, flowers, that sort of stuff.” He opened his desk drawer to take out his favorite deck, one with dark blue theming and gilded edges.
“Okay, lay it on me Tae.”
Taehyun took a deep breath, here goes nothing. He took out the deck and started to shuffle the cards, mentally keeping track of the pattern of movement of each card. Once he’d shuffled them enough to convince Beomgyu that the order was completely random, he fanned them out, face down in front of his audience of one.
“Pick a card, any card, and I’ll guess which one you picked.” This time he was counting on Beomgyu to be contrarian, so when he presented them he made sure to have a card near the middle sticking out more than the others, and ever so slightly turned the whole deck so that the left side was easier to reach for. Predictably, Beomgyu feigned going for the middle card, then stopped, before going for the left side. It was difficult not to blush at how intently the other was studying him now, his look suddenly very serious. But Taehyun made sure to keep a confident smile plastered on his face throughout this. Then, finally, just like he knew he would, Beomgyu hovered his hand all the way over to the right side of the deck. Taehyun slowly let all traces of confidence disappear from his face but kept it neutral until Beomgyu hovered over a specific card. At that moment, Taehyun swallowed and carefully allowed the slightest bit of nervousness to bleed into his expression. He could see the moment a mischievous twinkle appeared behind his eyes and he knew he’d taken the bait, Beomgyu thought he’d won. Snickering, he plucked out the card without hesitation. Taehyun couldn’t help but smile along with him and had to duck his head to hide it from view.
“Ok, now take a look at your card, and don’t tell me.”
“Yeah obviously.” Beomgyu rolled his eyes.
Taehyun lifted his head so that he could watch Beomgyu’s expression. “Your card is…the ace of hearts.”
Taehyun watched delightfully as Beomgyu’s eyes lit up and his expression morphed into one of genuine surprise, completely taken off guard that Taehyun was right in his guess.
“Wha- but how did you know ?!?!”
This time Taehyun’s nervous smile was real as he geared himself up for the reveal. He took a deep breath and finally let go of the confession that had been plaguing him for the past year of their lives.
“I knew because you stole my heart.”
Beomgyu’s lips formed an ‘o’ shape and a redness was steadily blooming on his cheeks. For a moment Taehyun thought ‘this is it’, this was the moment Beomgyu would either make his dreams come true or crushed his heart whose walls he had slowly chipped away. But instead Beomgyu suddenly went from looking like he was contemplating the intricacies of the universe, to looking like he’d never considered the idea of thought in his life. He looked…amused.
“Ahhhh Taehyunnnn that’s a crazy one liner ! I’m sure moa will love that !!” He exclaimed while clapping his hands.
“Huh ?” Taehyun was so taken aback he’d briefly forgotten his initial white lie. “Oh, yes. Yeah no I’m sure they will.”
Ok. So that hadn’t gone exactly according to plan. He’d just have to pivot. He refused to give up so easily. This was what backup plans were for after all, when he’d been brainstorming ways to confess he’d toyed with several ideas before deciding on this one. Now that plan A had failed, plan B and C were back in play. He was suddenly very thankful that he had been paranoid enough to have prepared props for all of his confessions. Once he had recollected his thoughts and determination, Taehyun got right back into it with no time to spare.
“For my second magic trick…” he trailed off, gesturing flamboyantly with his left hand to distract Beomgyu from the right one that discreetly pulled a rose from inside the drawer, now concealed from view behind his forearm. He pulled Beomgyu’s focus back to his face, and in particular his mouth, as he brought both hands to cover his mouth before slowly pushing out the rose from between cracked fingers to make it looked like it was coming out of his mouth. Once he had seemingly pulled the entire flower from his mouth, he pretended to pluck it before handing it over to a slightly concerned looking Beomgyu with a flourish of his hand and a small theatrical bow.
“For the person most special to me in this world.”
“Wow…” Said Beomgyu breathlessly, when the display had finally come to an end; and took the single red rose gently from Taehyun’s hand, their fingers brushing softly. He took a moment to admire the rose and its immaculate beauty before setting it down on the desk. Then he leaned closer, and closer, and closer yet. Beomgyu’s hand came to rest on Taehyun’s cheek, and for an instant the latter thought he knew what was coming next, that Beomgyu had finally gotten the message and was about to kiss him. Only, he had been so distracted by the closeness that it was only then that he noticed Beomgyu’s expression was more so one of confusion.
A realization that came a few seconds too late it seems as the next second Beomgyu had moved his hand from Taehyun’s cheek to his parted lips and had not one, but two of his fingers searching in his mouth. Taehyun squirmed in surprise and displeasure as his mouth was gently pried open wider, and long fingers slid over the edges of his teeth. Beomgyu meanwhile ignored his protests as he peered into his mouth with what seemed to be growing astonishment and amazement.
