Chapter Text
Huening Kai is twelve years old when he first realizes that there is something about him that is different. Different compared to the other boys his age. It’s not a sudden realization, it happens slowly, over time. He starts to notice certain things about himself that are simply different from his peers.
It’s mainly one thing, though. There’s one big thing that separates himself from the rest of his classmates, from his friends.
They’re all starting to become interested in girls.
Interested in a way that’s more than platonic, more than what it was before, in a way that Huening Kai can’t seem to wrap his head around. Before, his friends would excitedly talk about their favorite pokemon, or a new animated show they were watching. Now, his friends talk about what girls got cuter over the summer, what girl they want to try to talk to. He tries to ignore it, best he can, because he doesn’t feel that way towards the girls. Not at all.
The teasing gets to be a little much, too much for Kai to deal with, so he picks a random girl to tell his friends that he likes. This is when Huening Kai starts to pretend. For himself, for his friends, for the sanctity of normal.
He just can’t help but to feel completely out of his depth, as if everyone around him is realizing something that he isn’t, is growing up in ways he can’t.
—
Huening Kai is fourteen years old when he first realizes that he’s in love with his best friend.
This specific realization is leagues different from realizing that he wasn’t straight. Realizing he didn’t like girls was admitting something about him didn’t conform to what was typically expected. Realizing he didn’t like girls was coming to terms with the fact that this would make him different his whole life.
Realizing he is in love with his best friend is as easy as breathing, like it was meant to happen, like there is nothing more right in this world. It’s natural, instinctive at this point, and feels like something as innate to Kai as his heartbeat. It just is.
His best friend is Kang Taehyun, who is on the varsity swim team as a freshman, who has known Kai his whole life, who is studious and smart and gets perfect grades. Compared to Kai, who gets distracted easily in classes, who joins the gaming club, who blushes bright red when he gets called on in class. They are worlds apart on paper, yet can rarely be found without the other.
Kai and Taehyun have been friends for most of their lives– their mothers becoming friends over a book club, excitedly learning their sons were the same age, and starting to schedule play dates for the two boys. Kai has seen Taehyun in just about every state, and Taehyun has always stood by Kai. They don’t really make sense, opposites in many ways, but it doesn’t matter to either of them. Kai can’t imagine his life without Taehyun, doesn't want to imagine his life without the shorter boy.
Which is why, even though it feels so good and so natural, it’s bad. It’s bad when Huening Kai realizes that friends don’t normally get this butterfly feeling in their stomach over each other. Don’t normally hang off of every word that leaves the other’s mouth, don’t feel anxious and sweaty when the other touches you– even if it’s just a feather-light thing, don’t hang off of every word that comes out of the other’s mouth.
Don’t think about softly kissing that mouth, peachy pink.
It’s bad because Kai has to deal with this realization now. Has to face it.
It’s also bad because Taehyun is unequivocally straight. Painfully straight. Is probably the straightest person that Kai has ever met, which is saying something.
So he decides to keep on pretending. Because pretending can’t hurt as much as rejection, right?
—
Huening Kai is sixteen years old when he comes out to his friends and his close relatives. It goes a lot better than he expected, and the mean voices that lived in his head are put to rest. He comes out to Taehyun first, because Taehyun is the most important person in Kai’s life. His parents aren’t the happiest, but they get over it with time. His sisters joke that they already knew.
When Kai comes out to Taehyun, the older boy is supportive. Too supportive, too much of an ally, too happy for his best friend. Extremely straight about it. Tells Kai they can go on double dates, with Taehyun’s pretty girlfriend and whatever boy that Kai is interested in. Jokes that he’ll have to approve of every guy that Kai wants to date, because Taehyun is the most important person in Kai’s life.
Doesn’t realize how true that is, how no double date will ever work because Kai will always want the person sitting across from him and not the person sitting next to him.
Kai pushes it down, swallows the feelings as best he can, because he’d rather eat his own feelings than lose his best friend. So it’s painful when Taehyun goes through girlfriend after girlfriend, and Kai has to pretend like he wouldn’t give up everything to be in their shoes. They don’t realize how vied after the spot they’re in is– how Kai imagines it’s him that Taehyun takes to every dance, goes on movie dates with, makes out in the back of his car with. But it stays in Kai’s imagination because that’s all it is. All it can be.
Taehyun doesn’t stay in relationships for long, though, as if he’s just dating the girls because they like him.
Kai gets a boyfriend for a while, but he doesn’t actually really like him. Their relationship was more so the product of being the only two actually out gay guys their age, and they break up with a laugh when they realize they aren’t actually compatible in any of the ways that matter. The boy asks if Kai knows he’s in love with Taehyun, and Kai has to swallow the bile that rises to his throat. The breakup is otherwise amicable. When Kai calls Taehyun to tell him about the breakup, Taehyun comes over in a second. He brings ice cream with him and they watch cheesy romcoms, and Kai acts like he’s as upset as Taehyun thinks he is.
“He wasn’t right for you,” Taehyun reassures, “You can do so much better.”
The only better that Kai wants is the one sitting next to him, affectionately petting his arm, telling him how his next boyfriend will be perfect, everything Kai could ever want. Taehyun falls asleep on Kai’s couch, and Kai can’t help but to study the way his chest rises with every breath, the comfortable way he’s curled into the couch, or the way his brown hair falls messily over his face. There’s a spot of ice cream on his bottom lip that he missed, and all Kai can fantasize about doing is leaning over and wiping it off. Licking it off.
He doesn’t move.
—
Huening Kai is eighteen years old and he’s spent the majority of his teenage years being in love with Kang Taehyun or pretending to himself and others that he’s not in love with Kang Taehyun.
Time passes, because it always does, and before he knows it, the two are done with their high school years and are getting ready to graduate.
Their graduation comes faster than Kai is prepared for, and Taehyun gives a speech because he’s the smartest person in their class, and Kai watches him from the crowd, feeling impossibly small compared to the other boy. Taehyun’s shiny eyes sparkle, big and round underneath fluorescent lights, smiling when the crowd erupts in applause after he finishes. Because he’s where he should be. Because Taehyun is smart and beautiful and everyone loves him. Kai most of all.
Kai and Taehyun are going to different colleges. Taehyun had gotten a full-ride scholarship based on his math smarts to a really good school. Kai had made his college decision based on other things– like the amount of gay bars in the area. He is tired of being one of two out queer people in his area, tired of only knowing straight people, tired of the reminder that his best friend is just his best friend. Nothing more.
So he applies to a college far away from the college Taehyun is attending, even farther away from their hometown, about as far away as he can go in order to become who he knows he really is.
It’s this that motivates him to finally tell Taehyun. The space that will exist between them physically is enough for Kai to decide that he has to tell Taehyun how he feels, once and for all. He holds off on it, though, for a little while, wants to enjoy their summer break, wants to be able to hang out with Taehyun as much as he can before Taehyun finds out. Before Taehyun wants to stop being friends, wants to pretend like they never were.
So they spend summer together, as they have so many times before, and everything is fine. Until it’s not.
—
Huening Kai is turning nineteen in a few months when he finally decides to tell Kang Taehyun.
Kai gets on a flight in two days, Taehyun in three. Their last few moments together, before they have to get serious about packing or checking travel times or saying goodbyes that feel too permanent.
This is when Kai decides to do it. There’s no time like the present– right?
Taehyun is over at Kai’s house, over a little too late, but his parents don’t mind because it’s Kai. There were so many privileges afforded to Kai on that basis, on the basis of their friendship, and he’s too scared that he’s about to throw all of them away just so he can finally say these words. Get this feeling off his chest.
The movie ends, some random, feel-good sports movie that Kai wasn’t really paying attention to, instead focused on the heat that radiated off of Taehyun’s body. They were next to each other on the couch, sharing a blanket, thighs almost touching but not quite. The ending music is playing, light and happy to coincide with the sugar-sweet ending the pair just watched. Taehyun is saying something about the main actress, but the words don’t make it to Kai’s ears. He’s staring too intently at Taehyun, at the animated way he’s talking, smiling and showing off his pretty teeth.
The moment is so fragile, Kai is almost afraid to speak.
“Are you okay, Kai? You’ve been really quiet,” Taehyun asks, in a tone that seems joking but is threaded with actual concern. He’s looking at Kai now, with those big, baby deer eyes that always make Kai’s heart stop for a second. That always make him feel too seen, as if Taehyun can see through him, straight to his heart.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Kai says, and his voice comes out higher than normal, pitchy. His face flushes red, but there’s no way Taehyun can see it, with only the light of the television screen illuminating the room. “Actually, I…”
“Yeah?” There’s patience in Taehyun’s tone, patience that he always has with Kai, patience he gives to Kai endlessly.
“I wanted to tell you something,” pause, “before we’re both gone.”
Taehyun nods, understanding. It seems like every chance Taehyun has to be kind or understanding he takes it, and Kai feels like he’s taking advantage of that. Taehyun seems to notice the hesitation on Kai’s face, the breath he takes instead of speaking, the way his eyes start to avoid Taehyun’s.
“Look, Kai,” Taehyun starts, always ready to ease nervousness, “We will always be best friends. Seriously, I know you’re nervous about us moving to two different places, but it’ll be fine. You don’t have to worry about that.” He grabs Kai’s hand underneath the blanket and grips it tightly, affectionate, with a warm smile on his face.
“No, that’s– that’s not it.”
Kai takes another breath, as if the words will come out easier after. They don’t.
“Listen Taehyun, I don’t really know how else to say this. I just need to get it off my chest. Before we both move.”