“How is that even possible ? How did it all fit in there ? Was that safe ?”
After a bit of a struggle, which only lasted so long because Taehyun had been caught off guard, he managed to pry the nosy fingers from his mouth. He was about to lose his mind, he swore that if Beomgyu didn’t–
“You know I worry about you Tyun. You shouldn’t do anything that could put your health at risk, even if it’s for the fans. I’m sure they’ll understand.” And damn if Beomgyu didn’t look so concerned and solemn. Taehyun deflated the moment he saw the state of him, although he still doubted the other’s sincerity a little.
He sighed. “And why did you have to stick your fingers in my mouth ?”
Beomgyu gave a small shrug and looked to be holding back a smile, the bastard. “I’ve just always wanted to see if your teeth are really as sharp as they look.” He brought his thumb up to eye level and pouted exaggeratedly “I think I cut myself on your canines…”
Taehyun thought that that served him right, but could only stare back with a dumbfounded expression.
“So do you have any other tricks up your sleeve then ?”
Taehyun frowned, now not sure whether any of this would work at all. “One.”
“Great !”
And great it would be, but more importantly straight to the point. Taehyun would like to see Beomgyu try to misinterpret this one. So with a fiery spirit he grabbed a blank piece of printer paper from the drawer as well as a marker, and hurriedly wrote his message in bold capital letters while hiding it from Beomgyu. He folded the paper into as small a square as was possible and held it up to Beomgyu’s eyes.
“Look closely at this, I’m gonna make it disappear ok ?”
“Ok.” Beomgyu was watching him intently once again.
Taehyun waved his hands a few times to cause confusion and sneakily slipped the piece of paper between his middle and forefinger, hiding it from the front so he could pretend to show Beomgyu that he wasn’t holding anything. Then with his left hand he pulled Beomgyu closer by his shoulder, allowing him to easily reach his other hand behind Beomgyu’s ear and snap his fingers. When he pulled his hand away he had ‘magically’ produced the piece of paper. Beomgyu gasped and subconsciously felt around behind his ear, still watching Taehyun intently. As the paper unfolded, the words ‘I LOVE YOU, BEOMGYU’ were revealed and said boy’s eyes went round in wonder. At last, Beomgyu understood.
“Taehyun…I love…” Taehyun held his breath in anticipation. “...this concept. But for the fans you should probably change ‘Beomgyu’ to ‘MOA’, they’ll probably start thinking you like me better than them if you write that.”
“AAARGH !!” Taehyun stood up, yelling in frustration, and threw the paper on the ground. “I do like you better than them you idiot !! I like you better than everyone, don’t you get that ?! How could anyone ever possibly be this dense !?!” He stood, breathing hard, as he stared at Beomgyu desperately.
Beomgyu, whose eyebrows were as far up on his forehead as they could go, kept his lips pressed tightly together in a thin line.
“Say something for yourself !” Cried Taehyun.
As he said this Beomgyu’s expression shifted into one of embarrassment, but he was grinning sheepishly, the way he always did when one of his jokes had dragged on for too long and someone was starting to get angry.
Taehyun’s jaw fell open, “Oh my god…oh my god ! You knew, you knew the whole time !”
Beomgyu coughed loudly, trying and failing to disguise a laugh. “Not the whole time !”
Taehyun laughed incredulously. He normally didn’t fall for Beomgyu’s tricks, knowing him far too well for that, but he’d been so distracted by his own feelings and actions that he hadn’t paid enough attention to Beomgyu’s. He couldn’t believe he’d fallen for it. But more so…more so…
“I can’t believe you turned my confession into a joke ! And you kept it going for so long you asshole–”
But before he could work himself up even more he was suddenly cut off by Beomgyu, who shot up out of his chair and planted his lips on Taehyun’s. The kiss was bad, Beomgyu had moved so fast that his bottom lip only just caught Taehyun’s upper lip, mostly the kiss had landed between his lips and his nose. He’d been so forceful with it too that it was more so just a pressing of mouths than a real kiss, and Taehyun was forced to lean back a little bit. But it was mind numbingly perfect, completely derailing his train of thoughts.
“When did you know ?” He asked against Beomgyu’s lips. They were still pressed together from head to toe, Taehyun almost standing on the other’s feet since Beomgyu had since moved his hands to hold a tight grip on his waist, keeping him from falling backwards.
In reality Taehyun had meant when he had figured out that he was confessing, but what Beomgyu answered was even better, “the very first time you smiled at me…”