For the first time all night, Taehyun looks a little scared– there’s something in his deep eyes that shimmers uncertainly. Kai has to look away. His eyes flit around the room, trying to find something to focus on that isn’t Taehyun’s face.
“Okay? You’re kind of scaring me, Kai. Go on.”
Kai squeezes his eyes shut, prolonging the inevitable. “I don’t want to weird you out, or make you uncomfortable, because you’re my best friend. And I love you so much. But…I also really like you. Actually, I’m practically in love with you. Not in the best friend way.”
Kai pretends he doesn’t feel the grip Taehyun’s hand has on his loosen. Sometimes pretending is the best he can do.
There’s a moment of silence. Moments, multiple, stacked on top of each other. Shallow breathing is the only sound in the room, and Kai can feel Taehyun’s gaze on him, but he can’t work up the courage to turn and look at his friend. He used up all of his courage to say those words, the words that had sat on the tip of his tongue for years.
“Oh,” is what comes out of Taehyun’s mouth, after what feels like an eternity. The television has paused the end credits of the movie, asking if they’re still watching.
“That’s really…I mean–”
Kai isn’t sure how many times Taehyun restarts his sentence, can practically hear the machinations of Taehyun’s brain spinning round and round, knows his best friend is trying to let him down as kindly as possible. Because Taehyun is kind, and Kai couldn’t help but to fall for him.
“It’s just, I’m straight, Kai,” is what Taehyun settles on, finally, a small grimace lining his face, not out of disgust for what Kai has said but out of discomfort for having to turn Kai down. “I’m sorry.”
Kai isn’t really sure what Taehyun could possibly be sorry for. He’s not the one that caught feelings for his best friend, not the one who couldn’t hold it down anymore, not the one who was only confessing because he could flee in a few days time. Kai knew he was really taking the coward’s way out, because it was easy, because the distance between them would attempt to heal the wounds.
The rest of the night goes by in a blur, and Taehyun and Kai say goodbye to each other beneath a star-studded sky, in a way that feels more final than either of them want to admit. What are years of friendship in the face of such great heartbreak? All Kai really remembers are the hot, salty tears that run down his face when trying to fall asleep that night.
Two days later, Kai is on a flight to the promised land– a new city, with new people and new things for him to obsess over. And he’ll have to nurse his heart back together, both at the loss of his best friend and his greatest love.
—
Huening Kai moves to college with a broken heart.
To a new city, where no one knows his regrets, where no one knows the boy that Kai has spent his whole life in love with. There’s no trace of Kang Taehyun here, which makes Kai miss him even more. The absence of Taehyun, who has never been absent from his life, creates a gaping hole in Kai’s heart.
Kai settles into college perfectly fine. He makes friends, he does well in his classes, does better than he did in high school, and he tries to not think of the moon-eyed boy he had left behind. He dates around, he chooses a major, he hooks up with random people at parties, he gets a part-time job, he studies until he’s worn to the bone.
When his mom calls to ask him about his life, looking for updates, he pretends that he is fine.
—
Kai loses his virginity at twenty years old, which he feels is too old, but in the grand scheme of things, is so young.
He has sex with a friend of a friend, because he’s cute and also gay, and Kai is tired of feeling out of the loop on this certain experience. The friend of a friend had giggled, though not mockingly, when Kai revealed it was his first time and consequentially promised to be nice. Which he was, nice. It was nice, though Kai felt bad because he wasn’t really having sex with the friend of a friend. Wasn’t really thinking about it like that.
It just happened that this boy, man, had big brown eyes and was a couple inches shorter than Kai, and was athletic in a sporty, gym-going way. All of that is to say, he was close enough.
It wasn’t bad, mostly just tipsy fumbling around, being guided through what to do, anxiety and need all rolled into one. Kai didn’t regret it, he just regretted imagining a different brunette there with him.
—
And then, all of a sudden, he is graduating again.
Four years gone in the blink of an eye. Four years of inconsequential relationships, four years of missing home but not ever visiting enough, four years of pretending that the boys he took back to his dorm with him weren't there only to fill the hole that one particular boy had left. He crosses the stage and gets his degree, which feels unbelievably light in comparison to the heaviness that Kai had carried with him during his college years.
Huening Kai has just graduated college when he receives a job offer in a new city. The job offer is more than he expected to get for a job right out of school, and he knows he’d be stupid to turn it down.
The problem is the location of the job. A city he had never been to, because he was too scared to ever visit, to ever reach out. A city that promises a new future, yet holds such a fragile piece of his past in it.
Huening Kai is twenty-two years old when he moves to the city where Kang Taehyun went to college, the city Kang Taehyun made his home post-graduation, the city where Kang Taehyun has lived for years of his life without contacting Huening Kai once.
It’s a big city. What are the odds, he thinks when accepting the job offer, of actually running into each other?